People Before Profit blog

The budget crisis and the real world

Sun, 27 Oct 2013 11:03:00 +0000

Introduction

Narratives of the recent, and temporarily suspended budget crisis have tended to emphasize government dysfunction, partisan intransigence and political maneuvering. By placing the blame on generic Washington politicians, media coverage obscured the real issues. This article examines the real economic distress faced by the majority of the U.S. working class as reflecting the ongoing class struggle. Since 1980, this struggle has increasingly taken the form of class war waged by the most powerful employers and their political representatives, aimed at rolling back every gain made by workers - unions, Social Security, unemployment insurance and other safety net programs, and regulations protecting consumers, workers and the environment.

As a result, the majority of the working people face a prospect of less security for themselves, and a bleak future for the next generation. The political battles around the federal budget reflect this reality, with the outcome still to be determined.

The planet of the one percent

The stock market, corporate profits, incomes at the very top - all have regained and surpassed the records they set before the deep economic crisis that began in 2008. In this corporate recovery, firms have been able to expand production (and profits) without hiring more workers. The New York Times reported last Spring, "Right now, C.E.O.'s are saying, 'I don't really need to hire because of the productivity gains of the last few years,' said Robert E. Moritz, chairman of the accounting giant PricewaterhouseCoopers." The article cites United Technologies, which increased its revenue by 20% over seven years without increasing its workforce.

It is no surprise if, in their gated communities, CEOs and other one-percenters think everything is just fine - or would be if the government would stop wasting money on things like food stamps and unemployment for people who should go out and get a second or third job to make ends meet.

Unemployment

Meanwhile, On the planet inhabited by the the 99%, the only good thing about the jobs situation is that it could be worse.

Employment in August was 144 million, still 2 million below the pre-crisis peak in 2007. If we include growth in potential labor force, we are 8 million jobs below the pre-crisis level.

For the three months thru September, the average job gain was a pathetic 143,000. This was a substantial drop from the mediocre 207,000 average for the first 3 months of 2013. Considering the growth rate in the working age population, at current rates it would take 10-15 years to return to the pre-crisis level of employment - a level that still left too many without jobs.

Most of the drop in the official unemployment rate is due to people leaving, or not entering, the labor force. If someone is unemployed, but has not actively looked for work in the past month, they are not counted in the headline unemployment figures.

But the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) compiles another statistic, known as U6. This includes the regular unemployed, plus those who are working part time but want full time work, plus those who are available for work and have looked in the last year, but not in the last month. This more realistic measure gives an unemployment rate of 13.7%.

Even this misses a lot of people who are not working, would work if jobs were available, but don't show up in any statistics. Examples include full-time students, surviving on student loans; and people in the 55-64 age group who have moved from unemployment to an impoverished retirement.

All together, there is an estimated shortage of about 25 million full-time jobs.

Youth are especially hard hit. The portion of people aged twenty to twenty-four who have jobs has fallen from 72.2 percent in 2000 to just 61.5 percent. Since 1973, median wages have fallen by 30% for young men, and 17% for young women.

Older Americans are also experiencing increased joblessness. The unemployment rate for workers over the age of 55 is still more than double its level before the crisis. At the same time, older workers are the only age group whose employment level is as high or higher than before the crisis. How is that? Even as older workers who are laid off find it impossible to find work, those who still have jobs are afraid to or can't afford to retire, and are increasingly working into their late 60s, 70s, and even 80s.

In an article titled America's Jobless Generation, Jeff Madrick summed up: "We have a situation in which older, more qualified adults are taking scarce jobs from young adults, young adults from teens, the college-educated from those with only a high school degree."

For African Americans, the headline unemployment rate is 13% - double that of whites. For Latinos, it is 9.3%, about 50% higher than for whites. For various reasons, jobless African Americans and Latinos are even less likely to be counted than whites. It is likely that the real unemployment rates are in excess of 26% for African Americans, and 20% for Latinos. The Bureau of Labor Statistics monthly reports do not give figures for native Americans, but previous reports show unemployment close to that of African Americans. Undoubtedly on reservations, as in depressed inner cities and rural areas, unemployment is far higher.

Is unemployment structural?

What is the reason for continued high unemployment? Business economists and commentators blame structural unemployment. The argument is that the economy has changed. There are potential jobs, but the unemployed workers aren't qualified for the jobs that are out there. Effectively, the blame is put on workers - they haven't got the education, or they aren't willing to do the work, or they aren't willing to move to where the jobs are.

If the problem was structural, you would expect certain occupations to show low unemployment rates, with rapidly rising wages as employers compete to hire workers. But the evidence all points in the other direction. Compared with pre-crisis levels, unemployment has increased similarly for all education levels, for most occupations, and for most areas of the country.

It makes a difference. If unemployment is structural, it means the worker has to change - get the right education, the right training, move to the right location. So the policy response can be limited to training programs. But the real problem is lack of jobs. In New Haven last month, a new fast food restaurant posted a sign saying "Now Hiring." More than 600 people lined up for the minimum wage jobs. Only 15 would be hired full time, another 30 part time. It doesn't matter how well trained or educated they were: at least 90% of the applicants would still end up without a job. Education and training are important, but not as the only or even the major component of a jobs program.

Job Quality

What about the quality of jobs that do exist?

The trend to low-wage, temporary, part-time jobs has accelerated since the crisis. In one example, Reuters reports that many Walmart stores are only hiring temporary workers, and temps are now 10% of the payroll, up from 1% or 2% before this year.

Many of the relatively good jobs that were lost in the recession have been replaced with low-paying jobs in sectors like restaurants and retail. A recent report that shows large numbers of college graduates in occupations that do not usually require a college degree, such as taxi drivers and retail clerks. All together, as many as 48 percent of all college graduates are employed in occupations that require less than a college degree.

The situating confronting low-wage workers was dramatized when McDonalds released a financial planning guide for their employees. The McDonalds budget reportedly included "working a second job, turning off their heat, spending just $20 a month on health insurance, and never buying food or clothing." Not to mention providing for children, increasingly common for fast-food workers whose median age is 28.

There is a direct connection between high unemployment and low wages.

High unemployment seems like a dream come true for business. It allows them to hire over-qualified workers at rock-bottom prices. They can have a just-in-time work force, available 24-hours a day, but paid for only those hours they are called in to work. No wonder, as Robert Reich reports, "Employee pay is now down to the smallest share of the economy since the government began collecting wage and salary data sixty years ago; and corporate profits, the largest share." Most of profit share has gone to the biggest corporations, especially the financial sector.

The result of all this is that the median (typical) under-65 household has lost $7,490 in annual income since 2000. Just-released figures show that there were nearly 6.7 million more poor people in 2012 than in 2008.

Then, there are the attacks on public workers, the disappearance of company pension plans and the erosion of private retirement accounts as people approach retirement; the continuing home foreclosures, often in defiance of agreements or even of the law, and the erosion of services at all levels of government.

The Coalition for Human needs summed it up: Three years into the Great Unshared Recovery, poverty is worse than in 2008, median income is down, and people are slipping out of the middle class. More than one-third of our nation is near poor-106 million people live below twice the poverty line, one lay-off or crisis away from poverty.

An article in the New York Times by Eduardo Porter, hardly that paper's most liberal writer, is titled America's Sinking Middle Class. He cites a 2010 Census Bureau study defining the middle class "as a house, a car or two in the garage, a vacation now and then, decent health care and enough savings to retire and contribute to the children's college education." Porter's article shows that a shrinking minority of the population, and certainly a minority of working class Americans, fit that definition.

This is the real world that we all inhabit.

Real nature of crisis. Class warfare.

As Communist Party Chair Sam Webb points out, the government shutdown and threatened debt ceiling default were the latest in a string of ultra-right attempts to reverse the outcome of the 2012 election and stage a "very American coup." Ending the shutdown without concessions was not only a political victory for the administration - it was a victory for democracy and for the American people.

There were three major factors that contributed to the ending, or suspension, of the October political crisis. The first was the overwhelming rejection by the American people of the extortionist tactics employed by the Tea Party. The second was the firm stance by the Obama administration and the Democratic congressional leadership that they would not submit to blackmail. The third was the consensus from mainstream business and Wall Street groups, that the Tea Party had gone too far in threatening to force default.

The ruling class (i.e., the wealthiest and most powerful individuals and corporations who exercise direct control over much of the economy and significant influence and control over all levels of government, most popularly known as the 1%) is divided on tactics, but they share many of the same economic goals. In a sense, the Tea Party is playing bad cop, while more mainstream elements take on the role of good cop, saying "Agree to a few more concessions or I won't be able to restrain my crazy Tea Party partner."

In an October 9 email, Sen. Bernie Sanders (Independent-VT) summed up the class warfare aspect of the budget crisis:

It is also important that people understand that the real issue here is not just the desire of Republicans to defund Obamacare. At a time when the middle class is collapsing and poverty is increasing, these right-wing ideologues want to repeal virtually every piece of legislation passed in the last 80 years which protects the elderly, the children, the sick, the poor and the environment. The truth is that ending Obamacare is just a small part of the right-wing extremist agenda, which is heavily funded by the Koch brothers and other very wealthy and powerful special interests. Their full agenda includes privatizing Social Security, ending Medicare as we know it, slashing Medicaid funding, eliminating the EPA and the Department of Energy and abolishing the concept of the minimum wage. Needless to say, they also want more tax breaks for the rich and large corporations. It should be clear to everyone that their long-term goal is to move this country into an oligarchic form of society in which billionaires completely control the economic and political life of this nation.

Sanders is one of the 29-member Conference Committee charged, in the wake of the government shutdown, with drafting a new budget. He has called for a budget that protects Social Security and moves forward to address the real needs of the American people for jobs and economic security. But other committee members include rabid Tea party Republicans (including Paul Ryan, the committee co-chair), and mainline Republicans. The committee also includes a wide range of Democrats. In the past, some have indicated a willingness to compromise in the direction of accepting cuts to Social Security, as long as they get some concessions in return. Recent statements by Senate Democratic leader Harry Reid, to the effect that past concessions were a mistake and he would not support a "grand bargain" in the conference committee are encouraging, but he has left the door open for future concessions.

Working people need a program that addresses the real needs of the 99%.

No more Tea Party hostage taking! Abolish the debt ceiling, and pass a real budget.
End the sequester. The budget should reflect real needs, not artificial spending limits.
No cuts to Social Security, Medicare. Medicaid, Food Stamps, Unemployment Insurance or other safety net programs. Pass H.R. 3118 increasing Social Security benefits.
Jobs at living wages for the 20 million unemployed and underemployed meeting the real needs of the country for infrastructure, health, education, environment, renewable energy and research.
Financing through increased taxes on the very rich, closing loopholes that favor the wealthy and their corporations, and enacting a financial transaction tax, and cutting military spending.

A program along these lines is realistic and possible - the U.S. has the resources and there is broad popular support for these items. The 80-member Congressional Progressive caucus has introduced legislation that moves in this direction. But the political balance in Congress makes any forward motion extremely difficult. It will be a tough battle even to resist the pressure for more cuts as the price of avoiding a new budget crisis when the present agreement expires in January.

The factor that can tilt the balance in a progressive direction is a continuation and escalation of the mass pressure that helped force an end to the October crisis, and has strengthened the positions of President Obama and Democrats like Harry Reid. Millions of phone calls, letters, marches and rallies in every congressional district are the only thing that can shift the focus away from Wall Street's phony focus on deficit reduction to the real work of rebuilding the country and increasing economic security for working Americans.

Photo: "Stand for Workers" demonstration, Philadelphia, August 11, 2012. Ben Sears

Rejecting the G2

Mon, 14 Oct 2013 09:23:00 +0000

Is China a world power second only to the United States? On September 12, when delivering a speech at the Research Institute of Tsinghua University in Shenzhen, former Chinese Foreign Minister Li Zhaoxing gave an humorous answer when he said, "Only a fool would believe that China and the United States should co-lead the world under some sort of a 'G2' arrangement." He explained that Chinese people can feel proud as China grows stronger but should not become arrogant.

Li has been retired for several years, but his frank words still express the mainstream views of current Chinese leadership and government-run academic circles over China's international position. As early as May 2009, when then Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao attended the 11th China-EU Summit in the Czech capital of Prague, he declared openly that China disagrees with the "G2" idea, stating that it is wrong to claim that China and the United States should co-lead the world.

Chinese authorities have repeatedly denied the concept of "G2" and similar views that were first raised by U.S. scholars and politicians including Director of the Peterson Institute for International Economics Fred Bergsten, Harvard University professor Niall Ferguson as well as former U.S. National Security Advisor Zbigniew Brzezinski.

Domestic strategy

After decades of blistering growth since China initiated reform and opening-up policies in the late 1970s, the country has achieved great success in many fields. It has become a mainstream international consensus that China has become one of the major powers in the world. However, the views of "G2" or "co-leading the world" are neither consistent with China's domestic reality nor with China's independent foreign policy of peace.

China's strategic outlook stresses self-knowledge, with an eye for objective and comprehensive understanding of history before making decisions about the future. Few countries in the world are as keen as China to discuss, declare and clarify their international positioning. As China undergoes changes much faster than others, it must focus on the present and look to the future when making domestic and foreign policies.

The Chinese per-capita GDP still ranks below 80 globally, with more than 100 million people still living on less than a dollar a day. China also faces severe problems such as ecological deterioration as well as social unrest. In the meantime, it has not realized national reunification and still faces threats of separatism. The country is far behind developed nations and even some developing nations in terms of soft power, as it carries little influence over international public opinion.

A basic consensus within China is that the country should keep a clear mind about its fundamental national condition and focus on its domestic affairs. It should put the transformation of its economic growth pattern as the first priority, focusing on the quality of growth rather than the quantity. China should avoid falling victim to the dreaded middle-income trap or becoming self-inflated by its achievements and competing for spheres of influence worldwide. The priority of China's foreign policy should be on resolving various problems affecting its sustainable development and protecting its growing legitimate rights and interests in the world.

The Chinese Government also believes that the "G2" concept does not imply that Washington sincerely wishes to share power with China, but rather seeks to regulate it through an established arrangement. The fundamental purpose of the concept is to serve the unipolar world dominated by the United States. If China accepts, it will be against the promises of Chinese leaders to never seek hegemony or become a superpower. It will be also against the multipolar world and democratic international relations that China advocates. "China threat" rhetoric would be much more widely accepted and trust and support from neighboring countries, developing countries and emerging economies to China will also be weakened. Finally, China would be mired in vicious competition between big powers.

Foreign policies

The 18th National Congress of the Communist Party of China (CPC) held in November 2012 reiterated that China is still in the primary stage of socialism and will remain so well into the future. It was emphasized in the congress that China's international status as the largest developing country in the world has not changed.

After Xi Jinping took over as general secretary of the CPC Central Committee, he said at a group study session with members of the CPC Central Committee Political Bureau that since the founding of the People's Republic of China in 1949, the country has put forward the Five Principles of Peaceful Coexistence; established and carried out an independent foreign policy of peace; made a solemn commitment to never seek hegemony and expansion; and emphasized that it will always remain a staunch force in safeguarding world peace. He stressed that China will unswervingly adhere to these principles, policies and commitments.

In a speech delivered on September 7 at Nazarbayev University in Astana, Kazakhstan, Xi elaborated on China's Central Asia policy. He emphasized that China will never interfere in the internal affairs of Central Asian nations, seek a dominant role in regional affairs, nor try to nurture a sphere of influence.

The new Chinese leadership has also pursued building a new type of relationship between major countries when handling issues with the United States. The concept was accepted by Washington and has become the principal axis of Sino-U.S. relationship in the new era. The core of the concept aims to handle properly the strategic relationship between the biggest and fast rising developing country and the world's only superpower. It will help the two countries build a mutually beneficial cooperation framework, prevent misjudgment and avoid confrontation. It is starkly different from dividing world power or co-leading the world.

On September 20, Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi delivered a speech at the Washington-based think tank Brookings Institution, during his first U.S. trip after assuming his post in March. Wang shared his thoughts on the way toward a new type of major-country relationship between China and the United States. He said, "Win-win progress is only possible when both countries are committed to cooperation. Moreover, such a win-win outcome should not just be beneficial to China and the United States-it should also be beneficial to all countries of the world." He went on to say, "China is prepared to engage in comprehensive cooperation with the United States at regional and global levels. What we seek is not the so-called 'G2,' but each complementing the other with its respective advantages. China is ready to shoulder international responsibilities commensurate with its national strength and realities, and together with the United States, offer more quality public goods for the global community."

China's explicit rejection of the "world's second power" laureate and the "G2" is not an attempt to cover up an aspiration of being a world power. Rather, it holds a rational understanding of its own path of development and adheres persistently to its own strategic culture. The new leadership shows resolution in realizing the Chinese Dream, the core of which is to build China into a prosperous and strong country.

Shortly after China overtook Japan as the world's second largest economy, the government-backed Chinese Academy of Social Sciences released a blue book at the end of 2010, which said that China is set to become one of the top five G20 countries by 2020; and by 2050, it will be the world's second most competitive country only after the United States.

Changes in the international system not only manifest as the rise and fall of economic strength and power status, but also show up as the changes of dominant institutional models, values, principles and norms.

Since modern times, China has never been so close to world power status, and is already playing the role of de facto power in more and more fields. Meanwhile, China has also been pushed to the cusp of increasing international contradictions. In the next decade, China's position in the world will undergo fundamental changes. In the process of becoming a world power, it must confront several issues: How to meet the needs and safeguard the interests of China's own development; to what extent it must shoulder international responsibilities in line with its national strength and realities; and how to stay on the path of peaceful development while promoting the peaceful development of the world.

from Beijing Review September 30, 2013

Photo Wuhan men at work, Creative Commons 3.0

Are Black teachers becoming extinct nationally?

Wed, 09 Oct 2013 14:32:00 +0000

When a group of education researchers, practitioners and activists gathered at Howard University in April to address the lack of diversity in the nation's teacher workforce, Dr. Leslie T. Fenwick reminded her audience that such a time had already been foreshadowed.
Nearly 60 years ago, Thurgood Marshall first "warned that Black teachers would lose their jobs to racist displacement as the nation's schools were integrated," said Fenwick, dean of the Howard University School of Education. Marshall, in 1955, was serving at the NAACP Legal Defense Fund when he reported on the impending plight of these teachers. The year before, Marshall had argued and won the landmark desegregation case of Brown v. Board of Education that opened up classrooms and education to Black children.
The elimination of Black teachers from the classroom would not only be an economic loss for those educators, but a disservice to their students and a detriment for the teaching profession, says Fenwick, further sharing Marshall's troubling words during a town hall event hosted by Howard's School of Education, the Congressional Black Caucus Foundation and the American Federation of Teachers.

Today, Marshall's sobering observations have proved true, say experts pointing to the academic and social benefits that come when African-American and Hispanic students attend schools where racial and gender diversity of teachers and staff is high. But that doesn't reflect the makeup of most urban public schools when "73 percent of teachers are White and 68 percent of principals are White," Fenwick adds.

Black and other minority children are being taught in deeply racially isolated schools and are more likely to spend their entire K-12 education in public schools without ever seeing or having a teacher of color. In fact, Fenwick says, "This is the most populous generation of African-American children who have never been taught by an African-American teacher or who have never attended a school led by an African-American principal."

But Amy Wilkins, the College Board's new civil rights fellow, pointed out at a town hall forum on teacher diversity that "we have our own mess to clean up" as Black educators.

"Some of the most hurtful things that have been said about Black children have come out of the mouths of Black teachers," says Wilkins to applause. Just because a Black teacher is in the classroom for Black children, Wilkins adds, there is no guarantee that a positive learning experience is taking place or a role model is there.

What's needed, says Wilkins, the former Education Trust executive, "are teachers who respect our children and who can be ruthlessly demanding" when it comes to expecting the best academically from Black and minority children, as they do from White students.
And as practitioners and schools of education, urged AFT President Randi Weingarten, "We need to do more to ensure teachers better represent the students they teach. This includes thinking differently about recruitment and retention and about how we as a country view teaching."

HBCUs, which produce 50 percent of the nation's Black educators, have been doing just that, says Dr. Chance Lewis, who "is tired of the familiar refrain, ‘We can't find any good Black teacher recruits.'"
They are out there, and the process begins on college campuses, maintains Lewis, the Carol Grotnes Belk Distinguished Full Professor of Urban Education in the College of Education at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte.

When Dr. Ivory Toldson surveys the education workforce, he finds that "teaching is the No. 1 profession among Black men with master's degrees," but there are less than 2 percent of them in the classroom. Improving their college-going and completion rates makes boosting the professional teaching pipeline that much more complicated, but it can be done, says Toldson, a Howard University professor and senior research fellow with the Congressional Black Caucus. The expected retirement of more than 1 million teachers in the coming years offers a great opportunity for racial and gender diversity in the profession, experts say.

For Black male teachers, though, their journey shouldn't end in the classroom, Toldson suggests. They have too much to offer. "It would be a disservice to the profession if they aren't also used to improve diversity," or tapped to help educate those concerned about best practices for teaching young Black males, or if they aren't allowed to provide other quality services that can benefit all students regardless of race or gender.

from The Black Star Project

An experiment in living socialism: Bulgaria then and now

Wed, 02 Oct 2013 12:07:00 +0000

"The Communist Manifesto now reads as if it was written just a few weeks ago. ... the experience of Eastern Europe and of the Third World shows the vital need for a universalist left as the only real alternative to diverse forms of barbarism."[1]

Building blocks for a 'people's history' of socialism 1.0

At this critical juncture, given the fierce urgency of now, it is time for the left to give renewed attention to the socialist experience in Eastern Europe. We need to re-explore in depth across the radical left in North America, Europe and elsewhere what was progressive and successful, in the former 'real-socialist' economies in Eastern Europe-especially the smaller socialist states like Bulgaria-along with their weaknesses, mistakes, contradictions and myriad problems engendered by the enduring impact of the Cold War. The socialist countries have been turned with a vengeance into a "testing ground of an extremely aggressive form of neo-liberal social engineering, an attempt to violently impose a change in social paradigm".[2] We are seeing a metamorphosis in political and economic paradigms at the hands of the IMF, EU-and a nouveau riche comprador bourgeoisie and coterie of oligarchs-that has transmuted much of the post-socialist world into a vast societal poorhouse.

Researchers have argued that the neo-colonial tsunami in the wake of the Cold War has brought extreme neo-capitalist versions of neo-liberalism into Eastern Europe, with devastating results for education and social welfare.[3] Bourgeois history's irony--or perhaps its Cunning of Reason in Hegel's classic sense--is that major achievements under 'real existing' socialisms in the 20th century were what people everywhere under austerity capitalism are fighting for here and now.

My core thesis is this: The narratives of ordinary people who grew up in socialism and now work and live in post-socialist societies in the throes of anomie [a widespread breakdown in social order] and severe poverty, their basic dignity trampled, need to be collected, discussed and disseminated widely. This will provide a record of authentic experience and memory as radical as reality itself. Such narratives can only sharpen our visions of 21st-century 'democratic socialism.' Such a project should be oriented toward oral history and biographical inquiry, exploring what life in these socialist states actually was like, as seen by ordinary citizens now living in the chaos of restored capitalism.

It has been argued that the restoration of market economies and bourgeois democracy across Eastern Europe, along with a massive de-collectivization of agriculture and privatization of industry have trashed human dignity and slashed the gains of 'real-socialist' welfare over many decades. Economic and ideological colonization from the West intensified for the vast majority of working families on a massive scale. One author recently observed that

"The dismantling of socialism has, in a word, been a catastrophe, a great swindle that has not only delivered none of what it promised, but has wreaked irreparable harm .... Numberless voices in Russia, Romania, East Germany and elsewhere lament what has been stolen from them - and from humanity as a whole: 'We lived better under communism. We had jobs. We had security.'"[4]

Speaking about 'socialism 2.0' for the 21st century, Peter Mertens, chair of the Workers Party of Belgium, noted in a 2012 interview: "It's also not the case that we don't know anything at all or that we have to start from a blank sheet of paper. There exist experiences, there was a socialism 1.0, with its strong points and its weak points, with its fantastic achievements, but also with its grievous mistakes. And we're living in different times."

The Cold War is over, yet it continues in some socialist ranks in a kind of ideological time warp. In forging left unity, debates about how to build a broad Marxist party need an empirical 'counter-grounding' in what the socialist workers' experiments in Eastern Europe actually meant for ordinary families, as perceived by real people today, now caught up in the chaos of contradictions under restored capitalism in these same societies. Their authentic stories-the subject-anchored nexus of history and memory-are relevant to the present struggle and reflect the once functioning realities, which have now been gutted, about which many North American socialists seem to be remarkably oblivious. But it is precisely this contrast between then and now in post-socialist societies in Eastern Europe that is highly instructive. We can learn much from past achievements as they were experienced and lived. This can serve to counteract the "danger of a single story" in our lingering conceptions of what socialism was (and was not) in Eastern Europe.

Bulgaria-An Icon of the Post-Socialist Freefall

Today, in 2013, the Bulgarian economy is in massive contraction under capitalism's neo-liberal 'shock therapy'. Bulgaria is now the lowest-income post-socialist state, with the highest levels of economic emigration in Europe, reflective of capitalism's 'race to the bottom' in the EU. As one author noted in 2009: "Capitalism's failure to lift living standards, impose the rule of law and tame flourishing corruption and nepotism has given way to fond memories of the times when the jobless rate was zero, food was cheap and social safety was high".[5] Many Bulgarians who were born in the 1970's and before view the socialist period as "a golden era" compared to today. There is a popular current Bulgarian joke about a woman who wakes up and runs about her house at night in panic, looking into the medicine cabinet, the refrigerator and then out the window into the street. Relieved, she returns to the bedroom. Her husband asks her, "What's wrong with you?" "I had a terrible nightmare," she says. "I dreamt that we could still afford to buy medicine, that the refrigerator was absolutely full, and that the streets were safe and clean." "How is that a nightmare?" the husband asks. The woman shakes her head, "I thought the communists were back in power."[6]

A substantial segment of the Bulgarian population over the age of 40 remains convinced that, 25-35 years ago, the socialist welfare system in Bulgaria delivered the necessary goods and services for most families-production for basic human and societal needs-within a largely egalitarian system that was firmly grounded on the development, availability and access to universal social programs. More empirical research is imperative, including qualitative inquiry probing 'working people's post-socialist subjectivity and memory,' explorations in the 'oral history of real Socialism,' biography as a 'flare' to illuminate past societal and communal realities. Nothing is black and white, and every point touched on here can be explored further. A tiny minority of privileged or much younger Bulgarians will of course disagree.[7] Bulgarian narratives can be supplemented by stories from Russia, Ukraine, Romania, Serbia and elsewhere.

'Democracy' is a knee-jerk expletive many Bulgarians born 1970 and before use with open contempt, identifying it with the restoration of capitalism, return to a class society, poverty, despair, insecurity, and gross inequality--the wholesale trashing of the human dignity of ordinary people. Bulgaria, which has basically been colonized by neo-liberalism, now has the lowest wages in Europe and is faced with the NATOization of the country, massive joblessness, and the near collapse of Bulgarian agriculture. The country is now confronted with corrosive social chaos, widespread social breakdown, a new ruling class in power, and "predatory globalization", all at the expense of ordinary workers. Bulgarians are now bombarded with endless rhetoric exalting the cult of the commodity and "becoming Europeans." Wracked by the havoc of 23 years of unending social and economic crisis, substantial numbers of Bulgarians-including Roma, many now working as economic migrants in Western Europe-feel that they and their families were significantly better off materially under the old 'universal welfare' regime, whatever its defects, with its southern and southeastern border in front-line confrontation with Greece and Turkey, key capitalist client states in the eastern Mediterranean.

A vast, ever-expanding economic gap has emerged between Bulgaria's haves and its have-nots. The latest Eurostat statistics show that Bulgaria had the highest share of persons at risk of poverty or social exclusion in the EU in 2011, at just under 50 percent. The Bulgarian 'rule of law' ranking is among the world's lowest. Today the Pentagon operates four military bases in Bulgaria, its compliant new ally. Some 20 percent of the country's population has emigrated since 1990. We have seen a gigantic exodus, the direct result of an unplanned, corporate-run 'free market' economy and a society in constant crisis since the 'obscure disaster' of 1989. A recent opinion survey concludes that a majority of people in Bulgaria think the "situation is unbearable". In 2013, there have been a number of public suicides by the desperate. A "demographic collapse" is looming due to massive emigration, and the birthrate has dropped to its lowest level since 1945.

As Gowans (2011) underscores: "A 2009 poll conducted by the Pew Global Attitudes Project found that a mere one-in-nine Bulgarians believe ordinary people are better off as a result of the transition to capitalism. And few regard the state as representing their interests. Only 16 percent say it is run for the benefit of all people." A new oligarchy and its supporters, largely based in Sofia and closely linked with the colonizing EU, enjoy remarkable privilege, at the majority's expense. Part of this wealth is centered in the Bulgarian and foreign-owned Black Sea tourist industry. As Alexander Andreev recently observed

"Since the breakdown of the communist system in 1989 and 1990, Bulgaria has been ruled by networks of oligarchies and clientilism. Practically all parties and coalitions in power serve the interests of large economic actors - or worse, those of shadow organizations which began as organized crime running protection rackets, who later established themselves as powerful market agents."[8]

Like many of the social democratic parties across Europe, the Bulgarian Socialist Party (BSP), the transformed Bulgarian CP of old, is largely pro-NATO, espousing a 'milder' makeover of neo-liberal market capitalism. It is headed by Sergei Stanishev. A somewhat puzzling political paradox here is the absence of any anti-capitalist movement in the streets or in the electoral arena. Disillusioned with politicians, mass alienation from the political elite is rife, as reflected in popular protest in February 2013 and again against the newly installed, BSP-led government from June 2013. Andreev (2013) bemoans the "lack of coherency" in the protests, given that the demonstrators have "formed no political party ... Aside from a couple of generally formulated goals, they also have no understandable list of implementation measures - which would be required for the crisis-bound fields of education, healthcare, energy or the stagnating economy." "People before profits" is not a key demand, while the popular slogan "Red Trash!" points up the center-right political sentiment driving many of the demonstrators. Dawson (2013), a British political scientist, critiques the openly anti-Turkish and racist innuendo among the disgruntled on the streets of Sofia and some other towns in the June-August mass protests. Living in this post-socialist labyrinth of contradictions, alienation between the Bulgarian masses and the State is perhaps at its highest level since liberation in 1878 from nearly five centuries of Turkish rule.

Looking back with more than nostalgia

The southernmost of the former socialist countries, Bulgaria was arguably the most successful East European socialist economy and polity. The percentage of ordinary Bulgarian working people aged 40 and over who think they were far better off under socialism in the 1970s and 1980s is markedly higher than their counterparts who have been polled in the former Soviet Union, Romania, and Poland. They traveled freely throughout the socialist bloc, at very low cost, and could see life elsewhere, and talk with citizens there. Bulgaria was also packed with summer and wintertime vacationers from the socialist bloc, on the Black Sea and at its skiing facilities. There were rich opportunities to interact and exchange perceptions. So why do we continue to engage in stereotypical generalizations about a monolithic 'Soviet' system? Why should we assume that the USSR was necessarily representative of the distinctive local realities in far smaller states such as Bulgaria? The memories of many older Bulgarians belie the notion that socialism was 'dictatorial,' a totalitarian society of unending hardship, oppression and lack of freedom, with its drab economy producing only shoddy goods.

On the other hand, it may well be the case that a significant segment of older Bulgarians would echo what Irina Malenko (b. 1967), author of the memoir/novel Sovietica, has written about growing up in the Soviet Union. Recently interviewed, Malenko (2013) noted

"Our life was very secure, safe, in a quiet, non-stressful environment, absolutely free of drugs, with virtually no crime. There was quite a lot of social control: if somebody was doing something wrong, his colleagues or neighbors would set him right. Every adult was in employment, except for disabled people, family care providers - if they wished to stay at home - and retired people. Retirement age was fifty-five for women and sixty for men. Soviet people were also the most literate people in the world. All art was very easy to access. Libraries were free of charge. Books, theater plays, concerts, museums, and exhibitions were extremely cheap.

We had a guaranteed right to housing, the right to have a job, and the right to have a paid holiday. Housing costs were extremely low. People paid only for water and electricity, just three or four percent of their wages in total. The state would give people apartments free of charge, for life, and their children could stay to live there, but you were not allowed to sell it. Public transport was extremely cheap too, as well as food. Children' clothes and shoes were subsidized by the state. Schoolbooks were supplied free of charge. ... We had whole publishing houses working specially on children's books; there was an enormous amount of cartoons and feature films produced especially for children ... All sports clubs were fully free of charge. Kids were encouraged to attend them."[9]

Bulgarian collectivized agriculture thrived, and industry expanded significantly. A major computer industry was built, centered in the town of Pravetz. Many agro-collectives, enterprises, factories, schools, and universities had vacation spots on the Black Sea providing nearly cost-free vacations for their workers. Now all that has vanished and Black Sea vacations are too costly for most. Importantly, there was a minutely planned economy that oversaw production to meet basic human needs, not the free-market chaos rife in the country today. Ostensible regime aims, basically implemented for most citizens, were a distinctive form of radical material equality, full guaranteed employment. There was a concerted effort to develop a strong sense of social solidarity, despite existing racism toward large ethnic minorities, Turkish and Roma. They were integrated as 'citizens' but not as collective ethnic minorities, with rights of their own. Socialist laws reduced structural discrimination. Yet endemic racism against Roma remained, a clear failing of socialist states across Eastern Europe (see below).

The Bulgarian socialist system was grounded on free education, free high-quality medical care, and excellent nearly cost-free public transport. In essence, most services for basic needs were 'de-commodified,' with the cost to consumers very low, and indeed almost 'demonetized' for water, electricity, transport, and central urban steam heating. Those costs are now skyrocketing, most especially for electricity and gas. The Bulgarian railroad system, once a model, is now in deep trouble as passenger numbers have plummeted by over 50 percent since 2001. Municipal bus fares are now 18 times the cost of a ticket under state socialism, where the old fare of 6 stotinki (= $0.04) was largely 'symbolic.' Cafes and restaurants used to be packed with working people, because they were low-cost and non-profit; now far fewer people can afford to go out. Maternity leave under socialism (three years partially paid) is now severely restricted, with many mothers distraught at the meager assistance they receive. Under socialism Bulgaria was reputed to have one of the best medical systems in Eastern Europe; today there is a huge emigration of medical personnel, given that salaries for health-care workers in Bulgaria are the lowest in Europe and the severe lack of medical equipment (once good, now antiquated). There was a good local pharmaceutical industry in Bulgaria in the 1970s and 1980s, which was run on a not-for-profit basis, producing low-cost, high-quality medications. Today nearly all medications are imported from the West and are costly, and many Bulgarians will tell you that their quality is questionable. Lots of older people are dismayed because they cannot afford essential drugs. Big bribes for doctors are now common and many patients are penniless. All this is destructive of basic human dignity.

As Mimi Vitkova, a Minister of Health in the 1990s, noted a decade ago

"We were never a rich country, but when we had socialism our children were healthy and well-fed. They all got immunized. Retired people and the disabled were provided for and got free medicine. Our hospitals were free. Today, if a person has no money, they have no right to be cured. And most people have no money. Our economy was ruined."[10]

Family incomes under socialism were often better in terms of actual buying power than after 23 years of 'democracy' and the free market. Many ordinary older working and retired Bulgarians will corroborate this fact. Then all had a job at a living wage. Now the gap between the few rich and the many poor in Bulgaria is huge and widening by the month. A large proportion of average working Bulgarians, and all pensioners, live on the edge, and 30-40 percent of the population is pauperized. The minimum salary is set at €160 per month, but many are struggling in precarious, part-time hourly jobs. Mean salaries are 25-30 percent lower than in neighboring Romania. Some eight percent of the Bulgarian population, a slim stratum of nouveau riche situated mainly in Sofia, Plovdiv, Varna, and Burgas, is now better off. Some social workers make the equivalent of €140 a month and are struggling to survive. In interviews, many Bulgarians report that the work atmosphere was formerly more pleasant, collegial, and productive - and far less stressful than today. Strong bonds of neighborliness and simple human solidarity were common, but daily interactions are now encumbered by economic stress, and social breakdown.

Especially instructive are comparisons in the area of education. Socialist education in Bulgaria was in important ways similar to the educational system in today's Cuba. This was particularly true in the sense of building a 'moral economy of solidarity and community' and overcoming the divide between the curriculum and life beyond the classroom in the natural, social and 'communal' worlds, a process known as 'schooling the revolution.'[11] Education was demonstrably better under socialism in terms of funds allocated, teacher quality and, significantly, in student attitudes to learning. Schools were demanding and geared to high performance levels, energizing student engagement and anti-capitalist Marxist thinking. However, 'critical thinking' in the current bourgeois sense, was lacking. Little open dissent was tolerated, which in retrospect was a systemic error. Public universities (none private!) were hard to enter and high grades were needed. But tuition was free and there was a job guaranteed by the state after graduation. There were no student debts or unemployed graduates. Social class distinction was kept very marginal in schools and discipline was strict. Today a severe lack of student discipline is ravaging the entire educational system. Attendance even in university classes is desultory and overall standards are in decline in today's 'mis-education nation'. Every teacher I have interviewed agrees on this. One senior educator said: "Bulgarian education has been destroyed. The result is total chaos in a system once among Eastern Europe's best." Expensive private schools have proliferated, serving the small elite class. Many students just want to get a degree and emigrate. Polls indicate that two-thirds of Bulgarians would like their children to study abroad. A youth survey in May 2012 noted that 40 percent of young people want to leave Bulgaria the first chance they get. A 2013 Ministry of Education poll determined that 52 percent of the 2013 high school graduating class applied for university abroad. In 2012, one-in-six high school graduates went on to study at foreign universities. Another 2012 study suggests a genuine national crisis, indicating 41 percent of Bulgarians aged 16 are "alarmingly illiterate". Bulgaria once was the Silicon Valley of the socialist bloc. Today the National Astronomical Observatory in Rozhen, the largest in southeastern Europe, is facing severe cutbacks, as are many areas of scientific research, with a huge storm of protest erupting over the devious distribution of research funds in late 2012.

Prior to the restoration of capitalism in Bulgaria, there existed a huge array of well-organized, state-run extra-curricular activities, with free summer camps and excursions for schoolkids. The Pioneers, for ages 9-13, and Komsomol (the Young Communist League), for ages 14-18, organized young people both in and after school. All of that is now dismantled, often wistfully recalled. Youth normally were mobilized to participate in compulsory agricultural harvest brigades under state socialism. This was mandated from above, yet many say there was enjoyable camaraderie, with campfires and singing and dancing in the evenings. There was heavy physical labor, small pay, and summers of required social service. Kids now live in a world of social atomization, with too little stress on physical fitness and love of nature, once central components of Bulgarian education.

The experience of this entire complex of organized youth movements and their key role in shaping the young, recollected from today's perspective, needs in-depth inquiry. Some teachers' colleges were built in part by their own first students, organized in construction teams. Lending a working hand was needed and expected.

Once upon a socialist time in Bulgaria, there were decent libraries, cultural activities, and sports of all kinds. Many school children attended monthly concerts of classical music, which were obligatory in the socialist curriculum. Now few go to such performances, which have become quite rare. Recent studies report that the average Bulgarian family spent the equivalent of €6 on books in the past year and €2 on the cinema/theatre/concerts. Under socialism, extremely low-cost books were far more common, but a whole 'reading culture' has now been trashed. Under socialism, all publishing was socialized, nothing was for profit, and cheap books were a priority. The arts were supported by the state, and there was a notable Bulgarian film industry (some of the best can be found on YouTube) that imploded in 1990 and has not recovered. The system of state-run theaters, where excellent dramatic productions could once be seen in many cities and towns, is today in shambles. Today, even going to see a movie is unaffordable for many, with tickets many times more costly than under socialism. Experienced librarians are now earning as little as €180 a month, and the extensive urban and rural library system-with traditional chitalishte reading rooms-is badly under-funded. In sports, the system of national teams is in a state of severe contraction. Bulgaria had its worst performance in 60 years at the 2012 London Olympics, in what was widely deemed an authentic national disgrace.

Socialist Bulgaria: a non-consumerist society?

In significant measure, socialist Bulgaria was an economy on the road to a virtually non-consumerist society, with an abundance of basic goods, which were not produced for profit and largely affordable. There were identical controlled prices for all items, nation-wide. There was no advertising industry and for 25 years there were no ads on TV. Much production was in a sense 'de-commodified.' There was one kind of yoghurt, of high quality and sold in returnable jars, not 25 brands as there are today. In fact, Bulgarians are now ranked as among "the most pessimistic consumers in the world" according to a recent report. People say 90 percent of the yoghurt now is a fake admixture, as is also the case with basics like yellow cheese (kashkaval), the traditional Bulgarian salami (lukanka), and all lower-cost table wine (once world-class). Under socialism, quality control of food was very strict, but this has now largely vanished. The capitalist market today is heavily colonized by foreign-owned grocery chains. Many items are imported and the quality is often questionable. Under socialism, municipal steam heating (covered by heavy state subsidies) was provided at very low cost, and the cold Bulgarian winters were cozy inside. Now most people in urban apartments cannot afford the privatized steam heat, and have resorted instead to dirty and dangerous wood-burning stoves or costly electric heating. Years ago, such stoves were mainly in villages, where the demand for fuel destroyed much needed woodlands. Today, messy and increasingly costly wood-burning stoves have become the reluctant norm in many urban apartments.

The Spirit of Community

Substantial social energy used to be directed into communal initiatives of all kinds such as neighborhood clean-up committees and snow-removal teams. The Communist Party was actively engaged in spurring communal consciousness at the neighborhood level. Importantly, in socialist Bulgaria there was virtually no violent crime in everyday life, with few break-ins and muggings. Today petty crime is rampant and 'security' is a major issue. The country was recently described by a government minister as an "oasis of organized crime". Older workers often say that years ago many never even locked their front door, and the key was left under the mat as there was no need to steal. There was no grinding poverty then as many Bulgarians and most Roma face today, with a burgeoning community of impoverished retirees, many with pensions the equivalent of €70-130 monthly. Unemployment benefits are set at around €65 a month, scarcely enough for minimal survival.

Widespread xenophobia is rampant today against the Roma throughout Bulgaria, even among university academics, and against the large minority of ethnic Muslim Turks. Racism and discrimination is worsening and rightwing nationalism is on the rise. Anti-Roma racism and historical dislike of ethnic Turks run very deep in Bulgaria. This animosity against Roma was dampened in part under state socialism and its 'assimilationist' policy, but it is now becoming increasingly virulent. Richie Parrish provides an insightful overview of the plight currently
facing Roma in Bulgaria. Many are trapped in extreme poverty. Almost a quarter of Roma children aged 5-15 do not regularly attend school. He cites a 2011 UN report indicating that "only 46.2 percent of the Roma population in Bulgaria completed primary education and only
7.8 percent of Roma completed secondary education."[12]

Toward a people-grounded, empirical approach

Raleigh's oral history work (2006; 2011) strongly challenges the one-dimensional view of Soviet 'totalitarianism' and standard narratives of Soviet history widespread in the West, especially in Great Britain and the United States. Based on several decades of fieldwork in the country and bolstered by numerous narratives of ordinary working people, Kideckel (2008) describes the fear and alienation besetting industrial workers in their everyday lives in post-socialist Romania. Looking back at socialist Hungary and its educational system, Millei (2013) analyzes the memories of five Hungarian kindergarten teachers about what teaching was like under socialism, and "the ways in which explicit socialist ideology is understood by the interviewed teachers." Anthropologist Gerald Creed (1999: 224) stresses: "people have multiple images of the past ... and the synthesis that results is very much a contemporary product." His own long-term fieldwork in the small northwestern Bulgarian village of Zamfirovo illuminates how farmers adapted to socialist practices, and the myriad problems that have been engendered since 1990 (Creed, 1998; 2010).[13]

In Summary

We should avoid "the danger of a single story" in describing what life was like under socialism. We need to take an unblinkered look at 'socialist model' achievements, authoritarian elements notwithstanding. In building a participatory economy and society beyond capitalism, especially a world of guaranteed full employment and largely de-commodified social production, 'socialism 1.0' is our own history and legacy. The stories of average working people who grew up under socialism and now live in a widening vortex of post-socialist alienation, anomie and inequality-along with the narratives of their children about life today-need to be collected more systematically and distributed widely. The need is urgent.

The author is a North American with substantial experience over many years in provincial post-socialist Bulgaria. He speaks Bulgarian fluently and has many ties with ordinary Bulgarian working families and a number of educational institutions.

Notes

[1] Kagarlitsky, Boris, New Realism, New Barbarism (London 1999) vii, viii.

[2] Panagiotis Soltiris, "Austerity Capitalism and Education in Greece" in Dave Hill, ed. Immiseration Capitalism and Education, Austerity, Resistance and Revolt (Brighton 2013).

[3] Tom G. Griffiths and Millei Zsuzsa, Logics of Socialist Education: Engaging with Crisis, Insecurity and Uncertainty, (2013) 1-18.

[4] Stephen Gowans, "We Lived Better Then." What's Left, December 20, 2011.

[5] Anna Mudeva, "Special Report: In Eastern Europe, people pine for socialism," Reuters (2009).

[6] Maria Todorova, "From Utopia to Propaganda and Back," in Todorova and Zsuzsa Gille, eds., Post-Communist Nostalgia (Oxford 2010) 1-13.

[7] See, for example, Kapka Kassabova, Street Without a Name; Childhood and Other Misadventures in Bulgaria (London 2008).

[8] Alexander Andreev, "Violence in Bulgaria to be Expected," Novinite, July 26, 2013.

[9] Irina Malenko, An Interview with Irina Malenko, author of Sovietica, NCCUSA 2 February, 2013.

[10] Gowans, "We Lived Better Then."

[11] For a detailed description of some of these patterns in the 1960s see John P. Georgeoff, The Social Education of Bulgarian Youth (Minneapolis 1968), a classic study in English.

[12] Richie Parrish, "Roma Minority Faces Uphill Battle," The Prague Post, 6 March, 2013. On the education of the Roma in Eastern Europe generally see Maja Miskovic, Roma Education in Europe: Policies, Practices and Politics (London 2013).

[13] See Daniel J. Raleigh, Soviet Baby Boomers: An Oral History of Russia's Cold War Generation (Oxford 2011); David A. Kideckel, Getting by in postsocialist Romania: labor, the body, & working-class culture (Bloomington 2008); Zsuzsa Millei, "Memory and kindergarten teachers work: children's needs vefodre the needs of the socialist state" in Tom Griffiths and Zsuzsa Millei (eds), Education in/for socialism: historical, current and future perspectives, special issue, Globalisation, Societies and Education (2013) 170-193; Gerald W. Creed, Masquerade and Postsocialism; Ritual and Cultural Dispossession in Bulgaria (Bloomington 2011).

Photo: Central market, Sofia, Bulgaria. Creative Commons 3.0

The Price of Imperialism

Fri, 27 Sep 2013 11:39:00 +0000

When the Second World War ended, U.S. prestige among progressive and revolutionary forces through-out the world was never greater. Under the New Deal government of Franklin Roosevelt, the U.S. had served as the center of the "allied powers," holding a coalition of the British empire, under conservative leadership seeking to maintain its empire, and the Soviet Union, under Communist leadership fighting a war of survival and liberation for its own people and the people of Europe, together to defeat the fascist imperialist Axis powers.

Both the U.S. and the British Empire were also imperialists by Marxist definition, but the differences between them and their allies and the fascist Axis and its allies were clear. On the world scene the Allies constituted a center-left coalition against the forces of the Right, not only fascists but reactionary and conservative parties and movements, secular and religious, and those corporate capitalist groupings, including American capitalists, who sought to do business with the Axis powers.

The U.S. had used its influence to establish a United Nations organization and was under the New Deal government (itself relying on the support of a center-left coalition of labor and political forces) advancing policies to transform that organization into a political center to maintain international peace. There was also hope that the U.S. would support efforts to make the UN, through its social agencies, a body that worked to implement global policies to increase food production as well as sanitation, health care, and international labor standards that address the economic and social inequalities that produced war (and past imperialist policies which had greatly increased all of those inequalities).

But the balance of political forces in the U.S. had changed significantly during the war. Wartime economic expansion had bolstered what would later be called the military industrial complex and strengthened corporate and conservative forces. Their policy, called "The American Century" by prominent anti-New Deal publisher Henry Luce, would be to recycle and update U.S. policies of gunboat/dollar diplomacy and seek to apply those policies to the whole world.

One can debate whether or not history would have been different if Franklin Roosevelt, with his enormous political skills and leadership abilities, had lived to complete his fourth term. Or if Henry A. Wallace, who lacked those skills but was committed to a global peace and development policy centered on building the UN and continued American-Soviet cooperation (what he called "progressive capitalism"), had retained the Vice Presidency in 1944 and become President upon Roosevelt's death in 1945. But those questions are of course counter-factual and speculative in the extreme. We do know what happened and can analyze its causes and consequences.

The Big Picture of the Cold War

First, the Truman administration expressed hostility to the Soviet Union from its very first days in April, 1945, as the Red Army fought the last battle of Berlin and the European War ended. Then the Truman administration, initially fearful of the Red Army's military power and the influence of the Soviets and Communists throughout Europe and Asia, began to see the atomic bomb as a weapon that would frighten the Soviets into complying with U.S. demands for the economic and political organization of postwar Europe and Asia.

Even before WWII ended, the Truman administration had adopted the policy that Winston Churchill sought unsuccessfully to have Roosevelt adopt in the last two years of the war. That policy was to move away from anti-fascist cooperation with the Soviets and "Big Three Unity" toward a policy of undermining Communist-led insurgent movements and preventing Soviet forces from advancing into Eastern and Central Europe, even if that meant prolonging the war. It also meant quietly embracing fascist collaborator forces, as the British army did in the fall of 1944 when they invaded Nazi occupied Greece and opened fire on the Communist-led insurgents who had been fighting the Nazis for over three years.

The Truman administration began, in effect, to do the same thing in the Asia Pacific region from its first days. Even before the end of the war, General MacArthur's intelligence staff, in the bloody fighting for control of the Philippines, sought to distance itself from its most important grassroots ally, the Communist led people's army (HUKs). The HUKs had saved the lives of Americans and worked with American troops. Under MacArthur's orders, his staff began to provide cover stories for Japanese collaborators who the U.S. military would restore once the fighting stopped.

After the Japanese surrender, the Truman administration used the large Japanese armies on the Chinese mainland as a police force (as Truman later admitted in his memoirs) to keep the Chinese Communist party, whose influence had grown tremendously during the war, from sweeping to victory. Also, the Truman administration retained the Japanese Emperor, Hirohito, who Americans during the war had seen along with Hitler and Mussolini as the third member of an "Axis of Evil". Hirohito and all members of an extended royal family were given immunity from war crimes prosecution, even though a number were directly involved in atrocities against the peoples of China and other Asian nations.

When the war ended, Korea was "temporarily divided" into U.S. and Soviet zones of occupation. In the South, Syngman Rhee, a conservative who had spent most of the previous thirty five years on U.S. soil, was brought in by the U.S. occupation. Rhee was soon to become "our son of a bitch," the first of many local tyrants who the U.S. would establish in the postwar era and/or keep in power. In Korea also, the commander of the U.S. occupation, General James Hodge, was notorious for his racist contempt for the Korean people and his use of well known Japanese collaborators in the police to suppress student and worker opposition to Rhee and the American Military Government (AMG).

As it confronted the post war world, U.S. imperialist policy was deeply influenced by its closest ally, the British Empire. From the beginning of the cold war to the present the British Empire acted as the most faithful servant of U.S. imperialism, which mixed and matched British policies of creating balances of power and advancing in the name of "progress and civilization" policies which were their very antithesis. 1

After the British Army attacked the anti-Nazi resistance movement in Greece in 1944 (a center of its traditional sphere of influence in the Eastern Mediterranean) and installed a conservative monarchist regime filled with many Nazi collaborators and prewar Greek fascists, a bloody civil war ensued. But by the winter of 1947, the British Empire, bankrupt ideologically and financially, was withdrawing everywhere and in a state of near collapse. The Truman administration, already using indirect nuclear and other threats against the Soviets in Europe and recruiting former Nazis from the intelligence and police services of the Axis ("experts" in anti-Communism and anti-Sovietism) leaped in with a "Greek Turkish Aid bill" to replace the British military in the Greek Civil War and to buttress Turkey. Turkey had been neutral during WWII, had limited but not insignificant military power, and had a history of wars with Russia going back to the 17th century.

Along with this policy, Truman's call for a U.S. commitment to "aid free peoples" who are fighting against "subjugation" by "armed minorities" or "outside pressure," came to be known as the Truman Doctrine. However, former Vice President Henry Wallace accurately branded this policy a "world Monroe Doctrine." One could also see it as an extension of gunboat/dollar diplomacy imperialism from the Caribbean and the Western Hemisphere to the whole world. This of course was a very loosely expanded interpretation of the Platt Amendment, which claimed for the U.S. the "right" to intervene in the affairs of all nations in defense of their rights to "self determination and independence" as defined by the U.S. government.

In the years to come the invasions of Cuba, Nicaragua, the Dominican Republic, and the failed interventions in Mexico would be repeated in Greece, Korea, Vietnam, Taiwan, Lebanon, and Iraq (directly) and in France, Italy, Indonesia, the Congo, Brazil, Chile, Angola, Mozambique, East Pakistan, and Afghanistan indirectly. In a number of countries indirect interventions would, in the gunboat diplomacy tradition, be followed eventually by direct interventions.

These direct and indirect interventions meant concrete support of "our sons of bitches" throughout the world with military and economic "aid;" the training of military and police forces to oppress the people of these nations; the advance of "free market" policies that destroyed the limited social protections the people of these nations had; and of course the fomenting of economic crises, internal subversion against those governments who did not accept this globalized Monroe Doctrine/Platt Amendment Policy. The rationale for all of this was an unending war against a Soviet directed "world Communist conspiracy," a perpetual cold war to prevent a nuclear hot war. 2

The Big Picture of the "End of the Cold War"

Then, when the Soviet Union was dismembered and its East European alliance system collapsed (1989-1991) a funny thing happened. The cold war was over and Communism "dead in the cold, cold ground"; the conservatives proclaimed that capitalism had conquered the world and ended history. A peace dividend was coming for the U.S., the liberals shouted. But none of this actually came to pass; the military budget plateaued, as it had after the Korean and Vietnam Wars and as it was beginning to do after the truly unprecedented Reagan era spending increases. Budget deficits were sharply reduced for a while, thanks to a more rational tax policy under the Clinton administration and a more rationale trade policy, rather than any peace dividend. Legions of political missionaries and businessmen flocked to former Soviet Republics and Soviet allies, the missionaries dreaming of saving souls for their various denominations of liberty and democracy and the businessmen as always looking for money to make. Meanwhile, the military industrial complex kept rolling along.

The Big Picture of Cold War and "Post Cold War" Consequences for the United States

The distinguished historian of U.S. foreign policy, Walter LaFeber, estimated that U.S. military spending during the period from the Truman Doctrine to the dismemberment of the Soviet Union, with all of its hidden and ancillary costs, amounted to ten trillion dollars! By my estimate, military spending over the last 22 years in the "post cold war period" has more than doubled that. The pattern of expansion (Korean War), plateau(post Korean War), expansion(Vietnam War), very short inflation limited plateau(post Vietnam War), great expansion(Reagan Hollywood "virtual wars"), plateau("post cold war",) expansion on steroids(" wars and occupations against terrorism" in Afghanistan, Iraq, who knows where next) continues to this day, regardless of the administration.

The grand design/game plan of U.S. imperialism, the use of protectorates/satellites/client states and spheres of influence as against formal colonies had both avoided the high overhead costs of colonial imperialism and the politically disadvantageous loss of life that colonial military interventions led to. This was its "strength" as it developed its control over the Western Hemisphere and campaigned to open up the colonial regions, protectorates, and spheres of influence of its former imperialist rivals. The" globalization" of this policy (gunboat/dollar diplomacy) with the Truman Doctrine, the formation of NATO and subsequent military alliances(SEATO, CENTO and bilateral ones) meant that from 1947 to the present the U.S. would spend much more on the global cold war and its sequel, the global war against terrorism, then all of its allies and enemies combined. 3

Also, the U.S. would in the name of "containment," "counter-insurgency," "low intensity wars," and "proxy wars," do most of the fighting and suffer most of the casualties among the major powers. This was true in the Korean and Vietnam wars and later "wars against international terrorism" in Afghanistan and Iraq, wars that this policy of global "gunboat diplomacy" led to. While these casualties would be very small compared to the native populations of these regions, they would nevertheless be very great by all previous U.S. standards outside of the Civil War and the World Wars.

Some Speculation of the Costs of Roads Not Taken

In calculating the "price" of American imperialism to the American people, the overwhelming majority of whom are workers and salaried employees, retirees (former workers and salaried employees) students(future workers and salaried employees) many of the costs are incalculable, because of what did not occur.

How much higher would general social security benefits have been over the last sixty six years if general revenues had been added to the regressive payroll taxes (a concept which Roosevelt showed sympathy for and progressives put forward in legislation) and the social security based national health system (that was the subject of a fierce legislative battle after the war) had been enacted? How much less expensive and more secure would U.S. electrical power be for industrial, commercial and personal use if the large public power projects on the TVA model for the Columbia and Missouri rivers had been enacted? How much lower would the cost of all housing and higher education be today for the people if public housing legislation on the model of the original United States Housing Authority and federal aid to education on the model of the National Youth Administration had been enacted?

And most of all, how much lower would unemployment and insecurity have been for the whole people had the original full employment legislation put forward after the war been enacted and implemented? Given the wartime economic expansion, the establishment during the war of a system of progressive taxation, the fact that 1/3 of all workers outside of agriculture were unionized (even with the divisions between the conservative exclusionist AFL and the inclusionist CIO, the AFL had moved to the left due to competition with the CIO) the mass organizational support for all of this as well as a sympathetic public opinion was present at the end of WWII.

We might call this the "third New Deal," the one that failed to materialize. The postwar "containment" of labor through the Taft-Hartley Act and labor's precipitous decline in the Reagan and post Reagan era also meant that the large increase in wealth from 1980 to the present (seen, for example, in the tenfold increase in the Dow Jones Stock market average) was not accompanied by large increases in the real money incomes of the American working class. Although a much stronger labor movement had been able to fight for those increases in the period 1945-1975, the last two decades of the 20th century and the early 21st saw stagnation and sometimes declines in real wages.

The cold war wasn't the only reason why groups like the American Medical Association, the National Association of Manufacturers, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the private power companies, and their conservative coalition servants in Congress were able to bury this progressive program, but it was a central reason. The association of this program (a social security based system of national health care, public power expansion on the TVA model, federal aid to education, housing, and transportation) with "creeping socialism," the purges in the trade union movement and the arts, sciences and professions of its most militant advocates, all in the name of anti-Communism, systematically helped to defeat the entire program.4

And there were other costs that could not be easily calculated in dollars and cents. For example, we should cite the cost to the trade union movement over the last 66 years of tens of millions in members' real and potential wages as the number of workers in private sector unions dropped from 35% in 1947 to single digits today. (The cold war influenced Taft-Hartley law of 1947, sold to the people as a way to purge Communists from unions, was the beginning of this. It permitted states to pass anti-union "right to work" laws.) We should cite the continuing cost to hundreds of millions of Americans over that period of many billions of dollars in out of pocket health care expenses that working people in the rest of the developed world do not have to pay--and which we would not have had to pay if the legislation put forward at the end WWII, the Wagner-Murray-Dingell bill, had been enacted. On the other hand, the passage of Taft-Hartley, over time, gave conservative anti-labor politicians and the Republican party a huge advantage in "right to work states," which now function like the "rotten boroughs" of Britain before universal suffrage. There and then, some rural districts would re-elect aristocratic conservatives under all circumstances.

By the 1960s, this led to a situation in which, before the establishment of Medicare, senior citizens were the largest group living in poverty. Other developments one cannot put a price tag on were the high rate of infant mortality compared to other developed countries that existed in the U.S. and the emergence from the Reagan era to today of children as the largest group living in poverty. The U.S. is the wealthiest large country in history, yet it has many more poor people than any other rich developed country. That, more than anything else, sums up the domestic American tragedy.

The Little Nitty Gritty History of U.S. Imperialism. Believe it or Not, a Short List

Let me begin with a list of U.S. interventions during the "cold war" aka the period of the "World Monroe Doctrine/ Global Gunboat/Dollar Diplomacy /Platt Amendment" policy:

1. China: The Truman administration spent over three billion in military aid to Chiang Kai-shek's Kuomintang regime, (1946-1949) organized the regime's "elite divisions," and only ended its formal aid when the revolutionary forces had clearly gained the upper hand. The U.S, then refused to recognize the Peoples Republic of China, blocked its admission to the UN until 1972, did not establish full diplomatic relations with it until 1978 and over time gave many billions in military aid to "the Republic of China"(Chiang's rump regime on Taiwan).

Also, the U.S. helped to train Chiang's commandoes for raids against the Chinese mainland, threatened war in the 1950s over the islands of Quemoy and Matsu in the Formosa Straight with China, provided financial and indirect military aid to feudal-religious elements for an uprising in Tibet against the Peoples Republic of China(1959) and subsequently, as it came to recognize China, maneuvered to create conflicts between China and India and to use China as a "strategic ally" against the Soviet Union.

For the American people, this meant real war dangers as U.S. paratroops prepared to raid the Chinese mainland in the event of full scale war in the Formosa Straight in the mid 1950s, a peacetime draft was established (1948-1972) that undermined working class communities by taking those who could not be deferred because of they were enrolled in colleges for medical reasons, or were unacceptable because of criminal records.

2. Italy, the new CIA's first "test": the agency called by its members "the company" spent millions to defeat the united front of Communist and Socialist Parties, expected to win 1948 elections. It also engaged the Democratic party in the U.S to mobilize Italian Americans to send telegrams to relatives, provided both Marshall Plan aid and other forms of aid to the Italian government, funded Mafia elements in Sicily and Southern Italy to undermine a free election, continued over the next four decades with limited success to try to defeat and isolate the Italian Communist Party, supporting both former and neo fascists, traditional conservatives, and anti-Communist factions of the socialist party to achieve those ends

The CIA's activities here also began a pattern of involvement with organized crime groups who would use their increased wealth and connections to develop the heroin market in U.S. working class communities, destroying over time hundreds of thousands of lives and increasing crime significantly in American cities

3. Greece: The U.S. military's "successful" intervention in the Greek Civil War, with huge loss of life for the Greek people, and subsequent support for conservative authoritarian governments,(which outlawed the Communist Party )and a liberal "loyal opposition." CIA and Johnson administration support for the brutal military junta regime established in 1967, to prevent the liberalization of Greek politics and the possible triumph of left forces through free elections .

4. The Philippines: After nominally giving the Philippines its independence, U.S. "military advisors" organized the campaign to crush the anti-Japanese Huk army, electing and then removing Filipino presidents until the 1960s, when one of their "assets," Ferdinand Marcos, realizing that the U.S. was turning against him, made himself "president for life". Marcos retained U.S. support until the ouster of his brutal corrupt regime in the mid 1980s

U.S. agribusiness corporations, Dole especially, participated in and profited greatly from the exploitation of the Filipino people in alliance with terroristic regimes and local rightwing gangs to murder peasant organizers and drive poor peasants from their land

Edward Landsdale, a classic imperialist adventurer in the tradition of Britain's Chinese Gordon and Lawrence of Arabia, organized the political campaign to elect Ramon Magsaysay President of the Philippines in 1952, then directed the U.S. military mission to French colonial Indochina (1953) to remove the French and bring in Ngo Dinh Diem, a U.S. "asset" to establish a dictatorship over "South Vietnam" in violation of the 1954 agreement calling for reunification of Vietnam in a two year period.

Lansdale then served as director of the CIA's operation Mongoose (1961) the largest and most expensive CIA operation in the world, to overthrow the revolutionary government of Cuba and try to murder Fidel Castro and its other leaders.

Lansdale was an advertising man from San Francisco before WWII. He employed in a completely amoral way the methods of contemporary advertising/propaganda, connecting them to traditional policies of sabotage, assassination, infiltration and subversion of revolutionary movements and anti-imperialist governments, all the while, like Chinese Gordon and Lawrence of Arabia, seeing himself as a missionary for progress (in his case "democracy"). In the Phillipines he is remembered for using the slogan "Magsaysay is My Guy," for the election of U.S. backed presidential candidate, Ramon Magsaysay, a slogan which may have made sense in a U.S. commercial but was completely lost on the tagalong speaking Filipino rural population

The U.S. Intervention first in the French colonial war and then in its own version of a colonial war (1950-1975) would cost directly 58,000 lives, hundreds of thousand wounded, and the psychic trauma that many experienced because of the atrocities that were and are the reality of "counter-insurgency" as against the rhetoric of winning the hearts and minds of the people.

For millions of Americans the great struggles unleashed by the Civil Rights movement and enacted in Great Society legislation brought with them the possibility of winning decisive victories against poverty and racism in the U.S. The intervention in Vietnam, when all the slogans were stripped way, was, like the dozens of pre cold war and cold war interventions in Latin America, a war against the poor with a large racist subtext. 5

5. National Security Council Memorandum 68 (1950), calling for a fourfold increase in U.S. military spending needed to implement the Truman Doctrine/"containment" policy worldwide.

U.S. involvement in Korean Civil War (1950-1953) defined to American people as a United Nations "police action" became the basis for the implementation of NSC-68. (U.S. interventions in the Caribbean had been defined as the use of "the international police power" under the Platt Amendment to "maintain order" and protect the "independence" of the people who were being invaded).

The Korean war ended with a "truce," a devastated Korea(an estimated three million dead) with the U.S. creating the largest "protectorate/satellite/client state" in its history, establishing a large military presence and nuclear forward bases against North Korea, China, and potentially the Soviet Union, supporting repressive regimes and the military over the decades, and doing nothing to resolve either the Korean national question or the threat of war that its large and costly military presence represented and continues to represent.

The implementation of the principles in NSC-68, would mean trillions in military industrial complex corporate subsidies, a "warfare state capitalism" that would prevent the development of a modern "welfare state" social system in the U.S., a development over subsequent decades that would see U.S. life expectancy decline in relationship to other developed countries, public education and child care services both stagnate and the U.S develop a level of income inequality greater than in any other developed country.

6. Europe: Development of the U.S.-NAT0 bloc, (1949-present) included the nuclearizing of NAT0 to fight an envisioned WWIII against the Soviet Union and its allies; the rearming o of "West Germany," extensive and ongoing CIA involvement with intelligence agencies of NAT0 countries; involvement in French and Italian politics to isolate and defeat influential Communist parties; involvement in West German and British politics in the German Social Democratic and British Labor parties to defeat Kurt Schumacher and Aneurin Bevan, leaders of left anti-cold war factions, respectively, in favor of pro NAT0 and on domestic policy ant-nationalization of industry politicians, Hugh Gaitskell in Britain and initially Erich Ollenhauer in West Germany, a tame social democratic opposition to conservative governments (the model preferred by the U.S. for Europe).

CIA establishment and funding of the International Confederation of Free Trade Unions(ICFTU) and international student, youth, and cultural organizations to fight against The World Federation of Trade Unions (WFTU) and student, youth and cultural international organizations in which Communists played an important role. In the "name of freedom," Communists and those defined as "sympathetic to Communism" are barred from all CIA funded organizations.

Following the exposure of many of these organizations in the 1960s and 1970s, the Reagan Administration, in what is a grim joke, established a federally funded "Endowment for Democracy" to continue their work, that is to advance anti-Communist, anti socialist, pro militarist propaganda and organizations in the name of "democracy", using the model of the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA), whose funding Reagan sought to restrict, as it sought to defund all of the social gains won by the American working class and the whole people, demonizing these gains in ideology as "entitlements".

7. Iran: U.S. Intervention in Iran, 1946, against a Soviet supported uprising by the Azerbaijani minority in Northern Iran (Azerbaijan was a Soviet Republic at the time) threatening the Soviets indirectly with nuclear blackmail to have then withdraw their support. In the aftermath, there was brutal repression of the Azerbaijanis in Northern Iran, which went un-noticed in U.S. media.

The Eisenhower administration's use of the CIA to achieve its first successful overthrow of a government in Iran in 1953 (it had been involved in various unsuccessful attempts to overthrow governments in Czechoslovakia and Albania and undermine governments in Poland and Rumanian who were allied to the Soviet Union earlier).

After Mohammed Mossadegh, democratically elected Prime Minister, nationalized what was a private monopoly of the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company, Britain launched a blockade of Iranian oil. When the U.S. government refused him any assistance, Mossadegh turned to the Soviet Union to break the blockade.

After the Soviets offered aid, the U.S. declared Mossadegh a "communist" and orchestrated his overthrow, replacing him with the Shah, previously a constitutional monarch, who established a brutal terroristic dictatorship in which the U.S. was the principle backer and beneficiary. The oil was then privatized and in a classic imperialist "redivision," U.S. oil companies received 40%, other U.S. influenced companies 20%, and the former Anglo-Iranian oil company, now calling itself British Petroleum(BP) more famous today in the U.S. for spilling oil then spilling blood, was left with 40%

U.S. corporations then did very profitable business with and in Iran for the next twenty-five years, selling arms, engaging in construction projects and taking their cut of the oil. Secular liberal forces, the Tudeh (Communist) party, and all other opponents of the regime were ruthlessly suppressed, leaving the Islamic clergy as a venue for opposition.

The 1979 revolution, in which millions took to the streets against the Shah's regime, millions who understood from their life experience the history of 1953 and all that followed, was taken over by a section of the Islamic clergy to establish a clerical "Islamic Republic" which channeled mass opposition to imperialism into portrayals of the U.S. and its people as "the great Satan' and secular "Western society" as at war with all Muslims.

U.S corporations lost billions in Iran although the U.S. froze Iranian assets in U.S securities valued at over 20 billion in 1980 (they remain frozen, and their present value is unknown) and the Reagan administration did "receive" over fifty million dollars from the Iranian government in the illegal "arms for hostages" deal in order to provide the Iranian military, which had received arms from the U.S. until the revolution, with weapons to use in their war against Iraq, which the Reagan administration had supported. Most of this money "disappeared" although some was siphoned off to support the Nicaraguan contras, an expression in the 1980s of old fashioned Platt amendment gunboat diplomacy.

The cumulative effects of "warfare state" policies by the 1980s were these: a labor movement whose leadership allied with the most reactionary warlike elements of the capitalist class in the service of imperialism abroad and had been and would continue to be unable to organize against the massive export of capital abroad, which was in effect the domestic policy of imperialism in the U.S. This created the most dangerous of conditions, a chronic economic crisis and a political vacuum on the labor left, which in turn, with the blowback of the Iran Hostage crisis, enabled the Taft-Goldwater Republican right to win the presidency under Ronald Reagan and seek literally to expand the "warfare" state by either eliminating or marginalizing all positive labor and social legislation since the New Deal.

8. Latin America: Farewell to the Good Neighbor Policy and a list far too too long to go into great detail

a. Guatemala: CIA overthrow of the democratically elected Arbenz government In Guatemala (1954) and establishment of a brutal dictatorship under Carlos Castillo Armas (a U.S. trained officer) which would take thousands of lives, the most terroristic regime in the region up to that time.

b. Cuba: 1958-present. After initial failure to remove the Batista dictatorship and establish a military Junta that would defeat the guerrilla army led by Fidel Castro, steady escalation of attacks on the revolutionary government, establishment of an embargo against it, organization of a Cuban exile military force to launch an invasion of Cuba completely funded and orchestrated by the CIA to establish a puppet regime, suppress all pro revolutionary forces, and restore all U.S. property (on the Guatemalan model).

Continued CIA actions after the failure of the Bay of Pigs invasion to overthrow the Cuban government and murder Fidel Castro, raids against Cuba, use of bacteriological warfare to destroy Cuban swine herds, organized sabotage campaigns against the Cuban economy, continued plots to murder Fidel Castro(last documented one in Angola in mid 1970s), work with Gorbachev regime to reduce Soviet aid to Cuba and intensification of economic blockade against Cuba following the dismemberment of the Soviet Union.

The cost to the American people: the spending over the last 53 years of tens of billions of U.S. public funds to "contain/destroy" the Cuban revolution, , the suffering of the Cuban people, the loss to all of Latin America of what a policy of Cuban-American friendship and solidarity could have meant for the development of the region, given the outstanding achievements of Cuba in education and health care, connected to what the U.S. has to offer in terms of technology, capital, and its own technical and professional workers.

Also, a major blowback from the Cuban policy in the Watergate conspiracy, (1971-1974) in which former FBI and CIA agents organized a group of Cuban criminals who had worked in CIA terrorist actions against Cuba through the 1960s to wiretap phones and microfilm documents at the headquarters of the National Democratic party in Washington

c. Dominican Republic: Indirect CIA intervention in Dominican Republic to support Juan Bosch as a "democratic alternative" to the Cuban revolution and then direct military intervention, first support for a rightwing military junta's overthrow of Bosch when his government moved in a socialist direction and threatened the interests of U.S. corporations, followed by an Invasion of 25,000 U.S marines in the name of defeating "Communists" after constitutionalist military officers sought to restore Bosch to the presidency he had won( the largest direct military intervention by the U.S in Latin America in history, thirty two years after Franklin Roosevelt formally repudiated the Platt Amendment.

The involvement of the top leadership of the AFL-CI0, in these actions throughout Latin America during the presidency of George Meany and his successor Lane Kirkland, the role of Jay Lovestone, a former CPUSA leader of the 1920s, who served to bring the AFL and later the AFL-CI0 together in funding global anti-Communist, anti-socialist actions and subversions in the world left and labor movements .

American workers and trade unionists paid a price for the actions of the AFL-CI0 leadership in collusion with the CIA. These acts not only dishonored and disgraced American labor globally when they were made known but strengthened a bureaucratic outlook in the top AFL-CIO leadership, a suspicion and disdain for militancy, social activism and class organization in favor of "working with business and government." In part because militancy, social activism, and class consciousness, on which the labor movement in the U.S. had won all of its victories,( were exactly the forces internationally the the CIA supported labor fronts were fighting.)

d. Guyana: U.S.-British joint covert action to subvert and defeat through elections the Peoples Progressive Party of Guyana (former British English speaking Western Hemisphere colony) targeted its leader, Cheddi Jagan, who openly referred to himself as a Marxist and sought to advance a socialist program. Under both the Eisenhower, Kennedy and Johnson administrations, Jagan, whose party was elected three times, the last in 1964, was driven from office

There is an important subtext to these events related to the history of racism. In Guyana the two groups who make up the overwhelming majority of the population were former slaves of African extraction and indentured laborers from British colonial India, after the indigenous population had been destroyed. British colonialism used the classic tactic of playing one group against the other, with those of Indian extraction being heavily agricultural laborers and those of African extraction much more urban workers.

Jagan, of Indian background, sought to develop solidarity between the two groups. U.S. policy, aided and abetted by the CIA's AFL-CIO conduits, actively supported Forbes Burnham, "our son of a bitch," a corrupt politician of African extraction who emulated U.S. labor racketeers and whose government pursued discriminatory policies against Guyanians of Indian extraction.

In the 1970s, Burnham is widely believed to have been behind the murder of Walter Rodney, a distinguished Marxist scholar, the author of the now classic study, How Europe Underdeveloped Africa, and the most important opponent of African extraction of the Burnham government. Jagan, a dentist by profession, had been educated in the U.S. and had an American wife, who later led the party following his death. His study and involvement in Marxism and the socialist movement had really begun in the U.S.

As a bitter, ironic footnote to these events, the CIA's actions in Guyana were the only time in U.S. recorded history that the U.S. government, overtly or covertly, when intervening in a conflict between a group of African extraction and a non African group, supported the African group!!

d. Brazil: Indirect support for military coup in Brazil (1964) ousting a democratically elected progressive oriented government. Active support for military junta regimes in Venezuela, Argentina, Paraguay, etc, then supporting or opposing civilian governments based on their subservience to U.S. economic interests. AFL-CI0 Meany leadership support for these activities, helping to train trade union henchmen for the regime.

e. Chile: CIA intervention in Chilean elections of 1958, 1964, 1970, funding opposition to Popular Unity (Peoples Front) coalition of Socialist and Communist parties and liberal groups led by Socialist Party leader Dr. Salvador Aliende. Nixon administration economic/political war against democratically elected Allende government, economic policies fomenting strikes and inflation crisis, support for rightist and ultra-left groups to destabilize government, attempts to foment army coup against government, leading to the bloody Pinochet coup and massacre of thousands of people's front partisans.

All out support in terms of economic aid and political support for Pinochet regime as it destroyed trade unions, privatized Chilean social security, establishes with the "advice" of "free market economists associated with Milton Friedman a regime I would call "free market fascism," combining the politics of traditional fascist regimes, which were state capitalist, with "laissez-faire" economics, regarded by scholars of Latin America as the most brutal and repressive regime in Latin American history

f. Nicaragua: Support for the "contra war"(elements of the former Somoza dictatorship) against revolutionary Sandinista government in Nicaragua and the more traditional ultra right Salvadorian government against revolutionary FSLN in two "low intensity wars"(the new term of the 1980s) that claim in excess of 120,000 lives in two small countries through the 1980s. Blowback in the form of Reagan administration continued support for contra war following murder of U.S. nuns in Nicaragua and passage of Boland Amendment. Intensified surveillance and of U.S. peace movement, especially The Committee in Solidarity with the People of El Salvador (CISPES)

g. Venezuela: support for failed coup against government of Hugo Chavez in oil rich Venezuela (2002) and continued policy of harassment against Chavez's Bolivarian government as it moved in a socialist direction. Venezuela's oil wealth and location offered and continues to offer its socialist oriented government protection from direct gunboat diplomacy intervention

9. Indonesia: 1948-present.

Initial refusal to back restoration of Dutch colonialism and support for Sukarno, WWII Japanese collaborator as leader of an independent Indonesia, because of his opposition to Communist Party of Indonesia (PKI() in 1948. Opposition to Sukarno as he forms an informal alliance with PKI against Islamic conservatives and military-CIA supported assassination attempts against Sukarno, U.S. support for conservative elements of the military in Indonesia, fifth largest country in the world in terms of population at the time. Direct involvement in genocidal coup of 1965, in which an estimated one million PKI activists, workers, peasants and members of the ethnic Chinese minority are killed by the military and vigilantes linked to rightwing Islamic groups.

CIA boasts of its list of 10,000 key PKI cadre provided to the military, all of whom were allegedly murdered

U.S government support for brutal corrupt Suharto regime over decades and, in the tradition of gunboat dollar diplomacy, denying all involvements in this sordid history after Suharto's removal in 1998 and claiming since the 9/11 attacks to represent the forces of liberty and democracy against "Islamic terrorism" in Indonesia.

While most of this was minimized in the U.S. and the U.S/NATO bloc countries , in large part because the people were massacred were Communists and people of the left, Indonesia's invasion and occupation of East Timor, former Portuguese colony supported by the U.S. in 1975, became the source of an international protest movement.

East Timor, whose population is primarily Christian, declared its independence Portugal. Amnesty International has estimated that the Suharto government murdered, with U.S. supplied weapons, as many as 200,000 of East Timor's population of 700,000, while the U.S. continued to support Indonesia's "sovereignty" over East Timor in the United Nations and block attempts to punish it for its crimes. American people suffer from the leading role their government played in funding, aiding and abetting what were two genocidal campaigns,

10. The "Middle East: 1947-present. Follow the Oil

Initial replacement of British and French Empires and support for reactionary British installed monarchies in Egypt and Iraq. Close working relationship with feudal Saudi Arabian monarchy, center of the world's largest concentration of oil deposits through Arab-American Oil Company (ARAMC0) a consortium of U.S. oil companies developing the world's richest oil deposits.

initialcoolness toward Israel in the Arab Israeli-Palestinian conflict (1948-present) in favor of an "Arabist policy," support for conservative monarchist regimes in Jordan, Iraq, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, to protect the oil.

Nationalist and socialist oriented revolutions in Egypt (1952) Iraq (1958) undermine this policy. Opposition to British-French-Israeli invasion in Suez Crisis(1956) as a message to the old colonial powers that U.S. imperialism was calling the shots in the region and would not tolerate any restoration of British and French power

a. Lebanon and Syria: Eisenhower Doctrine pledging U.S. military intervention in region against "Communist influence," U.S. marine intervention under doctrine in Lebanon against Pan Arab pro Syrian and Egyptian forces having nothing to do with Communist movement

b. Iraq: Intimidation of Socialist oriented military government which overthrows rightwing monarchy (1958) in Iraq, involvement in plots with nationalist Pan Arabist Baath party of Iraq to assassinate government leaders, using anti-Communism and opposition to Soviet influence as pretext. Later initial support for Baath Party dictatorship, as Baath leader and former CIA "asset" Saddam Hussein plays the Soviets against the Americans, establishes a personality cult based dictatorship and, to the chagrin of U.S. imperialists nationalizes oil holdings(1970s)

Reagan administration returns to policy of support for Hussein's regime when, seeing the U.S.-Iran conflict, Hussein sees an opportunity to attack Iran and gain rich oil lands, launching an eight year war which costs hundreds of thousands of lives and bankrupts Iraq.

Reagan administration acts to cover up Hussein's use of poison gas and other atrocities in war, encourages its oil rich protectorates to continue to lend him money to finance the war, and resists Iranian overtures to end the war contingent upon his removal.

In aftermath of war, Hussein, believing the U.S. will not oppose him (it hadn't in the past) invades oil rich Kuwait, leading to first Gulf War (1991) as Pentagon and Bush administration seek to keep military spending up as Soviet Union collapses and cold war rationales decline.

Decision is made to keep Hussein in power after his regime's total military defeat as a pawn to be used against Iran. Subsequent massacres of Muslims of the Shia religious domination and people of the Kurdish ethnic minority both opposed to the Hussein regime, were ignored by the Bush I and Clinton administration in the "post cold war era"

Post 9/11 invasion and occupation of Iraq, actively opposed by France, Germany, and other NAT0 bloc nations ; invasion based on crude propaganda contentions above and beyond anything that the U.S. government had advanced in the cold war era-that Hussein's regime was the ally of Al Qaida, which was sworn to destroy it and whose members it had hunted down and killed; that the regime was hiding" weapons of mass destruction," even though more than a decade of UN inspections showed this to be false; that the regime was a military threat even though its military forces and strength were at less than half of 1991, first Gulf War capacity.

The subsequent occupation brings together Reagan-Bush capitalism, private construction contractors, private corporate food providers to the military, private security forces, robbing the U.S, taxpayer of billions, outraging millions of Iraqis,(unemployed former soldiers watching foreign workers come and take high paying manual labor jobs) and placing the U.S. military in greater danger. The Iraq occupation, Americans should see, is an example of the kind of capitalism that the right would establish in the U.S. if they could get away with it. In retrospect, Iraq under Bush was treated more like a 19th century Indian Reservation in the U.S. then any previous U.S. occupation, with private corporations playing a larger role than in any of the early 20th century "protectorates" in Latin America

c. Libya, former Italian colony: The Libyan government of Muammar Gaddafi was seen as a threat to U.S. "World Monroe Doctrine" foreign policy in North Africa because of its idiosyncratic government was untrustworthy, i.e, Gaddafi whatever else he and his regime represented was not "our son of bitch." For the Reagan administration, Gadaffi became the guinea pig for cowboy movie diplomacy, the villain who would be hunted down and killed by the sheriff and his deputies. Accusing the regime of inciting terrorist attacks the Reagan administration responded with air attacks on Libya aimed at killing Gadaffi, attacks which failed, although scores of Libyans lost their lives in the attacks, including Gadaffi's daughter.

Resolving disputes by capturing and killing your rival was standard practice among criminal gangs through the world and among rival warlords through history. Hunting and killing the head of state of a sovereign nation flew in the generations of international law and at least of few centuries of diplomatic practice.

d. Israel as the military middleman: In the 1960s, faced with the loss of the three large Arabic states, Syria, Egypt, and Iraq, as protectors of the Gulf Oil Reserves, the U.S. government forged a strategic alliance with Israel in the aftermath of the 1967 Six Day War, which resulted in complete Israeli occupation of the all of the territories that in the original UN partition was supposed to be a Palestinian Arab state(territories taken by Egypt, Syria, and Jordan, who did nothing to consolidate such a state in the previous 19 years). For U.S. imperialism this alliance was a necessity, because no other regional power existed to protect the oil, and Israel's garrison state history and mentality, along with the refusal of the Arabic states to accept its existence and negotiate with it on regional issues, made it largely subject to U.S. imperialist control, whomever was in power and at the same time made it both a servant and a convenient scapegoat for U.S. imperialism, to be used in the Iran-Contra adventures under Reagan and today as a military knight in a strategic chess game against Iran.

The American people pay and continue to pay the price of a sixty year policy recycling the largely the imperialist policies of the former British empire in the region in the interest of U.S. based transnational energy corporations, making the incomes and jobs of millions of American workers subject to the conflicts and crises in this region, manipulated by the transnational energy corporations in alliance with various governments for their profit. The American people and the people of the world also pay the environmental costs of these policies to land, water, and air as alternative "green" energy sources are remain underdeveloped

10. Africa:

The U.S. had not been involved in the colonial carving up of sub Saharan Africa, although American corporations like Firestone Rubber were involved in Liberia and other U.S. companies were involved in the exploitation of Europe's African colonies through various transnational corporations. Cold War U.S. governments both supported the colonial powers as they sought to hold onto their colonies and, as a plan B position, conservative nationalists, separatists, and military protégées of the colonial powers who would turn their nations into protectorates of U.S. imperialism and its allies, or "neo colonies" as this kind of control came to be known in the former colonial regions of the world.

a. The Congo: Using the UN as a cover, the U.S. and France intervened in the collapsing Belgian Congo, scene of some of the worst genocidal crimes in human history at the end of the 19th century, to defeat the leader of the national liberation movement, Patrice Lumumba, whom the CIA compared to Fidel Castro as a socialist revolutionary menace.

The CIA helped orchestrate the murder of Lumumba, spent millions to keep his supporters from gaining power democratically, and then turned to Joseph Mobuto, who established what international observers regarded as one of the world's most corrupt regimes, looting billions while the overwhelming majority of people were malnourished and plagued by the old diseases of poverty and a new one, AIDS, without the most rudimentary forms of medical care.

c. Angola and Mozambique: The CIA supported Portuguese colonialism in Angola and Mozambique in the 1960s and 1970s. CIA plan B strategy in Angola was to support "our son of a bitch," Holden Roberto, corrupt nationalist brother-in-law of Joseph Mobuto, against Marxist influenced and socialist oriented MPLA (Popular Front for the liberation of Angola). The CIA aligned itself with the South African Apartheid government, first to use force to keep the MPLA from taking power and then, to support a rightist separatist guerrilla war led by the adventurer, Jonas Savimbi. Similar developments occurred in Mozambique with a much greater South African participation. U.S. escalation of these actions under the Reagan administration, supporting and protecting South African military incursions and, in Angola, the wars of Savimbi and Renamo (the group made up of former Portuguese colonial forces under the direction of South Africa). Hundreds of thousands died and a greater number were made homeless through these interventions, which continue into the 21st century, largely burying the possibility for progressive social development and socialist construction advanced by the MPLA in the 1970s.

c. South Africa: The U.S. supported the Apartheid regime, under both Democratic and Republican administrations. The regime was led, from 1948 to its downfall, by the Nationalist Party whose leaders had been imprisoned by the British during WWII because of their support for and connections with Nazi Germany. Upon coming to power in 1948, in an election which saw the African population (roughly 75% of the nation's people) disenfranchised entirely, the regime enacted "race laws" which were modeled (and in some instance copied in regard to language) after the Hitlerite Nuremburg race laws.

The crimes and atrocities of the Apartheid government were known and condemned throughout the world, including the U.S. This did not prevent the major imperialist powers, and corporations from those nations, from continuing to invest in and profit from the Apartheid regime, to sell it weapons and protect it from various political sanctions at the United Nations and from international economic sanctions.

Whatever occasional negative comments U.S. political leaders made about the Apartheid state, the CIA worked closely with its South African counterparts from the 1950s to the 1980s, helping to capture African National Congress leader Nelson Mandela in the early 1960s; acting in concert with the South Africans to advance the Savimbi forces in the "contra war" in Angola; working with the South Africans as they occupied Southwest Africa(Namibia) and sought to turn it into something between a colony and a protectorate.

Under the Reagan administration, the policy was carried to its grotesque extremes. The African National Congress was, because of its historic alliance with the South African Communist Party, seen as an agent of Soviet and Communist world domination. Furthermore, South Africa itself, as the most developed region of the continent with its abundant resources, was seen as potential Soviet Union of Africa and an "ANC-Communist" government would expand northward to put the entire continent under "South African communist control."

To counter this, the Reagan administration put forward a policy of "constructive engagement", a more extreme version of the appeasement policy which the British Empire directed toward Nazi Germany in the 1930s, encouraging and apologizing for South African military aggression in Southern Africa (as against refusing to act against Nazi aggression in Central and Eastern Europe), resisting in the United Nations and in the U.S. movements for sanctions against the South African regime.

Peoples movements in the U.S. and globally eventually did compel both state sanctions and, through disinvestment campaigns, significant withdrawals of investment from the Apartheid state. It's military defeats in Angola especially, where Cuban-MPLA forces won a decisive victory against South African/Savimbi forces and the intensification of resistance by the South African masses led to the release of Nelson Mandela, the legalization of the ANC, the SACP and other political groups, and the establishment of a parliamentary democracy on the ruins of Apartheid South Africa, itself a monstrous relic of the Hitler fascism that had been defeated in WWII.

Although president George HW Bush welcomed Nelson Mandela, now leader of a liberated South Africa to the U.S. (and lectured him about the superiority of capitalism over socialism) no major power in the world had done more to support the Apartheid state since its inception than the U.S., something that should be a source of both shame and outrage for all anti-racist and anti- imperialist Americans.

Some Conclusions on the "Cost Benefits" of the American brand of Imperialism for Americans

As a popular credit card commercial goes, the price to the American people of American imperialism is, in a negative sense, "priceless."

At the end of the article I have cut and pasted as an appendix a chart and graph which looks at the history of U.S. military spending in all of its ramifications, using new GDP formulas and adding many billions to the traditional significantly lower statistic that I have long used(for example, the 12 billion in 1950 is shown as 20 billion and the numbers increase to their present 700 billion plus, well over 100 billion of the traditional estimates, which omit categories that these charts include.

Below that I have cut and pasted as a second appendix a short factual traditional account of the National Debt from WWII to today, one that uses formulas based on the percentage relationship of the Debt to GDP, using what I call conservative Keynesian formulas to explain the debt. Here the implicit argument is that all was well until the economic crisis of the 1970s, that is, what the prominent Historian Richard Hofstadter called in the 1950s "military Keynesianism" worked as military spending along with other spending and progressive taxation brought about economic growth. I reject that contention entirely, although the economic data presented in a clear form should be of great value to our readers.

Of course, none of these statistical analyses calculates (nor can they) what the effects of spending even 25% of these trillions in public expenditures for public education, public housing, public transportation, public health care, comprehensive environmental protection policies, might have been. That is truly priceless

When the cumulative effect of military spending is combined with the cumulative effects of the national debt, they show to all willing to see the "double whammy" effect, a term from the comic strip L'il Abner, of U.S. imperialism on the living standards American people

Part one of the "double whammy" is the diversion of trillions in capital from socially useful policies. Part two is the accruing of a debt whose annual interest payments provide further super profits for finance capital in the U.S. and abroad and serve as a further deterrent for (omit for) to the necessary funding of programs whose purpose is to raise the living standards and improve the quality of life for the American people, not export death and destruction in the name of national security and defense through the world.

And of course, there are the hundreds of thousands who were killed and wounded in the not so cold Korean and Vietnam Wars, the Americans who were killed and wounded in the invasion and occupation of Iraq, the American forces being killed and wounded in Afghanistan today, and all of the possibilities of interventions in the near future in the name of the "war against terrorism," or "humanitarian intervention," by those in power in the U.S. who refuse to realize that any political structure, however democratic and formally protective of civil rights, has little meaning without an economic and social foundation to stand on.

In conclusion, to use a phrase from another and much better comic strip, Walt Kelly's Pogo, "we have met the enemy and he is us," not the American people but the capitalist ruling class of the U.S. and the military industrial complex which they have used since the end of WWII to gain super profits, to defeat movements to enact social legislation that would increase the living standards of the American people, to divert funds from existing programs, and to pave the way for transnational corporations to export millions of jobs to countries and regions that the U.S ostensibly was defending from "international Communism."

The way out is to get out, to heal rather than wound, to begin a phased reduction of military spending and all of its ancillary costs, to reduce it by at least half over a four year period, and shift those funds to policies of public sector reconstruction and a serious conversion to a peacetime economy, creating jobs, higher real incomes, and, with the restoration of progressive taxation sharply reducing deficits in regard to GDP development, and quite possibly running budget surpluses that would begin to significantly reduce the debt itself. None of this of course is possible without the end of the policies of American imperialism which we have outlined and the military industrial complex which is its foundation and which feeds off it.

Notes

1. "Progress and Civilization" were catch phrases of 19th century British imperialism as it created the largest colonial empire in history. "Defense of the free world" against the forces of "totalitarianism and international Communism" where the catch phrases of cold war U.S. imperialism as it established military bases through the Western Hemisphere Europe, Asia, the Pacific, the Near East, the whole world outside of the Soviet bloc and its allies, China, and Sub-Saharan Africa. Those bases represented real and direct threats to the Soviet Union and China and a potential threat to India, while except for a few months in Cuba in 1962, neither the Soviets, the Chinese or anyone else had any military base directly threatening the United States.[1] [1]

2. The list of "our sons of bitches" became truly global as names like Chiang Kai-shek, Syngman Rhee, Ngo Dinh Diem, Ferdinand Marcos, Generals Ya Ya Khan and Zia of Pakistan, Joseph Mobuto, Holden Roberto and Jonas Savimbi in Africa, and in the 1980s the Arabian anti-Soviet "freedom fighter" Osama bin Laden, joined the long established and continuing list of Latin American personalities, along with unacknowledged Nazi and other fascist war criminals. These included Klaus Barbie, the Gestapo butcher of Leon, given safe passage to Latin America after he worked for the U.S. occupation forces in early postwar Europe, General Reinhardt Gehlen, head of Hitler's counter intelligence service, who brought himself and many of his underlings to the service of West German and U.S. intelligence, and others who had served as collaborators with the Nazis in the war against the Soviet Union, who were given safe passage to Latin America(the Germans mostly) and the U.S(Eastern Europeans, Ukrainians, and Russians ). In the "post cold war period," New Russia's Boris Yeltsin headed the list of "our sons of bitches."

3 William Appleman Williams, the historian whose post writings challenged the cold war consensus more forcefully then anyone else, made these points in path breaking works like The Tragedy of American Diplomacy, Contours of American History, and Empire as a way of life. Williams, in the tradition of John Hobson, whom Lenin respected greatly but saw as a "social liberal," saw these policies as rooted in a search for continually expanding foreign markets that would produce the economic growth necessary to sustain the U.S. political economy. Like Hobson, he saw these policies as leading to preparations for war and war itself. Like Hobson also, he called for the nation and the people to abandon these policies within the existing political/economic system.

4 In 1946, the Chamber of Commerce published a pamphlet declaring "Communism Abroad and Labor at Home" as the two enemies "America" faced. Developing cold war tensions and the Truman administration's domestic failures in its first year (including its turning against the large industrial unions in early postwar strikes) led rightwing Republicans to win control of both houses of Congress, defeating many New Deal incumbents by connecting the new Soviet enemy abroad to the unions and progressive mass organizations at home. Richard Nixon in the House and Joseph McCarthy in the Senate won seats on this basis and soon represented the dominant trend in Republican political circles. Although Truman was re-elected in 1948 on a pledge to revive the New Deal at home, and Democrats regained Congress, including progressive Democrats, the anti-Communist political purges continued in the unions, the Justice Department chose to indict and try Alger Hiss in a concession to HUAC, and the New Deal revival program was killed in Congress without much opposition from Truman, whose priorities were establishing NAT0, quieting fears about the Soviets getting an Atom Bomb, and drawing cold war lines in Asia in response to the Chinese revolution.

5 Martin Luther King expressed this reality most eloquently in the period and for all time when he, said in what history may see, alongside his March on Washington speech, as his greatest speech at the Riverside Church a year before his assassination on April 4, 1967 "Beyond Vietnam: Time to Break the Silence" as expressed below.

There is something seductively tempting about stopping there and sending us all off on what in some circles has become a popular crusade against the war in Vietnam. I say we must enter the struggle, but I wish to go on now to say something even more disturbing. The war in Vietnam is but a symptom of a far deeper malady within the American spirit, and if we ignore this sobering reality we will find ourselves organizing clergy- and laymen-concerned committees for the next generation. They will be concerned about Guatemala and Peru. They will be concerned about Thailand and Cambodia. They will be concerned about Mozambique and South Africa. We will be marching for these and a dozen other names and attending rallies without end unless there is a significant and profound change in American life and policy. Such thoughts take us beyond Vietnam, but not beyond our calling as sons of the living God.

In 1957 a sensitive American official overseas said that it seemed to him that our nation was on the wrong side of a world revolution. During the past ten years we have seen emerge a pattern of suppression which now has justified the presence of U.S. military "advisors" in Venezuela. This need to maintain social stability for our investments accounts for the counter-revolutionary action of American forces in Guatemala. It tells why American helicopters are being used against guerrillas in Colombia and why American napalm and green beret forces have already been active against rebels in Peru. It is with such activity in mind that the words of the late John F. Kennedy come back to haunt us. Five years ago he said, "Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable."

Increasingly, by choice or by accident, this is the role our nation has taken -- the role of those who make peaceful revolution impossible by refusing to give up the privileges and the pleasures that come from the immense profits of overseas investment.

I am convinced that if we are to get on the right side of the world revolution, we as a nation must undergo a radical revolution of values. We must rapidly begin the shift from a "thing-oriented" society to a "person-oriented" society. When machines and computers, profit motives and property rights are considered more important than people, the giant triplets of racism, materialism, and militarism are incapable of being conquered.

Photo: Ben Sears

Detroit through the lens of class and race

Fri, 27 Sep 2013 09:39:00 +0000

Labor in the white skin cannot emancipate itself when in the black skin it is branded." - Capital, Vol. 1, Karl Marx

Much has been written about the trauma that Detroit is going through. And much of the commentary places the blame for this crisis in one of two places.

One line of thinking, articulated by the likes of conservative columnist George Will , Fox television host Bill O'Reilly, and more recently Kevin Orr, Detroit's emergency manager, is that the people of Detroit - read: its African American majority - are themselves responsible for the city's predicament. In this explanation, supposedly excessive wages and benefits for Detroit's workers, a corrupt political class starting with the city's first African American mayor, Coleman Young, and a "culture of victimization, irresponsibility, and dependency" combined to bleed city finances, wreck its industrial base, turn Detroit into a municipality of "moochers" and "mayhem," and relegate its "glory days" to a distant past when white people were the majority.

The other narrative holds that Detroit's current catastrophic conditions, including the bankruptcy imposed by a right-wing Republican governor, are just the latest stage of an economic decline that dates back a half-century or more. In this telling, the city's fate is simply the result of the impersonal forces of the market that act behind people's backs. It's the consequence of the unstoppable and uncontrollable logic of de-industrialization and globalization, in which there are inevitable losers, such as Detroit and its workers, and winners - the 1 percent and a handful of transnational corporate giants that dominate the world economy. And, it's simply the predictable endgame of a city that unwisely, even irresponsibly, rode a single "horse" (the auto industry) for much too long.

The first narrative is obviously more dangerous, and more outrageous. In fact, it is a shameless appeal to white people to buy into racist images and perceptions of Black people. Its aim is to heighten divisions between people who are absolutely necessary allies going forward - Black and white, city and suburb, and labor and the African American freedom movement. It is also intended to legitimize state and federal government inaction and neglect, and even encourage punitive policies, in response to an exploding and profoundly hurtful urban crisis.

Another objective is to provide fresh fodder to the old (as old as slavery) but recently amplified, especially by right-wing extremism, racist notion that the "problem" of Black people is Black people.

Finally, blaming the crisis on its victims is designed to divert the eyes of the American people from the actual causes of the crisis and its agents. The former are located in the structures and dynamics of racialized capitalism, while the latter are the individuals and institutions who drive the crisis and also enrich themselves mightily from this system of class and racial exploitation and domination of the immense many by the minuscule few.

The second narrative (economic and technological determinism), while not as mean-spirited and toxic, is not much better. It also conceals in its own way more than it reveals about the fix that Detroit is in and what to do about.

How? By blaming Detroit's crisis solely on markets and technologies that are supposedly blind, class-neutral, and independent of human actions, it not only detaches the crisis from its socio-economic, racist, and class context, but also easily becomes the fertile soil for feelings of fatalism, hopelessness, and passivity. This is just what the victims of the crisis and their supporters don't need.

So what does explain the current disaster that is gripping Detroit, this storied and heroic city whose people have contributed so much politically, economically, and culturally to our nation?

I would argue that Detroit's past and present are not the outcome of overarching economic forces that operate outside the rough and tumble of history, politics, and struggle, outside the structures and dynamics of class, race, and capitalism.

Nor are they explained by any mythical "culture of irresponsibility and dependency," supposedly peculiar to Detroit's African American community.

Instead, Detroit and the auto industry's trajectory over the past half century is the result of people, social classes, and diverse and changing coalitions interacting and clashing on a number of different issues and levels over decades. In auto plants and union meetings, in neighborhoods and schools, in the corridors of government and collective bargaining negotiations, on the streets and picket lines, and in churches, barber shops, planning boards, voting booths, and other places far beyond the city limits, Detroit's future has been contested over the decades.

On one side were:

* auto executives who stripped Detroit of its industrial base and relocated production and plants to places that were not steeped in working class and democratic traditions;

*redlining real estate agents who practiced and profited from discrimination against Black homebuyers at one moment and encouraged white flight to surrounding suburbs at another;

* white ethnic working class neighborhoods in Detroit that resisted by any means necessary the "invasion" of Black families into "their" neighborhoods;

* planning boards that sanctioned segregated housing patterns;

* mortgage companies that exacted onerous terms from Black homebuyers over decades, maybe none worse than those that floated subprime mortgages in recent years, knowing all the while that they were unsustainable;

* investment firms that squeezed the city with complicated financial deals;

* elected officials at the state and national level, and especially right-wing Republicans, who relentlessly squeezed Detroit and other urban areas;

* federal housing and transportation authorities whose policies over decades encouraged and subsidized the movement of white homeowners to segregated suburbs.

These are but some of the more prominent political actors on one side of this confrontation that stretched over decades.

On the other side were African Americans and African American workers who seldom yielded in their struggle for a livable wage and city, a people-centered economy, and long overdue equality. It is a story of uncommon courage in the face of difficult odds and belligerent and well-heeled foes.

They were joined in small skirmishes and big battles by a section of their white, Latino, and Arab American brothers and sisters in the UAW (United Automobile, Aerospace and Agricultural Implement Workers of America ) and other unions as well as their allies in churches, community organizations, and other progressive and democratic organizations at the local, state, and national level.

Occupying an inconsistent position were a range of social and political forces, but for the purposes of this article, I will mention just one, because its role was so critical: the leadership of the UAW during the second half of the 20th century..

Even when it was negotiating contracts that increased wages and benefits, staking out progressive positions on civil rights, breaking with AFL-CIO President George Meany over Vietnam, and challenging the likes of Barry Goldwater, George Wallace, Richard Nixon, and Ronald Reagan in the electoral arena, it was slow to bring African American workers into union leadership, reluctant to support Detroit's African American political leaders, less than vigorous in integrating the skilled trades, and, not least, too quick to cede the right to organize production - management prerogatives - to auto companies, including the unilateral right to relocate production to sites of management's choosing.

Moreover, in the early 1980s, regular contractual gains gave way to concessionary bargaining by the union's top leadership, which had a particularly negative impact on Detroit and its African American auto workers.

These struggles in Detroit, stretching out over six decades, didn't take place in a vacuum however. Their character and outcome were shaped as well by a number of interrelated factors operating on a far larger political, economic, and geographical scale.

What were some of the most important ones?

* First of all, the erosion, if not disappearance, of the conditions that powered a nearly three-decade-long expansion of U.S. and global capitalism in the aftermath of Word War II. That expansion gave way in the mid-1970s to slower growth, greater economic (and financial) instability, rising unemployment and inflation, the restructuring and spatial reorganization of capital, economic activity, and the working class, and, not least, a new model of government-corporate governance, popularly called neoliberalism.

This model, in contrast to the Keynesian model that facilitated corporate profit-taking and the post-World-War-II expansion, no longer accented, as its predecessor did, shared prosperity; corporate, financial, and trade regulation; consumer, safety, and environmental protections; expansion of the public sector and public goods (education, health care, retirement security, etc.); an equitable tax structure; a commitment to full employment; and enlargement of civil, labor, and other social rights. The neoliberal model accented, instead, the very opposite, and with a vengeance.

In doing so, it facilitated capital's accumulation (profit-making) and growth, like the earlier Keynesian model did, but in a different way and in decidedly new conditions of exploitation, intra-capitalist competition, monopolization, and market saturation in a global capitalist economy. As a result, corporate profits soared and the unearned income of the 1 percent reached unprecedented levels, even if growth rates never returned to earlier levels. But the cost of this neoliberal turn for working people, people of color, women, youth, seniors, and urban centers like Detroit was enormous.

* Second, the breakup of the New Deal coalition on the shoals of racist (and ultimately self-destructive) resentment harbored by white people in reaction to the new assertiveness and just demands of the African American people. The breakup was made easier by the Cold War repression of the old left (mainly communists), the sectarianism of the new left, and the ascent of business-minded, pro-war, and anti-democratic leadership to the top tiers of the labor movement in the 1950s.

* Third, the difficulty of the African American freedom movement and its leaders, in part due to the assassination of Martin Luther King, in transitioning to a new stage of struggle for full political, economic, and social equality in the post-civil-rights period.

* Fourth, the steady and sustained ascendancy of right-wing extremism, fueled by the mobilizing language of white supremacy and reaching a new level with the election of Ronald Reagan in 1980.

* Fifth, a coordinated and many-leveled intensification of the class struggle by the capitalist class in the mid-1970s that the now badly weakened labor and democratic movement were unprepared ideologically and organizationally to effectively resist and turn back - even now, 40 years later.

* Sixth, the emergence of new global institutions and rules that broke down national barriers inhibiting capital flows, while pressuring downward the price of labor power (in other words, wages) worldwide.

* Finally, the integration of new centers of capital accumulation in the global periphery, with massive pools of low-wage labor, particularly China and India, into the system of global capitalism.

Thus, Detroit's current landscape - marked as it is by huge swathes of vacant and foreclosed homes; shuttered factories; decrepit roads, schools, and infrastructure; homeless and hungry children; violence and crime; failing schools; widespread and extreme poverty; environmental pollution; catastrophic levels of joblessness, and now bankruptcy - wasn't preordained by some kind of irresistible economic logic. Nor can it be accounted for by purported moral and familial failures in the African American community.

It was a product of a protracted, complex, and cumulative process. Its main inflection points were on the axis of class and race. It took place on many levels and played out on a political, economic, and ideological terrain that shifted continually and sometimes in profound ways. And in the end the forces of profit-making, exploitation, political reaction, and, above all, racism prevailed over the forces of economic justice, anti-racism, democracy, full equality, and peace.

If the outcome was dependent on many things, few loomed as large as the insufficient breadth and depth of anti-racist understanding and unity in the labor and people's movement at the local, state, and national levels. The hopes raised by people's victories to expand democracy and freedom and rein in the war machine of U.S. imperialism in the 1960s and subsequent decades never morphed into a lasting, broad, democratic, class based, and consistently anti-racist movement (either in Detroit or nationally).

Forty years later the building of that kind of movement remains the overriding challenge facing Detroiters and others who are feeling the weight of this crisis - while its architects are smugly tucked away in opulent communities, executive suites, and the corridors of political power. Only such a movement can thrust Detroit, other urban centers, and our nation as a whole on a trajectory of economic renewal and security, equality, substantive democracy and sustainability, and peace.

It would be wishful thinking to say that such a movement is around the corner. But it is not a stretch to say that we see early signs of such a movement in the struggles of the present.

They are evident in the day-to-day resistance of Detroiters and other people in similarly situated communities to efforts to sell and privatize vital services, deny them political representation and voice, and impose on them more austerity measures to resolve a crisis that they had no hand in making.

The signs are also apparent in the struggles in Washington for jobs and infrastructure renewal.

They are plain to see in the hundreds of thousands who this August celebrated the 50th anniversary of the 1963 march for freedom and jobs too.

In the new energy in the labor movement too, we see signs of a better future.

Much the same could be said about the new initiatives to defend voting rights and resist the new racist offensive.

In the battles to overhaul the system of criminal justice, racial profiling, stop-and-frisk, and mass incarceration that falls so heavily and negatively on African Americans and other peoples of color, especially young men, we detect the beginnings of a better future as well.

The beginnings are obvious in the struggle for gay rights, including marriage equality.

The precursors are found in the inspiring and multi-dimensional campaigns for immigrant rights.

In the ongoing efforts to rein in U.S. military ventures in Syria and other far-flung parts of the world and turn swords into ploughshares and a sustainable economy, we can catch a glimpse of this emerging movement.

Signs are also evident in the actions to heal and cool our planet.

Finally, they are visible too in the new common sense embraced by tens of millions that people's needs, equality and fairness trump corporate profits and the unconscionable piling up of wealth.

I wish there were an easier way to address the crisis in Detroit as well as elsewhere in our country, but if there is it escapes me.

Certainly, schemes that favor real estate interests, downtown development, and gentrification hold little promise for residents living in Detroit's decaying neighborhoods and idled by the lack of jobs, despite claims that economic growth and vitality will radiate from the core to the surrounding city.

Nor, in my opinion, will plans of socially committed people and organizations to reclaim unused land in the city and foster small-scale entrepreneurial development. Such initiatives can bring some relief, and relief no matter how small is to be welcomed. But it seems doubtful to me that these efforts will ever achieve the necessary scale and economic/industrial mix to set Detroit and its people on a new foundation of growth, renewal, equality, and economic security.

Any viable future for Detroit will require a lot of heavy lifting, a sustained popular movement, the full participation of the UAW and the rest of the trade union movement, diverse forms of struggle, and higher levels of multiracial and working class unity and understanding.

It will also entail the re-imagining of Detroit in new ways that empower people and mobilize (and it will have to be mobilized; it won't come on its own) public capital for living wage jobs, infrastructure renewal, neighborhood revitalization, affordable housing, economic and green development, worker/community owned enterprises, quality public education for every child from pre-kindergarten through high school, and so forth.

But those efforts will bear full fruit only if three other conditions are met.

* First, the necessary long-term restructuring of Detroit has to be embedded in the immediate battles to shift the burden of the city's crisis onto the banks, auto corporations, and state and federal government.

* Second, the city's future can't be separated from the overriding political objective in 2014 and 2016 of rolling back the grip of right-wing extremism on the structures of state and federal government.

* Finally, the near- and long-term struggles of the people of Detroit have to be connected to the energies of like-minded people in nearby suburbs and around the country who also aspire to radically restructure the politics, economics, culture, and racial relations of their city, region, state, and country.

But if past history in general and specific historical turning points in particular are any guide, the success of this struggle in Detroit as well as elsewhere will hinge especially on the degree of anti-racist understanding achieved by white people and workers in particular.

Such an understanding (and practice) is informed by a sense of moral outrage. But it also arises and crystallizes into a more durable form from an awareness that, in this era of systemic economic crisis and generalized attack on the entire working class and people, the struggle for racial equality and against racism in its old and new forms is as much a condition for the freedom, well being, and security of people in white skin as it is for people in black and brown skins.

Anything less guarantees that Detroit and other cities and the rest of us will sink together. Maybe not at the same speed or to the same exact place, but wherever we land it won't be pretty for anyone, leaving people morally and psychically scarred, culturally impoverished, economically hurting and fearful, and politically near powerless.

photo: Creative Commons 3.0 Labor Day parade in Detroit