Ron Ridenour Reports on May Day in Cuba

Posted on May 3, 2009 by RagBlog

On May Day Havana is a melting pot of labor solidarity. Photo: Bill Hackwell.

May Day 2009 in Cuba
By Ron Ridenour / The Rag Blog / May 2, 2009

Seventeen days after the first May Day of the revolution, May 17, 1959, Fidel Castro proclaimed the first radical land reform to an outburst of great popular joy, as well as a violent reaction from the national landowners and their ally in the United States, the latter continuing its merciless revenge against the revolutionary government of Cuba.

On that day 50 years ago, Fidel said, “A wonderful future awaits our country if we dedicate ourselves to work with all our might.”

The historic and indelible advantages Cubans earned from forging an incipient socialism following the nation’s real independence, with its ensuing products and services for all, was supported by the vast majority of the population, especially in the early years. Just to mention some benefits: free and ample health care and education for all; clothing and food for all babies and school children; free or inexpensive access to all sports and cultural events; the assurance that no resident go without minimal nutrition and a residence; the right for all to obtain work. And the spirit, the spirit of idealistic Don Quixote, and that of the thoroughly dedicated revolutionary guerrilla, El Che.

However, today, fifty years later, there is still a long ways to go to advance the interests, energies and the wisdom of Cuba’s working people. It is a sad fact of reality, which must be confronted today, that many Cubans have not worked “with all our might.”

The nation is fraught with passivity, poor production in quantity and quality. I believe this is so in large part because people lack the real power to make decisions at their work centers, schools, and even in their local governments and provincial and national legislatures.

Cuban Workers March on May Day. Photo: Bill Hackwell.

They are not in control of their work, their production, or of product distribution. Too many people are not contributing to society’s needs; too many people are skimming off the enticing plate of foreign capitalism; too many people have lost their morality, their solidarity and have succumbed to their thirst for the tinted silver plate.

Today, half a century after the great victory, its no secret that many people are tired and discontent. The four main areas of dissatisfaction, as I see it, are: a) low salaries and the two currency system, which separates people; b) shortages of sufficient foodstuffs and other basic goods; c) perpetual lack of sufficient housing made worse by last year’s hurricane destruction; d) insufficient improvement in worker empowerment, with few exceptions.

And then, for many -especially the revolutionary conscious people who linger in the days of Che enthusiasm for creating the new man and woman- there is the crippling effect that the government continues to limit the access to ample information and real debate, hampering an exchange of ideas necessary for them to become empowered.
This has led to a sizeable segment of the population, especially youth, to be disbelievers of what they are told by the government and its mass media. They hunger for more and open information.

There are a few signs of movement, not least among some university students and professors. On this May Day 2009, let us listen carefully and join those voices.

Source / Havana Times

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Saturday Snapshot: The Worker

Posted on May 2, 2009 by RagBlog

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May Day in Europe : Protesters Clash with Riot Police

Posted on May 1, 2009 by Thorne Dreyer

Protesters throw stones at riot police during a May Day rally in Istanbul. Photo by Osman Orsal / Reuters.

Giant demonstrations in France; battles with police in Turkey, Greece and Germany

Protests reflect growing anger in Europe over unemployment and handling of economic crisis

By Robert Tait [in Istanbul] and Angelique Chrisafis [in Paris] / May 1, 2009

May Day protesters clashed with riot police in Turkey, Greece and Germany yesterday while French unions led their biggest ever Labour Day demonstrations amid growing public anger in Europe at unemployment and the handling of global economic crisis.

Turkey’s May Day demonstrations were marred by violence for the third year running as police battled to stop protesters reaching Istanbul’s landmark Taksim Square. Riot officers fired water cannon and teargas canisters in clashes with leftwing demonstrators, some of whom hurled stones and Molotov cocktails and smashed the windows of banks and shops. There were at least 26 arrests and 11 police officers were reported injured.

Some of the worst violence took place in side streets. In the fashionable Cihangir neighbourhood near Taksim, protesters were seen placing large plant pots on the road to use as barricades against police vehicles.

The protesters had been seeking to join an estimated 2,000 trade unionists who had been given permission to hold a rally in Taksim for the first May Day since 1977, when 37 people died after unidentified gunmen opened fire on demonstrators. That event triggered political violence and was seen as a turning point that led to a military coup three years later.

The Turkish government last week bowed to pressure to declare May Day a public holiday and allow limited access to Taksim Square following criticism that police heavy handedness aimed at cordoning it off had been responsible for violence at last year’s event.

In Greece, police clashed with anarchist demonstrators, firing teargas on protesters at Athens Polytechnic.

In Berlin and Hamburg, scattered violence erupted in the early hours of the May Day holiday. More than 50 ­people were detained in Berlin after demonstrators chanting anti-capitalism slogans threw bottles and stones at riot police and torched five cars, 48 police were injured.

France saw a record number of almost 300 street demonstrations with union leaders marching as a united front for the first time since the second world war.

Public support for the marches was over 70% as tension rises over unemployment, factory closures and mass lay-offs. The demonstrations were France’s third national protest over the handling of the economic crisis in four months. Unions will meet on Monday to decide whether to organise a further general strike.

As civil unrest by workers becomes more radical, with gestures such as “bossnapping” and vandalism, the former prime minister Dominique de Villepin has warned of a “revolutionary risk” in France. In one poll yesterday for Challenges magazine, 66% people felt there was a risk of “social explosion” in France over the coming months.

Source / Guardian, U.K.

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Life During Wartime : Condi on Torture

Posted on May 1, 2009 by Thorne Dreyer

Political cartoon by Joshua Brown / Historians Against the War / The Rag Blog

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May Day Special : Carl Davidson on Socialism in Today’s Society

Posted on May 1, 2009 by Thorne Dreyer

May Day poster from Holt Labor Library.

…in light of the faux ‘socialisms’ bandied about in the headlines and sound bytes of the mass media in the wake of the financial crisis, especially the absurd claim in the media of rightwing populism that the Obama administration is Marxist and socialist, I felt something a little more rigorous might be helpful.

By Carl Davidson / The Rag Blog / May 1, 2009

The current discussion around socialism in left and progressive circles in the U.S. needs to be placed in a more substantive arena. This is an effort to do so. I take note in advance of the criticism that the following eleven working hypotheses are rather dry and formal. But in light of the faux “socialisms” bandied about in the headlines and sound bytes of the mass media in the wake of the financial crisis, especially the absurd claim in the media of rightwing populism that the Obama administration is Marxist and socialist, I felt something a little more rigorous might be helpful. Obviously, criticism and commentary is invited.

1. Socialism’s fundamental building blocks are already present in US society. The means of production, for the most part, are fully developed and in fact are stagnating under the political domination of finance capital. The US labor force, again for the most part, is highly skilled at all levels of production, management, marketing, and finance. The kernels of socialist organization are also scattered across the landscape in cooperatives, socially organized human services, and centralized and widespread mass means of many-to-many communication and supply/demand data management. Many earlier attempts at socialism did not have these advantages.

2. Socialism is first of all a democratic political system where the interests and organizations of the working class and its allies have attained and hold the preponderance of political power and thus play the critical leading role in society. It is still a class society, but one in a protracted transition, over hundreds of years, to a future classless society where exploiting class privileges are abolished and classes and class distinctions generally wither away, both nationally and globally.

So socialism will have classes for some time, including some capitalists, because it will be a mixed economy, with both public and private ownership, even as the balance shifts over time. Family farmers and small proprietors will both exist and flourish alongside cooperatives. Innovative ‘high road’ entrepreneurial privately-held firms will compete with publically-own firms, and encouraged to create new wealth within an environmentally regulated and progressively taxed system. Past efforts to build socialism have suffered from aggravated conflict between and among popular classes and lack of emphasis on building wide unity among the people.

3. Socialism at the base is a transitional economic system anchored in the social mode of production brought into being by capitalist development over several centuries. Its economic system is necessarily mixed, and makes use of markets, especially in goods and services, which are regulated, especially regarding the environment. But capital markets and wage-labor markets can be sharply restricted and even abolished in due time. Markets are a function of scarcity, and all economies of any scale in a time of scarcity have them, even if they are disguised as ‘black’ or ‘tiered’ markets.

In addition to regulated markets, socialism will also feature planning, especially on the macro level of infrastructure development, in investment of public assets and funds, and other arenas where markets have failed. Planning will especially be required to face the challenges of uneven development and harsh inequalities on a global scale, as well as the challenge of moving from a carbon and uranium based energy system to one based on renewable green energy sources. The socialisms of the last century fell or stagnated due to failure to develop the proper interplay between plans and markets.

4. Socialism will be anchored in public and worker ownership of the main productive forces and natural resources. This can be achieved by various means: a) buying out major failing corporations at penny stock status, then leasing them back to the unions and having the workers in each firm—one worker, one vote—run them, b) workers directly taking ownership and control over failed and abandoned factories, c) eminent domain seizures of resources and factories, with compensation, otherwise required for the public good, and d) public funding for startups of worker-owned cooperative businesses.

Socialism will also require public ownership of most finance capital institutions, including bringing the Federal Reserve under the Treasury Department and federal ownership. Lease payments from publically owned firms will go into a public investment fund, which will in turn lend money to community and worker owned banks and credit unions. A stock market will still exist for remaining publically traded firms and investments abroad, but will be strictly controlled. A stock transfer tax will be implemented. Gambling in derivatives will be outlawed. Fair trade agreements with other countries will be on a bilateral basis for mutual benefit.

5. Socialism will require democracy in the workplace of public firms and encourage it in all places of work. Workers have the right to independent unions to protect their social and daily interests, in addition to their rights as worker-owners in the governance of their firms. In addition to direct democracy at the plant level, the organizations of the working class also participate in the wider public planning process and thus democratically shape the direction of ongoing development on the macro level as well. Under socialism the government will also serve as the employer-of-last-resort. Minimum living-wage jobs will be provided for all who want to work. Socialism is committed to genuine full employment. Every citizen will have a genuine right to work.

6. Socialism will largely be gained by the working class and it allies winning the battle for democracy in politics and civil society at large, especially taking down the structures and backward laws of class, gender and racial privilege. Women have equal rights with men, and minority nationalities have equal rights with the majority. It also defends equal rights and self-determination among all nations across the globe; no nation can itself be fully free when it oppresses another. Socialism will encourage public citizenship and mass participation at every level, with open information systems, public education and transparency in its procedures. It will need a true multiparty system, with fusion voting, proportional representation and instant runoff.

Given the size and diversity of our country, it is highly unlikely that any single party could adequately represent all popular interests; working class and progressive organizations will need to form common fronts. All trends are guaranteed the right to speak, organize, petition and stand for election. With public financing as an option, socialism can restrict the role of wealth in elections, moving away from a system, in effect, of “one dollar, one vote” and toward a system more reflective of “one person, one vote.” These are the structural measures that can allow the majority of the people, especially the working class and its allies, to secure the political leadership of government and instruments of the state by democratic means, unless these are sabotaged by reaction.

Some socialisms of the past used only limited formal democracy or simply used administrative means to implement goals, with the failure of both the goals and the overall projects. Americans are not likely to be interested in systems with elections where only one party runs and no one can lose.

7. Socialism will be a state power, specifically a democratic political order with a representative government. But the government and state components of the current order, corrupted with the thousand threads connecting it to old ruling class, will have to be broken up and replaced with new ones that are transparent, honest and serve the majority of the people. The US Constitution and Bill of Rights can still be the initial basic organizing principle for a socialist government and state. The democratic rights it has gained over the years will be protected and enhanced. Government will also be needed to organize and finance the social development benefitting the people and the environment already mentioned; but the state power behind the law will be required to compel the honest use of resources and to protect people from criminal elements, individual and organized.

Forces who try to overturn and reverse the new socialist government illegally and in violation of the Constitution will not be able to do so; they will be broken up and brought to justice. Our society will need a state power for some time to come, even as its form changes. Still, government power has limits; under socialism sovereignty resides in the people themselves, and the powers of any government are necessarily restricted and subordinate to the universal and natural rights of all humankind. Attempts to ignore or reject these principles have severely harmed socialist governments and movements in the past.

8. Socialism will be a society in harmony with the natural environment, understanding that all economies are subsets of the eco-system and ignore it at their peril. In its economics, there are no such things as “externalities” to be pushed off downstream or to future generations. The nature of pending planetary disasters necessitates a high level of planning. We need to redesign communities, promote healthier foods, and rebuild sustainable agriculture—all on a global scale with high design, but on a human scale with mass participation of communities in diverse localities.

Socialism will treasure and preserve the diversity of nature’s bounty and end the practice of genetic modification to control the human food supply. We need growth, but intelligent growth in quality and wider knowledge with a lighter environmental footprint. A socialism that simply reproduces the wasteful expansion of an earlier capitalism creates more problems than it solves.

9. Socialism values equality, and will be a society of far greater equality of opportunity, and far less economic inequality. In addition to equal rights before the law, all citizens and residents will have equitable access to a “universal toolbox” of paid-up free public education for all who want to learn, for as far as they want and are able to go; universal public pre-school care; a minimum income, as a social wage, for all who create value, whether in a workplace or otherwise; our notions of socially useful work, activity that creates value, has to be expanded beyond market definitions.

Parents raising children, students learning skills, elders educating and passing traditions to younger generations–all these create value that society can in turn reward. Universal single-payer health care with retirement benefits at the level of a living wage is critical to start. Since everyone has access to employment, the existing welfare system can be abolished; individuals will be free to choose the career path and level of income targets they desire, or not. There are no handouts for those able to work, but there are also no irrational barriers to achievement.

10. Socialism is a society where religion can be freely practiced, or not, and no religion is given any special advantages over any other. Religious freedom remains a fundamental tenant of socialism, but naturally neither its practitioners nor anyone else can deny anyone the benefits and protection of civil and criminal law, especially to women and children.

11. Socialism will require an institution of armed forces. Their mission will be to defend the people and secure their interests against any enemies and help in times of natural disasters. It will not be their task to expand markets abroad and defend the property abroad of the exploiting classes. Soldiers will be allowed to organize and petition for the redress of grievances. Armed forces also include local police, under community control, as well as a greatly reduced prison system, based on the principle of restorative justice, and mainly for the protection of society from individuals inflicted with violent pathologies and criminal practices. Non-violent conflict resolution and community-based rehabilitation will be encouraged, but the need for some coercive means will remain for some time.

[Carl Davidson, a regular contributor to The Rag Blog, is webmaster for SolidarityEconomy.net, where this article was also posted. He also blogs at Keep On Keepin On. Together with Jerry Harris, he is author of Cyber-Radicalism: A New Left for a Global Age.]

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Foodie Friday: Garlic Time

Posted on May 1, 2009 by RagBlog


Garlic: This bud’s for you.
By Janet Gilles / The Rag Blog / May 1, 2009

The new young garlic is coming in now, and now is the time to discover its delicate yet tremendous support for your favorite recipes. Here are a few of mine.

Start out with a fresh young bud of garlic, and slice it thinly, right through all the cloves. Put the sliced pieces in a jar with a cup of the best virgin olive oil you can find. You can keep it a week or so, but then use it up.

Here are some excellent uses:

Hummus

Rinse a large can of garbanzo beans (32 oz) and let drain in a colander. In a blender, put 1/4 cup of the olive oil, 1/4 cup sesame tahini, two tablespoons fresh lemon juice (or lime), one cup fresh water, and half the beans. Maybe less than a teaspoon of a traditional salt, sea salt or mined salt, but not industrial waste that has been cleaned up and bleached. Blend well and then slowly add the rest of the beans, and a bit more water if needed to blend. This is great on toast from your favorite bread, or even served instead of butter with the bread in a meal.

Spaghetti

Make your favorite spaghetti or lasagna recipe, but use no oil. At the table, add the raw garlic olive oil. The oil is far more beneficial and delicious raw. If you buy expensive olive oils, part of what you are paying for is keeping the oil cool during pressing. If you then don’t cook it before serving, you are in for a taste treat. In Spain, where fine olive oils are expected, the oil is placed on the table where everyone can put it on the food raw and delicious, especially with garlic!

Salad Dressing

What to do with the last 1/2 cup of the garlic oil?? How about making a salad and tossing with the oil? Superb. I put a tablespoon of prepared mustard, a teaspoon of soy sauce, and two teaspoons of a good vinegar or lemon juice. Toss with lettuce or fresh young spinach. Top with lightly toasted nuts.

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The Swine Flu Scare, and the 1918 Spanish Flu Pandemic

Posted on May 1, 2009 by Thorne Dreyer

Masked Albertan farmworkers during 1918-1919 Spanish flu pandemic. Photo from Wikipedia Commons.

When the deaths began to pile up, and most of those affected were young healthy people, just like the Spanish flu, it is easy to see how the World Health Organization was afraid they might be looking at another deadly flu pandemic…

By Ted McLaughlin / The Rag Blog / May 1, 2009

In 1918, the Spanish flu raged around the world, killing many millions of people. That pandemic was caused by a strain of the flu virus called H1N1. A few days ago, the H1N1 virus popped up again. This time it was called Swine flu. Although it was believed to have started in Mexico (that’s where the largest number of patients and deaths are so far), it spread quickly and in just a few days has shown up in several countries on several continents.

When the deaths began to pile up, and most of those affected were young healthy people, just like the Spanish flu, it is easy to see how the World Health Organization (WHO) was afraid they might be looking at another deadly flu pandemic — just like the one 91 years ago.

The WHO, the USCDC (Center for Disease Control) and state health departments have quickly taken action to try and head off the feared new pandemic. People with any flu symptoms are urged not to go to work or school. Drugstores are selling out of face masks. Event have been cancelled and schools have been closed. News of the new flu have been covered extensively by all types of media.

These may be reasonable actions or may be overreactions. No one knows yet. But scientists who have been studying the new H1N1 virus think the new flu may be more benign than was previously believed. They have found some small differences between the current version of H1N1 and the 1918 H1N1.

One of these differences is the absence of an amino acid in the current version. This amino acid helped the 1918 virus to replicate itself very rapidly once it entered the lungs. This made the virus extremely deadly. The absence of this amino acid could be why the current version of H1N1 is not as virulent.

This does not mean the virus is not dangerous. It obviously has killed. But it may turn out to be no more deadly than more common strains of flu (which can kill 30,000 to 40,000 people each year in the United States). That is a tragic figure, but nowhere near the death toll racked up by the 1918 Spanish flu.

Another oddity of this new Swine flu is that it is not striking the elderly. Normally, the elderly and children are the groups most likely to die from the flu. Why is this virus different?

The scientists think they may know. There was a flu pandemic in 1957 that killed around 2 million people. It is believed that those who were exposed to the 1957 flu may have an immunity to the current H1N1 virus. That would basically cover those in their mid-fifties and older.

Other than gaining a bit of wisdom, there aren’t a lot of advantages to growing old. But it looks like this could be one of those few advantages.

[Ted McLaughlin also posts at jobsanger, an excellent Texas political blog.]

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Texas Gov. Perry : Secessionist With His Hand Out

Posted on May 1, 2009 by Thorne Dreyer

Tea partiers in Denton, Texas. Photo by josh Berthume / The Texas Observer.

‘According to FEMA’s website, Texas has been the site of 13 “major disaster declarations” since Perry took office… since FEMA’s record-keeping began, Texas has received federal disaster assistance more times than any other state.’

By Jonathan Stein / April 30, 2009

Like everyone else, I was amused when Texas Governor Rick Perry, a Republican, requested help from the CDC with swine flu medication just a week or so after he said that the “federal government has become oppressive” and that if Texans started considering seceding from the union, “who knows what might come out of that.” Perry didn’t seem to realize that throwing off the yoke of the federal government would mean no more help when the going got tough.

Today comes news that Perry has issued a disaster declaration for the state of Texas, the first step in getting assistance from federal agencies like FEMA, DHS, and HHS. I decided to take a look at how many times the federal government has bailed Texas out during Perry’s tenure. The results are pretty incredible.

According to FEMA’s website, Texas has been the site of 13 “major disaster declarations” since Perry took office following George W. Bush’s departure in 2001. That includes five instances of severe storms and flooding, two tropical storms, one “extreme wildfire threat,” and Hurricanes Claudette, Rita, Dolly, and Ike. (Texas received significant federal assistance following Hurricane Katrina, but it did not appear on FEMA’s website in the “major disaster declaration” category.)

David Riedman, a public information specialist at FEMA, explained to me that a major disaster declaration is issued when a governor “determines the state’s resources are overrun.” From that point forward, the federal government, under federal law, is required to reimburse the state for at least 75 percent of the cost of recovery. Help is primarily targeted at rebuilding roads and bridges, debris removal, and reparing damage to public buildings. In the relief efforts that are still under way from the damage done by Hurricane Ike, the federal government is reimbursing Texas for 100 percent of all expenses, according to Riedman.

In fact, since FEMA’s record-keeping began, Texas has received federal disaster assistance more times than any other state.

Source / Mother Jones

Graphic from FEMA’s website.

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Larry Ray : Facing Extinction? Grand Old Party Blues

Posted on April 30, 2009 by Thorne Dreyer

(Only slightly defaced) Mad Hatter Tea Party Engraving by Sir John Tenniel.

Senior Republican Senator Arlen Specter’s recent defection from the GOP to the Democratic Party has caused an uproar in the toxic hard-core of the remaining Republican party. But it has also brought forth thoughtful, constructive commentary from long-time loyal Republican moderates…

By Larry Ray / The Rag Blog / April 30, 2009

Republican diehards at some point must realize that their invitation-only (Tea) party is over. They must first acknowledge that the vast majority of Americans are simply trying to make it through the economic and societal mess left, in large part, by the last eight years of rogue Republican superintendence. The Grand Old Party is way out of touch with political reality and running mostly on bluster and using a worn out old play book of negativity and exclusion.

Defection from the Republican ranks is notable, with tens of thousands of moderate and centrist Republicans leaving their old party and becoming Democrats or independents. Concerned Americans who have already voted their centrist values rather than hewing to the strident, divisive, self-serving GOP party line.

Senior Republican Senator Arlen Specter’s recent defection from the GOP to the Democratic Party has caused an uproar in the toxic hard-core of the remaining Republican party. But it has also brought forth thoughtful, constructive commentary from long-time loyal Republican moderates like Maine Senator Olympia Snow and former New Jersey Republican Governor Christine Todd Whitman. They have both recently written strong, intelligent Op-Ed articles for The New York Times calling for a reconstituted GOP.

Former Governor Whitman minced no words: “Our democracy desperately needs two vibrant parties. And for Republicans to be that second party, we need to remind the nation of the principles for which we once stood.” Whitman listed those principals as a party “committed to such important values as fiscal restraint, less government interference in our everyday lives, environmental policies that promote a balanced approach between protection and economic interest, and a foreign policy that is engaged with the rest of the world.” The present party seems to have dozed through all their noble ideals for at least the past eight years.

Certainly fiscal restraint was not a hallmark of the Bush-Cheney years. The national debt more than doubled, growing from $5.727 trillion when Bush took office to $11.315 trillion as he hastily cobbled together fiscal bailout legislation as he was leaving office. That legislation included yet another provision to raise the debt ceiling in addition to the seven times Bush had already raised the debt ceiling while in office. For six of those eight years he had a Republican-controlled Congress to back up his reckless, endless spending.

No other administration in history had ever run up such national debt. After the total fiscal irresponsibility of a Republican controlled Congress that allowed mega-banks and mortgage giants to run rampant with virtually no supervision, leading to the worst economic downturn since the Great Depression, it is really hard to be lectured by Republicans about “fiscal responsibility.” And we have not mentioned the costs of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars which had totaled some $840,000,000 at the end of Bush’s term. That’s not far from another trillion bucks.

As far as “less government interference in our everyday lives, environmental policies that promote a balanced approach between protection and economic interest, and a foreign policy that is engaged with the rest of the world,” just analyze those yourself.

For starters, there is Bush’s warrant-less wiretapping of American citizens, unprecedented secrecy and torture, trampling the Constitution, wholesale sellout of our national resources to environmentally hostile energy companies, and a foreign policy that, against the advice of “the rest of the world” led to the unilateral invasion of Iraq, a country which had nothing at all to do with the 2001 9/11 attack.

Just what did happen to Governor Whitman’s “principals” for which her GOP once stood?

Clearly the success and amazing leadership exhibited by President Obama in his first three months in office continues to energize the nation, and the world, even as a global flu pandemic threatens. Obama’s team approach to attacking the GOP debris he inherited has garnered international admiration and support. This has all made the frantic, defeated, remaining conservative Republican leadership angry and more irrational than ever.

Instead of accepting reality and trying to formulate a new platform and bring forward constructive centrist ideas and proposals which would positively engage them with the majority party, they simply continue to implode.

The disappearance of the dinosaurs is generally attributed to a huge asteroid colliding with earth wiping them out. Daily Kos today posted an appropriate graphic that Michael Steele and his party might want to put in their offices and contemplate for a while. The clever, telling logo design even has elements of Leader Limbaugh in it.

Gopsosaurus


[Retired journalist Larry Ray is a Texas native and former Austin television news anchor. He also posts at The iHandbill.]

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Dick J. Reavis on Mark Rudd’s ‘Underground,’ and the 1969 SDS Split

Posted on April 30, 2009 by Thorne Dreyer

Bernardine Dohrn, of the Radical Youth Movement faction of SDS — and later of Weatherman — addresses the SDS convention in Chicago in 1969, at which the Progressive Labor Party was “expelled.” Mark Rudd, author of Underground, is to Dohrn’s right.

Within weeks of the collapse of SDS, Rudd, like most of the leadership of RYM, wound up in the bomb-making Weathermen claque. He regrets it: ‘Much of what the Weathermen did,’ he writes, ‘had the opposite effect of what we intended.’

By Dick J. Reavis / The Rag Blog / April 30, 2009

[The Rag Blog has run several articles inspired by Mark Rudd’s new memoir, Underground: My Life with SDS and the Weathermen. Dick J. Reavis adds an interesting element to the discussion: he addresses Rudd’s account of the 1969 split within the Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) that led to the formation of Weatherman – and the eventual demise of SDS — from the perspective of a participant. Links to additional Rag Blog treatment of Rudd’s book follow this article.}

Mark Rudd was the best-known leader of the brief 1968 takeover of Columbia University by its students. He was nationally notorious for a fleeting span of time, and for several years, was on the lam, wanted by the FBI. He has belatedly written a memoir, Underground, which I think deserves a read by all of us who were seriously involved in the Students for a Democratic Society during the group’s waning days.

Rudd’s chief historical contribution, in my view, is a chapter entitled “SDS Split,” his account of the group’s death throes. I have not read all books about the rise and fall of SDS, but I’ve read a few, and Rudd’s work is the first that fully explains what happened there — in accord with my memory as one who was present, anyway.

Rudd admits that from the podium where he stood, he and his cronies estimated that the Progressive Labor Party faction had a majority or near-majority of delegates. The incumbents with whom he ran, most members of the faction that then called itself the Revolutionary Youth Movement, responded by “expelling” the PLers in a fashion which troubles him yet.

“The long-feared split had occurred without any full debate by the whole organization, without any vote taken,” he writes. “It was a fait accompli, a coup of sorts, presented by the RYM faction.”

In other words, those who claimed — some of whom still claim — to have represented the “real” SDS, refused to accede to a changing of the leadership by democratic, if “manipulative” means. They were the tyrants, if any there were, unless “manipulation” is verboten.

As a former member of the PL faction, I could not be honest without admitting that PL manipulated — played by the rules, but played to win — in SDS. But politics, on its face, is nothing but the manipulation of other peoples’ behavior. To whimper about it as Rudd occasionally does in deconstructing SDS factional conflicts is to ask for an organization whose soul would have been naiveté.

Rudd is not a poetic writer, but his memoir is highly readable in part because of its humility. It’s a work of self-doubt and self-criticism. He does not repudiate his opposition to the Vietnam War or savage capitalism, but he does confess, time and again, that he and its other leaders were out of their league. Reading the book made me feel sorry for Mark because he blames himself too much.

Within weeks of the collapse of SDS, Rudd, like most of the leadership of RYM, wound up in the bomb-making Weathermen claque. He regrets it: “Much of what the Weathermen did,” he writes, “had the opposite effect of what we intended. We deorganized SDS while we claimed we were making it stronger; we isolated ourselves from our friends and allies as we helped split the larger antiwar movement around the issue of violence. In general, we played into the hands of the FBI — our sworn enemies. We might as well have been on their payroll.”

PL’s student leaders of the era, who perhaps should speak on the question, haven’t been heard from in 30 years, as far as I know. Nobody I know, including a dozen ex-PLers, has any idea about what has become of them. I was never a full-fledged PLer, and so am perhaps an unauthorized voice. But I was as much a PLer as anybody in Texas, and if I can still presume to speak for what was our faction, I’d say that Rudd and his comrades have long been forgiven, at least by us, their vanquished former rivals.

The split in SDS, I’ve always thought, was nearly inevitable. Smarter leadership could perhaps have prevented it, but only by abdication, and only in a limited way.

The problem was that what might be called the Port Huron generation had by 1969 spent several years protesting the Vietnam War without any significant effect on the nation’s policies or actions. Most of us had graduated or were graduating from college. We were facing 40 years of life as adults and we dreaded the prospect because we didn’t know what we would do, or where we would fit. To guide us, as we’d gone along organizing protests, we’d formed world views that were bigger than the anti-war cause.

Those of us who had become Marxists — in SDS, mainly followers of PL and of the Spartacist League — had adopted a plan that stunted our ambitions and shrunk our sense of self-importance. We’d been convinced that we had to join the industrial working class, from whose ranks we’d agitate for unions and revolution perhaps until we retired or died. PL sloganized our nearly humdrum agenda as “Build a Base in the Working Class.”

Rudd and the Weathermen claimed to be Marxists, but in effect, they substituted American youth, including themselves, for industrial workers, as the agents of socialism. Their attitude, and I’m afraid, even their political wisdom was summed-up in chants like “Oink, oink, bang, bang! Dead pig!” They wanted Revolution Now! — or if not that, Vengeance Now!—and they thought that they could spark it.

The plain facts, seen in retrospect, are that the industrial working class was already doomed to decimation, and that the much-vaunted youth rising was more nearly a generational tiff than a political one. Most of us whom PL sent into factories gave up as soon we saw that the workers wouldn’t listen. Most Weathermen dropped out after learning, as Rudd did, that life on the lam was brutish, lonely and impotent. It hurts to say so, but Bill Clinton and George Bush, and maybe even Nixon and Reagan, gauged the political capacity of our generation far better than we did.

SDS could have survived, I believe, only if it had preserved its innocence, only as a group that held out hope for capitalism and its parties and sought merely to be heard by the people in power. But to have done so, those SDSers who had learned the lessons of the protest movement — that appeals to rulers are routinely ignored or deflected — would have had to distance themselves from their base. We would have had to stand aside while greener students repeated the mistakes that we had made.

Even our abnegation would not have produced an anti-war movement of the scale we had known, because the millions of young whites who attended anti-war protests — the recruiting pool for both the PL and Weathermen factions—returned to purely personal and domestic concerns almost as soon as the draft lottery was instituted.

If anybody is responsible for the death of SDS, it is the officials who, with our concurrence, abolished conscription. They placed the question of war and peace on a new stage, on which we haven’t gotten our footing yet. The hour is late and we are nearing our graves: it’s highly unlikely that we will lead any movements now. If we are as honest as Rudd, we will admit that back in the day, we failed. Neither he nor the rest of us are to blame. It is perhaps heresy to say so in the United States, where optimism is a tenet of a Foucaultian, nearly mandatory faith, but for all of a polity’s problems, solutions are not always at hand.

[Rag Blog contributor Dick J. Reavis is an award-winning journalist, educator and author. He was active in the civil rights movement in the South and with SDS at the University of Texas in Austin. He wrote for Austin’s underground newspaper The Rag, and was a senior editor at Texas Monthly magazine. Dick Reavis’ book, The Ashes of Waco: An Investigation, about the siege and burning of the Branch Davidian compound, was published by Simon and Schuster and may be the definitive work on the subject.]

Find Mark Rudd’s Underground: My Life with SDS and the Weathermen on Amazon.com.

See other Rag Blog articles on Mark Rudd’s memoir and related subject matter:

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Don’t Panic : Seven Facts About ‘Swine Flu’

Posted on April 30, 2009 by Thorne Dreyer

Swine Flu scare: a man wears a mask upon arrival at Gatwick airport in London on a flight from Mexico City. Photo by Dan Kitwood / Getty Images.

Your best defense — your only real defense in any flu season — is a bulletproof immune system.

By Janet Gilles / The Rag Blog / April 30, 2009

With all the sensationalized news about the so-called swine flu flying
around, I figured we’d better set all the facts straight.

1. So far, only 82 cases of so-called swine flu have been definitively identified worldwide, mostly in Mexico (26 confirmed, 7 deaths) and the U.S.(with 40 confirmed, no deaths). (Though about 1600 suspected cases,including 159 deaths, are reported in Mexico.) That does not add up to a pandemic swine flu outbreak.

2. This virus has nothing to do with swine. In fact, it hasn’t been seen in a single animal. And you can’t possibly get it from eating pork.

3. No existing vaccines can prevent this new flu strain. So no matter what you hear — even if it comes from your doctor — don’t get a regularflu shot. They rarely work against seasonal flu… and certainly can’t offer protection from a never-before-seen strain.

4. Speaking of this strain, it doesn’t seem to have come on naturally. According to the World Health Organization (WHO), this particular strain has never before been seen in pigs or people. And according to Reuters, the strain is a “genetic mix”of swine, avian and human flu. Was it created in a lab? We don’t know yet.

5. The drug companies are getting excited… and that’s never a good thing. According to the Associated Press at least one financial analyst estimates up to $388 million worth of Tamiflu sales in the near future –- and that’s without a pandemic outbreak.

6. Let’s not forget that Tamiflu comes with its own problems, including side effects like nausea, vomiting, diarrhea, headache, dizziness, fatigue, cough… the very symptoms you’re trying to avoid. And let’s notforget that Japan banned this drug for children back in 2007, after links to suicidal behavior.

7. Vaccines for this flu strain probably won’t have to jump through all those annoying hurdles like clinical trials for safety and effectiveness. That won’t, however, stop the government from mandating the vaccine for all of us — a very likely scenario. And if the vaccines are actually harmful… killing people, for example…the vaccine makers will be immune from lawsuits.

Your best defense — your only real defense in any flu season — is a bulletproof immune system.

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Universal Health Care : Defining Our National Character

Posted on April 30, 2009 by Thorne Dreyer

Congress and meaningful health care reform. Playing us for a sucker?

Some 25 years ago the insurance industry planned, in concert, to co-opt medical care in the United States, while the medical profession through fear, misinformation, or self interest permitted it to happen.

By Dr. Stephen R. Keister / The Rag Blog / April 30, 2009

P.J. Proudhon wrote in 1858: “Justice is spontaneous respect, guaranteed, for human dignity, in whatever person it may be compromised and under whatever circumstances, and to whatever risk its defense may expose us.”

We who are in favor of single payer/universal health care face the Rubicon. The next month may well define the national character of the United States. Either we join the remainder of the industrialized world in providing decent, affordable health care for all or we retreat into the immoral, deceitful world of producing profits for the insurance companies, their richly paid executives, and the requisite injustice foisted upon the American people by the pharmaceutical industry and those who profit from it.

The concept of single payer/universal care arose with the Physicians for A National Health Program after the original program for universal care was defeated by a Republican Congress and the American Medical Association, when first conceived under the Truman administration. The sole remnant of that suggestion was the adoption of Medicare which has been a first rate success. Any further suggestions to provide anything like humanitarian care have been turned aside by the interests of those involved in profit by limiting care to those who can pay the big bills.

Some 25 years ago the insurance industry planned, in concert, to co-opt medical care in the United States, while the medical profession through fear, misinformation, or self interest permitted it to happen. We now are the only nation in the western world (add in Australia, Taiwan, and Japan) to have health care not for the good of the populace, but for the profits of two of the industries with major lobbying power in Washington. Various surveys show overall health care in this country ranking 26th in the world. A release from the Connecticut Coalition for Universal Health Care brings several startling facts to our attention.

  • The United States ranks 23rd in infant mortality.
  • The United States ranks 20th in life expectancy for women.
  • The United States ranks 21st in life expectancy for men.
  • The United States ranks 50th and 100th in immunizations, depending on the immunization. Overall, 67th, right behind Botswana.
  • Outcome studies on a variety of diseases, such as coronary artery disease, and renal failure show the United States to rank below Canada and a wide variety of industrialized nations.

There are further myths perpetuated by the opponents of universal care.

  • Studies reveal that citizens in universal health care systems have more doctor visits and more hospital days than in the U.S.
  • Around 30% of Americans have problems accessing health care due to payment problems or access to care, far more than in other industrialized countries. About 17% of our population is without health care. About 75% of ill uninsured people have trouble accessing/paying for health care.
  • Comparisons of Difficulties Accessing Care are shown to be greater in the US than in Canada.
  • Access to health care is directly related to income and race in the United States. As a result poor and minorities have poorer health care than the wealthy and the whites.

The propagandists and purveyors of deceit for the insurance industry flatly lie that a universal health care system would interfere with freedom of choice. The facts differ: There would be free choice of health care providers under a single payer, universal system, unlike the current managed system which mandates insurer pre-approval for services, thus undercutting patient confidentiality and taking health care decisions away from the physician and patient.

Although health care provider fees would be set as they are in 90% of cases, providers would have a means of negotiating fees unlike the current managed care system which are set in corporate board rooms with profits, not patient care in mind. Taxes, fees, and benefits would be decided by the public insurer which would be under the control of a diverse board representing consumers, providers, business, and government. It would not be a government controlled system, although the government would have to approve the taxes. The system would be in essence a Public Trust.

To be very specific, I am speaking of two bills before Congress: the Senate bill (S703) introduced by Sen. Bernie Sanders, and the House bill (HR 676) introduced into the by Rep. John Conyers.

On April 27, 2009, The New York Times printed an article titled, “Shortage of Doctors an Obstacle to Obama Goals.” This underlines what I have been pointing out for some time in articles published by The Rag Blog. This is indeed a problem of long standing and is a result of two things: the overt effort by certain elements of the medical/educational establishments to limit the number of practitioners in the United States, and the unbearable cost of medical education in the United States. We badly need primary care physicians and internists. This matter has been emphasized by the American College of Physicians in recent publications. In previous articles I have indicated two approaches, and perhaps both should be implemented. First — as in European nations — government scholarships to pay for qualified candidates in medical school. And second, the formation of a national Medical Academy similar to West Point or Annapolis. Of course, current medical schools could increase enrollment. In either instance, graduates would be directed into primary care in underserved areas for a number of years to be determined.

In addition to the single payer/universal care legislation there are other suggestions pending. One is the concept of “Medicare for All” proposed by President Obama during the campaign. This in essence would expand Medicare into what has been called by some a “public insurance” company, giving citizens the option to continue with their present private plan should they desire, or to enroll in the public plan, with equal or better medical care, but with payment determined by ability to pay. This concept gives the prostitutes of the insurance industry cat fits as they fear that with equal or better care at lesser cost the public will drift to the public plan.

A third option, put forth by Sen. Max Baucus, a major recipient of campaign contributions from the insurance and pharmaceutical industries, calls for continuation of our present system under the control of the insurance cartels, but requiring (yes, requiring) everyone to buy insurance. Of course, this is overt insanity since a comprehensive, decent insurance plan for a family of four costs something like $2400 a month. This is far beyond what the average family can endure. Several constitutional scholars have questioned whether the government can legislate that a citizen buy a product from a private purveyor. Further, the less expensive the required insurance, the less coverage, i.e. yearly deductible of, say, $10,000 — high co-payments, numerous exclusions. This is pure ledger domain, a real con-game.

Just yesterday I became aware of what could become a further complicating ingredient. The TV industry has had three major sources of advertising revenue: automobiles, pharmaceuticals, and food products. The auto revenue is disappearing, which is hurting TV advertising budgets. As we have pointed out previously on the Rag Blog, the United States is one of only two nations in the world that permit advertising for prescription drugs (New Zealand is the other); this is one of the many factors that result in prescription medication in the USA costing twice what it would in most other nations. I have suggested, as have many others, that under a universal health care plan there must be cost control of prescription medications, and further that Congress must redo the farcical “Medicare Prescription Drug Plan” to make it a vehicle for the benefit of the consumer rather than for the insurance and pharmaceutical industries.

Be assured there is a tremendous public relations campaign being launched to mislead the public regarding universal health care. The profiting industries, insurance carriers, and “nonprofits,” supported by the Republican Party and some “blue dog” Democrats, will do their best to deceive you, provide you with misinformation, formulate lies that will make you vote against your best interests. At this time we must stand resolute and do what is best for the common good, as well as for the image of our nation. There will be “letters to the editor” written by ghost writers for the powers that be. There will be ads on TV, done by actors, demeaning health care in other nations, There will be recorded phone calls warning you about the horrors of socialized medicine, telling you that they will take away your right to chose your own doctor.

Finally, remember that proper single payer, universal health care can be enacted at 40% less cost to the tax-payer than any other option. According to Ralph Nader, $225 billion to $250 billion each year is wasted on inefficiency and fraud in billing.

[Dr. Stephen R. Keister, a regular contributor to The Rag Blog, lives in Erie, PA. He is a retired physician who is active in health care reform. His previous articles on The Rag Blog can be found here.]

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