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Special Issue: the Collapse of America Paul Craig Roberts gives CounterPunchers the definitive data on what is happening to jobs in America. Not just blue collar jobs. Middle-class, white collar jobs. Roberts' stunning probe is the first true picture of what the U.S. economy is fast becoming and of the savage class wars that lie ahead. Plus Mike Ferner on what it really means to investigate war crimes in Iraq. CounterPunch Online is read by millions of viewers each month! But remember, we are funded solely by the subscribers to the print edition of CounterPunch. Please support this website by buying a subscription to our newsletter, which contains fresh material you won't find anywhere else, or by making a donation for the online edition. Remember contributions are tax-deductible. Click here to make a donation. If you find our site useful please: Subscribe Now! |
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Today's Stories July 31, 2006 Alexander
Cockburn July 29
/ 30, 2006 Michael
Neuman Vijay
Prashad Ramzi Kysia Werther Robert Fisk Patrick
Cockburn Ralph Nader Rachard
Itani Eduardo Galeano Gary Leupp Eve Poretsky John Chuckman Fred Gardner Juan Santos Punyapriya Dasgupta Liaquat
Ali Khan Israel Shamir William
A. Cook Stanley Heller Dave Lindorff Moshe Adler Susie
Day Pat Williams Anthony
Papa John V. Whitbeck Jackie
Corr Myles Palmer Tom D'Antoni Poets' Basement Website
of the Weekend
July 28, 2006 Jonathan
Cook Uri Avnery Renee Bowyer Robert
Fisk Patrick Cockburn Ramzy
Baroud Don Fitz Elaine
Cassel David Price Mike Whitney Mickey Z. Niranjan
Ramakrishnan Charles
Glass Website
of the Day
July 27, 2006 Tanya
Reinhart Saul Landau Ramzi
Kysia Tom Barry Joseph
Grosso Sharon Smith Gale Courey
Toensing Christopher Reed Werther Yusuf Mansur Richard
Harth Website of the Day
Norman
Solomon Barbara
Olshanksy David
Nally Jonathan
Cook Patrick
Cockburn William
Blum Joshua
Frank Gabriel
Kolko Daniel
Cassidy Michael
Dickinson Robert
Fisk Uri
Avnery Website
of the Day
July 25, 2006 Harry
Browne Marjorie
Cohn Robert
Bryce Sharat
G. Lin George
Bisharat CounterPunch
News Desk Zena
El-Khalil Larry
Lack Mike
Mejia Ashraf
Isma'il Website
of the Day
July 24, 2006 Mark
Levy Robert
Fisk Maher
Osseiran Paul
Craig Roberts Patrick
Cockburn Website
of the Day
July 22-23, 2006 Jonathan
Cook Paul
Craig Roberts Gilad
Atzmon Robert
Fisk Ralph
Nader Fred
Gardner Christopher
Reed Dr.
Susan Block Najla
Said Uri
Avnery July 21, 2006 George
Galloway P.
Sainath Aseem
Shrivastava Alexander
Cockburn Website
of the Day July 20, 2006 William
S. Lind Robert
Jensen John
Ross Tom
Hayden Paul
Craig Roberts July 19, 2006 Patrick
Cockburn Trish
Schuh Jonathan
Cook Vicente
Navarro July 17 / 18 2006 Mike
Whitney Kathleen Christison Atrocities in the Promised Land
July 14 / 15,
2006 Alexander Cockburn Tanya Reinhart Robert Fisk Daniel Cassidy Winslow Wheeler Hugh O'Shaughnessy M. Shahid Alam William S. Lind Ramzy Baroud Gilad Atzmon Elizabeth Weill-Greenberg Samar Assad Ron Jacobs Lee Ballinger Walter Brasch Dave Lindorff Clifton Ross Tom Crumpacker Ricardo Alarcon William Hughes Susie Day Farrah Hassen Poets' Basement
July 13, 2006 Rev. William
Alberts Ramzi Kysia Rep. John P. Murtha Radford / Santos Stan Cox Saul Landau José
Pertierra Website of
the Day
July 12, 2006 John Ross John Stauber Robert Boston Wayne S. Smith John Graham Kevin Prosen Jonathan Cook Website of
the Day
July 11, 2006 Dave Lindorff Dave Zirin Mokhiber / Weissman Amira Hass Clare Hanrahan Brian Cloughey Felice Pace Raed Jarrar Website of the Day
July 10, 2006 Paul Craig
Roberts Uri Avnery Roger Burbach Ron Jacobs Joshua Frank Missy Comley Beattie Alexander Cockburn
Stephen Green Paul Craig
Roberts Greg Moses Ralph Nader Laura Carlsen Conn Hallinan John Chuckman Fred Gardner Dr. Tod Mikuriya Pierre Tristam Lucinda Marshall David Swanson Heather Gray Dave Zirin
/ John Cox Mark Engler Michael Lettieri Ron Jacobs Jamal Juma' Jeffrey St. Clair Poets' Basement
July 7, 2006 John Ross July 6, 2006 Nick Dearden John Stanton Ralph Nader Laray Polk Saul Landau Joshua Frank William S. Lind Adelman / Lindorff Jonathan Cook Website of
the Day
Mike Whitney Saul Landau Ramzy Baroud Missy Comley Beattie Arthur Neslen Vincent Maruffi Paul Cantor Paul D. Johnson David Price
Col. Dan Smith Chris Floyd Marjorie Cohn James Brooks Medea Benjamin Matt Reichel Elisa Salasin Rick Wilhelm Paul Craig
Roberts Website of the Day
July 3, 2006 Robert Bryce Dr. Bouthaina Shaban Julia Olmstead Dave Lindorff Andres Gomez Alan Singer Alexander Cockburn
Paul Craig
Roberts Stephen T.
Banko Daniel Cassidy Fawzia Afzal-Khan Jeff Taylor John Ross Greg Moses Laura Carlsen Justin E.H.
Smith Brian Cloughley Anthony Papa Mike Ferner Jerry Tucker Jane Goodall / Rick Asselta Phyllis Pollack Poets' Basement
June 30, 2006 Marjorie Cohn Heather Williams Burbach / Cantor Nick Dearden Michael J.
Smith Brian Concannon Virginia Tilley
Bill Quigley Ron Jacobs Paul Craig
Roberts June 28, 2006 Jorge Mariscal Greg Moses Mark Weisbrot Ramzy Baroud Dave Lindorff William S.
Lind Mike Ferner Zoltan Grossman
Marjorie Cohn Benjamin /
Jarrar William Hughes Doug Giebel Uri Avnery Alexander Cockburn
June 26, 2006 Don Santina Ralph Nader Dave Lindorff Rafael Rodriguez-Cruz Evelyn Pringle Jonathan Cook
June 23, 2006 Youmans / Erakat Dave Lindorff Ron Jacobs Col. Dan Smith
June 22, 2006 Marjorie Cohn Winslow T.
Wheeler Tanya Reinhart Mike Marqusee William Blum
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July 31, 2006 No One Is IllegalWe Would Have to Die Working, So We Decided to Die StrikingBy RON JACOBS When I lived in California I found most of my work through the casual labor office. Of course, the work I found there was rarely casual. In fact, it was usually the dirtiest work on the job site. However, it paid the bills and gave me the freedom to walk away from any gig I didn't want. Most of the jobs I undertook were in the city, since that's where the labor office was. However, on occasion, a bunch of us would be hired to do some farm work. This usually meant picking some kind of produce. Since my picking skills were nothing when compared to those that made their living from farmworking, I was usually assigned a job that paid by the hour, not by the crate or whatever the unit of measurement was for the piecework that the pickers performed. This most often meant that I ended up picking up fruit that had fallen to the ground. My pay rate was $2.50 an hour, which was the minimum wage in the late 1970s. It's not like I cared as much as the men and women with families did. After all, I only needed money to take me to the next place I might be going. Although the farmworkers, who
were predominantly Latino in the fields of California's Central
Valley, were making more money than me, I almost always got the
feeling from the usually Anglo bosses that I was supposed to
think that I was somewhat better than these men and women. To
the credit of most of my fellow workers at those sites, we all
knew that all of us were essentially little more than slaves
and it didn't matter what color our skin was or where we came
from. Neither did it make much difference how much money we were
making. However, there were a couple instances on the trucks
taking us to the fields when the anger of tired and poor working
men turned from insults over each other's virility to each others'
ethnic origins. To me, those instances served as microcosmic
examples of the complex nature of race and class relations in
capitalist United States. The text opens with an 80-page history of western vigilantism by author and historian Mike Davis. This brief survey covers several cases of farmworkers' attempts to get a fair wage and decent working conditions and the murderous reaction to those attempts. Chinese, Japanese, Filipinos, Okies, Mexicans and others each in their turn became the whipping boys and girls of the powerful agriculture and banking interests in California. These interests hired goon squads and fascist sympathizers to beat, harass, and occasionally murder the organizers and participants of farmworkers' actions. Official unions like the AFL maintained their whiteness and encouraged racial prejudice amongst its members. Partially because of this, the New Deal purposely ignored the farmworkers when it provided protections that the rest of the workforce in the United States now take for granted. It is Davis' contention that the vigilante man--as he calls these extralegal forces--are back again in the form of groups like the Minutemen. The remainder of the book is written by Justin Akers Chacon. He picks up where Mike Davis left off. Chacon., a Chicano Studies and US History professor in San Diego, California, is an organizer in the volatile city of San Diego. He presents an economic history and study of the historically unequal relationship between the United States and Mexico, all of it in relation to the question of northward migration. Although Chacon explores and explains the situation in detail and in relation to the workings of international capital in specific periods, he puts forth early on that the underlying reason that people in Mexico are leaving their homes to find work in North America is because: "According to a study produced by the International Labor Organization, the wages of the Mexican working class fell faster than in any other nation in Latin America over the last few decades." This fact does not even begin to tell the story of the peasantry, who have seen their crops devalued again and again, thanks to US agribusiness domination of farming in Mexico, along with the massive imports of cheap staples from the north after the adoption of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA). The story Chacon relates is one of struggle. Within the broader struggle of the working people against the bosses, there is the uglier but no less real story of the struggle between workers of different national origins; even between the Chicano and the Mexican or the Mexican and the Salvadoran. Not only diversionary, these internal struggles have only made it easier for agribusiness and other corporate entities to keep all of our wages lower. The documentation that the author provides in this regard--anecdotal and statistical--proves this latter point only too well. From the beginnings of immigrant labor in the US to today's reality where immigrants are not only portrayed as economic competitors but as potential "terrorists" as well, the manipulation of the native-born worker by his bosses has served the system only too well. Despite this, there are multiple instances of workers uniting across national and racial lines in strikes and other job-related actions. It is Chacon and Davis' contention (and mine) that the May Day 2006 strikes and marches are but the latest example of the possibilities of working class unity. Chacon completes his section of the book by bringing it full circle to the fight against anti-immigrant and racist vigilantism. His target is the so-called Minutemen. While rightly lampooning their organization as being mostly composed of a bunch of weekend warriors, he nevertheless takes this group and the phenomenon they represent seriously. Directly challenging the Minutemen's claims that they are not racist, Chacon points out the propaganda of fear that this group uses: telling their target audience that Latino immigration is "a silent Trojan Horse invasion that is eroding our culture." Drawing the link between this idea of a superior culture and the rhetoric of white supremacists in the United States, Chacon makes it clear that the Minutemen's agenda is a supremacist agenda combined with a superficial economic analysis that blames non native-born workers for the economic uncertainties many US workers find themselves in thanks to the latest stage of monopoly capitalism--capitalist globalization (or neoliberalism, which is what Chacon and many others call this stage.) He cites the presence of known racists in the organization and the attendance of KKK members and neo-nazis at Minutemen events as further proof of the group's racist underpinnings. Unmentioned in Chacon's discussion of the Minutemen's economic analysis is that elements in the United Farm Workers, most notably its leader, Cesar Chavez, took a similar view of illegal migration. Indeed, the view that it was the individual fault of undocumented workers that everyone else's wages were lower convinced the UFW to lead a 1969 march to the US-Mexican border to protest illegal immigration. Furthermore, UFW members in Arizona actually patrolled the border in that state, beating up undocumented migrants and chasing them back into Mexico . Chacon does mention this aspect of the UFW briefly, but attibutes the union's stance against illegals to the leadership's desire to appease supporters on the right wing of the Democratic Party. Any discussion of the superficiality of an economic analysis that blames the individual worker forced to migrate because of the machinations of capital does not occur in his comments on Cesar Chavez and the UFW. On a similar note, it seems worth mentioning that today's UFW conitinues to lean towards legislation that restricts immigration. Like Samuel Gompers and other labor leaders of the late nineteenth and early twentieth century, the UFW (along with the SEIU and UNITE) went on record supporting the so-called Senate compromise bill, known colloquially as Hegel-Martinez. Like immigrant rights organizer Nativo Lopez told an audience in New York last month, How is it possible that those three unions bolted from the AFL-CIO to create the new progressive Change to Win coalition, and they accepted the premise that contract labor in massive form could exist in the United States, with those unions be the beneficiaries by cutting deals with Corporate America for yellow-dog collective bargaining agreements, in which they would receive dues money from those contract laborers. (Socialist Worker 6/30/2006) Yet, even Lopez seems to have gotten part of his history wrong when he continued by stating that Cesar Chavez was rolling over in his grave because of these unions' selling out. Lopez was correct, however, when he pointed out that the current "compromise" bills offered by Democrats in Congress are bills written by and for corporate America. He was also correct in urging his listeners to combat such compromises. Perhaps the most important aspect of this book is its internationalism. Chacon and Davis operate with the understanding that the working class in each nation is not a national entity as much as it is a global one. This is especially the case in today's world of capitalist globalization and the ever-increasing movement of capital across borders. With this movement of capital has come an even greater movement of workers. National borders are only reinforced to control wages of workers of all nationalities and to create and maintain divisions within the international working class. Just like imperial war, immigration control is a tool of the imperial elites in their pursuit of domination and profit. If the immigrant rights movement wants to be truly successful, Chacon reminds us that it must keep this perception as its basis. Its essential demand must be the eradication of borders--especially those borders that restrict humans from crossing them. Reading No One Is Illegal is a great place to begin understanding the fundamental nature of this demand. Ron Jacobs is author of The
Way the Wind Blew: a history of the Weather Underground,
which is just republished by Verso. Jacobs' essay on Big Bill
Broonzy is featured in CounterPunch's new collection on music,
art and sex, Serpents
in the Garden. He can be reached at: rjacobs3625@charter.net
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from CounterPunch Books! The Case Against Israel By Michael Neumann  Grand Theft Pentagon: Tales of Greed and Profiteering in the War on Terror by Jeffrey St. Clair          Sick of sit-on-the-Fence speakers, tongue-tied and timid? CounterPunch Editors Alexander Cockburn and Jeffrey St Clair are available to speak forcefully on ALL the burning issues, as are other CounterPunchers seasoned in stump oratory. Call CounterPunch Speakers Bureau, 1-800-840-3683. Or email beckyg@counterpunch.org.                    |
