Tarheel Fiasco Revisited:
North Carolina Sea Level Rises Despite State Senators!
Less than two weeks after the state's senate passed a climate science-squelching bill, research shows that sea level along the coast between N.C. and Massachusetts is rising faster than anywhere on Earth. You can't outlaw or fool Mother Nature!
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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: Chicago Manufacturing Renaissance Council at the forefront of High-Road Job Creation
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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
Full Employment Booklets
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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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 A Memoir of the 1960s by Paul KrehbielAutumn Leaf Press, $25.64 | | Shades of Justice Video: Bringing Down a President, Ending a War |
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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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Voices from the Underground Press of the 1960s, Part 2- Foreword by Susan Brownmiller
- Preface by Ken Wachsberger
$37.50 + $6 shipping
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An Invitation to CCDSers and Friends...
 Getting Clarity on Hot Battles with the Right!
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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It's Far from Being Over!
Court Ruling Does Not End Healthcare Crisis Or the Need to Continue the Campaign for Reform
By National Nurses United
June 28, 2012 - The Supreme Court decision should not be seen as the end of the efforts by health care activists for a permanent fix of our broken healthcare system, said the nation's largest union and professional association of registered nurses today.
To achieve that end, the 175,000-member National Nurses United pledged to step up a campaign for a reform that is not based on extending the grip of a failed private insurance system, but "on a universal program based on patient need, not on profits or ability to pay. That's Medicare for all," said NNU Co-President Jean Ross, RN. "It is not time to stop, but a reminder to begin that effort anew."
"Nurses experience the crisis our patients continue to endure every day. That's the reason we will continue to work for reform that is universal, that doesn't bankrupt families or leave patients in the often cruel hands of merciless insurance companies," said NNU Co-president Karen Higgins, RN.
Stepping up the fight for Medicare for all is even more critical in the midst of the still persistent economic crisis," added NNU Co-president Deborah Burger, RN, noting that nurses have seen broad declines in health status among patients related to loss of jobs, homes, and health coverage.
NNU has been holding free health screenings and hosting town halls on the ongoing healthcare crisis over the past two weeks - and hearing daily reminders of the ongoing plight of many patients. In addition, NNU will be joining with Michael Moore to host a national town hall later this summer....(Click title for more)
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A Last Word on Wisconsin and Labor:
A Post Post-Mortem on The Recall Results
By Allen Ruff
The Progressive
June 21, 2012 - A number of post-mortem analyses surfaced almost immediately, and they were somewhat helpful in conveying various understandings for the defeat of the recall effort against Scott Walker in Wisconsin.
They got most of the immediate facts straight. But they were lacking in various respects. We need a deeper social and political analysis to understand some of the other factors behind the defeat. This is key for the development of future strategies and tactics.
While the inordinate out-of-state amount of pro-Walker (and anti-Barrett) money and media time, the weaknesses and shortsightedness of the Democratic campaign, the failures of the trade union leadership, the all-in emphasis on the electoral effort, and the structure and timing of the recall process ("recall fatigue"), all had a part in shaping the outcome, other factors helped give the victory to the right.
For instance, we have been told that, "59% of [eligible? Those voting?] white people voted for Walker, as did most suburbs and small towns," and that "38% of union households (rather than unionists) voted Republican." Several pieces stated that support for either candidate was largely related to the perception of how well Walker's administration had been creating new jobs.
Modest improvement (if any) in the number of jobs and improvements in the state of Wisconsin's economy, distorted and trumpeted by the Republican's propaganda mills, certainly were made a key issue. (The Barrett campaign spent a whole lot of energy and resources responding to the Walkerite's framing of that issue).
But "jobs, jobs, jobs" was not the sole reason why people voted the way they did. As in any election, various subjective factors, some of which could be described as key "wedge issues," played a significant role. How else, might we otherwise begin to understand why "38% of union households" (Up only 1% from 2010, according to a New York Times exit poll) voted against their own (material) interests?
Milwaukee
Key among the "wedge issues" was that of race, utterly ignored by the overwhelming majority of commentators. It is well known that Milwaukee is one of the most segregated cities in the country, surrounded by bands of predominantly white suburbs. (Walker was the former county supervisor of Milwaukee County, put there by a suburban "white flight" Republican electorate.) (Click title for more)
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Debating 2012 Politics: Notes Toward
a Social Justice Electoral Strategy
By Bob Wing
Organizing Upgrade
March 2012 - Political polarization between liberal/progressives and conservative/rightwing populists has deepened since the controversial 2000 election and especially since President Bush's declaration of the "War on Terrorism at home and abroad" after September 11. This intensified struggle over war and economics has overlapped with and shaped the political parties and elections.
I cannot think of a time in U.S. history where the far rightwing, steeped in racism as usual, held such sway over a major political party and influenced such a large portion of the general electorate. Since 1980 the far right has sought to eliminate the critical gains of the 1930s such as union rights, Social Security and unemployment insurance as well as the civil rights/voting rights, reproductive rights, Medicare and war on poverty gains of the 1960s.
Having taken down ACORN, the rightwing now has its gun sights on public worker unions, non-profits, Planned Parenthood and trial lawyers. Today it is closer than ever to achieving these disastrous goals.
After decades of uneven participation, a significant number of social justice community organizations and organizers began to join the electoral fray in the last decade or more. Increasingly, community organizers have recognized that we cannot leave our communities to the gentle mercies of mainstream politicians and that we must enter this arena of struggle in order to win victories, build organizing scale, politicize our bases and contend for power. Although tentative and uneven, social justice organizers increasingly recognize that the electoral arena is a central battleground against the rightwing and for social justice and a key site for organizing.
However, today's social justice forces need to overcome a long history of left/progressive strategic confusion and division about elections. This is not surprising. In my opinion, the undemocratic and elitist character of the U.S. electoral (and governmental) system is one of the main pillars of corporate rule (along with settler colonialism/imperialism, racism/white supremacy and patriarchy) and one of the main obstacles to progressive work.
Many on the left have also inappropriately applied the theory and practice of Lenin and/or European or Latin American socialists whose political terrains are qualitatively different than in the U.S. Most either confront extremely weak states that can be toppled by force from the outside, or work within proportional representation systems that provide space for ideologically based third parties....(Click title for more)
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Sidney Rittenberg: The Revolutionary (Trailer)
During China's Cultural Revolution, Sidney Rittenberg, an American citizen, became the most important foreigner in China since Marco Polo. Arriving as a GI interpreter at the end of World War II, he was the only American citizen to become a member of the Chinese Communist Party, and was an active participant in the Chinese communist revolution and its aftermath.
An intimate of the Party's leadership, including Mao Zedong and Zhou Enlai, he gained prominence at the Broadcast Administration, one of the most important agencies of government. But in the convulsions of a giant country constantly reinventing itself, he twice ran afoul of the leadership, and served a total of 16 years in solitary confinement. He returned to the United States in 1980.
Rittenberg's story would be just a footnote of history, except for his exceptional intellect, uncompromising honesty, and engaging personality. Over a five-year period, award-winning former-CBS journalist and China specialist, Irv Drasnin, interviewed Rittenberg to produce a compelling, complex and unique understanding of the 20th century's biggest revolution. From Sid first meeting Mao in the caves of Yan'an, to his becoming famous and powerful during the Cultural Revolution, to his battling insanity in solitary, his journey and his profound insight illuminate a much greater history. Mao's rule over China included both extraordinary progress and complete chaos. As China rises in the world, it is important to understand this past. It's a history few Chinese are aware of, let alone many Americans, told by an American who was there.
Find out more at: http://revolutionarymovie.com
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Syria: Only Diplomacy Can Stop the War
Outside powers should stop military involvement and support new diplomatic initiative
By Phyllis Bennis
al-Jazeera
Syria is close to full-scale civil war. If the conflict escalates further, as former UN Secretary-General and current envoy of both the UN and the Arab League Kofi Annan noted: "Syria is not Libya, it will not implode, it will explode beyond its borders."
The human cost of this conflict is incalculably high. It's not surprising that the normal human reaction is "we've got to do something". But what is needed is serious diplomacy - not an army or air force action. US/NATO military intervention didn't bring stability, democracy or security to Libya, and it certainly is not going to do so in Syria.
Despite his government's history of brutal repression, Bashar al-Assad still enjoys support from parts of Syria's business elites, especially in Damascus and Aleppo, and some in minority communities (Christian, Shia and others) whom the regime had long cultivated. The opposition was divided from the beginning over whether massive reform or the end of the regime was their goal. It divided further when part of the opposition took up arms, and began calling for international military intervention. The non-violent opposition movement for freedom and democracy, which still rejects calls for military intervention, survives, but is under extraordinary threat. MSF in negotiations on Syria aid delivery
Kofi Annan has proposed new negotiations including the Syrian regime's supporters, Iran and Russia, as well as those western, Arab and regional governments backing the armed opposition. So far the US has rejected the proposal, at least regarding Iran, with Secretary of State Hillary Clinton saying that Tehran is part of the problem in Syria and thus can't be part of the solution.
The current UN secretary-general, Ban Ki-moon, who frequently reflects Washington's interests, further undercut the potential of his own envoy's proposal, saying that Assad has "lost all legitimacy" - diplomatic code for "we don't have to talk to him".
Certainly the regime has committed brutal atrocities against civilians, potentially including war crimes. The armed opposition is also responsible for attacks leading to the deaths of civilians. It is increasingly difficult to confirm who may be responsible for each attack. The UN monitors have been pulled from the field. The regime has allowed a few more foreign journalists to enter Syria, but restrictions remain and the fighting in many areas means they are often unable to get reliable information. ...(Click title for more)
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GOP 'Contempt' Assault on Holder Exposed:
The Truth about the Fast and Furious Scandal
 | | Rightwing Attack on Holder |
A Fortune investigation reveals that the ATF never intentionally allowed guns to fall into the hands of Mexican drug cartels. How the world came to believe just the opposite is a tale of rivalry, murder, and political bloodlust.
By Katherine Eban
Fortune Magazine
FORTUNE, June 27, 2012 -- In the annals of impossible assignments, Dave Voth's ranked high. In 2009 the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives promoted Voth to lead Phoenix Group VII, one of seven new ATF groups along the Southwest border tasked with stopping guns from being trafficked into Mexico's vicious drug war.
Some call it the "parade of ants"; others the "river of iron." The Mexican government has estimated that 2,000 weapons are smuggled daily from the U.S. into Mexico. The ATF is hobbled in its effort to stop this flow. No federal statute outlaws firearms trafficking, so agents must build cases using a patchwork of often toothless laws. For six years, due to Beltway politics, the bureau has gone without permanent leadership, neutered in its fight for funding and authority. The National Rifle Association has so successfully opposed a comprehensive electronic database of gun sales that the ATF's congressional appropriation explicitly prohibits establishing one.
Voth, 39, was a good choice for a Sisyphean task. Strapping and sandy-haired, the former Marine is cool-headed and punctilious to a fault. In 2009 the ATF named him outstanding law-enforcement employee of the year for dismantling two violent street gangs in Minneapolis. He was the "hardest working federal agent I've come across," says John Biederman, a sergeant with the Minneapolis Police Department. But as Voth left to become the group supervisor of Phoenix Group VII, a friend warned him: "You're destined to fail."
Voth's mandate was to stop gun traffickers in Arizona, the state ranked by the gun-control advocacy group Legal Community Against Violence as having the nation's "weakest gun violence prevention laws." Just 200 miles from Mexico, which prohibits gun sales, the Phoenix area is home to 853 federally licensed firearms dealers. Billboards advertise volume discounts for multiple purchases.
Customers can legally buy as many weapons as they want in Arizona as long as they're 18 or older and pass a criminal background check. There are no waiting periods and no need for permits, and buyers are allowed to resell the guns. "In Arizona," says Voth, "someone buying three guns is like someone buying a sandwich."...(Click title for more)
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A Rag Blog Interview: Mariann Wizard's
Leftwing Cultural Odyssey
 "I love my country, but not always my Nation. I am a child of Mother Earth and loyal to her alone." -- Mariann Wizard
By Jonah Raskin
The Rag Blog
June 22, 2012 - Wizards really do work wonders and Mariann Garner Wizard -- an icon of Austin's radical movements and countercultural institutions -- is no exception.
The feisty co-author of two popular books -- the legendary underground comic, The Adventures of Oat Willie, and a classic study about the Sixties-era G. I. movement, Turning The Guns Around -- Wizard was also a contributor to No Apologies: Texas Radicals Celebrate the '60s, and to Paul Buhle's Students for a Democratic Society: A Graphic History.
 She has worked her wizardry all over Texas for most of her life, and especially in Austin ever since she moved from Fort Worth to attend UT. These days she works that wizardry, more often than not, on the Internet -- as a professional science writer specializing in natural therapies, and as a contributing editor to The Rag Blog.
A writer for The Rag and later for The Daily Worker, she joined SDS in the 1960s, and later belonged to the Communist Party of the United States. Her activist life didn't leave much room for studying and she left UT before she earned a degree. On July 23, 1967, her husband, George Vizard, was shot and killed in Austin, and, though 45 years have passed since then, she has never forgotten the murder that day or her own youthful self.
By the time that she went back to college, and graduated from Juarez-Lincoln University with a B. A. in communications, Texas wasn't the same and the United States wasn't, either. The War in Vietnam had ended, legal segregation was a thing of the past, and American women had liberated themselves from the narrow roles that had confined them in the 1950s. Wizard herself had been transformed by the waves of rebellion and resistance that broke all around her.
For her whole life, she has rarely if ever accepted any of the preordained roles that others might have tried to impose on her. Even as a child, she had a free, independent spirit. In the last half century, she has been the author of her own ongoing Odyssey, delivered her own irreverent lines, written and performed her own brand of satirical poetry, helped to give birth to Austin's public access TV station, and served as a mainstay in a community that has sustained her for decades....(Click title for more)
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A Culture Of Intimidation for the Poor:
The Ugly Underside of Hipster New York
By Mark Naison
With a Brooklyn Accent
During the last two weeks , I visited two remarkable restaurants and gathering spots in once struggling sections of Brooklyn and the Bronx,the Clock Wine and Martini Bar on Lincoln Avenue in the Bronx, just South of the Bruckner Expressway, and Peaches on Lewis Avenue in the heart of Bed Stuy.
In both places, the atmosphere was hip, and informal, the crowd multiracial and clearly at ease. Though I was there on the invitation of friends, these were both spots I might come back to on my own because I felt so comfortable there.
This is not the first such experience I have had in neighborhood spots in what were once considered tough neighborhoods. I felt the same way at Teddy's Bar and Grill in Williamsbugh, where I have guest dj'd at the invitation of my friend Dennis O'Neill, at the Bruckner Bar and Grill in the Bronx, and at Camaradas El Barrio, the amazing bar, restaurant and music venue owned by my friend and former student Orlando Plaza in the heart of East Harlem.
I love places where the clientele is multiracial, where the food is affordable and good ( and in the case of Caramarads El Barrio, better than good) and where I can find my favorite beers. If I looked at these places in isolation, I would think New York, under Michael Bloomberg, had become a kind of Hipster Heaven, where young cool people from different racial and cultural backgrounds, and from all over the world, could find their culture and sociability institutionalized in neighborhood spots all over the city.
But when meeting my friend and former student Tiffany Raspberry, a political consultant who lives on Myrtle Avenue, two blocks from the Marcy houses, I got a chilling picture of how Hipster Heaven is maintained in neighborhoods which adjoin large low income housing projects. Tiffany said, quite bluntly," you never see kids from the Marcy Houses on Myrtle Avenue."
The police, she said, send a message that they are not welcome on those streets, where hipsters ride bikes and Hasidic families can be seen in growing numbers shopping and sending their kids to school. "So this is what stop and frisk accomplishes" I asked her. "Exactly" she said. I then thought about a couple of similar situations I had been in recently where a similar dynamic was at work. ...(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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