Saturday, September 23, 2006
Finding True Spirituality in a Bankrupt Time
Lately I have been thinking a lot about spirituality, psychology and human society at this cross-roads in our species’ existence. In explaining these things, I should start out with a few premises, which may be debatable but in which I profoundly believe:
-That we are currently living in a period of decline of human society, i.e. the decline of the mightiest empire the Earth has ever seen (the U.S.) and the corresponding decline of the capitalist system at its rotten heart. There are many symptoms of this decline which I will not take the time to elaborate on here, except for one that I think is particularly illustrative: recent polls have shown that for the first time, less than 50% of young people in this country believe they will see an improvement in their lives from the previous generation.
-That along with this decline, the masses of people living in this country and the areas it most affects are increasingly disoriented and scared. These fears breed reaction and a clinging to the promised certainty offered by evangelical or fundamentalist religion. This happens all the more so when the harsh reality of the decline can no longer be ignored by immersion into reality substitutes (T.V., drugs, etc.). As with the grim reaper at the window, the masses try to shut the shades and find a happy reality to immerse themselves in; though after a time, his presence is still felt, as with the loss of a job, the stacking up of debt, the decline of available income. So people run to religion, which offers a Way Out, and simply ignore that they may be used for political ends; they don’t want to think of the Church as mortal, but rather wish to see it as an escape from their problems.
-That the decline is marked also by spiritual bankruptcy of our society, brought about by fear and insecurity both rational and irrational. Our actions are quite often subconsciously driven by our insecurities, and unless we work actively to confront them they can have grave consequences. Why does the playground bully pick on others? Why does the car company tell us to help save the environment? The reason is the same: the bully is really afraid of his own weaknesses, so he must tear others down to make himself appear strong; the car company knows that it pollutes, so for the sake of acceptance by “consumers” it must convince them that it wants to save the environment. Now a pop quiz: why does the Bush Administration espouse the spread of “Freedom”?
This spiritual bankruptcy is perhaps the most dangerous thing of all, for how to we act to save society when we are paralyzed by our own fears? We are then unable to use our conscious intellect to solve problems, and worse, unable to see each other without suspicion, as brothers and sisters in the fight to save humanity.
I got into a conversations the other day with both an evangelical Christian and a liberal Episcopal minister for whom I have a great deal of respect. The former exemplified the insecurity, the yearning for certainty, and the ultimate spiritual bankruptcy which I discussed before. The latter held a different view. In his words, the purpose of life is love. He sees God’s creation as the ultimate act of love, that God created the world and Man so as to have something other to love. Note that I don’t share the religious view of a divine Creator; this is described for example purposes only. Still, this is a compelling idea. What are the implications for living if the purpose of life is to love?
I sympathize with this notion to a great extent. Thinking on it, I came to realize that, though I am not religious, perhaps ironically I have lived my life by many of the tenets and morals that I think come out of this spiritual view. Treat everyone equally. Show compassion and love even to those you don’t like or don’t know. Humans are inherently communal, not self-interested.
This last view comes from a slightly different starting point. I always started from the idea that our purpose here is simply to live; life is its own adventure, and there is no deeper purpose than life itself. But if you believe that humans are social beings – that is, we need each other to survive – then inevitably you wind up with the conclusion that any desire to improve life should lead to building the human community, and that takes love. It also takes bettering oneself so as to be able to act on and better the human community (and, through its holistic connections, the community of life).
My morals and ideas come from many sources, not the least of whom is Maria Montessori. An engineer, medical doctor, humanist and above all teacher, her philosophy of education was ingrained in me from an early age, but I am just now coming to appreciate how revolutionary her ideas truly are. In reading The Absorbent Mind, I came across this passage:
“If the standards to which we cling are solely connected with our own self-perfection, with the raising of ourselves to spiritual heights, this brings us into the region of spiritual pride. It is a grave error, perhaps the greatest that man can make… Man’s life is purposive. It is not enough to be always reaching out to higher levels of spiritual refinement and inward beauty. Naturally, a man may aim, and ought always to aim, at the highest levels of physical and mental perfection, but his life would be a vain and worthless thing if his wishes ended at this point. Indeed, what would be the use of his having a brain or muscles? There is nothing in the world which plays no part in the universal economy, and if we are endowed with spiritual riches, with aesthetic feelings and a refined conscience, it is not for ourselves, but so that these gifts shall be used for the benefit of all, and take their place in the universal economy of spiritual life.
“Spiritual powers are a form of wealth. They must go into circulation so that others can enjoy them; they must be expressed, utilized, to complete the cycle of human relations. Even the heights of spirituality, if pursued for their own sake, have no value, and if we aim at these alone, we shall be neglecting the greater part of life and its purposes. Were we believers in reincarnation, and said to ourselves, ‘By living well now, I shall be better off in my next life,’ this would be only selfishness speaking in us… If we are always thinking about ourselves, and of ourselves even in eternity, we shall be eternally selfish.”<>
Though Montessori never proclaimed herself a Marxist, many of her ideas about society are undoubtedly shared by socialists and others seeking to better society by scientific means. One of the themes that she developed throughout her career as a revolutionary educator, which is shown in embryonic form by the above quote, is that work is sacred. Indeed, work, which she identifies as part of the “universal economy” (and here she is including not only humans, but all of nature, which humans are seen as a part of), lies at the very heart of spirituality. It is by our labor that we build society, and that we help one another to live in it.
What is so revolutionary about this idea is that it completely counterposes meaningful work to the warped idea of work as applied under capitalism, i.e. work as in a despised job which one must do to make enough money to feed oneself. It would be understandable for someone who only knows this skewed definition of work to recoil at the perception that what they do for a living should somehow be considered their sacred duty – indeed, it is this very idea that enslaved masses of people to the authoritarian Church-state complex for centuries under feudalism. But if we truly look at work as sacred, and that the meaningful work involved in caring for and bettering oneself and others, and in producing what’s needed for society is what gives purpose to our lives, then we see how putridly capitalism has defiled work to turn it into something hated. One can also see the modern Church’s interpretation of the Bible as playing into this twisted vision of work through the story of Adam and Eve, in which the consequence for eating the fruit of knowledge is toil in the wilderness for eternity.
It is indeed a revolutionary idea that real work and participation in the universal economy should bring one a sense of joy and fulfillment. This idea is held jointly by Montessori and by Marxian socialism. Instead of the vision of Man “toiling for eternity in the wilderness,” we get a vision of our work tying into the universal economy of nature, benefiting the whole. This view better reflects reality: ask any small farmer whether she feels more fulfilled working with the land or working in a city, and you will find that it is really only economic necessity that drives the farmer to leave her land. Going a step further, when the land is viewed as something to be subdued with chemicals and machinery, it tends to become quickly exhausted, whereas farming that works with and as a part of nature (call it “permaculture” or “organic” or “biodynamic”, what have you) is usually sustainable indefinitely.
Work in which the products of labor are exploited by business elites and not by those who labor to make them is artificial, deadening to the individual and ultimately fatal to society. It is another symptom of how unhealthy our society is that idleness is seen as an ideal, that the ultimate luxury for many people would be to be able to stay home and do nothing.
This idea of work gives us guidance toward what true spirituality means. Spirituality is fulfillment is work – work for a better society. Only if we can unify the masses to stand up to and depose the exploitative capitalist system under which we now live can we establish a healthy spirituality, one which recognizes the true value of human labor and community.
Sunday, September 17, 2006
The Military Spending Burden on Duluth and Minnesota
The Military Spending Burden on
Duluth and Minnesota
Report Prepared by Robert Kosuth
August 27, 2006
For the Northland Anti-War Coalition
I. The Overall Military Spending Budget.
The overall military spending budget is far more than the already outrageous sum submitted to Congress as the Department of Defense (DoD) budget. Military spending as a part of the government budget is also consistently misrepresented due to the fact that much actual military spending is actually hidden in other departments, for example, as nuclear weapons development is part of the Department of Energy. Another common misrepresentation is to show the DoD budget as part of all government programs, rather than as part of discretionary spending, the part of government spending that is actually controlled by Congress, as opposed to social security funds, which are earmarked to go into a separate budget that Congress cannot touch from year to year.
Below are two charts that show the difference. The first, from the National Priorities Project website www.nationalpriorities.org, includes non-DoD spending (except veterans benefits & energy), while the second is a typically slavish NY Times reprint of a government press release masquerading as news.
The Government DeceptionThe pie chart below is the government view of the budget. This is a distortion of how our income tax dollars are spent because it includes Trust Funds (e.g., Social Security), and the expenses of past military spending are not distinguished from nonmilitary spending.
Source: New York Times, Feb. 7, 2005, based on
Budget of the United States FY2007.
(from War Resisters League: www.warresisters.org)
II. Spending for the Iraq War and Afghanistan. The chart below, from data from the Congressional Research Service (CRS), shows the additional spending for the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, specially appropriated in addition to DoD spending above. (These totals are estimated as of the end of FY 06September 30, 2006)
CRS Data on the Costs of the Wars in Iraq and Afghanistan ($billions)
Fiscal Year
2001+2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 Total
Iraq 2.5 51.0 77.3 87.3 100.4 318.5
Afghanistan [1] 18.1 17.0 15.1 18.1 19.9 88.2
Noble Eagle [2] 12.0 6.5 3.7 2.1 1.9 26.2
Unable to Allocate 3.9
Totals 32.6 78.4 96.1 107.5 122.2 439.9
(Source: The Cost of Iraq, Afghanistan, and Other Global War on terror Operations Since 9/11, Amy Belasco, CRS Report for Congress, RL33110, p. CRS-4)
1. Includes other global War on Terror activities.
2. Elsewhere includes Operation Noble Eagle in the US (facility security and (formerly) fighter patrols over population centers).
III. How Much is a Billion Dollars??? Well, its a lot of money but most cognitive psychologists would probably agree that such concepts are beyond the human ken. To help get closer to visualizing how much a billion is consider the following.
1. If you were to try to count to a billion, counting once every second, it would take you 31 years, 259 days, 1 hour, 46 minutes and 40 seconds to reach a billion.
2. If you had the job of going out and spending $1000 per day until you spent 1 billion dollars, it would take you over 2,739 years to spend a billion dollars.
IV. Some National Data for Military Spending on the Invasion and Occupation of Iraq, the Overall Military Budget, and the War in Afghanistan.
1. Cost of Iraq War spending per household: $2,844 (source: NPP)
per person: $1,075
per taxpayer: $2,379
2. Rate of Iraq war spending (already spent or allocated) per hour: $10,000,000 (NPP)
per day: $244,000,000
V. The Minnesota Military Spending Burden.
Minnesotas tax burden for the Iraq invasion and occupation: $7,600,000,000 (NPP)
DoD & non-DoD military spending: $12,750,000,000*
Afghanistan invasion & occupation: 1,900,000,000
Total military spending burden for Minnesota: $22,340,000,000
*based on figures form the War Resisters League ($449 b. DoD + $114 b. non-DoD military spending) (www.warresisters.org)
VI. Trade-offs for Minnesotas 7.6 Billion Contribution to the Invasion and Occupation of Iraq (only Iraq!)
Taxpayers in Minnesota will pay $7.6 billion for the cost of war in Iraq. For the same amount of money, the following could have been provided:
999,184 People Receiving Health Care or
139,534 Elementary School Teachers or
1,090,342 Head Start Places for Children or
3,278,785 Children Receiving Health Care or
60,368 Affordable Housing Units or
720 New Elementary Schools or
1,074,885 Scholarships for University Students or
147,697 Music and Arts Teachers or
175,458 Public Safety Officers or
15,562,323 Homes with Renewable Electricity or
240,248 Port Container Inspectors
(Source: www.nationalpriorities.org)
Other trade-offs for Minnesotas 7.6 billion contribution to the invasion and occupation of Iraq (Iraq only!): Specific Minnesota budget items:
1. MN Pell Grants 2005-06 $342,000,000
(76,000 MN students x $4500 avg./student)
as a % of MN Iraq war contribution 4.5%
2. MFIP/AFDC (MN share) 2005 $76,465,581 1%
2006 $54,655,532 .7%
3. Minnesota Care 2005 $227,253,488 2.9%
2006 $255,211,663 3.5%
(Source: www.dhs.state.mn.us Family Self-Sufficiency Health Care Program Statistics, June 2006) Note: The average benefit per enrollee in 2006 is $281.70/mo.
4. MN DNR 2006-07 biennium budget $641,049,000 8.4%
VII. Duluth
Duluth will contribute over $91,000,000 toward the invasion and occupation of Iraq by the end of the fiscal yearSeptember 30, 2006.
(Source: www.costofwar.com)
Other trade-offs for Duluths $91 + million contribution to the invasion and occupation of Iraq (Iraq only!): Specific Duluth budget items:
1. Poverty. Duluth has over 12,000 individuals living below the federal poverty line. 20% of Duluth children are living in poverty. About 1,713 families are also below the federal poverty line of $13,423 for a family of 3 (one adult and 2 children).
(Source: p.6 Duluth Regional Assessment Project www.rapsite.org)
Cost to raise 1,713 families out of poverty to the level of considered livable by the Economic Policy Institute ($28,933): $26,568,630 = 29% of Duluths Iraq war burden.
2. Hunger. Duluths Hunger Project (a common effort of the Damiano Center, United Gospel Mission, the Salvation Army and CHUM) has a total budget of $1,200,000, which equals 1.3% of Duluths Iraq war burden.
3. Emergency Shelter. CHUMs emergency shelter for the homeless has a budget of $675,000 (including staff), equivalent to .7% of Duluths Iraq war burden.
4. School lunches. 35% of Duluths K-12 students are eligible for free or reduced lunches at school. The school district serves 1,300,000 free lunches per year at a total cost of $2,288,000 = 2.5% of Duluths contribution to the invasion and occupation of Iraq.
5. Housing. 1,212 households in Duluth are on the waiting list to get Section 8 housing vouchers.
6. Budget Crisis. Duluth faces a budget crisis due to the cost of its insurance policies for active and retired city workers. For fiscal 2004-2005, the insurance cost for the city of Duluth was $12,208,900, 13.4% of what the Duluth paid for invading and occupying Iraq. Budget cuts, fire and police lay offs, and privatization of utilities have all been discussed as ways of dealing with this crisis. Parks and Recreation in Duluth received $7 million for its 2005 budget, less than 8% of the Iraq war cost to Dulthians, and it will probably be cut to make up for rising insurance costs. Needless to say, city employees will have to take pay cuts, pay higher premiums, or forego retirement until a much later age.
Of course, not all of Duluths health care insurance problems can be taken care of with military spending. By the end of 2006, according to the Post Employment Health Care Task Force Report on Implementation of Recommendations, Duluth will have a liability of $308,900,000. This is really a problem of health insurance on a state and national level.
VIII. Health Care.
According to Minnesota COACT (www.COACT.org) 585,000 Minnesotans under the age of 65 will go without health insurance for 6 months within any given 2-year period. Assuming $500/mo for private insurance (compared to the payment of $281/mo for Minnesota Care), it would take only 24% of Minnesotas Iraq war burden to make up this cost.
However, the real need is for a single payer health care program. This is the solution to the problem in Duluth, in Minnesota and across the country. The Physicians for a National Health Program (http://www.pnhp.org/facts/singlepayer_faq.php) have made just such a proposal. Their program would be funded by modest payroll taxes on employers (3.3%), along with current Medicare payroll taxes, and higher taxes on the wealthiest 5% of Americans.
The interesting part is that the entire program would cost $1.86 trillion, a lot of money to be sure. The more staggering fact is that more than half this figure could be covered from current military ($563 billion), the wars in Iraq & Afghanistan ($407 billion) and the interest on the national debt that comes from military spending ($282 billion) for a total of $1.25 trillion! Even some movement in this direction would go a long way in solving the most pressing social-economic problem facing American families todayhealth care.
IX. Economic Conversion
Time and space do not permit, but there is a huge literature about how military spending not only robs citizens of money that they could be using right now to meet human needs but also how it harms economic development in the long run due to the lack of funds for investment in job creation and technological development, whether the expenditure is for small arms in a developing country or for the latest generation of nuclear weapons in a superpower. We have barely scratched the surface of this issue.
Duluth and Minnesota
Report Prepared by Robert Kosuth
August 27, 2006
For the Northland Anti-War Coalition
I. The Overall Military Spending Budget.
The overall military spending budget is far more than the already outrageous sum submitted to Congress as the Department of Defense (DoD) budget. Military spending as a part of the government budget is also consistently misrepresented due to the fact that much actual military spending is actually hidden in other departments, for example, as nuclear weapons development is part of the Department of Energy. Another common misrepresentation is to show the DoD budget as part of all government programs, rather than as part of discretionary spending, the part of government spending that is actually controlled by Congress, as opposed to social security funds, which are earmarked to go into a separate budget that Congress cannot touch from year to year.
Below are two charts that show the difference. The first, from the National Priorities Project website www.nationalpriorities.org, includes non-DoD spending (except veterans benefits & energy), while the second is a typically slavish NY Times reprint of a government press release masquerading as news.
The Government DeceptionThe pie chart below is the government view of the budget. This is a distortion of how our income tax dollars are spent because it includes Trust Funds (e.g., Social Security), and the expenses of past military spending are not distinguished from nonmilitary spending.
Source: New York Times, Feb. 7, 2005, based on
Budget of the United States FY2007.
(from War Resisters League: www.warresisters.org)
II. Spending for the Iraq War and Afghanistan. The chart below, from data from the Congressional Research Service (CRS), shows the additional spending for the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, specially appropriated in addition to DoD spending above. (These totals are estimated as of the end of FY 06September 30, 2006)
CRS Data on the Costs of the Wars in Iraq and Afghanistan ($billions)
Fiscal Year
2001+2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 Total
Iraq 2.5 51.0 77.3 87.3 100.4 318.5
Afghanistan [1] 18.1 17.0 15.1 18.1 19.9 88.2
Noble Eagle [2] 12.0 6.5 3.7 2.1 1.9 26.2
Unable to Allocate 3.9
Totals 32.6 78.4 96.1 107.5 122.2 439.9
(Source: The Cost of Iraq, Afghanistan, and Other Global War on terror Operations Since 9/11, Amy Belasco, CRS Report for Congress, RL33110, p. CRS-4)
1. Includes other global War on Terror activities.
2. Elsewhere includes Operation Noble Eagle in the US (facility security and (formerly) fighter patrols over population centers).
III. How Much is a Billion Dollars??? Well, its a lot of money but most cognitive psychologists would probably agree that such concepts are beyond the human ken. To help get closer to visualizing how much a billion is consider the following.
1. If you were to try to count to a billion, counting once every second, it would take you 31 years, 259 days, 1 hour, 46 minutes and 40 seconds to reach a billion.
2. If you had the job of going out and spending $1000 per day until you spent 1 billion dollars, it would take you over 2,739 years to spend a billion dollars.
IV. Some National Data for Military Spending on the Invasion and Occupation of Iraq, the Overall Military Budget, and the War in Afghanistan.
1. Cost of Iraq War spending per household: $2,844 (source: NPP)
per person: $1,075
per taxpayer: $2,379
2. Rate of Iraq war spending (already spent or allocated) per hour: $10,000,000 (NPP)
per day: $244,000,000
V. The Minnesota Military Spending Burden.
Minnesotas tax burden for the Iraq invasion and occupation: $7,600,000,000 (NPP)
DoD & non-DoD military spending: $12,750,000,000*
Afghanistan invasion & occupation: 1,900,000,000
Total military spending burden for Minnesota: $22,340,000,000
*based on figures form the War Resisters League ($449 b. DoD + $114 b. non-DoD military spending) (www.warresisters.org)
VI. Trade-offs for Minnesotas 7.6 Billion Contribution to the Invasion and Occupation of Iraq (only Iraq!)
Taxpayers in Minnesota will pay $7.6 billion for the cost of war in Iraq. For the same amount of money, the following could have been provided:
999,184 People Receiving Health Care or
139,534 Elementary School Teachers or
1,090,342 Head Start Places for Children or
3,278,785 Children Receiving Health Care or
60,368 Affordable Housing Units or
720 New Elementary Schools or
1,074,885 Scholarships for University Students or
147,697 Music and Arts Teachers or
175,458 Public Safety Officers or
15,562,323 Homes with Renewable Electricity or
240,248 Port Container Inspectors
(Source: www.nationalpriorities.org)
Other trade-offs for Minnesotas 7.6 billion contribution to the invasion and occupation of Iraq (Iraq only!): Specific Minnesota budget items:
1. MN Pell Grants 2005-06 $342,000,000
(76,000 MN students x $4500 avg./student)
as a % of MN Iraq war contribution 4.5%
2. MFIP/AFDC (MN share) 2005 $76,465,581 1%
2006 $54,655,532 .7%
3. Minnesota Care 2005 $227,253,488 2.9%
2006 $255,211,663 3.5%
(Source: www.dhs.state.mn.us Family Self-Sufficiency Health Care Program Statistics, June 2006) Note: The average benefit per enrollee in 2006 is $281.70/mo.
4. MN DNR 2006-07 biennium budget $641,049,000 8.4%
VII. Duluth
Duluth will contribute over $91,000,000 toward the invasion and occupation of Iraq by the end of the fiscal yearSeptember 30, 2006.
(Source: www.costofwar.com)
Other trade-offs for Duluths $91 + million contribution to the invasion and occupation of Iraq (Iraq only!): Specific Duluth budget items:
1. Poverty. Duluth has over 12,000 individuals living below the federal poverty line. 20% of Duluth children are living in poverty. About 1,713 families are also below the federal poverty line of $13,423 for a family of 3 (one adult and 2 children).
(Source: p.6 Duluth Regional Assessment Project www.rapsite.org)
Cost to raise 1,713 families out of poverty to the level of considered livable by the Economic Policy Institute ($28,933): $26,568,630 = 29% of Duluths Iraq war burden.
2. Hunger. Duluths Hunger Project (a common effort of the Damiano Center, United Gospel Mission, the Salvation Army and CHUM) has a total budget of $1,200,000, which equals 1.3% of Duluths Iraq war burden.
3. Emergency Shelter. CHUMs emergency shelter for the homeless has a budget of $675,000 (including staff), equivalent to .7% of Duluths Iraq war burden.
4. School lunches. 35% of Duluths K-12 students are eligible for free or reduced lunches at school. The school district serves 1,300,000 free lunches per year at a total cost of $2,288,000 = 2.5% of Duluths contribution to the invasion and occupation of Iraq.
5. Housing. 1,212 households in Duluth are on the waiting list to get Section 8 housing vouchers.
6. Budget Crisis. Duluth faces a budget crisis due to the cost of its insurance policies for active and retired city workers. For fiscal 2004-2005, the insurance cost for the city of Duluth was $12,208,900, 13.4% of what the Duluth paid for invading and occupying Iraq. Budget cuts, fire and police lay offs, and privatization of utilities have all been discussed as ways of dealing with this crisis. Parks and Recreation in Duluth received $7 million for its 2005 budget, less than 8% of the Iraq war cost to Dulthians, and it will probably be cut to make up for rising insurance costs. Needless to say, city employees will have to take pay cuts, pay higher premiums, or forego retirement until a much later age.
Of course, not all of Duluths health care insurance problems can be taken care of with military spending. By the end of 2006, according to the Post Employment Health Care Task Force Report on Implementation of Recommendations, Duluth will have a liability of $308,900,000. This is really a problem of health insurance on a state and national level.
VIII. Health Care.
According to Minnesota COACT (www.COACT.org) 585,000 Minnesotans under the age of 65 will go without health insurance for 6 months within any given 2-year period. Assuming $500/mo for private insurance (compared to the payment of $281/mo for Minnesota Care), it would take only 24% of Minnesotas Iraq war burden to make up this cost.
However, the real need is for a single payer health care program. This is the solution to the problem in Duluth, in Minnesota and across the country. The Physicians for a National Health Program (http://www.pnhp.org/facts/singlepayer_faq.php) have made just such a proposal. Their program would be funded by modest payroll taxes on employers (3.3%), along with current Medicare payroll taxes, and higher taxes on the wealthiest 5% of Americans.
The interesting part is that the entire program would cost $1.86 trillion, a lot of money to be sure. The more staggering fact is that more than half this figure could be covered from current military ($563 billion), the wars in Iraq & Afghanistan ($407 billion) and the interest on the national debt that comes from military spending ($282 billion) for a total of $1.25 trillion! Even some movement in this direction would go a long way in solving the most pressing social-economic problem facing American families todayhealth care.
IX. Economic Conversion
Time and space do not permit, but there is a huge literature about how military spending not only robs citizens of money that they could be using right now to meet human needs but also how it harms economic development in the long run due to the lack of funds for investment in job creation and technological development, whether the expenditure is for small arms in a developing country or for the latest generation of nuclear weapons in a superpower. We have barely scratched the surface of this issue.
Thursday, August 24, 2006
New Orleans: 1 Year After Katrina
by Carl Sack / August 2006 issue of Socialist Action
On Aug. 29, 2005, Hurricane Katrina slammed into the U.S. Gulf Coast, destroying hundreds of thousands of homes in a swath stretching from central Louisiana to Mobile, Ala. With sustained winds of 125 miles per hour, the initial blow dealt by Katrina wiped many coastal communities off the map and severely damaged others.
But the real disaster came after the storm, when government ineptitude and blatant racism and classism doomed thousands of residents to drown in the storm surge. With no assistance for up to 10 days, those lucky enough to be “rescued” were corralled in inhuman conditions with no food or water while they waited for transportation out of the flooded areas.
Nearly a year later, what was one of the greatest human disasters in U.S. history has largely faded from the public consciousness. But in the city of New Orleans, the situation could still hardly be worse. Far from receiving help from the government to rebuild, most New Orleanians have again been left stranded by FEMA, and many must fight bureaucratic obstruction and racism to simply return to their homes.
Levees in poor condition
Almost a year after the storm, levees that keep the below-sea-level city dry have yet to be rebuilt to a level that would protect against another, similar storm. Before Katrina, the levees were neglected for years, as they sunk lower and lower due to subsidence caused by oil being pumped out from underneath the land.
From 2001 to 2005, the Bush administration cut roughly 50 percent of funds requested by the Army Corps of Engineers for levee improvements. Assuming emergency funding holds out, the levees won’t be fully repaired until 2008, and upgrading them will take much longer. Meanwhile, the number of workers manning the giant pumps that keep the city dry has been cut in half since the storm, with no immediate plans to replace those workers who left or were laid off.
Even when the man-made levees are improved, the city will be in ever-increasing peril due to the loss of its natural defenses, the freshwater marshes that once were synonymous with the Mississippi delta.
These “horizontal levees” have been steadily eroding for over 100 years, and during Katrina alone the state of Louisiana lost over 50 square miles of marshland. Government bureaucrats would rather continue to carelessly cut canals for commerce than free the waterways to naturally meander and deposit sediments that could rebuild the delta.
The worst levee failures were the low-lying neighborhoods, almost uniformly Black and working-class. In the Lower 9th Ward, one of the poorest neighborhoods in the city, hundreds of gallons of water per second poured through a breach in the Industrial Canal, enough water to move dozens of homes off their foundations, into the streets, and even on top of other homes.
Today, a roughly 20-block area of what once were homes has been cleared and stands utterly empty. A much wider area in the Lower 9th is still littered with debris and filled with a mix of salvageable and structurally unsound buildings, waiting to be either gutted and repaired or bulldozed. Many residents speculate that the wholesale demolition of the neighborhood via violent flooding was premeditated.
Homes unlivable
Those residents who want to return to what’s left of their homes face a myriad of challenges. Almost invariably, those homes are initially unlivable, and must be completely gutted and treated for mold contamination. This in itself takes at least a week of hot, grueling work, for which the government provides no assistance.
Residents must get help from neighbors, get on a long waiting list for help from one of the non-government disaster relief organizations, or shell out $1600 for a private contractor. Many residents opt to do the work themselves, using minimal protective equipment in an environment filled with dangerous sharp objects, tetanus bacteria, and toxic black mold. Once gutted, the house must be rebuilt from the inside out, a process that may take months before it can be reinhabited.
In the meantime, many residents are housed by FEMA in very small (240 square foot) trailers, which are parked on the sidewalk or yard of the their houses. Those who rent are relegated to fenced, graveled trailer parks.
Many residents in dire need of housing had to wait months for the trailers to be released from storage, where they sat empty. The trailers themselves have been treated with formaldehyde, and there have been widespread complaints of respiratory ailments and headaches from the trailers. The trailers can only withstand sustained winds of 40 miles per hour, and their occupants will be forcibly evacuated if so much as a tropical storm nears the city.
Unlike those lucky enough to live in private housing, residents of the city’s public housing projects have had to fight to be allowed back into their homes to begin the cleaning process. The housing projects are currently some of the safest buildings in the city.
Yet, in June the federal Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) announced plans to demolish 5000 public housing units, using the excuse of hurricane damage to justify what amounts to a massive gentrification project. About $1 billion of federal money has been allocated toward privately-constructed “mixed-income housing,” which will mean market-rate housing for middle-class families with a few token low-income units.
Residents of the projects have vowed to resist their demolition. In the St. Bernard housing project in the Gentilly neighborhood, residents have set up a tent city, “Survivor’s Village” to demand re-entry. In Algiers, a non-government relief organization has gained control of a housing project, which volunteers and residents are cleaning and re-opening.
Gentrification appears to be the ultimate goal of the government’s sluggish “rebuilding” efforts. The view of many in the ruling class was put succinctly by Congressman Richard Baker (R-La.), who said in Katrina’s aftermath, “We finally cleaned up public housing in New Orleans. We couldn't do it, but God did.”
Even privately owned homes, however, appear to be on the government and real estate chopping block. Whole neighborhoods were slated by the city for bulldozing; only the organized resistance of community members demanding the right of return for residents has held off the wholesale theft of people’s homes. Today, destitute residents are still fighting bank foreclosures. Some homeowners have been foreclosed on even though they have no mortgage and fully own their homes.
Services and health-care crisis
In a number of neighborhoods, including the Lower 9th Ward, basic services such as electricity and water have yet to be restored. At the end of June, only 13 percent of homes and businesses in the heavily flooded eastern part of the city had been reconnected to electricity.
The city’s water system remains severely damaged. With water being pumped at full capacity, less water makes it to users than leaks out of broken pipes and water mains. The water that does make it through is heavily chlorinated to compensate for marginal treatment.
A myriad of other city services are still in shambles. Only 49 percent of public transportation routes are now receiving any service, with 17 percent of the city’s bus fleet operational.
Despite public protests and the dire need for health-care services, the large public hospital used by poor and working-class residents remains closed. According to the Brookings Institution, “the availability and use of public services in the city and region has essentially stayed flat over the last few months.”
New Orleans’ air and soil remain poisoned by toxic flood residues and mold, while returning to the devastated city is an emotional shock to residents. Yet in the face of massive physical and mental health problems, the city remains devoid of basic public health-care infrastructure.
The most immediate health problem in the city is exposure to black mold, which still coats the walls of every flooded building. Simply breathing the air is hazardous, as mold counts in some parts of the city are well above normal levels.
The incidence of respiratory distress in the city is staggering. Inside flooded buildings, spore counts can reach 500 times safe levels; inhaling the material can lead to permanent respiratory damage. Yet little public information has been made available on the dangers of mold, and most residents use inadequate safety equipment while working on gutting and house restoration.
Situated in the heart of “cancer alley,” the entire city was contaminated with heavy metals and petrochemicals. More oil was spilled in the city during Katrina than was spilled by the Exxon Valdez ship disaster, while pesticides and other dangerous chemicals were simply lifted from the 66 plants and refineries in coastal Louisiana and spread everywhere.
These will undoubtedly cause chronic health problems for decades to come, but no effort is being made by the government to even assess the environmental cleanup needed.
The city’s mental health is in even worse shape. For some survivors, the shock of losing everything is too much; the suicide rate in the city has tripled in the past year. Support services are virtually nonexistent, with fewer than half of the city’s mental health professionals remaining to help people deal with post-traumatic stress.
No legal system, schools privatized
The trauma and desperation felt by residents, lack of public support services, and pre-existing slum conditions in the city have led to skyrocketing levels of violent crime. But the situation has only been worsened by the actions of the New Orleans Police Department, notorious as one of the most racist and brutal departments in the country.
Black residents are routinely handcuffed and searched at random by police. Six thousand people sit in some of the country’s worst jails awaiting trial, many on relatively minor offenses committed months ago.
Only four public defenders exist in the city, and the last jury trial took place in August 2005. Meanwhile, 300 National Guard troops have been deployed—not to help rebuild the city but to assist in further policing it.
In the aftermath of Katrina, the state of Louisiana used the impoverished conditions of the New Orleans public school system to take over control of all but four of the city’s 116 public schools and summarily fire 7500 teachers and other employees. The state-run recovery school district will open around 100 schools in the fall, 25 of which will be privately run charter schools.
The federal Department of Education has created a special $24 million fund available exclusively to charter schools in New Orleans, with not an extra cent to help public schools recover. The teacher’s union has been officially excluded from collectively bargaining with the recovery school district or charter schools, because, according to one school board member, “I think we all realize the world has changed around us.”
Insurance fraud
Another hurdle to residents’ return has been the economic abandonment of the working class by insurance companies and the government. New Orleans was the most insured city in the country, with 67% of homeowners in Orleans Parish, 68% in St. Bernard Parish and 84% in Jefferson Parish covered by flood insurance.
In the aftermath of Katrina, however, insurance companies are refusing to cough up money owed to residents who were fully covered, and the government is doing virtually nothing to force them to pay.
In many cases, residents have been offered lump sums of a small fraction of their home’s pre-storm value. The insurance companies are trying to weasel their way out of payments by claiming that policies only covered “wind damage” or “water damage,” and not “combined wind and water damage.”
In response to this wholesale rip-off, lawsuits have been filed against Nationwide Mutual, State Farm, Allstate, Metropolitan Life, and United Services Automobile Association insurance companies. These suits could take a decade or more to wind their way through the courts, while residents need immediate financial assistance.
FEMA’s assistance to families struggling to rebuild has been little better. Immediately following the storms, FEMA offered lump sum payments of several thousand dollars to residents who pledged not to return to New Orleans.
The state of Louisiana has now implemented the “Road Home” program, which doles out pittances to private homeowners, with a 30 percent penalty for those who were uninsured prior to the storm. No funds have been invested in the sort of massive public works projects that could help all residents rebuild.
Poor people, Blacks disadvantaged
While perhaps one house in 10 has been repaired in the Black, working-class neighborhoods of New Orleans, the tourist-serving businesses in the French Quarter and upscale homes of the wealthy were given top priority by the city government and have been totally restored.
Visitors driving from the New Orleans International Airport to the French Quarter pass through higher ground occupied by middle and upper-income residents, and can scarcely conceive of the devastation that still exists less than a mile away. The human catastrophe facing the poor is hidden even from those who pass nearby, unless they opt to take a $40 “disaster tour” offered by private bus companies looking to make a buck off other people’s misery.
Returning working-class residents who can’t immediately get a FEMA trailer to live in or don’t want to live in one have few other options. Due to the shortage of safe housing, rents have skyrocketed 39 percent in the past year. Despite an apparent plethora of available jobs, unemployment increased between May and June, to 6.4 percent.
The hardships faced by poorer residents have meant a change in the demographics of the “chocolate city.” Though reliable data on race and class is difficult to find, estimates indicate that the post-Katrina population is whiter, older and has a higher median income. Seen in person, it is obvious that higher-income, whiter areas have been rebuilt to a much greater degree than lower-income, Black neighborhoods.
Politics and community organizing
In the face of massive problems, capitalism is unable to offer any viable alternatives for the people of New Orleans. The mayoral elections of April 2006 offered a choice between the pro-big business incumbent mayor, Ray Nagin, and white lieutenant governor Mitch Landreiu. Though Nagin, who is Black, was re-elected largely on racial lines, it was apparent to the majority of working-class Blacks that he had nothing to offer but more of the same business-first agenda.
Instead of relying on politicians, however, residents have created hope for their communities by organizing independently to confront the agenda of the ruling class head-on. The city has historically been a hotbed of community-based activism, including a very active Black Panther Party branch in the 1960s and ’70s.
Since the hurricane, residents have gotten together in citizens’ groups and action committees to demand the right to return and rebuild. They have often confronted the unfeeling government with legal and direct action, including issuing demands to the city and sit-downs in front of bulldozers poised to demolish homes.
Several community-based organizations provide support to returning residents in the absence of government assistance. Groups such as the Common Ground Collective, Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN), and the People’s Hurricane Relief Fund and Oversight Committee enlist volunteers from around the city, region and country. They provide work crews, safety equipment, shelter, meals, legal advice, free medical clinics, and even day care services for returning residents.
They have adamantly supported the residents’ demands for the right to return and self-determination for their communities, as well as widely publicizing the plight of the city.
The immediate social breakdown on the Gulf Coast in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina shocked the world. But despite the vast resources that exist in this richest of all nations, and despite almost a year of recovery time, the city of New Orleans and the surrounding areas remain disaster zones.
The situation has exposed the deep social contradictions that exist in America and the inability of capitalism to provide for the basic needs of citizens in times of disaster.
On Aug. 29, 2005, Hurricane Katrina slammed into the U.S. Gulf Coast, destroying hundreds of thousands of homes in a swath stretching from central Louisiana to Mobile, Ala. With sustained winds of 125 miles per hour, the initial blow dealt by Katrina wiped many coastal communities off the map and severely damaged others.
But the real disaster came after the storm, when government ineptitude and blatant racism and classism doomed thousands of residents to drown in the storm surge. With no assistance for up to 10 days, those lucky enough to be “rescued” were corralled in inhuman conditions with no food or water while they waited for transportation out of the flooded areas.
Nearly a year later, what was one of the greatest human disasters in U.S. history has largely faded from the public consciousness. But in the city of New Orleans, the situation could still hardly be worse. Far from receiving help from the government to rebuild, most New Orleanians have again been left stranded by FEMA, and many must fight bureaucratic obstruction and racism to simply return to their homes.
Levees in poor condition
Almost a year after the storm, levees that keep the below-sea-level city dry have yet to be rebuilt to a level that would protect against another, similar storm. Before Katrina, the levees were neglected for years, as they sunk lower and lower due to subsidence caused by oil being pumped out from underneath the land.
From 2001 to 2005, the Bush administration cut roughly 50 percent of funds requested by the Army Corps of Engineers for levee improvements. Assuming emergency funding holds out, the levees won’t be fully repaired until 2008, and upgrading them will take much longer. Meanwhile, the number of workers manning the giant pumps that keep the city dry has been cut in half since the storm, with no immediate plans to replace those workers who left or were laid off.
Even when the man-made levees are improved, the city will be in ever-increasing peril due to the loss of its natural defenses, the freshwater marshes that once were synonymous with the Mississippi delta.
These “horizontal levees” have been steadily eroding for over 100 years, and during Katrina alone the state of Louisiana lost over 50 square miles of marshland. Government bureaucrats would rather continue to carelessly cut canals for commerce than free the waterways to naturally meander and deposit sediments that could rebuild the delta.
The worst levee failures were the low-lying neighborhoods, almost uniformly Black and working-class. In the Lower 9th Ward, one of the poorest neighborhoods in the city, hundreds of gallons of water per second poured through a breach in the Industrial Canal, enough water to move dozens of homes off their foundations, into the streets, and even on top of other homes.
Today, a roughly 20-block area of what once were homes has been cleared and stands utterly empty. A much wider area in the Lower 9th is still littered with debris and filled with a mix of salvageable and structurally unsound buildings, waiting to be either gutted and repaired or bulldozed. Many residents speculate that the wholesale demolition of the neighborhood via violent flooding was premeditated.
Homes unlivable
Those residents who want to return to what’s left of their homes face a myriad of challenges. Almost invariably, those homes are initially unlivable, and must be completely gutted and treated for mold contamination. This in itself takes at least a week of hot, grueling work, for which the government provides no assistance.
Residents must get help from neighbors, get on a long waiting list for help from one of the non-government disaster relief organizations, or shell out $1600 for a private contractor. Many residents opt to do the work themselves, using minimal protective equipment in an environment filled with dangerous sharp objects, tetanus bacteria, and toxic black mold. Once gutted, the house must be rebuilt from the inside out, a process that may take months before it can be reinhabited.
In the meantime, many residents are housed by FEMA in very small (240 square foot) trailers, which are parked on the sidewalk or yard of the their houses. Those who rent are relegated to fenced, graveled trailer parks.
Many residents in dire need of housing had to wait months for the trailers to be released from storage, where they sat empty. The trailers themselves have been treated with formaldehyde, and there have been widespread complaints of respiratory ailments and headaches from the trailers. The trailers can only withstand sustained winds of 40 miles per hour, and their occupants will be forcibly evacuated if so much as a tropical storm nears the city.
Unlike those lucky enough to live in private housing, residents of the city’s public housing projects have had to fight to be allowed back into their homes to begin the cleaning process. The housing projects are currently some of the safest buildings in the city.
Yet, in June the federal Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) announced plans to demolish 5000 public housing units, using the excuse of hurricane damage to justify what amounts to a massive gentrification project. About $1 billion of federal money has been allocated toward privately-constructed “mixed-income housing,” which will mean market-rate housing for middle-class families with a few token low-income units.
Residents of the projects have vowed to resist their demolition. In the St. Bernard housing project in the Gentilly neighborhood, residents have set up a tent city, “Survivor’s Village” to demand re-entry. In Algiers, a non-government relief organization has gained control of a housing project, which volunteers and residents are cleaning and re-opening.
Gentrification appears to be the ultimate goal of the government’s sluggish “rebuilding” efforts. The view of many in the ruling class was put succinctly by Congressman Richard Baker (R-La.), who said in Katrina’s aftermath, “We finally cleaned up public housing in New Orleans. We couldn't do it, but God did.”
Even privately owned homes, however, appear to be on the government and real estate chopping block. Whole neighborhoods were slated by the city for bulldozing; only the organized resistance of community members demanding the right of return for residents has held off the wholesale theft of people’s homes. Today, destitute residents are still fighting bank foreclosures. Some homeowners have been foreclosed on even though they have no mortgage and fully own their homes.
Services and health-care crisis
In a number of neighborhoods, including the Lower 9th Ward, basic services such as electricity and water have yet to be restored. At the end of June, only 13 percent of homes and businesses in the heavily flooded eastern part of the city had been reconnected to electricity.
The city’s water system remains severely damaged. With water being pumped at full capacity, less water makes it to users than leaks out of broken pipes and water mains. The water that does make it through is heavily chlorinated to compensate for marginal treatment.
A myriad of other city services are still in shambles. Only 49 percent of public transportation routes are now receiving any service, with 17 percent of the city’s bus fleet operational.
Despite public protests and the dire need for health-care services, the large public hospital used by poor and working-class residents remains closed. According to the Brookings Institution, “the availability and use of public services in the city and region has essentially stayed flat over the last few months.”
New Orleans’ air and soil remain poisoned by toxic flood residues and mold, while returning to the devastated city is an emotional shock to residents. Yet in the face of massive physical and mental health problems, the city remains devoid of basic public health-care infrastructure.
The most immediate health problem in the city is exposure to black mold, which still coats the walls of every flooded building. Simply breathing the air is hazardous, as mold counts in some parts of the city are well above normal levels.
The incidence of respiratory distress in the city is staggering. Inside flooded buildings, spore counts can reach 500 times safe levels; inhaling the material can lead to permanent respiratory damage. Yet little public information has been made available on the dangers of mold, and most residents use inadequate safety equipment while working on gutting and house restoration.
Situated in the heart of “cancer alley,” the entire city was contaminated with heavy metals and petrochemicals. More oil was spilled in the city during Katrina than was spilled by the Exxon Valdez ship disaster, while pesticides and other dangerous chemicals were simply lifted from the 66 plants and refineries in coastal Louisiana and spread everywhere.
These will undoubtedly cause chronic health problems for decades to come, but no effort is being made by the government to even assess the environmental cleanup needed.
The city’s mental health is in even worse shape. For some survivors, the shock of losing everything is too much; the suicide rate in the city has tripled in the past year. Support services are virtually nonexistent, with fewer than half of the city’s mental health professionals remaining to help people deal with post-traumatic stress.
No legal system, schools privatized
The trauma and desperation felt by residents, lack of public support services, and pre-existing slum conditions in the city have led to skyrocketing levels of violent crime. But the situation has only been worsened by the actions of the New Orleans Police Department, notorious as one of the most racist and brutal departments in the country.
Black residents are routinely handcuffed and searched at random by police. Six thousand people sit in some of the country’s worst jails awaiting trial, many on relatively minor offenses committed months ago.
Only four public defenders exist in the city, and the last jury trial took place in August 2005. Meanwhile, 300 National Guard troops have been deployed—not to help rebuild the city but to assist in further policing it.
In the aftermath of Katrina, the state of Louisiana used the impoverished conditions of the New Orleans public school system to take over control of all but four of the city’s 116 public schools and summarily fire 7500 teachers and other employees. The state-run recovery school district will open around 100 schools in the fall, 25 of which will be privately run charter schools.
The federal Department of Education has created a special $24 million fund available exclusively to charter schools in New Orleans, with not an extra cent to help public schools recover. The teacher’s union has been officially excluded from collectively bargaining with the recovery school district or charter schools, because, according to one school board member, “I think we all realize the world has changed around us.”
Insurance fraud
Another hurdle to residents’ return has been the economic abandonment of the working class by insurance companies and the government. New Orleans was the most insured city in the country, with 67% of homeowners in Orleans Parish, 68% in St. Bernard Parish and 84% in Jefferson Parish covered by flood insurance.
In the aftermath of Katrina, however, insurance companies are refusing to cough up money owed to residents who were fully covered, and the government is doing virtually nothing to force them to pay.
In many cases, residents have been offered lump sums of a small fraction of their home’s pre-storm value. The insurance companies are trying to weasel their way out of payments by claiming that policies only covered “wind damage” or “water damage,” and not “combined wind and water damage.”
In response to this wholesale rip-off, lawsuits have been filed against Nationwide Mutual, State Farm, Allstate, Metropolitan Life, and United Services Automobile Association insurance companies. These suits could take a decade or more to wind their way through the courts, while residents need immediate financial assistance.
FEMA’s assistance to families struggling to rebuild has been little better. Immediately following the storms, FEMA offered lump sum payments of several thousand dollars to residents who pledged not to return to New Orleans.
The state of Louisiana has now implemented the “Road Home” program, which doles out pittances to private homeowners, with a 30 percent penalty for those who were uninsured prior to the storm. No funds have been invested in the sort of massive public works projects that could help all residents rebuild.
Poor people, Blacks disadvantaged
While perhaps one house in 10 has been repaired in the Black, working-class neighborhoods of New Orleans, the tourist-serving businesses in the French Quarter and upscale homes of the wealthy were given top priority by the city government and have been totally restored.
Visitors driving from the New Orleans International Airport to the French Quarter pass through higher ground occupied by middle and upper-income residents, and can scarcely conceive of the devastation that still exists less than a mile away. The human catastrophe facing the poor is hidden even from those who pass nearby, unless they opt to take a $40 “disaster tour” offered by private bus companies looking to make a buck off other people’s misery.
Returning working-class residents who can’t immediately get a FEMA trailer to live in or don’t want to live in one have few other options. Due to the shortage of safe housing, rents have skyrocketed 39 percent in the past year. Despite an apparent plethora of available jobs, unemployment increased between May and June, to 6.4 percent.
The hardships faced by poorer residents have meant a change in the demographics of the “chocolate city.” Though reliable data on race and class is difficult to find, estimates indicate that the post-Katrina population is whiter, older and has a higher median income. Seen in person, it is obvious that higher-income, whiter areas have been rebuilt to a much greater degree than lower-income, Black neighborhoods.
Politics and community organizing
In the face of massive problems, capitalism is unable to offer any viable alternatives for the people of New Orleans. The mayoral elections of April 2006 offered a choice between the pro-big business incumbent mayor, Ray Nagin, and white lieutenant governor Mitch Landreiu. Though Nagin, who is Black, was re-elected largely on racial lines, it was apparent to the majority of working-class Blacks that he had nothing to offer but more of the same business-first agenda.
Instead of relying on politicians, however, residents have created hope for their communities by organizing independently to confront the agenda of the ruling class head-on. The city has historically been a hotbed of community-based activism, including a very active Black Panther Party branch in the 1960s and ’70s.
Since the hurricane, residents have gotten together in citizens’ groups and action committees to demand the right to return and rebuild. They have often confronted the unfeeling government with legal and direct action, including issuing demands to the city and sit-downs in front of bulldozers poised to demolish homes.
Several community-based organizations provide support to returning residents in the absence of government assistance. Groups such as the Common Ground Collective, Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN), and the People’s Hurricane Relief Fund and Oversight Committee enlist volunteers from around the city, region and country. They provide work crews, safety equipment, shelter, meals, legal advice, free medical clinics, and even day care services for returning residents.
They have adamantly supported the residents’ demands for the right to return and self-determination for their communities, as well as widely publicizing the plight of the city.
The immediate social breakdown on the Gulf Coast in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina shocked the world. But despite the vast resources that exist in this richest of all nations, and despite almost a year of recovery time, the city of New Orleans and the surrounding areas remain disaster zones.
The situation has exposed the deep social contradictions that exist in America and the inability of capitalism to provide for the basic needs of citizens in times of disaster.
Thursday, July 27, 2006
Solidarity with the people of Lebanon and Palestine!
One of the principles of workers' solidarity is that when workers somewhere in the world are under attack, we take a stand for them wherever we are. Currently in Lebanon and the Gaza Strip, hundreds of ordinary people have already been slaughtered in Israel's indiscriminate bombing and invasion. Of course, it's always the working class and the poor that get hit the hardest - those without the money to flee, whose lives and livelihoods are currently being ripped apart by American-made lazer-guided "smart bombs."
Of course, this violence ricochets back to workers in Israel, where those in Haifa are getting hit by rockets aimed at Israel by Hezbollah fighters using their most powerful weapons to defend their country. And it's workers that make up Israel's army, some of whose parents and friends have called for a halt to the violence and faulted Israel for it even though their sons and daughters have been killed in the fighting. In war, it is always the workers who die first.
The instances that led to the Israeli invasion of the Gaza strip and Lebanon two weeks ago happened as follows:
-Palestinian, not Lebanese, fighters captured an Israeli soldier. For the soldier's release, they demanded that Israel release all Palestinian women and children from Israeli prisons (some 10,000 Palestinians currently languish in Israeli jails).
-In response to the soldier's kidnapping, Israel began a massive arial bombing campaign of Gaza, knocking out roadways and the only power plant in the Gaza strip.
-In solidarity with the Palestinians, Hezbollah launched a guerilla operation specifically targeting a squadron of Israeli soldiers on the border with southern Lebanon. The Hezbollah operation killed six and captured two Israeli soldiers, which Hezbollah has continued to hold until their demands are met. These demands are for a withdrawl of Israel from Lebanon and release of Lebanese prisoners of war.
-Israel immediately began airstrikes of Lebanon, targeting the airport in Beruit and the main highway from Beruit to southern Lebanon. This effectively left thousands of foreign tourists stranded until they could be rescued by their home countries, of which the U.S. was the slowest to respond to the situation. Israel then began bombing, and continues to bomb, civilian infrastructure and housing throughout southern Lebanon. Though Israel claims it is using "precision bombing," observers on the ground have noted that the bombing seems indescriminate, or even directed at inflicting the most civilian casualties possible. In several instances, Israel has warned civilians to evacuate southern Lebanon, only to then bomb civilian convoys fleeing for safety. Israel also bombed a U.N. compound in Beruit for over 12 hours, killing four unarmed U.N. observers. So far, hundreds of Lebanese civilians have been killed, with the death toll rising by dozens per day. Israel's actions qualify unequivocably as war crimes under international law, which U.N. officials including Kofi Annan have condemned as such despite taking heat from the united-front pro-Israel U.S. government.
Where has the U.S. been in all of this? On the wrong side of the fence, as always. Both the House and Senate rushed to pass resolutions, not to condemn Israel for launching a unilateral bloodbath, but to blame the victim of Israel's assaults, demanding that Hezbollah disarm. They say Israel has the "right to defend itself", in the same way the U.S. "defended itself" by invading Iraq - and of course the Palestinians and Lebanese have no such rights when faced with the bombing of civilians under a full-scale invasion using the latest, deadliest military hardware (supplied, btw, by the good ol' US of A). Now the Democrats are trying to beat out the Republicans in pro-Zionist rhetoric; Howard Dean himself objected to the remarks of Iraqi PM Maliki - a U.S. puppet - who criticized Israel, calling him an anti-semite, and called for a boycott of his speech to Congress. But even pro-Israel Jewish peace groups are calling criticism of Israel legitimate, and there has already been an anti-war protest in Tel Aviv of over 5,000 people. It's a sad day when the supposedly liberal party in the U.S. is more right-wing than the liberals of apartheid Israel. Meanwhile, the U.S. continues to stonewall efforts to get a resolution passed in the U.N. security council calling for a ceasefire.
A bit of background: Israel withdrew its protracted occupation of southern Lebanon in 1985, after years of Hezbollah's guerilla warfare. It has continued to occupy the Shebaa Farms region of southern Lebanon, defying Lebanese authority. Hezbollah is a Shiite Islamic fundamentalist organization based in Lebanon, with close ties to Hamas in Palestine. It is one of two main Lebanese groups opposing Israel, and acts as the stronger of Lebanon's two armies (the other is the official Lebanese army, which is secular). Israel's avowed mission is to isolate Hezbollah by creating a rift in Lebanese public opinion that would see them as the cause of Israel's collective punishment. So far, support for Hezbollah resisting Israel seems to be high in Lebanon. But it's anybody's guess what the outcome of this latest bloodbath will hold.
So call those Senators. Call those Representatives. Call those slimeball Democrats - Dave Obey and Russ Feingold if you're in the northwoods - and try to impart some sanity over the phone. Good luck getting anywhere, but go ahead and try. More importantly, go to a protest. Or organize one. Or go to D.C. on August 12 to protest. We need to put on some public pressure to counter the ubiquitous Alice-in-Wonderland media message that Israel is somehow the victim.
Stand up for the oppressed Lebanese and Palestinian people! Stop the slaughter now!
Of course, this violence ricochets back to workers in Israel, where those in Haifa are getting hit by rockets aimed at Israel by Hezbollah fighters using their most powerful weapons to defend their country. And it's workers that make up Israel's army, some of whose parents and friends have called for a halt to the violence and faulted Israel for it even though their sons and daughters have been killed in the fighting. In war, it is always the workers who die first.
The instances that led to the Israeli invasion of the Gaza strip and Lebanon two weeks ago happened as follows:
-Palestinian, not Lebanese, fighters captured an Israeli soldier. For the soldier's release, they demanded that Israel release all Palestinian women and children from Israeli prisons (some 10,000 Palestinians currently languish in Israeli jails).
-In response to the soldier's kidnapping, Israel began a massive arial bombing campaign of Gaza, knocking out roadways and the only power plant in the Gaza strip.
-In solidarity with the Palestinians, Hezbollah launched a guerilla operation specifically targeting a squadron of Israeli soldiers on the border with southern Lebanon. The Hezbollah operation killed six and captured two Israeli soldiers, which Hezbollah has continued to hold until their demands are met. These demands are for a withdrawl of Israel from Lebanon and release of Lebanese prisoners of war.
-Israel immediately began airstrikes of Lebanon, targeting the airport in Beruit and the main highway from Beruit to southern Lebanon. This effectively left thousands of foreign tourists stranded until they could be rescued by their home countries, of which the U.S. was the slowest to respond to the situation. Israel then began bombing, and continues to bomb, civilian infrastructure and housing throughout southern Lebanon. Though Israel claims it is using "precision bombing," observers on the ground have noted that the bombing seems indescriminate, or even directed at inflicting the most civilian casualties possible. In several instances, Israel has warned civilians to evacuate southern Lebanon, only to then bomb civilian convoys fleeing for safety. Israel also bombed a U.N. compound in Beruit for over 12 hours, killing four unarmed U.N. observers. So far, hundreds of Lebanese civilians have been killed, with the death toll rising by dozens per day. Israel's actions qualify unequivocably as war crimes under international law, which U.N. officials including Kofi Annan have condemned as such despite taking heat from the united-front pro-Israel U.S. government.
Where has the U.S. been in all of this? On the wrong side of the fence, as always. Both the House and Senate rushed to pass resolutions, not to condemn Israel for launching a unilateral bloodbath, but to blame the victim of Israel's assaults, demanding that Hezbollah disarm. They say Israel has the "right to defend itself", in the same way the U.S. "defended itself" by invading Iraq - and of course the Palestinians and Lebanese have no such rights when faced with the bombing of civilians under a full-scale invasion using the latest, deadliest military hardware (supplied, btw, by the good ol' US of A). Now the Democrats are trying to beat out the Republicans in pro-Zionist rhetoric; Howard Dean himself objected to the remarks of Iraqi PM Maliki - a U.S. puppet - who criticized Israel, calling him an anti-semite, and called for a boycott of his speech to Congress. But even pro-Israel Jewish peace groups are calling criticism of Israel legitimate, and there has already been an anti-war protest in Tel Aviv of over 5,000 people. It's a sad day when the supposedly liberal party in the U.S. is more right-wing than the liberals of apartheid Israel. Meanwhile, the U.S. continues to stonewall efforts to get a resolution passed in the U.N. security council calling for a ceasefire.
A bit of background: Israel withdrew its protracted occupation of southern Lebanon in 1985, after years of Hezbollah's guerilla warfare. It has continued to occupy the Shebaa Farms region of southern Lebanon, defying Lebanese authority. Hezbollah is a Shiite Islamic fundamentalist organization based in Lebanon, with close ties to Hamas in Palestine. It is one of two main Lebanese groups opposing Israel, and acts as the stronger of Lebanon's two armies (the other is the official Lebanese army, which is secular). Israel's avowed mission is to isolate Hezbollah by creating a rift in Lebanese public opinion that would see them as the cause of Israel's collective punishment. So far, support for Hezbollah resisting Israel seems to be high in Lebanon. But it's anybody's guess what the outcome of this latest bloodbath will hold.
So call those Senators. Call those Representatives. Call those slimeball Democrats - Dave Obey and Russ Feingold if you're in the northwoods - and try to impart some sanity over the phone. Good luck getting anywhere, but go ahead and try. More importantly, go to a protest. Or organize one. Or go to D.C. on August 12 to protest. We need to put on some public pressure to counter the ubiquitous Alice-in-Wonderland media message that Israel is somehow the victim.
Stand up for the oppressed Lebanese and Palestinian people! Stop the slaughter now!
Wednesday, July 12, 2006
A Fight for Bread and Roses
When 25,000 textile workers struck in Lawrence, Massachusetts in 1912, many of the women strikers carried picket signs that said, “we want bread, and roses too.” This slogan came to represent the fight not only for a living wage, but for dignity and the right to enjoy life outside of work.
Today we face a situation much like that in the early part of the last century. Wages are falling, the cost of living is soaring, and most of the workforce is no longer unionized. Many work two or even three jobs to feed themselves and their families.
We need a change. It’s time to stand up and say to the bosses, “we want bread, and roses too!” But in order to succeed, we need to know two things: what we are fighting for, and how to fight for it. I want to propose a platform that addresses both of these concerns.
WHAT WE ARE FIGHTING FOR:
Bread:
- A raise in the minimum wage to bring it above the cost of living and official poverty level. Minimum wages adjusted up for workers with dependents. (The purchasing power of the minimum wage is currently at its lowest level since 1955. The value of the minimum wage peaked in 1968, at $7.71 in 2006 dollars. Source: Economic Policy institute, www.epinet.org)
- An end to the threats against Social Security. Expansion of Social Security to provide a living wage to the elderly. Expansion of welfare and unemployment insurance to ensure that everyone gets paid a living wage, whether they can find work or not.
- Downsize the military and establish a youth job corps to provide independence, a living wage and valuable work experience to youth.
- Rewrite the tax code to relieve the burden of paying for government from working people while redistributing the wealth of the rich in the form of social welfare programs (see above). This can be done via a heavy, progressive income tax – only those in “comfortable” income brackets pay tax, and the more they make, the higher percentage of income they pay, with no tax cap. End sales tax and reduce or eliminate property taxes for properties owned by working people.
- Rewrite farm subsidies to benefit small producers. Subsidize small farms and organic production while removing subsidies for large-scale agribusiness. Outlaw dumping by large agribusiness. Guarantee a minimum price for farm commodities. Preserve one-person-one-share in cooperatives. Bring minimum wage for farm workers into line with the minimum wage in other sectors.
- Re-evaluate logging practices; make logging companies pay the true cost of forest management. Require logging to be done ecologically and sustainably. If logging companies fold, re-open under state ownership with workers’ control.
- Establish “affirmative action” for state spending in rural areas – state spending in rural counties should reflect true costs of services for those areas and make up for the lack of other funding sources (municipal, etc.). It should not be based on population size.
- State takeover of factories/industries that threaten to close or are delinquent in taxes or violate labor or environmental regulations. Run the factories via elected workers’ councils.
Roses:
- Reduction of work hours with no reduction in pay. The first way to accomplish this is by raising the minimum wage to a living wage. Make any work over the first 40 hours per week worth time-and-a-half, with all work on weekends paid double-time.
- Six months paid maternity and paternity leave. At least two weeks of paid vacation per year. Paid sick days.
- Free, public health care available to all. Period.
- Fully fund public schools and place them in the control of local communities. No public taxpayer money for private schools (i.e. school vouchers or charter schools run for profit). Reverse school funding formulas to provide the most money for the neediest schools. Make all schools great schools.
- Eliminate tuition for public colleges and universities. Everyone should be able to afford a college education.
- Expand funding for libraries.
- NO FEES FOR:
- Parks, forests and recreation areas – these lands are owned by the people; why does it cost to get in?!
- Public mass transit – we need it to combat global warming and provide a way to and from work without stealing people’s hard-earned wages.
- Public services, such as drivers’ licenses, courts, etc.
- Public communication services – i.e. phone, internet, etc.
HOW TO GET IT
- Independent political party. Every time a struggle for justice gets co-opted into the Democratic Party, it fizzles and dies. The struggle for worker’s rights is no exception. Especially up here in the North, many good people who consider themselves progressives are drawn into the Democratic Party. While their politics may sound good, they get stuck in endorsing and running candidates for office who are funded by the party machine – including donations from big business – and won’t stand up for workers’ rights in the end. We need our own farmer-labor party, one that won’t get co-opted by business to serve the interests of the owning class.
- Independent media. In today’s “media marketplace,” most people still get their news from corporate media, which is wholly owned by the boss class. The reigns on what real information we get from the media are being pulled tighter and tighter, and none of it is “fair and balanced” from a working-class perspective. Meanwhile people’s brains are being poisoned and lulled into apathy by so-called “reality TV”, which exhibits anything but. We need more newspapers, websites, blogs, etc. published by and for the working class, pushing a working-class agenda. We need to encourage people to ignore the corporate media and seek out alternatives, such as Democracy Now!, Commondreams.org, Counterpunch, etc. So reach out to your neighbors, friends and co-workers and TALK about the issues of the day. Because if people knew what was really going on, there would be riots in the streets.
- Independent mass action. Short of riots in the streets, we need to start taking back some of what has been lost – jobs, wages, benefits, etc. We need to stand up against war and for increased social spending. We need to get organized and get creative – I’m talking strikes, rallies, festivals, people’s congresses, and more. We need to start by talking to our co-workers and organizing meetings. If conditions warrant, we should go on strike to push our demands – this is the only way to get the bosses to listen. Asking “pretty please” or going to our congress member isn’t going to solve our problems – only WE can solve our problems!
This is the agenda I am putting forward to you, my brothers and sisters who work in Wisconsin. I would love to have people comment on this platform, add points I missed, and point out problems that should be addressed. Many of my rants and polemics I plan to put on this blog will deal specifically with individual points of this platform. It’s a work in progress, so please don’t hesitate to contribute!
