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 8, 2010
The Democrats, in the words of Barack Obama, “took a shellacking” in the elections–just like the Republicans “took a shellacking” in 2008.
And for the same reason. People, especially working people, were fed up, fed up with politicians, fed up with politics as usual. In 2010, as in 2008, voters told the exit pollsters that “the country is headed in the wrong direction.”
Yes, it is, because the country continues to head in the same wrong direction it was already going. And working people are paying a horrible price for it.
In the face of rapidly worsening unemployment, Bush grabbed our tax money and gave it to the bankers, to the big oil companies and to the military contractors.
Unemployment grew worse, and Obama stole more of our tax money, gave it to the bankers, to the big auto companies and to the military contractors.
Putting money in the pockets of the very wealthy did not rev up the engine of the economy. But it did push up company profits. It did rev up new speculation–driving up prices today on the gasoline our cars gobble and the food we need.
Two deadly wars continue–Iraq and Afghanistan–but you never would have known it from the election campaign. The two parties tacitly agreed to keep the wars out of the election. But blood continues to be spilt. Whole areas of the two countries continue to be razed. More children are forced onto the streets, selling themselves in order to survive. More U.S. troops–rotating into the wars three, four and five times–come home as near zombies or ticking time bombs. A trillion dollars and counting has been spent on destroying other countries–dollars that could have been spent on meeting human needs.
Workers had no clear way to express themselves in this election. Some tried to figure out which was the lesser evil. Some tried to vote AGAINST, against whoever was in office.
But the biggest part of the working class expressed itself by not voting. Those who count these things say that nearly two-thirds of the voting age population did NOT vote this year at all. Among workers, that NO-vote was even higher. By their actions–staying away from the polls–workers said, “A pox on both your houses.”
The elections are over, good riddance.
We can’t change our situation in the ballot box anyway. Try to remember a politician who seemed to “give” something to working people–and you will discover a politician who was boxed in by popular movements: workers’ strikes and demonstrations, the black population’s resistance, struggles carried out by women, movements against wars, the movements of poor farmers, those of sharecroppers and former slaves.
Today, we see just the hints of struggles. Not very big, yet. But more than yesterday. We hear about workers here or there who refuse to give up any more concessions. We run into parents protesting loud enough that a bureaucrat backs off on plans to close their kids’ school. We hear about bus riders who tear up a city council meeting because service has been cut off at night or on the weekend.
It’s not much. BUT, it’s in this direction we have to go.
Nov 8, 2010
On November 5, a Los Angeles judge let transit cop Johannnes Mehserle off with two years in jail–for murder.
The murder took place early on New Year’s Day, 2009, in the Oakland subway. Mehserle and his partner singled out Oscar Grant, an unarmed black man, from a group on a subway platform. They made him lie face down. Mehserle’s partner put a knee on his neck. Mehserle then pulled his pistol and shot Oscar Grant in the back, killing him.
The murder was videotaped by many people.
The trial was moved to Los Angeles–in reality because the people of Oakland knew what happened. There a jury convicted Mehserle of the lesser charge of involuntary manslaughter. The judge protected Mehserle, first by throwing out a firearm charge, and then by giving him the minimum possible prison sentence–two years with time off for time served. This means he will go free in six or seven months.
Outraged, protesters in Oakland poured into the streets. The cops declared the demonstrations a “crime scene.” They blocked people from leaving, and arrested 152 people for being at a crime scene.
But the real crime scene was the platform where Oscar Grant was shot in the back in cold blood.
The real crime scene was the Los Angeles courtroom where a judge protected yet another killer cop.
Nov 8, 2010
The day after the November election, the U.S. Federal Reserve announced that it will pump 850 billion to 900 billion dollars into the banking system over the next eight months. This is nothing new. The Fed had already pumped two trillion dollars into the banking system earlier this year.
The Fed pretends this will “spur economic growth” by making credit cheaper, encouraging business investment and consumption. In reality, the Fed is simply creating huge amounts of money out of thin air and lending it for free to the banks.
The banks certainly are not providing money to business for further investment. Even the banks admit it. “Firms continue to cut back on their capital expenditures and R&D outlays,” analysts at JP Morgan Chase wrote in a September report. Neither are the banks providing cheap credit for consumers and stimulating consumption. They are squeezing consumers by slashing interest rates for depositors, while boosting fees and penalties.
No, that free money from the Fed will not “spur economic growth.” Big investors use it to increase their wealth through more wild speculation. That’s why the prices of stocks and commodities–like precious metals, oil, cotton, wheat–suddenly went through the roof. Lately, big banks and other speculators have also been buying up massive amounts of farmland.
With the help of the Fed, the capitalists are blowing up new speculative bubbles that will inevitably crash and create more havoc in the economy.
The aim of the Fed and the U.S. government as a whole is to protect the profits of the bourgeoisie and to serve their every need–at the expense of the rest of society.
Nov 8, 2010
Arizona’s immigration law, passed last summer, requires police to detain any “suspected immigrant” they stop if the person cannot show proof that he or she has entered the U.S. legally. That could easily mean thousands and thousands of people being sent to prison–and millions of dollars in profit flowing into the coffers of companies that run private prisons.
So it comes as no surprise that the private for-profit prison industry played a big role in passing the law. Not only did they lobby for it; they basically wrote it at meetings of an organization called American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), whose members include state legislators and some big corporations and associations, including the tobacco company Reynolds, oil giant ExxonMobil, the National Rifle Association, as well as Corrections Corporation of America, the largest private prison company in the country.
Thirty-seven Arizona legislators sponsored the bill. Records show that 30 of them received donations from prison companies recently. And Arizona Governor Jan Brewer, who signed the bill into law, has her own connections with the prison industry–her spokesman Paul Senseman and her campaign manager Chuck Coughlin were lobbyists for private prison companies.
Politicians who attack immigrant workers pose as “patriots,” claiming to defend the interests of American workers. No–the only Americans these liars represent are the bosses, who use “patriotism” to fill their own pockets at the expense of all workers, immigrant and native-born alike.
Nov 8, 2010
2009 was a stunning year for the wealthiest, according to a new book: Winner-Take-All Politics: How Washington Made the Rich Richer, by Jacob Hacker and Paul Pierson.
Wealthy investors and CEOs at the 38 largest U.S. companies were paid 140 billion dollars in income last year–an all-time record. At Goldman Sachs, bonuses averaged nearly $600,000 per person. Goldman Sachs had their best year since the firm was founded in 1869.
While the economy collapsed and ordinary people lost jobs, homes, cars, pay and savings in 2009, those at the top had one of their best years ever–thanks to the sacrifices of the working class.
Nov 8, 2010
The U.S. Third Circuit Court of Appeals is holding a hearing November 9 to decide whether or not to reinstate the death penalty for Mumia Abu-Jamal.
Mumia Abu-Jamal is an outspoken black activist and journalist who has devoted his life to opposing racism, especially the actions of the Philadelphia police force. He was framed up for a 1981 cop killing, and for 29 years he has been rotting in prison, facing a death sentence.
Because the conduct of the police, prosecution and court was so outrageous, in 2001 the courts finally overturned the death sentence. There was a huge amount of new evidence that Mumia didn’t do it. Witnesses, who had testified against Mumia at trial, recanted, charging the police with coercing their testimony. Another man came forward and confessed to the shooting.
However, since then, there has been a real campaign to put Mumia to death. And in January, the U.S. Supreme Court stepped in and ordered the lower courts to reconsider the death sentence. Now, if the Third Circuit Court does impose the death penalty, it could clear the way for Mumia to be quickly executed.
It’s an outrage! We all have an interest to oppose it! Free Mumia Abu-Jamal!
Nov 8, 2010
Two U.S. soldiers were killed last week in Helmand Province by an Afghan soldier who turned his weapon on them inside a military base.
It’s only the latest such attack in Afghanistan. In recent months, several other Afghan soldiers shot and killed groups of U.S. or other NATO soldiers in Badghis Province and Helmand Province. Just two weeks ago, an entire police unit burned down its station and defected to the Taliban in a town just southwest of the capital of Kabul.
Helmand Province and its main city of Marjah were supposed to be the big example of the success of the new U.S. strategy to control Afghanistan. The New York Times declared on February 19 that “the Western presence is now firmly established.”
Eight months later, the AP reported: “The end of Taliban control in Marjah has sown seeds of an entrenched guerrilla war that has tied down at least two U.S. Marine battalions and hordes of Afghan police and army.” Clearly, the U.S. is not in control!
And what’s happening in Helmand Province is being repeated throughout the country. U.N. reports that 33 of Afghanistan’s 34 provinces now have districts where the existence of the insurgency makes them too dangerous for Westerners to visit or travel through. In other words, they’re under a de facto control of various insurgent forces.
All these actions show that forces in Afghanistan are concluding that the U.S. will be forced, in one way or another, to leave the country relatively soon.
It also shows that many Afghans will not be sad to see the U.S. leave. And it’s no wonder.
The U.S. war on Afghanistan, now in its tenth year, has destroyed the livelihood of Afghans living in important parts of the countryside; replaced agricultural production with opium production; created an enormous influx into the cities; and it has tossed out 600,000 street children dependent on crime, prostitution and begging to survive. The U.S. hasn’t even bothered to pretend to count the tens or even hundreds of thousands of civilians killed as a result of the war.
As even much of the top U.S. military admits, the longer the war has gone on, the more disastrous it’s been for the population, and the more it’s pushed the population into the arms of the insurgency.
U.S. out of Afghanistan NOW!
Nov 8, 2010
With a hurricane forecast to hit Haiti, people were told they had to prepare. They were advised by some “experts” to take cover in safer buildings and to further guard against problems with water contamination by putting purification tablets in their water.
Fine–except there are no safer buildings for the vast majority of the Haitian population to go to. There is no running water, let alone access to water purification supplies.
A population that has endured a devastating earthquake, an epidemic of cholera, and now, the threat of a hurricane, is being lectured by “experts” who couldn’t begin to survive what the Haitian people have lived through.
But what else can one expect from apologists and mouthpieces for all the businesses and bosses who have plundered Haiti and its people for centuries and left the Haitian people with nothing.
Nov 8, 2010
This article is from the October 4th issue of Le Pouvoir aux Travailleurs (Workers Power), published by UATCI, a revolutionary workers’ organization active in Africa.
In Africa, there are an estimated 100 million women and girls who have been cut in the barbaric practice of genital mutilation. This practice is aimed at eliminating the possibility that women would feel any pleasure in sexual intercourse.
Some girls die from hemorrhages due to their wounds. Others are infected, endangering their health for years. If they survive, they still suffer, since problems in pregnancy may kill their baby. In each case, these women are wounded in their bodies and suffer irreversible harm from these mutilations.
Today the women carrying out these circumcisions use cell phones. A quick call and they come over. So barbarism can coexist with technical development. Science alone won’t get rid of this hideous practice.
These dangerous rites arise from the backwardness of society, from the moral and material misery that makes up the daily life of many women and also of men, especially in the countryside. In these times of crisis, there is an exodus to the cities, where the practice of genital mutilation continues.
The rich class and the intellectuals who rule us aren’t worried much about fighting this situation because they and their offspring are able to escape practices linked to backwardness. But these people also maintain ties with traditional chiefs and other dignitaries of past times who promote these harmful practices and who continue to exercise a certain authority in the rural areas while dragging society backward. It’s how government officials keep their own positions.
The struggle against the oppression of women and against its most barbarous expressions is inseparable from the struggle for an egalitarian society freed from every form of oppression and exploitation.
Nov 8, 2010
A village woman puts her daughter and other girls trying to avoid circumcision under “Moolaadé”, a word in the Bambara language in West Africa meaning magical protection. The women know that circumcision is brutal, and many victims of it can only give birth through Caesarean section.
This was the last film of Ousmane Sembene, Africa’s most famous film maker. He made it to campaign against this horrible attack on women, and brought it around Senegal so its message would be widely seen.
It is available from Netflix and some libraries. It is in the original African language, but the English subtitles are easy to read.
Nov 8, 2010
This article is from the October 4th issue of Le Pouvoir aux Travailleurs (Workers Power), published by UATCI, a revolutionary workers’ organization active in Africa.
Demonstrations broke out in neighborhoods of Dakar, the capital of Senegal. The population was angry about water and electricity cutoffs and a rise in the price of food.
People went out into the streets to express their anger against the government. It did nothing to solve the constant cut off of water and power. For years, the government said it was going to fix these problems. It’s all a pack of lies–conditions have only gotten worse.
The Dakar area, with a big majority of Senegal’s population, isn’t the only area affected. It’s the same in other big cities. In Ziguinchor, the main city of Casamance, more than a thousand people protested in the streets on September 4th. In July, a riot broke out in Mbour when power went off just as people were watching the World Cup soccer matches. Young people went into the streets, destroying power company offices. There were violent clashes with the police. There were also demonstrations in Saint-Louis and Thi s.
Homes in rich neighborhoods have electric generators so they won’t have to suffer from the power failures. And blackouts are less common in rich neighborhoods compared to poor areas. The poor suffer blackouts several times a day. Sometimes current is cut off for several days in workers’ neighborhoods.
The worsening of people’s general living conditions led them to go out into the streets. Besides water and power outages, there were floods following the storms in workers’ neighborhoods. Several thousand people had their homes ruined. The government didn’t even aid them. Entire neighborhoods remain under stagnant water. Instead of removing the water, the authorities accused the inhabitants of not maintaining the few existing drains, which were blocked.
Besides these problems, there is the high cost of oil, bread, onions and fish. People can no longer find canned gas for cooking.
After all these frustrations, the inhabitants of poor neighborhoods responded to calls to demonstrate.
In the city of Saint Louis, an imam, a retired government employee, tried to mobilize the inhabitants of the poor neighborhoods against the power company. An association of self-employed tailors called for a boycott of power bills. When the power was cut, they had no income. Fishermen told the authorities that when the power was cut off they couldn’t provide fish. They had no means to preserve the fish without power. Merchants also protested that fresh produces in their refrigerators spoiled.
The government’s inability to find solutions to sustain the water and power supply has become normal. This government increased angry discontent.
Nov 8, 2010
Daring to portray the destruction of the state budget as a wonderful thing, the outgoing Democratic Party governor of Michigan just announced 2.5 billion dollars worth of new tax breaks for GM, Ford and Chrysler. Governor Granholm said it was the single biggest day of announced tax credits in Michigan history.
Granholm justified these tax breaks by saying they were in exchange for GM, Ford and Chrysler “investing” 2 billion dollars in their current operations over the next three years. In fact, this investment is merely part of their ongoing operations.
This “gift” of new tax breaks for auto makers will put next year’s budget 127 million dollars deeper in the hole! This “gift” makes next year’s deficit 8% worse–and creates gaps for the next 20 years!
Politicians and pundits have the nerve to scapegoat teachers and public employees, blaming their wages and benefits for budget deficits, when you see these same politicians fork over billions to big business and the wealthy.
Nov 8, 2010
In September, the banks tossed more than 102,000 families from their homes. Then, in early October, all the major banks hit the brakes. They announced that they needed time to clear up any “irregularities” in the legal documents. Many of the legal documents the banks used to foreclose on peoples’ homes were obvious fakes, even forgeries. And legal challenges to the foreclosures had uncovered huge amounts of fraud by the banks.
The Obama administration ran to the banks’ defense, rejecting calls for a national moratorium on foreclosures. The big banks–J.P. Morgan Chase, GMAC and Bank of America–quickly announced they were foreclosing again.
The same banks that made record profits out of the housing bubble–pushing ordinary people to take out mortgages with exploding interest rates and hidden fees–are now rushing to foreclose on those homes.
It’s no surprise. There are huge profits to be made on foreclosures.
Many of the mortgages the banks hold are insured by various federal agencies: FDIC, Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, FHA and the VA. When the banks foreclose, the U.S. agencies pay off, and the banks make a huge profit.
The banks also profit on mortgages they don’t hold, even if there is no insurance and the mortgage holders take a loss. The banks own the companies that service the mortgages. And they collect big fees and commissions when a foreclosure goes through–right off the top.
In the 23 states where judicial review is necessary, the courts usually help the banks by expediting foreclosures. In Florida, for example, special “rocket dockets” were set up that review each foreclosure in a matter of seconds! In the other 27 states, the banks don’t even have to bother with the courts.
Facing more overt evidence of corruption in the process, Nancy Kaptor, a U.S. Congresswoman from Toledo, Ohio, an especially devastated area, told people to stay in their homes and not leave, even if they were being foreclosed on.
But the banks had an answer to that also. They hired “property preservation companies,” which come in and change the locks on homes that are in foreclosure, hound families with dozens of threatening calls a day, or break in when families are not home and ransack the place!
Already, the banks have foreclosed on more than three million homes, with another 11 million homeowners owing more on their mortgages than the house is worth. Given the average household size, that means more than 40 million have either lost their homes, or are in danger of doing so.
It is a national catastrophe!
Nov 8, 2010
On November 18, GM is expected to put up for sale approximately 12 billion dollars worth of stock, one of the biggest sales of stock in Wall Street history.
Over the last year, GM has declared profits again–despite the high unemployment, low level of auto production and a continued loss of GM’s market share in the U.S., the world’s largest auto market.
It isn’t hard to see what has made GM so profitable in the kind of downturn when auto companies never made profit.
Two years ago, when GM was close to collapse, the government stepped in and bailed it out–forking over 50 billion dollars in taxpayer money–that is, the workers’ money. This money was originally said to be a loan. But government officials are using all kinds of financial and legal maneuvers to let GM keep a big portion of that bailout money without paying it back.
The bailout was just the start of taxpayer support for GM. The federal government is also granting GM special tax breaks that are estimated to be worth as much as 45 billion dollars. That is, these tax breaks are at least as valuable as the original bailout. Ford is expected to have at least 19 billion dollars in similar kinds of tax breaks. So, bailout or no bailout, the U.S. government finds all kinds of ways to funnel taxpayer money to the auto companies.
There are also all the state and local tax breaks. The state of Michigan, which is supposed to be so hard-up for money it can’t afford state workers’ pay and benefits, once again granted 2.4 billion dollars in new tax breaks to the Big Three auto companies.
And perhaps most valuable of all are the sacrifices by GM’s workforce. Two years ago, GM and the federal government imposed such enormous sacrifices on GM workers that a growing proportion of the workforce is now making wages and benefits that are half what GM workers used to make. Retirees, that is, former GM workers, had their health benefits slashed–another gift to GM.
Tens of thousands of GM workers were laid off through speed-up, job combinations and outsourcing, letting GM close more plants, to wring out more profit. And not just GM workers lost their jobs. So did parts plants workers. And when GM shuttered more than a thousand car dealerships, tens of thousands more workers were put out on the streets.
So, workers’ lost tax money, jobs, pay, benefits and retirement are what accounts for GM’s spectacular profits.
The rest of the capitalist class is getting ready to feed on these profits, through higher dividends on the new stock and big fat interest payments on GM debt. GM’s traditional bankers, J.P. Morgan Chase and Morgan Stanley, will gain fat fees from the sale of the stock as well.
All those sacrifices by the working class–just so a few capitalists can grow ever richer.
Nov 8, 2010
This is an editorial from the November 5th issue of Lutte Ouvrière (Workers Struggle), the paper of the revolutionary workers group of that name active in France.
Both houses of Parliament passed the law to raise the retirement age. The government will live to regret that vote.
From the beginning, all workers have known that the law attacking retirees is unjust. Imposing two more years of wear and tear and exploitation on those still working at age 60 is an act of infamy. Workers also know that many among them will have lost their jobs before age 60. So this new law will mean a reduced pension.
The government forced the law through, showing exactly what it thinks about public opinion. This is hardly a surprise. The government always acts on the orders of big business. But it’s careful not to celebrate the passage of the law too loudly. It knows that, if the movement still isn’t strong enough to make it back down, the relationship of forces is changing.
Three million workers participated in the movement in one way or another. They are proud of it. They’re all the more proud since they know they have the sympathy of the great majority of the working class. They are beginning to see the workers’ collective power.
Workers of the private and public sectors, those working for big as well as small companies, demonstrated together. They were not fighting separately, just for their own sector. The railroad and refinery workers, who have been at the vanguard of the strikes, fought for the common goals of everyone. That won them the sympathy of all working people.
The bosses and the government are attacking all workers. Together, workers can defend themselves and they can counter-attack.
The government is not just increasing the age when we can collect retirement benefits. There are all the other attacks: layoffs, growing unemployment and worsening jobs, the squeeze of rising prices. The government has already imposed harsh austerity measures, and there are worse on the way. All these measures reduce workers’ living standards in order to shower money on the bankers and the entire capitalist class. These measures will allow the wealthy to enrich themselves, despite the crisis and growing poverty.
This is why the struggle must be political. The workers must not only oppose their own bosses, but also the government, which represents the bosses’ interests. This is one of the principal lessons of the movement. Even if this time the movement wasn’t strong enough to force the government to retreat, this kind of struggle can succeed in the future. And this is true no matter which party heads the government.
The current movement isn’t over. It’s only beginning. Other struggles are inevitable, because neither the bosses nor the government leave us any other choice. We can use the lessons of September-October to make each future struggle more conscious and bigger. In this jungle of capitalist society, we only get respect by demonstrating our strength.
We’re beginning to win ourselves respect.