Workers World weekly newspaper

 Defensores de la vivienda  Guerra contra sindicatos 16

Workers and oppressed peoples of the world unite!

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Dec. 27, 2012

Vol. 54, No. 51

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Nat’l People’s Assembly decries police terror, lack of jobs Sandy Hook tragedy

By Betsey Piette Baltimore There was excitement in the air as people gathered in Baltimore on Dec.15 for the first National People’s Power Assembly focused on stopping police brutality and fighting for livable-wage jobs or income.

Participants came from around the mid-Atlantic region and North Carolina, and as far away as Illinois and California. Others came from Baltimore, where more than 14 people have been murdered by police since January.

The Rev. Cortly “C. D.” Witherspoon, president of the local Southern Christian Leadership Conference and an initiator of the Baltimore PPA, spoke of the community struggles against this scourge of police terror that has devastated neighborhoods. This working-class city, where recreation centers have been shut down, now faces closure of 26 schools.

Two previous People’s Power Assemblies, in June and October, mobilized police brutality victims’ family members. These included relatives of Anthony Anderson Sr., killed by police in September as his three-year-old granddaughter watched. Many speakers at the national gathering put to rest the official lie that cases like Anderson’s were “isolated incidents.”

Baltimore PPA organizer Sharon Black, who co-chaired the session with Witherspoon, spoke of the group’s origins from a 10,000-person protest over the killing of African-American youth Trayvon Martin that shut down downtown Baltimore for four hours. “It showed what we could do if people were mobilized, including taking over City Hall and running it. We may not be at that point yet, but this movement is long overdue,” said Black.

Opening remarks were given by Nakia Washington, whom Witherspoon introduced as a modern-day “Fannie Lou Hamer.” Wash-

ington, whose fiancé was shot six times execution-style by police, challenged those gathered to organize and “yell for justice, over and over again.” She asked, “What type of monster is capitalism when prisons are privatized? You better know they are going to try to fill them up with our children.”

Richie Armstrong, an organizer for Community Churches United, spoke of the fight for inclusion of Baltimore’s oppressed workers in major, multibillion-dollar construction projects around the city. He noted that only 2.5 percent of the jobs at three John Hopkins University projects went to Baltimore residents.

Although 1,500 have been trained to do construction work, only three have been hired.

Larry Hales, a People’s Power Assembly organizer from New York, expressed deep sadness for the 20 children killed the day before in Connecticut. He also cautioned that while we mourn these children, we have to say that the lives of Palestinian children, or children killed

by U.S. drones in Afghanistan and Pakistan, are no less valuable.

Hales stated that while the media might portray the young shooter as “evil,” the Koch brothers and the Waltons, owners of Walmart,

Its roots go deeper than guns

By Larry Hales Most people find it unconscionable that anyone would deliberately harm a child. In fact, most would have the same reaction to callous disregard that puts a young life in danger’s way.

So when news of the recent shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn., began to spread, it is of little doubt that the first reaction, especially of parents, was shock.

Little children between the ages of 6 and 7, just becoming cognitive of the world about them, their eyes beaming, seemingly with any and every possibility just beyond their reach, their lights extinguished.

It was cold, almost unimaginable, but it happened — 20 young lives along with six educators and administrators.

The mother of the alleged shooter, who was found shot four times in her bed, still in pajamas. And the shooter Continued to page 8

Continued on page 3

So. Carolina Gathering

Stands with dock workers, nurses

6

How to fight the assault on labor

The right to self-defense

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Gala to honor IAC and its founder, Ramsey Clark originated 20 years ago out of two small rooms in Ramsey Clark’s law office. From then to now, the work of the IAC has been carried out by a dedicated staff of volunteers, working in coalitions and networks with other people’s organizations. The IAC mobilizes for change through rallies, demonstrations, classes, fact sheets, books, videos, internet, web sites, intern programs, skill training, and more to challenge corporate rule and disinformation.

Our offices are used for free on a daily basis by many progressive organizations.

The IAC is committed to building broadbased grassroots coalitions to oppose U.S. wars abroad while fighting against racism, anti-Muslim bigotry, growing repression and mass incarceration, and the economic exploitation of workers here at home. With every mobilization or campaign, the IAC strives to draw from the leadership, connect the struggles, and bring together communities of color, women, lesbian, gay, bi, trans and queer people,

youth and students, immigrant and worker order build a progressive movement for so 423 Ultimately it is our goal to work towards th dom of all peoples living in the U.S. and aro

By LeiLani Dowell New York

An exciting Jan. 12 gala is being organized by supporters of the International Action Center to honor and celebrate the organization’s 20th anniversary, as well as the 85th birthday of IAC founder Ramsey Clark. The event will be held at the historic Riverside Church in New York City and will raise funds to support the important anti-racist, anti-imperialist and anti-capitalist work of the IAC. The International Action Center originated 20 years ago out of two small rooms in Ramsey Clark’s law office. Since then, its work has been carried out by a dedicated staff of volunteers, working in coalitions and networks with other organizations. The IAC mobilizes for change through rallies, demonstrations, classes, fact sheets, books, videos, the Internet, websites, intern programs, skill training and fact-finding delegations to challenge corporate rule and disinformation. The IAC offices are used for free on a daily basis by many progressive organizations.

Father Miguel d’Escoto Brockmann, chair of the 85/20 Gala Host Committee, says that “for more than 20 years, Ramsey’s work with the IAC has meant that the people of the world know that they can count on a friend and ally in the United States, the belly of the beast. In Cuba’s most difficult hour, Ramsey and the IAC mobilized a massive rally at the Javits Convention Center and sent vital material aid delegations. At a crucial moment for Mumia Abu-Jamal, it held a historic rally at Madison Square Garden. The IAC has sustained itself through difficult times and has remained consistently anti-imperialist, anti-racist and anti-capitalist. This is an accomplishment.”

The IAC is committed to building broad-based grassroots coalitions to oppose U.S. wars abroad while fighting against racism, anti-Muslim bigotry, growing repression and mass incarceration, and the economic exploitation of workers. With every mobilization or campaign, the IAC strives to connect the struggles and bring together communities of color, women, lesbian, gay, bi, trans and queer people, youth and students, and immigrant and workers’ organizations to build a progressive movement for social justice and change. The IAC states that “ultimately it is our goal to work towards the liberation and freedom of all peoples living in the U.S. and around the world.”

The International Action Center

The International Action Center

presents a Birthday/Anniversary

Ga�a

Ramsey Clark – a ‘voice of conscience’

S at u r d ay

January 12, 2013

Church • •490 Drivedrive • New•York City riverRiverside Side ChurCh 490Riverside riverSide New york

Celebrating the 85th birthday of Ramsey Clark & the 20th anniversary of the IAC KEYNOTE SPEAKER

Ramsey Clark

Founder of the International Action Center, Former U.S. Attorney General Human rights lawyer & international advocate of people’s rights 5 p.m. Hors d’oeuvres 6 p.m. Program & dinner buffet (halal and vegetarian foods included)

• • Tickets must be reserved in advance. To buy your ticket now; • To take out an ad or listing in the Gala Journal; •T o make a donation to support the publication of anthology of Ramsey Clark’s articles; •T o donate to continue the work of the International Action Center; go to RamseyClarkIACgala.com or www.IACenter.org

View latest GALA news at ramseyclarkiacgala.com/ Like us at www.facebook.com/RamseyClarkIACGala

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Former U.S. Attorney General Ramsey Clark remains a unique political figure in the U.S. At great sacrifice, he has consistently opposed U.S. intervention abroad and fought for justice here at home. He has defended countless targets of racism or repression, many of whom might have otherwise stood alone — from prisoners on Texas death row to the Attica prison rebels in 1971; from Native American leader Leonard Peltier to Jamil Al-Amin, one of the most influential leaders of the Black liberation movement of the 1960s. Clark defended Lori Berenson, a U.S. political activist who was sentenced to life in prison in Peru for supporting the Tupac Amaru Revolutionary Movement, as well as prisoners in the Philippines, Turkey, Pakistan and Egypt. Clark has vociferously opposed nuclear weapons, U.S. bases, drone wars and every U.S. aggression, including the current threat of a new war against Iran.

Brockmann describes his work with Clark: “During my tenure as president of the U.N. General Assembly, Ramsey was my key senior advisor on international law, providing valuable insights into the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, the so-called ‘responsibility to protect’ — new jargon to mask the old practice of wars of aggression — and the sorely needed reform of the United Nations. I am proud to have had the honor, during this period, of bestowing on Ramsey in 2008 the U.N. Human Rights Award. His voice, challenging U.S. wars and criminal corporate policies, is a voice of conscience recognized around the world.

He has brought ethics back into the equation and discussion of global issues. That a great people’s champion stands tall and keeps fighting is well worth celebrating.”

Clark says: “In 84 years I have never celebrated a birthday. But I will on my 85th birthday because it celebrates the 20th anniversary of the IAC and helps assure its continued work.”

To purchase tickets for the Jan. 12 gala, place an ad in the gala journal, and/or help build for the event, visit www.RamseyClarkIACgala.com or www.IACenter.org.

Dowell is a coordinator of the Ramsey Clark/IAC Gala.

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WORKERS WORLD

this week ...

 In the U.S. Nat’l People’s Assembly decries police terror, lack of jobs . 1 Sandy Hook tragedy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1 Gala to honor IAC and its founder, Ramsey Clark . . . . . . . . . . 2 Right-wing continues attacks on workers, oppressed . . . . . 4 On the picket line . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4 Origins of Michigan’s ‘right-to-work’ union-busting law . . . 5 Southern meet in solidarity with nurses, dock workers . . . . 6 U.S. surge in police and neo-fascist lynchings . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7 Protests follow Cleveland police shooting spree . . . . . . . . . . 8 Another racist vigilante slaying . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8 NYC struggle over racist subway ads . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9 Still suffering from Sandy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9 Manning picked as Person of the Year . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14 A Marxist view of the current crisis . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15 Bring Peltier home in 2012! . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15  Around the world Venezuela and the struggle for socialism . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10 ‘Youth globally are fighting back’ . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10 Coal miners, Hurricane Sandy and China’s GreenGen . . . . 11 Mass movement demands U.S. release Aafia Siddiqui . . . 12 Egyptian protesters stay in the streets . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12 World’s people show solidarity with Chávez . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13 Achievements of Korean socialism . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13 WWP congratulates Koreans on satellite launch . . . . . . . . . 13  Editorial Recognizing a lie in Syria . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14  Noticias En Español Defensores de la vivienda . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16 Guerra contra sindicatos . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16

The Workers World print edition takes a one-week break at the end of the year. See you in two weeks with Vol. 55, No. 1! Meantime, check out our website, workers.org, for online postings of any new articles.

Workers World 55 West 17 Street New York, N.Y. 10011 Phone: 212.627.2994 E-mail: ww@workers.org Web: www.workers.org Vol. 54, No. 51 • Dec. 27, 2012 Closing date: Dec. 18, 2012 Editor: Deirdre Griswold Technical Editor: Lal Roohk Managing Editors: John Catalinotto, LeiLani Dowell, Leslie Feinberg, Kris Hamel, Monica Moorehead, Gary Wilson West Coast Editor: John Parker Contributing Editors: Abayomi Azikiwe, Greg Butterfield, Jaimeson Champion, G. Dunkel, Fred Goldstein, Teresa Gutierrez, Larry Hales, Berta Joubert-Ceci, Cheryl LaBash, Milt Neidenberg, Betsey Piette, Minnie Bruce Pratt, Gloria Rubac Technical Staff: Sue Davis, Shelley Ettinger, Bob McCubbin, Maggie Vascassenno Mundo Obrero: Carl Glenn, Teresa Gutierrez, Berta Joubert-Ceci, Donna Lazarus, Michael Martínez, Carlos Vargas Supporter Program: Sue Davis, coordinator Copyright © 2012 Workers World. Verbatim copying and distribution of articles is permitted in any medium without royalty provided this notice is preserved.

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Dec. 27, 2012

Page 3

First National People’s Power Assembly says

‘ Stop police terror! We want jobs with decent pay!’

Continued from page 1 are the real examples of evil, getting rich off the backs of their workers and letting workers die in their Bangladesh factories.

“They and Bill Gates not only take all the wealth workers create, now they want all the money from public treasuries.”

‘Fiscal cliff’: a cover for austerity Hales said the ominous “fiscal cliff” is really a cover to implement austerity programs like those spreading across Europe. He pointed out, “They want to strip away all the union rights so they can pay the workers half what they are making now. We can’t wait for the people elected on Nov. 6 to do our bidding. If we want something, we have to fight for it.”

Larry Holmes, a national People’s Power organizer, also addressed the hypocrisy of the media’s concern for children in the wake of the Sandy Hook Elementary School shootings. He noted, “There’s a war on children right here in Baltimore where their lives have been snatched by police, their schools closed, and nutrition and school lunch programs cut. Capitalism is the biggest killer of children around the world. Poverty kills more children than any bullet does.”

Holmes noted that 2013 will be the fiftieth anniversary of the Rev. Martin Luther King’s historic Poor People’s March. He challenged those gathered to lay claim to the anniversary by demonstrating to defend workers’ rights and demanding that youth are entitled to jobs, not jail cells.

“On Jan. 21, let’s see what we can do to inaugurate a year of revolutionary mass struggle to build People’s Power Assembles all around this country,” stated Holmes. “Let’s reignite the campaign King started for jobs and a living wage for everyone by going to D.C. and shutting it down until we win our demands.” The assembly passed a resolution supporting this proposal.

ww photos: Joe Piette

Pam Africa: ‘We have one enemy — Corporate America.’

three police officers responsible for Anderson’s death, who remain on the job, had previously been sued, which cost Baltimore more than $400,000. The PPA passed a resolution to support a Dec. 16 protest demanding indictments of the police who killed Anderson.

Other speakers testified with first-hand accounts of police terror. Marcella Holloman’s mentally ill son, Maurice Donald Johnson, was killed by Baltimore police at home on May 19, after she called for an ambulance to take him for treatment.

Carletta Kiah, who lives near the Anderson family, told of her brother, Leontey Kiah, being shot multiple times by police in September.

North Carolina activist Lamont Lilly relayed the story of U.S. Navy veteran Stephanie Nickerson, who was brutally beaten by Raleigh/Durham police in October after asking the police, who tried to search for someone in her home, to first show a warrant.

Dr. Jahi Issa, a University of Delaware faculty member, was arrested in March at a rally while supporting students who were confronting white supremacist

Walmart workers: solidarity is key The highlight of the day was the arrival of workers from the OUR Walmart campaign and their union supporters from the Food and Commercial Workers union. Cindy Murray, a 13-year Walmart employee, described the company’s total lack of respect for its workers. She and co-worker Alan Forest described Walmart’s systematic attempts to intimidate anyone who is even talking about unions. “We have no benefits, and they pay us so little that the taxes we pay end up coming back to us as public assistance,” Murray said.

Murray told of the importance of the solidarity shown by 450 people from many unions who came out to support the Maryland Walmart workers’ walkout on Black Friday.

She also described meeting two of the Bangladeshi garment factory workers whose co-workers were killed in the fire. “They didn’t have to die. Walmart just decided not to sign the papers to make it a safer industry,” she emphasized.

Attorney J. Wyndal Gordon, who is handling legal action for the Anderson family, introduced several members of the slain grandfather’s family. He noted that two of the

Rev. Cortly ‘C. D.’ Witherspoon speaking, Sharon Black seated.

People’s Attorney J. Wyndal Gordon with family members of Anthony Anderson Sr., slain by police.

threats on campus. Issa spoke of growing reports from all over the country that say the deaths of Black people authorities have labeled “suicide” were, in fact, lynchings.

Teresa Gutierrez, of the May 1 Coalition in New York City, called on the PPA to link the struggles for immigrant rights with other movements for jobs and against mass incarceration. “Just imagine such a united movement. It would be millions of people,” said Gutierrez. She asked the PPA to call for People’s Power Assemblies and marches around May Day 2013 and to commemorate the centennial death of freedom fighter, Harriet Tubman, for upcoming International Working Women’s Day.

LGBTQ activist the Rev. Meredith Moise with Black Pride denounced the recent Maryland ballot initiative Question 7 that would expand gambling casinos by promising more money for schools.

Despite the bill’s passage, 26 Baltimore schools will be closed. Moise said the people who bankrolled the pro-casino initiative were the same who tried but failed to stop passage of Maryland’s marriage equality act.

Zaina Alsous, a Palestinian woman and youth organizer from North Carolina, spoke out against zero-tolerance policies in schools that push students into the schoolto-prison pipeline. While African Americans are only 13 percent of the population, 34 percent of the students suspended under these policies are Black.

Pam Africa, a leader of the International Concerned Family and Friends of Mumia Abu-Jamal and the MOVE organization, praised the efforts of PPA organizers in bringing diverse struggles together.

She stressed, “We have one enemy — corporate America. What we are having here today needs to be ­multiplied.”

Several union activists addressed the assembly. Tom Dodge, Maryland postal worker, urged people to support a holiday greeting card campaign asking President Barack Obama to veto any bill that would privatize the post office. Postal workers will be gathering for an emergency encampment in Washington, D.C., across from the White House from Dec. 17 to 22 to demand that the Congressional lame duck session halt the closures and cuts to the U.S. Postal Service.

Mishu Blum and Denise Sidbury, hotel workers and UNITE HERE Local 7 organizers, described their fight against the Hyatt Regency Inner Harbor Hotel that is firing full-time workers and replacing them with temporary housekeepers at $8 per hour — three-fifths of what union hotel workers make.

Everyone left the assembly determined to build people’s power. ww Photo: Monica Moorehead

Page 4 Dec. 27, 2012

workers.org

On the Picket Line

Michigan

Right-wing continues attacks Pickets continue for low-wage food workers on workers, oppressed

By Sue Davis

By Abayomi Azikiwe Editor, Pan-African News Wire Since the passage of “right-to-work” legislation in Michigan on Dec. 11, unions and community organizations have vowed to continue their fight against the inevitable lowering of wages and benefits. The rush to pass what unions are calling “right-to-work-for-less” and other bills is a clear manifestation of an escalating capitalist war being waged on the working class.

The draconian legislation was passed even as 17,000 union members, students and their supporters from throughout the state of Michigan were holding militant demonstrations inside and outside the state Capitol building in Lansing. Riot police forcefully removed demonstrators from the streets and cleared an entrance to the nearby George Romney Building, where Gov. Rick Snyder’s offices are located.

At least eight workers were arrested during the demonstrations and charged with felonies. Others were brutally handled and pepper-sprayed by state cops.

Snyder, a multi-millionaire Republican, who has supported some of the most extreme rightwing legislation in the state’s history, has become the focus of demonstrations throughout Michigan. On Dec. 15, he was met by protesters when he addressed the commencement ceremonies for graduates at Michigan State University in East Lansing.

A coalition of labor, faith and progressive organizations lined the roadways to the Breslin Center, where they passed out red carnations to graduates and fliers explaining the impact of right-to-work. “We will salute our graduates and remind Snyder that right-to-work jeopardizes the future of these graduates,” said a statement issued by the We Are Michigan coalition.

The statement continued, “We are standing up to protect students and families in a state where Gov. Snyder and his wealthy cronies are taxing retirees, cutting education and killing good jobs!”

Bill Reed, president of United Auto Workers Local 602 based in Lansing, said “We are here to show our appreciation for the MSU students.

The legislation harms these students’ future.”

Many unions have called for an electoral campaign to vote out the right-wing Republicans in 2014. However, with the pace of the attacks against organized labor, women, peoples of color, youth and workers in general, many cannot afford to wait another two years for the uncertain outcome of midterm elections.

Committee to Beat Back Right-to-Work The Committee to Beat Back Right-to-Work has launched a public campaign within the trade union movement to get the various locals to discuss and pass resolutions calling for a general strike. The provisions for such an action exist within trade union structures, growing out of the sitdown strikes and other mass mobilizations of the 1930s and early 1940s.

Article 50, Sec. 8 of the UAW constitution states, “In case of great emergency, when the existence of the International Union is involved, together with the economic and social standing of our membership, the International President and International Executive Board shall have the authority to declare a general strike within the industry by a 2/3 vote of the International Executive Board, whenever in their good judgment it shall be deemed proper for the purpose of preserving and perpetuating the rights and living standards of the general membership … provided, under no circumstances shall it call such a strike until approved by a referendum vote of the membership.”

The Committee to Beat Back Right-to-Work

set up a Facebook page and passed out 2,000 leaflets during the demonstrations in Lansing on Dec. 11, which were well received by the workers.

Further attacks on Detroit On the same day that Snyder and the right wing were passing right-to-work legislation in Lansing, in Detroit a series of repressive measures were forced through under political duress from state officials and banks. A $300,000 legal contract with Miller, Canfield law offices, a millionaire firm, was passed 5-4 by the City Council. This company has been involved in advising Mayor Dave Bing on the enforcement of the Financial Stability Agreement, a union-busting measure pushed by the banks.

Another measure approved selling 1,500 vacant plots of land to a businessman who will establish tree farms. These lots on the city’s east side are vacant because of the predatory lending policies of the banks, which have left hundreds of thousands without homes due to foreclosure and eviction.

Hundreds of Detroit residents have attended City Council hearings to express their opposition to these giveaway projects to wealthy corporations. However, a bloc of City Council members has consistently voted in favor of initiatives that further erode the political authority and will of the people of the city.

Bing announced recently that city workers will be hit by another round of furlough days and layoffs. Yet banks that have withheld at least $118 million in unpaid property taxes on vacant homes and buildings are not being pursued for payment.

It was discovered that the firm controlling one of the large downtown sports arenas owes over $2 million in taxes to the city. However, individual households have been receiving notices from the city’s finance division claiming they owe money on back income taxes from 2007 to 2011.

Overall assault requires strategic approach In addition to the right-to-work law, other egregious bills were passed during the lame duck session in Michigan. These changes represent the coming nationwide onslaught against working people.

A new emergency manager law was passed, even though a similar proposed amendment to the state constitution had been rejected by the voters in November. The new legislation, called the Local Financial Stability and Choice Act, will take effect in March, raising the ominous specter of continued austerity and disempowerment of African-American-majority cities around the state.

A Downtown Development Authority bill passed that will allow the state to continue to capture taxes and give these funds directly to private corporations — a process that already exists but has recently been questioned. The city has not benefited at all from the outright theft of tax dollars; instead, high unemployment and infrastructural damage have worsened.

A personal property tax on businesses was repealed, giving the capitalists hundreds of millions while depriving local municipalities of funds needed to finance public services and projects. A regional transit authority was established. The federal government had denied funding to metropolitan Detroit unless this measure was enacted.

Women will face greater obstacles to reproductive health care. Bills were also passed that will make it far more difficult to recall public officials.

These new laws require drastic action by workers and the oppressed in Michigan. A shift in strategy toward citywide and statewide work stoppages would raise the level of consciousness and struggle within the region and nationally.

Bring in the new year with a gift subscription to Workers World at workers.org

In Manhattan on Dec. 14, labor activists picketed Capital Grille, a chain owned by the Darden Restaurant Group that includes Red Lobster and Olive Garden. They demanded that the corporation sit down with the Restaurant Opportunities Center United to address wage theft, racist discrimination and retaliation, among other charges detailed in lawsuits. Workers at Capital Grilles in Miami, Chicago, Los Angeles and the Washington, D.C., area have also filed suits. They ask supporters to call Regional Director Bill Butler at 407-245-4051 and tell Darden to stop being a Scrooge — it raked in $700 million in profits last year — and negotiate with the low-paid workers. To sign a petition supporting the workers, visit www.dignityatdarden.org.

Two regular pickets at Golden Farm, the Brooklyn, N.Y., supermarket which owes immigrant workers their jobs and more than $500,000 in court-ordered back wages, were arrested on Dec. 9, but later released without charges. Protesters returned in the rain on Dec. 16 to pressure owner Sonny Kim to rehire the low-paid workers, give them the wages they earned, and sign a fair contract with them. Business is down 30 percent, thanks to weekly demonstrations organized by 99 Pickets and the Occupy communities.

Conn. nursing home workers back on job

Nearly 600 nursing home workers, represented by the New England Health Care Employees Union, an affiliate of Service Employees 1199, had been on an unfair-labor-practices strike since July 3 at five HealthBridge centers in Connecticut. The strike got results: they went back to work on Dec. 17. A federal judge ruled Dec. 11 that HealthBridge did not bargain in good faith when it imposed a pension freeze, an increase in health care costs of at least $6,000 a year for family coverage, and elimination of six sick days and a week’s vacation. (New York Times, Dec. 13)

Labor laws must cover domestic workers

The first comprehensive study of the horrendous working conditions of nannies, household cleaners, caregivers and other domestic workers confirmed that these workers, predominantly immigrant women of color, are often paid below the minimum wage ($7.25 an hour), with no benefits or sick days, and have no legal job protections or control over working conditions. Though these workers are usually needed to free others to work, the 2,086 women interviewed reported they don’t earn enough to adequately support their own families. The study, conducted by the National Domestic Workers Alliance and the Center for Urban Economic Development at the University of Illinois, Chicago, concluded that domestic workers need to be covered by federal and state minimum wage laws, which include unemployment insurance, anti-discrimination and workers’ compensation provisions, as well as the right to organize and bargain collectively for better wages and working conditions. The AFL-CIO formed a partnership with NDWA in 2011. (AFLCIO Now blog, Nov. 28)

Daycon strikers win long fight for justice

The janitorial and maintenance workers at Daycon got reinstated with back pay and benefits after an unfair-labor-practices strike by Teamsters Local 639 in Maryland. It took two-and-a-half years and a court ruling on Nov. 9 after management illegally implemented a cutback contract. Local 639 credited union solidarity organized by the Metro Washington Council AFL-CIO with helping them win their long battle for a better contract. (dclabor.org, Nov. 9)

USPS sets productivity records in 2012

In sharp contrast to the drive of the 1% to privatize the U.S. Postal Service, the new annual report shows how well the USPS performs.

Worker productivity set a record in 2012, and shipping revenues increased 8.7 percent due to a tiny rise in the bad economy. Overall, the USPS brought in $65.7 billion, with operating expenses of $67.9 billion.

Only 16 percent of the overall loss is due to mail delivery. Though this year’s deficit is $2.2 billion, down from $4.9 billion last year, the USPS’s total deficit is $15.9 billion. It’s estimated that 80 percent of that stems from having to put aside retirement benefits for workers 75 years in the future. Since Congress passed the prefunding requirement in 2006, the USPS has set aside $47 billion, a killer requirement that no other government agency or private company faces. But the billions set aside could easily erase the deficit. That’s why all four of the postal worker unions, with widespread community support across the U.S., are advocating that the law be overturned. (AFL-CIO NOW blog, Nov. 19)

Help needed for construction workers in D.C.

There’s a building boom in Washington, D.C., but local residents are “grossly underrepresented” on construction sites, reported a study published Dec. 5 by the research center Good Jobs First. The study, “Taxation without Employment: The Case for the District’s Strong Local Hiring Rules,” shows that new local hiring rules need to be implemented to help put 30,000 unemployed in D.C. back to work. The report was commissioned by the Laborers’ International Union of North America.

(Union City, online newsletter of the Metro Washington Council AFLCIO, Dec. 5)

workers.org

Dec. 27, 2012

Page 5

Origins of Michigan’s ‘right-to-work’ union-busting law

United class struggle can overturn it

By Fred Goldstein The passage of the union-busting “right-to-work” law in Michigan is a severe legal setback for the labor movement and for the workers, the oppressed and all the progressive masses in the state. If not turned around, it will encourage rightwing, anti-labor forces across the country.

However, it must be emphasized at the outset that so far this is purely a legislative setback. It has not been implemented. The working class has not been defeated in the class struggle. Rather, the labor leadership was politically outmaneuvered by a cabal of right-wing billionaires and their political puppets in the legislature and the governor’s mansion. These forces conspired to put this reactionary legislation on the fast track without even giving the legally required time and processes for the masses to mobilize against it.

The worst thing the labor movement can do now is accept this reactionary legislation as a fait accompli and look to the electoral arena in 2014 — a distant attempt to regain ground lost in the legislature.

There’s a lesson to be learned from the earlier failure of the Wisconsin so-called recall movement. In this period, as the billionaire Koch brothers and their like pour massive funds into the electoral arena and into advertising and propaganda, the labor movement is at a distinct disadvantage fighting on electoral territory alone. To be on much more solid ground, the movement must rely on its real strength — the mobilization of the workers, the communities, the students and all the oppressed in the class struggle.

To delay the struggle until the 2014 elections and fail to mobilize the workers for struggle now would allow this legislation to be enforced, so that a legislative sleight of hand is turned into a real and profound setback for the workers. Such a delay would result in a totally demoralizing, one-sided class struggle, in which right-wing billionaires are allowed to bust unions.

From Wisconsin to Lansing, struggle & fightback The unions should take their cue from the fact that between 15,000 and 20,000 workers and their allies from around the state and other parts of the country turned out in Lansing on short notice to try to stop the legislation. They were in a militant, fighting mood, even though they were confronted by an emergency situation in which the approval of the legislation was virtually assured.

The unions should also bear in mind the heroic phase of the Wisconsin struggle when workers, students and community activists occupied the Capitol, while tens of thousands of workers and activists from all over the country poured into Madison. For two weeks they tried to stop the attempt to outlaw collective bargaining among public sector workers. Support for the Wisconsin struggle came from all over the world, including Europe and as far away as Egypt.

At that time, the question of a general strike was posed for the first time in decades by the labor movement — although it was quickly abandoned.

That struggle was never allowed to reach its potential because it was diverted into a “recall” struggle, which was really a gubernatorial election by another name.

And the bosses — who had been on the run while the occupation and the mass demonstrations continued to grow — were back in charge in the electoral arena

with their millions in campaign funds to bolster Gov. Scott Walker.

It is still a question whether, if Walker had been defeated in the recall by the Democratic Party candidate, Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barnett, the law would have been overturned.

The Michigan law, dubbed “right-towork-for-less” by the unions, is potentially an even-more-sweeping challenge to workers’ rights than the Wisconsin law.

To bank on an electoral challenge in 2014, or a recall, or winning a legal challenge in the courts is folly and dangerous.

Lansing should be beginning, not end In both Wisconsin and Michigan, the workers have shown their willingness to rise to the occasion if given the chance and the resources. It is more fruitful to look upon the Lansing mobilization as a beginning of the mass struggle, not the end.

Admittedly, it will be a long and strenuous road to build the kind of struggle required to overturn the Michigan law. But the basis for such a mobilization exists.

The right-to-work law is not the only reactionary legislation being rammed through.

The Republican-controlled Michigan legislature passed dozens of bills in its final sessions, including a bill revising the vicious “emergency manager” bill that had been defeated at the polls in November.

The revised bill, like the previous one, still gives the governor the right to appoint what amounts to a municipal dictator, called a manager, with the power to override city laws and elected officials and tear up union contracts, among other powers.

A law placing restrictions on physicians performing abortions, including requiring special licensing and onerous state inspections, was passed. A voter suppression law aimed at immigrant workers was also passed, requiring that voters affirm their citizenship, their address, their birth date and present a photo identification before receiving a ballot. In addition, the state legislature passed a law eliminating $600 million in property taxes that further undermines funds for municipal services.

Thus the legislature has attacked women, undocumented workers and poor cities that are a majority Black, as well as unions. This is the material and political basis for convening a broad coalition of forces to launch a mass fightback against all these reactionary laws — laws that affect millions.

Need to overcome defeat of Prop 2 The workers and the union leaders in Michigan, especially the United Auto Workers leadership under Bob King, have to overcome the demoralizing effects of a major defeat that set the stage for passage of the right-to-work law — namely, the defeat in the November elections of Proposition 2, which had called for inserting the right to collective bargaining in the Michigan constitution.

This proposition lost by 14 points, 57 percent to 43 percent, even though President Barack Obama swept the state. This came as a shock to the labor movement.

The defeat of Prop 2 during Republican Gov. Rick Snyder’s term in office was

a signal to the right wing to move the union-busting legislation. It was passed five weeks later.

It was not just the defeat, but the large margin of the setback that took the breath out of the labor movement. It emboldened the right to go further and move union-busting legislation in a state known as a center of union strength, the stronghold of the UAW. The moment the results were announced, the leaders knew that the unions were in great danger.

They were reduced to hoping that Snyder would veto it. They went into meetings with him, having been taken in by his earlier statements that right-to-work was not on “his agenda.”

Snyder is a multimillionaire corporate executive, a venture capitalist, There is no reason in the world for working-class representatives to trust him as far as they can throw him. It was the height of folly to give credence to his early denials.

To claim now that he stabbed the labor movement in the back is like denouncing the fox for eating the chickens.

The unions got into this position by severely underestimating the political influence and strength of the right wing and heavily overestimating their own social strength. Furthermore, they adopted the wrong strategy and tactic in dealing with an impending move to put over the right-to-work law, which had begun in early 2011.

The Michigan Freedom to Work coalition was formed after the Republican electoral sweep in 2010. In March 2011 Snyder sent up “emergency manager” legislation that authorized tearing up union contracts. Around the same time he put forward laws to prevent the collection of teachers’ union dues.

As word spread that a right-to-work movement was afoot, the unions realized they were facing a potential battle that could end up in a crisis. A broad coalition of unions, headed by the UAW, launched a campaign to preempt the right wing with the “Protect Our Jobs” amendment — Proposition 2.

Right-wing billionaires pounced. Richard DeVos of the Amway fortune, the 67th richest man in the U.S. with $5.1 billion, formed Protecting Michigan Taxpayers, which poured $22.7 million into defeating Proposition 2. (Reuters, Dec. 13) The Americans for Prosperity funded by the Koch brothers and the American Legislative Exchange Council, a front for rightwing corporate forces, joined the struggle. This should have come as a surprise to nobody, given the right-wing political climate. The defeat at the polls in Wisconsin should have rung alarm bells against relying on electoral methods to fight back.

Also shocking was that the defeat of Prop 2 revealed the weakness of the labor movement’s political appeal in the state.

That should serve as a wakeup call to the

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labor movement that it has to repair its relationships, not only with the workers but also with the broad masses.

Build labor-community relations through popular assemblies It is clear that many people were susceptible to the massive anti-union propaganda spewed by the right wing. The labor movement must take this deadly seriously.

After decades of retreat before the bosses, including the UAW’s collaboration in the elimination of hundreds of thousands of jobs and in agreeing to a concession-riddled contract during the auto bailout, cynicism and apathy about unions seem rife among sectors of the workers, as well as the unorganized masses.

The widespread abandonment of the Black masses of Michigan, especially by the UAW, in matters of jobs, foreclosures, destruction of public education, etc., has resulted in a growing isolation of the labor movement from the community.

The same holds true among women, the LGBTQ communities and immigrants, who have all been regarded as peripheral by sectors of the labor movement and who at best have received lip service from the bureaucracy.

In addition, the retreat of the labor movement, combined with the economic crisis, has devastated the unions ­numerically.

It was thoughtless and irresponsible for union leaders not to have taken all these factors into consideration before launching the constitutional amendment project. For them not to have considered what would happen if they lost, thereby revealing their weaknesses and vulnerability to the class enemy, was to recklessly court danger.

Wisconsin showed that, when faced with the potential of a legislative initiative attacking the unions, the correct course was to begin the long and difficult process of mobilizing the union rank and file and then forging alliances with the oppressed communities.

At the time of the legislative crisis, when the workers massed in Lansing on Dec. 11 to protest the law, the Committee to Beat Back RTW promoted a call for the movement to consider a general strike and to form popular assemblies of women, the LGBTQ communities, the immigrant community, students and youth, and all the popular organizations to unite to carry out a mass strike.

Many of the workers at the Lansing demonstration responded with enthusiasm to this appeal. A strategy along these lines is the only road back from this defeat. The longest journey begins with a single step. The Lansing demonstration should be regarded as that single step, to be followed by many more on the road to defeat union busting, exploitation and oppression of all types.

Page 6 Dec. 27, 2012

workers.org

Southern conference in solidarity with nurses, dock workers

By Monica Moorehead Charleston, S.C. People from the West Coast and across the country traveled to Charleston, S.C., to attend the ninth biannual Southern Human Rights Organizers Conference (SHROC) on Dec. 7-9. The conference was held in a hall belonging to Local 1422 of the International Longshoremen’s Association, which represents thousands of dock workers on the East Coast.

It is also home to most of the Charleston Five longshore workers — members of ILA Local 1422, four African-American and one white — who were arrested in January 2000 on trumped-up charges stemming from a protest over union busting. Due to tremendous mass solidarity with these workers in the U.S. and worldwide, the charges were finally dropped in November 2001.

SHROC, first inaugurated in 1996, has been held in various Southern cities such as Oxford and Jackson, Miss.; Miami; Atlanta; Memphis; Houston; Durham, N.C.; Birmingham, Ala.; and Charleston. An estimated 300 conference participants traveled from these cities as well as from Chicago; Greenville, Miss.; New Orleans; San Antonio, Texas; Boston; New York; Jersey City, N.J.; Oakland, Calif.; and Columbia and Greenville, S.C. While a great number of the participants were of African descent, there were also whites, Latinos/as, Indigenous and Palestinian activists. Two of the activists represented the inspiring Bolivarian Revolution in Venezuela.

With the theme “Forging the Path to Victory — Solidarity Across the Global South,” the main goals of the conference included bringing together activists to discuss social issues and develop strategies for building a movement for human rights in the Deep South; strengthening labor, youth, civil rights and anti-war organizations; and deepening global outreach and unity with the exploited and downtrodden.

Whether it’s catfish workers in Mississippi, immigrant domestic workers in Miami, environmental justice activists fighting pollution in North Carolina, low-wage workers fighting for dignity, or youth fighting police terror, SHROC helped to give voice to these important struggles and many more locally, statewide and around the world.

The conference was dedicated to the memory of Trayvon Martin, the Black youth murdered Feb. 26 by a racist vig-

SHROC delegation, Dec. 9.

ilante in Florida; Samuel Hammond Jr., Henry Ezekial Smith and Delane Herman Middleton, Black students killed by racist police in 1968 during a desegregation struggle at South Carolina State University in Orangeburg, S.C.; and the late Septima Clark, a long-time civil rights activist born in Charleston.

‘Changing what’s possible at MUSC’ A major issue dominating the threeday conference was the struggle of predominantly African-American nurses at the Medical University of South Carolina. Some 54 nurses have been illegally dismissed for filing justified grievances against this private medical college’s intolerable working conditions, low pay and racist attitudes on the part of management.

A number of these nurses attended the conference to share their stories. SHROC organizers called a direct action in front of MUSC on Dec. 8. A picket line of about 200 activists chanted for a couple of hours, while some of the impacted nurses stood across the street cheering them on.

The main theme of the protest was “Changing what’s possible at MUSC.” Along with “No justice, no peace” and “Ain’t no power like the power of the people cause the power of the people don’t stop” was “Ain’t no stoppin’ us now, workers are on the move.”

This struggle was likened to the historic 1969 hospital workers’ strike against MUSC led by the 1199 union in Charleston.

The strike, which lasted 113 days, was initiated by hospital aides, who won an increase in pay and better grievance procedures.

The gains were short-lived, however, due to South Carolina being, then and now, a state that adheres to right-to-work-for-less laws that undermine union organizing, including the right to collective bargaining, which also affects the MUSC 54.

Leaders of ILA 1422 are participating in current mediation talks with the MUSC administration on behalf of the nurses.

The opening of the conference included round-table strategic discussions on the criminalization of youth of color by the police and society in general; winning rights for excluded workers; and the continued building of the Southern Workers Assembly, which held its first meeting in early September in Charlotte, N.C., following the March on Wall Street South.

Plenary sessions, which were all connected to building a strong, united Southern human rights movement, focused on views about the 2012 presidential elec-

Support for MUSC nurses, Dec. 8.

tions; present struggles being waged in South Carolina and other parts of the region; U.S. slavery built on theft of Native lands in the U.S. and the relationship to the worldwide capitalist market today; the global supply chain as key to human rights empowerment; and the lessons and victories for local and regional mass campaigns.

Topics during concurrent breakout sessions centered on combatting discrimination; seizing the airways and building community FM radio stations; waging war on prisons for profits; exposing U.S. policies on immigration and building solidarity; women’s rights are human rights; tactics for achieving racial justice; moving forward with a Southern Regional People’s Assembly; and organizing a U.S. Labor Party.

Solidarity messages were presented throughout the conference by Clarence Thomas, International Longshore Workers Union Local 10; William Camacaro, Venezuelan Circle in New York; General Consul Jorge Veloz, Venezuela; Sarah White, Mississippi Workers Center for Human Rights; and Monica Moorehead, Workers World Party.

SHROC solidarity with longshore workers Another major highlight of the conference was the keynote address given

by Kenneth Riley, president of ILA Local 1422. Riley, also the first African-American president of the South Carolina AFL-CIO, was introduced by his brother, Leonard Riley, also a leader of this struggle-oriented local, which is well-known and respected in the Charleston community.

Ken Riley spoke of the need for unity and solidarity among all workers, organized and unorganized, throughout the South and the world. The ILA is currently in contract negotiations with shipping bosses over the epidemic of outsourcing dock worker jobs. If a decent contract is not reached by the extended deadline of Dec. 30, there is a real possibility of an East Coast longshore strike that will im-

WW photos: Monica Moorehead

pact shipping from Maine to Texas.

A resolution in solidarity with longshore workers was adopted at SHROC that reads in part: “The negotiations between the International Longshoremen’s Association (ILA) representing longshore workers on East and Gulf Coasts and U.S. Maritime Alliance representing the employers of the shipping industry which is due to expire on Dec. 30, 2012, have reached a critical juncture.

“As the economic crisis has left millions of U.S. workers unemployed, employers are proposing technological changes at a pace that will increase the unemployment and deepen economic and social crisis for working people.”

“THEREFORE BE IT RESOLVED, that the Southern Human Rights Organizers Conference stands in solidarity with the ILA in its negotiations for a fair contract for its more than 14,000 members representing thousands more families and communities who will be affected by the contract.

“That SHROC will build solidarity committees and actions especially in the East and Gulf Coast cities where the 14 main ports are located; “That SHROC calls on unions, worker and community and faith-based organizations to pass resolutions in support of the ILA in its efforts to gain a fair contract; “That SHROC calls on all unions, worker and community and faith-based organizations and supporters to send emails to U.S. Maritime Alliance Chairman and CEO James A. Capo, jcapo@usmx.com, calling on them to negotiate in good faith and to protect jobs for working people.

Send copies of emails to James A. Capo to SHROC at rightsms@bellsouth.net.”

SHROC founder Jaribu Hill told Workers World, when asked about the significance of this conference: “In 2008, during the SHROC IX, we celebrated the election of the first African-American president.

At SHROC X, we came together to strategize to make uncompromising demands on behalf of the 99%. We will tell President Obama that we will not remain silent to allow his or any other administration to ignore our just cries for real equality and inclusion. We can and we must stand in solidarity with dock workers, hospital workers, catfish workers, formerly incarcerated workers and Walmart workers from here to Bangladesh. The struggle will and must continue.”

For more information, go to ­southernhumanrights.org.

workers.org

CeCe McDonald & friends fought, survived lynch mob

Dec. 27, 2012

Page 7

Part 3

U.S. surge in police and neo-fascist lynchings Oppressed have right to fight ‘by any means necessary’

By Leslie Feinberg An “unwritten law” in the U.S. “dictates that nothing unusual is happening when 13 cops shoot 137 bullets at an apparently unarmed Black couple in Cleveland, a Blackrun city,” writes Glen Ford, the executive editor of Black Agenda Radio. (Dec. 5) “Community members charged the victims were lynched,” Ford reported.

Ford’s online commentary is headlined “Massacre in Cleveland: Lynch Law Was Never Repealed.”

“Less than two weeks before, in Jacksonville, Fla.,” Ford recalled, “a white man who didn’t like Black teenagers playing loud music at a gas station fired eight or nine shots at 17-year-old, unarmed, Jordan Davis, killing him.”

Armed killers of Jordan Davis and Trayvon Martin both claimed the “right” to gun down these unarmed Black youths was “self-defense” under Florida’s “stand your ground” law — which has emboldened vigilante, death squad terror.

“Young Trayvon drew his last breath in time to be listed among the 120 Black people known to have been extrajudicially executed in the first six months of this year — one killing every 36 hours.”

The damning evidence of these executions was compiled by the Malcolm X Grassroots Movement in its report on the “Extrajudicial Killings of Black People by Police, Security Guards or Self-Appointed Law Enforcers,” posted online on July 9, 2012. The full report can be downloaded at mxgm.org.

This compelling study was the second produced for the “‘No More Trayvon Martins Campaign,’ demanding a National Plan of Action for Racial Justice.” It found that “sixty-nine percent of the lives lost belonged to people from the ages of 13 to 31.”

The online report states: “The corporate media have given very little attention to these extrajudicial killings. We call them ‘extrajudicial’ because they happen without trial or any due process, against all international law and human rights conventions.”

‘Institutionalized violence of white supremacy is intensifying’ The Malcolm X Grassroots Movement emphasizes that “this 6th month update proves beyond a shadow of a doubt that the institutionalized violence of white supremacy is not only alive and well, but is, in fact, intensifying.

“To complete the picture, we must take into account the extrajudicial killings and other repressive policies directed at other targeted peoples and communities such as Indigenous peoples, Latinos, Arabs, Muslims, and immigrants.”

“Those few mainstream media outlets that mention the epidemic of killings have been … unwilling to acknowledge that the killings are systemic — meaning they are embedded in institutional racism and national oppression,” the report explains.

BAR Editor Glen Ford noted: “The report, compiled by a handful of people for the Malcolm X Grassroots Movement, had to be pieced together from news clippings and other sources. That’s because there is no database on the extrajudicial killing of African Americans, a practice that is not considered a crime, based on America’s ‘unwritten law.’

“In fact, it’s treated even more casually than a sport — at least in sports they keep statistics.”

Ford concluded that Black anti-lynching organizer and journalist “Ida B. Wells kept statistics. She and a few colleagues tallied 3,436 lynchings of Blacks in the 33 years between 1889 and 1922.

Eighty-three of the victims were women.

Lynching reached its high-water mark in 1892, when 160 African Americans were slaughtered because of their race.

“That number will be far exceeded this year, at the rate the blood is flowing.”

CeCe McDonald punished for surviving racist lynch mob CeCe McDonald — a 22-year-old Black (trans)woman — and her friends survived a white-supremacist attack by a racist mob on the streets of South Minneapolis.

McDonald has been punished by sheriffs, jailers, prosecutor, judge and prison guards ever since.

McDonald’s web support site states: “Around 12:30 a.m. on June 5, 2011, CeCe was walking to the grocery store with some friends, all of them young, African American, and LGBTIQ or allied. As they passed a local bar, the Schooner Tavern, a group of older, white people who were standing outside the bar’s side door began hurling racist and transphobic slurs at them, without provocation.”

In the trial transcript CeCe McDonald testified that at least four or more white adults took part.

The website states: “When CeCe approached the group and told them that her crew would not tolerate hate speech, one of the women … smashed her glass into CeCe’s face. She punctured CeCe’s cheek all the way through, lacerating her salivary gland.” (supportcece.wordpress.com) One of the neofascists, Dean Schmitz — a white man whose body was emblazoned with a swastika tattoo — was stabbed and died.

McDonald was the only person arrested that night.

Repressive show of state force against CeCe McDonald After being arrested, her website states that McDonald “was briefly taken to the hospital where she received 11 stitches in her cheek. While McDonald was still suffering both physically and mentally from this traumatic incident, she was left alone in a room for three hours. She was then interrogated and placed in solitary confinement at the Hennepin County men’s jail.

“She spent the next several months in jail and had to wait almost two months between her initial doctors’ visit and a much-needed follow-up appointment.

“After her arrest, CeCe was quickly charged with second-degree murder. In short, she was prosecuted for surviving a violent, racist, transphobic attack.”

A Crime Library online article, posted Oct. 2, 2012, reports: “Prosecutors offered McDonald a deal: Rather than face trial for second-degree murder, she could plead guilty to first-degree manslaughter and serve just seven years in prison. She refused the plea bargain.”

The article added that on Oct. 6, 2011, “Prosecutors added a second charge of second-degree murder, this one ‘second-degree intentional murder.’

“Each of these two charges could damn her to as much as 40 years in prison if she were found guilty in court.”

The Crime Library article stated that McDonald’s lawyer and the Legal Rights Center charged that “prosecutors were retaliating for McDonald’s refusal to take a plea.” (trutv.com)

Boston LGBTQ Pride march, June 9, 2012.

McDonald’s web support site points out that Hennepin County Attorney Michael Freeman — a white prosecutor “who describes himself as ‘the Michael Jordan of prosecutors’ — held the power to drop the charges against her.

“But in the face of powerful community demands to ‘Free CeCe,’ Freeman did not drop the charges: instead, he dug in his heels and escalated the attack against CeCe by adding an additional charge of second-degree murder.”

Crime Library notes: “Freeman continued to maintain that it wasn’t self defense. Schmitz wasn’t the one who’d hit McDonald with the glass, he pointed out. And nothing stopped McDonald from running away from the scene at any time.” ­(trutv.com) Katie Burgess, executive director of the Minneapolis-based Trans Youth Support Network, said in April, “People were very enraged about what had happened to her and the refusal of Hennepin County to recognize her right to self-defense.”

Burgess continued: “And word has spread across the nation and across the world. We have seen local support from LGBT organizations and politicians and also national support from organizations such as the National Center for Transgender Equality and the Sylvia Rivera Law Project. We have a petition that’s circulating with over 15,000 signatures asking Hennepin County to drop these charges.”

(April 27) She said that 44 percent of hate murders in the U.S. are committed against young trans women of color.

“And we would like to also point out the ways that this violence plays out in the courtrooms.” (democracynow.org) Journalist Marc Lamont Hill wrote in an Ebony article: “The injustices of McDonald’s case continued inside the courtroom. Throughout the trial, the judge and prosecution consistently and intentionally misgendered McDonald, referring to her by masculine pronouns, further demonstrating a refusal to acknowledge her as a woman.

“Despite considerable evidence — including medical evidence, toxicology reports, eyewitness accounts, and unrefuted testimony that Schmitz initiated the altercation — McDonald’s self-defense claim was dismissed by prosecutors.

“Even worse, the judge ignored the fact that McDonald was the target of a hate crime, despite the racist and homophobic language used by Schmitz seconds before the fight began.

“The court even refused to admit Schmitz’s criminal record into evidence,

WW photo: Stevan Kirschbaum

not to mention the swastika tattooed on his chest, as evidence of his history of violence and bigotry,” Hill reports.

A May 22 article in Mother Jones points out, “The judge also ruled that the defense could not call an expert witness who would testify to transgender people’s experiences of violence in their everyday lives.”

Crime Library concluded: “Meanwhile, McDonald’s family and friends reported that they were being harassed by people connected with Dean Schmitz. They recounted threatening phone calls, and said that people they recognized from the Schooner Tavern had thrown bottles at them from a car” and yelled racist epithets. (trutv.com, Oct. 2) ‘By any means necessary’ It is always “legal” for ruling classes and their hired guns to attack and wage war against those they exploit and oppress.

This same legal fiction deems it “illegal” for those who are oppressed and exploited to fight back.

The Emancipation Proclamation — signed Jan. 1, 1863 — was necessary, for example, because the inhuman violence of the ­system of chattel slavery had been “legal.”

The Proclamation spelled out the right of Black people to self-defense. Yet McDonald was arrested for defending her life against white-supremacist attack, and later sentenced during the month of Juneteenth, a celebration of the Emancipation Proclamation — the formal abolition of “legal” enslavement of peoples of African descent.

McDonald was sent to prison in June — the month when the Stonewall Rebellion ignited in the streets of Greenwich Village in 1969. From the Compton’s Uprising to the Stonewall Rebellion, defense against oppressions is a law of survival.

During the month of March, McDonald and her book club supporters read “The Autobiography of Malcolm X,” as told to Alex Haley. (supportcece.wordpress.com) Black revolutionary Malcolm X spoke out repeatedly about the right to self-defense: “I’m nonviolent with those who are nonviolent with me.

“I don’t call it violence when it’s self-defense, I call it intelligence.”

In a speech Malcolm X gave only weeks before being assassinated on Feb. 21, 1965, he told an interviewer, “We declare our right on this earth to be a human being, to be respected as a human being, to be given the rights of a human being in this society, on this earth, in this day, which we intend to bring into existence by any means necessary.” (Quoted in “By Any Means Necessary.”)

Page 8 Dec. 27, 2012

workers.org

Cleveland

Protests follow police shooting spree

By Sharon Danann Cleveland

veals no flash or sound of gunfire. Results of gunpowder residue tests, which should be available, have not been released.

Police shootings of unarmed Black The community has responded with “suspects” are sadly all too common na- marches, rallies, press conferences, open tionwide. But firing 137 bullets to stop a forums and graveside support. At packed car with two occupants may have set a community meetings on Dec. 6 and Dec. record.

14, sponsored by the Cleveland NAACP, On the night of Nov. 29, 13 officers Cleveland Mayor Frank Jackson and other chased a car driven by Timothy Ray high-ranking city officials, people chanted Russell, 43, from downtown Cleveland “No justice, no peace!” The victims’ family through the city of Bratenahl to East members stated that police had murdered Cleveland, a 26-minute chase. Malissa their loved ones “in cold blood.”

Williams, 30, was a passenger in the car.

During a march at the site of the shootBoth Williams and Russell were killed in ing, signs condemned what happened as what Cleveland’s daily newspaper, the “lynching.” Walter Jackson, Williams’ Plain Dealer, called “a fusillade of bullets” uncle, called it “another Rodney King on a cul-de-sac behind Heritage Middle ­situation.”

School. Police cars were also shot up by An East Cleveland resident at the Dec. “friendly fire,” a clear indication of the po- 14 protest labeled the police action as “Ku lice chaos.

Klux Klan mentality.” Connecting the poThe police claimed initially that they lice murders with the tragic massacre of were fired upon. But investigators from school children in Connecticut, she statthe Cuyahoga County Medical Examiner’s ed, “This country loves its guns.” office stated that no guns or bullet casBlack on Black Crime founder Art ings were found in the car. A security film McKoy pointed to the Cleveland Police showing the beginning of the chase re- Department’s history of deadly force,

Another racist vigilante slaying

compounded by bias favoring officers in the investigations of these incidents. All 4,427 use-of-force investigations by police supervisors for the period January 2003 to September 2006 cleared the officers involved of wrongdoing. (Cleveland Plain Dealer, Jan. 14, 2007) The Task Force for Community Mobilization, Self-Determination, Transformation and Community Empowerment, a coalition of more than 35 community groups, sent a letter to U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder asking for a swift investigation of the November shootings by the Civil Rights Division of the Department of Justice. The letter concluded, “We can no longer rely on the police to police ­themselves.”

Groups that make up the Task Force include the American Civil Liberties Union, the American Friends Service Committee, the Carl Stokes Brigade, the Immigrant Support Network, Peace in the Hood, the New Black Panther Party for Self-Defense, the Shurah Council of Greater Cleveland (10 mosques), Black on Black Crime, the Oppressed Peoples Nation, Survivor and Victims of Tragedy, the Hip Hop Workshop and the Council on American-Islamic Relations.

The Task Force, along with the ACLU of Ohio, has requested that Ohio Attorney General Mike DeWine appoint a special prosecutor to head up the investigation, replacing the East Cleveland Police Department and the Cuyahoga County Sheriff’s Office. In its letter to DeWine, the Task Force pointed out: “There were 137 shots including shotgun blasts that were fired into the vehicle after a reckless highspeed pursuit. At what point does a person stop being a danger? One officer fired 30-40 shots alone. He would have had to reload at least twice. That was nothing

more than target practice on corpses. Several years ago community leaders, citizens and public officials concluded that the Cleveland Police Department had a pattern and practice of excessive force, civil rights violations and bias involving people of color.”

The Cleveland NAACP has called the shootings “unacceptable and avoidable.”

Congress member Marcia Fudge, whose district includes East Cleveland, sent a letter to the Special Litigation Unit of the Justice Department, asking for a thorough and independent review.

At a community forum in East Cleveland’s Shaw High School on Dec. 14, Abdul Qahhar, minister of justice of the Task Force, called for the Plain Dealer to publish the photos of the 13 officers who fired weapons in the shooting incident as “criminal cops who committed murder,” since the paper publishes pictures of fathers behind in their child support payments.

Qahhar’s suggestion received enthusiastic support.

Ernest Smith, founder of the Oppressed People Nation, was loudly applauded as he called for the community to take to the streets.

One older African-American man said this is happening in every city in the U.S. He eloquently pointed out that the African people in the U.S. are a captive and brutalized nation and the fightback must take place outside of the rigged “criminal” justice system.

When the meeting ended, people marching to the exits started counting to 137 — the number of bullets fired. Regarding the groundswell of community organizing, Qahhar later declared, “We are kicking ass.”

Martha Grevatt and Susan Schnur contributed to this article.

Sandy Hook tragedy

Its roots go deeper t

Jordan Russell Davis

By Kathy Durkin Jordan Russell Davis was with friends in an SUV listening to music in a gas station in Jacksonville, Fla., over the “Thanksgiving” weekend. Their fun and camaraderie came to an abrupt halt as this 17-year-old African American was fatally gunned down.

The shooter was Michael David Dunn, a 45-year-old software engineer, who claimed he felt “threatened” by the four unarmed youths, who were simply sitting in their vehicle enjoying themselves.

Dunn shot at them eight or nine times, striking Davis with three bullets and killing him. A grand jury indicted him for first-degree murder and three counts of attempted murder in the Nov. 23 shootings. It is expected that Dunn will claim his murderous acts constituted “justifiable homicide” under Florida’s “stand your ground” law.

Ronald Davis and Lucia McBath, the parents of Jordan Davis, appeared on MSNBC on Dec. 12 to discuss their son’s horrific slaying and publicize the need to overturn the “stand your ground” laws.

Davis avowed that in Florida, “the best that we can do as Jordan’s parents is to get the ‘stand your ground’ law repealed because this is just a shield for people to go ahead and use their firearms without any type of thought about human life. So

that’s why we’re going to repeal that.”

The Color of Change blog maintains that the “stand your ground” law “legalizes vigilante homicide, has demonstrated racial bias in its application, and has led to an increase in gun-related deaths in the more than two dozen states where it has been passed into law. These laws give individual gun owners a greater right to shoot and kill than the rules of engagement for our military during times of war grant to soldiers in war zones. It must be repealed now to protect families and communities and prevent senseless deaths.”

There is tremendous outrage not only in Florida but around the country at this racist murder. It took place less than a year after vigilante George Zimmerman fatally shot African-American youth Trayvon Martin in Sanford, Fla. Zimmerman is hiding behind the “stand your ground” law — which is promoted in every state by the ultraright National Rifle Association — to try to justify his heinous act and avoid being held accountable and imprisoned. His senseless act sparked demonstrations from coast to coast in solidarity with the Martin family and their quest for justice for their son.

The horrendous crime which took Jordan Davis’ life requires that all progressive forces express solidarity with the Davis family and fight to overturn these reactionary laws wherever they are enacted.

Continued from page 1 himself, only 20, an evident suicide. All gone, killed.

It shouldn’t happen, but it did and it does. The shooting at Sandy Hook on Dec. 14 is being called the second-largest such massacre at a school, behind the shooting at Virginia Tech in 2007. It was not an isolated event in this country. Not even for this year.

Though it seems long ago because the media have ceased talking about it, the massacre at the Century 16 theater at the Aurora Mall near Denver was only in July. In total there have been more than a dozen registered mass shootings in the U.S. in 2012.

In a few, such as in Oak Creek, Wis., where a white supremacist entered a Sikh temple and killed seven people, the motives are clear. In others, like Aurora and the latest in Sandy Hook, there doesn’t seem any one reason that drove the alleged shooter to kill.

As in Aurora with James Holmes, the media have portrayed Adam Lanza, the 20-year-old white male alleged to have committed the killings in Sandy Hook, as a very intelligent yet disturbed lone gunman. He is said to have had few friends, few relationships at all, somewhat estranged from his older brother, whose identification he carried. Friends of Nancy Lanza, Adam’s mother, say she rarely went

into detail about her troubles with him.

Adam has also been characterized as being unemotional, of not having the ability to feel physical pain, according to a former advisor, Richard Novia, who also was the school district security head until 2008.

Adam’s older brother, Ryan, says Adam suffered from a personality disorder, possibly Asperger’s syndrome. But experts say this would in no way predispose him to premeditated violence.

Adam was removed from school for a short time and home schooled. According to school officials, he was assigned a psychologist. His aunt, Marsha Lanza, recalls Adam’s mother struggling with the school to make sure her son received the services he needed.

Nancy Lanza, his mother, was also the one who taught Adam how to shoot. She had a dozen guns in total and has been described as a survivalist with an outgoing personality. After failing to purchase a rifle two days before the school shooting, Adam ultimately used several of the guns his mother kept in the home.

The underlying causes Is this what it all boils down to? Gun control? Is the heart of the issue that the young man had access to numerous firearms? Or is it something deeper? What would drive someone so young to commit such a heinous act?

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Dec. 27, 2012

Page 9

Subway struggle over racist ads

By Tony Murphy New York When the far-right blogger Pamela Geller collaborated with the Metropolitan Transportation Authority in September to run a series of racist, anti-Islam ads in the New York subways, the reaction on the part of New York’s progressive community was instant.

Virtually all of the ads Geller paid the MTA to run were defaced within days.

Add that to the protesters who invaded the MTA board meeting that month to confront Geller and take a stand against racism, and it’s clear that her ad campaign got the treatment it deserved.

Now, Geller is back with a new round of ads. Different words — same disgusting, pro-war, anti-Islam message.

This time, the MTA has helped her by placing more of the ads higher up, alongside clocks that hang from the ceilings in the underground subway system. Geller claims they will be too high to be defaced.

We’ll see. What is also a question is whether activists will be able to expose the MTA’s role in all of this. The board members played martyr in September, claiming that a court order forced them to run the ads. “Our hands are tied,” they said.

Nonsense. With SWAT teams that patrol the subway with submachine guns, attack dogs, and racist-profiling backpack checks, the MTA long ago became a willing accomplice in the bogus war on terror.

It was no accident that Geller’s ads ran in September, when the United Nations was in session, at the height of the media’s hysterical anti-Ahmadinejad campaign.

The MTA’s sorry attempt to cast its war propaganda as a free speech issue is transparently hypocritical: it still hasn’t run ads paid for in September by the International Action Center. These ads say, “Resist Another War: No to Racism & Anti-Muslim

than guns The underlying causes of such an act spring from the fundamental contradictions of modern society at this juncture in history and the political economy of the U.S. in particular. The politics and superstructure are formed by the economic base. Also, we must point out the sheer hypocrisy in the narrative of the mainstream media and of the politicians who turn out to express grief with the suffering families.

Life is precious and the life of a young person even more so. Most people think of a young life as brimming over with potential. Of course, some, because of their material wealth, status, nationality and gender expression, have more possibilities open to them. But things change. Where there is life there is the possibility for change. The young people who lost their lives could have been actors in making the world a better place.

When President Obama expressed his condolences and spoke of being responsible for one another’s children and of giving children the chance to live out their lives in happiness, he may not have considered the children in Pakistan who have lost their lives in U.S. drone attacks.

The president may not have considered the children in Gaza, who died from Israeli-delivered but U.S.-financed bombs, nor the children in Iraq or children anywhere who suffer because of U.S. policies of war and economic strangulation.

Bigotry, Tool of 1% Rule. We — the 99% — Need Unity & Solidarity!”

Exposing the MTA’s role is more than just anti-war sentiment. It opens up the potential for more allies in the struggle for contract justice for the transit system workers and the fight against the yearly transit hikes.

It also avoids simply giving Pamela Geller the kind of media soapbox she relishes. When people come out to protest, she uses it as a chance to get more air time

for her bigoted pro-war line.

That’s harder to do if the movement’s target is the MTA. The 99% use and run the subway system. It belongs to the people. Yet riders are forced to accept higher and higher fares, and now have to be accosted by racism when they take the subway. And the transit workers — who heroically revived the subway system after Hurricane Sandy — are being asked by the MTA to accept no raises for three years.

The MTA has gotten the media to report that riders are resigned to being treated like ATM machines, with fares automatically going up every several months, as though that’s the fault of the workers. But the outrage against the racism being promoted in the subways shows how thoroughly what should be a public service has been taken over by the 1%.

The basis for classwide unity to take back public transportation is growing. It’s time for the movement to take advantage of it.

which account for 30 percent of the handgun market in the U.S., have seen their sales soar in the last few years. Guns are a $4.1 billion industry here.

These figures reflect only the personal firearms industry, not major weapons manufacturers such as General Electric, General Dynamics, Northrop Grumman, Lockheed Martin or the other corporations that receive tens of billions of dollars per year from the federal government.

The gun culture is more than that, though. The U.S. was built from seized land, land that was taken from the original inhabitants, who were then massacred — children, women and men. Whole nations were disappeared, killed by guns, knives and an early form of biological warfare, where diseased materials were used to introduce foreign illnesses to Indigenous peoples.

Slavery was maintained by the gun and brutal violence that saw the rise of the first standardized police force, the slave catchers. To this day, it has been violence that has maintained U.S. political and economic hegemony over most of the world.

U.S. predominance is at the service of a small class that owes its beginnings to the founding of the U.S. and capitalism.

The U.S. and Western Europe owe their wealth, not to the ingenuity and supremacy of the peoples of the respective countries, but to naked aggression, theft, slavery, rape and genocide. As Walter Rodney wrote in “How Europe Underdeveloped Africa,” “[T]he development of Europe [is] part of the same dialectical process in which Africa was underdeveloped.” The same can be said for the U.S. with regard to the rest of the planet.

This is how the gun culture, a culture of violence, came into being. It is a mere reflection of the current world social order.

za grew up — one of violence, privilege and also a deep disconnectedness. While Lanza may have been surrounded by material trappings, things that the vast majority of people on the planet will never see, there is a profound emptiness in just having things.

Capitalist society touts individualism, the competition for survival. In modern U.S. society people are alienated from the fruit of their work and from one another.

The consumerist culture that so many liberal magazines decry is a manifestation of the alienation in modern capitalist society, which is part of the decadent culture that grows more ripe, generation after generation.

The blame is being put on guns. There are calls for more stringent gun control laws, something that would cede the monopoly of violence to the police, who maintain the current social relations. But the real reason for the rise of these types of actions and the troubled state of young people is the social order.

Perhaps the families of the children who died at Sandy Hook can never truly heal. How can they, when birthdays will pass and the voices of young precious people will go unheard and all their potential will never be realized?

Science at times can seem unfeeling, but at the heart of a revolutionary is the desire to change the world, to see the old order be torn away for something better, more human, based on making sure everyone in society is provided for.

The only way to begin to address a tragedy like the massacre at Sandy Hook is to address the fundamental problems that exist. In the final analysis, it is the capitalist system that is to blame. As long as it exists, the lives of children are at risk, whether it be from violence, starvation, neglect or disasters caused by global warming. It is all rooted in a system that has outlived its usefulness.

Still suffering from Sandy Thousands of people living in New York City’s Far Rockaway and Staten Island areas are still without heat, hot water and electricity.

They have to line up for hot meals and food. Toxic mold and residue from Sandy’s surge fill their apartments.

On Dec. 15, Occupy Sandy in conjunction with a number of community members called protests, involving marches and housing rehabilitation, in these two communities.

This was followed by a gathering in front of Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s posh Manhattan house in the evening.

Report and photo

by G. Dunkel He may not have thought of the millions who die from hunger every year because of neoliberalist destabilization of the economies of underdeveloped countries.

He probably didn’t think of the children of deported parents. Or of Trayvon Martin or Jordan Davis or the children and grandchildren of Anthony Anderson, who was killed by Baltimore police. He probably doesn’t know the name Ramarley Graham or of the many whose lives were lost from police brutality. Or those who die from lack of health care or who fall through the cracks because of a disappearing social safety net.

The media do not mention any of the above. Certainly, though, the life of a Palestinian child is not less than that of one of the young children killed in Sandy Hook Elementary.

Yet, the fact that there appears to be a higher value placed on one life than another, and that the media and politicians can speak in generalizations about how precious a young life is, even while pursuing and enacting policies that lead to the suffering of hundreds of millions, only begins to get at the heart of the matter.

Adam Lanza was not reared behind an impenetrable shell, whether or not he suffered from some personality disorder.

His actions and the final act he is alleged to have committed happened within a social context.

Centuries of gun culture There is indeed a gun culture. The people arguing for gun control, however, are seeking changes in the legal superstructure — laws that would make it harder to purchase or stockpile weapons.

The National Rifle Association spends millions every year on lobbying, along with Gun Owners of America and other such organizations. Gun manufacturers have been making record profits.

Sturm Ruger and Smith & Wesson,

Violence, privilege and alienation This is the context in which Adam Lan-

Page 10 Dec. 27, 2012

workers.org

Workers World Party conference

.

Venezuela and the struggle for socialism

‘The agenda is to deepen the revolution’ This is a talk by Berta Joubert-Ceci of the Philadelphia branch of Workers World Party to the November WWP National Conference.

I

want to share some thoughts about Venezuela.

Since Hugo Chávez took office as president in 1999, Venezuela has been a ray of hope for millions of people around the world, but more so for the people in Latin America. The Bolivarian Revolution sparked a new wave of revolutionary struggles all around the region. Each process is different in every country, but they are tied to each other not only by their geographical situation, but by their aims to lift the masses of people out of poverty, rely less on the U.S., and very important, to integrate the region. And now, to follow a socialist path.

When Chávez declared that the revolution would be built on the basis of socialism, every revolutionary was ecstatic. He particularly mentioned that it would be the socialism of the 21st century. What is that? The point of reference is the USSR. First, that it would prevail. And second, that it would correct the mistakes that in their view served almost as sources of self-destruction, particularly in the organization of the masses. This, however, is not a critique of the USSR, considering the long history of U.S. imperialist aggression.

Can a socialist state be built through elections? Without dismantling and repressing the old violent capitalist state and replacing it with a new armed power

Berta Joubert-Ceci

that can jump-start the socialist development and protect it?

We remember the tragic experience in Chile. But the Venezuelans do too, and I bet that they have learned from it. Chávez has always said that the Bolivarian Revolution is a peaceful revolution, but not unarmed.

A socialist state cannot be constructed by just wanting socialism, or by changing some things in the superstructure (education, politics, etc.). The means of production must be in the workers’ hands. The relations of production must change.

So, since the capitalist state is still in place, enormous difficulties and contradictions have plagued the revolution,

which it is important to stress is not socialist yet. But on the other hand, as a progressive, anti-imperialist revolution which has socialism as its goal, it has lasted for 14 years. So, let us take a brief look at what has helped to maintain it.

The first thing that Chávez did was to re-establish the constitutional framework and engage the people in the drafting of a new progressive constitution. This helped to start some changes that eventually chipped away some of the political power from the capitalists. The main source of income, the oil, was rescued and its enormous profits went to establish social programs for the benefit of the masses. Then there was the nationalization of banks and of some industries.

There was also the establishment of workers’ control in some companies.

The revolution is now at the stage of how to transform the relations of production and have the means of production in the hands of the working class.

The organization of the working class to take power is crucial.

Chávez has been presented in the capitalist media as a “dictator.” Right now he is the only political figure able to galvanize the masses and push forward the revolution, but he knows that has to change.

And since the very beginning of the revolution he has encouraged the organization of the masses. Remember the Bolivarian

Circles? A constant in the revolution has been organization at the base. And a great deal of discussion and debates.

Now, after the last election, the agenda is to deepen the revolution, towards socialism. For that there is the second national plan for socialism. They are programming assemblies all over the nation to engage the people in a great discussion about how to go forward. This is crucial.

They are establishing “comunas” (communes). In neighborhoods, in workplaces, everywhere.

There are dangers, within and without.

We should be on the alert to the dangers posed by the Venezuelan opposition and U.S. imperialism, which has been working incessantly to overturn the Bolivarian Revolution. It aligns with the pro-imperialist oligarchy and aids the counterrevolutionaries through nongovernmental organizations, etc. There is a high presence of U.S. and Israeli intelligence at all levels ready to whip up dissent and malicious criticism of Chávez and the process.

For us in the center of imperialism, it is crucial to defend this tremendous development, which has ignited a new wave of resistance to imperialism, and above all, sparked the flame, the passion, for a just society where the wealth belongs to the people. Defending this development is to defend the struggle for socialism. ¡Viva la Revolución Bolivariana! ¡Viva el socialismo! Long live socialism!

Long live the international peoples’ struggle for socialism!

Hit by the capitalist crisis

‘Youth globally are fighting back’ Following is a talk by Ben Carroll of the Durham, N.C., branch of Workers World Party to WWP’s National Conference in November.

I

t’s incredibly exciting to be here, given all the tremendous developments in the struggle, the fightback that is building across the globe and the role that young workers are playing in this. Before I get into talking more about some of these, I want to first discuss some of the ways that this crisis is impacting young people.

One of the most profound symptoms of this capitalist crisis is the staggering levels of youth unemployment around the world and the desperate situation that this has thrown an entire generation into.

At the end of 2010, there were around 80 million young people across the globe who were unemployed, according to the U.N. Youth unemployment is around 40 percent throughout much of Europe, 50 percent in Egypt and Tunisia, and hovers in the 40 percent to 50 percent range for many countries. Here in the U.S., the most recent unemployment statistics show that youth employment is around 20 percent overall, and stands at an almost unfathomable 50 percent for Black youth.

And these are all the official statistics, which we know are deliberately manipulated lower and don’t account for those who are underemployed, working part time when they need a full-time job, who have given up looking for a job altogether, or prison labor.

To a greater and greater extent, young people are faced largely with three options: work a low-wage job with no benefits, join the ranks of the unemployed or get locked up in prison. A whole generation is being shut out of the workforce altogether, and this shows the severity of the present crisis of the capitalist system.

The austerity measures and budget cuts being adopted by state and local governments around the country have put every social service on the chopping block, all of which were won through struggle. Education is being hit particularly hard, as schools are closed or privatized or charterized, teachers and education workers are laid off, the growth of the school-to-prison pipeline, tuition at community colleges and universities is soaring through the roof. And the banks cannibalize the public treasury and force students to mortgage away our futures with student loans if we want to get an education. This is because education for the masses of young people, and particularly African-American and Latino and Latina youth, is regarded as unnecessary by the ruling class.

Whatever last thin veils remained that hid or obscured the barbarity, the injustice and the inhumanity of the capitalist system have been lifted, revealing all the contradictions, racism, sexism and bigotry of this system more and more with each day.

This is what has led billionaire Mayor Bloomberg, the International Monetary Fund, and many other capitalist pun-

Ben Carroll

ww Photos: Brenda Ryan

dits and media to issue warnings about what Bloomberg Businessweek magazine termed “the youth unemployment bomb.”

And around the world there are signs that this bomb is beginning to explode.

An international fightback is beginning to bubble up that in many cases is being led or initiated by young people, and while each has a different political character, all are set against the backdrop of the global capitalist crisis.

In many ways, it began in Tunisia and Egypt with uprisings that toppled the U.S.-backed dictatorships in those countries and took aim at mass unemployment there.

In Spain, demonstrations were held on May 15 across the country against austerity and mass unemployment, which stands at 20 percent generally and 45 percent for young people. They escalated into occupations of squares in cities across the country that lasted for nearly a month. At one point, there were demonstrations in over 150 cities. Young people there began referring to themselves as “los indignados,” the generation without a future, which really speaks to the condition of young people across the globe.

They have continued to hold assemblies in many of the major cities in Spain that have been defending people’s homes when there are attempted evictions or moving people back into their homes after they have been foreclosed.

In Greece, where the attacks on the workers and the austerity are perhaps the most severe and the fightback the most developed at this stage, young people have played a pivotal role in mobilizing and supporting the general strikes which have been called in response to the attacks, the most recent of which was last week. The student section of the All Workers Militant Front, the union associated with the Greek Communist Party, has led walkouts of high schools and universities to support the strikes. And more than 50,000 young people also organized an occupation outside of Parliament in Athens at the time of the square occupaContinued on page 14

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Dec. 27, 2012

Page 11

Coal miners, Hurricane Sandy and China’s GreenGen

By Deirdre Griswold

mate change, which took place this year in Doha, the capital of oil-rich Qatar, got This year, possibly for the first time nowhere as usual. ever, the United Mine Workers did not The governments of the rich and powendorse a presidential candidate. In erful capitalist countries that have pro2008, the union was an early endorser of duced the vast majority of carbon dioxide Obama, and has usually supported Dem- gas that today blankets the earth, trapocratic candidates. The union’s decision ping its heat, have blocked any efforts to to sit it out this year was an indication of set quotas for reducing the emission of the crisis that has befallen coal miners, greenhouse gases. Nor could the small who don’t know where to turn for help. island countries that face extinction as In 1923, there were 700,000 coal min- sea levels rise get any meaningful help for ers in the United States. Today, there are their people. fewer than 88,000. In this same period, However, the lack of an international the total amount of coal produced here agreement hasn’t stopped every country annually has doubled, while productivity from moving ahead with tackling this urper worker has increased about 14 times. gent problem. Most notable is the People’s Mining coal is a hard, dirty and danger- Republic of China. It is worth citing a few ous job. Most of the mines are in areas, facts about what China is doing, especially like Appalachia, where poverty is high and since most of the U.S. media present Chiother types of work are hard to get. His- na as a major problem in climate change. torically, coal miners have been among the most class-conscious and militant China pioneers ‘clean’ coal workers. Their harsh conditions and the China relies on coal for 70 percent of high-handed, brutal tactics of the mine its energy. It has the largest coal deposits owners resulted in class struggles that in the world, and is presently the largest have at times amounted to open warfare. consumer of coal. This is a huge problem Both capitalist parties want the votes for China, and has contributed to serious of miners and their communities but air pollution in most of its cities. have no answers to their rising problems.

But in 2010 China became the world’s The Republicans tried to make hay this largest investor in clean energy. When the year by blaming growing unemployment 2008 financial crisis hit, the U.S. spent in mining areas on government regula- trillions on bailing out the banks and other tion of coal mining and coal-fired pow- financial institutions. China, seeing its exer plants, which are major producers of port market drying up as the Western capgreenhouse gas (GG) pollution. Romney italist economies plunged, did something even found some coal miners willing to different. It invested nearly a trillion dolstand on the platform at one of his cam- lars in its infrastructure, much of it dealpaign rallies. The Republicans failed to ing with the problem of energy conservacapture the union’s endorsement, but the tion as well as clean energy generation. workers were disappointed enough with It established the Thermal Power Rethe Obama administration to withhold search Institute, the Clean Energy Retheir support. search Institute and many other govNo mention of climate change in debates Capitalist politics is based upon deception of the masses of people. This election was no exception. While the presidential debates were about the budget deficit and taxes, the all-important issues of jobs, poverty and climate change got little attention from the candidates. Climate change in particular was never even mentioned.

It should have been a perfect opportunity to bring to hundreds of millions of viewers a clear, scientific explanation of what is happening to the world’s environment because of rampant, profit-driven industrial expansion, and then present a program of what to do about it.

Here, in the richest of all capitalist countries, the technology and the human power exist to remake the entire infrastructure and begin to turn around the intensifying cycle of unnatural disasters now unfolding.

The energy of every person who needs and wants a job and training could be employed in such an endeavor.

Of course, nothing of the kind happened. The absolute lack of any plan, even to deal with the after-effects of hurricanes, tornadoes, droughts and floods, let alone with their causes, was made painfully clear during and immediately after the election.

Millions had their lives turned upside down by climate-change-induced catastrophes all over the country, from wildfires in the West and drought in the Midwest grain belt to the swath of submerged and hammered communities hit by Hurricane Sandy, which rampaged from the New YorkNew Jersey coast all the way to the Great Lakes and into Canada.

Yet the recent annual U.N. talks on cli-

ernment bodies to integrate scientific breakthroughs with industrial development. This led to vastly expanding its investment in renewables like solar panels and wind farms.

In October the China Institute of Atomic Energy announced it had completed the construction of an experimental fourth-generation fast neutron reactor that is now contributing 20 megawatts to the power grid. The plant utilizes 60 percent of the energy in its uranium fuel, compared to just 1 percent for older pressurized water reactors. The next step in China’s nuclear program is a fast reactor that uses recycled fuel — thus beginning to draw down the huge piles of radioactive waste accumulating around the world.

China’s investment in cleaner energy has also led to the development of new ways to use coal without adding carbon dioxide to the atmosphere.

This year, a coal-fired plant called GreenGen went online in Tianjin that is generating 400 megawatts of electricity with near-zero emissions of carbon and sulfur. The carbon is sequestered and pumped back deep underground. GreenGen is a pilot plant; if it performs as expected, China will build more and phase out the older polluting plants.

Coal is not the answer for all time, obviously. Coal, like oil and gas, is a fossil fuel. It was created by geological processes over millions of years, and it is being depleted at an alarming rate by human extraction. It is not renewable.

Over the short term, however, the new coal-fired energy technology can help China reduce its GG emissions — which it committed itself to do at the U.N. conference in Copenhagen three years ago.

China in 2010 became the world’s largest investor in clean energy. It is the largest producer of solar panels and of wind energy. Here, an engineer points to a diagram of the GreenGen coal-fired, low-emission power plant that went online this year.

It voluntarily set itself a target of a 45 percent reduction in GG emissions per unit of economic development by 2020.

(Bloomberg News, April 3) China is still a developing country, one that has to feed and house 1.3 billion people — four times the population of the U.S. How can it afford to be on the cutting edge of dealing with global warming, when only two generations ago most of its people lived in dire poverty?

The answer is that, despite the growth of the capitalist market in China, its central financial and industrial institutions are still publicly owned and operated according to a planned economy made possible by its socialist revolution of 1949.

Even Western capitalists, who would love to break up state control over the Chinese economy as they did in the former USSR, recognize this.

‘Earth, the Operator’s Manual’ The U.S. Public Broadcasting System aired a documentary last April entitled “Earth, the Operator’s Manual.” It can be viewed online. Among the people interviewed on this program, which deals with the question of climate change, is Jon Hofmeister, the head of Shell USA. Hofmeister says about China: “There is literally a plan in their energy policies. It’s good to have a plan — having that long arc of commitment. … We’re not making the decisions at the national level that need to be made in terms of the next decade and the next several decades after that. … Places like China have a clear plan, and they are driving forward and they are building an energy infrastructure for the 21st century which will perhaps supply energy to the world’s largest economy — China, not the U.S.” How ironic that a major capitalist — from the oil industry, no less — should speak admiringly of China’s economic plan. Of course, Hofmeister would be horrified if we were to suggest that Shell, Mobil, General Electric, Ford, Citibank and all the huge corporations and banks that have a lock on the U.S. economy should be taken over through a workers’ revolution so that the riches of this society, built by the workers, could be organized in a rational plan and used to meet people’s needs, not the profit greed of a small class of parasitic owners.

No, Hofmeister wants to have his cake and eat it, too. He wants the capitalist government to invest the workers’ money into just enough planning of infrastructure so that his company won’t fall behind China and can still produce enormous profits for his class.

One of the U.S. companies that has started doing business in China is Peabody Coal. It actually divested its mines

in Appalachia by selling them to a company created for this purpose, which then conveniently went bankrupt. This pushed the responsibility for the miners’ pensions and health coverage onto the government — a common trick nowadays.

Peabody is involved in the GreenGem plant, and would probably like to take the technological knowhow that China has developed in the field of near-zero-emission, coal-fired energy generation and make profits from it here in the U.S. But Peabody wouldn’t sink much of its own money into such a plan. It would agree with Hofmeister that the government should pay the lion’s share. The primary concern of Peabody, as a capitalist corporation, is not clean energy. It is profit.

The U.S. capitalist government, however, is already so overburdened with paying the banks their interest on the national “debt,” spending trillions on protecting the worldwide imperialist interests of big capital, and also repressing the working class at home — where we have the largest prison population in the world — that it is trying to figure out what to cut, not what to add.

Mattoon power plant, dead before it was born Actually, there was a plan to build such a low-emissions coal-fired power plant in the U.S., beginning back in 2004 with the founding of the FutureGen Alliance. Millions of dollars were sunk into it before the Bush administration withdrew funding.

After the bubble burst, the new Obama administration said in 2009 that some of the stimulus money should go into building the FutureGen plant in Mattoon, Ill. But it seems that the plug has been pulled on that plant, and it is now going nowhere.

The capitalist system has no answers to the problem of global warming or to the despair of the coal miners, who are being replaced not by environmental regulations but by new technology like mountaintop removal.

Meanwhile, many communities ravaged

by Hurricane Sandy are still suffering. And the Midwest drought has lowered the Missouri and Mississippi rivers by as much as 20 feet, threatening to halt shipping there.

(Thanks to WW subscriber Joe Johnson of Wisconsin for this information.)

The profit motive, which is so totally entrenched in this capitalist society, stands in the way of a rational reorganization of the economy that would provide jobs for all while re-greening the planet.

Only the working class and the oppressed, fighting in their own interests, have the power to bring this ruling class down and put production on a sustainable basis. Environmentalists have a duty to do all they can to help make this happen.

Page 12 Dec. 27, 2012

workers.org

In Pakistan

Mass movement demands U.S. release Aafia Siddiqui In support of continuing efforts to pressure the U.S. government to repatriate Dr. Aafia Siddiqui to Pakistan, former U.S. Congressperson Cynthia McKinney and International Action Center Co-Director Sara Flounders traveled to Pakistan Dec. 2-9. Workers World managing editor John Catalinotto conducted the following interview with Flounders on her return to the U.S. Workers World: What was the aim of your trip to Pakistan?

Sara Flounders: The trip focused on exposing U.S. crimes, meaning the government’s violations of due process and justice in the case of Aafia Siddiqui and also U.S. practices of secret renditions, illegal confinement and torture — practices highlighted by Siddiqui’s case. It also confirmed that there is deep opposition across the whole political spectrum in Pakistan to the U.S. use of drones to carry out assassinations in the region.

Cynthia McKinney was the other person from the U.S. on the trip, participating in every meeting. She has been an opponent of U.S. wars at every step.

The Pakistani forces — and they are numerous — who support Aafia Siddiqui also want to bring pressure upon the Pakistani government so that it too demands of the U.S. that she be returned to Pakistan.

That is what millions of Pakistanis want.

Political parties were signing a pledge in the Parliament that they would take a stand opposing the release to the U.S. of anyone in Pakistan’s custody until Aafia Siddiqui is returned to Pakistan. The U.S. Congress is so arrogant that they demanded that Pakistan release Dr. Shakeel Afridi, the jailed CIA informant, to the U.S., while of course they are silent on the U.S. holding a kidnapped Pakistani woman, Dr. Aafia Siddiqui.

WW: Two weeks ago we covered your stop in Karachi. How much support does

Aafia Siddiqui have in the rest of the country that you visited?

SF: Our trip to Peshawar — which is drone territory — and Lahore confirmed what we saw in Karachi, each time more strongly, that the kidnapping of Siddiqui, her 10 years in prison, her secret detention and trial are a deeply felt emotional issue in Pakistan.

We drove from the capital, Islamabad, south to Hyderabad. When we were on the road, young people came out in thousands. Our car was surrounded by youths on motorcycles carrying flags with Aafia’s picture on them.

All political currents — and there are hundreds of parties — say they support her return. This includes even those who worked with the U.S., and of course those who opposed U.S. imperialism, and it included the masses in the street, who are for her release in a powerful way. We saw signs on the walls all over, “Free Aafia,” “Free sister Aafia,” “86 years, bullshit.”

People in the U.S. may have gotten used to seeing Congress speak so arrogantly to the rest of the world. Or the U.S. courts treating oppressed people like they have no rights. But the Pakistanis can’t believe what happened to Siddiqui. They asked in every meeting: How it was possible that someone who injured no one could be sentenced to jail for 86 years? Why was a Pakistani citizen brought to the U.S.? How can this be? They asked: How could the U.S. government or some secret agency hold her young children in prison for years?

When the children were finally returned to the Siddiqui family, they spoke only English. Average Pakistanis are outraged.

WW: What role did women play in the protests?

SF: We were extremely impressed by the role of women in the movement to free Siddiqui and also at their anger against the drones that are killing their families.

We stopped in a small town just outside

Peshawar. The men were on one side of the room, the women on the other. But far from being submissive, the women were passionately involved in the issue, the most militant. They had been to rallies for Aafia Siddiqui and spoke about her as if she were their sister.

In her youth Aafia Siddiqui was the number one high-school student in Pakistan.

Her specialty at MIT and her doctorate were on the learning process of children.

Aafia’s sister, Dr. Fauzia Siddiqui, who is also U.S.-educated and was director of the epilepsy program at John Hopkins University, was the main coordinator of the Free Aafia movement and of our trip. I found her to be a skilled political organizer who has built this movement into such a force that every political party in Pakistan has to at least say they support it. It is telling that she has now received death threats. It shows that powerful forces fear the success of this movement.

We were impressed by the Free Aafia media work, which was coordinated by Altaf Shakour. We were overwhelmed by the friendly media coverage. Every newspaper printed front-page color pictures.

And there is a broad range of media, much more variety than in the U.S. There were 100 journalists from all types of media at the events. There were big rallies with thousands of people, after which our motorcades drove past thousands more on the way to the press club. It was a live issue.

We also visited Aafia’s home in Karachi, met with her mother, Fauzia’s two children and the two children of Aafia.

WW: Was there any sign of the war in Afghanistan?

SF: People in Pakistan continually say that Karachi is key to the war in Afghanistan and are for the withdrawal from Afghanistan. People often made the point that Pakistan taught the U.S. a lesson when just months ago the people and the government shut the roads. Today there are lines

of trucks going along the roads bringing U.S. equipment back from Afghanistan.

Peshawar, near the border with Afghanistan, is under control of the Pakistani military. We had a huge, huge outpouring of the Pashtun people who are an oppressed nationality within Pakistan.

It’s an area of constant war. There, trucks with big sound systems played songs about Aafia Siddiqui in large rallies. There were hundreds of signs.

People referred constantly, with great resentment, to the many U.S. operatives, private contractors and military working within Pakistan today.

The big issues were the drones, the U.S. policy of secret renditions. McKinney spoke a lot also about the U.S. unjust and racist prison system itself, as well as Aafia Siddiqui. People consider the extrajudicial killings with the drones the extension of the kidnapping and imprisonment of Siddiqui.

Nothing shows more the utter failure of U.S. drones than seeing how these totally criminal, extrajudicial tactics have turned a whole population so decisively against Washington. Drones are not such an effective weapon if 95 percent of Pakistan’s population now hates the U.S. WW: Did you meet with any left forces?

SF: In Lahore, a political center, there was an Institute for Policy Studies, a room with 100 people that was live-streamed to another 25,000. Everyone, even in this Westernized atmosphere, was against drones and for the return of Aafia Siddiqui.

Because we were from the U.S. and it was about Aafia, it was intensely watched.

Both religious and left forces support the movement. We had a meeting, for example, with the Awami Workers Party, a new party recently formed by the merger of three workers’ parties. They want to make Aafia’s freedom a workers’ issue.

When we left, a Grand Youth Alliance in Pakistan for Aafia with a base on every campus was in formation.

As voting for draft constitution begins

Egyptian protesters stay in the streets

By Abayomi Azikiwe Editor, Pan-African News Wire Egyptians in 10 of the country’s 27 provinces, including the two major cities of Cairo and Alexandria, voted on Dec. 15 in the first phase of a referendum for a draft constitution. The follow-up vote is scheduled to be held Dec. 22 in smaller cities and rural areas throughout this North African state.

Only one-third of the 26 million people eligible in the 10 provinces actually voted.

Preliminary results showed that the “yes” vote for the constitution received about 56 percent and the “no” vote 44 percent.

The new constitution and other issues have drawn widespread protest throughout the country over the last month.

On Nov. 22, President Mohamed Morsi of the Muslim Brotherhood-allied Freedom and Justice Party had issued a decree concentrating greater powers in his office. Under pressure from mass demonstrations, Morsi rescinded this decree a few weeks later.

These two developments, the decree

Egyptians demonstrate against President Morsi demanding that he withdraw decrees that usurp powers from the judiciary.

and the national referendum, led to the formation of a large opposition coalition calling itself the National Salvation Front.

It consists of left, liberal and nationalist parties and organizations in opposition to the character of the constitution and the political process which the FJP government has utilized in the recent period.

While there are some prominent pro-capitalist leaders like Mohamed ElBaradei in the NSF, there are also new organizations of youth who were the backbone of the revolutionary movement two years ago.

Official preliminary results show the “no”

vote won in both Cairo and Alexandria, meaning that the two main political centers rejected the FJP leadership. Nevertheless, the FJP, along with the Al Nour ­Party, a Salafist-oriented organization, have ­declared victory for the draft ­constitution.

The National Salvation Front has rejected the official results and is calling for canceling the second phase of the controversial process on Dec. 22. The NSF cites lack of judicial supervision and vote rigging, and demands that the government abandon the process and re-open negotiations on a new constitution.

Opposition calls mass demonstrations The NSF called upon its supporters to go into the streets on Dec. 18 to express their opposition to the character of the elections. Some of the violations cited by the coalition were unstamped voting ballots (making them invalid), the names of dead people on voter rolls, the absence of judicial oversight, and the presence of what they claim were 120 “fake” judges involved in the monitoring process.

These elections take place in a period of economic decline. Unemployment remains

high, and the domestic sectors of tourism and natural gas have been depressed.

The FJP government of President Morsi has taken no measures that would distance it from the international capitalist financial institutions. Nor has it reoriented Egyptian foreign policy away from the U.S., taken a position against the state of Israel, or shown more solidarity toward the Palestinians in Gaza than did the proU.S. Hosni Mubarak regime.

Qatar, a Gulf emirate allied with the U.S., has recently pledged $20 billion in investments to the Morsi government.

The Egyptian masses overthrew Mubarak because they wanted fundamental change in how Egypt was run, including overturning the political, economic and foreign policy of the pro-imperialist government, along with more of their own participation in that rule. They are unhappy with the successors to Mubarak and are again opening the door to change. This will require a break with imperialism and rebuilding the country based upon its own national interests and those of the majority of the population.

workers.org

Dec. 27, 2012

Page 13

World’s people show solidarity with Chávez

By Berta Joubert-Ceci Since Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez announced the recurrence of the cancer that he has been battling since 2011 and the need for additional surgery, he has been the object of world solidarity. He told the Venezuelan people on Dec. 8 that his last medical examination showed that malignant cells recurred at the site in his abdomen where he had been treated earlier.

As a result, he needed a fourth operation.

This time, however, the outcome could be disability or even death. As the Constitution mandates, he designated current Vice President Nicolás Maduro to stand in during the treatment and as his successor should he be unable to return to office by the Jan. 10 Inauguration Day. He asked Venezuelans to elect Maduro president if new elections are needed.

Chávez then flew to Havana, Cuba, in preparation for surgery on Dec. 11. A skilled Cuban medical team had the difficult task of treating and trying to save the life not only of an individual, but the hope of millions of people throughout the region and the world.

Why is Chávez important?

One leader is not the revolution. It is the masses and the process of revolution that create leaders, and not the other way around. Leaders, however, can steer the revolution, coordinate resources and speed it up. Leaders are also an important part of revolutions when they are the product of the masses’ aspiration.

Chávez is such a leader. He has been able to gather and concentrate the desire of the Venezuelan people for social justice and equality and turn it into action.

Under his presidency, the government has lifted the lives of all Venezuelans, dedicating an impressive 43.2 percent of the budget to social programs. Illiteracy is now nonexistent in Venezuela and poverty has been reduced.

Venezuela is a dynamic country where people participate actively in forming their future.

Along with improving the quality of life of millions of people, Chávez’s government has shown that Simón Bolívar’s dream of regional integration could be a reality. Together with revolutionary Cuba, Venezuela impelled the formation of anti-imperialist regional associations like the Bolivarian Alliance for the Americas (ALBA). These associations have been crucial for the improvement and cohesion of the region, including other Caribbean nations.

Chávez and Venezuela inspire the world by standing up against the U.S. imperialist monster. They show that nations can win and maintain national dignity, independence and sovereignty in the face of criminal imperialist interventions.

Broad solidarity That is why the news of his illness has moved people to almost personal suffering — what one feels for a family member — from Venezuela and Latin America and the Caribbean to Africa, Asia, the Middle East and Europe.

Achievements of Korean socialism

By Caleb T. Maupin

and threats of another military attack.

The recent launch of a satellite into orbit is only the latest of many achievements of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea. The northern half of the Korean peninsula is led by the Korean Workers Party, a revolutionary communist organization. The banks, factories and other commanding heights have been held in common and guided by a planned economy since 1948.

The DPRK’s socialist revolution has resulted in many achievements for the Korean people.

Universal housing Even during the extreme flooding and droughts of the “arduous march” period of the early 1990s, after the collapse of the USSR, no person in the DPRK has ever been deprived of their basic human right to housing. Dr. Bruce Cummings of the University of Chicago pointed out in his book “North Korea, Another Country” that the DPRK makes universal housing a priority. (New Press, 2003) Currently, the country is working to construct 100,000 new “dwelling houses” in Pyongyang. (Korean Central News Agency, Jan. 22, 2010)

Building up industry Before driving out the Japanese colonialists, north Korea had very little industrial production. After the revolution, Kim Il Sung led the country in developing its infrastructure. But from 1950 to 1953, the U.S. invaded the DPRK and tried to eradicate all that had been built with a massive bombing campaign. The Koreans resisted and finally an armistice was signed. Over the next three years, in the Three-Year Plan of 1954-1956, the industrial growth rate was at least 30 percent, even according to hostile U.S. sources. (“A Country Study: North Korea,” U.S. Library of Congress) Between 1953 and 1956, the DPRK tripled its gross domestic product. Huge steel plants were erected. Electric power plants were also constructed. The country became industrialized at a pace that astounded economists all over the world. (“Korea: Division, Reunification, and U.S. Foreign Policy” by Martin Hart-Landsberg, Monthly Review Press, 1998) The DPRK has continued to develop, but always under the burden of U.S. sanctions

Universal employment Article 70 of the DPRK’s constitution says: “Citizens have the right to work. All able-bodied citizens choose occupations in accordance with their wishes and skills and are provided with stable jobs and working conditions. Citizens work according to their abilities and are paid in accordance with the quantity and quality of their work.” There is no unemployment in the DPRK. Education During the period of Japanese occupation, many working people in Korea were illiterate. The socialist revolution in the northern half of the country established a system of compulsory universal education. According to the CIA World Factbook, literacy in the DPRK is 99 percent.

Kim Il Sung, the founder of the DPRK, emphasized how important education was for constructing socialism. His book “Theses on Socialist Education” is considered one of his most important writings.

Chávez is close to the hearts of millions.

One can see their feelings in the faces of women and men of all ages in the photos of gatherings in Venezuela and hear it in their testimony.

Chávez, who of all the Latin American presidents has used social networks extensively, has been inundated with messages of well-wishers in his “chavezcandanga” Twitter account.

Beyond Venezuela, Ecuadorean President Rafael Correa canceled his appointments and flew to Havana to be with Chávez before his surgery. All the presidents of the ALBA countries have been in constant communication with Chávez’s representatives. They and many other heads of state and multiple organizations have organized solidarity events with Chávez and the Venezuelan people.

Most of these events have been religious, of every kind. In the context of sadness and individual impotence in the face of an unknown outcome, it reflects the importance of religion for millions of people in Latin America. At a service in a Venezuelan mosque, Vice President Maduro said that 58 mosques in Muslim countries were holding services for Chávez’s health that day.

These services are acts of solidarity with the Bolivarian Revolution and its aim of liberation from imperialism. Uruguayan President José Mujica, who is not religious himself, sent Chávez a letter, saying: “As you know, I am not a believer, but I have asked some friends to organize a mass so that those who wish to express themselves religiously for your health have a place

here in our country. I will go with them.”

In Cuba, it has been reported that both Raúl and Fidel Castro visit him daily and talk with the Chávez family, who are by his side.

Elections in Venezuela without Chávez The regional elections held Dec. 16, without Chávez’s physical presence, selected 23 governors and 237 representatives to the Legislative Council, including eight representatives of Indigenous regions.

The candidates from Chávez’s PSUV party won in 20 of Venezuela’s 23 states, gaining the governor’s house in five states formerly in the opposition’s hands. This is a significant popular victory and a step forward on the road toward socialism.

This will be no easy task. Even a fully recovered Chávez would face a complex process with enemies inside and outside Venezuela, particularly U.S. imperialism and its local stooges. We must not forget that Venezuela is still a capitalist country, and socialism is still an ideal, although there are definite plans for its construction. All the socialist forces everywhere should be paying close attention to this process and help sustain it and defend it from the imperialist forces.

This is the time that people around the world, and particularly all the progressive forces inside the United States, need to show a strong commitment to and solidarity with the Venezuelan Bolivarian Revolution and its leader, Hugo Rafael Chávez Frías.

¡Chávez, amigo, estamos contigo!

Chávez, we are all with you!

Pyongyang, Dec. 14.

Koreans dance near banner reading ‘We celebrate the launch of the satellite.’

WWP Congratulates Koreans on Satellite Launch S

cientists and technicians of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea successfully launched a satellite into orbit on Dec. 12, making the DPRK the tenth country in the world to achieve a presence in space. This feat is all the more remarkable given the intense military and economic pressures exerted on the socialist state by the U.S. ever since the imperialists failed to crush the Korean Revolution in the bloody 1950-53 war they waged there.

Workers World Party sent the following message of solidarity to the Central Committee of the Workers Party of Korea on hearing the news.

Workers World Party sends its congratulations to His Excellency Comrade Kim Jong Un and the Workers Party of Korea on the DPRK’s magnificent scientific achievement of successfully launching into orbit the satellite Kwangmyongsong-3.

This is further proof that all attempts by the U.S. imperialists to strangle the DPRK through economic sanctions and military encirclement cannot overcome the ingenuity and creative joint efforts of the Korean people to move forward in all areas of development. This success was made possible by the DPRK’s great socialist revolution and the decades of hard-fought struggles to defend your independence and sovereignty.

Deirdre Griswold For the National Committee of Workers World Party

Page 14 Dec. 27, 2012

workers.org

editorials

Recognizing a lie in Syria

O

n Dec. 11, the U.S. took what the Obama administration calls a “big step.” It formally recognized the Syrian Opposition Council as the sole “legitimate representative” of the Syrian people. Most observers were not surprised: Washington and its allies have been laboring mightily for months to create the very organization they now “recognize.”

Just before the announcement, a firestorm of media frenzy accused Syria of possessing weapons of mass destruction. NATO then deployed six batteries of Patriot missile systems along Turkey’s border with Syria. Yet, unable to sustain this accusation, Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta, on the same day that the U.S. formally recognized the opposition, downplayed the so-called danger from Syrian chemical weapons. “At this point the intelligence has really kind of leveled off,” Panetta told reporters. (AP, Dec. 11) A key point in the U.S. recognition was to ensure that the “official” opposition will be a pliant tool of U.S. and Western interests. President Obama made it clear in an interview with ABC News on Dec. 12 that there were definite strings attached: “So we will provide them recognition and obviously with that recognition comes responsibilities on the part of that coalition,” he said. “It is a big step.”

It is obvious that U.S. imperialism has set up this “official” opposition as a means to make military aid and even outright military intervention in Syria more palatable to the world’s peoples.

The administration has been very clear

about its hopes for the region.

“I would remind you of how this went in the Libya context where we were able to take progressive steps … and to advance the way we dealt with them politically,” State Department spokesperson Victoria Nuland said. (AP, Dec. 11) Nuland was referring to the so-called Libyan National Transitional Council, which used the same designation of “legitimate representative” to open an office in Washington and access billions of dollars in assets frozen in U.S. banks that had belonged to the government of Moammar Gadhafi. U.S. Ambassador Chris Stevens then went to Benghazi, Libya, as an envoy — accompanied by numerous CIA operatives — to help direct the Libyan rebels.

But the new Libyan regime proved unable to extend its control as planned.

In October, some of Washington’s former allies attacked and burned the U.S. Consulate in Benghazi and killed Stevens and three CIA operatives doing security there.

Washington is now willing to risk using the most fanatic groups of killers to destroy Syria’s government, economy and society, even as it attempts to keep them under control and prevent another “blowback.”

The Syrian government and people, however, are still fighting the imperialist puppets. It is the Syrians who must determine who their legitimate representatives are, not the corporate-minded strategists in the U.S. and Europe. It’s up to the anti-war movement here to help keep the imperialists out of Syria.

Hit by the capitalist crisis

‘ Youth globally are

fighting back’

Continued from page 10 tions in Spain last June.

In August, 2011, the U.K. was rocked by an uprising against state repression, racism, high unemployment and austerity that was led by young people, particularly Black and immigrant youth.

In Chile, students have been on strike for several months, shutting down the university system there to demand free education, and have united with copper workers who have been on strike, as well as other unions and sectors.

Now this fightback has spread to the U.S. From Wisconsin earlier this year, where young people played a pivotal role in building and maintaining the occupation of the state Capitol against the attacks on collective bargaining and other cuts, to all the young people throughout the country who took to the streets to stop the murder of Troy Davis, and now Occupy Wall Street.

Occupy Wall Street erupted, sweeping the country like wildfire and giving popular expression to the outrage that so many feel. It has channeled the hopelessness and desperation from all the attacks and mass unemployment into political action that is developing an anti-capitalist character. While contradictory, it is radicalizing and bringing in a whole new layer of

people, in particular young people, who are in motion, want to fight back and are, by and large, uncommitted ideologically.

It is opening space to revolutionary ideas and to break through the isolation and alienation of our generation.

The struggle is a great teacher, and we must be there to summarize the lessons and advance an anti-capitalist program and help to develop revolutionary class consciousness and solidarity. The last I looked, there were solidarity actions being organized in nearly 150 cities, and this past Wednesday nearly 100 colleges held walkouts in solidarity with the big labor march here in the city. In North Carolina alone, last weekend eight different occupation events were organized across the state, and more cities have held assemblies and other formations since then.

This is a tremendously important and exciting development that, while still in its early stages, is building rapidly, developing anti-capitalist and class consciousness among a broad section of society, and putting thousands upon thousands of people across the country in motion against the banks and the big capitalists. Who knows where exactly this will go, but this development, along with events internationally, is an encouraging sign of the prospects for the fightback against the capitalist crisis.

Manning picked as Person of the Year

By Chris Fry By an overwhelming vote of its online readers, the British newspaper The Guardian has been forced to name U.S. political prisoner Pvt. B. Manning its “Person of the Year.”

Daniel Ellsberg, the releaser of the Pentagon Papers, which exposed U.S. lies about the contrived Tonkin Gulf incident used in 1964 to justify U.S. attacks on Vietnam and the massive U.S. occupation, last year said this about Time magazine’s selection of its “Person of the Year”: “The Time Magazine cover gives a protester, an anonymous protester, as ‘Person of the Year,’ but it is possible to put a face and a name to that picture of ‘Person of the Year.’ And the [U.S.] American face that I would put on that is Private Bradley Manning.”

Why has Pvt. Manning inspired such support?

In April 2010, the whistle-blower website WikiLeaks released a U.S. military video taken from an “Apache” helicopter in Iraq as it gunned down a dozen civilians, including a Reuters videographer and his driver. A month later, the U.S. Army arrested and jailed Pvt. B. Manning.

For more than two and a half years, Manning has been locked up, charged with the capital crimes of espionage and “aiding the enemy.” The “enemy” here consists of the world’s people. The “crime” is the release of thousands of military and State Department documents that made the public aware of human rights abuses, U.S. support of ruthless dictators, government and corporate corruption, and U.S. war crimes.

Manning endured months of torture in Kuwait and the brig in Quantico, Va. He was placed in solitary, in a tiny cage, and was often forced to strip naked.

Many “establishment” newspapers in the U.S. and Europe, including the New York Times and the Guardian, published excerpts from what was released by WikiLeaks. Nevertheless, none of these bastions of the so-called free press lifted a finger to defend the person accused of providing this information to them.

Early in December, the Guardian conducted a survey to choose its “Person of the Year.” The paper’s management made their choice clear — Malala Yousafzai, the Pakistani 14-year-old who was shot in October because she was waging a campaign for the education of Pakistani girls.

The corporate media are trying to use her legitimate campaign in order to justify imperialist intervention in Pakistan and Afghanistan. (See article by Deirdre Griswold, Oct. 17, at workers.org) However, some 70 percent of responders selected Pvt. Manning. Obviously Manning’s stirring courage in the face of overwhelming vilification and harsh treatment has attracted profound support among progressives and people in general here and abroad.

Manning exposed U.S. war crimes, which is supposed to be how an honorable soldier should behave, according to the U.S. Army Field Manual and the Nuremberg Principles determining war crimes. To jail and torture Manning obstructs the people’s justice. It is, in fact, itself a war crime.

Free Manning now!

Begin the new year right!

Build Workers World!

You’ve read about many important events in these pages in 2012:  The national uprising against racist vigilante terror that followed the murder of Trayvon Martin

 The successful Chicago teachers’ strike  Unprecedented coast-to-coast

organizing among low-wage workers

 The beginnings of a People’s Power Assembly movement

We’re looking forward to reporting on much more in 2013.

But we can’t do it alone.

We’re now faced with having to move our office because the landlord would double the rent when our lease ends. Moving imposes a heavy burden on our organizational and financial resources.

At the same time, we’ve upgraded our website, workers.org, so that we can bring you more current reporting on the most pressing issues affecting the global working class and the oppressed, as well as the Marxist-Leninist analysis you’ve come to rely on.

We keep costs down by depending on a volunteer staff of editors, writers, photographers, copyeditors, proofreaders and mailers. But the cost of each issue keeps going up, especially when we opt for four-color printing.

Many other left organizations have given up producing a printed newspaper.

But we get a lot of feedback from workers and oppressed people who say that having an actual paper that reports on their struggles is indispensable — and they are getting it out in the union halls and the communities and to their friends. Others who rely on receiving our printed paper are the many thinking, class-conscious people locked behind the bars of this oppressive system who otherwise would be cut off from any source of the truth.

Please help keep us going. Contribute to Workers World because you care about the struggle to end capitalism, with all its injustice and inequality. Give because you care about WW’s future and because you want to build a workers’ world.

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workers.org

Dec. 27, 2012

Page 15

‘Capitalism at a Dead End’

A Marxist view of the current crisis

By Manuel Raposo

“Capitalism reached a point where, on its own, “Capitalism at a Dead nothing of an economic End” is the expressive title character could by itself of a book published this year get the system moving in the United States that forward and upward any analyzes the current crisis longer.” of world capitalism from a Starting from these Marxist point of view. Fofindings, and makcused mainly on the U.S. siting comparisons with uation, the book shows the major world crises of significance of job destruc1873-96 and 1929-39 tion and overproduction in — from which capitalan era of high technology ism emerged under the and high labor productiviimpetus of war (Spanty. It’s a work that, starting ish-American War of from current conditions, Book review 1898, World Wars of covers not only the econom1914-18 and 1939-45), ‘ Capitalism at a Dead’ is now ic crisis but also the social embarking upon impeavailable in English & Spanish. and political movements For more information go to rialist expansion — the that it is generating. author writes that global www.lowwagecapitalism.org The author, a North capitalism’s response to American named Fred Goldstein, writes its crisis today also points to the “massive for Workers World newspaper and in destruction of means of production and 2008 published another work, “Low- infrastructure.”

Wage Capitalism,” in which he describes With the cataclysms that occurred since the effects of the new globalized imperi- 2008, the panorama of class struggle has alism and high technology on the class also changed. The tendency to profit at struggle in the USA. ever lower rates, the inability to bring up The explanation made in “Capitalism employment levels, even partially, transat a Dead End,” to which this review is late to a general decline in wages (a “lowdedicated, focuses on three or four facts wage capitalism”). And so, in the words of critical to understanding the current cri- Fred Goldstein, “The era of concessions sis, but discussed hardly at all within the has been replaced by the era of givebacks” prevailing currents of opinion. They are, — as is evident, we note, on this side of the in our view, the following: Atlantic, not only in the reduction of wag• This is a long-term crisis, we are still in es but also in cuts in social benefits and its early stages and its character is not greater job insecurity, and in the attack at all comparable to the normal highs on labor and union rights. Everything, in and lows of economic activity. short, that in postwar Europe and in Portugal after April 25 [the 1974 anti-fascist • At its root is a fall in the rate of capital revolution] was presented as a supposedaccumulation, which makes the finan­ ly irreversible “advance for civilization.” cial aspects a consequence and not a This crisis shows that it is different, cause of the present problems.

Goldstein emphasizes, for another rea• The crisis broke out after decades of son.

“All the traditional methods by which great technological progress, of increas­ the system has been revived [in previous ed labor productivity and competition, situations] are being used but no lonwhich belies the idea of widespread lack ger work.”

The proof is in the trillions of of productivity and competitiveness, dollars (and Euros) injected mainly into and shows on the contrary that the the financial system with the sole effect system is bursting at the seams as a of avoiding a worsening of the crisis, but result of its own ability to produce on a without signs of an economic recovery. massive scale.

More: the fact that U.S. business is • Where one can speak of any economic grow­ ing at a snail’s pace and that Europe recovery after the collapse of 2008 (as J ­ apan are on the verge of decline is inand in the U.S.), this recovery has taken creasing fears, even within the corridors of place without a recuperation of jobs, p ­ ower, of a new global economic downturn. which had been eliminated in unpreceBut if this is a crisis of global extendented numbers. sion that is not just a cyclical downturn of Hence, the entire capitalist system business and there is no real recovery in is at a dead end. Or, as the author says,

sight, then we believe it takes on the character of the end of an epoch.

As the author asserts, “The profit system is entering a stage at which it can only drag humanity backwards.” So, “The masses of people will come to a point where they cannot go on in the old way because capitalism is blocking all roads for survival.” And having reached this point, “humanity can only move forward by clearing the road to survival, which means nothing less than the destruction of capitalism itself.”

The theses of the book by Fred Goldstein, lead us, in effect, to an issue to which the Marxists and the Communist movement will have to pay close attention: with this crisis the era of capitalist expansion that began after the Second World War has ended and consequently it is creating the conditions for a new cycle of worldwide social revolutions.

In our opinion, the words of Karl Marx as he was evaluating the economic crisis of 1847 must therefore be considered ex-

tremely topical. Reflecting on the recovery of capitalism in the years 1848 and 1849, once the revolutions that occurred in Europe in 1848 were defeated, he said: “In the face of this general prosperity, in which the productive forces are developing as exuberantly as is possible within the framework of bourgeois relations, it is not possible to talk of a real revolution.

Such a revolution is possible only in periods in which these two factors — namely, modern productive forces and bourgeois forms of production — come into contradiction with each other.”

And Marx concluded: “A new revolution is possible only as the result of a new crisis. It is inevitable as is the latter.”

The crisis we are living through now, is it not, after all, evidence of conflict between the modern forces of production and the bourgeois relations of production?

Raposo is a contributor to the Portuguese website, Mudar de Vida (www. jornalmudardevida.net). John Catalinotto translated from the original.

Bring Peltier home in 2012!

Harry Belafonte and Pete Seeger hosted a full house at the “Bring Leonard Peltier Home in 2012″ concert Dec. 14 at the Beacon Theatre in New York City. Supporters heard Jackson Browne, Bruce Cockburn, Common with Mos Def, and several Indigenous performers, including Bill Miller and Jennifer Kreisberg. Speakers included Danny Glover, Rubin “Hurricane” Carter, Oglala Sioux Tribe VP Tom Poor Bear and Michael Moore, who connected Leonard’s case to the Central Park Five.

Peter Coyote emceed and Pete Seeger led the crowd singing songs, including a new rendition of his anti-Vietnam War song titled “Bring Him Home” with Belafonte. Seeger called on everyone to make comments to President Obama in support of executive clemency now for the Anish-

nabe/Lakota political prisoner and elder Leonard Peltier, whose health is in great jeopardy. Supporters should call 202456-1111 or 202-456-1112, or comment online at whitehouse.gov/contact to call on the president to bring Peltier home by Christmas.

— Stephanie J. Adohi

M u n d o Ob r e r o

Declarada la guerra contra sindicatos en Michigan Continua de página 12 mirar a los estados que aprobaron la ley después de que los EE.UU. adoptara el Trato de Libre Comercio de América de Norte (TLCAN) y el libre comercio en general. “Solo dos estados, Oklahoma e Indiana, han pasado legislaciones del derecho al trabajo desde 2001”.

Rapoport continúa: “En lugar de aumentar las oportunidades de empleo, el estado vio el traslado de empresas fuera de Oklahoma. En industrias de alta tecnología y en aquellos sectores de servicios que “dependen del gasto del consumidor en la economía local” parece que las leyes de hecho han dañado el crecimiento. Al fin de la década, 50.000 residentes menos de Oklahoma tenían empleos en la manufactura. Y aún peor, Lafer y Allegretto no

pudieron encontrar ninguna evidencia de que la legislación tuviera algún impacto positivo sobre las tasas de empleo”.

Parte de un programa económico más amplio El intento de imponer la legislación del derecho al trabajo en Michigan es parte de una estrategia más amplia cuya meta es destruir los sindicatos y reducir los salarios y beneficios de los/as trabajadores/as. A nivel nacional, las negociaciones en torno al llamado “abismo fiscal” están realmente diseñadas para recortar los programas sociales y reducir aún más los fondos federales para proyectos del sector público.

Durante la sesión del Congreso en Michigan, otras legislaciones pendientes incluían restricciones en el cuidado de salud

de las mujeres, esfuerzos para fragmentar los distritos de las escuelas públicas por todo el estado y aumentar el número de escuelas “charter” a través de una Autoridad de Logro Educacional. [N.T.: Escuelas charter son escuelas subcontratadas por el Departamento de Educación Pública] Bajo el pretexto de que impulsará la inversión y creará puestos de trabajo, otro proyecto de ley eliminaría los impuestos sobre la propiedad que pagan las empresas. Estos ingresos son necesarios para que las comunidades locales puedan mantener los servicios públicos básicos como el transporte, la luz y la educación.

Una ley de manejo de emergencias está pautada para reorganizarse después de que la Ley Pública 4, conocida popularmente como “la ley del dictador”, fuera rechaza-

da en las elecciones del 6 de noviembre.

Esta ley quitaría toda la autoridad de los gobiernos y distritos locales para acelerar el pago del servicio de deudas a las instituciones financieras. La ley, implementada ahora por la renovada Ley Pública 72, es mayormente usada en las municipalidades mayormente afro-americanas.

Esos ataques contra la clase trabajadora y los/as oprimidos/as nacionalmente, están siendo implementados por todo el país y de hecho por todo el mundo. La crisis capitalista mundial está llevando a las clases dominantes a hacer recortes aún más grandes en los salarios reales y los beneficios sociales de los/as trabajadores en sus vanos intentos por mantener un sistema moribundo de explotación y represión.

H

Correspondencia sobre artículos en Workers World/Mundo Obrero pueden ser enviadas a: WW-MundoObrero@workers.org

¡Proletarios y oprimidos de todos los paises unios!

Activistas de Atlanta detienen ejecución hipotecaria que han causado estragos en millones de personas en los Estados Unidos. ExplicAtlanta, 10 de diciembre - Activistas aron que mediante la recuperación de vividefensores de la vivienda han incremen- endas ilegalmente tomadas de las familias tado la lucha contra los embargos, los de- y restaurarlas a su legítimo propósito – sahucios y la falta de viviendas al tomar dar refugio a la gente - las dos esperaban una vivienda propiedad de un banco que forzar un debate sobre la falta de vivienda.

Ocupar Nuestras Viviendas de Atlanta había sido cerrada en el barrio de Pittsburgh en Atlanta el 6 de diciembre. Ac- ha declarado que hay siete casas vacías por ciones similares se llevaron a cabo el mis- cada persona desamparada en este país.

La comunidad de Pittsburgh se encuenmo día en varias ciudades de los EE.UU. Frente a las cámaras de televisión, de- tra al lado suroeste de Atlanta, cerca de la cenas de personas mudaron a Reneka carretera Interestatal 75. Era un próspero Wheeler y Meusa Michelene y sus dos barrio afroamericano de gente trabajadohijos, Dillon y Jahla, a la casa de color ra, pero ahora sus calles están bordeadas rosa brillante, 1043 de la calle Windsor. por casas tapiadas, cascos de edificios deDesde mediados del verano, las dos mu- crépitos o quemados y terrenos baldíos jeres, quienes habían perdido sus puestos llenos de maleza. Esta devastación es el de trabajo y se vieron obligadas a salir de resultado de décadas de creciente desu casa de alquiler, han ido de refugio en sempleo, desarrollo urbano, recortes de refugio. Al no ser aceptadas como una fa- servicios sociales, prácticas engañosas de hipotecas, propietarios ausentes y conmilia, las separaron.

Con la ayuda de Ocupar Nuestras Vivi- structores especulativos. El valor de la endas de Atlanta, ellas decidieron tomar vivienda ha caído un 84 por ciento en los acción. Se centraron en la catástrofe crea- últimos años, y alrededor del 50 por cienda por las políticas bancarias y de vivienda to de las viviendas están vacías.

Por Dianne Mathiowetz

Una de esas casas es la 1043 de la calle Windsor, una casa tomada por el banco M&T. Antes del 6 de diciembre, sus ventanas condenadas y su patio lleno de maleza contribuían a la apariencia de decadencia del vecindario. Ahora, la grama está recortada y se han sembrado flores, las luces están encendidas, y una familia de cuatro miembros está junta y sin frío. Las iglesias vecinas y gente de todas partes de la ciudad están equipando la casa, llevando comida y brindando apoyo las 24 horas.

La policía de Atlanta mantiene una presencia constante. El banco hasta ahora no se ha quejado. Por eso la policía aún no ha intentado desalojar a Wheeler y Meusa.

Una petición en la red de internet exige que el Banco M&T entregue la propiedad a la comunidad, específicamente al Centro Higher Ground Empowerment. Ocupar Nuestras Viviendas de Atlanta salvó de la ejecución hipotecaria a una vieja iglesia de la comunidad afroamericana en otro barrio económicamente deprimido en enero pasado. Su pastor se ha convertido en un vocero de la lucha contra las eje-

cuciones hipotecarias y los desalojos.

Ocupar Nuestras Viviendas de Atlanta celebró otra victoria después de un año de lucha para salvar la casa de la familia Pittman de una ejecución hipotecaria. La matriarca de la familia, Eloise Pittman, fue víctima de una hipoteca sin escrúpulos del Banco Chase, que ejecutó la toma hipotecaria mientras ella moría de cáncer en noviembre del 2011. Carmen, su nieta de 21-años de edad, condujo a su familia en un año de acciones de ocupación a gran escala, poniendo tiendas de campaña en los patios, organizando numerosas manifestaciones y marchas, llamadas telefónicas nacionales al Chase e incluso arriesgándose al arresto durante una ocupación del banco.

Chase ha entregado la propiedad y está de nuevo en manos de los Pittmans. El sábado 8 de diciembre, una celebración por la victoria tuvo lugar donde quemaron el aviso de desalojo.

Para obtener más información sobre otros embargos contra la lucha que se libra en Atlanta y para firmar la petición a M&T Bank, ver Occupy Our Homes Atlanta.

Declarada la guerra contra sindicatos en Michigan Por Abayomi Azikiwe Lansing, Michigan, 11 de diciembre –Mientras la Policía Estatal rociaba con gas-pimienta a los/as trabajadores/as que protestaban, el gobernador Rick Snyder de Michigan no perdió tiempo hoy en convertir en ley dos proyectos de ley que los sindicatos llaman “leyes de derecho a trabajar por menos”.

En un estado que históricamente ha sido un bastión del movimiento obrero organizado, la legislación saliente fue una declaración de guerra por el multimillonario gobernador y por una legislatura republicana de derecha no sólo en contra de los sindicatos de este Estado, sino contra toda la clase trabajadora estadounidense.

Los proyectos de ley se aprobaron a pesar de la protesta por más de 17.000 trabajadores/as y personas de la comunidad.

La consigna “Trabajadores unidos jamás serán vencidos”, se hizo eco en la Rotonda del Capitolio aún cuando la policía dispersaba a los/as trabajadores/as que protestaban, muchos/as de ellos/as desempleados/as. Una pancarta que decía “Huelga General para hacer retroceder el right-towork’” atrajo mucho interés, al igual que miles de volantes titulados: “Derroquemos el “right-to-work’: Sí, podemos”. El Rev. Jesse Jackson convocó a un paro de un día y una marcha en Washington, DC. [N.T.: ‘right-to-work’, en español ‘derecho al trabajo’ son legislaciones que están diseñadas para destruir los sindicatos al prohibir las cuotas a éstos.]

Snyder es odiado por muchos/as tra-

mo foto: Abayomi Azikiwe

bajadores/as y comunidades oprimidas alrededor de Michigan. El 6 de diciembre, cuando la legislatura votó por primera vez, cientos de trabajadores/as irrumpieron en las salas de audiencias gritando “Right-to-work has got to go!” (El derecho al trabajo se tiene que terminar) y se negaron a salir.

Agentes de la policía cerraron las entradas a la sala. Cuando más trabajadores/as y sus partidarios/as intentaron entrar, la policía los/as roció con gas-pimienta y arrestó a algunos/as. La acción de la policía alimentó la ira en todo el estado, por lo que miles se movilizaron para una manifestación de fuerza aún mayor.

En el marco de la legislación “derecho al trabajo”, los/as empleados/as ya no estarían obligados/as a afiliarse a un sindicato cuando uno exista, ni a pagar las cuotas automáticamente a una unidad de negociación colectiva. La incapacidad de los sindicatos de reunir las cuotas por servicio de todos los salarios de los/as trabajadores/as hace que sea mucho más difícil luchar por los derechos, beneficios

y proyectos sociales que todos/as los/as trabajadores/as del lugar del trabajo tendrían, ya paguen o no.

Uno de los sindicatos más grandes de la industria automotriz, Sección 600 del Sindicato de Trabajadores Automovilísticos Unidos en Dearborn, Michigan, llevó a cabo una capacitación de desobediencia civil el 8 de diciembre. La Asociación de Enfermeras/os de Michigan también asistió a estas sesiones, y obtuvo el apoyo de la Unión de Empleados/as de Servicios, la Federación Americana de Empleados/as Estatales, del Condado y Municipales (AFSCME), y otras organizaciones de trabajadores/as.

Dawn Kettinger de la Asociación de Enfermeras/os de Michigan dijo: “Vamos a estar allí [el 11 de diciembre] por todos/ as los/as trabajadores/as y todas las personas que se preocupan por Michigan”.

Algunos/as trabajadores/as se colocarán cinta adhesiva sobre la boca como símbolo del impacto de la legislación. “Eso es lo que la ley del derecho al trabajo hará si pasa — va a silenciar a los/as trabajadores/as”, dijo Kettinger. (Detroit News, 9 de diciembre) En los días previos a la manifestación del 11 de diciembre en el Capitolio, otras manifestaciones tuvieron lugar en varias partes del estado. El 9 de diciembre el sindicato SEIU dirigió acciones fuera de Oakland Mall, un centro comercial de lujo justo al norte de Detroit en Troy, Michigan.

Ilana Alazzeh, miembro de una coalición estatal llamada Somos Michigan, dijo: “Nuestros políticos están siendo

influenciados por los grupos de presión corporativos y están debilitando nuestras familias y están suprimiendo nuestras voces al dividirnos”. El grupo cantó parodias de canciones navideñas. (Detroit News, 10 de diciembre) El verdadero impacto del “derecho al trabajo” Al firmar la legislación, el gobernador Snyder hizo que Michigan se hiciera el 24to estado en los EE.UU. en tener leyes de “derecho al trabajo”. Aunque Snyder le ha dicho varias veces a los medios corporativos que la legislación creará puestos de trabajo en uno de los estados más afectados por la crisis económica, los hechos dicen lo contrario.

En general los/as trabajadores/as en los estados de derecho al trabajo tienen salarios más bajos y muchos menos beneficios. Las tasas de pobreza son más altas en estos estados, mientras que el desempleo y el subempleo siguen siendo significativos. (Economic Policy Institute, febrero de 2011) En un artículo el 6 de febrero en American Prospect, Abby Rapoport cita una investigación de Gordon Lafer y Sylvia Allegretto del Economic Policy Institute (Instituto de Políticas Económicas). “No hay evidencia de que las leyes de derecho al trabajo tengan algún impacto positivo sobre el empleo o la recuperación de empleos industriales”, escribe Rapoport.

“Mientras que 23 estados tienen leyes de derecho al trabajo, Lafer dice que para juzgar de manera adecuada el impacto de la ley en la economía actual, hay que Continua a página 15