by Zelig Stern
from The Big Red Apple
Con Edison was once a model of stability. Prior to deregulation of the industry, it delivered electricity at a reasonable rate to millions of New Yorkers. Then, in 1998, as part of a global trend of privatization and deregulation, private investors completed a process of buying out smaller companies and created the nation's largest privately-owned energy company - Consolidated Edison Inc. I felt the effects of this private company this month, when I received an ominous note attached to my monthly bill entitled “New Electric Rates Effective May 1, 2009.”

It seems that the Public Service Commission approved an increase to Con Edison’s electric-delivery service rate. The average New Yorker will now be paying an additional $6 a month, only a year since the last hike of $4.25. These hikes coincide with an approval from Albany for the natural gas delivery company National Grid to raise their monthly rates an average of $6 per customer. New York City residents also face a 40% hike in water rates since 2006 as well as the MTA fare hikes. Between the economic crisis and the various rate hikes, Con Edison’s higher costs could be enough to make thousands of New Yorkers choose between skipping meals and paying their bills.

The commissioner of the Public Service Commission claims to empathize with Con Edison’s customers, “We are always concerned about the impacts on rate payers of any rate increase, but today’s decision is particularly difficult… Unemployment has risen and consumers are having difficulty paying their bills.” But the rate hike does only one thing – increase Con Edison’s revenue to $721 million. Why then would the Public Service Commission endorse such an action?


Part of the answer lies in the current fiscal crises in the State and City. Legislators are dealing with budget deficits by cutting public services desperately needed by working class and poor New Yorkers. Even these sharp cuts have not been enough to fill the budget gap so they have resorted to increasing property taxes, including those on utilities such as Con Edison. This seems like a fair way to shift the burden on those most able to pay, but Con Edison and the Public Service Commission seem to disagree. $239 million of the revenue generated by the rate hike is justified by the Public Service Commission to cover the increased property taxes. This is just another way in which the burden of the economic crisis is shifted to the already over burdened working class and poor.

The latest rate hikes are indicative of a larger pattern of behavior that Con Edison has displayed since deregulation in 1998. The quality of service has decreased, prices have gone up, and the exploitation of Con Edison workers has increased. This is made clear through Con Edison’s attempt to create divisions between workers and consumers by listing employee pensions as a motivation for the rate hike. Last year after intense negotiations, Con Edison was able to win concessions from the Utility Workers Union of America Local 1-2 to reduce employee benefits. In exchange Con Edison agree to allow the employees to keep their traditional pensions and not switch to 401(k)s. Now, the company is trying to pass off even the small gains by the workers onto the customers in the form of rate hikes.

Another aspect of for-profit energy is the declining quality of service. In 2006, Con Edison’s poor service resulted the massive week-long blackout in Queens. The black out particularly affected the sick and elderly. For example, 72-year-old Iris Long was recovering from a triple bypass surgery when the black out hit. She later testified that the black out contributed to chest pain and vocal chord problems: “I felt it was hindering my recovery, ” she said. In 2005, stray voltage killed a woman after she stepped on an electrified plate. In 2007 an 83 year-old steam pipe burst in Midtown resulting in the death of one person and 40 injuries. These are just a few of the extreme examples of the effects of privatization, but the decreased quality of service is evident in Con Edison’s slow response time to everyday complaints and lack of customer service.

Con Edison is a clear example that the mentality of “privatization and deregulation” has to go. Since it consolidated its private monopoly of power distribution, it has not operated in order to provide New Yorker’s with the electricity they need at a reasonable price or to provide its workers with a decent salary and benefits. Instead, Con Edison operates with the good of its shareholders in mind. As a result, New Yorkers are scraping to pay their bills, employees are losing benefits, and the public is being endangered, while executives and stockholders’ wealth is on the rise.

In contrast to the privatization model, Electric companies should be operated as well regulated public utilities with the interest of workers and consumers in mind, NOT in the interests of business executives and stockholders. Revenues above running costs should be returned to the customer and public utilities should be subject to democratic local control by the people affected by their actions.

It seems, however, that this will be long struggle. Con Edison has publicly stated its plans for next year - another $6 rate hike! It should be clear by now that privatization has not delivered the juice for New Yorkers.

by Stewart A. Alexander
from Stewart Alexander Cares

May 22, 2009

The corporate media asked the question, “Where is socialism working today?” Socialists are asking the question, “Where is capitalism working today?” Since the 2008 General Election, the corporate media is making the argument for socialists nationwide; Washington and capitalism is in shambles.

Since President Barack Obama took office in January, the U.S. economy has gone from bad to worst. Nationwide, home foreclosures continue to climb, consumer spending is down due to the credit crisis, more than 6 million Americans remain unemployed, and while paychecks are shrinking, inflation and gas prices are on the increase. The U.S. economy and capitalism is in a total mess.

In January of this year, President Obama received the balance of the $700 billion stimulus that Congress approved on the urgent request of the Bush administration; however, with the $350 billion balance of the $700 billion, and $787 billion added to the pot, President Obama is still asking Congress for more.

The president has introduced an oversized budget of $3.6 trillion that has baffled the economic experts; and the 2009 budget has ballooned to a whopping $1.8 trillion deficit. While the president is asking Congress to approve his 2010 budget, there is little evidence that any creation of jobs will keep pace with the escalating numbers in unemployment

Already the 2010 budget will promise more red ink; beginning in October, the 2010 budget is projected to have a $1.3 trillion deficit. It is likely that the deficit will rise as the occupation expands in Afghanistan, and the cost for bank failures and unemployment benefits creates a demand for additional deficit spending.

With ballooning deficits and deficits spending, the nation’s health care crisis has already left nearly 50 million Americans without health care coverage, and as unemployment climbs to record levels, millions more will be without medical coverage. Also, as millions of baby boomers enter retirement, the nation’s health care crisis will worsen. It is already estimated that Medicare may be depleted by 2017.

The job market has also prevented the housing market from gaining any traction during this recession. As the unemployment numbers approach double digits, it is estimated that more than 2 million Americans will lose their homes to foreclosure in 2009. Banks and financial institutions have remained reluctant to loan money on homes and automobiles while the unemployment numbers remain high.

As of today, the only solutions that President Obama and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi are offering to get the nation back to work and to stimulate the economy is to spend more and more money. Unfortunately, the Obama administration and House Speaker Pelosi are relying on unrealistic assumptions that the red ink spending will payoff and the economy will rebound near the end of 2009 or the beginning of 2010. The Obama administration is also making the assumption that with a growing economy, revenues will be up thereby reducing the huge deficits.

Socialists are dismissing all of this to wishful thinking. Socialists believe the economic model for the nation must change from capitalism to a democratic socialist economy; a change from a “free market” economy that is based on competition and profit, to a system that is based upon assuring that the basic human needs of all are met. Socialist Party USA, a nationwide socialist party, says “Socialism will establish a new social and economic order in which workers and community members will take responsibility for and control of their interpersonal relationships, their neighborhoods, their local government, and the production and distribution of all goods and services.”

The capitalists have nothing to say to their credit because capitalism in America and the world has suffered one setback after another since the Great Depression of 1929; and the recession of 2009 will likely rival or possibly over shadow the economic crisis of the 1930s and trivialize the gains of capitalism during the past 80 years.

For more information, search the Web for Stewart A. Alexander

from NYC Local of the Socialist Party USA

Socialist Party USA, NYC Local Calls for Swift Action by New York City to Combat Swine Flu Outbreak

Wednesday, May 20, 2009

New York, NY - During his Tuesday, May 19th, 2009 press conference New York City Mayor, Michael Bloomberg urged New York City residents exhibiting Swine Flu symptoms to seek medical attention regardless of their immigration or health insurance coverage status. However, Mayor Bloomberg and the New York City Department of Health failed to address the medical bills the city’s uninsured will incur by taking their advice. The Mayor fails to address the serious problems many residents face in accessing healthcare. The Socialist Party USA, NYC Local (SPNYC) calls on the Mayor and Department of Health to address the Swine Flu outbreak with swift actions that protect all New Yorkers.

The SPNYC calls for free distribution of free distribution of all preventative materials, the opening of free testing centers at all NYC public hospitals, a moratorium on billing for all swine flu related medical care, and the free distribution of Tamiflu and other swine flue treatments. Enacting this plan will provide all New Yorkers with healthcare necessary to treat the Swine Flu. Combatting the Swine Flu is about treatment not just containment.

According to a New York 1 report, New Yorkers seeking testing for the Swine Flu have been turned away from New York City hospitals because currently only the Department of Health can administer Swine Flu tests. Instead, people are being urged to treat their symptoms as they would the typical flu-- with rest and fluids. This response, in conjunction with the countless New Yorkers not seeking medical attention due to lack of health insurance, does not adequately address the public health threat posed by the outbreak.

“Access to healthcare is no problem for a billionaire like Michael Bloomberg,” says Billy Wharton, Chairperson of the Socialist Party of New York State, “for the rest of us hospital visits mean facing medical bills and debt. The seriousness of this outbreak requires that access to medical care be provided to all New Yorkers.” Therefore, SPNYC calls on the Mayor to respond directly to the threat by enacting a comprehensive public health initiative.
###
For more information and interviews contact:
socialistpartynyc(@)gmail.com

Socialist Party USA, NYC Local is a democratic socialist organization that believes that the vast wealth of society should be used to fulfill human needs.

from Wikipedia
Miles Dewey Davis III (May 26, 1926 – September 28, 1991) was an American jazz trumpeter, bandleader, and composer.

Widely considered one of the most influential musicians of the 20th century, Davis was at the forefront of almost every major development in jazz from World War II to the 1990s: he played on various early bebop records and recorded one of the first cool jazz records; he was partially responsible for the development of hard bop and modal jazz, and both jazz-funk and jazz fusion arose from his work with other musicians in the late 1960s and early 1970s; and his final album blended jazz and rap. Many leading jazz musicians made their names in Davis's groups, including: Joe Zawinul, Chick Corea and Herbie Hancock, saxophonists John Coltrane, Julian "Cannonball" Adderley, Gerry Mulligan, Wayne Shorter, George Coleman, and Kenny Garrett, drummer Tony Williams and guitarist John McLaughlin.

As a trumpeter, Davis had a pure, round sound but also an unusual freedom of articulation and pitch. He was known for favoring a low register and for a minimalist less-is-more playing style, but Davis was also capable of highly complex and technically demanding trumpet work.

On March 13, 2006, Davis was posthumously inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. He has also been inducted into the St. Louis Walk of Fame, Big Band and Jazz Hall of Fame, and Down Beat's Jazz Hall of Fame.

In his career, Davis earned the rare stature of being recognizable only by his first name; thus he was popularly known simply as Miles.

Socialists are popping up all across the country these days. Last year, new Socialist Party USA locals were organized in Kansas, Tennessee, Oklahoma and South Dakota. It is now spring time for socialists in Central Virginia! This weekend socialists gathered in Charlottesville, Virginia to organize the Central Virginia local of the Socialist Party USA. The Socialist Webzine welcomes our new local and encourages our readers who are not yet organized to join the movement for democratic socialism. Working together we have a world to win!

>Click on this text to view episode 5 of the monumental public television series We Shall Remain. This episode documents the activities of the American Indian Movement during their 1973 takeover of Wounded Knee.

from Think Progress

President Barack Obama has nominated a lawyer for the nation’s largest toxic polluters to run the enforcement of the nation’s environmental laws. On Tuesday, Obama “announced his intent to nominate” Ignacia S. Moreno to be Assistant Attorney General for the Environment and Natural Resources Division in the Department of Justice. Moreno, general counsel for that department during the Clinton administration, is now the corporate environmental counsel for General Electric, “America’s #1 Superfund Polluter“:

Number five in the Fortune 500 with revenues of $89.3 billion and earnings of $8.2 billion in 1997, General Electric has been a leader in the effort to roll back the Superfund law and stave off any requirements for full cleanup and restoration of sites they helped create.

This February, General Electric lost an eight-year battle to “prove that parts of the Superfund law are unconstitutional.” One of the 600-person DOJ environmental division’s “primary responsibilities is to enforce federal civil and criminal environmental laws such as” the Clean Air Act, Clean Water Act, the Safe Drinking Water Act, and the Superfund.

Before General Electric, Moreno worked as a corporate attorney at Spriggs and Hollingsworth. Moreno’s name is found in the Westlaw database as an attorney defending General Motors in another Superfund case, the GM Powertrain facility in Bedford, Indiana:

Historical uses and management of PCB containing hydraulic oils and PCB impacted materials has contaminated on-site areas as well as the sediment and floodplain soil within Bailey’s Branch and the Pleasant Run Creek watershed.

Although General Motors entered into an agreement in 2001 with the EPA to clean up the site, a number of local residents whose land has been contaminated by polychorinated biphenyls (PCBs) have sued for damages in Allgood v. GM (now Barlow v. GM), in a contentious and caustic dispute over cleanup, monitoring, and lost property values.

During the Clinton administration, Moreno was involved in another controversial case, unsuccessfully defending the Secretary of Commerce’s decision to weaken the dolphin-safe tuna standard. In Brower v. Daley, Earth Island Institute, The Humane Society of the United States, and other individuals and organizations brought suit against the United States government for actions that were “arbitrary, capricious, an abuse of discretion, and contrary to law,” winning their case in 2000.

from the Real Food Challenge

The Berkeley Student Food Cooperative (BSFC) was built out of a desire to offer an alternative to Panda Express – something that was student-owned, community-based, and a truly healthy and sustainable part of our food system. A group of dedicated students have developed a business plan and won over $100,000 in grants toward the creation of the BSFC, with hopes of opening our doors in the fall. The BSFC will provide fresh, healthy, environmentally sustainable, and ethically produced food at an affordable price to Berkeley students, using the Real Food guidelines as our purchasing standard. It is a member-worker owned fresh grocer, cafe and deli aimed at addressing current economic and health concerns, as well as global climate change and local student community involvement and leadership. It will highlight the human element in the food system through true collaboration with local farmers, other cooperatives, and our community.

So how did Berkeley students take down Panda Express? Read the motivating story of their battle, submitted by Alli Reed, a co-founder of the Berkeley Student Food Cooperative (alli.a.reed@gmail.com).

Two years ago, Panda Express approached the UC Berkeley Store Operations Board (SOB) for the first time. They were interested in being the first fast-food chain in Lower Sproul, which was the site of much of the free speech movement activism in the ‘60s and is a historically significant part of UC Berkeley. Through some shady back-door negotiations, Panda Express and the SOB began working out a contract. In fall 2008, students became aware of this unhealthy and unsustainable corporate chain’s attempt to brand our campus and launched an anti-Panda campaign. That semester, a petition against Panda Express received over 500 signatures, and the Daily Cal, our campus newspaper, started covering the issue.

Student momentum began to really pick up in February 2009, as several highly motivated students focused their efforts and began a vigorous multi-faceted campaign. We gained widespread visibility through an article on the front page of the Bay Area section of the San Francisco Chronicle, which covered a protest in front of an existing Panda Express. We made formal demands of Panda Express, including that they adhere completely to the Real Food guidelines, and we let them know we would not back down. We spoke in classrooms, in house dinners, in student group meetings to let people know what was up. We spent countless hours researching and preparing our arguments against Panda Express. We came out in record numbers to the Store Operations Board meetings. We harnessed student power and made sure the SOB knew we wouldn’t stand for this.

On April 14, the SOB voted on whether or not to let Panda Express into our community. Students presented impeccably researched arguments, detailing the problems with Panda: it’s unhealthy, it’s unsustainable, the money students spend wouldn’t stay in the community, it’s branding a historically un-branded space, and it’s cheapening our incredible university when we have an opportunity to do something really visionary. We also relayed our research from SOB minutes, proving that the shady dealings of Panda Express were in violation of SOB bylaws. After months of work, the Store Operations Board voted against the current Panda Express contract 5-4 – and then immediately re-opened negotiations by tweaking the contract slightly.

Despite this blow, we didn’t give up. We came to the May 5 SOB meeting with new arguments and the same passion and student power. This time it paid off: the Store Operations Board made a motion to end all negotiations with Panda Express and this motion passed 6-3. Immediately after, a motion was made to open the space in Lower Sproul (the one Panda had wanted) to Request for Proposals, looking for a new business that would reflect our values. This motion passed as well.

May 5 was an incredibly powerful day for us. That day, we learned how much power we have. Panda Express was Goliath, with its 1200 stores and its projections of $1,000,000 in yearly revenue and its staff whose sole job was to make sure Panda Express got into Berkeley. We were David, with some passionate students studying SOB meeting minutes and calling friends and dancing in panda suits in between classes. All we did was tell them what we wanted and show them that we had some serious student power, and they listened. They had to listen. For anyone who tells you that you can’t, that you’re just a student and you should stay in your place, this victory is proof that we are powerful. As the Chinese proverb goes: “Those who say it can’t be done should get out of the way of those doing it.”

Here is a video about the 4th Street Food Co-op in NYC:

by Gudrun Harrer
from the Monthly Review Zine

Tariq Ali says in an interview with Der Standard: To continue its war in Afghanistan, the US accepts the risk of destabilizing Pakistan. But only a regional diplomatic approach can help.

STANDARD: How would you evaluate the danger often invoked today that Pakistan is collapsing and its nuclear weapons may fall into the hands of extremists?

Tariq Ali: Much of that is alarmist rumor, with which Washington wants to put pressure on the Pakistani army. The nuclear weapons are well guarded by the army. There is no danger that extremists could seize them. It would be only dangerous if there were a split in the Pakistani army -- which won't happen if the US doesn't further escalate the war in Pakistan.

What we are seeing is that the war in Afghanistan is going terribly awry and that the US believes that the solution for it is in Pakistan -- but the solution lies in Afghanistan itself, for which the NATO must find an exit strategy. It's dangerous to expand the war on Pakistan.

STANDARD: For the US government, are the Taliban and Al Qaeda still more or less the same? What do you think?

Ali: That's crazy -- completely wrong. Al Qaeda today is a tiny group. The Neo-Taliban in contrast embody the resistance against the occupation of Afghanistan, increasingly representing the Pashtun tribes as the Pashtun resistance. The intelligence advisers of US President Barack Obama know that, too. Yet, for public consumption, they lump them all together. Besides, they have been negotiating with the Taliban for a year, but the Taliban don't want to be part of an Afghan government as long as Afghanistan is occupied.

STANDARD: In Pakistan, the government first hands over the Swat Valley to the Taliban, and then it wages an aggressive military offensive against them. What's behind it?

Ali: In the military there are many who are opposed to killing their own people. Many soldiers refuse to fight or to complete a second tour. The top military brass know that, and so do various Pakistani Taliban factions. One of them, that of Baitullah Massoud, is very close to the military. How could we otherwise explain the fact that he visits Islamabad, attends festivities, acts as a politician -- and nobody does anything against him? The military faces a political problem: they know that the US and its allies will not stay forever, and they know that they will then have to clear up the mess. So why should they completely alienate the people they need when the time comes?

On the other hand, the military must show the US that they are doing something -- and they also get money for it, of course. So, they kill people and destroy villages -- they have already created half a million refugees -- and then they send the bill to the Central Command in Florida.

STANDARD: In essence, Obama is taking Bush's "War on Terror" further, even though it's no longer called that.

Ali: As far as AfPak -- Afghanistan and Pakistan -- is concerned, Obama is worse, because he is escalating the war. Nobody in Washington can tell me what its purpose, the real war aim, is. What do they want? They want to withdraw from Afghanistan -- only not immediately. But the longer they stay, the worse it gets. I have told Obama advisers: To continue the occupation of a country of 24 million people, you are ready to destabilize a country of 180 million. We will pay dearly for that. You need an exit strategy. Only the regional powers can help stabilize the region, you should involve them.

STANDARD: You have mentioned the secret talks with the Taliban, that is Pashtun tribal representatives -- that is reminiscent of how the US bought off the former insurgent Sunni tribes in Iraq. It helped for a while - but it has brought new problems.

Ali: The big difference is that in Iraq they have used one group to fight against another. But in Afghanistan there is only one group fighting against the US. And this group represents increasing portions of the population. What we need in Afghanistan is a coalition government, in which all sectors of society are represented and which is guaranteed by Pakistan, Russia, and Iran and, in the best case, India and China as well. That just might work.

Tariq Ali, editor of New Left Review, is the author, most recently, of The Duel: Pakistan on the Flight Path of American Power. The original interview "'Niemand in Washington kann das Kriegsziel nennen'" was published by Der Standard on 11 May 2009. Translation by Yoshie Furuhashi.

from Wikipedia
Malcolm X (born Malcolm Little; May 19, 1925 – February 21, 1965), also known as El-Hajj Malik El-Shabazz, was an African-American Muslim minister, public speaker, and human rights activist. To his admirers, he was a courageous advocate for the rights of African Americans, a man who indicted white America in the harshest terms for its crimes against black Americans. His detractors accused him of preaching racism and violence. He has been described as one of the greatest and most influential African Americans in history.

Malcolm X was born in Omaha, Nebraska. By the time he was 13, his father had died and his mother had been committed to a mental hospital. His childhood, including his father's lessons concerning black pride and self-reliance and his own experiences concerning race, played a significant role in Malcolm X's adult life. After living in a series of foster homes, Malcolm X became involved in the criminal underworld in Boston and New York. In 1945, Malcolm X was sentenced to eight to ten years in prison.

While in prison, Malcolm X became a member of the Nation of Islam. After his parole in 1952, he became one of the Nation's leaders and chief spokesmen. For nearly a dozen years, he was the public face of the Nation of Islam. Tension between Malcolm X and Elijah Muhammad, head of the Nation of Islam, led to Malcolm X's departure from the organization in March 1964.

After leaving the Nation of Islam, Malcolm X became a Sunni Muslim and made a pilgrimage to Mecca. He traveled extensively throughout Africa and the Middle East. He founded Muslim Mosque, Inc., a religious organization, and the secular, black nationalist Organization of Afro-American Unity. Less than a year after he left the Nation of Islam, Malcolm X was assassinated while giving a speech in New York.

by Donna Smith
from MR Zine

5 May 2009 -- It has finally happened right here in the United States. Citizens who believe healthcare is a human right have been arrested and are being processed like criminals through the Southeast District of Columbia police station. Their crime? Asking for single payer healthcare reform -- publicly funded, privately delivered healthcare -- to be discussed during the Congressional hearings on reform.

Doctors and other single payer activists were handcuffed and went to jail today speaking up for single payer to be at the table in the Senate Finance Committee's roundtable discussion on healthcare access and coverage. In stark contrast, Karen Ignagni, head of the industry lobby group America's Health Insurance Plans (AHIP), was escorted into the room like royalty by staff members of the Senate committee. Clearly, the position of the United States Senate is not with the majority of Americans who support a national, public insurance system.

It made me physically ill to see Maryland pediatrician Margaret Flowers cuffed like a criminal and pushed out the door as the Senators waited to begin their staged roundtable discussion. It made me want to scream. It made me proud of them for being bold but ashamed that not one Senator spoke up for their own citizen-protestors and asked that they at least be allowed to speak. But the insistence that the citizens rising in protest be arrested continued from the chair with each incident.

Simply asking to have single payer be included and fully vetted is a crime. Profiting as the for-profit health insurance companies do at the expense of 22,000 American lives every year, however, gets you a run of the table in this healthcare reform discussion. Just ask the Senators who are drafting what this nation's health system will look like -- and watch their behavior today -- if you want evidence of how your voice will be heard in the process.

The protestors were stoic and respectful but direct. One by one they stood. One by one they asked why single payer reform was not 'at the table' of 15 witnesses Senator Max Baucus and his Finance Committee gathered to map out what sort of coverage Americans might expect in the Senate reform bill now being crafted.

Sen. Baucus eventually spoke and indicated that he was respectful of those who believe in single payer -- as he acknowledged many of his constituents in Montana do -- but he made no attempt to explain why no single payer voice has been included in any Senate discussion to date. He urged any others in the audience who might have any designs on speaking up like the protestors did to not do so, and then he moved on to his roundtable discussion.

The press seated comfortably at the press table first looked amused and then puzzled by the procession of protest in the chamber. The C-SPAN cameras fixed on both the Committee's table at the front of the room and the witness table directly across from them could have easily picked up the protests but the network chose to keep their cameras fixed only on Chairman Baucus -- though the protestors' words could be heard in the audience. Only two reporters of the 20 or so assembled were curious enough or industrious enough to rise and exit the room to see the arrests being carried out in the hallway.

While neither the Finance Committee nor the press allowed their proceedings to be disrupted for very long, the air in the room and the atmosphere had changed -- the giddy and gleeful assembly of industry lobbyists who had been chattering in rapt anticipation of the coming of their carefully chosen witnesses could not deny that some brave and patriotic fellow citizens had just been hauled out for arrest for nothing more than demanding that a point of view held by a majority of patients, nurses, physicians, and other healthcare providers be included in the national discussion.

While this Congress may pass something very different than single payer reform, it will not do so without hearing the cries of the people left so openly exposed to personal health and financial ruin by the corrupt system that celebrates only profit. The citizens who stood for the thousands and thousands of dead today will not let this democracy give itself completely over to the big money interests in healthcare. Not without a fight. Not on their lives or yours or mine.

This article was first published by Healthcare-NOW on 5 May 2009.

by Jessica Lee
from The Indypendent

“While my son was deployed to Afghanistan in 2003 I awoke from nightmares almost every single night: the knock on the door, uniformed military personnel on the doorstep, ‘We’re sorry to inform you…,’ images of my son disabled like the soldier in Johnny Got His gun, bombs raining on a family’s home while a mother screamed out her children’s names,” writes mother and activist Susan Galleymore in her new book released May 10, Long time Passing: Mothers Speak About War And Terror (Pluto Press).

Mother’s Day is a day we are told to honor our mother, to cook her breakfast, send flowers, buy her gifts. It is a day we are supposed to focus in on our own mother, rather than outward on all mothers around the world.

Galleymore began to question what it meant to be a mother when her son signed up with the U.S. Army. As her son crossed oceans and borders with the military, her life immediately became connected to the mothers of Iraq and Afghanistan. “… from the perspective of a mother with an enlisted child, I felt a sudden rush of astonishment and energy: How could we mothers allow this to happen — how could we have allowed it throughout history?” Galleymore writes.

In 2004, Galleymore defied her son’s wishes and journeyed to Iraq to visit him at Camp Anacanda, one of the largest U.S. military bases in the world located 40 miles north of Baghdad. She said she had to see her son, and that as a mother, no one was going to stop her. She joined a trip to Iraq organized by the womens’ peace group CODEPINK. During her visit, she began interviewing Iraqi mothers. Life under the occupation was unbearable.

One woman “Widjan” detailed her cesarean birth in a dirty, understaffed hospital and how the medicine the doctors used was from her own personal stash. When the electricity shut off, the operation continued in candlelight.

Another Iraqi mother, Anwar, described how U.S. troops fired into her family’s car at 9:30pm Aug. 7, 2003, killing her husband and three children. Her 10-year-old daughter Abir fell out of the car and was left for dead. Barely alive, she remembered how a female U.S. soldier kicked her foot, then bent down and stole her gold earrings.

Galleymore took on a project of interviewing mothers throughout Iraq, Palestine, Israel, Afghanistan and Syria. While she doesn’t offer any recent stories, in a way it does not matter. The stories the mothers tell — despite the names, dates and facts — are timeless in their depth of rage, compassion and pain.

In a Mother’s Day video statement by Michelle Obama issued May 10 throughout the Armed Forces Network and partner channels, she directly addresses military mothers:

“Hi, this is Michelle Obama and I wanted to wish all the mothers out there a happy Mother’s Day. Know that we love you, that we’re praying for you and we hope that you enjoy this day. Take care,” she says in the spot.

It seems a superficial message given that U.S. mothers are still grieving for the 1,145 soldiers killed in Afghanistan since 2001 and the 4,287 killed in Iraq since 2003 (Three names have yet to be released because the U.S. Department of Defense is contacting their families). And mothers throughout the country are caring for the tens of thousands of sons and daughters who have returned from war with physical or psychological injuries, including post-traumatic stress disorder. Hopefully this Mother’s Day, 134,000 mothers received warm messages from soldiers stationed in Iraq and another 38,000 mothers from their children serving in Afghanistan.

And it is difficult to comprehend how mothers in Iraq must feel after five years of occupation, the death of hundreds of thousands of people and the two to four million who have fled the country.

“Another worry for all Iraqi women is that so many Iraqi men have been killed in these wars…” said Baghdad resident Eman Ahmed Khammas in a 2004 interview with Galleymore. “Many smart, well0educated, loving women in our country will not marry and have families because of the lack of men. It is a tragedy that will affect our country for a long time.”

From the White House on Mother’s Day, President Obama had the audacity to highlight the names of two prominent women in the history of the holiday while he continues to fund military operations in Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Somalia, Israel/Palestine, Colombia and Mexico, just to name a few.

“The time-honored tradition of recognizing mothers grew out of the imagination of a few bold women. Julia Ward Howe, composer of ‘The Battle Hymn of the Republic,’ urged mothers to advocate for peace through a day dedicated to them. After her own mother passed away, Anna Jarvis sought to recognize the great influence mothers have on society,” Obama said in a Mother’s Day Proclamation May 8.

Before President Woodrow Wilson declared the first U.S. formal Mother’s Day in 1914, women had been organizing for decades around peace, health, equality and community. In West Virginia during the 1850s, Ann Maria Reeves Jarvis organized “Mothers’ Work Days” to improve sanitation and share healthcare resources in local communities.

When the Civil War broke out, mothers organized and helped within both Union and Confederate camps, tending to the wounded and the dead. With more than 600,000 of their people dead, U.S. mothers knew they never again wanted a war to tear their families apart and shred their children and husbands. Mothers’ Friendship Days were established by mothers in 1865 to bring the two sides together.

Still shaken from the Civil War and witnessing war rise again in the Franco-Prussian War, feminist, peace and civil rights activist Julia Ward Howe took action in 1870 calling for women to rise up across borders and oppose all war. In her “Mother’s Day Proclamation,” she stated:

“We will not have great questions decided by irrelevant agencies/ Our husbands will not come to us, reeking with carnage, for caresses and applause. Our sons shall not be taken from us to unlearn/ All that we have been able to teach them of charity, mercy and patience. We, the women of one country, will be too tender of those of another country/ To allow our sons to be trained to injure theirs. From the bosom of the devastated Earth a voice goes up with our own. It says: “Disarm! Disarm! The sword of murder is not the balance of justice.”

Every day should be a day to honor our mothers and grandmothers, but the holiday needs to be reclaimed in the name of peace. In an act of apostrophe misplacement, we have forgotten the history of Mothers’ Day.

It has been long argued by historians how, and when, the apostrophe change altered the meaning of the holiday. From the feminist and politics Blog Hoyden About Town, writer Tigtog took up the issue in 2006.

“See the difference that apostrophe position makes? Mother’s Day is a day where you do stuff for your mum: sentimental, sweet and ultimately trivial. An inward-focused family centered event. Mothers’ Days were a gathering of mothers, time spent together for mutual reflection, when mothers en masse might mobilize politically, which when it occurs is rarely trivial at all. An outward-looking society-focused event. … What this shows is that between the Mothers’ Friendship Days of 1865 and the Mother’s Day Proclamation of 1914, common usage (or deliberately inculcated and disseminated trivialization) had shifted that apostrophe from the power of a mothers’ collective action day to the sentimentality of honoring “motherhood,” a conveniently numinous term, and this was now enshrined in law.”

If we want to honor our mothers, we all need to take up action to help care for all mothers.

More than 145 years since mothers brought a nation back together, Galleymore is just one of the many mothers trying to make sense out of the Iraq War, the “War on Terrorism,” and aggressive and undemocratic U.S. foreign policy around the world.

Nurit Peled-Elhanan might have said it best in her 2004 interview with Galleymore about her role as an Israeli mother.

“Mothers have always been rebellious. In the bible, in Greek mythology, there is always a mother who defies authority. The Talmud described mothers as prophets, because they looked ahead and understood what would happen to the children, then the defied — or lied to — their king or husband. … We have to blame those who send them [soldiers] to war and the war-supporting mothers.”

—
Some Resources for Women Peace Groups (very incomplete list):

Women in Black
Organization of Women’s Freedom in Iraq
CODEPINK
MomsRising
Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom
Revolutionary Association of Afghan Women
Madre
Global Fund for Women

by Barbara Ehrenreich
from Common Dreams

In most parts of the world, mass unemployment brings the specter of mass social unrest. Not in the U.S., though, where 13 million people have accepted joblessness with nary a peep of protest.

Many reasons -- from Prozac to Pentecostalism -- have been cited to explain American passivity in the face of economic violence. But the truth might be far simpler: In America, being unemployed doesn't mean you have nothing to do but run around burning police cars. Unemployment has been reconfigured as a new form of work.

Nowhere is this clearer than in the white-collar world, where the laid-off are constantly advised to see job searching as a full-time job. As business self-help guru Harvey Mackay advises: "Once you're fired, you already have a job. The job you have is tougher than the last one. It's more demanding." How demanding? He says you need to "plan on 12 to 16 hours a day."

Picture it: People across America rising at the usual time, suiting up in full corporate regalia and setting themselves down at their laptops to fiddle with resumes, peruse Monster.com and pester everyone on their address lists for leads.

Some people no doubt have found jobs in this manner, but there have been no scientific comparisons of the technique with, say, printing a resume on a sandwich board and parading around Times Square.

If there is something familiar in the image of laid-off workers soldiering on, it may be because of films such as "Tokyo Sonata" and the 2001 French film, "Time Out," in which the heroes -- laid-off executives -- conceal their status from their families and continue to mime the daily ritual of going to work. In the movies, this behavior seems pathetic -- a case of terminal denial -- but it's exactly what the American "transition industry" of career coaches and outplacement companies recommends: If you don't have a job, fake one.

In real life, it's OK for a man to tell his wife he's lost his job; he should just never reveal that he has time on his hands. A February article in The New York Times featured a laid-off Illinois man who justified his refusal to do more around the house by saying, "As one of the people who runs one of the career centers I've been to told me: 'You're out of a job, but it's not your time to paint the house and fix the car. Your job is about finding the next job.' "

At the kinky extreme, laid-off white-collar people are advised to simulate the office environment further by finding someone to play the part of a "boss" -- a spouse, a friend, a paid career coach -- to whom you report every few days on your progress.

Is it any wonder there's no time left for lobbying for universal health insurance or reading Marxist tracts on the "reserve army of the unemployed"? It's all a person can do to keep up with the relentless pressures of an imaginary job.

The blue-collar unemployed are subjected to gerbil-like exercises of their own. While white-collar layoff victims are encouraged to polish the "brand called you," blue-collar people are told they have nothing to offer unless they start all over with "retraining." Hence, in part, the current surge in community college enrollments.

But in his 2006 book "The Disposable American: Layoffs and Their Consequences," Louis Uchitelle raised the obvious question: "Retraining for what?" At the beginning of the decade, computer skills were all the rage; then the low-level computer work vanished to India. Air-conditioner repairing is popular right now, and big-rig truck driving is a perennial favorite. There are no guarantees, of course, of eventual jobs. In a recent report for the organization Food AND Medicine on laid-off manufacturing workers in Maine, Steve Husson, who himself was laid off as a DHL driver, found paper-mill workers stuck with intermittent seasonal work and low-paid service-sector jobs despite stints of retraining.

Even two or three years ago, when the economy was apparently healthy, average layoff victims "landed" in new jobs paying 17 percent less than the old ones -- if they landed at all. Today, with the country losing more than a half-million jobs a month, both white-collar job searching and blue-collar retraining are becoming surreal exercises in futility. No matter how smart you are -- how flexible, personable and skilled -- you can't find a job that isn't there. At least until the unemployment benefits run out and the credit cards are canceled, you might as well devote yourself to "Madden NFL" and "Minesweeper."

Of course, there are a few constructive, work-like alternatives. You could join one of the emerging efforts to organize the unemployed, such as Food AND Medicine in Maine, the Unemployed and Anxiously Employed Workers Association of Allen County, Ind., or the nationwide group United Professionals, which I helped start. Or you could pitch in with one of the several organizations fighting for single-payer health insurance or at least a huge expansion of public health insurance for the unemployed. You could get together with laid-off friends and co-workers to discuss how you would design an economy that made use of people's precious skills instead of periodically tossing them out like so much trash.

But the first step, as in any 12-step program, is to overcome denial. Job searching is not a job; retraining is not a panacea. You may be poorer than you've ever been, but you are also freer -- to express anger and urgency, to dream and create, to get together with others and conspire to build a better world.

Barbara Ehrenreich, is the author of This Land Is Their Land: Reports from a Divided Nation and Nickel and Dimed. She won the 2004 Puffin/Nation Prize.

Socialist Party USA Members in Virginia



Socialist Party USA Members in Washington State



Socialist Party of Connecticut



Socialist Party of Florida

by Jim McIlroy & Coral Wynter, Caracas
from Green Left Weekly - 9 May 2009


A huge mobilisation of up to a million workers took place in Caracas on May 1 — the international workers’ day.

The streets of Caracas filled with workers from a wide variety of unions, the government’s pro-poor social missions and other community organisations — all in red T-shirts emblazoned with slogans supporting the Bolivarian revolution.

The march was organised by the left-wing National Union of Workers (UNT) and the mass party led by President Hugo Chavez, the United Socialist Party of Venezuela (PSUV).

Speaking on the aims of the Boliviarian revoluition, Chavez told the crowd: “It is necessary to increase the battle for socialism, and redouble our efforts.”

He said: “There’s no socialism without the working class ... solid, conscientious, and committed to what is being born in Venezuela, which is socialism.”

He said the government will invest almost US$1000 million in 200 “socialist factories”, whose aim will be to create new relations of production in the next period.

“There must be a breaking-up of market relations in society, to give life to processes outside of consumption”, Chavez said. He said the construction of socialism would take a long time.

Noting that the aim of building socialism fell apart within the former Soviet Union and Eastern bloc countries, Chavez said “that does not mean that it is impossible to construct a socialist model. We are not at the point of claiming victory, but we are going to show that we can do it.”

Chavez said Venezuela’s existing institutions were the “territory of the bourgeoisie”. Pointing to nearby public buildings, he said: “We are throwing them out of there, and they will never return. We will keep on liberating spaces.”

He asked unions to not limit themselves to just economic struggles, but commit themselves to “the people and the revolution”.

Chavez said: “I know we are reaching the limits of cooperation with that capitalism that leads to the workers being divided and fragmented, converted into beggars, fighting [for small gains] with the bosses.

“The workers [are moving into] new trade unions, class based, revolutionary, socialist, transcending all the divisions, to fight, because workers continue to fight for their due rights.

“The new working class must be incorporated fundamentally into the construction of the new Venezuela, a socialist, Bolivarian society.”

A simultaneous march of a few thousand people occurred, organised by the right-wing Confederation of Venezuelan Workers (CTV), which backed the 2002 military coup that briefly unseated Chavez.

Chavez said it was not a workers’ march, “but a march of conspirators [for] capitalism”.

On the day, violent right-wing provocateurs attacked a marquee operated by PDVAL (a supermarket for government-subsidised food) at the Bellas Artes metro station, ransacking it and looting the stock of milk products.

At a meeting of unionists on the previous night to present awards to activists in the labour movement, Chavez said: “Never again will workers be slaves.”

He reiterated his support for reducing the working week — one of the constitutional amendments defeated in a December 2007 referendum.

Chavez mentioned his government’s recent decision to take action against the Gaviota sardine factory in Sucre. He said: “When you all see a private company, a capitalist company, that is exploiting workers and not complying with the law … denounce it, as the government is prepared to intervene where necessary.”

He also argued that state companies must be transformed, and cease to operate like capitalist companies. “They have to be socialist companies, where the workers have a fundamental and active role, and where the privileges of the managers are no more.”

by Chris Latham
from Green Left Weekly - 9 May 2009


Frances’s eight major union federations held demonstrations across the country on May 1 — the international workers’ day. It was the third jointly organised day of mass workers demonstrations this year.

The May Day demonstrations were part of a united campaign to force President Nicolas Sarkozy to implement policies to protect workers and the poor from the global economic crisis..

More than 1.2 million people took part in 286 protests across France. While the number of protesters was down on the January and March demonstrations, the General Federation of Labour (CGT) said the number was five times larger than the 2008 May Day protests.

In its May Day statement, the CGT said the mobilisation successfully involved a large number of new participants — from both the public and private sector.

The lower numbers attending protests may reflect the fact that May Day is a public holiday in France.

Opinion polls have indicated that 70% of people support the union campaign. This may explain why the opposition Socialist Party encouraged its members to take part in the May Day marches for the first time since 2002.

The eight union confederations have called further mass protests for May 26 and June 13. The announcement followed a May 4 meeting of the confederation leaderships.

In a joint statement, the unions said the May Day demonstration “testified to the deep roots of the mobilisation and indicated the commitment of employees, job seekers and retirees to express their grievances and get a response”.

It said that “the government and employers would be wrong to treat them with contempt by refusing them, whereas the crisis, with unemployment and dismissals, strike them (workers, retirees and job seekers) with full whip”.

The unions are meeting to develop the demands by the movement on the government and employers so far. The unions have made it clear they expect a quick response to their demands.

From: International News, Green Left Weekly issue #794 10 May 2009.

by Billy Wharton
from Monthly Review Zine - April 24, 2009

Kate’s is a local bar in a far northeast corner of the Bronx. During the day, elderly patrons wash away their remaining years in a sea of booze-inspired camaraderie. I peek in sometimes as much from curiosity as to remind myself of a future I hope to avoid. A few years back someone changed the television channel at Kate’s. The seemingly timeless link between booze, the aged and horse racing was suddenly severed. Off Track Betting was replaced by CNBC. Hazy patrons now seemed more concerned with 401k values and hot stock tips than who was running in the 7th at Aqueduct. This change seemed, at the time, to suggest a final victory for the marketplace. Now, as the economic miracle of Wall Street has degenerated into a nightmare of zombie banks, state bailouts and toxic assets, Kate’s patrons are left to wrestle with a destruction of wealth so monumental that it swept away their stock market illusions.

The enormity of the destruction is brought home by the private equity firm, Blackstone Group, who recently reported that nearly 45% of the world’s wealth had been destroyed in the crisis. Blackstone CEO, Stephen Schwarzman, described the losses as, "absolutely unprecedented in our lifetime." The International Monetary Fund (IMF) put the wealth destruction at around $4 trillion dollars, or nearly double the annual budget of the US Federal Government. The losses are so staggering that even the free-market fundamentalists at the IMF now recognize the need to, “shore up institutions,” “including nationalising them where necessary.” This advice is all the more remarkable since it comes from an organization whose notorious Structural Adjustment Programs of the 80s and 90s forced governments throughout the world to privatize state-run enterprises.

But, for many, especially elderly workers who depend on monthly pension payments, the IMF’s advice to act decisively and in the public interest is far too late. There has, for instance, been a 34% decrease in the assets held by the largest pension funds in the country over the last 14 months. Large funds have shed more than $1 trillion in value during the same period. Nearly 40% of pension funds now report being, “under-funded,” putting the future of millions of recipients at risk. These losses have wreaked havoc with state and local governments as they scramble to make up for Wall Street based revenue losses. New York City, for instance, mandates an 8% annual increase in pension funds. The City has, therefore, been forced to use scarce public funds to fund the entire increase and cover the negative returns of stock and bond investments. It seems that the TARP is not the only way private investors are fleecing public funds – state and local tax funds are equally profitable targets.

Private 401k’s have also been savaged. The allure of the 1980s and 1990s bull market attracted trillions in retirement funds. In many cases, the returns from this period amounted to more than 15% a year. However, since the turn of the 21st century, Wall Street has produced annual losses of nearly 5%. As a result, Hewitt Associates LLC, a company which surveys 2.7 million 401k participants, reported that the proportion of 401k assets held in stocks fell from 67% in 2007 to 53% in 2008. This was not the result of changes in allocation by participants – remarkably most 401k’ers continue to favor stock investment. Instead, the shift came from market-based wealth destruction which has accelerated over the last year and a half. Despite this, individual workers continue to pour their 401k money into the market, providing a monthly bonus to Wall Street speculators seeking to lay off losses on the public.

Of course, the market-invested pension funds and 401k’s were simply pacifying neoliberal illusions sold to American workers for decades. Economic reality always dictated a distinction between the productive wealth controlled by the richest 5% of the population and the paper wealth of stock investments – the value of one’s stock account only represented potential-- not real wealth. Yet, irrational hopes and speculative dreams blurred this distinction. American workers have tended to avoid more contentious issues such as unionization or struggles for wage increases in favor of programs which were far cheaper for their employers. In the process, their future well-being was made heavily dependent on the financial bubble that was Wall Street. Neglecting struggles on the worksite allowed employers to create low-wage, no-benefit “new economy” jobs on worksites where workers have few rights. Now, Wall Street has destroyed even the illusions of the market and, with it, the futures of millions of American workers.

The resulting losses have not just been financial. Significant social stress produced by the financial shock has translated into externally and internally directed violence. The “Binghamton shooter” Jiverly Wong’s loss of his job at IBM became the immediate trigger for a shooting rampage which claimed 13 victims at an immigration services center. Wanda Dunn made herself the victim of the stress induced violence. Faced with the prospect of being evicted from the home her family had inhabited for three generations, Dunn killed herself with a shotgun and burned the house to the ground. Such spectacular moments of violence are heaped upon decades of over work, lack of access to healthcare, deferred worksite struggles and declining civil rights. These trends have produced a society defined by human isolation and individualistic survival strategies – one in which a small bar in the Bronx offers the only solace. All the anti-depressants and counseling sessions in the world cannot paper over the real psychological damage done by capitalist society.

Curious to measure the effects of the financial meltdown, I popped my head into Kate’s the other day. A crowd of drinkers was again gathered. This time, however, the conversation revolved around the relative merits of Mayflower or Golden Girl in the 2nd at Yonkers Raceway. Bar patrons had exacted some symbolic revenge against Wall Street by vanquishing CNBC. Yet, if this was a victory it was a bitter one. Gone were the irrational stock market bubble hopes for comfortable retirements. Gone also were much of their account balances. In their place were some new bar mates. Far younger than the rest of the crowd, this group’s beverages were likely paid for with recently printed unemployment checks. Perhaps these younger workers will be far less susceptible to the illusions sold and ingested by their elders. One day, the call of the horse races may be drowned out by demands for a society in which a better future is possible. For now though, we calculate the losses produced by the chaos of the market with hopes that another world is possible.

Billy Wharton is the editor of The Socialist magazine and the Socialist WebZine. His article “Obama’s No Socialist. I Should Know” appeared in the Washington Post in March 2009 and was run in several other publications.
billyspnyc@yahoo.com

The NYC Local of the Socialist Party USA joined in a demonstration with the Break the Chains Alliance in celebration of May Day this year. The Alliance called for an end to the Employer Sanctions Act and equal rights for all workers regardless of status. More than 700 people participated.

After a rally at Roosevelt Park in Chinatown, we marched to Union Square to join the main May Day demo. Unfortunately, upon arrival marchers were faced with a torrential downpour. We finished the day by screening the movie H2 worker which documents the plight of immigrant workers in Florida. As our pamphlet states, we hope every day is guided by the fighting spirit of May Day!

from the WW4 Report on Sat, 05/02/2009 - 14:42.

Police in Germany's capital Berlin arrested nearly 300 at the city's May Day march, with riot police battling hundreds of protesters deep into the night. According to authorities, militants attacked police with rocks, bottles and Molotov cocktails. Riot police responded with tear gas and pepper spray. 237 officers were reported injured. There were also riots reported in Germany's second city Hamburg. (Radio Netherlands, May 2)

In the western German city of Dortmund, police arrested about 150 far-right protesters who attempted to attack a labor rally. In the southern city of Ulm, left-wing protesters threw bottles and stones at a neo-Nazi march and clashed with police. About 30 riot police and 20 protesters were reported injured.

In Turkey, police fired tear gas and water cannons to disperse masked protesters. Dozens of police and protesters were hurt and more than 100 protesters arrested in Istanbul and Ankara. In France, nearly 1.2 million participated in more than 280 marches across the country, demanding the government take stronger actions to address the economic crisis. In Switzerland, more than 80 people were arrested in Zurich after protesters attacked police with stones, bottles and firebombs, authorities said. In Greece, police fired tear gas in a clash with 300 people in Athens. In Russia, about 2,000 demonstrators gathered near a statue of Karl Marx in Moscow, accusing the government of betraying the workers. (Xinhua, May 2)

by Jeremy Scahill
from Common Dreams

New video evidence has surfaced showing that US military forces in Afghanistan have been instructed by the military's top chaplain in the country to "hunt people for Jesus" as they spread Christianity to the overwhelmingly Muslim population. Soldiers also have imported bibles translated into Pashto and Dari, the two dominant languages of Afghanistan. What's more, the center of this evangelical operation is at the huge US base at Bagram, one of the main sites used by the US military to torture and indefinitely detain prisoners.

In a video obtained by Al Jazeera and broadcast Monday, Lieutenant-Colonel Gary Hensley, the chief of the US military chaplains in Afghanistan, is seen telling soldiers that as followers of Jesus Christ, they all have a responsibility "to be witnesses for him."

"The special forces guys - they hunt men basically. We do the same things as Christians, we hunt people for Jesus. We do, we hunt them down," he says.

"Get the hound of heaven after them, so we get them into the kingdom. That's what we do, that's our business."

The translated Bibles appear to be the New Testament. According to Al Jazeera, US soldiers "had them specially printed and shipped to Afghanistan." On the tape, one soldier describes how his church in the US helped raise money for the bibles. Al Jazeera reports that "What these soldiers have been doing may well be in direct violation of the US Constitution, their professional codes and the regulations in place for all forces in Afghanistan." The US military officially forbids "proselytising of any religion, faith or practice." But, as Al Jazeera reports:

[T]he chaplains appear to have found a way around the regulation known as General Order Number One.

"Do we know what it means to proselytise?" Captain Emmit Furner, a military chaplain, says to the gathering.

"It is General Order Number One," an unidentified soldier replies.

But Watt says "you can't proselytise but you can give gifts."

Trying to convert Muslims to any other faith is a crime in Afghanistan. The fact that the video footage is being broadcast on Al Jazeera guarantees that it will be seen throughout the Muslim world. It is likely to add more credence to the perception that the US is engaging in a war on Islam with neo-crusader forces invading Muslim lands.

Former Afghan prime minister Ahmed Shah Ahmedzai told Al Jazeera there must be a "serious investigation," saying, "This is very damaging for diplomatic relations between the two counties." Sayed Aalam Uddin Asser, of the Islamic Front for Peace and Understanding in Kabul, told the network: "It's a national security issue ... our constitution says nothing can take place in Afghanistan against Islam. If people come and propaganda other religions which have no followers in Afghanistan [then] it creates problems for the people, for peace, for stability."

A US military spokesperson, Major Jennifer Willis, denied that the US military has allowed its soldiers to attempt to convert Afghans and said comments from sermons filmed at Bagram were taken out of context. She said the bibles were never distributed. "That specific case involved a soldier who brought in a donation of translated bibles that were sent to his personal address by his home church. He showed them to the group and the chaplain explained that he cannot distribute them," she said. "The translated bibles were never distributed as far as we know, because the soldier understood that if he distributed them he would be in violation of general order 1, and he would be subject to punishment."

The video footage was shot about a year ago by documentary filmmaker Brian Hughes, who is also a former US soldier. "[US soldiers] weren't talking about learning how to speak Dari or Pashto, by reading the Bible and using that as the tool for language lessons," Hughes told Al Jazeera. "The only reason they would have these documents there was to distribute them to the Afghan people. And I knew it was wrong, and I knew that filming it ... documenting it would be important."

The broadcast of this video comes just days after a new poll of White Americans found that, in the US, church going Christians are more likely to support the use of torture than other segments of the population. The Pew Research Center poll found: "White evangelical Protestants were the religious group most likely to say torture is often or sometimes justified - more than six in 10 supported it. People unaffiliated with any religious organization were least likely to back it. Only four in 10 of them did."

This is certainly not the first scandal where US military forces or officials have been caught on tape promoting an evangelical Christian agenda. Perhaps the most high-profile case involved Lieut. Gen. William Boykin, who was a Deputy Undersecretary of Defense for Intelligence under Bush. Boykin was part of Donald Rumsfeld's inner circle at the Pentagon where he was placed in charge of hunting "high-value targets." Boykin was one of the key U.S. officials in establishing what critics alleged was death-squad-type activity in Iraq.

In October 2003, Boykin was revealed to have gone on several anti-Muslim rants, in public speeches, many of which he delivered in military uniform. Since January 2002, Boykin had spoken at twenty-three religious-oriented events, wearing his uniform at all but two. Among Boykin's statements, he said he knew the U.S. would prevail over a Muslim adversary in Somalia because "I knew that my God was bigger than his. I knew that my God was a real God and his was an idol." Boykin also charged that Islamic radicals want to destroy America "because we're a Christian nation" that "will never abandon Israel." Our "spiritual enemy," Boykin declared, "will only be defeated if we come against them in the name of Jesus."

As for President Bush, Boykin said, "Why is this man in the White House? The majority of Americans did not vote for him. Why is he there? And I tell you this morning that he's in the White House because God put him there for a time such as this." In another speech, Boykin said other countries "have lost their morals, lost their values. But America is still a Christian nation." He told a church group in Oregon that special operations forces were victorious in Iraq because of their faith in God. "Ladies and gentlemen, I want to impress upon you that the battle that we're in is a spiritual battle," he said. "Satan wants to destroy this nation, he wants to destroy us as a nation, and he wants to destroy us as a Christian army."

Karl Marx
from Wikipedia
Karl Heinrich Marx (May 5, 1818–March 14, 1883) was a German[1] philosopher, political economist, historian, political theorist, sociologist, humanist and revolutionary credited as the founder of communism.

Marx summarized his approach to history and politics in the opening line of the first chapter of The Communist Manifesto (1848): “The history of all hitherto existing society is the history of class struggles.” Marx argued that capitalism, like previous socioeconomic systems, will produce internal tensions which will lead to its destruction. Just as capitalism replaced feudalism, socialism will in its turn replace capitalism and lead to a stateless, classless society which will emerge after a transitional period, the "dictatorship of the proletariat". See, for example, Marx's comments in section one of The Communist Manifesto on feudalism, capitalism, and the role internal social contradictions play in the historical process: "We see then: the means of production and of exchange, on whose foundation the bourgeoisie built itself up, were generated in feudal society. At a certain stage in the development of these means of production and of exchange, the conditions under which feudal society produced and exchanged...the feudal relations of property became no longer compatible with the already developed productive forces; they became so many fetters. They had to be burst asunder; they were burst asunder. Into their place stepped free competition, accompanied by a social and political constitution adapted in it, and the economic and political sway of the bourgeois class. A similar movement is going on before our own eyes.... The productive forces at the disposal of society no longer tend to further the development of the conditions of bourgeois property; on the contrary, they have become too powerful for these conditions, by which they are fettered, and so soon as they overcome these fetters, they bring disorder into the whole of bourgeois society, endanger the existence of bourgeois property." Marx, K. & Engels, F. (1848),The Communist Manifesto

On the one hand, Marx argued for a systemic understanding of socio-economic change. He argued that the structural contradictions within capitalism necessitate its end, giving way to communism:
“The development of Modern Industry, therefore, cuts from under its feet the very foundation on which the bourgeoisie produces and appropriates products. What the bourgeoisie, therefore, produces, above all, are its own grave-diggers. Its fall and the victory of the proletariat are equally inevitable.” (The Communist Manifesto)

On the other hand, Marx argued that socio-economic change occurred through organized revolutionary action. He argued that capitalism will end through the organized actions of an international working class, led by a Communist Party: "Communism is for us not a state of affairs which is to be established, an ideal to which reality [will] have to adjust itself. We call communism the real movement which abolishes the present state of things. The conditions of this movement result from the premises now in existence." (from The German Ideology)

While Marx remained a relatively obscure figure in his own lifetime, his ideas began to exert a major influence on workers' movements shortly after his death. This influence gained added impetus with the victory of the Marxist Bolsheviks in the Russian October Revolution in 1917, and few parts of the world remained significantly untouched by Marxian ideas in the course of the twentieth century.

Small Traits of Marx’s Great Character
by Franzisca Kugelmann
from Marxists.org

Marx’s taste was most refined in poetry as well as in science and the imitative arts. He was extraordinarily well-read and had a remarkable memory. He shared my father’s enthusiasm for the great poets of classical Greece, Shakespeare and Goethe; Chamisso and Ruckert were also among his favourites. He would quote Chamisso’s touching poetry The Beggar and His Dog. He admired Ruckert’s art in writing and especially his masterly translation of Hariri’s Maqamas, which are incomparable in their originality. Years later Marx presented it to my mother in remembrance of that time.

Marx was remarkably gifted for languages. Besides English, he knew French so well that he himself translated Capital into French, [Marx did not translate Book I of Capital into French, but carefully edited J. Roy’s translation, with which he was not satisfied] and his knowledge of Greek, Latin, Spanish and Russian was so good that he could translate from them at sight. He learned Russian by himself “as a diversion” when he was suffering from carbuncles.

He was of the opinion that Turgenev wonderfully renders the peculiarities of the Russian soul in its veiled Slavonic sensitivity. Lemontov’s descriptions, he thought, were hardly to be excelled and seldom equalled.

His favourite among the Spaniards was Calderón. He had several of his works with him and often read us parts of them. ...

In our flat there was a large room with five windows which we called the hall and where we used to play music. Friends of the house called it Olympus because of the busts of Greek gods around the walls. Throned above them all was Zeus Otricolus.

My father thought Marx greatly resembled the last mentioned and many people agreed with him. Both had a powerful head with abundant hair, a magnificent thoughtful brow, an authoritative and yet kind expression. Marx’s calm yet warm and lively nature, knowing no absent-mindedness or excitement, my father thought, also made him resemble his Olympian favourites. He liked to quote Marx’s pertinent answer to the reproach that “the gods of the classics are eternal rest without any passions.” On the contrary, Marx said, they were eternal passion without any unrest. My father could get very irritated when expressing his opinion of those who tried to drag Marx into the agitation of their political party undertakings. He wanted Marx, like the Olympian father of the gods and of men, only to flash his lightning into the world and occasionally hurl his thunder against it but not to waste his precious time in everyday agitation.