November 8, 2015, Issue 221
ACTIVIST NEWSLETTER
Contact us or subscribe to Newsletter at jacdon@earthlink.net
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Editor's note:
Illness mainly required that we suspend publication of the Activist Newsletter for
the last four months, but now we expect to resume our regular publication
schedule. The Hudson Valley Activist Calendar will be posted in a few days. Let us know what you think about the articles or a particular article.
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CONTENTS
1. Photo of The
Month: Homeless in L.A.
2. Goodbye Middle
Class
3. Working Class
Poverty
4. IMF: Unions Reduce
Inequality
5. At Last Obama
Rejects Keystone XL
6. Climate Change
News Notes
7. The Bureau of Sex
Slavery
8. Problem for U.S.
Power Projection
9. For General and
Complete Disarmament
10. NATO Ponders More Troops On Russian Border
11. The Processed Meat Warning
12. Check It Out
13. Hawkish Hillary
14. What Happened To
Canada's Left?
15. U.S.-Cuba, New Bottle Old Wine
16. Bolivia Climate Meet Blames Capitalism
17. How Should Socialists Relate to Bernie Sanders?
18. Nobel Prize to Inequality Expert
19. New House Speaker, Same Old Policies
———————
1. PHOTO OF THE MONTH
Homeless in Los Angeles
A homeless man sleeps on a bench in Los Angeles, perhaps
unaware of the movie title decorating
his temporary bed. The film is about a man who finds himself stranded and alone on a
hostile planet, not entirely unlike the plight of the sleeping person on the
bench.
Mayor Eric Garcetti has declared a public emergency in response
to an increase in homelessness, and proposed spending $100 million a year to fight it.
Alice Callaghan, a longtime advocate for the homeless on Skid Row, said the
proposed funding would not be nearly enough to stop the loss of affordable
housing, especially in rapidly gentrifying areas downtown and on the west side.
Photograph: Kevork Djansezian/ Getty Images.
———————
2. GOODBYE MIDDLE CLASS
By Michael Snyder
According to a new report released Oct. 25 by the Social
Security Administration, 51% of all workers in the United States make less than
$30,000 a year.
You can’t support a middle class family in America today on this
amount. In order to have a thriving middle class, you have got to have an
economy that produces lots of middle class jobs, and that simply is not
happening in America today. Here are the new facts:
1. 38%
of all American workers made less than $20,000 last year.
2. 51%
of all American workers made less than $30,000 last year.
3. 62%
of all American workers made less than $40,000 last year.
4. 71%
of all American workers made less than $50,000 last year.
If you worked a full-time job at $10 an hour all year long
with two weeks off, you would make approximately $20,000, as do nearly 40% of
American workers. This should tell you something about the quality of the jobs
that our economy is producing at this point, and the quantity of the profits in
capitalist bank accounts
And don't forget the 7.9 million working age Americans that
are officially unemployed right now, not counting the millions of part timers
who really need full time jobs or millions more "discouraged" workers
who have finally given up seeking nonexistent jobs.
— From http://endoftheamericandream.com. The new report is
at
———————
3. WORKING CLASS POVERTY
 |
| Iconic and painfully ironic photograph of a breadline from the 1930s Great Depression. |
Last month Credit Suisse — the Swiss Bank and financial
services company — released its annual Global Wealth Report, and it wasn't good
news for the great majority of the world population.
The big headline grabber was that the bank's analysis showed
that the top 1% of people now own 50% of the world’s wealth.
The report also found that 10% and 20% of the world’s
poorest are in North America and Europe. This means that, there are now more
poor people in the United States and Europe than there are in China, with its population
of over 1.4 billion.
Credit Suisse also estimates that 25% of Americans have a
negative net-worth (assets minus debts).
"If you’ve no debts and have $10 in your pocket you have more
wealth than one-quarter of Americans have collectively."
As it stands today, the U.S. may technically be the richest
country in the world but the vast majority of
the wealth is held in the hands of the tiniest percent; a quarter of the population has negative net worth; the government has $18 trillion in debt and another $42 trillion in unfunded liabilities; the central bank is borderline insolvent, wages are stagnant and inequality is rampant.
the wealth is held in the hands of the tiniest percent; a quarter of the population has negative net worth; the government has $18 trillion in debt and another $42 trillion in unfunded liabilities; the central bank is borderline insolvent, wages are stagnant and inequality is rampant.
— From 10-20-15 Sovereign Man website,
http://www.sovereignman.com/. Simon Black is an
international investor and entrepreneur.
———————
4. IMF: UNIONS REDUCE INEQUALITY
 . |
| Fast food workers demanded $15 an hour and union protection in New York earlier this year. |
A new study from the International
Monetary Fund concludes that unions reduce inequality and foster a
healthier economy for everyone. The
study shows that a reinvigorated labor movement is essential to both a just
economy and a well-functioning democracy. It deserves widespread attention –
and should inspire concerted action.
The study's conclusion by research economists Florence
Jaumotte and Carolina Osorio Buitron is that "the decline in union density
has been strongly associated with the rise of top income inequality” and that
“unionization matters for income distribution."
The researchers examined the relationship between
unionization and income inequality indicators in 20 advanced economies between
1980 and 2010. They found that the very wealthy capture a larger share of an
economy’s overall income when fewer people belong to unions. This was true even
after controlling for other forces that can affect inequality, including
technology, globalization, and financial deregulation.
Inequality is not the only adverse outcome of a weakened
union movement. The IMF authors also conclude that decline in union membership
has led to unions having less influence on public policy. That has led to a
lower real minimum wage, weaker unemployment benefits, and weaker employment
protection laws.
———————
5. AT LAST OBAMA REJECTS KEYSTONE XL
By the Activist Newsletter
After seven years of first seeming to support construction
of the 1,179-mile Keystone XL pipeline from Canada to Texas, then more years
mulling it over for fear of making an unpopular political decision, President
Obama finally rejected the entire proposal Nov. 6.
He did so as a result of mass popular opposition to the
pipeline in the U.S. and because the leading Democratic candidates for the
presidential nomination — Hillary Clinton and Sen. Bernie Sanders — both oppose
the project. The political conditions affecting his legacy have shifted, and it
would hardly do for him to remain noncommittal.
President Obama immediately took total domestic and even
geopolitical credit for his much-delayed decision: "America is now a
global leader when it comes to taking serious action to fight climate
change," he said. "And frankly, approving this project would have undercut
that global leadership."
Tar sands oil is known as a "dirty" fuel. Among
many other negative aspects it spews three times the global warming pollution
of conventional crude oil production. But when Obama first entered office there
was a serious concern that the U.S. required additional external sources of
petroleum.
 |
In Oklahoma a couple of years ago, President Obama seemed quite pleased about building the Keystone Pipeline. Here he is inspecting a pipeline faceility. |
In his first term alone, according to the Wilderness
Society: "The Obama administration has leased 2.5 times more land to oil
and gas drilling than it has set aside for preservation and conservation. In
2011 alone, the Bureau of Land Management held three of its five largest lease
sales for drilling on public lands. The amount of public land protected
by President Obama is far less than his predecessors."
The main credit by far for rejecting Tar Sands oil belongs
to the various environment groups, large and small throughout the U.S., and the
400,000 people who marched against climate change in New York City last year.
Without them, the White House could easily have made the opposite decision
years ago.
Bill McKibben, a tireless advocate for the environment who
helped organize protests against the pipeline, declared hours after the
announcement: "We just made history together. Four years to the day after
we surrounded the White House, President Obama has rejected the tar sands
pipeline! This is huge. Make no mistake: this victory belongs to us, the
movement. President Obama's courage today is a reflection of the courage shown
by thousands of people who have sat in, marched, and organized, across North
America against this pipeline."
— J.A.S.
— J.A.S.
———————
6. CLIMATE CHANGE NEWS NOTES
By the Activist
Newsletter
1. "Pledges by
nations to cut carbon emissions will fall far short of those needed to
prevent global temperatures rising by more than the crucial 2 degrees Celsius
(3.6 degrees Fahrenheit) by the end of the century," reports The Observer (UK) Oct. 10. "This is
the stark conclusion of climate experts who have analyzed submissions in the
run-up to the Paris climate talks in weeks. A rise of 2C is considered the most the Earth could tolerate without
risking catastrophic changes to food production, sea levels, fishing, wildlife,
deserts and water reserves. Even if rises are pegged at 2C, scientists say this
will still destroy most coral reefs and glaciers and melt significant parts of
the Greenland ice cap, bringing major rises in sea levels. 'We have had a global
temperature rise of almost 1C since the industrial revolution and have already
seen widespread impacts that have had real consequences for people,' said
climate expert Professor Chris Field of Stanford University. 'We should
therefore be striving to limit warming to as far below 2C as possible. However,
that will require a level of ambition that we have not yet seen.'
"In advance of the COP21 United Nations climate talks
to be held in Paris Nov. 30-Dec. 11, every country was asked to submit
proposals on cutting use of fossil fuels in order to reduce their emissions of
greenhouses gases and so tackle global warming. The deadline for these pledges
was Oct. 1. A total of 147 nations made submissions, and scientists have since
been totting up how these would affect climate change. They have concluded they
still fall well short of the amount needed to prevent a 2C warming by
2100." Later in October the Grantham Research Institute released its
analysis of the COP21 submissions. They show that the world’s carbon emissions,
currently around 50 billions tons a year, will still rise over the next 15
years, even if all the national pledges made to the UN are implemented. The
institute’s figures suggest they will reach 55 to 60 billon by 2030. It should
be noted that Nov. 4 was the 50th anniversary of the receipt by President
Lyndon Johnson of a warning about climate change by his Science Advisory
Committee.
Climate change campaigners have promised to blockade the UN
climate summit in Paris with what they say will be nonviolent direct action on
a scale Europe has not seen before. Grassroots groups from 350.org to Attac France
are backing the “Climate
Games” event for the landmark December conference.
2. On Oct. 30, 350.org issued a letter signed by 49 climate
campaigners, civil rights organizations, indigenous people’s groups and
others, calling on Attorney General Loretta Lynch to investigate allegations
that the oil giant Exxon Mobil illegally covered up the truth about climate
change. The letter
cited "revelations that the company knew about climate change as early as
the 1970s, but chose to mislead the public about the crisis in order to
maximize their profits from fossil fuels....
Given the damage that has already occurred from climate change that will
certainly occur going forward, these revelations should be viewed with the
utmost apprehension. They are reminiscent — though potentially much greater in
scale — [of] similar revelations about the tobacco industry." Earlier in
the week, first Bernie Sanders and then Hillary Clinton, the leading Democratic
presidential candidates, called for the U.S. government to announce an official
investigation.
3. Many Republican
politicians who deny or minimize climate change are fully aware of the
danger of increasing greenhouse pollution in the atmosphere. According to New York Times economic columnist
Eduardo Porter Oct. 13 there are two main reasons for their opposition to even
small moves to contain climate change. First "trying to curb carbon
emissions to slow the change could destroy the economy," i.e., capitalism
will not risk the possible loss of some immediate profits to save humanity. Second, "small government"
GOP politicians fear a serious carbon limitation program will lead to a
"big government" take over of the economy and the energy sector.
Others are in liege to oil, gas and coal campaign contributors, while some
others think only God can cause climate change.
4. "Climate
conditions in much of the Persian Gulf/Arabian Peninsula area will often
push past the limits of human adaptability by the end of this century under
current greenhouse gas pollution trends," according to an Oct. 27 report
in Nature Climate Change. The
study, by researchers at Loyola Marymount University and MIT, projected
temperature and humidity increases in far southwestern Asia between 2071 and
2100 based on current greenhouse gas emissions trends. It found that a key
threshold of human habitability — essentially heat plus humidity — is expected
to "exceed (the) threshold of human adaptability" several times
across the region over those 30 years. A combined calculation of temperature
and humidity — commonly referred to as mugginess but which the scientists refer
to as "wet-bulb" temperature — exceed 35 degrees Celsius, a level
equivalent to the National Weather Service’s heat index of 165 degrees
Fahrenheit. It also found that temperatures reached on the hottest 5% of summer
days in the region now will become more or less the norm for summers in that
future.
6. Roman Catholic
leaders from around the world made an unprecedented joint appeal Oct. 26 to
a forthcoming United Nations conference on climate change to produce “a truly
transformational” agreement to stem global warming. The Catholic cardinals,
patriarchs and bishops signed the appeal in the Vatican, saying climate change
had to address social justice and that any agreement must be fair and ensure
the poor and most vulnerable were not sold short. Their 10-point document was
based on Pope Francis’ landmark encyclical last June, called "Laudato
Si," which demanded urgent action to save the planet from environmental
ruin. It again put the 1.2 billion-member Catholic Church in the front line of
the debate over the causes of climate change, an active role that some Catholic
conservatives, including U.S. Republican presidential candidate Jeb Bush, have
criticized.
7. Bad and good news
from China.
The bad: China revealed this week that it had
underestimated the amount of coal it burned by 17% in the last decade. Coal is the worst of the
pollutants. This may amount to an
additional 1 billion more tons of CO2 in the atmosphere.
The good: In recent decades China displaced the
U.S. as the world's biggest emitter of greenhouse gases, but now it's cutting
back significantly. The Wall St. Journal
reported recently that newly released research shows "China is on track to
hit its short-term target for reducing carbon emissions. In a newly published
paper, the World Resources Institute said an analysis of unofficial data shows
that by the end of 2014, China may have cut its carbon intensity by 15.5%
compared with 2010 levels. Such a drop would put Beijing well on its way toward
hitting its target for the 12th Five-Year Plan, which calls for carbon intensity
to be lowered 17% by the end of this year compared with 2010. Carbon intensity
measures emissions per unit of GDP, a commonly used metric in China, where
overall emissions of carbon dioxide continue to rise. The story is similar for
overall energy-intensity reduction, the analysis shows. The Washington-based
think tank estimated those levels had fallen 13.4% over the same period, which
would be in line to hit a reduction target of 16% by the end of this
year."
8. Children are
particularly vulnerable to a rising global public health and safety threat
posed by climate change, the American Academy of Pediatrics said in a new
policy statement. CBS News reported Oct. 26: "The group is urging
pediatricians and politicians to work together to solve the crisis and protect
children from the immediate and long-term health
consequences of climate change.... Children may increasingly suffer
from respiratory diseases and asthma
due to decreased air quality, lengthened allergy
seasons and smoke from wildfires,"
the report states. Climate also influences the spread of a number of infectious
diseases that affect children across the world, including malaria,
dengue fever, West Nile virus and Chikungunya, a mosquito-borne virus that has
been spreading through the Caribbean in recent years. In addition, the authors
point to the increased transmission risk of Lyme disease
in the northeastern United States in recent decades, and they suspect rising
temperatures have played a role. Changing weather patterns also threaten
nutrition among children around the world, as severe storms, drought
and loss of fertile land to rising seas challenge farmers' abilities to produce
crops.
———————
7. THE BUREAU OF SEX SLAVERY
 |
| Yazidi women captured and chained last year— then sold as slaves. |
[It may be difficult to read this article by Eve Ensler — the author of The Vagina Monologues, anti-rape
activist, and initiator of the annual One Billion Rising international
female empowerment event throughout the world held around V Day. But read it.
She is referring in part to the several thousands of Yazidi women kidnapped by
the Islamic State who are sold as sex slaves. Ensler dedicated the article to
"Yanar and my sisters in
Iraq and Syria."]
By Eve Ensler
I am thinking of the price list leaked out from the ISIS (the
Islamic State or IS) Sex Slave Market that included women and girls on the same
list as cattle. ISIS needed to impose price controls, as they were worried about
a downturn in their market.
Forty- to 50-year-old women were priced at $41, 30- to
40-year-old women at $62, 20- to 30-year-old women, $82 and 1- to 9-year-old
children, $165. Women over 50 weren’t even listed. They had no market value.
They were discarded like milk cartons with past sale date markers. But they
weren’t simply abandoned in some smelly dung heap of trash. First, they were
probably tortured, beheaded, raped — then thrown into a pile of rotting
corpses. I am thinking of a 1-year-old child’s body for sale and what it would
be like for a hefty, sex-deprived, war-driven 30-year-old soldier to buy her,
package her, take her home like a new television. What would he be feeling or
thinking as he unwrapped her baby flesh and raped her with his penis the size
of her tiny body?
I am thinking that, in 2015, I am actually reading an online
Best Practices for Sex Slavery manual with step-by-step instructions and rules
of how to treat your sex slave published by a very organized wing (Bureau of
Sex Slavery) of a rogue government with the unapologetic mandate of regulating
the raping, beating, buying, and enslaving of women.
Here are examples of the dos and don’ts in the manual: “It
is permissible to beat the female slave as a [form of] darb ta’deeb [disciplinary
beating], [but] it is forbidden to [use] darb al-takseer [literally, breaking
beating], [darb] al-tashaffi [beating for the purpose of achieving
gratification], or [darb] al-ta’dheeb [torture beating]. Further, it is
forbidden to hit the face.”
I am wondering how the ISIS bureaucrats will distinguish
punches, kicks, and choking as acts of discipline from acts of sexual
gratification. Will a team of the Bureau break in and check for hard-ons as the
beatings of slaves occur? And how will they know what actually made the soldier
hard? Many men get turned on solely by the assertion of power. And if it is
determined that the soldier beat, choked or kicked his slave for pleasure, what
will the punishment be? Will the soldier be forced to return the slave and lose
his deposit, pay a steep fine, or simply be made to pray harder?
 |
Twenty Yazidi women
and girls, including one as young as 12, who escaped from ISIS captivity in
April, had been subjected to “systematic rape and other sexual violence.
Photo:
Reuters, Ako Rasheed.
|
But their work and its rapid proliferation don’t exist in an
historical vacuum. It is escalated and legitimized by centuries of rampant
impunity for sexual violence.
This led me to thinking about the comfort women, among the
first modern-day sex slaves. These young girls, mostly from Asia, were abducted
in their prime by the Japanese Imperial Army in World War II to be held in
comfort stations, providing sex to Japanese soldiers in service of their
country. The women were raped sometimes 70 times a day. If they got too tired
and were unable to move, they would be chained to their beds and continued to
be raped like limp sacks. The comfort women were silenced in their shame for 45
years, and then for 25 years since they have marched and stood vigil in the
rain demanding justice. And now only a few remain; while only last month the
Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe sidestepped a direct apology yet again.
I am thinking about how terms like re-raped have now become
re- re- re- re- raped.
I am thinking about the inertia, silence, paralysis that has
stalled and prevented investigation and prosecution into sexual crimes against
Muslim, Croat, and Serb women raped in camps in the former Yugoslavia;
African-American women and girls raped on plantations in the South; Jewish
women and
girls raped in German concentration camps; Native American women and
girls raped on reservations in the United States. I am hearing the cries of the
permanently unsettled ghosts of violated women and girls in Bangladesh, Sri
Lanka, Haiti, Guatemala, the Philippines, Sudan, Chechnya, Nigeria, Colombia,
Nepal, the list goes on. I am thinking of the last eight years I spent in the
Democratic Republic of Congo, where a similar conflagration of predatory
capitalism, centuries of colonialism, endless war and violence in the name of
mineral theft has left thousands of women and girls without organs, sanity,
families or a future. And how terms like re-raped have now become
re-re-re-re-raped.
 |
|
Distrtaught Yazidi man showing photos of his
wife and
children who were captured by ISIS,
|
I am thinking that I have been writing this same piece for
20 years. I have tried it with data and detachment, passion and pleading, and
existential despair. Even now as I write, I wonder if we have evolved a
language to meet this century that would trump a piercing wail.
I am thinking about the failure of every patriarchal
institution to intervene in any meaningful way and how structures like the UN
amplify the problem as peacekeepers, meant to protect the women and girls, are
rapists themselves.
I am thinking of Shock and Awe and how it helped unleash
Rape and Behead. We all knew then in our bodies and beings as we marched
against the pointless, immoral war on Iraq, millions of us disregarded citizens
around the world, what shrapnel-filled hurts and humiliations and darkness
would be torn asunder with those deadly 3,000 U.S. Tomahawk missiles.
I am thinking of religious fundamentalism and God the Father
and how many women have been raped in his name and how many massacred and
murdered. I am thinking about the notion of rape as prayer and a Theology of
Rape, a religion of Rape. And how this practice is one of the largest world
religions, growing hundreds of converts every day as 1 billion women will be
beaten or raped in their lifetime.
I am thinking of the manic speed at which new and grotesque
methods for commodifying and desecrating the bodies of women multiply in a
system where what is most alive, whether the earth or women, must be
objectified and annihilated in order to escalate consumption, growth and
amnesia.
I am thinking of the thousands of young men and women from
the West between the ages of 15 and 20 who signed up to join ISIS. What
compelled them to join? Poverty, alienation, Islamophobia, rage at the
imperialist destruction of their homelands, identity, responsibility?
I am thinking of what my activist sister told me on Skype
from Baghdad this week. “ISIS is a virus and the only thing to do with a virus
is exterminate it.” I am wondering how we exterminate a mindset, bomb a
paradigm, blow up misogyny, racism, capitalism, imperialism, and religious
fundamentalism?
 |
| IS soldiers enter town in triumph. |
Knowing on one hand the only way forward is a total rewriting of the current story, a deep and studied collective examination of the root causes of the various violences in all their economical, psychological, racial, patriarchal parts, which requires time, and at the same moment knowing that here and now 3,000 Yazidi women are being beaten, raped and tortured.
I am thinking of the women, the thousands of women around
this world who have worked endlessly for years and years exhausting every fiber
of their beings to make rape real, to end this pathology of violence and hatred
towards us and no matter how logical we are, how patient, how empathetic, how
many studies we do, how many numbers we show, how many survivors we treat, how
many stories we hear, how many daughters we bury, how many cancers we get, the
war against us rages on, each day more methodical, more brazen, brutal, more
psychotic.
I am thinking that ISIS — like rising sea levels, melting
glaciers, and murderous temperatures — may be the scalding indicator that the
end game for women is near. The day has arrived when eons of women’s rage must
in turn coalesce into a fiery volcanic force, unleashing the global vagina fury
of female goddesses Kali, Oya, Pele, Mami Wata, Hera, Durga, Inanna, and Ixchel
— and let our wrath lead the way.
I am thinking of the famous female Yazidi folk singer Xate
Shingali, and imagining that after finding the heads of her sisters hanging
from poles in her village square, she asked the Kurdish government to arm and
train the women, and how now the Sun Girls, the women’s militia she formed, are
fighting ISIS in the mountains of Sinjar. And in this moment, after years of
working to end violence, I am dreaming of thousands of crates of AK47s, falling
from the skies, landing in the villages and centers and farms and lands of
women, breasted warriors rising in armies for life.
 |
| Yazidi women protest the cruel abductions. |
[This article was originally commissioned for the Italian
daily La Repubblica and was published
in October simultaneously in The Nation
and French Elle.
———————
8. PROBLEM FOR U.S. POWER PROJECTION
 |
| The U.S. Navy reported that aircraft carrier USS Ronald Reagan (above) was closely followed by a Chinese submarine during the weekend of Oct. 24. Days later the Navy reported another "incident" when two Russian bombers passed within a mile of the Reagan. Navy jets were scrambled. |
The Pentagon's ability to project power is the indispensible
tool of American global hegemony and war making. The aircraft carrier, a
floating airbase capable of bringing jet fighters and bombers within range of
virtually all its potential enemies, is one of the most important of the
mechanisms of projection.
The U.S. carrier fleet consists of 10 nuclear fueled and nine
conventionally fueled vessels with one in reserve and three under construction.
The majority of carriers were switched from the Atlantic to the Pacific Ocean a
few years ago as part of Washington's military buildup against China that
accompanies President Obama's "pivot to Asia." China has one old,
second hand carrier, purchased from Russia.
Advances in missile technology, such as those of China over
the last several years, are compromising the viability of the carriers in a
future war against a major power, and this has the Pentagon scurrying for
additional power-projection weapons.
Following is a brief excerpt from an Oct. 19 report from the
Center for a New American Security titled Retreat
from Range: The Rise and Fall of Carrier Aviation, by Jerry Hendrix.
"Over the past 20 years naval aviation in the United
States has undergone a dramatic change in focus and capabilities, and not for
the better. Its historical and traditional focus on long-range capabilities and
the deep strike mission has been overtaken by a concentration on lower maintenance
costs and higher aircraft sortie generation rates.
"American power and permissive environments were
assumed following the end of the Cold War, but the rise of new powers,
including China and its pursuit of anti-access/area-denial (A2/ AD) strategies
and capabilities to include the carrier-killing 1,000 nautical mile (nm) range
Dong Feng-21 anti-ship ballistic missile, now threatens to push the Navy back
beyond the range of its carrier air wings. This push back would limit the
service’s ability to project power and thus undermine the credibility of the
United States and the effectiveness of the global international system of
governance that it, in conjunction with its allies and partners, has labored to
build over the past 70 years....
"Today the Navy faces a future in which its
increasingly expensive carriers have been rendered ineffective by defensive
systems being developed, fielded, and exported by our competitors, but there
are paths back to relevance for these symbols of national greatness if the Navy
makes the right investments. New capabilities in the areas of unmanned systems,
stealth, directed energy, and hypersonics could be combined to provide the
range required to perform deep strike missions.
"Experimentation, such as that seen with the X-47B
demonstration unmanned combat aerial vehicle, as well as the lessons learned
from operating unmanned platforms such as the MQ-9 Reaper over the past decade
of conflict, provide an opportunity for the Navy and the nation to move forward
with an innovative and revitalized approach to sea power and power projection.
Cost curves can be bent, and the combination of mass, range, payload capacity,
low observability, and persistence — capabilities that emerged as critical
during decades of naval air operations — can once again characterize the
carrier air wing of the future, ensuring the carrier’s relevance for decades to
come."
From the Newsletter:
The Pentagon will catch up with new technology. It has been continuously
engaged in wars or planning for the next wars for over 75 years with an
unlimited budget. (The "cutbacks" never hurt.) Adjustments will have
to be made in the existing blueprints for World War III but that's just a
detail.
———————
9. FOR GENERAL AND COMPLETE DISARMAMENT
By the Activist Newsletter
From the late 1950s until the Soviet Union was collapsing in
1989, the Moscow government repeatedly called for general and complete
disarmament between the two superpowers and worldwide as well. The idea was not
just to ban nuclear weapons but murderous conventional arms as well, such as
those that killed 27 million Soviet people in World War II.
The United States would have none of it, the objective being
to destroy the USSR one way or another.
The Soviet Union disappeared over a quarter-century ago, in part after
undermining its smaller economy trying to keep up with America's war spending.
Today's world not only has nuclear arms but its modern conventional armaments
are just about as lethal. Indeed the U.S. is engaged in a hugely expensive
project to upgrade its nuclear weapons and delivery systems to maintain its
considerable advantage over Russia and China.
An Oct. 22 article in the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists has
revived the call for general and complete disarmament. It was written by
University of Chicago Professor Kennette Benedict, who served until this year
as executive director and publisher of the Bulletin. Following are excerpts
from her article:
Interest is growing in tackling one of the most difficult
goals in international relations, general and complete disarmament — that is,
getting rid of not just nuclear warheads and other weapons of mass destruction,
but reducing and controlling conventional weapons too.
In light of successful negotiations with Iran to stop its
nuclear weapons program, and bolstered by UN passage of the conventional arms
trade treaty in 2014, advocates of general disarmament believe it is time to
try to move forward. Why now? Because nuclear disarmament today looks less
"utopian" than ever, and as the world gets closer to that
long-cherished goal, it could become more likely that we will see a large-scale
war with conventional weapons. As the United Nations’ founders understood, we
can’t really have one kind of disarmament without the other.
In a sign of renewed interest in the concept of general and
complete disarmament, more than 40 people, including UN ambassadors, attended
an October presentation by researchers from the University of London School of
Oriental and African Studies on ways to advance the cause, held during the
annual UN General Assembly meeting of the First Committee on Disarmament and
International Security.
Meanwhile, the United Nations’ Conference on Disarmament,
the 65-country forum responsible for treaties banning biological and chemical
weapons, continues to list complete and general disarmament on its formal
agenda. The Conference on Disarmament is not known for swift action — its
last-negotiated treaty, the 1996 Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty, has not
yet entered into force — and its "consensus rule" will likely
continue to hinder progress. Nevertheless, some member states and civil society
organizations hungry for new ways to tackle general disarmament are watching
closely as the UN Office for Disarmament Affairs tries to re-energize this
deadlocked body and move the agenda forward.
There are several reasons that the call for general
disarmament may get some traction now. One is that Cold War dynamics have
waned.... In the post-Cold War era... the rationale for focusing narrowly on
nuclear arms control lacks the force it had at the height of East-West
hostilities in the 1960s and '70s.
Now, with Cold War pressures behind us, there is growing
recognition that nuclear arms control is no longer enough; it is finally being
recognized for what it always was — a way of establishing floors for the number
of nuclear weapons each country may retain, rather than a ceiling that will
continually be lowered. As such, more countries are calling for enforcement of
the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty’s provisions for general and complete
disarmament. Nearly all countries have chosen to forgo nuclear weapons, and in
exchange, they demand that the nuclear weapon states disarm.
There has also emerged, in the last three years, a movement
to eliminate nuclear weapons based on their humanitarian effects. Three
UN-sponsored conferences have convened leaders from the developing world and
humanitarian organizations who argue that even just a few nuclear weapon
detonations would devastate countries and the networks that support aid and
economic development.
A movement focused on the humanitarian effects of war,
though, could naturally come to encompass suffering caused by all types of
weapons. While the use of even one nuclear bomb would maim or kill the vast
majority of people in a region, the current use of powerful conventional
weapons is killing hundreds of thousands, destroying cities, collapsing
societies, and spurring mass migrations that are causing suffering and
disruption in nearly all countries. While nuclear weapon disarmament still
demands the world’s attention, the humanitarian motivation for general
disarmament is plain.
10. MORE NATO TROOPS TORUSSIAN BORDER?
By Stratfor, Oct. 29
NATO countries are discussing boosting the numbers of troops
stationed in member states bordering Russia, as well as placing them under
formal alliance command, unnamed diplomats and military officers said, the Wall
Street Journal reported Oct. 29. Under one plan, NATO would have a battalion
(around 800-1,000 soldiers) in each of the three Baltic states, as well as
Poland.
The United States and other allies support the idea, but
German officials are reportedly concerned about treating Russia as a permanent
enemy or locking it out of Europe — though Berlin may back a more modest
deployment.
The new plans are at an early stage, officials with the
alliance said, and no deployments are likely before the July 2016 summit of
NATO leaders in Warsaw. U.S. officials also are reportedly open to putting the
150 U.S. troops currently deployed in each of the four states under NATO command
and rotating in additional troops. The plan would also require other alliance
members with troops deployed in these states to agree to NATO command. The alliance
is finding itself with renewed purpose after suffering considerable angst over
its perceived demise and challenges to its reason for being.
— There is an interesting 3-minute video of a State
Department news conference on whether Russia is moving closer to NATO or NATO
is moving closer to Russia. It's at:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LexhW8SCM2c#t=63
11. THE PROCESSED
MEAT WARNING
By the Editor of the
Activist Newsletter
The WHO's report also said that fresh red meat like steaks
and roasts are considered probable causes of cancer. (Red meat, obviously, is
any meat that’s a dark red color before it’s cooked.)
The meat industry is howling about the WHO report, just as
the tobacco industry did when health authorities defined cigarettes to be a
cause of cancer, and it is expected to go all-out with years of pro-processed
meat propaganda. Processed meat eaters are not in immediate danger. Like
cigarettes it may take years or decades to fall victim, if ever. But like
millions of former cigarette smokers many probably will quit too late and develop
serious health problems.
As an old man who became a lifelong vegetarian in my teens I
am moved to recommend that those of you thinking of cutting down on meat
consider at least a partial or better yet a full vegetarian or vegan diet.
There are four reasons for doing so.
1. A
non-meat diet is proven to be much
healthier. (Also, vegetarian/vegan cuisine is varied and delicious, and
less costly than meat.)
2.
For anyone interested in the environment, it
is a fact the raising of farmed animals for human consumption is a significant component of global warming.
3.
Over 56 billion farmed animals are killed every year by humans, most with inhumane cruelty. They feel pain, of course. More
than 3,000 animals die every second in slaughterhouses around the world. These
shocking figures do not even include fish and other sea creatures whose deaths
are so great they are only measured in tons.
4.
Human beings in the 21st century can
survive quite well — even better healthwise — without the mass slaughter of
farmed animals, each of which is a thinking,
feeling individual who wants to live a natural and safe life.
———————
12. CHECK IT OUT
By The Activist
Newsletter
1. For an excellent analysis of the just released full text
of the Trans Pacific Partnership view Lori Wallach, director of Public Citizen’s
Global Trade Watch and a leading TPP critic, on the November 6 broadcast of
Democracy Now at: http://www.democracynow.org/2015/11/6/full_text_of_tpp_trade_deal?utm_source=Democracy+Now%21&utm_campaign=da3352b3dd-Daily_Digest&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_fa2346a853-da3352b3dd-190207537
2. Playwright and anti-rape activist Eve Ensler was in Cuba
the last couple of weeks and presided over a very successful presentation of The Vagina Monologues. She will return in March to participate in that country's first
One Billion Rising celebration. Here she is in a 2-minute video from Havana
that's well worth watching. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NsRY4xNHbp4
3. Mumia Abu Jamal spoke up in a 2:23 minute commentary from
prison Oct. 28 about the white cop who dragged the black teen girl across the classroom
floor before handcuffing her. It's at: http://www.prisonradio.org/media/audio/mumia/disturbing-peace-223-mumia-abu-jamal
4. The great progressive Israeli journalist and Ha’aretz
columnist Gideon Levy spoke Oct. 19 at Greenburgh Town Hall in Westchester
County, N.Y. He was the guest of Jewish Voice for Peace and Westpac — and he
had to face down hecklers, of course. Levy argued that Israel had demolished
any hope of a two-state solution and advocated for a single state for both Jews
and Palestinians with equality for all. A brief article and a video of the
meeting is at Mondoweiss: http://mondoweiss.net/2015/10/facing-hecklers-gideon#sthash.hOdNV2Q1.dpuf
———————
13. HAWKISH HILLARY
By Medea Benjamin
As the first Democratic presidential debate drew to a close,
moderator Anderson Cooper posed a question to Hillary Clinton: How might her
presidency differ from Barack Obama’s?
Clinton smiled. “Well, I think it’s pretty obvious,” she replied
to rapturous applause. “Being the first woman president would be quite a change
from the presidents we’ve had.”
 |
| Hillary Clinton, hawkish on Iraq, Iran and Libya. More to come. |
Clinton,
it seems, failed to learn anything after supporting the disastrous Iraq War,
which plunged a huge swath of the Middle East into chaos and cost her the 2008
Democratic presidential nomination. Instead of embracing diplomacy, she
continued to champion ill-conceived military interventions as secretary of
state.
In 2011, when the Arab Spring appeared to come to Libya,
Clinton was the Obama administration’s most forceful advocate for intervening
to overthrow Muammar Gaddafi. She even out-hawked
Robert Gates, the Pentagon chief first appointed by George W. Bush
who was less than enthusiastic about going to war in Libya.
Ironically, the political grief Clinton has suffered over
the subsequent attack on a U.S. diplomatic outpost in Benghazi, which killed
four Americans, might never have occurred if Clinton had opted against
intervening in Libya’s civil war.
While House Republicans recently spent 11 hours
relentlessly drilling Clinton about Benghazi and her personal email account,
the larger disaster by far is the postwar chaos that’s left Libya without a
functioning government, overrun by feuding warlords and extremist militants,
including Islamic State.
Clinton favors greater military intervention in Syria’s
civil war, too. In her presidential bid, she’s joined hawkish Republican
senators like John McCain and Lindsey Graham in supporting the creation of a no-fly zone
over the country.
That puts her at odds not only with
President Barack Obama, but also with her Democratic presidential
rival Bernie Sanders, who warned
that it could “get us more deeply involved in that horrible civil war and lead
to a never-ending US entanglement in that region.”
Clinton did end up supporting the administration’s Iran
nuclear deal, but her support came with a history of bellicose baggage. Back in
2008, for example, she warned that Washington could “totally
obliterate“ Iran. During that presidential campaign, she chided
Obama as “naïve” and
“irresponsible” for wanting to engage the country diplomatically.
Even after the nuclear agreement was sealed, she struck a
bullying tone: “I don’t believe Iran is our partner in this agreement,” Clinton
insisted. “Iran is the subject of the agreement.” She added that she
“won’t hesitate to take military action” if it falls through....
When it comes to war and peace, it might not matter too much
if a Republican or Hillary Clinton wins the White House. In either case, the
winner will be the military-industrial complex.
— From Other Words, Oct. 28. Medea Benjamin is the cofounder
of the peace group CODEPINK and the human
rights group Global Exchange. She is
the author of Drone
Warfare: Killing by Remote Control.
———————
14. WHAT HAPPENED TO CANADA'S LEFT?
By teleSUR (The Empire Files, Abby Martin)
 |
| Liberal Justin Trudeau won. |
Canadians spoke out
Oct. 19 and finally voted out the Conservative Party, which had been leading
the country for almost a decade, putting the Liberals, under leader Justin
Trudeau, in power. He assumed office Nov. 4.
The results were not
entirely surprising, but may have come as a shock to some after the left-leaning
New Democratic Party (NDP) — which had been the official opposition for the
past four years — started the election campaign with a massive lead in the
polls. By the end of the night, however, the social democrats had dropped from
95 to 44 seats in Parliament.
When campaigning
first began some three months ago, the NDP looked set to take the elections. It
was easy. More than 70% of Canadians already said they wanted a change from the
Conservative government. Prime Minister Stephen Harper had been moving toward
decreasing civil liberties in the name of "fighting terrorism" and
backing away from Canada’s environmental and human rights commitments, all
while diminishing corporate taxes and social services.
The NDP already had
a major advantage to be positioned as the party to fulfill the desire for
change, having been the official opposition party since 2011, for the first
time in its history. During the 2011 election, the party and then leader Jack
Layton were seen by many as promoting progressive policies against the
Conservatives.
Historically, the
NDP has always been relegated to third or fourth party status in the Canadian
parliament. Though it has held power in some provinces, it had never really
been considered a serious contender for federal power. This was left to the
Liberal and Conservative parties. Though there were occasions that the NDP
supported minority Liberal governments, helping usher in progressive policies,
such as Canada’s famous single-payer healthcare system.
Under the leadership
of Layton — who died from cancer shortly after the last election — the NDP
opposed the conservative government on key areas including extending Canada's
mission in Afghanistan, and the 2006 and 2007 federal budgets, which included
major spending cuts.
Many Canadians
believed in the party's progressive positions and turned out to support it in
the 2011 elections, voting in a record 103 seats for the NDP.
Canadians seemed
inspired by stances taken by Layton’s successor, Tom Mulcair, particularly his
principled opposition in the House of Commons to Harper’s right-wing agenda.
The NDP’s opposition to the highly-controversial Bill C-51, which opponents
accused of attacking civil liberties, led to a significant bump in support.
 |
| Thomas Mulclair, NDP leader. |
However, the NDP
during the election failed to live up to its progressive standards in the 2015
election, instead putting forward a tepid platform. In the words of the
left-wing icon and activist Naomi Klein, "The Libs ran left and soared.
The NDP moved right and crashed. Now it's up to the public to turn cynical
strategy into action," she wrote on her Facebook page.
David McNally,
Political Science Professor at Toronto's York University, also said the NDP
loss of support was due to its lack of a progressive campaign. The NDP
"saw the polls early on and believed that the desire to get rid of Harper
was so strong that they, being the number two, believed that all they had to do
was avoid scaring people off," McNally told teleSUR.
“The last thing they
wanted to do was come up with some bold message that might peel away from 5-10%
of voters who would otherwise go to them. So they sat on their hands and put
out the most cautious message, thinking the election was theirs," added
McNally.
This strategy by the
NDP leadership was predicated on the assumption that the Liberals would
continue to flounder under Trudeau. However the Liberal leader exceeded
expectations on the campaign trail. Meanwhile, the NDP itself inadvertently
helped to foster Trudeau’s success by joining with the Conservatives in trying
to paint the young Trudeau as too inexperienced to lead. (He is 43, a member of
parliament and is the son of late Prime Minister, Pierre Trudeau.
One of the most
important policy decisions that shaped the NDP's campaign was its decision to maintain a balanced budget,
continuing on with the Conservative policy of putting budget cuts ahead of
social services or stimulating the economy.
The Liberals on the
other hand, took a more drastic stance. The party promised to put austerity
measures aside and run a $7.5 Canadian billion (some US$5.8 billion) deficit
per year for the next four years in order to stimulate the economy. The party
also announced that it would be able to balance its budget at the end of that
four-year term, which it planned to achieve by implementing other measures such
as taxing the wealthiest Canadians, and cracking down on tax evasion.
The federal Liberal
party seemingly took a page from their provincial cousins in the province of
Ontario, who in the 2014 election also ran a campaign to the left of the NDP.
That strategy also worked for the Ontario Liberals, who were given a majority
government.
According to the
polls, things started to turn sour for the NDP in late August after the party
announced its commitment to balance the budget. They started out leading the
three parties, but ended in third place in the last polls before the elections,
hovering around 24%.
“It was a disaster
and it should have been predictable, because what we saw in this campaign, was
once again an attempt by our social democrats, the New Democratic Party, to run
as fiscal conservatives,” said McNally.
The NDP also seemed
to misjudge the mood of voters, who did not just want a change of prime
minister but a new direction for the country, something the Liberals
successfully tapped into.
The NDP found itself
in the difficult position of trying to convince voters they were the more
progressive choice, even though the rival Liberals sounded more progressive
than the NDP.
Realizing its
mistake, the NDP tried, in vain, to restore its position as the left
alternative, coming out strongly against the Trans-Pacific Partnership. With
the shift coming with only two weeks left in the campaign, it proved to be too
little, too late.
On election day, the
party came out with just under 20% of the vote, being left with only 44 seats
in Parliament, after having lost half of its previous seats.
“The Left blew an
opportunity in this election,” said McNally.
 |
|
Conservative Steven
Harper, illustration by Victor Juhasz for the National Observer. |
The Liberals'
overwhelming victory, which outpaced predictions, is also attributed to the
collapse of the NDP vote. When electors saw that the alternative to Harper’s
Conservatives was the Liberal party and not the NDP, many who intended to vote
for the NDP switched to the Liberals at the last minute.
“The NDP generals
are fighting the last war, by which I mean they're trying to preserve their
credibility in the age of neoliberalism,” said McNally, referring to the
party's determination to stick to a balanced budget. “The new war is how do you
capture the imagination of millions of people who are fed up with austerity,
who are fed up with massive levels of youth unemployment, who are fed up with
growing social inequality and deteriorating public services.”
According to
McNally, Britain's Jeremy Corbyn represents the new war, as does the U.S.'s
Bernie Sanders, Syriza in Greece and Podemos in Spain.
After failing to
lead the party into government, NDP leader Mulcair is widely expected to resign
or be pushed out. However many of the leftist NDP members of Parliament, such
as Megan Leslie and Peggy Nash, lost their seats Monday, meaning a leftist
contender for leader is not immediately obvious.
It will be
interesting now to see how Canada's left and its social democratic party will
respond.
Trudeau made an
excellent beginning on his first day in office by introducing his relatively
young 30-member cabinet, half of which is composed of women. Asked by the press
why he did so he replied: "Because it's 2015."
—From teleSUR,
http://www.telesurtv.net/english/analysis/What-Happened-to-Canadas-Left--20151020-0020.html
———————
15. U.S.-CUBA, NEW
BOTTLE OLD WINE
By the National
Network on Cuba
As it has every year for the past 24 consecutive years, the
United Nations on October 27 condemned
the United States blockade of Cuba. As usual, Washington has been isolated in its opposition to the resolution, with only Israel voting with the U.S. to uphold the cruel and genocidal policy. The final vote total is 191 in favor of the resolution, 2 against the resolution, and zero abstentions. The resolution titled: “Necessity of Ending the Economic, Commercial and Financial Blockade Imposed by the United States of America against Cuba” outlines the monetary and humanitarian damages of the U.S. policy.
the United States blockade of Cuba. As usual, Washington has been isolated in its opposition to the resolution, with only Israel voting with the U.S. to uphold the cruel and genocidal policy. The final vote total is 191 in favor of the resolution, 2 against the resolution, and zero abstentions. The resolution titled: “Necessity of Ending the Economic, Commercial and Financial Blockade Imposed by the United States of America against Cuba” outlines the monetary and humanitarian damages of the U.S. policy.
 |
| The brothers Castro, Fidel and Raul, viva Cuba. |
While the past year has seen the reopening of embassies, the
return to Cuba of the remaining 3 Cuban 5 prisoners, the removal of Cuba from
the "state sponsor of terrorism" list [where it never belonged in the
first place], Washington's basic policy and intent has not changed. The
travel ban and economic blockade remain legislatively intact. The U.S.
continues to prohibit the sale of medicines to Cuba, and has imposed
multi-million dollar fines on financial institutions doing business in Cuba.
The White House has even threatened to revoke the tax exempt status of
IFCO/Pastors for Peace — one of the most respected and experienced Cuba
advocacy groups.
From the Activist
Newsletter: Lastly, although the tactics are changing, Washington's
ultimate goal of facilitating the return of capitalism to Cuba remains
unchanged.
———————
16. BOLIVIA CLIMATE
MEET BLAMES CAPITALISM
 |
"Caring for Mother Earth is a moral issue," UN Secretary-General Ban ki-Moon (left) told the leftist Climate Change Conference in Bolivia. "We must change how we use Mother Earth's resources, and live in a manner that is sustainable." Here, he is pictured with Bolivian President Evo Morales, the host of the conference. Photo by Reuters.
|
Decrying capitalism as a "threat to life," an
estimated 7,000 environmentalists, farmers, and Indigenous activists from 40
countries convened in the Bolivian town of Tiquipaya for the Oct. 10-11World
People's Conference on Climate Change, aiming to elevate the demands of social
movements and developing countries in the lead-up to upcoming United
Nations-led climate talks.
"Capitalism is Mother Earth's cancer," Bolivian
President Evo Morales told the crowd, which also heard
over the course of the three-day
conference from United Nations Secretary-General Ban ki-Moon
as well as other Latin American leaders.
The people's summit produced a 12-point
declaration that will be presented during the COP21 climate negotiations
taking place Nov, 30-Dec. 11 in Paris, France, during which 200 countries will
attempt to cement an agreement to curb global warming. The COP21 agenda has
been criticized for its sidestepping of issues like the role of capitalism in
climate change and for the robust involvement of multinational corporations in
the talks.
According to a translation from the Spanish, the Declaración
de Tiquipaya calls for, among other things:
The creation of an international tribunal with "a
binding legal capacity to prevent, prosecute and punish states that pollute and
cause climate change by action or omission"; compensation from wealthy
countries to developing nations for "climate, social, and ecological debt
accumulated over time"; reclamation of the global commons; and wholesale
rejection of global capitalist and colonialist systems.
"We demand that the Paris Agreement does address the
structural causes of capitalism," the declaration reads. "It does not
have to be an agreement that reinforces the capitalist model, through more
market mechanisms, allowing volunteer commitments, encouraging the private
sector and strengthening patriarchy and neo-colonialism."
———————
17. HOW SHOULD
SOCIALISTS RELATE TO BERNIE?
 |
| Bernie Sanders leads march of supporters in Des Moines, Iowa, Oct. 24. |
[Whether or not he gains the Democratic presidential
nomination, much less the presidency, Sen. Bernie Sanders has achieved three
significant firsts: 1. He has at least temporarily liberated Democratic Party
liberals from the silence imposed upon them by party leaders for decades. 2.
His popularity has forced Hilary Clinton to adopt several liberal programs of
her own for the election. 3. Most importantly he has responded to anger over
increasing inequality and stagnant wages in America by openly campaigning as a
socialist, and this has not interfered with his growing popularity. What are
left socialists to think of this? Here is the analysis by a central leader of
the Party for Socialism and Liberation.]
By Brian Becker
It may seem on the surface to be an irony, although not
surprising, that there is confusion among socialist and communist forces about
the sudden popularity of the self-proclaimed democratic-socialist Bernie
Sanders in his bid for the Democratic Party presidential nomination for the
2016 election.
The confusion is not so much about how to politically
characterize Sanders himself. As Eli Stephens and others have written, Sanders’
definition of “democratic socialism” is akin to the social-democratic models of
the capitalist countries in northern Europe. Also, the term “democratic
socialist” is well-understood in bourgeois circles to mean “not communist,” not
a supporter of the Soviet Union or Cuba, and not a revolutionary.
 |
| Bernie as Mayor of Burlington, VT, 1981. |
Like all political phenomena, the Sanders campaign has
contradictory features. Revolutionary people advocating for the revival and
popularization of socialism need to evaluate their tactics in light of the
fundamental or primary contradiction of the Sanders campaign. What is it?
On the one hand, the Sanders campaign has suddenly elevated
the issue of socialism as an issue and topic of discussion for millions of his
grassroots supporters who are not yet socialists themselves. Since anti-communist
ideology has reigned supreme as the unofficial religion of the United States
for the last 70 years, that has to be considered a very good thing.
On the other hand, Sanders is not a revolutionary socialist
but rather an advocate for progressive reforms within capitalism, and he is not
an anti-imperialist. In fact, he wrongly defines socialism, equating it with
all public institutions, such as libraries, fire departments and even the
police. His record in the U.S. Senate shows that he functions as a traditional
liberal politician and not a radical internationalist when it comes to U.S.
foreign policy.
Which side of this contradiction is primary? That millions
of people are now talking about socialism without fear of reprisal and the
hysteria that has dominated American political life for three generations? Or
is it that Sanders is misleading people about what “real socialism” stands for?
This is the source of confusion, or what I think is actually
the mis-leadership in tactics of some of the more radical socialist groups and
individuals. Many of these people are well-intentioned and some consider
themselves “revolutionaries,” although that label can only be verified in the
heat of battles yet to come.
The Party for Socialism and Liberation believes that the
fundamental or primary side of the contradiction that socialists need to
emphasize is the vast opportunity created by the explosive growth and
surprising popularity of the Sanders campaign.
In the very first question posed in the Democratic Party
televised debate, a debate watched by millions of people, Sanders was asked:
Moderator: Senator Sanders. A Gallup poll says half the
country would not put a socialist in the White House. You call yourself a
democratic socialist. How can any kind of socialist win a general election in
the United States?
Sanders: Well, we’re gonna win because first, we’re gonna
explain what democratic socialism is. And what democratic socialism is about is
saying that it is immoral and wrong that the top one-tenth of 1 percent in this
country own almost 90 percent—almost—own almost as much wealth as the bottom 90
percent. That it is wrong, today, in a rigged economy, that 57 percent of all
new income is going to the top 1 percent. That when you look around the world, you
see every other major country providing health care to all people as a right,
except the United States.… ”
That he had to open the TV debate to explain why socialism
wasn’t so unpopular that he could never win the general election did not hurt
Sanders. In fact, starting right at that moment and over the next few hours,
more than 44,000 individuals sent small on-line donations to his campaign
(averaging about $31 per donation) for a total of $1.3 million.
It also led to an increase in the interest in socialism.
During the debate, a Merriam-Webster editor tweeted, “‘Socialism’ spiking off
the charts @MerriamWebster. #DemDebate.” Meaning, an unprecedented number of
people were looking up the definition of “socialism” on the Merriam-Webster
website.
Sanders was featured on the front cover of Time magazine.
The photo showed a smiling, friendly appearing older man (Sanders is 73) and
the headline read: “Socialize this, America.”
Millions of people are hearing about “socialism” in a
non-demonized way for the first time. This offers an immense opportunity for
socialists to popularize socialism in the general public. Millions of people
are for the first time in their lives wondering whether socialism might be
valid even if they don’t yet know fully what it means or is.
Yet some radical socialists have emphasized in their
agitation how “bad” Sanders is on some issues, or that he is not a “real
socialist.”
That is not the best way to reach the millions of new
Sanders supporters who for the first time in their lives want a "democratic socialist" to become president of the United States.
Our tactics and our agitation
must be aimed at the Sanders supporters. As Sanders gets more visibility, more
people who until now never heard of him, will support his message. For many, it
is their first step in supporting a political campaign that is connected in any
way to "socialism." It is the enthusiasm and devotion to the campaign by
millions of grassroots people that has allowed Sanders to become a national
phenomenon even though the capitalist-owned media wrote him off as a fringe
candidate just a few months ago. He doesn’t get corporate funding. It is
hundreds of thousands people sending him small donations that has allowed him
to keep up with Clinton.
The National Nurses United is the only national labor union
to openly endorse Sanders so far. But support for Sanders is growing among
rank-and-file workers in many unions as well as more left-wing organizers and
militants.
Sanders, stunning the capitalist political establishment,
has been drawing far and away the largest and most enthusiastic crowds of any
candidate, Democrat or Republican—28,000 in Portland Ore., 27,000 in Los
Angeles, 15,000 in Seattle, more than 10,000 each in Wisconsin and Arizona, and
8,000 in Dallas. Thousands more have packed convention centers and auditoriums
in Louisiana, Colorado, Vermont, Iowa and other states.
Historical context is necessary to appreciate the
significance of this. We don’t mean ancient history but the history of the past
70 years—since 1945.
Not just radical socialists and revolutionary communists but
even the most moderate socialists have been forced to swim in a very small pond
since the brutal ascension of anti-communism as the country’s unofficial
religion 70 years ago virtually destroyed the socialist left. Not only was the
left censored from above but leftists self-censored and didn’t talk about
socialism on the job with their co-workers, their neighbors, and even their
families. People didn’t want to get fired or risk social isolation. Socialism
became a dirty word. And as such, the ideas of socialism were cast as deeply
negative and forced into a nearly underground existence in the “Free World.”
The Communist Party, which had 100,000 members at the end of
World War II, was declared illegal by the U.S. Congress. The top leaders of the
CP were sent to prison for being traitors. The United States labor movement was
purged of leftists. Anti-communist loyalty oaths were a requirement for
employment. Thousands of communists and socialists went into exile and fled the
United States. In Hollywood and in academia, progressive, left and socialist
personalities were blacklisted. The House Un-American Activities Committee
subpoenaed people from every walk of life and demanded that they renounce
socialism and “name names” of people who may have signed a petition for peace,
in opposition to nuclear weapons, for peaceful relations with the Soviet Union.
Martin Luther King Jr. and every other civil rights leader who emerged in the
1950s and 1960s was condemned by J. Edgar Hoover and the FBI as being puppets
of communist agitators.
Socialism and communism were purged from “American”
politics. Its history textbooks scandalized and defamed socialism. The left was
purged not only from present politics but from American history, leaving
several generations with ignorance or hatred of socialism. Instead of
celebrating International Working Women’s Day we had Mother’s Day. Mayday
became Law and Order Day.
The impact of anti-communism for the last 70 years in the
United States should not be underestimated. Not only was the left censored, but
it learned as a matter of survival to engage in self-censorship. To learn more
about this process, see Abby Martin’s recent 28-minute episode from the Empire
Files [1] .
Now the pond has
suddenly got bigger. Millions of people are now supporting someone who calls
himself a socialist. Socialism, it turns out, is not that scary to them. That’s
something new and its importance must be grasped.
Does it really make sense tactically for more radical
socialists, at this moment and under these circumstances, to emphasize that
Sanders “isn’t really a socialist”? Or that Sanders is just a big fraud and
this entire mass outpouring is just a clever “sheepdogging” manipulation by the
Democratic Party designed to keep the more progressive part of the population
voting Democrat in 2016.
Does it make any tactical sense, if you want to truly
popularize socialism with the millions of new Sanders supporters who are
supporting him precisely because they want change and see a “socialist”
candidate as the vehicle for change, that they are just really wasting their
time or worse.?
No, it does not make sense. Perhaps it is a psychological
fear by small fish who have been comfortably swimming in small ponds for so
long that they fear the scary waves and powerful currents of larger bodies of
water or simply being swallowed up by the bigger fish. Or, in the case of some
very militant and radical young people who are unfamiliar with the crushing
suppression of the socialist and communist left in the U.S., they are
understandably turned off by and not seeing past Sanders’ liberalism.
Again, we need to emphasize with them that the issue isn’t about Sanders the person but about the new opportunity that has arisen to reach millions of people who are just thinking about socialism in a positive way for the first time. Bourgeois politics is highly personalized and focuses attention on the individual candidate. People make judgments on the individual candidate: Are they bad or good or even great? Socialist tactics reject this method. A tactical orientation should be based on the larger political trends, opportunities and challenges.
The ruling class wants the Sanders campaign to be diminished
not because he is a dangerous revolutionary socialist, which he is not, but
because his campaign is starting to legitimize a broader discussion of what’s
wrong with the U.S. economic system and to generate enthusiasm for socialism
even if the term is still vague and not well understood.
This campaign comes just three years after U.S.
law-enforcement agencies arrested 7,000 people and broke up their encampments
in public places. “We are the 99%” caught on like wildfire. It scared the hell
out of the bankers, and the government went into mobilization mode, sending its
cops to break up the movement. It was not because the Occupy Movement was a
revolutionary danger to the capitalist elites. It was a peaceful and loosely
organized protest movement. But the ruling class was alarmed that any radical
expression against Wall Street’s devastating war against the people can quickly
morph into a genuinely revolutionary movement that does threaten their power.
The FBI and Homeland Security sprang into action and in coordination with local
police departments carried out a nationwide crackdown that snuffed out the Occupy
movement. For all their talk about democracy, the U.S. capitalist establishment
really fears that any expression of real democracy, in the streets or even in
the electoral arena, will lead to a new wave of radical and revolutionary
struggle similar to what happened in the 1930s or 1960s.
Sanders is running as a Democrat even though he officially
is identified as an independent in the Senate. He said that he could never
stand a chance of winning the general election unless he ran as a Democrat. He
has also promised to support whomever the Democratic Party finally selects as
its candidate for the 2016 presidential election. He vows that he will not run
as an independent candidate if he doesn’t win the Democratic nomination,
because, he asserts, that would split the Democratic Party vote and allow the
right-wing Republican candidate to win the White House. Given how racist,
anti-women and anti-immigrant the Republican candidates are, this will make
sense to many of his supporters.
But there will also be many Sanders supporters who will not
want to support Hillary Clinton or any other representative of the
Democratic Party establishment entirely enmeshed with Wall Street, the most
powerful corporate elites, the NSA, and the Military-Industrial Complex. They
will want Sanders to run as an independent and break from the Democrats if he
doesn’t win the nomination. They are not supporting Sanders because he is a
Democrat but because he is running on a progressive platform that is far to the
left of the other politicians. But, come August 2016, if Sanders has failed in
his bid he promises to do what Jesse Jackson did in 1984 and 1988. That is, to
fold his progressive tent and tell his followers to vote for the establishment
Democratic Party candidates so as to prevent the Republicans from capturing the
White House.
This is the dilemma created for leftists by the carefully
constructed political system in the United States.
In a parliamentary system,
such as exists in most of the capitalist countries, Sanders could run
independently from the Democrats and in competition with the Democrats and
still win a sizable part of the general vote and a significant number of
parliamentary seats. Any combination of parties and factions that combine to
constitute a majority in parliament then select the head of state.
But in the U.S. system, it is winner take all. Thus, the
“logic” of lesser-evil politics is reinforced. If the Democratic Party loses,
then the even more right-wing Republicans take hold of the government. Most
leftist and progressive people end up voting for the Democrats out of fear that
the Republicans will even more greatly eviscerate the rights of the people.
U.S. electoral politics, by virtue of how the system is constructed, therefore
leaves a fundamentally narrow field for radical socialist and revolutionary
politics. And yet, it is precisely in the electoral arena, that “socialism” is
being revived in the United States after its decades of near-underground or
small-pond existence.
The PSL has its own election campaign with Gloria La Riva
and Eugene Puryear running for president and vice-president. The campaign has a
10-point program. It is clearly more far reaching than the Sanders campaign
program, and unlike Sanders’ program it is consistently anti-imperialist.
Of course, we will point out all the political differences
that we have with the Sanders campaign. We are in complete solidarity with the
Palestinian people and their right to be self-determining rather than living
under brutal occupation, for instance. Also, Sanders wants a carefully crafted
and cautiously used drone program, but the PSL condemns the Pentagon drone
program because it constitutes a war crime and reflects the criminal nature of
U.S. imperialism. The PSL does not want the Wall Street banks to be more
regulated, as Sanders proposes, but rather seized as criminal enterprises. The
top bankers’ greed and avarice has made millions of people jobless, thrown
millions from their homes, and impoverished a vast swath of the population so
that a small cabal of billionaires become richer still. They should be
identified as the biggest criminals in the country and punished as such. The
PSL is campaigning to make a job or an income a constitutional right and to
make health care, childcare services, and education entirely free.
Finally, what else can supporters of the PSL’s Gloria La
Riva and Eugene Puryear’s presidential election campaign say to Sanders
supporters? We can point out why they should not follow Sanders’ advice when he
tells his supporters that they should ultimately back any other Democratic
Party nominee in the event that Sanders doesn’t win the nomination. We should
argue that Bernie Sanders’ program for guaranteed health care, college
education and other major reforms is what’s important and if Sanders is truly
serious about winning these reforms, he should run as an independent. Millions
of people are excited about his campaign. If the ruling class succeeds in
installing Clinton or some other “acceptable” pro-Wall Street candidate instead
of Sanders, however, why should his supporters be told to back a political
candidate who has no intention of implementing such needed reforms. If Sanders
ran as an independent candidate for president, as a “democratic socialist,” he
would receive the votes of millions of people. That would be something really
significant in creating a new political dynamic in the United States.
If Sanders, now with the backing of millions of people, ran
as an independent, that would put him on a collision course with the Democratic
Party establishment. We can point out that the Democratic Party, even when it
controlled both the White House and both houses of Congress in 2009 and 2010,
refused to pass single-payer health care or comprehensive immigration reform or
relief for staggering student debt. The Democrats, when they were completely in
charge, refused to implement any of the reforms Sanders is advocating. Instead,
the Democratic Party leadership chose to bail out Wall Street bankers with
taxpayers’ money while millions of working families were evicted from their
homes by the very same bankers. The Democratic Party is not the vehicle for the
desperately needed changes that Sanders is advocating. It is a ruling-class
party completely under the control of the biggest banks and corporations.
If Bernie Sanders chooses to run as a political independent,
that would enrage the capitalist leaders of the Democratic Party. He would be
condemned by the political establishment, which would demonize and red bait him
to no end. Sanders has pledged that he won’t run as an independent, but his
supporters should demand it. If he ends up backing the Democratic Party
establishment candidate, his supporters should stay true to the fight and vote
for socialist and truly progressive candidates in 2016.
[1] The History of
Anti-Communism — America's Unoffcial Religion, http://www.liberationnews.org/americas-unofficial-religion-war-idea-empire_file006/
———————
18. NOBEL PRIZE TO INEQUALITY EXPERT
Princeton Professor Angus Deaton was awarded the 2015 Nobel
Memorial Prize in Economics Oct. 12. His specialty is
microeconomics, human consumption, welfare and poverty. In 2013 The
British-American economist published his latest book, The Great Escape: Health, Wealth, and the Origins of Inequality.
With frequent reports of U.S. billionaires buying
politicians, including Presidential candidates, House and Senate members, as
well as increasing inequality and poverty throughout the country, we find the
following three paragraphs from The Great
Escape to be particularly relevant to America's collapsing democracy.
"If democracy becomes plutocracy (government by the
wealthy), those who are not rich are effectively disenfranchised. Justice Louis
Brandeis famously argued that the United States could have either democracy or
wealth concentrated in the hands of a few, but not both. The political equality
that is required by democracy is always under threat from economic inequality,
and the more extreme the economic inequality, the greater the threat to democracy.
"If democracy is compromised, there is a direct loss of
wellbeing because people have good reason to value their ability to participate
in political life, and the loss of that ability is instrumental in threatening
other harm.
"The very wealthy have little need for state-provided
education or health care; they have every reason to support cuts in Medicare
and to fight any increase in taxes. They have even less reason to support
health insurance for everyone, or to worry about the low quality of public schools
that plagues much of the country. They will oppose any regulation of banks that
restricts profits, even if it helps those who cannot cover their mortgages or
protects the public against predatory lending, deceptive advertising, or even a
repetition of the financial crash."
This is one reason why there have been virtually no
substantial social programs to benefit the American people in 45 years. Yes,
there's Obamacare — originally a Republican program with a number of
shortcomings copied by President Obama. It's simply no match for President
Truman's unsuccessful efforts to introduce a single-payer system 68 years ago.
The U.S. isn't behind on this because it lacks money. The problem is the money
is in the wrong hands.
———————
19. NEW HOUSE SPEAKER,
SAME OLD POLICIES
After much chaos and dysfunction, the House of
Representatives elected Rep. Paul Ryan from Wisconsin to be Speaker of the
House. The Republicans have lauded their new Speaker as their “thought
leader” who creates the “blueprints”
for policies: he was Mitt Romney’s running mate in 2012 and chairman of the
Ways and Means Committee. Much of the GOP rhetoric around
Ryan’s run for speaker has suggested that he will usher in a new era of
moderate, pragmatic, and effective leadership that will be both good for the
economy and the American people.
Despite GOP rhetoric,
the reality of Paul Ryan’s record, including his signature 2014 budget,
suggests that his Speakership will be full of the same, extreme Republican
policies that undermine working families to help the rich get richer — policies
that voters already rejected in the 2012 election [but the GOP grabbed both
chambers of Congress in 2014). Here are a few reminders of Ryan’s record:
Bad for low-income
families. Ryan tried to paint himself as an anti-poverty crusader, by
embarking on poverty tour
in 2014 and releasing a report documenting
his concerns about poverty. But in reality, Ryan creates policies that cut
programs that are vital for working families and blames poverty on personal
failures, claiming that it is the result of a “culture
problem.” The bulk of the Ryan Budget’s spending cuts. 69%,
come from gutting programs that serve low-income people. And after his 2014
poverty tour, he proposed
slashing $125 billion from the Supplemental Nutritional Assistance
Program (SNAP), also known a food stamps, over the next 10 years, and
converting it to a flat-funded block grant. He also proposed cuts to Medicaid,
a critical program that provides health care to 70 million
Americans, including low-income children, seniors, and people with
disabilities. And of course, Ryan wants to repeal the Affordable Care Act,
which has provided health insurance for 17.6 million
people.
 |
| Rep. Paul Ryan Drawing by Johb Springs, NYRB |
age 55 or older from Medicare cuts and instead advocated for forcing seniors to pay more by radically altering Medicare. He also supports turning Medicare into a voucher system, which would
Bad for women.
Ryan’s dismal record on women’s issues has earned him a 0% score
from Planned Parenthood on women’s issues. He has voted
numerous
times
to defund Planned Parenthood and is a leading
advocate for personhood bills. And though Paul Ryan used his power
to guarantee time with his family despite his Speaker duties, he refuses to
support legislation, such as guaranteed paid sick and paid family leave, to
help others have this right. Unlike Paul Ryan, no one else has federally
guaranteed paid time off for illness,
holidays,
vacation,
or the arrival of a
new child. Women usually still most feel the burden of
this lack of paid leave. More than 40% of mothers have cut back on work to care
for family. And as new research shows that boosting
women’s earnings helps slow the growth of inequality, it is apparent
that Paul Ryan’s extremism hurts not only women, but also the economy.
Bad for the economy.
Ryan’s budgets and rhetoric tout the same failed trickle-down economic theories
that have only helped the rich get even richer but leave middle class and working
families behind. His budget proposed giving
millionaires a tax cut of at least $200,000. And analyses indicate,
there is no way to implement Ryan’s tax cuts for millionaires in a
deficit-neutral way without
raising taxes on the middle class. Ryan also advocates for austerity
measures that have never worked
and would hurt the
economy. And yet, his budget advocates for enormous cuts to
investments in education, science, and other programs that benefit the middle
class.
