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 sustainer. Click the title to buy it directly.
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A Pioneer of Science, Ecology and the left
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Blog of the Week:
Special Feature on Worker Coops in the U.S.
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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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...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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Discussion Documents for a Militant Movement
By Don Hamerquist
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An Invitation to CCDSers and Friends...
 Lies, Debates and the Politics of Spectacle
Most of all, it's urgent that you defend voter rights, get out the vote, 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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 By Igor Volsky
Think Progress
Pundits from both sides of the aisle have lauded Mitt Romney's strong debate performance, praising his preparedness and ability to challenge President Obama's policies and accomplishments. But Romney only accomplished this goal by repeatedly misleading viewers. He spoke for 38 minutes of the 90 minute debate and told at least 27 myths:
1) "[G]et us energy independent, North American energy independent. That creates about 4 million jobs". Romney's plan for "energy independence" actually relies heavily on a study that assumes the U.S. continues with fuel efficiency standards set by the Obama administration. For instance, he uses Citigroup research based off the assumption that "'the United States will continue with strict fuel economy standards that will lower its oil demand." Since he promises to undo the Obama administration's new fuel efficiency standards, he would cut oil consumption savings of 2 million barrels per day by 2025.
2) "I don't have a $5 trillion tax cut. I don't have a tax cut of a scale that you're talking about." A Tax Policy Center analysis of Romney's proposal for a 20 percent across-the-board tax cut in all federal income tax rates, eliminating the Alternative Minimum Tax, eliminating the estate tax and other tax reductions, would reduce federal revenue $480 billion in 2015. This amounts to $5 trillion over the decade.
3) "My view is that we ought to provide tax relief to people in the middle class. But I'm not going to reduce the share of taxes paid by high-income people." If Romney hopes to provide tax relief to the middle class, then his $5 trillion tax cut would add to the deficit. There are not enough deductions in the tax code that primarily benefit rich people to make his math work.
4) "My - my number-one principal is, there will be no tax cut that adds to the deficit. I want to underline that: no tax cut that adds to the deficit." As the Tax Policy Center concluded, Romney's plan can't both exempt middle class families from tax cuts and remain revenue neutral. "He's promised all these things and he can't do them all. In order for him to cover the cost of his tax cut without adding to the deficit, he'd have to find a way to raise taxes on middle income people or people making less than $200,000 a year," the Center found.
5) "I will not under any circumstances raise taxes on middle-income families. I will lower taxes on middle-income families. Now, you cite a study. There are six other studies that looked at the study you describe and say it's completely wrong." The studies Romney cites actually further prove that Romney would, in fact, have to raise taxes on the middle class if he were to keep his promise not to lose revenue with his tax rate reduction.
6) "I saw a study that came out today that said you're going to raise taxes by $3,000 to $4,000 on middle-income families." Romney is pointing to this study from the American Enterprise Institute. It actually found that rather than raise taxes to pay down the debt, the Obama administration's policies - those contained directly in his budget - would reduce the share of taxes that go toward servicing the debt by $1,289.89 per taxpayer in the $100,000 to $200,000 range.
7) "And the reason is because small business pays that individual rate; 54 percent of America's workers work in businesses that are taxed not at the corporate tax rate, but at the individual tax rate....97 percent of the businesses are not - not taxed at the 35 percent tax rate, they're taxed at a lower rate. But those businesses that are in the last 3 percent of businesses happen to employ half - half of all the people who work in small business." Far less than half of the people affected by the expiration of the upper income tax cuts get any of their income at all from a small businesses. And those people could very well be receiving speaking fees or book royalties, which qualify as "small business income" but don't have a direct impact on job creation. It's actually hard to find a small business who think that they will be hurt if the marginal tax rate on income earned above $250,000 per year is increased.
8) "Mr. President, all of the increase in natural gas and oil has happened on private land, not on government land. On government land, your administration has cut the number of permits and licenses in half." Oil production from federal lands is higher, not lower: Production from federal lands is up slightly in 2011 when compared to 2007. And the oil and gas industry is sitting on7,000 approved permits to drill, that it hasn't begun exploring or developing....(Click title for more)
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By Ethan Young
Labor Left Project
More than 100 NYC-area trade union activists and supporters heard Bill Fletcher, Jr's analysis of the election on September 24. The event was organized by Left Labor Project, a local socialist group focused on moving the labor movement in a more consciously progressive direction.
Fletcher's speech and q&a discussion were chaired by Muata Green, a DC 37 retiree and member of Freedom Road Socialist Organization (FRSO/OSCL). Anne Mitchell of CCDS kept time to ensure broad participation. The crowd was a healthy mix - multiracial, old, young and in-between. Sisters and brothers from at least a dozen unions took part.
Fletcher recently co-authored a widely circulated op-ed, "The 2012 Elections Have Little To Do With Obama's Record ... Which Is Why We Are Voting For Him" (http://www.progressivesforobama.net/?p=263). He came prepared to respond to the criticism it prompted from left opponents of the Obama campaign. In his speech he raised strong points of opposition to Obama's moderate response to the insurgent right, which he compared to the Allies at Anzio in World War II. "They could have taken Rome," he said, "but they stayed put, playing it by the book until they were surrounded." Obama, he stressed, "is not us. He's the President of an empire. We have to remember that." But Fletcher spoke to the need to unite with the President's supporters to head off the challenge of the Far Right, which he described as revanchist ("As in revenge") and irrational ("Government hands off Medicare"). He noted the changing racial demographic of the country, and the xenophobic panic that is driving the Romney campaign.
Moving to long range strategy, Fletcher said the Left today needs "a modern Tecumseh." He recalled Gramsci's work The Modern Prince, which updated Machiavelli's views on political leadership for the 20th century. In Gramsci's words:
"The modern prince ... cannot be a real person, a concrete individual. It can only be an organism, a complex element of society in which a collective will which has already been recognised and has to some extent asserted itself in action, begins to take concrete form. History has already provided this organism, and it is the political party - the first cell in which there come together germs of a collective will tending to become universal and total."
In contrast to Machiavelli, for the US Left Fletcher pointed to the Shawnee warrior Tecumseh, who built a confederation of tribes to resist European settler encroachment and genocide starting in the 1780s. Tecumseh, Fletcher noted, counseled unity, solidarity and shared sacrifice, and warned against uncoordinated, poorly considered action. The experience of unifying Indian tribes has lessons for today - in particular, the need for broad political organization to meet present-day challenges.
Fletcher spoke of neoliberal, pro-austerity policies likely to continue after the election. In response, he advocated bringing social movements together in January 2013 at the Presidential inauguration. He declared that, unlike 2008, this time there should be a strong stand in Washington, demanding jobs. "We gave our all to get him elected, but then we gave him a pass," he said. "That can't happen again."
The expected debate in the q&a session didn't happen - questions were serious, but generally coming from a supportive point of view. Fletcher sold out his supply of his newly released book, "They're Bankrupting Us" - And Twenty Other Myths about Unions, which he signed for the attendees.
Fletcher was introduced by Arthur Cheliotes, President of Communication Workers of America Local 1180. The meeting room was donated by 1180, which represents a range of public and private sector workers in NYC.
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Our march on Harrisburg, PA this summer to protest voter suppression.
By Carl Davidson
Keep On Keepin' On
Sometimes Republicans just can't help themselves. Put a little heat on them, and they blurt out the truth, showing what they're really thinking.
The latest case in point: The retrograde Pennsylvania 'Voter ID' law was rejected today, Oct. 2, at least in part, by a state judge, Robert Simpson, allowing people to vote normally at least on this Nov. 6. The decision was a victory for labor, the NAACP, retiree groups and all who care about defending civil rights and liberties.
The main author of the bill, State Rep Daryl Metcalfe (R-Butler), however, chimed in with this comment:
"Justice Simpson's final decision is out of bounds with the rule of law, constitutional checks and balances for the individual branches of state government, and most importantly, the will of the people. Rather than making a ruling based on the constitution and the law, this judicial activist decision is skewed in favor of the lazy who refuse to exercise the necessary work ethic to meet the commonsense requirements to obtain an acceptable photo ID."
Yes, you heard that right. This guy thinks those objecting to this bill are 'the lazy who refuse to exercise the necessary work ethic.' And all of us here in Western PA not fresh out of the pumpkin patch know exactly who he thinks he's talking about. When Gov. Romney went over the top in a recent closed session with his upper crust friends talking about a 47% of the population who wouldn't 'take responsibility' for their lives, I thought things had pretty much hit bottom in the racist dog whistle department. Little did I know!
Metcalfe has done us all a favor in self-exposing the racist mindset behind this GOP voter suppression effort, and revealing exactly why they thought that, if implemented, it could tip the state to Romney. Now they've been monkey-wrenched, at least for the time being.
But here's an interesting thought. I'm not a constitutional lawyer, even though I've studied it some. Where does it or our state voting laws suggest, anywhere, that lazy people or people with a hampered work ethic, don't have the same right to vote as energetic workaholics?
The wealthy have best be careful here. As the saying goes, most people work for their money, but a few people are able to let their money work for them. They can laze about, enjoying the good life of the idle rich. There's a slippery slope here they may want to avoid for the future.
Carl Davidson is a national co-chair of Committees of Correspondence for Democracy and Socialism, and a member of Steelworker Associates. He lives in Western Pennsylvania and writes for BeaverCountyBlue.org, the website of the 12 CD Progressive Democrats of America.
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By Danny Schechter
Z-Net
Oct. 2, 2012 - New York, New York: Sometimes, major media is the last to recognize shifts in policy positions. Iran is a case in point.
In the lead up to President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's annual speech to the General Assembly, the American TV stations were preparing their audiences for another provocative Israel-hating rant.
Brace yourself, we were told; it is his last appearance in office so he would go off and all out in denouncing Israel and world's Jews.
Secretary General Moon cautioned him publicly to restrain his rhetoric even as right wing media outlets like Rupert Murdoch's New York Post, that has never seen a far right wing Zionist cause it hasn't embraced, went into full demonization mode with a front cover featuring his picture and the words, "Piece of Sh*t." (It was reminiscent of the Saddam baiting in US media in the run-up to the Iraq War.)
The rhetoric of the well orchestrated anti-Iranian crowds outside was even bloodier than the Iranians had ever been with former Republican speaker of the House and GOP presidential Candidate Newt Gingrich calling for immediate U.S. airstrikes. Gingrich sounded like his main financial backer, right-wing casino mogul and supporter of Israeli settlers, Shedon Adelson, who poured millions into his failed campaign before shifting his resources to Mitt Romney.
But, surprise, surprise, the Iranians shifted tack, and offered a subdued and non-inflammatory, even analytical speech, indicting big power pressure and capitalism but with no quotable excesses. Its tone may have reflected the fact that Iran is now leading the Non-Aligned Movement.
What is going on? The latest Iran Review, a respected policy journal, carries an article calling for dialogue with the US, not more diatribes. The magazine describes itself this way:
"Iran Review is the leading independent, non-governmental and non-partisan website - organization representing scientific and professional approaches towards Iran's political, economic, social, religious, and cultural affairs, its foreign policy, and regional and international issues within the framework of analysis and articles."...(Click title for more)
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A banner held at a protest against Golden Dawn
Sept 29, 2012 - Far from being tamed, parliamentary legitimacy appears only to have emboldened the extremists. In recent weeks racially-motivated attacks have proliferated. Immigrants have spoken of their fear of roaming the streets at night following a spate of attacks by black-clad men on motorbikes. Street vendors from Africa and Asia have also been targeted. Greek police send crime victims to neo-Nazi 'protectors'
by Helena Smith
Kasamaproject.org
Greece's far-right Golden Dawn party is increasingly assuming the role of law enforcement officers on the streets of the bankrupt country, with mounting evidence that Athenians are being openly directed by police to seek help from the neo-Nazi group, analysts, activists and lawyers say.
In return, a growing number of Greek crime victims have come to see the party, whose symbol bears an uncanny resemblance to the swastika, as a "protector".
One victim of crime, an eloquent US-trained civil servant, told the Guardian of her family's shock at being referred to the party when her mother recently called the police following an incident involving Albanian immigrants in their downtown apartment block.
"They immediately said if it's an issue with immigrants go to Golden Dawn," said the 38-year-old, who fearing for her job and safety, spoke only on condition of anonymity. "We don't condone Golden Dawn but there is an acute social problem that has come with the breakdown of feeling of security among lower and middle class people in the urban centre," she said. "If the police and official mechanism can't deliver and there is no recourse to justice, then you have to turn to other maverick solutions."
Other Greeks with similar experiences said the far-rightists, catapulted into parliament on a ticket of tackling "immigrant scum" were simply doing the job of a defunct state that had left a growing number feeling overwhelmed by a "sense of powerlessness". "Nature hates vacuums and Golden Dawn is just filling a vacuum that no other party is addressing," one woman lamented. "It gives 'little people' a sense that they can survive, that they are safe in their own homes."
Far from being tamed, parliamentary legitimacy appears only to have emboldened the extremists. In recent weeks racially-motivated attacks have proliferated. Immigrants have spoken of their fear of roaming the streets at night following a spate of attacks by black-clad men on motorbikes. Street vendors from Africa and Asia have also been targeted.
"For a lot of people in poorer neighbourhoods we are liberators," crowed Yiannis Lagos, one of 18 MPs from the stridently patriot "popular nationalist movement" to enter the 300-seat house in June. "The state does nothing," he told a TV chat show, adding that Golden Dawn was the only party that was helping Greeks, hit by record levels of poverty and unemployment, on the ground. Through an expansive social outreach programme, which also includes providing services to the elderly in crime-ridden areas, the group regularly distributes food and clothes parcels to the needy.
But the hand-outs come at a price: allegiance to Golden Dawn. "A friend who was being seriously harassed by her husband and was referred to the party by the police very soon found herself giving it clothes and food in return," said a Greek teacher, who, citing the worsening environment enveloping the country, again spoke only on condition of anonymity. "She's a liberal and certainly no racist and is disgusted by what she has had to do."...(Click title for more)
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 Reviewed by Jasper Bernes and Joshua Clover
September 24th, Los Angeles Review of Books
1.
Riots are the Sphinx of the left. Every soi disant radical intellectual feels compelled, it seems, to answer the riddle they hear posed by the riots of the present, in Bahrain or Asturias, Chile or Britain: Why now? Why here? Why riot? These answers generally come in a few simple varieties. First, if the riot seems to lack focus or present clears demands - that is, if it is illegible as "protest," as in the case of the London riots of summer 2011 - the intellectual will paint them as a "meaningless outburst" (Slavoj Zizek), undertaken by "mindless rioters" (David Harvey). Invariably, attributions of unmeaning must find support in patronizing sociology, rendering the rioters mere side-effects of an unequal society, symptoms of neoliberalism, capitalist crisis and the ensuing austerity. Frequently, such commentary adheres to the flinching rhetorical structure of "yes, but..." In the words of Tariq Ali from the London Review of Books:
Yes, we know violence on the streets in London is bad. Yes, we know that looting shops is wrong.
But why is it happening now? Why didn't it happen last year?
Because grievances build up over time, because when the system wills the death of a young black citizen from a deprived community, it simultaneously, if subconsciously, wills the response.
Far worse than such half-hearted apologias is the claim, repeated with alarming frequency by people who should know better, that the rioters in London were acting out the self-contradictory imperatives of neoliberal society. Such commentary is likewise a symptomatic account. For Harvey, the rioters are mere reflections of the rapacity and greed of post-Thatcher capitalism. For the Polish sociologist Zygmunt Bauman, looting is simply a violent and risky variant on shopping, an expression of a materialistic consumer society.
Then there are the commentators who see the riots as simply misguided, rather than as reflections of capitalist ideology. Such writers understand the riots as an engine lacking the proper tracks. The failure then belongs to the decrepit left in general, who have failed to provide an "alternative" or "political programme" which might harness, shape and direct the rage of the rioters. Asks Zizek: "Who will succeed in directing the rage of the poor?" Forget the possibility that the poor might be able to direct their own rage.
One can see the fundamentally patronizing lines common to all these responses. In each, the intellectual imputes a kind of false consciousness to the rioters, in order to make himself (and it is usually a him) all the more necessary as the voice of missing authority. These intellectuals hear in the riots a question to which they must provide the answer. They do not realize that the riots are, rather, an answer to the question they refuse to ask. ... (Click title for more)
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Hegel, Scientology and the Rest of Us:
A Film Review: 'The Master'' ![The Master - Official Teaser Trailer 2 [HD]](https://thumbnail.constantcontact.com/remoting/v1/vthumb/YOUTUBE/ab8123535cff42db98fc07072f4b97d9) | The Master - Official Teaser Trailer
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By Dan La Botz
New Politics
October 2, 2012 - Paul Thomas Anderson'S New Film "The Master," Starring Joaquin Phoenix, Philip Seymour Hoffman, Amy Adams, And Laura Dern, Might Alternatively Have Been Titled "Masters And Followers," For The Movie Is As Much About His Followers As It Is About The Character Of The Master, Lancaster Dodd (Played By Hoffman).
The Film Is An Exploration Of What The Philosopher G.W.F. Hegel Called "The Master-Slave Dialectic," The Relationship Between The Powerful And The Powerless, Between Dominance And Dependence. According To Rotten Tomatoes Critics Love This Film (85%), General Audiences Not So Much (63%), No Doubt In Part Because The Film's Loose Plot And Unfulfilling Conclusion Fail To Provide An Adequate Structure For The Strong Acting And Brilliant Cinematography. Anderson Asks Us To Contemplate The Patriarch-Tribe, Father-Son, Teacher-Student, Master-Servant Relationships, But Also To Ask Whether Or Not In Such A World As Ours Any Sort Of Healthy, Free And Autonomous Existence Is Possible, And What That Would Look Like. The Film'S Attraction Is Its Intellectual And Moral Challenge: Can We Live Without Masters?
Freddie Quell (Intensely Portrayed By Joaquin Phoenix), A Shell-Shocked, Broken-Hearted, Alcoholic, World War Ii Navy Veteran And Seaman, Who In His Post-Traumatic State Finds It Hard To Hold A Job Or Establish A Relationship With A Woman, Fleeing His Accidental Killing Of A Coworker, Stows Away On A Ship That Turns Out To Belong To Lancaster Dodd, The Leader Of A Spiritual Movement Called The Cause. Dodd Takes An Immediate Interest In Quell And Through An Intense Psychoanalytic, Confessional "Processing" Session Leads His Subject To Face The Fact Of His Broken Heart. Master And Servant Bond, And Even If The Tie Is Not Permanent-For Quell Is One Of Those Who Would Be Free-The Master Is Powerful And For A While Overpowering. (Trailer.)
The Master And The Cause
Through The Eyes Of Quell, And The Fabulous Cinematography Of Mihai Malaimare Jr., We Learn About Dodd And The Cause, A Transparent Fictionalization Of L. Ron Hubbard And Scientology, With The Same Mix Of Science And Spiritualism, Hypnotism And Reincarnation, Healing Community And Outright Cult. When He First Meets Dodd, Quell Asks What He Does, To Which Dodd Replies, "I Do Many, Many Things. I Am A Writer, A Doctor, A Nuclear Physicist, A Theoretical Philosopher." Dodd'S Cause, Combining Christian Perfectionism, Freudian Psychoanalysis, Spiritualism, And Pseudo-Science-Just Like Hubbard'S Scientology-Proselytizes Through A Process Of Personal Manipulation And Intense Brain-Washing. (See Here For A Documentary With An Interview Of L. Ron Hubbard.)...(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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