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U.S. Out Now! From Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan and all U.S. bases around the world; End all U.S. Aid to Israel; Get the military out of our schools and our communities; Demand Equal Rights and Justice for ALL!
TAX THE RICH NOT THE POOR! MONEY FOR HUMAN NEEDS NOT WAR!
On the 8th Anniversary of the War on Afghanistan
U.S. -- NATO OUT! BRING THE TROOPS HOME NOW!
End colonial occupation in Afghanistan, Iraq, Palestine, Haiti...
Healthcare, jobs, housing, education for all--Not War!
San Francisco Protest:
Wednesday, October 7, 5:00 p.m.
New Federal Building
7th and Mission Streets, Near Civic Center BART
Volunteers needed: 415-821-6545
answer@answersf.org
ANSWERcoalition.org
ANSWERsf.org
SATURDAY, OCTOBER 17 SAN FRANCISCO MARCH AND RALLY AGAINST THE WARS
U.S. Troops Out Now! Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan!
Assemble 11:00 A.M. U.N. Plaza, SF (Market between 7th and 8th Streets)
March begins at 12:00 Noon
Rally begins at 1:00 P.M. back at U.N. Plaza
Commemorating the eighth anniversary of the war on Afghanistan and the 40th anniversary of the massive October 17, 1969 Vietnam Moratorium.
Sponsor: October 17 Antiwar Coalition
510-268-9429 or 415-794-7354
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Bay Area United Against War Newsletter
Table of Contents:
A. EVENTS AND ACTIONS
B. SPECIAL APPEALS, VIDEOS AND ONGOING CAMPAIGNS
C. ARTICLES IN FULL
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Taking Aim Radio Program with
Ralph Schoenman and Mya Shone
The Chimera of Capitalist Recovery, Parts 1 and 2
http://www.takingaimradio.com/shows/audio.html
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A. EVENTS AND ACTIONS
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THE NEXT OCTOBER 17 COALITION MEETING:
TODAY! Sunday, September 13, 2:00 PM
Unitarian Church (Chapel)
1187 Franklin at Geary, SF (wheelchair accessible).
Let's make a collective effort to build the heck out of the meeting, that is, get out the word to the broadest forces we can and resume the hard work and collective process that is required to make October 17 a success.
We should have well-prepared reports from our established committees:
a) Logistics
b Program/Speakers (Colonel Ann Wright has confirmed if we want her)
c) Leaflets
d) Fundraising
e) Media/publicity
f) Outreach
2,500 leaflets have already been distributed. As per the sense of the body last Saturday, the back side of all future leaflets will be for educational material on issues that relate to the theme, "Money for Human Needs Not War." A top notch piece on the healthcare debate seems like a great way to start.
Let's have some volunteers to cover this Wednesday's 4:30 pm SF City Hall Single Payer Healthcare Rally. Call Kathy Lipscomb for leaflets if you need them, but call before 10 am.
We will also have tables to distribute thousands of leaflets at the three Bay Area Noan Chomsky meetings as follows:
Oakland (Middle East Children's Alliance sponsored) Saturday, October 3, Paramount Theater, Oakland 7:30 pm
Sunday, October 4, 2 pm, Unitarian Church, San Francisco, Franklin and Geary
Sunday, October 4, 7:30 pm, Spangenberg Theater at Gunn High School, Palo Alto 780 Arastradero Road. Sponsor: Peninsula Peace and Justice Center
Brief announcements (1-2 minutes) on our October 17 rally will be made at all three Chomsky events due to the good graces of all the sponsors. We will have an opportunity to distribute thousands of leaflets. We need your help!
Please call Jeff (510-268-9428) or Kathy (415-387-0873) to volunteer at one of these great opportunities to get out the word.
In solidarity,
Kathy Lipscomb and Jeff Mackler
Temporary Coordinators
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National Call For Action And Endorsements at the
G-20 Summit in Pittsburgh, PA
Sept. 19 - 25, 2009
Endorsers (list in formation): Iraq Veterans Against the War Chapter 61, Pittsburgh; PA State Senator Jim Ferlo; Veterans for Peace Chapter 047, Pittsburgh; National Assembly to End the Iraq and Afghanistan Wars and Occupations; Thomas Merton Center Pittsburgh; Codepink Pittsburgh Women for Peace; Bail Out The People; Green Party of Allegheny County; World Can't Wait; ISO (International Socialist Organization); WILPF (Women's International League for Peace and Freedom) Pittsburgh; Socialist Action; Ohio Valley Peace
Activists from Pittsburgh, the U.S., and across the globe will converge to protest the destructive policies of the G-20 - meeting in Pittsburgh this September 24-25.
The Group of Twenty (G-20) Finance Ministers and Central Bank Governors represents the world's economic leaders, intimately connected to the most powerful multi-national corporations that dominate the global economy. Their neo-liberal policies have squandered billions on war, plunged economies into deep recessions, worsened social, economic and political inequality, and polluted the earth.
We believe a better world is possible. We anticipate involvement and support from like-minded people and organizations across the country for projected actions from September 19-25:
People's Summit - Sept. 19, 21-22 (Saturday, Monday, Tuesday)
A partnership of educators and social justice groups is organizing a People's Summit to discuss global problems and seek solutions that are informed by the basic principles of genuine democracy and human dignity. This will bring together informed speakers and panels to discuss problems we face and possible solutions, also providing interactive workshop discussions.
Mass March on the G-20 - Friday, Sept. 25:
Money for human needs, not for war!
Gather at 12 noon, march to the City County Building downtown
A peaceful, legal march is being sponsored by the Thomas Merton Center, an umbrella organization that supports a wide variety of peace and justice member projects in Pittsburgh. We will hold a mass march to demand "Money for human needs, not for war!"
WE SEEK THE BROADEST RANGE OF SUPPORT, PARTICIPATION, AND ENDORSEMENTS FOR THE MASS MARCH AND PEOPLE'S SUMMIT
To endorse, E-mail: info@pittsburghendthewar.org
Or contact: Thomas Merton Center AWC, 5125 Penn Avenue, Pittsburgh, PA 15224
Several other events are being planned by a wide variety of community and social justice groups in Pittsburgh.
For more information and updates please visit:
http://www.thomasmertoncenter.org/g20action.htm
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The Human Face of Death Row
Join us October 2nd at 7pm for the opening reception for an exhibition of paintings from three men - Kevin Cooper, James Anderson and Eddie Vargas. Two of them are condemned - on death row; the third has a life sentence - the other death penalty.
These three men use art to express themselves. We hope you will see their work, hear their stories, and take away an understanding of their humanity from viewing it.
PLEASE FORWARD WIDELY
ROCK PAPER SCISSORS GALLERY
TELEGRAPH & 23RD ST, OAKLAND
October 1 - October 31, 2009
OPENING RECEPTION: FRIDAY, OCTOBER 2ND - 7 TO 9 PM
JUSTICE FOR OSCAR GRANT: FRIDAY, OCTOBER 16TH - 7 TO 9 PM - a memorial movie of Oscar Grant, with Uncle Cephus Bobby Johnson, other members of Oscar's family and Jack Bryson. Come for update: Meserlhe's trial starts October 13th, unless continued again.
STAN TOOKIE WILLIAMS LEGACY NETWORK: SATURDAY, OCTOBER 17TH - 4 TO 6 PM - with Barbara Becnel and Stan Tookie Williams' books for children.
LIVE FROM DEATH ROW: FRIDAY, OCTOBER 23RD - 7 TO 9 PM - with Kevin Cooper, an innocent man on San Quentin's death row calling (at 7:30 sharp). Q&A with Kevin Cooper and members of the Kevin Cooper Defense Committee.
PLEASE JOIN US
FOR MORE INFO: CALIFORNIA@NODEATHPENALTY.ORG
510-589-6820
2278 Telegraph Ave., Ca 94612(click here for a map)http://www.mapquest.com/maps?city=Oakland&state=CA&address=2278+Telegraph
Presented by the Campaign to End the Death Penalty, a grassroots organization dedicated to the abolition of capital punishment in the United States.
website: www.nodeathpenalty.org
Also by Art for a Democratic Society, an Oakland based art and activism group specializing in participatory grassroots interventionist art.
website: www.a4ds.org email: a4ds@earthlink.net
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On the 8th Anniversary of the War on Afghanistan
U.S. -- NATO OUT!
BRING THE TROOPS HOME NOW!
End colonial occupation in Afghanistan, Iraq, Palestine, Haiti...
Healthcare, jobs, housing, education for all--Not War!
San Francisco Protest:
Wednesday, October 7, 5:00 p.m.
New Federal Building
7th and Mission Streets, Near Civic Center BART
Initiated by the ANSWER Coalition--Act Now to Stop War and End Racism
Volunteers needed: 415-821-6545
answer@answersf.org
ANSWERcoalition.org
ANSWERsf.org
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NATIONAL MARCH FOR EQUALITY
WASHINGTON, D.C. OCTOBER 10-11, 2009
Sign up here and spread the word:
http://www.nationalequalitymarch.com/
On October 10-11, 2009, we will gather in Washington DC from all across
America to let our elected leaders know that *now is the time for full equal
rights for LGBT people.* We will gather. We will march. And we will leave
energized and empowered to do the work that needs to be done in every
community across the nation.
This site will be updated as more information is available. We will organize
grassroots, from the bottom-up, and details will be shared on this website.
Our single demand:
Equal protection in all matters governed by civil law in all 50 states.
Our philosophy:
As members of every race, class, faith, and community, we see the struggle
for LGBT equality as part of a larger movement for peace and social justice.
Our strategy:
Decentralized organizing for this march in every one of the 435
Congressional districts will build a network to continue organizing beyond
October.
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SATURDAY, OCTOBER 17 SAN FRANCISCO MARCH AND RALLY AGAINST THE WARS
U.S. Troops Out Now! Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan!
Assemble 11:00 A.M. U.N. Plaza, SF (Market between 7th and 8th Streets)
March begins at 12:00 Noon
Rally begins at 1:00 P.M. back at U.N. Plaza
Commemorating the eighth anniversary of the war on Afghanistan and the 40th anniversary of the massive October 17, 1969 Vietnam Moratorium.
Sponsor: October 17 Antiwar Coalition
510-268-9429 or 415-794-7354
Money for Human Needs Not War!
Immediate and unconditional withdrawal of all U.S. troops, military personnel, bases, contractors, and mercenaries from Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan and Colombia.
End U.S. support for the Israeli occupation of Palestine! End the Seige of Gaza!
U.S. Hands Off Iran and North Korea!
Self-determination for All Oppressed Nations and Peoples!
End War Crimes Including Torture and Prosecute the War Criminals!
See historical images of the Vietnam Moratorium at:
http://images.google.com/images?q=vietnam+moratorium&oe=utf-8&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&client=firefox-a&um=1&ie=UTF-8&ei=lGaISs7pMIP-sQOr2OznAg&sa=X&oi=image_result_group&ct=title&resnum=4
Image of San Francisco Vietnam Moratorium, Golden Gate Park, October 17, 1969 (I was there...bw):
http://images.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://www.rchrd.com/photo/images/pb2-12-15.jpg&imgrefurl=http://rchrd.com/photo/archives/1969/&usg=__FeHN5CAwDXv-ewwCt2Hfni6ZUn8=&h=567&w=850&sz=143&hl=en&start=3&um=1&tbnid=EJH6Kzj6YI6zzM:&tbnh=97&tbnw=145&prev=/images%3Fq%3Dvietnam%2Bmoratorium%26hl%3Den%26client%3Dfirefox-a%26rls%3Dorg.mozilla:en-US:official%26sa%3DX%26um%3D1
This is an initial announcement. Contact information, endorsers and further details to be announced.
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Please forward widely. Contact us if you or your organization would like to endorse this call.
CALL FOR OCTOBER 22 DEMONSTRATION IN OAKLAND, CA:
NATIONAL DAY OF PROTEST TO STOP POLICE BRUTALITY, REPRESSION AND THE CRIMINALIZATION OF A GENERATION
Oscar Grant. Brownie Polk. Parnell Smith. And dozens more Oakland alone. Sean Bell and Amadou Diallo in New York City. Adolph Grimes in New Orleans. Robbie Tolan in Houston. Julian Alexander in Anaheim. Jonathan Pinkerton in Chicago. And thousands more nationwide.
All shot down, murdered by law enforcement, their lives stolen, victims of a nationwide epidemic of police brutality and murder.
The racist arrest of Harvard Professor Henry Louis Gates this summer in Cambridge, Massachusetts - right in his own home - showed that any Black man or woman, no matter their stature, no matter their education, no matter their accomplishments can be targeted for brutality - even murder - at any moment.
Meanwhile, a whole generation of youth is treated as guilty until proved innocent, and hundreds of thousands are criminalized, and locked away in U.S. prisons with no hope for the future. And immigrants are subject to brutal raids, with families cruelly split up in an instant.
We refuse to suffer these outrages in silence. We need to put a stop to this and drag the truth about the nationwide epidemic of police violence and repression into the light of day for all so see. We say no more! Enough is Enough!
Oct 22nd 2009 is the 14th annual national day of protest to Stop Police Brutality, Repression and the Criminalization of Generation---bringing together those under the gun and those not under the gun as a powerful voice to expose the epidemic of police brutality. On that day in cities across the country many different people will take to the streets against police brutality and murder, against the criminalization of youth, and against the targeting of immigrants.
We call for a powerful demonstration in Oakland on October 22 demanding:
* Stop Police Brutality, Repression and the Criminalization of a Generation!
* October 22....No To Police Brutality
* No to ICE raids and round-ups of immigrants!
* Enough Is Enough! No More Stolen Lives!
* Justice for Oscar Grant and all victims of police murder!
* Wear Black, Fight Back
Contact the National Office of October 22nd at:
Info@october22.org or 1-888-NOBRUTALITY
October 22nd Coalition
P.O. Box 2627
New York, N.Y. 10009
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B. SPECIAL APPEALS, VIDEOS AND ONGOING CAMPAIGNS
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URGENT ALERT!
Call-In To Save San Francisco's Only State Park Wilderness Area From
Toxic Condominium Development!
Within the next two weeks, State Senator Mark Leno will seek to pass a
bill allowing environmentally criminal Lennar Corporation to build high
priced condos on the wildlife habitat and parkland in San Francisco's
Candlestick Point State Recreation Area!
San Francisco Supervisors Avalos, Daly, Mirkarimi, Mar and Campos have
sponsored a local resolution to tell the State legislature not to wreck
our State parkland for real estate developer profits.
This measure needs the crucial sixth vote of Board of Supervisors
President David Chiu to win, before Leno's bill (SB 792) goes for its
own final vote.
**WHAT YOU CAN DO**
Call Supervisor David Chiu at 415-554-7450 with the comment:
"Please bring the Avalos/Daly resolution opposing SB 792 to a full Board
vote by September 15th and vote YES! Don't give away one inch of
California's only urban state park!"
If you call during the weekend or evening, or get a recording, just
leave your comment as voice mail.
For more on the State Park land grab see
http://www.sfbayview.com/2009/privatizing-california-senate-bill-792/
For more on Lennar's history of corporate abuses see page 3 of Our
City's Fall 2007 Update at http://our-city.org/Update-Oct07.pdf
###
This alert sent by:
Our City
1028-A Howard St.
San Francisco, CA 94103
415-756-8844
For more information about Our City campaigns go to:
http://www.our-city.org
info@our-city.org
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HELP VFP PUT THIS BOOK IN YOUR HIGH SCHOOL OR PUBLIC LIBRARY
For a donation of only $18.95, we can put a copy of the book "10 Excellent Reasons Not to Join the Military" into a public or high school library of your choice. [Reason number 1: You may be killed]
A letter and bookplate will let readers know that your donation helped make this possible.
Putting a book in either a public or school library ensures that students, parents, and members of the community will have this valuable information when they need it.
Don't have a library you would like us to put it in? We'll find one for you!
https://salsa.democracyinaction.org/o/826/t/9311/shop/custom.jsp?donate_page_KEY=4906
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Take Action: Stop Rite Aid's abuses: Pass the Employee Free Choice Act!
For years Rite Aid workers have faced unfair firings, campaigns of misinformation, and intimidation for trying to form a union. But Rite Aid would never have been able to get away with any of this if Congress had passed the Employee Free Choice Act.
You can help us fight mounting anti-union opposition to the bill that would have protected Rite Aid's workers. Tell Congress to pass the Employee Free Choice Act today!
http://action.americanrightsatwork.org/campaign/riteaidefca2/8gg63dd407ejd5wi?
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This is a must-see video about the life of Oscar Grant, a young man who loved his family and was loved by his family. It's important to watch to understand the tremendous loss felt by his whole family as a result of his cold-blooded murder by BART police officers--Johannes Mehserle being the shooter while the others held Oscar down and handcuffed him to aid Mehserle in the murder of Oscar Grant January 1, 2009.
The family wants to share this video here with you who support justice for Oscar Grant.
http://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2009/07/21/18611878.php
WE DEMAND JUSTICE FOR OSCAR GRANT!
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Urgent: Ahmad Sa'adat transferred to isolation in Ramon prison!
http://www.freeahmadsaadat.org/
Imprisoned Palestinian national leader Ahmad Sa'adat, the General Secretary of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, was transferred on August 11, 2009 to Ramon prison in the Naqab desert from Asqelan prison, where he had been held for a number of months. He remains in isolation; prior to his transfer from Asqelan, he had been held since August 1 in a tiny isolation cell of 140 cm x 240 cm after being penalized for communicating with another prisoner in the isolation unit.
Attorney Buthaina Duqmaq, president of the Mandela Association for prisoners' and detainees' rights, reported that this transfer is yet another continuation of the policy of repression and isolation directed at Sa'adat by the Israeli prison administration, aimed at undermining his steadfastness and weakening his health and his leadership in the prisoners' movement. Sa'adat has been moved repeatedly from prison to prison and subject to fines, harsh conditions, isolation and solitary confinement, and medical neglect. Further reports have indicated that he is being denied attorney visits upon his transfer to Ramon.
Ahmad Sa'adat undertook a nine-day hunger strike in June in order to protest the increasing use of isolation against Palestinian prisoners and the denial of prisoners' rights, won through long and hard struggle. The isolation unit at Ramon prison is reported to be one of the worst isolation units in terms of conditions and repeated violations of prisoners' rights in the Israeli prison system.
Sa'adat is serving a 30 year sentence in Israeli military prisons. He was sentenced on December 25, 2008 after a long and illegitimate military trial on political charges, which he boycotted. He was kidnapped by force in a military siege on the Palestinian Authority prison in Jericho, where he had been held since 2002 under U.S., British and PA guard.
Sa'adat is suffering from back injuries that require medical assistance and treatment. Instead of receiving the medical care he needs, the Israeli prison officials are refusing him access to specialists and engaging in medical neglect and maltreatment.
The Campaign to Free Ahmad Sa'adat demands an end to this isolation and calls upon all to protest at local Israeli embassies and consulates (the list is available at: http://www.mfa.gov.il/MFA/ About+the+Ministry/Diplomatic+mission/Web+Sites+of+Israeli+ Missions+Abroad.htm) and to write to the International Committee of the Red Cross and other human rights organizations to exercise their responsibilities and act swiftly to demand that the Israelis ensure that Ahmad Sa'adat and all Palestinian prisoners receive needed medical care and that this punitive isolation be ended. Email the ICRC, whose humanitarian mission includes monitoring the conditions of prisoners, at jerusalem..jer@icrc.org, and inform them about the urgent situation of Ahmad Sa'adat!
Ahmad Sa'adat has been repeatedly moved in an attempt to punish him for his steadfastness and leadership and to undermine his leadership in the prisoners' movement. Of course, these tactics have done nothing of the sort. The Palestinian prisoners are daily on the front lines, confronting Israeli oppression and crimes. Today, it is urgent that we stand with Ahmad Sa'adat and all Palestinian prisoners against these abuses, and for freedom for all Palestinian prisoners and for all of Palestine!
The Campaign to Free Ahmad Sa'adat
http://www.freeahmadsaadat.org
info@freeahmadsaadat.org
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Troy Anthony Davis is an African American man who has spent the last 18 years on death row for a murder he did not commit. There is no physical evidence tying him to the crime and seven out of nine witnesses have recanted. New evidence and new testimony have been presented to the Georgia courts, but the justice system refuses to consider this evidence, which would prove Troy Davis' innocence once and for all.
Sign the petition and join the NAACP, Amnesty International USA, and other partners in demanding justice for Troy Davis!
http://www.iamtroy.com/
For Now, High Court Punts on Troy Davis, on Death Row for 18 Years
By Ashby Jones
Wall Street Journal Law Blog
June 30, 2009
http://blogs.wsj.com/law/2009/06/30/for-now-high-court-punts-on-troy-davis-on-death-row-for-18-years/
Take action now:
http://takeaction.amnestyusa.org/siteapps/advocacy/ActionItem.aspx?c=jhKPIXPCIoE&b=2590179&aid=12361&ICID=A0906A01&tr=y&auid=5030305
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Committee To Save Mumia Abu-Jamal
P.O. Box 2012
New York, NY 10159-2012
New videos from April 24 Oakland Mumia event
http://abu-jamal-news.com/article?name=jlboak
Donations for Mumia's Legal Defense in the U.S. Our legal effort is the front line of the battle for Mumia's freedom and life. His legal defense needs help. The costs are substantial for our litigation in the U.S. Supreme Court and at the state level. To help, please make your checks payable to the National Lawyers Guild Foundation (indicate "Mumia" on the bottom left). All donations are tax deductible under the Internal Revenue Code, section 501(c)(3), and should be mailed to:
It is outrageous and a violation of human rights that Mumia remains in prison and on death row. His life hangs in the balance. My career has been marked by successfully representing people facing death in murder cases. I will not rest until we win Mumia's case. Justice requires no less.
With best wishes,
Robert R. Bryan
Lead counsel for Mumia Abu-Jamal
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Short Video About Al-Awda's Work
The following link is to a short video which provides an overview of Al-Awda's work since the founding of our organization in 2000. This video was first shown on Saturday May 23, 2009 at the fundraising banquet of the 7th Annual Int'l Al-Awda Convention in Anaheim California. It was produced from footage collected over the past nine years.
Video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kTiAkbB5uC0&eurl
Support Al-Awda, a Great Organization and Cause!
Al-Awda, The Palestine Right to Return Coalition, depends on your financial support to carry out its work.
To submit your tax-deductible donation to support our work, go to
http://www.al-awda.org/donate.html and follow the simple instructions.
Thank you for your generosity!
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KEVIN COOPER IS INNOCENT!
FLASHPOINTS Interview with Innocent San Quentin Death Row Inmate
Kevin Cooper -- Aired Monday, May 18,2009
http://www.flashpoints.net/#GOOGLE_SEARCH_ENGINE
To learn more about Kevin Cooper go to:
savekevincooper.org
LINKS
San Francisco Chronicle article on the recent ruling:
http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2009/05/13/BAM517J8T3.DTL
Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals ruling and dissent:
http://www.ca9.uscourts.gov/datastore/opinions/2009/05/11/05-99004o.pdf
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COURAGE TO RESIST!
Support the troops who refuse to fight!
http://www.couragetoresist.org/x/
Donate:
http://www.couragetoresist.org/x/content/view/21/57/
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C. ARTICLES IN FULL
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1) Pace of Change Under Obama Frustrates Unions
By SHERYL GAY STOLBERG and STEVEN GREENHOUSE
September 7, 2009
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/07/us/politics/07labor.html?ref=us
2) Obama Addresses America's Students
Text
September 8, 2009
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/08/us/politics/08obama.text.html
3) President Obama's Labor Day Speech to the AFL-CIO Picnic
Below is the full text of his speech as prepared for delivery.
huffingtonpost.com
September 7, 2009
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/09/07/obama-labor-day-speech-at_n_278772.html
4) Schools Aided by Stimulus Money Still Facing Cuts
By SAM DILLON
September 8, 2009
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/08/education/08school.html?ref=education
5) Big U.S. Bases Are Part of Iraq, but a World Apart
By MARC SANTORA
September 9, 2009
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/09/world/middleeast/09bases.html?ref=world
6) The Card Game
Overspending on Debit Cards Is a Boon for Banks
By RON LIEBER and ANDREW MARTIN
September 9, 2009
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/09/your-money/credit-and-debit-cards/09debit.html?ref=business
7) Obama's Health Care Speech to Congress
Text
September 10, 2009
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/10/us/politics/10obama.text.html?scp=1&sq=text%20Obama%20healthcare&st=cse
8) Poverty Rate Rose in 2008, Census Finds
By ERIK ECKHOLM
September 11, 2009
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/11/us/11poverty.html?ref=us
9) Florida: DNA Clears Man Convicted of Murder at 15
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
National Briefing | South
September 10, 2009
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/10/us/10brfs-DNACLEARSMAN_BRF.html?ref=us
10) Public Letter To SFLC Executive Director Tim Paulson On The Attack On Steve Zeltzer And The Right To Dissent
11) A Vietnam War Memoir by an Antiwar Activist
A Book Review By Carole Seligman
Shades of Justice, A Memoir
By Paul Krehbiel
Autumn Leaf Press, 2008
http://www.socialistviewpoint.org/sepoct_09/sepoct_09_21.html
12) We Got the Power!
By Bonnie Weinstein
September/October 2009
http://www.socialistviewpoint.org/index.html
13) Theft Charges for Ex-Owner of Factory
By EMMA GRAVES FITZSIMMONS
September 11, 2009
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/11/us/11republic.html?ref=us
14) Charges of Prison Sex Double
By CHARLIE SAVAGE
National Briefing | Washington
September 11, 2009
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/11/us/11brfs-CHARGESOFPRI_BRF.html?ref=us
15) SF CHRONICLE SAVAGES MUMIA--TWICE!
Letters to the editor indicated!
(One sample letter given below)
LABOR ACTION COMMITTEE TO FREE MUMIA ABU-JAMAL
Find more information on Mumia's case, at www.laboractionmumia.com. The site is in process of being updated, but still contains a treasure trove of legal documents and other information showing Mumia's innocence.
16) The Wild Card
By BOB HERBERT
Op-Ed Columnist
September 12, 2009
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/12/opinion/12herbert.html
17) A Year After a Cataclysm, Little Change on Wall St.
By ALEX BERENSON
September 12, 2009
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/12/business/12change.html?hp
18) G.M. Rescinds White-Collar Pay Cuts
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
September 12, 2009
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/12/business/12auto.html?ref=business
19) In Health Care Battle, a Truce on Abortion
By PETER STEINFELS
Beliefs
September 12, 2009
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/12/health/policy/12beliefs.html?ref=health
20) I Am Barack Obama's Political Prisoner Now
By LEONARD PELTIER
September 11-13, 2009
http://www.counterpunch.org/peltier09112009.html
21) Public Option Fades From Debate Over Health Care
By ROBERT PEAR
News Analysis
September 13, 2009
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/13/health/policy/13plan.html?hp
22) Big Spenders? They Wish
By PETER S. GOODMAN
September 13, 2009
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/13/business/economy/13excerpt.html?8dpc
23) Toxic Waters
Clean Water Laws Are Neglected, at a Cost in Suffering
By CHARLES DUHIGG
September 13, 2009
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/13/us/13water.html?hp
24) The Recession's Racial Divide
By BARBARA EHRENREICH and DEDRICK MUHAMMAD
Op-Ed Contributors
September 13, 2009
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/13/opinion/13ehrenreich.html
25) Class Size Brings Strike by Teachers
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
September 13, 2009
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/13/us/13kent.html?ref=us
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1) Pace of Change Under Obama Frustrates Unions
By SHERYL GAY STOLBERG and STEVEN GREENHOUSE
September 7, 2009
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/07/us/politics/07labor.html?ref=us
WASHINGTON - For eight years under George W. Bush, union officials barely set foot inside the White House. But 10 days after President Obama took office, the nation's most powerful labor leaders mingled in the Blue Room, moments after the new president, a man they helped put there, signed a string of executive orders undoing Mr. Bush's policies.
The mood was euphoric. "He walked in with the biggest smile," James P. Hoffa, president of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters, said of Mr. Obama, "saying, 'Welcome back to your White House.' "
Today that euphoria is giving way to a mixture of frustration and unease, as union leaders are growing concerned that the Obama White House has not delivered as much as they had expected. Some criticize him for not pushing hard enough or moving fast enough on their issues, while others blame the deep recession and Republican opposition for his failure to do more.
Mr. Obama has delayed a push for the unions' No. 1 legislative priority, a measure to make it easier for workers to organize. He faces potential conflict with unions on trade, and on how fast to push for immigration reform. And on health care, friction between labor and the White House is suddenly spilling out into the open.
In response, Mr. Obama is renewing his courtship of the labor movement, whose members worked as foot soldiers in his campaign and spent August doggedly defending his health plan at town-hall-style meetings across the country. On Monday, the president will mark Labor Day by speaking at an A.F.L.-C.I.O. picnic in Cincinnati. During his visit, he is expected to name Ron Bloom, who heads the president's automotive task force, to a second role in the administration as manufacturing czar. The next week, Mr. Obama will address the A.F.L.-C.I.O. convention in Pittsburgh.
"He gets an A for effort, and an incomplete for results," the incoming president of the A.F.L.-C.I.O., Richard L. Trumka.
While labor leaders, including the current A.F.L.-C.I.O. president, John J. Sweeney, say they remain extremely supportive of the president - especially his handling of the economic crisis - Mr. Trumka set off an uproar last week when he warned that unions would not support a health care bill that lacks a government-backed insurance plan. It was a shot across the bow to the White House, which is weighing whether to compromise on the so-called public option.
Another top union leader, Gerald W. McEntee, president of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, cautioned that if Mr. Obama abandons the public option, "it will be harder to gin our people up on other issues." Mr. McEntee said he had noticed a shift in sentiment even since July, when 14 union leaders spent 45 minutes in the White House Roosevelt Room with the president and top aides like David Axelrod.
"He said, 'You've stood shoulder to shoulder with me' - and I'm paraphrasing here - 'I want you there, and I'm going to fight for you,' " Mr. McEntee said. "When we left, I think we were all on maybe not cloud nine, but cloud four. I shook hands with all the staff, Axelrod was there. This was the person we elected; this was our president with a voice. It felt good." And now? Mr. McEntee paused. "Well," he said, "not as good."
Blue-collar workers have long been a little bit suspicious of Mr. Obama, who has never quite been able to demonstrate that he is one of them. Still, they stood strongly behind him once he became the Democratic presidential nominee, contributing money, running phone banks and knocking on doors in critical swing states like Florida, Ohio and Pennsylvania.
The two main labor federations, the A.F.L.-C.I.O. and Change to Win, said unions and their political action committees had spent nearly $450 million in the presidential race. The addition of Joseph R. Biden Jr. to the ticket as Mr. Obama's running mate helped with his union bona fides. So did the endorsement of Senator Edward M. Kennedy, Democrat of Massachusetts.
Today, Mr. Biden continues to play an important role as a link between the unions and the president. But Mr. Kennedy's death is a significant loss, one that may force Mr. Obama to work that much harder to win union support for any health care compromise he might make, said Geoff Garin, a Democratic strategist.
"Ted Kennedy was an incredibly important Good Housekeeping seal of approval, and if he lent his prestige to whatever compromise Obama felt he had to make, that would mean an awful lot to people in the labor movement," Mr. Garin said. Mr. Obama, he added, must "persuade labor unions and others that his commitment is to getting it right in the interest of the average working person."
He may have an easier time with some than others. Mr. Hoffa, for instance, said the public option was not a make-or-break provision for him; he is open to legislation containing a "a trigger" to create a public plan if private efforts to expand coverage fail. Mr. McEntee, by contrast, dismissed the trigger idea as "not a real public option."
Dennis Rivera, the point man on health care for the Service Employees International Union, said simply that unions would have to be flexible. "Politics is the art of the possible," he said, adding that Mr. Obama's "heart is in the right place."
Still, there are tensions between unions and the White House on matters beyond health care. Trade is an especially contentious issue; unions are irked that Mr. Obama has backed away from his campaign pledge to reopen the North American Free Trade Agreement. And the United Steelworkers, which represents tire workers, is pressing Mr. Obama to punish China now that the United States International Trade Commission has ruled that China is hurting American manufacturers by inundating the market with cheap tires.
Union leaders have also been patient with Mr. Obama, both on immigration (they want legislation offering a path to citizenship for an estimated 12 million illegal immigrants) and the Employee Free Choice Act, the bill to make organizing easier. In the July White House meeting, Mr. Obama made a strong pitch that health care should come first.
Labor leaders were willing to accept that strategy, said David E. Bonior, a former Michigan congressman who is the chairman of the National Labor Coordinating Committee, an umbrella group. But with Mr. Obama planning a major speech before Congress this week to lay out his priorities in a health bill, Mr. Bonior said, union members want reassurance that he will stick his neck out for their priorities.
"They don't want him to leave it up to seven or eight committee chairmen," Mr. Bonior said. "They want him to be the leader and to fight for this stuff."
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2) Obama Addresses America's Students
Text
September 8, 2009
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/08/us/politics/08obama.text.html
Following is a transcript of President Obama's speech to America's students, delivered on Tuesday at a Arlington, Va., high school, as released by the White House.
THE PRESIDENT: Hello, everybody! Thank you. Thank you. Thank you, everybody. All right, everybody go ahead and have a seat. How is everybody doing today? (Applause.) How about Tim Spicer? (Applause.) I am here with students at Wakefield High School in Arlington, Virginia. And we've got students tuning in from all across America, from kindergarten through 12th grade. And I am just so glad that all could join us today. And I want to thank Wakefield for being such an outstanding host. Give yourselves a big round of applause. (Applause.)
I know that for many of you, today is the first day of school. And for those of you in kindergarten, or starting middle or high school, it's your first day in a new school, so it's understandable if you're a little nervous. I imagine there are some seniors out there who are feeling pretty good right now -- (applause) -- with just one more year to go. And no matter what grade you're in, some of you are probably wishing it were still summer and you could've stayed in bed just a little bit longer this morning.
I know that feeling. When I was young, my family lived overseas. I lived in Indonesia for a few years. And my mother, she didn't have the money to send me where all the American kids went to school, but she thought it was important for me to keep up with an American education. So she decided to teach me extra lessons herself, Monday through Friday. But because she had to go to work, the only time she could do it was at 4:30 in the morning.
Now, as you might imagine, I wasn't too happy about getting up that early. And a lot of times, I'd fall asleep right there at the kitchen table. But whenever I'd complain, my mother would just give me one of those looks and she'd say, "This is no picnic for me either, buster." (Laughter.)
So I know that some of you are still adjusting to being back at school. But I'm here today because I have something important to discuss with you. I'm here because I want to talk with you about your education and what's expected of all of you in this new school year.
Now, I've given a lot of speeches about education. And I've talked about responsibility a lot.
I've talked about teachers' responsibility for inspiring students and pushing you to learn.
I've talked about your parents' responsibility for making sure you stay on track, and you get your homework done, and don't spend every waking hour in front of the TV or with the Xbox.
I've talked a lot about your government's responsibility for setting high standards, and supporting teachers and principals, and turning around schools that aren't working, where students aren't getting the opportunities that they deserve.
But at the end of the day, we can have the most dedicated teachers, the most supportive parents, the best schools in the world -- and none of it will make a difference, none of it will matter unless all of you fulfill your responsibilities, unless you show up to those schools, unless you pay attention to those teachers, unless you listen to your parents and grandparents and other adults and put in the hard work it takes to succeed. That's what I want to focus on today: the responsibility each of you has for your education.
I want to start with the responsibility you have to yourself. Every single one of you has something that you're good at. Every single one of you has something to offer. And you have a responsibility to yourself to discover what that is. That's the opportunity an education can provide.
Maybe you could be a great writer -- maybe even good enough to write a book or articles in a newspaper -- but you might not know it until you write that English paper -- that English class paper that's assigned to you. Maybe you could be an innovator or an inventor -- maybe even good enough to come up with the next iPhone or the new medicine or vaccine -- but you might not know it until you do your project for your science class. Maybe you could be a mayor or a senator or a Supreme Court justice -- but you might not know that until you join student government or the debate team.
And no matter what you want to do with your life, I guarantee that you'll need an education to do it. You want to be a doctor, or a teacher, or a police officer? You want to be a nurse or an architect, a lawyer or a member of our military? You're going to need a good education for every single one of those careers. You cannot drop out of school and just drop into a good job. You've got to train for it and work for it and learn for it.
And this isn't just important for your own life and your own future. What you make of your education will decide nothing less than the future of this country. The future of America depends on you. What you're learning in school today will determine whether we as a nation can meet our greatest challenges in the future.
You'll need the knowledge and problem-solving skills you learn in science and math to cure diseases like cancer and AIDS, and to develop new energy technologies and protect our environment. You'll need the insights and critical-thinking skills you gain in history and social studies to fight poverty and homelessness, crime and discrimination, and make our nation more fair and more free. You'll need the creativity and ingenuity you develop in all your classes to build new companies that will create new jobs and boost our economy.
We need every single one of you to develop your talents and your skills and your intellect so you can help us old folks solve our most difficult problems. If you don't do that -- if you quit on school -- you're not just quitting on yourself, you're quitting on your country.
Now, I know it's not always easy to do well in school. I know a lot of you have challenges in your lives right now that can make it hard to focus on your schoolwork.
I get it. I know what it's like. My father left my family when I was two years old, and I was raised by a single mom who had to work and who struggled at times to pay the bills and wasn't always able to give us the things that other kids had. There were times when I missed having a father in my life. There were times when I was lonely and I felt like I didn't fit in.
So I wasn't always as focused as I should have been on school, and I did some things I'm not proud of, and I got in more trouble than I should have. And my life could have easily taken a turn for the worse.
But I was -- I was lucky. I got a lot of second chances, and I had the opportunity to go to college and law school and follow my dreams. My wife, our First Lady Michelle Obama, she has a similar story. Neither of her parents had gone to college, and they didn't have a lot of money. But they worked hard, and she worked hard, so that she could go to the best schools in this country.
Some of you might not have those advantages. Maybe you don't have adults in your life who give you the support that you need. Maybe someone in your family has lost their job and there's not enough money to go around. Maybe you live in a neighborhood where you don't feel safe, or have friends who are pressuring you to do things you know aren't right.
But at the end of the day, the circumstances of your life -- what you look like, where you come from, how much money you have, what you've got going on at home -- none of that is an excuse for neglecting your homework or having a bad attitude in school. That's no excuse for talking back to your teacher, or cutting class, or dropping out of school. There is no excuse for not trying.
Where you are right now doesn't have to determine where you'll end up. No one's written your destiny for you, because here in America, you write your own destiny. You make your own future.
That's what young people like you are doing every day, all across America.
Young people like Jazmin Perez, from Roma, Texas. Jazmin didn't speak English when she first started school. Neither of her parents had gone to college. But she worked hard, earned good grades, and got a scholarship to Brown University -- is now in graduate school, studying public health, on her way to becoming Dr. Jazmin Perez.
I'm thinking about Andoni Schultz, from Los Altos, California, who's fought brain cancer since he was three. He's had to endure all sorts of treatments and surgeries, one of which affected his memory, so it took him much longer -- hundreds of extra hours -- to do his schoolwork. But he never fell behind. He's headed to college this fall.
And then there's Shantell Steve, from my hometown of Chicago, Illinois. Even when bouncing from foster home to foster home in the toughest neighborhoods in the city, she managed to get a job at a local health care center, start a program to keep young people out of gangs, and she's on track to graduate high school with honors and go on to college.
And Jazmin, Andoni, and Shantell aren't any different from any of you. They face challenges in their lives just like you do. In some cases they've got it a lot worse off than many of you. But they refused to give up. They chose to take responsibility for their lives, for their education, and set goals for themselves. And I expect all of you to do the same.
That's why today I'm calling on each of you to set your own goals for your education -- and do everything you can to meet them. Your goal can be something as simple as doing all your homework, paying attention in class, or spending some time each day reading a book. Maybe you'll decide to get involved in an extracurricular activity, or volunteer in your community. Maybe you'll decide to stand up for kids who are being teased or bullied because of who they are or how they look, because you believe, like I do, that all young people deserve a safe environment to study and learn. Maybe you'll decide to take better care of yourself so you can be more ready to learn. And along those lines, by the way, I hope all of you are washing your hands a lot, and that you stay home from school when you don't feel well, so we can keep people from getting the flu this fall and winter.
But whatever you resolve to do, I want you to commit to it. I want you to really work at it.
I know that sometimes you get that sense from TV that you can be rich and successful without any hard work -- that your ticket to success is through rapping or basketball or being a reality TV star. Chances are you're not going to be any of those things.
The truth is, being successful is hard. You won't love every subject that you study. You won't click with every teacher that you have. Not every homework assignment will seem completely relevant to your life right at this minute. And you won't necessarily succeed at everything the first time you try.
That's okay. Some of the most successful people in the world are the ones who've had the most failures. J.K. Rowling's -- who wrote Harry Potter -- her first Harry Potter book was rejected 12 times before it was finally published. Michael Jordan was cut from his high school basketball team. He lost hundreds of games and missed thousands of shots during his career. But he once said, "I have failed over and over and over again in my life. And that's why I succeed."
These people succeeded because they understood that you can't let your failures define you -- you have to let your failures teach you. You have to let them show you what to do differently the next time. So if you get into trouble, that doesn't mean you're a troublemaker, it means you need to try harder to act right. If you get a bad grade, that doesn't mean you're stupid, it just means you need to spend more time studying.
No one's born being good at all things. You become good at things through hard work. You're not a varsity athlete the first time you play a new sport. You don't hit every note the first time you sing a song. You've got to practice. The same principle applies to your schoolwork. You might have to do a math problem a few times before you get it right. You might have to read something a few times before you understand it. You definitely have to do a few drafts of a paper before it's good enough to hand in.
Don't be afraid to ask questions. Don't be afraid to ask for help when you need it. I do that every day. Asking for help isn't a sign of weakness, it's a sign of strength because it shows you have the courage to admit when you don't know something, and that then allows you to learn something new. So find an adult that you trust -- a parent, a grandparent or teacher, a coach or a counselor -- and ask them to help you stay on track to meet your goals.
And even when you're struggling, even when you're discouraged, and you feel like other people have given up on you, don't ever give up on yourself, because when you give up on yourself, you give up on your country.
The story of America isn't about people who quit when things got tough. It's about people who kept going, who tried harder, who loved their country too much to do anything less than their best.
It's the story of students who sat where you sit 250 years ago, and went on to wage a revolution and they founded this nation. Young people. Students who sat where you sit 75 years ago who overcame a Depression and won a world war; who fought for civil rights and put a man on the moon. Students who sat where you sit 20 years ago who founded Google and Twitter and Facebook and changed the way we communicate with each other.
So today, I want to ask all of you, what's your contribution going to be? What problems are you going to solve? What discoveries will you make? What will a President who comes here in 20 or 50 or 100 years say about what all of you did for this country?
Now, your families, your teachers, and I are doing everything we can to make sure you have the education you need to answer these questions. I'm working hard to fix up your classrooms and get you the books and the equipment and the computers you need to learn. But you've got to do your part, too. So I expect all of you to get serious this year. I expect you to put your best effort into everything you do. I expect great things from each of you. So don't let us down. Don't let your family down or your country down. Most of all, don't let yourself down. Make us all proud.
Thank you very much, everybody. God bless you. God bless America. Thank you. (Applause.)
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3) President Obama's Labor Day Speech to the AFL-CIO Picnic
Below is the full text of his speech as prepared for delivery.
huffingtonpost.com
September 7, 2009
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/09/07/obama-labor-day-speech-at_n_278772.html
Hello Cincinnati. Hello Ohio. I can't think of a better place to be on Labor Day than at America's biggest Labor Day picnic-with the workers and families of the Cincinnati AFL-CIO.
First, give a big round of applause to Charlie. Charlie reminds us that in these tough times, America's working men and women are ready to roll up their sleeves and get back to work.
I want to salute your AFL-CIO local leaders: Executive Secretary-Treasurer Doug Sizemore, President Joe Zimmer and state President Joe Rugola (roo-GO-la). And your outstanding national leaders: a man who we thank for devoting his life to working Americans-President John Sweeney. And the man who will pick up the mantle of leadership-who we need to succeed because a strong labor movement is part of a strong economy-
Secretary-Treasurer Rich Trumka.
Although Ohio's terrific Governor Ted Strickland couldn't be here, we have Lieutenant Governor Lee Fisher, Secretary of State Jennifer Brunner, Attorney General Richard Cordray, Cincinnati Mayor Mark Mallory, and Hamilton County Commission President David Pepper.
We're joined by members of Ohio's congressional delegation: Congressman Steve Driehaus (DREE-house) and my great friend-who is at the forefront of every fight for Ohio's working men and women, including the battle for health insurance reform-Senator Sherrod Brown.
And I'm proud to be here with a leader who is re-energizing the Department of Labor-and a daughter of union members-Secretary Hilda Solis. And my director of recovery for auto communities and workers-Ed Montgomery.
Now, like a lot of Americans, you're having some fun today. Taking the day off. Spending time with the kids. Enjoying some good music and good food-some famous Cincinnati chili. But today we also pause. To remember. To reflect. To reaffirm.
We remember that the rights and benefits we enjoy today were not simply handed out to America's working men and women. They had to be won.
They had to be fought for, by men and women of courage and conviction, from the factory floors of the Industrial Revolution to the shopping aisles of today's superstores. They stood up and spoke out to demand a fair shake; an honest day's pay for an honest day's work. Many risked their lives. Some gave their lives. Some made it a cause of their lives-like Senator Ted Kennedy, who we remember today.
So let us never forget: much of what we take for granted-the 40-hour work week, the minimum wage, health insurance, paid leave, pensions, Social Security, Medicare-they all bear the union label. It was the American worker-union men and women-who returned from World War II to make our economy the envy of the world. It was labor that helped build the largest middle class in history. So even if you're not a union member, every American owes something to America's labor movement.
As we remember this history, let us reflect on its meaning in our own time. Like so many Americans, you work hard and meet your responsibilities. You play by the rules and pay your bills. But in recent years, the American Dream seemed to slip away, because from Washington to Wall Street, too often a different culture prevailed.
Wealth was valued over work, selfishness over sacrifice, greed over responsibility, the right to organize undermined rather than strengthened.
That's what we saw. And while it may have worked out well for a few at the top, it sure didn't work out well for our country. That culture-and the policies that flowed from it-undermined the middle class and helped create the greatest economic crisis of our time.
So today, on this Labor Day, we reaffirm our commitment. To rebuild.
To live up to the legacy of those who came before us. To combine the enduring values that have served us so well for so long-hard work and responsibility-with new ideas for a new century. To ensure that our great middle class remains the backbone of our economy-not just a vanishing ideal we celebrate at picnics once a year as summer turns to fall.
That's what we've been working to do every day since I took office.
Now, some people have already forgotten how bad it was just seven months ago. A financial system on the verge of collapse. About 700,000 workers losing their jobs each month. The worst recession of our lifetimes threatening to become another Great Depression.
That's why we took bold, swift action-passing an unprecedented Recovery Act, and doing it without the usual Washington earmarks and pork-barrel spending. And, Ohio, it's working.
We've given 95 percent of America's working families a tax cut-4.5 million families in Ohio, including here in Cincinnati. We've cut taxes for small businesses, and made new loans to more than 1,000 small businesses in Ohio so they can grow and hire more workers.
We've extended unemployment benefits for 12 million Americans, including Charlie and nearly 570,000 Ohio citizens. Across America, we've saved the jobs of tens of thousands of state and local workers-including teachers and first responders here in Ohio. We're rebuilding America's infrastructure, including the improvements to I-75 in Hamilton County-led by a local Cincinnati contractor-and more than 200 other highway projects across Ohio.
And we're making an historic commitment to innovation-much of it still to come in the months and year ahead: doubling our capacity to generate renewable energy; building a new smart grid to carry electricity from coast to coast; laying down broadband lines and high-speed rail lines; and providing the largest boost in basic research in history.
So our Recovery plan is working. The financial system has been saved from collapse. Home sales are up. We're seeing signs of life in the auto industry. Business investment is starting to stabilize. For the first time in 18 months, we're seeing growth in manufacturing.
On Friday, we learned that the economy lost another 216,000 jobs in August. And whenever Americans are losing jobs-especially so many-that's simply unacceptable. But for the second straight month, we lost fewer jobs than the month before and it was the fewest jobs lost in a year. So make no mistake. We're moving in the right direction.
Ohio, we're on the road to recovery.
But we've still got a long way to go. So we will not rest, we will not let up. Not until workers looking for jobs can find them-good jobs that sustain families and sustain dreams. Not until responsible mortgage-owners can stay in their homes. Not until we have a full economic recovery and all Americans have their shot at the American Dream.
But we can't do that if we go back to that old economy-overleveraged banks, inflated profits and maxed-out credit cards. An economy of bubbles and bursts, where your wages and incomes stagnate while corporate profits soar. So even as we recover from the recession and work to cut the deficit in half, we have to build a new foundation for prosperity in America.
An America with a reformed financial regulation system that protects consumers and the entire financial system so we never have a crisis like this again.
An America where energy reform creates green jobs that can never be outsourced and that finally frees America from the grip of foreign oil.
An America that commits to education-because the countries that out-educate us today will out-compete us tomorrow and the best jobs will go to the best educated-whether they live in Cincinnati or Shanghai. So we've got to do a better job educating our sons and daughters.
An America that once again invests in the middle class, which is why I've created our Task Force on Middle Class Working Families, led by Vice President Joe Biden, to make sure that our policies always benefit you-America's workers.
And today we're taking another step. I'm naming Ron Bloom to lead our efforts to revitalize the sector that helped build the middle class:
American manufacturing. Ron has worked with steelworkers, service employees and management to create new jobs. He's helped guide my auto task force. And as my new point person on manufacturing, he'll help us craft the policies that will create the next generation of manufacturing jobs and ensure American competitiveness in the 21st century.
And, yes, we're building an America where health insurance reform delivers more stability and security to every American-the many who have insurance today and the millions who don't.
Now, I'll have a lot more to say about this Wednesday night, and I don't want to give it all away. But let me just say this. We've been fighting for quality, affordable health care for every American for nearly a century-since Teddy Roosevelt. The Congress and the country have been engaged in a vigorous debate for many months. And debate is good, because we have to get this right. But in every debate there comes a time to decide, a time to act. And Ohio, that time is now.
We've never been this close. We've never had such broad agreement on what needs to be done. And because we're so close to real reform, the special interests are doing what they always do-trying to scare the American people and preserve the status quo.
But I've got a question for them: What's your answer? What's your solution? The truth is, they don't have one. It's do nothing. And we know what that future looks like. Insurance companies raking in the profits while discriminating against people because of pre-existing conditions and denying or dropping coverage when you get sick. It means you're never negotiating about higher wages, because you're spending all your time just protecting the benefits you already have.
It means premiums continuing to skyrocket three times faster than your wages. More families pushed into bankruptcy. More businesses cutting more jobs. More Americans losing their health insurance-14,000 every day. And it means more Americans dying every day just because they don't have insurance.
But that's not the future I see for America. I see reform where we bring stability and security to folks who have insurance today. Where you never again have to worry about going without coverage-if you lose your job, change your job or get sick. Where there is a cap on your out-of-pocket expenses, so you don't have to worry that a serious illness will break you and your family. Where you never again have to worry that you or someone you love will be denied coverage because of a pre-existing condition.
I see reform where Americans and small businesses that are shut out of health insurance today will be able to purchase coverage at a price they can afford. Where they'll be able to shop and compare in a new health insurance exchange-a marketplace where competition and choice will continue to hold down cost and help deliver them a better deal. And I continue to believe that a public option within the basket of insurance choices would help improve quality and bring down costs.
I see reform where we protect our senior citizens by closing the gaps in their Medicare prescription coverage that costs millions of older Americans thousands of dollars every year out of their own pockets; reforms that will preserve Medicare and put it on a sounder financial footing by cutting waste and fraud and the hundreds of billions of dollars in unwarranted public subsidies to an already profitable insurance industry.
I want a health insurance system that works as well for the American people as it does for the insurance industry. They should be free to make a profit. But they also have to be fair. They also have to be accountable.
Security and stability for folks who have health insurance. Help for those who don't-the coverage they need at a price they can afford.
Finally bringing costs under control. That's the reform we need.
That's the reform we're fighting for. And that's why it's time to do what's right for America's working families. To put aside the partisanship. To come together as a nation. To pass health insurance reform now-this year.
And few have fought harder or longer for health care and America's workers than you-our brothers and sisters of organized labor. And just as we know that we must adapt to all the changes and challenges of a global economy, we also know this: in good economic times and bad, labor is not part of the problem. Labor is part of the solution.
That's why Secretary Solis has made it a priority at the Labor Department to protect workers-
your safety, your benefits, your right to organize and bargain collectively. It's why some of the first executive orders I issued overturned the previous administration's attempts to stifle organized labor. It's why I support the Employee Free Choice Act-to level the playing field so it's easier for employees who want a union to form a union. Because when labor is strong, America is strong. When we all stand together, we all rise together.
And that is why the first piece of legislation I signed into law was the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act-guaranteeing equal pay for equal work.
Lilly worked at an Alabama factory. She did her job and did it well.
Then, after nearly two decades, she discovered that for years she was paid less than her male colleagues-for doing the very same work. Over the years, she had lost hundreds of thousands of dollars in wages and in pension and Social Security benefits.
Lilly could have just moved on. Instead, this Alabama grandmother made a decision-principle was at stake. She stood up and spoke out for what was right-all the way to the Supreme Court, then Congress, and finally the White House, where I signed the law that bears her name.
That's the lesson of this day-that some things are always worth fighting for. Equal pay. Fair wages. Dignity in the workplace. Justice on the job. An economy that works for everyone, because in America there are no second-class citizens. An economy where you can make a living and care for your families. Where you leave your kids something better.
Where we live up to our fundamental ideals-those words put on paper some 200 years ago. That we are all created equal; that we all deserve a chance to pursue our happiness and achieve our goals.
That is the calling to which we are summoned this Labor Day. That is the cause of my presidency. And that is the commitment we must fulfill to preserve the American Dream for all of America's working families.
God bless you. And God bless the United States of America.
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4) Schools Aided by Stimulus Money Still Facing Cuts
By SAM DILLON
September 8, 2009
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/08/education/08school.html?ref=education
FLOWERY BRANCH, Ga. - Children are returning to classrooms across the nation during one of the most tumultuous periods in American education, in which many thousands of teachers and other school workers - no one yet knows how many - were laid off in dozens of states because of plummeting state and local revenue. Many were hired back, thanks in part to $100 billion in federal stimulus money.
How much the federal money has succeeded in stabilizing schools depends on the state. In those where budget deficits have been manageable, stimulus money largely replaced plunging taxpayer revenues for schools. But in Arizona, California, Georgia and a dozen other states with overwhelming deficits, the federal money has failed to prevent the most extensive school layoffs in several decades, experts said.
When Lori Smallwood welcomed her third-grade students back to school here, it was a new beginning after a searing summer in which she lost her job, agonized over bills, got rehired and, along with all school employees here, saw her salary cut.
"I'm just glad to be teaching," Ms. Smallwood said. "After the misery of losing your job, a pay cut is a piece of cake."
In the hard-hit states, the shuffling of teachers out of their previous classrooms and into new ones, often in new districts or at unfamiliar grade levels - or onto unemployment - continues to disrupt instruction at thousands of schools. Experts said that seniority and dysfunctional teacher evaluation systems were forcing many districts to trim strong teachers rather than the least effective.
And in some places, teacher layoffs have pushed up class sizes. In Arizona, which is suffering one of the nation's worst fiscal crises, some classrooms were jammed with nearly 50 students when schools reopened last month, and the norm for Los Angeles high schools this fall is 42.5 students per teacher.
"I've been in public education north of three decades, and these are the most sweeping cutbacks I've seen," said Michael Casserly, executive director of the Council of the Great City Schools. "But it would have been worse without the stimulus."
Los Angeles Unified, the nation's second-largest district, sent layoff notices to 8,850 teachers, counselors and administrators last spring. Bolstered by stimulus money, it recently rehired some 6,700 of them, leaving about 2,150 demoted to substitute teaching or out of work. Hundreds of districts across California laid off a total of more than 20,000 teachers, according to the California Teachers Association.
In Michigan, the Detroit schools' emergency financial manager closed 29 schools and laid off 1,700 employees, including 1,000 teachers. Arizona school districts laid off 7,000 teachers in the spring, but stimulus money helped them rehire several thousand. Tucson Unified, for instance, laid off 560 teachers, but rehired 400.
Florida's second-largest system, Broward County Schools, laid off 400 teachers, but aided by stimulus money, rehired more than 100. In Washington State, many districts let employees go; Seattle laid off about 50 teachers.
Lauren Stokes, who taught high school English last year in North Carolina's Charlotte-Mecklenburg district, was laid off with about 650 of her colleagues. She sought other jobs, but stimulus money sent to the state helped her district hire her and many others back. One disappointment: her classroom this year is a portable trailer.
"But I'm rehired, thank goodness," said Ms. Stokes, who is 23. "I'm looking forward to trying new things out on this year's batch of students."
Catherine Vidal, a language teacher laid off in May from a high school in Moorpark, Calif., is still out of work. Fifty-nine years old, Ms. Vidal has given up her apartment and is living, for now, on a friend's boat. Teaching has become too iffy, and she will change professions, she said.
Not only school staff members are feeling the pain, of course.
"I struggled this year getting my three boys everything they needed," said Mary Lou Johnson, an unemployed office worker who went back-to-school shopping last month at a Wal-Mart in Chamblee, Ga. "Buying their backpacks, sneakers, all the stuff for their classes - it nearly cleaned me out."
In Ohio, students in the South-Western City district south of Columbus returned to schools with no sports, cheerleading or band, all cut after residents voted down a property tax increase. Stimulus money allowed the district to expand services for disabled students, but it could not save extracurricular programs, said Hugh Garside, the district's treasurer.
Driving the layoffs was a precipitous decline in tax revenues that left states with a cumulative budget shortfall of $165 billion for this fiscal year, according to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, a research institute. About half of the 160 school superintendents from 37 states surveyed by the American Association of School Administrators said that despite receiving stimulus money, they were forced to cut teachers in core subjects. Eight out of 10 said they had cut librarians, nurses, cooks and bus drivers.
Districts unable to avoid layoffs should seek to do minimum damage by retaining outstanding teachers and culling ineffective ones, said Timothy Daly, president of the New Teacher Project, a nonprofit group. But most districts are simply dismissing teachers hired most recently, because union contracts or state laws protect tenured teachers in most states and because few districts have systems to accurately evaluate teacher performance, he said.
"Districts tend to make their problems worse by laying off good teachers and keeping bad ones," Mr. Daly said.
The Hall County district northeast of Atlanta, which has 35 schools, dismissed 100 of its 2,000 teachers, said William Schofield, the superintendent. John Stape, who taught high school Spanish, and his wife, Janie, who taught third grade, were among them.
Ms. Stape, 50, is still out of work. Mr. Stape, who is 65 and has a Ph.D., found a job teaching this school year, for less pay, in a rural high school southeast of Atlanta. He said that no administrator had ever observed his teaching before the day he was laid off.
"They didn't know whether I was a good teacher or not," Mr. Stape said. Mr. Schofield said the district used student achievement data and professional judgment to identify mediocre teachers for dismissal, but he acknowledged that Hall County had to cut so many teachers that strong ones were let go, too.
"We downsized about 50 pretty good folks," Mr. Schofield said. The district also trimmed salaries of all district employees by 2.4 percent. Mr. Schofield said he cut his own by 3.4 percent, bringing it to $183,000 this year, and relinquished $23,000 in bonuses.
The Hall County schools received more than $18 million in stimulus money, and without it, "those 100 layoffs could easily have gone to 150," he said.
Among the Hall County educators helped by the stimulus was Ms. Smallwood, who is 25. After she lost her job teaching kindergarten, she went to her mother's home to cry, then regained her composure and circulated her résumé. A principal eventually hired her to teach third grade.
"I feel like I'm starting over again," she said.
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5) Big U.S. Bases Are Part of Iraq, but a World Apart
By MARC SANTORA
September 9, 2009
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/09/world/middleeast/09bases.html?ref=world
JOINT BASE BALAD, Iraq - It takes the masseuse, Mila from Kyrgyzstan, an hour to commute to work by bus on this sprawling American base. Her massage parlor is one of three on the base's 6,300 acres and sits next to a Subway sandwich shop in a trailer, surrounded by blast walls, sand and rock.
At the Subway, workers from India and Bangladesh make sandwiches for American soldiers looking for a taste of home. When the sandwich makers' shifts end, the journey home takes them past a power plant, an ice-making plant, a sewage treatment center, a hospital and dozens of other facilities one would expect to find in a small city.
And in more than six years, that is what Americans have created here: cities in the sand.
With American troops moved out of Iraq's cities and more than 100 bases across the country continuing to close or to be turned over to Iraq, the 130,000 American troops here will increasingly fall back to these larger bases.
While some are technically called camps or bases, they are commonly referred to as forward operating bases, or F.O.B.'s. The F.O.B. is so ingrained in the language of this war that soldiers who stayed mainly on base were once derisively called Fobbits by those outside the wire. But increasingly, the encampments are the way many Americans experience the war.
To be sure, thousands of Americans are with Iraqis at small bases, where they play an advisory role, and thousands more are on the roads and highways providing the protection needed to carry out the withdrawal.
But the F.O.B. has become an iconic part of the war, both for those fighting it and for the Iraqis, who have been largely kept out of them during the war.
They are in some ways a world apart from Iraq, with working lights, proper sanitation, clean streets and strictly observed rules and codes of conduct. Some bases have populations of more than 20,000, with thousands of contractors and third-country citizens to keep them running.
But the bases are also part of the Iraqi landscape. Mortar shells still occasionally fall inside the wire, and soldiers fall asleep to the constant sounds of helicopters, controlled detonations and gunfire from firing ranges.
"It is definitely a strange place," said Capt. Brian Neese, an Air Force physician. "I've asked the Civil Affairs guy if there is anything that I can do off base, and there just isn't anything for me to do. What kills is not the difficulty of the job but the monotony."
At the height of the war, more than 300 bases were scattered across Iraq. Over the next few months, Americans hope to be at six huge bases, with 13 others being used for staging and preparing for a complete withdrawal.
The first people you encounter when driving up to an American base are not actually American. They are usually Ugandans, employed by a private security company, Triple Canopy, and those at Balad had enough authority to delay for five hours an American Air Force captain escorting an American reporter onto the base.
The Ugandans make up only one nationality of a diverse group of workers from developing nations who sustain life on the F.O.B.'s for American soldiers. The largest contingents come from the Philippines, Bangladesh and India. They live apart from both Western contractors and soldiers on base, interacting with them only as much as their jobs demand.
"Everyone stays pretty much separate," said Mila, the massage therapist, whose last name could not be used out of security concerns. She has been in Iraq a year, but she said other workers had been here as long as six years, some never taking a break to go home. "You miss nature, trees and grass," she said.
The base has two power plants, and two water treatment plants that purify 1.9 million gallons of water a day for showers and other uses. The water the soldiers drink comes from yet another plant, run by a bottling company, which provides seven million bottles of water a month for those on base.
Fifteen bus routes crisscross the complex, with 80 to 100 buses on the roads at any given moment. The Air Force officers who run the base have meetings to discuss road safety; with large, heavily armored vehicles competing for space with sedans, there are bound to be collisions.
There are two fire stations as well, and because Balad has the single busiest landing strip in the entire Defense Department, they can handle everything from an electrical fire in a trailer to a burning airplane.
The Americans also installed two sewage treatment plants, given how deeply troubled Iraq's sewage system remains.
The facilities, like much in Iraq, are run by KBR, a company based in Houston. But as Americans prepare to turn bases over to Iraqis, they are working to bring in Iraqi companies to run some facilities, a process that has been slow and complex largely because of safety concerns.
One of the few places Iraqis can be seen, in fact, is the "Iraqi Free Zone," a fenced-in area enclosed with barbed wire and blast walls. There, Iraqis sell pirated movies, discount cigarettes, electronics and Iraqi tchotchkes.
Each large base in Iraq takes on its own distinct flavor. Most large American bases were once Iraqi bases, but some, like Camp Bucca in southern Iraq near the Kuwaiti border, were created where there was only sand.
An Iraqi interpreter at Bucca who was living in Texas with his family when the war started said that when a contracting firm approached him, he asked where he would be working.
"They told me, 'You would be going to a place called Bucca,' " said the interpreter, whose name the military asked not to be printed for security reasons. "I said, 'There is no city called Bucca.' They showed me it on the map and I said, 'I am from Iraq and there is no city called Bucca.' "
It turned out that the interpreter was correct. Bucca, which would house the largest American-run prison in Iraq, was named after Ronald Bucca, a soldier with the 800th Military Police Brigade and a fire marshal in New York who was killed in the Sept. 11 attacks.
Entertainers come to American bases here, the most frequent being N.F.L. cheerleaders. When the Minnesota Vikings cheerleaders visited Bucca this spring, one could only wonder what the thousands of detainees, among them Muslim extremists for whom the flash of an ankle is cause for severe punishment, would have made of the spectacle less than a mile from their cells.
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6) The Card Game
Overspending on Debit Cards Is a Boon for Banks
By RON LIEBER and ANDREW MARTIN
September 9, 2009
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/09/your-money/credit-and-debit-cards/09debit.html?ref=business
When Peter Means returned to graduate school after a career as a civil servant, he turned to a debit card to help him spend his money more carefully.
So he was stunned when his bank charged him seven $34 fees to cover seven purchases when there was not enough cash in his account, notifying him only afterward. He paid $4.14 for a coffee at Starbucks - and a $34 fee. He got the $6.50 student discount at the movie theater - but no discount on the $34 fee. He paid $6.76 at Lowe's for screws - and yet another $34 fee. All told, he owed $238 in extra charges for just a day's worth of activity.
Mr. Means, who is 59 and lives in Colorado, figured employees at his bank, Wells Fargo, would show some mercy since each purchase was less than $12. In addition, a deposit from a few days earlier would have covered everything had it not taken days to clear. But they would not budge.
Banks and credit unions have long pitched debit cards as a convenient and prudent way to buy. But a growing number are now allowing consumers to exceed their balances - for a price.
Banks market it as overdraft protection, and the fees it generates have become an important source of income for the banking industry at a time of big losses in other operations. This year alone, banks are expected to bring in $27 billion by covering overdrafts on checking accounts, typically on debit card purchases or checks that exceed a customer's balance.
In fact, banks now make more covering overdrafts than they do on penalty fees from credit cards.
But because consumers use debit cards far more often than credit cards, a cascade of fees can be set off quickly, often for people who are least able to afford it. Some banks further increase their revenue by manipulating the order of a customer's transactions in a way that causes more of them to incur overdraft fees.
"Banks will let you overspend on your debit card in a way that is much, much more expensive than almost any credit card," said Eric Halperin, director of the Washington office of the Center for Responsible Lending.
Debit has essentially changed into a stealth form of credit, according to critics like him, and three quarters of the nation's largest banks, except for a few like Citigroup and INGDirect, automatically cover debit and A.T.M. overdrafts.
Although regulators have warned of abuses since at least 2001, they have done little to curb the explosive growth of overdraft fees. But as a consumer outcry grows, the practice is under attack, and regulators plan to introduce new protections before year's end. The proposals do not seek to ban overdraft fees altogether. Rather, regulators and lawmakers say they hope to curb abuses and make the fees more fair.
The Federal Reserve is considering requiring banks to get permission from consumers before enrolling them in overdraft programs, so that consumers like Mr. Means are not caught unaware at the cash register.
Representative Carolyn Maloney, Democrat of New York, would go even further by requiring warnings when a debit card purchase will overdraw an account and by barring banks from running the most expensive purchases through accounts first.
The proposals carry considerable momentum given the popularity of credit card legislation signed into law in May. They also have a certain inevitable logic, since the credit card legislation requires a similar "opt in" decision from consumers who want to spend more than their credit limits and pay the corresponding over-the-limit fees. Overdrafts are simply the reverse, where the limit is zero, and the bank charges a fee for going under it.
But with so much at stake, the banking industry is intent on holding its ground.
Bankers say they are merely charging a fee for a convenience that protects consumers from embarrassment, like having a debit card rejected on a dinner date. Ultimately, they add, consumers have responsibility for their own finances.
"Everyone should know how much they have in their account and manage their funds well to avoid those fees," said Scott Talbott, chief lobbyist at the Financial Services Roundtable, an advocacy group for large financial institutions.
Some experts warn that a sharp reduction in overdraft fees could put weakened financial institutions out of business.
Michael Moebs, an economist who advises banks and credit unions, said Ms. Maloney's legislation would effectively kill overdraft services, causing an estimated 1,000 banks and 2,000 credit unions to fold within two years. That is because 45 percent of the nation's banks and credit unions collect more from overdraft services than they make in profits, he said.
"Will they be able to replace it with another fee?" Mr. Moebs said. "Not immediately and not soon enough."
They will certainly try. For instance, some banks have said they might slap a monthly fee of between $10 to $20 on every free checking account. At the moment, people who pay overdraft fees help subsidize the free accounts of those who do not.
Banks may also have to answer a question that many consumers ask and that Ms. Maloney has raised in her proposal: Why can't banks simply alert a consumer at the cash register if they are about to spend more than they have in their account, and allow them to say right then and there whether they want to pay a fee to continue?
The banking industry says that simply is not possible without new equipment and software, costs that would be borne by consumers.
"If you think about when you swipe your card at, let's say, Starbucks or at the Safeway or the Giant, there is no real sort of interaction there," said Mr. Talbott. "It's just approved or disapproved. So how logically would that work? Would a screen come up? Would someone at the bank call the checkout clerk and say, 'That customer is overdrawn?' Logistically that would be very difficult to implement."
No one could have imagined this controversy decades ago, when the A.T.M. card was born. Back then, it was simple: when money ran out, the card was usually rejected by the banks.
But then A.T.M. cards started acquiring Visa or MasterCard logos, allowing users to "debit" their bank accounts for purchases. A thorny issue soon sprang up. What if there wasn't enough money in a cardholder's account to cover a purchase?
For years, banks had covered good customers who bounced occasional checks, and for a while they did so with debit cards, too. William H. Strunk, a banking consultant, devised a program in 1994 that would let banks and credit unions provide overdraft coverage for every customer - and charge consumers for each transgression.
"You are doing them a favor here," said Mr. Strunk, adding that overdraft services saved consumers from paying merchant fees on bounced checks.
Some institutions do not see it that way, and either do not offer overdraft services or allow their clients to decline the service. "We've never subscribed to the notion that individuals who overdraw or attempt to should be allowed to do so without the opportunity to opt in," said Gary J. Perez, the president and chief executive of the University of Southern California Credit Union.
A Source of Easy Money
But many of the nation's banks have found that overdraft fees are easy money. According to a 2008 F.D.I.C. study, 41 percent of United States banks have automated overdraft programs; among large banks, the figure was 77 percent. Banks now cover two overdrafts for every one they reject.
In all, $27 billion in fee income flows from covering overdrafts from debit card purchases, A.T.M. transactions, checks and automatic payments for bills like utilities; an additional $11.5 billion arrives from bounced checks and other instances in which banks refuse to pay overdrafts, Mr. Moebs said.
By contrast, penalty fees from credit cards will add up to about $20.5 billion this year, according to R. K. Hammer, a consultant to the credit card industry. For instance, customers incur penalties for paying their bills late or by spending beyond the credit limit the bank has set for them. Banks also make billions in interest from credit cards.
Most of the overdraft fees are drawn from a small pool of consumers. Ninety-three percent of all overdraft charges come from 14 percent of bank customers who exceeded their balances five times or more in a year, the F.D.I.C. found in its survey. Recurrent overdrafts are also more common among lower-income consumers, the study said.
Advocacy groups say banks are making a fortune because consumers are unaware of the exorbitant costs of overdraft services. And banks, they argue, have an incentive to keep it that way.
That is what Mr. Means found when he approached his Wells Fargo branch in Fort Collins, Colo., to redress the $238 in fees he was billed. An employee explained that her ability to waive fees had been revoked by the bank because she had refunded fees for too many customers, Mr. Means said she told him.
Rory Foster, a former branch manager in Illinois, said that Wells Fargo based its compensation for managers in part on overall branch profitability. Fee income, including that from overdrafts, is part of the calculation.
A spokeswoman for Wells Fargo, Richele J. Messick, said the bank did not tie branch manager pay directly to fee collection.
'I Can't Afford That'
Yet fees, and how they are generated, remain a mystery to many consumers. Because regulators do not treat overdraft charges as loans, banks do not have to disclose their annualized cost to consumers.
And often, the price is enormous. According to the F.D.I.C. study, a $27 overdraft fee that a customer repays in two weeks on a $20 debit purchase would incur an annual percentage rate of 3,520 percent. By contrast, penalty interest rates on credit cards generally run about 30 percent.
"People would be shocked at how brutally high those fees are relative to the costs of a credit card," said Edmund Mierzwinski, the consumer program director for the United States Public Interest Research Group.
Ruth Holton-Hodson discovered that the hard way. She keeps close tabs on the welfare of her brother, who lives in a halfway house in Maryland and uses what little he has in his account at Bank of America to pay rent and buy an occasional pack of cigarettes or a sandwich.
When the brother, who has a mental illness that she says requires her to assist with his finances, started falling behind on rent, Ms. Holton-Hodson found he had racked up more than $300 in debit card overdraft fees in three months, including a $35 one for exceeding his balance by 79 cents.
Ms. Holton-Hodson said she spent two years asking bank employees if her brother could get a card that would not allow him to spend more than he had. Though Bank of America does not typically allow customers to opt out of overdraft protection, it finally granted an exemption.
"I've been angered and outraged for many years," she said. "When there is no money in his account, he shouldn't be able to pay."
Anne Pace, a spokeswoman for Bank of America, said the case was "complicated issue without any simple solutions," but declined to elaborate, citing privacy concerns. She added the bank allowed customers to opt out of overdraft services on a "case-by-case basis."
And when a consumer does overdraw an account, banks have found a way to multiply the fees they collect by rearranging the sequence of transactions, critics say.
Ralph Tornes, who lives in Florida, is pursuing a lawsuit against Bank of America for charging him nearly $500 in overdraft fees in 2008 after it rearranged his purchases from largest to smallest. In May 2008, for instance, Mr. Tornes had $195 in his account when he made two debit purchases for $8 and $13; the bank also processed a bill payment of $256.
He claims that Bank of America took his purchases out of chronological order and ran the biggest one through first. So instead of paying $35 for one overdraft fee, he was stuck with three, for a total of $105.
Mr. Talbott, of the Financial Services Roundtable, said some banks reordered purchases based on surveys showing that consumers want their most vital bills, like rent and car payments, which tend to be for larger amounts, paid before items like a $3 coffee.
Consumers who have been slapped with large fees as a result of this practice have a different perspective. "There is no reason they should get the little guy because he's only got a few bucks in his account," said Ryan Pena, 24, a recent college graduate who has filed suit against Wachovia, now part of Wells Fargo, for what he says are abusive practices, including reordering his purchases. "I can't afford that."
Officials at Bank of America and Wachovia declined to talk about specific complaints, but echoed Mr. Talbott's remarks on processing payments.
The Debate in Washington
These lawsuits open a window onto the questions that government officials and banks are now trying to answer. Do consumers actually want overdraft service? Can they use it responsibly? If so, what is the best way to deliver it?
Federal regulators have acknowledged problems with overdraft fees since at least 2001 but have done little aside from improving disclosure and issue voluntary guidelines they hoped the industry would follow. That year, Daniel P. Stipano, deputy chief counsel for the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, wrote that a company that markets overdraft programs to banks showed a "complete lack of consumer safeguards."
In 2005, after intense industry pressure, the Federal Reserve ruled that overdraft charges should not be covered by the Truth in Lending Act. That meant bankers did not have to seek consumers' permission to sign them up, nor did they have to disclose the equivalent interest rate for the fees.
That same year, the Federal Reserve said that some banks had "adopted marketing practices that appear to encourage consumers to overdraw their accounts." It issued a list of "best practices" that asked banks to more clearly disclose overdraft fees, let customers opt out of overdraft programs and provide an alert when a purchase occurs that would put the account below zero. But critics said the recommendations had no teeth.
"No regulator has made any of their bank examiners adhere to best practices," said Mr. Halperin, of the Center for Responsible Lending. "The result is over that time period consumers have paid probably upwards of $80 billion in overdraft fees while the Federal Reserve considers and considers and considers whether or not they are going to do anything."
Officials at the Federal Reserve dispute that they have not taken sufficient action on overdraft fees, noting that they imposed tougher disclosure requirements in 2004 and are now considering additional regulations to address abusive practices. They will disclose their intent before the end of the year.
What no one disputes is that the stakes in the coming battle on overdraft fees are enormous. Ms. Maloney said she did not push her overdraft legislation this spring because the uproar from the banking industry could have jeopardized the credit card bill.
"It was very important to provide more tools to consumers to better manage their credit cards," she said. "And now I think they deserve the same treatment with debit cards."
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7) Obama's Health Care Speech to Congress
Text
September 10, 2009
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/10/us/politics/10obama.text.html?scp=1&sq=text%20Obama%20healthcare&st=cse
Following is the prepared text of President Obama's speech to Congress on the need to overhaul health care in the United States, as released by the White House.
Madame Speaker, Vice President Biden, Members of Congress, and the American people:
When I spoke here last winter, this nation was facing the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression. We were losing an average of 700,000 jobs per month. Credit was frozen. And our financial system was on the verge of collapse.
As any American who is still looking for work or a way to pay their bills will tell you, we are by no means out of the woods. A full and vibrant recovery is many months away. And I will not let up until those Americans who seek jobs can find them; until those businesses that seek capital and credit can thrive; until all responsible homeowners can stay in their homes. That is our ultimate goal. But thanks to the bold and decisive action we have taken since January, I can stand here with confidence and say that we have pulled this economy back from the brink.
I want to thank the members of this body for your efforts and your support in these last several months, and especially those who have taken the difficult votes that have put us on a path to recovery. I also want to thank the American people for their patience and resolve during this trying time for our nation.
But we did not come here just to clean up crises. We came to build a future. So tonight, I return to speak to all of you about an issue that is central to that future - and that is the issue of health care.
I am not the first President to take up this cause, but I am determined to be the last. It has now been nearly a century since Theodore Roosevelt first called for health care reform. And ever since, nearly every President and Congress, whether Democrat or Republican, has attempted to meet this challenge in some way. A bill for comprehensive health reform was first introduced by John Dingell Sr. in 1943. Sixty-five years later, his son continues to introduce that same bill at the beginning of each session.
Our collective failure to meet this challenge - year after year, decade after decade - has led us to a breaking point. Everyone understands the extraordinary hardships that are placed on the uninsured, who live every day just one accident or illness away from bankruptcy. These are not primarily people on welfare. These are middle-class Americans. Some can't get insurance on the job. Others are self-employed, and can't afford it, since buying insurance on your own costs you three times as much as the coverage you get from your employer. Many other Americans who are willing and able to pay are still denied insurance due to previous illnesses or conditions that insurance companies decide are too risky or expensive to cover.
We are the only advanced democracy on Earth - the only wealthy nation - that allows such hardships for millions of its people. There are now more than thirty million American citizens who cannot get coverage. In just a two year period, one in every three Americans goes without health care coverage at some point. And every day, 14,000 Americans lose their coverage. In other words, it can happen to anyone.
But the problem that plagues the health care system is not just a problem of the uninsured. Those who do have insurance have never had less security and stability than they do today. More and more Americans worry that if you move, lose your job, or change your job, you'll lose your health insurance too. More and more Americans pay their premiums, only to discover that their insurance company has dropped their coverage when they get sick, or won't pay the full cost of care. It happens every day.
One man from Illinois lost his coverage in the middle of chemotherapy because his insurer found that he hadn't reported gallstones that he didn't even know about. They delayed his treatment, and he died because of it. Another woman from Texas was about to get a double mastectomy when her insurance company canceled her policy because she forgot to declare a case of acne. By the time she had her insurance reinstated, her breast cancer more than doubled in size. That is heart-breaking, it is wrong, and no one should be treated that way in the United States of America.
Then there's the problem of rising costs. We spend one-and-a-half times more per person on health care than any other country, but we aren't any healthier for it. This is one of the reasons that insurance premiums have gone up three times faster than wages. It's why so many employers - especially small businesses - are forcing their employees to pay more for insurance, or are dropping their coverage entirely. It's why so many aspiring entrepreneurs cannot afford to open a business in the first place, and why American businesses that compete internationally - like our automakers - are at a huge disadvantage. And it's why those of us with health insurance are also paying a hidden and growing tax for those without it - about $1000 per year that pays for somebody else's emergency room and charitable care.
Finally, our health care system is placing an unsustainable burden on taxpayers. When health care costs grow at the rate they have, it puts greater pressure on programs like Medicare and Medicaid. If we do nothing to slow these skyrocketing costs, we will eventually be spending more on Medicare and Medicaid than every other government program combined. Put simply, our health care problem is our deficit problem. Nothing else even comes close.
These are the facts. Nobody disputes them. We know we must reform this system. The question is how.
There are those on the left who believe that the only way to fix the system is through a single-payer system like Canada's, where we would severely restrict the private insurance market and have the government provide coverage for everyone. On the right, there are those who argue that we should end the employer-based system and leave individuals to buy health insurance on their own.
I have to say that there are arguments to be made for both approaches. But either one would represent a radical shift that would disrupt the health care most people currently have. Since health care represents one-sixth of our economy, I believe it makes more sense to build on what works and fix what doesn't, rather than try to build an entirely new system from scratch. And that is precisely what those of you in Congress have tried to do over the past several months.
During that time, we have seen Washington at its best and its worst.
We have seen many in this chamber work tirelessly for the better part of this year to offer thoughtful ideas about how to achieve reform. Of the five committees asked to develop bills, four have completed their work, and the Senate Finance Committee announced today that it will move forward next week. That has never happened before. Our overall efforts have been supported by an unprecedented coalition of doctors and nurses; hospitals, seniors' groups and even drug companies - many of whom opposed reform in the past. And there is agreement in this chamber on about eighty percent of what needs to be done, putting us closer to the goal of reform than we have ever been.
But what we have also seen in these last months is the same partisan spectacle that only hardens the disdain many Americans have toward their own government. Instead of honest debate, we have seen scare tactics. Some have dug into unyielding ideological camps that offer no hope of compromise. Too many have used this as an opportunity to score short-term political points, even if it robs the country of our opportunity to solve a long-term challenge. And out of this blizzard of charges and counter-charges, confusion has reigned.
Well the time for bickering is over. The time for games has passed. Now is the season for action. Now is when we must bring the best ideas of both parties together, and show the American people that we can still do what we were sent here to do. Now is the time to deliver on health care.
The plan I'm announcing tonight would meet three basic goals:
It will provide more security and stability to those who have health insurance. It will provide insurance to those who don't. And it will slow the growth of health care costs for our families, our businesses, and our government. It's a plan that asks everyone to take responsibility for meeting this challenge - not just government and insurance companies, but employers and individuals. And it's a plan that incorporates ideas from Senators and Congressmen; from Democrats and Republicans - and yes, from some of my opponents in both the primary and general election.
Here are the details that every American needs to know about this plan:
First, if you are among the hundreds of millions of Americans who already have health insurance through your job, Medicare, Medicaid, or the VA, nothing in this plan will require you or your employer to change the coverage or the doctor you have. Let me repeat this: nothing in our plan requires you to change what you have.
What this plan will do is to make the insurance you have work better for you. Under this plan, it will be against the law for insurance companies to deny you coverage because of a pre-existing condition. As soon as I sign this bill, it will be against the law for insurance companies to drop your coverage when you get sick or water it down when you need it most. They will no longer be able to place some arbitrary cap on the amount of coverage you can receive in a given year or a lifetime. We will place a limit on how much you can be charged for out-of-pocket expenses, because in the United States of America, no one should go broke because they get sick. And insurance companies will be required to cover, with no extra charge, routine checkups and preventive care, like mammograms and colonoscopies - because there's no reason we shouldn't be catching diseases like breast cancer and colon cancer before they get worse. That makes sense, it saves money, and it saves lives.
That's what Americans who have health insurance can expect from this plan - more security and stability.
Now, if you're one of the tens of millions of Americans who don't currently have health insurance, the second part of this plan will finally offer you quality, affordable choices. If you lose your job or change your job, you will be able to get coverage. If you strike out on your own and start a small business, you will be able to get coverage. We will do this by creating a new insurance exchange - a marketplace where individuals and small businesses will be able to shop for health insurance at competitive prices. Insurance companies will have an incentive to participate in this exchange because it lets them compete for millions of new customers. As one big group, these customers will have greater leverage to bargain with the insurance companies for better prices and quality coverage. This is how large companies and government employees get affordable insurance. It's how everyone in this Congress gets affordable insurance. And it's time to give every American the same opportunity that we've given ourselves.
For those individuals and small businesses who still cannot afford the lower-priced insurance available in the exchange, we will provide tax credits, the size of which will be based on your need. And all insurance companies that want access to this new marketplace will have to abide by the consumer protections I already mentioned. This exchange will take effect in four years, which will give us time to do it right. In the meantime, for those Americans who can't get insurance today because they have pre-existing medical conditions, we will immediately offer low-cost coverage that will protect you against financial ruin if you become seriously ill. This was a good idea when Senator John McCain proposed it in the campaign, it's a good idea now, and we should embrace it.
Now, even if we provide these affordable options, there may be those - particularly the young and healthy - who still want to take the risk and go without coverage. There may still be companies that refuse to do right by their workers. The problem is, such irresponsible behavior costs all the rest of us money. If there are affordable options and people still don't sign up for health insurance, it means we pay for those people's expensive emergency room visits. If some businesses don't provide workers health care, it forces the rest of us to pick up the tab when their workers get sick, and gives those businesses an unfair advantage over their competitors. And unless everybody does their part, many of the insurance reforms we seek - especially requiring insurance companies to cover pre-existing conditions - just can't be achieved.
That's why under my plan, individuals will be required to carry basic health insurance - just as most states require you to carry auto insurance. Likewise, businesses will be required to either offer their workers health care, or chip in to help cover the cost of their workers. There will be a hardship waiver for those individuals who still cannot afford coverage, and 95% of all small businesses, because of their size and narrow profit margin, would be exempt from these requirements. But we cannot have large businesses and individuals who can afford coverage game the system by avoiding responsibility to themselves or their employees. Improving our health care system only works if everybody does their part.
While there remain some significant details to be ironed out, I believe a broad consensus exists for the aspects of the plan I just outlined: consumer protections for those with insurance, an exchange that allows individuals and small businesses to purchase affordable coverage, and a requirement that people who can afford insurance get insurance.
And I have no doubt that these reforms would greatly benefit Americans from all walks of life, as well as the economy as a whole. Still, given all the misinformation that's been spread over the past few months, I realize that many Americans have grown nervous about reform. So tonight I'd like to address some of the key controversies that are still out there.
Some of people's concerns have grown out of bogus claims spread by those whose only agenda is to kill reform at any cost. The best example is the claim, made not just by radio and cable talk show hosts, but prominent politicians, that we plan to set up panels of bureaucrats with the power to kill off senior citizens. Such a charge would be laughable if it weren't so cynical and irresponsible. It is a lie, plain and simple.
There are also those who claim that our reform effort will insure illegal immigrants. This, too, is false - the reforms I'm proposing would not apply to those who are here illegally. And one more misunderstanding I want to clear up - under our plan, no federal dollars will be used to fund abortions, and federal conscience laws will remain in place.
My health care proposal has also been attacked by some who oppose reform as a "government takeover" of the entire health care system. As proof, critics point to a provision in our plan that allows the uninsured and small businesses to choose a publicly-sponsored insurance option, administered by the government just like Medicaid or Medicare.
So let me set the record straight. My guiding principle is, and always has been, that consumers do better when there is choice and competition. Unfortunately, in 34 states, 75% of the insurance market is controlled by five or fewer companies. In Alabama, almost 90% is controlled by just one company. Without competition, the price of insurance goes up and the quality goes down. And it makes it easier for insurance companies to treat their customers badly - by cherry-picking the healthiest individuals and trying to drop the sickest; by overcharging small businesses who have no leverage; and by jacking up rates.
Insurance executives don't do this because they are bad people. They do it because it's profitable. As one former insurance executive testified before Congress, insurance companies are not only encouraged to find reasons to drop the seriously ill; they are rewarded for it. All of this is in service of meeting what this former executive called "Wall Street's relentless profit expectations."
Now, I have no interest in putting insurance companies out of business. They provide a legitimate service, and employ a lot of our friends and neighbors. I just want to hold them accountable. The insurance reforms that I've already mentioned would do just that. But an additional step we can take to keep insurance companies honest is by making a not-for-profit public option available in the insurance exchange. Let me be clear - it would only be an option for those who don't have insurance. No one would be forced to choose it, and it would not impact those of you who already have insurance. In fact, based on Congressional Budget Office estimates, we believe that less than 5% of Americans would sign up.
Despite all this, the insurance companies and their allies don't like this idea. They argue that these private companies can't fairly compete with the government. And they'd be right if taxpayers were subsidizing this public insurance option. But they won't be. I have insisted that like any private insurance company, the public insurance option would have to be self-sufficient and rely on the premiums it collects. But by avoiding some of the overhead that gets eaten up at private companies by profits, excessive administrative costs and executive salaries, it could provide a good deal for consumers. It would also keep pressure on private insurers to keep their policies affordable and treat their customers better, the same way public colleges and universities provide additional choice and competition to students without in any way inhibiting a vibrant system of private colleges and universities.
It's worth noting that a strong majority of Americans still favor a public insurance option of the sort I've proposed tonight. But its impact shouldn't be exaggerated - by the left, the right, or the media. It is only one part of my plan, and should not be used as a handy excuse for the usual Washington ideological battles. To my progressive friends, I would remind you that for decades, the driving idea behind reform has been to end insurance company abuses and make coverage affordable for those without it. The public option is only a means to that end - and we should remain open to other ideas that accomplish our ultimate goal. And to my Republican friends, I say that rather than making wild claims about a government takeover of health care, we should work together to address any legitimate concerns you may have.
For example, some have suggested that that the public option go into effect only in those markets where insurance companies are not providing affordable policies. Others propose a co-op or another non-profit entity to administer the plan. These are all constructive ideas worth exploring. But I will not back down on the basic principle that if Americans can't find affordable coverage, we will provide you with a choice. And I will make sure that no government bureaucrat or insurance company bureaucrat gets between you and the care that you need.
Finally, let me discuss an issue that is a great concern to me, to members of this chamber, and to the public - and that is how we pay for this plan.
Here's what you need to know. First, I will not sign a plan that adds one dime to our deficits - either now or in the future. Period. And to prove that I'm serious, there will be a provision in this plan that requires us to come forward with more spending cuts if the savings we promised don't materialize. Part of the reason I faced a trillion dollar deficit when I walked in the door of the White House is because too many initiatives over the last decade were not paid for - from the Iraq War to tax breaks for the wealthy. I will not make that same mistake with health care.
Second, we've estimated that most of this plan can be paid for by finding savings within the existing health care system - a system that is currently full of waste and abuse. Right now, too much of the hard-earned savings and tax dollars we spend on health care doesn't make us healthier. That's not my judgment - it's the judgment of medical professionals across this country. And this is also true when it comes to Medicare and Medicaid.
In fact, I want to speak directly to America's seniors for a moment, because Medicare is another issue that's been subjected to demagoguery and distortion during the course of this debate.
More than four decades ago, this nation stood up for the principle that after a lifetime of hard work, our seniors should not be left to struggle with a pile of medical bills in their later years. That is how Medicare was born. And it remains a sacred trust that must be passed down from one generation to the next. That is why not a dollar of the Medicare trust fund will be used to pay for this plan.
The only thing this plan would eliminate is the hundreds of billions of dollars in waste and fraud, as well as unwarranted subsidies in Medicare that go to insurance companies - subsidies that do everything to pad their profits and nothing to improve your care. And we will also create an independent commission of doctors and medical experts charged with identifying more waste in the years ahead.
These steps will ensure that you - America's seniors - get the benefits you've been promised. They will ensure that Medicare is there for future generations. And we can use some of the savings to fill the gap in coverage that forces too many seniors to pay thousands of dollars a year out of their own pocket for prescription drugs. That's what this plan will do for you. So don't pay attention to those scary stories about how your benefits will be cut - especially since some of the same folks who are spreading these tall tales have fought against Medicare in the past, and just this year supported a budget that would have essentially turned Medicare into a privatized voucher program. That will never happen on my watch. I will protect Medicare.
Now, because Medicare is such a big part of the health care system, making the program more efficient can help usher in changes in the way we deliver health care that can reduce costs for everybody. We have long known that some places, like the Intermountain Healthcare in Utah or the Geisinger Health System in rural Pennsylvania, offer high-quality care at costs below average. The commission can help encourage the adoption of these common-sense best practices by doctors and medical professionals throughout the system - everything from reducing hospital infection rates to encouraging better coordination between teams of doctors.
Reducing the waste and inefficiency in Medicare and Medicaid will pay for most of this plan. Much of the rest would be paid for with revenues from the very same drug and insurance companies that stand to benefit from tens of millions of new customers. This reform will charge insurance companies a fee for their most expensive policies, which will encourage them to provide greater value for the money - an idea which has the support of Democratic and Republican experts. And according to these same experts, this modest change could help hold down the cost of health care for all of us in the long-run.
Finally, many in this chamber - particularly on the Republican side of the aisle - have long insisted that reforming our medical malpractice laws can help bring down the cost of health care. I don't believe malpractice reform is a silver bullet, but I have talked to enough doctors to know that defensive medicine may be contributing to unnecessary costs. So I am proposing that we move forward on a range of ideas about how to put patient safety first and let doctors focus on practicing medicine. I know that the Bush Administration considered authorizing demonstration projects in individual states to test these issues. It's a good idea, and I am directing my Secretary of Health and Human Services to move forward on this initiative today.
Add it all up, and the plan I'm proposing will cost around $900 billion over ten years - less than we have spent on the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, and less than the tax cuts for the wealthiest few Americans that Congress passed at the beginning of the previous administration. Most of these costs will be paid for with money already being spent - but spent badly - in the existing health care system. The plan will not add to our deficit. The middle-class will realize greater security, not higher taxes. And if we are able to slow the growth of health care costs by just one-tenth of one percent each year, it will actually reduce the deficit by $4 trillion over the long term.
This is the plan I'm proposing. It's a plan that incorporates ideas from many of the people in this room tonight - Democrats and Republicans. And I will continue to seek common ground in the weeks ahead. If you come to me with a serious set of proposals, I will be there to listen. My door is always open.
But know this: I will not waste time with those who have made the calculation that it's better politics to kill this plan than improve it. I will not stand by while the special interests use the same old tactics to keep things exactly the way they are. If you misrepresent what's in the plan, we will call you out. And I will not accept the status quo as a solution. Not this time. Not now.
Everyone in this room knows what will happen if we do nothing. Our deficit will grow. More families will go bankrupt. More businesses will close. More Americans will lose their coverage when they are sick and need it most. And more will die as a result. We know these things to be true.
That is why we cannot fail. Because there are too many Americans counting on us to succeed - the ones who suffer silently, and the ones who shared their stories with us at town hall meetings, in emails, and in letters.
I received one of those letters a few days ago. It was from our beloved friend and colleague, Ted Kennedy. He had written it back in May, shortly after he was told that his illness was terminal. He asked that it be delivered upon his death.
In it, he spoke about what a happy time his last months were, thanks to the love and support of family and friends, his wife, Vicki, and his children, who are here tonight . And he expressed confidence that this would be the year that health care reform - "that great unfinished business of our society," he called it - would finally pass. He repeated the truth that health care is decisive for our future prosperity, but he also reminded me that "it concerns more than material things." "What we face," he wrote, "is above all a moral issue; at stake are not just the details of policy, but fundamental principles of social justice and the character of our country."
I've thought about that phrase quite a bit in recent days - the character of our country. One of the unique and wonderful things about America has always been our self-reliance, our rugged individualism, our fierce defense of freedom and our healthy skepticism of government. And figuring out the appropriate size and role of government has always been a source of rigorous and sometimes angry debate.
For some of Ted Kennedy's critics, his brand of liberalism represented an affront to American liberty. In their mind, his passion for universal health care was nothing more than a passion for big government.
But those of us who knew Teddy and worked with him here - people of both parties - know that what drove him was something more. His friend, Orrin Hatch, knows that. They worked together to provide children with health insurance. His friend John McCain knows that. They worked together on a Patient's Bill of Rights. His friend Chuck Grassley knows that. They worked together to provide health care to children with disabilities.
On issues like these, Ted Kennedy's passion was born not of some rigid ideology, but of his own experience. It was the experience of having two children stricken with cancer. He never forgot the sheer terror and helplessness that any parent feels when a child is badly sick; and he was able to imagine what it must be like for those without insurance; what it would be like to have to say to a wife or a child or an aging parent - there is something that could make you better, but I just can't afford it.
That large-heartedness - that concern and regard for the plight of others - is not a partisan feeling. It is not a Republican or a Democratic feeling. It, too, is part of the American character. Our ability to stand in other people's shoes. A recognition that we are all in this together; that when fortune turns against one of us, others are there to lend a helping hand. A belief that in this country, hard work and responsibility should be rewarded by some measure of security and fair play; and an acknowledgement that sometimes government has to step in to help deliver on that promise.
This has always been the history of our progress. In 1933, when over half of our seniors could not support themselves and millions had seen their savings wiped away, there were those who argued that Social Security would lead to socialism. But the men and women of Congress stood fast, and we are all the better for it. In 1965, when some argued that Medicare represented a government takeover of health care, members of Congress, Democrats and Republicans, did not back down. They joined together so that all of us could enter our golden years with some basic peace of mind.
You see, our predecessors understood that government could not, and should not, solve every problem. They understood that there are instances when the gains in security from government action are not worth the added constraints on our freedom. But they also understood that the danger of too much government is matched by the perils of too little; that without the leavening hand of wise policy, markets can crash, monopolies can stifle competition, and the vulnerable can be exploited. And they knew that when any government measure, no matter how carefully crafted or beneficial, is subject to scorn; when any efforts to help people in need are attacked as un-American; when facts and reason are thrown overboard and only timidity passes for wisdom, and we can no longer even engage in a civil conversation with each other over the things that truly matter - that at that point we don't merely lose our capacity to solve big challenges. We lose something essential about ourselves.
What was true then remains true today. I understand how difficult this health care debate has been. I know that many in this country are deeply skeptical that government is looking out for them. I understand that the politically safe move would be to kick the can further down the road - to defer reform one more year, or one more election, or one more term.
But that's not what the moment calls for. That's not what we came here to do. We did not come to fear the future. We came here to shape it. I still believe we can act even when it's hard. I still believe we can replace acrimony with civility, and gridlock with progress. I still believe we can do great things, and that here and now we will meet history's test.
Because that is who we are. That is our calling. That is our character. Thank you, God Bless You, and may God Bless the United States of America.
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8) Poverty Rate Rose in 2008, Census Finds
By ERIK ECKHOLM
September 11, 2009
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/11/us/11poverty.html?ref=us
In the recession last year, the nation's poverty rate climbed to 13.2 percent, up from 12.5 percent in 2007, according to an annual report released Thursday by the Census Bureau.
This was the first significant increase in poverty since 2004. It also portends larger increases this year, as unemployment numbers have risen far more than in 2008, economists said. According to the census data, 39.8 million residents lived below the poverty line in 2008.
The poverty line in 2008 was defined as $22,025 for a family of four.
The share of American residents who said they lacked health insurance in 2008 remained steady, at 15.4 percent, or 46.3 million people. But the total masked some more worrisome trends that are helping to drive the debate over national health care reform.
Continuing an eight-year trend, the number of people with private or employer-sponsored insurance declined, while the number of people relying on government insurance programs including Medicare, Medicaid, the children's insurance program and military insurance rose.
The share of children who were uninsured declined, to 9.9 percent from 11 percent in 2007, apparently because of the federal government's special efforts to insure low-income children. But the share of adults aged 18 to 64 without health insurance climbed slightly, to 20.3 percent in 2008 from 19.6 percent in 2007.
In another sign of both the recession and the long-term stagnation of middle-class wages, median family incomes in 2008 fell to $50,300, from $52,200 the year before. This wiped out the incomes gains of the previous three years, the report said. Adjusted for inflation, median family incomes were lower in 2008 than they had been a decade previously.
The accuracy of the poverty and health insurance data, which the Census Bureau collects each spring for it Current Population Survey, is the subject of research and debate. Family incomes in the report do not include the value of noncash items like food stamps or money received through tax credits. On the other side, the poverty threshold has not been adjusted to reflect the rising costs of housing and medical care and does not take account of large regional differences in the cost of living.
Likewise, studies show that some people forget that they had health insurance like Medicaid at some point early in the year. But, since the report only includes those who say they had no insurance throughout 2008, people who lost their jobs and insurance late in the year, as the recession deepened, would not be labeled as uninsured.
Whatever the flaws in both measures, said David S. Johnson, the bureau's chief of housing and household economic statistics, they had largely persisted through the years. "We think the C.P.S. data present a very good measure of the trends over time," he told an audio news conference Thursday.
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9) Florida: DNA Clears Man Convicted of Murder at 15
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
National Briefing | South
September 10, 2009
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/10/us/10brfs-DNACLEARSMAN_BRF.html?ref=us
A 41-year-old man was set to be released from prison this week after his defense said DNA evidence showed he was wrongly convicted of murder and rape 26 years ago and a judge ordered him freed. The man, Anthony Caravella, was found guilty in the 1983 attack and sentenced to life in prison. Mr. Caravella, who is mentally disabled, was 15 at the time. Prosecutors had sought the death penalty for Mr. Caravella, who was accused of raping, strangling and stabbing Ada Cox Jankowski, 58. She was found dead near an elementary school in Miramar, in South Florida. Mr. Caravella confessed to the crime, but his lawyer said the police beat him to coerce the admission.
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10) Public Letter To SFLC Executive Director Tim Paulson On The Attack On Steve Zeltzer And The Right To Dissent
On September 3, 2009, you sent out a letter to all members of the Labor Council. You condemned a San Francisco Labor Video Journalist and labor activist Steve Zeltzer for supporting a picket line against Congresswoman/House Speaker Nancy Pelosi at a San Francisco Labor Council breakfast on September 4, 2009.
You accused Brother Zeltzer of "smearing" the Labor Council because he supported protesting Pelosi's support of the US wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and her backing of anti-labor legislation in the U.S. Congress.
It's wrong to claim that protesting Pelosi constitutes a "smear" of the San Francisco Labor Council. All defenders of workers' rights understand that protests against those in government who vote for war funding are principled actions that deserve the support of the entire antiwar and labor movements. Your argument that it is unethical and politically "divisive" to protest the reactionary policies of the Speaker of the House because she has been invited to a breakfast sponsored by the San Francisco Labor Council, is wrong.
What is divisive is for the leadership of the Council to impose a politician with a reprehensible anti-labor record on a Labor Day event.
Nancy Pelosi's political role includes the promotion of NAFTA, active support for the deregulation of the banking industry, sponsorship of legislation that outlaws the right of Homeland Security employees to organize, and the shameful promotion of extensive privatization of Federal property, notably in the Presidio and other locations that hurt San Francisco workers and their families as well as billions more in funding for ICE and the militarization of the border.
Your claim, therefore, that Steve Zeltzer has "smeared" the San Francisco Labor Council because he supported a picket protesting these anti-labor policies of Speaker Pelosi is itself a smear meant to intimidate any who oppose the policies of Pelosi, including the expansion of the wars in Afghanistan, Pakistan and Iraq.
Your posture is an affront to democratic trade unionism and a dangerous turn towards the demonization and repression of dissent.
One of the leaders of the San Francisco Labor Council actually elbowed Brother Zeltzer in front of the St. Francis Hotel and knocked flyers out of his hands as he and others were passing them out.
Are these tactics that you condone, or is it your condemnation of dissent that encourages physical attacks of those on a picket line?
The San Francisco labor movement has a long tradition of upholding the right of dissent, including the right to disagree with decisions of the leadership of the San Francisco Labor Council .
Your letter is a breach of this tradition. It constitutes a warning to all San Francisco Labor Council delegates and to rank and file members of the labor movement that dissent is "disloyal" and not allowed under your regime.
We call on you to apologize to Brother Zeltzer and to the San Francisco labor movement for these undemocratic and personal attacks.
Initial Signatories to Public Letter To SFLC Executive Director Tim Paulson
Cindy Sheehan
Gene Pepi, Retired Past Vice President ATU 1555*
Ralph Schoenman, Member UAW NWA 1981*
Brad Weidmaier, Member SEIU UHW*
Bonnie Weinstein, Former member: TWU250A* and AFT2121*; Webmaster, bauaw.org
Linda Bazan, Member Unite Here Local 2*
Carole Seligman, Member CTA South San Francisco*
AWH, Member ATU 1555
Riva Enteen, Member SEIU 1021*
Michelle Reddington, Member Unite Here Local 2*
Esther Dominguez, Member Unite Here Local 2*
Nate Holmes, Member SEIU 1021*
Natalia Shul, Retired member Unite Here Local 2
Stan Woods, Member ILWU Local 6*
Send to lvpsf@igc.org
*For information only
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11) A Vietnam War Memoir by an Antiwar Activist
A Book Review By Carole Seligman
Shades of Justice, A Memoir
By Paul Krehbiel
Autumn Leaf Press, 2008
http://www.socialistviewpoint.org/sepoct_09/sepoct_09_21.html
Shades of Justice, a Memoir, by Paul Krehbiel, is an excellent account of the Vietnam antiwar movement by an active participant. Krehbiel came of age during the U.S. war on Vietnam and came to see his work to end that war as the most important thing he has done in his life. We can take that statement as good coin because Krehbiel remains today an active opponent of the wars on Iraq and Afghanistan.
The book blends Krehbiel's personal story of a happy middle-class childhood, his education, his art, and jobs, with a detailed, accurate history of the antiwar movement in Buffalo, New York-an important industrial city, where Krehbiel worked in the auto parts industry and other industrial jobs in the 1960s and '70s.
Krehbiel was an active participant in antiwar organizing efforts including educational leafleting about why the war was wrong, writing, public speaking, and organizing mass demonstrations. His main work was in draft resistance. The draft (compulsory military service) was how the U.S. government was able to build up such a massive military invasion of Vietnam. Krehbiel took an active role in educating young men in high school and college and at the draft board in Buffalo on why they should oppose the war and how to resist the draft. His experience as a worker who helped resist the employers' plans to implement a big speedup at his auto parts workplace, Standard Mirror, was very important in his own development as an antiwar organizer and as a person who understood the importance of building opposition to the war in the working class. Even as a student activist who joined Students for a Democratic Society he was always aware of the need to join students with workers in antiwar organizing.
This book is very much a political memoir in that Krehbiel reconstructs many of the conversations and arguments he had in which he expresses the development of his thoughts about the war. Krehbiel's politics started as an amorphous repulsion to bullying of all kinds, including powerful countries like the United States bullying small countries like Vietnam, and white racist bullying of Blacks. This repulsion grew into a thorough analysis of and opposition to imperialism (he calls it empire) and its wars of conquest. The thought developed not in a vacuum, but in tandem with action. Krehbiel recounts the impressive story of the movement growing from a small minority to a massive majority of the population, and the many obstacles along the way such as tremendous police repression, the National Guard murders of student protestors at Kent State, Ohio and Jackson State, in Mississippi, and frame-ups and repression for antiwar organizers.
The proof of Krehbiel's commitment to the cause of peace is his continuing opposition to the wars waged by the United States since the Vietnam War. He is active today in the Iraq Moratorium. (The book has a chapter about the Vietnam Moratorium and the role it played in mobilizing gigantic opposition to the war), United for Peace and Justice, U.S. Labor Against the War, and a range of antiwar activities including the National Assembly to End the Wars and Occupations of Iraq and Afghanistan.
There is one weak area of the book in an otherwise excellent recounting of a very important period in world history from a local perspective (Buffalo, New York.) It is the author's backsliding into a position of support for Democrats claiming antiwar credentials. He appeared very independent throughout the antiwar organizing and that was a key strength of the movement-staying in the streets and staying independent of both the Democratic and Republican war parties. Just like today, both of the big business political parties were taking turns leading the country into the escalating Vietnam war. But Krehbiel, right near the end of the book, with the Nixon v. McGovern presidential election campaign, joined thousands of antiwar activists in campaigning against Nixon and for McGovern. This support was jarring at the end of the book because it appears to contradict the independent working class perspective Krehbiel was developing throughout the 1960s and 70s.
"The most important lesson I learned," writes the author, "was that a mass movement, democratic in nature and organized from the bottom up, is what makes positive social and political change." This is a powerful lesson for people who want to change the world. The author also recommends social activism-working for peace and justice-as healthy, life-affirming work for individuals. This is a message that young people raised in a society focused on consumerism need to learn a lot about.
Personally, I often think of my participation in the Vietnam antiwar movement as among the most important things I have done in my life. Many members of the older generation feel this way. If you read this book I think you'll understand why. And you may realize also that you can have a part in ending the wars the U.S. government is waging right now. That would be a very good thing!
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12) We Got the Power!
By Bonnie Weinstein
September/October 2009
http://www.socialistviewpoint.org/index.html
According to an August 12, 2009 New York Times article by Jack Healy entitled, "Labor Costs Fall as Productivity Increases,"
"Businesses in the United States squeezed more out of their workers this spring, as productivity surged by the most in six years, the government reported on Tuesday.
"Overall output slid in the second quarter as businesses scaled back production and curtailed their growth plans to cut their budgets and survive the recession. But the number of hours worked fell even farther, meaning that workers effectively did more with less.
"Productivity rose at an annual rate of 6.4 percent at non-farm businesses from the first quarter, the Labor Department reported, the largest increase since the third quarter of 2003. Overall output fell 1.7 percent, and hours worked fell by 7.6 percent.
"As workers became more efficient, the cost of labor for each unit of output fell 5.8 percent. After several quarters of heavy losses, many businesses were able to turn profits this spring by slashing their labor costs and capital investments.
"The report also showed that wages are stagnating and people's purchasing power is fallingâ€_ The recession has left millions out of work and struggling to pay their bills, but it has also made workers in the United States more productive. Worker productivity increased 1.8 percent over the last year, even amid a tumultuous business climate marked by uncertainty about whether employers would be cutting jobs or shutting down altogether."
The article's indifference to the plight of the workers involved is startling. The article accurately points out how the harder workers are pushed on the job-through speed-up, and accepting forced pay-cuts under the threat that jobs might be shut down altogether (and this is not an empty threat as the auto workers can testify)-the more money the boss makes. The stress it places on workers is of no consequence at all because the bottom line for business is profit.
This is a quintessential description of capitalism and how it works to exploit, divide and control workers for its own benefit no matter what harm it may bring to those workers.
Without a doubt, this trend will continue. Business will try to strip those profits off the backs of workers. Business has no choice. It must make a profit and it must come from the backs of workers-whether they are in the U.S. or in slave-shops around the world, borders be damned (for capitalists, that is.)
The exploitation of workers will get worse as markets shrink due to the natural ills of capitalism-war, overproduction, squandering of resources and plunder of the natural environment.
The flesh on the backs of workers is capitalism's only cash crop in this crisis.
That's the primal, predatory nature of capitalism and that's what places workers on the opposite side of the class line from capital. That's what makes the self-interest of workers as a class diametrically opposed to the self-interests of the capitalists as a class. This is "economics 101."
It makes no difference whether individual capitalists are "good" or "bad" because the fundamental need to make a profit, like breathing, overrides everything else. This is what makes the system of capitalist exploitation inexorably counterposed to the basic interests of humanity and the Earth itself.
Socialists have known for years that a transformation from a capitalist society, based upon the private ownership of the means of production and the private accumulation of profits by the owners of those means of production, must be replaced by a socialist society based upon production planned to fulfill human needs and wants instead.
Capitalism is a system that enslaves workers by giving them just enough to live on and to have children who will also become workers while keeping the profits workers create-well over and above what they are paid-to themselves.
Capitalists have proven they will use any means necessary to secure, preserve and expand their profit-taking power-from slavery to war, torture and occupation-whatever will help them to maintain and increase that power.
Socialists also know that a changeover from the tyranny of capitalism to socialism is a life or death necessity if we are to survive.
Ultimately, the continuation of life is the responsibility of working people because they are the only force strong enough to defeat capitalism. The realization of this profound strength and responsibility working people have in common is the key to securing the future of life on Earth.
And the only way to ensure this is for working people to organize and act in unity and solidarity with each other as a class-with the single-minded goal of overthrowing capitalism and replacing it with socialism. Only such a united force will be powerful enough to make such a fundamental change possible.
What it will take to achieve unity and solidarity of workers across the globe must be defined in today's world.
Where we've come from and where we are
This is not the 1940s and '50s post-war period of fantastic growth of U.S. capitalism that put it on the top of the capitalist world heap-especially military industrialization-at a time when at least a third of all workers were organized into trade unions and were earning wages sufficient for home ownership with full benefits and retirement packages, i.e., the proverbial "American Dream."
Of course, it was not all roses-especially if you were Black or working in un-unionized work places such as agriculture-but these were years of both capitalist economic growth and working class unity through the self-organization of massive and combative labor organizations. Their struggles and victories set the precedent of increasing wages and benefits for most working people.
The sit-ins and massive picket lines that were the legacy of industrial unionism in the 1930s set the example that lead, in the 1960s, to the formation of independent Black organizations fighting against segregation; for mass feminist organizations demanding reproductive rights and equal pay for equal work; for the burgeoning LGBT rights movement; even the massive, independent, anti-Vietnam War movement used the tried-and-true methods that led workers to victories such as mass, peaceful protest and the formation of independent, democratically-run organizations that acted as a united front in support of those movements. These tactics were used because they worked.
The existence of a massive U.S. Vietnam Antiwar War movement stood in tandem with the actions of the Vietnamese people who were fighting for their own self-determination against U.S. military tyranny. These two great forces finally brought an end to the war.
A false sense of security
Workers are worse off today; that is, they have less buying power today than they did in the 1970s if you take into account both the rise in prices and the stagnation of wages. What made it seem like workers were riding high for a long time was the massive extension of credit-money at a high price-made available to workers young and old. And there were things to buy-from cell phones to laptops-stuff that school kids carry around in their backpacks today.
Having gadgets such as TVs, video games or cell phones, does not make you rich, is not a sign of affluence, and doesn't bring security and peace of mind. Because you can afford a TV or a cell phone doesn't mean you can afford a place to live. All one need do is to look at the pile of stuff the sheriff sets out on the streets during an eviction to see that all that stuff amounts to nothing without a home to put it in.
All these gadgets-like the credit used to purchase them-are a facade hiding the reality that tens-of-millions of working people are a job away from homelessness right now, today, as they twitter away. And we can't underestimate the impact this realization is beginning to have on people.
The crash in the economy has working people in a state of shock and awe-paralyzed like deer caught in headlights. They have been instantly thrust into fight or flight mode in danger of losing everything including their jobs at a moment's notice with no relief in sight. People, including friends and family members, are being thrust into poverty and joblessness all around them-losing their cars and their homes. Certainly many of those family members can no longer function as a safety net as families typically do-many have already doubled-up with other family members.
And while the government bails out the wealthiest bankers and pours trillions more into the war coffers, working people are left on their own to either sink or swim against the tide of economic collapse. Worse yet, there have been few fightbacks.
That we must accept this economic catastrophe as a fait accompli seems to be the general consensus among working people. They are behaving as people who have already been defeated or who have given up before the fight because they see no realistic, alternative solutions.
However, reliance on the wealth belonging to the commanders of capital to "trickle down" to workers has not been a realistic solution to the economic crisis anymore than the bank bailouts stopped home foreclosures. And throwing trillions at war has done nothing to bring peace. The solutions offered by capitalism have already failed miserably. They are anything but realistic.
Who got the power?
That's the irony, because it's working people that do have potential to solve this crisis-and the ability to carry it out.
The accumulation of debt, the need for continuous access to credit to get by, combined with the lack of job security among workers, automatically gives the boss the upper hand. It pits workers against each other. "If someone is going to get fired it better not be me" is a natural response under these circumstances. And that's just about where most workers who have jobs now are. They're walking on eggshells. They are not readying themselves for defensive action that depends upon working class unity and solidarity. To do that you must believe that there's a chance to win. Instead they are stepping back into their own corner and battening down the hatches.
This constant state of fear batters the intellect and makes workers feel powerless and helpless and, of course, that helps the bosses. The inability to provide your family with the things they need-especially a home-wreaks havoc on a person's self-esteem and causes him or her to look inward and blame themselves or blame those around them. And, more importantly, blinds them to the possibilities for change that are in their hands as a class.
The giant daily media bombardment pounds this feeling of helplessness into working people from every conceivable angle. This is augmented by governmental and police control, drastically restricting the organization and expression of a unified voice for working people. The capitalists put every obstacle possible in the way of workers' solidarity, from anti-labor laws to immigration laws-even to new restrictions on the right to protest and organize like restrictions on the formation of unions-not to speak of the prohibitive costs of running for public office.
Workers are the majority
Capitalists do all they can to make workers feel alone and helpless. But nothing could be further from the truth. Workers hold tremendous power because they are the social class that does the work. Without working people, nothing would get done.
The commanders of capital are a tiny percentage-less than 0.01 percent of the population-it would be impossible for them to get any work done without the workers to do their bidding. Workers are as essential as raw materials, energy and tools-it would be impossible for capitalists to get their hands on these resources without them. Capitalists don't go down into the coalmines and extract the stuff themselves, any more than they fight on the battlefields of their own wars.
In fact, they couldn't even make war without workers to build the bombs and serve as the cannon fodder. So how is it that the capitalists seem so almighty powerful? How is it that they have control over all the wealth that working people produce when workers far outnumber them?
That's because there's no democracy involved in determining who has control over the wealth workers create. There's no democracy on the job regarding how much workers should get paid or what kind of working conditions they should work under or what quality of merchandise or services to offer.
Unless workers take it upon themselves to fight for better pay or working conditions they will have to settle for what they get and hope they can continue to hold on to it, and exist on it. It's also true that having no say in the compensation one gets for the labor they expend or the quality of products they produce or the conditions under which they produce them alienates workers from their work.
Workers have the most powerful arsenal
Workers' most powerful weapon is a peaceful one-and that is, simply, to withhold their labor until their demands (better pay and/or conditions for all workers on the job) are met.
The boss, on the contrary, in efforts to defeat the workers, must depend upon threats, intimidation, pitting one worker against the other, firings, threats to go out of business, calling out the National Guard or the police, even death-threats and outright murder and assassination.
Potentially, it's workers that hold the real power. All workers have to do is democratically decide-en masse-to withhold their labor until they have ownership and control over the workplaces they already operate, and over the profits they create and, finally, to empower themselves to decide, democratically, how best to use what they create to best benefit everyone.
Capitalism is not necessary. Private ownership of the means of production by a tiny minority of greedy despots-and the wars they wage to maintain their power-is not necessary. The capitalist system is counter to the human instinct of taking care of each other.
A transition to socialism
Where capitalism divides and conquers, workers must make bridges of common concerns.
The first priority for workers is to organize, on a massive scale, to end the wars that bring so much death and destruction to their fellow workers, and at such a fantastic price.
Workers pay for the wars, the capitalists don't. That money and those resources could be put to much better use. The trillions spent on war could go a long way to wiping out economic injustice the world over thereby eliminating the basic reasons for war in the first place.
Workers must organize a massive movement to ensure that everyone has a job. This demand must be paired with the most logical way to create enough jobs to go around. And that is to cut the workweek down according to how many people need jobs, without reducing the amount of weekly pay.
To ensure that all workers are compensated and treated fairly, they should receive equal pay for equal work and equal rights for all, everywhere across all borders. This includes the right of workers to find work wherever it's available regardless of borders between countries or states. Workers have just as much right to cross borders as corporations and multi-millionaire tax evaders do.
Workers must have the right to freely form their own independent organizations to implement changes that will benefit them. Again, workers have this right because they do the work and are the majority.
However, until workers can institute real majority rule, they must organize to win concessions such as an end to the wars, for the right to organize in their own defense on the job without interference by either the boss or the government, for free healthcare, education, housing, food, safe and clean worksites, and a healthy and clean environment.
These are things that all people have the right to expect as members of society. And, until we can get rid of this unfair capitalist system that stands squarely in the way of human justice and freedom, we must insist that the rich pay the taxes to afford these basic necessities. All these things can be paid for out of the huge profits the capitalists already have and continue to amass and squander selfishly on themselves.
The tables of capitalist power can be turned if workers organize every job site and every community into an independent, democratic, organization based on fighting for the basic human rights of the working class-and that can stand up and defend these rights as one unified force that acts together in defense of human rights.
This is the first step toward workers seizing their own destiny and creating a world by, for and of, all the people. It's the only realistic solution to ending the violent and unjust world that capitalism has created.
The key is to realize that capitalism only has the power to plunder and destroy the world. That's its nature. Only workers have the power to change the world for the better.
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12) We Got the Power!
By Bonnie Weinstein
September/October 2009
http://www.socialistviewpoint.org/
According to an August 12, 2009 New York Times article by Jack Healy entitled, "Labor Costs Fall as Productivity Increases,"
"Businesses in the United States squeezed more out of their workers this spring, as productivity surged by the most in six years, the government reported on Tuesday.
"Overall output slid in the second quarter as businesses scaled back production and curtailed their growth plans to cut their budgets and survive the recession. But the number of hours worked fell even farther, meaning that workers effectively did more with less.
"Productivity rose at an annual rate of 6.4 percent at non-farm businesses from the first quarter, the Labor Department reported, the largest increase since the third quarter of 2003. Overall output fell 1.7 percent, and hours worked fell by 7.6 percent.
"As workers became more efficient, the cost of labor for each unit of output fell 5.8 percent. After several quarters of heavy losses, many businesses were able to turn profits this spring by slashing their labor costs and capital investments.
"The report also showed that wages are stagnating and people's purchasing power is falling... The recession has left millions out of work and struggling to pay their bills, but it has also made workers in the United States more productive. Worker productivity increased 1.8 percent over the last year, even amid a tumultuous business climate marked by uncertainty about whether employers would be cutting jobs or shutting down altogether."
The article's indifference to the plight of the workers involved is startling. The article accurately points out how the harder workers are pushed on the job-through speed-up, and accepting forced pay-cuts under the threat that jobs might be shut down altogether (and this is not an empty threat as the auto workers can testify)-the more money the boss makes. The stress it places on workers is of no consequence at all because the bottom line for business is profit.
This is a quintessential description of capitalism and how it works to exploit, divide and control workers for its own benefit no matter what harm it may bring to those workers.
Without a doubt, this trend will continue. Business will try to strip those profits off the backs of workers. Business has no choice. It must make a profit and it must come from the backs of workers-whether they are in the U.S. or in slave-shops around the world, borders be damned (for capitalists, that is.)
The exploitation of workers will get worse as markets shrink due to the natural ills of capitalism-war, overproduction, squandering of resources and plunder of the natural environment.
The flesh on the backs of workers is capitalism's only cash crop in this crisis.
That's the primal, predatory nature of capitalism and that's what places workers on the opposite side of the class line from capital. That's what makes the self-interest of workers as a class diametrically opposed to the self-interests of the capitalists as a class. This is "economics 101."
It makes no difference whether individual capitalists are "good" or "bad" because the fundamental need to make a profit, like breathing, overrides everything else. This is what makes the system of capitalist exploitation inexorably counterposed to the basic interests of humanity and the Earth itself.
Socialists have known for years that a transformation from a capitalist society, based upon the private ownership of the means of production and the private accumulation of profits by the owners of those means of production, must be replaced by a socialist society based upon production planned to fulfill human needs and wants instead.
Capitalism is a system that enslaves workers by giving them just enough to live on and to have children who will also become workers while keeping the profits workers create-well over and above what they are paid-to themselves.
Capitalists have proven they will use any means necessary to secure, preserve and expand their profit-taking power-from slavery to war, torture and occupation-whatever will help them to maintain and increase that power.
Socialists also know that a changeover from the tyranny of capitalism to socialism is a life or death necessity if we are to survive.
Ultimately, the continuation of life is the responsibility of working people because they are the only force strong enough to defeat capitalism. The realization of this profound strength and responsibility working people have in common is the key to securing the future of life on Earth.
And the only way to ensure this is for working people to organize and act in unity and solidarity with each other as a class-with the single-minded goal of overthrowing capitalism and replacing it with socialism. Only such a united force will be powerful enough to make such a fundamental change possible.
What it will take to achieve unity and solidarity of workers across the globe must be defined in today's world.
Where we've come from and where we are
This is not the 1940s and '50s post-war period of fantastic growth of U.S. capitalism that put it on the top of the capitalist world heap-especially military industrialization-at a time when at least a third of all workers were organized into trade unions and were earning wages sufficient for home ownership with full benefits and retirement packages, i.e., the proverbial "American Dream."
Of course, it was not all roses-especially if you were Black or working in un-unionized work places such as agriculture-but these were years of both capitalist economic growth and working class unity through the self-organization of massive and combative labor organizations. Their struggles and victories set the precedent of increasing wages and benefits for most working people.
The sit-ins and massive picket lines that were the legacy of industrial unionism in the 1930s set the example that lead, in the 1960s, to the formation of independent Black organizations fighting against segregation; for mass feminist organizations demanding reproductive rights and equal pay for equal work; for the burgeoning LGBT rights movement; even the massive, independent, anti-Vietnam War movement used the tried-and-true methods that led workers to victories such as mass, peaceful protest and the formation of independent, democratically-run organizations that acted as a united front in support of those movements. These tactics were used because they worked.
The existence of a massive U.S. Vietnam Antiwar War movement stood in tandem with the actions of the Vietnamese people who were fighting for their own self-determination against U.S. military tyranny. These two great forces finally brought an end to the war.
A false sense of security
Workers are worse off today; that is, they have less buying power today than they did in the 1970s if you take into account both the rise in prices and the stagnation of wages. What made it seem like workers were riding high for a long time was the massive extension of credit-money at a high price-made available to workers young and old. And there were things to buy-from cell phones to laptops-stuff that school kids carry around in their backpacks today.
Having gadgets such as TVs, video games or cell phones, does not make you rich, is not a sign of affluence, and doesn't bring security and peace of mind. Because you can afford a TV or a cell phone doesn't mean you can afford a place to live. All one need do is to look at the pile of stuff the sheriff sets out on the streets during an eviction to see that all that stuff amounts to nothing without a home to put it in.
All these gadgets-like the credit used to purchase them-are a façade hiding the reality that tens-of-millions of working people are a job away from homelessness right now, today, as they twitter away. And we can't underestimate the impact this realization is beginning to have on people.
The crash in the economy has working people in a state of shock and awe-paralyzed like deer caught in headlights. They have been instantly thrust into fight or flight mode in danger of losing everything including their jobs at a moment's notice with no relief in sight. People, including friends and family members, are being thrust into poverty and joblessness all around them-losing their cars and their homes. Certainly many of those family members can no longer function as a safety net as families typically do-many have already doubled-up with other family members.
And while the government bails out the wealthiest bankers and pours trillions more into the war coffers, working people are left on their own to either sink or swim against the tide of economic collapse. Worse yet, there have been few fightbacks.
That we must accept this economic catastrophe as a fait accompli seems to be the general consensus among working people. They are behaving as people who have already been defeated or who have given up before the fight because they see no realistic, alternative solutions.
However, reliance on the wealth belonging to the commanders of capital to "trickle down" to workers has not been a realistic solution to the economic crisis anymore than the bank bailouts stopped home foreclosures. And throwing trillions at war has done nothing to bring peace. The solutions offered by capitalism have already failed miserably. They are anything but realistic.
Who got the power?
That's the irony, because it's working people that do have potential to solve this crisis-and the ability to carry it out.
The accumulation of debt, the need for continuous access to credit to get by, combined with the lack of job security among workers, automatically gives the boss the upper hand. It pits workers against each other. "If someone is going to get fired it better not be me" is a natural response under these circumstances. And that's just about where most workers who have jobs now are. They're walking on eggshells. They are not readying themselves for defensive action that depends upon working class unity and solidarity. To do that you must believe that there's a chance to win. Instead they are stepping back into their own corner and battening down the hatches.
This constant state of fear batters the intellect and makes workers feel powerless and helpless and, of course, that helps the bosses. The inability to provide your family with the things they need-especially a home-wreaks havoc on a person's self-esteem and causes him or her to look inward and blame themselves or blame those around them. And, more importantly, blinds them to the possibilities for change that are in their hands as a class.
The giant daily media bombardment pounds this feeling of helplessness into working people from every conceivable angle. This is augmented by governmental and police control, drastically restricting the organization and expression of a unified voice for working people. The capitalists put every obstacle possible in the way of workers' solidarity, from anti-labor laws to immigration laws-even to new restrictions on the right to protest and organize like restrictions on the formation of unions-not to speak of the prohibitive costs of running for public office.
Workers are the majority
Capitalists do all they can to make workers feel alone and helpless. But nothing could be further from the truth. Workers hold tremendous power because they are the social class that does the work. Without working people, nothing would get done.
The commanders of capital are a tiny percentage-less than 0.01 percent of the population-it would be impossible for them to get any work done without the workers to do their bidding. Workers are as essential as raw materials, energy and tools-it would be impossible for capitalists to get their hands on these resources without them. Capitalists don't go down into the coalmines and extract the stuff themselves, any more than they fight on the battlefields of their own wars.
In fact, they couldn't even make war without workers to build the bombs and serve as the cannon fodder. So how is it that the capitalists seem so almighty powerful? How is it that they have control over all the wealth that working people produce when workers far outnumber them?
That's because there's no democracy involved in determining who has control over the wealth workers create. There's no democracy on the job regarding how much workers should get paid or what kind of working conditions they should work under or what quality of merchandise or services to offer.
Unless workers take it upon themselves to fight for better pay or working conditions they will have to settle for what they get and hope they can continue to hold on to it, and exist on it. It's also true that having no say in the compensation one gets for the labor they expend or the quality of products they produce or the conditions under which they produce them alienates workers from their work.
Workers have the most powerful arsenal
Workers' most powerful weapon is a peaceful one-and that is, simply, to withhold their labor until their demands (better pay and/or conditions for all workers on the job) are met.
The boss, on the contrary, in efforts to defeat the workers, must depend upon threats, intimidation, pitting one worker against the other, firings, threats to go out of business, calling out the National Guard or the police, even death-threats and outright murder and assassination.
Potentially, it's workers that hold the real power. All workers have to do is democratically decide-en masse-to withhold their labor until they have ownership and control over the workplaces they already operate, and over the profits they create and, finally, to empower themselves to decide, democratically, how best to use what they create to best benefit everyone.
Capitalism is not necessary. Private ownership of the means of production by a tiny minority of greedy despots-and the wars they wage to maintain their power-is not necessary. The capitalist system is counter to the human instinct of taking care of each other.
A transition to socialism
Where capitalism divides and conquers, workers must make bridges of common concerns.
The first priority for workers is to organize, on a massive scale, to end the wars that bring so much death and destruction to their fellow workers, and at such a fantastic price.
Workers pay for the wars, the capitalists don't. That money and those resources could be put to much better use. The trillions spent on war could go a long way to wiping out economic injustice the world over thereby eliminating the basic reasons for war in the first place.
Workers must organize a massive movement to ensure that everyone has a job. This demand must be paired with the most logical way to create enough jobs to go around. And that is to cut the workweek down according to how many people need jobs, without reducing the amount of weekly pay.
To ensure that all workers are compensated and treated fairly, they should receive equal pay for equal work and equal rights for all, everywhere across all borders. This includes the right of workers to find work wherever it's available regardless of borders between countries or states. Workers have just as much right to cross borders as corporations and multi-millionaire tax evaders do.
Workers must have the right to freely form their own independent organizations to implement changes that will benefit them. Again, workers have this right because they do the work and are the majority.
However, until workers can institute real majority rule, they must organize to win concessions such as an end to the wars, for the right to organize in their own defense on the job without interference by either the boss or the government, for free healthcare, education, housing, food, safe and clean worksites, and a healthy and clean environment.
These are things that all people have the right to expect as members of society. And, until we can get rid of this unfair capitalist system that stands squarely in the way of human justice and freedom, we must insist that the rich pay the taxes to afford these basic necessities. All these things can be paid for out of the huge profits the capitalists already have and continue to amass and squander selfishly on themselves.
The tables of capitalist power can be turned if workers organize every job site and every community into an independent, democratic, organization based on fighting for the basic human rights of the working class-and that can stand up and defend these rights as one unified force that acts together in defense of human rights.
This is the first step toward workers seizing their own destiny and creating a world by, for and of, all the people. It's the only realistic solution to ending the violent and unjust world that capitalism has created.
The key is to realize that capitalism only has the power to plunder and destroy the world. That's its nature. Only workers have the power to change the world for the better.
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13) Theft Charges for Ex-Owner of Factory
By EMMA GRAVES FITZSIMMONS
September 11, 2009
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/11/us/11republic.html?ref=us
CHICAGO - The former owner of a factory where workers staged a sit-in last year was charged in state court on Thursday with plotting to steal money from the workers and the company's creditors in what prosecutors portrayed as a case of "corporate greed."
Officials from the Cook County state's attorney's office said the owner, Richard B. Gillman, created two shell corporations to launder more than $200,000 from accounts at the factory, Republic Windows and Doors, and that even as he was closing the factory, he secretly loaded 10 semi-trailer trucks with equipment to furnish a new factory in Iowa.
Mr. Gillman was held in $10 million bail. His lawyer, Ed Genson, said the bail was excessively high; prosecutors had asked for $500,000 bail.
"This is ridiculous," Mr. Genson said in an interview. "It's just a play for publicity after all the publicity the workers got."
The factory drew national attention last December, when more than 250 workers, complaining that they had been laid off without warning, occupied it for six days. Eventually they won concessions, including severance pay. Many local officials met with workers during the sit-in to show support; former Gov. Rod R. Blagojevich, for example, visited the day before he was arrested on federal corruption charges. Other workers have since successfully copied the approach, including those at the Hartmarx suit factory in a Chicago suburb.
Mr. Gillman, 56, who lives in the Gold Coast neighborhood of Chicago, was charged with eight counts, including organizing a continuing financial crimes enterprise, mail fraud, money laundering and theft.
"Gillman and others knew this company was headed for closure," said Anita Alvarez, the Cook County state's attorney, "and instead of fulfilling their legal obligations to their creditors and their moral obligations to their employees, they devised a scheme to benefit themselves."
A 56-page document submitted to the judge details accusations that Mr. Gillman knew the company would close, but did not notify workers as required by law. Prosecutors said Mr. Gillman defrauded the company's creditors, who were owed more than $10 million, and used company money to pay off leases on two luxury vehicles.
They also said he moved machinery from Republic to a nonunion factory he opened in Red Oak, Iowa. That factory also failed and closed earlier this year.
Serious Materials bought the former Republic factory in February for $1.45 million in bankruptcy court. The company started making windows in April and rehired some Republic workers.
Workers said they were glad to see Mr. Gillman held accountable for the way he treated them.
"We feel like justice has finally come, and we all hope that this is the beginning of more bosses' being held accountable for their crimes against workers," Melvin Maclin, a former Republic worker, said in a statement.
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14) Charges of Prison Sex Double
By CHARLIE SAVAGE
National Briefing | Washington
September 11, 2009
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/11/us/11brfs-CHARGESOFPRI_BRF.html?ref=us
Accusations of sexual misconduct involving workers at federal prisons and inmates more than doubled from 2001 to 2008, the Justice Department's inspector general office said in a report. The report said that prosecutors frequently decline to bring charges and that most cases were closed as "inconclusive" partly because inmates often declined to cooperate.
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15) SF CHRONICLE SAVAGES MUMIA--TWICE!
Letters to the editor indicated!
(One sample letter given below)
LABOR ACTION COMMITTEE TO FREE MUMIA ABU-JAMAL
Find more information on Mumia's case, at www.laboractionmumia.com. The site is in process of being updated, but still contains a treasure trove of legal documents and other information showing Mumia's innocence.
Once yesterday in an editorial, and again today in a Debra Saunders column, the San Francisco Chronicle has savaged innocent death row political prisoner, Mumia Abu-Jamal, each time calling him "cop-killer." These attacks came as part of the latest twist in the red-baiting and not-so-veiled racist attacks on Obama and his green jobs advisor, Van Jones, now resigned. Van Jones was once active in the support movement for Mumia Abu-Jamal in the SF Bay Area.
A few current Mumia supporters here made an attempt to reach Van Jones a few weeks ago, to try to get him to set Obama straight on Mumia's case. Obama had made a comment to a right wing Philadelphia pundit during the election campaign, that while he hadn't studied Mumia's case, he nevertheless thought that "cop killers" deserved no respect, and ought to get either life in jail or execution, or words to that effect. It was thought Van Jones could be prodded to whisper something a bit more positive in Obama's ear.
All of that is water under the bridge now, as neither Obama nor Van Jones has proved willing to fight the onslaught of right-wing attacks which, in Obama's case, nearly toppled his star health care "reform." in an avalanche of nutty but dangerous mud-throwing.
As for Van Jones, he apparently didn't want to throw Obama off what was left of his game by defending himself, or asking others to do so. So, while Van Jones has remained silent, the only mention of Mumia has come in the form of one more handful of slanderous muck being thrown at him.
While the Chronicle editorial (08 Sept 2009) just referred to Van Jones' "support of cop-killer Mumia Abu-Jamal," Debra Saunders' column the next day went into a bit more distorted detail. While recounting Van Jones' real or imaginary transgressions, she said,
"Also damning: A column by The Chronicle's Chip Johnson that reported on a 1999 protest organized by Jones in support of convicted cop killer Mumia Abu-Jamal.
"Of course, in the Bay Area, Jones' politics aren't all that unusual. He could easily fit in with the San Francisco Board of Supervisors (which passed a resolution naming a day in Abu-Jamal's honor). But inside the Washington Beltway, only amateurs and extremists believe it is acceptable to assert that the Bushies chose not to prevent the attacks on the twin towers or that Abu-Jamal - who was found with a gun and a gun wound to the chest at the scene where Philadelphia police Officer Daniel Faulkner was fatally shot in 1981 - is a political prisoner." - "Van Jones Doesn't Play in Peoria ," 09 September 2009.
Both of these atrocious Chronicle comments can be found at http://www.sfgate.com/
Here is the text of a letter that I sent today to the Chronicle. Chances of its getting printed are slim (they ignored a bunch of letters a few weeks ago, in response to an earlier Saunders piece attacking both Mumia and the equally innocent Kevin Cooper). Hopefully this letter will get better treatment on the internet. (After the letter, more info on Mumia follows.)
To the editor:
In two pieces about Van Jones, the Chronicle (editorial, the 8th, and Debra Saunders, the 9th) refers to Mumia Abu-Jamal as a "cop killer." When will you look at the evidence, instead of the frame-up?
Jamal's innocence was obvious when businessman William Singletary, who saw the entire 1981 incident, immediately told police that Mumia arrived on the scene only after the officer was shot, was unarmed, and never shot anybody. Singletary was driven out of town, and warned not to be around for the trial. The prosecutor then hid the presence of the real shooter (identified by Singletary) from jurors!
Mountains of other evidence shows Mumia's innocence, if you look. The SF Supervisors did, along with Nelson Mandela, the Congressional Black Caucus, the European Parliament, and many others.
Van Jones resigned because neither he nor Obama were willing to fight the red- and race-baiting assault on him. Award-winning journalist Mumia Abu-Jamal, on the other hand, has always maintained his innocence, and after 27 unjust years on death row, continues to speak out on important social issues.
Chris Kinder
If you would like to send a letter to the Chronicle, keep it under 200 words, and post it in the letters section (which can be found by clicking on the opinions page) at http://www.sfgate.com/
Here is a brief update on Mumia's case, with an outline of the main points of his innocence, taken from the draft new flyer of the Labor Action Committee To Free Mumia Abu-Jamal...
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
World-renowned revolutionary journalist Mumia Abu-Jamal, who was convicted and sent to death row in the killing of a police officer in Philadelphia , has now gone through 27 years of fruitless appeal proceedings. Despite mounting evidence of Jamal's innocence, all of these hearings have upheld his conviction in a 1982 trial, which was rightly called "a monumental miscarriage of justice from beginning to end," by crime reporter J Patrick O'Connor.
Then, last April, the US Supreme Court finished off this cowardly charade by denying Jamal a final hearing, without so much as a word of explanation. In making this flat-out rejection of Mumia's appeal, the Supreme Court--like the Federal Third Circuit Court a year earlier--had to knowingly violate its own well-established precedent in Batson v Kentucky--the 1986 ruling which said that purging a jury on the basis of race was unconstitutional. A violation required a new trial, even retroactively. In Mumia's case, the prosecutor used at least ten out of 15 peremptory challenges to exclude qualified blacks, for reasons that were not applied to prospective white jurors. Only one such exclusion is required to trigger a conviction reversal under Batson!
"The law is what the judge says it is"
Called the "Mumia Exception," by O'Connor, whose book, The Framing of Mumia Abu-Jamal, is perhaps the best yet written on the case, decisions such as these demonstrate a systematic bias inherent in the courts and political system: those considered a threat to the system will be persecuted in total disregard of the law. As Mumia himself puts it in his brilliant new book, Jailhouse Lawyers, "The law is what the judge says it is."
Racism in jury selection was only one outrage in Jamal's trial. The judge, one Albert Sabo, a former cop himself and a known "prosecutor in robes," expelled Jamal from most of his own trial, prevented exculpatory evidence from being admitted, and systematically denied defense motions. None of this behavior was "legal," nor was it an accident: Sabo was out to get Mumia. He made this clear when he was overheard to say privately, in court during a break, "yeah, and I'm gonna help 'em fry the n----r."
Mumia Abu-Jamal Is Innocent!
Jamal's innocence was clear from the beginning, or should have been. Several witnesses said they saw one or two other men flee the scene right after the shooting. William Singletary, who witnessed the entire incident, told police that the passenger in the car which had been stopped by the slain officer was the real shooter. Jamal, he said, arrived on the scene unarmed, and only after the shooting!
Jamal had been driving a cab and was in the neighborhood when he heard gun shots, and saw his brother, Billy Cook, in his rear-view mirror. Cook was staggering, having been beaten by a cop. Running to the scene, Jamal was shot and almost killed by a cop, either the mortally-wounded officer (Daniel Faulkner), or by a cop arriving on the scene. Meanwhile, police arriving on the scene, instead collecting actual evidence, immediately began to frame the wounded Jamal for the murder of the officer. They knew who they had, because Mumia was a former Black Panther, and a journalist who had exposed earlier police crimes on local radio. Jamal had also been targeted by the Justice Department's counter-intelligence program (COINTELPRO).
A well-prepared railroading
Police and prosecutors prepared Jamal's frame-up well: they threatened witnesses into changing their stories, and suppressed evidence that could prove Jamal's innocence.
The two most important witnesses, Cynthia White and Robert Chobert, later admitted privately, or to investigators, that they had lied under pressure. Neither one of them actually saw the shooting they had claimed to witness! Defense witness Veronica Jones--one of those who saw two men hastily leave the scene right after the shooting--later testified in an appeal hearing that she changed her story and lied at the trial under police threats of jail (which would have meant losing her children).
Police and prosecutors also manufactured a so-called "confession," which one cop claimed to "remember" weeks after the fact. William Singletary refused to lie for police, and promptly became the victim of a police terror campaign. The cops trashed his businesses, and drove him out of town with a warning: don't be around when the trial started! With Singletary out of the way, the prosecutor, Joe McGill, then hid the presence on the scene of shooter Kenneth Freeman (the man identified by Singletary) from jurors, even though his presence had been acknowledged by McGill in the earlier trial of Mumia's brother for allegedly assaulting the slain officer.
The appeals process was more of the same. Prosecutors read Mumia's private correspondence with his lawyers, where they learned of a planned PCRA appeal by the lawyers. As a result of this illegally-obtained covert knowledge, Democratic Governor Tom Ridge issued a death warrant for Mumia in 1995, just prior to the planned appeal--a sneak attack on the ability of the defense to prepare.
Meanwhile, Albert Sabo was brought out of virtual retirement to preside over the appeal, where he continued his own earlier hatchet job on Mumia's case! Despite widespread condemnation for rampant unfair practices, including by Philadelphia 's usually conservative press, Sabo got away with denying Jamal a new trial.
Massive International Support
Over the years, Mumia Abu-Jamal has gained massive international support. The European Parliament and the city of Paris, France have joined politicians such as Nelson Mandela and the US Congressional Black Caucus, as well as numerous individuals, unions and Hollywood actors to denounce the blatant unfairness of the case against him. And for a time, Mumia was represented in court by famed civil rights attorney, Leonard Weinglass.
But Weinglass was reluctant to take the police frame-up head-on, and assert Mumia's innocence. He kept under wraps the confession of Arnold Beverly, a former hit-man who said that he "and another guy" (possibly Kenneth Freeman) were hired by corrupt cops to kill Faulkner, because Faulkner "interfered" with their payoffs in Philadelphia 's red light district.
The Beverly Confession--A Big Clue
Faulkner was found to have a long FBI file, mostly redacted, which means he was probably snitching on his brethren. Jamal later fired Weinglass, but his subsequent legal team was unable to get Beverly into court, partly because of "timeliness." The courts refused to even take Beverly 's deposition!
The Beverly confession pointed to a much-needed explanation of what really happened in the Faulkner killing, but almost no one wanted to hear it. Celebrities, notables and most of the Mumia movement were willing to call for a new trial for Mumia, but most of them weren't ready to face the dirty reality of police, courts and politicians framing an innocent person in order to cover up their own crimes. When Weinglass was fired, and the Beverly confession was brought into the public domain, many of these supporters took a hike.
Find more information on Mumia's case, at www.laboractionmumia.com. The site is in process of being updated, but still contains a treasure trove of legal documents and other information showing Mumia's innocence.
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16) The Wild Card
By BOB HERBERT
Op-Ed Columnist
September 12, 2009
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/12/opinion/12herbert.html
There's a lot to appreciate in the latest incarnation of the Democrats' Sisyphean-like campaign to overhaul the nation's health care system. In the current environment, matters are growing worse almost by the hour.
Horrendous job losses and an economy that is in shambles are driving up the number of people without health insurance. "Every day," said President Obama in his speech to Congress this week, "14,000 Americans lose their coverage."
This is occurring at the same time that the immense baby boomer generation is approaching retirement age, the age when even under the best of circumstances the need for health care steadily rises.
Even those with health insurance frequently find themselves on shaky ground, worried that they will lose it if they lose their jobs or that the coverage will not meet their real-world needs.
So most Americans are prepared to listen when the Democrats try to make the case for changes that would, among other things, prevent insurance companies from denying coverage because of pre-existing conditions, prevent them from engaging in the perverse practice of canceling policies when the policyholder gets ill, put an end to arbitrary caps on annual or lifetime coverage and limit what policyholders could be charged for deductibles and out-of-pocket expenses.
When you factor in the explosive costs of health care, which are making American businesses less competitive and threatening to bankrupt the government, the case for reform would seem to be a slam dunk.
But there's a wild card out there undermining the chances for real reform, and it's not the crazies who have been disrupting health care forums or the disrespectful space cadet legislators like the South Carolina Congressman Joe ("You lie!") Wilson. It's the ordinary working men and women of America who are struggling with the worst economic downturn they have ever seen and who are worried that the big new plans that the Democrats have in store may not be in their best interests - and may not be affordable.
Many of those folks already have health insurance, and many voted for Barack Obama. But they're scared to death now as the economy continues to hemorrhage jobs and the budget deficits unfolding before their eyes are being counted in the trillions.
To get meaningful health care reform this time around, the Democrats will have to get that constituency on board. They haven't yet.
For one thing, the various proposals are not at all clear to the general public and the average citizen is clueless as to how any of them would be paid for. To say that people are skeptical is the grossest understatement.
When the administration talks about getting hundreds of billions of dollars in savings from Medicare to help finance health care reform, it sends a shudder not just through Medicare recipients (who like their coverage just fine and don't want anyone tampering with it), but also through younger individuals concerned about elderly relatives on Medicare.
The president said in his speech that the savings would come from eliminating "hundreds of billions of dollars in waste and fraud" and the elimination of some unwarranted subsidies. But to the finely tuned ear of the general public, that's exactly what politicians always say: We're going to get rid of waste and fraud.
The administration would contend that this time will be different. One can understand why some will remain unconvinced.
The president also said, as he estimated the cost of his proposal at $900 billion over 10 years, that he "will not sign a plan that adds one dime to our deficits - either now or in the future."
I'm sure he means it. But I have not spoken to anyone, either on Capitol Hill or elsewhere, who believes that is doable. Now it may be that the public should not be so worried about the deficits. They had to be jacked up to get the country through this terrible economic crisis. And health care reform - real reform - is essential if long-term deficits are to be brought under control.
But people are worried about it. And just saying that health care reform will not add to the deficits is not enough to allay those fears.
What's missing from all the talk about reform is how the runaway costs of health care, and all the dire consequences associated with them, can be reined in without a strong public insurance option and other big-time cost-saving initiatives.
If the government requires everyone - or nearly everyone - to have health insurance, the insurance companies and the pharmaceutical industry will reap a bonanza. What the Democrats still have to make clear to ordinary working men and women is how this latest incarnation of health care reform will be cost effective and broadly beneficial to them and to their government.
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17) A Year After a Cataclysm, Little Change on Wall St.
By ALEX BERENSON
September 12, 2009
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/12/business/12change.html?hp
Wall Street lives on.
One year after the collapse of Lehman Brothers, the surprise is not how much has changed in the financial industry, but how little.
Backstopped by huge federal guarantees, the biggest banks have restructured only around the edges. Employment in the industry has fallen just 8 percent since last September. Only a handful of big hedge funds have closed. Pay is already returning to precrash levels, topped by the 30,000 employees of Goldman Sachs, who are on track to earn an average of $700,000 this year. Nor are major pay cuts likely, according to a report last week from J.P. Morgan Securities. Executives at most big banks have kept their jobs. Financial stocks have soared since their winter lows.
The Obama administration has proposed regulatory changes, but even their backers say they face a difficult road in Congress. For now, banks still sell and trade unregulated derivatives, despite their role in last fall's chaos. Radical changes like pay caps or restrictions on bank size face overwhelming resistance. Even minor changes, like requiring banks to disclose more about the derivatives they own, are far from certain.
Coming on the same weekend as the 11th-hour bailout of the giant insurer American International Group, and the sale of Merrill Lynch, Lehman's failure was the climax of a cataclysmic weekend in the financial industry. In the days that followed, nearly everyone seemed to agree that Wall Street was due for fundamental change. Its "heads I win, tails I'm bailed out" model could not continue. Its eight-figure paydays would end.
In fact, though, regulators and lawmakers have spent most of the last year trying to save the financial industry, rather than transform it. In the short run, their efforts have succeeded. Citigroup and other wounded banks have avoided bankruptcy, and the economy has sidestepped a depression. But the same investors and economists who predicted, and in some cases profited from, the collapse last fall say the rescue has come at an extraordinary cost. They warn that if the industry's systemic risks are not addressed, they could cause an even bigger crisis - in years, not decades. Next time, they say, the credit of the United States government may be at risk.
Simon Johnson, a professor at the Sloan School of Management at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and former chief economist of the International Monetary Fund, said that the seeds of another collapse had already sprouted. If major banks are allowed to keep making bets that are ultimately backed by taxpayer guarantees, they will return to the practices that led them to underwrite trillions of dollars in bad loans, Professor Johnson said.
"They will run up big risks, they will fail again, they will hit us for a big check," he predicted.
The doomsday view is far from universal.
Wall Street executives say the Lehman bankruptcy opened their eyes to the fragility of their institutions. They note that they have pulled back on risk and reduced leverage, creating a bigger cushion against losses. And they say that regulators were right to support the financial industry over the last year, rather than imposing new rules or allowing weak banks to collapse.
"There is less leverage in the entire financial system," said David A. Viniar, Goldman's chief financial officer. At Goldman, $1 in capital now supports about $14 in loans and investments, compared with $24 a year ago.
But even some senior Wall Street executives acknowledge the lack of change surprises them, given how poorly the industry performed last fall and the degree of government support necessary to keep it from collapsing.
"There was a general feeling that an enormous amount of additional regulation should be put in place to prevent what happened that weekend from happening again," said Byron Wien, vice chairman of Blackstone Advisory Services and the former chief investment strategist for Morgan Stanley and Pequot Capital. "So far, we haven't seen a lot of action."
Robert J. Shiller, the Yale University economics professor who predicted the dot-com crash and the housing bust, said the window for change may be closing. "People will accept change at a time of crisis, but we haven't managed to do much, and maybe complacency is coming back," Professor Shiller said. "We seem to be losing momentum."
Kenneth C. Griffin, founder and chief executive of the Citadel Investment Group, a Chicago-based hedge fund that manages $13 billion, said that regulators and lawmakers needed to impose rules so failing banks could be shut, rather than allowed to operate indefinitely with taxpayer support.
"We've taken a lot of steps for the worse, and not for the better, in terms of the structural underpinnings of our capital markets," Mr. Griffin said. "We have to change the rules and correct the fundamental flaws in the financial system."
To be sure, Wall Street is not exactly as it was before the cataclysm of last year.
Then, a dozen or so big banks formed the top tier. Now Goldman Sachs and JPMorgan Chase are clearly the strongest, with Morgan Stanley struggling to compete. Bank of America and Citigroup are the weakest big banks, heavily reliant on government guarantees to survive.
"We have more separation between the healthiest and the least healthy of the big banks," said Darrell Duffie, a finance professor at Stanford University.
Banks have collectively raised hundreds of billions in new capital to help cushion losses on bad loans and are taking a more prudent approach to lending and underwriting. The worst excesses of 2006 and 2007, when banks lent hundreds of billions of dollars against all kinds of real estate at terms that even at the time seemed absurd, have ended.
But those changes are not unexpected. Banks typically raise lending standards during recessions. And even if they wanted to keep up underwriting, they would not find much of a market. Many pension and hedge funds have suffered huge losses on mortgage-backed bonds and are hardly rushing to buy more.
Critics of the industry argue that the pullback in risk will be only temporary without deep regulatory changes. Nassim Nicholas Taleb, a statistician, trader, and author, has argued for years that financial firms chronically underestimate their risks and must be managed much more cautiously. Universa Investments, a $5 billion fund in which he is a principal, made more than 100 percent profit last year betting on the possibility of a collapse.
Mr. Taleb warns that the system has grown riskier since last fall. The extensive government support that began after Lehman collapsed will lead investors to assume that governments will always prevent major banks from collapsing, he said.
So investors will lend money to the financial industry on easy terms. In turn, financial institutions will use that cheap money to make risky loans and trades. The banks will keep the profits when their bets pay off, while taxpayers will swallow the losses when the bets go bad and threaten the system.
Economists call the phenomenon moral hazard. Bankers have a different term: I.B.G. The phrase implies that by the time a deal goes sour, "I'll be gone," after having received a sizable bonus.
Despite the predictions last year about pay cuts, those bonuses appear secure. Kian Abouhossein, an analyst at J.P. Morgan in London, predicted this week that eight major American and European banks would pay the 141,000 employees in their investment banking units $77 billion in 2011 - about $543,000 per worker, not far from the 2007 peak - even after minor regulatory changes are adopted.
Because the rewards are so rich, the banks will not change unless regulators and lawmakers force them, Mr. Taleb said.
"I don't know anyone on Wall Street who goes to work every day thinking of anything but how to increase their bonus," he said.
To prevent a replay of last year's crisis, investors in financial institutions, especially bondholders, must believe that they will lose money if banks fail, said Sheila C. Bair, the chairwoman of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation. "You need to send that very strong, clear signal to restore market discipline," Ms. Bair said.
But legislation that would allow regulators to close giant institutions in an orderly fashion has been stalled for months. So too have efforts to create a systemic regulator that would focus on the broader risk that might occur from the ripple effects caused by the failure of one major bank.
Another proposed change would require banks to list and trade derivatives through a central clearinghouse, just as stocks and options are traded through exchanges, but it has yet to go anywhere.
The term derivatives encompasses a variety of financial products, including contracts whose value changes as interest rates move and insurance that pays off if a bond defaults. Derivatives drove the boom before 2008 by encouraging banks to make loans without adequate reserves. They also worsened the panic last fall because they inherently tie institutions together. Investors worried that the collapse of one bank would lead to big losses at others.
Requiring that derivatives be traded openly sounds like a relatively small change, but it could have important effects.
Exchange trading would open pricing for derivatives, so banks could not hide money-losing positions. Banks would have to put up money as positions moved against them, since the exchanges would seize and sell derivatives that were not backed by adequate margin. That move would help avoid the situation A.I.G. faced last year, after it wrote hundreds of billions of dollars of credit insurance and had no money to make good on its promises when the bonds defaulted. But critics say that even the proposed changes would not go far enough, because they would exempt some complex derivatives from exchange trading or clearing. Moreover, some banks oppose opening derivatives trading, because it would cut their profits by making pricing more visible and as a consequence competitive. For now, legislation to force derivatives trading onto exchanges has stalled, and banks are still writing contracts with limited regulatory oversight.
"The off-exchange derivatives market is still the Wild West," Ms. Bair said.
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18) G.M. Rescinds White-Collar Pay Cuts
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
September 12, 2009
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/12/business/12auto.html?ref=business
DETROIT (AP) - General Motors, in an effort to keep employees happy as it tries to climb back to profitability, has rescinded white-collar pay cuts it made last spring, when it was working to conserve cash and avoid filing for bankruptcy protection.
The struggling automaker was losing staff members because its pay scales were no longer competitive with other automakers and manufacturing companies, a spokesman, Tom Wilkinson, said Friday. He said he did not know how many workers had left or exactly how many were affected by the cuts.
G.M. is trying to lure buyers back to its brands and fix its image after filing for Chapter 11 earlier this year. This weekend it will introduce a new advertising campaign that offers to buy back cars and trucks within 60 days of their sale if customers are not satisfied with them.
The earlier pay cuts, ranging from 3 percent for many lower-level workers to 10 percent for executives, saved the company about $50 million, but in the end it did have to spend 40 days under bankruptcy court protection, emerging on July 10. The cuts affected workers in the United States and Canada as well as some overseas countries.
"We're into a period where employee morale is really important as we're starting to launch products and rebuild the business," Mr. Wilkinson said.
The company has about 25,000 salaried workers in the United States, mainly in the Detroit area. Salaries for some employees at the bottom of the pay grades were not cut.
The pay restoration, which began Sept. 1, will be financed primarily with government dollars, at least for now. But Mr. Wilkinson said keeping good employees and selling more vehicles would help G.M. turn around and increase the value of the company when the time came for the stock sale. He said the Treasury Department reviewed the pay restoration.
Rescinding the pay cuts does not affect the company's 25 top-paid executives, Mr. Wilkinson said. Because G.M. is receiving government aid, their compensation is controlled by the Obama administration's "pay czar."
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19) In Health Care Battle, a Truce on Abortion
By PETER STEINFELS
Beliefs
September 12, 2009
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/12/health/policy/12beliefs.html?ref=health
"And one more misunderstanding I want to clear up: Under our plan, no federal dollars will be used to fund abortion, and federal conscience laws will remain in place."
Did that apparently unqualified statement by President Obama to a joint session of Congress on Wednesday guarantee that health care overhaul, whatever its other travails, will not fall victim to the seemingly intractable moral battle over abortion?
Of course not. Administration foes, like the National Right to Life Committee or the Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights, were quick to declare that the president could not possibly mean what he said.
But others, like officials of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops and some religious leaders with concerns about abortion, welcomed his words. When it comes to health care overhaul, a surprising number of people on both sides of the abortion war have declared a limited truce.
The key words are "abortion neutral."
What those two words mean is that neither abortion opponents nor abortion rights advocates would use the overhaul effort to advance their agendas. Most important, they would not try to change the legal status quo regarding federal financing of abortions.
That truce did not mean that those activists - or Americans generally - were themselves abortion neutral. Far from it.
When it comes to health care, abortion rights supporters strongly believe that abortion should be treated no differently than any other medical procedure to which Americans have a legal right. Abortion opponents say that a procedure they view as lethal to a distinct member of the human species, no matter how early in its development, hardly qualifies as health care.
Neither side is surrendering those fundamental beliefs or its long-term goals, but at least some influential players on both sides value health care overhaul enough that all they want is that it not change the abortion status quo.
If only they could agree on what the status quo is.
Currently the federal government does not pay for abortions under Medicaid, except in cases of rape, incest or physical threat to the pregnant woman's life, although states can do so. Similar bans apply to other federal programs.
The Federal Employees Health Benefits program, for example, is often cited by advocates of health care overhaul as a model for extending insurance coverage. It gives millions of federal employees, including members of Congress, a choice of hundreds of private insurance plans and pays most of the premiums. But no plans can include abortion in its benefit package except, again, in cases of rape, incest, or physical threat to the woman's life.
For abortion opponents, abortion neutral means maintaining these restrictions, whether in the private plans that might receive federal subsidies in a proposed insurance exchange or in any public plan competing in this exchange.
Abortion opponents also want these restrictions spelled out explicitly, not left to court decisions or to the appointees of a president who has repeatedly described himself as pro-choice.
Not surprisingly, defenders of legal access to abortion see the status quo differently. They recognize the reality of the near total ban on federal financing of abortion. But they emphasize that millions of women are covered by insurance plans, mostly through employers, that pay for abortions.
As low-income individuals or as employees of small businesses, many of these women may qualify either for the subsidized private plans or the public option offered in an exchange. If abortion could not be included in any of those benefits packages, these women would lose the kind of coverage they have now.
For abortion rights advocates, that would not only constitute an unacceptable departure from the status quo, it would also violate the president's principle that under an overhaul, people not lose their current coverage.
An amendment by Representative Lois Capps, Democrat of California, to the leading House health care bill tried to bridge these differences. It authorized the public plan to cover abortions, beyond the instances of rape, incest, and threat to a woman's life, while mandating that at least one private plan available in a national insurance exchange, and eligible for federal subsidies, include broad abortion coverage and at least one does not.
The Capps amendment tried to satisfy the current ban on direct federal financing of abortions by requiring that government contributions to either the public plan or the private plans be kept in separate accounts from premiums paid by individuals. Payments for abortions (beyond the current exceptions) would be attributed to the premium pool.
Groups like Planned Parenthood and Naral Pro-Choice America insist that this segregation of money means that abortion would be paid for with "private dollars," not federal ones. Abortion opponents call this bookkeeping legerdemain.
Taxpayer subsidies and personal premiums, they argue, would be completely commingled in the public plan; a surcharge on premiums to pay for abortions would be billed equally to those wanting abortion coverage and those opposed to it; and federal checks would go directly to abortion providers.
They doubt Mr. Obama, for all his oratorical gifts, will try to convince Congress or the public that this means "no federal dollars will be used to fund abortion."
It would be easier to argue that including subsidized private insurance plans with abortion coverage in an insurance exchange did not involve using federal dollars to pay for abortion. But it would still be a departure from the current policy.
Of course, the Capps amendment will almost certainly not be the last word in this debate. Other proposals would make abortion coverage available but more clearly separate from federal financing, like riders that would let consumers buy supplemental abortion coverage at what would probably be a minimal price, or as Steven Waldman wrote in The Wall Street Journal, turning subsidies into "vouchers to individuals rather than government checks to specific plans."
Abortion neutral may be an elusive concept, but it remains very much alive if Congress, the White House and supporters of the overhaul effort want it to be.
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20) I Am Barack Obama's Political Prisoner Now
By LEONARD PELTIER
September 11-13, 2009
http://www.counterpunch.org/peltier09112009.html
The United States Department of Justice has once again made a mockery of
its lofty and pretentious title.
After releasing an original and continuing disciple of death cult leader
Charles Manson who attempted to shoot President Gerald Ford, an admitted
Croatian terrorist, and another attempted assassin of President Ford
under the mandatory 30-year parole law, the U.S. Parole Commission
deemed that my release would "promote disrespect for the law."
If only the federal government would have respected its own laws, not to
mention the treaties that are, under the U.S. Constitution, the supreme
law of the land, I would never have been convicted nor forced to spend
more than half my life in captivity. Not to mention the fact that every
law in this country was created without the consent of Native peoples
and is applied unequally at our expense. If nothing else, my experience
should raise serious questions about the FBI's supposed jurisdiction in
Indian Country.
The parole commission's phrase was lifted from soon-to-be former U.S.
Attorney Drew Wrigley, who apparently hopes to ride with the FBI cavalry
into the office of North Dakota governor. In this Wrigley is following
in the footsteps of William Janklow, who built his political career on
his reputation as an Indian fighter, moving on up from tribal attorney
(and alleged rapist of a Native minor) to state attorney general, South
Dakota governor, and U.S. Congressman. Some might recall that Janklow
claimed responsibility for dissuading President Clinton from pardoning
me before he was convicted of manslaughter. Janklow's historical
predecessor, George Armstrong Custer, similarly hoped that a glorious
massacre of the Sioux would propel him to the White House, and we all
know what happened to him.
Unlike the barbarians that bay for my blood in the corridors of power,
however, Native people are true humanitarians who pray for our enemies.
Yet we must be realistic enough to organize for our own freedom and
equality as nations. We constitute 5% of the population of North Dakota
and 10% of South Dakota and we could utilize that influence to promote
our own power on the reservations, where our focus should be. If we
organized as a voting bloc, we could defeat the entire premise of the
competition between the Dakotas as to which is the most racist. In the
1970s we were forced to take up arms to affirm our right to survival and
self-defense, but today the war is one of ideas. We must now stand up to
armed oppression and colonization with our bodies and our minds.
International law is on our side.
Given the complexion of the three recent federal parolees, it might seem
that my greatest crime was being Indian. But the truth is that my
gravest offense is my innocence. In Iran, political prisoners are
occasionally released if they confess to the ridiculous charges on which
they are dragged into court, in order to discredit and intimidate them
and other like-minded citizens. The FBI and its mouthpieces have
suggested the same, as did the parole commission in 1993, when it ruled
that my refusal to confess was grounds for denial of parole.
To claim innocence is to suggest that the government is wrong, if not
guilty itself. The American judicial system is set up so that the
defendant is not punished for the crime itself, but for refusing to
accept whatever plea arrangement is offered and for daring to compel the
judicial system to grant the accused the right to right to rebut the
charges leveled by the state in an actual trial. Such insolence is
punished invariably with prosecution requests for the steepest possible
sentence, if not an upward departure from sentencing guidelines that are
being gradually discarded, along with the possibility of parole.
As much as non-Natives might hate Indians, we are all in the same boat.
To attempt to emulate this system in tribal government is pitiful, to
say the least.
It was only this year, in the Troy Davis, case, that the U.S. Supreme
Court recognized innocence as a legitimate legal defense. Like the
witnesses that were coerced into testifying against me, those that
testified against Davis renounced their statements, yet Davis was very
nearly put to death. I might have been executed myself by now, had not
the government of Canada required a waiver of the death penalty as a
condition of extradition.
The old order is aptly represented by Supreme Court Justice Antonin
Scalia, who stated in his dissenting opinion in the Davis case, "This
Court has never held that the Constitution forbids the execution of a
convicted defendant who has had a full and fair trial but is later able
to convince a habeas court that he is 'actually' innocent. Quite to the
contrary, we have repeatedly left that question unresolved, while
expressing considerable doubt that any claim based on alleged 'actual
innocence' is constitutionally cognizable."
The esteemed Senator from North Dakota, Byron Dorgan, who is now the
chairman of the Senate Committee on Indian Affairs, used much the same
reasoning in writing that "our legal system has found Leonard Peltier
guilty of the crime for which he was charged. I have reviewed the
material from the trial, and I believe the verdict was fair and just."
It is a bizarre and incomprehensible statement to Natives, as well it
should be, that innocence and guilt is a mere legal status, not
necessarily rooted in material fact. It is a truism that all political
prisoners were convicted of the crimes for which they were charged.
The truth is the government wants me to falsely confess in order to
validate a rather sloppy frame-up operation, one whose exposure would
open the door to an investigation of the United States' role in training
and equipping goon squads to suppress a grassroots movement on Pine
Ridge against a puppet dictatorship.
In America, there can by definition be no political prisoners, only
those duly judged guilty in a court of law. It is deemed too
controversial to even publicly contemplate that the federal government
might fabricate and suppress evidence to defeat those deemed political
enemies. But it is a demonstrable fact at every stage of my case.
I am Barack Obama's political prisoner now, and I hope and pray that he
will adhere to the ideals that impelled him to run for president. But as
Obama himself would acknowledge, if we are expecting him to solve our
problems, we missed the point of his campaign. Only by organizing in our
own communities and pressuring our supposed leaders can we bring about
the changes that we all so desperately need. Please support the Leonard
Peltier Defense Offense Committee
in our effort to hold the United States government to its own words.
I thank you all who have stood by me all these years, but to name anyone
would be to exclude many more. We must never lose hope in our struggle
for freedom.
In the Spirit of Crazy Horse,
Leonard Peltier
Leonard Peltier #89637-132
USP-Lewisburg
US Penitentiary
PO Box 1000
Lewisburg, PA 17837
For more information on Leonard Peltier visit the Leonard Peltier
Defense-Offense Committee website
http://www.counterpunch.org/peltier09112009.html
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21) Public Option Fades From Debate Over Health Care
By ROBERT PEAR
News Analysis
September 13, 2009
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/13/health/policy/13plan.html?hp
WASHINGTON - It was just one line in a campaign manifesto, and it hardly seemed the most significant or contentious. As a presidential candidate, Barack Obama said he would "establish a new public insurance program" alongside private health care plans.
That proposal took on a life of its own, but it now appears to be dying, a victim of an ineffectual White House strategy, the president's failure to argue passionately for the "public option" and all-out opposition by the insurance industry and much of the health care industry.
In the campaign, Mr. Obama said the public plan would compete with private insurers on the price and quality of care, thus benefiting consumers. What Mr. Obama did not foresee is that, to some people on the right and the left, it would become the most important issue in the debate over health care, touching off a battle over the role of government in one of the nation's biggest, fastest-growing industries.
Once in office Mr. Obama and his advisers have sent conflicting signals about how critical a government-run health plan would be. He prefers a public plan but is open to other ideas.
Dancing around the issue for eight months, Mr. Obama has seemed, at various times, pragmatic, flexible or indecisive.
"I just want to figure out what works," Mr. Obama said in March at a White House forum. If he could drive down health costs and expand coverage "entirely through the market," he said, "I'd be happy to do it that way." And "if there was a way of doing it that involved more government regulation and involvement, I'm happy to do it that way, as well," he added.
Champions of the public plan said it could save money by using Medicare rates and fee schedules to pay hospitals and doctors. In a book last year, one of Mr. Obama's top advisers, former Senator Tom Daschle, said consumers should have the option of enrolling in "a government-run insurance program modeled after Medicare, a proven and popular program."
That is exactly what worries health care providers, who say Medicare pays them less than market rates paid by private insurers. And they have pressed their concerns on Capitol Hill with a small army of lobbyists.
Conservatives have another concern. They see the public option as a step toward a single-payer system in which the government would pay most of the nation's health care bill and could supplant private insurers.
"A public plan is essentially a stalking horse for a single-payer plan," said Senator Judd Gregg, Republican of New Hampshire. "It is more than the camel's nose under the tent. It is the camel's neck, and probably front legs, under the tent. There is no way the private sector will be able to compete."
In trying to answer this charge, Democrats feel torn. Mr. Obama and many Democrats deny that they want to drive private insurers from the market. But others embrace the ultimate goal of "Medicare for all."
The American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, which supports Mr. Obama and the public option, has long supported a single-payer system.
In a memorandum to union leaders last year, Gerald W. McEntee, president of the 1.6-million-member federation, said a public plan would "create a competitive check on the private market and build both public support and the infrastructure for a single-payer system."
Then in April, Representative Jan Schakowsky, Democrat of Illinois, said insurers were right to fear that a public plan could "put the private insurance industry out of business."
That might happen because of "the superiority of the public health care option," said Ms. Schakowsky, one of 86 co-sponsors of a bill to establish a single-payer system.
Such comments provided new ammunition to Republicans already worried about the costly commitments undertaken by the federal government to stave off an economic collapse.
Senator Jon Kyl of Arizona, the No. 2 Republican in the Senate, voiced this sense of bailout fatigue in June when he said, "We have the takeover of the auto companies and banks and A.I.G. and student loans - and now health care."
In battering the proposal for a public option, Republicans have made effective use of estimates by the Lewin Group, a consulting concern, which said that more than 100 million people might sign up for the government-run insurance plan.
By contrast, the Congressional Budget Office has estimated that 11 million to 12 million people might enroll.
Mr. Obama cited the lower estimate in a speech to a joint session of Congress on Wednesday, to buttress his assertion that fears of a public plan were overblown. "We believe that less than 5 percent of Americans would sign up," Mr. Obama said.
But a leader of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, Representative Lynn Woolsey, Democrat of California, predicted that over time "more and more people will select the public option."
If only 5 percent of people will enroll, she asked, "Why are the private insurance companies so worried?"
The different estimates by Lewin and the Congressional Budget Office are based on different assumptions about who would be permitted to enroll in the public plan - workers in all companies or just those in smaller businesses.
Many people who cite studies by the Lewin Group do not know it is a unit of Ingenix, a wholly owned subsidiary of UnitedHealth, one of the nation's largest insurers. John F. Sheils, a vice president of the Lewin Group, said the parent company had no influence over its research.
Momentum for the public option has waned, in part, because senators have been focusing on an alternative: nonprofit member-owned insurance cooperatives.
Apart from the question of whether co-ops would be workable or effective, they provide a politically convenient middle ground for centrists. With no immediate prospect of getting the votes for a public option in the Senate, some liberals have said they too are willing to consider the idea - if it enables them to pass a bill, and if the co-ops are strong enough to put competitive pressure on insurance companies.
Senator Kent Conrad, Democrat of North Dakota, who floated the idea in early June, said co-ops would accomplish "much of what those who want a public option are calling for - something to compete with private for-profit insurance companies."
At the same time, Mr. Conrad said, co-ops address Republican concerns because they are not controlled by the government.
Liberal Democrats are not giving up. Senator Tom Harkin, Democrat of Iowa, said the president and Senate Democratic leaders had not made a serious effort to round up votes for a public option. If they did, he said, it could pass.
While the White House has struggled to define its position, insurance companies have never wavered. Starting two weeks after the 2008 election, they have said they would accept greater federal regulation of their market practices if Congress also required everyone to have health insurance.
These may have been tactical concessions, to abate public wrath, but they were well received in Congress. While making these offers, the industry conserved its resources for the bigger battle over a public option.
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22) Big Spenders? They Wish
By PETER S. GOODMAN
September 13, 2009
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/13/business/economy/13excerpt.html?8dpc
Millions of Americans have lost homes, jobs and savings to the financial crisis and recession. While greed and extravagance played roles, many lived beyond their means because their paychecks shrank. This article is adapted from "Past Due: The End of Easy Money and the Renewal of the American Economy," by Peter S. Goodman, a reporter for The New York Times. The book, to be published Tuesday by Times Books, explores the origins of the crisis and suggests ways to reinvigorate the economy.
ONE afternoon in November 2006, a policeman spotted an expired license plate on Dorothy Thomas's 10-year-old Toyota Corolla as she drove through San Jose, Calif. He ordered her to pull over.
Struggling under the weight of thousands of dollars in credit card bills, Ms. Thomas was perpetually short of cash. She had not bought a $10 auto registration sticker. The officer checked his database and recognized that she had already been ticketed once before for the same thing. He arranged to have her car towed away.
"I got down on my knees and begged that officer," Ms. Thomas recalled.
As she watched her car being hauled off, she sensed that this was the beginning of a descent into a crisis from which she might not easily escape. Without money to pay the towing and storage fees, she could not extract her car from the lot, and the tab soon grew to $1,600. Without a car, she could not reach the hospital where she worked in the administrative offices, so she lost her $16-an-hour job. Without a paycheck, she could no longer pay the rent on her modest home. She moved to Oakland, where a friend lived in a beaten-down, rented house on a street they called Crack Avenue. By year's end, Ms. Thomas, then 49, was occupying a bunk at a homeless shelter, searching in vain for a job in an economy plagued by unemployment.
Across the United States a sense has taken hold that the Great Recession and the financial crisis are predominantly a result of national profligacy, as if the economy had been undone by insatiable shoppers, foolhardy home buyers and greedy investment bankers. Extravagance and recklessness certainly played crucial roles, and yet they are only part of the explanation.
Many have lived beyond their incomes simply because incomes have been outstripped by the costs of middle-class life. By the fall of 2008, most American workers were bringing home roughly the same weekly wages they had earned in 1983, after accounting for inflation.
"For middle- and low-wage workers, the median wage basically went nowhere over these years," said the economist Jared Bernstein.
Spirited and eloquent, Ms. Thomas had worked her way up from rural Oklahoma poverty, enduring the strains of forcibly integrated schools, before settling in California. She had become one of the first African-Americans to sell cosmetics at a Sacramento department store. Then, she forged a career in medical billing, at one point making $22 an hour. She had lived beyond her means, but not out of decadence. For years, she had rented homes in better neighborhoods than she could afford in order to send her two daughters to quality schools. She had run up credit card balances to pay for summer science camps and school supplies. She had never earned more than a high school diploma, but one of her daughters already had a master's in education; the other was about to start college.
"I truly bought into the idea that education is the way out of poverty," Ms. Thomas said. "If your kids are going to school with kids who are preprogrammed to go to college, then that's what they will expect. I didn't get myself out of poverty. But I got my daughters out. I was the bridge."
Long before "subprime" entered the American lexicon, before Wall Street convulsed with the collapse of giant institutions and the financial world seized with fear, a slower-moving crisis was already under way for tens of millions of ordinary people like Ms. Thomas. The shock of recent times has merely intensified this deeper crisis, rendering void a mode of living that was already unsustainable.
As wages stagnated, and as the costs of health care and education spiraled higher, easy money filled the gap: shrinking paychecks were masked by an explosion of consumer credit and by a pair of investment manias that made money surge through the American economy - one centered on the supposedly limitless promise of the Internet, the other propelled by faith that real estate values could only climb.
On the backs of these fantasies, the financial system lent out ridiculous sums of money to businesses and homeowners, as if the laws of supply and demand had been repealed.
Americans became addicted to dreaming up the Next Big Thing, telling one another stories that seemed to justify pouring money into stocks, real estate and exotic new investments. A nation skilled in innovation and craftsmanship relinquished its traditional focus on engineering goods and services of intrinsic value in favor of financial make-believe, mostly unchecked by government regulation.
As exotic mortgages proliferated along with inscrutable investments backed by home payments, respected leaders like Alan Greenspan, chairman of the Federal Reserve, and Robert E. Rubin and Lawrence H. Summers - both Treasury secretaries in the Clinton administration - silenced those inclined to damp the festivities with limits on how much money financial institutions could put into play.
Bankers operating freely would assess risks better than bureaucrats, they counseled, enabling gold rush fever to flourish on Wall Street and in every suburban cul-de-sac, while the consequences of failure swelled to monstrous proportions.
"Proposals to bring even minimalist regulation were basically rebuffed by Greenspan and various people in the Treasury," recalled Alan S. Blinder, who served with Mr. Greenspan on the board of governors at the Federal Reserve.
Easy money generated economic growth and spread riches. Yet when arithmetic reasserted itself, annihilating trillions of dollars in wealth and millions of jobs, the economy was left with a debilitating case of disillusionment: once markets lost faith in make-believe, they starved the economy of capital. Even people who had barely benefited - people like Dorothy Thomas - suffered an outsize share of hurt.
The challenge now confronting American society is how to transition from an era in which we spent and consumed in brazen disregard of traditional limits into a new period in which we live on what we bring home from work. Yet just as Americans most need jobs to rebuild savings and pay off past-due bills, jobs are in exceedingly scarce supply.
"If you had told me before that a person could look for a year and not find a job, I'd have said they were just lazy," Ms. Thomas said. "Every day, I feel like I'm losing a piece of myself."
BY early 2008, the electricity and water had been cut for lack of payment at the house on Crack Avenue. For Ms. Thomas, 12 months had passed without work, despite dozens of applications at medical billing offices - those she could reach without a car. One potential employer rejected her after she failed a credit check.
"They're saying that credit is a reflection of your character," she said, choking back tears.
The confident young woman who had once sold expensive cosmetics had become a middle-aged woman bulging out of sweat pants, her face sagging with exhaustion, her hair matted for lack of access to a shower. Each rejection intensified her fears that she might never work again.
"Is it my age?" she asked. "Is it because I've gained weight?" She had been visiting a nearby food bank. "They give us cakes and cookies," she said. "Then you wonder why poor people are fat! They're not giving us fruits and vegetables."
She riffled through a folder, proffering her résumé - evidence that she belonged in the white-collar world. "I'm articulate," she said, shifting into the smooth tones of a receptionist as she pantomimed answering the phone. "How may I direct your call?"
"When you get discouraged, it's hard to recover," she said. "People who aren't poor, it's as if they think we don't know what our lives are like and what's happening to us. But we know. Poverty is like a prison without bars."
Three months later, the crumbling house on Crack Avenue fell into foreclosure, and Ms. Thomas was forced out. She thought of asking her oldest daughter for help. But her daughter was struggling to pay her own bills on a teacher's salary. So Ms. Thomas checked into a homeless shelter for battered women and substance abusers. She pretended to be a drug addict in order to stay, using the free bed as an opportunity to reconstruct her life.
In November, she got a job scheduling appointments for a chain of medical clinics for $16 an hour. She could reach the offices using public transportation. She wore a crisp white blouse and a neat ponytail. Her face radiated calm.
"I feel so good," she said, "because I feel so normal."
A long stretch of hopelessness had given way to the outlines of a future. A few weeks later, she had saved $1,600. Soon, she bought a used car, a Toyota Rav 4, which greatly expanded her field of potential workplaces. Another few months of work and saving and she figured to have enough to recover her independence.
But in late January this year, with the economy still deteriorating, her new employer laid her off.
"That first week, I really slipped under," she said. "I did feel suicidal. I just felt so knocked off the block. To lose that job was just devastating."
She was sobbing.
"I'm back at Square One," she said.
MUCH the same might be said of the American economy. Many experts say it may take years to fully recover, creating enough decent-paying jobs so that paychecks can replace home equity loans and credit cards as fuel for spending. "The open question is whether we're in for a bad couple of years, or a bad decade," said Kenneth S. Rogoff, a former chief economist at the International Monetary Fund.
As attention focuses on how best to nurture good jobs, many advocate increased government investment into research institutions to spur innovation, in addition to tax incentives for private ventures that turn the resulting know-how into businesses. Renewable energy and biotechnology exemplify how such public-private partnerships have already produced jobs. Amid mounting concerns about climate change, states are compelling utilities to buy energy from clean sources, creating new markets for wind power and solar energy.
Iowa is exploiting its position on the Great Plains - the so-called Saudi Arabia of wind - to manufacture wind turbines. Toledo's glass factories, confronting declining orders for auto windshields, are focused on making solar panels. North Carolina has twinned the brainpower of its research universities with its engineering prowess to construct a thriving hub of biotechnology, employing people laid off from tobacco and textiles.
These are merely examples of one fruitful approach to creating jobs, say economists, one that may be applied to myriad other areas of American industry. Silicon Valley remains a hotbed of valuable thinking. Wall Street - much maligned though it may be - retains important skills that await incentives to make it function in the national interest.
Some argue that the Next Big Thing may not be big at all, but rather a diffuse process of innovation unleashed on established areas of the economy, one that extracts greater value by improving goods and services we already use every day. Traffic-choked cities may be liberated with modernized public transportation. Homes may be made more comfortable with advances in furnishing. The great American capacity to engineer solutions to life's problems - still intact - may need only the right policies to flourish again.
"There's a lot of opportunities for change in existing industries," says Joe Cortright, an economist at Impresa, a consulting firm in Portland, Ore., where traditional agriculture has in recent years evolved into boutique wineries and specialty-vegetable growers, extracting far greater value.
We are only now beginning to emerge from the longest recession since the Great Depression. The economy remains alarmingly lean. Yet many see in this moment an opportunity to refocus on areas of economic strength.
This month, amid reports that businesses were beginning to receive new orders, Dorothy Thomas was still living in a homeless shelter, unemployed.
Before the end of the month, she will reach the shelter's time limit and be forced to move again. Yet, a new confidence was evident in her words. After nearly two years of rejection and terrifying proximity to the streets, she had tapped back into a deep resilience. She had polished her résumé, acquired a penchant for saving and secured transportation. All that sat between her desperation and renewal was an item that - in the traditional American narrative - was supposed to be available to anyone willing to work: a paycheck.
"A job," Ms. Thomas said, "is really all I need."
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23) Toxic Waters
Clean Water Laws Are Neglected, at a Cost in Suffering
By CHARLES DUHIGG
September 13, 2009
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/13/us/13water.html?hp
Jennifer Hall-Massey knows not to drink the tap water in her home near Charleston, W.Va.
In fact, her entire family tries to avoid any contact with the water. Her youngest son has scabs on his arms, legs and chest where the bathwater - polluted with lead, nickel and other heavy metals - caused painful rashes. Many of his brother's teeth were capped to replace enamel that was eaten away.
Neighbors apply special lotions after showering because their skin burns. Tests show that their tap water contains arsenic, barium, lead, manganese and other chemicals at concentrations federal regulators say could contribute to cancer and damage the kidneys and nervous system.
"How can we get digital cable and Internet in our homes, but not clean water?" said Mrs. Hall-Massey, a senior accountant at one of the state's largest banks.
She and her husband, Charles, do not live in some remote corner of Appalachia. Charleston, the state capital, is less than 17 miles from her home.
"How is this still happening today?" she asked.
When Mrs. Hall-Massey and 264 neighbors sued nine nearby coal companies, accusing them of putting dangerous waste into local water supplies, their lawyer did not have to look far for evidence. As required by state law, some of the companies had disclosed in reports to regulators that they were pumping into the ground illegal concentrations of chemicals - the same pollutants that flowed from residents' taps.
But state regulators never fined or punished those companies for breaking those pollution laws.
This pattern is not limited to West Virginia. Almost four decades ago, Congress passed the Clean Water Act to force polluters to disclose the toxins they dump into waterways and to give regulators the power to fine or jail offenders. States have passed pollution statutes of their own. But in recent years, violations of the Clean Water Act have risen steadily across the nation, an extensive review of water pollution records by The New York Times found.
In the last five years alone, chemical factories, manufacturing plants and other workplaces have violated water pollution laws more than half a million times. The violations range from failing to report emissions to dumping toxins at concentrations regulators say might contribute to cancer, birth defects and other illnesses.
However, the vast majority of those polluters have escaped punishment. State officials have repeatedly ignored obvious illegal dumping, and the Environmental Protection Agency, which can prosecute polluters when states fail to act, has often declined to intervene.
Because it is difficult to determine what causes diseases like cancer, it is impossible to know how many illnesses are the result of water pollution, or contaminants' role in the health problems of specific individuals.
But concerns over these toxins are great enough that Congress and the E.P.A. regulate more than 100 pollutants through the Clean Water Act and strictly limit 91 chemicals or contaminants in tap water through the Safe Drinking Water Act.
Regulators themselves acknowledge lapses. The new E.P.A. administrator, Lisa P. Jackson, said in an interview that despite many successes since the Clean Water Act was passed in 1972, today the nation's water does not meet public health goals, and enforcement of water pollution laws is unacceptably low. She added that strengthening water protections is among her top priorities. State regulators say they are doing their best with insufficient resources.
The Times obtained hundreds of thousands of water pollution records through Freedom of Information Act requests to every state and the E.P.A., and compiled a national database of water pollution violations that is more comprehensive than those maintained by states or the E.P.A. (For an interactive version, which can show violations in any community, visit www.nytimes.com/toxicwaters.)
In addition, The Times interviewed more than 250 state and federal regulators, water-system managers, environmental advocates and scientists.
That research shows that an estimated one in 10 Americans have been exposed to drinking water that contains dangerous chemicals or fails to meet a federal health benchmark in other ways.
Those exposures include carcinogens in the tap water of major American cities and unsafe chemicals in drinking-water wells. Wells, which are not typically regulated by the Safe Drinking Water Act, are more likely to contain contaminants than municipal water systems.
Because most of today's water pollution has no scent or taste, many people who consume dangerous chemicals do not realize it, even after they become sick, researchers say.
But an estimated 19.5 million Americans fall ill each year from drinking water contaminated with parasites, bacteria or viruses, according to a study published last year in the scientific journal Reviews of Environmental Contamination and Toxicology. That figure does not include illnesses caused by other chemicals and toxins.
In the nation's largest dairy states, like Wisconsin and California, farmers have sprayed liquefied animal feces onto fields, where it has seeped into wells, causing severe infections. Tap water in parts of the Farm Belt, including cities in Illinois, Kansas, Missouri and Indiana, has contained pesticides at concentrations that some scientists have linked to birth defects and fertility problems.
In parts of New York, Rhode Island, Ohio, California and other states where sewer systems cannot accommodate heavy rains, untreated human waste has flowed into rivers and washed onto beaches. Drinking water in parts of New Jersey, New York, Arizona and Massachusetts shows some of the highest concentrations of tetrachloroethylene, a dry cleaning solvent that has been linked to kidney damage and cancer. (Specific types of water pollution across the United States will be examined in future Times articles.)
The Times's research also shows that last year, 40 percent of the nation's community water systems violated the Safe Drinking Water Act at least once, according to an analysis of E.P.A. data. Those violations ranged from failing to maintain proper paperwork to allowing carcinogens into tap water. More than 23 million people received drinking water from municipal systems that violated a health-based standard.
In some cases, people got sick right away. In other situations, pollutants like chemicals, inorganic toxins and heavy metals can accumulate in the body for years or decades before they cause problems. Some of the most frequently detected contaminants have been linked to cancer, birth defects and neurological disorders.
Records analyzed by The Times indicate that the Clean Water Act has been violated more than 506,000 times since 2004, by more than 23,000 companies and other facilities, according to reports submitted by polluters themselves. Companies sometimes test what they are dumping only once a quarter, so the actual number of days when they broke the law is often far higher. And some companies illegally avoid reporting their emissions, say officials, so infractions go unrecorded.
Environmental groups say the number of Clean Water Act violations has increased significantly in the last decade. Comprehensive data go back only five years but show that the number of facilities violating the Clean Water Act grew more than 16 percent from 2004 to 2007, the most recent year with complete data.
Polluters include small companies, like gas stations, dry cleaners, shopping malls and the Friendly Acres Mobile Home Park in Laporte, Ind., which acknowledged to regulators that it had dumped human waste into a nearby river for three years.
They also include large operations, like chemical factories, power plants, sewage treatment centers and one of the biggest zinc smelters, the Horsehead Corporation of Pennsylvania, which has dumped illegal concentrations of copper, lead, zinc, chlorine and selenium into the Ohio River. Those chemicals can contribute to mental retardation and cancer.
Some violations are relatively minor. But about 60 percent of the polluters were deemed in "significant noncompliance" - meaning their violations were the most serious kind, like dumping cancer-causing chemicals or failing to measure or report when they pollute.
Finally, the Times's research shows that fewer than 3 percent of Clean Water Act violations resulted in fines or other significant punishments by state officials. And the E.P.A. has often declined to prosecute polluters or force states to strengthen their enforcement by threatening to withhold federal money or take away powers the agency has delegated to state officials.
Neither Friendly Acres Mobile Home Park nor Horsehead, for instance, was fined for Clean Water Act violations in the last eight years. A representative of Friendly Acres declined to comment. Indiana officials say they are investigating the mobile home park. A representative of Horsehead said the company had taken steps to control pollution and was negotiating with regulators to clean up its emissions.
Numerous state and federal lawmakers said they were unaware that pollution was so widespread.
"I don't think anyone realized how bad things have become," said Representative James L. Oberstar, a Minnesota Democrat, when told of The Times's findings. Mr. Oberstar is chairman of the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, which has jurisdiction over many water-quality issues.
"The E.P.A. and states have completely dropped the ball," he said. "Without oversight and enforcement, companies will use our lakes and rivers as dumping grounds - and that's exactly what is apparently going on."
The E.P.A. administrator, Ms. Jackson, whose appointment was confirmed in January, said in an interview that she intended to strengthen enforcement of the Clean Water Act and pressure states to apply the law.
"I've been saying since Day One I want to work on these water issues pretty broadly across the country," she said. On Friday, the E.P.A. said that it was reviewing dozens of coal-mining permits in West Virginia and three other states to make sure they would not violate the Clean Water Act.
After E.P.A. officials received detailed questions from The New York Times in June, Ms. Jackson sent a memo to her enforcement deputy noting that the E.P.A. is "falling short of this administration's expectations for the effectiveness of our clean water enforcement programs. Data available to E.P.A. shows that, in many parts of the country, the level of significant noncompliance with permitting requirements is unacceptably high and the level of enforcement activity is unacceptably low."
State officials, for their part, attribute rising pollution rates to increased workloads and dwindling resources. In 46 states, local regulators have primary responsibility for crucial aspects of the Clean Water Act. Though the number of regulated facilities has more than doubled in the last 10 years, many state enforcement budgets have remained essentially flat when adjusted for inflation. In New York, for example, the number of regulated polluters has almost doubled to 19,000 in the last decade, but the number of inspections each year has remained about the same.
But stretched resources are only part of the reason polluters escape punishment. The Times's investigation shows that in West Virginia and other states, powerful industries have often successfully lobbied to undermine effective regulation.
State officials also argue that water pollution statistics include minor infractions, like failing to file reports, which do not pose risks to human health, and that records collected by The Times failed to examine informal enforcement methods, like sending warning letters.
"We work enormously hard inspecting our coal mines, analyzing water samples, notifying companies of violations when we detect them," said Randy Huffman, head of West Virginia's Department of Environmental Protection. "When I look at how far we've come in protecting the state's waters since we took responsibility for the Clean Water Act, I think we have a lot to be proud of."
But unchecked pollution remains a problem in many states. West Virginia offers a revealing example of why so many companies escape punishment.
One Community's Plight
The mountains surrounding the home of Mrs. Hall-Massey's family and West Virginia's nearby capital have long been mined for coal. And for years, the area enjoyed clean well water.
But starting about a decade ago, awful smells began coming from local taps. The water was sometimes gray, cloudy and oily. Bathtubs and washers developed rust-colored rings that scrubbing could not remove. When Mrs. Hall-Massey's husband installed industrial water filters, they quickly turned black. Tests showed that their water contained toxic amounts of lead, manganese, barium and other metals that can contribute to organ failure or developmental problems.
Around that time, nearby coal companies had begun pumping industrial waste into the ground.
Mining companies often wash their coal to remove impurities. The leftover liquid - a black fluid containing dissolved minerals and chemicals, known as sludge or slurry - is often disposed of in vast lagoons or through injection into abandoned mines. The liquid in those lagoons and shafts can flow through cracks in the earth into water supplies. Companies must regularly send samples of the injected liquid to labs, which provide reports that are forwarded to state regulators.
In the eight miles surrounding Mrs. Hall-Massey's home, coal companies have injected more than 1.9 billion gallons of coal slurry and sludge into the ground since 2004, according to a review of thousands of state records. Millions more gallons have been dumped into lagoons.
These underground injections have contained chemicals at concentrations that pose serious health risks, and thousands of injections have violated state regulations and the Safe Drinking Water Act, according to reports sent to the state by companies themselves.
For instance, three coal companies - Loadout, Remington Coal and Pine Ridge, a subsidiary of Peabody Energy, one of the largest coal companies in the world - reported to state officials that 93 percent of the waste they injected near this community had illegal concentrations of chemicals including arsenic, lead, chromium, beryllium or nickel.
Sometimes those concentrations exceeded legal limits by as much as 1,000 percent. Those chemicals have been shown to contribute to cancer, organ failures and other diseases.
But those companies were never fined or punished for those illegal injections, according to state records. They were never even warned that their activities had been noticed.
Remington Coal declined to comment. A representative of Loadout's parent said the company had assigned its permit to another company, which ceased injecting in 2006. Peabody Energy, which spun off Pine Ridge in 2007, said that some data sent to regulators was inaccurate and that the company's actions reflected best industry practices.
West Virginia officials, when asked about these violations, said regulators had accidentally overlooked many pollution records the companies submitted until after the statute of limitations had passed, so no action was taken. They also said their studies indicated that those injections could not have affected drinking water in the area and that other injections also had no detectable effect.
State officials noted that they had cited more than 4,200 water pollution violations at mine sites around the state since 2000, as well as conducted thousands of investigations. The state has initiated research about how mining affects water quality. After receiving questions from The Times, officials announced a statewide moratorium on issuing injection permits and told some companies that regulators were investigating their injections.
"Many of the issues you are examining are several years old, and many have been addressed," West Virginia officials wrote in a statement. The state's pollution program "has had its share of issues," regulators wrote. However, "it is important to note that if the close scrutiny given to our state had been given to others, it is likely that similar issues would have been found."
More than 350 other companies and facilities in West Virginia have also violated the Clean Water Act in recent years, records show. Those infractions include releasing illegal concentrations of iron, manganese, aluminum and other chemicals into lakes and rivers.
As the water in Mrs. Hall-Massey's community continued to worsen, residents began complaining of increased health problems. Gall bladder diseases, fertility problems, miscarriages and kidney and thyroid issues became common, according to interviews.
When Mrs. Hall-Massey's family left on vacation, her sons' rashes cleared up. When they returned, the rashes reappeared. Her dentist told her that chemicals appeared to be damaging her teeth and her son's, she said. As the quality of her water worsened, Mrs. Hall-Massey's once-healthy teeth needed many crowns. Her son brushed his teeth often, used a fluoride rinse twice a day and was not allowed to eat sweets. Even so, he continued getting cavities until the family stopped using tap water. By the time his younger brother's teeth started coming in, the family was using bottled water to brush. He has not had dental problems.
Medical professionals in the area say residents show unusually high rates of health problems. A survey of more than 100 residents conducted by a nurse hired by Mrs. Hall-Massey's lawyer indicated that as many as 30 percent of people in this area have had their gallbladders removed, and as many as half the residents have significant tooth enamel damage, chronic stomach problems and other illnesses. That research was confirmed through interviews with residents.
It is difficult to determine which companies, if any, are responsible for the contamination that made its way into tap water or to conclude which specific chemicals, if any, are responsible for particular health problems. Many coal companies say they did not pollute the area's drinking water and chose injection sites that flowed away from nearby homes.
An independent study by a university researcher challenges some of those claims.
"I don't know what else could be polluting these wells," said Ben Stout, a biology professor at Wheeling Jesuit University who tested the water in this community and elsewhere in West Virginia. "The chemicals coming out of people's taps are identical to the chemicals the coal companies are pumping into the ground."
One night, Mrs. Hall-Massey's 6-year-old son, Clay, asked to play in the tub. When he got out, his bright red rashes hurt so much he could not fall asleep. Soon, Mrs. Hall-Massey began complaining to state officials. They told her they did not know why her water was bad, she recalls, but doubted coal companies had done anything wrong. The family put their house on the market, but because of the water, buyers were not interested.
In December, Mrs. Hall-Massey and neighbors sued in county court, seeking compensation. That suit is pending. To resolve a related lawsuit filed about the same time, the community today gets regular deliveries of clean drinking water, stored in coolers or large blue barrels outside most homes. Construction began in August on a pipeline bringing fresh water to the community.
But for now most residents still use polluted water to bathe, shower and wash dishes.
"A parent's only real job is to protect our children," Mrs. Hall-Massey said. "But where was the government when we needed them to protect us from this stuff?"
Regulators 'Overwhelmed'
Matthew Crum, a 43-year-old lawyer, wanted to protect people like Mrs. Hall-Massey. That is why he joined West Virginia's environmental protection agency in 2001, when it became clear that the state's and nation's streams and rivers were becoming more polluted.
But he said he quickly learned that good intentions could not compete with intimidating politicians and a fearful bureaucracy.
Mr. Crum grew up during a golden age of environmental activism. He was in elementary school when Congress passed the Clean Water Act of 1972 in response to environmental disasters, including a fire on the polluted Cuyahoga River in Cleveland. The act's goal was to eliminate most water pollution by 1985 and prohibit the "discharge of toxic pollutants in toxic amounts."
"There were a bunch of us that were raised with the example of the Clean Water Act as inspiration," he said. "I wanted to be part of that fight."
In the two decades after the act's passage, the nation's waters grew much healthier. The Cuyahoga River, West Virginia's Kanawha River and hundreds of other beaches, streams and ponds were revitalized.
But in the late 1990s, some states' enforcement of pollution laws began tapering off, according to regulators and environmentalists. Soon the E.P.A. started reporting that the nation's rivers, lakes and estuaries were becoming dirtier again. Mr. Crum, after a stint in Washington with the Justice Department and the birth of his first child, joined West Virginia's Department of Environmental Protection, where new leadership was committed to revitalizing the Clean Water Act.
He said his idealism was tested within two weeks, when he was called to a huge coal spill into a stream.
"I met our inspector at the spill site, and we had this really awkward conversation," Mr. Crum recalled. "I said we should shut down the mine until everything was cleaned up. The inspector agreed, but he said if he issued that order, he was scared of getting demoted or transferred to the middle of nowhere. Everyone was terrified of doing their job."
Mr. Crum temporarily shut the mine.
In the next two years, he shut many polluting mines until they changed their ways. His tough approach raised his profile around the state.
Mining companies, worried about attracting Mr. Crum's attention, began improving their waste disposal practices, executives from that period said. But they also began complaining to their friends in the state's legislature, they recalled in interviews, and started a whisper campaign accusing Mr. Crum of vendettas against particular companies - though those same executives now admit they had no evidence for those claims.
In 2003, a new director, Stephanie Timmermeyer, was nominated to run the Department of Environmental Protection. One of West Virginia's most powerful state lawmakers, Eustace Frederick, said she would be confirmed, but only if she agreed to fire Mr. Crum, according to several people who said they witnessed the conversation.
She was given the job and soon summoned Mr. Crum to her office. He was dismissed two weeks after his second child's birth.
Ms. Timmermeyer, who resigned in 2008, did not return calls. Mr. Frederick died last year.
Since then, hundreds of workplaces in West Virginia have violated pollution laws without paying fines. A half-dozen current and former employees, in interviews, said their enforcement efforts had been undermined by bureaucratic disorganization, a departmental preference to let polluters escape punishment if they promise to try harder, and a revolving door of regulators who leave for higher-paying jobs at the companies they once policed.
"We are outmanned and overwhelmed, and that's exactly how industry wants us," said one employee who requested anonymity for fear of being fired. "It's been obvious for decades that we're not on top of things, and coal companies have earned billions relying on that."
In June, four environmental groups petitioned the E.P.A. to take over much of West Virginia's handling of the Clean Water Act, citing a "nearly complete breakdown" in the state. The E.P.A. has asked state officials to respond and said it is investigating the petition.
Similar problems exist in other states, where critics say regulators have often turned a blind eye to polluters. Regulators in five other states, in interviews, said they had been pressured by industry-friendly politicians to drop continuing pollution investigations.
"Unless the E.P.A. is pushing state regulators, a culture of transgression and apathy sets in," said William K. Reilly, who led the E.P.A. under President George H. W. Bush.
In response, many state officials defend their efforts. A spokeswoman for West Virginia's Department of Environmental Protection, for instance, said that between 2006 and 2008, the number of cease-operation orders issued by regulators was 10 percent higher than during Mr. Crum's two-year tenure.
Mr. Huffman, the department's head, said there is no political interference with current investigations. Department officials say they continue to improve the agency's procedures, and note that regulators have assessed $14.7 million in state fines against more than 70 mining companies since 2006.
However, that is about equal to the revenue those businesses' parent companies collect every 10 hours, according to financial reports. (To find out about every state's enforcement record and read comments from regulators, visit www.nytimes.com/waterdata.)
"The real test is, is our water clean?" said Mr. Huffman. "When the Clean Water Act was passed, this river that flows through our capital was very dirty. Thirty years later, it's much cleaner because we've chosen priorities carefully."
Some regulators admit that polluters have fallen through the cracks. To genuinely improve enforcement, they say, the E.P.A. needs to lead.
"If you don't have vigorous oversight by the feds, then everything just goes limp," said Mr. Crum. "Regulators can't afford to have some backbone unless they know Washington or the governor's office will back them up."
It took Mr. Crum a while to recover from his firing. He moved to Virginia to work at the Nature Conservancy, an environmental conservation group. Today, he is in private practice and works on the occasional environmental lawsuit.
"We're moving backwards," he said, "and it's heartbreaking."
Shortcomings of the E.P.A.
The memos are marked "DO NOT DISTRIBUTE."
They were written this year by E.P.A. staff, the culmination of a five-year investigation of states' enforcement of federal pollution laws. And in bland, bureaucratic terms, they describe a regulatory system - at the E.P.A. and among state agencies - that in many ways simply does not work.
For years, according to one memo, federal regulators knew that more than 30 states had major problems documenting which companies were violating pollution laws. Another notes that states' "personnel lack direction, ability or training" to levy fines large enough to deter polluters.
But often, the memos say, the E.P.A. never corrected those problems even though they were widely acknowledged. The E.P.A. "may hesitate to push the states" out of "fear of risking their relationships," one report reads. Another notes that E.P.A. offices lack "a consistent national oversight strategy."
Some of those memos, part of an effort known as the State Review Framework, were obtained from agency employees who asked for anonymity, and others through Freedom of Information Act requests.
Enforcement lapses were particularly bad under the administration of President George W. Bush, employees say. "For the last eight years, my hands have been tied," said one E.P.A. official who requested anonymity for fear of retribution. "We were told to take our clean water and clean air cases, put them in a box, and lock it shut. Everyone knew polluters were getting away with murder. But these polluters are some of the biggest campaign contributors in town, so no one really cared if they were dumping poisons into streams."
The E.P.A. administrators during the last eight years - Christine Todd Whitman, Michael O. Leavitt and Stephen L. Johnson - all declined to comment.
When President Obama chose Ms. Jackson to head the E.P.A., many environmentalists and agency employees were encouraged. During his campaign, Mr. Obama promised to "reinvigorate the drinking water standards that have been weakened under the Bush administration and update them to address new threats." He pledged to regulate water pollution from livestock operations and push for amendments to the Clean Water Act.
But some worry those promises will not be kept. Water issues have taken a back seat to other environmental concerns, like carbon emissions.
In an interview, Ms. Jackson noted that many of the nation's waters were healthier today than when the Clean Water Act was passed and said she intended to enforce the law more vigorously. After receiving detailed questions from The Times, she put many of the State Review Framework documents on the agency's Web site, and ordered more disclosure of the agency's handling of water issues, increased enforcement and revamped technology so that facilities' environmental records are more accessible.
"Do critics have a good and valid point when they say improvements need to be made? Absolutely," Ms. Jackson said. "But I think we need to be careful not to do that by scaring the bejesus out of people into thinking that, boy, are things horrible. What it requires is attention, and I'm going to give it that attention."
In statements, E.P.A. officials noted that from 2006 to 2008, the agency conducted 11,000 Clean Water Act and 21,000 Safe Drinking Water Act inspections, and referred 146 cases to the Department of Justice. During the 2007 to 2008 period, officials wrote, 92 percent of the population served by community water systems received water that had no reported health-based violations.
The Times's reporting, the statements added, "does not distinguish between significant violations and minor violations," and "as a result, the conclusions may present an unduly alarming picture." They wrote that "much of the country's water quality problems are caused by discharges from nonpoint sources of pollution, such as agricultural runoff, which cannot be corrected solely through enforcement."
Ultimately, lawmakers and environmental activists say, the best solution is for Congress to hold the E.P.A. and states accountable for their failures.
The Clean Water Act, they add, should be expanded to police other types of pollution - like farm and livestock runoff - that are largely unregulated. And they say Congress should give state agencies more resources, in the same way that federal dollars helped overhaul the nation's sewage systems in the 1970s.
Some say changes will not occur without public outrage.
"When we started regulating water pollution in the 1970s, there was a huge public outcry because you could see raw sewage flowing into the rivers," said William D. Ruckelshaus, who served as the first head of the Environmental Protection Agency under President Richard M. Nixon, and then again under President Ronald Reagan.
"Today the violations are much more subtle - pesticides and chemicals you can't see or smell that are even more dangerous," he added. "And so a lot of the public pressure on regulatory agencies has ebbed away."
Karl Russell contributed reporting.
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24) The Recession's Racial Divide
By BARBARA EHRENREICH and DEDRICK MUHAMMAD
Op-Ed Contributors
September 13, 2009
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/13/opinion/13ehrenreich.html
WHAT do you get when you combine the worst economic downturn since the Depression with the first black president? A surge of white racial resentment, loosely disguised as a populist revolt. An article on the Fox News Web site has put forth the theory that health reform is a stealth version of reparations for slavery: whites will foot the bill and, by some undisclosed mechanism, blacks will get all the care. President Obama, in such fantasies, is a dictator and, in one image circulated among the anti-tax, anti-health reform "tea parties," he is depicted as a befeathered African witch doctor with little tusks coming out of his nostrils. When you're going down, as the white middle class has been doing for several years now, it's all too easy to imagine that it's because someone else is climbing up over your back.
Despite the sense of white grievance, though, blacks are the ones who are taking the brunt of the recession, with disproportionately high levels of foreclosures and unemployment. And they weren't doing so well to begin with. At the start of the recession, 33 percent of the black middle class was already in danger of falling to a lower economic level, according to a study by the Institute on Assets and Social Policy at Brandeis University and Demos, a nonpartisan public policy research organization.
In fact, you could say that for African-Americans the recession is over. It occurred from 2000 to 2007, as black employment decreased by 2.4 percent and incomes declined by 2.9 percent. During those seven years, one-third of black children lived in poverty, and black unemployment - even among college graduates - consistently ran at about twice the level of white unemployment.
That was the black recession. What's happening now is more like a depression. Nauvata and James, a middle-aged African American couple living in Prince Georges County, Md., who asked that their last name not be published, had never recovered from the first recession of the '00s when the second one came along. In 2003 Nauvata was laid off from a $25-an-hour administrative job at Aetna, and in 2007 she wound up in $10.50-an-hour job at a car rental company. James has had a steady union job as a building equipment operator, but the two couldn't earn enough to save themselves from predatory lending schemes.
They were paying off a $524 dining set bought on credit from the furniture store Levitz when it went out of business, and their debt swelled inexplicably as it was sold from one creditor to another. The couple ultimately spent a total of $3,800 to both pay it off and hire a lawyer to clear their credit rating. But to do this they had to refinance their home - not once, but with a series of mortgage lenders. Now they face foreclosure.
Nauvata, who is 47, has since seen her blood pressure soar, and James, 56, has developed heart palpitations. "There is no middle class anymore," he told us, "just a top and a bottom."
Plenty of formerly middle- or working-class whites have followed similar paths to ruin: the layoff or reduced hours, the credit traps and ever-rising debts, the lost home. But one thing distinguishes hard-pressed African-Americans as a group: Thanks to a legacy of a discrimination in both hiring and lending, they're less likely than whites to be cushioned against the blows by wealthy relatives or well-stocked savings accounts. In 2008, on the cusp of the recession, the typical African-American family had only a dime for every dollar of wealth possessed by the typical white family. Only 18 percent of blacks and Latinos had retirement accounts, compared with 43.4 percent of whites.
Racial asymmetry was stamped on this recession from the beginning. Wall Street's reckless infatuation with subprime mortgages led to the global financial crash of 2007, which depleted home values and 401(k)'s across the racial spectrum. People of all races got sucked into subprime and adjustable-rate mortgages, but even high-income blacks were almost twice as likely to end up with subprime home-purchase loans as low-income whites - even when they qualified for prime mortgages, even when they offered down payments.
According to a 2008 report by United for a Fair Economy, a research and advocacy group, from 1998 to 2006 (before the subprime crisis), blacks lost $71 billion to $93 billion in home-value wealth from subprime loans. The researchers called this family net-worth catastrophe the "greatest loss of wealth in recent history for people of color." And the worst was yet to come.
In a new documentary film about the subprime crisis, "American Casino," solid black citizens - a high school social studies teacher, a psychotherapist, a minister - relate how they lost their homes when their monthly mortgage payments exploded. Watching the parts of the film set in Baltimore is a little like watching the TV series "The Wire," except that the bad guys don't live in the projects; they hover over computer screens on Wall Street.
It's not easy to get people to talk about their subprime experiences. There's the humiliation of having been "played" by distant, mysterious forces. "I don't feel very good about myself," says the teacher in "American Casino." "I kind of feel like a failure."
Even people who know better tend to blame themselves - like Melonie Griffith, a 40-year-old African-American who works with the Boston group City Life/La Vida Urbana helping other people avoid foreclosure and eviction. She criticizes herself for having been "naïve" enough to trust the mortgage lender who, in 2004, told her not to worry about the high monthly payments she was signing on for because the mortgage would be refinanced in "a couple of months." The lender then disappeared, leaving Ms. Griffith in foreclosure, with "nowhere for my kids and me to go." Only when she went public with her story did she find that she wasn't the only one. "There is a consistent pattern here," she told us.
Mortgage lenders like Countrywide and Wells Fargo sought out minority homebuyers for the heartbreakingly simple reason that, for decades, blacks had been denied mortgages on racial grounds, and were thus a ready-made market for the gonzo mortgage products of the mid-'00s. Banks replaced the old racist practice of redlining with "reverse redlining" - intensive marketing aimed at black neighborhoods in the name of extending home ownership to the historically excluded. Countrywide, which prided itself on being a dream factory for previously disadvantaged homebuyers, rolled out commercials showing canny black women talking their husbands into signing mortgages.
At Wells Fargo, Elizabeth Jacobson, a former loan officer at the company, recently revealed - in an affidavit in a lawsuit by the City of Baltimore - that salesmen were encouraged to try to persuade black preachers to hold "wealth-building seminars" in their churches. For every loan that resulted from these seminars, whether to buy a new home or refinance one, Wells Fargo promised to donate $350 to the customer's favorite charity, usually the church. (Wells Fargo denied any effort to market subprime loans specifically to blacks.) Another former loan officer, Tony Paschal, reported that at the same time cynicism was rampant within Wells Fargo, with some employees referring to subprimes as "ghetto loans" and to minority customers as "mud people."
If any cultural factor predisposed blacks to fall for risky loans, it was one widely shared with whites - a penchant for "positive thinking" and unwarranted optimism, which takes the theological form of the "prosperity gospel." Since "God wants to prosper you," all you have to do to get something is "name it and claim it." A 2000 DVD from the black evangelist Creflo Dollar featured African-American parishioners shouting, "I want my stuff - right now!"
Joel Osteen, the white megachurch pastor who draws 40,000 worshippers each Sunday, about two-thirds of them black and Latino, likes to relate how he himself succumbed to God's urgings - conveyed by his wife - to upgrade to a larger house. According to Jonathan Walton, a religion professor at the University of California at Riverside, pastors like Mr. Osteen reassured people about subprime mortgages by getting them to believe that "God caused the bank to ignore my credit score and bless me with my first house." If African-Americans made any collective mistake in the mid-'00s, it was to embrace white culture too enthusiastically, and substitute the individual wish-fulfillment promoted by Norman Vincent Peale for the collective-action message of Martin Luther King.
But you didn't need a dodgy mortgage to be wiped out by the subprime crisis and ensuing recession. Black unemployment is now at 15.1 percent, compared with 8.9 percent for whites. In New York City, black unemployment has been rising four times as fast as that of whites. By 2010, according to Lawrence Mishel of the Economic Policy Institute, 40 percent of African-Americans nationwide will have endured patches of unemployment or underemployment.
One result is that blacks are being hit by a second wave of foreclosures caused by unemployment. Willett Thomas, a neat, wiry 47-year-old in Washington who describes herself as a "fiscal conservative," told us that until a year ago she thought she'd "figured out a way to live my dream." Not only did she have a job and a house, but she had a rental property in Gainesville, Fla., leaving her with the flexibility to pursue a part-time writing career.
Then she became ill, lost her job and fell behind on the fixed-rate mortgage on her home. The tenants in Florida had financial problems of their own and stopped paying rent. Now, although she manages to have an interview a week and regularly upgrades her résumé, Ms. Thomas cannot find a new job. The house she lives in is in foreclosure.
Mulugeta Yimer of Alexandria, Va., still has his taxi-driving job, but it no longer pays enough to live on. A thin, tall man with worry written all over his face, Mr. Yimer came to this country in 1981 as a refugee from Ethiopia, firmly believing in the American dream. In 2003, when Wells Fargo offered him an adjustable-rate mortgage, he calculated that he'd be able to deal with the higher interest rate when it kicked in. But the recession delivered a near-mortal blow to the taxi industry, even in the still relatively affluent Washington suburbs. He's now putting in 19-hour days, with occasional naps in his taxi, while his wife works 32 hours a week at a convenience store, but they still don't earn enough to cover expenses: $400 a month for health insurance, $800 for child care and $1,700 for the mortgage. What will Mr. Yimer do if he ends up losing his house? "We'll go to a shelter, I guess," he said, throwing open his hands, "if we can find one."
So despite the right-wing perception of black power grabs, this recession is on track to leave blacks even more economically disadvantaged than they were. Does a black president who is inclined toward bipartisanship dare address this destruction of the black middle class? Probably not. But if Americans of all races don't get some economic relief soon, the pain will only increase and with it, perversely, the unfounded sense of white racial grievance.
Barbara Ehrenreich is the author of the forthcoming "Bright-Sided: How the Relentless Promotion of Positive Thinking Has Undermined America." Dedrick Muhammad is a senior organizer and research associate at the Institute for Policy Studies.
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25) Class Size Brings Strike by Teachers
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
September 13, 2009
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/13/us/13kent.html?ref=us
KENT, Wash. (AP) - On what was scheduled to be the first day of school, students and teachers at Mill Creek Middle School here never made it through the front door. They stood or sat outside by the flagpole, waving signs and yelling at passing motorists.
The teachers have just ended a second week on strike, keeping more than 26,000 students at 40 schools out of the classroom.
The strike is not centered on wage and contract issues. Kent teachers are instead fighting for smaller class sizes, arguing that the district should spend some of the $21 million it has in reserve to alleviate overcrowding.
The district maintains that it needs to save the reserve money in this economy and that classes are not as crowded as teachers say. Some teachers complain that they do not have enough desks for students, with more than 30 children in some elementary and middle school classes.
Teachers said they were ready to stay out as long as it took to convince the school district that classroom overcrowding hurt academic achievement.
They have drawn the support of a handful of students who took to the picket lines during their extended summer vacation.
"I support them 100 percent in smaller class sizes for a better education," said Stewart Kunzelman, a 13-year-old eighth grader.
Teacher strikes are illegal in Washington State, and a judge said each teacher would have to pay $200 a day in fines if not back in school by Monday.
It is the only teacher strike in the nation taking place this week, and experts said such strikes were becoming rarer.
But that is not necessarily the case in Washington; teachers in a city east of Seattle staged a two-week strike last fall.
Rich Wood, a spokesman for the largest teachers' union in Washington, said strikes were not that common because most states did not allow them and some ban collective bargaining.
Mr. Wood said strikes in Washington State are about very local issues. Last year's extended strike in Bellevue, Wash., focused on district control of curriculum. Strikes in Illinois, Michigan and Pennsylvania last fall concerned salaries and retirement.
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