the Voice of
The Communist League of Revolutionary Workers–Internationalist
“The emancipation of the working class will only be achieved by the working class itself.”
— Karl Marx
the Voice of
The Communist League of Revolutionary Workers–Internationalist
“The emancipation of the working class will only be achieved by the working class itself.”
— Karl Marx
Nov 22, 2010
The U.S. now has more than 100,000 soldiers in Afghanistan. Add to that 17,000–the number of “private contractors” the U.S. Department of Defense admits it uses in “special forces” combat units in Afghanistan. And to that add 40,000 troops from other countries participating in the occupation.
With this enormous military force on the ground–several times greater than 30,000, the number of insurgents estimated by the U.S. military–we now have begun to see the full extent, and the real character, of the U.S. military “surge” in Afghanistan.
Night after night, U.S., allied and Afghan government troops raid individual homes when people are asleep, terrorizing children and women, sometimes even raping them. Men are pulled out of the house, taken away to prison or to be killed. Highly destructive fire power–bombs from helicopters and missiles from tanks–is used often and widely against the population.
Since 2001, U.S. government and military leaders have been telling us that the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq are necessary to fight and destroy terrorist networks. Nine years later today, these same officials tell us the threat of a terrorist attack on the U.S. is greater than ever.
Yes–precisely because of what the U.S. has done in these wars.
To be sure, the brutal U.S. surge, with its night raids on people’s homes, can only turn the Afghan population, already fed up with decades of war, even more against the U.S. occupation.
In Afghanistan, practically the whole country–except for Kabul, the capital, and the surrounding area, or empty mountain tops–is outside the control of the U.S. and its allies. The Afghan army and police, whose recruits have come from the ranks of militias run by different warlords, have no loyalty to the U.S. When their warlords shift loyalties, they turn their weapons on U.S. troops. And lately more and more warlords, who have been allied with the U.S. in the past, have been attacking U.S. and Afghan government forces.
The war that the U.S. started in Afghanistan has now spread over the border to Pakistan–a country with six times the population of Afghanistan. That, in turn, has further destabilized the government of Pakistan, raising the threat of even more chaos and war in the whole region.
On top of all this, U.S. generals have a problem with their own troops. Soldiers, many of whom are on their third, fourth, fifth tours of duty, are fed up with this war or simply morally, mentally and physically destroyed.
So, after nine years of war in Afghanistan, longer than any other war the U.S. has fought, the situation on the ground is a disaster for the U.S. military.
Behind this latest big military push, this surge, the U.S. is attempting to force the insurgents to cut a deal which will let the U.S. get out without admitting defeat.
The U.S. war on Afghanistan has already killed tens of thousands of civilians. It has made life impossible for the vast majority of Afghans, by destroying existing infrastructure and economic activity in the country, and even more severely impoverishing the population.
And this war has been a real disaster for working people in the U.S.–by killing and injuring, physically and mentally, thousands of Americans, and by draining billions of dollars of wealth created by American workers.
This brutal, catastrophic war in Afghanistan continues only because a very tiny part of the U.S. population–big bosses, who run the U.S. and who want to control the whole world, or their henchmen and flunkies–want it to continue.
American workers have nothing to gain from this war, and have already paid a very heavy price for it.
Put an end to this bloody war of occupation–not in 2014, not in 2011, but right now!
Nov 22, 2010
Mayor Daley announced his proposed budget for the City of Chicago last week. To cover the budget deficit, Daley proposes to make city workers swallow 23 million dollars in concessions. He expects city workers to take 12 unpaid furlough days and give up 12 days of holiday pay–a day short of five weeks unpaid! Meanwhile, the city continues to lavish money on any company that asks.
Nov 22, 2010
Funny thing. Practically the day after the election, the California state government announced that the deficit is really much bigger than what they said before. They now say it is about 25 billion dollars–practically one third of all state revenues.
So what is the real deficit? Politicians play with numbers to fit what they want to do.
Nov 22, 2010
Now that elections are over, Attorney General Mike Cox essentially gave final approval to the sale of the Detroit Medical Center (DMC) to for-profit Vanguard Health Systems. He says he is “requiring” Vanguard to carry on DMC’s charitable care–for 10 years. He and DMC’s CEO Mike Duggan repeat the lie that DMC would have had to close hospitals without the deal and say Vanguard will keep them open for 10 years.
Ten years is nothing–if that even happens. In exchange, Vanguard gets billions of dollars worth of land acquired with taxpayer money and a consolidated health care system built with tax breaks. It’s a scam!
Nov 22, 2010
Last Friday, K Bank, based in Owings Mills, failed. Like the other three Maryland banks that failed this year, they were closed on a Friday and re-opened on Monday under new ownership. M&T Bank took it over, as it did with the Bradford Bank in 2009.
It is another example of big banks gobbling up local, smaller banks. It also adds to the unemployment, with 120 K Bank workers scrambling to get another bank job.
Nationwide, 140 banks failed so far this year, a much higher number than last year. A sign that the capitalist economy is in a continuing crisis–one very profitable for the biggest thieves.
Nov 22, 2010
The largest solar energy plant in the world is currently under construction in the Mojave Desert, California. It is the first of nine such plants planned.
Of course, “clean energy” is a good idea–we already live with too much pollution. But this version of “clean energy” will actually damage the environment. To produce electricity, the plants will use sunlight to boil water. If this project is completed, the plants will suck millions of gallons of water from California’s arid land, which is already short of water.
The electricity produced by these plants will be much more expensive too, three times as expensive.
Why, then, build these plants in the first place? Because it’s another way for the government to hand billions of dollars to corporations like Bechtel, which is building the plant, and Morgan Stanley, the bank organizing investment in the project.
For the first plant alone, the U.S. Department of Energy will underwrite 1.4 billion dollars in loans, and the Treasury Department will grant 500 million dollars in cash. And that’s just for the construction. When these plants start producing electricity, the energy companies will be allowed to pass the inflated electricity costs on to consumers while the companies continue to get tax breaks.
In the hands of capitalists and their government, “saving the environment” turns out to be a scheme to rob working people.
Nov 22, 2010
The Detroit Public Schools have 128 certified teacher vacancies, filled by uncertified substitutes.
When the district refused to pay these subs more to compensate them for the extra work they’re doing, Detroit Federation of Teachers President Keith Johnson told them to stop doing that extra work: stop writing lesson plans, grading students and attending parent-teacher conferences.
Robert Bobb is outraged. “You should only babysit in the classroom, you should not do any instruction–that’s what he’s saying!” Bobb said.
Babysit–what does Bobb think is going on NOW, when substitutes are made to teach subjects they don’t even know?!
Now THAT’s an outrage. And Robert Bobb committed it!
Nov 22, 2010
Robert Bobb, “Emergency Financial Manager” of the Detroit Public Schools, has proposed a complicated financial maneuver, supposedly to help school districts in deficit, where the state of Michigan would use tobacco settlement money to float bonds to pay their debts.
On its face, it’s a crazy shell game pushing money around–increasing the debt of the state, the school districts, or both.
But even more than that, the plan would be a way for the state to use the debt of these districts to force them to attack their teachers and ultimately their students. All of the “deficit districts” are in urban or rural working class areas.
All districts that accept the state money must agree to some drastic attacks, including:
–Eliminating teacher seniority–which would allow districts to get rid of their highest paid teachers, who also happen to be the most experienced.
–Attacking teachers’ “tenure,” which is nothing more than a right to due process–allowing administrators to fire teachers for any reason, or no reason at all.
–Implementing “merit” pay, which really means cutting ALL teachers’ pay on the pretext that some will be able to make it up with bonuses.
–Establishing a longer school day and year, and eliminating school work rules–which means adding even more work onto the workload of already overworked teachers, who in addition to teaching must spend time planning, grading, meeting parents, and educating themselves in their fields, and who already work at it for 52 weeks out of the year.
Overloading teachers makes it impossible for them to teach. Removing the most experienced teachers means depriving students of their experience and expertise. ALL of these “reforms” would leave working class students with an even worse education than they already have.
All so the state can reduce money spent on education, in order to give it to the wealthy and their corporations.
This plan, proposed by Bobb and pushed by state legislators, is an out-and-out attack on working class children across the state of Michigan.
It’s disgusting!
Nov 22, 2010
The profits of six of the biggest private health insurance companies increased by 22% over last year. These companies include WellPoint Inc., UnitedHealth Group Inc., Aetna Inc., Humana Inc., Cigna Corp. and Coventry Health Care Inc.
These companies drove up their profits, even as the number of people without health insurance coverage increased by almost five million in just the last year.
How did the insurance companies make so much money in such a poor market? The companies did it the old fashioned way: by jacking up premiums, spending fewer premiums on medical care, purging unprofitable members, and burdening consumers with higher cost-sharing limits.
In other words, the insurance companies increased their profits and executive salaries by forcing those people still with insurance to pay much more money for much less health care.
There is no answer to the problems so long as health care is organized with the aim of making profit.
Nov 22, 2010
After 30 years of an ongoing economic crisis, with regular and worsening periods of high unemployment, the total U.S. prison population has now reached 1,612,000 people, one out of every 100 adults. One out of every eight working-age men has been in the so-called “correctional system.” It’s by far the worst record of any developed country–and worse than most underdeveloped countries.
Another of the “glories” of American capitalism.
Nov 22, 2010
Recently, California prison officials signed a contract with GEO Group. GEO gets 60 million dollars a year to house 2,600 inmates at an empty correctional facility in Baldwin, Michigan.
California, with a total inmate population of 175,000 people, has the world’s largest prison system per capita. Today, more than one out of every hundred adults living in California is imprisoned. Last year, a Federal court found this prison system to be overcrowded and inhumane and ordered the state of California to reduce its prison population by 46,000 inmates within two years.
According to the court, a substantial number of non-violent inmates jailed for minor infractions could be released. But the state rejected this proposal. Instead, California is now signing contracts with private corporations like GEO that will turn a big profit out of such schemes.
Obviously contracts will be costly and many people will simply rot in prison.
But this is not a problem for political schemers. Michigan Governor Jennifer Granholm welcomed the GEO contract with cynical joy. She wrote on her Facebook page that the contract means “450-plus new jobs will be coming to Lake County along with 60 million dollars in new investment.”
In other words, the future they prepare for us lies in prison, either behind or in front of bars, but nevertheless in prison.
Nov 22, 2010
On November 15, clashes took place between the population, the police and soldiers from the United Nations in several Haitian cities. At least two people were killed and several others injured.
The Haitian population suspects that the cholera epidemic was brought by the soldiers from Nepal who arrived in Haiti on October 15. The first case of cholera, a disease that had disappeared in Haiti over a century ago, reappeared five days later. The particular strain of the disease in Haiti is also known to exist in Nepal. In addition, the epidemic in Haiti began along the Artibonite River, near a garrison of United Nations troops including Nepalese soldiers.
Haitians are fed up with being victimized by the carelessness of the ruling classes that this cholera epidemic demonstrates. It has already killed more than a thousand people and sickened some 14,000 more.
The following translation comes from La Voix des Travailleurs (Workers Voice), a monthly newspaper written by militants of the Organization of Revolutionary Workers in Haiti.
The number of cholera deaths is undoubtedly higher than the numbers given officially. The health authorities rely on the figures given by the large hospitals in the central areas. But they don’t bother to go into the more remote areas as they prefer to stay safely at home rather than visit the sick. Phone calls between Haitians in Port-au-Prince and those in outlying areas show the epidemic continues to spread, especially in rural areas where the illness first appeared.
The heath minister and other officials–lying as often as they breathe–declared the epidemic contained even before there were another 300 deaths. While they blab into the journalists’ microphones, the cholera continues to spread in four other areas of the country.
Of course the epidemic is not contained. It is a disease easily transmitted from feces to mouth, from contaminated water and food, from a lack of a clean and stable environment for those ill. In a country that lacks not only purified water and pipes for sewage but also soap, what can be expected except the spread of this kind of disease? And where are the doctors, nurses and health aides needed to contain and treat the cholera?
The largest river in Haiti, the Artibonite, is contaminated by sewage. The most plausible hypothesis, admitted by everyone except the United Nations troops, is that the river is at the origins of the cholera epidemic.
And even more shameful is that the population near the river has to drink this unhealthy polluted water. They have no other choice.
Throughout the country, less than one in three schools has clean drinking water–even according to the ministry of education.
The situation is all the more alarming because all the factors exist in Haiti to spread this cholera epidemic: poverty, lack of awareness concerning drinking water, sanitation problems, the lack of septic systems, not to mention the floods caused by Hurricane Thomas. Even in the cities, much of the population in the enormous slums has no place to urinate or defecate. With no toilets, people have to use the ground, which then contaminates the area and nearby water.
Here is the face of capitalism in poor countries like Haiti, where a handful of businessmen–along with their flunkeys in power–enrich themselves at the expense of the poor. That is why we must get rid of this unjust, irrational and inhumane social system.
Nov 22, 2010
Congress refused to renew unemployment benefits for the long-term unemployed. Some two million people across the country will now be cut off.
Even if the bill had passed, it would have ignored all those who have been out of work for more than 99 weeks. In Michigan alone, 143,000 people have used up their unemployment benefits.
Yet Congress would not pass even something this minimal.
The Republicans had the nerve to pretend they cannot “find” the money to pay for the bill. They had no trouble, though, finding trillions of dollars for the banks.
The Democrats were almost worse. Pretending to want to pass the bill they introduced it in a way that guaranteed defeat. They could have brought the bill up before the elections to force some Senate Republicans to vote for it. They didn’t.
Instead, they put the bill forward under a complicated procedure requiring a 67% majority in the House, rather than the normal 51% House majority. The final vote was “only” 63% in favor–not enough to pass it, yet allowing the Democrats to claim to be standing up for unemployed workers.
Both parties are playing politics with people’s very lives. Scum!
Nov 22, 2010
Exxon, the world’s biggest oil company, had 7.4 billion dollars in profits just for the last three months. Chevron had 3.8 billion dollars. Shell was in third place with only 3.5 billion dollars in profits.
BP’s accounts have been weighed down by the drilling platform catastrophe in the Gulf of Mexico. It put aside 40 billion dollars, of which 12 billion was already spent. But don’t cry for BP–it still made 1.8 billion dollars in profits for the last three months.
The oil companies are floating in an ocean of profits.
Nov 22, 2010
We are only going into the second year of the VEBA, but there are already new cuts and increased co-pays for retiree health care coverage at the Big Three auto companies. The latest round of attacks, which will begin on January 1, 2011, are the biggest ones so far.
It’s a big attack on drug coverage–with increased co-pays for brand medication and with a 3rd tier drug category added requiring you to pay $80 for a 30-day prescription for many drugs.
It’s a big attack on who you can see–will you have a right to see a doctor or will they start funneling people into seeing a Physician’s Assistant or a Nurse Practitioner?
It’s a big attack on how much you pay–retirees will have to pay a $50 co-pay to use Urgent Care and your visits to an HMO doctor go up 150%–and more because all referrals were covered in the fee you paid to your primary care doctor.
And despite promises that you can now keep your children on your medical plan until they reach age 26, there are so many restrictions, hardly anyone will qualify.
This is not a guarantee of medical care for the next 80 years–as UAW officials promised–it’s already the start of eliminating medical coverage.
Thieves!
Nov 22, 2010
The “Deficit Commission” proposes cuts to Social Security, veterans’ pensions, government workers’ wages and certain benefit payments–not directly, but by messing with the Cost of Living Adjustment (COLA) of these benefits.
COLA is based not on the real rate of inflation but on a fictitious index called the Consumer Price Index (CPI). As every Social Security recipient knows, the COLA has been zero for the past two years. Prices on necessities have gone up and up, but there is no COLA increase because–so says the government–there’s no inflation!
That’s because the government has been messing with the CPI ever since 1980. Officials have played all sorts of tricks to be able to say that the rate of inflation is much lower than it actually is. At this point, the CPI understates the actual inflation by about 7% every year. Without all those tricks, Social Security checks would be twice as big today as they actually are! (Check out Shadow Government Statistics website for full details.)
But, for example, if prices on certain items go up, consumers often are forced to adjust what they buy downward, like buying hamburger instead of steak. That’s a decrease in our standard of living, but it shows up as no rise in price in the CPI–since you pay less for hamburger than for steak.
Likewise, prices on goods like cars and cellphones might be going up, taking up a bigger and bigger share of our incomes–but it doesn’t show up on the CPI. Since our cars and cellphones have more gadgets and doo-dads than they used to, they’re a “better value”–and therefore supposedly don’t cost us more! Except that just to get a cell phone or a car, we pay a higher price than before.
The Deficit Commission is now proposing to tinker with the CPI once again, driving down the benefits and wages of anyone whose COLA depends on it.
And when we’re eating cat food, they’ll still tell us it’s the same as eating steak!
Nov 22, 2010
Salmonella in eggs has been responsible for nine deaths, hundreds of illnesses and the recall of five hundred million eggs in recent months.
The salmonella bacteria has been known to cause deaths for decades. In fact, one of the companies involved in this wave of deaths, DeCoster’s egg business, was blamed in a 1982 salmonella- related death in Maine. State of Maine inspecting and testing has continued to show the presence of salmonella at DeCoster’s farms. Recent tests in Iowa showed salmonella in DeCoster eggs at least 73 times in the last two years.
DeCoster has paid many fines over the years for health violations. Yet DeCoster continues to be allowed to kill and sicken with salmonella.
“When infected eggs still make it from the farm to the table, we know we have more work to do. That’s why today I am taking new action on food safety to cut in half, over the next five years, the number of salmonella cases attributed to eggs,” said the President of the United States. Sounds good, right? But that was President Clinton!
Eleven years later, the FDA has still not established rules to regulate egg cleanliness. Congress has done nothing. And people continue to die.
Nov 22, 2010
On November 10, some fifty thousand students invaded the center of London to protest rising costs in education.
The numbers completely surprised the organizers, including a group tied to the right of the Labor Party. The police were not even in sight when the students briefly blocked the entrance to the Conservative Party headquarters.
The organizers called the protest against a government commission reporting on problems in financing higher education. Led by a former CEO of British Petroleum, the commission proposed to triple what students had to pay toward their education costs–even if the costs went up to about $14,000 per year, triple what costs had been. And the increase in costs would apply to all branches of higher education, after the government had already done away with most scholarships that aided students from lower income levels.
What it means, given the high cost of living in most university towns, is that students would run up debt approaching $65,000 for three years. And interest would be added to the debt, despite special conditions for those who earn lower wages once they start working.
In brief, the costs are really a form of discrimination in favor of those whose families are rich enough to afford the costs of higher education.
In the past, the low tuition allowed some children from working class backgrounds to attend universities and colleges. No wonder there was such an outburst of anger at the London demonstration.
Throughout Britain, many workers saw with pleasure this outbreak from the young against the prime minister and his new financial initiatives. Another demonstration is planned in several different cities for November 24.
Perhaps the government’s plans will provoke a British student movement not seen since the 1960s.
Nov 22, 2010
The FDA is supposed to ensure that commercially produced food and drugs are safe. But it has so few inspectors that most plants are not visited in years. And there are 250,000 more places overseas that supply food to the U.S. for which the FDA has no inspectors nor money.
The food industry, hiring their own inspectors, pretends to guarantee safe, clean food. The food businesses themselves decide who they will hire to inspect.
Some firms specialize in high-quality inspections with international standards. But most companies prefer the other ones! Wright County Egg, one of the big producers under investigation for the salmonella outbreak in August, had received a superior inspection rating–by a private inspection company paid for by Wright. They pay for a “clean bill of health” no matter how filthy the premises.
“It’s a business strategy, not a public health strategy,” said a former assistant commissioner of the FDA, David Acheson. And business strategy puts profits ahead of people.
That’s what makes it a killer system!
Nov 22, 2010
Wall Street whiz Steve Rattner was head of the Obama crew that ran GM and Chrysler through bankruptcy, and forced workers to pay for it with heavy concessions and the loss of the right to strike.
Rattner has now been sued by New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo. Cuomo says Rattner paid kickbacks to a pension fund in return for its business.
And he just settled SEC insider-trading fraud charges by paying a 6.2 million dollar fine and agreeing to “not associate” with any investment adviser for two years. The SEC charge said, “Rattner delivered special favors and conducted sham transactions that corrupted the Retirement Fund’s investment process.”
Yes, a specialist in sham transactions and corrupt processes was just exactly what GM, Chrysler, and Obama needed to run those sham bankruptcies!
Nov 22, 2010
Working for months in secret, waiting until the election was over, the “Deficit-Cutting Commission” quietly presented its preliminary recommendations.
The two co-chairs of the Commission–one Republican, one Democrat–said it’s necessary to cut the U.S. budget deficit. They say it’s intolerable.
Agreed. But what caused the deficit? Why not cut the enormous expenditures that created it?
Bush’s tax cuts to the wealthy contributed four trillion dollars to the budget deficit. Cut them, you get four trillion dollars over ten years–which is exactly the amount the commission says it would cut.
The Bush/Obama wars, justified by lies, added another three trillion dollars–one trillion directly, two indirectly.
The Bush/Obama bailout to the banks cost more than four trillion dollars. No one knows how much more. No real audit has ever been made public.
AND the bank bailout goes on. The Federal Reserve started to give the banks almost another trillion dollars two weeks ago.
It’s obvious what drains the budget–obvious what should be cut.
Instead, the Commission is floating a complicated plan to take money from working people:
• Social Security benefits for current retirees will be cut by “revising”–once again–the Consumer Price Index (CPI) which determines COLA adjustments.
• Veterans’ pensions will be cut by the same tricky revision of the CPI.
• Current workers–government and private–whose wages depend on COLA will also face cuts because of the fakery with the CPI.
• Medicare is to be cut, making current retirees pay more in premiums and co-pays, while reducing coverage for some services.
• Medicaid coverage for long-term care in a nursing home is severely cut back.
• Regular Medicaid is cut by requiring a bigger co-pay on services.
• Coming generations will have to work longer before they could draw Social Security.
• Veterans will have to wait longer before they collect their pensions.
• Government workers will have their pay frozen for three years. Not just fat cat politicians and presidential advisers, but clerks, park workers, maintenance workers, and so on–plus soldiers.
• These same workers will have to pay half the money going toward their pensions.
• Soldiers’ and veterans’ health care will be cut.
• The number of government jobs will be cut by 10%–not the top jobs, but the ordinary workers, affecting not only those workers, but reducing the services they provide and we need–roads and bridges, unemployment benefits, public transport, inspection of workplace safety, food safety, drug safety, environmental safety, etc.
Using the pretext of the government’s budget deficit, these hyenas are proposing cuts so massive that the standard of living of the whole working class and other layers of the population will plummet.
Nov 22, 2010
The Deficit Commission will try to sell its plan by pretending to cut taxes for everyone.
In reality, they propose to lower the tax rate for the wealthy layers by 12%, while lowering taxes for the lower layers of the working class by only 2%.
But it’s worse than that–because other changes would end up raising the taxes we pay:
• Tax credits that many working people count on today (“earned income credit” and “child tax credit”) would be eliminated.
• Mortgage interest deduction from taxes would be eliminated.
• Employer-provided medical benefits would count as income, making us pay taxes on our medical coverage.
PLUS–36 different flat taxes and fees that hit ordinary income the hardest would go up:
• Gasoline taxes would be increased.
• Rural electricity rates increased.
• Fees for government services–parks, passports, etc.–increased every year.
• The Universal Service Fund we pay through our phone bills would increase.
• And because we will work longer, we will pay more Medicare and Social Security taxes.
Formally, the tax rate on our income tax would go down slightly, but with all the changes and the increases in other taxes and fees, overall we will pay more to the government.
The Commission’s plan is not a plan to cut the deficit–it’s a plot to use the deficit as a pretext to give still more money to the wealthy and the corporations.
It’s an outrage!