Liberation News

stfucapitalists: producermatthew: Exclusive: Thousands...

Sat, 29 Jan 2011 18:12:54 -0500

producermatthew:

Exclusive: Thousands demonstrate in the center of Alexandria, Egypt the morning of Saturday, January 29, 2011.

Wow! I wish I knew what they were saying.

pantslessprogressive: “The people have become the police.” -...

Sat, 29 Jan 2011 17:18:12 -0500

pantslessprogressive:

“The people have become the police.” - Jacky Rowland, Al Jazeera Reporter in Cairo.

On AJE: Nawara Negm, a journalist and activist, says police and security forces have taken off their uniforms to dress as civilians, ‘reeking havic…everywhere’ as a ‘last ditch attempt from Mubarak’. Negm says ‘every single youth in Egypt has joined civilian watch groups’ and are armed with sticks, in order to watch the neighborhood, protect their families, and protect their households. She says ‘anyone suspected to be from outside the neighborhood is stopped and searched’.

Referring to President Mubarak, she says, “This man has smashed our humanity.”

[photo via BBC]

Funeral procession: a dead protester is carried through the...

Sat, 29 Jan 2011 15:15:23 -0500

Funeral procession: a dead protester is carried through the streets of Cairo.

(via rethinksocialism, mohandasgandhi)

Sat, 29 Jan 2011 15:12:51 -0500

(via rethinksocialism, mohandasgandhi)

Egyptian youth and new dawn hopes

Fri, 28 Jan 2011 21:55:46 -0500

As police stations and ministry of interior installations continue to burn through the night in many of Egypt’s cities, the Arab World is waking up to a new dawn.

In more than 18 years of living in Cairo, I have never felt the sense of cautious hope that exists in Egypt now, particularly among young men and women who feel that for the first time in their lives they may actually be able to determine their own destinies.

Young Egyptians that say that despite the number of teargas canisters fired at protesters and the number of those who have been beaten and detained, long-dormant patriotism and pride have been finally awakened.

They feel emboldened by the positive changes in Tunisia and believe they share common cause and aspiration.

Many of the students I teach at the American University in Cairo have taken part in the protests, avoiding tear gas, seeking refuge in shops and alleyways. They have been reporting and participating in the protests. Some have been beaten only to return the next day and face off with riot police.

To them, they have known no other president, no other ruling party and no other political system. They have for years been groomed on the government’s realpolitik on the one hand, and the empty rhetoric of opposition groups on the other.

They have made it clear to me that these opposition parties, long defunct and impotent, have been replaced by grassroots social action. Their fears of detention and torture have been supplanted by the need for better living conditions and better wages.

The protests have drawn Egyptians from all walks of life, many of whom have never participated in demonstrations and feel that the time has come for them to voice their resentment.

What started with a few dozen protesters on January 25 quickly mushroomed as passers-by and ordinary citizens joined in.

This was the Arab Street – the silent majority which has finally found a voice to express palpable anger.

Listening to the protesters, one gets the feeling that they have not been deterred by the severity of the beatings; rather, their resolve has been hardened.

In an unprecedented show of civil disobedience and open revolt, young Egyptians have clearly and forcibly delivered a message that is still resonating in the Middle East and North Africa: Authoritarian rule in the region is over.

The common yet indigenous, denominators – political and economic disenfranchisement and disdain at rampant corruption – between the two countries were conveyed through social media networks, helping to create a momentum that seized popular anger and provided it with a dynamic that produced mass mobilisation on the streets of Tunis and Cairo.

By calling for the ouster of Hosni Mubarak, the Egyptian president, and persevering in the face of tear gas, water cannons and baton beatings, young Egyptian men and women have beat back decades of one-party rule, brutal repression against civil liberties, iron-clad control of the media, and corrupt economic policies.

The protesters have been dismantling archaic forms of governance in which the ruler is considered to be beyond reproach and economic policies are determined by his self-preserving business elite allies.

They are demanding equity in the distribution of wealth, an end to state corruption, greater employment opportunities and a curb to rampant inflation.

They want to be able to express themselves freely – both in mainstream media and online – without the specter of arrest, torture and imprisonment looming overhead.

Just three months ago, Egyptian authorities released Kareem Amer, a blogger jailed in 2007 for defaming Islam and the presidency. His release came just a few weeks after several stations were taken off the air by the national satellite carrier NileSat for allegedly failing to abide by their contracts and/or failure to pay licensing fees.

They are not interested in a change of government – as Mubarak promised on January 28 - and they will not be dissuaded by repeated promises of economic reform and prosperity. They believe that Egypt’s current socio-economic malaise is rooted in the political system itself, a system which has not evolved since the first revolution overthrew the King of Egypt in 1952.

When the ruling National Democratic Party swept Parliamentary elections amid allegations of widespread fraud last November, Egyptian youth said that they felt their votes had been stolen and the entire process of political reform hijacked.

Some observers at the time warned that the government would likely suffer a backlash. The young protesters that we now see on the streets of Cairo, Ismailiya, Suez, Alexandria and Mahala want a political process that safeguards their democratic participation.

Few in Egypt have a desire – or expectation – to see Gamal Mubarak, the president’s son, inherit the presidency in a contrived political gimmick to convince the public that there was a democratic transfer of power.

Among my students, Copts and Muslims alike, there is a call for social cohesion. In the aftermath of the bombing at the Two Saints Church in Alexandria, many Egyptians blamed the government for failing to adequately protect minorities and allowing sectarian strife to fester.

Now, the momentum – and history - is on the protesters’ side.

Source: Al Jazeera

Protesters still shout, "Down Down Mubarak, Down Down with the Regime."

Fri, 28 Jan 2011 17:36:00 -0500

Don’t stop until you have won, people of Egypt!

Mubarak Ordered Government to 'Step Down'

Fri, 28 Jan 2011 17:29:00 -0500

http://english.aljazeera.net/watch_now/

They are analyzing his speech right now.

Mubarak is giving his announcement right now. Watch it!

Fri, 28 Jan 2011 17:22:03 -0500

Mubarak is giving his announcement right now. Watch it!

jewdar: Click here to watch a livestream coverage of the...

Fri, 28 Jan 2011 17:00:39 -0500

jewdar:

Click here to watch a livestream coverage of the protests in Egypt.

My full support goes out to these people who are standing up...

Fri, 28 Jan 2011 01:00:00 -0500

My full support goes out to these people who are standing up against corruption, and trying to do something about it. They should be heroes to all.

House Republicans Consider Privatizing Medicare

Fri, 28 Jan 2011 00:09:56 -0500

House Republicans Consider Privatizing Medicare:

“Republicans are debating whether to relaunch their quest to privatize the health program for seniors. House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan, R-Wis., is testing support for his idea to replace Medicare with a fixed payment to buy a private medical plan from a menu of coverage options.”

How can people not realize how much of a terrible idea this is? You take something that benefits the people from a slightly accountable government (I emphasize slightly because people hardly have any real control) and give it to a totally unaccountable corporation to do whatever they want with it.

List of the net worth’s of the members of congress.

Wed, 26 Jan 2011 17:02:00 -0500

List of the net worth’s of the members of congress.

Why Not Declare Class War and be Done With It

Wed, 26 Jan 2011 16:41:34 -0500

Why Not Declare Class War and be Done With It:

Not only has the so-called “trickle-down” theory of economics been revealed to be a cruel hoax, but most of the good industrial jobs have left the country, the middle-class has been eviscerated, the wealthiest Americans (even in the wake of the recession) have quintupled their net worth, and polls show that upwards of 70 per cent of the American public feel the country is “headed in the wrong direction.”

No jobs, no prospects, no leverage, no short-term solutions, no long-term plans, no big ideas to save us. While the bottom four-fifths struggle to stay afloat, and the upper one-fifth cautiously tread water, the top one-percent continue to accumulate wealth at a staggering rate.

Thanks to the global engine, there are now hundreds of billionaires. Oligarchies, “client-state” capitalism, wanton deregulation, CEOs earning monster salaries, corporations receiving taxpayer welfare, and half the U.S. Congress boasting of being millionaires. Meanwhile, personal debt in the U.S. continues to soar, one in ten people are out of work, and food stamp usage sets new records every month.

Yet, even with near-record unemployment, the Department of Commerce reported this week that U.S. companies just had their best quarter….ever. Businesses recorded profits at an annual rate of $1.66 trillion in the third quarter, which is the highest rate (in non-inflation-adjusted figures) since the government began keeping records, over 60 years ago. Shrinking incomes, fewer jobs….but bigger corporate profits. Not a good sign.

Yet when you broach the dreaded subject of “class warfare” you get blank stares. When you try to demonstrate, through charts and graphs and scores of real-life examples, that the system is largely rigged to accommodate the wealthy and powerful—and that we face an unfortunate Us vs. Them dilemma—people back away.

There’s an old joke: An Oxford professor meets a former student and asks what he’s been up to. The student tells him he’s working on his doctoral thesis, whose topic is the survival of the class system in the U.S. The prof expresses surprise. “I didn’t think there was a class system in the U.S.,” he says. “Nobody does,” the student replies. “That’s how it survives.”

Every man, woman, and child needs to understand these concepts.

Mon, 24 Jan 2011 23:39:00 -0500

Every man, woman, and child needs to understand these concepts.

nwbtcw: What Happened to the Anti-War Movement? The American...

Sun, 23 Jan 2011 21:49:00 -0500

nwbtcw:

What Happened to the Anti-War Movement?

The American people are brainwashed today more than ever before…

Photo

Sun, 23 Jan 2011 18:02:32 -0500

USA: Auto Industry Profits Rise, But Where is Workers’ Share?

Sun, 23 Jan 2011 17:22:00 -0500

Amid mostly worrying news on the economy, one bright spot has emerged over the past two months. Ford, GM and Chrysler, the long-troubled “Big Three” auto makers, have seen big increases in profits and are adding new jobs, investing in, and expanding plants. The business media credits the “fresh thinking” of new management for the turnaround. But auto workers know better after more than 5 years of massive concessions and layoffs. So, we’re left to wonder: if there was “shared sacrifice” during hard times, shouldn’t there be shared gain when things improve?

The auto industry is an important part of the US economy and auto workers, represented in the Big Three by the UAW, are a key component of the labor movement. After waging struggles in the past such as the Flint “sit down strike” in 1936-37 and the national GM strike in 1945, workers in the Big Three became the most highly organized group of workers in the country. This allowed auto workers to become one of the best paid sectors of the working class with comparably good working conditions. These gains also set the pattern for what was expected in terms of wages and benefits for other US workers, especially industrial workers.

In other words, better pay and conditions for one segment of the working class “raises all boats.” For decades, the Federal Reserve even kept a close watch on UAW contracts because auto workers’ wages were the best indicator of wage trends across the board. Because of this key position, the UAW has been a major target not just for the auto execs and the big shareholders, but for the entire ruling class for decades.

Since the early 1980s, the bosses have carried out a concerted campaign to whittle away at the UAW through plant closings and cutbacks, with the full backing of both parties in government. In 1979, the UAW had 1.5 million members. By 2009, this had dropped to 390,000. Between 2000 and 2008, the number of Big Three assembly plants dropped from 66 to 40, while their combined manufacturing capacity went from 13.7 million vehicles per year to just 8 million.

In 2008, GM and Chrysler, the largest and third largest US auto makers respectively, filed bankruptcy after several years of gross mismanagement and profiteering. The Obama administration and Congress bailed them out, but only on condition of further “restructuring” (more layoffs and concessions from the workers).

$62 billion in public money was handed over to GM and Chrysler, which emerged from Chapter 11 bankruptcy in 2009, and are now raking in profits. Then-UAW President Ron Gettelfinger agreed to “share the burden” with management and pushed hard for more concessions from the workers he was supposed to represent. This was on top of the concession-ridden 2008 national agreement with the Big Three that slashed wages to non-union US Toyota levels, as well as the union agreeing to assume 100% of health care costs for workers and retirees.

The UAW did gain 55% ownership of Chrysler, but on the whole, workers regarded the contract as a massive giveaway forced on them under pressure. Not surprisingly, Gettlefinger was voted out of office in 2009. He was replaced by Bob King, a UAW vice-president for the Ford division who promised to fight back to recover what was lost when the next industry-wide contract talks begin next year.

Quoted in the New York Times after his election in May, King said that “When there’s equality of sacrifice, there’s got to be equality of gain… We just want to make sure when things turn around we share in the upside.’’ Things have certainly started to turn around, but not surprisingly, the bosses aren’t sharing.

Ford, the only member of the Big Three to avoid bankruptcy, has now become the biggest of the three. Ford earned $1.7 billion in the third quarter of 2010, and says it will have zero debt by December. Ford has made more profits in just the first six months of 2010 than it did in the previous 5 years.

According to the New York Times, GM and Chrysler are not far behind: “G.M. is profitable and preparing for one of the biggest public stock offerings in American history. Even Chrysler, the auto maker thought least likely to survive the recession, is hiring new workers.” While the Big Three’s share of the North American car market has dropped to 46%, for the first time in more than a decade, its cars are selling at higher prices as compared to the non-US makers.

As reported in the NYT:

“The proof is emerging in dealer showrooms, where customers are buying more of Detroit’s cars and paying higher prices. In July, G.M., Ford and Chrysler sold their vehicles at an average price of $30,400 — $1,350 more than a year ago and higher than an overall industry gain of $1,100, according to the auto research Web site Edmunds.com.”

Each of the Big Three have also scaled back rebates and other incentives for buyers.

GM and Chrysler have added 55,000 new jobs. Ford is adding jobs and expanding Michigan plants, too. But these are not the same jobs as those that were lost in 2008. A two-tier wage system in now place, which means that these new workers earn roughly just half of pre-2008 workers, even if they are doing the exact same job. Entry-level GM production workers get $14/hour, and for the first time since the 1940s, there are many auto workers whose pay is not enough to make basic ends meet. Poverty in America estimates that in Saginaw county, Michigan, for example, a living wage for a worker supporting one adult dependent (without children) would be $13.00/hour. For the same worker to support one adult and just one child however, $16.59/hour would be needed. In 2006, before the two-tier system, new hires at GM made 74% more than the national average wage; in 2010, new GM workers make 20% less than the national average.

All of this adds up to a fighting mood in the UAW rank and file. Saladin Parm, who has worked 23 years at a GM plant in Saginaw, Michigan, told a Businessweek reporter that workers on the shop floor are the angriest he’s ever seen:

“They’re saying, ‘This is not a high-school job where I want to take my girlfriend out to the movies. I have to support my family on this’… I have a lot of faith in our union. My dad came up from the South to make a better living in the auto plants, and he did. That’s why it’s hard to fathom what I’m seeing. I never dreamed I’d be seeing tears.”

After voting Gettelfinger out last year, the rank and file signaled that it had had enough of concessions. The new leadership has said that it will roll back concessions when the 2011 contract talks open. If the auto workers begin to fight back, this would set an example for the rest of the working class. For the past 30 years, the UAW has been under attack by the bosses and time after time the UAW has given concession after concession in the name of “jointness,” the idea that what is good for the company is good for the workers. A serious discussion inside the union about its philosophy is needed if auto workers want to reverse the concessions tide.

The Marxists in the labor movement consistently put forward that the unions should adopt class struggle unionism as its philosophy. This is the idea that the bosses and the workers have no interests in common. This kind of thing isn’t alien to the UAW — it is part of the union’s history. There are many examples, from the sit down strikes in Flint to the national GM strike in 1945, where workers shut down each and every GM plant in the country.

Revolutionary ideas are also not foreign to the UAW. It was auto worker members of the Communist Party who in the 1930s spearheaded the first organizing drives and participated as shop floor leaders of many strikes, and the Muste-ite Socialists who led the Toledo Auto Lite strike in 1934. Even Walter and Victor Reuther, considered the “founding fathers” of the modern UAW, described themselves as socialists in their youth (they even worked for two years in a Soviet auto plant in Gorky, Russia from 1933-35). Despite “softening” their radicalism in the 1950s and 60s, they still supported UAW policy calling for free, publicly-funded universal health care for all and committing the UAW to fighting in the interests of the working class as a whole. The revolutionary ideas held by auto workers in the past and class struggle methods are even more important and relevant today and for the future.

Many in the UAW have gone along with “jointness” for decades, but now they can see the bottom and have no where else to go but to fight. In addition, the UAW has gained 55,000 new members who have no experience of past defeats and who would be prepared to fight if the union leaders were to show a way forward. The UAW was born out class struggle and bold industrial strike action, and to meet the challenges of the future, it needs to return to its militant roots.

Source: Socialist Appeal (USA)

“They believe in communism. They believe and have called for a...

Sun, 23 Jan 2011 16:58:43 -0500

“They believe in communism. They believe and have called for a revolution. You’re going to have to shoot them in the head. But warning, they may shoot you.”

— Glenn Beck discussing Democratic leaders on a June broadcast of his Fox News show.

This just in! Glenn Beck is a complete, idiotic fascist. You know what they say, the only good fascist is a dead fascist…

Chomsky on Capitalism

Sat, 22 Jan 2011 23:08:00 -0500

RBR: In many ways the left today finds itself back at its original starting point in the last century. Like then, it now faces a form of capitalism that is in the ascendancy. There would seem to be greater ‘consensus’ today, more than at any other time in history, that capitalism is the only valid form of economic organisation possible, this despite the fact that wealth inequality is widening. Against this backdrop, one could argue that the left is unsure of how to go forward. How do you look at the current period? Is it a question of ‘back to basics’? Should the effort now be towards bringing out the libertarian tradition in socialism and towards stressing democratic ideas?

CHOMSKY: This is mostly propaganda, in my opinion. What is called ‘capitalism’ is basically a system of corporate mercantilism, with huge and largely unaccountable private tyrannies exercising vast control over the economy, political systems, and social and cultural life, operating in close co-operation with powerful states that intervene massively in the domestic economy and international society. That is dramatically true of the United States, contrary to much illusion. The rich and privileged are no more willing to face market discipline than they have been in the past, though they consider it just fine for the general population. Merely to cite a few illustrations, the Reagan administration, which revelled in free market rhetoric, also boasted to the business community that it was the most protectionist in post-war US history - actually more than all others combined. Newt Gingrich, who leads the current crusade, represents a superrich district that receives more federal subsidies than any other suburban region in the country, outside of the federal system itself. The ‘conservatives’ who are calling for an end to school lunches for hungry children are also demanding an increase in the budget for the Pentagon, which was established in the late 1940s in its current form because - as the business press was kind enough to tell us - high tech industry cannot survive in a pure, competitive, unsubsidized, ‘free enterprise’ economy, and the government must be its saviour. Without the saviour, Gingrich’s constituents would be poor working people (if they were lucky). There would be no computers, electronics generally, aviation industry, metallurgy, automation, etc., etc., right down the list. Anarchists, of all people, should not be taken in by these traditional frauds.

More than ever, libertarian socialist ideas are relevant, and the population is very much open to them. Despite a huge mass of corporate propaganda, outside of educated circles, people still maintain pretty much their traditional attitudes. In the US, for example, more than 80% of the population regard the economic system as inherently unfair and the political system as a fraud, which serves the special interests, not the people. Overwhelming majorities think working people have too little voice in public affairs (the same is true in England), that the government has the responsibility of assisting people in need, that spending for education and health should take precedence over budget-cutting and tax cuts, that the current Republican proposals that are sailing through Congress benefit the rich and harm the general population, and so on. Intellectuals may tell a different story, but it’s not all that difficult to find out the facts.

RBR: To a point anarchist ideas have been vindicated by the collapse of the Soviet Union - the predictions of Bakunin have proven to be correct. Do you think that anarchists should take heart from this general development and from the perceptiveness of Bakunin’s analysis? Should anarchists look to the period ahead with greater confidence in their ideas and history?

CHOMSKY: I think - at least hope - that the answer is implicit in the above. I think the current era has ominous portent, and signs of great hope. Which result ensues depends on what we make of the opportunities.

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Sat, 22 Jan 2011 19:22:38 -0500