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.
|
New Issue of Mobilizer
Check out what CCDS has been doing...
|
Blog of the Week: Fast Company
Martin Scorsese's Film School: The 85 Films You Need To See To Know Anything About Film
|
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.
|
|
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.
|
|
Order Our
Full Employment Booklets
 |
...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. |
|
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.
|
 A Memoir of the 1960s by Paul KrehbielAutumn Leaf Press, $25.64 | | Shades of Justice Video: Bringing Down a President, Ending a War |
|
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...
|
Voices from the Underground Press of the 1960s, Part 2- Foreword by Susan Brownmiller
- Preface by Ken Wachsberger
$37.50 + $6 shipping
|
|
Discussion Documents for a Militant Movement
By Don Hamerquist
|
|
|
|
An Invitation to CCDSers and Friends...
 Jobs and Healthcare, Not Cuts and Warfare
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...
|
Progressives In Congress Say
'No Deal' To Social Security Cuts
Rep. RAŚL GRIJALVA, co-chair of the Congressional Progressive Caucus
By Terrance Heath
Campaign for America's Future
Dec 19, 2012 - Progressives in Congress aren't falling for the trick that Washington is using to cut Social Security in the "fiscal cliff" negotiations.
Instead they are raising their voices against the insanity of Democrats committing political suicide by: destroying their credibility, reneging on their promise to keep Social Security "off the table" during "fiscal cliff" negotiations, and to ensure that "There will be no changes to Social Security." Not to mention alienating the elderly with the annual reminder their benefits are have shrunk, and handing the Republicans a political weapon by empowering them to tell seniors, "Democrats betrayed you, and cut your Social Security benefits.
Here are some of the progressives who are speaking up to talk the White House down from that "fiscal cliff."
Congressional Progressive Caucus Co-Chair Raul Grijalva (D, Ariz.-03), in an "Democracy Now!" interview, rejected the president's compromise to cut more from Social Security than from the military.
AMY GOODMAN: Democratic Congressmember Raśl Grijalva of Arizona has rejected the Social Security cuts outlined in the plan, joining us right now from the Cannon Rotunda on Capitol Hill.
Congressmember, welcome to Democracy Now! Why have you rejected President Obama's compromise with John Boehner, the House speaker?
REP. RAŚL GRIJALVA: Well, it's a compromise built on very, very weak-on a very weak platform, particularly for Social Security and, as we go down the road, Medicare and Medicaid, in particular. I worry, and many of the members of the Progressive Caucus worry, that we've opened up a door here by talking about linking CPI in any area. And with Social Security, once you open that door, then...
And for us now to open that door now and to allow that bridge to be connected, you might want to say that we're just only going to deal with one portion of the strata. I don't believe that. And I believe that in the long run, we have taken a program that has been a bedrock program for the American people and opened the door for some long-term damage down the road. There are so many things that can be done to generate revenue that we're not looking at, that's not on the table. Even Simpson-Bowles says Social Security does not create the deficit. It is, though, a source of revenue. And that's how it's being looked at in terms of these cuts.
Rep. Grijalva rejected the compromise as a "Washington fig leaf," and called on his colleagues to "make their feelings known as soon as possible." Many have answered that call.
Congressional Progressive Caucus Co-Chair Keith Ellison (D, Minn.-5) has affirmed his commitment to "standing against any benefit cuts to programs Americans rely on," and explained just why "chained CPI is a cut."
Congressional Progressive Caucus co-chair Keith Ellison, the Minnesota Democrat who was one of Obama's earliest and most enthusiastic backers in 2008, did the math: "The current average earned benefit for a 65 year old on Social Security is $17,134. Using chained CPI will result in a $6,000 loss for retirees in the first fifteen years of retirement and adds up to a $16,000 loss over twenty-five years. This change would be devastating to beneficiaries, especially widowed women, more than a third of whom rely on the program for 90% of their income and use every single dollar of the Social Security checks they've earned. This would require the most vulnerable Americans to dig further into their savings to fill the hole left by unnecessary and irresponsible cuts to Social Security."
Quite simply, Ellison says, "A move towards chained CPI would be a long-term benefit cut for every single person who receives a Social Security check."
Rep. Donna Edwards (D, Md.-4) is circulating a letter calling on President Obama to reject cutting Social Security via the "chained CPI." Rep. Edwards called out the imbalance "compromise" in an interview with Washington Post.
Rep. Donna Edwards (D-Md.), who organized 57 House Democrats to sign a letter last week urging Obama and congressional leaders to protect Social Security, nonetheless argued that adopting chained CPI would result in "serious benefit cuts for recipients, particularly for our seniors and the disabled."
"You can't tell me it's balanced when the principal payees are seniors and the disabled," Edwards said.
Rep. John Lewis (D, Ga.-5) urged his colleagues to live up to their campaign promises, and warned them no to "play with the lives of senior citizens.
"I don't know how many members ran on a promise not to cut Social Security. Now, without any hard proposal to raise taxes on the rich, some are using Social Security as a carrot to get a deal. We cannot, and we must not play with the lives of senior citizens," said Georgia Rep. John Lewis (D-GA) yesterday.
..."The people of this nation are depending upon us to be true to our word," continued John Lewis. "People work hard in America, and they deserve to retire with dignity. The reward of their hard work should not be a significant reduction in resources the longer they live and the more vulnerable they become. Something is wrong with this equation," he added....(Click title for more)
|
|
Create Jobs with the Green New Deal
 Wind and Solar Power Paired with Storage Could Power Grid 99.9 Percent Of The Time
By Science News
Beaver County Blue via Sciencedaily.Com
Dec. 10, 2012 - Renewable Energy Could Fully Power A Large Electric Grid 99.9 Percent Of The Time By 2030 At Costs Comparable To Today's Electricity Expenses, According To New Research By The University Of Delaware And Delaware Technical Community College.
A Well-Designed Combination Of Wind Power, Solar Power And Storage In Batteries And Fuel Cells Would Nearly Always Exceed Electricity Demands While Keeping Costs Low, The Scientists Found.
"These Results Break The Conventional Wisdom That Renewable Energy Is Too Unreliable And Expensive," Said Co-Author Willett Kempton, Professor In The School Of Marine Science And Policy In Ud's College Of Earth, Ocean, And Environment. "The Key Is To Get The Right Combination Of Electricity Sources And Storage - Which We Did By An Exhaustive Search - And To Calculate Costs Correctly."
The Authors Developed A Computer Model To Consider 28 Billion Combinations Of Renewable Energy Sources And Storage Mechanisms, Each Tested Over Four Years Of Historical Hourly Weather Data And Electricity Demands. The Model Incorporated Data From Within A Large Regional Grid Called Pjm Interconnection, Which Includes 13 States From New Jersey To Illinois And Represents One-Fifth Of The United States' Total Electric Grid.
Unlike Other Studies, The Model Focused On Minimizing Costs Instead Of The Traditional Approach Of Matching Generation To Electricity Use. The Researchers Found That Generating More Electricity Than Needed During Average Hours - In Order To Meet Needs On High-Demand But Low-Wind Power Hours - Would Be Cheaper Than Storing Excess Power For Later High Demand.
Storage Is Relatively Costly Because The Storage Medium, Batteries Or Hydrogen Tanks, Must Be Larger For Each Additional Hour Stored.
One Of Several New Findings Is That A Very Large Electric System Can Be Run Almost Entirely On Renewable Ene...(Click title for more)rgy.
|
Labor Insurgency--and the Best and Worst of 2012
By Amy Dean
The Century Foundation
Dec 21, 2012 - This was a tumultuous year for working people and their families. From the grassroots uprisings last winter to the low-wage workers' strikes at year's end, 2012 saw many people coming together for the first time and finding their voices. Below are the items that I would highlight as the best and worst developments of 2012 in the world of labor and progressive social movements.
THE WORST:
- Conservatives have repeatedly tried to pass anti-worker legislation under misleading names and false slogans in 2012. This approach hasn't always worked-California's Prop 32, which would have unfairly restricted workers' political speech in the state, failed at the polls in November. Sadly, though, at the end of the year, Michigan's lame-duck legislature, dominated by a billionaire-funded GOP, passed a so-called "right to work" law. As has happened in other states, the new law will pit Michigan workers against each other by forcing those who pay union dues to represent and bargain for those who don't. The state has been a union bulwark historically, so this is a sad sign for working people all over the country.
- Neoliberal trade policy has continued to undermine the American middle class in 2012. As reporters Donald Barlett and James Steele have documented, the so-called "free trade" deals modeled after NAFTA are part of a pattern that has resulted in huge job losses here in the United States. This year, the Obama administration has been promoting a new pact based on this same model that would create a "free trade zone" made up of ten countries along the Pacific Rim, called the TransPacific Partnership (TPP). As Matt Stoller has said in Salon, the creation of the TPP has mostly flown under the radar, but it could lead to "offshoring of U.S. manufacturing and service-sector jobs, inexpensive imported products, expanded global reach of U.S. multinationals, and less bargaining leverage for labor." None of this is good for Americans who desperately need jobs to be created here.
- Another disturbing trend that continued this year was giveaways of public funds to private companies. As watchdog Good Jobs First documented earlier this year, state and local governments handed out $32 billion to private corporations in the name of job creation, but with no real accountability or guarantees of public benefit.
THE BEST:
Not everything was bad news; there were also some positive developments that offer hope for the future. Four of these were:
- Student activism allied with union advocacy paid off in San Jose, California, where a student-led coalition got a ballot initiative passed that will raise the minimum wage from $8 to $10 per hour for everyone working within the city limits. Organizers estimate the number of workers who will get a raise to be in the tens of thousands. I see this as a fine example of regional coalition-based organizing, and I hope it becomes a trend.
- Labor helped push President Obama to victory: once again, organized labor showed that its electoral muscle is critical in propelling candidates to victory. This creates a window of opportunity for pursuing future gains for workers at the federal level.
- Chicago teachers won their strike. The September walkout that lasted for seven school days may prove to be a bellwether for other places, where teachers can begin to reframe the issue of reform to include teachers' unions and more equitable distribution of resources as part of the solution for public education.
- Walmart workers staged the first-ever strikes against the biggest private sector employer in the United States. United Food and Commercial Workers Organizing Director Pat O'Neill talked about how the union is experimenting with a new model of organizing-workers and community members coming together to support better conditions in the stores and warehouses even before the workers join a union.
In 2013, as Obama starts his new term, we can find hope in these examples of regionally based innovation. Rather than waiting for change to come from above, we must take what is working at the regional level and turn it into a people's agenda for Washington. ...(Click title for more)
|
India's Crisis of Rape and Women's Rights
'Defend women's right to freedom without fear! Ensure swift and sure punishment for rape!'
Demonstration in Jammu, December 20, 2012, in protest at the rape and brutalisation of a young woman in the Delhi. Photo: Press TV.
By Kavita Krishnan
Links
[This is the cover story of the forthcoming January 2013 issue of Liberation, magazine of the Communist Party of India (Marxist-Leninist) Liberation. It is posted at Links: International Journal of Socialist Renewal with Kavita Krishan's permission. Kavita Krisnan is secretary of the All India Progressive Women's Association (AIPWA).]
Delhi, India, Dec 24, 2012 -- In the midst of the unspeakable horror of a rape and attempted murder in Delhi is a spark of hope that we nurture, cradling it with our hands lest it be snuffed out, helping the spark to grow into a steadier flame - and then spread into a forest fire.
A young woman, a 23-year-old student of physiotherapy, boarded a bus in Delhi with a male friend. They were alone on the bus but for a group of men, who began taunting the woman for being out at night with a man. She and her friend didn't take the taunts lying down - and eventually the group of men decided to "teach her a lesson". They beat her friend senseless. And they ganged up to rape her, brutalising her and leaving her intestines torn.
The hope lies in the huge numbers of people who have come out to protest afterwards. The spontaneous anger and determination to bring rapists to justice was good to see. But even better was the willingness to direct that anger against the society and culture that justifies rape and sexual violence. The popular will - on part of ordinary women and men - to address the roots of sexual violence and end it, is what inspires more hope and confidence than all the fire-spewing rhetoric of MPs in parliament.
Challenging rape culture
One woman who saw a video of our protest demonstration and the speeches of activists at Delhi Chief Minister Sheila Dixit's house wrote to me to say that the protest struck a chord with her: "Younger girls have been writing to me, absolutely distressed, because their parents are using the Delhi gang rape case as an example of what happens when you 'stray'. Now, they are unable to do anything: from having conversations with their male friends to go to a college of their choice. Watching your protest gave me so much hope and a sense of solidarity."
Sexual violence is, indeed, a way of imposing patriarchal discipline on women. Women who defy such discipline are punished for their temerity by rape. And the fear of rape and sexual violence works as a permanent internal censor of women's decisions. And "protection" from sexual violence most commonly takes the form of restrictions imposed on women: curfews in college hostels are the most common instance, followed by dress codes, bans on mobile phones, restrictions on mobility and friendships (especially with men friends), discouragement from taking admission in a college away from home, and so on. If sexual violence and the measures commonly used to contend with it breathe the same patriarchal air, no wonder women feel suffocated.
Some years ago, when journalist Sowmya Visvanathan was shot dead, Delhi's chief minister commented that Sowmya had been "adventurous" in being out on the street at 3 am. The last Delhi police commissioner had said in a press conference, "If women go out alone at 2 am, they should not complain of being unsafe. Take your brother or a driver along." Of course, these statements were greeted with a chorus of protest, with many pointing out that women who work have no choice but to be out late at night. In the present case, Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leaders in parliament said that the victim had done nothing "rash" - she had not been out very late in the night. One national English TV channel discussing the rape in Delhi kept carrying these bulletins prominently - "She wasn't dressed provocatively... She wasn't out late at night... She wasn't alone."
The idea remains: that women ought not to be out at night unless they have good reason for it, that women ought to dress in ways that are not "provocative". That it is acceptable to expect women to restrict their mobility and choice of dress in the interests of their safety. That it is acceptable to put women who face violence in the dock and ask them to "justify" themselves. In other words, there is a widely accepted notion that women have to acquit themselves of the charge of having "invited" rape....(Click title for more)
|
To the Precinct Station: How Theory met
Practice ...and Drove It Absolutely Crazy
...Or Taking a Deeper Look at 'Occupy!'
By Thomas Frank
The Baffler No. 21
There is a scene I always recall when I try to remember the exhilarating effect that Occupy Wall Street had on me when it was first getting going.
I was on a subway train in Washington, D.C., reading an article about the protests in Zuccotti Park in Manhattan. It was three years after the Wall Street bailouts. It was two years after everyone I knew had given up hope in the creativity of Barack Obama. It was two months after the bankers' friends in the Republican Party had pushed the country right to the brink of default in order to underscore their hallucinatory economic theories. Like everyone else, I had had enough.
Anyhow, the subway car was boarded by some perfectly dressed, perfectly polished corporate executive, clearly on the way back from some trade show, carrying a tote bag that bore some jaunty slogan about maximizing shareholder value or what a fine thing luxury is or how glorious it is to be a winner-the kind of sentiment that had been commonplace a short while before but that the American public had now turned bitterly against. The man was clearly uncomfortable with it on his person. And I considered the situation: Once upon a time I would have been embarrassed to hold a copy of this magazine on a crowded subway, but now it was people like him who would have to conceal what they did. Your service to the 1 percent would no longer be something you could boast about without feeling the contempt of your fellow Metro passengers.
A while later I happened to watch an online video of an Occupy panel discussion held at a bookstore in New York; at some point in the recording, a panelist objected to the way protesters had of saying they were "speaking for themselves" rather than acknowledging that they were part of a group. Another one of the panelists was moved to utter this riposte:
What I would note, is that people can only speak for themselves, that the self would be under erasure there, in that the self is then held into question, as any poststructuralist thought leading through anarchism would push you towards. . . . I would agree, an individualism that our society has definitely had inscribed upon it and continues to inscribe upon itself, "I can only speak for myself," the "only" is operative there, and of course these spaces are being opened up . . .
My heart dropped like a broken elevator. As soon as I heard this long, desperate stream of pseudointellectual gibberish, I knew instantly that this thing was doomed.
* * *
"There is a danger," the Slovenian philosopher Slavoj Zizek warned the Occupy Wall Street encampment in Zuccotti Park last year, and he wasn't referring to the New York Police Department. "Don't fall in love with yourselves." ...(Click title for more)
|
'Django Unchained': Quentin Tarantino's
Answer to Spielberg's 'Lincoln'
By Jon Weiner
The Nation
Dec 26, 2012 - Two films about American slavery in the Civil War era are currently playing in theaters.
Steven Spielberg's film Lincoln begins with a black soldier reciting the Gettysburg Address.
Quentin Tarantino's film Django Unchained begins with a black slave being recruited to kill two white murderers.
In Spielberg's film, the leading black female character is a humble seamstress in the White House whose eyes fill with tears of gratitude when Congress votes to abolish slavery.
In Tarantino's film, the leading black female character (Kerry Washington) is a defiant slave who has been branded on the face as a punishment for running away, and is forced-by Leonardo DiCaprio-to work as a prostitute.
In Spielberg's film, all the black people are good.
Tarantino's film features "the biggest, nastiest 'Uncle Tom' ever"-played by Samuel Jackson-who is insanely loyal to his evil white master, and savage in his treatment of fellow slaves.
In Spielberg's film, old white men make history, and black people thank them for giving them their freedom.
In Tarantino's, a black gunslinger goes after the white slavemaster with homicidal vengeance.
In Spielberg's film, Daniel Day-Lewis is magnficent as Lincoln.
In Tarantino's, Jamie Foxx is magnificent as Django.
Spielberg says the history in Lincoln is true. Tarantino says the history in Django Unchained is "very right on. In fact, if anything, I'm actually holding back somewhat from some of the more extreme stuff."
Spielberg's film displays the director's "integrity and seriousness of purpose." (Hendrik Hertzberg, The New Yorker)
Tarantino's displays the director's "signature rococo verbal theatrics, outlandish humor and flair for both embracing and subverting genre conventions." (Christopher Wallenberg, Boston Globe)
Spielberg's film is "a stirring reminder that politics can be noble." (Chris Vognar, Dallas Morning News)
Tarantino's is "unwholesome, deplorable and delicious" (Peter Bradshaw, The Guardian), but never lets us forget the brutal reality of slavery.
Did Lincoln free the slaves, or did slaves fight to free themselves?...(Click title for more)
|
The Irish Famine: Two Books Opening Old Wounds
By Y.F.
The Economist
The Graves are Walking: The Great Famine and the Saga of the Irish People. By John Kelly. Henry Holt; 416 pages; $32. Faber and Faber; £16.99
The Famine Plot: England's Role in Ireland's Greatest Tragedy. By Tim Pat Coogan. Palgrave Macmillan; 288 pages; $28 and £17.99
Dec 12, 2012 - IN 1997 Tony Blair, the British prime minister, made the first formal apology for Britain's role in the Irish famine. Between 1845 and 1855 Ireland lost a third of its population-1 million people died from starvation and disease and 2 million emigrated. Mr Blair regretted a time when those who governed in London had failed their people. Two new books explore Britain's role in the famine and rekindle the debate about whether its misdeeds can be considered genocide.
"The Graves are Walking" by John Kelly, a historian and popular science writer, is an engrossing narrative of the famine, vividly detailing Victorian society and the historical phenomena (natural and man-made) that converged to form the disaster. The decimation of the potato crop in the 1840s brought on the danger of mass starvation, but it was the British response that perpetuated the tragedy. The hand of nature, as illustrated in both books, caused only part of the problem.
Both authors describe the folly and cruelty of Victorian British policy towards its near-forsaken neighbour in detail. The British government, led by Sir Charles Trevelyan, assistant secretary to the Treasury (dubbed the "Victorian Cromwell"), appeared far more concerned with modernising Ireland's economy and reforming its people's "aboriginal" nature than with saving lives. Ireland became the unfortunate test case for a new Victorian zeal for free market principles, self-help, and ideas about nation-building.
Ireland still functioned as a basic barter economy-few hands exchanged money and the peasant population relied on their potato crops, which had failed. But rather than provide aid and establish long-term goals for recovery, Trevelyan and his cohorts saw a chance to introduce radical free-market reforms. As Mr Kelly notes, Trevelyan sent his subordinates to Ireland equipped with Adam Smith's writings, like missionaries sent to barbarian lands armed with bibles. One absurd project to introduce a money economy was part of the public works scheme. Peasants were hired to build unnecessary roads in order to earn money to buy food. But wages were often not enough to match the high food prices enforced by Trevelyan as a measure to attract imports to Ireland, especially from America.
The belief that the famine was God's intention also guided much of Britain's policy. They viewed the crop failures as "a Visitation of Providence, an expression of divine displeasure" with Ireland and its mostly Catholic peasant population, writes Mr Kelly. Poverty was considered a moral failure. Within a few years Irish immigrants flooded the port cities of Liverpool in England, Montreal and Quebec in Canada and New York. The emigrant was considered an object of horror and contempt, as Mr Kelly writes: "pedestrians turned and walked the other way; storekeepers bolted the door or picked up a broom; street urchins mocked his shoeless feet, filthy clothing and Gaelic-accented English." Throughout the book, Mr Kelly bemoans the tragic effects of human folly, neglect and Victorian ideology in causing the famine and its aftermath. He rejects the charge of genocide. Tim Pat Coogan, however, takes a more radical view in "The Famine Plot"....(Click title for more)
|
|
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 |
|
|
