People Before Profit blog

Ready to Rumble for Jobs, Not War and More Weapons?

Tue, 09 Aug 2011 13:02:00 +0000

Something is missing in the swirl of news reporting on the debt ceiling deal struck on August 2 by the Congress and the President for close to $1 trillion in cuts in discretionary programs over the next decade.

Will the 56 percent of discretionary spending that goes to the Pentagon take a hit in the name of deficit reduction?

Protest against war funding at the office of Representative McCollum

The short answer is not necessarily, not unless we are ready to rumble.

Even the Senate Armed Services Committee leaders Sens. Carl Levin and John McCain have no idea what the deal does to the Pentagon budget.

The cruel irony is the debt ceiling deal exempts spending on the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, even though war costs are one of the biggest factors driving up the national debt by over a trillion dollars.

Caps have been set for “security and non security” spending. The cuts will follow. The security category lumps together the Pentagon with the State Department, Veterans Affairs, Homeland Security and nuclear weapons systems.

Right now cuts to the Pentagon budget are not guaranteed. It is threat. Without a grassroots rumble the ax won’t fall on the Pentagon or weapons of mass destruction, it will land on veteran’s benefits or diplomatic efforts.

It’s a fight, not a discussion.

The military budget has doubled in the last 13 years. Up until now there has been a bottomless till for weapons and wars. Lawrence Korb, former assistant secretary of Defense under President Reagan, says, "in real or inflation adjusted dollars it is higher than at any time since World War II, including the Korean and Vietnam wars and the height of the Reagan buildup."

Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta released a statement stirring up fear about the threat of across the board cuts if the "sequester mechanism" took effect and the Committee of 12 Congressional representatives fail to reach a compromise on how to make the next $1.5 trillion in cuts.

He also said,”We must be accountable to the American people for what we spend, where we spend it, and with what result. While we have reasonable controls over much of our budgetary information, it is unacceptable to me that the Department of Defense cannot produce a financial statement that passes all financial audit standards.”

That’s our mandate to rumble. The Pentagon and the Congress must be made accountable to us for what they cut, spend and the result. Pouring scarce resources into Pentagon is not a jobs program.

Unemployment has become a constant. CNBC, the business news website, reported on August 2, “The job cuts were up 60 percent from June, and 59 percent higher than the 41,676 layoffs recorded in July 2010. It was the largest monthly total since March 2010, and the first month this year that the government was not the biggest job cutter.”

Cuts in “non security” discretionary spending means layoffs. The 26 million people unemployed or underemployed in our communities can’t afford for that to happen.

Nick Johnson of the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities notes that the deal “inevitably will lead to large federal cuts in programs for state and local governments,” and that these cuts will begin “in the middle of the worst year for state budgets." State and local governments have eliminated more than 400,000 jobs since the start of 2010.

So let’s rumble during the August Congressional recess. Take the facts to our Congressional representatives. We can and must cut the Pentagon budget to fund jobs and services in our communities.

Although the The National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform, the bipartisan commission chaired by former Senator Alan Simpson and Erskine Bowles, did not have many recommendations to cheer about, but they got one thing right. Cutting military spending is possible.

They proposed closing one third of US bases around the world as an immediate savings. Not only is it a wise budget cut, it fits with how US foreign policy needs to change in the 21st century. We can’t afford a militarized foreign policy of endless wars and occupations and the modernizing of nuclear weapons systems.

In The Hill, Tom Colina, the research director at Arms Control Association wrote, “By carefully reducing our nuclear forces and scaling back new weapon systems, the United States can save billions. Moreover, by reducing the incentive for Russia to rebuild its arsenal, these budget savings can make America safer.”

In June, 2010,the bi-partisan Sustainable Defense Taskforce initiated by

Rep. Barney Frank (D-MA), working in cooperation with Rep. Walter B. Jones (R-NC), Rep. Ron Paul (R-TX), and Sen. Ron Wyden (D-OR), proposed ways to cut Pentagon spending in their report “Debt, Deficits and Defense: A Way Forward.” It can be done if the political will is mustered.

That’s where the peace and economic justice movements come in: generating the political will.

Along side of the misery of the budget cuts, there is an opportunity to win real cuts in military spending. Joel Rubin in Ploughshares Blog, “There is still much to be defined, yet the inherently competitive situation now shaping up on defense spending is welcome news to those who have been long seeking to get rid of the bloated weapons systems that weaken our economy while doing scant little to advance our national security.”

The President said in April when he announced his framework for dealing with the federal budget that "we're going to have to conduct a fundamental review of America's missions, capabilities, and our role in a changing world."

New movements are taking the opportunity for such a fundamental review and a change in the spending priorities. On August 4, the AFL-CIO issued a statement, “Fake Political Crisis and Real Economic Crisis- A Call for Leadership and Action.” The AFL-CIO Executive Council said, “It doesn’t have to be this way. There are real solutions to the job crisis, but real solutions require government action.”

They also noted, “There is no way to fund what we must do as a nation without bringing our troops home from Iraq and Afghanistan. The militarization of our foreign policy has proven to be a costly mistake. It is time to invest at home.”

It’s going to take a an adamant, militant grassroots rumble to demand demilitarization of US foreign policy, to end the insanity of endless and countless wars draining the scarce resources needed for people, the world over, to have jobs and a decent life.

Photo by swanksalot/cc by 2.0/Flickr

Coming Full-Circle in Tahrir Square

Tue, 09 Aug 2011 08:23:00 +0000

Friday 29 July 2011 had been billed as a “Friday of Unity” demonstration in Tahrir Square uniting secular and Islamic opposition forces to come out to push for further change in Egypt. But the arrival of approximately 1 million people calling for Islamic change drew fierce criticism from secular groups within Egypt, as well as secularists outside the region.

Some of the groups within the square criticised those calling for Islamic change – the so-called "Islamists" – because they did not uphold terms the agreement beforehand.

But aside from those specific grievances, the blogosphere was full of pejorative anti-Islamic rhetoric from the supporters of the secular minority. There was talk of the "hijacking" of “our” revolution - and that "extremists" had come to "impose" their agenda. The renowned left-wing activist Tariq Ali wrote a poem imposing his prejudices and stereotypes on the Islamic activists – and their beliefs – that was published on the Guardian website.

Fortunately there were some people present in Tahrir square who were not from the Islamic groups – some of them non-Muslims – who were tweeting that the atmosphere on the ground was neither aggressive nor imposing, merely a passionate expression of people present. This seemed to confirm the view from a distance – that this was more a case of sour grapes by advocates of a secular Egypt, whose limited public support was ruthlessly exposed when they were vastly outnumbered by those who hold a different vision for a Egypt – arguably one which is more in tune with its people’s values and history.

Revolutions are not solitary events

The demonstrations that led to the fall of Hosni Mubarak were neither the start nor the end of change in Egypt. For decades, non-violent Islamic activists and thinkers paid a heavy price in terms of life and liberty opposing the oppression of the Mubarak, Sadat and Nasser regimes - when so-called moderates and secular groups were silent or even complicit in the actions of the regimes. Their contribution, maintaining pressure [both real political pressure and moral pressure] through their efforts and sacrifice cannot simply be discounted from what is happening in Egypt today because they failed to adequately move the population at the time. The process of opposition was started by those people, who won the moral argument against the regime long ago, and has now moved on.

When a new generation of protestors in Tahrir square they managed to capture the public mood earlier this year because ordinary people had had enough of the regime. All were united against the existing order.

But secular commentators had deluded themselves that the population of Egypt were also united in favor of a Paris or London style ‘freedom’; despite evidence on the ground – both in terms of polling and actual behavior of the population – was firmly not likely to be calling for this; especially since the whole region was immersed in an Islamic identity until relatively recently.

The people of Egypt – whose history, values and religion cannot simply be dismissed by a secular elite and their western proponents – were the flesh and blood that led to Mubarak’s demise. If the "Facebook generation" helped cause the "wave" that swept him away, the people of Egypt were – as someone else put it – the "sea"!

Coming full circle in the Arab Muslim world

Sixty years ago, in the immediate post colonial period, a vigorous debate emerged about the future political direction of the region. At that time the options on the table were Islam, Communism, Arab Nationalism and Western-style capitalist secular democracy. The advocates of Islam quickly won the educated youth and the intellectual debate and their message increasingly message won greater sections of the masses.

The police-states we know today began when the post-colonial client regimes started an oppressive crackdown to deal with this opinion for Islam.

Now people are rising up against these regimes, with mixed results so far, the emergence of a space in which to debate the future will see Islam, once again, as an option on the table.

But two crucial factors suggest Islam is in a stronger position now than it was even sixty years ago, to emerge as the victor in this debate - notwithstanding further suppression and exclusion by its detractors.

Firstly, the evidence from all the protests – most especially seen in the changes of the past six months in Tunisia, Egypt and "freed" Libya – is that where the regimes have taken a blow, people have rapidly started to express their Islamic values and aspirations.

Secondly, the role model for people to aspire to is not the western model that competed with communism as a model for stability, prosperity and a model of governance. The double-standards in the War on Terror; the economic instability in the West and the fragility and vulnerability of capitalism that has been exposed as a result; all of these and more have devalued more than just currency in the west.

It is against a diminished capitalism, upheld by today’s "sick men" of the world [the United States and European Union], that Islam – hitherto brutally suppressed and excluded from the debate – now competes.

So let us hope that instead of cheap insults, shallow stereotypes and brutal repression this long overdue debate can now commence.

Apes of the world UNITE!

Mon, 08 Aug 2011 11:19:00 +0000

Rise of the Planet of the Apes

Directedby Rupert Wyatt, 2011

For those of you needing a good action/sci-fi flick but maybe Cowboys and Aliens isnt your thing, this is your film. But not just for that, or for the great nostalgia factor, but for the underlying message...

First of all, I have to say this: as with all good art, you get out of it what you bring to it. Such is the case with Rise of the Planet of the Apes; remake of Conquest of The Planet of the Apes (with a little of Escape from the Planet of the Apes mixed in there if you remember the 70’s films), and sequel of the 2001 Tim Burton remake Planet of the Apes.

In this film, James Franco plays a scientist working for a pharmaceutical company developing a cure for Alzheimer's. As usual with drug companies, it is being tested on Apes and the results are promising. But a side effect of the medication makes apes more aggressive and one goes bizarre and wrecks the lab. Because of this, the business owner decides to terminate all of the test subjects. They then discover a baby ape, which the female who went crazy was hiding. Franco takes him home to his Alzheimer's patient father, played by John Lithgow.

Over the next few years, Caesar (named for the child chimp in Conquest), develops rapidly, overcoming a human’s development by several years. But as with any intelligence, it can get you into trouble. I wont revel why, but Caesar ends up in an Ape sanctuary while Franco tries to get him back. Meanwhile, he experiments on his father and succeeds in curing him. But it wears off quickly and a new delivery method is needed.

While Franco tries to develop a new formula, Caesar gets treated worse than second-rate garbage. But he meets another ape who can sign, who encourages him to educate the other apes. This is where the message starts to come through. I found this to be true with the original films as well, (Spoiler ALERT) but the ape’s in both films revolt BECAUSE they are slaves! They realize that they are just as intelligent as humans, and are sick of being beaten and yelled at! This is a metaphor for the WORKING CLASS! Once Caesar shares the “virus” of “knowledge” it spreads within the ape compound, and eventually city wide to other apes.

I wont give away the ending, but as much as I liked it, I liked the ending to the original better, but just because of the struggle of the apes and its relationship to the working class now. I think if we can not only go see this film (yes, its distributed by Fox, but the message is good!), but start conversations about how it relates to the current struggle, it might just be a good head turner.

Japan: Labor Movement Calls for Minimum Wage Hike

Fri, 05 Aug 2011 08:10:00 +0000

The Welfare Ministry’s Central Minimum Wages Council on July 27 made a recommendation to increase regional minimum hourly wages ranging from 1 yen to 18 yen, a 6 yen increase to 736 yen on average.

During the tripartite council’s discussions, in which labor, management and experts took part, the management side was unwilling to raise minimum wages, alleging a negative impact on small- and medium-sized enterprises in the disaster-hit region. As a result, the recommended increase in the national average of minimum wages has turned out to be less than the 10 yen increase set in the previous year.

Regional minimum wages will ultimately be determined by each local council.

The National Confederation of Trade Unions (Zenroren) issued a statement on the same day criticizing the recommendation not only as widening the gaps between prefectures but also “as being inappropriate.”

Zenroren said that the recommendation “will likely discourage the budding move for a raise in the level of minimum wages and support for small- and medium-sized businesses.”

Zenroren stressed that general hourly wages for disaster-recovery contracts in the disaster-affected region are barely equivalent to the minimum wage standard and that workers engaged would earn less than 1.7 million yen annualy. “A drastic increase in minimum wages will revitalize the economy in the disaster-affected areas and contribute to reconstruction of small businesses there,” said Zenroren.

Zenroren calls on its member unions to strengthen their movement pressing their local minimum wage councils to demand a further raise in the amount than called for in the central council recommendation.

The Japanese Trade Union Confederation (Rengo) in its statement also said, “The recommendation is not so satisfying.”

* * *

Workers hold day of action demanding drastic increase in minimum wages

About 1,500 workers, including those from the three disaster-hit prefectures, on July 28 staged a day of action in protest against an unacceptably small raise in regional minimum wages recommended by the Central Minimum Wage Council on the previous day.

Calling for an increase in the minimum hourly wage nationwide to 1,000 yen, participants in the action, which was organized by the National Confederation of Trade Unions (Zenroren) and the People’s Spring Struggle Joint Committee, petitioned Dietmembers and the Japanese government.

During the lunch break, they held a rally at Hibiya Amphitheater.

In the rally, a representative of the National Union of General Workers affiliated with Zenroren pointed out that the recommended increase in minimum wages in disaster-hit prefectures is only 1 yen and said, “In order to restore disaster victims’ lives, the most pressing need is to raise minimum wages drastically.”

After the rally, participants marched in demonstration through the Ginza, a shopping street near the administrative district in Tokyo, showing to passers-by placards and banners calling for a reconstruction of the disaster-hit region through a drastic minimum wage hike.

Competing Narratives in Syria: Between Tired Slogans and a Looming Dawn

Fri, 05 Aug 2011 07:42:00 +0000

There is no linear narrative capable of explaining the multifarious happenings that have gripped Syrian society in recent months. On March 23, as many as 20 peaceful protesters were killed at the hands of the Syrian regime’s security forces, and many more were wounded. Since then, the violence has escalated to such a level of brutality and savagery that can only be comparable to the regime’s infamous massacres in the city of Hama in 1982.

Listening to Syrian presidential advisor, Dr Buthaina Shaaban – one of the most eloquent politicians in the Arab world – one would get the impression that a self-assured reform campaign is indeed underway in Syria. Her words also suggest while some of the protesters’ demands are legitimate, the crisis has been largely manufactured abroad and is being implemented at home by armed gangs bent on wrecking havoc. The aim of the protests, as often suggested by officials, is only to undermine Syria’s leadership in the region and the Arab world at large.

Indeed, Syria has championed, at least verbally, the cause of Arab resistance. It has hosted Palestinian resistance factions that refused to toe the US-Israeli line. Although these factions don’t use Damascus as a starting point for any form of violent resistance against Israel, they do enjoy a fairly free platform to communicate their ideas. Israel, which seeks to destroy all forms of Palestinian resistance, is infuriated by this freedom.

Syria has also supported the Lebanese resistance group Hezbollah, which succeeded in driving Israel out of Lebanon in 2000, and torpedoed Israel’s efforts at gaining political and military grounds in Lebanon in 2006.

This narrative can also demonstrate the viability of its logic through palpable evidence of open or covert attempts at targeting Syria, undermining its leadership of the so-called rejectionist front. The front, which refused to cede to US-Israeli hegemony in the region, had already shrunk significantly following the invasion of Iraq, the surrender of Libya to Western diktats, and the sidelining of Sudan.

More, the Israeli government had been genuinely frustrated when the US failed to target Syria during its regime change frenzy following the 2003 invasion of Iraq. After all, Israel’s faithful neoconservative friends - Richard Perle, Douglas Feith and David Wurmser – had made ‘containing Syria’ a paramount objective in their 1996 policy paper. Entitled ‘A Clean Break: A New Strategy for Securing the Realm’, the document was written to help Benjamin Netanyahu in his efforts to suppress his regional foes. It stated that, "given the nature of the regime in Damascus, it is both natural and moral that Israel abandon the slogan 'comprehensive peace' and move to contain Syria, drawing attention to its weapons of mass destruction program, and rejecting 'land for peace' deals on the Golan Heights".

Syria has also fallen in the range of US-Israeli fire on more than one occasion. The so-called Operation Orchard was an Israeli airstrike with a US green light. It targeted an alleged nuclear reactor in Deir ez-Zor region in September 2007 and an American airborne assault against a peaceful Syrian village in October 2008, killing and wounding Syrian civilians.

Although the official Syrian narrative claims that these events alone should justify the army’s harsh crackdown on pro-democracy protests, the rationale is challenged by a history of regime hypocrisy, doublespeak, brutality and real, albeit understated willingness to accommodate Western pressures and diktats.

The Israel occupation of the Syrian Golan Heights in June 1967 didn’t simply affect regional power dynamics, it also ushered the rise of a new political mood in Damascus. It was Hafez al-Assad, the father of the current president, Bashar, who took full advantage of the shifting mood by overthrowing president Nur al-Din al-Atasi. The new narrative was a triumphant one, not aimed merely at recapturing Syrian and other occupied Arab territories from Israel, but also positioning al-Assad’s Ba’ath regime as the leader of the new Arab front. Although the 1973 war failed to liberate the Golan of its invaders, leading to the ‘disengagement agreement’ with Israel in May 1974, the official language remained as fiery and revolutionary as ever. Oddly, for nearly four decades, Syria’s involvement in the conflict remained largely theoretical, and resistance persisted only via smaller Lebanese and Palestinian groups.

It seemed that Syria wanted to be involved in the region only so much as to remain a visible player, but not to the extent of having to face violent repercussions. It was an act of political mastery, one that Hafez crafted in the course of three decades and which Bashar cleverly applied for nearly eleven years. In essence, however, Syria remained hostage to familial considerations, one-party rule and the sectarian classifications initiated by colonial France in 1922.

True, Syria was and will remain a target for Western pressures. But what needs to be realized is that these pressures are motivated by specific policies concerning Israel, and not with regards to a family-centered dictatorship that openly murders innocent civilians in cold blood. In fact, there are many similarities in the pattern of behavior applied by the Syrian army and the Israeli army. Reports of causalities in Syria’s uprising cite over 1,600 dead, 2,000 wounded (Al Jazeera, July 27) and nearly 3,000 disappearances (CNN, July 28). Unfortunately this violence is not new, and is hardy compelled by fear of international conspiracy to undermine the al-Ba’ath regime. The 1982 Hama uprising was crushed with equal if not greater violence, where the dead were estimated between 10,000 and 40,000.

The Syrian regime is deliberately mixing up regional and national narratives, and it is still exploiting the decades-old political discourse to explain its inhumane treatment of Syrians. Civilians continue to endure the wrath of a single family, backed by a single political party. But there is only one way to read the future of Syria. The Syrian people deserve a new dawn of freedom, equality, social justice, free from empty slogans, self-serving elites and corrupt criminals. Syria and its courageous people deserve better. Much better.

Time to Change the Subject from Fake Political Crisis to Real Economic Crisis

Thu, 04 Aug 2011 15:20:00 +0000

AFL-CIO Executive Council Statement
Washington, DC

The United States is in a continuing and severe jobs crisis. Our economy is growing at less than 2 percent per year, and growth is slowing. Official unemployment is 9.2 percent and rising—driven now by mass layoffs of teachers, first responders and other public employees. The real unemployment rate is almost twice as high—once labor market dropouts and involuntary part-time work are taken into account.

It doesn't have to be this way. There are real solutions to the jobs crisis, but real solutions require government action.

Yet Washington is inexplicably focused on measures that will make the situation worse—both in the short and long run. Our nation's leaders are offering working people the choice between bad and worse policies. Instead of addressing our profound economic crisis, they are adding to it an unending series of fake political crises.

Real wages have been stagnant for three decades and are now falling. The housing market, the largest market of any kind in our country, continues its downward slide, driven by the collapse of an enormous bubble. Millions of American families have been or will be thrown out of their homes by banks, guaranteeing that this drag on our economy will continue for the foreseeable future. Our trade deficit keeps growing. We invest less and less in our nation's infrastructure while unemployment in construction is nearly double the national average. Veterans return home and struggle to find work. Our education budgets at every level are shrinking, and fewer and fewer of us have adequate health insurance or a pension.

Republican congressional leaders have made their agenda crystal clear—paralyze the government and hold our economy hostage until a multitrillion-dollar ransom is paid to their contributors in the form of tax cuts for the wealthy and for multinational corporations. They will not rest until they have succeeded in dismantling the American government and the American Dream—so their wealthy contributors can be sure that their taxes will remain the lowest in the developed world for the remainder of their days.

Unfortunately, far too many Democrats have been either silent or complicit in the Republicans' scheme. We expect Democrats at every level of government to stand tall for progressive principles, working families and the American labor movement. We need their leadership—not their excuses or apologies.

But this agenda has been clear for years. The congressional Republicans are doing nothing more than escalating the Bush agenda—using the disingenuous rhetoric of fiscal responsibility to transfer wealth to the rich, dismantle the social safety net and increase the deficit. If our country is going to have a bright and fair future, we need a completely different direction—toward a high-wage, high-skill, high-productivity economy, driven by investment in our workforce and our infrastructure, and our public services.

There is no way to fund what we must do as a nation without bringing our troops home from Iraq and Afghanistan. The militarization of our foreign policy has proven to be a costly mistake. It is time to invest at home.

Our unfair and inadequate tax system is at the heart of what is wrong with our economy and our society. Our government gives away tax breaks to billionaires and corporations while letting our infrastructure deteriorate and cutting aid for heating oil for the poor. We cannot build a competitive economy, pay our bills as a nation or address out-of-control economic inequality until we adopt a fair system of taxation.

Instead, policymakers are obsessed with cutting government spending with a meat ax—heedless of the consequences for our economy or our compassion.

In an economy beset by mass unemployment, inadequate demand, tight credit and asset deflation, massive cuts in government spending will be disastrous—particularly cuts that cause layoffs or reduce Americans' incomes, such as cuts in Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid. These deep cuts could easily catapult our economy straight into a double-dip recession, if not a Great Depression. And we run the risk of dragging the rest of the global economy down with us.

In an economy that runs chronic trade deficits of more than a half-trillion dollars a year and that has lost more than 50,000 manufacturing plants in the last 10 years, the last thing we should do is rush to pass more trade agreements built on the model that led to the hollowing out of U.S. manufacturing—like the Korea, Colombia and Panama agreements. And we need to reform our tax code to end the incentives and rewards for offshoring jobs—not lock in a corporate tax code that only taxes U.S. earnings, essentially inviting companies to move operations offshore and placing responsible employers at a disadvantage.

In an economy where tax revenues have hit a modern low of 14.9 percent of GDP and where the wealthy have seen the greatest income gains and the lowest tax rates since the Great Depression, there is absolutely no economic rationale for cutting tax rates or continuing the Bush tax cuts for the wealthy. In an economy where real wages have been falling for a generation, why would we go all out to silence workers, deprive them of basic workplace protections, defund the agencies that protect us, interfere with those who seek to enforce the laws and cozy up to foreign governments where workers are murdered with impunity when they try to organize?

Working people do not want a kinder, gentler or more reasonable version of the policies that caused the economic crisis, that dismantled the American Dream and that have undermined our democracy for a generation. We demand a completely different approach—we want jobs, prosperity, fairness and, most of all, a future for all of us.

Today, we must fight against the destructive ideas in play in Washington and in our state capitals. That is why the labor movement's voice is clear—we oppose any cuts to Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid benefits—no matter where they come from and that includes the Oval Office. We need a tax code that asks the rich to pay their fair share. We oppose corporate tax reform that is merely "revenue neutral" amid calls for "shared sacrifice." We oppose the Korea, Panama and the Colombia free trade agreements. And we will fight with every means we have against those who would take away the right to vote through a new generation of poll taxes and literacy tests.

But we cannot build a future by watering down bad ideas—or even by stopping them. Working people demand a politics of real solutions. Of good jobs—on the scale needed to make a difference. Of investment in our future—in our infrastructure, our health, our schools, our people. Of fair taxes and fair trade. And, most of all, a future where working people have a voice in our republic, in the workplace and the voting booth.

America wants to work, and we need a political system that will deliver on that urgent imperative. Today, real solutions are at hand, and in the months ahead, we are going to fight for them.

We will unite not only workers and our unions but a broad base of allies behind a comprehensive initiative that will invest in America, provide opportunity for all, ensure dignity through work and save our social safety net. We must build on and expand vital partnerships with women's, civil rights and minority organizations, and environmental, immigration, low-income, senior and faith groups. We also will strive to build alliances with business where possible, such as the work we have done together with a wide range of business groups to support investment in our nation's infrastructure.

We will promote a job creation agenda that will include direct federal investment as an alternative to tax cuts. A jobs agenda that will respond to the continuing high unemployment rates suffered by workers in the construction industry, the bleeding of jobs in the manufacturing sector, and the hemorrhaging of employment in the state and local government sectors. We will fight for:

- Maintaining income support and consumer spending, including extending the current federal extended benefits program for the unemployed, which expires in December;

- Rebuilding and modernizing critical national infrastructure to promote strong economic activity, including a robustly funded, multiyear Surface Transportation Act that expands our highway and bridge system and addresses the transit jobs crisis, and by creating an infrastructure bank that funds good jobs and helps rebuild our manufacturing base through standards and tools that will enhance the domestic supply chain;

- Enforcing our trade laws, fighting against China's currency manipulation to help our manufacturing base recover, and renewing a robust, long-term Trade Adjustment Assistance Act ;

- Establishing a program of countercyclical assistance to create and stabilize jobs in state and local governments, including adequate federal aid and permanent programs of direct local job creation and federal Medicaid matching rates that reflect fluctuations in unemployment rates;

-Helping the unemployed and families threatened with the loss of their homes;

-Adopting a fair tax system, including an end to tax breaks for companies going offshore and a financial transaction tax that asks those who caused the financial crisis to help pay for its consequences;

-And for every good idea that creates jobs and helps us take on the great challenge of rebuilding the American Dream.

Most of all, this is a time when everyone who cares about our future must stand together. We must organize, and we must have vision. The labor movement calls upon all who see a future for America that is better than our past to join us. It is time not for compromise but for vision, not for downsizing our dreams, but for seizing our future.

Photo by rasdourian/ cc by 2.0/ Flickr

China to Impose Carbon Caps

Thu, 04 Aug 2011 14:44:00 +0000

Original source: China Economic Net

China is likely to soon begin a campaign to limit the absolute amount of greenhouse gases that can be emitted by certain industries in certain regions, a senior climate official told a forum on Wednesday.

Sun Zhen, an official from the National Development and Reform Commission, said the campaign will be a step beyond the country’s current goal of curbing its carbon intensity, or the amount of carbon it releases for each unit of its GDP. He also said the policy will lay the foundation for carbon-trading programs.

“Throughout the country, we have adopted a plan for reducing releases of carbon: to substantially cut our carbon emissions for each unit of economic output,” Sun told China Daily at a symposium on climate change in Beijing on Wednesday.

“But when it comes to actually reducing the emissions of certain business, that calls for limiting the absolute quantity of emissions.”

Sun’s statement came as one of the earliest indicators that China is looking at limiting the total amount of greenhouse gases that can be released by certain industries in certain part of the country, not just the amount for each unit of its GDP.

By 2020, China plans to reduce the amount of carbon it emits for each unit of its GDP by 40 to 45 percent below its 2005 level.

The National Development and Reform Commission, which deals with issues pertaining to climate change, has said it plans to introduce regional cap-and-trade programs to control carbon emissions by 2013.

“Setting limits on the absolute amounts of carbon that can be emitted will make it possible to carry out trades of emission credits,” Sun said, without providing a schedule for the plan.

Iron and steel companies, cement plants and other businesses that use a lot of energy are likely to be subject to the program. Wealthy regions, such as the Yangtze River Delta and Pearl River Delta, are also places where carbon caps may be adopted, he said.

For the purpose of trading rights to emit carbon – which is what would take place under a cap-and-trade system – a monitoring and statistics system will be established. It will allow “each ton of carbon dioxide emitted by companies in the program to be numbered (for verification)”, Sun said.

The proposal to limit emissions of greenhouse gases falls in line with the country’s policy to curb its use of energy, said Zhang Jianyu, China program manager of the US-based Environmental Defense Fund.

The National Energy Administration is forming plans to limit the use of energy in certain wealthy provinces in an attempt at putting a brake on heedless development, Zhang said.

But some experts expressed doubts over whether the plan is feasible, especially at a time when several provinces are struggling to meet an increasing demand for energy.

For instance, South China’s Guangxi Zhuang autonomous region is experiencing its worst electricity shortage in 20 years, finding that it needs the capacity to produce 4 gigawatts more than it can now.

Yang Fuqiang, a senior consultant on climate change and energy at the US-based Natural Resources and Defense Council, said China will continue to use more and more energy in coming years. And with 70 percent of its primary energy coming from coal, the country is unlikely to limit carbon emissions even in the wealthiest parts of the country.

Also increasing the demand for energy are various industrial projects that were built using money from the 4-trillion-yuan ($621 billion) stimulus package passed in 2008, in the midst of the world financial troubles, and that are now going into operation, Yang said.

The Most Dangerous Game

Tue, 02 Aug 2011 09:34:00 +0000

Allow me to get first response stuff out of the way. The dangerous game we know we are all in --- every expanding returns on investments for a few and continuously maximizing profits to active shareholders and traders while the planet Earth fares ill and its populations fall back into a medieval peasantry, if they are not already mired in hunger and disease and illiteracy – is not the most dangerous game. That comes after we’ve played this preliminary dangerous game long enough.

Let’s begin with the prelim game:

Who stands to gain if the U.S. defaults on its debt obligations? We hear many questions, such as what effect would a default have on Wall Street, Main Street and the Washington Beltway, but this question is seldom if ever posed. Perhaps this is so because it emerges from a deep, dark cynicism, or, perhaps because it emerges from recent history and that history has not been pursued to indictment levels.

Jesse Eisenger and Jake Bernstein, writing in ProPublica, reported how a Chicago hedge fund named Magnetar made a vast fortune by betting against the market. It repackaged risky financial securities — collateralized debt obligations, or CDOs.—packed them full of even more risky stuff and then bet against these paying off by picking up insurance – credit default swaps – that would pay off upon failure. Note that failure was what they wanted; there was more money to be made if the securities failed than if they were paid off . Everyone involved in this game, namely bankers, made huge bonuses on this “planned failure” enterprise.

In February 2010, Stephen Foley reported in the online The Independent the following regarding Goldman-Sachs’ role in Greece’s economic woes:

The euro membership rules place strict caps on the size of government deficits relative to a national economy, but Goldman Sachs and other banks helped Greece raise cash earlier in the decade in ways that did not appear in the official statistics. With the current recession causing even official budget deficits to balloon all across the continent, fears of further hidden liabilities have been contributing to the crisis of confidence in Greek debt and pulling down the value of the euro.

This is indeed a dangerous game to be playing with national governments, the economic and, thus, political order of a society, and the well-being of citizens. In an age in which the “public good” and the “common wealth” are much disparaged, assaulted and neglected, our Millennial financial chicanery clearly points to our new dedication to the “public bad,” to the “wealth of a few.” It seems as if the word “public” has itself become bad and that we must now all reconcile ourselves to the ruthlessness and untrustworthiness of our “market players,” our financial advisors and gurus, our entrepreneurial CEO’s. The cleverness, slyness and quickness of the hedge fund manager, our new knight in armor, a black knight indeed, are the virtues we admire. He, however, meets the mood of a country whose citizens, divided on all levels, have replaced trust with suspicion, compassion with fear, hope with impatience, and understanding with blind rage and prejudice.

At the bottom of all this degradation, this retrogression from civilized attitudes and human goals, lies the greed and material self-interest that an economic system, which has no goal but profit to shareholders and no faith except in the “efficiency of markets,” in the Invisible Hand of the market, offers to us. And we have accepted greedily and blindly, repressing a way of life in the U.S. that did not make the goals of capitalism the exclusive goals of a democracy or its citizens.

I do not know how the Michael Burrys and the John Paulsons will profit from a U.S. default on its debt; I don’t know if Goldman-Sachs and other banking/investment houses have maneuvered profit from such default, but it is axiomatic for “players” to seek profit exclusively in any situation. It’s a dangerous game our capitalism is playing but it is one that has gone on without dire consequences to the players or the game. This may be so because we have indeed become part of the abyss we have looked into for so long. We do not know how to admire anything but the obscene financial successes of the shrewd financial wizards among us. We want to be them, even as the New York Times reports that in four years the wealth of Hispanics has gone down 66%, Asians 54%, African Americans 53% and Whites 16%.

As disastrous and incendiary as these figures are, we will respond as always: good fortune is on the horizon if we pursue self-interest with greater passion, nurture our own acquisitiveness a bit more, and do what the successful do: put out of sight all the soft soap that Liberals peddle, all the excuses and petitions of the Losers, all the appeals made on behalf of those who don’t know how to look out for Number One.

Ideologies held as unimpeachable Truths in the minds of dedicated followers ravaged the 20th century and while we may think that the current debt ceiling battle is an ideological battle, it is a battle in which the Invisible Hand of global techno-capitalism rules. There is no complex ideology behind the Conservative servitude to the plutocracy American democracy has become. And the socialist rooted ideology that created the prosperity of the middle class and the mobility of the working class has for a long time not been visible in a Liberal/Progressive agenda to extend “individual free choice,” an agenda that suits capitalism nicely but mostly distracts us from obliterating our economic divide, our wealth divide. Our politics dances to the tune of our Wild West brand of capitalism.

At the very bottom of the Norwegian Anders Behring Breivik’s madness that directed him to write a 1550 page manifesto that displays the hold extreme Right-wing nationalist and anti-Islamic views have on him, that led him to massacre 76 people, mostly children, is a total collapse of any bonds with his fellow human beings, of any love for them that would encourage a trust in them, of any hope for them. He explains his actions as a kind of “creative destruction.” Ideology did not create that monster. What created that monster is in the air we now breathe globally. It is not any ideology that has swept the globe but a Millennial brand of rapacious capitalism that divides rich from poor, neighbor from neighbor, human from fellow human. Breivik is a product of what is in fact the most dangerous game we are in.

And that game is this: when you live in a society in which no one trusts anyone, in which no one cares about anyone beyond “networking” for a purpose, when compassion is dead, when self-interest has created a blind selfishness that like a plant rooted in too small a pot feeds upon itself and withers, when obliviousness replaces neighborliness, when suspicion and fear create the local “community,” when everyone has a gun at hand for protection against a neighbor with a gun in his hand – a dangerous game has indeed begun.

The darkness that the U.S.’s deep dedication to “More” at the expense of everything cannot produce the sort of revolt of the masses that Marxists long predicted or those that have occurred most recently in the Arab Spring Revolutions. We are not now shaped to correct and re-balance a neoliberalism that benefits only the few. The interminable debate going on now over the raising of the debt limit makes it clear that even the smallest efforts to protect a middle class well-being and a working class hope of economic mobility cannot find traction. They cannot find traction with the Many who stand to gain if these protections and entitlements are maintained, who stand to gain if some erosion of the wealth gap occurs when the wealthy are taxed at historically effective progressive levels.

Rather than comprehend which side they should be on, the Many have done much to create the present difficulties in the U.S. by electing in 2010 eighty-seven “Tea Party” disciples whose only claim to be in political office is their self-proclaimed ignorance of politics, their hostility to it and their faith that they could dismantle Obama, the Democrats and the Federal government. At a time when the need is for negotiations, compromise and productive interrelationship, these legislators stand their ground like Old Testament prophets, filled with a righteousness that welcomes no infringements, brooks no compromise.

It is not clear who will take the most heat if some compromise is not reached; the situation is already beyond the “clean getaway” stage. The U.S.’s credit rating will be downgraded and the interest on new loans will rise. When the Many face reduced Medicare services and reduced Social Security and an even more unreachable Medicaid, anger may be evenly divided between Democrats and Republicans but “Big Government” will surely pay the price in the 2012 elections. Political candidates who promise they know nothing about government but promise only to destroy it and leave governance to Facebook circles will once again be popular.

All this needs to be said because the most dangerous game being played is not one in which the diminished and assaulted Middle Class and the drowning Working Class will reach some Noam Chomsky or Richard Wolff level of critique, will start to read Political Affairs, or even start to read Paul Krugman or truthout, and rise up, form real grassroots populist organizations, save what’s left of the New Deal and go on to re-balance the lopsidedness created by “classical economics,” put an end to the “shock doctrine” so brilliantly described by Naomi Wolfe, indict the perpetrators of the 2008 crisis, re-establish an effective progressive income tax, re-attach Liberalism with its socialist roots, wrest control of society from the plutocrats – and much more.

The mass psyche of the U.S. is too deeply a product of a self-interested materialism to launch that Utopian rising up of the Oppressed against Wealth and Privilege in the name of social justice, economic equity and humanity itself. It isn’t shaped to make a critique of what’s going on now. And that’s what’s needed.

The most dangerous game, then is not a possible revolt of the masses; that’s not even a game board Google can tell us how to set up. No, I’m afraid that we will fall more deeply into a perilous zone where community dies, suspicion and fear reign, violence replaces understanding, cold competitiveness dwarfs our hearts, and a true Dark Ages emerges. The wealthy will not be able to private jet over this or fashion gated communities that can abolish fear. But like feudal lords, they will abide but not without fear and the pain that a fearful uncertainty brings. The lordly Few will no longer be in a position to ask the Many to endure pain while they only legislate it into being; everyone will feel it. The most dangerous game begins when we retrogress to primeval levels of human caring and concern, of loving that cannot go beyond ourselves, of a “friending” that fails to go beyond its Facebook boundaries. We trust no one and no one trusts us. And we pretend something different, until a Breivik appears and we see what utter darkness our “privatized” caring can bring into being.

The most dangerous game begins when trust in each other dies. It is the lack of that trust that impedes any hope of political resolution now on any issues. Tony Judt (Ill Fares the Land, 2010), in his last days, foresaw the darkness of a world without trust:

Clearly we cannot do without trust. If we truly did not trust one another, we would not pay taxes for our mutual support. Nor would we venture very far outdoors for fear of violence or chicanery at the hands of our untrustworthy fellow citizens. Moreover, trust is no abstract virtue. One of the reasons that capitalism today is under siege from so many critics, by no means all of them on the Left, is that markets and free competition also require trust and cooperation. If we cannot trust brokers to behave honestly, or mortgage brokers to tell the truth about their loans, or public regulators to blow the whistle on dishonest traders, then capitalism itself will grind to a halt.