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
Aug 1, 2016
Donald Trump is everything the Democrats say he is: anti-worker, misogynist, and racist. He’s all that and more–vile in the way he maligns whole groups of people; repellant in his pretense to “defend the people who cannot defend themselves”; and a ruthless businessman whose history is littered with people he exploited, harmed and cheated.
He claims that he is the only one who can fix the system because “nobody knows it better” than him. Yes, he knows it–and has used it his whole life, just as the whole capitalist class has used it, to accumulate wealth at the expense of the vast majority of the population, those who must work for their living.
This multi-billionaire has spent the last year roaming the country, playing on and reinforcing racist attitudes in the population. He blamed immigrants for the unemployment in this country–in a ploy to hide the truth, that joblessness is created by bosses like Trump who push to squeeze more work out of fewer workers. He blames society’s victims for crime, rather than the system he knows so well and has benefitted from so much, which has impoverished large layers of the population, driving young people who cannot find work into crime. He blames the people in other countries for the wars that ravage the earth, rather than the American capitalist class, of which he is a prize member, a class that exploits people in sweatshops around the world and steals the wealth of other countries.
Trump is a real enemy of working people.
But if anyone believes that Hillary Clinton and the Democrats are our friends, they are living in a dream world.
The Democrats may have a “kinder” language than Trump–language that is nothing but a lie–but behind that lying language stands the party that turned law and order into a recipe for jailing two generations of young people for whom this system could not provide jobs. Bill Clinton’s administration, supported by both Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders, pushed through two “anti-crime” laws in the 1990s, which contributed to the shocking 800% increase in the number of people locked away since 1980–the vast majority for crimes that harmed no one, destroyed nothing and took nothing.
The Democrats may pretend to be shocked at Trump’s bellicose language, but the Democrats eagerly joined Republicans in taking us to the wars that still ravage a large part of the Middle East, wars that have provoked the growth and bitterness of many who flock to ISIS.
At the Convention Bernie Sanders did what he always has done, that is, use a radical language, but then fall in line. On the question of the wars, he spoke against them, but voted for the money spent to carry them out. As for the nomination of Clinton, after calling her the candidate of Wall Street–which she is–he called on his supporters to fall in line, too, and work for her.
People worry that if Trump gets in office there may be an increase in overt acts of violence targeting immigrants or black people–and there may well be. But not because of Trump himself, but because behind Trump is a ruling class that has long tried to divide the working class, pitting one part against the other. And the Democrats have played that game as often as the Republicans: divide in order to rule.
This overheated election campaign presents us with the spectacle of two parties competing with each other, both of which are defenders of big business, of the banks, of big property owners and financial speculators.
The only ones not represented in this electoral farce, the ones who will have no voice are working people–that is, the big majority of the population. Voting for either of these two parties simply means we give a stamp of approval to our class enemies.
Aug 1, 2016
The Los Angeles City Council put a proposal on the November ballot to hike real estate taxes in order supposedly to construct housing for the homeless.
Of course, easing the homeless crisis might sound great. But that’s not what this ballot initiative is all about. It’s about helping the big real estate developers and landlords of luxury apartments, who have been trying to push thousands of homeless people far, far away from their properties for a long time.
If the L.A. politicians really wanted to deal with homelessness, they would assure that there was a plentiful supply of affordable housing. But they are doing the exact opposite. They have bent over backwards to aid the developers and landlords who are destroying thousands of units of affordable housing–by re-zoning properties and giving them tax breaks. At the same time, Metro, the public transit agency, has provided valuable properties in sweetheart deals with developers for the construction of luxury housing and commercial centers–that pushes rents up even more.
By destroying affordable housing and driving up rents, the politicians, landlords and developers have driven thousands out of their homes and apartments, making the homeless crisis worse month by month.
So where will the city government supposedly “house” the homeless, if the ballot measure passes? Where the land is cheapest–way out in the desert, on toxic waste dumps, or next to busy polluting freeways.
And the politicians want ordinary people to pay for this with higher taxes on their homes, while renters get hit with higher rents, as landlords pass through the tax increases.
What a scam!
Aug 1, 2016
On July 12, the Los Angeles Police Commission announced that the killing of Redel Jones “did not violate” LAPD policies.
LAPD officer Brett Ramirez shot and killed the 30-year-old Jones in an alley in August 2015. Ramirez and his partner claimed Jones matched the description of a robbery suspect–a woman who had robbed a nearby pharmacy at knife-point of $80. The cops said Jones ran away from them when they ordered her to stop–and wouldn’t you, given what has been happening? People who do stop are shot anyway.
Ramirez said that when he ran after her, Jones (who was 4 foot 10) turned around and charged him with a knife, and that was when he shot her.
A witness, however, contradicted the cops’ account of the shooting. Courtyana Franklin told the Los Angeles Times that she did not see Jones turning around and moving toward the cops. “I do know for a fact that she was not charging them,” Franklin told the Times. But the written statement of the Police Commission did not even mention that the LAPD had interviewed Franklin.
People in the audience reacted to the commission’s decision with anger. Later that day, hundreds of protesters gathered in front of the LAPD headquarters and City Hall, linking the shooting of Jones with other police shootings of black people across the country.
The sense of loss–the hemorrhage of lives in black communities–was what Marcus Vaughn, Redel Jones’s husband, expressed in his statement before the Police Commission. Vaughn said Jones was the one who found shelters and hotels for the couple and their children when the family struggled. Jones was resourceful and intelligent, he said: “She taught me everything that I know ... Redel was always the one who found a way so that we would make a way for each other.”
Aug 1, 2016
Donald Trump has made a big show of attacking lobbyists for corporations and Wall Street interests. But those lobbyists were still very comfortable at the Republican National Convention!
Trump made sure they could participate: his team helped them quash a rule that would have banned lobbyists from serving as RNC members.
And they were all over the convention: they held meetings with Newt Gingrich and other Republicans tied to Trump. They paid 16 million dollars into the RNC convention account.
As one lobbyist put it: “It’s the business of Washington. Mr. Trump is talking about changing the paradigm. It’s not changing one bit. The political and influence class is going on as before.”
The Democratic National Convention was no different. It was bathed in corporate money.
Companies like Honeywell, Comcast, Anheuser-Busch and Johnson&Johnson poured in millions–even though that is officially illegal. No problem–they funnel money to nonprofits, and everyone winks!
And who are the biggest donors? The DNC, just like the RNC before it, won’t release that list until 60 days after their convention.
Despite all the speeches against “big money in politics” this year, Big Money knows it has a very comfortable home in both the Republican AND Democratic parties!
Aug 1, 2016
In late April, the City of San Diego, California installed jagged rocks along a freeway underpass to drive out homeless. The city officials said: “The new landscaping along Imperial Avenue is meant to address safety concerns raised by neighborhood residents in Sherman Heights who use it as their main connection to downtown.” Quite an inventive and colorful explanation to cover the city’s very appalling purpose!
The city’s e-mails discussing these rocks, obtained by the Los Angeles Times, showed that Sherman Heights, a working class district, was never mentioned in more than 700 pages of these e-mails.
Councilman David Alvarez, whose district includes Sherman Heights, said that his office was never consulted about this “landscaping project.” He believes Sherman Heights residents were used to deflect criticism of the project, according to the Times. Alvarez said that they asked for better lighting, but the City has not yet done so.
John Casey, a city official, who spearheaded and engineered this “landscaping project,” wrote in the e-mails that the rocks needed to be of different heights so that no one could put down a plank of wood to sleep. He was also very descriptive about the rock shapes. “We want to look mean!!!”, he wrote.
This city official included the installation of these “mean rocks” in a checklist of work to be done before an All Star baseball game. So, the real purpose was to remove the homeless from the area next to the stadium.
This is the very visible barbaric hand of capitalism. Instead of addressing the homelessness problem, San Diego, a very rich city, resorts to vicious means to increase profits of baseball team owners, including by making poor people invisible.
Aug 1, 2016
When Chicago Public Schools first announced its school budgets, officials claimed that there would be no cuts to the classrooms. That was soon revealed to be a lie–the budgets cut 140 million dollars from students in the classroom.
The cut was hidden, because the Board stopped counting Special Education funding separately from the rest of a school’s budget–so it looked like schools were getting more money. Now, instead of Special Education funding coming from the central budget, each school is responsible for coming up with the money on its own. If there is not enough, schools have to take money away from their general education programs to make sure special education has what is legally required.
It’s a disgusting attack, forcing schools to rob Peter to pay Paul, and giving principals an incentive not to take special education students in the first place.
Students need fully funded schools, not cheap budget tricks!
Aug 1, 2016
Back in 2011 when he was just a super-rich hack working with other education “reformers” to destroy the public schools, current Illinois governor Bruce Rauner e-mailed Chicago mayor Rahm Emanuel all the time. They may be “frenemies” now, but back then they were best buddies, investing and vacationing together. In one of those e-mails, Rauner had the nerve to call half of Chicago Public School teachers “virtually illiterate” and half the city’s principals “incompetent.”
Talk about incompetent–every politician worth his salt knows never to put his actual disgusting attitudes toward ordinary people in writing! Now this incompetent hack is governor, and he’s still doing his best to ruin the public schools and everything else in the state that ordinary people rely on.
Mayor Emanuel, of course, did nothing to expose or deny Rauner’s stupid insult. What would you expect of someone who closed 50 schools in one year?
Aug 1, 2016
Puerto Rico became a U.S. colony in 1898, after the Spanish-American war. But the people of Puerto Rico did not become full U.S. citizens.
From a “possession” ruled by a governor, Puerto Rico became a “territory” in 1917, which “allowed” Puerto Ricans to serve in the U.S. army in World War I.
In 1952 Puerto Rico became a “commonwealth.” Puerto Rico got its own flag and its own anthem, but this did not change the island’s domination by the U.S.
Puerto Ricans are free to move to the mainland U.S. But those who stay on the island cannot vote for U.S. president or elect representatives to Congress.
More than half the population lives under the poverty line.
Aug 1, 2016
On June 13, the Supreme Court declared that the U.S. Congress would oversee the restructuring of Puerto Rico’s debt, in a case pitting Puerto Rico’s government against an investment fund from California. In doing so, the Supreme Court reaffirmed, for everyone to see, that Puerto Rico is a U.S. colony, all for the benefit of the speculators.
For a number of years Puerto Rico has been facing a deep financial crisis. Its total debt has grown to 72 billion dollars, of which 20 billion is owed by three of the main public utilities that provide power, water, sewer, and transportation.
In the 1970s the U.S. Congress passed a law saying that businesses operating in Puerto Rico did not have to pay any federal taxes. And since wages in Puerto Rico were three times less than on the mainland, investors rushed into Puerto Rico. Some light industries in particular, like pharmaceuticals, set up shop on the island.
But starting in 1996, Congress progressively suppressed the tax exemption, and U.S. companies gradually left Puerto Rico. To keep afloat, the Puerto Rican government started issuing bonds to borrow money. Speculators saw a windfall coming: they were sure to recoup their investments plus sizeable payments of interest. The payments on this debt quickly became the single biggest item in the budget of the Puerto Rican government, growing to almost 40 percent of total expenses.
In 2014, the banks rated Puerto Rican bonds “junk bonds,” that is, high risk. This allowed the banks and investment funds to profit even more by raising the interest rates they charged.
The payments on this enormous debt threaten to cause blackouts and shutdowns of the water system, public transit, the schools, and the island’s public hospitals. Puerto Rico tried to declare bankruptcy, like the city of Detroit had done. But the laws governing U.S. territories like Puerto Rico don’t allow it to do this.
These laws impose all the constraints that the states have to follow, with none of the advantages. And Puerto Rico could not borrow from the IMF or other international organizations.
In 2014, the Puerto Rican legislature passed the Recovery Act, which was supposed to allow the Puerto Rican government to manage its utility debt by itself. But the U.S. Supreme Court decision has definitively blocked that possibility. It reaffirmed the supremacy of the U.S. Congress over the elected government of Puerto Rico.
So the U.S. Congress will decide the best way to deal with the situation in Puerto Rico. The majority of the island’s creditors are speculative funds based in the U.S., which have plenty of ways to pressure the U.S. Congress to make sure the outcome will be entirely to their advantage.
This is not a good sign for the population, which already had not much to hope for from its elected officials: Puerto Rican leaders had already proposed a deep reduction in public services in order to pay back a debt for which the workers and the poor population of Puerto Rico are not in the least responsible.
It is time for the capitalists, and not the workers, to pay their debts!
Aug 1, 2016
The recent murder of a social media star by her brother shows one more time the abject oppression of women in Pakistan.
Qandeel Baloch became very popular with many of Pakistan’s young women for what she posted on Facebook, including photos of herself in poses the Islamic authorities were unhappy about. Her brother shamelessly admitted to killing her for the supposed “honor” of the family.
Each year, almost a thousand Pakistani women are victims of “honor crimes.” And most of the time, these crimes are covered up by the authorities. This gives men the virtual right to kill women who dare to try to free themselves from the backward practices that make them basically house-bound slaves, charged with taking care of domestic matters and the sexual demands of their husbands who, for the most part, are not chosen by them. Qandeel Baloch had herself returned to her family, fleeing violence by her husband.
The crime against her brought waves of indignation outside Pakistan, as happened two years ago when a young Pakistani woman was stoned to death by her father, brothers and cousins, under the eyes of the police, for having married without her family’s permission.
But this barbarity should come as no surprise. Pakistan is a former colony of Britain where the religious forces took the leading role in society from the beginning of the decolonization process. Since then, they have been supported by the Western imperialist powers, especially the United States, which didn’t hesitate to arm the Islamic warlords to fight the Soviet army when it invaded Afghanistan in 1979.
That the Pakistani regime, largely supported by the big Western powers, keeps itself in power with the worst barbarous practices against women is no surprise. These practices don’t even enter into the calculations of the imperialist leaders.
Aug 1, 2016
After revelations by a Russian athlete in 2014, a report by the World Anti-Doping Agency confirmed that the Russian government promotes systematic doping by its athletes.
The International Olympic Committee’s very moderate reaction tells its own story. It is clear that there is no will to fight against doping, which affects all athletes, not just Russians. After the report was published, it would have been logical for the entire Russian delegation to be excluded if the IOC really wanted to fight doping. But the International Olympic Committee refused to make that decision, so it was left up to the different international sports agencies to decide for each sport whether or not the Russian athletes could participate.
The Russian leaders found it easy to denounce the decisions of those agencies that banned them as “political.” It is quite clear that doping is a practice in every single country.
Of course these decisions were political, since there’s no wall dividing sports from the rest of society.
Olympic sports have always been big money. The Olympic Games are followed by millions and millions of people on television. For Coca-Cola, Samsung, McDonald’s, Nissan, etc., the Olympics are a chance to make big profits by putting their ads out during a worldwide spectacle, for which they hold exclusive rights.
But to catch the attention of the T.V. audience, records must fall. The athletes must always run faster, jump higher. And the bonuses grow for the athletes who beat the old records. Hence, the growth of steroids and other drugs by athletes from every country.
Besides these financial games, the Olympics are the occasion for governments all over the world to cultivate more nationalism. So, of course, governments don’t look too closely at the performances of their champions; and they even encourage the illegal practices that go on.
The report on doping has no other point than to maintain the credibility of the athletes in the Olympic Games, avoiding anything too loud, too obvious, too awkward. In the face of the revulsion provoked by Julia Stepanova’s revelations about Russian athletes in 2014, the authorities didn’t want to make waves. So it’s the Russian athletes who pay the price.
But the Olympic committee also doesn’t want to go too far in supporting whistle-blowers. Julia Stepanova, who denounced the Russian system of doping, will not be allowed to compete. The IOC supported her suspension in 2013 to justify its decision.
The show must go on, with the doping, without the whistleblowers, for the sake of the advertisers!
Aug 1, 2016
In the House last month, a majority, made up of Democrats AND Republicans, voted down two conservative proposals to stop the Obama administration from enlisting young undocumented workers into the military.
Conservatives like to rail against “illegal” immigrants, when members of both parties know full well that the bosses benefit from using workers who are afraid of being deported at any moment.
But they can’t afford that when it comes to the military. So what they call “illegal” in one area, they’re perfectly happy to waive when they enlist soldiers in the military.
As one Democratic politician put it, “Simply put, we shouldn’t let political posturing stand in the way of our military’s requirement goals.”
Yes, these politicians are fully capable of ignoring this false division when it comes to finding cannon fodder to send off to their wars.
Aug 1, 2016
There have been 375 cost overruns, running into the millions of dollars, on Baltimore’s infrastructure projects over the last four years, according to a recent report. These cost overruns come out of the pockets of Baltimoreans.
And the extra money is not a small amount. On the 14 million dollar contract to fix the Pennington Avenue Bridge in Curtis Bay, the cost ended up almost double, 26 million dollars. Another example was the water main break at Mount Royal Avenue downtown, where the original bid was 10 million dollars, and the fix ended up costing Baltimoreans a total of 26 million dollars.
In the past, city workers, with somewhat decent pay and benefits, were used to make repairs to infrastructure. But now the practice is to contract out to companies who use low-wage workers.
The city pretended it would be cheaper. It’s not. Profit is built in when private contractors are used. In fact, a sort of game goes on between contractors and governments, in which all the bids are low–making it seem cheaper. But then they find all kinds of problems, problems that will cost more money to fix.
It means that contractors love doing work for governments because they can always demand more money when the projects run into problems, as they often do.
These kinds of contracts don’t mean what is usually meant by the word “contract.” Today’s contractors are not obliged to fulfill a legal contract. They face no penalties, so they can continue their profitable schemes at our expense. And they do.
Aug 1, 2016
In 2015, only 23% of large firms offered retiree health plans, according to the Kaiser Family Foundation. This is a strikingly low coverage rate when compared to 1988 when 66% of large firms had active health coverage for their retirees.
This 66% coverage was not enough back then. But now, if you retire and are lucky to get some health coverage afterwards, you belong to a rapidly shrinking minority. Above all, even if you get a retiree’s health coverage today, this is not a sure thing for the future. If this trend goes on as it is, workers’ children will get no coverage during their work or retirement life.
Getting less or no health care takes its toll on workers. The richest one percent of people lives 14.6 years longer on average than the poorest one percent of people, according to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). So, not only does money talk, but it aids human beings to live longer.
These are the largest and the richest companies in the world that treat their workers so terribly. U.S. corporations’ total after-tax profits was around seven trillion dollars in 2015, up from one trillion in 1998, according to the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis (FRED). So, while these corporations were cutting their workers’ health benefits, their profits were skyrocketing.
Only workers’ labor creates this immense wealth. But the corporations take this wealth from workers and, after using their labor, dump the workers to die quickly on their own. This is the class war waged by corporations and their rich owners against the workers. And unless we fight against them, our lives will be squeezed out of our bodies early by these brutes.
Aug 1, 2016
The working class of this country does not have a party that represents its interests. This lack is glaring–especially this year, when the candidate of one major party carries out such a disgusting, reactionary campaign, and the other major party offers no real way out of it.
A real working class party would be one to represent the interests of the whole working class. It would strive to unite the working class in its struggles on all sorts of levels. And we are nowhere close to having such a possibility. But there are people in different areas who take part in struggles, trying to extend them to other workers. And there are people who have tried to use elections as a platform from which to raise these ideas. Among them are people who this year have worked to put a working class party on the ballot in Michigan.
We reprint below the announcement that appeared on the Working Class Fight website announcing the filing of the petition signatures needed to have the party recognized in the Michigan elections this November. There is more information at hyperlink.
Aug 1, 2016
More than 50,000 people signed petitions to put the Working Class Party on the ballot in Michigan, significantly more than the 31,566 required. Their signatures were turned in to the Bureau of Elections on Tuesday, July 12.
The organizers of the new party are five independent candidates who ran in the 2014 elections under a common program, “For a Working Class Fight, For a Working Class Policy”: Gary Walkowicz, Sam Johnson, Mary Anne Hering, Ken Jannot Jr. and David Roehrig.
The organizers of the new party agree with the view expressed over a century ago by the IWW that “the working class and the employing class have nothing in common.”
They say that the capitalist class has two parties, the working class has none–and that it’s time for working people to build their own party, defending their own class interests.
The organizers also say that the working class needs all its forces to combat the attacks carried out today by the bosses, and that divisions–between native-born and immigrant, between black and white–weaken the whole working class. They insist that racism is a cancer nourished inside the working class by its enemies.
The new party knows that elections can’t change the massive problems we face. Only the struggles and mobilizations of the working class can do that. But its organizers believe that by putting Working Class Party on the ballot, they have given working people a chance to express their desire to have a party which represents their own class.
Aug 1, 2016
Flint, Michigan is number one in the whole United States for having the highest water bills. Last week a newspaper headline said that Flint water bills are about to DOUBLE.
This further shows that decisions made by Snyder’s appointed Emergency manager in 2013 and earlier were NOT about saving the residents of Flint money on their water bills, as residents were led to believe. It was all about making money for his rich friends with a new water pipeline that business will benefit from and poor and working class people will pay for. Not only were people poisoned in Flint, but they are going to pay more and more for water.
Heck of a job, Snyder!
Aug 1, 2016
Governor Snyder tried to pretend he was SO CONCERNED about Flint and what happened to the people there with poisoned water. But the governor just slapped Flint’s people in the face. He hired a former LOBBYIST for BP oil to be the state’s new watchdog over environmental quality at the MDEQ.
Snyder’s new person heading the Michigan Department of Environment Quality was part of BP’s Public Relations team during the Gulf Oil spill. Her job description–more or less–was to help BP come out smelling like a rose despite the stench of death from that disaster. She was tasked with protecting BP’s public image in a situation where oil workers died and so much wildlife died that many in the local fishing industry lost their livelihoods.
Older generations called this kind of thing putting a fox in charge of guarding the chicken coop.
Aug 1, 2016
Several states increased spending on prisons five times faster than spending on public schools. And Michigan is one of them. That’s according to a federal report that looked at spending patterns going back to 1979.
Shockingly, Michigan increased Department of Corrections spending by 219 percent between 1979 and 2013. Education spending increased only 18 percent during that 34-year span of time.
A society that spends SO MUCH on prisons and SO LITTLE on educating children–is itself a criminal society!