The charade in Washington continues: What sort of freedom excludes the producer from making decisions about what they produce and how?

I can see the plan for the auto industry. They will probably do what they did at Delphi, the auto parts supplier that was spun off from GM in 1999; they'll declare bankruptcy as they have also done to public sector workers like in Vallejo California.

The advantage here is that they will simply negate any contractual agreements, enforce conditions on workers through the courts (a little economic terrorism will be applied to discourage resistance) and there will be not even the pretense of negotiation like there is now. I say pretense because it's not really a negotiation as far as the workers are concerned. Union officials, who are ideologically in league with the employers are meeting with them not to defend workers and our jobs and benefits but to dismantle them in order to protect bosses profits. Any differences that arise are over how best to accomplish this and, for UAW officials, how they can still retain their jobs which are quite well paid with good benefits as well as some sort of stature in the eyes of the employers and the Democratic Party.

Incidentally, the "toxic bank" plan which is almost completed is not really a public/private venture like they claim. In order to get the big bourgeois, big capitalists, investors, whatever one wants to call them, to part with what they mistakenly call "their" money, the US taxpayer will go further in to debt to lend money to them at cheap rates. The new debt the moneylenders receive as part of their entry in to this deal will be backed up by the taxpayer.

It's the same game, socialized risk, privatized profit. The present state of affairs should convince even the most skeptical observer that democratic socialism, worker's control and management of productive life, is possible. Guaranteed it isn't------but without it, life on this planet as we know it is the likelier prospect.

Marx was right about nation states

I remember growing up being told how Africans were not like us in the sense that they were incapable of governing in a stable way. There were all these tribal conflicts and governments that lasted a year before they were overthrown. (the role of the imperialist countries in the process were always absent) . This nationalist view serves a purpose as it is inherently racist (nationalist struggles against imperialism being somewhat different) whether it's directed against Kenyans or the Irish, and the Irish were recipients of this slander by British capitalism long before Africans were.

As I discovered politics and especially socialist politics, the history of how African nation states developed, imposed from without by the imperialist countries (which is why many of them are very rectangular in form) made perfect sense. Also, why tribal consciousness was stronger became apparent. National consciousness, the idea that you are Nigerian first as opposed to Yoruba or Ibo, had not had the same period of tine to develop as European national consciousness did.

But now the nation state is the dominant political and geographical formation.

We often hear them talk about sovereign rights in the pages of the capitalist press. Sovereignty is sacrosanct. The growth of the productive forces has created, independent of the capitalists' will, a world economy that has forced them to create global structures to ensure a stable and secure environment for plunder, but these structures cannot eliminate the competition and antagonisms that arise due to this inherent and insoluble contradiction of capitalism---independent nation states within a world economy.

The meeting beginning in London tomorrow is another example. The G20, up from the G8 and including former colonial countries like China and India etc. is meeting to try and design a united, collective response to the present global crisis. But it is doomed before it starts. There is already significant division between the different nations and today, France threatened to walk out of the meeting if its demands for increased regulation are not met. The decline of US capitalism's influence relative to its rivals, especially China, will strengthen this trend.

Nationalism, patriotism and flag waving (the red flag, the flag of working class unity, excluded) are ultimately racist and counter to the interests of working people. It is saying that I am better than you because I am English or German, Brazilian or Ethiopian.

I experienced a perfect example of this when I went to the concert recently. The program included a cello concerto by a local artist, a "world" concerto celebrated a global family and included three other soloists. One played the Oud from Iran, another that two stringed Chinese instrument and the other, an Indian stringed instrument and they all interacted with the cello. This was to signify world unity. But before the piece, everyone got up, put their hands on their hearts and started singing an anthem that claims belonging to one nation above all others is an advantage. We are braver, more free, more honorable and proud than anyone else. What a contradiction.

I know it takes me a while but to get to what spurred me to write this today. US treasury secretary, Tim Geitner (the former New York fed chief who forgot to pay his taxes) commenting on the goal of the US for the world economy said that regulation would remain a "soverign" issue: "We are not going to give anyone else the responsibility for deciding what balance between stability and efficiency is right for our markets" he warned the US's rivals on the day before they are to meet in London to develop a collective response to the crisis.

Two things came to my mind immediately. What workers in other countries must be thinking, particularly in the former colonial world where the US, through the IMF and World bank has forced upon these nations policies that devastated their societies and caused untold misery--no respect for sovereignty there.

And how Geitner's comments prove so clearly the imapasse, the dead end, that capitalism is in. In such a situation, where the productive forces of competing nation states have to produce for a global economy, how can the production of our needs on a global scale, be determined when national interests between competing capitalist is the starting point? The answer is simple--it can't. It can only lead, as it has in the past, to war and violence.

Only international working class solidarity and the elimination of production for profit can show a way out. That means collective rather than private ownership of the productive forces on a national and global scale.

Only a global plan of production and control and management of global resources can solve this problem. I can't see any other way.

Working People Tighten our Belts! Credit and The Rich Spend in Hiding

How reassuring to hear the advice of The Dean of University of British Columbia School of Business and Royal Bank of Canada Financial Group professor of entrepreneurship in the morning paper today.I am simply glowing with relief and happiness. Thank you sir.
In a item entitled "Finding Balance in Our Lives and in Our Budgets" he blames the working class consumer for "our part" in the economic meltdown - "Our persistent overconsumption created an untenable situation" and spins this venomous garbage in the sentimental language of opportunity and "time for self-improvement and enjoyment of life."
Saying we must be "more self-disciplined about our needs and the the collateral damage -we are inducing by trying to fuel them" he rails on about how we reckless ordinary people have failed to live within our budgets, stopped saving money and relied on credit. Hearkening back to the days of our "parents and grandparents" he encourages working people to welcome the fact that "the shock of our societies new reality has refocused people to rely on themselves and their families for resources -and to "undertake their own due diligence."
On and on he goes -this hack of the capitalist class eager, to sugar coat reduced expectations for unemployed workers, workers forced into concessions by the trade union leadership and the bosses -read lay-offs, paycuts, shorter work hours at less pay per hour, reduced pensions and leisure time -paints idyllic scenarios of the happy times we can spend together as families and friends now that we no longer have jobs and money to spend .
Bad workers, living beyond our means now have an opportunity to redeem ourselves as we exercise forced constraint on our spending and can no longer irresponsibly overextend ourselves with credit that is not longer available to us. Wonderful now we have the opportunity to be more self-reliant and enjoy our leisure time-lots of that coming up when the jobs bottom out.
How wonderful that I no longer have to worry about paying my rent and buy groceries. After all I have the chance now to exercise "due dilegence" on myself and my neighbours and family, save money and what the hell my kid doesn't need a loan for university or college-he can wait 10 or 12 years while I pack it away under my mattress. Perhaps while he is waiting for a minimum wage job to crop up, after all the laid off workers have exhausted their unemployment insurance and been forced into whatever low wage jobs are left over he may find some work.
Oh yes I forgot, living here in Canada, that maybe my American neighbours and friends now have the opportunity to delay getting that health care, that treatment they need because - no job-no health care plan-no credit-no surgery, no medicine, no tests-who wants those awful things anyway. What an opportunity to please Mr Obama , make him so happy that we fibnally realize we are all in this together and can reach out to our neighbours and give up our working hours so our neighbour can have a job.
And we must remember to exercise that due diligence on our co-workers as well.
I would not want to sacrifice for a wastrel co-worker after all that might go out a buy a new washer and dryer.
And then there are those self-indulgent teachers who rail against education cuts. After all we need to become more self-reliant say the gurus of the capitalist crooks.
Hark these words of wisdom-"It is simply not possible to sustain the old patterns of government expenditure." Lets just pack those kids into the classrooms.
Soon we will reach a happy equilibrium they say - a "balance" and harmony will prevail.
Hold on a minute though - greedy as I am , I wonder why the bank would have issued me a credit card at all. I wonder why they did not tell us all this before-that we need to save-not spend. Could it have anything to do with the fact that ordinary working people simply do not make enough money to buy back all the products we make and services we provide? Maybe it has something to do with the fact that if we do not have the wealth then we simply cannot consume all the vast amounts of products those good capitalists offer us-just maybe? Perhaps if we cannot buy back what we make -their profits will fall. That would be abhorent -maybe that is why they issued me a credit card , or a sub-prime mortgage-to unload all those homes and goods. I wonder if they would mind waiting for me to buy those goods till I have socked enough money away under my lumpy mattress again.
To round this rosy picture out for us this professor/entrepreneur writes "The rich will remain different . They will likely consume many of the same things, though with some apparent caution as to where they consume and how they display their consumption." What a relief-I don't have to watch those good rich consumers because they will have consume out of sight of all us greedy workers.
Thanks to those good rich big spenders for sparing me the pain and my belt tightens and I can hardly breathe.
Well I am happy now, knowing harmony and equilibrium is just within my reach-spring is here maybe I will join my neigbours in the garden as we talk about how to collectively exercise more due diligence. But then again I cannot afford a new hoe -so I better put that one off and answer the bill collector who keeps ringing.

If we pay attention to what the bosses actually say, they make it clear that their vision of the future is much different from ours

President Obama says that before the government hands over more of our money to the auto executives to bail out that industry and make it profitable, there has to be more sacrifice: "it's got to be one that's realistically designed to weather this storm and to emerge - at the other end - much more lean, mean, and competitive than it currently is,", he announces on Face the Nation this Sunday

There has to be tough concessions from union workers, bondholders and others Obama made clear . Now we all know that bondholders, (moneylenders) and workers on the factory floor are equal partners here don't we? Of course we don't.

We should heed Obama's words here; they tell it all; he is describing the future for US workers and it is third world conditions. We don't need a university education to see that in order to be "competitive" we have to have something or someone to be competitive with. Oh, yes, there's Chinese workers, or Mexican workers. But aren't their wages much lower than ours? I think they are. Don't they have fewer rights and benefits on the job? I think they do.

So being competitive with them means a lower standard of living for us doesn't it? I believe it does. It's not just workers outside our borders either. It means workers in organized workplaces giving up the gains that have been fought for and won over the years to ensure they are cheaper, and make more profit from the boss than the unorganized ones. We have seen this happen in the US as well paid Union jobs have feld south where a legacy of racism has helped make Unionization much more difficult.

Instead of building international solidarity with workers abroad in order to build a secure and fruitful existence for all us all, we are supposed to help the private owners of the US auto industry and the bondholders, who are often the same people, drive their competitors from the market (which means a loss of another worker's job) and they do this by finding the cheapest workers and creating working conditions that offer no impediment to profit making.
So worker's competing with each other is a disaster for us but very good for the capitalist. Not only does it drive down wages and conditions, like racism, it creates an obstacle to organizing, drives a wedge between workers.

For the capitalist class, the group that actually owns the auto industry and makes all the relevant decisions as to its operations, their goal is to find a place place to put their money and make some profit, they might just as well have their money tied up in shoe manufacturing, or as many of them do, speculation.

Marx descibed them perfectly:

“a schoolmaster is a productive labourer when, in addition to belabouring the heads of his scholars, he works like a horse to enrich the school proprietor. That the latter has laid out his capital in a teaching factory, instead of in a sausage factory, does not alter the relation.”

As we all know, GM has billions invested in Chinese auto manufacturing and it is a Union free environment and cheap Labor that is the attraction.

Mass transit if organized properly, would certainly not build cars. They are wasteful, environmentally destructive, and a very stressful means of mass transport. This doesn't mean we would eliminate them en masse, but we would gradually opt for the saner alternative for sure. The alternative to what the capitalist class is offering and as their representative, Obama is putting forward, is for this industry, what is actually a social service, to be publicly owned under worker's control and management. In this way, committees of workers, consumers and experts would decide what means of transportation best serves the interests of society as a whole; all of society which means the natural world also. This is how the dominant sectors of the world economy should be managed.

It denies the capitalists certain rights, the right to own a factory, profit off the labor of generations, and then when the money well runs dry, close it and destroy a community. They have a right to a job, just like us. The difference is that they deny us that right while socialism guarantees jobs to all.

Changing this relation is the task ahead of us.

Workers win Big Struggle and victory in Guadalupe.

[reprinted from ILC International Newsletter No. 328, March 18, 2009]

Guadeloupe

Interview with General Secretary of the General Union of Workers of Guadeloupe (UGTG) and spokesperson for the Liyannaj kont pwofitasyon (LKP) Strike Collective

Following a powerful, united general strike that lasted 44 days, the workers, youth and the entire working population of Guadeloupe concluded an agreement that met their key demands, including a 200 euro increase in the monthly minimum wage.

We met with Elie Domota, General Secretary of the General Union of Workers of Guadeloupe (UGTG) and spokesperson for Liyannaj kont pwofitasyon (LKP). He draws a few lessons from this movement for the readers of the ILC International Newsletter.

ILC: What is your balance sheet of the strike?

ED: It is a very positive balance sheet. We witnessed 44 days of a total general strike. It was a great demonstration of unity of all workers and all the organizations forming the LKP.

Many said earlier that this was a Negro konplo a sé konplo chyen [a conspiracy of Negroes, a conspiracy of dogs - Ed] ... Well, we have demonstrated that we can unite trade unions, political organizations, consumer organizations, tenants, and cultural movements. It is our diversity that has forged unity.

ILC: What was the origin of LKP and its role in the movement?
ED: How was the LKP started? Well, very simply: Previously, each organization worked on its own. In late November, at the UGTG, we decided to meet with other organizations, as a series of problems arose and we did not think that any one single organization could wage the fight successful; we needed broader unity.

It was relatively easy to meet, because for six years we have tried to mount what we called a program of demands of the working class. We were also together on May 1. But during all this time, we were unable to come to an agreement.

On December 5, 2008, we met first with the trade unions, with unions in the education, cultural movements, with political parties ... And then, liyannaj (alliance) took root! There was the strike on December 16 and on the 17th. We went to the Prefecture de Basse-Terre [French Government Building]... and we decided to continue the movement in January.

Thus, the LKP was created. In this dynamic [Balan], we have found a color and a name and a new song, The Gwadloup sé tannou [Guadeloupe Is Ours] repeated in chorus by all the demonstrators ... It adan balan [very quickly] took off. The LKP is the fruit of the unity begun between organizations for the past several years.

ILC: Guadeloupe will never be as before, say the workers, activists ... Do you agree? And for you, what does that mean?
A
ED: I agree. But I want to say that we do not operate in fits and starts, by shock. We must maintain some regularity and consistency in all our actions if we don't want to fall back into the system we condemn.

This means, above all, changing social relationships, establishing new social relationships, new relationships between men and women of our country. And above all, social relations in the workplace. We Indians and Blacks, who are majority in this country, must feel proud and stop bowing our heads and accepting the unacceptable.

ILC: In the immediate sense, what does this movement symbolize for the people and workers in the world?
ED: This may symbolize the fact that it is the big struggles that make the wheels of history turn. Today, large international capital controls everything, including the politicians who apply their dictates. We can show that a small nation of 400,000 inhabitants can challenge this system based on exploitation and submission.

ILC: Legal charges have been brought against you for "incitement to racial hatred" and "the extortion of signatures on the Jacques Bino Agreement."

ED: This is an attempt to denigrate the movement: the words were not racist (1). They reflect a reality, the organization of society in Guadeloupe, which has always, and is still, based on a relationship of races and classes for nanni Nannan [that goes back a long time]. At the top of the pyramid, it is always the same: békés and whites, and at the bottom, the Black and Indians. 400 years later, we live in a photocopy of the same slave plantation society.

The truth is that we are still out on strike in companies that refuse to implement the Bino agreement (2), we call for the implementation of the agreement ... And what does the prosecutor do? He opens an investigation for "extortion to sign" the agreement. This, I repeat, is an attempt to smear us, to demonize us, to reverse the gains we have won.

We are ready and we are not intimidated if they proceed against us! In the court, should it go this far, there will be a forum to expose to the world what our society is all about, what the French state does in a small dominated country.

-- Interviewed conducted by Robert Fabert

-----

Endnotes
(1) Interviewed on television at a moment when the béké [while eilite] bosses refused to sign the agreement, Elie Domota said: "Either they will implement the agreement, or they will leave Guadeloupe; we will not let a bunch of békés restore slavery."

(2) Jacques Bino: The name of the trade union activist shot dead in the night of February 17-18, 2009.

-----

Preamble to the inter-regional agreement on wages in Guadeloupe: Jacques Bino agreement.

Between the undersigned signatories:

-- For the organizations of employers: UMPEC, UCE, GRIP, OPGSS, UNAPL;
-- For the trade unions of employees: CGTG, CFDT, CFTC, CGT-FO, UGTG, UNSA organized within the Liyannaj Kont Pwfitasyon (LKP).
In the presence of Mr. DESFORGES, Prefect of the Guadeloupe Departement, and under the mediation of Messrs. BESSIERE, LO PEZ, LEMAIRE Arcont.

Preamble:
- Considering that the economic and social conditions in Guadeloupe are a result of the persistence of the plantation economy model.
- Considering that this economy is based on monopoly profits and the abuse of a dominant position, which generates injustice.
- Considering that these injustices affect both workers and our internal economic growth.
- Considering that they are obstacles to economic development and the internal social development.

We can learn a thing or two from French workers

The Wall Street Journal had two small pieces on workers and the economic crisis yesterday. One was about US Labor and the attacks on public sector workers by the states. And the other was about similar attacks in France on French workers. As most of us are aware these days, this crisis is global and workers in the industrial countries in particular are facing a similar situation. In the former colonial world, the issue is mass starvation.

But while the employer’s offensive is similar in France and the US, the response from workers is considerably different; the title of the two pieces make this quite apparent.

USA
The WSJ informs us that the Governor of Illinois is proposing mandatory four-day furloughs for state employees. California has just passed a budget that has one day a month furloughs, something the Union leaders tout as a victory as the demand from the employers was two days initially. (It’s an old game the employers and Union officials play. The boss demands 20% cuts, the Union leaders offer 10% cuts and the bosses agree and the Union leaders announce a victory).

New Jersey’s Governor is asking workers to “forego” a negotiated 3.5% raise and furlough 60,000 workers for a “short” term this year. Apparently the Unions didn’t agree with this so the state treasurer went to the state’s Civil Service Commission and this body (I’ll bet there’s plenty of Democrats and Obama supporters involved in all this) enacted a “short term emergency rule” that allows the state to furlough them anyway; contract be damned. The state is not neutral is it?

Hetty Rosenstein, director of the Communication Workers of America says, “it’s not fair and it’s too much.” Here goes the game again, time for the boss to make smaller cuts and the deal can go through.

In New York, the state’s Governor David Paterson (another Democrat) also asked workers to forego their 3% raise and wants to furlough them for five days in the next fiscal year. A little bit of economic terrorism is applied to help workers decide in the form of threats to lay of some 9000 workers if they don’t accept the terms.

My former Union, AFSCME, is a paragon of patriotism and cooperation by setting a fine example. According to the Journal, Steve Kreisberg, director of collective bargaining for AFSCME said that Locals have agreed to forego wage increases. (Notice how Union official have very similar titles to officials in the corporate world, like Business Agent and director)

France
Let’s see what’s happening across the pond with those folks that the Bush clique told us are cowards. Well, first off the workers at GDF Suez’s natural gas terminals went on strike yesterday to protest their bosses getting stock options and for wage increases. (How uncivilized). Still, it seems that within hours the bosses “renounced” their options in what the WSJ calls a “spirit of responsibility”. (How civilized) They want to share their profits with the employees, the WSJ informs us. Suez agreed also to distribute 4.4 million free shares to its 200,000 employees around the world.

Also yesterday, the Journal reports that the workers at the US “conglomerate” (that’s a big, big company) 3M “released their boss after holding him for more than a day to protest planned layoffs. They freed him after the company agreed to Union demands..”
This is a US company. My oh my. US Union leaders tell us that we have to give up our hard won gains; there is no alternative, the situation demands it. What else can they do?

I do recall that there have been two general strikes in France in the last few weeks though you wouldn’t know about it if your only source of information was the tightly censored US mass media. It is quite clear why the bosses in the US demonize the French and keep this information under wraps. The French are a bad bunch; they would be a bad influence on US workers just like they were 80 years ago with those sit-down strikes that cottoned on over here and, forced GM to capitulate and accept a Union.

Brittany Spear’s behavior or Madonna’s adoption plans are a much safer bet.

But the US working class has a rich and militant tradition from the great uprising in 1877 or the struggle for the eight-hour day in 1886 to the Lawrence strike and the factory occupations of the thirties and the civil rights movement of the 50’s and sixties. This history and tradition has been severely weakened there is no doubt. The consciousness of the US working class has been thrown back. But the boss is our best ally in a way, they won’t let up.

There’s a positive side to this. At a meeting in New Jersey to discuss the cuts, the Journal described the following scene “The situation grew so tense at the crowded meeting in Trenton N.J that four members of the state’s largest public employees Union were arrested.” More of this is on the horizon and the combination of the Union bureaucracy and the Democratic Party that has been a formidable obstacle to a fightback will be cast aside at some point like rotten fruit on a tree that falls at the first strong wind.

But every victory against the capitalist class is temporary, just like the small gains the French workers made described here. Just like Union contracts, the first day after they’re signed, the employers violate them and try to take back any losses they incurred. As a movement develops to drive back the offensive of capital, to reform the system, such a movement will put forward independent candidates for election and a mass workers party will develop. Socialists and all anti-capitalists should not stand outside this process. But the system is rotten it cannot take society forward. Only by taking in to public ownership the dominant means of production, distribution and exchange under worker’s control and management is a secure and environmentally safe future possible---a mass revolutionary party rooted in the working class is necessary for this. This does not mean a political party of 25 who are known only to themselves or sectarian groupings standing outside of the working class, something that has been an obstacle to this process in the past.

Labor’s Militant Voice and Facts For Working People wants to work with others who agree with this analysis, accepts that direct action is a legitimate method of struggle and roots themselves in the working class which is the force that can, due to its role in social production, send the so-called free market in to the dustbin of history.

We are a small but growing group of activists. We have had some significant victories as we have assisted workers, tenants and others self-organize by relying on their own strength and the method of direction action in their struggles with various sections of the capitalist class from the slumlord to the city bureaucrat.

If you want to join us or work with us and are in LA, Chicago or the San Francisco Bay Area, contact us at:

LA Arturo 323-428-5711 or Julia 310-474-6729
Bay Area: 510-595-4676 email erin@bringdownbush.org
Chicago: email LMVchicago@yahoo.com
Toronto: 416-323-0620

Violence in a South Wales Village

My brother recently refused to carry out some work his boss told him to do. He is a handyman at a Care Home in South Wales. The place makes a lot of money off of the individuals, the local council and the National Health system. The owner just closed another Care Home in a more remote village in a valley close to where Andy’s work is.
South Wales, since tin and then coal were discovered there, has been a hotbed of union militancy and socialist and communist struggle. Being called a Conservative was reserved as the worst of all insults. Today, the coal-mines are closed and unemployment is higher than most areas of Britain.
During floods two years ago this neighboring Care Home was closed for repairs and all the workers laid off. Only recently did it re-open and they only hired back some of the laid off workers. Then figuring it wasn’t the golden goose the owner hoped it would be, they closed the Care Home again. Permanently.
With jobs scarce, this was a big loss for the local village. Within days of closing some local people broke in, plugged up all the sinks and baths and opened the faucets. Andrew was asked to change the locks and he did. After that the Manager from Andy’s Care Home was asked to visit the premises regularly and check on it. While the Manager was inside her car was set on fire.
The boss asked Andy to go to the closed Home and board up the windows. He said No. Management asked if he was scared of violence. No. He said boarding up the place would feel “like crossing a picketline.” The owner would have to do it himself.
These bastards move their money around like they own everything and then get upset when some of the violence they wreak finally comes back and bites them.
People are fed up with taking it and want change. Eventually they will re-organize.

Things Aren’t Always as They Seem

homeless encampment
I hadn’t seen old Pepto for a few days. Working for the city kept me in the streets on a regular basis and I knew pretty much every homeless person in town. Before my retirement I worked for the water department installing water mains. I loved the job; it paid well, with good benefits, and I was outside in the sunshine most of the time.

Pepto got his name by accident. None of us knew his real name. Very few people, take the time to ask homeless people their names, after all, it’s their fault they’re homeless isn’t it?

He stopped by our job one day looking for a few cents for some coffee as he often did.
“Any you guys spare a dollar?” he asked with this sad look on his face.
Pepto had visited our job sights a few times and always asked questions about the job. We didn’t always give money as it tended to get around and half the homeless in town spent their day trying to find out where we were working. But a couple of us reached in our pockets and handed him a dollar or two, enough for him to get breakfast.

“What’s up, man?” I asked him. “You seem a bit down today.” I immediately reminded myself that he’s a homeless man. That is not exactly an uplifting situation to be in.

“Man this shit is fucked up,” he answered.

“What shit’s that?” I replied, kicking myself again for asking such a stupid question.

“Damn Vietnam. I keep thinking about that Vietnam shit.”

One of the guys on the crew made some sarcastic remark about every guy begging for money by the side of the freeway claims they are a Vietnam Vet and that some of them earn $500 a week. He was the only guy on the crew I didn’t like. He always blamed the poor for their condition and his criticisms were always tainted with a bit of racism. Like most people with that mentality he was also lazy.

Pepto ignored him. “I had to kill a man once. But he woulda killed me if he could. That damn Nam was bismal.”
We figured he meant abysmal. The foreman told him with a chuckle that Pepto Bismol was a medicine for upset stomach.
“Well this shit gives me an upset stomach alright. I could sure do with that Pepto stuff.”
Our homeless friend finally had a name. But as I reflect on those days, I should have asked him what his name was.

A few more days passed and Pepto still hadn’t come around. Knowing him made me think more about the homeless. Where do they sleep? There’s way more animal shelters in this country than homeless shelters or shelters for battered women.

Many of them are mentally ill. People thrown out of institutions and on to the streets during the Reagan era. Many of them are women who also suffered the added horror of sexual abuse once out of the care of the state. I discovered that a third of the homeless were Vietnam Vets.

“I think I would go nuts if I were homeless for an extended period” I used to tell my co-workers.
It must have been three weeks before I found out Pepto’s whereabouts. I was reading my local small town paper one morning and there was a little piece in it about a homeless man being found dead in an office building under construction. He had died form an overdose, the paper said.

I felt real sad as the report revealed his real name. He was called Fred McHenry. He was described as a local homeless man with drug and alcohol problems. He was also a Vietnam Vet and had a Purple Heart.

The next day I went to the Veteran’s building and asked about him. They suggested I call the VA and I could find out more information from them. The VA was very helpful as was the author of the piece in the paper. I eventually got a hold of his mother’s phone number and got in contact with her.

His mother was clearly saddened by her son’s death but she was not really interested in talking with me. I wanted to find out more about him and how he ended up where he did. She obviously had a hard time with him due to his drug abuse. But drug abuse was rampant among the troops in Vietnam. I thought of all the flag waving and talk from politicians about the bravery of “our boys” when they want to send young men, other people’s sons and daughters in to some fruitless war. How they always tell the public that “our boys” are making the greatest sacrifice.

Killing a human being in real life is not like Hollywood. Unless you’re a psychopath it’s going to have a devastating effect on you as a human being; it could drive you to homelessness and drugs, just like it did to Fred McHenry.

(this is a fictionalized account of real events)

Lips are as beautiful as the person wearing them

I just turned on the computer and an ad on my start page has a picture with two faces. One looks like it's Angelina Jollie and the other a woman that look a bit like her but with "thin" lips. "Everyone with thin lips is ugly" the ad said. I think that was the exact phrasing as I returned to it after I checked what I wanted to check and it was gone.

Isn't that disgusting? My first response was anger. I don't have particularly thin lips but what if I had. "How hurtful" I thought. "What a nasty thing to say".

Madison Avenue, the agencies that the capitalist class use to create demand for a product or service they want to sell that wouldn't normally get an echo out there, is doing its job. Like the very profitable removal of varicose vains or the thousands of unnecessary procedures we go through that are a good moneymaker, they first have to have an ideological offensive to convince us we need it. So if you have thin lips youre ugly.

This is comical were it not so tragic. To think of the sh**t Africans had to go through having naturally full lips.

Of course, this happens around us each and every day, and women are particularly good targets. In China they convince them that beautiful is to look European so they have costly eye operations. And look how blacks and others in the US altered their appearance as the appearance of the European ruling class was held up as a paragon of beauty.

It's not that we don't know this goes on and the devastating consequences of it for young people, especially young girls I reckon. But seeing that made me real angry there for a moment. I felt a good healthy class hatred for the bastards that perpetuate it.

Charter Schools Verses Public Schools

Last week another parent handed us a flier for a meeting opposing the termination of our Elementary School’s Principal. Last night my partner and I, with kids in tow, attended the meeting.
About 20 parents and an equal number of children were there. An 11-year-old Latina student was up on stage translating, alongside the two African American parents who were the main organizers. A couple of parents made the case for keeping our Principal, equally based on her individual merit and the destructive goals of the local School Board. In the last 5 years, this is our school’s third Principal.
One of the organizing parents explained that when she went to the State Education Department in Sacramento that the lobby is adorned with a huge sign promoting CHARTER SCHOOLS. She added that the local School Board is targeting small schools for closure. Our school is a small school. Ironically, or not, the Charter Schools are all small. The charter schools, she pointed out, get public money but are run as private enterprises and are non-union, lowering Oakland’s already low living standards. The charter schools are a stepping-stone to the privatization of education and another tool used for running down and dismantling public education.
Our school is attended by kids from poorer working class backgrounds and consequently has always been “low performing.” Not one third-grade student was at or above the standard requirement for third grade last year. However, the teachers are great, the parents are very friendly and the atmosphere is very caring and grades are improving.
A few parents asked questions and made comments. I mentioned the $2,000 billion spent on the banks and how that could end poverty in America and create great public schools. I got a warm response when arguing education should not be a business. “Look at the disaster that running healthcare as a business has been for us all.” After I spoke one of the organizers quoted from the People’s History of the US, about how once schools were all private and we cannot go back to those days.
Two parents who have recently switched back to public schools testified about their Charter School experiences. One explained how her granddaughter, who is black, and her youngest son, who is white, were treated alarmingly different in the Charter School: she pointed at her son who she said was treated like gold. She pulled them both out. Another said she found out her child had been yelled at by her Charter School principal and forced to do sit ups. When she complained to other parents and approached the school about it, her child was dis-enrolled.
A dozen parents committed to attend the School Board meeting tomorrow night to make the case against, as one parent-organizer put it, “a policy of continuing to de-stabilize our school.”

The capitlist class are afraid of us

AP reported on the following

"WASHINGTON - The health insurance industry offered Tuesday for the first time to curb its controversial practice of charging higher premiums to people with a history of medical problems. The offer from America's Health Insurance Plans and the Blue Cross and Blue Shield Association is a potentially significant shift in the debate over reforming the nation's health care system to rein in costs and cover an estimated 48 million uninsured people. It was contained in a letter to key senators."

This is how afraid they are of the anger in US society turning in to what amounts to an anti-capitalist movement. An army of lawyers nor the Democratic Party under "stable" market conditions would not have been able to accomplish this.

But what is more important is this: This has come from them and the working class has done nothing in the form of direct action or strikes; it is a preemptive concession. It is a gesture from an opponent on the defensive and afraid.

It is the time for us to recognize this and go on the offensive.

Workers will see this, even workers who claim they are not political. Even if there is no immediate action in response to it, it will not go unnoticed and is part of the slow development of a new movement against capital.

The greatest tragedy is the absence of leadership. But this will be overcome also as the situation ripens.

The revolt of the bankers

The Obama administration's backers are cashing in their chips. Wall Street bankers have had enough banker bashing and the taxing of AIG bonuses was the last straw. The government is getting the message. Over the weekend "President Obama and other administration officials have tempered their criticism of the financial sector" writes the Wall Street Journal.

"The White House understands that to have a healthy Main Street you need a healthy Wall Street" says one banker. What has driven this shift in approach from the Obama administration is that the capitalists are still on a strike of capital. They don't like banker bashing from a government and a political party that belongs to them.

In order to get elected, Obama had to speak to the powerful anti-Wall Street mood that existed in society; the bankers recognize this but let's not go too far. Obama's top political aide, David Axelrod who not so long attacked Wall Street for being upset because it didn't get "wheelbarrows of cash" has adopted a different tone telling one interviewer recently that, "Our great challenge is to make clear that we can't have an economic recovery without Wall Street.." He went on to make it clear that such public flaunting of wealth as the AIG bonuses in dire times was making this "much harder".

What we are actually seeing here is the heightening of class antagonisms, or to use a dreaded term in the US, a heating up of the class war. The thing about elections is that they gauge mood and, as the Wall Street journal points out, polls have shown that the public hate Wall Street and blame investors for the mess wer're in. This pushed the rhetoric from the Obama administration further to the left, "Everyone but Wall Street knows the days of Gordon Gecko are over" commented Axelrod at one point.

But they're in office now and they have to defend the interests of the social force on which their party bases itself--big business.

The bourgeois are revolting we might say. The Obama administration has been trying to get them, for some time we all know, to lend money, to invest in the economy. But according to the Wall Street Journal, when administration officials began calling the Gnomes of Wall Street to discuss the next phase of the bailout, the bankers "turned tables" and had a go at them for attacking the AIG bonuses. Thie basic message, if you want private capital to end its strike "stop the rush to penalize our bonuses."

We need to draw the correct conclusion from this. If the main issue is that capital, an essential part of the economy, is being witheld by a small minority of people, and this "strike" is causing misery and death throughout the world, why doesn't the government just take it?

When Labor goes on strike they send in the troops if we don't comply with their wishes. Since 911, they have made it clear that disrupting the economic life of the country through withholding Labor amounts to terrorism. So it is evident that a political party does not exist in a vacuum, it represents class interests and the capitalist class has called in the chips; the Obama administration will comply.

We must also see capital, or their wealth as what it really is. This wealth is accumulated through the Labor process. It is accumulated by the owners of capital who buy the use of human beings over a period of time but pay less for that Labor power than the wealth that it creates. This is legal in a capitalist society just like it is legal to own a slave in a slave society and get free products from the Labor of a peasant in feudal society. Would you exchange a $20 bill for $10?
Of course not, it's an unfair exchange of unequal quantities. If you were forced to do it you would do it knowing you were being ripped off. That's exactly how capitalism works.

I had the honor of spending some time with June Reyno this weekend. She is the woman who chained herself to her home in San diego. She has been arrested twice the last couple of weeks, the second time after she broke back in to her home. But in a capitalist society, she doesn't own that home, Wall Street does. She has waged a heroic battle almost alone. She is, as an author on this blog described, ahead of her time. She has shown the way. She has lost the batle to stay in her home. She is tired but not defeated.

As myself and other authors on this blog have written, we have to nationalize, to take in to public ownership, capital itself. It is after all, our own creation. As long as we allow them to maintain the ownership of capital we can never resolve these crises.

Does this mean a revolution? Of course. Does it mean changing the established order? Absolutely. Is this utopian? Of course not.

How do you think feudalism and slavery passed in to history.

Four Police Officers Killed in Oakland, California

My family lives about a mile from Saturday's carnage. I am familiar with the scene and have driven past that corner a hundred times. Its a neighborhood littered with fast food joints, liquer stores and store-front churches.
The killing of what is now four Oakland Police Officers and the death of their assailant are symptoms of the complete and utter failure of not just criminal justice policy but capitalism itself.
This crisis will not be addressed or resolved with the change from Conservative to Liberal President.
The loss of a family member goes deep and there is much tragedy surrounding Saturday’s events.
However, one small question has not been taken up by the media. Why did not one of the four police officers live in our city of Oakland. They each lived 10 or 20 miles from Oakland. We can only assume that they were hostile to living in Oakland but okay to policing Oakland. This is not why these men were killed, but it is a part of the whole problem, a small but relevant part.
There so many factors that led to the death of five people on Saturday. Individual so-called morality has nothing to do with it. All of the hallmarks of modern US capitalism flowed into this scene of bloody carnage. The continued unresolved problem of poverty in Oakland; the racist segregation of neighborhoods; the overcrowded prison system; the continuous dismantling of public education and then there is the absence in America of political opposition to capitalism.
The big business media will toy with all the superficial causesof Saturday's event to the extent that they even attempt to look at the causes of this event. But they cannot conclude what must be concluded: that this will happen again because capitalism itself has created this environment in its struggle to divide and rule over the population of this country.

SEIU ratifies contract in California accepting major cuts

SEIU 1000 represents about 95,000 state workers in California, about half the state's workforce. The members overwhelmingly ratified the contract their leaders negotiated with the state last month. As is to be expected, they took major concessions.

Union leaders are jubilant of course, “I’m pleased that our members ratified an agreement that will provide some stability in these uncertain times,” said Yvonne Walker, the Union president.

Union officials are very adept at calling defeats victories. The contract forces the workers to take one day off a month, as opposed to two which was originally demanded. Workers also lose Columbus day and Lincoln's birthday which are replaced by two floating holidays. I remember when we lost a national holiday that was replaced by a floater that we could take "when we want". A guaranteed holiday when the company shut down replaced by a holiday when we wanted it as long as staffing allowed.

The fact that so many workers voted for the contract is only half the story. What alternative did they have? What, other than concessions were put on the table? The president of the Union says the defeat is a good one in bad economic times. This is said by Union leaders during boom times and bad. And who says it's uncertain times? The boss does and the Union leaders repeat it. Things are only uncertain when you have no plan or roadmap--they don't have to be uncertain.

Anyone that's been awake the past year must surely be aware that money is abundant for some sections of society. The employers play this game with the Union officials every contract time, not just during this present capitalist crisis. They make major concessionary demands on the Union, the Union leaders offer slightly less concessions, the bosses agree and the officials tout it as a victory and pray for the Employee Free Choice Act to pass so that they can hopefully get some more revenue in to the Union business without having to do anything.

Workers are offered a choice between bad and slightly less bad, no job or pay cuts. This has gone on for years.

The Union leadership capitulate without a fight to the demands of the employers.

The empolyers feel very confident in this climate and with the collaboration offered them by the Union officialdom. They are using the economy as an excuse to take back stuff they've wanted for years. And Obama and Schwarzenegger were patting each other on the back in Los Angeles the other day, congratulating each other on the great job they're doing.

Many workers draw the conclusion that as Union dues go up and wages and benefits down, they are a liability. Why pay them. Worse, the failure of the leadership to offer any strategy for fighting back, their failure to offer any explanation for the crisis other than that which the employers hand to them, leads to dissalusionment and despair among workers and the false idea that we are weak and the employers unchallengeable.

The SEIU and teachers, who are also under severe attack, could furlough close to half a million workers for a 24 hour state strike and let the employers know more is coming if they don't back off. Such a move would be very popular with people especially if demands are raised that would appeal to workes outisde these immediate workplaces, more jobs, increased spending on education and public services etc.

This would transform the mood as well as the Labor movement. This is why the labor leaders refuse to do it, they are terrified of their own members.

At some point this dam will burst though and the Union's rank and file will breach this obstacle of its own leadership.

AIG, lies and corruption.

Rightly there is a great anger about the bonuses at AIG. But seldom heard in the bosses mass media are two important facts. In the election campaign between McCain and Obama both these capitalist politicians took over $100,000 from this company for their election campaign. Here in the US they call this campaign contributions but in reality they are bribes to gain political access and favors. 

Then there is the other thing about the AIG scandal and crisis. Because they allow the company to continue to be run on capitalist lines the government is over a barrel. They have to go along with its capitalist ways, corruption, mega salaries, profits coming first. We have argued and continue to argue for nationalization of AIG and all the financial industries under workers control and management with compensation on the basis of proven need only. This proven need to be decided by elected committees of rank and file workers. This would provide a financial pool of resources nationalized under workers control and management which could be used to invest in what is needed in the economy and in doing so provide jobs at union wages and conditions. 

But this is not happening. No the Obama regime like the Bush regime before it licks the books of big business and capitalism and so the rich continue to fill their pockets while the working people get poorer. And at the same time the ground is being prepared for a new and even greater economic crisis. 

Sean. 

We can't be free if we don't control what we produce

Given all the turmoil and uncertainty that has struck us like a hurricane it is a pleasure to read old Marx. Trillions of dollars are being thrown about to spur demand. People must buy, trade must continue. Centuries old institutions are collapsing. Governments have collapsed. Fortunes have been lost and millions have been driven from their homes the ranks of the starving have swelled. All because there is too much stuff. Our existence is determined by production.

Marx said about trade in a capitalist economy:

"How does it happen that trade, which after all is nothing more than the exchange of products of various individuals and countries, rules the whole world through the relation of supply and demand – a relation which, as an English economist says, hovers over the earth like the fate of the ancients, and with invisible hand allots fortune and misfortune to men, sets up empires and overthrows empires, causes nations to rise and to disappear – while with the abolition of the basis of private property, with the communistic regulation of production (and, implicit in this, the destruction of the alien relation between men and what they themselves produce), the power of the relation of supply and demand is dissolved into nothing, and men get exchange, production, the mode of their mutual relation, under their own control again?"

Unemployed in Oakland, California - Week 7

Driving to my Carpenters’ Union out-of-work roll call, NPR informed me that unemployment would reach 10% of the workforce by year-end. That would add another 2.5 million more workers to the current 12.5 million officially without work.
At the union hall my buddy John told me his daughter complained that he is not like himself these days. He’s #183 on the out-of-work list. I’m #221. John said, “I’m just not used to it. I have to have something to do. I can’t sit around. I get up at 6am and turn the TV on and my wife tells me to turn it off, that it’s too early.”
Another buddy, who’s been unemployed since July ‘08, laughed sarcastically when I asked how much he’s moved up the out-of-work list in the last 2 weeks. “Well, I was #35, now I’m #34!” One older carpenter took a Facts for Working People and explained that he may have to bail out his son who’s been out of work only a month. “He’s sinking. His mortgage payment is too high for him to be off work long.”
As I passed out the FFWP I changed my introduction from each group of workers I approached. “Check this out. A newsletter that complains about how f****d-up things are.” One outreached hand echoed back, “tell me about it.” Another unemployed carpenter took some of my propaganda and looking down at it, repeated back the headline, “the system’s not working ….. no shit!”
Jeff was at the Hall too, complaining about Bernanke, the Federal Reserve Chair. “He didn’t see this coming? What? Bernanke has a post-graduate degree in the Depression era and he couldn’t see this problem coming. Hey, I haven’t got a high school diploma, I can hardly read and I knew it was coming. All that speculation. When a 800-square-foot starter home is selling for $600,000 you know something’s wrong. I saw it! All those f*****s are pleading innocent!”
I offered him a Facts for Working People but added, “you can’t read so you might not want this,” he joked back, “Hey my girlfriend can read it to me!”
Jeff got up and announced to those around him, “Hey, well I got my corner staked out for today and I already made my sign, so I’m heading out before some other m***** f***** takes my corner.”
Those that don’t know Jeff, wondered if he was joking.

AIG and the bonuses again

The flap about the AIG bonuses continues apace. The Wall Street Journal reports this morning that one recipient received $6.4 million, six got more than $4 million, fifteen received more than $2 million and 51 received more than $1 million. Some of these have left the company.

These bonuses, AIG management claim, are called retention bonuses because without them the company might be unable to these very special human beings who are needed to figure out the complex transactions that “are difficult to understand and manage.”
These are the same people, employees of the company’s finance department, who made the bad bets that the US taxpayer is paying for----AIG has received some $173 billion in taxpayer money.

The nationalist/protectionist card is also being thrown around as some of the taxpayer money that AIG received $5.4 billion, went to Germany’s Deutsche Bank last September. But Goldman Sachs, domestic moneylenders and speculators also received $8.1 billion of our money.

The intense media coverage of these bonuses, a tiny amount really when compared to the $173 billion AIG has been given so far, is a smoke screen. It is a conscious strategy to divert public anger away from any criticism of the system to blaming it all on individual behavior; it’s just some bad apples.

But what is AIG paying banks this money for? Imagine for a minute if Las Vegas started taking bets on how many Americans would die this week in Iraq. Or even how many Iraqi’s whose lives are worth less to the movers and shakers in Washington. There would be a massive public outcry. But the money that the US taxpayer is forking over to Goldman Sachs and other parasitical institutions both domestic and foreign is payment for insuring gambler’s who bet on such things.

Investors, through institutions like Deutsche Bank or Goldman Sachs, were able to bet on whether or not mortgage defaults would rise. They were able to do this through what the financiers call financial instruments, basically a tool for allowing such transactions. These particular instruments were called Credit Default Swaps. For anyone that bets on horses, they are simply like the many exotic types of wagers the bookies draw up to get their hands on the gambler’s money. We need see it as nothing much different than that except that the amounts involved are staggering as we are dealing with all the wealth created by global Labor.

Amid all these bets, there is insurance for bets, just like in Vegas when the dealer gets an ace in blackjack and asks if you want to buy insurance against her getting a face card with it. AIG, whose business was more traditional insurance, as the WSJ points out, “insurance policies to businesses and individuals to protect against everything from fires to lawsuits” saw the potential for easy money and became heavily involved in Credit Default Swaps.

AIG ended up in this gambling casino and found itself betting that the US housing market would remain strong. When it collapsed, those speculators who had bet it defaults would rise, called in their bets from the banks that had allowed them to make those bets, Deutsche and Goldman for example. AIG, the insurer that had insured the bank’s deals was called upon to make good on its contract to the banks.

“The investment strategies involved are perfectly legal maneuvers” the Wall Street Journal is quick to remind its readers. But why is that? What happened is that some “savvy” investors saw that people, workers, were coming under massive strain and that they would not be able to pay the moneylender’s fee for the right to live in a home. So they placed bets that mortgage defaults would rise and made a killing. They are now recipients of some of our money, some of it money paid by the very victims of this process.

This form of activity is legal because the laws of society are made in the interests of the class that rules in society, by representatives of the class that owns the means of production, distribution and exchange in society. In a capitalist society, the one in which we live, the rules are made by the owners of capital. Imagine watching a drowning man and taking bets on whether he’d survive or not. This is what they do. Capitalism rewards this behavior, it encourages this behavior, it is an inhuman system based on exploitation and the social and environmental destruction that comes with it.

The reason that the financial sector’s influence grew and such exotic bets accompanied that growth is that there is so much money they have to find a home for it, a use for it; as Marx pointed out, capitalists are not misers. Given that the productive forces, what they call the “real” economy are already burdened with overcapacity, produce more than workers can buy back, they resort to gambling and credit; they become what Lenin referred to as “coupon clippers”.

In the debates they are having within the pages of their serious journals like the Wall Street Journal, they all agree on one thing----that the allocation of capital is more efficient if done by private individuals and institutions that by government ones. AIG’s argument that it needs to retain these experts in order to basically get us out of the mess they created seems almost comical were it not so tragic.

AIG is now 80% owned by the US taxpayer but the same guys are still calling the shots. Incidentally, the US now has a bigger proportion of banking assets in state hands than China does, “and also more red ink.” * While nationalization by the capitalists themselves is yet another way of shifting the cost of their system on to the shoulders of the working class, it is positive in that it undermines the concept that the market has all the answers. But it will not prevent the theft------only stabilize it.

The 1997-98 Asian crisis was caused by “crony capitalism” the capitalists argue. This crisis, they claim is caused by similar forces, “extreme capitalism” “greed” “unscrupulous individuals”. But the reality is that this crisis is nothing new, it is endemic to capitalism.

Such a staggering waste of resources as predatory wars or gambling on whether or not a worker, or municipality (The Monolines---bond insurers----could be the next crisis) will be able to pay their pound of flesh to the moneylender, will only come to an end when the wealth in society, or the surplus value created by Labor, is collectively owned, managed, and distributed. A worker would not need a university degree to democratically decide that financial resources would be better spent on housing, education or other socially necessary functions other than betting that an individual or municipality will fail to pay back a loan and the exorbitant interest to moneylenders. Why borrow money off Warren Buffet or George Soros to build a school? It’s not their money anyway.

The state is but the executive board of the capitalism class to paraphrase Marx. It is their state just as the feudal state was the state of the kings and queens and the feudal aristocracy and Greek democracy was democracy for the slave owner not the slave.

The capitalist class has proven that they are incapable of running society. They are incapable of “allocating capital” as they say, in an efficient and useful way. From the Russian revolution prior to its degeneration in to Stalinist totalitarianism to the Seattle general strike in 1919, the examples for genuine socialism, for worker’s democracy are there for us to see. It is imperative that we understand our history if we are to build a future without hedge fund managers and their parasitical activities.

* Financial Times, Lex Column 3-16-09

It's not about a few bonuses

The AIG bonuses are all over the media right now as another charade takes place much like the committee that Waxman headed when the auto execs were being grilled. Remember, they offered to work for $1 dollar salary this year. We pointed out that Mullaly, the Ford CEO received $28 million for 4 months on the job at Boeing in 2006 and received somewhere in the region of $11 million for signing on at Ford.

We should not be fooled by the phony public displays of anger by their politicans. Barak Obama is being one upped by the entertainer Whoopi Goldberg making lots of noise and telling us how angry they are.

This is a result of the massive anger that lies beneath the surface of US society, they have to feign disgust themselves at their friends swindling of the US taxpayer but this is multi millionaires scolding multi multi millionaires---it's a smoke screen.

One of the reasons they are staging these public thrashings is to avoid the real issue, that is the system itself. This is a crisis of capitalism, it is not a problem of a few bad apples as they would like us to think. In the papers of their serious joiurnals, the capitalist class is debating the future of their system as never before; some of them have called the obsession with the bonuses and CEO pay a "red herring" pointing out that the system itself is what needs to be the focus of discussion and they are correct.

They have been calling for a more friendly capitalism, a capitalism that puts human need and personal relations above the making of money which is an impossibility. They are advising their class to read Marx----they don't advise us to read Marx.

The prisons are full of working people, we all know they take care of their own. Let's not be fooled by their phony displays of anger and keep our eyes on the prize.

June Reyno arrested

June Reyno,thrown out of her house last week by sheriffs, along with Matt from the CRR/Hands Off Our Homes, was arrested yesterday for breaking back in to her house. She is free today out on bail waiting arraignment in April.

If you are in the San Diego area and want to help June fight to keep her shelter contact us at:
hands_off_our_homes@yahoo.com

This is a quick report, we'll keep people updated.

The pics above are June's home after the arrest and after she had been driven out. This is what the speculators and moneylenders do when they can't squeeze the interest out of you anymore.

Irish celebration.

It is not easy celebrating what is known as St. Patricks day. First I am an atheist. And this rules out praying and bowing and scraping. 

Then there is the fact that christianity wiped out the old Brehon Laws in Ireland which were much more progressive than the Christian laws. The Brehon laws were especially much more progressive for women. 

Then there is the particular case of celebrating what is known as St Patrick's day here in the US. This is even worse. Irish America institutions and culture is dominated by the Irish American business people and politicians and the Catholic church. One result of this is that the tradition of struggle and radicalism that is central to Irish history is eradicated. Revolution socialist James Connolly, Revolutionary socialist Michael Davitt, socialism in general, these are purged from the celebration of being Irish in the US. 

It is not easy to see why. The people who run the Irish American organizations, are driven by the urge to claw their way up into the US capitalist class and elite. This ambition would not be helped by them talking about Connolly, Davitt, Socialism. So the Irish "history" they serve up on St. Patricks day is one that is acceptable to the US American capitalist class, that is pro-capitalist. 

This means they have to fill the vacuum. How do they do this? By the nonsense of dying rivers green and wearing ridiculous green hats. And of course behind this is the Catholic church pushing its organization pretending it never exploited the working people of Ireland for centuries. 

So I stay at home on the 17th of March. Read something from Connolly, read something from Yeats, read something from Joyce, this I find is the way to celebrate an Irish day. 

Sean.   

The US government can't break the law. Or can it?

AIG, what was the world's largest insurance company before it collapsed and was bailed out three times by the US taxpayer to the tune of $170 billion, is being very cooperative. AP reports it has "agreed to administration demands to restructure some of its corporate bonuses."

However, it will still pay out millions in bonuses, $165 million according to reports, to the swindlers after the US treasury department announced it cannot legally stop them because the government can't legally stop them. Timothy Geitner, the treasury secretary and former world bank employee who forgot to pay taxes has demanded the the firm now owned by the US government "scale back future bonus payments where legally possible."

Well isn't that something. The US government can bomb countries illegally (Cambodia, Iraq) Overthrow governments illegally (too many to mention but Iran and Guatemala in 1953-54 and Chile 1973 come to mind) Assassinate foreign politicians (Allende and numerous other Latin American reformers). It can install in place of Democratic regimes ruthless murderers (Shah of Iran, Mobutu of Congo) It has supported and armed some of the world's worst mass murderers (excluding the domestic examples like Henry Kissinger and Donald Rumsfeld there is Osama bin Laden, Suharto, Pinochet, Marcos to name a few).

But its respect for the law is so profound, its moral fiber so great, it can't stop the thieves at AIG walking away with millions of dollars of taxpayer money in bonuses after already receiving billions from the taxpayer to keep their wrecked business afloat.

We have written many times on this blog that they have forfeited their right to run society. They have forfeited their right to manage our money and to manage the material forces that produce the necessities of life.

The capitalist class is bankrupt.

The stop in the mind again

I have written about the "Stop in the mind" so many times I am sure people who read my stuff get sick of it. The English historian, Christopher Hill used the term in his excellent history of the English revolution. * He described the heroism and commitment the rising capitalist class and other opponents of feudal absolutism had in the struggle for economic and religious freedom under these regimes.

He used the term "stop in the mind" to describe the greatest obstacle the revolutionists faced in their struggle against the feudal regime----their own consciousness. They accepted the dominant ideology of the day which was termed "The divine right of kings". This expressed the view that the King was gods emissary on earth, he was king by god's proclamation.

Naturally, if you believed in god this was an insurmountable hurdle. How could you get rid of the emissary of the person that created you and the world in which you live? This view eventually lost some credibility after they cut off the kings head and god never intervened.

I write about this term all the time in part to constantly remind myself of what is and what is not. It's my attempt to defend myself against the dominant ideology of today, the ideology of the capitalist class.

Yesterday I was at a rally of teachers here in California. The Union they belong to, the largest in the nation with over 300,000 members in California alone, called for rallies and for its members to wear pink as teachers received pink slips (layoff notices in the US) due to the fiscal crisis. The employers laugh at this completely inadequate response to their savage attacks on working people by the trade Union leaders and members eventually get demoralized by what is in actuality a pep rally that accomplishes nothing concrete.

There is no money in this nation for education. We are told this by the rich through their control of the media. The Union leaders pick up the story and repeat it unchallenged. The priests and preachers echo it from the pulpits and eventually many of us believe it ourselves although we also see that money goes to wars and other profitable (for some) enterprises.

The Financial Times mentioned in one of its editorials today the sum of 11 thousand billion dollars or 11 trillion dollars that they say is stashed away in offshore accounts dodging taxes. I had read about this figure before and they are now, in the light of the present financial crisis, curbing some of the excesses, or pretending to.

It should be noted that this 11 trillion dollars (about one fifth of world GDP) is money that rich individuals have stashed away---it does not include corporations.

This 11 trillion is just the tip of the wasteful iceberg, it is our money---the product of those who work productively each and every day.

So we should also unplug that stop in the mind as there is no shortage of money in society. It's like the domestic violence victim, once they realize they are not the cause of the violence just the recipient of it, that there is a real problem that is not of their own making, it opens the door to correcting the situation. A strategy of accommodation to a domestic violence abuser doesn't stop the violence (it can only be a tactic along the road to stopping it) and wearing pink won't stop the bosses violence against workers---weakness breeds aggression is a well known saying and in exploitative situations it is true.

Once we're free of the stop in the mind, we can address the next obstacle, the view that there is nothing we can do about it. But a glimpse at our history and the struggles of those who gave us what we have today holds great lessons if we can tear ourselves away from the daily grind and their mindless TV shows.

Another lesson for us is to learn is from our enemies. Yesterday's Financial Times, one of the most important and influential journals of capitalism in the world advised its readers to read four great economists in order to help them understand capitalism and how it works.

They were Adam Smith Joseph Schumpeter, John Maynard Keynes (Lord Keynes, obviously not a Marxist) and Karl Marx. This is not the first occasion in the past weeks that a distinguished journal of capital has urged its readers to read Marx.

USA today, The Sun in Britain, The New York Daily news or Fox TV are all owned by the same group of folks that own the Financial Times and their audience is millions of working people.

They don't urge us to read Marx.

So obviously we should do so.

* http://www.amazon.com/Century-Revolution-1603-1714-Routledge-Classics/dp/0415267390/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1237046088&sr=1-1

Did I get robbed or what?

My wife is real good with figures and stuff, she always notices if there is a suspicious entry on my credit card bill. She points out to me today that there are two charges of $20 each, one for January and one for February. It is a name she doesn't recognize and wants me to confirm it.

It turns out it is for a membership to a website that I can't recall joining, although I do know the site as I have visited it. It is a site that helps you locate people and I was looking for a friend I have lost touch with. It turns out that I had paid one dollar for some information on the friend I was looking for, or someone with the same name, but that one dollar fee was a special for signing up for the 7- day free trial. The trial was free but you have to cancel before the seven days to avoid paying the $20 a month fee for regular subscription to the site.

I had forgotten about this so I was charged $20 for January and $20 for February for a total of $40. So for a $1.00 fee for a phone number, I paid $40. After my wife pointed it out I called and canceled the subscription.

The man on the phone was very nice and canceled the subscription for me but it got me to thinking. What had happened here?

It appears on the surface that these guys made $39 from me as they charged me $40 after the initial $1.00 (actually 99c). Admittedly it was my fault, somewhere on the site it said that if I didn't cancel within the time frame, they would charge me accordingly. But we have to be on the defensive every minute of every day as there are millions of schemes and attempts to trick a tired person in to parting with a dollar or two---it's called freedom.

I am a political person and watch this crap like a hawk. I had just been had. They had just practiced what they call "marketing" on me. One of their MBA's working with an accountant, a statistician and a behavioral psychologist had figured out that with enough pressure throughout every minute of every day, and enough volume (visitors to the site) a certain number would forget to cancel before the seven day trial period had ended. What with the pressure of the marketplace which is a 24 hour, seven day week, 365 day a year event, and the daily grind-----work, rent, school, family etc., this was a certainty.

I thought of all the people whose lives were more hectic and stressful than mine and how many of them would make the same mistake. This site advertises itself as one of the top 100 visited sites on the internet. I assume this means in the world. How many people made the same mistake I did at $20, $40 $60 a time? It must be in the thousands, perhaps hundreds of thousands, just for this one company. The same sort of scam, goes on every minute of the day around the world.

This is a completely unproductive activity. It is simply another way of fleecing people out of some money; a way of depriving people of some of their wages, money they earned for socially useful productive Labor for the most part. Someone is making a killing this way, and I know it's not the guy I spoke to in customer service.

And I am expected to meekly accept that there is no money available for education.

PHONE BLITZ for June Reyno CALL SAN DIEGO MAYOR!

March 12th 2009
Campaign for Renters Rights: Hands Off Our Homes! No Foreclosures!
This Message from CRR member Matt who was thrown out of June Reyno's house this morning, along with June, by San Diego Sherriffs:
CALL SAN DIEGO MAYOR JERRY SANDERS' office (619) 236-6330
please start calling tomorrow, March 13th, after 9am:
1. Ask what they know about June Reyno's case
2. Ask if the Mayor can call the Sherriff to stop evicting people from their homes
3. KEEP on the phone as long as possible
FACTS: June Reyno resides at 10169 Presley St. San Diego California 92126
June's number is 858 549 4764. Her family is getting evicted as a result of foreclosure on a house where the bank has extracted tens of thousands in interest and in a situation where 19 million homes are already vacant in the US.
PLEASE CALL. GET YOUR FRIEND'S TO CALL. STAY ON THE PHONE AS LONG AS YOU CAN!!!
Campaign for Renters Rights (510) 595-5545

Its a waiting game now...

I'm in San Diego right now with June Reyno. The San Diego Sheriff's Dept showed up at 7am, we were still sleeping when they started knocking at the door. Three officers showed up with three realtors tugging at their skirts. After the exchanging of formalities, they removed us from June's home. One of the sheriffs had mentioned that he had 18 more families to evict today. Of course they were not interested in any of the bankruptcy paperwork. They weren't interested in the fact that June has nowhere else to go.
We are back in the house now, waiting for someone to call the police on us I guess.

We must seize the time

The greatest calamity for working people during the present crisis is that we have no leadership that can take advantage of this near collapse of the system and the turmoil our enemies find themselves in. During the 1930's there was still a very active and militant current present within the working class, this was particularly so in auto, steel and other industries. There were three successful general strikes in Toledo, Minneapolis and San Francisco followed by the sit down wave and 44 day occupation in Flint Michigan that broke the back of the mighty General Motors.

Capitalism today has been on the verge of collapse and is not yet out of the woods. The theoreticians and thinkers of the capitalist class are desperately trying to guide their class through this difficult period. Their political representatives, Barak Obama being among the most eloquent of them, are appealing to national pride and history as if capitalism has always existed as the dominant economic system. The recent US budget is based on a completely unrealistic economic outlook. As it was once said of Reagan "The only woman in the White House is Rosy Scenario" But people are not convinced that things will get better, objective reality at this stage of the game points in the other direction as jobs and homes are lost and poverty among the poorest gets even worse.

The absence of leadership will not stop a movement from developing, it delays that process and ensures the suffering and confusion along this road is greater than it need be. But slowly opposition is building. The present crisis has and is continuing to have a dramatic effect on consciousness as the objective situation undermines the idea that the market is god.

In the second of a series in the Financial Times on the crisis of capitalism, Gillian Tett writes, "..the pillars of faith on which this new financial capitalism were built have all but collapsed". This is a staggering account of the state of affairs and is an honest one. But a statement that reveals most starkly the dire mood that prevails among the capitalist class comes from Bernie Sucher of Merrill Lynch's Moscow branch. He says:
"Our world is broken---and I honestly don't know what is going to replace it. The compass by which we steered as Americans has gone. The last time I ever saw anything like this in terms of disorientation and loss was among my friends in Russia when the Soviet Union broke up."

Tett says, as many of the strategists of capital are saying now, that the problem was that in the financial sector they basically just gorged themselves, playing in a huge casino making bets that were so complex even bankers couldn't understand them, and that these bets were packaged and doled out to thousands of others who wanted to gamble using someones ability to pay the mortgage as collateral.

They don't know where they're going. They're afraid that social unrest will explode and in that situation people's consciousness changes rapidly as we try to resolve the crisis of the system. They are afraid of nationalism as Martin Wolf wrote in yesterdays first part of this series. But most of all they afraid of working class unity and socialist ideas re-emerging with an alternative that can point society forward. A letter to the Times a few weeks ago advised them all to read the economic writings of Karl Marx as they could learn from him. This is a stunning admittance, something they would not likely cop to in the pages of the mass media that is designed for you and I.

With no alternative capitalism will recover, but this crisis has changed the world forever, it is a crisis of historic proportions, a new turn in world history. The working class will inevitably find its feet, even in the US where the bourgeois are so powerful and the heads of organized Labor so compliant and the most fervent defenders of capitalism and the market--a new movement in response to this state of affairs is inevitable. The working class was initially stunned in response to the great depression of 1929; today's crisis is having a similar effect as people try to figure out what can be done. But there have been demonstrations against foreclosure auctions, against evictions. Seventy Five thousand demonstrated in NYC against cuts in public services and for increased taxes on the rich over the weekend. This is only the beginning.

The finance industry, in other words, the allocation of capital, of the surplus value created by Labor, is in private hands like all major industries in capitalist society. The banks and financial institutions must be taken in to public ownership under the control and management of the working class. It is clear that those in control of society cannot manage it to the benefit of its inhabitants or the environment in which we live.

Not one job lost
Not one home lost
No cuts in public services

Public ownership of the financial institutions and distribution and allocation of capital by committees of workers, economic experts and small business with workers in majority

Public ownership of the dominant industries under workers control and management and the elimination of the control of production by an unelected clique that constitute a dictatorship over society.

No support for Democrats or republicans---for an independent mass workers' party

The strategists of capital recognize that they have come to a turning point in history and are discussing a strategy for dealing with it---so must we. We cannot go on in the old way. Every day there are layoffs and evictions. In the former colonial world, some 50 million more will be driven deeper in to poverty over the next six months.

Real change doesn't just happen. You can't just "hope" for it. We have to act and we have to have a plan. We are a small group of people around Facts For Working People. Don't let the racists and nationalists fill the vacuum. We welcome you to join with us to build a future for us and our children.

We must seize the time.

Obama Must Be Proud

What was it Obama said in his Inaugural address? Something like "It is ....the selflesness of workers who would rather cut their hours than see a friend lose a job which sees us through our darkest hours." That should have sent a very clear message to the working class that we are being messed with once again, even more.
So called job-sharing has been round for along while. Seen as a concession to workers , and a popular concept in female dominated ocupations like nursing , allowing women to share half time benefits and more time off to "look after their families." it has never been anything more than the elimination of jobs. 2 workers doing one job and collecting one workers benefits is always better for the employer than creating more positions. It is a subtle way of eliminating jobs. Not accidentally it has never been as far as I can see an "opportunity" jumped on by workers in health care. One of the reasons it has not been a popular choice for women workers is because they simply cannot afford half pay and half benefits and instead have been forced as usual into the 16 hour work day ( some with young children know it is in fact a 24 hour workday) - an 8 hour day in the workplace followed by another 8 hour days doing unpaid domestic labour.
What worker would not rather have a 30 hour work week at same pay or at the very minimum 35 hour work week , with the option of free quality childcare available 24 hours a day for public sector workers who work shift work-nurses, paramedics, transit workers etc.
Unfortunately either the leedership of the unions who buy into this scam either do not get it or they do? Sure they do and it is a quiet almost invisible concession to the boss and the capitalist class couched as is often the case in the guise of "opportunity."
This has been going on for decades. Now in crisis the bosses and politicians and trade union leadership all in cahoots together, are trying to sugar coat the bitter pill even more, peddling more "workweek sharing" to workers.
The Globe and Mail today " Canadian government has long supported work sharing as an alternative to outright layoffs." They fail to say that the union leadership has supported this and couched it as "opportunity." Layoffs correctly strike genuine and legitimate fear into workers. Layoffs force the hand of the the labour leaders. Either fight layoffs or collaborate with the employers and in fact do the work of the employers by implementing them according to seniority. How may times have i heard the leadership of my nursing union righteously try to allay our fears saying in effect-"no worries-we will make sure the employer honours seniority " as nursing jobs disappear.
A professor at University of Toronto's School of Management offers this cold hard fact "there are many unions who would voluntarily accept such worksharing agrements today."
In February 2009, Rogers Communications ' the company recently gave all full-time staff the "opportunity" to reduce their workweek, accepting a 20 percent paycut in an effort to avoid laying off 20% of its staff."
In Taiwan -"some 100,000 workers are taking 10 days of unpaid leave to prevent job cuts."
UAW and CAW -wage freezes and unpaid leave (replacing SPA days- special paid absence)
"voluntary" giving up of benefits.
Leadership of United Steelworkers Wayne Fraser-prevaricates -'thousands of Ontario's Steelworkers are "voluntarily" working reduced hours."
Please !! What worker in their right mind wants to accept up to 20 percent paycut through worksharing-none I know.
So it seems that the trade union leaders are forcing "selflessness " down the throats of all us "selfish" workers who are willing to fight for full time jobs at full pay and full benefits, and expecting to pay our rent and our mortgages and feed our families.
OBAMA must be proud of these traitors.

Permanently Short Staffed

When I first started working - late 80's the office enivornment was totally different. Our department had two "word processing specialists", we had two permanent file clerks, one person who would do the faxing and copying. This is addition to the 3 secretaries (I was one), office manager, executive assistant positions. I am called an "office coordinator". I do data entry, maintain district files, all copying and faxing, scanning and email docs, backup switchboard operator, backup invoice coordinator and the director's assistant. Of course, one of my main duties is "special projects". This means anything else that comes up that they need help with. We are migrating to a new system in Apri. We had a meeting this morning where they mentioned we need to be available for weekend work. When someone leave the department, the positions need to be justified. We lost two people recently (went to departments that are considered more "safe) - they did not fill the positions - they just move the work around. Of course, in the background, is the refrain, "be grateful you have a job". People talk about being super busy and swamped like its job security.

Retirment's good for some--and so is fraud

As politicians in California from the state down to the local level, run around cutting education and other public services, the head of Disney rests secure in his bed. His work insurance plan gives his heir $4.5 million if he dies on the job. But investors are getting a little upset with some of the benefits these guys get. The Shaw Group at its annual shareholder meeting decided to put what the Wall Street Journal calls a nail in to the "golden coffin" deals that executives get. Still, the company CEO's family will get the promised $18 million after his death. AFSCME, the public sector Union is pushing for these curbs as they are "the ultimate non-performance based perk" says an AFSCME spokesperson. One would wonder what sort of performance brings a death benefit of $18 million, no wife, husband or parent of a person killed in Iraq or Afghanistan would receive such a benefit and when the politicians decide to send our youth to these escapades they say that it is the ultimate sacrifice-------not worth much though. With pathetic responses like these to this robbery, it is no wonder the heads of organized Labor are about as popular as CEO's in opinion polls. They would be even more unpopular if people, including their own members, knew who they were.

Bernie Madoff, the swindler who bilked people and charities out of some $50 billion wants his wife to keep her share of the loot as its in her name and had nothing, absolutely nothing, to do with the swindle. He is free and staying at his $7 million Manhattan penthouse. He wants that and another $62 million in assets to remain in the family. He honestly says it didn't result for the fraud.

And working class people are in jail for stealing pizza.

June Reyno facing arrest....again

The local sheriff's office said they would be coming March 12th, 6:00am.

June's been fighting her eviction since September.  She has been threatened, kicked out, intimidated and manipulated by the banks, lawyers and loan collectors.   She has still managed to stay in her home, somehow.  She has been exhausted, in every aspect in dealing with the corrupt real estate courts in San Diego.  

June was granted a 3-month extension to stay in her home while dealing with litigation;  it was suppose to be time for her to recover from all the stress.  Day in and day out, being under the constant threat of homelessness, jail, poverty.  The mental anguish and anxiety is comparable to war time stress.  

These are the tools they are using to swindle June out of her home.  These lawyers and lending companies are in panic mode as they frantically try to snatch up any piece of capital before anyone realizes there is nothing left.  The judges and courts aid their cronies; because of course, they are all on the same policy making boards, and hey, their daughters may be on the same softball team.  

This is what June sent me: 

Apparently the Bankruptcy laws that are suppose to prevent American homeowners from having their primary homes taken away doesn't make any difference to the Sheriff's Office.

I will let everyone know soonest my findings on Monday.

The Sheriff's Office 22 W. Broadway, San Diego asked me to return at 1:00pm in the afternoon tomorrow on Monday after my visit with them on Friday.  They said they needed to talk to the Judge and the Judge was not there to speak with about honoring the permanent injunction to stay the eviction schedule for this Thursday from the bankruptcy court.

Kind Regards and Many Thanks,

June Reyno

The battle continues...

unemployment and racism.

I see that unemployment in February for all Americans is 8.1%. Over ten million Americans are denied the right to work by US Capitalism. This condemns the system. It shows without contradiction that US capitalism has forfeited the right to exist. It cannot provide work for its citizens. Imagine how much work and production ten million workers could do.

When we look closer at these figures we see something else. African American unemployment is 13.4%. Close to twice the level of the national average and close to twice the level of the average for white Americans which is 7.3%. But look at teenage African Americans. It is a catastrophe. Unemployment for African American teenagers is 38.8% but more likely closer to 44%when account is taken for teenagers who have given up looking for work. This also shows that US capitalism has forfeited the right to rule. This is a system that is rotten to its core.

We need to use our imagination. Imagine the entire population, imagine our community whichever one we live in, living at such levels of poverty and unemployment. If we are not African American imagine living with such unemployment levels. What this would do to our family and personal pressures? They talk about the crisis of the African American family and the African American male. There is no crisis of the African American family or the African American male. There is a crisis of capitalism which cannot provide a decent job and living wage for all its citizens and in particularly the African American population.

This high unemployment is not an accident. Capitalism cannot exist without a significant portion of its workforce unemployed. If all workers were employed we would be able to push much more successfully for higher wages and benefits. The Federal Reserve Bank manipulates interest rates monthly to keep them high enough to ensure enough people are unemployed. They actually report to Congress that they have enough out of work to keep wage pressure low. All these people who are unemployed over the years are the result of the deliberate policy of capitalism and their agent the Federal Reserve. The more recent surge in employment is the result of the overall crisis of capitalism which includes the temporary reduction in interest rate levels over the recent years and this is now coming back to haunt the system in the form of over production and also the criminal policies of the financial system which they have been propping up and encouraging and which is now collapsing.

This general crisis of the system hits African American and other racial minorities such as native Americans and Hispanic people hardest for two reasons. One is the ruling classes policy of divide and rule. The ruling class in the US are a minority. They cannot rule if the huge working class majority unite against them. Their policy is to keep unemployment and poverty amongst the racial minorities higher as this will then give them a better chance of convincing the majority of the working class who are white that the problem is that African American and other minorities are lazy etc and the white worker is different and specifically they do not have to have anything to do with workers from the minorities, especially that they they do not have to work and organize together with them in struggle for jobs and good wages for all.

The other reason that unemployment and poverty hits minorities hardest is because of what they have endured over the course of US history. I will deal here only with African Americans.

For hundreds of years African Americans were forced to work as slaves. They got no wages. They were able to accumulate nothing. So when slavery ended they had nothing, they were at the bottom of the economic ladder. While the upper layers of the white population who now rule the country, had accumulated large amounts of capital and control over the state and politics the African American population had none of these.

Many African American workers had developed important skills while working for the slave owners.. However these threatened the existing skilled artisan class amongst the whites, people such as those who had their own shops, forges, etc. The skilled black worker who tried to set up such outlets which were in competition with these were a particular target of the Klu Klux Klan and their businesses were burnt and they were lynched and their bodies burnt. Then when the unions developed which from the beginning should have given a way forward for African American workers many of these, especially the craft unions refused to let African American workers join and so forced them to stay in the low paid jobs.

This result of these experiences have led to unemployment being greater in the African American community. And of course the racism that exists pervades society in general and results in African Americans finding it more difficult to get a decent job than white people.

US capitalism is rotten. For all workers it has to be ended. In the present crisis workers from all backgrounds are being faced with experiences which are closer to that of the workers from the minorities over the centuries. The task is to unite workers of all backgrounds and struggle together to end the system which to one degree or another exploits us - to end capitalism and replace it with a democratic socialist system.

Rosa Parks and Sojourner Truth

Now there's some women.

one of my favourite things to read on IWD as a ritual I suppose is Ain't I A Lady,
a wonderful ironic little piece by Sojourner Truth.

International Women's Day- Ladies, "civility"

International Women's Day is almost here and in Toronto and cities around the world today and tomorrow there will be marches and celebrations.
It was Clara Zetkin , a revolutionary woman, a comrade and friend of the great revolutionary Rosa Luxembourg, who put out the call to remember and honour women worker and highlight the unique struggles of women within the larger struggles of the working class.
There will be many speeches and celebrations today and tomorrow honouring women internationally.
But on this blog and on this Day I am thinking about about the power of language to intimidate and oppress, to quickly "shut up." and shut down.
A reader may wonder how I could take this apparently small issue or theme and make it relevant to IWD.
This week a co-worker called me "ballsy" when I spoke up to a MD who was very rude to me and by implication to my co-workers. In the past I have been called "bolshie" and brave but never "ballsy." I was offended and raised the question why, when I as a woman have no "balls" would my confidence in challenging this extremely small and commonplace example of the continual belittling of my work and again by implication the work of all nurses and "lesser beings" "workers" in the health care hierarchy, be seen as a male attribute or strength rather than a strength as a confident worker. I raised this in a friendly manner , as it was meant to be a compliment , and it was received thoughtfully.
This week I have also been unable to cast from my mind Hilary Clintons statement on the proposed demolition of Palestinian homes in East Jerusalem- I believe she said it was not "helpful." She did not say it was "atrocious" or even "provocative" - just "unhelpful." What a "civil" word.I raged a little at work when I read that and
a brief conversation around language and its power to shape ideas evolved.
Then today I was reading a comment from the President of York University , where there are very serious and angry protests around the Campaign Against Israeli Apartheid , and how he called for "civility." The chief complaint coming from the university administration being that these protests were loud and a bullhorn used and that students , newly back to classes after a long and brave strike on the part of contract worker/student/ teachers were unable to concentrate on their classwork beacsue of the "noise." Several organizers were cenured and censored for not being CIVIL.
I hate this word just like I hate the word term LADY. Unbelieveably still in common usage it bears within it layers of oppresssion and hate just as does the word "civil."
There are many meanings for civil and they all originate in what the ruling classes see as appropriate behaviour. Civil society is a calm and complacent society where the rules and institutions , actions and manners of the elite ruling class prevail. If we challenge these rules and institutions we are "churlish" , acting like "peasants."
When "Ladies" act like women , we are challenging the rules and institutions of patriarchy. To this day the word woman can conjure up notions of unbridled sexuality and coarseness , seduction and irrational emotional hormonally driven "hysterical " behaviour.
This may seem a stretch for younger people to believe but just scratch the surface and underneath every woman is a LADY in waiting to be transformed by the patriarchy into a complacent and obedient UNCIVIL being.
And underneath every "churlish" outspoken worker is a wage slave waiting to be bridled.
And underneath the homes demolished in occupied Palestine and Occupied areas of Jerusalem are working families and their children who as members of the international working class have most in common with the working class in Israel.

Today working class women who have acted in unlady like fashion and in a churlish manner , who have walked the picket lines and fought on the front lines of struggle against the killer capitalist class and the lords of feudalism in the past , must rebel against civility, against the partriarchalcapitalist masters and just be "ballsy" .
Enough Already.

I have just begun to read the The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists by Robert Tressell-only 10 pages in. It was written in 1906-1910 by an Irish housepainter/worker.
Like most i recoil at the word philanthropy but I think he is referring to, according the book jacket, "the philanthropy of an unenlightened workforce who give away their rights and aspirations to a decent life so freely."
Tradesman Frank Owen when he had a small bit of a break at tea time would read.
Considered a crank by his very poor and exploited co-workers Owen had come to the conclusion that "in the world a small class of people were possessed of a great abundance and superfluity of the things that are produced by work. He also saw that a very great number -in fact the majority of the people -lived on the verge of want....and semi-starvation from the cradle to the grave " and some "maddened by privation , killed themselves and their children in order to put a period to their misery."
"And strangest of all -in his opinion -he saw that the the people who enjoyed the abundance of things that are made by work , were the people who did Nothing. And seeing all this he thought that it was wrong, that the system that had produced all this was rotten and should be altered. And he had sought out and eagerly read the the writings of those who thought they knew how it might be done."
I read this on the streetcar on the way home -and thought how true, how always true in semi-colonial countries and now close for so many in advanced capitalist countries.
Over twenty percent of Americans have had or are about to have their homes stolen from them by "the people who do Nothing."
Unemployment figures rise daily. Auto workers are on the brink-retirees who have worked for decades -may end up with no -no pension. Pensions stolen by the people who do Nothing.
Education and health care in Canada , a precious and hard won right won through the struggle of the working class -being jettisoned . Nurses to be laid off and barely a peep from the trade union leadership so busy selling out and bragging about which health care union is "the best" deliberately refusing to join together and take action. It infuriates me -I am a nurse and what may not seem evident to many has always been as clear as the finest crystal for me-what kind of society denies the right to care for the sick , the disabled , the most vulnerable. Sometimes it is hard when we are healthy to see how despicable the denial of this most basic right is -but when we are sick and we see people who are so sick and so vulnerable -how much closer to barbarism can we get.
Leaving work tonight I had time to introduce a brief statement on the economy. I was speaking to a retired nurse who works the occasional night shift as she was taking over from me.She is enjoying her retirement-her husband is a unionized tradesman for CBC . I mentioned that I was happy for her-and that even though i could not retire until I am 70 I will not be alone and how a recent poll reads that 45 percent of Canadians now in last month have realized they will work well past 65.
She expressed disgust-she is a very Christian women but has always been a good union woman and supporter as is her husband. Her 2 grown children live in the South - Georgia or Alabama -and they were telling her that the homes of many very well off are being walked away from. She was amazed when her kids told her that everything is left behind-furniture and in her words "big" flat screen tvs. She said "what will people do-what will they do?"
Sometimes I get very sad and very angry and I think -what is wrong with workers-why do they not get mad , very mad , why do they seem to hide their heads in the sand -and then I know they are very mad and they are very scared and they are not really in denial.They just do not know where to turn-there is no leadership.
That is why i shook myself out of a very deep but brief episode of pessimism -because there are so many of us like the housepainter in the book who do see and do know whats up and we need to keep at it and keep talking and keep struggling and sooner or later as someone said not too long ago on this blog the American/Canadian and workers everywhere will drag themselves up on their elbows and sooner or later start to demand what we deserve .
There is lots of potential leadership - , many oppositionists in the unions and angry people in our communities and if we keep at it we will boot the dead in the water traitors out.

Unemployed in Oakland, California. Week 5.

Today the Bureau of Labor Statistics released the figures for the jump in unemployment in February. In January a mammoth 11.6 million workers were unemployed. In February it jumped to 12.5 million. I was one of the 11.6 million. Now I'm one of 12.5 million. What a waste. What an absolute waste. When humankind has so much work that needs to be done, yet 12 million people are (officially) unemployed because the managers of this society cannot find PROFITABLE work for them to do.
At my Local of the Carpenters Union there are 450 of us out of work. Some 65 carpenters joined the list last week and only 2 jobs came into the hall. I am slowly climbing up the list, but there are still workers on the out of work list who became unemployed last Spring!
I spoke to a teacher tonight who works at a bougeois private school. They're even laying off there. I asked who they're getting rid of, she replied, the Diversity Director. Capitalism is increasingly exposing itself, its naked, sick, greedy self.
My Local's Executive passed a motion to put an Ad in the area's Construction Union magazine for the Campaign for Renters' Rights Hands Off Our Homes campaign so that out of work construction workers who are losing their homes can link up and fightback.
Twelve million pissed off workers, what an army for change that could be!
Rob, Carpenters Local 713

"I've been struggling all my life"

Over the past month or so the CRR in Los Angeles has become involved in what seems to be a very successful campaign. Our success here has come not only from the repairs we have forced the slumlords to make but also from the strength that we are discovering among our selves. I had the opportunity last week to speak more intimately with one of the tenants that has really become one of the more militant organizers on this campaign. She is a single mother of two, who migrated to the U.S. from Guatemala when she was in her early twenties. She told me about her economic hardships "back home" and the ones she has faced her in the U.S., trying to raise her children. When I commended her for her strength and fearlessness in confronting managers, supervisors and city officials, she replied "I've been struggling all my life, fighting for my self and my children, this is just another battle I have to face." She just did not realize that she could do it with such success, she later explained. By the end of our conversation we both concluded that the working class can really underestimate its own strength, and although these battles we "have to face" may seem insignificant at times they are nevertheless a testament to the power and strength the working class wields.