Why would we let them use "our" credit card? We don't let our children use our credit card.

In the aftermath of the near total collapse of capitalism  the theoreticians of capital struggled to find the appropriate lifeline.  Trillions of taxpayer dollars have been spent and/or pledged to save the so-called free market economy from extinction. Alongside this, came threats of regulation, of curbing the excesses, of mandating that the banks increase their capital cushions in order to avoid a repeat of the crisis.

Housing has been already been nationalized in the US in the sense that the US government is the major shareholder. The US governement underwites nine out of ten mortgages according to the Wall Street Journal.* It nationalized the worlds largest insurance company, AIG and is now a major shareholder in GMAC, the moneylending arm of GM which it also has a significant chunk of. Lawrence Summers warns us that the system that they worship so proudly is going to need more help in the coming months. 

In order to do this, the politicians of the two capitalist parties in Congress have raised the nations debt ceiling and with the Fannie and Freddie bailout have "lifted the ceiling on the volume of mortgages they can buy for their portfolios with the taxpayers credit card." **(my added emphasis)

As they use "our" credit card freely, stocks have skyrocketed.  The Dow Jones is up 20% for the year, Ford Motor Co stocks have quadrupled and American Express stocks doubled; why not, public money is doing the job of propping up the economic system, not "private:" capital. Gannet, the mass media conglomerate that brings us all the lies, its stock has risen 88%---they're all Keynsians now although infrastructure spending is not the form this new Keynsianism takes for sure.

Already an asset bubble is on the horizon.  Along with getting guarantees of cash from us brought to them on our behalf by their politicians, they have increased profits not through traditional growth but by massive cost cutting.  So we prop them up and they slash our living standards.

And what of all the regulation and curbing of the excesses that led to the crisis?  The Wall Street Journal is relieved, "The fear that Congress would rush regulate finance....has evaporated" it writes.  And it explains why, "The sorely needed financial redo has been diluted by financial interests targeting provisions that would squeeze profits....."

In the early stages the Nationalization of the banks by the capitalist state was a possibility.  In Britain, the government nationalized Northern Rock and threatened to take all banks under government ownership if they continued to refuse to lend.  Completely opposed to such meddling in the private sector in normal times, the capitalist state has no problem taking in to government control non profitable vital industries--let the taxpayer pay.  As Marx pointed out, "The executive of the modern state is but a committee for managing the common affairs of the whole bourgeoisie."  The modern state stepped in to rescue capitalism from the abyss but it cannot go to far; profits cannot be sacrificed in the last analysis and the representatives of the financial sector, the owners of the stuff that lubricates the economy and that is used to purchase human labor power,  will ensure that any serious threat to their right to do what they want with their capital is eliminated.

Like wars, financial crisis, speculation and ultimately overproduction and the crisis we are experiencing now are inherent to the system. Capitalism is driven to war and it is driven to overproduce and experience the crisis we see all around us.

Capitalist crises cannot be regulated out of existence. 

The nationalization of the banks under democratic workers control and management is the only permanent solution to the crisis that we are seeing now and that will likely continue for years to come, accompanied by increased wars and poverty.  We produce the wealth, we should own it, allocate it and determine the conditions under which it is created; we must control the Labor process.

We cannot make capitalism nice; this is utopian.  What is not is that we can build a world federation of democratic socialist states based on a rational, planned economic structure.




* After The Bailouts 12-28-09
** Economy's Rescue Only Half Done WSJ, 12-31-09

Threatened plane bombing and capitalist propaganda.

The threatened plane bombing at Detroit dominates the news. Every channel and newspaper have their commentators spouting off. It is all about the details of how to search people, how to check passports, how to coordinate information. It is never about the source of the problem and never poses how the problem can be solved.

This focus on security details will never stop the threat of planes being bombed. The reason this is so is because this threat comes from the policies of the US corporations abroad, especially in the Middle East and the Islamic world and in the conflict between Israel and Palestine. For as long as the US corporations rob and plunder the region, back the regimes which hold down repress and torture their own people in return for a share of the profits, unconditionally support the zionist regime in Israel, there will be mass rage against the US and there will be people prepared to fight and to die to oppose the US. And this includes die in suicide missions.

The US mass corporate media is extremely censored. The reality of the real cause of the so called security threat is not allowed to be discussed. The focus is all on radical islam being to blame, never on vicious capitalism and imperialism being to blame. The crisis of security in the US is caused by the foreign policies of the US corporations and their governments in Washington. This is what has to be understood. Until it is then the crisis of security will not be resolved. What this means is that US imperialism has to be ended if the country and in fact the world is to have peace and security.

Let us discuss this.

Sean.

Capitalists driven mad by greed.

Starting on January 1st, the estate tax, which is aimed at the wealth of a super rich capitalist's estate, will temporarily lapse. If these people can live to January 1st they will not have to pay this tax. So what is happening? For these rich it is important they do not die before January 1st otherwise they would be hit by the estate tax. They are taking about any measures.

A lawyer in New York is quoted in the Wall Street Journal as saying that he has two clients on life support and the "family are struggling with whether to continue heroic measures for a few more days." Here is the family keeping this person breathing until they can avoid paying the tax. Capitalism is a monstrous system.

Another lawyer explains about his client, a wealthy real estate swindler who is hanging on by a thread. His lawyer says that: "Whenever he wakes up he says, what day is it? Is it January 1st yet?" This is capitalism in all its sick glory. They would do anything for a dollar. As Marx said they would sell the rope to hang themselves. In this case they will get wired up to life support to pretend to be alive to try and cheat on their taxes. But even worse. Look at the case below.

The estate tax lapses in 2010 but it comes back again in 2011. So at the moment the mad super rich are trying to stay alive to the tax lapses on January 1st. If they succeed in this they will have a year during which they can die and pay no taxes. But if they do not die in 2010 and live on to 2011 they will be caught again as the estate tax comes back in. So the most "farsighted" of these mad super rich are thinking how if they are going to die they need to be sure to die before 2011 to escape the taxes. There is at least one case where euthanasia has been added to a person's estate planning mix according to the lawyer Katzenstein of Proskauer Rose. A client is planning to consider going to the Netherlands where euthanasia is legal. The idea being if he was going to live on into 2011 and get caught with the tax he could have himself killed and his estate would dodge the tax.

Capitalism is terrible for the working class and the poor. And for the capitalists themselves it turns them into grotesque creatures. Capitalism has forfeited its right to exist.

Sean.

Unemployed in Oakland: BACK TO WORK

About 20 of us bundled into the construction elevator attached seemingly precariously to the side of the building being built. With the wind blowing in through its steel mesh walls, the elevator operator pulled the gate down and we bumpily rode up to the fourth floor. I was back at work.

It was way cold. Half the glass in the windows wasn't in and the low forties temperature had everyone talking. As I climbed up on my scaffold, I heard one of the framers yell at his foreman, "give me a hug, I'm f***ing freezing!" A few of the other lads laughingly egged on the foreman to respond and he quickly disappeared around a corner.

Whenever I left my spot on the scaffold, to get materials, to saunter down the stairwell and across the mud to the porta-potties, I would bunch up my fists to bring the blood back to my finger tips. And on the one or two occasions I bumped or hammered a finger, it hurt like some kind of hell.

But coming back to work, however tenuous the duration may be, is good. It's good to be earning money. It's good to be with familiar faces doing something physical and collective. It's good to talk and hang out with people like myself!

It's been over 6 months. Excluding a month of work in July, I've been out of work nigh on 10 months.

I had a nice chat with a 60-ish carpenter, (a rarity in itself) from the old country. He is about 15 years older than me and went through an old-school apprenticeship. He told me on his first day of work as a "joiner" he was instructed by the older carpenters to build his own tool box. It was suitcase like, opening up into two, with wee draws and dove-tail joints everywhere. Not a screw to be seen. He spoke of being on job sites that had no electricity, no power tools. Everything was done by hand. "How much more interesting was work in those days," I told him. He nodded, "and things were so much slower."

These days things are powerfully fast in construction. Everyone rushes around. Every task is broken down to its simplest routine. Every knee, wrist, elbow and back, is used up in twice the time. Wherever the boss can de-skill a job and increase the pace of work it's done. Gone are the days when a carpenter was an all-round skilled worker. Forgotten for the most part, are the many skills and complexities of carpentry. The union kept wages high, but turned a blind eye to the speed-up and the de-skilling of our trade.

And now, in the depths of this depression where we've experienced a reduction in hours for union carpentry in Northern California of over 35%, the speedup has got us nowhere but out of work. That's one reason for the shorter work week. 30 hours work for 40 hours pay. Even the Carpenters' Union Constitution still calls for a 30-hour work week. It was inscribed back in the old days when life was different and work was more interesting.

Death of a Black Republican

Uncle Ruckus-Black White Supremacist on the show The Boondocks


Death of a Black Republican

Someone said in an earlier post or comment on this blog that Black people are constantly brainwashed into believing that welfare is wrong and we should not take it. Some actually believe this to be true.

It is particularly painful to have a member of my family be Republican because in recent history they are the people who openly and happily attacked Black people. The Democrats- the party of slavery have- at least sprayed on crocodile tears as of late. My immediate family isn’t Democrats either but at least we could understand why they would fall for their pitch. So much of the trickery perpetuated by fellow Black union leaders, church clergy are in the name of re-electing Democrats. We can even now point to a Black Democratic President- sending Black youth to war, defending police brutality and paying off the banks while hundreds of thousands of more Black homes go empty and families are on the street to see who that party stands for. But to be a Black Republican is seen as all together different. Either buffoonery or betrayal.

A Republican family friend Cameron uttered phrases I never thought I would hear from someone unless he had a sheet over his head.

He would say, “What’s wrong with the Black community is the father don’t take care of their children” or “Slavery is over we need to pull ourselves up by our bootstraps”, “Our problem is that Black women complain too much etc”. He would never acknowledge the Prison Industrial Complex that tears apart families daily. Usually this was directed towards Black women “on welfare”. He would not acknowledge the government who gives handouts of corporate welfare in the millions.

At the same time Cameron picked my mother and my sister and me up when our car broke down and drive us all around to work in school. Always on time at 8:00am for two weeks. The car discussions would start off careful and quiet but usually an argument ensued and then died down as we jumped out of the car. He also lent and gave my mother money several times when he didn’t have much himself. It was so perplexing and frustrating to deal with someone who politically had so much contempt for Black people and yet was so generous to our family. He didn’t blame my mother for wanting a “handout” from him. Why would he blame other people? We would ask him too. He would say, “You all are different”.

Yesterday my mother and I were in the car and she said Cameron had fallen on hard times but was willing to clean out our garage for free. As we talked about him she said, “Cameron’s changed. You shoulda heard him. He said, “You know what, food stamps is the only thing that’s gotten me though this hard time. I used to be embarrassed about it. Now I’m like shit I paid for this money working all my life. And the banks their getting all the welfare anyway!” “ Alright Cameron!”.

A revolutionary once wrote, “To a feather many people react differently but to a hot iron everyone acts the same.” Capitalism digs its own grave it can’t help but show its true colors- to oppress, attack, war, and rob the working class. It can not help but recruit members to the ranks of those against capitalism. Socialists could not have told Cameron what he saw and experienced himself. The hot iron burned him as it burns all those others out of their homes, out of work and wanting and willing work. How can you “lift yourself by your bootstraps” if you have no boots? Capitalism killed another Republican- he has left the party. But in its place what will he join? Hopefully with those of us just like him. Who have no illusions in justice, equality in this capitalism or its government. Those like him who believe humanity and who fight to make it a reality.

Layoffs, Privatization and the Friendly Face of Manipulation

Two things that enrage me generally and in my workplace is the "team concept" and the way that the bosses talk about “change.”
In the business section of my morning paper there were 2 articles designed to assist managers to motivate workers to be on side with the goals and objective of the company.
The columnists clearly were encouraging the managers and bosses to use“motivational"techniques to bring workers on side with the goals of the company or corporation. There is nothing new about this it is just more blatant and pervasive right now.
It made me reflect though on how often and in so many subtle ways workers are manipulated and frightened.
I work in a hospital, which like all aspects of health care in Canada, has adopted a corporate , business model of operating.
This means nothing more than the gradual incursion of privatization and adoption of business practices at all levels into the public health care sector in Canada. I could give hundreds of examples of how in both blatant and subtle ways this has been happening over the last decade and a half.
I could devote an entire blog item to just one small practice imposed upon nurses and the implications it has for the undermining of public health care. I have for the same decade and a half been talking to workers about this. Most understand but in the absence of a real opposition from the leadership of our respective public sector union leaderships, almost all feel unable to do anything except accept the changes that are happening.
It is harder for front line health care providers like nurses and social workers to fight the team concept.This is because the bosses take the advantage of blurring the lines between the “team” that is nurses, doctors, social workers etc, who assess and provide health care to clients and patients, a practice that is designed to give holistic and comprehensive care and address all the patients needs, and the team in the corporate sense similar to the team concept in an auto factory. Of note of course is that the fact that support staff are never included as part of the "team" despite the fact that the work they do is vital to the health and well being of patients. (For instance the escalation of hospital acquired infections and the laying off of support staff over the years – a direct relation.)
I have always been very open talking to my co-workers about this, pointing out the economic and political trends as well as the ideological assaults that try to justify privatization-the brain washing at work and in the media, the deliberate underfunding of health care, designed to make a mess that they will try to convince us can only be fixed by the private sector -of trends and how they adversely affect our patients and ourselves as workers.) I have always exploited their intuitive knowledge that they are getting screwed and tried to articulate in a manner that makes sense to them.
On the topic of change. This is where the bosses really try to put one over on us.
We all know that change happens from the top down. We are not consulted of course. Though sometimes there is a sham exercise of consultation with front line workers after the fact and we all know it is a sham and that the decision have been made.
So let me take 2 examples. We all know that frontline nurses are being laid off in the new round of public sector cuts. Already the union leadership has implemented 10 layoffs of frontline nurses.
We know that in 2010 there will be more layoffs at the bedside level and we know that this will adversely affect patient care. We also know that the union leadership will do the bosses job for them and implement the cuts “according to seniority,” they will offer no alternatives or fight back.
In the meantime they have hired in my division alone 8 what are called “advanced practice clinicians,” nurses and social workers, non union and simply an arm of management. They have blurred the line between labour and management and left it up to stewards like me to point this out and the dangers involved.
They have also hired a new CEO with a “friendly face.” She has a blog called, “ Call me Catherine.” where she invites workers to freely write to her on the blog and express themselves. At the same time that she announced her blog on the internal e-mail, there was a proud announcement to all staff that the second round of private investment – (P3) had been approved and the next round of building was to begin for the new site. The private company is a well known health care privateer and some of their disasters have been well documented by a health care coalition in Canada. So we are all supposed to cheer and be happy, after all our public health care system has been subjected to one more blow of the privatization axe, and to top it off we have a “friendly new “ CEO who wants us to chat with her on a blog with our concerns as front line staff!
My co-workers had to practically pull me off the computer when I read this reminding me that I needed my job for a few more years. This was expected news but the celebratory tone of the announcement really infuriated me.
Shortly after this we were told that the new friendly CEO was visiting each unit and that she would appear on my unit that evening. I prepared my co-workers for some of the questions I was going to ask her about all the new and wonderful “changes” that were about to happen under her leadership.
I told them I was not afraid to ask them and I was not stupid and most would expect it from me. I told them that I would be friendly and would after all just be following up on her friendly invitation to open up to her and feel comfortable to address her. I told them that I was going to ask her 3 main questions re privatization, the implications for our and future patients, layoffs and if she was prepared to take a pay cut in light of the new budget cuts and freeze on spending and hiring. This was not pure bravado on my part and I have done similar things in the past and I told them I would be skillfull and would exploit her own language in a way that she would be hard pressed to challenge.She never showed up.!
Now why would I do that? I calculated the risks, - next to none – and if i accomplished anything at all, it would be very small and would amount merely to giving voice to all our worries and concerns. After all my union leadership will not do this and I am privileged to be their steward on my unit and it was necessary for someone to let them know that we are not stupid. Plain and simple. No big victories expected.
Back to the issue of “change” and how the bosses spend millions of dollars in resources to try to get us to “buy in,” millions of dollars province wide that could be spent on health care.
Any worker who dares ask a qualitative question re proposed change, who attempts to put it into a context, and draw out the implications, in this case for workers jobs and workplace conditions as well as patient care is viewed a “ resistive to change,” “thinking inside the box” ( the irony here is no one ever mentions which box and that in fact workers who question are in fact thinking outside the box-using their sickening psycho babble.)
So to quote the columnist today “management must deliver a balanced message that addresses both the consequences of failing to change and the benefits of adopting a new approach.” Ouch there goes the critical worker/thinker. After the buy-in (manipulation of workers fear) they must then rely on "change leaders, ”of course from among our peers. Often they call them “champions of change.” On and on it goes. This sophisticated manipulation if workers and their fears has been going on for decades .
Oh how I wish I could have a blog at work – The title could be “Call me Wendy”

2008/9 The years we bailed out capitalism.

The Bush and Obama regimes were faced with the collapse of their system in 2008 and 2009. Capitalism was tottering. So what did they do. They took over $2 trillion of our taxes and gave it to the capitalists. The big bail out with our money. A new collapse lies ahead. The capitalists will come running again threatening us that if they are allowed to go bust we will all go bust. This time we have to be ready for their blackmail and threats. We must build a movement for the nationalization of the financial institutions and the corporations under workers control and management. The system must be taken out of the hands of the capitalists who have shown they cannot run it, that they have forfeited the right to be in control. The finances of the country and the productive forces of the country have to be organized in a democratic plan of production. That is a democratic socialist society.

Sean.

Ooops!, we're sorry.

Left: Burnt children after a NATO bomb attack. Their disfigured faces are the real face of war (by Maso Notarianni) Courtesy RAWA

NATO  forces have just "accidentally" bombed 10 Afghanis, including 8 children. (What's the North Atlantic Treaty Organization doing in this part of the world I wonder, protecting US and British shipping?)

Oh well! The US can give them $100 a child, that's not a bad deal.  After all, they didn't mean it.  Apparently, Afghan government forces couldn't go in there to check, the Taliban is in charge there, I wonder why that is.

Frozen Yogurt, Christmas and an Eviction

My sister-in-law and her three children were foreclosed on just before Christmas last year. They spent a few weeks in a hotel and eventually moved into renting an apartment.

This Christmas my sister-in-law and her 7-year old, 18-year old and 21-year old were evicted from this apartment.

What is unusual in this story is that her husband and the father of her children, my wife's brother, is an architect and a good one at that. What hit their economic life like an earthquake was US capitalism: private health care and the lack of social services here.

My brother-in-law has Mutliple Sclerosis. About 10 years ago he could no longer walk. About five years ago he went into a 24-hour care home. In the last few years his family has slowly descended into poverty.

The emotional weight of losing a parent and spouse to MS was compounded by the absence of any serious social or economic assistance from society. P's wider family has rallied around him, but his society has not. There is little money to be made from people that are both sick and unable to work. And in this society, capitalism, it's all about the money.

One of the inspirations in this story are P's two older daughters. They are tough, hard working and profoundly decent. The 21-year old has been working at a supermarket since she was 16 and the 18-year old finally landed a job at a frozen yogurt joint just last month.

Late on Christmas Day evening, after the 21-year old had finished her shift, we sat across the table from them. The 18-year old described how she'd been breaking into tears a lot lately. She described going for the job at the frozen yogurt place and how she broke down in tears during the interview. Her older sister chipped in, "I told her to do something at the interview that leaves an impression with the boss and she did it without realizing it!" We all had a laugh about that.

She explained that she gets to eat all the yogurt she wants. But not the toppings. That's the most profitable part of the business! Who'd've guessed that?

I am so totally proud of my nieces. They have lived their teenage years with a father with a terminal disease. They have had a bumpy ride in life. They hope to eventually go to college. The may make it, they may not. But in my books they are already successes.

The eldest has held a good union job for five years. She is solidly pro-union. She has all her different piercings and like most people her age, she receives a text about once every five minutes. She is a great big sister. I wish my own oldest daughter will grow to be like her. The future rests in the hands of these coming generations.

US capitalism. Drug capital of the world.

One of the ways US capitalism keeps control over the US working class, wins its struggle for the consciousness of the US working class, is to always be at war with somebody or something. In this way its keeps the US population in fear and convinced that we all have to be united in defense against the enemy. At present the US has its wars in Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, its war against terrorism and longer than any of these is its so called war against drugs. These wars are used as whips to keep the US working class in place. US working people must not be critical of their rulers, or their system, we cannot afford to be critical, we have all these enemies and all these wars to fight. This is what we are told. This is central to US capitalism's struggle for control of the US working class consciousness.

Look at one of these so called wars - the war on drugs. Since Reagan declared it over two decades ago the only affect on the drug epidemic in the US is that it has got worse. And while this has been happening there has been approximately $1 trillion spent on this so called war. Think what this one trillion could have done if spent on programs and alternatives for the youth.

At the same time as this has been going on Mexico is increasingly destabilized. Since Mexico launched its offensive against the drug cartels around four years ago 15,000 people have been killed. 90% of the weapons used in these Mexican slaughters come from the US and of course without the demand for drugs in the US there would be practically no demand and no drug trade and no slaughter of this scale in Mexico.

The war against drugs does not work. One reason is that capitalism does not want it to work. They want working class people and youth doped and or making money out of the drug trade rather than becoming involved in revolutionary politics. When I lived in Ireland in the late 1960's and the uprisings took place suddenly LSD appeared on the streets. Capitalism tries to drown the revolutionary potential of the working class and youth in drugs.

What should be done? Many European countries have taken steps towards the legalization of drugs and the development of programs to help those addicted and achieved significant success. Keeping drugs illegal, thus keeping the price high, this in turn leading to drug dealing organizations armed to the teeth, does not work. A drug free society is only possible where people have decent living standards, satisfying lives, are free from the alienation which is inevitable in capitalist society. A drug free society is only possible in a Democratic Socialist Society.

Sean

Sean.

Sean.

Langston Hughes' Merry Christmas

Merry Christmas, by Langston Hughes
Published In New Masses (Dec. 1930)

Merry Christmas, China
From the gun-boats in the river,
Ten-inch shells for Christmas gifts,
And peace on earth forever.

Merry Christmas, India,
To Gandhi in his cell,
From righteous Christian England,
Ring out, bright Christmas bell!

Ring Merry Christmas, Africa,
From Cairo to the Cape!
Ring Hallehuiah! Praise the Lord!
(For murder and rape.)

Ring Merry Christmas, Haiti!
(And drown the voodoo drums –
We’ll rob you to the Christian hymns
Until the next Christ comes.)

Ring Merry Christmas, Cuba!
(While Yankee domination
Keeps a nice fat president
In a little half-starved nation.)

And to you down-and-outers,
(“Due to economic laws”)
Oh, eat, drink, and be merry
With a bread-line Santa Claus –

While all the world hails Christmas,
While all the church bells sway!
While, better still, the Christian guns
Proclaim this joyous day!

While holy steel that makes us strong
Spits forth a mighty Yuletide song:
SHOOT Merry Christmas everywhere!
Let Merry Christmas GAS the air!

Thank the CIA for the Mullahs in Iran

The Wall Street Journal's December 22nd editorial has a few things to say about the Iranian regime. The mouthpiece of US imperialism is happy that there are rumblings from below and that the Mullahs are on the defensive somewhat.  The "perseverance of the so-called Green Movement is something to behold" says the Journal and it chides Obama somewhat for not supporting "Iran's Democrats." 


The editorial talks about the corruption that is "at the heart" of the Iranian system.  It also comments that "As in the waning days of the Shah in the late 70's, Iranians merely need an excuse to show what they think of their rulers."

This arrogance does not go unnoticed in Iran, the Middle East and the former colonial world in general.  The reason it can be said pretty much without comment here is that the vast majority of Americans have no idea of the dirty rotten role the US government has played in Iranian politics and daily life.  The average Wall Street Journal reader probably doesn't either, but they wouldn't care anyway. What is important is what the Journal doesn't say.

Left: The Shah of Iran: the US's man in Tehran.  Isn't he pretty?
The Shah referred to in the editorial was installed by the US after it overthrew the secular democratic and elected government  of Mohammad Mossadegh. in 1953.  This was the first time the United States overthrew a Middle Eastern government; the reason was that Iran wanted control of its own oil industry and nationalized it.  British capitalism was incensed at losing such a lucrative venture and urged the US to intervene.  Operation Ajax as the venture was called, had all the familiar trappings that surround the illegal activities of the US government today; bribery, murder, kidnapping and public disturbances organized by the CIA and its operatives sent there, particularly Kermit Roosevelt, FDR's grandson.
Kermit Roosevelt, CIA spy in Iran
The Shah 's regime drove all opposition underground that it didn't physically eliminate. I remember as a teenager seeing young Iranian students demonstrating in London against the torture and murder committed by the Shah's notorious secret police, the SAVAK. They often covered their faces to protect their families back home as retribution was swift and deadly.  The Shah spent much of the oil money on weapons bought from his friends in Washington and the secret police that suppressed dissent and tortured and murdered the opposition had the US government to thank for much of its funding.

Much of the opposition found sanctuary in the mosques and the religious fanatics in power today gained support given the waste, corruption and murder that was the hallmark of the Shah.

This history is pretty much ignored in the US obviously, as was the other coup at that time, the US government's overthrow in 1954, of the Guatemalan government led by, Jacobo Arbenz. The coup was orchestrated by the CIA much like the one in Iran. Like the Shah, the dictator the US supported this  time was  Colonel Carlos Castillo Armas.  Rather than acting on behalf of the oil industry, it was the United Fruit Company and other huge US conglomerates whose interests the US were protecting.

It is not surprising then that the Iranians and others throughout the former colonial world are a little suspicious of the US and Britain.  It must be quite a sickening experience for them to have to listen to Obama and the paid pimps on CNN and Fox talk about democracy and human rights.  The biggest obstacle to this in the Middle East has been the British and US governments.

The Iranian regime is a brutal theocracy run by a bunch of 7th century religious fanatics.  Osama bin Laden is not the only product of US foreign policy that has come back with a vengeance.  The overthrow of Iran's elected government by the US in 1953 and putting their puppet the Shah on the throne led to the rise of the Mullahs and the strengthening of Islamic fundamentalism worldwide.

A good book to read about the overthrow of Mossadegh by the US is Stephen Kinzers All The Shah's Men.

Another Bishop bites the dust

I see another Catholic Bishop has resigned in Ireland.  This one, like the others no doubt, apologized for doing nothing to curb the sexual abuse of children in this organization governed by an ex member of the Nazi youth and his coterie of misogynists. Anyone who hasn't seen it should see the Magdalen Sisters. , and Rabbit Proof Fence, both films that show the reality of the Catholic Church's intervention in everyday life. The indigenous people's of the countries invaded by European capitalism have nothing to thank the Catholic Church for; it forbade them to speak their languages and it participated in the plunder of their lands and destruction of their communities.

It would be wrong though to say that resigning bishops  did nothing.  What they did when they discovered that their organization was a home for pedophiles was to move the perpetrator to another area where the abuse could take place anew.  And for this an apology suffices. There are poor people in this country doing time for stealing pizza.

The Catholic church, like all of them has held back the development of human history.  It opposed science and murdered the early scientists and alchemists.  It has nothing but blood on its hands.  Prominent writer of Christian affairs of the 19th century, William Howitt. wrote of the "official" Christian church and its role in the colonial ventures of European capitalism that, “The barbarities and desperate outrages of the so-called Christian race, throughout every region of the world, and upon every people they have been able to subdue, are not to be paralleled by those of any other race, however fierce, however untaught, and however reckless of mercy and of shame, in any age of the earth."


The Catholic Church, as a previous post said, collaborated with the most vicious right wing regimes in Latin America to crush the Liberation Theologists, most prominent was the murder of Archbishop Romero. It didn't mobilize its forces in those countries that installed and propped up the Shah of Iran. Instead it (the men that run it) wants to deny poor women the right to an abortion, something the rich women have no problem getting. See Vera Drake.

It has played the most pernicious role in modern history.  So many of my friends that say they're Catholic claim they do not support all the vicious racist and sexist elements of it; they don't even believe in angels and demons, fairies either they tell me.  I believe them.  But then why belong to it?  It's like saying your in the Klan but not a racist; just in it for the socialization.

Where I live they have just built a multi-million dollar cathedral on prime land.  This organization is tax exempt.  It mobilized its forces and bribers on Capitol Hill to deny federal funds for abortions. It doesn't mobilize its forces to withdraw funds for killing Iraqis. It should not be tax exempt.

For socialists, religion is a private matter.  It has no place in public life. I defend the right of a person to their religion without fear of repression by the state.  But there is a huge difference between workers who call themselves part of a particular religion and the aging male hierarchy that runs the the Catholic church.  When we were young we were told that the pope was infallible, which means he is god's emissary on earth, he cannot sin.I agree with the second.  You can't sin as there is no such thing as sin.  Just like miracles.   All the Priests and Imams and Pastors claim that everyone else's religion is man  made except their own; they're god is the right god.

I am so glad I am free from it.

Joyce and a holiday

It was 1965. I was working in a mine in Canada. A young Quebecois student approached me and asked: "What do you think about James Joyce then?" I looked at him. "Who is James Joyce?" This was the first time I heard of him. This experience added to my hatred of the Churches and other forces in Ireland who had banned his writing and tried to keep all knowledge of him from us. I determined to make up for lost time.

A few months later I was working on a ship, and we docked in New Orleans. I went to the Library and asked for a book of Joyce. The only one they had was Finnegan's Wake. I thought I had concussion. Later I was to realize that Joyce would have been very interested and probably pleased to know that somebody on first reading this book of his would think they had concussion. I was responding in a reasonable fashion.

But to today and the holiday. My family are not working and will be giving each other presents. They are all still asleep. At times like these I always read a bit of Joyce. I would like to share a few snippets. I am sorry if this appears to be me indulging myself. Reading some Joyce takes me home again, takes me to Dublin, helps me stand against all that is repressive and ugly and lifeless, and reminds me how complicated and contradictory life is.

Wee Joyce some observations from other writers and:

Some fellow Irish poets; "the poet of his race."

Edna O'Brien about Joyces' stories: "In all the stories the women, despite being victims, attain a moral superiority."

O'Brien again: "Joyce always loved Homer's hero Odysseus, not for his warring prowess but for his cunning. ..... It was the human traits in Odysseus that he admired: a man who did not court bloodshed and who saw war as an outlet for the marketeers."

T.S. Eliot was threatened by the audacity of Joyce's work and wished for his own sake he had never read it. "How could anybody surpass that achievement."

It took twenty thousand hours of labor to write Ulysses. Not to mention all the illnesses.

O'Brien again. "If Ulysses was about about daytime, Finnegans Wake was a book of the night.....in it he was...... "laying siege to literature......" in it the old language would be put to sleep......What most of us do in sleep Joyce was attempting to do in his waking hours. It would isolate him completely -- 'his heart's adrone, his bluidstreams acrawl, his puff but a piff." What a genius!

Finnegans Wake is Ireland. As O'Brien writes: "If Ireland thought she had a defector in James Joyce, she was greatly mistaken. Her music, poetry and broken heaventalk" are all there."

The English critic Desmond MacCarthy wrote that Joyce was determined to write as "a lunatic for lunatics."

O'Brien writes: "What he was determined to do was to break the barrier between consciousness and unconsciousness, to do in waking life what others do in sleep. Madness he knew to be the secret of genius. ...... He preferred the word exaltation which can merge into madness. All great men have that vein in them. The reasonable man, he insisted, achieves nothing."

Who have stood up better in the present day, the right wing repressive Church leaders who now stand exposed for all their centuries of repression and abuse, or the genius Joyce. Now recognized as the greatest writer of the last century.

Sean.

There's a reason we don't have health care for all

The US Congress has to be one of the most corrupt institutions on earth.  They have what they call lobbyists, they are actually people in the employ of corporations who bribe the politicians that make the laws and are in control of our resources.  They're the same politicians that handed the bankers a few trillion dollars of our money. Rolling Stone writer Matt Taibbi described Goldman Sachs, the usury institution as“a great vampire squid wrapped around the face of humanity”  This is what the bribers they call lobbyists are.

The health industry is one of the most corrupt of all of them profiting as it does from sickness.  It is in fact a sickness industry.  Health care for everyone is easily possible and society can afford it. We don't have it because the 1% or so of the population that control most of the wealth don't want us to have it.  They have it, but prevent the rest of us from having it.

This industry has spent hundreds of millions of dollars bribing politicians to ensure health care is kept in control of the private sector; it's too lucrative a deal to be socialized.  To ensure that people can't get decent medical care the industry has six registered health-care lobbyists for every member of Congress.  Senator Joe Lieberman, has received more than $110,000 in donations from a single health insurance company, Aetna, this year alone.

Capitalism cannot provide health care for all. It cannot provide decent housing, education or food for most of the world's people.  The struggle to end the dictatorship of capitalism over society and the introduction of a collective, democratic socialist system is the most important task facing working people today.  Contact us if you are interested in helping those of us that run this blog bring that day closer.

the nazis and the pope and saints

As Christmas approaches it is worth having a look at the doings of the leader of the largest Christian organization, the Catholic Church. This guy, Benedict was in the Hitler Youth. Apologists for him say he had no choice. But of course he had a choice. Hundreds of thousands of Germans did not join the Hitler Youth. They went into opposition, they were mainly social democrats, socialists, members of the communist party, trotskyists, anarchists and so on, they went into the opposition and they fought the Nazis. They were of the left. Benedict like the other members of his Catholic Church leadership could have mobilized their huge resources and fought the Nazis too. But they did not. Instead they sought a way to live with the Nazis and in this way maintain their power and wealth and influence. The price paid for this was that the mass slaughter of the Jews, the other oppositions and those the Nazis considered inferior was made easier. Thanks, Catholic Church.

Now this Benedict has decided to make the pope Pius of the Nazi era a saint. This Pius is the man who among other things never said a word when the Jews in rome were rounded up and shipped out to the death camps. But to go on, what does it mean to be made a saint. It is ridiculous. To be made a saint the person in question has to have "heroic virtues." What are these? Do I have heroic virtues? This morning here in the terrible snow and ice of Chicago I took the dogs for a walk and fell twice. I felt pretty heroic when I got back to the house.

But they have me for sure on another thing. This definitely rules me out for sainthood. Along with having heroic virtues a saint has to carry out two miracles. What is this? Two miracles? One is not enough. But two? What constitutes a miracle? Bringing somebody back from the dead? Toilet training my friends Jack Russell toilet in a day? Making our 12 year old Volvo stop costing us money for repairs? One miracle or two miracles, it is preposterous. It is nonsense. You wonder how can anybody believe this stuff.

But the Catholic Church is no joke. It is an organization of immense power and wealth. Initially it was the Church of feudalism. As capitalism developed and came to be the dominant system it was flexible enough to become the Church of capitalism. This is where it stands today. An organization of immense power and wealth in the service of capitalism. Its main service is to hold back its hundreds of millions of members from thinking there is an alternative to capitalism and to keep them passive in the face of the suffering that capitalism imposes on them.

A few decades ago a wing developed in the Catholic Church called liberation theology. This believed the Church should help the poor and take on the rich, especially in the former colonial countries. The leadership of the Catholic church crushed this internal movement with the greatest ferocity. It was driven out of the organization. Along with that the Catholic Church actively assisted the right wing US backed military dictatorships in Latin America which waded through the blood of the trade unionists, peasant activists, socialists who were trying to make life better for working people. We must not be fooled, the Catholic Church is a vicious right wing capitalist organization.

I am leaving aside the Catholic Church's horrific history of child abuse and sexual and physical abuse and repression in this post. But these are all connected to the way that the Catholic Church rules and organizes itself in the interest of capitalism and its own power and privileges.

Sean.

Christianity & Christmas Part2: the Yuletide traditions

So far, with our 6-year old and our 3-year old, we have one believer and one non-believer. We haven't gone out of our way to dispel our 3-year old's illusions in Santa.

Like Christmas or Hate it. It's here for now. This Christmas in the USA some 2o million trees will be cut down for living rooms, 2 billion christmas cards will be sent and retail sales will likely spike about 50% over November. Its current consumerist shape is not sustainable. But the survival and strength of Christmas is that it has constantly evolved and adapted. Even before it was Christmas.

For probably 3,000 years norse people have been putting up trees and decorating them with apples and color. Rural winter life needed a party to break the boredom. Probably, like today, a lot of booze was consumed and a lot of story telling was done.

In the pre-industrialized world, there wasn't too much to do in the winter. Today people, under the capitalist economy, work all the hours god sends, as they say. Work weeks are now commonly anywhere within the 24-7 range. Common time off for people is disappearing in the US into a couple of holidays. Some people even work on Christmas day! Godforbid! And while 15 to 25 million Americans may have no work during this winter, the modern form of Christmas is not for them, to break their boredom.

Christmas today is for those with cash in their pockets. When it falls on a weekend (No!) those working may not even get a day off! So the original intentions of the founding "fathers of Christmas" for a 12-day holiday has been turned on its head into a busy retail period of 60-days shopping and a short morning of exchanging commodities.

Northern European pagans would burn the huge Yule log at their (pre-)Christmas celebration. The log would need to be big enough that when set on fire it would burn for 12-days. Twelve days of hanging out at the log, likely eating meat, as vegetables were few and far between, and drinking anything that could be stored for long periods.

Human culture in the northern hemisphere has most likely always celebrated the winter solstice. Being the longest night and shortest day, the solstice is also the day that marks the start of longer days. It marks the rebirth of the sun. Hence it was associated, pre-Christian, with Babylonian, Egyptian and other Middle Eastern traditions of a time of the birth of the Son of Man, the Light of the World traditions, and a time for Saviours.

The Roman's winter celebration that raged long into Christianity was around the Festival of Saturn. This along with other Sun-based December holidays, co-existed with the new Christian religion, or to put it another way, the pagan tradition was impossible to extinguish. So it was usurped. The religious establishment took it over. Jesus' birth, which for the first couple of hundred years AD was celebrated around May 20th, was switched by the Roman Christian leaders to coincide with Saturn's Day for December 25th. This was about 400 AD.

Today, some cities in Britain in an effort to evolve Christmas away from its Christian base are promoting Wintervals, as an attempt to make the holiday less exclusionary. But how Christian is it really? Like all dominant festivals and culture in a given society, they follow the values of those that rule in that society. Today, Christmas is an utterly Capitalist event, where we work ourselves to death, where we raise hopes, where material things are equated with happiness, and after the wrapping is thrown out, there is the disappointment and debt.

With a democratic socialist society, we'll have a shorter work week and more time for celebrations, more time for people to hang out, more time for with our kids and more time for the really valuable things in life. Bring that on.

RV sales on the rise. But are people actually vacationing or living in them?

Being retired, I normally have the luxury of coming down to the coffee shop every morning, reading the papers, and doing what I'm doing now.  I normally park in a shopping center parking lot which is free.  Lately I have noticed more than one RV parked there.  They are normally gone by 8.30 am as people start to come and shop and the local parking police start their rounds marking tires.

These are obviously people who are living in these mobile homes.  Who knows where they're from, where they're headed or how long they've been living in these vehicles.  But it is my experience that this is on the rise and seems to make complete sense given the home foreclosures, job losses and such.

This morning's Wall Street Journal has a related story about RV's.  It writes about Elkhart Indiana, this was the place Obama visited in February in a photo op to push the stimulus bill.  The RV industry amounts to about 25% of Elkhart's economy and when the crisis hit, it hit hard.  The unemployment rate in Elkhart back then was about 18% and we know these are always very conservative figures.

In November the town's unemployment rate fell to 14% according to officials estimates.  The decline is is apparently due to the increase in RV sales.

It is hard for me to believe that people are buying RV's in this economy in order to go on trips around the country.  My guess is that people are getting together all the cash and assets they can after losing their home or simply walking away from it as more and more people are reportedly doing even if they can cover the mortgage.  This is actually a major shift in consciousness, this trashing of what I have heard termed "debt loyalty" as folks are refusing to pay mortgages that are nothing but interest payments to the usurers on a loan that is higher than their home's value.  It is a reflection of the hatred and contempt people have for moneylenders.

Instead, they are taking that money and buying RV's.After all, you get a tax right off for any interest you pay on that loan also. Who knows.  But I do not think this can be ruled out and makes sense to me.

Funny, though, the Wall Street Journal doesn't consider this option.  For them, it's a sign of a growing economy. 

So often its a question of available choices.

Holiday time is a hard time. Especially here in the US where the corporations and the bosses are so dominant. Compared to other advanced capitalist countries there are hardly any holidays here, a day or two compared to a week or so. And at the same time there is the non stop indoctrination and propaganda to buy buy buy. If you do not buy everybody you know a present you are insulting and betraying them. The pressure is terrible. The corporations exploit peoples most generous impulses.

My companion and I were talking about this the other night. After work we went and had some food in a small restaurant and chilled out. It was very nice. We could actually feel the stress leave our bodies. We spoke about the importance to us of being able to do this, we had the money to do this, to go out and have a meal. What about other people?

What about the people who have not two cents to rub together. When they get stressed out with the holidays, with not being able to buy their kids present, with having to work longer hours at a stepped up pace, what do they do? they cannot afford to have a quiet meal and chill out. So in many cases they explode. Personal and family rows and even violence. We thought how lucky we were to be able to get rid of our stress in the way we did.

On our way home we met a few young kids walking the other way. It was a bitter Chicago winter night. They were hunched against the cold, their hands in their pockets and their hoods up around their heads. Look at them I said. They probably do not have a dime, they and their families probably do not own a home. What are they going to do? No decent job, no security, no home. For many one option will be to try and get what they want through crime. After all the white collar criminals and the capitalists do this. It will seem only right to them.

I hope I live long enough to see the great US working class erupt onto the streets and in the workplaces with all the fury and rage that is warranted. Capitalism is a rotten decayed system. It has forfeited the right to exist. the capitalist class has forfeited the right to rule. It will be a happy holiday when we can overthrow them and replace them with a Democratic Socialist Society. I am looking forward to seeing the working class and youth take the fist to this rotten capitalist system.

Sean.

What the Favoritism?

Last Friday I got together with a few co-workers to have a drink. It was at the Usual "GOLD ROOM". We were discussing work. One of the topics was the new guy on the job, Eddie. He is a young guy and first time working. We havent gotten to know him so much because most of us T.A's dont see much of each other since our schedules have been drastically moved by the new principle, Jill.

Some of our concerns started coming out, which was the way Jill treats Eddie. Earlier that day another co-worker and myself saw Eddie move her car from the school playground and into the parking lot. (That's kinda funny). We all agreed that there has been other instances that would make him her "favorite" worker. Asking him to do errands, talking to him in a much more friendlier way.

It's not a coincidence because this same action happened to the then newer co-worker last year by the old principle. Adrian said, "I don't know why but she liked me, I didn't want to be her favorite". We continued on that this kind of treatment by the boss only isolates the workers because other co-workers don't know if they are friends with the boss or not, thus neutralizes them. We need to bridge the gap between us and the younger guy. It will stop the possibility of T.A's fighting amongst each other for scraps of meat and not letting the administration take a worker from the movement. When in reality the real person to blame is the principle for having the T.A's divided with "favoritism". This is the leg work that principles do for the District. The District needs to have disunity between workers. The bosses are scared that workers will come together, especially at a time of a crisis.

We concluded that we needed to bring him around us more. Let him know and see that we are in the same struggle. This talk only made us T.A's stronger together. In fact, since the beginning of the school year, we haven't been able to sit down and talk the way we did. This was a great opportunity to regroup together between us T.A's and talk of the everyday struggle we face.

Is the US a one party state?

Is the US a one party state? It seems ridiculous to even ask this question. But let us look a little deeper and we might see that there might be something to it.

Of course it is not a one party state in the sense that all but one party is banned. There are in fact a myriad of parties in the US. But if that is so, and it is, how come that at every election the only candidate that has a chance of winning is a Democrat or a Republican or some version of these?

The decisive factor in US politics is that the US working class has never built a mass party of its own. What would building such a Party mean? It would mean a mass movement of the working class, great strikes and demonstrations, great social upheavals against the present order and out of this a change in the conscious of tens and tens of millions of working class people. This change would have to involve a recognition that there is a working class and that these workers themselves are part of that class, that the working class does not have the same interests as the capitalist class and therefore must have its own independent organizations and program. And from this tens of millions of workers must move to set up their own party, a Mass Working Peoples' Party. On this basis the US would never be the same again.

Socialists like myself would be part of the struggle to build such a party and we would be part of such a party. We would also put forward our program in this party. This would start from a complete separation of the party and the trade unions from collaboration with the employers and their governments and parties. That is we would stand for an independent party, program and strategy of struggle. But we would also campaign for this party to have a democratic socialist program to end capitalism and to establish a democratic socialist society world wide. If such a party was built in the US on a mass scale think of what it would mean.

Instead of US politics and working class political consciousness being dominated by the squabbles between the Democrats and Republicans the big issues would be put on the agenda. At the moment the two parties reduce everything to the size of the cuts in workers' living standards, the Democrats marginally less than the Republicans. But both are for cuts. They reduce foreign policy to the numbers of soldiers they send abroad, the Democrats sometimes slightly less than the Republicans. But the decisive issue is that with these two parties dominating political debate the big issues of class and of capitalism versus socialism never get a hearing. The big issues of class and of the socialist alternative to capitalism are kept off the mass agenda.

How many times do we hear talk of the US working class? Practically never. The majority of the US population are described as middle class, middle between whom? Then there is the poor. And to the extent they can achieve it they never mention the ruling class, the capitalist class, in any way at all. If they have to talk about this class they might speak of Wall Street, like the capitalist or ruling class is some kind of street.

It is not strictly true to say that the US is a one Party state. But it is true to say that with their two mass parties, their control over the mass media and the state, their control over the education system, US capitalism has a political monopoly over society. We the working class need our own mass Party, we need to break the effective monopoly capitalism has over society, we need to put the issues of class, capitalism and democratic socialism back on the mass agenda.

Sean.

Christianity & Christmas Part 1: Jesus

We have an additional major influence in our kid's life these days. To many things we do or say, our 6-year old often counters the great moral weight of "but my teacher says . . . "

The latest conflict is Christmas. "My teacher says Christmas celebrates the birth of the son of god"our 1st-grader carefully queried. In our house, like many, Christmas is not a moment of religious reflection. We're atheists. Mmmm. We responded to our daughter that people who go to church believe Christmas is a religious celebration. Pensively, she asked for examples of people who go to church. We named off a few friends and then her grandparents. This was perhaps the biggest shocker for our 1st grader. "You mean grandpa and Vovo (Portugese for grandma) are CHRISTIANS?" After about 10 seconds, which is a long pause in a conversation with a child, we admitted, yes, they go to church.

Then we got down to the meat of the matter. Some parts of Christmas are evidently Christian, some parts are evidently not. Christmas trees, mistletoe, christmas stockings, christmas lights, holly, yule logs. These are non-Christian elements of Christmas. So, where does Jesus fit in? Despite English depictions of blondness, Jesus was Middle Eastern and also was actually born perhaps a thousand years after Yuletide traditions had begun in Northern Europe.

Before the period of Jesus' existence in Palestine, people worshipped various Gods and many were associated with new beginings and resurrection and had similar stories to the Christian messiah. The Egyptians hundreds of years earlier worshipped Osiris who was known as the good shephard. The Greeks had Dionysus who was born on December 25th and the Romans had Attis also born and celebrated on December 25th. Attis was supposed to have been crucified and lived in the underworld for 3 days. And then rose. Each tradition and story gave way to the next. Christianity existed within its own context but not disconnected with past religious traditions and beliefs. Many religions before Christianity had their own Messiahs.

What do we know to be true about Jesus? We do not know for sure that he existed. If he did it would have been around the time of the Roman occupation of Palestine. He probably opposed the occupation. He probably opposed the collaboration of Jewish leaders with the Romans and probably had great support for his egalitarian philosophy among the poor. He was probably involved in some way, at least agitationally, with the Jewish uprisings against Roman rule and he was probably nailed to a cross for challenging the ruling class' view of the world.

He most definitely was unfamiliar with sleigh bells and snowflakes. He knew nothing of reindeers in the sky and elves making toys. Based on the turning over of tables at the market place at the Temple, he probably would not align himself with the merchants of profit who are the foundations of today's capitalist Christmas season.

It was not long after his Sermon on the Mount that his proclamation that blessed are the poor for they shall inherit the earth, an extremely revolutionary notion, was edited and rewritten. It then became blessed are the poor in spirit for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Which is an version of "it will be greater, later" which has always been sold to the poor to rationalize our meagre bread today that will be cake in a later life.

Christianity and Jesus' teachings over thousands of years have been adapted to suit those that rule over us. It has lasted so long, in part, because its kernel is revolutionary and its shell is conservative and this dialectical pull has made it useful to all parties. Jesus was a rebel, no doubt. He was quite possibly crucified by the Roman imperialists for doing something very right. Something morally right for the poor and against the rich.

But one thing's for sure, a prophet or not, he would have had no idea that he would one day have his skin lightened, his hair highlighted and then be associated with a mid-winter celebration that annually captivates children and simultaneously puts their parents into further debt. That's the leap of imagination that it takes to hook up Jesus with Christmas that our teacher, as wonderful as she is, did not explain.

If it's not too late: Karl Kautsky's marxist Foundations of Christianity is a great stocking stuffer.

Christianity and Christmas Part2: the Yuletide traditions will be up on the blog on Thursday, Christmas Eve.

US Capitalism is not so cocky now!

The serious capitalist press is full of reviews of the year that is ending. What comes across in these is that US capitalism is not so cocky as it was. The main headline in the Wall Street Journal analysis article today is: "The dimming of a beacon." It is referring to US capitalism and how it is no longer seen as knowing everything and being able to do everything. Its light has dimmed.

Here are a few of its observations.

"The 2000s could be termed a lost decade for the US economy."

"The average American's annual income stood at $39,446 as of October 2009, up only 5.3% in inflation adjusted terms from the end of the 1990's. That is the slowest growth registered in at least six decades. The average person's net worth fell 13% through September 2009 as stock and home prices plunged. ... Meanwhile inequality grew."

Referring to the US economy's performance in the 2000s the Wall Street Journal writes in relation to its economists that they are forced to "confront an age old quandary: how to save capitalism from itself."

Referring to the recent financial crash it writes: "The result: a deep financial crisis that has discredited the idea, central to the US system, that bankers own interests would guide them to do what was best for the economy."

Yes US capitalism is not so confident now, and as it gets bogged down further in its foreign wars and as its political system is increasingly exposed as being unable to solve its economic crisis and its social problems then we will see this confidence erode further. This will push the working class more to take action and also see the working class increasingly consider options to capitalism. The Democratic Socialist alternative can once again come back onto the agenda of the mass of workers.

I would like to comment on one detail in these quotes from the Wall Street Journal. Where it says that people believed that "bankers own interests would guide them to do what was best for the economy." Well what people believed this, who believed this? This is an outright lie.

Take the overwhelming majority of the population, that is the working class, they are very clear about bankers. They understand very well that bankers are a bunch of crooks who act only in their own interest. Working people know this. Its the Greenspans, the Summers, the Bushs, the Obamas, who preach that the bankers if left alone will work in the economy's interests. And they do not preach this because they believe it, they preach it because they are part and parcel of the bankers system, making money out of it, deriving power from it, they are part of the capitalist class and the capitalist class wants its hands to be completely free to swindle and speculate and exploit to its heart's content.

Working people know what the bankers are alright. They are a bunch of crooks and swindlers. As Woody Guthrie wrote in relation to bankers. "Some rob you with a six gun, and some with a fountain pen." Today's version would be: "Some rob you with a six gun/ uzi/ semi automatic weapon/ and some with a computer."

It is doubtful whether there has ever been such a concentration of crooks and swindlers together in the same couple of spots as there are in washington and Wall Street. But they are not ruling the world like they were before. they had to be bailed out with our money. and a new financial crisis is not far away. They will get another blow when this hits. Confidence in capitalism will be further weakened. the opportunity to build a mass socialist workers movement will improve. we need to prepare ourselves for this.

For a mass Working Peoples' Party.

For Democratic Socialism.

Sean.

The gang in Congress continues to bleed the US taxpayer dry.

So  last Wednesday the millionaires in the House of Representatives  approved a $636 billion dollar bill funding the Pentagon through 2010.  The millionaires (and a few billionaires) in the Senate passed the same bill Saturday ($626 billion according to the Wall Street Journal.) The house passed another bill, "separately" says the WSJ although it's hard to see them as separate.  The second bill was a $290 billion extension to the nation's debt ceiling. 

The Senate is expected to vote on and pass the increase in the Debt ceiling later this week.  It appears the present $12.1 trillion limit is  "expected to be breached" write the Journal.

The Pentagon gets its funding which includes more than $100 billion for the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq; they borrow more money from their billionaire colleagues on our behalf, meaning we have to pay it back with interest; the debt ceiling is raised----I think all these things are very much connected. 

In order to pay for this, social services are savaged and education, transportation, jobs, all fall under the ax in the interest of fiscal responsibility. And the Journal reports today on the $7 billion profit some speculator made thanks to the crash and his cut so far is is $2.5 billion.  He bet on the banks, the folks that walked away with our homes and handouts.

Oh, I forgot, the $30 billion ($1,000,000 per person that we are paying to send 30,000 young people to kill and be killed in Afghanistan is not included in the bill) Unemployment is a good thing for the economic draft I would say; the military become the only game in town.

And Obama, the warmonger receives the Nobel Peace Prize.

So this is what he meant by bi-partisanship and "reaching across the aisle".

Health care bill, result of US capitalism's corruption and bribery.

We have argued on this blog that US politics and the US capitalist system is utterly corrupt. We have explained that one aspect of this is the so-called lobbying system. This is where the privately owned profit addicted corporations bribe and corrupt the politicians. Look at the so called the health bill. As soon as Obama said he was going to take up the issue if elected the profit addicted sickness industry got their lobbying machine started up and landed on it like a swarm of bees.

Their pockets stuffed with money from the sickness industry, their computers and iphones full of contacts in the Congress and White House, and with their personal contacts from their previous jobs, the corrupt bribers went to work. Look at the extent of this corruption. Northwestern University's Medvill News Service in Partnership with the Chicago Tribune Newspapers Washington Bureau and the Center for Responsive Politics found a "revolving door" between Capitol Hill staffers and lobbying jobs for companies with a stake in the so called health care legislation. Put more bluntly, many many of the people who work or have worked for the capitalist politicians in the Democratic and Republican parties make contacts with these politicians, see how the system works and then go on to work for the sickness corporations. There they do their dirty work, they sell their knowledge and contacts to the corporations.

Look at the figures. At least 166 former aides from the 9 congressional leadership offices and 5 committees involved in shaping health legislation - along with at least 13 former law makers - registered to represent at least 338 health care clients since the beginning of last year, according to the analysis. Their health care clients put up $635 million to bribe the politicians over the last two years. When the number of lobbyists who lobbied on health care issues for non health care firms is counted in the total number of bribers swarming around the health bill to make it acceptable to the profit addicted privately owned sickness corporations and the corporations and capitalism as a whole, the number comes to 278. Look at Harry Reid alone, the Democratic leader of the Senate. 13 people who formerly worked for him are now lobbyists for the sickness industry. These people have access and influence with him. It is inevitable.

We argue that all lobbying should be illegal, that all donations from corporations to political parties and politicians should be illegal. As we campaign for this we argue for a law that bans anybody who worked for a politician from going on to work as a lobbyist for a corporation. We understand that capitalism by its very nature is corrupt. But we propose these steps as a way to begin to build a movement against the corporations who run the country. We are against their control and ownership of the political parties, we are against their control and ownership of the corporations, we are for building a mass Working Peoples Party. We are for a Democratic Socialist America and World.

We will not be able to oppose capitalism with the Obama regime. Some people had illusions in this when he was running for election. Look at the pathetic so called health bill where he refused to take on the profit addicted sickness industrial complex, look at his bail out of Wall Street where he licked the boots of the banks and finance houses, look at his sending 30,000 more troops to Afghanistan where he did the bidding of the oil and gas industry and US imperialism as a whole. No this is a thoroughly capitalist regime.

And it has not only been these issues which have shown the nature of the Obama regime. The attempt to get agreement on climate change in Copenhagen, in spite of what they try to say has been a failure. But what did they do? Rather than openly admit they failed they made a non binding agreement, that is everybody can say what they want and do what they want, that is no real agreement, and then to make sure that there would definitely be no chance of this non agreement having any teeth they agreed to only "take note" of it. So what is being declared as a victory is a "non binding agreement" which they will only "take note off." It's a good one. Coming up with this takes some neck. Unbelievable. Well not really. As we have argued capitalism cannot solve the rapidly developing catastrophe of global warming. This is just their way of trying to hide this reality from us.

Sean.

Prayer as Medicine in 2009

Our Cobra health coverage got messed up last week. We got billed $635 for my partner's 15-minute doctor's visit: $300 for the gynocologist and $315 for the lab tests. Thank god for Congress: they just rejected a provision in the health legislation that forced insurance companies to cover praying. That is to pay for someone to come to your bedside or home to pray for you.

The madness is this: this provision passed the Senate and House committees dealing with health care reform. They packaged it as being opposed to discrimination against religion in healthcare! Orrin Hatch R-Utah was backing it, as was the former Democratic Presidential Candidate John Kerry and the late Edward Kennedy.

When laughing about this madness with some workers yesterday, I mentioned that the Christian Scientists group was behind this 'praying as a medicine' thing. Someone chipped in, "Oh its the Tom Cruise people!" Someone else clarified that that was the Scientologists. "Right, that's the Christian Scientist crowd, they don't allow medicine, right?" The confusion ended when someone summed it up, "religion and science are separate things. How can it be a religion and science?"

Well, this much wisdom was amiss with the Democrat and Republican Senators that passed 'praying as a medical cost.'

Having just come off 10-months unemployment, I guess I missed out on the #1 rising employment opportunity: to sit alongside someone dying, and pray for them: for $100-an-hour. (don't worry your health insurance may cover it!)

Well my partner's lab tests came out good and we didn't need to "pay for pray" for that.

Chicago's black people die younger. And it is getting worse.

The Sinai Urban Health Institute recently came up with some findings on the health of black people and white people in Chicago. They were published in the American Journal of Public Health. They compare the health of black people to that of white people in the Chicago area. Nationally the gap between black people and white people improved from 1990 to 2005 for six of the fifteen health categories studied. However in Chicago the gap widened in eleven of the fifteen areas. That is in Chicago the gap overall worsened.

An author of the study, Steve Whitman says:"The underlying issue here is racism and poverty. In Chicago it is exacerbated by segregation. Black people in Chicago are forced to live in neighborhoods where there are no stores to buy fresh fruits and vegetables, where schools are failing, where they don't have parks to exercise in and where they tend to go to segregated health facilities that are poorly funded, and, in different ways, failing." Whitman goes on: "Despite Chicago's transit system, it still has pockets of people where people have tremendous problems accessing care, and that's a huge overlay. Part of it is lack of accessibility and part of it is lack of insurance." And he goes on to underline his point. "At the end of the day, there is a very strong correlation between health and wealth."

The study showed that death from breast cancer was 99% higher for black women in Chicago than for white women in Chicago. A five fold increase since 1990. Yes 99% higher. This is a huge difference. In 1990 blacks were 8% more likely to die in Chicago than whites. By 2005 this had gone up to 24%. This is criminal.

Look at the big picture and make a few comparisons. If health care for black people in Chicago was equal to that for white people 3,200 less black people would die in Chicago every year. This is about nine a day. So if health care for all Chicagoans was equal to that of what it presently is for white Chicagoans then 3,200 black people a year would not die. 3,200 people dying is a lot of people. If there was a 9/11 in Chicago that killed this many, if the swine flu in Chicago killed this many, if there was a gang war that killed this many, this would be world news. But because it is the creeping insidious racism and poverty of capitalism then there is practically no talk about it. But every year 3,200 more black people die because their health care is not up to that of whites and because they live in greater poverty and because they have less accessibility to transport. This is a crime of capitalism and its stooges in the Republican and Democratic parties and locally here in Chicago the Democratic Party organized in the corrupt Daley machine which controls the city's politics.

Capitalism is a murderous racist system. Help us build a Mass Working Peoples' Party and a Democratic socialist Society.

Sean.

Cal Students' Struggle. Forces retreat on student movement in Pittsburgh.

Victory for students. Cal students help.

The Cal students' heroic struggle is being watched all over the country. In Pittsburgh it has forced the mayor, Luke Ravenstahl, to retreat from his plan to tax tuition on the city's ten colleges and universities. This tax if implemented would have taken $15 million a year out of the students pockets. The mayor has postponed it for now but is still talking about it. This postponement has been described by Dave Gau, a student government board member of the University of Pittsburg as a "clear victory for the students." Thank you Cal. Students. There is strength in unity and mass struggle.

Refusal to take on the profit addicted sickness industrial industry defeats effort to reform health care.

Obama's efforts on so called health reform are, we need to be honest, already defeated. Working people will be lucky not to be worse off. The health care issue is instructive. There have been many efforts to bring in universal health care in the US. They have all been defeated. Even Truman wanted some kind of reform but could not get it done. Looking back he had this to say; "I've had some bitter disappointments as President, but the one that has troubled me most, in a personal way, has been the failure to defeat the organized opposition to a national compulsory health insurance program."

We now have the defeat of Obama's efforts. The Wall Street Journal, December 17th, 2009, wrote:"If President Obama's health care initiative fails, there is no longer a rationale for being a liberal in the United States. Everything else on liberalism's to-do list is footnotes." Capitalism is gleeful at their victory over Obama's efforts to reform health care.

We should look at this a little closer. Why is it that the US is the only advanced capitalist country in the world without universal health care? US capitalism has a monopoly over US politics through its two parties the Republicans and Democrats. Both these parties are dominated by, bought and paid for by, US capitalism. The working class has no mass political party of its own. This fact, that the US working class has no mass political party of its own is central to the fact that there is no universal health care system in the US. the balance of forces is much more on the side of capitalism than the working class because of this.

The Democrats have a liberal wing, that is a wing which seeks to nudge capitalism a wee bit every now and then to give a little more to working people. It is in this context and the context of the lack of a mass working class party that efforts to bring in universal health care have taken place. That is it is the liberals who believe in capitalism and who are terrified of mobilizing the working class against capitalism or even for major reforms who have been directing, if it can be called that, the movement for health care reform.

The decisive element in all the efforts to bring in universal health care in this country has been that the forces that said they were for it, the most left wing of the liberals, and also those in the trade union bureaucracy, were not prepared to take on the profit addicted sickness industrial complex. The efforts always started from the point of view that the ownership of the industry and the profits of these profit mad sectors could not be touched. This ownership and these profits were sacrosanct. So naturally if the obscene profits and the dictatorial ownership and control of the privately owned sickness industrial complex could not be touched then any change has to come from somewhere else. And this always ended up with proposals to take from one section of the working class and give to another or take from one section of the middle class and give to another and leave the profit driven sickness industry in charge with its profits intact.

Look at what happens when this approach is taken. We start off with majority agreement that all should have health care. Then because the Trumans, the Clintons, the Obamas, the union bureaucracies will not take on the obscenely wealthy and powerful privately owned and profit addicted sickness industrial industry these elements propose to take from one section of the working class to give to another, the old to the young, the employed to the unemployed and so on. This opens the door to and spurs on mass propaganda of divide and rule of the capitalists. Their media and their politicians spew out how bad health care for all would be, they have specific campaigns targeting specific sections of the population, they have divide and rule down to a fine art. In this campaign they have especially targeted and terrorized the elderly.

The result is now there to be seen. Support for health care reform is slumping. People do not know what it means or think it means they will be worse off. Obama, his regime and all the liberals and trade uion leaders who supported him are responsible for this. By refusing to go after the profit driven privately owned sickness industry they have allowed support for universal health care to be divided up and undermined. In the last analysis they are to blame.

There are a number of alternatives. Of course there is the alternative of the democratic socialist society within which the economy is democratically planned and in which the needs of all are met. But even short of this there is an alternative.

The union leaders have millions of members. The majority of the population have health problems and use the health care system regularly. The union leaders should break from the Democrats and launch a campaign for a universal health care system free at the point of use. This would take all pharmaceutical companies, all health insurance companies, all hospitals into public ownership and integrate them into a fully publicly owned free at the point of use non profit health care system. This would be paid for out of increased taxation of the rich, cutting military spending and if necessary a regular weekly contribution from every worker with a job.

This would take the profit out of health care. There should be no room for making profit out of peoples' bad health. This is a crime. And it does not work. The US spends a higher proportion of its gross domestic product on health care than other advanced industrial countries and yet has a higher proportion of its population with no health coverage. This is because of the huge amounts of money spent on administration of the health insurance companies etc. in the US compared with other countries where there are publicly owned health care sectors. The US sickness industry costs more as a percentage of gross national product and covers less of its population than publicly owned non profit health care industries in other advanced capitalist countries. This is because these other countries have privately owned profit driven industry.

Think about why you do not hear the publicly owned non profit alternative discussed. This is a viable option which exists in many other countries where there is coverage for all and at very high quality. The reason is simple. Capitalism controls the mass media and the mass political parties in this country and so censors this alternative. There is extreme censorship of this alternative. This alternative exists but it is not put forward because the right wing, the liberals and the trade union bureaucracy are committed to capitalism and to its preservation. There should be no profit made from health care. This should have been the starting point and should be the starting point of any health care reform. This means that the sickness industrial industry has to be taken out of private hands and put into public ownership under the control and management of the working class, patients and general population.

US military invasions and occupations in Middle East and Central Asia increasingly shaky.

It is not only on health that Obama is failing. In Afghanistan the troops are increasingly bogged down and it is now coming out that in the months running up to the recent Presidential elections in that country the electoral fraud was so bad that US diplomat Peter W. Galbraith raised the need to remove the outgoing President Karzai. Karzai, the corrupt ex oil company executive, was so enraged that the US buckled to him and rather than him being removed Galbraith left the country abruptly in September and was fired a few weeks later. Imagine the lack of support and confidence there is in this Karzai government, the government the NATO and US forces are propping up. This is the crook that the NATO forces are being asked to fight for, this is the crook that the new state apparatus is supposed to be built to support, this will not work.

In Iraq there is an increase in car bombings and suicide bombings and increased tension amongst the Kurds both inside Iraq and in Turkey. The Iraqi government which is supposed to be strong enough to take over the control of the state and allow the US troops to withdraw is increasingly in difficulties and its state apparatus increasingly in crisis. The country's President says that dozens of those involved in last weeks deadly car bombings in Baghdad were linked to the country's own state apparatus.

Then in Pakistan, supposedly a US ally, the state apparatus there is increasingly harassing US officials, denying or holding up passports, searching their vehicles. Pakistan officials said this resulted from "American arrogance and provocations." At the same time a Pakistani court struck down an amnesty for past alleged crimes of many in the present government. This can lead to a major crisis in the government. Pakistan, this state which is crucial to the wars of the US in the area and a nuclear state is increasingly destabilizing.

As this is going on Iran shows no signs of backing down to the attempted intimidation of the US and Israel. Yesterday it test fired a missile which has the capacity to reach Israel or Europe.

US Imperialism is not in good shape. Obama's period in power is going to be a rocky one. The consciousness of the US working class is going to be shaken up and forced to consider different alternatives and options. Socialist activists have to work to provide a mass alternative to capitalism.