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
Jul 19, 2010
Bob King, the new UAW president, and Jesse Jackson, speaking for the Rainbow Push Coalition, organized a press conference in Detroit to announce a series of demonstrations and marches, a campaign calling on “national leaders to Rebuild America by focusing on Jobs, Justice and Peace.”
They called for the campaign to jump off with a march in Detroit on Saturday, August 28–pointing out that it will be the anniversary of the 1963 March on Washington, known today for the famous “I Have a Dream” speech by Martin Luther King. And they propose to follow that with demonstrations in other cities, culminating in an October 2nd demonstration in Washington. In 1963, the March on Washington was also prepared by a demonstration in Detroit, the Freedom Walk of June 23, whose 125,000 marchers made it the biggest civil rights demonstration up to that point.
Jesse Jackson called Detroit “ground zero” of a national urban crisis. Bob King said, “We have got to be out there in the streets fighting for social and economic justice.”
Yes, we are in a crisis! The standard of living of working people has slid backwards, three and four decades backwards–while a tiny, very wealthy minority grabs a still bigger share of the wealth our labor produces. Unemployment stays near Depression levels, while every company squeezes more work out of fewer workers. Social services, public services and education are starved for money and Social Security is under attack–so the government can hand over more trillions to the banks and biggest corporations. Lives and money are eaten up by wars that serve no purpose other than to fasten the grip of big American corporations and banks on the wealth produced in the rest of the world.
So, yes, it’s necessary that working people be out in the streets, demonstrating to make their voices heard.
And yes, it’s necessary to fight.
But to fight for what, and with whom? King and Jackson already made their intention known when they brought a few Democratic politicians to share the stage at their press conference.
The same Democratic Party, in Michigan, has been in charge of imposing a vast array of budget cuts, even while continuing to hand over billions to some of the biggest companies in the country. The same Democratic Party, nationally, has followed directly in the footsteps of George W. Bush, handing over the keys of the treasury to the banks, while setting up a commission to secretly prepare cuts in Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid.
So when workers go out in the streets to demonstrate, it’s necessary to denounce all those who have attacked our standard of living–Democrats and Republicans alike, and the biggest corporations and banks these parties serve.
And it’s necessary to demand an immediate answer to the crisis, the implementation of emergency measures: an end to all job cuts, including job cuts by state and local governments; an end to all wage cuts, including the hidden wage cuts of so-called “two-tier” systems; an end to the attack on retirees, including on their medical coverage and Social Security; an end to all cuts in social programs, public services and education–and a tax on the wealthy to pay for resuming necessary services; an end to all foreclosures, forcing the biggest banks who made off like bandits during the real-estate boom now to pay its costs.
King and Jackson certainly won’t want to embarrass the Democrats by putting such demands out there, but there’s no reason that workers massed by the tens or even hundreds of thousands can’t turn these demonstrations to their own account. Hundreds of thousands of workers in the streets can go a long way toward changing the social climate. Let the working class–called a sleeping giant for far too long–wake up!
Jul 19, 2010
On July 1st an eight-foot water main was shut off for repairs–it was massively corroded. This meant that 1.8 million WSSC (Washington Suburban Sanitary Commission) customers in Montgomery and Prince George’s counties had to restrict water usage.
But that’s not all. No sooner were the restrictions lifted for WSSC customers than a two-foot water main in Rockville busted, sending water up 60 to 70 feet like a geyser. This water main serves as the only water main connecting Rockville’s city water treatment plant and the distribution system.
There’s still more. Monday, a block away from the geyser-like break in the Rockville main, there was yet another break.
Why are all these water mains breaking now, in the summer? Old age. The average age of WSSC’s pipes is 52 years. For Washington, D.C., the average age is 78 years. And the cherry on top is that the day the eight-foot pipe was shut off, WSSC increased the rate to its customers by 8.5%, supposedly to upgrade the system which is old and over-capacity.
Instead of raising our rates–stop bailing out the banks and bail out our falling-apart infrastructure.
Jul 19, 2010
Eleven states have passed additional laws this year to restrict the right to an abortion.
Reactionary laws proposed against women are not new, having cluttered legislatures for at least 20 years.
But they are on the increase.
At least 350 such bills were introduced on the state level in each of the last five years, according to a research organization, with about 370 more already this year.
State law makers are following in the footsteps of Congress, which began restricting the right to an abortion almost as soon as the landmark ruling Roe v. Wade, making abortion legally available, was issued in 1973.
The restrictions include laws against funding abortions; laws requiring “counseling a woman” before allowing abortion; laws that ban abortions after a certain number of weeks; laws requiring parental notification for young women; etc.
Just as in the days when abortion was illegal in this country, poorer women face the most difficulties in obtaining an abortion. A wealthy woman could always find a doctor to give her an abortion, even before it was legal. That is still true today when many obstacles keep abortion services from being widely available.
The pressure on women in some states is almost as bad as it is in countries where the Catholic Church has been able to prevent legal abortions. In Utah this year, a 17-year-old girl paid a man to beat her in order to end her unwanted pregnancy. How did Utah legislators respond? They passed a law to charge women in such circumstances with homicide!
Women gained the right to choose abortion in this country by fighting reactionaries, whether in the halls of Congress, the state houses or the religious institutions. Protecting that right and lifting the current restrictions on abortions will be won the same way.
Jul 19, 2010
While millions of workers cannot find work, the bosses have another reason to celebrate.
An economist at Bank of America recently said, “It has been one of the strongest profit recoveries ever.” He pointed out that businesses have not done this well in raising their profit levels for 80 years, since the Great Depression.
But more than 8 million jobs have been lost in the current crisis. The wealth the bosses grabbed needs to go straight back into jobs!
Jul 19, 2010
BP announced the company’s Gulf Oil spill expenses are tax deductible. By deducting these costs, BP says it expects that it will be able to cut its taxes in the U.S. and Great Britain by 10 billion dollars.
So much for the politicians’ hot air about how they were going to force BP to pay all the costs of the spill, and the clean-up, and to reimburse peoples’ losses.
In reality, the government provides the tax breaks and subsidies that allow a huge oil company like BP to shift the entire cost of the oil spill onto the shoulders of the taxpayers–that is, the working class.
Jul 19, 2010
Robert “Steve” Miller, the wrecker-in-charge of destroying thousands of jobs at Bethlehem Steel, Chrysler, and Delphi Corporation, is now rewarded with a new position: chairman of AIG.
AIG is the giant insurance company that was tied up with Goldman Sachs in getting government bailouts when their financial speculations collapsed the economy.
Miller has a long history. He was Lee Iacocca’s right-hand man when Chrysler used its 1980 “brush with bankruptcy” to downsize the company and jam the first major round of auto concessions down workers’ throats.
In 2003, under Miller, Bethlehem Steel used bankruptcy to sell off the company and dump Bethlehem’s pension responsibilities into the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation.
Delphi Corporation under Miller was a GM shell game from the start. It was first spun off to separate its workers from GM’s books. In 2005, Miller became CEO. Soon known as “Mad Man” Miller, he supervised Delphi’s run through bankruptcy. That bankruptcy, and additional spin-offs, wiped out thousands of jobs, cut back the workers’ accumulated pensions and benefits, and opened up the industry-wide two-tier assault on auto workers.
With all this “experience” going for Miller at AIG, the AIG workforce and the taxpayers have plenty to fear!
Jul 19, 2010
Which part of the economy caused the depression we are in? High finance, banks and Wall Street.
Which part of the economy was bailed out with unlimited taxpayer funding? High finance, banks and Wall Street.
Which part of the economy shows the only job growth? Right again! High finance and Wall Street!
Profits for members of the New York Stock Exchange set a record of 61.4 billion dollars in 2009, and employment in financial firms is picking up. Jobs in the financial sector are now above the level of 2001.
But in manufacturing, jobs are about 33% below 2001. In construction, jobs are 15% below 2001.
But high finance is hiring anew–ready to restart the same speculative casino that collapsed on us already!
Jul 19, 2010
More than two million people have lost their long-term unemployment benefits since the beginning of June, while Republicans and Democrats in Congress have been arguing–each trying to gain political advantage.
Republicans say extending unemployment benefits will increase the federal budget deficit. In reality, Democrats don’t challenge this lie, but simply pretend to find ways to “offset” it by reducing the amount of weekly benefits or cutting other social programs.
The current 6-month extension of benefits the Democrats are proposing would cost 34 billion dollars–only about 2% of the more than 1½ trillion dollars that the budget is going to be in deficit this year! At the same time, about 137 billion dollars will be spent this year on the direct costs of U.S. wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. And about 300 billion dollars in federal taxes will not be collected during the year from just the richest 1/10th of one% of taxpayers because of all the tax breaks they have been given by both parties–in the 1960s, 1970s and 1990s, not to mention the trillions given to the banks since the fall of 2008.
Cut back the huge flow of our taxes going to wars, the banks and the wealthy and there would be no budget deficit–only a drop in profits and a little less luxury for the super rich. But if you’re waiting on the Republicans and Democrats to do THAT, don’t hold your breath!
Jul 19, 2010
At a press conference on July 9, Oxfam, an international charity, announced that the food crisis in the Sahara would soon become a “disaster” if urgent measures are not quickly taken. A spokesman explained that at least 10 million people in Niger, Chad, Mali, Mauritania, Burkina Faso and Nigeria face famine.
For nine months, the lack of rain has worsened a catastrophic situation. In the north of Mali, where families invest all their money in cattle, 40% of the livestock have died. The families are left with debt and no money to buy grain even when it exists in the market. Women are spending parts of every day foraging for wild food. In Chad, things are working out the same way–forced sale of animals, mass exodus from the cities, attempts to go abroad, fewer meals eaten. Some women have been reduced to breaking apart ant hills to try to find a few grains to eat.
In Niger, one in every six children under five years of age suffers from severe malnutrition.
This state of affairs results from the economic organization of society in these countries surrounding the Saharan desert, an economy incapable of satisfying the most basic needs of the population. The region has suffered for decades from what is called “food insecurity,” that is, malnutrition and danger of starvation. When locusts attacked the area between 1989 and 2004, no aid was given to eradicate this menace that removed thousands of acres of land from cultivation, though such treatments do exist. Even when development aid was promised by Western governments, it was not delivered.
But why does the situation persist? Although plenty of natural resources exist and are exploited by the former imperialist powers–like uranium and phosphate from Niger, cotton from Chad, Burkina Faso and Mali and oil recently discovered in the south of Chad–none of this goes to the population. The only beneficiaries are the many dictators supported by former colonial powers who grab their share of the riches off the labor of their populations.
In fact, this situation will not be resolved by food aid, even if the Western governments were willing to give it. Given the imperialist organization of the world’s economy, these disastrous results will continue.
Jul 19, 2010
In Haiti, six months after the January 12 earthquake which caused hundreds of thousands of deaths and left 1.5 million people homeless, Haitian President René Préval organized a memorial ceremony. The invited star was former U.S. President Bill Clinton
The opulent party for some 200 handpicked people that followed in the gardens of the presidential palace–well protected by overwhelming military force–was all the more indecent, since only a few dozen yards away, thousands of earthquake victims continue to live on a public square in the hell of temporary shelter, exposed to rain, the lack of drinkable water and the absence of toilets and sewers.
For the population, little has changed since the January 12 tragedy. People continue to live in the midst of rubble. The country has no means to remove the rubble, since the thousands of earth moving machines and trucks the government promised have yet to arrive.
International aid organizations have built some infrastructure and carried out some actions, but the gap between what they can do and the vital needs of the disaster victims remains huge. For the vast majority of the homeless, nothing has changed. Some have been moved to camps set up far from the capital, but they remain isolated from areas where jobs might enable them to find work to survive.
Impoverished by decades of colonial and then imperialist exploitation, Haiti lacks the funds to start the reconstruction of homes and infrastructure, like schools, roads and necessary sanitation. After the emotion of the first weeks and the beautiful speeches about solidarity with the Haitian people, the pseudo-generosity of the rich countries disappeared. Despite promises of up to 10 billion dollars over three years, only 150 million dollars have been made available–by Brazil and Venezuela. The U.S., France and Canada, competing for spheres of influence in Haiti, are waiting to release funds until they get guarantees that their corporations will control the market for reconstruction.
None of the wealthy countries–which waste hundreds of billions of dollars in wars each year–provide even a part of the aid they are able to give.
Garden parties for the wealthy go on while the poor die.
Jul 19, 2010
In exchange for loaning 140 billion dollars to Greece, the European Union and the International Monetary Fund extorted an austerity plan for the population and imposed privatization of major parts of the economy owned by the Greek state. This loan is sold as a way to save the Greek state from bankruptcy. In reality, it saves the big banks that lent Greece money.
In the rush to grab up Greek state-owned companies, French companies took the lead, including the French national railroad, a big locomotive company and the Paris airport operator.
U.S. companies are determined not to be left out. Sally Hastings, the Commercial Attaché at the U.S. Embassy in Athens, said, “U.S. companies are watching with interest Greece’s ongoing privatization efforts. Further deregulation of Greece’s energy sector and the country’s central location as a transportation hub for Europe offer additional commercial opportunities.” What’s obvious is that the proposed investments promise future profits to the companies involved.
So far nothing has happened. But this theft for profit, which is drawing in the vultures, bodes ill for the Greek people. Profits will clearly be made at their expense, running down the former public services while charging more for them, once again attacking workers’ living standards.
Even in the midst of a crisis–or bankruptcy of a whole country–capitalists have one thing, and one thing only in mind: More profit!
Jul 19, 2010
Binyamin Netanyahu and Barack Obama met on July 6. At the end of the meeting, Obama renewed his support for the Israeli leader, even congratulating him on relaxing Israel’s blockade on Gaza.
The Israeli government did lift part of the blockade on certain products into the Gaza Strip, which has been under embargo since 2007.
The consequences of this blockade for the Palestinians are tragic. They live in ruins, destruction caused by the Israeli bombing of January 2009. In Gaza, 70% of the population lives on less than two dollars a day. Nine people out of ten depend on food aid from the U.N. More than a year after the bombing, three fourths of the destroyed and damaged infrastructure has not been reconstructed, including 82% of the schools, according to another U.N. report.
The relaxation of the blockade is for food products. But for construction, Israel only authorizes certain projects sponsored by the international community, that is, the main Western powers. As a leader of an Israeli non-profit organization put it: “Nine months was needed for UNRWA (a U.N. agency) to negotiate the entry of truck loads for a real estate project in Khan Younis that was 85% complete. Imagine how many years it would take to negotiate the tens of thousands of truck loads necessary to reconstruct Gaza.”
So this so-called “relaxation” of the blockade is a pathetic measure which has nothing to do with what the Palestinians demand: the total and immediate lifting of the blockade. Obama congratulating Netanyahu makes neither of them apostles of peace.
Jul 19, 2010
The International Labor Bureau, part of the United Nations, published a report similar to what it has published every four years: Two hundred million young people, under 14 years of age, work for a living instead of going to school.
These children work in mines, in textile factories, for marine companies and labor in agriculture. The report was accompanied by sad photos of children in a mine pushing a cart larger than they were or selling things on the sidewalks of slums.
The report’s authors say they want the “consumer” to know the real cost of cotton or coffee or electronic devices, that is, the labor of children.
The UN can issue proclamations, its member countries can issue laws. But the “law of the market” still prevails. Greedy capitalists want child laborers because they want the cheapest possible labor force. And in poor countries, where families are desperate for the income of their children, they find a ready-made hiring pool.
Child labor–that is, the exploitation of children–is an inseparable part of capitalist production, just as is the need to sell one’s labor to survive. Marx pointed out long ago that the abolition of child labor had to be one of the first demands of the workers’ movement. And the one example where it was successfully abolished was during the Russian Revolution. While richer countries, like the United States, have abolished child labor over many years, such countries never abolished it in the underdeveloped countries they control.
This report can serve as a support for those who want to struggle against child labor in countries where it is widespread, that is, in the poor countries. But to push back this abomination, a real fight by the working class is necessary.
Jul 19, 2010
Two Utah state employees released a list of 1,300 Hispanic state residents who they claimed were possible undocumented immigrants. They gave the list to news media and law enforcement agencies in the state. They violated privacy and confidentiality by using information held by the state’s Department of Workforce Services. The list included addresses and Social Security numbers of the individuals, as well as whether the women on the list were pregnant, and their expected due dates!
In doing this, these reactionary idiots have exposed every person on that list to the danger of terrorist attacks against them–just when such attacks are on the rise.
That danger exists because of a climate of hate set by governments, politicians and media at all levels of the country.
Just south of Utah, in Arizona, a law is set to take effect which will make it legal for police to demand to see citizenship papers of anyone who fits the “profile” of an “illegal immigrant.” That is, anyone who looks Hispanic or “foreign” can be subjected to repeated harassment, merely on the basis of their appearance.
California governor Arnold Schwarzenegger just sent the California National Guard to the border with Mexico–a massive military mobilization that can only pump up a feeling of panic in the population.
The Obama administration may have gone to court to block the Arizona law; but in fact, it has carried out an even worse attack at the federal level. Barack Obama has proven even more vehement in attacking immigrants than Bush was. Federal prosecution of immigrants has overwhelmed court systems in the southern border states. There were 4,145 cases referred to federal prosecutors in March and April, more than any other two-month period. Prosecutions included deportation cases against immigrants found to have a criminal record–even legally documented immigrants who had nothing more than an ordinary misdemeanor on their records.
The New York Times reported that the Obama administration has, in addition to carrying out overt immigration raids on workplaces, shifted to “silent raids”–audits requiring companies to fire undocumented workers. This has led to many immigrant workers losing their jobs, including workers with young families.
At the same time, deportations have skyrocketed, from 185,944 in 2007 to 387,790 last year–the highest number ever recorded in the U.S.
This is all presented as if it will solve the problems of unemployment for the rest of the working class. That is a complete lie.
In the first place, in some communities the economic hit has been catastrophic, as cars and appliances were returned and mortgages defaulted on–and that has an impact on other workers.
But even more so, the attack on immigrants undermines the strength of the working class. The WHOLE working class, including immigrant workers, has been under attack for years, by a capitalist class that has found ways at every turn to squeeze more labor out of fewer workers, creating higher and higher unemployment and driving wages ever lower.
The strength of the working class is its force of numbers, when united against this enemy.
The idea that you can protect yourself by attacking another part of your own class, while leaving your REAL enemy alone–that is a recipe for defeat. And all these actions by officials, and all the hype in the media, are designed to push that idea.
The politicians may cry that these reactionaries in Utah are “deplorable,” and they are. But it’s the politicians themselves who are truly deplorable.
Jul 19, 2010
A Wall Street Journal article actually dared to claim that the high wages and benefits of auto workers were among the burdens that put GM and Chrysler on the verge of collapse in 2009!
What BS! Without us there would be no auto companies.
GM, Chrysler, and Ford have taken the billions they have made off our labor over the years–and bought up other companies; wheeled and dealed on the stock market; gave away the small car market in order to make bigger vehicles that would bring them bigger profits; paid out exorbitant dividends to major stockholders even in years that the companies said they had lost money; and rewarded their executives with obscene salaries and perks.
Workers’ wages and benefits are not the burden to the auto companies. Capitalist profit and competition are.
Jul 19, 2010
A judge more than quadrupled the prison sentence imposed on civil liberties attorney Lynne Stewart. This after an appeals court ruled her earlier sentence was “too light” and ordered the re-sentencing.
Stewart had originally dared to defend a client U.S. government officials had targeted, Sheikh Omar Rahman. They secretly recorded meetings Stewart held with her client.
It’s the kind of thing one might expect from a military dictatorship or a fascist state, but not exactly the mark of a society that supposedly cherishes its defense of democratic rights and the rights of individuals not to be hounded by government.
Finally Stewart released a short statement her client made for the press. In a democratic society, no one would blink an eye at what she did, but it was a violation of this government’s insanely bureaucratic rules–enough for them to charge Stewart and send her to jail.
And if that’s not enough, when she expressed defiance of the dictatorial court proceedings after the first sentencing, they gave Stewart, who is 70 years old and suffering from breast cancer, the longer ten-year sentence.
Stewart is a lawyer who devoted her professional life to defending people the government has tried to railroad. And that’s enough, apparently, for the government to give her what amounts to a death sentence.
Jul 19, 2010
Retired Senator Alan Simpson, chairman of President Obama’s bi-partisan commission to study the federal deficit, lost his cool. And the truth slipped out–on video.
It happened when Simpson was videotaped coming out of one of the secret meetings organized to make cuts to Social Security.
An advocate from the group Social Security Works asked Simpson about the commission’s plans to cut what Simpson calls “the big three”–Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid.
Specifically, Simpson was asked about the current 2.5 trillion dollar social security surplus. Simpson said:
“It’s 2.5 trillion bucks in IOUs.”
The advocate asked him, in so many words: Wasn’t the surplus built up for pre-funding the retirement of the baby boom?
Simpson said: “Listen. It’s 2.5 trillion bucks in IOUs which has been used to build the interstate highway system and all of the things people have enjoyed since it has been set up.”
The advocate tried to clarify with Simpson about the money that needs to be paid back to Social Security: “The worthless IOUs–that actually goes back to 1936.... Backed by the full faith and [credit of the] government.”
Simpson explained that when Social Security was originally set up, the government thought that people “would die at 57 and that’s why they set the date at 65.... Now the life expectancy is 78 ... so we have to adjust that and make it work for the future....”
Simpson further explained: “They never dreamed that the life expectancy [would go from] 57 years of age to 78.... They just died. People worked. Social Security was never a retirement.”
In other words, the budget deficit commission wants to get Social Security back to its 1936 roots by raising the age to collect benefits high enough that most people die before they collect. In other words–tax people while they’re working–and keep them working so long–they’ll die before they can collect!
What an outrageous admission! The Chairman of the President’s Commission views Social Security as a big scam on the elderly and the population and admits that it was a scam from the beginning.
Jul 19, 2010
The following was translated from the June 18 editorial of Lutte Ouvrière (Workers Struggle), the paper of the revolutionary workers group of that name active in France.
Wednesday, June 16th, the French government made public its proposed new retirement law. The retirement age will be raised to 62–from 60. The number of years required for retirement will be increased, and the contribution paid by government workers will be increased.
The politicians justify their attack, claiming that increases in life expectancy make measures to “save the retirement system” inevitable. It’s a lie!
While life expectancy has gone up, the productivity of labor has gone up even more. There would be no retirement problem if this increase in productivity weren’t completely pocketed by the capitalist class.
The debate around retirement is a smoke-screen. The two basic measures of the government project, increasing the retirement age and increasing the number of years necessary to receive benefits, aim to make it more difficult, or even impossible, to retire with a full pension. All this is a hypocritical way to reduce pensions. It’s theft, plundering the future retirements of all workers.
Over the course of the past two years, the state has spent colossal sums to save the bankers, and to help the bosses save their profits: tax breaks and other stimulus.
The state is digging into everyone’s pockets to pay for these gifts. The state taps into retirement accounts. It taps into health insurance. It takes money out of indispensable services for the population. The state imposes restrictions on the entire working population in order to pay off a debt which only profits the bosses and bankers.
The capitalists have become so parasitic that they cannot safeguard their profits during the crisis of their system without the help of the state, which shakes down the whole population.
The rising public debt has become the main pretext for imposing an austerity policy on the popular classes.
Up to the point that the laboring population explodes. One can hope that this will not simply be an explosion of unhappiness, but one that leads to workers’ consciousness that the public debt should be paid by those who have profited from it.
Jul 19, 2010
Lying that the current level of Social Security spending is leading to deficits, leaders of both the Democratic and Republican parties have been floating trial balloons about raising the age for full social security retirement to 70 and otherwise cutting Social Security.
A poll in July by Time Magazine found 86% in the U.S. oppose Social Security reductions. Knowing the public sentiment, a propaganda campaign is being waged to ready the population for cuts.
Similar attacks on Social Security are happening in France–as seen in a related article–and around the world. The global financial meltdown was resolved through handing tremendous sums of money from public treasuries over to the financial system–increasing government budget deficits everywhere. Now the capitalists are trying to make the working population of the world pay the price for this financial bailout through cuts to Social Security and all social programs.