by Christakis Georgiou
from Spectrezine

The austerity measures imposed on Greek workers to reduce the deficits are nothing but a prelude of what may happen to the other European countries. The Greek crisis demonstrates the divisions in the ruling class on the strategies to adopt.

For the second time since December 2008, Greece is at the heart of politics in Europe. Since the Greek social-democratic party PASOK's election, and the revelations of the disguising of deficit figures (the previous right-wing government had falsified the figures to publicize a lower deficit than the real level, which allowed it to continue to borrow at low interest rates on the markets), a kind of Greek tragedy has been unfolding before our eyes. The social democrats have very quickly abandoned their electoral promises and announced the inevitability of the austerity measures. The German press is conducting a campaign to denigrate the Greek population. Greek Prime Minister Papandreou is touring the main capitals of Europe to beg for a European rescue. In the bourgeois press, the debate on whether to save the Greek government rages on. On the financial markets, the euro slides due to speculation linked to Greek deficits, making its architects
nervous. In Greece itself, one austerity plan after another is announced at dizzying speed (the January plan didn't suffice to calm big financial investors, requiring supplementary measures on a far larger scale announced in February), strikes are multiplying, and the fear of a new Greek December is haunting Europe.

The Greek crisis is indicative of the situation in several European countries. First of all, it reflects the divisions among those who rule our societies. That is what is revealed by the debate on the aid that Europe may furnish Greece. Some do not wish to hear a word said about even a cent of aid for Greece. "Germany will not give a cent to Greece," declared German Economy Minister Rainer Brüderle, a member of the liberal-democratic FDP, which is part of the coalition government with Merkel's CDU. The FDP liberals and the CSU Bavarians are fiercely opposed to saving Greece. They are waging a campaign to get the Greek government to put its fiscal house in order and make workers pay the entire bill for that through austerity measures. On the other hand, others want to prevent the Greek government from defaulting at all costs; among them are a good number of European bankers who have massively lent to Greece and would again find themselves
in a very tight spot if the country didn't pay its debts. That's what explains the Deutsche Bank boss's visit to Athens in late February, with the aim of negotiating with the Greek government for possible German support.

In this situation, Papandreou is trying to play all his cards in order to pressure the German government. After his visits to Berlin on the 5th of March and to Paris on the 7th, he met Barack Obama in Washington on Monday, bringing up the possibility of aid from the IMF. The European leaders do not want to hear about that. Such a solution would demonstrate the EU's inability to manage its problems on its own. Rather than seeing the IMF intervene, they would do it themselves.

What's at stake in all these rows: how the burden of Greek deficits will be distributed. It's arm-wrestling among the European ruling classes. But their chief cause is the inability of the Greek government to make Greek workers pay for the budget pots broken by the crisis. After all, if Papandreou were in a position to impose necessary austerity to rapidly reduce the deficits and calm financial investors, there would be no need for any European support. That's what the German "hawks" are demanding.

European Crisis

Behind Greece, a group of other countries are waiting to take their turns. The Greek deficits aren't much higher than those of Spain, Portugal, Ireland, Italy, or even Great Britain. Except the last, the others are part of the euro zone. If Greece receives aid, it's a signal that the major European powers -- especially Germany, the top European economic power -- will do the same for others. That would diminish the pressures put on them to impose austerity measures.

In this way, therefore, the ongoing struggle of Greek workers has a Europe-wide implication. The more successful their resistance to the austerity measures, the more favorable the conditions for workers of other European countries in their struggle against the austerity plans which will not be late in coming.

Besides, already in some countries public-sector workers are taking action. On 8-9 March, British civil servants struck against the reduction of their redundancy pay. In Portugal, public-sector workers went on strike on Thursday, 5 March against the wage freeze, a measure taken to reduce the Portuguese deficits. In Spain, Tuesday, 2 March was a day of action against the raising of the retirement age from 65 to 67. In France, 23 March will be a day of joint action of trade unions.

The Greek crisis will surely become a European crisis when other governments adopt similar measures. The resistance of Greek workers must become a European resistance, too.

***
The original article "Grèce : ce n’est qu’un début!" was published by the Website of the French Nouveau Parti Anti-Capitaliste (New Anti-Capitalist Party) on 10 March, 2010. Translation by Yoshie Furuhashi

from The Commune

19th March saw an international day of action against Swiss bank UBS, who via its contractor Lancaster has imposed an effective 10.75% pay cut on its cleaners in the City of London, while sacking shop steward Alberto Durango.

The protests were called in solidarity with the cleaners’ demands for stable working conditions, the sacking of the contractor and the reinstatement of Alberto Durango. Demos were held in London, Zurich, Edinburgh, Manchester, New York, Buenos Aires and Stockholm.

Around a hundred people turned out for an early evening protest at the UBS office at 100 Liverpool Street in the City of London. Speakers from migrant campaigns joined representatives of the RMT and the Unite construction branch, UCL cleaner activist Juan Carlos Piedra, as well as Unite general secretary candidate Jerry Hicks.

We surged forward against the doors of the bank as a protest letter was delivered, chanting ‘The workers, united, will never be defeated’ and ‘UBS, UBS, shame on you!’. There was a strong police presence to back up security guards who casually assaulted protesters.

The campaign is focused on the bank since it is they who have employed the contractor to push down workers’ conditions – in revenge for a successful ‘Living Wage’ campaign two years ago. We wanted to show UBS that the struggle is not letting up. Join the campaign’s next London organising meeting at 7pm on Weds March 24th (email uncaptiveminds(at)gmail.com for venue details).

by Jed Brandt
JedBrandt.net

It took a bit for my time to adjust, to see things as they are coming here and where they're coming from. Not the instant back-and-forth rhythm of New York multi-tasking anxiety time. Most days the electricity is out in Kathmandu. You can hear chickens in the morning, children playing after school and quiet talk at night when the old women laugh and call across the rooftops. Blackouts make working a computer hard, but the pace of people living by hands and minds alone, without so much mediation, is not a place I've ever spent much time. And I do love it here. The city is dirty. The people are upright, direct and curious. I've made friends quickly, though I've gotten the impression its easier to get married than find a date.

Kathmandu is a valley. The Tanglang range of the Himalaya is the wall in the sky that separates South Asia from the Tibetan plateau to the north. The white caps are breathtaking when you can see them. Pollution is horrible. Cars only arrived in Kathmandu 20 years ago. Most of the city is built for footpaths, but that doesn't stop every sort of vehicle from ripping through trying to cut around the traffic jams. It's some kind of anarchy on the streets. People complain about it, then go do it themselves. I've seen three people hit by cars, none of which stopped. Motorcycles are everywhere and drive as they want. I've only seen one traffic light and it wasn't lit. The daily load shedding blackout.

Exhaust just hangs in the valley, air still as often as not. Along the main roads, commuters and pedestrians alike wear face masks of all kinds to filter out what they can. In any large crowd you can hear coughing, men clearing their throats. The air only clears after rains, which are rare save for the summer monsoon. We did get hail the other day, which tore apart the beautiful aloe plant on the patio where I'm staying. It was a grand dame of an aloe, now pocked with holes as big as dimes.

I have been lucky to have met many children, a few of whom are also friends. I'm listening to Sade, Beirut and Alicia Keys. Drinking with the neighborhood guys on Holi, I got to name the cat from the bodega below Lucita. She is beautiful, with patches of silver and black tiger stripes mixing up her pure white coat. Holi morning, the young men came up the stairs of the building I'm staying in to ambush me on the roof with red powder and buckets of water. Then they hugged me and poured another bucket over my head. Holi is a water balloon fight that doesn't stop until they start throwing buckets of colorful water and raw pigment, red, green, blue and orange. Best holiday ever. Girls do get pretty soaked though, not so fun sometimes. It's an occasion for both carnival and hooliganism. Lots of laughing. I tried to ask the guys about the meaning of the holiday and they decided to pour tall glasses of khukuri rum. I do try to oblige.

Did I mention there is a revolution going on?

We haven't seen a revolution in our lifetime. Not a communist revolution anyway, with broad support and participation sustained, growing over such a short period of time.

The Maoists are unorthodox, to be sure. They have defied everyone's expectations, friend and foe alike. To their credit, they haven't let their enemies tell them who they are or been confined to some historical script handed down by the Comintern in 1930-whatever. After a 10-year People's War, starting in 1996, they grew exponentially among the rural people who make up the heart and body of Nepal.

People were fed up with the absolute poverty, a despotic monarchy and the whole system that didn't let them advance no matter how hard they worked. It was the Maoists who saw in that backwardness the semi-feudal, semi-colonial predicament of their country, a resonance they share for all the many other differences with pre-revolutionary China.

Millions cast their lot with the communist promise that it was they themselves who could fix what the ruling classes plainly didn't want to. Starting with two guns. Two guns. They neither sought nor accepted shady foreign sponsors and still brought a king down. That was people, and a determined, revolutionary leadership. Violence was not the issue.

"The masses are the makers of history," is how Mao put it, advice Prachanda's party apparently heard well.

When organized revolutionaries grew into a people who could not endure the old order, the very horizon of the possible shifted. The US state department calls that terrorism, and under Obama has continued to put the Maoist party on it's list of certified terrorists even after they fought for and won Nepal's first democratic elections. Terror is not a word any honest person could use to describe what is happening here. People are unafraid, and if anything impatient things haven't gone further. The communists were transformed, and so were the broad masses of people. They said: "we had to unlearn our slogans to start the People's War," which meant, I think, that they are not disciples of doctrine, or simple prophets of rage. Terrorism is a politics of fear. The communists have fought a People's War, and their spirit is light.

For a new mainstream

Refusing any offers to become another parliamentary party, who are widely despised here for their profound corruption, the Maoists demanded nothing less than a constituent assembly to draft a constitution. Through the course of the People's War, despite flexibility on almost everything else, the Maoists never departed from this insistence. And they got that much. I tried to think what could happen if we had our own constituent assembly, a constitution not written by slave-traders to protect their own entitlement. It's not just radical in Nepal, this idea that people constitute governments. It's as unheard of in Bloomberg's New York as in twisted hereditary monarchy of North Korea.

Red flags are everywhere. From the moment I arrived and everywhere I've been. They fly alongside Nepal's unique two-pointed flag at the national stadium. Set in rows along the fences of the National Army's central, public training grounds, all over. When I'm reading in restaurants, the times I've had a book by the Maoists, three different waiters have commented that they were the "real government." Prachanda is especially admired, since it was his leadership that broke the old patterns of impotent protest followed by corrupt cooptation.

No one will admit to liking Congress, but I've met supporters from the currently governing UML. Decent people. Reformist, if none to happy about the Maoists' initiative. Imagine Todd Gitlin merged in a lab with Gus Hall and you'll have some idea what creeps their top leaders are. That said, the regular activists are mostly the sort of NGO professionals we have back in the states. Well-suckled by the foundation tit, their method was to keep popular mobilization in the range of complaint and petition, and at the leading levels are not interested any change not brokered through their coffers.

The current prime minister from UML was unelected. He took the seat Prachanda vacated over the issue of whether the old royal army would accept civilian control, which is to say by the elected Maoists. Prachanda fired the former commander of the National Army, who refused to step down. The unelected "democratic" figures abided a soft coup, with the UML's leader and the pro-Indian, ceremonial President Yadev prancing around these last few months as if they were a government. There is a fluid split between the careerists and the honest revolutionaries in the UML. How they will act when the chips are down is still not clear, not even to them.

I talked with one couple, the husband from a leading UML family and the wife with a significant government job directing cultural activities. The husband denounced the Maoists, who had not learned that liberal democracy was the only way the world could be, that even China had embraced capitalism. He said UML was not communist, despite their full name United Marxists and Leninists, but that it was "tradition." His wife smiled and said that many "patriots" were Maoists, though not her, and that while she was not herself any longer in the UML, she was hopeful for the future "no matter how it goes". I think the husband was embarrased, which amused her, so he told me the Maoists had bombed his family home in the south a few years back. He had share croppers on his land. The Maoists apparently organized them to squat the same land. He lived in Kathmandu, earning income from from the tenant farmers and keeping a seasonal residence, while his child studied in at
college out of the country.

It turned out that the Maoists included those farming on his land, and that when he went to talk with them they worked out a deal of some kind. I was kind of stunned that he just went and talked. "I knew them," he said. He still has his family home, now repaired. He's kind of sore about it. They did blow up part of his house, which rattled him no doubt.

Provocations and dress rehearsals

Nepal's revolution is not over. The old army, bureaucracy and foreign treaties are still in effect. That said, no work can be done without the sanction of the Maoists - not construction, not constitution or transportation throughout the length of the country. This is what Lenin called "dual power", not to be confused with the the sometimes usage by American radicals to mean oppositional mutual aid or serve-the-people programs. Here there are two armies and no real government, a situation of increasing pressure where one side or the other will decide to act decisively.

The government tried to smuggle in some arms and explosives after working out arrangements with the Indian government. They couldn't even sneak them in. Young Communist League members assembled 200 unarmed activists and blockaded the convoy. They alerted the UN and media, and in turn were attacked by armed police reinforcements. A few people were injured including a Maoist rep in the Constituent Assembly.

What I picked up in that incident was that the Maoists have the organizational capacity to act, and that even the National Army and police may not be reliable should they be called out against the people. After all, how did these Maoists even know about the arms shipment arranged behind closed doors by the president, the unelected prime minister and the Indian military?

The UML Prime Minister said the weapons were for "training police." He didn't explain what kind of police work required explosives, wires and other bomb-making materials. Nor was this egregious violation of the Comprehensive Peace Agreement, supposedly providing for the constitutional framework, noted by the international press. It was certainly noticed here.

Should the current, unelected President Yadev and some section of the National Army attempt a military coup, backed by India, the Maoists are quite sure that the entire population would rise up. Since the first democratic uprising here in 1990, called Jana Andolan I through the People's War and up to the 2006 Jana Andolan II that overthrew the king, there are expectations of a breakthrough far beyond the ranks of committed revolutionary communists.

Not the old playbook

I've been surprised to find the complaints of some American radicals online, who are convinced that participating in elections and attempting to bring in the broadest range of support are some kind of sell out. The facts are these: the Maoists have made every effort to complete a democratic revolution, which ain't nothing, but have not limited themselves to what the semi-feudal, semi-colonial system can bear. They maintain their People's Liberation Army. The Young Communist League is the most powerful social action force in the country, unarmed but disciplined. The Unified Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist) already left the government they were elected to lead rather than pretend that "representation" was enough when the National Army and bureaucracy resisted transformation and civilian control.

Prachanda, Bhattarai and the Maoist leadership already had the chance to become broker-politicians, and they said no thank you. They launched a war, they won an election and they left the government rather than fake it. Which brings us to now.

Audacious as can be, they returned to their base and have launched a series of mobilitzations and public education forums that will escalate provided a constitution to their liking is not delivered. They are the largest party, the legal and extra-legal opposition to an unelected government wrapped around what's left of the deposed monarchy's state apparatus. The next major mobilization is for International Women's Day.

May 28 is the deadline for Nepal's constitution to be delivered. That doesn't look likely due to substantial interference from foreign powers and the parliamentary cretinism of the corrupt political class.

The only way it could come to pass is if the UML reformists (called here status quo-ists) were to unite with the Maoists. Leftist parties of one stripe or another won 62% of seats in the Constituent Assembly, enough to ratify a "people-centered" constitution. UML leaders Oli & PM Nepal have ruled that out unless the Maoists disband the PLA and YCL, which they say will not happen until the new constitution is ratified to their satisfaction and under their leadership, if at all. For its part, Nepal Congress party, formerly the parliamentary apparatus and spoils system of the monarchy, is utterly despised as a tool of India and the landlords. Congress received around 20% of the vote, act like king-makers and keep forgetting that crown lies in the gutter.

The terms are set and the time frame known.

May 28 - deadline for the constitution

Every event, each provocation and mobilization is about contesting the allegiance of the broad mass of people. Prachanda capped a training session for 5,000 cadre in the walled city of Bhaktapur that if a constitution isn't ratified to guarantee social transformation and national sovereignty that the people will revolt and that his party is prepared to lead it.

Nepalis are famously gentle people, which is not to say they don't fight. They are known throughout the world for that as well. Prachanda's name means, alternatively, "the fierce one" or "the awesome one." He's usually smiling, and shows emotion on his face. What stands out most about the Maoists isn't just their character. The world is full of upright people. These Maoists have looked back at previous attempts to build socialism and learned uncommon lessons.

What they've come up with, and this has been noted in every conversation I've had, is that without revolution coming from the conscious activity of the most oppressed, the working people and democratic intellectuals freed up from the feudal autocracy, communism would not be worth the word. That's what they learned from 20th Century socialism, and its good to hear from the leaders and member of a communist party contending for power.

This is something I may have hoped for, glimmers of it got me here. But the depth of that commitment, among cadre and common people alike, it is still startling. I could get used to it, I think the world could, too. Nepal is confirming to me that all rumors to the contrary, people aren't stupid. When they can stand on their own feet, organize and fight: people will embrace a force that gives them dignity and refuses the narrow confines of "what's in it for me and mine." Their secret weapon is their open spirit, which are my words, not theirs; and true nonetheless.

Democracy at stake

I can't articulate this fully because I still don't know enough, but caste functions something like what we call race in America. There are poor Brahmins and wealthy people who came from nothing. But the mark and habits of caste still ring. Fighting the caste system, the Maoists do not engage in demagoguery against the privileged castes. In place of feudal entitlement, where chauvinistic rules kept state and military jobs in the hands of the privileged, the Maoists have already declared autonomous national territories as part of a federal democratic republic. Their own top leadership is largely from what have been those same privileged castes. The changes they demand are, among other things, exactly to end of that system of straight-up exclusion.

Blocking a constitution through parliamentray tricks (or some form of putsch) in the capital would threaten not only counter-action by the Maoists, but popular uprisings with their own characteristics from the peoples most to benefit from constitution that is secular in fact as well as word. Any effort of the old structure to perpetuate itself will be broadly seen for a direct attack on Nepal's heretofore excluded peoples. Kathmandu hosts the broken constituent assembly, but the crisis is national.

Complaints from the privileged have the same ring as racial paranoids in America, who still think America is a "white republic", and that any check on their prerogatives are the end of the world. Upper class advocacy groups using identity politics claim that a federal republic will "disintegrate" Nepal, missing the way enfranchisement brings a genuine patriotism that can't be faked, or glossed over by rulers speaking in the name of all.

Resentment isn't the currency of the communists. There isn't demagoguery whipping people up against productive national capitalists or the privileged castes. The comprador bourgeoisie, the type who make money selling the rest of the country out to India, and feudal landlords are feeling the heat. Even there the point is to change the power arrangement not "go get 'em".

The argument for a federalization itself, and its democratic potential, has been wildly popular. Nepalese people are patriotic, no doubt. But they also have a two major religions, a southern Tarai region that was totally excluded from self-determination and dozens of language groups. No other social demand has so frighted the formerly entitled as the Maoist insistence on a federal democratic republic, but attempts to use religion or communal fear have not worked as well in Nepal as India, where Hindutva fascists have an unfortunate mass base in many areas.

The Maoists do not agitate against religion or the religious. They are rational and atheist in a deeply faithful country. Not surprising since Buddha was born in Nepal and wasn't himself so much for the hocus pocus end of religious practice. The Maoists credit Buddha with introducing atheism in one of their articles. From that position of respect, they advocate for science, technology and Marx's dialectical materialist understanding of the world. They want schools to be public to educate everyone, not the largely private financial rackets they still are here for all but the wealthy. Commitment to science, innovation and human dignity will serve them well.

The People's Liberation Army adopted the Geneva Conventions just about the time our own country tore them up. They built base areas in the countryside and advanced towards the capital. For their success, the Maoists have been largely ignored by the very people who should be shouting from the rafters that a revolutionary internationalist, secular and people-based movement has caught fire in the Himalayan mountains.

Great powers are allied against this revolution. India, the United States and the entire disinformation machinery we call mainstream media (from left to right) has insisted that communism is done. And can be killed in silence should it raise its face. Here people are doing it . And it is those people who need honest solidarity, which more than anything means letting the world know what is happening.

climb it

If the mass media won't show what is happening, I hope someone is writing it on the walls. There are less than three months until the deadline for the constitution. There is no center to hold. Word must get out.

I know folks want a lot of local color, or novel dish of some sort. It is so different here and people are really so much the same. Laughter. Silliness. What the world calls football. For myself, I have laughed every day and cried a few times, which reminds me of nothing so much as my mother, who could laugh and cry at the same time, and who loved a good fight.

So yes, I am impressed. I'm no fortune teller. Who knows how things will go. The Maoists have a track record that has won them the respect of their countrymen. They are self-critical of communist history and determined to solve those real problems through advance and not retreat. They don't want to be the new boss. They want communism, socialism and a New Democracy for Nepal. And it's good to hear, what we can do and not what we have to accept.

Peace to the street, war on the palace.

by Brandon Collins

March 19, 2010 - The University of Virginia commemorated the 7th anniversary of the Iraq War, by inviting a war criminal to our town to speak, twice, about his book. John Yoo is the infamous Bush administration lawyer who authored the "torture memo" giving authorization to military officials to use torture in their interrogations. What is often left out about Yoo is that he also gave authorizations for the illegal aggressive war in Iraq, the Patriot Act, warrantless wiretapping, and indefinite detention. All of these "authorizations" are quite clearly illegal under the US Constitution and the UN Charter and constitute war crimes. Our current Deptmartment of Justice has stated that it has no intention of prosecuting these crimes, and the current Obama administration continues to utilize the tactics of torture, indefinite detention, wiretapping, and prolonging the illegal war in Iraq.

To mark the occasion, several Charlottesville activists came together to organize a protest against Yoo for the actions he has taken. Socialist Party of Central Virginia Chair Reagan Greenfield, and Secretary Brandon Collins were among the group of organizers who gained support from many anti-war and peace groups including After Downing Street, Code Pink, Charlottesville Center for Peace and Justice, and World Can't Wait. A "funk the war" march was held taking protesters from the Corner at UVA up to the rally sight across from Minor Hall, where Yoo was to speak. Actions were also planned for inside the events where Yoo was to speak. Socialist Party members were extremely helpful in organizing of this protest, particularly concerning outreach, press releases, and sign making.

Funk the war is a popular way to protest these days, a kind of mobile street party/protest. Our funk the war, despite having a loud boombox, failed to get anyone to boogie down in the streets for peace, perhaps due to a lack of student involvement. Despite a massive effort on the part of organizers to involve UVA students and faculty, very little support came from the student population. The march was great anyway, filling up one side of the street with no police escort, so it was highly visible. About 100 people participated in the rally, and quite a few of them were from out of town. The anti-war rally in DC the next day brought folks our way to participate in this event. SP-ers managed to bring a lot of folks out through our contacts with Richmond May Day and the Virginia People's Assembly. Speakers were big names- Cindy Sheehan, Ray McGovern, Anne Wright, Debra Sweet, and even Charlottesville Mayor and City Councilor Dave Norris and Kristin Szakos offered a few words to the crowd.

Beyond what had been planned by organizers for the day, some activists had made it so that John Yoo met with resistance at every turn while he was in Charlottesville. He spoke at the Miller Center that morning, with people speaking out even before he took the podium (the owner of the bookstore where the last SP-USA national committee met). The secretary of the Central Virginia Local was among the many who disrupted the speech (see video below). No arrests were made, a few folks were removed. Later, during the rally and while Yoo was speaking at Minor Hall, various citizens spoke out and were removed as well. At the end of the rally, in a fit of spontaneity, protesters gathered in front of Minor Hall (where they weren't supposed to be protesting as per the UVA police department) to try to fill the few empty seats that were still available. Police would not let anyone in, much chanting occured, arrests were threatened, and we witnessed a few people being removed from inside Minor Hall. We later learned that all of the mayhem outside could be heard from inside Minor Hall.

As we wound down the day, a few demonstrators had remained to catch a glimpse of the war criminal as he was leaving. John Yoo had a police escort of about 10 cops walk him to his car amid protesters asking them to arrest him instead of protecting him. Traffic was blocked off for his speedy getaway.

All in all, John Yoo ran into a lot concerned citizens on his swing through Charlottesville. Press was great leading up to the day, and pretty good afterward. Organizers had tried to stress the illegal aggressive war aspect of John Yoo's actions at every turn, as war encompasses the whole of all the other war crimes. This message was not really put out by the press however. Perhaps torture is an easier thing for people to recognize as being a crime, nevertheless aggressive war is a crime under the UN Charter (thus a crime under the US Constitution as it respects treaties) and that message needs to be made loud and clear. The fact that the DOJ won't do anything about the war criminals inside the Bush administration and now the Obama administration as well makes it all the more imperative that regular citizens get in the streets and demand justice.

***
Brandon Collins is the Secretary of the Socialist Party of Central Virginia.

by Billy Wharton

Americans desperately need healthcare. The need is so desperate that many are buying into a “something is better than nothing” philosophy to support a healthcare bill that actively works against their own interests. The bill that Barack Obama plans to sign into law is being dubbed a “reform,” but what it actually amounts to is a corporate restructuring that will solidify the reliance on the same private insurance companies that have caused the crisis in the nation’s healthcare system. As single-payer activist, Dr. Margaret Flowers stated, “The Democratic Party has now moved so far to the right that they have just passed a Republican health bill.” This is no surprise, private insurers and pharmaceutical companies have flooded the electoral system with money in order to guarantee their continued ability to accumulate profits.

Junk Healthcare Plans and the Race to the Bottom
At nearly 2,500 pages, the bill contains a myriad of loopholes that will allow private insurers to continue nearly all of the immoral practices that have, according to a Harvard University study, resulted in more than 40,000 deaths per year due to treatable conditions. In fact, private insurers will now receive taxpayer funds to subsidize the sale of junk healthcare plans that the group Physicians for a National Health Program estimates will only cover 70% of people’s medical needs. This will likely spark a race-to-the-bottom as employers look to provide the minimum amount of coverage possible, insurer’s grab ever-increasing chunks of public money and people continue to face the prospect of soaring out-of-pocket costs, deep medical debts and death from treatable illnesses.

However, Americans have adjusted to profit driven healthcare by avoiding it. A study by the Kaiser Family Foundation found that 6 out of 10 Americans had deferred or delayed what they understood as necessary medical treatment. To close this option, the Healthcare Bill lends the coercive power of government to private health insurers. For the first time in American history, citizens will be forced to purchase health insurance or face stiff annual fines. Such a mandate guarantees that millions of people will be herded into the new “health insurance exchanges,” an idea created by the Heritage Foundation, in order to fork over their money to private insurers. Estimates are that this will produce more than 20 million new customers for abusive insurers such as Humana, Oxford and Aetna.

When Corporations Own Democracy
The bill is a remarkably clear demonstration of the power of corporate money and influence in politics. Health insurers spent an average of $600,000 a day for lobbying during the first six months of 2009. Lobbyists had a seat at the table during all parts of the writing, debate and approval of the bill. When single-payer advocates from the Physicians for a National Health Program and Healthcare-NOW attempted to participate in proceedings at the Senate Finance Committee, they were first denied a seat at the table and then arrested. All along, the insurance lobby followed the basic strategy they have employed since the 1990s – either prevent any reform or stick people with a bad reform. Welcome to the bad reform.

The fix was in from the beginning. This was clear as Democrats stumbled through “town hall meetings” during the summer of 2009. Most could not explain the details of the plan and relied on vague appeals to the obvious fact that people needed access care. Most had already taken hefty campaign contributions from the insurance and pharmaceutical lobby. Meanwhile, the bill grew in size and in pro-corporate credentials. Republicans added more than 100 amendments, Democrats negotiated away any even vaguely progressive language and the insurance industry opened profit-rich loopholes. Along the way, Obama made anti-abortion pledges and immigrants were thrown out of the legislation. Gone was Obama’s campaign pledge to create “universal healthcare” it was replaced by the neoliberal slogan of “choice and competition.”

Democrats: For Sale or Lease
A few Democrats put up symbolic resistance. House Representative Anthony Weiner cashed-in politically by running a slick public relations campaign nominally in support of single-payer before fading back into line with Obama. Senator Bernie Sanders, an independent, tried the insider route, attempting to carve out provisions that would allow state-by-state single-payer systems and that would create a public option. This failed and Sanders withdrew, choosing to go-along-to-get-along. Dennis Kucinich was held up as a “last honest man” figure. Kucinich has serious single-payer credentials and seemed fearless in his criticism of both the content and process of the bill. He correctly surmised that the House Bill “…would put the government in the role of accelerating the privatization of health care” and voted No during the first round in the House. Yet, as the clunky pro-corporate bill lumbered toward a final vote, Democratic Party leadership broke Kucinich, squeezing a Yes vote out of him presumably upon threat of running a well-financed candidate against him in future elections. In a scene more reminiscent of an Orwellian dystopia, a defeated Kucinich held a press conference to describe why he was going to vote Yes for a bill that he opposes.

Along the way, the Democrats received a wonderful political gift – the Tea Partiers. Both the conservative and liberal media focused in on tea-party demonstrations in order to craft them as the face of the opposition to the bill. A motley reactionary crew of racists, gun-lovers, and right-wing libertarian yahoos provided pro-corporate Democrats with the chance to appear as the rational defenders of the people. Single-payer advocates were unable to break this embargo despite a variety of tactics ranging from civil disobedience to letter writing. Ultimately, the Obama administration was able to present the struggle as one between healthcare “reformers” and far-right wackos looking to wreck his presidency. All this was done in the service of protecting the insurance companies from the serious critique offered by single-payer.

A Medical Cash-for-Clunkers
The healthcare bill fits smoothly into the Obama administration’s now clearly established economic strategy. Unlike the Bush administration, who attempted to use jumbled down-home rhetoric to cover class war from above, Obama has created a grotesque form of lemon socialism disguised by the language of reform. Under lemon socialism, financial losses are laid off on the public while private corporations retain the profits. Consider this bill as the healthcare version of cash-for-clunkers. Public money that could be used for the social good will be sent to bankroll abusive, inefficient and anti-human private corporations. Same with the bank bailout, and the war economy and the education policy. The administration speaks the language of reform, but enacts the policies of neoliberal privatization, no matter what the cost to the public in terms of funds or lives.

There are simple lessons to be learned from all of this – the market and corporations have no role to play in either healthcare or politics. Insurance companies merely disrupt the relationship between doctors and patients. They add nothing to the healthcare system and suck off profits by limiting or denying access to care. These profits are then re-deployed in the political system to buy both Democratic and Republican politicians through a corrupting system of lobbying and campaign contributions. Now that the Supreme Court has provided corporations with an unlimited ability to donate money to candidates, these trends are sure to increase.

Democracy or the Rich?
Now is the time to put an end to this process. On healthcare, we need to re-build the single-payer movement, rooting it in poor and working class communities, winning over our trade unions and growing into a mass movement whose demands can neither be denied nor ignored as utopian. Single-payer can open the door for a fully socialized medical system in which healthcare is finally recognized as a guaranteed human right.

Such a movement will be one part of a broader upsurge for democracy from below that seeks to address the fact that 5% of the population in America controls 85% of the wealth. As the reformer Justice Louis Brandeis once wrote, “We can have democracy in this country or we can have great wealth in the hands of a few, but we can’t have both.” We can accomplish this at the ballot box by voting for green and red candidates who support single-payer and in the streets by creating an uncompromising social movement that puts human needs first and aims to relegate the insurance companies, the banks and the multinationals to the position they so rightly deserve – the dustbin of history.

***
Billy Wharton is a writer and activist whose articles have appeared in the Washington Post, Counterpunch, Common Dreams, Dissident Voice, the NYC Indypendent, Links, Spectrezine and the Monthly Review Zine.

from Wikipedia

Wilhelm Reich (March 24, 1897 – November 3, 1957) was an Austrian-American psychiatrist and psychoanalyst, known as one of the most radical figures in the history of psychiatry. He was the author of several notable textbooks, including The Mass Psychology of Fascism and Character Analysis, both published in 1933.

Reich worked with Sigmund Freud in the 1920s and was a respected analyst for much of his life, focusing on character structure rather than on individual neurotic symptoms. He tried to reconcile Marxism and psychoanalysis, arguing that neurosis is rooted in the physical, sexual, economic, and social conditions of the patient, and promoted adolescent sexuality, the availability of contraceptives, abortion, and divorce, and the importance for women of economic independence. His work influenced a generation of intellectuals, including Saul Bellow, William Burroughs, Paul Edwards, Norman Mailer, and A. S. Neill, and shaped innovations such as Fritz Perls's Gestalt therapy, Alexander Lowen's bioenergetic analysis, and Arthur Janov's primal therapy.

from Indybay

March 4, 2010 - Across California, students and educational workers rose up against budget cuts, layoffs, fee hikes, and the system that prioritizes war and prisons over schools. In Berkeley, students blocked gates to UCB, rallied, and marched to downtown Oakland. In Oakland, hundreds of K-12 students walked out and protested on Telegraph Avenue. Laney College students marched to the main rally at Oakland City Hall. After the rally in Frank Ogawa plaza, 150-200 people walked onto southbound I-880 in Oakland. About an equal number of police mass-arrested most of those on the freeway. An Indybay reporter was arrested with 155 others and taken to Oakland City jail and Santa Rita jail overnight. One person was taken to the hospital after either falling, jumping, or being pushed by police off of the freeway.

In San Francisco, SF State students, faculty, and supporters, in an event sponsored by the California Faculity association, rallied and briefly blocked 19th Street. SF City College students rallied and rapped. Later, thousands from schools across SF marched and rallied at the Civic Center along with several labor groups. In Concord, students at Diablo Valley College rallied and marched.

In Vallejo at the California Maritime Academy, employees, faculty, and students rallied against budget cuts. In Santa Cruz, students, faculty, and workers gathered at 5 am to shut down UCSC by blocking the two main gates, followed by rallies and a general assembly. In Aptos, hundred rallied at Cabrillo College.

In Watsonville, parents, students, and community partners held a rally in the Watsonville plaza. In Monterey, CSU-Monterey students rallied against budget cuts, inaction, and the destruction of the higher education system.

In Davis, police used pepper balls, batons, and tasers on UC Davis students as they attempted to block I-80. In Sacramento, thousands rallied in front of the Capital building to protest politicians selling education short in California. In Stockton, students, teachers, and workers march against cuts on education. In Fresno, students, faculty, and supporters marched to CSU-Fresno where they were joined by hundreds of more students who walked out of classes and joined the rally. Following the rally, dozens of students marched to the administration building and engaged in a sit-in until they left of their own accord late in the evening.

In Los Angeles, 300 students occupied UCLA's Murphy Hall while thousands of others marched and rallied. More student and education worker actions took place across the U.S.

by Rockero
from LA Indymedia

March 4, 2010 - In a demonstration infused with dance, students and workers of the University of California, Riverside demanded an end to fee hikes, staffing furloughs, and cuts in class offerings. They chanted as they marched to downtown Riverside, where they were met by a contingent of student and worker activists from Riverside Community College for another rally. After the speeches, a carefully-orchestrated symbolic "death of public education" and die-in blocked traffic on University Avenue for about five minutes before protesters voluntarily cleared the street and avoided any threat of arrest.

The Inland Empire Invisible Committee kicked things off by hanging a banner from the UCR Belltower in the wee hours of the morning that read "March 4th" and had a picture of a raised fist.

Unfortunately, by the time of the convergence later on that morning, the banner had already been removed, but not before photos of it hit the internet. As students assembled at the base of the belltower, student organizers distributed red shirts to those without, taking small donations when possible. Students stencilled images and slogans on them.

Organizers handed out chant sheets with "March 4th Nonviolent Action Guidelines" on the back. Others handed out informative pamphlets and copies of After the Fall: Communiqués from Occupied California.

At about noon, speakers began rallying the crowd with chants, elocutions, and poetry.

The first speaker was Stephanie Kay, an educational worker at UCR and a member of the UCAFT, who spoke on behalf of "the non-Senate faculty." "We have a collective bargaining agreement with the UC, so we are both your teachers and workers in the great enterprise we call public education." Aristotle discussed the need for an enlightened body politic, she said, and expressing ourselves as an exercise of public education was one of the ways the philosopher thought we could reach our full potential as human beings. This lofty discourse was cut short, however, by breaking news. "I have just been in a meeting with the administration about your 1C classes, all the classes at the university, and how they've been cut. Well, this took the highfalutin right out of me! This is no time for highfalutin! This is a time for us to act. This is a time to think about how important demonstrations and student activism are, and how important it is for us to be in control and
in charge of what our education is and could be and should be! What do we want? We don't want a compromised education. We don't want classes cut. We don't want to have to fight for the right to an affordable education for everyone! This is your right as citizens!" She urged a letter-writing campaign, and asked the students to involve their parents in "making noise," pointing to the effectiveness of protests for restoring cancelled B classes, which stood in the way of many students from graduating.

The following speaker, a student organizer, cautioned against the militancy that has been present at some other student movement engagements. "I know that our brothers and sisters in other areas have had some not-so-peaceful, kinda violent things and we wanna let weryone know that that's not what we're about. We're about peace, we're about non-violence, we're about direct action."

Student organizer speaks on behalf of undocumented UCR students, March 4, 2010Adriana then orated on behalf of AB540 students. "If you don't know about AB540 students, they have to pay full tuition without any financial help, and that is not fair. Personally, I have to pay $12,000 a year for education out of my own pocket! That shit is not right! It is not right to have to work three jobs to pay for school. It is not right that I have to go through hunger just to pay for school. It is not right that I have to sleep in some of my classes when I should be learning. It is a shame!"

Elliott spoke next. "As an IE native, this sight right here warms my heart. Roots, know what I'm saying? What's going on? They need soldiers for war, so what do they do? They cut education. So when the recruiters come knocking on the door, what do you tell them? What do you tell them? You say 'Hell no!' When you hear from that guy from the Navy with that nice little package and everything, what do you say?"

"Hell no!" the crowd shouted.

He reminded us that "this is a peaceful event. You guys have seen the news, things that are going down in other places, unnecessary destruction of property, all that stuff. It's about peace, and it's about building community, so keep it strong."

Michael, a librarian, then spoke about his involvement with the UC. "I went to UCI, I went to UCLA, I worked at those places, and I came here and I've been here for ten years, and this is the most active and the most dynamic student body I've seen in my time here. You should be proud of yourselves." He proclaimed the support of the librarians for the students, acknowledging that only student demands would lead to provision of services.

Next, a student organizer recited a poem called "The Separation."

He was followed by another speaker. "I'm with a group called Brown Issues, and what we've been doing is we've been holding down discussions of these things that need to be talked about, because we need to pick up the slack in these classrooms." He continued, "We've got 300 people in the class. Is there enough for individual attention? Man, I remember kindergarten, when you all sit down, the teacher says 'What do you need help with?', knows you by your name! And you just feel special, that bond with the teacher, you just feel the love that teacher. I miss those days!" He went on, "Where I'm from, sometimes I get lonely in the classroom, cause I look around and I say, ' Man, who knows what I'm going through?' I made it! I made it through the drugs, through the gangs, through the prostitution. When I think about it, I still feel that hand on my back, pushing me, just pushing me out of the institution called 'education.' They're pushing me out. They're
saying, 'Yeah, you made it, but hey, it's time for you to go because you made it without money.'"

"So, we gotta rethink this idea of diversity, because when they call out people and they say 'We want diversity,' I got more in common with poor whites than I do with any rich Black, Brown, or Asian that Icould ever lay eyes on. I got more in common with them because they sit down and they say, 'We need diversity,' but that doesn't mean diversity of the mind."

He concluded, "It's a contradiction. It's not a business, it's education. We don't think about it like a business, bet they treat us like a business. They treat us like a commodity! And every one of us has a number above our heads of how much money they can bring in. So let's ask them next time, if you're gonna treat it like a business, then let's treat it like a business. Now, if we step into McDonald's, and they gonna mess up our order, we say, 'Hey, take this back!' We say, 'Either you make this right, or I get my money back. That's what we say! If they're gonna run this like a business, then we say, 'Either you gonna make this right, or you gimme my money back!'"

He was followed by a dining services worker from AFSCME, who shared how budget cuts are affecting workers. He pointed out that the priorities of the regents are giving raises and bonuses to executives, rather than education, where it should be. "I've never been a speaker, I'm just a cook right here," he began, as the crowd erupted into applause, "education of students is number one!" He ended with a chant: "When I say 'Fight back,' you say 'Fuck that!'" "Fight back!" "Fuck that!"

Paul, another educational worker, spoke about education as a public institution, shortages throughout the system, and his attempts to negotiate with decisionmakers, who have urged calm, patience, and reason. "Friends, I cannot be calm. I have lost my very patience. I will not wait! And today, in this matter, I am not a reasonable man!" He reminded us that "this country was born out of the spirit of rebellion and defiance."

Connie then addressed the students and workers. "57% of our taxes go to war. What can we do with 57% of our money? She subsequently invited us to the March 20th antiwar demonstration in Hollywood. "We have to show that we have a lot of people who care. These demonstrations are safer. Some people are concerned because of MacArthur Park. This is a coupla years ago when the police knocked cameras out of journalists' arms. The last demonstration I was in, the police let us do anything you wanted. They just stayed back and smiled, so I have no fear that they're gonna do anything to us."

Curtis, another worker from AFSCME then spoke, followed by another student organizer, who discussed a lobby visit to Sacramento. "When the new speaker was sworn in, you could hear us chanting outside. And the new speaker said, 'I stand with those students outside.' He then introduced UCR Chancellor Tim White. "He's been very supportive," one student told me, "he promised no reprisals against students and workers who participate today."

Don't look at me! I'm just the chancellor!The chancellor defected blame toward Sacramento, urging students to face north and thrice shout "fund education."

The speeches ended with the UFW unity clap, and then members of the UCR dance department taught the crowd some gestures to go along with the words, "Justice," "education," and "Equality." "It's kind of like yelling, except this time, you're gonna be moving." We learned the motions and practiced them. "You'll be hearing that throughout the day, and that'll be a way to unify, to stay together, and to keep pumped up."

by Billy Wharton
from Dissident Voice

Thousands marched through midtown Manhattan yesterday as part of the March 4th Day to Defend Education, to protest the latest round of budget cuts being imposed by New York City and State. The crowd was remarkably diverse – university students who faced tuition hikes, high school students whose free Metrocards were being revoked, teachers arguing against school privatization and transit workers enraged at the firing of 1,000 of their fellow workers. Different perspectives, but one demand - stop cutting the budget and start taxing the rich.

My day began at Brooklyn College, a part of the City University of New York. Students and faculty there organized a day-long teach-in about the cuts. About 150 students participated and most seemed to be engaging in their first political act. The spirit that you can make a political struggle and win had yet to develop, but participants were engaged.
CUNY has a rich tradition of student activism to draw upon. Three moments stand out. The first came in the 1930s when students created a vibrant free speech movement to secure the right to make politics openly on campus. This was followed by the 1969 student strike at City College by the Black and Puerto Rican Student Organization, which forced the opening of the CUNY system to all New Yorkers who wished to receive a college education. Next up were the tuition and open admissions struggles from 1989 until 1997, where another diverse student movement exploded onto the scene to defend the right to higher education for all.

From the history of struggle offered at Brooklyn College, I moved to the office of embattled Governor David Paterson in midtown Manhattan. Paterson may be dogged by scandals in Albany, but today he faced a vibrant crowd united by a total rejection of his budget proposals. Sure the speakers droned on for hours and most in the crowd had tuned them out after 20 minutes, but the clear message offered by the mere presence of people from so many parts of the city and so many causes, was that Paterson’s hustle about everyone “pitching-in” during a fiscal crisis was being exposed as a farce. There is plenty of money in New York City – you could feel it oozing from the businessmen in expensive suits who hurled insults at the demonstrators while continuing their journeys back home to Long Island. Protestors wanted to get at this wealth, not for individual self-aggrandizement, but to ensure that our city provides the services poor and working class people
need.

Once we were liberated from the short-term of oppression of speechifying, we hit the streets. It is good to march in the streets. There is a sense of freedom it offers that is punctured only by the ever-present squadrons of police. And there were plenty of police – on horses, motorcycles, hanging off the side of buildings, inspecting, watching, directing. Today, though, there were more of us than them and there was a level of outrage to the protest that kept the police at bay, fearful that a provocation might grow into something they would have trouble controlling. So we marched and chanted and spoke with each other united together by a sense that this could be the first round of a longer struggle to reclaim our city.

Is a new movement being born? Hard to say this early. If there is something brewing, it might be very interesting. The pressure of the cuts are coming down so hard, they are affecting so many different parts of our city and they are throwing so many people into politics, that any new movement might have a very broad base. We might not just have a student movement here, a community movement to defend schools there and a workers movement to defend public sector jobs. What may emerge, what many of us hope will emerge, is a broad movement that aims at democratizing New York City. This road, as they say, will be made by walking.

***
Billy Wharton is the co-chair of the Socialist Party USA

Student protest at State University of New York at Purchase:

from UVA Fights Back

This morning, Friday March 5th, a small group of students and Charlottesville folk dropped banners in UVA and the Corner that read “Public Education is Under Attack STAND UP FIGHT BACK!” and “Take Back Your Classroom, Your Workplace, YOUR LIFE.” This is in solidarity with the students, workers, faculty, parents, and the wider community that acted out all over the nation as part of the “National Day to Defend Public Education.” This is also a small step in mobilizing and organizing right here in UVA.

The movement around the nation is happening in response to increasing budget cuts, privatization, tuition hikes, and layoffs. We also fight against the false promises of college degrees and the university system that commodifies students for the capitalist system. A growing number of students and those within the university community in the US have given up hope that spending thousands of dollars and working endless shifts for bad pay is supposed to give them a better chance in life. The debt we amass indentures our life and autonomy so as the cost is too high for us to buy into this capitalist dream of “success” anymore.

And so we decided to live. This means we are taking the spaces necessary to regain autonomy and share what we can while we dismantle the ascribed structures and roles that keep us passive and silent, all while we laugh, dance, and cry. This means that we won’t ask for permission to act or base our actions on reform. If we are to live without the roles we serve, then only we are capable of taking them down, not through laws written on paper or through police and authorities that are set on protecting wealth. This is a systemic problem with a systemic solution. The more we spread revolt and liberated spaces and the more we stop the flows of this modern society, the better we will share our spaces and the better we will live our own dreams (those dreams that don’t involve artificial and false promises). People all the way from California to New York are taking part in this. Charlottesville is as capable of action as any other…

To further this, there will be a general assembly meeting first in front of the Rotunda on Friday the 19th at 6pm after the John Yoo protest and all pissed-off workers, students and faculty are invited. As are any seeking to piece together the current and ongoing education crises. This is a space for everyone to share tools and ideas to spread the movement and find each other so that we can take spaces back and use them like the word “public” actually meant something.

Love,

The UVAFB Anti-Debt Committee

***
Video from a children's march in San Francisco:

from Indybay

Students and workers were out in force up and down the state of California on March 4th. The call to defend education was answered by highway blockades, school shutdowns and other creative forms of protest. The message was clear - there will be consequences for cutting education budgets. Here are a few photos and videos of the actions.

A Black student group shut down Sather Gate at Berkley:


Another demo at Berkley:


Mass march in Oakland:


"Fight Back" banner drop in Oakland:


Numbers swelled at the demo in San Francisco:


Never too young for the struggle in San Fran & Santa Cruz:




Things get personal in Santa Cruz:

by John F. Bowman, Maryam Monalisa Gharavi, and Abdelnasser A. Rashid
from the Harvard Crimson

Thursday, March 11, 2010 - We address this op-ed to Beth Simmons (Director, Weatherhead Center for International Affairs), Jeffry Frieden and James Robinson (Acting Directors, WCIA), and Drew Faust (President, Harvard University).

We write as gravely concerned students and student group leaders representing over 16 groups throughout Harvard University. Our entire constituency can be viewed online.

We are disturbed by the racist and inhumane comments of Martin Kramer, Visiting Scholar at the National Security Studies Program at the Weatherhead Center for International Affairs. We have become even more alarmed that rather than taking a dissociating or even strictly neutral stance against such extremist and hateful statements, the Weatherhead Center issued a defensive response.

At the Herzliya Conference in Israel last month, Mr. Kramer, who in his own words provides advice on “U.S. policy options in the Middle East,” advocated measures to diminish Palestinian birth rates as a means of population control. Mr. Kramer stated that Israel’s siege on Gaza, which prohibits the entry of crucial humanitarian supplies, helps “break Gaza’s runaway population growth and there is some evidence that they have.” He suggests that this phenomenon “may begin to crack the culture of martyrdom, which demands a constant supply of superfluous young men.” Mr. Kramer’s public call to halt food, medicine, and humanitarian aid—which he calls “pro-natal subsidies”—would read as a cruel joke if it did not so egregiously violate the most basic norms of human decency. Such statements have been echoed by people in power and have even been directed at Israel’s Palestinian citizens: At the same conference in 2003, Israel’s current Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called Palestinian citizens of Israel a “demographic threat.”

Harvard professor Stephen M. Walt commented, “What if a prominent academic at Harvard declared that the United States had to make food scarcer for Hispanics so that they would have fewer children? Or what if someone at a prominent think tank noted that black Americans have higher crime rates than some other groups, and therefore it made good sense to put an end to Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) and other welfare programs, because that would discourage African Americans from reproducing and thus constitute an effective anti-crime program?”

Had Mr. Kramer’s comments been directed at any other marginalized or minority groups—leaving aside the enormous challenge faced by Palestinians living in the impoverished enclosure of Gaza—we believe that the Weatherhead Center would not have hesitated to classify them as racist and hateful. It has described Mr. Kramer’s proclamations as “controversial,” an alarming position since less than a century ago similar remarks were made against African Americans and Jews. The characterization of his statements as merely “controversial” is offensive and dismisses their deeply racist nature.

Since the Weatherhead Center provides Mr. Kramer with a legitimizing and prominent public platform, we wonder whether it views any policy call as ethically disgraceful. We are troubled that the center has presented little to no diversity of viewpoints on the Israel-Palestine conflict. The only notable statements on the conflict emerging from the center are Mr. Kramer’s.

However, we believe that the Weatherhead Center has an opportunity to rectify the damage caused by Mr. Kramer’s repugnant statements and redeem its esteem with the student body. First, we ask that the Weatherhead Center not renew Mr. Kramer’s fellowship or affiliation with the NSSP. Second, we call on the center to establish a committee of faculty and students to recommend the adoption of a set of vetting practices for incoming fellows that uphold a set of principles unified on non-racism, in concert with Harvard University’s own commitment to non-discriminatory practices and diversity of viewpoints. We are concerned that the defense of Mr. Kramer’s statement reflects a violation of basic principles to which the Weatherhead Center and Harvard University claim to adhere. The above measures are an effective way for the center and the University to make amends.

***
Johnny F. Bowman ’11 is president of the Undergraduate Council and a sociology concentrator in Pforzheimer House. Maryam Monalisa Gharavi is a Ph.D. candidate in Comparative Literature and co-founder of GSAS Capoeira Angola. Abdelnasser A. Rashid ’11 is president of the Harvard Islamic Society, board member of the Palestine Solidarity Committee, and a social studies concentrator in Dunster House.

from Wikipedia

Freedom's Journal was the first African American owned and operated newspaper published in the United States. Published weekly in New York City from 16 March 1827 to 28 March 1829, the journal was edited by John Russwurm and co-editor, Samuel Cornish who contributed only through the 14 September 1827 issue. Freedom's Journal was superseded by The Rights of All, published between 1829 and 1830 by Cornish.

Freedom's Journal provided international, national, and regional information on current - events and contained editorials declaiming slavery, lynching, and other injustices. The Journal also published biographies of prominent African Americans and listings of births, deaths, and marriages in the African American community in New York. Freedom's Journal circulated in 11 states, the District of Columbia, Haiti, Europe, and Canada. Freedom's Journal had many articles on information such as world wide news, and many job listings, and announcements on housing, weddings, and funerals. This helped blacks become more aware of the world.

The newspaper employed subscription agents such as David Walker, who in 1829 published the first of four articles that called for rebellion. The pamphlet "Walker's Appeal" stated, "...it is no more harm for you to kill the man who is trying to kill you than it is for you to take a drink of water..." This statement was widely read, with Walker distributing copies of his pamphlet into the Southern United States, where it was widely banned.

***
To read the first copy of Freedom's Journal click here

Editorial
from The Socialist, 2010 Issue 2

The 100th anniversary of International Women’s Day presents an invitation to reflect on the status of women’s rights and the long struggle for social equality. For some, this requires a look into the radical history of the early 20th century. Doing so might offer inspiration to new generations of activists who are often trapped by the constraints of the present. Yet, important lessons can also be drawn from more recent episodes in history. For instance, in just the last six years we have witnessed an incipient women’s rights movement being channeled into a lobbying and electoral strategy. Three moments best illustrate this damaging transformation.

Despite the increasing boldness of the anti-choice protesters from the 1980’s into the turn of the century, a certain rebirth of the feminist movement seemed to be afoot in April 2004. A sea of pink Planned Parenthood signs filled the streets of Washington DC as nearly a million people turned out in an attempt to defend hard-fought reproductive rights – mothers and daughters and even grandmothers with their granddaughters marched together. People were on the move, angry and willing to make the kind of sacrifices popular movements are nurtured on. All that was needed was some organization.

Such a movement never materialized. Established feminist groups seemed satisfied to fight off parts of Bush’s legislative assault by lobbying efforts and doling out fairly large sums of campaign contributions to Democrats. While they followed this path, the anti-choice movement grew by seeping into state government posts, pressuring and shuttering clinics and developing the capacity and will to carry out violent acts of terror. In an odd reversal, it seemed conservatives were more concerned with movement building than progressives.

The shooting death of late-term abortion doctor Dr. George Tiller in May 2009 was merely the pinnacle of this wave of reaction. One day after the shooting, hundreds of protesters assembled in New York City’s Union Square. The crowd experienced emotions ranging from anger to sadness to guilt at not having done more. Still, there was a sense that this might be a moment to gather the political strength necessary to beat back these attacks. Many mentioned the power of the 2004 march.

When the speakers stepped to the mic, the crowd waited with anticipation to see what they would be called on to do. Would people be asked to forgo their summer vacations in order to support clinic defense? Would a new grassroots women’s rights movement be initiated? What sacrifice would the leadership demand from a clearly motivated crowd?

Money. The clear message repeated by speak¬er after speaker was the need for more money. Money to support a legislative agenda, money for campaign contributions and money to keep paying the staff at mainstream women’s rights groups. The crowd provided plenty, checkbooks flew open throughout the park, but a clear sense of foreboding pervaded. No check, no matter how large, could provide a proper response to a right-wing movement that felt so em¬powered that it could now carry out political assassinations. Grassroots mobilization from the left was desperately needed, but the only political space offered was one that provided a tax write-off.

Flash to the great healthcare debate of summer 2009. A Democratic Congress and Presidency bore witness to the ineffectiveness of campaign contributions such as those collected at Dr. Tiller’s memorial. In fact, the Center for Responsive Politics reports that pro-choice donors have outspent anti-choice supporters by $3.4 million to $559,000 since 1989. However, this did nothing to restrain Bart Stupak, a Democrat from Michigan, from proposing an amendment to an already deeply flawed healthcare reform bill that would effectively ban the use of insurance plans to access abortion services. Equally notable, Democratic Representatives Ciro Rodriguez and Harry Teague, two major recipients of Planned Parenthood campaign contributions, voted in favor of the measure.

Of course, a socialist feminist critique extends far beyond abortion rights. Yet, the lesson that the stifled pro-choice movement offers is that the insider strategy being followed by mainstream rights groups has failed. It has failed to secure abortion rights, failed to protect providers and failed to capture the imagination of women, especially young women, searching for a movement capable of turning back the tide of right-wing assault. This special edition of The Socialist argues for a new direction by insisting that politically independent, grassroots-based and socialist-informed feminist politics are needed now more than ever.

As we celebrate IWD 2010, we call for a reformulation of a socialist-feminist political project that aspires to critique and transform all elements of our society. No longer willing to accept a comfortable place on the margins, we look, instead, to radically restructure the center of society – to build a society where the great promises of freedom and equality offered by socialism might finally be realized. Lobbying won’t get us there, building our power at the grassroots to effect change in the way we live our lives everyday just might.