Analysis » peoplesworld

Mitt Romney running a seminar on inequality

Sam Pizzigati — Fri, 27 Jan 2012 14:13:00 -0500

BOSTON - Should we all start praying for Mitt Romney? The GOP presidential hopeful from Bain Capital has become a walking, talking object lesson on how our plutocracy works - and why we desperately need to end it.

Egalitarians seem to be doing a lot of praying since Saturday's GOP primary in South Carolina. If you listen closely, you can almost hear their prayer: Please, Lord, let Mitt Romney win the 2012 Republican presidential nomination.

Why this swelling of affection for one of the richest Americans ever to run for the White House? Over recent weeks, Romney has put a long-overdue "human face" on American plutocracy at its job-destroying, tax-avoiding worst. No wonder one of his Republican primary foes labeled his actions "vulture capitalism. "

Thanks to Romney, millions of people now understand how private equity kingpins funnel fortunes, to themselves, out of middle class misfortune. Millions more, thanks to Mitt's on-the-stump candor, have a window into the world of people so rich that $370,000 - Mitt's income from speaking fees last year - rates as "not very much."

Every day seems to bring another "teachable moment" on plutocracy from the Romney campaign: The intricacies of the "carried interest" loophole one moment, the allure of Cayman Islands offshore tax haven the next.

All of this came before Mitt released his tax returns. That release only redoubled the scrutiny. Mitt has, to be sure, already spilled his basic tax return beans. His overall federal income tax rate last year, Romney has shared, hovered around only 15 percent. (As Warren Buffett would say, that's less than the rate his secretary pays.)

Mitt's campaign as a teachable moment machine has one other fantastic advantage: Matt had a wealthy father. Even better, Mitt's wealthy father, American Motors CEO George Romney, released 12 years of his tax returns when he ran for the 1968 GOP presidential nomination.

These papa Romney tax returns offer a window of their own - into just how amazingly rich people-friendly America's current tax code has become.

From 1955 through 1966, George Romney reported income of $2.97 million, about $22 million in today's dollars, and paid 36.9 percent of that in federal income tax.

George in his heyday rated as one of America's highest income-earners. In 1960, his rewards from American Motors helped bring his total personal income to $661,423, equivalent to a bit over $5 million today. The IRS only counted 533 taxpayers who made between $500,000 and $750,000 in 1960 - and only 508 taxpayers in the entire country who made more than $750,000.

How did George Romney's tax rate compare to the tax rate of his fellow rich? George actually paid a smaller share of his income to Uncle Sam than his peers, mainly because he donated almost a quarter of his income to charity and church.

America's 1960 rich in George's $500,000-to-$750,000 cohort - a range that would equal from $3.8 million to $5.7 million today - paid an average 45.3 percent of their incomes in federal taxes, after exploiting every tax loophole they could find.

The true millionaires of 1960 - the 306 taxpayers who reported at least $1 million in income, the equivalent of $7.6 million today - paid taxes at a slightly higher rate, 45.8 percent. These millionaires averaged, in today's dollars, about a little over $15 million each in income.

How does that $15 million average for America's richest in 1960 compare to the income of America's richest today? The 1960 rich, even after adjusting for inflation, only made a tiny fraction of the incomes our rich today pull down. America's top 25 hedge fund managers http://www.peoplesworld.org/a-modest-essay-on-extraordinary-paychecks/ averaged $882.8 million-each - in 2010.

Their tax rate? We don't know that for sure. But hedge fund managers exploit the same "carried interest" loophole that has proved so lucrative to private equity power suits like Mitt Romney.

The top 25 hedge fund manager federal income tax rate most likely floats between 15 percent-Mitt's rate-and 18.1 percent, the average federal income tax rate on America's 400 richest taxpayers in 2008, the most recent year with IRS data available.

So let's review the bidding here. Today's top hedge fund managers make 59 times more income than the richest Americans in 1960, after taking inflation into account. Yet the richest Americans of 1960 paid three times more of their income in federal income taxes than today's top hedge fund managers pay.

Statistics as revealing as these are haven't yet filtered into America's political consciousness. But just wait. If Mitt Romney gets the Republican nod, the wonderfully illuminating national seminar on inequality that his campaign has become will be running, glory be, straight into November.

Photo: Detail of the front page of the estimated 2011 IRS 1040 tax form for Mitt Romney & his wife Ann. Yes, he's really rich. His returns, released under political pressure Jan. 24, represent an extraordinary financial accounting of one of the wealthiest U.S. presidential candidates in generations, with his annual income topping $20 million. (AP Photo/Romney Campaign)

Documentary shows a "different" side of Fidel

Tim Pelzer — Fri, 27 Jan 2012 10:30:00 -0500

Movie Review
Looking for Fidel
Directed by Oliver Stone
2011, 60 minutes, Not Rated

In Looking for Fidel, award winning director Oliver Stone interviews Fidel Castro on a wide range of issues. While the discussion took place in Havana in 2003, before Castro stepped down as president for health reasons, the documentary is still informative and thought provoking.

Castro garnered lot of respect for being one of the principal founders of the first socialist state in the Caribbean, 94 miles off the shore of Florida. However, he also has his detractors, who view him as an authoritarian leader who tolerated no dissident. Stone begins by grilling Castro on the treatment of dissidents. In 2003 the Cuban government arrested, tried and imprisoned 75 anti-government activists. Castro indicates that he does not have any problems with criticism of the Cuban government. He says, though, that these activists are not prisoners of conscience but rather "mercenaries" financially supported by U.S. government agencies such as the US Agency for International Development to work for regime change. He says the Cuban government does not have a policy of harassing government critics.

Stone includes interviews with anti-government activists in Havana, two of whom verify Castro's allegation of being paid U.S. agents. One dissident freely admits that he is living on a $50,000 US grant given to him by the New York Parkinson Foundation, an enormous amount in Cuba where salaries average U.S. $30-40 per month today. The wife of one imprisoned activist says she is living on money sent to them every month by a Miami-based newspaper sponsored by the anti-Castro community.

This U.S. financing of dissidents in Cuba is also confirmed by independent organizations such as the U.S.-based Council on Hemispheric Affairs.

Castro shows Stone pictures of the U.S. ambassador meeting with these dissidents and remarks that he was supplying them with electronic equipment and money. Stone includes news clips of US sponsored terrorist attacks against the island.

Apart from harassing phone calls and graffiti painted on their houses, none of these Cuban dissidents are able to demonstrate that they are being persecuted by the Cuban government, as they allege.

Stone takes Castro to task for the execution of three hijackers that kidnapped a ferry in Havana harbor in 2003 and threatened passengers at knife point if the captain did not take them to U.S. shores. Castro says that the executions were an extreme measure to discourage a wave of kidnappings. The U.S. government will grant residency to any Cuban citizen who reaches the U.S. by any means, including kidnapping planes and boats.

The Cuban leader even takes Stone to a prison to meet a group of 8 men who were caught plotting to kidnap a plane to Miami and were awaiting trial. One prisoner remarks that the U.S. Embassy in Havana grants few visas to Cubans wanting to legally immigrate to the U.S.

Stone asks Castro why he did not step down after being president for 43 years and let younger leaders take over. The Cuban leader answers calmly that he sees himself more as a spiritual leader and that, unlike American presidents, the country's constitution strictly limits his powers. Castro says he is not president of the country but rather President of the Council of Ministers, and he does not even have the power to appoint cabinet ministers, ambassadors or friends to key posts. He says that he believes he can assist his country because of the experience and knowledge he has gained over many years. Castro never angers at Stone's probing questions.

The documentary ends with Castro taking Stone around Havana in his car, discussing among other things several of the 700 CIA attempts to kill Castro. The one that nearly got him was when a U.S. paid mercenary at the Havana Libre hotel nearly dropped cyanide into a chocolate milk shake Castro had ordered. The man lost his nerves at the last moment and the half frozen pill disintegrated in his hand.

Looking for Fidel provides needed balance to the negative media portrayal of the former Cuban president, who is demonized by the mainstream corporate owned media. Stone's documentary is a fascinating watch.

The first casualty of war

Thomas Riggins — Thu, 26 Jan 2012 16:09:00 -0500

It was really disheartening watching the Republican presidential wannabes debating in Florida last Monday (1-23-12). Three of the four blithely told the American people that there was, with respect to the war in Afghanistan, no substitute for victory and they would not pull out until our ally, the Afghan army, was ready to take on the Taliban and protect the country on its own. Their implication was that Obama would pull out early because he is not up to the task of seeing U.S. through to victory.

It has well been said that truth is the first casualty of war. The American people have been consistently misled about the war in Afghanistan-just as they have been about Iraq (we left behind a "democracy"), Vietnam, and every other war we have waged since the end of World War 2 (not excluding the Cold War).

Let's look at what is going on now in Afghanistan according to recent headlines in the New York Times (1-20-120). This front page headline should tell U.S. what is really going on vis-à-vis building up our "ally" the Afghan army: it reads, "Afghan Soldiers Step Up Killings of Allied Forces." In fact so many U.S./NATO troops are being killed by our Afghan allies that NATO, after declaring this was a small insignificant problem, announced that it would no longer issue the statistics regarding the number of allied troops killed by Afghan soldiers!

Let's take a closer look at this story. The NYT got hold of a classified report by the U.S. side ("the coalition"-i.e., 80,000 U.S. troops and a smattering of others from NATO to create an international flavor) and, in a Wiki Leaks moment, decided to reveal its contents. It says the Afghan forces being trained by the U.S. side are killing more and more of the very coalition troops that are supposed to be training them as our allies. This is a symptom of the "contempt" with which the Americans and Afghans hold each other-"never mind the Taliban."

The increased violence against the U.S. forces by its own puppet army brings into doubt any future role the U.S. may have in the country and any hopes it may have of leaving behind a puppet army that will look out for its interests and be able to stop the Taliban. What is more, "the failure by coalition commanders to address" the violence and the deteriorating situation can only exasperate the problem. The U.S. does not want this to be a problem so it pretends that it is not. How can this work?

The contempt that American troops have towards the Afghan people was demonstrated by the recent videos of U.S. troops urinating on the bodies of dead Taliban soldiers. While this was condemned by U.S. officials, the NYT reports that Facebook and chatrooms maintained by U.S. troops were "full of praise for the desecration". This indicates that whatever the U.S. says officially, the actual environment in which our troops are operating is permeated with racism and even hatred for Afghans-the racism that permeates American society can't be left behind when we go overseas.

With respect to the increase in the killing of U.S. troops and their allies by members of the Afghan army, the Times reports that U.S. and NATO officials publicly downplay its significance by issuing press statements that the killings are "isolated incidents" or done by "disturbed individuals" or "Taliban infiltrators." Not to worry!

However, the secret report made by and for the coalition forces indicates that what our officials tell the press, for domestic consumption, is the opposite of the truth. The NYT quotes the report as follows: "Lethal altercations are clearly not rare or isolated; they reflect a rapidly growing systemic homicide threat (a magnitude of which may be unprecedented between 'allies' in modern military history"). And the official statements "seem disingenuous, if not profoundly intellectually dishonest."

Did the secret report teach out military spokespeople anything? Well here is what Lt. Col. Jimmie E. Cummings, U.S. spokesperson, had to say for public consumption, "incidents in the recent past where Afghan soldiers have wounded or killed I.S.A.F. [the American led International Security Assistance Force] members are isolated cases and are not occurring on a routine basis. We train and are partnered with Afghan personnel every day and we are not seeing any issues or concerns with our relationships." Then why order a report and then keep it secret? Personally, I don't believe much from the Pentagon anyway; most everything they and NATO say is just lies to befool the American people-and they are very successful at least with Republican presidential candidates.

What type of "Afghan personnel" do we get to join our puppet army in the first place? This is how an Afghan commander (an Afghan Army Colonel) describes his own troops, according to the NYT, they are "thieves, liars and drug addicts." Not the best raw material to build an army to defend the "democratic gains" of the Afghan people with. These troops also don't like our troops. The colonel added, "The sense of hatred is growing rapidly" because the Americans are "rude, arrogant bullies who use foul language."

The sooner we leave Afghanistan the better. How can we possibly think we can create a strong Afghan force when we don't respect them and they don't respect us? It is just another imperialist dream that ignores the world as it really is and operates on the assumption that the world you want to be in is the real world. It would be a great disaster for the American people, the Afghans, and everyone else for that matter for a Republican to take over the presidency this year and try and pursue the war in Afghanistan to "ultimate victory."

Class war: They started it

Mark Gruenberg — Thu, 26 Jan 2012 15:10:00 -0500

The Republican presidential hopefuls are traveling through primary and caucus states with sundry campaign themes. But one of them is decrying Democrats - and unions - for engaging in "class war."

They're right that unions are engaged in it. But the Republicans quite conveniently forget that they started the class war - and they've been winning it for years.

Study after study, from both U.S. and international sources, point to the ever-widening gap between the rich and the rest of us. More importantly, that gap has grown since the early 1970s, approximately the time of the first Organization of Petroleum Exporting Companies oil embargo, which in itself was a massive transfer of wealth away from the middle class.

Now the top one percent of the country controls more than 40 percent of the nation's wealth. Virtually all of the nation's gross domestic product gains since 1980 have disappeared into the pockets of the top one percent, or even the top 0.1 percent. Median family incomes were flat from 1973-2000 and have been declining since then.

And the policies put into place since 1973 have served to enrich the rich:

Tax rate cuts that reduced the top marginal rate from 91 percent in the Eisenhower era to 39.6 percent today, and 15 percent for capital gains, where the rich get their cash.
Actual tax cuts that funneled the huge majority of their benefits to the top one percent.
Outrageous and unlimited pay and perks for the financial finaglers who drove the economy into the ditch - pay and perks made possible by the 1999 Wall Street securities deregulation law, topped by a drastic decline in enforcement since then.
Systematic destruction of systems, notably labor law protections, that helped workers - the other 99 percent-defend themselves against the depredations of the wealthy.
Policies that encouraged investment in pieces of financial paper. Firms such as Bain Capital shuffled steel companies, airlines, newspapers, and even bakeries around like so much Monopoly money, just to gorge themselves on profits and cash. And then the financiers discarded, via bankruptcy, the actual companies that made things, leaving shells of firms, ghost towns, and millions of workers out of jobs.
Manipulation and purchase, via campaign contributions and, thanks to the Supreme Court, campaign ads of politicians to do their bidding. That applies to both parties.

If all this isn't class war, declared by them - the rich - on us - the rest - then what is it?

And they're winning.

So what can we do?

We can start with taxing the rich at higher rates, as President Obama and organized labor propose. We can demand repeal of laws that let the rich get away with anything, starting by outlawing the fiction that corporations are persons and enjoy the same rights as persons. And we can put teeth into labor law. And then we can rise up and demand an economy that works for us and not for them.

We'll leave the other details of how to do that to drafters from unions and allies. But the point is the rich started the class war on us. It's time for us to dedicate ourselves to winning it - and destroying them and their power.

Photo: Occupy Wall Street, November 11, 2011. May S. Young CC by 2.0

Alabama-Arizona immigration laws recall 1935 Germany

Jean Damu — Thu, 26 Jan 2012 14:49:00 -0500

Is Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach - he who roams the nation promoting vicious anti-immigration laws and ordinances - a latter-day Julius Streicher?

If television were reality, Kobach's disturbing career could be scheduled as a hideous remake of "Welcome Back Kotter."

In the original, Kotter returned to his high school alma mater as a teacher and took under his wing a motley assemblage of wayward students and mentored them toward near-adulthood.

In the racist reality version, Kris Kobach has returned to his native Kansas after a stellar academic career at Harvard, Oxford and Yale Law. He has taken under his wing a motley assemblage of nativist racists, often mistaken for tea party evangelicals.

He is mentoring them in formulating Nazi-reminiscent anti-immigration laws and therein resembles not at all the fuzzy, warm-hearted teacher but rather the jack-booted, brown-shirted Julius Streicher, "Jew baiter number one;" promulgator of the fascist Nuremburg Laws of 1935 and among the very few non-military Nazis executed for crimes against humanity by military tribunals at Nuremburg after World War II.

From 1923 until the fall of the Third Reich in 1945 Streicher was editor of the German tabloid Der Sturmer (the Attacker), possibly the 20^th century's most racist tabloid. The focus of Der Sturmer's attacks was, of course, the Jews.

Streicher's role gave him the platform to advocate for greater Nazi bureaucratic efficiency in the legal crackdown on Jewish participation in everyday life.

While the original Nuremburg Laws served to criminalize sexual relations and contacts between Aryans and Jews, later additions to them, primarily by Joseph Goebbels, addressed economic and everyday social relations. For instance, entering into a contract with a Jew became illegal. Renting to a Jew was illegal. Providing social services to Jews became illegal. Jews were relegated to their own schools. Ultimately it became illegal for Jews to have money. Naturally, the intent of all this was to get Jews to leave Germany.

On Sept. 16, 1936, The New York Times reported Streicher's explicit remarks to newspaper reporters. The article, sub-headlined "The Way to Solve the Problem Is to Exterminate Them," reported, "The Nuremburg high-priest of anti-Semitism (Streicher) ... announced that in the last analysis, extermination is the only real solution to the Jewish problem. Mr. Streicher made it clear in his address that he was not discussing the question in regard to Germany alone ... but of a world problem."

Though the Nuremburg Laws were, we would like to think, far more extensive, invasive and racist than anything that could possibly be accepted anywhere in America in 2012, there is a disturbing overlap of key provisions of the laws - and the intent - to get the Jews in Germany, and undocumented immigrants here, to "deport themselves."

Below are some key provisions of Alabama's new immigration law. In parentheses we've added the word "Jew" to underline the commonality of Alabama and Nuremburg.

One of the most controversial aspects of Alabama's new law is a requirement that public schools check students' immigration status in order to collect and track data (similar to the role IBM played in Germany collecting and tracking data on Jews). However the law does not bar undocumented workers or their children (Jews) from attending schools.

Among others:

prohibitions against most contracts entered into by most undocumented immigrants (Jews);
bars on undocumented immigrants' (Jews') "business transactions" with the state;
criminalizing undocumented immigrants' (Jews') failure to carry registration documents (currently blocked by court challenge);
prohibitions against most contracts entered into by unauthorized immigrants (Jews).

One key, and controversial, aspect of Alabama's new immigration law is a requirement that law enforcement officers seek to determine the immigration status of individuals subject to arrest, detention or a traffic stop whenever "reasonable suspicion exists that a person is an alien who is unlawfully present in the United States."

Backers of such laws claim the laws do not promote racial profiling, but that makes no sense. Hundreds of thousands of undocumented white people in the U.S. rarely get stopped and carded, because they are assumed to be U.S. citizens.

The U.S. Department of Justice has filed a brief with the 11^th Circuit Court of Appeals saying the Alabama law is not only unconstitutional, it is nothing more than an attempt to get undocumented workers "to deport themselves," much as Streicher tried to do.

Kobach's role in all of this has been ample. As chief legal consultant for the far-right FAIR (Federation for American Immigration Reform) he engineered the formulation of the Alabama and Arizona immigration laws and has worked diligently to try to make them appeal-proof. He's launched other attacks elsewhere with mixed results.

On behalf of FAIR, Kobach sued the state of Kansas for granting in-state tuition to undocumented students. That suit was dismissed for lack of evidence. He was more successful in California where his suit originally prevailed but was later overturned by the California Supreme Court.

Kobach also served as the lead attorney defending the city of Valley Park, Mo. in a federal case that challenged an ordinance sanctioning employers who hire the undocumented. After several appeals the ordinance was held to be legal.

In Farmers Ranch, Texas, Kobach led the city's defense of ordinances barring property owners from renting to undocumented workers. Those laws were struck down.

In appearance and intellect Kobach is no Streicher. He's intellectual, talented and worldly. His studies at Oxford resulted in a treatise on the development of capitalism in South Africa. However, just as David Duke attempted to wrap the Ku Klux Klan within a buttoned-down, pin-striped image a generation ago, Kobach is doing the same today for the far right.

Supporters of Julius Streicher (yes, they still exist) argue he got a raw deal at the tribunals that had him hanged. Had he lived in the U.S., they say, he would have been protected by freedom of speech laws. They could be right and apparently a lot of people in Alabama and Arizona agree.

Photo: Chart to describe Nuremberg Laws, 1935. The "Nuremberg Laws" established a pseudo-scientific basis for racial identification. Only people with four German grandparents (four white circles in top row left) were of "German blood". A Jew is someone who descends from three or four Jewish grandparents (black circles in top row right). In the middle stood people of "mixed blood" of the "first or second degree." A Jewish grandparent was defined as a person who is or was a member of a Jewish religious community. Also includes a list of allowed marriages ("Ehe gestattet") and forbidden marriages ("Ehe verboten").

Jean Damu is a member of the Black Alliance for Just Immigration. He can be reached at jdamu2@yahoo.com.

Unions blast flood of corporate campaign cash

Mark Gruenberg — Thu, 26 Jan 2012 14:11:00 -0500

WASHINGTON -With the U.S. political system inundated by a flood of unchecked, uncontrollable corporate campaign cash funneled through unaccountable political campaign finance committees, unions blasted the tide of contributions. One, the Communications Workers, backs a constitutional amendment to halt the deluge.

The union statements about the overwhelming influence of money were triggered by the second anniversary of a 5-4 U.S. Supreme Court ruling (Citizens United vs. FEC), which said corporations and unions could contribute and spend unlimited amounts of money as long as none went directly to candidates.

The ensuing result has been a surge of corporate spending via so-called "SuperPACs," which can accept unlimited contributions, while hiding the identity of the contributors. The SuperPACs are supposed to be independent of candidate control.

The corporate tide had a huge impact on the 2010 elections and will have an even larger impact this year. Already, for example, right-wing Las Vegas multi-millionaire Sheldon Adelson pumped $5 million into a SuperPAC supporting ex-House Speaker Newt Gingrich, enabling the outspent Gingrich to clobber supposed GOP front-runner Mitt Romney in South Carolina - after the SuperPAC ads trashed Romney.

All that led the AFL-CIO, the Communications Workers, the Steelworkers, the Service Workers, and other unions to blast the Citizens United ruling. The AFL-CIO is setting up its own SuperPAC to fight back, while CWA joined Common Cause's campaign for a constitutional amendment to strip corporations of their status as "persons" under the law. Doing so would bar them, with legislation, from giving unlimited amounts of money.

Urging its members and allies to join the constitutional crusade, CWA is telling people "to stand up and say you're a person, and that corporations are not."

"The 2010 mid-term election was the most expensive in U.S. history, and the 2012 election will likely shatter that record as more and more corporate money corrupts our democracy," the union added. "Elections should not go to the highest bidder. Corporations are not people and should not have unrestricted influence on our elections."

"We can't afford to celebrate the Citizens United anniversary again. We are working with our allies to stand together and fight back," the union remarked. The union augmented its statement with anti-corporate rallies on Jan. 20 in Phoenix, Jacksonville, Miami, Kansas City, and Sacramento. Other organizations protested in the nation's capital.

The CWA, the Auto Workers, and the Service Employees also united behind a New York state initiative for public campaign financing. The proposal, by Gov. Andrew Cuomo (D), would build on a successful matching funds program - keyed to small grassroots contributions-now present in New York City elections.

CWA President Larry Cohen, UAW President Bob King, and SEIU President Mary Kay Henry wrote Cuomo that enacting the matching funds program "would provide a beacon of hope that our democracy can effectively respond to the voice of the people."

Whether such a program would stand up to judicial scrutiny is another matter. The U.S. Supreme Court threw out a different Arizona matching funds program, to help candidates counter self-financed big-money hopefuls, several years ago.

AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka and AFT President Randi Weingarten also blasted Citizens United. Weingarten said the ruling is "corroding our democracy."

It "gives powerful corporations a disproportionate amount of influence in our elections. Big corporations are using their record profits to try to silence the voices of Americans who work hard every day teaching our children, healing our sick and serving our communities," she added.

"Instead of working to create jobs and build a better future for our children, big corporate donors hide their identity while they flood the system with hundreds of millions of dollars in an effort to pass an extreme agenda to gut the salary, health care, and pensions of workers. They are siphoning more money out of our classrooms and communities and into the pockets of those who don't need it."

Trumka agreed, but stopped short of endorsing the amendment as a solution:

"Citizens United further tilted the playing field in favor of the one percent and against the 99 percent whose voices are being drowned out by excessive corporate spending and influence," he said. He noted Occupy Wall Street had since then put the question of corporate clout on the national agenda, while garnering support for solutions to that ill.

"The labor movement wholeheartedly supports restoring corporations to their proper role. Corporations are not people. They are man-made creatures of law that exist to generate economic activity and create jobs and income. The notion they should enjoy the same or greater rights and protections than natural persons is absurd, and it is destructive to our democracy," Trumka added.

"To restore the corporation to its rightful place, we need to reform the system. But in doing so, the greatest care must be taken to ensure the Bill of Rights' protections for real people, including protections for democratic organizations and movements, are not inadvertently weakened. The AFL-CIO will support efforts to rein in corporate power that simultaneously protect" rights, he added.

Photo: People's World

Etta James and Johnny Otis: R & B Revolutionaries

Chris Elliott — Thu, 26 Jan 2012 13:31:00 -0500

Two Los Angeles-based legends of Rhythm & Blues passed away last week: Etta James and Johnny Otis. Both of their stories intertwined in the fabric of the music genre they had a major role in creating, and in the turbulent times they lived through. Their careers helped shatter "color lines" in music for a mass, multiracial audience; in the process they shaped a truly diverse People's Music: an amalgam of Jazz, Pop, Gospel, Blues, and R & B.

Johnny Otis, born John Veliotes, the son of Greek immigrants, as a youth became so immersed in African American music and culture that he considered himself "Black by persuasion." He started out as a musician playing drums in big bands, first in the West Oakland Houserockers, later relocating to Los Angeles with Harlan Leonard's jazz orchestra. By 1945 Otis had formed his own band, and recorded his first hit, "Harlem Nocturne."

Later in the forties, he toured with his California Rhythm and Blues Caravan, featuring thirteen-year-old vocalist Esther Phillips. The group had 10 top 10 R & B hits in 1950. Otis' bands developed a hybrid sound combining the high technical standards of big band jazz with raw gutbucket energy of gospel and blues - in the process bringing what was considered "Black Music" to a diverse audience and laying down the foundation for Rock & Roll. In fact, Otis co-wrote and played drums on the original version of "Hound Dog" in 1953, but was later dropped from the writing credit on the Elvis Presley version.

In addition to Esther Phillips, another of Otis' amazing discoveries was the prodigious singer Etta James. Born Jamesetta Hawkins, and having started singing at age five in a Los Angeles Baptist church, Etta James was soon performing with the choir on radio. Otis signed James to a record deal in 1954, and at age 15 she co-wrote and recorded her first hit, "Roll with me Henry" (1955). The teenager's huge voice and lively delivery made the song an instant classic. DJs, uneasy with the perceived suggestiveness of the song, changed the title to "The Wallflower." Later, as was the practice in the days of segregation, a white artist covered a watered-down version of the song, which became a bigger pop hit.

Johnny Otis released his signature pop crossover hit "Willie and the Hand Jive" in 1958, but his music career stalled a bit during the sixties with the advent of the Beatles and subsequent "album rock." However, by the early sixties Etta James had moved to Chess Records and had a string of hits that established her as one of the first R & B singers to reach a broader "mainstream" (i.e. white) audience. James' full-throated, yet supple voice could deliver a sound that was in turns infused with lust and passion, playful raunch and soul-deep pain. The influence of James' vocal power can be heard in the work of later artists such as Janis Joplin and Beyoncé Knowles.

Her range is exemplified by her standout recordings "All I Could Do Was Cry" (1960), "Something's Got a Hold on Me" (1962), "I Just Want to Make Love to You" (1963), and "I'd Rather go Blind" (1967). Her signature song, the slow, smoky ballad "At Last" took on new meaning when Beyoncé performed it at President Obama's historic inauguration in 2009. James famously complained that she hadn't been invited to do the honors-with no small justification, given that she was still making stunning recordings well into the 2000s.

Turning his attention to civic engagement in the sixties and seventies, Johnny Otis' involvement in progressive politics complemented his antiracist cultural practice. He began by doing community work in South Central Los Angeles, ran (unsuccessfully) for the California State Assembly, and became a member of the L.A. County Democratic Committee. He also served 10 years as deputy chief of staff for Mervyn Dymally, the first Black state senator of a western state, California's first black lieutenant governor, and later Congressional Representative.

Otis also had a long-running music show on L.A.'s Pacifica station, KPFK.

Otis and James crossed paths again in 1994 when James inducted Otis into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. James' 1995 autobiography, "Rage to Survive," documented her struggles with heroin and cocaine. She was inducted in the Blues Hall of Fame in 2001

And received a Grammy lifetime achievement award 2003.

Etta James died January 20^th in Riverside, California at age 73.

Photo: Etta James performing at the 2006 New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival. Jeff Christensen/AP

In their war against workers, corporations increasingly choose lockouts

John Wojcik — Wed, 25 Jan 2012 17:14:00 -0500

Republicans increasingly claim that when President Obama sides with workers in a labor dispute he is, in effect, waging "class warfare."

Workers and their allies counter that employers have been engaging in class warfare for quite some time now and that recently they have added lockouts to the long list of weapons they have used to wage that warfare.

Workers at the American Crystal Sugar Company believe that 1,300 of them are currently locked out in the upper Midwest because the company has made a strategic decision to climb aboard a nationwide anti-union bandwagon.

Employees were locked out in three states last Aug. 1 after the workers, members of the Bakery, Confectionery, Tobacco Workers and Grain Millers, Local 167G, rejected the company's final offer by a nine-to-one margin.

American Crystal hired more than 900 replacement workers at its seven plants in Minnesota, North Dakota and Iowa. A 30 year worker at American Crystal's Moorhead, Minn. plant, Tony St. Michel, said that what has happened at his and at all the other American Crystal plants provides ample proof that companies are using lockouts in a new and cynical way.

St. Michel said that for the last 30 years contracts have been almost routinely renewed and that there were no strikes at all. He insisted that the sugar beet growers have made lots of money and that profit rates were up at the time workers were locked out. "The only reason they're doing this is they figure they can join in the gang up on unions," he said.

St. Michel claims that the company didn't just decide to lock out its workers after they rejected a contract offer. "They planned this from the very beginning," he said, by starting with the placement of ads in August 2010. "They sent managers into the plants to learn what workers do on a daily basis," he said, charging that six months before the lockout workers were " already being shadowed by managers compiling data on everything we do."

The union filed charges with the National Labor Relations Board, accusing the company of refusal to negotiate seriously.

Recent statements by company officials tend to lend credence to the charges by union workers.

Just weeks before last Thanksgiving, American Crystal CEO David Berg told shareholders in North Dakota about a friend of his who had a massive cancerous tumor removed. "He was sick for a long time," said Berg. "We can't let a labor contract make us sick forever and ever and ever. We have to treat the disease and that's what we are doing here."

Berg later repeated his cancer analogy, saying, "At some point that tumor's got to come out. That's what we're doing."

"The fact that Dave Berg would refer to our union, our contract, as a cancerous tumor is deeply offensive to me and many of my co-workers. Some of us have had cancer or have lost loved ones to cancer. It's a tragic, devastating disease," said Sarah Gust, a 40-year employee at American Crystal.

"We've seen Dave Berg's true colors. He is determined to treat contract negotiations as a disease, a tumor to be removed," said John Riskey, president of the union local.

American Crystal is far from alone on the list of companies using the lockout tactic.

From the New York City Opera in Manhattan to last year's 130-day lockout of players by the National Football league, companies are putting the squeeze on workers by locking them out if they don't agree to concessions or, as in the case of American Crystal, laying plans for a lockout well before negotiations even begin.

Workers and their unions see lockouts as one more weapon in a long list of weapons used by corporations in their "class war" against workers.

On top of the frozen wages, layoffs, and forced strikes workers have always had to contend with, they say, lockouts have been added to the list of their problems.

Workers generally strike only when employers leave them no other choice. No one wants to give up paychecks, which is what happens, of course, during a strike. With lockouts, however, companies are in total control - they don't require any votes by workers, for example, as would be the case for a strike. And lockouts happen purely at the discretion of the company, with workers having no say whatsoever.

The number of strikes, in fact, have declined by more than 80 percent over the last 20 years but lockouts by companies, are at record levels. According to BNA, a labor news service, at least 17 corporations locked out their workers last year, telling them to stay home unless they were willing to accept new contracts with cuts in pay and benefits.

Companies use lockouts too because they believe the chances of success in meeting company goals are greater than with other methods. Last summer Armstrong World Industries locked out hundreds of workers at a tile plant in Marietta, Pa. after they rejected proposed cuts in pension and health benefits.

After a five-month lockout workers ended up going back to work with a contract that was not too much better than the one they turned down in the first place.

Lockouts have a devastating effect not just on the workers locked out but on many more workers in the communities in which the locked out employees live.

Estimates are that the local economy in Minnesota's Red River Valley has had direct losses of more than $30.5 million. The losses are documented in a December 2011 report titled "A Region on the Ropes," commissioned by the Bakery Workers union.

"This lockout has divided families, friends, neighbors," said North Dakota state Rep. Elliot Glassheim. "And it's part of a national movement to bust unions. There is no other explanation."

Union members are particularly angry and frustrated because the lockout came as the company was recording excellent profits.

"Their financials looked very good right up until the lockout," said Renae Frederickson, a locked out worker. "Dave Berg told the shareholders that our contract was like a tumor and that his strategy is to cut that tumor out, and that strategy is coming at a high cost to all of us."

Photo: Union workers locked out in a contract dispute protest outside American Sugar Crystal headquarters Aug. 11, 2011, in Moorhead, Minn. Dave Kolpack/AP

Don't be fooled by the Newt-Mitt-Rick show

Sam Webb — Wed, 25 Jan 2012 15:30:00 -0500

Listening to the exchanges among the main Republican presidential candidates, it is easy to think that the debates are a television "reality show."

Newt attacks Mitt for his role at the private equity firm Bain Capital. Mitt assails Newt for his ties to Fannie Mae and his dismal performance as speaker of the House in the 1990s. And Rick Santorum when he gets a word in edgewise claims that neither Romney nor Gingrich is the real deal, that is, a true conservative. That tag belongs to him, he says - only he has a franchise on it.

Oops! I almost failed to mention Ron Paul, who is no better than the frontrunners, but he is more of a footnote in the primary contests at this point.

But there is more to these debates than political theater, more than attack and counterattack. What is striking, but goes unnoticed in this clashing free-for-all, is the similarity in basic policy positions of the leading Republican presidential hopefuls.

When it comes to rapid and broad expansion of domestic oil and gas exploration regardless of environmental damage, they are for it.

When it comes to deregulation and discredited "free market solutions," they want it.

When it comes to broad-scale privatization of education, they support it.

When it comes to tax breaks for the wealthiest, they can't get enough of it .

When it comes to repeal of Roe v. Wade and with it women's reproductive rights, they are chomping at the bit to do it.

When it comes to aggressive projection of military power in the Middle East and elsewhere, they strongly advocate it.

When it comes to stacking the courts with right-wing judges, they champion it.

When it comes to the elimination of racial and gender inequality, they want none of it.

When it comes to drastic slashing of the federal budget, they are all for it.

When it comes to immigrant and gay rights, they are against it.

When it comes to overturning the Obama health care act, they salivate over it.

When it comes to disempowering people's organizations, they are determined to do it.

When it comes to climate change, they deny it.

And when it comes to economic relief ... on jobs, foreclosures and food insecurity ... they do nothing about it.

In other words, even though they trade charges and counter-charges (usually true), Romney, Gingrich and Santorum (and Ron Paul too with a few variations) are of like mind. They are on the same page.

If any one of them is elected and if the Republicans gain control of Congress, they will set out to complete and consolidate the counterrevolution that Ronald Reagan initiated.

Reagan began this counterrevolution three decades ago. Its aim was to employ the state to shift the balance of political forces to the side of the most reactionary sections of the capitalist class.

Everything that was won by an aroused people over the course of the 20^th century was to be eliminated hook, line and sinker. Nothing of the edifice of rights and social gains was to be left standing. The people were to be rendered impoverished as well as defenseless against the monster of a corporate-controlled market and state.

Beneath the discordant sounds of the current Republican Party debates lies a shared vision that would throw the country back to the Gilded Age when corporate elites did as they pleased and the people had no rights that corporate capital had to respect.

Some suggest that there is no difference in vision between President Obama on the one hand and Romney, Gingrich and Santorum on the other. But this is not only wrongheaded, but also politically dangerous.

Only yesterday I read an article by Chris Hedges that goes in that direction.

It sounded militant and righteous, but if taken seriously it's a fool's errand and will isolate the left from the broad currents of American politics this year. And nobody who cares about social progress should want to do that.

What the Oscars ignore: Progies spotlight films you should see

Bill Meyer — Wed, 25 Jan 2012 14:10:00 -0500

In an attempt to draw attention to films of social significance with progressive content, film critic and author Ed Rampell developed The Progie Awards. A collective of international film writers, The James Agee Cinema Circle (JACC), named after the prominent 1930's film writer, nominates films and actors for these special progressive awards. They're timed to catch some of the Oscar buzz, hoping to influence Academy members and film lovers about progressive films that have much to offer but risk being overlooked.

This year only a few titles appear on both lists, The Help, Hugo, War Horse, The Artist, and the amazing Iranian film, A Separation, are films that JACC members feel also have some progressive merit. Actors Demián Bichir (A Better Life) and George Clooney (The Descendants) are the only other duplicates in both The Oscars and The Progies.

The rest of the Progie nominees contain a wealth of progressive content and contain many suggestions for progressives viewers to watch ... if you can find the films at your local theater, on TV or anywhere in the U.S.!

Other Progie nominees for Best Picture include A Better Life about a Mexican laborer in LA whose truck is stolen thus his job threatened. Compared by some to the classic Italian film Bicycle Thief, it's a moving film worth seeing. Although The Time That Remains came out in 2010 it qualifies for this year's Best Picture Award because it's American release occurred in 2011. A rare cinematic glimpse of the Palestinian Nakba, done in the unique comic style typical of accomplished Palestinian director Elia Sulieman, The Time That Remains leaves powerful images in the viewers mind of the tragic loss of a people's entire homeland.

It's hard to imagine that anyone can seriously believe that the Oscars award the best acting performances in the world. With the hype and corporate advertising campaigns, it seems at times that nominees are sold to the highest bidder. There are just too many fantastic performances in foreign and alternative cinema that it almost makes the task of selecting 5 nominees futile and certainly political. There's no way you could exclude Peter Mullan's performance in Tyrannosaur, or ANY of the actors in Le Havre, Potiche, London River, Mooz-Lum, Pariah or Polanski's Carnage to name just a few. Danny Glover's contributions to progressive cinema are numerous and his amazing performance in Mooz-Lum deserves special attention.

This year's candidates for JACC's Lifetime Achievement Awards include George Clooney, Sean Penn and the recently deceased Chilean director Raoul Ruiz, who fled Chile after Allende was overthrown and lived as an exile in France the rest of his life. An innovative intellectual director of over 115 feature films, Ruiz is pretty much unknown in America. (So there are 115 more films to look up!)

My favorite category in the Progies is Best Progressive Picture Deserving Theatrical Release in the US and Distribution in Other Countries. This category is simply a list of great suggestions from informed progressive film writers, rather than having a single title chosen as winner.

Members of JACC feel the frustration of narrowing down the list to just a few candidates when there are so many great progressive films and talent deserving of recognition. I focus on what I consider the best in progressive cinema in my columns for People's World; I would just have to advise the reader to see ALL the films I write about. And although that's many titles, it's only a touch of the many great films available to see!

Some great titles that were nominated but didn't make the final list include, Snows Of Kilimanjaro (France), Free Men (France), Habanastation (Cuba), Film Socialisme (Jean Luc Godard), God Bless America, Peace, Love, & Misunderstanding, Meek's Cutoff, Pink Ribbons, Inc., Brother on the Line, Loving Story, If a Tree Falls (also an Oscar nominee) and the amazing 15 hour classic study of the history of cinema, Story of Film: An Odyssey by Mark Cousins.

The Progies cleverly named each category after a progressive hero of cinema. For example, the 13 Awards include The (Paul) Robeson for Best Film About People of Color, The (Pier Paolo) Pasolini for the Best Gay Rights Film and the (Dalton) Trumbo for the Best Progressive Picture.

The complete list of 2012 Progie nominees can be seen here.

Photo: Film poster of A Better Life from their Facebook page .

What does the future hold for disabled Americans like me?

Mike Lado — Wed, 25 Jan 2012 12:09:00 -0500

Part of my disability is poor motor control and clumsiness. I walk with an uneven gait at times, and balance can be an issue occasionally when I may lose my footing and involuntarily grab onto anything to keep myself from falling. Other times I have difficulty doing certain body moves and positions that normal people can do. The way I talk makes people uncomfortable. I'm not good at carrying on a conversation or with a large group of people.

The challenges people with disabilities like me face every day at home, at work and in school are everywhere. Not only did I get looks and taunts in college but I got them in high school as well. All for being different; all because I didn't fit into the definition of "normal." People with disabilities often face many challenges when trying to navigate the world.

Just 22 years ago it was legal to not hire, to fire, or discriminate against Americans with disabilities.The Americans with Disabilities Act, enacted in 1990, did things like repeal the last of the ugly discriminatory laws that prohibited people with disabilities from coming out in public, and required employers to provide accommodations for disabled workers on the job. Employers also were not allowed to discriminate against potential employees with disabilities during the interview process and pass them over for a non-disabled applicant. Employers were forbidden to ask if a person is disabled as well during an interview. The ADA empowers the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) to file lawsuits against employers who violate the law.

I remember one of the first disability rights actions I took part in was in 2010 when Senate tea party candidate Rand Paul said he opposed the Americans with Disabilities Act. For a short while disability rights activists and their advocates came together to protest. I took part in organizing an online campaign to get an apology and even attended a protest. We never did get our apology but it just shows you the kinds of things people with disabilities face every day from ignorant people who walk all over us. Some of it's intentional and other times it's not.

So what can we do for people with disabilities to make discrimination go away?

Employers often successfully challenge the ADA's statutes in court and often win. In 2008 it became necessary to rework the entire law because it had been severely weakened by court challenges from employers who didn't care one bit about the workers they fired or otherwise discriminated against. The 2008 ADA Amendments Act clarified and broadened the disability definition. And it required courts interpreting the ADA and other federal disability nondiscrimination laws to focus on whether the employer has discriminated, rather than whether the individual seeking the law's protection has an impairment that fits within the technical definition of the term "disability."

The amendment act has successfully restored much of what the ADA was originally intended to do. As a result, the EEOC now has the tools to do its job. But we have to make sure that employers and sympathetic courts do not continue to obstruct the ADA.

We can also expand education programs and social services for people with disabilities.

Educational services are already in place in public schools and higher education by law. By law and court rulings public schools are required to identify and test individuals with disabilities and provide them with a "least restrictive environment" and a "free public and adequate education." This can be done by providing accommodations in the classroom for the student or through special education.

In higher education things are very different. Students with disabilities have the burden of proving to colleges and universities that they have a disability before they can receive accommodations in the classroom. Once this is done students receive accommodations free of charge to help them in their class work. These vary. A student with a learning disability might get extra testing time or a quiet testing environment. A blind student would get books on tape or in Braille and a tape recorder to record lectures. Education services for students with disabilities are some of the best in the world, but more can be done to expand access to these services.

Health care is an area that is quite lacking for people with disabilities.

My parents' insurance plan is very resistant about paying for my medical costs and care. At one point it became so bad that I had to apply for Medicaid. Medicaid helps hundreds of thousands of Americans with disabilities live independent lives and pays for the care we need. To think the Republicans in Congress want to turn Medicaid into block grants for the states! A progressive state like Vermont would keep a program for people with disabilities intact. But other states such as the Southern Republican strongholds might divert the money somewhere else and simply shut down these programs, leaving thousands of people with disabilities without coverage.

Third, we can make disability care assistance an easier process to navigate for Americans with disabilities. Many cannot work or aren't ready to work. Families can't afford to take care of their disabled children or adult family members who are too sick or infirm to partake in society. Bring back the CLASS Act and fully fund it this time. The CLASS Act was the brainchild of Senator Edward Kennedy and was passed as a rider within the Affordable Care Act. It would have created a government-run disability insurance program for all Americans. Unfortunately it was defunded by Republicans and has not been resurrected.

Fourth, we can unite all the scattered and underfunded state vocational rehabilitation programs under the banner of the federal government. Fund a federal system of work relief and job counselors for people with disabilities so they can find employment or help with employment. Right now I work with Pennsylvania's Office of Vocational Rehabilitation. A federal vocational rehabilitation system would help many more people with disabilities and would have the benefit of far more funding than the state programs have.

We'll see what the future holds for disabled Americans like me. As more and more equality legislation is passed we will have more and more of the same chances every other American has. To work and partake in society like everyone else is what we want.

For years we've been subject to mistreatment and then pity, and more mistreatment - not equality. There's still a long way to go for equal access to society. But we're getting there.

Image: Illustration for ADA checklist for polling places.

Professor lists Obama accomplishments: Over 244 and growing

Tim Wheeler — Wed, 25 Jan 2012 11:08:00 -0500

Florida Professor Robert P. Watson who teaches American Studies at Lynn University has compiled a list of 244 accomplishments by President Obama since he took office despite fanatical Republican opposition aimed at wrecking his presidency.

The list does not include Obama's decision to halt the tar sands pipeline that would have endangered the Oglalla aquifer in pumping 700,000 gallons daily of the world's dirtiest oil from western Canada to the Gulf Coast of Texas.

Prof. Watson, whose specialty is presidential history, began preparing his list back in Nov. 2009 to counter the lies and disinformation spread by the corporate media and the Republican right.

"The misinformation and venom that passes for political reporting and civic debate is beyond description," Dr. Watson wrote. "There is a need to set the record straight." His list then contained 90 plus achievements which he has now updated to 244.

He praised Obama for pushing through measures vital to the national interest not through a "heavy-handed or top down approach" but through efforts to "reach across the aisle, encourage vigorous debate, and utilize town halls and panels of experts in the policy-making process."

On the list (a few have been added by this reporter):

Overhauled the food safety system;

Approved the Lily Ledbetter "Equal Pay" for women rule;

Ended "Don't Ask/Don't Tell" discrimination in the military;

Passed the Hate Crimes bill in Congress;

Appointed two progressive women to the U.S. Supreme Court including the first Latina;

Pushed through the Affordable Health Care Act, outlawing denial of coverage for pre-existing conditions, extending until age 26 health care coverage of children under parent's plans, steps toward "Medicare for All;"

Expanded the State Children's Health Insurance Program (SCHIP) health care for children;

Pushed through a $789 economic stimulus bill that saved or created 3 million jobs and began task of repairing the nation's infrastructure;

Overhauled the credit card industry, making it more consumer friendly;

Established the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau and used a recess appointment to keep it on track in the face of GOP attempts to derail it;

Also outmaneuvered GOP in naming two members of the National Labor Relations Board blocked by the Republicans in their attempt to shut down the NLRB;

Won two extensions of the debt ceiling and extensions of unemployment compensation in the face of Republican threats to shut down the U.S. government;

Pulled troops out of Iraq and began draw down of troops in Afghanistan.

Since he prepared the list, it has been posted and reposted on the Internet hundreds of times with scores of bloggers commenting on it and adding to the list.

Writing in Washington Monthly's Political Animal column, blogger Steve Benen, points out that many of Obama's achievements have been won through painful concessions he was forced to make with intransigent Republican obstructionists on Capitol Hill.

The tendency has been to focus on his concessions while ignoring what he won in return. Benen cites the lame duck session of Congress in December 2010 following the disastrous elections a month earlier in which the Democrats lost majority control of the House.

There were predictions that nothing would be achieved in that lame duck, Benen said. "But for all the grief he's gotten over this, its worth keeping in mind that Obama got a helluva lot.... In the end, he got a Food Safety bill, passage of the START Treaty, a stimulus package, repeal of ‘don't ask/don't tell' and a First Responder bill" that provided health coverage for firefighters, police officers and other workers injured during the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attack. Incredibly, the Republicans tried to block it.

Obama was forced to make the same concession just before Christmas, yielding on his repeated demands for termination of a trillion in tax cuts for the rich in order to win approval of an increase in the debt ceiling and extension of jobless benefits for five million unemployed workers.

Yielding on tax cuts for the rich hurt those fighting for tax justice. But there is little doubt that those hard pressed, if not desperate unemployed workers, viewed this as an "accomplishment" and Obama deserves full credit.

Under a headline, "Who is Washington's Most Effective Politician?" Benen scoffs at those who pick Senate Minority Leader, Mitch McConnell (R-KY). McConnell's job was "easy," Benen writes. He twisted Senate rules to make himself "Obstructionist in Chief." No, he says, Obama is the most skillful, "perhaps the most effective politician since LBJ" for winning that long list of victories in the face of unprecedented obstruction, lies, and misinformation.

Plenty of voters are now preparing lists for themselves of Obama's accomplishments as they work to insure he wins a second term next Nov. 6.

Photo: Whitehouse.gov

GOP prez candidates help themselves on taxes

John Wojcik — Tue, 24 Jan 2012 16:43:00 -0500

If it weren't so shameful it would almost be funny.

The Republican presidential candidates, even if only unintentionally, made it clear in the latest installment of their unmercifully long string of debates, why they have been resisting the releasing of their tax statements.

Romney has finally released one year's worth of returns - his 2010 document. Even though it is easy, when you release just a year, to doctor things up so they look pretty good, the Romney returns for that one year pose at least six major problems.

First, they show he has a lot of offshore tax shelters.

Second, they show he paid less than 13.9 percent of his income in taxes during the year 2010, which is far below what most American workers pay.

Third, they show that the reason he paid so little in taxes is that his income comes from capital gains on investments and taxes on capital gains are far below what workers pay on their hard-earned wages.

Fourth, they show that he has undisclosed amounts of funds hidden in the Cayman Islands and other overseas locations. Since the amounts are undisclosed it can be assumed the sums stashed in those shelters could be quite large.

Fifth, workers can't pay the low tax rates Romney pays because they don't earn money from capital gains and they don't have overseas tax shelters.

Sixth, the only reasonable conclusion that can be drawn from his one year release is that for most of the other years about which he released no information he probably paid even less or perhaps even nothing in taxes.

All these problems haven't stopped Romney from proposing a tax plan that would actually cut what little taxes he did pay in half. Romney proposes a tax cut for millionaires and billionaires, including himself, that is twice as large as the tax cuts engineered by George Bush, when he was president.

Then we have the Gingrich plan which calls for the elimination of all taxes on capital gains and the institution of a flat rate 15 percent tax for everyone, regardless of income.

Gingrich bent over backwards during the Florida debate to assure Romney that he had no problem with Mitt paying as little as he did. "I just want everyone else to pay the low rate you pay," said Gingrich.

It wasn't lost on Romney, of course, that under the Gingrich plan, Romney would pay no taxes whatsoever!

It's no surprise that Gingrich has no problem with Romney's avoidance of taxes.

According to Forbes Magazine, Gingrich avoided tens of thousands of dollars in Medicare payroll taxes by classifying most of his income from two companies he owns as profits and dividends, therefore avoiding the payroll tax. The IRS has long been on to this type of scheme and has consistently disallowed it.

Then, after Romney accused Gingrich of influence peddling and demanded he release documents regarding his work for Freddie Mac, Newt Gingrich released a "contract" that the New York Times described as "legal boilerplate" and that contains no details about the advice he gave or ways in which he made use of his political contacts to benefit the people paying him.

Despite his absurd insistence that he was never a lobbyist, the contract showed that Gingrich was hired by the division of Freddie Mac responsible for lobbying - and that Gingrich was paid $300,000 for his "non" lobbying.

Romney's sanctimonious attacks on Gingrich about this matter on Monday in Florida were also quite disgusting. ThinkProgress pointed out today that Romney's own investments in Freddie Mac have netted him tens of thousands of dollars in income.

President Obama is expected to call in his State of the Union Message for fairness in taxation. As he has in the past, he is expected to insist that the wealthy in this nation pay their fair share of taxes. This is the view of the overwhelming majority of Americans. On the question of taxes, as on so many other issues, the Republican presidential hopefuls are swimming against the tide.

Hopefully, it will be only a matter of time before they sink.

The human dimension of long-term joblessness

Tony Pecinovsky — Tue, 24 Jan 2012 13:36:00 -0500

According to recent news reports the number of workers filing for new unemployment benefits dropped to a near four-year low. And with the national unemployment rate at 8.5 percent, many are optimistically expecting renewed consumer confidence as we head into the 2012 elections cycle.

While this is good news, it isn't sunshine and rainbows for everybody. Millions are still out of work or underemployed, and our economy isn't anywhere near full capacity.

However as an optimist, it seems to me that there is a light at the end of the tunnel for many people - people who have had to rely on unemployment, their savings, and/or the generosity of family and friends.

Yet, something missing from the recent positive reports is the human dimension, the impact long-term unemployment can have on families as they struggle to pay the utility bills, the bank notes, the doctor's bills or buy groceries.

In fact, long-term joblessness can have a dramatic and sometimes contradictory impact on people's lives as they balance their economic reality with their expectations of the American Dream. For some the idea of the American Dream has been shattered, along with their sense of self-worth.

While unemployed some people feel worthless. They feel like it's their fault, like they're not working hard enough to find another job. Like there is something wrong with them.

Others feel angry and resentful, even justifiably pissed-off, that they were let go or laid off due to no fault of their own. This anger and resentment can sometimes hinder the search for other employment opportunities.

Furthermore, some people have worked the same job for 15, 20, 25 years and have a hard time believing they have the necessary skills or education to compete in today's economy, with younger, better educated and less expensive workers - workers with very little "legacy costs" attached with them.

And undoubtedly, it is intimidating and scary to change jobs and/or go back to school.

All of this and so much more weighs on the minds of the unemployed and their families.

For example, my mother was let go almost two years ago. She had worked for the trash company. My stepfather had lost his job a few months before her. He worked as a mechanic for the same trash company.

All of a sudden their lives were turned upside down. She had dedicated 15 years to the company; he had dedicated 25 years. They had a mortgage, two car payments, utility bills, doctors' bills, credit card debt, etc.

Understandably, they were both pretty angry and hurt by the situation. They had to use their savings and 401k investments to supplement the unemployment benefits. They didn't have health insurance; the COBRA payments were just too much. Additionally, mom stopped taking her MS medicine since it was too expensive.

And to top things off, as the months turned into nearly two years, frustration and depression made it almost impossible to get excited about the grandkids' birthday parties, or the holidays with family.

Tension and fear about the future turned into guilt.

In fact, my mother and stepfather blamed themselves for not being able to give my wife and me a wedding present when we got married last May. My mother actually apologized to me, and said, "I wish we could do more."

Fortunately, after almost two years my stepfather got a job as a welder. His mood changed overnight. He could finally do something productive with his time, feel good about what he was doing and pay the bills.

And just last week, my mother got a job at a union manufacturing plant. She was so excited when she called to tell me. I could hear the pride in her voice, and the weight being lifted off her shoulders.

For many of us, our self-worth is wrapped-up in our ability to work, to pay the bills, "do right," get by and retire with dignity - the American Dream. Being without a job for months or years can dash all of those expectations, can drag us down and make us feel worthless, make us blame ourselves for the economic situation we didn't cause, and make us feel guilty as if we did something wrong.

Fortunately, my mother and stepfather have been able to weather the storm - victims of a social-economic system designed to benefit the 1 percent - and eventually, after much heartache, move on to greener pastures.

While many people are finding work as the economy slowly recovers, many more aren't. Add into the mix a society and economy that perpetuates and reinforces the idea that poverty is a result of laziness and ignorance, and long-term unemployment can have a devastating impact on how people feel about themselves.

Ultimately, we need a full-employment economy, and better laws designed to protect workers and their jobs during times of economic distress. Ultimately, our society can and should do better. Our families deserve better.

Photo: Jobs with Justice // CC 2.0

Left on the bookshelf: "Blacks, Reds and Russians"

Joseph Zimmermann — Tue, 24 Jan 2012 12:24:00 -0500

Book Review
Blacks, Red, and Russians. Sojourners in Search of the Soviet Promise
By Joy Gleason Carew
Rutgers University Press, 2011, 304 pages, paper $28.95

The story of the United States occupies a unique place in world history because of its growth and shaping by immigration. The immigrants were the unsatisfied natives of their home countries. This included the earliest pilgrims whose religious observances did not fit with those of the English aristocracy as well as German "48ers" who fled the persecution of the ruling class after a failed people's revolutions. The building of America by these rebels is an inspiring story.

There is a much less known story of another group of immigrants who sought freedom and opportunity, but it wasn't to America but to the Soviet Union that they fled.

Their story is documented in the book: Blacks, Red, and Russians. Sojourners in Search of the Soviet Promise by Joy Gleason Carew. Although authored by an academic and published by a university press, the book does not read like a dry anthropological study of an unrecorded subculture. It is, in fact, a colorful account of the adventures, challenges and triumphs of a group of unique and forward thinking African-Americans whose courage, idealism, and in many cases, simple survival instincts led them from the land of their birth to a new world few knew much about.

Obtaining any accurate information regarding the history and culture of the Soviet Union from western sources is difficult indeed. Thankfully this particular volume of Soviet history proves to be an exception, and contains none of the usual hysterical anti-communist canards that are all too familiar, and can be so problematic for the American reader.

The exploration of the motives of the sojourners often leads us to an understanding of the barriers to professional and personal advancement not only in the Jim Crow South but also in the U.S. as a whole. Through the stories we learn that these individuals did not seek egotistical self-aggrandizement, but rather the opportunity to go as far as their talents would take them in a society that made the eradication of racism one of the hallmarks of its foundation.

Joy Gleason Carew's vivid profiles of the sojourners put us in the time and place of their pilgrimage. One can almost see George Tynes, American citizen turned Soviet, as he shuttles between Soviet Georgia, Estonia and the Ukraine and finally to Moscow, where, in his retirement, he proudly trod the streets wearing the medals bestowed upon him by the Soviet state for his achievements in fish and poultry breeding. It was his talents that led the USSR to win first prize at a European agricultural exhibition in the 1950's.

Carew puts us in the footsteps of actor Wyland Rudd, who became the first black man to perform the role of Othello in Russian.

These are intensely human stories, filled with joy as well as hardships and sometimes great humor. The amusing anecdotes often take the form of "fish out of water" culture clashes between the recently arrived immigrants and the Russians whose knowledge of America at the time was limited at best. The description of the farcical failure of the Soviet attempt to produce a film, shot in Russia and starring African-American actors, and meant to portray a strike at a Southern US steel mill is worth a book all its own.

Readers can be grateful that this unique intersection in U.S. and Soviet history, as well as the African American experience, has been properly recorded and is available for the enjoyment of the reader as well as the study of the student and academic alike.

Winners and losers in South Carolina

PW Editorial Board — Mon, 23 Jan 2012 16:52:00 -0500

If we go by the official election results Newt Gingrich won the Republican presidential primary in South Carolina with 40 percent of the vote, and Mitt Romney came in behind him with 27 percent. Pulling up the rear were Rick Santorum and Ron Paul.

While Gingrich won, the concerns of the American people were the biggest losers.

The American Federation of Teachers put it this way in a commentary today: "As Republicans continue their efforts to select their nominee, one thing is clear. These leading Republican candidates are out of touch with the concerns of middle-class America, and as president, neither (Gingrich or Romney) would fight for the 99 percent of Americans."

Gingrich repeated his racist charges that President Obama is a food stamp president, and he repeated his attacks on labor laws, including, outrageously enough, child labor laws. After the primary he called again for the elimination of unionized school janitors and replacing it with a setup that involves one "master" janitor and a team of children working under that person to take care of the school buildings. What could possibly be more out of touch with the concerns of the working-class majority than these ideas?

Billionaire Romney continues to speak about how corporations are people, how he comes from the "American street," how he has experienced the fear of being fired and he even described the $374,327.62 he earned in speaking fees as "not very much" money. It's hard to be more out of touch with workers than that.

Paul and Santorum offer no improvement over the front-runners. All the GOP candidates have fallen over one another promising to support anti-worker right-to-work (for less) bills, constitutional amendments to balance budgets (at the expense of vital people-serving programs), attacks on women's reproductive rights such as laws to define fertilized eggs as human beings, and unlimited spending by corporate PACs on election campaigns.

All have pandered to the right-wing morality police and their political intrusions into the moral behavior and beliefs of Americans. Ironically, Gingrich himself had his personal morality brought up to him in a national debate.

Gingrich also suffered from the $13 million Romney's PACs spent on anti-Gingrich ads. It's hard to feel sorry for him about this, however, considering his support for the Citizens United Supreme Court decision that allows the PACs to spend unlimited amounts.

The real shame is that all the GOP candidates have spent millions to advance a program for the 1 percent, not a platform that benefits the broad majority. And even worst than that, all the Republican presidential primary candidates seem to be working in overdrive to do whatever they can to destroy not just President Obama, but any effort that is under way to bring about economic and social justice.

Photo: Other South Carolinians at a march and rally at The Statehouse, Jan. 16, Columbia S.C., to honor the Martin Luther King Jr. holiday and protest the state's repressive voter identification law. Mary Ann Chastain/AP

The Cuban Five, Alan Gross and the truth

W. T. Whitney Jr. — Mon, 23 Jan 2012 16:09:00 -0500

Cuban authorities arrested Maryland resident Alan Gross on December 3, 2009. Convicted last year of "acts against the independence and territorial integrity of the state," Gross received a 15-year jail sentence. He allegedly violated Cuban laws by providing dissidents with high-technology communications equipment set to evade national controls. Gross' supporters, including the U. S. government, identify him as a humanitarian engaged in building communication networks among Jews in Cuba.

Before the arrest, Cuban President Raul Castro proposed that the United States liberate five Cuban anti-terrorists from 13 years of imprisonment in exchange for Cuba releasing prisoners. The five Cubans, Gerardo Hernandez, Fernando Gonzalez, Ramon Labinino, Antonio Guerrero, and Rene Gonzalez, are victims of a biased trial and cruel sentences. Because of the controversy, they have become known internationally as the Cuban Five.

Rejecting a prisoner exchange on December 31, a Washington Post editorial brought new visibility to that possibility. Echoing U.S. government views, it cites "the illegal espionage of the Cubans," their record of "infiltrating U.S. military installations in South Florida," and to "Mr. Gross's humanitarian work, on behalf of a company that operates with U.S. democracy-promotion funds, to support his fellow Jews on the island."

In fact, prosecutors admitted to the impossibility of proving espionage. Three of the five Cubans were convicted, instead, of conspiracy to commit espionage. Two others faced relatively minor charges. U.S. military and intelligence officials testified the accused dealt with private paramilitary groups and terrorists, not with U.S. documents, facilities, and personnel.

Convictions on conspiracy to commit espionage led to life sentences for three prisoners, that later were reduced for two of them. Charged also for conspiracy to commit murder in the 1996 deaths of Brothers to the Rescue flyers, Gerardo Hernandez is serving two life sentences.

Cuban security services had monitored Alan Gross beginning in 2004. Prosecutors charged him with providing Cuban Masonic lodges with communication equipment. He visited Cuba five times during 2009 using tourist visas. Writing in collaboration with Cuba expert Wayne Smith, journalist Salim Lamrani portrays Gross as a "long-distance communications technology expert, [with] great experience in the field. He has worked in more than 50 nations and set up satellite communications systems during the military interventions in Iraq and Afghanistan to circumvent channels controlled by local authorities."

Alan Gross worked under a $600,000 contract with Maryland-based Developmental Alternatives Inc (DAI). In 2008, Congress awarded the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) $ 40 million over three years to "promote transition to democracy" in Cuba. Most ended up in DAI hands. In all, USAID provided DAI with $2.7 billion between 2000 and 2009, awarding another $382,491,550 in 2010. DAI works in Afghanistan under a $50 million grant and is active in 14 Latin American countries besides Cuba. By 2007, according to Venezuelanalysis.com, DAI had parceled out $11,575,509 among 360 "social organizations, political parties, communities and political projects" opposing President Hugo Chavez in Venezuela.

According to Lamrani, Gross' lawyer claimed, "His work in Cuba had nothing to do with politics; it was simply aimed at helping the small, peaceful, non-dissident Jewish community in the country." Yet Jewish groups in Cuba have "all the technological facilities needed to communicate with the rest of the world, thanks to the assistance of other international Jewish entities." Lamrani sees Cuban Jews and the Cuban government as mutually supportive. Cuban Jewish leaders have yet to reveal having had any contact with Gross.

Cuban Five prisoner Rene Gonzalez, released in 2011 and serving probation, responded to the Washington Post editorial. "Inaccuracies" relating to the Five he attributed to a U.S. media blackout. Gonzalez rejected charges that Internet access is blocked in Cuba. For him, "It strains credibility" that the Washington Post is blind to U. S. refusal to allow Cuba to use the underwater fiber optic cable running "parallel to the Cuban coast."

On its website, Cuba's Foreign Ministry posted a statement that, "The Cuban government has communicated to the U.S. government its willingness to find a humanitarian solution to the case of Mr. Alan Gross on a reciprocal humanitarian basis."

The Carter administration in 1979 freed four Puerto Rican nationalists imprisoned for an attack on the U. S. House of Representatives. Ten days later, Cuba released four jailed U.S. counter-revolutionaries. National Security Advisor Zbigniew Brzezinski had advised colleagues earlier that a "positive decision by the U.S. is likely to lead to a positive decision by Cuba to release U.S. citizens." Brzezinski rejected "a direct prisoner exchange [which] runs the risk of the public equating the crimes." Instead, a "unilateral gesture that is followed by a gesture from the other side softens the criticisms."

Indeed, 32 years later, the Washington Post based its rejection of an exchange on like reasoning: "There is no equivalence, moral or otherwise, between the illegal espionage of the Cubans and the conduct of Mr. Gross." But facts do show prisoners on both sides functioned as state agents. By Washington Post logic, they are eligible for a swap.

Cyber war: hype or reality?

Conn Hallinan — Mon, 23 Jan 2012 12:45:00 -0500

During his confirmation hearings this past June, U.S. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta warned the Senate, "The next Pearl Harbor we confront could very well be a cyber attack that cripples our grid, our security systems, our financial systems, our governmental systems." It was powerful imagery: a mighty fleet reduced to smoking ruin, an expansionist Asian power at the nation's doorstep.

But is "cyber war" really a threat? Can cyber war actually "cripple" the U.S., and who might these computer terrorists be? Or is the language just sturm und drang spun up by a coalition of major arms manufacturers, the Pentagon, and Internet security firms, allied with China bashers aimed at launching a new Cold War in Asia?

The language is sobering. Former White House Security Aide Richard Clarke, author of "Cyberwar", conjures up an apocalyptic future of paralyzed U.S. cities, subways crashing, planes "literally falling out of the sky," and thousands dead. Retired Admiral and Bush administration National Intelligence Director, Mike McConnell grimly warns "The United States is fighting a cyber war today and we are losing."

Much of this rhetoric is aimed at China. According to U.S. Rep. Mike Rogers, R-Mich., chair of the House Intelligence Committee, the Chinese government has launched a "predatory" campaign of "cyber theft" that has reached an "intolerable level." U.S. Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., charges that a "significant portion" of "cyber attacks" on U.S. companies "emanate from China." Former CIA and National Security Agency director Michael Hayden told Congress, "I stand back in awe of the breadth, depth, sophistication, and persistence of the Chinese espionage effort against the United States of America."

China has been accused of hacking into the Pentagon, the International Monetary Fund, the French government, the CIA, and stealing information from major U.S. arms maker Boeing, and the Japanese firm Mitsubishi. The latter builds the American high performance fighter, the F-15.

The Pentagon has even developed a policy strategy that considers major cyber attacks to be acts of war, triggering what could be a military response. "If you shut down our power grid," one Defense official told the Wall Street Journal, "maybe we will put a missile down one of your smokestacks."

But consider the sources for all this scare talk: Clarke is the chair of a firm that consults on cyber security, and McConnell is the executive vice-president of defense contractor Booz Allen Hamilton. Both are currently doing business with the Pentagon.

Arms giants like Lockheed Martin, Raytheon, Northrop Grumman, Boeing, and other munitions manufactures are moving heavily into the cyber security market. In 2010, Boeing snapped up Argon ST and Narus, two cyber security firms with an estimated value of $2.4 billion. Raytheon bought Applied Signal Technology, General Dynamics absorbed Network Connectivity Solutions, and Britain's major arms firm, BAE, purchased Norkom and ETI.

"There is a feeding frenzy right now to provide products and services to meet the demands of governments, law enforcement and the military," says Ron Deibert, director of the Canada Center for Global Security Studies.

There are big bucks at stake. Between the Defense Department and Homeland Security, the U.S. will spend some $10.5 billion for cyber security by 2015. The Pentagon's new Cyber Command is slated to have a staff of 10,000, and according to Northrop executive Kent Schneider, the market for cyber arms and security in the U.S. is $100 billion.

But is cyber war everything it is cracked up to be, and is the U.S. really way behind the curve in the scramble to develop cyber weapons?

According to investigative journalist Seymour Hersh, in his New Yorker article "The Online Threat," the potential for cyber mayhem has "been exaggerated" and the Defense Department and cyber security firms have blurred the line between cyber espionage and cyber war. The former is the kind of thing that goes on, day in and day out, between governments and industry, except its medium is the Internet. The latter is an attack on another country's ability to wage war, defend itself, or run its basic infrastructure.

Most experts say the end-of-the-world scenarios drawn up by people like Clarke are largely fiction. How could an enemy shut down the U.S. national power grid when there is no such thing? A cyber attack would have to disrupt more than 100 separate power systems throughout the nation to crash the U.S. grid.

Most financial institutions are also protected. The one example of a successful cyber attack in that area was an apparent North Korean cyber assault this past march on the South Korean bank Nonghyup that crashed the institution's computers. But an investigation found that the bank had been extremely remiss in changing passwords or controlling access to its computers. According to Peter Sommer, author of "Reducing Systems Cybersecurity Risk," the cyber threat to banks "is a bit of nonsense."

However, given that many Americans rely on computers, cell phones, I-Pads, smart phones and the like, any hint that an "enemy" could disrupt access to those devices is likely to get attention. Throw in some scary scenarios and a cunning enemy-China-and it's pretty easy to make people nervous.

But contrary to McConnell's statement, the U.S. is more advanced in computers than other countries in the world, and the charge that the U.S. is behind the curve sounds suspiciously like the "bomber gap" with the Russians in the '50s and the "missile gap" in the 1960s. Both were illusions that had more to do with U.S. presidential elections and arms industry lobbying than anything in the real world.

The focus on the China threat certainly fits the Obama administration's recent "strategic pivot" toward Africa and Asia. China draws significant resources from Africa, including oil, gas, copper, and iron ore, and Beijing is beginning to reassert itself in south and east Asia. The U.S. now has a separate military command for Africa-Africom-and the White House recently excluded U.S. military forces in the Asia theatre from any cutbacks. Washington is also deploying U.S. Marines in Australia. As U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton told the National Defense University this past August, "We know we face some long-term challenges about how we are going to cope with what the rise of China means."

But James Lewis, an expert on Chinese cyber espionage, told Hersh that the Chinese have no intention of attacking U.S. financial services since they own a considerable portion of them. According to Lewis, "current Chinese officials" told him "a cyber-war attack would do as much economic harm to us as to you." The U.S. is China's largest trading partner and Beijing holds over a trillion dollars in U.S. securities.

There is also a certain irony to the accusations aimed at China. According to the New York Times, the U.S.-and Israel-designed the "Stuxnet" virus that has infected some 30,000 computers in Iran and set back Teheran's nuclear program. The virus has also turned up in China, Pakistan, and Indonesia. In terms of cyber war, the U.S. is ahead of the curve, not behind.

What all this scare talk has done is allow the U.S. military to muscle its way into cyber security in a way that could potentially allow it to monitor virtually everything on the Internet, including personal computers and email. In fact, the military has resisted a push to insure cyber security through the use of encryption because that would prevent the Pentagon from tapping into Internet traffic.

Does China really pose a threat to the U.S.? There is no question that China-based computers have hacked into a variety of governmental agencies and private companies (as have Russians, Israelis, Americans, French, Taiwanese, South Koreans, etc.-in short everyone spies on everyone), but few observers think that China has any intention of going to war with the much more powerful U.S.

However, Beijing makes a handy bug-a-boo. One four-star admiral told Hersh that in arguing against budget cuts, the military "needs an enemy and it's settled on China." It would not be the first time that ploy was used.

If the Pentagon's push is successful, it could result in an almost total loss of privacy for most Americans, as well as the creation of a vast and expensive new security bureaucracy. Give a government the power to monitor the Internet, says Sommers, and it will do it. In this electronic field of dreams, if we build it, they will use it.

This article originally appeared in Conn Hallinan's blog, Dispatches from the Edge.

Republicans get free ride on racism

Teresa Albano — Fri, 20 Jan 2012 16:53:00 -0500

Republican presidential candidates celebrated the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. holiday in confederate style. They held a debate.

Newt Gingrich's use of "food stamps president," in describing the country's first African American president, has been the focus of much of the post-debate commentary.

Debate moderator Juan Williams, a Fox News commentator who is black, challenged Gingrich on these statements, and the pro-Gingrich crowd booed, giving his defense of racism a standing ovation.

Time magazine columnist James Poniewozik tweeted well the perverse irony, "As 5 white guys debate, mostly white crowd boos black moderator for asking question on race. Happy MLK Day!"

Gingrich is by no means alone among the GOP candidates in his use of racism. Mitt Romney, Ron Paul and Rick Santorum (let alone the others who have dropped out by now) are all veterans of injecting racism into the body politic.

The subjects of their racist narrative are generally African Americans, however, Mexican Americans, Mexican immigrants and Latinos in general are also staples for right-wing scapegoating nationwide.

Many say using racism to pander for votes is nothing new for the Republicans. It's a long-standing policy called the "Southern strategy."

In the wake of the mighty civil rights movement, and the signing of the Civil Rights Act and Voting Rights Act by Democratic President Lyndon B. Johnson, the Republicans saw an opportunity to appeal to pro-segregation politicians and voters.

Richard Nixon's political strategist, Kevin Phillips, explained the essence of the strategy in a 1970 New York Times interview:

"From now on, the Republicans are never going to get more than 10 to 20 percent of the Negro vote and they don't need any more than that... but Republicans would be shortsighted if they weakened enforcement of the Voting Rights Act. The more Negroes who register as Democrats in the South, the sooner the Negrophobe whites will quit the Democrats and become Republicans. That's where the votes are. Without that prodding from the blacks, the whites will backslide into their old comfortable arrangement with the local Democrats."

Phillips attributes the "prodding" to African Americans as a way to relieve the GOP from its responsibility. The "prodding," in reality, comes from the GOP.

As the most loyal representatives of the 1%, Republicans get a two-for-one deal here. They use racism to sow division and attack government programs, covering up the common interests held by the multi-racial, diverse working class and allies - the 99%.

Republicans ignore statistics and tie "big government" programs to African Americans, other people of color - Latinos, Asian and Native Americans - and immigrants, making it sound like these programs are criminal operations - robbing white people of their money.

As Santorum said, "I don't want to make black people's lives better by giving them somebody else's money."

Meanwhile the real criminal operations continue.

Instead of Wall Street/corporate greed, Republicans say government programs are the cause of unemployment and poverty, vilifying, through racist caricatures, programs that have social value.

For the record, some 40 million Americans receive food stamps, according to a 2011 U.S. Department of Agriculture report.

Among the food stamp recipients 33% are white, 22% are black, 16.7% are Hispanic, and 2.8% are Asian. Just about half of the 40 million (47%) are children, 20% are disabled and 8% are elderly.

There is an economic crisis after all. A crisis that was fueled by GOP policies of deregulation and pushing the "ownership society," effectively green lighting the practices that led to the housing and financial crash.

Plus, under George W. Bush food stamps use rose by 14.7 million. Under Obama and the crash of the economy, the increase is at 14.2 million.

There are certainly going to be white voters who fall for the Republicans' load of crap on Election Day, believing they have more in common with white billionaires than black or brown people. But not all white voters will fall for that, especially if they are in a union.

Donna DeWitt, president of the South Carolina AFL-CIO, who is white, cut through the racist "prodding." She said in a telephone interview, "Whether it is Mitt Romney defending corporations as people, or Ron Paul's newsletter calling Martin Luther King Day 'Hate Whitey Day'" or Rick Santorum or Newt Gingrich, "they just don't get what the 99% are going through."

"It's not just what they say that is the problem," DeWitt said. "They are also pushing the same policy - tax breaks for the rich, cuts in vital services and attacking workers' rights - that have benefited only the 1% and contributed to the rising inequalities - racial and economic - for the rest of us."

It's clear the Republicans have been getting a free ride on racism for much too long, and it's in the interest of all people to stop it.

Photo: Workers cheer President Barack Obama during 2010 Laborfest in Milwaukee. (Marguerite Herbst)

Marines in Afghanistan and Republican hate culture

PW Editorial Board — Wed, 18 Jan 2012 15:49:00 -0500

Like the outrageous Abu Ghraib torture revealed in 2004, the scandal that broke last week over U.S. Marines urinating on dead Afghanis is not simply a case of a few "bad apples," or "bad management" up the chain of command.

Nor is it something new for U.S. forces in Afghanistan. For example, Pentagon documents released by the American Civil Liberties Union in 2005 cited, among other abusive practices by the military in Iraq and Afghanistan, an incident where U.S. soldiers in Afghanistan posed for photographs of mock executions with hooded and bound detainees.

It's interesting that in all these cases, participants took photos or videos of their actions - an indication that they thought the behavior was perfectly OK.

Let's look at it in context.

Since 9/11, Americans have been living in an atmosphere of slurs and attacks on Muslims and anyone who "looks" like they come from anywhere in the greater Middle East or South Asia. Under the Bush administration, mosques and immigrant communities were infiltrated by government agents with the public rationale that these were hotbeds of disloyalty and terrorism. A series of highly publicized arrests of Muslims and immigrants from the Middle East and surrounding region, and even of non-Muslim attorneys aiding them, inflamed prejudice - even though these cases either came to nothing, or were exposed as having been instigated by government agents.

Continuing right up to the present, right-wing politicians and media figures have trumpeted derogatory remarks about Muslims that have splashed across the mass media.

In May 2004, leaders of the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee and the Muslim Public Affairs Council held a Washington press conference in response to the Abu Ghraib scandal.

They said, "The abuse of Iraqi prisoners in Abu Ghraib prison represents a growing trend in our culture that demonizes and dehumanizes Arabs and Muslims in general. This destructive attitude, which is creeping ever closer to the mainstream of American thought, authorizes and legitimates these appalling abuses."

The torture "was not an isolated incident but manifestation of hate rooted in a distortion of American culture," they said. "Is it really a coincidence that the head of military intelligence, Gen. Boykin, is on record as casting the war on terror as a religious war, as saying that the enemy is 'a guy called Satan,' and that Muslims worship 'an idol'?"

None of this excuses either the individual soldiers who commit torture and abuse, or their superior officers. But we have to look at the ugly culture created by the right wing in our country that breeds such behavior. We are seeing it again today among the Republican presidential candidates, whipping up racist sentiments directed at African Americans and other people of color. Such ugliness has ugly, dangerous consequences. This kind of hate culture has to be solidly rejected. Truly, it is a distortion of what America is all about.

Photo: Marines in Afghanistan. Regimental Combat Team-7, 1st Marine Division Public Affairs, Lance Cpl. James W. Clark