Democracy is about creating a society based on economic democracy – where working people who create the wealth can claim that wealth.



Madison Mobilizes to Defeat the Anti-Labor Walker

by Omar Mohamad, Socialist Party of South Central Wisconsin and Billy Wharton, co-chair Socialist Party USA

The mass protests led by public employees unions in Madison, Wisconsin have been presented by some mainstream commentators as labor’s last stand. They are not. They are a spark, a spark with the potential to create a new protest movement capable of revitalizing our unions, radicalizing student organizing and creating a space for democratic socialist politics. As socialists, we stand steadfastly in solidarity with this protest movement. We pledge to support the immediate goal of blocking Governor Scott Walker’s reactionary and draconian anti-union legislation and the longer-term project of building a serious left-wing political movement in the US.

Walker’s proposal to strip workers of collective bargaining rights is an extreme example of the budget cutting strategies being prepared by state and local officials throughout the country. More than 31 states are in the process of implementing deep cuts to basic public services. The local budgetary situations have been made worse by the ending of Federal stimulus funds. Much like at the Federal level, most of these states have, for decades, refused to properly tax their richest residents and corporations. In the case of Wisconsin, corporate tax rates have not been increased since 1972 and a myriad of loopholes and tax credits allow these companies to further evade taxation.

But the budget cuts are not about the fiscal balancing of budgets. They are, instead, an ideological attack on the rights of working people, on the opportunities for public university students and on the public programs that millions of people rely on. Gov. Walker and the other politicians, Democrats and Republicans alike, have refused to cover deficits by spending from reserve funds or increasing taxation on the rich and corporations. This is a political choice, driven by free market ideology, to defend the wealth of the elite at the expense of the vast majority of people in our society.

As socialists, we understand that public employees are not the problem. Their work helps to enhance the public good. The problem that is gripping all of American society is that 5% of the population controls 85% of the productive wealth and this 5% has no intention of returning this wealth to those who produced it. As a result, politicians will violate any democratic right – union rights, civil rights and economic rights – that threatens this wealth. Walker demonstrated just how far he would go by putting the National Guard on notice in the event of mass unrest.

No wonder then that the protesters in Madison compared the Governor to the deposed dictator of Egypt Hosni Mubarak. This comparison is not only because the protesters see a bit of Walker in Mubarak, but more importantly, they see themselves in the massive street protests that gripped Egypt and in the occupation of Tahrir Square. And what great lessons to learn from this brave movement that faced down the police and forced a dictator out. The fighting spirit of Tahrir Square represents a global wave of unrest in which people are exercising and demanding their democratic rights. Democracy, in Cairo or Madison, is about more than elections. It is about creating a society based on economic democracy – where working people who create the wealth can claim that wealth.

Democratic socialism offers the best hope to make the aspirations of these protests real. We believe that society can best be run through direct democracy – where people have a direct say in how the society runs. Scott Walker and the Wisconsin Legislature should not be the ones determining how the budget is crafted. A system of participatory budgeting in which those who will be affected by the budget are given a direct decision making voice in how the funds are spent would be the most democratic and efficient process possible. Here, the true will of all those people mobilizing to stop Walker would be heard.

Until we are able to build the political will to create such a democratic structure, the political focus must be placed on taxing the rich and corporations to cover the immediate budget deficit in Wisconsin. In the short term, this will mean employing all possible forms of civil disobedience and non-compliance on our worksites, our schools and in our communities. Simply put, if a small group of politicians attempts to strip us of our rights in the service of protecting the wealth of the elite, we are more than justified in using all of the social power we can muster to bring the society to a stand still.

The Socialist Party USA has initiated a national campaign to fight against budget cuts and the attack on public workers. We are calling on all of our members and our supporters to join local campaigns to defend jobs, education, and services. As socialists, we bring with us a firm conviction about taxing the rich and a vision of a democratically run society in which people regain control of their lives from the logic of the market, from the workings of capitalism and from the elite 5% who benefit from our labor, while offering little in return.

Solidarity with the Madison Protests!
Kill the Anti-Union Bill!
Defeat the Anti-Labor Walker!


***
Get Organized!
In Madison contact - omarbmohamad(at)gmail.com
Other areas visit - http://www.socialistparty-usa.org/

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but masses of students, considered now for twenty years to be hopelessly apathetic, in very large numbers have been supportive.




An Interview with Paul Buhle

Paul Buhle is a distinguished historian of the American Left and has been active in social movements since participating in Civil Rights and Anti-War campaigns in the 1960s. His graphic histories such as A People’s History of American Empire, Wobblies! A Graphic History of the IWW and his recently published FDR and the New Deal for Beginners have brought the liberating messages of the Left to a new generation of readers. Buhle is also a long-time resident of Madison, Wisconsin and he took part in the recent demonstrations against Republican Governor Scott Walker who is trying to strip public employees union. The Socialist Editor Billy Wharton spoke with Paul Buhle the day after a pro-Walker Tea Party rally failed and the mass demonstrations continued.

Billy Wharton: I understand you have been at the demonstrations, heady days in Madison lately. Can you tell us a little about what you’ve seen the last few days.

Paul Buhle: On the one hand I’ve been amidst the largest, most comprehensive outpouring of labor solidarity that I’ve experienced in my life time, not having lived through the 30’s or 40’s in the US or events abroad in so many places. And that it’s staggering to see such a wonderful public feeling, public turn out, thousands of school children holding up signs that they support their teachers. Plenty of social workers and hospital workers and so forth of various kinds, but also the skilled trades, eager to show their solidarity with state workers. Likewise you might say the idealist contingent from the campus area and the broader community. Which brings me to the other thing that’s most remarkable, Madison has not seen this level of demonstration since 1970 and Kent State. But of course the great contrast would be that in 1970, and before, the powers that be were able to marginalize and demonize the opposition to the war, which was so very very widespread on campus and considerable in the community but capable of being demonized as well as being assaulted by the police. In contrast to that, the outpouring this time is so large and covers so many demographic areas of the population that the attempts by Republicans and conservative Democrats to marginalize this effort and categorize it as some narrow group and themselves as some silent majority, this kind of stuff falls as flat as the 500 Teapartiers surrounded by 70,000 strike supporters

BW: and that was yesterday?

PB: That was indeed yesterday and a great deal of publicity had gone out about how Joe the Plumber was going to show up and how there would be a massive demonstration and how there would be loads of buses coming from a far and so on and so forth but some people estimated 3,000 I wouldn’t say there were more than 500 and their rally was supposed to continue until 3:00 but they called it quits at 1:30, there was no violence, everyone was actually quite wonderful about maintaining their respectfulness and so forth, but on the other hand those types were subject to ridicule.

BW: Ok, so there’s a categorization that this is labor’s last stand, but from the left we hope that it’s some kind of renewal of a new labor movement. I wonder what you think. Are the protests merely defensive or is it something else going on here?

PB: It’s very difficult to say what lies a week or a month ahead and those of us who passed through the 1960’s and 1970’s know that the Right was able to turn the tide through a great deal of money and demonizing and so forth, but in the past, the Democrats were always able to say “oh well this is too bad, but wait until the next election and we’ll be elected and everything will be hunky dory” and it’s possible that this could happen again, that the Democrats will return from Illinois and say “we did our best and now lump it until next election when you should vote for us again.” That would be shocking but not surprising given the history of the Democratic Party. But I think there’s some other elements here. Wisconsin is famous for the Robert LaFollette tradition of opposition to WWI and during the Vietnam era and beyond, the traditional isolationism or resentment against foreign involvement and the militarization of the economy joined in with the student movement, which had been against the war and the draft and between those two there was a deep popular sentiment against war certainly by 1970 and it was able to play quite a role in the national anti-war movement as being from the Heartland, and one suspects the same thing may happen here, that the voices from Madison and also the very funny signs, which occurred in great and greater numbers from Tuesday to Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, to yesterday. Hilarious signs. They send a message, not only of determination. but good cheer, that it’s fun to be involved in this level of rebellious activity and that people from all social classes, except of course business men, big business men bankers and that sort of social scum, can enjoy thoroughly, including a lot of small business men and women in Wisconsin who resent the power that the banks have over them.

BW: That’s another question I wanted to ask you, this Mubarak-Walker comparison. It’s interesting in the sense that people can identify with the movement in Egypt, but I thought that it also might represent Walker and his ideas as something foreign to Wisconsin…

PB: I think that’s a good thought. Incidentally, there was a tweet this morning that someone in Cairo was holding up a sign in solidarity with Madison. It makes perfect sense because University of Wisconsin graduates are all over the world and presumably involved in social movements all over the world.

BW: I just wanted to finish that point, I wonder where does Walker come from and where does the support for him, sufficient enough to get him elected, where does that fit?

PB: There are two or three things that are very interesting about that. Perhaps I should start with the very lukewarm support of strikers from the White House, that they have to be prepared to accept concessions, but, on the other hand, they probably should have the right to remain in unions. It was the weakest possible support and it reflects since 2008, when enthusiasm for Obama was massive here, but also it must be said, historically Republican sympathies faded and tens of thousands of Republicans didn’t go to the polls in 2008 because they were sick of the Bushies and didn’t really like McCain very much and those thousands include military veterans and their families. What happened between 2008 and 2010 was bitter disillusionment with Obama and the Democrats and with Wall Street and so on and the war. The war is very unpopular in Wisconsin, as was everyone except the Second World War. It remains unpopular and probably the worst moment for Russ Feingold, a really great senator who was defeated, was probably the posters around the state of Russ Feingold posed next to Obama. I think that cost him many thousands of votes. So the story on Walker, a perfectly middle of the road, not especially intelligent, but never especially right wing Republican until election time, and then with very great quantities of cash from the much overrated in popular support Tea Party movement. Somebody said that in the same week in September there was a US Labor Against the War meeting of 100 in Milwaukee to which no reporter showed up and a Tea Party event somewhere in the state, which every reporter in the state showed up for, so that the orchestration of the importance of the Tea Party certainly played a role in this. But in my view, it was a moment of massive disillusionment with the Democrats, not all of them, but with the national leadership and a fair number of the state people who had gone along with the Wall Street bailouts. And in terms of Walker being seen as a foreign person, the greatest complaint in Madison going back to the 1970’s, if not before, was that out of town banks were seizing Wisconsin businesses and Wisconsinites of any social class were no longer in charge of their fate. That was a familiar theme in Robert LaFollete’s days and is important and of course the money for the Tea Partiers came from the Koch brothers. The connection’s a very real one.

BW: I mean Foreign in the sense of the overall political culture of the state.

PB: Yes, I mean of course there are ample conservatives in Wisconsin and we don’t need anymore. But on the other hand the sense that the state has become hostage to Republicans, but also to conservative Democrats nationally is a painful thing and if there is one other thing that I’d like to stress about the demonstrations in the past 5 days is that they contain a tremendous amount of pride in Wisconsin and an identification with the Rose Bowl winners, the Super Bowl winners and a whole lot of cheering every time the word Wisconsin was heard. And pride in perhaps, leading this national movement, or setting in motion this national movement and if it happens, people in Wisconsin will say “by God, we did it.”

BW: Can you tell us a little bit about what the role of the University of Wisconsin Madison is in the protests, in the sense of the students and also the faculty union, but also the administration.

PB: Well, the administration has played a bad role, as the administration characteristically plays a bad role. It’s never really supported the existence of the Teaching Assistants Association and fought it bitterly when I was in it, around 1970 and punished us in all kinds of ways by reducing a number of us and threatening firing and so forth, and then backed off for a while. In the current situation, the Chancellor Biddy Martin, wants to make this an opportunity to separate the well funded, but largely privatized UW from the struggling university system as a whole. So that our UW at Madison won’t suffer the deficits of the places with lower prestige. And the Chancellor, Biddy Martin would be better if the Legislature would hold off and discuss, but is offering no support what so ever. As expected. On the other hand, the Teaching Assistants Association, which has had a contract since the strike in 1970, was very strong in its support of the movement and in the streets from the campus to the capitol historically an Avenue of protest was packed with supporters from UW and other people from the community, so its the familiar story, the administrators aren’t friendly, but masses of students, considered now for twenty years to be hopelessly apathetic, in very large numbers have been supportive.

BW: Let’s talk a little bit about culture and politics. From the outside, I saw a lot of references to pop culture from the 1980’s including Star Wars, Twisted Sister, are there any kind of countercultural influences that you see?

PB: Oh yeah, for those who are interested, Madison.com has a gallery of protest signs, a very considerable number of them humorous and they were not so countercultural, or it may be that counterculture is now so old and so deeply embedded that people who are 65 years old can go on considering themselves part of the counterculture even through they dress professionally and happen to have been school teachers for 30 years. I think the Twisted Sister thing was fascinating because it’s the perfect song, but it has all these reverberations that is trans-decade that represents something that’s bigger then anything in particular. I guess the real Madison counter culture may be the old duffers with the beards.

BW: I wonder if it’s inherent to, or if it’s a symptom of the positioning of the union movement right now.

PB: Well that’s interesting because among the most colorful scenes along with the signs were the jackets of union members. Especially Pipefitters and so forth, people who had really colorful jackets and have worn them for decades and hardly anyone has every noticed, but are beautifully made and the colors on them are fabulous and people were happy to have them there and perhaps deferred to them and congratulated them, as I did, because we have seen them too rarely, but these people were 100% in support from all over the state. Road workers, and here’s one of the better signs, Fire Us- We Won’t Plow your Streets Tomorrow and the lowest levels of city workers of all kinds, road crews and so forth they are as happy and as proud to be here, even if they drove four hours to be here as anyone was.

BW: Great, is there anything else you want to add?


PB: Yes, only to underline that when the sun comes out in February in Wisconsin, everybody’s happy when the sun comes out and it’s warm. In April, everybody’s ready to go on strike, at least that’s my experience with the University of Wisconsin in the 1960’s. People save up their grievances and then when there’s a good day, people would be going out anyway. This is the final thing I’d like to say. The opportunity to be surrounded by 40 or 50,000 people sharing a purpose, a very good purpose, this is a very rare experience in life. Other then going to Washington to a demonstration where people come from all over the country, I haven’t experienced it in a bit over 40 years and it’s an awfully heady and fulfilling experience and I hope that your readers and listeners have that experience for themselves.

BW: Maybe we’re headed for a Madison Spring.



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Certainly the struggle over politics and government is built into this contest as it seldom is so directly in the private sector.






by Dan LaBotz

Thousands of workers demonstrated at the state capital in Madison, Wisconsin on Feb. 15 and 16 to protest plans by that state’s Republican Governor Scott Walker to take away the state workers’ union rights. Walker, cleverly attempted to divide the public workers by excluding police and firefighters from his anti-union law, and the media have worked to divide public employees against private sector workers. Yet, both firemen and private sector workers showed up at the statehouse to join public workers of all sorts in what has been one of the largest workers demonstrations in the United States in decades. Only California has seen demonstrations as large as these in recent years.

Many demonstrators, taking a clue from the rebellions against authoritarian and anti-worker governments that are sweeping the Middle East, carried signs saying, “Let’s negotiate like they do in Egypt.” While the situation in Wisconsin is hardly comparable to the revolution in the Arab world, what we are witnessing is the beginning of a new American workers movement. Because this movement is so different than what many expected, it may take us by surprise.

Not What We Expected

Many of us, myself included, had for years expected a rank-and-file workers movement to arise out of shop floor struggles in industrial workplaces, out of the fight for union democracy, and out of the process of working class struggle against the employers. While that perspective still has much validity, something different is happening. The new labor movement that is arising does not start in the industrial working class (though it will get there soon enough), it does not focus on shop floor issues (though they will no doubt be taken up shortly), it is not primarily motivated by a desire for unions democracy (though it will have to fight for union democracy to push forward the leaders it needs). And it does not, as so many American labor movements of the past did remain confined to the economic class struggle (though that too will accelerate). It is from the beginning an inherently labor political movement.

The new movement that is arising does not focus on the usual issues of collective bargaining—working conditions, wages, and benefits—but focuses rather on the political and programmatic issues usually take up by political parties: the very right of workers to bargaining collective, the state budget priorities, and the tax system which funds the budget. The new labor movement, because it has begun in the public sector, will not be so much about the process of class struggle as it will be about how class struggle finds a voice through political program. This will have tremendous implications for the traditional relations between the organized labor movement and the Democratic Party, especially since the Democrats, from Barack Obama to state governors like Cuomo, are also demanding that public employees give up wages, benefits, conditions and rights.

Not Your Grandfather’s Working Class

We have for decades in this country thought of the working class as being made up of those workers of railroad, mine and mill whose calloused hands produced the material wealth of this nation over 200 years, that is, since the first factories were opened in the Northeast in the 1790s. Industrial workers though have been declining as a percentage of the population since the 1920s and have diminished at an accelerated rate since the 1950s. Since the 1980s the decline of industrial workers as a proportion of the wage earning class has been dramatic. In the old days, skilled workers, almost all white men, came as immigrants from the countries of Western and Northern Europe, while the unskilled industrial workers were immigrants from the South and East of Europe, whites from Appalachia, and African Americans from the South’s plantations. While most of those industrial workers were male, millions of women also toiled in textile mills, garment shops, and other workplaces. Those workers created the Knights of Labor in 1869, American Federation of Labor (AFL) in the 1886, the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW) in 1905, and finally in the great labor upsurge of the 1930s won the legal right to organize with the Wagner Act of 1935 and built the Congress of Industrial Unions (CIO).

The Rise of the Public Employees

The post-war period saw the expansion of government as millions found jobs not only in streets and sanitation, the water works, and as teachers, but also as social workers, public health nurses, and college professors. Another labor upsurge in the 1960s and 1970s led to the establishment and rapid growth of public employee unions of all sorts: the American Federation of Teachers (AFT), the National Education Association (NEA), the American Federation of State County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME), and the American Federation of Government Employees (AFGE). These public workers were far more racially diverse than many of the private sector unions, made up white, African American, and Latino workers, of men and many women.

Public employees in the 1960s and 70s won the rights to union recognition, collective bargaining, and the strike through hundreds of strikes, large and small during those two decades. The newspapers front page often carried the photo of some teacher or social worker, nurse or secretary, sanitation worker or park employee being carried off to jail for striking with the union. The most famous of these strikes, perhaps, was the AFSCME Local 1733 strike by African American sanitation workers of Memphis, Tennessee. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., the leader of the civil rights movement, was there to help those workers with their strike, when he was assassinated.

The Unions at a Turning Point

Today we in the labor movement are at a turning point. American employers, political parties, and government at all levels have decided that the time has come to move against what is the last bulwark of American unionism: the public employee unions. As of the latest count by the Bureau of Labor Statistics, only 11.9 percent of all workers are in unions, and only 6.9 percent in the private sector. In the public sector, however, public employee unions represent some 36.2 percent of all workers, and the number is even somewhat higher among teachers. America’s political and economic elite are looking for the final solution to the labor problem—and we are not getting on the trains and going to the camps.

Public employees, now finding themselves now on the frontline of the labor movement, are fighting back from one end of the country to the other and nowhere at the moment so dramatically as in Madison, Wisconsin. Just as the Arab revolution spread rapidly from Tunisia to Egypt, so we can expect to see this public worker movement spread from one state to another as it resists Republican and Democratic party governors and local officials who want to strip workers of their rights.

What Sort of a Labor Movement Can We Expect?

What does labor history teach us about labor movements? First, we know that when masses of workers go into motion, as they have now begun to do, political consciousness grows and changes rapidly. Workers who today simply fight to defend their union rights will, if they succeed in resisting the right’s attempt to destroy them, go on to fight to expand not only their rights but to improve their working conditions and standard of living. Most important, workers will fight to expand their power. We are just at the beginning.

Second, when workers discover the strategy and tactics of their movement, those quickly spread to other groups of workers in society. When the rubber workers in Akron, Ohio discovered the sit-down strike in 1936, it quickly spread not only to the auto industry leading to the great strikes of 1937 and 38. Remarkably, the sit-down also spread to such unlikely workers as the “shop girls” of department stores. During the 1950s and early 1960s, African American civil rights activists rediscovered the power of the sit-down, transforming it into the sit-in in lunch counters, bus stations, and other private and public places across the South.

Today public workers in Wisconsin are in search of the strategies and the tactics that can defend their rights, and they are using the mass rally and the camp out at the capital. When they discover or rediscover the strategy and tactics that work, those will spread like wildfire across the country to other public workers—and then jump to the private sector.

The Movement is both Economic and Political

Third, real labor movements ignore the artificial separation between economic and political, taking up either or both as they follow the logic of the struggle. Industrial workers' struggles for higher wages in the 1930s became transformed into struggle for the employers’ recognition of the unions and labor legislation granting workers the right to organize. Similarly, public employees in the 1960s fought for the right to organize unions and collective bargaining which then flowed the other way, to a fight for higher wages. What is today primarily a political fight in Wisconsin, that is to defend the right of public employees to have a labor union, bargain collectively and enjoy the right to strike, will inevitably become a struggle for better conditions, higher wages, and health and pension benefits.

Fourth, when a real labor movement arises, that is, a movement not merely of thousands or even tens of thousands, but of millions, it necessarily becomes transformative. Labor union officials who hesitate, who waver, or who knuckle under will soon find themselves challenged by new, younger leaders who will either force those officials to fight or push them aside. Such a movement will change the unions—often by changing the leadership first and sometimes by changing the very institutions themselves. Such was the case with the rise of the industrial workers movement in the 1930s which broke the shell of the old AFL to create the new CIO.

A Political Alternative

Fifth, and finally, a new American labor movement of millions will challenge the old political relationship between the unions and the Democratic Party. The unions will fight at first to force the Democratic Party to give up its own conservative budget, tax and labor policies, and failing to do that, will seek another vehicle. Unions may first attempt to change the Democrats by running union candidates in Democratic Party primaries, or they may attempt to take over the state party. Whether the new American labor movement will have the power to put forward a political alternative remains to be seen.

Wisconsin though is famous for its long history of political grouping to the left of the Democratic Party which, from time to time, have shown considerable influence: the Socialist Party held power in Milwaukee into the 1960s, the Farmer-Labor Party was once a power in the state, Progressive Dane (county) thrived a couple of decades ago, and the Wisconsin, Green Party has over a score of elected officials throughout the state. None of these was or is what a workers’ movement needs to achieve real political power, but the presence of such political alternatives is indicative of a more tolerant and experimental attitude in the state. American workers have never in their history succeeded in creating a workers’ party of any power, with the exception of the Socialist Party of the early 20th century.

Today, with the Democrats lowering taxes on the rich, cutting budgets, and laying off public employees, we may be in for the kind of confrontation between workers and a pro-business Democratic party that can produce a political alternative. Certainly the struggle over politics and government is built into this contest as it seldom is so directly in the private sector. The task at the moment is to build the fight to defend public services and public employees unions and their rights, but this leads directly to political confrontation.

from Solidarity



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"Walker's a Weasel; Not a Badger" - Protest Sign in Madison



Protests erupted in Madison, Wisconsin this week in response to the right wing Governor Scott Walker's proposal to strip union members of the right to collectively bargain. Demonstrators occupied the inside of the Capitol building and refused to leave until the bill was "killed." Here are some of the sights and sounds of this powerful protest that may mark the opening of a new radical moment for labor. Thanks to Isaac Steiner for the photos and various sources for the video.











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As socialists we recognize the central role in American, and global history that African peoples occupy.



from the SPUSA People of Color Commission

February is Black History Month. It's a time when our public institutions, and corporations give a little extra attention to the accomplishments and contributions to the story of the Americas made by Black Americans. Established by Carter G Woodson in 1926, it's purpose was to promote the contributions made by Black Americans in an effort to undo the contention that Black people have no history, and have made no significant contributions to the history of the Americas.

Since 1926 this project has come along way. What started as a one week remembrance of Black American accomplishments has become an entire month. As a child Black History Month began and ended with the ring of the school bell. By the mid 90's McDonalds (if only on BET) began crafting ads for fast food to coincide with the month of February. If we weren't yet recognized as key players in the American experience, our spending power certainly was. As with all things in our country whatever can be turned into a commodity will be turned into a commodity.

The Socialist Party USA is pleased to recognize and celebrate February as Black History month. As socialists we recognize the central role in American, and global history that African peoples occupy. You cannot address the history of religion, science, art, or the study of history itself without beginning with the story of the African. For socialists it is also important to move the stories of Black people out of it's box in February and into the larger narrative of American History in order to reconstruct a story of the Americas as seen and experienced from the people on the bottom.

There can be no legitimate account of American history that distinguishes between it's peoples contributions based on the color of their skin.



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Time is on the side of the oppressed today, it's against the oppressor. Truth is on the side of the oppressed today, it's against the oppressor. You don't need anything else.


1965: The Final Months

Malcolm X emphasized the parallels between the African-American struggle for equality and the Asian, Latino, and African campaigns against European colonialism. Malcolm X also drew attention for criticizing the growing U.S. military involvement in Vietnam.

Upon Malcolm X’s return to the United States in November 1964, death threats escalated against him and his family. in the early morning hours of February 14, 1965, his home in Elmhurst, Queens, was firebombed.

For a reading list on Malcolm X just prior to his death please visit the Malcolm X Project at Columbia University



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PP has certainly served me better than the nonexistent health coverage that the U.S.'s cultural and political "superiority" ought to guarantee.



by riese lyn bernard

I was 16 the first time I visited Planned Parenthood. I'd had sex, you see. Actual sex! Three whole times! My gay best friend Hayden and I had decided, despite his homosexuality, that we were so "emotionally close" that it was only natural for us to lose our "straight virginities" to each other. It happened at boarding school, though, so my Mom had no idea. Also, I didn't want to tell her. But I knew that my newfound sexuality required a speculum and various tests and evaluations, pronto, and so I covertly made my first Planned Parenthood appointment while home for the summer, and I went.

Since that first visit to the Planned Parenthood in Ann Arbor, Michigan, I've been to Planned Parenthoods in Traverse City MI, The Bronx, Brooklyn, Downtown Manhattan and Oakland, California. My most recent visit to Planned Parenthood was about a month ago. I've been visiting Planned Parenthood for 13 years, which makes it my longest relationship with any health care provider. Or really, with anything.

Planned Parenthood serves more than three million women, men and teens nationwide every year and right now its ongoing existence is again in jeopardy. From XXFactor's "Going After Planned Parenthood," published yesterday:

There are 154 co-sponsors in the House for a bill denying government funding to any organization that provides abortion services. Congress already prohibits any government money being directed toward abortions except in the case of rape, incest, or to save the life of the mother, and has since 1976. The $300 million-plus in government funding and contracts Planned Parenthood currently receives goes toward providing family planning and medical assistance to 1.85 million low-income women. As Gail Collins points out in "The Siege of Planned Parenthood," there's no comparable organization in this country offering those services. If Planned Parenthood closes its doors (the clear hope of Indiana Rep. Mike Pence and the 154 colleagues who've jumped on his bandwagon), then those women will go without-when for every dollar in public funding spend on family planning services, Medicaid saves $4.02 the next year.

Right-wing pro-life action groups have been attempting to discredit PP's benefits for years, and they've lately been resorting to one of their favorite tactics - sending fake pimps and prostitutes to clinics with cameras in some kind of To Catch An Abortion Provider style propaganda campaign.

But Planned Parenthood isn't just about providing abortions (which account for only 3% of the services PP provides) or services to at-risk populations, although that's what it's most revered for. It's also a rare beacon of support and care for average everyday teenagers who, for a number of culturally reinforced reasons, are scared to talk to their family doctor or parents about birth control but are responsible/educated enough to know they need it. I'm extremely lucky - I was reared on Our Bodies Ourselves in a liberal college town with great sex ed. Although abortion was a forbidden topic (pro or against), we were thoroughly schooled about contraception. Most of my Ann Arbor friends were sexually active by the time we hit university, but nobody I knew ever got pregnant. (Although according to Facebook, those girls are poppin' ‘em out these days!) We were all on the pill. Planned Parenthood saved us from ever needing to consider abortion in the first
place. In fact, our county (Washtenaw) maintains the third-lowest teen pregnancy rate in the state.

Furthermore, as an adult I've noted that amongst queers and sex workers, Planned Parenthood can be the only place where these women feel comfortable speaking openly about their sex lives without fearing rejection or political attacks. (See also: Why Are Lesbians So Afraid of the Gynecologist?) It's a vulnerable place to be - half-naked, legs splayed, cold metal wrenching your vadge open while someone pokes wooden sticks up there. In a country where 50.7 million people are uninsured, Planned Parenthood isn't something extra we could do away with. It's something we can't live without.

Where I grew up in Michigan, the closest Planned Parenthood was just off a major parkway that connected Ann Arbor to Ypsilanti, right by the Denny's and Big Boys we'd haunt late at night in search of french fries, key lime pie and smoking sections. Planned Parenthood was set back off the road and shrouded by trees, obscuring any lifers standing outside with fetus posters. Services were free for people under 18 and then proceeded on a sliding scale. Boys slangily called it "The PP," so when a boy said his girl was going to "The PP," other boys got jealous that he was apparently heading for the dreamy destination of no-condom-ville, enabled by magical pills and a litany of STD tests.

I felt sort of grown-up after that first visit, when I left Planned Parenthood with a paper bag containing six months of Ortho-Tri-Cyclen, but I didn't actually take the pills at first. It felt silly because due to, you know, my partner's homosexuality, we weren't exactly fucking like bunnies. I'd only see Hayden for ten days that summer, anyhow, and we'd maybe do it 2-3 times and I'd be wracked with insecurity 24/7. So did I really NEED to take Ortho-Tri-Cyclen? No, not really.

But two weeks into my senior year at boarding school, I had unPlanned sex with Brett Wyatt. I remember, acutely, sitting on the cold concrete steps of his dormitory as he dashed in for the condoms his roommate's girlfriend had smuggled from the Traverse City Planned Parenthood. My limbs felt hot and dizzy, like I might faint or melt, and I halfway wanted to disappear but I couldn't 'cause Brett was sexy and had dated all the prettiest girls last year. He was a drama major - compact, strong, fit, with serious dark eyes shot through with erotic violence. I remembered seeing him push a girlfriend against a soda machine and start kissing her last year and I'd wished Hayden would push me against a soda machine.

He emerged, we went into the woods, we found an empty cabin. I felt like a real person, desired for all the right reasons, no longer the scrawny girl with no chin and mosquito-bite-breasts that nobody wanted to kiss. It lasted about three minutes and afterward he jokingly asked me, "So, where are you from?" I already knew where he was from 'cause when they'd called out "Georgia" at our opening assembly, he'd stood up and hooted/hollered in a Southern twang. He was like that. He always stood up and yelled and made everyone laugh.

Now he was on top of me. It all happened so fast.

My best friend Kyra was convinced I was out of control and would shortly acquire AIDS or a baby. We'd seen the movies where Trojans split open like banana peels, uncovering sheaths of sperm and disease. I told her about the birth control I had in a paper bag.

"Okay then, you are going to start taking that right now. Okay?" she said. "RIGHT NOW."

So I did. Taking the first pill felt like a commitment to something, but I didn't know what yet.

I was 16. I was a "late bloomer," so I'd only had my period for about a year and a half before submitting my cycle to modern medicine.

Brett and I dated all year. We never talked about sex, we just did it. Meanwhile the Ortho-Tri-Cyclen pushed me, at last, into something resembling puberty - I gained weight and a whole entire cup size! I loved it. Every night at 10pm I took my pill and it felt like I was wrapping a permanent condom around my dreams.

Life moved gamely forward and from the age of 18 on, I stayed on the pill and had sporadic health insurance coverage but always found something innately reassuring about Planned Parenthood's existence, wherever I was living at the time.

In retrospect, the Ann Arbor Planned Parenthood is a rare bastion of efficiency. Still, even there I'd wait for hours sometimes, sulking with jealousy towards the girls who'd somehow convinced their boyfriends to accompany them. These bored, lofty teenage boys flipped through old magazines and complained about Jerry Springer while I had thoughts like "I wish [x] cared about my sexual health as much as I care about my sexual health." But always being alone did make it feel like my sexuality was about ME first, and about whatever partner I had second.

In 2002 I successfully cajoled my live-in boyfriend Zach into joining me at the clinic. By the time I finally got seen and got my pills and was ready to go, Zach had turned three chairs into a bed and was sleeping on my winter jacket. It meant a lot to me, though. Him coming. Like we were in this together.

In 2004, I moved to New York. I quit the pill 'cause the brand they'd switched me to made me bleed constantly, in contrast to the discontinued brand I'd started using to procure no more than 3 periods a year. Going off the pill felt like coming up from underwater and also signified, for me, the end of the era in which I constantly put myself at risk for pregnancy by using male sexual desire to validate my existence which required taking sole responsibility for their irresponsibility. Then, within a year or two I'd stopped dating men altogether.

But I continued patronizing Planned Parenthood, mostly because it was free or almost-free - I still have never had my very own gynecologist, that seems fancy and unnecessary. The Manhattan Planned Parenthood was a mini-nightmare. The waits were seemingly endless, the waiting room overstuffed, the doctors frazzled and overworked. The Brooklyn Planned Parenthood's waiting room was also a total shitshow, though the staff was as friendly as always. I'd recommend The Bronx Planned Parenthood, where I went for my annual because it was easier than going through Medicaid. I only waited an hour and the nurse laughed at all my jokes.

But even in those crowded Planned Parenthoods I felt comfortable. Like they were on my side, and whatever I said wouldn't be judged, because PP is Liberal, right? With a capital L. I guess it's how people feel when they go into Subway or Starbucks in a new town - "I know this, I know what to do here." The comfort of knowing that this has always been here, exactly the same every time in every place, and will never go away. Unless, I guess, it does.

Last month in Oakland I put "homosexuality" as my preferred method of birth control and the nurse practitioner told me I needed to be in the market for birth control to be seen there, so she was just gonna write "condom." It seemed odd but I didn't panic. It was Planned Parenthood. Maybe she was new or hadn't seen a homo before.

Sure enough, when the doctor came in 20 minutes to a year later, the first thing she told me was that the nurse was wrong about that birth control thing. The doctor was tall and broad-shouldered, with glasses and short alternatively lifestyled hair and I knew she was gay before she even told me so, or showed me photos of her daughter and made sure I knew they welcomed queers there.

It was free. I donated $20, like I've always done. I left. I thought about how my life has been so all over the place that I rarely have a chance to return to old spaces as a new person and reflect self-indulgently on how much I've changed, but I felt really grown-up this time.

I wasn't the insecure 16-year-old clutching my paper bag and thinking how I'd never actually need it.

I wasn't the 21-year-old too embarrassed to tell my asshole boyfriend that I thought I might have a yeast infection let alone tell him I was going to PP to check it out let alone ask him to come with me.

I wasn't the 24-year-old accompanying a girl I was sleeping with to the Manhattan Planned Parenthood to get her annual and her pills because her boyfriend was an asshole, too, feeling a desperate shot of validation when she wrote "1″ next to ‘female sexual partners' on her intake form.

Now I was 29 and had a partner who texted to ask me how it went the minute I left the building. I hadn't been irrationally scared that the doctor would out me to myself when she saw my bisexual stats.

I hadn't even been performing my traditional role of the girl who habitually disregards her health due to a lack of health insurance! This thing, this sexual health thing - this is a thing I can do. This is one thing I can take care of. Even in America.

The act of walking into a room and essentially asking somebody to look at your vagina is an inherently nervewracking experience, especially for queers AND especially for sex workers (who are being targeted by the Live Action group as somehow unworthy of any medical care). Even though it's not personal, the idea that someone could walk in and say, "No, it is not necessary/legal/acceptable for me to look at your vagina, please close your legs and get out of here" is petrifying.

When discussing the necessity of Planned Parenthood's existence, we rightly focus on the work its doing to bring sex education, contraceptive options and abortions to women who wouldn't know how to access it otherwise.

But there's also places where Planned Parenthood is already working, where they moved in uneventfully and succeeded immediately - like Ann Arbor. Furthermore, Planned Parenthood, which relies on government grants and contracts, individual contributors, and large donors like Bill Gates to fund its 820 health centers, is the only reliable source of no-hassle, agency-empowered, low-cost/free health care of any kind for uninsured women like me.

Without Planned Parenthood, I wouldn't have gone on the pill in 1998 and, seeing as I haven't slept with a dude since 2005, I probably wouldn't ever visit a gynecologist now. It's our best model for how socialized health care could function in this country – countless hours spent in waiting rooms and all! PP has certainly served me better than the nonexistent health coverage that the U.S.'s cultural and political "superiority" ought to guarantee.

Funding Planned Parenthood is the one and only thing the U.S. government has done to demonstrate even superficial interest in my health (or the health of its citizens) and I will fight like hell to keep this relationship going. And you should too.

from Jezebel



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among the African-American leaders, Harrison was “the most class conscious of the race radicals and the most race conscious of the class radicals.”


Hubert Henry Harrison (April 27, 1883 - December 17, 1927) was a West Indian-American writer, orator, educator, critic, and radical socialist political activist based in Harlem, New York. He was described by activist A. Philip Randolph as “the father of Harlem radicalism” and by the historian Joel Augustus Rogers as “the foremost Afro-American intellect of his time.”

An immigrant from St. Croix at age 17, Harrison played significant roles in the largest radical class and race movements in the United States. In 1912-1914 he was the leading Black organizer in the Socialist Party of America. In 1917 he founded the Liberty League and The Voice, the first organization and the first newspaper of the race-conscious “New Negro” movement. From his Liberty League and Voice came the core leadership of individuals and race-conscious program of the Garvey (Marcus Garvey) movement.

Harrison was a seminal and influential thinker who encouraged the development of class consciousness among working people, positive race consciousness among Black people, secular humanism, social progressivism, and freethought. He was also a self-described "radical internationalist" and contributed significantly to the Caribbean radical tradition. Harrison profoundly influenced a generation of “New Negro” militants, including A. Philip Randolph, Chandler Owen, Marcus Garvey, Richard Benjamin Moore, W. A. Domingo, Williana Burroughs, and Cyril Briggs.

Biographer Jeffrey B. Perry writes that, among the African-American leaders of his era, Harrison was “the most class conscious of the race radicals and the most race conscious of the class radicals.” Perry emphasized that Harrison was a key unifying figure between two major trends of African-American struggle—the labor/civil rights trend (identified with Randolph and Owen, and later with Martin Luther King, Jr.) and the race/nationalist trend (identified with Garvey, and later with Malcolm X).

He has been described as "the most distinguished, if not the most well-known, Caribbean radical in the United States in the early twentieth century" by the historian Winston James.

As an intellectual, Harrison was an unrivaled soapbox orator, a featured lecturer for the New York City Board of Education’s prestigious “Trend of the Times” series, a prolific and influential writer, and, reportedly, the first Black person to write regularly published book reviews in history. His efforts in these areas were lauded by both black and white writers, intellectuals, and activists such as Eugene O’Neill, James Weldon Johnson, Henry Miller, Hermie Huiswoud, William Pickens, Bertha Howe, Hodge Kirnon, and Oscar Benson. Harrison aided Black writers and artists, including Charles Gilpin, Andy Razaf, J. A. Rogers, Eubie Blake, Walter Everette Hawkins, Claude McKay, Solomon Tshekisho Plaatje, Lucian B. Watkins, and Augusta Savage. He was a pioneer Black participant in the freethought and birth control movements; a bibliophile and library popularizer. He created “Poetry for the People” columns in various publications, including the New Negro magazine (1919), Garvey’s Negro World (1920), and the International Colored Unity League’s The Voice of the Negro (1927).

from Wikipedia



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Tahrir Square transformed the idea of democracy from a stale ritual that occurs every few years to an open ended struggle for freedom.


by Andrea Pason and Billy Wharton, co-chairs Socialist Party USA- February 11, 2011

We send greetings to the working people of Egypt on the day of their victorious struggle to depose the dictator Hosni Mubarak. Their grassroots movement provides definitive proof to the world that radical political activity can change the course of history. The activities of the protesters in Tahrir Square transformed the idea of democracy from a stale ritual that occurs every few years to an open ended struggle for freedom. We are inspired by the example provided by this mass revolt of the Egyptian people.


It is particularly important to recognize the central contribution made by the
working class to the defeat of the dictator. While the occupation of the square and the street demonstrations in several cities galvanized the resistance, it was the mass strikes carried out by the workers that broke the back of the regime. On February 9th thousands of workers demonstrated the ability to shutdown the entire society and economy until their demands were met. After these mass strikes, the regime understood that surrender was its only option.

The victory of Tahrir Square need not be an isolated one – limited only to the
removal of one dictatorial regime. The revolt was as much about the conditions imposed on Egyptians by capitalism – the lack of food, the unemployment, the poor housing, the declining environment – as it was about Mubarak. We can all join in the spirit of struggle initiated in Cairo by demanding a democratic socialist society where the needs of human beings are placed ahead of those of corporations.

See Tahrir Square for what it is – an open-ended struggle for freedom. And what the dissident voices in Egypt and many others parts of world are demanding are things that capitalism cannot deliver. In Egypt, the reorganization of an independent trade union movement, the experiences of direct democracy in the protests and the revitalization of a socialist left in the country offer greatest hope for advancing the political agenda for economic freedom developed in Tahrir Square.

As socialists located in the US, we pledge to continue to do our part in the international struggle for socialism. We see our own political activity as a part of the larger international movement for jobs, peace and freedom. As a part of a Socialism for the 21st Century!

***
Get Organized! Contact the Socialist Party USA!




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Working to expand the Socialist Party in Los Angeles has prepared me for the challenges ahead to build the party statewide.



by Lynn Lomibao

Feb. 11, 2011 -

After dedicating a year to rebuilding the Socialist Party of California, Stewart Alexander stepped down as the California State Chair and supported Mimi Soltysik as the new State Chair for the Socialist Party of California. Stewart Alexander resigned as state chair to spend more time building support in his bid to become U.S. President in 2012. Mimi Soltysik was voted in as the California Chair during a meeting of the state party last week.

Mimi Soltysik had served previously as the chair for the Los Angeles County Local and will serve in a dual capacity, local and state chair, until elections are held to elect a new chair for the SP Los Angeles County Local. Mimi says “Working to expand the Socialist Party in Los Angeles has prepared me for the challenges ahead to build the party statewide.”

Mimi Soltysik has plans to expand the Socialist Party in five Southern California counties, Los Angeles, Orange County, San Bernardino County, Riverside County and San Diego County. Stewart Alexander will work as the California State Organizer and conduct membership activities in these five counties and will coordinate Socialist Party activities in Northern California and the Central Valley.

Greg Pason, the National Chair for the Socialist Party USA, has offered the California chapter an opportunity to host the National Convention for the Socialist Party in 2011. Mimi Soltysik says “It is our goal to have the National Convention in California; it will help us to recruit more members in the party as we approach 2012.”

Mimi Soltysik says building the membership within the California Chapter is my primary goal for 2011. “I am looking for people who are ready for change; the unemployed, college students paying too much for tuitions, seniors who a struggling to survive, anti-Democrats and anti-Republicans, the anti-capitalists and those willing to join the struggle to end U.S. imperialism. My request is simple, Join Us.”

The next meeting for the Socialist Party of California will be held in Los Angeles during the month of April. For date, time and location, contact the Socialist Party of California at: http://socialistparty-usa.org/states/california.html




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if police can now require anyone to identify themselves or be guilty of committing a crime, doesn’t this make us less free to resist arbitrary state authority?



by Aaron Smith-Walter

The Socialist Party of Central Virginia recognizes the fundamental worth and dignity of each and every human being, and the basic human right associated with the ability to travel unencumbered.

The Socialist Party of Central Virginia also recognizes that each and every person is entitled to the means to earn a decent living through meaningful work, and that this right is contingent upon nothing other than membership in the human community and does not respect limitations based on narrow divisions associated with national citizenship.

The Socialist Party of Central Virginia supports the vision of a United States which opens its arms and its borders to the very individuals whose labor is the fundamental ingredient in the material benefits that we enjoy.

In light of these values that place the value of people over profits, the Socialist Party of Central Virginia calls upon our fellow Virginians and our elected representatives to oppose the following legislation, which, when taken in its totality, amounts to a full frontal assault on some of the valued members of our communities for crass political gain. Instead of focusing on the incredibly low level of corporate income tax in our commonwealth, or the fact that corporations intent on hyper-exploiting overseas laborers have shipped millions of jobs overseas to the detriment of workers in our country, as reasons that our educational system and social services are under-funded, our legislatures have chosen to try to balance the budget on the backs of some of the least powerful persons in our Commonwealth.

In light of these facts, the Socialist Party of Central Virginia opposes the following bills now working their way through the Virginia Assembly:

* Senate Bill 789 (Senator Watkins): Would require the Virginia Employment Commission to utilize the federal E-Verify program.
* House Bill 1468 (Delegate Albo): Would require individuals to prove citizenship or legal presence in order to receive public assistance; it would also require that any proof provided by an individual is subject to verification.
* House Bill 1420 (Delegate Albo): Would allow the Virginia State Police to enter into agreement with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement. This would have the effect of allowing Virginia State Police to enforce federal immigration laws.
* House Bill 1421 (Delegate Albo): Would require that localities follow Federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement rules.
* House Bill 1482 (Delegate Cleaveland): Would require use of birth certificate in order to receive a driver’s license.
* House Bill 1574 (Delegate Garrett): Would require mandatory self-identification; failure to identify oneself to a law-enforcement officer would result in the individual being guilty of a Class 1 misdemeanor.
* House Bill 1465 (Delegate Peace): Would require legal presence for admission to institutions of higher education.
* House Bill 1775 (Del. Gilbert): Would require parents enrolling students in public school to verify citizenship.

Taken together, these bills, if passed, amount to a wholesale assault on many individuals in our communities. The politicians will, no doubt, attempt to frame the issue as one in which “illegal immigrants” have broken the laws of this country and are therefore not entitled to access to higher education, driver’s licenses, or public services. We must ask ourselves if we seriously believe that this will solve any problems at all? Will these actions, instead, not make everyone in our Commonwealth more at risk, more divided, and less free?

Consider, if police can now require anyone to identify themselves or be guilty of committing a crime, doesn’t this make us less free to resist arbitrary state authority? If individuals are prevented from getting access to the medicine they need, doesn’t that open the door for epidemics to explode in our communities because basic medical services aren’t available? If individuals are prevented from attending higher education, perhaps because their parents may have brought them from another country when they were mere infants, what possible gain can we reap from denying an individual an opportunity to better themselves and give back to the community? If we make state and local law enforcement proxies for the Federal ICE agents, aren’t we just creating a situation whereby communities will become more dangerous since people will fear contact with law enforcement because they might be undocumented? How many crimes will go unsolved because witnesses
will refuse to contact the police with information? How many public servants and teachers will become informants? Families will be hard hit by this legislation. Requiring parents to verify citizenship when they enroll their children in school means less children in school; more parents being verified means more broken families. Imagine for a moment what it must be like to be a child who is a citizen having their parents arrested and detained. The basic necessities for life should be met for all people, not just citizens of the US. Our communities remain safe when everyone has access to food, housing, employment, and education.

In sum, the Socialist Party of Central Virginia opposes this proposed legislation and calls upon all Virginians to contact their State Senators and Delegates and encourage them to vote against these bills, which threaten to weaken our communities.

Furthermore (from the Socialist Party of Central Virginia Minimum Legislative Agenda):

* Immediate repeal of Chapter 829 of the Code of Virginia that establishes English as the official language of Virginia.
* Allow undocumented people to apply for and be issued driver’s licenses.
* Allow immigrants expanded and greater access to work visas.
* End imprisonment for immigrants awaiting deportation.
* Allow habeas corpus rights for all immigrants, including the undocumented.

(from the Socialist Party USA Platform)

* The Socialist Party works to build a world in which everyone will be able to freely move across borders, to visit and to live wherever they choose.
* We recognize the central role global capitalism plays in forcing the immigration of people from the less developed to the more industrialized countries, often leading to further economic and social injustice.
* We support secular democratic states, assuring equal rights to every citizen and resident in accordance with the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
* We oppose the militarization of the United States/Mexican border, and an increase in the service budget instead of the "military" budget of the INS.
* We defend the rights of all immigrants to education, health care, and full civil and legal rights and call for an unconditional amnesty program for all undocumented people. We oppose the imposition of any fees on those receiving amnesty.
* We call for an end to the use of "secret evidence" in deportation hearings, a ban on all immigration detentions and military tribunals, and full due process and habeus corpus rights in US courts for all non-citizens on US territory or in US custody.
* We demand an end to police raids in areas where immigrants congregate.
* We oppose "guest worker" programs. We call for full citizenship rights upon demonstrating residency for six months.

And we insist that human beings can only perform illegal actions, hence, no human being can rightly be deemed illegal simply for existing.

from Socialist Party of Central Virginia



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...to establish the Socialist Party of Dallas-Fort Worth, a chapter based on socialist philosophy and principles and working-class activism.



by John Parsons

Local area members of the Socialist Party USA gathered in the city of Bedford, Texas on Saturday 12 February to establish the Socialist Party of Dallas-Fort Worth, a chapter based on socialist philosophy and principles and working-class activism.

The work for this party has been in the making since late 2010, and the local plans to organise within local area unions and to speak out against budget cuts that have proposed within the state by Republican Governor Rick Perry and the Republican-controlled House and Senate.

We hope to work within local organisations that are based on many different left-wing causes, ranging from immigration to LGBT rights and electoral reform.

We need help in outreach methods, designing a logo, and with learning effective activism methods.



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Those actually responsible for our economic mess have slipped out of the spotlight—though they’re still setting the country’s economic agenda.



by Mark Brenner

December 27, 2010 - AFSCME members rallied in California against poverty wages and service cuts. Jim West

Dumping on public sector workers is so “common sense” these days that even a few fellow unionists are piling on. The head of the New York City building trades council, Gary LaBarbera, just joined the business-backed “Committee to Save New York,” a group formed solely to advance Governor Andrew Cuomo’s war on public sector unions’ pay and pensions.

Using a line lifted straight from the Chamber of Commerce, LaBarbera said that “without a fiscally sound environment, we will not be able to attract new businesses to the city.”

MAGICAL THINKING

LaBarbera’s only mouthing what the higher-ups are telling us: the deficit is the greatest threat the country faces, and public unions have engaged in a “silent coup,” as Minnesota Governor Tim Pawlenty put it, taking over government and running it into the ground with supposedly outsized pay and benefit packages.
Labor is bringing down the government and crushing economic recovery? The era of upside-down politics is upon us.

Lawmakers across the political spectrum spent a generation giving big business a free hand in everything from trade policy to environmental protection to financial oversight. But two years after Wall Street crashed the economy, they’ve found a more convenient scapegoat. Those actually responsible for our economic mess have slipped out of the spotlight—though they’re still setting the country’s economic agenda.

LaBarbera and Pawlenty preach “fiscal sanity,” but Congress doesn’t dare go where the money is and raise taxes on the rich—they’d rather rob the Social Security trust fund. No one seems to remember that the richest Americans paid twice as much federal income tax under Nixon as they do under Obama.

This collective amnesia makes it easy to point the finger at public employees, but it’s also pushing lasting solutions further out of reach.

Despite Washington’s current bout of self-loathing, government spending is a central part of today’s economy and key to its recovery. Last year government outlays accounted for 20 percent of all economic activity, and 22 million people work in federal, state, or local government jobs.

Cutting their pay and laying them off will drive unemployment officially into double digits and extend the economic slump that’s killing the bargaining climate for everyone. And yet hundreds of thousands of city, county, and state workers are bracing for pay cuts and pink slips this year.

When Wall Street speculation drove us to the brink of another Great Depression, it wasn’t the captains of industry who stepped in. It was government—and everyone, from workers to bankers, demanded it do so. For a moment, the idea that government should do something was on the table again.

Beltway politics have snapped back from that moment like a rubber band, but labor shouldn’t lose sight of the fact that big problems require big solutions. Government will always be needed to do things markets can’t or won’t.

The Great Depression of the 1930s led to the creation of unemployment insurance and Social Security. It redefined what people expected from their government. A new common sense took root—government can and should do more. This outlook helped inspire everything from seat belts to food safety rules to standards for healthy workplaces—every reform an intrusion on the unfettered workings of the market.

Labor officials like LaBarbera seem to have forgotten that it was their forebears who led the charge for government to improve our lives and protect the little guy from the brutality of the market. The common sense that government can and should act to relieve the suffering of its citizens wasn’t the product of high-minded debate in Congress. Lawmakers moved because tens of thousands took to the streets and sat down in their workplaces, demanding change.

WHAT DO WE WANT?

Today plenty of public sector unions are hiding from the resentment the right is whipping up. But if the past 30 years have taught us anything, it’s that keeping your head down doesn’t stop the bleeding.

Plenty of public sector unionists do get it. They’re working together for a strong and expanded public sector:

Teachers in California are taking on the small-government ideology directly with a counter-education and mobilization campaign. Health care unions and postal workers in Canada are linking arms with the communities they serve. Chicago teachers are fighting school closings and the de facto privatization of education.

These unions are championing the issues that matter most for our communities, defending the public good and serving as watchdogs on cronyism and corruption. They know that the common good is not the same as a healthy bottom line for corporations. These are labor’s values, the antidote to the dog-eat-dog individualism of the market.

Banks and big corporations are once again sitting on mountains of cash, and the rich have been stuffing their pockets for decades. The resources are there to tackle today’s big problems: unemployment, the environmental and energy crises, health care and retirement security for everyone.

We can put society’s resources to work in the public interest. The question is whether we’ll keep accepting what we can live with, or start fighting for what we deserve.



from Labor Notes

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By taking their destiny into their own hands, the Egyptian people have proven that they understand democracy better than so many of us in the west...



by Matthew Andrews

After eighteen days of protest that must have felt like much more, the Egyptian people have succeeded in exerting final authority over their government by forcing the thirty year dictatorship of Hosni Mubarak out of power.

By taking their destiny into their own hands, the Egyptian people have proven that they understand democracy better than so many of us in the west with our ceremonious elections that change nothing. By voting with their shoes, the Egyptian people have smashed the subtly racist notion that popular culture in the Muslim world prefers religious fundamentalism and dictatorship.

Renowned cultural theorist Slavoj Zizek explains, “when we are fighting a tyrant we are all universalists ...What happened in Tunesia, what happens now in Egypt, it's precisely this universal revolution for dignity, human rights, [and] economic justice. This is universalism at work.”

Another important lesson to draw from Egypt's revolution is that protest works! Every aristocracy, every dictatorial regime, depends on the hard work and silent consent of the working class. Their station in society depends on our service. Egyptians spoke with a unitary and unwaivering voice that Mubarak must go. Once they seized the streets and Tahrir Square, it was just a waiting game to see how long it would take for reality to penetrate Mubarak's mind.

Had Mubarak been replaced earlier on by a new face, the ruling class might have been able to rebrand itself and stymie the revolt. But after thirty years of dictatorship, the regime was unable to separate itself from Mubarak. What seemed stable just one month ago, proved to be brittle under pressure. There will undoubtedly still be attempts by former establishment figures to re-assert themselves under a new guise. But the difficult struggle to dislodge Mubarak has put much better possibilities on the table.

The Egyptian protests were qualitatively different from what we have in the US, where we march through cattle chutes erected by the police, and respectfully ask those in power to listen. Let us learn from the Egyptians' militancy. It is not numbers alone that make mass action so powerful. A willingness to defy authority until basic demands are met is also essential.

Accusations of foreign interference by Mubarak's government were especially ironic given that they were taking $1.3 billion each year in military aid from the United States, including the tear gas police fired against protesters. It was Mubarak's corrupt government that represented capitulation to foreign interests, not the protesters.

Obama was almost as slow as Mubarak to understand the message coming from Egypt's streets. Multiple statements from the White House essentially mirrored Mubarak's own stance of offering concessions short of regime change. Even as the corporate media voiced support for the people of Egypt, criticism of Obama and the long history of US government support for dictators in the middle east was conspicuously absent. In the US we have an essential role to play, to challenge US government policy that undermine the political independence of people in the middle east and around the world.

The brief final message from former vice-president Suleiman indicates that the supreme council of the Egyptian military will take over the country's affairs until a new civilian government can be elected. The experiences of the struggle to oust Mubarak have given the Egyptian people a taste of grassroots democracy. In the days ahead we must watch to see if the military continues to play a passive role. Now is the opportunity for Egyptians to turn regime change into a social and economic revolution, and also repudiate US-Israeli domination in the region.

Egypt has already joined Tunisia in the minds of millions of people around the world as a victory against corruption, dictatorship, and imperialism. The uplifting psychological effects of these events cannot be underestimated. Similar protests have been inspired all over the world, especially in Yemen and Jordan. Tyrants beware! We are all Egyptian now!



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