By James Thompson
HOUSTON – The death of 17-year-old Trayvon Martin at the hands of George Zimmerman is certainly tragic. Trayvon Martin was an African-American youth wearing a hoodie in the rain carrying some Skittles and Iced Tea. He was shot by George Zimmerman, a Latino, and subsequently died after a struggle.
A jury composed of all Anglo women acquitted Zimmerman on the basis of self-defense. The trial got the attention of the corporate owned media and there was non-stop coverage. A circus like atmosphere has surrounded the whole affair. It has not been a sober memorial to the death of this youth.
Why would the corporate media focus on the death of one child? Aren’t there wars raging and cities failing in this time of great discontent? The mainstream media also focused on a very articulate and moving talk by President Obama in which he revealed some of the horrific experiences he has had as a black man in America. Why did he choose this moment to share when he has been in office for almost six years now? Protests raged across the country over the weekend.
In Houston, there were rival protests. One supported Trayvon Martin in one of the wealthiest neighborhoods in Houston, River Oaks. Another one was about 2 miles away and was much smaller and supported George Zimmerman. A friend was able to participate in the march supporting Trayvon Martin and sent me text messages throughout. He texted several times about the mounted police and how intimidating they were. He also noted “it’s crazy out here. Crowd almost went nuts when the police split up the group.†He reported there were pro-Zimmerman signs which read “White as America†and “Wear a hoodie in my neighborhood.â€
Two other friends of mine had a disagreement about the trial verdict as well.
There is another tragedy besides the death of Trayvon Martin which has been ignored by the media.
The country has been polarized by this event. African-Americans and Latino-Americans have been effectively split while the media fans the flames. I have not heard any public official call for unity of all people during this nightmare. I have not heard any public official point out that there is horrific racism against both African-Americans and Latino-Americans and that this is a tie that binds them. I have not heard any public official declare that racism hurts people of all races. I have not heard any public official call for people of all races to unite and fight for a better country and better world free of racism.
However, there was a little 8-year old girl, Gabby North, at the rally in Houston who wrote a song which she sang at the event. She sang, “Do they know of the hearts they are breaking? Do they know of the lives they are taking? Do they know black or white we are precious in his eyes? We are one, we are one.â€
Throughout the history of capitalism, splitting has been one of the most effective tactics used by the ownership class. They have split workers through racism in order to lower everyone’s wages. They have split countries, one against another, so that working people from different countries fight while the wealthy become wealthier. Wherever there has been a slaughter, there has been massive wealth made through theft. It is easier to steal from people while they are fighting their neighbor. This is one of the secrets of capitalism. It is easier to steal from the black person while the white person terrorizes the black community. It is easier to steal from the white person while he is distracted by racism.
So while the circus surrounding the tragic death of a young black man distracted people from the larger picture, the corporate media sold working people things they didn’t need. While blacks and whites and browns are fighting, the wealthy people are maximizing their profits with no regard for any of the tragedies surrounding the case of Trayvon Martin.
It was encouraging that the supporters of Trayvon Martin in Houston took their protests to the source of the problem of racism, the wealthy, instead of taking their frustrations about racism out on working people.
Working people can and will wake up and understand the words of an 8 year old girl “We are one. We are one.â€
The Executive Board of the New York City Central Labor Council, AFL-CIO,
unanimously approved a resolution supporting HR 676, national single payer
health care legislation, sponsored by Congressman John Conyers (D-MI).
NYC CLC President Vincent Alvarez calls this resolution “Labor’s way of
standing up for the health and well-being of working men and women and
their families,†noting “The national legislation is a true means of
controlling ever-increasing healthcare costs, while ensuring that
Americans get the medical care they so desperately need.â€
In the resolution, the Council notes that almost every union is forced to
battle and sacrifice to sustain healthcare benefits for members. The
Council also notes that while the United States spends twice as much of
our GDP on healthcare as other developed nations, we remain the only
industrialized country without universal healthcare coverage.
Robert Score, Recording-Corresponding Secretary of IATSE (Theatrical &
Stage Employees) Local One, said “As we all know, nobody in the United
States should have to choose between healthcare and keeping a roof over
their heads, food on their table or clothing on their children. HR 676
will prevent such calamities. I am thankful to President Alvarez for
guiding the NYC CLC to endorse HR 676.” IATSE Local One submitted the
resolution that was passed.
The NYC CLC, the 146th CLC to endorse HR 676, represents 300 local unions
with a total membership of 1.3 million.
In other news also, on July 19th Congresswoman Loretta Sanchez of
California’s 46th district became the 44th co-sponsor of HR 676.
———–
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 Congress, HR 676 has 44 co-sponsors in addition to Conyers.
HR 676 has been endorsed by 605 union organizations including 146 Central
Labor Councils/Area Labor Federations and 43 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, NH, & ID).
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
7/21/13
By James Thompson
HOUSTON – Today, while protests around the country and in Houston raged against the Trayvon Martin verdict, a group of us visited the art exhibit “Coming Thru the Gap in the Mountain on an Elephant.†The exhibit was organized by Robert Pruitt and presented at the University Museum at the Texas Southern University. TSU is the second largest historically black college and university (HBCU) in the United States.
Pruitt earned his degree at TSU in the 1990s and has taught there. He pulled together friends and they have all received support from Project Row Houses in the past. The artists include Regina Agu,Nathaniel Donnett, Robert Hodge, Autumn Knight, Rosine Kouamen, Lovie Olivia, Phillip Pyle II, Sehba Sarwar, Michael Kahlil Taylor, Monica Villarreal and Gregory Michael Carter.
The exhibit makes a number of strong political statements. The title of the exhibition is borrowed from a line of X-Clan’s ‘80s rap song “Tribal Jam.†It references a military tactic by Hannibal, who attacked the Romans around 218 B.C. He drove his army and three dozen elephants from Carthage through the Alps.
In a feature article in the Houston Chronicle, Pruitt is quoted by Molly Glentzer as saying “Everybody in the show exists, in some way, on the margins. They don’t really get to participate in the scene in the way they deserve. We don’t really have access to the market, at least not locally. Even for me, the market is not as supportive as I would like it to be. I was interested in what happens if we all start working as a group, what kind of power can come out of that.â€
Collective Work
Born out of collective work, the artists have created a striking representation of the dialectics of struggle of African Americans in the USA. Many of the works depict the importance of Unity in the struggle for progress among African
Americans.
When you enter the Museum front door, you are confronted with a number of beautiful, colorful fabric bags created by Autumn Knight, Monica Villarreal and Sehba Sarwar. The bags are similar to those used in Africa by the people as they travel from place to place. The bags are what the people use to carry their possessions as they move in search of a better life. In the background you can see Dr. John Biggers’ world famous mural “The web of life.â€
Dialectics
At one corner of the exhibit, the viewer comes face to face with a work which symbolizes the dialectics of blacks and whites in the U.S. At one end is a white mask-like material which is labeled “alien material.†At the other end is a very menacing figure suspended in space which is totally black. It is labeled an “unidentified pod/spaceship – the Yariyatripn.†In the center of this area of the exhibit is a display of colorful roaches on pins which are labeled as various corporations such as Wal Mart and others. On the wall behind this are images of black activists and leaders. The activists and leaders have been white washed so that their faces are white and include people such as Angela Davis, Barbara Jordan and Harriet Tubman.
Unity
A work by Monica Villareal titled “Pantli†is a red figure symbolizing the importance of Unity in the struggle. Another work titled “The Medallion for the Contemporary African Immigrant†symbolizes the importance of the unity of all the races in the struggle for power.
If you are in Houston, do yourself a favor and visit the exhibit. Better yet, bring a group of friends.
For more information, contact:
University Museum
Texas Southern University
3100 Cleburne Ave. Houston, TX 77004
Phone: (713)313-7120
By A. Shaw
This website of the Houston Communist Party is a Marxist Leninist space that respects and exercises the principle of freedom of expression. Recently our own freedom of expression was disrespected and interrupted by a hacker who knocked out this website for two weeks. The evidence that has so far surfaced points to the CPUSA as the source of this disrespect and interruption [the CPUSA includes the “official†CPUSA Houston club or the Texas district office or the National office or some or all of the above.] If this conclusion about the complicity of the CPUSA is in error in any way or to any degree the Houston Communist Party invites representatives of the units of the CPUSA to respond. This website, respecting the principle of freedom of expression, will publish any such response. This club views freedom of expression as superior to freedom of suppression of expression.
By James Thompson
HOUSTON – On May 12, 1970 Radio Station KPFT of Houston was bombed off the air by two well-known KKK operatives. They effectively silenced the young, left leaning radio station affiliated with the Pacifica network for three weeks. However, the radio station returned to the air and has been airing progressive voices since then.
On 7/7/2013 the Houston Communist Party website was hacked and taken off the internet without permission. On 7/12/2013 a message appeared when our web address was accessed which read “FAKE COMMUNIST PARTY WEBSITE.†If you clicked on this message it took you to the “official†club of the CPUSA in Houston. It is sad that the reactionaries that hacked us simultaneously left a trail revealing their crime and branded themselves as a “Fake Communist Party Website.â€
The “official†club of the CPUSA is a split off from the original Houston Communist Party club. The split occurred last summer in July, when two CPUSA henchmen arrived in Houston without informing the club’s leadership of their plans. They secretly met with club members individually and attempted to persuade them to join the new club “officially†sanctioned by the powers that be within the CPUSA. Less than half the membership of the club defected to the new club.
So the new club was born in a context of splitting, sectarianism, factionalism, opportunism, and sabotage.
The original club has maintained the position throughout this ordeal that there is enough room in Houston for two Communist Party clubs and has wished the new club every success in supporting the working class in Houston. It should be noted that Houston has the largest number of industrial jobs in the USA, far ahead of the runner up, New York City. It seems appropriate that there would be a struggle between reactionary anti-Communists and Communists in Houston.
However, the new club seems to be taking the position that there can only be one Communist Party club in Houston and they are the club anointed by the reactionary leadership of the CPUSA. They seem to be echoing the line from the wild west “This town ain’t big enough for both of us!â€
When these individuals were in the original club, they constantly raised the issue of democratic centralism in a heavy handed attempt to smother open discussion and criticism of the party leadership and its tailing of the Democratic party and failure to maintain an anti-imperialist stance.
It should be noted that the CPUSA constitution, which the Houston Communist Party supports and upholds, categorically prohibits espionage and sectarianism. It appears pretty obvious that the “official†club of the CPUSA in Houston has violated both these principles.
The “official†club of the CPUSA in Houston has distinguished themselves by employing similar tactics used by the KKK in Houston in 1970 in an attempt to silence KPFT. The KKK was unsuccessful. The CPUSA through their local proxy has attempted to silence us by hacking our website. They have been unsuccessful as well.
The Houston Communist Party has been attacked by Glenn Beck and many other reactionaries. We view these attacks as confirmation that we are on the right track since we have maintained an unwavering support of the working class since our inception. Although the CPUSA has and continues to deviate from this line, we intend to move forward and oppose revisionism and opportunism and anti-Communism within the Communist movement. If you want to fight for the interests of the working class, join us. If you want to maintain a cowardly position of fighting free speech and suppressing working class voices, join the other side. Which side are you on?
– from Zoltan Zigedy is available at:
As the panic over the destiny of the Federal Reserve’s “quantitative easing†program reaches hysterical proportions, uncommonly bizarre economic anomalies are surfacing. In the last week of June, the news that first quarter US Gross Domestic Product growth report was reduced dramatically from 2.4% to 1.8% was met by an equally dramatic, but paradoxical positive jump in equity markets. Normally, a rather staggering drop in GDP estimates would trigger stock market losses– investor confidence would be battered. But the opposite occurred.
What’s going on?
Pundits and investors hailed the bad news because they hope that it will keep the Federal Reserve committed to the $85 billion per month bond purchasing project dubbed “quantitative easing.†They believe that the Fed would not dare to relax the program in the face of poor economic performance. And they recognize that without the Fed’s foot firmly pressing the accelerator, the capitalist economy will stagnate or slow. The Federal Reserve program is truly a life-support system for our economy, and capitalism’s apologists recognize that they are in deep trouble without it. Therefore, investors welcomed the fall in GDP growth!
Even Paul Krugman, the popular voice of social democratic theory in the US, has caught the contagion of fear. In a late-June appeal in The New York Times (Et tu, Ben?) to Federal Reserve head, Ben Bernanke, Krugman calls for the Fed to keep its foot aggressively on the gas pedal. A firm advocate of an alternative policy option, fiscal stimulus (spending on infrastructure, public works, etc), Krugman holds his nose and urges the continuation of the Fed’s monetary stimulus program of printing money for bond purchases.
So why can’t we just all agree to get along and urge the Federal Reserve to keep printing dollars?
In the first place, the Fed’s policy of dollar-printing promiscuity is losing its healing powers. The effect of the purchase of government debt– Treasury notes– in order to restrain bond yields and interest rates has diminished since mid-2012. Moreover, the Fed remedy has lost its magic entirely in May and June of this year, with the yield on the 10-year Treasury note rising by two-thirds, mortgage rates jumping about 27% from March to the end of June, and the US and European (except Germany) bond market experiencing a sell-off. All of these indicators demonstrate that quantitative easing, as a stimulus policy, is simply losing its punch.
The Federal Reserve sees its injection of $85 billion into the economy every month as a hedge against the dreaded deflation, a sure companion to stagnation or negative growth. They watch to see when inflation crosses their target of 2% in order to slap on the brakes to avoid an overheated economy. But there is no reason for the Fed to fret: inflation is well below their target, a clear sign that without monetary stimulus we would be in a deflationary period. Corporations are hoarding cash rather than investing: they are holding 5.6% of their total assets in cash, against a forty year average of 4.4%. It was weak business investment, in part, that caused the first quarter GDP growth revision downward by 25%.
The Chicago Federal Reserve’s three-month moving average National Activity index remained in negative territory, underlining the diminishing effects of quantitative easing.
Aside from its ineffectiveness, quantitative easing poses more serious, more fundamental problems: Fed monetary promiscuity distorts markets and masks underlying economic processes. Given that a capitalist economy is an enormously complex organism made up of mutually interactive actors, commodities and processes, manipulating some of the central elements such as interest rates, the money supply, debt growth, etc. can have unforeseen and damaging repercussions in other sectors of the economy. Mechanisms fail and balances are disrupted. A therapy becomes an injury. This is a lesson that the leadership of the Peoples’ Republic of China is learning from the volatility created by its shadow banking sector. Even with majority public ownership of the biggest banks, the informal private sector distorts the impact of policy decisions.
In Marxist terms, the massive Federal Reserve intervention in financial markets violates the law of value. That is, it replaces the exchange of equivalent-for-equivalent in financial markets, with exchanges determined independently of market forces by the officers of the Fed. Those exchanges must, at some point, be reconciled; but in the meantime, they distort exchange relationships in other sectors of the economy. They create a disconnect between the financial sector and the signals sent to the productive economy. They distort the rate of profit in the financial sector, channeling capital into speculation and over-reliance on cheap credit. It’s no wonder that corporations hoard cash and seek higher returns on retained capital and easily available capital.
In reality, quantitative easing invites the very conditions that led to the 2007-8 collapse.
And we are now seeing omens in the economic data.
The exuberant 2013 stock market is suffering a retreat, but even more ominously, demonstrating growing volatility. Last year, the small investor jumped back in the market, a sure sign that a bear market was in sight. Much of the volatility comes from market manipulators exploiting the amateur day-traders. Like the swaggering Vegas weekend gambler, they are ripe for the picking. One can watch the picking by following the end-of-day trading; they don’t know when to get in or when to get out.
US exports are pulling back.
The post-World War II record profits reported in 2012 are threatened. Of 108 companies scheduled to report profits in the second quarter of 2013, 87 offered negative guidance to their shareholders. Falling profits, contrary to underconsumption theorists, are a better predictor of a downturn than falling consumption. Consumption generally falls as a result and as an amplifier of economic decline.
Today, US consumption hangs precariously in the balance. While savings are declining, wages are in free fall. The year ending in September 2012 experienced a wage decline of 1.1%. First quarter estimates augur a shocking decline. The consumer is simply running out of money, savings, and available credit.
And the just announced June unemployment figures actually show an increase in the more telling U6 calculation to 14.3%. That rate includes those who have dropped out of the job market and those working part-time but desiring a full-time job.
Not a promising picture.
In most of the world’s capitalist countries, the labor movements and left political parties have yet to decouple their fate from that of the monopoly capital, profit-driven, market-governed system. They are like ships on turbulent waters unwilling to bring their vessels and crew to port. They are simply counting on the storm to subside. They are neither prepared for nor expecting a hurricane or a shipwreck. After five disastrous years, one would hope that left and labor leaders would began to look for alternatives to capitalism, a safe haven for their fellow passengers.
Zoltan Zigedy
