"Fighting Fortress Europe - A Critical View on European Union Migration Policies" A discussion with Kalle Larsson, Member of Parliament Swedish Left Party
Come out to the A. J. Muste Institute for a discussion with Kalle Larsson, member of the Swedish Parliament and spokesman for the Swedish Left Party on migration and antiracism. Kalle will describe the current situation for migrants in Europe and examine the ways in which policies generated by the European Union have fueled racism and xenophobia throughout the region. This talk promises to offer some useful opportunities to compare and contrast current American immigration policies with those in Europe.
Friday February 12, 2010, 7:00 pm A. J. Muste Institute, Buzzer #11 339 Lafayette Street NYC, NY 10012
Sponsored by the Socialist Party USA – NYC Local
Contact – (718) 869-2279 or email – socialistpartynyc@gmail.com www.spnyc.org
From the start, Barack Obama’s presidency has seemed like one big public relations campaign. Tonight’s State of the Union address did little to dissuade one from this view. Sagging under the weight of depressed dreams of hope and change, he desperately needed to appear as though he was doing something to address the growing needs of the American people. Emphasis on the “appearances,” since Obama’s speech delivered more of the same from his first year in office – high rhetoric with little substance.
The clear emphasis of the speech was the American economy. This was a double-edged sword. In the first part, Obama presented his bank bailout as an unpopular, but necessary measure – “We all hated the bank bailout…I hated it…I promised I wouldn’t just do what was popular, I would do what is necessary.” Yet, brushing off the bailout as a necessary evil misses important points. First, the economic crisis created a historic opportunity to create a banking system that could serve the American people. Placing these failed institutions into public control might have allowed for the creation of a highly regulated public banking sector. Second, the more than $700 billion in tax payer funds was employed by the banks as insurance for further speculation. It might have been better used on a real domestic stimulus plan that addressed the needs of working people. The financial system continues to fail the American people – the small businesses, homeowners and working people – yet all Obama proposes is a few new bank fees. We need a financial system that works for people not for profit.
This leads into the second part of his domestic economic agenda. “Families,” Obama argued, “are tightening their belts and making tough decisions. The Federal government should do the same.” The President’s further comments on deficit reduction – including a three year freeze in discretionary spending – signal an important shift from stimulus programs – albeit in favor of large corporations and banks – to austerity programs. The Socialist Party USA believes in the need to resist these cutbacks whether they occur at the federal, state or local levels. We need to build a movement to defend public programs. They should be expanded not cut back.
Despite the call for cuts, Obama pledged to maintain funding for national security, including a military budget that remains a major drain on the American economy. Estimates of the military’s share in the budget – including payments for current and past wars – amounts to nearly 51% of annual budget expenditures or nearly $1.2 trillion in tax funds. These tax payers’ funds could be more productively put to work in the domestic economy to create jobs, provide healthcare and fund poverty relief or internationally to advance a peace agenda. This is why the Socialist Party USA calls for an immediate 50% reduction in the military budget.
Austerity programs and budget freezing give the impression that the economic crisis has ended. Yet millions still suffer from unemployment as a result of the greatest crisis in capitalism since the 1930s. Obama referenced the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) U-3 unemployment number of 10%. However, the more comprehensive U-6 figure released by the BLS that counts the discouraged and underemployed has risen to 17.3%. That is why the Socialist Party USA supports the creation of a Full Employment Policy that offers the public sector as a means to create employment for all who wish to work.
Similarly, President Obama has dropped the ball on healthcare reform. The more than 2,000 page legislation he supports in the House and Senate has been shaped by major health insurers and pharmaceutical companies. Though he decried the influence of lobbyists on Washington politics, he failed to mention the sweetheart deal his office cut with big pharma prior to the healthcare deliberations that began this summer. Near the end of his talk on healthcare, Obama cynically asked, “if anyone from either party has a better plan…let me know.” The Socialist Party USA has a better healthcare plan that can be implemented immediately. We support the creation of a single-payer National Healthcare Program that will act as an important first step toward a fully socialized healthcare system, where healthcare is treated as a human right, not a commodity sold to the highest bidder.
Finally, Obama commented on the current wars and occupation of Iraq and Afghanistan. As thousands of new troops are poured into the quagmire of Afghanistan, he provided the impression that the America’s military adventures are winding down. Yet, he neglected to speak about his aggressive stance and outright military intervention in Yemen and the threats he delivered to Iran. Though there was no “evil-doer” list, Obama did little to dissuade fears of further military intervention. Further, there was no mention of his, as yet unfulfilled, promise to shut down the detention center at Guantanamo Bay. The Socialist Party USA calls for the immediate removal of all US military troops from Iraq and Afghanistan, the closing of Guantanamo Bay and all secret prisons and the closure of the more than 700 military bases throughout the world.
The time has come to bring substance back to politics, and everyday people are the only force capable of doing so. Democratic socialism offers hope for the future – a future with jobs, with healthcare and a future in which regular people gain control over their everyday lives. More than anything, ours is a struggle over values. Where capitalism offers isolated individualism, we propose social solidarity. Where we find the cruelty of the market economy, we present compassionate alternatives. And wherever injustice lies we mobilize to create a more just society. The time for slick public relations campaigns has ended – the time for building our grassroots movements is more urgent than ever. The Socialist Party USA stands ready to join in such a political revitalization.
*** Billy Wharton is the co-chair of the Socialist Party USA
January 13, 2010 - The Socialist Party USA stands in solidarity with the people of Haiti after the devastating earthquake that hit the island. Estimates of the dead are more than one hundred thousand and significant parts of the capital city Port-au-Prince’s infrastructure have been destroyed. The full extent of the damage will not be known for days and the country seems certain to be thrust into a humanitarian crisis even more serious than the one that exists on a daily basis.
While this disaster has natural origins, it occurred within a nation that had already been ravaged by capitalism. Haiti is a model case for the failure of the neoliberal economic model and the negative legacies of US militarism in the region.
After coming out of the vicious dictatorship of 'Baby Doc' Duvalier in the late 1980s, the country was saddled by massive debt payments to the IMF and World Bank. When the “people’s priest” Jean Bertran-Aristide was elected to the presidency in 1990 new hopes for change were raised. Aristide promised to move beyond a government of the elites and to challenge the IMF free-market model. His administration was then brought down by a violent military coup backed by the US military. After a direct US military occupation, Aristide returned to office, agreed to implement the IMF plans and was again removed by a military coup. The already weak Haitian economy spiraled, creating mass unemployment and suffering.
As multinational companies exited the country, they left behind ecological and economic devastation. Large swaths of the countryside have been de-forested rendering them useless for cultivation. Even before the earthquake, the urban infrastructure was in decay, suffering from a lack of investment for decades. In a final humiliation, a few months before the earthquake, a group of multinational investors assembled in Port-au-Prince to create a plan to return to exploiting the population.
Despite all of this, the Haitian people have continued to struggle for justice. In their trade unions, cooperatives and women organizations, poor and working Haitians have kept alive the legacy of struggle born in the great Haitian Revolution of the 18th century. Such grassroots democratic struggles offer the best hope for the future of the island.
The Socialist Party USA encourages our members and supporters to get involved with efforts to provide relief to earthquake victims. There are many organizations engaged in this effort including the Haiti Emergency Relief Fund which has supported grassroots democratic struggles in Haiti since 2004. The history of Haiti offers a reminder that democratic socialism must offer a vision that transcends national borders in order to create a global society based on solidarity, compassion and justice.
The NYC Local of the Socialist Party USA stands in support of activist Jean Montrevil and in opposition to his deportation by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). Montrevil’s case highlights the problems present in immigration enforcement in the US. Montrevil is a legal immigrant, and has been since 1986. However, during a routine check-in, he was detained for deportation to Haiti. Officials cite a 20 year old conviction, for which Montrevil has long since served his sentence and has a clean record since, as the reason for his detention.
Montrevil is married to an American citizen and is a father of four. He has served his community through his participation in a number of immigrants rights groups including Families for Freedom and the NYC New Sanctuary Movement (NY NSC) and Detention Watch Network. Montrevil’s detention is another symptom of a broken immigration system. The NYC Local of the Socialist Party USA calls for the immediate release of Jean Montrevil and an end to all immigration detentions.
The Socialist Party USA calls for an end to the ICE raids that have been used to terrorize immigrant families. Instead, we call for all people residing in the U.S. to be afforded full civil and legal rights as well as a full amnesty program for those who are undocumented. The NYC Local of the Socialist Party USA calls on its members and supporters to stand in solidarity with Jean Montrevil, Victor Torro and others facing deportation.
Qualifying as an American hero has always been a slippery proposition. Slave owners such as Thomas Jefferson and George Washington are recognized for their contributions to political liberty. Conversely, the righteous struggles for justice waged by others such as socialist leader Eugene Debs and farm worker organizer Caesar Chavez go, for the most part, unnoticed. More often than not, their disqualification is based on being perceived as insubordinate or spreading disunity - of not being willing to abide by rules and norms that support injustice. Add Lawrence P. Rockwood to this category of potential candidates.
Rockwood presented his book, Walking Away from Nuremberg, at an event last Sunday sponsored by the Socialist Party of New York City. The author had previously been a US Army Counterintelligence Officer sent along with US occupation forces to the island of Haiti. As part of their mission to restore order, out of the disorder they had helped to produce, the Army signed an agreement of cooperation with the Haitian police. Once in-country, Rockwood witnessed multiple human rights violations being carried out by right-wing militias and the police against civilian supporters of the exiled president Jean Bertrand Aristide. Rockwood held the US military command responsible for these acts began to document the atrocities and called for the US military to stop the violence. When he lodged a formal complaint and went AWOL in order to expose secret prisons run by the Haitian right-wing, he was arrested, whisked out of the country and placed before a court martial.
Ultimately, Rockwood was sentenced to the equivalent of a dishonorable discharge from the army. But, he argues in his book and the presentation, he also discovered, as a result of this remarkable journey that the US military had strayed far from the norms of Command Responsibility encompassed in the post-WW II Nuremberg Principles. Following the war, the US and other nations organized trials of Nazi officers and officials that produced principles about how war should be conducted. These principals include strong human rights provisions regarding the safe treatment of civilians as non-combatants by invading or occupying armies.
This is a vital distinction to Rockwood and one that he offers to both the military and the peace movement. The question of just war should, he argued, be divided into two pieces. The first is justice before war and the second justice in war. Justice before war is determined by just war advocates by evaluating whether the current peace represents an unjust social order. Justice in war, Rockwood emphasized, should be guided by principles, such as those expressed at Nuremberg.
While the peace movement often tends to focus on issues related to how war will affect the lives of fellow American citizens, the military, Rockwood proposes, faces difficult ethical questions about the treatment of civilians once war is declared. As a result, the movement places emphasis on high-profile military operations, such as the invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan, but often misses or disregards the manner in which American military intervention extends beyond the actual invasion and seizure of territory. Rockwood offered, for instance, the fact that millions of civilians had already died in Afghanistan, prior to the direct US military operation in the country in 2001, as a result of a long history of war and militarism sponsored, in part, by the US government.
Rockwood offered one example - the Mai Lai massacre during the Vietnamese War - of how the everyday reality of war tests the ethical code of the US military. The village of Son My was inhabited almost entirely by women and children since the adult males had gone to fight for the Vietcong. Clearly, the village was hostile to the US military in that it provided support - material, political and emotional - to the Vietcong. Yet, this is not enough for Rockwood to support any military action against its 500 inhabitants. The question, he emphasized, was not whether or not the civilian villagers supported what the US perceived as its enemy. The point of fact is that the Nuremberg principles classify them as non-combatants and they are thereby sheltered from any military action.
Such ideas are not foreign importations. They are, Rockwood argued, the bedrock foundation of what had been modern US military ethics. The key document in this tradition is US General Order No. 100, more commonly known as the Leiber Code, which placed restrictions on the actions of Union soldiers during the US Civil War. Ironically enough, Rockwood noted, this order was necessitated by the fact that the North understood the Southern soldiers as illegal combatants. Quite a different approach than the one employed by the administration of George W. Bush against the “illegal combatants” housed at the Guantanamo facility in Cuba.
The ethics of the Leiber Code became standard fare for military ethics into the 20th c. and were reinforced by events such as the Nuremberg Trials. Yet, Rockwood identified a disturbing trend. The US government would participate in the formation of the ethical principles of war, such as those developed in Nuremberg, but would refuse to sign the resulting treaties that would bind their own military to such codes of conduct. This pattern continued during the formation of the International Crimes Court (ICC). The US participated in its formation, but refused to sign. Eventually, the US went so far as to pass the American Service Members Protection Act, which makes it effectively illegal to file charges against American servicemen or officials. The US had, as the title of Rockwood’s book suggests, walked away from Nuremberg.
This movement away from what the author understands as bedrock military ethics opened the door for larger abuses such as Mai Lai and, more recently, the abuses at Abu Ghraib prison and the creation of the Guantanamo detention facility. It is this removal of command responsibility for abuses that drove Rockwood to challenge his superiors in Haiti and to pen his book.
Near the end of his presentation, Rockwood stated that he remained, culturally, a part of the military - “I am not embarrassed by that.” Simultaneously, “I am now committed to non-violence,” and through his writings and activism, “to bring an end to the military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan.” Ultimately, he offered, the gross inequality that operates throughout the world is the engine that drives war. Solving this larger problem, and Rockwood proposes democratic socialism, will be a fundamental part of transcending war.
If subversion in the name of justice becomes a quality sought after in American heroes, Lawrence Rockwood may be candidate. First, with a bold act in Haiti and now with a book that amounts to a stinging rebuke of US military operations since WW II, Rockwood has carved out a place for himself as a voice for justice in the wilderness of an increasingly violent US empire. Americans would do well to listen.
*** Lawrence Rockwood’s book is entitled Walking Away from Nuremberg: Just War and the Doctrine of Command Responsibility (University of Massachusetts Press, 2007). It can be purchased at most retail book outlets. Lawrence Rockwood can be contacted at soldier@igc.org
January 3, 2010 - On Sunday January 10th at 1:00 pm at the A.J. Muste Institute (339 Lafayette Street) , author Lawrence P. Rockwood will speak about his book Walking Away from Nuremberg: Just War and the Doctrine of Command Responsibility.
In the book, Rockwood argues that United States has abandoned the "command responsibilities" developed during the Nuremberg trials. This has resulted in high profile scandals such as the abuse at the Abu Graib prison and the treatment of prisoners at the Guantanamo facility and has violated decades of military practice.
In September 1994, Lawrence P. Rockwood, was a U.S. Army counterintelligence officer deployed to Haiti as part of Operation Restore Democracy. Upon his arrival, he immediately began receiving reports of human rights abuses at the local jails, including the murder of political prisoners. Rockwood filed formal complaints about the violations and soon faced a military court-martial. His book is an attempt to understand the broader implications of his personal ordeal. Walking Away from Nuremberg was published by the University of Massachusetts at Amherst in 2007. Rockwood has been active in the movement to close the Guantanamo facility and to end the US wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
The event is sponsored by the NYC Local of the Socialist Party USA, a democratic socialist organization committed to creating a more peaceful and just world. To schedule an interview with the author or for more information on the event please contact: Billy Wharton (718) 869-2279 or email socialistpartynyc@gmail.com ###
December 30, 2009--Despite being a legal immigrant in the United States since 1986, and despite being the husband of a U.S. citizen and father of four U.S. citizen children, Jean Montrevil, a long time community leader and activist, was detained for deportation to Haiti this morning. Mr. Montrevil was attending a regular check in when he was detained by agents of the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). Montrevil is facing deportation for a 20-year old conviction, for which he has long since served his sentence; he has never broken any law since.
Mr. Montrevil is a leader in a variety of immigrant rights groups including Families for Freedom and the NYC New Sanctuary Movement (NY NSC) and Detention Watch Network. In his fight for justice on behalf of all immigrants, Mr. Montrevil has gained the support of U.S. Reps. Jerrold Nadler and Nydia Velasquez, and also by NY State Senator Thomas K. Duane and NY State Assemblywoman Deborah Glick.
The NYC New Sanctuary Coalition has called an emergency vigil for 6 p.m. tonight outside the Varick Street ICE Detention Center (Varick and Houston Streets), which will end with a procession to Judson Memorial Church, 55 Washington Square South, for a 6:30 p.m. service to demand that Mr. Montrevil be released and that ICE stops separating our families and communities. Mr. Montrevil’s wife and children will be present at the service, as well as his many community supporters.
Rev. Michael Ellick, one of Mr. Montrevil’s pastors at Judson Memorial Church, stated: “It is outrageous that ICE is trying to tear this good man from his children at this holiday season. We will not rest until Jean is released and returned to his family and until immigration agents stops tearing our families and communities apart.”
Mr. Montrevil recently applied to be granted “deferred action” on his deportation order. Such deferral is within the discretion of the NYC ICE Director of Detention and Removal Operations, Christopher Shanahan. He was detained today before even receiving a response.
Deportations to Haiti are especially controversial, since that nation suffers from economic, political, and weather-related crises that make it hard to absorb deportees. Haiti’s president has formally requested the United States to grant Temporary Protected Status to Haitians, as has been granted to immigrants from other chaotic nations, but Pres. Obama has so far not supported that request.
It didn't make SportsCenter, but one of history's most influential sportswriters died this week at the age of 98. His name was Lester Rodney. Lester was one of the first people to write about a young Negro League prospect named Jackie Robinson. He was the last living journalist to cover the famous 1938 fight at Yankee Stadium between "The Brown Bomber" Joe Louis and Hitler favorite, Max Schmeling. He crusaded against baseball's color line when almost every other journalist pretended it didn't exist. He edited a political sports page that engaged his audience in how to fight for a more just sports world. His writing, which could describe the beauty of a well-turned double play in one sentence and blast injustice in the next, is still bracing and ahead of its time. He should be in the Baseball Hall of Fame. Instead he was largely erased from the books.
If you have never heard of Lester Rodney, there is a very simple reason why: the newspaper he worked at from 1936-1958 was the Daily Worker, the party press of the U.S. Communist Party. Lester used his paper to launch the first campaign to end the color line in Major League Baseball. I spoke to Lester about this in 2004 and he said to me, "It's amazing. You go back and you read the great newspapers in the thirties, you'll find no editorials saying, 'What's going on here? This is America, land of the free and people with the wrong pigmentation of skin can't play baseball?' Nothing like that. No challenges to the league, to the commissioner, no talking about Satchel Paige and Josh Gibson, who were obviously of superstar caliber. So it was this tremendous vacuum waiting."
The campaign was integrated into the Party's anti-racist work of the 1930s: "I spoke to the leaders of the YCL [the Young Communist League]. We talked about circulating the paper [at ballparks]. It just evolved as we talked about the color line and some kids in the YCL suggested, 'Why don't we go to the ballparks-to Yankee Stadium, Ebbets Field, the Polo Grounds-with petitions?' We wound up with at least a million and a half signatures that we delivered straight to the desk of [baseball commissioner] Judge Landis."
As Lester fought to end the Color Ban, he also never stopped highlighting and covering the Negro League teams, giving them press at a time when they invisible men outside of the African American press. But it was Jackie Robinson who captured Lester's imagination. Armed with a press pass to the Ebbets Field locker room, he saw up close the way Robinson was told to "just shut up and play" despite the constant harassment during his inaugural 1947 campaign. "Jackie was suppressing his very being, his personality," said Lester. "He was a fiercely intelligent man. He knew his role and he accepted it. And the black players who followed him knew what he meant too."
Lester saw the way their play -- and their courage -- helped inspire the struggle for Civil Rights, especially in the South. Lester told me about a dramatic exhibition game in Atlanta where all the dynamics of the Black Freedom Struggle were on display. "This exhibition game wound up with the Black fans being allowed in because they had overflowed the segregated stands, they had poured in from outlying districts to see the first integrated game in Georgia history. The Klan had said, 'This must not happen.' That night there was this tremendous sight of Robinson, [Dodgers African American players] Don Newcombe, and Roy Campanella coming out and the black fans behind the ropes and in the stands standing and roaring their greeting. A large sector of whites were just sitting and booing. Then other white people, hesitantly at first, stood up and consciously differentiated themselves from the booers and clapped. This was an amazing spectacle. This was the Deep South many years before the words civil rights were widely known. So it had its impact... Roy Campanella, once said to me something like, 'Without the Brooklyn Dodgers you don't have Brown v. Board of Education.' I laughed, I thought he was joking but he was stubborn. He said, 'All I know is we were the first ones on the trains, we were the first ones down South not to go around the back of the restaurant, first ones in the hotels.' He said, 'We were like the teachers of the whole integration thing.'" Lester would still become emotional when he recalls Jackie Robinson and his impact. "There are very few people of whom you can say with certainty that they made this a somewhat better country. Without doubt you can say that about Jackie Robinson. His legacy was not, 'Hooray, we did it,' but 'Buddy, there's still unfinished work out there' He was a continuing militant, and that's why the Dodgers never considered this brilliant baseball man as a manager or coach. It's because he was outspoken and unafraid. That's the kind of person he was. In fact, the first time he was asked to play at an old-timers' game at Yankee Stadium, he said "I must sorrowfully refuse until I see more progress being made off the playing field on the coaching lines and in the managerial departments." He made people uncomfortable. In fact it was that very quality which made him something special. He always made you feel that 'Buddy, there's still unfinished work out there.'" We can absolutely say the same about Lester Rodney, albeit with a twist. Yes, Lester made you feel like there was unfinished work out there. But he also made you feel like the great fun in life was in trying to get it done. That and seeing a perfectly turned 6-4-3 double play.
For more on Lester Rodney, read Press Box Red by Irwin Silber
by Josh Hatala, Faith & Socialism Commission member from Socialist Party USA
The Holidays are a time filled with stark contradictions. While most religions offer inspiring messages of peace and love, commercial enterprises attempt to put a price tag on every human emotion and social relation. But the shiniest presents in the world can’t hide the raw inequalities that exist in our country and across the globe. This Holiday season, as a member of the Faith and Socialism Commission, I ask you to consider what really matters - our communities, our planet and the cause of social justice.
What lessons do the scriptures offer religious Socialists during this time of the year? For Jewish people, the story of Hanukkah commemorates a miracle attesting to God’s love for His people, as well as fidelity to truth in times of hardship. Within the story of the rededication of the temple after persecution by Antiochus IV, and the unexpected burning of lamp oil for eight days, lies another truth- perhaps more interesting and sadly still relevant today. At the core of the Hanukkah story is a celebration of the Jewish victory over the Seleucid Empire. Then, as now, peoples living under the domination of empires are subject to the will of that empire- whether it be the Seleucids or a modern-day empire of global capital. The minority Jews stood little chance against this mighty empire, yet they fought for the continuation of their communities, their customs, and their beliefs. They stood up to empire- and won.
There is also a message of liberation within the familiar Christmas story. In the context of the Roman Empire, the most powerful empire the world had ever seen, a boy was born to a mother who, as tradition has it, declared:
“ He hath put down the mighty from their seat: and hath exalted the humble and meek. He hath filled the hungry with good things: and the rich he hath sent empty away.”
During his time on Earth, Jesus exalted and fed the poor and castigated the rich who had made idols of their earthly wealth, declaring that, “It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God” - a saying important enough to Jesus’ disciples to be included in three of the four canonical Gospels.
How might Jesus respond to the massive disparities in wealth in the United States? Or to the fact that 50 million people -including almost one in four children- struggled this past year to obtain sufficient food? How would He react to global inequalities such as the sad fate of the 18,000 children who die each day from hunger? What would He have to say about the wars initiated by modern empires? It seems obvious in these cases whom he would rebuke, and whom he would aid- which system he would indict, and which he would promote.
Jesus turned the “worldly” wisdom of His day on its head and taught that His kingdom is a kingdom of justice for the oppressed, where the mightiest of this world are in fact the lowest in His. Jesus placed God’s kingdom of peace and justice in direct opposition to an unjust system of imperial rule.
This holiday season let us not forget those who like the Jews of Judea, or the early followers of Jesus, suffer at the hands of empires. Let’s remember the enduring light the Jews commemorate, or the “light of the world” that Jesus became to his followers, as symbols of hope for the future. With this hope let’s act with resolve to challenge injustice, defeat the modern empires, and build bonds with our fellow humans strong enough to make real the message of peace and love that is so central to the holiday season. Our traditions show us that this is possible and, just as importantly, that we are on the right side of history when we do so.
As people throughout the country struggle under the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression, public education from pre-K to higher and adult education is threatened by budget cuts, layoffs, privatization, tuition and fee increases, and other attacks. Budget cuts degrade the quality of public education by decreasing student services and increasing class size, while tuition hikes and layoffs force the cost of the recession onto students and teachers and off of the financial institutions that caused the recession in the first place. Non-unionized charter schools threaten to divide, weaken and privatize the public school system and damage teachers’ unions, which are needed now more than ever. More and more students are going deep into debt to finance their education, while high unemployment forces many students and youth to join the military to receive a higher education. And all of the attacks described above have hit working people and people of color the hardest.
In California, students, teachers, workers, parents, and faculty have taken action against these attacks. They took to the streets in a one-day strike on September 24th, organized strikes and actions across the state during the University of California Board of Regents meeting from November 18th to 20th, and have called for a state-wide day of action on March 4th. These actions have created a broad mass movement in California, drawing in students from all over the state to create a powerful struggle. As the effects of the economic crisis continue to spread into the education system nationally, it’s time to join our voices with students and workers in California and draw inspiration from their example.
We support each group or coalition organizing in the manner and for the duration of their choosing. In solidarity with those in California, we the below-signed individuals and organizations call on students, teachers, workers, parents, faculty, and staff across the country to join together on March 4th to Take A Stand For Education! Contact US
Visit the Web site for more details. You can now endorse online!
To endorse this call or to receive more information, visit the above web page or contact march4nationaldayofaction(at)gmail.com.
To join the national discussion, please visit the March 4th Google Group at.
INITIAL ENDORSERS: Organizations
All Nations Alliance Animas Students for a Democratic Society (Durango, Coloardo) Bail Out the People Movement Chicago Students for a Democratic Society College Park Students for Democratic Society Community Organizing Center for Mother Earth – Columbus Ohio Connecticut Students Against the War CUNY Campaign to Defend Education Fight Imperialism, Stand Together Graduate Student Employees Union (SUNY Stony Brook) GSU Progressive Student Alliance (Atlanta) Milwaukee Students for a Democratic Society National Assembly to End the Iraq & Afghanistan Wars & Occupations New School in Exile NYC Anti-War Coalition Peoples Video Network Recreate ‘68 Alliance Socialist Organizer Solidarity SPEAK (Students Promoting Engagement Through Activism and Knowledge) at Georgia State University Student/Farmworker Alliance Students for Educational Rights (City College of New York) Students Taking Action to Reclaim our Education (University of Maryland) UNC-Chapel Hill Students for a Democratic Society UW-Milwaukee Education Rights Campaign Individuals (*all organizations listed for identification purposes only) Frantz Mendes, President United Steelworkers L. 8751 – Boston School Bus Drivers Union* Steve Gillis, Vice President United Steelworkers L. 8751 – Boston School Bus Drivers Union* Susan Massad, Associate Professor Framingham State College* Ed Childs, Chief Steward UNITE/HERE L. 26 (Harvard Univ.)* Phebe Eckfeldt, Harvard Union Rep., Harvard Union of Clerical & Technical Workers (HUCTW)/AFSCME L. 3650* Eleanor J. Bader, writer and adjunct faculty member, Brooklyn, NY* Peter Cook, Boston Teachers Union, Local 66 MFT AFT, AFL-CIO* Heather Cottin Adjunct Lecturer, History, LaGuardia Community College, PSC member* Susan E. Davis, National Writers Union, United Auto Workers Local 1981* Mike Gimbel, Local 375, AFSCME delegate to the NYC-CLC & Chairperson of Local 375, AFSCME, Labor/Community Unity Committee* Martha Grevatt, Chair, Civil Rights Committee, UAW Local 122* Andy Griggs, United Teachers Los Angeles; Co-chair, California Teachers Association Peace and Justice Caucus; Steering Committee, US Labor Against the War* Dr. Sue Harris, Co-Director, Peoples Video Network* Imani Henry, Playwright/Performer* Dan La Botz, Spanish teacher, Cincinnati Waldorf School, Cincinnati, Ohio* Julia La Riva, member of United Teachers Los Angeles (UTLA)* Robin McCubbin, professor, Southwestern College, Chula Vista, CA* Minnie Bruce Pratt, Professor, Women’s & Gender Studies, Syracuse University* David Sole, Prof. of Chemistry, Wayne Co. Community College, Detroit.* Billy Wharton, National Co-Chair, Socialist Party USA* The Most Rev. Filipe C, Teixeira, OFSJC, Diocese of Saint Francis of Assisi*
Chanting “55 is not enough, Medicare for all,” 9 protesters were arrested at a sit-in at Sen. Schumer’s office in mid-town Manhattan this morning.
Referring to Schumer’s push to lower Medicare age eligibility to 55, advocates for Medicare-for-All state that opening it up to only one portion of the population is not enough and will not begin to tackle the real culprit of skyrocketing costs of the whole healthcare system: private health insurance.
“We need to spread out the risk pool and take out the profit motive of private health insurance. That’s the only way to cover everyone and control costs,” says Laurie Wen, an organizer at Healthcare-NOW!, which organized the action.
Those arrested include patients who have experienced abuse from private health insurance companies as well as a doctor, a nurse, and a medical student.
Sen. Schumer has been the center of attention since news broke Tuesday evening that Democrats had reached “broad agreement” on certain parts of the Senate healthcare reform bill. He led negotiations among a group of ten liberal and moderate Democrats, where a key proposal emerged to lower the age eligibility of Medicare from 65 to 55.
Bev Rice, a retired nurse who was arrested, says “Throughout my career I’ve seen so many people suffer and die prematurely because insurance companies denied the care they needed. I have Medicare and it works. Making Medicare available to people from age 55 on is a step in the right direction, but it’s not enough. It should be open to everyone.”
“I want a publicly funded healthcare system because my life should not be in the hands of insurance CEOs who profit from denying me care,” says Kate Barnhart, whose doctor ordered a brain scan for a tumor in early September, but the procedure’s approval has been repeatedly delayed by her insurance company. Barnhart was one of 17 people arrested at a September sit-in protesting against an insurance company’s frequent and sometimes deadly practice of denying care. “I had been paying $900 a month for my premium,” she says. “Last week, my insurance company terminated my policy. Does my senator think this is OK?”
Medicare was established in 1965 and has since become one of the most popular government programs. It’s financed through taxes, and seniors have the freedom to choose their doctors. Advocates say a Medicare-for-All system is the most cost-effective way to deliver health care.
“It’s very simple: you take out the private middleman, and what do you get?” asks another arrestee, Dr. Laura Boylan, referring to the private health insurance industry. “$400 billion worth of profits, CEO salaries, stock options, and administrative waste.”
A neurologist who is a member of Physicians for a National Health Program, Dr. Boylan sums it up, “Expansion of Medicare to everyone would save money and lives; we’d all be better off.” The New York sit-in was organized by Mobilization for Health Care for All, a national civil disobedience campaign advocating for a Medicare-for-All system. The campaign has organized over 35 sit-ins across the country in the last two months. On December 10th, International Human Rights Day, 20 actions are taking place at senators’ offices in 16 states and Washington, D.C. For a complete list of participating cities, click here
About 450 people took part in anti-war protests in NYC tonight. The demos were scheduled the day after Barack Obama announced an escalation of the war in Afghanistan by committing 30,000 more American military troops. Three demos took place - two in Times Square and one that began at Union Square and is rumored to have ended at Rockefeller Plaza.
The mood was somber yet determined as anti-war activists from a variety of social movements and political parties re-connected. The call was clear for a "Troops Out Now!" position and most were unimpressed with Obama's presentation the night before noting the remarkable similarity to the rhetoric of Bush.
Simultaneously, one can remember an afternoon on February 15, 2003 when more than a million swarmed the streets of midtown in an attempt to prevent the invasion of Iraq. The anti-war movement is far from that moment today. Most in the crowd were veteran anti-war activists. Much work is yet to be done to re-build a movement capable of shutting down the US war machine.
Re-connecting in Times Square across from the Army Recruiting Station is good step in this direction. Many more to come!
NYC, NY, Dec. 1, 2009 – An emergency demonstration has been called for today (Dec. 1st) at 3:30 pm at 628 Broadway to protest against the firing of the staff at the Stockholm, Sweden branch of the chain store Urban Outfitters. Workers there were engaged in a union drive. Urban Outfitters presented them with an ultimatum: quit or register with a temporary agency to which Urban Outfitters would subcontract out labor to. The use of temp workers would have circumvented Sweden’s relatively strong union laws and dramatically lowered wages and worsened work conditions for the workers. The workers said no and a national campaign has begun in Sweden to boycott Urban Outfitters and picket the Stockholm store. Today, activists in NYC will join this campaign.
The staff at Urban Outfitters in Sweden wants what all people want: job security, clear work rules and decent working conditions through a collective bargaining agreement. The activists participating in the picket support the right of every worker in the world to form a union. They will act in solidarity with this right.
“Worker’s rights have no borders,” said Billy Wharton, co-chair of the Socialist Party USA, “we will let Urban Outfitter’s Christmas shopping season customers know what the company is doing in Sweden. Our flyers encourage shoppers ‘Don’t Buy Oppression.’”
The picket will be conducted today from 3:30pm to 4:30pm at the Urban Outfitters at 628 Broadway in Downtown Manhattan. The group will be looking for other target locations for future actions.
For an interview, a copy of the flyer or if you have further questions please contact: Billy Wharton, billyspnyc@yahoo.com or call (718) 869-2279. ###
A Public Forum On The Current State Of Healthcare Reform
CAN YOU TELL THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN WHAT WE HAVE NOW AND THE REFORM? ARE YOU CONFUSED BY OBAMA'S 2000 PAGE HEALTHCARE BILL? CAN YOU TELL THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN SINGLE PAYER AND THE PUBLIC OPTION?
Saturday, December 5th, 1:00PM Brower Park Branch Brooklyn Public Library 725 St. Marks Ave. (btw Nostrand Ave. and New York Ave.) (3 to Nostrand Ave. / A,C, to Nostrand Ave.)
Join us Saturday December 5th for a public discussion on Healthcare reform. We will discuss with experts on healtchare reform what different possibilities exist for future health care and how healthcare reform will affect you.
Healthcare Is A Human Right!
Presented by the Socialist Party, NYC Local and Healthcare Now!
Food insecurity has become a fact of life in America. A grinding economic recession coupled with sharp cutbacks in local and state government spending has resulted in a dramatic crisis in the most necessary of acts – eating. According to a Nov. 2009 report by the US Department of Agriculture, 50 million or 1 in 6 Americans, struggled to feed themselves and their children in 2008. This is the highest number of people facing food insecurity since the first study of its kind was conducted in 1995 and an increase of 3.5% from 2007. Food deprivation in the US is not, as in many parts of the underdeveloped world, chronic, but those impacted faced periodic cutbacks and shortages of essential food.
Children were particularly at risk, as nearly 200,000 more households with children slipped into the food insecure category since 2007. Unemployment, low wage jobs, declines in food pantry supplies and cuts in state and local food programs, all produced negative outcomes for children. As the economic downturn moves from crisis to permanent reality, a frightening question emerges. Who will feed our children?
Child Nutrition as Budgetary Football If it is up to Democrats in Connecticut children will be fed a little. Republicans, a little less. The wrangling that occurred around this year’s Connecticut state budget offers ample evidence of the precariousness of children’s food security inside of an economic recession. Republican Governor M. Jodi Rell proposed to slash the state’s Healthy Food Program for children by more than $2 million per year or 50% of its annual budget. The Healthy Food Program was designed to improve the types of food offered by school meal programs by replacing processed and high-sodium foods with fresh vegetables. 114 school districts participate and were rewarded with an extra ten cents for every school lunch served to insure improved nutrition. Cities such as New Haven received more than $280,000 per year in funding to raise the nutritional levels of school meals. Such school meal programs feed thousands of children each year, of whom, according to End Hunger Connecticut one in five under the age of twelve are hungry or at risk of going hungry. School officials report that, for many children, school lunch is the only meal of the day.
Democrats, of course, led the charge against Rell’s proposal to gut the program. Senator Martin Looney presented the question as one of asking “students to sacrifice instead of millionaires.” Seemingly infuriated, Dems even took to holding a press conference to blast Rell in a community garden, surrounded by kale and tomato plants. However, a closer examination of the Democrats' budget proposals reveals that they propose a nearly equally devastating 25% cut to the Healthy Food Program. Neither party seems to have much interest in the fate of Connecticut’s hungry children. Both seem willing to horse trade away childhood nutrition in a state where, according to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities (CBPP), income inequality has grown rapidly in the past two decades.
Eating Away at the State As the Connecticut case illustrates, the quality and availability of food for children is linked to funding for state and local programs. Unfortunately, it is these very same local budgets that have been among the hardest hit by the recent economic recession and nearly two decades of neoliberal approaches to taxation. Taxation rates for the top 5% of income earners declined rapidly on state, local and federal levels, first in the 1980s and then again in the late 1990s, as market fundamentalist ideology took hold. The massive economic crisis that ensued in 2008 merely antagonized the existing trends toward state insolvency. Food programs for children, especially those administered through schools, became ripe targets for Democratic and Republican budget cutters.
Proposals for state and local budget cuts are the norm in America these days. The CBPP reports that 42 states have enacted cutbacks in the last year. Healthcare, services to the elderly and education are the three main targets. At least 26 states are implementing cuts to K-12 education programs, including Illinois whose cuts will make more than 10,000 children ineligible for early childhood education and Massachusetts, which carried out deep cuts on a number of early care programs. Each of these cuts serves to distance a child from what is often a main source of nutrition – school food programs.
Most of these children will then have to rely on private food pantries that are often run by religious organizations. Outsourcing poverty relief has been a part of government planning since the first Clinton presidency “ended welfare as we know it,” by gutting government-based assistance programs. The trend away from the government programs was later institutionalized by President George W. Bush as a part of his “faith-based initiatives” program. Bush argued that religious institutions should be allowed to compete for government contracts, especially in regard to social programs. This jibed with the Clinton and Bush notion that private-sector volunteerism and philanthropy could resolve social problems not the government – the charitable flip-side of market fundamentalism.
Now the returns are in. Deep income inequality, gutted state and local welfare plans and stagnant wages produce only one social outcome – millions of people forced into precarious positions. As volunteers at the Interfaith Emergency Services and Warehouse in Ocala, Florida are finding out, no amount of charitable contributions can make up for such stark structural inequalities. After demand for food increased more than 400% since 2007, the pantry instituted a new rule that limits families to one visit for food every 60, instead of 30, days. Despite the restriction, pantry managers describe the lack of food as “downright scary.” Directors at the nearby Brother’s Keeper pantry forced recipients to choose between getting a food basket for Thanksgiving or Christmas. 125 families chose Thanksgiving and 175 Christmas. Simply put, the private cannot resolve the problem of hunger in the US and children are often the innocent victims of the inequalities built into the system.
A Socialist Twist – Unleash the Working Class Current President Barack Obama has promised to end child hunger by 2015. However, things have gone backwards in his first year with even more children facing the excruciating pain of going to bed hungry. How can this problem be solved? The relatively mainstream Food Research and Action Center offers an interesting seven point plan. Top of their list is the need to break through an economy built on low-wage employment. “Good jobs with benefits,” they argue, “will help many more families fully meet their children’s needs.” To help accomplish this, they recommend the extension of earned income tax credits to low income households so that these workers may keep more of their meager salaries. A more radical plan seems in order.
There is no greater insurance of good jobs than a militant trade union movement. Building power on our worksites will, far more than temporary state-based programs for relief or private charities, create a positive social dynamic leading to more permanent increases in wages and an extension of benefits. The passage of the Employee Free Choice Act, for instance, would allow more working people to gain union representation in order to secure the wages necessary to better feed their own children. This combined with iron-clad commitments to fund social welfare programs, particularly those targeting child food programs, and a Federal jobs-for-all program to sop up unemployment, promises to put a major dent in food insecurity. Unleashing the power of working people to create a more just society through their own self-activity would also mean issuing a death sentence to the ideology that has starved our children –neoliberalism. Only then will we know that our children, all our children, will be fed.
*** Billy Wharton in the co-chair of the Socialist Party USA and the editor of The Socialist and the Socialist WebZine.
"Fighting Fortress Europe - A Critical View on European Union Migration Policies"
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