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, 2010
Having finished Bush’s commitment of trillions to the big banks, and added trillions to private insurance companies, private pharmaceutical companies and other “medical providers,” Obama has now turned his attention to education.
He says he is going to “overhaul” Bush’s “No Child Left Behind,” (NCLB) the program responsible for creating chaos in big city and rural school systems.
The main “accomplishments” of “No Child Left Behind” were to drain more money from the public schools into the pockets of private companies that benefitted from the testing regimen done under “No Child Left Behind”; and to drain more money from the public schools into the grasping hands of private individuals, profit-making companies and universities that set up charter schools as a way to carry out their own agenda, often for their own monetary benefit.
It ended up making teachers “teach to the test”–that is, to prepare students for one thing and one thing only: passing the tests on which the schools themselves were graded. To the exclusion of all else! No credit was given to the schools for the “extra” science and “extra” history they offered; no credit given for languages, arts, drama, athletics. No credit given for all those various subjects and interests that help develop a fully educated and well-rounded child.
Not only no credit. No money was given to carry out the wide range of mandates set up under No Child Left Behind. Schools systems were required to keep more records, make more reports, buy more testing materials–but they got no extra money to do it. Something had to give–and what gave was education.
“No Child Left Behind” needs to be junked.
But that’s not what Obama is proposing. He would continue the annual testing–he simply exchanged one platitude for another. Under Bush’s plan, testing was designed–supposedly–to help every child reach “proficiency” in math and reading. Under Obama’s new plan, testing will be designed–supposedly–to get all students to graduate from high school prepared for college and a career.
Of course, both are goals that should be fought for in this country. But they won’t be accomplished unless practical goals are also pursued.
Practically, this is what is required: enough, well-prepared teachers, so they really know their subject and have enough time to pay attention to the development of each child. That means, in the primary grades, 10 or 12 in a class. Maximum. It means really well-prepared books–available to everyone. It means full access to a well-stocked library. It means supplies so that science experiments can be performed. It means learning laboratories, where children can be immersed in other languages from an early age–which is one of the best ways to help a child understand his or her own language. It means computer labs where children can be immersed in the latest technology.
These are some of the things the best schools provide–the ones set up to serve the children of the wealthy. But these things cost money. And that’s exactly what Bush didn’t provide, exactly what Obama is not proposing to provide. A few hundred millions, perhaps. Even ten or so billion dollars.
But what’s that on the scale of what was provided and set aside for the big banks, 14.4 trillion dollars?
As the saying goes: Put your money where your mouth is!
Obama, just like Bush before him, puts his money with the banks and with the schools for the wealthy, while his mouth spouts platitudes about an excellent education for every child.
Children of the working class will have an excellent education when the teachers, the parents and the students fight for it!
Mar 15, 2010
While each DPS teacher gave up $10,000 a year; while each teacher works more hours, with no overtime pay; while teachers buy supplies for their classroom, and kids don’t have books, and classrooms are overcrowded–Robert Bobb, the “emergency financial manager” of the Detroit Public Schools, just got an $81,000 raise. Most of it is paid by private foundations that support charter schools.
Overall, he’ll be paid $425,000, up from $344,000 dollars last year.
Bobb’s “base salary” of $280,000 will come from the school district. Since he was appointed by Governor Granholm, she’s the one who okayed the publicly-funded portion of his raise–even though the school district is the one that will have to pay it.
On top of that, fully $145,000 will be paid by private foundations run by businesses–up from $84,000 last year. Granholm’s office supports this, too.
Most of these foundations are being kept secret so far–but the biggest one, the Eli and Edythe Broad Foundation, is a big supporter of charter schools. Bobb graduated from their “Superintendents Academy,” which is nothing more than a training ground for pro-business, pro-charter administrators. Since coming to Detroit he’s been pushing charter schools hard, closing dozens of public schools in the district and handing many of them over to organizations to form charter schools.
Clearly, these foundations–and the businesses behind them–see something in it for them!
Mar 15, 2010
Prince George’s County in Maryland has approved huge cuts in education: eliminating 800 positions including 355 in the classroom; five-day furloughs; increasing class sizes; slashing bus services; gutting liaisons to parents (that is, translators/interpreters); increasing school lunch costs by 50 cents. In other words, Maryland’s second largest school system is being left high and dry. Workers’ children–who are most of the students in Prince George’s public schools–are not going to get the education they need and deserve.
The cuts supposedly reflect a 23-million-dollar drop in federal stimulus funding and a 37-million- dollar drop in state funding.
There are trillions of dollars to bail out Wall Street with our federal tax money. AND Maryland can afford to give millions of dollars in state tax breaks to corporations–like the Delaware holding company loophole–which amounts to the state losing 24.7 million dollars in tax revenues.
But somehow there is no money to educate our children? This is a huge lie–at the expense of workers’ children!
Mar 15, 2010
With enrollment setting records at colleges and universities all over the country, thousands of students learn too late that not all “degrees” are accredited. What students are promised by some for-profit and online schools is just a scam, not the equivalent of an Associates Degree or Bachelor’s degree from a regular state college or university.
The for-profit schools do an especially thriving business with false advertising aimed at active duty soldiers. One institution offers them quick degrees: Instead of the usual two-year, 20-course requirement common at community colleges, soldiers are promised an Associates degree in five WEEKS!
Another technology institute advertises that it offers an applied science degree in certain computer studies. If students from this institution apply at an accredited community college or university for further education, they soon discover that NONE of their courses transfer as college credit.
Does this disturb the army–which pays outrageous fees for worthless courses for its troops? Of course not–it’s just another way to provide government money to business.
Mar 15, 2010
Maryland officials are proposing to attack seniority rights of teachers, tie teachers’ pay to student test scores and increase the number of charter schools.
Why?
Maryland’s school system was rated best in the nation according to U.S. Department of Education criteria. Yet to meet the guidelines set by Obama’s administration to compete for “Race to the Top” funding, the state is being forced to reverse the very policies that allowed its schools to achieve top rating.
Crazy? You bet! But it shows that the “Race to the Top” is nothing but an excuse to attack teachers and privatize the public schools.
Mar 15, 2010
Democratic governor Pat Quinn says Illinois has a severe budget crisis–so the population faces two choices: 2.2 billion dollars in program cuts or a 1% income tax increase.
State workers would get furlough days and have to pay more for their health insurance. The governor would cut 76 million dollars from child care programs and 105 million dollars from aid to the disabled, among other cuts.
The 1% additional income tax would be added on to the 10% of income that workers’ families already pay in all types of state and local taxes.
There is an alternative to these two rotten choices. Make the corporations and the wealthy who own them pay. They have been paying less and less in taxes over the years, yet get hundreds of millions in subsidies. All these cuts could be eliminated, with no new tax on workers and the poor.
Mar 15, 2010
On March 4, California students, teachers and their supporters protested the state’s ongoing cuts in public education. In the Los Angeles area, thousands of people participated in four major demonstrations, while dozens of smaller protests, including walk-outs, took place at various schools. In the Bay Area, over 10,000 people from more than 25 schools gathered in San Francisco’s Civic Center Plaza. At UC Santa Cruz, students blocked both entrances to the school and shut down the campus. Students at many other campuses across the state staged their own protests.
The cuts to the public education system are truly devastating. In California, for example, public colleges and universities have drastically cut enrollment. They also made big tuition increases, and they have been attacking their workers with layoffs and pay cuts. In other words, they are slamming the door on the possibility for children of the working class to go on to college or university.
In K-12, California school districts laid off thousands of teachers last year, and are threatening thousands of more layoffs this year. Districts have increased class sizes, eliminated summer school, art, music and elective classes–not to mention the continuing layoffs imposed on support staff such as office workers, maintenance techs, custodians–that is, people who make a school run.
Even while public authorities pretend to support education, they destroy an already badly performing one.
Mar 15, 2010
A proposal put in front of Swiss voters in a March referendum was to cut pensions, especially for those with the lowest salaries.
Giving the capitalists a little surprise, almost 3 out of 4 voters said NO. In fact, this vote was apart of a long campaign by some unions and political parties to turn the pension issue into a referendum. By Swiss law, a referendum can be used against a new law.
The Swiss government had already begun cutting pensions with a law it passed in 2003. This new proposal was to be a second attack on pensions. It was pushed by the insurance companies, complaining about the average life span–which has improved.
Perhaps the Swiss population pushed back after watching its own financial institutions gain 18% on the stock market this past year.
No doubt the government and the bosses are already planning new attacks. To really push back the bosses, it will take more than a referendum; it will require workers to take their fight onto an entirely different field. But this one time at least, the world of labor pushed back the world of capital.
Mar 15, 2010
In Gabon, a French mining company Areva exploited uranium mines for 40 years, from 1958 to 1999. Investigators recently went back to the site to measure the level of radioactivity–only to find radiation levels many times higher than normal in the area.
The radiation was found not only in the old mines, which have been converted to lakes, but also in the entire surrounding area. Women rinse their dishes in these radioactive lakes. Even worse, the houses of a small town near the mines were built with stones taken from the mines. So the houses are radioactive–as are some public buildings and a dike along a river nearby.
This company is a murderer. Today, old miners are sick and dying, often from cancer. But they didn’t start to succumb to the effects until a few years after they left the job. And neither the miners nor their families ever received any compensation or aid from Areva or its Gabon subsidiary.
Nonetheless, Areva plans to start uranium mining in Gabon again. It even announced that it would set up a “health observatory” in order to “see whether or not there are problems.”
Fifty years after opening the mines, and ten years after closing them, there are plenty of problems! It’s painful to look at them.
Perhaps a few victims will get a small payoff. But who is going to rebuild the houses and even the whole town? And no one can bring back those who have died or are going to die.
Mar 15, 2010
Pay for the failed banks? Icelandic voters replied with a resounding NO, thank you: 93% voted against the proposal in a recent referendum.
During the general financial crash in the fall of 2008, hundreds of thousands of depositors in Britain and the Netherlands lost their savings when the Icelandic bank Icesave failed. The British and Netherlands governments partially reimbursed the depositors as well as the speculators from their countries–in an attempt to stem the financial crisis from turning into a complete, international collapse. Iceland–which had taken over Icesave and other failing Icelandic banks–was stuck with insolvent banks. When the European governments demanded that the Iceland government reimburse them, this helped push the Icelandic government into default.
What did the Icelandic government do? Proposed that every citizen in Iceland pay off part of the debt: $16,000 each. With a 10% unemployment rate, the population of Iceland was expected to come up with all this money to help out the very bankers and politicians who had ruined the economy.
During the years leading up to the financial crash, Iceland had become a haven for speculators, a kind of casino economy. As the money flowed in, Icelandic banks gained control of a sum of money equal to nine times the gross national product of the country, throwing it into the speculative spiral.
In the end, they lost out in this game against much bigger capitalists around the world, who even before the financial crash of 2008 were gambling that Iceland would become insolvent.
When it happened, the insolvent Icelandic government demanded that the Icelandic population pay for this mess. As one Icelandic minister put it, crudely, “Everywhere in the world, it is the taxpayers who save the financial system.”
Except–with the referendum, the Icelandic people said NO!
But it’s not enough for the population to express its opinion in a referendum. It will also have to force those responsible to pay. And not only in Iceland.
Mar 15, 2010
One in four children in the U.S. is now on food stamps. Overall, the number of people receiving food stamps has reached 36 million, or one in eight Americans.
What’s more shocking than these numbers is that many millions of people in need of food stamps are not even receiving them. “...We’re mindful that there are another 15, 16 million who could benefit [from the food stamp program],” said Kevin Concannon, an undersecretary in the U.S. Department of Agriculture.
It’s not that all food-stamp recipients are free from hunger either. The average benefit per recipient is about $130 a month–which means that millions of people with little or no income are receiving less than $5 a day to cover for food ... and probably other necessities too.
All this agrees with a recent USDA study, which found that 49 million Americans experienced hunger last year–17 million of them children. In fact, childhood hunger in the U.S. is so widespread that half of Americans receive food stamps at some point before they turn 20, according to another study done at Washington University in St. Louis.
Politicians have acknowledged the problem. But what about solving it? During his election campaign, Obama promised to end childhood hunger in the U.S. by 2015–that is, in six years–when everyone knows that every day counts, because not getting enough nutrition can hamper a child’s development, and ruin his or her life for good!
And while Congress has recently increased food stamp benefits, it’s certainly not in step with the increase in need, and it’s only temporary. Besides, it’s state governments that administer the program, and they are reducing such services right and left–supposedly because they don’t have enough money.
When it comes to helping hungry children, the politicians are obviously not nearly as resolute as when they rushed to bail out “fat cat bankers,” as Obama himself called them recently.
Mar 15, 2010
The following articles come from issue 1023 of Combat Ouvrier (Workers Fight), the revolutionary workers organization in Guadeloupe and Martinique in the Caribbean.
Haitian President René Préval called for patience, "Through discipline, solidarity and patience we"ll find a solution to all the problems that we confront." A fat cat politician, whose government proved its total incapacity to organize anything, dares to call on those who have nothing, neither food nor shelter, to have patience. What a provocation!
French President Nicholas Sarkozy made a short visit to Haiti. That won’t improve the situation of the population one bit, but it will permit him to claim the "French presence," so as to open up the possibility for some French businesses to take part in Haiti’s "reconstruction." In the same way, Hilary Clinton’s visit did the same for U.S. businesses. Traveling salesmen don’t let adversity interrupt business!
The International Monetary Fund (IMF) hasn’t totally or even partially cancelled the debts that Haiti owes it. The IMF said, "The alternative was to do nothing or agree to a loan. So we chose the formula of a loan, but with zero interest and a long grace period before the payback is due." Even faced with an absolute emergency, the heads of the IMF intend to respect the "rules’ of bourgeois society.
On February 9, the World Health Organization suspended the free delivery of medicine to private clinics and non-governmental organizations in Haiti, after receiving information that some patients had to pay for receiving them.
A U.N. spokesman said that a dozen hospitals, private as well as public, have started to make their patients pay.
After the earthquake, the profiteers and the corrupt continue to flourish!
Mar 15, 2010
Imagine a General Motors vice-chairman who is also supposed to guard UAW retirees’ health care benefits.
Yes, this is Stephen Girsky. A Harvard MBA, once a Morgan Stanley managing director, president of Centerbridge Industrial Partners private-equity fund, and as of March 1, a new vice-chairman of General Motors, Girsky will also keep his board seat appointed by the UAW! The seat is supposed to be used to represent the interests of the VEBA fund that pays union retirees’ health care.
Imagine Girsky pretending to represent the retirees’ best interests, while GM is paying his vice-chairman’s $500,000 annual salary plus five million dollars in special stock awards–shares “based on a computer model that determines the potential value of GM stock every month.” Pity the UAW retirees!
It’s an extreme, mind-boggling conflict of interest.
It is also a particularly striking reflection of the view from the top of the UAW leadership. For decades, they have openly preached that workers’ interests must be married to the corporation, and only after the corporation does well–extremely well–can the workers hope to gain a crumb from the table.
For decades, jobs, wages, benefits, working conditions and solidarity have rapidly collapsed during this marriage.
Time for a divorce!
Mar 15, 2010
The media report that there are six workers available for every job opening. That’s an average. Look behind the scenes. It’s worse!
For each job opening in construction, there are 24.5 unemployed workers looking for work.
For every job opening in durable goods manufacturing, there are 17 workers looking; for other manufacturing jobs, 12.6 workers for each opening; for mining, 9.3; for transportation, 8.2; and for information–that is, computers–there are 6.8 workers per job.
In other words, there is much more unemployment in occupations that create goods and power the whole economy. It’s in white-collar jobs, like finance, that the odds are better: 2.7 workers per available job in finance; and 3.5 in professional and business services.
It’s clear to see where any “job stimulus” has arrived ... and where it hasn’t.
Mar 15, 2010
Anthem Blue Cross of California raised premiums for individual customers by up to 39%. Anthem’s parent company, WellPoint, has increased rates by more than 10% in eleven other states. Some companies in Illinois have raised rates by as much as 60%. Blue Cross of Michigan requested a 56% increase on individual policies, only to be told it could raise them by “only” 22%.
The insurance companies try to justify this extortion by claiming they are losing money on individual policies. Yet Anthem of California returned 525 million dollars to its parent company, WellPoint, last year and has given back more than 4.2 billion dollars to WellPoint since 2004. The top five health insurance companies–WellPoint, United Health Group, Cigna, Aetna, and Humana–had combined profits of 12.2 billion dollars last year, an increase of 56% from 2009. Blue Cross of Michigan admits it made money last year, but brushes that off by adding that it made money only on its investments.
That’s what insurance companies do! They are financial companies, investing money from their premiums and their reserves. Even in those years they supposedly “lose money,” they make it. Blue Cross Blue Shield of Michigan has been building up its reserves for years.
Health insurance companies are big money making machines first and foremost. Health care is only incidental.
Mar 15, 2010
The following article, from the March 8 issue of Workers Fight, the paper of the British revolutionary workers group, gives a clear picture into this so-called war on terrorism carried out by both the U.S. and Britain.
At the end of February, the Court of Appeal decided to publish previously suppressed evidence that MI5 officers assisted the CIA in torturing Binyam Mohamed in 2002, as part of the so-called “war on terrorism.”
Mohamed, an Ethiopian British resident, was arrested during a visit to Pakistan in 2002 and handed to MI5 for interrogation. He was then “extraordinarily rendered” by CIA plane to Morocco, imprisoned and tortured, before being transferred to a CIA prison in Afghanistan, where he was tortured again. Eighteen months later he arrived in Guantanamo Bay, held for almost eight years until his release this February–obtained only after two hunger strikes–even though all charges against him had already been dropped in October 2008.
Despite MI5’s cover-up, its use of torture–directly, or indirectly, it makes no difference–is now exposed in the courts. Nor is this new. Britain’s security services have a long record in this respect and not just in Northern Ireland. When it comes to defending the interests of British imperialism, there are no “rules.” And if a few unpleasant truths come out, the only lesson they’ll learn is to be more careful about hiding their dirty tricks in the future.
Mar 15, 2010
The battle for control of Marja in southern Afghanistan was supposed to be the biggest offensive in years, with more than 10,000 U.S. and allied troops. It was hailed as part of a new U.S. war strategy: massive numbers of U.S. troops would clear a Taliban stronghold, while supposedly taking care to protect Afghan civilians.
When the battle started, James Jones, Obama’s chief foreign policy advisor, told a CNN Sunday talk show, “A successfully demonstrated and executed operation in Marja is going to make a big change in not only the southern part of Afghanistan, but will send shock waves through the rest of the country that there is a new direction, there’s a new commitment.”
After two weeks of battle, the U.S. claimed its forces had successfully cleared the Taliban from the region. According to a local Afghan official, Gulab Mangal, the battle was a “great achievement” because so few civilians were killed.
Big surprise: it was all a lie.
First, Marja is hardly a “stronghold,” as U.S. commanders described it and the U.S. news media repeated so obediently. Marja is neither a city, nor even a real town, but only a few clusters of farmers’ huts spread out over a wide region. But that didn’t mean that civilians were spared. At least 55 civilians, including many women and children, were killed in two separate rocket attacks that U.S. commanders later called “mistakes.”
After the U.S. declared its victory in Marja, Afghan President Hamid Karzai showed up at a local mosque with top American and Afghan officials to promise a better future to local residents. According to the account in the New York Times, the residents weren’t buying it.
Hajji Abdul Aziz, a leading elder in the region, shook his finger at Karzai, saying, “We will tell you that the warlords [connected to the Karzai government] who ruled us for the past eight years, those people whose hands are red with peoples’ blood, those people who killed hundreds–they are still ruling over this nation.”
Others denounced what the U.S. occupiers were doing: innocent farmers arrested by the Americans, irrigation canals destroyed, schools and homes taken over by American troops, other homes wrecked. “You have said on the radio that you want our children to be educated,” Aziz said to Karzai and U.S. officials. “But how could we educate our children when their schools are turned into military bases?”
U.S. officials boasted they have a government and police force to run Marja and the surrounding region. “Government in a box” is the way U.S. commander Stanley McChrystal described it to the New York Times. In fact, these forces assembled and flown in by the U.S. are obviously little more than puppets of the U.S. occupation.
From beginning to end, the U.S. battle in Marja was aimed not at Afghanistan but at the U.S. public, designed to gain support for an escalation of the war–a war the public has opposed for a long time.
Marja is a prelude to a potentially much bloodier debacle, the battle for Kandahar, the second largest city in Afghanistan, a battle that U.S. officials say they are planning to begin this summer.
U.S. troops out of Afghanistan–immediately! Long before the summer!