The Coalition of Labor Union Women (CLUW), meeting in September, 2011 in
Orlando, Florida, for its 16th Biennial Convention, voted to
“wholeheartedly renew its endorsement of HR 676, Expanded and Improved
Medicare for All.” CLUW first endorsed HR 676 at its 2003 Convention,
leading the way for many unions to join in pushing for national, single
payer health care.

“Workers, their families and their unions are still waging an increasingly
difficult struggle to win or to keep good health care coverage,” states
the CLUW resolution. “Almost every union at every contract deadline must
battle and sacrifice merely to sustain health care benefits. The rising
costs of health insurance are blocking workers’ progress in wages and
other areas.”

The resolution was submitted by Vera Newton, President of the Derby City
Chapter of CLUW and a member Local 862 UAW which represents workers at two
major Ford plants in Louisville, Kentucky.

Helen Ramirez-Odell, RN, of Chicago, Co-chair of national CLUW’s Women’s
Health and Wellness Committee, commented on the resolution:

“CLUW has a long record of support for health coverage for all with single
payer being the most efficient way to provide it. CLUW believes that
health care is a basic human right and that quality health care must be
accessible to all, not only to the wealthy or those able to afford an
expensive insurance plan.”

The CLUW resolution points out that “More employers are forcing high
deductible plans onto workers, resulting, according to Dr. Steffie
Woolhandler, in a $1,000 annual pay cut for women due to the higher
average health expenditures of women.”

The resolution notes that “About 50 million people in the U. S. are
currently without health insurance and the high cost of premiums,
deductibles, and co-pays forces even the insured to go without needed
care.”

CLUW states the “a single payer program as provided by HR 676 is the only
affordable option for universal, comprehensive coverage” and commits “to
mobilize our members, our unions, and our communities at the grassroots to
encourage other members of the House to sign on as co-sponsors of HR 676.”

On September 15, 2011, Representative Terri A. Sewell of Alabama’s 7th
Congressional District signed on to HR 676, bringing the number of
co-sponsors to 66 in addition to the sponsor, Congressman John Conyers.

The full CLUW Resolution is at the CLUW website here:
http://tinyurl.com/3b5avnk

HR 676 would institute a single payer health care system by expanding a
greatly improved Medicare system to everyone residing in the U. S.

HR 676 would cover every person for all necessary medical care including
prescription drugs, hospital, surgical, outpatient services, primary and
preventive care, emergency services, dental (including oral surgery,
periodontics, endodontics), mental health, home health, physical therapy,
rehabilitation (including for substance abuse), vision care and
correction, hearing services including hearing aids, chiropractic, durable
medical equipment, palliative care, podiatric care, and long term care.

HR 676 ends deductibles and co-payments. HR 676 would save hundreds of
billions annually by eliminating the high overhead and profits of the
private health insurance industry and HMOs.

In the current Congress, HR 676 has 66 co-sponsors in addition to Conyers.

HR 676 has been endorsed by 585 union organizations in 49 states including
138 Central Labor Councils and Area Labor Federations and 39 state
AFL-CIO’s (KY, PA, CT, OH, DE, ND, WA, SC, WY, VT, FL, WI, WV, SD, NC, MO,
MN, ME, AR, MD-DC, TX, IA, AZ, TN, OR, GA, OK, KS, CO, IN, AL, CA, AK, MI,
MT, NE, NY, NV & MA).

For further information, a list of union endorsers, or a sample
endorsement resolution, contact:

Kay Tillow
All Unions Committee For Single Payer Health Care–HR 676
c/o Nurses Professional Organization (NPO)
1169 Eastern Parkway, Suite 2218
Louisville, KY 40217
(502) 636 1551
Email: nursenpo@aol.com
http://unionsforsinglepayer.org
10/05/2011

By Michael Parenti, Reader Supporter News

via http://readersupportednews.org/opinion2/279-82/7691-class-warfare-indeed

03 October 11

Over the last two decades or more, Republicans have been denouncing as “class warfare” any attempt at criticizing and restraining their mean one-sided system of capitalist financial expropriation.

The moneyed class in this country has been doing class warfare on our heads and on those who came before us for more than two centuries. But when we point that out, when we use terms like class warfare, class conflict, and class struggle to describe the system of exploitation we live under – our indictments are dismissed out of hand and denounced as Marxist ideological ranting, foul and divisive.

Amanda Gilson put it perfectly in a posting on my Facebook page: “[T]he concept of ‘class warfare’ has been hi-jacked by the wrong class (the ruling class). The wealthy have been waging war silently and inconspicuously against the middle and the poor classes for decades! Now that the middle and poor classes have begun to fight back, it is like the rich want to try to call foul—the game was fine when they were the only ones playing it.”

The reactionary rich always denied that they themselves were involved in class warfare. Indeed, they insisted no such thing existed in our harmonious prosperous society. Those of us who kept talking about the realities of class inequality and class exploitation were readily denounced. Such concepts were not tolerated and were readily dismissed as ideologically inspired.

In fact, class itself is something of a verboten word. In the mainstream media, in political life, and in academia, the use of the term “class” has long been frowned upon. You make your listeners uneasy (“Is the speaker a Marxist?”). If you talk about class exploitation and class inequity, you will likely not get far in your journalism career or in political life or in academia (especially in fields like political science and economics).

So instead of working class, we hear of “working families” or “blue collar” and “white collar employees”. Instead of lower class we hear of “inner city poor” and “low-income elderly.” Instead of the capitalist owning class, we hear of the “more affluent” or the “upper quintile.” Don’t take my word for it, just listen to any Obama speech. (Often Obama settles for an even more cozy and muted term: “folks,” as in “Folks are strugglin’ along.”)

“Class” is used with impunity and approval only when it has that magic neutralizing adjective “middle” attached to it. The middle class is an acceptable mainstream concept because it usually does not sharpen our sense of class struggle; it dilutes and muffles critical consciousness. If everyone in America is middle class (except for a few superrich and a minor stratum of very poor), there is little room for any awareness of class conflict.

That may be changing with the Great Recession and the sharp decline of the middle class (and decline of the more solvent elements of the working class). The concept of middle class no longer serves as a neutralizer when it itself becomes an undeniable victim.

“Class” is also allowed to be used with limited application when it is part of the holy trinity of race, gender, and class. Used in that way, it is reduced to a demographic trait related to life style, education level, and income level. In forty years of what was called “identity politics” and “culture wars,” class as a concept was reduced to something of secondary importance. All sorts of “leftists” told us how we needed to think anew, how we had to realize that class was not as important as race or gender or culture.

I was one of those who thought these various concepts should not be treated as being mutually exclusive of each other. In fact, they are interactive. Thus racism and sexism have always proved functional for class oppression. Furthermore, I pointed out (and continue to point out), that in the social sciences and among those who see class as just another component of “identity politics,” the concept of class is treated as nothing more than a set of demographic traits. But there is another definition of class that has been overlooked.

Class should also be seen as a social relationship relating to wealth and social power, involving a conflict of material interests between those who own and those who work for those who own. Without benefit of reason or research, this latter usage of class is often dismissed out of hand as “Marxist.” The narrow reductionist mainstream view of class keeps us from seeing the extent of economic inequality and the severity of class exploitation in society, allowing many researchers and political commentators to mistakenly assume that U.S. society has no deep class divisions or class conflicts of interest.
We should think of class not primarily as a demographic trait but as a relationship to the means of production, as a relationship to power and wealth. Class as in slaveholder and slave, lord and serf, capitalist and worker. Class as in class conflict and class warfare.

And who knows, once we learn to talk about the realities of class power, we are on our way to talking critically about capitalism, another verboten word in the public realm. And once we start a critical discourse about capitalism, we will be vastly better prepared to act against it and defend our own democratic and communal interests.
________________________________________
Michael Parenti’s recent books include: “God and His Demons” (Prometheus), “Contrary Notions: The Michael Parenti Reader” (City Lights); “Democracy for the Few” 9th ed. (Wadsworth); “The Assassination of Julius Caesar” (New Press), “Superpatriotism” (City Lights), and “The Culture Struggle” (Seven Stories Press). For further information, visit his website: www.michaelparenti.org.

Here is the website for the Occupy Houston effort scheduled for October 6.

http://occupyhouston.org/take-direct-action/

China Study Group

via http://chinastudygroup.net/2011/10/message-from-chinese-activists-and-academics-in-support-of-occupy-wall-street/

by jj | 2 October 2011 | Last modified: 2 Oct 5:24 pm

This letter of solidarity, signed over by 50 intellectuals and activists in China, was posted to Utopia yesterday. Thanks to everyone for the translation and editing work!

From the middle of September, a great “Wall Street Revolution” has broken out in the United States. This street revolution, going by the name of “Occupy Wall Street,” has already expanded to over 70 cities and countries in North America, Europe, and other areas. In their statement on “The Wall Street Revolution,” the American people have sworn that this demand for “a democratic country, not a corporate kingdom” mass democratic revolution must spread to every part of the world, and they will not rest until this goal is met. From the anti-capitalist demonstrations that began after the 2008 financial crisis, and which this year have spread across Europe, the Middle East, North Africa and South America, this magnificent global mass democratic movement has finally spread to the center of capitalism’s financial empire–Wall Street.

The eruption of the “Wall Street Revolution” is an historical indicator that the popular democratic revolution that will soon sweep the world is set to begin. It is an especially significant and important event for this movement. Before this most recent action, street protests had virtually been exclusively used as a tool by US elite groups to subvert other countries. Now, however, the “Wall Street Revolution” – with its goals of shared prosperity and popular democracy – has launched protests in the country that is the self-proclaimed defender of democracy. This will inevitably strike a hard blow against the US elite group, itself responsible for the plunder and oppression of people all over the world, and the group that pushed the world into crisis and instability. The protests ring the death knell of the rule of capital. Popular democracy will replace elite democracy in the 21st Century, and the curtain has lifted on the movement from elite politics to popular politics. Using the language of the “Wall Street Revolution,” this is a struggle of the popular 99% against the corrupt 1%, a struggle of the popular 99% against the elite 1%,and is the final struggle of the popular forces against elite capitalist rule.

The world belongs to all of the people of the world. Countries belong to the entire people of those countries. Even moreso, wealth is produced by the entire people, and therefore should be shared by the entire people, it cannot be monopolized by the 1% – or even less than 1% – that is made up of an extremely small number of elites. The demand for common prosperity in economics, and popular democracy in politics has become an unstoppable historical trend! The rapid expansion of a fictitious economy and the massive flow of social wealth has created an amply reliable material foundation for the realization of the common wealth of all people. The development of internet technology and political civilization has created the conditions for human society to make the transition from capitalist democracy to popular democracy. Human society is fully capable of transforming, on the foundation of the past democracy of slaveholders, the democracy of feudal lords, and the democracy of the capitalist class, to make the fundamental shift from the democracy of the elites to real popular democracy. Common prosperity and popular democracy will become the main content of the historical transformation of the 21stCentury. No matter how brutally the American riot police will attempt to suppress the participants in the Wall Street revolution, no matter how much the global elites – especially those in the U.S. and China –try to suppress news of the Wall Street revolution, they cannot stop the vigorous growth and ultimate victory of the democratic revolution of the people of the world.

The violent repression and virtual blockade of news about the “Wall Street Revolution” by elite groups led by the US proves that the fate of oppressed people around the world is the same, regardless of whether they are from developed or developing countries, whether they are from so-called democracies or authoritarian countries. The international elite was the first class to link-up internationally via globalization. Their plunder of public wealth and repression of popular democratic movements is cruel and far-reaching, and utterly lacking in freedom and democracy. So-called freedom and democracy in modern society is nothing more than democracy for capitalism, an elite democracy. Freedom is another word for the elite to plunder, oppress and violently suppress others. Popular forces have been completely excluded from the freedoms and democracy of modern society, and the extent of democratic rights is to choose between presidential candidates that have already been vetted by capital. You can vote once every four years, but you have no way of affecting the people above you who directly determine your fate: your boss or superior. And there is no way of constraining the capitalistoligarchs who can take away the wealth of the majority of the population with the slight of hand of fictitious capital. Freedom and democracy have become a virtual game, nothing more than a tool to subvert other countries. Now the popular and democratic world revolution – symbolized by the “Wall Street Revolution”- demands an end to this political game, and that freedom and democracy be returned to the people. Democracy is not just a check on the president, but a check on government officials; democracy is not just a check on power, but a check on capital. If the rights and privileges of feudal and absolute rulers are understood to be a sin and abomination, then giving those rights to capital is also a travesty.

Securities and computer networks should have been two crucial elements of our shift from an industrial society to an information society, from a material economy to a virtual economy, from capitalism to a human-centered economic system, and from elite politics to popular politics. But the elite class has turned securities into a tool of appropriation akin to the ‘indulgences’ issued by middle-age church functionaries in Europe. In the new securitized economy, all the public’s wealth can easily melt into thin air – including their houses, wages, labor power and even their hope for the future. All these things have become the targets of appropriation by a tiny elite minority. Both the white-collar middle classes in developed countries – owners of fictitious property, and the blue-collar workers in developing countries who cannot afford housing or health care, belong in point of fact to the same class: modern proletariat. When the people protest the unprecedented plunder and vast income gap perpetrated by fictitious capital, they are met with violent repression – both in so-called democracy countries that claim to be defenders of human rights such as the US, and in authoritarian countries that are said to lack freedom and democracy. Faced with street protests erupting from the Balkans to North Africa, President Obama and Secretary of State Clinton have repeated over and over, “The rights of peaceful protest and the occupation of public space should be respected at all times.” Yet when US citizens attempt to exercise this right they immediately are faced with violent repression by armed police, and a blockade by the news media. If this is reaction of the US – the self-proclaimed leader in human rights – then we can imagine what the reaction will be in other capitalist countries. Rule by the capitalist elite is just as described by the “Wall Street Revolution” – everywhere. There is nowhere left were we can live and die as people.

The eruption of the “Wall Street Revolution” in the heart of the world’s financial empire shows that 99% of the world’s people remain exploited and oppressed – regardless of whether they are from developed or developing countries. People throughout the world see their wealth being plundered, and their rights being taken away. Economic polarization is now a common threat to all of us. The conflict between popular and elite rule is also found in all countries. Now, however, the popular democratic revolution meets repression not just from its own ruling class, but also from the world elite that has formed through globalization. The “Wall Street Revolution” has met with repression from US police, but also suffers from a media blackout organized by the Chinese elite.

The same fate, the same pain, the same problems, the same conflict. Faced with a common enemy in an elite global class that has already linked-up, the people of the world have only one option: to unite and in a unified and shared struggle overturn the rule of the capitalist elite, to ensure that everyone enjoys the basic human rights of work, housing, health care, education, and a secure old-age. But we must go further if we are to realize shared prosperity and popular democracy in a new socialist world historical framework, If we are to fully escape and neutralize the crises and disasters that capitalism has brought the human race, and realize harmonious social development.

The great “Wall Street Revolution” and the great popular “Chilean Winter” that preceded it signal that the day when we realize shared prosperity and popular democracy is approaching. It signals that worldwide popular and democratic socialist movement – dormant since the 1970s – is waking up again. But this time, it will be the final battle to put capitalism in its grave. The victory of popular democracy and death of elite rule are inevitable! The embers of revolt are scattered amongst us all, waiting to burn with the slightest breeze. The great era of popular democracy, set to change history, has arrived again!
Resolutely support the American people in the “Wall Street Revolution”!

Resolutely support all street protests pushing for shared prosperity and popular demoracy!

Long live the “Wall Street Revolution”!

Long live the global movement for popular democracy!

Long live popular international solidarity!

Signed by,
1. 马宾（中共老一辈无产阶级革命家，对鞍钢宪法有重要贡献）
2. 张宏良（北京学者）
3. 孔庆东（北京学者）
4. 张勤德（中共中央某机关退休干部）
5. 司马南（北京资深主持人）
6. 左大培（北京学者）
7. 苏铁山（北京学者）
8. 贾根良（北京学者）
9. 韩德强（北京学者）
10. 韩中（电视剧《毛岸英》中饰演毛泽东主席的演员）
11. 刘毅然（电视剧《毛岸英》导演）
12. 顾秀林（昆明学者）
13. 赵磊（成都学者）
14. 刘长明（济南学者）
15. 孙锡良（长沙学者）
16. 郭松民（北京学者）
17. 杨思远（北京学者）
18. 徐亮（北京学者）
19. 范景刚（北京左翼网站乌有之乡网站负责人www.wyzxsx.com）
20. 吴国屏（江苏无锡红色文化大讲堂负责人）
21. 戴诚（江苏常州红色合唱团负责人）
22. 葛黎英（郑州红色事业活动志愿者）
23. 任羊成（河南林州，修建红旗渠的特等劳模）
24. 袁金萍（河南安阳，林州市红旗渠精神学习会理事）
25. 赵东民（西安红色法律工作者）
26. 桑文英（西安红歌会负责人）
27. 李忠（太原红色事业活动志愿者）
28. 聂晓萍（北京老中医）
29. 吴泽刚（四川理县，藏族农民，中共党员）
30. 苏群（深圳红歌会志愿者）
31. 朱超（重庆红色事业活动志愿者）
32. 刁伟铭（上海红色事业活动志愿者）
33. 李欣（天津红色事业活动志愿者）
34. 曹文质（北京景山红歌会负责人）
35. 吴凤藻（北京首钢退休干部）
36. 薛云（北京红色企业家，点石金校校长）
37. 杨晓陆（北京反转志愿者）
38. 马婷娜（北京反转志愿者）
39. 吕霙（北京，退休科技工作者，当年红卫兵）
40. 刘英（广西桂林学者）
41. 陈红兵 (郑州当年红卫兵)
42. 石恒利（辽宁社科院退休研究员）
43. 熊 炬（男，中共党员，诗人，作家，重庆出版社退休干部）
44. 谢明康（男，中共党员，重庆市垫江县城乡建委退休干部）
45. 邬碧海（女，浙江红色事业活动志愿者）
46. 王庆人（天津学者，南开大学教授）
47. 司马平邦（中国名博沙龙常务副主席）
48. 王左军（资深媒体人士、绿色环保人士）
49. 曾有灿（工程师）
50. 陈晶（北京红色事业活动志愿者）
(list of signees awaiting translation, please contact chinastudygroup@gmail.com to help!)
(image from: http://www.flickr.com/photos/shankbone/6199854848/ – David Shankbone)

The Honorable Jimmy Carter
The Carter Center
One Copenhill
453 Freedom Parkway
Atlanta, GA 30307

Dear President Carter:

We actors, artists, writers, teachers, cultural workers and other activists in the struggle for peace and justice in San Antonio, Texas, have read the letter that twenty Actors and Artists United for the Freedom of the Cuban 5 wrote you on April 8. We agree with the contents of that letter, which we have copied below, and we wish to add our names as signers to that letter.

We are sending a copy of this letter to President Barack Obama, to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, to the five Cuban anti-terrorists who are in U.S. prisons, to the National Committee to Free the Cuban Five, and to the U.S. office of the International Committee for the Freedom of the Cuban 5.

Since we are not so well known as the twenty Actors and Artists United for the Freedom of the Cuban 5 who wrote you on April 8, we have added after our names for identification purposes the organization we are with, our title or some other identifier. We speak as individuals. If the organization with which we are associated has taken an official position, the organization will be listed separately.

The following is the text of the April 8 letter to which we are referring:

Dear President Carter:

We, Actors and Artists United for the Freedom of the Cuban 5, want to extend our deepest gratitude for your recent visit to Cuba, as well as our support for your statements promoting improved relations between our countries.

Your call for the release of Gerardo Hernandez Nordelo, Antonio Guerrero Rodriguez, Fernando Gonzalez Llort, Ramon Labanino Salazar, and Rene Gonzalez Sehwerert, known as the Cuban 5, and your willingness to visit with their family members in Cuba mean a great deal to all involved. We strongly agree that there is no reason to keep these men, who were simply trying to protect their country from terrorism, imprisoned any longer.

And certainly, until their release, the US government should grant regular visas in a timely manner, to their family members to visit them.

Your leadership honors the principles upon which our nation was founded. Your calls to remove Cuba from the US State Department’s list of state sponsors of terrorism, to lift the US blockade now having been imposed on Cuba for half a century, and to remove all restrictions imposed on its citizens regarding travel to Cuba (a position supported by 67% of Americans and Cuban Americans), are fair, just and appropriate.

Further, we enthusiastically support you in having subsequent discussions with President Obama and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and hope you will call for urgent action on their part to make right this unjust situation.

Again, we thank you and look forward to the possibility of improved relations and future visits to Cuba.

With respect,

Edward Asner, Co-Chair
Danny Glover, Co-Chair
Jackson Browne
James Cromwell
Mike Farrell
Richard Foos
Elliott Gould
Chrissie Hand
Francisco Letelier
Esai Morales
Graham Nash
Bonnie Raitt
Susan Sarandon
Pete Seeger
Martin Sheen
Betty & Stanley K. Sheinbaum
Andy Spahn
Oliver Stone
Haskell Wexler

Additional San Antonio signers:

Florinda Avalos
Fuerza Unida

Imelda Arismendez
Esperanza Peace and Justice Center

estevan arredondo

Carolyn V. Atkins

Esmeralda Baltazar
Fuerza Unida

Ellen Berky
Architect

Karen Blaesing

Roberto Botello
Artist

Christopher J. Boyle
Esperanza Peace and Justice Center

Alice A. Canestaro-Garcia
Energía Mía

David C. Carlson, Ph.D.
Assistant Professor of History, The University of Texas-Pan American

Viola Casares
Fuerza Unida

Antonia I. Castañeda
Esperanza Peace & Justice Center

Imelda Castillo
S.W.U.

María Castro

Michael G. Castro

Irasema Cavazos
Member of the National Domestic Workers Alliance

Luis Angel Perez Chávez
Fuerza Unida

Magda Chellet
Esperanza Peace & Justice Center

J. George Cisneros
Artist

Laura Parra Codina
Community Activist

Yasmina Codina
Esperanza Peace & Justice Center

Carmen Cuevas-Gross

Dylan Daney

John Dauer
San Antonio, Tx

Yvette B. Davies

Larry V. Don

Sylvia E. Don

Ismael Dovalina
Community College Psychology Instructor

Tim Duda
Activist

Paula Earl-Orozco
Esperanza Peace and Justice Center

Rita Vidaurri Eden

Anel Flores
Guadalupe Cultural Arts Center

Fr. Tom Flower, CFJ
Priest

Gregory Fox
UNITE HERE, Local dissident & activist

John J. Gagliano
Giovanni’s Pizzeria / Deli / Catering

Manuela H. Gallardo
Fuerza Unida

Tina Galvan
Fuerza Unida

Robin Gara
Esperanza Peace and Justice Center

Mariann Garner-Wizard
Youth Emergency Service, Inc.

Anselmo Garza
San Antonio, Tx 78210

Rodney “El RAWdnei” Garza
Poeteatrista of Peace Posse

Sandra A. Gasca

Herb Gonzales, Jr.
Bexar County Green Party member

Erika Gonzalez

Marisa González

María Greenstreet

Jessica O. Guerrero
San Antonio community

Dorcas Veneé Guevara

Norma Guzmán

Amanda Haas
Esperanza Peace and Justice Center

Emma Christina Hernández
Latino Youth Collective

Anna Maria Herrera-Guerra

Bethany Holmes
UNITE HERE!

Martha E. Huerta

José C. Jacobs
Retired Public School teacher, Laredo, Texas

Michael Kaib

Amy Kastely
Esperanza Peace and Justice Center

Olga Kauffman
RITA

Tom Keene
Pax Christi, San Antonio

Judith Cashin Lerma, RNC MSN CCM
National Nurses Organizing Committee – Texas

Paula Littles

Ruth Lofgren
San Antonio Quaker

Peter Maher
Esperanza Peace and Justice Center

Lalo Mani

Adelina Martinez

John V. Martinez
Prisoners Defense Committee

Petra A. Mata
Fuerza Unida

Joel A. Mayer
Democratic Precinct Chair, Pct 2035, San Antonio, Texas

Deirdre McDonald
Librarian

Raymond N. McDonald

Phyllis McKenzie
Esperanza Peace & Justice Center

Rachel D. Melendes

Jessica Mendez
UNITE HERE

Christine Miller
UNITE HERE!

Gabriel Morales

Josefina R. Morales

Andrea Mota
self

Barbara A. Murray

Neifa Nacel-Dovalina
Attorney

Naomi Shihab Nye

Ben Olguin

Frank Ontiveros

Hilda Ortiz
Fuerza Unida

Judith Perez

Lee Roy Perez

Angelica Pinales
Fuerza Unida

Kamala Platt

David H. Plylar
Free man

Richard S. Pressman, PhD
St. Mary’s Universisty

Patti Radle
Former member San Antonio (Texas) City Council

Gloria A. Ramírez
Esperanza Center

Genevieve Rodriguez
“Cuban American!” Miami born & raised Cuban!

Henry Rodriguez
LULAC Civil Rights Chair / District XVI Director

Mary Agnes Rodriguez
Artist/ Muralist

Melissa Rodriguez
Esperanza Peace & Justice Center /Pastors for Peace

Noel Rodriguez
Organizing Director, UNITE HERE Local 11

Jessica Ruvalcaba
Fuerza Unida

Dora Elsa Ruiz
Teacher

Ruby Ruiz

Sally E. Said
University professor

Bernard Sánchez
Esperanza Peace and Justice Center

Enrique Sánchez
Esperanza Center

Graciela Isabel Sanchez
Esperanza Peace and Justice Center

Isabel Sanchez
Esperanza

Michele Nicole Simpson

Larry Skwarczynski
Veterans for Peace Chap/Coodinator #126

John W. Stanford
Peace activist

Joseph A. Stormer
of Seattle, WA

Ricarda María Tello de Cuevas

Albert Tobar
Nurse

Martha Ann Tobar

Charles & Jane Tuck
Fellowship of Reconciliation

Arthur R. Valdez

Ines Valdez
Mujer Artes

Pancho Valdez
Laborer’s Union Local 1095

Mariana Vasquez
MujerArtes

ramon vasquezysanchez

Monica Velasquez

Dee Villarrubia
Bexar County Democratic Party Deputy Chair

Norma Villegas
Fuerza Unida

Roberto & Martha von Ellenrieder
San Antonio, Texas

Michael W. White
Attorney at Law

NOTE: TITLE OR OTHER IDENTIFIER UNDER ABOVE NAMES IS SHOWN FOR IDENTIFICATION ONLY.

email copies sent to:
President Barack Obama
National Committee to Free the Cuban Five
International Committee for the Freedom of the Cuban Five

copies sent by U.S. mail to:

The Honorable Hillary Clinton
Secretary of State
U.S. Department of State
2201 C Street NW
Washington, DC 20520

Antonio Guerrero, #58741-004
FCI Florence
P.O. Box 6000
Florence, CO 81226

Fernando González, in outside envelope addressed to
Rubén Campa, #58733-004
F.C.I. Terre Haute
P.O. Box 33
Terre Haute, IN 47808

Gerardo Hernández, #58739-004
U.S.P. Victorville
P.O. Box 5300
Adelanto, CA 92301

Ramón Labañino, in outside envelope addressed to
Luis Medina, #58734-004
F.C.I. Jesup
2680 301 South
Jesup, GA 31599

René González, #58738-004
F.C.I. Marianna
P.O. Box 7007
Marianna, FL 32447-7007

What can we learn from Karl Marx regarding the swelling second wave of the global economic crisis with its epicenter in Europe?

Writing in the first volume of Capital nearly 150 years ago, Marx added to the end of the first chapter a curious essay entitled “The Fetishism of Commodities and the Secret Thereof.” Coming after a rigorous argument that places the commodity at the center of his analysis of capitalism, section 4 reads like a disclaimer of all that precedes it:

Man’s reflections on the forms of social life, and consequently, also, his scientific analysis of those forms, take a course directly opposite to that of their actual historical development. He begins, post festum, with the results of the process of development ready to hand before him. The characters that stamp products as commodities, and whose establishment is a necessary preliminary to the circulation of commodities, have already acquired the stability of natural, self-understood forms of social life, before man seeks to decipher, not their historical character, for in his eyes they are immutable, but their meaning. Consequently it was the analysis of the prices of commodities that alone led to the determination of the magnitude of value, and it was the common expression of all commodities in money that alone led to the establishment of their characters as values. It is, however, just this ultimate money form of the world of commodities that actually conceals, instead of disclosing, the social character of private labour, and the social relations between the individual producers. When I state that coats or boots stand in a relation to linen, because it is the universal incarnation of abstract human labour, the absurdity of the statement is self-evident.

Nevertheless, when the producers of coats and boots compare those articles with linen, or, what is the same thing, with gold or silver, as the universal equivalent, they express the relation between their own private labour and the collective labour of society in the same absurd form.

The categories of bourgeois economy consist of such like forms. They are forms of thought expressing with social validity the conditions and relations of a definite, historically determined mode of production, viz., the production of commodities. The whole mystery of commodities, all the magic and necromancy that surrounds the products of labour as long as they take the form of commodities, vanishes therefore, so soon as we come to other forms of production.

The “secret” in this section is not only the secret to understanding commodities, even capitalism, but indeed the key to appreciating the Marxian method.

Marxism stands apart from “bourgeois economy” precisely because, through a dedicated study of history and revealed historical patterns, the Marxian method grasps that commodities, like markets, banks, and even today’s credit default swaps, are evolved and evolving human artifacts best understood through the constitutive relations between human actors who consciously construct and employ these instruments. That is to say, these elements, like the social relations that stand behind them, are neither fixed nor eternal, but changing and changeable.

Contrary to the pretentious, puffed up Hegelianism of celebrated pundit Francis Fukiyama, capitalism as we know it is not the “end of history.” And contrary to the triumphalism of iconic political figures like Margaret Thatcher, “There is No Alternative” is a foolish, bombastic slogan.

Yet today’s political leaders and economic thinkers are captured by the “magic and necromancy” of markets, as Marx might put it. They firmly believe that the profound economic crisis currently destroying thousands of lives and chewing up the standards of life of millions more can only be resolved in the narrow straight jacket of bourgeois economics and its eternal theological “laws.” But unlike the laws of nature, bourgeois economic laws reflect social relations, relations of social classes established by power, dominance, and privilege that might well be overturned or modified by human agency. We cannot replace the second law of thermodynamics for a “better” law of physics, but we can replace the current “laws” exhibited by the financial market place with new social relations and, consequently, a new financial order.

As Marx notes, this point is obscured for those unable to envision “other forms of production,” for those dogmatically wedded to the “immutable” laws of bourgeois economics.

With the exception of those fighting austerity and the tyranny of the popes of economic dogma such as the Greek Communist Party and others not constrained by any irrational fetish, the global economy remains strangled by the fetishism of markets and the financial predators exploiting that fetishism.

What is needed urgently is a break with stagnant, self-defeating thinking that elevates the cancerous financial sector and its privileged status among our institutions.

Witness the tragic pandering of progressive, social democratic, and other left political parties to the fetishism of financial markets throughout the world. The never ending demands of the agents of finance – the International Monetary Fund, the European Central Bank, and the European Union functionaries, in the case of Europe – bleed working people of the little they have retained in the face of the economic hurricane unleashed in 2008. Relentlessly, a tiny elite of financial manipulators and their hedge funds, private equity firms and investment banks have extorted concessions in the form of vicious austerity programs imposed on the masses.

The more governments concede in jobs, spending, and public welfare, the worse their economies perform. The worse their economies perform, the greater their debt in relation to economic product. The greater the share of sovereign debt against national product, the greater the concessionary demands of the vultures of finance. And the cycle repeats endlessly. This is the kind of reductio ad absurdum that only a madman could embrace.

The laboratory for this insanity is Greece. For two years financial predators have swarmed the relatively small chunk of international debt held by the Greek government while demanding the surrender of Greek assets and social spending to cover or guarantee those debt claims. The EU leadership could have easily placed this debt in a secure strong box as they did for banks in 2008 and 2009, protecting Greece from the vultures. Instead, they did nothing but collaborate with the assault of the financial sector. That collaboration, along with the compliance of the politically bankrupt PASOK government, brought catastrophe to the Greek people.

Recent exposés of misery in The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal have only scratched the surface of the pain now being endured daily by the workers in Greece.

And the misery will continue with the passage of the latest package of property taxes, salary reductions and layoffs. As these draconian measures, extorted by the titans of finance, further slow the Greek economy, officials will shrilly note that the Greeks are now even further from reducing their national debt and even more crippled by debt service. There will surely be further demands of privatization and austerity.

Unmoved by the fetishism of markets and the iron discipline imposed by its doctrinaire disciples, a growing segment of the Greek population has joined with Greek Communists and militant trade union leaders to simply say “No!” to this voluntary enslavement. For them, there is no fear of crumbling capitalist institutions. There is no civil debate over the fate of extortionate European banks. There is no awe of a future without the imposing structures constructed by European elites to shape Europe to benefit the privileged.

Rather, they face the future with optimism. Instead of “There is No Alternative,” they offer “There must be a Better Way.” The rest of the world would wisely heed this message and take a hard look at the socialist option.

The old Moor, as his friends fondly called Karl Marx, would smile at the slogan: “We will not pay for your crisis!”

Zoltan Zigedy
zoltanzigedy@gmail.com

—
Posted By zoltan zigedy to ZZ’s blog at 10/01/2011 01:39:00 PM