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<DIV style="FONT: 10pt arial">----- Original Message -----
<DIV style="BACKGROUND: #e4e4e4; font-color: black"><B>From:</B> <A
title=lduncan@igc.org href="mailto:lduncan@igc.org">Larry Duncan</A> </DIV>
<DIV><B>To:</B> <A title=lduncan@igc.org href="mailto:lduncan@igc.org">Larry
Duncan</A> </DIV>
<DIV><B>Sent:</B> Saturday, July 30, 2011 4:18 PM</DIV>
<DIV><B>Subject:</B> EDITORIAL: "Debt Ceiling Debacle Points to Need for an
Independent Labor Movement; Labor Must Reject Any Debt Deal From Congress and
Call for Mass Mobilizations in the Streets to Oppose the Impending Attacks on
Working People and the Poor!"</DIV></DIV>
<DIV><BR></DIV>
<DIV style="MARGIN: 0px"><FONT style="FONT: 27px Arial" face=Arial size=6><B>THE
ORGANIZER</B></FONT></DIV>
<DIV style="MARGIN: 0px"><FONT style="FONT: 22px Arial" face=Arial size=6>P.O.
Box 40009</FONT></DIV>
<DIV style="MARGIN: 0px"><FONT style="FONT: 22px Arial" face=Arial size=6>San
Francisco, CA 94140</FONT></DIV>
<DIV style="MARGIN: 0px"><FONT style="FONT: 22px Arial" face=Arial size=6>Email:
<A
href="mailto:theorganizer@earthlink.net">theorganizer@earthlink.net</A></FONT></DIV>
<DIV style="MARGIN: 0px"><FONT style="FONT: 22px Arial" face=Arial
size=6>Website: <A
href="http://www.socialistorganizer.org">www.socialistorganizer.org</A></FONT></DIV>
<DIV style="MARGIN: 0px"><FONT style="FONT: 22px Arial" face=Arial
size=6>----------</FONT></DIV>
<DIV style="MIN-HEIGHT: 32px; MARGIN: 0px; FONT: 27px Arial"><B></B><BR></DIV>
<DIV style="MARGIN: 0px"><FONT style="FONT: 22px Arial" face=Arial
size=6>[<B><I>NOTE</I></B><I>: Following is the editorial of the July-August
2011 issue of</I><B><I> The Organizer</I></B><I> newspaper. Please excuse
duplicate postings. To order a sample hard copy of this new issue, please send a
note to The Organizer, P.O. Box 40009, San Francisco, CA
94140.</I>]</FONT></DIV>
<DIV style="MIN-HEIGHT: 32px; MARGIN: 0px; FONT: 27px Arial"><B></B><BR></DIV>
<DIV style="MARGIN: 0px"><FONT style="FONT: 36px Arial" face=Arial
size=7><B>Debt Ceiling Debacle Points to Need</B></FONT></DIV>
<DIV style="MARGIN: 0px"><FONT style="FONT: 36px Arial" face=Arial size=7><B>For
an Independent Labor Movement</B></FONT></DIV>
<DIV style="MIN-HEIGHT: 32px; MARGIN: 0px; FONT: 27px Arial"><B></B><BR></DIV>
<DIV style="MARGIN: 0px"><FONT style="FONT: 27px Arial" face=Arial
size=6><B>Labor Must Reject Any Debt Deal</B></FONT></DIV>
<DIV style="MARGIN: 0px"><FONT style="FONT: 27px Arial" face=Arial
size=6><B>From Congress and Call for Mass</B></FONT></DIV>
<DIV style="MARGIN: 0px"><FONT style="FONT: 27px Arial" face=Arial
size=6><B>Mobilizations in the Streets to</B></FONT></DIV>
<DIV style="MARGIN: 0px"><FONT style="FONT: 27px Arial" face=Arial
size=6><B>Oppose the Impending Attacks</B></FONT></DIV>
<DIV style="MARGIN: 0px"><FONT style="FONT: 27px Arial" face=Arial size=6><B>On
Working People and the Poor!</B></FONT></DIV>
<DIV style="MIN-HEIGHT: 26px; MARGIN: 0px; FONT: 22px Arial"><BR></DIV>
<DIV style="MARGIN: 0px"><FONT style="FONT: 22px Arial" face=Arial size=6><B>By
THE EDITORS</B></FONT></DIV>
<DIV style="MIN-HEIGHT: 26px; MARGIN: 0px; FONT: 22px Arial"><BR></DIV>
<DIV style="MARGIN: 0px"><FONT style="FONT: 22px Arial" face=Arial size=6>JULY
30 -- It has come down to the wire on the debt-ceiling
negotiations.</FONT></DIV>
<DIV style="MIN-HEIGHT: 26px; MARGIN: 0px; FONT: 22px Arial"><BR></DIV>
<DIV style="MARGIN: 0px"><FONT style="FONT: 22px Arial" face=Arial size=6>At
this writing, the House has just adopted a bill proposed by House Majority
Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) that had to cater to the Republican Party's Tea
Party wing to win passage; it now insists that Congress must approve a balanced
budget-amendment to the Constitution and send it to the states for ratification
before the debt ceiling can be lifted. This will only further complicate a
compromise with the Democratic majority in the Senate which, as expected,
quickly rejected the House bill and supports the version proposed by Senate
Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.).</FONT></DIV>
<DIV style="MIN-HEIGHT: 26px; MARGIN: 0px; FONT: 22px Arial"><BR></DIV>
<DIV style="MARGIN: 0px"><FONT style="FONT: 22px Arial" face=Arial size=6>In a
televised press conference on July 29, President Barack Obama promised the high
priests of Wall Street that there will be a final agreement by Monday, August 1.
Obama has made such pledges in the past. This time the financial markets aren't
quite so reassured. Press releases from Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner and
Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernake have sounded the alarm, raising the specter
of a "global financial meltdown" should the U.S. default on its
obligations.</FONT></DIV>
<DIV style="MIN-HEIGHT: 26px; MARGIN: 0px; FONT: 22px Arial"><BR></DIV>
<DIV style="MARGIN: 0px"><FONT style="FONT: 22px Arial" face=Arial
size=6>Despite the heightened uncertainty, most political analysts -- noting
that the two bills are really not that far apart -- still expect that an-11th
hour agreement will be worked out before the deadline. The fact is that both
bills before the Congress are all about spending cuts without any revenue
increases from taxing the rich and the corporations.</FONT></DIV>
<DIV style="MIN-HEIGHT: 26px; MARGIN: 0px; FONT: 22px Arial"><BR></DIV>
<DIV style="MARGIN: 0px"><FONT style="FONT: 22px Arial" face=Arial
size=6>Boehner's bill calls for raising the debt limit to cover debts for six
months in exchange for $1 trillion in spending cuts, followed by an election
year debate over the same debt limit in exchange for cuts of $1.8 trillion
coming largely from Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid over the next 10
years.</FONT></DIV>
<DIV style="MIN-HEIGHT: 26px; MARGIN: 0px; FONT: 22px Arial"><BR></DIV>
<DIV style="MARGIN: 0px"><FONT style="FONT: 22px Arial" face=Arial size=6>The
Reid bill -- which has been endorsed by President Obama and House Minority
Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-S.F.) -- calls for raising the debt limit to cover debts
for 18 months in exchange for $2.7 trillion in spending cuts, mainly deep cuts
in domestic programs ranging from schools to the environment to mass transit and
food safety.</FONT></DIV>
<DIV style="MIN-HEIGHT: 26px; MARGIN: 0px; FONT: 22px Arial"><BR></DIV>
<DIV style="MARGIN: 0px"><FONT style="FONT: 22px Arial" face=Arial size=6>Both
bills would set up a bipartisan commission -- a so-called Gang of 12 -- with
special powers to make further cuts to the social safety net, including to
"entitlements."</FONT></DIV>
<DIV style="MIN-HEIGHT: 26px; MARGIN: 0px; FONT: 22px Arial"><BR></DIV>
<DIV style="MARGIN: 0px"><FONT style="FONT: 22px Arial" face=Arial
size=6>Indeed, for all the promises by Obama, Reid and Pelosi that they would
never accept a deal that excluded tax revenues, neither bill calls for the
wealthy to pay anything in taxes. Both bills, moreover, call to form a
bipartisan commission with an explicit mandate to make cuts to Social Security,
Medicare and Medicaid.</FONT></DIV>
<DIV style="MIN-HEIGHT: 26px; MARGIN: 0px; FONT: 22px Arial"><BR></DIV>
<DIV style="MARGIN: 0px"><FONT style="FONT: 22px Arial" face=Arial size=6>Behind
all this political theater -- which is part posturing for the 2012 election and
part the expression of a huge crisis of the two-party system in the face of the
deepening crisis of capitalism -- one basic fact must not be overlooked: There
is overall agreement between the central leaders of the Democratic and
Republican parties when it comes to making the working-class majority shoulder
the burden of the crisis created by Wall Street and fueled by the permanent war
economy.</FONT></DIV>
<DIV style="MIN-HEIGHT: 26px; MARGIN: 0px; FONT: 22px Arial"><BR></DIV>
<DIV style="MARGIN: 0px"><FONT style="FONT: 22px Arial" face=Arial size=6><B>We
Must Put a Stop to This Assault!</B></FONT></DIV>
<DIV style="MIN-HEIGHT: 26px; MARGIN: 0px; FONT: 22px Arial"><B></B><BR></DIV>
<DIV style="MARGIN: 0px"><FONT style="FONT: 22px Arial" face=Arial size=6>In
recent weeks, hundreds of thousands of letters have been sent to members of
Congress calling for "Hands Off to Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid!" The
AFL-CIO, Change to Win, and unions across the country have taken a similar
stand, reflecting the immense opposition among labor's ranks to any cuts to
these three benefits programs.</FONT></DIV>
<DIV style="MIN-HEIGHT: 26px; MARGIN: 0px; FONT: 22px Arial"><BR></DIV>
<DIV style="MARGIN: 0px"><FONT style="FONT: 22px Arial" face=Arial size=6>In
poll after poll, and through their massive letter-writing campaigns, the large
majority of working people have supported the call to defend Social Security,
Medicare and Medicaid. They have supported the call to tax the rich and the
corporations. They have supported the call for an end to the wars in Afghanistan
and Iraq and the redirecting of war dollars to create jobs and meet human
needs.</FONT></DIV>
<DIV style="MIN-HEIGHT: 26px; MARGIN: 0px; FONT: 22px Arial"><BR></DIV>
<DIV style="MARGIN: 0px"><FONT style="FONT: 22px Arial" face=Arial size=6>The
compromise that is likely to develop between Boehner, Reid and Obama over the
next few days will not only target schools and vital social programs, such as
Pell grants and funds for welfare recipients, it will also target the three
so-called "entitlements" -- whether in six months (the Republican plan) or in 18
months (the Democratic plan).</FONT></DIV>
<DIV style="MIN-HEIGHT: 26px; MARGIN: 0px; FONT: 22px Arial"><BR></DIV>
<DIV style="MARGIN: 0px"><FONT style="FONT: 22px Arial" face=Arial size=6>Most
important, any compromise will preclude federal funding for a massive public
works program to put the 27 million unemployed and underemployed people back to
work.</FONT></DIV>
<DIV style="MIN-HEIGHT: 26px; MARGIN: 0px; FONT: 22px Arial"><BR></DIV>
<DIV style="MARGIN: 0px"><FONT style="FONT: 22px Arial" face=Arial size=6><B>For
an Independent Labor Movement Now!</B></FONT></DIV>
<DIV style="MIN-HEIGHT: 26px; MARGIN: 0px; FONT: 22px Arial"><BR></DIV>
<DIV style="MARGIN: 0px"><FONT style="FONT: 22px Arial" face=Arial size=6>This
must be clear: To preserve and expand Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid; to
fight for a real job-creation program, and to fight against any and all cuts
targeting the social safety net, it is vital for the unions to break their ties
of subordination to the Democratic Party and act as an independent labor
movement.</FONT></DIV>
<DIV style="MIN-HEIGHT: 26px; MARGIN: 0px; FONT: 22px Arial"><BR></DIV>
<DIV style="MARGIN: 0px"><FONT style="FONT: 22px Arial" face=Arial
size=6>Despite all the talk by AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka on the need for
an independent labor movement, the actual policy statements by the labor
federation in recent days point in a different direction.</FONT></DIV>
<DIV style="MIN-HEIGHT: 26px; MARGIN: 0px; FONT: 22px Arial"><BR></DIV>
<DIV style="MARGIN: 0px"><FONT style="FONT: 22px Arial" face=Arial size=6>A July
27 posting by Manny Herrmann, online mobilization coordinator of the AFL-CIO,
urges union members to oppose the Boehner plan but does not say one word about
the Reid plan. And Herrmann concludes as follows:</FONT></DIV>
<DIV style="MIN-HEIGHT: 26px; MARGIN: 0px; FONT: 22px Arial"><BR></DIV>
<DIV style="MARGIN: 0px"><FONT style="FONT: 22px Arial" face=Arial size=6>"The
president already has conceded to painful spending cuts -- cuts that we believe
go much too far. But he rightly insists that we not put the entire burden of
deficit reduction on working families."</FONT></DIV>
<DIV style="MIN-HEIGHT: 26px; MARGIN: 0px; FONT: 22px Arial"><BR></DIV>
<DIV style="MARGIN: 0px"><FONT style="FONT: 22px Arial" face=Arial size=6>The
AFL-CIO believes that the cuts have gone too far and doesn't want to put the<I>
entire</I> burden of deficit reduction on working people. This is not the
language of an independent labor movement. It is a back-handed call for smaller
cuts and for sharing the burden ("shared sacrifice") of deficit reduction with
Wall Street and the employers. It is a call that accepts all the false premises
of the twin parties of the bosses and the corporations concerning the origin of
this financial crisis.</FONT></DIV>
<DIV style="MIN-HEIGHT: 26px; MARGIN: 0px; FONT: 22px Arial"><BR></DIV>
<DIV style="MARGIN: 0px"><FONT style="FONT: 22px Arial" face=Arial size=6>Our
language must be clear: "It is Not Our Crisis, We Refuse to Pay For Any of
It!"</FONT></DIV>
<DIV style="MIN-HEIGHT: 26px; MARGIN: 0px; FONT: 22px Arial"><BR></DIV>
<DIV style="MARGIN: 0px"><FONT style="FONT: 22px Arial" face=Arial size=6>The
AFL-CIO, Change to Win, the National Education Association and all the
independent unions must take a clear and uncompromising stance against any deal
that may come out of Washington in the next few days. It must call to mobilize
in the streets around demands that address the urgent needs of the working-class
majority:</FONT></DIV>
<DIV style="MIN-HEIGHT: 26px; MARGIN: 0px; FONT: 22px Arial"><BR></DIV>
<DIV style="MARGIN: 0px"><FONT style="FONT: 22px Arial" face=Arial size=6>- No
Cuts, No Concessions! Hands Off the Social Safety Net, Especially Social
Security, Medicare and Medicaid!</FONT></DIV>
<DIV style="MIN-HEIGHT: 26px; MARGIN: 0px; FONT: 22px Arial"><BR></DIV>
<DIV style="MARGIN: 0px"><FONT style="FONT: 22px Arial" face=Arial size=6>- Make
the Billionaires and the Corporations Pay -- NOT Working People!"</FONT></DIV>
<DIV style="MIN-HEIGHT: 26px; MARGIN: 0px; FONT: 22px Arial"><BR></DIV>
<DIV style="MARGIN: 0px"><FONT style="FONT: 22px Arial" face=Arial size=6>- For
a Federally Funded Pubic Works Program to Put Every Unemployed and Underemployed
Person Back to Work at a Living Wage!</FONT></DIV>
<DIV style="MIN-HEIGHT: 26px; MARGIN: 0px; FONT: 22px Arial"><BR></DIV>
<DIV style="MARGIN: 0px"><FONT style="FONT: 22px Arial" face=Arial size=6>-
Bring the Troops Home Now from Iraq and Afghanistan! Money for Jobs and Human
Needs, Not for War!</FONT></DIV>
<DIV style="MIN-HEIGHT: 22px; MARGIN: 0px; FONT: 18px Arial"><BR></DIV>
<DIV style="MARGIN: 0px"><FONT style="FONT: 22px Arial" face=Arial size=6>The
Coordinating Committee of the Emergency Labor Network issued a Call to Action in
which they include a specific appeal for labor and its communities allies,
including the antiwar movement, to organize a nationwide Day of Actions on
October 1, 2011 -- the day the new 2012 budget is slated to be made public and
just a few days before the 10th anniversary of the war in
Afghanistan.</FONT></DIV>
<DIV style="MIN-HEIGHT: 26px; MARGIN: 0px; FONT: 22px Arial"><BR></DIV>
<DIV style="MARGIN: 0px"><FONT style="FONT: 22px Arial" face=Arial size=6>If the
AFL-CIO and Change to Win were to issue such a call around the demands listed
above, there could be hundreds of thousands of people in the streets nationwide.
This could jump-start a real fightback movement. We could begin to turn things
around. We could recreate the energy and excitement of Wisconsin
everywhere.</FONT></DIV>
<DIV style="MIN-HEIGHT: 26px; MARGIN: 0px; FONT: 22px Arial"><BR></DIV>
<DIV style="MARGIN: 0px"><FONT style="FONT: 22px Arial" face=Arial
size=6><B>Fightback Committees & Independent Political
Action!</B></FONT></DIV>
<DIV style="MIN-HEIGHT: 26px; MARGIN: 0px; FONT: 22px Arial"><B></B><BR></DIV>
<DIV style="MARGIN: 0px"><FONT style="FONT: 22px Arial" face=Arial size=6>The
Action Program adopted by the Emergency Labor Conference at Kent State
University (Ohio) on June 24-26, 2011, calls for building Labor-Community
Fightback Committees around these class-struggle demands, and it goes on to urge
such fightback committees to organize Regional Working People's Assemblies to
organize local and regional actions in the streets and workplaces.</FONT></DIV>
<DIV style="MIN-HEIGHT: 22px; MARGIN: 0px; FONT: 18px Arial"><BR></DIV>
<DIV style="MARGIN: 0px"><FONT style="FONT: 22px Arial" face=Arial size=6>Also,
as proposed in the ELN Action Program, these fightback committees could further
call on the labor movement and community organizations "to promote and support
strike actions around our demands, such as the strike organized by ILWU Local 10
on April 4, 2011, in solidarity with the struggle waged by Wisconsin unions and
their community supporters. The workers in Wisconsin, in their struggle, posed
the urgent need for workplace actions, including a general strike, to win their
demands."</FONT></DIV>
<DIV style="MIN-HEIGHT: 26px; MARGIN: 0px; FONT: 22px Arial"><BR></DIV>
<DIV style="MARGIN: 0px"><FONT style="FONT: 22px Arial" face=Arial
size=6>Building these Labor-Community Fightback Committees and Popular
Assemblies to promote the overall struggle around "No Cuts, No Concessions!" --
and linking labor's main fightback demands to the pressing demands of labor's
community allies, such as "Organize the South!" and "Full Rights for All
Undocumented Immigrants!" -- is an urgent task.</FONT></DIV>
<DIV style="MIN-HEIGHT: 26px; MARGIN: 0px; FONT: 22px Arial"><BR></DIV>
<DIV style="MARGIN: 0px"><FONT style="FONT: 22px Arial" face=Arial size=6>It is
also important to note that the Action Program adopted by the ELN's Kent State
conference affirmed, that "The time has come for the labor movement to promote a
discussion on what it will take to build a Labor Party in this country. The ELN
will make every effort to publicize and advance this goal."</FONT></DIV>
<DIV style="MIN-HEIGHT: 22px; MARGIN: 0px; FONT: 18px Arial"><BR></DIV>
<DIV style="MARGIN: 0px"><FONT style="FONT: 22px Arial" face=Arial size=6>We
concur. In addition to acting independently in defense of its members and the
working-class majority in the workplace and in the streets, the labor movement
must open a wide discussion among the ranks of labor on the urgent need to break
with the Democratic Party, one of the two parties of the bosses, and build a
Labor Party based on the trade unions and involving all the organizations of the
oppressed.</FONT></DIV>
<DIV style="MIN-HEIGHT: 26px; MARGIN: 0px; FONT: 22px Arial"><BR></DIV>
<DIV style="MARGIN: 0px"><FONT style="FONT: 22px Arial" face=Arial size=6>Let's
send out the message far and wide: Working people need to build a party of our
own, a Labor Party, if we are to fend off and reverse the steamroller that is
headed our way!</FONT></DIV></BODY></HTML>