the Voice of
The Communist League of Revolutionary Workers–Internationalist
“The emancipation of the working class will only be achieved by the working class itself.”
— Karl Marx
the Voice of
The Communist League of Revolutionary Workers–Internationalist
“The emancipation of the working class will only be achieved by the working class itself.”
— Karl Marx
Nov 9, 2009
For over a month, the Obama administration has been carrying out a big public debate about how many more troops to send into Afghanistan. Should it put in another 40,000 troops, as recommended by General Stanley McChrystal, the U.S. commander in Afghanistan? Should the U.S. military go after al-Qaeda or the Taliban? Should the U.S. widen its invasion and war in Pakistan?
But what the politicians say publicly is for show. It’s not the real debate. The real discussion behind the scenes is how to enable U.S. imperialism to claim victory in three countries, with its military bogged down for more than eight years in devastating and catastrophic wars.
The U.S. invasion of Iraq was supposed to be quick and easy. After all, the U.S. had already bled the Iraqi population and destroyed much of the country after 20 years of war and a suffocating U.S. embargo. All it was supposed to take was a few weeks of intense U.S. bombing (“shock and awe”), followed by a brief invasion and occupation. The country and its oil was supposed to fall into the U.S. military and oil companies’ lap.
Instead, there was a powerful resistance that the U.S. military could not put down, even though it killed hundreds of thousands of people. Playing the divide-and-conquer strategy, the U.S. military instigated a bloody civil war that rages to this day. This civil war threatens to destabilize the U.S.-backed Iraqi regime and wider parts of the Middle East. Despite all the talk about the success of the famous U.S. troop surge, the U.S. is still not removing troops. Even today, the Obama administration is hinting that it may delay a partial troop withdrawal scheduled for January.
Add to that, Afghanistan. The U.S. invaded that country after 9/11 in order to demonstrate to the entire world that the U.S. military had not been weakened. That country had also been devastated by two decades of invasions and wars, in which the U.S. had already played a key role behind the scenes.
But what happened was the opposite of what U.S. authorities expected. After eight years of bloody war and occupation, U.S. commanders admit the U.S. and its NATO allies are losing control over more and more territory. Instead of appearing strong and invincible, “the greatest military in history,” as Obama calls it, has shown itself vulnerable. And every action taken by the U.S. to impose its control only seems to drive the Afghan population more into the arms of those fighting against the U.S.
Faced with these disasters of its own making, U.S. imperialism has one answer: to continue these wars and expand them. And everyone knows it. But the U.S. government has to convince the U.S. population to support continuing, and above all expanding, the wars in Afghanistan and Pakistan as well.
That is where the big show of a public debate comes in. The Obama administration pretends to be considering all the options and possibilities. Obama takes his time, making it appear that wading deeper and deeper into bloody wars is the only supposedly “reasonable” option.
These are abominable lies. No matter what the Obama administration says, the U.S. will be engaged in continuous war for years to come. For the people of Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan, it means worsening destruction and carnage. For the U.S. working class, it means the loss of young people driven into the military by the unemployment, then chewed up and spit out by the wars. Our tax dollars are used to destroy other peoples and lands.
For what? So that the U.S. capitalists can continue to exploit people and resources in countries all over the world. So that U.S. imperialism can take the fruit of other people’s labor, their oil, agriculture, everything, at the point of a gun, holding out the threat of massive U.S. military force and violence if anyone dares call any of this into question.
For U.S. imperialism, that is why the “credibility” of U.S. military force is so important, and why the Obama administration keeps pushing us into supporting these wars.
We have no interest in doing so. U.S. out of Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan!
Nov 9, 2009
At the end of October, the government announced the stimulus bill had “saved or created” 640,000 jobs. As soon as the announcement was made, government officials had to justify their fuzzy math. No matter how the numbers were sliced and diced, hundreds of thousands of dollars were used for each job “saved or created.” In addition, half the jobs discussed were in education, one job area in which almost every city has been laying off teachers.
In fact, between furlough days, cost increases and funding cuts, school districts already see cutbacks, even beyond those in Washington DC and California, where big layoffs were announced.
That’s not all. Unemployment has hit a record 10.2%–after taking into account the administration’s stimulus job count. If all those who have given up looking for jobs or are not eligible for unemployment benefits are counted, the figure for unemployment is more than one in five adults of working age, according to John Williams’ Shadow Statistics. Since the high point of employment in 2007, more than eight million people have lost jobs.
The stimulus bill–even if the administration’s wild claims were true–is not just a drop in the bucket. It is a slap in the face of all those desperately trying to find a job today.
Nov 9, 2009
A Maryland official claims 4,464 jobs have been created or saved with the stimulus plan money given to the state so far. State officials said their statistics were the best in the nation.
What officials don’t mention is that from February through September this year, another statistic in Maryland has made itself felt: at least 33,000 people have lost their jobs.
Maryland has received about two billion dollars it is supposed to get under the stimulus plan. That makes each job–if anyone could take the 4,464 figure seriously–cost $500,000.
With that much funding, they could have hired 50,000 unemployed people.
Nov 9, 2009
The flu causes some of the pharmaceutical giants to smile. Roche, for example, which makes Tamiflu, announced that its sales were twelve times higher in the second quarter of 2009, and predicted that this product alone would have yearly sales of nearly two billion dollars!
The companies that make flu vaccine–Sanofi, Novartis and GlaxoSmithKline–raked in piles of orders from the governments of the rich countries, more than a billion dollars from the U.S. government alone. And there are the sellers of face masks and hand sterilizers, who are rubbing their hands with glee.
The ghouls of Big Pharma can’t wait for the epidemic to spread.
Nov 9, 2009
Public health officials tell us that swine flu is particularly contagious and that anyone who has it should stay home.
Agreed! But how? An estimated 40% of private sector jobs have no paid sick time. A survey last year said two out of three sick workers without sick pay went to work.
Not only don’t a lot of companies pay for sick days, many companies penalize anyone who takes the sick days they have.
We should stay home when we are sick! And get paid! A real public health system, faced with an epidemic, would require every employer to act accordingly.
Nov 9, 2009
A British hedge fund, Ebullio Capital Management, bought up 90% of the tin held in the warehouses of the London Metal Exchange (LME), the leading world exchange for non-ferrous metals. It means this fund controls almost all the tin in the world.
Tin may not be as important as aluminum or copper, but it is used to make electronic circuits. Speculators in tin stand to make a lot of money–the very reason that Ebullio has taken over almost the entire stock of tin. There are problems in mining tin in China and Indonesia. Supplies are expected to go down. At the same time, demand for tin in the Asian countries is going up.
It’s good news for Ebullio–which will profit from its dominant position by imposing much higher prices than the law of supply and demand would suggest. Tin today sells for $15,000 a ton compared to $9,700 last December.
So some competitors complained to the so-called “regulatory” body of the London Metal Exchange. It refused to intervene, saying that Ebullio’s dominant position fully “respected” the laws of the market.
Under capitalism, it’s completely legal to speculate in raw materials essential for production. Yes, speculation is even completely legal on those products essential for the survival of human beings–like rice, wheat and corn.
Nov 9, 2009
The gigantic ExxonMobil oil company and its partner Royal Dutch Shell were just handed the right to develop the very large West Qurna-1 oil field in southern Iraq.
The Bush administration denied its invasion of Iraq had anything to do with oil. Supposedly, the U.S. invaded Iraq over “weapons of mass destruction” and “regime change.”
Well, here’s the real deal: ExxonMobil gets the payoff.
Nov 9, 2009
The Democrats’ health “reform” bill is winding its way through Congress, with one version having passed the Senate Finance Committee, another version having passed the Senate Health committee, and still a third version having just passed the House of Representatives.
The medical system of this country certainly needs a drastic reform. The situation is nothing short of a disaster. The U.S. spends twice as much per person as many other countries, and yet provides much less medical care. Forty-seven million people are left without any kind of coverage at all. Another 168 million people have what’s called “inadequate” coverage–meaning if you have a serious illness or operation, it can wipe out all your savings or drive you into bankruptcy.
So, what will this reform do? The details are not clear. But the main outlines of the “reform” can be seen.
Central to every version of this reform is the mandate requiring all individuals to have medical insurance. Either your employer buys it from a private insurance company or you do–or you pay a penalty. In the Senate bill, the penalty is $1500 each year for a family.
Oh, yes, people can be exempted from paying the fine if they can’t find a policy whose premiums cost less than 8% to 12% of their gross income. But you’ll still have the same problem: you won’t have any insurance.
If you do find a policy with a cheap premium–say $3,000 or $4,000 a year in premiums for a family–you then have to pay high deductibles, co-pays and uncovered costs. You can easily double your total expense for health care.
Nothing in these bills gets rid of this outrageous pricing for medical care.
You can get onto Medicaid if your family income is close to the government’s poverty level. But the fact that you are on Medicaid doesn’t mean you can get medical care. No doctor or hospital or laboratory is mandated by this “reform” to accept Medicaid payments or to treat you. Today, less than a third of all primary doctors and obstetricians/gynecologists accept Medicaid. Only about one-quarter of all dentists accept it. Some states are slashing back coverage, eliminating dental care, eye care, eyeglasses, hearing, podiatry. And the House version allows states to charge the very poor up to 20% of Medicaid’s costs.
If you have just a little bit more income–up to 400% of poverty, you can get tax credits to cover part of the medical insurance. BUT those credits won’t begin to pay the costs of even the cheapest premiums, not to mention the monstrous deductibles and co-pays. AND you have to file an income tax return to get those credits, AND wait until next year to get them. Who has the luxury of waiting until next year to be repaid for what you put out this year? Not the working poor!
And the Congressional Budget Office estimates the most likely version of the bill still leaves 25 million people uninsured.
As for the 168 million people whose insurance is today inadequate, it will remain inadequate. Nothing in the bill even touches that question.
They dare call this a “reform”?
Nov 9, 2009
The government is supposed to establish a “national insurance exchange,” where people supposedly can go to buy “affordable insurance.”
BUT no insurance company MUST provide “affordable” insurance or list its policies on that exchange.
Insurance companies are supposedly barred from cutting someone off when they get sick or from refusing to sell insurance to people with pre-existing conditions.
BUT many states already have that prohibition–and it hasn’t prevented insurance companies from delaying payments, even denying claims for a sick person or refusing advance authorization. In other words, you can buy the insurance, but it won’t pay out for you.
Insurance companies are supposedly prevented from charging higher premiums based on your health status. For example, they cannot charge you more if you have a chronic condition like diabetes or high blood pressure or heart problems.
BUT, they will be allowed to charge older people four times as much as younger people. And older people are the ones who have most of the chronic conditions.
Bryan Liang, director of the Institute of Health Law Studies at California Western Law School, commented: “Right now, the deck is stacked against patients. Healthcare reform is not going to change the ball game.”
Nov 9, 2009
No employer will be mandated to provide insurance, and if they provide it, they won’t be mandated to provide more than a very low minimum of coverage. In fact, the Congressional Budget Office assumes that, if the bill passes, more employers will use it as a justification to dump insurance for their employees.
Yes, employers may have to pay a small “fee” if they don’t provide insurance. But there are tons of loopholes. In the Senate bill, the employer pays no fee for any employee who doesn’t buy insurance, pays no fee for any workers whose income is so low they qualify for Medicaid, etc.
Moreover, employers that do provide insurance can charge employees with chronic conditions up to 50% more for their part of the premiums if they don’t enlist in a “wellness program” and move toward meeting “targets” for controlling their diabetes, their blood pressure, their weight, etc.
This is being sold as an “incentive” for people to improve their health–despite the fact that medical experts say that such “incentives,” which are really penalties, lead to worse health, not better. Organizations like the American Heart Association, the American Cancer Society, and the American Diabetes Association have all lined up in the past to oppose such plans.
This “reform” is a gift to employers, an easy way to push more of the premium onto their employees.
Nov 9, 2009
Even if the “public option” were to make its way back into the bill–which might be done in order to “sell” the bill–the Congressional Budget Office estimated that less than 5% of those without insurance would be able to qualify for it.
Two researchers well-known in the field, Drs. David Himmelstein and Steffie Woolhandler, professors of medicine at Harvard, explained why the so-called public option would do nothing to alleviate the problems so long as private insurance controls the field. They explain it this way:
“A public plan might cut private insurers’ profits, which is why they hate it. But their profits account for only 3% of the money squandered on bureaucracy.
Far more goes for marketing (to attract healthy, profitable members). And tens of billions are spent on the armies of insurance administrators who fight over payment and their counterparts at hospitals and doctors offices. All of these would be retained with a public plan option.
Unfortunately, competition in health insurance involves a race to the bottom. Insurers compete by not paying for care: by denying payment and shifting costs onto patients or other payers. These bad behaviors confer a decisive competitive advantage.
A public plan option would either emulate them–becoming a clone of private insurance–or go under.”
Nov 9, 2009
There is no cost control whatsoever built into the system. The Obama administration reached deals with the different health care industries to cut costs. In reality, the drug industry, the insurance industry and the hospital industry each agreed ONLY to “limit voluntarily” their INCREASES.
For the population, the “reform” is nothing but an attack.
Medical costs, insurance costs will continue to go up. Most of those who didn’t buy insurance before will have as hard a time buying it now as they did before or they’ll have to pay a fine–and get nothing.
Those who have insurance will be hit with higher bills, taxes and costs. The Senate Finance Plan put a tax on so-called “gold-plated” insurance plans offered by employers. “Gold-plated”? AFSCME, the union representing state and local government workers, estimated that half its membership would be hit by this proposal–not to mention workers in heavy industry whose medical coverage has long been attacked for being “gold-plated.”
People already on Medicare will face cuts–400 billion dollars is to be cut out of Medicare in the House bill, even though Medicare has much less waste built into it than does privately run insurance.
People on Medicaid will face cuts in addition to the ones recently made, and those going into Medicaid will find that the majority of doctors will not accept it.
But for the medical industries, the “reform” is a bonanza. The insurance companies, faced with declining enrollments, expect to augment their rolls–and charge more money. The pharmaceutical companies not only expect new consumers, they have been targeted for big subsidies for biotech therapies. Hospital companies, fearing more unpaid bills and emergency room visits as the unemployment crisis worsens, now expect to recoup those losses.
Nov 9, 2009
The FBI lured a Muslim leader from Detroit, Luqman Ameen Abdullah, to a warehouse in Dearborn, Michigan and fatally shot him. They also charged 11 of Abdullah’s followers with various crimes.
The story the FBI gave was typical justification for FBI wrongdoing! They claim Abdullah was a radical Muslim who hoped to set up a separate nation inside the U.S. governed by Islamic Sharia law. They imply by the way they talked that he was a terrorist–without saying it.
Local Muslim leaders, Muslim scholars and people from his west-side Detroit neighborhood tell a totally different story about Abdullah. They say he offered people a peaceful way out of the most brutal conditions. “He would open up the mosque to homeless people. He used to run a soup kitchen and feed indigent people. I knew nothing of him that was related to any nefarious or criminal behavior.... He would give the shirt off his back to people,” said Dawud Walid, executive director of the Council on American-Islamic Relations, Michigan chapter.
In a city where crime is rampant, those close to Abdullah say he wanted to have Islamic law in neighborhoods “because he wanted no drugs, no guns, peace where the children can run and play.”
The authorities say they found an “arsenal” at Abdullah’s home: three rifles, a shotgun, and a handgun. No self-respecting Michigan hunter would be caught dead with such a small “arsenal.” According to Abdullah’s son, he carried a gun because he’d been shot at three times, which is hardly unheard of in the impoverished Detroit neighborhood where he lived.
The FBI says Abdullah had a gun and was killed in a shootout with their agents. Who could believe that there were 18 bullets fired in a crowded warehouse, but every one of them hit him–and no one but him? Not a scratch on anyone else!
The feds say Abdullah was involved in fencing stolen goods. If he was, then why did they have to lure him away from his Detroit neighborhood to a warehouse where they were running a sting operation in racist Dearborn? Certainly it’s not because it’s hard to fence stolen goods in Detroit.
It’s hard to believe anything the FBI says, but even if it were true, why was the FBI involved in investigating a small-time fencing operation? “This was petty stuff,” said Imam Abdullah El-Amin of the Muslim Center of Detroit, “A bunch of petty thieves.” In reality, the FBI specifically targeted Abdullah.
This was the FBI’s alibi for the execution of someone who was a critic of the U.S. He spoke out against the U.S. wars and dared suggest black people should organize themselves and depend on each other.
The fact the FBI would murder a black activist comes as no surprise to members of the black community and anyone else politically active in this country. We know only too well how the FBI went after Malcolm X, Huey Newton, Bobby Seale, Little Bobby Hutton, George Jackson, Angela Davis, Fred Hampton, Mark Clark, Mumia Abu-Jamal, Leonard Peltier, among a host of other people.
The assassination of Luqman Ameen Abdullah was officially sanctioned murder.
Nov 9, 2009
Dwayne Provience, from Detroit, Michigan, was just freed after spending eight years, since 2001, in jail for a murder he always maintained he did not commit. His case was taken by the University of Michigan’s law clinic, the Innocence Project, in which law students research cases regarded as wrongful conviction.
What came out after all these years is that the police had information that would have shown Provience’s innocence. But the evidence was never given to Provience’s lawyer. In addition, the only eye-witness accusing him was in jail facing criminal charges and told conflicting stories about Provience. The testimony of other witnesses who contradicted him was not used.
In a 2003 trial–after Provience was convicted–the police argued someone else had killed the man he was accused of killing.
In other words, prosecutors and police were so keen to clear up a killing, they kept an innocent man in jail for more than six years after 2003, when they knew he didn’t do it.
In a justice system that listens only to those with high-priced lawyers, the poor go to jail. And there are far too few law students and lawyers doing the unpaid work to prove these injustices.
Nov 9, 2009
The official unemployment rate is 10.2%! This depression-level rate doesn’t include all those working sharply reduced hours and those who have given up looking for work. A more complete count of the unemployed and underemployed puts the rate at 22.1%, meaning more than one in five workers is hit.
With the economic crisis, companies are selling less and they’re squeezing more out of workers who remain on the job. Productivity is increasing at the incredibly high rate of 8.2%. This means companies are laying off faster than their sales are shrinking.
The result of these layoffs is a sharp cut in the demand for all kinds of goods and services, since unemployed workers buy only bare essentials. And workers with reduced hours and in fear of being laid off don’t buy expensive items like cars and new houses. So the economy goes further down and still more workers are thrown out of work.
Today, manufacturing is operating at only two-thirds of its capacity. This is after all the plant closings of recent years. This marks the craziness of this system. One-third of factory capacity lies idle. Millions of workers are out of work. Workers would love to buy a new car or a new house, but they can’t afford to.
Materially, everything exists ready to be used to meet human needs–empty factories, vacant construction sites, empty railroad cars and over-the-road trucks, etc. But a broken system sinks the population further into mass unemployment.
Nov 9, 2009
On October 30, in the biggest single-day closing of banks so far, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) closed all nine banks owned by FBOP Corporation, a large bank holding company. The banks–in California, Illinois, Texas and Arizona–had a total of 153 branches.
The FDIC turned the banks over to U.S. Bankcorp, the sixth largest U.S. bank holding company, owned by billionaire Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway, Inc. As in earlier similar deals with U.S. Bankcorp and other big banks, the FDIC agreed to cover all losses on the failed banks’ bad assets and take only a small slice of any profits they may make. It is estimated the deal will cost the FDIC two and a half billion dollars.
In coming months, the FDIC is expected to seize hundreds more small and medium-sized failed banks to turn over to bigger banks. In other words, the government is taking advantage of the financial crisis to consolidate ever more of the banking system in the hands of just a few big super-banks. And when these few super-banks begin to fail again, undoubtedly the government will say it must bail them out with our tax money, because they are “too big to let fail.”
Not a bad deal for all the big boys involved!
Nov 9, 2009
“No one will do anything.” Haven’t we heard that complaint before? Well, Ford workers did something. Massively, they voted down a package of concessions pushed on them by the company and top union leaders.
This vote was significant. It is one of the few times in decades that workers at a large national company refused demands for concessions. And it was the first time since 1982 that a national UAW auto contract was voted down.
Ford workers had to face down most of the top union leadership, nationally and locally, who pushed the deal, repeating threats about plant closings and empty promises of jobs. Workers also waded through insults and false advice put out by the media.
With 40 Ford plants spread all across the country from Buffalo to Kansas City, from Detroit to Louisville, workers had to find the ways to communicate with each other. With the international union spreading out the vote over eleven days so staffers could go from plant to plant twisting arms, the workers got the vote totals at almost every local to make up their own tally. Ironically, they posted the results on an online discussion forum set up by Ford!
This fight was led by a few people who held local union offices–in particular by Gary Walkowicz, a bargaining committeeman at the Dearborn Truck Plant, joined by Nick Kottalis, chairman of the same unit. They were joined by a few other reps in various Ford plants, as well as many rank and file militants. Expressing the resentment that had been building for a long time in the ranks, they opened the floodgates to that very big NO!
The turning point came when International UAW Vice President Bob King was ushered into the Dearborn Truck Plant by Ford management, which shut down the line for him, costing Ford $750,000 in lost production! King got a very warm welcome–hot, actually. Workers shouted “NO! NO!”, sending him right back where he came from. King tried the same thing a few days later at Kansas City. K.C. workers were happy to give him the same reception. UAW President Ron Gettelfinger fared not much better at his own local in Kentucky.
The NO votes started rolling in from the big plants: 92% at Kansas City; 81% at Sterling Heights Axle; 72% at Auto Alliance; 75% at Sharonville; 75% at Saline; 80% at Chicago Stamping; 78% at Chicago Assembly; 84% at Louisville; and then 93% at Dearborn Truck Plant. Overall, the vote was almost three to one against: 22,952 “NO” to only 7,816 “YES,” according to the workers’ tally.
One vote won’t reverse the situation of the working class. Ford workers themselves have to be prepared for whatever tricks the union leadership and the company come back with. They have to be ready to defend their comrades who led the fight, when the company tries to pick the activists off. Ford workers will have to fight if they want to get back even part of what they have already given up. But they can use the links they formed in this fight to prepare for the next one.
And that next fight is coming–the fight to begin the process of taking back the concessions extorted from them and to take back their union.
Nov 9, 2009
After Ford workers’ powerful NO vote, Ford executives rushed to minimize the damage. Mark Fields, president for the Americas, stated that the UAW agreement would have had “a relatively small economic benefit” compared to previous concessions shoved down workers’ throats last March.
If Ford didn’t really need these concessions then why did they demand them? Only because they could, in their greed. And wasn’t it the same for all the previous concessions?
“We’re tired of the lies,” said the workers. Their vote demonstrates a unity they can bank on to start to recover lost ground. Ford owes them break time it took in March, and their lost bonuses and cost of living. Ford owes its workers for 10-hour days with no overtime pay. And it owes its workers a jobs bank.
Now it’s time to collect!
Nov 9, 2009
In October, when the UAW International union leadership urged Ford workers to accept yet more concessions, President Ron Gettelfinger said, “We agree to enter into discussions in keeping with the principle of pattern bargaining...” so Ford could remain “competitive” with its GM and Chrysler rivals.
In other words, “pattern bargaining” has come to mean pulling every worker down to the lowest paid level.
But Ford workers, by saying NO! started a new pattern, pushing back up again. It’s up to GM and Chrysler workers to follow!