Blog of the Week:
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Lost Writings of SDS..
Revolutionary Youth the the New Working Class: The Praxis Papers, the Port Authority Statement, the RYM Documents and other Lost Writings of SDS
Edited by Carl Davidson 
Changemaker, 273pp, $22.50
For the full contents, click the link and view 'Preview' under the cover graphic.
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David Montgomery, Presente!
An Appreciation written by Eric Foner
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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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...In a new and updated 2nd Edition
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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Quick Links...
CCDS Discussion
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Deng Xiaoping and the Chinese Revolution
A Political Biography
By David S. G. Goodman
Routledge Press
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Planet of Slums
by Mike Davis
Verso
Paperback
List Price: $19.95
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Carl Davidson's Latest Book:
New Paths to Socialism
Essays on Mondragon, Marx, Gramsci and the Green and Solidarity Economies |
Solidarity Economy:What It's All About
Edited by Jenna Allard, Carl Davidson and Julie Matthaei
Buy it here...
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An Invitation to CCDSers and Friends...
 2012 Politics: Zigs and Zags, Twists and Turns
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 carld717@gmail.com!
Most of all, it's urgent that you oppose austerity, make solidarity with the Occupy! movement 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... |
Why Now? What's Next? Naomi Klein & Yotam Marom in Conversation About Occupy Wall Street
By Naomi Klein and Yotam MaromThe Nation, Jan 9, 2012
Naomi Klein is a journalist, activist and author of The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism and No Logo. She writes a syndicated column for The Nation and The Guardian. Yotam Marom is a political organizer, educator, and writer based in New York. He has been active in the Occupy Wall Street Movement, and is a member of the Organization for a Free Society [1]. This conversation was recorded in New York City.
Naomi Klein: One of the things that's most mysterious about this moment is "Why now?" People have been fighting austerity measures and calling out abuses by the banks for a couple of years, with basically the same analysis: "We won't pay for your crisis." But it just didn't seem to take off, at least in the US. There were marches and there were political projects and there were protests like Bloombergville, but they were largely ignored. There really was not anything on a mass scale, nothing that really struck a nerve. And now suddenly, this group of people in a park set off something extraordinary. So how do you account for that, having been involved in Occupy Wall Street since the beginning, but also in earlier anti-austerity actions?
Yotam Marom: Okay, so the first answer is, I have no idea, no one does. But I can offer some guesses. I think there are a few things you have to pay attention to when you see moments like these. One is conditions-unemployment, debt, foreclosure, the many other issues people are facing. Conditions are real, they're bad, and you can't fake them. Another sort of base for this kind of thing is the organizing people do to prepare for moments like these. We like to fantasize about these uprisings and big political moments-and we like to imagine that they erupt out of nowhere and that that's all it takes-but those things come on the back of an enormous amount of organizing that happens every day, all over the world, in communities that are really marginalized and facing the worst attacks.
So those are the two kind of prerequisites for a moment like this to take place. And then you have to ask, What's the third element that makes it all come together, what's the trigger, the magic dust? Well, I'm not sure what the answer is, but I know what it feels like. It feels like something has been opened up, a kind of space nobody knew existed, and so all sorts of things that were impossible before are possible now. Something just got kind of unclogged. All sorts of people just started to see their struggles in this, started being able to identify with it, started feeling like winning is possible, there is an alternative, it doesn't have to be this way. I think that's the special thing here.
NK: Do you feel that there is an organic discussion happening about fundamentally changing the economic system? I mean we know that there is a strong, radical, angry critique of corruption, and of the corporate takeover of the political process. There's a really powerful calling out happening. What's less clear is the extent to which people are getting ready to actually build something else.
YM: Yeah, I definitely think we're in a unique moment in the development of a movement that's not only a protest movement against something but also an attempt to build something in its place. It is potentially a very early version of what I would call a dual-power movement, which is a movement that's-on the one hand-trying to form the values and institutions that we want to see in a free society, while at the same time creating the space for that world by resisting and dismantling the institutions that keep us from having it. Occupation in general, as a tactic, is a really brilliant form of a dual-power struggle because the occupation is both a home where we get to practice the alternative-by practicing a participatory democracy, by having our radical libraries, by having a medical tent where anybody can get treatment, that kind of thing on a small level-and it's also a staging ground for struggle outwards. It's where we generate our fight against the institutions that keep us from the things that we need, against the banks as a representative of finance capitalism, against the state that protects and propels those interests.
It's surprising and it's really encouraging because that's something that has been missing in a lot of struggles in the past. You usually have one or the other. You have alternative institutions, like eco-villages and food coops and so on-and then you have protest movements and other counter-institutions, like anti-war groups or labor unions. But they very rarely merge or see their struggle as shared. And we very rarely have movements that want to do both of those things, that see them as inseparable-that understand that the alternatives have to be fighting, and that fighting has to be done in a way that represents the values of the world we want to create. So I do think there's something really radical and fundamental in that, and an enormous amount of potential. ...(Click title for more)
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Democracy Now Interview: Laid-Off
AMY GOODMAN
: Joining us now from Kansas City is Joe Soptic, former steelworker at Worldwide Grinding Systems, who has lost his job after a declared bankruptcy under Bain's control. He's speaking to us from Kansas City's PBS station KCPT.
Joe, explain what happened.
JOE SOPTIC: Well, I guess the first thing I noticed after the company was bought out by GST, they became very union-non-friendly. I mean, they started looking for ways to eliminate jobs. In my case, in my department, they actually offered to buy our jobs out from underneath us. They cut back on safety equipment. You know, the working environment just wasn't as good as it should be.
AMY GOODMAN: You worked at the plant for 28 years? Explain how it changed.
JOE SOPTIC: Well, one of the big things that I noticed was they didn't maintain the equipment. The electric arc furnaces, when they broke down, sometimes they would sit for two or three days or a week before they had parts. When AK Steel owned the company, everything was well maintained. The transportation department, all of the equipment that we had to use to haul things around the plant, a lot of it would break down, and so, you know, they would use that as an excuse to bring in outside contractors, non-union contractors. You know, they were after-they were constantly after our jobs.
AMY GOODMAN: What happened to your 401(k)?
JOE SOPTIC: The 401(k), well, I don't think our 401(k) was affected. Our retirement was affected. When they went-when we had the-when we got the bankruptcy deal, I lost $400 off of my retirement, because the pension fund was underfunded.
AMY GOODMAN: Every month.
JOE SOPTIC : Yes, every month.
AMY GOODMAN: You lost $400. And what happened to your family?
JOE SOPTIC: Yeah. Well, basically, what happened, my wife had to quit working, and we didn't have any health insurance on her. I went to work for a suburban school district, so I had health insurance, but I had to start out at substantially less money. I went from about $59,000 a year down to $24,800 a year. And I couldn't afford health insurance on her. And she became ill, and we discovered that she had cancer. And, you know, we had no health insurance. So, the only recourse that I had was we took her to a county hospital. And unfortunately, she passed away from the cancer. And when she did, I had this big bill. And the only way that-the county had agreed that they would cover the bill, but I had to liquidate all of my 401(k)s. So I lost my 401(k)s.
AMY GOODMAN: And yet, Romney defended Bain Capital by saying that profits went to regular people's 401(k)s. What message do you have, overall, for Mitt Romney, as he runs for president of the United States?
JOE SOPTIC: Well, I'll tell you how I feel, is that if he would run the country the way that he ran our business, I wouldn't want him in there as president-
(Click title for more)
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A Deeper Look at Pentagon 'Cuts':
Obama Shows His War-Mongering Side
 By Tom Engelhardt
TomDispatch.com
Jan 12, 2012 - Here's the ad for this moment in Washington (as I imagine it): Militarized superpower adrift and anxious in alien world. Needs advice. Will pay. Pls respond qkly. PO Box 1776-2012, Washington, DC.
Here's the way it actually went down in Washington last week: a triumphant performance by a commander-in-chief who wants you to know that he's at the top of his game.
When it came to rolling out a new 10-year plan for the future of the U.S. military, the leaks to the media began early and the message was clear. One man is in charge of your future safety and security. His name is Barack Obama. And -- not to worry -- he has things in hand.
Unlike the typical president, so the reports went, he held six (count 'em: six!) meetings with top Pentagon officials, the Joint Chiefs, the service heads, and his military commanders to plan out the next decade of American war making. And he was no civilian bystander at those meetings either. On a planet where no other power has more than two aircraft carriers in service, hepersonally nixed a Pentagon suggestion that the country's aircraft carrier battle groups be reduced from 11 to 10, lest China think our power-projection capabilities were weakening in Asia.
His secretary of defense, Leon Panetta, spared no words when it came to the president's role, praising his "vision and guidance and leadership" (as would Chairman of the Joint Chiefs General Martin E. Dempsey). Panetta described Obama's involvement thusly: "[T]his has been an unprecedented process, to have the president of the United States participate in discussions involving the development of a defense strategy, and to spend time with our service chiefs and spend time with our combatant commanders to get their views."
In other words, Obama taking ownership of the rollout of "Sustaining U.S. Global Leadership: Priorities for 21st Century Defense," a 16-page document summarizing a review of America's strategic interests, defense priorities, and military spending. Its public unveiling was to reflect the steady hand of a commander-in-chief destined to be in charge of American security for years to come.
The president even made a "rare visit" to the Pentagon. There, he was hailed as the first occupant of the Oval Office ever to make comments, no less present a new "more realistic"strategic guidance document, from its press office. All of this, in turn, was billed as introducing "major change" into the country's military stance, leading to (shades of former Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld) a "leaner, meaner" force, slimmed down and recalibrated for economic tough times and a global "moment of transition." (Click title for more)
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Structural Reform: The Case for Public State Banks
Meet Occupy Wall Street's Favorite Banker
By Ryan Holeywell
Beaver County Blue via Governing Magazine
Jan 4, 2012 - Try to find a bank president that's beloved by supporters of the Occupy Wall Street movement. It's not impossible. You'll just have to travel to North Dakota.
 Meet Eric Hardmeyer, who bears the unlikely distinction of being perhaps the only banker in America who, in addition to being embraced by Wall Street protesters, has been exalted by the likes of Michael Moore, Mother Jones magazine, and the Progressive States Network, among other progressive stalwarts.
That's because Hardmeyer heads the Bank of North Dakota (BND), the country's only publicly-owned state bank. The institution, located ironically enough in a solidly red state, has become the darling of progressives who have become frustrated with corporate banks they say helped cause the financial crisis and resulting credit crunch.
Now, state lawmakers nationwide are pushing for the North Dakota model to be replicated in their home states. Since 2010, state lawmakers in at least 16 states have introduced bills to create a state bank, something similar, or study the issue, according to a study by the National Conference of State Legislatures. So far, momentum is slow. The movement has yet to produce another Bank of North Dakota, but advocates are hoping to raise the issue again in 2012 legislative sessions. Their pitch: publicly-owned banks can help create jobs, generate revenue for the state, strengthen small banks, and lower the cost of borrowing for local governments by offering loans below market rate. ...(Click title for more)
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Under the Frost, Buds Are Sprouting
Occupy Wall Street DevelopsNew Strategies for 2012
Progressive America Rising via The Economic Times, UK
NEW YORK, Jan 9, 2012: It's been a long, cold winter already for Occupy Wall Street, the protest movement that burst onto the scene in September to focus national attention on income inequality and the perceived greed of the rich and powerful.
Police have cleared the signature "Occupy" encampments in New York, Los Angeles, Oakland and other major cities. Cold weather, and perhaps protest fatigue, have weakened the handful of camps that remain around the country. The lack of a coherent set of demands has made it difficult for the young movement to affect policy or otherwise score victories that might keep recruits coming.
But the movement has clearly influenced the national political conversation, with even President Obama echoing some of its themes in calling for a "fair shot" and "fair share" for all. Now, as Occupy heads into 2012, participants in the leaderless movement are developing a range of new strategies and tactics to keep what they view as the injustices of the economic system in the spotlight.
Here are some ways the Occupy movement is trying to evolve:
OCCUPY THE ELECTION: Occupy has been likened to the conservative Tea Party, which emerged in 2009 and helped elect dozens of Republicans. But many in the Occupy movement specifically reject electoral politics, which they see as hopelessly tainted by money. (Click title for more)
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Alfred Hitchcock Presents Class Struggle:
Looking at an Old Film Master in a New Way
 By Mervyn Nicholson
Monthly Review
Mervyn Nicholson is the author of Male Envy: The Logic of Malice in Literature and Culture and of 13 Ways of Looking at Images: Studies in the Logic of Visualization, in addition to numerous articles, most recently in brightlightsfilm.com.
Class struggle is the last thing most people would associate with Alfred Hitchcock, probably the most famous director of them all. But there is a connection, nevertheless. No one would call Hitchcock a socialist; he emphasized that all he wanted was to entertain people-not instruct them. He was proud of his commercial success (and so were the studios that employed him).1 He made cynical-sounding remarks about manipulating audiences, and he never bothered with deep-level interpretation of his films. It is true that his movies of the war period (1939-45) are conspicuously antifascist, Lifeboat most of all, but the common view is that Hitchcock is essentially apolitical. "You generally avoid any politics in your films," the French director François Truffaut said to him, and Hitchcock's reply sums up his attitude: "It's just that the public doesn't care for films on politics."2 He has nothing against it, but it is not what the public wants. It is significant that even Lifeboat was accused by some critics of supporting the Nazis.3
Academics typically discuss everything about Hitchcock, except class-class not in a quasi-cultural sense, but in the technical and Marxist sense of class, with related themes of surplus extraction, alienation, immiseration, and revolution, implied in the term.4 As John Grant puts it, "the notion of 'class' is a dirty word in today's America."5 Critics notice the "dark side" of American society, plainly depicted in Hitchcock's Hollywood movies; they discuss the alienation and cynicism, the satire, even nihilism, in his films. But the possibility that the alienation in his movies is a function of economic and class issues hardly registers. What they focus on is the sort of thing that academics have a penchant for, often psychoanalysis, with its ever-complicating webwork of infant sexuality, Oedipal rages, anal sadism, castration anxiety, the "family romance" (a misnomer if ever there was one), phallic mothers and penis babies, and other exciting esoterica. Class dynamics tell us a lot more.
For many, it will sound absurd to claim that Hitchcock has anything to do with class struggle. It is an interesting reaction, because issues that are a function of class struggle are plainly on view in Hitchcock, even if they are ignored-or blocked out. Many of his movies are built around class-struggle issues: without them, there would be no movie. A conspicuous indicator is that, even in his thrillers and his fluffier films, Hitchcock shows an unusual interest in work, in depicting people engaged in working for a living-as well as depicting other people enjoying the advantages of ownership. He often shifts between scenes of opulence and scenes of deprivation. Hitchcock goes out of his way to feature worksites, from the assembly line in the factory of Secret Agent to the greengrocer wholesale market in Frenzy to the inside of a cab (with its frustrated worker-driver) in his very last movie, Family Plot. Hitchcock was interested in what people do for a living; their place in the capitalist order, as worker or as owner, is always carefully marked and meaningful. ...(Click title for more)
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Music: Ladysmith Black Mambazo and Friends
By Doug Heselgrave
Paste Magazine
Very few people outside of South Africa had ever heard of Ladysmith Black Mambazo before Paul Simon sought them out to sing on his Graceland album in 1986. The vocal ensemble formed by Joseph Shabalala in 1960 had long been legendary in their home country, but the combined effects of the racist apartheid government of the day- which made travel outside of South Africa difficult for black citizens-and the general lack of exposure to African music in the West up until then prevented Ladysmith Black Mambazo's music from reaching international audiences.
Graceland, of course, went on to sell millions of copies and Ladysmith Black Mambazo's international career took off in the wake of its success. Since the late '80s, Shabalala and his band have recorded dozens of albums, won three Grammy awards (and been nominated for 13 more) and continue to spend an average of eight months a year on the road playing to audiences worldwide.
This new compilation, Ladysmith Black Mambazo and Friends features duets and collaborations with African, American and European artists selected from the band's most popular international recordings. For the uninitiated, this bargain priced, two-CD set may be the perfect introduction to the band's soaring vocal style. While the music of many other African performers such as King Sunny Adé, Salif Keita and Fela Kuti has never traveled beyond the ears of aficionados in the world music community, the familiar and immediately likeable rhythms and melodies of Ladysmith Black Mambazo's songs have made the band a global success. (Click title for more)
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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 |
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