Job creation has been and will continue to be the most obvious way that Obama has sold out working people throughout America.




Obama’s State of the Union - Too Little Too Late

by Stewart Alexander, 2012 Socialist Party USA Presidential Candidate

The phrase that came to mind immediately upon hearing President Barack Obama’s State of the Union speech is “too little, too late.” After spending the last few years coddling the banks and the richest 1%, Obama has the nerve to now call for “economic fairness.” To him, this means tweaking payroll taxes and making a rhetorical call to reverse the Bush tax cuts for the rich. For working people in America real fairness means the right to a job, a guarantee of healthcare for all and an end to the Military Industrial Complex. Obama won’t deliver this. That’s why I am running for President against him.

Job creation has been and will continue to be the most obvious way that Obama has sold out working people throughout America. These decisions were made early on in his administration when he made the conscious decision to pour billions of dollars into the Banks that had funded his campaign instead of using those funds to create an emergency employment program to put people back to work. The result is that Americans have experienced nearly three consecutive years of more than 9% unemployment and nearly double that when those workers who given up looking for jobs are counted. This has meant real human suffering for millions of people.

Although Obama has hailed the recent decline in these same unemployment rates, a closer look at the numbers reveal the hollowness of his claims. Economist Doug Henwood has paged through the Unemployment report and discovered that much of the reduction is due to the effects of holiday seasonal employment and, in particular, a shift to online purchasing for Christmas gifts. Of the 200,000 jobs created in December, some 42,000, or over 1/5, came from the hiring of extra couriers and messengers. Bars, restaurants and healthcare companies picked up the bulk of the rest of the new hires. Hardly the manner in which we want to grow the economy.

The jobs program that the Alexander/Mendoza 2012 campaign is proposing calls for the creation of a Full Employment economy. We have a three-pronged approach. First, we want to create an Emergency Jobs Program that will put millions of workers back to work immediately in fields like environmental cleanup, infrastructure creation and maintenance, and education. Second, we support proposals to publicly fund a worker owned and managed cooperative sector. This will serve to not only put people back to work, but to re-build the manufacturing capacity of our country. Finally, we want to fund job training programs that lead to job sharing or job splitting, where workers will work less yet retain the same amount of pay and benefits.

A serious restructuring of the tax code that allows us to take back the wealth created by our work and accumulated by the 1% is key to funding our job creation plan. We want more than Obama’s proposed payroll tax cut. We deserve more than just reversing Bush’s economically suicidal tax breaks for the rich. We need a radical restructuring of the way in which we think about wealth. The great riches of this society need to be put to use to help us all – to make life better for the 99% and create new opportunities for work, relaxation and community.

This is why we propose creating a progressive tax structure where the rich pay far more than the average working person. In a democratic socialist society neither Obama nor Romney would be allowed to pay an effective tax rate of 26% and 17% respectively. Corporate taxation, financial gains taxes and personal income taxes will be modernized – all loopholes will be closed and the rich will pay a steep tax on their income. This is what economic fairness looks like to a socialist.

If Obama’s proposals for “Economic Fairness” are hard to believe, his attempt to present his Presidency as one of peace is simply a farce. The hands of the Obama administration are dripping with blood. He has approved a brutal Drone war on the people of Pakistan that has resulted in massive civilian casualties. He has accelerated the war in Afghanistan, which has increased casualties among soldiers and terrorized the civilian population driving them into the political arms of the Taliban. And Obama has continued to take an aggressive political stance on Iran thereby moving the country closer to another war.

All this, plus a clear continuation of the Bush era security state policies. Obama’s approval of the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) annihilates centuries of civil rights protections. The President now has the right to indefinitely jail any citizen in the America without having to work within the protections of habeas corpus. Added to the NDAA is the fact that, as I write this, Bradley Manning is rotting in a jail cell. Manning is Obama’s prisoner – a moral testament to the President’s commitment to continue the job of restricting civil liberties.

My campaign is staunchly anti-militarist. This means that I commit to bringing the troops home now through the elimination of all foreign occupations and the closing of all foreign military bases and I aim to dismantle the Military Industrial Complex. My campaign calls for an immediate 50% reduction in military spending. We think that democratic socialism offers the best hope for the creation of a world based on peace and solidarity. Eliminating the security state will move us a long way in that direction. America should be a model for civil liberties not a test case for how many rights can be restricted.

I am writing this also to encourage voters to take a serious look at my campaign. They will find that socialist politics are clearly distinct from the politics of the 1% peddled by politicians such as Obama, Romney, Newt Gingrich and Ron Paul. Under their leadership, the State of the Union is neutered – reduced to an exercise in cheerleading for the politicians that have faithfully towed the line for their corporate benefactors. The proposals of the Alexander/Mendoza campaign are made in the interest of the 99%. We think Americans deserve a clear choice come November. We will be working hard to make that possible. Join us in making a demand for jobs, peace and freedom in 2012!

***
You can help put Democratic Socialism on the ballot this Fall. Please make a generous donation to the Alexander/Mendoza campaign CLICK HERE

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Taken together, Ron Paul’s notion of economic liberty is an only slightly disguised version of the hyper-neoliberal ideas that have been circulating since the 1980s.



by Billy Wharton



You’ve seen them skulking around a variety of left-wing protests. First it was the anti-war movement. Then came Occupy. They usually have a funny look in their eye, their clothes are a bit sharper than the average protest garb and they usually hit the road once a confrontation with the police is about to ensue. Yes, I’m talking about a Ron Paul supporter – an ideal type of that supporter for sure, but take a look next time and see if they fit the description. Just keep an eye out for an “End the Fed” sign.

Inevitably, after peeling past the pre-programmed slogans Ron Paulistas bring with them, you will discover a person – generally white and overwhelmingly male – looking for some alternative to mainstream politics. Ever susceptible to slick marketing campaigns thanks to a solid diet of American television, these zealots have bought it hook line and sinker in a typical conspiratorial fashion. The lynchpin is the Federal Reserve, a seemingly mysterious institution, which in the world of Ron Paul politics stands in as a more acceptable substitute for the variety of other conspiracy theories floating through far-right America including the Bilderbergs, the rich as secret lizard people and the Masons.

Yet, the idea that Ron Paul offers a kind of alternative to mainstream politics falls apart quite easily upon inspection. There are three primary reasons for this – two relate to Paul himself and the other is a function of mainstream politics more generally. In the end, it is more accurate to say that Ron Paul is mainstream politics unmasked, a raw version of what both Democrats and Republicans desire to become if left to their own devices.

Key to this is seeing Ron Paul economics for what they are. Forget the Fed. Leave aside all the slogans about “living within our means” and “punishing generations with debt” for a moment. Ron Paul is the most pro-corporate politician in the Presidential race. His economic policies would further unleash multinational corporations and the 1% who own them onto American society – with absolutely no restraints. Paul is virulently anti-union in part because unions give workers a collective identity in order to regulate worksites. He opposes government regulation on employers since he connects their activity to his notion of “liberty.” And he has repeatedly associated taxation, even taxation of the corporate world, as an affront to freedom.

Taken together, Ron Paul’s notion of economic liberty is an only slightly disguised version of the hyper-neoliberal ideas that have been circulating since the 1980s. What is different now is that the circulation is taking place in the aftermath of an economic crisis that has unmasked the bankruptcy of the very idea Paul is promoting - capitalist economics. Although Paul presents his economic proposals as alternative non-mainstream notions, they fit perfectly inside the rise of the multinational corporations and the deep enrichment of the 1%. Albert Einstein offered the best bit of advice on how to deal with folks like Ron Paul when he said “We can't solve problems by using the same kind of thinking we used when we created them." Giving corporate America a free hand to rampage through our economy, our communities and our environment is more of the same.

Ron Paul supporters mix this pro-corporate economic package with a fairly typical set of reactionary social policies. He has opposed any legislation in support of gay marriage on the Federal level and was neutral on the “don’t ask don’t tell” seeing the problem as less one of discrimination and more of “seeing people as part of groups.” Paul’s positions on race are even murkier due to his frequent open associations with white supremacists and the general acceptance of his ideas amongst this repugnant community. But his most explicit reactionary position is reserved for gender, more specifically the issue of sexual harassment. Here, Paul claims that anything less than penetration does not qualify as sexual harassment – words don’t matter. Females who file sexual harassment suits are, according to Paul, oppressing others. They should, instead, just exercise their right to choose a different job. Misogynist victim blaming at its worst.

The final reason that Ron Paul is not an alternative is the very reason that links him to mainstream politics. Just like Obama, Romney and Gingrich, he offers no concrete plans to address the problems that most affect people’s everyday lives. He doesn’t have a serious plan for housing. He would, just as his counterparts, continue the failed capitalist housing policies, probably adding some rhetorical flair about the liberty and freedom built into the feelings of anxiety most Americans feel when it comes to housing. His education policy is similarly irresponsible. Paul chooses to devolve education decisions onto state and local government while giving private enterprises a strong hand in further commodifying education in America. And on healthcare, his policies are merely a pumped up version of the pro-market policies of his Democratic and Republican counterparts.

Although Paul’s foreign policy position is trumpeted as being far off from his Republican counterparts, it contains many mainstream elements. Paul himself is always quick to indicate that his “non-interventionist” position does not mean that he wishes to radically transform the US military. He constantly issues the call for a “strong national defense” which translates into a well-funded military. As he stated directly in a recent interview, “My Plan to Restore America does not cut one penny of defense.”

Unfortunately, Liberals and even some Greens have taken the anti-war bait and Ron Paul has been able to make coalitions with otherwise ideological opponents such as Dennis Kucinich and Ralph Nader. This has given Paul some cred among anti-war types while creating confusion between having a position against military intervention and being anti-militarist.

While the “Ron Paul as alternative” charade rolls along, candidates carrying ideas clearly outside of the mainstream struggle to carve out some media attention. One is from my own organization, the Socialist Party USA – Stewart Alexander. Alexander is running campaign for President on a platform filled with radical ideas that would address many of the problems raised by the 2008 economic crisis. He has some new medicine for an old illness.

On economics, the Alexander/Mendoza campaign recognizes the destructive role of the 1%. Creating a progressive tax structure that captures the wealth at the top of society, designing a banking system that works like a highly regulated public utility and addressing the unemployment crisis by viewing a job as a human right means transforming an economic system that has failed the 99%. Similar proposals to open the education to all, to preserve our precious natural resources and to fund a worker owned and managed cooperative sector are clearly different than the re-hashed blather being served up by mainstream politicians.

Economic democracy is also connected to personal freedom. The Alexander/Mendoza campaign is one of the few that recognizes just how corporate power prevents Americans from fully exercising their civil rights. Corporations are not people and people need a voice - a voice that will be unchained as a result of electoral reform, the breaking up of media monopolies and the campaign’s support of people’s right to self-determination whether it be through marriage, adoption or alternative family structures.

Finally, Stewart Alexander is offering a radically different approach to the military. He is a passionate anti-militarist. Both he and his running mate, the ex-Marine, Alex Mendoza know the wasteful destruction that the US military has created. The pair call for a closing of all foreign bases, an end to security state measures and, unlike Ron Paul, an immediate 50% reduction in the military budget. They understand that anti-militarism is about more than opposing intervention – it is about re-thinking how our country relates to the rest of the world.

So, as the Presidential campaign heats up, it is important to see past the media spin – especially when the spinning is done in order to create false alternatives. The Obama campaign will certainly begin its own campaign to present their candidate as offering solutions beyond the mainstream. Such claims will be every bit as shallow as the notion that Ron Paul offers some new set of ideas worthy of the mantle of being alternative. There are some alternatives out there and their voices need to be heard. One of them will be running red, on the ticket of the Socialist Party USA and carrying with him the hope of moving past the miserable future created for us by capitalism.
***
Billy Wharton is a writer, activist and co-chair of the Socialist Party USA. His articles have appeared in the Washington Post, the NYC Indypendent, Spectrezine and the Monthly Review Zine. He can be reached at whartonbilly [at] gmail [dot] com.



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The conflict between the government’s choice and the people’s needs was clearly exposed.





translated by Christos Kefalis and Afrodity Giannakis


from Links International Journal of Socialist Renewal



January 18, 2012 -- At the October 26, 2011, European summit it was agreed to slash Greece’s debt on the condition that a new, draconian austerity package and “memorandum”be carried out by the Greek government. After the agreement and a mass wave of protests on October 28, a referendum was announced by Prime Minister George Papandreou, only to be revoked a few days later. There then followed an endless series of negotiations, which led to the formation of a new coalition government headed by Loukas Papadimos. The new government was backed by right-wing capitalist party New Democracy, Papandreou’s social-democratic Pan-Hellenic Socialist Movement (PASOK) and LAOS, the ultra-right party.

Sofia Sakorafa, an independent left-wing MP who broke away from PASOK one and a half years ago, gave the following interview about the situation in Greece to the Greek journal Marxist Thought.

Sofia, you were one of the personalities who broke away from the ruling PASOK party with a clear political rationale of breaking with the dominant policies of the establishment. Knowing things from within, what do you think of the latest developments? Papandreou’s maneuvres with the referendum, the vote of confidence in the government and the formation of the coalition government.

In May 2010 the government didn’t resort to the International Monetary Fund to save the country and avoid bankruptcy for the Greek people. That was the ruling-class propaganda that accompanied a strategic choice that was clearly oriented to subjugating the economy to the Atlantic centres and bailing out the banks and capital. This strategy was certain, with mathematical precision and in an absolutely violent way, to lead the Greek people to ruin.

The Greek people reacted. The long drawn-out disagreement with the government’s choice created serious cracks in the political edifice. The spontaneous and massive outpouring in every city in Greece on October 28 pushed the government into complete political deadlock. The conflict between the government’s choice and the people’s needs was clearly exposed.

The only serious way to resolve that conflict was to hold general elections immediately. Yet instead of that democratic solution to the political stalemate, a tricky solution was concocted. A small group, headed by the prime minister and without any legitimacy, played a trick in an attempt to steal the vote of the Greek people.

The referendum proposal was a desperate trick by the prime minister to coerce legitimacy from the people. At the same time, for Europe, it was a first-class opportunity to show that Greece had become a protectorate, an entity of limited sovereignty. It was on that basis that Europe imposed the coalition government solution. Its aim was to restore political stability in order to impose its austerity policies more easily.

It is clear that against a worn-out and illegitimate government, Europe opted for a bourgeois government of broad consensus and therefore with greater legitimacy.

The tug-of-war over the creation of the new government was revealing. During those days it was not only the complete disintegration of the political system that became evident, but also the role of the media and other capitalist institutions. How do you assess the prospects of the “solution” imposed?

The “solution” that was imposed is an anti-democratic violation of the popular will. The media supported this enforced solution. The decomposition of the political system is not only reflected in the “fiasco” of the government scheme or the ludicrous proceedings that accompanied its formation. It is mainly reflected in the fact that bourgeois democracy in Greece has reached the point of fearing and denying its own statutory authority, namely, elections.

“The rulers got scared they might suffer damage and lose the spoon together with the broth”1 – so they mobilised everyone willing to help them to ensure the survival of the system.

On the other hand, within the general decay the flowers of evil flourish. While the left cannot find common ground, we see LAOS – and neo-fascism as well – acquiring legitimacy and gaining direct access to power centres.

It is not the first time in history that bourgeois forces have joined with the ultra-right and neo-fascist groups to hold on to power. The axe men2 of the past are now in the role of “responsible saviours of the nation”.

At the same time, it is a fact also highly indicative of the decay of capitalist politics that the bourgeois system needs to regenerate new political formations for a new era of authoritarian enforcement, crippled democracy and totalitarian rule.

Of course, this scenario is conditional on the role of left forces.

It is common knowledge that the country and the Greek people are on the brink of ruin. The question is, what can be done? What do you think about the agreement of October 26? Is it likely, if implemented, to bring any positive results? If not, what are the conditions for a viable solution to the crisis?

The agreement of October 26 virtually means a payment default, but at the lenders’ initiative. To put it simply, this agreement, in which private creditors are also involved, includes the best possible conditions for private lenders. The banks will be released from Greece’s debt, which they know very well is impossible to repay in its entirety. They will receive a new debt that will have better guarantees at 80% of the original one. Not surprisingly, they will also get better interest rates, because interest rates on the new debt will be higher on average than the old ones. The nominal gain for Greece is minimal, but the price is very heavy for the Greek people, disgraceful for our national independence and disastrous for the economy.

The October 26 agreement, however, also points to another way out, that of payment default. Until now the government and the bourgeois parties have stressed in all tones that we will pay to the last penny.

We need this alternative solution. It paves the way to a default on the borrowers’ terms.

To do this, we need a political balance of forces that can achieve two conditions. First, a sovereign and independent state that can negotiate hard and decisively. Second, popular sovereignty. It’s the Greek people who should decide what agreements they will make and break and why.

For two years now, the Greek people have been subjected to huge sacrifices without a glimmer of light on the horizon. In view of that, what could be the role of the left in this critical period? Does the left have the capacity to express and successfully channel the spontaneous protests of the people, protests that have grown tremendously?

If we now fail to set up a political front, the left will have denied its historical role, with grave consequences for the Greek people. The historical juncture is ripe for the urgent formation of a new EAM3.

The left has a historical obligation to listen, make the best of the objective conditions and subdue any subjective pathology or weakness.

The cooperation of the left is something everyone wishes to see. However, on the part of the Communist Party of Greece (KKE)4 there is a clear, stereotyped, repetitive denial of the need for left unity. How do you assess and explain this attitude?

The attitude of the KKE is metaphysical and timid. It leaves the resolution of all issues to an inevitable future revolution—the “second coming”. Yet it is a historically given fact that for the revolutionary process to get started, the political “subject” itself raises specific issues. Around these issues develop political responses, as well as political options which are based on specific power relations and also create new dynamics. The revolution doesn’t take place timelessly nor through subjects who, acting in a chemically pure political context, magically acquire revolutionary consciousness. The revolution is realised in real time and by subjects who, through their involvement in the movement, shape revolutionary consciousness and at the same time change power relationships.

It is known that Tsirimokos5 was one of the founders of the EAM. Consider the disaster if the left had not united in the EAM because Tsirimokos had helped found the EAM, for fear that Tsirimokos would “contaminate” the EAM.

Of course the risk of “contamination” is always there, but we cannot avoid it by being shut away in our houses, sealing and sterilising all rooms. Such preventive “medicine” would be reminiscent of medieval recipes: quarantine, prayer and a witch hunt …

It reminds me of something more dangerous. It’s a recipe for failure. I mean that those who see their involvement in the movement as a possible source of contamination, and thus, to protect themselves from it, do not participate in the most essential and necessary political processes, the struggles to shift political consciousness, to change the political balance and to work out and formulate proposals of revolutionary content. These processes do not take place in a soundproof room, behind closed doors and outside the movement.

If your strategic objective is revolution, your revolutionary tactic must be to constantly radicalise the consciousness of the movement, so that the steps that are made now will at a later time turn into leaps.

The relationship of the communist with the movement should not correspond to the logic of “a fly in the milk”, but to “a fish in the water”. Otherwise you pray patiently, quarantine anyone who is different to you, call them an “Ephialtes”6 and instead of turning this life into paradise, you identify with metaphysical doctrines of paradise in another life.

Given the refusal so far of the Communist Party to collaborate, what can be done with the other left forces, SYRIZA, ANTARSYA and personalities from PASOK7? What would be the terms of reliable cooperation between them?

First we should not give all weight to the form and forget the content. Cooperation should not be a pretext, or invoke a general and abstract unity, but should have a substantial political content.

Some non-parliamentary left forces think that the political proposal for simply an “anti-memorandum front” represents a lower point of convergence than is necessary and imperative today. These left forces think an “anti-memorandum front” is based on a lowest common denominator. This way of thinking is quite reasonable. The memorandum and the debt are components and consequences of the system itself, therefore, the front should have a clear anti-capitalist orientation.

Of course, I don’t disagree at all with this rationale, but I do not set it as a prerequisite for cooperation, but as the ultimate aim of collaboration that will continuously radicalise mass consciousness, until the final break.

How do you see the overall situation in Europe? After the crisis in Greece, and its spread to Portugal, Ireland and Spain, and now to Italy, it is clear that the eurozone is on the verge of splitting. The markets are so blatant that they can “resign” their “own” leaders in favour of someone they consider more appropriate for the present moment, bypassing any political process. What should be the orientation of the left in the face of this? Renegotiation, payment default or something else?

You give me the opportunity through your question to expand on the answer above. The system is regrouping its forces, sacrificing those considered expendable for its survival. If we do not break the processes of this regroupment, we will be talking about another historical opportunity missed.

If we do not break what the Communist Party itself calls a “black front”, a designation with which I totally agree, we will have to answer to history and to our people.

The first objective, the key objective, is not to allow the system to turn this disaster into an opportunity for reformation. Renegotiation, payment default or the drachma-euro dilemma are not in themselves a political position. They are the necessary and dynamic tools of a political position aimed primarily against the memorandum. The ultimate aim of this position would be breaking with capitalism. This goal, however, cannot be a condition for cooperation with other political forces. Goals should be set and formulated by society itself.

Our time is characterised not only by the onslaught of neoliberal reaction, but also by the rise of large movements, uprisings in the Arab world, the indignant citizens’ movements in Spain, Greece and now Occupy Wall Street in the USA. How can we sum it up so far? What can we say about the future, especially the critical dimension of international coordination of these movements?

In the West, and even more so in the Arab region, societies imagined that institutions and policy production were external to society. They imagined that policies were formed above and beyond society itself. As a result, they believed that this world could not change. That is changing.

The “movement of the squares” in the West and the East has laid a serious foundation for autonomy, which is also the prerequisite for political and social emancipation.

A second very important conclusion is that the spontaneous element at times and under certain processes can become conscious and, moreover, on a scale of quality and quantity that any “conscious element” would be jealous of.

How many times has this great “conscious element” been able to raise so many questions of such an ideological nature and to have a powerful and dynamic response by so many millions of people in the East and the West?

A third conclusion based on the two above is that once the participants become politically conscious, have faith in their capabilities and assume a vanguard role, a movement to overthrow the system becomes possible.

In terms of the coordination of movements, it is an objective possibility in Ireland and Portugal, Spain and Italy, that is, of the whole European periphery.

The Audit Commission on Greek Public Debt (ELE)8 is an interesting unifying initiative in Greece, in which you have played a leading role. In view of the danger of the country’s bankruptcy, the relevance of the commission is clearly increased. Are further initiatives planned?

First, ELE is being strengthened for two very obvious reasons. First, because the core goal of the debt audit is payment default, but on the part of the borrower. Second, because the need for payment default is not only something specific to Greece, but is taking on a European dimension.

On this basis we are “running” two things simultaneously. First, coordination with the audit commissions of the European region; second, the founding of a national network of the Greek commission. The latter will be discussed and organised at a conference to be held in January.

This interview with Sofia Sakorafa first appeared in Greek in Marxist Thought, volume 4, pp. 47-52. Sofia Sakorafa is an independent left MP in Greece’s parliament.

Notes

Words of a Greek popular song.

2. A reference to Makis Voridis, a neo-fascist LAOS member and current minister of infrastructure, transport and networks. He was seen – and photographed – holding an axe in public in 1985. See http://exiledonline.com/austerity-fascism-in-greece-the-real-1-doctrine/ for details.

3. The EAM, the National Liberation Front, was an alliance that led the Greek resistance during the Nazi occupation of the country in the Second World War.

4. The Communist Party (KKE), led by Aleka Papariga, is a Stalinist party. It has a sectarian policy, refusing any cooperation with other left forces. It has recently fully rehabilitated its Stalinist general secretary during the 1940s and 1950s, Nikos Zahariadis. It also adopted resolutions defending Stalin and the Moscow trials, while proclaiming Trotsky and other Bolshevik leaders “Gestapo agents”.

5. Ilias Tsirimokos (1907-68), a Greek bourgeois politician, took part in the resistance movement, but in later years moved increasingly to the right.

6. Ephialtes was a traitor during the battle of Thermopylae between the Spartans and the Persians in 480 BC. The Spartans suffered a crushing defeat after he betrayed them to the Persian army.

7. SYRIZA is the second biggest Greek left organisation (an alliance of left-wing groups), partly similar to Germany’s Die Linke. A number of quite different forces and organisations are taking part in it. ANTARSYA is an alliance formed in March 2009 by forces of the far left, uniting various activist groups, but without much political influence as yet. A number of personalities have left PASOK during the last two years, some of them professing more or less left positions.

8. The Audit Commission on Greek Public Debt (ELE) is an initiative by Greek left personalities, economists and others for establishing an audit commission to examine the Greek debt. For further information, see http://elegr.gr/index.php and http://www.gopetition.com/petition/43171.html.

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Blocking the ship is “something that we’re going to have to consider,” Coffman said. “It’s kind of uncharted waters.”


by Eduardo Soriano-Castillo

from Labor Notes



Waiting somewhere in the Columbia River is a freighter. The transnational grain exporter EGT wants to use scab labor to load it at the small Washington state port of Longview and send it to Asia.

It won’t be easy. Hundreds of Occupiers and Longshore union (ILWU) members in the Northwest have vowed to protest when the freighter attempts to dock and load. ILWU members have stood together in Longview since June, halting trains, dumping the grain they carry, and invading the port terminal to stop scab work.

Their campaign of nonviolent resistance has been met with escalating police action and 130 arrests, some so aggressive they have sent ILWU allies to the hospital.

The stakes are higher this time. A Coast Guard escort will join the grain ship as it attempts to dock. Dan Coffman, president of ILWU Local 21 in Longview, expects vessels with mounted .50 caliber machine guns, armed Coast Guardsmen on the grain ship, and a big law enforcement presence bristling with weaponry.

“They’re taking taxpayer money to come and break a union,” said an outraged Coffman.

Portland-based EGT is owned by a grain cartel composed of St. Louis-based Bunge North America, Korean shipper Pan Ocean STX, and Japan-based Itochu Corporation.

Although only 50 jobs are immediately at stake in Longview, if EGT wins this fight the door is kicked open for other union-busters—and the ILWU could lose the grain work that accounts for 20 percent of the financing of its pension and welfare funds.

Coffman says the union is also at risk under the PATRIOT Act and more recently the National Defense Authorization Act, saying protesters may be labeled “terrorists.”

He added that members’ Transportation Worker Identification Credential, a federally mandated security document for port personnel, could be revoked under Coast Guard regulations. Fines and federal injunctions have already cost the union more than $300,000 for its disruptions.

Still, in a January 3 letter to all locals titled “Prepare to take action when EGT vessel arrives,” ILWU President Bob McEllrath blasted out a call for mass member action in Longview. Union members know the risks.

“Me and my fellow longshoremen have been here before,” said a Seattle member who participated in last summer’s dump of grain on the Longview railroad tracks, when 800 members mobilized. “We’re ready to go when the call goes out.”

Blocking the ship is “something that we’re going to have to consider,” Coffman said. “It’s kind of uncharted waters.”

EGT is responding with ruses and false starts. A vessel headed for Longview January 11 was diverted to Portland at the last minute. The union maintains a 24-hour picket line.

Continuing difficulties between some ILWU locals, members, and Occupy participants are also muddying the waters.

“We keep stressing to everybody we talk to it’s nonviolent disobedience,” Coffman said. “If you’re going to plan on tearing stuff up, stay home.”
99% PROBLEMS

Occupy and the ILWU have vastly different organizational and cultural orientations, making it understandable why their relationship has had growing pains.

The strain grew around Occupy’s call for a shutdown of West Coast ports December 12 as a protest against the 1%. The ILWU questioned why Occupy failed to consult with the union, when its members would be most affected.

Occupy members interpreted the union’s distancing itself from the action as, at best, a legal safeguard against the fines that could result from a work stoppage, which would violate the ILWU contract’s ban on strikes. At worst, they thought it demonstrated the union movement’s timidity.

When Occupiers blocked port work in Oakland, Seattle, and Portland, they declared solidarity with ILWU members in Longview as one of their goals.

Now both groups are mobilizing to protest when the ship tries to dock, but ILWU officials are wary of Occupy’s support, fearing unsanctioned actions in Longview and even attempts to block ports again in other West Coast cities. Occupy has not called for such actions directly, though Occupy Oakland asked that those who “cannot physically join the community blockade in Longview, Washington, mobilize in solidarity through direct action in their communities.”

McEllrath told locals to make sure enough members remain behind to work the ports, while mobilizing the rest to get to Longview. He raised the specter of an injunction, citing “the Taft-Hartley Act that criminalizes worker solidarity,” and warned that the union must “cut a narrow path,” presumably to avoid being charged with violating that law’s ban on sympathy strikes.
BREAKING RANKS

The tension between the ILWU and Occupy was on display in all its ugly honesty in Seattle January 6. Occupy Seattle, Portland, and Oakland had planned a panel discussion to promote the Longview convergence, featuring several members of ILWU.

Retiree Jack Heyman from Oakland noted that the union had not asked members to endorse the December port shutdown but argued that members “voted with their feet” by refusing to work.

A group of Seattle ILWU members and officers interrupted Heyman, questioning what authority he had at the gathering. A heated exchange including some pushing and shoving ensued. Six days later, members of Seattle’s Local 19 passed a resolution that pledged members to withhold support for Occupy and demanded an apology.

“The ‘Occupy’ movement has tried to substitute themselves for the membership in our struggle with EGT, and has attempted to subvert the ILWU,” the local concluded.

In his call to action, McEllrath had advised members to “take extreme caution when dealing with supporters of non-ILWU sanctioned calls to action relative to EGT.”

While some Occupy participants claim the union is divided between members and headquarters bureaucrats, Coffman said Local 21 is looking to the international for a lead.

“The international is in control and will be directing,” he said. “That’s why we elect those positions.”

Coffman said the union is contacting unionists who have sent letters of solidarity and attended rallies throughout the months of protest. The Cowlitz County, Washington state, and San Francisco labor councils are all helping to spread the word.

Cowlitz’s Central Labor Council, which covers the Longview area, invited “all friends of labor and the ‘99%’ everywhere to come to the aid of ILWU Local 21.”
PROTEST TOO MUCH

Paul Nipper, an organizer with Occupy Longview, said the tension is overblown.

“ILWU does support us,” he said. “However, publicly speaking on our behalf, and being involved with the planning, is not in their best interest. What good are we doing for them if we cost them more money in court?”

He advised that Occupiers focus on the real problem—EGT.

“This transnational giant EGT came into our town, lied to the residents, bought political influence, took away jobs from our community, and uses our port as a way to extract wealth from this town,” Nipper said. “What does Occupy stand for if it doesn’t stand up to EGT?”

Occupiers in Oakland are busy making preparations for the convergence in Longview, 13 hours north. At a recent Occupy labor solidarity meeting, planners gave reports on housing, legal support, and caravan preparations. To date more than 100 community supporters have signed up to head to Longview.

“We’re out there doing the hard and tedious work of recruiting people,” said Moises Montoya of Oakland’s labor solidarity committee.

“This struggle has reinvigorated old-timers like myself,” he said. “I’m hopeful that as Occupy and labor learn more about each other we will mature and build a deeper, respectful strategic relationship for the long fight ahead.”

In Longview, logistics are coming together. Nipper said activists are using the inter-Occupy conference call system, email groups, phone trees, and social networking to do the planning.

They coordinated a nonviolent resistance training and are working with church allies to find enough beds in town. Planners want a lot of cushion. They’re anticipating big numbers.





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To remember him as only or even primarily as a leader of the Civil Rights movement is to purposely forget King as a moral voice against all of the injustices of the system.




by Billy Wharton



More than 40 years since the death of Martin Luther King Jr., his significance remains an uneasy battleground between those wishing to sanitize his legacy and those seeking to draw inspiration from his radical deeds and words. The sanitizers have mustered a vast array of resources – endless MLK commercials from McDonald’s, official Holiday celebrations that preach passivity (as opposed to the non-violent civil disobedience that King supported) and all sorts of mainstream media framing of this “man of peace.” On the side of the activists are King’s words, the acts he took and inspired and the array of social problems in the present that look a lot like the ones he described in his sermons.

Take for instance a slightly lesser recognized sermon such as “Remaining Awake During a Great Revolution,” that was delivered on March 31, 1968 at the National Cathedral in Washington, D.C. No, “I have a dream” here, so this one has not ended up as a clip in a commercial or as a promotion for a multinational corporation. Here, it is the poor against the rich, set in the brilliant Biblically-inspired oratory of King. And the message is not in favor of this or that piece of legislation. King presents a global view of the interconnectedness of people and the need for leaders to wake up to the reality of the consequences of things like poverty and war.

The hook is a retelling of the old story of Rip Van Winkle. Old Rip manages to sleep through the entire American Revolution and awakens to discover that an American President has replaced a British King. So too, King explained to a his elite audience, were many political leaders sleeping through the revolution in communication and transportation that was bringing people all over the world together. For King this was an opportunity, a first opportunity, for poor people to speak to the common experience of their own poverty in order to change it. King gives several examples of this including the gut-wrenching reality of mass homelessness that he had observed in India. He described a new “geographical oneness” that might finally allow for a global movement for justice.

Of course, not everyone was asleep at the technological wheel. The group we now know as the 1% was drawing a different conclusion from the same lesson on geographical oneness. They would go on to use it as a platform not for a new planetary consciousness of solidarity and peaceful co-existence, but as a means to construct capitalist globalization. What was an opportunity to begin a conversation about ending the scourge of poverty was transformed into a deepening of the global misery through globalization.

Yet, King also knew where the antidote to this problem lies. The key was that just as there was a revolution in technology there was also a human rights revolution underway. Here he offers two important lessons – one delivered consciously and other offered only by putting this speech onto the context of history.

In this sermon King wrestles with the notion of time or, more specifically, the advice given by mainstream voices that “only time can solve the problem of racial injustice.” He refutes this by arguing forcefully that there is no automatic march of history – “time” he says, “is neutral. It can be used either destructively or constructively.” Here, the basic lesson offered is that history has to be created by the conscious actions of those who wish to change conditions in the present – to end racism, eradicate poverty and extend democracy. The only guarantee that King proposes is the certainty that what he describes as “the forces of ill will in our nation, the extreme rightists of our nation,” will constantly be working to influence the future in order to maintain the oppressive relations that have enriched them.

Equally important is the timing of the sermon. It was delivered some four years after the Civil Rights Act was signed into law. This cuts against the manufactured conception of King as only a Civil Right leader. At this time he was still speaking about racism as “a way of life for the vast majority of white Americans.” He is still discussing the tragedy of poverty and was attempting to organize an occupation of Washington in order to highlight the needs of people in inner city and rural America. And he was displaying the moral courage to take a public stand against the US war of aggression in Vietnam, even when that stand alienated him from sections of what was becoming the Civil Rights establishment and their white Liberal benefactors.

All this is to say that at no point in his short life was Martin Luther King Jr. settled. At no point was he satisfied with his accomplishments. To remember him as only or even primarily as a leader of the Civil Rights movement is to purposely forget King as a moral voice against all of the injustices of the system. Where he found poverty he spoke about. When he discovered racial hatred he wrote about it. And when identified people in motion struggling against these evils, as he did during the strike of sanitation workers in Memphis, he supported them, providing them with a national canvas upon which to paint their message. A simple song from Civil Rights movement captures King precisely – “99 1/2 % free won’t do.” No McDonalds commercial can erase this legacy.

As we encounter another Martin Luther King holiday we might take a bit of advice from him. Keep our eyes focused forward – working now to create the future we want to see in the future. History is not on our side in this struggle to free the 99%. The only thing we can count on is that “…nothing will be done until people of goodwill put their bodies and their souls in motion.” Complacency is the enemy in our attempt to finally bridge the gap between promise and fulfillment. Occupy MLK Day!

***
Billy Wharton is a writer, activist and co-chair of the Socialist Party USA. His articles have appeared in the Washington Post, the NYC Indypendent, Spectrezine and the Monthly Review Zine. He can be reached at whartonbilly@gmail.com.

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But the time now is to pick up a torch that has been carried in many places including here in the U.S. We have to once again return that dream rooted in the American Dream.

Occupying the Dream and Perfecting the Union: The Stirring for a New Civil Rights Movement

by K.S. Liberato


from Occupy Philly Media



“We have come a long way in our understanding of human motivation and of the blind operation of our economic system. Now we realize that dislocations in the market operation of our economy and the prevalence of discrimination thrust people into idleness and bind them in constant or frequent unemployment against their will. The poor are less often dismissed from our conscience today by being branded as inferior and incompetent. We also know that no matter how dynamically the economy develops and expands it does not eliminate all poverty.

We have so energetically mastered production that we now must give attention to distribution. Though there have been increases in purchasing power, they have lagged behind increases in production. Those at the lowest economic level, the poor white and Negro, the aged and chronically ill, are traditionally unorganized and therefore have little ability to force the necessary growth in their income. They stagnate or become even poorer in relation to the larger society.

The problem indicates that our emphasis must be two-fold. We must create full employment or we must create incomes…we need to be concerned that the potential of the individual is not wasted. New forms of work that enhance the social good will have to be devised for those for whom traditional jobs are not available.”-- Martin Luther King Jr

“We the people of the United States, in order to form a more perfect union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.” --Preamble, to the U.S. Constitution

September 17th, 2011 was a day in which something truly newsworthy occurred. Hundreds of protesters took to the streets to voice their discontent with the political establishment’s inappropriate response to the economic crisis that has forced many out of their homes, and have stolen the livelihoods of millions. Those protesters set up camp in Liberty Park (Zucotti Park) where they became the “Occupy” movement. Since then the warm sunny days have turned cold and bleak.

The once lively and festive encampments have been destroyed by local police forces that engaged in violent acts against “Occupiers” and then arrested hundreds of them in an effort to stop the growth of the nascent movement. The result has been a sort of “underground” or more decentralized. In any case the movement has changed its form. Many of spoken of a “spring resurgence”. But we cannot and should not think that we simply replicate the protests started in September. This time, we must come out with a strong and clear vision for America, as well as a critique about the country’s political, economic, and social ills.

The future of the movement lies not in occupying physical spaces in tents, though there may be a place for this. But the time now is to pick up a torch that has been carried in many places including here in the U.S. We have to once again return that dream rooted in the American Dream. We still have a nation filled with racial strife. Schools are still largely segregated. Blacks, Latinos, and Asians find themselves in over-crowded and under-resourced schools. They find themselves in the most violent and ugly neighborhoods. In the City of Philadelphia, a mayor and city council have passed a law targeted at black youth to keep them in the house after 9pm.

Along with these divisions there is the resurgence of another division that militant socialist and progressive trade unionists like Eugene V. Debs, Walter Reuther, and A.Philip Randolph fought to extinguish: poverty and economic oppression. People like Debs knew that, as long as working people were politically subordinated to the interests of big financial and corporate giants like Exxon mobile, or G.E. which paid no taxes and got a tax refund. At this very moment there are three Americas: the “Have a lot and taking more”; the “have a little, but losing it”; and the barely making it or the “just getting by”.

This movement needs to become a powerful question: how do we occupy the Dream? To occupy is to embody and to draw attention to something. As such, we are thus, trying to embody America’s dream of freedom, and draw attention to the race to the bottom, which threatens freedom at it’s foundation. That said, to speak of “freedom” is abstract, as those corporations, lobbyists, and politicians that would deny people of the most vital freedoms: freedom of speech, freedom from social and economic insecurity, and freedom to pursue meaningful and productive lives, also use this word. For them freedom is something to be given, as compensation. Their freedom is the freedom to dominate others.

We want something different. We want liberation from a failing system that pits worker against worker; mother against mother, father against father. We want a society where everyone that is able to contribute to the greater social good has remunerative employment. We want liberation from the fear illness. We want an end to poverty for those who work, and we want good paying jobs with benefits for every individual.

Here in the City of Philadelphia, 25% (approximately 381,000) people live in poverty. Nearly 170,000 Philadelphians do not have jobs! With nearly 400,000 living below poverty and nearly 170,000 without employment how can we expect crime to decrease?!?! 36% of our brothers and sisters in Detroit live in poverty. In Buffalo and Milwaukee the numbers are at or above 27%.

The one true Goal of Occupy is Liberation: Practicing Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness

When people ask what is the movement’s goal or goals, they want to know what it is that we hope to achieve. There is an important reason that this question is being asked. For some they want to know what to label our movement. They wish to do this because they want to pigeon hole us.

But the reality is this. Any movement even slightly hinting at a desire for sweeping and profound social justice, democratic rights and the liberation of human beings is seen as a leftist or movement. For the status quo such a movement is always a threat to be dealt with. Therefore, we should not concern ourselves with how we are “pigeon-holed”. We don’t need to talk about left and right. We only want to talk about right and wrong. And what has happened and is happening to millions of people here in the United States and around the world is wrong. The status quo is wrong. And to take our time or drag our feet is unacceptable.

There are also those people who want to know what the movement hopes to achieve, because they want to better understand how they can participate. People know what we are against. They want to know what we are for. Yes. Democracy is in the streets. Democracy should mean direct participation in the decision making process. But we have to get there. Our voices don’t trumpet loud enough to bring down the walls of oppression, exploitation, and just bad governance perpetuated by inhumane and unjust corporations and their lobbyists. For that we need the broader public. But the broader public needs to know what we are up to.

For so long people have been told that their political power is limited to a ballot for a Democrat or a Republican, but we can’t stop there. Each of these parties, despite its good and hardworking members who advocate for the common individual, is dominated by members who genuinely believe in the idea that when the wealthy do well, everyone else will do well. They believe that the government’s job is to give to the rich and then the rich can give to the middle class, and the middle class will lift up the poor through consumption. We’ve had nearly thirty years of this practice. And judging the look of things we haven’t gotten much better.

The election of President Barack Obama was a momentous occasion. Why? Yes. He represented the incarnation of part of Martin Luther King’s dream, a dream of radical equality and genuine social intercourse. He also promised to build a new economy from the bottom up and not the top down. But for whatever the reason or reasons, working people who have built the country, and endured increasing hardship have been made Atlas once again. Once again the Poor are sacrificed in the name of economic stability. The working people are called upon to bear the transgressions of the Rich? I, like many Americans was raised with the belief in merit.

The Rich believe in merit too. They believe that if they are clever enough and take more risk and get rich they deserve the right to dominate society. The problem with their “merit” is that they climb on the backs of the working class to get to where they got. They took risk. But they took risk with our future; they took risk with our children’s future. And this time they lost. I suppose we can call it a big Ponzi scheme. But the merit we believe in is different. We believe that those who contribute to society and not just to themselves deserve honor, dignity, respect, and social and economic security in the society they’ve helped create.

Some Concrete things we might demand:

The beginning of our constitution was the “prime directive” of our government and the organization of our society. And it is from this directive that the people grab hold of in their perpetual pursuit to guide us towards a more just society, in which all people may achieve the optimal amount of tranquility, social productivity, and joy giving the objective conditions of the whole of society.

1. A guaranteed minimum livable income for all who work 20 hours a week with premium pay for those who work longer. This allows for more people to be employed, while it increases the opportunity for people to engage in activities that will improve their community, households, families, and themselves. How can ask people to improve their station if they do not have time to study, read, and develop new skills for different jobs?
2. Public health care for all individuals—good health is essential to any dignified human existence. To deny it directly or indirectly through socio-economic inaccessibility to adequate facilities and services is a violation of the 14th amendment
3. Paid family medical leave
4. Just cause firing for all workers
5. Investment in cooperative worker enterprises
6. Re-investment in public and cooperative housing for all people (not just low income)
7. Earning two paid vacation days per month of employment
8. Tax credit for community service in key specified areas that are under served.

Environmental justice and Community Transformation:
1. Cleaning up our neighborhoods—providing grants for unemployed and the youth to clean up their neighborhoods
2. Renovation of useable vacant facilities to be used for community and public purposes
3. Creation of community governing boards that can not only advocate for local needs but also participate in the legislative process to transform their neighborhoods.
Civil Rights and achieving true equality:
1. Ending economic and social segregation in schools and the broader society.
2. Ending unjust laws that target certain groups of people: ex. Philly’s curfew law

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In other words, we want the world King dreamed of. This is our way of honoring King.




from Wasatch Socialist Party



It’s that time of year – a time when we hear variations on the same line in the news: “We’ve come a long way, but we still haven’t fulfilled Martin Luther King, Jr.’s dream.” At once, a statement like this fills us with pride – de jure segration has been eliminated, after all – but makes us beg the question: why not? What aren’t we doing to achieve what King wanted?

This brings us to another common theme of this time of year: the nearly complete void in discussion of what King was actually doing in his activism. What Jeff Cohen and Norman Solomon pointed out 17 years ago is still true today: there’s little coverage of what King was arguing for in the last years of his life. King wasn’t just the preacher who had a dream that “little black boys and black girls will be able to join hands with little white boys and white girls as sisters and brothers.” He was also advocating economic policies that we Socialists fully endorse. You won’t see that on NBC, CBS, or FOX’s coverage of MLK Day.

Indeed, after winning the battle against de jure segregation, King wanted more, specifically for the poor – black, white, Latino, and Native American. In 1968, he often asked, “What does it profit a man to be able to have access to any integrated lunch counter when he doesn’t earn enough money to take his wife out to dine? What does it profit a man to have access to the motels of the highways and the hotels of the cities when he doesn’t earn enough money to take a vacation?” In other words, what good is it that segregation is outlawed when poverty segregates people even more thoroughly? One of his answers was for a guaranteed income for all, an idea that the Socialist Party USA Presidential Ticket is advocating for. A guaranteed income is fundamental idea in American thought, going back to Thomas Paine. Even Nixon advocated for it in 1968. A guaranteed income would help prevent poverty for all citizens of the country. Yes, it’s Socialism. And yes, it’s American. And yes, it was an idea MLK fought for.

What’s holding a guaranteed income back? King rightly noted that rampant militarism was a key roadblock. In his 1967 speech against Vietnam, he argued

A nation that continues year after year to spend more money on military defense than on programs of social uplift is approaching spiritual death.

And of course, the spiritual death of the 1960s is our spiritual death today, as we maintain the largest military budget in human history with hundreds of bases, grotesquely expensive weapons, and inadequate health and mental care for soldiers who do our fighting. All the while, we rack up debts in war and debts in tax breaks for the 1%, and we gut basic services, education, and jobs for the 99%.

But of course, simply shifting money from bombs to preventing poverty is no solution, in King’s view:

True compassion is more than flinging a coin to a beggar. It comes to see that an edifice which produces beggars needs restructuring.

What is this edifice? King’s answer couldn’t be clearer. It’s capitalism:

A true revolution of values will soon look uneasily on the glaring contrast of poverty and wealth. With righteous indignation, it will look across the seas and see individual capitalists of the West investing huge sums of money in Asia, Africa, and South America, only to take the profits out with no concern for the social betterment of the countries, and say, “This is not just.” It will look at our alliance with the landed gentry of South America and say, “This is not just.” The Western arrogance of feeling that it has everything to teach others and nothing to learn from them is not just.

Given the context, with a brutal Stalinist, totalitarian regime in the USSR, MLK had little hope for Marxism. But, he did recognize Marxism’s revolutionary spirit:

It is a sad fact that because of comfort, complacency, a morbid fear of communism, and our proneness to adjust to injustice, the Western nations that initiated so much of the revolutionary spirit of the modern world have now become the arch antirevolutionaries. This has driven many to feel that only Marxism has a revolutionary spirit. Therefore, communism is a judgment against our failure to make democracy real and follow through on the revolutions that we initiated. Our only hope today lies in our ability to recapture the revolutionary spirit and go out into a sometimes hostile world declaring eternal hostility to poverty, racism, and militarism. With this powerful commitment we shall boldly challenge the status quo and unjust mores, and thereby speed the day when “every valley shall be exalted, and every mountain and hill shall be made low, and the crooked shall be made straight, and the rough places plain.

Unfortunately for King, the stunted, twisted and wrong vision of Marx in the USSR made democratic socialism an option he couldn’t suggest – even though he was suggesting socialist ideas as solutions to social problems. If he could read the Socialist Party USA’s Principles, he very well might agree with our own condemnation of totalitarian communism:

Under capitalist and authoritarian “Communist” states, people have little control over fundamental areas of their lives. The capitalist system forces workers to sell their abilities and skills to the few who own the workplaces, profit from these workers’ labor, and use the government to maintain their privileged position. Under authoritarian “Communist” states, decisions are made by Communist Party officials, the bureaucracy and the military. The inevitable product of each system is a class society with gross inequality of privileges, a draining of the productive wealth and goods of the society into military purposes, environmental pollution, and war in which workers are compelled to fight other workers.

We don’t want authoritarian communism. We want Democratic Socialism. We want “a new social and economic order in which workers and consumers control production and community residents control their neighborhoods, homes, and schools.” We want militarism and empire to come to an end. We want universal health care, universal education, and universally guaranteed incomes. We want a country where people work the jobs they enjoy for a brief part of the week and then spend the rest of their time learning and building communities. We want racism, sexism, and homophobia to wither away.

In other words, we want the world King dreamed of. This is our way of honoring King.

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”Expect to hear a lot more from CT’s Occupy protesters in 2012.” If those who govern think that attempts to end occupations through continued paternalism, protests will grow and civil disorder will increase.

by Jim Marra



In October, Occupy Hartford formed at Turning Point Park to protest economic inequality in America and offer alternatives to the oligarchic forces that control American political and economic life. On December 6, the cruel realities of the oligarchy that swept Occupy Wall Street from New York’s Zuccotti Park became apparent in Connecticut’s capital (See Gregory B. Hladky, “We’ll Be Back,” Hartford Advocate, 12/15/2011 and “City Clears Occupy Hartford Campsite,” By J. Carlesso, S. Goode, M. Spencer and B. Leukhardt, The Hartford Courant, 12/06/2011). Citing alleged criminal activity, a contingent of dozens of Hartford police under orders from Mayor Pedro Segarra and commanded by police Captain Joe Buyak descended on Occupy Hartford, evicting a small group of peaceful demonstrators.

What followed was a display of authoritarianism different in extent, but not in kind, to that of billionaire New York Mayor Bloomberg and his “own [police] army.” This behavior can be understood with reference to “The Three Ps:” Patriarchy, Propaganda and Psychopathology.

Patriarchy,”…idealizes dominance rather than cooperation and partnership…. This means that any elements of difference between two groups will be used to determine “superiority” and “inferiority,” dominance and submission.” (www.safercampus.org, 3/1/2011) Given the occupier’s non-violent behavior before and during the eviction, the size of the police contingent was overwhelmingly disproportionate to any putative threat of violence. Indeed, it was unnecessary. Although authorities touted a “cooperative” relationship with protesters, a question remains concerning why any alleged miscreants weren’t headed off. Posting of an officer at the encampment would have insured public safety. How difficult or expensive is it, what untoward impact to police resource allocation occurs if officers in the area simply were instructed to complete paper work or eat their lunch near the park? Perhaps authorities consider it prudent to keep individual front-line officers out of earshot of protesters so they won’t be exposed to “subversive” ideas. Regardless of the truth behind allegations of criminal activity, Hartford authorities chose to use the threat of force to evict protesters over establishing a cooperative plan for ongoing police protection. The frosting on the patriarchy came when Hartford Police Chief Daryl Roberts parroted of Sagarra’s demeaning canard that occupiers had “lost sight of their original purpose.” Media images of a garbage truck removing “litter” from the park reflected the dismissive and degrading characterizations of the protesters by Hartford authorities.

This brings us to the second “P:” Propaganda. It is hubris to claim cooperation with occupiers when that cooperation amounted to conveniently exposing the occupation to criminal activity. Any infestation by troublemakers, real or fictitious, would provide Hartford authorities an excuse to evict the occupiers. So in the self-serving and amoral twilight of propaganda neglect becomes “cooperation.” Captain Buyak explains that “what has happened around the country” provoked concern that “police [might] get injured.” He assured all that, ”[The police] not here as thugs or any of that.” Indeed, he did not command his forces to physically attack the protesters. However, he did command a police action that physically abrogated the protesters constitutional rights to free speech and peaceful assembly. The police were not being thugs. Thugs beat up people. However, the police exhibited overpowering and aggressive behavior and used “their power to control…people…[who] may have a hard time defending themselves.” That’s what stopbullying.gov calls “bullying.” Thus, cooperative authorities depict a small group of citizens wishing only to exercise their rights as at least corrupt and at most a potential danger to a division of well-armed police.

The final “P” is “Psychopathology.” Most have heard madness defined as doing the same thing repeatedly and expecting a different outcome. As Hldaky’s article declares, ”Expect to hear a lot more from CT’s Occupy protesters in 2012.” If those who govern think that attempts to end occupations through continued paternalism, protests will grow and civil disorder will increase. Propaganda may serve the oligarchy in obfuscating the politics and intentions of occupiers or ease the fears of those who see the Occupy movement as a threat. But it will also further alienate protesters from police departments and especially front-line officers, many of whom are members of unions and are part of the 99%. This will allow police commanders and municipal mayors to continue to drive a wedge into the ranks of the working class. Events “around the country” should counsel officials that oligarchy leads to revolution. No other result will occur.

Let us hope that mayors and police commanders throughout America will mature as the Occupy movement expands. If so, we might be spared from the nightmare of an Iraq veteran dying from a concussion caused by a noise grenade, or an elderly woman choking to death from tear gas, or a teenager shot through the head because of an ambiguous command by a paranoid police captain.


Jim Marra,
Secretary
The Socialist Party of Connecticut
spcentralct gmail com



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I realized that I really had no choice. Each choice was bad. The only logical course of action was to fight for a world where I actually had a one of my alternatives was actually good.



Why I went to the Occupy Los Angeles General Assembly for the first time

by Jack Lindstrom



I spent nearly half an hour in a heated debate with myself over whether I should buy groceries at Ralphs or the Santa Monica Coop.
 
It’s much more complicated than it sounds; each one has moral and tangible implications, and if you want to “be the change you wish to see in the world,” these implications are important.

I literally wrote out the pros and cons. I know, I sound like a ludicrous tree-hugging, bleeding-heart liberal Rush Limbaugh and his ilk make fun of. But if compassion and long-term thinking makes you a ludicrous, tree-hugging, bleeding-heart liberal, then SIGN ME UP.
 
What it came down to was that what I wanted—decent labor conditions and no insane executive salaries—was the longest drive away and the most expensive. I don’t begrudge paying more for good labor conditions and organic and fair-trade products: if all I did was cater to my bottom line with absolutely no consideration of other factors, I'd be no better than CEOs and shareholders who do the same. But the more I spend on my own groceries, the less I have to spend on charity (my god, I’m starting to sound like a parody of myself), and the idea of spending more than I have to on groceries just smacks of over-privilege to me.
 
Ralphs employees are in a union, but that apparently hasn’t helped them get pay and treatment comparable to those at, say, Trader Joe’s. (I know these websites aren’t exactly scientific surveys, and you might say, hey, Ralph’s’s average rating is labeled “OK”, so to get a basis of comparison, I checked out Starbucks’ average since I worked there for about a year. Starbucks’s rating is 3.5 out of 5, while Ralph’s is 2.6. I thought, my god, if working at Starbucks was hell on earth, what is it like working at Ralphs??)
 
I was unable to find corresponding labor info on the Coop online, but it’s at least a consumer-owned cooperative rather than a mega-corporation whose CEO is raking in over $10 million a year, like Ralph’s.
 
I could have driven the extra miles to the coop, but that would have meant burning fossil fuels, which causes multiple problems we’re already very familiar with. I could have taken the bus, but that would have meant like an hour-long slog—each way—just to go to the grocery store.
 
A capitalist would argue that my desire to simply walk to Ralphs is a perfect example of the triumph of the free market: as relatively inexpensive and the most convenient choice, of course I  want to shop there. But the fact that its CEO is making millions off the beleaguered backs of his minions—regardless of how much that may benefit his customers—is not a triumph. It’s a travesty. In a dirty fight, of course the biggest cheater wins.
 
As I debated and debated the wisest course in this conundrum, it finally occurred to me that I shouldn’t have this problem in the first place. Good labor conditions should be ubiquitous; I shouldn’t have to debate over whether I should encourage the subjugation of my fellow human beings to low pay and cruel management or contribute to the destruction of our planet.
 
I realized that I really had no choice. Each choice was bad. The only logical course of action was to fight for a world where I actually had a one of my alternatives was actually good.
 
So I didn’t go shopping. I went to the GA.




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Instead of attacking the symptoms of what was wrong with the status quo, like campaigning against budget cuts or fighting to win a local living wage ordinance, OWS went right to the root of the problem: Wall Street.





by Pham Binh



January 5, 2012 Occupy Wall Street (OWS) has turned the world upside down and inside out.

Thanks to our efforts, the very meaning of the word occupation has been reversed. As someone who marched against the occupations of Palestine, Iraq, and Afghanistan, this has taken some getting used to.

Dick Cheney’s prediction that occupiers “will be greeted as liberators” turned out to be correct, but not in the way he expected. Where ever students, workers, unemployed people, retirees, or veterans occupy they have been greeted as liberators by the 99% who feel that it is high time this country was liberated from the misrule of the 1%. The “Declaration of the Occupation of New York City” passed by the General Assembly (GA) on September 29 sums up our grievances very well and need not be repeated here.

For those of us who have been fighting for years around issues of social and economic justice, political corruption, police brutality, imperialist wars, civil liberties, and the oppression of racial and religious minorities, LGBTs, and women it seems like the country is finally beginning to catch up to us and listen to what we have been saying all along.

This raises questions: Why now? How and why did OWS succeed in galvanizing a mass movement where our previous efforts did not?

Success Requires Failure

Hardly anyone remembers the thousands of people who protested the bailouts in fall of 2008 at the doors of the New York Stock Exchange. The protests were angry but not militant nor defiant. People came, yelled, waved signs, and went home. By morning, the only sign of what took place was the occasional placard left behind and New York Police Department (NYPD) barricades stacked in neat order at the corners of Wall and Broad Streets. Meanwhile, the greatest theft in world history took place without a hitch as trillions of taxpayer dollars went directly or indirectly to financial institutions deemed “too big to fail.” The protests made no difference.

Hardly anyone remembers the tens of thousands who marched from Wall Street to City Hall on May 12, 2011 against Mayor Bloomberg’s attempt to lay off 6,000 teachers and close 20 firehouses. At the time, the action seemed like a weak echo of the thousands-strong occupation of Wisconsin’s State Capitol building that erupted in February just as general strikes in Egypt brought down dictator Hosni Mubarak. Unlike Wisconsin, the May 12 marches were tame from the start. The union leaders long ago abandoned militant tactics in favor of making sound bite-filled speeches for a couple of hours and providing nice photo ops for their favored Democratic politicians.

Like the 2008 rallies against the bailouts, the May 12 protests were angry but not militant nor defiant. People came, yelled, waved signs, and went home. Again, the protests had no effect.

Something more was needed.

Enter New Yorkers Against Budget Cuts (NYABC), a grassroots coalition of activists from a wide variety of backgrounds: union members, socialist and anarchist groups, and community organizers. NYABC applied the occupy tactic borrowed from Egypt’s Tahrir Square and the indignados in Spain by establishing a permanent encampment called Bloombergville close to City Hall to protest the mayor’s proposed budget cuts. Bloombergville’s name was a reference to Hoovervilles, those Great Depression-era shantytowns that thousands lived in after losing their homes, jobs, and savings as President Herbert Hoover did nothing.

Bloombergville was a dry run for OWS. The police continually harassed the encampment on dubious legal pretexts; drum circles and boisterous musicians helped create spirited, vibrant protests; there was a people’s library and kitchen to provide intelletual and physical sustenance to the occupiers; and Bloombergville organized the first GA in New York City.

Despite these similarities to OWS, Bloombergville did not take off. The protesters numbered in the dozens or hundreds at most. Police harassment was largely successful and did not attract the attention of the average New Yorker. The City Council approved the budget in a 49-to-1 vote at the end of June, eliminating 2,600 teaching positions through attrition, forcing the teachers’ union to make $60 million in concessions, and laying off 1,000 non-uniform city workers.

Bloombergville’s one demand -- no budget cuts -- was ignored, just as the 2002-2003 anti-war movement’s one demand -- no to war -- was ignored.

Prelude to Revolution
The Canadian group AdBusters’ July 13 call to occupy Wall Street seemed like a great but whimsical idea: "Are you ready for a Tahrir Moment? On September 17, we want to see 20,000 people flood into lower Manhattan, set up tents, kitchens, peaceful barricades and occupy Wall Street for a few months."

It was Bloombergville and the network of activists around it that gave the dream legs with over a month’s worth of planning meetings. They seized on the call because there was something electric about the idea of occupying Wall Street, taking the fight against austerity, budget cuts, and rampant inequality right into the bull’s lair, the nerve center of world capitalism.

Instead of attacking the symptoms of what was wrong with the status quo, like campaigning against budget cuts or fighting to win a local living wage ordinance, OWS went right to the root of the problem: Wall Street. It was radical, it was bold, and it was a far cry from the single-issue single-event organizing of Bloombergville, the May 15, 2011 union marches, the 2008 bailout protests, the 2004 Republican National Convention, the 2002-2003 anti-war rallies, the 2002 World Economic Forum protest, or any previous action by any section of New York City’s progressive community.

As September 17 drew near, anticipation mounted as the hacker group Anonymous endorsed the action. It was unclear what exactly would happen that day. Would 20,000 people show up in Guy Fawkes masks (the Anonymous group’s calling card)? Many local activists, jaded by years of unrewarding and difficult organizing, did not embrace OWS from the outset because their experiences taught them to be skeptical about the prospect of success.

The Uprising Begins
On day one of OWS, over 1,000 marched through the largely empty financial district that fateful Saturday afternoon, their angry chants echoing off the glass and concrete skyscrapers densely packed together by the area’s narrow streets. Originally they planned to camp out at One Chase Manhattan Plaza, but Zuccotti Park was plan B since it had to be kept open 24 hours a day as part of an obscure agreement between the city and private entities that paid for the upkeep of privately owned public spaces.

Week one of OWS was relatively uneventful as working groups were formed and GAs were held to begin the process of issuing formal statements to the world. Somewhere between 100 and 200 people camped out with sleeping bags. The police waded into the park, manhandled and arrested a handful of people, and took tarps used to cover the electronic equipment OWS used to communicate with the world on the first Monday after the occupation began.

What transformed the occupation into a national uprising of the 99% was two things: unwarranted police repression and the determination of the occupiers to continue on no matter what. Not having a permit would not stop them and neither would metal fences, pepper spray, batons, or flex cuffs.

On Saturday September 24, Anthony Bologna pepper sprayed cornered women near Union Square and it was broadcast around the world from every conceivable angle thanks to camera phones and citizen uploads to YouTube. OWS’s numbers swelled. Over 2,000 people marched on NYPD headquarters on Friday October 1 in protest. The next day came the famous Brooklyn Bridge incident in which the NYPD lured 700 protesters into blocking traffic, cornered them, and arrested them. The outrage triggered by the 700 arrests led 30,000 to march at a permitted union-sponsored rally on October 5, and Occupy exploded with actions in 250 towns and cities across the country, including places like Nashville, Tennesee and Mobile, Alabama.

NASCAR versus Wall Street was probably the furthest thing from the minds of the occupiers who camped out in sleeping bags during week one of OWS but it became a reality in less than a month. Occupy earned itself a capital O.

Once Occupy went national, the same two ingredients that propelled the uprising’s explosive growth -- unwarranted police repression and militant, determined protesters -- led to the first general strike in Oakland, California since 1946. The strike was called in response to police hitting Iraq veteran and former Marine Scott Olsen in the face with a tear gas canister as they cleared out Oakland’s occupation on the orders of Democratic Mayor Jean Quan and in consultation with federal law enforcement agencies. Occupy Oakland is now calling for another general strike up and down the West Coast on December 12 in reply to the nationwide crackdown on local occupations.

Lessons of OWS
OWS succeeded where traditional protests failed for a variety of reasons, one of the most important being the fact it was not conventional; it was not a single-issue, single-event protest, unlike almost all previous efforts by progressives in the U.S. over the last three decades. There was no end date or end game by design.

Because OWS was designed as an open-ended, ongoing event, refusing to adopt a formal set of demands was extremely wise. It allowed every person, organization, and cause to bring their own demands and shape OWS’s message and avoided the pitfalls that come with making demands, namely having them ignored, ridiculed, picked apart, or co-opted by the 1% or failing to include demands important to some specific section of the 99%. People and the corporate media were both drawn to this seemingly new phenomenon of a protest without demands, an action without goals.

Many people in Occupy feel deeply and instinctively that making a formal list of demands is the first step to defeat because such a list will be used as a yardstick to judge our success or failure. All the 1% has to do is point out the fact that our demands have not been met and people will feel defeated, that marching is pointless, just as we did in 2003 when the government invaded Iraq despite our best efforts. The invasion of Iraq was a fatal blow to the anti-war movement because our central demand meant zero in the big scheme of things.

Back then, people felt defeated, demoralized, and stayed home, but they also began to learn something important: showing up, yelling, waving signs, and going home is not going to cut it. It took years of organizing around other issues and other events for that lesson to really sink in and become the strategic, tactical, and practical basis for organizing.

The important thing is not how long it took to learn this but the fact that it happened.

A second important lesson of OWS is that determined, bold, and peaceful action is more important than lists of demands, formal politics, or theoretically consistent ideas about strategy and tactics. Much of the skepticism from existing progressive organizations during the first month of OWS centered around the fact that OWS had no discernible demands, no clear strategy to win change (lobbying, strikes, boycotts, elections), and no formal leadership. All of these alleged weaknesses were actually strengths, making it all but impossible for politicians and other established or

OWS succeeded above all else because of the willingness of first hundreds, now hundreds of thousands, to act, to stand up, to fight, to protest, to speak, to Occupy. French military genius Napolean Bonaparte described his method as “first engage, and then see,” and this is exactly what Occupy did.

In this respect and unknowingly OWS followed in the footsteps of the Black Panther Party for Self-Defense. The comparison seems implausible but some of the underlying, methodological similarities are undeniable.

The Panthers developed a mass following in the 1960s not because millions of blacks read the party’s 10-Point Program and clamored to sign up but because the Panthers took bold action to meet the pressing needs of their community. One of their first initiatives was to follow police patrols in California with a rifle slung over one shoulder and a law hand to police the police, to make sure the cops were following the law when they dealt with blacks. Similarly, the Panthers marched with arms on the California legislature when it began to consider repealing the law that allowed them to carry rifles in public.

“Practice is the criteria for truth,” as the Panthers used to say. Their militant actions and the spirit of defiance underpinning them earned the Panthers the respect of the Black community and legions of eager followers who were literally willing to put their lives on the line to win their people freedom, justice, and equality. They were the vanguard.

Both OWS and the Panthers took bold, peaceful action and exploited legal loopholes so that when the police moved against them, the cops did so unlawfully.

The last element that led to OWS’s success was changing the target from Bloomberg to Wall Street. Bloombergville did not ignite a mass movement because there was no simmering anger among New Yorkers at the mayor, who until recently enjoyed high approval ratings despite his budget cuts, his fortune, and his union-busting. On the other hand, Wall Street is about as popular as Casey Anthony, and the aftermath of the 2008 bailouts has seen more budget cuts, more layoffs, more tuition increases, more foreclosures, more unemployment for the 99% and bigger bonuses and fatter paychecks regulation for the 1%.

Targeting Wall Street instead of Bloomberg completely altered the strategic calculus of the occupy tactic, providing it with the possibility of connecting with the anger of New Yorkers and the country at large that built up for years on end with no outlet until now.

Bold action against the right target using flexible, unconventional tactics is the secret of OWS’s success, but this recipe is not really a secret. Any close look at the history of movements in this country, from the underground railroad in the 1800s to the occupations of segregated in lunch counters in the 1960s, will reveal the same constituent elements.
 
Pham Binh’s articles have been published by Occupied Wall Street Journal, The Indypendent, Asia Times Online, Znet, and Counterpunch. His other writings can be found at www.planetanarchy.net and soon thenorthstar.info, a collaborative blog by and for occupiers.


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