By JEFF MACKLER A July 17 New York Times article entitled “Japanese Consumers Reconsidering Rice Loyalty” attracted my attention when it reported that “Japan’s agricultural ministry, for now, says it is not considering an increase in rice imports, which are all but shut out by a 778 percent tariff.” This enormous tariff led me to…
Frederick Douglas once said that “Power concedes nothing without a demand.” The validity of this statement was powerfully demonstrated by Project Save Our Home‘s recent, successful campaign to save the Dunbar’s family home from foreclosure. Project Save Our Homes is an activist group that was born from the Occupy Wall Street movement back in November of…
ATHENS—The Memorandum No. 2 became reality by a vote in the Greek Parliament on Feb. 12. One hundred ninety-nine MPs, mainly of the ruling parties, PASOK and “New Democracy” (ND), decided to completely sell out the interests of the Greek population, working people and young people, and especially of future generations, to the dictatorship of…
<!–[if gte mso 9]> Normal 0 MicrosoftInternetExplorer4 <![endif]–>CHICAGO—Over three years after they inspired workers across the nation by successfully occupying the Republic Windows and Door factory, on Feb. 23 members of UE Local 1110 once again occupied their workplace, now run by Serious Energy. The occupation was in response to management’s surprise announcement the same day…
The appearance of “The Trouble With Billionaires” could not have been more timely. Published in Canada by Penguin Books (Toronto, soft cover edition in 2011, 272 pages), the book is to be released in the USA under the title “Billionaires’ Ball: Gluttony and Hubris in an Age of Epic Inequality” on March 27 by Beacon…
DULUTH, Minn.—The scourge of home foreclosures is sweeping the nation. Despite that fact that the Democrats and Republicans dumped hundreds of billions of public money into the vaults of the big banks, working class-homeowners are seeing no relief. And it’s no different in Duluth. This winter, a group of activists from the local Occupy movement got together…
On Jan. 25, the Vancouver culture jammers known as Adbusters brought new attention to the need to protest the NATO/G8 summit occurring in Chicago from May 19-21. Adbusters played a large role in building the Occupy Wall Street protests in New York last fall and their call is expected to put the NATO/G8 summit meetings…
Parallels between ancient Greece and current Greece are not lacking in recent times, and the “Greek tragedy” has been served up in all journalistic sauces. In the country that invented democracy to put an end to debt slavery, the European bourgeoisie imposes its reactionary approach: even if the institution of slavery is not (yet) re-established,…
The title of this note is from today’s “It’s the Economy” feature by Adam Davidson in the print version of the Sunday Times magazine. In the online version that title is replaced with the less provocative “What Does Wall Street Do For You?” –a title which is actually more accurate, as Davidson’s main contention is…
<!–[if !mso]> <![endif]–> The Occupy Wall Street (OWS) movement has proven to be the political spark that ignited the pent-up anger and frustration of millions in the United States. It has awakened broad segments of the great majority who have suffered deeply from a decades-long tidal wave of defeats inflicted by a degenerating world capitalist…
The austerity programs being forced by bankers and the IMF on European governments had their counterpart in the U.S. in the Congressional “Supercommittee,” the bipartisan effort at meeting demands by the ruling class to cut the country’s deficits by slashing the social safety net for workers. Since the Supercommittee failed to reach consensus on a…
HARTFORD, Conn.—On Nov. 17 Jeffrey Butler, the President of Connecticut’s largest electrical utility company, Connecticut Light and Power (CL&P), resigned amid public outrage following the largest blackout in the state’s history. The blackout was caused by a late-October snowstorm that stretched from West Virginia to Maine and broke October snowfall records throughout the region, cutting…
NEW YORK—On Nov. 15, Wall Street’s front man, Mayor Michael Bloomberg, launched an early-morning blitzkrieg-style police raid on Zuccotti Park, the site of the two-month old Occupy Wall Street (OWS) movement. New York’s “thugs in blue” evicted and arrested some 250 non-violent protestors at 1 a.m. and seized their possessions. The growing OWS “people’s library”…
The foremost symptom in the last month of the deepening global economic crisis has been the sovereign debt panic in Europe, a panic steadily increasing the odds of an explosion of the European Union and the death of the euro. The spillover would engulf the world, sinking to new depths a stagnant U.S. economy, as…
Socialist Action welcomes the Occupy movement as a hopeful sign that the working-class fightback against the economic crisis, which is decades overdue, may finally be taking off. We salute the bravery and persistence of the Occupations in the face of police repression, media lies, and politician slanders and attempts at cooptation. As with similar mass…
NEW YORK—Billionaire Mayor Michael Bloomberg tried to shut down Zuccotti Park early on Oct. 14 but found that the movement’s anti-corporate message had struck too deep a nerve with New Yorkers. Under pretext of cleaning the park, located a few short blocks from Wall Street, the mayor planned to have cops remove protesters and destroy…
The “Occupy the Hood” movement in New York City has spread to the oppressed communities of Brooklyn and the Bronx, although, as yet, there are no actual occupations. One Boston Occupy the Hood activist, Ife Johan Uhuru, put it this way, “I see Occupy Wall Street as putting forth demands, and a lot of times…
The reasons for mass support for OWS are not hard to understand. According to a recent report by the U.S. Census Bureau, the median or average income in 2010 was down 6.4% from pre-recession levels and even lower than the average worker’s buying power back in 1978. Poverty rose to 15.1% in 2010. Those who…
In Lower Manhattan’s Zuccotti Park (renamed “Liberty Square” by the demonstrators), the cast of thousands swell in rebellion against the betrayals by the banks, Wall Street’s relentless greed, the plague of joblessness and the craven servility of the political class—both Republicans and Democrats—to their moneyed masters. In short, the central focus of their protest is…
Socialist Action welcomes the growing Occupy movement as a hopeful sign that the decades-overdue classwide fightback against the economic crisis may finally be taking off. We salute the bravery and persistence of the occupations in the face of police repression, media lies and politician slanders and/or attempts at cooptation. Beginning, as was the case with…
The August jobs report issued by the Bureau of Labor Statistics paints another grim picture for the unemployed. The August numbers show little change in the number of unemployed, with the economy creating barely enough jobs to compensate for the 150,000 new workers who enter the workforce every month. According to the BLS, “the number…
For the past five months the small town of Longview, Wash., has been the scene of one of the most militant labor battles in recent history. International grain exporter EGT, a Fortune 500 company, has attempted to open a new $200 million terminal on space leased from the port of Longview. EGT is attempting to operate…
<!–[if !mso]> <![endif]–> Worldwide economic misery, inequality, and war have sparked an explosion of protests against Wall Street’s super crooks. The Occupy Wall Street (OWS) movement, which began in New York City, has spread like a wildfire across the United States. Protesters, led mainly by young people, have built encampments in numerous cities, with accompanying marches…
“ZERO JOB GROWTH LATEST BLEAK SIGN FOR U.S. ECONOMY,” reads the lead headline of the Sept. 3 New York Times. The article expresses the deep pessimism of the U.S. ruling rich that no solutions are in sight. The government’s new report on hiring—a better term would be “firing”—released the day before, according to The Times,…
The jobs and unemployment numbers released on June 3 by the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) paint a grim picture of the situation facing unemployed workers in the United States. According to some capitalist economists, the “Great Recession” supposedly ended in 2009 but the economy remains weak—with the housing, manufacturing, and construction sectors still flat…
