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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Blog of the Week:
How Teachers' Unions Improve Our Schools
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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...
 What the Voters Told Us on Nov 6
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 defend voter rights, plan for 2014 races now, 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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Long voting lines were common...
By Harry Targ
Diary of a Heartland Radical
The commentaries on the 2012 presidential election are rolling in. Over the next several days and weeks progressives will be discussing the meaning of the 2012 elections for "Where do we go from here?" The desperate need is for us to resume rebuilding America and planting the seeds for a vision of "21st century Socialism."
So for now here is a list of some of the issues progressives and radicals should begin to discuss all across the nation.
First, MSNBC commentator Chuck Todd emphasized from the outset of election night commentary that the demographic changes in American society are and will continue to transform politics and the prospects for change. By 2050, a National Journal report predicted "minorities"--that is Black and Brown people-- will constitute a majority of the population of the country. In the presidential election just completed 24 percent of the voters were African Americans and Latinos. Also youth as a proportion of these populations is growing. Finally, women are a segment of the voting age population that is growing and motivated in part by a rejection of political ideologies and theologies that prohibit their control of their own bodies.
Second, in addition to race and gender, the 2012 election results point out emphatically that class matters. There is no question that the labor movement, including public employees, and grassroots workers' organizations revitalized after 2010 in the industrial heartland, was instrumental in facilitating a Democratic "ground game" in states like Ohio, Wisconsin, and even Indiana. Working people are fired up, angry, and possibly ready to become a "class for itself." And, in those states where labor made a difference, activists readily articulated connections between workers' interests and interests of women and people of color.
Third, big money gives enormous advantage to the one percent as they select and promote candidates and issues. Big money also facilitates voter suppression and itpressures the mass media to give unwarranted attention to their claims about the society. All the mainstream media, including the more liberal MSNBC, exaggerated the Romney debate bounce, claims about changing momentum, the closeness of the elections, claims derived from multiple and endless polls, and a hyped cognitive airspace about an alleged appeal that Romney/Ryan had. While much of the election hype was driven by the competition for viewers, there is no doubt that the Koch brothers, the Bradley Foundation, and the millionaire super pacs were able to project their vision well beyond the proportion of those in the society who endorse it.
Even though the power of money should not be dismissed, this election shows once again, the power of the people. The unsung heroes and heroines were the millions of people who stood for hours to vote in Florida, Ohio, Virginia, Wisconsin, California, New York, New Jersey and all around the country despite the best efforts of state governments and Tea Party groups to discourage voting. It would be a great mistake in the future to demean voting, even voting for one of the two major parties. It remains the symbolic hallmark of real democracy. As articulate spokespersons, such as Nina Turner, Ohio State Senator, and Georgia Congressman John Lewis eloquently expressed it, people put their bodies and lives on the line to secure the right to vote. That must never be ignored. What progressives need to work for is a society where that vote can be clearly cast for those who support the people's interests....(Click title for more)
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By Jim Lobe
InterPress Service
WASHINGTON, Nov 9 2012 (IPS) - While political and media attention remains focused on the unprecedented support President Barack Obama received in Tuesday's election from Latinos, one particular subset of those voters - one with potential foreign policy clout - is drawing intense interest.
Cuban Americans, for the last 50 years one of the most reliable constituencies for Republicans, particularly in the perennial "swing state" of Florida where most of them live, voted for the Democratic candidate in unprecedented numbers.
According to exit polls conducted by both Fox News and the Pew Hispanic Center, Obama beat Romney by a 49-47 percent margin among Cuban-American voters in what one close observer of Florida politics called a "historic demographic upset".
A couple of other polls, including one conducted by the highly respected Miami-based Bendixen-Amandi International polling firm, found Romney prevailing over Obama among Cuban Americans, but only by a mere 52-48 percent margin.
"I think it has made clear that the Cuban-American community is no longer as monolithically Republican as many interested parties would like them to think," Fernand Amandi, the firm's managing partner, told IPS Friday.
"What it means is that this administration will have more room to maneouvre on Cuba policy than they ever thought they had," said Geoffrey Thale, a Cuba specialist at the Washington Office on Latin America (WOLA).
"U.S. policy for decades has been determined far more by political considerations about the vote in Florida than foreign policy considerations, particularly toward Latin America which has called consistently for an end to the U.S. embargo," Thale told IPS. "So having more room in Florida means they have more flexibility in their policy if they choose to use it."...(Click title for more)
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By Arlen Grossman
OpEdNews
Nov 11, 2012 - There were a variety of factors that led to the re-election of President Barack Obama. One surely to be overlooked is the role of Occupy Wall Street in that decisive victory.
Flash back to early September of 2010. The Tea Party was setting the political agenda, the GOP was about to score a decisive mid-term election win, and the federal deficit and national debt were preeminent issues. President Obama was willing to trim Social Security, Medicare and other essential social services in order to get any kind of deal with the newly powerful and recalcitrant GOP leadership. Mitch McConnell and John Boehner had this president by the short hairs, and Barack Obama seemed eager to cut any deal he could. Republicans clearly had the upper hand.
Fast forward to mid-September of that same month. Occupy Wall Street began camping out in the heart of the financial industry, and within weeks the focus of political discussion altered dramatically. After news coverage tried to decipher the Occupy message, Americans began to comprehend the corruption and unaccountability of the financial industry, as well as the wide disparity in wealth between the "One Percent" and "The 99%."
Mainstream media, owned by the One Percent, naturally glossed over issues of economic class and fairness for years. With news coverage of Occupy Wall Street and similar movements across the nation and the globe, issues of excess wealth and inequality could no longer be ignored. Americans were exposed to ideas and political discussion that crowded out the Tea Party themes of lower taxes and less government. American workers gained new awareness that big corporations and the wealthy were paying a lower tax rate than they were, and the crimes that led to the huge financial meltdown were going unpunished. Run Your Ad Here
A new meme emerged across America: the worsening inequality and unfairness of our political and economic system. Meanwhile, the urgency of curbing the expanding national debt lessened, and the Tea Party lost some of its limited popularity. The Occupy movement, too, fizzled out over time, but the seeds of its ideas already had rooted in our political ideas and rhetoric. Occupy Wall Street had pointed its middle finger at the big banks, raged against the economic machine, and America couldn't ignore the message.
Mitt Romney might be President-elect today if the 2012 presidential campaign were all about jobs, the deficit, and ObamaCare. But because of Occupy Wall Street and its focus on income inequality and the excesses of the rich, the Republican candidate for president was seen as a symbol of Wall Street greed, the epitome of the One Percent class.
The more America learned about Mitt Romney--businessman, CEO of a private equity company destroying and outsourcing jobs, multimillionaire with hidden tax returns and secret bank accounts all over the world, even an expensive Olympic Games dancing horse as his wife's hobby and tax deduction--the more he made voters uncomfortable. They understood the choice: cast a vote for a rich white male with economic and tax policies that favored his class, or retain President Obama as president. Given that choice, they voted the latter.
Occupy Wall Street may be off the radar today, a shadow of its former self (or perhaps only dormant and waiting for a comeback), but it made a difference that carried into the 2012 election. The Occupy movement deserves credit for helping transform the political discussion, and even if that wasn't the intention, doing its part to occupy the ballot box in 2012 and help change history. President Obama and the Democrats may not realize it, but they should be grateful.
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Anti-Austerity Strikes Sweeping Europe
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A wave of anti-austerity anger is sweeping across Europe with general strikes in Spain and Portugal and walkouts in Greece and Italy - grounding flights, closing schools and shutting down transport.
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 Red Pepper's Emma Dowling speaks to Katja Kipping, new co-chair of Germany's Left Party, about the European crisis and the direction she wants to take the party
With 76 seats out of 622 in parliament, Die Linke is Germany's fourth largest party. It was founded in 2007 in a merger between the Party of Democratic Socialism (PDS) and the Electoral Alternative for Labour and Social Justice (WASG). Members of the PDS were predominantly East German and many had also been members of the Socialist Unity Party, the former ruling party of East Germany. WASG, meanwhile, was predominantly West German and made up of trade unionists and social movement activists, as well as social democrats who had left the German Social Democratic Party.
Since its founding, Die Linke has campaigned on a variety of social justice issues and for greater regulation of financial markets, while also remaining critical of the deployment of the German military abroad. Its members have supported mobilisations such as the anti-G8 summit protests in 2007 and, more recently, the Occupy/blockade protest Blockupy. The two new co-chairs, trade union organiser Bernd Riexinger and Katja Kipping, who is known to be close to social movements, stand for a renewal within the party that aims, among other things, to close any remaining gaps between East and West Germany.
Emma Dowling: Congratulations, Katja, on your election as co-chair of Die Linke. In recent speeches and interviews, you have proposed a 'break towards the future' for the party. What does that mean concretely?
Katja Kipping: There are two directions. My co-chair and I have launched a 'listening offensive' within Die Linke. We've set up a website called 'Walking we ask questions' and are doing a summer tour around Germany to talk to people directly. Beyond these internal initiatives, we have plans to engage a broader public on three key topics - the crisis, precarity and public services.
In contrast to somewhere like Greece, the crisis in Germany manifests itself as a kind of creeping precarity in our ways of life and work, and there are commonalities across different segments of society. Everyone is experiencing more and more stress: the agency worker; the self-employed on their laptop; the unemployed person who is stressed because they have to go to the unemployment office and be subjected to all sorts of pressures and humiliations.
We see a strong connection here with the crisis because Germany has had a massive trade surplus that is based on low wages. The problem of the 'debt brake' [new post-crisis legislation in Germany limiting permissible levels of structural deficit] is also further exacerbated by the fact that privatisation occurs where public finances are lacking. To us, privatisation is theft of public goods. We want to prevent further privatisation and fight locally for recommunalisation, for example of private electricity grids.
ED How far has neoliberalism eaten into the German social model? In as far as this was ever a functioning model, to what extent and in what ways has it been destroyed by neoliberalism?
KK Thanks to the trade unions in Germany, the negotiation over reduced working hours made it possible to curb mass unemployment. However, it is also the case that neoliberalism has reduced the power of unions. I would also be more critical and say that there is growing inequality that partly has to do with the continuing increases in the salaries and bonuses of managers. Often, these salaries are decided upon in meetings where there are trade unions present. My plea is for union representatives to be more forceful in demanding that in any company the highest salary should not amount to more than 20 times the lowest salary. If a manager wants to earn a million, then he has to ensure that the cleaner earns €50,000.
ED How could that be enforced?
KK Well, on the one hand there are the unions. On the other hand, we need pressure from the streets. I was very happy about the Blockupy protests in Frankfurt this spring. In Germany Occupy is not yet that strong, but there is fragile protest that is growing. Also, there is a need for a strong left-wing party. This is what we are trying to achieve and we are preparing to obtain good results in the elections, not just for the party, but in order to transform power relations in Germany.
ED How do you think that you can take on the responsibilities of power without repeating the experience of, in recent times, the Greens, or historically, most social democratic parties that have existed?
KK Concretely in the German context there can only be real change to German politics with participation from Die Linke. If we say we need ecological change, then this requires a focus on ecological and social components. It also requires a critique of capitalism, meaning in practical terms, independence from corporations. This is a position that is not held by the SPD or the Greens, but is essential to Die Linke.
Secondly, I think a left government has to protect itself from identifying too strongly with the compromises it has to make. Of course any participation in government requires making compromises, one cannot pursue one's own political programme 100 per cent.
But I think that a constant feedback loop to critical intellectuals and to independent social movements is necessary. One of the problems of the SPD-Green coalition was that a large part of the environmental movement suffered from strong feelings of loyalty with regard to the Greens and therefore found it difficult to act. This has to change.
I am one of the co-founders of the Institut Solidarische Moderne (see http://tinyurl.com/solidarische) because we think a change of government needs to be well prepared. It's not enough to simply replace ministers; we need to shift hegemony and that requires people to accompany this shift in hegemony - i.e. organic intellectuals, to cite Gramsci....(Click title for more)
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By William K. Black
Alternet.org
November 8, 2012 - The safety net is the glory of America and the unending nightmare of Wall Street. That's why Wall Street's leading "false flag" group, the Third Way (which calls itself a "leading moderate think tank"), has responded to the warnings that Robert Kuttner, AFL-CIO President Trumka, and I have made that if President Obama is re-elected our immediate task will be to prevent the Great Betrayal [3] - the adoption of self-destructive austerity programs and the opening wedge of the effort to unravel the safety net (including Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid).
Here's what you need to know about this plan to rob Americans of their future.
1. Both Democrats and Republican Oppose Cuts to the Safety Nets
Huge majorities of Americans oppose cuts in the safety nets: A majority of Republicans oppose such cuts and Democrats overwhelmingly oppose the cuts. The American people love the safety net because they know it is essential to a humane America. They know that it has transformed the nation. Before Social Security, older Americans were frequently reduced to poverty and dangerously inadequate health care that made the remainder of their lives dangerous and miserable.
The safety net does not cover only the elderly and the sick. My father, for example, died when I (the eldest of three children) was 19 and a sophomore at the University of Michigan. Even though in-state tuition was inexpensive in those days, I would have had to drop out of school. Survivors' benefits allowed me to obtain a superb education and pay back the nation with service and decades of greater taxes because education increased my income. Food stamps and unemployment insurance frequently provide the temporary support that prevent tragedy and allow Americans to obtain useful education and jobs. The safety net has made America a nation we are proud of and a nation that makes it possible for Americans to recover from hard times and tragedy and to lead lives that are vastly more productive and enjoyable.
2. Only a Democrat Can Make it Politcally Safe for GOP Pols to Unravel the Net
One of the most important reasons that more Americans support the Democratic Party than the Republican Party is that the Democratic Party is viewed as the Party that created and guards the safety net. The elements of the safety net are the crown jewels of Democratic Party policy successes.
Only a Democrat can make it politically safe for Republicans who hate the safety net to unravel it (a process that would occur over a number of years) by legitimizing the claim that the safety net must be cut. Obama may not intend to unravel the safety net. He may have been convinced by Wall Street that it is necessary to begin to unravel the safety net in order to save it. But the result would be to declare open season on the safety net by legitimizing the false Republican memes that the safety net is unsustainable and harms the nation. The Republican Party's and Wall Street's greatest frustration is that they have been unable to unravel or discredit the safety net. The Democratic Party has its Wall Street wing, but the Republican Party has been Wall Street's principal representative for decades. The Republican Party has been unable to deliver Wall Street's unholy grail - privatizing Social Security.
3. Wall Street's Schemes for Social Security Endanger the Economy
Wall Street salivates at the prospect of any privatization of social security. This would lead to them being able to charge tens of billions of dollars in fees annually. The banks that administered the privatized program would be Too Big to Fail, or what I call "systemically dangerous institutions" (SDIs) because the consequences of allowing bank failures to cause tens of millions of Americans to lose their retirement savings would require either that all such deposits be federally insured or that the failing banks be bailed out by the federal government. Privatization, therefore, is a convenient fiction. The banks' profits will be private; any catastrophic losses will be borne by the public. The SDIs' that already enjoy massive political power, often exerted through front groups like "Third Way," will burgeon.
The Third Way lobbies for Wall Street and is used to discredit Democratic polices. The Wall Street response (via Third Way) to our warning of the Great Betrayal repeats its central assertion that there is no alternative - the safety net must be cut. The Wall Street Wing of the Democratic Party alleges that if Obama wields the knife, he will do less damage to the safety net than would Romney. That, of course, does not respond to our point. Once Obama endorses Wall Street's false claim that the safety net is unsustainable and a grave danger to our economy he legitimizes future Republican assaults on the safety net. Third Way admits that these assaults would wield a chainsaw. Indeed, if Wall Street (via Third Way) is correct that the safety net is destroying our nation's ability to make productive investments, then Republicans should take a chainsaw to the safety net. Third Way, therefore, has implicitly admitted and even supported our analysis....(Click title for more)
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By David Roark
Paste Magazine
Nov 12, 2012 - Steven Spielberg boasts one of the most accomplished bodies of work in American cinema and, to this day, steadily builds upon that dominant track record.
From the breathtaking 3D action sequences of The Adventures of Tintin to the comic-yet-poignant reconciliation scene in War Horse, one doesn't have to look back decades to find Spielberg's particular genius at work. Still, for filmgoers either too young to have been bowled over by Spielberg's transcendent initial decade or two-or for those who perhaps just take his signature style for granted-Lincoln shows just how good he is. Thanks to a strong cast and a smart story that's historically, morally and politically rich, Lincoln will go down as one of Spielberg's greatest accomplishments.
In the role of the 16th president, Daniel Day-Lewis delivers one of the best performances in a career already full of stellar turns. Given his devotion to the Method and his intense concentration as an artist, Day-Lewis could have easily created a tremendous caricature of Lincoln that would have worked quite well. Instead, he demonstrates masterful restraint, presenting a simple, subtle take on the former president, as if he had spent years shadowing Lincoln instead of years reading books about him. Day-Lewis' Lincoln is sad, quiet, wise, hopeful and surprisingly witty.
The rest of the cast also turn in notable performances. As Lincoln's ill wife, Mary, Sally Fields reminds us of just how fine a performer she can be, diving headfirst into her role as the emotionally complex first lady, and Tommy Lee Jones at times steals the show as the hilarious and outspoken Pennsylvania Republican Representative Thaddeus Stevens, a grumpy old, wig-wearing politician who likes to name-call more than actually debate. Other actors, from Joseph-Gordon Levitt (Lincoln's older son) to David Strathairn (Secretary of State William Seward) shine brightly, as well.
The story in which these characters exist, though, is Lincoln's greatest strength; it holds all the pieces together. Written by Pulitzer Prize-winner Tony Kushner, the film centers on the end of Lincoln's life, specifically his commitment to pass the 13th amendment before the end of the Civil War. Given Spielberg's blockbuster-leaning tendencies, one might expect an epic scope and at least a handful of action sequences, but that's not the case. In terms of sight and sound, the film stays small and intimate in spite of the weighty stakes at hand, and for better or worse, John Williams keep the score fairly toned down. With only a singular war scene-dreadful images after the opening credits-most of the film takes place in the White House and on the floor of the House of Representatives, where Lincoln and his men strive to end slavery once and for all....(Click title for more)
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The 'Black Dog' in the Marketplace
Times Higher Education Reviewer Sally Munt on a critical guide to the economic system's baleful effects on the individual mind
Nov 8, 2012 - Ann Cvetkovich is well known for her work on public feelings, and here she tackles depression as a public rather than a private feeling. Despite being suffered by many people (including academics), depression remains an affliction to be ashamed of, to disavow, to conceal. In the book, which is part personal memoir, part cultural critique, Cvetkovich discusses her own struggles with bipolar disorder (formerly known as manic depression). Using a range of approaches, she reads through her own depression in order to reach an understanding of something more social, institutional and political. She asks: what if capitalism makes us depressed? And what happens to those unproductive subjects whose refusal and passivity puts them outside a meaningful life?
Cvetkovich was raised a Catholic, which I think gives her a critical distance from the white Anglo-Saxon Protestant disgust directed at depression and its malingering fools. She resists, too, the simplification that comes from vilifying medical models or pharmaceutical intervention, and recognises that although it is tempting to pronounce judgement on biomedical models of depression, these strategies can also be essential in alleviating distressing symptoms and loss of hope.
Her insight here is to challenge the analysis of depression as "individual fault", and she asks us to consider instead how the illness might constitute a cultural "mood", or as Raymond Williams would have put it, "a structure of feeling". This then lessens the burden on the individual to carry the blame for her condition.
Disappointingly, however, Cvetkovich does not discuss either the Great Depression or the current global recession, which I think would have made terrific economic case studies. But she does make a brief but powerful segue into American colonialism, genocide and slavery in order to reframe the cultural politics of race around the depression that such a catastrophic history produces.
It may not just be catastrophic, however: depression also has very ordinary manifestations. Cvetkovich addresses how in class terms it can be the outcome for so many ordinary Americans of the failure of the American Dream. She discusses the mundanity of depression and the fact that many of us struggle with daily inertia and feelings of being overwhelmed, seeking comfort in a range of routine responses. Given its mundanity, however, perhaps it is in daily routines, habits and behaviour that steps out of depression can be found.
Cvetkovich turns to spirituality (finding the extraordinary in the ordinary) in order to tackle depression's effects. In this, her book may be part of a small recent trend in queer studies to challenge the roots of dominant secularism by calling on white bourgeois heteronormativity to query its most basic suppositions, such as its investment in rationalism. This overtly rationalistic and attenuated discourse has produced a whole set of exclusions, not least those spiritual beliefs that have come from minority ethnic cultures....(Click title for more)
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time is long past for 'Lone Rangers'. Being a socialist by your self is
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