The fires of our wretchedness

I was telling some relatives how I am now employed fulltime; an achievement not realized in the past four years. It’s a great job. I provide direct service to folks in need. I drive a bus mandated under the American Disabilities Act. Prior to this employment I have been living the issues on the front pages and those not covered. I now have access to healthcare. I have a means over time to climb out off debt. And thanks to the kindness of my ex-wife I am more integrated into our family unit.

This year I learned how to accept kindness from family and friends and from government services. I have needed food stamps, general assistance, and unemployment insurance. These events buoyed my spirit; they still give me energy to press on. This energy is much needed. I truly believed that the progressive movement that pushed centrist Democrats into power in 2006 and 2008 would be given some consideration for their efforts by the leadership of the party. Instead these self-described New Democrats have torn the coalition apart. For most of this year I have pulled back, not just because of my personal struggles, but also that rebuke the progressives received from these corporate Democrats tamped out my desire to act.

It’s my understanding that New Democrat is a term that refers to members of the Democratic Party that are relying the private sector to solve social problems. These folk are more honestly called Corporate Democrats. Their belief is taken from the Reagan era that government cannot do anything efficiently that business can’t do better. While there might have been some traction for that lie in the 70’s and 80’s given the recent meltdown by just those institutions the New Democrats seek for solutions should have turned reasonable folks away from that misconception. It is my view that big government is the means that the people can organize themselves to control the predicable consequences of unrestrained capital.

We are living in revolutionary times as folks at the creation of this country found themselves. The Boston Tea Party, that iconic event the Tea-Baggers are using, was civil disobedience against preference given a royal monopoly, the British East Indian Company. Large capital was given preference over small individual enterprise. Now instead of an unequal tax on tea we have a mandate on our wages of 8 to 20 percent to be paid to the large private insurers who are not required to even provide complete treatment if we need healthcare. As the last congress’ response to the defilement of our constitution by the Bush administration was a four hour hearing in one house committee I did not expect much from the current version of New Democrats.

“Labor is prior to, and independent of, capital. Capital is only the fruit of labor, and could never have existed if Labor had not first existed. Labor is superior to capital, and deserves much the higher consideration,” not Marx but Lincoln the first great Republican president. A similar analogy can be constructed for the common wealth and private property. Without threatening anyone’s house, gun, or factory, We the People can insist that business enterprise only prospers by contributing to the common good, and not by extracting the life blood out of the folks that labor in their employee.

Not only does our government defer to large business as did the overthrown British royalty, but the institutions of our government treat our heads of state as if they were royalty. Our last administration eviscerated our constitutional safeguards against tyranny and our congress stood by and refused to act. Now this new administration refuses to act against the injustices committed and stands firm in the new executive powers usurped by its predecessor.

“Give me your tired, your poor. Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, The wretched refuse of your teeming shore. Send these, the homeless, tempest-tossed to me, I lift my lamp beside the golden door.” But that gilded door seldom opens now except for the very few.

We need to burn in the fires of our wretchedness in order to change this country. It is our duty, for if we do not our country will destroy the world.

This is our task

My sense of outrage is enhanced by my feelings of inadequacy. It seems that no matter my actions, pleas to legislators, or gatherings with others the course of political forces continues to disfavor “We the People.” George Lakoff has presented California with an opportunity to restore some of state power to the people, yet the California Democratic Party leadership is standing in opposition.

What is particularly aggravating is that California has a vast majority of state legislators from the Democratic Party yet we have a regressive budgetary process. Californians suffer under the tyranny of a one-third minority rule. Our Democrats run their campaigns on fixing education, expanding healthcare, improving the state’s infrastructure and yet they cannot be held accountable when progress is never accomplished on any of these fronts. These leaders gave $2.5 billion in tax breaks to large corporations while they cut $9 billion to state education, and many more billions of cuts in healthcare and other social services. I am now in outright revolt against these leaders.

It is all the fault of the Grover Norquist pledge, we are told. Just over one third of the legislatures in each chamber of state government have pledged not to raise taxes. If any Republican should choose to bargain for the benefit of some aspect of the betterment of California they are immediately stripped of party power and often challenged to a recall or a primary battle.

What the Democratic Party has not done and apparently will not do on its own is to go to the well of its support for political pressure. In fact when now presented with an opportunity to do just such a thing the Democratic Party leadership is trying to stop the ground swell. Californian’s for Democracy has begun an initiative process so clear that it cannot be misunderstood to overturn the tyranny of one-third minority rule. “All legislative actions on revenue and budget must be determined by a majority vote.”

To its credit, and the reason I remain in the Democratic Party, the majority of Democratic activists are in favor of this proposal. We are the independent contractors that work without benefits yet provide this, the eighth largest economy in the world, with the freely moving talent necessary for innovation. We are the single parent and two working parent families struggling to obtain a decent education for our children so that their futures and that of the state will be prosperous. We are civil rights activists for ethnic and gender equality. We are environmentalist striving to restore a habitable earth for all species.

There are still large controlling interests in the Democratic Party that we need to bring into the effort to raise the standard of living in a sustainable fashion for all Californians. We progressives need to convince them that their path to improved conditions can only come forward when they work along side of the rest of us. This is our task.

A broader view for unions

Unions need to stop doing the work of bosses by pitting workers against each other for marginal parochial gain. They need to reverse the path taken by the hard-hat rioters. In a recent article, Unions Must Attract the Young and Hip—or Become Obsolete, the following discussion was great. I think that unions need to go beyond the cultural and re-examine the basics. Here’s my take:

Unions first provide a direct benefit for their membership. They negotiate and help protect favorable wages and work rules. Secondly they directly provide to the employers that enter into contracts with them a trained work force with a reliable level of productivity. Unions provide an indirect benefit to the communities from which they gather their strength. They provide a standard of living higher than otherwise would exist. They add to a culture of democratic process in the work place that is essential to a functioning democratic society. As a community’s perception of a union moves away from providing these benefits then the ultimate source of union strength evaporates.

The rationale that if a social policy will cost one union member a job then that is a bad policy has caused unions to take stands recently against the good of the communities from which they derive their support. Organized labor support for the recent bad budget ballot initiatives is one example of this. Another is the electrical workers opposition to Marin County’s attempt to wrest local control of electrical power generation from PG&E. This selfish logic is misguided. The real problem lies in the work rules that the rest of the folk in California and most of America work under. Laws that protected workers and guaranteed the right to work were stripped out and replaced by the so-called “at-will”, right to be fired, rules.

Unions are now struggling with a lack of favorable perception amongst younger workers. The community that the “not one union member’s job lost” doctrine opposes largely consists of those same18 to 40 year old workers the unions are trying to attract. Until unions work towards the Roosevelt doctrine that a meaningful job is a human right for all workers, and not just for their members, they will not succeed with their youth agenda. There is so much social discontent now towards our corporate plutocracy and its control over our representative government that unions could help swing the balance towards a renewed democracy and in the process develop the loyalty of those young workers that was lost in the 60’s and 70’s.

I know of cynicism.

This healthcare bill is just another example of betrayed principles.

In 2006 I became an active Democratic because there seemed to be more folks like me in the Democratic Party than elsewhere. The motivation came when Robert Kennedy Jr. explained the inexplicable 2004 election results. The Republicans were planning to wrest the reigns of government and wage a 100 years of war. We share something with our electeds that the Republicans don’t have. We are compassionate and forgive our electeds for their transgressions. Even when the Republicans are in the minority, if one of theirs votes for a new tax or supports civil rights for gays, etc. he or she will likely not be re-elected. Democrats on the other hand, even when given large majorities, will allow their electeds to betray our interests, our principles, and on the very issues on which we gave them power.

The Democrats and Republicans share one thing. Whether they are elected by a grassroots movement or strictly corporate sponsorship once elected they turn from their base. They immediately become the privileged elected elite. Their decisions are based on information of which we plebeians are not party. A politician like Jared Huffman can garner support by speaking eloquently regarding water policy and its link to unsustainable development. He can then craft and vote for legislation that provides for just that type of development. The 80-member Congressional Progressive Caucus can in July draw a line ‘not to be crossed’ regarding healthcare and then in unison leap that line in November and declare victory. The California Democratic State Caucus can vote for $2,500,000,000 in tax breaks for corporations and cut healthcare to Medical patients of similar amounts. The California Democrats will cut education spending by $9,000,000,000 and say that we plebs need to give up our daily lives and elect a few more like them before they will do anything we need.

It is true that Jared tried to get some environmental policy in that water bill. Policy is short lived. I am not sure that it even survived to be voted on. The peripheral canal will be here for a 100 years. And the Congressional healthcare bill will provide some needed changes to our healthcare cost, delivery, and insurance system. But it is not universal and it allows for death by a thousand cuts over time. It is not the fundamental change the Progressives were promised. And our State’s Democrats believe that providing services to some is better than not passing any budget.

After 40 years of such decision making our state has become a failed state. One in 8 Americans lives in California. America is approaching that condition. If it stood alone it would be the 38th most populous nation. Forty years ago California had the worlds best education system and a college education was nearly free. California had laws that protected workers rights to a job. Now we are an ‘at will’ state. We can be fired at will if we are lucky enough to even have a job. A great many jobs now are independent contracts with no rights whatsoever. Nearly 1 in 5 Californians do not even have legal civil status. We are transients, mostly changing our place with our stage of life. Our collective sense of community and place has been eroded to the benefit of the profit motive and to the detriment of our environment.

If you talk to an elected California Democrat they don’t get that this 40-year nightmare is not a positive vision for our future. Others of our party will jump to the elected’s defense as if you are personally attacking him. I haven’t changed much from the young man who gave up his college deferment on the principle that my privileged condition was unfair. I want electeds that will stand on principle. I want Democrats that will insist on it. I might have to wait a few years until the really big economic crash occurs. But do we really need to wait for the conditions of 1933 to change how we are governed? We need our electeds to use the outside strategy promoted by the Progressive Democrats of America, that the Republicans are using so well.

Did unions force Newsom out of the governors race

Gavin Newsom has dropped out of the Governor’s race. In part his decision must have been influenced by union support for Jerry Brown and by opposition from the SEIU union.

(You can read about it here: Bay Gaurdian Article.)

Personally I am very disappointed by this development. On critical issues of our time Newsom was not just on the right side but he was a motivation force pushing the rest of us in the right direction. Where previous mayors could only study the healthcare availability for city residents, Newsom implemented a universal healthcare system. When the State passed an initiative that limited the definition of marriage as between men and women only, Newsom married thousands of same sex relations pushing the issue to the national forefront. Our polar ice caps are melting at a rate not thought possible just a few years ago, and Newsom has turned San Francisco into the greenest large city in the country.

We are living in a time where the Democrats elected to office remind me of those Depression era graphics of a man with his pockets turned inside out. Democrats are getting elected promoting issues that effect all aspects of our lives then turn around like the empty pocket guy and say we have nothing for you because… Needless to say there are lots of excuses, but the real reason is the singular lack of backbone of folks who want to keep their jobs.

It’s a tough time to balance a budget. Proposition 13 has hamstrung means of increasing revenue in many ways. I can’t say that I am familiar enough with the SF budget process to know whether or not the SEIU workers could have been given a better deal. Let me say something about myself and how I was raised before you get the wrong idea. I think we need to promote unionization of all American workers. I grew up knowing that my grandfather participated in the 1934 San Francisco General Strike that had a great impact on national legislation allowing workers to organize. My parents raised us to never cross a picket line. In our family of five kids only my little sister who was allergic to all other forms of fruit got to eat grapes because of the farm workers boycott. Whenever I was presented with the opportunity to join a union at work I did. Union wages help to distribute the wealth created by our economy more equally. I haven’t forgotten that Jerry Brown had been in office for nearly four years when Proposition 13 passed. And it passed because the Democratic Party that controlled the state at the time was completely ineffective in providing for the needs of Californians.

My first encounter with SEIU was on the streets of San Francisco. They had organized many hotel and restaurant workers. Many of these folk came from Central America and I was organizing against US support of the dictatorships oppressing the people of these countries. I had been a carpenter and in the union but I dropped out when the union not only supported building on environmentally sensitive ground but were asking all building trade members to help bulldoze San Bruno Mountain. I was surprised and pleased that SEIU could take a socially important stance.

Much had happened in the union movement from the 30’s and 40’s to the 60’s and 70’s. US unions were involved in subverting union movements in third world countries. Some had openly campaigned for Nixon and Reagan. Unions had become big business, the providers of labor. They functioned much like material providers for big business. They focused narrowly on their own trade or area of work and not on the creation of a broad unified working. They were successful in dividing the working class by focusing their membership’s attention narrowly solely on their own economic interests. Solidarity of the working class was treated as a subversive and traitorous idea. In the 70’s and 80’s the SEIU seemed to be going against that trend by organizing some of the least privileged of the working class. It represented to me a re-democratization of the working class. This was a much different culture than existed in the building trades where keeping folks out to protect the jobs of those who were already in seemed to be the rule.

The SEIU has changed much since the 1980’s. Recently after they negotiated a contract with Sonoma County the supervisors had to protest the bullying of the union members by their own union. SEIU negotiated wage cuts and other give-backs and prevented the union members from knowing the terms of the contract prior to voting for it. The SEIU henchmen prevented union members who were known NO votes from participating. It is no wonder that the SEIU is preventing the workers at Santa Rosa’s Memorial Hospital from voting for a union after a four year battle to get the hospital to agree to a vote. The Memorial workers would surely vote to join the National Union of Healthcare Workers. Candy Andy, Andrew Stern president of the SEIU, is just another big business man, another dictator that needs to be taken down. Except his business is selling out the democratic process of uniting workers. I am not surprised that SEIU helped stop the Newsom campaign.

I believe that union wages uplift all wages. Thom Hartman is a proponent of the idea. And he tells it much more elegantly than I can. However I believe that he has confused the cause with the effect when it comes to understanding how a community with strong unions is a strong community. Unionization of the workforce is a tool that energized communities can use to distribute wealth and power democratically. All the previous thoughts and explanations were necessary for me to understand this point. And it needs to be developed. The community of the working class needs to use unionization to retake our democracy. When the union movement focuses its efforts on the narrow economic interests of its limited membership it divides the working class. It does the work of the anti-democratic owner class.

It is good to belong to a group

Well I got a few things wrong in this first post. It is good to belong to a group and learn from it. I my previous post I conflated two ideas; that no one since Alexander had conquered Afghanistan, and Afghanistan has never had a strong central government. Both of these ideas have come to me through the popular media, and now I think that both of them are wrong.

From Wikipedia (again I am relying on popular media) I have learned that these people and this geography have had a long history of development and conflict, that the modern state has its basis in a 1740’s monarchy, and they fought English domination from 1839 until 1919 when it reclaimed its independence. It remained independent and neutral through much of the USA and the USSR cold war.

In 1973 a coup overturned the monarchy and attempted to bring Afghanistan into the modern (Western) world. I think it is fair to say that whatever democratic ideals this effort aspired to, Afghanistan became a victim of the USA and the USSR conflict.

For the sake of the Afghanis it is time for the people of the USA to take back our militaristic government and let the Afghanis decide their own destiny. 

I am so tired of listening to American swells of international dominance say that more troops will bring peace to Afghanistan. We just need to create a stable government and defeat the Taliban is the swells’ talking point. What they are clearly saying is that they want a national government that is an American ally. Arguably the Taliban was the only strong national government in Afghanistan’s 2,300-year history. The Taliban is indigenous. I believe it should be opposed for its horrible, by western standards, human rights. That applies to many of the nations in the Middle East however, even our strong ally Israel. In 1967 Israel attacked an American naval ship killing 25 or 34 and injuring more than 150 on board. This incident was a much more aggressive attack on America compared to the Gulf of Tonkin incident of 1964. Israel’s treatment of the people of Arab ancestry, the Palestinians, is also fairly comparable to the Taliban’s treatment of their own people.

I don’t know that we should rush our troops out of Afghanistan in the next 24 hours, but I do believe that the American people deserve an honest explanation of the purpose of our actions. We also need a more balanced policy towards Israel, Sudan, Saudi Arabia, etc… There are perils to being amongst the population of the only super-power. The demise of our government's dominance will bring harsh abuse to us if we do not without timidity take this country back.

Good Morning, I'm just getting this blog going.