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
Mar 15, 2004
Both Bush and Kerry are talking a lot about jobs. Of course, they’re politicians. And jobs, or the lack of them, is the main concern facing big parts of the electorate.
But while Bush and Kerry talk endlessly about taxes or trade, they don’t mention the main reason why there are no jobs: the incredible pace at which private business is destroying jobs. According to the Wall Street Journal, between the years 2001 and 2003, businesses carried out 58.6 million layoffs. These layoffs took place through job cuts, subcontracting, outsourcing, plant closings, and so on.
In that cold-blooded fashion of theirs, spokespersons for the companies explain that they consider their work force to be just like any other part of their inventory, to be hired and fired as needed. Economists call it "the just-in-time" labor force.
It is through this constant job turnover that employers lower what they pay their workforce. A recent survey by the Economic Policy Institute shows companies that are hiring pay 21% less than companies that are laying off. In California, the largest state, it’s worse–the pay difference is 40%. Besides that, what laid off workers had built up on their old jobs in terms of seniority and benefits is lost. And on their new job, they wind up being in the position of being the first to go when there are new layoffs.
These churning layoffs, in fact, are a huge blow to the entire working class. Anyone can lose their job at any time. Everyone feels vulnerable.
Of course, the bosses try to exploit this vulnerability to the maximum. With hammer blows, they force those left on the job to work harder and longer–for less wages and benefits. Better that, they say, than to lose everything. Of course, accepting this only guarantees more layoffs, as the boss continues to whittle away at the labor force, kind of like "fine tuning an engine."
Both Bush and Kerry claim that they have a program which will provide workers jobs. Talk is cheap, as we all know. And the talk of politicians is worthless, as all Kerry’s and Bush’s talk shows.
A real program for jobs would start with the proposal to prohibit all companies that are profitable from laying off any workers or cutting any jobs. As for any measly company that dared to claim that it couldn’t stay in business without cutting jobs or laying off any workers, take that company over and kick out the liars running it.
Are Kerry and Bush proposing this? Of course not. Are they even hinting at something like prohibiting companies from cutting jobs? Of course not. They are the kept politicians of big capital who have both throughout their whole political lives worked to put the government’s resources at the disposal of the very companies that are cutting all the jobs.
Mar 15, 2004
Gasoline prices have been rising rapidly and are predicted to go to their highest levels since 1985 by sometime this summer. In California, some people may soon be paying $3.00 a gallon for gas. In other states, the average price is headed to over $2.00.
We hear the usual excuses for this price rise. But the fact is, the big oil companies are using their control of the world petroleum markets to inflate the price of gas. After recent mergers, there are now only five big oil companies left in the world. They now control half of U.S. domestic oil production, half of all domestic refinery capacity, and nearly two-thirds of the U.S. retail market for gasoline–not to mention what they control all over the world. In March of 2001, even before all the recent mergers were completed, the U.S. Federal Trade Commission, not an organization noted for making wild, radical statements, reported that the oil companies had intentionally withheld supplies of gasoline from the market as a tactic to drive up prices. They said then that these actions had already cost consumers billions of dollars.
The inflated prices the big oil companies have been charging for gas is being reflected in their inflated profits. ExxonMobil profits went from 11.5 billion dollars in 2002 to 21.5 billion in 2003; ChevronTexaco’s went from 1.1 billion to 7.2 billion; Conoco-Phillips from a slight loss to a profit of 4.7 billion; BP-Amoco-Arco from 8.7 billion to 12.4 billion; and Royal Dutch/Shell from 9.4 billion to 12.7 billion dollars.
Outright robbery, you say? Certainly! But don’t expect the politicians to step in and stop them. Most of them are married to the big oil companies.
Mar 15, 2004
In the year 2000, more than half of the Los Angeles area’s population lived in neighborhoods where at least 20% of the population is under the official poverty level. This figure has more than tripled over the last 30 years. This data comes from a study conducted by UCLA and the Brookings Institution.
Thirty years ago, poverty in the L.A. area was concentrated in inner-city neighborhoods. Since then, many of these already poor neighborhoods have slipped into the category "very poor," with 40% or more of the population living under the poverty limit, while more and more suburban areas have become poor.
In other words, poverty, grinding poverty, is a fact of life for large parts of the working class in Los Angeles.
A separate study by the public policy research group, Economic Roundtable, found the rate of homelessness in the L.A. area to be very high. And, like poverty in general, homelessness affects entire layers of the working class. Of the more than 250,000 people who experience homelessness in L.A. County over the course of a year, only about five% are permanently homeless. The rest are people who go in and out of homelessness–with the number spiking at the beginning of the year, reflecting the usual end-of-the year layoffs and cutoffs in welfare programs. And two-thirds of the homeless people are homeless as a family–usually a mother and children.
This same survey found that, contrary to popular belief, L.A. County in recent years exported more homeless people to other counties and states than it imported–meaning that the rate at which the L.A. area produces poverty and homelessness is even higher than what these figures show.
All of this in Los Angeles–one of the centers of world capitalism and one of the wealthiest areas of the whole world. At the same time that capitalism creates enormous wealth for a few, it impoverishes millions upon millions of working people.
Mar 15, 2004
Michigan Governor Jennifer Granholm and others constantly say that cuts in state services and concessions by state employees are necessary in the face of the state’s poor economy. They would have us believe it’s because the dependence of Michigan’s economy on manufacturing has meant its recovery has lagged behind the rest of the country.
It’s a lie. The budget shortfall is a result of an enormous change in who pays the taxes in the state of Michigan as well as on the federal level. A report by the Michigan League for Human Services shows that over two-thirds of Michigan’s budget deficit from 2001 to 2004 has been due to tax cuts that have mainly benefitted the wealthy and the corporations.
These cuts include reductions in the Single Business Tax and the Personal Income Tax. Michigan’s Single Business Tax is scheduled to be eliminated by 2009. Michigan’s income tax is to be reduced each year through 2005. The one% with the highest incomes in Michigan will save 90 times more because of these cuts than the lowest twenty%.
This comes on top of George Bush’s federal tax cuts that also favor the wealthiest people in Michigan. By 2006, Michigan’s richest one% will receive twice as much as the poorest sixty% will get from Bush’s tax cuts.
These cuts in taxes for the wealthy will be permanent. They will receive the benefits in good times or bad, since their incomes are not as sensitive to the state of the economy as those of working people. And that means the state will continue to have a so-called "budget crisis" and the politicians, both Democrat and Republican, will call for bigger and bigger sacrifices by the population.
"Budget deficits" are nothing but an excuse to slash public services, social programs and education while increasing fees and taxes on working people. The plan to keep cutting taxes on the wealthy and the corporations carries with it the intention to spend less money for roads, schools, health care, social services, the arts, and everything else that the state government provides. It means they will ask for even greater concessions from state employees.
Stopping these tax cuts would not have to mean workers would pay more in taxes. Keep the tax cuts for working people and increase the taxes on the corporations and the wealthy! Why not?
Mar 15, 2004
After the conviction of Martha Stewart and her Merrill Lynch broker, Peter Bacanovic, U.S. Attorney David Kelley declared, "Let this case send an important message: We will not tolerate any sort of corruption in an official proceeding.... We are going to go after you."
That is what the government wants people to believe. But the trial of Martha Stewart, along with a few other prosecutions of usually lower or middle level executives and a couple of CEO’s, does not begin to touch even a small part of the loss of countless jobs, the extensive losses in millions of people’s pension accounts, the huge skimming operations in the mutual fund industry, and so on. No, the government has not gone after the very well-connected Ken Lay of Enron, who is so very close to the Bush family, nor the executives who run the biggest banks and financial companies, like Citicorp, Merrill Lynch and Morgan Stanley, which are up to their necks in each and every one of these scandals to their own great profit.
The government has left these mammoth companies, run by the great captains of finance, free to continue as before–with the government studiously looking the other way.
The Martha Stewart trial was little more than a diversion, a diversion that the government went to great lengths to put together. For prosecutors never even charged Stewart with the underlying crime, insider trading. It only charged her with conspiracy and obstruction of justice–that is misleading and conspiring to mislead the government–when investigators interviewed her. In other words, according to the law, the government does not have to charge someone with an actual crime, but it can still charge that person with "obstruction" and "conspiracy," which can consist of a slip of the tongue in an informal interview, or merely protesting your innocence and defending yourself.
Of course, we shouldn’t cry for Martha. First of all, she undoubtedly benefitted from her ties with very wealthy friends and associates. Second, she’s not going to do hard time. But it is interesting to note that Stewart’s conviction on such flimsy charges led many in the press to question whether this kind of prosecution was fair or just–which they happened to notice only because the government usually doesn’t carry out those kinds of tactics against really privileged people like Stewart and her broker.
This just means that some in the news media were shocked that the government–using a few of its tactics that it often uses against Communists, trade unionists, black militants, or anti-war activists when it wants to get them–now used these tactics against one of their own.
Mar 15, 2004
As the financial crisis surrounding a 58 million dollar deficit in the Baltimore City school budget has come to a head, high-school and middle school students in the public schools have organized protests against any and all forms of funding cutbacks.
In December, small groups demonstrated several times outside city Board of Education headquarters on North Avenue. They were protesting the layoffs of 750 teachers and administrators, which included curriculum specialists who develop quality programs in science and liberal arts. In February, students went on school buses along with their teachers and parents to participate in a union-sponsored rally in Annapolis, calling for more funding for public schools. This caused a little outcry by the Ehrlich administration, saying that school resources should not be used for such purposes.
In recent weeks, as school officials threatened teachers with pay cuts and furloughs or more massive layoffs, students answered his outrageous assertion. Insisting on their right to a decent education, they addressed how various cost-cutting proposals would directly impact their education and future.
While city and state officials continue to argue over how to pay less to the schools, students took action on their own. On March 9, 600 students from several different schools organized a one-day student strike, marching from City Hall to the state Board of Education headquarters, a few blocks away. Carrying signs saying, "Where are our school supplies?" they protested crowded classrooms, old textbooks, insufficient computer equipment and decaying buildings. Their presence could not be ignored in the streets of downtown Baltimore that day.
The students are not leaving it up to city officials. They remain determined to organize in their own interests. They are right because there is money to be had for the schools–but only if those concerned fight for it. Students, parents, teachers all have a reason to make their demands known.
Mar 15, 2004
One day after the terrorist bombings in the Madrid subway took about 200 lives and wounded over 1,400 people, protests throughout Spain drew an estimated 11 million people, or one-quarter of the entire population. It was an enormous outpouring against an unspeakable atrocity. Carried out in the middle of morning rush hour, the bombings were aimed at inflicting the maximum amount of death and carnage against ordinary people jammed into subway cars simply trying to make their way to work or to school.
Who carried out this attack? No one knows. The government and news media have suggested that it was either a Basque separatist group called the ETA or some group with supposed ties to Osama bin Laden’s al Qaeda. But in fact, the attack could have been carried out by anyone, even those with ties to one or another government or police agency, Spanish or U.S. CIA or British MI5. After all, these spy agencies have a long history of sponsoring dirty tricks and terrorist attacks of all sorts all over the world in order to further the interests of their respective governments and ruling classes. After all, who gave Osama bin Laden his start–if not the U.S. government?
But no matter which terrorist group is behind this horrible attack in Spain, the main terrorist threat against ordinary people all around the world are the big imperialist powers, which constantly instigate wars and occupations against ordinary people on every continent. The list of this imperialist terrorist violence is endless. As some examples, first of all, the U.S. and Britain (with the help and support of Spain) are now occupying Iraq after carrying out two wars since 1991, as well as a murderous economic embargo that resulted in the deaths of millions of Iraqis. There is Afghanistan, which the U.S. bombed, invaded and is now occupying, along with other NATO powers. There is the Israeli war and occupation of the Palestinian territories, which the U.S. has financed and supported, taking so many Palestinian lives, as well the lives of some Israelis. In Colombia, U.S. troops along with private U.S. mercenaries have been carrying out wars against the peasants and trade unions, under the guise of a fight against drug trafficking. And, on and on.
Given this murderous drive of the big imperialist powers and the apparent lack of an effective mobilization against them, some terrorist groups have sprung up and grown. But these terrorist groups’ actions simply play into the hands of the imperialist powers, by providing them the cover to carry out even more wars and repression. Just look at how not just the Bush administration, but the entire government and capitalist class in the U.S. were so quick to use the 9/11 attacks to justify anything and everything to advance their own agenda–from the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, to setting up a concentration camp in Guantanamo Bay, to pushing through a smorgasbord of repressive legislation and legalized police spying and abuse, to the demands that the population make sacrifice after sacrifice.
Certainly, in the days after the terrorist bombing in Madrid, there was already the rush by the politicians of all stripes to take advantage and profit from the sense of outrage of the population. There were the different political parties positioning themselves for the election that was set to take place only days later. There were the police agencies immediately naming the ETA as the terrorists in order to carry out a massive crackdown on that group. And, there was of course, the U.S.‘s very own President George W. Bush on television trying to tie the Spanish government even more firmly behind the war in Iraq, even though more than 90% of the Spanish population has consistently opposed the war!
Certainly, the terrorist attacks in Spain are a terrible tragedy. But let’s not forget who the biggest terrorists are: the capitalists and their government in Spain, the U.S. and the other big imperialist powers.
Mar 15, 2004
Early on the morning of February 29, Jean-Bertrand Aristide, the president of Haiti, was taken out of the country on a U.S. military plane. When the plane took off, Aristide didn’t know where he was going. He was finally deposited in the Central African Republic. When Aristide was allowed to speak to the press, he said he had been kidnaped by the U.S. military. The U.S. government vigorously denied it, but it had called for him to step down and when U.S. soldiers approached him, they said they could no longer insure his safety. It looks like a kidnaping in all but the name.
In any case, U.S. Marines are now in Haiti. A major reason the Bush Administration gave for going in to Haiti was that it doesn’t want a repeat of what happened in 1991, when 40,000 Haitian refugees came to the U.S., mainly to Florida. With such "humanitarian" aims, the latest military adventure was started!
But the Bush Administration had other reasons for sending in 1,200 U.S. troops to Haiti. They had been willing to live with Aristide, who was useful with his popularity among the poor, as long as that could be used to control the population and get it to submit to the plunder by U.S. and Haitian businessmen. The rebellion that started last December in the north of Haiti by former military men and some of Aristide’s own thugs, showed that Aristide had lost his support. There was no mass uprising to defend him, and many of the poorest people turned against him, welcoming those who had oppressed them a decade ago. Aristide was no longer useful to U.S. imperialism, since he could no longer maintain order.
Aristide had first taken power by winning an election in December 1990 with 67% of the vote, and the backing of a big popular movement. He quickly spoke of the "reconciliation of the people and the army," but it was that very army that overthrew him in September 1991, and carried out a bloody repression on the population. The bloodbath in the poor areas didn’t bother U.S. imperialism, but the coup leaders enlarged the rackets and the drug trade; in the process they pillaged the economy. This annoyed the Haitian bourgeoisie and the U.S. investors, who wanted social calm so they could continue to exploit Haitian workers for $1.50 a day. The Clinton administration decided it was better to put Aristide, who still had some credit with the poor masses, back in power. The U.S. invaded in 1994, with 20,000 Marines, reinstalling Aristide in the presidential palace. But Aristide’s language had now changed–speaking of a marriage between the bourgeoisie and the people as a way to alleviate poverty. He did absolutely nothing to better the poor, but he and his top officials enriched themselves, while they enforced misery and famine. Aristide dissolved the army that had overthrown him, letting them leave with their guns, but with no new jobs or pay. Instead, he defended himself with the police and newly formed armed gangs. Rather than tax the rich to pay their wages, Aristide let his thugs support themselves by terrorizing and plundering the poor population through all kinds of extortion and rackets.
When the armed opposition to Aristide came into the cities, it freed from prison the old leaders of the military coup locked up by Aristide. Most of the rebel chiefs are known for the many assassinations they carried out when they were in power under the military dictatorship. Their first actions demonstrate their readiness to use violence against the poor areas.
At the same time, the armed thugs of Aristide have not gone away. They too continue to terrorize the poor areas and engage in conflicts with the rebel groups. On March 7, Aristide’s thugs opened fire on a demonstration called by an opposition group, killing six and wounding 30.
The Bush Administration’s invasion of 1,200 soldiers, along with 500 French troops, is tiny compared to the 20,000 that Clinton sent in. The Bush Administration doesn’t want to have the TV talking about dead Marines, and it doesn’t want a major involvement on top of Afghanistan and Iraq, especially before the elections. This small number of troops isn’t going to put an end to Aristide’s armed bands nor the pillaging of the population by the armed gangs which make up the rebel groups. The U.S. troops certainly won’t impose democracy, contrary to what Bush says. They’re there to protect the embassies, some of the main public buildings, the banks, the foreign factories in the industrial zone, and the homes of the rich.
Meanwhile, economic activity is practically stopped. There is no work and no income for the thousands of workers employed there. Poor people have trouble even getting any food. They hide on their floors to avoid the pillage and attacks by Aristide’s thugs, and increasingly they suffer violence at the hands of the armed rebels.
The poor people in Haiti have paid dearly to learn that they can’t trust in saviors like Aristide to free them, but only in themselves. Haiti recently celebrated the 200th anniversary of the uprising of the Haitian people against French domination and slavery, the first successful slave rebellion. The overthrow of the current oppressors of Haiti will certainly not be so long in coming.
Mar 15, 2004
On March 8, the U.S. appointees who make up the Iraqi Governing Council ratified an Interim Constitution until a permanent constitution is approved at the end of next year. George W. Bush pronounced, "it marks an historical milestone in the Iraqi’s people’s long journey from tyranny and violence to liberty and peace ... while difficult work remains to establish democracy in Iraq, today’s signing is a critical step in that direction."
Democracy! Hardly the word for what is in the interim constitution. Oh, yes, there are some ringing words about individual rights, equal justice, and–of course–private property. But these pious sentiments mean nothing given the situation in Iraq. Supposedly, Iraqis have the right not to be subjected to arbitrary detention–but every day U.S. troops and mercenaries smash down doors, grab people and throw them in jail without charges. The Interim Constitution recognizes the right to strike–but only "within the limits of the law." That’s the rub–because the "law" includes a ban on public workers’ strikes, in a country where most people with a job work for government-run enterprises.
Formal discrimination against women is forbidden, but the Interim Constitution says that Islam is the state religion and the "source of legislation," which no future law can contradict. In reality, basing the constitution on Islam opens the door to all types of oppression of women. Today in Basra and in parts of the east of Baghdad, Shiite militias enforce the veiling of women, and harass women whose dress they don’t like. Muslim religious leaders demand separate schools for women. If there are separate schools, the result will be that a lot fewer schools will be built for women, leaving most without a decent education. Further, Islamic religious law denies women equal rights in divorce and inheritance, and allows men to have several wives. Just hours before the signing, several hundred women demonstrated on the occasion of International Women’s Day in Baghdad’s Firdos Square, protesting the Interim Constitution. One of their leaders said, "We want a secular constitution. We want separation of religion from the state and from education."
The Interim Constitution says that as a goal women should have 25% of the seats in a new National Assembly. Maybe a few dozen women can occupy these posts–but the vast majority of women will continue to live in crushing misery and suffer oppression from men. In fact, all the laboring people of Iraq, men and women, are excluded from this assembly, since they need to have an education that is greater than what 70% of the population has.
How will the members of the new national assembly be chosen? Will the national assembly be appointed? Will it be elected? The interim constitution is purposely vague about this. The only thing that is sure is that this national assembly is supposed to take office on June 30.
The Interim Constitution is a compromise that gives the Kurds a certain autonomy and a veto, while they have to accept that Iraq is recognized as an Arab state. The Kurds don’t speak Arabic, but their own language, so this lays the basis for future discrimination. The Muslim fundamentalists won the writing of Islamic law into the Interim Constitution, and the Shiite leaders insisted on the right to take up again the question of the Kurdish veto.
This kind of situation in which nothing is really spelled out is an open door to civil war. All the more so since the Kurds, Sunni and Shiite leaders each control their own armed militias.
Bush hailed this Interim Constitution as a step on the way to the June 30 turnover of political power to an Iraqi government. In reality, the new Iraqi government, like the old, will be appointed by the U.S. and fully accept the continuing imperialist occupation of the country. Meanwhile, the number of U.S. troops in the country is doubling in the name of a rotation of troops in and out of the country. This Interim Constitution is not a step toward a democratic Iraq, but a fig leaf to hide the nakedness of the thoroughly undemocratic foreign control of the U.S. over the country.
Mar 15, 2004
In Michigan, a new campaign has begun to legalize the death penalty. It’s one more of many attempts to impose upon society an ignorance and inhumanity coming straight out of the Middle Ages.
Michigan actually has a heritage it should be proud of–it was the very first English-speaking governmental body in the world to legally abolish the death penalty. And it had refused to impose it even before getting statehood in 1837.
It was largely due to the activity of the anti-slavery movement that was rooted in Michigan among the small farmers that there were no official executions in Michigan after 1830. In 1828, Patrick Fitzpatrick, a Detroit resident, was accused of rape and murder in Windsor, Ontario, and hung there by the authorities. Another clearly cruel and vindictive public execution in Detroit in l830 also repelled many people. And when, five years later, someone else confessed to the murder for which Fitzpatrick had been hung, opposition to any further executions solidified. In l846, a prohibition against capital punishment was written into the Michigan constitution.
Today, the legislation to begin amending the Michigan constitution is called the Bowens-Fettig bill, named after two police officers who were recently shot down on the street. Parents of those young cops have been put forth as spokespeople for a movement in support of changing the constitution.
It’s understandable that parents would be horrified by the murder of their children. But if a legislator can introduce a constitutional amendment bill within two weeks of this murder, it’s obvious the bill was already prepared, waiting for the moment that its introduction could play on popular sympathies.
It’s equally obvious that this campaign could not be organized by the parents, from their small towns, who have neither the money nor the contacts nor the resources needed to do it. Behind the campaign are reactionary forces who use these parents for their own ends, putting forth the backward idea of vengeance–an eye for an eye, or in this case, a life for a life.
The same forces, representing only the interests of the wealthy, are today attacking workers’ wages, jobs, pensions, medical care, workers’ children’s schools, the social safety net–the entire range of social gains made by the working class in its struggles over the last hundred years or more.
Ever since the death penalty was abolished in 1846, there have been attempts to re-introduce it. Those attempts have always been thrown back by a population in the state that understood a number of things about the death penalty. Barbaric, it encourages more barbarism and violence in the society that uses it, not less. And in a class and racist society, it is never imposed equally.
For 158 years the people of Michigan have protected a heritage that takes society forward, not backward into a more violent time.
Mar 15, 2004
A bootlegged memo is circulating among the workers at Chrysler’s truck assembly plant in Warren, Michigan. The source of the memo can’t be identified, but it appears to be from someone in management.
Workers are especially interested because the plant is supposed to add a third shift in May, but no details have been provided. There is only this memo–and if it is accurate, it reveals plans to drive working conditions further back than ever since the plant was unionized in 1936.
In July 2002, Truck plant workers were forced onto a 10-hour daily schedule, after the UAW national leadership set aside the 9 hour per day contract limit. The UAW promised it would be only temporary. Twenty months later, the plant is still on 10 hours.
Workers look to the third shift’s start-up as a way to get back to a humane 8-hour day. It sounds like a big improvement–until we look at that memo going around.
The memo says that when third shift begins, all workers are scheduled to lose their 30 minute lunch break. Twenty minutes of relief time will be converted to a "lunch" break. Instead of the two normal 15-minute breaks before lunch and one 16-minute break after lunch, for years the eight-hour standard, workers will now have only one 12-minute break before their new "lunch"–and one after.
As anyone who has worked on an auto assembly line can witness, these few minutes of break are impossibly small–too small even to walk to the bathroom and back!
The memo also reveals that workers will no longer have the right to one Saturday off in every three–now, they can have only one in every four. And as for the ten hour shifts, that were supposed to disappear when the third shift came? Three of every four Saturdays will be 2 shifts, 10 hours!
These outrageous proposals go hand in hand with new attendance rules that are more harsh than in any worker’s memory.
So far, the workers have only this one bootlegged memo to go on. But it’s been circulating for several days, and so far, no one–neither management nor union–has denied what’s in it. The memo is all the more believable, since these attacks are right in line with so many others that are fresh in workers’ memory.
To keep from slipping all the way back to nothing but a modern truck-building sweatshop, workers will need to rely on their own collective strength and their own ability to organize–the same things their great-grandfathers relied on to unionize Chrysler and bring it to heel, so many years ago.
Mar 15, 2004
Homeowners in the Detroit area have noticed that local tax assessors have been raising their property assessments, which means they will pay higher taxes. This is only the latest chapter in a 1994 "tax cut" which turned out to be a tax increase for working people.
Property taxes in Michigan were cut in 1994 by 30% as a result of a ballot proposal pushed by the corporations. That proposal was mainly aimed at lowering the taxes paid by the corporations, but it did so under cover of lowering property taxes for ordinary homeowners.
Local governments have been trying ever since to cover for the tax money they lost.
In the adopted proposal, the state sales tax was raised and money from the increase was shared with local governments–and corporations don’t pay the sales tax, but working people do.
Ever since, fees for things like drivers’ licenses, and user taxes like gasoline and cigarette taxes have been going up. In other words, more and more taxes were shifted onto ordinary working people.
On balance, we ended up paying out more in taxes than before the tax cut.
And now comes the latest insult. More than 52 cities and townships have raised valuations on homes at over twice the rate of inflation.
In fact, this is only a way to raise property taxes, without appearing to do it. When they raise the valuation of a home, the tax on it goes up. We don’t hear corporations crying out about increases in their property tax rates, because their valuations have not gone up. On the contrary, in Plymouth Township, for example, Johnson Controls just received a designation from the township that will allow it to upgrade its headquarters without increasing its property taxes.
The bosses’ politicians raise our taxes and cut those to the corporations. Then they have the gall to tell us we should be happy because our increased property assessments mean that our homes are worth more!
Their smooth talk just doesn’t cut it.
Mar 15, 2004
March 20 marks the first anniversary of the start of the U.S.-led invasion and occupation of Iraq.
This war is a complete atrocity. Tens of thousands of Iraqis have been killed, with countless more wounded or sick. This comes on top of the millions of Iraqis who have been killed since the first Gulf War in 1991.
Over all those years of war, economic embargo and then another war, the infrastructure of the country, what the Iraqi people had painstakingly built up over decades, has also been almost completely laid to waste. And all promises by the U.S. government to rebuild and reconstruct that infrastructure have been completely hollow. The Iraqis still don’t even have the level of electricity or drinkable water that they had under Saddam Hussein. And that level was already abysmally low as the result of the first Gulf War and the subsequent sanctions.
Meanwhile, the economy remains in tatters, with unemployment running as high as 70%, meaning that a big part of the population is descending in an unending spiral of misery.
Certainly, the U.S. working class has also paid for this war. Over 560 soldiers have been killed, and over 11,000 have been wounded. At the same time, the U.S. government is using tax money to pay for this dirty war, while they continue to cut, slash and gut what is left of the social programs, from education to health care, that serve working people’s most vital needs.
Every single reason and justification that the U.S. government used for going to war has been proven to be complete and bold-faced lies. There were no WMD. Saddam Hussein, as bad a dictator as he was, was never a big threat to the people of the Middle East, not to speak of the people in this country. No, the real threat has always been the government and ruling class of this country.
This war is not the creation of the Bush administration alone. Bush could never have carried out the war without the firm support and backing of the Democratic Party from the very beginning. Today, to gain favor from the electorate, the Democrats, starting with John Kerry himself, are trying to distance themselves from the war. They criticize Bush’s handling of this or that aspect of the war. They pretend that they didn’t realize that Bush was lying to justify the war–when somehow, millions of people in the streets protesting the war always knew.
Kerry and the rest of those very same Democrats may criticize today, but they also say that since the U.S. is in Iraq, the war will have to continue. What? Will it just be a "nicer" war?!! What B.S.! No matter whether Bush or Kerry wins office in November, the plans are for U.S. troops to be in Iraq for years and decades to come.
This war is being carried out in the interests of the U.S. ruling class, its voracious appetite to secure domination and control of Iraqi and the rest of the Middle East’s oil and wealth. In order to increase corporate profits and wealth this government and military always search out new markets to control, new markets to snatch from its rivals and competitors. This is what pits U.S. imperialism against the peoples of not just the Middle East, but Central and South America, Asia and Africa. This is what feeds one war after another.
Working people have every reason to oppose the war in Iraq, to make it clear that we will not accept all the sacrifices that they demand of us. It is the only way to force the U.S. to end the war and occupation and get out of Iraq.
On March 20, demonstrations and protests have been scheduled in many cities in the U.S., as well as all over the world. We should come out massively.
Mar 15, 2004
On March 12, the leaders of the AFL-CIO announced they plan to spend a record-setting 44 million dollars to defeat George Bush. They say that under Bush nearly three million jobs have been lost; nearly all new jobs created have been low-paid, part-time or temporary; on-the-job health and safety regulations have been attacked; overtime pay requirements for millions of workers have been eliminated; education and health care have been short-changed; millions of workers’ private pensions have been trashed and Social Security has been endangered; environmental protection rules have been weakened; laws and regulations that women, black people and other minorities have used to fight against discrimination have been attacked.
At the same time, the corporations and the rich have gotten huge tax breaks.
Of course, Bush really is a rotten, lying, unscrupulous representative of the wealthy. And yes, he is an enemy of working people.
But what about John Kerry and the other Democrats the AFL-CIO is proposing to campaign for?
In fact, they have supported and continue to support the same basic anti-worker policies as the Bush administration. Not just under Bush, but under Clinton before him, for example, most of the newly created jobs were low-paid, part-time or temporary. Health and safety regulations have been chipped away by Clinton, Daddy Bush, Ronald Reagan and Jimmy Carter before him. Democrat Carter even attempted to break a miners’ strike in 1978 which had as one of its goals protecting safety legislation the miners had won.
Cutting taxes for the rich, and cutting spending for working people and the poor, have been a bi-partisan effort. Income taxes for the top federal bracket, for example, were cut by Democrat Kennedy, by Democrat Johnson, by Republican Reagan (with the support of Democrat-controlled House of Representatives), by Democrat Clinton, and Republican Bush. Democrat Carter cut unemployment benefits and food stamps. Republican Reagan cut every social program (again with the support of Democrats in Congress). Clinton made huge cuts in Medicare and welfare. Bush has picked up where Clinton left off.
And then, there are the wars. The Democrats supported Bush’s decision to send U.S. troops into both Afghanistan and Iraq. John Kerry supported both wars. Today, running for president, he may criticize Bush’s handling of the war, but he has never once said he would bring U.S. troops out of Iraq as soon as he took office. In fact, just the opposite.
When leaders of the AFL-CIO use union money and activists to support the Democrats, they simply delay the day when working people can change the current political situation.
Why not use union money and activists to put up workers’ candidates for office? Why not expose the deceit and corruption of both the Republicans and Democrats? Why not call on the workers to mobilize in the streets against the attacks coming from both parties?
In short, why not devote all the time, energy and money which will go into this coming campaign to enable working people to appear politically in their own name, for their own fight?