Suspects Arrested in Murder-for-Hire Plot Commissioned by Mexican Drug Cartel
PALMDALE - Attorney General Kamala D. Harris announced the arrest today of three suspects in a foiled murder-for-hire plot commissioned by a Tijuana drug cartel.
Dozens of special agents from the California Department of Justice armed with a search warrant conducted the early morning raid at a residence in Palmdale, California.
Arrested there without incident at 6:50 a.m. were Jorge Ernesto Sillas-Rocha, 27, and Victor Manuel Magana Gonzalez, 24, for conspiracy and murder-for-hire. Agents also seized two AR-15 assault weapons, more than 1,000 rounds of ammunition and an estimated $20,000 in cash.
Agents later arrested Daniel Ceballos, 34, at a Starbuck's coffee shop in Palmdale.
Also to be charged in the case is Juan Francisco Sillas-Rocha, 33, known as "Ruedas," who is a lieutenant in the Tijuana cartel called the Arrellano Felix Organization, a vicious gang of drug traffickers responsible for violent murders in Mexico.
"This case sends a message to the border drug cartels trying to do business here: Justice will be swift and certain when you cross into California," Attorney General Harris said. "I applaud our agents and law enforcement partners for their good work in uncovering and thwarting this murder-for-hire plot."
Ruedas Sillas-Rocha was identified by investigators as soliciting individuals to assassinate victims in California who owed the cartel large sums of money. Ruedas Sillas-Rocha directed these individuals to carry out the murder of five family members in a simulated home-invasion robbery. Ruedas Sillas-Rocha was willing to pay the would-be assassins thousands of dollars for committing the murders.
Earlier this month, agents with the Department of Justice received information about a possible murder-for-hire plot targeting victims who reside in California and who have ties to the Arrellano Felix Cartel. The targeted victims were said to have owed the cartel a large sum of money, believed to be the proceeds from drug sales. Agents used sophisticated investigative techniques to track the suspects to Palmdale, northeast of Los Angeles.
The investigation also implicated Fernando Sanchez Arrellano, the boss of the Arrellano Felix Cartel, in the California murder-for-hire plot. That investigation is ongoing.
Jorge Ernesto Sillas-Rocha, Gonzalez, and Ceballos are being held in the San Diego County Jail. They will be prosecuted by the San Diego County District Attorney, who is also expected to issue a warrant for Ruedas Sillas-Rocha's arrest.
Wednesday, February 23, 2011
WISCONSIN - IT'S ABOUT DEMOCRACY, By Katrina vanden Heuvel - OR IS IT MORE ASSAULT ON THE AMERICAN WORKER?
FROM HIS FIRST DAY, OBAMA HAS PUSHED FOR AMNESTY, NON-ENFORCEMENT OF LAWS PROHIBITING THE EMPLOYMENT OF ILLEGALS, SABOTAGED E-VERIFY, TAKEN BORDER GUARDS OFF OUR OPEN AND UNDEFENDED BORDERS, AND ASSAULTED LEGALS IN ARIZONA… all to keep the hordes of illegals flooding our borders which keep wages depressed.
BESIDES OBAMA, IT IS CORPORATE FASCIST, THE U.S. CHAMBER of COMMERCE along with LA RAZA DONORS IN THE FORTUNE 500 THAT WANT OBAMA’S AMENSTY OPEN BORDERS!
THE REASON WHY OBAMA WANTED DALEY AS CHIEF OF STAFF, IS THAT THE J.P. MORGAN BANKSTER CAN OPERATE BANKSTER BIZ OUT OF THE WHITE HOUSE, JUST AS BUSH CHENEY OPERATED BIG BUSH-SAUDIS OIL, AND HALLIBURTION OUT OF THE WHITE HOUSE, AND DALEY IS AN ADVOCATE FOR OPEN BORDERS!
IT’S ALL ABOUT KEEPING WAGES DEPRESSED.
*
WHICH SIDE OF THIS EQUATION DO YOU SEE OBAMA ON? THE AMERICAN WORKER, OR HIS WALL ST. BANKSTER DONORS AND LA RAZA?
*
“It is, instead, about power. What Mr. Walker and his backers are trying to do is to make Wisconsin — and eventually, America — less of a functioning democracy and more of a third-world-style oligarchy. And that’s why anyone who believes that we need some counterweight to the political power of big money should be on the demonstrators’ side.” PAUL KRUGMAN, NY TIMES
*
Wisconsin - it's about democracy
By Katrina vanden Heuvel
Tuesday, February 22, 2011;
As demonstrators in the tens of thousands flooded the Capitol in Madison, Wis., a sign captured the spirit: "I didn't think Cairo would be this cold." Even conservative Republican Rep. Paul Ryan saw the parallel: "It's like Cairo moved to Madison."
Got that right. As the demonstrations for workers' rights head into their second week, Madison has become ground zero in the battle for democracy in this country.
Don't fall for the dodge that this is about money, the pay and perks of public employees. This is about basic democratic rights, and the balance of power in America. This is a fight in which every U.S. worker has a direct stake.
Wisconsin faces budget deficits in the wake of the Great Recession, although not nearly as severe as in many states. In the 2010 election, Republicans captured control of the statehouse and both houses of the legislature. Scott Walker, the newly elected, self-declared "Tea Party" governor, signed off on tax cuts for businesses and then demanded harsh concessions from public employees, forcing them to pay more for pensions and health care. He coupled this with a direct attack on teacher and public employee unions, seeking to ram through legislation curtailing their right to bargain collectively, limiting any pay raise to the increase in the cost of living, and requiring an annual vote of members to continue the union. These measures aren't about the budget crisis; they are about eliminating the unions. And to make the power grab blatant, Walker exempted those unions - police and firefighters - that supported him in the last election. This is straight ugly, folks.
And it isn't limited to Wisconsin. Corporations and their right-wing allies have launched a final offensive against America's unions. With unions representing less than 7 percent of the private workforce, the target is public employee unions. With Republicans now in control of 21 states, hundreds of bills have been introduced seeking to cripple unions, if not ban them completely. States that are considering either weakening or removing entirely the ability of public-sector workers to bargain collectively include not only Wisconsin but also Ohio, South Dakota, Colorado, Michigan, Nebraska, New Hampshire and Oklahoma. (See "Labor's Last Stand", Jane MacAlevey, the Nation, March 7-14, 2011.)
Unions, described by right-wing gadfly Grover Norquist as one of the "five pillars" of Democratic strength, have been central to the rise and fall of the American middle class. There is a strong correlation between states with right-to-work laws that outlaw majority rule on unionization, a worse quality of life for workers and a more hostile climate to any progressive cause. The average worker in a right-to-work state earns $5,333 less than his or her counterpart in a pro-worker state. Twenty-one percent more people lack health insurance in right-to-work states. In a country which, by some measures, suffers greater inequality than Egypt or Tunisia, the stakes in Wisconsin are high.
But they are more than economic. At stake is the strength of our democracy itself. The Supreme Court decision in Citizens United opened the floodgates for the money of corporations and billionaires to corrupt our elections. The unions provide virtually the only counterbalance for working Americans. It is no coincidence that America has grown more unequal and the middle class has declined as union representation has been weakened.
In Wisconsin, stunningly, workers drew the line. The public employee unions agreed to accept Walker's economic demands, but rallied against the union-busting provisions. State Democrats joined, leaving the state to block the vote on Walker's legislation and allowing the demonstrations to gain traction. Students and activists rallied to the workers' side. The demonstrations swelled to levels not seen since the Vietnam War protests. Yet other than former House speaker Nancy Pelosi and Sen. Dick Durbin (Ill.), joined by the President Obama, national Democrats have been virtually invisible. More Green Bay Packers have spoken in support of the demonstrators than national Democrats.
The alternative press, the social media, MSNBC and other outposts of progressive journalism have been aflame with stories of the resistance. MoveOn, Organizing for America, the Campaign for America's Future and US Uncut, a new protest movement inspired by a recent article in the Nation, have called on activists to join.The resistance has spread. On Feb. 26, a national Day of Action is planned. The goal is to go after corporations - symbolized by Bank of America - whose tax avoidance contributes to the squeeze on basic social programs.
The teachers, nurses, police officers and public workers in Wisconsin, in the spirit of their progressive and populist forebears, have stood up against the assault on basic rights. Their fight poses a classic question: Whose side are you on? With basic rights at stake, it is time for outrage.
Katrina vanden Heuvel is editor and publisher of The Nation. She writes a weekly online column for The Post.
*
Obama Quietly Erasing Borders (Article)
Article Link:
http://www.wnd.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.view&pageId=240045
CONTACT THE HISPANDERING LA RAZA PARTY PRESIDENT HERE:
You can contact President Obama and let him know of your opposition to amnesty for illegal aliens:
http://www.whitehouse.gov/CONTACT/
*
UCLA PROFESSOR CALLS FOR MEXICAN REVOLT IN UNITED STATES
http://video.yahoo.com/watch/7165215?fr=yvmtf
*
Wake up America!!! Illegal Immigration has to be stopped. Take a look at this website and see where all your tax dollars are going: http://immigrationcounters.com/
See: CFR’s Plan to Integrate the U.S., Mexico and Canada
http://www.proliberty.com/observer/20050816.htm The Great Alien Invasion - What's Happening Now http://www.rense.com/general69/inva.htm
*
WHEN BARACK OBAMA IS NOT SERVICING HS BANKSTER DONORS, WALL ST. INTERESTS, BENDING TO THE U.S. CHAMBER of COMMERCE, HE’S KISSING UP TO THE MEXICAN FASCIST PARTY of LA RAZA!
No president has ever sold out the American worker for illegals than HISPANDERING BARACK OBAMA!
HE HAS ENDLESSLY PUSHED FOR DIFFERENT AMNESTY PLOYS, TALKED THAT ANTI-AMNESTY FORCES ARE “OUR ENEMY”, AND PROMISED ILLEGALS AMNESTY OR AT LEAST CONTINUED NON-ENFORCEMENT, AS HE SABOTAGED E-VERIFY ALONG WITH HIS LA RAZA DEMS, REID, PELOSI, FEINSTEIN, AND BOXER… ALL ELECTED WITH THE VOTES OF ILLEGALS!
*
“PUNISH OUR ENEMIES”… does that mean assault the legals of Arizona that must fend off the Mexican invasion, occupation, growing criminal and welfare state, as well as Mex Drug cartels???
OBAMA TELLS ILLEGALS “PUNISH OUR ENEMIES”
Friends of ALIPAC,
Each day new reports come in from across the nation that our movement is surging and more incumbents, mostly Democrats, are about to fall on Election Day. Obama's approval ratings are falling to new lows as he makes highly inappropriate statements to Spanish language audiences asking illegal alien supporters to help him "punish our enemies."
*
The fastest growing political party in America is NOT the tea baggers! It is the Mexican Fascist Party of LA RAZA… “The Race”. .. The House now as 90 members, nearly one-quarter, that are CONGRESSIONAL HISPANIC CAUCUS pushing for AMNESTY, no e-verify, expanded sanctuary cities, open borders, and illegals voting!
*
WHY OBAMA WANTS WILLIAM DAILY…. OPEN BORDERS!
OBAMA HAS INFESTED HIS ADMINISTRATION WITH LA RAZA PARTY MEMBERS TO PUSH FOR AMNESTY, “CHEAP” MEX LABOR IN OUR JOBS TO KEEP HIS CORPORATE PAYMASTERS HAPPY AND GENEROUS, AND HAS TURNED OUR NATION’S SECURITY INTO Dept. Homeland Security = PATHWAY TO CITIZENSHIP!
ANYTHING TO KEEP THE HORDES OF ILLEGALS CLIMBING OUR BORDERS!
WILLIAM DAILY IS CLOSELY IDENTIFIED WITH BIG OBAMA DONOR, BANKSTER CRIMINALS J.P. MORGAN!
WHEN OBAMA GETS OUT OF BED, HE MARCHES FOR HIS BANKSTERS AND LA RAZA!
*
FROM CREOLE FOLKS
Obama Seeks Brother of "Chicago Mob Boss" for Top White House Post
The roaches and con-artist, fake journalist on cable news are all lying about William Daley being all this and all that, this man is an open borders, down with America, free trade globalist. MSNBC and Gretta "the Scientology" Van Susteren from Fox News are knowingly deceiving the public about D. Issa & his letter to "business owners"=which they made into such a BIG DAM DEAL, but no one says anything whenBarrack Hussein Obama, comes around with all of these shady bankers, hedge fund managers and Wall St. Tycoons, which he puts in his cabinet. All of Obama's meeting with Wall Street asking, "What can I do for you?" is never something covered by Keith Oberman or Rachel Maddow.
(Bloomberg) -- President Barack Obama is considering naming William Daley, a JPMorgan Chase & Co. executive and former U.S. Commerce secretary, to a high-level administration post, possibly White House chief of staff, people familiar with the matter said.
Such a move, which is still under discussion, would bring a Washington veteran -- and someone with strong business ties -- into the administration as Obama sets out an agenda for the second half of his term while dealing with a Republican majority in the House of Representatives.
*
OBAMA’S PAYMASTERS:
Records show that four out of Obama's top five contributors are employees of financial industry giants - Goldman Sachs ($571,330), UBS AG ($364,806), JPMorgan Chase ($362,207) and Citigroup ($358,054).
WILL THE BANKSTER-OWNED HISPANDERING PRESIDENT TURN AMERICAN INTO A THIRD WORLD NATION FOR EASIER EXPLOITATION OF WORKERS AND EVEN GREATER CONTROL OF THE ECONOMY BY HIS CORPORATE PAYMASTERS?
WHEN HAS OBAMA EVER STOOD UP TO HIS CORPORATE DONORS? IT SIMPLY HASN’T HAPPEN, NOR WILL IT!
*
http://voices.washingtonpost.com/ezra-klein/2011/02/what_americans_think_about_inc.html
BESIDES OBAMA, IT IS CORPORATE FASCIST, THE U.S. CHAMBER of COMMERCE along with LA RAZA DONORS IN THE FORTUNE 500 THAT WANT OBAMA’S AMENSTY OPEN BORDERS!
THE REASON WHY OBAMA WANTED DALEY AS CHIEF OF STAFF, IS THAT THE J.P. MORGAN BANKSTER CAN OPERATE BANKSTER BIZ OUT OF THE WHITE HOUSE, JUST AS BUSH CHENEY OPERATED BIG BUSH-SAUDIS OIL, AND HALLIBURTION OUT OF THE WHITE HOUSE, AND DALEY IS AN ADVOCATE FOR OPEN BORDERS!
IT’S ALL ABOUT KEEPING WAGES DEPRESSED.
*
WHICH SIDE OF THIS EQUATION DO YOU SEE OBAMA ON? THE AMERICAN WORKER, OR HIS WALL ST. BANKSTER DONORS AND LA RAZA?
*
“It is, instead, about power. What Mr. Walker and his backers are trying to do is to make Wisconsin — and eventually, America — less of a functioning democracy and more of a third-world-style oligarchy. And that’s why anyone who believes that we need some counterweight to the political power of big money should be on the demonstrators’ side.” PAUL KRUGMAN, NY TIMES
*
Wisconsin - it's about democracy
By Katrina vanden Heuvel
Tuesday, February 22, 2011;
As demonstrators in the tens of thousands flooded the Capitol in Madison, Wis., a sign captured the spirit: "I didn't think Cairo would be this cold." Even conservative Republican Rep. Paul Ryan saw the parallel: "It's like Cairo moved to Madison."
Got that right. As the demonstrations for workers' rights head into their second week, Madison has become ground zero in the battle for democracy in this country.
Don't fall for the dodge that this is about money, the pay and perks of public employees. This is about basic democratic rights, and the balance of power in America. This is a fight in which every U.S. worker has a direct stake.
Wisconsin faces budget deficits in the wake of the Great Recession, although not nearly as severe as in many states. In the 2010 election, Republicans captured control of the statehouse and both houses of the legislature. Scott Walker, the newly elected, self-declared "Tea Party" governor, signed off on tax cuts for businesses and then demanded harsh concessions from public employees, forcing them to pay more for pensions and health care. He coupled this with a direct attack on teacher and public employee unions, seeking to ram through legislation curtailing their right to bargain collectively, limiting any pay raise to the increase in the cost of living, and requiring an annual vote of members to continue the union. These measures aren't about the budget crisis; they are about eliminating the unions. And to make the power grab blatant, Walker exempted those unions - police and firefighters - that supported him in the last election. This is straight ugly, folks.
And it isn't limited to Wisconsin. Corporations and their right-wing allies have launched a final offensive against America's unions. With unions representing less than 7 percent of the private workforce, the target is public employee unions. With Republicans now in control of 21 states, hundreds of bills have been introduced seeking to cripple unions, if not ban them completely. States that are considering either weakening or removing entirely the ability of public-sector workers to bargain collectively include not only Wisconsin but also Ohio, South Dakota, Colorado, Michigan, Nebraska, New Hampshire and Oklahoma. (See "Labor's Last Stand", Jane MacAlevey, the Nation, March 7-14, 2011.)
Unions, described by right-wing gadfly Grover Norquist as one of the "five pillars" of Democratic strength, have been central to the rise and fall of the American middle class. There is a strong correlation between states with right-to-work laws that outlaw majority rule on unionization, a worse quality of life for workers and a more hostile climate to any progressive cause. The average worker in a right-to-work state earns $5,333 less than his or her counterpart in a pro-worker state. Twenty-one percent more people lack health insurance in right-to-work states. In a country which, by some measures, suffers greater inequality than Egypt or Tunisia, the stakes in Wisconsin are high.
But they are more than economic. At stake is the strength of our democracy itself. The Supreme Court decision in Citizens United opened the floodgates for the money of corporations and billionaires to corrupt our elections. The unions provide virtually the only counterbalance for working Americans. It is no coincidence that America has grown more unequal and the middle class has declined as union representation has been weakened.
In Wisconsin, stunningly, workers drew the line. The public employee unions agreed to accept Walker's economic demands, but rallied against the union-busting provisions. State Democrats joined, leaving the state to block the vote on Walker's legislation and allowing the demonstrations to gain traction. Students and activists rallied to the workers' side. The demonstrations swelled to levels not seen since the Vietnam War protests. Yet other than former House speaker Nancy Pelosi and Sen. Dick Durbin (Ill.), joined by the President Obama, national Democrats have been virtually invisible. More Green Bay Packers have spoken in support of the demonstrators than national Democrats.
The alternative press, the social media, MSNBC and other outposts of progressive journalism have been aflame with stories of the resistance. MoveOn, Organizing for America, the Campaign for America's Future and US Uncut, a new protest movement inspired by a recent article in the Nation, have called on activists to join.The resistance has spread. On Feb. 26, a national Day of Action is planned. The goal is to go after corporations - symbolized by Bank of America - whose tax avoidance contributes to the squeeze on basic social programs.
The teachers, nurses, police officers and public workers in Wisconsin, in the spirit of their progressive and populist forebears, have stood up against the assault on basic rights. Their fight poses a classic question: Whose side are you on? With basic rights at stake, it is time for outrage.
Katrina vanden Heuvel is editor and publisher of The Nation. She writes a weekly online column for The Post.
*
Obama Quietly Erasing Borders (Article)
Article Link:
http://www.wnd.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.view&pageId=240045
CONTACT THE HISPANDERING LA RAZA PARTY PRESIDENT HERE:
You can contact President Obama and let him know of your opposition to amnesty for illegal aliens:
http://www.whitehouse.gov/CONTACT/
*
UCLA PROFESSOR CALLS FOR MEXICAN REVOLT IN UNITED STATES
http://video.yahoo.com/watch/7165215?fr=yvmtf
*
Wake up America!!! Illegal Immigration has to be stopped. Take a look at this website and see where all your tax dollars are going: http://immigrationcounters.com/
See: CFR’s Plan to Integrate the U.S., Mexico and Canada
http://www.proliberty.com/observer/20050816.htm The Great Alien Invasion - What's Happening Now http://www.rense.com/general69/inva.htm
*
WHEN BARACK OBAMA IS NOT SERVICING HS BANKSTER DONORS, WALL ST. INTERESTS, BENDING TO THE U.S. CHAMBER of COMMERCE, HE’S KISSING UP TO THE MEXICAN FASCIST PARTY of LA RAZA!
No president has ever sold out the American worker for illegals than HISPANDERING BARACK OBAMA!
HE HAS ENDLESSLY PUSHED FOR DIFFERENT AMNESTY PLOYS, TALKED THAT ANTI-AMNESTY FORCES ARE “OUR ENEMY”, AND PROMISED ILLEGALS AMNESTY OR AT LEAST CONTINUED NON-ENFORCEMENT, AS HE SABOTAGED E-VERIFY ALONG WITH HIS LA RAZA DEMS, REID, PELOSI, FEINSTEIN, AND BOXER… ALL ELECTED WITH THE VOTES OF ILLEGALS!
*
“PUNISH OUR ENEMIES”… does that mean assault the legals of Arizona that must fend off the Mexican invasion, occupation, growing criminal and welfare state, as well as Mex Drug cartels???
OBAMA TELLS ILLEGALS “PUNISH OUR ENEMIES”
Friends of ALIPAC,
Each day new reports come in from across the nation that our movement is surging and more incumbents, mostly Democrats, are about to fall on Election Day. Obama's approval ratings are falling to new lows as he makes highly inappropriate statements to Spanish language audiences asking illegal alien supporters to help him "punish our enemies."
*
The fastest growing political party in America is NOT the tea baggers! It is the Mexican Fascist Party of LA RAZA… “The Race”. .. The House now as 90 members, nearly one-quarter, that are CONGRESSIONAL HISPANIC CAUCUS pushing for AMNESTY, no e-verify, expanded sanctuary cities, open borders, and illegals voting!
*
WHY OBAMA WANTS WILLIAM DAILY…. OPEN BORDERS!
OBAMA HAS INFESTED HIS ADMINISTRATION WITH LA RAZA PARTY MEMBERS TO PUSH FOR AMNESTY, “CHEAP” MEX LABOR IN OUR JOBS TO KEEP HIS CORPORATE PAYMASTERS HAPPY AND GENEROUS, AND HAS TURNED OUR NATION’S SECURITY INTO Dept. Homeland Security = PATHWAY TO CITIZENSHIP!
ANYTHING TO KEEP THE HORDES OF ILLEGALS CLIMBING OUR BORDERS!
WILLIAM DAILY IS CLOSELY IDENTIFIED WITH BIG OBAMA DONOR, BANKSTER CRIMINALS J.P. MORGAN!
WHEN OBAMA GETS OUT OF BED, HE MARCHES FOR HIS BANKSTERS AND LA RAZA!
*
FROM CREOLE FOLKS
Obama Seeks Brother of "Chicago Mob Boss" for Top White House Post
The roaches and con-artist, fake journalist on cable news are all lying about William Daley being all this and all that, this man is an open borders, down with America, free trade globalist. MSNBC and Gretta "the Scientology" Van Susteren from Fox News are knowingly deceiving the public about D. Issa & his letter to "business owners"=which they made into such a BIG DAM DEAL, but no one says anything whenBarrack Hussein Obama, comes around with all of these shady bankers, hedge fund managers and Wall St. Tycoons, which he puts in his cabinet. All of Obama's meeting with Wall Street asking, "What can I do for you?" is never something covered by Keith Oberman or Rachel Maddow.
(Bloomberg) -- President Barack Obama is considering naming William Daley, a JPMorgan Chase & Co. executive and former U.S. Commerce secretary, to a high-level administration post, possibly White House chief of staff, people familiar with the matter said.
Such a move, which is still under discussion, would bring a Washington veteran -- and someone with strong business ties -- into the administration as Obama sets out an agenda for the second half of his term while dealing with a Republican majority in the House of Representatives.
*
OBAMA’S PAYMASTERS:
Records show that four out of Obama's top five contributors are employees of financial industry giants - Goldman Sachs ($571,330), UBS AG ($364,806), JPMorgan Chase ($362,207) and Citigroup ($358,054).
WILL THE BANKSTER-OWNED HISPANDERING PRESIDENT TURN AMERICAN INTO A THIRD WORLD NATION FOR EASIER EXPLOITATION OF WORKERS AND EVEN GREATER CONTROL OF THE ECONOMY BY HIS CORPORATE PAYMASTERS?
WHEN HAS OBAMA EVER STOOD UP TO HIS CORPORATE DONORS? IT SIMPLY HASN’T HAPPEN, NOR WILL IT!
*
http://voices.washingtonpost.com/ezra-klein/2011/02/what_americans_think_about_inc.html
PAUL KRUGMAN - HOW FAST WILL OBAMA TURN THIS NATION INTO A BORDERLESS THIRD-WORLD DUMPSTER FOR EXPLOITATION BY HIS CORPORATE DONORS? He's Moving Fast!
WHICH SIDE OF THIS EQUATION DO YOU SEE OBAMA ON? THE AMERICAN WORKER, OR HIS WALL ST. BANKSTER DONORS AND LA RAZA?
*
“It is, instead, about power. What Mr. Walker and his backers are trying to do is to make Wisconsin — and eventually, America — less of a functioning democracy and more of a third-world-style oligarchy. And that’s why anyone who believes that we need some counterweight to the political power of big money should be on the demonstrators’ side.” PAUL KRUGMAN, NY TIMES
*
MEXICANOCCUPATION.blogspot.com
*
Go to http://www.MEXICANOCCUPATION.blogspot.com and read articles and comments from other Americans on what they’ve witnessed in their communities around the country. While most of the population of California is now ILLEGAL, the problems, costs, assault to our culture by Mexico is EVERYWHERE. copy and pass it to your friends.
*
http://blogs.mcclatchydc.com/mexico/2011/01/getting-over-the-border-fence-fast.html
*
Obama Quietly Erasing Borders (Article)
Article Link:
http://www.wnd.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.view&pageId=240045
CONTACT THE HISPANDERING LA RAZA PARTY PRESIDENT HERE:
You can contact President Obama and let him know of your opposition to amnesty for illegal aliens:
http://www.whitehouse.gov/CONTACT/
*
UCLA PROFESSOR CALLS FOR MEXICAN REVOLT IN UNITED STATES
http://video.yahoo.com/watch/7165215?fr=yvmtf
*
Wake up America!!! Illegal Immigration has to be stopped. Take a look at this website and see where all your tax dollars are going: http://immigrationcounters.com/
See: CFR’s Plan to Integrate the U.S., Mexico and Canada
http://www.proliberty.com/observer/20050816.htm The Great Alien Invasion - What's Happening Now http://www.rense.com/general69/inva.htm
*
WHEN BARACK OBAMA IS NOT SERVICING HS BANKSTER DONORS, WALL ST. INTERESTS, BENDING TO THE U.S. CHAMBER of COMMERCE, HE’S KISSING UP TO THE MEXICAN FASCIST PARTY of LA RAZA!
No president has ever sold out the American worker for illegals than HISPANDERING BARACK OBAMA!
HE HAS ENDLESSLY PUSHED FOR DIFFERENT AMNESTY PLOYS, TALKED THAT ANTI-AMNESTY FORCES ARE “OUR ENEMY”, AND PROMISED ILLEGALS AMNESTY OR AT LEAST CONTINUED NON-ENFORCEMENT, AS HE SABOTAGED E-VERIFY ALONG WITH HIS LA RAZA DEMS, REID, PELOSI, FEINSTEIN, AND BOXER… ALL ELECTED WITH THE VOTES OF ILLEGALS!
*
“PUNISH OUR ENEMIES”… does that mean assault the legals of Arizona that must fend off the Mexican invasion, occupation, growing criminal and welfare state, as well as Mex Drug cartels???
OBAMA TELLS ILLEGALS “PUNISH OUR ENEMIES”
Friends of ALIPAC,
Each day new reports come in from across the nation that our movement is surging and more incumbents, mostly Democrats, are about to fall on Election Day. Obama's approval ratings are falling to new lows as he makes highly inappropriate statements to Spanish language audiences asking illegal alien supporters to help him "punish our enemies."
*
The fastest growing political party in America is NOT the tea baggers! It is the Mexican Fascist Party of LA RAZA… “The Race”. .. The House now as 90 members, nearly one-quarter, that are CONGRESSIONAL HISPANIC CAUCUS pushing for AMNESTY, no e-verify, expanded sanctuary cities, open borders, and illegals voting!
*
WHY OBAMA WANTS WILLIAM DAILY…. OPEN BORDERS!
OBAMA HAS INFESTED HIS ADMINISTRATION WITH LA RAZA PARTY MEMBERS TO PUSH FOR AMNESTY, “CHEAP” MEX LABOR IN OUR JOBS TO KEEP HIS CORPORATE PAYMASTERS HAPPY AND GENEROUS, AND HAS TURNED OUR NATION’S SECURITY INTO Dept. Homeland Security = PATHWAY TO CITIZENSHIP!
ANYTHING TO KEEP THE HORDES OF ILLEGALS CLIMBING OUR BORDERS!
WILLIAM DAILY IS CLOSELY IDENTIFIED WITH BIG OBAMA DONOR, BANKSTER CRIMINALS J.P. MORGAN!
WHEN OBAMA GETS OUT OF BED, HE MARCHES FOR HIS BANKSTERS AND LA RAZA!
FROM CREOLE FOLKS
Obama Seeks Brother of "Chicago Mob Boss" for Top White House Post
The roaches and con-artist, fake journalist on cable news are all lying about William Daley being all this and all that, this man is an open borders, down with America, free trade globalist. MSNBC and Gretta "the Scientology" Van Susteren from Fox News are knowingly deceiving the public about D. Issa & his letter to "business owners"=which they made into such a BIG DAM DEAL, but no one says anything whenBarrack Hussein Obama, comes around with all of these shady bankers, hedge fund managers and Wall St. Tycoons, which he puts in his cabinet. All of Obama's meeting with Wall Street asking, "What can I do for you?" is never something covered by Keith Oberman or Rachel Maddow.
(Bloomberg) -- President Barack Obama is considering naming William Daley, a JPMorgan Chase & Co. executive and former U.S. Commerce secretary, to a high-level administration post, possibly White House chief of staff, people familiar with the matter said.
Such a move, which is still under discussion, would bring a Washington veteran -- and someone with strong business ties -- into the administration as Obama sets out an agenda for the second half of his term while dealing with a Republican majority in the House of Representatives.
*
OBAMA’S PAYMASTERS:
Records show that four out of Obama's top five contributors are employees of financial industry giants - Goldman Sachs ($571,330), UBS AG ($364,806), JPMorgan Chase ($362,207) and Citigroup ($358,054).
WILL THE BANKSTER-OWNED HISPANDERING PRESIDENT TURN AMERICAN INTO A THIRD WORLD NATION FOR EASIER EXPLOITATION OF WORKERS AND EVEN GREATER CONTROL OF THE ECONOMY BY HIS CORPORATE PAYMASTERS?
WHEN HAS OBAMA EVER STOOD UP TO HIS CORPORATE DONORS? IT SIMPLY HASN’T HAPPEN, NOR WILL IT!
*
Krugman: GOP Gov. Leading America Down Road to 'Third-World-Style Oligarchy'
*
By: Clay Waters
February 22, 2011 14:21 ET
Paul Krugman’s Monday column, “Wisconsin Power Play,” which accused Wisconsin’s Republican Gov. Scott Walker of trying to make America “less of a functioning democracy and more of a third-world-style oligarchy,” was greeted enthusiastically by his liberal readership: As of Tuesday afternoon it’s the #1 most e-mailed piece on nytimes.com.
Last week, in the face of protest demonstrations against Wisconsin’s new union-busting governor, Scott Walker -- demonstrations that continued through the weekend, with huge crowds on Saturday -- Representative Paul Ryan made an unintentionally apt comparison: “It’s like Cairo has moved to Madison.”
It wasn’t the smartest thing for Mr. Ryan to say, since he probably didn’t mean to compare Mr. Walker, a fellow Republican, to Hosni Mubarak. Or maybe he did -- after all, quite a few prominent conservatives, including Glenn Beck, Rush Limbaugh and Rick Santorum, denounced the uprising in Egypt and insist that President Obama should have helped the Mubarak regime suppress it.
In any case, however, Mr. Ryan was more right than he knew. For what’s happening in Wisconsin isn’t about the state budget, despite Mr. Walker’s pretense that he’s just trying to be fiscally responsible. It is, instead, about power. What Mr. Walker and his backers are trying to do is to make Wisconsin -- and eventually, America -- less of a functioning democracy and more of a third-world-style oligarchy. And that’s why anyone who believes that we need some counterweight to the political power of big money should be on the demonstrators’ side.
....
You don’t have to love unions, you don’t have to believe that their policy positions are always right, to recognize that they’re among the few influential players in our political system representing the interests of middle- and working-class Americans, as opposed to the wealthy. Indeed, if America has become more oligarchic and less democratic over the last 30 years -- which it has -- that’s to an important extent due to the decline of private-sector unions.
Besides objecting to Krugman “accusing one party of wanting to destroy the Republic,” John Sexton at Hot Air found several factual flaws among Krugman’s premises. He challenged Krugman on this line from his column:
On paper, we’re a one-person-one-vote nation; in reality, we’re more than a bit of an oligarchy, in which a handful of wealthy people dominate. Given this reality, it’s important to have institutions that can act as counterweights to the power of big money.
Sexton replied:
How exactly are public sector unions a balance to the power of big money? Granted, if Krugman were writing about private sector unions this would at least be arguable. As it is, he's writing about public sector unions. And guess what, public sector union aren't in a struggle against the titans of industry. They get their money from the government.
*
February 20, 2011
Wisconsin Power Play
By PAUL KRUGMAN
Last week, in the face of protest demonstrations against Wisconsin’s new union-busting governor, Scott Walker — demonstrations that continued through the weekend, with huge crowds on Saturday — Representative Paul Ryan made an unintentionally apt comparison: “It’s like Cairo has moved to Madison.”
It wasn’t the smartest thing for Mr. Ryan to say, since he probably didn’t mean to compare Mr. Walker, a fellow Republican, to Hosni Mubarak. Or maybe he did — after all, quite a few prominent conservatives, including Glenn Beck, Rush Limbaugh and Rick Santorum, denounced the uprising in Egypt and insist that President Obama should have helped the Mubarak regime suppress it.
In any case, however, Mr. Ryan was more right than he knew. For what’s happening in Wisconsin isn’t about the state budget, despite Mr. Walker’s pretense that he’s just trying to be fiscally responsible. It is, instead, about power. What Mr. Walker and his backers are trying to do is to make Wisconsin — and eventually, America — less of a functioning democracy and more of a third-world-style oligarchy. And that’s why anyone who believes that we need some counterweight to the political power of big money should be on the demonstrators’ side.
Some background: Wisconsin is indeed facing a budget crunch, although its difficulties are less severe than those facing many other states. Revenue has fallen in the face of a weak economy, while stimulus funds, which helped close the gap in 2009 and 2010, have faded away.
In this situation, it makes sense to call for shared sacrifice, including monetary concessions from state workers. And union leaders have signaled that they are, in fact, willing to make such concessions.
But Mr. Walker isn’t interested in making a deal. Partly that’s because he doesn’t want to share the sacrifice: even as he proclaims that Wisconsin faces a terrible fiscal crisis, he has been pushing through tax cuts that make the deficit worse. Mainly, however, he has made it clear that rather than bargaining with workers, he wants to end workers’ ability to bargain.
The bill that has inspired the demonstrations would strip away collective bargaining rights for many of the state’s workers, in effect busting public-employee unions. Tellingly, some workers — namely, those who tend to be Republican-leaning — are exempted from the ban; it’s as if Mr. Walker were flaunting the political nature of his actions.
Why bust the unions? As I said, it has nothing to do with helping Wisconsin deal with its current fiscal crisis. Nor is it likely to help the state’s budget prospects even in the long run: contrary to what you may have heard, public-sector workers in Wisconsin and elsewhere are paid somewhat less than private-sector workers with comparable qualifications, so there’s not much room for further pay squeezes.
So it’s not about the budget; it’s about the power.
In principle, every American citizen has an equal say in our political process. In practice, of course, some of us are more equal than others. Billionaires can field armies of lobbyists; they can finance think tanks that put the desired spin on policy issues; they can funnel cash to politicians with sympathetic views (as the Koch brothers did in the case of Mr. Walker). On paper, we’re a one-person-one-vote nation; in reality, we’re more than a bit of an oligarchy, in which a handful of wealthy people dominate.
Given this reality, it’s important to have institutions that can act as counterweights to the power of big money. And unions are among the most important of these institutions.
You don’t have to love unions, you don’t have to believe that their policy positions are always right, to recognize that they’re among the few influential players in our political system representing the interests of middle- and working-class Americans, as opposed to the wealthy. Indeed, if America has become more oligarchic and less democratic over the last 30 years — which it has — that’s to an important extent due to the decline of private-sector unions.
And now Mr. Walker and his backers are trying to get rid of public-sector unions, too.
There’s a bitter irony here. The fiscal crisis in Wisconsin, as in other states, was largely caused by the increasing power of America’s oligarchy. After all, it was superwealthy players, not the general public, who pushed for financial deregulation and thereby set the stage for the economic crisis of 2008-9, a crisis whose aftermath is the main reason for the current budget crunch. And now the political right is trying to exploit that very crisis, using it to remove one of the few remaining checks on oligarchic influence.
So will the attack on unions succeed? I don’t know. But anyone who cares about retaining government of the people by the people should hope that it doesn’t.
*
“THE AMNESTY ALONE WILL BE THE LARGEST EXPANSION OF THE WELFARE SYSTEM IN THE LAST 25 YEARS”…. Heritage Foundation
"The amnesty alone will be the largest expansion of the welfare system in the last 25 years," says Robert Rector, a senior analyst at the Heritage Foundation, and a witness at a House Judiciary Committee field hearing in San Diego Aug. 2. "Welfare costs will begin to hit their peak around 2021, because there are delays in citizenship. The very narrow time horizon [the CBO is] using is misleading," he adds. "If even a small fraction of those who come into the country stay and get on Medicaid, you're looking at costs of $20 billion or $30 billion per year."
(SOCIAL SERVICES TO ILLEGALS IN CALIFORNIA ALONE ARE NOT UP TO $20 BILLION PER YEAR. WELFARE FOR ILLEGALS IN NEVADA, NOW 25% ILLEGAL, IS SOARING!)
*
The danger, as Washington Post economics columnist Robert Samuelson argues, is that of “importing poverty” in the form of a new underclass—a permanent group of working poor.
*
FAIRUS.org
U.S. Taxpayers Spend $113 Billion Annually on Illegal Aliens
America has never been able to afford the costs of illegal immigration. With rising unemployment and skyrocketing deficits, federal and state lawmakers are now facing the results of failed policies. A new, groundbreaking report from FAIR, The Fiscal Burden of Illegal Immigration on U.S. Taxpayers, takes a comprehensive look at the estimated fiscal costs resulting from federal, state and local expenditures on illegal aliens and their U.S.-born children.
Expanding upon the series of state studies done in the past, FAIR has estimated the annual cost of illegal immigration to be $113 billion, with much of the cost — $84.2 billon — coming at the state and local level.
*
THE CHRISTIAN SCIENCE MONITOR CHARACTERIZES MEXICO AS THE “MEXICAN GANG CAPITAL OF AMERICA”. THERE ARE MORE MURDERS COMMITTED BY
The danger, as Washington Post economics columnist Robert Samuelson argues, is that of “importing poverty” in the form of a new underclass—a permanent group of working poor.
*
Lou Dobbs Tonight
Wednesday, June 10, 2009
Gov. Schwarzenegger said California is facing “financial Armageddon”. He is making drastic cuts in the budget for education, health care and services. But there is one place he isn’t making cuts… services for illegal immigrants. These services are estimated to cost the state four to five billion dollars a year. Schwarzenegger said he is “happy” to offer these services. We will have a full report tonight.
*
STAGGERING COST OF ILLEGALS ALIENS IN AMERICA
Aliens In America
Taxpayers Taken To The Cleaners
By Frosty Wooldridge
4-10-8
Illegal alien migration into the United States costs American taxpayers $346 billion annually reported by the National Research Council. While employers of illegal aliens rake-in billions of dollars, the US citizens subsidize what may be called organized "Slavery in 21st Century America."
While Congress facilitates outsourcing, insourcing and offshoring of American jobs by the thousands weekly, that same Congress imports 182,000 legal immigrant monthly who need jobs. Another estimated 100,000 illegal aliens arrive each month without jobs. All those immigrants seize jobs from American citizens at slave wages.
What happens to the American taxpayer?
"Immigrants are poorer, pay less tax, and are more likely to receive public benefits than American citizens," said Edwin Rubenstein, reporting on the National Research Council's new book: "The New Americans: Economic, Demographics and Fiscal Effects of Immigration." The Social Contract Winter 2007-08. www.thesoicalcontract.com
*
THE ENTIRE REASON THE BORDERS ARE LEFT OPEN IS TO CUT WAGES!
*
The danger, as Washington Post economics columnist Robert Samuelson argues, is that of “importing poverty” in the form of a new underclass—a permanent group of working poor.
*
“We could cut unemployment in half simply by reclaiming the jobs taken by illegal workers,” said Representative Lamar Smith of Texas, co-chairman of the Reclaim American Jobs Caucus. “President Obama is on the wrong side of the American people on immigration. The president should support policies that help citizens and legal immigrants find the jobs they need and deserve rather than fail to enforce immigration laws.”
*
“Obama’s rejection of any serious jobs program is part of a conscious class war policy. Two years after the financial crisis and the multi-trillion dollar bailout of the banks, the administration is spearheading a campaign by corporations to sharply increase the exploitation of the working class, using the “new normal” of mass unemployment to force workers to accept lower wages, longer hours, and more brutal working conditions.” WSWS.ORG
*
OBAMA’S ONLY JOBS PLAN IS CALLED AMNESTY!
Lou Dobbs Tonight
Friday, October 16, 2009
E-Verify- the single most successful federal program aimed at keeping illegal immigrants out of the workforce- is once again threatened. This time, E-Verify was stripped from a Senate Amendment behind closed doors and without explanation. Instead of becoming a permanent program E-verify has been reduced to only three years. Critics are calling this a stall tactic and an attempt at killing an employment enforcement system. We will have a full report tonight.
*
“The principal beneficiaries of our current immigration policy are affluent Americans who hire immigrants at substandard wages for low-end work. Harvard economist George Borjas estimates that American workers lose $190 billion annually in depressed wages caused by the constant flooding of the labor market at the low-wage end.” Christian Science Monitor
MOST OF THE FORTUNE 500 ARE GENEROUS DONORS TO LA RAZA – THE MEXICAN FASCIST POLITICAL PARTY. THESE FIGURES ARE DATED. CNN CALCULATES THAT WAGES ARE DEPRESSED $300 - $400 BILLION PER YEAR!
*
“It is, instead, about power. What Mr. Walker and his backers are trying to do is to make Wisconsin — and eventually, America — less of a functioning democracy and more of a third-world-style oligarchy. And that’s why anyone who believes that we need some counterweight to the political power of big money should be on the demonstrators’ side.” PAUL KRUGMAN, NY TIMES
*
MEXICANOCCUPATION.blogspot.com
*
Go to http://www.MEXICANOCCUPATION.blogspot.com and read articles and comments from other Americans on what they’ve witnessed in their communities around the country. While most of the population of California is now ILLEGAL, the problems, costs, assault to our culture by Mexico is EVERYWHERE. copy and pass it to your friends.
*
http://blogs.mcclatchydc.com/mexico/2011/01/getting-over-the-border-fence-fast.html
*
Obama Quietly Erasing Borders (Article)
Article Link:
http://www.wnd.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.view&pageId=240045
CONTACT THE HISPANDERING LA RAZA PARTY PRESIDENT HERE:
You can contact President Obama and let him know of your opposition to amnesty for illegal aliens:
http://www.whitehouse.gov/CONTACT/
*
UCLA PROFESSOR CALLS FOR MEXICAN REVOLT IN UNITED STATES
http://video.yahoo.com/watch/7165215?fr=yvmtf
*
Wake up America!!! Illegal Immigration has to be stopped. Take a look at this website and see where all your tax dollars are going: http://immigrationcounters.com/
See: CFR’s Plan to Integrate the U.S., Mexico and Canada
http://www.proliberty.com/observer/20050816.htm The Great Alien Invasion - What's Happening Now http://www.rense.com/general69/inva.htm
*
WHEN BARACK OBAMA IS NOT SERVICING HS BANKSTER DONORS, WALL ST. INTERESTS, BENDING TO THE U.S. CHAMBER of COMMERCE, HE’S KISSING UP TO THE MEXICAN FASCIST PARTY of LA RAZA!
No president has ever sold out the American worker for illegals than HISPANDERING BARACK OBAMA!
HE HAS ENDLESSLY PUSHED FOR DIFFERENT AMNESTY PLOYS, TALKED THAT ANTI-AMNESTY FORCES ARE “OUR ENEMY”, AND PROMISED ILLEGALS AMNESTY OR AT LEAST CONTINUED NON-ENFORCEMENT, AS HE SABOTAGED E-VERIFY ALONG WITH HIS LA RAZA DEMS, REID, PELOSI, FEINSTEIN, AND BOXER… ALL ELECTED WITH THE VOTES OF ILLEGALS!
*
“PUNISH OUR ENEMIES”… does that mean assault the legals of Arizona that must fend off the Mexican invasion, occupation, growing criminal and welfare state, as well as Mex Drug cartels???
OBAMA TELLS ILLEGALS “PUNISH OUR ENEMIES”
Friends of ALIPAC,
Each day new reports come in from across the nation that our movement is surging and more incumbents, mostly Democrats, are about to fall on Election Day. Obama's approval ratings are falling to new lows as he makes highly inappropriate statements to Spanish language audiences asking illegal alien supporters to help him "punish our enemies."
*
The fastest growing political party in America is NOT the tea baggers! It is the Mexican Fascist Party of LA RAZA… “The Race”. .. The House now as 90 members, nearly one-quarter, that are CONGRESSIONAL HISPANIC CAUCUS pushing for AMNESTY, no e-verify, expanded sanctuary cities, open borders, and illegals voting!
*
WHY OBAMA WANTS WILLIAM DAILY…. OPEN BORDERS!
OBAMA HAS INFESTED HIS ADMINISTRATION WITH LA RAZA PARTY MEMBERS TO PUSH FOR AMNESTY, “CHEAP” MEX LABOR IN OUR JOBS TO KEEP HIS CORPORATE PAYMASTERS HAPPY AND GENEROUS, AND HAS TURNED OUR NATION’S SECURITY INTO Dept. Homeland Security = PATHWAY TO CITIZENSHIP!
ANYTHING TO KEEP THE HORDES OF ILLEGALS CLIMBING OUR BORDERS!
WILLIAM DAILY IS CLOSELY IDENTIFIED WITH BIG OBAMA DONOR, BANKSTER CRIMINALS J.P. MORGAN!
WHEN OBAMA GETS OUT OF BED, HE MARCHES FOR HIS BANKSTERS AND LA RAZA!
FROM CREOLE FOLKS
Obama Seeks Brother of "Chicago Mob Boss" for Top White House Post
The roaches and con-artist, fake journalist on cable news are all lying about William Daley being all this and all that, this man is an open borders, down with America, free trade globalist. MSNBC and Gretta "the Scientology" Van Susteren from Fox News are knowingly deceiving the public about D. Issa & his letter to "business owners"=which they made into such a BIG DAM DEAL, but no one says anything whenBarrack Hussein Obama, comes around with all of these shady bankers, hedge fund managers and Wall St. Tycoons, which he puts in his cabinet. All of Obama's meeting with Wall Street asking, "What can I do for you?" is never something covered by Keith Oberman or Rachel Maddow.
(Bloomberg) -- President Barack Obama is considering naming William Daley, a JPMorgan Chase & Co. executive and former U.S. Commerce secretary, to a high-level administration post, possibly White House chief of staff, people familiar with the matter said.
Such a move, which is still under discussion, would bring a Washington veteran -- and someone with strong business ties -- into the administration as Obama sets out an agenda for the second half of his term while dealing with a Republican majority in the House of Representatives.
*
OBAMA’S PAYMASTERS:
Records show that four out of Obama's top five contributors are employees of financial industry giants - Goldman Sachs ($571,330), UBS AG ($364,806), JPMorgan Chase ($362,207) and Citigroup ($358,054).
WILL THE BANKSTER-OWNED HISPANDERING PRESIDENT TURN AMERICAN INTO A THIRD WORLD NATION FOR EASIER EXPLOITATION OF WORKERS AND EVEN GREATER CONTROL OF THE ECONOMY BY HIS CORPORATE PAYMASTERS?
WHEN HAS OBAMA EVER STOOD UP TO HIS CORPORATE DONORS? IT SIMPLY HASN’T HAPPEN, NOR WILL IT!
*
Krugman: GOP Gov. Leading America Down Road to 'Third-World-Style Oligarchy'
*
By: Clay Waters
February 22, 2011 14:21 ET
Paul Krugman’s Monday column, “Wisconsin Power Play,” which accused Wisconsin’s Republican Gov. Scott Walker of trying to make America “less of a functioning democracy and more of a third-world-style oligarchy,” was greeted enthusiastically by his liberal readership: As of Tuesday afternoon it’s the #1 most e-mailed piece on nytimes.com.
Last week, in the face of protest demonstrations against Wisconsin’s new union-busting governor, Scott Walker -- demonstrations that continued through the weekend, with huge crowds on Saturday -- Representative Paul Ryan made an unintentionally apt comparison: “It’s like Cairo has moved to Madison.”
It wasn’t the smartest thing for Mr. Ryan to say, since he probably didn’t mean to compare Mr. Walker, a fellow Republican, to Hosni Mubarak. Or maybe he did -- after all, quite a few prominent conservatives, including Glenn Beck, Rush Limbaugh and Rick Santorum, denounced the uprising in Egypt and insist that President Obama should have helped the Mubarak regime suppress it.
In any case, however, Mr. Ryan was more right than he knew. For what’s happening in Wisconsin isn’t about the state budget, despite Mr. Walker’s pretense that he’s just trying to be fiscally responsible. It is, instead, about power. What Mr. Walker and his backers are trying to do is to make Wisconsin -- and eventually, America -- less of a functioning democracy and more of a third-world-style oligarchy. And that’s why anyone who believes that we need some counterweight to the political power of big money should be on the demonstrators’ side.
....
You don’t have to love unions, you don’t have to believe that their policy positions are always right, to recognize that they’re among the few influential players in our political system representing the interests of middle- and working-class Americans, as opposed to the wealthy. Indeed, if America has become more oligarchic and less democratic over the last 30 years -- which it has -- that’s to an important extent due to the decline of private-sector unions.
Besides objecting to Krugman “accusing one party of wanting to destroy the Republic,” John Sexton at Hot Air found several factual flaws among Krugman’s premises. He challenged Krugman on this line from his column:
On paper, we’re a one-person-one-vote nation; in reality, we’re more than a bit of an oligarchy, in which a handful of wealthy people dominate. Given this reality, it’s important to have institutions that can act as counterweights to the power of big money.
Sexton replied:
How exactly are public sector unions a balance to the power of big money? Granted, if Krugman were writing about private sector unions this would at least be arguable. As it is, he's writing about public sector unions. And guess what, public sector union aren't in a struggle against the titans of industry. They get their money from the government.
*
February 20, 2011
Wisconsin Power Play
By PAUL KRUGMAN
Last week, in the face of protest demonstrations against Wisconsin’s new union-busting governor, Scott Walker — demonstrations that continued through the weekend, with huge crowds on Saturday — Representative Paul Ryan made an unintentionally apt comparison: “It’s like Cairo has moved to Madison.”
It wasn’t the smartest thing for Mr. Ryan to say, since he probably didn’t mean to compare Mr. Walker, a fellow Republican, to Hosni Mubarak. Or maybe he did — after all, quite a few prominent conservatives, including Glenn Beck, Rush Limbaugh and Rick Santorum, denounced the uprising in Egypt and insist that President Obama should have helped the Mubarak regime suppress it.
In any case, however, Mr. Ryan was more right than he knew. For what’s happening in Wisconsin isn’t about the state budget, despite Mr. Walker’s pretense that he’s just trying to be fiscally responsible. It is, instead, about power. What Mr. Walker and his backers are trying to do is to make Wisconsin — and eventually, America — less of a functioning democracy and more of a third-world-style oligarchy. And that’s why anyone who believes that we need some counterweight to the political power of big money should be on the demonstrators’ side.
Some background: Wisconsin is indeed facing a budget crunch, although its difficulties are less severe than those facing many other states. Revenue has fallen in the face of a weak economy, while stimulus funds, which helped close the gap in 2009 and 2010, have faded away.
In this situation, it makes sense to call for shared sacrifice, including monetary concessions from state workers. And union leaders have signaled that they are, in fact, willing to make such concessions.
But Mr. Walker isn’t interested in making a deal. Partly that’s because he doesn’t want to share the sacrifice: even as he proclaims that Wisconsin faces a terrible fiscal crisis, he has been pushing through tax cuts that make the deficit worse. Mainly, however, he has made it clear that rather than bargaining with workers, he wants to end workers’ ability to bargain.
The bill that has inspired the demonstrations would strip away collective bargaining rights for many of the state’s workers, in effect busting public-employee unions. Tellingly, some workers — namely, those who tend to be Republican-leaning — are exempted from the ban; it’s as if Mr. Walker were flaunting the political nature of his actions.
Why bust the unions? As I said, it has nothing to do with helping Wisconsin deal with its current fiscal crisis. Nor is it likely to help the state’s budget prospects even in the long run: contrary to what you may have heard, public-sector workers in Wisconsin and elsewhere are paid somewhat less than private-sector workers with comparable qualifications, so there’s not much room for further pay squeezes.
So it’s not about the budget; it’s about the power.
In principle, every American citizen has an equal say in our political process. In practice, of course, some of us are more equal than others. Billionaires can field armies of lobbyists; they can finance think tanks that put the desired spin on policy issues; they can funnel cash to politicians with sympathetic views (as the Koch brothers did in the case of Mr. Walker). On paper, we’re a one-person-one-vote nation; in reality, we’re more than a bit of an oligarchy, in which a handful of wealthy people dominate.
Given this reality, it’s important to have institutions that can act as counterweights to the power of big money. And unions are among the most important of these institutions.
You don’t have to love unions, you don’t have to believe that their policy positions are always right, to recognize that they’re among the few influential players in our political system representing the interests of middle- and working-class Americans, as opposed to the wealthy. Indeed, if America has become more oligarchic and less democratic over the last 30 years — which it has — that’s to an important extent due to the decline of private-sector unions.
And now Mr. Walker and his backers are trying to get rid of public-sector unions, too.
There’s a bitter irony here. The fiscal crisis in Wisconsin, as in other states, was largely caused by the increasing power of America’s oligarchy. After all, it was superwealthy players, not the general public, who pushed for financial deregulation and thereby set the stage for the economic crisis of 2008-9, a crisis whose aftermath is the main reason for the current budget crunch. And now the political right is trying to exploit that very crisis, using it to remove one of the few remaining checks on oligarchic influence.
So will the attack on unions succeed? I don’t know. But anyone who cares about retaining government of the people by the people should hope that it doesn’t.
*
“THE AMNESTY ALONE WILL BE THE LARGEST EXPANSION OF THE WELFARE SYSTEM IN THE LAST 25 YEARS”…. Heritage Foundation
"The amnesty alone will be the largest expansion of the welfare system in the last 25 years," says Robert Rector, a senior analyst at the Heritage Foundation, and a witness at a House Judiciary Committee field hearing in San Diego Aug. 2. "Welfare costs will begin to hit their peak around 2021, because there are delays in citizenship. The very narrow time horizon [the CBO is] using is misleading," he adds. "If even a small fraction of those who come into the country stay and get on Medicaid, you're looking at costs of $20 billion or $30 billion per year."
(SOCIAL SERVICES TO ILLEGALS IN CALIFORNIA ALONE ARE NOT UP TO $20 BILLION PER YEAR. WELFARE FOR ILLEGALS IN NEVADA, NOW 25% ILLEGAL, IS SOARING!)
*
The danger, as Washington Post economics columnist Robert Samuelson argues, is that of “importing poverty” in the form of a new underclass—a permanent group of working poor.
*
FAIRUS.org
U.S. Taxpayers Spend $113 Billion Annually on Illegal Aliens
America has never been able to afford the costs of illegal immigration. With rising unemployment and skyrocketing deficits, federal and state lawmakers are now facing the results of failed policies. A new, groundbreaking report from FAIR, The Fiscal Burden of Illegal Immigration on U.S. Taxpayers, takes a comprehensive look at the estimated fiscal costs resulting from federal, state and local expenditures on illegal aliens and their U.S.-born children.
Expanding upon the series of state studies done in the past, FAIR has estimated the annual cost of illegal immigration to be $113 billion, with much of the cost — $84.2 billon — coming at the state and local level.
*
THE CHRISTIAN SCIENCE MONITOR CHARACTERIZES MEXICO AS THE “MEXICAN GANG CAPITAL OF AMERICA”. THERE ARE MORE MURDERS COMMITTED BY
The danger, as Washington Post economics columnist Robert Samuelson argues, is that of “importing poverty” in the form of a new underclass—a permanent group of working poor.
*
Lou Dobbs Tonight
Wednesday, June 10, 2009
Gov. Schwarzenegger said California is facing “financial Armageddon”. He is making drastic cuts in the budget for education, health care and services. But there is one place he isn’t making cuts… services for illegal immigrants. These services are estimated to cost the state four to five billion dollars a year. Schwarzenegger said he is “happy” to offer these services. We will have a full report tonight.
*
STAGGERING COST OF ILLEGALS ALIENS IN AMERICA
Aliens In America
Taxpayers Taken To The Cleaners
By Frosty Wooldridge
4-10-8
Illegal alien migration into the United States costs American taxpayers $346 billion annually reported by the National Research Council. While employers of illegal aliens rake-in billions of dollars, the US citizens subsidize what may be called organized "Slavery in 21st Century America."
While Congress facilitates outsourcing, insourcing and offshoring of American jobs by the thousands weekly, that same Congress imports 182,000 legal immigrant monthly who need jobs. Another estimated 100,000 illegal aliens arrive each month without jobs. All those immigrants seize jobs from American citizens at slave wages.
What happens to the American taxpayer?
"Immigrants are poorer, pay less tax, and are more likely to receive public benefits than American citizens," said Edwin Rubenstein, reporting on the National Research Council's new book: "The New Americans: Economic, Demographics and Fiscal Effects of Immigration." The Social Contract Winter 2007-08. www.thesoicalcontract.com
*
THE ENTIRE REASON THE BORDERS ARE LEFT OPEN IS TO CUT WAGES!
*
The danger, as Washington Post economics columnist Robert Samuelson argues, is that of “importing poverty” in the form of a new underclass—a permanent group of working poor.
*
“We could cut unemployment in half simply by reclaiming the jobs taken by illegal workers,” said Representative Lamar Smith of Texas, co-chairman of the Reclaim American Jobs Caucus. “President Obama is on the wrong side of the American people on immigration. The president should support policies that help citizens and legal immigrants find the jobs they need and deserve rather than fail to enforce immigration laws.”
*
“Obama’s rejection of any serious jobs program is part of a conscious class war policy. Two years after the financial crisis and the multi-trillion dollar bailout of the banks, the administration is spearheading a campaign by corporations to sharply increase the exploitation of the working class, using the “new normal” of mass unemployment to force workers to accept lower wages, longer hours, and more brutal working conditions.” WSWS.ORG
*
OBAMA’S ONLY JOBS PLAN IS CALLED AMNESTY!
Lou Dobbs Tonight
Friday, October 16, 2009
E-Verify- the single most successful federal program aimed at keeping illegal immigrants out of the workforce- is once again threatened. This time, E-Verify was stripped from a Senate Amendment behind closed doors and without explanation. Instead of becoming a permanent program E-verify has been reduced to only three years. Critics are calling this a stall tactic and an attempt at killing an employment enforcement system. We will have a full report tonight.
*
“The principal beneficiaries of our current immigration policy are affluent Americans who hire immigrants at substandard wages for low-end work. Harvard economist George Borjas estimates that American workers lose $190 billion annually in depressed wages caused by the constant flooding of the labor market at the low-wage end.” Christian Science Monitor
MOST OF THE FORTUNE 500 ARE GENEROUS DONORS TO LA RAZA – THE MEXICAN FASCIST POLITICAL PARTY. THESE FIGURES ARE DATED. CNN CALCULATES THAT WAGES ARE DEPRESSED $300 - $400 BILLION PER YEAR!
Prichard, Alabama: 14 deaths follow pension cutoff FUCKING OVER THE AMERICAN WORKER
Prichard, Alabama: 14 deaths follow pension cutoff
Prichard, Alabama: 14 deaths follow pension cutoff
By Ed Hightower
23 February 2011
Prichard, Alabama, an industrial town near Mobile that is home to 28,000, has attracted national media attention for non-payment of pension obligations to 147 retired city employees, 14 of whom have died since their checks stopped coming in September, 2009.
The surviving former pensioners find themselves in dire poverty, with a median age of 76 and the worst job market since the Great Depression.
Sixty-six year-old Alfred Arnold, a retired firefighter—Prichard’s first black firefighter—told CBS News that he felt lucky to find work as a mall security guard in nearby Mobile after his pension checks abruptly stopped. His wife, Jackie, is in the same situation, as a retired city police officer with an unfunded pension.
Charles Kennedy, a 67-year-old police captain with a history of serious heart problems, reported that he had to keep working after reaching retirement age, no matter the risks to his health. Similar horror stories abound, with many of the affected retirees unable to work at all due to medical conditions.
Prichard’s defunct pension fund owes a total of $2.5 million in back payments to the retirees. During the 1960s and 1970s, Prichard was the fastest growing city in Alabama, reaching a population of 45,000. In the 1980s, key employers, an International Paper mill and an Air Force base, closed down, leaving the local economy in ruin.
The city declared bankruptcy in 1999. A decade later, Prichard is a picture of social misery, falling well below the national average in per capita income and well above the national average for families and individuals living below the official poverty line.
Former city employees have filed a lawsuit to enforce the terms of their pensions. The case is headed for a mediated settlement, where retirees are being asked to accept a compromise of one-third of what they are actually owed. Many of the pensioners are likely to accept the deal. Certainly, the city has a superior bargaining position, with its opponents literally induced into settlement by hunger.
So far, the city has been able to avoid paying anything at all to its retired workers. This has caught the attention of larger municipalities like Chicago, Philadelphia and San Diego, whose governments would happily gut their own pension obligations.
Public employee pension funds in the United States collectively face a $3 trillion gap between what is owed to pensioners and what has been set aside. Many state and local governments are preparing to default on their obligations either wholly or in part.
The state of Maryland is eying a proposal to raise the retirement age for newly hired state workers. Colorado, Minnesota and South Dakota have reduced benefit payments to current recipients by not adjusting payments for cost of living increases, prompting lawsuits in all three states by pensioners.
The unpaid retirees in Prichard have broad support within the community, with local residents running food drives, bake sales and otherwise raising money to help the retirees survive. But with 14 deaths having already occurred as a direct result of being cut off from their retirement, it is clear that such aid is grossly insufficient.
The plight of Prichard’s retired workers is of a piece with the declining social position of the working class on both a national and international level. The ruling elite in the United States, the epicenter of the global financial crisis, has been as brazen as any of its counterparts in forcing all the consequences of its criminality onto the backs of working people. Public sector workers increasingly find themselves in the crosshairs of not only their state legislatures, but of the national media as well.
Conditions for Prichard’s retirees give the lie to the claims that public sector workers live in luxury through “entitlements” such as pension plans. The death of 14 retirees, while over 130 others remain in poverty and uncertainty, is a damning indictment of social conditions for American workers.
Prichard, Alabama: 14 deaths follow pension cutoff
By Ed Hightower
23 February 2011
Prichard, Alabama, an industrial town near Mobile that is home to 28,000, has attracted national media attention for non-payment of pension obligations to 147 retired city employees, 14 of whom have died since their checks stopped coming in September, 2009.
The surviving former pensioners find themselves in dire poverty, with a median age of 76 and the worst job market since the Great Depression.
Sixty-six year-old Alfred Arnold, a retired firefighter—Prichard’s first black firefighter—told CBS News that he felt lucky to find work as a mall security guard in nearby Mobile after his pension checks abruptly stopped. His wife, Jackie, is in the same situation, as a retired city police officer with an unfunded pension.
Charles Kennedy, a 67-year-old police captain with a history of serious heart problems, reported that he had to keep working after reaching retirement age, no matter the risks to his health. Similar horror stories abound, with many of the affected retirees unable to work at all due to medical conditions.
Prichard’s defunct pension fund owes a total of $2.5 million in back payments to the retirees. During the 1960s and 1970s, Prichard was the fastest growing city in Alabama, reaching a population of 45,000. In the 1980s, key employers, an International Paper mill and an Air Force base, closed down, leaving the local economy in ruin.
The city declared bankruptcy in 1999. A decade later, Prichard is a picture of social misery, falling well below the national average in per capita income and well above the national average for families and individuals living below the official poverty line.
Former city employees have filed a lawsuit to enforce the terms of their pensions. The case is headed for a mediated settlement, where retirees are being asked to accept a compromise of one-third of what they are actually owed. Many of the pensioners are likely to accept the deal. Certainly, the city has a superior bargaining position, with its opponents literally induced into settlement by hunger.
So far, the city has been able to avoid paying anything at all to its retired workers. This has caught the attention of larger municipalities like Chicago, Philadelphia and San Diego, whose governments would happily gut their own pension obligations.
Public employee pension funds in the United States collectively face a $3 trillion gap between what is owed to pensioners and what has been set aside. Many state and local governments are preparing to default on their obligations either wholly or in part.
The state of Maryland is eying a proposal to raise the retirement age for newly hired state workers. Colorado, Minnesota and South Dakota have reduced benefit payments to current recipients by not adjusting payments for cost of living increases, prompting lawsuits in all three states by pensioners.
The unpaid retirees in Prichard have broad support within the community, with local residents running food drives, bake sales and otherwise raising money to help the retirees survive. But with 14 deaths having already occurred as a direct result of being cut off from their retirement, it is clear that such aid is grossly insufficient.
The plight of Prichard’s retired workers is of a piece with the declining social position of the working class on both a national and international level. The ruling elite in the United States, the epicenter of the global financial crisis, has been as brazen as any of its counterparts in forcing all the consequences of its criminality onto the backs of working people. Public sector workers increasingly find themselves in the crosshairs of not only their state legislatures, but of the national media as well.
Conditions for Prichard’s retirees give the lie to the claims that public sector workers live in luxury through “entitlements” such as pension plans. The death of 14 retirees, while over 130 others remain in poverty and uncertainty, is a damning indictment of social conditions for American workers.
New York City budget to cut services, lay off teachers
New York City budget to cut services, lay off teachers
MAYOR BLOOMBERG OF NYC, IS A BILLIONAIRE WHO WILL DO ANYTHING TO GET AMNESTY SO THAT ILLEGALS CAN FLOOD NYC, WORK CHEAP, AND MAKE UP THE DIFFERENCE OFF NYC TAX-PAYERS PAYING FOR THE ILLEGALS "FREE" MEDICAL, HEALTHCARE, ANCHOR BABY BIRTHING, AND WELFARE!
New York City budget to cut services, lay off teachers
By Sandy English
23 February 2011
New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg announced last week that the $65.6 billion preliminary city budget for the coming fiscal year will close senior centers and fire stations, eliminate subsidies for day care and lay off over 4,500 teachers and another 1,000 other city workers, in spite of a $2 billion increase in revenue from Wall Street business taxes.
The year 2010 was Wall Street’s second most profitable in history, fattening itself on $28 billion in profits.
The fiscal year 2012 budget, which begins in mid-2011, will cut $27 million from the Department of the Aging, the result of a loss of state funding that the city will not make up. This will close over 100 of the city’s 256 senior centers, which provide recreation and low-cost meals in a social setting for the elderly. About 10,000 elderly will be affected by the closures, in addition to staff that will lose their jobs.
Lillian Barrios-Paoli, the commissioner of the New York City Department for the Aging, noted in an interview with DNAinfo.com that over 30 percent of the city’s elderly population lives in poverty and that closing centers would eliminate the single daily meal that many of its clients eat. “[T]he social isolation, the loneliness, coupled with poverty is very difficult,” she said.
The Department of the Aging will lose a further $38 million from its budget, which will eliminate funds to prevent elder abuse, along with the positions of over 110 caseworkers who visit over 8,000 homebound elderly.
Bobby Sackman, director of public policy for the Council of Senior Centers and Services (CSCS), expressed concern that the mayor might ask for even more cuts in services to the elderly and observed, “With a $2 billion increase in tax revenue, there is a light at the end of the tunnel for the city, but it is still dark for older New Yorkers.”
Some 17,000 slots for poor children in city-run day care centers will also be lost in the cuts, adding to over 14,000 lost since 2006. These slots are mandated by the Association for Children Services for parents receiving public assistance.
In another attack on the poor, $192 million is being eliminated from the Advantage rent subsidy program, one of Bloomberg’s signature programs designed to help homeless families leave public shelters. Also, over 20 fire stations throughout the city will be permanently closed.
The budget will also cut capital spending by the city by 10 percent, which will mean a reduction in the construction of new space in the city’s already overcrowded school classrooms. Schools Chancellor Cathleen Black, a wealthy former executive with little experience in education appointed by Bloomberg earlier this year, announced that under the new budget, plans for an additional 30,000 seats would be reduced by 17,000.
In one of his most egregious actions, the billionaire mayor announced the elimination of nearly 6,000 teaching jobs, including 4,666 layoffs. This comes close on the heels of his shutting of 22 public schools and his increase in funding and space for privately run charter schools.
Bloomberg’s proposals for layoffs have elicited almost no opposition from the Democratic Party or the trade unions, who have largely dismissed it as a ploy to get more funding from the state.
Michael Mulgrew, the president of the United Federation of Teachers, said, “I don’t understand why the mayor continues to be talking about teacher layoffs. This is all a politically bogus game on their behalf.”
Indeed, the state and the city are in conflict over funding as Bloomberg attempts to get over $300 million in state aid restored, but this a tactical disagreement between two leading figures in the assault on working class living standards in the Untied states.
Mulgrew’s attitude is designed to sow complacency. No doubt many teachers and other public workers were deeply and justifiably worried when they heard the mayor announce these figures, and immediately thought of the state of affairs in Wisconsin today.
One teacher, Vonda Toliver, speaking to the WSWS after a meeting to oppose a charter school co-location at an elementary school in East New York, explained, “The teacher layoffs that Mayor Bloomberg has just announced are frightening because they will increase classroom sizes to 35 to 38 students in one classroom with a single teacher.
“What is going to happen to the one-to-one individual instruction that everyone says they want? I am frightened, and I am upset about these budget cuts and layoffs of teachers. They have forgotten about the students. I think they want to limit public education if they don’t want to destroy it.”
The layoffs and the shutdown of social services, especially for the poor, are a part of the assault on public employees at the local, state and federal levels. President Obama has proposed the cutting of a host of federally funded programs raging from heating assistance to the poor to PELL grants for working class students.
New York Governor Andrew Cuomo has proposed $10 billion in state budget cuts, including $1.5 billion in education. It is well known that Cuomo is preparing an assault on public employees and is working closely with a group of wealthy executives and former politicians called the Committee to Save New York to carry out this attack.
This committee, which has raised millions of dollars for a media campaign, includes Rob Speyer, co-chief executive of Tishman Speyer Properties, and Richard D. Parsons, the chairman of Citigroup, as well as Kathryn Wylde, president of the Partnership for New York City, the notorious proponent of making public housing stock in New York City available to investors.
.
MAYOR BLOOMBERG OF NYC, IS A BILLIONAIRE WHO WILL DO ANYTHING TO GET AMNESTY SO THAT ILLEGALS CAN FLOOD NYC, WORK CHEAP, AND MAKE UP THE DIFFERENCE OFF NYC TAX-PAYERS PAYING FOR THE ILLEGALS "FREE" MEDICAL, HEALTHCARE, ANCHOR BABY BIRTHING, AND WELFARE!
New York City budget to cut services, lay off teachers
By Sandy English
23 February 2011
New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg announced last week that the $65.6 billion preliminary city budget for the coming fiscal year will close senior centers and fire stations, eliminate subsidies for day care and lay off over 4,500 teachers and another 1,000 other city workers, in spite of a $2 billion increase in revenue from Wall Street business taxes.
The year 2010 was Wall Street’s second most profitable in history, fattening itself on $28 billion in profits.
The fiscal year 2012 budget, which begins in mid-2011, will cut $27 million from the Department of the Aging, the result of a loss of state funding that the city will not make up. This will close over 100 of the city’s 256 senior centers, which provide recreation and low-cost meals in a social setting for the elderly. About 10,000 elderly will be affected by the closures, in addition to staff that will lose their jobs.
Lillian Barrios-Paoli, the commissioner of the New York City Department for the Aging, noted in an interview with DNAinfo.com that over 30 percent of the city’s elderly population lives in poverty and that closing centers would eliminate the single daily meal that many of its clients eat. “[T]he social isolation, the loneliness, coupled with poverty is very difficult,” she said.
The Department of the Aging will lose a further $38 million from its budget, which will eliminate funds to prevent elder abuse, along with the positions of over 110 caseworkers who visit over 8,000 homebound elderly.
Bobby Sackman, director of public policy for the Council of Senior Centers and Services (CSCS), expressed concern that the mayor might ask for even more cuts in services to the elderly and observed, “With a $2 billion increase in tax revenue, there is a light at the end of the tunnel for the city, but it is still dark for older New Yorkers.”
Some 17,000 slots for poor children in city-run day care centers will also be lost in the cuts, adding to over 14,000 lost since 2006. These slots are mandated by the Association for Children Services for parents receiving public assistance.
In another attack on the poor, $192 million is being eliminated from the Advantage rent subsidy program, one of Bloomberg’s signature programs designed to help homeless families leave public shelters. Also, over 20 fire stations throughout the city will be permanently closed.
The budget will also cut capital spending by the city by 10 percent, which will mean a reduction in the construction of new space in the city’s already overcrowded school classrooms. Schools Chancellor Cathleen Black, a wealthy former executive with little experience in education appointed by Bloomberg earlier this year, announced that under the new budget, plans for an additional 30,000 seats would be reduced by 17,000.
In one of his most egregious actions, the billionaire mayor announced the elimination of nearly 6,000 teaching jobs, including 4,666 layoffs. This comes close on the heels of his shutting of 22 public schools and his increase in funding and space for privately run charter schools.
Bloomberg’s proposals for layoffs have elicited almost no opposition from the Democratic Party or the trade unions, who have largely dismissed it as a ploy to get more funding from the state.
Michael Mulgrew, the president of the United Federation of Teachers, said, “I don’t understand why the mayor continues to be talking about teacher layoffs. This is all a politically bogus game on their behalf.”
Indeed, the state and the city are in conflict over funding as Bloomberg attempts to get over $300 million in state aid restored, but this a tactical disagreement between two leading figures in the assault on working class living standards in the Untied states.
Mulgrew’s attitude is designed to sow complacency. No doubt many teachers and other public workers were deeply and justifiably worried when they heard the mayor announce these figures, and immediately thought of the state of affairs in Wisconsin today.
One teacher, Vonda Toliver, speaking to the WSWS after a meeting to oppose a charter school co-location at an elementary school in East New York, explained, “The teacher layoffs that Mayor Bloomberg has just announced are frightening because they will increase classroom sizes to 35 to 38 students in one classroom with a single teacher.
“What is going to happen to the one-to-one individual instruction that everyone says they want? I am frightened, and I am upset about these budget cuts and layoffs of teachers. They have forgotten about the students. I think they want to limit public education if they don’t want to destroy it.”
The layoffs and the shutdown of social services, especially for the poor, are a part of the assault on public employees at the local, state and federal levels. President Obama has proposed the cutting of a host of federally funded programs raging from heating assistance to the poor to PELL grants for working class students.
New York Governor Andrew Cuomo has proposed $10 billion in state budget cuts, including $1.5 billion in education. It is well known that Cuomo is preparing an assault on public employees and is working closely with a group of wealthy executives and former politicians called the Committee to Save New York to carry out this attack.
This committee, which has raised millions of dollars for a media campaign, includes Rob Speyer, co-chief executive of Tishman Speyer Properties, and Richard D. Parsons, the chairman of Citigroup, as well as Kathryn Wylde, president of the Partnership for New York City, the notorious proponent of making public housing stock in New York City available to investors.
.
WALL ST., the WHITE HOUSE, and the CORPORATE-OWNED POLS CONTINUE ASSAULT ON AMERICAN WORKERS
Columbus, Ohio rally against anti-worker legislation
Columbus, Ohio rally against anti-worker legislation
By Tom Eley and Andrea Peters
23 February 2011
About 5,000 workers demonstrated at the Ohio Statehouse in Columbus on Tuesday against a bill backed by Republican Governor John Kasich that would drastically restrict workers’ legal ability to resist what are anticipated to be years of wage and benefit cutting. Senate Bill 5 (SB-5) would also directly cut into workers’ pay.
Protesters in front of the Capitol
Buses and caravans organized by trade unions brought workers in from throughout the state. In addition, a number of workers from Columbus, Ohio’s capital and third largest city, attended the event. Several hundred protesters occupied the statehouse, modeling themselves on protests in Madison, Wisconsin. Authorities locked the doors after some 700 had entered. In response, demonstrators chanted, “This is our house, let us in!” in addition to the standard from the Madison protests, “Kill the bill!”
Another rally against the bill filled the largest lecture hall at Youngstown State University in Youngstown, Ohio.
In contrast to Madison, where many demonstrators have been high school and college students as well as private sector workers, the protesters in Columbus were overwhelmingly trade union members; a sizable share were trade union officials. Organizers had anticipated a larger rally. Nonetheless, many rank-and-file workers who attended the rally have suffered from years of budget-cutting and were looking for a means of fighting back.
The demonstration in Columbus
The bill aims to lessen hundreds of thousands of local government workers’ ability to strike by allowing for their permanent replacement. It would outlaw automatic pay increases and sick day allowances for teachers and force government workers to pay at least 20 percent of their own health care premiums. In addition, for some 61,000 state workers—including university employees—the bill would block their ability to have common representation in negotiations over wages and conditions, giving state authorities enormous and arbitrary powers over their workers.
Kasich’s bill, like that proposed by his counterpart in Wisconsin, Governor Scott Walker, seeks to dramatically weaken the trade unions by putting in place measures that would make it more difficult for them to hold government workers in their ranks. As in Wisconsin, it is this element of the attack that has the union bureaucrats up in arms, and not the bill’s provisions stripping workers of the right to strike or its attack on wages through the imposition of hiked contributions for health care. Yet just as in Wisconsin, workers in Ohio are being driven into struggle by far deeper grievances—jobs losses, and wage- and budget-cutting.
Vera, a clinical researcher at Ohio State University, came out to oppose Kasich’s bill. She said she was not in a union, and expressed concern that media coverage of the bill had failed to take into account how it would affect nonunion workers like her.
“It’s not only an assault on collective bargaining,” she said. “It’s also an attack on pensions and health insurance for all state workers.”
When asked about demands that workers have to accept “hard choices and sacrifices,” Vera quickly responded, “I’d like to see the hedge fund managers start to make hard choices and sacrifices.” She rejected claims that public workers make too much money or have easy jobs. “College educated public workers make 25 percent less on average than those in the private sector,” she said. “Union members make 2 percent less.”
In her interview, Vera trained her fire on the Republican Party. A World Socialist Web Site reporter pointed out that President Obama had implemented a wage freeze on federal government workers and was slashing spending on social programs, even after handing out trillions to the banks. “I agree with you,” she said. “I agree with a more socialist perspective.”
Vera and a friend (who preferred not to give her name) said that they were inspired to attend the Columbus rally by the events in Wisconsin as well as the Middle East, where dictatorships have been shaken and driven from power due to mass uprisings. In contrast to the Middle East, “at least we don’t have people shooting at us,” Vera offered. “Not yet,” her friend quickly added.
Service Employees International Union (SEIU) organizer Ruairi Rhodes from Cincinnati touted all the efforts of the unions in Ohio to assist the state in its budget crisis, such as accepting mandatory furlough days. “The main thing is collective bargaining,” he said, articulating the position of the trade union bureaucracy. “If we have that, in 10 or 15 years we can get back the concessions.”
Dana Belcher, a Columbus school bus driver, said he does not believe the attempt to pit private sector workers against public sector workers can succeed. “We’re neighbors with each other,” he said. “We’re in the same families.”
Joel and Eric are two Department of Natural Resources (DNR) workers and members of the OCSEA (Ohio Civil Service Employees Association) who work south of Columbus. They said that due to budget cutbacks over the past several years their agency, which is tasked with protecting the state’s forests and wildlife, has been reduced to “a skeleton crew.”
“People who say we don’t work hard don’t know anything,” said Joel, noting that their office staff had been cut in half. “Today before I came here I had to clean the toilets in our offices.”
Lisa and Deloris are two recently laid-off state workers, who did not want to identify their jobs for fear they would not be able to regain them.
Deloris said she believes SB-5 is “another step toward making this just a country of haves and have-nots.” She blamed the bill on Republicans, but when a WSWS reporter pointed out that similar measures were being put in place by Democratic governors and the Obama administration—with union backing—she said that “Democrats and Republicans are really on the same side, they’re just fighting over control.”
Lisa said that what upset her the most is the “total contempt” that Kasich evinces when speaking of government workers. She said that people in her agency worked hard, but that even before she was laid off, budget cutbacks had meant that one worker was doing the job of two or even three. Deloris added, “These jobs aren’t just about us, we help people.”
Lisa and Deloris said that the unions had done little to protect Ohio workers. “There’s really no need to get rid of the unions,” Lisa said. “I think it would be worse without them, but the unions have been giving up concessions and jobs for years.”
Regarding the ongoing attack on pensions and retirement, Deloris added, “The way things are going, we’re going to be working until we’re dead.”
.
Columbus, Ohio rally against anti-worker legislation
By Tom Eley and Andrea Peters
23 February 2011
About 5,000 workers demonstrated at the Ohio Statehouse in Columbus on Tuesday against a bill backed by Republican Governor John Kasich that would drastically restrict workers’ legal ability to resist what are anticipated to be years of wage and benefit cutting. Senate Bill 5 (SB-5) would also directly cut into workers’ pay.
Protesters in front of the Capitol
Buses and caravans organized by trade unions brought workers in from throughout the state. In addition, a number of workers from Columbus, Ohio’s capital and third largest city, attended the event. Several hundred protesters occupied the statehouse, modeling themselves on protests in Madison, Wisconsin. Authorities locked the doors after some 700 had entered. In response, demonstrators chanted, “This is our house, let us in!” in addition to the standard from the Madison protests, “Kill the bill!”
Another rally against the bill filled the largest lecture hall at Youngstown State University in Youngstown, Ohio.
In contrast to Madison, where many demonstrators have been high school and college students as well as private sector workers, the protesters in Columbus were overwhelmingly trade union members; a sizable share were trade union officials. Organizers had anticipated a larger rally. Nonetheless, many rank-and-file workers who attended the rally have suffered from years of budget-cutting and were looking for a means of fighting back.
The demonstration in Columbus
The bill aims to lessen hundreds of thousands of local government workers’ ability to strike by allowing for their permanent replacement. It would outlaw automatic pay increases and sick day allowances for teachers and force government workers to pay at least 20 percent of their own health care premiums. In addition, for some 61,000 state workers—including university employees—the bill would block their ability to have common representation in negotiations over wages and conditions, giving state authorities enormous and arbitrary powers over their workers.
Kasich’s bill, like that proposed by his counterpart in Wisconsin, Governor Scott Walker, seeks to dramatically weaken the trade unions by putting in place measures that would make it more difficult for them to hold government workers in their ranks. As in Wisconsin, it is this element of the attack that has the union bureaucrats up in arms, and not the bill’s provisions stripping workers of the right to strike or its attack on wages through the imposition of hiked contributions for health care. Yet just as in Wisconsin, workers in Ohio are being driven into struggle by far deeper grievances—jobs losses, and wage- and budget-cutting.
Vera, a clinical researcher at Ohio State University, came out to oppose Kasich’s bill. She said she was not in a union, and expressed concern that media coverage of the bill had failed to take into account how it would affect nonunion workers like her.
“It’s not only an assault on collective bargaining,” she said. “It’s also an attack on pensions and health insurance for all state workers.”
When asked about demands that workers have to accept “hard choices and sacrifices,” Vera quickly responded, “I’d like to see the hedge fund managers start to make hard choices and sacrifices.” She rejected claims that public workers make too much money or have easy jobs. “College educated public workers make 25 percent less on average than those in the private sector,” she said. “Union members make 2 percent less.”
In her interview, Vera trained her fire on the Republican Party. A World Socialist Web Site reporter pointed out that President Obama had implemented a wage freeze on federal government workers and was slashing spending on social programs, even after handing out trillions to the banks. “I agree with you,” she said. “I agree with a more socialist perspective.”
Vera and a friend (who preferred not to give her name) said that they were inspired to attend the Columbus rally by the events in Wisconsin as well as the Middle East, where dictatorships have been shaken and driven from power due to mass uprisings. In contrast to the Middle East, “at least we don’t have people shooting at us,” Vera offered. “Not yet,” her friend quickly added.
Service Employees International Union (SEIU) organizer Ruairi Rhodes from Cincinnati touted all the efforts of the unions in Ohio to assist the state in its budget crisis, such as accepting mandatory furlough days. “The main thing is collective bargaining,” he said, articulating the position of the trade union bureaucracy. “If we have that, in 10 or 15 years we can get back the concessions.”
Dana Belcher, a Columbus school bus driver, said he does not believe the attempt to pit private sector workers against public sector workers can succeed. “We’re neighbors with each other,” he said. “We’re in the same families.”
Joel and Eric are two Department of Natural Resources (DNR) workers and members of the OCSEA (Ohio Civil Service Employees Association) who work south of Columbus. They said that due to budget cutbacks over the past several years their agency, which is tasked with protecting the state’s forests and wildlife, has been reduced to “a skeleton crew.”
“People who say we don’t work hard don’t know anything,” said Joel, noting that their office staff had been cut in half. “Today before I came here I had to clean the toilets in our offices.”
Lisa and Deloris are two recently laid-off state workers, who did not want to identify their jobs for fear they would not be able to regain them.
Deloris said she believes SB-5 is “another step toward making this just a country of haves and have-nots.” She blamed the bill on Republicans, but when a WSWS reporter pointed out that similar measures were being put in place by Democratic governors and the Obama administration—with union backing—she said that “Democrats and Republicans are really on the same side, they’re just fighting over control.”
Lisa said that what upset her the most is the “total contempt” that Kasich evinces when speaking of government workers. She said that people in her agency worked hard, but that even before she was laid off, budget cutbacks had meant that one worker was doing the job of two or even three. Deloris added, “These jobs aren’t just about us, we help people.”
Lisa and Deloris said that the unions had done little to protect Ohio workers. “There’s really no need to get rid of the unions,” Lisa said. “I think it would be worse without them, but the unions have been giving up concessions and jobs for years.”
Regarding the ongoing attack on pensions and retirement, Deloris added, “The way things are going, we’re going to be working until we’re dead.”
.
LIBYA and the BANKRUPTCY of ARAB NATIONALISM - HOW MANY OF THESE DICTATORS ARE WE IN BED WITH FOR PRESIDENTIAL LIBRARY CONTRIBUTIONS???
Libya and the bankruptcy of Arab nationalism
Libya and the bankruptcy of Arab nationalism
23 February 2011
The desperate attempt by the regime of Colonel Muammar Gaddafi to drown the uprising of the Libyan masses in blood constitutes yet another brutal and tragic proof of the bankruptcy of Arab nationalism. It has once again laid bare the inability of any section of the Arab bourgeoisie to realize the aspirations of the masses of the region for genuine liberation from imperialist domination and capitalist oppression.
Gaddafi’s evolution over his four-decade-long rule of Libya saw his transformation from the leader of an anti-colonial movement with mass popular support into a butcher of his own people. This did not develop overnight.
While a decade ago, an uprising against Gaddafi would have been celebrated in Washington as a triumph over the “axis of evil,” today, Obama remains silent and his Secretary of State Hillary Clinton treats the wholesale massacres in Tripoli, Benghazi and elsewhere in the nation of six and a half million with the utmost circumspection. Over the past decade Gaddafi has been embraced by Washington as a force for stability—and a guarantor of profits—in the region. Significantly, the uprising against him is the first of the spreading revolutionary developments in the Middle East to trigger a sell-off on Wall Street.
The political path that has ended in Gaddafi calling in airstrikes against unarmed protesters and unleashing heavily armed mercenaries against his own people began in September 1969 with his leadership of a bloodless military coup that toppled the corrupt and servile US-backed monarchy of King Idris.
A 27-year-old army officer from an impoverished Bedouin background, Gaddafi was part of a generation whose political conceptions were heavily influenced by the rise to power of Gamal Abdel Nasser in Egypt through a similar coup against another thoroughly corrupt monarch, King Farouk, in the Egyptian revolution of 1952. Nasser’s nationalization of the Suez Canal, his denunciations of Western imperialism and his calls for Pan-Arab unity struck a powerful chord in Libya, which had suffered under Italian colonial domination from 1911 until 1943, with literally half its population massacred or starved to death by the Italian fascists.
While the powerful anti-imperialist sentiments of the Libyan masses provided a broad base of support for Gaddafi’s expulsion of the US military from its strategically vital Wheelus Air Force Base and for his nationalization of US oil firms, the regime’s fleeting attempts to forge Pan-Arab unions with Egypt, Syria and Tunisia came to nothing.
Libya, like all of the states of the Middle East to emerge from colonialism, was based upon geographical borders and political constructs imposed to serve the interests of imperialism, not those of the peoples of the region. The rising bourgeoisie within each of these countries, however, remained determined to hold onto these borders and their individual states as the foundations of their class rule.
Gaddafi’s regime was one of a number of similar governments that were to come to power in this same period, all proclaiming themselves as revolutionary, advocates of one or another brand of “socialism” and opponents of both Israel and US imperialism. These included the regimes of Hafiz al-Assad in Syria and Saddam Hussein in Iraq, brought to power as a result of coups carried out by factions of the Baathist movement in the late 1960s.
Like Nasser before them, they were able to exploit the cold war tensions between Washington and Moscow to achieve a modicum of independence and—particularly in the cases of Iraq and Libya—to utilize their countries’ oil wealth to institute reforms in areas such as health care, education and housing, thereby securing a popular base.
While Gaddafi declared his regime to be the “Socialist People's Libyan Arab Jamahiriya”, based on “direct democracy,” it maintained its rule through ruthless repression of all political opposition and, in particular, any independent struggles of the working class. Strikes were banned and the country’s prisons filled with political detainees.
On the world stage, Gaddafi assumed the role of the most radical of the so-called “rejectionists”—those who opposed the so-called “peace process” promoted by Washington to suppress the Palestinian struggle, give Israel a free hand to wage war and secure US imperialism’s own hegemony in the region.
While in practical terms, Gaddafi’s support for the Palestinians was mercurial at best, swinging from financial backing for the PLO to mass expulsions of Palestinian refugees from Libya, his opposition to US domination of the region and his support for radical nationalist movements of various stripes earned him the status of a pariah in Washington.
US imperialist hostility to the regime led to armed attacks under the administration of Ronald Reagan, who branded Gaddafi “the mad dog of the Middle East.” In 1986, the US Navy was deployed in provocative maneuvers off the country’s coast that led to the shooting down of Libyan planes and the sinking of a Libyan ship, killing 35 sailors. These military actions were followed by a massive US bombing raid on Tripoli and Benghazi, in which 60 Libyans were killed and many more wounded. Among the dead was Gaddafi’s adopted infant daughter.
It was not so much imperialist threats, however, as sharp changes in the world situation and, above all, internal social and political contradictions within Libya itself, that drove Gadaffi’s abandonment of his earlier revolutionary pretensions.
The Stalinist bureaucracy’s dissolution of the Soviet Union ended the ability of the Arab nationalist regimes to employ Soviet influence as a counterweight to US domination. In Libya this combined with falling oil prices and the emergence of significant internal opposition to turn the Gaddafi regime sharply to the right and back into the camp of US imperialism.
By the late 1990s, as then-US Assistant Secretary for Near Eastern Affairs Martin Indyk would later write, Gaddafi was knocking on Washington’s door: “Libya’s representatives were ready to put everything on the table, saying Mr. Gaddafi had realized … that Libya and the US faced a common threat from Islamic fundamentalism. In that context, they said Libya would actively cooperate in the campaign against al-Qaeda and would end all support for Palestinian ‘rejectionist’ groups, endorse US peace efforts in the Middle East and help in conflict resolution in Africa.”
In the wake of the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks, this proposed alliance was consummated, with Gaddafi’s secret police being turned into an asset of the US Central Intelligence Agency.
This was combined with domestic “reforms” that entailed sweeping privatizations and the return in force to Libya of major oil companies, the international banks, arms dealers and other transnational corporations.
The result was an intensification of social inequality and official corruption in a country where 35 percent of the population remains in poverty and 30 percent are unemployed. The present uprising is driven by these conditions, drawing its most powerful support from the country’s working class and poor.
The evolution of Gaddafi and his counterparts in bourgeois nationalist regimes in the Middle East and throughout the former colonial and oppressed countries serves as a stark vindication of the theory of permanent revolution. This theory, elaborated by Leon Trotsky, established that in these countries, the national bourgeoisie—even its most radical and oil-rich representatives—are organically incapable of leading the masses in overcoming the legacy of colonial oppression and feudal backwardness. It is tied by its class interests to imperialism and fears the internal threat from its own working class. The ongoing massacres in Libya are the inevitable result. Only the independent struggle of the working class, based on a socialist and internationalist program can provide a way out of this bloody dead end.
.
Libya and the bankruptcy of Arab nationalism
23 February 2011
The desperate attempt by the regime of Colonel Muammar Gaddafi to drown the uprising of the Libyan masses in blood constitutes yet another brutal and tragic proof of the bankruptcy of Arab nationalism. It has once again laid bare the inability of any section of the Arab bourgeoisie to realize the aspirations of the masses of the region for genuine liberation from imperialist domination and capitalist oppression.
Gaddafi’s evolution over his four-decade-long rule of Libya saw his transformation from the leader of an anti-colonial movement with mass popular support into a butcher of his own people. This did not develop overnight.
While a decade ago, an uprising against Gaddafi would have been celebrated in Washington as a triumph over the “axis of evil,” today, Obama remains silent and his Secretary of State Hillary Clinton treats the wholesale massacres in Tripoli, Benghazi and elsewhere in the nation of six and a half million with the utmost circumspection. Over the past decade Gaddafi has been embraced by Washington as a force for stability—and a guarantor of profits—in the region. Significantly, the uprising against him is the first of the spreading revolutionary developments in the Middle East to trigger a sell-off on Wall Street.
The political path that has ended in Gaddafi calling in airstrikes against unarmed protesters and unleashing heavily armed mercenaries against his own people began in September 1969 with his leadership of a bloodless military coup that toppled the corrupt and servile US-backed monarchy of King Idris.
A 27-year-old army officer from an impoverished Bedouin background, Gaddafi was part of a generation whose political conceptions were heavily influenced by the rise to power of Gamal Abdel Nasser in Egypt through a similar coup against another thoroughly corrupt monarch, King Farouk, in the Egyptian revolution of 1952. Nasser’s nationalization of the Suez Canal, his denunciations of Western imperialism and his calls for Pan-Arab unity struck a powerful chord in Libya, which had suffered under Italian colonial domination from 1911 until 1943, with literally half its population massacred or starved to death by the Italian fascists.
While the powerful anti-imperialist sentiments of the Libyan masses provided a broad base of support for Gaddafi’s expulsion of the US military from its strategically vital Wheelus Air Force Base and for his nationalization of US oil firms, the regime’s fleeting attempts to forge Pan-Arab unions with Egypt, Syria and Tunisia came to nothing.
Libya, like all of the states of the Middle East to emerge from colonialism, was based upon geographical borders and political constructs imposed to serve the interests of imperialism, not those of the peoples of the region. The rising bourgeoisie within each of these countries, however, remained determined to hold onto these borders and their individual states as the foundations of their class rule.
Gaddafi’s regime was one of a number of similar governments that were to come to power in this same period, all proclaiming themselves as revolutionary, advocates of one or another brand of “socialism” and opponents of both Israel and US imperialism. These included the regimes of Hafiz al-Assad in Syria and Saddam Hussein in Iraq, brought to power as a result of coups carried out by factions of the Baathist movement in the late 1960s.
Like Nasser before them, they were able to exploit the cold war tensions between Washington and Moscow to achieve a modicum of independence and—particularly in the cases of Iraq and Libya—to utilize their countries’ oil wealth to institute reforms in areas such as health care, education and housing, thereby securing a popular base.
While Gaddafi declared his regime to be the “Socialist People's Libyan Arab Jamahiriya”, based on “direct democracy,” it maintained its rule through ruthless repression of all political opposition and, in particular, any independent struggles of the working class. Strikes were banned and the country’s prisons filled with political detainees.
On the world stage, Gaddafi assumed the role of the most radical of the so-called “rejectionists”—those who opposed the so-called “peace process” promoted by Washington to suppress the Palestinian struggle, give Israel a free hand to wage war and secure US imperialism’s own hegemony in the region.
While in practical terms, Gaddafi’s support for the Palestinians was mercurial at best, swinging from financial backing for the PLO to mass expulsions of Palestinian refugees from Libya, his opposition to US domination of the region and his support for radical nationalist movements of various stripes earned him the status of a pariah in Washington.
US imperialist hostility to the regime led to armed attacks under the administration of Ronald Reagan, who branded Gaddafi “the mad dog of the Middle East.” In 1986, the US Navy was deployed in provocative maneuvers off the country’s coast that led to the shooting down of Libyan planes and the sinking of a Libyan ship, killing 35 sailors. These military actions were followed by a massive US bombing raid on Tripoli and Benghazi, in which 60 Libyans were killed and many more wounded. Among the dead was Gaddafi’s adopted infant daughter.
It was not so much imperialist threats, however, as sharp changes in the world situation and, above all, internal social and political contradictions within Libya itself, that drove Gadaffi’s abandonment of his earlier revolutionary pretensions.
The Stalinist bureaucracy’s dissolution of the Soviet Union ended the ability of the Arab nationalist regimes to employ Soviet influence as a counterweight to US domination. In Libya this combined with falling oil prices and the emergence of significant internal opposition to turn the Gaddafi regime sharply to the right and back into the camp of US imperialism.
By the late 1990s, as then-US Assistant Secretary for Near Eastern Affairs Martin Indyk would later write, Gaddafi was knocking on Washington’s door: “Libya’s representatives were ready to put everything on the table, saying Mr. Gaddafi had realized … that Libya and the US faced a common threat from Islamic fundamentalism. In that context, they said Libya would actively cooperate in the campaign against al-Qaeda and would end all support for Palestinian ‘rejectionist’ groups, endorse US peace efforts in the Middle East and help in conflict resolution in Africa.”
In the wake of the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks, this proposed alliance was consummated, with Gaddafi’s secret police being turned into an asset of the US Central Intelligence Agency.
This was combined with domestic “reforms” that entailed sweeping privatizations and the return in force to Libya of major oil companies, the international banks, arms dealers and other transnational corporations.
The result was an intensification of social inequality and official corruption in a country where 35 percent of the population remains in poverty and 30 percent are unemployed. The present uprising is driven by these conditions, drawing its most powerful support from the country’s working class and poor.
The evolution of Gaddafi and his counterparts in bourgeois nationalist regimes in the Middle East and throughout the former colonial and oppressed countries serves as a stark vindication of the theory of permanent revolution. This theory, elaborated by Leon Trotsky, established that in these countries, the national bourgeoisie—even its most radical and oil-rich representatives—are organically incapable of leading the masses in overcoming the legacy of colonial oppression and feudal backwardness. It is tied by its class interests to imperialism and fears the internal threat from its own working class. The ongoing massacres in Libya are the inevitable result. Only the independent struggle of the working class, based on a socialist and internationalist program can provide a way out of this bloody dead end.
.
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