[Peace-discuss] ] Obama, the Tea Party & Why We Need a Labor Party (from /Socialist Organizer/)

[E. Wayne Johnson]

It's an interesting read.

The people are waking up to the fact that they've been Gypped.  Slowly, 
though.

The Tea Party is made up of a lot of different kind of folk.  Some of 
them are neo-connish for sure.
The neocons have money to burn and a big horn to toot and  enough green 
cash to astroturf the TeaParty.
But a lot of the Tea Partiers are anarcho-libertarians and paleocons.
There are even some like Ernest Hancock and Karen Quinn-Tostado
who are left-leaning progressives and influence the TeaParty.  You can 
find the antiwar
wing of the TeaParty in the blogs and chats fuming about how the 
"TeaPotty" has been
co-opted.

I personally don't have any use at all for Sarah Palin.

Boehner (Boner) is a likewise meretricious dilwad and
will not be any significant change over Nancy P. Lousy.
There isn't any lesser evil amongst them.
If you are up to your chin in smelly liquid cat shit, and some one
flings a bucketful of festering dog shit at you, do you duck?

The system is lining the TeaParty up for a railroad job down a dead end path
hoping to cop the political spin and defuse the anger that drives the 
TeaParty.

What is yet to be seen is what will happen to the TeaParty
after it has been thoroughly SWAKed by Karl Rove's GOP...
if it will have enough anger to go home, wash off, and come out again.

Some like Quinn-Tostado are calling for a National Strike.
If anyone could agree on what it's for, a National Strike would be a 
great idea.




On 10/10/2010 10:38 PM, David Johnson wrote:
> *EXCELLENT ANALYSIS AND WELL DOCUMENTED ARTICLE ABOUT THE OBAMA 
> ADMINISTRATION,THE DEMOCRATS, AND THE NATIONAL SO CALLED " LEADERSHIP 
> " OF  LABOR AND CIVIL RIGHTS ORGANIZATIONS.*
> **
> **
> ----- Original Message -----
> *From:* intexile at iww.org <mailto:intexile at iww.org>
> *Sent:* Saturday, October 09, 2010 1:38 PM
> *Subject:* [ Obama, the Tea Party & Why We Need a Labor Party (from 
> /Socialist Organizer/)
>
> THE ORGANIZER NEWSPAPER
>
> P.O. Box 40009, San Francisco, CA 94140
> Tel. (415) 641-8616; fax: (415) 626-1217
>
> email: theorganizer at earthlink.net <mailto:theorganizer at earthlink.net>
>
> website: www.socialistorganizer.org <http://www.socialistorganizer.org>
>
> PLEASE EXCUSE DUPLICATE POSTINGS
>
> (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!)
>
> THE ORGANIZER NEWSPAPER
>
> P.O. Box 40009, San Francisco, CA 94140 Tel. (415) 641-8616; fax: 
> (415) 626-1217
>
> email: theorganizer at earthlink.net
>
> website: www.socialistorganizer.org <http://www.socialistorganizer.org>
>
> PLEASE EXCUSE DUPLICATE POSTINGS
>
> *SPECIAL SUPPLEMENT*
>
> (September-October 2010 Issue)
>
> *Obama, the Tea Party & Why We Need a Labor Party*
>
> 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.
>
> 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.
>
> "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."
>
> 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!"
>
> "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!"
>
> 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?
>
> *Who Is Responsible for the Deteriorating Economy?*
>
> 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.
>
> 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.
>
> 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.
>
> 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%.
>
> 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.
>
> *Why Obama's Reversal in the Opinion Polls*
>
> 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.
>
> 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.
>
> The/ San Francisco Chronicle/, 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.)
>
> 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.
>
> 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.
>
> The/ Wall Street Journal/ 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.
>
> Alan Greenspan is quoted in the same/ Wall Street Journal/ article as 
> stating that the economy is spinning into a "double-dip recession" 
> that could fast become a major economic depression.
>
> 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.
>
> *The Federal Deficit and Obama's Response*
>
> 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.
>
> 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.
>
> 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.
>
> 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.
>
> 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.
>
> 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.
>
> 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.
>
> 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.
>
> 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.
>
> 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.
>
> 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.
>
> *What About Obama's Tax Policies?*
>
> 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?
>
> 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.
>
> 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.
>
> 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.
>
> *Is Obama Really Delivering Health Care to Working People?*
>
> Many of the "liberal" sectors of the mainstream media such as the/ New 
> York Times/ 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.
>
> Little by little, the harsh realities of this Obama plan are beginning 
> to emerge in the media. [See sidebar article.]
>
> 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.
>
> 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.
>
> 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.
>
> 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.
>
> 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.
>
> 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.
>
> 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.
>
> And Missouri is just one of 18 states where the Tea Party has placed a 
> similar referendum on the ballot.
>
> *What About Obama's Promise to Pass EFCA?*
>
> 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).
>
> 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.
>
> 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.
>
> 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.
>
> 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.
>
> 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.
>
> 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.
>
> 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?
>
> 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.
>
> 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.
>
> *Resistance Widespread Throughout the Labor Movement*
>
> 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.
>
> 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.
>
> 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.
>
> Other signs of resistance include the following:
>
> - 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;
>
> - 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."
>
> - 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.
>
> - 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.
>
> - 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.
>
> - 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/ vs/. Goliath fight for the heart and soul of what at one time 
> was one of the most militant and progressive unions in the country.
>
> *October 2nd One Nation March in Washington*
>
> 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.
>
> 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.
>
> 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.
>
> 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.
>
> 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.
>
> 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.
>
> 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.
>
> 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.
>
> 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.
>
> 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.
>
> 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.
>
> 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.
>
> *Opening the Discussion on Need for a Labor Party*
>
> 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.
>
> 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.
>
> 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.
>
> That is why we fully support the latest WERC statement titled, "After 
> October 2, What Next?" This statement reads, in part:
>
> "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.
>
> "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."
>
> 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."
>
> We urge our readers and supporters to contact the WERC organizers at 
> <wercampaign at gmail.com> if you are interested in attending this 
> conference and promoting this campaign. You can also visit the WERC 
> website at www.wercampaign.org <http://www.wercampaign.org>.
>
> The time is now to build this fightback movement.
>
> * * * * *
>
> *SIDEBAR ARTICLES*
>
> *Is Obama Reining in Wall Street?*
>
> 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?
>
> Economist Jack Rasmus, in an interview with/ The Organizer/ newspaper 
> on this topic, points out that the bill should rightly be called the 
> Minimal Financial Monitoring Bill. The/ Wall Street Journal/, 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.
>
> 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.
>
> 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.
>
> 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.
>
> 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.
>
> 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.
>
> "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.
>
> 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."
>
> 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.
>
> 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. --* The Editors*
>
> * * * * * * * * * *
>
> *Is Obama's Health-Care Reform Benefiting Working People?*
>
> 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.
>
> 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/ San Francisco Chronicle/, 
> August 18, "Insurance Rates to Rise")
>
> 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.
>
> What about the highly touted cost-containment provisions in the Obama 
> bill?
>
> 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.
>
> 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.
>
> 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. --* The Editors*
>
> * * * * *
>
> *Obama: A Champion of the Environment?*
>
> An article in the/ San Francisco Chronicle/ (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.
>
> Let's take a look at this last claim.
>
> 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.
>
> 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.
>
> 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.)
>
> *Five Years After Katrina*
>
> 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.
>
> 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.
>
> 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.
>
> 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:
>
> "[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. ...
>
> "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.
>
> "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.
>
> "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.
>
> "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."
>
> 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.
>
> 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.
>
> 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. --* The 
> Editors*
>
> * * * * * * * * * *
>
> *Obama's Foreign Policy: The Afghanistan Quagmire*
>
> 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."
>
> 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.
>
> Success of U.S. policy in Iraq? Hardly.
>
> 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.
>
> 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.
>
> 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.
>
> 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.
>
> 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.
>
> 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.
>
> As to Afghanistan, the only words that come to mind to describe the 
> situation are "Vietnam-style quagmire."
>
> 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.
>
> 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.
>
> 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.
>
> The parallels to Vietnam and the word "quagmire" keep coming up in the 
> letters to the editors or on the radio talk shows.
>
> 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.
>
> 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.
>
> 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.
>
> * * * * * * * * * *
>
> *What Happened to Obama's Promise to Support Immigrant Workers?*
>
> 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.
>
> 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.
>
> 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.
>
> How to explain these polls and this situation in Arizona?
>
> 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.
>
> 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.
>
> 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.
>
> 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.
>
> 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.
>
> 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.
>
> *Obama's Actual Proposals*
>
> 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.
>
> 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.
>
> 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.
>
> 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.
>
> 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.
>
> 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.
>
> 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.
>
> 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.
>
> 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. --* The Editors*
>
> 
>
> __._,_.___
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