The Spark

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

Issue no. 927 — November 12 - 26, 2012

EDITORIAL
Don’t Fall for the Fiscal Bluff

Nov 12, 2012

The election’s barely over, and here comes the “fiscal cliff”–this trap that both parties cobbled together in August 2011. Supposedly, if Congress can’t put together a plan to reduce the deficit, horrible spending cuts and tax increases will automatically take place.

Supposedly, this will send the economy spinning into a really terrible recession.

Supposedly, supposedly, supposedly....

Fiscal cliff? No, call it what it is–it’s a fiscal bluff. They are trying to bluff us–bombarding us with tons of propaganda. They aim to convince us to accept what is totally unacceptable.

This bluff is nothing but an extortion plot, a “your-money-or-your-life” kind of plot.

Guess who’s pushing the extortion? The biggest Wall Street firms, the biggest banks, the financial players that created the collapse of 2008. They are the ones that recently put up a new website called “Fix the Debt.org.”

There is nothing innocent about it. This site lists all the things they want to cut: Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, unemployment benefits, etc.

The big financial interests behind this site want monstrous cuts, more monstrous than the mortgage crisis. They want to cut more from all those social programs that serve the population–social services, public services and education.

They are telling us that if the two parties don’t agree to cut us, then worse cuts will automatically happen.

The Democrats and Republicans pretend to be feuding over taxes on the wealthy. The Democrats say, “Tax the wealthy,” the Republicans say, “No!”

We can be sure, when it’s all over, there will be an increase on taxes on the wealthy–a slight increase, a very, very slight increase.

Lloyd Blankfein, CEO of Goldman Sachs recently put it in perspective. Magnanimously, he declared he would be willing to pay 5% more in taxes if Congress would reach a deal on all the cuts.

You bet he would–this obscenely wealthy banker who was paid 16 million dollars last year by Goldman Sachs.

Other bankers have already agreed to pay a little bit more in taxes–in exchange for much more money they will get from the government, money squeezed out of the social programs, public services and education in the deal they are about to cut. What a good deal for them. And what a swindle for us.

The Democrats may tax a little–in order to cover up the big attacks on the population. The Democrats were the ones who just finished campaigning, promising to protect the “middle class.”

Did you vote for the Democrats, hoping against hope that they might protect you? Well, watch out now, watch what they are going to do. Pay special attention, because they are about to use your own votes against you!

Pages 2-3

Grand Bargain?
We Weren’t Invited!

Nov 12, 2012

After the election, the first thing workers are supposed to want is a “grand bargain” about how to raise our own taxes and how to cut our own social security and benefits.

No! We DON’T want any of that. And it’s NOT our “bargain.” Not in any way, shape or form!

A workers’ bargain would have to include jobs, several million new jobs, full time jobs, full time jobs at a wage that supports a decent life. Jobs that fulfill the real and immense needs of our society. Wages that really reflect the value of the work we do.

If that’s not in the bargain, then it’s no deal, no matter who signs it.

The Iraq War Is Not Over

Nov 12, 2012

On November 6, a massive bomb blast at a military base north of Baghdad killed more than two dozen people. According to United Nations statistics, these kinds of horrific bombings and terrorist attacks–which have taken the lives of civilians and security forces alike–have grown worse over the past year.

These horrific bomb blasts continue to be regular occurrences inside Iraq, despite official U.S. claims that the Iraq War is over.

In fact, the U.S. forces that left in December 2011 have just been replaced by other forces under U.S. direction, including tens of thousands of mercenaries, embassy employees and CIA agents.

It is no secret what is behind this continued massive U.S. military presence: oil.

In order to grab the lion’s share of these riches and domination over the country, the U.S. relies not only upon massive military force, but on a divide and conquer policy.

The entry of the big oil companies to rebuild the Iraqi oil industry and increase production has only made matters worse. For example, Exxon-Mobil, the biggest oil company in the world, plays the Kurdish government in the North off against the Iraqi central government. This has begun to break the control of the central Iraqi state over the country’s oil, allowing Exxon-Mobil to extract more lucrative oil deals for itself.

These divide and conquer tactics by the U.S. government and oil companies are feeding this civil war. The U.S. war in Iraq, which has already taken more than one million Iraqi lives and destroyed most of the country, continues to wreak havoc and death for the Iraqi people.

City of Los Angeles Demands Even More Cuts from Its Workers

Nov 12, 2012

The City of Los Angeles is demanding more cuts from its workers, according to a memo issued by Mayor Villaraigosa in October, disclosed by one employee on LACityworkers.com.

In the memo, the workers were blamed for causing the budget deficit with their wages, healthcare and retirement benefits. The memo explains that to fix the budget, the City eliminated more than 5,000 positions by layoffs, early retirement and attrition. Then the mayor bragged that increasing workers’ retirement contributions to 11% of their wages “is one of the largest increases” in the country.

But, according to the memo, these cuts were not enough. Now, the City demands even more. They want to reduce starting base wages, change layoff procedures, have more part-time employees, outsource some positions, reduce Cost of Living Adjustments, require a minimum of a 10% contribution to health premiums, eliminate pay for some holidays, reduce Workers’ Comp payments, cut the pensions of existing retirees by preventing automatic increases, and so on.

Not quite-billionaire Richard Riordan and his billionaire buddy Eli Broad also want a new ballot measure next year to cut the City workers’ income.

This is a full assault on workers by the rich and the City of Los Angeles. They squarely put the blame on the city workers: supposedly workers earn too much!

But last month, the city approved a so-called “business tax holiday” for companies from 2013 to 2015. Initiated in 2010, this tax break gives about 17 million dollars to businesses EVERY year. So, for the City, giving money to the rich does not cause any budget deficit!

Bottom line: Democratic Mayor and the City Council are in full agreement with the filthy rich people: attack the workers.

Maryland School Bus Cuts Endanger Students

Nov 12, 2012

Marckel Ross was shot and killed the morning of Sept. 11, 2012, as he was walking to school. A junior at Central High in Capitol Heights, Maryland, Ross had been involved in ROTC, ran track, and had been considering joining the military. His younger brother Markies left home for the same school later that morning, and found out his brother had been killed when he reached the police crime scene.

Police still have no suspects or motives in their investigation.

Like thousands of students around the country, Marckel Ross had been forced to walk or find a ride because of school bus service cuts. Beginning this school year, 2,350 school bus stops in Prince George’s County (near Washington, D.C.) were eliminated. All bus service has been eliminated for middle and high school students who live within two miles of their school–up from a mile and a half. For elementary students as young as six years old, the walking distance was increased from one mile to 1.5 miles. And for anyone still “qualified” for a school bus ride, the walk to the nearest bus stop was doubled from a quarter mile to up to half a mile.

County officials who made these cuts are well aware that they’re risking students’ lives. The proof of it is a letter sent to parents before the school year even started. The education bureaucrats advised parents to tell their children to “be aware of their surroundings” and to “tell an adult if they see anything suspicious.” As if these families–who face violence in their “surroundings” the minute they walk out their front door–aren’t already very well aware of the fact!

In a violent society, no school system can completely protect students. But for anyone who must live and attend school in a crime-ridden area, bus service isn’t about “convenience.” It’s the most basic safety requirement that a school system could provide.

It’s an outrage that county officials are making the conscious choice not to provide it.

Los Angeles:
Private School for Rich Kids Gets a Tax Break

Nov 12, 2012

Buckley School in Los Angeles got a 40-million-dollar, tax-free loan for a campus extension. Buckley is a private school that charges $30,000 for tuition per year. Among its alumni are Paris Hilton and Kim Kardashian. And among its fans, this posh school for the rich and famous apparently counts all 15 members of the Los Angeles City council, who unanimously approved this “charity loan” last June!

Buckley got the loan from the California Municipal Finance Authority (CMFA), a non-profit organization, which has more than 150 cities as members. Private investors in the CMFA collect tax-free interest. And the CMFA gives tax-free loans to private companies.

In other words, the CMFA is nothing but a scheme, set up by public officials, specifically for the purpose of giving tax breaks to private interests–under the guise of “charitable work.” Besides Buckley, recipients of such tax-exempt loans include other private schools and colleges, colleges run by churches, and even some huge corporations like Chevron–which got 250 million dollars in bonds!

The California public officials who set up this scheme are the same ones who keep saying “there’s no money” in their treasuries. Then they use that as the excuse to cut services in working-class neighborhoods, lay off public workers, cut their wages and attack their pensions. So that the rich, whom these officials serve, can get even richer.

Stomping on the Truth They Don’t Like

Nov 12, 2012

In mid-September, the Congressional Research Service, an arm of the Library of Congress, released an interesting study. Is there any historical connection between tax rates on multi-millionaires, compared to rates of economic growth?

The researchers could not find any connection at all!

In other words, the campaign of lies that we hear daily, about how it will hurt the economy to tax the super-rich “job creators,” is proven to be total and complete baloney. The ultra-rich could be taxed very low, and it would not create any more jobs. Or, they could be taxed very high, and it would not kill jobs at all.

Everybody knows this, it’s only common sense. But if the Library of Congress proves it in black and white, that’s intolerable for those who represent the wealthy. The Republicans in Congress raised a huge outcry to get the study withdrawn. The Democrats didn’t rise to its defense. The study was officially withdrawn.

But, as Galileo once pointed out to a Pope, truth is truth, whether you silence it or not.

Moroun, the Tycoon, Loses His Bridge Proposition

Nov 12, 2012

Detroit billionaire “Matty” Moroun’s companies laid out a whopping 42 million dollars on Proposal 6.

Proposal 6 was disguised as a proposal to “let the public decide” on the building of any new bridge over the Detroit River. But the proposal was, in reality, a way to stop the State of Michigan from building a bridge that would compete with Moroun’s existing Ambassador Bridge or any new bridge Moroun would build.

Eight thousand trucks pass over the Detroit River daily between Canada and Detroit. Moroun controls this traffic today, and fought tooth and nail to keep anyone from cutting in on his profits.

If he spent 42 million dollars on Proposal 6, imagine the kind of money in profits he was expecting to make! “Poor” Matty will have to settle for a little bit less.

Pages 4-5

Sandy and Katrina—The Face of Our Future

Nov 12, 2012

Whatever “natural” causes led to Katrina and Sandy, the crass enormity of the destruction reflects decisions made by human beings.

For decades the best scientific researchers have predicted exactly these kinds of storms as one of the consequences of global warming. But that research has been ignored and even denigrated.

No one can say, of course, that either Katrina and/or Sandy were caused directly by global warming. But the climate change already documented will produce storms like these–and worse.

Research into weather patterns, coming from a range of fields, has shown that the earth is getting warmer, and it’s getting warmer, faster. This past July was the hottest month on record in the U.S., 3 degrees above average, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). The 12 months prior to July were the warmest since the NOAA began keeping records in 1895. NASA data show the warming trends in the last 30 years were above average in large sections of the Northern Hemisphere compared with the last 130 years overall.

Gleaning large amounts of information about past weather patterns, scientists have constructed models of what we can expect in the future: much more severe storms, and many more of them; much heavier rainfall in some areas, more snow and ice in others; wider drought in still others, with destruction of agriculture.

The melting of the global ice masses is already well documented. The Arctic cap, which shrinks and expands in a yearly cycle, shrank to its lowest extent this August since NASA records began in 1979.

Further melting will lead to higher sea levels and encroachment of the seas into coastal areas–sometimes catastrophically. Ocean levels are already showing such rises. Global sea levels increased by as much as one millimeter per year on average over the past 60 years, and ocean levels on the east coast of the U.S. have risen three or four times that fast. U.S. Geological Survey scientists predict New York City’s sea level will rise by close to an additional foot by 2100.

Conversely, more than a third of the continental United States experienced severe to extreme drought conditions this July. This year’s drought was part of a series that started in 1999, with only a couple of brief wet interludes in between, according to the National Climate Data Center.

Dry conditions have in turn contributed to larger wildfires in recent years. The average annual number of fires covering more than 1,000 acres has doubled in eight Western states and quadrupled in two others since 1970, according to the U.S. Forest Service. Compared with 42 years ago, the fire season in the West “begins earlier, ends later and sparks larger, more frequent blazes.”

This shows that climate scientists’ forecasts are not just idle speculations. They are predictions made in the way that science must always look to the future–by analyzing as much data as possible from the past, then try to follow the patterns in the data to see where they lead.

The scientists who worked on these models can be wrong in some details, but there is no doubt about the kind of problems that global warming holds for human society.

Some people, of course, prefer to be ostriches–with their heads buried in the sand. And there will always be some right-wing ideologues who pretend the earth is flat, or that it was “created” four thousand years ago.

But that’s not the reason that the scientific research into global warming and its consequences has been pushed aside. To deal with climate change and its increasingly disastrous results would eat into the unending drive for more profit.

To deal with climate change would require a re-ordering of society’s priorities. Decisions would be made based on the best knowledge we now have of how to alleviate the immediate effects of climate change, and how to reduce that change. Companies would not be allowed to organize production in ways that led to human harm–either directly in the workplaces or in the long term impact on life.

But that would cut seriously into profit. And capitalism has never made decisions, no matter how necessary, that would seriously reduce wealth for the tiny handful of profiteers who today hold humanity in their grasp.

Weather Hazards Increase, Needed Public Services Cut

Nov 12, 2012

Hurricane Sandy is expected to cost as much as 50 billion dollars in property and business losses, making it the second most destructive storm in U.S. history–behind only Hurricane Katrina. The current death toll is 100 and more bodies may yet be found.

As the storm came ashore at Atlantic City, New Jersey, flooding and high winds devastated tens of thousands of homes near the ocean up and down the coast. The storm surge into New York Harbor flooded major parts of Manhattan, Brooklyn, Queens and Staten Island, as well as towns and cities in New Jersey across the Hudson River from Manhattan. All the subway tunnels between Manhattan and Brooklyn, Queens and New Jersey were flooded, as was the Holland Tunnel, one of two tunnels providing access to New York by road from New Jersey. More than 100 houses burned down in one Queens neighborhood alone. More than eight million people lost electrical service in an area stretching from parts of northern Virginia to New Hampshire. Tens of thousands of people in New York were stranded in high rise residential buildings with no lights, no heat and no elevator service.

This storm was a killer, but the devastation, misery and death it caused was made worse by years of cutbacks in public services such as electric utilities, water and sewer systems and coastal flood protection.

For decades public services have been deteriorating due to insufficient funding from the politicians and utility companies. The politicians and public officials preferred to hand over tax breaks and subsidies to corporations and real estate developers. Hundreds of billions of federal dollars were spent on fighting wars in Iraq and Afghanistan rather than funding infrastructure here in the U.S.

But since the “Great Recession” started, the situation has gotten even worse. Millions of both public and private utility workers have been laid off. The reliability of electric, water and sewerage service has gone down. In some parts of Detroit, public services like street lights, garbage pick-up and fire stations have been eliminated. In Baltimore and Washington, D.C., big water main breaks have become a frequent occurrence. Recently a 90-year-old five-foot-diameter water main burst tearing up Charles Street, a major route out of downtown Baltimore, and turning several blocks into the Charles “River” for more than a day. Along actual rivers and coastlines the number of people and businesses endangered by insufficient flood protection has grown.

Even with all this starving of public services, many people in New York and New Jersey now without housing could be sheltered at least temporarily, if the military was called in to set up emergency facilities.

But government priorities lie elsewhere.

With more and more violent storms coming due to climate change, as well as rising sea levels, the continuing deterioration of the country’s public services and infrastructure is a prescription for more disasters.

Haiti:
Ravaged, Once Again

Nov 12, 2012

Hurricane Sandy hit Haiti on the night of October 24th. The physical and human damage was much more catastrophic in a country that still hasn’t recovered from the 2010 earthquake and last August’s Hurricane Isaac. At least 54 people died due to Hurricane Sandy, and some twenty more were carried off. Today, there are 200,000 disaster victims, added to the 400,000 people already living in temporary shelters since 2010.

The lack of food is particularly alarming. The hurricane destroyed the harvests in the south of Haiti, the wheat basket of the country, and caused a heavy loss of cattle. The price of staples is going to soar and famine threatens.

Since the hurricane destroyed a lot of aqueducts, a new cholera epidemic threatens Haiti. People are forced to pump water from dirty rivers, which is the main way cholera spreads.

The Haitian government called for international aid, but so far only Venezuela has sent any. After the 2010 earthquake, the U.N.’s main activity was stepping up its military presence in Haiti. Some of its troops were responsible for introducing cholera to Haiti. The danger is that this scenario will be repeated.

Taking Action Could Save Lives

Nov 12, 2012

When Hurricane Sandy was bearing down on the east coast, meteorologists at The Weather Channel waited for the federal government’s National Hurricane Center to issue a warning for the population, giving people time to prepare. It never came.

As one meteorologist said to the New York Times (11/5/12): “We all looked at ourselves and said, ‘You’ve got to be kidding.’”

Meteorologists then publicized the danger–themselves.

That night, one made dire warnings on his website. The news media reported his alarm, and word spread. He explained: “Regardless of what the official designation is ... people in the path of this storm need to heed the threat it poses with utmost urgency.”

While federal agencies dithered, these brave scientists issued dire warnings, and lives were saved.

Wall Street Muscles Its Way Up Front

Nov 12, 2012

At 8 PM on Monday, October 29, the eye of Hurricane Sandy hit New York City.

More than two weeks later, in New York City, at least 40,000 people were still homeless. Forty were known dead. Over half a million people were still without power, heat, often without even water.

But guess what? The Stock Exchange was humming!

Yes, less than 48 hours after Sandy struck, New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg was ready to ring the bell to open the New York Stock Exchange for business.

Wall Street had prepared for Sandy. As reported in the New York Times, “for days, exchange officials traded lengthy conference calls with trading firms, regulators, and city and state officials about how best to resume trading in the nation’s financial heart.” The Exchange had an executive in the city’s storm command center. They sent emergency fuel to emergency generators to run the computers. They sent cars to bring in “critical” personnel.

They made careful preparations to quickly resume trading of stocks and bonds, while rescuers were still pulling the bodies of children from flooded ruins. Meanwhile hundreds of thousands of people waited, and waited, and waited on help that was deemed a lower priority than helping Wall Street.

This is capitalist society. The flow of dollars takes top priority. The flow of services essential to sustain human life comes later–or, if the communities are poor, late or never.

Capital muscles itself to the head of every line, even in a disaster.

Pages 6-7

Proposal 2:
We Have the Rights We Take!

Nov 12, 2012

In Michigan, Proposal 2, enshrining collective bargaining rights in the state constitution, went down to defeat.

It changes nothing.

Top union officials were foolish even to put a proposal like this on the ballot. Workers don’t need–and shouldn’t ask for–anyone’s permission to form a union. Not a vote of the whole population–which includes businessmen, wealthy people, and the politicians who serve them. And not the state apparatus with its laws, courts, police, etc.–all of which serve the wealthy. So, to ask all of them to okay our right to form a union was foolish to begin with.

But once it was on the ballot, it made sense that all those workers who want a union wanted to vote for the proposal. And they did–in fact, thepercentage of those who voted for it was much larger than thepercentage of the population in unions today.

But to get over 50% of the vote, the unions needed to do everything they could to get it passed. Instead, most of the unions did little. The UAW, in particular, was a big force in getting the proposal on the ballot–but then, it did nothing to mobilize its members around the issue until just two weeks before the election. That gave the bosses and politicians plenty of time to mount an expensive campaign of lies against the proposal, and helped to guarantee its defeat.

The UAW knows very well how to turn people out to campaign for the Democrats. If they’d mobilized like they do for the Democrats, the proposal could have passed!

But don’t believe that the defeat of Proposal 2 means we don’t have the right to a union. We have the right to form a union ONLY when we TAKE that right–when we organize and fight.

Don’t let anyone tell us otherwise.

Belgium:
Ford in Genk—Make the Capitalists Back Off

Nov 12, 2012

The following article was published in the November 2nd issue of Lutte Ouvrière (Workers Struggle), the paper of the revolutionary workers group of that name active in France.

On October 31st, the 4,300 workers of the Ford factory in Genk, Belgium, and 6,000 to 8,000 workers for Ford subcontractors learned that management wants to close the factory in 2014. And yet, last September 19th, Ford management had again assured them that the new car, Mondeo, would be assembled in Genk.

The Mondeo model is going to be assembled in Valencia, Spain, where management promises to create only 1,600 jobs, compared to the 4,000 eliminated in Belgium. The European director of Ford explained that the goal was to regroup production at one site, operating it near maximum capacity. Laying off workers on the one hand, while exploiting other workers more, is the capitalists’ formula.

The Belgian media endlessly repeated Ford’s line about bad European sales figures, explaining that the factory only operated at 33% of capacity. They said Ford expects to lose 1.9 billion dollars in Europe.

But no one, in the media, among politicians or union leaders, asked why the workers should pay for a crisis they didn’t cause. Further, no one mentioned that poor Ford, with all its “difficulties,” had a profit of 9.8 billion dollars in 2011. Clearly the company could continue to pay all workers’ wages, having everyone work fewer hours by sharing the work.

The bosses’ organizations used the occasion to denounce Belgium’s “high labor costs”–another lie. In fact, since 2000, Ford eliminated more than 7,000 jobs in Genk, in part transforming them into subcontractor jobs. These companies offer workers no job security and low wages. And in 2008, 12% cuts were imposed on the workers remaining at Ford.

The Flanders region of Belgium has already given Ford 72 million dollars in subsidies for the Mondeo model. This money was given in the name of saving jobs, even though Ford has plenty of money to finance its own investments. In the end, the money will be used to finance the severance costs of lost jobs.

Some 300 workers are demonstrating daily in front of the factory. Some workers express rage; others think it’s impossible to defend themselves against this company that operates on a world scale.

Nevertheless, Ford workers and many others who have been laid off or who risk losing their jobs could impose a different relationship of forces, one that goes in their favor, by causing the bosses and government to be afraid, to make them think again before pursuing policies disastrous for the working class.

Walmart:
Low Pay

Nov 12, 2012

After the strikes at some Walmart stores, a company spokesman said, “The reality is, Walmart has some of the best jobs in the retail industry–good pay, affordable benefits, and the chance for advancement.”

Walmart workers get 12.4% less than retail workers as a whole. Two out of every five Walmart workers earn under the poverty level. This is the Walmart idea of “best jobs”! No–these are the best jobs for producing enormous profit for the Walton family.

Consider this: the value of six Walton family members’ stock in Walmart is equal to the combined income of the bottom 41.5% of all U.S. families.

Page 8

Michigan Defeats Emergency Manager Proposal

Nov 12, 2012

On November 6th, voters in Michigan struck down the Governor’s right to impose emergency managers, or EMs, on cities, counties & school districts across Michigan.

Governor Snyder had already installed emergency managers for seven school districts and communities, including the Detroit Public School System and the cities of Benton Harbor and Pontiac. These emergency managers were given broad powers to “fix” the finances of cities and school districts that they considered at risk of failing.

The emergency managers sure “fixed” things: for example, they tore up contracts and laid off all 4,000 school teachers in Detroit, forcing them to reapply for their jobs. They cut wages by ten% and attacked seniority and tenure rights while rehiring fewer teachers. And after all this, these EMs managed to double school debt while enriching all kinds of corporate suppliers.

Luckily, workers and community groups mobilized against these attacks. By refusing to accept the situation, through their demonstrations and efforts to publicize their plight, they made Michigan voters aware of what was happening.

Politicians in Lansing have threatened that they will be right back with new proposals for new emergency measures. But it certainly won’t be easy for them to get past this recent defeat if the population stays alert and organized.

People say you can’t fight city hall. But in Michigan, regular people like you and me stood up to the Governor and his crew, and that is something to talk about.

DPS Emergency Manager Packs Up His Desk

Nov 12, 2012

Roy Roberts, ex-Emergency Manager of the Detroit Public School System, threw a fit about community action to defeat Proposal 1. He said that he would just quit and leave on the spot in protest if Proposition 1 was defeated.

So there! Looks like he told everybody off! At least he thought so until community groups arrived the day after the vote to help him pack and clear off!

Now he is mumbling something about a 30-day transition....

So long, good bye, Roy!

Illinois:
Damned if You Voted YES, Damned if You Voted NO

Nov 12, 2012

Referendums usually give you a choice between two bad choices, neither one of which you really want.

The referendum in Illinois concerning pensions for public sector workers is the perfect example. It would have required the governing bodies of the state, cities, counties, townships or school districts to approve any increase in employee pensions by a three-fifths majority.

The referendum lost. And union leaders, who had called for a no-vote, claimed victory. They said it would have made it harder to raise pensions if the referendum passed.

That’s nonsense. Before the referendum, workers’ pensions weren’t going up. And that didn’t depend on voting rules for the state legislature or city governments or school boards. That depended on the lack of worker militancy. And part of the reason for workers’ lack of militancy is the policy of most of those same union leaders, who don’t call for a fight.

This referendum was a sham, a trap, a damned-if-you-vote-yes- damned-if-you-vote-no trap.

No matter how you voted, “Yes” or “No,” you agreed that workers couldn’t have better pensions if the legislature, or the city council or the school board voted against it–whether by 60% or 50%.

When workers decide to fight, it won’t matter what the formal rules say about how a legislature makes its decisions. What will count is how determined and organized the workers are.

That referendum, like so many, was nothing but a trap. So a special congratulations to all those workers who saw through it, and didn’t bother to vote on it either way.

The only victory workers will get is the one they fight for!

Voter Suppression

Nov 12, 2012

On election day November 6, a delegation of international observers, the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), came to monitor U.S. elections in 40 states. The attorney general of Texas threatened to arrest them.

A Fox News pundit questioned the need for monitors, stating the U.S. is not “some third-world dictatorship masquerading as a legitimate democracy.”

But how else to describe the U.S. system that throws up ridiculous barriers to voting: elections on a work day, draconian voter ID laws, changing polling places with no notice, limiting early voting, requiring absentee ballots to not have instructions, 10 page ballots in Florida, and so on.

The fevered pitch of voter suppression attempts this year rekindled memories of the Jim Crow South and seemed to backfire. With strengthened resolve, voters in Miami, Florida stood in line in the rain, more than seven hours, before completing their ballots long after 1AM.

Doesn’t this sound like a 4th world country in need of election monitors!

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