Yes, some U.S. combat troops are being taken out of Iraq. But U.S. troops are not going home. The U.S. is shifting troops to Afghanistan, and the other wars U.S. officials don't talk about.

Obama says there will be "only" 50,000 U.S. troops left in Iraq. Only! Fifty thousand still constitutes an enormous occupation army. And they are to be reinforced in every way possible. There are already more than twice as many mercenaries and private contractors as U.S. troops, and the State Department recently announced plans to hire thousands more over the next few months. U.S. aircraft, most of which are based outside Iraq, continue to bomb, strafe and carry out rocket attacks. U.S. Special Forces -- also not counted in the 50,000 -- continue to carry out assassinations and terrorist attacks, black box operations which are almost never reported on. And the U.S. has paid for and put together from scratch its own colonial army -- the Iraqi army and police force, with U.S. officers as "trainers."

The vast U.S. embassy in Baghdad's Green Zone is at the center of these operations. More than 80 football fields in size, it is already the largest embassy anywhere in the world. This monstrosity symbolizes U.S. imperialism's real plans: to turn Iraq into its own colonial fiefdom, to control its people and resources, including all that untapped oil, as well as to tighten its grip over the entire Middle East region and all of its riches.

Like all big imperial powers, the U.S. continues -- and will continue -- to play on ethnic divisions, bribery and corruption, thus feeding the wars fought by Iraqi factions to get a share of the booty from the U.S. occupation. These wars are becoming increasingly violent. Despite Obama's lies that violence in Iraq is down to levels that are "the lowest it's been in years," July was the bloodiest month in over a year. And August is already worse. On just one day, August 7, close to 100 people were killed in gun battles, bombings and assassinations in Baghdad, Basra, Fallujah, Mosul, as well as in Diyala Province.

For the Iraqi people, the U.S. war and occupation is a complete catastrophe. It has already cost the lives of well over a million people. And it remains so dangerous, millions more -- who were forced to flee the violence and ethnic cleansing many years ago -- are still too afraid to return home. They continue to live as refugees, either in other parts of Iraq or outside the country.

The U.S. war continues to destroy much of the country and infrastructure, with big parts of the cities turned to rubble. As for the lies about how the U.S. spent 60 billion dollars to rebuild the country -- all of that went to enrich big U.S. contractors, as well as to buy the loyalty of Iraqi henchmen. There is still little or no electricity or drinkable water, streets are strewn with garbage and raw sewage, and basic services, such as health care and education are practically non-existent. All of this in a country which was once among the most advanced in the Middle East.

In many ways, Iraq is this generation's Viet Nam. In Viet Nam, after more than a decade of war, the U.S. encountered so much resistance and opposition from the populations in Viet Nam and the U.S., by 1968 it was forced to announce that it was starting to "drawn down." But the U.S. remained in Viet Nam for another seven long years of war, a period when the U.S. carried out some of its most terrible bombing and destruction. The U.S. finally left only because it was forced out by the Vietnamese and the rebellion of U.S. troops, with the last stragglers at the U.S. embassy shoving their way onto overcrowded helicopters. Otherwise, the U.S. would be in Viet Nam to this day, as it still is in Korea.

Working people of this country have also paid a steep price for this war. We cannot afford to wait for the U.S. to get out of Iraq, neither for ourselves, nor for U.S. soldiers, nor for the common human solidarity we hold for the Iraqi people.

Newspapers are full of stories telling us that this price rise is caused by shortages, due to floods in Canada and drought in Russia.

But in fact, there is no shortage. Daniel W. Basse, president of AgResource, an agricultural consultant firm, has said, "This is still going to be the third-largest wheat crop in world history, even with the Russian shortfall." Wheat stocks in the United States are at a 23-year high.

Nonetheless, wheat prices have risen by 90 percent since June.

Speculation, not shortage, is the cause.

Agricultural investment funds, controlled by large banks, establish the prices for goods like wheat by how much they buy and sell. One of the first such funds was created in 1991 by Goldman Sachs, and now they've multiplied to the point that they dominate the entire agricultural market. A United Nations report estimated that in 2008, fully 80 percent of the world wheat contracts were controlled by such investment funds. That allows them to drive prices up at the drop of a hat.

Here in the United States, that means that we'll be paying higher prices for bread and pasta. We saw prices double in 2008, and they never came back down to their earlier levels; now, they'll rise again -- at a time when more and more families can't afford the slightest price rise.

But in other areas of the world, the effect is catastrophic: skyrocketing prices means outright starvation for millions of people in places like Egypt, Nigeria, or the Philippines.

Firms like Goldman-Sachs will starve millions of people more -- only to line their pockets.

Soon after the government claimed that the oil was so "dispersed" it no longer posed a problem, scientists -- including some the government had hand-picked -- disagreed. They also pointed out that even if only one-quarter of all the oil released was still a problem, this one-quarter alone was about six times all the oil released in the Exxon Valdez oil disaster in Alaska. Damage from that spill is still continuing today -- more than 21 years after it happened!

Who should we believe? BP and the government, both of whom have repeatedly been caught in lies, or scientists who expose those lies -- despite the risk they take to do it?

Obvious, isn't it?

What he didn't bother to mention was Congress had stolen part of the money to fund the two measures -- from the funding for food stamps!

Just at the time when 1.4 million people have been out of work for 99 weeks or more, making them ineligible for further extensions of their unemployment benefits -- the politicians are cutting the last program that provides them with something to live on!

It's hardly something to crow about.

Billionaires like Michael Bloomberg, the mayor of New York; Ted Turner, the former owner of CNN; Baron Hilton of the hotel chain of that name; the financier George Soros, who is a super-big speculator; and George Lucas, who directed Star Wars, have signed on.

Generous? Hardly!

The wealth of these people didn't fall from the sky. It came from the growing exploitation of an ever larger portion of humanity, exploitation which robs us of the value of our labor and destroys the very fabric of society.

With one hand these exploiters donate, while with the other they're busy grasping for still more.

No wonder! The airlines have cut thousands of jobs while pushing more work on fewer people. And since airlines started charging passengers to check their luggage, the carry-on baggage situation has gone crazy, making it impossible for passengers and crew members alike.

So yes, people identify. Similar attacks have been carried out in every industry.

Don't we all -- in the words of someone who wrote to the New York Times -- wish our workplace came equipped with an evacuation slide?

Talk about killing two birds with one stone!

It's a vile attack. But politicians justify it, saying that people live longer than when Social Security was passed in 1935.

Yes, we're living longer. But we are vastly more productive at work. And this greater productivity could let every one of us retire at 55 or 60, with a much bigger check from Social Security -- if the increased wealth produced by our work came to those of us who do the work.

Let arrogant politicians work to 70, let them get an actual job! But for many of us -- who do work all our lives -- working to 70 would be a death sentence. "Many older workers are in jobs that require substantial physical effort, jobs that may not afford them the option of working into their 70s." This is the conclusion of a study done by the Center for Economic and Policy Research.

We're not ready to die at work, and we don't intend to starve to death on a reduced benefit because we go out at 65.

No cuts to Social Security!

In its April issue, Scientific American magazine reported about a new discovery in brain science. Recent measurements made on the brains of depression and PTSD patients showed something that scientists had not been able to observe before: in patients with these mental disorders, there seemed to be an electrical â€" that is, physical â€" abnormality in different brain parts that deal with fear and anxiety.

What is so significant about this discovery? The fact that a physical abnormality in a living person's brain has been linked with a problem that, so far, has been considered purely "mental" â€" that is, not physical.

It's true that there was the case of Phineas Gage, the American railroad worker who, in 1848, had a 1½-inch-thick iron rod go straight through his head. Gage lived â€" which allowed scientists to link the physical damage in Gage's brain to his changed behavior. But how many people survive such an accident? Maybe one in a million, maybe even less!

And it's also true that, for some time, we have had technology that gives us detailed, 3-D pictures of the brains of living people. These pictures allow us to see physical changes in a person's brain â€" such as the dead part in the brain of a stroke patient. Or, they show us chemical abnormalities â€" such as the plaque in the brain of an Alzheimer's or Parkinson's patient.

For sure, these brain scans are very helpful for doctors in providing treatment for their patients. But still, there is a problem. The dead part in the brain of a stroke patient is just that â€" dead, and apparently incurable. And the chemical changes in the brain of an Alzheimer's or Parkinson's patient can be detected only at a point when the illness is at an advanced stage, when it's already beyond cure â€" or beyond any effective treatment even.

In fact, from these scans scientists usually can't even tell what, physically, is causing these illnesses.

And that's the key word right there â€" cause. Today we don't know how to cure many illnesses and disorders associated with the brain, because we don't know their physical causes.

How the Brain Works

We do know some things about the brain, of course â€" so we can start there.

We know that the brain regulates all functions of the body. That's an enormous task. So the brain works very hard, and it never stops. That's why, as scientists have found out, the brain alone uses 20 per cent of the body's energy.

Yes, the brain regulates literally all the functions of the body. For example, you touch something â€" you would not feel the heat if your brain didn't tell you that. It doesn't feel like that, of course. We naturally think it's the finger that feels, not the brain â€" especially since the finger also suffers physical damage if it's too hot. But it is the brain that feels â€" or more accurately communicates with the rest of the body about what is happening. First the brain gets a signal from the finger, and then sends back another signal to the finger, which says, "HOT!"

So this communication with all parts of the body â€" how does the brain do that, physically? Through the nerves, which look like wires. And sure enough, the signals between the brain and the other parts of the body are electrical in nature! Now we can begin to understand what's going on.

Think of the light switch â€" how fast electricity travels through wires. That's what it is. Look at the nervous system in the body â€" just like a network of electrical wires. And the brain itself â€" a collection of electrical circuits; just like a computer. Except that the brain is far more complex than any computer human beings have been capable of building.

The essential thing to keep in mind is that the brain is electrical â€" it functions on the principle of electric pulses traveling through it.

And therein lies the new hope, actually. Today, for the first time, we have enough technology to measure small electrical currents inside the brain by putting sensors on a person's head. That way, we can follow the communication between different parts of the brain, as a person, alive, goes through all the activities of living.

The brain parts have to communicate with each other all the time â€" communicate with each other and work together with each other. They have to, because anything and everything we do involves more than one part of the brain.

Since brain activity is electrical, it can be measured with certain types of electric sensors. Unusual, or abnormal, activity can be detected in different parts of the brain of a â€" without causing any physical harm to the brain; and, possibly, while there's time for a cure.

Treating Mental Illness: Trial and Error

I want to use PTSD as an example to show why treating brain disorders â€" especially those we call "mental" disorders â€" has been so difficult. Post-traumatic stress disorder â€" as the name implies, it's a mental disorder that follows a traumatic experience. It's common among combat veterans. Symptoms include nightmares, flashbacks â€" it's as if the person is going through another traumatic experience, not only with all the fear, anxiety, all the emotions; but even with some physical features of the event, such as sound and smell.

PTSD is the most recent name for this disorder. Historically, it's been called other things, such as shell shock, battle fatigue, etc. And military and government officials have even denied that such a disorder exists. Part of the reason authorities have been able to get away with denial is because not every battle veteran shows these symptoms.

By the way, this is nothing unusual. Take, for example, cancer caused by asbestos contamination. When asbestos in a building is dislodged, a fine asbestos dust goes into the air. You don't see the dust, but you inhale it. It stays in your throat and lungs â€" and, in the long run, it can cause cancer. So workers, who work with and around asbestos and who are exposed to asbestos dust, are at risk. But not all of them get cancer â€" and, for decades, companies have used this fact to deny responsibility (and government regulators and courts have allowed them to get away with it).

Another example is habits people have â€" or even addictions, what are called chemical dependencies. For example, smoking cigarettes. Some people who have the habit can't get rid of it. Others can. Some people don't even seem to be prone to addiction from cigarettes.

Everyone's body, chemically and physically, functions a little differently â€" a difference that we notice in situations like this, but can't explain physically. I think that's an explanation people would accept today. And because we don't have a physical explanation, when we deal with a problem like an addiction, all we can do is to try different solutions â€" which work for some people, and don't work for others.

But it has been the same with mental illness, for centuries. Trial and error â€" that's all medical science has been able to do. Because we have never fully been able to observe the physical workings of the brain, every treatment, every kind of care medicine has come up with to help people with mental problems has remained at the level of trial and error. It has worked for some, and it has not worked for others. Even the most modern treatments â€" psychiatric counseling, anti-depressant drugs â€" have remained just that: trial and error. It works for one patient, but not for the other. And we don't know why. It has been very, very frustrating â€" and it still is â€" for people who struggle with some kind of mental problem and, of course, for their families and friends.

From "Mental" to Physical

It's really important for people to understand that there actually are physical reasons behind the illnesses we call "mental." In fact, the very word "mental" implies that the illness is not physical. And that, in turn, makes people view these kinds of illnesses under a different light than other illnesses.

To put it more bluntly, there is a stigma attached to what we call "mental illness." But then, historically, that has been true for practically every kind of illness. In the old days, people shunned those who were sick; ran away from them, isolated them, whether the illness was contagious or not â€" which increased the suffering of the sick even more. People's attitude toward many illnesses â€" and those who had them â€" changed when science was able to explain the physical causes of those illnesses â€" such as germs, cancerous cells, or a physical condition in the body. The same way, people's attitudes toward the mentally ill will improve â€" when it's clear to people that what we call "mental" illness, like other types of illness, has physical causes.

When we don't understand why one combat veteran gets PTSD and another doesn't, when we don't understand why, under stressful work conditions, one co-worker succumbs to depression and another doesn't, that makes it possible, and easier, for some to blame those who are ill, and say: "See, it's all in your head!"

But that's exactly why this recent discovery is so significant. Because this new finding now says: "No, it's not in your head! It's not your fault! The way your brain functions, there is a physical reason why you show the symptoms and others don't!"

So yes, there is a new hope now â€" because now we actually can begin to see, measure â€" and understand â€" the physical workings of the brain.

There is hope that we are at the beginning of a path that can lead us to better, more effective treatments for a whole range of disorders and illnesses that are seen as "mental" today.

When scientists see more in detail what electrical changes happen in the brain during a certain brain disorder, they can understand why, for example, a drug works and another doesn't for a particular patient. They can also find ways to reduce the side effects that a drug has on that patient. Perhaps they can also come up with new drugs, which are more effective and have fewer side effects.

And, finally, there is now hope that, eventually, we'll be able to cure some mental illnesses altogether.

And why not? We have been able to do that for so many illnesses that, at one time in the past, were thought to be impossible to cure because no one understood their physical causes.

Then, perhaps, we will also discard from the name of these illnesses the label "mental" â€" and, with it, all the stigma we attach to that label today!

The movement has gone on for months, fueled by high price increases which struck workers hard. Tens of thousands of workers were involved last June, forcing 700 mills employing 800,000 workers to close their doors for a time.

The government's proposal to raise the monthly wage from only $24 to $43, while the unions demanded $72, was seen as worse than insulting and stoked the workers' anger. On July 31, more than 20,000 workers stopped work in Dacca, going from factory to factory, blocking roads to the north and south, occupying streets downtown and sometimes forcing the police to retreat.

The Bangladesh textile industry employs around 3.5 million workers, mainly women, who are among the lowest paid in the world. These factories produce for some of the biggest and wealthiest companies and Western brands such as Wal-Mart, Tesco, H&M, Zara, Carrefour, Gap, Marks & Spencer and Levi Strauss. The human rights group Action Aid says, "the sales of H&M are higher than the total annual government budget of Bangladesh." One factory producing for H&M had a fire last February which killed 21 workers.

Not content from super-exploiting workers, these businesses cynically threaten to go to China or Viet Nam, where they also have subcontractors. But these threats, reinforced by the government and Bangladeshi bosses for the past months, have been ineffective. The Bangladeshi workers know that in China workers are also striking.

"The UAW is showing the way. What they're basically telling the economy is the defined pension benefit is dead.

"That retiree health from the company is dead. That high wages at the start of your career are gone."

We're in a war, a class war. And union leaders who push concessions are traitors to the working class. Time for a new fighting policy and leaders who stand for it!

When the Big Three tried to exact huge concessions from their workforces, executives like Bill Ford offered to give up all or part of their salaries, pretending that the company and the workers were all in this together.

Together? Come talk to us about togetherness when you offer us a check for the $30,000 we lost, when you get rid of two-tier, when you fund retiree health care fully, when you restore our lost breaks, when you restore all the jobs you cut, when you reduce the line speed, when ....

You get the picture!

The local membership at a GM stamping plant in Indianapolis voted not to reopen their contract to allow concessions. The local shop committee, respecting the membership, refused to reopen.

International leaders worked out a big concessions deal with the company anyway -- despite clear language in the UAW Constitution preventing them from doing it. They said they found "a loophole"!

Gangsters stop at nothing!

Workers in Indianapolis know all about gangster tactics -- they have been subjected to threats, bribes and other less polite tactics.

Today, as we write, Indianapolis workers are in a meeting -- hopefully, they are giving these goons for the company the welcome they deserve.

And then the Indianapolis workers vote.

We don't know the result. But what's happened so far in Indianapolis is important for every GM worker, every auto worker. GM is trying to cut wages at ALL the stamping plants -- by first cutting Indianapolis, which is isolated, then using those much lower wages to force every other plant to give in. After stamping, comes the rest of GM's empire.

It's time to throw concessions back in the bosses' face. Time to throw so-called union leaders who front for the bosses out with the garbage!

The same politicians who claim the city has a nearly 500-million-dollar budget deficit nonetheless handed out big gifts to wealthy businessmen. Gifts paid for by cuts in library hours and more than 100 librarians laid off. Gifts paid for by cuts and early retirement forced on city workers.

Don't tell us that tax breaks create jobs. Politicians have been telling that lie for decades. No jobs were created -- only more profits for the wealthy.

These included two University of Phoenix campuses, two Kaplan University campuses, and a university run by Education Management Corp, or EDMC.

Kaplan is owned by the Washington Post company, and its 212 million dollars represented 80 percent of the Washington Post's operating income last year. EDMC, with an annual revenue of 2.4 billion dollars, is part-owned by Goldman-Sachs.

Clearly, "education" has become a big business. And, this take-over of education by wolves out to make a profit has the backing of the U.S. government. Last year, for-profit colleges received the proceeds from one quarter of the government's Pell grants and Stafford loans, even though they enroll less than one-tenth of the students.

At every single campus the GAO investigated, admissions counselors lied to prospective students -- about their credentials, about expected job pay, and about financial aid. At the Kaplan campuses, officials told students that Kaplan had the same accreditation as Harvard. And several campuses advised students to commit fraud on their financial aid applications.

These places are nothing but high-priced scam artists, telling students anything to get them in the door. They charge outrageous tuition, then arrange loans that the students can't afford. Students routinely rack up debts of up to $100,000 for a degree they find is worthless. Once the colleges get paid, the students end up defaulting on their loans more often than not. Repayment rates at for-profit schools are 36 percent.

That's the only thing bothering the government: that these students are defaulting and the government isn't getting paid back.

This is what happens when education is turned over to profit-making machines. These companies make that profit by hook or by crook, taking advantage of people desperate for some way to get a leg up on getting a job.

According to the county prosecutor in Flint, there was no evidence that the attacks were racist. Evidence? What more evidence is needed when a white serial killer chooses black men almost exclusively as his victims?

Evidence of racism? How about this: for nearly three months, officials gave no warning while a white man was attacking and murdering black men on the streets of Flint.

The killer made no effort to change his vehicle, his style of dress, or the way he lured victims to his SUV, asking them for help. How many of those black men would still be alive and unharmed if the warning had been given?

The killer stabbed nine victims between July 26 and August 3, more than one per day, before the police finally held a press conference on August 4 to announce they had a serial killer on their hands.

Stopping the murder of black men was, by all evidence, not an official priority. What could be more racist than that?

Mott's demanded a $1.50-an-hour wage cut, an increase in workers' share of health care premiums and other costs, a freeze on pensions, and elimination of pensions for new hires -- the kinds of concessions that companies all over the country have been stealing for years.

During negotiations, the plant manager told workers that they "were a commodity like soybeans and oil, and the price of commodities goes up and down....[that] there are thousands of people in this area without jobs, and Mott could hire any one of them for $14 an hour."

In that one statement, we hear the arrogance of the whole capitalist class -- their intention to use the bad times that the capitalists themselves created in order to keep on wringing even more concessions out of labor. Even when the capitalists are making a big profit.

It seems to be an unequal fight. Mott is part of a monster conglomerate -- Dr. Pepper Snapple Group, which includes 50 brands, among them 7Up and Hawaiian Punch. And, of course, behind this food industry conglomerate stand the big banks, and most particularly Wells Fargo Bank. Not to mention the media, most of the politicians and the other enforcers of modern day capitalist society.

But these 305 workers have something on their side. They are part of a class, the working class. Together our class has the forces to throw back all the industrialists and all their bankers. And large parts of the working class are fed up today with what's happening.

Witness the "NO" votes springing up here and there this past year. It may not have started when Ford workers nationwide turned down another demand for concessions last October. But that one vote, coming as it did in the face of a union bureaucracy intent on doing the bosses' dirty work, was a declaration of independence.

What Ford workers set in motion, other workers picked up: city and county workers in Detroit, Michigan; former Delphi workers; teachers in other states; GM workers in Indianapolis. Every one of them was a declaration of intent: we will not give up any more.

But it can't stop there, just with "NO." To enforce our "NO," we must be prepared to fight. And that's why the Mott strike going on today near Rochester, New York is important. Perhaps it marks the next step in the long road to defend ourselves, our families and our communities.

When we join in to make our own fight, we will reinforce what's going on at Mott's, giving those workers a much better chance to win, giving ourselves the way to start taking back what we gave up.

It's appropriate that Labor Day 2010 is marked by a militant strike, and by resistance from other workers. The sleeping giant has to wake up.

He's hardly alone. Here are other top executives from American companies in the oil industry, with their salaries as listed in their last annual reports:

Ray Irani, Occidental Petroleum, 31.4 million dollars;

James Hackett, Anadarko Petroleum, 27.5 million dollars;

Rex Tillerson, ExxonMobil, 27.2 million dollars;

Aubrey McClendon, Chesapeake Energy, 18.5 million dollars;

D.J. O'Reilly, Chevron, 16.5 million dollars;

James Mulva, ConocoPhillips, 15 million dollars;

David Lesar, Halliburton, 12.4 million dollars.

The median pay for all full-time workers in the U.S. is about $35,000 per year. These chief execs take anywhere from 400 to 1,000 times what we get per year. And they made it off of workers' hard and often unsafe labor.

The transit union officials back Proposition 22 because they say it will save transit jobs. But the teachers, nurses and firefighter union officials oppose Prop 22 because they say it will mean big cuts in funding and jobs for education, health care and firefighting.

Sounds like the different union officials are asking us to fight each other over scraps.

Why not take the money for ALL these necessary services from the big corporations, the banks and the wealthy that own them? Stop using state revenue as their private purse.

The politicians keep saying things are getting better. Getting better for who? Their wealthy friends?

New Orleans Mayor Mitch Landrieu took some heat on this question when he spoke at a recent community meeting. Residents asked why they still had to travel miles outside their neighborhood to find any grocery store, any doctor, or any hospital. The mayor said communities "were promised more than there is money to do."

What a lie! Plenty of money has been spent through the Gulf Opportunity Zone Act of 2005. Only none of it went for rebuilding in the hardest-hit areas like the Lower Ninth Ward.

Instead, disaster relief money has been lavished on oil companies in the Gulf of Mexico. Marathon Oil got one billion dollars for expanding a refinery and 120 million for an offshore tank storage facility. Exxon Mobil got 375 million to improve a Baton Rouge refinery and chemical plant. Money went to companies that construct offshore rigs or pipelines.

Other money went to real-estate developers who bought luxury condos near the University of Alabama football stadium. Or to owners of beachfront luxury homes in Mississippi.

If you add up all the tax-free bonds, tax credits and other benefits extended to big business throughout Louisiana, Alabama and Mississippi, the federal disaster relief package is enormous.

How dare Mayor Landrieu tell the people of New Orleans there isn't money. Tens of billions of dollars were handed out. It's only when the neighborhood in need is working class, and especially if it's black and poor -- then officials find they have "no money."

Bell borrowed the money from Dexia in 2006, to buy some federal land for Burlington Northern Santa Fe Railroad. Burlington -- owned by Warren Buffet -- was supposed to lease the land. But after Bell bought the land, Burlington backed away from the deal. Taxpayers ended up with the debt.

Bell is not the first town which ran up enormous debts in the service of the wealthy class. It's just one of the first where these debts have been so clearly exposed.

Where will the next domino fall?

It turns out that everyone charged in the shootings is either a white vigilante or a cop. Despite all the rumors spread at the time about black "looters" and "marauding black gangs" carrying out unspeakable crimes, it was white gangs, both official and unofficial, that did the shooting and killing.

And if they did it, in part it was because the authorities, like New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin and Louisiana Governor Kathleen Blanco, instead of organizing rescue operations, set loose these gangs of killers and authorized them to shoot "suspected looters." This, in a town where none of the authorities at the local, state, or federal level provided any food or water to those stranded, so the only place for people to get what they needed was in boarded up businesses.

It took nearly five years for anyone to be charged with any of the shootings because the authorities buried any information about them. Charges are finally being brought now only because the press, starting with the left press, some of the black media, and then the Nation magazine, brought the shootings to light. Only recently, has the big bourgeois press like the New York Times admitted what the population of New Orleans from the beginning: it was white racists, given tacit approval by authorities like Nagin and Blanco, who did the killing. They shot people who lost everything in the floods and were struggling to survive, because the levees protecting the city were not constructed properly and the government had not organized the necessary evacuation.

In a society as racist as this one, it comes as no surprise that the first hysterical rumors following Katrina were about black violence, when what was really happening was white violence -- a violence much greater than we will ever be able to discover. Although the first investigations by the press uncovered at least eleven people who were shot, no one has any idea of the number who just disappeared amidst all of the massive destruction experienced by the people of New Orleans.

Six months after the January 12^th earthquake in Haiti -- which caused hundreds of thousands of deaths and tens of thousands of wounded and pushed two million homeless people into makeshift camps, an assessment of relief efforts was done. In addition to food, water, tents, etc., billions of dollars were collected in record time from people around the world.

But six months later, as all the media point out, very little has changed in the living conditions of the disaster victims, stuffed like sardines in the camps. The vast majority still rot in revolting conditions, despite the billions of dollars donated to help them.

The Haitian state, which is the biggest landlord in the country, pretends that it doesn't have lands to construct public housing to shelter the victims! But why couldn't our rulers requisition all vacant lands, wherever it is, whoever it belongs to, to house hundreds of thousands of homeless people?

The charities operating in Haiti, which got most of the funds for humanitarian aid, pretend they depend on the Haitian state, although it has no control over their billions. They hide behind the break-down of the Haitian government while keeping funds collected for their own expenses.

According to the testimony of disaster victims in several camps, even food and water assistance, passed out sparingly in the weeks after the earthquake, has been abruptly stopped.

Are there really no funds available in Haiti? An article published in the Haitian paper Le Soleil (The Sun) gives an idea of what is going on: "In Port-au-Prince, where numerous hotels collapsed in the earthquake, the Plaza Hotel remains standing and does almost $100,000 a week in business." According to an employee of this hotel complex, "Since January 13^th, all our 95 rooms are occupied at $150 a night.... It's a radical change for the hotel which formerly belonged to the Holiday Inn chain and where only 40% of the rooms were normally occupied during the month of January."

The figures speak for themselves. But if, in addition to this $100,000 from room rates, we add the profit realized by food and drink, also charged in U.S. dollars, how much does the total add up to?

The Plaza isn't the only hotel complex to remain standing, nor the most expensive. The Caribe, Villa Creole, Suite Horizon and Holoffson, with higher rates, are all overbooked since the earthquake, and are also pulling in money.

Hotels filled with charity employees and consultants of all sorts are only one aspect of the squandering of the funds given to aid Haitian disaster victims.... In the same way, the car rental companies put in urgent orders for new fleets of All Terrain Vehicles to meet the endless demand.

Since the earthquake, an estimated one thousand non-governmental organizations are in Haiti. It was estimated they had spent two billion dollars in the first three months. Imagine how large the sum is after seven months! In any event, it's impossible to even roughly add up the sum tossed around by all these organizations since no one can check their accounts.

According to another source, just through the end of March, sums of the following levels were paid out on more than 3,000 foreign "volunteers": 27 million dollars for air fare, at a cost of $900 per volunteer, a sum 60 million dollars for their housing, at a cost of $200 a person per night in a hotel for 10 days, a sum of 30 million dollars spent for food, at a cost of $100 per person per day, without taking into account other costs, like car and bus travel, etc. In total, more than 75% of the funds accounted for were eaten up in this way.

Pat and his brother Kevin enlisted because they had been taken in by all the patriotic propaganda after 9-11 -- even though many in their family strongly opposed and warned against what they were doing. When the military tried to use Tillman's celebrity status to sell the war, he refused to go along, declining all media interviews. And from the first days of the war in Iraq, he opposed it. Tillman's unit was a part of the first thrust into Iraq. A friend from Tillman's unit later recounted, "We were on this bunker [in Iraq], watching bombs drop all around the city, and he said, 'This war's so fucking illegal.'"

After serving in Iraq, Tillman was sent to Afghanistan. At the time he was killed, the U.S. government was confronting growing opposition to the war at home. And officials knew the Abu Ghraib torture scandal would break a couple of days later. Desperate to drum up support for the wars, the U.S. military and government latched onto Pat Tillman's death. The military concocted a story about how he died fighting to defend his unit from a Taliban ambush, and awarded him a Silver Star posthumously. Bush praised Tillman more than once, including in a broadcast at a football game. The military's big memorial was filled with top generals and politicians.

As the documentary showed, Pat Tillman had told many people that this was exactly what he feared would happen, if he were killed. "I don't want them to parade me through the streets." The Tillman family also didn't like being used by the government in all of its ceremonies and spectacles to hype the war. The family refused to allow a religious ceremony at Arlington National Cemetery, citing the fact that Pat was an atheist. At the gala military memorial, Pat's younger brother Richard contradicted all those who claimed that Pat was now in "a better place." "He's just dead," countered Richard angrily.

Five weeks after Pat's death, the family got the first inklings that he had really been killed by U.S. troops -- friendly fire. When the family demanded an explanation, the military tried to drown them in paperwork, sending more than 3,000 pages of redacted -- or largely censored -- documents. But Pat's mother, with the help of Stan Goff, a Special Forces veteran with a blog opposing the Iraq war, pieced together what evidence they could. For the next three years, she and others forced the military to conduct one investigation after another, culminating in a supposedly independent Congressional investigation. Of course, all these investigations were just more cover-ups, or as the Tillmans said, more "bullshit."

The Tillman Story is a powerful documentary that recounts the story about one of the millions of lives that have been wasted and destroyed in those wars -- wars that continue to this day.

These foreign contractors are deeply involved as mercenaries in the war. They include such notorious U.S. companies as Blackwater, which the Iraqi government kicked out in 2007, after its attacks on civilians.

There are 40,000 mercenaries in Afghanistan, employed both by U.S. and Afghan companies. The U.S. government has a political and an economic interest in these arrangements. These companies employ cheap Afghan manpower, costing much less than employing U.S. soldiers in Afghanistan. And their use reduces the number of dead Americans that have to be explained to the population back home.

The links between these companies and the U.S. army are close. The top officials of the private U.S. military companies are generally retired army officers. These private contractors have a lot of control over the Afghan army. For example, the employees of Military Professional Resources Inc. work at different levels in the hierarchy of the Afghan security forces. This company has trained the heads of the Afghan National Army.

Some commentators want to see in Karzai's decree a desire for independence with respect to the U.S. But what can "independence" mean in a country at war, shaken by revolts, where the government power is only maintained by the presence of the U.S. occupation army?

The Pentagon does not speak in favor of dismantling the role of the military contractors. Instead the U.S. military proposes a much slower withdrawal than Karzai does. In fact, it's hard to dismantle a force of 40,000 mercenaries in a country where the population has no reason to trust its own army, police nor local leaders.

These companies toss around a lot of money. They even pay bribes to the local opposition forces in order to get military convoys through zones where the insurgents are strong. Local opponents of Karzai thus tax U.S. and European convoys, embarrassing the Westerners, along with the taxes they extract from the opium trade.

But whether it is Afghan mercenaries or foreign mercenaries, employed by the Pentagon or linked to Karzai, it makes little difference to the Afghan population continuing to suffer from the war.

The strike was forced on workers by the Detroit Newspaper Agency (DNA), publisher of the two major Detroit newspapers, the Free Press and the News. The DNA demanded that workers accept hundreds of job eliminations and drastic cuts in wages, benefits, and working conditions.

From the beginning, the strikers had the advantage of their own militancy, plus the active support of workers from other unions, plus the sympathy of vast numbers of workers in the Detroit area, a traditional union town.

The newspaper strikers came out by the hundreds, barricaded News and Free Press plants and offices, stopped newspaper trucks, and at first were so numerous on the picket lines that local police were unable to get the newspapers through. And they were joined in this fight by other workers, especially auto workers and city workers. Labor Day weekend saw some real fights with police. Strikers "got creative" in many ways to stop scab papers, put their strike in front of other workers and show their strike's vitality. The Detroit area began to recall its fighting union heritage.

But if the workers were mobilized and showing their readiness to fight, the union leaderships were not ready to risk having the strike surge beyond legal bounds. When the inevitable court injunctions ruled against mass picketing, the leadership pulled back their forces. Instead of continuing the workers' mobilization in an out-and-out contest of strength, where the workers had their best advantage, the newspaper union leaders gradually channeled workers' hopes into the legal wilderness of courts and NLRB (National Labor Relations Board) rulings -- where the workers are at great disadvantage.

The national UAW leadership called for "support" for the strike, but for the most part only in passive terms. UAW workers were asked to give donations to the newspaper strikers and to cancel their newspaper subscriptions. UAW Locals were given orders NOT to reinforce newspaper picket lines, and the union structures buried any notion of engaging auto workers in a simultaneous struggle against their own concessions.

This strike had the potential to become a general anti-concessions movement. When that didn't happen, the working class was thrown backward for the past 15 years.

Nonetheless, the newspaper strike brought to the fore a large number of worker militants and gave them a rich experience. A core of these militants sustained a guerrilla fight against the DNA for nearly three years after the unions officially accepted defeat and returned to work under the company's conditions.

The Detroit newspaper strikers gained a fund of experience which can yet enrich the working class.

GM is making those profits directly from concessions it and the government extorted from its workers: New hires will get $14 an hour, half of what current workers get. And retirees' medical coverage will be paid by the union, not the company. And that's not all: GM also took back wage increases and cost of living protections from current workers and pushed back many gains which guaranteed workers' working conditions: break times were cut, line speed was increased, and pay for daily overtime was eliminated. In short, GM is getting far more work out of fewer workers for far lower wages.

This new stock offering is being touted as a return to normal for a resurgent auto company. And it is: it's a move to reestablish the financial ties between GM and the banks, ties that will allow those banks to suck up GM's profits once again.

So long as the government owned a majority share of GM and it was loaning GM money, the big banks made little money from GM. And this particularly hit the Morgan financial interests, which have long been GM's bankers, funding it and ultimately controlling it -- JP Morgan Chase and Morgan Stanley, among others.

These banks are expected to take the lead in orchestrating GM's new public stock offering. They stand to make billions once the old relationship is reestablished, starting with more than 120 million dollars just on the fees paid by GM to float the stock offering.

But that's just the beginning: once the stocks are sold and the government is out of the way, the banks themselves will be making the loans to GM, loans that every industrial company needs to take to operate on a daily basis.

To see what this means, we can look to another auto company: Ford never went bankrupt, so it kept taking its loans from the banks instead of from the government. Now, in the second quarter of this year, it paid $1,154 for every vehicle it sold -- just on the interest it owes on its debts to the banks. Much of that goes to Goldman Sachs. Ford has had close ties with Goldman ever since the 1950s.

Because the banks control the money that the industrial companies need to operate, they effectively control the companies. They are able to ensure that those industrial companies make decisions that will directly benefit the banks even more.

And, because the workers always produce much more value than they're being paid for, much of the surplus they create goes directly into the coffers of the banks. This is the relationship the banks have reestablished at GM, the relationship that continues at Ford.

This is not the first big massacre of migrants. Last May, 55 bodies were found in an abandoned mine. In July, 51 bodies were found in a field in northeast Mexico.

Human rights groups say almost 20,000 migrants were kidnapped last year, usually for ransom. Besides kidnapping, migrants face thieves, rapists and corrupt Mexican cops.

If they manage to cross the border, they confront a second set of gangs, the various U.S. anti-immigrant militias: the so-called "Minutemen," the National Socialist Movement, an openly Nazi group, the "Patriot's" Coalition and the American Border Patrol. These paramilitary groups, armed with assault rifles and other weapons, roam the border in all-terrain vehicles, on horseback or in small planes, hunting down immigrants like animals.

But worst of all, is the Immigration and Customs Enforcement Agency (ICE). In late August, ICE carried out a three-day raid in seven states in the Midwest, arresting 370. The ICE claimed those arrested were criminals and publicized a few drug dealers. But most of those grabbed were simply people here without legal papers.

This is only the latest attack on immigrants by the Obama Administration. In 2009, it deported 390,000 people, up 20,000 from Bush's final year. Such attacks only encourage the right-wing nuts to step up their attacks.

The people who try to come here are quite aware of the dangers they face. Only the incredible poverty of Mexico's farming towns and cities with vast shanty towns and hungry people drive them to take their chances and leave for the United States.

That poverty, in great measure, has been imposed on Mexico by U.S. companies, which go to Mexico to pay slave-labor wages and U.S. banks, which wring every bit of wealth they can out of Mexico through crooked loans.

Stop ALL attacks on immigrants.

Immigrants aren't taking the jobs. General Motors is, Ford is, the Wall Street banks are -- as are all the other companies that laid off millions of workers, squeezing much more work out of those who remain.

Undocumented workers are part of the working class. Blaming them for the loss of jobs is simply stupid and diverts people from the real enemy, the capitalists, who benefit from the lies that demagogues tell and the divisions they sow in the working class.