The Class Line
All written history, including yesterday's newspaper, is the story of the unfolding class struggle...
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What's here: Will Military Conscription Come Back? AFL-CIO Lauds Pope Define Problem before Applying Solution Bankruptcy Bill is Class War Stock Market Drops for Good Reason Democracy Threatened Texas Leads in Prisoners Democracy Eroded Texas Ethics? Oklahoma Has Proud History Texas Legislature Starves Schools, Fattens Wealthy What Do You Expect? Crash is About Racism USSR Still Scares Target Store Communists Get Together The Odor from Austin
Texas Legislature: From the Ridiculous to the Sub-Slime
On one hand, desperate Texans can now count the days until the end of the official bi-annual session of the Texas Legislature. Governor Perry, who is likely to say anything, says he's not going to call any special session. We can thank our lucky Lone Stars that they have so little official time left to assault the state's working people, but will we ever recover from this session?
Students, parents, and school employees are praying that Education Deform and the Pro-Corporate Tax Bill (call 'em what they really are!) will not pass in the final rush. Assuming that they do pass, public education will fall backwards by decades and the state's working people will be crushed under new regressive taxation while the filthy-rich employers get more Corporate Welfare.
Injured workers, who were robbed in 1989 of the right to get legal representation against corporate lawyers, are now losing their right to get a doctor. They will take what the corporations allow them! Those dying of asbestos poisoning will find their compensation restricted.
Possibly the most odious of all Texas legislation was sneaked through by amendment this week. It will curtail the right to vote by requiring picture ID at the polls. For those disabled, blind, and older Texans who do not have the convenience of drivers' licenses, this is a dreadful blow. For everybody who believes in democracy, it's a shameful assault and a heinous historical trend!
In another historical first, the Texas Legislature is creating the nation's first official dumping ground for tons of nuclear waste. Further ugliness comes with the passage of legislation declaring war on the rights of gays and pregnant women.
The Legislature is delivering a kick in the eyes to helpless unemployed Texans by removing their first week of unemployment benefits. As they aren't reducing corporations' unemployment insurance rates, one can only assume they are doing this just to be nasty.
Short of actually building concentration camps and ovens, it is hard to
imagine a legislative body so insanely committed to carrying out the ruling
class war against working people. At the same time, the state's certifiably
insane rightwingers will undoubtedly accuse the Legislature of "liberalism"
because they specifically allow Texans more "rights" to drive
faster, drink more beer, and beat small children.
State Meeting Felt Great!
I'm very grateful to the members and guests who attended our Texas Communist Party state meeting on Saturday, May 28. There's a certain relaxation that only comes to Texas political activists when they are in the company of co-thinkers. It's unobtainable any other way. It feels great!
I appreciated the frank analysis of just how horrible the Texas legislature and so many developments in Texas government are, but I appreciated even more the confidence that our comrades showed in facing these challenges through unified mass struggle! I don't think there was a sad or defeated statement made!
Yes, we acknowledged the terrible statistics of our state that were recently published in Texas Monthly. They said we are 50th on health insurance, 48th on union density, 45-to 50th on worker benefits, 46th in hourly wages, and at or near the very bottom on executions, toxics, hunger, and pollution. But these situations and policies are being forced on the working people of Texas, they are no reflection or intentions of working people.
Bush didn't even do that well in his home state during the last election. He lost in Travis County and in the Valley, and he only broke even in Dallas, while Dallas Democrats actually made some gains. It's true that the school finance and the general finance bills in the State Lege are tsunami-level disasters, but it's also true that the teachers, community groups, and organized labor are fighting against them. It's true that there are many signs of a growing unity that, if it continues, will become irresistible!
We added the movement for immigrant rights as an important Texas situation. National priorities include peace and Social Security. We've seen more progressive activities with more young people getting involved. We've seen more and more people willing to learn Spanish and work with Latino issues. We've seen big increases in the clout of the growing Latino population.
We talked about modernizing our state organization. It can't be denied that technology has presented the workers' movement with great new challenges and opportunities. It's inspiring to see Texas Communists evaluating the situation, which isn't as bad as it might look at first, and applying themselves to solutions that can really work. I'm grateful to be part of it, and I really liked that meeting!
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Anticommunism Still Thriving at Target Store
by Vic Tomas
Target Corporation, a chain of retail stores all over Texas, carried, until
recently, several shirts by Roma Atletica featuring variations on Soviet
logos. I purchased a black shirt emblazoned with the letters CCCP on 14
May, and returned to the store on 15 May to purchase a red shirt featuring
a hammer and sickle. However, I was
informed that it had been recalled and that the sale could not be completed.
A worker assigned to the men's department told me that all material with a Soviet logo was recalled, but that no other products from the particular product line were pulled and slated for destruction. The worker additionally commented that no structural defect was identified in the product.
An internet search revealed a letter by Fox News columnist Radley Balko to the CEO of Target Corporation concerning these products. In the letter, dated 9 May, Balko shames the retail giant for "celebrating the brutal, oppressive, and murderous regime that was Soviet communism" by selling the aforementioned shirts. Balko's site featured a means for like-minded individuals to send their own identical letters to the company. Apparently the website's initiative has stirred up sufficient fracas to cause Target to recall its Soviet-styled merchandise.
It is extremely ironic that Target, which sells shirts in its men's department that feature racist humor, objectify women, insult the mentally challenged, advertise alcohol products and abuse, and invoke toilet humor and phallic imagery, removed a relatively innocuous design from its shelves due to apparent political pressures.
Balko's blog carries out a long, unoriginal, rant against all things communist.
By Balko's logic, all American imagery ought to be viewed as morally corrupt.
In its self-righteous march to the Pacific Ocean, the United States Government,
spearheaded by its military, authorized and encouraged the slaying of countless
millions of Native Americans, the destruction of nearly all indigenous language
and
culture, and the systematic rape of the countryside. The United States has
also engaged in wars of outright imperialism such as the Mexican War and
Spanish-American War.
Moreover, industrial capitalism, so ardently defended by the government
of this nation, has maintained the working class of the world in a state
of perpetual slavery which is, in many ways, worse than the serfdom of feudal
Europe. Inquiries by the curious into trends in capitalism will show that
for the past five centuries the
capitalist system has undeniably benefited the rare few in whose possession
lie the means of production, while the workers of the world remain in a
state of de facto slavery.
As the United States is the self-proclaimed defender of this way of life, its imagery ought to be tied as much to the gross failings of capitalism as images of Soviet Russia are bound to negative interpretations of communism.
In the case of Target, the speed with which these items were cleared from
store shelves and slated for destruction is alarming. It indicates a profound
anticommunist vein of thought still pulsing in
the fiber of this country--an intolerant, defensive manner of thinking that
finds no offense in toilet humor, the objectification of women, or making
fun of the mentally retarded, but which will viciously root
out and destroy a challenge to its political status quo. Big money still
operates in this country from a position of rabid defensiveness in the face
of even the casual proliferation of communist imagery.
Balko concludes his letter to Target by stating that "there would have been no place for Target in the old Soviet Union." From this worker's perspective, a world without Target sounds like a damn fine place to be.
Does
this shirt scare you?
It scares Target!
Crash into Racism
By Jim Lane
Movie Review: Crash, Co-written & Directed by Paul Haggis. Starring Don Cheadle, Matt Dillon, Thandie Newton and about half of Hollywood's "A" list
All of the many characters in Crash are strongly affected by racism in contemporary Los Angeles. Racism holds them together and pulls them apart. The individual vignettes concerning the characters wouldn't even intersect if it weren't for racism. The movie, and all its viewers, explore different aspects of racism.
Like racism itself, Crash isn't a simple or easy movie. It isn't even easy to follow. In fact, you might want to remember who is driving which car at the beginning of the film: the dead policeman had the Mercedes, the prosecutor and the film executive both had Lincoln Navigators, and the older Asian man had the white van.
There is nothing uplifting about the topic, but some of the stories about how people deal with racism are. Something much more uplifting is the actual tribute the movie pays to family ties. Half of the characters might be stone racists, but they are devoted family members. All of the characters are just as involved, if not more involved, in family emotions as they are in racism.
Don't go to see Crash because Sandra Bullock is in it, because she barely is. The long list of million-dollar actors and actresses also make very short appearances. The big name that might draw you in is writer/director Paul Haggis, who just made his fame as writer of Million Dollar Baby.
It's not a dirty movie like its 1996 namesake, Crash starring James
Spader and Holly Hunter and directed by David Cronenburg. I liked that one,
too, but it has no relationship to the new movie except that they both have
a lot of automobiles.
Care to Make a Prediction?
The Texas Legislature is doing just what it set out to do without regard for the needs and desires of ordinary Texans. At all federal levels, the same thing is true. If anything, judges and government officials are actually performing worse misdeeds than most of us anticipated. I expect nothing less than "more of the same" as critical votes on Social Security, CAFTA, civil rights, women's rights, and basic democracy come up.
There are two reasons for my grim outlook. The first one is simple to explain. Like any accountant, I tend to make conservative estimates. In other words, I "expect the worst and hope for the best."
The other reason has to do with my own interpretation of worldwide class behavior in this period. I believe that the ruling classes of the mighty industrialized countries are acting out of desperation. The inevitable outcome of capitalism's "invisible hand" (the market) is that sellers and producers have to expand beyond their original markets. It isn't complicated to explain the economics: sellers and producers have to make a profit in order to continue operating. In other words, they have to sell the products for more than they paid their workers; consequently, those workers cannot buy up all of the products. Hence, capitalists have to sell at least part of their product to a constantly expanding market.
They resolve this critical need for expanding markets by shipping products elsewhere under conditions favorable to their continued profits. When they have saturated every market they can reach, they have to take some market away from other producers and sellers. World Wars result. Not complicated. Horrendous, but not complicated.
Capitalists can delay their inevitable predilection for world war by increasing the exploitation of their workers, and we are seeing this with a vengeance in the U.S. The "solution" of driving the workers into the ground, though, is a temporary fix for capitalism. Eventually, they still have to engage in imperialism.
Changing a country like the United States into the police state needed to carry out aggressive imperialism is not a simple nor easy task for capitalists. They run the risk that the workers and their allies will draw together and resist. That's where we come in, you and I.
--Jim Lane
Legislature Makes Bad on Its Threats
As they threatened and we feared, the Texas Legislature is starving the state's youth and fattening its wealthy property holders, even as this is written. Apparently, HB#2, the school finance bill, is done. HB#3, state tax bill, is underway. The schools will still be inadequately funded, the fat cats will get some more tax cut gravy, and the rest of us will see record-setting regressive taxation.
Could the ruling class assault against the working people be made any more
clear?
Oklahoma Has Proud History
I'll be visiting activists and socialists in Oklahoma this week. It's a state that's greatly misunderstood. There is a great deal in their history to be proud of, but it's not in the official history.
The official history says that the Native Americans of the five civilized tribes were slaveholders like any other southerners, and that they fought willingly for the slavocracy. A closer look would show that many Native Americans opposed slavery and the confederacy. They fought for their ideas across the Indian Territory. Some of them tried to get to Kansas, and were slaughtered. A case could be made for the idea that the mixed-bloods who had finagled their way to tribal power were the tiny group of slaveholders who actively supported the Confederacy, while the full-bloods, such as Crazy Snake and his followers, opposed them.
After the Civil War, free African Americans flocked to Oklahoma as a safe haven from southern racism.
The official history ignores the tremendous role that labor played in the Constitutional Convention leading to statehood. The AF of L claimed to have written 70% of the Oklahoma constitution. It was a pro-labor, anti-corporate, document relatively free of racism and male chauvinism, but it was transformed once the oil companies asserted their power. Oklahomans managed to hold out against "right to work/scab" laws from 1947 until the Bush period, when the oil companies finally got their way. Texas, by contrast, embraced "right to work/scab" even before it was legalized under federal law.
Frank Little, one of the greatest figures in American labor history, claimed Oklahoma as his home. His IWW was successful in Oklahoma for years after their influence in other states was destroyed by post-war reaction.
The official history ignores the anti-war efforts of Oklahomans. When the draft was initiated in 1917, sharecroppers all over the state, but especially in the poorest, Southeast, section, armed themselves against the federal government.
The official history talks about the destitute farmers who left Oklahoma during the Great Depression, but it doesn't talk about the fight that Oklahomans carried out in their own state. In Oklahoma City, for example, socialists helped people who helped themselves to groceries. Woody Guthrie wrote "Union Maid" as a tribute to an organizer in Oklahoma City.
I'll be happy to be among them this week.
"Ethics? We don't need no stinking Ethics!" Says Texas Lege
On April 28, Texas Democrats and some honest Republicans tried to save an ethics bill from suffocating in the Elections Committee, which is headed by people loyal to Speaker Tom Craddick. Craddick outmaneuvered them, and Texas ethics, for the time being, is expected to expire. It's a slightly smaller version of what has been going on in the U.S. Congress, where Republicans savagely loyal to Majority Leader Tom DeLay had castrated their own ethics enforcement. Apparently, U.S. House Republicans are going to relent, which might, eventually, mean that they are going to throw Tom DeLay to the wolves. At least, they'll let him be investigated.
Although there are a lot of other issues, the underlying outrage against DeLay has to do with allegations that he flaunted Texas law and used corporate money to buy the last state elections. Once his candidates were in office, they could choose Tom Craddick as Speaker of the Texas House. Then, shifting back to the U.S. Congress again, they could use very questionable methods to re-district the state, elect a lot more rightwing allies, and gain a strong majority in the U.S. House.
One problem with crooked deals is that all of the crooks have to rely on one another to hide their shenanigans. If somebody gets a sudden onset of ethics germs, he or she could pull down the entire conspiracy. There are Republicans calling for DeLay to step down; there are Republicans who voted to let the Texas ethics legislation out of committee.
It's not so amazing that they are doing this comical little dance around the truth. It is, though, kind of amazing that Americans continue to put up with it.
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, which would eliminate millions in corporate money that has poured into recent political campaigns and extinguish last-minute, anonymous attack ads, has support from nearly two-thirds of House members. But it has been stuck in the Elections Committee, headed by a Craddick loyalist, so the bill's backers tried to force a vote by the full House.
Ethics bill's hopes dashed
Rare maneuver in state House fails to pull measure from panel
10:07 PM CDT on Thursday, April 28, 2005
By CHRISTY HOPPE / The Dallas Morning News
AUSTIN - The House beat back a last-ditch effort to spring an ethics bill
from a slow committee death Thursday, but not before angry partisan accusations
erupted, with Republicans charging that Democrats were trying to undermine
House Speaker Tom Craddick.
The ethics bill, which would eliminate millions in corporate money that
has poured into recent political campaigns and extinguish last-minute, anonymous
attack ads, has support from nearly two-thirds of House members. But it
has been stuck in the Elections Committee, headed by a Craddick loyalist,
so the bill's backers tried to force a vote by the full House.
WHAT IT WOULD DO
The campaign-finance bill that the House declined to take up Thursday would:
Stop groups funded by anonymous corporate donors from running attack ads
60 days before an election.
Allow corporations to donate only to their own political action committees.
Limit corporations and unions to spending money on overhead costs of their
political action committees, not expressly political activities.
Roll call: How House members voted
The measure hits a sore spot for Mr. Craddick, whose 2002 speaker's race
and its connections to corporate funding have drawn the attention of a Travis
County grand jury. So while he allowed a vote on bringing it to the floor,
a top House Republican had already worked to ensure that the effort went
down to defeat.
The parliamentary ploy - surprisingly executed by a fellow Republican -
quickly escalated to a power struggle between Democrats, who seized on what
they saw as a good issue, and Republicans, who rallied to the support of
Mr. Craddick.
Rep. Tommy Merritt of Longview, who had been the target of attack ads funded
by undisclosed corporate donors during his unsuccessful Texas Senate campaign
last year, asked for the vote on bringing the ethics bill to the floor.
The maverick Republican warned colleagues that if the measure didn't become
law, they were all vulnerable to scurrilous attacks from anonymous sources.
'Partisan shot'
He was countered by an angry Rep. Terry Keel, R-Austin, who said the gambit
was nothing but a "partisan shot at the speaker."
Mr. Keel, who is a co-sponsor of the bill, said the best way to kill it,
"to drive a stake right through its heart," was to try the maneuver,
because it would anger so many and steep it in bad blood.
The outcome, though, was largely settled in advance. Early Thursday morning,
Rep. Sid Miller, a Stephenville Republican who chairs the party's House
caucus, called colleagues to urge them to vote against any motion that would
pull the campaign finance bill from the committee.
"It would set a bad precedent," by disrupting the committee process,
Mr. Miller said.
But he also readily acknowledged: "We should respect our leadership.
And this would fly in the leadership's face."
Four Republicans also pulled their names as sponsors of the bill, saying
that while they still supported it, they didn't like the maneuverings surrounding
it. The bill had been sponsored by 63 Democrats and 30 Republicans.
Ultimately, 19 Democrats and all but two Republicans opposed moving the
stalled bill to the full house. The overall vote was 95-36.
Mr. Craddick said later that he didn't believe Mr. Merritt's motion nor
the bill were meant as personal attacks against him.
"This is the process, it works, and they got their vote," he said.
"It was very interesting that we had a crossover of Republicans and
Democrats not voting for it."
The attempt Thursday was only the sixth time in 35 years that a "motion
to report" had been made to bring a bill out of committee. Only once
has it been successful, said House Parliamentarian Denise Davis.
Rep. Jim Dunnam of Waco, chairman of the Democratic Caucus, said that he
and others were only trying to support a popular bill and that he had tried
to extend nothing but respect to Mr. Craddick.
"The highest priority of the session should be ethics," he said.
Supporter Fred Lewis, chairman of the watchdog group Campaigns for People,
said after talking to aides, members, lobbyists and "seeing it myself,"
he believed Mr. Craddick used all the influence in his arsenal to stall
the bill.
"Craddick's killing the bill," Mr. Lewis said. "He's trying
to protect himself and his friends."
Neutral
Mr. Craddick said he has remained neutral on the bill. Elections Committee
Chairwoman Mary Denny, R-Aubrey, said she has not discussed the bill with
the speaker.
Mr. Lewis said that starting with the 2002 campaigns that propelled them
to the majority, Republicans have exploited what they saw as loopholes in
the 100-year-old prohibition against using corporate money in political
races.
"The folks taking corporate money are addicted to it and can't give
it up. It's like crack cocaine," he said.
And, he said, the problems they create are bound to continue. "Every
last-minute attack ad in 2006 funded with corporate money should be called
'Craddick Ads,' " Mr. Lewis said.
Staff writer Karen Brooks contributed to this report.
E-mail choppe@dallasnews.com
Democracy Is Being Eaten Away
Yesterday's tremendous effort by Move On and its supporters nationwide was wonderful. The full extent of the protests at Federal Buildings across the nation hasn't been posted so far, and the commercial media are boycotting the information. However, Move On had 180 actions planned the last time I looked. At that time, there were 33 people signed up for the Dallas action. Over 200 showed up! I would be surprised if they announce any fewer than 40,000 concerned Americans on the streets April 28. Amazingly, most of the ones I met had never been on a street action before, and they didn't know each other from Adam!
They came because they are worried about democracy in America, and they were grateful that Move On, or anybody for that matter, organized a protest.
If you watch international news on Spanish language television, the only stations that present any international news, you see a lot of street action. They just drove the President of Ecuador out of the country, and there are riots in the streets of Nicaragua every day. One has to wonder when the American people might begin to take to the streets and break out of the constraints of two-capitalist-parties, almost total capitalist control over education and information, and housebroke religious spokespersons touting capitalist ideas.
The beginning might have been yesterday.
More and more people are studying the lessons of history. They realize that Hitler did not, as we are usually told, come to power in some quick and magical way. He got elected in a democratic election, then he systematically undermined every aspect of democracy until he had total power. There were plenty of people who saw what was happening and opposed it. They just didn't oppose it early enough and well enough to stop it. We'll do better in America!
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Texas Leads in Prisoners
The Associated Press reports that one in every 138 Americans is now in prison. The total prison population grew 2.3% in the last year alone, and is growing by 900/week. The Dallas paper adds that Texas has the largest number of its people, 169,110, imprisoned. It's another record that the Lone Star State can add to its grisly trophy shelf, along with the distinction of carrying out the most executions.
The AP adds, "An estimated 12.6% of all black men in their late 20s were in jails or prisons, as were 3.6% of Hispanic men, and 1.7% of white men." The class and racial nature of law enforcement is thus made starkly clear.
Other articles and other statistics indicate that many people are in prison for drug usage or other victimless crimes. Many of them should not be in prison for their own good nor ours. If American society put its priorities toward helping the poor, the weak, and the ignorant, far fewer prisoners would result. The main justification given to excuse such excesses of imprisonment and executions is simple revenge. There is no justification in problem solving terms.
A verse to "The International" addresses our attitude toward capitalist prisons:
"To make the thief disgorge his booty,
To free the prisoner from his cell,
We workers must decide our duty,
We must decide, and do it well…"
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These comments come from a supporter in Oklahoma:
Democracy Threatened
First, House Majority Leader Tom Delay (R-Texas) sickeningly
exploits the Terry Schiavo tragedy to divert attention away from his own
sleaziness, and tries to use the situation to promote hysteria against the
courts.
Meanwhile, Sen. John Cornyn, another Texas Republican, goes so far as to
justify the recent right-wing murder of a federal judge in Atlanta, saying
that frustration with "unaccountable" judges "builds up to
the point where some people engage in violence."
And now, Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist is pushing the "nuclear
option" to end the filibuster rule based on the lie that Democrats
have somehow been "obstructionist". Fact: Democrats have blocked
12 out of 204 Bush nominees (confirming 95%). These 12 were rightly blocked
because of their extremism, racism, and male supremacy, as well as their
hostility to basic Constitutional freedoms. Contrast this with the Gingrich
gang which blocked fully ONE-THIRD of Clinton's nominees, with a special
penchant for blocking racial minorities.
Make no mistake about it, this is an outright power grab by a party which
has abandoned democratic norms and controls all three branches of government,
to force through an extremist agenda against workers' rights, racial and
gender equality, civil liberties, environmental protection, the separation
of church and state, and more.
These are dangerous times; these are times which require a fightback.
Sincerely,
"Labor is prior to, and independent of, capital. Capital
is only the fruit of labor, and could never have existed if Labor had not
first existed. Labor is superior to capital, and deserves much the higher
consideration." ---Abraham Lincoln
Americans Know What's Wrong
The stock market indexes have been falling; the Dow-Jones dropped nearly 200 points yesterday! All the capitalist economists are supposed to be scratching their heads in wonder, because, they assure us, nothing is really wrong.
What is truly amazing is that the stock market has stayed at relatively high levels for so long, not that it fell. Even the most poorly informed Americans know that people are being laid off because of rampant corporate mergers and corporate-controlled "trade" policies. Is there anyone who doesn't have a friend or relative who has lost a good job and had to scramble just to make a living?
Even the poorest Americans know that their own consumer debt is at all-time highs. They also know that the government's debt is even more critical. If they read the papers, they will see that the "trade" policies are making the debts worse. They know that foreign bankers hold giant amounts of U.S. Treasury bills. Anybody with half a mind ought to know that America's suffering economy can't bear the amazing costs of the Bush Administrations aggressive foreign wars. Somebody has to pay.
It's clear to all of us, too, just who Bush has in mind as the "payer." He spends his days, and our money, on a frantic nationwide crusade to get us to give up Social Security. His loyal party members cut away at our ability to use the courts, whether to go bankrupt or to sue somebody who hurt us.
And, it's also clear who gets to be the "payee." In today's news, it is revealed that Chief Executive Officers of major corporations received average raises of 12.6% over the past year, while America's workers made do with 1/3 as much.
It's clearly us against the big corporations, and it's just as clear whose
side the Bush government has taken.
Who Initiated Class Warfare in America?
A few minutes ago, the Associated Press reported that Congress has passed their bankruptcy "reform" act. A better example of aggressive class warfare would be hard to find. One Congressman, in a radio news broadcast, said they had legalized loan sharking.
Americans have the highest level of consumer debt in human history. I have heard estimates as high as $10 trillion! We didn't get in this big hole by ourselves, but were encouraged enthusiastically by merchants, advertisers, credit card companies, and the government. In Texas, the laws were changed so that we could borrow on our home equity and lose our houses if we default. Previously, we had homestead protection. The result of equity borrowing and "easy" home refinancing is that a record number of American homeowners hold a record low amount of equity in their own homes, according to a columnist in the Dallas paper. According to today's paper, "insider" traders, the people who control the corporations and own stock in them, are selling out the home construction industry.
Incredible amounts of home foreclosures are likely. Incredible amounts of car repossessions are likely. The new legislation limits the amount of legal protection that debtors can get under bankruptcy laws, and it increases the profit expectations of the sharks, especially the credit card companies, who loaned more to us than we could ever expect to repay.
In the next few days, the Texas Legislature is expected to pass a tax bill
that benefits the highest-income 20% of Texans and penalizes the 80% lowest
income Texans. Until then, we can honestly point to the bankruptcy "reform"
bill as the worst example of aggressive class warfare in America.
How Can I Start Being Effective?
On occasion, I am contacted by people who say they want to get active. I go to great pains to respond, because that desire to be effective in the struggle for social improvement is the hope of future humanity.
But, I notice that most of us tend to start at the wrong end. We ask, "What can I do," when the first question should be, "What needs doing?" I've talked to people who wanted to sing for the movement, write poems for the movement, paint pictures for the movement, and virtually everything else "for the movement." But, in reality, what some of them really want is for somebody else (me) to build an audience for their performances.
Generally, I encourage people to do whatever they will do for the movement. If they try something that doesn't work, they will hopefully re-evaluate and then try something else. Trying is the key. But I have to be honest, too. If the movement needs a bookkeeper, a dozen more folk singers won't fill that need.
It's a rare applicant who analyzes the needs of the movement before evaluating their own desires, abilities, and resources. Rare but beautiful.
So, my message is to do what you can. But, if you want to optimize your effectiveness, start by trying to figure out what the problems are, then figure out how you can apply yourself to them.
**
What's Wrong with Whom?
It's not a good idea to speak ill of the dead, and I didn't intend to. But AFL-CIO President John Sweeney put out a statement praising Pope John Paul II's record on the rights of workers. When their Work in Progress news service reported, they included this: "The Polish-born pontiff supported the Solidarity trade union movement that lead to workers' rights and freedom from communism in that country and called for the right of workers around the world to form unions and for a fair global economic system that valued all people."
It's probably true that the Pope supported the Solidarity Union, whose leader was later rejected by the Polish people once the true nature of their new capitalist friends became evident. It is also probably true that the Central Intelligence Agency and the old leadership of the AFL-CIO helped the Pope overthrow Poland's government. At least that's what Time magazine said.
If we're trying to say good things about the Pope or the AFL-CIO, we'd be better off not mentioning the CIA or Poland.
**
Will U.S. Institute Military Draft?
News reports at the end of March said that all branches of the U.S. military were failing to meet their recruitment goals. Military men and politicians have been telling us over and over that they have no intention of bringing back conscription. At the same time, the same people keep hyping up American military power, refusing to cut back on their commitment to occupy Afganistan and Iraq, and threatening to invade even more sovereign nations. Another small factor that should not be ignored is the "official" unemployment rate, which is supposed to have fallen to 5.2%.
What will really happen?
First, ignore what the military and the politicians say. Their credibility is less than zero. Most of the information in the corporate media qualifies as "trial balloons." In other words, they just want to see how people will respond.
Second, capitalism operates by its own economic laws. Capitalists may pretend to be masters of their (and our) fate, but they do what they have to do. Right now, the right-wingers who have taken over America have chosen imperialist aggression as a way to keep raking in their profits and to stave off inevitable disasters. It would be very difficult for them to change courses. Expect more military aggression, if the politicians and military men have their way.
Third, capitalism doesn't always get its way. Historical events, and future events as well, are determined by the outcome of class struggle. If the American people refuse to allow another military conscription and organize effectively, it won't happen.
Conscription has always been very controversial. Even in the Civil War, which a lot of us tend to be very romantic about, Northern draft resisters burned down the New York draft board and several other buildings. Texans were massacred while trying to get to Mexico to avoid the Confederate Army. In Southeastern Oklahoma in 1917, small farmers and sharecroppers took up arms against the draft. In virtually every war, some Americans flee the country or go to jail rather than comply. Capitalists know that military conscription comes with a very high price tag.
So, will the right-wing militarists institute another American draft? It
isn't up to them. It's up to us.
Jim Lane
http://tx.cpusa.org