Carl Davidson : Time to Get Serious About Full Employment

Posted on August 24, 2011 by Thorne Dreyer

WPA image via Keep on Keepin’ On


Time to get serious about full employment:

We need a jobs program that

doesn’t tinker around the edges

By Carl Davidson / The Rag Blog / August 24, 2011

The Rag Blog will present noted writer and political activist Carl Davidson with a multi-media presentation on “The Mondragon Corporation and the Workers Cooperative Movement,” on Thursday, Sept. 8, 2011, 7-10 p.m., at 5604 Manor Community Center, 5604 Manor Road, Austin, Texas. For more information, go here. Carl will also be Thorne Dreyer‘s guest on Rag Radio, Friday, Sept. 9, from 2-3 p.m. (CST), on KOOP 91.7-FM in Austin, and streamed live here.

My regional daily newspaper, the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, to its credit, came out with an editorial Monday, Aug. 22, 2011, urging President Obama to push for a substantial jobs program over Republican opposition.

Action on jobs: Obama must push hard to get people back to work” is the headline, and a key point stresses “Mr. Obama now needs to offer proposals equal to the size of the problem. That means bold strokes, not half-measures. If his Republican antagonists in Congress are determined to stand in the way of getting Americans back to work, the president must say so publicly — and then go over their heads to enlist the nation in his effort.

Terrific, a good framing of the question. Unfortunately, however, once you get into the substance of the piece, it turns into a muddle. The Post-Gazette offers up a hodgepodge of proposals that tinker around the edges of the problem — more tax cuts and credits for jobs created, more unemployment benefits, and oddly, more trade deals, even though these deals mostly result in net job losses.

Here’s the heart of the matter. In a down economy, jobs are created by increasing demand, by more customers with bigger orders coming to a firm’s doors. The problem is that consumer demand has taken a nose dive since the credit bubble burst.

People don’t have money to spend. They’re cutting back on everything, and trying to unload their debt. This means business-to-business orders shrink as well. Companies may be cash-rich and have high profits, but with no increase in orders or customers at their door, they aren’t likely to hire people to do nothing just to get a tax credit.

This is where government has to become the key customer. It has to make huge productive purchases for local work and local materials to build productive infrastructure — county-owned green energy plants, new and improved schools, modernized locks and dams, Medicare for all, investment in young students and veterans like we did with the GI Bill, investment in research in new industries, and so on.

Most important, to work well, it can’t be nickel-and-dimed to death. It has to be on the scale of the expenditures for World War II. That’s when the “multiplier effect” can kick in, and related growth in manufacturing can take off in turn. And it has to be paid for by going to where the most appropriate money is, imposing a financial transaction tax on unproductive and destabilizing speculation by Wall Street.

The best the Post-Gazette does on this matter is to support Obama’s proposal for an “Infrastructure Bank,” while urging him to find a way to bypass a GOP roadblock in Congress.

But even that is too passive. It says, in effect, here’s a small pot of money. If you want to repair some roads, come and get some.

What we really need is something like the New Deal’s Tennessee Valley Authority and Works Progress Administration, but on steroids, a TVA-WPA-CCC 2.0. We need to pass John Conyers’ HR 870 Full employment Bill. We need the Department of Energy and the Department of Labor to go to every county in the country with a fully-funded proposal to build new green energy wind farms and solar power arrays as public energy utilities, hiring local workers at union scale, with no obstacles to a union election. And that’s just for starters.

Yes, we need a serious jobs program. But it’s time for everyone who utters that phrase to get serious themselves. Why? Because it’s going to take a massive upsurge in class struggle to get it — by removing those standing in the way.

[Carl Davidson is a national co-chair of the Committees of Correspondence for Democracy and Socialism, a national board member of Solidarity Economy Network, and a local Beaver County, PA member of Steelworkers Associates. In the 1960s, he was a national leader of SDS and a writer and editor for the Guardian newsweekly. He is also the co-author, with Jerry Harris, of CyberRadicalism: A New Left for a Global Age. He serves as webmaster for SolidarityEconomy.net and Beaver County Blue. This article was first published on Carl’s blog, Keep On Keepin’ On. Read more articles by Carl Davidson on The Rag Blog.]

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The Rag Blog Presents : Carl Davidson on Mondragon and Workers’ Cooperatives

Posted on August 24, 2011 by Thorne Dreyer

CLICK ON IMAGE TO ENLARGE

The Rag Blog, Rag Radio, and the New Journalism Project
Present Noted Writer and Political Activist Carl Davidson:
‘Mondragon and the Workers’ Cooperative Movement’
A Multi-Media Presentation

Thursday, Sept. 8, 2011, 7-10 p.m.
At 5604 Manor Community Center,
5604 Manor Road, Austin, Texas

Austin singer/songwriter Bill Oliver will perform.
Refreshments, including beer and wine, will be available.
$5 Suggested Donation

Go to our Facebook event page.

Carl Davidson in Austin:
‘The Mondragon Corporation and
the Workers’ Cooperative Movement‘

The Rag Blog, Rag Radio, and the New Journalism Project present noted writer and political activist Carl Davidson with a multi-media presentation on “The Mondragon Corporation and the Workers’ Cooperative Movement,” from 7-10 p.m., Thursday, Sept. 8, 2011, at 5604 Manor Community Center, 5604 Manor Road, Austin, Texas. There is a suggested donation of $5. After the presentation, Austin musician Bill Oliver will perform live. Refreshments, including beer and wine, will be available.

The Mondragon Corporation is a 50-year-old network of factories and agencies, involving close to 100,000 workers — centered in Spain’s Basque country, but now spanning the globe. Mondragon is an experiment, at once radical and practical, in how the working class can become masters of their workplaces and surrounding communities.

Carl Davidson, a regular contributor to The Rag Blog, is a co-chair of the Committees of Correspondence for Democracy and Socialism, a national board member of Solidarity Economy Network, and a local Beaver County, PA member of Steelworkers Associates. In the 1960s, he was a national leader of SDS and a writer and editor for the Guardian newsweekly. He is also author of several books, including, with Jerry Harris, CyberRadicalism: A New Left for a Global Age, and New Paths to Socialism, essays on worker coops, Marxism and the green economy.

Bill Oliver, known as the “Environmental Troubadour,” is an Austin-based singer/songwriter and entertainer.

5604 Manor is a community center run by the Workers Defense Project, Third Coast Activist Resource Center, and the Third Coast Workers for Cooperation.

The Rag Blog is a progressive internet newsmagazine based in Austin, Texas. The Rag Blog is published by the New Journalism Project, a 501(c)(3) Texas nonprofit corporation. Rag Radio is a weekly public affairs program hosted by Rag Blog editor Thorne Dreyer, Fridays, 2-3 p.m., on KOOP 91.7-FM in Austin.

Carl Davidson will also discuss the Mondragon Corporation and workers cooperatives on Rag Radio, Friday, Sept. 9, from 2-3 p.m. on KOOP 91.7-FM, and streamed live on the World Wide Web.

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Lamar W. Hankins : Tax Cuts and Republican Hypocrisy

Posted on August 23, 2011 by Thorne Dreyer

At the trough. Image from Florida Pundit.


Republican tax cut hypocrisy

knows no bounds

The average current tax cut on millionaires insisted on by the Republicans and agreed to by President Obama amounts to $200,000 each for 2011 and 2012.

By Lamar W. Hankins / The Rag Blog / August 23, 2011

Finally, there is an Obama policy that I can wholeheartedly endorse. The President wants to extend the payroll tax reduction enacted last year. The payroll tax funds Social Security, half of which is paid by workers and half by employers. This tax reduction proposal would keep in place the 12-month payroll tax reduction from 6.2% of earnings to 4.2% that was enacted last year.



A family with salaried income of $50,000 a year will have nearly $1,000 extra to spend on whatever they need. This is a modest way to give average working Americans a few dollars, almost all of which will be spent on goods and services, thus stimulating the economy and leading to a demand for more workers to provide those goods and services.

Republicans, however, see the benefit in extending tax cuts only for the millionaires and billionaires, who will invest their money wherever it will bring them the greatest yield. They already spend all that they want or need to spend.

Their tax reduction doesn’t create jobs because it isn’t invested in job-producing activity. It goes to buy stocks or bonds in companies all over the globe, or to increasing real estate holdings, not to creating new companies that will hire new employees, or to adding jobs to companies they may already own. But most Republicans oppose Obama’s modest payroll tax cut for average Americans.

The payroll tax that funds Social Security can be reduced for a few years as a stimulus to the economy because there are enough assets in the Social Security Trust Fund to meet Social Security obligations through 2037, according to the United States Social Security Administration’s Office of the Chief Actuary.

I have been critical of President Obama’s economic policies since he took office, beginning with his appointments to key positions related to the economy. Most notable among these was Larry Summers, who served as Treasury Secretary for two years during the Bill Clinton presidency. In that position, he pushed for the Commodity Futures Modernization Act, which allowed many investment vehicles, such as derivatives, to go unregulated. Derivatives include credit default swaps that led in large part to the 2008 economic crisis.

Summers was and is a true believer in a largely unregulated financial market. When we fail to regulate those markets adequately, the financial sector focuses on ways to make money for investment banks through methods that do nothing to create jobs or stimulate the economy.

As a result, we get tens of thousands of mortgages consolidated into investment vehicles. When many of those mortgages are backed by insufficient value they are called subprime mortgages. When there are too many subprime mortgages and there is corruption throughout the industry, the financial collapse of these insufficiently regulated investments is inevitable.

Bloomberg Business Week reported in 2008 that some of these failures were caused by mortgage wholesalers (who worked for the banks that packaged these mortgages into investments) offering sexual favors to independent mortgage brokers (who were independent processors of mortgage applications) to let them purchase mortgage loan applications. The lenders (banks) then packaged these mortgages into investment securities.

Business Week also reported other corruption in this process, including widespread bribery or payoffs to obtain mortgage applications, as well as fabricated loan documents, along with the coaching of mortgage brokers about how to skirt the few regulations that did exist.

In summary, Business Week reported,

In the end, the wholesalers were undone by the same people who allowed for their rise: their Wall Street overlords. During the boom investment banks bought as many loans as they could to pool together and turn into securities. In 2006 the top 10 investment banks, which included Merrill Lynch, … Bear Stearns,… and Lehman Brothers, sold mortgage-backed securities worth $1.5 trillion, up from $245 billion in 2000.

To keep the supply of loans coming, the investment banks increasingly took control of the industry’s frontline players as well. First they started buying small, independent wholesaling firms. Next they extended billions in credit to subprime lenders. Then they took stakes in some, and bought others outright. At the height of the frenzy in 2006, six top investment banks shelled out a total of $2.2 billion to buy subprime shops.

This kind of activity doesn’t create jobs, it destroys jobs, as thousands of jobs were cut when the housing bubble burst in 2008. When the wealthy look for places to invest their money, they don’t typically look for entrepreneurial ventures that will create jobs, but for ways to safely invest their excess money, money they don’t need for what most of us consider the necessities of life.

Of course, the rating agencies, like Standard & Poor’s (who recently downgraded the ratings of U.S. government bonds), gave the best ratings to these mortgage consolidation investments, leading wealthy investors to believe that such investments were a great way to make more money. The investment bankers, you may remember, were bailed out by the taxpayers at the end of the Bush presidency and during the early part of Obama’s presidency.

The Bush tax cuts on millionaires and billionaires caused $2 trillion in deficits during the Bush presidency. The average current tax cut on millionaires insisted on by the Republicans and agreed to by President Obama amounts to $200,000 each for 2011 and 2012. The wars started by Bush and continued by Obama, along with the tax cuts for the wealthy, will account for half the public debt by 2019, according to the nonpartisan, nonprofit Center for Budget and Policy Priorities.

At least the President is trying to make a modest correction in his grievous tax agreement with the Republicans, but there will be few Republicans who will agree to very modest tax relief for working Americans because they have cast their lot with the wealthiest 1% of Americans, who became wealthy because they figured out how to game the political and economic system for their benefit and to the detriment of the other 99%.

Over 200 years ago, Thomas Jefferson wrote:

I hope we shall crush in its birth the aristocracy of our monied corporations, which dare already to challenge our government to a trial by strength, and bid defiance to the laws of our country.

When will the President learn that it is not possible to make deals with hypocrites who are, by their nature, deceivers and charlatans? Thomas Jefferson understood the nature of uncontrolled capitalism, but we did not heed his warning. It becomes more difficult by the day to make a persuasive argument that the oligarchy is not in charge of our government, from top to bottom.

[Lamar W. Hankins, a former San Marcos, Texas, city attorney, is also a columnist for the San Marcos Mercury. This article © Freethought San Marcos, Lamar W. Hankins. Read more articles by Lamar W. Hankins on The Rag Blog.]

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Ted McLaughlin : The ‘Free Market’ Myth and the Suicide of Capitalism

Posted on August 23, 2011 by Thorne Dreyer

Political cartoon by Carol Simpson / Cartoon Work.


The ‘free market’ myth and the

suicide of the capitalist system

In a capitalist society such as ours the wealth will be redistributed to the richest people unless there are some regulations to prevent that.

By Ted McLaughlin / The Rag Blog / August 23, 2011

We hear a lot today about free trade and free enterprise. Those are today’s code words for unregulated capitalism — the idea that capitalism can work for the benefit of everyone in a society as long as it is not hindered by government regulations. The proponents of this idea say that the more money the capitalists make, the more jobs they will create and the better off everyone in the society will be.



You may recognize this as the Republican “trickle-down” theory.

These modern Republicans may be surprised to learn that their boogeyman, Karl Marx was in favor of “free trade.” Look at this quote from Marx:

The free trade system is destructive. It breaks up old nationalities and pushes the antagonism of the proletariat and the bourgeoisie to the extreme point. In a word, the free trade system hastens the social revolution. It is in this revolutionary sense alone, gentlemen, that I vote in favor of free trade.

Marx was in favor of free trade, or unregulated capitalism, because he knew that such a system was sowing the seeds of its own destruction. An unregulated capitalism would inevitably result in the death of capitalism (by concentrating too much of the total wealth in the hands of a few people which would kill demand).

The rich and the corporations (today’s capitalists) have let their greed for accumulating ever larger pools of money blind them to reality (if they ever understood it in the first place). And that reality is that capitalists do not create jobs. Demand for products and services is what creates jobs. Capitalists simply exploit that demand to make money (and they have to put people to work in order to exploit that demand). But when the demand disappears, so do the jobs.

Now you may be asking yourself at this point: If an unregulated capitalism is suicidal then how has our system survived this long? The answer is regulation. When our system has started to get too out of whack, we have instituted measures to regulate or control the excesses of capitalism — measures designed to redistribute some of the income and wealth away from the rich and to the others in our society.

I know that the term “redistribution of wealth” has been demonized in this country, but that is ridiculous because wealth is always being redistributed in all societies. In a capitalist society such as ours, the wealth will be redistributed to the richest people unless there are some regulations to prevent that. These regulations will spread the distribution of wealth and income throughout the society. This is healthy, because a more equal distribution of income creates demand as people use that wealth and income to buy goods and services (and this allows capitalists to make money and workers to find jobs).

We have used various means to redistribute the income more fairly in this country. We created a progressive income tax (where the more money a person makes the higher tax rate they pay), we created and protected unions (which provided workers with decent wages and better benefits), we created an array of social service programs (to protect children, the elderly, the poor, and those with disadvantages), and we imposed regulations on the business practices of Wall Street and the corporations. These things helped to keep our capitalist system from getting out of control and choking to death on its own success.

But the Republicans have never accepted that capitalism needs regulating. They still believe that “trickle-down” (or Voodoo) economics will work (in spite of its repeated failures). With the election of Ronald Reagan in 1980, they began to tear down the safeguards that had been installed in our society. They started to eliminate business regulations, strip unions of their power, dismantle social programs, and lower tax rates for the rich. This process was accelerated in the administration of George W. Bush.

The result was predictable. Far too much of the nation’s wealth and income became concentrated in the hands of only a few people (about 1% of the population controls 40% of the wealth and income currently). While the income of the rich grew astronomically, the income of

workers was stagnant (and their buying power dropped substantially). This resulted in a drop in demand, which resulted in lay-offs, which killed demand even further, causing more layoffs — and this spiraled the country down into a serious recession.

And what do the Republicans think the solution to this jobless recession is? They want to cut social programs, cut taxes for the rich, eliminate unions, and eliminate regulations on businesses. In other words they want to do more of the same things that caused this economic mess in the first place. They seem to be incapable of learning from either experience or history.

They claim they are being fiscally responsible. They aren’t. What they are really doing is giving our capitalist system enough rope to hang itself — an economic suicide that could unfortunately also kill our economy (and maybe even our democracy).

[Ted McLaughlin also posts at jobsanger. Read more articles by Ted McLaughlin on The Rag Blog.]

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Posted on August 22, 2011 by Thorne Dreyer

In case you missed them. These pictures of Rick Perry as an Aggie cadet and as a Texas A&M student, decked out in lettered cardigan (with Reveille at his feet), are absolutely priceless.

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Kate Braun : Problems Are Revealed During Balsamic Moon

Posted on August 22, 2011 by Thorne Dreyer

Balsamic Moon. Photo by oceandesetoiles / Flickr.


Moon Musings:

Waning Balsamic Moon

(August 23-25, 2011)

By Kate Braun / The Rag Blog / August 22, 2011

The Balsamic Moon phase is when problems are revealed, but not a time when they are solved. To go for a “quick fix” is likely not to be profitable, as it will be a superficial solution that really is no solution, especially with Pluto retrograde until Sept. 16 and Chiron retrograde until November 9.



These retrogrades prompt us to notice what we have been neglecting, with the intention of rectifying the neglect, and recognizing our imperfections so that we can grow in positive ways. I recommend being content for the moment with identifying the matters requiring resolution. The waxing moon phases will be the time to make plans for the future, look ahead, and open yourself to change.

As with any waning moon phase, this is a good time to stir uncertainty and confusion out of the mix because it is a time for psychic clearing. You may find yourself being more aware of disturbing emotional tides at this moon phase, which could be because you are paying more attention to the things you are deciding to change in your life.

Be aware that you may find habits, relationships, and/or jobs that have soured and need to be not just “fixed” but released. As you perform your rituals for banishing negative energy, you should find yourself becoming more relaxed and calm.

It is said that a wish made at the Balsamic Moon is more likely to come true because needs are felt more deeply at this time. The more deeply a need is felt, the more invocative energy goes into the Moon rituals and the more likely the need will be met, especially if that need involves letting go of negativity.

Sea water can be an important element to incorporate into your moon ritualing. Sea salts (not table salt) dissolved in tap water are an acceptable substitute for sea water, and the dissolving should be complete before you charge the water.

There are several methods that can be used to charge water with the energy relevant to your purpose. You may stir the water with a crystal (clockwise if you seek to attract something to you, counterclockwise if you are releasing something), you may hold your hands over the water and visualize energy flowing through you into the water as you contemplate the intent of your actions, you may hold the container of water in your hands and breathe upon in gently as you visualize your intent blending with the water.

These are only a few suggestions and, as with most magickal workings, the ritual you create by and for yourself is likely to be more powerful than a ritual you merely copy. Charging water is rather like using Reiki: the energy flows through you but does not drain you, it enters the water and causes the water to become energized with your intent. Unused charged water may be bottled and saved in the refrigerator for future use, but be sure to label the bottle with the date and the intention of the charging!

Herbs and wood chips may be soaked in the charged water, then allowed to dry before being used as incense in your celebration. Please respect any burn bans in your area and be sure to do any incense-burning in a flame-proof container such as a cast-iron cauldron. Never leave a fire unattended.

In the garden (if your garden has not shriveled in the Texas heat), this is the time to weed out what you don’t want to grow, trim or lop branches that overhang roofs or gardens too much. It is not a time for planting, however!

Given the current daytime high temperatures, I recommend commencing your rituals after the sun has set. Be sure to eat something, but take care to not let yourself become heavy with food. Cheese and bread or crackers, fruits, finger sandwiches, water, herb tea, fruit punch, bite-size quiches, cookies, frozen yogurt: these are all foods that will sustain your energy without compromising your concentration.

I urge you to be sure to drink plenty of water, even after the sun sets. Dehydration happens in dark as well as daylight. I also urge you to wear lightweight loose clothing preferably made of natural fibers such as cotton. A swingy spaghetti-strapped cotton sundress is likely to feel more comfortable than tight shorts and a body-hugging spandex-polyester top.

A Balsamic Moon is said to relate to healing and rest, since it is the last phase before the New Moon. It is also said to relate to one’s commitment to destiny. You might want to consult an astrologer to learn more about how this moon phase relates to your destiny.

[Kate Braun‘s website is www.tarotbykatebraun.com. She can be reached at kate_braun2000@yahoo.com. Read more of Kate Braun’s writing on The Rag Blog.]

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Posted on August 19, 2011 by Thorne Dreyer

Sarito Carol Neiman provides some valuable perspective on Rick Perry and his “Texas Miracle.” One gem: a New York Times columnist in 2003 reported that one manufacturer — notorious for its Dickensian record on workers safety — said they’d only do business in “developing countries and Texas.” She follows with a truly scary Texas report card that indeed reads like that of a third world country.

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Posted on August 19, 2011 by Thorne Dreyer

Attorney Raznikov, who was involved in the Free Speech Movement at Berkeley in 1964, remembers how the news reporting distorted the events in which he participated. He then looks at the recent London “riots” and, in examining their underlying causes, suggests we be wary of mainstream media interpretations. “Whoever controls the media,” he reminds us, “controls the story the public sees and hears.”

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Richard Raznikov : From Berkeley to London, a Word From Our Sponsors

Posted on August 18, 2011 by Thorne Dreyer

The Free Speech Movement at the University of California at Berkeley, 1964. Image from the New SDS Website.


From 60’s Berkeley to the London ‘riots’:

A word from our sponsors

Whoever controls the media controls the story the public sees and hears. Whatever ‘news’ we get is filtered through the propaganda requirements of those who own it.

By Richard Raznikov / The Rag Blog / August 18, 2011

The first time I personally experienced the unreliability — i.e. lies — of the media was as a freshman at U.C. Berkeley in October 1964. Along with about a thousand others, my friend JBD and I found ourselves in the middle of what was to become the Free Speech Movement.



The University had embarked on a mission, spurred by its corporate sponsors, to impede the recruitment of civil rights volunteers on campus. Students were already in the forefront of demonstrations against racial discrimination in San Francisco at the Sheraton Palace, on auto row, and at Zim’s Restaurants, and the targets had grown to include businesses in Oakland’s Jack London Square and the Oakland Tribune newspaper.

Powerful people were pissed off, and they leaned on the University’s administration to put a stop to it.

The Free Speech Movement was the student response to new restrictions on free speech imposed by Chancellor Ed Strong and U.C. President Clark Kerr.

Being in the middle of this historic development was an intoxicating experience, and JBD and I participated in sit-ins and demonstrations, and passed out leaflets. We were among the first batch of students to surround a police car with our bodies, preventing the removal of one Jack Weinberg, who had been arrested for violating university rules when he sat at a recruitment table for either the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) or the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE) — I can’t recall which.

The October 1st capture of the police car in a spontaneous circle of students generated nationwide press coverage, and most of America learned of the incipient student revolt on their evening news programs. What they learned was a little bit different from what we were experiencing in Sproul Plaza.

The public heard that we were a bunch of ungrateful brats, outside agitators, and Communist dupes. The quite significant issues of freedom of speech and of constitutional rights in general, although they were the central point of the protests and of the speeches given by Mario Savio and others, standing atop the imprisoned squad car, were completely ignored.

We were too busy to watch ourselves on the news but we soon discovered how we were being portrayed. Personally, I didn’t mind the brat thing, but I resented anyone regarding me as a dupe. Not to mention that one of the friends I’d made in the FSM was a member of the steering committee who was a libertarian — and happened to belong to “Students for Goldwater.”

Whoever controls the media controls the story the public sees and hears. I am reminded of that daily, following events in England, in Israel, in Libya, in Syria, in Egypt, in Haiti, in Greece. Whatever “news” we get is filtered through the propaganda requirements of those who own it, those who sponsor it, and those whose threats can promote or make vanish a given narrative.

In other words, you can’t take at face value anything you see on television or coming from the mouths of politicians. They are lying to you. That’s a part of their job.

I wrote a piece called “London Burning” and got a pretty fast response from people who took issue with my slant on events. One of them was my old friend JBD himself, whose quite reasonable question was, mainly, how sympathetic would I be if the looters were looting and/or burning down my shop.

Answer: I wouldn’t be very sympathetic; I’d be pissed off.

But, here’s the thing: I didn’t write favorably about looters. I don’t even know how much looting has taken place, and neither do you. I know what the Cameron government is saying, but they are notorious liars to begin with. I also know that the media, in collusion with government, can make a snowplow look like a Trailways bus.

My point was this: the England riots are political.

What the media coverage is leaving out, among other things:

Last fall there were demonstrations across England by students angry about prospective cuts in social services. The level of outrage surprised the Cameron regime which, along with other European governments, has been implementing so-called “austerity” measures, the translation being that in order to satisfy the bankers and other corporate thugs the few crumbs formerly doled out to the poor will now be taken away.

Then, on March 26th of this year, half a million demonstrators — many of them trade unionists — converged on London to protest the slashing of government programs and social services. They were joined by huge numbers of the young, especially students.

Traffic cone embedded in the smashed windows at a London shopping center. Photograph by Jim Dyson / Getty Images.


In a prescient article two months ago in the Indypendent, Peter Bratsis wrote:

…the class dimensions of the demonstration are not yet obvious nor are they reducible to the social-economic positions or to the intentions of those of us who were there. The class character of the demonstration will be manifest by its impact and what will follow in the months ahead…

As Bratsis pointed out,

One thing is certain, however: The March 26 protest will have as little impact on policymakers as the antiwar demonstrations did. Within the “democratic” world at least, orderly popular protests have proven to be of little consequence when it comes to influencing policies.

He then observed that while many union participants would abandon the field, having come to London and “done all that they could,” the events would lead to further radicalization of those who were most directly victimized by the government’s actions and targeted by police.

Partly as a response to the heavy-handed actions of the police and partly as a product of principled political reflection and organization, the extra-parliamentary left, especially anarchism, is on the rise. There were hundreds of mask-wearing protesters willing to engage in property destruction and risk arrest.

Their occupation of Fortnum and Mason, one of the most famous stores in London, and their attack on the Ritz Hotel and dozens of stores on Oxford Street, especially those known for not paying any taxes, is a clear sign that the movement is growing. Although there may still be far to go before the streets of London look like those of Seattle in 1999 or Athens in 2008, major progress is being made.

Historically, ideology is always an unsteady partner to rebellion. Indeed, if revolution waited for the development of a broad-based intellectual theory it would wait forever. Most American colonists had not read Tom Paine’s “Common Sense,” and those Russians who stormed the Winter Palace had by and large never heard of Karl Marx.

Bratsis continues:

According to the historian Karl Polanyi, the working class in Britain has been the most repressed and beaten down in all of Europe. Polanyi asserts that this has rendered them nearly incapable of any self-directed, progressive, political action. Nonetheless, we have seen flashes of political possibilities, such as the poll tax riots of 1990 that brought down Margaret Thatcher and the fierce but unsuccessful coal miners’ strike of 1984-85 that broke organized labor in the U.K.

The stakes of the current attack on working people are clear. Orderly demonstrations and petitions are not sufficient for fighting the power of the ruling classes and their… servants within Parliament. A new chapter in disruptive, disciplined and disorderly political action by the dominated is necessary. If marching is as far as the political efforts go, the overcrowded classrooms, shrinking universities, declining life expectancy and decreasing wages and pensions will be all the evidence we need for understanding how the class struggle in Britain is progressing.

More than 16,000 police have been deployed to retake the streets of London. More than 1,700 arrests have been carried out, and magistrates have already tried and sentenced some to prison. A majority of the arrestees are minors. One such was sent to jail for six months for stealing bottled water. Prisons and juvenile detention centers are running out of cells for the inmates.

London police have conducted raids specifically against low-income housing projects, and concerns over civil liberties of the accused have been brushed aside by the Cameron regime in the wild rush to convict and imprison those accused. The prime minister declared that “phony concerns about human rights” wouldn’t be permitted to get in the way.

Despite the cover stories promoted by the British government and the widespread media complicity in reducing the rioters to “mindless” criminals and “anarchists,” the enormity of the rebellion — and its use of social networks and Blackberry messaging services — suggests something with clearer direction and better organization.

The British government is working on policies which will shut down these web sites and services to impede future actions, much the same way the Egyptian government sought to save Mubarak’s miserable skin. It didn’t work in Egypt but maybe the English will have better luck.

The U.S. government has, of course, embarked on the same course, and the mass media in this country are complicit in distorting the news out of London. After all, the same kind of phony “austerity” policies being used in Europe to screw the last dime out of the poor and the seemingly powerless are being tried in America by the Obama regime and its Republican allies. Don’t think for a minute we’re not being set up. In England, the economics editor at

The Guardian (and a part-time magistrate) wrote:

From the bench, what magistrates see is a raging bundle of id impulses, the desire for immediate gratification untempered by a sense of guilt and with only an ill-formed notion of right and wrong. The temptation to bang them up and throw away the key is strong, and magistrates will no doubt be encouraged to do just that over the coming weeks.

Don’t be fooled by the press releases. Crisis is manufactured in order to seize money or to get rid of civil liberties, often both. When people fight back with whatever rudimentary weapons are at their disposal, it is essential that they be divested of reason and marginalized as criminals. That’s what the mass media do these days — create and promote the cover stories of their sponsors.

No, I do not personally think that looting businesses is a good idea, a sound tactic, or a morally-defensible position. But I’m not going to pretend that there isn’t a reason for it.

[Richard Raznikov is an attorney practicing in San Rafael, California. He blogs at News from a Parallel World.]

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Jay D. Jurie : Vietnam and the Historic Struggle Against ROTC

Posted on August 18, 2011 by Thorne Dreyer

Marchers in 1970 want ROTC removed from the campus of Ohio University. Image from Cape Girardeau History and Photos.


ROTC resurgent

Part I: ROTC and the anti-war movement

They held regular drills on an open field approximately two blocks from the heart of campus. It was viewed as an affront that ROTC paraded so openly while the carnage mounted in Vietnam.

By Jay D. Jurie / The Rag Blog / August 18, 2011

[This is the first of a two-part series on ROTC (Reserve Officer Training Corps) — dealing with the militant opposition to ROTC during the Vietnam War era, and with the program’s recent resurgence on college campuses. The author was at Boulder and participated in the demonstrations he describes. Similar actions occurred at campuses throughout the country.]

Carrying an upside-down U.S. flag tacked onto a short wooden stake, a student at the head of a column of anti-Vietnam war students marching onto a University of Colorado practice field was tackled by several pro-war student athletes.



As the protest column continued to press onto the field the “jocks” and police struggled to bring it to a halt. They were unsuccessful and the protestors made their way through the ranks of parading cadets, turning the drill into a melee. This April 30, 1970 event was not the first time such a drill had been disrupted on the Boulder campus.

Early in the fall of 1969, members of the Student Peace Union (SPU) approached their counterparts in the Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) with a proposal.

SPU had decided the Reserve Officer Training Corps (ROTC, pronounced “rotsee” by friend and foe alike) was the most visible manifestation of the Vietnam War on campus. While SDS elsewhere had devoted some attention to ROTC, this had not particularly filtered down to the Boulder chapter as an “action item.” SPU’s proposal was that SDS partner in demonstrating against ROTC.

At that time, ROTC held regular drills on an open field approximately two blocks from the heart of campus. SDS readily agreed with the SPU proposal, not only because of the high profile, but because it was viewed as an affront that ROTC paraded so openly while the carnage mounted in Vietnam.

It was agreed that the target of the protest would not be the individual cadets enrolled in ROTC, but the program itself and its relation to the University, the military, and the war. SDS put out a very simple flyer that read only:

1) end ROTC. 2) reimburse students on ROTC scholarships.

When the day of protest came, the two organizations, along with their supporters, met at the student union fountain area and marched to the field where the ROTC drill was already under way. Proceeding onto the field protestors marched to and fro through the ranks of parading cadets and confusion reigned. There was no violence, but the drill was disrupted. ROTC instructors sized up the situation and called off the exercise.

At the next ROTC parade, the protest was repeated. Though they again marched from the fountain area together, relations between SPU and SDS were cool. From the outset it was clear there was a tactical dispute. SPU wanted to be a visible presence and make a statement in opposition to the war and ROTC on campus, while SDS wanted to do everything in its power to “stop the war machine” and end the killing.

Nearing arrival at the field, the column of protestors split into two, with SPU heading to the side of the field, and SDS marching toward the drill. This time, campus police were better prepared. They formed a cordon along the edge of the parade ground to prevent the SDS contingent from reaching the drill. However, SDS moved quickly and did an end run around the police line. As before, protestors managed to run through the ranks of drilling cadets and chaos ensued. There was no violence, but the drill was again disrupted.

Apparently the police realized that if they chased the protestors across the field they would only contribute to the disruption. Again, ROTC instructors called off the drill. SDS was elated, believing the system had been beaten twice and one small corner of the war machine had been shut down, at least temporarily.

Army ROTC patch. Image from Eastern Washington University / Flickr.


There was one more “ROTC smash” that fall, but by this time, in disagreement with SDS tactics, SPU had dropped out of the partnership. SDS figured the police would be too well prepared for a third successful march onto the field. Instead, when the marchers neared the field, they abruptly veered off and headed toward the stadium, where ROTC had its offices. Campus police rapidly redeployed and kept pace with the SDS march.

Outside the ROTC offices, a couple of SDS leaders were making the usual anti-war speeches when the campus police chief noticed smoke billowing from the area where the ROTC parade was underway. He quickly realized they’d been duped. Several police officers stayed with the rally to keep an eye on the demonstrators and ensure the ROTC offices were protected, while the main force ran back to the field.

At that point, the protestors had a good laugh and dispersed. In the planning for the event some SDS members had volunteered to throw smoke bombs onto the field. This was not done in such a way as to cause any harm, but to make a symbolic point about the bombing of Vietnam, and to sow confusion and hopefully yet again cause disruption. In this respect the action was a success, as were all the ROTC “smashes” that fall. No one was injured, and remarkably, no one was kicked out of school and there were no arrests.

By the spring of 1970 both the SPU and SDS chapters were defunct. Filling the void of campus anti-war activism at the University of Colorado was the Student Mobilization Committee (SMC), a front group for the Young Socialist Alliance (YSA), the youth affiliate of the Trotskyite Socialist Workers Party (SWP). Meanwhile, the depredations of the Nixon-Kissinger regime in Southeast Asia had intensified. Campus awareness and activism across the country, and at the University of Colorado, reached its zenith that spring.

Students who were more militant, including many previously affiliated with SDS, became the very uneasy left-wing “junior partner” under the SMC umbrella. The dominant YSA faction, strategically if not ideologically, fulfilled the role played by SPU the previous fall. While a variety of anti-war actions took place early in the year, including an occupation of the first floor of the administration building, ROTC was not forgotten.

Hofstra students protest mandatory ROTC on campus. Image from The Hofstra Chronicle, 1967.


It was decided by late April that ROTC would once again be a “smash” target. This time, it was understood well in advance by all in SMC that there would be a divergence over tactics. As before, marchers gathered at the fountain area and set off for the ROTC drill field. This time the protest was larger, with 300-500 participating. When the field was reached, the larger YSA-affliated contingent peeled off and, in keeping with their strategy of mass rallies, like SPU the preceding fall, assumed positions along the sidelines.

Campus police turned out in full force, accompanying the march all the way to the field, where they formed a much larger cordon than before and were more fully equipped for a riot. Determined they were not going to be stopped, the more militant faction of SMC marched directly toward the line of police. Aligned with the police was a contingent of about 30 “jocks.”

As the two sides converged, the previously described scuffle broke out. Police chased demonstrators on and off the field. Police parked in cruisers adjacent to the field pursued some who fled across campus. Some students were handcuffed to a nearby chain link fence as the arresting officers returned to the fray. A student who thoughtfully came equipped with a handcuff key surreptitiously set them free.

On this occasion, a number of people were tackled, knocked down, shoved, punched, or grabbed. While there was violence, there were no serious injuries. Most of the violence was initiated by the jocks, a fact which the police ignored, and no jocks were arrested. It was widely believed by protestors that an understanding had been reached between the police and jocks beforehand.

Since some of those arrested had stayed on the sidelines, it was abundantly clear the University strategy was to target and get rid of those they identified as leaders of the campus anti-war movement. Nine of the anti-war students were arrested at the scene and nine more were subsequently charged with violating Colorado’s newly-enacted “Campus Disorder Act.”

As it turned out, no one was ever tried for the Boulder “ROTC smashes” of 1969-70, though after the 1970 protest several were suspended from school for varying lengths of time. Eventually, the case of the “Boulder 18” wound up in front of the Colorado Supreme Court, which ruled the statute unconstitutionally vague, threw it out, and quashed the charges.

Not knowing this would be the final “smash,” the University moved all ROTC drills inside the football stadium, where they could control access. For their part, Boulder’s anti-war protestors won at least a minor victory by visibly exposing University complicity with the military and the war. While ROTC was not forced off campus, the protests resulted in some change of “business as usual.”

Part II will cover the history of the ROTC program, the issue of discrimination against gays, and the recent return of ROTC to a number of U.S. campuses.

[Jay D. Jurie was a student at the University of Colorado at Boulder, a member of SDS, and one of the “Boulder 18” arrested as a result of the ROTC demonstrations. Jay now teaches public administration and urban planning and lives near Orlando, Florida. Read more articles by Jay D. Jurie on The Rag Blog.]

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Dr. Stephen R. Keister : America and the Big Lie

Posted on August 18, 2011 by Thorne Dreyer

Art from Macho Response.


Sold down the river:

America and the big lie

By Dr. Stephen R. Keister / The Rag Blog / August 17, 2011

“Tell big lies. Do not qualify or concede a point, no matter how wrong you may be. Do not hesitate or stop for reservations. The masses are always more easily corrupted in the deeper strata of their emotional natures than consciously, and thus fall victims of the big lie rather than the small lie, since they themselves often tell small lies but would be ashamed to resort to large scale falsehoods.” — Adolph Hitler, Mein Kampf.

Since 1987, Physicians for a National Health Program has been working to bring about reasonable health care reform in the United States. The following comes from the August 10, 2011 online edition of the PNHP Newsletter:

These are challenging times for advocates of single payer health reform, we think you’ll agree. Even as PNHP members vigorously celebrate the 48th anniversary of Medicare in opinion pieces, letters to the editor, blogs and even on radio stations across the nation, noting the program’s merits and utility as a model for a universal, cost-effective single-payer system, Congress and the White House set up a “deficit reduction” process that will likely result in serious cuts in the program — with deeper cuts down the road.

The Budget Control Act, signed by President Obama last week, calls for an automatic 2% reduction in Medicare in the event that a newly created “super committee” of six Democrats and six Republicans can’t agree on a wider package amounting to at least $1.5 trillion in cuts in federal spending. This super committee can also recommend cuts to Medicaid and Social Security, among other programs.

The Republicans on this panel are unbending hardliners and one of the Senate’s Democratic appointees, Max Baucus, has voted with the Republicans on many occasions. He supported the Bush tax cuts for the wealthy and was the driving force, with an advisor from the insurance industry, in creating the faux Obama health care bill.

Wendell Potter offers an in-depth look at the Affordable Care Act as part of The Nation‘s series on the American Legislative Exchange Council (“ALEC Exposed”). As we may recall, a very reasonable version of universal health care emerged from the House of Representatives but never was discussed by the Senate. The White House had carried out secret negotiations with the Health Insurance cartel and PhARMA. The prime framing of the final plan came from the Senate Finance Committee under Sen. Baucus.

Mr. Potter points out that there were advance agreements with the insurance industry regarding this legislation, as follows:

  1. Keeping single-payer off the table;
  2. Requiring all Americans not eligible for an existing federal program to buy coverage from a private insurance company;
  3. Excluding the possibility of a government-run alternative (a “public option” that would compete with private insurers);
  4. Making sure that the reform law would be implemented primarily at the state level, to keep the federal government from assuming any significant new oversight of private insurers’ business practices; and
  5. Keeping any new regulations and consumer protections to a minimum.

There was nothing in the legislation dealing with cost control and no restrictions were placed on “deductibles” or co-insurance.

I would also direct you to the following that appeared on Talking Points Memo:

Last week, Congressional Democrats were blindsided by newly confirmed Defense Secretary Leon Panetta, who basically nixed any further cuts to military spending, and demanded that lawmakers trim from programs like Medicare and raise taxes to reduce future deficits. Republicans on the new Super Committee are expected to seize on Panetta’s remarks to push for another deficit deal that comes exclusively from entitlement cuts.

As a 90-year-old retired physician, I am extremely depressed by the unfolding developments in this country and the apparent lack of concern by the American public as they are sold down the river by the politicians — as the political establishment pays homage to the relatively few Tea Party members of Congress who now control the agenda.

I have just read Erik Larson’s excellent book, In The Garden of Beasts. Mr. Larson points to a cultural change that happened in Germany in 1933. He writes:

Beneath the surface… Germany had undergone a rapid and sweeping revolution that reached deep into the fabric of daily life. It had occurred quietly and largely out of easy view. At the core was a government campaign called Gleichschaltung — meaning “Coordination” — to bring citizens, government ministries, universities and cultural and social institutions in line with Nazi beliefs and attitudes.

“Coordination” occurred with astonishing speed, even in sectors of life not targeted by specific laws, as Germans willingly placed themselves under the sway of Nazi rule, a phenomenon that became known as Selbstgleichschaltung, or “self-coordination.” Change came to Germany so quickly and across such a wide front that German citizens who left the country for business or travel returned to find everything about them altered, as if they were characters in a horror movie who came back to find people who once were their friends, clients, patients, and customers have become different in ways hard to discern.

Now, with the help of the mainstream media, the American people appear to be accepting the current situation without a single cry of anguish or pain. We remain silent — unlike our British cousins, who are taking to the streets in response to a similar assault on the middle and lower classes under David Cameron’s right wing government.

Do not believe that the cause of the furor in the U.K. is simple vandalism; the unrest is the result of the government’s slashing of programs for the middle class, the minorities, the elderly, and the chronically deprived, accentuated by a serious lack of opportunity for the country’s youth, and the decline in health care. All that has ignited the flame. Our collective psyche in the United States will never permit this to happen and should it ever do so there is always NORTHCOM (the United States Northern Command) waiting in the wings.

I am also alarmed by the attitude of my fellow educated progressives, who — despite the quite obvious successes of the Tea Baggers in Congress, especially on the recent budget resolution bill — tend to demean these folks as a gaggle of ignorant troublemakers who will have no long term impact on the nation.

I would call attention to a group that formed in Germany in the 1920s who were ridiculed by the establishment. This group included a wholesale merchant, a second rate Russian architect, a pornographer, a drunken dramatist, a locksmith, a broken down professional soldier, a second rate journalist, a transport pilot, a chicken farmer, and a paperhanger.*

In 1933 these folks asserted themselves quite loudly by confining their critics, largely intellectuals and Social Democrats, to an institution south of Munich. The camp, supervised by the previously mentioned chicken farmer, was known as Dachau. It was not yet a concentration camp for Jews. And, oh yes, the paperhanger would gain even further prominence!

And these folks — as do our politicians today — had their corporate sponsors: Emil Kirdorf, the coal baron; Fritz Thyssen, head of the steel trust; Georg von Schnitzel of I.G. Farben; Carl Beckstein the piano manufacturer; Alfred Krupp of the munitions industry, and many, many bankers.

*For those interested, the Germans I was referring to above were, in order, Rudolph Hess, Alfred Rosenberg, Julius Streiker, Dietrich Eckard, Anton Drexler, Ernst Roehm, Joseph Goebbels, Herman Goering, Heinrich Himmler, and Adolph Hitler.

[Dr. Stephen R. Keister lives in Erie, Pennsylvania. He is a retired physician who is active in health care reform and is a regular contributor to The Rag Blog. Read more articles by Dr. Stephen R. Keister on The Rag Blog]

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Ted McLaughlin : Electoral College? Sis Boom Bah.

Posted on August 17, 2011 by Thorne Dreyer

Electoral College map. Image from Wikimedia Commons.
A level playing field?

The Electoral College and the popular vote

By Ted McLaughlin / The Rag Blog / August 17, 2011

For the last 60 years or more a majority of Americans have been in favor of the direct election of the president, where the candidate with the most votes nationwide would be elected. This has been shown by surveys done by the Gallup Organization since 1944.

But the politicians don’t want that. They know that even if they lose the national vote they can still get their party in the White House by winning enough states to get a majority of the electoral college vote (where each state gets the number of votes equal to its number of senators and representatives, and the District of Columbia gets three votes).

John Quincy Adams, in the 1824 election, was the first president elected without getting more popular votes than his opponent (Andrew Jackson). Jackson bested Adams in both popular and electoral votes. But Jackson was unable to get a majority of electoral votes, and the House of Representatives chose Adams. Since that time, there have been three presidents elected by the electoral college even though their opponents had more popular votes. They are:

  • 1876 — Rutherford B. Hayes (Republican) received fewer popular votes than Samuel J. Tilden (Democrat), but won the electoral college vote 185-184.
  • 1888 — Benjamin Harrison (Republican) received fewer popular votes than Grover Cleveland (Democrat), but won the electoral college vote 233-168.
  • 2000 — George W. Bush (Republican) received fewer popular votes than Al Gore (Democrat), but won the electoral college vote by 271-266.

So we can see that the national popular vote is pretty meaningless. Only the popular vote in each state is important because that determines who gets that state’s electoral votes, and it is those electoral votes that pick the president. There are 538 total electoral votes, and to become president, a candidate must get at least 270 of them.

In 2008, Barack Obama won the electoral college (and the popular) vote. He received 365 electoral college votes to 173 for his opponent, John McCain. The question now is this: can President Obama get another majority of the electoral college vote in 2012? At the current time I would have to give him the advantage, but it is anything but certain. It will depend on who Americans blame for the poor economy and high unemployment (both of which will still be around in November of next year).

At the present time there are 16 states and the District of Columbia that have consistently given President Obama a 50% or better approval rating in the polls. Barring an unforeseen disaster of some kind, it is likely that the president will win the electoral votes of those entities. These electoral entities are (with their electoral votes in parentheses): District of Columbia (3), Connecticut (7), Maryland (10), Delaware (3), New York (29), Massachusetts (11), Hawaii (4), Vermont (3), Illinois (20), New Jersey (14), California (55), Minnesota (10), Rhode Island (4), Maine (4), Michigan (16), Washington (12), and Wisconsin (10).

If President Obama wins all of those, and there’s no real reason to believe he won’t, then he will have 215 electoral votes. That’s a good start, but still 55 votes short of the 270 votes needed. There are 23 other states which are extremely likely to vote for the Republican candidate in 2012. Those states have 168 electoral votes.

That leaves 12 states, with 155 electoral votes, as the so-called “battleground” states. The outcome of the vote in these 12 states is likely to determine the winner in the 2012 presidential race. The states (with their electoral votes) are: Florida (29), Ohio (18), Pennsylvania (20), Iowa (6), Virginia (13), North Carolina (15), Georgia (16), Oregon (7), Nevada (6), Arizona (11), New Mexico (5), and Colorado (9).

Can the president get 55 electoral votes out of those states? Republican governors are giving him some help in a couple of the biggest states — Florida and Ohio. Both elected Republican governors in 2010, but those governors have become very unpopular with the electorate because of their institution of teabagger policies (which have favored the rich and hurt ordinary citizens). Those states could be ready to return to the Democratic column.

Other good possibilities are Oregon, New Mexico, and Colorado. But any way you slice it, it looks like the 2012 election is going to be much closer than the 2008 election was (at least electorally).

Personally, I wish we could elect our president by the popular vote. But that’s not going to happen before the 2012 election (and probably not anytime in the near future either). So for now, I guess we’ll just have to watch and see how the electoral college ball bounces.

[Ted McLaughlin also posts at jobsanger. Read more articles by Ted McLaughlin on The Rag Blog.]

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