http://www.clnews.org/forums en Fri, 10 Sep 2010 20:30:04 GMT vBulletin 60 http://www.clnews.org/forums/images/clnews/misc/rss.jpg http://www.clnews.org/forums http://www.clnews.org/forums/showthread.php?t=23775&goto=newpost Thu, 09 Sep 2010 19:23:22 GMT It's something we can be optimistic about.

The capitalist class through their ownership and control of the media consciously portray the working class as conservative and reactionary and the “petty bourgeois” and left academia as progressive, more open to ideas; some of them are even anarchists and socialists they claim.

In fact, the term “working class” is generally scorned upon here in the United States. When I immigrated here more than 35 years ago I was quite insulted that someone would refer to me as middle class. “I’m not middle class” I would reply. Not only that, I had no aspirations to become middle class either.

The theoreticians of capital are well aware of the class structure in society and do everything they can to obscure the fact that the vast majority of us are working class or that US society has a class structure at all. The worst thing a political candidate can do in the US is to wage “class warfare” to give this idea credibility in any way; this is how afraid they are of the working class. Racial or gender division is OK, but not class.

Every ruling class does this, uses the institutions that it controls to convince those that it exploits that we are all “god’s children” “one nation undivided”. The state, or government as most workers would call it, and its institutions of organized religion and the education system all function to cement these ideas in the minds of the working class.

This gradual decline of the US as the sole major power on the world stage a development accelerated by the present historic economic crisis has weakened the faith the US working class has in the system and its traditional institutions. A September 2nd op Ed piece in the Wall Street Journal revealed the level of concern that the strategists of capital have about the grip they have on the consciousness of the working class. Despite the propaganda from the media and the pulpit, echoed by the worker’s leaders atop the Union movement, consciousness has a material base and their propaganda does not correspond to objective reality.

The authors of the WSJ piece on September 2nd are very concerned because the working class (and they use the term 13 times in their article) have lost the ability to enter in to the “middle-class ideal”, or put this way, the American Dream has not only become unattainable, it is more of a nightmare. These academics have discovered that the working class in the US, those without the education needed to get “professional and managerial jobs” have “sunk towards the wages of the working poor”.
This is a very dangerous situation for them as the ideology of the bourgeois, individualism and selfishness as the way to success, is strengthened among the working class through the intervention and growth of the middle class layers.

The ability to move in to the more conservative middle class has been an important factor, along with the role of the Union leaders, in the passivity of the US working class over the past period. But this door is rapidly closing and the faith in the institutions of capitalism, marriage, traditional family and church, are breaking down. “..they are losing not only jobs”, the authors discover, “but also their connections to basic social institutions such as marriage and religion." “They’re becoming socially disengaged, floating away from the college educated middle class.” In other words, they are losing the battle for the consciousness of the working class-------this is not a bad thing for workers. It is the struggle for freedom in the truest sense, connecting with objective reality.

The institution of marriage, or the capitalist version of it, is losing its grip on working people. The percentage of working class women (of all races) who were unmarried but living with a partner when they gave birth has risen from 10% in the early 1990’s to 27% in the mid 2000’s. The WSJ piece claims that “cohabiting relationships” don’t last and that children born to unmarried couples are twice as likely to have their parents break up by the age of five as children born to married parents. I see this as a positive thing. Gone are the days when couples, especially women, were forced to stay in relationships that didn’t work. This statistic reflects more freedom not less. But for the capitalist class it represents the weakening of their influence on the consciousness of the working class through the institution of marriage.

They are equally concerned about the influence the pulpit has over the consciousness of the worker. A steady job, a house and a car and a good education system, these all contribute to the security and faith workers have in the system and the faith they have in the institution of religion---god has been good to them. But the general decline of the security and possibility of upward mobility that many baby boomers had has also weakened the grip this institution of capitalism has over our thinking.

The number of workers that attend church has declined considerably. The decline has been greatest among working class whites. In the 1970’s 35% of working class whites aged 25-45 attended religious services almost every week according to a study by the National Opinion research Center. This was about the same as college educated whites in that age group, the research finds. But this is not so today as those with college degrees is the “only” group that attends religious services with the same frequency as in the 1970’s.

The authors of the Wall Street Journal piece are not concerned with the welfare of the working class in their findings. They are not concerned that they are losing their relationship with god in the way a genuine working class person who has faith might. They are not concerned about the general well being of unmarried couples and their children, that they will have no jobs, or decent education or good social services like education and medical care. They are deathly afraid of the response the working class will have to the failure of the capitalist system, their so-called free market, to provide a decent life. The number of Americans in that category is dwindling rapidly.

They pose some important questions to their class comrades who read the Wall Street Journal: “What happens, then, when the job marker conditions that once allowed most high-school educated Americans to connect to the rest of society through hard work, marriage and religious participation no longer exists?”

“Will their social disengagement leave them vulnerable to political appeals based on anger and fear?” they add. This is their fear; politicization of the working class, the questioning of the system and being open to alternatives.

In today’s WSJ another frightened bourgeois strategist attacks Obama for his “class war” rhetoric. And what class war language was Obama uttering? He told a Labor Day crowd (rhetoric indeed) that, “Anyone who thinks we can move this economy forward with a few doing well at the top, hoping it’ll trickle down to working folks running faster and faster, just to keep up----they just haven’t studied our history.” He's right.

This is not exactly a call to revolution but that matters not; any reference to the haves and the haves-not is a dangerous road to travel. And the trickle down argument is the dominant theoretical justification they use to convince us that the system serves our interests. It is the capitalist class’ equivalent of the Divine Right of Kings used by the European feudal regimes to justify their rule.

Today’s WSJ piece agrees that we need to do something but warns about tapping in to the anger that workers have towards bankers and the rich. Obama’s speech, “….pumped out more class-based political demagoguery than the nation needs right now.” writes Daniel Henninger. What’s needed, he whines, is a “..national leader willing to spend his time in office getting everyone, from top to bottom, believing they are on the same national team.” This is a hard sell given the real world workers find ourselves in.

Here we have various strategists of the capitalist class discussing the consequences if their system cannot halt the continued assault on US workers. They agree that something must be done to regain a firm grip on the consciousness of the US working class. But those of them that use class war language go to far, it’s too dangerous. But the class war rhetoric is forced on them by the objective situation. It is the response they hope will temper the anger they see and feel in society against the rich and their system; it is too strong to ignore, they have to validate it and hope for the best.

The ranting of a lunatic Florida preacher with a congregation of 50 is what best suits the situation. It is no accident that this nutcase is all over the media, on CNN, in the papers etc. It is part of their arsenal in the propaganda war aimed at the working class, directing our thoughts in to a direction that best suits them---but they are losing this war and that is a good thing. We all make choices but not necessarily in circumstances of our own choosing.

I do not gloat in the increased suffering that working people endure due to the failings of the system of production we call capitalism. But it’s clear when reading the serious journals of capital that they are very pessimistic and insecure about the future. It is good to read about their pessimism rather than ours. Like the alcoholic that finally rejects denial and accepts that his dependence on the bottle is the major cause of his predicament paving the way for recovery; breaking the chains that link us to their institutions is an important step to freedom, to understanding the world as it really is.

It is a step forward. ]]> Richard Mellor Richard Mellor http://www.clnews.org/forums/showthread.php?t=23775 http://www.clnews.org/forums/showthread.php?t=23683&goto=newpost Wed, 01 Sep 2010 08:51:19 GMT But It Won't Stop Millions From Starving To Death

Will There Be More Wheat To Eat?

There are almost 5 million acres of the globe reserved for the production of wheat. Wheat is the world's most important food crop and has been grown by humans for thousands of years. Some experts consider the high yield plant as one of the main reasons for the end of the hunter gatherer. Scientists have now sequenced the wheat genome as they once did the human gene. This is being lauded as a major breakthrough as crop breeders will have a road map or a wheat atlas that they can study to determine the best strain possible; which strain is the most resilient and gives the highest yield. Which one is the most resistant to drought or disease.

According to reports, the information will be posted on the internet so all interested parties will be able to study them. The world demand for food is estimated to grow 50% over the next 20 years as world population increases and the discovery, it will be claimed, will go a long way to eliminating world hunger. Scientific advances in everything from food production to medical research should be welcomed. But all the technological innovations developed over the years have not ended world hunger, it is little to do with population. Millions of children die every year from hunger that is not caused by our inability to produce enough food for them to eat.

Millions die from diseases that we learned to cure long ago. The reason for this catastrophe has nothing to do with the lack of technology or resources. It is a by product of the economic system in which we live. Most people die from starvation and disease simply because the resources that can prevent them are denied them; there is no profit or little profit in it. Most water borne diseases are the product of the lack of social infrastructure, including medical assistance, drugs and other great products of social Labor.

There is much controversy over GM food production and whether or not it is environmentally destructive etc. People are weary of cloning and other such scientific meddling. But science, the study of nature and the material world cannot be separated from society. The study of our material world is not independent of class influence. And that is the major issue with such advances like the sequencing of the wheat genome. Food production is a business. The means by which we produce food, distribute food and study the biology of food crops, is done under the direction of the capitalist class and in their interest. Food production must be profitable.

Huge amounts of productive land is used to produce soy for the feeding of cattle for the markets of the developed world, particularly Western Europe and the U.S. that consumes huge amounts of beef and are encouraged to do so by the same folks that control the production of soy and wheat. It takes about 75 times more water to produce a pound of beef than it does to produce a pound of wheat. According to the OECD, about 70% of the world's water goes to irrigation as one billion people lack access to safe drinking water and 2.6 billion are denied the necessary sanitation that would prevent most child deaths. In California, one fifth of the state's power is used for watering Southern California.

The issue is not technology in itself. We should not follow the lead of the Luddites and smash the machines. The issue for us is the ownership and control of the production process, all aspects of it, including our own Labor time, whether it be wheat, beef or transportation. And I can't help leaving us (I know I have before but you can't put it any plainer) to ponder Marx's dead on statement about goal of the Labor process under capitalism when he wrote:

“A schoolmaster is a productive labourer when, in addition to belabouring the heads of his scholars, he works like a horse to enrich the school proprietor. That the latter has laid out his capital in a teaching factory, instead of in a sausage factory, does not alter the relation.” ]]> Richard Mellor Richard Mellor http://www.clnews.org/forums/showthread.php?t=23683 http://www.clnews.org/forums/showthread.php?t=23648&goto=newpost Sun, 29 Aug 2010 22:36:49 GMT The National Association of Realtors reports that sales of existing homes fell 27% in July from the previous month. This is not good news for future... The National Association of Realtors reports that sales of existing homes fell 27% in July from the previous month. This is not good news for future economic growth and stability. As we have pointed out on this blog (as many other people have of course) the present crisis is of historic significance. It has changed the American psyche for a long time if not for good. One in seven mortgages was delinquent in the first quarter of this year and Business Week reports that more than one million homes will be foreclosed on during the same period. Homes repossessed or in default in the first quarter totaled 7.3 million and when these homes exit the process and go on the market, prices will be depressed even further adding further crisis to the economic situation.

Coupled with the savage cuts in public services as well as job losses, close to 500,000 in state and local governments and about 18 percent in construction, one wonders when a social explosion will occur. Even before the present crisis, workers have seen our living standards decline. In the private sector, workers in auto, once some of the best paid and most secure of us have seen thousands of jobs disappear, wages cut in half and pension obligations reneged on. Teachers are among the most abused workers in the country and are under a fierce onslaught from capital; it is a “profession” that was long ago proletarianized. Privatization of everything public is being accelerated as the public sector sells assets for cash.

While we have pointed out on this blog that the main force to blame for the lack of a mass movement in response to these attacks is those at the helm of organized Labor; we have to consider the dismal record of what is called the left. One question some of us have asked ourselves is where is the left in this country? A recent poll found that 36% of the US population has a favorable image of socialism. American workers are as angry as we have been in a long, long time; with the rich, their political parties, and the system itself. There are thousands of activists in the US who consider themselves anti-capitalists of one type or another. They are present in the Unions, the student movement and other areas of activity.

The left can hold meetings and seminars on every issue from racism and women’s oppression to the wars of US imperialism and the Writings of Karl Marx. The left can call themselves militant sounding names and drop quotes from the writings and speeches of Gramsci, Lenin, Trotsky, Chomsky and others just like the magician pulls the rabbit out of the hat, all relevant issues But we have failed dismally to connect with the consciousness of the US working class and build a base within the working class in any serious way. Other Bloggers have raised on this site the equally dismal failure of the left in uniting to offer a political alternative to the capitalist candidates in local, state or even national elections. The left has failed to tap in to the anger that exists out there.

In short, the left, and I include part of my own history in this, needs to reflect on our own history and the failure to build a strong left current within the Unions, the student movement and US society as a whole. It is not the fault, as many leftists claim, of the “conservative” nature of the US working class.

One of the main reasons for the left’s failures is left sectarianism. Many of us have witnessed this in the different movements we have been involved in. In my many years of activity in the Labor movement I saw it and pretty much disassociated myself from any left organizations that I felt were unable to connect with the consciousness of ordinary working people which is most of them. Part of that experience was a failure of my own as I belonged to a group that used to call ourselves the “Genuine Marxists”, it was a way of separating myself from these elements so my intentions were justified in some ways but you can’t get more elitist and sectarian than that. Sectarianism is placing the interests of one, normally tiny, organization above the interests of the class or any social movement one is involved in. It is most common and all movements suffer from it, the Union rank and file included. The myriad of groups all jockeying for position and trying to recruit a few members more than their rivals are avoided like the plague by workers and students alike. Many that become involved are either destroyed politically or leave in disgust. The world is littered with ex leftists, people who have withdrawn from politics because of their experiences in left organizations; we are talking of thousands upon thousands of what were dedicated hard working and loyal people.

As Well as left sectarianism, another cause some of us believe is ultra leftism. The refusal to participate in the workers’ or any movement that moves in to struggle to throw back the offensive of capital but may not be explicitly socialist. The refusal to participate in the electoral process as so many do is another example. By refusing to use the electoral process as a forum for explaining socialist or anti-capitalist ideas and building a working class movement that can challenge the established capitalist monopoly in the political arena means the ideology of the market goes unchallenged. Are we saying that united left candidates cannot win elections in cities and towns across America? The only thing preventing this is ourselves.

If we think for a moment of a few events: Seattle 1999, Katrina, and Katrina is in the news again as it is the fifth anniversary of this disaster of the so called free market, the BP spill in the gulf and very present and far from over economic crisis, those of us who are in left organizations or anti-capitalist in general must ask ourselves why have we failed to intervene in such times of opportunity?

I did not intend to blog about this today but I am convinced that there is more bad economic news to come. more social and environmental catastrophes. I also saw the headline in the local paper about Katrina and I spent a short time down there after the disaster, I stayed in a FEMA camp in Algiers. It reminded me of the numerous lost opportunities, not just what I’ve mentioned here but countless strikes where workers put themselves on the line for long periods of time losing their homes in the process. They faced the cops and the National Guard only to go down in defeat.

These are a few thoughts that myself and others have about the situation. The left’s record is a poor one and needs to be seriously discussed. We can start by condemning left sectarianism and ultra-leftism and pledging to openly fight these trends when and where they arise. ]]> Richard Mellor Richard Mellor http://www.clnews.org/forums/showthread.php?t=23648 http://www.clnews.org/forums/showthread.php?t=23595&goto=newpost Wed, 25 Aug 2010 16:53:31 GMT This will mean fertile ground for further defeats and demoralization The Wall Street Journal reports today that the business oriented Union leaders... This will mean fertile ground for further defeats and demoralization

The Wall Street Journal reports today that the business oriented Union leaders atop organized Labor in the US are worried about the November elections. They spent millions of dollars of their members' hard earned dues money helping Democrats in to office in the last election cycle and, as usual, the returns are not so hot. EFCA! What's EFCA?

Their savior this time, Barak Obama, has done what all the other saviors did, helped his friends in the corporate and financial world clean up. Clinton, a previous savior threw working class women off welfare and betrayed his Labor friends on NAFTA. "...People who work on Wall Street are good citizens who want their country to change...I want to generate a lot of millionaires.." Clinton told Business Week in 1992. Clinton followed through, especially for himself and his business partner Hilary. Another savior the heads of organized Labor turned to was Al Gore who boasted to his friends in Business Week in January 1995, "In one year, we downsized by 100,000 employees. We have locked in place plans to eliminate another 200,000 workers. That's a bold start."

The list of betrayals is a long one. When I was a delegate to the Alameda Central Labor Council here in the San Francisco Bay Area it was common after the knife was still quivering in the back of the working class, for officials to cuss the Democrats out for another shafting or, more often, blame the Republicans for blocking the Democrats' efforts. On both counts they're wrong of course. The capitalist class in this country has one party with two wings to it that play the good cop bad cop role, one gives you a thrashing, the other a cigarette but they're both after the same thing. A political party does not exist in a vacuum, it represents class interests, and the Democrats, as much as the Republicans, represent the interests of the corporations, of the capitalist class that rule society. There are minor differences no doubt, cutting services to the working class or raising taxes on the working class for instance. And different sections of the bourgeois may at any point in time have more influence or allegiance to one or the other of their two parties. But the main thing is that they are united on the main point----the working class will pay and the global interests of US capitalism, its right to make profit and for capital to travel the world unfettered will be protected, no matter what the cost in lives and/or the destruction of the natural world.

Either way, even if the Democrats were simply betraying or conning the Labor leaders or if they were genuinely, through the limits of political activity alone, unable to serve our interests, anyone with any sense at all would have abandoned them long ago. Yet the Labor leaders, despite their members and most US workers abandoning politics so disgusted they are with it, continue to waste workers money and efforts getting them elected. The Union that I belonged to, AFSCME, provided 40,000 volunteers for the Mondale campaign in 1984, these resources are considerable.

The AFL-CIO and the SEIU are planning to spend at least $44 million on the midterm elections. When all the human resources are included the heads of organized labor throw hundreds of millions of dollars at the capitalist politicians every election cycle. This time they want the Democrats to retain control of both houses of Congress, not that it matters too much. They had control of both houses of Congress during the Carter years when not one piece of legislation important to Labor was passed and they were in the same position in the first two years of the Clinton presidency.

Richard Trumka, the former mineworkers leader now President of the AFL-CIO sounded quite militant back in 1995 when Gore was boasting about slashing public sector jobs, “While we are always willing to negotiate as equals, the era of union busting, contract trashing and strike breaking is at an end. Today, we say that when you pick a fight with any of us, you pick a fight with all of us! And that when you push us, we will push back."

Sounds pretty good but he was running for office in the only contested election for AFL-CIO president in a century. A month or so after, John Sweeney defeated Tom Donahue in the election for president, and Trumka won his seat. They were all sounding tough for a while, Sweeney talked of blocking bridges before getting elected and shifted to building them once in office---building them not between the leadership of the AFL-CIO and the members but the leadership of the AFL-CIO and the bosses.

The consequences of their role are significant as they contribute to the general feeling in the US that all politics is bad and that the politicians attack us because they're corrupt or evil people rather than representatives of a class defending the interests of that class. The Labor hierarchy are responsible for the mood of despair and resignation that exists among the working class, the view that nothing will change. Things will change, it's inevitable, but we have suffered significantly and the capitalist class have had their way precisely due to the role the Labor hierarchy continues to play. Any organization that has only one contested election for its top post in a century is an unhealthy one.

There is no doubt that with the tremendous resources at their disposal and Union locals, Central Labor bodies, State Labor Federations throughout the nation not to mention human resources, the heads of organized Labor could transform the political landscape in the US and break the monopoly big business has in the political arena by providing an alternative political party for workers to join, be active in and vote for. This would have a major effect on consciousness which is exactly why they resist such a move; as the leaders of a political party they can no longer blame democrats and would face pressure to "produce the goods", and as firm supporters of capitalism and the free market they are incapable of this. It will take a great upheaval from below that will convulse organized Labor and force from the bottom up, the building of an alternative to the Democrats. It is quite likely, given the stifling hold on the apparatus that the bureaucracy has, that such a development will first appear outside of the Unions entirely.

But we can't say the capitalist class or its representatives like Gore or Clinton are that dishonest; their intentions have been quite clear, right out there for anyone to hear. Way back in 1974, one of the serious and most respected journals of the US bourgeois warned:

"It will be a hard pill for many Americans to swallow--the idea of doing with less so that big business can have more...Nothing that this nation, or any other nation, has done in modern economic history compares with the selling job that must be done to make people except this reality." Business Week 10-12-74.

It doesn't get any plainer than that. ]]> Richard Mellor Richard Mellor http://www.clnews.org/forums/showthread.php?t=23595 http://www.clnews.org/forums/showthread.php?t=23542&goto=newpost Thu, 19 Aug 2010 18:52:18 GMT Two recent studies reveal the crisis that organized Labor finds itself in. A Gallup Poll found that only 52% of Americans have favorable views of... Two recent studies reveal the crisis that organized Labor finds itself in. A Gallup Poll found that only 52% of Americans have favorable views of Unions, "the second-lowest ever recorded since Gallup began documenting this trend 70 years ago." according to In These Times. * An earlier survey by the Pew Research Center found that a mere 41% of Americans viewed Unions in a good light. When the massive level of anti-Union propaganda that exists in US society is taken in to account this is still an amazing figure. By comparison, in 1953 75% of the public approved of labor Unions and throughout the post war upswing, a period during which the Union hierarchy were able to produce the goods to a certain extent for a significant section of the population, Unions remained favorable. But after years of defeats and declining living standards, Unions have also been on the decline. What the article doesn't point out, (I haven't read the survey's in full) is that many, many Union members are extremely dissatisfied, not so much with Unions, but with the concessionary and outright collaborationist policies of their leaders, which is sometimes manifested in a rejection of Unions in general.

"What seems to be missing," the Times article suggests, "is an inclusive message that unions have been fighting to guarantee the rights of all workers, union or non-union, at a time when employers are implementing wage and benefit concessions across the country."

But this is not the case. The reason so many Union members have a negative attitude toward the Union is that the Union has no significant presence on the job and that it does not fight for them; as Union dues go up as wages and living standards decline, why pay Union dues? Workers built Unions to defend and improve our material well-being, not as an exercise in civics. It is one thing to oppose something in words, but what that means in action is the issue. In These Times goes on to say, "But labor has had a difficult time getting this message across (that it fights for all workers) . Instead, the perception exists that unions are insular and self-serving entities that are only helping out their own rank and file." (My added emphasis)

Unfortunately this is true and one of the main reasons that public sentiment, during a major assault on all workers, is where it is. I have written on numerous occasions about this failing. In fact, the heads of organized Labor, those with the resources at their command at the moment, refuse to even defend their own members, never mind workers as a whole. Their program is one of concessions and assisting the employers in maintaining profits and in defense of the so-called free market; damage control is their strategy. During the 5 month grocery strike here in California, I remember being on informational picket lines up here in Northern California and one of the dominant issues was benefits. Striking workers were asking people not to shop in order to keep their benefits. The response I heard on many occasions was "Benefits, what benefits? I don't have any benefits." It's the same when the contract for the transit workers comes up. They are terrified of striking because their economic power is such that they can cause severe disruption to the Bay Area economy and the public will not be able to get to work. The employers know this and use it all the time.

The Union leadership has no response to this other than if they go out, the "moral" thing to do is support them. The young man or woman earning $12 an hour and no benefits can't get to work because workers earning $30-$35 an hour with benefits want to keep them and need their support. The way to win that support and make the sacrifice worth while is to generalize the struggle, take it in to the communities, fight for a $15 an hour minimum wage, free transportation, more jobs and point to where the money is for this. If we want people to join us, we have to fight for them. The Union officials refuse to do this because they accept the employer's arguments and have the same world outlook, capitalism needs help and we have to sacrifice to help it. (They don't include themselves in the "we". The obscene salaries and perks of the top Union hierarchy is a secondary factor in their refusal to fight.

This doesn't mean we would be better off without Unions as the fact that they exist at all has been a brake on the bosses' increasingly aggressive offensive. But they are less and less so, especially when the system goes in to crisis and the leadership more openly cooperates with the employers in undermining workers wages and benefits that took decades to win.

This is one thing that is missing in the In These Times article. It is to be expected that given the level of propaganda day in and day out that is directed against workers and Unions without any serious counter offensive (The US capitalist class spends more total money on all aspects of the war against its own working class than against foreign terrorists you can bet on that) it will have an effect. Every day there are articles and editorials about public sector workers and our exorbitant pensions (you might be able to actually live on some of them), the same assault is waged against all workers that earn a half decent wage and have a half decent retirement.

The employer's propaganda, their view of the world, their explanation about why there is no money and why we have to take cuts, this not only goes unanswered by the Labor leadership that have millions of dollars in the banks and 15 million people in their ranks, they endorse it. Sure they fight; they tell us to vote for Democrats. But the reality is that people's lives are deteriorating. Reading the big business press reveals the level of despair that exists in the absence of a social movement that can fight back. The End of American Optimism, Voters Back Tough Steps to Reduce Deficit, Another Threat to Economy: Boomers Cutting Back, articles like these just this week and numerous editorials about the greedy public sector and how our wages and benefits are the cause of the present crisis are the cause of the decline in Union popularity among the public.

While it is obvious that the response or lack of it, to this offensive of capital, on the part of the strategists atop the Labor movement allows this to happen, leaders of individual Union locals and other rank and file activists have a responsibility too. Caucuses must be built in Locals and between Locals that openly challenge the disastrous methods of the top leadership; we cannot avoid a struggle within our Unions. A $15 an hour minimum wage, a shorter workweek to create jobs to put the 30 million or so to work that capitalism has abandoned would get an echo among the public and help organize the unorganized. Free education at all levels, free health care and transportation, lowering the retirement age not increasing it which is on the agenda. We also cannot move forward without building our own independent political organization as an alternative to the two parties of capital.

These are issues that will galvanize public support. During the height of the student movement here in California, the AFL-CIO should have joined in a statewide work stoppage and organized for it; it would have transformed the mood among Union members and society as a whole. But there is nothing more terrifying than a victory, who knows where it might lead.

There is plenty of money in society, it is simply a matter of allocation. It is not difficult to point to where the money is, ending the predatory wars in Afghanistan and Iraq alone would save a trillion or so.

I was spurred to comment on this as what In These Times does, talk about the Labor movement, about Unions as if there are no leaders, as if in the "Union" all have the same responsibility and influence, is common and is a flawed approach. Members have responsibility no doubt, but the role of the leadership is crucial, every member that's tried to change the situation and have come up against the wall of opposition from an entrenched bureaucracy knows this.

It is most likely given the role of the trade Union leadership that a mass movement of opposition will be borne outside of the Union structures but organized Labor will be engulfed by such a development.

The propaganda war against workers, and the public sector in particular is winning because the leaders of the workers' movement give support to the employers and their system This has delayed the fight back, the building of a generalized movement that will transform US society.

But it can't prevent it indefinitely.

*Labor’s Popularity Declines Amid Criticism Of Public-Sector Unions: In These Times 8-18-10 ]]> Richard Mellor Richard Mellor http://www.clnews.org/forums/showthread.php?t=23542 http://www.clnews.org/forums/showthread.php?t=23469&goto=newpost Thu, 12 Aug 2010 01:25:44 GMT When I was a kid, I lived in a small English village down the road form a US Air Force base. I made a lot of American friends there and the best... When I was a kid, I lived in a small English village down the road form a US Air Force base. I made a lot of American friends there and the best jobs in the area were up at the base. One thing that used to fascinate us was the the wealth of the Americans. From cigarettes to booze, to the size of their cars that could hardly fit on our roads, to the stuff they discarded at the local dump that didn't seem to have anything wrong with it, we marveled at the abundance but were astonished at the waste.

When I moved to the US 37 years ago this feeling remained. I remember a friend throwing away some food she had made but couldn't eat all of it and was shocked. The same with the store that would put these tiny items in paper bags that would hold 50 of them, it seemed so wasteful to me. My mother would go nuts if I left a light on when no one was in the room, the same with the TV. And dad would not allow us to leave food. "You're eyes are bigger than your belly" he used to say to me. If we wouldn't eat our supper we'd go to bed without eating.

Things have changed drastically since since 1973, American workers living standards have been drastically cut back. Our cars are much smaller, our lives are more hectic and insecure, but for those raised outside of the US, the more recent immigrants, even those of us from Europe, the abundance and waste is still mind numbing. The size of food portions alone shock many visitors. My nephews who visited me some years ago and who never waste food were unable to eat the portions here.

In her recent Guardian article, Feast or Famine, Sadhbh Walshe writes of the extreme and unnecessary waste of food in the US. She points to a recent study that found that 40% of the food the US makes is discarded. This is in a world where one billion people are hungry each and every day. Even in the US according to the study, 14% of the population are what they call "food insecure." as the rate of food waste has doubled over the last decade.

One of the problems is government subsidies which encourages overproduction of certain foods. Food production, like the production of any other commodity in a market economy, is a means of making profit. As Marx once explained, “A schoolmaster is a productive labourer when, in addition to belabouring the heads of his scholars, he works like a horse to enrich the school proprietor. That the latter has laid out his capital in a teaching factory, instead of in a sausage factory, does not alter the relation.” Another effect of the subsidies is they artificially lowers prices which has a devastating effect on producers of some food products in the former colonial world, sugar for instance and cotton.

According to the USDA, 6.9% of household spending in America is on food, compared to 13.7% in France and 45.7% in Indonesia. The massive food subsidies in the US are political in nature in that they prop up certain industries like sugar or peanut farming but they are also intended to give a false sense of security and abundance. Throughout history, demonstrations, strikes, and social movements have always had as a major component the issue of putting food on the table. Eating is important it seems, and no matter how much the capitalist media blames strikes and wage struggles on the inherent greedy nature of workers, that we just want more money to waste on gambling fast cars, drugs and alcohol, the demand for higher wages is overwhelmingly always about food, housing, health care and other necessities. Most personal bankruptcies in this country are connected to the lack of health care.

Anyone interested in film must notice how in Hollywood movies everyone looks so plastic, like dolls or handsome puppet figures. Whereas in movies from Latin America, Europe or other countries, the actors are often people that look more normal with blemishes and other natuual qualities that make up the human appearance. This has a devastating effect on women and young girls in particular especially actors in the industry but that's for another time. The reason I raise it though is it is the same for food. The image must be perfect, there can be no blemishes, no marks, no indication that the object is anything but perfection personified. But in nature there is no such thing, what is normal is variation. Because of this, foods like carrot or potatoes that are mishaped are discarded. Not only is it wasted food but wasted Labor power.

Further reading on food production on our blog is here and here

Enjoy your meal. ]]> Richard Mellor Richard Mellor http://www.clnews.org/forums/showthread.php?t=23469