The threat from the rightwing

A couple points missed by the Campaign for America's Future...

By Alan Maki
January 30, 2010 - 1:07pm GMT

First, you have ignored a very important development. John Birchers Ron and Rand Paul are involved in a movement that is really scary which brings together some Green Party people and even some misguided leftists who don't look beneath the surface to see what is going on and the connections these people have with outfits like the viciously racist and anti-Semitic John Birch Society whose influence is growing again across the country. This "movement," while still small, seems to be growing quite rapidly--- often working in league with the Tea Party movement.

Second, you people with the Campaign for America's Future are afraid to look for an alternative to the Democratic Party that works. The socialist Minnesota Farmer-Labor Party of Governors Floyd B. Olson, Elmer Benson and U.S. Congressman John Bernard was the most powerful and effective challenge, to date, to this two-party trap... and it worked in the interests of the common people--- workers, farmers, professionals and small business people.

The only way to fight the right-wing when they start attacking everything as socialist is to provide a truthful and honest explanation of what socialism is and what a socialist agenda and program really are.

We should begin by putting socialized healthcare on the table which would create tens of thousands of jobs while creating as many public healthcare centers as there are public libraries which would create for the American people a world-class healthcare system second to none along the lines of VA, the Indian Health Service and the National Public Health Service...

• No-fees/no premiums.
• Comprehensive.
• All-inclusive.
• Pre-natal to grave. 
• Universal. 
• A fully public healthcare system.
• Publicly financed.
• Publicly administered.
• Publicly delivered.

All financed by transfering funding from militarism and wars toward serving the public good.

This would require ending Obama's wars.

We need public healthcare centers spread out across our country instead of over 800 U.S. military bases on foreign soil dotting the globe protecting Wall Street's profits and interests.

We cannot talk in vague and simplistic terms about a "progressive populism;" we need to get specific. This is the only way to counter the growing rightwing movement that gets scarier and scarier as it moves to the "center" of the political spectrum... it is a progressive, anti-capitalist, pro-socialist progressive politics that needs to become the "center" of American politics if we are going to move forward--- away from war and militarism and towards an economy based on improving the livelihoods of everyone.

What we need is a "declaration of independence" from the Democratic and Republican parties which are both Wall Street parties; parties of war, racism and corruption.

For our country to go "green" it has to go "red" which requires the building of some kind of "people's front" on a much larger scale than what existed in the 1930's.

Alan L. Maki

Minnesota


Suggestion: A very good book to read, "The People's Front" by Earl Browder... available through your local public library.

The global economic crisis: An historic opportunity for transformation

The global economic crisis: An historic opportunity for transformation

An initial response from individuals, social movements and non-governmental Organisations in support of a transitional programme for radical economic transformation

Collective

15 October 2008

More informations on this website : To sign the statement

Beijing, 15 October 2008

Preamble

Taking advantage of the opportunity of so many people from movements gathering in Beijing during the Asia-Europe People’s Forum, the Transnational Institute and Focus on the Global South convened informal nightly meetings between 13 and 15 October 2008. We took stock of the meaning of the unfolding global economic crisis and the opportunity it presents for us to put into the public domain some of the inspiring and feasible alternatives many of us have been working on for decades. This statement represents the collective outcome of our Beijing nights. We, the initial signatories, mean this to be a contribution towards efforts to formulate proposals around which our movements can organise as the basis for a radically different kind of political and economic order. Please sign on to this statement at http://www.casinocrash.org.

The Crisis

The global financial system is unravelling at great speed. This is happening in the midst of a multiplicity of crises in relation to food, climate and energy. It severely weakens the power of the US and the EU, and the global institutions they dominate, particularly the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank and the World Trade Organisation. Not only is the legitimacy of the neo-liberal paradigm in question, but the very future of capitalism itself.

Such is the chaos in the global financial system that Northern governments have resorted to measures progressive movements have advocated for years, such as nationalisation of banks. These moves are intended, however, as short-term stabilisation measures and once the storm clears, they are likely to return the banks to the private sector. We have a short window of opportunity to mobilise so that they are not.
The challenge and the opportunity

We are entering uncharted terrain with this conjuncture of profound crises – the fall out from the financial crisis will be severe. People are being thrown into a deep sense of insecurity; misery and hardship will increase for many poorer people everywhere. We should not cede this moment to fascist, right wing populist, xenophobic groups, who will surely try to take advantage of people’s fear and anger for reactionary ends.

Powerful movements against neo-liberalism have been built over many decades. This will grow as critical coverage of the crisis enlightens more people, who are already angry at public funds being diverted to pay for problems they are not responsible for creating, and already concerned about the ecological crisis and rising prices – especially of food and energy. The movements will grow further as recession starts to bite and economies start sinking into depression.

There is a new openness to alternatives. To capture people’s attention and support, they must be practical and immediately feasible. We have convincing alternatives that are already underway, and we have many other good ideas attempted in the past, but defeated. Our alternatives put the well-being of people and the planet at their centre. For this, democratic control over financial and economic institutions are required. This is the “red thread” connecting up the proposals presented below.

Proposals for debate, elaboration and action

Finance
 
• Introduce full-scale socialisation of banks, not just nationalisation of bad assets.
• Create people-based banking institutions and strengthen existing popular forms of lending based on mutuality and solidarity.
• Institutionalise full transparency within the financial system through the opening of the books to the public, to be facilitated by citizen and worker organisations.
• Introduce parliamentary and citizens’ oversight of the existing banking system.
• Apply social ( including conditions of labour) and environmental criteria to all lending, including for business purposes.
• Prioritise lending, at minimum rates of interest, to meet social and environmental needs and to expand the already growing social economy.
• Overhaul central banks in line with democratically determined social, environmental and expansionary (to counter the recession) objectives, and make them publicly accountable institutions.
• Safeguard migrant remittances to their families and introduce legislation to restrict charges and taxes on transfers

Taxation
 
• Close all tax havens.
• End tax breaks for fossil fuel and nuclear energy companies.
• Apply stringent progressive tax systems.
• Introduce a global taxation system to prevent transfer pricing and tax evasion.
• Introduce a levy on nationalised bank profits with which to establish citizen investment funds (see below).
• Impose stringent progressive carbon taxes on those with the biggest carbon footprints.
• Adopt controls, such as Tobin taxes, on the movements of speculative capital.
• Re-introduce tariffs and duties on imports of luxury goods and other goods already produced locally as a means of increasing the state’s fiscal base, as well as a means to support local production and thereby reduce carbon emissions globally.

Public Spending and Investment
 
• Radically reduce military spending.
• Redirect government spending from bailing out bankers to guaranteeing basic incomes and social security, and providing universally accessible basic social services such as housing, water, electricity, health, education, child care, and access to the internet and other public communications facilities.
• Use citizen funds (see above) to support very poor communities.
• Ensure that people at risk of losing their homes due to defaults on mortgages caused by the crisis are offered renegotiated terms of payment.
• Stop privatisations of public services.
• Establish public enterprises under the control of parliaments, local communities and/or workers to increase employment.
• Improve the performance of public enterprises through democratizing management - encourage public service managers, staff, unions and consumer organisations to collaborate to this end.
• Introduce participatory budgeting over public finances at all feasible levels.
• Invest massively in improved energy efficiency, low carbon emitting public transport, renewable energy and environmental repair.
• Control or subsidise the prices of basic commodities.

International Trade and Finance
 
• Introduce a permanent global ban on short-selling of stock and shares.
• Ban on trade in derivatives.
• Ban all speculation on staple food commodities.
• Cancel the debt of all developing countries – debt is mounting as the crisis causes the value of Southern currencies to fall.
• Support the United Nations call to be involved in discussions about how the to resolve the crisis, which is going to have a much bigger impact on Southern economies than is currently being acknowledged.
• Phase out the World Bank, International Monetary Fund, and World Trade Organisation.
• Phase out the US dollar as the international reserve currency.
• Establish a people’s inquiry into the mechanisms necessary for a just international monetary system.
• Ensure aid transfers do not fall as a result of the crisis.
• Abolish tied aid.
• Abolish neo-liberal aid conditionalities.
• Phase out the paradigm of export-led development, and refocus sustainable development on production for the local and regional market.
• Introduce incentives for products produced for sale closest to the local market.
• Cancel all negotiations for bilateral free trade and economic partnership agreements.
• Promote regional economic co-operation arrangements, such as UNASUR, the Bolivarian Alternative for the Americas (ALBA), the Trade Treaty of the Peoples and others, that encourage genuine development and an end to poverty.

Environment
 
• Introduce a global system of compensation for countries which do not exploit fossil fuel reserves in the global interests of limiting effects on the climate, such as Ecuador has proposed.
• Pay reparations to Southern countries for the ecological destruction wrought by the North to assist peoples of the South to deal with climate change and other environmental crises.
• Strictly implement the “precautionary principle” of the UN Declaration on the Right to Development as a condition for all developmental and environmental projects.
• End lending for projects under the Kyoto Protocol’s “Clean Development Mechanism” that are environmentally destructive, such as monoculture plantations of eucalyptus, soya and palm oil.
• Stop the development of carbon trading and other environmentally counter-productive techno-fixes, such as carbon capture and sequestration, agrofuels, nuclear power and ‘clean coal’ technology.
• Adopt strategies to radically reduce consumption in the rich countries, while promoting sustainable development in poorer countries.
• Introduce democratic management of all international funding mechanisms for climate change mitigation, with strong participation from Southern countries and civil society.
Agriculture and Industry
• Phase out the pernicious paradigm of industry-led development, where the rural sector is squeezed to provide the resources necessary to support industrialisation and urbanisation.
• Promote agricultural strategies aimed at achieving food security, food sovereignty and sustainable farming.
• Promote land reforms and other measures which support small holder agriculture and sustain peasant and indigenous communities.
• Stop the spread of socially and environmentally destructive mono-cultural enterprises.
• Stop labour law reforms aimed at extending hours of work and making it easier for employers to fire or retrench workers.
• Secure jobs through outlawing precarious low paid work.
• Guarantee equal pay for equal work for women – as a basic principle and to help counter the coming recession by increasing workers’ capacity to consume.
• Protect the rights of migrant workers in the event of job losses, ensuring their safe return to and reintegration into their home countries. For those who cannot return, there should be no forced return, their security should be guaranteed, and they should be provided with employment or a basic minimum income.

Conclusion

These are all practical, common sense proposals. Some are initiatives already underway and demonstrably feasible. Their successes need to be publicised and popularised so as to inspire reproduction. Others are unlikely to be implemented on their objective merits alone. Political will is required. By implication, therefore, every proposal is a call to action.

We have written what we see as a living document to be developed and enriched by us all. Please sign on to this statement at http://www.casinocrash.org.

A future occasion to come together to work on the actions needed to make these ideas and others a reality will be the World Social Forum in Belem, Brazil at the end of January 2009.

We have the experience and the ideas - let’s meet the challenge of the present ruling disorder and keep the momentum towards an alternative rolling!!

Initial Signatories
Organisations
Transnational Institute, Netherlands
Focus on the Global South
Red Pepper magazine, United Kingdom
Institute for Global Research and Social Movements, Russia
Ecologistas en Acción, Spain
JS - Asia/Pacific Movement on Debt and Development (JS APMDD), Asia
RESPECT Network Europe, Europe
Commission for Filipino Migrant Workers (CFMW), Netherlands
The Movement for a Just World, Malaysia
Nord-Sud XXI, Switzerland
Europe solidaire sans frontières (ESSF), France
Indian Social Action Forum (INSAF), Inadi
Movimiento Madre Tierra, Honduras
Asian Bridge, South Korea/ Philippines
Center for Encounter and Active Non-Violence, Austria
The Alliance of Progressive Labor (APL)
Pakistan Institute of Labour Education and Research (PILER), Pakistan
Pambansang Katipunan ng Makabayang Magbubukid-PKMM (National Federation of Patriotic Peasant), Phillipines
Proresibong Alyansa ng mga Mangingisda-PANGISDA (Progresive Alliance of Fisher), Philippines
WomanHealth, Philippines
Kilusan para sa Pambansang Demokrasya (KPD), Philippines
Fisherfolk Movement Philippines
Democratic Socialist Perspective, Australia
Resistance & Alternative, Mauritius
Observatori del Deute en la Globalització, Spain
African Journalists on Trade and Development
Centre for Education and Communication (CEC), India
EQUATIONS, India
ESK-Basque Land, Basque Country
Common Frontiers, Canada
Alab-Katipunan, Philippines
Finnish Asiatic Society, Finland
Red Constantino, Philippines
Intercultural Resources, India
Women’s March Against Poverty and Globalization (WELGA)
FDC Women’s Committee
Bharatiya Krishak Samaj (Indian farmers organization)
Peace for All International Development Organization, Canada/Uganda
Foundation for Media Alternatives, Philippines
The Philippine Rural Reconstruction Movement , Philippines
The Freedom from Debt Coalition-Iloilo, Philippines
Jubilee Eastern Cape, South Africa
SdL intercategoriale, Italy
Foro Ciudadano de Participación por la Justicia y los Derechos Humanos, Argentina
APRODEH (Asociacion Pro Derechos Humanos), Peru
Attac Spain, Spain
HealthWrights, Workgroup for People’s Health and Rights, US
Ander Europa, Netherlands
Enlightening Indonesia, Indonesia
SolidaritéS, Switzerland
ATTAC Hungary
AITEC (Association Internationale de Techniciens, Experts et Chercheurs), France
Red Venezolana Contra la Deuda/CADTM Venezuela Movimiento Unido Socialista Haitiano por el ALBA (MOUSHA), Venezuela
IPIAT (Instituto para la Investigación de la Agricultura Tropical), Venezuela
ECOPEACE Party South Africa
Jubilee Kansai Network, Japan
Ecuador Decide, Ecuador
ATTAC Japan
Transnationals Information Exchange (TIE) – Netherlands
Popular Education for Peoples’ Empowerment, Philipines
International Gender and Trade Network, Brazil
Committee for the Abolition of Third World Debt (CADTM), Begium
ATTAC Morocco
ATTAC-Denmark
Friends of the Earth Finland
European Left Party Network, UK
Center for the Study of Democratic Societies, USA
European Social Forum Activists News Agency.
Cymru Europa Press (Social Forum Cymru/Wales), UK
Initiative Colibri/Germany
Sudptt (SOLIDAIRES), France
Attac 44 France
International Debt Observatory, Belgium
Ligue communiste révolutionnaire (LCR), France
Attac France
Anti Debt Coalition (KAU), Indonesia
Africa Europe Faith and Justice Network
The Corner House, UK
Climate and Capitalism (Canada)
BanglaPraxis, Bangladesh
Centro Studi Monetari, Italy
The Network Institute for Global Democratisation (NIGD) , Finland
Project SafeCom
Justice and Peace Commision, Mexico
Theater of the Oppressed Laboratory (TOPLAB), US
Grasroots Policy Project, US
Habitat Net, Germany
Metta Center for Nonviolent Education, US
Legal Rights and Natural Resources Center (LRC/Friends of the Earth), Philippines
PODER, A.C.
ATTAC-Québec
Foundation for Gaia, UK
Alianza Social Continental, Americas
Red Colombiana de Acción Frente al Libre Comercio-RECALCA, Colombia
World Development Movement, UK
Confederación Latinoamericana de Cooperativas y Mutuales de Trabajadores - COLACOT
Fundacion Solon, Bolivia
War on Want, UK
Habitat International Coalition
Midwest Casino Workers Organizing Council
NEUE, Another Society is Possible
Berne Declaration, Switzerland
Individuals
Fiona Dove, South Africa
Walden Bello, Philippines/Thailand
Hilary Wainwright, United Kingdom
Boris Kagarlitsky, Russia
Achin Vanaik, India
Dot Keet, South Africa
Brid Brennan, Ireland
Pietje Vervest, Netherlands
Cecilia Olivet, Uruguay
Ramon Fernandez Duran, Spain
Tom Kucharz, Spain
Pierre Rousset, France
Rodney Bickerstaffe, United Kingdom
Von Francis C Mesina, Philippines
Al D. Senturias, Jr., Philippines
Sammy Gamboa, Philippines
Fe Jusay, Philippines
Nonoi Hacbang, Philippines
Lidy Nacpil, Philippines
Seema Mustafa, India
Kenneth Haar, Denmark
Wolfram Schaffar, Germany
Christa Wichterich, Germany
Isabelle Duquesne, France
Adhemar Mineiro, Brasil
Benny Kuruvilla, India
Aehwa Kim, South Korea
Manjette Lopez, Philippines
Bonn Juego, Philippines
Rasti Delizo, Philippines
James Miraflor, Philippines
Miquel Ortega Cerda, Spain
David Llistar, Spain
Alpo Ratia, Finland
Mira Kakonen, Finland
Hilary Chiew, Malasya
Celeste Fong, Malasya
Tatcee Macabuag, Philippines
Teodoro M. de Mesa, Philippines
Uwe Hoering, Germany
Asad Rehman, UK
Andy Rutherford, UK
Debbie Valencia, Greece
Petra Snelders, Netherlands
Etta P. Rosales, Philippines
Pete Pinlac, Philippines
Ute Hausrnann, Germany
Alain Baron, France
Hanneke van Eldik Thieme, Netherlands
Dorothy Guerrero, Philippines
Ric Reyes, Philippines
Herbert Docena, Philippines
Dr. Chandra Muzaffar, Malaysia
Ahmad Soueissi, Switzerland
Elias Davidsson, Germany
Juan Almendares, Honduras
Carlos Ruiz
Alexis Passadakis
Sally Rousset
D.W.Karuna
Hyowoo Na, South Korea
Sung-Hee Choi, Korea
Marko Ulvila, Finland
Matthias Reichl, Austria
Orsan Senalp, Turkey/The Netherlans
Tamra Gilbertson, Unites States
Prof. Kamal Mitra Chenoy, India
Prof Anuradha Chenoy, India
Gilbert Achcar, UK
Richel “Ching” M. Borres, Philippines
Helen Mendoza, Philippines
Sukla Sen, India
Olli-Pekka Haavisto, Finland
Amira Armenta, Colombia
William K. Carroll, United States
Gigi Francisco, Philippines
Sylvia Estrada Claudio, Philippines
Pablo Rosales, Philippines
Alice Raymundo, Philippines
Maris dela Cruz, Philippines
Terry Townsend, Australia
Ashok Subron, Mauritius
Ko Ko Thett
Einar Ólafsson, Iceland
Anjani Abella, Philippines
Gianni Alioti, Italy
Dr Michael Williams
Peter Lavina, Philippines
Gina Cantano-Dela Cruz, Philippines
Cecilia Jimenez, Philippines/Switzerland
Thierry De Coster
Sushovan Dhar, India
Krishan Bir Chaudhary, India
Dave Tucker
Bruno Ciccaglione, Italy/Austria
Haydi Zulfei , Asia
Adam Davidson-Harden, Canada
Al Alegre, Philippines
Tom Mertes
Elâabadila Chbihna, Morocco
John A. Fitzpatrick
Matyas Benyik
Roger Keyes
Ted Aldwin Ong, Philippines
Romero P. Gerochi, Philippines
C.P. Vinod, India
Laurence Schechtman
Berend Schuitema, South Africa
Francesco Martone, Italy
Asbjørn Wahl, Norway
Teodolita S. Lopez-Suano, Philippines
Hans Schäppi, Switzerland
Rasigan Maharajh
Anna Camposampiero, Italy
Lorenzo Pellegrini, Italy/Netherlands
Rashmi Shetty, India
Wahyu Susilo, Malaysia
Fabrizio Tomaselli, Italy
Rayhan Rashid, Bangladesh
Saskia Poldervaart, Netherlands
Pierluigi Tedeschi, Italy
Gladys Baldew, Netherlands
Francisco Soberon, Peru
Erik Eriksson, Sweden
Marco Cuevas-Hewitt
Luigia Pasi - Italy
Maximo Kinast Aviles
Paul R. Woods
Antonio Carlos Diegues, Brazil
Luis David Saraiva Grivol, Brazil
Nick Dearden, UK
David Werner, US
Håkan Danielsson, Sweden
Wouter F.A.Snip, Netherlands
Valdimar Jóhannsson, Iceland
Vida Viktor, Hungary
Edgardo Lander, Venezuela
Yvon Thea Young-Ang, Philippines
Khristine Alvarez, Philippines
Hayri Kozanoglu, Turkey
Manfred Schiess, Germany
Antonio Gomez Movellan, Spain
Enrique Baigorri Remirez, Spain
Gunilla Andersson, Sweden
Matyas Benyik, Hungary
Kathia Ridore, France
Willem Bos, Netherlands
Irendra Radjawali, Indonesia
Jean Batou, Switzerland
Hector de la Cueva, Mexico
Maurizio Casetta, Italy
Adriana Nicoleta Filip, Italy
Kathia Ridore, France
Susana Barria, Suiza
Julia de Souza, Brazil
Paulino Núñez, Venezuela
Borsos Dóra, Hungary
Geraldine McDonald,
Fco. Javier Benítez Morales, Spain
Diego Luís Castellanos
Daniel Kollmer, Netherlanda
Daniel Chavez, Uruguay
Jayatilleke de Silva, Sri Lanka
Ruben Joseph
Carolina Parada, Sweden
Filippo Incorvaia, Italy
Lilia Claudia Jaramillo-Guerra, Austria
Miguel Gamboa
Bram Büscher, The Netherlands
Luis Gonzalez
Ikrame Moucharik, Morocco
Oscar Revilla Alguacil, Spain
Adriano Garassino, Italy
Brissaud Jean-Bernard, Morocco
Franny Parren, The Netherlands
Lisa Clark, Italy
Donatella Biancardi, Italy
Davide Buoncristiani, Italy
Martin Pigeon, Brussels, Belgium
Jo Versteijnen, Netherands
Eric Toussaint, Belgium
Murray Smith
Daniel Gomez, Netherlands/Argentina
Panos Vlachakis, Greece
Natalia Sansón Moreno, Spain
Moustakbal Jawad , Morocco
Pablo Peredo
Albert Capella
Kristof Gal
Dr. Magdolna Csath, Hungary
Piero Stella, Italy
Ibarrola Aitor
Tamara Pearson, Venezuela
Mark Barrett, USA
Kenneth Haar, Denmark
Fred Moseley, USA
Bo Jansson, Sweden
Ingegerd Jansson / Sweden
Charles Quist-Adade, Canada
Marko Ulvila, Finland
Andrew Stevens, UK
Edlira Xhafa, Albania
Robley E. George, USA
Cristina Civale, Argentin
Sebastian Job .
Al Campbell, USA
Mirjana Joksimovic Bohlin, Serbia
Johannes Lauterbach, Germany
Carol Bergin, Germany
Alain Mouetaux, France
Gábor Vinnai, Hungary
Jorge Marchini, Argentina
Johannes Dragsbaek Schmidt, Denmark
Federico Lucero
Etienne Funck, France
Urantsooj Gombosuren, Mongolia
Erich Seifert
Jaume Francesch Subirana
Bernadette Huger
Djilali Benamrane, France
Eric Goujot, France
Brigitte Queck, Germany
Martial Denis
Heinrich Jacqueline
Bastiaan van Apeldoorn, Netherlands
Robert Jasmin, France
Jang, Seok-Joon, South Korea
Terence Osorio
Nathalie Lavallée
Gabor Vida, Hungary
Henri Dominici
Emanuela Donat-Cattin - Italy
Brian McDonough, Canada
Henry van Maasakker, The Netherlands
Susan Caldwell
Marc Torres Ciuró
Sean Thompson, UK
Richard Carruthers
Jaume Francesch i Subirana
Giovanny Colorado
Idoia LLano
Elvis Mori, Peru
Míriam Grande Vallugera
Maite Martínez
Marc Roux
Matteo Messori, Italy
Roberto Cortese, Italy
Lorenzo Palumb, Italy
Ján Lenc, Slovakia
Andrew Roche
Greg Gerritt, US
Gareth Dale
Jonathan Ensor
Peter Gelauff, Netherlands
Ulla Lötzer, Member of Parliament, DIE LINKE, Germany
Joana Ricart Sala, Barcelona
Concha Martinez, Spain
Boykin Reynolds, Germany
Bernadette Wagnleithner
Jose Luis Aguilar, Mexico
Alessandra Galie’, Italy
Sankara Saranam
Dr. Greg Kleis, New Zeeland
Bill Koehnlein
Marie-Claire Picher, US
Klaus Starke, Germany
Renau Marty, France
Gordon Jackman
Jerise Fogel, Germany
Knut Unger, Germany
Kathy Clark, US
M. Channa Basavaiah, India
Colleen Angove
Linda Provenza, US
Philippe Mühlstein, France
Stefano Puddu Crespellani, US
Richard Sheeler
Chris Brandt, US
Johanna Voß, Germany
Jesús Ortega Rodríguez,Mexico
Klaus Bosselmann, US
Barry K Gills, UK
Boyd Reimer, Canada
Germán Guillot, Germany
Pablo Guerra, Uruguay
Guillermo Díaz Muñoz, Mexico
Margaret Willig Crane, US
José Antonio Durand, Mexico
Mike Hall
Chamnan Yana, Thailand
Debra Evelyn Armet
Mertens Jean-Pierre, Belgium
Jiten Yumnam, India
Isabelle Perron, Canada
Michael Büsgen, China
Eduardo Arenas
Josep Just, Spain
Elizabeth Peredo, Bolivia
Guadalupe Méndez
Beatriz Romero
N.K.Jeet
Ben Leeman, Australia
Yu Xiaogang, China
Mechthild von Walter, Germany
Dipac Jaiantilal, Ph.D, Mozambique
Mike Nagler, Germany
Nadia Burza
Gemma Bone
Marie-Dominique Vernhes, Germany
Brigitte Holzner, Germany
Costa Constantinides, Cyprus
Jure Lesjak, Slovenia
Neil Osborne, Canada
Bridin Ashe, Ireland
Marion Flores
Martin Zeis, Germany
Ximena de la Barra, Chile
Suzanne Duarte
Hamid Hashtroudian, Germany
Guido Dalla Casa, Italy
Jashana Kippert
Hubert Pichler, Germany
Rachel Takats
Helene Vitre
Lucia Goldfarb, Argentina
Geoffrey Payne, UK
Kiersty Caesar, UK
Maite Martínez
Eduardo Arenas
Josep Just, España
Ana Sugranyes
Marisa Choguill
Charles Choguill
Kenneth Fernandes
Andrew Muller
Rosabel Agirregomezkorta
AngelL F. Furlan
Ma. Teresa Moreno
Tim Mavrič, Slovenia
Josnar Dionzon, Philippines
Martin Rožej, Slovenia
dr. alfred daniels, Germany
Nina Janßen-Deinzer
Rainer Grauer, Germany
Marie-Helene Bonin
Sue Bond
Tomaž Štumpfl, Slovenia
MR Iwuoha Chima Iwuo, Nigeria
Tomaž Flajs, Slovenia
Alan L. Maki
B. L. Wagner
Josephine Gre
Alexander Schmidt
Kirk Gibson
Denis Donoghue
Mohammed Zulfekhar Ahmed
Helene Kippert
Sabina Žulič
Suzana Abspoel-Djodjo
Jennifer Stewart
Dhinendra Lohmor, UK / India
Christine Pagnoulle, Belgium
Jakot Karrera
Christiane Salim
José Pérez-Oya
Agustin Antunez
Dag Seierstad
Gokarn Bhatt
Titia Roesems, Belgium

Collective

Congolese Women and Girls Suffering the Insufferable

Guest Blog:

by Emily Spence and Brian McAfee / January 12th, 2010

While in the eastern Congo last summer, U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton stated, “With respect to companies that are responsible for what are now being called conflict minerals, I think the international community must start looking at steps we can take to try to prevent the mineral wealth from the DRC ending up in the hands of those who fund the violence here.”

In relation, the Democratic Republic of Congo’s UN supported armed assault against rebels in the eastern Congo has promoted widespread death, rape and other forms of brutality. Indeed, the decade long war has claimed at least 5.4 million lives — the most in any conflict since WWII. At the same time, hundreds of thousands of women and girls, including babies, have suffered rapes and sexual mutilation, often with weapons and tools used in the process. Further, it is thought that, in eastern portions of the Congo, up to seventy percent of Congolese women, along with children of all ages, have been sexually attacked, according to the Harvard Humanitarian Initiative, a research center at Harvard University.

Moreover, some relief workers have estimated that up to twenty percent of new rapes have been instigated by police and civilians in urban rather than rural areas in that a culture of violence has set into much of the nation due to the long, drawn out conflict. At the same time, the attacks are so extremely violent that they have been described as sexual terrorism by medical workers at the Panzi Hospital in Bukavu at which thousands of survivors have been treated each year.

Overall, it has emerged that all major groups involved in the warfare have committed these and other serious war crimes, including looting peasants, purposefully destroying homes and forcing the mass dislocations of more than a million terrorized people from their neighborhoods. On account, countless families and whole communities have been forced to live with constant fear, repeated migrations and insurmountable social turmoil.

In a country with an annual income of $110 per capita and a life expectancy rate of 54.4 years, life is difficult enough as it is. However, individuals on the run can’t even have the assurance of this modest sum to support existence. As a result, massive food, medical and displacement aid is needed in the country at the very time that it is most dangerous to be there as an aid worker. Simultaneously, a shortage of donations negatively impact the quality of care delivered by various assistance organizations, including U.N. sponsored relief programs.

Meanwhile, a callous society ostracizes the victims, regardless of their ages, while showing leniency towards the rapists. Indeed, wounded sufferers are generally shunned by their spouses, other family members and former friends, particularly so if they have any children that resulted from periods of long term bondage accompanied by repeated rapes.

Simultaneously, assailants rarely receive proper trials. Therefore, the lack of punishment has increasingly emboldened Congolese men to find pleasure through physically violating women and children on a routine basis. Consequently, the number of assaults on women and children are increasing and spreading into new regions so as to include ever new groups, such as the Pigmies.

Even as the International Criminal Tribunal recognizes rape as a crime of genocide under international law, there is little by way of meaningful deterrence to the escalating aggression. In relation, this “pandemic of sexual violence,” indicates Stephen Lewis, the former United Nations special envoy for HIV/AIDS in Africa, is “obscene,” “insanely savage,” and is nothing short of “femicide.”¹

Despite that social stigma is prevalent, the abandoned women and girls, of whom some are pictured at Congo/Women,² do sometimes receive substantial help. For example, it comes from groups like SOS AIDS, an organization that works with other relief agencies to get in touch with rural survivors so as to take them to treatment centers for psychological counseling and medical support.

The assistance often includes the successful repair of fistulas, debilitating ruptures of the urinary-genital tract that leave females incontinent and prone to infections for life. The helpers, also, try to provide housing, including for those in need of anti-retroviral and other drug treatments due to the attackers having infected their victims with assorted serious diseases. (The HIV prevalence includes approximately 4.2 percent of the population.) Meanwhile, the high number of injured women and girls makes it impossible to treat them all, aside from the fact that the majority of the assaults, apparently, go unreported.

Thankfully, there are a number of dedicated groups like SOS AIDS taking a stand for justice and human welfare even when it is dangerous for their staff to do so. Tragically, others try to increase the very same kinds of turmoil SOS AIDS is striving to remedy. They are doing so in order to gain control of four main minerals: tin, tantalum, tungsten, and gold that garner an estimated $180 million in revenues each year.

The main reason that these minerals are in such high demand is because they are critical in the fabrication of digital cameras, laptops, cell phones, portable musical devices and video games. Yet, some of these battlefield minerals are not widely found over much of the world. Therefore, there is great competition for them in the Congo and some individuals will stop at nothing to get them.

All considered, people interested in supporting the necessary reforms in this war torn land can phone or write letters to Congressional representatives to urge them to ratify the Congo Conflict Minerals Act (S. 891) and the Conflict Minerals Trade Act (H.R. 4128), which are currently undergoing legislative review.³ They can, also, sign petitions directed to members of Congress.⁴ Additionally, they can contact their respective mobile phone manufacturers to indicate that they want the companies to ensure that cell phones are only made from certified conflict-free materials.

The women and girls of the Congo are our sisters and daughters in the larger sense of our all being part of one human family. Therefore, our love and concern for them, as it would be for any other cherished human being, must be present. In relation, I sort of decided to adopt the rest of the world as my family due to my having been orphaned at an early age. Besides, Congolese people deserve unreserved justice and compassion as much as any other people do, as our common welfare is inexorably linked. In fact, only a huge outpouring of care from around the world will help to bring about the kind of changes so desperately needed in this tragically destroyed nation.

Due to a shortage of funds and critical care supplies, the crisis in the Congo is inadequately addressed. Yet many charitable groups are striving their best to provide relief.

Thankfully, several of these agencies have excellent track records. A few of them that come highly recommended are the Women and Girls of the World, Stephen Lewis Foundation, SOS Medical Centres and Women for Women International in the event that any support of their projects might like to be undertaken.⁵ As Margaret Mead suggested, “Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has.”

1. Ensler E, Lewis S (2008) The never ending war. Huffington Post. The Stephen Lewis Foundation (2007 September 13) Stephen Lewis calls for a new UN initiative to end sexual violence in the eastern region of the DRC. [↩]
2. Congo/Women, an exhibition featuring photographs by Lynsey Addario, Marcus Bleasdale, Ron Haviv and James Nachtwey. [↩]
3. GovTrack.us, 111th Congress, 2009-2010, S. 891: Congo Conflict Minerals Act of 2009. GovTrack.us, 111th Congress, 2009-2010,HR 4128: Conflict Minerals Trade Act. [↩]
4. Urge Your Senators to Cosponsor the Congo Conflict Minerals Act of 2009 (Raise Hope for Congo). Urge Your Representative to Cosponsor the Conflict Minerals Trade Act (Raise Hope for Congo). [↩]
5. Humanitarian relief organizations: Women and Girls of the World, Stephen Lewis Foundation, Medical Centres in Congo — SOS Medical Centres, and Women for Women International’s Congo initiative at Congo Women Need Your Help | Women For Women International. [↩]

Emily Spence and Brian McAfee are authors living respectively in Massachusetts and Michigan. They have spent many years involved in human rights, environmental and social services efforts.

They can be contacted at brimac6@hotmail.com. Read other articles by Emily Spence.

Most red ink ever: $9 trillion over next decade

Most red ink ever: $9 trillion over next decade



President Barack Obama looks on after announcing he is keeping Federal Reserve Board Chairman Ben Bernanke for a second term, Tuesday, Aug. 25, 2009, during a news conference in Oak Bluffs, Mass. (AP Photo/Stephan Savoia)



Most red ink ever: $9 trillion over next decade

Question:

Who will pay for this?

Answer:

Wall Street will make the working class pay.



Most red ink ever: $9 trillion over next decade

Question:

What will this do to the standard of living of working people?

Answer:

Debt equals poverty... think about what this huge debt will mean for you.



Most red ink ever: $9 trillion over next decade

Question:

Who will profit from this debt?

Answer:

Wall Street bankers



Most red ink ever: $9 trillion over next decade

Question:

Who created this mess?

Answer:

Wall Street coupon clippers



Most red ink ever: $9 trillion over next decade

Question:

Why should the working class pay--- with a deterioration in its standard of living--- to clean up a mess workers had no part in creating?

Answer:

Because we lack political and economic power.




Most red ink ever: $9 trillion over next decade

Comment: Let the Wall Street bankers and coupon clippers pay to clean up the mess they created.

Comment:

$9 trillion over next decade and not one single problem working people are experiencing has been solved... talk about your ass-backward priorities

Comment:

There is no longer any question who Barack Obama is working for: Wall Street.



Most red ink ever: $9 trillion over next decade

The solution: We need to build a very broad, united people's front struggling for a real program for change which must include:

1. Real progressive health care reform with a combination of a vastly expanded public health care sector... no fees/no premiums, comprehensive, all-inclusive, cradle to grave universal health care; publicly funded, publicly administered and publicly delivered combined with single-payer universal health care as the first step towards a fully-funded socialized health care system for all based upon the principles embodied in Social Security.

2. A long-term moratorium on all home foreclosures and evictions... pay-off the mortgages of working people to the tune of the amount the Wall Street bankers have been subsidized, and cancel all student debt for working class students--- the middle class, small business and the wealthy can afford to pay their own way.

3. Free public child care for all working class families; the middle class, small business and the wealthy can afford to pay their own way.

4. Raise the minimum wage to a real living wage based upon the scientific calculations using actual cost-of-living factors as determined by the United States Department of Labor and its Bureau of Labor Statistics. Anyone knows that poverty will never be eliminated as long as employers are allowed to pay working people poverty wages. Any employer not wanting to pay workers real living wages for work that needs to be done should do the jobs themselves.

5. Affirmative action must be aggressively enforced to counter the extreme poverty on Indian Reservations and in communities of color as well as for women because otherwise, with a country sinking into the morass of bankruptcy mired in $9 trillion dollars of debt poverty is going to soar--- further--- out of control on Indian Reservations and in communities of color and families headed by single mothers will see child poverty and all the ensuing misery and despair spiral completely beyond control. Barack Obama oversees a massive economic and governmental apparatus that is nothing but a web held together by institutionalized racism and this web must be torn asunder once and for all... strict enforcement of affirmative action programs is the surest way to put an end to racism.

We must wrest social, political and economic power from the hands of the military-financial-industrial complex if we are going to turn our country around.

The time has come to once-and-for-all beat swords into plowshares... Let the generals hold the baked-goods sales and sell candy bars door-to-door to finance their military insanity, boondoggles and imperialist wars.

The time has come to shut down the more than 800 U.S. foreign military bases dotting the globe and use our precious human and natural resources to establish 800 public health care centers across our own country.

Barack Obama and his Wall Street masters have bankrupted our country and there isn't even a single thing of benefit to working people to show for this.

We need a people's lobby to win a people's bailout... the longer we delay action the worse this situation becomes by the day...

When Barack Obama was campaigning for election; did you ever think that his message of "hope" and "change" was going to result in this kind of a nightmare?

We are now staring a situation in the face where Barack Obama is feeding us a line of bull that our taxes will not increase as city, county and state governments intend to slash funding to the bone and make us pay for those services that used to be provided for free for the common good... before long we will be paying to borrow books from our public libraries--- if they have the funds to remain open... this is the direction our country is headed.

Capitalism is on the skids to oblivion and we are well down the short, bumpy road to perdition. No one with an ounce of common sense continues traveling down such a dangerous road knowing what awaits them at the end.


Remember: Debt equals poverty.


Working people will pay and suffer the cost of this $9 trillion dollar debt; Wall Street bankers will profit from this $9 trillion dollar debt.



Most red ink ever: $9 trillion over next decade

Something is terribly out of whack in our country as anyone with common sense can tell... obviously the Democrats don't know the difference between "fair" and "fare;" give them a dictionary, not your vote... we are sorely in need of a real progressive political party based on the legacy and traditions of the socialist Minnesota Farmer-Labor Party.



Most red ink ever: $9 trillion over next decade

What Barack Obama and the Wall Street bankers and coupon clippers have done to our country in plunging us into this huge debt that will completely destroy what remains of our standard of living is nothing short of treason.


For weeks we have been getting economic reports coming out of the White House from Barack Obama prepared by Rosy Scenario and now this economic ticking, time-bomb has been dropped:





Most red ink ever: $9 trillion over next decade

Aug 25, 2009

By JIM KUHNHENN

WASHINGTON (AP) - In a chilling forecast, the White House is predicting a 10-year federal deficit of $9 trillion - more than the sum of all previous deficits since America's founding. And it says by the next decade's end the national debt will equal three-quarters of the entire U.S. economy.

But before President Barack Obama can do much about it, he'll have to weather recession aftershocks including unemployment that his advisers said Tuesday is still heading for 10 percent.

Overall, White House and congressional budget analysts said in a brace of new estimates that the economy will shrink by 2.5 to 2.8 percent this year even as it begins to climb out of the recession. Those estimates reflect this year's deeper-than-expected economic plunge.

The grim deficit news presents Obama with both immediate and longer-term challenges. The still fragile economy cannot afford deficit-fighting cures such as spending cuts or tax increases. But nervous holders of U.S. debt, particularly foreign bondholders, could demand interest rate increases that would quickly be felt in the pocketbooks of American consumers.

Amid the gloomy numbers on Tuesday, Obama signaled his satisfaction with improvements in the economy by announcing he would nominate Republican Ben Bernanke to a second term as chairman of the Federal Reserve. The announcement, welcomed on Wall Street, diverted attention from the budget news and helped neutralize any disturbance in the financial markets from the high deficit projections.

The White House Office of Management and Budget indicated that the president will have to struggle to meet his vow of cutting the deficit in half in 2013 - a promise that earlier budget projections suggested he could accomplish with ease.

"This recession was simply worse than the information that we and other forecasters had back in last fall and early this winter," said Obama economic adviser Christina Romer.

The deficit numbers also could complicate Obama's drive to persuade Congress to enact a major overhaul of the health care system - one that could cost $1 trillion or more over 10 years. Obama has said he doesn't want the measure to add to the deficit, but lawmakers have been unable to agree on revenues that would cover the cost.

What's more, the high unemployment is expected to last well into the congressional election campaign next year, turning the contests into a referendum on Obama's economic policies.

Republicans were ready to pounce.

"The alarm bells on our nation's fiscal condition have now become a siren," said Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky. "If anyone had any doubts that this burden on future generations is unsustainable, they're gone - spending, borrowing and debt are out of control."

Even supporters of Obama's economic policies said the long-term outlook places the federal government on an unsustainable path that will force the president and Congress to consider politically unpopular measures, including tax increases and cuts in government programs.

"The numbers today portend the biggest budget fight we've probably had in decades in the United States," said Stan Collender, a former congressional budget official.

The summer analyses by the White House budget office and by the Congressional Budget Office reached similarly bleak conclusions. The CBO's 10-year deficit figure was smaller - $7 trillion - but that is because it assumes that all tax cuts put into place in the administration of former President George W. Bush will expire on schedule by 2011. Obama's budget baseline, however, hews to his proposal to keep the tax cuts in place for families earning less than $250,000 a year.

Both budget offices see the national debt - the accumulation of annual budget deficits - as more than doubling over the next decade. The public national debt, made up of amounts the government owes to the public, including foreign governments, stood Tuesday at a staggering $7.4 trillion. White House budget officials predicted it would reach $17.5 trillion in 2019, or 76.5 percent of the gross domestic product. That would be the highest proportion in six decades.

Congressional Budget Office director Douglas Elmendorf said if Congress doesn't reduce deficits, interest rates are likely to rise, hurting the economy. But if Congress acts too soon, the economic recovery - once it arrives - could be thwarted.

"We face perils in acting and perils in not acting," Elmendorf told reporters.

David Walker, former head of the Government Accountability Office, said the numbers illustrated the need for a national commission that would review spending and taxing options and present lawmakers with a deficit reduction plan that Congress could approve or reject.

"We're going to have to do a hard course correction once we turn the corner on the economy," Walker, now president and CEO of the Peter G. Peterson Foundation, said.

Both Romer and Obama budget director Peter Orszag said this year's contraction would have been far worse without money from the $787 billion economic stimulus package that the president pushed through Congress as one of his first major acts.

At the same time, the continuing stresses on the economy have, in effect, increased the size of the stimulus package because the government will have to spend more in unemployment insurance and food stamps, Orszag said. He said the cost of the stimulus package - which spends most of its money in fiscal year 2010 - will grow by tens of billions of dollars above the original $787 billion.

The White House also credited the $3 billion cash-for-clunkers auto program for contributing to recent economic growth.

Orszag, anticipating backlash over the deficit numbers, conceded that the long-term deficits are "higher than desirable." The annual negative balances amount to about 4 percent of the gross domestic product, a number that many economists say is unsustainable.

But Orszag also argued that overhauling the health system would reduce health care costs and address the biggest contributor to higher deficits.

"I know there are going to be some who say that this report proves that we can't afford health reform," he said. "I think that has it backward."

At the same time, 10-year budget projections can be "wildly inaccurate," said Collender, now a partner at Qorvis Communications. Collender noted that there will be five congressional elections over the next 10 years and any number of foreign and domestic challenges that will make actual deficit figures very different from the estimates.

__

Associated Press writers Christopher S. Rugaber, Tom Raum and Stephen Ohlemacher contributed to this report.


Books for real change.

Suggested reading list for working people:


Super Profits and Crisis by Victor Perlo

Working Class USA by Gus Hall

Writings of Frank Marshall Davis by Frank Marshall Davis

The People's Front by Earl Browder

Marx and Engels Selected Works

Twilight of World Capitalism by William Z. Foster


For a real understanding of what the American revolution was about, read Citizen Tom Paine by Howard Fast.

Let's talk about the politics and economics of livelihood... and working class political action.

This is YOUR future...




Alan L. Maki

Check out my main blog:

http://thepodunkblog.blogspot.com/

2010 United States Social Forum to be held in Detroit; What will it accomplish?

We need to start thinking about presenting a real progressive alternative agenda at the USSF Detroit and it should start with advocating real health care reform and countering the reactionary direction the Obama administration and the Democrats are taking this country.

There is something wrong about the way this United States Social Forum 2010 in Detroit is developing if every participant doesn't go back home into their communities and stimulate movements for real health care reform.

A major problem with this Social Forum movement has been its inability to unite participants to undertake struggles aimed at accomplishing specific tasks, goals and objectives.

To bring so many activists together and not bring forward an agenda for real health care reform we can all unite and fight for just doesn't seem right.

I would urge people to contact the working groups and insist that the struggle for health care reform becomes a primary objective of this Social Forum in 2010.

We need to send Barack Obama and the Democrats a loud, clear message that 25,000 activists will be organizing, as a complement to all their other activities, a national struggle for real health care reform.

I would encourage people to read my blog posting on this topic:

http://thepodunkblog.blogspot.com/2009/08/health-care-reform.html

If 20,000 activists all assembled in one place at the same time can't launch a real fight for health care reform and forge a massive "people's front" by creating some kind of massive "people's lobby" there is something wrong with how these Social Forums are being organized.

Health care reform, real health care reform and not this phony crap of Barack Obama's, should become the centerpiece in the struggle for a "people's bailout."

Capitalism is on the skids to oblivion and it is time to start talking about the socialist alternative... let the talk begin by bringing forward the advocacy of socialized health care.

Alan L. Maki


Working Groups

Mon, 06/22/2009 - 03:05

One of the many ways that you can get involved in the organizing efforts for USSF Detroit is through the national Working Groups. There are currently 10 Working Groups, and several committees, where you can participate in regular (often biweekly) conference calls. With representatives from the Detroit Local Organizing Committee, each Working Group and committee discuss ideas, strategies, and plans around the work needed to bring the USSF to Detroit.

For more information about joining a Working Group or committee, please contact the following point people (all contacts are interim):

Working Groups

Culture – Oya Amakisi, Detroit Local Organizing Committee, amakisi@gmail.com

Communications – Bill Bryce, Southeast Michigan Jobs with Justice, williamabryce@att.net

Resource Mobilization – Genaro Lopez-Rendon, Southwest Workers Union, genaro@swunion.org

International Solidarity – Cindy Wiesner, Grassroots Global Justice Alliance, cindy@ggjalliance.org

Language Access – Danielle Mahones, CTWO, dmahones@ctwo.org

Logistics – Maureen Taylor, USSF Staff, chuteh7@hotmail.com

Outreach – Tammy Bang Luu, Labor Community Strategy Center, Tammy@thestrategycenter.org and Ahmina Maxey, EMEAC, ahmina@emeac.org

People's Movement Assembly – Stephanie Guilloud, Project South, stephanie2@projectsouth.org

Program – Walda Katz-Fishman, LRNA, wkatzfishman@igc.org

Religion - Bill Wylie-Kellerman bill@scupe.com and
Rev. Charles E. Williams II Cwilliams@im4justice.com 313.303.8002

Technology – Alfredo Lopez, May First/People Link, alfredo@mayfirst.org

Women's - Ariel Dougherty, Women's Media Equity Collaborative, arielcamera@gmail.com and Jacqui Patterson, Women of Color United, jpatters1@yahoo.com

Committees

Detroit Local Organizing Committee – Will Copeland, USSF Staff, williamwholenote@gmail.com

Union leaders meet with Obama

The most important item that should be at the top of this agenda but isn't even included is the question of peace.

Alan L. Maki


Union leaders meet with Obama

Author: John Wojcik

Union presidents are meeting with President Obama in the White House today where they are discussing the urgent need for health care reform with a public option, according to Gregory King, special assistant to Gerald McEntee, president of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees.

They are also mapping plans, King said, for passage of the Employee Free Choice Act, a bill that would make it easier to unionize.

The Communications Workers of America said this afternoon that 10 of the union leaders at the White House gathering are members of the National Labor Coordinating Committee, a group committed to reuniting the labor movement which currently consists of unions that belong to two federations, the AFL-CIO and Change to Win, and unions that are independent.

“They are talking to the president about health care and about what the labor movement can do to help in the passage of reform legislation," according to King. "They are stressing the importance of the public option in which a government-run entity would compete with private insurers and they are emphasizing their opposition to a tax on employee-provided health benefits to help finance that reform.”

Such a tax would be particularly painful for union members because many receive health benefits from their employers.

While health care is at the top of the agenda King said he expected that the Employee Free Choice Act would be discussed.

Labor has been waging a strong campaign to convince several senators who are sitting on the fence to come out in full support of the bill. Sixty votes will be needed to stop a planned Republican filibuster against it.

Besides McEntee, the list of labor leaders meeting with the president includes John Sweeney, president of the AFL-CIO, Andrew Stern, president of the Service Employees International Union and Dennis Van Roekel, president of the National Education Association. Also at the meeting are the presidents of the steelworkers, communications workers, Teamsters and food and commercial workers.

An AFL-CIO source says that many in the group are also anxious to discuss the issue of trade. The labor movement is opposed to so-called free trade agreements that result in exploitation of labor in developing countries while U.S. jobs are exported by companies chasing after cheap labor.

The source said that there is also “concern about the need to develop an entirely new approach to, a planned approach to developing a manufacturing policy in America. We have to create good paying manufacturing jobs if we are really going to restore this economy.”

Unemployment, is of course, also expected to be discussed. Labor leaders are supporting a second stimulus package in the wake of widespread expectations that the official unemployment rate will surge into double digit territory.

Is The Global Recession Over?

This is a very interesting and important question being posed here. The same question is being posed in a variety of publications ranging from conservative to the left.

Here we get an interesting take from one of the largest, most powerful and influential communist parties in the world.

However, noticeably absent is any reference to what these huge debts being incurred in the name of "economic stimulus" are really doing to nations and people.

This accumulation of debt may be having some short-term results as far as alleviating the problems associated with the collapsing capitalist economy which is certain to negatively impact all the countries the United States is trying to use to shore up its own economy.

But, there can only be one consequence of this huge accumulating debt aimed at trying to save the capitalist system, not just from complete collapse, but saving the system itself... we are already well into a full-blown depression.

What is the consequence of all this debt that is not considered in this article? Poverty. Massive poverty will be the result of these huge accumulations of debt. Masses of people who have never experienced poverty will be experiencing poverty and everything that goes with such poverty.

One need only examine what the western imperialist governments and their bankers did to socialist Poland to figure this out.

Debt equals poverty... massive debt equals massive poverty.

Recession, depression or whatever happens with the capitalist economy this massive, massive, massive debt is going to result in the most devastating and massive world-wide poverty the human race has ever experienced.

Something to think about and ponder as you gather around the dinner table... you might also contemplate how much longer you will have food to put on the dinner table for your family...

The leading capitalists, headed by Wall Street, are taking advantage of this depression as capitalists always do--- using this economic depression to drive down that standards of living of working people across the globe.

It is no wonder so many working people are turning to Karl Marx for answers... one only has to read the very short Chapter 26 from Volume One of Marx' "Capital" to understand what is taking place in the world today... if you have never read or studied Karl Marx before, I would urge you to get to your nearest public library and check out Volume One of "Capital" and give it a good, thorough read because what the bankers did to Poland they are now doing to the entire world... the United States included.

Is the "global recession over?" Yes it is; we are in a capitalist economic depression... the result will be massive poverty for years to come because Barack Obama and Wall Street have tried to solve the problems they created on the backs of the working class.

Alan L. Maki




People's Democracy

(Weekly Organ of the Communist Party of India (Marxist)

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Vol. XXXIII

No. 25


June 21, 2009



Is The Global Recession Over?



C P Chandrasekhar



FINANCE ministers of the G8, meeting at Lecce in Italy during the latter part of week ending June 14, were cautiously optimistic. The final communiqué noted that in the aftermath of efforts at financial stabilisation and fiscal stimulation “there are signs of stabilisation in our economies, including a recovery of stock markets, a decline in interest rate spreads, (and) improved business and consumer confidence”. But, the ministers cautioned “the situation remains uncertain and significant risks remain to economic and financial stability”.



There were two elements of the communiqué that pointed to a compromise between the differing perceptions of the US and UK, on the one hand, and Germany and France, on the other, regarding the principal problems and tasks at hand. The first of these elements was the reference to the persistence of “significant risks” which was not there in the original draft of the communiqué, and was ostensibly inserted by those countries (UK and US) who feel that it is not yet time to decide that the recovery is here and the stimulus provided thus far has been adequate. Moreover, the mention of “encouraging figures in the manufacturing sector” that figured in the draft was dropped, since it went against the evidence that industrial production in the eurozone area had fallen by 21 per cent in April, relative to the corresponding month of the previous year.



LEADING POWERS DIFFER ON EMPHASIS

The second element of the communiqué of interest is that it pushes for going beyond thinking of recovery and formulating national level “exit strategies” “for unwinding the extraordinary policy measures taken to respond to the crisis.” The reference here is to the huge budget deficits and high levels of public debt that many countries, especially the US, have accumulated in the wake of the bail-outs and the stimulus packages they have put in place. Though the US and UK have played down this aspect of the discussions, there is clearly a difference in emphasis among the leading powers on where the world economy stands and what is the immediate priority in terms of action.



The difference hinges, quite clearly, on the extent to which different sections believe that the worst is over. The reason for uncertainty regarding a potential recovery is that the figures are yet to point to a definitive revival. As of May 2009, nearly two years since the financial crisis broke and a year-and-a-half after the onset of the global recession, the economic scenario remains uncertain, if not bleak. The rate of unemployment in the US, which stood at less than 5 per cent in the first quarter of 2008, had risen to 8.1 per cent in the first quarter of 2009 and is estimated to have touched 9.4 per cent in May 2009—its highest rate for the last 26 years. This possibly explains US pessimism. It is true that the unemployment rate in the European Union had also risen from 6.8 to 8.1 per cent between the first quarters of 2008 and 2009. But the higher base level may be making the problem appear less alarming to ruling governments there than in the US, influencing their perceptions.



Output growth too gives no cause for optimism. Quarter-on-quarter growth rates of US GDP (as measured relative to the corresponding quarter of the previous year) had declined sharply in the last quarter of 2008 and first quarter of 2009 across the G7. This decline was even sharper in the UK and the EU, than the US). The crisis had clearly not gone away by the beginning of April, despite signs of recovery in the stock market. The disconcerting element is that this situation prevails despite huge infusion of funds by G7 governments. According to one estimate, the US Federal Reserve had by April 2009 offered about $12.7 trillion in guarantees and commitments to the US financial sector, and spent a little over $4 trillion in combating the crisis. As a result the federal deficit has risen to more than 12 per cent of GDP, frightening fiscal conservatives who predict the onset of stagflation. The big thrust seems to be over and the recovery is still not in sight. What it has possibly done, and even that is not certain, is prevent the recession from turning into a depression.



OPTIMISM BASED ON STILL TENUOUS EVIDENCE

Despite this evidence relating to the period till the last full quarter for which numbers are available, speculation that the downturn has bottomed out and the developed world is on the verge of recovery proliferates. This optimism is based on still tenuous evidence, including evidence that the rate of decline of economies is slowing. The most important of these is that the monthly decline in employment in the US is down sharply. In May 2009 nonfarm payroll employment fell by 345,000, which is around half the average monthly decline over the previous six months and well below the close to 750,000 fall in January this year. Associated with this fall in monthly employment declines is a fall in new unemployment claims. Economist Robert Gordon of Northwestern University in the US, a respected analyst of growth and productivity trends in the US, has found that past recessions came to an end four to six weeks after new unemployment claims peaked, which they have now done. So he conjectures that the business cycle will find its trough in May or June (Financial Times, June 3, 2009). While these developments are reassuring, we should view them in the light of the fact that the unemployment rate is at record levels and new unemployment claims are still above the figures they touched in the worst months of the last recession.



A second cause for optimism is that US producers may be reaching the phase of their inventory cycle where an increase in production is inevitable. By April, wholesale inventories had fallen for the eighth month running as firms cut back production to clear the excess inventories generated by falling demand. Having made those adjustments, it is argued, firms are now in a position where they would have to step up production, especially if demand begins to stabilise. In other words, the argument is that since things are so bad, they can only get better. But the figures do not support even this position. Thus, after seven months of decline, inventories in April fell 1.4 per cent relative to the year before and 6.4 per cent relative to the corresponding month of the previous year. That was because sales fell by 0.4 per cent in April, led by automobiles and parts. Sales of durable goods too were down 1.9 per cent during the month and 23.4 per cent over the year.



The third potential cause for comfort is the sign that relative to previous months the decline in production is slowing. The available evidence shows that the decline in GDP relative to the immediately preceding quarter, which was rising till the first quarter of 2009, seems to have bottomed out in the US and to a lesser extent in the EU. What is more, this trend seems to be reflected even in the month-on-month annual growth rates of industrial production, with the rate of decline in April 2009 relative to the corresponding month of the previous year showing signs of reversing its hitherto continuous increase in the US, UK and EU.



While this third factor may be adequate reason for optimism for some, there are two reasons why we should not read too much into this data. To start with, even if the downturn is touching bottom in terms of the stabilisation of the rate of decline, the decline could persist and the economy could “bounce along the bottom” as some analysts reportedly speculate. That is, there is no “statistical” reason why a stable rate of decline should automatically lead to lower rates of decline and positive rates of growth in the coming months or quarters.



Further, it is unclear whether there would be adequate alternative stimuli to sustain the recovery when the effects of the already implemented fiscal stimulus wane. Governments could hold back on providing any fresh stimulus because of arguments of the kind espoused by conservative economists, representatives of the financial sector and even some European governments, which emphasise the dangers of inflation. If that happens, recovery would depend on the return of the consumer to the market.



But here too the prognosis is not all too happy. Fears generated by the recession and rising unemployment and the increased desire to save to make up for the decline in the values of accumulated housing and financial assets is encouraging savings even in the US. According to a recent estimated of the Federal Reserve, the net worth of US households had fallen 2.5 per cent or by $1,300 billion in just the first three months of 2009. This comes on top of the 18 per cent fall in the previous year which was the worst since the Fed began estimating household wealth in 1946.The net result is that household savings rates in the US are rising and consumer spending was falling in March and April this year.



In the event many still remain sceptical. The Financial Times quotes Martin Feldstein as saying that “it is possible but unlikely” that the recession is over. “I think it is a more likely scenario that we are seeing the favourable effects of the fiscal stimulus,” he reportedly said. “That, for a while, will offset the general diminished trend we have seen over the past two quarters, but it is a one-shot thing.” Put otherwise, there could be more bad news ahead.