Austerity protests rock Spain

The excellent video that was here has been removed.
You can see it at https://vimeo.com/50542582

I had to remove the video because the sound engaged automatically each time a reader went to a blog post, any blog post.
Editor. 

Jose La Luz - The Current Crisis

Jose LaLuz Concluding Speech 2011 DSA Convention from Frank Llewellyn on Vimeo.

Jose La Luz. Concluding speech. DSA Convention. Nov. 13, 2011,

CORNEL WEST - OBAMA IS FOR BIG BUSINESS AIG GOLDMAN SACHS BP FANNIE MAE ...

Confessions of an Economic Hitman; John Perkins interview

State of the Dream 2011: Austerity for Whom

Just in time for Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, we released our 8th annual report on racial economic inequality in the United States.

 

This year's report, State of the Dream 2011: Austerity for Whom?, surveys the impact of a belt-tightening, deficit-reducing, tax-cutting and, ultimately, government-shrinking economic agenda on communities of color.

Our research explains that if such an austerity agenda advances, Dr. King's dream of racial equality in the U.S. will be pushed further out of reach.

• Read a summary of the report.
• Watch a video of co-authors, Brian Miller and Mazher Ali, discussing key points of the report.

With this report, we are calling on Americans of all races to stand up for a more racially just and inclusive economy – one that brings people together, rather than tears us apart. We hope you'll help us spread the word.

From; United for a Fair Economy

 

Arizona law and the economic crisis

Arizona has a severe state budget crisis.  They are cutting police officers, schools, medical clinics, and public services ( as is California).  What is the cause of this crisis ?  It was caused by the great bank heist of 2008, finance capital and banking, mostly on Wall Street , Goldman Sachs, Chase Banks, Bank of America, AIG, and others, robbed the banks.  This cost millions of jobs and the pension savings of millions.   BTW. Almost all of the bankers were White.

The Republicans and the Tea Party in Arizona is responding by assaulting U.S. citizens of Mexican descent, immigrants, and anyone who might look like an immigrant.  Peter Wilson and the Republicans in California did the same in 1994- and won re-election.  But, that did not resolve any of the problems. 

Arizona, like  California, has a crime problem.  If you want to be responsible about this issue, we should increase significantly the number of police on the streets.  And, to avoid making the problem worse, we should significantly increase the number of teachers in the schools. 

Duane Campbell 

The economic crisis, the budget, and our schools

DSA Talk: The Economic Crisis:

Economic Crisis, The Budget, Our Schools, and Your Students. This session will focus on the causes and consequences of the Great Recession, and its impact on education. Speaker will focus on explaining the crisis, available resources, and strategies for resistance.

Duane Campbell, DSA (Democratic Socialists of America)

12:30 P.M. The Redwood Room. Nov.14. 2009. 

Sac State hosts

Multicultural Education Conference 

Social justice educator Brian D. Schultz is the keynote speaker for the 16^th annual Multicultural Education Conference, 8:30 a.m.-3 p.m., Saturday, Nov. 14, in Sacramento State’s University Union.

Titled, “Social Justice Through Civic Engagement and Action,” the free conference is sponsored by Sacramento State’s Bilingual/Multicultural Education Department (BMED) and co-sponsored by the Serna Center and Project Citizen. The conference provides an opportunity for university faculty and local educators to promote multicultural education in K-12 public schools in the Sacramento region

Report on the Economic Crisis Forum -Sacramento

The Economic Crisis, The Budget &

The University

Forum discussion of the economic crisis and the cutbacks at the university.  Oct.13,2009.  Sacramento State University.

The annual Progressive Forum was well attended by over 120 students, faculty, and community members, as a part of   CFA’s week of action against the budget cuts, furloughs and lay offs. http://www.calfac.org/headlines.html.

Speaking representing  DSA in the forum  Dr. Duane Campbell argued political actions taken and not taken in the next 12 months may well determine the structure of our economy, our health care system, and our unions for the next two decades.  He urged participants to see the new film, Capitalism: a Love Story by Michael Moore.

Lula blames the rich countries

By Americo Martins
BBC World Service


Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva has heavily criticised the "rich countries", the G8 and other international bodies over the global economic crisis.

"The rich countries are more to blame because they did not have any regulation for their financial system," he said in an exclusive interview with the BBC on the global downturn.

President Lula has positioned himself as a kind of informal spokesperson for the developing world since the beginning of the crisis.

He has been defending what he perceives as the interests of the poor in places such as Latin America, Africa and Asia and asking for changes in the global financial system.

President Lula told the BBC that the governments of rich countries "knew how to give their opinion about everything related to the economy of the developing countries.

"But, when they felt the pain, they did not know how to act."

His criticism was also directed at the international economic institutions.

"The IMF didn't have a solution, it wasn't sure and didn't have an answer," he said.

"The World Bank didn't have a solution, it wasn't sure and didn't have an answer. And the governments also didn't!"

'Blue-eyed bankers'

President Lula also insisted that the crisis was the creation of "white, blue-eyed bankers" in the rich world.

That expression first caused controversy in March, when the Brazilian leader used it while standing next to Gordon Brown during the UK prime minister's visit to Brasilia.

He was criticised for using the expression, considered by some to be inappropriate and bordering on racism.

During his recent interview, however, he was unrepentant.

"What I wanted to say is more noteworthy today than it was then. What I wanted to say was that it wasn't the indigenous or the black population who should pay the bill [for the crisis] but those really responsible, the blue-eyed bankers.

"It was the rich who were responsible for the crisis. And we weren't going to allow them to put the blame on the poor people of the world, as always happens when there is an economic crisis", President Lula said.

The president, however, seemed confident that the leaders of the G20 group of developed and emerging countries could find solutions if they kept working together.

They will meet again to discuss the crisis in the US city of Pittsburgh on 24 and 25 September, and Brazil is hoping to influence the debate, calling for further changes to the financial system.

'No legitimacy'

President Lula defended the group, arguing that the G20 was becoming an important forum for debating and finding solutions for the economy.

But he also argues that the group should widen its goals and start implementing policies to speed up development.

"I hope... that the poor of the world, the emerging countries, are not only called upon to resolve the problem of the crisis and then, when the crisis is over, the G20 will be dissolved and we go back to the G8," he said.

According to the Brazilian president, the G8 does not have the credibility to deal with the global economic challenges.

He said the G8 was "a closed club" which had "no legitimacy" to debate the current crisis.

Story from BBC NEWS:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/business/8253318.stm

Published: 2009/09/13 22:57:43 GMT

© BBC MMIX

Brazil's Lula Scolds Rich Nations on Migration

Brazil's Lula Scolds Rich Nations on Migration
AFP July 3, 2009

RIO DE JANEIRO

Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva issued a
law giving tens of thousands of undocumented immigrants
legal status and criticized rich nations for taking a
tough stance against illegal migrants.

He also once again blamed the global economic crisis on
"men with blue eyes," a controversial accusation that
he first leveled during a meeting in March with British
Prime Minister Gordon Brown.

His advisors have said the expression was a "metaphor."

"Blame for the crisis that was provoked by men with
blue eyes must not fall on the blacks, the Indians, and
the poor of the world," Lula said during a speech in
Brasilia on Thursday.

He also accused European countries, without naming any
in particular, of toughening immigration rules, which
he deemed "unjust."

"In our eyes, repression, discrimination and
intolerance do not address the root of the problem," he
said.

"Illegal immigration is a humanitarian question that
should not be confused with criminality," added the
Brazilian leader, who was wearing the traditional
clothes of Bolivia and Paraguay, the home countries of
many of Brazil's immigrants.

The law issued by Lula allows all undocumented
foreigners who entered Brazil before last February to
obtain two-year provisional residency permits that can
be made permanent.

All recipients will be entitled to work and receive
public education and healthcare.

Brazil's Justice Department says there are around
60,000 undocumented foreigners in the country, but non-
governmental groups believe the number could be as high
as 200,000 illegal immigrants, with most coming from
Latin America and China.

Copyright c 2009 AFP.

Durazo, fighting for union workers

Recession No Time to Retreat, Says LA Labor Leader

by Patrick J. McDonnell
http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-durazo24-2009jun24,0,2422482.story

Wednesday 24 June 2009

Maria Elena Durazo makes no apologies for continuing to push her cause: fighting for union workers.

The state may be going broke, jobs may be vanishing like the morning mist, and the nation may be enduring its worst economic stretch in decades. But Southern California's top labor leader says this is not the time for unions to beat a retreat. On the contrary.

"It's more important for workers to have a voice in an economic crisis than it is when times are at their best," said Maria Elena Durazo, chief of the Los Angeles County Federation of Labor.

Durazo, who rose to prominence as an outspoken advocate for immigrant hotel workers, has now completed three years atop the powerful federation, representing more than 350 affiliated locals and 800,000 workers, including janitors, teachers, government staffers and others. She assumed the post a year after the death of her husband, Miguel Contreras, an astute strategist who guided the federation during its surge to prominence atop a resurgent Southern California labor movement.

Durazo's rise underscored the ascendance of a Latino-labor alliance that now dominates much of regional and state politics. The federation's endorsement can swing an election, doom a bill or guarantee its passage. But the deep recession poses new challenges for labor and its allies at City Hall, in Sacramento and in Washington.

"Unions have to walk a fine line," said Fernando Guerra, director of the Leavey Center for the Study of Los Angeles at Loyola Marymount University. "They want to push to get as much as they can, but if they take too much and undermine the entities that employ them - be it private employers or local government - that could negatively affect unions and everyone else."

Unlike her late husband's comparatively reserved style, Durazo, 56, had long been known as a firebrand with a flair for the dramatic: On one occasion her former local organized a noisy protest in which low-wage hotel maids embroiled in a labor dispute made up beds - in the middle of rush-hour traffic on Figueroa Street.

Early last year she caused a stir when she publicly endorsed Barack Obama, at the time a long-shot contender, in the Democratic presidential race against Hillary Clinton, then the favorite of much of organized labor. Her close ally, Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, another ex-union organizer, was national co-chairman of Clinton's campaign.

Now Durazo rides atop a Southern California labor movement that some critics deride as obsolete in the midst of a crisis economy, a guardian of bloated pensions and arcane workplace rules.

"Public-sector unions are beggaring the state," said Kris Vosburgh, executive director of the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Assn.

Not so, says Durazo, one of 11 children of Mexican immigrant farmworkers. Today's economic crisis, she argues, underscores the urgent need for more union jobs. Rebuilding the middle class is her often-repeated mantra. "We have to make sure that as many of our decent-paying jobs are protected as possible," she said.

Despite criticism as being intransigent, public-employee unions, she says, are ready to work "responsibly" with government to reduce budget deficits - while resisting "unilateral, draconian cuts." In the private sector, she says, workers must be prepared to stand up to corporate "greed," a management failing she cites in recent labor disputes.

Though union membership in California grew last year, according to the U.S. Department of Labor, union members represent just 18.4% of wage and salary workers - fewer than 1 in 5 employees. Nationally, the figure is 12.4 %.

Organized labor's top national priority is congressional passage of the Employee Free Choice Act, a proposed law that would ease union organization drives. Labor and big business have spent fortunes on conflicting propaganda campaigns.

"As we look forward to rebuilding the economy, we have to ask: Are we going to rebuild it with poverty jobs?" said Durazo, arguing, for instance, that coming jobs in solar and wind power and weatherization should be union.

"If we do not have new rules about union organizing," she said, "I can guarantee you that these new 'green' jobs, these new technology jobs are going to be low-end, poverty-level jobs."

Like others in labor, Durazo sees the era of Obama, once a community organizer, as a singular opportunity. But she also bemoans the labor movement's deep divisions, including splits in her own union, Unite-Here, now in the midst of a fierce factional battle.

Durazo exudes pride over the Southern California labor movement's trajectory of growth: From "an ATM for politicians" into what she now calls a dynamic, truly rank-and-file movement, with substantial support of low-wage, new-immigrant workers, a group that organized labor once viewed with wariness, even hostility. The push for immigrant rights and expanded legal status is at the top of her agenda.

"We now do have the ability to make sure that our point of view is taken into consideration," Durazo said. "We've changed the political landscape."


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_________________________

Brazil and the economic crisis

http://mondediplo.com/2009/06/05brazil



When the ‘magic moment’ turned to nightmare

Brazil: more dependent than ever

President Lula fancied his country’s economy was ‘decoupled’ from the rest of the world’s. But when the economic crisis reached Brazil this March, it came on a tidal wave. Half a million people are now in poverty or extreme poverty

by Renaud Lambert

In May 2008 the US economy had begun its decline, but in Brazil things still looked fine. President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva reckoned that his country was experiencing a “magic moment” (1): after a 5.67% rise in GDP in 2007, government morale was high. What was going on elsewhere didn’t matter; growth would continue “at its present rate for the next 15 to 20 years” (2).

By October 2008 the international financial system was collapsing. But Brazil still wasn’t worried. “Up there [in the US] the crisis is a veritable tsunami. If it arrives here it will only be a little wave, not even big enough to surf on,” the president said reassuringly in a speech on 4 October. A few months later, Luciano Coutinho, head of Brazil’s national development bank (BNDES), added: “Decoupling has, yes, taken place,” (3), alluding to the theory that the growth of countries on the periphery of the world capitalist system had become independent of the shocks felt at its centre.

Then came March 2009. When the wave did arrive, it brought a storm with it. The Bradesco bank’s estimates of GDP growth plummeted from more than 4% in June 2008 to 2.5% in December – and then to -0.3% this April. The rating agency Morgan Stanley has even predicted a 1.5% contraction in the Brazilian economy, which would be its biggest setback since 1948 (4).

In the last quarter of 2008, Brazil’s industrial output dropped by 19%. Eight hundred thousand workers lost their jobs between October and January (nearly 1% of the workforce), and that doesn’t even begin to take account of job losses in the informal economy, which employs around 40% of Brazilian workers. Half a million Brazilians have found themselves back in poverty or extreme poverty. The “magical moment” has turned into a nightmare from which Brazil will not emerge, according to its president in a speech on 6 April, until “we ask God for the crisis to disappear from Europe, the US and Japan”. More soberly, the Financial Times concluded on 11 March that Brazil’s economic results meant an end to the debate about its immunity from global contagion. The myth of decoupling was over.

None of this is surprising, though, given how much has been done in the past 15 years to increase the country’s dependence on foreign capital. One of the most significant developments has been the acceleration of foreign access to Brazil’s financial markets. This is all the more remarkable as it was made possible by sociologist-turned-president Fernando Henrique Cardoso, whose work aimed to “build a path to socialism” (5) and the former trade unionist, President Lula.

Something Marx never imagined

In the late 1960s, Cardoso, who studied at the EHESS (Ecole des hautes études en sciences sociales) in Paris, rejected the idea that a country on the periphery could develop by means of foreign capital without increasing its dependence: “The system of domination reappears as an ‘internal’ force through the social practices of local groups and classes which try to promote foreign interests” (6). Twenty years later, first as finance minister (1993-4) and then president (1995-2002), he discovered that the world had changed. He told Mais! magazine in 1996: “We have something that Marx never imagined… Capital has very quickly become internationalised and today it has become abundant. Some countries are able to derive profit from this situation. Brazil is one of them”.

Stiglitz: Crisis empeorará

Stiglitz.
Crisis empeorará pese al plan de rescate de Obama: Nobel de Economía
"Es un paquete mucho mejor que el propuesto por Bush, pero no es suficiente", dijo Joseph Stiglitz.
AFP 
Publicado: 11/03/2009 12:12
Sao Paulo, Brasil. El paquete estadunidense de rescate económico del presidente Barack Obama de más de 700 mil millones de dólares es "mucho mejor que la respuesta de 2008", pero "no es suficiente y la crisis será peor", anticipó este miércoles el premio Nobel de Economía, Joseph Stiglitz.
"Debemos ver las cosas en perspectiva. (El presidente George W.) Bush estaba paralizado y las cosas empeoraban cada día sin que hiciera nada. Hoy tenemos un paquete mucho mejor que la respuesta de 2008. Pero no es suficiente y la crisis será peor", dijo Stiglitz en entrevista al diario O Estado de Sao Paulo.
Recordó que "muchos países emergentes se han convertido en víctimas inocentes de la crisis. La ironía es que mientras el gobierno estadunidense daba lecciones sobre reglas e instituciones en los países emergentes, sus políticas eran un fracaso total".
"A causa de eso, la crisis es hoy severa en todo el mundo y países como Brasil van a sufrir de verdad", señaló Stiglitz al diario, que lo consultó sobre la caída de 3.6 por ciento de la economía brasileña en el cuarto trimestre del año pasado, la más fuerte desde igual período de 1996, y divulgada el martes.
Alertó además que pese a que "hay un acuerdo global de no recurrir al proteccionismo" muchos paquetes de auxilio "tienen medidas proteccionistas en su base y quien más sufrirá serán los países en desarrollo".
"La realidad es que la Organización Mundial de Comercio es una decepción" porque incluso la conclusión de la Ronda Doha, que negocia la liberación del comercio mundial, "no traería ganancias sustanciales para los países emergentes", manifestó el Premio Nobel.
Por eso, añadió, "los países ricos deben abrir sus mercados unilateralmente para los más pobres del mundo" que "no tienen dinero para relanzar las actividades económicas".
"Muchos emergentes necesitarán ayuda para superar la crisis", y el FMI (Fondo Monetario Internacional) deberá auxiliarlos "sin condiciones", sin exigir "elevar intereses y cortar gastos (públicos)", lo cual "llevó a la recesión", expresó Stiglitz.

Lula: The Future of Human Beings is What Matters

Lula: The Future of Human Beings is What Matters

By Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva
President of Brazil.

Financial Times
March 9, 2009

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/4623a78e-0ce2-11de-a555-0000779fd2ac.html

For me, capitalism has never been an abstract concept.
It is a real, concrete part of everyday life. When I
was a boy, my family left the rural misery of Brazil's
north-east and set off for Sao Paulo. My mother, an
extraordinary woman of great courage, uprooted herself
and her children and moved to the industrial centre of
Brazil in search of a better life. My childhood was no
different from that of many boys from poor families:
informal jobs; very little formal education. My only
diploma was as a machine lathe operator, from a course
at the National Service for Industry.

I began to experience the reality of factory life,
which awoke in me my vocation as a union leader. I
became a member of the Metalworkers'

Union of Sao Bernardo, in the outskirts of Sao Paulo. I
became the union's president and, as such, led the
strikes of 1978-1980 that changed the face of the
Brazilian labour movement and played a big role in
returning democracy to the country, then under military
dictatorship.

The impact of the union movement on Brazilian society
led us to create the Workers' party, which brought
together urban and rural workers, intellectuals and
militants from civil society. Brazilian capitalism, at
that time, was not only a matter of low salaries,
insalubrious working conditions and repression of the
union movement. It was also expressed in economic
policy and in the whole set of the government's public
policies, as well as in the restrictions it placed on
civil liberties. Together with millions of other
workers, I discovered it was not enough merely to
demand better salaries and working conditions. It was
fundamental that we should fight for citizenship and
for a profound reorganisation of economic and social
life.

I fought and lost four elections before being elected
president of the republic in 2002. In opposition, I
came to know my country intimately. In discussions with
intellectuals I thrashed out the alternatives for our
society, living out on the periphery of the world a
drama of stagnation and profound social inequality. But
my greatest understanding of Brazil came from direct
contact with its people through the 'caravans of
citizenship' that took me across tens of thousands of
kilometres.

When I arrived in the presidency, I found myself faced
not only by serious structural problems but, above all,
by an inheritance of ingrained inequalities. Most of
our governors, even those that enacted reforms in the
past, had governed for the few. They concerned
themselves with a Brazil in which only a third of the
population mattered.

The situation I inherited was one not only of material
difficulties but also of deep-rooted prejudices that
threatened to paralyse our government and lead us into
stagnation. We could not grow, it was said, without
threatening economic stability - much less grow and
distribute wealth. We would have to choose between the
internal market and the external. Either we accepted
the unforgiving imperatives of the globalised economy
or we would be condemned to fatal isolation.

Over the past six years, we have destroyed those myths.
We have grown and enjoyed economic stability. Our
growth has been accompanied by the inclusion of tens
of millions of Brazilian people in the consumer market.
We have distributed wealth to more than 40m who lived
below the poverty line. We have ensured that the
national minimum wage has risen always above the rate
of inflation. We have democratised access to credit. We
have created more than 10m jobs. We have pushed forward
with land reform. The expansion of our domestic market
has not happened at the expense of exports - they have
tripled in six years. We have attracted enormous
volumes of foreign investment with no loss of
sovereignty.

All this has enabled us to accumulate $207bn in foreign
reserves and thereby protect ourselves from the worst
effects of a financial crisis that, born at the centre
of capitalism, threatens the entire structure of the
global economy.

Nobody dares to predict today what will be the future
of capitalism.

As the governor of a great economy described as
'emerging', what I can say is what sort of society I
hope will emerge from this crisis. It will reward
production and not speculation. The function of the
financial sector will be to stimulate productive
activity - and it will be the object of rigorous
controls, both national and international, by means of
serious and representative organisations. International
trade will be free of the protectionism that shows
dangerous signs of intensifying. The reformed
multilateral organisations will operate programmes to
support poor and emerging economies with the aim of
reducing the imbalances that scar the world today.
There will be a new and democratic system of global
governance. New energy policies, reform of systems of
production and of patterns of consumption will ensure
the survival of a planet threatened today by global
warming.

But, above all, I hope for a world free of the economic
dogmas that invaded the thinking of many and were
presented as absolute truths. Anti-cyclical policies
must not be adopted only when a crisis is under way.
Applied in advance - as they have been in Brazil - they
can be the guarantors of a more just and democratic
society.

As I said at the outset, I do not give much importance
to abstract concepts.

I am not worried about the name to be given to the
economic and social order that will come after the
crisis, so long as its central concern is with human
beings.

__________________

Who are you calling a socialist?

Who You Calling Socialist?

By Harold Meyerson
Wednesday, March 4, 2009; A15

"We are all socialists now," proclaims Newsweek. We are creating "socialist republics" in the United States, says Mike Huckabee, adding, on reflection, that "Lenin and Stalin would love this stuff." We are witnessing the Obama-era phenomenon of "European socialism transplanted to Washington," says Newt Gingrich.

Well! Even as we all turn red, I've still encountered just two avowed democratic socialists in my daily rounds through the nation's capital: Vermont's Sen. Bernie Sanders . . . and the guy I see in the mirror when I shave. Bernie is quite capable of speaking for himself, so what follows is a report on the state of actual existing socialism from the other half of the D.C. Senators and Columnists Soviet.

First, as we survey the political landscape, what's striking is the absence of advocates of socialism, at least as the term was understood by those who carried that banner during the capitalist crisis of the 1930s. Then, socialists and communists both spoke of nationalizing all major industries and abolishing private markets and the wage system. Today, it's impossible to find a left-leaning party anywhere that has such demands or entertains such fantasies. (Not even Hugo Chávez -- more an authoritarian populist than any kind of socialist -- says such things.)

Within the confines of socialist history, this means that the perspective of Eduard Bernstein -- the fin de siecle German socialist who argued that the immediate struggle to humanize capitalism through the instruments of democratic government was everything, and that the goal of supplanting capitalism altogether was meaningless -- has definitively prevailed. Within the confines of American history, this means that when New York's garment unions left the Socialist Party to endorse Franklin Roosevelt in 1936, they were charting the paradigmatic course for American socialists: into the Democratic Party to support not the abolition of capitalism but its regulation and democratization, and the creation of some areas of public life where the market does not rule.

But in the United States, conservatives have never bashed socialism because its specter was actually stalking America. Rather, they've wielded the cudgel against such progressive reforms as free universal education, the minimum wage or tighter financial regulations. Their signal success is to have kept the United States free from the taint of universal health care. The result: We have the world's highest health-care costs, borne by businesses and employees that cannot afford them; nearly 50 million Americans have no coverage; infant mortality rates are higher than those in 41 nations -- but at least (phew!) we don't have socialized medicine.

Give conservatives credit for their consistency: They attacked Roosevelt as a socialist as they are now attacking Obama, when in fact Obama, like Roosevelt before him, is engaged not in creating socialism but in rebooting a crashed capitalist system. The spending in Obama's stimulus plan isn't a socialist takeover. It's the only way to inject money into a system in which private-sector investment, consumption and exports -- the other three possible engines of growth -- are locked down. Investing more tax dollars in education and research and development is a way to use public funds to create a more competitive private sector. Keeping our banks from speculating madly with our money is a way to keep banking alive.

If Obama realizes his agenda, what emerges will be a more social, sustainable, competitive capitalism. His more intellectually honest and sentient conservative critics don't accuse him of Leninism but of making our form of capitalism more like Europe's. In fact, over the past quarter-century, Europe's capitalism became less regulated and more like ours, one reason Europe is tanking along with everyone else.

Take it from a democratic socialist: Laissez-faire American capitalism is about to be supplanted not by socialism but by a more regulated, viable capitalism. And the reason isn't that the woods are full of secret socialists who are only now outing themselves.

Judging by the failures of the great Wall Street investment houses and the worldwide crisis of commercial banks; the collapse of East Asian, German and American exports; the death rattle of the U.S. auto industry; the plunge of stock markets everywhere; the sickening rise in global joblessness; and the growing shakiness of governments in fledgling democracies that opened themselves to the world market -- judging by all these, a more social capitalism is on the horizon because the deregulated capitalism of the past 30 years has blown itself up, taking much of the known world with it.

So, for conservatives searching for the culprits behind this transformation of capitalism: Despite our best efforts, it wasn't Bernie and it wasn't me. It was your own damn system.

meyersonh@washpost.com


www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/03/03/AR2009030303207.html

Declaration: World Social Forum

World Social Forum: We Won't Pay for the Crisis. The
Rich Must Pay!

Climate and Capitalism February 4, 2009
http://climateandcapitalism.com/?p=619

Declaration of the Assembly of Social Movements at the
World Social Forum 2009, Belem, Brazil.

We the social movements from all over the world came
together on the occasion of the 8th World Social Forum
in Belém, Amazonia, where the peoples have been
resisting attempts to usurp Nature, their lands and
their cultures. We are here in Latin America, where
over the last decade the social movements and the
indigenous movements have joined forces and radically
question the capitalist system from their cosmovision.
Over the last few years, in Latin America highly
radical social struggles have resulted in the overthrow
of neoliberal governments and the empowerment of
governments that have carried out many positive reforms
such as the nationalisation of core sectors of the
economy and democratic constitutional reforms.

In this context the social movements in Latin America
have responded appropriately, deciding to support the
positive measures adopted by these governments while
keeping a critical distance. These experiences will be
of help in order to strengthen the peoples' staunch
resistance against the policies of governments,
corporations and banks who shift the burden of the
crisis onto the oppressed. We the social movements of
the globe are currently facing a historic challenge.
The international capitalist crisis manifests itself as
detrimental to humankind in various ways: it affects
food, finance, the economy, climate, energy, population
migration  and civilisation itself, as there is also a
crisis in international order and political structures.

We are facing a global crisis which is a direct
consequence of the capitalist system and therefore
cannot find a solution within the system. All the
measures that have been taken so far to overcome the
crisis merely aim at socialising losses so as to ensure
the survival of a system based on privatising strategic
economic sectors, public services, natural and energy
resources and on the commoditisation of life and the
exploitation of labour and of nature as well as on the
transfer of resources from the Periphery to the Centre
and from workers to the capitalist class.

The present system is based on exploitation,
competition, promotion of individual private interests
to the detriment of the collective interest, and the
frenzied accumulation of wealth by a handful of rich
people. It results in bloody wars, fuels xenophobia,
racism and religious fundamentalisms; it intensifies
the exploitation of women and the criminalisation of
social movements. In the context of the present crisis
the rights of peoples are systematically denied. The
Israeli government's savage aggression against the
Palestinian people is a violation of International Law
and amounts to a war crime, a crime against humanity,
and a symbol of the denial of a people's rights that
can be observed in other parts of the world. The
shameful impunity must be stopped. The social movements
reassert their active support of the struggle of the
Palestinian people as well as of all actions against
oppression by peoples worldwide.

In order to overcome the crisis we have to grapple with
the root of the problem and progress as fast as
possible towards the construction of a radical
alternative that would do away with the capitalist
system and patriarchal domination. We must work towards
a society that meets social needs and respects nature's
rights as well as supporting democratic participation
in a context of full political freedom. We must see to
it that all international treaties on our indivisible
civic, political, economic, social and cultural rights,
both individual and collective, are implemented.

In this perspective we must contribute to the largest
possible popular mobilisation to enforce a number of
urgent measures such as:

* Nationalising the banking sector without
compensations and with full social monitoring,

* Reducing working time without any wage cut,

* Taking measures to ensure food and energy
sovereignty,

* Stopping wars, withdraw occupation troops and
dismantle military foreign bases,

* Acknowledging the peoples' sovereignty and autonomy
ensuring their right to self-determination,

* Guaranteeing rights to land, territory, work,
education and health for all,

* Democratize access to means of communication and
knowledge.

The social emancipation process carried by the
feminist, environmentalist and socialist movements in
the 21st century aims at liberating society from
capitalist domination of the means of production,
communication and services, achieved by supporting
forms of ownership that favour the social interest:
small family freehold, public, cooperative, communal
and collective property.

Such an alternative will necessarily be feminist since
it is impossible to build a society based on social
justice and equality of rights when half of humankind
is oppressed and exploited.

Lastly, we commit ourselves to enriching the
construction of a society based on a life lived in
harmony with oneself, others and the world around ("el
buen vivir") by acknowledging the active participation
and contribution of the native peoples.

We, the social movements, are faced with a historic
opportunity to develop emancipatory initiatives on a
global scale. Only through the social struggle of the
masses can populations overcome the crisis. In order to
promote this struggle, it is essential to work on
consciousness-raising and mobilisation from the
grassroots. The challenge for the social movements is
to achieve a convergence of global mobilisation. It is
also to strengthen our ability to act by supporting the
convergence of all movements striving to withstand
oppression and exploitation.

We thus commit ourselves to:

* Launch a Global Week of Action against Capitalism and
War from March 28 to April 4, 2009 with: anti-G20
mobilisation on March 28, mobilisation against war and
crisis on March 30, a Day of Solidarity with the
Palestinian People to promote boycott, disinvestment
and sanctions against Israel on March 30, mobilisation
for the 60th Anniversary of NATO on April 4, etc.

* Increase occasions for mobilisation through the year:
March 8, International Women Day; April 17,
International Day for Food Sovereignty; May 1,
International Workers' Day; October 12, Global
Mobilisation of Struggle for Mother Earth, against
colonisation and commodification of life.

* Schedule an agenda of acts of resistance against the
G8 Summit in Sardinia, the Climate Summit in
Copenhagen, the Summit of the Americas in Trinidad and
Tobago, etc.

Through such demands and initiatives we thus respond to
the crisis with radical and emancipatory solutions.

___________________

Otra Mundo es Posible : Lula

The world economic crisis.
Foro Social Mundial.

Create a national safety net

The National Safety Net (NSN)-- Five Point Agenda

The proposal is twofold: The first part of the proposal is to bring together people who want to create a National Safety Net (NSN) in America. Presently, America has a weak safety-net, and in a Capitalist society in which there are losers and winners, many people fall through our weak and tattered safety-net to a hard landing. America needs a strong public safety-net, not only under the poor, but also under the middle class.

The NSN could be woven together by 5 essential elements: Universal Health Care, a Living Wage, Fair Unemployment Benefits, Affordable Housing, and a Healthy Natural Environment. This list is not meant to be exhaustive or complete, and clearly Organic Food For Everyone, Nuclear Disarmament, Free Higher Education, Life Long Pensions, would add to the strength and comfort of America’s social fabric.

In most European countries, if you lose your job, then you don’t lose your housing and health care. In Germany, for example, if you lose your job, then you don’t get 6 months unemployment benefits, with perhaps an extension or two, as in America. Rather, you receive two thirds of your salary for one year, and then everyone gets an equal income plus the cost of their housing and health care for as long as needed, provided they are looking for a job. This doesn’t provide an affluent lifestyle, but it does keep people from sleeping in their cars or in the streets.

It’s past time in America to weave together these basic rights (not privileges) into a strong public safety-net that will catch, and soften the blows, of everyone that fails/falls in time of personal and/or socio-economic crisis.

Five Point Agenda:

Universal Health Care that legally guarantees the same, state of the art, medical treatment and care to all, regardless of income or wealth.

A Living Wage , for everyone over the age of 18, regardless of the nature of the work performed.

Fair unemployment benefits with a guaranteed basic income for as long as necessary because everyone has a right to a good job and the government has a duty to see to it that these jobs exist. Until those job opportunities exist, and an individual is fortunate enough to fill one, then s/he has a right to a decent survival.

Affordable Housing that ends homelessness in America, and there are no evictions or foreclosures for nonpayment of rents, mortgages, or utility bills.

A Diverse and Healthy natural environment in which no one lives in a dirty, poisoned, overheated, or dying place/world.

Strategy

The second part of the proposal is to bring together people who also agree on an “inside/outside strategy“, with regard to the Democratic Party, for achieving a National Safety Net (NSN). We are not a political “Party”, but rather, a free association of individuals (defined by our Five Point Agenda) who work primarily, not entirely, through the Democratic Party to advance our goal. We recognize that the Democratic Party is the best available vehicle for defeating/overruling the Republican Party, thereby moving society in the right direction, however slowly, so we usually support Democratic candidates for office, especially progressives, but we are not inextricably bound to Capitalism, as are both the Republican Party and the Democratic Party.


The Capitalist economy is unsustainable in the long run, so we refrain from the convoluted, and ultimately futile, dialogue and attempts (by both Parties) to fix it or save it, and we focus, instead, on the political solution of a National Safety Net. Call this creeping Socialism if you like, but there is a growing sense of entitlement among Americans that all of us deserve a safe and respectable lifestyle, and insofar as Capitalism will not/cannot provide it, or afford it, or pay for it, then the people deserve a new economic order that satisfies basic needs for everyone, unconditionally, independently of one‘s success or failure in the marketplace.


America, like other modern nations, can afford (pay for) the satisfaction of public needs, an unconditional minimum threshold of quality living for all, by ending the gross inequality of wealth through a strict progressive tax and a reorganization of national priorities, including major defense cuts. The present economic crisis requires that we put a strong public safety-net under an entire population at-risk, given the failures of the private safety-nets such as the house, the 401k, credit cards, and the uncertainty of the future.

America is full of fear,: fear of getting sick, fear of not earning enough money, fear of losing one’s job, fear of homelessness, fear of natural blowback, etc. For more than two hundred years the old economy has failed to deliver on its promises of freedom from want and freedom from fear for all. We need courageous leaders, educators, and candidates who will champion the cause of the NSN, leading everyone to a better world. If we build political consensus (to a progressive majority) for the NSN, then the economy will transform itself in accordance with the Will Of The People.

Glenn Parton
Rain51@hotmail.com

Economic Recovery

Economic Recovery Act Needs:
More Infrastructure Spending
No Tax Cuts for Business

Despite President Obama’s efforts and the inclusion of specific measures designed to appeal to Republicans, not a single GOP House member voted for the Economic Recovery Act, popularly known as the stimulus bill, that passed in the House of Representatives by a vote of 244 to 188 yesterday. Just 12 Democrats voted against the bill, which authorized $607 billion in direct spending and $212 billion in various tax cuts over two years to stimulate the economy.

Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) has been gravely concerned about these politically motivated tax cuts, largely sweetheart deals for business that will benefit the very financial institutions whose high-flying speculation created the economic crisis in the first place. They are bad legislation, and certainly have no place in a stimulus bill.

We believe the federal government should minimally allocate:
$200 billion in block grants to state and local governments to make up for the annual loss in state and local revenue
$100 billion to pay for half of the increased Medicaid costs states will face
$100 billion to pay for COBRA coverage for laid-off workers and to allow people over 55 to buy into Medicare
$50 billion to increase unemployment insurance and expand eligibility. (Currently only one-third of unemployed workers receive unemployment insurance!)
$100 billion to increase Pell grants and expand the number of its recipients.
$450 billion to the Social Security Trust Fund so that workers would receive a one-year respite from paying the regressive FICA tax. Such a measure would radically stimulate consumer demand.