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<DIV><FONT face=Arial>I disagree John,</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial>Unfortunately it is going to come from a LOT of pain and
suffering before people begin to become receptive, much less actually do
anything.</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial>I never could ( and I still don't ) understand it. Why is
it that people wait until the engine melts instead of getting regular oil
changes and maintenance ?</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial>David J.</FONT></DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<BLOCKQUOTE dir=ltr
style="PADDING-RIGHT: 0px; PADDING-LEFT: 5px; MARGIN-LEFT: 5px; BORDER-LEFT: #000000 2px solid; MARGIN-RIGHT: 0px">
<DIV style="FONT: 10pt arial">----- Original Message ----- </DIV>
<DIV
style="BACKGROUND: #e4e4e4; FONT: 10pt arial; font-color: black"><B>From:</B>
<A title=jbw292002@gmail.com href="mailto:jbw292002@gmail.com">John W.</A>
</DIV>
<DIV style="FONT: 10pt arial"><B>To:</B> <A title=ewj@pigs.ag
href="mailto:ewj@pigs.ag">E. Wayne Johnson</A> </DIV>
<DIV style="FONT: 10pt arial"><B>Cc:</B> <A title=dlj725@hughes.net
href="mailto:dlj725@hughes.net">David Johnson</A> ; <A
title=peace-discuss@lists.chambana.net
href="mailto:peace-discuss@lists.chambana.net">Peace-discuss List</A> </DIV>
<DIV style="FONT: 10pt arial"><B>Sent:</B> Sunday, October 10, 2010 5:51
PM</DIV>
<DIV style="FONT: 10pt arial"><B>Subject:</B> Re: [Peace-discuss] ] Obama, the
Tea Party & Why We Need a Labor Party (from /Socialist Organizer/)</DIV>
<DIV><BR></DIV>If there's ONE thing we learned from the 60s, it's that there
will NOT be a Revolution here in Amerika.
<DIV><BR><BR>
<DIV class=gmail_quote>On Sun, Oct 10, 2010 at 5:37 PM, E. Wayne Johnson <SPAN
dir=ltr><<A href="mailto:ewj@pigs.ag">ewj@pigs.ag</A>></SPAN>
wrote:</DIV>
<DIV class=gmail_quote><BR>
<BLOCKQUOTE class=gmail_quote
style="PADDING-LEFT: 1ex; MARGIN: 0px 0px 0px 0.8ex; BORDER-LEFT: #ccc 1px solid">
<DIV text="#000000" bgcolor="#ffffff">It's an interesting read. <BR><BR>The
people are waking up to the fact that they've been Gypped. Slowly,
though.<BR><BR>The Tea Party is made up of a lot of different kind of
folk. Some of them are neo-connish for sure.<BR>The neocons have money
to burn and a big horn to toot and enough green cash to astroturf the
TeaParty.<BR>But a lot of the Tea Partiers are anarcho-libertarians and
paleocons.<BR>There are even some like Ernest Hancock and Karen
Quinn-Tostado <BR>who are left-leaning progressives and influence the
TeaParty. You can find the antiwar<BR>wing of the TeaParty in the
blogs and chats fuming about how the "TeaPotty" has
been<BR>co-opted. <BR><BR>I personally don't have any use at all
for Sarah Palin.<BR><BR>Boehner (Boner) is a likewise meretricious dilwad
and <BR>will not be any significant change over Nancy P. Lousy.<BR>There
isn't any lesser evil amongst them. <BR>If you are up to your
chin in smelly liquid cat shit, and some one <BR>flings a bucketful of
festering dog shit at you, do you duck?<BR><BR>The system is lining the
TeaParty up for a railroad job down a dead end path<BR>hoping to cop the
political spin and defuse the anger that drives the TeaParty.<BR><BR>What is
yet to be seen is what will happen to the TeaParty <BR>after it has been
thoroughly SWAKed by Karl Rove's GOP...<BR>if it will have enough anger to
go home, wash off, and come out again.<BR><BR>Some like Quinn-Tostado are
calling for a National Strike. <BR>If anyone could agree on what it's
for, a National Strike would be a great idea.<BR><BR><BR><BR><BR>On
10/10/2010 10:38 PM, David Johnson wrote:
<BLOCKQUOTE type="cite">
<DIV><FONT face=Arial><STRONG>EXCELLENT ANALYSIS AND WELL DOCUMENTED
ARTICLE ABOUT THE OBAMA ADMINISTRATION,THE DEMOCRATS, AND THE NATIONAL SO
CALLED " LEADERSHIP " OF LABOR AND CIVIL RIGHTS
ORGANIZATIONS.</STRONG></FONT></DIV>
<DIV><STRONG></STRONG> </DIV>
<DIV><STRONG></STRONG> </DIV>
<DIV
style="FONT: 10pt arial; font-size-adjust: none; font-stretch: normal">-----
Original Message -----
<DIV style="BACKGROUND: rgb(228,228,228)"><B>From:</B> <A
title=intexile@iww.org href="mailto:intexile@iww.org"
target=_blank>intexile@iww.org</A> </DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV><B>Sent:</B> Saturday, October 09, 2010 1:38 PM</DIV>
<DIV><B>Subject:</B> [ Obama, the Tea Party & Why We Need a Labor
Party (from /Socialist Organizer/)</DIV></DIV>
<DIV><BR></DIV><SPAN> </SPAN>
<DIV>
<DIV>
<DIV>
<P></P>
<DIV>
<P class=MsoNormal><SPAN style="FONT-SIZE: 13.5pt; COLOR: black">THE
ORGANIZER NEWSPAPER</SPAN></P>
<P class=MsoNormal><SPAN style="FONT-SIZE: 13.5pt; COLOR: black">P.O. Box
40009, San Francisco, CA 94140<BR>Tel. (415) 641-8616; fax: (415)
626-1217</SPAN></P>
<P class=MsoNormal><SPAN style="FONT-SIZE: 13.5pt; COLOR: black">email: <A
href="mailto:theorganizer@earthlink.net"
target=_blank>theorganizer@earthlink.net</A></SPAN></P>
<P class=MsoNormal><SPAN style="FONT-SIZE: 13.5pt; COLOR: black">website:
<A href="http://www.socialistorganizer.org"
target=_blank>www.socialistorganizer.org</A></SPAN></P>
<P class=MsoNormal><SPAN style="FONT-SIZE: 13.5pt; COLOR: black">PLEASE
EXCUSE DUPLICATE POSTINGS</SPAN></P>
<P class=MsoNormal><SPAN style="FONT-SIZE: 11pt"></SPAN></P>
<P>(I am not uncritically supportive of /Socialist Organizer/ as they
don't seem to give the IWW as much credit as they could and I am not
uncritical of the creation of a Labor Party either--especially given the
fact that the "Winner Take All" electoral system that dominates most of
the US makes the winning of elections by third party candidates very
difficult, but this is a thoroughly excellent analysis of what is
currently wrong with the Democratic Party and why Obama is not only NOT a
socialist, but he makes /Ronald Reagan/ look like a liberal!)</P>
<P></P>
<P>THE ORGANIZER NEWSPAPER</P>
<P>P.O. Box 40009, San Francisco, CA 94140 Tel. (415) 641-8616; fax: (415)
626-1217</P>
<P>email: <A href="mailto:theorganizer@earthlink.net"
target=_blank>theorganizer@earthlink.net</A></P>
<P>website: <A href="http://www.socialistorganizer.org"
target=_blank>www.socialistorganizer.org</A></P>
<P>PLEASE EXCUSE DUPLICATE POSTINGS</P>
<P></P>
<P><STRONG>SPECIAL SUPPLEMENT</STRONG></P>
<P>(September-October 2010 Issue)</P>
<P></P>
<P><STRONG>Obama, the Tea Party & Why We Need a Labor
Party</STRONG></P>
<P></P>
<P>Addressing the Ohio AFL-CIO convention on September 13, AFL-CIO
President Richard Trumka called on union members to mobilize and rally
behind "economic patriots" in a "knock-down, drag-out" fight against the
"false populism and name calling" that Tea Party and Republican leaders
like House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-Ohio) are employing in this
fall's elections.</P>
<P></P>
<P>Trumka lambasted the U.S. corporations that sit on more than $800
billion without creating jobs, when banks hoard more than $1 trillion in
profits without lending to small businesses and consumers, and when
health insurance companies with tens of billions in profits demand huge
premium increases.</P>
<P></P>
<P>"We know what Rep. Boehner will do if he gets the speaker's job,"
Trumka stated, "because he's told us! He'll privatize Social Security,
protect the corporations that send our jobs overseas, slash taxes for the
super-rich. There will be no jobs legislation. No retirement security. No
health care."</P>
<P></P>
<P>Trumka urged support for Democrats in the battle-ground state of Ohio
and insisted that if Republicans win back the Congress in November, it
will mean "one ugly future for America!"</P>
<P></P>
<P>"There are races all over this country that we can win, that we're
going to win if we do what we know how to do," Trumka concluded. "It won't
be easy. We know the anti-worker politicians, and the corporations, and
the ideologues don't want the union vote. They want us to stay home,
frustrated and angry at Washington. But that's not going to happen. Not on
our watch!"</P>
<P></P>
<P>Clearly, working people across the country have every reason to fear
the rapid growth of the right-wing and Tea Party movements. But the
$64,000 question that the unions should be asking -- but are not asking --
is the following: Is it possible to defeat the right wing by supporting
Democratic Party politicians whose policies are not only demoralizing the
workers and oppressed peoples who voted with such great hopes for Obama,
but in fact are paving the way for the very development of this right-wing
populist movement?</P>
<P></P>
<P><STRONG>Who Is Responsible for the Deteriorating Economy?</STRONG></P>
<P></P>
<P>Though many of the problems preceded his inauguration and are due to
economic policies supported by both major political parties, everyone
knows that the situation facing working people in the United States has
only gotten worse since the historic November 4, 2008, election that
brought Barack Obama to the White House and gave the Democrats a
super-majority in the Congress.</P>
<P></P>
<P>Many opinion polls and media analysts are predicting that the
Republicans will take back control of the House and Senate by a very slim
margin in the upcoming mid-term elections.</P>
<P></P>
<P>These predictions are based not so much on a large increase in votes
for the Republican Party -- which is facing its deepest political crisis
in decades, including a split in its own ranks that has witnessed the
launching of the Tea Party; they are due to the fact that a massive
abstention of the Democratic Party base that voted for Obama in 2008 is
expected.</P>
<P></P>
<P>Indeed, polls show a growing disillusionment by the American people
with both major political parties: The Democrats in Congress have only a
33 percent approval rate, while the Republicans' rate is even lower:
24%.</P>
<P></P>
<P>In his Columbus, Ohio, speech Trumka pointed his finger at the
anti-worker candidates and policies of the Republican Party. True enough.
But over the past two years that the Democrats have been in charge, they
have pursued basically the same corporate policies as George W. Bush.
Working people know this -- having experienced the brunt of these attacks
directly -- which is why growing numbers will stay home come election time
in November.</P>
<P></P>
<P><STRONG>Why Obama's Reversal in the Opinion Polls</STRONG></P>
<P></P>
<P>The large reversal in support for Obama and the Democrats in the
opinion polls cannot be understood without examining the deep economic
crisis ravaging the country.</P>
<P></P>
<P>The official unemployment rate is 9.6 percent. Close to 200,000 jobs
were lost in the month of July 2010 alone. Close to 9 million jobs have
been lost officially since the beginning of the Great Recession two and a
half years ago. The real unemployment rate is much higher: 15 million. An
estimated 6.6 million people have been unemployed for more than nine
months, which means they are not included among the officially unemployed.
In addition, close to 9 million workers are "heavily underemployed" --
that is, they work part time with less than 20 hours of work per week,
mostly in low-paying precarious jobs. This is why the AFL-CIO places the
official unemployment level above 20 million and the official number of
workers in need of a full-time job at 27 million.</P>
<P></P>
<P>The<EM> San Francisco Chronicle</EM>, in an August 15 article on Nancy
Pelosi, highlighted the impact of the sagging economy on the mid-term
elections: "With eerie accuracy, political forecasting models can predict
elections based on one factor: the economy. On that issue, the news keeps
getting worse for Democrats. The economy is in a serious stall, with
unemployment stuck at 9.6 percent and economic indicators turning south
almost across the board." (Ibid.)</P>
<P></P>
<P>This is, without a doubt, the main issue that has the Democrats
reeling, as they are the party in office and are therefore seen as
responsible for the current situation. Obama's big stimulus plan bailed
out Wall Street and the banks to the tune of close to $3 trillion
(combining the Federal Reserve credit lines and the direct government
bailouts). But this was not a jobs-creation plan.</P>
<P></P>
<P>One of Obama's so-called landmark feats, according to the Democrats,
was his fiscal stimulus program and rescue of the financial system. The
truth is that this plan has been a disaster for working people. The banks
were bailed out but they haven't invested any of their billions in the
productive economy and job creation. They have not jump-started the
economy as Obama had predicted would happen.</P>
<P></P>
<P>The<EM> Wall Street Journal</EM> on August 14 noted that the banks are
in fact sitting on $1.8 trillion of government bailout funds and have
simply gotten back to "investing" these funds in derivatives, hedge funds,
off-shore currency trading and other speculative ventures. That is, they
have gone back to the very financial practices that triggered the recent
financial meltdown.</P>
<P>Alan Greenspan is quoted in the same<EM> Wall Street Journal</EM>
article as stating that the economy is spinning into a "double-dip
recession" that could fast become a major economic depression.</P>
<P></P>
<P>The Democrats are quick to blame George W. Bush and the Republicans for
passing this recession onto them. But the Democrats, with their
super-majority in the Congress, did nothing different from what Bush had
done. Bush began the bank bailouts in September-November 2008, before he
left office, with the full support of the Democratic majority. (Obama and
Nancy Pelosi, in fact, joined with Bush and the Republicans in overturning
the first bailout rejection by the Congress on September 30, 2008.) And
the Democrats continued the Wall Street bailouts.</P>
<P></P>
<P><STRONG>The Federal Deficit and Obama's Response</STRONG></P>
<P></P>
<P>The federal stimulus program has produced a huge federal deficit. The
gigantic sums needed to bail out the banks, instead of working people,
have to come from somewhere -- and that somewhere is the hides of the
workers themselves.</P>
<P></P>
<P>One of the main rallying slogans of the right-wing Tea Party movement
has been the call to fight Obama's huge federal deficit, which they say,
will have to be shouldered by taxpayers and passed on as a debt to their
children and grandchildren.</P>
<P></P>
<P>As always with these right-wing populists, there is more than a grain
of truth to what they are saying -- though in their mouths it is nothing
but pure demagogy. It's part of a scare tactic aimed at turning the
American people away from any "Big Government" expenditures such as public
schools, public hospitals, public transportation, welfare, health care for
the poor, Medicare, you name it. Everything, of course, but the biggest
Big Government expenditure of them all -- that is, the government's
military budget, now annually at over $700 billion.</P>
<P></P>
<P>The Tea Party movement carefully ignores the fact that Bush was one of
the presidents who increased the federal debt to levels unknown in the
recent past -- mainly because of the skyrocketing military expenses. They
also conveniently ignore the fact that the bank bailouts, begun under Bush
and the Republicans, were supported overwhelmingly by Democrats and
Republicans, including by Sarah Palin and her Tea Party partners.</P>
<P></P>
<P>The response to this deficit/debt crisis by the U.S. ruling class has
been to create a Federal Deficit Reduction Committee. Obama, as part of
his trademark pattern of governing "across the aisle" with the
Republicans, called upon Republican Senator Alan Simpson from Wyoming, a
strong opponent of public services and public enterprises, to co-chair
this bipartisan committee.</P>
<P></P>
<P>Not surprisingly, the committee has met and decided that it will be
necessary to "reform" the Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid systems
in the United States to address the "growing financial viability" of these
systems.</P>
<P></P>
<P>By "reform," the Obama-appointed committee means increasing the minimum
retirement age of Americans and gutting the Medicare and Medicaid programs
-- with larger co-payments and fewer payments and benefits.</P>
<P></P>
<P>True, Obama has called for saving Social Security in response to the
Republicans and the Tea Party spokespersons. True, Obama says he is
against the drive by the Republicans to "privatize" Social Security. But
Obama's "reforms" are moving Social Security down the gradual path of
privatization. The real fear is that Obama will do what Bush could not do
-- that is, weaken Social Security in spite of what the people want.</P>
<P></P>
<P>Obama's call to defend Social Security sounds hollow in the ears of
working people, who have seen Alan Simpson in action and who know that
Obama is just the soft cop in the corporate game to undo Social Security.
Working people are angry and want to see their retirement and their
Medicare plans preserved. "Hands Off Our Social Security!" is a demand
that has resonated loudly nationwide.</P>
<P></P>
<P>Obama is being attacked from all sides as he goes after Social Security
and Medicare. The Republicans and Tea Party activists are attacking him
relentlessly, accusing him of being a "socialist" who wants to nationalize
every industry in the country and who is sticking to his Big Government
agenda. Nothing could be further from the truth.</P>
<P></P>
<P>It seems that no matter how far Obama moves to the right under the
pressure from the Republicans and the Tea Party, he will never placate the
country's right wing. They want to wring his neck, and they want it badly
... precisely because he was elected with a huge mandate for implement
real, progressive change. For the Tea Party proto-fascists, the conditions
under which Obama was elected are unacceptable and have to be
reversed.</P>
<P></P>
<P><STRONG>What About Obama's Tax Policies?</STRONG></P>
<P></P>
<P>In his speech in Columbus, Trumka railed at the Republicans for
opposing any taxation policies that would favor working people. He is not
wrong. But what about the Democrats?</P>
<P></P>
<P>For months now, the AFL-CIO leadership has pointed out that the best
way to reduce the federal deficit is to create a massive public works
program to put 15 million people back to work and to get the productive
economy back up and running, thereby generating a strong tax base once
again. This is absolutely correct. The labor federation has also called
upon Obama to increase the taxes on the super-rich by, at the very least,
returning to the tax rates of the early 1990s.</P>
<P></P>
<P>But Obama has rejected this course. On the tax front, he is refusing to
extend the Bush-era tax cuts to the super-wealthy, but he is in favor of
major corporate tax cuts in the name of spurring the economic recovery. He
is also resisting all calls to increase the taxes on those Americans
making over $250,000 per year.</P>
<P></P>
<P>Obama refuses to tax the rich, bending to the corporations, to the
corporate press and to Tea Party movement, all of whom insist that taxing
the rich is un-American and would kill any possible economic recovery. But
working people across this country are not rubes; they know that tax cuts
for the wealthy and trickle down economic policies haven't worked and will
never work.</P>
<P></P>
<P><STRONG>Is Obama Really Delivering Health Care to Working
People?</STRONG></P>
<P></P>
<P>Many of the "liberal" sectors of the mainstream media such as the<EM>
New York Times</EM> have lauded many of Obama's -- and Nancy Pelosi's --
achievements. At the top of this list, in addition to the fiscal stimulus
plan and the Financial Stability Bill, is the Obama health-care reform
plan.</P>
<P></P>
<P>Little by little, the harsh realities of this Obama plan are beginning
to emerge in the media. [See sidebar article.]</P>
<P></P>
<P>Liberals can point to the fact that many of the poorest sectors of
society, mainly Black and Latinos, will now get health care. This is not
insignificant. But who is paying the cost of this expansion of health-care
coverage to the estimated 12 million low-income people? It's not the
private insurance companies. It's not the super-rich, whose tax rates have
been lowered drastically over the past 30 years. It's not the Wall Street
tycoons. No. It's the working-class majority that is being asked to pay
... so that the pockets of the insurance companies can be lined even
further.</P>
<P></P>
<P>The tragic outcome of this new law is that it pits predominantly white
working-class Americans against the mainly Black and Latino recipients of
the health-care plan, thus dividing the working class and preventing a
united fightback for universal health-care rights.</P>
<P></P>
<P>Taking these insurance companies out of the health-care equation would
have permitted the financing of a Medicare for All, single-payer
health-care system that would not have pitted the "middle class" against
the lowest strata in society. It would have created solidarity among
working people and provided free health-care on demand. But this would
have required breaking with a private industry that is one of the major
funders of both the Democratic and Republican parties.</P>
<P></P>
<P>In this sense, it is instructive to look at the results of the July
2010 referendum that was placed on the Missouri ballot by the Tea Party
movement. In this referendum 70% of the state's voters, in a vote marked
by an unusually high turnout, rejected the Obama health-care plan that
would force them to buy health care or else pay a major fine to the
government.</P>
<P></P>
<P>Clearly, with an economy still in shambles, with an extremely high
Missouri unemployment rate (officially 13%, much higher than the national
average -- because of the transfer of much of the state's industrial base
to Mexico or China), and with high home foreclosure and eviction rates,
the state's voters felt that they should not be forced by the government
to pay out of pocket for what would likely be inadequate health-care
coverage to begin with. They had a higher priority: sheer survival.</P>
<P></P>
<P>As a result of the failure by the Obama administration to adopt a
single-payer system, or even a public option, the working-class majority
was easy prey for the right-wing Tea Party movement, which demagogically
sought to capitalize on the voters' anger over a government-imposed
individual mandate to buy health-care from a private insurance company.
Working people simply did not have the money to do this. In addition, the
voters understood that they would get insufficient coverage and high
premiums, along with higher co-pays, any time they needed to visit a
doctor or buy medicine.</P>
<P>The Democratic Party liberals immediately decried the so-called
"right-wing turn of the Missouri voters," refusing to acknowledge their
own responsibility in creating the situation that pushed the "middle
class" voters in the state to reject Obama's plan. By refusing to break
with the private health-care insurance companies, by refusing to enact a
program that would provide all citizens of the country with free health
care on demand (single-payer) -- a program that had the support of the
large majority of the population -- Obama, Pelosi and the Democrats had
paved the way for their own demise.</P>
<P></P>
<P>And Missouri is just one of 18 states where the Tea Party has placed a
similar referendum on the ballot.</P>
<P></P>
<P><STRONG>What About Obama's Promise to Pass EFCA?</STRONG></P>
<P></P>
<P>Another failed promise by Obama that has given the Republicans and the
Tea Party movement a campaign to mobilize around involves the Employee
Free Choice Act (EFCA).</P>
<P></P>
<P>For months, the trade-union leadership campaigned energetically for
Obama because of his promise to enact EFCA -- an act that would give the
trade unions far greater freedom to organize new members. In the United
States, the trade unions have the right to organize a union of their
choice only on paper. In reality, because of the way the National Labor
Relations Board (NLRB) has been gradually undermined over many decades, it
is almost impossible for workers to organize into a union of their choice.
Bosses can fire workers in union organizing drives almost at will.</P>
<P>Obama promised to level the playing field so that unions could finally
have the right to organize. Union members who mobilized for his election
across the country expected that Obama's very first action as president
would be to introduce and campaign for EFCA.</P>
<P>This didn't happen. A few months into office, Obama's top economic
adviser, Larry Summers, announced that enacting EFCA would be a major
obstacle to economic recovery. Soon other Obama administration officials
joined the chorus of anti-EFCA right-wingers.</P>
<P></P>
<P>Then came a major blow to EFCA from within the trade union movement.
Andy Stern, then president of SEIU, announced that EFCA had to be altered
if there was to be any chance of getting it adopted. He said that the main
provision in EFCA -- in fact, its very heart and soul -- had to be gutted.
Stern was referring to the "card check" provision in EFCA that would allow
a majority of workers who sign a card requesting to join a union to
thereby have the right to organize and have a first collective-bargaining
agreement.</P>
<P></P>
<P>Soon after, the AFL-CIO followed suit, announcing that it would favor
passage of an EFCA without card check -- a reversal of its previous
positions.</P>
<P></P>
<P>Before long, the mainstream press pronounced that EFCA was dead, and
that even a heavily emasculated EFCA as proposed by Andy Stern would not
likely see the light of day.</P>
<P></P>
<P>What is surprising in this mid-term election is that few, if any,
Democrats running for office even mention passage of EFCA. They know that
Obama, as the true spokesperson of corporate America, is not about to
deliver EFCA -- so why make promises that are likely to ring false to the
electorate?</P>
<P>But this isn't all. The failure to enact EFCA has created a void that
the Tea Party activists are seeking to capitalize on. In 12 states
nationwide, Tea Party members have placed on the November 2010 state
ballots referenda that would ban card-check provisions where they exist
and render it even more difficult to organize new members into unions.</P>
<P></P>
<P>The old axiom holds true: Politics abhors a vacuum. In the face of
non-action for working people, the moneyed, corporate right will fill the
void.</P>
<P></P>
<P><STRONG>Resistance Widespread Throughout the Labor
Movement</STRONG></P>
<P></P>
<P>The will to resist the corporate onslaught and to preserve the trade
unions as fighting and independent instruments against the bosses has been
expressed throughout the 20 months of the Obama administration.</P>
<P></P>
<P>It is not the lack of willingness to fight back by labor's ranks that
explains the current dismal situation facing working people. The problem
is the union leadership's subordination to the Democratic Party. The
problem is the officialdom's continued refusal to break with the Democrats
and organize the fightback against their pro-corporate policies.</P>
<P></P>
<P>The creation of the Labor Campaign for Single Payer Health Care only
six weeks after the election of Obama was the first expression of this
will to utilize the unions as instruments of struggle. More than 150 trade
union leaders and activists gathered in St. Louis and launched a campaign
that ultimately resulted, after a protracted nine-month struggle, in an
historic vote by the AFL-CIO national convention in September 2009 to
support single-payer -- though the labor officialdom would later turn
their backs on this convention mandate.</P>
<P></P>
<P>Other signs of resistance include the following:</P>
<P></P>
<P>- The return of UNITE HERE to the AFL-CIO and the various militant,
grassroots organizing and contract campaigns by the union's hotel workers'
division in particular;</P>
<P></P>
<P>- The August 28, 2010, Jobs, Peace and Justice rally of 5,000 people in
Detroit, co-sponsored by the UAW and Jesse Jackson's Operation PUSH. One
of the main demands of the demonstration was the "immediate end to the
U.S. wars and occupations of Afghanistan and Iraq, to save lifes, and the
redirecting of all war funds to meet social needs at home."</P>
<P></P>
<P>- The fightback among teacher unionists across the country in
opposition to Obama's "Race To The Top" program (a barely veiled effort to
bust teacher unions and to promote the privatization of public education),
but particularly in Chicago, where a dissident opposition caucus (CORE)
won the local union elections in the nation's third-largest public school
district.</P>
<P></P>
<P>- The widespread support for the Workers Emergency Recovery Campaign
within important sectors of the labor movement, with the endorsement by
various local unions and even state labor federations of the
WERC-initiated call for the AFL-CIO to organize a Solidarity Day III
mobilization in Washington to advance labor's most pressing demands --
beginning with the demand for a massive public works program to put at
least 15 million people back to work. Wide sectors of the labor movement
took a stand to affirm that labor must take to the streets in the hundreds
of thousands, if not millions, to insist that Obama must live up to his
promises and to his call for progressive change.</P>
<P></P>
<P>- The massive opposition at the California Labor Federation convention
in San Diego and at the National LCLAA Convention in Las Vegas, both held
in August 2010, to the attempts by the federation leadership to get the
delegates to go along with the AFL-CIO-Change to Win Memorandum on
Immigration (which dovetails with Obama's positions on immigration). The
delegates rejected the Obama plan and insisted on reaffirming the
federation's adopted position (since the late 1990s) in opposition to
"guest-worker" programs, employer sanctions and border security, and in
support of amnesty/legalization and full labor rights for all undocumented
workers.</P>
<P></P>
<P>- The development within Stern's SEIU of a powerful rank-and-file
movement, led by Sal Rosselli, that insisted that the SEIU ranks
should not accept the company unionist orientation of Stern and co. This
resistance movement has now become the National Union of Healthcare
Workers and has galvanized unionists across the country in a David<EM>
vs</EM>. Goliath fight for the heart and soul of what at one time was one
of the most militant and progressive unions in the country.</P>
<P></P>
<P><STRONG>October 2nd One Nation March in Washington</STRONG></P>
<P></P>
<P>Most of these union sectors in resistance have strongly supported the
call for the October 2 One Nation March in Washington, DC, because they
want to press Obama to heed the workers' demands and implement the change
that working people voted for in November 2008.</P>
<P></P>
<P>Earlier in the year, the AFL-CIO leadership had rejected the call for a
Solidarity Day III action, arguing that it would take away funds and
energy from their campaigns to elect Democratic Party candidates in
November 2010.</P>
<P></P>
<P>In July 2010, however, SEIU Local 1199 and the NAACP issued a call to
mobilize on October 2nd to demand jobs, peace and justice. George Gresham,
president of Local 1199, explained that a mass action in Washington was
now necessary to urge Obama and the Democrats to deliver on their pledge
for change, particularly the need for a massive job-creation program.</P>
<P></P>
<P>Momentum soon developed around this One Nation call, with more than 170
organizations endorsing the One Nation call by mid-August. It was so
strong that the AFL-CIO leadership could no longer ignore, nor could it
keep a distance from, the call for October 2nd. In mid-August, the AFL-CIO
decided to support this effort and to mobilize its members across the
entire East Coast corridor for the march.</P>
<P>In August and September, the WERC co-conveners issued many statements
explaining the significance of the AFL-CIO's endorsement of the October
2nd action, while also insisting on the need for crystal clear demands
that give precise content to the call for jobs, peace and justice.</P>
<P></P>
<P>This question of "Which Demands For October 2nd?" is indeed a central
question. As expected, the AFL-CIO and the leadership of the One Nation
coalition issued a call for the demonstration with no demands -- just with
the general themes of jobs, peace and justice. They did not want any
independent, fighting demands that would place the demonstrators in
contradiction with Obama and with the Democrats.</P>
<P></P>
<P>NAACP President Ben Jealous went so far as to explain on a national
organizing conference call that one of the main objectives of One Nation
was to build an ongoing coalition that could ensure the re-election of
Obama in 2012.</P>
<P></P>
<P>But herein lies the contradiction that was underscored in the most
recent statement from the WERC campaign: The AFL-CIO leadership, because
of the failure of Obama to budge even slightly on his pro-corporate
agenda, was compelled to call upon union members and their community
allies to march and rally in the streets of the nation's capital in their
own name.</P>
<P></P>
<P>The rank and file -- as well as union officials and union bodies at all
levels -- are going to march in Washington on October 2nd because they are
angry and want their pressing demands to be met.</P>
<P></P>
<P>The call for October 2nd is being seized upon by working people to
express the need for independent demands to build a fightback in defense
of workers' interests -- for independent trade unionism.</P>
<P></P>
<P>In this framework, the main sectors of the U.S. antiwar movement
decided to organize a "Peace Table" and an antiwar feeder march and
contingent on October 2 in Washington that is focused on the call for an
immediate end to the wars and occupations of Iraq and Afghanistan and for
bringing the war dollars home now.</P>
<P></P>
<P>Efforts are also under way to organize independent contingents -- or
"tables" -- of youth, immigrant rights activists, single-year health-care
advocates, and public housing activists.</P>
<P></P>
<P><STRONG>Opening the Discussion on Need for a Labor Party</STRONG></P>
<P></P>
<P>Tens of thousands - if not hundreds of thousands - of working people
will be gathering on October 2nd with banners and picket signs expressing
heartfelt class-struggle demands. This is extremely significant, as it
points to the contradiction between the sentiments to affirm the
independent demands of the labor movement (and hence the independent of
the trade unions) and the efforts by the One Nation leadership to attempt
to channel this movement into open support for Obama and the
Democrats.</P>
<P>But, at the end of the day on October 2nd, the coalition that will
capitalize on the sentiment in the streets will be One Nation.</P>
<P>This makes it imperative in these conditions to counterpose the need
for an independent political instrument to fight for the demands advocated
in the streets on October 2nd -- that is, the need for a Labor Party.</P>
<P></P>
<P>That is why we fully support the latest WERC statement titled, "After
October 2, What Next?" This statement reads, in part:</P>
<P></P>
<P>"We [WERC] are dedicated to encouraging working people and their unions
to act independently of the Democratic Party so that we can take the first
steps toward creating an independent political voice and instrument of our
own -- one that is dedicated entirely to the needs of working people.
After all, working people are ... tired of voting for Democrats who
implement basically the same corporate agenda as the Republicans.</P>
<P></P>
<P>"Working people are looking for alternatives to the Democrats and
Republicans. As the unions begin to embrace the full range of demands that
correspond to our needs and confront the government with them, workers and
their unions will see that the next logical step will be for the unions to
lay the foundation for a party of their own -- a Labor Party."</P>
<P></P>
<P>The WERC campaign has announced that it is organizing a conference in
the spring of 2011 "to promote this fightback around labor's independent
demands and to discuss how best to advance the struggle for a political
party of working people, a Labor Party."</P>
<P></P>
<P>We urge our readers and supporters to contact the WERC organizers at <A
href="mailto:wercampaign@gmail.com"
target=_blank><wercampaign@gmail.com></A> if you are interested in
attending this conference and promoting this campaign. You can also visit
the WERC website at <A href="http://www.wercampaign.org"
target=_blank>www.wercampaign.org</A>.</P>
<P></P>
<P>The time is now to build this fightback movement.</P>
<P></P>
<P>* * * * *</P>
<P></P>
<P></P>
<P><STRONG>SIDEBAR ARTICLES</STRONG></P>
<P></P>
<P><STRONG>Is Obama Reining in Wall Street?</STRONG></P>
<P>What about Obama's recent Financial Stability Bill -- another one of
Obama's so-called big victories during the first two first years of his
administration?</P>
<P></P>
<P>Economist Jack Rasmus, in an interview with<EM> The Organizer</EM>
newspaper on this topic, points out that the bill should rightly be called
the Minimal Financial Monitoring Bill. The<EM> Wall Street Journal</EM>,
Rasmus notes, explained in an editorial that the bill was "not as tough as
we feared." In fact banks stocks rose 2.4% the day after the bill was
passed. The banks liked the bill.</P>
<P></P>
<P>The bill does not break up the monopoly stranglehold of the big banks,
as was feared. The top 25 banks will continue to control 59% of all
financial assets. The bill's final version also removed a tax of $50
billion that the banks were to have to pay the Treasury for receiving
federal bailout funds. The advocates of tough bank regulations measures
had proposed this tax. But it was abandoned.</P>
<P></P>
<P>What has been created is an oversight agency that is supposed to
prevent the kind of speculative binge spending that led to the Great
Recession that began in 2007-2008. But this oversight agency was allowed
also sorts of exemptions and loopholes big enough to drive a Mack Truck
through.</P>
<P></P>
<P>Over-the-counter swaps, amounting to $600 trillion in derivatives, are
now to be traded through a clearing house, instead of on the open market.
This is the only monitoring that will exist. How the oversight will work
is anyone's guess, however. At any rate, the new clearing house is not to
become operative until one year from now, and at this point its mandate is
still very vague. The fact is that the derivatives will continue to
expand, under a slightly altered form. The banks' trading desks will not
be suppressed. This is where the great bulk of the derivatives' trading
takes place.</P>
<P>Rasmus noted in his interview that during the past year there has been
a huge surge in derivatives' trading. It is estimated that 35% of all
Goldman Sachs trading is in derivatives, all earning exceedingly high
profits. Hedge funds amount to another immense source of profits.</P>
<P>Another form of regulation was to be the so-called Volker Rule, wherein
banks would not be allowed to use their own resources for financial
speculation. But here again the loophole is egregious: Banks are allowed
to move their speculative ventures off shore to circumvent the Volker
Rule.</P>
<P></P>
<P>"This whole bill is a big façade," said Rasmus. "The fact is that the
Federal Reserve will be the supervising agency of last resort, and the Fed
is the favorite agency of the banks." It's a question of the fox guarding
the chicken coop.</P>
<P></P>
<P>Another provision of the Obama bill calls for the creation of a
Consumer Protection Agency for banking transactions. But this agency, too,
will be placed under the responsibility of the Federal Reserve. "The fact
is," says Rasmus, "that the Fed agrees with Wall Street, which means that
there will be no real oversight over the federal bailout funding. And
there will be a one-time-only audit."</P>
<P>This minimal monitoring bill, as Rasmus calls it, will do nothing to
ensure that the banks begin lending money to the productive economy. The
whole government plan, including its financial monitoring, is premised on
the need to stabilize the banks. Any regulatory effort to undermine the
profitability of Wall Street, where profits are exacted largely outside
the sphere of production, was excluded.</P>
<P>There is no call, as some had Democratic Party liberals had hoped, to
demand that Wall Street should be taxed for their transactions. There was
no call to nationalize the consumer credit markets, as other liberals had
demanded. There was no call to close the banking offshore tax shelters.
This is why Wall Street and the banks were pleased, over all, with Obama's
Financial Stability Bill. --<STRONG> The Editors</STRONG></P>
<P></P>
<P>* * * * * * * * * *</P>
<P></P>
<P></P>
<P><STRONG>Is Obama's Health-Care Reform Benefiting Working
People?</STRONG></P>
<P></P>
<P>There was great media hype when the Congress voted to approve President
Obama's health-care reform program. Today, many months after the plan was
adopted, the harsh realities of this Obama plan are beginning to emerge in
the media.</P>
<P></P>
<P>While the bulk of the plan goes into effect in 2014, some provisions of
the plan are already being implemented. This includes the provision that
extends a young adult's health-care coverage under his/her parents' plan
from age 25 to age 26, and the provision that mandates health-care
coverage for children with prior conditions for certain ailments. No
sooner were these provisions announced, however, than the private
insurance health-care rates shot up between 25% and 28% for all insurance
policy holders. (quoted in<EM> San Francisco Chronicle</EM>, August 18,
"Insurance Rates to Rise")</P>
<P></P>
<P>And these rate hikes are taking place before the main provisions of the
health-care plan have even been put into action. Rate-payers can expect
astronomical fee hikes in the years to come.</P>
<P>What about the highly touted cost-containment provisions in the Obama
bill?</P>
<P></P>
<P>More and more articles are appearing in the specialized press that show
that the loopholes in the sections pertaining to cost containment are huge
-- so huge to dismiss any idea that costs will be kept in check.
Instinctively working people know this without any need of press
clippings. For decades they have been gouged by the private health-care
insurance companies, one of the most greedy and hated institutions in the
country.</P>
<P>Another aspect of the health-care bill that is beginning to gain notice
within the trade union movement is the provision that allows companies
with collective-bargaining agreements with unions to ditch their
health-care plans and dump them onto Obama's new "health-care exchanges"
-- while only incurring very slight penalties.</P>
<P></P>
<P>Dumping the union health-care plans would gut the unions'
collective-bargaining agreements. It would represent a huge blow to the
unions and would downgrade all the organized workers' health-care plans.
--<STRONG> The Editors</STRONG></P>
<P></P>
<P>* * * * *</P>
<P></P>
<P></P>
<P><STRONG>Obama: A Champion of the Environment?</STRONG></P>
<P></P>
<P>An article in the<EM> San Francisco Chronicle</EM> (August 15)
describes Obama's first 18 months, with Nancy Pelosi as House Speaker, as
the period with the "most productive Congress in recent memory." The
accomplishments mentioned include the Obama health-care plan, the federal
stimulus program, financial regulation, and an activist environmental
agenda.</P>
<P>Let's take a look at this last claim.</P>
<P></P>
<P>The Deep Horizon oil spill in the Gulf Coast is not one that can be
blamed on the Bush administration. It was Obama himself who accepted huge
contributions to his election campaign from the country's oil companies,
including the British-owned BP. In exchange for these hefty donations to
the Democratic Party coffers (it should be noted that these companies
finance both major political parties), BP was released from having to
produce an emergency disaster plan for their deep-water drilling project
in the Gulf Coast.</P>
<P>This corruption scandal was not that of Bush. It was Obama's own
environmental protection agency that waived this requirement for BP
because of its funding to the Obama campaign. Deep Horizon is now the
nation's biggest environmental disaster ever. It has become known
throughout the South as "Obama's Katrina." It's a disaster that has
destroyed not only precious flora and fauna, it has destroyed the
livelihood of millions of people who live off of fishing and
fish-processing (and all other spinoff industries), tourism,
transportation and more.</P>
<P>And to add insult to injury, all the sludge that is being removed in
the BP "cleanup" is being placed in highly toxic dumps right in the middle
of the Black and Latino communities along the Gulf Coast seabord. This is
the kind of environmental racism reminiscent of the Cancer Corridor just
north of New Orleans, where deregulated industries abutted the Black
townships, poisoning the poorest of the poor who could not afford to move
elsewhere. (Hurricane Katrina exposed to the entire world this Cancer
Corridor and the deathly toll it had taken on the primarily Black
residents of the area.)</P>
<P></P>
<P><STRONG>Five Years After Katrina</STRONG></P>
<P></P>
<P>Today, five years after Hurricane Katrina, New Orleans remains a city
that has expelled its majority Black population, has refused to preserve
or rebuild public housing, and therefore, in practice, through the "laws
of the market," has prevented the right of return of the Black majority to
this historic city.</P>
<P>Without public housing, and without public financing that would allow
the Black residents to rebuild their homes, hundreds of thousands of
erstwhile citizens of New Orleans have been permanently displaced -- much
like the Palestinians from their homeland.</P>
<P></P>
<P>Hurricane Katrina did in one day what the wealthy white establishment
had long hoped to do: gentrify the city through a process of ethnic
cleansing. New Orleans is now run by a majority white City Council, the
first time in more than 70 years. The city has rebuilt hotels and casinos,
not housing for the poor.</P>
<P>Glen Ford, the editor of the Black Agenda Report, wrote the following
about New Orleans today, five years after Hurricane Katrina, and about the
mini-Katrinas that are taking place across the country against Black
people:</P>
<P>"[I]n New Orleans, on the fifth anniversary of Hurricane Katrina, a
small, hardly noticed protest outside what used to be a public housing
project in the St. Bernard section of New Orleans, took place. ...</P>
<P></P>
<P>"A relatively small group of New Orleans activists gathered in the rain
outside the project to protest the visit to the city by President Obama,
whose housing policies spell doom for the entire concept of public housing
in the United States.</P>
<P></P>
<P>"When Katrina struck, the Bush administration's Department of Housing
was quick to call for demolition of all the public housing units in New
Orleans, even though most of the buildings were salvageable. The residents
were locked out, 3,000 of them, like hundreds of thousands of others
across the country since the early Nineties, victims of corporate greed
for the land the projects sit on and a racist prejudice that holds that
Black and poor people are inherently dangerous when concentrated in one
place. Katrina was simply a convenient excuse to get rid of public housing
in New Orleans, where four major projects were demolished.</P>
<P>"In New Orleans and elsewhere across the country, the poor who are
evicted from public housing are expected to disperse, get out of the way
of corporate development that serves the needs of other people, and be
quiet. But this weekend, the former residents of the St. Bernard project
refused to scatter and be silent. They had earlier built a tent encampment
nearby, called Survivors' Village. Now they denounced President Obama and
his friend, Warren Buffett, the multi-billionaire hedge-fund baron who is
developing the site of their former homes under a new name, Columbia Parc,
for a new class of residents.</P>
<P></P>
<P>"The Obama administration has taken the anti-public housing policies of
Bush and previous presidents to a new level, with a plan to abandon any
federal commitment to building and maintaining housing for the poor.
Instead, fat cats like Warren Buffett and huge private banking
institutions will inherit the nation's public housing properties. In New
York City, the Citigroup bankers now own a piece of 13 public housing
projects -- a taste of what Obama has in store for what remains of
America's public housing stock."</P>
<P></P>
<P>Just as Obama and the Democrats delivered more than 32 million
healthcare clients to the private insurance companies to fuel their
already exorbitant profits, so is he turning over the stock of public
housing, a conquest of bitter class struggles waged by unionists and civil
rights activists, to the speculators and land barons.</P>
<P></P>
<P>Those millions of Blacks, the disinherited and dispossessed who voted
for Obama and cried tears of joy when he was elected, many hoping they
would finally by able to return to New Orleans or to their homes in Selma,
Ala.; or to their public housing projects in Seattle, feel sorely
betrayed. Despite all the exhortations by Jesse Jackson Jr. and Al
Sharpton for them to vote again for Obama and for the Democrats, the
scenario of days past -- massive abstention -- is lurking once again on
the horizon.</P>
<P></P>
<P>The anger that is simmering in the Black community and that will be
expressed in massive abstention is also looking for a political avenue to
express itself. An opinion poll reported by Black Agenda Report revealed
that more than 65% of the Black people polled were anxiously hoping for
the creation of a third party for Black people. --<STRONG> The
Editors</STRONG></P>
<P></P>
<P>* * * * * * * * * *</P>
<P></P>
<P></P>
<P><STRONG>Obama's Foreign Policy: The Afghanistan Quagmire</STRONG></P>
<P></P>
<P>The media have by and large heralded the Obama decision to draw down
the number of U.S. troops in Iraq to 50,000 troops, all of whom, or so we
were told in Obama's nationally televised speech, are meant to keep out of
any combat duties. Their main duty, we were told, is to train the Iraqi
police and army so that they can now take matters into their own hands.
Barely one week had passed after the combat troop withdrawal was
announced, however, than U.S. troops were again engaged in combat on
September 5 in a Baghdad district. A syndicated cartoon the day after this
battle in Baghdad showed Obama proclaiming, "Mission
Semi-Accomplished."</P>
<P></P>
<P>Obama has gone out of his way to remind the American people that he
"kept his promise" and scaled down U.S. intervention in Iraq. This
announcement did not receive enthusiastic support from the public, as
Obama had hoped. Not only did the images of renewed combat in Iraq belie
the claim that troops were no longer in harm's way, but the intensified
war in Afghanistan had now become a sequel to the Iraq war, not the "good
war" that the U.S. ruling class had loudly proclaimed.</P>
<P>Success of U.S. policy in Iraq? Hardly.</P>
<P>Clearly, Iraq had become a lose-lose situation for the U.S. government,
and a gradual withdrawal had become necessary if for no other reason than
to step up the military occupation and war in Afghanistan and its
neighboring countries, where the "real threat of Al Qaeda" is supposedly
lurking.</P>
<P>But even in Iraq, the U.S. war and occupation continues. Not only will
U.S. combat troops return immediately to Iraq if the situation on the
ground deteriorates, but the U.S.-installed puppet regime is in permanent
turmoil and requires constant intervention by the United States to attempt
to prop it up and provide a semblance of stability.</P>
<P></P>
<P>Now the drive is on to have the puppet regime in Iraq accomplish what
could not be accomplished under an open U.S. military occupation of Iraq,
with visible U.S. combat troops on every other corner -- and that is the
privatization of the nation's electrical grid, and, most important, of its
oil resources.</P>
<P>This explains the recent stepped-up attacks by the Iraqi regime on the
oil workers' and electrical workers' unions. Their union leaders have been
jailed, their offices shut down, their leaders barred from leaving the
country. The aim is to destroy the main centers of resistance to the drive
to privatize these huge resources on behalf of U.S. transnational
corporate interests.</P>
<P></P>
<P>The Iraqi puppet regime did not dare carry out this privatization plan
under U.S. direct occupation. Now, with the fig-leaf cover of a national
"sovereign" government, this puppet regime must now take on the unions and
the resistance of the people, who know that they must keep their cherished
resources for themselves if they are to have any future whatsoever.</P>
<P>The battle lines are being drawn in what appears will become a major
class battle in the coming weeks and months. The leaders of the oil and
electrical workers' unions are working closely with USLAW to try to travel
to Algeria for the Open World Conference in November. If they are able to
leave the country to reach Algeria, this linking up with the fighting wing
of the international labor movement will be of immense significance
worldwide.</P>
<P></P>
<P>As to Afghanistan, the only words that come to mind to describe the
situation are "Vietnam-style quagmire."</P>
<P>The firing by Obama of outspoken Army General McChrystal is just the
most visible expression of the deepening crisis in the summits of the U.S.
government over what to do in relation to Afghanistan. Many analysts are
writing stories in the mainstream press that indicate that Afghanistan is
an endless pit that will only continue to suck much-needed financial
resources from the United States without any hope of establishing a stable
government in Kabul and without any likelihood of military success over a
disparate group of rebel forces.</P>
<P></P>
<P>The debate over what to do in Afghanistan is raging in the press daily,
especially as more stories are reported about the widespread corruption in
the Karzai government (the latest story being the crisis in the Kabul
Bank), in a situation where there is no real "alternative" to Karzai.</P>
<P>Because of his growing political crisis and because of the growing
number of body bags coming back from Afghanistan, the American people are
rapidly turning against what was once described as the "good war" -- as
opposed to the "bad war" in Iraq. A recent poll showed that 62% of the
people now support the "rapid withdrawal" of U.S. troops from Afghanistan.
At a time when federal and state budgets are being drastically cut for
lack of funding, more and more people are demanding that money must be
used for social programs at home, not for wars abroad.</P>
<P>The parallels to Vietnam and the word "quagmire" keep coming up in the
letters to the editors or on the radio talk shows.</P>
<P>But the Obama administration is still plunging ahead in Afghanistan,
with a recent decision to increase the war spending in that country and
sending more combat troops to this war zone. Afghanistan is now Obama's
war.</P>
<P></P>
<P>And this is not all. The U.S. administration is beating the war drums
against Iran. The pressure and sanctions against Iran have been tightened.
And this is not all bravado. There are major sectors of the Army and
military establishment that are openly calling for a military attack on
Iran in the name of stopping the so-called ability of Iran to enrich
enough uranium to produce an atomic bomb. The situation in relation to
Iran is very dangerous and ominous. U.S. policy-makers, led by Hillary
Clinton, seem to be reaching the point of no return when it comes to a
military strike against Iran.</P>
<P></P>
<P>What is making such a decision difficult, however, is the knowledge
that this could further inflame the situation in Iran and the Middle East,
at a time when U.S. military forces are already strained, not to mention
that they are becoming bogged down in a war without end in
Afghanistan.</P>
<P></P>
<P>* * * * * * * * * *</P>
<P></P>
<P></P>
<P><STRONG>What Happened to Obama's Promise to Support Immigrant
Workers?</STRONG></P>
<P></P>
<P>Obama is being raked over the coals by the likes of Glenn Beck and Rush
Limbaugh -- two high-profile right-wing TV journalists with deep coffers
-- for his administration's decision to intervene, through the Department
of Justice, in putting a stay on four of the most outrageous provisions of
Arizona's racial profiling State Bill 1070.</P>
<P>It should be noted that Obama only intervened to halt -- not repeal --
the most egregious provisions of this bill after more than 1 million
people took to the streets on May 1st, 2010, and another 150,000 people
marched in Phoenix, Arizona, on June 29, to protest the law and to demand
that Obama intervene to reverse this racist and unjust law.</P>
<P>The right-wing pundits and Tea Party movement have all taken the side
of Arizona's governor, Jan Brewer, who insists that the polls prove her
right and who says that Obama's Justice Department intervention has only
made her more popular. Opinion polls, if they are to be believed, show
that before the Obama intervention on SB 1070, 56% of the people polled
supported SB 1070, whereas after the Justice Department decision, the
percentage of those polls jumped to 62% in support of Jan Brewer and her
law.</P>
<P></P>
<P>How to explain these polls and this situation in Arizona?</P>
<P>There can be no doubt that the failure by the ruling class -- under all
recent administrations -- to enact a real immigration policy in the
interest of undocumented immigrants and working people as a whole,
combined with their failure to provide jobs and to stem the disastrous
effects of the Great Recession on the working-class majority, has created
a situation where undocumented immigrants have become the easy scapegoat
for all the ills of capitalism. The undocumented are easily portrayed as
the "ones who are taking my job" -- when, of course, this is not the case
at all.</P>
<P>The lack of a federal immigration reform plan has permitted states to
take it upon themselves to impose their own immigration policies. In fact,
there are 21 other states that have similar laws to SB 1070 in their
legislative dockets.</P>
<P></P>
<P>The irony is that Obama's immigration policies are no different from
Bush's policies. If anything Obama's are worse. Under Obama, more
undocumented immigrants have been deported per year than under Bush,
though the raids are not the high-profile raids of factories. Obama has
been more careful about keeping a lower profile. Instead, undocumented
immigrants are being rounded up and deported one by one by the police,
working hand in hand with ICE. The deportations go under the media radar,
but they are no less vicious. With the new Secure Communities program
enacted by the Obama administrations, the repression and deportations are
only like to increase.</P>
<P>Reeling from all the attacks by the Republicans and the Tea Party
movement, Obama put off a campaign promise that he would push hard for,
and enact, a Comprehensive Immigration Reform in 2010. For close to six
months, Obama refused to even touch the immigration issue, not wanting to
give the right wing further fodder to go after him.</P>
<P></P>
<P>But because of the deep anger within the Latino communities and within
the labor movement over the systematic abuses of undocumented immigrants,
Obama calculated that it was worth the Democratic Party's short term and
long-term prospects to raise the need for such an immigration reform.
Obama made such an announcement in a nationally televised speech on July
1st.</P>
<P></P>
<P>The content of the speech made it clear that Obama's plan is fully in
sync with the Kennedy-McCain bill, which despite its strong bipartisan
support, was never enacted by the Congress, so deep are the political
calculations and divisions within the ruling class over this question.</P>
<P></P>
<P><STRONG>Obama's Actual Proposals</STRONG></P>
<P></P>
<P>Obama's plan calls for tightening border security (meaning increased
militarization of the borders), criminalizing any new "illegal"
immigration, increasing employers' sanctions (for hiring undocumented
immigrants), and extending the guest-worker programs through an AgJobs
bill -- all in exchange for a largely vague promise to create a "path to
legalization" for the estimated 12 million undocumented immigrants
currently in the United States. Also included as a carrot in this deal is
the promise to implement the Dream Act, a measure that would provide
citizenship to undocumented students or to youth who serve in the
military.</P>
<P>This "path to legalization" is not an amnesty, as occurred in 1986. It
is a measure that could demand that many, if not most, of the 12 million
undocumented immigrants would have to "touch back" to their countries of
origin and get at the "back of the line" to apply for legalization. In the
worst-case scenario, this could mean the outright deportation of millions
of people, many of whom would have little or no means of survival in their
countries of origin given the heinous consequences of the US-imposed free
trade agreements on those countries and their economies.</P>
<P></P>
<P>The Obama immigration reform plan, and his tepid policies, are not
pleasing anyone -- a phenomenon that is true across the board with most,
if not all, of Obama's plans. The right wing is describing Obama's reform
plan as an "amnesty" plan because of its promise of a path to
legalization. Never mind that this plan had the full support of the
Republican Party a short while ago (before the schisms that led to the
formation of the Tea Party wing of the Republican Party). Never mind that
this plan has already resulted in Obama sending an additional $30 million
in federal funding to beef up the border patrols.</P>
<P></P>
<P>But many in the Latino wing of the Democratic Party, the Latino Caucus,
are not happy with the Obama plan since they understand the pervasive
anger among the main Latino and immigrant rights' organizations.</P>
<P></P>
<P>Many of these politicians and community leaders have openly criticized
the Obama administration's decision to tighten border security. Many have
denounced the heightened numbers of deaths (a record high) in the Arizona
desert this summer of immigrants attempting to cross into the United
States.</P>
<P>A few of these politicians and community organizers have even pointed
out the hypocrisy and shortcomings of Arizona Federal Judge Bolton's
decision on SB 1070, which, for example, continues to allow day laborers
to gather on the city streets in search of a job but nonetheless penalizes
an employer for picking up and hiring an undocumented day laborer.</P>
<P>At the root of all this controversy is one undeniable fact: Ever since
the spring of 2006, when 7 million immigrants and their working class
allies took to the streets and actually held a one-day strike, the
first-ever nationwide strike in this country, the situation has not been
the same. There has been a growing polarization over this question, with a
growing number of voices calling for full legalization for all
undocumented immigrants.</P>
<P>True, the raids and deportations over the past three years have put a
big damper on the size of the pro-immigrant demonstrations. But the
grassroots organizing, and the growing alliance between labor and
immigrant activists, has continued to deepen. The 2010 May 1st actions
were again enormous in many cities, including Los Angeles, Dallas, Denver,
and Phoenix.</P>
<P></P>
<P>A related arena in the battle over immigration concerns the 14th
Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. In recent months, right-wing
Republicans, led by Sen. Alan Simpson of Wyoming, have spearheaded a
nationwide movement, to amend the 14th Amendment's provision to disallow
children born in the United States to immigrants to automatically have
U.S. citizenship. --<STRONG> The
Editors</STRONG></P></DIV></DIV></DIV></DIV></BLOCKQUOTE></DIV></BLOCKQUOTE></DIV><BR></DIV></BLOCKQUOTE></BODY></HTML>