Duluth Occupiers reach out to foreclosed homeowners

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gage, refused to work with her and acknowledge her new DULUTH, Minn.—The scourge of home foreclosures is Ann was just weeks away from a sheriff’s sale when she sweeping the nation. Despite that fact that the Democrats was contacted by Project Save Our Homes. She readily ac­ and Republicans dumped hundreds of billions of public cepted our offer to help, and we sprung into action. Thou­ money into the vaults of the big banks, working class-hom­ sands of signatures were collected in a petition to her bank eowners are seeing no relief. And it’s no different in Duluth. demanding that they do the right thing. Protests were held, This winter, a group of activists from the local Occupy the media was contacted, and a powerful upsurge of com­ movement got together and decided to try and do some­ thing about it. Calling themselves Project Save Our Homes, This sudden, and unexpected deluge of publicity shamed they reached out to a local homeowner, Ann Lockwood, State Farm Bank into canceling the foreclosure and offer­ Wing her a new agreement that will keep Ann in her home.

Ann’s story is tragic, but at the same time similar to that It was a victory that brought tears to many of our eyes, of millions of other working-class homeowners, who more but it has since triggered a deluge of pleas for help from often than not are in foreclosure due to a medical catas­ other area homeowners. Since Ann’s victory, Project Save trophe or losing their job. Ann was a health-care worker Our Homes has gone on to organize community forums on who, a couple of years back, suffered a minor, on the job, the issue of home foreclosures, secure the endorsement of injury. What should have been a routine surgery ended dozens of unions and community and activist groups, and up causing an infection. Two-dozen surgeries and a mil­ is already working on its next campaign—to save the Dun­ lion dollars in medical bills later, Ann lost her leg, and her bar family in the neighboring city of Superior from fore­ job. Yet despite this tragedy, the bank that held her mort­ closure. n 10 SOCIALIST ACTION MARCH 2012 who was facing foreclosure. difficulties. munity support embraced Ann’s cause.

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... Greek workers resist austerity Banking Committee, chaired by Leo Kolber, lawyer and former CEO of the multi-billionaire Bronfman family’s holding company, persuaded the Liberal Jean Chretien government to reduce the capital gains tax in Canada. This caused a huge loss of federal revenue. Where did it go?

We know that 50 percent of capital gains go the richest 1 per cent of the population. During the last two decades, corporate taxes have also been significantly reduced and North American tax regimes continued to change so that corporations and wealthy individuals benefited from low­ er corporate, income, capital gains, and inheritance taxes.

The discrepancies of income and wealth even surpassed those of the 1920s. Since industrial profit rates were at an all-time low, surplus wealth was devoted to wild specula­ tion in Mortgage Derivatives and Credit Default Swaps. inheritances of $50 million dollars, would be a step for­ Speculation facilitated by the deregulation of financial ward. The authors propose putting this money into an edu­ claim that without huge salaries the rich would exert little industries hit a wall with the collapse of these Ponzi cation trust fund to make college and university accessible or no effort (we should be so lucky!), and the contention schemes. The banking crisis of 2008 and the ensuing deep to all. Finally, governments should strive to change social that there is meaningful democracy under capitalist rule attitudes towards taxes. The role of taxation in achieving a today. The authors deserve credit for that. Nonetheless, a McQuaig and Brooks present a series of reforms to fair, democratic, and equitable society should be promot­ radical critique of capitalism, and of the capitalist state, is force billionaires to pay more. Higher tax revenues and increased government spending on social programs could McQuaig and Brooks have written a very readable and First of all, capitalism is a global system. Its crises are reduce the wage and wealth gap that presently bedevils informative book—a valuable resource for critics of the triggered by overproduction (of useless things) and the tax system. The progressive tax measures they propose are decline in the average rate of profit (due to the system’s They propose two new tax rates—60% on income over among the measures that the NDP in Canada, and a future growing reliance on machines, rather than exploitable la­ $500,000 and 70% on income over $5 million. Tax loop­ bour). Under capitalism the ruling powers spend billions holes that benefit the rich, like Capital Gains exemptions to send armed forces around the world to impose regimes and business “entertainment” expenses, would be elimi­ formed from within by enacting such reforms. This is amenable to the extraction of natural resources for their nated. A Financial Transaction Tax, also known as the To­ wrong on many levels. Even the most radical tax reform bin Tax, should be imposed on all financial transactions. will not end the alienation of labour, nor break the politi­ Cooperative and enforceable international measures for a cal power of the super-rich—both of which are rooted in tence of humankind in peril. While workers should fight clampdown on tax evasion can be devised. Every time a the capitalist mode of production. Keynesian measures for a more progressive tax system, taxation alone cannot payment or disbursement is made to an individual or cor­ and progressive taxes cannot stop the ups and downs of achieve a just society. Socialists fight for progressive re­ poration from an off-shore banking haven, a copy of the the business cycle, much less permanently entrench social forms, but aim for the abolition of taxation and the abo­ transaction would be sent to the national jurisdiction of the lition of the class system through collective ownership.

The authors themselves show how the capitalist class The solution for growing inequality and oppression is a resists taxation, how it uses all the power at its disposal, planned economy run on the basis of human need, con­ tures to meet human needs. Taxing all inheritances over including control of political parties and the media, to sab­ trolled by democratic workers’ governments, and globally $1.5 million on a steeply progressive scale up to 70% on otage any move towards social equality. If these measures coordinated. In a word, socialism. n SOCIALIST ACTION MARCH 2012 11 (continued from page 12: “Greek workers resist economic free fall”) which were gained through over a cen­ tury of struggle.

The resistance of Feb. 12 On Sunday, Feb. 2, the day of voting and the sell-off, hundreds of thou­ sands—the estimates vary between 500,000 and one million—gathered in downtown Athens to protest against their degradation, and the destruc­ tion of their life perspectives and of the most minimal requirements of a public welfare-oriented society.

The police, as usual, brutally attacked the demonstrators, shooting chemi­ cal projectiles at the demonstrators at Syntagma Square. They tried to clear the square before most of the demon­ strators arrived at the center. But the heroism of the demonstrators holding out in front of Parliament prevented this intention, and the rage of a con­ siderable part of the Athenian people expressed itself for hours.

As usual, groups of black-clad and masked protesters fought skirmishes with the police, with Molotov cocktails, etc., at various points in the city center. When most of the demonstrators were pushed back by police, creating “empty zones,” groups of masked men sud­ denly appeared and set some, partly historical, buildings on fire. It remains unclear whether this occurred due to actions of police troublemakers or au­ thentically autonomous groups.

Two PAME contingents, under KKE leadership, as always strictly separated from the other demonstrators, posi­ tioned themselves at a safe distance from the focal points in front of the parliament, continuing their tradition to never clash with the police. This is PAME’s usual ceremony, but it still amazes everybody with its legalism and its consistent rejection of any com­ mon action.

It is not easy to answer the question of how the resistance might continue to try to reach its goals. The call for an indefinite general strike might be nec­ essary, but at this stage it might not en­ sure unified action. It is clear, however, that the economic, political, and social ... Inside the 1% (continued from page 8: “BOOKS: How the 1% screw the rest of us T he appearance of “The Trouble With Billionaires””) replaced with higher consumer taxes. recession continue to this day.

society. corporation or individual involved. Inheritance taxes could be a major source of expendi­ crisis is moving toward the boiling point, and that a solution does not lie within the framework of the capitalist exploitation system or the rules of the totally discredited parliamentary de­ mocracy and their governments. The solution can only be found through the self-organization of working people at their workplaces and in the neighbor­ hoods, and ultimately through the cre­ ation of a different type of democracy at the national level, according to the principles of workers’ councils.

The Greek and international mass media did everything possible to hush up the massiveness of the demonstra­ tion in downtown Athens. Instead, they focused as much as possible on reports about the fires and devastation. They systematically obscured, in particular, the fact that the policy leading to the first Memorandum (May 5, 2010) and the second Memorandum is equivalent to a coup, which simply annuls the pre­ viously known form of bourgeois par­ liamentary democracy.

The memoranda policies of the Pa­ Led, say the authors.

labour party in the U.S., should fight to achieve. justice.

Milos Bicanski / Getty Images (Above) Greeks camped out in front of Parliament building in June 2011.

pandreou and now the Papadimos gov­ ernments lack any democratic legiti­ macy. Their main support is that of the police club, their only “argument” the threat of national bankruptcy—which is the reality anyway and whose size and hopelessness are increasing more and more by the continuation of the dominant policies. The objective of re­ maining in the euro zone has also lost all meaning as it focuses solely on the security of bank profits, whereas the impoverishment of the population is rapidly proceeding.

The role of Germany Any reporting about Greece is in­ complete if it does not include the role of Germany. The German politicians and ministers of the federal govern­ ment play a nefarious role in the loot­ ing and destruction of Greek society. The politicians not only refuse to rec­ ognize the war reparations and debt Mario Tama / Getty Images needed.

Sadly, the authors suggest that capitalism can be trans­ payments, which at a formal level would amount to some hundred bil­ lion euro, thus displaying a shameful historical ignorance and arrogance;

they also dictate the rules of dis­ mantling Greece in an intolerable way. These include, for instance, German or EU-related control of the accounts on which Greece will have to pay. The German minister of finance, Mr. Schäuble, wants also to prescribe when and under what circumstances the Greek population should or should not vote.

Another indication of how mad the prevailing policy actually is—which could lead all Europe into the ca­ tastrophe—is showed in a press re­ lease by the German Spiegel-Online, Feb. 15, about the assets of the Ger­ mans: “8.5 trillion euros [in German possession] could pay off debts in the euro zone. While governments scrape together every penny in the crisis, the Germans have amassed a huge fortune. Less of their own debt, they have about 8.5 trillion euro. That is enough money to completely pay off the debt of all euro countries. Tangible assets such as cars, furniture, jewelry and art collections are not included.”

How long will it still be possible to lead entire nations of Europe into bankruptcy, while there is enough so­ cial wealth to enable all people to live without unemployment, poverty, and agonizing struggle for survival, even on a world scale?

The solidarity of the people in Ger­ many, and particularly of those who are still able to use theirs brains de­ spite the massive and deliberate fraud, the evil propaganda of the mass media, is one of the most important keys to reversing the hopeless situation that Greece and almost the entire Europe­ an periphery are facing, which is also threatening the European center in the clearly foreseeable future. n fail they have other means at their dis­ posal—exorbitant interest rates, wage suppression, and using high levels of government debt, coupled with bud­ getary deficits, to justify “austerity” policies designed to further rob the working class. And that is to say noth­ ing of resorting to state violence to quell protest!

In terms of Canadian fiscal deficits, the combined federal and provincial shortfalls are about $65 billion annu­ ally. Keep in mind that since 1980 the top 1 per cent has increased its share of national income in Canada from 8.1% to 13.3%. That’s a shift of $67 billion. If taxes had stayed at the 1980 level, there would be no deficit nationally. “The Trouble with Billionaires” ex­ plodes many myths. It demolishes the claim that there is a “free market,” the home industries at the lowest possible price. Capitalism despoils the environment and puts the exis­