Tag: protest

Has the left found its voice?

The media has finally taken notice of the protests on Wall Street and it just may be taking them seriously. As it should.

The reality is that the Wall Street protests are far larger and sustained than the early Tea Party rallies and, now that the protests are spreading into other communities, it is clear that we are looking at something much bigger than just a fringe effort.

But it has to be about more than just signs and chants. Direct action, as Chris Hedges wrote last week, is a must in this time of corporate domination, but it has to be accompanied by a detailed explanation of why capitalism has failed and where we must go from here.

Corporate capitalism is about profits — and doing everything and anything possible to maximize those profits, including leaving the sick to die and the economically disenfranchised to grasp for crumbs or pick vegetables in sweltering heat for almost nonexistent wages.

Government’s role should be to act as protector of the weak, as leveler of the playing field — to make sure that corporations provide the services they have promised or to prevent them from dumping their waste on the public (literally and figuratively). But corporations have taken over the government and gamed the system.

Farm subsidies once meant to keep small farmers afloat now result in corn so cheap we use it in place of sugar, while the cost of fresh produce puts it out of reach of most in the lower classes, especially those in America’s depressed cities. Oil companies suck at the public teat and then turn around and gouge drivers and lobby Washington to gut what’s left our regulatory apparatus. And we make the banks whole without any strings or anything to ensure that the banks would keep credit flowing.

The list is long and seemingly endless and it leaves us with just two choices — give up or fight back. Sitting back and leaving it to a corrupted political process is the same as giving up. The protesters on Wall Street know this.  It’s time the rest of us figured this out.

  • Send me an e-mail.
  • Read poetry at The Subterranean.
  • Certainties and Uncertainties a chapbook by Hank Kalet, will be published in November by Finishing Line Press. It can be ordered here.
  • Suburban Pastoral, a chapbook by Hank Kalet, available here.
Email me at grassroots at comcast dot net.

What does the corporate media have against the Wall Street protests?

I think we all know the answer. Wall Street is the capital of corporate America.

  • Send me an e-mail.
  • Read poetry at The Subterranean.
  • Certainties and Uncertainties a chapbook by Hank Kalet, will be published in November by Finishing Line Press. It can be ordered here.
  • Suburban Pastoral, a chapbook by Hank Kalet, available here.
Email me at grassroots at comcast dot net.

Targeting Wall Street

It’s direct-action time. We are in the 12th day of protests in New York’s financial district, and there is no sign that this “hostile takeover” is going to end anytime soon. It’s time we fought back, as
Brooklyn City Councilman Charles Barron of East New York told The Christian Post.

“We are up against a monster, we are up against a strong enemy and that is capitalism, greed, and prioritizing that greed over the need of the vulnerable people in this society.”

  • Send me an e-mail.
  • Read poetry at The Subterranean.
  • Certainties and Uncertainties a chapbook by Hank Kalet, will be published in November by Finishing Line Press. It can be ordered here.
  • Suburban Pastoral, a chapbook by Hank Kalet, available here.
Email me at grassroots at comcast dot net.

Obama and best of the worst

Barack Obama announced yesterday that he will seek re-election in 2012 and, like Ted Rall, I can’ for the life of me think of why I should care.

We are now nearly 27 months into his presidency and the great liberal hope has proven to be Clinton redux — a corporate stooge in thrall to the military-industrial complex.

Evidence:

  • A health-care law that forces people to give the health insurance companies money — a law, in fact, modeled on the flawed one put in place by former Gov. Mitt Romney (and perennial Republican presidential candidate) in Massachussetts.
  • A weak financial reform bill that has done little to prevent Wall Street speculators to get back to their old games.
  • An expanded war in Afghanistan that has been expanding into Pakistan, continued war in Iraq, military intervention (short of war) in Libya without Congressional approval.
  • Continuation of Bush-era policies on detention, Guantanamo, interrogation.
  • A half-measure stimulus and a cave-in to Republicans on the deficit.
  • Support for nuclear power and clean coal and a hands-off approach to Big Oil’s requests to expand domestic and deepwater drilling — even after the 2010 BP disaster in the Gulf of Mexico.
  • An array of broken promises on labor rights issues, tax policy (extending the Bush tax cuts even as he agreed to tackle the deficit).

And yet, Obama is likely to garner support from a good portion of the left because of the downward pressure our first-past-the-post puts on our electoral system. By all rights, the left should walk away from Obama; it’s the only thing we have left and the only way we will be able to gain any leverage in the policy arena.

But we won’t. The memory of eight years of Bush remains too strong, so the lesser-of-two-evil argument is going to come back, going to play a major role in the discussion on the left flank of the political discussion. Consider the alternative, the argument will go, and it will be effective — there is not a Republican in the race or on its periphery (i.e., Gov. Chris Christie) who warrants a shot at the Oval Office.

Progressives may not like the alternatives, may indeed opt for Obama over Michelle Bachmann, Mitt Romney, Tim Pawlenty, et al. But progressives should also make it clear that any support given to Obama comes with a price tag — moving progressive goals to the top of the agenda.

More importantly, we need to stop thinking of the electoral arena as the only outlet for political action. It cannot be about candidates and money, but about direct action and protest and the creation of a moral momentum that forces the larger political class to listen.

The history of our political movements makes it clear that it is our only hope. Direct action — sit-down strikes, general strikes, marches, boycotts — forced issues like civil and labor rights onto the table, pushing the politicians to act. Protests against Vietnam, including the flight to Canada by those evading the draft, forced politicians to find a way to end that nightmare.

We have hit the same point today.

  • Send me an e-mail.
  • Read poetry at The Subterranean.
  • Certainties and Uncertainties a chapbook by Hank Kalet, will be published in November by Finishing Line Press. It can be ordered here.
  • Suburban Pastoral, a chapbook by Hank Kalet, available here.
Email me at grassroots at comcast dot net.

Public-sector unions are not the problem

http://eastwindsor.patch.com:/swf/external_video_player.swf

    New Jersey’s public employee unions are starting to fight back by doing what working people should have been doing in this country for years. They are taking it to the streets. The teachers were in Trenton last week; today, it was the police and fire unions. Who’s next? As glad as I am to see them take to the street, we have to face the fact that these rallies lack the unity and sense of larger purpose that the Wisconsin fight has had. Workers in the Badger state face the prospect of being stripped of bargaining rights, even after giving the governor every concession he has requested. The issue there is the basic right to organize and act collectively. Here the talk is about saving pensions and medical benefits and preventing layoffs — worthy goals — but not necessarily ones that will connect with the larger swath of put-upon workers in the state. And not necessarily ones that will shift public opinion. The teachers, firefighters, police and other public workers need to rally together over several days and they need to frame their demands as more than just protecting what the public has come to see as their cushy benefits. The issue is the final assault on the compact that has governed American working live for 60 or so years, but that has been eroding for the last three decades. The collapse of the private-sector union movement, the labor movements disconnection from the larger social movements of its day (think of the bulk of unionists on Vietnam, civil rights, women’s rights, gay rights, etc.) and the general assault with government help by corporate America and presidents and Congresses of both parties has left the public-sector unions as the only strong unions in the nation. The public-sector workers need to reconnect to workers at large, find a way to cut past the jealousy that has far too many New Jersey residents saying “take away their benefits.” That kind of demand is short-sighted and will only continue the race to the bottom on wages and benefits that has American workers earning, at best, what they were earning 10 years ago, while the top one-tenth of 1 percent of earners — about 300,000 Americans — saw their wages more than triple. Public-sector unions are not the problem. The problem is the lack of private-sector unionization and a legal structure that is decidedly hostile toward union building. This is the argument they should be leading with: Stand with us now and we will stand with you later as you fight to revive the working and middle classes.

  • Send me an e-mail.
  • Read poetry at The Subterranean.
  • Certainties and Uncertainties a chapbook by Hank Kalet, will be published in November by Finishing Line Press. It can be ordered here.
  • Suburban Pastoral, a chapbook by Hank Kalet, available here.
Email me at grassroots at comcast dot net.