People Before Profit blog

Poetry, January 2010

Wed, 21 Apr 2010 19:10:00 +0000

MANTRA FOR MAHMOUD DARWISH

Mah
Mahmoud
Mahmouddar
Mahmouddarwish
Mahmouddarwishgrande
Mahmouddarwishgrandepo
Mahmouddarwishgrandepoet
Mahmouddarwishgrandepoetla
Mahmouddarwishgrandepoetlanou
Mahmouddarwishgrandepoetlanouveau
Palestine chantera tes mots comme des cris
Incendiaires et pleins de compassion dans les oreilles
Du lendemain glorieux

--Jack Hirschman
Hirschman is the former poet laureate of San Francisco and the author of many books of poetry, including The Arcanes, I Was Born Murdered, Fists on Fire and Front Lines.

LIGHTING OUT FOR THE TERRITORIES

The New World was small.
An airless room at the top
of some stairs. The floor
Covered by a worn layer
of blue linoleum.
& curtains drab as flags
of a defeated country.
What could we build here?
What could we sell?
Outside the smeared window
the sky glittered like
Heaven's graveyard
on a Saturday night.
Perhaps El Dorado waited
beyond the hovels
of Orion.
Too tired to push on,
we establish an embassy
in a dusty corner,
a trading post in another.
Happy as Rajahs on the sagging bed,
surveying every inch
of exploitable space.

Michael Shepler
--Michael Shepler is the author of several books of poems titled Angel's Flight: New and Selected Poems and Dark Room Elegies.

Short Story: Night People

Wed, 21 Apr 2010 19:07:00 +0000

Not only in the realm of film noir does New York City thrive by night. It is a land-mass pulsing and alive with movement, with sound, with sensation, carefully containing the myths of a people...

Tired workers on their way to dark, late shifts or returning home to the quietude of the earliest morning hours;

The purplish glare of West Side traffic bouncing off a lonesome diner's mirrored windows;

Mid-winter's damp chill on Downtown revelers breaking night, seeking explanations for waiting family members;

The scents of autumn dusk in throbbing Greenwich Village;

The echo of footsteps bouncing through urban canyons;

Shining, wet streets under late-night throngs in Times Square;

Long shadows thrown against sleeping office buildings on Third Avenue;

The crowds, the vibrancy, the noise, coupled with the unsettling stillness of a starless night hovering over an empty street.

This is New York at night and these are four tales of its most restless inhabitants,

its Night People.

1) The Cell

"It's so close in here, so close", said the woman to no one in particular.

"With two weeks before winter officially gets here, the radiator burns like its January...", she trailed off somberly, listening to the polyrhythmic tap dancing of the rising steam.

Rubbing her forehead, the woman dropped her fork suddenly, ignoring the clank-clunk that came with its bouncing off the dish and onto the table, leaving reddish-brown markings of food-stuff on the slightly yellowed Formica. She rose to her bare feet and walked slowly toward the furthest corner of her confining studio apartment. The thermometer over the sink read 68 degrees, though she believed that the inexpensive thing was way off. It was all she could do to keep from throwing it out.

"Like a cell, just like a prison cell", she thought inwardly, her body tensing as she exhaled through her teeth. As she walked, the woman's shoulders were hunkered down defensively as if trying to avoid sudden attack, but she was unaware of this. The roundness of her back over the years had become common place. The curvature was, by this time, comfortable. Had she looked at her reflection as she passed the mirror tacked to the closet door, she may have thought of her mother who'd always brandished this tired posture. In fact, mother wore her fatigue like a badge of courage, a sure sign of one, "who never feared hard work", she was wont to say. She usually said this in the same breath as, "whatever doesn't kill you, makes you stronger". Mother had worked as a cleaning woman by night, but raised four children by day, simply telling neighbors that she was a "home maker". The term housewife never really fit mother, especially as father had never really been there.

No, the woman rarely took note of the mirror. It was usually easier to bypass it even in such a small space, as she walked by, cat like, with silent steps.

With no territory left to conquer, she rested her face against the cool glass window, almost as if it alone stopped her from continuing on, stepping out just beyond the tight walls about her. The gray-blue early winter sky hovered over Brooklyn like an imaginary landscape, a painted backdrop in an old movie.

The woman angled her eyes first up at the outline of Manhattan in the distance and then downward toward the harried five o'clock throngs moving in a confused unison toward the subway. From her sixth-floor "city view"-as the real estate agent glossily explained when she first came to see the apartment, then fresh with the smell of clean white paint-everything seemed slightly out of reach.

"Where you going? Where are you all going?, she said, more to the dusty glass than to those out of vocal range. "All noise, all rush, all the time". She felt her belly tighten as she contemplated the anxious, quivering street scene below. She never liked to be crowded-in like that.

"Like drones moving around a beehive-that's how they look. That's exactly what they look like", she said aloud while almost looking back at her faint, blurred reflection in the fogged glass. And then she echoed it again, downwardly this time: "That's exactly what YOU look like", but no one heard, no one responded.

So taken was she with this familiar late-afternoon display that she at first ignored the smell of the coffee pot, sitting atop a lighted pilot on her stove, beginning to burn.

"Damn", she exclaimed, rushing across the room to the dining area that was separated from her living area by a couch and a throw rug. She got to the stove just as the bubbling brew streamed over the spout, hissing at her as the flames extinguished in the stream of browning fluid.

"Not my day", she told the stove, "Not my day at all."

She left the half-done pot of coffee on the simmering black metal and simply turned the stove-top switch to OFF. Better to leave this till later when she could think about it more clearly. "Too much going on just now", she thought, shaking her head. "Definitely" she whispered aloud to the otherwise still room.

As day faded to black the woman clicked on the floor lamp that stood vigil by the couch. She drew the blinds tightly, shutting out the glare from the neon sign on the building's edge. It seemed to offer an almost warming sensation to the room, oddly enough. She turned on the television which she insisted remain off during most of the day, afraid to become too comfortable in the bluish, flickering haze. She was hell-bent on not making the TV into her company, yet she invited its clash of programming and commercials into her secured hovel for a couple of hours at a time. After watching the news and part of a black and white movie on cable (something about truck drivers with George Raft and Humphrey Bogart), she turned the television off. It was 8:45PM. She rose, grabbed her coat from the small closet and buttoned it up to the neck. She wrapped her neck with a paisley scarf, pulled on her cap and grabbed her big shoulder bag, now ready to emerge.

The woman stepped out into the hallway, sounds from the other apartments bouncing off the hard tiled floor and tall ceiling. Bits of muffled conversation that are confounded by the barriers around her, the throb of music, a baby's distant wail, arguments, laughter, and her neighbor Bill Lampert's always-too-loud television cranked up for the sake of the hearing aid he keeps set too low, but maybe more for the sake of anyone who's straining to listen to all that goes on behind closed doors.

The smell of far-off cooking, saucey spices, permeates the halls as she waits for the elevator, as Lampert's favorite show, blaring in the foreground, fights for her attention.

"God, why does it have to be Fox News of all things?", she thought as she stood impatiently waiting for the clicking old elevator, fending off the irritated rants of this or that right-wing pundit. Enjoying the strange smorgasbord of far-away foods still wafting in the air, she breathed deeply as the elevator suddenly appeared, ready to carry her down to the outside world.

The woman emerged from the building on the still-busy avenue, absorbing the blast of frosty air like a thirsty sponge. The damp breeze enlivened her and she looked about while making a rapid left turn to the next corner, moving-- in one felt swoop really--to the next block. Though it was late, the downtown streets were still busy. Christmas songs, usually that thing by Bing Crosby and David Bowie, alternating with Andy Williams, the Jackson 5, some contemporary dance acts and scratchy recordings of heavenly choirs, were everywhere, beckoning. Tired-looking newsstand owners were tying up papers as people were finishing up shopping, running out of neighborhood bars (after-work cocktails, of course) and standing on corners talking. Yuppies clashed with the community's older residents, those who hung on for dear life as rents were going through the roof, and everyone had something to say, somewhere to go.

Three and one-half blocks later, quickly advancing into a quieter, more residential street, the woman was able to see a horizon where the rush, the voices, the noise, the crush came to an end . She headed that way, gulping deep breaths of chilly air as she moved toward the welcoming shadows.

The woman turned the next corner and melted into the cool blackness.

*************************

2) Wish You Were Here

It was almost 6:40 PM, not quite dark yet, but the blue above him was fading fast. Ray leaned against the towering lamp post as he did every evening while waiting for the uptown bus. Staring into the clatter of a New York street scene splattered in a web of headlights, one would be hard-pressed to see too far into the distance but Ray impatiently watched for his ride through the murk, anticipating its appearance from within the metallic sheath of traffic going up the Avenue of the Americas. "Jesus, this bus is always so damned slow. I could almost walk to 48th Street in the time it takes for it to get here".

Here was the heart of Greenwich Village, the site of Ray's very hip walk-up on Houston Street ("that's pronounced ‘house-ton' street, NOT like the city in Texas!", the realtor chided him in what seemed like another lifetime). His place overlooked the wide expanse of West Houston. He could walk to the Film Forum, to the Jazz spots, the galleries. It was an artist's playground, Ray had told his friends as he packed up and moved out of northern New Jersey, never to return again.

"Jersey" is how New Yorkers refer to the Garden State, so this is how Ray now referred to his old hometown, where his parents and sister Katie still lived. And of course Candi, but he tried not to think back to her too often. Not going back, not ever going back.

That Ray earned his living as a telemarketer in mid-town was beside the point. He was a WRITER to anyone who'd listen long enough for Ray to tell. He is doing what millions of other people in the arts had done before him. He lives in the Village, and is working on a powerful drama that seasoned playwrights tell him seems to have great, great promise. In the meantime, he regularly recites at poetry readings, writes columns for three different blogs and has already had eight poems, six articles, four reviews, two editorials and one deep interview published in notable print media. ‘Print media' is the designation, of course, for actual, tangible magazines or newspapers. With diminishing readership, it was getting harder and harder to get pieces into print-this remains the author's Holy Grail, I guess, but the experts keep telling us that no one buys magazines anymore.

Ray thought of how cool it must have been back when writers easily published articles, poems, fiction, reviews, reportage, observations, witty quips and helpful handy hints to any number of magazines that everyone read. Cover to cover. He thought of his heroes, the Algonquin Roundtable regulars such as Parker and Adams and Stewart and the radical poets like Hughes and Giovannitti and Brecht, rabble-rousing with radical writings (there goes that uncontrollable tendency toward verse!). He thought of the artful journalists Gold and Reed, Mailer and Vidal, and especially the powerhouse playwrights like O'Neill and Hansberry and Odets and Hellman. They could write about strikes and police riots as easily as construct an introspective three-act play, a satirical tale or a dime-store novel about a poor family in the Bronx. There was room to grow and become outspoken. And there were readers, readers, readers.

"Damn it, where is this sonofabitching bus?", he angrily thought just as the large blue and white vehicle came to a wheezing air-braked stop right in front of him, M-6 glowing along the top and with a large ad for a women's clothing shop, displaying the beaming face of a giant, fashionable model (kinda like Allison Hayes in ‘Attack of the 50-foot Woman', he thought). The bus' door opened-ker-rrrap---and Ray clumped up the stairs, pausing for a moment to fish for his Metro Card (whatever did happen to the old MTA tokens?). The driver stared straight ahead, looking transfixed at the dimming sea of traffic in his purview. Ah, Manhattan in autumn.

Taking a seat a few rows back, Ray glanced over the rest of the bus. Passengers looked down at their feet or gazed strategically at the air in front of them. Some noisily crunched their copies of the Times as they skimmed from one page to the next. What a choreographed process: (1) open-(2) flip-(3) fold page back---(4) fold whole paper vertically in half. Reading the New York Times involves a deft handling of the broadsheet it's printed upon. Ray used to practice this technique carefully, back when he first arrived in the City, but happily gave it up once he'd mastered this familiar "Times subway fold". He's too busy writing now to do as much newspaper reading as he used to.

Ray unbuttoned his black waist-coat and then reached into the leather shoulder bag, the one he carried everywhere. It contained several large writing tablets, a couple of small pads for jotting down thoughts and overheard bits of conversation, an updated resume, a supply of pens and pencils, aspirin, ulcer meds, sinus pills, eye drops, a package of tissues, a bottle of water and gum. Everything he needed to deal with the world. Tucked into a side pocket was a well-worn collection of 20th century poems, just to be near something intelligent in such settings.

Sixth Avenue rolled on. As the blocks dodged past him, Ray thought about New York, his town. He looked over the rest of the Village, the streets of which overflowed with crowds at any hour. Going north through this place, even the bagel store and pizzeria were special. The Village with all of its lure, all of its promise. The nearby White Horse Tavern, Cherry Lane Theatre and God, the clubs!---some, like the Bitter End and Village Vanguard have been here forever. This was the artistic mecca, though it is true that most artists began to migrate away over the years, as costs here became too prohibitive. First to SoHo, then Chelsea, then the East Village, places which had been inexpensive and industrial before the artists came along. And then THOSE places priced them out. Ray was lucky, perhaps one of the last of his kind. His Uncle Mario had been living in the apartment for years and years, after Grandma had moved out and into a safe suburban setting---out of the City. But anyhow, Uncle Mario became ill and needed to leave, but he refused to give up the apartment (the only New York hold-out, probably the only inspiration for Ray as a kid). When he asked Ray if he'd be willing to take over the lease-the rent-controlled lease-Ray thought he'd died and gone to heaven ("we'll just tell ‘em that you always been livin' there", Uncle Mario said four years ago, "this way I can always go back"; both Ray and Uncle Mario knew that he was never going back). As Uncle Mario sat in a New Jersey nursing home Ray worried about the old man. And he also worried deeply about what will happen if he should pass on. The lease is in his name. "Shit, I don't want to think about this now", he sighed.

Looking up, Ray watched the avenue surround the bus as the buildings around it got bigger, closer together. They drove through Chelsea and then into the Herald Square area. The lights became brighter as dusk blanketed the fall sky. 34th Street is classic old world New York, isn't it, even if it's just one huge commercial district. Ray loved the old wooden elevators at Macy's. He recalled a time when he and Candi used to take day trips into Manhattan. She loved Macy's, especially at Christmas time.

Then onto 42nd Street. A busy cross-section of humanity alive with the throbbing pulse of -it seemed---everyone at the same time. The Times Square area may have become soft-core, it may be more of a family place and a tourist trap since the Giuliani years swept out much of the character along with the hookers and crack, but it‘s still the place where it all happens. You never make the light at 42nd; it's always red when you get there, but it gives you the chance to look over this hallowed ground. To stand over the fray and watch it all bubble and burst. Writers love to sit back and watch life happen. As he looked nervously at his wrist watch (a gift as he graduated from Rutger's), seeing the minutes taunt him, he realized he was already late for his miserable job. "Christ, now I have to get called on the carpet by Phil again. That bastard is just looking to get rid of me", Ray thought before scribbling down a new story idea on his open tablet, maybe something for the New Yorker. Who knows? He became ever so briefly enraptured within this moment. Move away from it all. Move away.

The bus began to lurch forward and Ray looked up again as they careened past the noisey intersection and into the Theatre District. It may be glitz, but it's still the heart of the entire genre. And, in revivals, you can still catch gems like "Death of a Salesman". Broadway. The Great White Way. Theatre Row. Had Ray been born 60 or 75 years before, he may have been the next O'Neill or Miller. He stared at the air in front of him now.

As the bus approached 48th Street, he numbly rang the bell and the driver pulled into the bus stop. The door opened and Ray looked out but he remained immobile. Redline Telemarketing beckoned him.

He'd written the script and now he had to be ready to say his lines to the last row.

************************

3) Fisher

The alarm on the old wind-up clock went off like a gun-shot, harshly penetrating the thick air in the closed, heavily-draped room. Fisher leapt up with a jolt, grabbed the rounded metallic alarm bell and quickly switched it off. He considered tossing it across the room, but instead just placed it carefully, rigidly, back into its place on his night-table. "Goddamned thing" he said, rubbing his half-closed eyes with both palms. He hated its sound, heralding another night of work. He groaned as he stiffly stood, stretching his back. It was 10PM, same time he always got up to go to his work on the midnight shift. Trying to sleep all day long while the rest of the world is up and about is hard enough. Even after this many years, Fisher continued to find it hard to live life in reverse.

He stumbled through the dark hall and found his way into the bathroom. He flicked the light on, wincing at the invasive brightness. Caught looking into the mirror, he carefully studied his face: the strong, handsome features remained but the story told in his worn eyes offered insight into the decades. His hair was more salt than pepper and even his 5 o'clock shadow had a dusty, gray look to it. Fisher stood motionless and then averted his gaze. "Sometimes I just think too much", he said, shaking the rising tension out of his head.

After a shower and shave, Fisher felt alert, more like himself. He put on his clean, pressed white shirt, gray uniform pants and clip-on tie ("Hey, these are the kind that undertakers put on bodies!", his co-worker Neumann laughingly told the crew). Fisher buffed his shoes to a gleaming black before stepping into them. "As my daddy told me long time ago, you got to be proud in whatever you do. I am the PROUDEST damned security guard Juno Protective Services ever had", he offered in response to his gnawing intolerance. As he heated up a cup of instant coffee and put a frozen breakfast into the microwave, he gazed out of his window, the one which faced toward ‘the Cyclone' and ‘Wonder Wheel', both closed until next spring. "Coney Island, America's playground", he thought as he heard a police siren blaring off in the background. "Shit". And he threw back a glass of orange juice.

Fisher put on his uniform jacket, fastening the brass-colored buttons, then his overcoat, scarf and hat and walked out of the front door. He lived on the first floor of a large, aging apartment building. His flat was the one with its own entrance. At least he could pretend it was a house, like the ones he'd lived in prior to coming to New York. Prior to leaving home in Barbados. As he emerged from the flat he remembered the warmth of the sun back home. Oh how he missed the sun.

Fisher locked the door, then bent down and picked up the copy of the Daily News the delivery boy had left for him early that day. As he walked to the train station, bracing against the damp chill of winter by the seashore, he thought about how ironic it was that by the time he reads today's paper, it's almost tomorrow. Nearly one day behind.

The Coney Island train station at Stillwell Avenue is expansive, with a phalanx of tunnels, staircases and entrances leading to an outdoor, elevated, confounded alphabet of subway lines: the B, the F, the M, the N, the R, chariots of the working class all. Below the station stands a sweet shop that has been around for well over half a century. Even at night, you can smell the sugary swath of fudge, cotton candy and homemade chocolates clinging to the foundation. Though at first Fisher found this intoxicating, by now the aroma was mildly sickening. Standing at the F-train platform, Fisher held his hands tightly in his pockets, experiencing the quiet cold. Out of season, on a wintry night, Coney Island is a solitary place. The amusement park stands silently, like a snap-shot in time with its carousel horses staring blankly; with locked down roller-coasters and shuttered crazy houses all looking back at you, almost mockingly. The party has been over for months, come back next summer...

Just then the roar of the 10:45 to Manhattan came barreling into the station, tearing into the night sky. The seats on the long-dormant Wonder Wheel rocked with a momentary excitement before once again falling into suspended animation. Fisher got onto the otherwise empty train, put his feet up onto the plastic orange seat and read his paper. The trip into Manhattan is funny, he thought. You start off on an elevated platform at "the end of the line" and by the time the train gets into the heart of Brooklyn you are deep underground but no longer alone. It doesn't matter that it's around 10:30 on a winter night, this is New York, the city that refuses to sleep, cannot rest. People are going home after carousing, or after working an evening shift. Others, like Fisher, are leaving home and heading out. Everyone has someplace to go. Every train car is alive.

The neighborhoods fly by but one has no real perspective on this. The subway car windows only offer the total blackness of the hundred year-old tunnels when moving. It is only with each stop that you can see out. Fisher glanced up at Smith and Ninth Street, at the southbound train station across the way-tiled walls, "No Spitting" signs, and people leaning on pillars, waiting, ogling the dark tunnel, almost willing their train to finally get there.

Finally, the train flew into some space to breath--going up over the Manhattan Bridge breaks the claustrophobic trend for a few minutes. After staring out of the window, at the night skyline, Fisher is back to a hypnotic gaze at the floor, rumbling, as they bored back underground. The train gives off a repetitive, numbing pulse which pulls you in and leaves you bobbing limply against its drive. Fisher looks over at his fellow passengers and notes that each has the same emotionless look on their faces. "God, we look a hell of a lot like those comatose carousel horses, don't we?", he thought, suppressing a laugh.

He looked up as the train roared into West 34th Street. Even the station is a throbbing carnival of movement. People are all over the place, venders, shops, even a wide array of street performers busking for change. He strategically moved through it all and got to an exit. As he ascended the staircase the cold night air flew into his face and he pushed back against it as he walked out onto 6th Avenue. People milled about, cabs flew by, music blared out of night spots, shoppers moved rapidly up the avenue and the homeless invisibly walked among them. New York City is not a collection of people and things, but one massive, wriggling organism.

Fisher arrived at his destination, the huge S. Diamond office complex. As he entered the service entrance, its large metal door swung firmly behind him, sealing out the night. All of the movement seemed to come to a close, like the TV suddenly cutting out in the middle of an action film. His footsteps echoed in the empty cavern of the lobby, slicing the stillness. Fisher made his way to the Security office and punched in. Sal Buono, the night shift supervisor sat motionless behind his desk, the one that really just served as a podium for the small black-and-white television which seemed to take up all of his attention. His hands were clasped in front of him, wrapped around an engorged belly like a brutish Buddha. "Hey Fisha, yer on Vertical Patrol tonight, floors 40 to sub-basement, all stairwells. Kampbell called sick so ya gotta cover his floors, too", he offered without once looking away from the infomercial featuring clips from ‘Girls Gone Wild'. Fisher nodded and went to the locker room to hang up his hat and coat, grabbed a radio and his security clock and headed out to work.

Arriving at Stairwell A, he looked over his shoulder at the sullen, barren lobby, shut out from the bustling night like an air-locked bank vault. Through a large window panel, he watched the silent action of the streets and sighed, as he slipped the security clock's strap over his head and across his chest. "Carrying around my Goddamned overseer", Fisher thought, contemplating having to clock in at each stairwell over 42 floors of office space. With the imagery of shackles restraining his stride, Fisher slowly opened the stairwell door and looked inside at the endless labyrinth of steps encircling his view and making it harder and harder to inhale without effort.

The door swung to a thud behind him and he stood alone.

********************

4) "Let's Meet at Lowenfel's!"

Dwarfed by the towering urban landscape about it, but still standing proud, is the Lowenfel Diner. Lowenfel's has stood vigil on this corner staring down Broadway for over seventy years and it'll probably stand there another seventy. Clair took her hand out of the pocket of her long, cloth coat and reached for the antique brass door handle; it was cold to the touch but in an invigorating way. She entered the small vestibule with its black and white tile floor, glowing deco torch lamp and old Bell phone booth. She breathed deeply, and then stepped inside the diner.

"Damn, glad to see you girl", Essie called out to her. "We have had such a busy day-I'm just glad to be getting out of here. Now I have to go home and make dinner for my family...", she said shaking her head and smiling. The arrhythmic metallic clanking of silverware and dishes in a bus-box resounded over Essie's words and her voice faded into the background noise. The diner was alive and noisily shimmering. Essie excitedly handed Clair the cash register key and the list of specials which she'd been ringing up non-stop since noon. Clair smiled without really showing her teeth and muttered "Good night". She hoped Essie did not think her unfriendly, it occurred to her, as she watched the woman disappear into the back room. She envisioned Essie happily exchanging her Lowenfel Diner vest for her cushy winter coat and then flying out of the back exit, done for the day.

Clair took her place behind the old register-yes it was the classic type with the long, thick buttons and the bell that resounded when the draw opened. It is exactly the kind you'd expect to find at the sentry point of such an old diner---the kind of diner that looks and feels like it came right out of a Hopper painting. The counter beneath the cash register had a glass case which featured gum and mints. It still had the built-in rack which used to hold cigarettes but now decoratively displayed an old menu from when Zach and Gerta Lowenfel first opened the place. "Meet Me at Lowenfel's!" written in fancy red lettering across the top and a yellowed photo of a steaming meal being presented by a fat, smiling, mustachioed chef clarified the vintage of the menu. Like the diner itself, this menu recalled the 1930s with a warm fondness that people living back in those Depression days would never have believed. With far enough distance, anything could seem brighter, Clair thought.

Solly, the evening manager walked over to Clair, wiping his hands on the towel he often wore over his right shoulder, looking all the more like a boxing coach in his white shirt and black vest.

"Hey, Night Shift! How in the hell are ya?!", he asked with a loud grin that revealed the all-too-white dentures within. Clair sometimes laughed to herself at Solly's problems with the loosening grip he had on his choppers, probably due to the steady stream of black coffee he consumed during his 12+ hour shift. A sneezing fit was an especially cruel display as Solly's finger would be jammed against the front teeth, trying desperately to steady the plate.

"Oh, I am doing well, Solly", Clair said almost shyly. She'd worked with him each evening from 7PM till close (usually around 2AM, depending upon traffic) for the past eleven years. While Solly was pleasant, he could be a little overbearing. Like the pushy uncle who insists on running the barbecue.

"Listen", he said without really waiting for an answer. "I have to tell ya that we're not only out of the Beef Stroganoff but we're gonna have to scratch the Pot Roast off of the Specials list, too. I guess we didn't order enough; you know how it goes. Now I'm never gonna hear the end of it from Bobby", he said referring to Bob Lowenfel, the 47 year-old owner whom Solly insisted on calling ‘Bobby' as he did when Bob was a boy. Close observers noted the diminishing patience Bob had for Solly, but his long-term friendship with Zach kept his position secure enough.

"That sonofabitchin' kid is always lookin' for a problem", he said with a sobering look temporarily overcoming his fixed smile. Solly looked downward, suddenly looking his 68 years, and then almost instantaneously moved back into his usual role-the manicky neighbor who comes out to watch while you try to fix your car. "Ah, whatever", he laughed. "The movie'll be lettin' out at 8:00---we can expect another good crowd to show up. I love Wednesdays: always a good movie crowd", he said with his mouth pushed into an almost painful grin.

Clair watched Solly as he walked through the diner, pausing to kibitz with the couple in booth 12. They always ordered the tuna salad on rye toast, rice in place of the fries, hold the pickles. She could overhear intermittent laughter but was at too much of a distance to catch the jokes and humorous nothings

She sat on the cashier's stool-the kind with thick chrome legs, sparkle-red cushion and stiff black back rest-and looked up at the television hanging on the wall over the counter. MSNBC. Olbermann will be on soon. Her fixed stare on the screen turned into a blur, broken only by Solly's sudden appearance in her view.

"Night Shift, where are you really?", he asked in an almost paternal tone. Before Clair could focus he quickly added, "I'm gonna step out for a cigarette; if you need me, I'll be out front", then he was out the door. Clair watched him carefully through the long glass panes facing out at the corner of 39th Street. Solly lit his Parliament (the pack was always in his left shirt pocket, a seemingly undiminishing supply of nicotine to go with all of the coffee he drank every night). As a smoker Solly would fit into the near-professional range: lighting up in the early winter wind with one hand acting as both torch-bearer and protector of the quivering, fragile flame.

Solly inhaled that first drag deeply, puffing the smoke out through his nose like an aging, bald dragon. He watched it dissipate into the already dark air that surrounded him, the silvery mist becoming one with the night. He thrust his head back, almost leaning it on the cool window. He looked down Broadway, watching the south-bound traffic clog the winding strip that bordered both the theatre district and tourist traps, though, he considered, with these prices they've really become one and the same. Who the hell could afford to take a family out anymore?

While the wintry air sat at 37 degrees, Solly's forehead continued to brandish sweat-beads which he wiped with the towel that remained on his shoulder, never really off-duty. Two more deep drags and then he flipped the butt into the street watching the glowing redness break off from the rest and then evaporate into the dark. Solly remained out front a little while longer, thinking about his wife Elizabeth, about Barry and Sara, his adult children, and his three grand-kids, quickly growing up. Time goes by so quickly. Where did it all go? "Well at least my kids could be proud that their Dad ran the best diner in New York" he said aloud only to himself before walking over to the newsstand, just off the corner. Looking over at the newsman with arms extended he exclaimed, "Hey Rikki---how in the hell are ya?!"

Clair re-stacked the menus evenly after having changed the Specials page in each one, carefully striking the Stroganoff and Pot Roast to avoid problems when the movie crowd gets in.

"Hellloooooooooo, Clair", a soft-toned voice sang out from behind her. Clair smirked as she looked over her shoulder, welcoming the long, lanky waiter tangoing over toward her. "Hi Michael-I didn't know you were on tonight!".

Rolling his eyes ceremoniously upward Michael offered, "Yeah, me neither. Solly called me up at 3 o'clock-the nerve on that man-and said that Kris had to leave early". He sucked his teeth and looked out at Solly (still going on just outside the diner) with a dagger-filled gaze.

"I'll tell you that one is sure cutting into my social life. I had to call up Javier and cancel our special dinner---and desert", he added, jutting his chin forward and fluttering his eyelashes with lampooned sexual hyperbole. Michael was a character. He could usually be found strutting about Lowenfel's in his exaggerated fashion--very much the actor who waited tables to get by, but then stayed--entertaining customers with raunchy jokes and imitations. People often requested his station, especially on movie nights, to discuss the latest films with him, peppered with gossip about the celebs that frequented the diner. But then there was another Michael, hidden way beneath all of the cliché dry wit.

"Michael, I am sorry that your evening with Javier was ruined", Clair said carefully. He smiled back gently, almost sheepishly for a moment, and looked into her eyes without a hint of irony. There'd been a stream of bad relationships in Michael's life, just as there had been for Clair. Sometimes when the diner got very quiet they'd commiserate together. After they were done with all of the ‘men-can't live with them, can't live without them' talk, they'd both end up retreating to their corners...alone. Clair looked into her friend's face and thought about how often Michael felt lonesome, but doing everything he could to bury those feelings. In this way, too, he reminded Clair of herself---it occurred to her that she worried about him so that she could avoid her own trials, her own tribulations. She reached out for his hand.

He quickly interjected, "Hey what do you say, after work let's stop off at ‘The Front' and throw back a couple?, referring to their favorite late-night spot in Hell's Kitchen. It was within walking distance of his studio and her subway back to Bergen Street.

"It's a date, Clair responded, really more to appease Michael whom she knew had worked hard to try to make things last with Javier. Clair had long since given up on Prince Charming but Michael thought he saw his face in every handsome customer who came into Lowenfel's or every new guy who turned up at his improv class.

Just then the juke box began to blare out a Latinesque dance number and Michael was heading back to his station with an off-kilter rumba step, calling out to the people at his tables in a sing-song voice. The couple sitting in booth 19 accompanied his moves by tapping out a make-believe mambo on their glasses with spoons and table 10 clapped along. Michael was back in his zone.

Clair's mind drifted as she stared numbly out of the front window, barely noticing Solly, still holding court. Her eyes blurred as the strange prismic configurations of light frantically bounced across the mirrored panels of the Lowenfel Diner.

And the burgeoning traffic claimed Broadway.

Short Story: Missing

Wed, 21 Apr 2010 18:11:00 +0000

Missing

Am stopped outside by Slopes Trainee, and asked if part of the cast issue. Rightfully deny fully, note equal concern. Apparently, Fa La's used my name and claimed the mold prep was mine when confronted prior to our Propaganda Session. It is not. He had asked m,e to help but when it was evident where they were going, just quickly pulled out. Not my style.

There is a Barmyton North Rap WashOut involved though. Nothing can be done with requests for Grizzlies help with him involved. They say it all belongs to him. As if Barmyton owns the lot of us. Barmy! We disagree, but of course he's soothed them. Might as well be fungus around us now. We're stuck with it.

Weeks later they host an unveiling. It is well attended by Outsiders and Grizzlies. None of the Peeps go. Some Should-Be-Siblings go. Of course. Nothing can be done with them either. They're just here trying to learn who they are. They were born who they are, but they don't know that. Think coming here will give them something they don't already have inside. It ain't happening, but they think it does. This idea frees them to be who they are already in some strange way. Who knows. Meanwhile, they step on us like we are dusty ground. Leave us no dignity. Most of the time work hard at taking apart anything we muster as well as mocking us during the process. Truly. This is the way it goes.

Fa La has an accomplice or two. He's way out of line. Nothing can be done about it. Nothing can be done. He's started posting meetings to get m,e. He's a Divider Outsider. Blood without consciousness. Looking for some of those that Should-Be-Siblings and Grizzleds to back him up, do some damage to m,e. They make a big plan. Wait until time to carry it through. Walking by while they conspire, it sounds like buzzing and ringing in my ear. Sounds disgusting and piercing at the same time. Makes m,e sneeze.

Confession 4:

Small groups confuse me. Not as badly as crowds, though ‘ve no understanding of small talk and no one wants to converse more solidly unless it is to lodge complaints, it seems. We're all guilty. There's too much evident in close quarters, cannot keep myself from noting. No one typically brings these things to bear, so they resist the intrusive annotations, feel it invasive, prying, or gossip. Despite opinion and subjective essences, soon they become bitter with m,e, simply for noting, close down, and in their fuming put away any additional clarity, until they're swaddled in steam of their own delivery and cannot ignore it either. That's why, at times, just don't speak. Fear of myself noting something they're unaware of, do not intend, or think they're covering and in so much they'll let loose on me, believe gossips been about. Disgrace themselves and m,e. Perhaps slug me. No, it's not necessary. Quiet's best.

Scallion

It's almost break so, for no good reason, we dive over to Scallion. Mob hang while the Purpose sleeps. Chugs, Washouts, Bays and Nearlies all slamming one down.

"How come you're so shy?" they tease.
Let my hair fall over half my face, turn it away.
"How come you're so quiet all the time."
"Yeah, unless we're in session. Why don't you talk?"
"know why she's quiet, ‘cause she needs some of this," while pouring a glass from the pitcher.
Turn my head. Shake it slightly.
"Ah, you're too good for us, huh?
"Yeah, she's too good."

"No, she's just quiet. Leave her." Says the disabled Bay beside m,e. He's almost as quiet as m,e here. Sometimes wondering what happened to him makes m,e worry. Don't want to know, really. The Breakdown gets everyone it seems. Though the stories are usually good, it's hard to know when you're face to face.

They proceed past slaver through the various gulps until their eyes glaze fully and they fascinate themselves with the idea of driving out to the Jumble Dance Grounds. The No-One-Knows-Who-Started-This-Dance, or Jumble Dance, the after dance following the formal socials, when all the elders and youngsters have cattled out and the dating-aged folly fixates, has been going on since gulps turned Upstandings to Cross-Hair Targets. In the day, Upstandings took in Tale and gave away everything once they put away the day. In the current, maybe half of the Cross-Hair Targets imbibe gulp in the zones and coming home. The boots push them to it. Grizzlies.

"You a Cross-Hair Target?" Whispering low to the disabled one.

"‘m a Smoke Jumper!" He lightens up, "My whole family jumps. Did you know most Smoke Jumpers are N8s?" He asks the whole table. None of who heard m,e ask the first question. By now it's open and they get going on a current Upstanding Tale about our friend here. This takes all the pressure off m,e, but silently confuses us all as to how he can do the work in his condition. Already he amazes most of us. His huge landscapes from Sweetgrass Pampas draw us all into Dead Pres., for viewing, at some point in the term, now finally over.

For them, the night is young. For me, it's time to slip out and head back to my littles, get away from the grizzly circus for a bit. They'll probably chance the roadway blind. Head out to the Jumble Grounds, supposed site of future Purpose, in the days long from here. Or, so they say.

Looking back in to the Smoke Jump, wondering what else is there, my hope sinks. He seems too thoughtful for the Chug he's becoming. The next day, as we're leaving Purpose, a friend of his says he's not supposed to gulp with his scrips. Stop by to speak to him about it. He says they're just saying that to control him. See a hint of otherside and don't want to know him, so head out with a bit of hope left there and get back to my hibbit life for the sleep there.

__________Shaggy Murder Title here

Someone-We-Knew had an ex over in Yellow There. We'd left our two cats and good dog Shaggy there with him while we were in Coral Slopes all year. Visited them during the winter break, but didn't plan to pick them up until now. We're all happy there are pups now. It's Break, we're ready to collect them up, bring them to Trailer Town. We arrive at Someone-We-Knew 's place to find out someone else has poisoned all of our pets.

It went this way:

Unexpectedly the ex lost his starter to a heart attack. While he was attending her wake, someone poisoned all his pets. He came home to find dead bodies and missing ones he never did find. Shaggy had just raised a slew of pups to giveaway size. They were all gone. We are heartbroken. We don't know what to say. To boot he's lost his starter so the injury is deepened.

Shaggy had taken up with us while we lived in Rap. She'd come when double pneumonia had m,e under. Stayed with the littles until Cliff Swallow came to take m,e in to Ex TB Sanctuary. It was awful. Now our friend, our rescuer, our progeny tender when {} was out cold, is gone. Her puppies as well and the two cats. Innocents. This is a terrible mess. Ex's pets all gone as well. It is a tragedy.

We hear this tale from the ex, who is obviously crushed. Who would do this? Squatters? Jealous One?

Do not want to be here anymore.

Wasn't even in on any of that ex mess. Now all our pets are dead. That's what it's like now. This. That's what it comes to in the midst of Barmyton. They did it while the ex was sending his starter off. That's bad. Cold to kill a person's beloved animals while he is burying his own starter. Cold to us, too. Just when we made it back to pick them up. Don't want to stay now.

Someone-We-Knew is still dating Someone Jealous. Someone Jealous shows up with a puppy for Someone-We-Knew's progeny. Looks like Shaggy. Maybe he's the culprit. Maybe he spared one just to signify. Someone Jealous knows Shaggy and the cats were mine. Someone Jealous is ridding Someone-We-Knew of exes, friends, companions, and ties. Someone Jealous broke some other laws and is going away for a while anyway, so we just bide. Eventually, Someone Jealous goes back to the Keep and Someone-We-Knew plays weekend wife in Rap. It's pretty ridiculous, but we show teeth. Mostly, we hang other places now, check in here when we're needed, for time's sake only. Otherwise, we sing and see this break through much as we can with all our pets murdered. ‘m thinking we won't come back again after this, but Someone-We-Knew cries and throws fits when we mention maybe not coming back.

My kids and m,e promise one another we'll get our belongings out of here before snow.

‘ve lots to do before we go regardless. Finally, we head up to Rap. Pay my storage. Take out all we can fit into the shell for this next haul. The prices are better here than in Little Fay, so stocking up before leaving is also a good idea. We're shopping in Rap with Someone-We-Knew when the two Chugs come along that make m,e woozy in passing. She tells m,e they take the nips from mares they rape to mark them as ones they've ruined. Guess this was scope. Felt it before each time they passed m,e. Guess it was this way. Sometimes the Recall Echo simply gives clearer insight. Sometimes the pain there cuts through dimensions physical. Sometimes just shears them open like bass bellies. Portals.

We take her back to Root, spend one night, then head back to Little Fay far earlier than expected. Sleep never a certain thing. Cut short this time. Soon afterward hear the news of another trainee death. Apparently, a trainee field excursion to Irons ended in fatality of a Real We Are. Keys were taken from the sleeping watch of Peep Lead. This horrific thus seals a new declaration now forbidding trainees from driving Purpose vehicles. Owls surround the Dead Pres barracks. Kinships wind their way across the lower southern tier until her physical remains are carried home. The victim was one of the sweetest Peeps in training here. Her best friend the accidental cause as imbibed driver.

This is one of many losses, but one that truly took some innocence from the lot of us with the loss of one. Death and undead all around us. Time to move.

Book Review: Russia and the Arabs

Wed, 21 Apr 2010 18:07:00 +0000

Russia and the Arabs: Behind the Scenes in the Middle East from the Cold War to the Present
by Yevgeny Primakov
New York, Basic Books, 2009.

For the longest period, Russia and the US were the best of friends, although this was not necessarily a step forward for humanity. Thus, during the War of 1812, the redcoats facilitated the fleeing of thousands of enslaved Africans from the slaveholders' republic, many of whom wound up in Bermuda, Nova Scotia and Trinidad, where their descendants continue to reside. During the negotiations to end this conflict, compensation for this lost "property" was a major stumbling block. Finally, the Czar was asked to mediate and he provided a handsome settlement to the sons of Dixie. During the Crimean War in the 1850s, when Britain crossed swords with Russia, the favor was returned as Dixie backed St. Petersburg.

To be sure, the path was not always smooth, as Russia was competing with the US for control of the Pacific Northwest, including what is now northern California (with both countries intent on overriding the rights and sovereignty of the indigenous peoples there). Strikingly, what united the two powers were their retrograde labor policies (serfdom in Russia, slavery in the United States), and both systems began to crumble in the same decade, the 1860s.

A new era of discord between the two powers began in 1917 with the Bolshevik Revolution, which signaled a general crisis of the capitalist system, a crisis marked in the US by slavery's abolition. With the Communists now in power in Russia, it is not premature to suggest that Washington's ongoing obsession with the Soviet Union led it to make crucial blunders that would continue to resonate for decades to come. One eventual result of the Cold War with the Soviets was that, beginning in the early 1970s, an entente was brokered with Maoist China by Kissinger and the Nixon Administration. This in turn led to massive direct foreign investment in the Chinese economy, which has today created a powerful economic juggernaut under Communist Party rule, one that bids fair to becoming the 21st century's leading power, with consequences that soar far beyond our present ability to comprehend.

Another blunder was the virtual weaponizing of militant Islam in order to bleed Moscow in Afghanistan in the 1980s, a reckless policy that continues to reverberate and may foretell ongoing disasters now and in the future.

This latter subject occupies considerable attention in this history cum memoir by a man who is in a position to know. Yevgeny Primakov formerly served both as Russia's Prime Minister and Foreign Minister, as well as the head of the Russian Foreign Intelligence Service. During the Soviet era, he was a prime interlocutor with Yasser Arafat, Yitzhak Rabin, Anwar Sadat and Saddam Hussein. Unlike other practitioners of this genre in Russia, Primakov does not seize the opportunity to trash the entire Soviet past (although this reader would have appreciated a more critical eye being turned on the catastrophic reign of Boris Yeltsin, in whose government the author served).

The book's cover carries blurbs by Henry Kissinger, Madeleine Albright and Brent Scowcroft, and a bevy of other shapers of US foreign policy, but this should not scare away the reader who is justifiably skeptical of such endorsements. Instead, their words of praise for the book should be read as a self-indictment. For during their respective tenures at the apex of power in Washington, their stated goal was to destroy the USSR or, at the very minimum, to drastically reduce its influence in the Middle East. These interlinked goals have now been accomplished, but has it made for a more secure world?

As the author writes, "US foreign policy [thus] .... found itself with two, sometimes contradictory foreign policy objectives: bringing stability to the Middle East and unconditionally backing Israel, apparently oblivious to the reality that the latter goal veritably liquidated the former." Understandably many Palestinians are quite upset by the eventual futility of the so-called peace process initiated in Oslo in the 1990s, but that said, it is also true that once the Soviet Union (a major backer of what would become the Oslo accords) disappeared, the Palestinians lost their primary backer on the international scene, thus weakening their overall cause. Today, many Palestinians and even some formerly unabashed supporters of Israel are despairing of the idea of a the two-state solution, i.e. a Palestinian state joining alongside Israel in the family of nations. As they now see it, a single bi-national state is the only way out. Those of this persuasion will find intriguing the author discussion of the idea of a single Jewish-Arab state, which had originally been put forward by the Soviet Union long before the founding of Israel.

The book's discussion of Israel is notably enlightening, not least since the Jewish state considered Moscow to be an antagonist and a major supporter and arms supplier to the Arab states. Some in Israel also saw the Jewish population of the USSR as a formidable source to bolster the demographic difficulties faced by Israel in the face of more substantial numbers of Arabs in the immediate region. Diplomatic relations between the two nations were disrupted by the 1967 war, and then by the 1973 war, which led to a petroleum boycott of the US and its allies by oil producers, including Saudi Arabia. This boycott had a substantial impact on the US. We well remember cars running out of gas and being pushed to gas stations which often would not be able to fill their tanks. Inevitably the Arab oil embargo fomented an angry reaction in the US and Israel - fueled by a nasty brew of ideological, financial and ethno-religious concerns.

This was not the only difficulty brought about by Washington's maladroit foreign policy. The author also writes cogently that the network known as Al Qaeda came into being with the aid of the Central Intelligence Agency for the purpose of fighting the Soviet army in Afghanistan. Osama bin Laden was given a green light to seek Al Qaeda recruits, even on American soil, a fact little explored in a nation festooned with mass media outlets, and his bandits were secretly armed with US Stinger missiles for use against Soviet military aircraft. History may record that of all the blunders of US imperialism, our fostering of bin Laden and Al Qaeda was one of the most profound and far-reaching.

To be sure, this failure was not Washington's alone. The author also records that it was London which established the Muslim Brotherhood radio station in Cyprus, designed to destabilize the Nasser regime in Egypt. It was in 1956 that a dying British colonialism, in league with a similarly-situated France and a militarist Israel, joined in attacking Nasser's Egypt in a futile attempt to gain control of the vital choke point of the Suez Canal. It was in this context that Moscow threatened to launch missiles against the countries that had attacked Egypt unless their troops left Egyptian soil, yet another example among many of the Soviet Union coming to the defense of an African country in the face of imperialist and/or white supremacist aggression. Undeterred, however, in 1968 the CIA helped establish the Muslim Brotherhood's Islamic Center in Geneva, from which a number of assassination attempts against Nasser were orchestrated.

The author also expends considerable energy in detailing the star-crossed relationship between the CIA and Saddam Hussein, recounting how the agency decades ago began embracing him as a battering ram against the Iraqi Communist Party (just as in Iran the CIA energetically collaborated with Islamic fundamentalists there to crush the Tudeh Party, as that country's Communist Party is known).

Primakov explains in careful detail that although the Soviet Union had gone to great lengths to take Arab Communist parties under its wing, these parties did not always let the Soviets know what their plans were, especially if those plans included overthrowing regimes that had close ties with Moscow. He cites the example of the attempted overthrow of the Khartoum regime in 1971 by Sudanese Communists. Nevertheless, the hoary myth about Moscow Communists controlling the internal situation in scores of nations has been one of the most persistent and misleading (not least in the US) of the many distortions about how revolutionary radicalism actually functions.

Readers will find the author's discussion of Yemen intriguing, since even as I write US imperialism's drones have this nation in their cross-hairs. I well recall what occurred in January 1983 when, at a meeting of the Politburo of the Yemeni Socialist Party, a shootout erupted, leading to the decapitation of the party's leadership and, ultimately, the deaths of thousands. Today, Yemen, the ancestral home of Osama bin-Laden, is being touted as the site for the next "anti-terrorist" war after one now unfolding in Afghanistan, but little attention has been given to how US imperialism collaborated with the right wing in Yemen to weaken the left, thus creating the present insuperable mess. What happened in Yemen in January 1983 when comrades on the left turned on one another was replicated that same year in tiny Grenada, and in 1979 in Afghanistan (leading to Soviet intervention). Thus the inability of comrades to settle disputes amicably has turned out to be one of imperialism most potent weapons.

Yevgeny Primakov has performed a useful service in recounting these drama-filled episodes. Today it seems that Moscow-Washington relations may be due for an upturn, given the hysteria developing in the US about China's ascendancy. Mutual fear of China is perhaps the main reason behind the unfolding serious discussions about nuclear disarmament between the two giants. Whether this proves to be an accurate forecast,Whatever the reason for the current disarmament talks, and whether they actually succeed, the fact remains that in assessing the centuries-long relationship between two of the world's most powerful nations, the US and Russia, this timely volume will prove to be essential reading.

Book Review: Crossing the River

Wed, 21 Apr 2010 18:02:00 +0000

Crossing the River: A Memoir of the American Left, the Cold War, and Life in East Germany
by Victor Grossman (Stephan Wechsler)
Boston, University of Massachusetts Press, 2003.

Crossing the River adds a previously missing voice to the rather large literature in English on the German Democratic Republic (GDR) – the perspective of an American Communist, Victor Grossman, who in 1952, while serving in the United States Army, defected there and to this day continues to call it his home. While telling a picaresque tale of an individual Communist's adjustment-and contribution-to this beleaguered outpost of socialism, he adds to our understanding of what has been lost by its demise and why the GDR and the rest of the socialist camp ultimately collapsed.

Grossman, who was born in 1928 to Jewish-American parents, had been raised in Free Acres, a small community in central New Jersey loosely fashioned on the principles of Henry George. Grossman gravitated to Free Acres' Communist residents, which met with no opposition from his parents, and especially his mother, who were sympathetic to that cause. Consequently, at the age of fourteen Victor joined the Young Communist League; and by seventeen he had joined the Communist Party.

As a Harvard undergraduate, Grossman and other members of his campus party club helped collect 100,000 signatures to place Progressive Party candidate Henry Wallace on the Massachusetts ballot in1948. Aside from mentioning his electioneering in the Greek and Armenian communities, Grossman fails to explain how that effort, which he estimates required speaking to close to one million people, resulted in the seemingly inexplicable total of 38,157 votes for Wallace (1.8 percent) in Massachusetts.

Upon graduation in 1949, Grossman attended a series of special classes in Marxism-Leninism in New York City as preparation for work as a concealed Communist in an upstate New York factory. There he shared the insecurity, exhaustion, and indignities endured by American industrial workers and waited for an unspecified moment when he would be able to influence his coworkers to struggle for a more democratic and militant union. That time arrived when the union leadership in an appliance factory in Buffalo presented to the workers a contract offering an extremely paltry pay raise and recommended their approval. Grossman joined the more militant workers in demanding a better contract. He could do little more. His Party membership effectively precluded running for union office; the recently passed Taft-Hartley Act required a sworn affidavit from elected union officers that they were neither members of the Party nor any other organization the government deemed affiliated with the Party. Noncompliance with this clause of the Taft-Hartley Act entailed grave consequences for a union including the suspension of all National Labor Relations Board services including the certification of a union's collective bargaining certificate.

From his experiences working in factories and earlier at Harvard, Grossman documents one of the greatest strengths of the Party, that is, its central focus on African American liberation. At Harvard when an African American student had been denied admittance to a student pub, the Party club helped organize a nightly picket line. Grossman reports that the campaign attracted considerable publicity and ended in success. Upon arriving in upstate New York, Grossman joined leftist students at Syracuse University in the campaign organized by the Party-led Civil Rights Congress to free the "Trenton Six," six Black men falsely charged with murder, who, in large measure because of these activities, were ultimately acquitted. At that time, Grossman met the Communist Party leader Mattie Timpken, an African American matriarch who lived with four generations of her family in a large house "sparsely furnished with cheap religious prints on the wall," deep in the Buffalo ghetto. Nine of Mattie's ten children had followed her into the Party, where they became a mainstay of its work in this large blue-collar city. (pp. 59-60, 63) Several of her children and their friends joined with the white "colonizers" to form a chapter of the Labor Youth League, which among other things conducted a campaign to integrate a day-liner that sailed from Buffalo. In this instance, their efforts led to arrests, the beating of one of the Timpkin's sons, and no conclusive victory.

In addition to his trade union activities, in August 1949 Grossman traveled to Peekskill, New York, to help protect Paul Robeson's concert from organized mob attacks, and to participate in the Stockholm Peace petition drive. Both these efforts were largely abortive: while the police compliantly watched from the sidelines, families-women and children-and especially African Americans were violently attacked by mobs, and incurred serious injuries when they tried to exit the Peekskill concert. In Buffalo, the Stockholm petition campaign, which called on the United States and the Soviet Union to pledge not to use nuclear weapons, garnered few signatures. Once the Korean War began, the range of political possibilities further contracted and Grossman's contact with the Party became increasingly more limited. Grossman's Party activities came to a sudden halt, upon receiving a draft notice which resulted in his being stationed in West Germany.

In his second year in the Army, Grossman became fearful that the Army had likely discovered his Party affiliation. One day prior to an appearance before an investigator, he swam across the Danube River to the Soviet-administered zone of Austria. From there, the East German security forces moved him to Bautzen, a provincial town near the Polish border. This area was the center of the Sorbs, a Slavic-speaking minority, whose linguistic and other cultural rights were fostered by the socialist state.

In the GDR, Grossman initially worked a forty-eight-hour week (soon lessened to forty-two-and-one-half hours) in a lumber yard, where he unloaded wooden planks from trucks and ate lunches of potatoes and cheese. In its totality, Grossman did not find this work worse than upstate New York factory jobs, where first hand he had experienced physical discomfort and potential danger to life and limb. At his new job, Grossman reports there was much less friction between the workers and the supervisors as well as a greater concern for the workers' safety. Moreover, unlike post-war Buffalo, jobs in East Germany were plentiful and secure, and vacation time longer and portable so that workers who changed jobs did not lose accumulated vacation time. The greater contrasts between the two systems, however, were not so much at the workplace as in daily life. At this time, power shortages were frequent in the GDR, and items of daily consumption, such as handkerchiefs and wash cloths, disappeared from the stores for months at a time. When new razors became scarce, Grossman joined the lines of men waiting to have his supply of dull razors sharpened.

Supporters of the new state ascribed these economic hardships to exogenous causes. They pointed to the Soviet Unions' insistence that East Germany, relatively much poorer than Western Germany, deliver 20 percent of its capital goods to the Soviet Union as reparations (at a time when West Germany was the largest benefactor of Marshall Plan aid). They also cited the constriction in the production of consumer goods brought about by the West's imposition of an economic boycott and military encirclement. Far exceeding these losses, however, was the constant outflow to the West of professionals and the best educated and most highly skilled workers, who before departing for the West first took advantage of the free education higher education, unavailable at that time in West Germany, so that they could benefit from the higher wages prevalent in West Germany.

More disturbing, and seemingly inherent in the system, was the nature of the GDR's political life, which the Communist Party monopolized. During coffee breaks at the factory where Grossman worked, party cadre held informal meetings where workers were encouraged to commit to political positions, such as acceptance of the GDR's eastern border (beyond which lay the vast areas of pre-World War II Germany that had been transferred to Poland, Czechoslovakia and the Soviet Union) and the condemnation of listening to United States-sponsored radio. In this and other cited instances, Grossman shows how individuals' political differences with the regime-in thinking as well as in action-potentially entailed the withholding of advancement, privileges and rewards. The result of this was, of course, a virulent brew of opportunism, dissembling and resentment.

Then there was the orchestration and ritualization of political life by the Party and its affiliates. Grossman describes a celebration of the tenth anniversary of the Soviet Union's victory at Stalingrad in Bautzen. Workers who had been assembled at their workplaces to march en masse to the rally in the town's square en route simply wandered away in large numbers and still others who actually arrived at the destination left before its end. While there were few jeers or sarcastic remark from the assembled workers, for most the event represented yet another "boring rally and meeting-and a chance to get home earlier." (pp. 110-111) The degree of the Party's control was not limited to political ideas and activities. At a Free Democratic Youth (the equivalent of the Young Communists) meeting, Grossman witnessed a girl of seventeen being severely criticized for using lipstick. Within the Party and its youth affiliate, conformity was enforced by denunciations for such transgressions as assuming a French name while singing chansons in order to earn some pocket money and buying a sweater when visiting West Berlin.

As a politically active Communist during the McCarthy Era, Grossman knew that the benefits of American-style democracy were largely limited to those who accepted the basic premises of the capitalist system. Nonetheless, he struggled with this conundrum. The curtailment of American civil liberties in this period did not seem to damage the capitalist system. However, the unraveling of the socialist system in the GDR and its ultimate dénouement was organically tied to the absence of democracy. Ultimately, the lack of genuine mass participation in its political life led to an almost universal acquiescence to the demise of the GDR, and consequently socialism, by those for whom it was intended, and frequently, in fact, did benefit. Over time, most of its citizens had withdrawn into a private world of family and immediate community. (Ironically, there is a great nostalgia among former East Germans, including from Grossman, for what many now describe as immensely satisfying society.) Others manipulated this system for self-advancement. In a society where being a Communist no longer incurred losses and in fact led to advances, heroism and self-sacrifice were increasingly replaced by cronyism, sycophancy, lethargy, and a prevalent bureaucratic mentality.

Grossman's educational background, but surely too his political reliability, enabled him to live a relatively privileged life in the GDR. When he first arrived, he was fairly soon advanced from the factory floor to the position of director of the cultural club for the extraordinarily diverse group of "defectors" that the GDR had settled in Bautzen for safekeeping. There is not very much to be learned from this section of the book except that the motivations of those who opted for life in the GDR were not in every case the most pristine. In addition to a few leftist war resistors who had refused to do combat in Korea, the others included: "a Deep South check forger, a thief from Pennsylvania, alcoholics from all over, Charlie the boxer, and an innocent Indiana farm boy who insisted on marrying a motherly woman almost twice his age." (p. 118)

During this period, Grossman married Renate, to whom he continues to be married and with whom he has raised two sons. Renate came from a rural family; her father supported the GDR and had helped organize one of its first collective farms. In this and other instances, Grossman provides scant explanation as to why some East Germans, often ardently, supported the régime and not much more about why others were so opposed. We do learn, for instance, that teachers generally were staunch supporters of the GDR, but the author does not explain what was cause and what effect that might explain that pattern. Were they appointed to these positions because of their loyalty or did they choose this profession, in part at least, as a political act? Similarly, aside from mentioning that the large numbers of postwar refugees ("resettlers" in approved GDR jargon) from Silesia, the Sudetenland, and East Prussia opposed the GDR, we learn little about the motivations of others with similar beliefs.

Grossman was accepted by Leipzig University in 1955 to study journalism. At this point, the author invites the reader to consider other aspects of life in "real socialism." These included periods of "voluntary labor" harvesting the potato crop in October and mining lignite in January as well as the contribution of a week's wages towards funds for international solidarity, such as the liberation struggle in Algeria. On other occasions, university students worked clearing rubble remaining from the wartime bombing of Leipzig, weeding sugar beets, or helping to build sports stadiums. These features of life in the GDR, which from a socialist perspective were admirable and congruent with the goals of an avowed workers' state, were counterbalanced by single-slate elections that challenged voters who disagreed wither with the candidates or the process to enter a flimsy balloting booth, to mark a ballot in plain sight of the authorities.

The GDR's rationale for building the Berlin Wall in 1961, Grossman reminds the readers, was based on its urgent need to stop speculation with its currency and the sale of its subsidized produce in West Germany. Even more pressing, of course, was the unstated need to staunch the hemorrhaging of the GDR's best educated professionals and most highly skilled workers to the West (who were often lured there by specific offers of lucrative employment and excellent housing), which resulted in vast losses of the state's investment in their education and which greatly disrupted production. While the Wall did in fact substantially resolve these and other problems, Grossman does not speculate as to what set of conditions would have allowed the GDR's government to feel secure enough to demolish the Wall. As it happened, the Berlin Wall and other barriers to the West ultimately proved to be as useless in protecting the GDR as the Great Wall of China had in protecting the Middle Kingdom from invasion. As soon as Hungary opened its borders to Austria in 1989, first East German tourists in Czechoslovakia and Hungary and then other residents of the GDR joined an unstoppable and constantly enlarging caravan of émigrés to the German Federal Republic.

Grossman's gradually improving living conditions mirrored the steady, albeit incremental, increases in the GDR's initially very modest standard of living. In 1956, Grossman moved from one furnished room with a shared bathroom and no bathing privileges to a two-room apartment with a private bathroom and a kitchen. By this time, stores stocked staples complimented by a selection of specialty items from other socialist countries. In 1960, he acquired a much-prized small three-room apartment (without central heating) in Berlin. Grossman's wife and sons could now leave Leipzig and join him in East Berlin. In 1961, the Grossmans moved to a three-room apartment, with a separate kitchen, on Karl Marx Allee with a view of the Oder River. The building's residents organized parties, travel lectures, card games, excursions to local lakes, and occasional outings to East Berlin's excellent theaters and operas (including the Berliner Ensemble which presented the works of Bertolt Brecht) as well as participating in twice-a-year clean ups of lawns, and pruning of shrubs and trees.

Soon after the GDR government constructed the Berlin Wall, Grossman began working with Seven Seas Books, a small publishing house (managed by Gertrude Heym, an American Communist married to Stefan Heym, an important writer who like Anna Seghers and other anti-fascist German intellectuals opted to live in the East) that produced books in English (including works by blacklisted American writers, such as Meridel LeSueur, W.E.B. Du Bois, Ring Lardner, Jr., and Albert Maltz) which advanced, in the widest possible terms, the Communist perspective on art and culture for circulation in East Europe (and, to a very limited extent, in the United States.)

Grossman's inability to get along with the imperious Gertrude caused him to accept employment with the Democratic German Report, an English-language biweekly newsletter, which reached audiences in the West beyond the true believers. Its semi-official status allowed it to present the GDR's perspective and accomplishments in ways which were more realistic and therefore more credible than those emanating from official channels. These initiatives helped advance the GDR's goal of achieving diplomatic recognition from the United States in 1972.

In 1964, Grossman was given an opportunity which even further connected his truncated life as a leftist in the United States with his commitment to helping build socialism in the GDR. The much lauded African-American cartoonist, Oliver (Ollie) Harrington, who had settled in the GDR, invited Grossman to translate and produce programming for Radio Berlin. This soon resulted in his hosting a biweekly program that wove together narrative with the type of folk music-labor songs and songs with political themes-integral to the culture around the American Communist Party in the forties. This led to a concert by Pete Seeger in East Berlin. It also ignited criticism within Party circles, including in Neue Zeitung, the Party's newspaper, that the influence of American culture was becoming too great! Consequently, in order to accommodate official dissatisfaction, the Hootenanny Club (which Grossman had organized as a means of promoting political song) was renamed the October Club, in honor of the Bolshevik Revolution. In 1970, the October Club organized the first of a series of annual Festivals of Political Songs that invited performers from six countries to perform in East Berlin. Eventually, as many as fifty singers or groups from thirty countries arrived in the GDR in order to take part in this event. Performers participating in this festival included a near complete roster of left international artists in the arena of political song, including: Quilapayún, Silvio Rodriguez, Miriam Makeba, Mikos Theodorakis, Mercedes Sosa, Billy Bragg, Ewan McCall, Sweet Honey in the Rock, and the San Francisco Mime Troupe, who performed for as many as seventy thousand East Germans. Grossman also helped establish a Paul Robeson archive, which sponsored a major exhibit and helped to produce a major public meeting and the issuing of a commemorative postage stamp in celebration of Robeson's seventieth birthday.

In addition to these activities, Grossman regularly lectured to youth groups, schools, teachers' clubs, and factory workers on a wide range of topics, most often in connection with American folk music. Motoring about East Germany to deliver these lectures, he came to know almost every nook and cranny of this country, which he discovered was filled with "historic sites, ancient towns, and beautiful scenery: Romanesque churches from the tenth and twelfth centuries ... the white cliffs on the Baltic." He reports: "I grew to love the place." (p. 208) Grossman also notes at this point that in the early eighties, his largely pro-GDR audiences began to become older and smaller. Clearly, sentiment had begun to shift away from acceptance and even active support for the socialist state to a sullen disquietude.

Grossman's sympathetic-outsider perspective allows him to arrive at some insightful observations of the causes of the collapse of socialism in the GDR, and by extension the rest of the socialist bloc. He notes that the largest group of people in the GDR, albeit somewhat grudgingly, had become accepting of a system with which they had become familiar and from which they derived definite advantages. These positive sentiments were vitiated by a mind-set unwittingly promoted by the system promoted where a specific setback or disappointment-a fight with a supervisor or the inability to obtain a better apartment-led to the renunciation of the entire system. After all, the point that the GDR was socialist was constantly put before people; whereas in the West, little or no attention is ever aroused about the society's capitalist underpinning, which might lead those affected to question capitalism. Grossman also points out that there was no apparent class struggle in East Germany, so that the endless anticapitalist appeals sounded hollow and unconvincing.

The German Democratic Republic, though hardly a beacon radiating hope and inspiration, did attract interest and support from many leftists outside its borders. Its relatively higher standard of living within the socialist bloc (by 1990, 40 percent of its households owned cars, and the ownership of televisions and refrigerators was near universal) made its way of life more comprehensible to Western leftists. The GDR's extensive solidarity work in assisting liberation struggles in Africa and aiding refugees from Chile and elsewhere made convinced many Leftists of its value of the GDR's "real socialism," regardless of its shortcomings. However, the main reason why this mid-sized country of some seventeen million attracted greater attention on the left than other socialist-bloc countries was that the GDR evinced more genuine interest in socialism-in its educational system, wage structure, and solidarity work-than the Soviet Union's other European allies. In fact, it had little choice but to do so: The GDR represented only a fragment of its nation. Unlike the émigrés from the GDR entering West Germany, Poles, Hungarians, Rumanians, etc., who emigrated left much more than socialism behind. Moreover, "Goulash Communism" was never the solution for the GDR. The GDR knew that in a competition for more and better consumer goods it had little chance of besting West Germany; which had inherited a much larger and better endowed part of Germany. However, the Communist regime believed it could promise a more egalitarian society which renounced Germany's fascist past and looked forward to solidarity with socialism wherever it appeared and most particularly with the Soviet Union. These goals were, to some significant extent, carried out by a leadership that included officers who had fought in the Spanish Civil War and many postwar Communist and Socialist trade union leaders who had only barely survived Nazi dungeons and concentration camps. Always on the front lines of anti-socialist provocation and aggression, the GDR went further than the other Eastern bloc countries (aside perhaps even the Soviet Union) to equalize living standards, provide a comprehensive social-service network, and develop an alternate culture. Nonetheless, the GDR collapsed as quickly and as completely as the other socialist states which had moved less far toward these cherished socialist goals.

Building socialism in East Germany took place within the context of total political control by the Communist Party and an Orwellian system of secret-police informers that numbered as many as one million. Threats to its existence from without, opposition from within, and an ingrained contempt for "bourgeois democracy" all contributed to this denial of democratic rights. This in turn alienated and pacified the general population and corrupted those who held or sought power, thereby creating the conditions for a massive implosion. Yet, the establishment of democracy within a socialist society seems to depend on a number of unlikely occurrences. Among these is the acquiescing to this system by those (such as, managers and professionals) who could gain more under capitalism and the acceptance by highly skilled groups of workers (such as electricians and master craftsmen) of less remuneration so that overall levels of income become more or less equalized. Crossing the River lays before the reader these great dilemmas of building socialism.

Grossman shows that, in any case, the GDR's egalitarianism did not ensure the populace's devotion to the system. When visiting Hungary, he notes that that compared to the GDR, there was less equality, but a far greater supply of consumer goods. This mix seemed to result in a far more contented population. When visiting Poland, which had a generally lower standard of living than the GDR, he witnessed still greater degrees of inequality but far more individual freedom. Nonetheless, in contrast with the other socialist states, the substantial vote for the Party of Democratic Socialism, the successor party for East Germany's Communist Party, demonstrates that in the former GDR, compared to the people in the other successor states in Eastern Europe, there remains a fairly sanguine attitude of the people toward its socialist past as well as continued support for socialism. Since unification, in the national election, running on a strongly left program, the successor party to the Communist Party (and later the coalition it joined) garnered 25 percent (including majorities in most of the former East Berlin) of the vote. Grossman reminds his readers that West Germany did not so much liberate as colonize East Germany. The GDR's cultural institutions-publishing houses, film studios, theaters, newspapers and journals, research academies-have been disbanded. Supporters of the former regime have been purged from the universities and cultural institutions. Four million of the GDR's nine and one half million jobs disappeared, including those of two-thirds of the farmers during the process of decollectivization. Marriages have declined by one half and the birthrate has plummeted by two-thirds. For Grossman, reunification has meant the end of his work and an increase in his rent from 114 to 950 marks per month. For him and leftists everywhere, the destruction of the GDR raises an additional disturbing question: "Where can I flee, if fascism gains power in my country?"

--This review originally appeared in Socialism and Democracy (March 2006).

“Socialist! That's Socialist! You're a Socialist!”

Wed, 21 Apr 2010 18:01:00 +0000

In 2008, the ultra-right began referring to nearly all their opponents as socialists. It appears they will continue to do so in 2010, hoping that their use of the socialist label will harm those they disagree with by appealing to the negative associations the nation's corporate lobby, and its political allies, tied to the label so opportunely during the Cold War.

Conservative pundits Glenn Beck and Sean Hannity currently lead the effort to label, as socialist, anyone or anything that aims to slow capitalism's harmful tendency to minimize the working class's concerns or standard of living.

Following Obama's statement that he believed in "spreading the wealth around," Beck has several times appeared on his FOX News program donning regalia from the Soviet Union, mocking Obama and other progressives. On his radio show, he began a segment titled "The March to Socialism." In these segments, he targets policies which have Obama's support. On the cover of his recent book "Arguing with Idiots," Beck is again wearing a Soviet military uniform.

Hannity does not engage in such over-the-top showmanship as Beck. However, he does refer to many Democratic policies as socialist, and will often tell progressives who call in to his radio show that they are socialists. Hannity will even ask some of those who call his radio show to advocate the creation of a public insurance option if they believe in the maxim "from each according to his ability, to each according to his need."

These ultra-right pundits, and others, continue to label current Democratic proposals socialist despite many such reforms being proposed by politicians with roots in Reform Liberalism, not Marxism.

For example, the supposedly socialist stimulus package relies on money borrowed from international markets, in accordance with the global capitalist demand that money's value be backed according to the value of the investing nations' currency, which is based on the investing nation's productive output. Further, it distributes the bulk of this money to privately owned companies. No where does it bring industry under the control of the industry's union members or their representatives.

Health Care reform, much maligned by the ultra-right, is also short of socialism. The primary goal of the Health Care reform bills developed in Congress is to provide citizens of the United States with health insurance, and the majority of that insurance will still be provided by privately owned corporations.

However, it would be strategically short-sighted to dismiss the importance of these reforms because of their basis in the ideology of the politicians who designed them. While the reforms may still rely on the capitalist market, they acknowledge the short-comings of that market.

Materially, they will help the working class by providing them with jobs and services that would not be available otherwise. They also contain provisions that establish governmental institutions, such as the Health Care reform bills' public option program, that can be a helpful tool in establishing a socialist program in the future.

Ideologically, the reforms' apologist nature leads people to acknowledge that capitalism does not serve the interests of everyone. They could even lead people to consider socialism when private institutions abuse their power and, as in the case of AIG, treat the people's investment in them like prize money.

Regardless of the ultra-right pundits' accuracy in labeling reform as resulting from socialists, the perceptual shift such labeling can result in is valuable.

A poll conducted by conservative polling agency Rasmussen in April, 2009 indicated that only 53% of the population favored capitalism, while 20% of those polled actually preferred socialism. Further, among those under 30 years of age, only 37% favored capitalism, while 33% favored socialism. This seems to indicate that the view of the United States' population is becoming more favorable towards socialism.

As the ultra-right punditry continues to aggravate the progressive half the population, the Communist Party, USA, (CPUSA) can make gains.

First, the ultra-right's hatred of socialism can be framed as part of their general attack against diversity and freedom of expression. Framing their prejudice in such a way makes it possible for open-minded members of the population to become more accepting of Socialists and Communists.

Second, by supporting the policies for what they can do for the working class, and working to ensure the creation of potentially socialist institutions within such reforms, the CPUSA can ally with other progressives and grow their base. The ultra-right pundits' use of the socialist label should not be mocked, but accepted, and associated with the policies' successes as much as possible.

Jarvis Tyner, Executive Vice Chair of the CPUSA, did just this with his recent statement that "The ultra-right says that the public option is socialist - I say, GOOD!"

Third, the CPUSA can begin to represent popular sentiment by criticizing widely recognized shortcomings contained in present reforms, such as the misguided trust the United States government has regarding the private market, exhibited every time it hands corporate board members millions of dollars to do with as they please.

As the reality of class antagonisms become all the more clear with each attempt to mend the capitalist market, the CPUSA is given more and more opportunities to present its solutions. The ultra-right's labeling everyone who recognizes capitalism does not work for them as socialist actually presents us with an opportunity.

We should welcome anything that brings socialism into discussion.

It reminds me of a story that is becoming all the more relevant:

In the 1930's, a socialist who did not like to be associated with the Communist Party planned on attending a rally organized by the CPUSA. He went hoping to highlight the few reasons he could not identify as a Communist. While at the rally, it became apparent that the police would break up the group because of its association with a strike that was occurring. As the police closed in, the socialist came face to face with an officer. "But I'm an anti-Communist," he said. The officer replied, "I don't care what kind of Communist you are, you are all getting clobbered," and swung his truncheon at the comrade.

The time has come to re-claim the word "socialism."

A Left Role, and Renewed Identity, and How-To, in Campaigns for National Service Programs

Wed, 21 Apr 2010 17:52:00 +0000

Does the current crisis justify an expanded role for government as an employer of last result?

Consider the following facts from research by the Economic Policy Institute:

* Number unemployed: 15.4 million percent (up from 7.5 million in December 2007).
* Portion of official unemployed considered structural: 3.9 million.
* Portion of unemployed who have been jobless more than six months: 38.3 percent.
* Total jobs lost during the recession: 8.0 million.
* Jobs needed to return to pre-recession unemployment rate: 10.9 million.
* Number of job-seekers per job opening: 6.1.
* Unemployment rate: 10.0 percent.
* Underemployment rate: 17.2 percent; Share of workers un- or underemployed: more than 1 in 6.
* States with double-digit unemployment in October, 2009: 15.
* White unemployment: 9.3 percent; African American unemployment: 15.6 percent; Hispanic unemployment: 12.7 percent.
* Manufacturing jobs lost since the start of the recession: 2.1 million (15.5 percent of sector's jobs).
* Construction jobs lost in the recession: 1.6 million (20.8 percent, nearly one in five construction jobs).
* Mass layoffs (50 or more people by a single employer) in October 2009: 2,127; jobs lost: 217,182.
* Under- and unemployed, marginally attached and involuntary part-time workers: 26.9 million.
* Americans with no health insurance in 2008: 46.3 million.
* Annual Social Security benefit for average retiree: $13,922; Share of older Americans receiving all their income from Social Security: more than 1 out of 4.
* Number of children in poverty in 2008: 14.1 million (over one-third)
* Drop in real median income from 2007 to 2008: 3.6 percent (largest one-year drop since 1967).
* Growth rate of nominal, hourly wages of production workers over the last three months:1.7 percent.
* Additional people covered by Medicaid/SCHIP in 2008: 3 million.

Not since the Great Depression has structural unemployment been so intense or sustained. Despite faster and smarter liquidity and fiscal efforts by government than occurred then, employment decline has merely decelerated 24 months into what is now dubbed "The Great Recession." It is not yet near enough to avert 5-10 years of unemployment rates above six percent (the level at which the 'Great Recession' started). The foundation of New Deal anti-depression actions, and one of the most successful and long lasting in its effects, was directly putting men to work in public works projects that became associated with several national service programs. The economist Hyman Minsky coined the term "Employer of Last Resort" to describe government full employment efforts, which were part of his economic prescription, discussed more below, for countering capitalism's inherent vulnerability to financial instability.

This article explores the appropriateness, precedents and how-to's of national service programs (the chief US version of employer of last resort) in responding to the current crisis. The moral and social virtues of putting the unemployed to work in the creation of useful and meaningful public goods, instead of subjecting them to sustained idleness, should be self-evident.

The path to national service

1933 was the worst year of the Great Depression with unemployment peaking at 25.2 percent. Adolf Hitler became the chancellor of Germany and opened the first concentration camp at Dachau. Tens of thousands traveled the road and rail in America looking for work, and the US banking system which was under great strain was propped up by the US banking act of 1933 to try and stop the panic of people withdrawing their money from the banks. The continuing drought in the Midwest cursed even more of the land into dust bowls.

Franklin Delano Roosevelt was inaugurated as the 32nd U.S. President on March 6, 1933. A bill known as the Emergency Work Progress Bill was introduced in Congress on March 21, enacted into law March 31. This bill spawned numerous federal agencies, such as the Public Works Administration (PWA), its successor the Works Progress Administration (WPA) and the Civil Works Administration (CWA) and its successor, the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC). There were approximately 5,000 camps of 200 enrollees set up in all states, plus the American Territories. The enrollees enlisted for periods of six months at a time and were paid $1.00 per day, of which $25.00 per month was sent directly to their families. The CCC was made up of approximately 3.5 million men, 225,000 World War I veterans, the balance young American boys, unmarried, between the ages of 17 and 28 years. The CCC existed for over nine years until June 30, 1942, at which time it was absorbed into America's Armed Forces. General George C Marshall, Army Chief of Staff under Roosevelt, testified before Congress at the end of World War II that the early training given to the men of the CCC was a major factor in America winning that war.

Direct government employment is the most practical and realizable path to capping unemployment, and adding credibility to the much needed stimulus efforts. This is especially true in a major economic crisis - but also should be a permanent feature of government intervention to address structural unemployment - lost jobs that are never coming back. Various programs to provide tax incentives and sub-contracts to private contractors do not work nearly as well -- witness the poor response of hard-pressed homeowners to recent winterizing incentives, and the lengthy delays common with contracting. Picture the thankful and very direct response to the alternative: neighbors contacting neighbors to do energy audits, perform the winterization work, making the personal connection, making a difference.

President Obama's jobs programs need less PWA and more CWA

The PWA was the Public Works Administration, led by Harold Ickes Sr. The CWA was the Civil Works Administration, led by Harry Hopkins. Both were New Deal agencies created in 1933 to get Americans quickly back to work at a time when unemployment reached 25 percent, its highest point in U.S. history.

The PWA tackled unemployment indirectly by spending money largely through private contractors. Only $110 million of the program's authorized $3.3 billion was spent during the program's crucial first year. Frustrated by PWA's slow progress, Roosevelt yielded to the pleas of his relief administrator, Harry Hopkins, to help get unemployed workers through the coming winter by putting them directly onto the federal payroll. Roosevelt had been reluctant to create a federal work program for fear of alienating Bill Green, the president of the American Federation of Labor, who believed such programs would undermine the private labor market where the average wage was about $1.35 per hour. Hopkins argued that Samuel Gompers, founder of the American Federation of Labor, had in 1898 proposed essentially the same idea, and that the program could be kept from getting large enough to undermine private labor rates.

Roosevelt diverted not quite one-third of the PWA budget to CWA with the goal of putting to work 4 million people. As a percentage of the population, that would be the equivalent of putting 10 million people to work today. Under Hopkins leadership the CWA got this done in two months time. The current economic downturn has yet to bring us near the depths of the Great Depression, but the situation is dire. The official unemployment rate now stands at 10 percent-plus, a figure that rises to more than 17 percent when you add in people who've given up looking for work and people working part-time only because they can't find full-time work. Further analysts calculate that at least 2.5 percent of the official unemployment rate is structural - that is, jobs that are never coming back under market conditions. The economy shed more jobs last year than in any single year since 1945. The outlook for recovery - given current stimulus efforts - sees no return to pre-recession employment for at least four years.

The CWA benefited from Harry Hopkins noted adaptive leadership and organizational style. But the CWA was also structurally better able than the PWA to mobilize quickly because it could avoid the cumbersome - and often corrupt, political - process of putting contracts out to bid and all the other obstacles to swift action that arise with public-private partnerships. CWA enjoyed immediate carte blanche to apply directly the apparatus of the federal government. Hopkins shifted staff from the federal relief program he'd headed up, seized tools and equipment from Army warehouses, and cut checks through the Veterans Administration's vast disbursement system. The CWA laid 12 million feet of sewer pipe and built or made substantial improvements to 255,000 miles of roads, 40,000 schools, 3,700 playgrounds, and nearly 1,000 airports (not to mention 250,000 outhouses still badly needed in rural America). Most of the jobs involved manual labor, to which most of the population, having been raised on the farm, was far more accustomed than it would be today. But the CWA also provided considerable white-collar work, employing, among others, statisticians, bookbinders, architects, 50,000 teachers, and 3,000 writers and artists. This was achieved with a remarkable minimum of overhead. Of the nearly $1 billion - the equivalent today of nearly $16 billion - that Hopkins spent during the CWA's five-month existence, 80 percent went directly into workers' pockets and thence stimulated the economy by going into the cash registers of grocers and shop owners. Most of the rest went to equipment costs. Less than two percent was paid for administration. The People's World editorial board article on "New Deal 2.0" has more extensive detail on the achievements of the CWA-CCC.

The only serious obstacle the CWA encountered is the same one that President Obama would face today: right wing politics. Republicans and conservative Democrats in Congress screamed bloody murder about Roosevelt's dalliance with what they termed "state socialism" - Republicans like Landon who were willing to admit a government program might actually work were as rare then as they are today-and the segregationist Georgia Gov. Eugene Talmadge was apoplectic to learn that black laborers were being paid as much as white ones. Once winter had passed, Roosevelt, worried that the controversy would cost him Democratic seats in the coming midterm congressional elections, ordered Hopkins to shut the CWA down. A year later, though, with huge numbers still unemployed, Roosevelt put Hopkins in charge of the Works Progress Administration. Over its life, the WPA would create, on the model of the CWA, more than 8 million jobs, which today would be equivalent to creating more than 20 million.

The Kennedy and Clinton administrations (the latter to a lesser extent and with lesser success) also promoted National Service. The Peace Corp, VISTA, AmeriCorp were prominent initiatives.

A new national service provision incorporated into the first Obama stimulus package has nearly been drowned out by its vicious enemies on the right wing, who like to compare folks repairing the Appalachian Trail, or winterizing homes, to fascist Hitler brown-shirts brigades. In addition it has been made nearly invisible in the pressures of the immediate struggle to pass health care reform. But I believe it is a critical component in the economic recovery from this crisis. The debate over the shape and size and funding sources of the needed second stimulus is officially underway since the recent Obama Jobs Summit.

It is a good time to reintroduce an "employer-of-last-resort" proposal, which is the economic role that national service programs perform. Without the government stepping in as the employer-of-last-resort for all those whose jobs are not coming back - an unsustainable level of long-term unemployment will ensue (for many this is already the case). To have 10-20 percent of the workforce idle can become a very corrosive and dangerous force. It puts continuous, punishing downward pressure on working people's incomes. It inevitably provokes sharp divisions, including persistent anti-immigrant, racist outbursts and panics. Such pressures can bring down the best laid recovery plans, and presidents, including progressive ones. Nowhere are the defects of advanced multinational corporate society more exposed than in a great depression. Only more socialist like measures, such as direct government employment, will work. In such crises, markets will not fix themselves, nor the social damage done, on their own. Free market apologists frequently counter that "in the long run" markets will return to "equilibrium". But, as JM Keynes famously observed: "in the long run, we are all dead."

In the struggle to compel the government to assume the "employer-of-last-resort" role, finally putting a cap on the unemployment rate, all progressive and democratic forces have a big stake in the outcome.

The values of both the public goods national service produces, as well as the social and moral values that progressive service projects nourish in both the participants and those whom are served, are as close to those envisioned and cherished by the founders of both socialist and radical democratic visions of social relations as one is likely to find in this era. To labor directly in service to the working people of the United States - is a high calling to us. And with the exception of the word "working" this sentence and its intended spirit quotes the current president of the United States, on the purpose of national service - a circumstance not seen since at least Kennedy. Distinct from some other political forces, we on the Left focus our understanding of service with a class bias. We see the expansion of the programs to include all who are structurally unemployed, including youth and seniors. And distinct from the 1930's we also envision self-organization of these workers as the bulwark that can best prevent their being turned toward reactionary purposes when the President may not be at all progressive, and at all times we champion the progressive goals and ideals of the service. But this is hardly a sectarian tendency, since public goods serving the working people of our country serve all the people as well.

None other than the Communist Manifesto identified as "communists" those who, among few other qualifications, distinguish themselves as follows: "in the various stages of development which the struggle of the working class against the bourgeoisie has to pass through, they always and everywhere represent the interests of the movement as a whole." Progressive-led national service is not the only means by which advanced social qualities can be realized. But its timeliness and its potential to reconnect socialist and progressive ideals to tangible initiatives, demonstrable integrity and a better way of both working and living - make it shine as a service and growth opportunity for the Left not seen in the US in many decades.

What socialist values are promoted in progressive national service?

1. National service represents, or can represent, a move toward full employment in an economy which is predominantly - although not exclusively - still capitalist and dominated by private property relations. It is a move which can do more to stabilize capitalism's inherent instability than any other reform. Economic development under any economic system must have an efficient means to allocate - and reallocate - people toward productive labor. Productivity and efficiency are in constant flux under the pressures of supply, demand, level of workforce culture and skills, technological change and many other factors. A government employer-of-last-resort program that is permanently targeted at structural unemployment effectively removes poverty, ruin and death as the consequences of capitalism's raw means of effecting structural change.

2. National service is dedicated to the production of public goods. The expansion of wealth in public goods, as contrasted with commodities, is a key feature of the advance of a much less unequal society.

3. Since Paul Samuelson "public goods" have acquired a specific economic definition, independent of the range of goods and services already supplied by public enterprise. They are either "non-rival" [there is no scarcity] or non-exclusive [use by non-buyers cannot be prohibited]), or both. Their scope is much enlarged since the 1930's. This is evident in two ways: first, the proportion of government GDP to private GDP has steadily increased, stimulated by both market failures (health, education, etc) in various areas or externalities (environmental, security, etc); second, the proportion of intangible goods - in short, all the products and services of the "knowledge economy" - to physical commodities has dramatically increased. Intangible goods are considered very poor commodities by many economists and, barring certain monopoly conditions (e.g. Microsoft) have many qualities of public goods. In addition the average skills of the labor force today are much advanced since that time. To traditional public works such as roads, schools, hospitals, security, must be added (in degrees) health care, too-big-to-fail enterprises, more rental housing, and many educational, public health and environmental initiatives. In many ways the economic transition from capitalism to a more advanced society can be measured in the proportion of wealth in public goods relative to commodities.

4. As production of commodities becomes more and more automated, services (both public and private) gradually become the dominant form of work. The provision of services, with often very low capital accumulation thresholds for firms by comparison to industrial firms in the past, is more amenable to cooperative, non-profit, or shared-profit models of enterprise - if stability and growth can be sustained. Employer-of-last-resort programs focus exclusively on public goods and service.

5. From each according to his ability, to each according to their needs - this was the slogan of the Communist Manifesto reflecting the ideal principle upon which an economy freed of commodity production and its inevitable divisions of labor, including the division between labor and capital, could be constructed. National service in its progressive vision models exactly this principle. It is even more advanced than the principle of socialism which merely envisions the fulfillment of bourgeois right - the ideals of the enlightenment, and of the declaration of Independence, for all who labor - from each according to his ability, to each according to his work. Equal pay for equal work plus investment in people's abilities equals socialism. Abolition of the division of labor in commodities equals the foundation of the communist ideal.

Steps to take

Current status of national service programs:

Of course the biggest current national service program is the US military. And in many ways the terms and benefits of military service will have a strong influence on terms, standards and benefits of national non-military service, if it truly evolves into an employer-of-last-resort alternative.

In his inaugural address, President Obama said, "The question we ask today is not whether our government is too big or too small but whether it works."

That stands in contrast to the Republican orthodoxy, which says "government is the problem", or various Democratic accommodations to Republican orthodoxy, which say: "the era of big government is over".

If government can do the job best, let it.

On April 27th of this year President Barack Obama signed the Edward M. Kennedy Serve America Act later today as part of his pledge to expand programs and funding for community and civil service opportunities across the nation. The legislation was named for longtime services supporter Sen. Edward Kennedy, and authorizes nearly $6 billion, a 25 percent increase, through 2014 to benefit existing programs, including AmeriCorps and the Peace Corp, as well as new service programs. There are 75,000 active AmeriCorps volunteers today, and the law intends to expand that number to 250,000 by 2017.

Melody Barnes, the director of the White House Domestic Policy Council said: "We really believe that this is just the beginning." The Corporation for National and Community Service oversees AmeriCorps and other service programs,has received more than 40,000 online AmeriCorps applications were received in March - six times the number from a year earlier.

The CNCS is a federal agency created in 1993 by President Clinton and is overseen by a bipartisan board appointed by the president. Since it began, more than 570,000 have volunteered 718 million hours and received $1.6 billion in education awards to pay for college.

Counting youth, first time job seekers, seniors forced on fixed incomes, workers laid off whose entire occupations will not return - upwards of eight million workers could fully benefit from direct employment programs - and do so without causing dangerous inflation in private or other public labor markets so long as the average size of the programs remains targeting structural unemployment, and so long as the pay in the programs corresponds to the original service principles - less than the prevailing wage, but more than unemployment and not less than the minimum compensation.

Having Government play the role of the employer-of-last-resort, through programs like those in the national service tradition and spirit, cannot be the only component in a full recovery, full employment strategy. It may not even the most important component of broader public employment in the overall economy. Most Infrastructure development, for example, will require long-term capital investments and permanent jobs in the millions. Employer-of-last-resort programs address specifically the structurally unemployed faction of the unemployed population: workers for whom there will be no recall, and whose occupation, in fact, is in long term decline. In addition to compensation, participants must receive in exchange educational and retraining opportunities. We are, in a sense, investing in losers in the restructuring to ensure their successful re-entry into the overall labor market. And we are also helping create better citizens and more conscious forces who have helped lead efforts to materially and spiritually strengthen communities. By substituting service for unemployment benefits for these folks, we simultaneously place a cap on unemployment beyond.

Hyman Minsky

The late Post-Keynesian economist Hyman Minsky gave national service, employer-of-last-resort, projects like the WPA a key role in his strategies for countering (not eliminating, just balancing) capitalism's inherent tendency toward instability. His classic work, Stabilizing an Unstable Economy is now enjoying a celebrated revival in the post-monetarist age. He favored, in a word, a "more socialist" capitalism, with lower investment and higher consumption; one that maintains full employment; one that fosters smaller organizations, especially in the private sector. He was highly skeptical that capitalism could ever achieve full employment without direct job creation by government. He argued only government can provide an infinitely elastic demand for labor, which a full employment program requires, and that such a comprehensive program would not exceed 1.25 percent of GDP. Experience in India, Argentina, China and Vietnam - all of which embrace Minsky like employment philosophies - validate this estimate. In addition, Minsky argued that, unlike welfare or unemployment, in which income is increased without an increase in supply of goods or services, employer of last resort programs are not inflationary.

Labor Ambivalence

The resistance to the WPA programs of the 1930's from the American Federation of Labor President William Green is mirrored today in the lukewarm at best support of national service in either of Labor's major federations, and for the same reason. Fear of competition with the private labor market. Yet the history of wage patterns in the years following the WPA launch in 1934 did not justify Mr Green's fears. In the first place the programs mirrored exactly advocated by Mr Green's predecessor, Samuel Gompers, and endorsed by Eugene debs. The effect of the programs were to tighten overall labor markets and reduce and in some cases reverse the dramatic fall in wages that occurred following the crash of 1929. The nearly 8 million men who passed through the WPA era programs were actually counted as part of the unemployed. The proportion of union wages to service compensation did not change throughout the era so there was no harm the service programs caused to average wages - especially as the tightened labor markets gave strength to the great CIO organizing drives underway that would soon double the size of organized labor. Some have argued the tighter immigration laws in the 30's also tightened labor markets as well, but, in any event, national service played a positive, not a negative role in the union upsurge of the late 1930's.

In the new era the fight for full employment, including in the employer-of-last-resort efforts, could use a labor lead this time, to in fact preserve the base for the progressive interpretation of "in service to the people of the United States."

How Can the Left Make a Difference?

Below is an example "home audit" project scenario, adapted from the serve.gov website, exploring the mechanics of forming a progressive service project, and transforming it into a base for public direct green employment funding and management.

General suggestions for getting started on any project:

* Create a team with your friends and neighbors to share the effort;
* Give a mission and name to your project that reflects the shared values of your team. Mission: Invoke themes that strengthen the project's ultimate political visibility.
* Set outcome-based goals and track your progress to those goals;
* Celebrate your successes together.

An environmental "Home Audit" project to audit potential saved charges and efficiency for all renters and homeowners for known energy investments.

* Audit Facts
1. Every year, more than $13 billion worth of energy leaks from houses through small holes and cracks. That's more than $150 per family!
2. A compact fluorescent light bulb uses 75 percent less energy than a regular bulb - and it can last up to four years.
3. Across America, home refrigerators use the electricity of 25 large power plants every year.
4. Some new refrigerators are so energy-smart they use less electricity than a light bulb!
5. A hot water faucet that leaks one drop per second can add up to 165 gallons a month. That's more than one person uses in two weeks.
6. An energy-smart clothes washer can save more water in one year than one person drinks in an entire lifetime!
7. A crack as small as 1/16th of an inch around a window frame can let in as much cold air as leaving the window open three inches!
8. An automatic dishwasher uses less hot water than doing dishes by hand - an average of six gallons less, or more than 2,000 gallons per year.
9. This summer, commit yourself and a team of your friends, family, and neighbors to help save energy in your home and to help others do so, too. Join United We Serve. This tool kit will give you the basics to start reducing our carbon footprint, recruit a team, organize your group, and make an impact this summer.
* The Challenge: Many community-based organizations do not have enough capacity to manage a large number of volunteers, so they need people who can organize themselves in coordination with them. As an organized group you can either organize a group to be a positive addition to a community-based organization, or, if such an organization does not exist, to be a well-organized independently-run group that fills a needed gap in the community.
1. Step One: Identify Local Partners
a) Check out the organizations already doing good work in your area. Many existing service groups have identified community needs and built the expertise to provide solutions.
b) Call or visit the websites of national and local energy and environmental groups and ask how volunteers can contribute. Examples could be your state's energy office, your local utility company, The Alliance to Save Energy, The Department of Energy, and the Sierra Club.
c) If no environmental organizations exist in your community, you have all the tools needed to start an auditing team. Information on how to perform an audit can be found at the Department of Energy's website.
d) If you want to learn more about saving energy, a simple Internet search on energy efficiency will bring tons of resources and information on how you can save energy.
e) You can also contact your local home improvement store like Home Depot, Lowe's, etc. to find out about information and products they offer to help you save money in your home. Energy challenges vary in different parts of the country.
2. Step Two: Build a Team to share the work, motivate members and hold each other accountable.
a) Build community.
b) Ask your family, comrades, friends, colleagues, faith group members, book club devotees - you have a book group, right??? - to serve with you.
c) Labor and other organizations that serve the unemployed can be important sponsors and partners.
d) Tip - serve good food at house meetings whenever possible.
e) Encourage participation that reflects the racial, national, ethnic, age and sexual diversity within the working people of your community - but do not let imperfections slow getting started.
3. Step Three: Set a Goal, including dates, and hold yourself accountable.
a) Commit as individuals and as a team to reducing carbon emissions by a certain amount and audit a certain number of homes.
b) focus on communities who most need and would benefit by a public effort at energy efficiency.
c) Set your goals high to stretch yourself.
d) Keep track of how you are doing and designate someone to be responsible for updating the group on how you are progressing toward your goals. Commit, focus, and follow through.
4. Step Four: Serve Your Community --do the audits, reach out to your neighbors and colleagues, and reduce carbon footprints.
5. Step Five: Report and Celebrate Successes and develop a campaign to implement the conclusions of the audit.
a) Your team members, your community, your city councils, Mayors, legislators and Congressional representatives, and the President want to know about your results and hear your stories. Share your accomplishments by reporting your results as widely as possible, including on the President's service blog: www.serve.gov.
b) From recent efforts, it is almost certain the result of audits reveal many families who qualify for already existing winterization programs who either do not know they exist, or who found applying for them, arranging for contractors, equipment, etc too daunting to take advantage of in a recession, if at all. If the state will not intervene and serve as middlemen for the consumers, the winterization funds in the first stimulus will remain largely undeployed.
c) Ergo - a strong argument for government directly using stimulus funds to hire the work done. Yet it will also show substantial saving that would accrue to families if relatively modest energy saving investments could be made. Using a national service program for such work gives a very large return for dollar invested, and a political foundation for expanding public work and putting people back to work directly through a funded winterization project, or other energy saving measures that will vary by area climate, resources and season.
d) Demonstrating a strong, green job creating investment that also saves consumers money is a stronger issue than many successful candidates for public office have been afforded.

The president's serve.gov site has other examples and tool-kits to assist groups form and initiate their own service projects that reflect their particular concerns and interests, whether the domain of the effort is the environment, conflict resolution, education, health, or other issues.

Yes We Can!

Workers’ Compensation Crisis: Congress and the White House Must Act

Wed, 21 Apr 2010 17:48:00 +0000

Ask any worker and their union representative about the state-based system of workers' compensation and you'll probably get the most cynical response imaginable. There are real reasons that produce that reaction. It doesn't start with workers and their unions. On the contrary, it is employers and the workers' comp insurance carriers who cultivate that reaction and perception. They are the root of the problem.

Corporate America works overtime against any progressive reform of the workers' comp system. And they've been doing it for 100 years. Union shop stewards are the answer to changing the system. They are in a position to support the legal and worker rights that are now disregarded and shamelessly opposed by employers and publicly elected officials. Profits are the mission of employers and the workers' compensation insurance carriers that they hire to oppose worker claims. This also keeps working conditions hazardous. Employers don't pay for their mistakes and conscious exposure of employees to killing dusts and other hazards; worker themselves pay.

The System

Workers' compensation is a system that was enacted as a state-based system in the US, starting in New York State in 1910. It was declared unconstitutional at the time. Laws then were not allowed to infringe on the profit rights of corporations. The "Robber Barons" were in charge. But the human carnage mounting from the industrialization of the US in the steel and mine operations; on the railroads and in the agricultural fields was becoming a nation catastrophe. On-the-ground the nation's religious and social welfare organizations simply could not take care of the industrial victims. There was no unemployment insurance or social security to help victims. In 1914, New York State changed its constitution to allow for workers' compensation to become the law of the state. Other states followed suit over the years.

Before 1914, workers were allowed to seek financial remedies from their employers in state courts by proving employer negligence. There are few if any cases of workers winning any money in those courts. The reasons were simple. The judges were clearly on the side of employers; rarely sympathetic to worker interests.

When a case was grievous enough to have a chance for a successful verdict, employers were allowed to use three defenses:

1. Workers "knew about" the hazards when they took the job;
2. The worker "contributed to" the accident;
3. A "fellow worker: caused the accident.

Given those defenses, workers didn't stand a chance in the courts.

If the disabled worker successfully navigated that tortuous road and the judge was about to award him or her money and medical benefits, employers often step forward to offer an out-of-court settlement. That closes the case without any evidence of employer wrongdoing.

Background

In Germany, Bismarck enacted a national system of both workers' compensation and national health insurance in the 1880s to head-off revolutionary forces. Germany decided to establish a national system with no private insurance carriers.

England, which was facing similar industrialization and radical worker reactions later in the century, also enacted a national workers' comp system, but while keeping it nationwide, allowed for private insurance companies to write the insurance.

In the US the worst of all solutions was adopted. There would be no national system, only state-based systems, and private carriers would write most of the coverages. Only federal workers, longshore workers and a few others would benefit by a federal system of workers' compensation. The federal workers' comp system is far better than any of the state-based systems. It pays wage replacement at a far higher level and the medical benefits are superior.

OSHA & MSHA

When the Occupational Safety and Health Act (OSHA) was passed in 1969/70 by a Congress that was heavily pressured by labor and worker support groups; they also asked for a complete re-evaluation of workers' comp. The Mine Safety and Health Act (MSHA) has passed at the same time. Both tied the failure of strong federal and state regulations to the rising toll of injuries and illness. A commission was established and reported back 5-7 years later. Some reforms were put forward, but by and large, the system was not changed. Congress rejected practically all of the pro-worker proposals put forward by the commission. Corporate America absorbed the battle defeat of the passage of OSHA and MSHA, and regrouped to defeat workers' comp reform that would help workers.

Coal miners, their union, the United Mine Workers Union and their supporters didn't wait for the national government to act. In the 1960s, they demanded in the state capital of West Virginia that Black Lung Disease, the respiratory disease that combined rock and coal dust and killed coal miners in a very predictable way, be recognized. That predictability meant that the word "Presumption" must be used. And, the Black Lung Association, the UMWA and physicians who diagnosed victims and stood up to the coal operators won this battle. Starting in West Virginia and then in Washington, DC a "Presumption" was established that if a coal miner works for a defined period of time, it is "Assumed" the miner qualifies for Black Lung Benefits. The use of x-rays and blood tests would not be the final test determinant. This was and remains a historic victory. The "presumption" concept was violently opposed by all other employer.

But, as you can imagine the struggle to protect miners from coal and rock dust is endless. The laws and regulations are not working as they should. According to the Charleston Gazette, Joe Main former Director of Occupational Safety and Health for the UMWA and now President Obama's head of MSHA, over 10,000 miners died of this dread disease in the last decade. And, there is fear that many are dying with not having extensive exposure.

The workers' comp system for everyone else is a system which replaces a portion of wages and gives medical care for disabilities for work-related injuries and illnesses with some money for death on the job. And, that has remained extremely low for decades. There is a very wide range of benefits between the 50 states.

Permanent Partial Disability

Having successfully won the battle to keep wages low and medical benefits meager, employers focused on cutting back on the benefits to workers suffering with PERMANENT PARTIAL DISABILITIES. These disabilities are the ones which workers suffer permanent respiratory damage to their lungs or other partial physical injuries, but may still are legally allowed to return to their previous job and collect some money. In New York State, for example, permanent partial disability payments for non-respiratory illnesses were fairly good. But, it is next to impossible to collect for permanent partial for occupational respiratory, lung illnesses, e.g. silicosis.

One particular event took place in Gauley Bridge, West Virginia when Union Carbide, in the Depression years of the early 1930s, drilled a public works tunnel through "Hawks Nest" mountain, near Gauley Bridge. The purpose was to harness the Kanawha River for hydroelectric power. Over 5,000 miners died of silicosis since the rock they were drilling had very high silica content and Union Carbide knew it. They even expanded the breadth of the tunnel when they discovered its high percent silica (sand) content. Some workers died with as little as five months of exposure. That industrial killing is still one of the most severe cases of workers being murdered by employers. After Vito Marcantonio, Congressman from NYC, many of those miners were from NYC, held hearings, New York State passed a Permanent Partial Disability for respiratory diseases. The law lasted ONE YEAR and corporations in NY State forced the state legislature to remove that law; and, it did. That situation exists today.

Union Carbide, which is now owned by Dow Chemical, the manufacturer of napalm war materials, is the same company responsible for the deaths of over 15,000 people in Bhopal, India 25 years ago, this year. In that instance it was the release of poison chemicals.

Medical Exams

Any complicated medical diagnosis and determination brings a powerful corporate response. For example, often a medical dispute arises. The injured worker's doctors submit regular reports saying he is still disabled. The insurance company submits a report saying that the worker is fully recovered, able to go back to work and no longer entitled to benefits.

A trial follows. Testimony is taken from both doctors, the worker and the employers. In three, four or maybe six months the judge makes a decision as to which doctor is more credible. In NY, probably 85 percent or more of these cases are eventually decided in favor of the worker. But the judge must, by law, stop payment to the worker as soon as the insurance company presents its "no disability" report. The worker remains without income throughout the months it takes to resolve the dispute. The priority, written into the law, is to protect the insurance company from paying out money that, possibly, the worker is not entitled to, rather than protecting the worker's right to benefits that, in the vast majority of cases, he or she is entitled to, and the cutting off of which often results in destitution, hunger and homelessness.

In the above scenario, the Board is required to schedule a hearing within 20 days from receiving the "no disability" report from the insurance company. But an injured worker, unable to work, who seeks payment, can never get a hearing that soon, even with the new, in NY State, so-called "expedited hearing process."

But, that was not enough for Corporate America. They wanted more. So, recently, in order to get a very small increase in the maximum weekly wage replacement, NY State agreed to limit the length of time a worker could collect permanent partial workers' comp. This legislative act put millions dollars of profits back into the treasuries of the corporations.

But, if you think they are satisfied, you would be dead wrong.

Corporations still complain. Oh, how they complain. They threaten to leave a state if workers' comp wages and benefits are increased. Get the State vs. State scenario? These threats are worth million of dollars of profits for the corporations.

They continue to complain. They never stop complaining. Their fundamental, basic complaint is if you give workers too much on workers' comp, they won't return to work. Employers and the workers' comp carriers spend millions of dollars on attorneys and "billed time" fighting against any improvements and for cutbacks.

The mass media is a crucial part of the corporate strategy. For example, liberal oriented "Sixty Minutes" annually has a segment showing a disabled worker collecting benefits and still doing difficult, usually recreational fun. In New York City, for example, the NY Daily News, at least two times a year will print stories, given to them by the New York Transit Authority [NYC bus and subways] about the worker abusing the system. NY City Transit is a self-insurance company which challenges workers' comp plains two the three times private sector employers. But, these stories and the media attack have its affect.

Like other insurance carriers, they spend millions of dollars to influence every state capital politician; and, of course, Congress in Washington, DC. The money they use is the premium dollars they accumulate. The medical payout ratio that keeps benefits low and awards that practice with loads of money for payoffs to politicians.

The net result of all of their millions and anti-worker strategy is that too many workers force themselves back to work far before they should.

In Europe and other industrialized countries, workers' wage replacement is almost the same as their working wages. Workers are regularly paid 90% of their wages. There is no problem with returning to work. Life for workers in Europe is not great, but compared to the US, laws passed and respected and enforced to a greater extent than the US.

The exploitation of workers in the US, around the issue of workers' comp, is at its gravest worst.

The cartoon image of disabled workers being thrown on to the scrap heat, ala a Charlie Chaplin movie, is an everyday reality in the US.

Public Health

The American Public Health Association, an organization over 30,000 health oriented members at their Annual Meeting in Philadelphia, where over 12,000 gathered, viewed this crisis and passed a resolution to begin to correct it.

The resolution said that the current system of workers' compensation is characterized by "mistrust, denied claims, stigmatization, payment delays, and refusals to pay benefits."

Currently, each state administers its own workers' compensation system and individual states differ, "often dramatically, on the level and scope of permanent disability benefits, coverage of mental health conditions resulting from work, and insurance and claims administration regulation."

The resolution called for the system to be re-vamped by "put[ting] prevention of injury and illness, and rehabilitation of those unable to return to work after injury an illness, as its foremost goals."

The resolution said that the "current fragmented workers' compensation system should be replaced by a national program with uniform coverage of health care and adequate loss-of-earnings benefits for all occupational injuries and illnesses."

The APHA resolution made the following recommendations:

· "The system should include a national standard of coverage for all workers, including all federal and state government workers. Individual state exemptions for seasonal agricultural workers, home care workers, domestic workers, part-time workers, contractors, immigrant workers, employees of small companies and all other special categories should be removed.
· "The system should be integrated in a seamless manner with the Social Security disability program (SSDI); benefits should be provided for all permanent injuries and illnesses.
· "Health care for injured workers should be provided by a national health care system independent of industry involvement and insurance industry control; health care providers should be removed from the responsibility of determining eligibility for benefits.
· "The system must have money set aside for: training of occupational health and safety professionals; preventive initiatives based on root injury and illness analyses; worker health and safety training; and mandatory reporting by health professionals.
· "There should be a national medical and statistical database on worker injuries, worker illnesses, worker toxic exposures and resultant diseases. A national database would lay the groundwork for research into the causes and consequences of occupational illnesses, and lead to improved diagnosis, treatment, prognosis, and ultimately, prevention of occupational diseases."

The Cost of the System

You'll note that the APHA policy statement and most worker and union advocates do not quote any numbers in regard to workers' compensation. Why? All of the numbers, i.e., the cost of the system; the number of workers seeking and successfully gaining their claims; and similar data is completely controlled by the workers' comp insurance companies, themselves. They are regulated; if that is what they would call it, buy themselves. Yes, "peer reviewed" regulation is what dominates in state governments. There is rarely if any independent review and analysis of their data reports.

With all of the popular talk about asbestosis, silicosis, coal workers pneumoconiosis, lead poisoning, occupational cancer and other occupational illnesses and diseases, in any one state of the union, less than 3% of all successful claims are for occupational illnesses and diseases. This means that the negotiated health benefit program pays the medical and related costs of work-related illnesses and diseases, if there is a union. If the worker has no union and no health insurance, the victim, he or herself pay it. This more often than not is the rule not the exception.

While in most states, the breakthrough in asbestos related workers compensation claims took place about 20 years ago, for most other illnesses and diseases, it is next to impossible to win those claims.

Liberty Mutual is the top insurance carrier among many and, they have successfully financially influenced state government to agree with their positions. At the same time they virulently influence Congress to keep workers' comp a state-by-state issue.

What is Lost With No Enforcement?

A good question would be: What is lost with no enforcement of already lax insurance laws and, essentially, permitting these practices? Simple. While compensating workers for work-related illnesses and diseases is the primary mission of workers' comp the other, and equally important reason is to penalize employer for not protecting their employees form the hazards that create the conditions that give workers those disabilities.

The penalty system is simple. Insurance carriers increase premiums for employers with records of hurting their employees. Successful claims translate into higher premiums and forcing employers to fix the workplace. It is the old fashion incentive system.

When this doesn't happen, workers and their unions are left with OSHA and MSHA to regulate the workplace. Well, we know the record of both OSHA and MSHA to force employer to do it right. Extremely bad! This is a "Lose-Lose" situation for workers.

Union Shop Stewards: First Line of Struggle

Yes, the crucial ingredient to protect workers is the elected (and appointed) shop stewards who are trained to protect their comrades from injuries and illnesses. They are the first line of defense and must be able to enforce their labor contract; and, strategically use OSHA (Public Employees S&H Laws for public workers) and MSHA laws. Shop stewards have historically been the called upon to perform these duties, but, an alert and aggressive local union leadership must provide the spark and support for this important union shop floor responsibility.

That is right, without a union, workers are essentially defenseless. They need aggressive regulation enforcement by state and federal laws and administrators. But without strong union enforcement, these regulations are just words on paper. Union shop steward make aggressive union action possible. Few workers will risk their jobs to call in OSHA inspectors. Without a union contract, and strong stewards the law protecting the right to report safety and health hazards and violations is almost impossible to enforce. Stewards can help workers file claims. Thousands of work-related injuries and illnesses are routinely not reported.

Those who want to help reduce these injuries and illnesses must also support measures to increase unionization of U.S. workers, such as the Employee Free Choice Act.

Public advocates in groups like the locally based Committees for Occupational Safety and Health (COSH groups) are very helpful.

The accumulation of shop steward generated data/experience with work-related injury, illnesses and diseases from a few key places could be used in state capitals to force real changes in workers' comp laws. A moderately long-term strategy to mount this strategy in a few key states could do what the Black Lung struggle did 40 years ago. These are the real life experiences that can change the situation toward workers' interest by arming state and national organized labor organizations to fight in state capitals and Congress.

The Crisis Demands Action

The Obama Administration is in a perfect position to take steps to correct workers' comp laws. The first step should be to enforce the National Commission's proposals to federalize state workers' comp system that don't achieve certain goals. Democratic Party control of the White House and Congress, in the past, gave some improvements to workers in this area of workers' rights.

The National Commission on Workers' Compensation has already set the basis for major workers' comp reform in the 1970s. We don't have to reinvent the wheel. The system is still the same anti-worker, anti-worker family since then. The only change has been for the worse.

The capitalist economic and financial crisis is making this bad system much worse for workers. For many disabled workers, either by physical injury, occupational illness or diseases and mental damage, the choices are few and none. They are reporting less of their disabilities and staying on the job as long as possible. The fear of unemployment, with the official jobless rate above 10%, especially when the worker might be the only earner in the immediate or extended family, forces workers to stay on the job. In these instances, a mild physical injury would grow worse. And, a respiratory problem would become more severe. In both instances, the source of the problem would go unchanged.

Corporate American is turning up the heat to produce more with fewer workers. The stock market is going great and the bonuses are high and wide at the big corporations like Goldman Sachs. Wall Street is sitting pretty. And, they continue to lay off more workers; and, of course, not employing them with their bail out money and super profits.

It is the US worker who is paying for all of this greed. And, make no mistake about it; the greed that produced the economic bubble and the mortgage crisis is just as rampant now as then.

The sparks from the labor movement show that a rising tide of rage is taking place across the country. Workers' comp produces the kind of slow, deep-seated worker rage that is rarely understood by government and university policy makers. But, be sure that union leaders who have their ears to the ground understand it well.

The White House demand of Congress to pass the Employee Free Choice Act would be an important step.

Special Note: Lessons For Current National Health Legislation

Over the last decades' struggles for national health legislation, some community-based groups, rarely labor unions, have opposed a national health legislative program, rather they supported State-based health insurance programs. And, in fact, given the corporate/Wall Street ability to hamstring and kill off a national health program, some progressive political activists have called for the abandonment of a national program and for a State-based program with seed money coming from the Federal Government. Some of these progressive have clouded the demand by supporting the former Senator Paul Wellstone "Single Payer" proposal, which was entirely state-based. Wellstone was the popular deceased, former US Senator from Minnesota.

There is mostly just bad experience with states enacting health coverage for its people. The recent Massachusetts Health Plan started off fairly good, but is now in terrible disarray and cutbacks are rather dramatic. Twenty years ago Massachusetts passed a similar state-based health bill that was also a disaster. Other activists have unsuccessfully spent great effort to get their state government to enact state-based health systems. Hawaii has a state plan which seems rather good, but its hard to extrapolate from the example, given the rather isolated location of the state.

The US state-based workers' compensation programs as compared to the federal workers' comp system has the federal system winning hands down. It wins with far higher wage replacement, lasting a lifetime; and, far superior medical and mental health benefits. And, yet, that experience has not been considered in the Congress or the White House in the current national health discussions. National health care advocates, hopefully, will redouble their national health efforts, and forego state strategies for a while.

(Photo by jbcurio, courtesy Flickr, cc by 2.0)

Climate Science and the Ideology of Human Pollution

Wed, 21 Apr 2010 17:42:00 +0000

The UN Copenhagen climate talks are in disarray today after developing countries reacted furiously to leaked documents that show world leaders will next week be asked to sign an agreement that hands more power to rich countries and sidelines the UN's role in all future climate change negotiations.

As Louis Althusser explained in "Spontaneous Philosophy...", when ‘think tanks' and similar ‘interdisciplinary' institutions made up of experts from disparate fields are brought together, what inevitably results is that they cohere around the ideas which they all readily share and recognize. This is always their common ideology. And this ideology can be nothing but the ruling class ideology, i.e. in this case bourgeois ideology.

As we all know, a body was set up in 1988 by the UN to officiate over the concern of harmful human induced climate change, called the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). It all began around the time of the fall of the Berlin Wall and the end of the Cold War, which perhaps is no accident (but we will leave aside for the moment the need the dominant media/press seems to have to promote fear: mass extinctions by catastrophes and epidemics, such as avian/swine flu, asteroid impact, and so on, and how this ending of one big fear in the possibility of nuclear war, seems to have generated a need to fill this gap with new fears).

It may surprise some, but the IPCC is not, as it is commonly understood, a scientific body. It says this itself: to quote from its website:

The IPCC was established to provide the decision-makers and others interested in climate change with an objective source of information about climate change. The IPCC does not conduct any research nor does it monitor climate related data or parameters. Its role is to assess on a comprehensive, objective, open and transparent basis the latest scientific, technical and socio-economic literature produced worldwide relevant to the understanding of the risk of human-induced climate change, its observed and projected impacts and options for adaptation and mitigation.

So, this is a group of people, some of whom are scientists but from different disciplines, who gather research, synthesize it, and comment on it for policy reasons. In doing this it admits that literature other than scientific is to be used for its assessments, e.g. "socio-economic" literature.

What, we might ask, is "socio-economic" literature? - It is simply any literature focused on social and/or economic themes. In other words, it is almost any literature that it "likes." A recent 2009 mini-scandal occurred in the UK over revelations that a climate warming scientist, Phil Jones of the University of East Anglia's Climatic Research Unit, was intent on bending the peer review process against a skeptical paper he appeared to simply not like.

The IPCC panel collects research about a single topic: human induced climate change (HICC). Given that the panel is designed to look into only this topic, its conclusions might tend to be already written into its premises: that harmful HICC is a reality.

This is, let us say, not the best basis from the point of view of scientific objectivity. Perhaps a symptom of this "objectivity problem" is noticeable in how the IPCC repeats (on its website) that it is "objective," without showing why or how, even though by its own admission it does not do scientific work. Obviously, it cannot claim objectivity by or through its own criteria, yet it does so.

What kind of objectivity is not scientific? Well, the IPCC does all this work, by its own admission, for "decision-makers." These people are those known more usually (often pejoratively) as politicians. The latter term is repeatedly avoided in the IPCC literature - one might even say it is repressed.

Why this shyness? You might think that the IPCC sought to mask who the actual master of its discourse is. What might the politician perceive that perhaps the oil company boss might not? Perhaps the broad interests of its class, rather than, or more than, for instance, the narrowness of a national corporation, which may only seek its own profit.

For the IPCC the world is natural but it is implied that we human beings and our products, industry, are not. So it can put forward the notion that there is natural climate change and our unnatural human induced climate change, we interfere in the planet like aliens.

This ideology of human pollution, irrespective of its truth value for the moment (for now we are concerned chiefly with the ideologies in the debate), can sometimes resemble the religious doctrine of original sin, where we do not deserve such a beautiful world and must pay a price for our very existence from the moment we are born (penance). It was previously brought to its peak in Nazi ideology, where certain kinds of people are considered as unproductive, as indeed a human form of pollution.

Those who especially promote harmful climate change often in the press seem evangelical and castigate their opponents as "deniers" in this way. A Manichaean good versus evil conspiracy is conjured up and always frames the entire debate.

Who are the leading figures that promote the idea of harmful climate warming? Are they independent, struggling heroes left out in the wilderness, as you might imagine from press accounts, sacked from any job they might have by the big moneyed interests, like oil, that they attack? This is not quite the case.

One obvious example is James Hansen. He heads NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies in New York and is currently (as I write anyway) an adjunct professor in the Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences at Columbia University. He also serves as Al Gore's science advisor.

Hansen was elected to the National Academy of Sciences in 1996 and received the $250,000 Heinz Environment Award for his research on global warming in 2001 (Hansen supported 2004 Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry, the Heinz Foundation was run by Kerry's wife); in 2001 he was listed as one of Time Magazine's 100 Most Influential People in the Time 100 2006 list. In 2007 he was awarded the Dan David Prize; on April 5, 2008, he received the PNC Bank Common Wealth Award of Distinguished Service for his outstanding achievements in science.

Note that PNC bank is a top-ten Small Business Administration (SBA) lender in the US. The SBA is a US government agency that assists and protects the interests of small businesses. As I write this SBA currently holds a portfolio of roughly 219,000 loans worth more than $45 billion, making it the largest single financial backer of businesses in the United States. The main reason why SBA loans are so profitable to banks is that it has created an infrastructure whereby the portions of 7(a) loans guaranteed by the agency can be transformed into triple "A" rated government bonds, so big banks have an interest in this.

Hansen currently (June 2008) lobbies the US administration for a moratorium on new coal-fired power plants, coupled with the creation of a huge grid of low-loss electric power lines buried underground and spread across the US so as to give wind and solar power a chance of competing, presumably as small businesses that will want bank funding. Ironically perhaps, he has blamed special interests for the public confusion about the global warming threat, saying that the problem is not political will, but the influence of lobbyists. Yet he is also a special interest lobby.

While such figures as Hansen give the impression that they are from a beleaguered small bunch fighting giant oil companies, we can see they themselves are not separate from big business, indeed these figures often work for tightly controlled government connected departments. It has to be said, too, that institutions like the Shell Foundation (set up by the Shell Group oil company) have also supported the idea of a distributed electrical network through grants as a part of its aim to provide "financially sustainable solutions" to global energy. (Its financial contribution is, relative to the profits of the banks, small though; nevertheless it is not impossible for the oil lobby to have an interest in global warming alarmism).

What does all this mean, then? The latter move appears to be a part of a general promotion of the notion of "natural capitalism," also the title of a book by Paul Hawken, Amory Lovins and L. Hunter Lovins. They propose redesigning industry on biological models with closed loops and zero waste, shifting from the sale of goods (like light bulbs) to the provision of services, such as illumination, and reinvesting in the "natural capital" that is the basis of future prosperity: a kind of clean cyber-society."

Quite apart from how this now seems faintly ridiculous given the global catastrophe of the current great capitalist economic recession and the folly of relying on a services-based economic model, a lot of which seems to have been exacerbated by the exact same love of virtuality; and quite apart from confusing a raw material resource and use value with capital (the latter which is the result of the exploitation of human labor), what seems to be happening in this ideology is a general attempt to win for capitalism an image of it championing localized heroic small businesses with green credentials while discrediting "red" ("eastern," "foreign") "developing world" tendencies as monolithic and dirty, along with physical labor itself and the entire global working class.

If it was indeed the case that a move to electrical energy was a solution this would be fine. But electricity here is not an energy source, it is a carrier, so this move simply means that the source becomes more hidden and can remain - oil. Existing oil resources, through certain measures, can be eked out rather than abandoned, and subjected to technological ruses that put the control of the resources into more distanced electronic hands where the pollution can be hidden (such as hydrogen fuel cells for hybrid or electric cars made by fossil fuel burning processes for both the fuel cells and the electricity, but which in the cars is clean) and sited in poorer regions of the globe where the effects cannot be challenged or publicized so easily; also, note, supply can more easily be switched off.

Now, we already accept that pollution is a problem. It is a fact. The idea of global warming is an extension of this. Peculiarly though, it is one that has led to renewed calls for greater investment in an already highly unpopular and without any doubt polluting energy: nuclear power.

This nuclear option is promoted in the context of a strange consensus that those who will suffer most from global warming will be the so-called developing world, or the poorer nations, and the poor, who are the least well equipped to cope with catastrophes, even though such events as hurricane Katrina (sometimes put down to global warming and the stated greater frequency of such storms) have badly affected many people in the "rich US" (although of course disproportionately the poor).

It is perhaps revealing (of ideology) how there is such confidence in a globally disastrous weather phenomenon that somehow selects only localities where the poor live to act. The problem is obviously being put at the foot of the poor, and the global south and the east, and "our" bourgeoisie, the wonderful philanthropic and clever ruling classes of the nice safe west, are going to kindly save them.

But only on certain terms of contract of course.

Their political goal is currently to try to regulate the supply of all raw materials and resources for power generation, such as traditional fossil fuels, in the same way as nuclear power is globally regulated (or almost regulated) today. Which means, in the end, that usually developing nations are under increasing pressure: political, economic and finally, when the chips are down, military pressure, to let a consortium of rich nations decide what and how power/energy resources are to be obtained, developed, implemented, circulated and consumed. This maneuver means that raw materials and resources of course become more of a globally marketable commodity, as with so-called carbon trading, and so more tied in with global capitalist exchange conditions.

Any rich nation that produces and can utilize a lot of weapons (like the US and UK), but does not have huge domestic resources of oil/gas/coal at its disposal but still has great demand for energy, has an interest in this kind of regulation and will want to take steps to enforce it further. To aid this, the advanced capitalist nation's media/press image is of "dirty" polluting poorer nations which are morally bad, counterpoised against the rich nations which are (now) clean, hi-tech and because of this morally good.

At the same time, our "advanced world" reliance on oil is a long term problem that will need to be solved irrespective of global warming, given that it is a finite natural resource, and this fact is being downplayed (peak oil).

The induced fear of global warming thus arrives on the scene at a suspiciously convenient time. When the rich nations find themselves confronted by the awkward fact that dwindling natural supplies of raw materials for power generation are not located in territory under their direct jurisdiction, and when developing nations are beginning to become large competitors in the global capitalist market for energy sources and have grown huge traditional fossil based industrial capacity.

Thus the image of dirtiness is set to become a future excuse for the use of good force against evil nations that can be depicted as risking our fragile planet, such as have already formed part of the many different as hoc justifications given for the recent Iraq war.

Superficially the fear of HICC leads to many criticisms of capitalism: that its free market policies have attacked biodiversity, destroyed natural ecosystems, and polluted the environment, risking the planet, all in pursuit of relatively short term profits. Yes, this is exactly what happens: capitalism is rapacious, and this is the case whether or not global warming is true or false. Capitalism has, though, also provided the means by which the world can be fed and watered easily, with massive production; indeed one of its perennial problems has been overproduction, a fact which those who argue population control still fail to grasp.

Given this, concern about global warming can mask the economic problems. It can be a political maneuver that sets more burdens upon the shoulders of the working class, especially in developing nations, and produces fear and timidity (acting against protest) in the hearts of those in the developed world. It also lends the appearance of progressiveness to the ruling class, the owners of the industries whose practices cause the pollution in the first place.

The above are ideological forces that come into the debate. Let us now look briefly at the science.

Climatology is the science of longer term weather. Change in climate is normal, a given fact of science that has been proved beyond doubt by looking at the long term geological evidence. The case being made, however, is that humanly induced, or anthropogenic, carbon dioxide emissions, chiefly from the burning of fossil fuels (like oil and coal, but also methane from livestock) add to a possibly runaway "greenhouse effect" where the carbon in the atmosphere acts as a re-reflecting agent on the sunlight, something like a big greenhouse window.

This effect, it must be stated, happens normally and is actually essential to life on Earth. Without this heating the Earth's average temperature would be only about -73° C (-100° F) and even the oceans would be frozen. On the other hand, a runaway greenhouse effect, like that occurring on the planet Venus, results in surface temperatures as high as 500° C (932° F), a condition that exists in spite of the fact that the high reflectivity of Venus' clouds means the planet actually absorbs less solar radiation than the Earth.

Climatology is chiefly concerned with atmosphere, and regards other forces like volcanism as external "forcing," yet they are intrinsic properties of the Earth.

A very important factor is that the Earth's climate is time-dependent. Variation in time of solar radiation, the orbits of the other planets and their moons, the stars, cosmic rays, the oceans, the atmosphere, the land and its movements, plate tectonics and volcanism, life (we know that life has an effect on climate, because life is a contributing part of the ecosystem; e.g. storage of carbon in "carbon sinks" for instance) and their interaction, all affect the climate of our planet, continuously. Each year the Earth's climate goes through changes much bigger than any alterations linked to the differences of one year from another, and also greater than the differences between different climatic epochs, except those of the ice ages. Both the ocean and the atmosphere have the characteristics of dynamic chaotic systems: they obey the established dynamic and thermodynamic laws of physics, but in a nonlinear fashion that permits apparently unlimited variability.

So there are patterns that can be described in climatic change, but the element of chaos tends to obscure these regularities in any short-term view, and this short term is by any common human measure actually quite long. 300,000 year is the blink of an eye in geological terms. Given this, one mistake the climate warming scientists continually make is to refer to "imbalance" in climate taking place without explaining or justifying scientifically what the balance is, or might be, given time.

For, if the Earth can be said to have a normal long term climate at all, it would actually appear to be a warmer one than it is now. We are currently in a colder interglacial period. On the other hand, our planet is quite dialectical, in the sense that it usually fluctuates between the two opposed poles of temperature, any balance between these therefore also oscillates.

Thus, the long term weather of the Earth is an extremely complex, fractal system with a lot of capacity for change, but put basically, this is to hotter and colder environmental conditions, yet life is tenacious and has been around for a very long time, actually billions of years. All change can be considered harmful, and all stasis harmful, it depends.

Periodic climatic change is a scientifically established fact. However, the language of even the most respected scientific sources on this subject often reverts to trying to prove just this, that climate change happens (e.g. IPCC itself as a name), which is superfluous, rather than the more recalcitrant thesis that harmful human induced climate change is happening.

The case for harmfulness is of course harder to prove; it does not just necessitate understanding carbon emitting as a fact, but what harmful means, and depends on the timescale applied - the future is a long time. Whatever we do, or do not do, might be regarded as dangerous depending on where the line in time is drawn. Relying, as sometimes occurs, on data over the last 150 years in this context is disingenuous.

For example, in the long term, it even seems likely that the changing climate, even to its extremes, has (perhaps ironically) helped the evolution of our species, as does the changing seasons, over the last three billion years, including extinction events and bottlenecks.

The real and more difficult question is whether human industry, which is so extremely recent in terms of the planet's long history, pollutes so much that it is going to have an injurious effect on the ecosystem of our planet, one that is unprecedented (as if from outside) and not capable of being counterbalanced by other existing forces without our conscious intervention, in the short space of time which means that it may be taken as an immediate danger.

Predicting climate change is made difficult because of the complexity and the amount of different physical processes involved. In this sense it is sometimes understood as a stochastic process, similar to the stock market, involving sequences of random variables. Can this harmful global warming currently be proved within a reasonable definition of proof? The scientific consensus is that human induced warming is taking place and is dangerous. We must accept this consensus. But this consensus is only consensus, and is not itself based in an indisputable scientific theory of climate that can predict entirely accurately. Such a complete theory does not currently exist. And remember, consensus has often been proved wrong in the history of science, by individual rebels against the think tanks. Nevertheless, not all sciences are exact sciences, and this does not mean they are unscientific.

With all the above provisos, the research so far points to dangers for our species and life as such on Earth that seem to be prevalent, and we should err on the side of caution and lessen the impact of our "footprint." The human species has probably, in prehistoric times, been here before through ignorance combined (peculiarly) with economic success - through hunting without sustaining the hunted species - and we seem destined to repeat this same kind of mistake.

Action involves switching to sustainable resources for energy.

Unfortunately this is not something that capitalism is good at. The trouble is that the incentives produced in capitalist competition are usually to increase the profitability and reach of the existing oil industry and its derivatives by disguising oil use in different technical forms. And, for various oft cited reasons, it can be regarded as almost impossible in capitalist economics to enforce solutions outside this, not least because its ideology willfully regards planning the economy as a bad thing and the "free market" as the good, and in climate terms the free market will always be too short term.

As we have seen above, even the "green" + "cyber" capitalism that is being promoted as the savior from environmental doom inevitably presents false options and pseudo solutions based in vested interests, as do the various summits concerned with carbon trading. These almost always represent a serious failure to take into account the bigger joined-up economic picture that genuine sustainability requires.

It will seem a glib answer to conclude that socialism represents our only hope here, but, safe sustainable solutions to the energy crisis already exist in the form of technological uses of wood, water, wind, wave and solar power, the difficulty is social implementation and the political will.

Photo by Takver, courtesy Flicker, cc by 2.0

Observations One Year In

Wed, 21 Apr 2010 17:39:00 +0000

It seems like every political pundit is critiquing President Obama's first year in office - not surprising. But I will take a different tack. Let's compare our views of a year ago of the larger class and social forces surrounding and exerting pressure on Obama with our views now.

First, the broad coalition that elected the president a year ago still hasn't yet fully regrouped, notwithstanding some very promising initiatives and struggles. We believe it will, but our earlier assessment didn't take into account that the transition from an election mode to a post-election mode would be uneven and bumpy.

By Election Day 2008, people were exhausted and felt that they had done their part. They were ready to hand the ball off to the president and the new Congress. We didn't appreciate this dynamic enough. Our view was too seamless and not grounded in realism. To transform the coalition that elected Obama into a powerful political force will take a strenuous and sustained effort. And we are in the early stages. Success in doing this will have a decisive bearing on the winning of a progressive agenda.

Second, our estimate of the balance of forces and trends in Congress was too general. Democratic majorities don't necessarily translate into support for the president's agenda - let alone a people's agenda. Democrats in Congress hold diverse views, and the progressive Democrats, while undeniably more influential, are not yet dominant. A more fine-grained analysis on our part was necessary.

Third, a year ago we resisted placing the administration and its individual members into neat political categories before they began governing. At the time, that was correct, because such categorizations easily lead to narrow tactical approaches, which is especially bad in a moment of political fluidity and crisis. A year later, a closer look at the various trends is warranted, although it shouldn't turn into a daily preoccupation.

Fourth, we exaggerated the magnitude of the defeat of right wing extremism. No longer did political initiative reside in its hand nor did it set the agenda, but it didn't follow that right wing extremism became a minor player in the nation's political life. While blue dog and centrist Democrats are a drag on progressive politics, it is the extreme right in Congress and elsewhere that mobilizes a mass constituency, shapes public opinion, and employs racism and other forms of division and demagogy. Their stated aim is to obstruct and derail the Obama presidency.

Though the election was a major defeat for the far right, it retains a significant mass base, has connections to some of the most reactionary, powerful and wealthiest corporations, and possesses a dense network of think tanks and political actions committees - not to mention the Republican Party. It also has a loud and insistent voice in the mass media and in the military and other coercive institutions. A comeback - a return to power - isn't out of the question.

Fifth, our assessment didn't give enough weight to the fact that the state is anything but a neutral institution standing above society and negotiating between competing interests. Rather it is a class based, historically determined set of institutions, procedures, policies, and personnel that, taken together, are resistant to any kind of radical (anti-corporate, anti-capitalist) restructuring, no matter how necessary. In recent decades, the interpenetration of big capital - especially finance, military and energy capital - and state/government structures has reached unprecedented levels.

This reality isn't reason to stand aside from struggles within state structures, to yield this ground to capital. On the contrary, the terrain of the state, which includes, but isn't limited to the executive and legislative branches of government, is a crucial site of class and social struggles. No serious movement for social change can absent itself from this site. Indeed, a high priority must be attached to the securing of positions - elective and otherwise in the state apparatus and effecting alliances - at every stage of the class and democratic struggle, and especially at this and subsequent stages.

As we saw in last year's election, electoral struggles drew millions into action and changed the terrain (within and outside of state structures) on which contesting political coalitions fight. No struggle over the past decade mobilized so many in such a sustained way, nor reset the relations between contending sides as did the campaign to elect Barack Obama.

Thus, struggles within state structures are absolutely imperative, but with this caveat: their success in the longer term in large measure depends on the degree to which they symbiotically combine and coordinate with popular actions outside of these structures.

Sixth, our reading of changes in public opinion suffered from one-sidedness. On the one hand, we correctly noted that right-wing and neoliberal ideology resonates less and less with tens of millions of people, who are increasingly skeptical about "free markets" and unregulated capitalism.

But the problem with public opinion polls is that they don't necessarily capture what Antonio Gramsci called "contradictory consciousness." The same people can like a public health care option and even approve of socialism, but also be suspicious of big government; or support withdrawing troops from Afghanistan and at the same time want the Obama administration to eliminate al Qaeda in Afghanistan by any means necessary; or favor a second stimulus bill while opposing a larger deficit.

Most people (and social classes for that matter) don't have a consistent worldview; rather, they have a worldview that is eclectic, contradictory and sensitive to changing circumstances and experience, not simply reducible to their place in a system of social production. For those who desire progressive change it is essential to better appreciate the complexity and fluidity of popular consciousness.

Finally, the struggle over the past year in general and the health care struggle in particular bring home the importance of the 2010 elections. The stakes are enormous.

Will the struggle for democratic reforms be deepened or reversed? Will the costs of the current crisis be placed on the shoulders of Wall Street and the wealthy, or working people and especially people of color?

Will we begin a sustained attack on global warming or remain stuck in a fossil fuel/carbon-based economy? Will racial and gender equality take new strides in the direction of freedom, or will a 21st century Jim Crow assert itself? Will the next decade be a decade of peace, or of violence and plunder? Will the stockpiles of nuclear weapons be reduced, or will the nuclear threat grow?

We could go on, but the point is obvious: the outcome of the midterm elections will have a major bearing on how each of these questions is answered. That so, the aim of the people's coalition is clear: to increase the Democratic advantage in the Congress, including the number of progressives in the House and Senate, while at the same time defeating the Republican right.

The objective of the Republicans will be the opposite. They will throw everything into the 2010 elections, including lots of money and endless demagogy.

Given the political and economic dynamics at this moment, three outcomes are possible. One is that the Republicans will make big gains; another is that neither party will pick up or lose any significant number of seats; and the last is that the Democrats will increase their majorities in the Congress. The latter is possible, but only if a health care bill passes, unemployment comes down, the unemployed find work, an exit strategy from Afghanistan is embraced by the Obama administration, and, above all, an enormous bottom up mobilization of old and new voters is organized this year.

The genius of candidate Obama was his ability to find a narrative and vision that captured the political imagination of tens of millions. In last fall's off-year elections, Democrats came up woefully short in the regard and too many voters stayed home. If this happens in the fall, the fight for progressive reform will be uphill and slow going. New faces, new voices, new voters, and new leaders are necessary to transform the political landscape in a more fundamental and enduring way.

Strategic direction

For nearly three decades, the Communist Party's strategic policy envisioned the assembling of a broad coalition to defeat the right, whose political ascendancy began with Reagan's election in 1980. Over the past decade we have further developed and refined this policy, while maintaining its essential character. The delegates to our national convention in 2005 formalized this policy in our new party program.

In the wake of the 2008 elections, however, it became apparent that some adjustments in our strategic policy were necessary. But before going into this, some general remarks about our understanding of strategy are warranted.

A strategic policy springs from an analysis of the stage of development and the overall balance of political and class forces at a given moment. Attempting to derive strategic concepts from either abstractions (capitalism is historically obsolete - true) or mass moods (the people are angry as hell) is a recipe for political mistakes. Militancy and moral outrage do and must enter into our calculations and our practical activity, in fact, both are necessary to any viable movement of struggle. But neither one can determine the strategic thrust of our party or the larger movement for that matter.

A solid strategic policy is derived from an assessment of the main social force(s) hindering progressive development at any given moment as well as the main class and social forces that have an objective interest in moving society in a democratic, progressive, and left direction.

It isn't a fine-grained roadmap, but a guide to action. It is a first approximation of what is happening on the ground among the main class and social forces, which of them has the upper hand, and what it will take to move the political process forward, given the main trends of political and economic development.

If there were a direct path to social progress and socialism, strategic considerations wouldn't matter. But there is no such path, as evidenced by the history of the 20th century.

Instead the revolutionary process passes through phases and stages, despite the messy and chaotic nature of the historical process. Assessing when one phase or stage gives way to another is both an art and a science.

In contrast to strategy, tactics involve choices about issues, demands, forms of struggle, slogans, etc., at any given moment to mobilize and unify masses of people. They are conditioned by strategic considerations while, at the same time, bringing strategy to life. The purpose is to activate and unite the main forces of social progress and draw new participants into struggle.

The aim of tactics is not to up the ante at every turn, as too many on the left think. In fact, the challenge is to combine partial demands that elicit broad support and are winnable in the short term with more advanced demands that are not yet supported by a broad enough constituency but could be won in the course of ongoing struggles.

Adjustments in strategic policy

With the foregoing in mind, what changes/adjustments if any in our strategic policy are warranted given the new landscape?

On the one hand, the strategic thrust of 2008 - to defeat the ultra right at the polls - doesn't exactly fit the new conditions, but as mentioned earlier the right danger can't be underestimated; it remains a considerable political, ideological and mass mobilizing force.

On the other hand, we are not yet at a consistently anti-monopoly-corporate, anti-transnational strategic stage of struggle either, given the challenges facing the country and the world, the continued presence of the extreme right and its reactionary corporate backers, the level of consciousness of the American people, and the maturity of the people's movement.

Thus, our strategic policy is neither one nor the other. It's a mixture of both. This isn't surprising given the fluid and transitional nature of this period.

And yet as the process of democratic reform (democratic ownership of the financial sector or a worker/community base industrial policy, racial and gender equality, expansion of union rights, de-militarization of foreign policy, for example) deepens, the class, anti-corporate, anti-transnational-corporate nature of the struggle will come to the fore more and more at the economic, political and ideological level.

All of which goes to show that the struggle for democracy doesn't dilute, postpone or bypass the class struggle, but brings it into bolder relief, extends the ground on which it is fought out, and brings in fresh voices and leaders to every field of struggle and overall movement. Just as the struggle to elect President Obama was at once the leading edge of the class struggle as well as the struggle for democracy in 2008, the struggle to deepen democracy, understood broadly and particularly in the economic realm, is both the main form of class and democratic struggle in today's conditions.

With this in mind, our strategic policy seeks to extend and deepen a coalition of political actors that stretches from President Obama to the core forces of the people's movement, and also includes small and medium sized business, working-class people who are influenced by the right, sections of the Democratic Party and even sections of corporate capital.

The notion of only the capitalist class on the one side and only the working class on the other may sound radical, but it isn't Marxist and doesn't exist in the real world.

Lenin once remarked:

"To imagine that social revolution is conceivable without revolts by small nations in the colonies and in Europe, without revolutionary outbursts by a section of the petty bourgeoisie with all its prejudices, without a movement of the politically non-conscious proletarian and semi-proletarian masses against oppression by the landowners, the church, and the monarchy, against national oppression, etc. - to imagine all this is to repudiate social revolution. So one army lines up in one place and says, "We are for socialism", and another, somewhere else and says, "We are for imperialism," and that will be a social revolution! Only those who hold such a ridiculously pedantic view could vilify the Irish rebellion by calling it a "putsch."

Whoever expects a "pure" social revolution will never live to see it. Such a person pays lip service to revolution without understanding what revolution is.

It would be a profound mistake to distance the working class not only from the other core forces, but also from temporary and even unreliable allies. In fact, this diverse alliance is the strategic cornerstone for progressive and radical reforms. Separately, neither the president nor the people's organizations nor the working class can win against the political and class forces arrayed against them. But united, they pack a wallop! Many get this, especially labor and the other core forces of the people's movement. And the African American people have always practiced it, as have other racially and nationally oppressed peoples.

Needless to say, the right wing - along with the corporate class - also gets it and is doing everything possible to bust it up.

So again, the challenge is to fully activate and maximize the unity of this very diverse, multi-class and fluid coalition in the course of concrete struggles. There will be tensions, contradictions and competing views, and the opposition will be ferocious and clever.

All of us who want to live in a more just, peaceful and equal society must master the art of fighting for unity while, at the same time, stretching the boundaries of the possible and deepening the role of the core forces.

At this moment, advantage lies with the people's movement as mentioned earlier, but it is a fragile advantage. Neither side is yet able to gain hegemony in a political and ideological sense - that is to say, neither side's views can claim to be the accepted common sense of millions. The political balance of forces doesn't yet overwhelmingly favor the forces of progress.

The main elements of the New Deal, for instance, were not passed in Roosevelt's first year in office, but in 1935-1937. Nor did the popular insurgency arise in full bloom at the Depression's outset. The New Deal victories were the fruit of a many-layered struggle of a motley group of social actors, taking place over time. The next decade(s) will be much the same.

A new emphasis

For some time we have accented the importance of breadth of the movement, but for this discussion a renewed emphasis on an old emphasis is warranted. Because the people's coalition is broad in scope and varied in political outlook, it is all the more imperative to step up the activity and enhance the leadership role of the main core forces, and especially the working class and its organized sector.

Without an enlargement of the role of the working class and the other core forces the reform process will lose its focus and its political weight. Allies are critical in any struggle, but the core forces are indispensable.

Any movement that hopes to make major changes in the political and economic landscape requires at its center the working class and its strategic allies (racially oppressed, women and youth). Absent the tight unity of these social groups, we will be tilting at windmills.

Luckily, the core forces - all of whom interpenetrate with one another thereby giving them a deep community of interests and enormous power - are in motion, but not yet to the degree that is necessary to enact a progressive agenda. How to increase the role of precisely these forces is the key task for every activist.

Photo: President Obama at the AFL-CIO convention. (People's World photo by Teresa Albano/peoplesworld.org)

Tax the Speculators: An Old Idea Whose Time is Now

Wed, 21 Apr 2010 17:35:00 +0000

AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka's September suggestion for a tax on Wall Street to finance health care reform is an all-American solution to a uniquely American problem, and deserves both publicity and support. Although Trumka's idea has been lambasted by critics as everything from "sand in the wheels of commerce" to "Communist," taxes on America's financial sector have a long and honorable history in the story of US capitalism, and have always constituted an accepted cost of doing business during the country's periods of greatest economic growth and prosperity.

Contemporary ultra-right "tea-partiers" would do well to remember that American colonists protested the British "Stamp Tax" not primarily because it was taxation, but rather because it was imposed "without representation." However, according to eminent revenue tax researcher B. J. Castenholz, as soon as a unified and a more-or-less representative Federal Government was established, American revolutionary leaders found no problem in imposing a significant stamp tax of their own on stock transfers, as well as "bills of exchange, bills of lading, bonds, conveyances, insurance policies..., powers of attorney [and] promissory notes." These Federal stamp taxes were imposed from 1798 to 1817. Various states also imposed "stamp taxes" of their own; Maryland's lasted until 1856.

With the outbreak of the Civil War, the Lincoln Administration found itself in desperate need of revenue. In 1862 Congress re-imposed stamp taxes on all stock transfers and bond sales, foreign exchange transactions and a variety of "proprietary" goods, plus "sin" taxes on playing cards, tobacco and liquor. Tax stamps were required on virtually all receipts, personal and bank checks, and almost every official document. Internal Revenue tax stamps ranged from one cent to $200. Actual tax rates varied over time, but Castenholz' book, An Introduction to Revenue Stamps, includes photos of an 1864 doctor's itemized medical care receipt for $54.50 (including $2 for a wagon-trip to the graveyard!) bearing 5 cents in Federal tax stamps, and a $300,000.00 mortgage contract from 1871 with $300 in Internal Revenue stamps attached.

Federal stamp taxes on Wall Street financial transactions (and on everything else from matches to mortgages) continued with brief interruptions throughout the latter half of the 19th Century, all through the initial grand period of American industrialization and the formation of America's first truly great capitalist fortunes. Taxes on stock and bond transfers helped finance US imperial expansion into Cuba, Puerto Rico and the Philippines during the Spanish-American War and partially underwrote American participation in both world wars.

Today, many living Americans still can remember when red or blue Federal tax stamps still adorned cigarette packs and liquor bottles. Federal stock exchange stamp taxes remained in effect all through the 1950s (often cited as the era of America's peak prosperity and world influence) and were only repealed in the 1960s. Curiously, the only Federal tax stamps still regularly encountered today by ordinary citizens are "duck stamps," which must be affixed to state waterfowl hunting licenses.
Trumka's idea of taxing Wall Street and the speculators thus carries a red-white-and-blue pedigree as solid as any Daughter of the American Revolution. Of course, in this day of electronic stock-trading and online brokerages, the idea of an actual physical tax stamp on an actual paper stock certificate is impossibly antiquated, but his proposal to tax the "masters of the universe" who brought us the current economic crisis is as relevant as today's news. The practical points of taxing financial speculation are open to discussion, but would certainly not constitute or require a radical transformation of society. Britain and some other developed countries currently tax stock transfers, and the United States could do so tomorrow without the slightest economic disruption.

But how much could restoring this not-new tax bring in to the treasury? Today's big market speculators, armed with the latest cybernetic buy-sell programs that "flip" stocks with every twitch of the Dow, deal in amounts of money that are no longer merely astronomical, but have to be described as "cosmological." According to Yahoo Finance, on a typical trading day (December 5, 2009), total stock volume on all American stock exchanges was slightly over six billion shares, which when figured at $50 per share, would be worth $300 billion a day. Multiplied by an estimated 270 trading days a year, total annual stock market trades would exceed $81 trillion. In fact, NationMaster.com reports that for the last year for which complete figures are available (2005), total annual US stock market trading volume was worth a bit over $21.5 trillion.

The current New York City sales tax is 8.375 percent. Why should one have to pay more tax on a $10 bag of socks than on a trillion dollars of stocks? Attention Deficit Hawks: Using NationMaster.com's 2005 figure, a stock market tax of 8.375 percent would raise $1.8 trillion a year, enough to both pay for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and finance health care reform even at its maximum estimated cost, with enough left over to guarantee Social Security and Medicare, and to pay down the existing national debt of $12 trillion to a manageable amount over coming decades.

The most cogent objection being made to this (an objection that is not entirely off base) is that what is traded on the stock market is not "real money," not true wealth, but rather "paper worth," virtual wealth existing only on a balance sheet. This is what allows traders to "earn" millions overnight without ever finding a single new oil field, opening a single new gold mine, or (heaven forbid!) doing a lick of work, and why the market can "lose" a cool billion or two in a few hours without a single factory or store burning down anywhere in the country. In this sense, stock market "wealth" is indeed "monopoly money," a fictitious number that would immediately lose most of its value if a large number of investors simultaneously left the game table and tried to cash in their balance sheets for "real" money. Taxing "virtual" wealth in real money is in this sense materially problematic.

However, no one would deny that even though grotesquely "leveraged" and inflated, stock market virtual wealth does indeed represent a much smaller core amount of true money, billions of dollars of concrete wealth in plants and machinery, materials, inventory and cash on hand, real wealth that corporations have extracted and will extract from workers and consumers. It is that real percentage that can and should be subject to real taxes. An astute analyst would also point out that the National Debt itself is composed of "virtual money," in the sense that no one could ever collect even an infinitesimal fraction of that amount, at least without taking ownership of a state or two - an amount which virtually everyone agrees, sooner or later must be "inflated away" if the United States is not to go into default or go the way of the old USSR.

Researcher Joshua Honigwachs estimated in 2005 that the total monetary value of the United States would not exceed $100 trillion. Figures like $300 billion a day in the stock market, a $12 trillion debt, or $21 to $81 trillion in annual stock trades have little or no relation to anything in the reality that we experience in daily life, where mortgage, groceries, hospital bills and credit cards must be paid for in actual green dollars earned by the sweat of our brows.

However, if Trumka's suggestion were to be accepted, even a stock market tax at the 1871 rate (0.1 percent, or one thousandth of the principal amount traded) would still raise at least $20 billion a year, enough to pay the additional cost of the president's 20,000-troop surge In Afghanistan if nothing else.

And then there is foreign exchange speculation, which even the most die-hard apologist for capitalism usually admits is utterly unproductive or even destructive, as in the recent case of the Icelandic bubble and collapse. The euro, a thoroughly capitalist project, was specifically designed to expel the harmful parasite of intra-European currency speculation from the body of European capitalism. According to Wikipedia, 70 to 90 percent of all foreign exchange transactions are speculative, while daily foreign exchange volume is in the range of $3.98 trillion. Since currency trading goes on 24/7, 365 days a year, annual trading volume could approach $1.5 quadrillion, more than twice the estimated market value of the entire planet. However, the difference here is that trading takes place, at least theoretically, in "real" currency, dollars, euros, yen or pesos, not in absurdly inflated "paper" stock values. (In reality, speculative trades most often take place using currency the speculator does not own, could not afford, and may not even exist - orders-of-magnitude more dollars are traded than are actually in circulation!)

Any experienced international traveler knows that major credit and debit cards charge between one percent and four percent for foreign currency purchases or cash withdrawals, even between the United States and Canada. A one percent (or even 0.1 percent) tax on all bank foreign exchange transactions (a large portion of which involve dollars, and almost all of which go through a central exchange in London), would generate uncounted billions overnight, easily sufficient to cover "Cadillac" health reform for all, plus maybe a leftover war or two, while costing travelers less than their credit card charges (or for business types, a few grand for every million exchanged, mere "chump change" for those who deal in such amounts). Unproductive speculation would be somewhat discouraged, while weaker nations' currencies would be slightly better protected from predatory attack.

A Nov. 26 Op Ed by Paul Krugman in the New York Times argues that the time for taxing speculators has arrived. Speculation is more rampant than ever before, and quick-buck, "ultra-short-term finance" scam artists are rotting the foundations of our economy. He suggests that US Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner and other figures in the Obama administration are so beholden to Wall Street that such a necessary tax is highly unlikely in the short term. However, as Trumka told POLITICO. com, "It'll stop the short term churning that these guys go through, and make money out of just selling to each other back and forth three times a day." Such a reform would pay for health care reform without penalizing those who already have adequate health care protection.

Trumka's voice needs to be heard loud and clear in Congress and in the White House. To pay for health care reform, tax the speculators, not working people!

Photo: (Courtesy AFL-CIO, Flickr, cc by 2.0)