How Racist Are We? Ask Google...
An experiment in key word searches finds the most racially charged demographics in West Virginia, Western PA and Southeastern Ohio.
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Visit Our New 'Online University of the Left' and Be Amazed!
Check out the various departments, study guides and archives
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Dialogue & Initiative 2012 The new annual edition of our journal of discussion and analysis is now out. More than 130 pages, it includes 13 articles related to the Occupy! movement, as well as seven others vital to study in this election year. Cost is $10 plus shipping. Or get one by becoming a new member or sustainer. Click the title to buy it directly.
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Blog of the Week:
Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting exposes the myth of the charge that Iran wants to 'wipe Israel off the map.'
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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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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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Order Our
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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 |
Sex and the Automobile in the Jazz Age
By Peter Ling in History Today: 'Brothels on wheels' thundered the moralists but Peter Ling argues the advent of mass motoring in the 1920s was only one of the changes in social and group relationships that made easier the pursuit of carnal desire.
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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...
 Obama in Trouble, Europe on the Brink: The Crisis Deepens
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...
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Obama's Approach to Jobs: Still Too Lame
By Carl Bloice
Black Commentator
Quite often, media reports and commentaries about the rising tide of unemployment - especially amongst young people - in other parts of the world are accompanied by warning of dire consequences if the trend continues. Images of major social protests and even acts of violence are evoked. Take, for instance, Europe. The highest youth jobless rates on the continent are reported to be 50.5 percent in Spain, 51 percent in Greece and over 30 percent in Ireland, Italy, Bulgaria, Slovakia and Portugal.
Sometimes this situation is described as a ticking time bomb, sometimes not. In Greece where "young bear the harshest burden of the economic crisis," wrote Randall Fuller in the New York Times last week, "they do so with a mix of denial, frantic exuberance and a debilitating sense of the absurd."
We repeat figures as if this were the natural order of things
As I read those words, I sat back and wondered what could be said of the response in the African American communities where jobless rates for young people have been just as high for decades.
The seasonally adjusted jobless rate for African Americans between 16 and 19 years old now stands at 35.5 percent, up from about 27 percent when the crisis began five years ago. What's more, the youth jobless rate in some inner city communities is about 50 percent and has been for some time.
Economist Dean Baker points out that "By demographic group, the worst story is among black men and black teens. The former has an EPOP [employment-to-population ratio] that is 6.5 percentage points below its pre-recession level. Black teens have an EPOP of 15.5 percent, down 9.0 percentage points from the 2006 level. The EPOP for black women is down 3.7 percentage points from its pre-recession level, but has risen 3.2 percentage points from lows hit last summer."
We repeat figures such as these regularly, and often perfunctorily, as if this were the natural order of things. The alarm bells being set off over the number of young people out of work in Europe should remind us it is not. ...(Click title for more)
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And Their Feet Move...
New Sites of Greece's Revolution
Revolutionary Reporters in Greece
Photo: Village crowd. Most people nervously sat outside the main sitting area, while listening intently. photo credit: Eric Ribellarsi
Note by Mike Ely of Kasama: Members of the Winter has its end reporting team are now in Greece and they have published their first report. It comes from Vernavas, a small town a short drive north of Athens with a population under 2,000. Funds are needed urgently to help the rest of their team get to Greece. Please donate generously. Posted June 14, 2012.
VERNAVAS, GREECE - It's our first day in Greece, and the sun will soon set. We've come to a small and historically conservative rural village in Vernavas, where posters of SYRIZA and the Communist Organization of Greece (KOE) appear throughout the town.
This is a lush, green village with old stone architecture. Just like in Athens, the situation is fluid and hyper politicized. Election propaganda is everywhere, with hard left political posters overwhelming the campaigns of the pro-Troika parties (the Troika is the International Monetary Fund, the European Union, and the European Central Bank). And the red flags and images of the people in resistance are so much more attractive than boring mainstream posters depicting stodgy, old technocratic toads in their suits and ties.
The Squares Movement of Greece (Greece's precursor to the #occupy movement in the U.S) and an electoral crisis has thrown the legitimacy of the ruling parties into question. Communists have come to this village to start a new organization.
This small village, where everyone knows one another, has historically supported the New Democracy party, Greece's equivalent of the Republican Party, and Golden Dawn (a neo-Nazi party also has a significant base in this village). But suddenly, what was unquestionable has started to shake. Even here, people have taken bold steps to organize a program of communists and SYRIZA. All that is solid is melting....(Click title for more)
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The Economic Program of SYRIZA-EKM
The Left Unity Alternative in Greece
Photo: Anti-Fascist Protest, June 8 30203
By G. Dragasakis
I. Presentation of the Economic Program of SYRIZA-EKM
Comrades and Friends,
Alexis Tsipras, the president of the SYRIZA Parliamentary Group already presented a large part of our economic program and primarily the rationale of the program. That allows me to focus on a few specific points. Listening to Mr. Samaras yesterday, and also on other occasions, reading out long lists of measures, I feel the need to explain what we mean when we talk about a program.
The Program and Our Values
1. The program, for us, goes beyond mere slogans and measures, although we know that these are necessary as well. For us program means a set of values, principles, straight-out orientations and diligent positions. Our program is based on the values of solidarity, justice, freedom, equality and environmental responsibility. Based on these values we will manage, if necessary, even the most mundane tasks.
2. Program, for us, also means a way of thinking, a way of analyzing, understanding the problem, and ranking priorities and needs. And for us, it is the needs of the people that are over and above profits and all selfish or partial interests.
3. For us program means a continuous dialogue. A scientific dialogue, a social dialogue, and a political dialogue. A dialogue with the social movements, a dialogue with the citizens. We want to shape our program together, through such a continuous dialogue.
4. Program for us also means a process for the formation of social alliances. The building of consensus from below. Unifying the people is also an issue of the program. Our program then is the foundation, the blueprint of a broad social alliance among the working people, the people of knowledge, the people of culture and the youth. It is a social alliance to ward off any further impoverishment of society. To avert any further decomposition of the productive fabric of our society. To find the way toward recovery and hope.
5. It is in this sense, that the program for us is a continuous process. It is not a static and timeless text. It is a ceaseless endeavor, open to new ideas and innovative actions.
6. Finally, when we say program, we mean a political process. A process of not simply managing the current conjuncture, but of opening up new paths and this is exactly what our program does. It attempts to cut new paths. It attempts to preclude new dangers. It attempts to face up and to make use of the possibilities.
Our Goals
The second point I would like to refer to, is the political goals of our economic program. As it has been mentioned already, it is not our choice to exit the Euro, but neither can we consent to the continuation of policies that offer no guarantee for the survival of our society and our country. SYRIZA proposes to the Greek people, and also to the people of Europe, the only pragmatic option that consists of a new, honest, and binding agreement with the institutions and the people of Europe, one that will allow us to achieve three goals.
The first is to relieve the people who are suffering, the victims of this crisis. The second is stabilization and recovery. And the third is the implementation of a program of radical reforms and transformations, through which an effective reintegration of our country to the European future and to the international division of labour.
How will we achieve these three goals?...(Click title for more)
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Lesson for the Left on the Far Right:
How the Tea Party Organized Wisconsin
The Tea Party Impact in Wisconsin
Photo: The Tea Party Express Bus Visited Wisconsin Twice in the Last Year
By Devin Burghart
IREHR Issue Areas
June 13, 2012 - On Tuesday, June 5, in a hotel meeting room two thousand miles away from a recall election that was being watched coast to coast, the Washington State coordinator for Tea Party Patriots, Woody Hertzog, regaled a small group of Tea Partiers assembled in the Puget Sound town of Silverdale with tales of his recent campaigning trip in the Wisconsin trenches.
Hertzog told the group that he and other Tea Party activists from across the country poured into the state, becoming a door-to-door army in support of Governor Walker.
The election was still taking place half way across the country, yet it was all these Puget Sound Tea Partiers wanted to talk about. Midway through the meeting, the results from the Wisconsin special election came in. When it was announced that Governor Walker and other Tea Party supported candidates were victorious, the room erupted in cheers and applause. One older man in the back of the room commented aloud, "I guess we can put away our guns, for now."
Indeed, final results for the June 5 Wisconsin Recall Election showed Governor Walker with a 53%-46% edge over Milwaukee mayor Tom Barrett. Incumbent Republicans were also victorious in the Lieutenant Governor recall, and three of the four state senate recall elections; all by similar margins. Only in the State Senate 21st district, in southeast Wisconsin south of Racine, did challenger Democrat John Lehman defeat the incumbent Republican, Van Wanggard, 51%-49%. Lehman's victory means that Republicans will no longer have a majority in the state senate.
In examining what happened in Wisconsin, IREHR's analysis points to four relevant factors: recall fatigue, procedural hurdles, money, and the Tea Party mobilization. If the Tea Party victory in the Indiana Republican Senate primary was the wakeup call reminding the country that Tea Party was still alive, the Wisconsin campaign put the Tea Party 2012 ground game on full display. The Tea Party Made A Difference (Again)
Tea Party groups have been engaged in the recall fight from the beginning last year. Starting in April, however, all of the national Tea Party factions ratcheted up their activity in Wisconsin. They built upon their already existing membership base in the state. With 6087 enrolled members as of May 2012, Wisconsin ranks 23th amongst all states in national Tea Party membership. When consider on a per capita base, however, the state's national faction membership level is only 42nd overall, near the bottom. This lack of membership density may have been one of the reasons that national factions deployed so many out-of-state volunteers.
Their rationale was simple and explicit. "Liberals are waging a war in Wisconsin and we must stop it before they bring it to other states around the country," according to Tea Party Patriots leader Jenny Beth Martin. "Wisconsin could be the key to determining how the rest of this year plays out. If the Left is successful in Wisconsin, they will no doubt use their success as a model to spread havoc in other places around the country. We must stand with Wisconsin because if we Save Wisconsin, we can Save the Country!" she added to rally the troops. ...(Click title for more)
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Is Syria in a Civil War?
Two Sides Debated on 'Democracy Now!'
 | | Part 1: Is Syria in a Civil War? Journalist Patrick Seale Debates Activist Rafif Jouejati |
ERMEEN SHAIKH: A top United Nations official said Tuesday the uprising in Syria has grown into a full-scale civil war. Hervé Ladsous, the UN under-secretary general for peacekeeping operations, said, quote, "Clearly what is happening is that the government of Syria lost some large chunks of territory in several cities to the opposition and wants to retake control of these areas." This marks the first time a senior UN official has declared Syria's conflict a civil war.
The International Committee of the Red Cross said the situation is worsening in several parts of the country simultaneously. According to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, 51 civilians as well as 12 soldiers were killed on Tuesday. Meanwhile, Turkey is reporting more than 2,000 Syrians have fled across the border in the last 48 hours.
This comes as more reports emerge that both the Syrian military and opposition rebels are receiving heavy arms from outside supporters. On Tuesday, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton accused Russia of aiding the president-the government of President Bashar al-Assad.
SECRETARY OF STATE HILLARY CLINTON: We have confronted the Russians about stopping their continued arms shipments to Syria. They have, from time to time, said that we shouldn't worry, everything they're shipping is unrelated to their actions internally. That's patently untrue. And we are concerned about the latest information we have that there are attack helicopters on the way from Russia to Syria, which will escalate the conflict quite dramatically.
NERMEEN SHAIKH: Russia has acknowledged sending arms but claims the weapons are only for self-defense. Meanwhile, Turkey has been smuggling powerful anti-tank missiles and other arms to Syrian opposition fighters in the Free Syria Army. The missiles are being financed by Saudi Arabia and Qatar. According to the New York Times, the United States was consulted about the arming of the rebels but did not take part directly in the weapons transfer.
AMY GOODMAN: To talk about the crisis in Syria, we're joined by two guests. Rafif Jouejati is a Syrian-American opposition activist and the English-language spokesperson for the Syrian Local Coordination Committees. She's joining us from Washington, D.C. And joining us by Democracy Now! video stream is Patrick Seale, a leading writer on the Middle East. He's author of Asad: The Struggle for the Middle East and, most recently, The Struggle for Arab Independence: Riad el-Solh and the Makers of the Modern Middle East.
We welcome you both to Democracy Now! Let us begin with Rafif Jouejati. Are we seeing a civil war in Syria?
RAFIF JOUEJATI: I don't know if I would characterize it as a civil war. It is really a case of a regime trying to repress a popular demand for freedom and democracy.
AMY GOODMAN: Patrick Seale, would you characterize it in the same way?
PATRICK SEALE: Well, I don't think it matters really what we call it. It's just an extremely dangerous situation, in my view, dangerous for everybody-dangerous for Syria, for Iran, its ally, dangerous for Lebanon, for Jordan, and dangerous for the United States, dangerous for the Gulf states. So it's a very tricky moment, and I don't think, quite frankly, the United States is helping to resolve the situation. It's pursuing a high-risk strategy, and which we can talk about in a moment, if you like.
AMY GOODMAN: Well, what is that high-risk strategy?
PATRICK SEALE: Well, look, there are two promising diplomatic initiatives in recent weeks in the region. One is led by Catherine Ashton, the European Union's foreign policy chief, and the other by Kofi Annan, the former secretary-general of the United Nations, who is mandated by both the Arab League and the UN to try and promote a peace plan for Syria.
Now, Catherine Ashton was pressing for a win-win deal between Iran and the so-called P5-plus-1. That's to say, the five permanent members of the Security Council plus Germany. They've held-they've had two meetings so far. The first one seemed very promising. But there's another meeting coming up on the 18th of June in Moscow, and that doesn't look good at all. Why? Because the United States has toughened its position. It doesn't seem to want a win-win deal whereby Iran would give up its 20 percent enriched uranium but be allowed to keep low-enriched uranium for power generation. Now, why has the Americans-why has the United States adopted this position? It seems to be taking its cue from Israel. Obama, President Obama, either thinks that Iran is a rival to American hegemony in the Gulf, or he thinks, with the elections coming up in November, that he has to carry favor with Jewish voters. I fear the latter. Now, the-
NERMEEN SHAIKH: Rafif Jouejati, can I just ask you to respond to that? How do you feel the U.S. has been dealing with the conflict in Syria, and what would you like the U.S. to do differently?
RAFIF JOUEJATI: Well, let me start by saying that to introduce notions of Jewish voters and the Obama re-election bid, I think, is to detract from the fact that there are more than 12,000 civilians shot dead by the Assad regime. I would say that the U.S. has been supportive in condemning the Assad violations of human rights, systematic violations. What I would like to see is for more pressure exerted on Russia to stop the flow of weapons, including those helicopters that are on their way, including things like the shipment of $100 million worth of weapons just a couple of weeks ago. I would like to see more pressure on Russia to stop the flow of arms. I'd like to see more pressure on the international community, in general, to deliver relief supplies, which are so desperately needed.
NERMEEN SHAIKH: There are reports today, Rafif Jouejati, that both Saudi Arabia and Qatar are arming the rebels in Syria.
RAFIF JOUEJATI: So, there have been reports, and there were pledges of support from Qatar and Saudi Arabia. According to the FSA, those weapons are-
AMY GOODMAN: We may have just lost Rafif Jouejati for a moment. We're going to get her back. We're speaking with Rafif Jouejati, who's a member of the Syrian opposition. And we're also speaking with Patrick Seale, a leading British writer on the Middle East who wrote a book about Bashar al-Assad's father called Asad: The Struggle for the Middle East. Rafif, I think we have you back, if you could continue.
RAFIF JOUEJATI: Yes, so, I was saying that we also need the international community to step up its relief efforts. As you know, the Assad regime has prevented much-needed relief supplies from reaching residents, who are under continuous shelling and bombardment.
NERMEEN SHAIKH: And Rafif Jouejati, can I just ask you to clarify who it is? If there are funds or arms going to the Syrian opposition, who is the Syrian opposition, the Syrian National Council and other affiliated groups?
RAFIF JOUEJATI: So, we've had pledges of support from various nations, but in reality, that support is not reaching the Free Syrian Army, which is only one part of the opposition. Instead, there are light weapons being smuggled across borders. So to say that the Free Syrian Army is heavily armed would imply that they are smuggling attack helicopters or tanks from Lebanon, and that would just be ridiculous.
In terms of who constitutes the Syrian opposition, you have the Syrian National Council, which is an umbrella organization that encompasses, I would say, the majority of opposition groups. And then you've got the armed portion of it, which is the Free Syrian Army, which is composed primarily of defected soldiers who refused orders to shoot unarmed civilians.
NERMEEN SHAIKH: How many people have defected from the Syrian army to the Free Syrian Army?
RAFIF JOUEJATI: It's difficult to give precise numbers, because some of this is obviously quite secretive, but the estimates are ranging in the 40,000 area at this point, with defections every day. Just yesterday, there were three high-ranking officials who defected from the Syrian air force.
NERMEEN SHAIKH: Patrick Seale, can you say a little about your sense of who constitutes the opposition and whether the opposition is sufficiently united?
PATRICK SEALE: Well, as we all know, the opposition is deeply divided. The strongest, best funded, best organized element in it are the Muslim Brothers. Now, they have a longstanding grievance against the Assad regime, father and son, going back over 30 years-indeed, ever since the Ba'ath Party came to power in Syria in 1963-Ba'ath Party, which is a secular movement. And from that moment on, some elements of the Muslim Brothers went underground, started taking arms, and mounted a terrorist campaign against the Syrian regime in the late six-in the late '70s, culminating in the seizure of Hama, which the state then retook with great loss of life. Now, after that, the Muslim Brothers were banned. Membership was punishable by death. So they have a great deal to want revenge for from this regime....(Click title for more)
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Book Review: The Lessons of
the Sojourner Truth Organization
 By Ian Scott Horst
Kasama Project
June 9, 2012 - The Sojourner Truth Organization was one of the many small revolutionary left groups that dotted the American political landscape in the 1970s, spawned by the wave of radicalization that followed the upheavals of the 1960s. STO was also one of the many small revolutionary left groups that disbanded in the 1980s in the depths of the Reagan era. A wonderful new book, "Truth and Revolution: A History of the Sojourner Truth Organization 1969-1986," by Michael Staudenmaier, has just been published by the anarchist book house AK Press that documents the rise and fall of a group that has long passed into leftwing legend.
While the book is a meticulously documented product of a close read of STO's printed archive and years of interviews with former members of the group, Staudenmaier is clearly not just performing an academic/historical exercise. The author has a history in the movement, and his attention to important discussions really shows. Many of the issues that STO innovated and grappled with remain relevant today, even though the face of the left is barely recognizable from STO's time. The period of STO's vibrancy may seem like ancient times, but as I myself can attest, many of us who were active in that long-ago era find ourselves still - or perhaps, again - active today, can look to STO's story for lessons about how to be revolutionaries in America. Staudenmaier astutely notes the relevance of this tale from a past wave of radicalization for today's Occupy-era radicals.
I confess that the first thing this book inspired in me was a wave of nostalgic memories. I'm 53 today and I joined my first communist organization back in 1976 fresh out of high school. My own political demoralization and falling away from the organized left occurred ten years later, about the same time STO disbanded. Indeed the last organization I was a member of (and the one I was a member of for the bulk of that period) , the Revolutionary Socialist League, itself disbanded a couple years later. (I'm also happy to report my return to ranks of the revolutionary-minded politically active in the current radicalization).
I joined the communist left in Chicago, which was in fact the home base of STO. The descriptions of STO's work, first in factory-floor organizing, and later in anti-imperialist solidarity work, anti-fascist activism and in regroupment-oriented party-building on the left, were all intensely familiar. The language that STO used to discuss its work and direction was the language I learned. The era of post-radicalization "lull" and de-industrialization was the era I grew up in politically; these were the same issues the RSL dealt with as well. I left Chicago for New York in 1981, but many of the scenes and issues and forces described in "Truth and Revolution" were as I remembered them. It made me wonder if all the groups struggling to stay relevant in that dark time of counterrevolution were all going through the same process without realizing that a period of organizational decline was universal among communist and socialist groups....(Click title for more)
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Ray Bradbury Remembered: The Librarian
Told My Dad He Was Asking for Trouble
"Ray Bradbury, a boundlessly imaginative novelist who wrote some of the most popular science-fiction books of all time, including Fahrenheit 451 and The Martian Chronicles, and who transformed the genre of flying saucers and little green men into literature exploring childhood terrors, colonialism and the erosion of individual thought, died June 5 in Los Angeles. He was 91." -- Becky Krystal, The Washington Post
"Bradbury was the perfect author for dreamy kids, kids who can spend hours finding the figures in clouds, or who get lost in reveries about desert islands or space colonies on parched planets... It was as though Bradbury was our secret ally, the first grown-up we ever ran into who broke with the party line and sided with us." -- Malcolm Jones, The Daily Beast
By Thomas McKelvey Cleaver
The Rag Blog
 June 13, 2012 - I remember well my dad picking out The Martian Chronicles from the paperback section of the Eugene Field Library in Denver's Washington Park in response to my badgering him.
I had recently discovered that the world of science fiction lay just around the corner (literally!) from the boring "juvenile books," and had already discovered Isaac Asimov. But only adults could check out the paperback books, so I convinced Dad to get it.
The librarian told him he was "asking for trouble" if he let me read such books at such an age (how right she was!). What fantastic stuff! And then a year later Dad brought home the new paperback -- Fahrenheit 451. Reading that at age 10, in the midst of what was going on in America at that time, had a lasting effect. I don't think there's anything Ray Bradbury ever wrote that I didn't read and like.
In 1967, while working on draft resistance here in Los Angeles, I was going through the file cards we had of people who had given us money, with the objective of calling them up and asking for more. I found one for an "R. Bradbury" who lived not that far away, over toward the 20th Century Fox lot in Rancho Park.
I called him up and he said sure, he'd be happy to help some more. But he didn't drive and could I come over and pick up the check? So I did. And when he answered the door I knew it was Him, and when he invited me in it was all I could do not to act like an idiot.
But after talking to him -- and answering his questions about how and why someone who had already served would be working on draft resistance, telling him what I had learned in my service in Vietnam -- I finally couldn't stop myself, and I told him how I knew him, and that reading his books had a lot to do with why I was doing that work. He liked hearing that....(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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