Buffalo Forum

Spitzer Calls on All to Line Up Behind “One New York” For the Rich

2008-03-24T16:14:00.002-04:00

Governor Elliot Spitzer recently delivered his State of the State address. In it he echoes the promotion by the ruling circles that “we are all in this together,” and that rich and poor share the same vision. As he put it, there is “one New York,” and “we rise or fall together.” He said, “We must focus with a singular purpose on an agenda for economic growth and opportunity.”

Spitzer attempts to blur the reality that the interests of the workers directly conflict with the interests of the monopolies by using terms like “partners” and “we.” He begins his speech by addressing “the members of the legislature of the State of New York,” as well as his “partners in government,” and “all of our partners outside of state government.”

He says: “We New Yorkers can build anything, invent anything, do anything. We know the value of hard work, of passion and intensity, of getting up early in the morning to plant or trade or build or teach. We know how to raise tall towers one brick at a time, how to dig long canals one shovel at a time, and how to build successful businesses one customer at a time. We know the value of a dollar invested wisely. We know the value of unstinting determination. We know how to make something out of nothing. We know how to turn vision into reality” (emphasis added). In this manner, rich and poor alike have the same vision, and that is supposedly to turn New York into a state that is more prosperous for the rich. Spitzer evidently expects New Yorkers to ignore the grinding poverty, unemployment, lack of healthcare, increasing homelessness, and hunger that is rampant in every city and rural area statewide.

In addition, Spitzer warns of an escalation of the government’s anti-social offensive that has already seen the wrecking of public schools, healthcare and cultural facilities. Spitzer acknowledges, “We see the economic storm clouds gathering. Those storms will hit cities and neighborhoods around the state that, as we know too well, are already struggling.” Instead of speaking to government responsibility to increase funding for social programs to contend with this “storm,” he says, “We must adapt to the fiscal realities that are now upon us. We must make the hard choices necessary to live within our means – recognizing that every choice must help the people of New York invent a better future.”

Providing an example of what he means by a “better future,” Spitzer cites the control board in New York City in the 1970s as an example of how things can be turned around and “prosperity” can be restored. He says that as a result of these arrangements, “New York City’s economy has driven us to a new prosperity” (emphasis added). He adds: “We knew that as One New York, we would rise or fall together. Now is the time for us to come together and do for Upstate in our time what our predecessors did for New York City a generation ago.”

But as the people of Buffalo, Erie County, and several other cities and counties across the state have experienced, state-imposed control boards contribute directly to lowering the standard of living and conditions of work for thousands of workers and their families. In Buffalo, thousands of teachers, firefighters and city workers were laid off, wages were frozen and Buffalo now has the second highest level of poverty in the country. And the Control Board is still not satisfied with the “hard choices” needed to further attack the rights to education, healthcare and livelihoods.

After issuing yet more warnings of coming attacks on the people, Spitzer makes another effort to line up everyone behind his program to pay the rich: “What are we striving for? What is our vision? Quite simply, to make New York the best place in the world to live, work, and raise a family — to make it, once again, the center of economic growth and opportunity. All of us in this room really do agree on what it will take to achieve this: Good jobs, and more of them; better schools; good, affordable healthcare; strong, safe, and vibrant neighborhoods; and lower taxes. Do not underestimate the power of this consensus.” Here Spitzer is attempting to use the demands of the people — for government to meet rights to education, housing and healthcare — to convince them to accept the vision of the ruling class, for “economic growth and opportunity” for the rich.

Spitzer continues by saying, “we came together to produce real change.” The “real changes” he is referring to are direct attacks on the workers. He says there are “shared achievements,” which include undermining the ability of workers to get workers’ compensation while also funneling billions of dollars from the compensation fund into the hands of the monopolies. This is taking place at a time that “Conservative estimates suggest that between 500,000 and one million New York workers who should be covered by workers’ compensation are not,” (2007 Fiscal Policy Institute report).

Spitzer claims, “Working together, we fixed the broken workers’ compensation system, saving businesses billions of dollars.” “As a result,” he says, “New York businesses have seen a 20 percent drop in workers’ compensation rates in one year alone, saving businesses over a billion dollars a year.” Spitzer also promotes New York’s Empire Zones, where million have been handed over to the monopolies in exchange for jobs that were never provided (see p.3).

Increase Funding for Education Now
Spitzer’s “historic investment in our schools” falls billions of dollars short of what state courts have repeatedly ordered for investments in education. His plan for “growth and opportunity” involves cutting more funding for public schools and consolidating arrangements to ensure greater executive control of public schools. The specific mechanism used to achieve this aim is the so-called “Contracts for Excellence” (see Buffalo Forum, February 8 issue). Almost half of the State’s students are now enrolled in schools with “Contracts for Excellence.” Spitzer recently added that another $350 million will be cut from funding for education.

Healthcare is a Right
Healthcare is also to be cut in the name of “growth and opportunity.” Spitzer says: “We cut Medicaid spending by a billion dollars, and for the first time in nearly a decade, actually lowered costs.” These cuts are done on the backs of the state’s most vulnerable members. Healthcare is a right, not a cost! Spitzer does not mention that last year saw some of the largest public protests ever against the state’s cuts to healthcare. Tens of thousands of people from all walks of life and from every region of the state organized many different actions, including petitions, conferences, rallies, and marches, to reverse or block the actions recommended in the infamous Berger Commission Report (BCR).

The BCR, endorsed by Spitzer, is used to justify the closing of many hospitals across the state and elimination of many vital services at many others, greatly harming the quality and accessibility of healthcare for all New Yorkers. Today at least 2.6 million New Yorkers — 400,000 of them children — remain uninsured while millions more struggle to pay for limited coverage.

Housing is a Right
Spitzer also talked about a modest increase in funding for housing (a $400 million “Housing Opportunity Fund”) at a time when more New Yorkers are experiencing homelessness and a tens of thousands face foreclosure. According to a 2007 fact sheet from the National Coalition for the Homeless, “in the mid-1990s in New York, families stayed in a shelter an average of five months before moving on to permanent housing. Today, the average stay is seven months, and some surveys say the average is closer to a year (U. S. Conference of Mayors, 2005 and Santos, 2002).”

Reject Police-State Arrangements
While cutting education, healthcare, workers compensation and more, Spitzer will increase funding for policing, sending an additional 200 state troopers to the upstate region, including Western New York. New York City’s subway system will also be further militarized. Spitzer proposes deploying more National Guard troops to keep the system “safe.” He claims, “Nothing makes a neighborhood feel safer than a cop on the corner.” Spitzer also promised to establish other police-state arrangements such as “Crime Analysis Centers” with joint sharing of information among policing agencies. These will be located in various major Upstate cities.

Paying the Rich
A main way that billions of dollars in public funds will be handed over to the rich by the state in the name of “growth and opportunity” will be through tax cuts and public funding for infrastructure for the monopolies, including a one billion dollar “Revitalization Fund” for monopolies in Upstate New York (see Buffalo Forum, February 1 issue).

Another way is through debt service payments on state debt. The state expects to pay the banks about $4.9 billion in debt service next year and, by 2012, that figure will be $6.7 billion.

State debt hit almost $51 billion in the fiscal year that ended March 31, 2007, an increase from $39 billion in 2002-03. The state now has $2,641 in debt per resident. At current borrowing rates, where debt has increased 30 percent in five years, the state will owe $3,263 per resident by the 2011-12 fiscal year.

If all state-funded debt is counted, New York State has over $100 billion in debt. Ninety percent of state debt is illegal, as it is not voter approved as required by the constitution. State Comptroller Thomas P. DiNapoli brings out, “Debt is not a cost-free option. Every dollar we spend on paying off debt is another dollar that can’t be used for other public needs and services.” Despite the fact that the borrowing is unconstitutional, despite the fact that the financiers can easily afford a freeze, Spitzer refuses to call for an immediate freeze on paying the debt so that public dollars can be used for public needs.

Spitzer dedicates the end of his speech to renewing calls for lining up behind the program of the ruling class to pay the rich. He says: “We can work together for the common good, despite any political or personal differences, and we must.” He reminds everyone that “Thomas Jefferson issued a call to unity between the two major parties of his day, by saying, ‘We are all republicans, we are all federalists’.” Then, using this analogy, Spitzer states: “We in this chamber are all New Yorkers. We are all upstaters, we are all downstaters. We are urban and suburban, rural and small town. We are Albany and Buffalo, Glens Falls and Manhattan, Elmira and Pleasantville. We have work to do, a lot of work, for the people who sent us here. That must be our shared determination, our only commitment, and our guiding star” (emphasis added).

Working people of New York do not share this vision of the ruling circles and their politicians for a state and country that does not recognize the rights of the people and increasingly turns over public funds for the prosperity of the rich.

Red Salute to the Cuban People and Their Revolution!

2008-03-24T16:09:00.000-04:00

When Cuba’s revolutionary patriot and leader Fidel Castro sent a message to Cubans and the world February 18, saying he would not be a candidate in the February 24 National Assembly election of the State Council, the U.S. rulers used the occasion to insult the Cuban people and demand that they submit to U.S.-style democracy. President George W. Bush said he hoped there would now be “a democratic transition for the people of Cuba…An interesting debate will arise. Some will say let us promote stability. In the meantime, political prisoners will rot…This should be a transition to free and fair elections.” This coming from a president notorious for being selected as president — not once but twice — in elections that were not free or fair.

The Cuban people have long withstood U.S. interference and attacks, including the criminal U.S. blockade, attempted invasions, state-organized terrorism that includes blowing up tourist hotels and an airliner, more than 600 attempts to assassinate Fidel, the long-standing and unending effort of U.S. presidents to dictate Cuba’s affairs to the Cuban people.

At the time of Fidel’s announcement and since, Bush and the Democrats have continued non-stop since condemning the Cubans and threatening yet more interference. Democrats and Republicans are together proclaiming, sitting in the U.S. that they can tell the Cuban’s how they should hold their elections and govern their country.

Senator Barack Obama said February 18, “Today should mark the end of a dark era in Cuba’s history. Fidel Castro’s stepping down is an essential first step, but it is sadly insufficient in bringing freedom to Cuba. Cuba’s future should be determined by the Cuban people and not by an anti-democratic successor regime. The prompt release of all prisoners of conscience wrongly jailed for standing up for the basic freedoms too long denied to the Cuban people would mark an important break with the past. It is time for these heroes to be released. If the Cuban leadership begins opening Cuba to meaningful democratic change, the United States must be prepared to begin taking steps to normalize relations and to ease the embargo of the last five decades. The freedom of the Cuban people is a cause that should bring the Americans together.” Obama is certainly aware of the achievements of the Cuban people over the past 50 years of revolutionary struggle — achievements in universal healthcare, literacy and universal education, and fraternal relations among the peoples, including their internationalist efforts to assist in the elimination of South African apartheid. The “dark era” is that belonging to the U.S. government, which has systematically attempted to dictate to the Cubans, while themselves maintaining a system of apartheid and racism in the U.S. Far from siding with the people, Obama is shamefully voicing the dream of the U.S. imperialists to once again enslave Cuba, all in the name of freedom. The peoples of the world also know that it is the U.S. that must release the Cuban Five heroes, political prisoners held in the U.S.

It is the U.S. that has responsibilities, to the Cubans and the world. Cuba has and continues to fulfill her responsibilities as a nation that defends the rights of Cubans, including defending Cuba’s right to determine her own affairs, and as a nation that consistently stands up against imperialism and for the world’s peoples.

Senator Hillary Clinton, like Bush and Obama, said “The new leadership in Cuba will face a stark choice — continue with the failed policies of the past that have stifled democratic freedoms and stunted economic growth — or take a historic step to bring Cuba into the community of democratic nations. The people of Cuba want to seize this opportunity for real change and so must we…The new government should take this opportunity to release political prisoners and to take serious steps towards democracy that give their people a real voice in government.”

While denouncing Cuba, Clinton and Obama have nothing to say about the fact that the U.S. has one of the most racist and unjust “justice” systems — known for having one of the highest incarceration rates in the world, for sentencing children to life in prison, for its assassinations and jailings of Puerto Ricans fighting for independence and African and Native Americans demanding rights, and more. It is a crime for them to be silent on these matters, while threatening the Cubans that the U.S. will again try to impose “real change.” It should be seen from both statements that the change Clinton and Obama talk about, whether in Cuba or in the U.S., is change that serves the rich, not the people.

This can further be seen in the fact that these threats against Cuba are coming at a time when Americans are again contending with an electoral system dominated by the political parties of the rich, the Democrats and Republicans. It is a system that keeps the people out of power while guaranteeing the continued rule of the rich by bringing either Democrats or Republicans to power. It is a set up where these two parties, state by state, decide who can and cannot vote, what identification is required to vote, which parties can and cannot participate, the rules for being on the ballot, the rules for the primaries and caucuses, and the rules that say the two parties, at their state and national conventions, can make decisions contrary to the popular vote. It is a system where there are not elections of candidates by popular vote, with a majority of votes required to win. Instead, in primaries, caucuses and the general election for president, people are voting for lists of party delegates, who then vote at the party conventions to select the candidate. It is a system designed to keep people from voting and then to dismiss the popular vote that does take place. It is not “free and fair” even by existing international standards, let alone the people’s vision of the system needed — where the institutions of democracy are organized to guarantee that the people themselves govern and decide.

It is also a time when the Cuban people recently held elections where the people themselves chose the candidates, where more than 95 percent of voters voted directly for candidates, and where the popular vote decided the results. It is also the case that in the Cuban system, the National Assembly is the decision making body when it comes to legislation. The State Council elected by it, including the president, are subordinate to the Assembly.

USMLO congratulates the Cuban people on their elections, an important part of their undaunted and irresistible drive to go forward in defending and advancing their revolution. We demand that the U.S. immediately lift the blockade, free the Cuban Five and end all interference in the affairs of the Cuban people. Let candidates for office address themselves to the U.S. and its problems and keep their noses out of the affairs of the peoples worldwide.

Working Class Demands Relations of Mutual Respect and Benefit

2008-03-24T16:06:00.000-04:00

Trade and trade agreements, like the North American Free Trade Act (NAFTA) are currently being debated as Senators Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton vie for the Democratic Party nomination. Both are presenting themselves as pro-worker.

The working class stands for -fraternal relations with the workers and peoples of the world — for relations based on mutual benefit and respect. This means non-interference in the affairs of other countries. It means relations that respect sovereignty. Mutual benefit means relations that are of assistance to all the workers involved and are consistent with their slogan that “An injury to one is an injury to all.” Trade that injures workers abroad is not in the interests of workers here. There is a need for mutual benefit. Whatever conflicting interests in a particular situation may exist, can be worked out on the basis of mutual benefit. Trade that benefits workers abroad benefits workers here. There is a mutual and shared stand by the workers to defend their interests and support each other’s struggles for rights.

This stand of the workers is not at all the content of the current debates. On the contrary, every effort is being made to convince U.S. workers that they should join the U.S. monopolies in interfering worldwide, particularly their efforts to annex Canada and Mexico, using instruments like NAFTA and more recently the Security and Prosperity Partnership (SPP). Obama regularly emphasizes that “we are all in this together,” and “we rise or fall as one nation.” The “we” includes workers and financiers, includes the rich and the poor. Clinton especially makes clear actual concerns of the ruling class when it comes to manufacturing, saying, “We can’t rely on other countries to produce what the American military needs.” Clearly, workers are supposed to ignore all their experience and knowledge of reality showing that workers and financiers have no common interests, and that the financiers rise to the degree that workers here and abroad fall.

The interests of U.S. monopolies today are driving the country down the path of fascism and war. Workers do not share these interests, indeed they are vigorously rejecting them. The U.S. rulers are attempting to achieve world empire, to “rise,” based on their ability to intensify exploitation here at home while increasing their aggression, interference and exploitation of the peoples and resources worldwide. Workers have no interest in such a rise.

There are numerous current examples that bring this out. ExxonMobil, which again made record profits, this time more than $40 billion, is not “sharing” this prosperity produced by the workers. None of the candidates are requiring them to do so — for example, by demanding an immediate increase in the wages of all the oil workers. Taking oil out of the hands of the monopolies and putting it into the hands of the nation, which would directly benefit workers here and abroad, is of course out of the question.

As well, ExxonMobil is demanding that Venezuela pay it billions for having stolen Venezuelan oil for decades. Venezuela has nationalized its oil industry and is utilizing it for the people, not only of Venezuela but elsewhere, including providing cheaper heating fuel to communities here in the U.S. They are attempting to have relations of mutual benefit and it is the U.S. government that is standing in the way.

Additionally, there is the long-standing blockade of Cuba and interference in her internal affairs. Clinton and Obama joined the chorus of the U.S. rulers calling for more interference in Cuba, in the wake of President Fidel Castro not running for that office this year. They demanded that Cuba submit to U.S. demands for using U.S.-style democracy, at a time when both candidates claim the existing setup needs to be changed. Workers are demanding an end to the blockade, an end to interference and demanding relations of mutual respect and benefit.

The Iraq war and the hundreds of billions handed over yearly to the Pentagon are also examples that U.S. imperialism’s drive for world empire is against the interests of the workers here and abroad. The anti-war movement in the U.S. has greatly contributed to opposing the American chauvinism of the ruling class that says all the world must be “pro-American” and submit to U.S.-style democracy. The movement has emphasized that opposition to war against Iraq is on the basis of principle — that the war is criminal aggression and occupation and that ending it now is a requirement. Indeed, the demand that all U.S. troops come home now is a further expression of the drive of the working class and people to stop U.S. aggression and interference everywhere.

The peoples are demanding precisely the fall of U.S. imperialism, and the rise of a U.S. that is anti-war, anti-establishment and pro-worker and pro-peoples. This is their alternative and what they are fighting for. It is a stand that shows that the working class must lead the fight for change and that the Democrats are not and cannot do so.

So long as Clinton and Obama instead support the drive of the imperialists for world empire, they are confirming that they are striving to emerge as champions of the ruling class. They are striving to show that they can convince American workers to bow down to American chauvinism and join the U.S. monopolies as they drive the country to fascism and world war. The workers and peoples here and abroad firmly and resolutely say NO! Our stand is with the peoples of the world for a world that defends humanity by contributing to the mutual benefit of all peoples.

Clinton and Obama on Trade

2008-03-24T16:01:00.000-04:00

As Senators Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama continue to contend for the Democratic Party nomination, trade is being made an issue. Upcoming primaries March 5 include Ohio, where the destruction of the manufacturing base is a key issue for votes, as well as Texas, Rhode Island and Vermont. At the most recent debate in Ohio, both candidates emphasized that they want to reopen the North American Free Trade Act (NAFTA) and renegotiate parts of it to make it even more “pro-American.” They are calling to “fix NAFTA,” not dismantle it altogether — the demand made by workers across the country and in Canada and Mexico. Both Clinton and Obama threatened to withdraw from the treaty if Canada and Mexico refuse to renegotiate. As Clinton put it, she is certain that with the threat of withdrawal, both countries will submit to the demand to renegotiate the treaty.

Ohio, like most of the midwest, has been hard hit by the drive of the monopolies to dominate on a world scale. As both Clinton and Obama bring out, more than 3.3 million manufacturing jobs have been eliminated just since 2000. To deal with this, both propose changing the existing tax structure, to end “tax breaks for companies that ship jobs overseas,” and giving tax breaks for those that “invest in innovation,” including “green cars.” Clinton, for example, promises “to provide $20 billion in Green Vehicle Bonds to help American auto companies retool the oldest auto plants to meet her strong [gas] efficiency standards, while addressing retiree health legacy costs with tax credits for qualifying private and public retiree plans.” Obama promises to “provide specific tax assistance and loan guarantees to the domestic auto industry to ensure new fuel-efficient cars are built in the U.S. with American workers.”

Thus monopolies like General Motors, certainly among the top in destroying manufacturing here and building factories that ruthlessly exploit workers abroad, will continue to receive tax breaks. The same monopolies that have shut down one auto factory after the other, rendering Detroit the city with the highest level of poverty nationwide, with Buffalo next and Cleveland not far behind, are going to be given more government hand outs. Government, using public tax dollars, is not only going to fund the retooling of factories, but also pay for healthcare and retirement for the workers — whose work produced all the wealth in the first place! Workers are being forced to pay twice, once based on GM’s theft of wealth produced and again based on government use of public funds to pay for health and retirement benefits that GM owes. GM, and monopolies like it, have no responsibility. This is what is meant by “pro-American.”

NAFTA was negotiated between the U.S., Canada and Mexico almost 15 years ago. These years of experience show that it has been used against the workers of all three countries. It, along with the U.S.-dominated World Trade Organization (WTO) has been used to impoverish workers in all three countries, all to the advantage of U.S. monopolies. NAFTA was one weapon used against Canada, for example, to decimate the lumber sector of the economy. Long self-reliant in lumber and its products, Canada is now importing finished lumber from the U.S.! Similarly, Mexico, with corn production an ancient and vital part of the economy and self-sufficiency in food, is now facing a situation where it must import corn from the U.S. These are just two of the examples not addressed by either Clinton or Obama in their plans for trade. The debates also did not touch on the massive demonstration January 31 by hundreds of thousands of Mexican farmers demanding an end to NAFTA. From the point of view of the working class, one cannot be pro-worker while being anti-worker when it comes to Mexican or Canadian workers.

Clinton’s Proposals
As part of her campaign, Hillary Clinton has produced an “Economic Blueprint,” which is regularly updated. The -February 25 edition states that Clinton has a “Pro-American Trade Agenda.” She will fight for “fair, pro-American trade policies,” that “better manage globalization.” She proposes to “fix NAFTA.” This includes strengthening “NAFTA’s labor and environmental provisions; changing NAFTA’s investment provisions that grant special rights to foreign companies; strengthening NAFTA’s enforcement mechanisms; and regularly reviewing NAFTA.” If elected, she will have a “timeout” from new trade agreements until her administration can develop “a comprehensive trade policy for the 21st Century — one that is genuinely pro-worker, pro-American and vigorously enforced.” She will also “vigorously enforce our trade agreements,” including appointing a “trade enforcer.” She indicates that this “enforcement” will likely mean increased interference in the affairs of other countries, targeting China in particular. She is calling for, and as a Senator has already introduced legislation requiring the U.S. to “take definitive steps to stop China and other countries from harming American interests by undervaluing their currencies.”

It should be noted that the emphasis is on trade that is “pro-American” and protects “American interests,” something which American workers have long experience with. Protecting “American interests” for the monopolies brought wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and Vietnam and Korea before that. It is also the justification for torture and the broad attacks on rights and rule of law, inside the country and internationally. Making U.S. monopolies competitive on the global markets has meant massive concessions and plant closures.

When Clinton speaks about the manufacturing base, she confirms that the issue is not the health of the U.S. economy, but rather protecting world imperialist interests. As she put it at her Economic Summit held in Zanesville, Ohio, saying it’s necessary to start investing in manufacturing because “We can’t rely on other countries to produce what the American military needs.”

Obama’s Proposals
Barack Obama makes very similar proposals. Indeed, during the Ohio debate he said directly that Clinton “has it right” when it comes to NAFTA and trade. He too calls for greater enforcement to “stop countries from continuing unfair government subsidies to foreign exporters and non-tariff barriers on U.S. exports.” It is precisely the end of such government support in Mexico that the farmers are protesting, as it opens the way for Mexico to be over run by U.S. agricultural monopolies.

Obama also calls for interference in China’s internal affairs by demanding that the U.S. decide the value of China’s currency. Like Clinton, he calls for using trade agreements to “spread good labor and environmental standards around the world and stand firm against agreements like CAFTA that fail to live up to those important benchmarks.”

In this manner it can be seen that both Clinton and Obama try to use the call for “good labor and environmental standards,” as a means to interfere in other countries in order to strengthen “American interests.” Workers and farmers in Mexico, Canada, Central America and worldwide have long been fighting for safe working conditions and a safe environment. It is the U.S. that is the biggest polluter and its monopolies that are largely responsible for unsafe working conditions here and worldwide. Yet they are not the ones targeted. Instead, these proposals are mechanisms to further interfere in the sovereignty of other countries and enable U.S. monopolies to further rape and plunder Canada, Mexico, Latin America and the world. Clinton and Obama want workers to ignore their own experience and daily reality that shows protecting the interests of the U.S. monopolies is thoroughly anti-worker and pro-war.

As further indication of this reality, while NAFTA is being made an issue in the debates and is spoken to by the candidates in their economic plans, the Security and Prosperity Partnership (SPP), another arrangement between the U.S., Canada and Mexico, is not addressed. The SPP goes much further in integrating not only the economies, but also the military and police forces of all three countries. It is being negotiated entirely at the executive level and largely behind closed doors. It too is an instrument of U.S. domination and annexation and is thoroughly anti-worker, anti-peoples and pro-war.

President George W. Bush will be meeting with Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper and Mexico’s President Felipe Calderon in New Orleans April 21-22 to further strengthen the SPP. The meeting is certainly critical in regard to trade, energy policy and military issues — all matters Clinton and Obama address. Yet the candidates, in their platforms and speeches, and monopoly media during the recent debates, are silent on the SPP and the upcoming meeting.

The SPP is a weapon of U.S. annexation to put in place arrangements for a single North America of the monopolies. Numerous economic, political and military measures are already in place. This includes, for example, a military agreement signed between the U.S. and Canada allowing armed forces from one country to support those of the other country in the event of a “domestic civil emergency,” of any kind, including health, natural disasters, as well as “terrorism,” or “civil unrest.” Indeed, at the last SPP summit in Quebec, the U.S. military established a command center and dictated actions against protesters. The SPP, like NAFTA is most definitely pro-war and “Pro-America.” It is not pro-worker, here or abroad.

ExxonMobil Is Demanding Ten Times Its Investment

2008-03-24T15:46:00.000-04:00

The maximum compensation ExxonMobil should receive for its nationalized 41.6 percent stake in the Cerro Negro Orinoco River belt project is $1.2 billion, the Venezuelan Minister of Energy and Petroleum and President of the Venezuelan state oil company PDVSA, Rafael Ramírez, announced February 15. This is a tenth of ExxonMobil’s claim to $12 billion of PDVSA’s assets, which were temporarily frozen after the transnational oil company won a series of court orders in Britain, the Netherlands, and the Dutch Antilles earlier this month.

In a speech before the Venezuelan National Assembly, the minister argued that ExxonMobil’s $12 billion compensation claim is exaggerated, revealing that $5 billion was the largest amount to which the company had ever aspired in previous negotiations. This prompted an ExxonMobil lawyer to complain that it was inappropriate to have revealed such information.

Ramírez said the U.S. oil company’s aggressive tactic of freezing assets outside the arbitration of the International Center for Settlement of Investment Disputes (ICSID) constituted “another step in the economic war against our nation.” The minister reiterated his accusation that ExxonMobil is engaging in “judicial terrorism” by attacking the main source of funding for Venezuela’s social programs — over an investment PDVSA records show to have been worth only $750 million when it was nationalized.

ExxonMobil is “pointing its sword toward destabilizing the government of President Hugo Chávez,” the former president of the Venezuelan Chamber of Petroleum, Hernández Raffalli, proclaimed in a forum on the ExxonMobil case Wednesday. “What is at stake is the sovereignty of the country and its natural resources.”

Meanwhile, ExxonMobil froze an additional $300 million of PDVSA’s assets after winning a federal court case in New York, and the U.S. State Department threw its support behind ExxonMobil’s quest for what spokesperson Sean McCormack called “just and fair compensation.”

PDVSA retaliated by suspending commercial relations with ExxonMobil earlier this week, but Ramírez says the state oil company “understand[s] there are a series of commercial agreements that have been signed ... and we will respect them.” He announced that PDVSA will continue exporting around 79,000 barrels per day to the Louisiana-based Chalmette refinery, which it co-owns with ExxonMobil, but will cut all other exports to ExxonMobil, which hovered between 50,000-90,000 barrels per day in 2007 according to Reuters and Bloomberg News.

Many international analysts concur that Venezuela’s retaliation will not severely affect the oil market or ExxonMobil, which has seen its stock value rise during the conflict with PDVSA and closed last year with $40.6 billion in profits, the highest ever for a U.S. publicly traded company.

Oil companies from Europe and China have already expressed interest in acquiring the oil that used to be sold to ExxonMobil, Ramírez claimed. He assured that contracting with these companies will be a step forward in the market diversification promoted by the Chávez administration’s “Sowing the Oil” plan.

Critics, however, suggest that U.S. refineries based in the Gulf of Mexico are the only ones capable of refining Venezuela’s heavy and sulfuric crude, so the companies that buy up ExxonMobil’s former share may simply become new middlemen who sell back to ExxonMobil.

Between 2004 and 2007, the Chávez administration collected $40.5 billion from private petroleum companies by significantly raising taxes on transnational exploitation of Venezuela’s resources. The money bolstered the National Development Fund’s (FONDEN) $30 billion budget over those three years, which was spent on health care, infrastructure, and transportation systems, the “missions,” and other social programs. This was all part of the government’s pursuit of “petroleum sovereignty” by way nationalizing oil projects and arranging mixed contracts with transnational corporations in which Venezuela maintains a 60 percent share.

But ExxonMobil claims these tax hikes were “illicit” because they violated an agreement signed by ExxonMobil and PDVSA in 1997, on which the U.S. company bases many of its claims for the Cerro Negro project.

Ramírez railed that ExxonMobil’s maneuvers are merely a “wagging tail” of the era of market liberalization known as the “Petroleum Opening” embraced by the Venezuelan government during the 1990s, when the benefits to transnationals were maximized and public responsibility minimized. The minister demanded an investigation into corruption during that time period, when “the old PDVSA permitted international arbitration and turned over national sovereignty.” He vowed that penalties would be brought upon those who committed this “treason” in which the present dispute is deeply intertwined.

National Assembly member Romelia Matute suggested that the former members of the Venezuelan legislature who were involved in the “petroleum opening” be put on trial for “treason against the motherland.”

“For defending our rights, we are now judged in an international tribunal with a wholly political intention that is part of an international conspiracy,” Matute said.
Ramírez expressed hope that his outline of PDVSA’s strategy in the ExxonMobil case would be subject to wide debate among Venezuelans, affirming that, “sovereign state decisions are the sole responsibility of the people and can not be questioned by any multinational company nor any international court.”

Meanwhile, PDVSA’s negotiations with transnational oil companies ConocoPhillips and Eni, which also disputed PDVSA`s nationalization of their multi-billion dollar stakes in Venezuela’s oil last year, are moving smoothly toward consensual solutions, Ramírez assured.

New York “Contracts for Excellence” Increase Executive Control of Public Schools

2008-02-21T14:52:00.000-05:00

Governor Elliot Spitzer, in his state of the state address in January, emphasized that he plans to demand even “greater accountability” from the public schools. He said, “This year, with the support of the Regents, our partners in this effort, we will take education accountability to the next level.” He plans to have the state “intervene in districts and in schools” that have been branded as “failing.” One mechanism Spitzer plans to utilize more is “Contracts for Excellence” (C4E’s). C4E’s, developed by Spitzer last year, are a mechanism to increase executive control of public schools by linking education funding to “performance,” as determined by federal and state mandated testing.

Today more than 1,500 schools in 56 school districts have “Contracts for Excellence,” affecting half the state’s students. This includes sixteen schools in Buffalo, that have lengthened their school day by one hour and the school year by 20 days. Each school has doubled the amount of time spent on Math and English Language Arts, and created some classes of less than 10 students. The schools include Burgard, Grover Cleveland, Native American magnet and South Park High Schools as well as a number of middle and elementary schools.

Adopting the language of the federal No Child Left Behind Act, New York’s Education Law imposes various arbitrary labels on schools and school districts, such as “requiring academic progress” or “in need of improvement.” They are arbitrary because they are based not on actual education levels required by the youth and professional means of assessing them, but on arbitrary testing and the arbitrary scores that result. Teachers, youth and parents nationwide have all directly experience that the testing is completely invalid and also directly serving to wreck the quality and standard of education. Yet, testing is what is used, federally and in New York State, to further cut funds to public schools and to blackmail schools into submitting to the C4E’s to secure small levels of increased funding.

New York’s Education Law, section 211-d, brought the C4E’s into being. It was approved by the state legislature on April 1, 2007, and immediately put into effect. It stipulates that “Every school district that has at least one school currently identified as requiring academic progress or in need of improvement or in corrective action or restructuring status shall be required to prepare a contract for excellence,” if it receives funding increases of more than 15 million or an increase of more than 10 percent from the previous year. Generally, the C4E’s funding does not represent an actual increase in total school funding, but rather the state utilizing existing education funds in a different manner.

The new law requires that funds provided to school districts with C4E’s be spent on programs and activities in the following areas: class size reduction, programs that increase student time on task, teacher and principal quality initiatives, middle school and high school re-structuring, and full-day kindergarten or prekindergarten. C4E’s are supposed to mainly “benefit students with the greatest educational needs including, but not limited to, those students with limited English proficiency, students in poverty and students with disabilities.” For cities like Buffalo and Rochester, this constitutes the large majority of students. It is also clear from this that the C4E’s are presented as dealing with real problems, when in actuality they are mechanisms for intensifying the problems, as they increase the ability of the state to abandon its responsibility to provide the right to education for all.

The law also says that “Each contract for excellence shall be subject to approval by the commissioner [of education Richard Mills] and his or her certification that the expenditure of additional aid or grant amounts is in accordance” with the law. It is “the commissioner” who “shall adopt regulations establishing allowable programs and activities intended to improve student achievement.” Funding for experimental programs must also first be approved by the commissioner. Such approval was not previously required but rather working conditions and programs were part of contract negotiations and decisions of elected School Boards. (Note that the Commissioner is not elected but is instead appointed by the NY Board of Regents. The Regents are elected by the state legislature.)

Materials from the New York State Department of Education state, “the statute requires the Commissioner and not boards of education to formally approve the district’s C4E.” Moreover, there is no provision in the law that allows school districts to return or refuse a portion of funds in order to avoid a C4E. Targeted districts must submit.

The state’s increased control and influence over schools is also revealed in the following provision of the law: “In a city school district in a city having a population of one million or more inhabitants [i.e., the New York City public school system] such contract shall also include a plan to reduce average class sizes, as defined by the commissioner, within five years.” Moreover, the exact method used to reduce class size must be reported to the commissioner. Again, such matters are normally a function of contract negotiations and decided through them. Now it is the commissioner that has authority.

Various other materials from the state also speak to the extent of executive control over public schools through C4E’s. For example, a November 19, 2007 press release from the New York State Department of Education states that, “If schools do not meet their performance targets, then school quality review teams, school intervention teams, or Distinguished Educators will be appointed to review their use of funds. Those teams will make recommendations about improving the use of funding,” to the commissioner. Those schools that do not meet the state’s arbitrary goals and criteria will likely lose funding and be subject to other punishment, such as potential takeover by the state.

While the C4E’s put forward potentially positive actions, such as smaller class sizes, their main content is “middle school and high school re-structuring.” This includes authority of the executive to lengthen the school day, add more school days, dictate programs and more generally, restructure decision making out of the hands of teachers and elected school boards and into the hands of the executive. This is a process now unfolding through use of the C4E’s. The content is increased executive control and a mechanism that over time will undermine union contracts and specifically the right of teachers to participate in deciding working and learning conditions. It is also the case that, in general, smaller classes sizes and other improvements in working conditions and funding have not been a main result.

At present, according to union executives, the impact on contracts is minimal. The initial changes, such as longer hours and more days, are being conducted under existing contract arrangements. However, what is significant is that the C4E’s set a precedent where the commissioner has authority to intervene and decide working conditions and can do so in a manner contrary to the contracts. For example, the commissioner can “adopt regulations establishing allowable programs and activities intended to improve student achievement.” Such programs could easily involve negating seniority, using volunteer retirees or business people in place of teachers, and so forth. In addition, the law says, “The commissioner shall assist school districts that include in their contract for excellence the implementation of incentives, developed in collaboration with teachers in the collective bargaining process, for highly qualified and experienced teachers to work in low performing schools to ensure that such incentives are effective.” What does collaboration mean, when teachers and commissioner do not agree? Overall, the law permits the commissioner to decide, with or without collaboration.

Solving the problems the C4E’s are supposed to address, like reducing class sizes and increasing funding, do not require C4E’s. They require the state and federal government to fully fund education at levels commensurate with the quality of education required by youth today. The C4E’s are designed precisely to hide this government failure, while making it appear that the state is concerned about “accountability.” Let the state begin with being accountable for immediate increased funding — beginning with the levels already mandated by the courts.

It is also the case that the law states that, “For the 2007-2008 school year, school districts shall solicit public comment on their contracts for excellence.” It is not clear if any such meetings have occurred. Discussions with teachers, parents and union executives in the area reveal that they have not been told of any such meetings.

New York State has nearly 3 million students attending more than 4,600 public schools in 700 school districts governed by more than 5,000 locally elected school officials. The state must meet its social responsibility to fully fund all the schools now. Education is a right!

Winter Soldier, March 13-16, Washington DC: Iraq Veterans Target Crime of Occupation

2008-02-21T14:48:00.000-05:00

Spencer Ackerman, Washington Independent, indymedia.org

On three frigid days in early 1971, more than 100 Vietnam veterans gathered at a Detroit hotel to indict the Viet Nam war. In measured tones, occasionally quivering with emotion, they described what the war had done to them as much as what the war had done to the country. The veterans talked about abuses made routine, like throwing prisoners out of helicopters, torturing Vietnamese detainees or mutilating enemy corpses. Many had never told their stories before. Sponsored by Vietnam Veterans Against the War, they called their investigation the Winter Soldier project. [The name comes from a line from Thomas Paine’s call to arms at the time of the revolution against British colonialism. Paine denounces “the summer soldier and the sunshine patriot [who] will, in this crisis, shrink from the service of his country. ” He continues, “but he that stands it now, deserves the love and thanks of man and woman. Tyranny, like hell, is not easily conquered; yet we have this consolation with us, that the harder the conflict, the more glorious the triumph.”]

Now, with another war proving to be another defining moment in U.S. history, some veterans of the Iraq war are taking up the Winter Soldier banner. From March 13-16, Iraq Veterans Against the War (IVAW), an organization inspired by Vietnam Veterans Against the War, will convene a second Winter Soldier at the National Labor College near Washington, DC.

“What’s happening now is no different than over the past five years,” said Geoff Millard, 27, the president of the group’s Washington chapter. “It’s the result of systematic problems necessary to fight an occupation. It’s not simply that we’re going to outline these huge atrocities. It’s mainly to show how the systematic nature of occupation is oppression.” This time around, Winter Soldier will have what its predecessor did not: digital video to back up the charges.

The critique that the Winter Soldier investigation presents is both subtle and incendiary. Throughout the course of the war, the public has become agonizingly familiar with the torture of Iraqi prisoners at Abu Ghraib and the deliberate killing of civilians at Haditha. Winter Soldier, according to the veterans’ group, will not expose the next big Iraq scandal. What it will do instead is argue, through testimony from soldiers and Marines who fought the war, that Abu Ghraib and Haditha are standard military behavior in Iraq, [that they are the character of aggression, not excesses.]

“I do believe that the profession of soldiering is fundamentally an honorable one,” said Perry O’Brien, 25, an Afghanistan veteran and key leader of Winter Soldier. “But the disconnect between the [soldiers’] code and what soldiers are asked to do in the war is the source of a tremendous amount of guilt that many of us carry around. Kids grow up wanting to be GI Joe and save lives. But military policy is dictating that people do terrible things, things that violate their conscience, and then have the psychological burden of carrying that around, because the military says you can’t talk about it. Soldiers live with it and die with it.”

Organizers estimate that perhaps 45 to 55 Iraq veterans, and some from Afghanistan, [will testify to the crimes being committed against the people of Iraq and Afghanistan.] Liam Madden, 23, a Marine veteran of Iraq who is now a student at Northeastern University, said, “The people I’ve talked to who are testifying are going to talk about their experiences in Iraq, how they’re put in positions to harm the people of Iraq and harm the image of America because of the position they’re put in, and the complete injustice involved in that,” Madden said. “Other people will talk about how a run-of-the-mill day in Iraq is. It adds up to a checkpoint here, a house raid here, a house raid there, another house raid there, to a population of Iraqis who cannot tolerate you any longer.”

The project’s interview and verification committees are just getting started. But glimpses of the expected testimony are beginning to emerge. One of the early interviewees, a medic, told IVAW about treating a two-year old shot in the thigh by U.S. soldiers, and witnessing “the mutilation of the dead,” according to Jose Vasquez, 33, a former Army sergeant who heads Winter Soldier’s verification team. The public should expect to hear about “unnecessary killing of noncombatants on the battlefield,” said Vasquez, an anthropology graduate student at the City University of New York. (Vasquez himself filed as a conscientious objector after finding himself unable to participate in the Iraq war.) Indeed, a frequent theme among group members in interviews has been the intensity of manning checkpoints, where Iraqi civilians can die for simply not approaching a checkpoint slowly enough.

Yet the organizers of Winter Soldier will consider the event a failure if it appears to blame individual soldiers for the war and its crimes. “Imagine you’re out on a convoy and you get hit by an IED,” Millard said. “And the SOP [Standard Operating Procedure] is you fire in that direction of where that fire came from. That’s indiscriminate. Civilians get killed in that. It’s not the civilian’s fault. It’s the occupation’s fault.” Millard, a recently discharged Army National Guardsman from Buffalo, New York, served in Iraq as a general’s assistant in Tikrit from October 2004 to October 2005. His job involved briefing senior officers on daily violent incidents and it led Millard to renounce the war as beneath the dignity of his comrades. “The common U.S. soldier is not a bloodthirsty animal,” he said. “The problem is the occupation of Iraq itself.” [Part of the discussion also involves the right of soldiers to refuse to commit such crimes and defense of those who are doing so and likely will participate in Winter Soldier.]

Various pro-war veterans attempting to oppose Winter Soldier have said that the crimes of war being elaborated are in fact isolated incidents. As one put it, “I’d ask, ‘Is what you saw U.S. policy, or is it an unfortunate occurrence?’ Let’s be real here. To talk about systematic brutality is essentially indicting the military as being complicit in war crimes.” Indeed, precisely what Winter Soldier hopes to do — target the government and its military generals for war crimes.

The pro-war vet continued, that Winter Soldier is “Making a concerted effort to make claims about atrocities,” he said. “We live in a satellite world, where information is disseminated immediately. We’re connected. It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to know it would be something that people who don’t like us in Iraq beam around the Muslim world. It could be turned against the troops on the battlefield.”

Winter Soldier is exposing why women and children get killed daily. Their answer is that this is a necessary part of the character of the occupation, which is why it is necessary to bring the occupation to an end. Millard responded to the idea that Winter Soldier will get U.S. troops killed. “You know what endangers our soldiers? Having them in Iraq,” he said. “I’m pretty sure no soldiers are going to die at Winter Soldier. I’m not a fortuneteller, but I’m pretty damn sure we’re not gonna kill any U.S. soldiers. But I’m pretty sure on that date, U.S. soldiers are gonna get killed in Iraq.”

Another critique is that Winter Soldier’s presenters will lie about their service. It is a reprise of a long and bitter controversy surrounding the first Winter Soldier. In a 2004 National Review cover story, Mac Owens, a professor at the Naval War College and a Vietnam veteran, called the investigation “a lie.” More recently, Rush Limbaugh referred to antiwar veterans as “phony soldiers.”

That is where Vasquez’s verification process comes in. First, the group will keep on file in its Philadelphia national office a copy of each testifier’s military service record, known as a DD-214 form. After interviewing the potential testifier, Vasquez’s committee — made up of a team of twelve veterans around the country — will reach out to members of his or her unit for corroboration. A network of journalists currently in Iraq will reach out to Iraqi civilians in the relevant cities and towns for independent eyewitness accounts. Finally, IVAW will file Freedom of Information Act requests with the Pentagon for relevant corroborating or refuting information, assisted by a task force of the National Lawyers Guild to expedite the process. “We’re laying our credibility on the line,” Vasquez acknowledged.

Iraq Veterans Against the War also plans to host live streaming video of the conference on its website, where archived footage of direct testimony will remain. What is more, during the testimony itself, Winter Soldier will have an advantage that its Vietnam-era predecessor did not: digital video. Practically every soldier in Iraq packed a camera or a video recorder or a camera-enabled phone, and several are bringing what they recorded to Winter Soldier. It will be much harder to ignore testimony backed by video — especially if those videos go “viral” on YouTube. “We’re already starting to receive a fair amount of footage and photographs corroborating these stories,” O’Brien said. “It will be very difficult for anyone to say we’re lying. These photographs exist.”

[For Iraq Veterans Against the War, explaining the systemic nature of military occupation, with crimes against humanity a necessary and systemic feature, contributes to the struggle of the large majority of Americans to end the war. They are saluting the resistance among the soldiers, resistance to committing such crimes, while also providing information and testimony to the crime that is occupation. Winter Soldier takes place from March 13-16 in Washington, DC. It will be followed by mass actions of civil disobedience on March 19. The demands of all remain firm: All U.S. Troops Home Now! End the War Now!]

Youth Are Not The Problem: Examine Results of Suspensions and Lockdowns

2008-02-21T14:45:00.000-05:00

Letter from a Buffalo Teacher

Recently, the 7-week suspension of McKinley High School student and basketball player Jayvonna Kincannon made the news. Her case involved getting suspended, first for use of a cell phone at school and leaving class early, and then for insubordination. She received a seven-week suspension, eventually reduced to 5 weeks. Unlike most suspensions for insubordination at McKinley and other schools, this particular one came to light. This was in part because Kincannon attempted to defend the right of a volunteer basketball coach before the Buffalo School Board. The coach was dismissed without explanation. Kincannon came to her defense and acted to oppose the arbitrary action against her coach. She then stood her ground and gave her views to the McKinley principal. It is this expression of views and defense of rights that was termed “insubordination.”

The treatment and suspension imposed on Kincannon is not unusual. Indeed, McKinley students and those elsewhere know that arbitrary suspensions, especially from principals, is common. Youth who stand up are especially targeted and given longer suspensions. At McKinley, in particular, youth last year organized specifically to demand that issues like “insubordination” be clearly defined, specific punishment made known and implemented in a consistent manner. They demanded standards, instead of arbitrary and often vengeful actions by school administrators. Instead they got more suspensions.

Youth in all the schools face a situation where simply standing up for their right to be treated as thinking human beings is considered insubordination and negative. To the contrary, we applaud the youth for standing up for themselves and others and consider their right to do so an important part of any learning atmosphere. We teachers reject a prison atmosphere in our schools, where youth are forced to submit, to remain silent in the face of injustice, to accept any punishment, no matter how unjust.

In another school, a decision was taken to lockdown the school for several days. According to teachers at the school, there were growing difficulties in the classroom and some teachers, in their desperation, thought a lockdown would calm things down. For this school, a lockdown means the youth stay in their homeroom class all day, and the teachers come to them. Music and art are not permitted. Eating lunch in the cafeteria is not permitted. The main result was increased tensions and more punishment of the youth. The older students were also made to feel like six and seven year olds, incapable of going from one class to the next.

It is important to examine what the actual problems are and what solutions can be found. More punishment and repression do not solve any problem and they are not meant to.

As teachers, we know that a teacher must command authority in the classroom and do so on the basis of their grasp of their subject and their respect for the youth and their needs. In the case of the lockdown, for example, there was not discussion of the fact that the youth and teachers had just be subjected to the rotten and arbitrary federal testing for English, an intense situation despised by all and recognized as harmful to education. Teachers can also identify that some youth need more attention and assistance than can be given in a larger classroom setting. Why not address these realities and fight on them, together with the youth? Why not demand an end to the testing and work together to establish standards for assessing the level of education? Why not insist that every school have a classroom, with a teacher and aide, where youth who fall behind, or need more assistance can go and receive it? The issue here is to start by addressing the actual needs and fighting for them, rather then using force and punishment. Youth and teachers, organizing for rights together, can solve these problems.

Super Tuesday: People Continue Challenging the Democratic Party

2008-02-21T14:37:00.000-05:00

February 5, called Super Tuesday, saw 23 states holding primaries or caucuses. Nineteen states held them for both Republicans and Democrats. An estimated 27 percent of registered voters participated. While this is a record level for primaries, it is clearly a small minority of all voters. The U.S. has an estimated 203 million eligible voters, with about 60 percent of those registered to vote. To date about 18.6 million people have voted in the Democratic primaries and caucuses, and about 12.8 million in the Republican. This means about 31.4 million in total, out of more than 203 million.

The large majority of these votes occurred on February 5. Current available estimates, which do not include absentee ballots still being counted, have 15,417,521 people voting in the Democratic primaries and caucuses and 9,181,297 in the Republican. In the 19 states where both parties held events, more than 14 million voted for Barack Obama or Hillary Clinton, compared with 8 million for John McCain, Mitt Romney and Mike Huckabee. This figures show that far more people are participating in the Democratic primaries, a reflection of the fact that it is the main arena where people are organizing to give expression to their demands against the establishment and for change that favors the people. It is also the case that the majority expect a Democrat to win come November and see participation in their activities as having a greater role. As well, Republicans are generally expressing that they are not satisfied with any of the candidates and are participating in smaller numbers.

People’s Challenge to Democrat Establishment Sharply Felt

In the overall breakdown for Democrats, it is about even. Clinton got 7,427,700 votes, or 48.83 percent, and Obama got 7,369,798 or 48.45 percent nationwide (based on incomplete results that do not include Alaska, where Obama got 74 percent of the vote). John Edwards, who was forced out by the Democratic Party less than a week before the primary, still polled about 3 percent.

Obama won all seven state caucuses (Alaska, Colorado, Idaho, Kansas, Minnesota, Montana, North Dakota). The eighth, American Samoa, is still being tabulated. These wins are generally a reflection of the fact that newer activists in the Democratic Party, especially among the youth, are turning out for the caucuses and that Obama has built up an electoral machinery that brings these forces out. The activists are generally supporting Obama as their means to reject the establishment Democrats, as represented by Clinton. Clinton, who has lost all but the Nevada caucus, said, “Caucuses historically draw the most activist members of a party. And that is fine. But they are not the most democratic way of letting people express their preferences. Primaries are far more democratic, small “d” democratic…I am more interested in what happens when a large number of people get to vote.” She has made no proposals to change use of caucuses, or speak to the undemocratic character of primaries, like those in her home state of New York, that exclude independent voters and those registered to parties other than the Democrats from voting.

In the states with primaries, some, like New York, were closed, meaning only registered Democrats or registered Republicans could vote in the respective primary. In others, like California, independents are allowed, and in still others, like Missouri, independents and people registered for another party can also vote in one or the other primary.

In terms of the popular vote, no candidate received a majority of the eligible vote in any state. Indeed with anywhere from 10-27 percent of voters participating, it cannot be said that any candidate “won” any of the states. It is reported in that manner to give the impression that a majority of voters are making a decision, when in fact a small minority is actually voting. As well the votes are not what decide the outcome — the parties, with their arbitrary delegate counts decide.

For Democrats, in terms of the popular vote, as the facts above show, it remains about equal. In terms of each state, Clinton got more votes in the following 9 states: New York, her home state, California and Massachusetts among the big states; Arkansas and Tennessee among southern states; Arizona and New Mexico from the southwest; and New Jersey and Oklahoma. While Clinton secured more votes in both California and New York, the two largest states population-wise, in both places Obama secured 40 percent or more of the vote cast.

Obama got more votes in 13 states, (7 of them caucus states, 6 primaries) including his home state of Illinois, and the larger states of Minnesota and Colorado; the southern states of Alabama and Georgia; western states of Idaho, Kansas, North Dakota and Utah, as well as Connecticut, Delaware and Alaska.

Missouri is considered a significant indicator, as it has voted for the candidate chosen since 1950, was split just about even, with slightly more votes going to Obama 405,284 (49.28 percent) compared to 395,287 (48.06 percent) for Clinton.

In terms of the home states, Obama got a more decisive vote in Illinois, 65 percent to 33 percent, than Clinton did in New York, where the vote was 57 percent to 40 percent. The Democrats are also watching states that are considered swing states in the general election — meaning they could go Republican or Democrat — to see which candidate is more likely to secure the most votes in November. These states include Missouri, Arizona, Colorado, Minnesota, New Jersey, New Mexico and Tennessee. Missouri, which Obama got, was very close, as was New Mexico, where Clinton got more votes (48.51 percent to 48.35 percent). Arizona went 50.5 to 42 percent for Clinton; Colorado 67 to 32 percent for Obama; Minnesota 67 to 32 percent for Obama; New Jersey 54 to 44 percent for Clinton; Tennessee 54 to 41 percent for Clinton.

Overall, the popular vote is an indication both of how the candidates are doing as vote getters and how the people are doing in terms of using the primaries to express their opposition to the establishment. In that respect, the fact that Obama is securing about as many votes as Clinton is an indication that the people are going toe to toe with the Democratic Party. Their challenge to them to select Obama is being sharply felt and is one that cannot be ignored. This is particularly true given that Clinton had been expected to secure the nomination by now. Instead the battle, between the people and the establishment, remains engaged.

McCain Emerges as Candidate for Republicans

For the Republicans, John McCain emerged as the main candidate, with 3,611,459 votes overall (43.1 percent). Mitt Romney secured 2,961,834 (35.4 percent) and Mike Huckabee 1,796,729 or 21.5 percent.

McCain secured more votes in the February 5 primaries and caucuses, including the larger states of California, Illinois and New York, as well as Arizona (his home state), Connecticut, Missouri, New Jersey and Oklahoma. In most of these he secured 45-55 percent of votes cast.

Huckabee secured more votes in southern states, including, Alabama, Arkansas, Georgia, Tennessee and West Virginia. Romney got more in his home state of Massachusetts (51 to 41 percent for McCain). As well, he got more in Colorado than McCain (59-19 percent), Minnesota (41-22 percent), Montana (38-22 percent), North Dakota (36-23 percent), and Utah (90-5 percent).

Taken overall, McCain has secured 4,867,159 of votes cast for Republicans (38 percent) while Romney secured 4,139,460 (32 percent) and Huckabee 2,411,287 (19 percent). However, given that Republicans use a winner-take-all method for delegates in many states, the delegate count is far more uneven. McCain has an estimated 683, while Romney has 133 and Huckabee 156. About 41 percent of delegates have so far been allocated. While a majority of states have now voted, several large ones, including Texas, Ohio and Pennsylvania, remain.

While by popular vote, Romney would certainly be considered a contender, he chose to “suspend” his candidacy February 7. “Suspending” means he is still able to hold on to his delegates, for potential use in securing influence at the convention. However, at this time, it is likely that McCain will go into the convention with more than enough delegates to secure the nomination. This does not rule out back room deals, for Rudolph Giuliani. for dropping out and endorsing McCain, as well as for Romney.

Viva, Viva Palestina! Viva, Viva New Orleans!

2008-02-19T13:31:00.000-05:00

A sizeable crowd lined Elmwood at Bidwell on Saturday, January 26, to salute resistance in Palestine and New Orleans. Various organizations came together to condemn the U.S.-Israeli siege of Gaza. The siege is criminal collective punishment, a crime against humanity denounced worldwide. The United Nations Human Rights Council, the 118-member Non-Aligned Movement, the Arab League and African Union, all demanded an end to the siege. On the 26, numerous organizations in Israel, the many organizations defending the right of return for Palestinians refugees, and many other organizations across the country, all took action on that weekend. They took their stand in defense of Palestine, and against imperialist globalization and in defense of rights in New Orleans.

In Buffalo, Palestinian flags were flying high, many banners and signs lined the street, and cars repeatedly honked their support for well over an hour, as protesters chanted in the cold and snow. The spirit of all was firm — Viva Viva Palestina! Long Live Palestine! Occupation is a Crime, Make the Guilty Do the Time! The Gaza Siege is a Crime, Make the Guilty Do the Time! Resistance, Resistance is Our Right, Security Lies in Our Fight! Chants in Arabic were also done, the essence of which was, Palestine — Our Blood, Our Soul, We Give to You!

Organized by the Lackawanna Discussion Group Commission on Rights (LDGCOR), participants included those from Lackawanna and among the Palestinians, including many women with children, as well as youth and activists city-wide. LDGCOR spoke to the decisive action the people of Gaza took to liberate themselves. Their organized resistance smashed the U.S.-Israeli siege and made clear that the Palestinians know how to rely on themselves and their resistance. Their action to break the border wall with Egypt blocked the U.S. and Israel from their efforts to impose their imperialist “peace” against the interests of the peoples of the region. It also turned the tables on U.S. efforts to force Arab states to submit, with Egypt having no choice but to allow the hundreds of thousands of Palestinians to pour across the border and secure food, fuel, medicine and other supplies. It is the Palestinians that occupied the space for developing unity — unity on the basis of support for their rights.

LDGCOR also spoke to the spirited resistance in New Orleans, where the government is attempting to demolish public housing and keep more than half the population from returning. The Buffalo action supported those also taking place in New Orleans and worldwide, demanding that the government take up its responsibility to bring everyone back home. The chant rang out, Return, Rebuild, For New Orleans We Will Fight!

Saluting the resistance in Palestine, New Orleans, Buffalo and worldwide, participants joined in chanting, Government Impunity is the Crime, Fight for Rights, Now’s the Time! Resistance, Resistance is Our Right, Security Lies in Our Fight!

Governor Spitzer Establishes “Upstate Revitalization Fund” to Pay the Rich

2008-02-19T13:25:00.000-05:00

On January 16, 2008 Governor Elliot Spitzer delivered the first ever State of the Upstate address in New York. It followed the usual State of the State address. Spitzer promised to make these “State of the Upstate” speeches an annual event. He spoke at Buffalo State College and detailed how, in the name of “economic growth and opportunity,” monopolies and businesses in Upstate New York will be handed one billion dollars from the public treasury. Much like Bush’s State of the Union address, he did not actually speak to the economy and what is preventing it from meeting the needs of the people. Certainly, as the $1 billion fund indicates, it is not an absence of wealth produced by the workers. He also does not speak to why providing the monopolies with $1 billion is of greater assistance to Upstate New York than providing similar funding to the cities and the schools, so as to meet the needs of the people.

In the first part of his speech Spitzer says that the conditions for handing over this large sum of public funds to the monopolies — called “laying the foundation for growth”— were done last year. In an effort to give the impression that somehow such a scheme to pay the rich serves the people, Spitzer says, “The vision I will outline today is one we all share.” “To realize this vision,” he says, “we must focus with a singular purpose on an agenda for economic growth and opportunity.” Spitzer adds, “if we summon the will to work together to achieve the reforms and investments I will lay out today, we can overcome this storm and return growth and prosperity to Upstate New York.” Upstate New Yorkers, and Buffalonians in particular, have considerable experience in just what this “singular purpose” and “will to work together” actually means — demands for more concessions, more cuts to funding of social programs, and Control Boards to block resistance.

Spitzer makes this clear by explaining that one of the main ways “the foundation for growth” was laid in Upstate New York was by “lowering the cost of doing business and lowering taxes.” Last year Spitzer reduced monopoly funding for the workers’ compensation fund by more than 20 percent and ensured that the $1.2 billion secured went to the monopolies. This is one example showing that the current role of government, one greatly harming the state of Upstate New York, is to hand public funds to the monopolies at the expense of the workers. In 2007, the Fiscal Policy Institute reported that “Conservative estimates suggest that between 500,000 and one million New York workers who should be covered by workers’ compensation are not.” This means that no compensation will be provided to these workers if they are injured on the job — a realty that greatly increases insecurity and makes surviving while injured and returning to work far more difficult.

Spitzer also established “a powerful economic development agency”— the first of its kind in Upstate New York — as another part of providing for the growth in the profits of the monopolies. Among other things, such arrangements are used for funneling yet more public funds into the hands of the monopolies for “investment” by and for them.

In addition, “Regional Blueprint Meetings” were held last year in every county of the state to get “input” from “local business leaders who know their economies best.” Spitzer says these meetings convinced him that “There must be a true partnership between government and the private sector.” Clearly meeting the rights and demands of the workers and all members of society are not at the center of his “revitalization.” Indeed, his speech aimed to get the workers to cut their own throats by joining this “partnership.”

Phase two of this pay-the-rich plan is now underway and Spitzer is poised to make “a major infusion of funding and programmatic initiatives” to benefit the rich. Three hundred and fifty million of the $1 billion will take the form of a Regional Blueprint Fund. These public monies will be used to build infrastructure for new and existing businesses. They will fund the preparation of “development-ready sites and industrial parks,” which includes “water, sewer and drainage systems, clearing and site development costs; and even support for planning and engineering.” The Regional Blueprint Fund will also fund the clean up “Brownfields”— contaminated by the monopolies and abandoned. The government is now stepping in to clean them up and prepare them at no cost to the monopolies.

Claiming to “harness” the “potential for job creation,” the state will provide a $10 million “Venture Capital Fund” to “commercialize research” from universities. Research funded by public universities, like UB, will be handed over to the monopolies and even this process of “handing over” will be funded by the government. Yet it is the private monopolies that are reaping the benefit.

Spitzer also said that tens of millions of public dollars from the $1 billion will be funneled to the monopolies through “City by City” projects. He describes these as “strategies tailor-made for each city to jump-start key projects that have the potential to catalyze significant economic growth.” If the past is any indication, these will be projects similar to funding Bass-Pro or other monopolies to locate in Buffalo. It has nothing to do with actually examining the needs of the economy and to put the wealth produced in the service of the people.

In the name of “economic growth and opportunity,” $50 million will be used to fund the agricultural sector. This is in addition to a pledge to provide more corporations with “discounted power rates.” Public funding will also be dedicated to “new efforts that tap international markets.”

Reaffirming what he outlined in his January 9 State of the State Address, Spitzer said his plan to improve “growth and jobs” also means “fighting crime.” To this end Spitzer wants to re-deploy 200 additional state troopers to Upstate New York. He also promised to establish other police-state arrangements such as “Crime Analysis Centers” with join sharing of information among policing agencies. These will be located in various major Upstate cities.

Spitzer dedicated the end of his speech to emphasizing the need for all to line up behind these schemes to pay the rich. He said claims that his Upstate Address splits New Yorkers is unfounded. “We are not giving this speech in spite of the fact that we’re one state with one future. We’re giving this speech — and we’ve put the concerns of Upstate front and center on the agenda — precisely because we are one state with one future. We are one New York, and we rise and fall together,” said Spitzer. “[W]e must come together and channel all of the passion, energy and determination that is within us toward one goal: restoring growth and prosperity to Upstate New York,” he added. Such language is also accompanied by assertions that New York is or must become the “best place in the world to live and work.”

Unshackle Upstate, a coalition of major monopolies and companies in New York State, commended Spitzer for pushing the “Upstate Revitalization Fund.” For its part, the Buffalo Niagara Partnership, a coalition member, said “we need to help the governor turn the vision into action.”

Spitzer, a Democrat, in putting forward “We are one New York, and we rise and fall together,” is echoing the efforts of Democrats to present themselves as on the side of the people, while acting to get the people onto the side of the monopolies. In a situation where the people are increasingly rejecting the brutal attacks on their rights and demanding change, the Democrats are attempting to impose the notion that workers and monopoly owners are one, with a vision “we all share.” This is an effort to deny the existence of classes, and deny that in New York, and in the U.S., and worldwide, there are two worlds in combat — that of the rich, with their vision of fascism and war, against that of the working class and peoples, with their visions of another world that puts human beings at the center and guarantees the rights of all.

Unemployment in New York State

2008-02-19T13:22:00.000-05:00

Facts show that both unemployment and job insecurity remain high across the state. From 1990 to 2004 — a 14-year period — the state lost about 35 percent of its manufacturing jobs, with hundreds of thousands of workers thrown out of work. During the same period, the United States as a whole lost 20 percent of its manufacturing jobs.

Between 2000 and 2002, total employment in New York State declined by 2.3 percent and private sector employment declined by 3 percent. According to an April 2003 report from the State Comptroller’s office, manufacturing employment has continued to decline in the state, losing 13.2 percent of these jobs since 2000.

A 2004 report from the Comptroller’s Office also found that “While 30 percent of the businesses that received tax breaks [in “Empire Zones” in New York State] met or exceeded their job creation targets, 47 percent created fewer jobs than they promised and 23 percent actually lost jobs.” They still received their public handouts.

The report continues: “Overall for the eight [Empire] zones studied, businesses created 2,380 fewer jobs than projected. Thirty-four of 86 businesses that reduced jobs nevertheless claimed real property tax credits, sales tax exemptions or wage tax credits benefits totaling nearly $2.4 million.” In other words, corporations received millions of dollars in handouts from the public treasury in return for nothing.

In 2005, private sector jobs grew about 1.1 percent, following three years of jobs losses from 2001 to 2003 and meager growth of 0.8 percent in 2004, according to budget documents.

Hunger and Homelessness Survey

2008-02-19T13:18:00.000-05:00

About 85 percent of Americans now live in cities and metropolitan areas. According to the U.S. Conference of Mayors (USCM), “Metro economies now account for 85 percent of national employment, 87 percent of labor income, and 86 percent of gross domestic product (GDP). Of the largest 100 international economies in the world, 42 are U.S. metro areas.” At the end of 2007, the USCM together with Sodexho, Inc., released the results of its 2007 Hunger and Homelessness Survey. For more than 21 years, the Conference of Mayors has documented the magnitude of the issues of hunger and homelessness in the country’s cities. Their report provides an analysis of the scale of the problem in 23 of America’s major cities (listed below) and the efforts these cities are making to address the issue.

Conference President Trenton Mayor Douglas Palmer reported, “Although 86 percent of our nation’s wealth is generated in our nation’s cities, hunger and homelessness persists in most of our country’s cities and urban centers.” He added, “At a time when the nation is focused on the presidential campaign, we must ensure that the needs of those most in need in America are at the top of the candidates’ policy agendas.”

Significantly, the report cites high housing costs and the lack of affordable housing as a major cause of homelessness in households with children, as well as a major cause of hunger. The survey also notes the recent spike in foreclosures, the increased cost of living in general and the increased cost of food as major causes of hunger in the U.S.

Unlike past reports, this year’s report contains individual profiles of hunger and homelessness for each city that participated in the 2007 survey, as well as contact information for service providers in those cities. As a whole, cities reported that they are not able to meet the need for providing shelter for all the people that are homeless, many of them families. In fact, twelve cities (52 percent) reported that they turn people away some or all of the time.

Additionally, cities reported a limited ability to meet the need for emergency food assistance. Across the survey cities, 17 percent of all people in need of food assistance and 15 percent of households with children are not receiving it. Nineteen cities expect the demand for food assistance to increase in 2008.

“This report underscores the fact that issues of poverty in this country are often inter-related,” said Mayor Frank Cownie, of Des Moines Iowa and Co-Chair of the Conference’s Task Force on Hunger and Homelessness. “It is instructive in that we must deal with these issues collectively to make a sustainable impact, but cities cannot handle these challenges alone. We need all levels of government, as well as the private sector, to partner with us.”

Other key findings of the report are as follows:
Hunger
• The main causes of hunger in survey cities are poverty, unemployment and high housing costs.
• Food Stamp benefits not keeping up with the increasing price of food is also a major factor.
• Sixteen (80 percent) of survey cities reported that requests for emergency food assistance increased during the last year.
• Among fifteen cities that provided data, the median increase was 10 percent.
• The most commonly cited way to reduce hunger is through more affordable housing.

Homelessness
• Among households with children, common causes of homelessness other than of the lack of affordable housing are poverty and domestic violence. Among single individuals, the most common causes are mental illness and substance abuse.
• During the last year, members of households with children made up 23 percent of persons using emergency shelter and transitional housing programs in survey cities, while single individuals made up 76 percent. Only one percent of persons in these programs were unaccompanied youth.

• Six cities reported an increase in the overall number of homeless persons accessing emergency shelter and transitional housing programs during the last year. Ten cities cited a specific increase in households with children. Seven cities reported a decrease in the number of individuals accessing emergency shelter and transitional housing programs.

• Disability is more prevalent among homeless singles than among adults in households with children. Rates of disability (mental illness, substance abuse, HIV/AIDS, physical and developmental disabilities) were approximately three times greater for singles than for adults in households with children.

• The average length of stay for persons in emergency shelter and transitional housing decreased from 2006. Cities reported that for households with children, the average length of a stay was 5.7 months in 2007. For singles, the average length of a single stay was reported as 4.7 months. In 2006, cities reported that an average length of stay was 8 months for both populations.

The 23 participating cities in this survey are members of The U.S. Conference of Mayors Task Force on Hunger and Homelessness and include the following: Boston, MA; Charleston, SC; Charlotte, NC; Chicago, IL; Cleveland, OH; Denver, CO; Des Moines, IA; Detroit, MI; Kansas City, MO; Los Angeles, CA; Louisville, KY; Miami, FL; Nashville, TN; Philadelphia, PA; Phoenix, AZ; Portland, OR; Providence, RI; Salt Lake City, UT; San Francisco, CA; Santa Monica, CA; Seattle, WA; St. Paul, MN; Trenton, NJ.

The U.S. Conference of Mayors is the official nonpartisan organization of cities with populations of 30,000 or more. There are 1,139 such cities in the country today, each represented in the conference by its chief elected official, the mayor.

People Prepare for Primaries

2008-02-18T17:39:00.000-05:00

People are using the primaries as a means to express their anger with the direction of the country and the refusal of government to heed their demand to end the war. They are coming out in larger numbers and repeatedly giving more votes to those candidates seen as against the establishment — Obama, Edwards and Kucinich, rather than those of the establishment, particularly Hillary Clinton. Commonly, across the country, about 10-15 percent of registered voters participate in primaries. This year, particularly for the Democrats, the numbers are significantly higher, sometimes double the previous primary. And while these numbers still represent a small fraction of the voters, more significantly, they represent the drive of the people to have a greater say in the primaries and elections more generally.

Another expression if this drive to have their say can be seen in broad participation in various other forms, such as blogs, webpages, union polls, and more. Union-organized debates, including all the candidates, were organized over the summer, for example. Union members sent in their questions, which, unlike those of the monopoly media, did not focus on personalities and mudslinging but on their concerns. They demanded direct answers about ending the war, about jobs, about housing, about relations of mutual respect and benefit with other peoples, not -aggression, occupation and trade wars.

With few exceptions, people everywhere are coming up against the nature of the existing electoral institutions, which are designed to keep the demands and decisions of the people out. For example, the people long ago decided that they want universal free healthcare for all. Many consider it a crime, in a country of such wealth, that anyone goes without healthcare let alone millions of children. But the existing institutions, dominated by the two parties of the rich, reject this decision and instead claim, “it’s not possible, it can’t be done.” The candidates then echo this in various forms, with plans that recognize the power of the pharmaceuticals and insurance monopolies but not the rights of the people.

Similarly, when it comes to the war on Iraq, the people decided and have repeatedly made clear: End the War Now! All Troops Home Now! But the rich and their parties refuse to do so and instead impose debate on their plans of “limited withdrawal,” “special brigades to fight terrorists,” “redeployment of troops to Afghanistan and bases outside Baghdad,” and various other maneuvers for continued occupation.

It was also not the decision of the people for John Edwards to withdraw right before the February 5 primaries and caucuses. It was not their decision for him to abandon the stand that brought him votes — that there are two Americas, one rich and one poor and the people of America reject the dictate of the rich (see p.11). This was a decision of the Democratic Party. Indeed, the primaries are organized by the parties in such a manner that despite the fact that a very small portion of the people nationwide has even had a chance to vote, the Democrats have gone from nine candidates down to two.

The primaries are designed to give the appearance of choice among different candidates, while quickly narrowing the field to two candidates. The institution operates in part by requiring massive sums of money simply to participate, and also, using the monopoly media, on the basis of who is labeled “electable” and who is a “fringe candidate” that “can not win.” It also generally keeps independent and other parties out of the primaries altogether. It is not the people making these decisions — they are being imposed by the parties and the monopoly media.
Despite these obstacles, people are still striving to break through. Many votes for Obama are cast as a challenge to the Democrats, to their exclusion and racism. Few believe the Democrats will allow Obama to be the candidate and by voting for him are daring them to do so. On February 5, while the ruling circles are now testing who will emerge between Clinton and Obama, the people are also testing Obama and the Democrats.

As people use the primaries to show their rejection of the establishment, what also stands out is the need to be pro-active — to take up a program not simply in reaction to the Democrats and Republicans, but as part of organizing the agenda of the working class and people to build their own mechanisms and institutions for democracy and change. Buffalo Forum encourages all its readers and supporters to join in investigating and discussing the existing institutions. How do these mechanisms exclude the people? What interventions now and in the future contribute to the fight for change? The primaries are revealing answers to these problems and the necessity for new institutions of democracy as part of the new direction for the country now being demanded.

Buffalo Defends Rights in Palestine and New Orleans

2008-02-18T17:34:00.002-05:00

The Lackawanna Discussion Group Commission on Rights(LDGCOR) calls on all concerned to join the International Days of Action to defend rights in Palestine, New Orleans and worldwide. U.S.-Israeli crimes in Gaza are such that dozens of Palestinians have been killed in a matter of days and all power to Gaza was shut down. 1.5 million people are being subjected to collective punishment and forced to go without lights and water, with hospitals and businesses forced to close and starvation being imposed on all.

But the Palestinians refuse to submit to U.S. dictate and Israeli occupation. Relying on their own organized resistance, they broke the siege. They bulldozed and blasted through the wall along the Egyptian border with Gaza, with tens of thousands pouring into Egypt to secure food, fuel and supplies for all Gazans. We applaud the firm resistance of the Palestinians and their stand to rely on their own efforts to secure their rights. We condemn the U.S. government for again blocking any action by the United Nations Security Council, and its continued protection, funding and support of Israel. It is the U.S. that makes all these crimes possible and which is responsible for them.

In New Orleans, the U.S. government is continuing its crimes against the peoples, refusing its duty to guarantee the right of Katrina survivors to return and rebuild. Now they are acting to make certain that thousands of families, most African Americans, are blocked from returning by demolishing public housing — housing that is useable, in buildings that are solid and suffered little damage.

Let Buffalonians again join peoples worldwide in rejecting these brutal attacks and all efforts by the U.S. to criminalize resistance and blame the peoples for the crimes of the U.S. Come and take a stand! Join LDGCOR along with Buffalo Forum to DEMONSTRATE this Saturday, January 26 at 1pm, Elmwood and Bidwell. Bring your signs and banners. Let us all unite together in action to defend rights!

Stop the Siege of Gaza! Oppose U.S.-Israeli Crimes!
No to Demolition of Public Housing in New Orleans!
Our Security Lies in Our Fight!

Palestinians Break Gaza Siege

2008-02-18T17:32:00.000-05:00

On January 23, Palestinians in Gaza organized to break the criminal U.S.-Israeli siege against them, and broke down the border wall between Palestine and Egypt. The opening created, in the town of Rafah, made it possible for the Palestinians to secure food, fuel, medical supplies, and more. More than 350,000 Palestinians crossed into Egypt, breaking the effort of the U.S. and Israel to literally starve them into submission. And their spirit is such that not only did they secure food and fuel and medicine, they also brought back cement and other needs to rebuild their homes.

The border wall had been constructed and patrolled by the Israelis, even after they were forced to pull out of Gaza. A “no man’s land” was created between Palestine and Egypt as a buffer. Then in June, the Hamas-led resistance secured Gaza for the Palestinians, and routed the U.S-organized gangs of Lieutenant General Keith Dayton and his point-man, Mohammad Dahlan. Since that time the U.S-Israeli occupation against the Palestinians has targeted Gaza, intensifying a criminal blockade and siege, including military raids killing dozens of civilians — 37 killed and 70 injured in the last week alone. The blocking of fuel meant Gaza’s only power station was forced to shut down on January 20, putting the entire region in darkness. This also meant many water pumps and sewage stations were also stopped, and hospitals forced to close. Since September 75 people have died as a result of the lack of medical care due to the siege.

The Palestinians answered the U.S.-Israeli darkness with candlelight marches on Sunday. Then the women of Gaza protested at the border in Rafah on Tuesday, demanding that it be opened. Then on Wednesday, the Palestinians broke down the border wall. The wall, metal fencing in some areas, and concrete barriers in others, was opened with bulldozers and contained explosions. Men and women, grandmothers and children, streamed across. While before Egypt had enforced the closed border, with this action the Egyptian security forces at the border were forced to take no action against the Palestinians.

In this manner, the Palestinians directly countered efforts by the U.S. and Israel to turn Egypt into an enemy of the Palestinians. President Bush had just visited the region saying “friendship” with Egypt is “one of the main cornerstones of our policy in this region.” He emphasized that the U.S. expects Egypt to support U.S-Israeli efforts to subjugate the Palestinians, by supporting the latest Annapolis “peace” process. As Bush put it in his meetings with the Egyptian government, “I know nations in the neighborhood are willing to help, particularly yourself.”

The Palestinians, with their actions, made it impossible for the government of Egypt to do anything other than assist the Palestinians. Their organized resistance made clear that the know to rely on their own resistance and that it is this resistance that is their source of security, in Palestine and the region as a whole.
At present the border remains open. Hamas and the people of Gaza have again demanded that the siege be ended, a general ceasefire negotiated and the borders opened, with the Palestinians and Egyptians alone controlling their border without U.S.-Israeli interference.

USMLO Greetings 2008: Peoples Strengthen Resistance by Defending the Rights of All

2008-02-18T17:23:00.001-05:00

2007 saw the continued, determined and growing struggle of the American working class and people for the rights of all and against imperialist war and the crimes of the ruling class, at home and abroad. Wherever the ruling class has attempted to criminalize and block the people, they have been met with vigorous resistance. The large majority wants the Iraq war ended now and they want all U.S. troops home now, so as to block all aggressive U.S. wars. The people have condemned Bush as a war criminal, a terrorist at home and abroad and are demanding that he be charged. They are standing firm against war on Iran and have stepped up efforts to build fraternal people-to-people relations — with the Iraqis, Iranians, Palestinians, Cubans, and with Canadians and Mexicans. Numerous trips have been made by American delegations to meet directly with the Iraqis and Iranians and make clear the anti-war stand of the people.

Americans joined Canadians and Mexicans in opposing the Security and Prosperity Partnership in Montebello, Quebec, just as we joined at Quebec City against the Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA). These are part of continuing efforts by the U.S. to annex Canada and Mexico and secure all of Latin America for its war and empire. They are efforts to split the peoples so as to crush their resistance. But they are failing in this regard, as the peoples organize to strengthen their relations. And while the ruling class continuously tries to use its chauvinism to split Americans from the world’s people and divide the class inside the country, what is emerging is a united stand with the world’s peoples and a break with this chauvinism. The stand being taken is to defend sovereignty and reject U.S. aggression and interference; it is to defend the right to resist, in Iraq, Afghanistan, Palestine, worldwide.

Together the peoples are bringing forward as their answer to the U.S. war of terrorism, our united stand that Security Lies in Our Fight for the Rights of All.
It is the honor of the immigrant workers to have once again established May Day as a day of action by the workers of the U.S. May Day 2006 and 2007 brought millions of workers from all nationalities into the streets, taking their united stand that an injury to one is an injury to all. These actions rejected the role of the workers as passive wage slaves and brought them forward into the political arena. 2008 will also see May Day actions that will advance the demands of the people that No One is Illegal! They will also be used to send clear messages to the presidential candidates that there will be no votes for candidates that are pro-war and anti-immigrant.

The ruling class also attempted to isolate and destroy New Orleans, long a center of resistance and internationalist spirit. These crimes too are being opposed, with the people of New Orleans joined by people coming from across the country to defend the right to return and rebuild and block the ruling circles from setting the example that they can outright eliminate public schools, public housing and whole populations. This battleground is being engaged and the peoples are organizing to emerge on top.

As we enter the 2008 presidential election year, the sharpening economic crisis and continuing threat of broader war bring great uncertainty. The conditions facing the people have brought to the fore the rotten character of monopoly capitalism that the rich get richer and the poor get poorer, with the concentration of wealth and levels of poverty increasing.

False Promises of the Ruling Class
People have repeatedly seen what the promises of the ruling circles bring. Following the end of the Cold War, where the U.S. proclaimed itself the winner, there was to be a peace dividend. Reaganomics were to bring “trickle-down” benefits. Both have proven false. The policy of massive use of credit and deficit financing to escape crisis is bringing its results. These measures too have only intensified the economic crisis, with the U.S. dependent on massive financing from other countries, like China and Japan. The current credit and mortgage crisis is further contributing to the likelihood of a recession. The massive war spending, year after year, is also exacerbating the economic crisis, as these funds are continually taken out of the economy.

Imperialist globalization has both plundered the peoples of Asia, Africa and Latin America and meant that millions of industrial jobs have been lost in the U.S. The average wages of the new jobs are 50 percent less, forcing many more into poverty and debt. The minimum wage in the U.S. remained frozen for 10 years, with purchasing power at a fifty-year low. Even with the slight increase to $7.25 an hour by 2009, those working for minimum wage will still be below the federal poverty line, making only about $15,000 a year. An estimated 10 percent of workers, 13 million, make minimum wage. Many more make only slightly more. These conditions mean the majority of people using food pantries and soup kitchens are working families. In this land of plenty, homelessness has increased and now with the mortgage crisis, millions more are losing their homes with little ability to afford to buy new ones. The promise of the “American Dream” — a secure job and home — can no longer be delivered. These are the results the ruling class and their system imposed on the people.

Further demonstrating the failure of the system to provide for the rights of the people is the broad anti-social offensive by all levels of government. These brutal attacks are intensifying, with yet more cuts nationwide to healthcare, housing, education, pensions and the jobs of state and city workers.
This anti-social offensive of the ruling class is repeatedly being done in the name of “no money.” But governments at all levels are having great difficulty using this justification. Repeatedly, there are hundreds of billions for war. More than $480

Obama, Huckabee Make Gains in Iowa

2008-02-18T17:08:00.002-05:00

Barak Obama for the Democrats and Mike Huckabee for the Republicans emerged as the candidates with more votes in the Iowa caucuses January 3. According to news reports, Obama secured about 38 percent of the vote, John Edwards 30 percent, Hillary Clinton 29 percent and Bill Richardson 2 percent. For Republicans Huckabee secured 34 percent, with 25 percent for Mitt Romney, 13 percent each for Fred Thompson and John McCain, 10 percent for Ron Paul and 3 percent for Rudy Giuliani. It can be seen that no candidate secured a majority. This is further emphasized by the fact that only about 10-15 percent of voters participate in the caucuses and in the entire primary season.

The vote for Democrats is also -complicated by their method of requiring that each candidate secure 15 percent of all voters present at each meeting. Failing that, these voters have to go with another -candidate. As a result, it appears that a candidate like Dennis Kucinich received no votes, while what is more likely is that the votes he did get went to other candidates. Kucinich and Bill Richardson both took stands against their own candidacies, by calling on voters, before a single vote was cast, to give support to Obama if they did not secure the 15 percent threshold. Neither condemned the process as exclusionary and one blocking voters from having their say.

The gains by both Obama and Huckabee are seen as a message from voters that are rejecting the establishment candidates of the two parties, notably Hillary Clinton and Mitt Romney, and expressing their demand for change. The Democrats, in particular are attempting to occupy the space for change that exists — a space stemming from the necessity of present conditions to advance progress. This requires a system of elections and rule that empowers the people themselves to govern and decide. Democrats, as a party, have the task of maintaining the existing set up, while appearing to be for change. A battle is on, between this old set-up and its parties, the Democrats and Republicans, and the new quality emerging, for a system and institutions that empower the people.

It is no accident then that the slogan of the Democrats this year is “Democrats Leading the Way for Change.” Senator Obama has as his slogan “Change We Can Believe In.” Senator Hillary Clinton’s is “Ready for Change, Ready to Lead.” As the elections unfold, a critical question is, what will be the quality of that change and what will the role of the people be in deciding it? Will the change represent progress for the people, or retrogression?

Obama, having advanced in Iowa, with a population that is largely white, is now positioned as someone supported by both whites and African Americans. He is presenting as the person who is bringing about unity. He said “In small towns and big cities, you came together as Democrats, Republicans and independents, to stand up and say we are one nation. We are one people. And our time for change has come. You said the time has come to move beyond the bitterness and pettiness and anger that is consumed in Washington. To end the political strategy that has been about division, and instead make it about addition. To build a coalition that stretches through red states and blue states. Because that is how we will win in November and that is how we will finally meet the challenges we face as a nation. We are choosing hope over fear. We are choosing unity over division, and sending a powerful message that change is coming to America.” The content of unity being given here is that among the ruling circles, between Democrats and Republicans — red and blue states. People come together as “Democrats, Republicans and independents.” And the role of the people is to support that unity, and that continued rule. The we is not, “we the people,” but we the Democrats and Republicans, we the rulers. But necessarily, Obama, like Clinton, must also address the anger of the people toward government and the peoples’ rejection of their exclusion from government. Obama continues, “You said the time has come to tell the lobbyists who think their money and their influence speak louder than our voices that they do not own this government — we do. And we are here to take it back.” He concludes by again emphasizing, “We are not a collection of red states and blue states. We are the United States of America.”

The people are not divided into red and blue states. That is a concoction of the ruling circles and their Democratic and Republican parties to divert from the fundamental division: that between the ruling circles, driving society backward and down the path of fascism and war, and that of the working class and people, fighting for progress, to advance society and secure a government that favors them. The emphasis that the division is between Republicans and Democrats is given as a mechanism to draw people into the agenda of the ruling circles. It serves to re-establish their credibility and that of their system at a time when both are broadly recognized, here and worldwide, as illegitimate.

The broad struggles of the peoples also make clear that their unity is built by standing together to defend the rights of all. Making a break with the chauvinism of the ruling circles, their power and dictate and claims that the U.S. is the best and only model, is a big part of this fight. When it comes to the Iraq war, the people are standing together with the Iraqis and rejecting the notion that we are to defend the U.S. and its aggression. The same is the case with torture, with aggression against Iran or any other country, with the rights of immigrants, with the crimes against Katrina survivors. The people are rejecting a government that has shown itself to be racist and aggressive to the core. Their fight, their agenda for change, is not to go back but to advance forward to a new government and new arrangements that empower the people to decide. This is the struggle for change being engaged in the elections.

No Spy Cameras or Police in Schools!

2007-11-18T16:15:00.000-05:00

The Buffalo public school system is one example of an urban school system adopting police-state arrangements in the name of “preventing crime.” The school system has begun the installation of cameras at various schools and it is likely these will spread. In addition, Buffalo and Rochester are each planning to install dozens of cameras across their respective cities to “fight crime.” Youth curfews, police “crackdowns” and raids are becoming regular features of both cities. None of these measures have lessened crime.

Cameras are also appearing in schools around the country. The Demarest public schools in New Jersey recently installed 24 cameras in their schools and also provided a direct connection to the police. The police literally have a live feed of school activities as a result of the $28,000 spy system. -Laptops will be used to operate and control the cameras and will give each police officer “17 eyes in multiple locations.” Plans are already underway to install even more advanced spy-cams in New jersey’s Northern Valley High school. The logic here is that the youth are criminals and the only problem is “catching” them in the act.

In South Dakota, over the last three years Mitchell public schools have spent well over $210,000 on 110 spy-cams, also supposedly to “prevent crime.” This is in addition to a “check-in” system where all employees are required to use ID swipe cards to enter buildings. The cameras are in many different locations and operate 24 hours a day. Thus youth, teachers and school staff are criminals, to be constantly spied on, though no crime has been committed.

The 75,000-student Nashville school district is slated to become the first school system in the country to install a “face-recognition” system. Nashville will take digital photos of students, teachers and other school workers at three test schools and store them in the new spy system. When a camera spots a face in a school that it cannot match to a stored photo, it will alert security. The Nashville pilot program costs $30,000 and is expected to be expanded if it is “a success.”

Experts and rights groups point out that such systems are invasive, highly unreliable, and expensive. In fact, some police departments have refused to use such systems or abandoned them altogether because they target many innocent people and brand them as “threats.” For example, police departments in Tampa, Florida and Virginia Beach, Virginia found that “face-recognition” cameras downtown did not help spot wanted criminals. Similarly, an elementary school in Phoenix installed “face-recognition” spy-cams in 2004, supposedly to find sex offenders. They never turned the cameras on because of concern they would flag innocent people.

In addition, the cameras have problems in poor lighting or if they photograph at an angle and cannot fully view a face. A test last year in a German subway system found that cameras spotted only half of the test subjects. But none of these facts are stopping the spread of police-state -arrangements in schools and colleges across the U.S. This indicates that the aim of the measures is not security, it is control and repression of the youth, teachers and workers and using schools for this repression. For the ruling class, schools are not in any way to be centers of enlightenment and learning, but instead they are to be centers for drilling the youth in military-style submission to those in control. Teachers are to become spies and policemen in the schools, while also being subject to repression and regimentation themselves.

Schools are public places and are supposed to serve the public good. Modern society requires that the youth be educated at the highest levels on a cultured, all-round basis. Society is responsible for meeting this right to education and providing all that is required for teachers to teach and students to learn. The broad disinformation on security and moves to turn the schools into prisons and centers for military recruitment are designed to hide the fact that the government refuses to guarantee the right to education while imposing its criminalization and repression on the youth. The youth are being made to blame for social problems that require social solutions.

The government takes no responsibility for the worsening social conditions plaguing the youth and school systems in Buffalo and across the country — such as growing poverty, exploitation, racism, elimination of school sports and closing of recreational facilities and after-school programs. Instead, government at all levels endlessly repeats that there is no money for social programs or any of the needs of the people. But there is money for “security” and repression.

The United States spent nearly $1 trillion on “security” (policing agencies, FBI, CIA, ICE, military and so forth) in fiscal year 2007 alone, yet everyone, here and abroad is more insecure. Buffalo will spend more than $3 million to install 60 cameras in areas branded as “high crime” across the city. The problem is not lack of money.

As part of the government’s attack on rights, public spaces, including public schools, are being rapidly militarized. This includes military programs like Junior Reserve Officer Training Corps (JROTC) in many more schools, especially in the cities, military recruiters regularly in the halls and cafeterias, and daily humiliation and regimentation of the youth through use of metal detectors, searches, and cameras.

While there is little evidence that cameras increase security, there is extensive evidence that they are routinely used to target, profile, track, repress, and humiliate people. Buffalo’s public transit workers have long opposed the use of cameras, documenting that they are used to spy on and harass the workers. Those that resist are targeted with reprisals for minor infractions caught on camera. It is also known, for example, that there were cameras at Columbine high school and still a tragedy took place.

It cannot be shown that cameras solve problems, while facts are clear that they are used against the workers and youth to humiliate them and justify more repression. The youth and workers are not criminals — the existing social system is criminal. Stop funding aggressive war and repressive measures and increase funding for social programs now!

Promoters of Cameras Want Us to Stop Thinking

2007-11-18T16:05:00.000-05:00

A Buffalo Teacher

I am in a school that is considering installing cameras in the hallways and in some classrooms. I think this is a big deal. It is not a little thing. It is an attack on our very humanity, our thinking. First of all, cameras have nothing to do with preventing crime or keeping us safe. But cameras will certainly be used to target teachers and students who stand up for rights, where a pretext will suffice to attack teachers and students. Cameras and the spying that goes with them are an attack on teachers and students, subjecting them to surveillance and humiliation. But there is more.

Everyone knows there are problems of violence and individual crime in our society. But, lack of cameras is not the cause of violence or crime and having cameras does not lessen either one. A false relationship is being given to divert from actual causes and solutions, and put the blame on teachers and students.

The social causes of violence or crime are not dealt with in the “solutions” proposed by the politicians of the rich. Instead, the crimes and violence of poverty and exploitation — caused and perpetuated by the system and fully facilitated by the state — are deepening. These are monumental social crimes inflicted on the people on a constant basis, crushing humanity and keeping the people in a terrible state where they can barely survive. Buffalo is now second only to Detroit as the poorest city in the country, with large numbers of youth living in poverty. They have every right to resist. The crimes of repression and humiliation against individuals and collectives, which includes cameras and surveillance, target the resistance. School officials and administrators have no business engaging in such humiliation.

But there is still more — because these cameras are also an ideological attack on our thinking, on our consciousness. Bringing in cameras is intended to immobilize teachers and students by imposing fear and suspicions and making everyone feel more vulnerable. People outside the schools, including parents, are supposed to voyeuristically look on as this attack occurs. Everyone is to ignore the real problems and solutions. We are all supposed to stop thinking and accept being told what to do and how to behave.

When it comes to better teaching and learning conditions in our schools, we are told to accept that there is no money. But there is money for spying, war and other crimes. Yet we are made the criminals! Cameras and other measures, in addition to being a frontal attack, are looking to use the people against themselves. We are supposed to accept that everyone is already a criminal, and that the powers that be are our saviors since they are watching for when we inevitably commit a crime.

So, really, the question is about thinking and being conscious.

The rulers who peddle cameras as “solutions” don’t want us to think, just submit to their illogical and false justifications, and live in fear of one another. They would have us believe that we, the people, are the problem and we should go after each other. They are frightened since the biggest threat to their rotten system is for the people to see their common enemy and unite their efforts to build their organizations and consciousness for a new world. The rulers are willing to perpetuate even bigger crimes against us and all humanity. We cannot concede what appear to be “little points”— especially when it comes to thinking. Let us reaffirm our rights every time they want us to stop thinking: the rulers are the criminals, and their system is inhuman. We the people will build our consciousness and organization to solve the problems together!

Cameras Will Not Solve Problems in Schools

2007-11-18T16:04:00.000-05:00

A Buffalo Teacher

As a Buffalo teacher, I was angered to hear that plans were being made to install cameras in our schools. Now, I’ve learned that the installations are already underway — in Grover Cleveland High School, Burgard, and others. Everyone knows that these high schools are mostly African American and international students. This is unacceptable! The rationale is always the same: school safety, teachers’ safety, students’ safety. Where is the evidence that cameras in schools make schools safer? Columbine had cameras — capturing various scenes of violent acts as they were being committed, but preventing nothing.

The fact of the matter is that cameras will be used not as a weapon against crime, but as a weapon against teachers and students. How can constant monitoring, spying really, give anyone a sense of security? Just ask any city bus driver how they feel about being watched constantly while they are working. They will tell you they hate it. Sure, the cameras were installed on the busses under the same guise of “security” but, to date, have only been used to intimidate, harass and punish the drivers. If the NFTA (Niagara Frontier Transportation Authority) has a beef with this or that driver, for whatever reason, or no reason at all, all they have to do is go back and look at hundreds of hours of videotape until they find one tiny infraction. I am not making this up! I know a driver that was organizing for the right to have bathrooms available for drivers and the time to use them (a huge issue for bus drivers) and he was almost fired for eating a slice of pizza on his bus (caught on film)!

I have no doubt that the cameras will be used against the teachers and students. In fact, if anyone says anything these days about “increasing security” it always translates into increasing repression and humiliation. What teacher wants a camera trained on them while they are teaching, or during their prep period, or working after school, or eating lunch?

Cameras will create more problems, not solve them. This is in part because its starting point is that the students and teachers are the source of the problems. Spying on them, punishing them, creating conditions like prisons —with searches, cameras, armed guards and the humiliation that goes with them —is aimed at repressing the teachers and students. We are supposed to accept this collective punishment and humiliation and live with it day to day, get used to it, even join in enforcing it. Teachers are to be police and spies, not teachers.

To begin solving problems in the schools, we must together begin by defending rights, our collective rights as teachers to have all the conditions necessary to teach and the collective rights of youth to education and all the conditions necessary to learn. These conditions include government responsibility for solving problems like poverty and racism that greatly impact our schools. They include engaging teachers, youth and parents together in identifying needs based on their concrete conditions and organizing to secure them. City schools face similar as well as different problems as suburban schools. These cannot be dismissed and ignored and must be taken into account when training teachers for urban teaching. Recreational and after-school needs of the youth must also be considered. Many specifics can be identified, and government funding and organizing to solve any one of them would contribute to the safety and security of youth and teachers. Cameras do not. There is considerable evidence that higher wages and benefits, smaller classes, books and supplies for everyone, all contribute to meeting the right to education. There is no evidence that cameras, police, searches, metal detectors improve safety. There is a lot of evidence that they increase insecurity, humiliation and punishment of those being spied on.

Education is a social necessity, requiring social solutions. Government has a social responsibility for providing public schools on a par with the level of U.S. society — for meeting the needs of the students and teachers by guaranteeing their rights. Clearly, the failure that exists is not the youth and students, it is the government. It is their failure that must be targeted and their false solutions rejected as a step towards security. It is by demanding that they meet their responsibility to increase funding for public education and rejecting claims that there is “no money” that steps can be taken. There is money, for war, for paying the Wall Street loansharks, for giving tax breaks to the monopolies. There is money. That is not the problem. Youth and teachers are not the problem. Government and the decisions it is making to keep this rotten system in place are the problems. Let us discuss together what is needed for teachers to teach and students to learn and we no doubt will identify important needs, but cameras will not be one of them!

Our Youth Are Not Criminals

2007-11-18T16:01:00.000-05:00

The Buffalo Public Schools are considering placing video cameras in the high schools. The plan is to begin with Burgard, Grover Cleveland and Academy School 44, considered one of the alternative schools. Burgard is mostly African American and Grover Cleveland has a large number of international students as well as African Americans. An electronic system for entering the schools is also being considered.
According to school officials, the cameras will be monitored from a central location, not at the schools themselves. Yet the cameras are supposed to “deter inappropriate behavior, record incidents and enhance a sense of security.” The cameras are supposed to provide “increased safety of students and staff.” No evidence is provided as to how this is to take place.

Many workers who have been forced to live with cameras could certainly explain that cameras actually increase insecurity. People know they are being spied on and that those doing the spying have arbitrary power to punish the workers, commonly for little or no reason.

Buffalo bus drivers, who have up to 9 cameras on their buses, can certainly testify to the fact that the cameras are used as punishment against the drivers and do not increase safety. They are used to spy on the workers on breaks, where they are often forced to eat on the bus, and to harass and intimidate them whenever the NFTA sees fit. Whenever the NFTA wants to target a worker resisting, they will dig through their camera files and find some minor infraction, then threaten the worker with reprisals. Indeed, the cameras are so hated, removing them is a main demand of the drivers. Similarly, the massive camera systems placed in large cities like Chicago and elsewhere have not proven to provide any increased safety or lessening of crime.

So why put them in the schools? It is for the same purpose of further criminalizing the youth and blaming them for the problems of society. Buffalo youth and schools suffer from the brutal anti-social offensive imposed on them — massive cuts, massive layoffs of teachers, elimination of librarians, counselors and nurses, and so forth. There are the social problems of high levels of poverty. These are the crimes against the youth that society is duty bound to tackle. Instead the youth are made the criminals and the schools are made prisons, with armed guards, cameras and barred doors. In addition, the rights of the youth to speak and organize against these attacks are met with more arbitrary punishment.

Our youth are not criminals and our teachers and school staff are not police! Cameras will solve no problem, and will instead be used to justify more repression. We join the bus drivers in saying, No Cameras!

Cameras are a tool for criminalizing, not educating. What is needed instead is to open the space for discussion among youth, teachers and parents on meeting the needs of the youth, beginning with respecting the right of the youth to speak and organize and present their demands for serious consideration by all. Education is a right to be defended by all and when the youth organize, that is what they are doing. We say, join with them!

Housing is a Right! Outlaw Evictions and Meet the Needs of the People for Housing

2007-11-02T15:59:00.000-04:00

CITY OF BUFFALO FORECLOSURE AUCTION

During October 22, 23, and 24 the City of Buffalo placed nearly 3,000 properties in the city on auction at the Buffalo -Convention Center. About 2,100 properties are homes, roughly 250 are commercial properties, and the rest are vacant lots. This marks the largest number of parcels to be offered for sale in at least a decade. Most of the properties are located in the Fillmore District and other East Side, mainly African American neighborhoods.

For several years the City of Buffalo has used non-payment of taxes or fees as a justification for seizing peoples’ homes. “Properties whose owners are delinquent in paying taxes, water bills and garbage fees [i.e., most owners] will be offered to the highest bidders when the gavel falls in the Convention Center next week,” announced the Buffalo News a few days before the auction. No consideration will be given to the fate of those who may end up being evicted. In addition, limited services are available to those seeking to arrange a way to keep their homes.

While specific numbers are unavailable and hard to come by, hundreds of the homes that were on the auction block are still occupied, often by poor, elderly, or disabled individuals and families. As a result, many may be evicted. Some people are behind on taxes. Many families are only behind on their garbage and water fees — which many consider unjust and illegal government “double-dipping,” as these services are covered by the already high taxes paid. Moreover, these fees have steadily increased over the years.

This year nearly 700 properties brought bids from hundreds of bidders totaling $4.4 million. Bidders have until December 14 to finalize the property purchases. The city is acquiring 1,114 properties that did not receive bids at this week’s auction. Many of these will be targeted for demolition. Since 2001, on average, Buffalo received 527 bids totaling $3.1 million. This year’s bidding was about 28 percent higher than the six-year norm. Last year, less than 1,600 properties were offered for sale, and successful bids were placed on about 600 parcels. Following a national trend, mortgage foreclosures quadrupled in the City of Buffalo from 1990 to 2000, and continue to rise. Most of these are in predominantly black neighborhoods.

Buffalo Forum vigorously denounces these government actions and demands No Evictions! Housing is a Right! The city has no business taking peoples homes away, often for the inability to pay only a few thousand dollars. Why not actually improve conditions of life for city residents, especially its most vulnerable? For starters why not use vacant properties to house and shelter the city’s homeless? Why not turn over useable but vacant properties to families in need for $1? Buffalo already has the second highest poverty level in the country, at 30 percent, with 50 percent of children living in poverty. These growing evictions will only intensify this problem.

In addition, why does the state charge homeowners a $400 foreclosure fee even when they have secured a financial arrangement with the city to prevent their property from reaching the auction block? And this is being done in a situation where people already cannot pay their taxes. We say the state should provide funds to ensure no one loses their home!

The house foreclosures in the City of Buffalo come at a time when foreclosures (and bankruptcies) are at an all-time high across the country, with many predicting that things are only going to worsen in the coming months. 400,000 foreclosure filings have taken place in the last two months alone, and hundreds of thousands more, perhaps millions more, people are likely to lose their homes over the next year or so. This is yet further evidence of the failure of the U.S. state to meet even the most basic needs of the population for housing.

Housing is a Right! No Evictions!

Foreclosures Skyrocket in New York State and Across the Country

2007-11-02T15:58:00.000-04:00

Over the last few months foreclosures across the country have skyrocketed, setting new records. Nationally, there were a total of 243,947 filings in August, up 115 percent from the same period a year earlier. This is the highest number of foreclosure filings in a single month since RealtyTrac, an online marketplace for foreclosure properties, began tallying monthly figures in January 2005 (34 months ago). Nevada, California, and Florida have the highest state foreclosure rates.
Foreclosure filings in New York State jumped to 5,498 in August, up 21.2 percent from the same period a year ago, according to RealtyTrac. The state, which had one filing for every 1,428 households in August, ranked 28th in the nation in terms of rate of filings. Filings include default notices, auction sale notices, and bank repossessions.

In New York City foreclosures -increased by 30 percent. Brooklyn is the hardest hit of the five boroughs, with 1,032 foreclosure filings in August, compared with 822 in August 2006. Queens is in nearly as bad shape. There were 1,121 new filings in August, compared with 572 in August 2006. In The Bronx, 452 foreclosure filings were recorded, compared with 289 in August 2006. On Staten Island, 240 foreclosures were filed, compared to 246 the same month last year.

Broad Actions Demand All U.S. Troops Home Now!

2007-11-02T15:56:00.000-04:00

OCTOBER 27 DEMONSTRATIONS

In the third major anti-war action this fall, more than 100,000 people nationwide represented the firm demand of the people — All U.S. Troops Home Now! The signs and spirit expressed made clear that all means all and now means now. Not One More Death, Not One More Dollar! was the call. Many thousands of participants in 11 cities — from Orlando, New Orleans and Jonesborough, Tennessee, to Boston, Chicago, Seattle and Los Angeles — and many other local actions, rallied, marched and organized civil disobedience, demanding an end to the Iraq war and all U.S. aggression. Workers and their unions were well represented, as were youth, women, and political, religious, community, immigrant rights organizations and many more. Military families and veterans took their place alongside activists from the sixties and high school youth. Everywhere people expressed their refusal to accept the dictate of President George W. Bush and Congress that war and use of force at home and abroad provides peace and security. The demonstrations themselves expressed the peoples’ militant spirit that says, Our security lies in our fight!

The various organizations and participants utilized the actions to strengthen their working relations and broaden their outreach. All worked hard to mobilize among their peers, in communities and workplaces. Having successfully organized three actions of national scope in six weeks, people are feeling the need to assess the level of consciousness and organization achieved and work out next steps. What is the place of the 2008 elections and anti-war candidates, of continued demonstrations, of civil disobedience, meetings and teach-ins to discuss our common work and strengthen our fight for the rights of all? We urge everyone to organize to discuss these matters and seriously assess the situation as part of together advancing the anti-war movement.