IN THIS TIME OF THE ‘GREAT FEAR’ WE NEED CANDIDATES TO FIGHT FOR A WORKERS GOVERNMENT.
FORGET DONKEYS AND ELEPHANTS - BUILD A WORKERS PARTY!
In the summer of 2006 I originally wrote the following commentary (used in subsequent election cycles and updated a little for today’s purpose) urging the recruitment of independent labor militants as write-in candidates for the mid-term 2006 congressional elections based on a workers party program. With the hoopla already in full gear for the 2012 election cycle I repost that commentary below with that same intention of getting thoughtful leftists to use the 2012 campaign to further our propagandistic fight for a workers’ party that fights for a workers government.
A Modest Proposal-Recruit, Run Independent Labor Militants In The 2012 Elections
All “anti-parliamentarian”, “anti-state”, “non-political” anarchist or anarcho-syndicalist brothers and sisters need read no further. This writer does not want to sully the purity of your politics with the taint of parliamentary electoral politics. Although I might remind you, as we remember the 75th anniversary of the beginning of the Barcelona Uprising, that your political ancestors in Spain were more than willing to support the state and enter the government when they got the chance- the bourgeois government of a bourgeois state. But, we can fight that issue out later. We will, hopefully, see you on the barricades with us when the time comes.
As for other militants- here is my modest proposal. Either recruit fellow labor militants or present yourselves as candidates to run for public office, especially for Congress, during the 2012 election cycle. Why? Even a quick glance at the news of the day is calculated to send the most hardened politico screaming into the night. The quagmire in Afghanistan (and unfinished business in Iraq and threats to Iran), immigration walls, flag-burning amendments, anti -same-sex marriage amendments, the threat to separation of church state raised by those who would impose a fundamentalist Christian theocracy on the rest of us, and the attacks on the hard fought gains of the Enlightenment posed by bogus theories such as ‘intelligent design.’ And that is just an average day. Therefore, this election cycle provides militants, at a time when the dwindling electorate is focused on politics, a forum to raise our program and our ideas. We use this as a tool, like leaflets, petitions, meetings, demonstrations, etc. to get our message across. Why should the Donkeys, Elephants, and the other smaller bourgeois parties have a monopoly on the public square?
I mentioned in the last paragraph the idea of program. Let us face it if we do not have a program to run on then it makes no sense for militants to run for public office. Given the political climate our task at this time is to fight an exemplary propaganda campaign. Our program is our banner in that fight. The Democrats and Republicans DO NOT RUN on a program. The sum of their campaigns is to promise not to steal from the public treasury (or at least not too much), beat their husbands or wives, or grossly compromise themselves in any manner. On second thought, given today’s political climate, they may not promise not to beat their husbands or wives or not compromise themselves in any untoward manner. You, in any case, get the point. Damn, even the weakest neophyte labor militant can make a better presentation before working people that this crowd. This writer presents a five point program (you knew that was coming, right?) that labor militants can run on. As point five makes clear this is not a ‘minimum’ program but a program based on our need to fight for power.
1. FIGHT FOR THE IMMEDIATE AND UNCONDITIONAL WITHDRAWAL OF U.S. TROOPS FROM THE MIDDLE EAST NOW (OR BETTER YET, YESTERDAY)! U.S. HANDS OFF THE WORLD! VOTE NO ON THE WAR BUDGET!
The quagmire in Afghanistan and elsewhere in the Middle East (Iraq, Syria, Libya, Palestine, Iran) is the fault line of American politics today. Every bourgeois politician has to have his or her feet put to the fire on this one. Not on some flimsy ‘sense of the Congress’ softball motion for withdrawal next, year, in two years, or (my favorite) when the situation is stable. Moreover, on the parliamentary level the only real vote that matters is the vote on the war budget. All the rest is fluff. Militants should make a point of trying to enter Congressional contests where there are so-called anti-war Democrats or Republicans (an oxymoron, I believe) running to make that programmatic contrast vivid.
But, one might argue, that would split the ‘progressive’ forces. Grow up, please! That argument has grown stale since it was first put forth in the “popular front” days of the 1930’s. If you want to end the wars in Afghanistan and elsewhere fight for this position on the war budget. Otherwise the same people (yes, those 'progressive Democrats') who almost unanimously voted for the last war budget get a free ride on the cheap. War President Barack Obama desperately needs to be opposed by labor militants. By rights this is our issue. Let us take it back.
2. FIGHT FOR A LIVING WAGE AND WORKING CONDITIONS-UNIVERSAL FREE HEALTH CARE FOR ALL.
It is a ‘no-brainer’ that no individual, much less a family can live on the minimum wage (now $7/hr. or so). What planet do these politicians live on? We need an immediate fight for a living wage, full employment and decent working conditions. We need universal free health care for all. End of story. The organized labor movement must get off its knees and fight to organize Wal-Mart and the South. A boycott of Wal-Mart is not enough. A successful organizing drive will, like in the 1930’s; go a long way to turning the conditions of labor around.
3. FIGHT THE ATTACKS ON THE ENLIGHTENMENT.
Down with the Death Penalty! Full Citizenship Rights for All Immigrants who make it here! Stop the Deportations! For the Separation of Church and State! Defend abortion rights! Down with anti-same sex marriage legislation! Full public funding of education! Stop the ‘war on drugs’, basically a war on blacks and minority youth-decriminalize drugs! Defend political prisoners! This list of demands hardly exhausts the “culture war” issues we defend. It is hard to believe that in the year 2012 over 200 years after the American Revolution and the French Revolution we are fighting desperately to preserve many of the same principles that militants fought for in those revolutions. But so be it.
4. FIGHT FOR A WORKERS PARTY.
The Donkeys, Elephants and other smaller bourgeois parties have had their chance. Now is the time to fight for our own party and for the interests of our own class, the working class. Any campaigns by independent labor militants must highlight this point. And any campaigns can also become the nucleus of a workers’ party network until we get strong enough to form at least a small party. None of these other parties, and I mean none, are working in the interests of working people and their allies. The following great lesson of politic today must be hammered home. Break with the Democrats, Republicans!
5. FIGHT FOR A WORKERS AND XYZ GOVERNMENT. THIS IS THE DEMAND THAT SEPARATES THE MILITANTS FROM THE FAINT-HEARTED REFORMISTS.
We need our own form of government. In the old days the bourgeois republic was a progressive form of government. Not so any more. That form of government ran out of steam about one hundred years ago. We need a Workers Republic. We need a government based on workers councils with a ministry (I do not dare say commissariat in case any stray anarchists are still reading this) responsible to it. Let us face it if we really want to get any of the good and necessary things listed above accomplished we are not going to get it with the current form of government.
Why the XYZ part? What does that mean? No, it is not part of an algebra lesson. What it reflects is that while society is made up mainly of workers (of one sort or another) there are other classes (and parts of classes) in society that we seek as allies and could benefit from a workers government. Examples- small independent contractors, intellectuals, the dwindling number of small farmers, and some professionals like dentists. Yes, with my tongue in my cheek after all my dental bills, I like the idea of a workers and dentists government. The point is however you formulate it you have got to fight for it.
Obviously any campaign based on this program will be an exemplary propaganda campaign for the foreseeable future. But we have to start now. Continuing to support or not challenging the bourgeois parties does us no good. That is for sure. While bourgeois electoral laws do not favor independent candidacies write-in campaigns are possible. ROLL UP YOUR SHEEVES! GET THOSE PETITIONS SIGNED! PRINT OUT THE LEAFLETS! PAINT THOSE BANNERS! GET READY TO SHAKE HANDS AND KISS BABIES.
Sunday, November 04, 2012
Saturday, November 03, 2012
From The Pen Of Joshua Lawrence Breslin- Wouldn’t You Love To Buy Zoo Too, Lou- “We Bought A Zoo”-A Film Review
Click on the headline to link to Wikipedia entry for the film We Bought A Zoo.
DVD Review
We Bought A Zoo, starring Matt Damon, Scarlett Johansson, 20th Century-Fox, 2011
So what is not to like about a family-oriented story of a guy, an ex-wild and wooly reporter guy ready, willing, and able to tackle any assignment the tougher the better, who having grievously lost his young wife to some unfathomable illness and left with two children, one an endearing pre-teen girl and the other an alienated, angst-ridden teen age boy (reminding me of another very alienated young man without the dead mother angle) decides (or has karmic forces decide) to do right by the kids and get them the hell out of the maw of civilization. Oh, and buy a zoo.
Nothing, nothing at all. No my plan A (or Plan B, C, or D) but a plan that father Matt Damon spends the film trying to work through against might and main odds, and the occasional ten thousand obstacles thrown in the way of success before good-heartedness, perseverance, and a little magical realism save the day for him and his. The only thing I don’t get, get at all, is why a thinking guy, a serious family man thinking guy, took so long to go after the head zookeeper, Scarlett Johansson, a thinking man’s thinking woman if there ever was one. Matt, Lou says more than a zoo will do, okay.
From #Un-Occupied Boston (#Un-Tomemonos Boston)-What Happens When We Do Not Learn The Lessons Of History- The Pre-1848 Socialist Movement-From The Pens Of Karl Marx And Friedrich Engels-The Struggle For The Communist League-Address of the Central Committee to the Communist League-June 1850
Click on the headline to link to the Occupy Boston General Assembly Minutes website. Occupy Boston started at 6:00 PM, September 30, 2011.
Markin comment:
I will post any updates from that Occupy Boston site if there are any serious discussions of the way forward for the Occupy movement or, more importantly, any analysis of the now atrophied and dysfunctional General Assembly concept. In the meantime I will continue with the “Lessons From History ’’series started in the fall of 2011 with Karl Marx’s The Civil War In France-1871 (The defense of the Paris Commune). Right now this series is focused on the European socialist movement before the Revolutions of 1848.
****
An Injury To One Is An Injury To All!-Defend The Occupy Movement And All Occupiers! Drop All Charges Against All Occupy Protesters Everywhere!
********
Fight-Don’t Starve-We Created The Wealth, Let's Take It Back! Labor And The Oppressed Must Rule!
********
A Five-Point Program As Talking Points
*Jobs For All Now!-“30 For 40”- A historic demand of the labor movement. Thirty hours work for forty hours pay to spread the available work around. Organize the unorganized- Organize the South- Organize Wal-Mart- Defend the right for public and private workers to unionize.
* Defend the working classes! No union dues for Democratic (or the stray Republican) candidates. Spent the dough instead on organizing the unorganized and on other labor-specific causes (good example, the November, 2011 anti-union recall referendum in Ohio, bad example the Wisconsin gubernatorial recall race in June 2012).
*End the endless wars!- Immediate, Unconditional Withdrawal Of All U.S./Allied Troops (And Mercenaries) From Afghanistan! Hands Off Pakistan! Hands Off Iran! U.S. Hands Off The World!
*Fight for a social agenda for working people!. Quality Healthcare For All! Nationalize the colleges and universities under student-teacher-campus worker control! Forgive student debt! Stop housing foreclosures!
*We created the wealth, let’s take it back. Take the struggle for our daily bread off the historic agenda. Build a workers party that fights for a workers government to unite all the oppressed.
Emblazon on our red banner-Labor and the oppressed must rule!
*************
Markin comment:
This foundation article by Marx or Engels goes along with the propaganda points in the fight for our communist future mentioned in other posts in this space.
Marx/Engels Internet Archive-The Communist League
A congress of the League of the Just opened in London on June 2, 1847. Engels was in attendance as delegate for the League's Paris communities. (Marx couldn't attend for financial reasons.)
Engels had a significant impact throughout the congress -- which, as it turned out, was really the "inaugural Congress" of what became known as the Communist League. This organization stands as the first international proletarian organization. With the influence of Marx and Engels anti-utopian socialism, the League's motto changed from "All Men are Brothers" to "Working Men of All Countries, Unite!"
Engels: "In the summer of 1847, the first league congress took place in London, at which W. Wolff represented the Brussels and I the Paris communities. At this congress the reorganization of the League was carried through first of all. ...the League now consisted of communities, circles, leading circles, a central committee and a congress, and henceforth called itself the 'Communist League'."
The Rules were drawn up with the participation of Marx and Engels, examined at the First Congress of the Communist League, and approved at the League's Second Congress in December 1847.
Article 1 of the Rules of the Communist League: "The aim of the league is the overthrow of the bourgeoisie, the rule of the proletariat, the abolition of the old bourgeois society which rests on the antagonism of classes, and the foundation of a new society without classes and without private property."
The first draft of the Communist League Programme was styled as a catechism -- in the form of questions and answers. Essentially, the draft was authored by Engels. The original manuscript is in Engels's hand.
The League's official paper was to be the Kommunistische Zeitschrift, but the only issue produced was in September 1847 by a resolution of the League's First Congress. It was First Congress prepared by the Central Authority of the Communist League based in London. Karl Schapper was its editor.
The Second Congress of the Communist League was held at the end of November 1847 at London's Red Lion Hotel. Marx attended as delegate of the Brussels Circle. He went to London in the company of Victor Tedesco, member of the Communist League and also a delegate to the Second Congress. Engels again represented the Paris communities. Schapper was elected chairman of the congress, and Engels its secretary.
Friedrich Lessner: "I was working in London then and was a member of the communist Workers' Educational Society at 191 Drury Lane. There, at the end of November and the beginning of December 1847, members of the Central Committee of the Communist League held a congress. Karl Marx and Frederick Engels came there from Brussels to present their views on modern communism and to speak about the Communists' attitude to the political and workers' movement. The meetings, which, naturally, were held in the evenings, were attended by delegates only... Soon we learned that after long debates, the congress had unanimously backed the principles of Marx and Engels..."
The Rules were officially adopted December 8, 1847.
Engels: "All contradiction and doubt were finally set at rest, the new basic principles were unanimously adopted, and Marx and I were commissioned to draw up the Manifesto." This would, of course, become the Communist Manifesto.
****************
Karl Marx and Frederick Engels
Address of the Central Committee to the Communist League-June 1850
Brothers!
In our last circular, delivered to you by the League’s emissary, we discussed the position of the workers’ party and, in particular, of the League, both at the present moment and in the event of revolution.
The main purpose of this letter is to present a report on the state of the League.
For a while, following the defeats sustained by the revolutionary party last summer, the League’s organization almost completely disintegrated. The most active League members involved in the various movements were dispersed, contacts were broken off and addresses could no longer be used; because of this and because of the danger of letters being opened, correspondence became temporarily impossible. The Central Committee was thus condemned to complete inactivity until around the end of last year.
As the immediate after-effects of our defeats gradually passed, it became clear that the revolutionary party needed a strong secret organization throughout Germany. The need for this organization, which led the Central Committee to decide to send an emissary to Germany and Switzerland, also led to an attempt by the Cologne commune to organize the League in Germany itself.
Around the beginning of the year several more or less well-known refugees from the various movements formed an organization in Switzerland which intended to overthrow the governments at the right moment and to keep men at the ready to take over the leadership of the movement and even the government itself. This association did not possess any particular party character; the motley elements which it comprised made this impossible. The members consisted of people from all groups within the movement, from resolute Communists and even former League members to the most faint-hearted petty-bourgeois democrats and former members of the Palatinate government.
In the eyes of the Baden-Palatinate careerists and lesser ambitious figures who were so numerous in Switzerland at this time, this association presented an ideal opportunity for them to advance themselves.
The instructions which this association sent to its agents — and which the Central Committee has in its possession — give just as little cause for confidence. The lack of a definite party standpoint and the attempt to bring all available opposition elements together in a sham association is only badly disguised by a mass of detailed questions concerning the industrial, agricultural, political and military situations in each locality. Numerically, too, the association was extremely weak; according to the complete list of members which we possess, the whole society in Switzerland consisted, at the height of its strength, of barely thirty members. It is significant that workers are hardly represented at all among the membership. From its very beginning, it was an army of officers and N.C.O.’s without any soldiers. Its members include A. Fries and Greiner from the Palatinate, Korner from Elberfeld, Sigel, etc.
They sent two agents to Germany. The first agent, Bruhn, a member of the League, managed by false pretences to persuade certain League members and communes to join the new association for the time being, as they believed it to be the resurrected League. While reporting on the League to the Swiss Central Committee in Zurich, he simultaneously sent us reports on the Swiss association. He cannot have been content with his role as an informer, for while he was still corresponding with us, he wrote outright slanders to the people in Frankfurt, who had been won over to the Swiss association, and he ordered them not to enter into any contacts whatsoever with London. For this he was immediately expelled from the League. Matters in Frankfurt were settled by an emissary from the League. It may be added that Bruhn’s activities on behalf of the Swiss Central Committee remained fruitless. The second agent, the student Schurz from Bonn, achieved nothing because, as he wrote to Zurich, he found that all the people of any use were already in the hands of the League. He then suddenly left Germany and is now hanging around Brussels and Paris, where he is being watched by the League. The Central Committee does not see this new association as a danger, particularly as a completely reliable member of the League is on the committee, with instructions to observe and report on the actions and plans of these people, in so far as they operate against the League. Furthermore, we have sent an emissary to Switzerland in order to recruit the people who will be of value to the League, with the help of the aforementioned League member, and in order to organize the League in Switzerland in general. This information is based on fully authentic documents.
Another attempt of a similar nature had already been made earlier by Struve, Sigel and others, at the time that they joined forces in Geneva. These people had no compunction about claiming quite flatly that the association they were attempting to found was the League, nor about using the names of League members for precisely this end. Of course, they deceived nobody with this lie. Their attempt was so fruitless in every respect that the few members of this abortive association who stayed in Switzerland eventually had to join the organization previously mentioned. But the more impotent this coterie became, the more it showed off with pretentious titles like the ‘Central Committee of European Democracy’ etc. Struve, together with a few other disappointed great men, has continued these attempts here in London. Manifestoes and appeals to join the ‘Central Bureau of German Refugees’ and the ‘Central Committee of European Democracy’ have been sent to all parts of Germany, but this time, too, without the least success.
The contacts which this coterie claims to have made with French and other non-German revolutionaries do not exist. Their whole activity is limited to a few petty intrigues among the German refugees here in London, which do not affect the League directly and which are harmless and easy to keep under surveillance. All these attempts have either the same purpose as the League, namely the revolutionary organization of the workers’ party, in which case they are undermining the centralization and strength of the party by fragmenting it and are therefore of a decidedly harmful, separatist character, or else they can only serve to misuse the workers’ party for purposes which are foreign or straightforwardly hostile to it. Under certain circumstances the workers’ party can profitably use other parties and groups for its own purposes, but it must not subordinate itself to any other party. Those people who were in government during the last movement, and used their position only to betray the movement and to crush the workers’ party were it tried to operate independently, must be kept at a distance at all costs.
The following is a report on the state of the League:
i. Belgium
The League’s organization among the Belgian workers, as it existed in 1846 and 1847, has naturally come to an end, since the leading members were arrested in 1848 and condemned to death, having their sentences commuted to life imprisonment with hard labour. In general, the League in Belgium has lost strength since the February revolution and since most of the members of the German Workers Association were driven out of Brussels. The police measures which have been introduced have prevented its reorganization. Nevertheless one commune in Brussels has carried on throughout; it is still in existence today and is functioning to the best of its ability.
ii. Germany
In this circular the Central Committee intended to submit a special report on the state of the League in Germany. However, this report can not be made at the present time, as the Prussian police are even now investigating an extensive network of contacts in the revolutionary party. This circular, which will reach Germany safely but which, of course, may here and there fall into the hands of the police while being distributed within Germany, must therefore be written so that its contents do not provide them with weapons which could be used against the League. The Central Committee will therefore confine itself, for the time being, to the following remarks:
In Germany the league has its main centres in Cologne, Frankfurt am Main, Hanau, Mainz, Wiesbaden, Hamburg, Schwerin, Berlin, Breslau, Liegnitz, Glogau, Leipzig, Nuremberg, Munich, Bamberg, Wurzburg, Stuttgart and Baden.
The following towns have been chosen as central districts: Hamburg for Schleswig-Holstein; Schwerin for Mecklenburg; Breslau for Silesia; Leipzig for Saxony and Berlin; Nuremberg for Bavaria, Cologne for the Rhineland and Westphalia. The communes in Gottingen, Stuttgart and Brussels will remain in direct contact with the Central Committee for the time being, until they have succeeded in widening their influence to the extent necessary to form new central districts.
A decision will not be made on the position of the League in Baden until the report has been received from the emissary sent there and to Switzerland.
Wherever peasant and agricultural workers’ association exist, as in Schleswig-Holstein and Mecklenburg, members of the League have succeeded in exercising a direct influence upon them and, in some cases, in gaining complete control. For the most part, the workers and agricultural workers’ associations in Saxony, Franconia, Hesse and Nassau are also under the leadership of the League. The most influential members of the Workers Brotherhood also belong to the League. The Central Committee wishes to point out to all communes and League members that it is of the utmost importance to win influence in the workers’, sports, peasants’ and agricultural workers’ associations, etc. everywhere. It requests the central districts and the communes corresponding directly with the Central Committee to give a special report in their subsequent letters on what has been achieved in this connection.
The emissary to Germany, who as received a vote of commendation from the Central Committee for his activities, has everywhere recruited only the most reliable people into the League and left the expansion of the League to their greater local knowledge. It will depend upon the local situation whether convinced revolutionaries can be enlisted. Where this is not possible a second class of League members must be created for those people who are reliable and make useful revolutionaries but who do not yet understand the full communist implications of the present movement. This second class, to whom the association must be represented as a merely local or regional affair, must remain under the continuous leadership of actual League members and committees. With the help of these further contacts the League’s influence on the peasants’ and sports associations in particular can be very firmly organized. Detailed arrangements are left to the central districts; the Central Committee hopes to receive their reports on these matters, too, as soon as possible.
One commune has proposed to the Central Committee that a Congress of the League be convened, indeed in German itself. The communes and districts will certainly appreciate that under the present circumstances even regional congresses of the central districts are not everywhere advisable, and that a general Congress of the League at this moment is a sheer impossibility. However, the Central Committee will convene a Congress of the Communist League in a suitable place just as soon as circumstances allow. Prussian Rhineland and Westphalia recently received a visit from an emissary of the Cologne central district. The report on the result of this trip has not yet reached Cologne. We request all central districts to send similar emissaries round their regions and to report on their success as soon as possible. Finally we should like to report that in Schleswig-Holstein, contacts have been established with the army: we are still awaiting the more detailed report on the influence which the League can hope to gain here.
iii. Switzerland
The report of the emissary is still being awaited. it will therefore not be possible to provide more exact information until the next circular.
iv. France
Contacts with the German workers in Besancon and other places in the Jura will be re-established from Switzerland. In Paris Ewerbeck, the League member who has been up till now at the head of the commune there, has announced his resignation from the League, as he considers his literary activities to be more important. Contact has therefore been interrupted for the present and must be resumed with particular caution, as the Parisians have enlisted a large number of people who are absolutely unfitted for the League and who were formerly even directly opposed to it.
v. England
The London district is the strongest in the whole League. It has earned particular credit by covering single-handedly the League’s expenses for several years — in particular those for the journeys of the League’s emissaries. It has been strengthened recently by the recruitment of new elements and it continues to lead the German Workers Educational Association here, as well as the more resolute section of the German refugees in England.
The Central Committee is in touch with the decisively revolutionary parties of the French, English and Hungarians by way of members delegated for this purpose.
Of all the parties involved in the French revolution it is in particular the genuine proletarian party headed by Blanqui which has joined us. The delegates of the Blanquist secret society are in regular and official contact with the delegates of the League, to whom they have entrusted important preparatory work for the next revolution.
The leaders of the revolutionary wing of the Chartists are also in regular and close contact with the delegates of the Central Committee. Their journals are being made available to us. The break between this revolutionary, independent workers’ party and the faction headed by O'Connor, which tends more towards a policy of reconciliation, has been considerably accelerated by the delegates of the League.
The Central Committee is similarly in contact with the most progressive section of the Hungarian refugees. This party is important because it includes many excellent military experts, who would be at the League’s disposal in the event of revolution.
The Central Committee requests the central districts to distribute this letter among their members as soon as possible and to submit their own reports soon. It urges all League members to the most intense activity, especially now that the situation has become so critical that it cannot be long before another revolution breaks out.
transcribed by gearhart@ccsn.edu
Markin comment:
I will post any updates from that Occupy Boston site if there are any serious discussions of the way forward for the Occupy movement or, more importantly, any analysis of the now atrophied and dysfunctional General Assembly concept. In the meantime I will continue with the “Lessons From History ’’series started in the fall of 2011 with Karl Marx’s The Civil War In France-1871 (The defense of the Paris Commune). Right now this series is focused on the European socialist movement before the Revolutions of 1848.
****
An Injury To One Is An Injury To All!-Defend The Occupy Movement And All Occupiers! Drop All Charges Against All Occupy Protesters Everywhere!
********
Fight-Don’t Starve-We Created The Wealth, Let's Take It Back! Labor And The Oppressed Must Rule!
********
A Five-Point Program As Talking Points
*Jobs For All Now!-“30 For 40”- A historic demand of the labor movement. Thirty hours work for forty hours pay to spread the available work around. Organize the unorganized- Organize the South- Organize Wal-Mart- Defend the right for public and private workers to unionize.
* Defend the working classes! No union dues for Democratic (or the stray Republican) candidates. Spent the dough instead on organizing the unorganized and on other labor-specific causes (good example, the November, 2011 anti-union recall referendum in Ohio, bad example the Wisconsin gubernatorial recall race in June 2012).
*End the endless wars!- Immediate, Unconditional Withdrawal Of All U.S./Allied Troops (And Mercenaries) From Afghanistan! Hands Off Pakistan! Hands Off Iran! U.S. Hands Off The World!
*Fight for a social agenda for working people!. Quality Healthcare For All! Nationalize the colleges and universities under student-teacher-campus worker control! Forgive student debt! Stop housing foreclosures!
*We created the wealth, let’s take it back. Take the struggle for our daily bread off the historic agenda. Build a workers party that fights for a workers government to unite all the oppressed.
Emblazon on our red banner-Labor and the oppressed must rule!
*************
Markin comment:
This foundation article by Marx or Engels goes along with the propaganda points in the fight for our communist future mentioned in other posts in this space.
Marx/Engels Internet Archive-The Communist League
A congress of the League of the Just opened in London on June 2, 1847. Engels was in attendance as delegate for the League's Paris communities. (Marx couldn't attend for financial reasons.)
Engels had a significant impact throughout the congress -- which, as it turned out, was really the "inaugural Congress" of what became known as the Communist League. This organization stands as the first international proletarian organization. With the influence of Marx and Engels anti-utopian socialism, the League's motto changed from "All Men are Brothers" to "Working Men of All Countries, Unite!"
Engels: "In the summer of 1847, the first league congress took place in London, at which W. Wolff represented the Brussels and I the Paris communities. At this congress the reorganization of the League was carried through first of all. ...the League now consisted of communities, circles, leading circles, a central committee and a congress, and henceforth called itself the 'Communist League'."
The Rules were drawn up with the participation of Marx and Engels, examined at the First Congress of the Communist League, and approved at the League's Second Congress in December 1847.
Article 1 of the Rules of the Communist League: "The aim of the league is the overthrow of the bourgeoisie, the rule of the proletariat, the abolition of the old bourgeois society which rests on the antagonism of classes, and the foundation of a new society without classes and without private property."
The first draft of the Communist League Programme was styled as a catechism -- in the form of questions and answers. Essentially, the draft was authored by Engels. The original manuscript is in Engels's hand.
The League's official paper was to be the Kommunistische Zeitschrift, but the only issue produced was in September 1847 by a resolution of the League's First Congress. It was First Congress prepared by the Central Authority of the Communist League based in London. Karl Schapper was its editor.
The Second Congress of the Communist League was held at the end of November 1847 at London's Red Lion Hotel. Marx attended as delegate of the Brussels Circle. He went to London in the company of Victor Tedesco, member of the Communist League and also a delegate to the Second Congress. Engels again represented the Paris communities. Schapper was elected chairman of the congress, and Engels its secretary.
Friedrich Lessner: "I was working in London then and was a member of the communist Workers' Educational Society at 191 Drury Lane. There, at the end of November and the beginning of December 1847, members of the Central Committee of the Communist League held a congress. Karl Marx and Frederick Engels came there from Brussels to present their views on modern communism and to speak about the Communists' attitude to the political and workers' movement. The meetings, which, naturally, were held in the evenings, were attended by delegates only... Soon we learned that after long debates, the congress had unanimously backed the principles of Marx and Engels..."
The Rules were officially adopted December 8, 1847.
Engels: "All contradiction and doubt were finally set at rest, the new basic principles were unanimously adopted, and Marx and I were commissioned to draw up the Manifesto." This would, of course, become the Communist Manifesto.
****************
Karl Marx and Frederick Engels
Address of the Central Committee to the Communist League-June 1850
Brothers!
In our last circular, delivered to you by the League’s emissary, we discussed the position of the workers’ party and, in particular, of the League, both at the present moment and in the event of revolution.
The main purpose of this letter is to present a report on the state of the League.
For a while, following the defeats sustained by the revolutionary party last summer, the League’s organization almost completely disintegrated. The most active League members involved in the various movements were dispersed, contacts were broken off and addresses could no longer be used; because of this and because of the danger of letters being opened, correspondence became temporarily impossible. The Central Committee was thus condemned to complete inactivity until around the end of last year.
As the immediate after-effects of our defeats gradually passed, it became clear that the revolutionary party needed a strong secret organization throughout Germany. The need for this organization, which led the Central Committee to decide to send an emissary to Germany and Switzerland, also led to an attempt by the Cologne commune to organize the League in Germany itself.
Around the beginning of the year several more or less well-known refugees from the various movements formed an organization in Switzerland which intended to overthrow the governments at the right moment and to keep men at the ready to take over the leadership of the movement and even the government itself. This association did not possess any particular party character; the motley elements which it comprised made this impossible. The members consisted of people from all groups within the movement, from resolute Communists and even former League members to the most faint-hearted petty-bourgeois democrats and former members of the Palatinate government.
In the eyes of the Baden-Palatinate careerists and lesser ambitious figures who were so numerous in Switzerland at this time, this association presented an ideal opportunity for them to advance themselves.
The instructions which this association sent to its agents — and which the Central Committee has in its possession — give just as little cause for confidence. The lack of a definite party standpoint and the attempt to bring all available opposition elements together in a sham association is only badly disguised by a mass of detailed questions concerning the industrial, agricultural, political and military situations in each locality. Numerically, too, the association was extremely weak; according to the complete list of members which we possess, the whole society in Switzerland consisted, at the height of its strength, of barely thirty members. It is significant that workers are hardly represented at all among the membership. From its very beginning, it was an army of officers and N.C.O.’s without any soldiers. Its members include A. Fries and Greiner from the Palatinate, Korner from Elberfeld, Sigel, etc.
They sent two agents to Germany. The first agent, Bruhn, a member of the League, managed by false pretences to persuade certain League members and communes to join the new association for the time being, as they believed it to be the resurrected League. While reporting on the League to the Swiss Central Committee in Zurich, he simultaneously sent us reports on the Swiss association. He cannot have been content with his role as an informer, for while he was still corresponding with us, he wrote outright slanders to the people in Frankfurt, who had been won over to the Swiss association, and he ordered them not to enter into any contacts whatsoever with London. For this he was immediately expelled from the League. Matters in Frankfurt were settled by an emissary from the League. It may be added that Bruhn’s activities on behalf of the Swiss Central Committee remained fruitless. The second agent, the student Schurz from Bonn, achieved nothing because, as he wrote to Zurich, he found that all the people of any use were already in the hands of the League. He then suddenly left Germany and is now hanging around Brussels and Paris, where he is being watched by the League. The Central Committee does not see this new association as a danger, particularly as a completely reliable member of the League is on the committee, with instructions to observe and report on the actions and plans of these people, in so far as they operate against the League. Furthermore, we have sent an emissary to Switzerland in order to recruit the people who will be of value to the League, with the help of the aforementioned League member, and in order to organize the League in Switzerland in general. This information is based on fully authentic documents.
Another attempt of a similar nature had already been made earlier by Struve, Sigel and others, at the time that they joined forces in Geneva. These people had no compunction about claiming quite flatly that the association they were attempting to found was the League, nor about using the names of League members for precisely this end. Of course, they deceived nobody with this lie. Their attempt was so fruitless in every respect that the few members of this abortive association who stayed in Switzerland eventually had to join the organization previously mentioned. But the more impotent this coterie became, the more it showed off with pretentious titles like the ‘Central Committee of European Democracy’ etc. Struve, together with a few other disappointed great men, has continued these attempts here in London. Manifestoes and appeals to join the ‘Central Bureau of German Refugees’ and the ‘Central Committee of European Democracy’ have been sent to all parts of Germany, but this time, too, without the least success.
The contacts which this coterie claims to have made with French and other non-German revolutionaries do not exist. Their whole activity is limited to a few petty intrigues among the German refugees here in London, which do not affect the League directly and which are harmless and easy to keep under surveillance. All these attempts have either the same purpose as the League, namely the revolutionary organization of the workers’ party, in which case they are undermining the centralization and strength of the party by fragmenting it and are therefore of a decidedly harmful, separatist character, or else they can only serve to misuse the workers’ party for purposes which are foreign or straightforwardly hostile to it. Under certain circumstances the workers’ party can profitably use other parties and groups for its own purposes, but it must not subordinate itself to any other party. Those people who were in government during the last movement, and used their position only to betray the movement and to crush the workers’ party were it tried to operate independently, must be kept at a distance at all costs.
The following is a report on the state of the League:
i. Belgium
The League’s organization among the Belgian workers, as it existed in 1846 and 1847, has naturally come to an end, since the leading members were arrested in 1848 and condemned to death, having their sentences commuted to life imprisonment with hard labour. In general, the League in Belgium has lost strength since the February revolution and since most of the members of the German Workers Association were driven out of Brussels. The police measures which have been introduced have prevented its reorganization. Nevertheless one commune in Brussels has carried on throughout; it is still in existence today and is functioning to the best of its ability.
ii. Germany
In this circular the Central Committee intended to submit a special report on the state of the League in Germany. However, this report can not be made at the present time, as the Prussian police are even now investigating an extensive network of contacts in the revolutionary party. This circular, which will reach Germany safely but which, of course, may here and there fall into the hands of the police while being distributed within Germany, must therefore be written so that its contents do not provide them with weapons which could be used against the League. The Central Committee will therefore confine itself, for the time being, to the following remarks:
In Germany the league has its main centres in Cologne, Frankfurt am Main, Hanau, Mainz, Wiesbaden, Hamburg, Schwerin, Berlin, Breslau, Liegnitz, Glogau, Leipzig, Nuremberg, Munich, Bamberg, Wurzburg, Stuttgart and Baden.
The following towns have been chosen as central districts: Hamburg for Schleswig-Holstein; Schwerin for Mecklenburg; Breslau for Silesia; Leipzig for Saxony and Berlin; Nuremberg for Bavaria, Cologne for the Rhineland and Westphalia. The communes in Gottingen, Stuttgart and Brussels will remain in direct contact with the Central Committee for the time being, until they have succeeded in widening their influence to the extent necessary to form new central districts.
A decision will not be made on the position of the League in Baden until the report has been received from the emissary sent there and to Switzerland.
Wherever peasant and agricultural workers’ association exist, as in Schleswig-Holstein and Mecklenburg, members of the League have succeeded in exercising a direct influence upon them and, in some cases, in gaining complete control. For the most part, the workers and agricultural workers’ associations in Saxony, Franconia, Hesse and Nassau are also under the leadership of the League. The most influential members of the Workers Brotherhood also belong to the League. The Central Committee wishes to point out to all communes and League members that it is of the utmost importance to win influence in the workers’, sports, peasants’ and agricultural workers’ associations, etc. everywhere. It requests the central districts and the communes corresponding directly with the Central Committee to give a special report in their subsequent letters on what has been achieved in this connection.
The emissary to Germany, who as received a vote of commendation from the Central Committee for his activities, has everywhere recruited only the most reliable people into the League and left the expansion of the League to their greater local knowledge. It will depend upon the local situation whether convinced revolutionaries can be enlisted. Where this is not possible a second class of League members must be created for those people who are reliable and make useful revolutionaries but who do not yet understand the full communist implications of the present movement. This second class, to whom the association must be represented as a merely local or regional affair, must remain under the continuous leadership of actual League members and committees. With the help of these further contacts the League’s influence on the peasants’ and sports associations in particular can be very firmly organized. Detailed arrangements are left to the central districts; the Central Committee hopes to receive their reports on these matters, too, as soon as possible.
One commune has proposed to the Central Committee that a Congress of the League be convened, indeed in German itself. The communes and districts will certainly appreciate that under the present circumstances even regional congresses of the central districts are not everywhere advisable, and that a general Congress of the League at this moment is a sheer impossibility. However, the Central Committee will convene a Congress of the Communist League in a suitable place just as soon as circumstances allow. Prussian Rhineland and Westphalia recently received a visit from an emissary of the Cologne central district. The report on the result of this trip has not yet reached Cologne. We request all central districts to send similar emissaries round their regions and to report on their success as soon as possible. Finally we should like to report that in Schleswig-Holstein, contacts have been established with the army: we are still awaiting the more detailed report on the influence which the League can hope to gain here.
iii. Switzerland
The report of the emissary is still being awaited. it will therefore not be possible to provide more exact information until the next circular.
iv. France
Contacts with the German workers in Besancon and other places in the Jura will be re-established from Switzerland. In Paris Ewerbeck, the League member who has been up till now at the head of the commune there, has announced his resignation from the League, as he considers his literary activities to be more important. Contact has therefore been interrupted for the present and must be resumed with particular caution, as the Parisians have enlisted a large number of people who are absolutely unfitted for the League and who were formerly even directly opposed to it.
v. England
The London district is the strongest in the whole League. It has earned particular credit by covering single-handedly the League’s expenses for several years — in particular those for the journeys of the League’s emissaries. It has been strengthened recently by the recruitment of new elements and it continues to lead the German Workers Educational Association here, as well as the more resolute section of the German refugees in England.
The Central Committee is in touch with the decisively revolutionary parties of the French, English and Hungarians by way of members delegated for this purpose.
Of all the parties involved in the French revolution it is in particular the genuine proletarian party headed by Blanqui which has joined us. The delegates of the Blanquist secret society are in regular and official contact with the delegates of the League, to whom they have entrusted important preparatory work for the next revolution.
The leaders of the revolutionary wing of the Chartists are also in regular and close contact with the delegates of the Central Committee. Their journals are being made available to us. The break between this revolutionary, independent workers’ party and the faction headed by O'Connor, which tends more towards a policy of reconciliation, has been considerably accelerated by the delegates of the League.
The Central Committee is similarly in contact with the most progressive section of the Hungarian refugees. This party is important because it includes many excellent military experts, who would be at the League’s disposal in the event of revolution.
The Central Committee requests the central districts to distribute this letter among their members as soon as possible and to submit their own reports soon. It urges all League members to the most intense activity, especially now that the situation has become so critical that it cannot be long before another revolution breaks out.
transcribed by gearhart@ccsn.edu
From The Pen Of Joshua Lawrence Breslin- Peter Paul Markin’s Stew
Jesus, Peter Paul Markin was in a fine stew. I had, over the part forty plus years that I have known him since we first met on a Russian Hill park in San Francisco during the Summer of Love, 1967, seen him in a dither on many occasions, most not worthy of discussion , or mention, but this was different. This was one of those furies that might not past, especially since it involved his very essence as he called it. A few weeks back on one lonely night he called me up and said he wanted to talk, talk seriously, which tipped me off that I was in for an earful. Later that night at the Surfside Bar over on Main in Ocean City after a few preliminary drinks he let go. For the next two or so hours he, calmly mostly, ran through his life time of grievances, tics, weird allusions and just plain funk. I tried to take notes as I as is my wont in these infrequent tirades but I make no claim that I got everything right. Here is the gist of his complaint.
First off Peter Paul Markin said he was tired, tired of remembering and writing about remembering. On the top of that list was remembering writing and remembering, fatally remembering, those femme fatales that he was addicted to watching on old time black and white film noir flicks. He spoke of the addiction like it was a curse that befell him and that he, and he alone, needed to clear the memories of those ancient females who did what they had to do, come hell or high water. See, he said, in those days, and maybe now too although frails (women in his old-time corner boy remembrance Billie Bradley working class Adamsville, Ma. projects days term) have their own dough more now, a woman had to look out for herself, especially working women who it didn’t take much to put on cheap street and so they had to take the main chance when they got it. Especially good- looking frills (another Billie-ism, okay) who maybe didn’t finish high school, maybe were faced with serving them off the arm in some cheap jack hash house, maybe charging a dime a dance in some clip joint, or maybe just avoiding the boss’passes while taking dictation in some seventh floor seedy run down office building but who had, well, had looks, and a certain way of carrying herself, but mainly the scent, that scent that told every guy, rich or poor, that here comes trouble and what are you going to do about it.
Naturally when old Pee-Pee (his nickname from those Billie day neighborhoods) got into second gear about femme fatales he (and I) knew that the subject of one Jane Greer would come up. I braced myself although I too could have recited the story he would relate chapter and verse. See I had seen (at his suggestion) Jane Greer in the 1946 classic Old Of The Past although he conveniently forgot that hard fact when he was in the stews. Of course Ms. Greer’s dilemma touched old Pee-Pee’s larcenous heart. Seemed that hard pressed working girl Jane (if you want to cut to the chase here and look the story up at its Wikipedia entry feel free to do so and as well get the character names because I am using their acting names here) was just the slightest bit trigger happy and put a slug in her sugar daddy, one Kirk Douglas. She split but not without taking a fistful of his dough (Pee-Pee loved that part, the “for services rendered” part).
Naturally one sugar daddy, one connected don, did not get, or keep, his sugar by being a patsy, especially not to some twisted gunsel dame. So he hired gumshoe Robert Mitchum (and his partner) to get the damn dough, and bring milady back into the fold . And so the chase was on, well, almost was on because once old Robert got a look at her down in some dusty old Mexican cantina, no, got a whiff of that gardenia , or whatever perfume, even before she came through the door he knew he was hooked. Hooked by a femmejust as bad as a man can be hooked. So they ran away and lived happily ever after. Right?
No way. You forgot about Kirk and his little sense of manhood, and maybe Jane and her wants to. He sent the gumshoe partner off to get this pair and he does finally find them. Except then Jane’s little problem with guns came back into play. Boom, boom dead partner and she skipped town letting Robert play the fall guy, or at least a prime candidate for that distinction. But all comes out well in the end, the noir end. Jane found her way, as a struggling girl must, back to Kirk, Kirk accidently found out where Robert was holing up, they have a powwow and Jane in one last gallant act shot Kirk in order to run away with Robert. But dear Robert had by then learned a lesson or two in life, kind of, and so he crossed up the deal. Jane in one last blaze of glory puts a couple in Robert for double-crossing her. In the end all three are RIP. What a woman Pee-Pee said almost in a sacred whisper before stating that, hell, he had told that story seventeen different ways and enough was enough. Yah, the stews.
Almost enough that is. Before I could get a yah in edgewise he was off on another femme binge this time whimpering about Miss Lana Turner , damn Miss Turner, who played some California (by way of Okie/Arkie dust bowl beginnings) tramp who picked up some gabacho old guy and who was serving them off the arm at his seaside diner when Mister John Garfield went left instead of right at the stop where he was left off by some hobo-saving trucker in The Postman Always Rings Twice. When our boy John saw her coming through the door, all dressed in white and ready, ready for anything, and started licking his chops he was doomed just like probably ten million Lana guys before him. Yes Lana had seen the dark side of life and she wanted her’s, wanted it all. And John bought into her dreams, or maybe just that jasmine scent that kept him awake every night until, well, just until, I told you he was hooked, hooked as bad as a man could be hooked, maybe even worst that Robert Mitchum. Jesus. So when dear Lana suggested that all that stood between them and happiness was old hubby the plan was hatched, hatched to perfection.
Except don’t trust amateurs in the murder racket. This pair screwed up about six- way to Sunday, screwed it up so bad that it was only just when the deal went down that Frank, Frank was left alone to take the rap. Taking the rap and begging for long gone Lana’s smile up in some death row prison cell. The way Pee-Pee told it though was like Lana was some Madonna of the streets, some virginal vestige of all the bad that could happen to a woman and so she needed, more, she was entitled, to grab, and grab hard for whatever small solace she could dig out of this wicked old world. But Pee-Pee yelled, one of his very few eruptions that, he had done that story about eighteen different ways and while Lana, and her ilk, deserved better that is the way that kind of story went. Basta,
So finally he was done with the femme tale stuff, right? No, no way he still had the trifecta to complete, the ankle bracklet story. Well that ankle bracklet doesn’t play much of a part in the story but that is what Pee-Pee always called it when he cornered somebody long enough to tell this tale this Double Indemnity plot line and how poor Barbara Standwyck really did get the short end of the stick when all was said and done. Barbara needed dough, well she just needed dough, don’t ask the reason maybe just some depraved childhood or something. But what she really needed was a guy who could do some heavy lifting, was ready to jump hoops for her, and like it. Enter one Fred MacMurray who once he got a load of the ankle bracklet and looked up he was hooked, need I say it, hooked as bad as a man could be hooked and still breath. See Fred sold insurance, life insurance, with nice little riders for double indemnity in case of some accidental death, like falling off the club car of a slow-moving train fell from the sky. Manna, pure manna. So Fred and Barbara were going to be on easy street after this little caper, no problems. Problem is the insurance company that Fred works for has a tenacious fraud investigator, Edward G. Robinson (more frequently seen working the bang-bang bad guy, guys like mobbed-up Johnny Rico in Key Largo) who almost fouls the plan up except the pair start distrusting each other and save him the trouble by shooting each other up, bang, bang. Yes, Barbara was a queen-sized femme maybe having had a hand in off-handedly knocking off hubby’s first wife to get to the prize and then tripping up poor Fred. But that crime doesn’t pay thing Pee-Pee complained had been done by him about nineteen different ways before. Enough of femmes, enough of driving guys crazy perfumes (or ankle bracelets for that matter), and enough of guys trying figure them out. Including Pee-Pee.
With those several mouthfuls you would have thought that Pee-Pee had exhausted his venomous ways. No, not by a long shot. Once he had gotten film noirqueens out of the way he was just getting up to speed. I will spare the reader a little eyesight though and summarize that he went through just about every frill that had done him wrong since about childhood, some bath soap thing named Rosalind, some perfumed pre-teen named Maria, a couple of college girls who sounded to me like they were just doing it as a lark, more south of the border senorita failed drug deal stuff, and about six others that even I couldn’t keep straight by the time the tirade ended. He even brought in Butterfly Swirl, a Botticelli girl that I had “stolen” from him out in San Francisco back in the ‘60s. Then he finished up, finished up classic Pee-Pee, with this beauty- “What’s a guy to do when that scent gets to a man” What, indeed. Jesus, the stews.
From The Pen Of Joshua Lawrence Breslin- Reflections On A Birth Of Rock And Roll Night. #3
Click on the headline to link to a YouTube film clip of Bill Haley and The Comets performing a rock national anthem, Rock Around The Clock.
CD Review
The Golden Age Of Rock ‘n’Roll:1953-63, Volume 2, various artists, Ace Records, 1993
Rock and roll was (is) big, sweaty cities, hot time summertime and the living is easy cities, New York-sized outlandish cities, be-bop cities, kids sitting around Washington Square, Central Park, Union Square, name your square or be square, be-bopping away, waiting, waiting impatiently, waiting out of their shoes impatiently for the big freeze red scare cold war night to turn warm and provide some fresh air to breath, to breath a not parentcoppriestteacherauthority, not air raid shelter, head down, ass up breathe. Clapping hands by twos and threes as some bopping horn, or better sax, always sax wails, whales, wales, away with that big beat, beat down, beat around, beat six ways to Sunday (the day exactly), some guitar riff out of Les Paul or some jazz Charlie Christian saint, trying to make sense of that off-beat Bill Haley and the Comets Rock Around The Clock beat that framed, hell, beat to hell that Asphalt Jungle movie seen down at the Majestic on that cool off Saturday popcorn afternoon. Stag (stag, meaning no girl not solo but with full corner boy regiment), later, intermission later, seeing she, Public School 63 sweet Madonna and then to Eddie Cochran Sitting in the Balcony, Zooey (not frozen Irish Madonna thank god but not caring not caring a fig just following that bath soap, could it be perfume smell that has hooked guys since, well. Adam), and off to private upstairs balcony screening. Later, maybe four o’clock later, strolling (got to learn how to get the hang of that damn thing, the stroll, if you want to hang on to Zooey, boy) off to Schrafft’s corner lunchroom and quarters for jukebox, endless cadges; play this and that six, twelve, infinite times. And our father, Elvis, Elvis, all shakes, shiver, making girls, making Zooey (he heard) sweat (and Zooey, cool bathsoap smell Zooey does not sweat even in sweaty New York cities) and do things up in cloistered rooms (so he heard) when they (boys they in case you didn’t figure that out) ran Mr. Sam’s ragged looking for just the right look, and old Mr. Mack too benefited selling combs, gels, and six other things, except correctives for two left feet.
Rock was (is) small Podunk towns, every boy knows every girl (and maybe desires each too although that would cause a scandal in monogamous protestant-driven podunk), small , sweaty towns and villages, hell, one street main street crossroads down in Texas, pass throughs for Greyhound buses and oil tankers, summertime and the living is easy crossroads, Podunk outlandishly named towns, Boise, Helena, Ponticello, Big Sur (before the invasion), Olde Saco filled with French-Canadian boys calling out the songs in patois French (no Arcadia here), be-bop (okay, half be-bop towns, dusty old towns soon, how soon, to be de-populated by every boy and girl and off to the big sweaty rock and roll cities). Kids sitting around the village green, the fourth of july bandstand, the monument to the civil war, maybe on ocean edge towns down some salty beach, be-bopping away, waiting, waiting just like big sweaty city waiting, for the big freeze red scare cold war night to turn warm and provide some fresh air to breath to breath a not parentcoppriestteacherauthority, not air raid shelter (or under old time mahogany inkwell desks for real Podunk towns), head down, ass up breathe. Clapping hands by twos and threes as some bopping horn, or better sax, always sax wails, whales, wales, away with that big beat, beat down, beat around, beat six ways to Sunday (the day exactly), some guitar riff out of Les Paul or some jazz Charlie Christian saint, trying to make sense of that off-beat Bill Haley and the Comets Rock Around The Clock beat that framed, hell, beat to hell out of that Asphalt Jungle movie seen down at the Bijou (imitation big city Majestic, really doubling for Sunday morning pancake socials too), on that cool off Saturday popcorn (popcorn addicted same as in sweaty cities) afternoon. Stag (ditto, cities, maybe corner boys, maybe no), but later, intermission later, seeing she, Olde Saco South Junior High School, for example, (no blank big city Public School X number here) sweet Madonna (same as big city on that) and then to Eddie Cochran Sitting in the Balcony, Betty (or Jane, Mary, nothing as exotic as city, city Zooey and off to private upstairs balcony screening. Later, maybe four o’clock later, strolling (got to learn how to get the hang of that damn thing, the stroll, if you want to hang on to BettyJane Mary, boy) off to Doc’s corner drugstore and quarters for jukebox, endless cadges, play this and that six, twelve, infinite times. And our father, Elvis, Elvis, all shakes, shiver, making girls, making Betty (he heard) sweat (and Betty, Zooey-like, cool Betty does not sweat even in sweaty summer midday corn-picking fields) and do things, universal do things, private girl things, up in cloistered rooms (so he heard) when they (boys they in case you didn’t figure that out) ran the Sears catalogue (and Ma) ragged looking for just the right look, and old Doc and his fuddy-duddy drugstore with odd medicines for sick people what-a- drag- to- be-old-and-it- ain’t- never- going- to- come- to- that- for- me benefited selling combs, gels, and six other things, except correctives for two left feet.
Rock was (is)… And thus this compilation.
From The Pen Of Joshua Lawrence Breslin- Reflections On A Birth Of Rock And Roll Night. #2
Click on the headline to link to a YouTube film clip of Bill Haley and The Comets performing a rock national anthem, Rock Around The Clock.
CD Review
The Golden Age Of Rock ‘n’Roll:1953-63, Volume 8, various artists, Ace Records, 1993
Rock and roll was (is) big, sweaty cities, hot time summertime and the living is easy cities, New York outlandish cities, be-bop cities, kids sitting around Washington Square, Central Park, Union Square, name your square or be square, be-bopping away, waiting, waiting impatiently, waiting out of their shoes impatiently for the big freeze red scare cold war night to turn warm and provide some fresh air to breath, to breath a not parentcoppriestteacherauthority, not air raid shelter, head down, ass up breathe. Clapping hands by twos and threes as some bopping horn, or better sax, always sax wails, whales, wales, away with that big beat, beat down, beat around, beat six ways to Sunday (the day exactly), some guitar riff out of Les Paul or some jazz Charlie Christian saint, trying to make sense of that off-beat Bill Haley and the Comets Rock Around The Clock beat that framed, hell, beat to hell that Asphalt Jungle movie seen down at the Majestic on that cool off Saturday popcorn afternoon. Stag (stag, meaning no girl not solo but with full corner boy regiment), later, intermission later, seeing she, Public School 63 sweet Madonna and then to Eddie Cochran Sitting in the Balcony, Zooey (not frozen Irish Madonna thank god but not caring not caring a fig just following that bath soap, could it be perfume smell that has hooked guys since, well. Adam), and off to private upstairs balcony screening. Later, maybe four o’clock later, strolling (got to learn how to get the hang of that damn thing, the stroll, if you want to hang on to Zooey, boy) off to Schrafft’s corner lunchroom and quarters for jukebox, endless cadges; play this and that six, twelve, infinite times. And our father, Elvis, Elvis, all shakes, shiver, making girls, making Zooey (he heard) sweat (and Zooey, cool bathsoap smell Zooey does not sweat even in sweaty New York cities) and do things up in cloistered rooms (so he heard) when they (boys they in case you didn’t figure that out) ran Mr. Sam’s ragged looking for just the right look, and old Mr. Mack too benefited selling combs, gels, and six other things, except correctives for two left feet.
Rock was (is) small Podunk towns, every boy knows every girl (and maybe desires each too although that would cause a scandal in monogamous protestant-driven podunk), small , sweaty towns and villages, hell, one street main street crossroads down in Texas, pass throughs for Greyhound buses and oil tankers, summertime and the living is easy crossroads, Podunk outlandishly named towns, Boise, Helena, Ponticello, Big Sur (before the invasion), Olde Saco filled with French-Canadian boys calling out the songs in patois French (no Arcadia here), be-bop (okay, half be-bop towns, dusty old towns soon, how soon, to be de-populated by every boy and girl and off to the big sweaty rock and roll cities). Kids sitting around the village green, the fourth of july bandstand, the monument to the civil war, maybe on ocean edge towns down some salty beach, be-bopping away, waiting, waiting just like big sweaty city waiting, for the big freeze red scare cold war night to turn warm and provide some fresh air to breath to breath a not parentcoppriestteacherauthority, not air raid shelter (or under old time mahogany inkwell desks for real Podunk towns), head down, ass up breathe. Clapping hands by twos and threes as some bopping horn, or better sax, always sax wails, whales, wales, away with that big beat, beat down, beat around, beat six ways to Sunday (the day exactly), some guitar riff out of Les Paul or some jazz Charlie Christian saint, trying to make sense of that off-beat Bill Haley and the Comets Rock Around The Clock beat that framed, hell, beat to hell out of that Asphalt Jungle movie seen down at the Bijou (imitation big city Majestic, really doubling for Sunday morning pancake socials too), on that cool off Saturday popcorn (popcorn addicted same as in sweaty cities) afternoon. Stag (ditto, cities, maybe corner boys, maybe no), but later, intermission later, seeing she, Olde Saco South Junior High School, for example, (no blank big city Public School X number here) sweet Madonna (same as big city on that) and then to Eddie Cochran Sitting in the Balcony, Betty (or Jane, Mary, nothing as exotic as city, city Zooey and off to private upstairs balcony screening. Later, maybe four o’clock later, strolling (got to learn how to get the hang of that damn thing, the stroll, if you want to hang on to BettyJane Mary, boy) off to Doc’s corner drugstore and quarters for jukebox, endless cadges, play this and that six, twelve, infinite times. And our father, Elvis, Elvis, all shakes, shiver, making girls, making Betty (he heard) sweat (and Betty, Zooey-like, cool Betty does not sweat even in sweaty summer midday corn-picking fields) and do things, universal do things, private girl things, up in cloistered rooms (so he heard) when they (boys they in case you didn’t figure that out) ran the Sears catalogue (and Ma) ragged looking for just the right look, and old Doc and his fuddy-duddy drugstore with odd medicines for sick people what-a- drag- to- be-old-and-it- ain’t- never- going- to- come- to- that- for- me benefited selling combs, gels, and six other things, except correctives for two left feet.
Rock was (is)… And thus this compilation.
From The Pen Of Joshua Lawrence Breslin- Reflections On A Birth Of Rock And Roll Night. #1
From The Pen Of Joshua
Lawrence Breslin- Reflections On A Birth Of Rock And Roll Night.
Click on the headline to link to a YouTube film clip of Bill Haley and The
Comets performing a rock national anthem, Rock
Around The Clock.
The Golden Age Of Rock ‘n’Roll:1953-63, Volume 9,
various artists, Ace Records, 2001
Rock and roll was (is) big,
sweaty cities, hot time summertime and the living is easy cities, New York
outlandish cities, be-bop cities, kids sitting around Washington Square,
Central Park, Union Square, name your square or be square, be-bopping away, waiting, waiting
impatiently, waiting out of their shoes impatiently for the big freeze red
scare cold war night to turn warm and
provide some fresh air to breath, to breath a not
parentcoppriestteacherauthority, not air raid shelter, head down, ass up
breathe. Clapping hands by twos and threes as some bopping horn, or better sax,
always sax wails, whales, wales, away with that big beat, beat down, beat
around, beat six ways to Sunday (the day exactly), some guitar riff out of Les
Paul or some jazz Charlie Christian saint, trying to make sense of that
off-beat Bill Haley and the Comets Rock
Around The Clock beat that framed, hell, beat to hell that Asphalt Jungle movie seen down at the
Majestic on that cool off Saturday popcorn afternoon. Stag (stag, meaning no
girl not solo but with full corner boy regiment), later, intermission later,
seeing she, Public School 63 sweet Madonna and then to Eddie Cochran Sitting in the Balcony, Zooey (not frozen
Irish Madonna thank god but not caring not caring a fig just following that bath
soap, could it be perfume smell that has hooked guys since, well. Adam), and
off to private upstairs balcony screening. Later, maybe four o’clock later,
strolling (got to learn how to get the hang of that damn thing, the stroll, if
you want to hang on to Zooey, boy) off to Schrafft’s corner lunchroom and
quarters for jukebox, endless cadges; play this and that six, twelve, infinite
times. And our father, Elvis, Elvis, all shakes, shiver, making girls, making Zooey
(he heard) sweat (and Zooey, cool bathsoap
smell Zooey does not sweat even in sweaty New York cities) and do things up in
cloistered rooms (so he heard) when they (boys they in case you didn’t figure
that out) ran Mr. Sam’s ragged looking for just the right look, and old Mr.
Mack too benefited selling combs, gels, and six other things, except
correctives for two left feet.
Rock was (is) small Podunk
towns, every boy knows every girl (and maybe desires each too although that
would cause a scandal in monogamous protestant-driven podunk), small , sweaty
towns and villages, hell, one street main street crossroads down in Texas, pass
throughs for Greyhound buses and oil tankers, summertime and the living is easy
crossroads, Podunk outlandishly named towns, Boise, Helena, Ponticello, Big Sur
(before the invasion), Olde Saco filled with French-Canadian boys calling out
the songs in patois French (no Arcadia here), be-bop (okay, half be-bop towns, dusty old towns soon, how soon,
to be de-populated by every boy and girl and off to the big sweaty rock and
roll cities). Kids sitting around the village green, the fourth of july
bandstand, the monument to the civil war, maybe on ocean edge towns down some
salty beach, be-bopping away, waiting, waiting just like big sweaty city waiting,
for the big freeze red scare cold war night to turn warm and provide some fresh
air to breath to breath a not parentcoppriestteacherauthority, not air raid
shelter (or under old time mahogany inkwell desks for real Podunk towns), head
down, ass up breathe. Clapping hands by twos and threes as some bopping horn,
or better sax, always sax wails, whales, wales, away with that big beat, beat
down, beat around, beat six ways to Sunday (the day exactly), some guitar riff
out of Les Paul or some jazz Charlie Christian saint, trying to make sense of
that off-beat Bill Haley and the Comets Rock
Around The Clock beat that framed, hell, beat to hell out of that Asphalt Jungle movie seen down at the Bijou
(imitation big city Majestic, really doubling for Sunday morning pancake
socials too), on that cool off Saturday popcorn (popcorn addicted same as in
sweaty cities) afternoon. Stag (ditto, cities, maybe corner boys, maybe no),
but later, intermission later, seeing she, Olde Saco South Junior High School,
for example, (no blank big city Public School X number here) sweet Madonna (same
as big city on that) and then to Eddie Cochran Sitting in the Balcony, Betty (or Jane, Mary, nothing as exotic as
city, city Zooey and off to private upstairs balcony screening. Later, maybe
four o’clock later, strolling (got to learn how to get the hang of that damn
thing, the stroll, if you want to hang on to BettyJane Mary, boy) off to Doc’s
corner drugstore and quarters for jukebox, endless cadges, play this and that
six, twelve, infinite times. And our father, Elvis, Elvis, all shakes, shiver,
making girls, making Betty (he heard) sweat (and Betty, Zooey-like, cool Betty does
not sweat even in sweaty summer midday corn-picking fields) and do things,
universal do things, private girl things, up in cloistered rooms (so he heard)
when they (boys they in case you didn’t figure that out) ran the Sears
catalogue (and Ma) ragged looking for just the right look, and old Doc and his
fuddy-duddy drugstore with odd medicines for sick people what-a- drag- to- be-old-and-
it- ain’t- never- going- to- come- to- that- for- me benefited selling combs, gels, and six other
things, except correctives for two left feet.
Rock was (is)… And thus this
compilation.
From The Pen Of Joshua Lawrence Breslin- Reflections On A Birth Of Rock And Roll Night.#1
Click on the headline to link to a YouTube film clip of Bill Haley and The Comets performing a rock national anthem, Rock Around The Clock.
The Golden Age Of Rock ‘n’Roll:1953-63, Volume 9, various artists, Ace Records, 2001
Rock and roll was (is) big, sweaty cities, hot time summertime and the living is easy cities, New York outlandish cities, be-bop cities, kids sitting around Washington Square, Central Park, Union Square, name your square or be square, be-bopping away, waiting, waiting impatiently, waiting out of their shoes impatiently for the big freeze red scare cold war night to turn warm and provide some fresh air to breath, to breath a not parentcoppriestteacherauthority, not air raid shelter, head down, ass up breathe. Clapping hands by twos and threes as some bopping horn, or better sax, always sax wails, whales, wales, away with that big beat, beat down, beat around, beat six ways to Sunday (the day exactly), some guitar riff out of Les Paul or some jazz Charlie Christian saint, trying to make sense of that off-beat Bill Haley and the Comets Rock Around The Clock beat that framed, hell, beat to hell that Asphalt Jungle movie seen down at the Majestic on that cool off Saturday popcorn afternoon. Stag (stag, meaning no girl not solo but with full corner boy regiment), later, intermission later, seeing she, Public School 63 sweet Madonna and then to Eddie Cochran Sitting in the Balcony, Zooey (not frozen Irish Madonna thank god but not caring not caring a fig just following that bath soap, could it be perfume smell that has hooked guys since, well. Adam), and off to private upstairs balcony screening. Later, maybe four o’clock later, strolling (got to learn how to get the hang of that damn thing, the stroll, if you want to hang on to Zooey, boy) off to Schrafft’s corner lunchroom and quarters for jukebox, endless cadges; play this and that six, twelve, infinite times. And our father, Elvis, Elvis, all shakes, shiver, making girls, making Zooey (he heard) sweat (and Zooey, cool bathsoap smell Zooey does not sweat even in sweaty New York cities) and do things up in cloistered rooms (so he heard) when they (boys they in case you didn’t figure that out) ran Mr. Sam’s ragged looking for just the right look, and old Mr. Mack too benefited selling combs, gels, and six other things, except correctives for two left feet.
Rock was (is) small Podunk towns, every boy knows every girl (and maybe desires each too although that would cause a scandal in monogamous protestant-driven podunk), small , sweaty towns and villages, hell, one street main street crossroads down in Texas, pass throughs for Greyhound buses and oil tankers, summertime and the living is easy crossroads, Podunk outlandishly named towns, Boise, Helena, Ponticello, Big Sur (before the invasion), Olde Saco filled with French-Canadian boys calling out the songs in patois French (no Arcadia here), be-bop (okay, half be-bop towns, dusty old towns soon, how soon, to be de-populated by every boy and girl and off to the big sweaty rock and roll cities). Kids sitting around the village green, the fourth of july bandstand, the monument to the civil war, maybe on ocean edge towns down some salty beach, be-bopping away, waiting, waiting just like big sweaty city waiting, for the big freeze red scare cold war night to turn warm and provide some fresh air to breath to breath a not parentcoppriestteacherauthority, not air raid shelter (or under old time mahogany inkwell desks for real Podunk towns), head down, ass up breathe. Clapping hands by twos and threes as some bopping horn, or better sax, always sax wails, whales, wales, away with that big beat, beat down, beat around, beat six ways to Sunday (the day exactly), some guitar riff out of Les Paul or some jazz Charlie Christian saint, trying to make sense of that off-beat Bill Haley and the Comets Rock Around The Clock beat that framed, hell, beat to hell out of that Asphalt Jungle movie seen down at the Bijou (imitation big city Majestic, really doubling for Sunday morning pancake socials too), on that cool off Saturday popcorn (popcorn addicted same as in sweaty cities) afternoon. Stag (ditto, cities, maybe corner boys, maybe no), but later, intermission later, seeing she, Olde Saco South Junior High School, for example, (no blank big city Public School X number here) sweet Madonna (same as big city on that) and then to Eddie Cochran Sitting in the Balcony, Betty (or Jane, Mary, nothing as exotic as city, city Zooey and off to private upstairs balcony screening. Later, maybe four o’clock later, strolling (got to learn how to get the hang of that damn thing, the stroll, if you want to hang on to BettyJane Mary, boy) off to Doc’s corner drugstore and quarters for jukebox, endless cadges, play this and that six, twelve, infinite times. And our father, Elvis, Elvis, all shakes, shiver, making girls, making Betty (he heard) sweat (and Betty, Zooey-like, cool Betty does not sweat even in sweaty summer midday corn-picking fields) and do things, universal do things, private girl things, up in cloistered rooms (so he heard) when they (boys they in case you didn’t figure that out) ran the Sears catalogue (and Ma) ragged looking for just the right look, and old Doc and his fuddy-duddy drugstore with odd medicines for sick people what-a- drag- to- be-old-and-it- ain’t- never- going- to- come- to- that- for- me benefited selling combs, gels, and six other things, except correctives for two left feet.
Rock was (is)… And thus this compilation.
Bush/Obama and the Bank Bailout
|
Workers Vanguard No. 1011
|
26 October 2012
|
Bush/Obama and the Bank Bailout
During the 2008 election campaign, we called Barack Obama a “Wall
Street Democrat” when the bulk of the left was openly or backhandedly pushing
his candidacy. During the intervening four years, Obama has amply confirmed our
characterization. Nevertheless, right-wing demagogues like Rush Limbaugh and
Glenn Beck castigate Obama as a “socialist,” and Mitt Romney and other
Republican politicians denounce him as “anti-business.” On the other side, some
leading Democrats are using pseudo-populist rhetoric in attacking the
Republicans for favoring the rich. At the Democratic National Convention, Vice
President Joseph Biden lambasted the GOP for opposing “even one dollar—one
cent—in new taxes for millionaires.” Elizabeth Warren, the Democratic Senatorial
candidate in Massachusetts and a hero in liberal circles, declaimed:
“Republicans say they don’t believe in government. Sure they do. They believe in
government to help themselves and their powerful friends.”
In reality, the Obama administration has been just as subservient
to Wall Street bankers as its Republican predecessor. That reality is described
in a factually detailed, firsthand account: Neil Barofsky’s Bailout: An
Inside Account of How Washington Abandoned Main Street While Rescuing Wall
Street (Free Press, 2012). Barofsky is the former Special Inspector General
for the bank bailout program, initially called TARP (Troubled Asset Relief
Program). His efforts to impose somewhat more stringent conditions on the banks
receiving hundreds of billions in government money—greater transparency, limits
on executive pay—were continually opposed and obstructed by Obama’s treasury
secretary, Timothy Geithner, and his cohorts. With the fervor of the newly
enlightened, Barofsky exclaims:
“I had no idea that the U.S. government had been captured by the
banks and that those running the bailout program I’d be charged with overseeing
would come from the very same institutions that both helped cause the crisis and
became the beneficiaries of the generous terms of the bailout.”
As a liberal, Barofsky believes that the U.S. government can and
should serve the interests of the American people even at the expense of Wall
Street. His assertion that the government “had been captured by the banks”
implies that this was a relatively recent development, a notion currently
widespread among liberals and reinforced by many reformist “socialists” who have
cheered on the populist Occupy movement. However, as Karl Marx and Friedrich
Engels stated in the Communist Manifesto over 150 years ago: “The
executive of the modern State is but a committee for managing the common affairs
of the whole bourgeoisie.” In capitalism’s imperialist epoch, which emerged in
the late 19th century, the bourgeoisie as a whole is dominated by the lords of
finance.
The financial abuses that concern Barofsky are but a small aspect
of the system of exploitation, immiseration and oppression that is capitalism.
Even if all of the policies advocated by him had been implemented and strictly
enforced, they would have had little effect on the worsening conditions of the
working class and poor amid the deepest and most prolonged global economic
downturn since the Great Depression of the 1930s. Here one can clearly see the
destructive irrationality of the capitalist system. To overthrow that system and
with it the political rule of the bourgeoisie, under both the Democrats and
Republicans, requires a social revolution carried out by the working class
allied with the impoverished black and Latino masses, establishing a workers
government. Such a government would expropriate the productive wealth now in the
hands of the capitalist class and establish a planned socialist economy, one
based on meeting social needs, not maximizing private profit.
The Bipartisan Financial Elite
When the financial crisis hit Wall Street in the fall of 2008,
Barofsky was a senior federal prosecutor, specializing in mortgage fraud, at the
office of the U.S. Attorney in New York City. He was then offered the job of
“SIGTARP,” special inspector general of the newly established TARP, by the
outgoing Bush administration. Barofsky was surprised that as a known Obama
supporter he was selected by this right-wing Republican administration for a
supposedly important financial post.
In its own way, Barofsky’s appointment illustrates how the two
capitalist parties, despite their sometimes heated rhetorical exchanges,
collaborate when the vital interests of the capitalist ruling class are at
stake. Bush’s treasury secretary, Hank Paulson, a former CEO of Goldman Sachs
(the country’s premier investment bank), needed support for the bailout from the
then Democratic majority of the House of Representatives and Senate. He was
willing to pay a small political price by making one of their own the program’s
“watchdog.” As it happened, this particular “watchdog” was rendered toothless by
the subsequent Obama administration.
The top government financial officials, under both Republican and
Democratic presidents, are mainly drawn from the same small pool of the Wall
Street elite. A good example was Barofsky’s immediate boss, Herb Allison, head
of TARP under Obama. A former CEO of Merrill Lynch, he was brought to Washington
by Paulson during the financial crisis in late 2008 and made head of Fannie Mae.
A giant government-sponsored corporation involved in mortgage finance, Fannie
Mae was effectively nationalized to prevent it from going bankrupt. When the
Obama team took over, they retained Allison, shifting him to another component
of the government’s bailout of finance capital.
In his own naive way, Barofsky reveals the cynical manipulation of
public opinion by the Democrats as well as Republicans. After Obama was elected
but before he took office in January 2009, his main economic point man, Lawrence
Summers, urged Congress to release the second $350 billion cache of the TARP
funds. In doing so he said that the new administration would impose tougher
conditions on the recipient banks. Barofsky recounts a conversation at the time
with Neel Kashkari (also a Goldman alumnus), who was head of TARP in the
lame-duck Bush administration:
“Kashkari dismissed the point, saying ‘Those new conditions are
purely political. And I strongly suspect, even if they’re adopted, the new
administration may not want you looking too closely at them.’ I was somewhat
surprised that Kashkari was essentially accusing his incoming bosses of making
false promises to Congress just to get their hands on the second cache of TARP
funds. But he was ultimately correct; those ‘commitments’ never saw the light of
day.”
Barofsky implicitly assumes that unlike the cynical Republican
financial operative Kashkari many members of Congress, presumably mainly
Democrats, were taken in by Summers’ “false promises.” They really weren’t that
gullible. The main thing driving Obama’s men was to dampen popular opposition to
and even outrage over the bailout of the bankers amid increasing immiseration
for working people.
Barofsky looked forward to the new administration only to be
bitterly disappointed by the replacement of the Republican Paulson by Democrat
Timothy Geithner: “Whereas Paulson appeared to view SIGTARP as a potential ally
that could help protect TARP and enhance its credibility, Geithner was utterly
dismissive.” Geithner is another example of the bipartisan character of the
financial elite. A career government functionary, Geithner started out at a
think tank established by Henry Kissinger, a major Republican power broker. He
then became a protégé of Summers, who served as an economic consigliere in the
Clinton administration in the 1990s. Under Bush II, Geithner was president of
the New York branch of the Federal Reserve (U.S. central bank). Along with
Paulson and Fed chairman Ben Bernanke, he initiated and organized the massive
bank bailout.
An early instance of Barofsky’s disillusionment with Geithner’s
Treasury Department concerned executive pay for the bailed-out firms. An
especially egregious case was that of AIG (American International Group). A
global insurance giant, AIG was a major provider of so-called credit default
swaps (CDSs), a kind of insurance against the default of various types of bonds.
When the financial crisis hit, AIG could not pay off the hundreds of billions it
contractually owed to Goldman, JPMorgan, Deutsche Bank and other banks that had
purchased its CDSs. The Treasury Department and Federal Reserve duly “rescued”
the fallen insurance giant to the tune of $170 billion, money that went to pay
off the holders of its CDSs.
In March 2009, Treasury officials approved $168 million in annual
“retention bonuses” for executives in AIG’s Financial Products division, in
Barofsky’s words, “the very unit whose reckless bets had brought down the
company.” Pointing to the AIG bonus scandal, Barofsky comments:
“The Wall Street fiction that certain financial executives were
preternaturally gifted supermen who deserved every penny of their staggering
paychecks and bonuses was firmly ingrained in Treasury’s psyche. No matter that
the financial crisis had demonstrated just how unremarkable the work of those
executives had turned out to be, that belief system endured at Treasury across
administrations.”
The Treasury officials’ dogged defense of the “staggering paychecks
and bonuses” of Wall Street executives is not, however, motivated by the
ideological biases that Barofsky ascribes to them. Rather, the false
ideology—“these executives are worth every cent they make”—acts as a rationale
for their material self-interest. The top officials of the
Treasury Department, Federal Reserve and other government financial agencies
typically come from and return to the boardrooms and executive suites of the big
Wall Street firms. For example, when Neel Kashkari resigned as head of TARP, he
moved on to a senior position in PIMCO, the world’s largest investment fund
specializing in corporate and government bonds.
The Bank Bailout and Other Financial Scams
The official justification for the bailout was that it would enable
and encourage banks to start lending again, especially to businesses, and
thereby pull the economy out of the sharply deepening downturn. At the time, we
predicted that was not going to happen. Right after Obama was
inaugurated we wrote:
“Bank executives are fearful that additional loans will become
additional losses. Through the massive sell-off of financial stocks...capitalist
investors are forcing bank executives to rebuild their capital base however they
can, including by reducing their outstanding loan volume. So any government
bailout money is going to be hoarded, used to pay down the bank’s own debt or to
take over weaker, failing competitors.”
— “Obama: CEO of Bankrupt American Capitalism,” WV No. 930
(13 February 2009)
Barofsky, who closely monitored how banks were using the bailout
money, substantiates this prediction:
“Banks were beginning to talk to the press, and they were saying
that they were using their taxpayer-supplied funds for just about everything
other than increased lending that had been Treasury’s justification for CPP
[Capital Purchase Program]. Buying securities, great; buying other banks, no
problem; saving it for a rainy day, sure; but lending? It wasn’t happening.”
One of the few financial programs instituted by the Obama
administration that was supposed to directly help working people hurt by the
economic downturn was HAMP (Home Affordable Modification Program). Announcing
the program immediately after taking office, Obama claimed that it would enable
up to four million homeowners to modify their mortgages to avoid foreclosure. To
begin with, excluded from this program were people who were faced with losing
their homes because they had lost their jobs and couldn’t find another one. To
qualify for HAMP required a certain level of income from current
employment.
Barofsky explains how this program mainly benefited the banks and
their underlings, an especially sleazy type of financial operator called
mortgage servicers. The latter collected the mortgage payments and, after taking
their cut, transferred the money to the banks. Under HAMP there were two levels
of mortgage modification (reduction): trial and permanent. A trial modification
was much more lucrative for the banks and servicers than a permanent one. Under
a trial modification all mortgage payments, even if made on time, were legally
considered “late” because the amount was less than the originally scheduled
amount. Participants were therefore charged a late fee that was waived only if
the trial status was made permanent.
Servicers naturally used every means available to them, including
outright fraud, to prevent trial modifications from becoming permanent. Many
families were subjected to a lengthy trial period only to be denied permanent
status. The banks then demanded they pay a huge “deficiency” bill—the
accumulated difference between the reduced and original mortgage amount—plus
late charges. Many families lost their homes because they participated in
HAMP! Barofsky writes: “Borrowers who might otherwise never have missed
a payment found themselves hit with whopping bills that they couldn’t pay and
now faced foreclosure. It was a disaster.”
The HAMP scam demonstrated on a small scale the different ways by
which the Democrats and Republicans serve the interests of Wall Street. The
Republicans openly express hostility to and contempt for the working class, poor
and oppressed minorities. Witness Romney’s recent rant against almost half the
U.S. population because they “believe that they are entitled to health care, to
food, to housing.” The Democrats claim to stand for the interests of working
people, sometimes even at the expense of financial capitalists. But that claim
is fraudulent.
In opposition to both parties of capital, we stand for a
revolutionary workers party, part of a Leninist-Trotskyist international
dedicated to fighting for socialist revolution to overthrow the capitalist order
worldwide. This will lay the basis for a rationally planned international
economy. Only then will productive forces be developed and utilized such that
poverty, scarcity and want are eliminated, creating the conditions for an
egalitarian and harmonious society.
SYC Protests NATO at CCNY
|
Workers Vanguard No. 1011
|
26 October 2012
|
SYC Protests NATO at CCNY
(Young Spartacus pages)
On September 27, City College of New York (CCNY) president Lisa
Coico and her administration rolled out the red carpet for war criminal Anders
Fogh Rasmussen, Secretary General of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization
(NATO). The New York Spartacus Youth Club protested outside Shepard Hall where
Rasmussen, who presided over the 2011 NATO war on Libya, gave his talk “Why NATO
Matters for You.” The slogans for the SYC speakout were: Protest Anders
Rasmussen at CCNY—Secretary General of Blood-Soaked NATO War Alliance! U.S./NATO
Forces Out of Iraq, Afghanistan and North Africa! Imperialist Hands Off Syria!
Down With Imperialist Sanctions Against Iran!
An SYC speaker addressed the protest: “The U.S.-dominated NATO
alliance was forged after World War II—after the Soviet Red Army’s victory over
Hitler’s Third Reich—as part of the imperialists’ drive to ‘roll back
communism’.” She emphasized that in the post-Soviet world, NATO has served as an
all-purpose tool for the imperialist subjugation of dependent capitalist
countries, from Serbia in 1999 to Afghanistan and Libya today. Another SYC
speaker called for all cops and military recruiters off campus and for
abolishing the university administration.
A leading activist for Freedom Road Socialist Organization
conspicuously stood apart from our protest and refused to join it. A supporter
of the League for the Revolutionary Party (LRP) did join and take up some of our
chants against imperialism. But the fact is, the LRP was in the same camp as
NATO against the Soviet Union when it counted. By contrast, we
communists gave unconditional military defense to the Soviet Union and fought
for political revolution to oust the corrupt Stalinist bureaucracy.
U.S./NATO hands off the world!
California Prop 32 and Labor’s Ties to the Democrats-No on Prop 32!
|
Workers Vanguard No. 1011
|
26 October 2012
|
California Prop 32 and Labor’s Ties to the Democrats-No on Prop 32!
We print below, excerpted and edited for publication, the
remarks of a Spartacist League supporter in the discussion at the L.A. forum on
the elections. Proposition 32, cynically dubbed the “Paycheck Protection” act,
is an anti-union initiative on the ballot in the November California state
election.
The union bureaucracy has been pushing really hard for a no vote on
Prop. 32. This proposition would make it illegal for any corporation or labor
union to “make a contribution to any candidate” or to give money for a
candidate’s use. As well, it would make illegal any payroll deductions for
political purposes.
We say: vote no on Prop. 32! Government hands off the unions! We
oppose this proposition because we oppose any and all intervention by the
capitalist state—which is a machinery of repression defending the tiny class of
exploiters against the working class—into the labor movement. The capitalist
state has no business telling the unions what they should or should not do with
their money. State intervention only works to subordinate the unions to the
bosses’ government and to weaken their ability to wage class struggle.
For the misleaders of the unions, Prop. 32 is the devil because it
undermines their entire strategy: support to the Democrats as illusory “friends
of labor.” As one union paper stated, “If we are unable to support our political
friends and fight our political foes, then the hard-core anti-union,
anti-working people conspiracy will work to destroy the prevailing (union) wage,
our benefits, and our pensions.” Of course, whom they see as their political
“friends” are the Democrats and “foes” the Republicans.
The union bureaucracy’s strategy is actually a direct route to the
graveyard. In fact, the Democrats today are in the forefront of the attacks
against the unions. In California, it’s been [Governor] Jerry Brown and [L.A.
mayor Antonio] Villaraigosa who have led the charge against teachers as well as
public workers generally. Villaraigosa recently celebrated a success for his
agenda: the city council increased the retirement age and decreased pensions for
new city workers.
What is necessary is a fight for the complete independence of the
unions from the state agencies and political parties of the class enemy. The
question of where a union sends its money is a fight that must be waged
within the union, as part of a political struggle to oust the
labor misleaders and replace them with a revolutionary leadership committed to
the fight to build an independent party of the working class. Such a party would
not be an electoral vehicle but an instrument for leading a socialist
revolution.
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