People Before Profit blog

The Communist Party: A Work in Progress in a Changing World

Fri, 31 Jul 2009 04:00:00 +0000

Editor's note: This is an excerpted version of a speech delivered to the Chautauqua Conference, New York, July 21, 2009. Sam Webb chairs the Communist Party USA.

No organization or institution can long exist in a condition of stasis; organizations in general and political parties and social movements in particular have to adjust to new conditions.

And the reason is simple: change is constant and organizations and institutions must, if they want to remain relevant, change in the face of changing conditions.

Since the beginning of this decade, the Communist Party has been reconfiguring its theory, politics, structures of organization and, not least, finances to the turbulent times in which we live. We did so because we had no other choice. Necessity was the mother of invention.

To be sure, not everything turned out as we hoped and many things still have to be attended to.

On the whole, however, we challenged outdated notions and practices, adjusted our policies and style of work to new conditions, and gained experience.

Had we stood still, life would have left us in the rear view mirror. A glance at history, after all, reveals that the political landscape is littered with political and social formations that didn’t adapt to new realities.

But to our credit we chose change. We eagerly searched for new angles of looking at, thinking about, and reshaping the world.

Such an approach is consistent with and an imperative of Marxism. Otherwise, Marxism loses its capacity to assist people in their desire to re-imagine and remake the world – not in some sort of utopian way, but rather in a way that meets the expanding requirements of a good life at the beginning of the 21st century.

Karl Marx and Frederick Engels, who together developed an analytical structure and methodology that enabled the working class to comprehend and change the world, never claimed the “last word” on any subject; they never shoehorned facts to fit a preconceived theory; they never allowed abstract theoretical constructions by themselves to determine political policies or action.

Near the end of his life, Engels, in an effort to counter a dogmatic interpretation of historical materialism that was fashionable in the socialist movement of that time, wrote: “Our conception of history is above all a guide to study … All history must be studied afresh.”

A decade or so later, Vladimir Lenin, the leader of the Russian revolution asserted, “A Marxist must take cognizance of real life, of the true facts of reality, and not cling to a theory of yesterday, which, like all theories, at best only outlines the main and the general, only comes near to embracing life in all its complexity.”

In other words, Marxism, if properly understood and practiced, has no affinity for lifeless schemes that squeeze contingency, contradictions, and novelty out of the process of social change. The repetition of timeless and abstract formulas, which the Communist movement has been guilty of at times, is inconsistent with Marxism’s spirit and letter.

Only when Marxism takes into account concrete realities, absorbs new experience, and is open-ended to new insights by Marxists and non-Marxist alike does its analytical and political power reveal its full potential. The truth is concrete.

I belabor this point because it is this method of inquiry that we are employing to the best of our ability to today’s world.

New realities

The impulse to look at the world afresh springs from the inescapable new realities of the closing decades of the 20th and the first decade of this century that are reframing politics, economics, culture and modes of thinking.

What were some of these realities?

To begin, the ascendancy of the extreme right to political dominance signaled by the election of Ronald Reagan and continuing through the Bush years was a sobering and painful reality for anyone who favored peace, equality, fairness and democracy.

The aim of this right wing grouping, of which the Bush administration was the last and most dangerous example, was to reestablish by any means necessary the unchallengeable hegemony of US capitalism, to restore profits and wealth of the ruling elite, and to reconfigure the role and functions of the government to the advantage of the richest families and corporations.

While achieving many of their aims over a 30-year period, their political project is now in shambles and its perpetrators have been discredited.

Of course, in the meantime, a heavy price was paid and working people and their allies were thrown on the defensive for that entire period.

The changing structure and distribution of economic activity and power across global space was something we could not ignore in our calibrations and recalibrations either.

As the Soviet Union was collapsing in 1991, thus removing one of the two states that structured world relations for nearly a half century, China was emerging as the main rival to the global dominance of US capitalism. It has been joined in recent years by India, Brazil and Russia. And East and South Asia has been the most dynamic region of capital accumulation over the past decade or so.

I would further add that other regional groupings, nations, international bodies, and hundreds of millions of people are resisting US tutelage too.

When combined with the implosion of Wall Street and the Iraq disaster, it signals a terminal crisis of US capitalism’s dominance of the world system of states. Or to say it differently, a unipolar world is giving way to a multipolar world, which presents both opportunities and dangers to the new administration and humanity.

In fact, an urgent question for the American people is the following: Will US capitalism adapt peacefully to new world realities or will it employ massive force to maintain its standing? Bush tried force, but abjectly failed.

On the other hand, the new administration is going in a different direction. How far it will go is another question that can’t be answered yet.

Suffice it to say that the redefinition of the US role in the world is among the most compelling issues in the first part of the 21st century, ranking in importance to combating global warming. Unless both are attended to, they could endanger the survival of our species on Mother Earth.

Where is the sustained boom?

The new dynamics of the US economy that took shape in the late 1970s and structured the economy for the next three decades were another factor that compelled us to reexamine our traditional wisdom.

While the present economic crisis was triggered by the collapse of housing markets, it is located first of all, in the outgrowth of longer-term processes of capitalism that go back to the late 1970s.

Thirty years ago US capitalism was beset by seemingly intractable and contradictory problems – high inflation and unemployment, declining confidence in the dollar as an international currency, new competitive rivals in Europe and Asia, a slowing of economic growth and a falling profit rate.

All of these problems occurred in the context of progressively growing overproduction in world commodity markets.

Faced with this unraveling, then-chairman of the Federal Reserve Paul Volcker stepped into the breech and pushed up interest rates to record levels. This spike in interest rates sent unemployment rates soaring to double digit levels, forced the closing of scores of manufacturing plants and family farms, left communities of color in depression like conditions and negatively impacted the global economy, particularly the developing countries in Asia, Africa and Latin America.

At the same time, the spiking of interests rates upward, redirected mobile capital abruptly and massively from hither and yon into US financial channels where returns were now extremely high.

Once in financial channels, banks, investment houses, hedge funds, private equity firms and so on, intent on maximizing their profits in a very competitive and increasingly permissive regulatory environment raced at breakneck speed into a massive buying and selling and borrowing and spending spree for the next three decades – all of which led to bubble economics, the erosion of the real economy, instability and ultimately to economic ruin.

If the cause of the ascendancy of finance lies in the contractions and decline of US capitalism domestically and internationally, its lubricant was the production and reproduction, seemingly without end, of staggering amounts of debt – corporate, consumer and government.

Debt is as old as capitalism. But what was different in this period of financialization is that the production of debt and accompanying speculative excesses and bubbles were not simply passing moments at the end of a cyclical upswing, but essential to ginning up and sustaining investment and especially consumer demand in every phase of the cycle. Indeed, financialization grew to the point where it became the main determinant shaping the contours, structure, interrelations, evolution and dynamism of the national and world economy.

Without speculative bubbles, generated by the federal government and Federal Reserve over the past 15 years in internet technology, then in the stock market, and most recently, in housing – the performance of the US and world economy would have been far worse. But, as we are painfully learning, financialization is a two-edged sword.

Not since the Great Depression has the economy been in such bad shape. Forecasts that economic activity will resume at the end of this year or early next year are problematic in the minds of many economists. Don’t be surprised if the economy’s cyclical path is L-shaped – that is, deep and prolonged.

While we don’t know exactly what the contours and trajectory of the economy will be going forward, we do know the notion that capitalism isn’t a self-correcting system and that lifts all boats.

The notion that it is has its roots in the so-called “golden age” of US capitalism from 1945-1973, during which economic growth rates, investment levels and living standards steadily increased for broad sections of the American people.

But there is a problem here. An era of stable and continuous growth is unlikely to occur in the foreseeable future. Indeed, the conditions for US capitalism’s “golden age” no longer exist. They were specific to a historical moment – not universal and timeless features of US capitalism.

None of those conditions exist today; indeed just the opposite is the case and the economy is not poised either in the short or medium term to take off as it did in 1945; long-term stagnation is a real possibility unless the economy is radically restructured.

Environment reeling under stress

Another factor nudging us to reexamine our policies is the potential catastrophe of global warming and environmental degradation. Almost daily we hear of species extinction, global warming, resource depletion, deforestation and on and on to the point where we are nearly immune to its ominous possibilities.

Our planet cannot indefinitely absorb the impact of profit-driven, growth-without-limits capitalism. Many scientists say that unless we radically change our methods of production and consumption patterns in the near term, we will reach the point where damage to the environment will become irreversible.

Despite this, even the most modest measures of environmental protection are resisted by sections of the transnational corporations and their right-wing extremists in Congress and in the media.

Embedded inequalities

Still another consideration that caused us to think afresh is the deep and persistent racial, gender, and regional inequalities that exist across the planet.

The evidence of these inequalities is obvious: massive hunger and malnutrition, dire poverty, pandemic diseases, daily and institutionalized brutality against peoples of color, systemic abuse and oppression of women, explosion of slums around mega-cities, massive migrations of workers and peasants in search of a better life and the decay of whole communities and regions.

While these conditions exist worldwide and within our own borders, the countries of the southern hemisphere experience the worst forms of deprivation and inequality. And they won’t tolerate this condition for another century.

Another framing element for our reevaluation is the new communications technologies. These technologies are changing the way that we receive our news, work, do business, live, play, interact and think. They are compressing time and distance. And their penetration into every aspect of life can only grow as time goes by.

The emergence of new social movements of considerable scope and the new vigor of the labor movement also challenged our received wisdom and actions. Over the past three decades old and new oppositional forces, including a revitalizing (it’s a process and thus uneven and developing) labor movement have entered politics to challenge right wing domination, culminating in a many-layered coalition that was instrumental in the victory of Barack Obama.

Finally, we were nudged to change because the Communist Party (and the left generally) was neither big enough nor influential enough. Even before the collapse of the Soviet Union we were small, not much more than 4,000 members.

But with the split that occurred in 1991 our membership fell by a third, thus making our growth in size even more imperative.

Fresh look

Now that I mentioned to you some of the framing elements that weighed into our reconfiguration process, let me tell out you about the results of so far.

We are employing a methodology free of rigid and enclosed notions that resist new experience and discourage fresh thinking. Our catch phrase is to get in the mix, to join with others, to give priority to those struggles and issues that are impelling others into action.

We are giving greater coherence and elasticity to our strategic and tactical concepts and accenting the struggle for broad unity, and especially multi-racial and working class unity.

New emphasis is being attached to the popular character of the coalition, while at the same time giving prominence to the special role of the working class and labor movement as an emerging leader of this coalition.

We are taking a fresh look at the labor movement, noting the new positive developments, even asking ourselves whether quantitative changes were reaching a qualitative turning point in terms of labor’s outlook and practical activity.

The internet is being utilized in a full blooded way to communicate our message and organize our work. At the end of this year we are phasing out our print paper that goes back nearly 90 years and going over to daily online news.

We are shedding, what I call, a “mentality of marginalization.” Because of McCarthyism, the Cold War, the long economic expansion following WW II, and a resistance to thinking anew, the left, of which we are a part, found itself on the edges of politics for more than a half century. During this time, our ability to impact on broader political processes in the country has been narrowly circumscribed – nothing like the 1930s, nothing like the left in many other countries.

While the left stubbornly fought the good fight and made undeniable contributions over the past half-century, it was not a major player; it didn’t set the agenda or frame the debate; it didn’t determine the political direction of the country; it wasn’t a decider.

But the past doesn't have to be prelude to the future. Because of the new political landscape, the left has an opportunity to step from the edges into the mainstream of US politics. It has a chance to become a player of consequence; a player whose voice is seriously considered in the debates bearing on the future of the country; a player that is able to mobilize and influence the thinking and actions of millions.

Whether we do depends on many factors, one of which is our ability to shake off this “mentality of marginalization.”

How does this mentality express itself? In a number of ways – in spending too much time agitating each other; in dismissing new political openings; in thinking that moderate reforms are at loggerheads with radical reforms; in seeing the glass as always half empty; in acting as if our outlook is identical with the outlook of millions; in turning the danger of cooptation into a rationale to keep a distance from reform struggles; in enclosing ourselves in narrow Left forms; in damning victories with faint praise; and in having nothing good to say about our country.

In this peculiar mindset, politics has few complexities. Change is driven only from the ground up. Winning broad majorities is not essential. There are no stages of struggle, no social forces that possess strategic social power, and no divisions worth noting. And distinctions between the Democratic and Republican parties are either of little consequence or disdainfully dismissed.

Unless the Left – and I include communists first of all – sheds this mentality, it will miss a golden opportunity at this moment to engage and influence a far bigger audience than it has in the past six decades.

Path to socialism

We are re-envisioning the path to socialism and socialist society, based on present day challenges and a critical examination of the socialist experience in the 20th century. What are some of its main elements?

Our vision is of a society that is peaceful, democratic, economically just and efficient, and ecologically sustainable. Our socialist goal privileges social solidarity, economic security and sustainability, equality, cooperation, respect for difference and peace.

In our view, socialism is not simply a good idea, but an overriding necessity for humankind to find timely solutions to problems that threatens its very future – massive inequality and poverty, global warming, war and nuclear proliferation, energy and resource depletion, pandemic diseases and so forth.

There are neither universal paths to nor universal models of socialism. Socialism has to grow out of the soil of a particular country, at a particular time, and in particular set of circumstances. Our country will be no exception. We will follow our own distinct nationally specific path.

Socialism must settle the “property question” (from capitalist to socialist property relations or to put it differently, from a capitalist to a socialist mode of production) to be sure. Every revolution must accomplish this essential task, and ours will be no different.

But how this is done and the pace by which it proceeds largely depends on concrete circumstances. At socialism’s dawn in any country and then long into the transition to socialism I expect that a mixed economy, operating in a regulated socialist market and combining different forms of socialist, cooperative, and private property, will prevail, albeit with tensions, contradictions, and dangers.

Such ownership relations and market mechanisms by no means preclude economic planning and democratic control. It is hard, in fact, to imagine how the transformation of the economy can be successfully tackled without democratic planning.

While political supremacy of the working class and its allies is an imperative, once acquired its task isn’t to smash the state into so many pieces, but rather to transform the class content of state structures; extend democratic rights into the economic, social and cultural spheres; enact new democratic forms of participation; and finish the democratic tasks left unfinished by capitalism – especially the elimination of racial and gender inequality.

I stress this because in the American mind, the idea that socialism and democracy are incompatible has widespread currency. And this perception can’t be ascribed solely to ruling-class propaganda. Socialist societies have had democratic shortcomings, too often major ones.

The path to socialism in our country will be long, laced at every turn with massive struggles on many levels and involve a wide array of class and social forces. It will proceed – not straightforwardly, not smoothly, not without reversals, but through stages and at each stage of struggle the balance of power will hopefully tip to the advantage of the working class and people.

Rather than one final conflict triggered by a generalized economic breakdown, I envision a series of connected political, economic, and social crises compressed in time and large in scale that result in a crises of confidence and legitimacy in capitalism and its institutional forms on the part of millions.

Such a rupture of power won’t settle everything once and for all, but it will constitute a decisive turn in a transitional process toward socialism.

Decades ago socialist revolutions grew out of economic catastrophes and major wars. But communists, going back to the 19th century, never believed that armed struggle and civil war were the only nor the preferred avenue to socialism.

“The worker,” Marx said in a speech in Amsterdam in 1872, “must one day conquer political supremacy in order … But we do not assert that the attainment of this end requires identical means. We know that one has to take into consideration the institutions, mores, and traditions of the different countries, and we do not deny that there are countries like England and America and if I am familiar with your institutions, Holland, where labor may attain its new goal by peaceful means.”

I would add that in recent years radical social transformations in relatively peaceful circumstances have occurred in Latin America.

There the force of an active, organized, and overwhelming majority of the working class and its allies combined with the winning of bridgeheads in state structures, including the military, have isolated elites, dislodged neo-liberal governments from power, and cleared the ground, so far peacefully, for social and socialist transformations.

We believe that such an outcome is possible here too. In fact, it is hard to imagine a non-peaceful path to socialism in our country.

Obviously, socialism isn’t imminent. As I see it, we aren’t living in an era of revolution, but rather an era of reform, including possibly radical reform, marked at its beginning by the election of the first African American president.

Six months into the Obama presidency, I would say without hesitation that the landscape, atmosphere, conversation, and agenda have strikingly changed compared to the previous eight years.

Obama’s role

So far Obama’s presidency has both broken from the right-wing extremist policies of the Bush administration and taken steps domestically and internationally that go in a progressive direction.

At the same time, the administration hasn’t gone as far as we would have liked on a number of issues. He is neither a socialist nor a revolutionary despite the incessant claims of the far right.

All and all, however, the new President in deeds and words – and words do matter – has created new democratic space for peace, equality, and economic justice struggles. Whether this continues and takes on a consistently progressive, pro-people, radical reform direction depends in large measure on whether the movement that elected him fills and expands this space.

The struggle going forward, much like the New Deal, will be the outcome of a contested and fluid process involving broad class and social constituencies, taking multiple forms, and working out over time.

It will pivot on the expansion of social and economic rights, the reconfiguring of the functions of government to the advantage of working people, and the embedding of a new economic architecture and developmental path into the nation’s political economy.

No less importantly, it will also entail the recasting of the role of the US in the global community along egalitarian and non-imperial lines.

“What’s all this talk about reform?” you may be asking. “Aren’t you a communist? Isn’t socialism your objective?”

Yes, socialism is the objective of the Communist Party and, according to recent public opinion polls, it is increasingly attractive to the American people. But clearly it is not on the immediate political agenda. Neither the current balance of forces nor the thinking of millions of Americans – the starting point in any serious discussion of strategy and tactics – has reached that point.

That socialism isn’t on the people’s action agenda, however, doesn’t mean that communists will zip our lips. Quite the contrary! We will talk it up and bring our modern, deeply democratic 21st-century vision of US socialism to the American people. And with the use of the Internet we can reach an exponentially bigger audience than we could in the past.

As for our radical disposition, we are as radical as reality itself. And reality tells us that our main task is to assist in bringing the weight of the working class and other democratic forces to impress their interests on the struggle for reforms.

Current phase of struggle

The road to socialism is neither direct nor unencumbered. It will be complex, contradictory, roundabout and go through different phases/stages of struggle.

It will only be reached in the course of struggles for reforms, including radical reforms and then only if tens of millions of American people embrace and fight for socialism.

If it only took the enthusiasm and energy of the left we would had socialism long ago. Active majorities make history and social change, not militant minorities.

The left can help re-bend the arc of history in the direction of justice, equality, and peace. But only if we, and millions like us, pursue a sound strategy that unifies broad sections of the American people.

President Obama and progressive Congress people can’t be the only change agents and will be change agents only up to a point. Our responsibility is to support them, prod them, and constructively take issue with them when we have differing views.

But more importantly – and this is the heart of the matter – we have to reach, activate, unite, educate and turn millions of Americans into “change agents” who can make the political difference in upcoming struggles.

Our parents and grandparents were such bottom-up change agents in the Depression years and the sixties. The American people today would do well to follow their example.

Likewise, communists of our generation would do well to follow the example of our Depression-era comrades. Without giving up their longer-term vision of socialism, they were guided by a sound strategy that accented struggles for reforms and broad unity; they employed flexible tactics; and they didn’t conflate their mood and temper with the mood and temper of the American people. As a result, they were a vital part of the political process of the Depression era.

Our nation faces great challenges as we plunge forward into this new century. But I am convinced that the people of this great land – and communists among them – will meet them as earlier generations met challenges on their watch.

Light at the End of the Unemployment Line? (July 30th)

Fri, 31 Jul 2009 02:58:00 +0000

7-30-09, 10:40 am

Economists are attributing a projected easing of economic contraction in the second quarter of this year primarily to President Obama's economic recovery act. According to Economic Policy Institute economist Josh Bivens, after a contraction of the Gross Domestic Product, the measure of all economic activity, over the past two quarters of an annualized rate of negative six percent, the GDP for this past quarter will come in at about negative 1.5 percent. Without the President's economic recovery act, the number would have been three times higher, he reports.

According to Bivens that means 720,000 jobs were created or saved between April and June. And without the recovery act, job losses would have been 50 percent higher. According to Wall Street estimates, the President's economic policy added three points to the GDP in the pst three months. Bivens writes, 'A GDP report showing a notable slowing in the rate of contraction would indicate that the recovery package is working at least as well as expected, and perhaps even a bit better.'

So the good news is that the President's economic policy works. The bad news is that the necessary politics that made the economic package smaller than it needed to be has meant that while it has generated new economic activity and may indeed turn GDP statistics around more quickly than the doomsayers predicted and Republicans hoped, so far the jobs picture remains the 'lagging economic indicator.'

These glimmers of economic hope remain overshadowed by this week's new jobless numbers. According to Department of Labor (DOL) statistics released today, July 30th, almost 6.2 million people received unemployment benefits during the week ending July 18th. Meanwhile, Nearly, 2.7 million people participated in the Emergency Unemployment Compensation (EUC) program, which provided additional support to workers unemployed for more than six months. By comparison to this time last year, only 127,000 people claimed EUC benefits, DOL reported.

DOL also reported that initial jobless claims for unemployment benefits for the week ending July 25th increased over the previous week by 25,000 to 584,000. This means that 584,000 newly laid-off people applied for unemployment benefits during that week. This week's numbers put the moving four-week moving average down by about 8,000, the DOL reported.

Put into perspective, in July 2007, just five months prior to the official beginning of the recession, the weekly average of new jobless claims stood at approximately 313,000.

According to the DOL figures released July 2nd, the unemployment rate rose a point to 9.5 percent in the month of June, higher than economists have predicted. The bright spot, if it could be called such, was that the loss of 467,000 jobs in that month is well below the average monthly decline over the previous seven months. For the growing number of unemployed, however, there is little consolation. Numbers for the month of July will be available next week.

The total number of unemployed workers jumped to 14.7 million in the month of June, a rise of upwards of 7 million since the beginning of the recession in December 2007. Some 3.2 million jobs in high-paying manufacturing and construction industries have been shed, leading to a rippling effect throughout the economy.

Accurately sensing a growing anxiety among Americans that an economic turnaround hasn't been swift enough, the Obama administration this month made a strong push to speed up economic stimulus projects. Some administration officials have signaled the need for a second stimulus package, while others have adopted a wait-and-see approach.

While the President's recovery act, passed last February, has worked as expected, experts state, the hole in the economy has been far larger than predicted. Labor movement leaders have called for a second economic package that will focus directly on filling the massive jobs deficit.

In its recent Executive Council meeting, the AFL-CIO predicted that inattention to the worsening jobs picture will harm prospects for economic recovery. 'It is crystal clear that urgent action from the federal government is needed to boost economic growth and jobs, and invest in America’s future: we need a second installment on the Obama administration’s economic recovery program, and this second installment must focus like a laser beam on job creation,' read a statement from that federation.

The statement added, 'It will require public investment and other spending to boost demand and create jobs directly. This must also be coupled with efforts to ensure that credit is made available to manufacturing interests to help stimulate production and job creation.'

Along with a new round of aid to the states, the statement called for additional investments in schools, hospitals and other public infrastructure. It also urged putting people back to work by keeping shuttered factories open and converting them to production of new 'green economy' technologies.

The worsening jobs picture prompted the AFL-CIO to launch a new Web site, Unemployment Lifeline, designed to help unemployed workers find the resources they need to survive in the recession. The site provides information on local aid for unemployment compensation benefits, child care, medical care, utility assistance and more. It also links workers to political action on such issues as passing the Employee Free Choice Act, universal health care reform and more.

AFL-CIO President John Sweeney called for sweeping action in a press statement. 'We also must make broad-based economic changes to have sustained economic growth and an economy that works for everyone,' he stated. 'We must deal with our country’s unsustainable trade deficit. We must reform our financial regulatory system to provide more transparency and government oversight and regulation. And we must pass the Employee Free Choice Act so workers can win the freedom to form unions and bargain collectively with their employers for fair wages, security and benefits.'

Change to Win spokesperson Greg Denier explained that a real economic stimulus package for working families would include three things: a minimum wage indexed to inflation, a major overhaul of the health system and passage of the Employee Free Choice Act. “The problem in the economy today is that productivity and profitability increased while paychecks shrank,' he said. 'We need to expand paychecks in order to expand the purchasing power of American workers.”

Climate Bill Provides Real Cost Relief for Consumers

Fri, 31 Jul 2009 02:35:00 +0000

7-30-09, 10:17 am

While most people understand the urgency of climate change, one of the top concerns many working families have with a cap-and-trade system is added costs for energy.

During the House debate on the cap-and-trade program included in the American Clean Energy and Security Act (ACES), which passed in June, Republicans exploited this concern by inaccurately citing an MIT study that showed that some consumers could expect higher energy costs under a cap-and-trade system. While the MIT study actually reported a price rise of around $31 for most customers, the Republicans in blasting the climate change legislation claimed the report estimated prices would go up by more than $3,000 annually.

Bad math and fear-mongering aside, the impact of the cap-and-trade program on the cost of electricity, natural gas and home heating oil remains a real concern for working families.

Concerns about higher prices of energy come from the fact that under the cap-and-trade system the emission of greenhouse gas pollution will be regulated by requiring polluters to hold a permit, or an allowance, for each ton of carbon pollution emitted. Allowances will be purchased for between $10 now and $13.60 in 2016, according to an Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) estimate.

Charging this extra fee, some claim, will trickle down to households and smaller businesses in the form of higher prices.

To resolve these concerns, ACES mandates substantial aid to states and local energy distribution companies (LDCs) specifically for the purpose of investments in renewable energy and offsetting the costs to businesses and households of higher energy prices associated with the program, according to new analysis released this week by the World Resources Institute (WRI) and the Georgetown Climate Center (GCC),

According to the language of the bill, by 2016, when all of its programs are put in place, some 49 percent of those allowances will be distributed to states and LDCs for free. Those entities will be able then to put those allowances on the market for sale to bigger polluters. The goal of this provision of the program will be to fund the speed up of the transition to renewable energy sources with less or even no greenhouse gas emissions and to create an offset for higher energy prices, according to the WRI/GCC analysis.

In fact, the total annual value of those allowances to states and consumers for these purpose is projected to be more than $36 billion by 2016, with roughly more than 80 percent of that earmarked for 'residential, commercial, and industrial energy consumers through states and LDCs for cost relief and energy efficiency,' according to the report.

According to the authors of the report, oversight of how these funds are managed and used for cost relief will be worked out between state and local public energy commissions and the EPA. While public oversight and equitable distribution of allowances is mandated in the bill, 'the [state and local public energy commissions] have a lot of discretion in how they do it, but the EPA has to sign off on these plans,' said Gabriel Pacyniak of the GCC.

By 2028, as states and local energy distributors shift more to renewable resources, free allowances made available for cost relief will begin to be phased out. By 2032, consumer cost relief programs will shift entirely to federal sources, the report revealed.

More significantly, cost relief and investments in renewable energy sources will be funded entirely by the cap-and-trade system itself rather than by traditional federal revenue sources. The program will not add to the deficit or national debt.

On the contrary, by creating a market for greenhouse gas emission allowances, a new clean energy sector will emerge. The program, by some estimates, will create millions of jobs in manufacturing green technology and equipment as well as in construction and efficiency retrofitting of buildings and houses. And within just a few decades, supporters of the bill say, we will see a reversal of the devastation to the environment caused by greenhouse gas emissions.

Economic Recovery: Take Two

Fri, 31 Jul 2009 02:32:00 +0000

7-30-09, 10:14 am

July 28, 2009 Silver Spring, MD AFL-CIO Executive Council statement

The legacy of the Bush Administration has been a perfect storm of economic devastation – in finance, housing and jobs. The challenge of fixing this economic mess is enormous – and urgent. Creating good jobs that cannot be outsourced is central to the solution.

Despite much-touted “green shoots,” the prognosis for the US economy keeps getting worse. The official unemployment rate hit 9.5 percent in June and is likely to exceed 10 percent by later this year and remain high throughout 2010 – when mid-term elections will take place. We have lost an extraordinary 6.5 million jobs since the onset of the recession, and we are 8.8 million jobs short of where we should be, taking into account the growing working age population.

This is the sharpest loss of jobs and the greatest increase in unemployment of any downturn since the 1930s -- and we have not yet hit bottom. Rapidly rising unemployment has devastated millions of families and their communities, and its consequences for the quality of bank assets, particularly home mortgages, threatens what progress has been made in stabilizing our financial system.

Of course, the official unemployment rate does not even begin to tell the whole story: stagnant wages and falling hours, discouraged workers, long-term unemployment, and spikes for particular sectors and population groups all contribute to the depth and breadth of the labor-market crisis we are facing. As Lawrence Mishel of the Economic Policy Institute (EPI) told the Washington Post recently, “There is a ton of pain in the pipeline.”

The number of workers who have given up looking for a job or who have been forced to settle for a part-time job is reaching record proportions, with 16.5 percent of workers under-employed or unemployed in June – more than 25 million workers. Almost 30 percent of unemployed workers have been out of work more than six months, and more than 600,000 will exhaust their unemployment benefits by September if nothing is done.

The job losses are spread throughout the economy – and so is the pain. Since the recession began in December 2007, we have lost 1.9 million manufacturing jobs and 1.3 million construction jobs – often the most vulnerable sectors in an economic downturn. But unlike past recessions, the job losses are not confined to a few sectors. 1.5 million jobs have been lost in professional and business services, as well as almost 400,000 in transportation and another 848,000 in temporary help services. Fourteen states already have unemployment rates over 10 percent.

An unemployment rate of 10 percent corresponds roughly to 18 percent of the workforce unemployed or underemployed in a given month. If current projections hold, over the course of twelve months, roughly a third of the workforce could be unemployed or underemployed. A 10 percent national unemployment rate implies an unemployment rate of 16-18 percent in the Hispanic and African-American communities, with 36-40 percent unemployed or underemployed over the course of twelve months. Blue-collar unemployment is now 14.7 percent and adult male unemployment has already hit 10 percent. Theaverage length of unemployment is now 24.5 weeks, the highest level on record. If unemployment continues to grow, child poverty could reach 27 percent, and black child poverty more than 50 percent.

Those lucky enough to have jobs are not escaping the adverse impact of the downturn. High unemployment has hammered wages, which grew at only a 1.4 percent annual rate over the last six months, while weekly earnings actually fell because of shorter work hours. Wage cuts and unpaid furloughs are occurring in many workplaces, and some employers have stopped contributing to their pension plans. As the recession continues and unemployment stays high, it can be expected that wages for most workers will not keep pace with inflation in the near future.

The toll of unemployment, underemployment, retrenched work hours and eroded wages will be broad-based declines in family income and increased poverty and economic distress. It will be several years before incomes return to their pre-recession level of 2007 – already a disappointingly low level because of the weakness of the last “recovery.”

More Action Needed to Create Jobs and Support Families

It is crystal clear that urgent action from the federal government is needed to boost economic growth and jobs, and invest in America’s future: we need a second installment on the Obama Administration’s economic recovery program, and this second installment must focus like a laser beam on job creation. This is not the time to fret about budget deficits or inflation. It is entirely appropriate to enact policies that will temporarily increase fiscal deficits for a year or two in order to generate jobs and income during this economic crisis. At this critical juncture, the consequences of the government failing to act on a sufficient scale and in the right way could be catastrophic.

The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) was a bold and well-crafted program to generate and save jobs, to provide social supports for those in need and to lay the foundation for future growth. It has already started delivering and is on track to generate roughly three million jobs and to lower unemployment by up to two percentage points.

Unfortunately, because of the confluence of so many long-term negative trends in place for many years, the economy and the labor market have seriously deteriorated since the ARRA was designed, and the original economic recovery plan is no longer sufficient. Last November the blue-chip consensus was for 7.7 percent unemployment at the end of 2009. By March, the consensus forecast was for 9.2 percent unemployment in late 2009, despite the passage of a much larger stimulus than expected in November. Clearly, the economy the Obama Administration inherited was in deep trouble and in even worse shape than generally realized in the spring.

This recession is global, so a coordinated global response is crucial to any successful recovery. The US government must show leadership in the international G-8 and G-20 meetings to insist that the major economies come together and agree on coordinated fiscal stimulus and a coherent financial regulation strategy.

Since the onset of the recession, US households have lost $14 trillion in wealth from the collapse of the housing bubble and the erosion in stock values – approximately an entire year’s output. Dean Baker of the Center for Economic and Policy Research estimates that our economy now faces a demand shortfall of $2.6 trillion over this year and next. The ARRA is simply too small to fill a hole this big in the economy, and no amount of waiting and false optimism will change that uncomfortable economic fact.

Our growth model in recent decades – debt-financed consumer spending and asset bubbles, combined with huge trade deficits – has failed. We cannot borrow and outsource our way to prosperity: without good jobs in America, there will be no sustainable economic recovery. As private demand pulls back and Americans rebuild their savings, the most effective path to sustainable growth is an ambitious public investment agenda.

There is no viable alternative to public investment right now. In the private sector, consumer demand will continue to be depressed by unemployment, stagnant wages, and the erosion of stock market and housing wealth. Exports will not be a source of growth because global demand is plummeting and the dollar is still overvalued. Meanwhile, the Federal Reserve’s reductions of short-term interest rates have failed to spark a recovery, and taxpayers ended up saving much of the tax cuts that were included in the last two stimulus bills rather than spending them. It will require public investment and other spending to boost demand and create jobs directly. This must also be coupled with efforts to ensure that credit is made available to manufacturing interests to help stimulate production and job creation.

Concerns over inflation are unwarranted. The most recent reports indicate that inflation is stabilizing at a level near zero, and on June 24th the Federal Reserve predicted that inflation will remain “subdued for some time.”

Concerns over budget deficits are exaggerated, especially for consideration of policies that will increase deficits only in the short-term. An effective economic recovery package will boost growth (and tax revenues), while also increasing future productivity and competitiveness.

What to do

The challenge is to mitigate the rise in unemployment, lessen the adverse impact of the downturn on those affected, and generate good jobs to ensure a robust recovery. At the same time, we should rebuild and modernize our crumbling infrastructure and revitalize our manufacturing sector, while ensuring that our public sector can provide the services we count on to keep our communities safe and our families healthy.

This can be accomplished in a number of ways.

We should extend unemployment benefits immediately, by at least seven weeks, to help the hundreds of thousands of workers who would otherwise exhaust their benefits in the near term. We should also increase food stamp spending as needed to help families cope with the downturn.

We should increase aid to state and local governments. We also need to bolster the financial stability of independent government agencies such as the US Postal Service. As states and local governments cut back spending and jobs to balance their budgets, they are exacerbating the recession – offsetting the ARRA – undercutting future growth, failing to assist vulnerable families, and leaving our communities less safe and secure. The Center on Budget and Policy Priorities (CBPP) calculates the shortfall of state budgets at $350 billion for 2009 through the first half of 2011, leaving a shortfall of $210 billion after passage of the ARRA. Goldman-Sachs projects that state actions to adjust their budgets will penalize national growth over the next twelve months by 0.6-0.7 percent.

State cutbacks threaten vital services and jobs, including health and education, police and firefighting, transportation and other public services. According to CBPP, at least 21 states are cutting health insurance or services for low-income children and families; at least 24 states are cutting or proposing to cut K-12 and early education; at least 32 states have implemented cuts to public colleges and universities. In addition, at least 41 states and the District of Columbia are cutting hours and jobs for state government employees.

We should increase spending for needed infrastructure and clean energy projects, even for those projects with a time horizon longer than two years. Every billion dollars invested in transportation systems and infrastructure puts 30,000 people to work. New investments in aviation, highways, mass transit, rail, ports and waterways will stimulate major job creation, improve our deteriorating infrastructure, and support US manufacturing and production jobs. To the absolute maximum extent possible, we should ensure that we use American-made inputs and manufactured goods in all recovery-funded projects. We should be neither defensive, nor apologetic, for using the Buy American provisions supported by the American public and legislated by the Congress. As President Obama has said, we need sustained public investment-led growth to restore our country's competitiveness. But no investment plan will succeed if we don’t make more of what we buy here at home.

And we should look to historical precedent for other effective and successful job creation examples. The Works Progress Administration, led by Harry Hopkins during the Roosevelt Administration, put 3.4 million Americans to work in one year – 1935 – in thousands of projects that had a lasting impact on our national life. Such an effort can be developed to provide employment in distressed communities.

President Roosevelt’s strategy can be re-engineered to help revitalize the modern manufacturing sector. Today’s unemployed can be put to work renovating factories and public structures and installing new equipment. New financing and marketing plans for local manufacturers should also be developed to support domestic production and jobs.

And to revitalize our industrial base, we must also invest in our technical knowledge base. Two years of technical training should be offered to recent high school graduates and recently unemployed adults. Tuition at community colleges, universities and technology institutes should be subsidized by the federal government, as it was after World War II. Every American worker should be given the opportunity to acquire the skills and education he or she needs to reach peak potential.

We must act decisively at this critical moment in time. We must meet the considerable challenges we face with actions on a scale appropriate to the crisis, while also keeping in mind the kind of economy and country we hope to build for our children.

A Coup is a Coup is a Coup: March on SouthCom in Solidarity with the People of Honduras

Fri, 31 Jul 2009 02:24:00 +0000

7-30-09, 10:05 am

Editor's note: Rumors of the arrival of Honduran Army General Romeo Orlando Vasquez Velasquez in Miami proved to be false. Since the events described here, the US government has revoked the diplomatic visas of top Honduran officials who have supported the coup. The State Department explained that '[t]he decision to revoke visas is not one taken lightly or without due diligence. We arrived at this decision after careful consideration. We have said repeatedly since the crisis began that we do not acknowledge the de facto regime in Honduras as the legitimate government there.' Only the relentless political protest against the military coup in Honduras combined with international pressure can bring this anti-democratic action to an end. This article is used by permission of the authors.

Original source: SOAW

When Your Only Tool is a Hammer, Every Problem Looks Like a Nail

Those who have supported the SOA Watch over the years know that Fort Benning and the US Southern Command (SouthCom, the command and control facility for the US military in Latin America and the Caribbean) go hand in hand. Saturday morning, July 25, 60 people (two-thirds of them Latino) gathered in the pouring rain to march to the gates of SouthCom in solidarity with the people of Honduras.

Our demands, directed at the US military, were straightforward:

1. Withdraw all US forces from Honduras (there are 600 troops stationed there) 2. Close all US military bases in Honduras. 3. Cut off all military aid to Honduras. 4. Return all Honduran military personal now being trained at the SOA (WHINSEC) 5. Close the School Of the Americas now.

Directly in front of the main gate participants gave testimony as to why these demands needed to be implemented. People made the trip from as far away as Maryland, as well as many locations in Florida, to be there for this important event; a vacationer from New York City joined the action.

Whole families from the Coalition of Immokalee Workers traveled from central Florida to stand with their brothers and sisters in Honduras; many of this par ty of twenty-five had had their own experiences at the hands of oppressive regimes in Central America. A mother (name withheld for safety) explained that it was especially important for women and children to march in opposition to the coup, as women, mothers, and children suffer disproportionately under oppression; her family back in Honduras is strongly opposed to the coup.

Isabella Gomez, of the US-Latin American Solidarity Network and a member of SEIU, told of people being killed in her region of Honduras, as well as reports of other deaths in the north, reports that are not making into the stories put out by the US media. Ms. Gomez fled Honduras twenty-five years ago to escape the death squads. At that time Micheletti was busy putting down a teachers’ strike in which she was involved. She also gave a telling critique of the current Honduran constitution – it doesn’t mention women at all! It might be worth noting that the Constitution, which also initially failed to mention women or minorities, has been amended many times. Amendments ending slavery and giving women the right to vote were especially hard fought. Opposition to progressive constitutional changes elsewhere in the world should not surprise Americans; military coups in response to efforts at change should shock us.

Pat McCann, of Veterans for Peace, pointed out to the crowd that members of the military, ordinary soldiers, not officers, are drawn from the poor, who often have few options. He vowed that20the next time we come out to SouthCom, we will know some of the ordinary US soldiers stationed there and we will talk to them.

Katherine Kean, of Crowing Rooster Production, talked about a documentary she made twenty years ago about the exploitation of poor workers in Honduras by US Corporations. A dedicated activist for the Haitian people, she pointed out the parallels between the coup in Haiti in 2004 and the coup in Honduras, how both presidents were awakened in the early morning hours, put on planes, and flown out of the countries they had been elected to lead. Aristide has never returned to Haiti, much less to his Presidency.

Organizers of the action pointed out the connection between SouthCom and the SOA (WHINSEC), specifically that SouthCom approves curriculum for the School and directs military actions in all of Latin America. Secondly, they called on Obama to call the coup a coup and cut off all US aid to Honduras so that Zelaya can return to his rightful office with no conditions.

Saturday’s action did have its trying moments. Thursday evening saw the beginning of a flurry of (unconfirmed) e-mail rumors that General Romeo Orlando Vasquez Velasquez, the commanding general of the coup, would appear for a speaking engagement at the Miami Beach Convention Center Saturday at the same time as the action at SouthCom. This brought suggestions for a change of venue for the protest, a change of date, and plain demands that folks go out to South Beach. Mostly what thes e rumors wrought was distraction and confusion. When that failed to derail our action, we learned that Congresswoman Ileana Ros-Lehtinen had called a press conference at her office with a former president of Honduras at the same time our event was taking place. This had a media effect. Saturday morning those media that arrived to cover the protest had to leave before it got going, in order to cover the Congresswoman’s event. Despite their hopes of getting back in time for our march, that simply was not logistically possible. If this were not enough, there was the Florida weather. It rained over most of Florida and just poured in South Florida.

One reporter caught a photo of a few hardy souls with soggy signs before leaving. While he missed our eventual numbers, he captured our determination to show that there is significant local opposition to the coup. Motorists’ favorable responses to our rally were unexpected. Many driving in the miserable weather took the time and effort to slow down and read our signs, honk, wave, and give us the thumbs-up. This, more than anything, illustrates a deep current of opposition to the coup, even in Miami, a bastion of the Latin right-wing.

Cartoon: Feasting at the Trough

Thu, 30 Jul 2009 01:59:00 +0000

97-29-09, 9:40 am

Four Years Post-Katrina, Levee Protection Still Elusive

Thu, 30 Jul 2009 01:54:00 +0000

7-29-09, 9:32 am

Original source: The Atlanta Progressive News

NEW ORLEANS, Jul 28 (IPS) - Four years after Hurricane Katrina, there have been some significant improvements to the levees of New Orleans. However, even with improvements scheduled to be completed in 2011, advocates say the U.S. government has left the standard of protection at dangerously low levels.

The importance of levee protection in allowing Katrina victims to feel secure after the disastrous flooding of 2005 has led one former aerobics instructor, Sandy Rosenthal, to venture into politics and form an organisation called Levees.org, which has been fighting for a higher standard of protection.

Rosenthal recently accompanied Sen. Mary Landrieu, a Democrat from Louisiana, on a fact-finding mission to the Netherlands to learn about their levee system.

'Right after Katrina and right after those widespread deficiencies everywhere of the federally designed system, the Bush administration proposed [99 percent] protection. What that means is, each year there will be a 1 percent chance the design will not be sufficient to protect the people,' Rosenthal told IPS.

'To contrast that, Holland protects their people [with 99.99 percent] protection. In any one year in Holland, there is a one hundredth of a percent chance [of flooding] - a much, much smaller percent,' Rosenthal said.

'I just got back from Holland and I saw this with my own eyes. It comes from a government decision to protect their people. Now, so why don't we have it in New Orleans?' Rosenthal said.

When Katrina struck land on Aug. 29, there were over 50 failures of the levees and floodwalls protecting New Orleans and nearby St. Bernard Parish, allowing millions of gallons of water to inundate vast areas of the city with 10 feet or more of water. Some 1,500 people were killed in New Orleans alone.

Five separate investigations followed into the levee and floodwall failures.

'By federal mandate, only the federal government can decide what we can and cannot have,' Rosenthal told IPS. 'We believe directly after Katrina there was widespread misinformation and disinformation that the levee failures were a local responsibility. That damage [to public perception] was significant... [and] is hard to undo.'

'The people of Louisiana need a new model, and I believe we can incorporate some of the state-of-the-art technologies the Dutch have developed to protect their communities,' Sen. Landrieu said in a statement following the trip to the Netherlands. 'I am working to ensure we continue sharing ideas and best practices.'

'I am also pushing the federal government to recognise the importance of South Louisiana and America's only Energy Coast to the nation. We must commit our country to protecting our communities and way of life. The friendship we have with the Netherlands, forged by water, will be an important part of the equation as we continue to rebuild and recover,' Landrieu said.

Currently, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) is on track to get the levee system of the Lake Ponchartrain Basin Vicinity, which includes New Orleans East and St. Bernard Parish, up to the federal standard of 99 percent protection by the end of 2011.

'The Corps of Engineers since Katrina has operated with a sense of urgency and they appear to be using much better engineering, as far as we can tell. We won't know until it's tested by a storm,' Rosenthal said.

'The two most spectacular, most famous failures were done with engineering calculations so bad, an engineering student in 101 would've failed,' Rosenthal said.

The USACE referred IPS to Ed Link, a faculty member at the University of Maryland in Civil and Environmental Engineering, and director of the Interagency Performance Evaluation Task Force (IPET), which reviewed the levee failures.

Link agreed there were at least four engineering failures made apparent in Katrina.

'The four flood walls that failed prior to water overtopping them certainly did not meet the criteria they were designed to. They were designs that failed, that didn't work the way they intended to work,' Link said.

Out of 50 total levee breaches, the other 46 were due to 'overtopping', or the levees not being high enough.

'Congress has appropriated in excess of 14 billion dollars. Work is under way now to raise the levee system for Greater New Orleans area to withstand [all but a] 100 year storm event,' said Aaron Saunders, a spokesman for Sen. Landrieu. 'Which is greater than it was before.' Link explained that the idea of 99 percent protection is a fairly new terminology that was developed in part to bring cities up to a standard that would satisfy insurers to insure home and business owners in those cities.

'The system was originally being planned... using climatology available at the time in 1965,' after Hurricane Betsy and the federal government took over Hurricane protection for New Orleans, Link said.

'We know more about hurricanes now. We didn't have weather satellites. We couldn't view them from space. Data prior to the 1960s was landfall information, what did it look like on land?' Link said.

'I think for the most part [besides the four engineering failures], they met the criteria for design in 1965. But that criteria evolved over a period of time, and the design was not changed when some of the criteria changed,' Link said.

Link explained that Katrina was initially a Category 5 storm, and was then downgraded to Category 3 when it hit land – still the largest surge ever recorded on North America, due to both its size and intensity.

'Katrina was actually a 1 in 400 year event, when you look at that probability of pressure and size on that path,' Link said.

'Back in 1965... they did design something called the standard project hurricane, a storm configured to represent what the scientists at the time felt would be the most severe event that would be reasonably possible. At that time, it was viewed to be about a 100 year storm,' Link said.

'Right now, the 100 year storm of 1965 would not be a 100 year storm today. I don't know what it would be, somewhere between 50 and 100, 50 and 75,' Link said.

When asked whether Sen. Landrieu or others have fought in Congress for an even higher standard of protection for New Orleans such as the one used by the Dutch, Saunders said the senator focused on 'what parts of the Dutch model we can apply'.

'But the severity of the storm events [in the Netherlands], when they refer to one in 1,000, it doesn't necessarily match up. We can't just pick up the exact Dutch terminology and modeling,' he said.

Rosenthal disagreed, and believes the United States should strive for at least 1 in 1,000, if not 1 in 10,000, like the Dutch have.

'What he's referring to, it might not match up with the same storm surge. We can get 30 foot storm surges, they don't get 30 foot storm surges in Holland. But that's irrelevant. The storm is different, but the math is the same. People are trying to protect the Corps, saying you know storms are different in Holland; so what? It doesn't matter. We have the technology to do this,' Rosenthal said.

Link noted that the water level in East New Orleans is about 16.5 feet of surge, while the Dutch 1 in 10,000 water level at the hook of Holland is 16.5 feet, 'exactly the same.'

'The key is, what is the political will of the nation? And what would that water level be in New Orleans? It's gonna be really high. I don't know what it is frankly, but it's probably another 10 feet higher. The question has to be actually, is it feasible, can you build reliable structures that high, and if you could, what would the cost be?'

'I'm not defending the 100 year level,' Link said. 'I think it's a very good baseline, but I certainly don't think it's the end-all, it's not where you stop.'

Landrieu's office also pointed to the Louisiana Coastal Protection and Rehabilitation (LACPR) Final Technical report, currently in draft form, that the senator called for, 'to lay out alternative plans for increased protection to a higher level, all the way from doing nothing, to 1 in 400 or 500 year protection. That report is under public review and they've had public meetings,' Saunders said.

'That report is to provide alternatives for Congress to consider to authorise,' Saunders said. 'The senator is awaiting this [final] comprehensive report... the feasibility of additional protection for all of the Gulf Coast,' which includes New Orleans.

'Making New Orleans safer is extraordinarily important. It's true we are 9 out of 535 [congressional delegations]. That's the senator's job to convince people of the importance of this,' Saunders said. *This is the first of a two-part series on the lingering human and environmental impacts of Hurricane Katrina. --Matthew Cardinale is the News Editor of Atlanta Progressive News, reachable at matthew@atlantaprogressivenews.com.

The Reality of Vick's Return

Thu, 30 Jul 2009 01:40:00 +0000

7-29-09, 9:21 am

Original source: The Edge of Sports

Michael Vick has been reinstated by the National Football League. But there's no guarantee that he will ever see the field.

'I urge you to take full advantage of the resources available to support you and to dedicate yourself to rebuilding your life and your career. If you do this, the NFL will support you,' said NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell.

'Opportunities for redemption are rare – but that is exactly the opportunity that awaits Mr. Vick,' chimed in Ed Sayres, president of the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals.

Both men, in their way, were attempting to put the best possible spin on Vick's return to the NFL. After serving twenty-three months in federal prison at Leavenworth for running a dogfighting ring – an ironic sentence considering the fact that a warmonger like Dick Cheney still roams free – Vick can now sign with an NFL team after a suspension that can last as long as six games.

While in prison, Vick met with the president of the Humane Society of the United States. He also will be working with groups aimed at steering young people away from dogfighting. By all accounts, Vick is profoundly remorseful. And if you had to declare bankruptcy and spend two years in Leavenworth, you would also be feeling a share of regret.

Vick said in a recent statement, 'As you can imagine, the last two years have given me time to re-evaluate my life, mature as an individual and fully understand the terrible mistakes I have made in the past and what type of life I must lead moving forward.'

Goodell's decision comes in the wake of several players showing their support for Vick on Twitter and even challenging the very idea that he could be suspended. It started with Terrell Owens, who tweeted, 'Who's w/me on the Vick situation? All n favor, lemme get a tweet 2 support Mike Vick! He did the time 4 the crime! Let the guy play!!'

Former pro bowler Steven Jackson added, 'Playing is a privilege...But who has not sin? Who can I say I haven't made a mistake? Don't forget this will follow him the rest of his life. If serving time 4 the crime is not enough then what is? Don't agree with 4 games, 23 months is enough.'

Nonguaranteed contracts and Goodell's role as judge, jury and executioner of the league usually breed a kind of passivity, and this kind of public display of support by NFL players is rarer than a Detroit Lions playoff appearance.

But none of it means a lick unless one of the NFL's thirty-two teams takes a chance and signs Vick, which is hardly guaranteed. It's a preposterous scenario. The NFL continues to employ J.T. O'Sullivan, Trent Edwards and Dan Orlovsky – quarterbacks who couldn't throw a tantrum, let alone a touchdown. They also employ players who have been convicted for manslaughter, spousal abuse and everything short of molesting pandas.

Yet Michael Vick could remain radioactive for some time. It's hard to believe that NFL owners care deeply about animal rights. According to political donations, a typical NFL owner runs slightly to the right of Ghengis Khan. In fact, if they cared so deeply about animal rights, NFL owners would be publicly disavowing Sarah Palin.

What they really care about is public relations. It's a public relations refracted through the very lens of the casual, mainstream racism that defines the modern Republican Party. Just as the ever-shrinking right wing clings to notions of Obama's birth certificate being invalid and are shocked that Henry Louis Gates Jr. may have a problem with being arrested in his own home, the idea of seeing an 'ex-con' like Vick as being worth a damn is an entirely foreign concept.

The very political forces – and they are bipartisan – that have made the United States the prison capital of the world are at work in the saga of Michael Vick. To insist that he deserves another chance is to admit that all ex-prisoners deserve to be seen as human beings and not simply statistics. For African Americans, 9.2 percent of whom are behind bars, the urgency is even greater.

Whether you believe Michael Vick got a raw deal or think he deserved every last day of those two years in Leavenworth, people should collectively agree to pressure the owners of NFL teams to sign this man. Not just because he is good enough. Not just because he deserves any kind of a career comeback. But because if Michael Vick can't get a shot at redemption, if he is forever tainted, then where does that leave the millions still under the thumb of Prison USA? It's time for Michael Vick to get his second chance, for everyone who never even got a first.

-Dave Zirin is the author of 'A People's History of Sports in the United States' (The New Press) Receive his column every week by emailing dave@edgeofsports.com. Contact him at edgeofsports@gmail.com.

Lonesome Hobo Economics: Who Should Pay for Universal Health Care?

Thu, 30 Jul 2009 01:22:00 +0000

7-29-09, 9:04 am

...but I did not trust my brother I carried him to blame Which led me to my fatal doom To wander off in shame...

Bob Dylan, JWH, Lonesome Hobo 1967

We all should, right? Or, shouldn't it be free?

These two sentiments, both of which I favor, flow from different aspects of the topic question. No one wants to charge a rich man a higher price for an appendectomy than a poor man. Even if you morally approved soaking the rich, you would have to acknowledge the dangerous exploding 'fee schedule' that results often in more, not less waste, and worse health outcomes. Thus it seems to me the price of the appendectomy must be equal, regardless who gets it. Zero is a nice round number for what should be a public good. We don't charge for lighthouses, nor should we for health care at least as good as that obtained by Senators and Congresspersons.

The principle argument against a 'zero' price is that it creates an incentive to abuse healthcare. A 400 pound smoker seeking liposuction surgery comes to mind – the subject of a real-life controversy in the UK national health care debates of a couple of years ago. The UK national system argued that such surgery involved much higher risk of complication – and costs – and had refused to allow the surgery. However there are many very good and healthful medical procedures whose universal use should be encouraged, that will go underutilized because where pricing is a disincentive. So I favor abuse being restrained administratively rather than through pricing: panels of medical experts overseen ultimately by legislative authority, for example. Of course medical care is not really 'free.' But neither is a decline in public health 'free.' Increases in public health return a positive economic value in terms of greater productivity and less per person cost. Further, while the political debate focuses on the medical system costs and delivery, we all know there are many environmental, economic and cultural factors that also bear upon the ultimate state of 'public health.'

Currently costs are paid for in a number of ways: employer paid insurance, personal paid insurance, Medicare (taxes), Medicaid (taxes), tobacco taxes, etc. Although very few employer provided plans have first dollar coverage, and they cover a declining percentage of all US workers, there is currently no tax on them. Effectively this is a fairly large federal and state subsidy of employer based health care costs. But proposals to have employees pay taxes on their medical benefits could easily result in a net drop in disposable income for many, although there are a lot of variables in the mix that will affect the bottom line positive or negative impact on the standard of living of most working people. In principle a single payer system funded by a progressive income tax seems fairest.

It appears the road to the single payer system will not be one in a single conversion. There are just too many systems interlinked with varied payment and delivery responsibilities to really 'start from scratch,' which a single-payer system will require. A key question surrounding the 'public option' thus becomes: is it large enough and strong enough to drive the necessary structural cost controls through demoting the 'fee schedule,' exploiting economies of scale in administration, and paying for health outcomes that work, not just the latest unproven gadget that costs $100,000 per use.

If the public option can exercise leadership, then folks will vote with their pocketbooks and the crooked path to a quality, more efficient, national health care system for all, funded on a progressive income tax will get us there as surely, perhaps even more surely, as the straight and narrow.

Of course the public option may fail in favor of a quasi private system, bounded by very strong regulations, as in the Netherlands.

How do you see your way through the maze of pros and cons? I choose calculating the simple pros and cons and their impact on your bottom line income. Health care costs for uninsured and under-insured people are the main cause of personal bankruptcies – so one has to take that into consideration in weighing it against a possible net tax increase. Count the average cost of any benefit as income. I am going to be scoring the various bills contending for the 'health care reform act' of 2009, including the cost of doing nothing, right here in the Lonesome Hobo column.

Thumbs up will mean – your income is going up after the bill; thumbs down means – we will be poorer after the bill.

The Mystery of the Cost of Healthcare

Thu, 30 Jul 2009 01:18:00 +0000

7-29-09, 9:00 am

Original source: http://www.walterlippmann.com/docs2514.html CubaNews> 

A New Yorker magazine investigative report about why McAllen, Texas, a city located in Hidalgo county – which has the lowest per capita income in the country – has one of the highest medical costs per person in the United States (surpassed only by Miami, Florida), has stirred an unusual controversy over the rarely discussed contradictions that affect the quality and coverage of health services in that country. The article that originated the debate appeared in the June 1, 2009 issue of the New York-based magazine, entitled, “The Cost Conundrum.” The author, Dr. Atul Gawande, who is a frequent contributor to the magazine, is a professor affiliated with Harvard University’s schools of medicine and public health and the author of various medical books.  A few days after the publication of this article, the New York Times reported that the White House had labeled the article “required reading” for all administration officials. 

The report states that in 1992, Medicare spent $4,891 per person in medical care in McAllen, in line with the national average. In 2006, Medicare spent $15,000 per person in that same city, close to twice the national average. The per capita income in McAllen is $12,000; it means that Medicare spent $3,000 more per person than what the average person in the city earns each year. 

Medicare is a Social Security program for residents over 65 who meet specific criteria. The program is administered by the government through companies that work as contractors. To be eligible, one must generally be a US citizen or permanent resident who has contributed to the program for at least 10 years. That contribution is a tax that ranges between 2.9 and 5.8 percent of the total income connected to employment. As a rule, the insurance doesn’t include prescriptions. 

The New Yorker article covers just one angle of the complex contradictions that make the superpower one of the few industrialized nations whose citizens receive some of the world’s worst health care. It only covers the explosive tendency to raise medical costs – to the highest in the world – by illustrating this propensity in the small Texas city where those escalating costs have been particularly intense. 

This situation has led to a situation in which the focus of reform has switched from extending health care coverage to all citizens, to simply controlling the costs associated with medical care, he noted.

 “Spending on doctors, hospitals, drugs, and the like now consumes more than one of every six dollars we earn. The financial burden has damaged the global competitiveness of American businesses and bankrupted millions of families, even those with insurance. It’s also devouring our government,” he asserts. 

Gawande reminded his readers of the words of President Barack Obama during a speech he gave at the White House in March: “The greatest threat to America’s fiscal health is not Social Security. It’s not the investments that we’ve made to rescue our economy during this crisis. By a wide margin, the biggest threat to our nation’s balance sheet is the skyrocketing cost of health care. It’s not even close.” 

The author goes on to say that many of the people in McAllen are not surprised to know that their city is the most expensive in the country with respect to medical services. 

However, he also noted that McAllen’s residents are not healthy: they suffer from an elevated poverty rate, a high incidence of alcoholism (60 percent above the national average) and an obesity rate of 38 percent. 

He also drew attention to the number of heart surgeries that are performed at McAllen hospitals, especially those performed on obese patients, diabetics or patients suffering from both afflictions. He noted that few were treated with drugs that could have prevented the surgeries.   The author’s interviews highlight the way that medical and allied health personnel authorize tests, drugs, surgeries, treatments and other unnecessary procedures in order to attain greater economic benefits. He also notes that low cost preventive services, vaccines and primary medical attention are rarely advised. 

The writer asks himself if in today’s US, a patient who goes to the doctor with chest pains, a tumor or a simple cough will encounter a health professional who is eager to help him above all things, or whether he will encounter a person who is eager to maximize his own earnings. 

He proposes various organizational models of that have obtained better results than the current archetype that can be imitated. However, he never addresses the unmistakable fact that the practice of medicine is incompatible with the dehumanizing economy of the free market.

--A CubaNews translation by Mercedes Rosa Diaz. Edited by Walter Lippmann.

Foreclosed and Evicted in Oakland

Thu, 30 Jul 2009 01:13:00 +0000

7-29-09. 8:54 am

Original source:

OAKLAND, CA (7/21/09) – At eight in the morning on Monday, ten Alameda County Sheriffs arrived in their patrol cars in front of the tan house on the corner of Tenth and Willow in west Oakland, the oldest African American neighborhood in the city, and one of the oldest on the west coast. The renovated home is surrounded by an iron fence, and the sheriffs poured through its open gate and up the stairs.

Tosha Alberty had just left for work, for her job as a transportation services coordinator for Alameda County. Her children were still at home, though. Sheriffs told her adopted son Christian, a nine-year-old with autism still in his undershorts, to get dressed. Alberty's daughter Sharquita rushed to collect the bottles and diapers she needed to take care of her nine-month-old baby Zmylan. All of them were then hustled out of the front door, down the steep steps, through the gate in the iron railings, and onto the sidewalk.

Sheriffs had threatened to evict the family before, an action stymied when a local locksmith, seeing that he was about to shut the family out of their home, had refused to cooperate. This time, however, a more compliant locksmith drilled out the door locks so the family couldn't get back in. Other workmen nailed sheets of plywood over every window to keep the Albertys out. And a new brass and steel padlock was fastened to the gate.

Tosha Alberty and her husband James, a cancer survivor, had lived in the home with four children and two grandchildren for four years. Tosha had grown up in the same neighborhood, and had been househunting for a long time when she found the place in 2005. Although she was unemployed at the time, her mother had died and left her a little money. She talked with a real estate broker, who pushed her into a non-conforming loan with no down payment, with First Franklin Mortgage Services.

'I thought my loan was for $520,000, and that I'd be paying $2800 a month,' she recalls.'But I discovered that it was for $550,000, and the payment was much more.' Alberty got a union job with the county, though, where her husband had also worked. She barely made the payments. But then the monthly installments ballooned to close to $5000. 'I knew I couldn't do that,' she says. 'But when I tried to renegotiate them, they said that since I'd been paying before, they wouldn't help me. So I stopped paying.' The loan went into default.

First Franklin, which moved from making normal mortgages to non-conforming loans back in 1994, boasted on its website that 'First Franklin makes it easy for mortgage brokers to find flexible, hassle-free home loan solutions.'

The lender was bought by Merrill Lynch in 2006. Merrill Lynch closed in last year's meltdown, and was bought for $50 billion by Bank of America. Last week Bank of America reported second-qiuarter profits of $2.4 billion, it's second straight profitable quarter since the mortgage crises started, despite losses from bad loans. No wonder. The bank received $45 billion in bailout money from the Troubled Asset Relief Program.

None of that money is going to the Albertys though, despite promises that the bailout would enable the renegotiation of loans, and keep people in their homes. Bank of America, however, did spend $2.3 million in 2008 on lobbying Congress, and another $1.5 million this year. The bank wants flexibility on how it spends that TARP money, with fewer restrictions on huge bonuses for executives, on fees for credit card holders, and even on home mortgage lending to other Oakland residents.

When First Franklin's 'hassle-free solution' became her eviction, Alberty joined ACORN's Home Defender campaign. Twice in May the sheriffs came to put the family out, and twice they met a resolute group determined to keep the Albertys from being dumped on the sidewalk. That's undoubtedly why they swooped down without warning on July 20, just after Tosha had left for work.

ACORN Home Defender Martha Daniels, who herself had been threatened with a foreclosure eviction, held an impromptu press conference that afternoon in front of the padlocked iron gate. She vowed, 'We will find a way to put Tosha and her family back into this house. There is no justice here.' Representatives of city council members and a county supervisor announced their support.

As Tasha Alberty leaned on her brother and cried, though, her father Charles wondered, 'There's something wrong with this country. My daughter just needed a house for her family. What was she supposed to do?' he asked.

--David Bacon won the C.L.R. James Award for best book of 2007-2008 by the Working Class Studies Association for Illegal People – How Globalization Creates Migration and Criminalizes Immigrants.

Business Interests Splitting Over Honduras Coup?

Wed, 29 Jul 2009 09:13:00 +0000

7-28-09, 4:54 pm

A group of apparel makers with business interests in Honduras, in a July 27th letter to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, endorsed the administration's call for restoration of democracy and basic civil rights and liberties in that country. The letter's signatories included officials from Nike, The Gap, The Adidas Group and Knights Apparel, according to the letter posted at Nike's website.

The letter indicated that the four multinational corporations 'do not and will not support or endorse the position of any party in this internal dispute.' It further described the crisis in Honduras as one based on 'serious disagreements' that 'exist between the elected President, Congress and the Supreme Court' of that country.

Resolution of those disagreements should come through 'peaceful, democratic dialogue,' the letter asserted plainly, 'rather than through military action.'

The major apparel makers also endorsed the actions and statements of 'the President of the United States, the governments of countries throughout the Americas, the Organization of American States, the UN General Assembly and the European Union in calling for the restoration of democracy in Honduras.'

Violence and the restrictions on civil liberties, emerging since the coup, pose a serious concern, the letter continued. 'We urge for an immediate resolution to the crisis and that civil liberties, including freedom of the press, freedom of speech, freedom of movement, freedom of assembly, and freedom of association be fully respected.'

On July 1st, the coup authorities adopted and emergency order restricting freedom of movement, assembly, speech and media access to events in Honduras. Human rights groups have also revealed that social movement leaders have been attacked, arbitrarily arrested and even killed by pro-coup forces.

While the letter from the four major corporations refused to offer advice as to the next steps by international institutions or the US government to help bring the coup to an end, the letter did express continued hope that mediation talks could help resolve the crisis swiftly.

In a statement on its website, the Canadian-based workers' rights group Maquila Solidarity Network (MSN), welcomed the statement, but chastised other multinational corporations with similar interests for supporting the coup.

'Until now, businesses and business associations – including those in the textile and apparel industries, which account for the majority of Honduras' exports – have publicly supported the coup, lobbied against trade sanctions or remained silent and carried on business as usual under the military-imposed regime,' said Lynda Yanz, executive director of MSN.

She added, 'Unless companies doing business in Honduras speak out in favor of democracy, we can only assume that they agree with the position of the business associations to which they belong that have either supported the coup or called for business as usual.'

The July 27th letter from four leading garment makers countered a July 11th letter to President Obama supporting the military coup signed by the American Apparel and Footwear Association, the Emergency Committee for American Trade, the National Council of Textile Organizations, the National Retail Federation, the Retail Industry Leaders Association, the Association of Importers of Textiles and Apparel and the US Chamber of Commerce.

The pro-coup letter from leading corporate associations was denounced in a statement earlier this month by the International Textile, Garment and Leather Workers’ Federation. That union's General Secretary Neil Kearney accused the pro-coup garment-making corporations of overlooking 'democracy, civil liberties and the rule of law' in the hopes that the coup regime might scale back the minimum wage raise instituted by President Zelaya just six months ago.

Human rights groups, which have increasingly supported once-conservative President Zelaya recently, also accuse coup supporters of instituting the military action against the constitutional government of Honduras because Zelaya favored serious investigations into war crimes committed during the country's civil war. Some believe those investigations would have uncovered ties between top pro-coup leaders and war crimes.

Without Reform, Millions Could Lose Health Care

Wed, 29 Jul 2009 05:02:00 +0000

7-28-09, 12:44 pm

If nothing is done about health reform, as Republicans have indicated is their top priority in order to 'break' President Obama, a typical family can expect to pay about 71 percent more for health insurance premiums within the next 10 years, says a new memo from the Center for American Progress Action Fund (CAPAF). According to the memo, the average family premium will total more than $22,000, if no health reform is enacted this year.

This figure does not include out-of-pocket expenses for medical care such as co-payments and deductibles, which could bump up a typical family's annual health care costs to more than $25,000, the report finds.

Families in states like Indiana, Michigan, Oregon, Massachusetts, Texas and California can expect even higher costs, according to the CAPAF memo.

These alarming facts will create two basic realities for millions of working families: they will see a steady decline in their take home pay, and the numbers of people pushed out of the health insurance system will grow.

Employers will struggle to help their employees cover these costs. Some will simply shift more of the costs of health benefits plans to workers, while others will gradually reduce the quality of the coverage they provide.

The impact of higher costs have already hit small employers hard, says a new study by the White House Council of Economic Advisers. Less than one-half of small employers with fewer than 10 employees can afford to provide any coverage for the employees. About 13 million uninsured people work in small businesses.

Health reform bills working their way through Congress now will help families avoid these exorbitant costs: by making new investments in health care research, constructing health information technology, eliminating discrimination against people with preexisting conditions, mandating portability and choice of doctors, and creating an insurance exchange that provides a choice of insurance plans, including a public insurance program.

According to White House Council of Economic Advisers Chair Christina Romer, a public insurance program may be the key to the whole reform package. It will make sure that within the insurance exchange, individuals, families and businesses will have a choice of plans.

For the exchange to be viable, on the one hand, Romers says, it needs plenty of people and small businesses pooled together. On the other, there need to be enough insurance providers participating as well, and that would be the main role of the public insurance program, she states. 'One of the things that the President has talked about when he talks about why a public plan is important was to make sure that there is always an option, that there is plenty of competition between providers.'

These reforms will improve the quality of health care, including for wellness and prevention and increase the pool of insured people. The long-term benefit will be to reduce the cost of health care for families and businesses. But as Josh Bivens, an economist at the Economic Policy Institute, points out, a public program is needed not just as a practical measure to make the insurance exchange work. It is needed because the greater the federal role in the delivery of health care the more restraint there will be on long-term costs.

For example, since 1970 the cost per person of private insurance has far out-paced the cost of Medicare, even as the cost to the federal government for Medicare has grown. As Bivens argues, 'it is possible to increase federal costs while still economizing overall.'

Simply put, when the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) reported that one early version of a health reform plan in Congress would add to the deficit, it did so only by ignoring the long-term benefit reform will have on the overall cost of care. According to Bivens, the CBO 'did not note the very large system-wide savings through a large federal role in financing coverage.'

Bivens cites a report by the Lewin Group, which is a private think-tank that scores the fiscal impact of bills being considered in Congress. According to that report, a health reform package with a mixture of private and public reforms, including a public insurance program, adds to federal costs but it also restrains the growth of costs far below the rates we can expect to see over the next 10 years without reform.

Incidentally, the Lewin Group report, Bivens points out, also scores a Republican proposal to tax employment health benefits far worse. While the Republican health tax wouldn't add as much to federal costs as the kind of plan offered by the President, the federal expenditures in the GOP tax proposal would grow by at least $50 billion and add about four times in costs to Americans for health care as the a plan similar to the President's – in the first year alone. Little control over long-term costs would be realized.

Bivens does not take into account revenue-raising measures included in congressional plans or supported by the President that would create a 'deficit neutral' program. The President favors elimination of federal overpayments to privatized Medicare Advantage programs, a fix of the reimbursement formulas for Medicare and Medicaid, an employer mandate, revisions of the tax code that return tax laws for the highest one percent of Americans to those under Reagan, and the formation of a Medicare advisory council that can recommend regular tweaks to the Medicare system to control costs. According to White House Budget Czar Peter Orszag, savings produced by these reforms can cover the costs of the overall program.

Doing nothing, however, means people will lose coverage or pay 71 percent more for it in 10 years, and the 50 million without coverage can expect no change. The additional tens of millions who go without coverage at some point during a given year or who report having inadequate coverage can expect things to get worse. If the Republican health tax plan were passed, we can expect no foreseeable control of costs and new federal costs. Under the President's plan, with a public option, we would see a deficit neutral plan, that expands affordability, accessibility and quality. Most importantly, we can avoid the alarming future that doing nothing will create.

Green Life Lessons for Youngsters

Wed, 29 Jul 2009 02:10:00 +0000

7-28-09, 9:52 am

EarthTalk From the Editors of E/The Environmental Magazine

Dear EarthTalk: What are some things that children and families can do to be greener (and to provide life lessons for the kids in the process)? -- Cynthia Mosher, via email

There are many ways to be green around the family that are sure to rub off on the littler ones in your midst—if they don’t beat you to it, that is.

With environmental awareness so widespread among younger people in our society, most kids have learned more about being green from their school teachers and camp counselors than we adults might have gleaned in a lifetime. For one, the environmental “Three R’s”—Reduce, Reuse, Recycle—are followed at many schools nowadays. But just because your kids might hear about it at school doesn’t mean that it is sinking in, and that’s where you come in. By reinforcing such messages at home and on outings—and leading by example—you can be certain that today’s ‘tweens will be tomorrow’s greens.

If you don’t know where to start, look for the metaphorical low-hanging fruit: recycling. Learn what types of items your city or town accepts for recycling and sort accordingly. Teach your kids what goes into the recycling bin, and put them in charge. In many locales, residents must pay for trash hauling but not for recyclables, so diverting more of your waste stream to recycling will also leave more money in your wallet for those outings to the ice cream truck and toy store. Also, raid your recycling bin when the kids want to make arts and crafts; reusing materials for creative endeavors is about as green as you can get.

Another way to teach kids about being green is by talking about the foods we eat, where they come from, and the environmental impact our food choices have. No one wants to cause pollution or eat chemicals, kids included, so sourcing your food from local and organic sources when possible—and explaining why to your children—will benefit not only their development but the health of the Earth as well. Many vegetarians have chosen to avoid meat for environmental reasons, and should make sure their kids know why so they can make informed choices for their own diets accordingly when it’s their turn to decide.

Exploring the outdoors near or far with the family is also a great way to teach kids about appreciating and respecting nature and its wild plant and animal inhabitants. Any tidbits of knowledge you might have about the natural history of the place you’re visiting will be eagerly absorbed and remembered by the kids.

Richard Louv underscores the importance of fostering a connection between children and nature in his book, Last Child in the Woods. In it, Louv traces the evolution of a phenomenon he calls “nature deficit disorder,” whereby kids raised on a steady diet of video games and junk food may not turn into the great stewards of the outdoors we might hope for. His solution? Get them off the couch and into nature, where they will surely be wowed by what they encounter.

Last Child in the Woods has inspired dozens of “Leave No Child Inside” initiatives around the U.S. since its 2005 publication, and Louv has gone on to found the Children & Nature Network, which works with upwards of 50 regional groups across the U.S. that offer programs connecting children and nature. Parents can find events and activities near them via the group’s free online interactive “movement map.”

CONTACT: Children & Nature Network, www.childrenandnature.org. SEND YOUR ENVIRONMENTAL QUESTIONS TO: EarthTalk, P.O. Box 5098, Westport, CT 06881; earthtalk@emagazine.com. Read past columns at: www.emagazine.com/earthtalk/archives.php. EarthTalk is now a book! Details and order information at: www.emagazine.com/earthtalkbook.

A Living Wage as Economic Stimulus

Tue, 28 Jul 2009 01:46:00 +0000

To little fanfare, the federal minimum wage rose to $7.25 per hour July 24th. It was the third scheduled raise in the minimum wage since 2007. A higher federal minimum wage is the best kind of economic stimulus for working families, say workers’ rights advocates and even some business owners. But, they add, as it stands it has a long way to go to be high enough for working families to live on.

Greg Denier, spokesperson for the Change to Win labor federation, says CtW welcomes the raise and favors indexing it to inflation. “There needs to be a wage floor,” he contends. “Right now with inflation, the minimum wage continues to be inadequate” for a growing number of American working families.

AFL-CIO President John Sweeney says, 'As we bail out banks and corporate CEOs to the tune of billions of dollars, it’s time for those at the bottom of the pay scale to get a fair shake.' He adds that the raise will work like an economic stimulus “at a moment when it is critically needed – one that will lift all boats so Americans and businesses can stay afloat and ride out this economic storm.”

Still, Sweeney charges, 'the minimum wage is still far below what it takes for families to survive, but today’s increase moves us closer to a healthier economy that works for everyone.'

Department of Labor Secretary Hilda Solis commented in a press statement on the positive impact the raise would have for women workers. 'This well-deserved increase will help workers better provide for their families in the face of today's economic challenges,' she said. 'I am especially pleased that the change will benefit working women, who make up two-thirds of minimum wage earners.'

According to federal government data, some 4.5 million workers in 31 states were directly impacted by the mandated pay raise after July 24, and several million more workers will also benefit, according to the Economic Policy Institute (EPI). Some employers will give workers currently at the new federal minimum a raise as well. About $5.5 billion in additional consumer activity will also be generated by the raise alone, EPI reported.

'It's just not enough'

While this data suggest some good news, according to EPI, the buying power of the federal minimum wage is far lower than in past years. In 2008 dollars adjusted for inflation, the value of the 1979 federal minimum wage stood at $8.02, $1.47 per hour more than the current rate. Even with the raise on the 24th, millions of workers will have less buying power than the lowest-paid American workers did in 1979.

While fast-food worker Kayla Gordon isn't planning on turning the raise down, this 21-year old single-mother of a six-month old baby girl from Nashville, TN seems pessimistic about the impact the raise will have for her family. 'I think it's not really going to help anything. I'm living from paycheck to paycheck, and $6.55 or $7.25 is not helping at all,' she tells Political Affairs.

Gordon says that she often has to borrow money to buy household items and pay rent. She suggests that $9 or $10 is closer to what she needs.

Reverend Kate MacGregor Mosley, who works with the Georgia Minimum Wage Coalition in Atlanta and the national Let Justice Roll campaign, supports the creation of a minimum wage that helps working people be self-sufficient. While for her it is a moral issue that working families have financial security, it also makes good economic sense.

'Getting additional money through a sufficient minimum wage into the hands of the working poor is a good thing for the local economy,' says Mosley, a Presbyterian minister. 'that money cycles right back into our local communities immediately.'

Mosley says that based on her experience with the issue, she thinks low-wage workers need more than $7.25. 'It's just not enough for people to be self-sufficient,' she asserts. 'Getting it to $7.25 is a start, but we need to keep moving toward a wage that truly is a living wage; that, in my opinion, is at least $10.50 an hour.'

Some in business back a higher minimum wage

'A minimum wage increase at this time could be the most important factor in powering our economy out of the recession,' says Camille Caramor, owner of a paralegal service and Christmas tree farm in Louisiana.

Speaking on behalf of Business for a Fair Minimum Wage, Caramor adds, 'The higher the wage an employee receives, the more income he or she has to purchase goods and services for their family, which is indeed 'the best medicine' for our economy.”

US Women's Chamber of Commerce CEO Margot Dorfman also endorses a higher minimum wage. 'It is an unsustainable and dangerous downward spiral to push American workers into poverty and expect taxpayers to pick up the bill for the consequences,” she said in a recent statement.

'It's a myth that a minimum wage increase kills job development,' says Lya Sorano, founder of Atlanta Women in Business. 'To get out of this recession, we need more money to circulate. That happens when people get bigger paychecks, who today can't afford to buy the goods and services they need – goods and services from some of the same people who seem to be opposed to the increase.'

Almost 1,000 business owners have signed the Business for a Fair Minimum Wage statement urging a fair minimum wage that matches the needs of workers.

Low-wages deepened the recession

Living wage advocates tied higher wages for America’s lowest-paid workers to the hoped-for economic recovery. 'The minimum wage was enacted during the Great Depression to put a floor under workers' wages and stimulate the economy. We need that boost today,' says author Holly Sklar, senior policy adviser for Let Justice Roll.

For the past eight-plus years, economists have argued, workers’ real wages have remained stagnant or have fallen. 'The long-term fall in worker buying power is one reason we are in the worst economic crisis since the Depression,” Sklar notes. She favors boosting the federal minimum wage even higher. “Ten dollars in 2010 will foster a productive economy fueled by living wages rather than destructive debt and speculation.'

CtW spokesperson Greg Denier succinctly explains the recession this way: “The problem in the economy today is that productivity and profitability increased while paychecks shrank. We need to expand paychecks in order to expand the purchasing power of American workers.” He also links the fight to index the minimum wage to inflation with the push for health care reform and the passage of the Employee Free Choice Act (EFCA), a law that would remove barriers to union organizing. Each is an important tool for improving the financial stability of the working class and “the means to economic recovery,” as he puts it.

Eyes on the prize

The broad people's movement composed of labor and democratic forces that put Barack Obama in office last fall and handed the Democrats a historic majority in Congress won because of several factors. Not the least of which was the fact that the economic crisis revealed the bankruptcy of right-wing economic ideology pushed by the Republican Party. That economic philosophy contends primarily that what is good for business is good for all of us, e.g. dismantling government oversight of bank and lending practices to enrich bankers is good for Main Street. Unfortunately, it took the collapse of the financial sector and the subsequent economic collapse to figure out just how wrong that ideas is.

What they saw as 'good for business' was not only bad for workers, it was bad for business as well.

Right-wing economy theory also insists that low taxes for corporations and the rich as well as reduced government intervention in the economy and weak public programs spur economic growth. Indeed, proponents of this thinking have targeted the minimum wage not only for being artificially restrained but even for its outright elimination.

Despite the fact that Republicans and right-wingers have been strangling public programs, cutting taxes, holding the minimum wage down and eliminating government oversight for most of the past 30 years, their program failed to stop the current economic collapse, the worst, many believe, since the Great Depression.

Indeed, gutted anti-poverty and unemployment programs, stagnant wages, weak labor protections and declining health care coverage have extended the recession, as Denier rightly notes. In addition to turning around the economy, winning key reforms like health reform, EFCA and a minimum wage indexed to inflation are crucial often for even the barest survival of many working families, like Kayla Gordon's.

But the motive for winning the fight for these reforms doesn't end with the economic argument. This is a political struggle for democracy and the power of the working class, the overwhelming majority of people in our society. How can a society claim to be fully democratic when a handful of politicians decide to look the other way while a small clique of bankers rob us blind with impunity? How can we say we lead the world in democracy when a few hundred CEOs rake in more than one-third of the total national income, while tens of millions of working families struggle to make health insurance premium payments, doctors' bills, rent and house payments, college tuition payments or even just groceries for the week? Meanwhile, those same CEOs conspired in smoke-filled rooms to use their lobbying influence and wealth to stall passage of EFCA, which would help workers join unions and improve their standards of living.

These fights can be won, and they can be won this year with the balance of political forces in place now. Now is not the time to get squeamish or pessimistic. Now is not the time to become hypercritical of allies in the fight who do not always agree on the details of policy.

Now more than ever, let's keep our eyes on the prize.

Book Review: The Hot ‘Cold War’: The USSR in Southern Africa

Tue, 28 Jul 2009 01:36:00 +0000

The Hot ‘Cold War’: The USSR in Southern Africa

by Vladimir Shubin

London: Pluto Press, 2008, 320 pages.

The conventional wisdom in the North Atlantic community nowadays is that the Cold War confrontation between the US and USSR was a disaster for an Africa that was squeezed by both sides. Actually, as this informative memoir cum history suggests, the reality was that – for example in apartheid South Africa – Washington was supportive of the white minority regime, while Moscow backed those fighting this illegal government.

The author is uniquely situated to tell this story, as he now serves as Deputy Director of Russia’s Institute for African Studies and once served as Moscow’s chief liaison in the region. He recounts events over a three decade long period – 1960-1990 – with grace and detail. Not only does he provide a useful perspective on the largely successful effort to dismantle apartheid but, as well, provides an enlightening viewpoint of tumultuous events that enveloped Namibia, Zimbabwe, Mozambique and Angola. Washington was enraged since Moscow not only provided scholarships so that African youth could receive higher education but, similarly important, provided arms so that apartheid and colonialism could be ousted forcibly from power.

Angola had suffered grievously over the centuries because of the depredations of Portuguese colonialism. During the unlamented horrors of the African Slave Trade, this nation sited in southwestern Africa was a hunting ground for human chattel and came to comprise a considerable portion of those now routinely referred to as “African American” (not surprisingly, a major prison in Louisiana, heavily populated with African American men, is located in the city of Angola).

The tide turned in the region when on 25 April 1974, decades of political organizing within the Portuguese military – an object lesson for us all – culminated in the overthrow of the fascist dictatorship and the emergence of a left-leaning regime (deeply influenced by the Portuguese Communist Party) that moved to liquidate Lisbon’s colonial possessions. What emerged was a complicated battle between and among Angolan factions backed by the progressive community globally (including Moscow and Cuba), who squared off against forces backed by a motley coalition which included US imperialism, apartheid South Africa – and Maoist China. Fortunately, the latter did not prevail and this was due in no small part to arms supplied to militant Angolans by Moscow – and military assistance and training provided by Havana. The author also observes that during this tense era, African nations linked arms with Cuba and the USSR; in the first place this list included Nigeria under the adroit leadership of Murtala Muhammed, who was assassinated under suspicious circumstances shortly thereafter, plunging his huge nation into a maelstrom of difficulties from which it has yet to emerge.

Serendipitously, relations between Moscow and Beijing have improved tremendously since the heyday of this intensely conflict-ridden era, but the author does not stint in recounting the unsavory details of China’s alliance with imperialism and apartheid that almost led to an African disaster. For Beijing not only supplied arms to reactionary bandits in Angola but, as well, dispatched scores of military trainers to the region.

Nowadays in Washington and Wall Street there is much tongue-wagging about how “Africa” is lagging behind economically, as if this has nothing to do with the centuries’ long agony of slaving, colonialism and an endless litany of horrors perpetrated by the myrmidons of the North Atlantic community. Least of all is there acknowledgment that when nations like Angola opted for a non-capitalist path of development, US imperialism armed their internal critics who then proceeded to blow up bridges, destroy clinics and wreak havoc on the economy. The author is harsh in his evaluation of this now forgotten era and does not spare his compatriots, recalling how former Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev, “was in a hurry to trade the interests of the USSR and its friends for the fictitious benefits of cooperation with the West and even with [apartheid] Pretoria,” which further compromised the struggling masses of nations like Angola.

A similar process unfolded across the continent in Mozambique, whose attempt to break with imperialism was met with external support of internal brigandage, after a bloody war for independence that culminated in victory in 1975. Zimbabwe, a former British colony, has endured a similar experience. Strikingly, Moscow during the war for independence that triumphed in 1980 was not enthusiastic about the winning party led by Robert Mugabe, who was backed by Beijing. Today, Mugabe is demonized widely in the North Atlantic community, not least because of his expropriation of financial interests controlled by a hegemonic European minority. (Interestingly, Mugabe is not viewed as harshly in Africa itself, nor Latin America, nor Asia.)

Nonetheless, as early as 1961, students began streaming into Moscow from Zimbabwe for higher education. During the liberation war, Moscow supplied fighters with thousands of Kalashnikov rifles, as well as self-loading carbines, pistols, RPGs, mortars, trucks, cars, boats – not to mention expert military training. When the time came for Zimbabwean fighters to negotiate at Lancaster House in London in 1979, it was Moscow who then supplied constitutional lawyers, diplomats and other experts. It was little wonder that such assistance raised hackles among North Atlantic elites – more distressing was the fact that some in the US who ostensibly backed African liberation were unsparing in their denunciation of the Africans’ primary backer: Moscow.

In Namibia, which was colonized in the late 19th century by Germany, then endured a genocide against the Herero people that prefigured what was to occur in Eastern and Central Europe a few decades later, Moscow was also quite active. After Berlin’s loss in World War I, South Africa seized control of this sprawling land and imposed a draconian rule that in some ways was more horrific than apartheid. Naturally, Pretoria was backed by the North Atlantic nations – principally US imperialism – while Moscow supported those fighting this illegal setup. Independence came in 1990 after a bitter and bloody struggle and Namibia’s current leader, Hifkipunye Pohamba, was among those who received higher education in Moscow.

The author has written an entire book about Moscow’ crusade against apartheid South Africa itself, so this story does not receive a full ventilation in this volume, though it is well-known in the region that the triumphant African National Congress (and its close ally, the South African Communist Party) were quite close to the then socialist camp, receiving armed assistance, not to mention military and intelligence training.

Today, it is widely believed among many who really should know better, that the entire Soviet era was a catastrophe and a disaster – yet those who espouse such a wrongheaded view rarely, if ever, filter their faulty suppositions through an African prism. For if they did, they would be forced to recognize that one of the more heroic chapters in both African and Soviet history was Moscow’s all-sided assistance that rescued millions from an ill-fated destiny. Thanks to Vladimir Shubin this history stands as a bright beacon illuminating the path for those who continue trying to build a socialist future.

Live Animals in Cosmetic Testing

Tue, 28 Jul 2009 01:31:00 +0000

7-27-09, 9:13 am

EarthTalk From the Editors of E/The Environmental Magazine

Dear EarthTalk: Is the “Draize Test” using live animals still used to test cosmetics? -- Jim M., Bridgeport, CT

The Draize Test was devised back in 1944 by U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) toxicologist John H. Draize to evaluate the risks of normal short-term exposure to new cosmetics and other personal care products. Still used today by some companies, the test involves applying a small amount of the substance under study to an animal’s eye or skin for several hours, and then observing whether or not irritation occurs over the following week or two. In most cases the animal subjects—usually albino rabbits bred for the lab—are put to death after the sometimes maiming and often painful test.

Of course, animal rights advocates have long opposed the Draize Test, which they consider cruel to the lab animals used as subjects. According to the non-profit National Anti-Vivisection Society (NAVS), the Draize Test causes “extreme discomfort and pain” to the animals involved. In the eye version of the test, rabbits are placed in restraining stocks and their eyelids are held open with clips—in some cases for days at a time—to keep them from blinking away the test solutions.

As for the skin version of the test, animals’ fur is shaved and then several layers of skin are removed with sticky tape before technicians apply test substances and cover over the abraded area with plastic sheeting. NAVS reports that either version of the test can cause “intense burning, itching and pain” and can leave subjects “ulcerated and bleeding.”

According to the Johns Hopkins Center for Alternatives to Animal Testing (CAAT), a major protest campaign in the 1980s raised awareness among consumers and within the cosmetics industry about how harsh and inhumane the Draize Test could be for its unwitting subjects. Many cosmetics companies swore off the Draize Test as a result in intervening years, though other similar albeit less draconian forms of animal tests remain prevalent throughout the cosmetics and personal care products industry.

NAVS maintains that not only is animal testing of any kind inhumane, but it’s also more expensive and less reliable than other methods which do not rely on inflicting pain and suffering on rabbits and other furry friends. “The results of non-animal tests tend to be more consistent, and better predictors for human reactions,” reports the group. “In addition, companies are spared the expense of breeding, caging, feeding and disposing of animals that are used in testing laboratories.” Some of the leading non-animal tests are conducted on cell cultures, human and animal corneas from eye banks, corneal tissue cultures, and frozen corneas supplied by hospitals.

Another reason many companies are moving away from the Draize Test is that considerable information has already been yielded and recorded from past testing. Many companies are taking closer looks at the results of tests done years ago to glean information on how safe similar ingredients in their new products are without having to carry out new tests on new generations of lab animals. NAVS hopes that with the continued development of alternative methods, “animal tests, like the slide rule, will someday be made obsolete by advancements in technology.”

CONTACTS: NAVS, www.navs.org; CAAT, http://caat.jhsph.edu.

SEND YOUR ENVIRONMENTAL QUESTIONS TO: EarthTalk, P.O. Box 5098, Westport, CT 06881; earthtalk@emagazine.com. Read past columns at: www.emagazine.com/earthtalk/archives.php. EarthTalk is now a book! Details and order information at: www.emagazine.com/earthtalkbook.

The G8 Ban on ENR Technologies and its Implications

Tue, 28 Jul 2009 01:22:00 +0000

7-27-09, 9:04 am

Original source: People's Democracy (India)

Depart Mr Jekyll, Enter Mr Hyde

After the Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG) meeting last September, the government of India had mounted a high voltage campaign how it had secured a “clean and unconditional” waiver. Prime minister Manmohan Singh had hailed the NSG's waiver as enabling “full civil nuclear cooperation” with India, and said, “It marks the end of India's decades long isolation from the nuclear mainstream and of technology denial regime.' What the government had hid from the people is that the NSG at that time was also considering a ban on all fuel Enrichment and Reprocessing (ENR) technologies for countries that did not have the fuel cycle or had not signed the NPT. The US and some other countries wanted this ban to cover all countries that currently do not possess the full fuel cycle, but it ran into some resistance from countries such as Brazil and Canada. However, there was unanimity inside NSG on banning transfer of such technologies to non-signatories to NPT. The recent G8 ban on transfer of ENR technologies to non-NPT signatories is nothing but this consensus within NSG – non bracketed text of the NSG resolution – and this is what G8 countries have now adopted.

Why did the Indian government hide what it knew was on the NSG anvil? Was it to pretend before the people that the technology denial regime was ending and India henceforth would get access to all technologies including that for the fuel cycle? Since the PM had stated in parliament that the 123 agreement guaranteed “full civil nuclear cooperation,” anything short of a clean and unconditional waiver would have been politically damaging, therefore the charade. First, the NSG gives a “clean” waiver and in turn, India accepts that it will abide by any future decision of the NSG. Then the NSG imposes a ban on all ENR technologies to countries such as India, on which India would make some noise but not go further.

Only India singled out

However, the present G8 ban is even worse: it singles out only India for the ban. Since Israel, Pakistan and North Korea, the three other nuclear states that have not signed the NPT do not have an NSG waiver, the only country on which the G8 ban is applicable is India. So we are back to the 123 agreement, the Hyde Act and the NSG waiver being limited to reactors and nuclear fuel. The technology denial regime, reiterated a number of times by Kakodkar, the AEC chairman, as thwarting India's progress in nuclear and other fields, remains very much in place. The India-US nuclear deal, as was stated by the left all along, was a deal for nuclear reactors and allowing India access to nuclear fuel.

A number of commentators had at the time of the nuclear negotiations had claimed that India had the option of not buying US reactors and could work out more favorable terms with Russia and China, thereby beating the Hyde Act provisions of technology denial. The recent G8 ban on ENR technology makes clear that this route was really never open. The Hyde Act had made clear that the US administration would need to see that the nuclear industry in the US did not have a handicap due to the Hyde Act provisions and must secure a commitment from other countries before the NSG waiver that they would all act in concert. This is what has appeared now as the G8 ban.

Despite the G8 ban being orchestrated by the US, India is bending over backwards to offer its companies two sites for locating nuclear plants. This is the gift that India has made publicly during Hilary Clinton's visit. Presumably, the 10,000 MW reactor sales that India has promised the US government is still on course, despite the ENR ban. Further, the India government is now working on limiting liability of the private companies running nuclear plants or supplying nuclear equipment. In simple terms, it means that if there is a Bhopal type disaster, the private companies concerned would not pay damages – the burden of damages, relief and rehabilitation would all be carried by the government. The US suppliers of nuclear reactors want complete protection if their equipment fail and cause a Chernobyl or Bhopal type disaster. What they want is that the risk of nuclear plants be carried entirely by the Indian tax payers while they enjoy the benefits. New age capitalism, where the people pay for all the risks and capital enjoys the entire profits!

Implications of the ban

The question is what are the implications of the G8 ENR ban? Or is it of little consequence to our nuclear program?

The answer to this question would depend on what kind of nuclear program we are looking for. The US and other nuclear powers have been arguing that India should not develop any nuclear fuel facilities, should not try and reprocess the spent fuel and not take the fast breeder reactor route. In essence, they want a nuclear power sector in India which would be entirely dependent on the suppliers. They would then control the pipeline that supplies India with nuclear fuel and thereby ensure that India toes the US line. In such a scenario, the denial of ENR technologies would have little impact – India would have already accepted the US yoke.

The problem comes up if India wants to protect its energy security and continue with its three phase program – fast breeder reactors for the second phase and thorium in the third phase. In this scheme, India would have to put its breeder reactors under IAEA safeguards, while at the time, it would be denied any technology for breeder reactors. Breeder reactors would be regarded as part of the fuel cycle and therefore any technology for such plants would come under the recent G8 ban.

In case India abandons the fast breeder and the thorium route, and goes in for Light Water Reactors and enriched fuel, it faces a different problem. It would have to import enriched fuel. Unlike Heavy Water Pressurized Reactors that use natural uranium, the Light Water Reactors need enriched uranium. If India wants to reduce its dependence on imported fuel, it has to either enrich fuel itself or reprocess the spent fuel. Since India has limited sources of natural uranium, reprocessing would be important to reduce dependence on imported fuel. This immediately brings up the same problem as with breeder reactors, such reprocessing plants would be under complete IAEA safeguards and yet would be denied technology.

This state – to have fully safeguarded facilities and yet be denied technology – means that every bit of equipment that goes into it would need to be indigenously produced. The IAEA safeguards can not only check for whether we are beating the ban through grey market but could also go further and check plants that produce such equipment and whether they are in turn using “banned” equipment. This is indeed the worst of both worlds.

India is soon to negotiate the consent for reprocessing with the US. This consent, according to the Atomic Energy Commission, is crucial to India's future nuclear program. The US carried out similar negotiations with the Japanese for its reprocessing facility. What the US imposed on the Japanese is very expensive monitoring equipment. In this case, the issue is not only its cost. What it could easily impose on India is monitoring equipment, which India cannot buy and will find prohibitively expensive to produce -- India would be between the proverbial rock and a very hard place.

The question then arises: why should India buy nuclear plants from countries that are a party to a continuing technology denial regime? If – as the government claims – these countries have broken the compact and gone back on their pledge in the NSG for a clean waiver, why should we then still buy their reactors? These reactors would not only be prohibitively expensive, they would come with fuel supplies tied to the parent countries. At any point of time, they could turn off the tap and our fuel supply would come to a standstill. This is what happened in Tarapur. Why are we then endangering our fuel security for buying reactors at huge costs, that too at 2-4 times the prices of Indian reactors?

Giving up self reliance

The other question that we need to address is that if we buy reactors at such high costs, will we have money left to continue with our indigenous development including the breeder-thorium route? Or are we hiding that we intend to give up this route any way and fall back on the easier one of importing reactors? Even if it is a far more expensive option and means loss of energy security for the future?

We had indicated earlier that as a consequence of the India US nuclear deal, it is clear that India is going to slow up the Fast Breeder and thorium route. We cannot put in the kind of investments in imported nuclear reactors and also continue investing in FBR technology. This government is abandoning its earlier goal of technology self reliance and energy security by stealth.

The technology denial regime is not limited to just explicit items required for ENR. It covers also various dual use technologies. Therefore, the ban on ENR technologies would affect not only nuclear but also other sectors. The government needs to come clean on the implications of the G8 ban instead of hiding behind the statement that it goes by the NSG waiver statement. India going by the earlier NSG waiver is of no use, if the countries that have ENR technologies do not abide by this waiver any more. It is either hiding its head in the sand or continuing to deceive the people knowing full well what the ban implies. What is clear is what the Left had said all along – this deal is flawed from the beginning. In making the US its interlocutor to the NSG, it has accepted that the US will shape the nature of its future nuclear energy program.

Instead, India should have looked for a nuclear fuel deal and engaged with the broader NSG community. It would perhaps have taken longer but at the end of this process, India would have had a deal which would have respected its goal of self reliance and energy security. If all India is getting out of this deal is nuclear fuel and reactors, then this agreement is a bad one. It ties India down in various ways and has already extracted a heavy price in terms of foreign policy, foregoing the cheaper energy option of imports of gas and LNG from Iran. In the long run, a broader engagement with a number of member states of the NSG would have been much better for India than a deal secured with US “mentoring” India through the NSG process and thereby imposing its conditions on us.

For many of the nuclear disarmament proponents in the West, the path to disarmament has been through nuclear non proliferation. Unfortunately, it was the unwillingness of the nuclear weapon states to move meaningfully towards disarmament that endangered the NPT compact. The US strategic doctrine that envisages use of nuclear weapons even against non-nuclear weapons states, its aggressive policy of regime change, its war and occupation of Iraq has changed the international landscape completely and it is time that the disarmament movement in the West comes to terms with this.

If we are serious about disarmament, we cannot think now only of how to strengthen the NPT regime by creating barriers to ENR technologies. We have to look for multilateral fuel facilities which are jointly owned by the international community, cast iron guarantees for fuel supplies before asking countries to give up self reliance in fuel production. The world will not accept a new NPT like compact, where only a few countries have complete control of all nuclear fuel, and others will be only meek recipients.

Lonesome Hobo Economics – On the Road at the CoC

Tue, 28 Jul 2009 01:18:00 +0000

7-27-09, 8:59 am

The Committees of Correspondence for Socialism and Democracy has just concluded its 6th National Convention in San Francisco, CA. The CoC was founded in 1994 as a coalition of socialist-oriented groupings from a number of organizations, including a large section from the Communist Party following a split in that organization after the collapse of the USSR. It was a gathering of color! Multi-racial and multinational. There were guests from Germany, El Salvador, South Africa, France, Venezuela and Vietnam. There were gays and straights. 200 Men and women very active in a wide range of social, political and labor constituencies.

'Build the progressive majority and a socialist future' was the theme of the conference. I will get to that, but the truth is I came out to see old friends more than to engage in political discourse. One friend in particular – Charlene Mitchell – was honored on Thursday for her lifetime of devotion to expanding democracy, to the struggle for equality, and to the advance of socialist ideals. Charlene Mitchell was the first African American woman to run for President of the Unites States, which she did in 1968 on the ticket of the Communist Party of the US. She also played an historic role in the worldwide defense of Angela Davis in 1970, who was targeted and framed for murder during a period when more than one police force was seeking to exterminate anyone connected with the Black Panther Party. Angela Davis was acquitted, and Ms. Mitchell went on to help found the National Alliance Against Racist and Political Repression, which mounted many campaigns against racist and repressive attacks. Courage, persistence, faith, and a sharp mind for both politics and human character – Charlene has mentored many people over her long life, this writer included. It was a joy to participate in the tribute to her. Viva Charlene!!!

Now, on the substance: I confess it normally requires a certain astral patience to sit through left-wing conferences. And, in recent years, I have acquired a strong allergy to dogmatic talk about socialism, revolution, etc. However, the economic crisis, the global climate change crisis, and the quality of the movement that elected Barack Obama have accomplished what a thousand manifestos could not: they have proven that market failures of capitalism in certain areas such as finance, health care, housing, environmental policy, and retirement security make incremental steps toward socialism matters of necessity that do not require one to have the slightest familiarity with socialist 'doctrine' in order to recognize. In fact, the ways in which the imperatives of greater socialization make themselves apparent in health care, financial regulation, retirement security, employment for all who seek work, and and large-scale intervention to both prepare for and reverse trends in climate change, argue strongly for an entirely new political vocabulary. The new vocabulary must disenthrall the tasks of economic recovery and progress from sterile cold-war, and Vietnam era, left-right rhetoric.

While it is difficult to leave behind some long-standing left-wing political categories, and plow fresh ground for a new generation of socialist renewal, the CoC made important progress. Carl Davidson calls this process 'imagining 21st Century socialism.' Most important, in this writer's view, was the focus on defining and and elaborating the principles and programs upon which progressive majorities can be built in all arenas of politics: local, state and national. For the left to think in terms of majorities is the single greatest improvement arising from the defeat of the reactionary 'Reagan coalition' of which George W. Bush was only the latest and most sordid chapter.

Many challenges remain: there were not enough youth at the conference. The electoral and unemployment issues were under-covered. And the right balance between 'socialist' ideals and the progressive majority agenda is still wobbly, partly because the new situation is – really NEW! Nonetheless, workshops on socialist education, international solidarity, economic and social justice, climate change, peace and labor were well attended, and many energetic ideas were shared.

Its happening! Socialism's reconnection with broad-based democratic change in response to the crisis is bearing fruit!

Venceremos!

Honduras Against History: By Their Methods You Shall Know Them

Mon, 27 Jul 2009 03:19:00 +0000

7-26-09, 11:01 am

The Bible relates the story of how the teachers of the law brought before Jesus an adulterous woman. They intended to stone her to death, as they were required to do by the law of God, which at the time was said to be the law of men as well. The teachers and Pharisees wanted to test Jesus, from which one can induce that Jesus was already well known for his lack of orthodoxy with respect to the most ancient laws. Jesus suggested that whoever was free of sin should cast the first stone. Thus nobody was able to execute the strict law.

In this way, and in many others, the Bible itself has continued transforming itself, despite being a collection of books inspired by God. Religions have always been considered to be great conservative forces which, faced with reformers, became great reactionary forces. The paradox is rooted in the fact that all religion, all sects, have been founded by some subversive, by some rebel or revolutionary. It is not for nothing that history teems with those martyred, persecuted, tortured and assassinated by the political powers of the moment.

The men who were persecuting the adulteress retreated, recognizing in the turn of events their own sins. But over the course of history the result has been different. The men who oppress, kill and assassinate the alleged sinners always do so with the justification of some law, some right and in the name of some morality. This, more universal, rule was the one applied in Jesus’s own execution. In his time he was not the only rebel who fought against the Roman Empire. Not coincidentally, he was crucified together with two other prisoners. By association, this was intended to signify that he was just another prisoner being executed. Not even a religious dissident. Not even a political dissident. Invoking other laws, they eliminated the subversive who had questioned the Pax Romana and the collaborationism of the aristocracy and of the religious hierarchies of his own people. Everything was carried out according to the laws. But history recognizes them today by their methods.

George Bush’s government gave us plenty of examples, and on a large scale. All of the wars and violations of national and international law were committed in defense of the law and sovereign right. By its sectarian interests, history will judge it. By its methods, its interests shall be known.

In Latin America, the role of the Catholic Church has almost always been the role of the Pharisees and the teachers of the law who condemned Jesus in defense of the dominant classes. There has never been a military dictatorship of oligarchical origin that didn’t receive the blessing of bishops and influential priests, thereby legitimizing the censorship, the oppression of the mass murder of the supposed sinners.

Now, in the 21st century, the method and the discourses are repeated in Honduras like a crack of the whip from the past.

By their methods we know them. The patriotic discourse, the complacency of an upper class trained in the domination of the poor who have no formal education. A class that owns the methods of popular education, which is what the main communication media are. Censorship; the use of the army to carry out their plans; repression of the popular demonstrations; the expulsion of journalists; the expulsion by force of a government elected by democratic vote, its later demand before Interpol, its threat to jail dissidents if they return and its later denial by force of their return.

In order to better see this reactionary phenomenon let’s divide human history into four grand periods:

1) The collective power of the tribe concentrated in one strong member of a family, generally a man.

2) A period of agricultural expansion unified by a totem (something akin to a conquering surname) and later a Pharaoh or emperor. During this time wars emerge and primitive armies are consolidated, not so much for defense as for the conquest of new productive territories and for state administration of its own people’s surplus production and the oppression of its people’s slaves. This stage continues with variations up until the absolutist kings of Europe, passing through the feudal era. In all of these regimes, religion is a central element of cohesion as well as coercion.

3) In the modern era we have a renaissance and a radicalization of the Greek experiment in representative democracy. But in the modern period humanist thought includes the idea of universality, of the implicit equality of every human being, the idea of history as a process of reaching toward perfection instead of inevitable corruption, and the concept of morality as a human product relative to a determined historical time. And perhaps the most important idea, from the Arab philosopher Averroes: political power not as the pure will of God but as the result of social interests, class interests, etc. Liberalism and Marxism are two radicalizations (opposed in their means) of this same current of thought, which also includes Charles Darwin’s theory of evolution. This period of representative democracy was the most practical form for bringing together the voices of millions of men and women in one house, the Congress or Parliament. If Humanism pre-exists the techniques for popularizing culture, it is also empowered by them. The printing press, the paperback book, the low-price newspapers of the 19th century, the necessary literacy training of future workers were decisive steps toward democratization. Nonetheless, at the same time the reactionary forces, the dominant forces of the previous period, rapidly conquered these media. Thus, if it was no longer possible to further delay the arrival of representative democracy, it was possible to dominate its instruments. The medieval sermons in the churches, functional in great measure for the princes and dukes, were reformulated in the media of information and in the media of the new popular culture, like rade, film and television.

4) Despite this, the democratic wave continued on, frequently bathed in blood by successive reactionary coups. In the 21st century the renaissance humanist wave continues. And with it continue the instruments to make it possible. Like the Internet, for example. But so too the contrary forces, the reactions of the powers constituted by the previous stages. And in the process of struggle they learn to use and dominate the new instruments. While representative democracy has not yet matured, already one see emerging the ideas and instruments necessary for passing on to a stage of direct democracy, participatory and radical.

In some countries, as today in Honduras, the reaction is not against this latest stage but the previous one. A kind of late reaction. Even though in appearance it suggests a smaller scale, it has Latin American and universal significance. First because it represents a calling to attention of the recent democratic complacency of the continent; and second because it stimulates the modus operandi of those reactionaries who have always sailed against the currents of history.

Earlier we noted the proof of why the deposed president of Honduras had not violated the law or the constitution. Now we can see that his proposal of a non-binding popular referendum was a method of transition from a representative democracy toward a direct democracy. Those who interrupted this process reversed it toward the prior stage.

The fourth stage was intolerable for a Banana republic mentality that can be recognized by its methods.

--Translated by Bruce Campbell.