People Before Profit blog

Race and the White House, an Interview with Clarence Lusane

Sat, 05 Feb 2011 10:30:00 +0000

Editor's note: Clarence Lusane teaches political science at American University and has authored a number of books, including Hitler’s Black Victims: The Experiences of Afro-Germans, Africans, Afro-Europeans and African Americans During the Nazi Era (Routledge, 2002), Colin Powell and Condoleeza Rice: Foreign Policy, Race, and the New American Century (Praeger, 2006). His latest book The Black History of the White House is now available from City Lights Books.

PA: Your new book, The Black History of the White House, offers a model of historical writing, I think, that challenges what you call the dominant narratives of our history. What do you mean by “dominant narratives” and why is it important to challenge those things?

CLARENCE LUSANE: That’s a good question. Most of us have grown up with a particular framework about American history and particularly the history of the presidencies. For the most part it has been a cleansed history, meaning that the foibles, errors and mistakes that were made by presidents were essentially not part of that history, particularly when it comes to race. Correcting that was part of the motivation for doing the book. We can see even today that this continues to be a battle. The decision in Arizona, for example, to ban ethnic studies, meaning that the histories of people of African descent, Native Americans, Latinos, and Asians are more or less written out of the curriculum now in Arizona. Even more recently, this has been happening in Tennessee where a group of Tea Party activists also wants to rewrite history in a way in which only, as they see it, the positive parts of the lives of the Founding Fathers are taught, and any history related to what happened to African Americans as slaves, or what happened to Native Americans, who were frequently massacred, all of that should be written out. So we are always in a battle over how we understand and how we present history.

PA: Based on your experience in teaching history in this way, do you see change over time in how students respond to this or come to understand this counter-narrative?

CLARENCE LUSANE: Students, and I’ve been teaching close to 20 years now at the university level – each generation of students seems to forget what happened not only in the past, but almost immediately what has happened in front of them. The students who are coming in now, for example, are students who matured in the early 2000s, and we so have students now who think of Bill Clinton much as they think of George Washington – he’s an historic figure. So it becomes important that we revitalize and help them to either remember what they’ve forgotten or to learn what they have never learned. I think it has been a difficult transition, in many ways, for the universities, because the students who are coming in, this last generation, are coming in trained or in many ways educated through the Internet, and that means that a lot of the more rigorous kinds of book reading and learning that generations before went through, even with the imperfections, probably gave somewhat of a broader sense, or a more rigorous sense of history. Although students today have access to more information, they are coming with less knowledge. That’s what I’m finding and many of my colleagues are finding.

PA: You mentioned the Tennessee Tea Party’s drive to “cleanse” the history of the Founding Fathers, and in the book you analyze that tendency, broadly speaking, that we want to view the Founding Fathers as heroic figures. But a careful examination of the record, as you do in great detail in this book, reveals a lot of contradictions. Why should we resist the tendency to cleanse?

CLARENCE LUSANE: I think it is important for a number of reasons. President Obama, in his speech in Philadelphia during the campaign when he was responding to the Reverend Wright controversy, took advantage of that opportunity to talk about not only specifically how he was trying to deal with the controversy, but to frame it in a larger context of the history of race in the country. As he noted toward the end of his speech, part of being able to recapture that history is to recognize how it also resonates in the present, to see that the legacy of the many disparities we have seen for generations, the racial disparities in education, housing, in employment, and across the board in criminal justice, have their roots in this long history of unresolved racial questions in the US.

Part of going back to look at this history was not only to complete the overall historic record, so that we have the inclusion of everyone, but it was also to get a better understanding why, even in 2011, issues of race are so toxic and so passionate. That is because we have this long, long history, much of which is either ignored or unknown, that prevents the country as a whole from resolving these questions of inequality. Though I have spent a great deal of my life studying US politics and race politics, as I researched this book much of the information was new to me, because I had never particularly focused on it. Part of what I was trying to do with the book was to fill in this gap that nobody had focused on: how to understand this iconic place we call the White House, particularly with an African American and an African American family now in it. Obama often says that he stands on the shoulders of the previous occupants, and he is mostly referring to people like Abraham Lincoln and Franklin Roosevelt and John Kennedy, but he also, and his family also, stand on the shoulders of the African Americans who have come through there, because the building is a prism for the history of race relations in this country from the presidents who had slaves to policies that enforced segregation, to the policies that opened up space for attempting to address some of the country’s racial issues.

PA: You mention the President. The 2008 Presidential election plays such a big role in your story, as you’ve noted, but a lot of people insist that we're in a "post-racial era." What would you want readers to take away from your book about this?

CLARENCE LUSANE: We are in a period where there are countervailing trends and that are part of a long history. On the one hand, it’s absolutely true that there have been milestones and there have been advances. Certainly race relations in 2011 are not the same as race relations in 1959 or in 1869, and so we know that there has been that advancement. And this is often what the conservative movement focuses on, and solely focuses on. At the same time, though – and again I would underscore that even the President himself notes this – the persistence of racial disparities, which are well documented across the board, tells us that even reaching this milestone of having an African American reach the White House, given all the history that the country has had, doesn’t erase the broad reality being faced by tens of millions of other African Americans and other people of color and poor whites in the country today.

So there is still a lot to be done, and as we have seen in the last two years, beyond all that, the resentment on the part of many whites has led to a surge in what I would call public racism, where what we had thought had become unacceptable at least for a couple of generations – where regardless of what real feelings people may have had about race, there was an intolerance to expressions of racism at the public level, and you would not see signs and you would not hear speeches that seem from another era. But we have seen that come back, and we have seen it not just from the fringe but from mainstream elected officials; we’ve seen it from a very broad range of propaganda from right-wing radio and right-wing television, and we’ve seen it in parts of the Tea Party movement and its relationship to people like Sarah Palin.

We are in a very very difficult moment, and we need a counter-surge, I think, not only from the Black community and people of color, but from across the board, from progressives and others who want to make sure that we don’t revert back to another time. We need those kinds of voices. Hopefully this would include the White House, but I’m a bit skeptical, because I think in many ways what we have seen over the last two years is a very skittish kind of politics around race from the Obama Administration. Part of that I understand. I think that there is a sense that they can’t win on the issue of race, and that if it comes up in any context they automatically lose. At the same time, though, it is an issue that should not be avoided, because what they have done is surrender the discourse and surrender the debate to the more conservative and the more right-wing forces. This is why they have gotten in trouble on issues like the firing of Shirley Sherrod from the Department of Agriculture, where you just cannot imagine, if the circumstances had been reversed, that the Bush administration would not have defended one of its employees, certainly if it thought it was being attacked by somebody from the left. I think the administration needs to become more proactive on some of these issues, and hopefully such incidents are pushing it in that direction.

PA: Turning to the book itself, each of the chapters opens with a little story about an African American individual with some relevant link to the history you relate in the chapter. Why did you want to organize the book that way?

CLARENCE LUSANE: Well, the book didn’t start off that way. In 2007, when Obama announced that he was running, as I traveled around the US and around the world for the work I do, I was constantly being asked by people, “Can Obama win?”, “What is the meaning of having an African American in the White House?,” but also people were asking if there were ever other Black people in the White House - what’s the history? Part of my writing the book was to try to fill that gap, because as I looked around I saw that there wasn’t any comprehensive work that specifically talked about the history of Blacks in the White House.

There are a number of books that focus on the racial politics of US presidents, but they are told from the perspective of those administrations. I wanted to write a work that was told from the perspective of these African Americans and their many, many roles, throughout the White House. I had envisioned a book that would be 150-170 pages, but as I began to do the work, and I began to discover all of these stories, the book began to suggest to me a different way of presenting it. I decided that it was really critical to highlight the voices of these individuals who had been more or less written out of the history, who are unknown to all of us, including many people well versed in Black history. I wanted each chapter to start with the narrative of someone whose life experiences were a prism through which to begin to tell the story of how, in this particular time and in this particular era, all of the issues that later get addressed are embodied in this person’s particular experience. That’s what I wanted to do – to make sure that these voices were highlighted.

PA: One of the arguments you lay out is one which I think many people will find controversial and will cause debate. You argue that leading figures in the Southern colonies were motivated less by a desire for democracy and a republican government, in joining the Revolution, than they were by fears that the British were going to outlaw slavery, and that this was going to change their whole political economy down there. Could you comment on that particular issue?

CLARENCE LUSANE: I know that was being provocative, but as I began to go back and look at the literature and look at the debates, and began to focus on what was happening in the pre-Revolutionary War period I started to see these really different dynamics in the South. Now slavery was legal in virtually all of the colonies, so the issue of slavery by itself wasn’t a dividing line – but the future of where the country was going, and what role slavery would play in that, really was. For many in the North the Boston Massacre was the line in the sand and led people to commit to the Revolution. But for many in the South, they began to see the need to break from England based on a judicial decision that was handed down in England in 1772 called the Sommerset Decision. (That decision is written about in Slave Nation by Alfred and Ruth Blumrosen, which is a really detailed history of how this particular decision animated the South). The court decision in England essentially said that any slaves that came to England at that time would be set free, that England would no longer tolerate or accept slavery. So rather than there being parliamentary legislation or an order from the King, it basically came through this court decision.

Though the decision did not directly affect the colonies, there was the fear in the South that eventually it would, and all of that came to the fore in the debates around the Declaration of Independence, the Articles of Confederation, and especially the Constitution. For the South, the real issue was the protection of slavery, not states rights or a strong federal government. That is important because this is the 150th anniversary [2011-2015 ed.] of the start of the Civil War, and we’re going to be hearing a lot about the Civil War for the next four years.

Now, there is an argument out there that the Civil War was not about slavery, that it was about states’ rights, that it was about individual freedom, that it was about this oppressive national government. In fact, that is not the case at all. It really was not about states’ rights, and the South was actually by the time of the Civil War very anti-states’ rights, because they believed that under the states’ rights doctrine, states in the North like Massachusetts, Vermont, New Hampshire, and New York were violating the Fugitive Slave Laws that had been passed, the Fugitive Slave clause that is in the Constitution, as well as the 1793 and 1850 Slave Laws that were passed in Congress. In the Declarations of Secession that came from South Carolina, Mississippi, and all those other states that seceded, they very specifically name the states they thought were violating the Federalist clauses of the Constitution. So states’ rights really wasn’t the point. It was the defense of slavery, and that was there from the very beginning. My argument is that they went to war for slavery, and everything else sort of came along behind.

PA: Related to the question of the Civil War is your discussion of the Lincoln White House. You talk about the historical role that Lincoln plays as being something that is governed by the special circumstances he found himself in, the social forces and social issues of the time, rather than personal heroic traits – which is the thing we want to do with the Founders as well. We want them to be heroic individuals who have these great ideals. Why do we do that?

CLARENCE LUSANE: I think it’s just easier, because to understand a Lincoln or George Washington, or for that matter Obama, requires much more complicated thinking and a much more nuanced kind of understanding of the relationship between the individual’s own personality, their political views and tendencies, and the context in which that person has to operate. And that is not necessarily an easy understanding that gives easy answers, but ultimately this is what is necessary to try to get a broad picture of why certain decisions were made at certain points. Looking at those who founded the country and those who became presidents, 12 of the first 16 presidents had slaves, and 8 of them had slaves inside of the White House. Now this is a glaring contradiction in a country that says it was founded on principals of independence, democracy, liberation and freedom. The easy path out of that contradiction is simply to deny those practices.

A more complex but genuine understanding of that history is to locate them in their context and show the foibles as well as the achievements. Now these aren’t just intellectual questions; they are ideological ones, and ultimately they are political questions. Because the issue of responsibility and how decisions are made very much plays itself out today. So when there is an argument that the Civil War was about states’ rights, in part this is really an argument about the question of the relationship between the states and the federal government today, and the conservative movement, the Tea Party, and the Republican Party essentially want to make an argument now that the federal government really is the problem here – it is really about the circumstances under which people are feeling all of the economic, social and cultural issues that the country has to deal with. But this is really kind of an ideological argument, and it is not really based on the reality that there is a range of variables that are playing a role, including the role of the federal government, the role of the states, the role of elected officials, and so forth. That is why I think it is really critical that there is really a fight for perspective and really a fight for making more complicated what is often presented as simple.

PA: Finally, thinking about the current situation, is the President today under special scrutiny that previous presidents were not under, in order to fulfill his particular individual heroic role, you know, the greatest president since Abraham Lincoln and so forth, and to deliver on his agenda, to lead, to be out there. Is that something that is unique to him for particular reasons, and does he deserve that scrutiny?

CLARENCE LUSANE: That’s a great question. I think he is definitely under intense pressure from a wide range of sources that other presidents have not had. Part of it, I think, clearly has to do with the issue of race. From the point of view of African Americans, there are extremely high expectations. He won 95 percent of the Black vote, which meant it was not just Black progressives and liberals and Democrats – it was conservatives, independents and, you know, I’m absolutely sure that Condoleezza Rice and Colin Powell both voted for Obama. So there is a high degree of symbolism and expectation in the Black community that Obama represents, meaning that at a minimum he will be among the greatest of presidents, as people expected, if not the greatest.

On the other hand, there is pressure from whites who, even among those who supported him, did that in part in the sense of viewing him as a non-racial candidate. That puts pressure on him to not address issues specifically dealing with race, which for the most part he hasn’t; it has mostly been symbolic. In that sense there are, just on the racial front, expectations, many of which are unrealistic on both sides, that he has to confront on a daily basis.

In the broader context, he also became president in a period of global transition. The role of the US from essentially World War II up to the present has been hegemonic, but that is rapidly changing for a number of reasons, for both economic reasons and political reasons. Even on the military side, where the US has a preponderance of power and essentially is not challenged, the fact that it has to maintain that level has ramifications all the way across the board politically, economically, socially, and culturally. So Obama has to lead the country as it is going through this period when other centers of political and economic power are rising, and the US in particular is going through a very difficult time of economic transformation, where the complete ramifications of post-industrial life are now really starting to manifest themselves.

It seems very very unlikely under Obama’s watch, at least for the next two years, that unemployment is going to go down to anything near five or six percent, and it is actually probable that it might even rise to 12 percent or more, in part because there is little that the administration can do, because the Republicans are not going to let it do anything. But, in a broader sense, much of this is out of the control of whoever is president, whether it’s Obama or anybody else. And in that sense the judgment on Obama is going to really require a broader frame because of all that he is carrying, which is unique for American presidents.

A Party of Socialism in the 21st Century: What It Looks Like, What It Says, and What It Does

Thu, 03 Feb 2011 11:07:00 +0000

Editor's note: The following article represents the views of its author alone. It doesn't necessarily reflect the official views of any organization or collective.

"When we let freedom ring, when we let it ring from every village and every hamlet, from every state and every city, we will be able to speed up that day when all of God's children, black men and white men, Jews and Gentiles, Protestants and Catholics, will be able to join hands and sing in the words of the old Negro spiritual, "Free at last! Free at last! Thank God Almighty, we are free at last!" -- Martin Luther King Jr.

"Your Honor, years ago I recognized my kinship with all living beings, and I made up my mind that I was not one bit better than the meanest on earth. I said then, and I say now, that while there is a lower class, I am in it, and while there is a criminal element I am of it, and while there is a soul in prison, I am not free.

"I am opposing a social order in which it is possible for one man who does absolutely nothing that is useful to amass a fortune of hundreds of millions of dollars, while millions of men and women who work all the days of their lives secure barely enough for a wretched existence.” -- Eugene Debs

“The moment we begin to fear the opinions of others and hesitate to tell the truth that is in us, and from motives of policy are silent when we should speak, the divine floods of light and life no longer flow into our souls.” -- Elizabeth Cady Stanton

“The time of surprise attacks, of revolutions carried through by small conscious minorities at the head of unconscious masses, is past. Where it is a question of the complete transformation of the social organization, the masses themselves must also be in it, must themselves already have grasped what is at stake, what they are going for, body and soul. But … long, persistent work is required.

“In France, whose soil has for more than a hundred years absorbed revolution upon revolution ... and where the conditions for an insurrectional coup de main are far more favorable than in Germany – even in France socialists increasingly understand that no lasting victory is possible for them, without first winning over the great majority of the people ... The long work of propaganda and parliamentary activity are also recognized here as the first task of the party.” -- Frederick Engels

Introduction

These are trying and changing times. No one knows what the morrow will bring. What will it take for the Communist Party and the left in general to become more effective fighters for social justice and socialism?

Before attempting to answer that question, an autobiographical note is in order. I write from the standpoint of someone who has been a part of the communist movement for four decades. During that time, I felt very comfortable politically and ideologically. I didn’t have “big differences.” For most of that time, I was in one or another leadership position. I took sides in an internal struggle in 1991, although I see that experience differently now.

So a dissident I wasn’t. But when the Berlin Wall came crashing down in 1989 and the first land of socialism went belly up two years later, it raised some doubts and questions in my mind – enough to take a fresh look our conventional wisdom and practice.

I re-read Marx, Engels (especially his introduction to Class Struggles in France and his last letters), Lenin (especially Two Tactics of Social Democracy, Left Wing Communism, Tax in Kind, his speeches to the Communist International, and his final articles), Italian Communist Antonio Gramsci (I was reading Gramsci’s Prison Notebooks for the first time), Georgi Dimitrov (United Front against War and Fascism), Rosa Luxemburg, Palmiro Togliatti, and others. Meanwhile, I was reading many more contemporary authors (too numerous to mention) writing mainly, but not exclusively, in the Marxist tradition.

In doing so, I began to see our theory, methodology, politics, practice, history, and future in new hues and colors.

If I were asked to sum up what conclusions I reached it would be this: our theoretical structure – Marxism-Leninism – was too rigid and formulaic, our analysis too loaded with questionable assumptions, our methodology too undialectical, our structure too centralized, and our politics drifting from political realities.

Not for a minute did I lose sight of the wonderful comrades who graced our party at one time or another, nor the many, sometimes singular, contributions to theory and practice that communists have left in the footprint of the 20th century.

The Scottsboro Boys, the Great Sit-Down Strike, the Little Steel strike, the formation of the CIO, the Lincoln Brigade, the fight against Hitler fascism, the resistance to McCarthyism, the civil rights movement, the anti-war movement in the 1960s, and the fight against right-wing extremism, stretching from Reagan’s election in 1980 to the present – in all these and other struggles communists made contributions, sometimes history-making.

No other organization on the left can claim the same consistency of outlook and effort, accomplished in many instances in the face of fierce repression and irrational anti-communism, to borrow a phrase from Martin Luther King.

But I also realized that the future of our party isn’t in the past, but in the world of the 21st century, which presents its own unique challenges to humankind’s future.

Thus, standing still wasn’t a viable option. And to our credit, a decade ago we chose change. In the article that follows I continue this process of inquiry and adjustment.

Much of I write is exploratory. In other words, this is a work in progress, an unfinished manuscript. Readers will surely note inconsistencies, contradictions, silences and unfinished ideas.

These limitations might discourage me from publishing this paper, but I am mindful of two things that mitigate my hesitations. First, no one has a full answer to the daunting challenges of the present and future. Second, each of us has something to contribute to the renewal of the left of which the Communist Party is an integral part.

It is against this background that I offer my thoughts.

1. A party of socialism in the 21st century elaborates its theory and practice in a world defined by the following:

• a social system in which the reproduction of the conditions for exploitation of labor and nature appears to be reaching its limits;

• a hegemonic shift in power in a crowded and highly competitive world, albeit in its early stages, that could easily throw the world into fierce inter-state rivalries, generalized war, and chaos;

• a series of processes (global warming, nuclear proliferation and war, global poverty, pandemic diseases, population pressures, and the exhaustion of natural resources) are unfolding that could have catastrophic consequences, threatening the existence of most living species;

• the irruption and diffusion of new (communication especially) technologies that are reshaping the economic, occupational, class, racial, and gender structures, production methods, consumption habits, class and democratic politics, forms of social interaction and leisure time, the power of instruments of mass destruction and the nature of war, and conceptions of time and space.

Realistically speaking, a resolution of these challenges must begin well before the arrival of socialism on a global level. If we wait till then, both socialism and humanity are doomed. There is a “fierce urgency of now” that can be ignored only at a perilous price.

But here is the paradox: the “fierce urgency of now” is not yet matched by popular movements at the state and global level that possess the vision and capacity to resolve these daunting and interconnected challenges.

2. A party of socialism in the 21st century embraces Marxism, understood as a broad theoretical tradition that reaches beyond the communist movement. At the same time, it critically assimilates the American radical/democratic inheritance and the insights of other intellectual and political traditions.

As for “Marxism-Leninism,” the term should be retired in favor of simply “Marxism.” For one thing, it has a negative connotation among ordinary Americans, even in left and progressive circles. Depending on whom you ask, it either sounds foreign or dogmatic or undemocratic or all of these together.

For another thing, Marxism-Leninism isn’t identical to classical Marxism. The ideas of Marx, Engels, Lenin, and other earlier Marxists retain incredible analytical power, if studied and creatively applied to current realities.

But the same cannot be said about Marxism-Leninism. It took formal shape during the Stalin period during which Soviet scholars, under Stalin’s guidance, systematized and simplified earlier Marxist writings – not to mention adapted ideology to the needs of the Soviet state and party.

This simplification of Marxism, coupled with the enshrinement of a single party to the status of “official interpreter” of Marxism, came with a price tag. Theoretically and practically, it hemmed in and negatively impacted our party’s work.

To what extent will be debated for years to come. But one thing is clear: Marxism, if it is going to be a robust theory of socialist transformation, has to be historical, ecological, dialectical, comprehensive and independently elaborated – without shortcuts, simplifications or official boundaries. It can’t be the sole franchise of one party or school or tradition.

Its point of departure is the real needs, struggles and interests of the working class and people – the real movement. Its focus is on social (especially class) processes, relations, contradictions, dislocations, negations, and ruptures, not neat definitions and tidy formulas.

Marxism never confuses slogans and militancy (both of which are needed) for analysis. It employs principles, generalities and abstractions (the state is nothing but the political instrument of the ruling class, the two main parties are parties of capitalism, etc.), but it also insists on a concrete presentation of every question. And it is understandably wary of the inevitable (socialism), the uninterrupted (constant radicalization of the working class and intensification of crises), and the irreversible (the world revolutionary process).

Marxism is revolutionary in theory and practice, but it doesn’t consider “gradual” and “reform” to be dirty words nor does it believe that every political moment at the level of concrete reality is actually or potentially radical and revolutionary. The status quo is a stubborn and reoccurring phenomenon that too needs explanation. Nor does it buy the notion that social change rests solely on political will (“any fortress can be stormed”) or adheres to someone’s timetable.

In short, Marxism is a scientifically grounded mode of analysis, compass of struggle, and legitimate (and necessary) current within the working class and people’s movement.

If I had to grade our party’s analytical efforts over the decades, I would say that our critical eye was at times constricted. Some matters were off limits (Soviet foreign policy and development); there were blank spaces (gender and sexual relations), too many simplifications (trajectory of the economy – “boomless era of decline and contraction”), broad claims based on anecdotal evidence (progressive radicalization of working class and a party of hundreds of thousands around the corner). And dismissive attitudes toward other Marxist, radical and social democratic currents were too frequent in our discussions.

But to leave matters here would be one-sided and wrong. Our analysis of the national question of the African American and Mexican American (Chicano) peoples, the fight against racism and the special role of white workers, African American history, monopoly capitalism and the role of the state, the imperialist nature of war, capitalist economics, “fresh winds” in the labor movement, the role of the working class and its strategic alliances, the role of democracy and democratic struggle, the growth of right-wing extremism, Marxist ecology, the possibility of a peaceful transition, Bill of Rights socialism, and so forth – all this was notable.

3. The feet of a party of socialism in the 21st century are planted on the soil of the economic crisis – and for the long term.

The world economy and the triad of the U.S., Western Europe and Japan have yet to find a developmental path and structure of economic governance that brings sustainable economic growth and near full employment.

This is not to say that the economy is entering a “stationary state.” It is far more likely that the economy will oscillate around low levels of growth and high levels of unemployment for the foreseeable future.

As corporate profits climb to record levels, there is no commensurate increase in growth and employment rates. In fact, what we observe is a decoupling of corporate profits from economic growth and especially employment.

In the short term, there is little reason to be optimistic. And in the longer term the economic and ecological barriers impeding the process of capital accumulation, economic growth and job growth are formidable. Short of a new New Green Deal on a global level, it is hard to see where the dynamism for a sustained upswing, let alone a long boom, is going to come from.

The still unfolding crisis isn’t simply a crisis of regulation and the neoliberal model. But there is little doubt that the breakdown of regulation, together with neoliberal policies, greased the skids for the rise of finance three decades ago, the growth of unprecedented inequality, the explosion of debt, the bursting of bubbles, the over-accumulation of capital (too much capital and too few investible sinks) and, alas, the generalized crisis two years ago with still no end in sight.

Not to see this, not to take note of financialization, not to give adequate weight to the role of neoliberalism, to be content to characterize the current crisis as a crisis of overproduction, is to miss something profoundly important about the concrete dynamics and movement of the U.S. and global economy over the past three decades.

For now the capitalist class, and especially its top tiers, are sitting on massive amounts of surplus capital.

Moreover, it is in no rush to do anything different. Its main push is to create the best conditions to exploit labor economically and crush it politically.

4. A party of socialism in the 21st century fights for the interests of the entire nation. Since the 1980s, we have seen the deterioration of infrastructure, the destruction of the social safety net, the undermining of the public school system, the decay of urban and rural communities, the privatization of public assets, the growth of poverty and inequality, the hollowing out of manufacturing and cities, the lowering of workers' wages, and a faltering – now stagnant – domestic economy.

In a real sense, big sections of the transnational corporate class have pulled the plug on the American people, economy, and state.

Their operational strategy is worldwide in scope. It goes far beyond our borders. The evolution, dynamics and profit imperatives of the capitalism in recent decades have turned the world economy into the main unit of analysis for the U.S. transnational corporate class.

Markets, supplies of exploitable labor, and investment strategies of U.S. transnational corporations are worldwide in scope now. Their production sites stretch across regions and time zones, thanks to new technologies and available labor.

That doesn't mean that domestic production sites, consumption markets and workforces are of no consequence, the transnational masters of the world headquartered in the U.S. are less and less tethered to the national economy. This being so, the commitment of major sections of the transnational elite to a people-friendly public sector, a vibrant domestic economy and a modern society has waned. In fact, this elite is turning the state into its personal ATM machine and a military juggernaut to enforce its will at home and abroad. It's not an exaggeration to say that this social grouping has become a parasite sucking the life out of our government, economy and society, while living in bubbles of luxury, racial exclusion and class privilege.

This new reality has ominous implications for the future of the American people. It doesn't alter the strategic necessity of defeating right-wing extremists, whose plan is to regain complete control of the federal government in 2012 and shove this new reality down people’s throats.

What it does do is extend the ground for broadening and deepening a people’s fightback for the country’s future.

5. A party of socialism in the 21st century elaborates a strategic policy at each stage of struggle. After all, there is no direct or inevitable path to socialism. Nor is the working class going to simply “rise up” at some appointed time and fight for a society of justice. The struggle for socialism goes through phases and stages, probably more than we allow for in our current writings and program.

A strategic policy rests on an estimate of the alignment of political and social forces at each stage of struggle along the road to socialism. On this basis, a specific strategic and tactical policy emerges that brings into bold relief the contending array of class and social forces, the main democratic and class tasks at any given moment, and the political coalition that has to be assembled if the balance of forces is to shift in a progressive direction.

The historical landscape of our country is marked by periods during which such transformations occurred: 1765-1790, 1840-1876, 1890-1915, 1932-1948, 1954-1965.

In each period the contending forces and the nature of the struggle were different in content. But in each instance, the boundaries of democracy were qualitatively enlarged, a new alignment of forces took shape, and new democratic tasks came to the fore.

The election victory in 2008 cracked opened the door for another “burst of freedom.”

But the realization of this possibility has been blocked so far by right wing extremism – the political grouping that dominates the Republican Party and does the bidding for the most reactionary sections of the transnational capitalist class. It is not simply an, or the only obstacle to social change and transformation.

It is the main obstacle to social progress at this stage of struggle. And only broad people’s unity has the wherewithal to decisively defeat the deeply entrenched power of right-wing extremism, which would, in turn, weaken the corporate class and its allied bloc as a whole.

It makes little sense to take on the entire capitalist class when it is not necessary. Similarly, it is boneheaded to artificially “hurry” the political process along when pursuing such an option would likely result in defeat.

6. A party of socialism understands that in any broad coalition of social change, competing views are inevitable. The role of the left is to express its views candidly, but in a way that strengthens rather than fractures broad unity, which is a prerequisite for social progress.

The main social forces in this coalition, as we see it, are the working class, people of color, women, youth and seniors. And the overarching challenge is to transform these social forces (a category of analysis whose interests are conditioned by the place they occupy in a social structure) into social movements (a category of struggle), distinguished by their differing degrees of unity, organizational capacity, mobilization, alliance relationships, and not least, depth and consistency of political outlook.

The most dramatic illustration of this transformation of social forces into social movements was evidenced in the 2008 election campaign. Unfortunately, the “movement” of these broad social forces was not sustained in the post-election period.

7. A party of socialism in the 21st century takes as its point of departure the issues that masses (relative term) are ready to fight for.

This seems like a no-brainer. And yet, the pressures to make left demands, or anti-reform reforms (the new buzz word) the point of broad unity are constant. Too many on the left still think that the role of the left is to up the ante, to double the bet, to set its demands against the demands of the broader movement.

No one doubts that left demands have a place in class and people’s struggles; only a fool would suggest otherwise. But they are neither the takeoff point for united action nor the singular thing that the left brings to mass struggles.

More important is a strategic approach, capacity building skills, an alternative analysis, vision and values, and a sustained commitment to uniting a broad people’s movement.

8. A party of socialism in the 21st century steers clear of false oppositions between partial and more advanced demands, between gradual and radical change, between electoral forms of action and direct action, between mass action and nonviolent civil disobedience, between patriotism and anti-imperialism, between struggle against the state and struggle within the state, between anti-capitalism and sensitivity to rifts in the capitalist class, and between general (say jobs) and particular demands (say affirmative action).

I could go on, but I think my point is clear: a party of socialism in the 21st century has to appreciate that seeming opposites interpenetrate and where properly utilized, enhance class and democratic struggles.

9. A party of socialism in the 21st century doesn’t turn – liberals, advocates of identity politics, single issue movements, centrist and progressive leaders of major social organizations, social democrats, community based non-profits, NGOs, unreliable allies, and the “people” (according to some, a classless category concealing class, racial, and gender oppression) – into enemies.

Nor does it withdraw from participation in capitalist democratic institutions. Rather than participating reluctantly and intermittently and rather than seeing such participation as a lower order task, a party of socialism will elevate electoral and legislative struggle to a primary arena of struggle; it will see such participation as absolutely essential at every phase of struggle.

Struggle within the state is no less important than struggle against the state. The two are dialectically connected, but at various moments, one side of the dialectic may take priority over the other.

10. A party of socialism in the 21st century is steeped in concepts of class and class struggle. Our overriding aim is a society in which class divisions disappear over time. Class divisions, after all, are at the core of capitalism and its production relations, politics, and culture.

This material reality explains why the capitalist class and its far-flung ideological apparatus attempt to hide class divisions. We hear of, and of course, there exist other divisions that to one degree or another shape and reshape capitalism’s political economy, politics, and culture. But you have to look long and hard for any mention of class divisions and, heaven forbid, class antagonisms and class struggle.

Furthermore, the erasure of class and class struggle in popular discourse receives an assist from some left, progressive, and academic circles that are busy cutting the class question down to size. It is done in the name of resisting class reductionism and economic determinism on the one hand, and allowing for multiple determinations on the other.

While we should avoid class reductionism, economic determinism, and simplified explanations of the historical process, we get no closer to the truth by back benching historical materialism and the analytical and struggle categories of class and class struggle.

In fact, as the working class in the course of struggle comes forward as a leader of the broader movement (which is now happening), and as the questions of power come to the fore more sharply, don’t be surprised to see a movement back to class concepts and historical materialism – not to mention a new interest in the theoretical contributions and political biography of Lenin. No one in this or the last century can match his body of work on questions of class, democracy, alliance policy, nationality, power, and socialist revolution.

More to the point, any thought of achieving socialism USA, is pure fantasy if it doesn’t include as a cornerstone an active, united, class conscious, and numerically large majority of the working class in the leadership of a larger people’s coalition.

Therefore a primary task of a party of socialism in the 21st century is to focus on the working class and the issues it confronts in daily life. Not since the 1930s has the working class faced such dire circumstances and felt such profound insecurity. Stalled wages, massive job losses, collapsing health care and pensions, job competition on a hitherto unheard of scale, and other factors are putting great downward pressure on living standards and working conditions. Were it not for two wage-earner households, overtime, second and even third jobs, and astronomical consumer debt, the working class would be in even worse straights.

In the bull’s-eye of our working class focus is the organized sector of the working class – the labor movement. This sector, with its political understanding, experience, organization, know-how, tactical acumen, and resources is at the core of any revitalized working class and people’s coalition.

But here is a problem: the working class’ associational power (the power that comes from organizing into trade unions and political parties) has declined significantly; roughly 12 percent of the working class is organized into trade unions. At the same time (and connected) labor’s structural power (the strategic power that comes from labor’s location at the core of the strategic sectors of the economy) that it leverages in its own interests has also been greatly weakened with the precipitous decline of mass 20th century production industries.

How to change this, how to strengthen labor’s bargaining power in the workplace and its social power in the community and state, how to build up its political and organizational capacity are compelling challenges. As long as the number of organized workers is near single digits, labor’s impact no matter how good its initiatives will be limited.

Thus, an overriding strategic task of labor, and every democratic-minded organization and person for that matter, is to enlarge the organized section of the working class. The country’s future depends on it.

Two things would greatly facilitate this: first, the defeat of right-wing extremism, thereby creating the possibility of a more labor-friendly organizing environment, and second, the continued evolution of labor into a social movement, that is, an acknowledged champion and tribune of the broader people’s movement.

11. A party of socialism in the 21st century attaches overriding importance to democratic (reform) struggles (right to a job, health care, housing, equality, education, clean air, immigrants rights, peace, vote, speech, etc.) They are a core element in the struggle for class advance, social progress and socialism.

Anyone who demeans the struggle for democracy goes directly against the grain and experience of the great democratic reform movements and leaders (Tom Paine, Frederick Douglass, Susan B. Anthony, Eugene Debs, W.E.B. Du Bois, Fanny Lou Hamer, Martin Luther King, Cesar Chavez) who fought for the expansion of rights/reforms and every inch – no matter how small – of democratic space.

That these struggles unfolded in a capitalist democratic shell doesn’t negate their significance. In fact, in each instance the protagonist took advantage of the existing space and rights available to organize for his or her cause.

A party of socialism in the 21st century should do likewise.

Indeed, the struggle for democracy/reforms is every bit as important in the 21st century as it was earlier. It is both a means and an end. It empowers people and people empower democracy. It not only brings relief from capitalist exploitation and oppression, it is also the main road to radical change.

In fact, it is hard to imagine how the necessary forces can be assembled and unified at each stage of struggle, including the socialist stage, if the working class and people’s movements are not fully engaged in democratic/reform struggles – first and foremost the right to a job at a living wage and other economic rights.

In saying this, it could be argued that I’m privileging the democratic struggle over the class struggle? Not in the least, changes in the balance of class power can and do either open up new vistas for democratic and socialist transformation or narrow them down, depending upon which class and its allies have the upper hand politically and ideologically at any given moment.

What I’m challenging is the notion that everything is subordinate to class and class struggle no matter what the circumstances.

Analytically and practically, I would strongly argue that the relationship between the two – class and democracy – is dialectical. Each interpenetrates and influences the other. Neither one can be fully realized apart from the other. And both interact in the context of a social process of capital accummulation.

12. A party of socialism in the 21st century doesn’t irrevocably lock social forces, organizations and political personalities into tightly enclosed social categories that allow no space for these same forces, organizations, and personalities to change under the impact of issues, events and changing correlations of power.

As one keen observer, for example, wrote,

“Given how things have turned out so far, it's comfortable for some on the left to pass off the Obama phenomenon as all myth and illusion from the very beginning. The ‘neo-liberal’ label is pinned on him, he’s ‘always been a conservative', 'he's really pro Wall Street'. Such stereotyping and assignment of an individual to a closed political box runs counter to much historical experience. Movements and the flow of events can change how individuals see things and how they act. All things considered, there can be little doubt that Obama views himself as on the side of struggling Americans – nor is there any doubt that defeating him and ‘taking back the country’ is the prime objective of the neo-fascist mob.”

This is mature advice.

13. A party of socialism in the 21st century extends a welcoming hand to intellectuals; it should tease out of its political culture any anti-intellectual biases. A party that has transformative aspirations in a very complex world requires a growing group of Marxist intellectuals.

By the same token, Marxist intellectuals found on university campuses would gain greatly from connections to labor and other social movements. In too many instances, they come up empty in a strategic and tactical sense.

14. A party of socialism in the 21st century searches for rifts and fissures within the ruling class and other social forces and shows no hesitation to take advantage of these differences. A successful struggle against a united ruling class is tough sledding.

15. A party of socialism squeezes every possible concession from its opponents, but it doesn’t blink an eye to compromise when the balance of forces dictates that course of action; the compromise may only make an inch of difference, but it is likely a lot of people live on that inch.

For sure, small-bore victories can dull the urgency of change and create illusions, but they can also raise hopes and expectations, deepen understanding and unity, and set the stage for struggle on higher ground. A people’s victory, even a minimal one, can teach more lessons than the most eloquent speeches by the best of us.

16. A party of socialism in the 21st century believes that majoritarian political movements are the midwives of reforms, radical and otherwise, and eco-socialist transformations. Militant minorities comprised of progressive and left forces make a big difference, but they can’t and shouldn’t try to substitute for broader masses of people. The cause may be righteous and the agitation compelling, but only when righteousness rhetoric is joined by a material force does change happen.

17. The task of a party of socialism in the 21st century is to give leadership to the movement as a whole, to be a force for broad working class and people’s unity, to interconnect the particular and general demands of a multilayered social movement, to articulate a socialist vision and values – a challenge to be sure.

We have no illusions that we can meet this challenge through our efforts alone nor do we think any other organization or social movement on the left can either. The highway to radical democracy and socialism hinges on a far bigger, broad-based, and mature left than presently exists.

At the same time, we strongly believe the Communist Party, USA fills a uniquely necessary space on the continuum of the radical movement.

Our experience, our broad and flexible strategic and tactical concepts of struggle, our keen appreciation of the imperative of broad unity, our working-class outlook and roots, our internationalist and dialectical approaches, our willingness to embrace new forms of organization, communication, and united action, and our vision allow us to make a vital contribution to the project of the left and to the struggle for human emancipation.

18. A party of 21st century socialism will give special importance to the struggle for racial and gender equality.

In recent decades vast political, economic, social and demographic transformations have occurred. Nevertheless, the fight for full racial and gender equality retains its overarching importance in its own and strategic terms.

Anyone who devalues the struggle for racial and gender equality (which are better understood as internal and organic to one another rather than intersecting; much the same could be said about class and its connection to race and gender) limits the sweep of any victory at best; at worst, it provides an opening to the most backward sections of our ruling class and their constituency to gain ascendancy ideologically and politically. Indeed, for three decades racist, misogynistic and homophobic appeals were the grease that smoothed the passage to power of the extreme right.

And no ebbing of this filth has happened since the election of Barack Obama two years ago. Actually, a ramped up right-wing-driven ideological counteroffensive has occurred.

A firm rebuff to this counteroffensive is imperative, and a special responsibility falls on the shoulders of white people and workers in this regard. Neither racism nor sexism is a special product of the working-class movement, as some suggest.

Saying this doesn’t imply that the working class has no hand at all in reproducing either form of inequality and oppression. To think so would be naïve.

But it would be more naïve to think that white and male workers have no interest in the fight for racial and gender equality and against racism and male supremacy. They do, and it is moral as well as material. Racism and sexism spiritually dehumanize as well as materially impoverish the entire working class.

Despite the deep embedding of unequal relations in the structures and political economy of capitalism, and the unceasing propagation by right wing extremism especially, the struggle against racism and sexism is winnable – but only on the basis a broad, united, multiracial, class-based movement. Anything less in today’s conditions will not stand a ghost’s chance of success, and, will, in turn, forestall progressive and socialist advance.

19. A party of socialism in the 21st century will vigorously combat nativism and xenophobia.

Immigrants bring to our country their cultures, labor power, and their traditions of struggle.

No one who has been involved in struggles on the contemporary scene can help but note the role of immigrant workers in fighting for democracy, workers’ rights, quality education, community empowerment, cultural heritage, and immigration laws that are humane and just. Their spirit is militant and anti-capitalist.

No wonder that the right wing demonizes them. Immigrant-bashing and denial of rights combines with racism and other backward ideologies and practices to divide the developing people’s movement. A party of socialism in the 21st century will elevate this struggle and combat this assault on the immigrant community across the country.

20. A party of socialism in the 21st century will give proper political importance to the struggle for gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgendered rights – something that it didn’t do in the past.

Socialist society should not privilege one sexual orientation over another; instead it should celebrate sex, diverse sexual orientations, and marriage arrangements. Sexual longing is a deeply individual matter and love and marital partners shouldn’t be a matter of state concern.

More immediately, the movement for gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgendered rights has emerged over the past four decades into a powerful and broad social movement that occupies an important position in the people’s movement. Through its efforts victories have been won and sensibilities of society changed.

Nevertheless, right-wing extremism continues to contest this movement’s legitimacy and aims. It continues to paint gay people as despised and immoral. Homophobia remains for this backward political grouping a wedge issue to be employed to mobilize its constituency. However, right-wing extremism isn’t winning this struggle, and while much still needs to be done, there is no reason to think that this will change.

21. A party of socialism in the 21st century will place a high priority on independent political action and the formation of a party independent of corporate capital.

Two contradictory trends are observable. On the one hand, millions are registering to vote as independents; still more feel alienated from the political process; and new independent parties and forms are cropping up at the local level.

On the other hand, the main social forces and organizations of political independence and the necessary base of an independent political party continue to work within the Democratic Party.

But with this twist: they operate independently of the organizational structures of that party. And that is likely to continue; in fact, as their dissatisfaction grows they will attempt to enlarge their voice and power.

In other words, the main and necessary forces of an independent political party will likely exhaust all or nearly all of the possibilities to reform the Democratic Party, including attempts to take it over, before looking for an exit. Our tactics should take this into account.

One final observation: we say too definitively that the independent forces stand no chance whatsoever of taking over the Democratic Party. That still may be the case, but it is a mistake to rule it out completely at this point.

22. A party of socialism in the 21st century is internationalist in outlook and practice. And well it should be.

Though we are barely a decade into the 21st century we have a good glimpse of what the lay of the land will look like decades ahead.

What is most striking is the growing imperative to address and resolve global problems in a timely way – global warming and environmental degradation, nuclear weapons buildup and proliferation, unceasing wars, resource conflicts, immense poverty, uneven development, health epidemics, etc.

What is the upshot of all this? These trends unless arrested could make the world unlivable.

In this dark cloud there is a silver lining however: hundreds of millions worldwide are becoming aware of the fraught situation and conscious of the need to take action. Self-interest and internationalism are merging, but is it fast enough?

Standing in the way is U.S. imperialism, which remains the main obstacle to a peaceful, livable, and sustainable planet. Both wings of the ruling class are determined to maintain U.S. primacy in the global system, notwithstanding employing different methods of rule – one by force and the other with a mix of diplomacy, multilateralism, soft power and force, but employed more judiciously.

While the differences between one and the other method of rule are important and should not be ignored, the overarching desire for top dog status worldwide remains regardless of who is in command of U.S. foreign policy.

Thus only a popular movement at home and abroad will compel U.S. imperialism to make a strategic retreat in every region of the world beginning with Central Asia and the Middle East, to end the occupation of Afghanistan, to complete the withdrawal of U.S. military presence from Iraq, to settle the long-standing conflict between the Palestinians and the Israeli government, to lift sanction regimes against Iran and other states and end the blockade on Cuba, to reduce and eliminate nuclear weapons, to close up military bases around the world and dissolve NATO, and so forth.

A big challenge for sure, and crucial to winning the American people to engage in such a movement, is re-envisioning our role in the world community. The point isn’t for the U.S. government to simply to crawl into a national shell, but to reinsert itself into world affairs on the basis of cooperation, peace, equality, and mutual benefits. But as long as the notion of Manifest Destiny, of an “indispensable nation” lingers, the fight for a new democratic foreign policy will be immensely difficult.

It follows that the role of a party of socialism in the 21st century is to assist this process, to fight for international unity and peace, and against its own imperialism, and to articulate an alternative vision of the place of the U.S. in the world community.

23. A party of socialism in the 21st century will note and draw lessons from the enormous achievements of socialist societies. Social problems (such as unemployment and the burden and inadequacy of child care, for instance) that persist in capitalist societies were, if not solved, greatly alleviated in many of the countries of socialism. Nor can we forget the solidarity that the Soviet Union and other socialist countries provided to countries fighting to break out of the web of colonialism and neocolonialism, nor the decisive role of the Red Army in crushing Nazi Germany, nor the Soviet Union’s sustained opposition to nuclear war.

That said, a party of socialism should make an unequivocal break with Stalin and his associates, not to please the enemies or critics of socialism, but to acknowledge to millions that the forced and violent collectivization of agriculture, the purges and executions of hundreds of thousands of communists and other patriots, the labor camps that incarcerated, exploited and sent untold numbers of Soviet people to early deaths, and the removal of whole peoples from their homelands can’t be justified on the grounds of historical necessity or in the name of defending socialism. They were crimes against humanity.

To describe these atrocities as a mistake is a mistake – criminal: yes, a horror: yes, a terrible stain on the values and ideals of socialism: definitely.

To make matters worse, the practices of the Stalin regime set in place theoretical notions, structures and relations of governance, laws of socialist economy, justifications for concentrated power, and a great-leader syndrome that in the end weakened socialism in the USSR and other socialist countries.

I can’t speak for other parties, and have no desire to, but our party should be unequivocal in its condemnation of the Stalin regime.

24. A party of socialism in the 21st century is well aware that the transition to socialism is complex and contingent on many factors, both intended and unintended, foreseen and unforeseen, on conscious actions of contending forces and on factors largely beyond its control (imperialist wars, economic crises, global warming, resource wars, natural disasters, terrorist actions, etc.).

There are pauses as well as surges; incremental changes give way to ruptural tears in the social fabric; positions are won in the state, economy and civil society, but setbacks and shifts in momentum are part of the package too. Dress rehearsals happen more than once.

Changes in the realm of thinking interface with changes in the realm of action. Far more than social transformations of the past, socialist transformation rests on a deep-going change in values and thinking; the working people are fully into it, mind as well as soul.

Contrary to our customary understanding that one ruptural – insurrectionary – event defines the transition process, a series of turning points, as I see it, map the transition over a protracted period of time. In other words, more than one constitutive moment defines the transition period to socialism, and in their totality creates the conditions for a flourishing socialist society.

As crucial as control over and the democratization of the state is, it is still only a piece, albeit a necessary facilitating piece, of a larger transitional and interactive process that decentralizes and diffuses people’s power throughout society.

The state in other words is one, but not the only institution to be transformed by forces within and outside of it.

Which comes first – the transforming of the state or civil society – is a question that bears little analytical fruit. The relationship between the two is dialectical and thus the two interact constantly and in complicated ways.

All this is premised on deepening and broadening of socialist consciousness, on building up the political and organizational capacity of the working class and its allies, on sustained mobilization on a scale never before seen, and on an ability to resist and block attempts to illegally and unconstitutionally reverse democratic gains.

It also rests on an organized, flexible, strategically insightful, united, and tested leadership (of parties and movements) that fights for breadth of alliances, takes advantage of the slightest differences among its adversaries, and above all, fights for broad unity and sustained mass action.

In recent years, radical social transformations have occurred in relatively peaceful (peaceful is not passive) circumstances in Latin America. There an active, organized, and overwhelming majority of the working people led by left coalitions (in which communists are a part) and its allies have democratically won political positions in state structures and then utilized them to isolate elites, dislodge neoliberal governments, and clear the ground for democratic, social, socialist transformations.

A party of socialism in the 21st century should study this experience closely. Broadly speaking, the transition to socialism in the U.S., I suspect, will follow a similar path, differences notwithstanding.

The traditional imagery of the revolutionary process – economic breakdown, insurrection, dual power, violence and bloody clashes, smash the state, and the quick rollout of socialism – provides few insights. In fact, I would argue that it is an analytical deadweight; it favors simplicity over complexity; it dulls and dumbs down the socialist imagination; and it’s disabling strategically and tactically.

Underlying much of the above is that the state isn’t simply the instrument of the ruling class – a monolithic and tightly integrated class bloc and weapon. While the capitalist class is dominant, the state is filled with internal contradictions and is a site of class and democratic struggles – not just any site though, but a crucial and decisive site.

Thus the nature of the struggle isn’t simply the people against the state, but the people winning positions and influence in the state and then utilizing them to make changes (within and outside of the state) in a highly contested political environment – an environment of sharp clashes, uncertain outcomes, and an engaged people.

Now some will say that this is highly unlikely, even utopian. But one has to ask: is the seizure of power and the quick dismantlement of the existing state in favor of a new “out of the ashes” socialist state any less utopian? The latter model has been ascendant for nearly a century and still socialism is only a wish among communists in the advanced capitalist world.

Of course, the reasons for this are many, but I don’t believe the insurrectionary model of revolution makes the road any easier or is any more realistic as a reading of the future.

25. For a party of socialism in the 21st century, its vision of socialism is a work in progress.

It will have distinctive features and characteristics, springing from our own history and experience. It will complete the unfinished democratic tasks left over from capitalism, while preserving and deepening existing democratic freedoms and civil liberties. It will breathe new life into representative democracy and uphold the rule of law. It will recognize the people as sovereign as well as register support for a multi-party system of governance and alternations of parties in power if the people so decide.

Our socialism will bring an end to exploitation of wage labor, not in one fell swoop, but over time. It will expand collective/democratic rights, while at the same time giving pride of place to human fulfillment and creativity. Bureaucratic collectivism and a command economy that reduce people to cogs, social relations into things, and culture to a dull gray will be resisted by a 21st century party of socialism.

Our socialism will be anything but drab. It will have a modern and dynamic feel to it. It will dance to the beat of our people, our cultural diversity, and our many rhythms. It will celebrate the best traditions of our nation and give “love of country” a new democratic content.

Our socialism will embrace a new humanist ethos and value system as we overcome divisions of class, gender and race. A community of caring, kindness, equality, and solidarity will become the dominant realities of daily life.

Our socialism will encourage mass participation in every sphere of life. To do so, the workday and workweek will be reduced and a social wage will be legislated. But these measures alone are inadequate for at least half the population. The workload for women has increased in recent decades as women have entered the workplace and as the modern requirements of daily life (longer life expectancy for the elderly, for example) have fallen disproportionately on them.

Thus new social arrangements to care for the very young (free quality child care for all) and the very old as well as collective alternatives to what is still “women’s work” – cooking, cleaning, and laundry – are necessary. Women combine paid work and unpaid household labor into a pre-dawn to post-dusk workday.

Our socialism will insist on the separation of church and state, but it will also assume that people of faith will be active participants in society.

During the transition period, at socialism’s dawn in our country as in others, and then long into the day, 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.

What the exact mix is, how it changes, and the particular forms of democratic control will change as conditions – objective and subjective – change. Such ownership relations and market mechanisms do not preclude economic planning or a national investment strategy.

In fact, given that the longer term task of a socialist state and society is to shift the logic of production from wealth for the few, militarism and limitless growth to production for human need and economic sustainability, it is hard to imagine how such an enormous transformation can be successfully tackled without planning and a society-wide investment strategy, albeit based on broad consultation with and democratic control by working people and their representatives.

Unlike capitalist apologists who say that private ownership by the few is the material basis of freedom and economic security, proponents of socialism will rebut such a claim with the propaganda of the deed: they will show in practice that socialist forms of property and economic organization are the ground on which freedom can flower.

The charge of socialism’s builders is to bring the social and democratic into the main sites of socialization – the state, economy, media, and culture; socialism in this century should be every mindful of the difficult, yet necessary task of subordinating the state to social power.

In other words, the state in socialist society shouldn’t hover above and control every aspect of society. Such socialism becomes distant, alien and bureaucratic. Instead, the builders of socialism should put into place a dense network of worker and community organizations that are politically and financially empowered to govern in various institutional settings.

Contrary to some opinion on the left, socialism's essence isn’t reducible to property/ownership relations and class power in the abstract. Although both are structural foundations of socialist society, they don't by themselves constitute socialism.

What they do is create the possibility for a socialist society, but socialism becomes real, becomes socialism only to the degree that working people exchange alienation and powerlessness for engagement, empowerment and full democratic participation, only to the degree that power, decision-making and planning are diffused to the wider community. Otherwise, they become mystifying shells that conceal unsocialist structures and practices.

Working-class initiative and a sense of real ownership of social property are the sinew and ligaments, of socialism, while legal relations, public ownership and structures of class power are facilitating mechanisms.

In short, a party of socialism in the 21st century will measure the degree of socialist development by real relations, not formal ones.

Socialism gives priority to sustainability and sufficiency, not growth without limits, not endless consumption. Socialist production can't be narrowly focused on inputs and outputs, nor employ purely and narrowly constructed quantitative criteria to measure efficiency and determine economic goals. Nor can status and the fulfillment of human needs be reduced to the constant expansion of consumer goods. Socialism isn’t simply a “provision and rights society.”

That said, we cannot wait for socialism to address the dangers of climate change and environmental degradation. That must be done now. We are approaching tipping points which if reached will give global warming a momentum that human actions will have little or no control over.

Finally, in order for a socialist society to flourish, the process of change has to occur on several levels almost simultaneously. Just as the emergence of capitalism rested on the coincidence of several processes interacting together, the same is the case with a socialist society.

26. A party of socialism in the 21st century will construct its own organizational model in line with its own material conditions and needs. It shouldn’t be hatched out of thin air or imported from another country. The size of the membership, the concentration and location of members, the breadth of leadership, the scope and intensity of the class struggle, and its aims are the main determinants of the organizational character of a 21st century party – its structures, forms and rules of organization.

The structures, forms and rules also depend on the organizational and cultural traditions of our country.

Organizing club meetings every two weeks, insisting that every member belong to a club and pay monthly dues, agitating clubs to focus on a shop or neighborhood, and expecting every member to support the entire party program, circulate the press, and abide by the decisions of the majority is one way to structure a communist party. But it is not the only way. We need much more flexibility as far as structures of organization and membership expectations are concerned.

We are a small party with a committed but thin layer of leaders that hopes to become a much bigger party in a non-revolutionary situation, in a far-flung country, and in the age of the Internet.

In this era defined in many ways by the internet, we shouldn’t attempt to replicate in every, or even most, details the old model of communist organization. A party with a high degree of discipline and centralized structure of organization doesn’t fit the present status of our party or the zeitgeist of our times. This isn’t 1917 – our society is exceedingly complex, the mentality of the Cold War is receding, people are busy as hell, a good number of boomers are tired, and young party members are juggling careers, debt, and activism.

These realities require new forms of interaction, communication, education , decision-making, organization and messaging. And, not least, they require new standards for party membership and a new style of leadership that politically engages the membership and leads by force of argument.

So where does this leave democratic centralism? I’m for dropping the term. Now don’t get me wrong. I’m for collective discussion, broad interaction, democratic decisions, testing decisions in life, and the struggle for unity in action.

But the rule that every member is obligated to carry out party decisions no longer fits our circumstances. The truth is that we never enforced it. If someone chose not to carry out a decision, nothing was done in most instances. If we can’t win members and leaders to a position politically then administrative action is unlikely to help.

The main way to mobilize and unite the party is through political discussions, education, transparency of decisions, persuasion, and sound political decisions.

For similar reasons I suggest we drop the term “unity of will.” Among other reasons, it’s a term, or really a concept, that can easily be abused, and it has in our past.

27. A party of the 21st century must be Internet-based. To believe otherwise is to turn one’s back on recent experience, especially President Obama’s 2008 campaign. The argument that Internet work is at war with on-ground organizing should be retired.

The Internet gives us a tool to organize people far beyond our organized spaces; it allows us to grow faster in old and new places; it provides a menu of programs and services that any member or club can easily access; it allows us to compensate for our thinness of leadership; it makes possible a new division of labor; it gives us the ability to communicate regularly with the whole membership in a timely way; it makes it possible for the People’s World and Political Affairs to reach an infinitely bigger audience; it makes it possible for us to organize meetings in cyber space across thousands of miles, and to expand our visibility and presence.

So far our experience has been positive, but we have only scratched the surface of the Internet’s potential.

28. A party of socialism in the 21st century should open the door to new members. Joining should be no more difficult than joining other social organizations; going through political hoops and close vetting aren’t necessary. That is for White House appointees, not people who take a liking to us.

What is needed is not more stringent standards, but a range of ways that new members can become familiar with our program, policies and activities. The Internet is critical in this regard, but I would also add that we need an on-the-ground team to travel into organized and unorganized areas to meet and greet new members, to acquaint them with our party and its positions, and to hear what they are thinking.

29. A party of socialism in the 21st century will examine its history with a critical eye. To do otherwise is to sever today’s party from our history. No party or social movement on the left can claim as rich a history as we can. But that treasure-trove becomes valuable only to the degree that we see it in all of its complexity.

Sometimes we act as if the only mistake we made was our failure to rein in Earl Browder; other times we mechanically transport forms of organization and struggle from one era to another as if nothing has happened in the meantime.

At still other times we resist shedding old ideas, schemes, dogmas, symbols and practices that time has passed by or cast a negative judgment on.

No party, including ours, is mistake-free; we make mistakes and we make them in the present as well as the past. Politics is complex and fluid, and mistakes in theory, assessments and practices are inevitable.

We do no favors to past or future generations of communists when we keep the lid on our mistakes. If we could conjure up our deceased comrades, I’m sure that they would insist that we look at our past with a critical and mature eye; they would tell us not to worry about their feelings or legacy, which I would add stands on its own quite well.

A party of the 21st century takes inspiration from our past but shouldn’t be imprisoned by it. The past should only be a general guide to the future, but no a blueprint for the future.

As mentioned at the outset of this article the effective forces and coalitions to meet the challenges of the 21st century are not yet gathered together. But we are quietly confident that they will be as we go deeper into the 21st century. We are also confident that the Communist Party will meet history’s challenge as well, that is, we will change, grow, and provide leadership to people searching for a better life and more just society.

Learn More: Celebrate African American History Month

Tue, 01 Feb 2011 08:43:00 +0000

Join with us to celebrate African American history month. Some of our most recent podcasts include interviews with top African American historians who have written books on a range of topics from the struggle for civil rights in the South to the pursuit of equality in healthcare in New York City.

Find links to the latest episodes below. To avoid missing a single episode, be sure to subscribe to the Political Affairs podcast. Send us your comments at editor@politicalaffairs.net.

1. Racial Segregation in American Cities

On this episode we play the second part of our interview with historian and author Luther Adams on his new book, Way Up North in Louisville: African American Migration in the Urban South, 1930-1970. For the map discussed in the interview see here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/walkingsf/5011003858/

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2. African Americans and Migration in the South, an Interview with Luther Adams
We want to send a shout out to the working families of Wisconsin who are standing up to the abuses of power by the Republicans who want to balance their state's budget on the backs of working people to pay for tax cuts for the rich. And we play the first part of our interview with historian and author Luther Adams about his new book, Way Up North in Louisville.

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3. Race and the White House, an Interview with Clarence Lusane
On this episode we play our interview with historian Clarence Lusane, author of The Black History of the White House from City Lights Press.

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4. W.E.B. Du Bois in Global Contexts, an interview with Gerald Horne
On this episode we play our recent interview with historian and author Gerald Horne, about his new book W.E.B. Du Bois: A Biography. Plus listener comments.

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5. Boycotting Jim Crow: The Original Anti-Segregation Movement
On this episode we speak with historian Blair L.M. Kelley about her award-winning book Right to Ride: Streetcar Boycotts and African American Citizenship in the Era of Plessy v. Ferguson, recently out by University of North Carolina Press.

Download mp3 | Read text of interview | subscribe in iTunes

6. Health Politics in Harlem, an Interview with Jamie J. Wilson
On this episode we interview Professor Jamie J. Wilson, author of a fascinating new book titled Building a Healthy Black Harlem: Health Politics in Harlem, New York from the Jazz Age to the Great Depression, just out from Cambria Press, CambriaPress.com.

Download mp3 | Read text of interview | subscribe in iTunes

7. African Americans, Africans and the Globalization of White Supremacy, Parts 1 & 2

On these episodes we play our two-part interview with historian and author Andrew Zimmerman on his new book, Alabama in Africa: Booker T. Washington, the German Empire, and the Globalization of the New South.

Download mp3 (part 1) | Download mp3 (part 2)

You Might be a Marxist If ... You Believe God Hates Capitalism

Tue, 01 Feb 2011 08:01:00 +0000

To all religious believers who have ever questioned the capitalist system:

One of the biggest intellectual frauds in capitalist society is the widespread belief that capitalism is compatible with the teachings of major religions such as Buddhism, Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. Capitalists have a vested interest in getting you to believe that capitalism is a spiritually wholesome and irreproachable way of life in order to make you more willing to accept and uphold the system. If they can make you believe that capitalism is endorsed by the great religions and is part of God’s plan for the world, then they can get you to believe that anti-capitalism is a sin and that whoever opposes capitalism is an enemy of God, religion, and morality, and your personal enemy as well. The capitalists’ goal is to divide the working class against itself by pitting workers who are religious believers against workers who fight capitalism, whether those class-conscious workers are religious or not. This is a highly effective way to weaken working-class resistance to capitalism and to prevent the growth of solidarity among workers.

Marxists are well armed against this bogus belief because they understand that the ideological content of a society’s culture, which includes its religions, becomes permeated by the ideology of the class that owns and controls the means of production. In other words Marxists recognize that ruling classes have the power to corrupt and distort religion for their own selfish ends. These distortions are the source of many religious beliefs that are anti-progressive, anti-people, and anti-worker. Thus in a capitalist society, mainstream versions of the major religions are so steeped in the self-serving ideology of the capitalist class that they become little more than capitalist versions of those religions, teaching their adherents to believe that God loves capitalism and reserves special places in heaven for capitalists and obedient workers who cooperate with the system no matter what cruelties it inflicts on human beings.

Is it really true that the Buddha or the God of Judaism, Christianity, or Islam could love the capitalist system? Let’s look a little deeper into this question by considering the Golden Rule—Do unto others as you would have them do unto you—also known as the ethic of reciprocity. Most of the major religions count some version of this rule among their fundamental teachings. If capitalism is really compatible with religion then its fundamental principles should agree with the Golden Rule. Here are a few versions of the rule as stated in the teachings of some major religions:

Buddhism: Treat not others in ways that you yourself would find hurtful. The Buddha, Udana-Varga 5.18

Judaism: What is hateful to you, do not do to your neighbor. This is the whole Torah; all the rest is commentary. Hillel, Talmud, Shabbath 31a

Christianity: In everything, do unto others as you would have them do unto you; for this is the law and the prophets. Jesus, Matthew 7:12

Islam: Not one of you truly believes until you wish for others what you wish for yourself. The Prophet Muhammad, Hadith

Baha’i Faith: Lay not on any soul a load that you would not wish to be laid upon you, and desire not for anyone the things you would not desire for yourself. Baha'u'llah, Gleanings

Confucianism: Do not do to others what you do not want done to yourself. Confucius, Analects 15.23

Hinduism: This is the sum of duty: do not do to others what would cause pain if done to you. Mahabharata 5:1517

Jainism: One should treat all creatures in the world as one would like to be treated. Mahavira, Sutrakritanga 1.11.33

Taoism: Regard your neighbor's gain as your own gain and your neighbor's loss as your own loss. Lao Tzu, T'ai Shang Kan Ying P'ien, 213-218

Now let’s ask one simple question: Does capitalism agree with the Golden Rule, this basic ethical principle of reciprocity taught by so many of the world’s religions? We must first identify the fundamental principles of capitalism in order to see whether they agree with the ethic of reciprocity. What are those principles? It is often said that the basic principle of capitalism is “a fair day’s pay for a fair day’s work” or “capitalism is about giving everyone an equal opportunity to succeed,” neither of which seem contradictory to the Golden Rule. The only problem is that these premises are absolutely false; capitalism has nothing to do with fairness or equal opportunity. Remember that capitalists have the means to poison the cultural environment with all sorts of false ideas to make capitalism seem more acceptable to the people. The idea that capitalism is about fairness and opportunity is one of those false ideas that have been fed to the people by the preachers of capitalist-friendly perversions of morality and religion. The fundamental principle of capitalism is exploitation of the worker, and that means an unfair day’s pay, an unfair day’s work, and unequal opportunities. It also means repression of workers at home and colonialism and imperialist wars abroad. That’s the complete opposite of the ethic of reciprocity. The capitalist doesn’t want to treat you the way he wants to be treated. He wants to take the whole pie and leave you with the crumbs, and if he has to lie, steal, and kill in order to get it, then he’ll do just that. He wants to exploit you, and in order to do it he imposes conditions on you and the entire working class that he would never agree to impose on himself. In fact, if capitalists started practicing the Golden Rule they would cease to be capitalists at all and the entire capitalist system would collapse. Thus the very existence of capitalism depends on having a class of people willing to flout, ignore, distort, destroy and spit upon the Golden Rule. Perhaps God could love and forgive the capitalist, but he could never love capitalism.

It is clear that capitalism is an outrage against the Golden Rule. But what kind of society would be in agreement with the Golden Rule? Clearly it would be a society without exploitation, oppression, poverty, or war. The New Testament Book of Acts describes just such a society created by the early Christians. It sounds to this writer like a society based on the Golden Rule.

And the multitude of them that believed were of one heart and of one soul: neither said any of them that ought of the things which he possessed was his own; but they had all things in common .... Neither was there any among them that lacked: for as many as were possessors of lands or houses sold them, and brought the prices of the things that were sold, and laid them down at the apostles’ feet: and distribution was made unto every man according as he had need. Acts 4:32–35

This is a society without capitalists, in which the people are unified rather than divided by class; where there is no poverty, exploitation, or war; where property is held in common, and where wealth is distributed to every member according to need. Consider in particular the statements about common property and distribution according to need. These principles are shared with the kind of society Karl Marx had in mind when he described communism in Section I of Critique of the Gotha Program:

In a higher phase of communist society, after the enslaving subordination of the individual to the division of labour ... has vanished ... after the productive forces have also increased with the all-round development of the individual, and all the springs of cooperative wealth flow more abundantly – only then can the narrow horizon of bourgeois right be crossed in its entirety and society inscribe on its banner: From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs!

All sincere religious believers and proponents of the Golden Rule should consider which form of society is more in keeping with the teachings of the great religions and the ethic of reciprocity: capitalism or the communism of the apostles and Karl Marx. And I respectfully ask all believers to consider that you may have more in common with Marx than capitalist distortions of religion have led you to believe.

Photo by Mikol, cc by 2.0

Slavery, Capitalism, and Emancipation

Tue, 01 Feb 2011 07:49:00 +0000

In an amazing show of ignorance, Republican Congresswoman and Tea Party Express' spokesperson Michele Bachmann stated that the founding fathers of the United States abolished slavery in her response to President Obama's State of the Union address.

To their credit, the founding members of the U.S. successfully emancipated millions of people from kings' monarchist rule. However, millions more still toiled in servitude. African Americans were considered only 3/5ths of human beings by the slave-holding rulers of the young nation. Further, women were still treated as the property of their husbands at the time, and many states did not even allow white men to vote unless they owned a certain amount of property.

This is why Karl Marx referred to many of the revolutions against monarchist governments, represented by the feudal economic system, as bourgeois revolutions. The bourgeoisie, or capitalists, seized power and established governments which primarily represented their interests.

The inability of the Tea Party and Republicans to correctly identify the problems with the U.S. Constitution as it was written nearly 250 years ago only displays their ignorance and further emphasizes which class it is that they represent today.

History is not something separate from the present, and those whose minds are not clouded by fanciful ideologies believing the individual exists separate from their society's history realize the past is linked to the make up of our present society.

Slavery continues to haunt African Americans. In the book The Hidden Cost of Being African American, author Thomas Shapiro not only illustrates that African American families have 1/10th the wealth of their white counterparts, but that the biggest contributing factor to this wealth difference is the African American families' lack of inherited wealth.

Similar wealth discrepancy is also observed between the sexes, and it is very likely that many in the white working class can trace their roots back to Europeans who came to the U.S. as propertyless indentured servants.

Wealth is one way to observe oppressions under capitalism, and it is the most widely observed measure of class oppression. But there is a distinct difference between how class is commonly discussed and how Marxism defines class.

Marxism emphasizes control as the determining factor of class. It recognizes people as being in either the proletariat, the class that works for others, or as being in the bourgeoisie, the class which owns the workplaces and commands the workers.

This recognition of class as not defined by wealth, but control, gives us an important method we can use when observing our nation's history, opens our eyes to many sobering aspects of the present day, and charges us with an important mission.

In Wage, Price and Profit Marx explained that, in the feudal economy that existed before capitalism, serfs would work a few days of the week using the land or tools provided to them by their lords to raise crops or make things that they needed to survive. In exchange for the use of the lord's property the serfs would then do unpaid work for him.

Once bourgeois revolutions like the American Revolution occurred, feudalism's serfdom was abolished and replaced by capitalism's wage labor. Theoretically, human beings were considered to be the owners of their labor, and could sell it to others who would hire them.

Unfortunately, not all people were considered human when the American Revolution occurred.

In the U.S. there were no lords, and so there were no serfs. Before the revolution, what was established in serfdom's place was slavery.

W.E.B. Du Bois documented the horrors of slavery and noted its relation to the class system which surrounded it in his work Black Reconstruction in America.

Slavery was similar to serfdom, in that the slaves belonged to other people and performed unpaid labor, but it became something far more terrible. In order to justify slavery in the emergent capitalist system, it was necessary to find a legal loophole to prevent African slaves from gaining the right to sell their labor like free men of European ancestry – so slaves were not considered people. What occurred in this time period was nothing short of genocide.

With great strife, the U.S. eventually recognized the humanity of those held as slaves and they too gained the ability to sell their labor. Even then, it took the U.S. nearly 100 years more to formally recognize African Americans as equal to white Americans.

In the present day, it is incredibly important to recognize this history. It is important not only because it is connected to the continued existence of social and institutional racism, but because it reminds us of the nature of class even now.

If wealth is regarded as simply an aspect of class, and class is instead determined by the control a person has over labor, capitalism both hinders movements for equality in general and is also incapable of solving the issue of class oppression.

Marx's Wage, Price and Profit not only condemns the use of unpaid labor, but it goes on to explain that capitalism's wage labor system continues to exploit workers by giving them no say in how the profit they generate through their work is used. This profit, of course, is owned and controlled by the capitalist.

Further, the nature of work is also determined by the capitalist, who has the final say in how things are done and who gives out orders with little regard for the personal issues of each worker.

As capitalism is defined by private ownership, it requires the majority of people to work in workplaces not owned by them but by someone else. With no workers, nothing would be produced. Capitalism necessarily places a majority of people at the command of others at any given time.

For true emancipation to occur, Marx realized that the workers had to be in control of the places where they worked. This is socialism, and this is what all people who advocate democracy ought to support.

In the Marxist view of history, class is something that has existed since the division of labor became necessary for increasing production at the beginning of human agricultural activity. It has existed and oppressed people to varying degrees, from the most terrible form of slavery to the very personal form found in modern capitalism. Throughout all these forms, the constant truth about class is that all those in the lower classes have had to follow the orders of those above.

In the present day, the best method to increase worker's self determination is in the labor movement. Union men and women represent workers in their establishment of contracts. This struggle is one that rises naturally from the desire of workers to be self-determining, and the labor contract represents democracy in the workplace. Marxists are so involved in labor struggles because they are democratic struggles.

If we are truly interested in worker's rights to self-determination and workplace democracy we have an important future goal.

In addition to our work against racism, sexism, and heteronormativity, all affronts to self-determination and democracy, we must fight for a democratic economy. Under capitalism, all oppressed people are in constant struggle with the tyranny of the straight white male capitalists.

In order to preserve our values, capitalism must be replaced. When straight white male capitalists are allowed to make most economic decisions, including the promotion of those they believe to be the most fit, the self-determination of all oppressed groups suffers. Our values are manipulated, our political concerns are undermined, and we are in constant struggle.

It is time to find ways to replace this system. We must begin drawing up practical plans for the nationalization of key industries and build systems that would come to allow labor unions to directly run businesses in a democratic method.

Until economic democracy is established and socialism comes into being, we all remain in servitude.

Photos: Workers protest Wall Street greed and demand a bailout for Main Street. (courtesy AFL-CIO, Flickr, cc by 2.0)

Book Review: The "S" Word

Mon, 31 Jan 2011 09:04:00 +0000

The "S" Word: A Short History of An American Tradition...Socialism
by John Nichols
New York, Verso, 2011

In The "S" Word, John Nichols has written an imaginative history of socialism as an idea and a movement in and throughout U.S. history. Nichols, a political correspondent for The Nation (a journal initially founded by pro-abolitionist Radical Republicans at the end of the Civil War), writes from a perspective that favors and (privileges) the Socialist Party of Eugene Debs and Norman Thomas and the Democratic Socialists of America of Michael Harrington.

In often clever ways Nichols connects the radical and 20th century American liberal traditions and movements with the Socialist movement, portraying such figures as American Revolutionary hero Tom Paine and Emma Lazurus, whose poem graces the Statue of Liberty, as part of the larger socialist tradition. He also, and this is in my opinion a weakness of the book, spends way too much time suffering fools, in the early chapters of the work quoting Glenn Beck and other partisans of what came to be called "McCarthyism" in the U.S. in the 1950s (or the anti-socialist anti-Communist rhetoric based on screaming, name calling, guilt by assertion and association which verged on hysteria) to give readers more and more evidence of a political climate which they are too well aware of us.

While one might take issue with some of Nichols' characterizations of Tom Paine and Abraham Lincoln in regard to their relationship to socialist traditions, Nichols nevertheless presents important sides of them which are usually omitted in traditional accounts – in the case of Paine, an almost total omission, except for a few quotes from Common Sense and sometimes from the American Prospect.

Readers can learn much from Nichols' work. The contributions of A. Philip Randolph, post World War II Milwaukee Mayor Frank Zeidler and DSA leader Michael Harrington are highlighted, as are the post World War II struggles for social justice and against poverty when Cold War conventional wisdom preached the doctrine of the "end of ideology" and the complete disappearance of all movements for socialism in U.S. society and life.

But there is one crucial flaw in Nichols' study, beyond differences in interpretation and the occasional factual error. The Communist Party is portrayed as peripheral, even during the period in which the CPUSA, as I see it, became the most effective and significant political movement to advance practically socialist policies in U.S. history. Nichols is no red-baiter and speaks positively about Harry Bridges, Jack O'Dell and other CPUSA members and supporters when he does deal with them. But he doesn't really address the anti-communist outlook of a number of the socialists whom he portrays positively, e.g., Norman Thomas, A. Philip Randolph Randolph, and Michael Harrington. The anti-communist views of these leading figures limited what they did and could do. For example, Thomas' involvement in the CIA funded Cultural Freedom Committee, Randolph's and former communist Bayard Rustin's support for the Vietnam War, or Michael Harrington's support in the early 1960s for the maintenance of the anti-communist clause in the Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) constitution.

But more importantly, William Z. Foster, who was to the Communist Party what Eugene Debs was to the Socialist Party, is not here. I would say that without Foster you really can't understand Debs and vice versa. Both men were radical labor leaders who came to the socialist movement through their experiences; both represented center-left positions in their parties, and both faced state repression – Debs for his opposition to U.S. entry into World War I, Foster for his opposition to the Cold War.

The leading role of CPUSA activists in the building of the CIO is not here, without which you cannot understand labor's victories and the New Deal social legislation of the 1930s. The socialists as a party had advocated industrial unions also and individual Socialist Party members played a significant role in these struggles, but it was the CPUSA, its activists and its theory of organization and political coordination which made the victories possible, giving the Communist Party an influence far beyond its numbers, as both friends and foes realized

James W. Ford, William Patterson, and many other African American communists who played a central role in planting the seeds for the postwar civil rights movement are not here. They deserve to be, along with E.D. Nixon, the Durrs, and others who came from socialist backgrounds who are here. In the civil rights movement especially, socialists and communists at the grassroots often worked together in spite of the rivalry between their two parties to advance common goals. In the segregationist South, where Blacks had no civil rights, this took place at a higher level. The overwhelming majority of African Americans who came to support socialism did so through the communist movement in this period.

Also, while Nichols rejects anti-communism, he doesn't deal with the anti-communist attitudes of socialists like Thomas, Randolph, Rustin and Harrington. For Thomas, this meant working with the CIA supported World Congress for Cultural Freedom (even asking CIA director Allen Dulles for direct aid in the 1950s) and joining with Sidney Hook and others to oust Elizabeth Gurley Flynn from the leadership of the ACLU in 1940. For Randolph and Rustin especially (an active member of the War Resisters League) it meant supporting the Johnson administration's war in Vietnam, a war that sought to extend the U.S.'s imperial reach and negated much of Lyndon Johnson's domestic Great Society program.

There is much that is very valuable in John Nichols work. He writes with intelligence and often eloquence about the broad American left, where socialism cannot be simply separated from what was called progressivism in the late 19th and early 20th century and later came to be called liberalism in the New Deal period.

The socialist movement is like a river which diverges throughout the world with the socialist revolution in Russia into a social democratic tributary and a communist tributary, winding their respective ways, sometimes crashing into one another to create disasters, sometimes merging cooperatively to advance social progress. You cannot really understand one without the other, since each are the products of both the development of Marxist theory and the effects of working peoples' economic and political struggles.

There are some minor factual errors – for example, Francis Bellamy, Edward Bellamy's Christian socialist brother wrote the original pledge of allegiance – but they are largely unimportant. Even with its limitations, John Nichols' The "S" Word deserves to be widely read.

Features of Non-corrupt, Democratic Governance

Mon, 31 Jan 2011 08:49:00 +0000

One of the salutary consequences of a great financial crisis is the scale and scope of frauds and corruption that gets exposed, once the books have been opened for inspection. The latter usually only happens when it comes to life that scams have ruined the government’s or a corporation’s ability to pay its bills. Nassau County, San Diego, the states of California, Mississippi, Illinois and dozens of others, plus a tidal wave of congressional and regulatory agency thieves too numerous to enumerate here highlight the steady deterioration of our democracy. Crass commercialism and crony capitalism are polluting nearly every level of U.S. government.

Patronage, pay-to-play development schemes that differ little from bribery, no-bid deals, tax write-offs and giveaways that generate no public value, outright robbery of pension and medical funds, judges that refuse to recuse themselves in matters where they have a personal interest, capture by local corporate interests – not to mention compromised police departments: All this inevitably comes to light when the public “good faith” is broken. But what to do about it? In the electoral arena, the Supreme Court has declared money is king in the Citizens United case. The decision permits corporations to contribute unlimited funds, and to do so anonymously, to campaigns reflecting their interests.

Yet despite mounting exposures of massive frauds perpetrated, for example in the financial industry, the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission report, charged with discovering the causes of the great financial crisis – does not spend much time on “crimes” committed; certainly not by any of the TBTF (too big to fail) crowd that received the lions share of bailout funds. Talk about creating a "moral hazard."

The founders of the United States, in accord with the ideals of the Enlightenment, envisioned the rise of “enlightened and disinterested” (Washington, Franklin, Hamilton and Jefferson) political leaders in the wake of monarchy’s demise. Critics have of course noted that the property interests of the founders, especially with respect to slaves, tarnished this ideal of disinterestedness. Nevertheless, they were enough aware of the shortsightedness of “narrow interests” to devise a robust separation of judicial, legislative and executive powers to attempt to mitigate the ability of any one interest to dominate.

Any approach to progressive democracy must re-examine the ideal of “disinterestedness” and see if it can guide us to a useful, manageable and credible program of clean government in an era where competing interests will not be vanquished soon.

Some principles

1. We all can agree in principle that a leader should not sit in judgment on a matter in which he or she has a personal interest. Yet nearly everyone has “personal” interests at stake in politics. So the closest one may come to true “disinterestedness” is the personal interest that is most in accord with personal interests of the majority of people. Lets assume for the moment that such person is earning median income: approximately $60,000 per year in the U.S. In addition that person’s income is mostly wages or salary, but also includes some income – a smaller portion (much smaller since the financial crisis) – from capital: pensions, savings, real estate, etc. To make it possible for more working people to run for office, the office salary must not be less than a livable income. Many states have small stipends which has the effect of requiring independent wealth, or a wealthy individual or corporate patron, in order to serve.

2. We can agree that those who serve the public should, again in support of disinterestedness, not be paid substantially more than those they serve. Taking median income again as our standard, public service should pay approximately 60K, with allowances for local COLA adjustments. Some may argue that labor market economics would make such servants MORE vulnerable to the blandishments of the contact sport of politics and governing. But this leads to the assertion that only the rich can be “disinterested” – a canard with at least 250 years of repeated refutations. Personal accountability of the highest order must nonetheless be an unflinching standard of any party sincere in its commitment to clean government.

3. There can be no real progress against corruption, no real accountability, where there is no transparency: where budgets, bonds, salaries, tax abatements, and contracts in the public sector are not open for inspection. But "openness" and "transparency" can be a tricky matter when considered in class terms. Most working people, especially families with both parents working, have little or no time to attend all the meetings where the real state of local finances and economics can be inspected and understood. In fact, only grass roots, neighborhood, or workplace, organization – with some new and important assists from social networking media – can allow multitudes of working people to be more directly connected to either decision making OR accountability. So – there is little or no chance of clean government without both political parties and civic organization creating sustainable and more or less permanent grass roots committees.

4. Even with greater transparency and with candidates whose interests are much more aligned to the majority of the people, every aspect of economic development, and many social, legal and moral questions as well, involve trade-offs, bargaining, winners and losers, choosing the lesser of two evils or the better of two goods. There will be no letup in the intensity, and potential dangers, of diverse conflicts of interest at stake in every public act – or failure to act. Thus a key characteristic of clean governance is the dedication of leaders to become honest brokers. In the first place that means being much better at conflict resolution, then at doing battle, although there will always be opportunities for the latter. If politics is compared to a game of baseball, our movement needs to have the best umpires! Call the balls and strikes accurately, scientifically if possible, but still evict foul play from the game. In the long run – whether a specific policy or law or initiative is voted up or down, won or lost, is less important than maturing the empowerment vehicles and forms of participation in government where millions more workers are drawn into the process.

5. Support simplification of the tax codes at all levels. Evading taxes is a permanent and lucrative avocation for the rich, the wealthy, and corporations. Tax code complexity (exceptions, exemptions, write-offs, special deals, etc) is the source of much if not most corruption. The European Value Added Tax system (basically a standard percent tax on all goods at each state of production), while being criticized for being less progressive than the ideal of the U.S. tax code, has in the end shown itself to be MORE progressive, much less subject to evasion and litigation, and much easier to understand.

6. Prosecute corruption. Few remedies improve corrupt public behavior better than punishing the worst examples. Be careful of choosing “good” and “bad” corruption. If one insists, for example, on defending a public patronage system that introduces vast inefficiencies in public services in the name of "protecting jobs," attempts to sanction other corrupt practices (that will almost always serve the rich) will become muddy and vulnerable to defeat.

The corruption of our democracy primarily by giant corporations is the democratic challenge of our time, as important and critical as other historic challenges from the revolution through the civil war, the great depression and World War II, and the civil rights era as well. The left is positioned to lead the redress of this cancer, and give itself a new birth of national strength and leverage – if we can take this evil on.

Photo by Sam Howzit, courtesy Flickr, cc by 2.0

Can Pakistan Become a Theocratic State? Religion, Politics and the Working Class

Fri, 28 Jan 2011 09:11:00 +0000

After the murder of Punjab Governor, Salman Taseer, many questions have been raised about the future of Pakistan and the possible take over by religious extremist forces. A lot of material has appeared both in the local English media and international press about the rising tide of religious extremism and collapse of liberal and secular layers in Pakistan. Some articles even gave the impression that whole country is in the grip of religious bigotry and the entire liberal and secular layers have been silenced.

This impression is wrong and is an exaggeration of the current situation. There is no doubt that religious extremist forces have gone onto the offensive on the issue of blasphemy laws and the ‘liberals’ have mainly been on the receiving end. But it will be a mistake to draw the conclusion from the present religious offensive that religious political parties enjoy overwhelming support amongst the masses throughout Pakistan.

This would be a simplistic and one-sided analysis of the present situation. The situation is much more complex and contradictory than what most of the western commentators and experts have argued. The same religious parties, who are organising large rallies and protest demonstrations in some parts of the country, were routed in the last general elections held in February 2008. These parties got less than 3% of seats in parliament and less than 5% of the popular vote. It is true that the religious parties are better organised and have a better trained layer of activists compared to the capitalist liberal and secular parties of the country. It is also important to note that a majority of the participants in these rallies come from religious schools where nearly 2 million students are studying the religious syllabus.

There is no doubt that generally, Pakistani society has become less tolerant and progressive in last three decades thanks to the politics of deceit, hypocrisy and religious bigotry. But it will be wrong to assume that overwhelming majority of Pakistani people support religious extremism and its ideology. We need to differentiate the religious sentiments of the ordinary people from support for religious extremism in general. We also need to consider the fact that nearly 96% of the population is Muslim and a majority of them have been kept illiterate and backward by the reactionary and rotten ruling classes. The ruling classes have played with the religious emotions of the masses and used religion as a tool to justify their cruel and repressive rule over the years. The Pakistani state has mixed general religious beliefs and politics to the extent that it has become impossible to separate them on some occasions. The use of religion by the state to gain political mileage has made it easier for the religious parties and clerics to exploit the religious emotions of masses. That is what is happening at the moment. The religious clerics and parties have simply made the debate on the misuse of the blasphemy laws into the issue of protecting the honor and dignity of the Holly Prophet (PBUH). The religious hawks in the media help the religious extremist forces create this perception. They used this very sensitive religious issue to make political gains.

The question arises here of how many people have been killed in last few weeks just on the ground that they pointed out the misuse of blasphemy laws and proposed changes to these laws. The present wave of religious fever in some sections of society is a temporary phenomenon may not last long. But it does not mean that the phenomenon of religious extremism will disappear. It would also be wrong to dismiss the dangers it poses to the working class and society in general. The rising tide of religious extremism also poses serious dangers for the organized trade union movement and Left forces in the country. We have to accept the reality of the situation: that religious extremist forces do exist and will continue to exist until the system is that creates such reactionary forces is changed. The capitalist and feudal system is responsible for the conditions in which such forces flourish. The Pakistani ruling classes did not separate the state from religion to establish a secular state in last 64 years. They are also incapable of completing the tasks of the national democratic revolution (bourgeois revolution) in the country. They did not abolish feudalism and tribalism to solve the agrarian question. The Stalinist and Maoist left pin hopes with one section or the other of the ruling classes to accomplish the tasks of national democratic revolution as being the progressive wing of the capitalist class. It never happened because no such progressive wing exists in Pakistan.

What is clear is that our “liberal intelligentsia” is floundering. Both the substance and strategy of their campaign separate defense of these democratic rights from demands that related directly to popular grievances. And it is understandable why: many of the leading advocates come from either the bourgeoisie which had come to the fore during the lawyers’ movement, or from the PPP and its sympathizers—groups that have been in recent years, as a rule, consistent cheerleaders of war and neoliberal restructuring.

In fact, their role recalls Marx’s verdict on the Prussian bourgeoisie, after their betrayal of the revolution of March 1848. “Without faith in itself, without faith in the people, grumbling at those above, frightened of those below, egotistical towards both and aware of its egoism; revolutionary with regard to the conservatives and conservative with regard to the revolutionaries... Haggling over its own demands, without initiative, without faith in itself, without faith in the people, without a historic mission.” (The Bourgeoisie and the Counter-Revolution, December 1848)

It is a sad fact that, even while the blasphemy laws remain a barometer of the cruelty of life in Pakistan today, they do not figure in the everyday injustices faced by the vast majority, who remain centrally preoccupied by hunger, poverty, and war. The number of cases registered of the use of blasphemy laws in the last three decades is in the hundreds—less than the number of Pakistani children that die, daily, from malnutrition and related causes.

This is not to suggest that these laws are unworthy of urgent attention. But it is to argue that the task of making their repeal central to people’s understanding of progress is precisely that – a task. Progressives find themselves in a political context that requires them to make the case, as organizers and not just as commentators, that freeing the State from the grasp of religious bigotry is an important step in the struggle to transform the society along socialist lines. A progressive society can not be built on the basis of a rotten capitalist system, as many liberals and progressives believe. The struggle to emancipate society from the clutches of religious bigotry is not a separate struggle, but an integral part of the struggle to emancipate the working class and poor of the country from the shackles of capitalist exploitation and repression.

We will never win popular confidence without participating in and leading struggles against the cruelty of everyday life in our country—for a living wage, decent housing, jobs, land rights, meaningful and decent education, healthcare, public transport etc. The Pakistani masses want to live like human beings and demanding better living conditions. The so-called liberal and secular ruling parties and ruling classes have failed to offer anything to the working masses and poor. This has created a political vacuum which the religious right is trying to fill with religious slogans. This is indeed an ideological offensive from the religious right and so-called liberal and secular leaders and parties have no answer to counter this attack. The reason is simple. These parties and leaders have no ideology, vision, strategy, program and manifesto to launch the counter-offensive. They also lack the courage and determination to take up the challenge. In this situation, these leaders and parties find it easier to appease the religious forces to calm them down. The parties like PPP, PML-N, MQM and ANP are more concerned to maintain their vote and thus avoid confronting the religious right. All these parties support one religious party or another to get their votes at elections. The religious right knows this and exploits the weakness of these parties and leaders to their advantage.

What the religious right wants?

The ongoing movement of the religious right has raised some important questions that need to be answered.

Firstly, what is the real agenda behind this movement? It seems that the main purpose of this movement is to re-gain the ground that the religious right has lost in last few years. The suicide attacks and bombings carried out by the Taliban and their supporters against innocent women, children and the general public in the main cities have proved counter-productive. The overwhelming majority of the masses are against these acts of barbarism and the tactics used by Taliban and Al-Qaeda linked extremist groups. Many religious parties and groups directly and indirectly support the Taliban and other extremist groups. The results of the last general elections (and by-elections held in the last two years), clearly show that the religious right had lost considerable support amongst the masses. All the surveys conducted by foreign and local organisations before the beginning of the present right-wing onslaught confirmed this trend in the society. Jamat-e-Islami (JI), the main fundamentalist party in the country, contested two by-elections in 2010 in Lahore and Rawalpindi constituencies and lost significant votes. Traditionally, JI used to get at least 5,000-10,000 votes in both constituencies but only got 2,200 and 3,700 votes respectively, which was less than one percent of the polled votes. Now these religious parties are using the issue of Blasphemy laws to make the political gains.

Secondly, the right-wing fundamentalist sections of the establishment want to use this opportunity to form an alliance of the religious parties to campaign around the issues concerning them. This alliance will be converted into an electoral alliance along the lines of MMA (an alliance of main religious parties), which contested the 2002 general elections and won a considerable number of seats and over 11% of the votes. It is generally believed that the intelligence agencies were behind this alliance at the behest of General Musharaf’s military regime. The same people wanted to repeat the drama of the 2002 elections in the next elections to manipulate politics inside and outside the parliament. But it will be difficult for the religious forces to repeat the electoral successes of 2002 in the next general elections.

Thirdly, the present campaign is being used to bring together the rival religious parties belonging to the different sects. There was bitter division among the religious forces before the eruption of this movement. The religious parties belonging to the Braelvi sect were organising the protest demonstrations and large rallies against the attacks on the most respected shrines in Lahore and Karachi. No one ever imagined that anybody could attack the shrines of these most respected Muslim Saints. The Braelvis alleged that Deobandi’s armed religious groups and the Taliban were behind these attacks. All the religious parties belonging to the Braelvi religious sect formed an alliance called Sunni Ittehad Council (Sunni alliance council). They openly allege that some Deobandi religious schools are involved in the religious militancy and should be closed down. They also organise anti-Taliban rallies and demonstrations in different cities. The situation was very tense between these sects and there was the possibility of clashes and killings. These tensions are not entirely over yet, even though they have eased up a bit because of the blasphemy issue.

Fourthly, the blasphemy issue is also being used to divert the attention of the working masses and poor of the country from the real issues faced by them in every day life. The acute energy shortage, skyrocketing prices, unemployment, increased poverty and hunger and crippling public services are the real issues faced by the masses. There is growing anger and desperation among the masses. The massive protest demonstrations, rallies and blocking of railway lines and main roads for hours by angry people in many cities in Punjab and Khyber Pakhtunkhwah provinces against the long hours of power and natural gas cuts sent shock waves through the ruling class. The ruling class is frightened of the prospect of a mass movement on these issues. They could get out of control and pose serious threats to the status quo. Even the religious right is very careful in their mobilisation. So far, they have organised big rallies and processions only in Karachi but have not so far issued a single call for national demonstrations. They are also afraid of a mass movement that might start on the religious issues with a dominant religious colouration but which could turn into a mass movement against the corrupt and rotten elite and repressive state machine. Once the economic and social issues come to the fore of the movement, the religious right will be pushed aside and loose control of the movement. The government is happy that the religious right has successfully diverted the attention of the masses and provided a breathing space for the government.

Fifthly, the religious forces want to maintain their superiority over the parliament in making or amending any Islamic law. They want to kill any debate on such issues, inside and outside the parliament. Various right wing political parties and extremist groups have succeeded in their malicious agenda of rendering the elected parliament ineffective by not allowing it to debate major political and social issues confronting the country. The hate-mongers on the other hand, have been allowed to talk freely about whatever their perception of Islam is, and how and under what laws they want the people of Pakistan to reel under. The religious right want to keep their tight control over religious issues, which they established during the General Zia’s military regime.

The final and the most important factor in the situation is that the mainstream religious political parties are under immense pressure from Al-Qaeda linked groups and other developments that are taking place in these religious parties. The Pakistani and international media and intellectuals are just discussing and analysing the increased tensions between religious extremist forces and liberalism. But tensions are also developing within the religious right and extremist forces. Al-Qaeda’s second in command, Aimanul Zawahri, has written a long article that is being distributed among the religious groups. In this, he declares that the Pakistani constitution is un-Islamic and asks the Muslims in Pakistan not to accept the constitution. He also said in his article that all the religious leaders who signed this constitution made a mistake. This decree from Al-Qaeda’s top gun has put the three main religious political parties in a difficult position. JI, JUI-F and JUP leaders signed the consensus constitution in 1973. New extremist groups and hardliners within these parties are now posing new challenges to the leadership. Religious political parties are standing at the crossroads on the ideological front. New discussions are taking place and the formation of new and more hardline groups is taking place.

The mainstream religious political parties are part of electoral politics and also an integral part of power politics. The religious leaders have become part of the ruling class since 1977 and are enjoying all the perks and privileges of the ruling elite. Their declared aim is to bring the ‘Islamic revolution’ about through ‘democratic methods’. Now groups like the Taliban and Al-Qaeda with their increased influence and ideology have started to challenge the credibility and integrity of these leaders and parties. New groups are campaigning against democracy and elections and argue that the constitution is un-Islamic. They are arguing that the only way to establish an Islamic state is the armed struggle. Many hardliners have already split away from JI and JUI-F and joined the Taliban. Some people have also been expelled from JI and JUI-F for spreading Al-Qaeda and Taliban ideology in these parties. These leaders and parties have launched a movement to save the honor and integrity of the Holy Prophet (PBUH) to prove their credentials as the true leaders of the religious right. On the one hand, these leaders are putting pressure on the liberal sections of the ruling class and, on the other hand, they are struggling for their own survival within the religious right.

Middle class and religious right

Some liberal intellectuals and commentators are painting the picture that the majority of the educated and professional middle class are supporters of the religious right and that religious extremism is deep rooted in this class. Before we draw any conclusion in this regard, it is important to analyze the middle classes in Pakistan. Traditionally, the middle class in Pakistan consists of traders, landed rural petty bourgeoisie, professionals like doctors, engineers, professors, lawyers and managers, and civil and military bureaucrats. The middle classes are not as stable in Pakistan as they are in the advanced industrialized countries. Every economic boom creates an artificial layer of the middle class that disappears with every economic crisis. Every economic boom enables some lower middle class layers and some better off layers of the working class to enjoy a relatively high standard of living for few years. Then the onset of a new crisis throws them back to their original position. Even lower layers of the middle class fall back to the level of the working class. The economic situation changes very quickly and thus changes the position of middle layers.

Traders are the most conservative and religious section of the middle class and also the largest section of middle class. Traders are conservative both politically and socially. Their political affiliations differ from province to province and area to area. For instance, a majority of traders in Punjab supports the PML-N in the elections and only a small minority supports the religious parties in the elections. In Karachi, MQM and Jamat-e-Islami (JI) get a major percentage of the traders’ votes. The PPP and pro-establishment landlords enjoy support in rural Sindh and small towns. In Baluchistan, Baluch and Pashtun, nationalist parties and the fundamentalist JUI-F get the largest share of middle class votes. In Khyber Pakhtoonkhwa, ANP, JUI-F, JI, the PPP and PML-N get the votes of traders. Traders provide much-needed financial support to the religious political parties and some sections of traders even generously supply money to religious extremist groups. Jihadi groups also collect a major share of their money from the traders. Historically, traders back almost every reactionary movement launched on religious issues and oppose every progressive movement. The upper layers are connected with the ruling class, as their class interests force them to become allies of the bourgeoisie. The middle and lower layers are close allies of the religious right. They are at the forefront of the ongoing religious movement. General Zia-ul-Haq’s military dictatorship provided political patronage to the traders and strengthened them. Traders were allowed to organize their associations and elect their leadership without any intervention by the state throughout the period of that dictatorship. On the other hand, trade unions and progressive parties were attacked and subjected to the worst kinds of repression and torture. Large numbers of traders not only share the world view of the religious right but also follow the strict moral and social code imposed by religious clerics. The interesting fact is that being one of the most religious sections of society, traders miss no opportunity to maximize their profits. They even use human tragedies like floods and earthquakes to earn super profits. When it comes to profiting and earning money, they forget all the teachings of Islam on "morality."

The landed rural petty bourgeoisie are not as religious as the traders but hold conservative views. This layer of the middle class is more stable as it owns large and medium sized land holdings. This layer also produces professionals and military and civilian bureaucrats. This layer mainly supports two main political parties, the PPP and PML-N. It holds no particular political ideology. This layer is renowned for changing political loyalties in no time at all. This is one of the most opportunist layers of the middle class. In feudal dominated areas, this layer is an ally of the feudal lords. In central Punjab, it is closely linked with the bourgeoisie and military establishment.

The educated professional urban middle class is the layer that is often linked to religious extremism. There is no doubt that in recent years, this layer has inclined more towards religion than the past. In the 1950s, 60s and early 70s, this layer was considered more liberal and progressive compared to other layers and sections of the middle class. The students belonging to this layer dominated the progressive students’ movement in that era. National Student Federation (NSF) was the largest student organization in the country, which was a left student organization. Thousands of college and university students used to join NSF every year. The majority of them came from this middle class layer. However, after the collapse of the left and student movement in the 1980s and the rise of jihadi culture and the religious right, the situation changed. This layer produced outstanding writers, poets and intellectuals, who were part of the working class movement. NSF activists played an important role in the development of the trade union movement that flourished in the late 1960s and early 1970s. The absence of the left as alternative force in the political arena paved the way for religious fundamentalist organizations like JI to make inroads on the university campuses. In recent years, a small minority of the educated professional middle class has joined new militant organizations. But it would be wrong to draw the conclusion that whole layers have embraced the ideas of religious extremism. Once the working class starts to move and enters into the political arena, big sections of this layer can be won to the ideas of socialism.

Role of the working class

The other missing link in the analysis of western commentators and the Pakistani liberal intelligentsia is the role of working class. None of these ‘experts’ ever mentions the existence of a powerful working class. According to the official figures, of a population of 170 million, 49 million are from the working class. If the workers in the informal economy and rural women workers in agriculture are included, then it numbers 69 million. That is nearly 40% of the population. The middle classes are around 34 million.

Not only the numbers but also the traditions and history of the working class are important to keep in the mind when discussing the future course of the country. The intervention of the working class in future events can bring a qualitative change in the situation. The role of the working class is decisive to determine the future of the country. The working class has the potential power to challenge and stop the march of the reactionary forces.

It is true that at this stage the working class in general appears as a mere spectator. It is also true that the trade union movement is weak and isolated. The working class in general is not involved in the political process because there is no party which represents their interests.

But this situation will not last forever. The working class will be compelled to take part in politics as it did in the 1960s, when it appeared on the scene like a thunderstorm. Nobody thought that the working class could take on the powerful military dictatorship of General Ayub Khan and defeat it. The working class did it in 1968-69. The working class also took on the religious right and defeated it in the first general elections in 1970. A little before the first general elections in 1970, more than 100 leading religious leaders, clerics and spiritual leaders issued a decree that anyone voting for the political parties carrying the banner of socialism would cease to be a Muslim and if he or she is married then his or her marriage would be annulled. The working masses ignored this decree and voted overwhelmingly in favor of the PPP in West Pakistan (now Pakistan) and the Awami League in East Pakistan (now Bangladesh) both of which described themselves in words, if not in deeds, as “socialist.” The religious right was routed in the elections. It was the political mistakes of founder of the PPP, Z. A. Bhutto, in the middle of the 1970s that gave new life to the religious right.

The religious right can not take power in Pakistan and make it a theocratic state until either the majority of working-class people embrace the ideas of religious extremism or the working class is crushed in a thumping defeat. Neither has happened so far. The overwhelming majority of the working class has not yet supported the ideas of religious right. As soon as class struggle starts to develop a political class-consciousness and radicalization start to develop, the whole scenario can begin to change.

The setting up of the Progressive Workers Federation (PWF), which brings together hundreds of thousands of workers from various trade unions, is another example showing that the working class is still very strong in Pakistan. Furthermore, there have been a number of strikes and protests taking place in number of areas. The recent workers’ response to Karachi Electricity Supply Corporation (KESC) sacking 4000 workers is one such example.

Photo: Pakistan's labor movement remains a vital force for democracy.

Capitalism and Late Imperial Struggles

Fri, 28 Jan 2011 08:51:00 +0000

Recently dramatic peoples uprisings in North Africa and the Middle East have revealed the foreign policy contradictions of the advanced democratic capitalist countries that support and trade with these nations oppressive regimes. In the case of Tunisia and Egypt for example, the question has arisen (in many blogs although not in the general media, naturally) why these apparently progressive democratic countries do this, are they actually evil? Why are the apparent rights that their people enjoy at home not extended outwards to other nations?

What does it mean if a capitalist country, like the US for instance, expresses itself outwardly in a right wing almost fascist manner supporting fascistic figureheads in other nations, but at home, inwardly is a liberal democracy with a "balance" of political forces?

What it must mean is quite surprising: The outward form can be little else than the unfettered expression of the interests of its capital, which seeks to be expanded wherever it may, and which fears most any genuine economic socialism, which would prevent this expansion ("growth"), so, more out of fear than reason or greed it tends to support what it feels to be the furthest 'safe' distance from the left.

If, inwardly this same nation has the same tendency to do what it does externally, which we must assume it would do, its democracy must need to balance this by a strong pull towards the left by its people, who are, as we know, obliged to defend themselves against the extremes of capitalism and its periodic economic crises (i.e. unions, industrial strikes, associations). This means that, just to prevent the, so to speak 'innate' tendency of capitalist politics to pull to the right (in the form of unfettered capitalism), there must in fact be, in say a nation like the US, a strong leftward political tendency, which is the surprise because it does not always seem that way superficially in the US, of course.

I have had to state these terms in the form of "left versus right" tendencies but really here I think we are talking about progress versus reaction. The progress is towards the culmination of the capitalist crisis in the dissolution of capitalism as an economic structure, the reaction is always to prevent or retard this real progress. One form of prevention is the creation of kinds of socialism without economic socialism, in other words fake, partial or superficial socialism or socialist policies that exist politically within the capitalist economy and provide the 'balance' of political forces. The latter suggests always that history has ended with the capitalist mode of production and economy, and all else is just a struggle of political ideas about how to run it well.

In this lies the modern academic separation or partition between politics and economics, which are considered like different realms of existence. Political economy, which at least shows a relation between the two, is too dangerous, it seems, in that it reveals by default the connection between our political life and our economic activity, and might possibly therefore refer us to its secret: class struggle.

The idea that a nation like the US might support unpleasant regimes because it is, in some possibly religious way "evil" is here in this sense refuted. It is only usually a question of fearing the emergence of regimes that may not service its capital, capital itself cares not who owns it.

And here we find therefore, also, that it is not a question of all repressive regimes being the same, there are those that tend towards genuine socialism and those that tend towards fascism. Advanced capitalist democracies waver internally, always in political and economic crises between these points. It is usually thought (in the usual places) that a nation like North Korea is essentially no different to a nation like Saudi Arabia, which superficially is true, but in fact the level of politics and class struggle is very different and at a different stage of historical development. This is why the recent revolution and uprising in Tunisia and Egypt (2010) for example should not be confused or conflated with protest activity against socialist nations.

Early forms of socialism are expressed both inwardly and outwardly in militaristic forms, its politics is undeniably repressive, but in this case it is (if so) repressive of an entirely different economic tendency, namely the tendency: that towards capitalism and the return of the capitalist economy by way of political reform, which is a kind of reform that always seeks not just political freedoms alone, which it argues for, but secretly total economic change (back to capitalism), and not necessarily to liberal democracy but any form of politics (i.e., fascist) that allows for and encourages the expansion of capital markets.

So we see here that it is capital that rules the foreign policies and external political relations of the capitalist nations, which always, when the crisis gets tough, revert to outright competition (trade barriers, protectionism), and if this fails, war, its ultimate expression. It is capital that tells the politicians and heads of global banks how to act to defend its interests. However, these interests always are taken as being identical to the interests of certain of the competing bourgeois classes, which they may in fact be if they have judged the situation and laid their bets correctly.

Just as we have already often talked about early and late forms of capitalism, which is common parlance these days, so it is equally justified to talk about late and early forms of socialism. I here take socialism in the strict sense of the period of transition from capitalism to communism, when the class struggle still exists but when the working class holds the chief power over a primarily socialist economy.

Of early socialism one suspects we now know most of its characteristics.

It is likely in fact to be militaristic, this is because it must defend itself and its economy given it is surrounded by advanced capitalist nations that compete with it too well and in most cases would prefer to destroy it and replace the economy with a capitalist one. A part of this militaristic nature will be exemplified by the of cult of personality of its leaders; because of a need in this case for a strong party, the likelihood of nepotism and corruption will be higher within these political parties, and so also the likelihood of these parties falling back into pre-socialist ideologies. On the other hand they will be (and have been) very good at defending their socialism in a "hot war," because their socialism and militarism is by definition disciplined and "war" based at these times.

Early type socialism, all the same, has in fact been adept at helping poorer nations struggle to compete with vastly more powerful capitalist nations and their vicious competition (as the political form has also helped capitalist nations during times of war), but sometimes this has been, inevitably, at the expense of liberties which in the long term unless addressed can have a detrimental effect and cause stagnation. Sometimes some early socialist forms have even surfaced, it seems, more as a kind of stop-gap or "temporary socialism" as a way to survive as an intact nation to achieve a more developed capitalism later when it is possible to compete with the advanced capitalist countries on a more equal footing, either as a deliberate policy or otherwise. That this is possible proves that socialism can be a viable, strong economic force, but also that it is at the same time immature and, so far, relatively inflexible.

Another aspect of early socialist societies is that they have a tendency to comprehend socialism and to characterize it in quasi-religious terms (contrary to the non-religious terms of Marxism), which may or may not relate strongly to the cult of personality of leaders. This religiosity may be humanistic or traditional, and can I suggest be regarded as an aesthetic level "hangover" from previous conditions and relations with regard to customs, rituals, and traditions which do not disappear overnight with any progressive revolution. So, for instance, we will hear talk of "sacred duties" and "holy wars" against the bourgeois opposition. This seems to be more likely from societies that have only recently emerged from a feudal or semi-feudal economic background and have little experience of actual capitalism except as an external competitive force.

Later forms of socialism we are less able to judge because they hardly exist.

We might conjecture however that they would, if emerging from a world where more socialist countries now existed than capitalist countries, or where there is more of a balance, not need to be so militaristic and disciplined, therefore they would be able to be more "relaxed" and democratic and have a fairer distribution of leadership responsibilities, and be able to concentrate more on improving the living standards of its populace. In fact we might conjecture that it is probably only in this period that socialism will actually be able to be properly socialist in some nations and the people feel the true broad benefits and freedoms of the socialist economy.

So, early forms of socialism can be described as still struggling to achieve socialism, not communism as such (this is in any case the classical Leninist definition). It is only in the later period that we might expect there to be a move towards the famously quoted "withering away of the state." And of course here we are talking of long periods of time and of global uneven development, uneven development of the social level both within different societies and nation states, and uneven development between these and their levels and other nation states, of course with their own uneven conditions of development. Different nations are today at vastly different stages of development within this global struggle.

While it may seem that advanced capitalism holds all the cards and can easily defeat early socialism in the long run, as indeed it has with the demise of the Soviet Union (in my preliminary assessment I believe the USSR had not reached a mature stage of economic development), advanced capitalism also has advanced contradictions, as shown in the current massive economic crisis, and must compete with early capitalist nations (as well as early type socialist nations), which, in some cases may lead it to the situation where the best or indeed only weapon it has to defend itself against the new and ‘more virile’ competitor capitalist nations is precisely socialism.

So the situation reverses, and inverts itself.

This is perhaps the situation today or the one that is emerging.

The western capitalist nations are confronted by capitalist China with a communist party at its helm which seems to be "running capitalism" more competitively than the old capitalist parties of the west. Meanwhile these capitalist parties search in vain for a solution to their debts and their deficits, which seem to them out of control because growth has stalled. China may hold in the end the most debts as the biggest creditor; the western capitalists may try to reduce the value of these debts. In the interim they try to compete with China, to exploit their workers more to reduce the deficit and so, restart the endless "growth," the financial market and exports, which they require to service the debts and compete. But, barring revolutions, soon the debt burden and the austerity they enforce must be such that even the cheap products exported by the new capitalist nations of China and India, based on extreme exploitation of their workers, will be impossible to buy because of the impoverishment of the workers in the older capitalist nations and the drying up of credit for anything but the servicing of the debts, and a crisis will ensue in these "upstart" nations in turn, which have less of an internal market for their exportable products.

Uneven development and uneven contradictions, communists running capitalism and capitalists running socialism, this will likely characterize the future. The period of imperialism as the highest stage of capitalism is far from over in this sense, and there remains the worry of a new round of protectionism and custom controls, currency manipulation and then global war, a tendency only to be resisted by protests and uprisings of the working people. And this we are seeing, at the moment, heroic struggles by the people of North Africa.

It is not the case that early socialism represents a kind of "backwardness" with regard to late advanced capitalism (from what point could we measure this?) but in some sense it will be indeed backward on some levels (political, ideological, aesthetic) in just this respect, and this is to be expected. The bourgeoisie will be able to stigmatize and ridicule certain characteristics of early socialist societies. On the other hand the advances made by socialism can be startling in their relative speed. What perhaps represents the biggest obstacle for it to its development is the necessity for high discipline and a constant defensive posture to defend its gains, and this "attitude" seeps into its cultural forms and permeates through its society.

Simply the knowledge of this problem being a problem is one solution, given that the characteristic formations may lead to the "strict" position that "all problems are solved" (as with aspects of late Stalinism), which is nevertheless obviously incorrect and so seems absurd.

Photo courtesy AFL-CIO

Europe Between Nationalism and Union: A Response to Conan Fischer

Thu, 27 Jan 2011 09:50:00 +0000

In Europe between Democracy and Dictatorship, 1900-1945, Conan Fischer echoes the Cold War refrain of a choice between democracy, identified as free market capitalism, and dictatorship, in which he conflates the “totalitarian” systems of Communism and Nazism. Aside from abolishing parliament and freedoms of press and assembly, the two systems shared a cynical belief that individual initiative (i.e. capital) cannot be tolerated under one-party rule. In this light, he portrays the economist John Maynard Keynes as partly sharing this negative view of laissez-faire capitalism. Fischer concedes that all European nations, including the U.S., had very few options to state-centered welfare reforms, given the debts following World War I and the reparations regime set up at Versailles in 1919. However, he suggests throughout that this new trend of state involvement in economics ultimately weakened liberal governments, while strengthening the authoritarianism emerging in Central and Eastern Europe. In fact, he implicates statism, not imperialism, as the economic foundation for militant forms of nationalism that contributed to both world wars, as he states:

[G]overnmental intervention in national economies, often unavoidable under the circumstances of the time, served to undermine the internationalism of the global economy. Governments are by their nature national, and politicians, whether democratic or fascist, felt beholden to national opinion.

Leaving aside the astounding claim that fascists “felt beholden to national opinion,” the idea that capitalist economy is essentially “international” and opposed to the State’s budgetary needs assumes that economic strategies are divorced from national concerns of finance capital, GDP, and infrastructure development that form the heart of a still nationally-based corporate elite. Similarly, Fischer appears to extend the origins of the European Union, sketched in his conclusion, back to the pre-World War I European context. We have to be clear that just because European companies worked together before World War I in the mutual interests of imperial geopolitics, in spite of their nations’ growing suspicions of one another, does not mean that global economic cooperation, such as we witness today, must have been in utero prior to 1914. And this is exactly what Fischer tries to argue in a lengthy excursus of the causes of World War I, in which descriptions of European economic cooperation as “internationalism” function to negate Lenin’s claim that industrial capitalism (a motive force behind imperialism) caused the war.

While claims of direct imperialist (or economic) causes of World War I have been rejected by historians, a case can be made for the roots of the secret treaties, the naval arms race, and inflexible foreign policies lying in Europe’s dysfunctional diplomatic culture, which privileged crude demands of imperialist supremacy (including a continental “balance of power”), as the war’s main causes. In fact, we continue to see the pre-war alarms raised by imperialist concerns, as recounted by Fischer himself, in the question after World War I of the industrial capacity of Germany, to rearm and eventually overrun an otherwise victorious France.

In fact the real culprit of belligerence between 1914 and 1945 was not so much antagonism between democracy and dictatorship, emphasized by Cold War histories, but political blindness to the contradictory shift in balance between still nationally-based markets, and the political elites that promoted them, and the international opportunities (colonies, resources, and potential markets) that the former (in their limited industrial scope and war-centered strategy) could not hope to integrate, direct, or absorb. This was the case whether it was overseas regions or eastern (or southeastern) Europe. Consequently, nationalism, originally based on the liberal Nation-State, has always served as the rallying point for economic interests, one-sided trade policies, and the global search for new markets, and capitalism, far from providing an “internationalist” alternative to the socio-political order promoting the Nation-State, continues to work hand-in-glove with nationally-defined interests, increasingly rephrased during the inter-war years by elements espousing even more horrific expansionism.

This expansion came after World War I in Fascism and Nazism, in the wake of defeat, territorial losses, and extensive political, social unrest that plagued Italy and Germany. Only France among the Western victors, as Fischer carefully details from new research, sought expansion in the industrial Ruhr and Moselle districts of Germany, as Prime Minister Poincaré planned the 1923 Occupation by exploiting an provision in the Versailles Treaty that allowed any victor power to seek whatever means to punish Germany for any default on reparations.

The other partner in the Entente, Russia did not fare as well as its Western allies. In presenting the Russian Revolution and the construction of the Soviet Union, Fischer follows the anti-Soviet line of historian Richard Pipes, who presents the Bolsheviks as a terrorist clique that managed to hijack the Russian people into a 70-year political disaster. However, one has to ask the question, how did such a “clique” manage what no other revolutionary clique (think Jacobins) had previously done? More explanation is needed, and Fischer omits the critical history of Lenin’s building the Party and seeing it through two revolutions, the political reaction during the Civil War (enjoined by Tsarist officers, Cadets, and anti-Lenin Mensheviks), and the change of course under NEP. Fischer also leaves out developments after Lenin’s second stroke and his Last Testament, which touched off the struggle between Trotsky and Stalin and shaped the subsequent path toward industrialization. There appears to be no effort to provide more than a uni-dimensional narrative of this complex history, while providing plenty of details and historical sensitivity to the rise of Italian Fascism and German Nazism.

In fact Fischer seems to fall prey to the often fantasized, but false choice of presenting the lesser of two evils in Mussolini’s Fascism. As Fischer asserts:

Of the two Bolshevism was undoubtedly the more extreme, for despite its declared intention “to forge a totalitarian state and society” Fascism accommodated significant elements of the existing domestic establishment (including the courts, the monarchy and the church), respected existing property relations, and initially at least, conducted its foreign policy within the framework laid down by the Paris Peace Settlement.

Fischer discounts the thug-style politics with which the Fascist squads persecuted and murdered their political opponents, many of them liberal and socialist members of the “domestic establishment,” as well as downplaying the violent expansionism of Fascist foreign policy, which Mussolini unleashed on the smaller, less-protected nations of North Africa, not to mention his secret gassing of Libyan rebels in the late 1920s. On top of that, recent research has uncovered the diary of Mussolini’s mistress Ciara Petacci, which documents the leader’s murderous fantasies against Italian Jews, well before Hitler’s demand that he shift them off to the east. Historians can no longer dismiss the racist profile of Italian Fascism.

Understandably, no such historical blind spots have accrued around the corpse of German fascism. Nazi aggression against Eastern Europe (namely Poland and Ukraine), and the subsequent invasion of the Soviet Union by Hitler solidified the “Grand Alliance” (U.S., Britain, the Soviet Union). It appears that here an alternative title to Fischer’s “democracy vs. dictatorship” offers itself, one that might emphasize international cooperation, in the similar spirit of the European Union, namely a contrast between the narrow visions of nationalism, undeniably the cause behind World Wars I and II, and the lesson of international union in the face of a common aggressor. It seems to me that Europe suffered no real “decline” after the World Wars, as Fischer suggests in his conclusion, as much as achieved a higher level of development, one born from the ashes of nationalist arrogance and the unregulated boom-bust of market economies. These latter failed precisely because they placed the desires of national, elite minorities above the “bread and butter” issues of common, everyday people, whether under the iron heel of Stalinist collectivism, fascism, or Hooverite austerity. The need to take full stock of the damaging effects of nationalism and the ongoing search for higher levels of international cooperation should be the lesson of Europe from 1900-1945, a lesson of “union” that Europeans seem to have gotten, and which they could patiently teach their cousins across the pond, who appear to be lulling themselves to sleep again with mad dreams of “superpower” exceptionalism.

Podcast: Race and the White House, an Interview with Clarence Lusane

Mon, 24 Jan 2011 10:24:00 +0000

Race and the White House, an Interview with Clarence Lusane

On this episode we play our interview with historian Clarence Lusane, author of The Black History of the White House from City Lights Press.

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Taxonomy of Progress

Mon, 24 Jan 2011 07:25:00 +0000

"Whenever you fight for your rights, always bring a crowd" -- Beatrice Lumpkin

Introduction: Contrary to what community organization guru Saul Alinksy wrote half a century ago, there are no cookbook "rules for radicals," nor will there ever be. Material, social and personal conditions are ever-changing, and our ideas, approaches and actions as activists must be constantly changing as well. But while there are no pat answers about how to achieve social and economic progress, there is any number of questions that we can and must constantly answer if we wish to successfully achieve our short and long-term goals of building a better future.

The following taxonomy, presented in an extended "twenty questions" format, is intended to allow progressive activists to consider, both personally and collectively, the road to the future. Answering all of these questions on our own and together may provide us with a better snapshot of how we can move forward. Of course, the answers will change as reality itself changes and as we, ourselves, change reality.

1. Focus: What specific law, policy, contract, custom, attitude, situation or belief are you and your side trying to change at this moment, and why? Why does this goal matter? Is the change you want quantitative (more of this, less of that), or is it qualitative (changing from this to that; a basic change in the way things are)? Keep in mind that enough tiny changes can eventually tip the balance and lead to decisive changes. What are your minimum short term demands? What are your maximum long-term goals and dreams? What partial goals seem winnable now? How would achieving partial success help or hinder achievement of your ultimate goals? Are there any non-negotiable demands that you absolutely must achieve to succeed, or is everything on the table? What objective conditions would have to change to allow you to succeed, and what are you materially doing to change these conditions?

2. Care: Ask yourself how much you, personally, care about achieving this goal. How much have you been hurt by the way things are now? Are you really willing to take personal responsibility for the way things are, or for changing society? Or do you expect someone else (elected authorities, candidates, parties, or "the people") to change things for the better while you sit back and cheer? Are you a participant, or an audience? Do you really want to win, to change society, or do you just want to complain or talk back, curse or "throw the finger" at your opposition? Or, are you just doing this for fun, as disruption, or as an opportunity to advance your own career? If you do care and your goal is truly one of social change, how much is this goal really worth sacrificing for? What would you, personally be willing to give up to achieve this goal? A consequence-free mouse-click on a pointless online "cause?" Dedicating a bit of free time to work for your cause? Sharing some of your income or financial resources? (How much?) Donating hard work? Risking your job or career? Your good name? Your health? Your personal freedom? Going to jail? Even giving your life if required? Do you realistically expect your side to win within your lifetime? If so, how long do you think it will take? If not, be honest with yourself: What are your limits? What and how much are you truly willing to sacrifice to achieve a better future that you, personally, may not even be around to enjoy, and why?

3. Research: How has successful change (good or bad, big or small) of this type been achieved in the past, here or elsewhere? When, where and how long ago? By what specific method were these changes successfully accomplished? Were persuasive methods used? If so, how and by whom? By whom? A single great leader or hero, a group, a social movement, or mass action? Was change accomplished by vote? By changes in law, regulation, executive order or judicial ruling? By slow cultural change? By waiting for demographic change (passage of time or generations, or change of population characteristics)? By force of arms? Could your side imitate, duplicate, repeat or modify these same winning methods again? Why or why not? How exactly is the situation different now from what it was back then and there? Would more research and writing about this historical background be fruitful in any way, or would it be little more than a nostalgic distraction?

4. Pinpoint those who currently have the power to make and enforce (or to block, reverse or defeat) the actual decision or action that would allow your side to win: Who are they? Certain powerful public individuals, groups, political parties, agencies or corporations? A majority of voters? The President, the Congress, the courts, or the Legislature? The media? Business owners? Cultural and community opinion leaders? The working class, the ruling class, or the entire population? Or who else? Could they be convinced to support your point of view and act in your favor? What specifically, is stopping them from making or allowing this change at this point? Is it simply ignorance, apathy, stubbornness and inertia, blind faith in certain doctrines or dogmas, lack of care or empathy for others, fear of change or of the unknown, cruelty, bigotry and hatred, or is it material self-interest?

5. Face it: not every problem has a win-win solution. Is there any win-win solution to this particularly issue? (If so, this is obviously the best course for you to pursue, particularly when the only real obstacle to overcome is public apathy, inertia, ignorance or lack of awareness.) Ask first, however: Is there anyone, anywhere, who benefits from the way things are now, and whose financial, moral, cultural, professional, religious or personal interests would likely suffer if your side wins? Is there anyone who would lose money, power, a job, profits, dominance, influence, luxuries, reputation, business, health, safety, environmental quality or quality of life if your side succeeds? If the answer is "yes," expect opposition!

6. Seek the least costly solution: If apathy or public ignorance is the only obstacle, can the problem really be resolved by a simple information, advertising, consciousness-raising or public awareness campaign, by changing public attitudes? Could a solution be easily and simply achieved with better enforcement of existing laws, programs and regulations? Would personal or public charity or caring be enough to resolve the root cause of the problem? If you had enough resources, contacts, mass support and influence behind you could the issue be successfully negotiated with your opponents? If not, can it be settled democratically within in a reasonable length of time by changing pubic opinion, by referendum, or by voting a certain party or certain candidates in or out? If so, how long would it take and how much resources would be necessary to succeed? If such a democratic solution is impractical or blocked, would it be more fruitful to organize boycotts, demonstrations, protests, strikes or other creative nonviolent direct action to succeed? At what scale? And, if not even nonviolent action would succeed, could your opposition somehow be "softened" to allow reasoned compromise? If not, would you and those on your side be willing or able to go any further?

7. Recognize your own personal objective and subjective strengths at this moment (skills, know-how, reputation, experience, influence, age, health, physical and emotional strength, personality, contacts, position, experience, reputation, money and material resources, time, degree of commitment, perhaps even anger) related to the issue, without exaggerating: In your current personal position, how can you best use your present skills, and assets as a worker or activist to achieve practical short-term success on this issue while also furthering your longer-term goals? How can you develop new personal skills, strengths and resources in the short and long term? How can you best utilize and leverage your existing personal skills, strengths and resources by working together with others on your side now and in the future?

8. Acknowledge your own objective and subjective personal weaknesses, fears and shortcomings at this moment related to the issue: Be honest! These could be objective (poor physical, mental or emotional health, illness, youth or age, poverty and heavy debt load, family, job and community commitments, language problems, even location or isolation from other activists and organizations), or subjective (lack of knowledge, education, experience, time management or organizing skills, lack of motivation or personal energy, shyness and fears, burnout, demoralization, apathy or a defeatist attitude, excessive preoccupation with personal relationships, sports, weight, fitness, entertainment or religion, personal sexuality and intimacy issues, problems of ideological confusion, or even substance abuse issues). How can you now best work around your own current personal weaknesses, limitations and liabilities? What concrete plans do you have to strengthen yourself and your skills, knowledge and abilities, experience, reputation, resources and personal position in areas where you, yourself are weakest? What are you currently doing in terms of real action to overcome any personal weaknesses and liabilities that limit your effectiveness in working for this goal? How can working with others overcome your individual material, social, persuasive and subjective weaknesses now and in the future?

9. Highlight your allies, current and potential: Who are your primary or strongest ready-made allies at this moment, those groups, agencies and people who are currently active in favor of your viewpoint or who agree with you on the issue? How organized are they? Should you become a member of any existing union or organization? Or, should you form a new group? (Sometimes, starting a new group only confuses the issue and divides the forces on your side.) How powerful and active are any existing groups on your side in terms of numbers, skills, reputation, experience, influence, morale, money and material resources? How strongly are they committed to the issue? How reliable are they? What are their biggest negatives and weaknesses? What material, personal and moral resources, including membership and money, contacts and access, power, reputation or influence do they have that you (or a new group) do not? How comfortable would you be in their group, and what could you contribute as a member? How could your actions best coordinate with and further their efforts, and how would their efforts further your goals?

10. Develop new allies. What people and organizations are being significantly hurt by the way things are now? What groups, leaders and people would materially benefit the most by your side's proposals? (These might be logical target-audiences for your strongest persuasive efforts.) How could you best make them aware of the issue, and of how much they, themselves and the ones they care about are being hurt by the present situation? How could you best convince them that a solution is possible, that there IS an alternative to the present situation? How can you defeat their sense of powerlessness and despair? Could you help organize these people and forces? Paradoxically, those who have been hurt the most by poverty, injustice, discrimination, hunger and fear ("the wretched of the earth,") are not always the ones who are the most capable of or interested in changing the way things are. Suffering, unemployment, war, poverty and discrimination can easily make a person a rebel, but it can just as easily break someone. Which groups and individuals who have been harmed by the current state of things are also the most skilled, the most capable, and the best located for changing things? Who are the most free to act, and who would be most able to see the task through to the end without being bought off, scared off, burned out, terrorized into silence, co-opted or bribed into giving in?

11. Identify your current and potential human opposition, by name if possible. First, inventory the most powerful local and larger-scale groups, individual leaders and political forces who are currently holding back progress toward your goals, who generally oppose your program or approach, who would be materially harmed by your success, or who currently hold the power to block your progress and ultimate victory. Who are they? An individual leader? A small group, clique, gang, cartel or social class in power? A mass movement? The public in general? (At this moment, is public opinion for you, against you, or indifferent?) How organized are those who currently oppose your ideas? Is their position really materially antagonistic to your side's position (i.e., if your side wins, does theirs necessarily lose?), or do you and they simply have differences over priorities and tactics, or even seemingly petty squabbles over personalities, titles, position, "turf" and leadership? Why and how fiercely are they opposed to you? What are your opposition's favorite tactics and what can you do to persuasively or materially counter these before they neutralize, marginalize, demoralize and defeat you and your side? How much more are they willing to do, and what dirty tricks or even crimes might they stoop to in order to stop your final victory? Are you and your side in any material danger?

12. Assess your true opposition's current material, human and ideological strengths and weaknesses. How powerful are your current opponents right now in terms of numbers, skills, reputation and position, experience, morale, leadership, unity, influence, contacts, time, money and material resources? At present, what are their greatest strengths? What are their biggest current weaknesses, internal divisions and liabilities? How could you take advantage of these? Can you de-legitimize and discredit your opponents? If so, how would you do it? What is the chance that you and your allies could persuade some or all of them to change their minds, compromise, or at least give up or get out of your way? Do you even have access to the means and channels to reach and persuade them? Or, on the other hand, in order to succeed would your side need to be prepared to decisively defeat them and go "over their dead bodies," figurative or even literally?

13. Inventory all of your side's existing and potential material and human resources, including (a) your own group's and your allies' income and finances, physical resources like meeting rooms and buildings, real estate, duplicators, media and online resources, levels of activists' skills and experience, friendly union and community activists, officials and leaders, businesses and agencies, professionals like lawyers, doctors, programmers, website developers and educators, friendly elected and appointed public officials, mass membership, and non-member support. Then project: (b) what level of material and human resources might be needed to succeed in your short or long term goal? How will your side make up the difference between (a) and (b) within a reasonable time frame? Simply assuming that material support will increase as popular support increases begs the question and leads to the dead end dilemma of how to increase mass support without material resources, and how to increase material resources without mass support. Here it is useful to recall that the material always determines ideas, and not vice versa.

14. Analyze, as objectively as possible, the present human, material, cultural and persuasive balance of forces on your issue: which side is currently on the offensive (yours or theirs?), which side is on the defensive, and why? Given this situation, how close is the particular change you want to accomplish in realistic terms? Around the corner? Years, decades, or generations away? A distant pipe-dream?

15. Deliver: How would your side materially deliver your ideas to your intended audience under present conditions? (On paper? Online? Face to face? Where, when, and how?) How would you get your intended audience to pay attention to your ideas, actually bother to look at them, read them or listen to and consider them? How would you get them to consider you, your side, and your communication as legitimate and trustworthy? How would successfully delivering your ideas to your intended audience help to change the balance of forces and materially further the effort to achieve your side's goal? Identify at least three organized groups, agencies, communities or formations that already share either your opinion or your goals, and who, if you contacted, persuaded or organized them, might be interested in helping deliver your persuasion to your intended audience.

16 Act: What other specific, material human actions, beyond verbal or written agitation or persuasion, would be essential in the short, medium or long term to tip the balance of forces enough for your goal to be favored and ultimately won? What real actions can you and your allies take now (in the short term) to help tip the balance of forces to favor your goals?

17. Expect counterattacks from your opposition; the more significant your issue the fiercer your opposition. How strong do you expect these attacks will be, and from what quarter? What are you and your allies' biggest existing vulnerabilities that opponents could attack? Family and loved ones? Home? Job? Health? Debt and finances? Legal questions? Your personal safety or even your life? Do you or your allies have any confidential factors that opponents could easily use to "out" you and discredit or even incriminate you and your cause? Can you afford to ignore such attacks? Are you and your allies prepared to be attacked, and do you have the unity, strength of commitment, and resources to defend yourselves legally, financially and physically? How would you and your allies defend yourselves from "softer" attacks that would seek to convince you to give up, despair, and resign yourself to the way things are, or get caught up in distractions like entertainment, substances or personal issues? What does history say about potential distractions that opponents could throw up against you to derail your efforts?

18. Overcome: How specifically do you plan to either win existing or potential opposition over to your side, or else discredit, de-legitimize, confuse, discourage, divide, demoralize, disorganize, deactivate, marginalize, peel-away, neutralize or defeat those who might be (or feel) hurt by your side's victory? How do you plan to make sure that those you defeated remain defeated until your side wins?

19. Win: Is your side close enough to victory to discuss an end-game? If so, what is it? Does your side have several different possible successful end-game scenarios ready, just in case of unexpected last-minute obstacles? How much are you and your side willing to compromise in order to win? What could go wrong at the last moment to derail, devalue or neutralize your victory? How will you be able to tell when you win?

20. Defend your victory: Once your side wins, how would you persuasively and materially consolidate your victory and make it last? How do you plan to keep the people who opposed you or whose material or moral interests were harmed by your winning from rebounding and snatching that victory away from you?

Photo courtesy AFL-CIO

U.S. Foreign Policy at a Dead End

Wed, 19 Jan 2011 09:27:00 +0000

The Second World War ended 65 years ago with the triumph of the Grand Alliance (principally the United States, the USSR, Britain, China, and France) over the forces of fascism and militarism. It was the hope of millions of people around the world that the end of World War II would usher in an era of peace and prosperity. Alas, it was not to be.

Instead, the two major powers – the United States and the Soviet Union – came into ideological and economic conflict in what we know as the Cold War. For nearly five decades the struggle between the two superpowers dominated world history. It was only with the dissolution of socialist states of Eastern Europe followed by the collapse of the USSR, that the Cold War came to an end.

During that span of time, the United States government, led by both Democratic and Republican presidents, followed a policy of confrontation that had profound effects both at home and abroad. While there were ebbs and flows in the dynamic of Washington’s policies, there was an overriding consistency that predominated. With the end of the Cold War, one could have expected a dramatic shift in the direction of our government’s relations with other countries, but that was not to be. To be sure, there were adjustments and some revisions in its thrust, but nothing of significance.

It is the main thesis of this paper that the consistency of United States foreign policy has led to its ossification, that is, it has not adapted to changing times. The world that exists at the outset of the second decade of the 21st century is a very different place than that which existed at the midpoint of the 20th. This has created serious problems both at home for American society and abroad for all of humanity.

This analysis of United States policy during the Cold War will not repeat the chronology of that conflict or of the events in the period since its demise. What we will look at are basic concepts that came to characterize US-USSR relations and have persisted into the present. The discussion will conclude with a survey of how those concepts affected domestic policy and their ramifications internationally.

To provide a more accurate assessment of US Cold War policies, one must mention that the picture has not been completely static and unchanging. There have been some major changes in our government’s policies over the decades, beyond the adjustments necessitated by the end of the socialist system in the USSR and Eastern Europe. The most profound development was the shift in US policy toward China. After two decades of heightened tensions and ideological confrontation, the United States recognized the People’s Republic, and has developed a much more normal state to state relationship with it.

Other adjustments to Washington’s international relations took place in Iran, where a US client state was replaced by a theocratic dictatorship; South Africa, where the national liberation movement – embodied by an alliance of the African National Congress, the South African Communist Party, and the Congress of South African Trade Unions – overthrew the white supremacist apartheid government; and Latin America, where a number of leftists governments have come to power in the last decade, most notably in Venezuela, Bolivia, Brazil, Ecuador, and Nicaragua.

One might assume that it was inevitable that conflict would arise between the two most powerful erstwhile allies, the centers of two diametrically opposed ideologies. It is important to look at the history of the immediate post-World War II period, however, to see that the rise of confrontation between the United States and the Soviet Union did not have to happen. The ideological and political language and thought patterns that came to define the Cold War era (and after) did not yet exist. In the years just after the end of hostilities there were large sections of the US population that hoped for and struggled to build peace and ensure a continuation of the alliance between Washington and Moscow that had won the war. The high point of that movement was the Progressive Party campaign of Henry A. Wallace for president in 1948, which received over one million votes.

Unfortunately, such expectations were not to be. The forces of imperialism – the large corporations, the military, conservative politicians, and others – were to triumph and spend untold trillions of dollars and sacrifice millions of lives to the altar of “fighting communism.”

Within two years of the end of World War II, President Harry S. Truman and his Republican opponents were able to fashion what Senator Arthur Vandenberg called a “bipartisan” foreign policy. In contrast to earlier presidential foreign policy initiatives which often were accompanied by strong political opposition, the two major political parties agreed on the basic assumptions in US relations with foreign countries. To that end, the United States undertook a major revision of its international policies and the government structure to carry it out.

A significant thread that has been woven through the Cold War and beyond has been the United States policy of foreign military aid and/or intervention. From the earliest days of the post-war era to the present day, this idea has been, in many ways, the bedrock upon which the structure of international relations has been built. In 1946, Clark Clifford, a presidential assistant recommend that the Congress “support and assist all democratic countries which are in any way menaced by the USSR.” The first test of that idea, which came to known as the Truman Doctrine was in Greece and Turkey, where the United States would send $400 million dollars in aid to fight “communist” insurgents. In the two decades that followed Washington committed troops to Korea, Lebanon, the Dominican Republic, Vietnam and Southeast Asia. After the its defeat in Indochina, US presidents sent troops to Grenada, Panama, the Persian Gulf, Somalia, the Balkans, Iraq, and Afghanistan, and these are just the major efforts. Since the 1990s, the rationale turned from “fighting communism” to “fighting terrorism.”

While the military carried out large-scale overt actions, the United States carried on a second, secret strategy of subversion, deceit, and destruction though the apparatus set up when Mr. Truman signed into law the National Security Act of 1947, which replaced the War Department with the Department of Defense, and established the Central Intelligence Agency (the CIA) as a tool to maintain foreign compliance with Washington’s international objectives. One can only describe the role of the CIA over the past sixty years as “sordid.” Few countries have escaped its influence. The agency has undertaken a litany of actions that include overthrowing legitimately elected governments, assassinating national leaders, and covert assistance to groups that range from the “Contras” in Nicaragua to the mujahadeen fighting the Soviets in Afghanistan. Though the Cold War ended nearly two decades ago, the role of the intelligence community in Iraq and Afghanistan is well-known.

To this day little is known about the CIA’s activities outside Congress and the White House. The agency’s budget is never published and any debates or hearings of substance are held behind closed doors.

One of the first building blocks of the dawning Cold War came in 1949 when the United States and eleven other nations established the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO). Its purpose was to defend Western Europe from a perceived Soviet attack. United States troops, which remained in Europe after the end of World War II to occupy the defeated fascist states, now had a reason to remain there indefinitely. Five years later, in 1954, the Soviet Union and its allies formed the Warsaw Pact. For 40 years the two sides maintained heightened alert, eyeball to eyeball.

The creation of NATO was but one of several regional military alliances set up to ring the socialist world. There was one, CENTO, in the Middle East; another, SEATO, in southeast Asia, and one among the United States, Australia, and New Zealand. These alliances eventually dissolved or became insignificant.

NATO, however, perseveres. Even though the reason for the alliance’s creation (the “Soviet threat”) disappeared with the end of the Soviet Union, NATO did not disappear. Instead the alliance, led by Washington underwent an expansion from twelve to 28 members, most of whom are eastern European. In the last two decades NATO was the centerpiece of military actions in the Balkans and Afghanistan. Far from disappearing, NATO welcomes any nation that agrees to “contribute to security in the Euro-Atlantic area.” No one explains where the threat to the security to the region comes from.

Afghanistan and Central Asia are, compared to other regions of the world, relatively new areas of interest to the United States. Other trouble spots have remained areas of contention for decades, of which Korea, Israel and the Middle East, and Cuba are the most prominent. In each case it is as if these crisis areas flared up, waxed hot for a period of time, then seemed frozen in amber.

The Korean Peninsula has been an area of contention since the outbreak of hostilities in 1950. After a bloody three year conflict which took nearly 40,000 United States military lives, not to mention hundreds of thousands of Korean lives on both sides of the Demilitarized Zone, there has remained an uneasy truce. Every so often there are military events between the two sides that escalate tensions. The recent shelling of a South Korean island by the North is but the latest episode.

Today, over 60 years since the beginning of the Korean War, the United States maintains a military force of 30,000 personnel in the southern part of the peninsula. Relations between the two sides remain poor, and attempts in the 1990s to normalize intra-Korean communication and transportation, foster family reunions, and expand other activities were later scuttled by the George W. Bush administration.

On the other side of Asia, relations between Israel and its neighbors, the Palestinians foremost, remain on hair-trigger alert. The Israeli government has repeatedly used force and intimidation to carry out its policies.

From the earliest days after World War II, when Jewish people who had survived the Holocaust sought refuge in Palestine to the current day, the region has been seen endless bloodshed and destruction. When in 1947 the United Nations decided to divide Palestine into Palestinian and Jewish states, the nascent Israeli government worked to prevent the Arab population from forming its own government. Harry Truman recognized Israel as a country in 1948 and Washington became Israel’s staunchest ally. “Israel is the largest cumulative recipient of U.S. foreign assistance since World War II,” according to Jeremy M. Sharp, a specialist in Middle East Affairs at the Congressional Research Service of the Library of Congress. That was particularly true in the years after the Six Day War in 1967, when Israel began its occupation of Arab territory. In 2008 the United States provided Israel with $2.4 billion in aid out of a total foreign aid budget of $26 billion.

Over the years there have been advances toward peace in the Middle East: the Camp David Accords in 1978, the Oslo Accords in 1993, and the establishment of the Palestinian Authority. Yet these milestones have been the first steps in what should be a comprehensive peace agreement. Little of substance has been achieved in the last two decades. The United States has been, and continues to be, Israel’s main ally. No matter what the reason Washington gave for its support: 1) during the Cold War, US foreign policy leaders said that Israel was an outpost of democracy in a region dominated by dictatorships and Soviet influence; or 2) in recent years that Israel is a bulwark against “radical Islamic terrorism,” the United States continues to aid Israel. Undeterred by the stalemate, the forces of peace – be they Arab, Israeli, or others – struggle to end Israeli policies of death and destruction. As we enter the second decade of the twenty first century, one can predict when peace in the Middle East will break out.

Closer to home, there remains the intractable problems of US-Cuban relations, which have remained frozen for nearly half of a century. From the day Fidel Castro led his revolutionary army into Havana on New Years Day 1959 up to the present, the United States government has followed a policy aimed at the overthrow of the new people’s government. There followed a series of actions that included the Bay of Pigs invasion in 1961, the Cuban Missile Crisis the following year, to numerous CIA-directed attempts to assassinate Castro. The United States broke off diplomatic relations with Cuba in 1961 and has never resumed them. Shortly thereafter, President Kennedy set up the trade embargo that remains to this day. By 1964 travel to Cuba was banned by the State Department.

For years the United States accused the Cuban government of being an outpost of Soviet communism and training forces designed to overthrow governments in Latin America. Even after the dissolution of the USSR and the end of the Cold War, US relations with Cuba have changed little. If anything, Congress, through the “Torricelli law,” and the Helms-Burton Act has tightened the screws even further. In recent years relations between the two countries have improved incrementally.

There are other US foreign policy objectives in other parts of the world that have remained basically unchanged for decades. For example, the conflict in Kashmir has never been resolved. Cyprus remains a divided island, and the Democratic Republic of Congo suffers from on-going violence and war.

One special area of outdated policies is the organizational structure of the United Nations as an institution. The UN was created in 1945 as a league of victors of World War II. As such, organs such as the Security Council were set up in a way that gave the five world powers at the time – the United States, the Soviet Union, Britain, France, and China (which was dominated by the Nationalists, who in 1949 were exiled to Taiwan) – veto power over all decisions. For a quarter century those countries dominated the organization. It took until 1971 before the Peoples Republic of China, took its rightful seat at the Council table.

It seems that the Security Council has ignored the major changes in the geo-political map of the world over the last fifty years. Membership on the Council was expanded in the 1960s, but few other changes were made to accommodate the ebbs and flows of world power.

For most of the last half-century countries in Africa, Asia, and Latin America have demanded that the United Nations, the Security Council in particular, be reformed. Britain and France have undergone a relative decline in their power, while countries such as India, Brazil, among others, have grown enormously in stature. Yet, one would never know that from the way the United Nations is still organized.

The legacy of the Cold War continues to frame the thinking and policies of the United States government in many other ways. These range from the use of subtle catchphrases to the excessively bloated defense budget.

One example, which many people seem to take for granted or do not think about is the number of United States military installations around the world. Accurate figures are hard to find, but according to the Defense Department itself, the United States maintains over 700 bases in over 130 countries. By best estimate over 250,000 military personnel are deployed in these locations, not to mention thousands of local workers and other foreign nationals. The amount of money spent annually on foreign military bases in not clear from the defense budget, but one estimate puts the total over $100 billion dollars.

In Germany and Japan, the countries that lost the Second World War, the United States has maintained a continuous military presence, now more than 65 years long. The number of installations on every continent other than Antarctica has mushroomed over the decades, yet the US government has never explained the need to maintain such a large system.

While maintaining these foreign bases, the United States has been the number one exporter of arms to foreign countries. There is no single figure for the total expenditures that included export of weapons foreign nations, but the anecdotal evidence shows that the policy has ebbed and flowed over time. For example, the total arms sales under various programs between 1950 and 1967 came to $46 billion, an average of under $3 billion a year. During the Carter administration, the numbers decreased from over $9 billion in 1977 to $8 billion two years later, but then more than doubled in 1982 under Reagan to over $20 billion. In the eight years of the Reagan administration, arms sales totaled over $92 billion, an average of more than $11 annually. Clinton oversaw the transfer of more than $46 billion in arms just to the Middle East during his years in the White House. If anything, the sales of weapons expanded dramatically in the new century. One estimate states that the United States has sold over $166 billion between 2002 and 2009, forty percent of the world’s total, or as much combined as the other four permanent members of the UN Security Council.

The rationale for these various aspects of United States foreign policy since World War II is that the United States is the “leader of the free world” (even in 2010 one can still hear this language) and that our country has been “fighting communism” (until the early 1990s) or “fighting terrorism.” The concentration of wealth and power in a hands of a small number of media conglomerates has controlled how the people of the United States hear and learn about the world. Those who differ from the established line of thought are marginalized or denied access to the levers of information.

The largest and most immediate legacy of the Cold War remains the huge defense budget. In the aftermath of the Second World War and the institutionalization of the Cold War, the US government greatly increased spending on the military. For comparison, in the years before World War II (years of United States “isolationism”), the War Department yearly budget varied between $1 and $2.5 billion dollars. By the late 1940s, the yearly Pentagon budget was consistently over $100 billion and within two decades was several hundred billion dollars a year. There were fluctuations, of course, particularly during the Korean and Vietnam Wars. One of the cornerstones of the “Reagan Revolution” was markedly higher defense budgets.

Even in the years after the demise of the Soviet Union, defense budgets have remained high. Carl Cornetta of the Project on Defense Alternatives has stated that the total military spending since 1998 has totaled $6.5 trillion dollars. Estimates for FY 2011 are in the $700 billion range. Cornetta has pointed out that “looking forward, the Obama administration’s 2010 budget plan allocates an average of $545 billion (2010 USD) per year to the DoD base budget for 2011-2017.” In addition, it set aside a “place keeper” sum of $50 billion per year for military operations, recognizing that actual war costs will vary. The Pentagon already is expected to request at least $163 billion for contingency operations in 2011. In other words, if unchecked in the seven years ahead, the US government plans to continue the same level of spending authority on defense that it has in recent decades. Since the end of World War II, one can estimate that the total expenditure for the Pentagon is approximately $21 trillion dollars.

The social impact of this defense spending and of all Cold War policies outlined in this paper is staggering. In the immediate post-war decades the United States was the dominant economic and military power on Earth. The capitalist class undertook an offensive to destroy socialism and overthrow the peoples governments and eliminate the national liberation movements around the world. For nearly thirty years the United States economy was able to balance its military and civilian commitments. But with the ending of the Vietnam War, the rise of competing economies in Europe and Asia, and the dismantling of the US manufacturing base, along side the growth of an increasingly complex global economy, things changed.

Other countries, unburdened by a massive military budget dedicated to worldwide intervention, were able to modernize their economies and meet many of the needs of their people. In areas as diverse as health care, housing, transportation, education, and the environment foreign governments have met the needs of their people better than has the government of the United States. One only has look at our cities, transportation networks, and health care systems to see that our country has slipped from its status as pre-eminent world power and is danger of falling further behind the others.

At a time of serious economic problems, we are burdened with an aging infrastructure, a health care system that underserves millions of people, and an education system that is seemingly alway in crisis. One constantly hears that there is no money to fund these programs or provide assistance to states and municipalities that are overburdened and underfunded. While the lives of working-class Americans deteriorates, Wall Street rakes in the profits, with the total reaching a record $1.66 trillion in the third quarter of 2010. Never in the history of the United States has the gap between rich and poor been wider.

The ultimate answer to the problems created by outdated Cold War style policies is for the US working class to replace capitalism with socialism. But that will not happen soon. A significant step out of the current economic quagmire is for the United States government to look at the world we live in, both at home and abroad, and fundamentally change its foreign policy to reflect new realities. The days of the Cold War are long over.

Increasing numbers of people in our country are demanding new policies. In recent years the movements for social change within the United States have increased their calls for a reduction in military spending and the use of the money saved for domestic purposes. It is crucial to the future of the United States that these movements also speak out and demand an end to outdated foreign policies. The time has come for the United States to pursue a course where we are not the number one country dominating the world, but one country among many that seeks peace and international understanding.

Photo: U.S. Army

Movie Review: Phil Ochs: There but for Fortune

Fri, 14 Jan 2011 08:49:00 +0000

Directed by Ken Bowser (www.philochsthemovie.com).
Released, January 2011, IFC Center, New York, NY
Premiered at the Woodstock Film Festival, Woodstock NY, 2010.

Original source: The Cultural Worker

Documentarian Ken Bowser walked up the aisle to the front of the IFC Center in Greenwich Village for the premiere of ‘Phil Ochs: There But for Fortune’ and explained that this film was some twenty years in the making. Twenty years for a documentary about a folksinger of a time that now seems far into the past, one who never lived to know of his place in the annals of topical music. Citing that Ochs’ brief life and briefer still career fell far short of the popular acclaim he struggled for, Bowser reminded the audience that, “it’s important that we who love Phil Ochs and understand his relevance let others know”. It was never supposed to be a closed society of the initiated, so spread the news---all the news that’s fit to sing. The protest singer’s vibrancy in performance, the visceral stir in his voice and the earnest plead on his face are back. The music’s depth, the urgency of the day and the living movements that Ochs was so central to are visible for all to see. Leaning awkwardly over a microphone while cradling his Gibson 6-string, James Dean haircut spilling over his forehead, cocked eyebrow revealing sardonic wit while the mouth produces an earnest portal for songs of pride and revolution, Ochs erupts onto the screen, something of a celluloid hero. Within the cinema that was once the legendary Waverly Theatre—a site frequented by Phil in the ‘60s, walking distance from his Bleeker Street apartment—it was easy to feel transported. And necessary. These times, too, need Phil Ochs.

At least partially erased from popular memory, Ochs is recalled today in an awkward hush. But wasn’t that a time? The singer didn’t just burst upon the early ‘60s folk scene intact--he was crafted out of pure determination and idealism. The product of a challenging, to say the least, childhood (Ochs’ sister Sonny and brother Michael both attest to their manic-depressive father and coldly disconnected mother), young Phil tended to be a loner who idolized film stars and fostered a burning, secret desire for fame. “The psychosis of the Eisenhower era”, as record producer Van Dyke Parks described it, implanted in Ochs’ the conflict that was to mark the years of protest to come. Deeply patriotic, the teenage Ochs began to understand something of the injustice in his midst and he began to see beyond the surface. In college while studying for a career as a journalist, Ochs befriended folksinger Jim Glover who introduced him to the music of Woody Guthrie and the Weavers; his writings took a notable turn to the left. And after years of study on clarinet, Ochs obtained his first guitar, winning it from Glover in a bet when he wagered that Kennedy would beat Nixon in the ’60 election. Ochs never retreated.

The writing of topical songs came easily---they flowed at a blurring rate and offered up-to-the-moment social commentary. Phil noted that “every newspaper headline is a song” and before long his performances in Greenwich Village nightspots led to a major record contract and a national tour. The film offers a look into the tumultuous relationship he shared with another stalwart of the Village scene, Bob Dylan. While they were friends as young men, Dylan’s star shined considerably brighter than Ochs and as he rose to new heights, Ochs always felt at least a step behind. The rivalry haunted him. Still, Ochs’ impact was deeply touched by the activists who soon felt forsaken by Dylan. Cultural critic Christopher Hitchens, among the notable talking heads who offer wonderful insights, stated that “There was a difference between those who listened to Dylan and those who even knew who Phil was. Anyone could like Dylan”.

Eluded by wider popular acclaim, he staunchly maintained an immersion in protest music even as he graduated beyond its standard fair of singer and guitar. By his third studio album, Ochs’ transition was not into the realm of folk-rock--as his peers had moved into--but to an expansive, concept-driven format that made full use of orchestration and a variety of genre. String quartets, honky-tonk piano, woodwinds and electronic music provided a sweeping soundscape for Phil’s resounding tenor. Seemingly always aware of, yet in battle with, the tragic destiny of mental illness that would later claim him, Ochs fueled his passion with alcohol and work. But the brilliance of his music was never enough to satisfy the burning restlessness within the man or his conflicted self-image, equal parts self-important and shattered.

‘Phil Ochs: There But for Fortune’ offers powerful insights into the choice songwriter of in-the-know progressives. The film is a whirlwind tour through his music, his politics and his personal demons, with stopping points which include skillfully edited performance and interview footage, news reels and rare photographs. First person remembrances are provided by Ochs’ family as well as fellow folkies Pete Seeger, Joan Baez, Dave Van Ronk, Jim Glover, Judy Henske, and Peter Yarrow (the elusive Dylan was, as Bowser described, unavailable for interviewing). Overall, the film is a fascinating view into the urgency of the times, the movement culture, and the folksong community’s response to Civil Rights, Vietnam, labor strife, and the murders of the Kennedys, Medgar Evars and Martin Luther King. Ochs was inflamed with activism and willingly thrust himself into the street heat---this is where he differed from the rest! Other important historic segments in the film are the interviews of Yippie founders Paul Krasner, Ed Sanders (of the Fugs) and, via archival footage, Abbie Hoffman. Hearing the personal recollections of the debacle of the 1968 Chicago Democratic Convention protest, along with footage of the police riot and ensuing despair, was riveting. Tom Hayden, never far from his radical roots, again offered moving commentary. The assaults by the Chicago police, the loss of an anti-war presidential candidate, and the dissolution of the activists base, post-’68, had a terrific impact on the already wavering Ochs. Sanders said that Phil saw the protestors as, influenced by 1930s radicalism, part of “a united front against the war”. Once it was broken, he began to state that he’d died in Chicago along with democracy---or at least the movement.

While Ochs later years are painful to observe, the power of the songs stands strong. It is almost unfathomable that Ochs was only 35 at the time of his death. Yet Bowser is sure to illustrate some of the exciting highlights of his later period, including his organizing of large-scale events such a his celebratory ‘the War Is Over’ concert in Central Park and the ‘An Evening With Salvador Allende’ in honor of the Chilean people whose radical democracy was stolen from them by a US-backed coup. Overall, the film does exactly what we, who have been waiting for something, want it to do. It offers a close-up view of this man who has often been deemed the protest song’s grandest voice. You’ll peer into the broken life of Phil Ochs but this image will be far surpassed by his promise of a new day. And, hell, if this is not enough to inspire you to attend the next rally for social change, then the music cannot miss. “I Ain’t Marchin’ Anymore”, “Changes”, “The War is Over”, “White Boots Marching in a Yellow Land”, “Draft Dodger Rag”, “My Kingdom for a Car”, “Chords of Fame”, “No More Songs”, “Links in the Chain”, “The Ballad of Medgar Evars”, “Harlan Kentucky”, “We Call for No Wider War”, “When I’m Gone”. “There But for Fortune” and it rolls on and on, through the decades and the next senseless war.

Book Review: War for Wealth

Thu, 13 Jan 2011 10:48:00 +0000

War for Wealth: The Truth About Globalization and Why the Flat World is Broken
by Gabor Steingart
New York: McGraw-Hill, 2008

Capitalists are waging a global war for dominance and the white ones are losing, worries Gabor Steingart, business writer for Der Spiegel and various U.S. based publications. China, India, even Africa pose a huge threat to the predominance of the U.S. and what Steingart imagines to be its European cousins, and they are winning.

"Cooperation between the Americans and the Europeans could act as a counterforce to the new, rising economies [of China and India]," Steingart writes in a paranoid style resembling the white supremacist "race suicide" theorists of a century ago. In a new alliance of the U.S. and Europe, resembling a massive economic and political bloc where "Lisbon would border Boston," the "threat" of Asian hegemony could be held back.

Of course, Steingart doesn't couch his paranoia in overt supposedly biological racial ties between Europeans and Americans. Instead he voices the more familiar culturalism of today's racial codes. "Americans and Europeans do not live on the Mars and Venus xy. Instead, they reside on the two sides of a single moon. they breathe the same air, stand on the same geological subsoil and [like Christopher Columbus setting out on a voyage of discovery, ed.] look at other galaxies from the same distance." [emphasis added]

Steingart simply ignores the very basic fact that the U.S. isn't any more tied to Europe historically and culturally than it is to Africa, Asia, or Latin America. Instead, he claims, Americans and European share the same ancestors, "are brothers in spirit," defied communism together, established NATO (that peace-loving, democracy-building institution), and share a similar popular culture. They should unite to stave off the advancing darker-skinned peoples of the world. OK, the last part is my formulation, but how else could Steingart's claims be read?

Why would he not argue that the U.S. and China could forge a cooperative arrangement in which they integrate their economies, build cooperative social and cultural ties, work toward peaceful global economic and political development together? Such an arrangement is more logical given the existing ties between the U.S. and China and the potential for such an arrangement between the two superpowers. I mean, if we're fantasizing about massive economic and political blocs that would rule the world, why not a China-U.S. arrangement.

A quick perusal, for that is all the commitment to reading this I am willing to recommend unless you have something else at hand, reveals a deep level of fear and anxiety, the kind that turns rational political thinking into manifestoes waved by hawkish national security advisors and hoary hermits alike. In just the first few pages, he describes events in the world understandably and correctly as a "bitter struggle," a "war for wealth," but one that is taking place outside our direct field of visions" – in China and India. Both of those countries are erupting with "vitality" and brimming with "self-confidence" and creativity, while "the West is turning into a miniaturized version of itself." It's "population is both shrinking and aging." It's share of the pie is smaller, its "inventive spirit is diminishing."

Indeed, "America's biggest problem is America itself." We have become afraid to grab the reins of power and spread our political and economic seed, which Steingart apparently idealizes as the best the world has to offer, in the bid for global dominance. Simply put, Americans are afraid of domination, or to use an outmoded word, imperialism.

He does correctly note the rise of Asian economies has primarily depended on their ability to attract capital with a large and inexpensive workforce. He even further makes the credible judgment that in the U.S. the decline of labor unions and the social welfare state have undermined the standards of living of American working families and their confidence in capitalism. A restoration of both is in order, in his view.

What he fails to elucidate or apparently understand in his bid for "Western" resurgence, only thinly disguising the racial implications of his argument, is the multinational dimension of the capitalist actors involved. They do not regard themselves as tied to a state or patriots loyal to a country the way Steingart fantasizes they should. Wal-Mart, GM, Amway, McDonald's, Boeing, media giants, etc. don't see themselves as bound by borders the way most people imagine the boundaries of nation, community, or culture. They don't allow themselves to be subject to the whims of the governments of nations, but to the ways in which they seek to dominate markets, drive down labor costs, boosts the profit margin – the essence and logic of the capitalist system, regardless of its geographical location.

Unfortunately Steingart's fears are shared by many social forces in U.S. society. A new book, titled Advantage: How American Innovation Can Overcome the Asian Challenge from the Council on Foreign Relations, for example, urges renewed efforts to stave off the Asian challenge. The author of that book, however, offers little in the way of renewed economic develop and instead boasts about America's "software innovation," i.e. innovative ideas. Not having read this new book entirely yet, I hope it's safe to assume the author doesn't mean infomercials, Justin Bieber, and Facebook are going to surpass massive investments by China in its manufacturing sector, its clean energy sector, in information technology, health care and education.

The real question to be asked and answers found should not be which country or racial-cultural bloc will dominate the world, but which class, which majority of humans will have the greatest say in the direction of this planet? And I am not inclined to believe that once you get past the baloney, Steingart's answer is a democratic one.

Unions Serve the Tea: the Rage Against the Employed and the Unionized

Wed, 12 Jan 2011 07:54:00 +0000

The Taft-Hartley Act, passed in 1948 and the single most destructive piece of legislation to the union movement, was a product of anti-communist hysteria. When it was passed, about half of all American workers belonged to labor unions. That figure has now dropped to twelve percent.
--Chris Hedges, Death of the Liberal Class, 2010

We can no longer live in a society where the public employees are the haves and taxpayers who foot the bills are the have-nots.
--Scott Walker, newly elected governor of Wisconsin, quoted in NYTimes January 4, 2011

Clever that. I mean making adversaries of unionized “public employees” and “taxpayers,” making union workers the “Haves” and taxpayers the “Have-Nots.” I wonder on what stage such a performance is creditable?

It was a vast change in the cultural surround which engineered The Taft-Hartley (1948)revision, or more precisely, undermining, of the Wagner Act, aka, the National Labor Relations Act. Think of “cultural surround” firstly in a traditional way: as a present economic state of affairs affected by historical economic conditions that have led to a certain social ordering as well as a politics that functions within the boundaries of possibility these socio-economic conditions have created. Now introduce the notion that these “existing conditions” have only a mediated or phenomenal reality, that is, how they are valued and what they mean to us depends upon a battle of representation, a war of image and spectacle, of chat and spin.

So the phrase “cultural surround” includes all of this, Marx’s “material and historical conditions” subject to – or, sieved through – the battle of the blogs, the “No-Spin” zones of Fox TV, the “updates” of Facebook friends, the “viral” videos of Youtube, the “truths” of Glenn Beck and Rush Limbaugh, the political guidance of Sarah Palin. Reality for humans, in short, is always performed.

In 1935 the Wagner Act was passed as part of FDR’s New Deal, a very important part because salaried workers who had suffered in the Wall Street collapse of 1929, needed some support from government in responding to unfair labor practices of employers. This “labor bill of rights” was part of FDR’s thrust toward an “economic bill of rights,” rights involving a living wage, housing, medical care, education and social security. The cultural clime then in regard to unions, government, and employers differed immeasurably from the cultural clime of the present even though both eras were blighted by similar acts of monumental financial chicanery, over-speculation and Wall Street carte blanche.

FDR connected economic insecurity of the many to the reckless profiteering and greed of the few. What he learned from the Great Depression was that the political enfranchisement guaranteed by the existing Bill of Rights could be rendered meaningless if the working class was reduced to a servitude that had plagued every society since the beginning of time. Who had looted the country and brought it to its knees remained clear throughout FDR’s days in office. And the overwhelming numbers of Americans who were deep in unemployment, homelessness, hunger, sickness and all those psychological repercussions that we mark now but had little representation then – these multitudes did not indict their fellow workers nor themselves.

It was quite clear who were the Haves and who the Have Nots. The Wall Street “player” so brazenly lauded by Gordon Gekko in both film versions of Wall Street as a heroic exemplar of greed was no such hero in the New Deal days. The wealthy kept a low profile, as did the Wall Street “player.”

The “lives of the rich and famous” make their appearance in screwball comedies – Margaret Dumont’s societal “blueblood” suffering the barbs of an antic Groucho Marx – while the tough anti-heroes of the film noir are resilient and inspiring in the face of bad luck and ruthless power. The “working class heroes,” the John Does and Tom Joads, reveal on the screen not product placements and marketing implanted desires but what the audience recognizes in their own daily struggle. Struggle, anger, revenge, laconic toughness, and the darkness of these “mean streets” clash in high Hollywood style with Busby Berkeley extravagance and insouciant farce. A reckless capitalism had no estimable image while the Pecora Commission investigated and indicted Wall Street malfeasants. A real Leftist presence that threatens the “casino” order of wealth and poverty emerges not because many were being “brainwashed” but because many were defending themselves from a system that had indeed “savaged” them.

The cultural surround changes when a variety of images change, when for instance “working class heroes” and their unions become tied to the Communist Soviet Union and its socialist solidarity replacing private ownership and “free” enterprise. The “working class hero” suddenly looked like one of those Soviet working class heroes depicted in Stalinist sponsored art. That new context enabled employers to counter the Wagner Act with Taft-Hartley, legislation which passed all manner of restrictions on the right to strike, passed “right-to-work-laws” which made unions unlawful, and darkened the image of unions as corrupted either by the Mafia or the Communists. Taft-Hartley set the whole movement up for Ronald Reagan’s coup de grace in 1981 when he threatened with termination all union members who did not return to work.

That Cold War Communist tag on American unions lingers but the connection is historical and history is not a ground the new Tea Party endorsed legislators want to visit. It’s sufficient that the “Union/Communist” link echoes in the background, just as the mention of “class” echoes in the same chamber. History displays much that could explain the dire straits of workers and those who look for work in vain but “history” in the Age of Twittering in which “New” and “Now” have truly sent all our yesterdays on the dust pile is “old, over and adios.” You could say cybertech has replaced history, the repeated and rapid monitoring of Smart phones and the minute by minute updating of one’s personal history. Multi-tasking never tasks backward.

The Millennials don’t need to punch a clock or keep track of overtime and such because the new digital umbilical cords tie them 24/7 to work. Interning and apprenticing without pay and no contract for future employment are “realities” of the private sector. Retirement savings and health insurance are private responsibilities. You’ve got fifteen minutes to clear your desk and get out. This all appeals to the Millennials because what formerly wasn’t “personal” is now “personal.” Every Millennial will step up and accept the challenge of “assuming personal responsibility” for their success or failure. When you are fired, terminated, let go, canned, axed, you are liberated. You are now “free to become entrepreneurial.” In the present climate in which Millennials live – in other words, the spin zone of image and idea – the old cry of “unfair labor practices!” is a cry your sad and lame grandfather would make. It’s museum stuff.

Unions, like Nature, egalitarianism, class warfare, socialism, pensions, health benefits, job security and any representation of solidarity are “old school” and “back in the day.” Everything tied to the word “public” is a vestige of a bygone fascination with “solidarity.” The only union in the Age of Facebook is between you and your friends. Politics, economics, and history begin and end here. Solidarity is not social but a “personal” matter.

It seems at first inexplicable why the party of “Low Wages Mean More Profits to Shareholders” – the Republicans – would set their sights on unions as a first order of business as they return to power after the 2010 mid-term elections. Consider that thirty-six percent of all American workers were unionized in 1945. That has dwindled to about 12 percent today, although 36 percent of all public workers are unionized compared to about 7 percent in the private sector. An assault now on these public workers is, first of all, part of the Republican assault on the federal government, one that has been heated up by the new Tea Party legislators. It’s another assault on the word “public.”

For all these Republicans who see red when they see the word “public,” this government sector growth is enraging. It’s as enraging as “public” welfare had been in the `90s, as enraging as Medicare and Medicaid continue to be, as enraging as “public” education is today, as enraging as Social Security which is “public” only insofar as it is not “privatized.” The decrease in private sector unionization cannot be attributed to the greater magnanimity of corporate employers or the greater equity in profit distribution to workers. Neither can one argue that workers in the private sector are afforded working conditions that are so accommodating that they preempt the need for unionization. If you want to know why unionization in the private sector has fallen to almost nil you need to study the tactics of Wal-Mart which will close down stores threatening to unionize.

Much that serves workers in a beneficially equitable way also serves the public good simply because those who work for wages outnumber the entrepreneurial employers in the same proportions that worker ants outnumber the queen. Unfortunately, our cultural surround has turned from the “public” to the “private” and “personal.” And the confusion here is lethal. Capitalism seeks axiomatically to privatize all that is now public but the multitudes’ turn to the personal and private is exploited by the powerful thrust of privatization of the public sphere. The turn from society and solidarity and the public toward the personal sets many, including workers, against their own best interests. So-called “social networks” grounded in personal choice and design, can provide no defense or protection against the threat to the social mobility achieved through union efforts that led to the creation the middle class in this country There is no solidarity in a chosen network of friends that has any consequence an employer seeking to maximize profits at the expense of workers need attend to.

Globalization, in truth, will and has done much to worsen the lives of American workers whose occupations can be exported. Those occupations which cannot be exported can be unionized and thus the well-being of some part of the working force can remained fully employed at a livable wage. The UPS employees were able to successfully strike against Big Brown in 1997 because route drivers need to be here and not in Bangladesh. The same is true of all service workers as opposed to those in manufacturing and, most recently, those in telephone call services. Teachers as well as all government workers cannot be “outsourced” although cybertech may soon create viable online “teaching” that will make classroom teaching obsolete.

We have also seen how private contractors have played a large part in our Iraqi and Afghanistan wars. U.S. soldiers are workers who have seen their duties “outsourced”: “It seems that even in a war zone, soldiers are at risk of losing their jobs to outsourcing. And you’re a reservist, the situation is even more unfortunate. You are torn from your life to serve a yearlong tour of duty away from your civilian job, your friends, and family, only to end up in Afghanistan with nothing to do because your military duty was passed on to a civilian contractor.” (quoted in Hedges, Death of the Liberal Class).

The continued high level of unemployment after 2008 (and after the Dow Jones has climbed above 11,000 and Wall Street financial operatives are once again being treated to huge bonuses) is a situation that will improve only when wages reach levels competitive with third world countries, unions are no longer present to fight for wages, pension, health benefits and conditions of employment, and any sense of job security is replaced by a “flying squad” of temporary/part-time workers who can be moved, sized and let go like chess pawns.

This may seem an extreme hypothesis but I see it as a best case scenario simply because unemployment is so attractive to our present globalized technocapitalism. A labor force that is comprised of those looking for a job regardless of salary and working conditions, those already employed who cannot hope for increased salary or improved working conditions because a horde of unemployed wait in the wings, and those who have been tempered and tamed to accept the uncertainties and insecurities of on and off again employment is a labor force best attuned to the priorities of “the bottom line.” Thus, quite simply, a high rate of unemployment that perseveres so that a labor force is brought to heel is an axiomatic preference of capitalism.

This goal, or ultimate outcome of the axiomatic drive of corporate power to reduce wages to as close to zero or slavery as possible, cannot be expressed. Real solutions – among other obvious ones -- involve tackling a huge class divide and gross inequities in wealth, unionizing workers into powerful co-operative collectives, and rescinding Taft-Hartley and thus bringing the Wagner Act back to its former strength. In place of this, the new Tea Party Republicans will focus on totaling dismantling unions as well as any vestige of FDR’s “Bill of Economic Rights” extant.

Doubtlessly it is important in life to be able to distinguish the poison from the antidote but in this case what we are being pushed toward is the obliteration of what antidotes are yet left to us and an invitation to all to swallow a poison that works on the many while nourishing the very few.

In many ways the Great Recession of 2008 can be seen as a crisis too good to waste. The stage was already set for increased unemployment in the U.S. as well as for a belated recognition of the middle class that they were financially “underwater” and the only difference between them and a non-voting, discounted, already on its knees underclass was location, location, location. Foreclosure has removed that distinction. The many now believe that their reduced circumstances are attributable to that 2008 “New York City Wall Street thing,” hard now to describe, especially since President Obama has chosen not to bring the bad guys to justice or justice to the bad guys. And yet, misery and angst, hardship and panic are there.

When you have no solution that serves you, you prefer to keep the matter itself hidden. Most Americans are practicing this tactic in regard to Afghanistan, a bit of truth supported by the absence of that war as a discussable issue in the 2010 mid-term elections. One must also consider that vast numbers of unemployed people won’t just go away, though the idea is that if they are not represented, they don’t exist. Once again the bottom 40 percent of the population comes to mind. They don’t vote and no one is urging them into “Reality TV” or “Let’s Dance with a Loser.” The new contingent of Republicans anxious to attack the word “public” wherever and whenever yet feel that something must be said, if not done. Wildcat strikes can break out, street riots have happened, people who define themselves ontologically as “consumers” may go berserk if empty wallets and maxed credit cards can’t get them a fix. Given the horrendous state of the present cultural surround, wrath must be shown, fists raised, culprits identified, Tea Party enthusiasts called to arms. “Don’t retreat – Instead Reload!”

Somebody has to tighten his belt; someone has to give up the perks and the bonuses and the high life. Austerity is called for. I mean the Republican answer here is for the looted, downsized and outsourced, health insurance and pension free, the foreclosed and unemployed, the last unionist standing to learn more about what doing without is like. It sounds like the strategy of the ancien regime.

It sounds insane, surely irrational, and indigestible without a good dose of an ironic sense, but those who are unemployed and probably never employable again at their “glory days” levels, those already in austere circumstances, are being asked to find their way back to the “America That Was” by sucking up more austerity. And while doing that making sure they don’t join a union.

Photo by AFL-CIO, cc by 2.0