People Before Profit blog

Union Yes! Supporting a Worker's Right to Choose

Wed, 28 Feb 2007 04:20:00 +0000

'By their enemies shall ye know them.'

The ancient proverb is gaining renewed relevance in the current debate surrounding the Employee Free Choice Act (EFCA). Passage of this potentially landmark bill has been organized labor's first priority as the new Congress convened. For those still making up their minds it should be helpful to consider how the forces are lining up.

First, however, we should summarize what the proposed legislation actually says. Its most significant provision would be 'card check recognition' of a union. In other words, if a majority of the employees in an 'appropriate unit' sign cards authorizing a union as their bargaining agent and present them to the NLRB as proof, then the employer will be legally required to recognize and bargain in good faith with the union on wages, hours and working conditions. EFCA would also establish stronger penalties for employers who threaten or act against workers trying to organize or to bargain for a first contract. If enacted, this legislation could fundamentally improve the situation of workers by restoring the 'balance' that corporate America has worked overtime to destroy in recent years.

So, what is the problem? Workers deserve a fair chance to organize a union, right? In fact, not everyone agrees, which brings us to the proverb quoted above. The US Chamber of Commerce, a leading force opposing EFCA, expressed its position early and gave us the most cogent statement of the thinking of the bill's opponents. Attorney Charles Cohen testified on behalf of the Chamber before the Senate subcommittee on labor and education in 2004. EFCA would, he argued, deprive employees of the right of free choice guaranteed by the National Labor Relations Act. In terms reminiscent of the arguments of supporters of state 'right to work (for less)' laws, he argued that EFCA takes away a worker's right to a secret ballot election and that card check agreements 'limit employee free choice.'

Cohen's argument gives pause, although perhaps not for the reason he intended. His argument stands reality on its head. EFCA actually increases workers' options. It would leave open the option of a secret ballot election where the percentage of workers signing cards is less than a majority. However, where the NLRB determines that a majority of the workers had chosen the union by signing cards, the board would not conduct an election. The real problem that the Chamber of Commerce has with EFCA appears later in Cohen's testimony, where he tips the chamber's hand. Organized labor, he allows, may bring support from other workers to bear on an organizing campaign.

'Political … pressure may be coupled with other forms of public relations pressure in order to exert additional leverage on the employer … The pressure comes from bargaining units at other locations … and the public at large.'

In other words, EFCA may increase the ability of the broader working class to exert its influence, come to the support of fellow workers, and force an employer to recognize a union and come to the bargaining table. Once workers see what this can accomplish, anything is possible.

Passage of EFCA could also lead to further changes in labor law favorable to workers and unions. For instance, workers in higher education have recently suffered setbacks due to court decisions and legal interpretation of existing law. A series of decisions have, for example, thwarted the most determined efforts of graduate assistants at private universities to organize. At the University of Pennsylvania in December 2001, graduate assistants turned in cards signed by a majority of the potential bargaining unit favoring representation by the American Federation of Teachers. An election was held over a year later, but the ballots were impounded at the university's request and never counted. In this case, the university undermined workers' rights on two counts: card check recognition and a secret ballot election. What better example could we find of the need for major labor law reform – beginning with the Employee Free Choice Act?

Would EFCA mean a 'magic bullet' for labor and an immediate leap in union membership? That remains to be seen. As one veteran organizer said to this writer, it might be a breakthrough, but 'it's not a gift.' To get over half the workers to sign cards in an establishment where the employer has a record of anti-union activity will be no small challenge. What it would do is remove the employers' power to conduct campaigns of intimidation after the cards are signed. This could result in overcoming barriers to union organization among workers long denied the opportunity. Since a large proportion of workers currently attempting to organize are national minorities and women, this legislation is objectively anti-racist and anti-gender discrimination and deserves the support of all working people, organized and unorganized. Bringing so many new workers into the struggle for labor rights and for a pro-worker agenda could reshape the political landscape in our country. So, whether you are a union member or not (yet), we urge readers to take concrete action to push for passage of this all important piece of legislation. It is important for individual voters to made their sentiments known, even if your union or other organization is already on record in support.

Many unions are urging their members to do ust that. Call your Congress person; visit your Congress person; go on line to www.unionvoice.org and sign the petition supporting EFCA. If you are part of a delegation to visit your representative, your delegation might want to mention other issues important to labor, such as the minimum wage. We don't urge people to ignore the other issues, but EFCA should be a central part of any presentation to Congressional representatives on labor's program.

Why Bush's Medicare Drug Plan is Just Plain Wrong

Wed, 28 Feb 2007 04:15:00 +0000

2-27-07, 9:45 am

A crisis has arisen in health care for senior and disabled Americans. The Bush administration and Republican Congressional leaders pushed through a bill that they promised would bring relief from the rising costs of prescription drugs. The Medicare Prescription Drug, Improvement, and Modernization Act (Public Law 109-173), also known as 'MMA legislation,' is in fact a Trojan horse. In reality, Bush and his associates are trying to induce Medicare recipients to leave their traditional Medicare program and enroll in private managed care plans.

The method for doing this is to offer disproportionate federal subsidies to private managed care plans so they can offer more attractive benefits, such as prescription drugs, than traditional Medicare. This will, in the end, be ruinous for those the plan promised to help, and hugely profitable for the private health care sector. This blatant sellout of Medicare for profit is not only ruinously expensive, it threatens the very fabric of Medicare – one of the best, most socially responsible pieces of legislation ever passed in the United States.

The History of Medicare

Social Security began as a reform project during the Progressive Era. An organization called the American Association for Labor Legislation (AALL) began studying American labor conditions and legislation after the 1905 annual meeting of the American Economic Association. Although the association itself was not radical, its task was forced by years of grassroots labor agitation.

Under the leadership of John Andrews, the association promoted and achieved major advances in workmen's compensation, occupational health and safety, and child labor laws. Yes, theoretically, these measures served to fortify capitalism rather than demolish it – but they certainly eased the pain of industrial existence for American workers. After helping to create a workers compensation plan, the AALL focused its attention on a national health insurance plan. Social insurance, including health insurance, became an issue in the 1912 presidential race, and was a key plank in the platform of Theodore Roosevelt's Progressive Party. The AALL introduced a national health insurance bill, and launched a campaign aimed at state legislatures. Initially, the state bills had much support, but idea was too far ahead of its time. When the powerful American Medical Association withdrew its support, the bill lost steam. To make matters worse, the elitist American Federation of Labor, under the leadership of Samuel Gompers, did not support national health insurance because they thought it would distract workers from their goal of higher wages and shorter working hours.

After that, US foreign policy during World Wars I and II, and the rise of Communism worldwide squelched interest in what was perceived as socialist national health insurance.

Franklin D. Roosevelt launched some progressive measures to save the US economic system during the Great Depression, resulting in the passage of the Social Security Act in 1935. The conservative Wagner Bill outlined a broad federal health program, which failed to pass the House or the Senate.

After a couple of faltering efforts to introduce social insurance bills, President Harry Truman backed off from the plan for universal health care coverage and focused instead on a program to insure Social Security beneficiaries, reasoning that this would meet the needs of the most desperate members of society. Progress was slow, and proponents of what would become Medicare had to wait out the Republican presidency of Dwight Eisenhower to make headway. John F. Kennedy took the initiative to get Medicare enacted, making it a top priority. A Medicare bill was created, and finally passed under the presidency of Lyndon B. Johnson in 1965. The original Medicare program provided health care coverage for a monthly premium of $3 former President Harry Truman was the first person to enroll.

Since 1965, Medicare has seen many modifications, some good, some not so good. Disabled Americans under age 65 came under the umbrella in 1972, and the Supplemental Security Income (SSI) program was established that same year. However, payments to HMOs were authorized. This crack in the door marked the beginning of privatization of Medicare services. Coverage for catastrophic illness and prescription drugs came with an overhaul of Medicare in 1988, only to be repealed a year later. Medicare benefits were expanded but also increasingly privatized with the 'Medicare+Choice' rule in 1999.

Until 2006, Medicare consisted of two parts: Part A for inpatient hospital, skilled nursing and hospice care, and Part B for physician, outpatient, home health and similar services. Part D was theoretically created to offset rising prescription costs and high out-of-pocket expenses by Medicare recipients. However, the need for prescription drug coverage remained a problem.

The Bush administration's solution? Privatize it. Turn control of the prescription drug portion of Medicare over to private insurance companies, HMOs and pharmaceutical companies who seek substantial profits for their goods and services. Recipients would sign up with private plans offered by insurance companies, and the insurance companies and HMOs would regulate drug and health care costs. Early on, there were many obvious problems with the plan. Chief among them was that before Plan D, federally run Medicare was able to negotiate prices with drug companies. Medicare Part D forbade negotiating group purchasing agreements and volume discounts with drug companies, a tactic that the Veterans Administration had used successfully for years.

Even the private sector saw problems with the proposed plan. In November 2003 the Association of American Physicians and Surgeons, cried: 'Don't sell out Medicare Patients for a Few Dollars More!' We had high hopes for the opportunity to start to restructure the crumbling Medicare with free market protections, cost controls, and patient choices … but we cannot support a reckless, open-ended entitlement in exchange for a token demonstration project and hollow promise of regulator reform.

So much for the naïve assumption that capitalism can regulate itself for the greater good.

To gain support for MMA from Democrats and conservative Republicans in Congress, supporters of the bill promised that it was inexpensive, costing only $400 billion over 10 years. Knowing that the cost would be much more, as time for the passage of the bill neared, the GOP made desperate efforts to cover up the true cost of the plan. Medicare's Chief Actuary Richard Foster was threatened with his job in June 2003 if he told Congress the true cost of the plan. (New York Times, March 14, 2004).

Nonetheless, the Medicare Prescription Drug, Improvement, and Modernization Act (Public Law 109-173), also known as 'MMA legislation,' was signed by Bush on December 8, 2003, after narrowly passing in Congress. Not surprisingly, a month later, the 10-year cost estimate grew to $534 billion. Clearly, the bogus figure presented to Congress during the debate helped gain the support of fiscal conservatives who said they would vote against the bill if it cost more than the promised $400 billion.

Republican lobbyists and private sector fat cats breathed a sigh of relief on their way to the bank. Billy Tauzin, Louisiana Republican sponsor of MMA, stepped down as chairman of the House committee that regulates the pharmaceutical industry to become the new president and CEO of the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America, the drug industry's top lobbying group. Tauzin's new $2 million pay package makes him one of the highest-paid lobbyists in Washington. (USA Today, December 15, 2004). And Tauzin is just one example of the true results of MMA. There are many others.

Anticipating a windfall for pharmaceutical companies, Fortune magazine's Web site in January 2004 announced a pending health-care boom, listing 10 stocks that would soar with the passage of Medicare Part D. From the start, it was clear that the primary beneficiaries of this plan would not be poor senior citizens, but rather corporate health insurance and pharmaceutical companies.

Later, the true horror of MMA became apparent. In March 2006, Milt Freudenheim of the New York Times warned, the drug program could prove to be a feeder system into a much greater private presence in Medicare (which is) a longstanding goal of the Bush administration. … Insurers … know that the real money is not in providing drug insurance. The rewards are much richer in other types of Medicare policies, including complete managed care plans.

Michael B. McCallister, HMO Humana's chief executive, said that he saw the Plan D drug program as an enticement for recipients to sign up for Medicare Advantage, which is managed by private insurers and subsidized by Medicare. '[T]he real financial opportunities lie in upgrading Part D enrollees to other Medicare-linked policies.'(New York Times, March 31, 2006).

Plan D is a windfall for drug companies, who may pocket $139 billion in profits from the Medicare bill. In July 2006, Merck and Schering-Plough, two major drug companies, reported second-quarter profits well ahead of expectations. (New York Times, July 25, 2006).

Holes in the Program

The most significant immediate problems with Plan D are administrative problems getting people enrolled and covered, and a provision that includes a gaping 'doughnut hole,' where recipients pay full price for their prescription drugs for a prolonged period of time. This is how it works:

MMA beneficiaries pay a $250 deductible, then 25 percent of the cost of covered Plan D prescriptions up to $2,250. After that, the beneficiary pays full price for their prescriptions until their out-of-pocket payments equal $3,600. Then the beneficiary pays $2 for a generic or preferred drug and $5 for other drugs, or a 5 percent co-pay, whichever is greater.

Many people have gone to the drug store to pick up what they thought would be a covered prescription, only to find that they have fallen into the doughnut hole, and must pay full price for their medication. This is a serious hardship for many. True, there is a provision that theoretically protects the poorest people from the doughnut hole, but it is a serious problem for many, especially moderate-income seniors. To add insult to injury, this deductible is recalculated on a yearly basis. A beneficiary who spends $3,600 by December 31 of one year will start their deductible again on January 1 of the next year.

Lawmakers claim that the 'coverage gap' was a necessary provision in the plan. It limits the cost of the new program while providing some benefits to almost everyone. (New York Times, July 30, 2006). Medicare beneficiaries may look forward to another double-digit increase in their premiums next year, from $88.50 to $98.40. Bush administration projections based on presumptions that Congress will decrease Medicare payment rates for physicians suggest that the rise could be even higher. Mark McClellan, administrator for the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, said the increased premiums were the result of increased services, such as physical therapy and lab tests, which physicians are using to provide better health care. McClellan also said that the system is not sustainable (The Buffalo News, July 12, 2006). He did not, however, speculate on what will happen when the profit bubble bursts.

Clearly, the Medicare Modernization Bill is the work of Bush and his insurance and drug industry cronies. It was pushed through Congress by devious means, and sold to the US public with spurious lies. The plan has made the federal government customer to the drug companies – and taken away the government's bargaining power as such. As a result, seniors and disabled Americans stand to lose their life savings and bebankrupted by drug expenses.

What can you do? If you are a Medicare recipient, you may visit the AFL-CIO Web site. AFL-CIO lists a variety of resources that explain the plan at :). Families USA also has an excellent Web site at .

If you are angry and frustrated with the Bush administration's clear endorsement of mega-profits for private industry at the expense of senior and disabled Americans, please take action. You may follow the example of a group of Goshen, New York residents who showed up with boxes of Munchkins (doughnut holes) to protest Plan D. You may write to your representatives in Congress, urging them to scrap or modify MMA. These measures may bring some temporary relief. However, the complete removal of profits from all health care – the approach known as socialism – remains the only true and lasting solution.

--Anna Bates is a contributing editor of Political Affiars. Send your letter to the editor to

Beyond Equality: Class, Gender and Race Today

Wed, 28 Feb 2007 04:07:00 +0000

It is my contention that the perpetuation of non-class divisions based on race and sex is the key mechanism sustaining capitalist relations of production, and therefore the key mechanism for upholding class society. That is my starting point. But class cannot be understood without understanding the dynamic interconnection between oppression and exploitation. Because it is only through oppression, an oppression based on race and gender, that capitalist relations of production can be maintained.

Now, that means that we do have to accept that class exists. I think that is a vital thing that we have to do to start with, because there are so many who are indicating that somehow or other we have never had it so good, and actually what we are talking about is structure and not classes. That's the sociological view. It's not a Marxist view. Marx was quite right when he said that the relentless tendency of capitalism towards greater and greater monopoly would in fact polarize society into two classes. That has taken a long time to happen. There have been middle strata, properly referred to, the petty bourgeoisie and so on, but even they are now being forced away and out because of the Wal-Marts of this world and in England Tesco, a similar sort of company. All small shopkeepers don't really stand much of a chance.

We've also had, in class society, different modes of production existing alongside each other. In this country, for example, you had slavery and capitalism existing alongside each other at the same time. However, what we have to recognize is that class is vital and a vitally important thing. It is vitally important for the ruling class to pretend to us that somehow it doesn't exist. And the reason that they had to pretend that it doesn't exist was that if we really understood it, we would really do something about it, because we wouldn't consent. Ninety percent of the population would not consent to being exploited by 10 percent of those who own and control everything. It's absolutely barmy.

So how do they do it? Well, my argument is that somehow or other the relations of production, the capitalist relations of production, i.e. what seems to be a matter of us voluntarily sacrificing ourselves and being exploited, can only exist through division. And the chief means of dividing workers throughout history, and certainly within capitalist society, is through the most obvious means, and that is through skin color and through gender. It is not men who are doubly oppressed; it is women.

I am very glad this is an all women's panel, by the way. But there is no accident that it is women. It is not just making special pleading to say this. It is only relatively recently that women have stopped being treated like chattels even in Western capitalist society. We go on and on about how dreadful it is for women wearing burkhas (and it is dreadful actually), but when you think about it, when did women have rights to vote? In England, women only had the right to vote in 1930 and in France in 1946. It is recent. Women were seen as the property of their husbands. So the long march for women's equality really hasn't finished. It has, in my opinion, just begun, and the same is obviously true of Black people. So understanding how women enter into production already unequal because of their role in the family, because of the private nature of reproduction and the social nature of production, shows why it is easy for women to be exploited.

Marx quotes cotton manufacturers who said that they delighted in the fact that they wanted to employ women in the factories, in the so-called 'dark satanic mills,' which fueled Britain's industrial revolution (which of course was based on slavery). They preferred to use married women because they were more docile, because they needed to procure the necessities of life to bring up their own children. And that's true.

Women have always been paid lower. If you look at wage indices in this country or anywhere else, women earn 2/3 of the pay of men. So all this nonsense about women making it just because we have 100 women MP's and you've got lots of women on the television – it's nothing. What about working-class women? And they are the majority. So I'm sure that's a very obvious point that people understand, but my point is this, that the relationship, that reproducing the relations of production, is absolutely dependent on maintaining these divisions.

Now, if we understand class in its broad sense, which I think we should do, that everybody who sells their labor power for a wage is – whether they know it or not or they like it or not – a worker, because we are all subject to the vagaries of the system. We do not own or control the means of production. We are forced to sell our labor power. Now of course people want to blind us into thinking that just because you earn a bit more, therefore you're middle class. What does that mean? It means you can still get the sack. It means you've still got nothing. It doesn't really mean anything, except in terms of an ideology which kind of blinds us.

I hope PA Editor Joe Sims won't mind if I am slightly critical of something I read in Political Affairs, where the author said that class really does need to be understood, that in America at long last people are talking about class ('Why Class Isn't Just Another Ism,' June 2006). But he says quite rightly that people have got it wrong here, because they are just talking about income, status, power, but they are not talking about class as an economic relationship. And he also deplores the fact that this new thing is emerging called 'classism,' whatever that means, and he is quite critical of that, but he then goes on to quote Marx, Engels and Lenin defining class.

Now I think this is where we have gone wrong. We have relied far too much on quoting the canons and not developing our theory in common to fit the circumstances in which we are in. In other words, I think we have been relying on a dogmatic and ossified form of Marxism, and I think Marx would actually turn in his grave if he knew what we were doing. Probably he is turning in his grave right now. But my point really is that if Marxism means anything, and if we are socialists, we have to develop the theory. We have to develop historical materialism to understand what is happening, what is new, what is changing and what is happening within the working class today. And the key aspect, the key issue facing all workers today is to look at the composition of the working class, which for too long we have considered, and socialists have considered it to be, white and male, and it isn't. It never has been, and we've just about begun to wake up to that, but we haven't woken up to it theoretically. The theory must encompass a real understanding that class is fundamentally related to the divisions, the major divisions that I have just mentioned.

My view is that if we try to understand class without understanding what is happening to women and Black people, we get into a real pickle. We completely misunderstand the main motor of capitalist production both at a material and an ideological level. First of all, we only ever understand half the working class. In Britain, the Marxist historians, the people I call the 'mainly manly Marxist greats,' people like E. P. Thompson wrote The Making of the English Working Class and didn't mention women except in about three pages.

Women were actually the motor. They were the core of the working class. How can you forget this? And it's not just being carping and silly and niggling to point it out; it is fundamental. But if you don't do that, you also ignore one of the chief means of capitalist profit. Because throughout the world capitalism has maintained massive profits through the super-exploitation of women and Black people, not only nationally but also internationally. The British Empire was the prime example of how Black people were completely not just exploited, they were triply and a zillion-fold exploited, in order to meet the needs of British capital, a process that helped in some respects to mystify for British workers what really was happening. In other words, racism.

You can only exploit a huge empire if you have an ideology, an ideology of superiority. That ideology of superiority was inculcated very thoroughly in the minds of British workers quite deliberately throughout the 19th and 20th centuries. That comes to the second aspect of the way in which class relations of production are reproduced through divisive ideologies, like racism and sexism, and of course in this country you have massive examples of that. But I do think that we mustn't forget the question of sexism. Just because aspects of the women's movement forgot working-class women and forgot Black women didn't mean that the issues that they raised weren't vitally important and are still important. I can only cite Engels, when he said that in the family the man is the bourgeois, the woman is the proletarian, and that family relations, or the monogamous family, developed to coincide with the development of class society. It mirrored the needs of those who had property, so that they could pass their property onto children of undisputed parentage. So basically, if you want to talk about the global economy as well, or imperialism on speed, then the issue of the super-exploitation of Black and women workers is absolutely critical to maintaining capitalist superprofits. It is so linked – class and the maintenance of capitalism – that it can't be overlooked.

Now let's just look at it the other way round. Can you really understand oppression without understanding class? I think you can't. I think that leads to confusion. Because I am using oppression in a specific way, but if you think that all we're talking about is, just poor downtrodden people whom we should all feel sorry for and perhaps put some pennies or dollars into a collecting box, then that's not the issue. Understanding oppression without understanding class leads to a confusion between oppression and discrimination and they are different. Oppression is endemic in the way that I am using it. Discrimination of various sorts based on age, maybe, and all sorts of things, capitalism can use it when it wants too, but what I am talking about, race and women, are absolutely integral to the maintenance of capitalist relations of production.

If we do not understand that, what then happens is people attempt to understand the issues related to sexism and racism by using the notion of equality, which I think is poor, very poor, indeed, because equality really only means partial gains under the law. It is a juridical form. Not that I think that it's unimportant, because at a certain point we have to fight for those rights, but they are limited rights. They are limited by capitalist property relations, because they fail to reveal the real roots of oppression, which of course are property and class society itself. I think that is what people like bell hooks were coming absolutely smack up against in the period when the Black liberation movement was strong, and she actually used the term oppression. Marx also uses the term, but it has never really been developed by Marxists.

The big problem, if we do not understand the relationship of oppression to class, is that we are going to be blinded also by the new wave of 'feel sorry for us' politics, which is called diversity. The diversity agenda, which seeks to atomize all of us, is a form of identity politics, which in a way seeks to minimize the collective struggle of all Black people to end oppression, all women to end oppression, and to link the two things.

Now the failure of the labor movement, and there has been a failure, and we have to be honest about it, is that they have not understood this until now. They have had to be dragged kicking and screaming into the 21st century. Women are half the work force. Black people are half the human race. There can be no progress whatsoever unless we understand these questions. It should be totally impossible for anybody who says they are a socialist not to be an anti-racist or not to be a feminist. I don't expect every woman or every Black person to be a socialist, however, but in the course of struggle, it is very likely that that is what will happen. It is likely that we, if we don't continue in this silly way that we have been doing for ages with the separate spheres of race, gender and class all doing their own thing, that we will be able to have a comprehensive and unified struggle, which respects the autonomy of the oppressed to organize separately. We are educated enough to let that not happen.

Nevertheless it has to be encompassed within a united labor movement, and a labor movement which begins to really not just understand these questions for partial gain, not just for opportunistic reasons, but understands that at its heart there can be no progress unless these things are taken within and completely made the agenda of the working-class movement.

So the first prerequisite, and it might seem a weak thing to say, but actually I think it's a strong thing to say, is that we have to have a definition of class, which understands fully that women and Black people are not just non-class entities, they are not just out there as new social forces. That is not to say that we want to unite with all women, but it's really understanding the nature of those hugely oppressed groups and the relationship of that form of oppression to class exploitation. In so doing we will have contributed to what Engels wanted us to do, that is to understand the three areas of struggle, economic, political and ideological, and it's the ideological struggle that we have to take up sharply.

I think it is wonderful there are four women on the platform. There are few meetings I ever go to that I see four women on the platform. Maybe that is a sign of things to come. Let's hope it is.

March 2007 – Celebrate International Women's Day...Demand Equality

Wed, 28 Feb 2007 03:49:00 +0000

2-27-07, 9:45 am

In this issue...

British trade unionist and women's organizer for the Communist Party of Britain Mary Davis writes on sexism as basic a feature of capitalist globalization. Davis calls for theory that does not exclude half of humanity. PA editor Anna Bates takes on Republican Medicare reform and points to changes needed in the system to make it work for working people. W. T. Whitney surveys recent elections in Latin America that have brought progressive and socialist movements to power, which are challenging US hegemony in the hemisphere. Danny Rubin offers a historical study of the Marxist-Leninist view of political strategy and tactics. Robert Lanning gives some analysis of the concepts of class and class consciousness. Lita Tandon brings forward the question of super-exploited labor and forced labor in the production of one of our everyday pleasures – chocolate. Matt Parker examines the political and social value of the Web. PA labor editor Ben Sears provides a synopsis of the Employee Free Choice Act and asks you to get involved to help it become law. The Tudeh Party of Iran calls for solidarity with the women's liberation movement in Iran.

Also find book reviews, poetry, and much more.

Peace, PA Editors

Departments:

04 Letters

05 Marxist IQ

06 Commentary

Union Yes! Supporting A Worker's Right to Choose. By Ben Sears

Full Equality Now! By The Tudeh Party of Iran

09 Nobody Asked Me, But... By Don Sloan

10 Book Reviews

The Iron Cage: The Story of the Palestinian Struggle for Statehood. Reviewed by Alejandra Juárez

American Prometheus: The Triumph and Tragedy of J. Robert Oppenheimer Reviewed by Tony Pecinovsky

12 Poetry

The Extra Mile By Michael Shepler

Kissinger to Head Investigation into September 11 Terror By Andy Croft

Into the New World By Catherine Anderson

41 Fiction The Earthquake of Sangerhausen By Helga Schütz

Features:

20- Cover Story Beyond Equality: Class, Gender and Race Today. Racism and sexism underpin global capitalism. By Mary Davis

14.- Oscars: The Good, the Bad and the Ugly. The best movie picks of 2006. By Michael Shepler

16.- Candy Coated Exploitation. Chocolate is a guilty pleasure because of how it is made not because of what it does to the waistline. By Lita Tandon

18.- Some Social Implications of the Web. The Web is changing how political action is conceived and done. By Matt Parker

24.- Class and Class Consciousness. Class is more than just social position. It is also defined by how we think and act. By Robert Lanning

28.- Managing Change: A History of Marxist Strategy and Tactics. Socialism is the goal, but what steps do we need to take to get there? By Danny Rubin

34.- Continental Drift? Latin America Moves Left. Recent elections in Latin America have brought progressive and socialist forces to power. By W. T. Whitney

38.- Why Bush's Medicare Drug Plan is Just Plain Wrong. Bush's corporate privatizing agenda is out to destroy Medicare. By Anna Bates

44.- Movimiento continental? America Latina se mueve hacia la izquierda. Por W. T. Whitney

Time for a New Civil Rights Revolution

Wed, 28 Feb 2007 03:29:00 +0000

2-27-07, 8:22 am

Detroit -- 'It's time for a new offensive for civil rights,' said Jarvis Tyner, executive vice chair of the Communist Party USA, at a meeting of area activists in honor of African American History Month last Sunday.

Tyner made this call for reinvigorating a broad, labor-led civil rights movement fittingly in Detroit where Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. first marched in July of 1963 with autoworkers, other labor union members, civil rights supporters, and thousands of people in the community. It was at this march that Dr. King first delivered his famous 'I Have a Dream' speech.

'We need to think about how we can take the offensive on health care, jobs, and saving public education,' Tyner added. 'We need fresh winds in the civil rights fight.' Tyner proposed a March on Washington to symbolize the new stage of struggle and to celebrate the history of the civil rights movement.

Tyner pointed out that the Bush administration's agenda of privatization, aiding companies in moving jobs overseas, tax cuts for the ultra rich, and endless war work in concert to gut public services and slash needed funds for health care, schools, and to destroy jobs.

This agenda, which is designed to benefit the wealthy and corporate interests, hurts all working people, but disproportionately impacts people of color. The Bush/Republican ultra right agenda is also aimed at dismantling federal government programs that were designed to eliminate racial discrimination.

Tyner noted that though official unemployment rates for African Americans, for example, hover around 9 percent, when under-employed or marginally employed workers are added to the figures, the real number is closer to 16 percent nationally. When imprisoned African Americans are included, the number is astronomical.

Tyner also pointed out that cities with large African American populations like Detroit, Gary, Cleveland, Philadelphia, for example, have been hard hit by ultra right economic policies with a racist edge.

Racism, Tyner argued is not just a set of prejudicial ideas or cultural values. Racism is a system that needs to be examined from its political and economic aspects as well. Racist ideas serve to justify the ultra right's economic and social policies, its foreign policy aims such as Bush's wars, and lead to genocide and brutality.

'Racism has always been at the center of what the ruling class has done to the working class and to people of color,' Tyner stated.

Racism often confuses people and blinds them to their self-interests. 'The vote in Michigan to overturn affirmative action shows we still have a long way to go.' Racist ideology spread by the ultra right convinced a majority of white people in the state to vote to overturn affirmative action, Tyner said.

Nevertheless, Tyner expressed confidence in working people to see through ultra right racist ideology. Tyner cited the 2006 election as an example.

Black voters have consistently reject Bush and pro-Bush candidates. The country as a whole turned against Bush when Hurricane Katrina exposed the systematic racism that destroyed the Gulf Coast and killed many hundreds of working people in New Orleans.

Tyner cited this event as a turning point in national opinions about Bush. Opposition to the war quickly followed. By the time the 2006 elections came around, the voters had shifted the political terrain to the left nationally. Working people overcame racist, anti-immigrant, anti-gay ideological smokescreens to deliver 'an historic setback for the right wing,' Tyner said.

Tyner described the election as 'a struggle that was bigger than the Democrats and Republicans; it was a people's struggle for democracy. It was a vote about ending the war, helping the people affected by Katrina. It was about jobs and health care.' The outcome of the election created a new terrain of political struggle with new possibilities. A new movement for civil rights is one such possibility.

Tyner also expressed confidence in the African American people to help lead a new upsurge for civil rights. African Americans have always understood what Bush and the Republicans have been doing and have refused to support him or his wars, Tyner said. 'The African American freedom movement,' Tyner added, has always had a big 'impact on the history of the planet.'

With leadership in a new offensive for civil rights, that impact can be felt once again.

--Joel Wendland is managing editor of Political Affairs and may be reached at

Who is the Real Bill Richardson?

Wed, 28 Feb 2007 03:24:00 +0000

2-27-07, 8:20 am

Progressives are not immune to the 'national pastime' of selecting ones favorite candidate for the Democratic Party presidential nomination for 2008. Along with present day 'favorites' such as Senator Obama (African American, with strong liberal and peace tendencies) and Senator Hillary Clinton ( a female potential) there is also the present governor of New Mexico, Bill Richardson (a Latino with strong liberal and peace pronouncements) In a recent statement on his website promoting his candidacy for the presidency, Richardson sharply attacked George Bush on his policy towards Iran, stating that a military threat to Iran was wrong and urging diplomacy. He is also being quoted in the local press to the effect that if the United States wants countries such as North Korea and Iran to disarm their nuclear programs, that the United States should take the lead and dismantle first their own nuclear arsenal. This Richardson policy on foreign matters has always been one of his strongest points. In the campaign of 2006, during the crisis with North Korea, he urged direct negotiations. In all other matters in regards to foreign policy, he always advocated diplomacy. No other candidate for the Democratic Party nomination for 2008 has taken such a strong position on Peace. His position on Immigration New Mexico population is composed of 37% Latinos. For a state of over 1 ½ million people it had turnouts of over 3000 participants in the recent national demonstrations against the reactionary Sensenbrenner bill, that would have branded as criminals any person that sought to give help to undocumented aliens. So far the state has made it possible for undocumented persons to obtain drivers licenses and for students of undocumented workers to apply for university scholarships, as long as they met the scholarship requirements. With these events, in the background, that Governor Richardson made the following immigration policy statement at Georgetown University, December 7, 2006 :

'So I am calling on the Democratic Congress to act swiftly to work with the President and solve this problem (of 11 million illegal immigrants). And it can be solved by taking four realistic steps -- securing the border, increasing legal immigration, preventing employers from hiring illegal workers, and providing a path to legalization for most of the 11 million illegal immigrants already here.'

His present relations with Labor in New Mexico

Having carved for himself such a strong position on peace, one would think that here is a candidate to follow. Having won the gubernatorial campaign of 2006 with a voter approval of 67%, one would think that here's a man that we could all work with. Since his election as governor in 2002, he has established a solid reputation with New Mexico labor. One of his strongest contributors to his 2006 election campaign was Council 18 of AFSCME (Association of Federal, State, County and Municipal Employees). True to his word in the election campaign of 2002, he saw to it that statewide collective bargaining for state employees was reinstated. He also agreed with the teacher's union that the educational employees needed an increase in pay and a more balanced pay scale. On his cabinet is a direct representative of the construction trades. This does not mean that there are no differences between his administration and labor and the community. Backed by a 6 billion dollar state permanent and education funds, whose income comes from percentages of oil and gas revenues, and becomes ever larger as a result of increases in world fuel prices, the Governor's administration is in a financial position to offer both tax cuts to small businesses and increased funding for schools in addition to offering a modest minimum wage increase. Led by New Mexico ACORN, AFSCME, and various community social and religious groups there is a legislative campaign going on today for an increase in the statewide minimum wage. Two pieces of legislation are up for debate. One bill sponsored by Speaker of the House Ben Lujan calls for an increase in the minimum wage in two stages; includes a cost of living increase; and exempts larger cities such as Albuquerque and Santa Fe from being frozen into the statewide formula, thereby allowing them to increase their minimum municipal wage to a higher level. The other bill sponsored by Senator Altamirano and advanced at the request of the governor and the statewide Chamber of Commerce, calls for a three-stage increase in the minimum wage to $7.50 an hour; no cost of living increase; and seeks to freeze large municipalities from going beyond the statewide level. As recently as February 13th, 2007, both bills were locked in the House Labor Committee with the statement from the senator that unless there was a compromise, no minimum wage bill would be forthcoming. This illustrates that the governor has some clout as to what type of minimum wage increase the working people of New Mexico will have. Richardson is a very pleasant and affable man. He is also a person that you can bargain with. He will always try to present some sort of compromise between capital and labor. Sometimes this works to the advantage of labor, and sometimes it doesn't. The Weaknesses of Bill Richardson In the past, up until 1994, as the Congressman from the 3rd Congressional District, he was a staunch opponent to the opening up of the Carlsbad Radioactive Waste Isolation Pilot Project. As soon as there appeared an opportunity for him to be nominated as a representative to the UN, he abruptly reversed himself. During his efforts as both UN ambassador and later as Secretary of Energy, he had no problem making various political agreements with conservative senators such as arch conservatives Senators Jesse Helms and Strom Thurmond. These agreements greased the way for his subsequent appointments first to be the ambassador to the UN and then to Richardson being appointed Energy secretary. While today New Mexico labor has a fairly good rapport with the governor, when it comes to supporting him for President, a couple of important factors should be taken into account. In 1994, at the request of Bill Clinton, Richardson became the lead proponent in New Mexico in support of NAFTA. Later he also supported CAFTA. This is in line with his family relations to Citibank of Mexico and his various dealings with the past president of Mexico, Vicente Fox. An important point for today's consideration is what is his position on the Employees Free Choice Act? In the full array of Democratic contenders for the presidency of the United States, Richardson is the only Latino candidate, and to the outside world would seem on a par with many others. Certainly people would tend to compare him with the abilities and the pronouncements of Senator Obama and Senator Clinton. What progressives don't understand is that there are two sides to Bill Richardson—one, as the governor of the state of New Mexico and his relations with labor and the people; and the other, his projections to the outside world. His political personality is a reflection of the struggles being waged around him. Wherever there are strong movements by labor and the peace movement for peace and social progress, you can expect Richardson to reflect those sentiments. At the same time, if any of these movements become an obstacle to his personal ambitions, he will drop them like a hot potato.

Richard Wright: A Bright and Morning Star

Wed, 28 Feb 2007 03:21:00 +0000

2-27-07, 8:16 am

Hes the Lily of the Valley, the Bright n Mawnin Star Hes the Fairest of Ten Thousan t mah soul... --From A Bright and Morning Star

One of the most interesting areas of cultural study is the impact of membership in the Communist Party USA on artists and writers. In some cases, such as Richard Wright, one of many, some of the most important and socially critical work was done while engaged with the Party itself or with forces close to the Party.

A short novella that deserves the attention of everyone is 'A Bright and Morning Star' by Richard Wright. Published in 1938, the story graphically chronicles violent repression against the communist organizers central to the story, living in the South, and the impact this has on the family and community around those activists. Wright highlights the importance socially and the personal nature of Black/white unity expressed through the love and political comradeship shared by a Black man and a white woman. As the child of a similar Black/white couple and knowing first hand what this meant in New York in the mid-1950's, two decades after the story, to read the impact of racism on Richard Wright's strong couple in this story touched a very personal chord in my heart. Wright makes the links between personal and social struggles very clear in a touching and warmway. The warmth of the story was among its most surprising attributes for me because I had experienced some of Wright's other writing as interesting and moving but cold and mechanical in its unfolding of character. 'A Bright and Shining Star' is warm with the affection of family and comradeship and the sacrifices that those relationships sometimes require.

At the time this story was written, Wright had been struggling to survive in the brutally racist society of depression Mississippi, Arkansas, and Alabama. Wright was born on September 4th, 1908 in Roxie, Mississippi, just five year's after W.E.B. Du Bois's seminal work 'Souls of Black Folk' was published. Wright's sojourn in the South overlapped as well with Hosea Hudson's inspiring organizing work in Alabama. The reader is recommended to 'Black Worker in the Deep South' by Hosea Hudson and 'The Narrative of Hosea Hudson: His Life as a Negro Communist in the South' by Nell Irvin Painter if unfamiliar with this great leader. Louis and Dorothy Burnham, Esther and James Jackson, and other Black activists and communists were active in the South in the period leading up to or simultaneous with Wright's period of development and Party activism, and the period when the story was written. Finally, just six years prior to the story's publication Angelo Herndon, 'a young Black Communist worker and organizer, was arrested in 1932 on a charge of 'insurrection' since he had led in organizing Black and white unemployed people in Atlanta.' The Scottsboro trial was taking place, and Henry Winston was active, later to become the inspiring National Chairman of our Party. All this to indicate that Wright was writing during a period of intense struggle around the issues he addressed in the story, and that the people with whom he was politically interacting were among the best the times had brought forth. I am sure I have just hinted at the number of Black communists engaged in the struggle for fundamental revolutionary social change at the time. 'Hammer and Hoe: Communism and Black Resistance in the 1930's ' by Robin Kelley provides a moving account of the communist organizing and the struggles in the South of the time.

In 1938 Wright was a member of the Communist Party, working in New York City as the Harlem editor for the Daily Worker newspaper, precursor to today's People's Weekly World. He left the Party later, and eventually left the country. However, that does not diminish the strength of this story, nor the way it illuminates the struggle of Communists, Black and white, side by side in the South in the 1930's.

Wright dedicated the royalties from this story to the defense fund for Earl Browder, then general secretary of the CPUSA. Wright wrote of the story: 'Frankly, it is not my story; it belongs to the workers. I would never have written it unless I had felt that I had a workers' audience to read it. Ever since it was first published in the New Masses some two years ago, I've wanted to see it published alone and cheaply enough for workers to buy and read.'

'A Bright and Morning Star' revolves around a Black mother, her concern for her Communist organizer son's welfare when he doesn't return home as expected, his white comrade and lover's efforts to find and help him, and finally the mother's sacrifice to save her child from lynching. The story starts out from the mother's perspective:

'She stood with her Black face some six inches from the moist windowpane and wondered when on earth would it ever stop raining. It might keep up like this all week, she thought. She heard rain droning upon the roof and high up in the wet sky her eyes followed the silent rush of a bright shaft of yellow that swung from the airplane beacon in far off Memphis. Momently she could see it cutting through the rainy dark; it would hover a second like a gleaming sword above her her head, then vanish. She sighed, troubling, Johnny-Boys been trampin in this slop all day wid no decent shoes on his feet.. . . Through the window she could see the rich black earth sprawling outside in the night. There was more rain than the clay could soak up; pools stood everywhere.She yawned and mumbled: 'Rains good n bad. It kin make seeds bus up thu the groun, erit kin bog things down like watah-soaked coffin.''

Later, while waiting, the plot is setup as: 'She ironed again, faster now, as if she felt the more she engaged her body in work the less she would think. But how could she forget Johnny-Boy out there on those wet fields rounding up white and black Communists for a meeting tomorrow? And that was just what Sug had been doing when the sheriff had caught him, beat him, and tried to make him tell who and where his comrades were. Po Sug. They sho musta beat the boy somthin awful! But, thank Gawd, he didn't talk. He ain no weaklin, Sug ain! Hes been lion-hearted all his life long.'

I won't go further in detailing the contents of the story. It is a bone chilling and thrilling race to save a life. It is a moving and touching story. It is multi-layered and beautifully written. It stands among the masterpieces of Black literature of the 20th century.

The history of our communists, and in particular our Black communists, organizing in this country is a proud one of standing up to oppression, but itis also a history of the impact that oppression has on our comrades, our families, and our loved ones. For those who endured the gauntlet of police permitted hooligans attacking cars filled with children, women, and men in Peekskill, New York after a Paul Robeson concert,this story will not be foreign. For those of us who remember the imprisonment of Gus Hall, Henry Winston, and other dear comrades this story will not be foreign. For those of us who remember the struggle to free Angela Davis, this story will not be foreign. For those who remember the loss of Rudy Lozano,who see the gathering storm of US intervention in Cuba as Fidel's life enters its final decades, or who remember the Cuban 5 unjustly languishing in prison today (Gerardo Hernandez, Antonio Guerrero, Ramon Labanino, Fernando Gonzalez, Rene Gonzalez), this story is a call to action.

For all of us who face the multiple oppressions of race and gender, and the economic exploitation of class, this story is a inspiring call to remember our proud roots in struggle, to stay strong, and to continue the fight for socialism today!

AKEL Calls for Unity and Sovereignty for the Republic of Cyprus

Wed, 28 Feb 2007 03:16:00 +0000

2-27-07, 8:11 am

Decision of the plenary session of the Central Committee of AKEL Nicosia 21/2/2007

The Plenary Session of the C.C. of AKEL during its meeting today discussed and assessed the current situation surrounding the Cyprus problem. The discussion was conducted on the basis of the introductory speech made by the G.S. of the C.C. of AKEL. After the completion of the discussion the Plenary of the Central Committee unanimously approved the following decision:

1. It rejects and condemns the threats being launched against the Republic of Cyprus by Turkey and the leadership of the Turkish Cypriot community in relation to the exploration for the excavation of petrol in the sea-coast region of Cyprus. These threats are illegal, unfounded and indefensible. They harm the efforts for the resumption of a new negotiating process and demonstrate the negative intentions of Turkey.

2. As everyone, apart from Turkey, acknowledges the conclusion of agreements with neighbouring states for the demarcation of the exclusive economic zone constitutes a sovereign right of the Republic of Cyprus. As far as the Turkish Cypriot community is concerned, we underline that it will also benefit from any possible successful outcome of the whole effort when the Cyprus problem is solved.

3. The Central Committee extends once again a call towards the leadership of the Turkish Cypriot community and Turkey for cooperation aiming at the creation of the preconditions that will enable the resumption of a substantial dialogue on the Cyprus problem.

The 8th of July 2006 Agreement represents a step in the right direction. Its implementation aims at preparing the ground for the resumption of a comprehensive negotiating procedure, as well as the building of trust between the two communities and the solution of day-to-day issues.

Unfortunately seven months after the achievement of the agreement the working groups and technical committees have not yet started functioning.

The Central Committee makes a plea for the overcoming of whatever obstacles exist and for the immediate resumption of the working of the committees. Only through this way will the deadlock be overcome and time will begin to be utilised in the direction of making the appropriate preparation for a new comprehensive initiative.

4. Another issue on which efforts need to be made concerning the creation of appropriate preparation which will enable the solution of the Cyprus problem is the issue of the opening of the Ledra Street check point. If the opening of the specific check point is finally accomplished, a serious step in the building of trust will have been achieved. The military disengagement in the area is a must for a positive outcome of the effort.

5. The C.C. of AKEL recognises the objective difficulties which exist in the effort to promote the Cyprus problems in the coming months. Presidential elections will be held in Turkey In the first six months of 2007, whilst in September of the same year parliamentary elections will also take place. In February 2008 Presidential elections will be held in the Republic of Cyprus. These successive election campaigns encumber the efforts for the resumption of an all-round negotiating process of the United Nations, aiming at the achievement of an agreed solution on the Cyprus problem. Despite the objective difficulties, the C.C. of AKEL states its readiness to exploit possible opportunities that might come up on the Cyprus problem.

At the same time it stresses that 2007 must be utilised to prepare the ground and bridge the gap between the views of the two communities. Such a development is imperative because Cyprus does not have the luxury of seeing a new effort fail.

6. The continuous and intensified efforts for the promotion of the external trade of the Turkish Cypriots and especially with the European Union are being upgraded. The C.C. of AKEL stresses that whatever efforts are initiated must be undertaken within the framework of the respect to the Republic of Cyprus as the sole state on the island and as equal member of the European Union and should enhance the cause of reunification. The well-known proposal of the Government for the opening of the port of Famagusta, in combination with the return of the lawful inhabitants of the city, would constitute a fair compromise and a realistic tackling of the issue.

7. The Central Committee of AKEL addresses the Cypriot people, Greek Cypriots and Turkish Cypriots, and reassures that it will continue with a greater intenseness the effort for the achievement of an agreed solution on the Cyprus problem. AKEL will continue and intensify its meetings with Turkish Cypriot parties. We are convinced that such meetings are extremely useful. Through these meetings the mutual trust is built, which creates a more favourable climate for the efforts to promote the solution of the Cyprus problem. AKEL welcomes the agreement reached between Greek Cypriot and Turkish Cypriot parties for the organisation of specific bi-communal initiatives. It states that it will work towards the implementation of the agreed.

Reconstruction, Terrorism, and the Party of Lincoln: Interview with Eric Foner

Wed, 28 Feb 2007 03:13:00 +0000

Editor’s Note: Eric Foner teaches US history at Columbia University in New York. He is the co-author with Joshua Brown of Forever Free: The Story of Emancipation and Reconstruction and author of numerous books including Reconstruction: America’s Unfinished Revolution, 1863-1877.

PA: Your recent book co-authored with Joshua Brown, Forever Free, has a unique format in that intermingled with the chapters are short essays on media images of African Americans and Reconstruction issues produced at the time. How did the idea for this format come about?

Eric Foner: This book is unusual, you might almost call it an orphan, in that it was originally intended to accompany a television documentary project on the Reconstruction period. That was one of the reasons we started out saying there needs to be a strong visual component. The TV series never got made. Maybe it will in the future some time; I don’t know. But I wrote the book, and Josh Brown did these visual essays, which add a great deal to it. Eventually, it was published on its own. I think that Brown’s material really does add to the book. I’ve written a number of works on the Reconstruction period. There is a lot of new material in this book, but what makes it different, is it’s not just a few illustrations, every book has a few photographs, but the very careful and extensive use of these visual images to elaborate and elucidate the historical themes in the book. Even though the structure came about almost accidentally, it turned out to be a very valuable way of doing it.

PA: The book focuses partially on exposing myths about Reconstruction. What are among the most harmful myths that continue into modern times?

EF: It’s amazing and perhaps somewhat humbling for historians that even though among professional scholars the old myths of Reconstruction have long since been abandoned or repudiated, some of them, in fact, have great staying power among the general public. The greatest myth is simply that Reconstruction was a punishment of the South. After the Civil War radicals in Congress, for one reason or another, whether they were vindictive towards the South or whether they wanted to fasten the rule of Northern capitalism on the South, or whatever, they imposed from the outside a harsh policy on the South. The problem with that view is twofold. One, the South, in that view, is the white South. It doesn’t consider at all what the consequences for African Americans were. Even more important in a way is the view that expanding the rights of Blacks is a punishment for whites. The essence of Reconstruction was the effort to bring African Americans into their civil rights and political rights as American citizens now that slavery was ended. Historians no longer see that as vindictiveness, but a lot of people still have this vision of the South as being ground under the heel of Northern occupation. It’s very misleading, and it has unfortunate consequences for the way we think about the present.

PA: Could you talk a little more about how the expansion of rights for African Americans is viewed as a punishment for whites?

EF: That notion that the error of Reconstruction was bringing African Americans too quickly into the rights of American citizenship: they weren’t prepared for it, they didn’t know how to use it. Therefore Southern whites suffered from oppression, misgovernment, corruption, etc. I think this really is a residue of a very old view, long outdated, that African Americans are simply incapable of taking part in American democracy. I don’t think anyone would say that explicitly now, but the residue of that view, that somehow Blacks aren’t entitled to the same democratic rights as white people is at the base of this older misconception of Reconstruction. This image of Reconstruction as being a punishment, once you deconstruct it, you find that the punishment part is that white Southerners had to share political power with Blacks, But that’s what we call democracy. Normally that is considered a good thing. But in this particular case, it’s seen as some kind of vindictiveness.

PA: Many people view terrorism as an invention of other people in other parts of the world. Can you talk about its roots in our own society in relation to the Reconstruction period?

EF: As I argue in the book, Reconstruction did see the rise of what we might call homegrown American terrorism. The Ku Klux Klan and groups like that, the White League, the Knights of the White Camilia, there were various names for these groups, were terrorist groups. The word terrorism was not really a part of the political vocabulary back then, but no matter how you define it, the use of violence against innocent people for political ends, that’s what was happening all over the South in Reconstruction. The Klan assassinated people, beat people, burned their homes, destroyed schools, targeted people who tried to vote or tried to acquire land. This is terrorism. In some of the older views of Reconstruction, there is an almost romantic view of the Klan as guys who rode around frightening gullible Blacks, and maybe they got a little out of hand, but basically they were well intentioned. That was a totally misleading view. The Klan were a bunch of violent criminal terrorists, and we have to recognize that our society has produced that kind of activity just as other societies have.

PA: One of the areas you touch on briefly in this book is the role of labor unions. How did African Americans use labor unions to organize themselves in this period?

EF: The vast majority of African Americans were living in rural areas of the South. They were agricultural workers. Historically, it’s been very difficult for agricultural workers to form labor unions. They are very spread out. They don’t have the proper means of communication. They’re not gathered together in work places like industrial workers where class consciousness can develop more quickly perhaps. There were examples in the South of agricultural labor unions being formed usually on the statewide level to try to press for the ownership of land by Blacks or better working conditions, better sharecropping contracts, and things like that. They were fairly short-lived. One of the most remarkable features of this period was the incredible array of activity that African Americans engaged in to try to improve their condition and protect their rights. The older view of Reconstruction was that Blacks came out of slavery as children and were manipulated by whites. This is not the case at all. The degree of economic and political mobilization that you see in the South is really remarkable. And labor unions were not that widespread but were one feature of this broader community mobilization which took place during Reconstruction.

PA: Jumping to the modern day, every four years or so the Republicans announce that they are the 'party of Lincoln' in mostly vain attempts to appeal to Black voters. To what extent is this claim true, if at all?

EF: It was certainly true during Reconstruction. The Republicans were the party of Lincoln and the party of African Americans. The vast majority of Blacks in the South voted Republican. My estimate is that about 2,000 African American men held some kind of public office in the South during Reconstruction. Just about every single one of them was a Republican. The Republicans were the party of Emancipation and Reconstruction and of protecting the rights of Blacks in the South. Over time that changed, but it took a long time. It was really only in the 1930s that the Black vote began to shift. At that time Blacks really couldn’t vote in the South, but in the North Black voters began to shift over to Democrats, partly because the New Deal was providing economic relief for them. But a substantial Black Republican vote remained. Eisenhower got a significant Black vote. Nixon got a significant Black vote when he ran for president in 1960. The final, complete shift of Black voters over to the Democratic Party took place in the 1960s when Lyndon Johnson identified the Democrats with the civil rights movement, and when the Republicans embraced Goldwater in 1964 who had opposed the Civil Rights Act of 1964. When Nixon adopted his 'Southern strategy' a little later on, associating himself with George Wallace, the Republican Party made its effort to appeal to white racism, and this alienated almost all Blacks. So, today, you get 80 to 90 percent of African Americans voting Democratic. Bush and others have tried to appeal to the Black vote. Sometimes they succeed in local races. But I think that Hurricane Katrina and its aftermath really sabotaged any effort of the Republican administration to suggest that it has the interest of African Americans at heart.

PA: Forever Free sketches some ways that the fall of Reconstruction changed the course of US history. Could you elaborate?

EF: The end of Reconstruction was a great tragedy for this country. Looking back, you might say Reconstruction was one of those moments at which the country had a genuine opportunity to move forward in the direction of racial and economic justice. It tried for a while, and then it was abandoned by Northern racism and Southern violence, etc. This had a long-term consequence. Following Reconstruction and the next generation after it, African Americans lost the right to vote in the South, they were subjected to a system of racism which encompassed all areas of life, segregation, disenfranchisement, economic inequality, etc. The elimination of the Black vote shifted American politics toward the right. It ensconced a very reactionary ruling class in control of Southern politics for a long time, way down to the New Deal. The power of the white supremacist Democratic Party, at that point, in the South helped to shape New Deal policies. The Social Security Act and other measures were shaped so they wouldn’t include African Americans because of the power of the white racist South. We are still living in some ways with the long-term consequences of the failure of Reconstruction. It is a tragedy that it didn’t succeed.

A Woman in the White House

Tue, 27 Feb 2007 04:56:00 +0000

2-26-07, 9:52 a.m.

I've waited my whole life for a woman President of the United States. Wait. Let me rephrase that. I've known my whole life there would be a woman President of the United States. Not based on supposition. Or desire. But on the clear reality that women are proven leaders. Arbiters of wise council, comfort, logic, humanity, humility, character, insight and calm. They are worldly, educated, observant and physically and emotionally strong. Yet for 200 plus years, American women have lacked equality.

In a 2005 article for 'Development Journal,' I attempted to explain why women pioneers in America needed to immediately fight for their rights. I wrote, 'Contrary to the enduring misogynist portrayal of heroic males and submissive females, women were often more cunning and able than their strongest male counterparts. And for good reason. Their own government deemed them inconsequential. The Declaration of Independence never mentioned them. [It stated] 'We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men...'1

There is no mention of women, nor their rights, their equality or their liberty [in the 'Declaration of Independence']. From the instant the nation was founded, women fought for their independence and made their own declaration to fight.' http://www.palgrave-journals.com/development/journal/v48/n2/full/1100130a.html

Gratefully for me, coming of age two centuries later in the 1970's, women leaders were no longer an anomaly. In fact, three women in particular caught my eye.

The first was trail-blazing Manhattan Congresswoman, Bella Abzug, who took center stage in my political life. It was Bella Abzug, not Nancy Pelosi, who coined the phrase 'this woman's place is in the House -- the House of Representatives,' in her 1970 Congressional campaign. An unflinching opponent of the Vietnam War, Bella was a constant presence in New York media, featured almost daily on TV. My fellow New Yorkers saw her as fearless and outspoken. Some saw her as quirky and shrill. I just saw her as Bella, a woman leading the way.

Around the same time, another media darling ruled the airwaves in New York. Madame Golda Meir, the Iron Maiden Prime Minister of the nation state of Israel from 1969 through 1974. Golda's tenure was so replete with historical milestones, including the 1972 Israeli Olympic Team massacres and the 1973 Yom Kippur War, that she was a constant headliner in print and on TV. In 1970's pro-Israel New York, Golda was a major player on our stage.

Also at this time, the feminist movement enjoyed a meteoric rise, lead by dynamic Gloria Steinem. Buoyed by the 1972 launch of Ms. Magazine, the photogenic Ms. Steinem frequently dominated the news.

Needless to say, my formative years as a young woman activist filled me with expectations for a lifetime of equality, which as we now know, never came to fruition. The disparity in numbers between men and women in governing and leadership positions is evident, forcing the battle for equality to rage on. I'm thrilled Nancy Pelosi is Speaker of the House, but dismayed we have yet to have a woman President. Proud though I am of Congresswoman Shirley Chisholm and Senator Carol Moseley Braun for valiantly daring to try.

Today, according to political watchers and pundits, money-men and mainstream media, the United States has its first formidable female contender for the Presidency of the United States. Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton! As a politically active woman who desires equality in office, Mrs. Clinton's candidacy should rally my support. But sadly, it does not!

What rails me instead are Mrs. Clinton's frequent statements over the past four years in support of the War on Iraq. What ails me is her inconsistency. What angers me is her continued funding of the war. What infuriates me is the ease with which she sends young Americans to fight a war that can force them to kill or be killed. What saddens me is that Mrs. Clinton as a woman offers no more hope for peace than the supporters of this war who are men.

I've been against this war from the beginning. I can't imagine supporting a woman to lead this nation who knows less than I do about peace vs. war, and candor vs. pander.

Give me instead, direct-speaking, newly progressive John Edwards, who takes full responsibility for his mistake in supporting the war, desires open discussion with Bush's proclaimed enemies, admits to a potential tax raise to provide universal health care, supports unions, and vows to work for the working class.

And along with John, give America a truly great woman for the White House. Give us his wonderful wife, Elizabeth Edwards, who will instill in the White House the humanity and warmth it has lacked for so long. The Edwards are a masterful couple. They've weathered unfathomable personal tragedy with dignity, humanity and grace. Characteristics America sorely needs to restore its image at home and abroad.

Give me Barack and Michelle Obama. This past Tuesday evening I had the good fortune to see and hear Barack and Michelle Obama at the Beverly Hilton Hotel. Yes, I was impressed with Senator Obama. He's charming, poised, thoughtful and highly intelligent. He'd be a popular, soothing leader, working hard to reset Bush's tainted world stage. Give me Barack. A child of the world who directed himself into an adulthood to be proud of.

Give me the Barack Obama described by Michelle Obama as a regular guy, 'who can harness the energy in all of us and take us to greater places.... the Harvard Law Review, Constitutional law professor, best selling author, and Grammy winner...'

Compare that to the pre-Presidency accomplishments of the current President who was raised in one of the wealthiest families in America, only to drink away the first 40 years of his life. How dare people question Obama's experience? What I'd give for just five minutes of a Barack Obama/George W. Bush debate even after six years of Bush's 'experience' in the highest office in the world.

And Michelle Obama. What an impressive woman. As powerful, charming and dynamic as her husband. A Harvard graduate, mother, dedicated wife and as she says, 'a citizen' who wants the best for her country. What a White House the Obamas would have. A true House of the People from which to reconcile and re-engage the world.

We all know if Hillary is elected, she presides with Bill. They're a team. But a team with baggage. Hillary brings Bill. Bill brings the Bushes. Until Bill renounces the Bushes, the White House must be off limits to him.

Michelle and Barack Obama are also a team. As are Elizabeth and John Edwards. Barack succeeds better with Michelle. John succeeds better with Elizabeth. America benefits from both of their unions.

On Fox television this past January 30th, Rae Abileah, an impressive young spokeswoman for CODEPINK Women For Peace, appeared on the Hannity and Colmes show. Responding to a question from Alan Colmes about Hillary Clinton as a candidate, young Abileah stated, 'I'd love to support Hillary Clinton as the first woman Presidential candidate for office. I'd love to vote for a woman for President but I can only do that if she becomes a woman of values and courage who can lead our country toward peace.'

Transcending generations, younger women like Rae Abileah, along with older women like me, yearn for women leaders worthy of our support. But just being a woman isn't sufficient justification for support. As Rae so aptly stated, we need 'a woman of values and courage who can lead our country toward peace.' From my perspective, that woman is not Hillary Clinton.

And so Rae, myself and millions of women will wait for the right woman leader. Until such time that our proper woman President does come along, I have complete confidence that Michelle Obama or Elizabeth Edwards would be exceptional women occupants of the White House, sharing their gifts of leadership with our nation and the world.

For now, I can only hope that one of these two life partners will be the Number One Woman in the White House. My thanks to Mr. Obama and Mr. Edwards for giving Americans two fabulous First Ladies from which to choose!

-Linda Milazzo is a Los Angeles based writer, educator and activist. Her writing has appeared in numerous newspapers, magazines and domestic and international journals. She's a member of CodePink Women For Peace and Progressive Democrats of America.

From

Will the U.S. Attack Iran?

Tue, 27 Feb 2007 04:49:00 +0000

2-26-07, 9:44 am

There is a looming crisis with Iran being generated by the Bush administration and using the same methods of lying to the American people and juicing up intelligence reports by distorting the facts to fit in with preconceived ideas as was used to justify the invasion of Iraq. So, just what is going on?

Craig Unger (author of House of Bush, House of Saud) has attempted to answer this question in an article in the March 2007 issue of Vanity Fair: 'From the Wonderful Folks Who Brought You Iraq.' The following are some reflections, from a Marxist point of view, on Unger’s article.

Early in the article Unger tells us why Bush invaded Iraq. The war was, 'Launched with the intention of shoring up Israeli security and replacing rogue regimes in the Middle East with friendly, pro-Western allies,' and he adds, 'the war in Iraq has turned that country into a terrorist training ground.'

Unger is probably correct, in a sense, here. Support of Israeli designs in the Middle East may have been a big factor, but he left out OIL as a major motivating force. Most critics of the Bush agenda have pointed out that control of Iraq’s oil was at the top of the list of reasons which motivated Bush’s neocon advisors. The 'rogue regime' justification is problematical since that term only means a country that doesn’t let the U.S. dictate its foreign and domestic policies for it, or at least play ball with the U.S. on the U.S.’s terms.

The article also says that 'far from creating a secular democracy, the war has empowered Shiite fundamentalists aligned with Iran.' It is interesting that the qualifying word 'secular' was appended to 'democracy.' It appears that Bush wanted not just a democratic state but a secular one to boot. I am not so sure of Bush’s 'secular' qualifications let alone his intentions. But at any rate, I think this is a misunderstanding.

Both Egypt and Pakistan are brutal dictatorships and they get along with the U.S. just fine, because they play ball. Saudi Arabia is the pits, yet a major friend. Saddam was also our buddy for years. I don’t think he ever figured out where he went wrong and ended up being a bad guy. Having all that (nationalized) oil could have been the reason. As for being an evil dictator and killing all sorts of people, that has never been a problem before with being an American ally and part of the free world.

Unger is dead right about the fact that the same sort of 'disinformation operation' in which 'Dubious information from known fabricators was hyped' that was used to justify the Iraq war is now being 'orchestrated' against Iran. The chief 'fabricators' being, in my opinion, Bush and Cheney. When Bush says that Iran is 'providing material support for attacks on American troops' we have no reason whatsoever, based on his track record, to believe him. Ahmadinejad may be nuts, but he is not that nuts. He is not even as nuts as Bush for that matter.

An interesting part of the article details some of the Israeli influences in this developing crisis with Iran. Unger says that back in 1996 Benjamin Netanyahu (at the time the Prime Minister of Israel) hooked up with Richard Perle and a policy paper was soon spawned by the title 'A Clean Break: A New Strategy for Securing the Realm.' its recommendations would have been commended by Ashurbanipal in dealing with his foes (depose them and take their land) so I don’t know how 'new' the strategy really is.

Unger reports that the main themes of this policy paper (remove Saddam, abandon the 'land for peace' blueprint for solving the Palestinian problem, and an Israeli attack on South Lebanon to remove Hezbollah) reads like a 'playbook for U.S.-Israeli foreign policy during the Bush-Cheney era.' The right wing in Israel has immense influence in the Bush administration so it is very worrisome when Unger quotes Netanyahu today and he appears to be even nuttier than Ahmadinejad is alleged to be.

Here is what Netanyahu is quoted as saying as recently as November '06 to CNN. 'Iran is Germany, and its 1938.' Also, 'this Nazi regime that is in Iran ... wants to dominate the world, annihilate the Jews, but also annihilate America.' The idea that Iran wants to rule the world and annihilate the United States, is right up there in the lunacy league with Ronald Reagan's fears about a possible Nicaraguan invasion of Texas. What's next, the Andorran threat to Europe?

Meanwhile in the real world, Iran actually sent something called 'the grand bargain' to the Bush team back in 2003. Iran offered to (1) let the International Atomic Energy Agency (I.A.E.A.) conduct more thorough inspections of its Atomic facilities (to bolster the claim that only peaceful atomic energy was being developed) (2) to team up with Egypt and other moderate regimes in the Near East to make peace with Israel (based on the 1967 borders), (3) to help turn Hezbollah into a regular political party in Lebanon rather than a militia, (4) to see to it that no weapons or 'material aid' from 'Iranian territory' would be sent to Hamas or Islamic Jihad in the occupied territories, and (5) 'to apply 'pressure on these organizations to stop violent actions against civilians within borders of 1967.''

This 'grand bargain' could have been the beginning of not only of normalization of American-Iranian relations, but also a big boost towards the solving of the Palestinian conflict. The Bush administration totally blew off the Iranian proposal. It really looks like the Bushites want war and will do anything to justify starting one when every thing could be solved peacefully through diplomacy.

Here is what David Albright, who was an inspector for the I.A.E.A., is quoted as saying about the charge that Iran is building nuclear weapons: 'We should be very suspicious about what our leaders or the exile groups say about Iran's nuclear capacity. There's a drumbeat of allegations, but there's not a whole lot of solid information. It may be that Iran has not made the decision to build nuclear weapons.'

By end of this month (February '07) the American forces will have been beefed up enough to make a major strike against Iran, not just its nuclear infrastructure, but its ports, airfields and any other infrastructure the U.S. chooses. We should have no doubts that leading forces in the administration have the will to launch such an immoral and illegal attack under the guise of lies and deceptions foisted off on the American people, and with the collusion of some major media outlets running the gamut from Fox News to the New York Times. If there are any forces within the administration, or Congress, that can deter the war hawks and the Great Decider remains to be seen.

--Thomas Riggins is the book review editor for Political Affairs and can be reached at

Mass Media and the Commercializing of Black History Month

Tue, 27 Feb 2007 04:39:00 +0000

2-26-07, 9:34 am

February as Black History month has now become part of national consciousness, which in itself is a great leap forward from the days when African American history was taught usually as one course in a small number of universities with few African American students, in contrast with historically Black colleges and universities. Then scholars and activists had to fight to develop and gain some media attention for “Negro History week.”

Today there are departments of African American studies and students in some states who wish to become teachers are required to take courses in African American history as part of their education. There are also a significant number of insightful documentary films and videos on African American history, of which the Eyes On the Prize series (on the post WWII Civil Rights movement) and the late Marlon Riggs classic Ethnic Notions (on the history of racist stereotypes) and Color Adjustment (on TV's treatment of Blacks) are among the most valuable.

But most Americans unfortunately don't read books about history and politics, even well-written and accessible ones like those of Gerald Horne, Manning Marable, and David Levering Lewis. And they don't watch serious documentaries, which still appear only on public television, as against the sensationalistic commercial History Channel (which rarely has anything about African Americans or women, except where it may relate to warfare) or the various other “educational cable channels” which specialize in programs related to technology and forensic crime detection.

So important figures like W.E.B. Du Bois, Paul Robeson, Richard Wright, Fanny Lou Hamer and many others are passed over in popular consciousness. Prominent entertainers like Lena Horne and Ossie Davis may be remembered and celebrated as entertainers but marginalized in terms of their role in politics.

Of course, African American Communists like Ben Davis, William Patterson, Henry Winston, James Jackson, and others have great difficulty getting honorable mentions even on PBS.

Along with this reality, I have noticed what may be a new(at least new to me) and disturbing trend in mass media's “celebration” of Black history month, that is an attempt by commercial TV to use African American history to celebrate what Herbert Hoover used to call Rugged Individualism.

First the National Basketball Association (NBA) has been running a quote from Booker T. Washington about the value of doing things right, being excellent. The players (workers, albeit very high salaried ones) in the NBA are majority African American, but Booker T. Washington isn't exactly someone who deserves to be celebrated, since he was identified with an “accomodationist” policy that encouraged African Americans to accept and work within the system of segregation to advance themselves without fighting for their rights as citizens.

A statement from Frederick Douglass, W.E.B. Du Bois (who emerged as Washington's major opponent) or Martin Luther King emphasizing the need to stand up and fight for rights would do more honor to the players of the NBA and might even teach fans something significant about African-American history as they were watching those players.

Spike TV, a cable network which specializes in being a “man's” network (meaning crime show reruns, wrestling, and other examples of camp macho stuff) has also been “celebrating” Black History Month with individual success and hero stories. Chevy, which has launched what appears to be a series of “Americana” commercials is doing much the same thing.

The messages in all of this are pretty clear. Those who sit in front of TV drinking beer and watching murder and mayhem can be secure in the understanding that in February, at least, African Americans are in their individual achievements proof that the U.S. is the embodiment of progress and democracy.

Those who drive Chevys and watch what appears to be the all white and heavily Southern NASCAR races (from what I can see that is even true of the crews) can take solace in General Motors February celebrations of what African Americans have accomplished on their own (even though the well paying union jobs that both African Americans and whites had in the past have been made a thing of the past with the export of capital abroad and GM's elimination of plants and people to maintain profits)

As the old Virginia Slims cigarette commercial for women of the 1970s went, “you've come a long way, Baby,” which, when one looked seriously at the use of “Baby” meant that women had come that far at all, even though the purpose of the commercial was to encourage women to believe that they had already reached the end of the journey, if they smoked the right cigarette, wore the right business suit, learned to administer their work and home lives to achieve the wealth and power that advertisers called “the American Dream.”

The best(or worst example) of media's “salute” to Black History Month was a CNN “human interest” segment I saw last week about an African American CIA “spy” who rose in the system to become a handler or manager of other spies. This polite and pleasant gentleman was the son of a woman who worked as a photographer for the CIA in the 1950s. From his boyhood he wanted to be a spy, join the excitement and the derring do, and he did. Eventually, he became a manager, one of the very small number of African-Americans in that position and today is a security consultant.

Of course there was no mention of what the CIA was doing from the 1940s and 1950s on and is still doing--its involvement in assassinations, coups, turning over to local death squads the names of Communists and other anti-imperialist activists in Africa, Asia, and Latin America, and support for brutal dictatorships of the right that it had helped install from Chile to Indonesia.

When I was at City College, a fellow student of West Indian background told me that the CIA had tried to recruit him for work in their analysis unit and he had told them to go to hell. I respect him that a great deal.

Ironically, in those days, when J. Edgar Hoover was doing everything in his power to use the FBI against the Civil Rights movement and listing his personal servants as FBI agents to make it appear that there were African Americans working in the Bureau, the CIA was a place where people of color could find decent employment. Even more ironically, this had, as I see it, a lot to do with the fact that the CIA was fighting in the Communist movement, an anti-racist movement appealing to and having within its ranks large numbers of non whites on the global scene. Thus, it needed people of color to work for it to give it credibility and also work in the field in many parts of the world.

Booker T. Washington, CIA agents, and athletes and entertainers praising the athletes and entertainers of the past in a political vacuum commercialize and trivialize African American history, which is a history of mass struggle against slavery, segregation, racism in all of its forms, a struggle whose victories are victories for all people except the capitalist class and those blinded by ideological racism in U.S. society.

For Black History Month 2008, activists should fight for the inclusion of African Americans who have distinguished themselves in these struggles in all walks of life, including the labor movement and the peace movement. That would help the general population which spends a significant part of its waking hours in front of TV sets understand that they are the beneficiaries of struggles and achievements of African Americans.

School of Americas Closure Bill Gains Momentum

Tue, 27 Feb 2007 04:34:00 +0000

2-26-07, 9:30 am

(APN) ATLANTA – “I think there is a very high chance of [the bill] going through. We think Congress will make the right decision,' Joao De Silva, Communications Coordinator for SOA Watch (SOAW), told Atlanta Progressive News, after the recent SOAW Annual Strategy Meeting and Lobby Day in Washington, D.C.

From February 18 to February 20, 2007, hundreds of SOAW activists from around the country gathered to conduct strategy meetings, hold a rally, and visit the Offices of Members of US Congress.

The focus this year is to gain more sponsors for a bill by US Rep. Jim McGovern (D-MA) to cut funding to the controversial School of the Americas (SOA), recently re-named the Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation (WHINSEC). In the last, or 109th, Congressional Session it was HR 1217, an amendment introduced June 9, 2006 to the Foreign Operations Appropriations Bill.

The amendment failed last year by only 15 votes--a slim margin--especially for the 109th Congress. But in November 2006, 34 US Representatives who opposed the amendment lost their seats, giving hope for a second chance in the 110th Congress.

The McGovern bill will be re-introduced some time this Spring with a new number to be assigned in March 2007, according to a release obtained by Atlanta Progressive News from the SOAW Communications Office. The focus of the bill is to suspend operations at SOA/WHINSEC in Columbus, Georgia, while investigators probe what exactly goes on there.

As a result of the investigation which would occur if the bill passes, there is a “high possibility of [the School of the Americas] being closed,” De Silva said.

'Over its 59 years, the SOA has trained over 60,000 Latin American soldiers in counterinsurgency techniques, sniper training, commando and psychological warfare, military intelligence and interrogation tactics. These graduates have consistently used their skills to wage a war against their own people. Among those targeted by SOA graduates are educators, union organizers, religious workers, student leaders, and others who work for the rights of the poor. Hundreds of thousands of Latin Americans have been tortured, raped, assassinated, “disappeared,” massacred, and forced into refugee by those trained at the School of Assassins,' according to SOAW.org.

Juliana Illari, an Atlanta activist who attended the SOAW event, told APN that activists met Monday February 19, 2007, to discuss strategy and talking points in addition to which activists would be visiting which US Representatives.

Tuesday February 20, 2007, was the day of action. Early that morning, activists held a rally at the Capitol South Station, where lawmakers and their aides get off the subway, Illari said.

Afterwards, activists divided up to visit the Congressional Offices grouped together by region. Activists made over 200 Office visits Tuesday, De Silva told APN.

Activists arrived at each Office equipped with packets containing talking points, information about the SOA/WHINSEC, the McGovern legislation, and a letter from US Rep. McGovern urging each of his colleagues to take action against the School.

The goal this year was to get as many co-sponsors as possible. De Silva told APN there are 21 co-sponsors so far and SOAW expects many more. There were 135 total co-sponsors of HR 1217 last Session.

Illari was one of two activists to visit 35 Offices of Southern Congresspersons representing 10 different Southern states, which De Silva said is always the toughest region in the US to find support for closing the SOA/WHINSEC.

“Out of 35, only 10 knew what the SOA was,” Illari said of aides she spoke to who specialize in foreign affairs.

This did not surprise Illari, who speculated one “could ask several people in Georgia what the School is and they would probably not know.”

“It’s not a one of a kind school,” she said. “The SOA is the most notorious… school, but it is not the only type of this school.”

However, at the Office of newly elected US Rep. Heath Shuler (D-NC), the aide for foreign affairs did know about the SOA/WHINSEC. The meeting with Shuler’s aide was one of “several good meetings [we had] with legislative aides,” Illari said.

Of the 35 lawmakers targeted by the Southern delegation, “eight are new to the 110th Congress,” Illari said. “We had to spend the most time in new people’s Offices.”

The Southern delegation visited the Offices of US Reps. Hank Johnson (D-GA.), who is new to Congress, and John Lewis (D-GA.), who already supports the School closure, and left information packets for their aides.

“Lewis and I have talked personally before about this issue,” Illari said.

Democrats like US Rep. Lewis will come out in full force for this bill but De Silva said, “there have always been Republican co-sponsors,” and he does not expect it to be any different this Spring.

De Silva is confident the legislation will pass this Congress, De Silva said, but the work of the SOAW will not end there.

He said the SOAW legislative work continues year-round. Even if the SOA/WHINSEC is closed for good, the SOAW will continue legislative work on related issues, such as talking lawmakers into considering repealing the Military Commissions Act of 2006.

From Atlanta Progressive News

--About the author: Jonathan Springston is a Senior Staff Writer for Atlanta Progressive News and may be reached at jonathan@atlantaprogressivenews.com.

Marx and Engels on the Revolt of 1857

Tue, 27 Feb 2007 04:32:00 +0000

2-26-07, 9:28 am

Karl Marx began writing on India in 1853 as a London correspondent of the New York Daily Tribune, a newspaper with the largest circulation in America at the time. In two seminal articles entitled ‘British Rule in India’ and ‘Future Results of British Rule in India’, he described how British rule had violently destroyed the older system of society and economy in India, inflicting untold misery on the Indian people. He also underlined the fact that, without at all intending to do so, British colonialism was creating in India the necessary conditions for the country’s regeneration. In the second article, he looked forward to the day when “the Hindoos (Indians) themselves shall have grown strong enough to throw off the English yoke altogether.” With what would prove to be words of uncanny premonition four years later, Marx also noted that “the native army, organised and trained by the British drill-sergeant, was the sine qua non of Indian self-emancipation” (NYDT, August 8, 1853). When the Bengal Army rose in May 1857, Marx returned to this theme, in his very first article on the Revolt (NYDT, July 15, 1857). “On first view”, he wrote, “it is evident that the allegiance of the Indian people rests on the fidelity of the native army, in creating which the British rule simultaneously organised the first general centre of resistance which the Indian people were ever possessed of.” In his next report, dated July 17 (NYDT, August 4), he wrote of the growing scale of the Army’s revolt and of the rebels’ determination “as if on a preconcerted plan,” to rush to the defence of Delhi held by the sepoys from 11 May onwards. He nevertheless detected a lapse on the part of the rebels in not “discovering a man upon whom to bestow the supreme command” which was indispensable for organising “a serious and protracted resistance” against the British forces now assembling near Delhi. Marx, very early in the day, thus located a fatal flaw in rebel arrangements in that no single unified command could be established by them. Further events persuaded Marx that the military revolt in India was not confined just to the sepoys, and that even “the Sikhs, like the Mohammaedans, were making a common cause with the Brahmins, and that thus a general union against the British rule, of all the different tribes, was rapidly progressing.” He was now confident that “by and by there will ooze out other facts able to convince even John Bull himself that what he considers a military mutiny is in truth a national revolt” (NYDT, August 14, 1857).

In a subsequent article (NYDT, August 29) Marx expressed his conviction that the rebels in Delhi were very strongly placed, and that “as to the talk about the apathy of the Hindoos [in American usage, Indians], or even their sympathy with British rule, it is all nonsense.” He noted that the difficulties faced by the English in obtaining supplies and transports “do not witness to the good feelings of the peasantry” towards them. This was the first reference in Marx to the positive existence of peasant support for the rebellion; hitherto he had referred only to support from dispossessed land owners and deposed princes. At the same time, he warned that “it is a curious quid pro quo to expect an Indian revolt to assume the features of a European revolution.” And yet, owing to its expanding spread, Marx was beginning to treat the Indian Revolt more and more as a full-fledged “revolution”. In his report, written on September 1 (NYDT, September 15, 1857), after describing the stand-still at Delhi and the outbreaks of rebellion at Agra, Kanpur, Lucknow and other places, he summed it up all by stating that “the British forces were gradually drifting into the position of small posts planted on insulated rocks amid a sea of revolution.” In his next report, written shortly afterwards on September 4 (NYDT, September 16), he mused on an analogy with the French Revolution of 1789: “The first blow dealt to the French monarchy proceeded from the nobility, not from the peasants. The Indian revolt does not commence with the Ryots, tortured, dishonoured, and stripped naked by the British, but with the Sepoys, clad, fed, petted, fatted and pampered by them.” The implication is obvious: the rising was spearheaded by the sepoys, but now other classes, notably the peasants, had joined the ranks of the rebellion to turn it into a veritable revolution. Marx’s sympathy with the rebel cause is frequently expressed in his articles. In his early reports this showed in his repeated insistence that Delhi was being actively defended by the rebels, and the English were bound to give up the attempt to seize it. This he went on claiming so late as about October 7, when he wrote the report published in NYDT, October 23. The news of the fall of Delhi that occurred in mid-September, and on which Marx’s report was published in NYDT, November 14, came as a piece of unpleasant surprise to him. In a letter to Engels of November 13, 1857 he acknowledged that the fall of Delhi had “to some extent discredited myself and the Tribune”. However, Marx in his report in NYDT (October 11, 1857) had protected himself somewhat by arguing that the British by concentrating on Delhi had “simply played into the hands of the mutineers,” for they thereby left to them the remaining part of the country as an “open field.” He obviously now looked hopefully at the rebels’ more mobile and flexible defence of the large area (practically the whole of Uttar Pradesh) that had by now come into their hands. Marx at this point wished his friend Frederick Engels to take a hand in reporting on the Revolt, and henceforth left the task of covering the military events entirely to Engels. Engels began by analysing the British army’s successful assault on Delhi. He thought that the tactics followed by the rebels showed “that some notions of scientific warfare had penetrated among the Sepoys, but either they [these tactics] were not clear enough, or not powerful enough, to be carried out with any effect” (NYDT, December 5, 1857). He followed this up by two articles on Campbell’s temporary relief of the Lucknow Residency, November 14-23, 1857. While taking a dim view of the rebels’ inability to capture the Lucknow Residency despite a siege of over five months, he yet recognised that the “Oude insurgents…. proved immediately after the arrival of Campbell the strength of a national insurrection,” which compelled the British commander-in-chief to order a retreat from Lucknow. Engels commented that “the strength of a national insurrection does not lie in pitched battles, but in petty warfare, in the defence of towns, and in the interruption of the enemy’s communications” (NYDT, February 1, 1858). To the last point --- i.e. how a ‘national insurrection’ could be continued despite the inability to win battles in open field --- Engels returned in his two articles on the final fall of Lucknow that took place in March 1858. He discounted the reports of heavy fighting or of British heroism and was disappointed at the sorry measures of defence adopted by the rebels. He, however, noted that the rebels had dispersed in large bodies across the country, and so believed that a phase of “guerrilla warfare” would now begin (NYDT, May 25 and June 15, 1858). His expectations of how such warfare should proceed were, perhaps, fulfilled only by the famous Kunwar Singh and his brother Amar Singh of Jagdishpur. Speaking later, specifically of Amar Singh, Engels said that he showed some “knowledge of guerrilla warfare; at all events, he attacks the British whenever he can, instead of quietly waiting for them.” But while penning these words, Engels was now writing his final piece on the Rebellion. By autumn of 1858 the hopes of a sustained general guerilla warfare stood tragically belied; and Engels concluded that the revolt had now dwindled to such a level as deprived it of all “military interest.” Yet he was still sure that the “anti-British sentiments of 150,000,000 Indians” it was leaving behind, might still become “a matter of serious consideration” one day (NYDT, October 1, 1858). POLITICAL ASPECTS While Engels was studying the military aspects of the Rebellion, Marx concentrated on its political aspects. He was, first, concerned with contesting the hysteria that was being raised in England over the rebels’ “atrocities.” In an early article on the rebellion (NYDT, September 16, 1857), he agreed that the rebels had committed such appalling “outrages,” as one meets, indeed, “in wars of insurrections, of nationalities, of races, and above all, of religion,” pointing to precedents from Europe’s own history. He recalled to mind “the violations of women, the spittings of children, the roasting of whole villages” that the British themselves had perpetrated in the recent Opium War in China. He then cites report after report of the fiendish action of British officers in their work of suppressing the Indian rebellion: the cruelties, and the hangings of both combatants and non-combatants. Marx went on to doubt the deliberately exaggerated accounts of the rebels’ atrocities derived from “cowardly” persons, sitting at long distances from the sites of events. He followed up this report by an account of the kinds of physical torture Indian peasants normally suffered under British rule (NYDT, September 17, 1858). In NYDT, April 5, 1858, he reverted to the use made of the ‘reports’ of the rebels’ crimes, which served to incite British passions, though discovered to be false after they had been put to full use for propaganda purposes. He also gave a fresh account of the brutal atrocities committed by the British on rebels, and on their non-combatant supporters, or just ordinary people. He condemned the bloodthirsty spirit adopted by England, “hateful enough in a single tyrant, but which, when adopted by a whole nation, becomes horrible indeed.” It may be added that Engels too was disgusted at the way Lucknow was given over to loot by British soldiery, and he sarcastically referred to the “civilising and humanising progress” of the British army (NYDT, May 25, 1858). In an article in Pall Mall Gazette, London, November 11, 1870, he recalled that the English had violated all military norms by shooting down prisoners of war. Marx took up, next, the questions of legitimacy. He showed how the British annexation of Oudh in 1856, was totally illegal, so that it could not be said that the people of that state had committed any breach of loyalty to their legal sovereign by joining the rebellion. Rather, “all these treacherous and brutal modes of proceeding of the British toward the natives of India are now beginning to avenge themselves.” These proceedings had now been crowned by Canning’s Proclamation of March 3, 1858 confiscating the entire “proprutary right in the soil of the Province of Oude” by dispossessing all present proprietors until they could prove their loyalty! (NYDT, May 28, 1858). Another aspect of Marx’s writings on 1857 derives from his anxiety to provide supporters of the Indian cause in England, like Ernst Jones, the Chartist leader (on whom see the previous issue of People’s Democracy), with arguments that might appeal to the English audience. Marx showed that India was misgoverned and overtaxed only to provide members of the English “governing class” within India and individuals belong to certain groups in England with large incomes. The ordinary English people and tax-payer gained nothing from India: rather they had now to pay more and more heavily for the costs of imperial aggrandisement (see ‘British Incomes in India’, NYDT, September 21, 1857, and ‘Taxation in India’, NYDT, July 23, 1858). In April 1859 after analysing in detail how much the expenditure incurred over the suppression of the Revolt was going to burden the English tax-payer with, Marx summed it all up in these final words: “it will be confessed that these financial fruits of the ‘glorious’ reconquest have not a charming experience; and that John Bull pays exceedingly high protective duties for securing the monopoly of the Indian market to the Manchester free-traders.” In the words we have just italicised Marx gives vent to his total scepticism about the anti-colonial professions of the English Free Traders. Indeed, nearly a hundred years before the term “Imperialism of Free Trade” was coined by John Gallagher and R Robinson in 1953, Marx had here effectively and succinctly described the phenomenon designated by that term. The Indian “National Revolt” had been crushed in a huge blood bath so that British industrial capital could rule over India in the name of the British Crown in as absolute a manner as force and terror could provide. From People's Democracy

The Free Enterprise System As Ideology For Monopoly

Tue, 27 Feb 2007 04:25:00 +0000

2-26-07, 9:21 am

The unspoken goal of the present system of global corporatism is the 'Bangladeshization'of the global centers of the old colonial system (ie in particular the US homeland). Perhaps this is just in time for the deluge of the the rising ocean / global warming phenemenon which will inundate the old Bangladesh. The same environmental offspring of a profit at all costs method of organizing production will give rise to a new industrial 'plantation state'--an updated confederacy --if you will. The prospect of a massive, but integrated third world economy for the north american continent is almost a certainty given the dominance and trance-like reverence for the 'supply side' or free enterprise/ free trade ideology prevalent in global center universities. As the old 'lesser' Bangladesh with its global corpation-run sweat shops, poison water, soil and air sinks beneath the waves...a new 'greater' Bangladesh arises on the North American continent. The proof that America's most esteemed universities have dumbed down curicula by characterizing global short-term corporate profit maximization as 'rational' production ...is apparent when their most successful graduates including Bush and nearly the entire neo-con power structure seem to be completely unaware that there in any economic or environmental crisis at all.

The history of the free enterprise system is one of anything but free enterprise. Like the monopolistic mercantilistic system of the late middle ages in Europe, the idea of wealth has once again become centered on the accumulation of circulating capital (ie form of money, specie then, petro-dollars now). In the early modern period, when the old medieval monopolies were being replaced by 'modern' enterprises based on on the efficiency of the market rather than political connections and birthright...it seemed that free enterprise was the wave of the future. Adam Smith was the best theoretician of the period, noting not only what was in fact occuring in England and Northern Europe at the time...but systematizing its essential elements. He rightly noted the benefits of a free enterprise system in dissolving a predetermined monolithic sytem of production, commerce and trade. His crucible was productive forces...whatever increased the total product produced was functional. If a greater product was produced with fewer imputs of labor, resouces and capital...free enterprise produced an efficiency or economy. On the other hand the mercantilists in Southern Europe took wealth from their new empires in the Americas in the form of specie--which led to mere inflation and not industrial developement. The free enterprisers of Northern Europe started producing, capitalizing and exporting a surplus. On the other hand Spain and Portugal witnessed a an orgy of spending by the entrenched imperialist elite while consumption among their laboring classes actually decreased. A..hum....sound familiar?

Historically, these intermittent periods of 'free enterprise' were of short duration and always manipulated by the local monied elites to transform the economy into its opposite-- ie monopoly. This Hegelian- Marxist construct is obvious to anyone who ever played the popular board game MONOPOLY. What I am saying is that successful competition inevitably leads to monopoly. Smith recognized this and defined monopoly as a CONSPIRACY against the common weal and economic efficiency. The normal organization of enterprises and the economy is one of partial(oligopoly) if not outright monoply. The freedom to buy and sell shares of the corporate manipulators does not fundamentally change this phenomenom but merely gives a democratic charade to corporate control of the economy and allimportant social institutions--assuming that there is a middle class with the means to engage in this form of gambling.

What upsets the usual monopolistic condition of modern society is the inderdiction and injection of successive eras of technological innovations --which has characterized the entire modern era. This is precisely what the religious jihaddists of our own country (ie moral majority, et.al the al caidas of the Middle East) rail against. Successive waves of technological innovation like the present information age destroy monopoly temporarily, only so that it may revive and intensify afterwards. 'Modern' free enterprise ideolgues(ie monopolists) like Schumpeter from one of those universities which first established worship rituals and ivory tower temples around the free market/ trade ideology... have for the last 50 years advocated 'creative detruction' of the entrenched economy as necessary from time to time--like Jefferson advocated constitutional renewal through periodic revolution. Predatory financial alchemists and other corporate raiders like Michael Milkin use this ideology as a cover when they raid and loot target corporate shells screwing shareholders, bondholders and especially pension funds. A version of this Schumpeterian 'creative chaos' theory has even been used to justify the stiring up of ethnic strife in Iraq and other neo-con target areas as an old-fashioned divide and conquer colonial tactic. Increasingly it seems that management of strife by black ops death squads (ie the 'El Salvadorean Option') in such target areas as Iraq, Somalia, Lebanon and the nation-state Georgia--to name a few has been even less successful than the Schumpeterian version for the economy.

Meanwhile the supply side driven 'old' bosses (as contrasted with the new bosses of the early factory period or the early days of the information age(70's /80's/90's ) have found it more profitable to dismantle domestic capital investment,rather than invest in domestic production....sending capital to the colonial periphery. Like the British Empire in the early years of WWII who relied on the Royal Marines, Imperial Navy and ultimately Roosevelt (ie lend-lease) to guarantee transport of product to the colonial center. Little more than the paper pound sterling was left to export--a serious problem for an empire without any colonies. Likewise now the US has gone down this trail to hell to the extent where we export not much more than paper petrodolars, military threats and supply side propaganda to the 3rd world perpherial colonies in exchange for goods of every sort.

Having absolutely no shame at all the bushreich has even privatized the marines (ie the sons and daughter to the umemployed or soon to be disemployed working strata). The black hole of these Cheney santioned contractors will soon bankrupt the reich alone (even apart from the other contradictions of the Empire) ...much like Afghanistan bankrupted the USSR.

The dynamic spread of free enterprise first charted and molded into a theoretical construct by Adam Smith was already largely already displaced in a mere generation by the gathering monopolistic concerns when monopolist traders such as the East India Company monopolized production of goods at the imperialist centers, and then trade through governmental concession in the colonial periphery. Competition was kept in the colonial periphery where and when it was functional in producing maximum profit.The goal of keeping industrial commodities like cotton from the Americas and India cheap was periodically disrupted by technological and industrial developements or even revolutions like that in North America...or later the civil war.

These periodic infusions of new ideas and technology were always unpredictable but brought forth competition only temporarily until old monopoly capital realized there was/is a new game in town not under their control...and brought forth the strategems to incorporate the new. Nowadays the latest strategy is to use ones own debt and that of the new upstart firm as a means of financing its own demise and consumption--a purely illusory paper meal by old money foisted on new as a buy-out.

Most of the free enterprise propagandists /ideologues of the period immediately succeeding Adam Smith were actually employees of monopoly joint stock companies in the colonial centers. Ricardo, Malthus and Bentham are from those companies' propaganda stables. A primary monoply scam of the era [which they all dismissed as a mere deviation from free market/ trade ideology] was the centers' subsidization of the export of consumer commodities (always uprooting production of foodstuffs, clothing and other necessaries in the colonies). But these actions were, in actuality not a deviation from trade policy but fundamental to company operations. In practice the only free competition these monopolies supported was in the labor markets at both home and in the colonies and lastly, in the pheripherial commodity markets. Taxes were taken from the colonials, and the domestic laboring and middle classes and tranferred to the monopoly joint stock companies. A form of reverse communism did then as it does now prevail. Nonsense about 'free' enterprise was a mere cover for this corporate program of reverse communism. Patents, copyrights and the very concept of limited liability for corporate groupings in exclusion of all middle class sole proprietorships or partnerships, much less woany working class associations is not conducive to competition nor democratic polity. That lawyers sanctified corporate charters by selling shares of these economically dysfunctional entities called corporations to the country club leisure class merely spread the illusion of ownership to a part of the middling class--giving a wider political basis for support to these very fluid, liquid entities called corporations Another scam was monopolizing the production of additive consumables like tobacco and opium, and then legitimzing and then forcing 'free' importation of these products into all the other colonial possessions by the colonial centers. The subsidization of global corporations by the laboring and middling classes was further entrenched when corporations were granted immunity from liability for almost all forms of mismanagement, that is to say the usual corporate plundering and of ravishing of resources, water, the soil, the air, and the health and longevity of labor. The Bush regime's unabashed disregard of the moderated neo-colonial forms and methods, and its embrace of old-fashioned plundering in the world OutBackand continues to produce the very terrorists that its war on 'terror' is supposed to combat. The reich's wholesale dismantling of all constitutional protections, as well as an almost complete rejection of the whole tradition of English common law since the days of the Magna Carta is symptomatic of 17th or18th century plantation mentality. The neo-con moves to criminalize working class bankruptcy is symptomatic of this old-fashioned 17th century mindset. This mindset once looked out on a planet where where 3/4 of the world's workers were de jure slaves of one sort or the other. The corporate ideologue/ preacher Malthus indeed sanctimoniously propounded to country club set at the universities that the natural wage of labor should, or ought to be equivalent to the subsistence of plantation serfs, etc. He noted that wages could fall beneath subsistence (as in Ireland where potato famines and landlord rapaciousness led to mass extinction and exodus)--but in the long run Malthus felt that labor's natural wage was slavery. More recently, Bushreich policies have created 20 million jobs ,according to Fox News brain compressors (at burger stands presumably?) since 9-1-1. Adam Smith recognized the shortcomings of competion. To him natural monopolies like utilities should be regulated for the benefit of the common weal. Only then could local businesses compete in the national and international markets. Regulation with an emphasis on efficiency (ie establishing shadow prices for monopolies, running them as if the were competitive by fiat) is the opposite of the Bushreich privatization moves on water, energy, communicationa and other essential infrastructure commodities/ services-- the present global corporate agenda. It is clear that any competitive enterprise is increasingly becoming more and more impossible under this corporate/country club system of subsidies and reverse communism. A new boss entrepreneur is much more likely to be seen in the nominally communist Beijing rather than a Cleveland or a San Diego. Taken as a whole, the pervasive influence of monopolies throughout the infrastructure make it increasingly unlikely that any competitive business other than burger stands can compete in regional or international markets as well.

The old Bangladesh had quite a lot of competition but the new US version of the 3rd world increasingly more resembles the feudal estates of 'old Europe'--to use an old Bushism. --D. B. Maysmoderator KerryEdwards2004@yahoogroups.com; B.A. M.A. Economics Graduate Cert PA, University of California active duty anti-war activist Los Angeles 1968-69, testified with John Kerry 1971 VVAW camp-in DC Mall .Senate Foreign Relations Comm.

Employee Free Choice Act to go to House Floor

Mon, 26 Feb 2007 05:24:00 +0000

2-25-07, 10:18 am

Gabcast! Poltical Affairs #3 - Employee Free Choice Act to Get a Vote in House

plus, Rising Sectarian Violence in Iraq; Japanese Communists Fight Constitutional Revisions; Australians Oppose Secret Base Deal

Last week, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi described the passage of the Employee Free Choice Act (H.R. 800) as 'a top priority' for House Democrats.

Speaking at a news conference as part of a series of nation-wide events sponsored by the AFL-CIO, Pelosi said, 'It’s time to restore the right of American workers to join a union without harassment from employers.'

Pro-union organizations say the bill may come up for a vote within the next two weeks, and are urging supporters to contact their representatives.

The legislation has the bipartisan support of 233 co-sponsors.

See or for more information. You can also send a message to Congress urging support for the Employee Free Choice Act by going to PoliticalAffairs.net and scrolling down the Take Action column.

…

Despite a recent security crackdown in Baghdad, there has been no let up of sectarian violence in Iraq.

According to a report by IRIN News, since the February 2006 bombing of a revered Shia shrine in Samarra, 60 miles north of Baghdad, relations between Iraq’s main Muslim groups has deteriorated to the brink of civil war.

According to international observers, clashes and revenge killings between Sunnis and Shias have escalated at an alarming rate.

In the capital, which has seen the highest levels of violence in the country, families of the respective sects have been driven out of neighborhoods where they have long lived.

The violence is likely the cause of a mass emigration of Sunnis from Baghdad to other areas of the country.

According to the Iraqi Migration and Displacement Ministry, nearly 100,000 families, about 500,000 individuals, have been displaced countrywide since February 2006.

At least 30% of those are from Baghdad alone.

The security crackdown, led by US occupation forces, has failed to stop the rising violence.

Many analysts believe the presence of US forces exacerbates the violence because of the close alliance between the Bush administration and the Shia-dominated government and the lack of national sovereignty.

Withdrawing US forces combined with regional diplomatic efforts are likely the best first steps toward resolving the crisis and ending the war.

…

In Japan, Japanese Communist Party (or JCP) Leader Ichida Tadayoshi last week criticized a US group for advocating revision of the Japanese Constitution.

According to the Party’s newspaper Akahata, a panel of Asian affairs 'experts' co-chaired by former Bush administration Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage and Joseph Nye, a former Clinton adviser, compiled a report entitled 'The U.S.-Japan Alliance: Getting Asia Right Through 2020,' which calls on Japan to renounce Article 9 of its Constitution.

Article 9 outlaws the creation of a military force other than a self-defense force and forbids participation in war.

Japanese Prime Minister Abe Shinzo and his ruling Liberal Democratic Party have called for a revision of Article 9.

Abe’s government has already expanded the role of Japan’s defense forces with the intention of participating in the Bush administration’s preemptive wars. This move earned Abe sharp criticism from the Communist Party last December.

An Akahata editorial argued that Abe’s policy 'will only encourage the Bush administration, which is deepening its isolation even from its allies, and help it accelerate its unjustifiable war policies.'

Ichida told the paper this past week that, 'We will call for the defense of Article 9 louder than ever and increase the struggle to stop the constitutional revision.' … Australia’s Guardian newspaper reports the launch of a campaign to block a military base agreement between Australia and the US.

The secret deal between the Bush administration and Australia’s right-wing government led by Prime Minister John Howard would set up a new US base in Geraldton, Western Australia, about 200 miles north of Perth.

The Guardian reports that the purpose of the new facility would be part of a new network of military satellites to enhance the US's ability to wage war in the Middle East and Asia.

Local residents say the base would make them a military target and would bring with it the numerous social problems associated with US military bases.

Nationally, says The Guardian, the installation would undermine Australia’s sovereignty, harm relations with its neighbors, massively increase its military spending, and further entwine the country in the Bush administration’s aggressive and militaristic foreign policy agenda.

The Guardian opined:

'If Australia pursued a genuine defense policy based on an independent and peaceful foreign policy, the Asia-Pacific region would be a safer place and the billions of dollars freed up could not only be used to meet the present crises in health and education but also provide Australia’s Pacific neighbors with genuine assistance.'

You can find out more about the Australian anti-bases campaign at:

Harnessing the Power of the Ocean

Mon, 26 Feb 2007 04:28:00 +0000

2-25-07, 9:23 am

EARTH TALK From the Editors of E/The Environmental Magazine Dear EarthTalk: Alternative energy sources like wind power, hydrogen and biofuels are getting a lot of headlines these days, but what about efforts to generate electricity from the ocean’s waves?

-- Tina Cook, Naples, FL

As any board or body surfer will tell you, the ocean’s tidal currents pack considerable wallop. So why wouldn’t it make sense to harness all that formidable power, which is not too unlike that of the rivers that drive hydropower dams or the wind that drives wind turbines, to make energy?

The concept is simple, says John Lienhard, a University of Houston mechanical engineering professor: “Every day the moon’s gravitational pull lifts countless tons of water up into, say, the East River or the Bay of Fundy. When that water flows back out to sea, its energy dissipates and, if we don’t use it, it’s simply spent.” According to Energy Quest, an educational website of the California Energy Commission, the sea can be harnessed for energy in three basic ways: using wave power, using tidal power, and using ocean water temperature variations in a process called “ocean thermal energy conversion” (OTEC).

In harnessing wave power, the back-and-forth or up-and-down movement of waves can be harnessed, for example, to force air in and out of a chamber to drive a piston or spin a turbine that can power a generator. Some systems in operation now power small lighthouses and warning buoys. Harnessing tidal energy, on the other hand, involves trapping water at high tide and then harnesses its energy as it rushes out and drops in its change to low tide. This is similar to the way water makes hydroelectric dams work. Already some large installations in Canada and France generate enough electricity to power thousands of homes.

An OTEC system uses temperature differences between deep and surface waters to extract energy from the flow of heat between the two. An experimental station in Hawaii hopes to develop the technology and someday produce large amounts of electricity on par with the cost of conventional power technologies.

Proponents say that ocean energy is preferable to wind because tides are constant and predictable and that water’s natural density requires fewer turbines than are needed to produce the same amount of wind power. Given the difficulty and cost of building tidal arrays at sea and getting the energy back to land, however, ocean technologies are still young and mostly experimental. But as the industry matures, costs will drop and some analysts think the ocean could power nearly two percent of U.S. energy needs.

Several companies now work at the cutting edge of ocean power technology. Scotland’s Ocean Power Delivery Ltd. has a wave system called Pelamis that it hopes to install in waters off of California’s wave-battered central coast. And Seattle, Washington’s Aqua Energy has installations off the coasts of Oregon, Washington and British Columbia and is in talks with utilities about providing the Pacific Northwest with hundreds of megawatts of ocean energy within the next decade.

Tidal energy pioneers are also hard at work on the U.S. Atlantic coast. The New Hampshire Tidal Energy Company is developing tidal power in the Piscataqua River between New Hampshire and Maine. And a company called Verdant Power is providing Long Island City, New York with electricity through tidal river turbines and has begun installation of tidal power systems in New York City’s East River.

CONTACTS: Ocean Power Delivery Ltd., www.oceanpd.com; Aqua Energy (Finavera Renewables), www.finavera.com/wave; Verdant Power, www.verdantpower.com.

GOT AN ENVIRONMENTAL QUESTION? Send it to: EarthTalk, c/o E/The Environmental Magazine, P.O. Box 5098, Westport, CT 06881; submit it at: www.emagazine.com/earthtalk/thisweek/, or e-mail: earthtalk@emagazine.com. Read past columns at: www.emagazine.com/earthtalk/archives.php.

US war plans for Iran may be irreversible

Mon, 26 Feb 2007 04:20:00 +0000

2-25-07, 9:16 am

After separate meetings with President Bashar Assad of Syria, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei declared Muslim unity and resistance against US-Israeli conspiracies in the Middle East urgent matters for all Muslims in the region to rally around. The Islamic Republic’s years of cooperation with the Untied States in Nicaragua (the Iran-Contra affair), Afghanistan and Iraq notwithstanding, one cannot but wonder if such renewed boldness by Iranian authorities is not actually a direct outcome of Russian president Vladimir Putin’s recent remarks at the Munich conference of 10 February, in which Putin scorned the US policy of domination as a security threat to Russia.

There is no doubt that the George W. Bush administration’s so-called war on terror and belligerent attitude towards the Middle East has, more than ever before, sensitized Russia to issues related to its own security as well as the safety and security of its potential allies and lucrative networks in the region. US post-9/11 policy of regime change in the Middle East, which was advanced by Bush as an attempt to address issues of democratic deficit and extremist tendencies in the region, has not only amounted to the establishment of a more extensive American military presence in Central and Southwest Asia, but also has forced Russia to re-evaluate its overall geostrategic position vis-à-vis the United States.

As a result of such strategic re-evaluation on the part of the Putin administration, the Iranian regime is now finding US threats and military build-up in the Persian Gulf extremely advantageous. This is because the Islamic Republic has undoubtedly arrived at the subtle conclusion that a persistently belligerent US will sooner than later waken the Russian bear next door from its long winter nap, and as a result Russia, for reasons related to its own security and strategic interests, would have no choice but to intervene on its behalf. [1]

This, of course, is a US-induced dilemma the Bush administration could not have intended or foreseen at the time it initiated its war on terror, but will sooner or later come to grasp. On the other hand, the Bush administration might have already grasped, as a result of Putin’s latest remarks in Munich, the depth of this self-inflicted dilemma and its long term strategic ramifications for the US and the wider international community. Should this actually be the case, it is highly likely that all our efforts so far in obstructing US plans for war with Iran will be ignored by administration officials since – from a Bush administration point of view fixated on the use of American military might – a pre-emptive strike by the US on Iran, on the basis of the above discussion, would also mean a strategic blow to Russian attempts at domination in the region. [2]

It may be said, therefore, that as a result of Bush’s notorious war on terror and belligerent attitude toward Iran, Russia will have no choice but to throw its weight around in the international arena in the hope of preventing the further expansion of US domination in its vicinity. Iran, on the other hand, is finding it extremely difficult, if not outright infeasible, to resist Russian (but also Chinese, for that matter) overtures of “cooperation,” be it in such realms as security and military assistance, or in forms associated with finance and the development of its energy sectors.

Of course, Iran will not be the only country in the region engaging in such cold war-style cooperative arrangements with Russia. Syria will soon find itself in the same situation as Iran, preparing gradually to move closer to the bear next door.

In much the same manner, countries such as Saudi Arabia and Kuwait [3] – and eventually perhaps Pakistan and Afghanistan – will also have to seek ways of balancing their external relations vis-à-vis internal pressures and US interventionist impulses (e.g. calls for democratization or liberalization). This, of course, is not without precedent when it comes to governments (client regimes) friendly towards the US, as the former Shah of Iran used to do the exact same thing when confronted with anti-US internal opposition or a US administration critical of his economic policies or poor human rights record.

To be sure, part of what used to go on during the cold war in terms of security and major power rivalries has found its way into the present era, mostly perhaps as a result of miscalculations or raw opportunism by the Bush administration and its European allies. Whether the US and the wider democratic community can compensate for their past mistakes by peacefully assisting the expansion of the third wave of democracy to also include the Middle East remains to be seen.

Notes

1. This would explain, for example, why the Iranian regime and its proxies in the region such as Muqtada Sadr and Hassan Nasrollah have opted for the escalation of hostilities with the US and Israel. It is also worth noting that the Islamic Republic is, for security and other purposes, very much interested in becoming a member of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, which includes Russia and China as members.

2. US contingency plans for war against Iran have already been revealed by the New Yorker, the BBC and others. Thus it seems the US has grasped the depth of the dilemma mentioned above. Let us just hope the US will not decide to deal with the situation through war.

3. Kuwaitis have not forgotten the fact that the US was partially responsible for Saddam Hussein’s invasion of their country; hence their partial mistrust of the US. As for the Saudis, they have recently started on the path of closer relations with Russia by engaging it in matters related to peaceful nuclear technology – the kind of technology they could easily acquire from the US.

--Jalal Alavi is a sociologist and political commentator residing in Britain.

Born-again killer Rios Montt plans run for Guatemalan Congress

Sun, 25 Feb 2007 04:42:00 +0000

2-24-07, 9:37 am

Former Guatemalan dictator General Jose Efrain Rios Montt, who prosecuted a Reagan administration-supported war of genocide against the Mayan population, on January 17, 2007 announced that he plans to run for Congress in September.

This would provide him with immunity from prosecution on the charges of genocide and other violations of human rights during the country's 36-year civil war, according to SOA (School of Americas) Watch.

Members of the country's Congress enjoy immunity from prosecution unless they are suspended from office by a court. 'I am certain and sure' of getting a seat in Congress, Rios Montt, told a news conference. Rios Montt, who continues to be an influential and powerful politician in Guatemala, ran for the presidency in 2004 and finished third (Associated Press, January 17).

The Spanish National Court has charged the former dictator, who attended a 'special course' in the 1950 at the SOA (now called WHINSEC - the “Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation), with the crimes of genocide, torture, terrorism and illegal detention. In July 2006, Spanish Judge Santiago Pedraz issued warrants for the arrest of General Ríos Montt and several other former senior officials.

“The Guatemalan authorities subsequently took some of the accused into custody in order to ensure that they would not flee the country,” according to Amnesty International. “However, General Ríos Montt remains free. Strong international pressure is needed to ensure that all either face trial in Guatemala or are extradited to Spain.”

Guatemalan Nobel Peace Prize Winner Rigoberta Menchu charged five ex-military officials and three ex-government officials, including Rios Montt, in the disappearance of Spanish priests and a fire at the Spanish Embassy in Guatemala City that killed Menchu's father and 36 others. A Guatemalan court is still considering whether to order the arrest of the former dictator and his associates for crimes committed while he ran the country between March 1982 and August 1983.

Ríos Montt’s rule was one of the bloodiest periods in Guatemala's civil war when over 200,000 people, mostly Mayan Indians, were killed or disappeared. The overwhelming majority of these people were innocent civilians murdered by government forces and paramilitary death squads. Rios Montt led his systematic and brutal “scorched earth” campaign to wipe out large portions of the country's indigenous population, under the guise of “stopping communism,” in what I refer to as the “Guatemalan Holocaust.”

According to the United Nations-sponsored Truth Commission, this bloody campaign resulted in the annihilation of nearly 600 Mayan villages. The Commission concluded that acts of genocide had been committed, 'through methods whose cruelty has outraged the moral conscience of the civilized world.'

Survivors seeking justice for human rights crimes committed during the most brutal period of Guatemala's civil war have faced years of delays, obstruction and harassment. Menchu and others have also asked courts in other countries to hear their cases to exercise “universal jurisdiction” over the crimes committed in Guatemala.

“Universal jurisdiction is based on the principle that all countries have an interest in bringing to justice those responsible for human rights atrocities, no matter where the crimes were committed, and regardless of the nationality of the perpetrators or the victims. International law permits and – in some cases – requires every country to investigate and, if there is sufficient evidence, to prosecute in such circumstances,” Amnesty International explained in an action alert.

Rio Montt holds a special place in the ranks of history’s genocidal murderers with folks like Adolf Hitler, Heinrich Himmler and Pol Pot. President Ronald Reagan and other U.S. officials strongly supported and guided him in his campaign, so the blood of hundreds of thousands of Guatemalans is also on U.S. hands. In addition, Israel provided weapons and training to the former dictator’s campaign of genocide.

The U.S. 'Christian' right fervently supported Rios Montt and his “scorched earth” policy against the Mayan population. Rios Montt was a 'born again' mass murderer who was a member ('elder') of the Arcata, California based Church of the Word (Verbo), a branch of Evangelical Gospel Outreach. He surrounded himself with advisers, both North American and Guatemalan, from his Verbo church. A loose coalition of right-wing fundamentalist organizations, including Pat Robertson's 'Christian' Broadcasting Network, conducted an extensive fundraising drive and sent volunteers to Ixil Triangle villages under military control.

It would be the ultimate insult to the dictator’s multitudes of victims if he was able to achieve immunity from prosecution by winning a seat in the Guatemalan Congress! It is crucial that people concerned about justice for the victims of the U.S.-engineered Guatemalan Holocaust exert powerful international pressure to ensure that Rios Montt and other officials either face trial in Guatemala or are extradited to Spain without delay. To send a letter quickly via the web, go to:

From Upside Down World

George C. Springer's Beginnings in Panama: Black-Labor Alliance

Sun, 25 Feb 2007 04:38:00 +0000

2-24-07, 9:34 am

George Springer came to the United States as an immigrant from Panama. He came here to attend college in New Britain, Connecticut. In 1951 he wrote an insightful paper about the labor and anti-racist equality struggles of the Panamanian working class.

By an imperialist land grab from Colombia in the early 1900's the U.S. set up Panama. It was independent in name only. The Teddy Roosevelt administration wanted to build a canal stretching from the Atlantic to the Pacific Ocean across the narrow neck of Panama to facilitate commerce and military movements.

The largely Black workers of Panama together with a huge force ofworkers brought in by the U.S. from the Carribean Islands built the Panama Canal and maintained it and the surrounding zone afterwards. One of these workers was George Springer's father. The Canal Zone was under U.S. military control until the 1970's. It was administered under 'Deep South' racist segregation conditions. The Black workers, hired as laborers with poor living quarters, were paid in silver and tagged 'silver workers.' The engineers were white workers from the South in the U.S. They were highly paid in gold and had good living conditions.

Nevertheless, as George Springer re-counted in his remarkable paper, the union movement there sought to overcome and defeat these colonialist inequalities and to unite all the workers against racism and for better living standards.

George Springer brought with him his direct experience with the struggles of the Panamanian workers to build unionism as a tool for achieving equal rights and a better life. He brought this invaluable understanding – that the civil rights struggle and the union rights struggle go hand in hand. With this understanding he made extraordinary contributions to the labor and people's mass movements, as a teacher, union leader, and community leader. In turn he learned from and was molded by those movements in Connecticut and the nation.

George Springer was a public school teacher. For 20 years he taught graphic arts and African American history in new Britain. He was elected President of the New Britain Federation of teachers AFT, AFL-CIO. He became President of the 20,000 member AFT Connecticut and then Northeast Regional Director of the AFT.

George's broad alliance with community and people's struggles is pointed to by his presidency of the New Britain NAACP, his active involvement with the End Child Poverty Coalition in Connecticut and the Amistad Award extended to him by the People's Weekly World / Nuestro Mundo in 2006.

The national President of AFT, Edward J. McElroy lauded George as 'a staunch advocate for civil and human rights...a problem-solver.' Sharon Palmer, George's successor as President of AFT Connecticut in a recent issue of the union's newsletter reprinted an essay by George Springer entitled 'In Common Good.' In this he stresses the importance of collective labor struggles. He concludes with these words: 'Keeping before us the things we hold in common, we continue not simply for a more effective union but to enlarge the possibilities for our members to improve the quality of lives for all they touch.'

Not least of the George Springer legacy is his inspiring example of the contributions immigrant workers can make to the entire working class and nation, strengthening the demand for the justice of expediting their path to citizenship.