CCDS Mobilizer
ONLINE NEWSLETTER
Vol 3, No. 3
Fall 2011
The Urgency of the Moment and a Call to Action
By Carl Davidson, National Co-chair of CCDS
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The meeting opened with a presentation by Carl Bloice on the economic crisis and its meaning. “Today’s financial news,” he reported, “is of a new plunge in world-wide stock markets and fears of a double-dip recession.” We are at a turning point in the politics of the United States, he continued. “The situation has shifted drastically and it is therefore also a turning point in the politics of the left – whether we can meet the challenge. The program put forth by the Obama administration regarding jobs and the deficit are not an answer to the long range problems of the economy or even of the immediate crisis, he said, “but to the extent that they keep teachers in their jobs and so forth, the proposals are worthy. We should not stand aside and say ‘it’s not enough.’”
Bloice commented further on President Obama’s new combative turn on jobs and taxing the rich and said that while not adequate to solve the problem, they are likely not able to get through a GOP-hijacked Congress. But, he said, we have to fight for it anyway to break through the wall of resistance by the far right to any solutions at all.
He added that there were several new developments among youth that were very important—from the gains of the “Pirate Party” in Germany to the “Occupy Wall Street” campaign in New York City. He also noted that the effort by Ralph Nader and Cornell West to find a ‘slate’ of candidates to challenge Obama in the primary wouldn’t succeed and was “diversionary.”
In the discussion, Pat Fry led off by emphasizing “the need to jump into the work with both feet!” She was referring to the broad labor-community “Rebuild the Dream” project launched by Van Jones, as well as our ongoing work against repression and death penalty in the wake of the execution of Troy Davis.
Sandy Eaton agreed, but warned that there were dangers of harmful cuts in Obama’s jobs bill that we should oppose. He also noted how the Elizabeth Warren campaign in Massachusetts and others like it could help tip the balance in Congress, and locally they would make use of it by working closely with Progressive Democrats of America. Ted Pearson added that many labor union actions and strikes were taking place independent of elections, and we had to be engaged in these as well. The protests building around the G-8 meeting in Chicago was a case in point. Bill Chandler reported from Mississippi on the on-going importance of fusing worker rights and immigrant rights and support for the Dream Act.
Carl Davidson commented on the “turning point” facing the left. “We have to be careful with lines of demarcation that are too narrow or one-sided, he said. “We have to press Congress with organized votes and with street heat. Many youthful organizations of the left care little about elections, but we must work closely with them anyway around ‘street heat’ activities,” he said. Most important, now is the time to build organization, like new PDA chapters and ourselves. Otherwise we have nothing to bring to the coalitions that carry our independent voice.”
In discussing the urgency of the political moment and the economic crisis facing the working class and its allies, the feeling was strong that CCDS members should undertake all possible ways to help build the fight for jobs and peace, and against austerity and war. This should include continuing the fight for jobs by building support for the “American Jobs Act” put forward by President Obama as well as other legislation such as Rep. Jan Schakowsky’s “Emergency Jobs to Restore the American Dream Act,” and Rep. John Conyers’ “The 21st Century Full Employment and Training Act.”
Organizations such as PDA and the Rebuild the Dream coalition have potential for building the left/center coalition of the progressive majority, with special emphasis on cutting the military budget and moving the money to meet the needs of the country, taxing the rich, and removing any threat to Social Security, Medicare or Medicaid. Continuing to work in labor/community coalitions and other grass roots efforts in the 2012 electoral campaigns both at the state and national level is also necessary.
The NCC discussed as well a number of issues in which the progressive movement is in motion urging CCDS members to work for abolition of the death penalty in the wake of the execution of Troy Davis, mass mobilizations against home foreclosures targeting the banks, organizing in defense of justice for immigrants and support for the DREAM Act, opposition to trade pacts with Colombia, Korea and Panama, organizing in support of the Peace Action and UFPJ efforts to mobilize opposition next May at the NATO/G8 Summit in Chicago, trade union organizing campaigns, and opposition to right wing efforts to eliminate majority Black Congressional districts and other racist measures to restrict the right to vote.
Our Views and Tactics for Approaching the 2012 Election
The NCC reviewed a 36-page document of political and economic analysis entitled 2010-2012: Deepening Contradictions of Capitalism, New Challenges of the Progressive Majority drafted by Randy Shannon and Carl Davidson. Shannon presented a brief summary of its scope and opened with the following questions: “What has changed since 2009? And from a Marxist view, what are the lessons we can draw about the strengths and weaknesses of the ruling neoliberal bloc, as well as the conditions and prospects for the progressive majority after it helped elect Obama?”
“Political power in holding elected positions is not the same as state power,” Shannon explained. “This is often not well understood in the broader left. Obama is weak in the face of state power. He gives orders to begin liquidating Citibank or drawing down in Afghanistan that are ignored or thwarted even in his own cabinet, let alone the larger institutions of state treasury and defense. That’s why his recent tilt toward the progressive majority on jobs and taxing the rich, as small and problematic as it is, reveals a fissure at the top that we have to work with.”
Carl Davidson added that the paper was a first draft, and urged critical commentary and input from everyone of the NCC. “It’s purpose,” said Davidson, “is to do revolutionary education among the ‘militant minority,’ much as our booklet on jobs and unemployment did on that front. Its aim is to help organizers on the left to be able to find their bearings independently in the complex struggles over the next year or so.”
In the discussion, a number of critical points were made. Bloice disagreed with calling the Tea Party “proto-fascist” suggesting “far right” instead. Ted Pearson thought the notion of “neoliberalism as a political bloc” was problematic. Karl Kramer was dubious about whether there was a progressive majority apart from the stands the population took on separate issues. Pat Fry thought the “neoliberal bloc” confused the far right as the main immediate enemy. On the other hand, Tina Shannon said the paper’s explanations of the social impact of financialization helped her a great deal in discussions at the base “where low-income whites are trending toward the Republicans.” Ellen Swartz likewise supported how the paper spelled out the case for independent political action inside and outside the orbit of the Democrats.
It was noted that this is just a first draft of a paper that can make a valuable contribution. Randy noted a lot of good input was received both in this discussion and per email. NCC members were encouraged to put their suggestions for changes in writing and send to the whole NCC. This will be an ongoing discussion both on-line and via conference call and in face to face meetings as the whole organization becomes involved in this debate. (Print Article)
On Jobs & Deficit Obama Requires the Wind at His Back
Left Margin
By Carl Bloice
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And, most people “strongly support his position that creating jobs should be a higher priority than cutting spending.”
Some more good news: Citing what it called one of “a few promising signs for Mr. Obama,” Times/CBS poll indicates, “Americans strongly support his position that creating jobs should be a higher priority than cutting spending. Democrats and independents agree on that view, while Republicans do not. And across party lines, Americans support his position that a deficit-reduction plan should include a mix of tax increases and spending cuts.” Polling also indicates that most liberals and independents support compelling the very wealthy to start paying their “fair share” of taxes, meaning their rate should be the same or higher than that of working people. A recent CBS/New York Times survey had 63 percent of respondents favoring increasing taxes on households earning more than $250,000 a year.
That should be enough. President Obama is proposing something that most people want, and think will do some good, amid the current economic crisis. Congress should heed his injunction to pass the measure right away with little alteration or amendment. It’s the democratic will, you say?
Yeah, except there a problem. The same poll found skepticism that the President’s handling of the economy is effective and 75 percent of those questioned have serious doubts Congress will step up to the plate. While most aren’t encouraged by Obama’s economic measures thus far they have pretty much given up on Congress altogether. Less than one in five looks with favor on the Republicans on the matter.
Still and all, under the circumstance one might think the President would have the wind at his back and would be able to get something enacted that would at least begin to tackle the unemployment crisis.
The Balance Sheet, the daily commentary from The American Prospect magazine, said of the President’s $3 trillion deficit-reduction plan that “instead of just slashing spending, this time he's doing it the progressive way.”
“One of the proposal's signature initiatives is the "Buffett Rule," which would raise taxes on Americans making over $1 million,” it went on, “The White House will also propose closing tax loopholes for corporations, and paring back tax deductions for all Americans. Overall, the plan would raise taxes by $1.5 trillion over the next 10 years. But there are more progressive goodies in the bag: Obama was expected to raise the Medicare retirement age from 65 to 67. Instead, he is expected to propose cuts to Medicare providers - not beneficiaries. To top it off, Obama has threatened to veto a plan that consists only of entitlement cuts without new taxes.
“This is good politics and policy. On the policy front, tax increases on the wealthy will help to roll back one of the major causes of our deficit problem: the Bush Tax Cuts. Politically, the plan will put Republicans in the position of either working with the president or, more likely, trying to argue that cutting Medicare benefits rather than taxing millionaires is the best way to reduce the deficit.”
“The American political discussion has finally turned to the right target: jobs,” wrote columnist Charles Blow in the Times September 17. “Even so, the president’s jobs bill is already being nickeled and dimed from the right - and the left - even though it is only throwing nickels and dimes at the problem to begin with. But at least it’s a start, even if a long-overdue one.”
Actually, the right-wingers aren’t just snipping at the President’s proposal; they are pretty much flat out against it. They oppose anything Obama proposes. It’s hard for some people to accept (who wants to be cynical) but they don’t want the economy to improve before next year’s Presidential election. That’s why they keep talking about things off in the future that evade the current situation. Or, they use the moment of economic insecurity as an excuse to press forward their pet projects: lessening health, safety and environmental standards, continuing to let the very wealthy off the hook tax wise and undermining such things as Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid.
New York Times former editor Bill Keller was heard from this week complaining that liberals are subjecting the President to “a lot of carping.” “Obama’s deal to continue the Bush tax cuts, his surrender of a public option on health care, his refusal to call the Republicans’ bluff on the debt ceiling rather than swallow budget cuts - these and other compromises amount, in the eyes of the Democratic left, to crimes of appeasement,” he wrote. That’s just overstating the case. Besides, Obama didn’t have to cave on the public option and if he hadn’t, things would be quite different today. But Keller is right about one thing with regards to the liberals and the left: the President “needs their energy if he is to keep his office and have any allies left in Congress.”
Hailing Obama’s emphasis on jobs, AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka Monday called on Congress to, “immediately pass the President’s proposal for job-creating investments, to ask the wealthy to start paying their fair share, to focus on the true causes of our long-term deficits, to reject any cuts to Medicaid or Social Security or Medicare benefits, and to stop scapegoating federal and postal employees and retirees for problems they did not cause.” On Monday, the labor organization said, “Thanks to President Obama, our national conversation is moving in the right direction. With the release of the American Jobs Act—and today’s speech - he has come forward with important steps to start addressing our jobs crisis. Now, it’s our job to demand action.” From what I’ve seen and what I’ve heard from fellow leftists, that pretty much describes the reaction to the President’s jobs and deficit taming proposals from the left side of the parliamentary aisle.
“We are gratified that the President is returning America’s focus to job creation and a fair tax rate for millionaires,” said Nancy Altman, co-chair of the Strengthen Social Security Campaign, over the weekend. “We thank the President for leaving alone Social Security, a program that, by law, cannot add to the deficit and so has no place in deficit discussions. We also thank the president for recognizing that raising Medicare’s age of eligibility from 65 to 67 simply shifts costs to the nation’s seniors who have not caused the deficit. We hope that any final plan would include zero reductions in Medicare benefits now or in the future.”
"With today’s deficit-reduction plan the President is aligning himself with the American people,” said Eric Kingson, co-director of Social Security Works. “The President, like Americans all across the country, wants to restore economic security for America’s families by getting people back to work. He has shown that he is listening to the people on Social Security and the Medicare eligibility age.”
On cue, as soon as the President unveiled his deficit reduction and tax plan, the rightwing voices began to scream in unison about supposed, “class warfare. Somehow, in their minds, telling the needy, the handicapped and the retired to make do with less in the way of Social Security, Medicare and Welfare unfairly targets no one, while taxing the very well to do is “Class Warfare.”
The President has apparently done one thing that will firm up support at his “base”: He’s stopped making threats to curtail Medicare. Hopefully, he’s put a stop to Republicans running around quoting him to the effect that it and Social Security are the biggest drivers of the federal deficit. That honor goes to the Bush tax cuts, most of the various wars in which the country is involved, and healthcare costs. New York Times Columnist Charles Blow reported last week that a recent Rand Corporation study found that “between 1999 and 2009, total spending on health care in the United States nearly doubled, from $1.3 trillion to $2.5 trillion. During the same period, the percentage of the nation’s gross domestic product devoted to health care climbed from 13.8 percent to 17.6 percent. Per person health care spending grew from $4,600 to just over $8,000 annually.” That’s not the result of Medicare; it’s a reflection of avarice on the part of the medical and hospital industries (surpassing the costs in all other industrialized countries). It will not be brought under control by limiting seniors’ access to Medicare.
And now? “President Obama’s new jobs plan is a step in the right direction, while some board members of the Federal Reserve and the Bank of England — though not, sad to say, the European Central Bank — have been calling for much more growth-oriented policies,” economist Paul Krugman wrote Monday. “What we really need, however, is to convince a substantial number of people with political power or influence that they’ve spent the last year and a half going in exactly the wrong direction, and that they need to make a U-turn.
“It’s not going to be easy. But until that U-turn happens, the bleeding — which is making our economy weaker now, and undermining its future at the same time — will continue.”
Of course, it ain’t over ‘till it’s over. But I go along with Fire Dog Lake’s view: “The social safety net is off the chopping block for now.” And that’s real good. And, the bulk of the credit is due to the “tireless efforts” of political activists, and everyday people in defense of the social safety net…”
Resistance and advocacy work.
“Our pledge warned politicians from the beginning that they couldn't cut benefits and expect to survive politically,” says FDL. “The Wall Street-owned, austerity-crazed Congress will still try to push for benefit cuts, but it will be much more difficult to accomplish without the President out in front supporting them.” BlackCommentator.com Editorial Board member Carl Bloice is a writer in San Francisco, a member of the National Coordinating Committee of the Committees of Correspondence for Democracy and Socialism and formerly worked for a healthcare union. Click here to contact Mr. Bloice.
We Really Are All Troy Davis
By Ted Pearson
Before Troy Davis was executed on September 21 millions of people all over the United States and the rest of the world demonstrated, demanding that his sentence be commuted. There is little doubt in the minds of these millions that this young Black man was innocent, or at least should be spared to be able to demonstrate his innocence if he could. Many members of the CCDS were involved in the demonstrations and vigils.
Lawrence O’Donnell pointed out last week on MSNBC that there were two other executions within a day of Davis’s that went relatively unnoticed. Those executed were people about whom there was little doubt regarding their guilt for truly heinous and terrible crimes. But it is the whole system that is flawed, O’Donnell said, and as long as ANY executions or legal homicides are tolerated, there will inevitably be innocent people murdered by the state. Troy Davis can inspire us to end all executions.
Sometimes a person emerges who touches millions with his clarity, determination, and faith that humanity can accomplish the seemingly impossible. Nelson Mandela is such a person. Harold Washington was such a person, and for at least a brief time so did Barack Obama appear to be.
Troy Davis was such a person. He refused his last meal because he was confident that he would not perish, that one among his executioners would be touched by the spirit of the millions who were protesting around the world, or perhaps by an even higher power, and would say “NO.” It appeared, for a few hours, that judges of the U. S. Supreme Court might be so moved. But it was not to be.
Now Troy Davis has been executed, to the shame of the United States and its ruling class. This crime must strengthen the determination of ordinary people to bring an end to capital punishment in every state in the nation.
The details of the case of Troy Davis are really not that important, except to show that there is little doubt that he was innocent. What is most shocking is the attitude of those demanding Davis’s death. The atmosphere was reminiscent of the lynch mobs of the early 20th Century, who demanded the life a Black man to pay for a crime against a white person, and any Black man would do. The haste with which Georgia executed Davis – pronounced dead only 16 minutes after the U. S. Supreme Court refused to intervene – should disgust and repel every decent person on Earth.
The White House released a statement a few hours before Davis was killed. “Dating back to his time in the Illinois State Senate, President Obama has worked to ensure accuracy and fairness in the criminal justice system, especially in capital punishment cases. However, it is not appropriate for the president of the United States to weigh in on specific cases like this one, which is a state prosecution." Where was his work to ensure accuracy and fairness in this case? When is it not appropriate to stop a crime in process when you have the ability to do so?
Only a few hours before Davis was murdered by the State of Georgia President Obama addressed the people of the world at the United Nations. How could he stand before the nations of the world and talk about peace and say nothing about the state execution of Troy Davis in Georgia that was unfolding as he spoke?
Overwhelmingly the people who get executed are African Americans and other people of color. The United States has more prisoners and ex-prisoners than any country in the world. In Black and Latino communities as many as 70 per cent of the men of working age “are convicted felons,” legally barred from working in many jobs and legally discriminated against by almost every private employer. It’s no accident because institutional racism and white supremacy are deeply entrenched in the United States.
The death penalty is the cutting edge of the prison-industrial complex, which is the “enforcer” of the class and race relations keeping a few white men and their families at the pinnacle of wealth at the expense of everyone, regardless of race or ethnicity. The truth is that the death penalty is aimed at the heart of every working person in the United States.
What we need to ensure now is that the spirit of Troy Davis, which moved so many people into action, grows stronger and stronger, and that it goes on to abolish capital punishment.
Troy Davis was one of those who touched millions with clarity, determination, and faith that humanity can accomplish the seemingly impossible. Not since the international campaign to free Angela Davis, in 1970, has there been such an outpouring of emotion and popular protest. We must realize that we are all Troy Davis now, and that he will not have suffered and perished for anything less than the complete abolition of capital punishment in the United States. Troy Davis must be the last execution in the United States or America. (Print This Article)
For details of the case see Wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Troy_Davis_case
Solidarity Time: Young People Occupying Wall Street Are Standing Up for All of Us
by Carl Davidson
The actions of thousands of young people in New York City's financial district, simply calling themselves "Occupy Wall Street," is now entering a second week, with many camping out overnight in the area's parks. How long its will continue and whether its numbers will swell is anyone's guess, but the response of the NYPD in arresting and otherwise restricting them is already banging heads with our First Amendment rights to peacefully assemble.
"At Manhattan's Union Square, police tried to corral the demonstrators using orange plastic netting," reports the Sept 25, 2011 Washington Post. "Some of the arrests were filmed and activists posted the videos online. One video appears to show officers using pepper spray on women who already were cordoned off; another shows officers handcuffing a man after pulling him up off the ground, blood trickling down his face."
Most of the youth are students, but many are also unemployed and underemployed young workers. And a small but important grouping of staffers and activists with NYC's trade unions have also made their way downtown to spend a few hours helping out. New CCDS chapter has also given its support.
The students certainly have a just cause. While the denizens of Wall Street have bailed themselves out and paid themselves huge bonuses with trillions from the public treasury, these young people are saddled with a degree of crushing debt to pay for their educations that would have been unthinkable 40 years ago. If they manage to graduate, they face a financial burden large enough for a home mortgage-all before they start their first full-time jobs, assuming their lucky enough to find one that pays a living wage.
But these youth and students are fighting for more than their own immediate concerns. They have raised a whole range of demands-Medicare for All, defending social security, for passing the various jobs bills in congress, opposing racism and sexism, ending the wars, and abolition of the death penalty in the wake of the recent unjust execution of Troy Davis.
They are the cutting edge of a new popular front against finance capital.
Young rebels often manifest a moral clarity that awakens and prods the rest of us. Through their direct actions, they become a critical force, holding up a mirror for an entire society to take a look at itself, what it has come to, and what choices lay before it. The historic example is the four young African American students that sat at a lunch counter and ordered a cup of coffee in Greensboro, North Carolina back in 1960.
The Wall Street protests are thus a clarion call to the trade unions and everyone concerned with economic and social justice. While the youth are clearly a critical force here, when all is said and done, they are not the main force. That power resides in labor and in the wider communities. It's in the hands of everyone that's part of an emerging progressive majority for peace and prosperity, everyone that wants a U-Turn against the country's current path to more wars and deeper austerity.
It's time to exercise that power and lend a hand with active solidarity. More actions are in the works, including an occupation and encampment on Freedom Plaza in Washington, DC starting Oct. 6, following the 'Rebuild the Dream' DC conference focused on a renewed labor-community coalition for the 2012 election.
It's going to take more than votes to push back the right wing and its Wall Street allies. It's going to take some serious 'street heat' as well.
[Carl Davidson is a national co-chair of Committees of Correspondence for Democracy and Socialism, a national board member of the Solidarity Economy Network, and a member of Steelworker Associates residing in Beaver County, Western PA.