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
Sep 13, 2010
Another school year has begun. These days, that can only mean one thing: another round of attacks on the schools at every level.
Across the country, state and local education budgets are being slashed. Arts and athletics programs are being cut, and “pay-to-play” fees are being instituted or raised. Entire schools themselves are being closed, teachers laid off, students moved and class sizes jumped up.
The effects can clearly be seen in Michigan. In one Detroit suburb, elementary class sizes will go from 25 to 32 students per class. In Detroit, 30 schools have been closed this summer, forcing class size in the remaining schools to jump up once again. The Los Angeles Unified School District laid off 2682 people last year, and says it could cut 4,500 more this year. Of course, more students are jammed into each classroom.
Officials claim that budgets must be cut because times are tough and money is tight. Yes money is tight–because billions are still handed to the largest corporations in good times–and even more in tough times.
Cuts in education are part of a larger drive to dismantle public services and infrastructure spending across the board, to hand that money over to corporations–and line the pockets of the multi-billionaires who own them. For those multi-billionaires, any dollar not going to increase their wealth is a dollar wasted.
Behind all these attacks at the state and local levels is the continuing attack at the national level. With wonderful sounding slogans like Bush’s “No Child Left Behind” and Obama’s “Race to the Top,” Republicans and Democrats have organized attacks on the schools. If a school is found to be “underperforming,” it is closed. The result is that students are squeezed into fewer schools. The effect is to drain money from the schools that need it the most–schools in poor districts, with little money to improve.
The same goes for the teachers: if they are found to be “underperforming,” the solution offered is to lay them off, or to cut their wages. Teachers “underperform” because schools are drained of money, because class sizes are too big, books and supplies too few and too old–and because extra help is not given to the children of poverty.
Will children be helped when their teachers have classes of 35 and 40 students? Or when their teachers are forced to take outside jobs to make ends meet? Of course not!
As if these attacks weren’t bad enough, both Bush and Obama have pushed requirements to turn public schools over to private charter schools, including many run for profit. The districts with the greatest number of charter schools are poor and working class districts; it is yet another way to drain resources away from the children who need it most. It’s the final insult.
When officials close schools, they say it’s for the kids; when they lay off teachers and administrators; when they cut school budgets and open for-profit schools; when they stuff more and more children into a single classroom, they pretend it’s all for the kids.
It’s obvious: they’re not doing any of this for the kids. They’re doing it so that the money can go to the wealthy. And to hand more money to multi-billionaires, they’re consciously choosing to throw these kids away. Like garbage.
Our children, the children of the working class and poor are precious–they have many capacities, talents, curiosity, intelligence–they deserve schools that would bring those capacities to life.
Sep 13, 2010
After a Florida preacher tried to make a name for himself, threatening to make 9/11 a day to publicly burn Korans, he was opposed by Obama administration and military officials. Fox News and Republican Party politicians already were making outright appeals to bigotry and racism by mobilizing opposition to the construction of an Islamic cultural center two blocks from ground zero in New York City–supposedly “hallowed ground” that had previously been a Burlington Coat Factory store, that happened to be one block away from a “gentleman’s club”–that is, a strip club.
These outright bigoted appeals posed problems for the U.S. military in its wars in Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan and Yemen, especially since the U.S.’s main allies and client states are themselves Muslim fundamentalist states.
So Obama and all the rest pretended to oppose bigotry. Obama highlighted that in his speech at the Pentagon on September 11. “As Americans we are not–and never will be–at war with Islam.” No, the U.S. is not at war with “Islam”–only with the people of several countries in the Middle East and Central Asia.
Yes, the terrorist attacks of 9/11, which took 3,000 lives, were horrifying and barbaric–like all terrorist attacks against civilians. And, of course, people, especially in New York City, may feel upset by them.
But for the last nine years, U.S. government officials have used the pretext of the 9/11 terrorist attacks as a blank check to wage war against any country this government chooses–sowing the U.S. military’s own brand of terror and mass murder against the people of Afghanistan and Iraq, Pakistan and Yemen.
The U.S. government has also carried out a witch hunt against immigrants, with mass arrests and detentions on trumped up charges that followed 9/11. Obama’s Justice Department continues to frame-up Muslims under charges of terrorism, including gunning down a Detroit minister in cold blood by FBI agents.
U.S. officials have turned the remembrances of the horrendous 9/11 terrorist attacks into a political circus. They have invoked the 3,000 deaths in this country to justify carrying out terrorist attacks on a vast scale against entire populations, as well as to justify that we pay for those wars, while the government steps up its repression at home. And the U.S. government’s own policies have sown the seeds of racism, bigotry and hatred.
Sep 13, 2010
Since 2005, the year that Medicare was “reformed,” the 200 brand-name drugs most used by older Americans have shot up in price by 40%.
A new report by a vice president of AARP and a professor of health policy showed the increase in the cost of such popular drugs as Flomax, Nexium, Lipitor and Plavix.
The 2005 Medicare “reform” required that everyone over 65 or receiving Social Security disability must pay for some form of Medicare Part D if they don’t have private insurance. Otherwise, they would face an enormous penalty when they needed drugs in the future.
And what is worse, Bush’s so-called reform allowed the pharmaceutical companies to raise the price of drugs as much as they pleased.
We see the results in only five years–at a very high cost to anyone on Medicare.
Sep 13, 2010
The Bureau of Labor Statistics reported that hospitals eliminated 2,300 jobs in July. This comes on top of the 3,000 jobs hospitals cut in June, and the 1,400 they cut in May.
We all could use more and better health care. But the hospital bosses–who are only worried about their profits–make health care worse, and increase unemployment.
Sep 13, 2010
We can measure it statistically: in 1979, the wealthiest one% of the population got 10% of all the income in this country. By 2007, 24%–almost one quarter of the country’s income was grabbed by this same tiny part of the population, the capitalist class and their close allies.
This is the picture of the increased exploitation of those who do the actual work.
We can measure it by the deterioration in our everyday lives: by the loss of value in our houses–or even the loss of our homes; by the reduction in what we have to spend on school clothes for our kids this year; by the vacations we didn’t take; by the fact our elders’ income has them scraping at the end of every month.
If this is not bad enough, tax law changes over the past 30 years have screwed us too. The laws passed by Democrats and Republicans alike helped their wealthy friends pay much lower taxes, lower in% than anything since income taxes began.
The top one%, these few households, has saved on average $300,000 per year in federal taxes on income.
If we want to know why our pockets feel pinched, these tax and income policies are the reason. If we wonder what happened to all the billions of dollars needed for education or health care, it went to the wealthy.
Let them collect the money needed to run the society from those who have too much! That debt is way overdue.
Sep 13, 2010
Richard Daley won’t run for mayor next year, after 21 years in office. The media proclaims him a great big city mayor who has been good for the economic life of the city. Certainly businesses have been quite happy with Daley, who gave them vast subsidies.
But all this has been paid for by a heavy burden on working people. The sales tax at 9.75% is the highest of big cities in the country. The property tax including the city, the county and all the agencies Daley controls, are a heavy burden. An annual city sticker for a car costs $75, there are outrageous fines for minor violations, high water bills and extortionate parking meter fees.
Mayor Daley leads the country in privatizing major city services, including the Skyway expressway, downtown parking lots and Chicago parking meters. The fees for their use shot way up. The money the city received up front is almost all gone, while corporate owners will profit for decades. City workers were laid off and replaced by low-paid workers without benefits, throwing more families into poverty.
Today, the city government claims to have a deficit of hundreds of millions of dollars. But Daley controls the so-called TIF funds, built up out of half of all property taxes collected. These were the source of hundreds of millions of dollars in handouts to businesses of all sorts, yet one billion dollars in cash remains. Despite this, Daley laid off hundreds of city workers and imposed 14 furlough days a year on city workers.
Daley appointees in charge of the public schools, including Arne Duncan, now U.S. Secretary of Education, led the way in promoting charter schools, undermining the public school system. There are vast inequalities in the schools. The poorest ones have broken and missing equipment and overcrowded classrooms, while upper-middle class schools are well-equipped with plenty of teachers.
Apparently Daley thinks there’s no blood left in Chicago, having bled it for years.
Sep 13, 2010
The first part of Obama’s health care reform began July 1, when those with pre-existing medical conditions were allowed to sign up for health insurance.
For years, the health insurance industry had been denying coverage to those who had a “pre-existing” condition or who had a history of illness. The Congressional Budget Office estimated that four million uninsured people would be affected, and that perhaps 200,000 would sign up immediately.
So far, only 3,600 signed up for the new health insurance. Why so few?
Plain and simple, they can’t afford the outrageous rates offered under the plan.
Kaiser Health News pointed out that each person would have to pay more than $6,100 per year, at a minimum, in premiums and deductibles.
Yet the health insurance companies are getting a billion dollars a year from the federal government for the next five years to sign up these people with pre-existing conditions.
In other words, the system has been “reformed” to help the insurance companies.
Sep 13, 2010
A Metro bus burst into flames on the Capital Beltway. Metro said it would immediately pull all 100 buses belonging to the 10-year-old, diesel-powered Orion VI series in order to make repairs to the hydraulic pumps. Interesting how they knew so quickly which part was problematic.
In fact, Metro knows that all its equipment needs maintenance. But that would require Metro to hire more workers. Metro prefers to wait and see. Maybe people won’t die when the faulty train detection system malfunctions. Maybe the bus won’t be on the beltway when it bursts into flames.
Metro, which just stuffed its bank vaults with money from the recent fare increase, gambles with our lives.
Use the money to hire more workers to fix this broken down system. We need safe and affordable public transportation. And people need jobs.
Sep 13, 2010
Publicity hound Robert Bobb, Emergency Financial Manager for Detroit Public Schools (DPS), waited with the media and two students for the bus to arrive on the first day of school.
His grand plan to show off the improved “safety and efficiency” of outsourced student transportation hit a brick wall, however.
What was supposed to be a feel good story about the “wonders” of privatization, left Robert Bobb with egg on his face.
The international transportation conglomerate, First Student–the school bus company hand-picked by Bobb–arrived so late that the two students missed their first half hour of school!
In fact, out of 263 busses, 127 busloads of DPS students got to school late that day.
When the contract was awarded, DPS said outsourcing would “dramatically improve transportation services for our children.”
According to an employee, First Student only started making plans for the 1st day of school one week ahead. They were woefully unprepared.
The kids learned a valuable lesson. For-profit private contractors are for profit, period. Not for kids.
Sep 13, 2010
Pepco, the Washington, D.C. electric utility, is under investigation for its lousy service.
Not surprisingly, Pepco said they were “not terribly disappointed” with their response to recent storms.
“Not terribly disappointed”?
Are you kidding? Half a million people with no power for days–no AC, no refrigeration–during a record-breaking heat wave? Pepco may not be disappointed–we’re outraged!
Pepco also claimed: “We learned so much from recent events.”
These so-called recent events aren’t so recent. They happen every summer. They are called thunder storms.
The Public Service Commission demanded to know why Pepco’s response was so poor. And the governor said, “To pretend that this is all due to weather is not, I think, a responsible way to act.”
Where were these timid mice before, when this crisis was building up, when Pepco didn’t repair lines, cut down trees or hire enough maintenance workers? Why are they speaking up now?
Oh, right–it’s an election year!
Sep 13, 2010
During the past three months, state and local governments have laid off 102,000 more people than they hired. Even bigger cutbacks are threatened. But already some of the cutbacks taking place could not have even been imagined a few years ago.
Most school districts have laid off teachers, closed schools and increased class sizes. But in Hawaii, all the state’s students got furlough days. Public schools were closed on half of all Fridays during the past school year.
Most local transit systems have cut routes and hours of operation, despite steep fare increases. But in a suburb of Atlanta, Georgia, the entire public bus system has been shut down, stranding 8,400 daily riders.
Even firefighting and public safety have been put on the chopping block: In Colorado Springs, a third of all its 24,512 street lights have been turned off until further notice–at the same time its police force was cut.
Many cities have closed fire houses and laid off firefighters and medics. In Baltimore, Philadelphia, Detroit, Sacramento and other cities, open fire stations are now being closed on a rolling basis. In San Diego, a two-year-old boy choked to death only 600 yards from a fire station whose paramedic had been sent to cover for a closed station.
Clearly the cutbacks have now reached a new level: Services and programs are not just being reduced, but in some cases, entirely eliminated.
Politicians and public officials claim there isn’t enough money because the economic crisis has reduced tax revenues. But this is crazy: The biggest banks and some of the biggest companies are reporting fat profits. They are rolling in money, as are the super-wealthy people who own them. But not only are they paying very little in taxes, all levels of government are handing over money to them in the form of ever more tax breaks and subsidies.
The politicians and government officials destroying public services to put money in the pockets of the wealthy aren’t going to stop on their own. They will stop only when an organized force stops them. Only when the working class calls them to account.
Sep 13, 2010
The Los Angeles Times has put a rating list of 6,000 L.A. elementary school teachers on the Internet. The newspaper has ranked the teachers on a scale between “most effective” and “least effective”–where “effectiveness” is measured by students’ yearly state test scores in English and math.
The Times’ ratings are nothing but a vile, dishonest attack on teachers–and on the children they teach.
All the experts agree that testing is not a valid way to assess the effectiveness of individual teachers, or to determine classroom priorities and curriculum. Even the government’s own experts have shown this.
Focusing on tests to attack the teachers is worse than ineffective. It’s an excuse to get rid of more experienced, higher paid teachers and replace them with new, lower-paid teachers–in other words, to spend less money. By pushing this, the Times is simply serving up the justification to starve needy schools of even more money.
It’s disgusting. The L.A. Times–controlled by Sam Zell, a Chicago real estate speculator and multibillionaire–should just come out and say it: they don’t WANT to educate the children of the poor and working class!
Sep 13, 2010
On September 9th, a 30-inch natural gas pipe running three feet underground exploded in San Bruno, California (12 miles south of San Francisco). The explosion and subsequent fire led to the deaths of four people (possibly more), injuries to more than 50 people, the complete destruction of 38 homes with damage to seven other homes–total devastation to four city blocks. One resident said, “I thought we’d been attacked by a missile. Everything was shaking. I thought this was the end.”
For weeks residents have complained to Pacific Gas and Electric Company because they smelled gas. But nothing came of those complaints–except the explosion!
PG&E is one of the nation’s largest utilities, providing electric and gas service to about 15 million people in Northern California. This is not PG&E’s first incident. It has a whole history of incidents. In 2008 a smaller PG&E gas line ruptured in Rancho Cordova, California, killing one person and injuring five others. In 2006, the company had used improper piping that allowed gas to leak from a mechanical coupling. When a crew was finally sent out–after a long delay–to check, it had a faulty gas leak-detector. This delay led to the loss of life and injuries. All told PG&E has had 65 gas pipeline “incidents” since 2004. At least 16 of those “incidents” spurred evacuations of dozens of homes and businesses.
There are thousands of miles of pipelines crisscrossing cities over the whole country, under millions of buildings. And the pipelines are aging–and not well maintained. The pipe that exploded in San Bruno was 62 years old, for example.
Federal officials are concerned that maintenance spending “may not be” keeping up with deterioration. But “concern” is where they stop, however! They’ve done nothing about these dangers. Why not force utilities to maintain, repair, and replace equipment? Why not impose respect for safety on companies like PG&E?
Sep 13, 2010
Detroit was hit by a wave of fire on September 7th, leveling whole blocks in a single day.
The initial cause for most of this conflagration was downed power lines. There were more than 750 broken lines, live wires, throwing off sparks.
Damage from the fire was increased by the fire department’s usual slow response times.
Mix into that a windy day, and what started as 10 fires soon became 85. A fire in a garage spread to nine houses, another to 17. Seventy-one buildings were severely damaged.
Detroit Mayor Dave Bing and the media were quick to call the day of fires a “natural disaster,” blaming it on the wind.
DTE, the local power company, rushed to blame “illegal” electrical hookups for the downed lines.
Local residents had another story. There were downed lines because DTE wasn’t doing its work. Residents had been calling about downed lines for days–including some “illegal” hook-ups–getting no response. And they haven’t seen DTE trim tree limbs for years–a sure cause of problems in high winds. Obviously, since DTE–like every other company–has been massively cutting jobs.
As for the fire department’s slow response time–blame years of ongoing city budget cuts. The few 911 operators were swamped with calls, blocking the number for incoming calls. On the day of the fires, eight of the city’s 66 fire companies were out of commission on one of the city’s unpaid “furlough day.” The head of the firefighters’ union said the city hasn’t hired new firefighters for 20 years!
This day of massive fire destruction was a disaster alright–entirely man-made, totally preventable. And it was the result of decades of cutbacks in jobs by local governments as well as private companies.
Sep 13, 2010
A U.S. District Court judge upheld the conviction of death row inmate Troy Davis, despite new evidence showing he is innocent.
The U.S. Supreme Court had sent the case back to the district court in Georgia to hear new evidence. Davis, who is black, was convicted in 1991 and sentenced to death for the murder of an off-duty white cop, Mark MacPhail.
The police charged Troy Davis with MacPhail’s murder, despite the fact that they had no physical evidence linking Davis to the murder and no murder weapon–only shaky eyewitness testimony.
Seven of nine civilian witnesses have since recanted, explaining they were either coerced by the police or threatened by the actual murderer–Sylvester “Red” Coles. Several witnesses said that Coles bragged about shooting MacPhail and another witness testified he saw Coles shoot MacPhail.
The district court judge presiding over the evidentiary hearing even admitted “the new evidence casts additional minimal doubt on his (Davis’s) conviction.” Yet the judge claimed Davis had not met the higher standard required in an evidentiary hearing. The judge went so far as to accuse Davis’s lawyers of not calling on Coles to testify at the hearing, failing to mention that the judge had denied them policing powers to serve Coles a subpoena, nor did he assign any police to do it.
The courts, the prosecution, and the police have a conviction on their record and they are not about to overturn it–even if they have the wrong man.
Justice–17th Century American style.
Sep 13, 2010
On a Sunday afternoon in early September, on a busy street near downtown Los Angeles, a police officer shot and killed Manuel Jamines, an immigrant day laborer. Crowds immediately formed, and people began voicing their anger. “Killers go to hell,” shouted one person. “You guys don’t have the right to come to our neighborhood and assassinate people,” another yelled.
For three nights, the streets filled with people from the neighborhood demonstrating against the police killing, and the demonstrators clashed with riot-clad cops, when the cops tried to disperse them. On the fourth night, a crowd of 300 heckled and booed LAPD chief Charlie Beck, when he promised “a fair investigation” of the murder.
The cops’ story that Jamines had threatened them with a knife was a blatant lie. Plenty of witnesses saw the cop, Frank Hernandez, shoot Jamines twice in the head at close range for merely stumbling while he was drunk.
The people, by their actions, were holding the police to their account.
Sep 13, 2010
After voting 384-22 against the concessions in May, after shouting down traitorous UAW International officials in August, Indianapolis workers face a new attack. International officials are organizing a mail ballot on the concessions–one where they control the mailing, receiving and counting of ballots–not to mention stuffing of the ballot box!
But Indianapolis workers have upset these flunkies’ plans before. The fight’s not over.
Sep 13, 2010
Claiming he had gotten numerous phone calls from workers who said they wanted to vote on proposed concessions, J.D. Norman announced a meeting where every worker could come hear the “truth” about his offer. Norman, a former stock broker, wants to buy a GM plant whose workers are represented by UAW Local 23–but only if the workers give up half their wages and many benefits. He rented the Indianapolis Colts stadium and provided food, with great fanfare, for his meeting.
Top UAW officials supported his effort, claiming that previous “No” votes had been taken by only a small minority of the workers. But only a very, very, very small minority–just 75 people counting spouses and children–even showed up at the stadium!
Sep 13, 2010
The following was an editorial in the September 10 issue of Lutte Ouvrière (Workers Struggle), the paper of the revolutionary workers organization of that name active in France. Workers in the U.S., facing the same kind of attacks, can rejoice to see others begin a fight that can spread.
The success of the September 7th day of strikes and demonstrations is the proof that the working class rejects the pretended “reform” of pensions....
The participation in the demonstrations was everywhere more massive than on June 24th. Along with state workers, the workers in private businesses were widely present, as well as a number of youth, the unemployed and retirees. It was a cry of indignation by the whole working class against the measures on pensions and, more generally, against the anti-worker policy of the government.
No one can be so naive as to believe that this one day, despite the clear expression of the will of the workers, will be enough to make the government retreat.
For several months, the servants of Big Capital in the government, the media and among economists, have churned out garbage about the need to raise the retirement age and increase the number of years that workers have to work. The bosses’ propagandists, who in their entire life have never done a bit of work with their hands, explain that workers on an auto assembly line, construction workers and supermarket checkers, who are worn down and tired at age 60, can work beyond 60!
While they repeat that it’s necessary for old workers to work longer, hundreds of thousands of youth, more than a quarter of the youth seeking work, can’t find a job. And when they have one, it’s only as a temporary worker, with no job security and poorly paid.
The true aim of the government isn’t to give work to the old, nor to the young. It’s to shake down the workers, by reducing what they get in pensions.
This attack is one among many others, some coming from the government, others from the bosses themselves: freezing wages, speedup, increased layoffs, an increase in deductions for health care and even a reduction in benefits, electric and gas increases and a thousand other outrages, big and small. Public services, schools, hospitals, public transit and postal delivery are all falling to pieces, which is another form of serious attack against working people.
Why are they making all these attacks against the workers, against those who produce the riches of this country, against the poor? In order that the profits of the big capitalist businesses can be restored back to their previous level, despite the crisis of their economy. Profits of the 400 biggest businesses have increased by 86% over last year!
Growing profits serve only to fatten the biggest stockholders. While hundreds of thousands of workers’ families struck by unemployment fall into misery, the billionaire Liliane Bettencourt, who got rich by exploiting L’Oreal’s packers, buys up an island in the tropics and gets paid by government ministers to do it.
It’s necessary, then, to make the government and bosses retreat. It is possible. The French government had to retreat in 1995 and again in 2006. If they had to retreat, it wasn’t due to one day of protests, but because the succession of strikes, demonstrations and strong actions testified to a movement which generalized and whose development they feared they couldn’t control.
The success of September 7th is just the beginning. It’s necessary that the big bosses, that the government, feel that we’re not done with that and that we won’t be content until we win.