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NEWS & LETTERS, April - May 2008

Readers' Views

Contents:

LIFE AND LABOR IN THE U.S. TODAY

The front page article by Ron Brokmeyer and Htun Lin, "Fears of Global Recession Haunt U.S. Election" (February-March N&L), was a good lesson in and summation of both economics and the objective situation of life and labor in the U.S. It cited the financial guru, George Soros, stating that the dollar is no longer the international reserve currency (for us non-economists that means different countries no longer want to keep a stash of dollars set aside because the dollar isn't strong). I saw George Soros on the Charlie Rose program on PBS saying his solution to the current crisis was to regulate financial markets to keep different financial bubbles from bursting. I thought we already had regulators called the Federal Reserve Bank, Securities and Exchange Commission, etc. Apparently we need a "Regulator Czar" to oversee the regular regulators.

I prefer the solutions Brokmeyer and Htun Lin worked out in their sections called "Labor creates value; Bubbles don't" and "Revolt in world's Workshop." Respectively, they explain that value is created by labor in production, not speculation--and how Chinese workers take matters into their own hands by revolting against sweatshop conditions.

--Roofing Contractor, Colorado

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I would like to express my appreciation for the article "Fears of Global Recession Haunt U.S. Election" in the February-March issue of N&L. I found the article both explanatory and accessible. I put it in the hands of a number of people who are trying to understand the current turbulence of capitalism. Thank you for your clarity and detail in explaining this complex and important development.

--Bob Patenaude, Oakland, California

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Membership in the Auto Workers Union fell below 500,000 this year, the first time this figure has been so low since the 1930s, when the union was first organizing. This is less than a third of the membership of 1.5 million it had at its peak in the 1970s. Most of the decline has been in recent years, since the auto companies stepped up the outsourcing of jobs to other countries, firing workers and enticing others to retire early so they could hire new workers at half the wages and reduced benefits. Last year alone, the union lost some 75,000 workers. In the contract last year, the companies agreed to keep a number of plants open during the length of the contract--but said nothing about how many would be working in them.

--Retiree, Detroit

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A recent report by the Labor Department's inspector general confirms our report in News & Letters last year indicating negligence by the Mine Health and Safety Administration in approving the mining method used in the Crandall Canyon mine in Utah, where nine miners lost their lives due to roof falls. The method is called retreat mining, where coal pillars supporting the roof are removed to get the most production from a mine. The mine was known to experience earth tremors, wherein the floor and top heave significantly and increase the dangers of roof falls. MHSA officials, of course, deny their negligence, but more reports on the deadly cave-ins are coming.

--Ex-miner, Detroit

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Nearly 300 union activists attending the Labor Notes Conference in Detroit in April joined the American Axle workers picket lines. Supporters represented labor nationally and internationally, with people from all over the U.S. and from Korea, China, Mexico, Germany and Canada. We represented a variety of workplaces: schools, libraries, hospitals, food processing and transportation, as well as auto factories and trucking. We were men, women, students, retirees of all races. Most important were the discussions as we picketed. Axle workers and former Delphi workers described their drastic cuts in pay and benefits. Before we returned to the conference we rallied, chanting, "one day longer is one day stronger."

--Susan Van Gelder, Detroit

* * *

One more aspect of the Bush administration's war on labor on behalf of capital has been its relentless effort to impede any enforcement of health and safety regulations by the Occupational Safety and Health Agency (OSHA). A new level of death and mutilation now stalks the workplace. The latest casualties were caught in an explosion in February at Imperial Sugar Co. in Georgia where 12 workers were killed and dozens critically injured. These deaths are directly attributable to OSHA's inaction. In 2006 the U.S. Chemical Safety Board had warned them about potential catastrophic consequences of combustible sugar dust at sugar factories.

--Outraged, California

ON OUR MARXIST-HUMANIST PERSPECTIVES 2007-2008

Your Draft Perspectives nearly took my breath away with its eloquence, insight, and most especially its humanity. However, there is one section I take issue with. A few quotations: "The transcendence of alienation, inequality and exploitation are neither possible nor 'fair' as long as labor continues to be only indirectly social and when labor power continues to be a commodity and the law of value continues to compel producers to maximize production and minimize cost." Another, "It is an illusion...for total social transformation to believe that cooperative projects and autonomous zones can gradually be stitched together ...shrinking the space within which capitalism operates." Another, "It is hard to envision total societal transformation, but there is no alternative to trying to do so."

These quotes suggest to me that the transition from capitalism to communism must be holistic rather than incremental... (that) the working classes of the world must unite in consciousness and political strength simultaneously to defeat the ruling class of finance capitalism at some finite time in the future...The problem I have with such judgments is that they negate the struggles of Cubans and Venezuelans and others in every country of the world to work toward Socialism. If all of us must rise up as revolutionary socialists at the same time, these proto-socialist efforts may distance us from that goal.

My resistance to this kind of analysis is threefold: 1. It removes from our political horizon those countries that serve as models of inspiration... 2. A scientific approach to Socialism would suggest that we reach incrementally a condition where the 'law of value' has been entirely abandoned, and that currently impure forms of socialism would work toward improving their socio-politico-economic systems. 3. It seems to defy our experience of reality to demand simultaneous global transformation rather than applauding partial success and working toward greater mastery.

Thanks for considering my comments,

--Rick Collier, Calgary, Alberta, Canada

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Editor's Note: For a copy of the Marxist-Humanist Perspectives see Draft for Marxist-Humanist Perspectives, 2007 - 2008 or send $1 to News & Letters, 36 S. Wabash #1440, Chicago, IL 60603.

OLYMPIC TORCH PROTESTS

I was disturbed by language used during the Olympic torch relay in San Francisco. TV newscasts referred to ethnic Tibetans as "Tibetan separatists" and "anti-Chinese protestors." It was unconscionable to characterize one side that way. First, Tibetans are separate from Chinese by race, language, culture and history. They are not analogous to the white separatists found in the U.S. Second, the Tibetans were not in S.F. to bash Chinese people but to protest inhumane actions taken by the Chinese government. Even people on "my side" were not thoughtful with language. I could not join them when they shouted "Shame on China!" Immigrants and their descendants in the U.S. often become surrogates for the shamed nation. We see it played out with people today from any "Arab" nation or from Iran. President Roosevelt rightly denounced the "empire of Japan" for the attack on Pearl Harbor. But he followed that with Executive Order 9066 which classified all persons of Japanese ancestry on the West Coast as enemy aliens.

--Sansei, Oakland, Cal.

CONGOLESE WARS

The liberal and mainstream press occasionally offer glimpses of real news. But nothing comes close to N&L when it comes to the meaning of events. HBO made an attempt with its powerful documentary "The Greatest Silence: Rape in the Congo." Documentarian Lisa F. Jackson interviewed some of the raped women, a few of the paramilitary rapists as well as one of the two doctors performing reconstructive surgery mentioned in Terry Moon's "Women as Reason" column, "Congo: Women's Obliteration." While the HBO puts a face on some of the participants of the Congolese wars and offers some powerful explanations and visualizations, it doesn't attain to the depth of meaning in the Editorial "Genocide in Congo" in the February/ March N&L which concluded its analysis of the current Congolese wars by reciting Marx's statement of the rosy dawn of capitalist accumulation. This not only sums up the Congolese wars but the objective situation globally with capitalism's never-ending drive to return to its original contradictions.

--Longtime supporter, Colorado

MARXIST-HUMANISM AS PHILOSOPHY AND AS ORGANIZATION

After 53 years, News and Letters Committees are still going strong and attracting new members because of its Marxist-Humanist philosophy of freedom and the committee form of organization that is attempting to embody it. Up against permanent war and the national security state, people are hungry for real expressions of freedom. Their everyday lives and the places they work are organized by the pyramid of the standard-issue organizational chart, with its top-down lines of authority. That pyramid is upside down. The committee-form, unlike the elitist Party of the failed revolutions of the past, stands it right-side up. Socialist democracy prevails where the cult of personality had been. The only authority NLC recognizes as final is the authority of its rank-and-file members meeting in Convention. The idea of freedom manifest in this genuine democracy is part of the secret behind its success. Every voice matters. Every voice counts. NLC is trying to help show that another world really is possible at a time when the impersonal domination of capital is choking the life out of all us.

--Beverly and Tom, Spokane, WA

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Tom More's essay, "On concretizing a 'Philosophic Moment'" (February/March N&L), draws attention to the uniqueness of the Marxist-Humanist concept of organization. The "philosophic moment" as determinant is so central to that concept of organization that the absolute opposite of the vanguard party turns out to be, not spontaneity, nor the committee-form, but philosophy. Thus, neither form of organization nor spontaneous action from below--as crucial as they are--can become our age's organizational concretization of Marx's Humanism, without the totally new relationship between theory and practice that needs to be built on the philosophic moment of Marxist-Humanism.

--Franklin Dmitryev, Memphis

MALALAI JOYA

Your readers would want to know that Malalai Joya, whose story you have been following, was the winner of the International Human Rights Film Award 2008 at the "Cinema for Peace" gala on February 11, as part of the 2008 Berlin Film Festival. The award committee wrote to Joya "we believe your work in The Enemies of Happiness makes a valuable contribution to the cause of peace and understanding." The award was given to her by two-time Oscar winner, Hilary Swank. The PBS documentary "A Winner among the Warlords" had followed in detail the courageous campaign Joya had fought last year to gain a seat in the Afghan Parliament and to expose the state of politics and women's human rights in Afghanistan.

--RAWA Supporter, Illinois

FOR SHEILA GARDEN

Here is my tribute to Sheila Garden, who was a longtime member of News and Letters Committees and who died in early February.

Not only was she full of life, she was a fighter for what she believed in. She organized against racism when she was in college, before it was fashionable among white people. She was a union activist and representative on her job. She continued the struggle against capitalism and for socialism for all her adult life. Her spirit of struggle and revolution was inextricably connected with her warm and outgoing personality. Together with this was her disgust for and rejection of official hypocrisy in society. The word that best sums up her spirit is "enthusiasm." For me, she was the aunt that everybody should have. I feel fortunate and proud to have come from her family tree.

--John Reimann

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Editor's note: Our In Memoriam to Sheila in the February-March issue brought us many expressions of admiration for, and deep sorrow at the loss of our remarkable comrade.

CHILDREN'S RIGHTS

The news of the polygamist cult in Eldorado, Texas, grows worse as it unfolds. The 16-year-old woman who first asked for help has yet to be found. There is a graveyard of children on the site. Yet there seems more concern for parental property rights over the children than for the rights of the children themselves. The news media are treating the abuse there as if it came out of nowhere. I see it as the most extreme form of the general condition of children in this society. It is time to begin thinking and acting on their deep abuse, which we have avoided doing.

--Malcolm, San Francisco Bay Area

EDUCATING THE EDUCATORS

As a first-year bilingual kindergarten teacher, there are two phrases from Karl Marx that have repeatedly come to mind. The first is "the educators need to be educated." The second is "time is space for human development." These statements have come crashing into each other again and again, particularly on the question of Leave No Child Behind, which many teachers call "Leave No Child Untested." This is particularly the case for my bilingual kindergarteners, as they will have been tested four times over nine months through standardized assessments. At one point in February, instruction totally stopped for two full weeks, so bilingual teachers could test five year olds on their English acquisition.

Research for bilingual kindergarten indicates that these students should receive 90% instruction in their native language and 10% in their second language. They need to have a solid foundation on which to build second language literacy skills. So, taking two weeks to test their abilities in English is ludicrous. They are just beginning to understand the alphabet, letter sounds, and how to use symbol systems (reading/ writing). Spending huge amounts of time on testing, instead of learning and instruction, does not result in human development. It does provide a convenient way to minimize and label student potential.

--Bilingual K teacher, Chicago

SAVING RENT CONTROL

Californians will vote this June on Proposition 98, the so-called California Property Owners and Farmland Protection Act, sponsored by the notorious Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association and supported by the California Republican Party. The proposition is written under the guise of reforming eminent domain by protecting homes and farms from being taken by government agencies. It actually prohibits state and local water agencies from using eminent domain to acquire land and farms for water storage and delivery systems, in today's climate of clean water supply shortages.

The principal deception is that the proposition as worded would affect hundreds of thousands of seniors, veterans, working class and unemployed renters. The large apartment and mobile home park owners are driven to expand their wealth, as capital constantly drives to self-expand at the workers' expense.

No to Proposition 98! Yes to Proposition 99--which is a legitimate Eminent Domain reform proposition that prohibits the government from using it to take a home and transfer it to a private developer.

--Basho, Los Angeles

DETROIT'S MAYORAL MESS

The mayoral mess here has made the national news. But its importance is not the "sex, lies and text messages" which affect Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick's personal life. Rather, the cover-up which cost the city $8.4 million in an out-of-court settlement, is proving to be just one of many improper actions as the mayor played fast and loose with city funds. Detroit, with the highest foreclosure rate in the state and massive unemployment, didn't need this kind of notoriety.

At the end of his "State of the City" address, Kilpatrick shocked everyone by blaming the media for calling him the n-word, saying it aloud six months after he participated in the NAACP's "Bury the N-word" demonstration. He excoriated the City Council President Kenneth Cockrel, Jr., for not joining him on stage for the speech and decried the media. His spin that "they" are out to get him because he is a successful African-American male is belied by the fact that all those involved are African American. Although rallies in his support are given press attention, everywhere I go I hear people saying, "He's got to go."

--Disgusted, Detroit

TO TELL THE TRUTH

A returning soldier recently told me of his experiences in Iraq. He said when he went into the army he believed what our government told him. He wanted to do something for the country. But when his daughter was born with spina bifida they said he had not been in long enough for his family to collect for her care. Now that his tour was over, he said he would not go back. "I have no respect for the government that sent me there, now that I'm home I'll burn my uniform and any medals I've received."

N&L came out immediately against the tragic wars both in Afghanistan and in Iraq. "Not in our name" became the cry that has rung out in many of the antiwar protests. Bush told us the wars were about "weapons of mass destruction" that were never found. Then it was about "we have to catch Saddam Hussein" and he was caught and the wars are still not over. Now it's about "we must build a nation." The real reason is power, oil, and a base in the region.

--Dan, Michigan

MUMIA ABU-JAMAL'S FATE

I am outraged that late last month the Third Circuit Court of Appeals ruled to not grant a new trial for Mumia Abu-Jamal, despite all of the evidence that presents reasonable doubt. The court is also calling a future date in May for a jury to decide whether Mumia will be executed or spend the rest of his life in prison.

--Justice for Mumia Supporter, Chicago

VOICES FROM THE INSIDE

As an inmate in the Michigan Department of Corrections for the past five years, the article I identified with most in the last issue of N&L was the Reader's View from DT called "Louisiana: One Big Prison." The state of Michigan also has an unimaginable number of prisons.

When someone in this state is found guilty, whether of a minor or major crime, they are sent to prison under the justification widely known as "Rehabilitation." What most people who are not prisoners are unaware of is that this famous R word is harder to find than Osama Bin Laden. What most do not realize is that this "inner" society is built on a system that makes its "criminals" far more violent, unproductive, and destructive than the society they were taken away from, supposedly to "keep it safe."

--Prisoner, Ionia, Michigan

* * *

If other prisons throughout the U.S. are at all like mine, this country is truly practicing "slave labor." We earn 25 cents an hour. The average income per month is $15. Just buying ordinary hygiene products necessary for your general upkeep costs approximately $20 a month. Then you have to pay $5 per every doctor's or dentist's visit. And whatever they decide to fine people for discipline, even when you're not guilty, can be from $5 to $50 at a time.

It seems there is no support from outside these walls. Now that I have been here and have firsthand experience of the degrading treatment inmates receive I will be an advocate and I will make a difference. It is time to bring the destruction of our fellow brothers and sisters to the public's awareness. Thank you for helping us do that.

--Woman prisoner, South Dakota

* * *

It is time to organize a national conference to end human rights violations in U.S. prisons ...

STOPMAX CAMPAIGN CONFERENCE

MAY 30 - JUNE 1, 2008

AT TEMPLE UNIVERSITY, PHILADELPHIA, PA.

For information: American Friends Service Committee, 1501 Cherry Street, Philadelphia, PA 19102-1403. phone: 215/241-7000 or visit www.afsc.org

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