Educational Conference March 23 Philadelphia

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Panels: 1pm — Arab Revolution. 2:30 pm — Roots of Oppression against Women. 4 pm — Frack­ ing & Climate Change. 7 pm — The War Against Our Communities (a discussion with Glen Ford, Location: Arch Street Methodist Church, 55 N. Broad St. Tickets: http://socialistactionconference-efbevent.eventbrite.com/ and military spending.

And the sky did fall. The cuts are in progress. The best that President Obama could say was that the cuts were “stupid”—such a gentle word in this context in which millions of work­ ers are to be laid off or furloughed— yet he and his party signed onto them months before. To be sure, plans are in progress to mitigate or eliminate the scheduled cuts to the military, the sec­ tor of the economy that generates the greatest profits for the super-rich.

In the next 10 years the total set for the chopping block, supposedly to re­ duce the government’s budget deficit, is $1.3 trillion. No one mentions that last month’s “deal” increased the defi­ cit by $3 trillion! But that’s just in the beginning chapters in the ever-unfold­ ing story of capitalist intentions.

January’s 11th-hour financial “com­ promise” increased payroll taxes on working people an average of $1000 each, while the richest one percent were charged a pittance, undoubtedly to be offset by present or future loop­ holes that none but the elite corporate Pam Africa, Anthony Monteiro, Sally Eberhardt, and Adam Shils)

accountants, who write the tax codes, will ever see. Meanwhile, the ruling-class parties were sure to include a broad range of “tax extenders” that would once again gift billions to the few who own the most.

The March 5 New York Times report­ ed that state and local governments is­ sued federal tax-exempt bonds worth $65 billion over the past decade to the richest few. The largest recipient was the Chevron Corporation, which, ac­ cording to The Times, reported profits of $26 billion last year alone. The Times headline properly read, “A Stealthy Subsidy Aiding Big Business Is Grow­ ing.” But the billions so reported pale before the over $20 trillion dollars granted by Congress to the largest cor­ porations and banks under the twisted logic that they were “too big to fail.”

Similarly, a March 4 lead sentence from the British press agency Reuters stated, “President Barack Obama raised anew the issue of cutting enti­ tlements such as Medicare and Social Security as a way out of damaging bud­ get cuts, a White House official said on Sunday, as both sides in Washington tried to limit a fiscal crisis that may soon hit millions of Americans.”

The Reuters article continued, “Sig­ naling he might be ready to explore a (continued on page 4, in “Climate movement must tackle system that subordinates environment to private profit”)

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The Last Day