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 16, 2013
U.S. President Barack Obama appears to have pulled back from his threat to bomb Syria. Instead, the U.S. and Russian governments agreed to act together in Syria over the question of the Syrian government’s stockpile of chemical weapons, as well as some kind of broader political settlement.
But that does not mean the U.S. has dropped its intention to intervene in Syria–in one way or another.
No one should fall for the pretended shock of U.S. officials and the news media over the use of chemical weapons to kill hundreds or even more civilians in Syria. This is nothing but cynical posturing.
The war in Syria has cost over 100,000 lives. Is the killing of civilians by chemical weapons so much more horrific than the deaths by bombing, burning, and slashing that has taken the lives of over 100,000?
Today, the U.S. is deeply involved in the Syrian civil war. The U.S. government, along with Turkey and the dictators of Saudi Arabia and Qatar, has unofficially provided aid and support to Syrian rebels opposing the Assad regime. And those U.S.-backed rebel forces have carried out their own brand of death and destruction–which the U.S. government has said nothing about.
Whatever terrible weapons the Assad regime has used against the Syrian people pale in comparison to the U.S. military’s own record of atrocities all over the world. During the Viet Nam War, the U.S. military murdered and crippled millions with Agent Orange and napalm. In Afghanistan and Iraq, the U.S. dropped cluster bombs and white phosphorous specifically in order to murder civilians. And the depleted uranium shells that the U.S. military fired in those countries will poison the land and water for centuries to come.
No, the U.S. government is not intervening in Syria out of some moral concern for the lives of Syrian civilians. To U.S. policy makers, civilian deaths are little more than what U.S. officials call “collateral damage.”
If the Obama administration has pulled back from bombing Syria, it is only because the U.S. rulers have decided, at least temporarily, that there is too much risk of destabilizing Syria completely, too much risk of adding to the chaos the U.S.’s other wars have created in the region.
In the last 12 years, the U.S. invaded and occupied two countries, Iraq and Afghanistan. The U.S. is also carrying out secret wars in Yemen and Pakistan. One of the U.S.’s client states in the region, Egypt, is consumed by conflicts that could develop into a full-fledged civil war. And there is the continuing war that the Israeli state is waging against the Palestinian population.
So, the U.S. ruling class is being careful in Syria. It is not sure if it wants to replace one dictator, Assad, with other forces that might less serve the interests of the U.S. global super power.
While the Assad government remained aligned with Russia over the years in order to keep a small bit of distance from the dictates of the U.S. superpower, it still served U.S. interests. It cracked down on its own population and maintained the status quo, not just in Syria, but in the surrounding countries, such as Lebanon.
In other words, the Assad regime has ensured the continued super profits of the international bourgeoisie, especially the oil companies, weapons makers and the banks. And that’s the main issue for the U.S. bourgeoisie.
The U.S. population is right to oppose military intervention in Syria, right to be sick and tired of all the wars, right to want troops out of Iraq and Afghanistan.
But the U.S. population will never be free from these wars while imperialism rules. The armies of the international bourgeoisie, led by the U.S. ruling class, impose crushing exploitation on the populations and resources of the world for the profit of the U.S. capitalist class, as well as its allies and cronies from the region and the other imperialist states. That is the problem.
The horrific deaths from the chemical attacks; the 100,000 who have already died in the Syrian civil war; all those who have died in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan ... these deaths are on their hands.
Sep 16, 2013
Democrats and Republicans are staging a new “fight” in Washington, D.C. over “little” vs. “big” food stamps cuts. While this drama begins front stage, the New York Times recently let the back stage truth slip out:
“No matter what Congress decides, [food stamp] benefits will be reduced in November, when a provision in the 2009 stimulus bill expires.”
New cuts in November will hit everyone in the U.S. receiving food stamps, or SNAP (Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program) benefits–48 million people.
Benefits average $1.40 a meal; 75 per cent of households receiving food help are caring for the disabled, a child or are age 60 or older.
The program, effectively, pays for enough food for two weeks out of the month. November’s cuts will equal two days less food a month. Even before the new cuts, one recipient said: “I don’t buy milk because it’s so expensive. I don’t buy cheese.” Said another: “You hate to tell your child, ‘You can’t eat this, you have to save it for another day.’” But she asked her child to cut his portion of pasta casserole with meat in half and she, the mother, did not eat any.
Food banks and charities will NOT be able to absorb this cut. The food stamp program is too big. According to Margaret Purvis, director of the Food Bank for New York City, the largest food bank in the country, “The single, across-the-board cut to SNAP benefits scheduled for this November will take away more food in our city than we distribute in a year.”
No one is warning the poor that this is coming. The next time we hear one of those broadcast messages: “This is a test of the emergency broadcast system,” THIS should be the warning: There is a food emergency coming in November–when one out of every seven people who now depend on food stamps will face a food disaster, brought to you by the inaction of both mainstream political parties!
Sep 16, 2013
One little-known part of the federal mandatory health insurance law, often referred to as “Obamacare,” is that it puts a 40 percent tax on high-cost employer-provided health insurance plans. Such plans are commonly called “Cadillac health insurance.”
The law’s definition of “Cadillac” insurance is based solely on the cost of the premiums. It says nothing about the quality of the care workers actually receive. In reality, corporate CEOs are about the only employees who get true “Cadillac” care.
The law does not take effect until 2018, yet state and local governments are already using it now as an excuse to push unions to agree to accept lower cost health care plans. Along with lower premiums, however, usually come higher deductibles and co-pays, which means sick people will pay more.
The politicians pretend the purpose of the tax is to make workers be “more responsible consumers” and question expensive tests and shop around for better care. They act like workers go in for all kinds of unnecessary medical care. What planet are they living on? Most people don’t have the time or money for wasteful doctor visits, and depend on trained medical professionals to order the tests and procedures they need.
What we’re really seeing is the working class being stripped of the few benefits they’ve won in the past–and this fake “national health insurance law” takes things one step further in that direction.
Sep 16, 2013
Last year, Chicago closed six mental health clinics and the state closed its big mental health center in Tinley Park, a Chicago suburb. What’s happened to all the patients? Many of them wound up in jail. According to Sheriff Tom Dart, Cook County Jail in Chicago has “effectively become the largest mental health hospital in the country.”
In 2011, the average number of prisoners in Cook County Jail on a given night was 8,900, already an enormous number. This spring, the average was 9,721, and now it is often over 10,000. According to Sheriff Dart, the increase is caused in part by a huge increase in the mentally ill population of the jail. There are more than 2,000 mentally ill prisoners in the Cook County Jail, and the overcrowding is so severe that severely mentally ill inmates sometimes sleep on the floor.
One of these prisoners has bipolar disorder and schizophrenia, and says that he typically turns to cocaine or heroin when he can’t get medication to try and keep his mind in order. He has no job, and few prospects of getting one. “Most of the guys here are guys like me,” he said. “They come in, go out, like a revolving door.”
This is the result of the drive to balance the Chicago city and Illinois state budgets on the backs of the most vulnerable. It is a mark of a society willing to throw thousands of mentally ill people on the trash heap to free up a few more dollars to hand over to the big corporations.
Sep 16, 2013
The Democratic-controlled California legislature passed a bill that allows unhindered fracking in the state for at least two more years. And a spokesperson for California’s Democratic governor said that the governor would sign the bill into law. The bill states that, until the state completes an environmental study on fracking, which is due July 1, 2015, state regulators are not allowed to block oil companies’ requests for fracking.
In fact, this is the opposite of what should be done: if there is ANY question of its safety, fracking should be halted until the study is completed!
Fracking, short for “hydraulic fracturing,” means shooting pressurized water, sand and toxic chemicals into the earth, in order to free oil and natural gas trapped under rocks. Oil companies have already been doing it in many states, including California, for years, and it is well-known that fracking contaminates the underground water in large areas and increases the risk of earthquakes–obviously a major concern for earthquake-prone California.
But once again, elected state officials put big companies’ profits above the interests–and health–of California’s population. Right before the Senate vote, Democratic politicians added the amendment that allows for unhindered fracking to SB 4–which the politicians, those shameless liars, had presented as a bill that would establish safeguards against fracking!
California Democrats hold super-majorities in both chambers of the state legislature, and they also hold the governor’s office. They were not forced to give this big gift to the oil companies–they did it voluntarily. They are as much at the service of Big Business as their twin brothers, the Republicans.
Sep 16, 2013
With the collapse of Lehman Brothers five years ago, the global financial and economic system plunged into the worst crisis since the Great Depression. Five years later, government officials and economists are patting themselves on the back for supposedly saving the world economy from an even bigger catastrophe. But the government rescue, which consisted of handing trillions of dollars in taxpayer money to the banks and big companies, only managed to further enrich and reward the very capitalists who had brought on the crisis in the first place and lay the groundwork for the next crisis.
The six biggest banks in the U.S. that emerged from the crisis–JPMorgan Chase, Citigroup, Wells Fargo, Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley–are certainly bigger and more dominant than ever. But they are also in much greater debt.
Collectively, these six banks owe close to nine trillion dollars–more than half the size of the entire U.S. economy. Since their debt is only slightly smaller than what these banks say they are worth, even a small drop in the value of their holdings risks a disastrous run on the bank–that is, mass deposit withdrawals and refusals to extend new loans to these banks.
Thus, if anything would happen to any one of these six banks, the financial crisis that broke out in 2008 could begin all over again.
Of course, the top bankers say the opposite. They claim they’ve eliminated the risk of another crisis breaking out. “The probability of it happening again in our lifetime is as close to zero as I could imagine,” Morgan Stanley CEO James Gorman reassured Charlie Rose in a recent television interview.
The reality is that one of the things keeping the banks afloat is 85 billion dollars that the Federal Reserve is lending them interest-free–every single month! The banks then try to make a quick profit from this money by fueling the same kind of speculation as before the last crash. “In fact, they want to keep placing new bets at the poker table...” wrote Stanford Professor Anat R. Admati in the New York Times (August 25). That means new speculative bubbles in real estate, the various stock and bond markets, and such commodities as gold, oil, and wheat ... not to speak of the continued growth of highly risky financial instruments known as “derivatives.”
Government officials, bankers and economists may point to a supposed economic recovery as proof that their policies are working in the interests of ordinary working people. But just look at two of their biggest supposed success stories: housing and auto sales.
To believe the happy talk of government officials, a quick increase in housing prices over the last two years has practically erased the old foreclosure crisis of five years ago. Yet, more than three million households are in or near foreclosure–not at all an end to the foreclosure crisis.
So, with huge numbers of people still losing their homes, why are housing prices suddenly increasing rapidly? Big pools of foreclosed homes were sold to companies set up by Wall Street. These companies began buying and renting these homes in bulk. The suburbs of Southern California, Arizona and Nevada saw a virtual land rush, creating frenzied demand that pushed up prices more than 20 per cent in a year. Individual speculators seeking a quick profit also got in on the action, by buying and flipping houses.
Of course, rapid price increases are making it harder for ordinary people to afford a house and qualify for a home loan. As one housing industry consultant told the Los Angeles Times (September 13), “Flippers are selling to other flippers, until there is nobody to flip the home to. That is when you have a big downturn.”
The supposed housing recovery is just another speculative bubble fueled by the banks that can burst at any moment.
Bigger and longer car loans are also fueling the big increase in auto sales. The average length of time people are borrowing to buy a new car is now up to 65 months, or almost six years. And many new car loans are for eight, nine and even ten years! Of these new car loans, about 25 per cent are considered “subprime,” with much higher interest rates. That’s a higher share of subprime auto loans than in 2007, right before the financial crash. Of course, the longer the loan, the higher the finance charges, thus guaranteeing fat profits for the banks and finance companies.
By burying the consumer in increasing debt–not only are the capitalists sowing increasing misery, they are also laying the groundwork for a new subprime debt crisis coming out of auto loans.
Neither has a big increase in auto production brought any new auto jobs. In Michigan, which is still at the heart of the U.S. auto industry, while auto production increased by 22 per cent over the last five years, the auto companies cut the number of auto jobs by 9 per cent!
In order to squeeze out higher profits, the auto bosses have been using the extremely high unemployment as a club against the auto workers, forcing them to accept more speed-up and worse working conditions. This includes horrendous alternative work schedules so that the companies can run the plants flat out, practically 24 hours a day, seven days a week.
Of course, this is no different from what capitalists are doing to increase their profits throughout the economy. And it is one reason why the job situation is getting worse, even in the cases of increases in production and construction. One other indication of this: of the one million jobs created over the last year, more than 80 per cent of them have been part-time, that is, with pay so low and benefits non-existent, a worker cannot survive on them.
So, five years after the disastrous collapse at Lehman Brothers, the capitalist class’s hold over the economy is more destructive and dangerous than ever.
Sep 16, 2013
On August 17, the Obama Administration’s ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement) raided 16 Danny’s Family Wash locations in Phoenix, Arizona. It arrested 14 managers and supervisors, charging them with fraud and identity theft for hiring undocumented workers. And it started proceedings to take over the car washes owned by Danny Hendon, a former Detroit cop.
The Obama Administration says this is the result of its policy targeting only scummy employers who violate the immigration laws. Undoubtedly Hendon is such an employer. But he and his managers are not the only ones harmed by the raid. ICE held 223 workers for a period while it questioned them, and then detained 30 of them for longer because they had criminal records.
As the National Day Laborer Organizing Committee said of the raid, “Yesterday’s operation spread chaos, confusion and fear throughout the Phoenix area as family members went temporarily missing and word spread of ski-masked agents detaining car wash customers alongside workers across the city.”
Some of the detained workers had been deported for crossing the nearby border to visit their families. As far as the so-called “criminal” background of others, Phoenix is the city where Joe Arpaio is the notorious sheriff. For years, he targeted Mexican workers, rounded them up, and then issued spurious charges against them, giving them a so-called “criminal record.”
The Obama Justice Department sued Arpaio for discrimination against Latinos in 2012, before the presidential election, in an attempt to earn the votes of Latinos. But the use of “criminal records” he contrived shows that the Obama Administration walks in Arpaio’s footpath.
Workers who come to this country to work and support their families need full legal rights.
Sep 16, 2013
The Butler, directed by Lee Daniels, provides the eyes and ears on an important part of American history from 1926 to the election of President Obama. It is loosely inspired by the real life of Eugene Allen, who worked for the White House for 34 years until he retired as head butler in 1986.
The movie begins in 2009, where an elderly Cecil Gaines (Forest Whitaker) recounts his life story while waiting in the White House. Gaines was raised on a cotton plantation in 1920s Macon, Georgia by his sharecropping parents. One day the farm’s owner rapes Cecil’s mother. Cecil’s father confronts the owner and is shot dead.
Cecil is taken in by the estate’s caretaker, who teaches Cecil to be a house servant. She teaches him that he should be invisible to the white people he is serving. And Cecil learns to have “two face”: the friendly, nonthreatening face that must be worn when entering the white man’s world, as well as the authentic, human, multidimensional face that is worn at home in the presence of other black people.
Seeing the various presidents from Eisenhower to Reagan from the perspective of the butlers and maids allows us to see their racism, weaknesses and extravagant life style.
There are many refreshing aspects to this movie. One is there is no white hero to alleviate white guilt. Another is Gaines being depicted neither as an apolitical clown nor as a larger-than-life hero. He fights, in his way, for higher pay for himself and the other butlers.
Also refreshing are the scenes at Cecil Gaines’ home, where neighbors and co-workers could socialize with each other and just be themselves without having to worry about white folks. You also get a real sense of community among black neighbors.
The scope of the film, from the Jim Crow South through the Civil Rights and Black Power Movements and after, is vast. For white audiences, it gives a little bit the sense of what it was like to be black in those times. But also, showing the history of black struggles brings it closer to home and reminds us that it was only fifty years ago.
This movie shows those struggles up close and personal. While one of Gaines’ sons is killed in Viet Nam, the other had been politicized by the murder of Emmett Till and joins the movement. It is here we see the determination and courage of young people fighting against segregation and racism.
The film shows part of the story of the struggles of black people, told with respect, and emphasizing its real significance in American history. Well worth watching.
Sep 16, 2013
Detroit’s emergency dictator Kevyn Orr is threatening to eliminate health care for city retirees under 65. He would replace it with a $125 a month stipend toward health insurance that retirees would have to purchase from the new exchanges being created under the federal mandatory health insurance program.
The new exchanges are set to become available October 1, to give the insurance companies time to sign people up in time. So, Orr is pushing October 1 as a deadline, using it to put pressure on the city’s unions to come to an agreement before then.
Orr’s so-called “offer” is a joke. That “buck and a quarter,” as Lou Hatty, a trustee for the city’s General Retirement System, so correctly called it, wouldn’t put a dent in the actual cost of any decent health insurance. Some insurance can cost $1000 a month for a family plan. Many people buying insurance from the exchanges, especially those with low incomes, are likely to opt for plans with lower monthly premiums. Those plans will carry huge deductibles and out-of-pocket expenses. Those who wind up sick, often older people, will end up having to pay exorbitant medical costs from their own pockets.
Of course, Orr’s $125 a month “offer” is just a bargaining chip, floated so that when he later raises the offer, union officials can convince their members it was the best they could get. It’s not unlike his initial threat that the pension fund would receive only 10 cents on the dollar for what the city owes, hoping that when he later offers something like 70 cents on the dollar, workers will jump on it.
Orr will probably come with a higher offer on health care shortly before the October 1 “deadline.” Orr hopes to escape a long legal battle over the constitutionality of these attacks. He has already said he wants the bankruptcy done quickly, as has the federal bankruptcy judge. City workers likely will be given little time to consider the offer, and will be threatened with getting nothing if they reject it.
If Orr and the forces who stand behind him–like the banks and corporations who have benefitted from huge tax breaks and predatory lending in Detroit–succeed in forcing through this retiree health care bait and switch, Detroit’s example will spread to other cities and states like wildfire. If those who work in the private sector think they’ll be safe from similar cuts, dream on!
Workers only stand to lose more and more if they accept these attacks.
Sep 16, 2013
Last month, a federal judge decided that the city of San Bernardino, California is eligible for bankruptcy protection. The judge declared that the city is insolvent and unable to pay many of its bills.
The pension checks of the city workers are among those bills and are the main target of the bankruptcy.
A year ago, San Bernardino suddenly filed for municipal bankruptcy, after disclosing a deficit in the city’s budget. But before the bankruptcy filing, city officials had repeatedly reported for years that the city had enough money in its budget. It looks like a staged “sham” bankruptcy.
The mayor blamed the pensions for overwhelming the city budget, and San Bernardino stopped making its $1.2 million bi-monthly payments to California Public Employees’ Retirement System (CalPERS) for a year.
Now, the city wants to treat pension funds like debts to other creditors. If the court goes along with this move, the city can substantially or totally cut the pension payments.
This is the scheme being followed by officials of cities in California, Michigan and elsewhere in the U.S.: The cities first approve tax breaks to businesses, then declare bankruptcy, blame the workers’ pensions for the bankruptcy, and try to get court approval to avoid paying for the pensions. This scheme is currently targeting the city workers. If it works, other pensioners, public and private, will be on the same chopping block.
To secure our pensions, we’ll have to fight for them.
Sep 16, 2013
The national AFL-CIO held its every-four-years convention the week after Labor Day. The AFL-CIO consists of 57 unions, the last remaining shards of once-powerful U.S. organized labor.
The AFL-CIO leaders declared they would finally get down to business about rebuilding the labor movement. So they said. But their proposals revealed more of the same-old, same-old–and even worse.
The power of workers to defend themselves rests on the central position workers hold in the production of goods and services. They are centered there. They can control it.
The union leadership has not been ready to call on workers to use their power in more than piecemeal or symbolic ways. This single fact explains why the AFL-CIO today has become merely a shadow of a shadow.
Today the AFL-CIO leaders declare they will take bold new actions. But not one single proposal relates to organizing workers to fight on a large scale. All their proposals either distract workers into futile campaigns to vote for Democrats; or dilute workers’ influence by wooing non-worker allies like the Sierra Club, NAACP, or MomsRising.
The exact policy that brought us here is the very policy that the labor leaders can’t bring themselves to part with.
Sep 16, 2013
Education Secretary Arne Duncan is threatening to withhold federal funds from California schools for violating federal law. The federal funds Duncan is threatening to withhold amount to as much as 10 per cent of a school district’s budget in California.
But this federal law Duncan says California is violating–what law is it?
Why, it’s good-old No Child Left Behind (NCLB), of course! Yes, that impossible Bush-era law which requires every student of a school, including those with disabilities and limited English, to score “proficient” on standardized English and Math tests by 2014 (this school year, that is). That brutal law which says that schools “failing” on this basis can be shut down, their students thrown to the wind, and their entire staff fired.
Duncan himself has been freeing states from the unreasonable “100 per cent proficiency” requirement. But not all states and districts–only those who agreed to tie teachers’ evaluations (employment and pay, that is) to the results of the same tests NCLB uses!
It is crazy: California is planning to suspend state testing only for this school year, because it is changing the curriculum standards–to fit Obama’s and Duncan’s Race to the Top program!
But Duncan wants California schools to continue to administer tests based on the old standards. He threatens schools with closure, and teachers with their jobs, if their students fail the old NCLB tests–tests that teachers are not even supposed to be preparing their students for anymore!
Duncan can’t decide which set of impossible standards to apply–NCLB’s or RTT’s!
Sep 16, 2013
“Education on the cheap” makes the news again. The charter school movement is enthusiastic about the youth of its teachers, teachers who come and go quickly.
Every study ever done, unless paid for by the private companies behind the charter schools movement, show two things that improve class results: small class size and the experience of the teachers.
But charter schools are run as a business. So, like bosses do everywhere, they hire their work force as cheaply as possible. Charter school teachers earn on average $20,000 per year LESS than public school teachers, for working longer hours in classrooms, meaning less time to prepare their classes.
The real point of charter schools is to offer education so cheaply that the schools’ owners make a profit. Even worse, the funds for most charter schools come straight from the funds available for public schools. That makes the profits a direct theft from the taxpayers funding education.
Charter schools can “cost” less when they pay teachers less, send them off after two years, force fewer teachers to teach more students and work longer hours. But how on earth can this help the students? It doesn’t, as studies have shown again and again.
Behind all the talk about “improving” education, the push for charter schools come down to one thing: profit. And to make that profit, they’re ready to destroy the education of a whole generation of working class children.
Sep 16, 2013
A Michigan State University professor was removed from his classes after an eight-minute video was posted of his criticism of the Republican Party. It is an attack on academic freedom on campus.
William Penn is a professor of creative writing at the university. An American Indian, he has written several books dealing with identity issues and stereotypes. He has won several national awards and grants. His classes are popular–held in 400-seat rooms, they rapidly fill up. He expresses his opinions–always making it clear that they are opinions. It is safe to say that any student who enrolls in his class probably knows what to expect.
But one student, who apparently disagrees with Penn’s opinions, recorded a video and uploaded it to a conservative website. It took only one day for Republicans across the state of Michigan–including several Republicans on MSU’s Board of Trustees–to call for Penn’s head. And only one day more for MSU’s deans to supply it.
Apparently the University is so worried about the “free exchange of ideas” on the campus that they will remove any professor who expresses any controversial ideas!
Michigan Republican Party Chairman Bobby Schostak called it “bullying in the classroom” and said it “does not belong in our children’s classrooms.” Children? These are legal adults, who SHOULD be able to hear strongly worded opinions and decide for themselves whether they agree or not! They don’t need to be protected by ideas; they need to be engaged in them.
The University is flat-out telling professors that they can’t express any unapproved political ideas in the classroom, or they will be punished. They are threatening to rip out any teachers who question anything about the status quo.
The reactionaries pushing this political climate are reaching their tentacles as far as they can throughout the society–and those tentacles will go deeper and deeper, unless the reactionaries are pushed back into the McCarthyite hole they slithered out of!
Sep 16, 2013
In 2012, the richest 1% had 22.5% of all income, the biggest share in 100 years of government records. The richest 1% had 95% of all the gains in income since 2009.
Meanwhile, the income of the bottom 99% of the population grew by only 0.4% since 2009. For workers, the situation was worse, with the income of most buying fewer goods and services than three years before.
The last time inequality was so extreme was in 1929–the eve of the Great Depression!