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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By Randy Shannon, CCDS
"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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Shades of Justice
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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
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An Invitation to CCDSers and Friends...
 Unbearable: War Crimes
and the Crime of Wars
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!
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Terror, Trauma, and the Endless Afghan War
By Amy Goodman
Nation of Change
We may never know what drove a U.S. Army staff sergeant to head out into the Afghan night and allegedly murder at least 16 civilians in their homes, among them nine children and three women. The massacre near Belambai, in Kandahar, Afghanistan, has shocked the world and intensified the calls for an end to the longest war in U.S. history.
The attack has been called tragic, which it surely is. But when Afghans attack U.S. forces, they are called "terrorists." That is, perhaps, the inconsistency at the core of U.S. policy, that democracy can be delivered through the barrel of a gun, that terrorism can be fought by terrorizing a nation.
"I did it," the alleged mass murderer said as he returned to the forward operating base outside Kandahar, that southern city called the "heartland of the Taliban." He is said to have left the base at 3 a.m. and walked to three nearby homes, methodically killing those inside. One farmer, Abdul Samad, was away at the time. His wife, four sons, and four daughters were killed. Some of the victims had been stabbed, some set on fire. Samad told The New York Times, "Our government told us to come back to the village, and then they let the Americans kill us."
The massacre follows massive protests against the U.S. military's burning of copies of the Quran, which followed the video showing U.S. Marines urinating on the corpses of Afghans. Two years earlier, the notorious "kill team" of U.S. soldiers that murdered Afghan civilians for sport, posing for gruesome photos with the corpses and cutting off fingers and other body parts as trophies, also was based near Kandahar.
In response, Defense Secretary Leon Panetta rolled out a string of cliches, reminding us that "war is hell." Panetta visited Camp Leatherneck in Helmand province, near Kandahar, this week on a previously scheduled trip that coincidentally fell days after the massacre. The 200 Marines invited to hear him speak were forced to leave their weapons outside the tent. NBC News reported that such instructions were "highly unusual," as Marines are said to always have weapons on hand in a war zone. Earlier, upon his arrival, a stolen truck raced across the landing strip toward his plane, and the driver leapt out of the cab, on fire, in an apparent attack. (Click title for more)
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The Real Existential Threat to Israel: Itself
By John Tirman
AlterNet
March 12, 2012 - The nearly complete mastery of U.S. politics that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu again displayed in Washington last week belies a dark reality for the Jewish State. That is the startling prospect that it has sown the seeds of its own destruction, one which will come to its ghastly fruition in a matter of a few years.
That stark judgment is not mine alone. Many of us who have marveled at Israel's achievements in building a thriving state and society have hoped it would secure this remarkable feat by coming to terms with the people whose land it once was, and to do so on fair and sustainable terms. It is increasingly clear this will never happen with Israel's cooperation, however.
Three developments in the past week are emblematic of the coming disaster.
First is the fabricated fear of Iran's nuclear program, one which poses no immediate threat to Israel -- much less an "existential" threat -- and very likely never will. Even if Iran at some future time managed to build a few nuclear weapons, Israel's nuclear arsenal (reportedly 200 bombs at the ready) would serve as a deterrent, to say nothing of U.S. capability.
In this light, then, Netanyahu's alarmist rhetoric about Iran, echoed by his legions in the United States, really serves another purpose -- taking the Palestinian issue off the political agenda here and there for the foreseeable future. President Obama has not mentioned Palestine or the "peace process" for several months. As everyone admits, without U.S. pressure, the peace process -- already moribund -- is dead.
Without fear of even a discouraging word, the Israeli state punishes Palestinians in its manifold ways: invading and trashing a television station run by one of the most internationally respected Palestinians in the West Bank, for example, or conducting air strikes in Gaza. The notorious Jewish settlements in the West Bank continue to be built at an alarming rate. Those agitating for a "Greater Israel" that will in effect include all of Palestine, and one more beholden to religious militants, are getting their wish.
A second, ongoing drama is the Arab uprising, with attention now focused on Syria. Israel last week offered humanitarian assistance to civilians brutalized by Assad's regime. But Netanyahu wants a weakened Assad to remain in power, just as he wanted Mubarak to survive the rebellion in Egypt. A democratized Arab world will demand -- is demanding -- an end to the occupation of Palestine, and the issue itself radicalizes the Arab uprising to the benefit of the Salafis, the most "Islamist" factions that will support Hamas and possibly a new intifada. (Click title for more)
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Defending Derrick Bell - and
Obama - vs Breitbart Racism
By Marybeth Gasman
Chronicle of High Education
March 14, 2012 - The day after Derrick Bell passed away, I wrote a tribute to him for the Chronicle of Higher Education. Bell has been a hero of mine since I was in graduate school. Having met him many times, I can tell you he was a beautiful soul. He was intelligent, eloquent, caring, and reflective. I find it deeply disturbing that hate-filled and uninformed individuals are dragging his name through the mud in order to disparage President Obama. What is truly sad is that these individuals don't understand Bell's work or his intellectual capacity and wit.
Breitbart.com has led this smear campaign with others piggy backing on it. Instead of reading Bell's work, these individuals are merely taking his words out of context and using them as sound bites to incite racial hatred and fear.
I'd like to point out a few of the issues involved in this smear:
Issue one: The smear of Bell is being used to attack President Obama. Because Obama introduced Derrick Bell at a Harvard rally (and hugged him), it is said that Obama is advocating the policies and theories of a radical and segregationist. That's ridiculous on many levels. First, it is perfectly natural for Barack Obama to have had a relationship with Bell as Obama was one of a few black law students and Bell was one of only five tenured, black law professors at the time. Students look for mentors with similar experiences and often these mentors are of the same race. Second, Derrick Bell was an esteemed legal scholar and author who wrote countless important books related to race and the law. He was and is admired by many scholars, students, judges, and attorneys throughout the country. Third, Derrick Bell had a sense of integrity that most of us could never muster up-could never have the courage to show. Bell gave up his tenured faculty position at Harvard in protest; he was protesting the institution's failure to tenure a woman of color in the law school (not a black woman, but any woman of color). There are few individuals who would give up a tenured faculty job at Harvard. Bell wrote about his struggle in a book called Confronting Authority. I have assigned the book over the years in my classes because it fosters conversations about bravery, integrity, race, gender, and academic politics. It makes students wonder if they can be as brave as Bell when advocating for the issues near to their heart.
Issue two: Breitbart.com has also been putting forth the idea that Derrick Bell believed in segregation or 'separate but equal.' This is a bald-faced lie. Bell fought his entire career for equal rights and civil rights for all. Bell was an intellectual and as such, he questioned ideas and was deeply reflective. In his later years, he wrote a book called Silent Covenants, in which he told a 'counter story' (a technique used by Critical Race Theorists to demonstrate the role of race in law and policy); basically he turned history on its head for the purpose of an intellectual exercise. He wanted to make people think. The 'counter story' speculated on a nation in which 'separate but equal' was the law of the land and was enforced equally. Bell wondered if blacks would have been better off if the Supreme Court in Brown v. Board of Education had ruled in favor of 'separate but equal' but enforced equal funding. He was not advocating for 'separate but equal' but forcing his readers to consider that the Civil Rights Movement may not have brought about full civil rights for blacks given the economic, social, and political disparities that still exist in the nation. I am particularly disturbed by Breitbart.com's interpretation of Bell's intellectual exercise because the Web site used my memorial essay (mentioned above) in its smear campaign. My words were used completely out of context and without noting that Bell was telling a 'counter story' when discussing 'separate but equal.'...(Click title for more)
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Justice for Trayvon Martin Demanded in Florida
Shot Dead for 'Buying Candy While Black'
By Arelis R. Hernández and Rene Stutzman
Orlando Sentinel
March 15, 2012 - SANFORD, FL - Members of the New Black Panther Party gathered outside Sanford police headquarters today to put pressure on authorities who have yet to charge a neighborhood watch volunteer in the fatal shooting of a Miami teenager late last month.
Activists criticized the decision as a "miscarriage of justice."
Trayvon Martin, 17, was returning from the store to his father's fiancee's apartment inside a Sanford gated community Feb. 26 when he was shot by 28-year-old George Zimmerman, who was patrolling the neighborhood, police said. Four people have gathered outside police headquarters this afternoon.
"This man must be arrested," said Mikhail Muhammad, the New Black Panther Party's southern regional minister, adding that he will reach out to other civil-rights organizations in the state. "This was a young man's life that was taken unjustifiably."
Click here for tickets to Central Florida's hottest events
Zimmerman, who is white, had spotted Trayvon, who is black, in his gated community about 7:15 p.m. and called Sanford police on a non-emergency number, saying he'd just seen a suspicious person, both sides agreed.
That call then ended and police dispatched an officer. Before the officer arrived, the department received several other 911 calls from people complaining about two men fighting and a gunshot.
Martin's family lawyers demanded police release the recordings and other investigative documents but so far, authorities have not budged. They filed suit in state circuit court in an effort to get those records.
Attorney Natalie Jackson said in a news conference earlier this week that if Martin fought back, it was because he was being accosted by someone who did not have any official authority to stop him.
Sanford Police chief Bill Lee said there is evidence to corroborate Zimmerman's self-defense claims.
Police found Zimmerman standing nearby, a gun in his waistband and blood seeping from injuries to his nose and the back of his head.
Lee asked anyone with information on what happened to contact police.
He said his agency planned to be done with its investigation this week and would forward its findings to the State Attorney's Office in Sanford, which would make a decision on whether to charge Zimmerman.
Sanford resident Rose Casey joined the activists, saying the relationship between police and the black community has long been strained.
"I am angry because you have a good kid getting shot for nothing and no one is doing anything about it," the 48-year-old woman said.
arehernandez@tribune.com or 407-420-5471
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Next Bubble: Beware The 'Student Debt Bomb'
 By Common Dreams
March 9, 2012 - The amount of student borrowing crossed the $100 billion threshold for the first time in 2010 and total outstanding loans exceeded $1 trillion for the first time in 2011, according to a new report.
The report titled, The Student Loan "Debt Bomb": America's Next Mortgage-Style Economic Crisis? (pdf), was published the National Association of Consumer Bankruptcy Attorneys (NACBA), and paints a frightening economic picture of the world created by skyrocketing tuitions and high interest rates in a job market that continues to offer few jobs to graduates.
"How big is the danger to the US economy?" the report asks. Most worrisome to those on the ground during the 'mortgage crisis' that sent the world economy into a tailspin in 2008, is that the atmosphere and metrics around the student debt crisis feels much the same.
"As with the mortgage foreclosure crisis, the staggering amounts owed on student loans also will have repercussions for the broader economy," reads the report. "Just as the housing bubble created a mortgage debt "overhang" that absorbs the income of consumers and renders them unable to afford to engage in the consumer spending that sustains a growing economy, so too are student loans beginning to have the same effect, which will be a drag on the economy for the foreseeable future." And continues:
Most Americans see a college degree as the single most important factor for financial success and a place in the middle class. Post-secondary education and training have become essential not only to the individuals hoping to enter or remain in the middle class, but to the nation as a whole. It is widely believed that we need a well-educated workforce to create new opportunities in the United State and to remain competitive internationally.
But, as family incomes, available grant aid, and state investments in higher education have failed to keep pace with college costs, students and families increasingly are turning to student loans to help bridge the college affordability gap. [...]
Americans now owe more on student loans than on credit cards, according to the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, the U.S. Department of Education and others. And, because there are fewer people with student loans than there are credit card holders, the debt burden on the individual borrower is considerably higher.
And Jon Christian, writing at Campus Progress, notes:... (Click title for more)
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Once Again, Spring in Wisconsin
By Paul Buhle
Dissent Magazine
March 12, 2012 - A crowd of forty to sixty thousand, according to different estimates, circled the Wisconsin Capitol on the windy Saturday afternoon of March 10. This was the largest rally here in many months, no doubt because of the splendid weather, hovering around sixty degrees, but also because of the pent-up desire to gather. We wanted to see and be with each other again.
There weren't so many students, of any age. This was, in sharp contrast to the Madison movements of forty-some years ago, a metaphorical Union City, somewhat proportionately middle-aged, accompanied by family members, from small children to teens, standing with mom, dad, or the grandparents: Teamsters from up north, SEIU mostly from Milwaukee, AFSCME (a union notably born in Madison) from all over the place, LIUNA members actually from Chicago, and of course teachers (mostly NEA) and health workers (assorted unions, mainly AFSCME). Firefighters, "Cops for Labor" (Dane County Deputy Sheriff's Office, mostly). And that's not mentioning the building trades, IBEW, IATSE (Madison's theater workers), and (the student contingent) TAA from the UW just down State Street.
It was also the most racially diverse crowd in a year of events stretching back to the protests of last February. Occupy, mainly from Milwaukee, had something to do with that. So did Voces de la Frontera, the group of undocumented young people growing up in Wisconsin, now struggling for college scholarships and authenticated identity generally.
The fresh signs and buttons were interesting, as always. There's a new art print appearing in local windows and on t-shirts of demonstrators who braved chilly winds: Ma Badger and the kiddies, with the slogan, "Don't Let Your Badgers Grow Up to Be Weasels." A popular joke, but one with a bit of emphasis on what kids need to learn, and how important teachers are. A few signs read, "Meet John Doe," a double-reference to the 1940s film (in which Gary Cooper's character realizes that fascism is about to take over) and the FBI probes into election finance irregularities that are apparently moving ever-closer to the governor's office. A button, perhaps created during the previous week in response to the political assault on women: "You Can Cut Off My Reproductive Rights If I Can Cut Off Yours." A baby buggy with a sign on it: "UNION THUG STARTER KIT." (Dad, lounging on the grass nearby, was wearing an Elvis cardboard toupee.) And there were lots of humorous references to the governor's time being up (presuming elections happen in June, and he is beaten), including gags about this weekend's time change removing one more hour from his misrule. Other signs, more bitter, remarked on a Voter ID law that may or may not pass judicial muster.
The high point of speech-making was no doubt Lori Compas, a wedding photographer from Fort Atkinson, a town that has become something of a bedroom community for UW-Whitewater with a pinch of bohemia, along the picturesque Rock River. Compas is determined to challenge Scott Fitzgerald, state senate majority leader, in a recall. Democratic Party and union officials alike advised her not to bother. Organizing a small group in her kitchen (as John Nichols, following her on the podium, related), she defied the odds and the institutions. A few days ago the signatures were certified: there will be a recall election, in one of the more conservative districts in the state. Win or lose, the diminutive Lori Compas is a radical giant.
As the crowd filtered away, there was much waving, shaking hands, calling relatives and friends on cell phones, and keeping the children moving. It was a good Saturday, the best Saturday that anyone could remember for what seemed like a long time.
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New Preview! A Sneak Peek at Shift Change: Putting Democracy to Work
At a time when many are disillusioned with big banks and big business, and growing inequity in our country, employee ownership offers a real solution for workers and communities.
Shift Change: Putting Democracy to Work is a new documentary (to be released in July, 2012) that highlights worker-owned enterprises in North America and in Mondragon, Spain.
The film couldn't be more timely, as 2012 has been declared by the U.N. as the "International Year of the Cooperative."
Take a look at the preview and please share your comments by clicking the title above, and going to the blog.
 | SHIFT CHANGE - Putting Democracy to Work -
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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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