Oakland teachers' strike

The fight of the Oakland teachers will only end when the corrupt state and city bosses are cleaned out.

http://www.peoplesworld.org/teachers-protest-cuts-with-one-day-strike/

Indiginous Seeds--The Semillas Project

Response to ASUC Presidential Veto of Senate Bill 118A

Response to ASUC Presidential Veto of Senate Bill 118A
UC Berkeley Divestment Task Force
UCB Students for Justice in Palestine

Introduction
The following document is a response to ASUC President Will Smelko’s veto1 of Senate Bill 118A, “A Bill in Support of ASUC Divestment from War Crimes.” SB 118A called on the UC Berkeley student government (the ASUC) and the University of California (UC) Regents to divest funds from companies enabling war crimes in the Occupied Palestinian Territories, among other places where war crimes take place. It was passed by the student senate in a 16 to 4 vote. President Smelko justified his veto with a number of misleading or mistaken claims. We discuss and rebut them in detail below, but generally speaking President Smelko’s justifications either: (a) mischaracterize the content of SB 118A or (b) unfairly hold the bill to a higher standard than any other senate bill.

We rebut the following claims by President Smelko:
1. SB 118A singles out Israel.
2. SB 118A is perceived as “a symbolic attack on a specific community of our fellow students.”
3. SB 118A may be used as a tool to delegitimize the state of Israel.
4. There was not sufficient or adequate discussion and/or deliberation on the bill.
5. The bill does not examine “the likely or probable impact of mandatory divestment” on existing or future UC
and ASUC funds.
6. It does not consider “the likely or probable effect on the safety or security of human beings in Palestine and
Israel.”
7. A divestment bill must address the “effectiveness of a blanket divestment policy in achieving the aims of peace
and security.”
8. The debate around SB 118A compares Israel to South Africa, but this analogy is “contested” and South African divestment strategies “were not introduced and agreed upon after mere hours of discussion, but involved lengthy and serious deliberation and analysis.”
9. For SB 118A to pass it must provide “adequate” or “important historical context and understanding.”
10. SB 118A calls for “immediate divestment from specific countries or regions.”
11. The veto is justified by the moral obligation “to promote peace, harmony, honesty, and academic freedom,” and the duty to insure that ASUC decisions “are fair to people concerned and to all sides of an issue.”
...
Read more here...

Executive PayWatch 2010

When you hear Republicans whining about their "hard earned" income being taxed, do you ever wonder how much the very rich are really suffering?  The AFL-CIO has created Executive PayWatch to document some of the most obscene cases of corporate executive compensation, offering details on how the compensation was given (salary, bonus, stock awards, etc...) as well as how their compensation compares with that of the average US worker.  At the top is Aubrey K. McClendon, who made $100,069,048 in 2008, including a $77 million bonus and $20 million in stock awards.

Even more hideous, case studies of finance executives show how these billionaires take taxpayer bailout money and personally lobby against financial regulation and how their companies lobby against reforms like allowing judges to modify mortgages and taxing securities.  It would seem that Wells Fargo, for example, has tens of millions of dollars to give to its executives in bonuses, but can't afford to modify a mortgage in a working class neighborhood.

One aspect of executive pay is how ridiculous the taxation system in the USA is, where all people making more than $373,651 are taxed at a maximum of 35%.  And this is just the federal income tax.  Many states have taxation systems that are even more backward and regressive.  Washington State has no income tax and relies on sales taxes and other fees, while in California the "2/3rds rule" for new taxes in the legislature has been shown to cause the poor to be taxed at a higher rate than the rich.  If someone making $100 million were taxed at 99% of her income, she would still make a million dollars that year!

Please visit this website and tell your friends about it, and tell the banks "I am not you ATM!"

Health care reform: they're all wrong

Two trends have emerged since the passage of the health care reform.

One denigrates the reform, calling it "worse than nothing" and bleakly prognosticating that the "fake" reform has blocked any chance for "real" reform in the next decade. Examples of this view can be found in The Socialist Worker, CounterPunch, MRZine, and other left venues.

The other trend is to play up the bill. It is "historic," "a big f___ deal," "a major people's victory," and so on. This view is mostly advanced by Democrats and their puppet pundits, but can also be seen on the left.

Both of the takes on health care are wrong.

As for the first, it can only be said that it thinks too highly of bourgeois democracy in the world's leading imperialist power. Bourgeois democracy in the world's leading imperialist power is never going to make the "real" reform they want.

The idea that the victory of "fake" reform has blocked the chance of "real" reform going forward is also dubious. The last time major health care reform was tried, in Clinton's first term, it failed, and no further battle was fought until the present. Win or fail, health care reform is not going to be dealt with again by bourgeois democracy for a decade or more.

Calling the reform "worse than nothing" because it entrenches the insurance industry is another blunder. The insurance industry will not be dismantled by the bourgeois democracy of the world's leading imperialist power. It will take a socialist revolution.

They dismiss the bill because it does not do enough, but that is like telling a starving man to refuse a crust of bread, because it alone will not end his hunger. The error is obvious, and can only remain hidden to those whose bellies have always been full and don't know what real hunger feels like.

The second view, that the legislation is a big people's victory, is about as wrong as the first. Usually the people don't offer specifics of why this is so, when they do they're often not right.

"No more pre-existing conditions," they say, when in reality there will be such things for four more years until the changes kick in, and even then the insurers will, though not be able to deny coverage, be able to manipulate premiums to make customers with health problems pay much more.

"Subsidies so insurance can be had by all," but even within the official predictions, 23 million will remain uninsured.

"Keep health care affordable," but again under the plan's predictions, premiums will continue to rise. Families will feel increasing pressure, and if they do fail to pay, they will be fined.

The Medicare drain, the numerous loopholes, the restrictive abortion provisions, etc. can also be mentioned. To call this a "people's victory" and a "historic achievement" is to mock people's victories and historic achievements.

Both views are wrong. The underlying problem is that both views caricature bourgeois democracy. Because bourgeois democracy cannot deliver a strong people-first program, the "worse than nothing crowd" take the view that it cannot ever deliver anything at all. Because they see some value in the health care reform, the "historic triumph" people decide that bourgeois democracy can and has delivered a strong people-first program. Both are wrong!

The health care reform is capital-compromised, but it is a gain. It is an ideological gain and a material gain. It is not a large gain, but it is about the largest the bourgeois democracy of the world's leading imperialist power can produce. It should be so viewed.

To say either that it is "worse than nothing" or that is is a "monumental achievement" is to mislead and misrepresent. Basing a political program on these kinds of distortions can only lead to failure.

Labor marches for peace in San Francisco » peoplesworld

Labor marches for peace in San Francisco » peoplesworld

Stars and Gears participated in this rally, although not as an organized group. It was heartening to see thousands of people still demonstrating against the occupation of Iraq after seven years and very little media focus. The Associated Press under estimated the crowd at the San Francisco march and rally to be "several hundred" when it clearly took up several blocks of San Francisco streets and consisted of multiple "feeder" marches that joined after the main rally in the Civic Center. The true size was probably closer to two thousand, which is still smaller than in the past considering it was on a weekend.

The anti-war movement needs to see the fact that thousands of people are still willing to march against war in the terms of what all of those people could be doing on a smaller scale in their communities. We need a diversity of tactics to educate people about the root causes of the occupations and create a dialogue about what use there is in occupying Iraq and Afghanistan.

Left critics of health care reform

There are a lot of people on the left who criticize the Obama health care reform. We are talking about the likes of the Socialist Worker writer Helen Redmond who calls the reform "worse than nothing."

It is true that the reform entrenches the insurance industry and hands the already-bloated health sector a fistful of government cash.

The criticisms are still wrong.

First, they overestimate the ease with which sweeping legislation "could" be passed. Do they forget that we live in capitalism, and to pass aggressive people-first reform in a bourgeois democracy is next to impossible? To say the Democrats "could" pass stronger legislation is to buy into all the lies about bourgeois democracy. The best that can actually happen is a capital-compromised partial reform --- what is on offer now.

Second, the critics dismiss the ideological precedent of the bill: confirming universal coverage as a popular expectation. The right-wing hates this idea and would love to see it defeated, because they know that once it is established, it will be difficult to reverse - witness the right's decades long, still unsuccessful fight to reverse other entitlements.

If the bill passes, we set the precedent. If (or rather when) the reform proves inadequate at meeting the ideological benchmark, then political pressure will be for more reforms to build on it.

Third, since the bill will provide subsidies allowing 30-40 million uninsured poor to get coverage, the bill represents a real, positive, difference in the lives of many workers and other poor. How many of the left critics don't have health care? Have they ever met people who don't? Isn't it cold and uncaring of them to disregard to fate of millions, to sacrifice these people for the sake of the purity of their radicalism?

Of course the reform is limited, of course it is capital-compromised, of course it is not a panacea, of course it is not a substitute for a socialist program, of course it does not preclude the necessity of more radical reform and ultimately socialist revolution.

It's still the best bourgeois democracy has to offer right now. Would you rather live in a capitalist country with the ideological value of universal health care, and with significant aid for getting it to the most downtrodden citizens, or one that rejects such things? It seems like a no-brainer.

Venezuela under Chavez

Rite Aid action

Stars and Gears organized and carried out an action at a Rite Aid store in Oakland in support of the Rite Aid warehouse workers' new union. The company has been harassing, intimidating, illegally firing, etc. so we collected signatures on custom post cards to send to the company management. The cards said that the signatory was upset and would consider changing their shopping patterns away from the Rite Aid if the company kept strong-arming the union. We got plenty of signatures and the manager of the store got distressed and called his bosses, so it was a success in putting pressure on and raising awareness.

We'll continue to carry out actions in this campaign.

Nightcrowred's YouTube video responses

Comrade nightcrowred recently put up a video on YouTube asking left-wing people what their objections to the CPUSA are – what keeps them from joining. There were plenty of comments. I'd like to address the different concerns.

The most popular one was some version of “too friendly towards Democrats” [6]. The Democrats are a bourgeois party, and as one poster added, associating with them “strengthens the misconception that Obama is in some way Communist/Socialist” - valid points.

The Party line right now is that the most important task for political progress is to defeat the ultra-right, and to that end, promoting and working with Democrats is a legitimate tactic.

I would say that this tactic was correct when capitalism was booming and the ultra-right was at the apex of political power. Those two factors meant the most important task was to prevent their complete victory in the bourgeois arena. But now is a different story, in my opinion, mainly because of the implosion of capitalism. The Party has not adjusted, and the tailing of Obama is in my opinion at current juncture a deadly mistake – but there is a National Convention that has been called where precisely this question should occupy center stage.

Related is the criticism “they aren't really revolutionary” [3] - “a great place to find some Comrades, but I don't think you can abolish the system by using it.” Indeed it is a fundamental of Marxism that one cannot simply capture the bourgeois state and turn it to socialism. But the Party makes the point that one can only act revolutionary when the objective conditions are revolutionary. Otherwise it's just silly - like calling for workers to take the state power when they don't even want to unionize. The question is of building up forces for the revolutionary moment, and moving circumstances towards a revolutionary configuration.

Of course, it may be that the Party “falls asleep” in a long un-revolutionary period and never wakes up. It stops even working for revolution, and if one came along it might even work against it. To counter this, we should always keep our revolutionary goal explicit. The Party does not do a good enough job of this in my opinion.

On this subject and on the Democrats, the solution isn't to simply dismiss the Party. The Party has an internal democratic process. Join Stars and Gears, and you can represent your views in this process. We value left unity, we're happy to have dedicated left-wing people with some views that are not in line with the Party, just as many of us have.

The second most common concern has to do with the Party's historical take – on the legacy of the so-called communist states [1] and on the Stalin-era thuggery against Trotsky [3]. “In my perfect world, the CP would forgive Trotsky and acknowledge Stalin's error,” says one. The Party line is vague about the crimes of so-called communists like Stalin. It condemns them, but only faintly, while stressing the positive aspects of the USSR. The USSR certainly did have positive aspects, but that doesn't excuse anti-socialist criminality. The condemnation is in my opinion inadequate. I too would like the Party to more decisively condemn Stalinism and admit its own errors in that period. The Party should not fear doing so, as there are good reasons why they made those errors – mainly to do with their lack of access to information about the conditions in the USSR.

My opinion is that if you're dedicated to the truth, you should have no moral fears, and admitting past mistakes is no a big deal. The culture of whitewash or of emphasizing one truth while downplaying another in order to create a desired effect is dangerous and destructive.

As for Trotsky, I myself am an admirer. He was a great Marxist, easily outstripping the criminal Stalin. I have clashed with several Party members on this point and generally over Stalinism. I think they're wrong and not only that, their views hold back the cause of world socialism.

To conclude on this point, the view of the Party on these points is right now is intentionally vague. Members have different opinions and it's not a subject the Party wants to highlight. I, like the critiquers, think we should be more open and aggressive about the anti-socialist crimes of Stalin, and that old dinosaurs that want to support Stalin should step aside and let people who don't make apologies for mass murdering dictators lead the way to socialism. As the Party hasn't yet kicked me out for expressing this, it shows the Party is not dictatorial on the issue and there is room for dissenting opinions. I'm confident that in the end, my viewpoint will win, but reinforcements are vital to do so. So don't let this decide you against joining Stars and Gears --- rather, think of it as a motivation to join.

Another cluster of answers is around “too centralized, too dictatorial” [2] and “I don't consider myself a 'Marxist-Leninist'” [2]. In my experience, this is false. The structure of the Party is loose and you won't be dictated to – especially in a club like Stars and Gears. As for the term “Marxist-Leninist,” there is some internal dissent on this issue – some consider it outdated. I myself don't like the Stalinist association, but I do strive to follow Marx and Lenin. I don't even think of whether or not I'm a “Marxist-Leninist.” The term isn't really relevant.

One person also mentioned that the Party needs to get out there for more events. I can only agree – we try to do this as best we can here. But more members would of course mean we could do this more.

I hope this addresses your concerns and encourages you to join Stars and Gears. Now's the time for action!

-David Bester

Report to the Stars and Gears club, via our website, and what we are trying to achieve.

Health care rally in SF

Stars and Gears were out at the rally for health care in SF. We handed out materials, signed stuff, and talked with people there.

There were somewhere between 50 and 100 people, with several speakers outlining how health care reform is desperately needed.

There was a doctor who talked about difficult hospital conditions.

There was an insurance industry worker who described the "death spiral" of rising premiums - premiums are increased to raise revenue, but this eventually causes people to drop their coverage, leading to increased premiums to compensate, etc. in a degenerate cycle.

There was a cancer survivor with a health care horror story. She had been successful in the corporate world, but diagnosis with cancer led her to loss of job, hence loss of insurance, and eventually, to financial ruin. She warned: "it can happen to you."

The speakers wanted Senate Democrats to use reconciliation protocol so that their majority would tell. They recognized that a more comprehensive and aggressive health care reform would be ideal, but saw the bill in congress as an important partial victory.

At the end the crowd chanted "what do we want? health care! when do we want it? now!"

Moral responsibility for American war

Everybody knows America has been at war overseas for nearly a decade. The bodies of innocents are stacking up. But most people don't think it's their fault. They don't feel guilty the same way they would if they had just knifed those Iraqis/Afghans/Pakistanis/etc. to death.

Who's to blame then?

Political executives like Commander-in-Chief Obama, Defense Secretary Gates, etc. and military brass like Petraeus --- yes. The soldiers, pilots, and military people who carry out the orders they craft --- how not? Their fingers are on the triggers and buttons.

The military-industrial corporations, who buy politicians to ensure demand for their instruments of destruction --- undoubtedly.

Those who support the war, who agitate for war, who vote for war --- certainly. They enable the war machine. Without them wars could not be fought. These are the likes of Bill Kristol and Christopher Hitchens, and the multitudes who take their arguments to heart and come out in support of war candidates.

Now we come to trickier creatures. What about those people who say: I don't support the war. I voted against it. But we live in a democracy, and even though I don't support it, the war was legitimately democratically decided. "Don't blame me, I voted for the other guy."

These people in their own minds would never accept any responsibility for the heaps of corpses baking in the desert or strewn among boulders.

But aren't they also to blame? They accept as legitimate a democratic process that results in the slaughter of people on the other side of the planet. They uphold a money-bought democracy knee deep in blood.

Though they would never admit it, these people are also war enablers. They let fealty to our anti-democratic democracy pull them in line with perpetual war. As if our democracy, even if it weren't controlled by money, should be legitimately able to violate human rights, international law, and ultimately human life by unilateral military action!

They bear moral responsibility as well.

The only ones who are not to blame are those who reason: a system that produces such carnage so regularly is broken. I do not uphold such a system; I actively oppose it. I seek to change it or overturn it.

Only these people, who are not deceived by money-bought democracy, who are not monstrously arrogant enough to think that by right of being American they have the right to kill by bombs whoever they decide to, deserve moral absolution for the national crimes.

They say "the system that produces regular slaughter is broken" and carry that conviction into practice. If everyone who opposed the wars came to the same conclusion, the human devastation could finally come to an end.

Fremont NUMMI's big battle

I've been trying to follow the story of the NUMMI plant worker's fightback against Toyota's planned closure. An article describing it is here: http://www.peoplesworld.org/labor-campaigns-vs-nummi-closure/

Not covered in the story is the Jan 24th meeting that has been making the internet rounds - for instance, here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UICPuHDD0GM

The way this meeting has been painted is union leadership betraying membership. But that's just wrong. The guy who makes the linked videos is a good guy, but he got it wrong here.

First of all, the UAW leaders have fought the plant closure from the beginning right down the line. At that moment it seemed lost and they had to try to get the best deal possible --- but since then labor has rallied to them and they've renewed the fight. Attacking them in their moment of uncertainty, that nervous moment when they look defeat straight in the face, is just cruel. It's something management would do to get a better deal on severance.

And in fact, union supporters who publish a sheet called Mother Muckraker made exactly that accusation. They noted that a blitz of anti-union agitation preceded the Jan 24 meeting, which itself was held not at the usual union meeting time, but forced in as an alternative/special meeting, with news media invited (?). They noted that the invitations to the events themselves promised a violent outcome ("the 'powder keg' is ready to ignite").

They further questioned who the white haired heckler who kept interrupting Contreras was. As far as anyone knew, he didn't even work at NUMMI. They figured he was a hired heckler. His cameraman (and why were there so many cameras?) was inciting violence, shouting "F--- him up!! F--- him up!!! Beat his a--!!!"

"Put that s--- on Youtube!!!" screams the white haired heckler. Sure enough, multiple recordings are soon up on Youtube.

As the Mother Muckraker sheet says, its an obvious set up to discredit the union as thugs, just as has been done time and time again against unions, at town hall meetings, etc. The goal is to destroy the union's solidarity, make it look bad, try to defeat their fight back, and get to give the workers as small a severance package as possible.

Nobody should fall for the staged theatrics.

About us

We are a group of young people affiliated with the Communist Party, USA and the Young Communist League, USA.  Right now, we all live in Northern California and Nevada, but hopefully we will have members in other parts of the country soon.  We are creating online points of access for information about the Communist Party and Young Communist League to interact with people who are interested in the party, but not to the point of joining.  If we are able to inform people about Marxism or the party, good.  If we can give people enough information to consider getting involved themselves, even better.  If we can do this while listening to people and adapt our politics with consideration of them, awesome.

We will interact with people using social tools available on the internet for free like Facebook, blogTV, and chat rooms to let people learn and ask questions in a way that formerly would have required physical presence at a party event.

Since this is a relatively new idea,  we will post updates on our progress on this blog.

We are also looking for people to help us.  Physical location and organizational affiliation are not issues.