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Sunday, 30 June 2013

19 firefighters die fighting blaze in Arizona

Posted on 20:58 by Unknown
Oh yeah! Those damn firefighters earn too much money don't they.  Their pensions are too high aren't they. All they do is sit around the firehouse all day waiting for something to do don't they.  But when they go to work sometimes this happens.  Donald Trump and the coupon clippers earning $5 billion a year doing no productive labor are a strain on the economy, not these guys.

AP
19 firefighters have died battling a fast-moving wildfire.
Forestry spokesman Art Morrison says the firefighters were caught by the fire Sunday afternoon near the central Arizona town of Yarnell. He says they were forced to deploy their fire shelters. Earlier Sunday, the wildfire prompted evacuations of 50 homes in several communities about 85 miles northwest of Phoenix. Later Sunday afternoon, the Yavapai County Sheriff's Office expanded the evacuations to include more residents in the town of Yarnell.

Morrison says several homes in the community of Glenisle have been burned. He says no injuries or deaths have been reported from that area.

About 200 firefighters are fighting the wildfire, which has also forced the closure of parts of state Route 89.
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Posted in workers | No comments

NSA leaks add fuel to the global cyber war

Posted on 09:15 by Unknown


"The United States would be better off monitoring its secret services rather than its allies". * So says the Luxembourg foreign minister Jean Asselborn on learning through the documents leaked by Edward Snowden that EU offices in Washington were bugged. It's not that other countries don't have spy agencies it's that the US surveillance industry is so vast and penetrating storing personal information from millions of its own citizens.

The extent of US spying revealed by Snowden boggles the mind and has placed considerable strain on US capitalism's relations with its allies. Of course, capitalism is a permanent state of war and in that sense there are never any real allies, military conflict is only one aspect of that warfare.

The problem is that the US is the richest and most powerful of the group; they're the guys with the big stick and the greatest resource for capital.  Some of the major institutions of global capitalism are headquartered in the US which makes it all the easier for US capitalism to spy on its rivals.

The other side of this is that most of the global communication giants are based in the US. Google, Facebook, Microsoft, Yahoo, Apple etc.  Snowden's leaks revealed that these internet companies were giving the NSA and the FBI "direct access" to their servers.  Millions upon million of people worldwide use these services.

The tech companies denied that the spy system we now know as Prism was used in the way that Snowedens leaks described it.  The battle has moved somewhat in to the open as firms like Google have moved to cover their asses.  Google has filed a motion with FISA (Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act) asking for permission to make public the number of "national security related orders it receives" says Bloomberg BW. 

According to BW, these tech giants are concerned that they'll be "lumped together" with the telephone companies that have to comply with the Communications Assistance for Law Enforcement Act (legislation passed in 1994) which forced the telecoms to place surveillance equipment and maintain it and upgrade it.

The problem for the tech companies is that millions of their users/customers are outside of the US borders.  "Essentially there is one law for Americans and one law for everyone else.", Caspar Bowden, a privacy adviser working for Microsoft tells BW. Under FISA, a US law, foreign citizens have no rights.  This has caused a serious backlash as global reports indicate as it could lead to a sort of Internet protectionism which, as Business Week put it, could be "the beginning of the end to Silicon valley's domination of the Internet.".   Already, there is some interest in the EU for creating a European open sourced cloud system as an alternative the US.   Another issue is that many of the global institutions of capitalism are headquartered in the US, the UN for one.

I think it's important we do not underestimate the increased level of conflict in what is a global cyber war.  But I have to return to another issue that might slip people's attention and that is the deafening silence on the part of the heads of organized Labor in the US, as with the struggle on the job, the Union officialdom are nowhere to be see.  Snowden and the NSA activity is being talked about in coffee shops, bars work places and throughout the globe.  The revelations have increased tension between nations and threatened an already unstable set of global relations. US requests for other countries to assist in or directly hand over Edward Snowden are not being given much attention as countries like Ecuador defy the US.  It is a huge global issue and yet if you go to the websites of the national organizations of the organized working class in the US, organizations with 12 million workers affiliated to them,  you will read nothing about this issue. It is nothing less than criminal and activists, and most importantly militants, socialists and anti-capitalists of all types who are active in Unions should raise this glaring omission among the ranks and move motions to rectify it and force a debate on the issue and all issues relevant to the working class as a whole, organized or unorganized, at home and internationally.

* Al Jazeera report
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Posted in Snowden | No comments

Saturday, 29 June 2013

Socialism is not a problem for the one percent.

Posted on 21:37 by Unknown

laughing all the way to the, er, bank. With our money
You have to wonder given the massive bailout and rescue of capitalism and the bankers how any thinking person, especially a working class person, can make the argument that the reason for increasing costs and the need for tightening our belts is workers wages, benefits pensions or any other associated costs.

There are some really backward working class folks and by that I mean with a very limited class-consciousness, even to the point of arguing positions that are against their own self interest.  I can only assume that the reason for such stupidity is that they believe they are not much longer for their present lot and will soon be in the world of the hedge fund managers and other coupon clippers.  The American Dream fulfilled.

We have pointed out time and again on this blog, the massive amounts of cash in society and that there is no need for this austerity agenda other than the 1% have a lot of money and want more of it, including the funds needed to wage their predatory wars on behalf of the corporations.

Let’s look at one small example of the many examples.  I am talking about BankUnited.  BankUnited was one of the banks that went under due to the bursting of the housing bubble initiated by the collapse of the subprime market. The bank was taken over by John Kanas and his private equity backers, the Blackstone Group and the Carlyle Group.

Blackstone was founded by Peter Peterson a former US commerce secretary worth $2.8 billion according to Forbes and Stephen Schwartzman, a financier worth around $6.5 billion according to Forbes.  Carlyle’s founders David Rubenstein and William E Conway are worth $2.8 and $2.7 billion respectively.  Government service opens a lot of doors for the coupon clippers, the imbecile Dan Quayle sat on the board of Cerberus, another well-known private equity gang. He’s a moron but as a former US VP he can open doors for coupon clippers.

Anyway, Kanas, a banker himself, liked the idea of taking over this Florida lender that was in trouble. He made some nice cash selling his bank to the larger Capital One for $13 billion earning a handy $214 million in the deal Business Week writes.  Like all bottom feeders Kanas was on the lookout for good deals as the banks began to topple. He worked for another major coupon clipper and billionaire, Wilbur Ross and came across BankUnited.

Kanas, Blackstone and Carlyle put up $900 million to invest in BankUnited but what a deal the taxpayer gave them.  The FDIC ensured the coupon clippers that the deal would pay off by promising that the taxpayer would “eat” most of the future losses that would inevitably occur as a result of the poor banking practices that led to the crash. The deal also ensured that the taxpayers would, “….reimburse BankUnited for 80% of the first $4 billion in losses and 95% of all additional losses”, according to BW.  The taxpayer via the FDIC also gave the coupon clippers $2.2 billion in cash to help them along. Needless to say, this sparked a lot of interest in such deals from other scavengers throughout the land.

So Kanas came in, laid off more than 600 employees and as Business Week puts it, “built a commercial bank.”.  Yes, they build everything in society these guys. BankUnited now deals primarily in commercial business rather than residential mortgages.

It is well known that trillions of dollars were allotted to the bankers as them and their bankrupt system were dragged from the edge of the abyss.  Kanas admits that his deals would not have been possible without the taxpayer,“the deal covered losses for ten years” Business Week points out. Well, whoopy f*%king doo.

BankUnited has “a long life ahead of it” says Kanas.  Maybe it does, maybe it doesn’t. But this small example of the amount of money in society and what the political representatives of capital do with our wealth, crushes the argument that workers can’t make gains and deserve a more productive and secure life.  Billionaires make their money off the backs of workers with the help of their government that gives them the breaks.

The rich have always had socialism; they just oppose it for the rest of us.
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Posted in bailout, banks | No comments

Will Jerry Brown stop a BART strike so a deal can be made?

Posted on 10:42 by Unknown
A quick note:

According to local news outlets, transit union officials have asked California governor Jerry Brown to impose a 60 day cooling off period, in other words to "stay" a strike.  I tried to locate the source of this story which was the San Jose Mercury news but couldn't access the page.  Assuming it is the case which isn't surprising, it is normal procedure.

Union officials have no intention of waging a serious strike in defense of their members' wages and benefits, the hope is that the threat of one would bring fewer concessions than the bosses are asking for. If they were serious about a strike, the Alameda Labor Council would have been approached by delegates from the unions, SEIU, ATU, Afscme etc. and urged to help prepare for a Bay Area strike not simply to defend transit workers living standards but to improve on them.

If the Union leadership were serious about a strike there would have been mass meetings of the members of the locals involved to strengthen their unity around demands that affect all of them and serious efforts would have been made to build links with the communities they serve to develop demands that would improve public transportation for the general public including seniors and the disabled  Free transportation for seniors and the disabled, more routes, increased services, more jobs etc. Issues appealing to the needs of the community must be laid on the table and community/labor meetings called to develop a strategy and mass direct action tactics that can win them; every Labor dispute must reach out to the communities we live and work in and the struggle generalized.  In the case of the public sector in particular, we cannot win without the public, we can't win the rest of the working class to our side and counter the propaganda of the bosses portraying themselves as the forces that "care" without fighting for that public and using our economic muscle to enforce our will on the 1%.

The Union leaders appealing to Jerry Brown who is savaging workers living standards on behalf of the corporations is a serious mistake.  I was at the AC transit meeting Wednesday and the mood was very strong for a struggle and to fight back.  The 1% and their representatives which is who we're dealing with here, don't impose cooling off periods when they send their troops in to war, it is an attempt by the Union leadership to derail a confrontation for three months, allow the workers to "cool off" or lose the momentum and hope that the governor and the representatives of the 1% will allow some deal to go through.

If the cooling off period is asked for because the strategists atop the Unions have decided they made a mistake in not preparing adequately beforehand and want more time to prepare for a serious struggle that would be a positive thing but history teaches me different.  My guess is that  Brown will comply and they'll work out some deal behind the scenes and another opportunity to change the course of recent history with regard to labor/management relations will be missed.

All workers will lose.

Richard Mellor
Afscme Local 444, retired
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Posted in California, strikes, unions, workers | No comments

Thursday, 27 June 2013

A BART and AC Transit strike can halt the bosses' offensive

Posted on 13:03 by Unknown
 
by Richard Mellor
Afscme Local 444, retired

The Labor spokesperson for the Bay Area Rapid Transit system launched a shot across the bow in the bosses’ ideological offensive against BART workers. He was reported as saying in today’s SF Chronicle that the strike authorization by BART workers was, “a clear signal our employees are willing to shut down the Bay Area and cause commuter chaos to make their case for a 23% raise.”

Yesterday, another spokesperson said that the BART worker’s total compensation is $133,000 a year knowing that with the huge number of lower waged workers and hard times people are facing due to the attacks by the bankers and their political representatives on public services and jobs, such a figure will seem extreme.  But it is not a wage figure and BART workers have gone five years without a raise.

The propagandists for the bosses use the word willing in a way workers would never use it. They say that Indonesian women are “willing”to accept low wages or that Mexican immigrants are willing, much more willing that US workers, to work for starvation wages and no benefits, the point being that US workers are lazy. But the more desperate we are, the more willing we are to succumb to the economic terrorism and coercion of the bosses, the 1% or the capitalist class to put it more succinctly. It doesn’t matter so much what we call them; all workers know what they are. It is their strategy to keep us in a never-ending state of insecurity and fear. This is what the unemployed are used for also, to keep those of us still working on edge and afraid to speak out.

As I wrote yesterday, a BART strike will wreak havoc on the local economy especially if the AC transit drivers (the local bus company) join them which would increase the chances of a victory. AC Transit’s contract expires on Sunday, the same time as BART’s.

So it’s not that workers are “willing” to “cause commuter chaos”.  I have been on strike and it is a very difficult decision to make.  The bosses are the ones willing to cause commuter chaos forcing workers to withdraw their labor power in order to maintain (at very least as most unions don’t fight for gains these days) their living standards. We strike when our backs are against the wall. The bosses and their politicians go to wars, slaughter hundreds of thousands of people to defend and keep their profits yet workers are supposed to take the punches and thank them for it all in the name of "shared sacrifice".

If we study our own US working class history we see that they have shot, deported and imprisoned us for fighting for our rights, for a decent living standard and the right to self-organization independent of the employers. In my own lifetime these same forces terrorized and murdered black people for demanding the right to vote.

So we must reject their propaganda that blames workers for the disruption a strike causes.  The bosses don’t care about the public or they wouldn’t have a hero like JP Morgan who famously said “I owe the public nothing” after he robbed the public blind.  If they cared about the public they wouldn’t have eliminated 700,000 public sector jobs.  They wouldn’t close fire stations, shut down bus routes or close public schools forcing children to travel an hour an a half on a dwindling transit system to get to school. Most of these schools are schools in communities of color worsening an already crisis ridden situation with mass unemployment and the resulting crime that brings.  If they cared about the public they wouldn’t have shut down public parks or be trying to privatize the US Post Office and close 4000 of them.

No, what they care about is profits and their goal to make all workers low waged in order to maximize them; this is why they are prepared to create chaos for the commuter.  “The strike would damage the regions’ resurgent economy in addition to causing commuter chaos.”, the SF Chronicle points out. You see which issue comes first here.  The source of that quote is Jim Wunderman, the head of the Bay Area Council, a business group. “It would create a regional paralysis…”  he tells the Chronicle, “..it would put us in a world of hurt.”

Workers must remind ourselves time and time again, including when a strike inconveniences us, that it is profits that matter for the enemies of workers and our organizations, not the welfare of the public. Shutting a fire station is putting the public at risk, sending troops to Afghanistan or Syria (not to mention our tax money) is hurting the welfare of the public as we have to pay for their profit driven wars through cuts in social services and jobs and some of us pay with their lives.

There is a golden opportunity here for the power of organized Labor to open up an offensive of our own that will drive back the assault of the 1% on American workers and the middle class.  Aside from the two transit agencies, the City of Oakland workers are facing a possible strike after years of cuts and the savaging of their wages and benefits. Three Afscme (my former union) locals that I know of are in negotiations; two at the water district and the workers at the East Bay regional park District.

The Alameda Labor Council (the county arm of the AFL-CIO) should organize and help facilitate a united public sector alliance and all these unions should strike together. The huge full time apparatus of the unions should be used in conjunction with shop stewards to coordinate regional and mass meetings of workers to run such a strike and develop the mass direct action tactics to win it, a strike after all is mass direct action if run properly.  Meetings should be organized in our communities, workplaces and where workers, organized and unorganized congregate.

As workers we should always support those workers at the higher end of the pay and benefit scale as defeats for them simply places further downward pressure on all our wages, benefits, and for people like me, our pensions. The wages and benefits of workers like those at BART should be expanded upon.  Their so-called free market cannot put 30 million of us to work because it is not profitable for them to do so, so the 1% speculate and hoard capital, wealth our labor power has created. We must support all the demands of the transit workers but demand more, a shorter workweek is needed for our own sanity and to create jobs for the public we serve. We must demand a minimum wage that doesn’t force us to take three jobs, $20 an hour is reasonable and affordable in our society. We demand health care, education etc.

In the short clip above we see the disabled man speaking at last night’s transit board meeting attended by many BART and AC transit workers. He explains how it takes him hours to travel a few miles.  If the politicians in the two Wall Street Parties cared about the public this would not exist.  After this man spoke a worker asked and the rest of us demanded, that the board read his statement to us which they reluctantly did so I include it.  It was good to be among them. Free public transportation for seniors and the disabled is another demand the union leadership should place on the table.

A strike is a sacrifice for those involved and for those workers affected.  But it is a necessary sacrifice; it is how we have come this far. To undermine the propaganda from the bosses that we don’t care about the public, a combined union effort must reject the idea that we demand what is acceptable to the bosses and the Democratic Party and demand what we need to live a secure and productive life, not just us on the job, but all workers.  Demands of the movement must include social demands, no more austerity, increased social services, no more closing of fire stations schools etc. We know there’s money in society and we want it spent not on corporate wars but on social needs and jobs, jobs that don’t threaten to destroy our environment as well. Trillions was allotted to bail out the banks; we have different uses for that money.

Opportunity knocks here. The unions can answer that door but there is an important last point that must be made.  The union leadership from the top down supports what they call the Team Concept. This is the view that workers and the bosses are on the same team and have the same economic interests. This philosophy is a disaster and leads us in to competition with other workers and a race to the bottom; we cannot build solidarity and the unity needed to win with this philosophy. It is the basis for all the defeats and betrayals that have occurred under the present leadership of the AFL-CIO and Change to Win groups. At the meeting last night the head of the Alameda Labor Council spoke saying as they always do that the 100,000 affiliated workers are behind the transit workers. But 99% of the workers affiliated to the ALC would not even know who she is because this body has no significant presence in their lives; she is speaking on their behalf and they don’t know it.  This leadership will not take steps to mobilize and activate this potentially powerful force which would make the difference.

Accepting the employers’ view of the world the Labor leadership, or what is sometimes referred to as the Labor bureaucracy will not lead a real struggle against the bosses’ certainly not willingly.  Rank and file unionists, shop stewards, militants and anti-capitalists of all stripes when in unions should participate and lead in the building of fighting opposition caucuses that can offer an alternative to the concessionary policies (and in many cases outright collaboration) on the part of the present heads of organized Labor.  An open campaign against these policies will draw in the most combative workers who see that there is a fight developing and that there is an organizational formation they can turn to and build. Continued concessions only bring more concessions; weakness breeds aggression as they say.

Regardless of what happens in the present situation, this is a general outline I believe will begin to transform the balance of class forces in society and inspire millions of workers to take action.  There is tremendous anger beneath the surface of US society that cannot yet find organizational expression which is why the Labor officialdom is afraid of mobilizing its own members or raising expectations they believe the bosses can’t fulfill, they see this anger and they saw also that despite its mistakes, the Occupy Movement with its mass action and its willingness to defy the law had widespread support.

BART and AC transit workers must be supported in their struggle for higher pay, increased benefits and more humane conditions on the job regardless of how their leaders conduct this struggle, further defeats for these brothers and sisters is a defeat for all workers.

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Posted in california public sector, strikes, unions | No comments

Glenn Greenwald: A breath of fresh air in a sea of smog

Posted on 09:57 by Unknown
As I pointed out in a blog the other day, the NSA says it is only interested in any one of the billions of personal e mails and phone calls people make if there is a reason to target someone.  It's a bit like Iraq when the US flunkie Saddam Hussein ruled. You were in no danger as long as you stayed out of politics.  Your NSA info may never be scrutinized unless you become politically active in opposition to the present crowd of thugs here in the US, then when you do all the little personal details of our lives become news fodder through the journalists that are CIA /NSA stooges. In different times Mr. Greenwald would have been outed for being gay, the times when it was a crime. He could never find a job in his field and would be isolated.  Greenwald is a breath of fresh air in a world of smog.

And I will take this opportunity yet again to admonish the heads of organized labor in this country for their cowardly role, not only in refusing to fight the bosses but in refusing to even comment on the events surrounding Edward Snowden and Glenn Greenwald which is a serious matter of civil rights.  Go to the AFL-CIO and Change to Win websites and not a word will be seen about this issue that millions throughout the world are discussing daily, in workplaces, bars, coffee shops, and on the streets.  Shame on them.

RM

Reprinted from Reader Supported News

The Personal Side of Taking on the NSA

By Glenn Greenwald, Guardian UK
27 June 13

hen I made the choice to report aggressively on top-secret NSA programs, I knew that I would inevitably be the target of all sorts of personal attacks and smears. You don't challenge the most powerful state on earth and expect to do so without being attacked. As a superb Guardian editorial noted today: "Those who leak official information will often be denounced, prosecuted or smeared. The more serious the leak, the fiercer the pursuit and the greater the punishment."

One of the greatest honors I've had in my years of writing about politics is the opportunity to work with and befriend my long-time political hero, Daniel Ellsberg. I never quite understood why the Nixon administration, in response to his release of the Pentagon Papers, would want to break into the office of Ellsberg's psychoanalyst and steal his files. That always seemed like a non sequitur to me: how would disclosing Ellsberg's most private thoughts and psychosexual assessments discredit the revelations of the Pentagon Papers?

When I asked Ellsberg about that several years ago, he explained that the state uses those tactics against anyone who dissents from or challenges it simply to distract from the revelations and personally smear the person with whatever they can find to make people uncomfortable with the disclosures.

So I've been fully expecting those kinds of attacks since I began my work on these NSA leaks. The recent journalist-led "debate" about whether I should be prosecuted for my reporting on these stories was precisely the sort of thing I knew was coming.

As a result, I was not particularly surprised when I received an email last night from a reporter at the New York Daily News informing me that he had been "reviewing some old lawsuits" in which I was involved - "old" as in: more than a decade ago - and that "the paper wants to do a story on this for tomorrow". He asked that I call him right away to discuss this, apologizing for the very small window he gave me to comment.

Upon calling him, I learned that he had somehow discovered two events from my past. The first was my 2002-04 participation in a multi-member LLC that had an interest in numerous businesses, including the distribution of adult videos. I was bought out of that company by my partners roughly nine years ago.

The lawsuit he referenced was one where the LLC had sued a video producer in (I believe) 2002 after the producer reneged on a profit-sharing contract. In response, that producer fabricated abusive and ugly emails he claimed were from me - they were not - in order to support his allegation that I had bullied him into entering into that contract and he should therefore be relieved from adhering to it. Once our company threatened to retain a forensic expert to prove that the emails were forgeries, the producer quickly settled the case by paying some substantial portion of what was owed, and granting the LLC the rights to use whatever it had obtained when consulting with him to start its own competing business.

The second item the reporter had somehow obtained was one showing an unpaid liability to the IRS stemming, it appears, from some of the last years of my law practice. I've always filed all of my tax returns and there's no issue of tax evasion or fraud. It's just back taxes for which my lawyers have been working to reach a payment agreement with the IRS.

Just today, a New York Times reporter emailed me to ask about the IRS back payments. And the reporter from the Daily News sent another email asking about a student loan judgment which was in default over a decade ago and is now covered by a payment plan agreement.
So that's the big discovery: a corporate interest in adult videos (something the LLC shared with almost every hotel chain), fabricated emails, and some back taxes and other debt.

I'm 46 years old and, like most people, have lived a complicated and varied adult life. I didn't manage my life from the age of 18 onward with the intention of being a Family Values US senator. My personal life, like pretty much everyone's, is complex and sometimes messy.

If journalists really believe that, in response to the reporting I'm doing, these distractions about my past and personal life are a productive way to spend their time, then so be it.

None of that - or anything else - will detain me even for an instant in continuing to report on what the NSA is doing in the dark.
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Posted in Snowden | No comments

Wednesday, 26 June 2013

The Failure of Quantative Easing

Posted on 15:27 by Unknown
by Michael Roberts

Just a couple of months ago, mainstream economic analysts were lauding the record high stock market prices as an indicator that the global capitalist economy was well on the way to recovery, thanks to the efforts of central bankers like Ben Bernanke at the US Federal Reserve in applying ‘unconventional’ monetary policy called quantitative easing (QE) to boost liquidity and keep interest rates near zero.  In various posts, I have queried both the likelihood that the stock market boom would continue and that QE had been effective in restoring economic growth (see my post, http://thenextrecession.wordpress.com/2013/03/30/its-still-a-bear-market/).

Well, in the last month stock markets have turned.  In just 23 working days, the FTSE 100 lost 846 points, collapsing from 6,875 on 22 May to 6,029.10 23 June.  And bond markets have also tanked, with the yield on US 10-year Treasuries rising from 2.2% last week to 2.61%, a massive 0.41 percentage points rise in just four working days.  This reversal has been mirrored across the globe.  Chinese stocks sank to a four-year low, pulling most other Asian markets lower.  In Brazil, the price of 30-year dollar bonds is down by 26% since the start of last month.   The rise in UK 10-year gilts has now reversed the entire drop since the start of QE2 in October 2011.  The previous euphoria has given way to a degree of pessimism.
CS Risk Appetite Index

Some leading mainstream economists are perplexed.  Tyler Cowan, a leading neo-classical economists pointed out that Keynesian guru, Paul Krugman had said in 2011 that:  ” Like Bernanke, I don’t believe that the flow of Fed purchases has been an important factor holding bond rates down, and hence don’t believe that they will jump when the purchases end.”  Cowan goes on:  “I was of the same opinion.  It no longer seems this is true.  We’ve had a significant runup in rates fro mere talk about slowing down Fed purchases.”

It all turned pear-shaped last week after Ben Bernanke stated that QE was now over – or to be more accurate that the buying up of US government debt by the Fed through the ‘printing of money’ was to be gradually reduced (‘tapering’, it is called) by as early as September and ended completely next year.  The reaction of the financial markets confirms that the stock market boom since the trough of the Great Recession in mid-2009 has been driven, not by a sustained recovery in the main capitalist economies, but by the sharp rise in profits (at least in the US) while wages have been held down; and the blowing up of a new credit bubble by central banks (the Fed, the BoE and more recently, the Bank of Japan). 

With the threat that the credit taps are to be turned down, financial markets melted.

The Keynesians are panicking.  For them, the Great Recession was caused by a ‘lack of effective demand’ and made worse by the policy of ‘austerity’ adopted by most governments.  So they argue that cutting off the liquidity tap when governments are continuing to apply ‘fiscal austerity’ will just push the main capitalist economies back into recession.  As Gavyn Davies, former chief economist at Goldman Sachs, advisor to the previous New Labour government in the UK and now a columnist for the FT put it:  “There are two risks with the Fed’s exit plan. The first, raised by Paul Krugman and other Keynesian economists, is that it sends a premature signal to the world economy that the central banks will tighten before the private sector recovery has achieved escape velocity. This has happened before: the Fed made this error in 1937-8 and the Bank of Japan in 2006. … The US recovery might peter out, taking the global economy down with it.  The second danger, in sharp contrast, is that the Fed has left it too late to bring market exposures under control, in which case the unwinding might take bond yields and credit spreads much higher than economic fundamentals seem to justify. In the famous phrase of Warren Buffett, the legendary investor, we only discover who is swimming naked when the tide goes out. Higher bond yields would spell danger for the financial system – and would mean rising mortgage rates at a time when the US housing market is only just starting to recover.”  So we are either going back into recession or heading for another financial bust.  Better to keep QE going, then.

In contrast, the Austerians argue that Bernanke has left it too late to ‘normalise’ monetary policy and may find that the credit bubble has got out of hand and now that he intends very gradually to ‘exit’ his QE measures, he will cause another slump anyway.  For them, the Great Recession was caused by ‘too much’ credit that had to be reined in.  In its latest annual report (BIS annual report 2013), the central bankers association, the Bank for International Settlements (BIS) argues that quantitative easing and ultra-low rates have failed to restore economic growth and instead have stoked up new levels of debt that could eventually plunge the world economy into a new financial crisis.  The BIS points out that the debt of households, non-financial corporations and governments has increased as a share of GDP in most large advanced and emerging countries since the crisis. In a sample of 18 countries – including the US, UK, China, India, Japan and the big Eurozone nations – this debt surged by $33 trillion between 2007 and 2012, up 20% of GDP.  Central banks now own a chunk of this new debt, equivalent to about 25% in advanced economies and 40% in emerging economies – from $10.4 trillion in 2007 to $20.5 trillion now.   If the value of these assets start to plunge as they have done this month, the central banks and governments will start to make significant losses.

The Keynesians are really angry at the BIS.  Krugman called those at the BIS “Dead-enders in Dark Suits”.  Krugman railed: “The Bank for International Settlements is the central bankers’ central bank; accordingly, it tends to exhibit the prejudices of the tribe in especially concentrated form. In particular, it has been relentless in making the case for higher interest rates, on the grounds that … well, the logic keeps changing. For a while it was warning about inflation and commodity prices; when the inflation failed to materialize and commodity prices slumped again, it simply changed the argument to one against bubbles, plus the quite amazing argument that central bankers must not keep rates low because that would take the fiscal pressure off governments. Who, exactly, elected these people to run the world?”

Krugman attacks the BIS idea that large private and public sector debt will inhibit economic recovery in a capitalist economy.  He argues that the evidence for this has been trashed after the scandal of the Reinhart and Rogoff study apparently proving that high debt restricts growth as having been exposed as full of errors and misleading analysis.  Actually, it is not quite as cut and dried as Krugman and other Keynesians make out (see my post Revising the two RRs, http://thenextrecession.wordpress.com/2013/04/17/revising-the-two-rrs/).  And contrary to what Krugman says, the BIS report is well aware of the RR controversy and thus cites other reports to back its case, if somewhat disingenuously.  But Krugman’s main argument is the one that he has promoted for some time: that more debt is not a problem when a capitalist economy is in a slump engendered by a ‘liquidity trap’.  And anyway, the debt has risen because austerity has cut economic growth.  What is needed is more QE, not less until the economy recovers through  increased demand from consumers and businesses.

Our own British Keynesian guru, Simon Wren-Lewis, in his blog takes a similar line on the BIS, (The intellectual bankruptcy of the austerians).  “It is both amusing and tragic to watch the advocates of fiscal austerity try and deal with the fact that the thin intellectual foundations for their approach have crumbled away, while at the same time the empirical evidence of their folly accumulates. … The BIS says reducing government debt is good for long term growth. But because there are long run benefits to reducing government debt, must it be the case that the sooner we start the better? No. Exercise is good for you, but you don’t start when you are down with the flu”.

The Keynesians are right that QE has not caused inflation in economies that are on their knees.  But the Austerians are right that QE has not enabled the major economies to recover either.  Instead all QE has done is support a stock market boom and stimulate yet another credit bubble that now looks likely to burst if the drug of QE is withdrawn.  The Keynesians answer that by saying that QE is not enough and what the economy needs alongside easy money is more fiscal spending, financed preferably by more borrowing.  The Austerians say that such borrowing is also a hostage to fortune and it will hold back recovery.  The Marxists would say that the Keynesians are wrong if they think QE and fiscal spending will restore sustained economic growth if there is not a recovery in profitability.  And the Austerians are wrong if they think cutting government spending, particularly government investment is going to help.  Relying on the free market has been a hopeless failure too.
(see my posts, http://thenextrecession.wordpress.com/2012/06/13/keynes-the-profits-equation-and-the-marxist-multiplier/ and http://thenextrecession.wordpress.com/2013/01/13/multiplying-multipliers/ and http://thenextrecession.wordpress.com/2012/09/30/can-austerity-work/).

The reality is that, although the business sectors in many major capitalist economies are flush with cash, investment is not taking place, while consumers are saving or paying down debt rather than spending in the shops.   What is clear from the last month is that QE has failed.  As I have argued before, you can take horses to the water fount but you cannot make them drink (see my post, http://thenextrecession.wordpress.com/2013/03/04/you-cant-make-a-horse-drink-2/).

QE is based on the idea that if you throw money at banks they will lend. But banks only lend if the risk versus return profile is in their favour. At the moment, banks don’t want to lend, because their balance sheets are a mess.  QE is based on the idea that if you make borrowing ridiculously cheap for corporates (i.e. throw money at them) they will invest. But corporates only borrow to invest if the risk versus return profile is in their favour. At the moment they don’t want to invest, because the economic outlook is very uncertain and profitable investment opportunities look few. Instead, large companies prefer to speculate in the stock market or pay out dividends while borrowing is so cheap.  Small and medium-size businesses are much more dependent on bank lending, but they are living in a financial desert.

This is the problem with the plan of Japan’s government to introduce a massive QE programme of buying government and corporate debt with the aim of driving up inflation and getting the economy going
(see my posts, http://thenextrecession.wordpress.com/2013/04/05/kurodas-triple-whammy/
and http://thenextrecession.wordpress.com/2013/06/11/abenomics-a-keynesian-neoliberal/).

Ironically, those economists who support QE and easy money argue that it will not engender inflation as the BIS and the Austerians fear.  But if that is right, then Japan’s ‘Abenomics’ wont work!  As one economist put it: “Not one QE programme has ever generated significant inflation. Not one. In fact no central bank in history has ever succeeded in deliberately creating inflation. It’s magical thinking.  When banks aren’t lending and corporates aren’t borrowing to invest, QE does not affect the wider economy in any very helpful way: its effects if anything are contractionary, because of the hit to aggregate demand for some groups caused by the depression of interest rates on savings.”

Mainstream Keynesian, Brad de Long concluded: “that Bernanke’s monetary policy has failed to raise inflation demonstrates that Bernanke’s policies have failed.“  Yet de Long clings to the hope that this won’t be the case for Abenomics:  “I tend to say that they have failed because they were tried only half-heartedly, and confusedly. And if Abenomics succeeds, I will regard that as strongly confirmed.”

Some hope.
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Posted in economics, globalization, marxism, world economy | No comments

A BART strike: an opportunity to begin a workers' offensive

Posted on 10:37 by Unknown

Good. But "united" around what?
by Richard Mellor
Afscme Local 444, retired

  " Negotiations are a euphemism for capitulation if the shadow of power is not cast across the bargaining table." George Schultz

Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART) is the main urban rail system for the San Francisco Bay Area and the Unions representing BART workers are currently in contract negotiations.  The economic impact of a BART strike would be considerable and everyone knows that as BART carries some 400,000 passengers a day. Members of BART’s two largest unions, ATU 1555 and SEIU 1021 took strike votes yesterday and in the case of ATU, 99% voted to authorize one.

This is a ritual we go through every four years.  Very few contract talks receive as much publicity as those between BART unions and the transit agency given that BART workers walking off the job would cause considerable economic disruption. “Commuters have grown wary of the routine”, the Chronicle’s Michael Cabanatuan wrote last week and the agency, as it does every contract time, is making its case in their media. 

Already, BART spokespersons are claiming in the media that the average SEIU and ATU member’s compensation when pensions, wages and benefits are included is $133,000 and point to the 23% raise the workers are asking for over four years. This may well be true as total compensation but it most certainly is not what a worker takes home in his or her paycheck. But either way, this is a paltry sum when compared to the wasteful expenditure of taxpayer money on predatory wars or the annual incomes of hedge fund managers and other coupon clippers. 

The fact is though, that as public sector and unionized workers, BART workers will have better conditions and better pay than hundreds of thousands of workers and youth in the communities they serve and instead of trying to apologize for these conditions they should be built on and expanded to all workers; we have nothing to be ashamed of. Other issues are pensions and medical costs, issues that are raised time after time as the bosses’ offensive continues to take back gains that took a century to win. Many workers who will be negatively affected by a strike are unlikely to have any benefits at all and considerably lower pay when compared to public sector workers like those at BART.

The employers’ propaganda that BART workers are being selfish and that public sector workers are paid too much and a strain on the community with their pensions and all will get an echo among many workers if their lives are disrupted through strike action. “Why should I support these guys earning three times my pay striking for more money when I can’t get to work for my $10 an hour shit job. Where has the union been for me?” one young guy said on hearing that there might be a stoppage. The bosses will encourage this mood among the public as they remind us of the difficult times we are supposedly in and the need for “shared sacrifice”.

The problem is that the Union leadership at the local and national level has no answer to the bosses’ campaign for the hearts and minds of the public; they have nothing on the table that will encourage folks like the young man quoted above to support a strike.  He is expected to be supportive because it’s the right thing to do, the moral high ground.

Fewer than 7% of workers are organized in the US and many workers feel that unions only care about their own member’s interests.  The reality is though that the Labor leadership is unwilling to do even that.  The general approach is one of damage control, at best maintain the status quo and return to the period of labor peace.  The BART bosses know that they have the upper hand; spokespersons for the unions have assured them of their peaceful intentions through the mass media. They have assured the bosses that they do not intend to bring the power of organized Labor to the table in this war. “What we want is to Bargain” Antonette Bryant, the President of ATU 1555 tells the public through the media, “We’re not interested in talking about a strike.”

The strategy is to portray the unions as fair and compromising and the bosses as unfair, greedy and intransigent. Last week, Sister Bryant made it clear that their expectations are quite low and very reasonable telling the SF Chronicle that the Union “would sign a contract today if it keeps up with the cost of living in the Bay Area and gives us health and safety protections.” This is the limit of the Union leadership’s ideological warfare, let us keep what we have and we’ll go away.  Why would the bosses do that with 30 million without a decent job and wages declining everywhere? An SEIU spokesperson makes the point that they haven’t had a raise in five years but the bosses have learned after years of collaboration that they have nothing to fear from those at the top of the organized labor movement.

The union leadership is more afraid than the bosses that the troops will get out of hand.  It is at times like these that class-consciousness is stronger as most workers recognize that if we want to win all workers must unite and they look around for class allies.  Not the same allies as the Union tops, the Democratic politician that’ll send an e mail to the governor or walk a picket line for a day but other workers. There is always a danger that the ranks will break out of the straitjacket imposed on them by their leadership, something made all the likely when there exists a genuine fighting opposition caucus of sorts within the union.

AC Transit, the local bus service whose workers are represented by the same unions as those at BART is also in negotiations and their contract expires the same time as the BART workers. If the Union leadership had the slightest intention of going on the offensive to get back what we’ve lost over the years and make gains, they would be preparing for a joint action as AC Transit normally picks up some of the slack if BART shuts down. A joint strike with joint demands could transform things here if fought properly.

Instead, as an assurance to the employers that workers will fight this war with one hand behind our backs ATU officials at AC Transit announce in the mass media that, “It is unlikely, though not impossible that drivers would strike in conjunction with BART workers” Well I’m sure the employers are pleased to hear that.

In this case, even if there is a strike it is likely the BART California’s governor, Jerry Brown will impose a 60-day “cooling off” period before workers can walk off the job despite BART management’s request that he doesn’t; they would rather face a strike now than 60 days from now.  The media, the politicians, the police, the justice system, these are the forces the workers are up against and the Union leadership has no plan for such a struggle.

A strike could be won and could galvanize the entire Bay Area and transform the local labor movement but in order to do that, workers must go on the offensive which means that labor disputes cannot be limited to the members involved alone.  Along with the two transit unions several other public sector contracts are up and being negotiated.  City of Oakland workers, EBMUD (the local water district) workers, regional park workers are all in negotiations.  A first step in transforming the balance of forces in this area would be to form a public sector alliance and put some real meat on the table. Through such a formation public sector workers could reach out to the private sector, our communities and the unorganized.

Instead of damage control and pleading with the bosses for restraint, the union leadership could demand what we need instead of what the bosses want, wage increases, more vacations, increased sick leave, a shorter workweek with no loss in pay etc.

To win the support of workers like the young man quoted above as well as our communities that would be negatively affected by a public sector work stoppage, links must be built with these sectors, not by appealing to them to do the right thing and support "our" issues, but to generalize the dispute and place the demand for more jobs on the table as well as free transportation for seniors, reduced fares and more buses etc.  It is minorities, poor people and older people who rely on what is already a poor public transit system; making this an issue would draw the public in to the struggle. There are numerous struggles around all sorts of issues going on, all labor disputes must be linked to these community battles.

Simply announcing preparations for such a strategy would shift the balance of forces, demanding a $20 an hour minimum wage using such a dispute to wage a massive organizing drive among the low waged an unorganized would tend to counter the effects of the employers propaganda that unionized workers care only about our own issues. The bosses will cry poverty but we know that is not the case.  There is plenty of money in society it is simply a matter of where we spend it.*

We know that the union leadership will not mobilize for such a fight as they are wed to the Team Concept, the view that workers and bosses have the same interests and will do what they can to prevent such activity.  We cannot rely on them. So this Fight to Win strategy must come from below and through the building of fighting caucuses within our unions that campaign openly against the failed policies of the present leadership and that sink deep roots in to working class communities.  No matter what happens in this instance it is not the first battle nor will it be the last.

*  Bill Gates, Warren Buffett, Larry Ellison, two Kochs, and four Waltons made an average of $6 billion each from their stocks and other investments in 2012. A $6 billion per year person makes enough in two seconds (based on a 40-hour work-week) to pay a year's worth of benefits to the average SNAP recipient. Just 20 Americans made as much from their 2012 investments as the entire SNAP budget for 47 million people.  Check here for more examples of where the money is and why we should reject the "shared sacrifice" nonsense.
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Posted in California, strikes, unions, worker's struggle | No comments

Monday, 24 June 2013

Irish MP Clare Daly slams Obama the "hypocrite"

Posted on 13:35 by Unknown
Facts For Working People shared Clare Daly's speech on our FB page and add it here on our blog. We commend Clare for her comments and for standing up for working people everywhere. The US Congress could do with a few politicians like Clare. She is an independent member of the Irish Parliament for Dublin North.
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Posted in ireland, Obama, US foreign policy | No comments

Snowden and the intelligence debacle: A declining empire's travails

Posted on 13:14 by Unknown
Snowden: being called a traitor by Dick Cheney is an honor
by Richard Mellor

So it appears Edward Snowden, who, like Bradley Manning, has done us all a favor by exposing the rotten nature of the regime in Washington, is somewhere between Russia and Cuba or Cuba and Ecuador.

The whole affair reveals the declining influence of US imperialism on the global stage as bullying and threats have so far failed to produce Mr. Snowden.  Hong Kong authorities allowed him to leave and Russia refused to hand him over. Ecuador is harboring another journalist, Julian Assange in its embassy in London and had indicated it will likely offer Snowden asylum.

This is all very embarrassing for US capitalism but it is also part of the blowback from an arrogant global presence, violating the sovereign rights of mostly poor former colonial countries and proclaiming itself the cradle of democracy and democratic rights, the two million people in US prisons notwithstanding.

An NSA spokesperson made it clear when he announced the charges against Mr. Snowden that they, “send a clear message……In the United States, you can’t spy on people.”  It’s a bit like a Monty Python skit and gets worse, “Only by bringing Mr. Snowden to justice can we safeguard the most precious of American rights: privacy” said the spokesperson.  And as Andy Borowitz points out, it is all said with a straight face.

The affair also raises some serious issues about the nature of US intelligence gathering, after all, unmanned drones have assassinated numerous figures (along with killing hundreds of civilians). “Snowdens unexpected flight to Moscow” , the Wall Street Journal points out today, “…exposed the apparent limits of America’s diplomatic and intelligent gathering reach”.

Oh dear, might it be the case that the successful “taking out” of suspected enemy combatants or “alleged” militants as they are often called, that are based on US intelligence sources, might not be as precise and accurate as we are told? And what about the Guantanamo inmates?  We know that the US offered so much a head to their thuggish allies in Afghanistan to go find terrorists and sure enough, they found them. The level of deceit and deception on the part of the US government with regards to its own population is staggering

There is no doubt that the whole affair is a big embarrassment for the US intelligence gathering agencies, “I guess we were so busy monitoring the everyday communications of every man, woman, and child in the nation that we didn’t notice that a contractor working for us was downloading tons of classified documents,” the agency spokesman said. “It’s definitely embarrassing, for sure.”  (The Borowitz Report)

There is a scramble not to try and contain the damage and tough talk is abundant, “Jennifer Psaki, a US State Department spokesperson warns that Snowden, “Should not be allowed to proceed in any further international travel, other than is necessary to return him to the United States.”

The US was “double crossed” by Hong Kong says one prominent extradition lawyer.

So far Snowden has been charged with theft of US government property, unauthorized communication of national defense information and willful communication of classified communications intelligence information. The last two charges according the media are espionage related.

The US ruling class is very upset at the refusal of some nations to comply with its requests.  Little Ecuador is already putting up Julian Assange at its embassy in London and it appears that Snowden will find refuge there if he can make it. 

As workers we will be asked as part of our patriotic duty to support the 1% and their political

Nancy Pelosi
representatives in Washington and call for Snowden’s head.   But the US public is not so easily persuaded.  Liberal Democrat, Nancy Pelosi, was booed by her own supporters when she defended the NSA’s spying at a meeting in Silicon Valley.  One man was removed from the hall, “Leave him alone! Secrets and lies! No secret courts! Protect the First Amendment,” the audience members shouted, according to the San Jose Mercury News.

And we should stop and think for a minute about the activity of the US intelligence and spy agencies around the world and how that effects what people think of us, from the retina scans they force on people in countries the US occupies to the kidnapping of individuals around the world, sometimes in other countries without the permission of their governments.  Obama and the CIA have been bombing Pakistan with unmanned drones violating that country’s sovereignty and refuses to even acknowledge it despite pleas to halt the practice.  This activity, the torture, renditions, drone warfare from Somalia to Pakistan, is what is driving terrorist activity and anti-American feeling.  The l% and their political representatives in the two Wall Street parties don’t care that we as Americans can’t travel in numerous countries throughout the world due to the activities of our own government, they are well protected and taken care of, primarily through US taxpayer funds.

By coming out in to the open Snowden may have made it more difficult for the CIA to assassinate him but they would clearly like to take him out, but he has considerable support at home and that will not happen without consequences, one of them increasing the distrust and dislike of the folks in Washington among their base at home.  There is already a lot of anger beneath the surface of US society at the bankers and politicians for their role in the Great Recession and the bailout.

Snowden, like Manning are national heroes.  We must not fall prey to this false patriotism and United We Stand mantra.  We must defend these Americans from the wrath of the US ruling class and their government.

As I wrote in an earlier piece, the leaders of the organized Labor movement continue their criminal silence on this issue.  It is being discussed in bars, on the job, in the streets and the papers of the world yet the heads of the AFL-CIO and the Change to Win coalition say nothing, their websites write nothing.  They should be organizing mass protests in the defense of Manning and Snowden.  We know of course that they will do nothing of their own volition except assist the bosses’ with the austerity agenda.  They abandon these heroic figures as they abandon their own members.  We cannot rely on them, or the Democrats to lead a fight against the capitalist offensive and the elimination of our civil liberties that go along with it.  We must organize and build for the American Spring.  The bosses will not let up.  They must make us more competitive globally as workers which means driving down wages and conditions even further which is something we naturally resist.  The attack on our rights and civil liberties is to render this resistance harmless.  The only protests or actions the bosses and their politicians accept are those that are ineffective.

Defend our rights. Defend Edward Snowden. Free Bradley Manning. Defy anti-Union laws and legislation through mass direct action.  Fight austerity.  
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Posted in Snowden, US foreign policy | No comments

Sunday, 23 June 2013

More austerity to come as Obama gets cozier with Syrian opposition

Posted on 10:52 by Unknown
The Wild Bunch: Friends of Syrian capitalism
by Richard Mellor

Supporters of this blog have made it clear that this blog supports neither side in the Syrian conflict. The nature of the Assad regime is well known but the forces opposed to him are not dominated by friends of the Syrian working class.  Not having contacts on the ground there limits our ability to comment but with the victories the Assad regime have chalked up in the past week or so, supporters of the opposition have been forced to come a little further in to the open. The so-called "Friends of Syria" group is pledging arms and money to the "rebels", and among these friends are USA, Britain, Egypt, France, Germany, Italy, and regional flunkies of western capitalism, Jordan, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, UAE. This crowd would make the line up for mercenary work in Mel Brooks' Blazing Saddles look like a bunch of amateurs and should help anyone with doubts make up their minds.  In the Libyan events which were somewhat similar we offered some thoughts on the situation and you can check that out here and here. 

So US capitalism is once again funding and arming Islamic fundamentalists. Prof Michael Chossudovsky:  points out, "While intelligence covert ops continue to perform an important role, Washington’s support to Al Qaeda in Syria is now “out in the open”, within the public domain. It is no longer part of a secret undertaking. It is part of the mainstay of US foreign policy, carried out under the helm of Secretary of State John Kerry."

US capitalism has been successful throughout the Middle East in helping dictators and theocratic regimes eliminate their political opponents; the left and democratic fores in Iraq, the Tudeh in Iran whose secular democratic government of Mohammed Mossadegh was overthrown in a US backed coup and replaced by a the murderous Shah. Mubarak and Ben Ali were both US stooges that fell to the Arab Spring. In Bahrain, the regime there has murdered protesters and those fighting for democratic reforms and the Saudi's ( a proud member of the Syrian friends club) sent troops in to Bahrain to help crush the democratic rights movement as 30,000 US troops sat and watched. The masses will not be cowered.

A crushing defeat for US imperialism in Afghanistan, a failure in Iraq which is sinking deeper in to sectarian violence, and now supporting Islamic fundamentalists in Syria is paving the way for further crises for global capital.  We should consider for a minute the struggles around the world that have arisen in response to global capitalism's war on workers and the poor.  There is no end to it. As movements ebb or step back in one region or country in response to state terror and violence from beefed up security forces, they arise somewhere else.  Brazil is the latest region to be engulfed in struggle immediately following Turkey (It will be interesting to see the effect Turkish events has on that country's "Friend of Syria" status) but we must not lose sight of the fact that in China, Cambodia and other parts of Asia, we have seen huge demonstrations, strikes and protests against global capitalism in the form of land, environmental and industrial struggles. In Latin America and Indonesia, indigenous communities are on the offensive against the global corporations' destruction and polluting of their traditional lands.

It is truly a good time to be alive in that sense as the relative stability of the pre Great Recession era has passed.  It is inconceivable that the US will be exempt from events like these, so far delayed due to the role played by the heads of the workers' organizations and a violent state apparatus.  Deeper penetration in to Syrian events by US imperialism will increase the austerity war at home and hasten the likelihood of further social instability but their choices are limited?

One thing is clear is that only an independent workers' movement/alternative can resolve the crisis.  To what level this exists in Syria is unknown to me but it is also clear that given that workers throughout the Arab world have been in the forefront of the Arab Spring, a leadership that can bring these movements together is crucial as the global struggle against capital continues.
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Posted in middle east, Syria | No comments

Goodwill paying disabled cents an hour for the pleasure of working.

Posted on 09:33 by Unknown
If charities worked there would be no poor people. The collective salaries for Goodwill Inc CEO's is $30 million. Not bad.
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Posted in poverty | No comments

Friday, 21 June 2013

1 million demonstrate in Brazil as unrest continues to escalate

Posted on 07:33 by Unknown

by Stephen Morgan

More than one million people in over 100 cities in Brazil have taken to the streets as President Dilma Rousseff postponed a trip to Japan to hold an emergency meeting about the crisis.
Britain's Independent is reporting that more than 300,000 people protested in Rio de Janeiro and another 100,000 in Sao Paulo, as part of an escalation of nationwide unrest from "the Amazon jungle city of Belem, Porto Alegre in the south, the university town Campinas north of Sao Paulo and the northeastern city of Salvador." The New York Times quotes a student demonstrator who is an organizer of the Free Fare Movement, which began the protests, as saying "The intensity on the streets is much larger than we imagined. It’s not something we control, or something we even want to control."

The protests are no longer confined to students and the middle classes, but have galvanized all sections of society, including the inhabitants of the notorious slums of Rio de Janeiro, who have created a group called Occupy Alemão, named after the poverty stricken Complexo do Alemão district. The government has said it will annul the increased fares for public transport, but there are now so many social grievances and demands being made that the government doesn't know how to respond. Demonstrators are demanding better health, education and an end to corruption among many other things, while decrying the massive amounts spent on the present international soccer tournament being held in Brazil and the investments being made to showcase Brazil as the host of the coming soccer World Cup and Olympics. Referring to the unrest, Al Jazeera's reporter on the ground said that "It is overall a leaderless movement. What we're seeing is the government not just trying to spin the story, but also trying to understand what it is the protesters want, what [they] can deliver."

Violence has escalated with police firing massive amounts of tear gas, pepper spray and rubber bullets into the crowds. In the capital Brasilia, police fought running battles with youth who attempted to torch the Foreign Ministry and other government buildings. At one point, Military Police had to be called in to defend the Presidential Palace. Most of the protesters, however, are peaceful and many chanted slogans against vandalism, although they have not been spared by the police tactics. One group of peaceful protesters complained to the media of being hunted down by riot police, while sheltering from violence in a bar. The Telegraph says that in Rio, 40 people were injured and one 18 year old boy, known as Marcos Delefrate, died and others were taken to hospital after an enraged motorist, who was unable to get through a street, drove his car into the demonstrators. It maybe that the increased force used by the police and the growing number of casualties could now add fuel to the fury.

The New York Times says that the official media is also coming under attack, after what many see as consistently biased reporting, portraying the protesters as hellbent on violence. In one incident, a TV van was set on fire and and a reporter was attacked. People are turning instead to citizen journalism and reporting events themselves online. One group has sprung up calling itself, N.I.N.J.A., which means Independent Journalism and Action Narratives in Portuguese. The New York Times called it "a makeshift, roving production studio," as the organizers roamed the streets using smartphones, camcorders and "a generator held in a supermarket cart." In only two days, the numbers of protesters has quadrupled and there seems to be no end in sight to the unrest. Indeed, the demonstrations could well mushroom into something far larger over the coming weekend.
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Posted in austerity, Latin America, worker's struggle | No comments

Wednesday, 19 June 2013

The SSP and the fight for a Better Left in Scotland

Posted on 20:38 by Unknown
Colin Fox on Edinburgh Mayday march 2013
The Scottish Socialist Party's Colin Fox
From Frontline, an independent Scottish Marxist Journal. Via Links an International Journal of Socialist Renewal

by Colin Fox

I attended the Frontline fringe meeting on ‘The prospects for Left unity’ at the Scottish Socialist Party conference in Edinburgh recently and enjoyed listening to Gregor Gall (SSP) and Pete Ramand (ISG) outline the issues facing us. Whilst nothing new arose from the discussion it nonetheless offered a chance to examine the issues afresh with representatives from the SWP, ISG and ISN. So I welcome this further opportunity to calmly consider the position facing those of us committed to building a broad based, mass socialist party in Scotland.

Looking at the left in Scotland today reminds me of Tony Benn’s observation, offered to me as a young socialist some 30 years ago, ‘there are too many socialist parties and not enough socialists.’

 In this article I look at the current situation, the lessons of previous successes, the type of programme and model of unity we need, the impediments to unity and offer suggestions on how progress might nonetheless be made, and last but not least, I consider the views some have presented about abandoning the need for a party altogether. Inevitably an article like this can only scratch the surface of this debate, but I offer it nonetheless.

Before I consider all those issues however I feel compelled to focus this discussion on one incontrovertible truth, the Scottish Socialist Party remains the most successful Left unity model in post war Scottish history. That fact seems to be lost on many people, not least those former SSP ‘comrades’ subsequently blinded by their desire to bury us. I would respectfully suggest that instead of writing off the SSP they might be better served studying why we succeeded and what lessons are to be learned from that early experience. No student serious about this discussion would surely dispute that such an exercise offers a treasury of valuable information?

The SSP’s emergence in 1998/9 was no accident. Rather it was the result of a strategic political decision and a lengthy process of deliberation, discussion and agreement. Scottish Militant Labour, the project’s driving influence, began making overtures to others on the anti-capitalist Left in Scotland in 1995/6 about the possibility of a political realignment. This realignment would give voice to substantial sections of the Scottish working class who felt disenfranchised by Labour’s historic lurch to the right. Contact was sought and made with like-minded comrades from the Labour Left, the SNP Left (gathered around Liberation magazine), the Communist Party of Scotland, trade union activists, intellectuals, peaceniks, direct action environmental campaigners and many non-aligned socialists across Scotland.

Agreement was reached on a substantial political programme based on shared anti-capitalist, anti-imperialist, pro public ownership policies and not least a pro-Independence programme and to enlist SML’s skills base, its finances, its elected representatives, its full time organisers, its weekly newspaper [Scottish Socialist Voice] and its membership to help launch the Scottish Socialist Alliance. We had been heavily involved in campaigns like the Liverpool Dockers Support Group, the Hands off our Water campaign, the Glacier Metals dispute on Glasgow’s Southside and we had worked well together on single issues. Through this Alliance we achieved a remarkable degree of political unity, cohesion and trust around a programme that enjoyed the support of everyone on most key issues. Where there was discord on policy, such as Ireland, we agreed to ‘park’ those debates for the time being having reached the maximum consensual agreement possible.

On top of this programmatic unity we built organisational strength and trust by adopting a groundbreaking constitution which included a series of clauses based on a pluralist and democratic model. Comrades from SML, for example, recognising the need to display unity and respect in action as much as in words, suggested all platforms, tendencies and groups should have equal voting rights regardless of their numerical strength. This was an important commitment designed to emphasise the politically pluralist nature of the new alliance and build the necessary understanding, trust and respect between all the groups involved.

The undoubted success of the SSA – modest at first – developed into the Scottish Socialist Party. This crucial step from a loose alliance to a tighter party was deemed necessary if we were to win a seat in the inaugural Holyrood elections of 1999. We felt this victory was within our reach and we saw the huge electoral opportunity it offered in gaining further political credibility and mass popular support.

Of course not everyone on the Left joined in this left unity project. The Socialist Labour Party of Arthur Scargill for example rejected the idea as they did not support Independence and also opposed the ‘bottom up’ democratic structure of the new party preferring a powerful hegemonic role for Scargill instead. They were nonetheless an important part of the Left in Scotland at that time and went on to stand against the SSP in the 1999 Holyrood elections. Despite polling more votes across Scotland they did not win any seats. Had there been one left candidate in each region we would have won 5 socialist MSP’s.

The Socialist Workers Party also dismissed the SSA/SSP project out of hand. In fact the SWP denounced the SSP as ‘reformist’ and ‘nationalist’ because we called for an independent socialist Scotland. Whereas until recently they have been ambivalent on the issue of Independence at that time they opposed it. They preferred to call for a vote for Labour in 1997. ‘Vote Labour and build a socialist alternative’ was their slogan as we in the SSA were building that very ‘alternative’. To be fair they did change their minds when the SSP won a seat at Holyrood and tripled our membership in the 12 months following.

The SSP continued to operate on this pluralist basis with an unparalleled democratic constitution unmatched anywhere else on the left. We enshrined open platform rights for all registered tendencies including the newly joined SWP with branches meeting fortnightly, elected Regional Committees, a quarterly National Committee and an annual delegate Conference whose decisions were sovereign.
We built the SSP inside and outside Parliament and confounded sceptics inside and outside the left with our progress. We effectively led the anti-war movement in Scotland and were present on every picket line, community fight back and progressive campaign in the land. In 2003 we won 6 MSP’s, secured 131,000 votes for a full-blooded socialist programme and changed the face of Scottish politics entirely.

We soon had 3,000 members in 80 branches organised across 7 regions.
And what are the lessons? That with a pluralist, inclusive, democratic and bold orientation to the masses, in particular to new layers of activists entering the fray, it was possible to build a popular and effective broad, socialist party. This impressive achievement was widely acknowledged and respected.

SSP Lives On

The SSP remains at the heart of an albeit diminished left in Scotland today. Yet there has been a tendency for many on the left to write the SSP’s political obituary over the past few years. And the words of the American author and wit Mark Twain seem most apt here. ‘Rumours of my death’ he famously noted ‘have been greatly exaggerated’.

And as the National Convenor/Spokesman of the SSP throughout the last 8 years I pay tribute to the incredible dedication, unbreakable loyalty and personal nobility of those hundreds of members who stuck with their party, and indeed who joined it afresh, and carried out important groundbreaking work often in the face of ‘tortuous’ provocation. We defended our party in the bourgeois courts, in the bourgeois press, and most importantly of all, in the court of working class public opinion despite being vilified and blackened by almost everyone including so called former ‘comrades’ to a degree non-members can barely imagine.

So I feel duty bound to insist, and here I put it most modestly, that the SSP has a great deal of experience, judgement and knowledge to offer this debate. Those who talk of a ‘post SSP’ political landscape are guilty of wishful thinking. The Scottish Socialist Party, now 15 years old, has every intention of being here in another 15 years!

Despite the obvious setback the Sheridan debacle inflicted on our project, and I will return to that presently, the SSP today remains the only socialist party in Scotland with an elected Councillor(SSP Cllr Jim Bollan in West Dumbartonshire), the only party with a fortnightly socialist newspaper edited, printed and published in Scotland (the Scottish Socialist Voice), the only socialist party with a seat on the Yes Scotland Advisory Board, with a network of full time organisers and branches throughout Scotland, active on the streets, in communities and in the trade unions. Moreover in former MSP’s John McAllion and Campbell Martin we have two figures hugely respected within the Labour and SNP Left respectively. And last but not least we have a profound knowledge of working class struggle in Scotland, both at community and workplace levels, with an unrivalled track record of engaging in such struggles raising our socialist vision and alternatives.

So whilst I have no intention of belittling anyone else’s role, I am sure no one will want to see the SSP denied the respect we are due.

A Better Left in Scotland

All that having been said I entirely accept the Left in Scotland could and should be doing far better. Our shared frustration then must surely compel us to re-examine what progress might be made.
On the positive side there is much that unites us on policy. Nor do we disagree by and large about the possibilities for advancing socialist ideas. I will therefore not take up much space here outlining those possibilities suffice it to say that the worst economic recession in 80 years is forcing many people to draw conclusions favourable to ours. And their widespread experience, of falling living standards and corrupt mainstream politics, opens up minds previously closed to us. Moreover the movements growing in opposition to austerity and the cuts augurs well for the left. And the rising Independence movement provides further substantial possibilities for advance as Stephen Maxwell points out in his book ‘Arguments for Independence’.

Yet whilst we can be positive about the strength of the programme we share and the rise, albeit uneven, in working class consciousness we must all equally recognise that the Lefts divisions often confuse, demoralise and even anger many sections of the working class looking to us for assistance and leadership.

What then are the impediments to progress and how can they be ameliorated?
If ‘we agree on 90% of issues and disagree on 10% ’ how profound is the 10%?
There is certainly a fundamental difference between those of us who believe you start with a socialist party and try to build it and those who aim to transform existing non-socialist parties like Labour or the SNP. Whilst I respect all tactical considerations, for me this ‘entryism’ appears pointless as Labour continues to move further and further to the right and encompass a neo-liberal model that is the antithesis of social democracy far less socialism. So whilst I respect those socialists like Neil Findlay, MSP, who argues (in ‘The Scottish Road to Socialism’ 2013) that since Labour and the SNP enjoy mass support the Left must work inside them otherwise it confines itself to the electoral wilderness, I think this position is just not credible or sustainable. Either way it is certainly no basis for uniting the left in Scotland.

So if the first aim is a common programme, the second is surely an agreed political orientation. And the best way to build an effective broad left party is by orienting to new layers of activists not joining neo-liberal parties.

There is one other issue that cannot be avoided in any honest examination of the prospects for principled, sustainable Left unity in Scotland today. And that is the rather euphemistically referenced ‘Sheridan’ issue. Tommy Sheridan’s decision to sue a tabloid newspaper over stories he knew to be true was foolhardy in the extreme. His demand that all 3,000 members of the SSP traipse into court and perjure themselves for him was worse. But his all out attempt to destroy the Scottish Socialist Party did more damage to the socialist cause here than Margaret Thatcher could ever dream of. And despite a 3 years prison sentence, convicted on several counts of perjury, he has never shown an ounce of remorse. Were he capable of taking responsibility for his actions he might eventually be forgiven. In the meantime he remains an utterly divisive and widely ridiculed political figure. Too many people would not work with him again nor trust him not to wreck the socialist movement a second time.

After examining these impediments what do we find? Is any progress possible? I believe it is. After all we work well together in the Yes Scotland movement, in the Radical Independence Campaign, in Trades Unionists for Independence, in the anti-Trident coalition, in local cuts groups and against the hated ‘bedroom tax’.

European Elections

The SSP is keen for example to engage with others on the left to examine the possibility of presenting a common programme and joint slate for next years European Parliament elections. Now it might be possible and it might not, but we are fully prepared to give the project our best efforts.
Clearly working together in joint campaigns with shared goals is one thing, constructing an organised mass party is quite another. The SSP has developed a comprehensive socialist programme over the years that takes up the rights of working class people and links their immediate concerns and struggles to policies that challenge capitalism and promote socialism. No other group on the left in Scotland has invested as much in such a rounded-out socialist challenge to capitalism that can appeal to broad masses of working class people.

A Party or A Movement?

And this brings me to the question others have posed in this discussion ‘Is such a party desirable’? In my view it is essential. For me there are no realistic or workable alternatives to a party. I hear people talk about how the era of political parties is over, bypassed by events and that single-issue campaigns, networks or groups, like the ‘Occupy’ movement, are the way ahead. And I must say whilst I listen carefully to their case I must confess I have never found it persuasive. Groups, networks and alliances have their place of course but they are transitional. The Scottish Socialist Alliance for example was always clear it would aim to become a party.

And as I understand for example that the SNP has just reached 25,000 members in Scotland it would appear they have found a way forward as a party.

There are in truth no short cuts to party building and no substitute for painstaking effort and patient party organisation. The distilled experience and learning a party collects is invaluable to the socialist struggle. There is a quote Jack Straw celebrated as leader of the National Union of Students. Unfashionably it was from Stalin and went ‘When the political line has been decided organisation is everything’. Dare I say it, there is much sense in Josep Djugashvili’s famous aphorism. To suggest the socialist struggle can be advanced in the face of ruthless capitalism and the state, its political instruments and our political enemies without an organised, disciplined and effective party organisation is to deny history and to prepare for failure.

So whom are we all aiming at in trying to build this new party? For me it’s the new layers of young activists changing their political allegiances and open to democratic, pluralist and above all socialist ideas. And in this regard the Yes movement and the Radical Independence Campaign are key. A ‘Yes’ vote in the 2014 Independence Referendum will transform politics in Scotland and throughout Britain. That prospect offers up enormous opportunities for the left in the run up to the crucial 2016 Holyrood elections where we again have a realistic prospect of winning seats.

And what model of party is required? For me the SSP at its height remains the most successful, democratic, plural and disciplined example I’ve ever seen. Regardless of whether you agreed with it or not it had, and still has, a coherent narrative with a fully worked out anti-capitalist programme. The SSP remains a central feature of the socialist landscape in Scotland and can again provide the basis for building the broad based, mass party of socialism we desire. Our party has seen clear and welcome signs of renewal these past few months. We have seen a tremendous improvement in the numbers attending our public meetings up and down the country for example on ‘The case for an Independent socialist Scotland’ with John McAllion, Campbell Martin, John Finnie, myself and Sandra Webster. More than 100 people have applied to join via our national website in the past two months as our support for an Independent socialist Scotland and our opposition to the bedroom tax and the worst recession in 80 years reaches a wider and wider audience. The Scottish working class badly needs a well-organised mass party of socialism and the SSP has proven it can play that role with aplomb. Toughened by recent experiences, this time we are wiser.

The Scottish Socialist Party remains open to all genuine Left unity initiatives but this must mean more than stitching together tiny groups on the Left. It must involve a rather more ambitious vision attracting those considerable sections of the Left who are not members of any political party.

Notes

‘Scotland’s Road to Socialism, Time to Choose’ [2013] Edited by Gregor Gall, Published by Scottish Left Review Press, Biggar.
‘Scotland’s Economy: the case for Independence’ [2013] Published by The Scottish Government, Edinburgh.
‘Arguing for Independence’ [2012] By Stephen Maxwell, Published by Luath Press Ltd, Edinburgh
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