Joblessness is as bad today as it was during the 1930s –It’s time to take the fight to D.C.

On April 8, 1935, Congress passed the legislation creating the largest public works program in history. The Works Progress Administration (WPA) created 8.5 million jobs during the depression of the 1930s.

Let’s mark the 75th anniversary of the creation of the WPA by telling the government that today’s jobless crisis is as bad today as it was back then and that we need the same kind of bold, sweeping jobs program that the people demanded in the 1930s – Now!

Martin Luther King Jr. dedicated the final months of his life to starting a movement for the right of all to a job or a guaranteed income – we need that movement now more than ever.

It’s time to say no: to a jobless recovery – to an economy based on permanent high unemployment and low wages – to trillions of $ for Wall St., and trillions of $ for war but nothing but joblessness, foreclosures, evictions, layoffs, low wages, union busting, hunger and homelessness for workers and the poor.

There are more than 20 million unemployed and underemployed people in the country today. We need a real WPA-type program that is big enough to insure that those who need work get work – work that is socially useful that pays union wages and benefits.

Call issued by
the Bail Out the People Movement

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In the last year, I have probably used some variation on the phrase “adding insult to injury” more than at any other time in my life.  I’m sure I’m not the only one.  The capitalist economic meltdown means joblessness, foreclosure, eviction, homelessness, poverty and misery to millions of workers here in the U.S., and poverty, starvation and death to millions around the world.  So there’s plenty of injury to go around.

But it seems there is no shortage of insults to dish out to the victims of the global collapse either.  Here in the U.S., the same banks that received billions in bail out money are foreclosing on mortgages and putting working people’s belongings out on the curb like it was trash.  Workers with decades of service are being laid so that their bosses – who created the crisis with their greed and arrogance – can continue to rake in huge bonuses and lucrative golden parachutes.  Politicians are fawning over the insurance companies and pharmaceutical giants, careful to ensure that any health care reform doesn’t hurt their profits, while lack of access to health care kills 45,000 Americans every year.

But some insults to working people seem so gratuitous that it is hard to imagine that they don’t have a special bureau somewhere that thinks this stuff up.  In that category is the news that the Center for Disease Control authorized the allocation of H1N1 flu vaccines to some of the largest firms on Wall Street even while millions of Americans who are in high risk categories, such as youth and the elderly, are unable to get the flu shot.  As the website of the Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington points out, several states have already expressed concern that those that need it most will not be able to get the vaccine, or that it will be available too late:

The head of Alabama’s Department of Public Health testified that 62% of the vaccines ordered by the state will not be available until after December 1, 2009

The director of Minnesota’s St. Paul Ramsey County Department of Public Health said he is expecting only 7,800 doses for more than 20,000 children

Los Angeles County’s three public hospitals ordered 110,000 vaccines, but have received only about 18,000 doses, and UCLA’s two hospitals received 1,000 doses for 10,000 staff and 35,000 patients

We already have heard, ad nauseam, that these companies are “too big to fail,” while the rest of us are too unimportant to bail out.  Now it seems that the Wall Street giants must be protected from the flu while children and seniors die from it.

The passage of Proposition 1 and the setback for same sex marriage in Maine has provoked an important conclusion for many LGBT activists and allies: the movement is at a turning point where national action for LGBT equality is the order of the day.  The absurdity of watching states adopt and recognize same sex marriage, only to have these gains erased by popular referendum – as if fundamental civil rights for a minority could be voted away by the majority – is having a transformative effect on consciousness.  The dozens of struggles being waged at the local level around the country, and especially the fight over same sex marriage rights, has made the formerly impossible appear not only possible but necessary.

This change in consciousness within one important social movement also reflects a breakthrough in a broader sense as well, and it is no coincidence that it comes as Americans are also struggling  with the transformation of the national health care system.  In the 1980’s, the so-called Reagan Revolution opened an all-out attack on the rights of working and oppressed people and in general on the gains of the 60’s and 70’s.  As this reactionary trend gained momentum, social movements for change became more and more a rearguard action, defending earlier gains on a state by state and community by community basis.  Victories, too, tended to be local.

Despite changes in administrations from Republican to Democrat and back again, for more than three decades the progressive movements were in retreat both practically and psychologically.  National campaigns such as the anti-war movement seemed to have little or no impact even when they successfully mobilized hundreds of thousands of people.   For many of us, the United States looked more and more like a patchwork of regions and states.  While the LGBT movement might win same sex marriage in Massachusetts, Kansas politicians were busy trying to keep the teaching of evolution out of public schools.  New Haven, Connecticut might become a sanctuary city for undocumented immigrants but in Jena, Louisiana, a local district attorney was railroading African-American youth into lengthy jail sentences for a schoolyard fight.

In such a climate it is not too surprising that for many activists focusing energy making or defending local gains became not only a necessity but a virtue. . . and even a fetish.  We have seen community non-profits mobilize militantly to challenge poverty and racism to effect neighborhood change while deliberately stifling any discussion of the broader government policies that created the problem.  We have seen activists seemingly unable to grasp the concept of national solutions – single payer national health care, nationalization of the failing auto industry, a national moratorium on bankruptcies and home foreclosures – because of what is now a deeply bred fear of big government that rivals that of many conservatives.  And the despair many of us feel over the successful attacks on reproductive rights of women in some right-wing dominated states has astonishingly not galvanized into a consensus that abortion rights must be protected at the federal level.

The emergence of the discussions about national health care reform and also, increasingly, about federal recognition of LGBT rights are reviving a long-discarded idea that progressive social change should not be limited to the places where progressives can guarantee a majority.  And why should it?  Social movements rarely mobilize the majority of the population or wait for a national consensus to make their demands heard.  If there is a discussion and debate that is much-needed on the left in the U.S., it is this one: as the internet supposedly makes our world smaller, have we abandoned the idea of national social change?

As politicians and the American people are enmeshed in the debate over health care reform or are pondering the next steps in the escalating U.S. war in Afghanistan, no one seemed to be paying much attention to developments in the economy.  Until last week, a rising stock market seemed to be enough indication that the recession was over or nearly over.

This may be the week that we face the music, however.  On Friday, a 250 point dip in the stock market raised questions about whether the U.S. economy is actually in a recovery.  Today, there is the announcement that CIT Group, which provides financing to thousands of small and medium-sized businesses (including 60% of the apparel industry) is filing for bankruptcy.

The Guardian (UK) this morning describes the CIT Group bankruptcy as “one of the biggest corporate failures in U.S. history.”  The article points out that not only will the reorganization in bankruptcy reduce the financing available to small and medium businesses, but also that U.S. taxpayers will lose the $2.3 billion that the company received under the TARP program.

The bankruptcy follows on predictions by a number of capitalist economists that either the recession will continue or that we are about to enter a second, possibly deeper recession.  Perhaps most significantly, Nobel Prize-winning economist Joseph E. Stiglitz said recently that not only is the economy still in decline, but that the only thing that prevented a more rapid decline was Obama’s federal stimulus package.

There are three things that working people should be considering in the wake of this news.  First, of course, is that whether the recession is over according to the experts, 2010 will be a year of steep unemployment and continuing pressure by business and politicians to cut public spending on social programs that are vital to our survival.  Second, most economists agree that the federal stimulus program may have been the only thing to either slow or stop the economic free-fall that took place from last Fall until earlier this year.  Third, a new period of economic decline will certainly bring new calls for bail outs and stimulus of some kind…with the only question being whether we allow anther round of government hand-outs to big business or fight for a popular program of direct aid to working people and our impoverished communities.

I’m late in posting this but it is so compelling that, really, it’s better late than not at all.  On October 7, 2009, Keith Olberman devoted his hour-long show on MSNBC to a special comment on health care reform in the United States.  Really, I think it is more than a statement about health care legislation.  It is a passionate and obviously deeply felt commentary about fundamental human values and how we embody them – or fail to embody them – in government policy.  Today the National Academy of Science announced that it has finally, for the first time since the 1950’s, revised its criteria for determining who is “living in poverty” and as a result has determined that 15.8% or almost 1 in 6 Americans are living in poverty.  The news should only amplify Olberman’s denunciation of those who profit from human misery.

A survey of thirty-eight capitalist economists shows that most of them believe unemployment will get worse (over 10% before year’s end) and won’t get better any time soon (maybe 2010…but maybe as late as 2012).

Wanna know what a jobless recovery looks like:

Unemployment, which was at a 26-year high of 9.8% in September, is forecast to hit 10% during the last three months of this year, and stay there through the first quarter of 2010. By the end of next year, it’s only expected to fall back down to 9.5%.

Big political news in Connecticut today is evidence that Governor Rell spent $220,000 of taxpayer money for the services of a consultant to help craft her political message – including the convening of a focus group and keeping tabs on the popularity of rival politicians.  The story that this was money spent to figure out how Connecticut would best weather the recession, streamline government, craft tax policy, etc. is pure bunk . . . especially in light of an expose by Ted Mann of the New London Day showing that consultant “Dr. Kenneth Dautrich, a polling expert and confidant of Rell’s chief of staff” advised the governor about such burning policy issues as the popularity of Attorney General Richard Blumenthal and the best “messaging” to use to get support for Rell’s opposition to raising income taxes on the rich.
Connecticut residents do not generally appear to have very high expectations for their politicians, so it’s hard to say how much of a furor this will really stir.  It can certainly be argued that there is a significant appearance of impropriety and ethical violations and that an independent investigation is warranted.  Impeachment certainly should not be off the table at this early stage.

But there is another lesson to be learned as well – though I question whether it will be heeded.  Both politicians and political activists seem to have become so enamored of “messaging” that it often takes the place of honest talk about policy: What do we stand for and how are we going to get it?  Even on the left there seems to be a preoccupation with controlling the message so that no genuine discussion takes place, only a constant reiteration of talking points.  I would argue that if you want to know at least one reason that many working class people are cynical about politicians and are susceptible to being recruited into reactionary populist causes like the teabaggers, you have to consider just how sick and tired people are of politics by focus group.

For the last several nights, Rachel Maddow has been doing an excellent expose of the pro-corporation right-wing forces that have been attacking ACORN.  Sadly, she has correctly pointed out that the liberal establishment has failed to rally to defend ACORN.  Even further to the left, among progressives who should understand the critical importance of defending groups that organize poor people and people of color, there have actually been opportunistic criticisms of ACORN at a time when what was most needed was rallying to its defense.

So it is more than a little frightening to hear her prediction that the next target of the ruling class attack dogs will be SEIU – the Service Employees International Union.  The connection is certainly easy to see: like ACORN many of the locals of SEIU around the country have memberships that are predominantly low-wage workers and workers of color.   The union worked  tirelessly for Obama in the presidential election and was responsible for registering and getting out large numbers of first time voters.

But as with ACORN, there is clearly another element to the right wing strategy: the knowledge that SEIU has its critics within the labor movement, and the expectation that those critics will either leave the union swinging in the breeze or will use the opportunity to air and escalate their own criticisms of its organization and leadership.

Working class and progressive activists who witnessed the outrageous assault on ACORN have to be prepared for the next wave.  We need to understand that objectively anything that emboldens the right and weakens organizations that serve working people and poor people is contrary to the interests of our class.  And as the right wing chorus against SEIU – or any other of our class allies – rises, we have to be prepared to show real solidarity and write, petition, picket and march to defend them.

Daily Finance is just gushing about the “rosy economic picture” for San Diego-based American Technology Corporation. Seems everyone is very cheery about the “successful” use of ATC’s sonic cannon against G-20 protesters in Pittsburgh:

Pittsburgh officials said yesterday they believe this to be the first use of a LRAD “sonic cannon” against civilians in U.S. history. . . . Given yesterday’s civilian debut, with no reported casualties, commercial and civilian uses for LRAD also seem possible. [CEO] Putnam said the company hopes law enforcement agencies everywhere come to realize what an effective crowd control weapon the LRAD can be.

Well that certainly is good news: a new weapon that can be used to clear streets of pesky protesters and also shore up the economy. A perfect combination. If, as predicted, 2009 and 2010 are the years of double digit unemployment, no doubt they will also be quite prosperous years for the folks at ATC and other entrepreneurs who have developed more effective “non-lethal” ways of keeping the population under control.