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
May 3, 2004
Business profits are booming. The headlines told the story: "Exceeded analysts’ expectations." "Profits doubled over last year." "Operating profit up 65%."
The corporations have been coining much of their increased profit from productivity increases. Recent productivity gains have hit nearly 5%. What does that mean on the job? It means that the boss uses 95 workers to produce what 100 workers produced before. The faster pace of work has its inevitable effect on workers’ health and life spans. The very lifeblood of workers is coined into profits that come out "better than expected."
And what fate for the laid off, the unemployed? There is no work. The average time spent between losing one job and finding another is now 5 months. Five months without a paycheck, helped out only by limited and diminishing unemployment benefits, means for most people the loss of everything they own. Workers’ savings, homes, cars disappear–while more profits appear on companies’ balance sheets.
For those laid off who do find a new job, rarely does it pay as much as the job they lost. Workers pay more for health care and get less. And ever more workers have no health coverage at all. For those still with some coverage, co-pays go up, while there are more and more restrictions on prescriptions and plans. There is less choice of doctors. Fewer kinds of care are covered–and then covered for a shorter time. All the while, profit soars for drug companies and the medical industries.
The wealthy are getting a lot of practice in taking away from workers to pad their bottom lines. In every facet of our lives, the wealthy class is taking away from whatever the working class has, and booking it as profit.
Many more workers cannot find any sort of work, and fall into the last options: the military, or the street. In the military, workers find their very lives put on the line to ensure the profits of companies like ExxonMobil, protecting its oil supply. In the street, what awaits but poverty, drugs, crime, prison–a hard and short life in this, the very richest and productive country on Earth. The social safety net has all but disappeared.
Every tax-supported service is in decline. Public schools eliminate art, gym, and band; crowd more kids into fewer classrooms with fewer teachers; make do with ancient textbooks and outdated equipment. Water and sewer bills rise while outdated systems break down more often, polluting the water supply, fouling beaches. City streets, residential lighting, garbage collection, bus service, are widespread jokes.
There’s supposedly no money for upgrades, nor for social services, nor education. But any company that wants a tax break can get one. Any time. It goes right on their bottom line–as do the taxes they don’t bother to pay. By the latest figures, two out of three corporations pay no taxes at all.
Everywhere in this society, the ground that is slipping from beneath workers’ feet is reappearing as a mountain of profit in the hands of those who are already spectacularly rich. When workers seek to recover what we have lost, we will not have to look very far to find it.
May 3, 2004
The State of Michigan will be taking more away from its school districts next year than the increase it promised to give.
Last year, Governor Jennifer Granholm cut $74 per student from the state payments to school districts. Early this year, she promised to restore that money.
But the state then took BACK another $108 per student, leaving school districts $34 per student in the hole.
The state says that the money they’re taking from the districts is going into the Michigan Public School Employees Retirement System. It comes out to between $500,000 for smaller districts to almost three million dollars for larger ones.
Until 1994, the state paid the districts’ share of the pension costs. Proposal A, passed that year, was supposed to shift the funding of schools from the district level to the state. But a hidden part of that law shifted the burden of pension costs from the state to the school districts.
The increases in what each school system will pay next year weren’t caused by school employees getting bigger pension payments. Pensions are not going up at all. Basically, the state claims to have lost money from the pension fund in the stock market.
They claim that this is just a temporary problem, created by the stock market. If so, the state is perfectly capable of bailing out the school districts by paying this cost itself. It bails out corporations all the time, for much more money than this would cost it.
In fact, it’s perfectly possible for this Democrat governor to get around the trick played when Proposal A passed under Governor Engler, a Republican, and shift the pension payments back to the state. The per-student payments to the districts are set by the state. The governor could raise those payments by much more than a measly $74.
If Granholm wanted to, that is.
Instead, the state is coming back to the districts to have them foot the bill for its losses. And now that the state has come back to the districts for more and more, the districts AND the state are coming after the school employees.
This comes at a time when many school district budgets are already millions of dollars in deficit. Some districts are laying off a number of teachers and other employees; others are almost completely shutting down. There’s been talk about raising the minimum number of years for full retirement from 30 to 35.
Proposal A is turning out to be just another way to take from the working people of the state, to put it into the pockets of the banks and stock brokerage firms. The Republican Governor Engler started it in 1994, and the Democrat Governor Granholm continues it today.
May 3, 2004
In a big victory for the bosses, the EEOC (Equal Employment Opportunity Commission) voted that employers can cut back on health care benefits for retirees when they become eligible for Medicare benefits at age 65. For the more than 12 million retirees who earned the benefit from their employer, the ruling could bring devastation to their pocketbooks and their health.
Medicare–even with the changes–does not begin to cover the cost of prescription drugs. It does not cover co-payments and deductibles. It does not cover catastrophic illnesses or much preventive care. An older person who lacks a health plan to cover such care must either pay for it or do without.
The ruling of the EEOC pretends that it ends age discrimination over which category in the work force gets retirement benefits, those under 65 or those over 65. If that’s what the EEOC wanted, it would have made sure everyone gets equally good benefits–not equally bad!
In fact, what it does is allow employers to cut back on health care benefits, using what the EEOC decided as an excuse.
When Bush’s Medicare bill was in front of Congress last year, the Senate had proposed a similar rule to cut back health care benefits for older people. The AARP, American Association of Retired People, gave support to Bush’s bill on the basis that the Senate drop this provision.
Perhaps the AARP was fooled by this little charade. But so are we, if we believe Congress is the reason we gain benefits. The original Medicare benefits, as well as legislation against discrimination on the basis of color, sex or age, grew out of the social movements of the 1960s. Angry people mobilized in the streets forced politicians to re-think their prejudices and positions, then. It’s what will do it again.
May 3, 2004
The Baltimore City Board of Education just announced big cuts in the schools.
There will be no more summer school. Parents of high school students will be allowed to pay for their children to take special courses at city community colleges–if they can afford it. Of course, many can’t. No arrangements were made for students in grades 1 through 8 who need to re-take courses. This means that most students who need to re-take a course won’t be able to promote or graduate.
A year ago, 39,000 out of about 92,000 Baltimore public school students failed to complete all their courses successfully. This shows what a failing job the schools have been doing. And it reflects the fact that too little money is put into the schools. Class sizes are too big, books and equipment are old or missing, teachers have too much to do to give each student the attention they need–the attention that students in wealthy school systems get.
Instead of rectifying this, the school board is punishing the students. And it is proposing to eliminate 250 teachers this coming school year, making class sizes even bigger.
State and local officials both say there isn’t enough money. It’s a lie. They know very well that on all levels of government millions upon millions of dollars are being forked over every day to corporations and rich people, through tax breaks and subsidies of various sorts. Baltimore has plenty of money to subsidize a private developer to rehabilitate the old Hippodrome Theater. It has plenty of money for subsidies to developers like bakery boss Paterakis in Fells Point and Canton. And the state government has been making more and more tax loopholes for corporations in Maryland. During the last couple of years, 90 of the 131 largest companies paid no state corporate income taxes at all because of these tax breaks.
Yes, there is money in city and state coffers. But neither the Republican governor nor the Democratic mayor set it aside for the children.
May 3, 2004
In mid-April, the California legislature passed a new workers compensation bill, with overwhelming support from both Democrats and Republicans.
Signing the bill, Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger declared "With this great reform, I can say to everyone, California is open for business."
Open for business–and open season on workers’ compensation benefits.
First, it restricts the doctors a worker will be able to see to only those doctors in an employer-designated pool–that is, company doctors. Workers will no longer have the right to see their own doctor. At the same time, the workers’ right to challenge or appeal the company doctors’ medical reports will be severely curtailed.
The "reform" also restricts the kinds of injuries that are covered to only those documented by "objective criteria." This will make it much more difficult for workers to win claims for conditions such as carpal tunnel injuries, back strains and migraines which are extremely painful but that sometimes don’t show any other symptoms.
It also cuts benefits. If the company can claim that the worker had a pre-existing condition that contributed to a "work-related" problem, the worker’s compensation payments can be reduced.
Finally, the "reform" allows the company to cut off payments for what are deemed to be temporary disabilities after two years–which means that workers might have their benefits cut off before they are healed.
All of this was justified with the usual claims about "abuse" of the system.
Yes, there’s "abuse" of the system.
The past "deregulation" of both the insurance and health care companies that deal with workers comp, has allowed these companies to charge practically what they want. Some clinics now charge four or five times more for the treatment of workers comp injuries than for ordinary patients–knowing that the insurance companies, which they are often affiliated with, will pass along the price increases.
The "abuse" of the system comes from the employers who deny injured workers benefits and from the insurance and health care companies who rip them off.
May 3, 2004
The UAW has just announced a new deal that applies to all Delphi and Visteon workers hired from now until at least 2011. Delphi and Visteon used to be networks of GM and Ford parts plants before they were spun off into these imaginary "independent" companies. Supposedly, the companies agreed to maintain their wage and benefit levels comparable to what they had at GM and Ford.
The cuts just announced are staggering. Among the worst to be made public so far:
New hire hourly pay will now start at $14 instead of the current $22. And it will top out at only a little more than half what current classifications make. There are no raises, no COLA for 4 years, then a reduced COLA for 3 more years. New hires’ medical coverage does not begin until workers pay up front each year the first $1000 (for an individual) or $2000 (for a family) of medical expenses. Drug co-pays are 50% higher. There is no traditional retirement plan. Workers will have a 401(k) plan in which they can save to pay their own pensions.
Future new hires will need a very powerful magnifying glass in order to see much difference between out-and-out non-union plants and these UAW-organized ones.
UAW leaders justify their great leap backward by saying they are saving jobs, and they point to the company’s promise not to close any more plants until 2011–unless the union agrees. This lie about sacrificing to save jobs is worn out. It’s been told every time sacrifices were demanded of the workers–and every time there were fewer and fewer jobs with each passing year.
This deal is not about protecting jobs. It’s about protecting profits. It’s not even about turning an unprofitable company into a profitable one. Visteon and Delphi have always been profitable. It’s just that the bosses prefer to be even more profitable–and they are being helped by the leaders of the workers’ union to help them gain more profits.
Present-day workers know that this agreement creates a battering ram against their own future as well as that of new hires. Will the new hires feel solidarity, will they be ready to support the wages, medical care and pensions of the older group when the older group sacrificed them?
How long before all UAW workers in every factory are reduced to these new low conditions–in the name of "saving jobs?"
Perhaps the 55,000 Delphi and Visteon workers were once among the large group of workers who believed that their interests could be sustained by themselves, without actively fighting to help lift up others in the working class. The new UAW agreement–whose aim is to protect the bosses’ interests at the expense of all the workers–symbolizes the futility of such hopes.
Workers once rose to the challenge and found the ways to organize. The working class will once again do what it has to do.
May 3, 2004
On April 21, Mordechai Vanunu, an Israeli citizen who worked as a technician at the country’s Dimona nuclear plant, walked out of prison after 18 years. Eleven of those years were in solitary confinement. The "crime" for which he spent all those years was revealing to the world that Israel had developed nuclear weapons.
For the last year and a half, we were bombarded with talk about Iraq’s supposed Weapons of Mass Destruction. But U.S. politicians and the mainstream media don’t mention that these weapons have existed in the Middle East for decades–possessed by Israel. In fact, Israel held at least 100 to 200 nuclear bombs when Vanunu exposed the dirty secret. Nonetheless, to this day, Israel refuses to admit it has these weapons.
Vanunu revealed details of Israel’s nuclear program to the London Sunday Times, which published an article about it on October 5, 1986. He provided 60 photos that showed the bomb factory, including plutonium spheres used as bomb triggers. Right after that, he was kidnaped by the Israeli secret police when he was visiting Italy and was returned to Israel, where he was found guilty of treason in a secret trial.
Vanunu is a pacifist who denounced "the dangerous illusion that nuclear arms can be a means of defense. Only peace between States can offer security." When Israel offered to release him from prison in 1998 on the condition that he no longer denounce nuclear arms, he refused. Coming out of prison, he said, "You didn’t succeed to break me, you didn’t succeed to make me crazy." At his release from prison, Israeli rightwingers shouted "Death to traitors!" He responded, "to all those calling me a traitor, I’m proud and happy to do what I did."
Vanunu may be out of prison, but he’s not free. The Israeli government put numerous restrictions on him. He can’t go abroad for a year, he can’t speak with foreigners, he can’t go to airports or ports, can’t go to the border, enter foreign embassies or discuss even what was already published in the Sunday Times. If he violates these restrictions, he was told he’ll go back to prison.
This is a man who has had the courage to stand up for his convictions. He deserves our support and solidarity.
May 3, 2004
In the April 14 elections, once again the ANC (African National Congress), party of Nelson Mandela, won overwhelmingly, and it increased its share of the vote slightly. For the first time, it came in first in every region in the country. Overall, the ANC won almost 70% of the vote.
There were 21 parties on the ballot in South Africa. The number two party was the Democratic Alliance, which for decades under apartheid was the party of the liberal white middle class. Its vote was only 12%. Number three was the Inkatha Freedom Party, which is a Zulu-nationalist party, and had almost all its votes in Kwazulu-Natal. The old party of apartheid, now called the New National Party, came in fourth. It did not oppose the ANC, but rather it pledged to work with it, in exchange for the ANC’s promise of governmental positions in the Cape province, and maybe in the national government.
This new alliance is not as strange as it seems. The old National Party, which had run the apartheid government since 1948, brought the ANC to power in 1994 when force alone was not able to contain the long militant struggles against apartheid. The National Party–once the defender of apartheid–decided to dismantle it, in order to save capitalism. It made an alliance with the ANC to do so.
The ANC used its tremendous prestige to convince the black workers that now was the time for the reconciliation of all races. That meant that those torturers and murderers from the apartheid state apparatus who confessed openly to what they did were let go without punishment. The old repressive state apparatus was carried over. For years under apartheid, black people had waged rent strikes because they couldn’t afford the high rents. Now the ANC told them that the country couldn’t move forward unless rents were paid–which were higher than ever, and black people were no richer. Those who insisted on rent strikes were evicted by the government’s security forces. The same applied to the refusal to pay utility bills for water or electricity.
Black workers have seen many union and ANC leaders join the boards of corporations where they received handsome salaries and became millionaires. The black middle class has grown, while the ANC has told black workers that they need to sacrifice for the economic development of the country.
Housing is a good touchstone of the ANC in power. Under apartheid the mass of black people lived in hovels and shanty towns. The ANC government has boasted that it built 1.2 million homes over the last ten years. But many are "starter homes," which are tiny one-room buildings that often develop cracks and even fall down. Yet three million families don’t have even these shacks. The homeless build shelters in squatter camps. The government has been bulldozing these camps, and evicting squatters who move into empty buildings, including shooting those who don’t move. Meanwhile, the black middle class has been able to move into the formerly all-white suburbs, where they are guarded behind walls and electric fences, with armed security guards for extra protection.
Today, the unemployment rate in South Africa is officially given as 41%, higher than the 28% at the end of apartheid. The mass of the black population lives at a level of poor underdeveloped countries, while the middle class enjoys a standard of living similar to that in Europe or the United States. No wonder that South Africa is shown by U.N. statistics to be one of the most unequal countries in the world–and it’s becoming more and more unequal.
Ten years ago, TV stations around the world showed the picture of long lines of people who had never had the chance to vote coming out for the first time. Today, the number of registered voters is down 3 million from 1994, and the abstention rate in the recent election was 25% of the registered voters, compared to only 11% just five years ago. The catastrophic situation faced by the black workers certainly can explain their growing disillusion.
Nevertheless, the recent elections also show that the ANC still enjoys enormous respect from an important part of the black population due to the struggle against apartheid. But the experience and lessons drawn from the many struggles of black workers under apartheid still live on. The working class still makes South Africa’s mines and industry run, which are by far the richest in Africa. They have every reason to turn their backs on the nationalism of the ANC which only holds them down, to fight for their class interests against the bourgeoisie, whether it be white or black.
The current issue of the Spark magazine Class Struggle has an in-depth article "South Africa: A decade of ANC rule–nationalism’s exorbitant cost for the masses."
May 3, 2004
CBS News recently exposed the torture of hundreds of Iraqi civilians by U.S. Army soldiers. Ironically this took place at Abu Ghraib, a prison where thousands were tortured when Saddam Hussein was in power. This notorious prison now houses thousands of prisoners again, including women and teenagers, many of them civilians picked up in random military sweeps and at highway checkpoints.
During a segment of the program "60 Minutes II", pictures taken by an unnamed U.S. soldier or soldiers showed nude Iraqi prisoners stacked in human pyramids and forced to perform sex acts, while their U.S. Army guards–both male and female–stood by smiling, laughing, pointing and giving the thumbs up sign. Other pictures showed a prisoner forced to stand on a small box with a hood over his head and electrical wires attached to him that he had been told would be used to electrocute him if he fell off the box. A photograph was described showing a prisoner with electrical wires attached to his genitals; another showing a prisoner being attacked by a dog. A 15-year-old male prisoner was reportedly raped by an interrogator.
An article by Seymour Hersh in The New Yorker provides further grisly details. According to an internal Army report written last February, the abuses included beatings, pouring cold water and chemicals on naked detainees, sodomizing detainees with chemical lights and broom sticks, allowing a military guard to stitch the wound of a detainee who was slammed against the wall. There were also pictures of two dead men whose bodies showed signs of torture.
The Army says its investigation of abuse started in January when a soldier came forward with evidence, including photographs. In March, the Army brought charges against six enlisted men who had served as guards at the prison. Now the Army says that 17 soldiers have been implicated in the abuse at Abu Ghraib.
Why did the investigation stop with the rank and file soldiers? The abuse of prisoners was clearly widespread, and knowledge and responsibility of it certainly reached up the ranks. Witnesses testifying at the hearings of one of the accused soldiers said that the soldiers participating in the abuse acted as if it were routine, business as usual. The accused themselves also testified that they acted under orders by their officers. In fact, that’s what the photographs also seem to suggest–that these soldiers did not think they had anything to hide. The soldiers said that they were instructed to abuse and torture the prisoners to "loosen them up" for later interrogation by higher-ups. Often, these higher-ups were members of other agencies such as Military Intelligence, the CIA, as well as so-called "private military contractors"–that is, mercenaries especially recruited for the work.
After the mushrooming publicity in recent days, senior military and government officials, including President Bush, felt compelled to make statements to the effect that these were the actions of a few, and that those responsible would be punished. And yet, despite all the evidence, no higher-ranked officers have been charged so far. Some have simply been transferred to other assignments. In fact, the Bush administration and top military brass have shown exactly how they intend to deal with the situation by whom they chose as the new head of the prison system in Iraq: the former head of the Guantanamo prison. The same Guantanamo which is nothing but a concentration camp for the prisoners from the war in Afghanistan–prisoners who have been held there for two years now, isolated from the rest of the world, without being allowed to contact an attorney or anyone else.
If the horror of the prisons in Iraq poses a problem for the Bush administration and the U.S. military, it’s because there is now too much publicity about it, not because they disapprove of it. For the abuse of Iraqi civilian prisoners is simply built into the situation: to occupy another country against the will of the population turns the occupying army into torturers, terrorists and worse. And they are doing it under orders–orders coming all the way from the top levels of the chain of command.
May 3, 2004
The Peruvian state water company Sedapal just announced it will close off the water to more than seven million residents of the country’s capital every day from 5 p.m. to 5 a.m. But there will be water for some–undoubtedly the residents of rich neighborhoods. Water will also be available for corporate use in industry and agriculture.
The president of Sedapal said the problem is that rainfall was low during the rainy season which just ended. At the same time, he admitted the pipes are leaking. And why would pipes be leaking in the state water system? Because the funds weren’t used to plug up the holes and do the necessary maintenance!
Instead the poorer residents of the capital are to do without water, just at the moment when working people would get home and need it.
If there truly is a water shortage, then let the more than 400 U.S. companies operating there bring in water if they need it. The people of Lima should have first call on what’s available.
May 3, 2004
Bush has been running around bragging about the 308,000 jobs created in March. But the King Report, an investment newsletter, estimated that 296,000 of these jobs were either part time or temporary. The newsletter said, "we have never seen such a grossly misinterpreted employment report in our 30 years in this business."
And they’ve probably seen a lot!
May 3, 2004
Chrysler Group of DaimlerChrysler announced operating profits for the first three months of 2004 of 366 million dollars. (The figure would have been 90 million dollars higher but they had "expenses" for cutting jobs.) General Motors earned 1.3 BILLION dollars in the first three months of 2004. Their Chairman and CEO Rick Wagoner was rewarded with a 13 million dollar bonus plus seven million more in stock deals. Ford Motor Co. showed a whopping TWO billion dollars in profits for the first three months of the year. Even their former parts plant Visteon showed profits this year.
What a far cry from what these same companies were saying last summer. Then, the Big 3 automakers cried to their UAW opposites that life was very hard. Theirs was an industry in trouble, competition was so harsh that they needed sacrifices from auto workers and management alike. They said they needed to close plants, lay off thousands, make harsher working conditions and reduce the "burden" of costs for pension and health benefits for retirees and active workers.
In other words, don’t believe a word the bosses say when it’s time to negotiate a contract.
May 3, 2004
In the five years running between 1996 and 2000, 95% of corporations paid less than five% of their income in federal taxes. 60% of corporations paid nothing at all.
At one time, in the 1960s, corporate taxes accounted for 33% of federal income taxes. Today they make up 14% of income taxes.
To make up for the drop in corporate taxes, the federal government has turned to taxes on individuals–but not in proportion to their income. The income tax itself is less graduated. But what makes it worse is that the kind of taxes we pay have been shifted. This year, the federal payroll tax–another name for Social Security and Medicare–accounted for practically as much federal money as the income tax: 42% of federal revenue came from the income tax and 41% from Social Security and Medicare. In 1960, Social Security taxes made up only 16% of federal revenue. Social Security is a regressive tax, since those with higher incomes pay no tax on income over $76,200, meaning that their overallpercentage goes down the more money they make.
If it seems that we are paying more in taxes while the corporations are paying less, that’s because it’s true. It’s Robin Hood in reverse!
May 3, 2004
Michigan Governor Jennifer Granholm just signed into law two special bills designed to help two companies, Federal-Mogul Corporation and Mid-Michigan Packing. Neither Federal-Mogul Corporation nor Mid-Michigan Packing met the requirements for getting tax credits under the Michigan Economic Growth Authority. So Granholm and the state legislature modified the requirements.
This comes just after the state strong-armed through one set of concessions and is already shooting for another 148 million dollars in concessions from state workers as part of Granholm’s 2005 budget. Taxpayers in Michigan have also seen increases in many state fees and there have been cuts in state services.
There is no budget crisis in Michigan–just new ways to help the corporations at the expense of working people and the poor.
May 3, 2004
For the last couple of months, Wal-Mart has been trying to get approval from the Chicago City Council for two new stores, one to be located on the South Side and the other on the West Side, both in black neighborhoods, where residents have little access to big stores. Nonetheless, union leaders and a number of Aldermen on the City Council have campaigned against giving approval to the store.
Alderman Emma Mitts of the 37th Ward on the West Side said in defense of allowing the store, "We’ve got teenagers who need work. They’ve got to start somewhere. I started out in a grocery store. What’s wrong with them starting and being trained?"
Those against the stores being in Chicago say that Chicago is a "union town" and that Wal-Mart is a notoriously anti-union company. Wal-Mart spokesman John Biso countered that "Target is not union. K-Mart is not union." This is true, and it’s a commentary on the failure of the unions that are fighting to stop Wal-Mart.
This "Stop Wal-Mart" stance has long been the policy of the United Food & Commercial Workers Union all around the country toward all these chains. It campaigns to keep the stores out of areas where it has some political influence, and calls upon people to boycott the stores if they are built anyway.
In fact this kind of boycott–done over the head of the workers–is nothing but a ploy to try to force employers to sign up with them. It’s been notably unsuccessful–not just at Wal-Mart but at K-Mart and Target. At best the workers just ignore it, at worst it turns the workers against unions.
It’s not a surprise that workers hired into the stores have often not reacted kindly to a union that calls for a boycott of the store where they were working without ever engaging the workers themselves in the decision.
Of course, the workers need to organize–at Wal-Mart, at Target and K-Mart, and at all the other places they find themselves today. To do it will require something more than a publicity campaign–it requires the determination, combativity and imagination that workers have shown over and over again when they themselves decided to get organized.
May 3, 2004
On April 30, U.S. military officials announced that they had reached an agreement that could end the crisis in the Iraqi city of Fallujah. According to this deal, not U.S. Marines but an Iraqi "security force" would enter Fallujah to "restore order." And this force would be headed by a General Jasim Muhammad Saleh, formerly of ... Saddam Hussein’s Republican Guards.
Republican Guards? Wait a minute! Weren’t those Saddam’s most loyal troops–those notorious thugs that the former dictator used to oppress the Iraqi people? Whatever happened to the famous "deck of cards," the "bad guys," as Bush and Rumsfeld kept calling them?
Well, apparently some have become U.S. allies, "not-so-bad guys" again, just like Saddam himself was in the 1980s.
So the Bush administration now openly admits that it is relying on Saddam’s butchers to carry out the occupation of Iraq. This exposes another one of Bush’s lies–if anybody still had doubts, of course–that the U.S. invaded Iraq to free the Iraqi people from the brutal dictatorship of Saddam Hussein.
No, this war was not about Saddam Hussein. It is, and has always been, a war for the U.S. to bring a key area of strategic importance and vast oil reserves in the Middle East under its direct control, to the benefit of U.S. corporations. This is, and has been, a colonial war for the U.S. ruling class to take over Iraq. And the ongoing siege of Fallujah delivers further proof of this fact.
Faced with an insurgency there since the beginning of the occupation last year, the U.S. military put Fallujah under siege about a month ago. Then it started to attack the city in two different ways–through house-to-house searches and bombardment. The goal of the house-to-house searches, of course, would be to find insurgents by obtaining information about them from the population. If the insurgents had the support of the population, however, which is certainly the case since otherwise the insurgency couldn’t have survived, this could mean only one thing: torture. As for the bombing of the city, it was carried out to drive out the civilian population so that troops can move in and fight the insurgents unhindered.
This strategy has failed. Most of the residents of Fallujah have not left the city despite the brutality of the house-to-house searches and the bombing of neighborhoods. And that has left the U.S. military with a choice it can’t be happy with: send in the troops anyway at the cost of high casualties or make some kind of truce with the insurgents. For now, they seem to have chosen the second option, bringing in one of Saddam’s old generals as a cover.
This of course has the problem of exposing, more openly and without a doubt, Bush’s lies about "freeing the Iraqi people." But it raises another, potentially bigger problem for the U.S. It represents nothing less than an admission that it can’t control Fallujah. And if the U.S. can’t control one city, how will it control the whole country? For if Fallujah looks like a victory for the insurgents, it will encourage other insurgents in other cities.
That’s why it is certain that the battle of Fallujah is not over. Nor is an end to the occupation and war in Iraq in sight. In fact, Fallujah proves that this war is escalating; that it is becoming more brutal and more costly every day. For Fallujah has shown how far the U.S. is willing to go in terms of waging all-out war against a whole population. It has also shown who the U.S. sees as its allies in this war: whoever is ready to share the dirty work of controlling the population on behalf of the U.S. military, including Saddam Hussein’s butchers.
May 3, 2004
With the growing U.S. casualties from wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, re-enlistment rates in the U.S. military and national guard are going down. The Army tries to hide it, but the fact that it blocked the departure of 24,000 active duty soldiers ready to quit tells the story.
So the U.S. military is making an ever bigger push to nab students, especially those coming out of the working class high schools.
These recruitment efforts are being mounted on many fronts.
First, recruiters are calling high school students more and more incessantly, whether or not the students had ever spoken to a recruiter. The military gets these names from the schools themselves. Tucked away in the 2001 "No Child Left Behind" bill that was supposed to make Bush the "education president," is a clause that stipulates that all public high schools must supply the names of all juniors and seniors to the U.S. military–or else lose their federal funding.
Besides that, military recruiters regularly visit high schools, with the usual manipulations, lies and appeals. Nowadays, the recruiters don’t come alone. They come with military bands, huge F-16 flight simulators that the students can play with, etc.
And then, of course, there are the ongoing JROTC programs that are in all the working class high schools but in few of the high schools serving the middle and upper class communities.
In Los Angeles, in many working class high schools, students, teachers and parents are organizing against all these efforts. Some teachers have formed a group called Coalition Against Militarism in our Schools. They held a conference in February. And they are going to hold another one on May 8.
According to the L.A. Times, the February conference was attended by about 150 people. One of the speakers was Fernando Suarez del Solar, whose son, Marine Lance Cpl. Jesus Alberto Suarez del Solar, was killed in the early days of the U.S. war in Iraq. Said Suarez of the military recruitment, "This is a conscious plan on the part of the government to drive our students out of the schools and drive them into the military to take part in the death and destruction."
The purpose of these groups, they say, is to expose the military, and counter the myths and lies that are being told to get them to join. Today students and teachers are grappling with how to deal with the concrete life and death issues that the war poses for them.
May 3, 2004
President Bush wouldn’t testify before the 9/11 Commission unless he had Vice-President Cheney at his side. He refused to testify under oath. He refused to allow the Commission to keep a transcript of the record.
It’s obvious why Bush also refused to allow any video record of the event. We might have caught Cheney moving his lips while Bush spoke!