Extending unemployment compensation has to be just the first step

Scan page 3

The sad truth is that neither capitalist Yet taking into account the 160,000 jobs lost in this recession still would not The Struggle for Immigrant Rights Activist with the Immigrant Solidarity Dupage (Chicago area) and William Way LGBT Center, 1315 Spruce St., Phila.

Sponsored by Socialist Action, [email protected] Socialist Action august 2010 3 Some of the first victims of the austerity drive in Washington are our friends and neighbors, the unemployed. Unfortunately, the mainstream media has picked up the narrative of some rightist politicians that there really are jobs available—but that the unemployed are “enjoying” their state-paid vacations!

Tom Corbett, Republican candidate for governor of Pennsylvania, said recently, “The jobs are there, but if we keep extending unemployment, people are just going to sit there. … I’ve literally had construction companies tell me, ‘I can’t get people to come back to work until—they say, “We’ll come back when unemployment runs out.”’”

Corbett isn’t the only one trying to sell this idea of the “lazy” unemployed. Tea Party Republicans Rand Paul and Sharron Angle have made similar statements. Paul said, “As bad as it sounds, ultimately we do have to sometimes accept a wage that’s less than we had at our previous job in order to get back to work and allow the economy to get started again.”

All of these politicians are ignoring the dire situation that the unemployed, especially the long-term unemployed, face—foreclosures, higher rates of suicide, broken marriages, and higher rates of child and spousal abuse. party is doing much to address the problem of unemployment. Although they can bail out big banks and corporations with government funding, they insist that unemployment must be solved by the so-called free market. Without turning up the heat on the politicians, we can expect no concrete action to help working people.

At the very outset of the recession, the economy began to hemorrhage jobs. Right now, the Bureau of Labor Statistics (June report) counts 14.6 million unemployed, or about 9.5% of the workforce. The number of long-term unemployed (often left uncounted in official unemployment-rate statistics) is at 6.8 million. The number of “involuntary” part-time workers (those who want full-time work but can’t find it) is at 8.6 million. The unemployment for Blacks, at 15.4%, is roughly twice that of whites (8.6 %), and joblessness amongst Latinos is at 12.4%. This of course does not figure in the large numbers of undocumented workers who have lost jobs in the slump.

The establishment media is reporting only the rosiest scenarios of recovery. For instance, a Philadelphia Inquirer report of July 21 claims that “to recoup the jobs lost in the recession, the economy would have to create 280,000 jobs a month for the next 5 years.” workers who enter the workforce every month, the number of jobs that needs to be created is much higher; 9.6 million new workers (160,000 X 60 months), plus the 14.6 million already unemployed, means 24.2 million new jobs are required over a period of five years. This demonstrates that in excess of 403,000 jobs a month need to be created.

Of course, meeting this goal would only be possible according to the most optimistic estimates of growth. But different scenarios have been posited by the Center for Economic Policy and Research (CEPR). They state that even if job growth attained the rate of the fastest four years of the most recent economic expansion period, the recovery of the Philadelphia­ forum — take place until 2021 (www.cepr.net).

The bosses got a bail out; we need one of our own. Working people need to mobilize for the creation of jobs now! We don’t have another decade to wait for the “free market” to come to our rescue. We need to demand the creation of good jobs at good wages as well as other measures, as explained in Socialist Action’s “Workers Action Program to Meet the Economic Crisis” (see a summary of some of the key demands on page 2).

A good start will be the March for Jobs called by the NAACP and the AFL-CIO for Oct. 2. All local unions and labor councils should be mobilizing their members, employed and unemployed, for a massive march on Washington, D.C. n Grassroots Immigrant Justice Network.

Sat., Aug. 14, 3 p.m.

Scan page 4

... 800 attend United National Antiwar Conference Thomas Bias Thomas Bias 4 Socialist Action august 2010 (continued from page 1: “800 attend national antiwar conference in Albany, N.Y”) cial justice organizations. The conference adhered throughout the proceedings to an open and democratic, “one-personone-vote” procedure. The central demands that the conference adopted were:

• Immediate and unconditional withdrawal of all U.S. troops, mercenaries, military contractors, and war dollars from Iraq, Afghanistan, and Pakistan.

• Money for jobs, education, health care, pensions, housing, infrastructure, the environment, and human needs in general—not war.

• End U.S. aid to Israel—military, economic, and diplomatic. End U.S. support for the Israeli occupation of Palestine and the blockade of Gaza.

The third set of demands was incorporated into the Action Program by an overwhelming majority vote, following a long and vigorous debate on the relationship between the antiwar movement and the Palestinian freedom struggle. A comprehensive resolution on Palestine, including support for “boycotts, divestment and sanctions” (BDS) against Israel was also approved at the concluding session, this time by a unanimous vote.

Varying strategies presented Renowned social activist, linguist, and historian Noam Chomsky keynoted the conference via a 30-minute video telecast that reviewed the machinations and disinformation campaigns surrounding U.S. imperial policy in Iraq and Afghanistan. Chomsky presented grave warnings regarding the dangers of recent U.S. preparations for a war against Iran.

Also keynoting the conference was South Carolina AFL-CIO President Donna Dewitt, who sharply focused her remarks on the need to broaden and unify the movement to include the wide range of constituencies required to build an effective struggle against U.S. intervention and for social justice.

Muralist Mike Alewitz made a stirring dedication speech for the cloth mural draped behind the conference stage— a memorial to the four students at Kent State University (in Ohio) killed by National Guard troops on May 4, 1970, and to the two students murdered by police at Jackson State College (in Mississippi) 10 days later. Alewitz was a young participant in the Kent State antiwar rally that the National Guard fired upon. It had been called in solidarity with nationwide protests against the invasion of Cambodia ordered by President Nixon a few days earlier.

“These young lives,” Alewitz said, “were snuffed out as an example to others to stop the protests. But Nixon had greatly misjudged the mood of the country. Instead of curbing the protests, he provoked a national student strike. For every one of our martyrs, tens of thousands took their place.”

“That spirit lives,” Alewitz declared. He said that the UNAC mural was dedicated to the latest martyrs, “the nine brave activists of the Freedom Flotilla, who said to the world that we will never turn our backs on the Palestinian people.” And the real memorial, he concluded, “is sitting before me—the living movement.”

Two major Friday and Saturday evening panel discussions, with some 12 speakers each, presented a wide range of strategies and tactics to advance the antiwar movement and to highlight the multitude of issues that the organizers deemed essential to building a broad-based, inclusive, and effective fightback.

Representing the National Assembly, Chris Gauvreau reviewed the essential ingredients of the mass movement that needs to be constructed today. Key to the movement’s success, she concluded, was the construction of a united and democratic political movement that operates independent of the Democratic and Republican parties. (Her speech appears on page 5 in this issue of Socialist Action.)

The conference was not without serious debates over critical issues, the most intensely contested of which were the amendments submitted to the Draft Action Program by a recently formed Palestine Solidarity Caucus. This group of 1520 Palestine solidarity activists began its deliberations via a series of national conference calls and finalized its proposals and tactics at a well-attended conference caucus meeting of about 75 participants.

Two major plenary sessions discussed and debated some 45 wide-ranging amendments and resolutions that had been submitted prior to the conference, as well as others offered at the conference itself. The amendments expanded the scope of the initial nine-point Draft Action Plan, originally presented unanimously by the 31 co-sponsoring organizations, to about 24 distinct actions over the course of the coming nine months. Aug. 28 & Oct. 2 labor mobilizations These activities will begin with UNAC supporting the Aug. 28 Detroit and Washington, D.C., labor and civil rights groups’ mobilizations “to create jobs and stop moving money out of education and into wars and prisons.” These actions will also commemorate Martin Luther King Jr.’s historic March on Washington. The Aug. 28 actions are also aimed at countering the reactionary, racist, and provocative Tea Party gathering also slated for Aug. 28 in the nation’s capital.

The UNAC conference endorsed and voted to build an antiwar contingent in the Oct. 2 national march for jobs in Tony Savino / Socialist Action Washington, D.C., supported by the AFL-CIO and initiated by the NAACP and the SEIU-affiliated Local 1199. The Oct. 2 national mobilization’s inclusion of antiwar themes represents an important opportunity to link labor’s fightback at home with the struggle against the present trillion-dollar corporate war budget aimed at colonial expansion and horrific death and destruction abroad.

A number of conference speakers, including Glen Ford of the Black Agenda Report, while expressing support for the Oct. 2 labor mobilization, cautioned that this effort not be turned into a pre-election rally for the Democratic Party. The thunderous applause that greeted Ford’s critique of the policies of the Obama administration was a powerful indication that today’s antiwar and social movements are increasingly looking to independent forms of struggle.

Ford, citing a recent poll, was also critical of the still strong illusions in Obama, especially among Black Americans. Ford talked about the culture of resistance that in past decades made Black people the most dependable antiwar demographic in the U.S. But Obama’s presence, Ford noted, has served as a “narcotic” for the Black population. “Breaking the Obama spell is the must-do task for a renewed movement for social justice and peace,” he added. “There is nothing complicated about it. You simply tell the truth. Obama works for Wall Street and the militarists. That is the truth.”

Similar concerns were expressed by Albany conference immigration-rights activists who pointed with alarm to the Oct. 2 march organizers’ demand for “comprehensive immigration reform,” a term that has come to be associated with President Obama’s support for the notorious antiimmigrant and punitive bill sponsored by Rep. Charles Schumer (D-NY).

The above concerns are certainly legitimate—and especially so in light of labor’s decades-long history of bureaucratic functioning and subordination to the Democratic Party. But the fact that labor and moderate civil rights leaders feel compelled to organize mass protests in the nation’s capital that challenge the government’s war and social policies is new to American politics and reflects the deep disillusionment of the ranks with the status quo of war, racism, and ever deepening attacks on working people.

The decision of the UNAC to actively participate and build the Aug. 28 and Oct. 2 actions and march alongside civil rights and labor activists far outweighs the fact that march officials will undoubtedly use the occasion to advocate support to Obama and his warmongering Democrats while placing the blame for today’s social crises on “obstructionist Republicans.”

Thomas Bias Faces at the conference (clockwise):

• Jerry Gordon, UNAC nat. secretary.

• Joe Lombardo, Albany antiwar activist and UNAC conf. organizer.

• Marilyn Levin, New England United activist and co-coordinator National Assembly • Medea Benjamin, Code Pink.

Few mass actions of this sort meet the “test” of “political purity.” Tens of thousands of antiwar fighters carrying placards like “Jobs and Justice, Not War: Bring the Troops Home Now!” and “End All U.S. Aid to Israel!” while marching alongside their fellow workers and discussing the critical issues of the day would far outweigh the expected deferential remarks of a bankrupt labor “leadership” that has stood silent in the face of the greatest capitalist offensive against workers since the Great Depression.

A broad plan of protest action The 24-point Action Program included endorsement of an Oct. 7 national day of student-led protests against education cutbacks, demanding “Money for Education, Not for Occupation;” a mid-October week of actions to commemorate the ninth anniversary of the invasion and occupation of Afghanistan; support to the Nov. 15-19 “Remember Fallujah” week to mark the horrific and virtual leveling of this Iraqi city by U.S. troops; and a national effort to initiate various city council, town, and village antiwar meetings and antiwar voter referenda/ballot initiatives as well as lobbying efforts.

The Action Program also included nationally coordinated teach-ins in midMarch 2011 to mark the eighth year of the Iraq War and to prepare for the culminating April 9 bi-coastal mass demonstrations in New York, San Francisco, and Los Angeles. A full-scale national effort was approved to begin immediately to gather broad endorsements for the April 9 bi-coastal mobilizations.

Additional actions approved include a week of local antiwar lobbying in April, national speaking tours, and the mounting of “rapid, broad and nationally coordinated protests by antiwar and social justice activists” in the event of a U.S. or Israeli attack on Iran.

The Action Program also called for support to actions to end the Israeli occupation of Palestine, and for protests in the event of U.S.-backed military action by Israel against Palestinians, aid activists attempting to end the blockade of Gaza, or attacks on other countries such as Lebanon, Syria, or Iran.

The program called for solidarity with Iraqi trade-union leaders who are under attack by the puppet Iraqi regime. In fact, (continued on page 5, in “[Below is the address given to the United…]”)

----- pull-quotes -----

and Social Justice Hear Cristobal Cavazos