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On February 25, 2013, the Executive Board of the Rhode Island AFL-CIO
unanimously endorsed HR 676, Expanded and Improved Medicare for All, the
national single payer legislation recently reintroduced into Congress by
Rep. John Conyers, Jr. (D. MI).

George Nee, President of the Rhode Island AFL-CIO stated, “Year after
year America continues to spend more and get less in return for our broken
health care system, something must be done. The Rhode Island AFL-CIO
strongly supports single-payer national health care as a way to insure all
Americans, cut wasteful spending out of our health care system, and
contain costs in a system where prices are spinning out of control. All
Americans should have access to high quality affordable health care, that
does not jeopardize the financial or physical well-being of themselves,
their families, or the companies they work for.”

The vote followed a presentation on single payer health care by J. Mark
Ryan, MD, FACP, President of the state chapter of Physicians for a
National Health Program (PNHP). Dr. Ryan is an internist in Providence
where he provides primary care at the University Medicine Foundation. “I
was very impressed at how knowledgeable the Executive Board members were
about HR 676 and the benefits of single payer national health care,” Dr.
Ryan told the All Unions Committee.

The Rhode Island AFL-CIO is the umbrella organization for more than 250
local unions which represent over 80,000 working men and women across the
state. The story on the RI AFL-CIO website is here:
http://riaflcio.org/story/rhode-island-afl-cio-executive-board-adopts-resolutions

HR 676 would institute a single payer health care system by expanding a
greatly improved Medicare 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 113th Congress, HR 676 has 41 co-sponsors in addition to
Conyers.

HR 676 has been endorsed by 598 union organizations including 144 Central
Labor Councils/Area Labor Federations and 41 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, NJ, NY, NV,
MA, & RI).

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
3/17/2013

by A. Shaw

The bourgeoisie and the bourgeois media argue that that the current Venezuelan Government is not a democracy because the government doesn’t respect the principle of rule of law, a principle that is fundamental to all democracies. The capitalist forces point to Article 233 of the Constitution as an instance of proletarian and revolutionary disregard for the rule of law.

The bourgeois media in Venezuela as well as abroad argue that, under Article 233 of the Venezuelan Constitution, the chair of the National Assembly, not the vice president of the country, becomes acting president for the 30-day period that precede the election of a new president to replace the old president who is permanently unavailable to serve as president.

Since D.Cabello chairs the National Assembly, reactionaries insist that Cabello, not former vice president N. Maduro, should be the acting president of Venezuela until a new president is elected in 30 days.

There is no question that the second paragraph of Article 233 says something like this. Here’s how the second paragraph of 233 puts it “When an elected President becomes permanently unavailable to serve prior to his inauguration, a new election by universal suffrage and direct ballot shall be held within 30 consecutive days. Pending election and inauguration of the new President, the President of the National Assembly shall take charge of the Presidency of the Republic.”

Unquestionably, the death of a president is a permanent unavailability to serve. Hugo Chavez died on March 5 before his inauguration. Indeed, Chavez was never inaugurated for the current constitutional term of office — Jan. 2013 to Jan 2019. So, it seems that the second paragraph of Article 233 supplies some support for the view of the bourgeoisie.

The revolutionary proletariat and the mass of the proletarian media that has addressed the question point to the third paragraph of Art. 233 which says “When the President of the Republic becomes permanently unavailable to serve during the first four years of this constitutional term of office, a new election by universal suffrage and direct ballot shall be held within 30 consecutive days. Pending election and inauguration of the new President, the Executive-Vice President shall take charge of the Presidency of the Republic.”

So, the second paragraph of the article says the chair of the National Assembly becomes acting president when the the president-elect becomes permanently disabled before inauguration. The third paragraph of the article says, on the other hand, that the vice president becomes acting president if the president becomes permanently unavailable during the first four years of his constitutional term.

In another article, the Constitution mentions Jan. 10 of the first year of the constitutional term of president as BOTH a possible date for an presidential inauguration and as the date on which the first year of the constitutional term begins whether or not an inauguration occurs..

This suggests a reason for some of the confusion over Article 233. Hugo Chavez became permanently unavailable to serve BOTH before his inauguration and during the first four years of his constitutional term of office. So, both the second and third paragraphs of 233 are applicable to Chavez’s succession.

This situation can’t require the appointment of two acting presidents — that is, the appointment of the chair of the National Assembly due the absence of an inauguration and the appointment of the vice president due to the presence of the first four years of the constitutional term. The idea of appointing two acting presidents for a period of 30 days is ridiculous. Since both second and third paragraphs are applicable.

Thus, either paragraph can be applied.

The National Assembly and supreme court had to choose between the second and third paragraphs of 233. Both the Assembly and the Court chose the third paragraph and picked the vice president for acting president.

By Arthur Shaw

Article 229 of the Venezuelan Constitution says “A person holding the office of Executive Vice-President, Minister or Governor, or Mayor as of the date he announces his candidacy or at any time between such date and that of the Presidential election shall not be eligible for election to the office of President of the Republic.”

So, the Constitution disqualifies the holders of four offices — e.g., VP, minister, governor, and mayor — as presidential candidates.

The two major candidates are Nicolas Maduro, the socialist candidate, and Henrique Capriles, the capitalist candidate. There will be six other candidates on the ballot. But the other six candidates don’t have a ghost of a chance of winning on April 14.

Maduro, the proletarian candidate, holds the office of acting president since March 8th this year. He was sworn in as acting president three days after the death of President Hugo Chavez. Earlier Maduro served as executive vice president, one of the four offices that Art. 229 prohibits. Clearly, as a sitting VP, Maduro would have been disqualified under Art. 229 to run for president unless he stepped down before he announced.

Capriles, the bourgeois candidate, holds the office of governor of the state of Miranda. During the race between Capriles and Hugo Chavez for the office of president in 2012, Capriles, who was then governor of Miranda, temporarily stepped down and reassumed the office of governor of Miranda after his defeat by Hugo Chavez on Oct. 7, 2012.

Now, Capriles is hinting and acting as if he will refuse to step down as governor of the state of Miranda before the period beginning with the announcement of his candidacy for president and the April 14 presidential election. April 1 and 2 have been set for the dates of announcement for Capriles and Maduro respectively. So, Capriles may announce his candidacy as a deliberately unqualified candidate, provoking a constitutional crisis designed to de-legitimise succession.

A number of outlets of the bourgeois media in Venezuela and abroad argue that Maduro is disqualified because he is still the VP, a prohibited office under Art. 229. and because he will remain VP until another president is elected on April 14. This is of course the kind of crackpot argument that excites and attracts the bourgeois media.

Most of the opinion polls show Capriles presently about 13 points behind Maduro. The opinion polls have credibility because they correctly picked who would win the Oct. 7 presidential race between Capriles and Chavez and these polls correctly guessed the margin by which Capriles would lose to Chavez. In addition, these polls largely foresaw the outcome of the Dec. 2012 regional elections of 23 governor seats.

So, Capriles may figure he has nothing to lose by contriving his own disqualification as a candidate.

Neither the world bourgeoisie nor the mass of the bourgeois media abroad supported the 2005 lunatic idea of the Venezuelan capitalists demanding the boycotting of the 2005 legislative elections in order to de-legitimise Venezuelan democracy. Almost everybody, including the international bourgeoisie and its media, thought in 2005 that the boycotting Venezuelan capitalists were a bunch of fools after they adopted lunatic tactics.

Some observers believe Capriles is only playing around with self-disqualification in order to appease the kooks in the bourgeois-led coalition which supports Capriles. If this is the case, the kooks may be very upset if Capriles steps down as governor before he announces for president on April 1.

By Darrell Rankin, People’s Voice, March 16, 2013
http://www.peoplesvoice.ca/

Hundreds of delegates are expected to attend the Canadian Labour Congress’s largest-ever political action conference, which will plan how to defeat the Harper government, March 22-24 in Toronto.

The most highly managed conference will produce a life of its own when a government is ripping a country apart and selling it part by part. The Communist Party has called for a broad, political action conference for many years, and it is important that the most be made of it.

The conference’s success will be measured by how it organizes the fight, especially before the election, not just during the short stampede to the polls called the campaign period.

On the positive side, there is a focus on key issues like labour rights (the attack on the Rand formula and the closed shop), the Aboriginal question in the labour movement, creating industrial jobs, equality of women, child care, privatization, and green energy.

Some focus is on rebuilding once-vibrant coalitions, like those that thrived in the 1980s fighting against free trade and for nuclear disarmament. The new coalitions need to include those entering political life today, activists fighting for Aboriginal rights and the environment, students against tuition hikes, the Occupy movement.

Many CLC affiliates already have their separate campaigns targeting the Harper Tories. The problem for the CLC and this conference is to send a message: Bring these efforts together! Unite, locally and across Canada.

Local and regional coalitions will be a basis for strong Canada-wide coalitions; these played an important part defeating the Mulroney-Campbell Tories in 1993, and they are needed now.

There are difficulties. The agenda is heavy on workshops like working with media. No time is available for different movement caucuses to meet. The agenda has little or nothing for anti-war, environmental or anti-free trade movements, all historically connected to the labour movement. The lack of travel equalization, income-related fees, or billets makes it expensive for many activists outside Toronto.

The main thing, though, is that the conference is taking place. When hundreds of people start to talk, they can produce the sparks that will push the Tories to defeat. All popular movements in Canada need the active involvement of the labour movement as never before.

It will be hard to match the send-off to the Mulroney-Campbell government in 1993, when the CLC helped rally 100,000 people on Parliament Hill, through the anti-free trade Pro-Canada Network. Such rallies can and should take place again, this fall and before the election.

The Harper government is carrying out a vicious attack on the labour movement and workers as a whole. The time has come for more thought about stronger measures in the fightback, including work stoppages which are now common in many European and Asian countries.

The attack begs for political strikes in reply, even at a time when the economic struggle expressed by strikes or lockouts remains at historically low levels in Canada.

In 1988, the CLC targeted 50 Tory MPs for defeat in one of the Canada’s most important elections dealing with Canada-U.S. Free Trade. The next election is equally important. If the CLC will carry out a similar campaign next election, groups need to sign-up at the conference and get to work. Time is short.

There is no shortage of political action to take against the narrow, utterly selfish Harper Tory agenda which is leading us to disaster. Developing and mobilizing for a broad, emancipatory alternative, the CLC can help defeat Toryism and its big business agenda. If it’s done well, the defeat will last forever.

Darrell Rankin represented the Canadian Peace Alliance at the Pro-Canada Network, the Action Canada Network and the Solidarity Network. A short version of this is in People’s Voice, March 16, 2013.

Info: Darrell Rankin (204) 792-3371

This month a group of socialist and republican activists from a variety of backgrounds throughout Ireland came together in Dublin to establish the Peadar O’Donnell Socialist Republican Forum. The concept of the forum arose from a series of seminars that in turn had their origin in a symposium on “Republicanism in the Twenty-First Century” hosted by the Communist Party in September last year.

The aim of the forum is to promote the ideas of socialist republicanism, as best expressed by James Connolly, Liam Mellows, and Peadar O’Donnell. The forum is named after Peadar O’Donnell in recognition of his outstanding role as a union organiser, republican soldier, author, enemy of fascism, friend of the worker and small farmer, committed socialist, and lifelong activist for peace and against imperialism.

At a time when our people are being ground down daily by the brutalities of the bankrupt capitalist system and the inability of the two failed states in Ireland to provide any solution to their problems, the Peadar O’Donnell Forum believes that the time has come for a decisive break with the present system—or, as Connolly so memorably put it, to set about the reconquest of Ireland.

All Ireland is under the domination of global capitalism and imperialism, which exercises its control through the machinery of the European Union and IMF, the direct intervention of the British state, and overt and covert US influence. This control is exercised at every level and in every area of life—economically, socially, politically, ideologically, culturally, and environmentally—and is welcomed, endorsed and facilitated by the domestic capitalist class, north and south, who have long ago given up any thought of creating a society
that would “cherish all the children of the nation equally.”

Our children emigrate in their tens of thousands, while their parents labour ever-longer hours for lower wages—not to maintain jobs, health, education and essential social services for the people but to sacrifice those to further bolster the obscene wealth and protect the super-profits of global finance capital, the source and cause of the crisis.

The Peadar O’Donnell Forum believes that ways and means must be found to challenge this reality, to devise and develop campaigns and policies that take account of all these factors and that mobilise the people to take control of their own destiny and bypass corrupt politicians and the failed systems that they represent and to set about building a 32-county
socialist republic.

Towards this end, the forum has set itself the initial task of organising a number of seminars around the country, which can provide an opportunity for those who subscribe to the principles of the forum to come together and discuss the application of socialist republican ideas to the problems that confront us. It is also intended to publish the papers from the original seminars.

Support for these ventures is sought from all those who subscribe to the principles underpinning the forum and those that reflect the debates and discussion that have
taken place:

• active opposition to the rule of imperialism in Ireland, whether exercised through the diktats of the European Union and IMF over Dáil Éireann and through the British state and its client assembly in Belfast;

• support for the maintenance and protection of Irish neutrality, and solidarity with all those struggling against imperialism for peace, independence, and social progress;

• recognition of the essentially anti capitalist nature of our struggle: capitalism cannot and will not solve our problems;

• understanding that change can be brought about only by people themselves, in the first place by actively defending their immediate interests but more importantly by confronting and defeating this system and the forces and structures that defend it;

• accepting that, in the conditions existing in Ireland today, there is no place for militarism or the use of armed force and that the continued recourse to violence is harmful to the development and furthering of mass politics, playing into the hands of those who are
opposed to Irish independence and unity;

• believing that our vision of a united socialist Ireland can be brought about only by the unity in action of the people, north and south, Catholic, Protestant, and Dissenter; this necessitates active opposition to all forms of sectarianism and racism and the promotion of equality at all levels of society;

• recognition of the centrally important role of the trade union movement, uniting as it does within its ranks half a million workers of all religions and none, north and south, in public and in private sector employment; it must be won for active resistance to the current austerity and a return to the radical policies of Connolly and Larkin.

Finally, we strongly affirm our belief that the unity we seek is fundamentally a unity of the people and not merely the territorial integrity of the island.

Contacts
Tommy Mc Kearney 087 239 0750
Hugh Corcoran 0044 77 06391 728 (Belfast)
Eugene Mc Cartan 087 7525051

Here is a link to the movie “The revolution will not be televised”:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Id–ZFtjR5c