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August 12, 2011
In This Issue
Full Employment
London Street Heat
Two-Way Shock
Rick Perry Candidacy
Springsteen on Poverty
Spain's Indignados
'Criminal' Moms
Gorbachev Files
Liquid Water on Mars
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Oct 6 in DC: Stop the War Machine, Block Austerity



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ROARMAG




The UK's 'Reflections on a Revolution' Website

Check out the new CCDS Bookshelf at Powell's Books


The Gramscian Moment 

 

By Peter D Thomas  

Haymarket Books

 

 
Spring Issue of the
CCDS Mobilizer is Out!
CCDS Statement on Palestinian Statehood
at the UN



By Randy Shannon, CCDS


choice "Everyone has the right to work, to free of employment, to just and favorable conditions of work and to protection against unemployment."

- United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights, December 10, 1948

I. Introduction

The "Great Recession" that began in 2007 has caused the greatest percent of job losses since the Great Depression of 1929. This crisis is the end of an era of unrestrained 'neo-liberal' capitalism that became public policy during the Reagan administration. The crisis marks a new level of instability with the growth of a global financial elite that targeted US workers and our trade unions after World War II.

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Capitalism may well collapse under its own excesses, but what would one propose to replace it? Margaret Thatcher's mantra was TINA...There Is No Alternative. David Schweickart's vision of "Economic Democracy" proposes a serious alternative. Even more fundamentally, it opens the door to thinking about alternatives. His may or may not turn out to be the definitive "successor system," but he is a leader in breaking out of the box.
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Solidarity Economy:
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California Red:

A Life in the American Communist Party


by Dorothy Ray Healey 
University of Illinois Press
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Malcolm X: A Life
of Reinvention

by Manning Marable

Viking Adult
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Planet of Slums

by Mike Davis
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New Book: Diary of a Heartland Radical

By Harry Targ

Carl Davidson's Latest Book:
New Paths to Socialism



Essays on Mondragon, Marx, Gramsci and the Green and Solidarity Economies
An Invitation to CCDSers and Friends...

London's 'Street Heat' Worries US Mayors...


We're the Committees of Correspondence for Democracy and Socialism...Do you have friends who should see this? Pass it on...Do you have a blog of your own? Others you love to read every day? Well, this is a place where you can share access to them with the rest of your comrades. Just pick your greatest hits for the week and send them to us at [email protected]!
Most of all, it's urgent that you oppose austerity, make solidarity and end the wars! We're doing more than ever, and have big plans. So pay your dues, make a donation and become a sustainer. Do it Now! Check the link at the bottom...
Revolt and Panic on the Streets of London

 

 

 

Speculations circle as to why the London riots have become so big, but the answer is quite obvious.

 

 

By Laurie Penny  

AlJazeera.net  

 

Aug 9 2011 - The politics of a burning building may be obscured even to those who lit the rags - but the politics are there [EPA]  

 

I'm huddled in the front room with some shell-shocked friends, watching my city burn. The BBC is interchanging footage of blazing cars and running street battles in Hackney, of police horses lining up in Lewisham, of roiling infernos that were once shops and houses in Croydon and in Peckham. Last night, Enfield, Walthamstow, Brixton and Wood Green were looted; there have been hundreds of arrests and dozens of serious injuries, and it will be a miracle if nobody dies tonight.  

 

This is the third consecutive night of rioting in London, and the disorder has now spread to Leeds, Liverpool, Bristol and Birmingham. Politicians and police officers who only hours ago were making stony-faced statements about criminality are now simply begging the young people of Britain's inner cities to go home.

   

Britain is a tinderbox, and on Friday, somebody lit a match. How the hell did this happen? And what are we going to do now?  

 

Obvious denouncement  

 

In the scramble to comprehend the riots, every single commentator has opened with a ritual condemnation of the violence, as if it were in any doubt that arson, muggings and lootings are ugly occurrences. That much should be obvious to anyone who is watching Croydon burn down on the BBC right now. David Lammy, MP for Tottenham, called the disorder "mindless, mindless". Nick Clegg denounced it as "needless, opportunistic theft and violence". Speaking from his Tuscan holiday villa, Prime Minister David Cameron - who has finally decided to return home to take charge - declared simply that the social unrest searing through the poorest boroughs in the country was "utterly unacceptable".  

 

The violence on the streets is being dismissed as "pure criminality", as the work of a "violent minority", as "opportunism". This is madly insufficient. It is no way to talk about viral civil unrest. Angry young people with nothing to do and little to lose are turning on their own communities, and they cannot be stopped, and they know it. Tonight, in one of the greatest cities in the world, society is ripping itself apart.... 


Shock Doctrine as a Two-Way Street:

The Approaching Winter of Our Discontent





By Carl Davidson

Keep On Keepin' On

Watching the rebellions of the young and poor continue in London and now spread to other industrial centers in the UK raises an interesting question: Will the Arab spring and the European summer lead to a fall and winter of discontent here in the USA?

All the makings for it are here. We have impoverished communities of the unemployed where there are huge numbers of young people who have never had a regular job of any sort. Now that any form of taxing the rich for funding a jobs program like that proposed by Rep. John Conyers' HR 870 has been declared 'off the table,' it doesn't appear likely to change, either.

Add to that the GOP's 'Shock Doctrine' (with an assist from the White House) of creating a neoliberal deficit hoax to take from the working class and give to Wall Street, and you spread deeper misery across all of Main Street.

Now the AFL-CIO, thank goodness, is calling for a new round of mass actions against austerity and in defense of the tattered safety net. Add to that the October2011.org project, where the peace and justice movement is planning to camp out in downtown DC's Freedom Plaza until all the troops are brought home from the wars.

It's a perfect storm shaping up.  Hopefully, many of our young unemployed and under-employed will be drawn to these events. But any police outrage could set off a chain reaction like those in London-we've seen this many times in our history....
Right-Wing Extremist Rick Perry As A Regular Guy? --And How It Could Win Him The GOP Nomination


By Megan Carpentier

Alternet.org

August 10, 2011 - Texas's Republican governor, Rick Perry, has an unenviable reputation - if you're the sort of person who pays attention to long-time governors who haven't been competing for the attention of the Washington press corps for years.

He's widely seen as kind of stupid, possibly vindictive, "unencumbered by conscience", overly religious, ultraconservative and even, given his start as a Democrat, a flip-flopper.

But in the 2012 race, he could well be a game-changer.

The GOP field has, by any estimation, spiralled completely out of control. Whoever leads the polling at any given minute is largely a function of how much attention - even negative attention - they're getting in the mainstream press: from Donald Trump to Herman Cain to Representative Michele Bachmann, there's hardly a major contender (other than former Minnesota Governor Tim Pawlenty) who hasn't had their moment atop the polls in the last several months. And yet, few of those who make it to the top, other than former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney, has much, if any of the mainstream appeal that will be required to unseat the incumbent president, low approval ratings or not.

Perry's reputation, though hardly pristine, could help winnow the field. His prayer event last weekend gives him credentials on the religious right to rival Bachmann; his brief flirtation with secession puts him squarely in competition for neo-libertarian votes with Representative Ron Paul; his love of tax cuts and business-friendly environments rivals Cain's; and his full head of hair gives Romney a run for his money. He hates same-sex marriage, loves the death penalty, talks down a centralised federal government (even as, apparently, he wants to lead it) and is not one to shy away from criticising the current administration or its signature achievement, the healthcare reform bill.

Unlike Romney, the wealthy scion of a political family, Perry has a compelling (and more understandable) personal history: unlike Newt Gingrich, he's still married to his high-school sweetheart and, like former President Bill Clinton, he battled his way out of poverty to the governor's mansion. While he began his political life as a conservative Democrat, he's been a Republican since 1989 and owes his political fortunes, in part, to former George W Bush adviser Karl Rove and to Bush himself, under whom he served as lieutenant governor. He's made no major flip-flops on social issues like abortion, unlike Mitt Romney, and doesn't have a track record of serving in the House and taking advantage of the ability to use that position to steer tax dollars to the state. And though he recently came under fire when his love of decentralised government butted up against his opposition to same-sex marriage, that does, actually, happen to be the position taken by none other than former Vice President Dick Cheney.

While much of the press has been courting a case of whiplash by running from one popular candidate to the other, attempting to paint them as too fringe to win in a general election, Perry (like former Alaska Governor Sarah Palin) has largely kept his head down and his potentially off-putting policy prescriptions to himself, and let his fellow socially conservative compatriots battle it out among themselves.

That, it seems, is about to change - and the person most scared should be Romney....
Video: 'My City of Ruins' from Bruce Springsteen

National Nurses United presents the New Face of America
National Nurses United presents the New Face of America

Spain's 'Indignatos':A Road Made by Walking

Oscar Reyes reports from Spain on an 'indignant' movement that continues to spread and diversify




From Redpepper.org.uk

A fairy with a broomstick is sweeping the Puerta del Sol, Madrid's central square. In front of her, a handful of weather-beaten activists are dispensing information from what looks like an upturned ship, a semi-permanent legacy from the occupation that began here on 15 May (M15). Strip away some of the tourists, and this scene could have been plucked from anywhere in the decade-long back catalogue of alter-globalisation movements.

Fast-forward five hours and Sol is full of demonstrators, hundreds of whom have walked here from across Spain. Six marches have converged from across the city, with chants and banners directed against the political and financial system. The targets included a corrupt political class, with chants of 'No hay pan para tanto chorizo!' (there isn't bread for so many chorizo sausages, a colloquial reference to thieving politicians) and the injustice of austerity measures: 'Vuestra crisis no la pagamos' ('We won't pay for your crisis'). Branches of Spain's largest banks are routinely denounced as 'Cul-pa-ble!' (guilty).

As we enter Sol, the banners read 'Bienvenida dignidad' ('Welcome dignity'). There is a celebratory atmosphere as we sit on a packed square and listen to speaker after speaker recount their journey. Many of the gestures and practices adopted by the indignad@s ('indignant' or 'outraged') build upon and adapt those of existing activist networks: thousands of hands waggle along signalling agreement with the speeches, and a long weekend of activities culminates in the first M15 'social forum'. But it is abundantly clear that this movement has extended way beyond the usual suspects, and that its demands for 'real democracy' in the face of a remote two-party system that is tainted by corruption, an out of control financial sector, and swinging cuts in public services have tapped into a deep well of popular discontent. ...

Jezebels, Welfare Queens- And Now,
Criminally Bad Black Moms



By Julianne Hing

Colorlines.com

August 8 2011 - The shocking Cobb County, Ga., prosecution of Raquel Nelson, who law enforcement blamed when her son was killed by a drunken hit-and-run driver, has drawn national headlines and outrage. But criminal justice watchdogs and cultural critics point out that, while Nelson's story is extreme, it's not that unusual-and it's the product of centuries worth of demonizing black women that has taken a new, insidious turn during the current recession.

"This hit and run story is such an apt metaphor for what's happening," said Nikki Jones, a sociologist at the University of California, Santa Barbara. "American policies have essentially been a hit and run on black women that leave them in circumstances where they're managing day to day and then getting punished for their very victimhood."

Nelson's 4-year-old son A.J. was killed in front of her eyes last April. Nelson and her two kids had just gotten off at a bus stop across the street from their apartment in Marietta and the nearest crosswalk was more than a quarter mile away. So they, like other passengers that evening, jaywalked across the four-lane street. At the street's divider, A.J. slipped out of Nelson's hand and ran into the street. Nelson was chasing after him with her 2-year-old daughter in her arms when the family was hit by a driver with two prior drunk driving and hit-and-run convictions on his record. He was again drunk that night, and later served six months in jail for his crime.

For her loss, the Cobb County solicitor general charged Nelson, who didn't even own a car, with vehicular manslaughter. When an all-white jury found her guilty in July, news of Nelson's conviction and the possible three-year prison sentence she faced led to a national outcry and an online campaign for leniency. At her sentencing a judge gave her community service instead of jail time, and in a rare move, offered Nelson a new trial. Last week, Nelson accepted.

To culture watchers like Jones, Nelson's case typifies the experiences of black women, who are the targets of a potent and centuries-long cultural hostility. In this country, poor black women are routinely criminalized for their vulnerabilities. ...

The Gorbachev Files: Secret Papers
Reveal Truth Behind Soviet Collapse


By Christian Neef

Speigel Online International
In-Depth Report in Four Installments

Communist hardliners staged a coup against Mikhail Gorbachev 20 years ago, and the Soviet Union collapsed soon afterwards. Previously unknown documents, which SPIEGEL has obtained, show just how desperate the last Soviet leader was as he fought to retain power -- and how he begged Germany for money to save his country. Info

There is one moment -- a single decision -- that some people still hold against Mikhail Gorbachev today, 20 years later.

Gorbachev, the last leader of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union and last president of the Soviet Union, his wife and his closest confidants had survived the attempted coup by the KGB, the military leadership and the interior minister. They returned to Moscow from their house arrest at Gorbachev's vacation home in the Crimean resort of Foros. Their plane landed in the capital at 2:15 a.m., local time, on August 22, 1991.

For the last three days, some 60,000 people had been holding out in front of the Russian White House, the parliamentary seat of the Russian Soviet Republic, which had become the bastion of Gorbachev's supporters. When they heard on the radio that he had been released from house arrest on the Crimean Peninsula, they cheered and chanted "President, President," and waited for an appearance by the then 60-year-old Gorbachev.

But Gorbachev, who was only released because the leaders of the coup had become afraid of their own people and did not venture to storm the White House, shocked his jubilant fellow Russians. Instead of asking to be taken from the airport directly to his supporters, and instead of savoring the moment of victory and celebrating the defeat of the plotters, he ordered his driver to take him out to his dacha. He spent the rest of the night at home, and drove to work at the Kremlin the next morning.

By today's standards, it was a PR gaffe beyond compare. But the three days of house arrest on the Crimean Peninsula didn't just confuse the country, it also upset Gorbachev's inner balance -- and especially that of his wife, Raisa Maximovna Gorbachova....
NASA Finds New Evidence of Liquid Water on Mars



By Alex Dobuzinskis

NewsDaily.com

LOS ANGELES, Aug. 4, 2011 (Reuters) - NASA scientists have discovered new evidence that briny water flows on Mars during its warmest months, raising chances that life could exist on the Red Planet, the space agency said on Thursday.

Water flows that appear in spring and summer on a slope inside Mars' Newton crater are shown in this combination of orbital imagery with 3-D modeling in this NASA handout photo released to Reuters August 4, 2011. REUTERS/NASA/JPL-Caltech/University of Arizona/Handout

NASA first found signs of water on Mars more than a decade ago, but earlier indications were that any existing water would be frozen and concentrated at the poles.

Recently analyzed images from NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter satellite show dark, finger-like features that extend down some slopes and crater walls on the planet during its late spring through summer, fading in the Martian winter.

"This is the best evidence we have to date of a liquid water occurring today on Mars," said Philip Christensen, a geophysicist at Arizona State University, Tempe, in a NASA panel announcing the findings in Washington.

NASA scientists believe that if there is liquid water on Mars, it would be highly salty and lie beneath the surface. That would explain why it would not freeze in the planet's frigid surface temperatures, which can fall to around 200 degrees below zero Fahrenheit (minus 128 degrees Celsius), or evaporate in its low air pressure.

"It is more like a syrup, maybe, in how it flows," said Alfred McEwen of the University of Arizona, Tucson, principal investigator in charge of a special camera on the Mars orbiter called a High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment....
Become a CCDS member today!

The time is long past for 'Lone Rangers'. Being a socialist by your self is no fun and doesn't help much. Join CCDS today--$36 regular, $48 household and $18 youth.

Better yet, beome a sustainer at $20 per month, and we'll send you a copy of Jack O'Dell's new book, 'Climbing Jacobs Ladder,' drawing on the lessons of the movement in the South in the 1950s and 1960s.

Solidarity, Carl Davidson, CCDS