Sunday, December 16, 2012

Boston Subway Collision : We Need A Fight-Back Against Transit Cuts
Printer-Friendly
E-Mail This
Dec 11, 2012
By Joshua H. Koritz and Ryan Mosgrove
On November 29 in Boston, two subway trains crashed into one another at the Boylston stop downtown, sending around 35 people to the hospital. Thankfully, none of these injuries were life-threatening, but the incident raises serious concerns about the state of the public transit system here in Boston.
This is the second accident on the Green Line in the past two months, with the last one, which injured three people, occurring in early October near Brigham Circle on the E Line. The increased frequency of accidents has occurred against the backdrop of the service cuts and fare increases last spring. The Boston transit service is not just the oldest in the country, but also the deepest in debt, saddled with over $5 billion in debt and a deficit of nearly $160 million dollars (see the 2009 study "Born Broke").
The Massachusetts Bay Transit Authority (MBTA) has made it clear that paying this debt is their highest priority. Yearly budgets hold debt payments – over $300 million per year – as untouchable; instead, they propose cutting bus routes, hugely raising fares, cutting employee health care, and making mass layoffs.
Austerity measures - such as the T fare hikes - will continue, as any economic recovery will be diverted into the pockets of big business. Already the MBTA debt is owed to big banks and rich investors. Everywhere across the U.S. and internationally, public services are cut and unions attacked while the debts owed to multibillion dollar banks are off the table. 2013 promises to be a year of struggle and fighting back. The fight for public transportation to be affordable and well-funded is shaping up to be a major battle here in Boston.
In the spring of 2012, softened by a one-time payout from the state government, the MBTA instituted a 23% fare increase on riders across the board, a plan far less severe than its initial proposals. This came with the warning that this was a stopgap, and that they would be back for more next year. Richard A. Davey, the transportation secretary for the city, has already been discussing the need for fare hikes and service cuts if the city doesn’t find a “long-term solution” to the deficit. Last year the MBTA held public meetings on the budget cuts in communities across Boston. Roughly 6,000 people attended these meetings where the anger of the community against the attacks was on display. Unfortunately, these hearings amounted to a pressure valve for the community to let off steam and feel like the MBTA was listening to their concerns, when in fact it was all just a smokescreen.
The Transit Riders’ Union (TRU) advanced a strategy of directly petitioning state politicians, along with publicity stunts. While these actions may have had some impact, they did nothing to harness the anger and energy that the thousands of ordinary people had.
Once these cuts had taken effect, Socialist Alternative united with activists from Occupy Boston, Common Struggle, and the IWW to form a coalition to organize fare evasions as a tactic to resist the fare hikes. This tactic, even with small numbers, attracted the attention of many people, including media outlets.
The MBTA is already preparing to attack working people again through service cuts and fare hikes, but this time we can be ready. We cannot accept cuts and we cannot accept attacks on transit worker pay or benefits. The excellent work from the summer of 2012 building for fare strikes and evasions should be taken up again: We have to start laying the groundwork immediately and creating a coalition between riders and transit workers if we want to win!
Workers and activists in Boston should organize meetings across the city to prepare people for what is coming and how to act. When the MBTA holds their meetings this time, activists should be prepared to intervene in these meetings and, if possible, even shut them down and turn them into a discussion about how the T can be made sustainable without selling out the community.
Debt held by big corporations and the 1% should be canceled. The major employers in the Boston area could not exist without public transportation and should be taxed to improve and expand it. We reject any additional taxes on working people, such as a “gas tax” or any other regressive proposals.
We should organize meetings to coordinate fare strikes across the city, reaching out to the workers who operate the T to support fare strikes and to consider workplace actions themselves. In 2006, public transit workers in New York City showed the power that transit workers have when they go on strike.
The reality is that there is a “long-term solution” to fixing the MBTA. Debt should be repaid on the basis of real need. There are hundreds of wealthy businesses and institutions like Harvard that receive tens of millions of dollars in tax breaks or subsidies and give back very little to the community. These businesses need the T because they need the workers in order to make a profit, and those workers can’t get to work if the T doesn’t run. Also, Forward Funding legislation should be repealed, which would put funding for the T back into the state budget, and further funding should come from the top 1%, not working people.
Whatever we win from the bosses is only temporary unless we can provide an alternative to capitalism altogether. Until these cuts are seriously addressed, accidents like the one last Thursday will be a regular occurrence. No service cuts! No fare hikes! No cuts in transit worker benefits and no layoffs! Cancel the MBTA debt and make big business and the 1% pay!


Socialist Alternative, P.O. Box 45343, Seattle WA 98145
Phone: (206)526-7185
Comments? Suggestions for improving our web page? Please email info@SocialistAlternative.org
News Flash: National Nurses United Agree to Challenge the Two Parties of Wall Street!
Printer-Friendly
E-Mail This
Dec 15, 2012
By SocialistAlternative.org
National Nurses United, the nations largest staff RN union with 185,000 members, held its 2012 Convention in Las Vegas on December 11 to 13. Nurses direct from Michigan's battle lines reported on the mass protests against the newly rammed-through "right to work" (for less) legislation and attack on women's reproductive rights. A "Care Plan for Building a National RN Movement" was proposed to delegates. Massachusetts Nurses Association delegate and Socialist Alternative member Seamus Whelan introduced an amendment to the proposal for the NNU to challenge electorally the two parties of the 1% (Democrats and Republicans) in local, state and national election races. Seamus also proposed linking an electoral strategy to emerging social movements to pose an alternative for the 99% against austerity and attacks on our living standards. The Convention voted in favor of this important proposal.
The full text of the passed amendment reads:
The NNU will challenge the corporate domination of politics and society by changing the way we do politics.
The NNU will consider supporting/endorsing independent candidates to challenge the two parties of Wall Street and the 1%, Democratic and Republican, in local, state or national election races of our choosing as these parties seek to carry out major attacks on public services and programs like Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security.
The NNU will attempt to link an electoral strategy to the political and social movements that will emerge as people fight back against the corporate agenda and thereby allow the ideas and goals of the Main Street Contract for America to reach a broader audience and pose to the 99% a real alternative to austerity and attacks on our living standards.

See the video of NNU nurses demonstrating with Las Vegas Culinary and building trade union workers outside a non-union casino

Catch a glimpse of Seamus Whelan at 20 sec mark and 1.23 sec.


Socialist Alternative, P.O. Box 45343, Seattle WA 98145
Phone: (206)526-7185
Comments? Suggestions for improving our web page? Please email info@SocialistAlternative.org
A Democracy For the Millionaires — 2012 election spending shatters records
Printer-Friendly
E-Mail This
Dec 16, 2012
By Patrick Ayers
This article, initially written in the final days of the election season, appeared in a shortened form in Justice newspaper. This is a longer version with tremendously useful statistics and analysis. It comes as no surprise to many people: spending on the 2012 election broke all records. But, the estimated $6 billion in spending does not simply break the record, it shatters it.
“The 2012 election will not only be the most expensive election in U.S. history,” reported the Center for Responsive Politics (CPR), “the cost will tower over the next most expensive election by more than $700 million.”
Spending by “super PACs” and outside groups accounts for the largest increase, estimated by CPR to be $970 million in 2012 or more than triple what outside groups spent in 2008. These latest CPR figures are revisions of previous lower estimates.
But, the final tally could be even larger. According to the Sunlight Foundationa,/a>, as many as 67 brand new Super PACs sprang up across the country just in the last month of the election with millions to spend. Weekly spending has surged from just over $26 million in early September, to more than $210 million in the last full week of the campaign.
Citizens United
The trends are very clear. The 1% is going bananas with money and elections. Spending on congressional elections alone increased tenfold between 2008 and 2012, from $46 million to $445 million.
Certainly, the Citizens United ruling by the Supreme Court in January 2010 is one reason for this marked shift. This decision removed one-hundred years of restrictions on campaign spending. While restrictions remain on direct donations to candidates, corporations and the rich are free to unload as much as they want on their own independent election material.
Mouthpieces of the 1% argue everyone has this same so-called “right”. But, how many of the 49.1 million Americans living in poverty or the additional 97.3 million Americans with low incomes have $10,000, $100,000, or $1 million laying around for an election?
Super PACs
In July 2010 another Supreme Court decision gave birth to “super PACs,” essentially massive political funds that can raise and spend unlimited amounts of money on their own material in elections. Since then, there has been a rapid growth in PACs driven by corporations and the rich.
According to Public Research Interest Group, more than 60% of “super PAC” funding has come from 91 people making donations of $1 million or more, while 97% has come from donations of $10,000 or more from less than 2,000 donors. Just 629 people donated nearly as much money to super PACs as 1.9 million people did to both the Obama and Romney campaigns combined with donations of $200 or less.
“Super PACs” have heavily favored Republicans over the Democrats. But, in recent months the Democrats have embraced “super PACs” and have been < a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/10/21/democratic-super-pacs-2012-election_n_1995174.html">playing catch-up.
The third largest PAC is now Priorities USA Action, a pro-Obama fund that has received huge donations of more than $1 million from Hollywood celebrities, corporate executives, and the billionaire hedge fund manager James Simmons – the largest donor to the notorious Republican “super PAC” American Crossroads (Of course, the big donors often like to hedge their bets and donate to both campaigns).
There has also been a rapid rise in what's being called “dark money” groups. These are massive campaign funds like “super PACs,” buy they fall under a separate legal category as “social welfare” organizations.
One important difference is they do not have to disclose their donors. This is a huge incentive for their millionaire and billionaire backers who prefer to do their dirty work out of the public eye (taxes, business deals, you name it!). The former Bush guru and Republican evil genius Karl Rove runs one of the largest “dark money” groups Crossroads GPS.
Of course, corporate money continued to find its way into politics through more traditional channels like bundling and the big money private fundraisers that were important features of both presidential campaigns. By March of the 2012 campaign, Obama had already broken the record for the number of fundraisers attended by a sitting President.
When all this gorging on the presidential election is added up, the campaigns are likely to spend more than $1 billion each.
Democracy for the millionaires
While Citizens United clearly contributed to this marked upturn in spending, it does not fully account for the rising cost of elections, which has rapidly risen over the past forty years.
Between 1974 and 2002, the average amount of money raised by candidates for the House rose from $61,084 to $756,993. In the same period, the average raised by candidates for Senate grew from $455,515 to $4,460,206. (Kim Moody, US Labor in Trouble and Transition, New York, Verso, p.152)
This points to deeper processes driving the recent developments in the 2012 election. Mark Smith of the University of Washington argues, "If you look over a 30-year period, the biggest thing that I think is driving [the increasing cost of elections] is just inequality. There's more money at the top, and so there's more money that can slosh around."
But, the massive growth in inequality itself is being driven by a historic crisis of capitalism. The system cannot deliver both for the 99% and the 1% – particularly since the 1970s – so millionaires have increasingly used their vast financial resources to ram through policies that favor their interests over ours.
Build a movement of the millions
Many progressives are calling for repealing Citizens United. This should be fought for, but it won't be nearly enough to turn the tide in our favor.
For example, both the Democrats and Republicans would still be parties controlled and dominated by millionaires. Writing in the NY Times Sunday Review, Nicholas Carnes pointed out, “If millionaires were a political party, that party would make up roughly 3 percent of American families, but it would have a super-majority in the Senate, a majority in the House, a majority on the Supreme Court and a man in the White House.
“Even if we somehow stem the tide of money in Washington” continued Carnes, “even if we guarantee equal participation on Election Day, millionaires will still get to set the tax rate for millionaires.” (10/15/2012)
Campaigning to reform elections or the two parties by “getting money out of politics” will not be enough to challenge this “millionaires democracy.” More effective would be breaking with the two corporate-controlled parties, building mass movements independent of them, running hundreds of independent candidates, and building a new party of the millions, not the millionaires.
Working people, people of color, women, and everyone in the 99% have never won meaningful change by outspending corporations or by electing millionaire politicians. But, when we organize in our millions and consciously fight for our interests, we are unstoppable.


Socialist Alternative, P.O. Box 45343, Seattle WA 98145
Phone: (206)526-7185
Comments? Suggestions for improving our web page? Please email info@SocialistAlternative.org
Radio Interview on the Lessons of the Vote Sawant Campaign
Printer-Friendly
E-Mail This
Dec 14, 2012
By SocialistAlternative.org
In this interview on Pacifica Radio KPFT 90.1 FM in Houston, Texas, Campaign Organizer Ramy Khalil discusses how it was possible for the Socialist Alternative candidate Kshama Sawant to win 29% of the vote running against the Washington State Speaker of the House as an openly Socialist candidate. This was a truly historic accomplishment for the socialist movement in the U.S. A major reason why this Socialist candidate won such a large percentage of the vote was that she did not have to run against multiple candidates; she was running against only one other candidate - a Democrat. So the typical fear that many liberals have of contributing to the election of a Republican when they consider voting for a third party candidate did not exist. Listen to the 24-minute interview to hear more secrets of the campaign’s success.



Socialist Alternative, P.O. Box 45343, Seattle WA 98145
Phone: (206)526-7185
Comments? Suggestions for improving our web page? Please email info@SocialistAlternative.org
Stop the Assault on Michigan Unions – Occupy the Capitol and Strike!
Printer-Friendly
E-Mail This
Dec 10, 2012
By Patrick Ayers and Ramy Khalil
Michigan, a bastion of union power, is now suddenly days away from possibly becoming the 24th “right to work” state in the country. The Republicans who control the state government are attempting to ram a bill through the legislature that is a major attack on workers’ rights.
The misnamed "Workplace Fairness and Equity Act" was introduced on Thursday, December 6 and approved by majority votes in both the Michigan House and Senate that same day without a single committee hearing or any floor debate. In scenes reminiscent of the February 2011 working-class uprising in Wisconsin, upwards of 3,000 trade unionists responded by immediately packing the rotunda of the state capitol building in Lansing, the capitol of Michigan, in only half a day’s notice.
But the right wing was better prepared this time, having learned some lessons from Wisconsin. The Republican House Speaker ordered the building to be locked down, and the police were ready to evict protesters. The police arrested eight people and pepper sprayed others. Americans for Prosperity, a conservative organization funded by the Koch brother millionaires, erected tents in front of the capitol building to support the bill, and the Michigan Freedom Fund aired radio and television ads in favor of the legislation in the days before.

Republicans were completely dishonest about their intentions during the election, and they launched a surprise attack after the election. Earlier this year, Republican Governor Rick Snyder told the U.S. House Education and Workforce Committee: "I've made it clear it's not on my agenda. ‘Right-to-work’ is an issue that is a very divisive issue… We have many problems in Michigan that are much more pressing… I don't believe it is appropriate in Michigan during 2012." Now suddenly Snyder, a businessman elected in 2010 with the support of the Tea Party, is promising to sign the bill as soon as Tuesday, December 11.
The Republicans are building upon the defeat last month of a ballot initiative which would have made the right to a union a constitutional guarantee in Michigan. This defeat was the result of a $30 million opposition campaign and concerns about changing the constitution in a way that could allow union leaders who are often out of touch with workers to potentially abuse their power, in spite of polls showing that 70% of Michiganders support workers’ collective bargaining rights. The Republicans and their 1% backers now have a month to capitalize on this defeat during the current lame duck session of the out-going legislature. In January, the Republicans will lose five seats and their current super-majority, and then they will no longer have enough votes to ram this bill through.
Right to Work… for Less
The “right to work” label is intentionally deceptive. The bill certainly won't provide the right to a job for the hundreds of thousands of unemployed workers in Michigan. What it will do is undermine the democratic basis of workers’ right to organize. According to U.S. laws, where a majority of workers support having a union, they have the right to a union. “Right to work” legislation undermines this democratic right by making it illegal for unions to require all workers in a unionized workplace to pay union membership dues, even though all the workers reap the benefits of the union. It's like if the phone company had to provide everyone with phone service, but payments were optional, which, of course, would bankrupt the phone company. This legislation would deal a financial blow to the unions, which are the only organizations workers have to defend themselves at work.
There is arguably an upside to these laws, in that they would force union leaders to fight more consistently for workers’ interests in order to convince workers to participate in the union and pay dues for the common good. However, in practice, these laws create an enormous workload for already overworked union stewards and field staff.
In “right to work” states (as opposed to states with “closed shops”), workers’ wages are typically $1,500 less per year according to the Economic Policy Institute. Workers are also less likely to have pension or health care benefits, poverty rates are higher, and workplace injuries and deaths are more common.
African Americans will be disproportionately affected by this bill. Thirty-two percent of all African American workers in Michigan are in unions compared to 17.5% of all Michigan workers. The Michigan legislature also rammed bills through on the same day that restrict women’s rights and access to abortion services.
This is an historic attack in an on-going war against workers. Michigan has been the heartland of union power, and it’s the fifth-most unionized state in the country. If the ruling class can make Michigan the second state in the Midwest to pass “right to work” legislation, then why shouldn't they go for more states?
This sudden ambush has been prepared by a whole slew of battles in the past 30 years that the union leaders failed to effectively resist. In 1989, one in five workers was in a union. Today, it's closer to one in ten. And when the economic crisis hit, Michigan was hit harder than most states, losing 750,000 jobs. The union leaders bear a huge responsibility for failing to fight for good jobs. United Auto Workers leaders in particular have spearheaded "labor-management cooperation" schemes that have benefited managers and investors while workers’ wages and benefits have been slashed.
In this context, the Republicans are presenting their anti-union legislation as a program for creating jobs. Michigan Republicans point to Indiana where similar “right to work” legislation was implemented last year for the first time in the Midwest. Snyder says Michigan has now lost a competitive edge to their neighboring state, and passing this anti-union legislation is the best way to attract new jobs to Michigan.
However, Republicans oppose raising taxes on the 1% by a single dime. They support slashing state budgets and thousands of jobs with them. They are not concerned about jobs or workers. They are concerned about profits for the 1%.
A Warning to the Labor Movement
If this bill passes, it will have devastating effects on workers' rights in Michigan. The labor movement has literally days to stop this attack. The unions have announced Tuesday, December 11, the day the bill could be signed, as a day for protest and civil disobedience at the capitol. But will this be enough to stop the Republicans?
The Republicans appear prepared to disregard widespread protests to push the bills through. They saw that in Wisconsin, in spite of unprecedented massive protests and an occupation of the capitol building that lasted for weeks, the union leaders were unwilling to mobilize the workers to strike and shut the state down. As a result the Republicans were able to weather the storm and come out victorious. The Republicans in Wisconsin did not have the current super-majority that the Republicans in Michigan have for a few more days. Republicans in Michigan also have deliberately attached this legislation to an appropriations bill, which means that it cannot be overturned by a popular referendum.

This attack by the right wing comes in the aftermath of Romney and the Republicans’ nationwide defeat in the recent November elections, which, for the most part, saw the defeat of anti-same sex marriage and other right-wing ballot initiatives. This bill in Michigan is an act of desperation by Republicans to shamelessly ram through legislation they want before the will of the voters is implemented and the Republicans lose their super-majority.
However, this attack also comes in the aftermath of the Arab revolutions, Wisconsin, Occupy, the Chicago Teachers Union victorious strike, the Walmart workers struggle, the New York fast food workers walk-out, and a strike in L.A. that shut down the biggest port in the country for 8 days. The time is ripe for a counter-offensive. Millions could be mobilized in defense of workers’ rights in Michigan and across the country. It would be particularly shameful if the union leaders did not take the steps that are absolutely necessary right now to mobilize the full power of working people.
The Courts and the Democrats
Labor activists have filed lawsuits accusing Republicans of violating laws such as the state’s open-meeting laws by locking the state capitol doors. However, one judge has already ruled that the police did not violate state law. Waiting for the courts to further consider arguments that may not end in workers’ favor ultimately works to the advantage of the wealthy elite by channeling workers’ power away from immediate, more effective forms of struggle. The courts have never been the most favorable terrain for unions. Reliance on the courts takes away from our most powerful weapon as the working class - our collective ability to strike and shut down businesses and organize mass protests in the streets.
The Democrats in Michigan have called on Obama to withhold federal funds to Michigan to force Republicans to back down. (Obama had previous plans to meet with the governor on Monday, December 10.) Because of the Democrats’ dependence on the unions for getting out the vote, it is not ruled out that Obama and the Democrats might regard the Republican legislation as going too far, and they might pressure Governor Snyder to agree to some kind of compromise.
But we cannot rely on Obama who did nothing to help workers in Wisconsin or teachers in Chicago who were viciously attacked this summer by Democratic Mayor Rahm Emanuel. Obama abandoned the Employee Free Choice Act, and he didn’t even mention unions in his acceptance speech at the 2012 Democratic National Convention, which was held in the “right to work” state of North Carolina. Obama's bailout of the auto industry also demanded that the United Auto Workers agree to slash wages for new hires and dismantle benefits.
In Wisconsin, the Democratic politicians as well as most union leaders actively channeled the historic mass uprising of workers away from occupying the state capitol and into a recall election campaign instead of organizing a one-day public sector general strike, which would have been far more effective as Socialist Alternative argued at the time. The immediate effect was to allow the legislation in Wisconsin to pass, inflicting immediate damage on the unions.
Ultimately, the recall failed because the Democratic gubernatorial candidate agreed to parts of Governor Walker's hated anti-union legislation, he tried to evade this central issue during his campaign, and he used similar legislation himself to attack unions when he was the mayor of Milwaukee! This is typical of the Democratic Party – they use unions to get out their vote, but they balance their budgets on the backs of workers, too, just not as fast as the Republicans. That's why we need a workers’ party to defend the interests of workers against the attacks of both corporate parties.
Mobilize the Independent Power of Workers
Working people and the unions have enormous power in numbers. That is the key to the entire situation right now. Failing to use this power decisively would be a recipe for disaster.
That's why it's a mistake that Michigan union leaders did not call for further mass actions until Tuesday. They do not seem prepared to match the determination of the 1% with determined action by the 99%. Instead, Michigan AFL-CIO President Karla Swift and other labor leaders are focusing on mobilizing workers to merely call and lobby politicians in Michigan. But the best way to make these rabidly pro-corporate politicians listen to us is to show them we have the power to shut down business as usual! What's needed is an immediate escalation of mass actions, mobilizing thousands of workers, Occupy activists, and supporters to occupy the capitol – turning Lansing into Zuccotti Park!
But, as with Wisconsin, the Republicans are likely prepared to ride out mass demonstrations. So while occupying the capitol is important, it probably won't be enough. To really demonstrate the power of working people, immediate mass strike action should be called to shut down the capitol, including schools and workplaces. After all, we need every single person to go to the capitol anyway, not work or school. But also by striking, it will show the power workers have, which, when mobilized, can move heaven and earth.
Strike action, particularly if it's well organized, will raise the stakes. Rather than the Republicans having to only face a mass protest, they will have to face the complete shutting down of the state. To really drive the point home, workers should cut off the heat and electricity to the capitol building itself. If the politicians want to strip working people of their rights, they can do it in the cold and dark!
If the union leaders at the top are not prepared to act decisively, working-class activists should take a page from Wisconsin and organize actions from below themselves. Rank-and-file committees in workplaces should be immediately organized to lead unofficial actions, perhaps in the form of mass “sick-outs” like the teachers organized in Wisconsin, to be able to travel to the capitol building in Lansing.
A few strikes in a few workplaces could inspire workers elsewhere to take matters into their own hands and also go on strike, which would pressure the union leaders to call for mass, coordinated action. Students in Michigan will face an even likelier future of dead-end McJobs if the bill passes, so students, too, should organize walk-outs across Lansing, Detroit, Dearborn, and other cities.
We should not let existing anti-union laws limiting workers’ ability to strike stand in our way. Past struggles show that anti-strike and anti-union laws can be overcome by mass action. Besides, it's better for the unions to break the bosses’ laws than to let the bosses’ laws break the unions!
If “right to work” legislation passes in Michigan – the fifth most-unionized state in the country – it will embolden the 1% across the country to go on the offensive. As American labor law expert Gordon Lafer explained, “Right-to-work bills were introduced in about 20 states in 2011 and 2012. This is part of a campaign to get rid of unions for both economic and political reasons” by well-funded conservative groups who laid the groundwork for a right-to-work vote in Michigan for some time. The entire labor movement across the U.S. should organize protests, mobilizing people to Lansing where possible, and organizing solidarity actions across the country.
The union movement has only days before the hard-won gains of past generations of workers are set back. Decisive action, mobilizing the full force of the labor movement, is the only thing that will stop the henchmen of the 1%.


Socialist Alternative, P.O. Box 45343, Seattle WA 98145
Phone: (206)526-7185
Comments? Suggestions for improving our web page? Please email info@SocialistAlternative.org

Accused of Lifting Veil on U.S. War Machine-Bradley Manning Pretrial Hearing: Drop All Charges!

 

Workers Vanguard No. 1014
7 December 2012

Accused of Lifting Veil on U.S. War Machine-Bradley Manning Pretrial Hearing: Drop All Charges!

(Class-Struggle Defense Notes)

DECEMBER 4—Army private Bradley Manning spoke publicly last week for the first time since he was detained in May 2010 for allegedly handing over a trove of classified documents to WikiLeaks that exposed U.S. imperialism’s schemes and wartime atrocities. Charging Manning with 22 offenses including espionage and “aiding the enemy,” military prosecutors are threatening him with life imprisonment, having decided not to pursue the death penalty. Taking the stand at a hearing on a defense motion to dismiss all charges on the grounds of unlawful pretrial punishment, Manning recounted the torturous conditions of his confinement, which one prison psychologist described as worse than at Guantánamo or on death row. The hearing is continuing as we go to press.

The suffering and deprivation inflicted on Manning is meant as a message: the U.S. imperialists will not tolerate any light shed on their workings. This vendetta was also designed to break him so that he would implicate WikiLeaks and its founder Julian Assange, who remains holed up in the Ecuadorian Embassy in London to avoid extradition to the U.S., via Sweden (see “Hands Off Julian Assange!” WV No. 1010, 12 October). In the past week, protests demanding Manning’s freedom have taken place from the court site, Fort Meade near Baltimore, to Berlin and other cities.

Last month, Manning offered to accept responsibility for providing, as an act of conscience, at least some of the 250,000 diplomatic cables, 500,000 Army reports from Iraq and Afghanistan and video from Baghdad that WikiLeaks made public. Shortly before Manning testified last week, the presiding military judge accepted the framework that would allow him to plead guilty to some lesser charges, which carry a maximum sentence of 16 years. Manning has not yet filed a formal plea. Even if the plea were to be accepted, Manning still faces trial on the maximum charges unless the case is dismissed and could receive a life sentence if found guilty of only one of them. The court martial is now slated to begin in March.

If Manning did make available the material attributed to him in the tentative plea, he provided a major service to working people and the oppressed the world over. In seeking to galvanize proletarian opposition to the capitalist order, we welcome even a slight lifting of the veil on the imperialists’ war machine. The video Manning is accused of leaking shows an Apache helicopter gunning down and killing at least 12 people in Baghdad in 2007, including a Reuters journalist and his driver, while the pilots laugh and gloat. The war logs document 120,000 civilian deaths in Iraq and Afghanistan and a formal military policy of covering up torture, rape and murder. The cables address all manner of lethal operations within U.S. client states, from the “drug war” in Mexico to drone strikes in Yemen.

With over 20 supporters attending the court hearing, Manning detailed the depravity of his enraged military jailers. His first two months in custody were spent in what Manning described as an “animal cage” in Kuwait, where he was kept isolated and disoriented. “I just thought I was going to die in that cage,” he told the court. Returned to the U.S., he was thrown into what he called “a shark-attack environment” at the Quantico Marine brig in Virginia, where he was kept for nine months. He spent at least 23 hours a day alone in a six-by-eight-foot cell with no window or natural light, forbidden to exercise, lie down or even lean against a wall if not sleeping. Even when he was allowed to sleep, he was periodically awakened by guards who also subjected him to daily strip searches and forced nudity.

Quantico commanders justified their handling of Manning by classifying him first as a “suicide risk” and then putting him on “prevention of injury” status. While Manning had been driven to despair by the unrelenting abuse he suffered in Kuwait, at least 16 official reports from brig psychiatrists at Quantico concluded that Manning was not a threat to himself or others. Nevertheless, his status did not change until he was transferred to Fort Leavenworth in April 2011 amid international condemnation of his treatment. By the admission of the colonel in charge of Quantico at the time, a blind eye was turned to these reports because a staff dentist made assessments more to the liking of the brass!

Court documents show that one base commander instructed staff to “do whatever we want” to Manning. The parameters of the torture regime were run up the chain of command to the Pentagon. Meanwhile, the handprint of the White House is all over the case. With a push from the Obama administration, Manning was charged under the 1917 Espionage Act, with the Commander-in-Chief himself declaring last year that Manning “broke the law.”

The government is intent on painting a portrait of Manning as a traitor who aided and abetted Al Qaeda, with the judge even giving the go-ahead to prosecutors to introduce the contents of Osama bin Laden’s hard drives. The prosecution does not feel compelled to present evidence that any tangible aid was provided to an “enemy.” Rather, it argues that it is sufficient to establish that Manning knew that U.S. adversaries could access the information that was now in the public domain. Thus Washington equates disclosure of classified information by “whistleblowers,” journalists or anyone else with treason. And by the lights of the “war on terror,” an “enemy” could mean virtually any opponent of the U.S. government.

It is the norm for the imperialists to accompany their depredations around the world with official silence and secret dealings. In 2011 alone, U.S. officials classified more than 92 million documents. Revolutionary leader Leon Trotsky observed in November 1917: “Imperialism, with its dark plans of conquest and its robber alliances and deals, developed the system of secret diplomacy to the highest level.” Opponents of imperialist occupations and war must be won to the understanding that it will require a series of socialist revolutions around the world to put an end to the capitalist order, which maintains itself through systematic violence and lies.