Jill Stein & The Greens are the Best Hope for America

The FBI has essentially admitted that Hillary Clinton is guilty of transmitting classified information over insecure channels but the law does not apply to her. Her ties to the oligarchs who have mismanaged our country for decades, coupled with her participation in the 2009 coup in Honduras and the devastating bombing of Libya should disqualify her from the halls of power. And yet, somehow, she is being held up as the woman people on the left should vote for

Donald Trump is a racist, xenophobic, sexist, ableist demagogue with no experience in public office. Even the leadership of the GOP is against his run.

We are increasingly faced with the evils of two lessers, the pandering and vitriol of two people -and two parties- that are completely out of touch with the realities working people in this country are facing.

I met Green Party presidential candidate Jill Stein in the winter of 2013 in Portland, Maine after a protest against a tar sands pipeline. Her authenticity and good nature were apparent to me immediately as she spoke to us, a group of activists from across New England, about her hope for a brighter future.

Though I respect Libertarian candidate Gary Johnson, I believe that the best third-party option for progressive “Berniecrats” in this election is Stein. She has the intelligence, the charisma and the passion needed to lead our country and, most importantly, to break the tyranny of the two-party system in this country.

21st-Century Socialism in Venezuela: Failure or the Future?

This is an excellent time for leftists in the United States and abroad to examine what is going on in a country that, since 1999, has been a shining symbol for us: Venezuela.

The mainstream media has been writing reports of the dire situation in the country, but with a neoliberal spin. It is time to set the record straight on what is really going on.

There have been reports of widespread malnutrition, shortages and rationing of electricity. One outlet reported that there is a beer shortage. Another reports that Coca-Cola is in short supply. (Heaven forbid!) The author cannot doubt veracity of reports of hunger and long food lines. This is indeed the case in many places across Venezuela.  If an army marches on its stomach as Napoleon once said, there are doubts as to whether the Bolivarian revolution can march much further.

But what is important to understand is that Venezuela is a petroleum economy that depends on oil revenue regardless of what government is in power. When the ruling classes protested the nationalization of Venezuela’s oil companies by calling a general strike in the oil industry from 2002 to 2003, Venezuela’s economy tanked. Global oil prices have been low for some time now, and this is leading to negative economic growth. But this is not solely
the result of mismanagement; the downturn is a result of market forces entirely beyond Venezuela’s control. Nigeria’s economy is also dominated by oil extraction, and it is also facing dire trouble.

During the tenure of Socialist President Salvador Allende, US President Richard Nixon once said that he wanted to “make their economy scream” in order to make the Chilean people revolt against Allende. It is highly unlikely that the US government is conspiring to keep oil prices low in order to undermine Venezuela’s government, they may as well be. It is is having the same deliterious effect Nixon was trying to get by sabotoging the Chilean copper industry.

The Chávez government brought extreme poverty levels in Venezuela down to new lows by using oil revenue to serve the poorest. The opposition in Venezuela and in in the West is fuming because their coffers are being affected. Though there are legitimate crticisms of the Maduro government, it would be foolhardy to scrap the entide Bolivarian system.

It is unlikely that Venezuela will suddenly become a beacon of hope under an opposition government so long as oil prices remain low as they currently are.

Let’s imagine, for a moment, that the PSUV government is somehow deposed, wether by the electpral process or by coup as in Brazil. Vulture capitalists would likely try to privatize Venezuela’s oil industry en masse. Many of thr social programs for the working class would be eliminated or severely curtailed. And while this hypothetical government might secure more foreign direct investment,

Nicholas Maduro is nowhere near as popular or charismatic as his predecessor Hugo Chávez. Unless he can deliver economically, his prospects of being re-elected are dim. But the opposition is seen as a force for the rich, not for the Venezuelan working class.

Of course, bourgeois economists, policy makers and pundits will point at Venezuela’s problems and say, “See! This is why socialism doesn’t work.” And they will use that as a way to disuade left activists from attempting a Bolivarian-style revolution in other parts of America and the world. We leftists must stand united in pointing out the benefits of 21st-Century Socialism if we are to forge a way forward for a new kind of democracy.

It is vital that the popular Bolivarian forces in Venezuela press their government to diversify the economy, work with its social movements and cooperate with other “pink tide” countries.

The oft repeated lie that Venezuela is a dictatorship or undemocratic are easily repudiated: even former US President Jimmy Carter said that Venezuela’s electoral system works. For perhaps the first time in its history, the Venezuelan working class has been empowered. Though the seas are rocky now, the Venezuelan boat may still wether the storm.

Corporate Influence and the Degeneration of Democracy in the United States

The influence of big money has always been a major defining characteristic of the American electoral system. Since the reign of the plantation owners ad shipping companies in the 18^th century, to the rule of the Robber Barons, to the rise of the Koch brothers and the legalization of corruption with the Citizens United ruling, corporate money has had a major deleterious effect on the American Experiment. A recent Princeton study concluded that the United States has fully degraded from a democracy to an oligarchy. 

A counterpoint to this, however, is the idea that Americans can have economic and civil democracy in the truest sense of the word. American workers have been fighting for full inclusion into the decision-making process since the foundation of the country.

People from across the nation have been intrinsically involved in Bernie Sanders campaign. Hundreds of thousands of millennials are being engaged in the democratic process, canvassing and phonebanking from a man almost three times their average age. It is likely that these energized young people will be the leading cadre of new public officials in their municipalities, cities and states, forming the background of a populist resurgence in America.

But, much to the chagrin of these hopeful millennials, recent events in Nevada have brought to the fore the idea that the elites that control the Democratic Party are not interested in representing the interests of the American worker. Despite the meteoric rise of Vermont Senator Bernard Sanders from a radical fringe candidate to an icon for American progressives, Democratic leaders are ever so eager to disenfranchise their voters and discourage displays of populist fervor. The more the American voter sees the elitist and alienating nature of the inner working of the Democratic Party, the more they see it as a private club where you have to pay to enter. And they don’t like it.

Even though Senator Sanders polls better against presumptive Republican nominee Donald Trump than his rival Clinton, the DNC under Debbie Wasserman-Schultz seemingly prefers the neoliberal, borderline conservative war hawk. The Democratic Convention in Nevada this year is the illusion of popular power in the reality of corporate rule.

In this focus group, a group of women from both parties share their perception that Hillary Clinton is “corrupt,” “a liar” and an “opportunist.” It is rather obvious that the American people see through the ruse of corporate politicians.

And as much as the influx of corporate money is a problem, the neoliberal and corporatist paradigm that prevails in both major parties may be an even larger one.  As much as politicians from the Democratic Party like to tout themselves as progressive champions of the working class, it hails allegiance to the corporate world, not to the interests of working people.

Some of the largest donors to Clinton’s campaign are large financial service companies like Citigroup, Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley.  Regardless of what the candidate might say in rebuttal, they are ultimately beholden to their corporate donors and will almost always kowtow to those donors. Barrack Obama knew that some of the major contributors to his 2008 campaign were the same financial institutions that caused the Great Recession. As a result, once he was in office, his administration did not even consider major anti-trust legislation that would have made the financial institutions beholden to state power.

Charles Koch even floated the idea of supporting Clinton over the Republican nominee.  In a time where the most infamous corrupter of politics in America is considering supporting a Democratic candidate for President, this is obviously an indictment of the Democratic Party.

With public funding of campaigns, the elimination of the electoral college and superdelegate system, as well as an overall reorganization of the American electoral system, we may be able to create a future where one’s vote really does matter.

American Brownshirts: The Rise of Reactionary Paramilitaries in the Age of Trump

 

The recent formation of the “Lion’s Guard” paramilitary/militia, a group designed to provide security at GOP Presidential candidate Donald Trump’s rallies hearkens back to the interwar period between World Wars One and Two. Mussolini’s blackshirts. The formation of Lion’s Guard was a direct response to activists shutting down a Trump rally in Chicago on March 11th. Though the Lion’s Guard has disavowed violence, this may very well be disingenuous.

Hitler’s Sturmabteilung and their antecedent the Freikorps muscled over social democrats, trade unionists and communists -as well as Romani and Jews- during the period of the Weimar Republic, making the political left afraid to organize. The paramilitarism of these groups had a profound effect on the decline of two developing democracies of Italy and Germany, and the rise of new American right-wing paramilitaries is, I would argue, equally dangerous to democracy in this country.

Before taking state power, fascist movements begin as mass movements of disaffected working- and middle-class people. This is very interesting from a social movements sociology perspective.

The militant right likes to cling to revanchist, reactionary and revivalist rhetoric. For example, here is a part of the Lion’s Guard call to arms from their inaugural WordPress post:

On March 11, 2016, five decades of radical left coddling reached its newest and most disgusting low as members of the free stuff cult, by deception and violence, attacked the Trump 2016 rally in Chicago, Illinois. In his magnanimity and concern for public safety, Donald Trump responded by canceling the rally. The Spartacists posers crowed they had canceled the rally, chanting they “Stumped Trump.” As a single event, it was minor and unsurprising, Chicago was the scene of the 1968 Democrat Convention Riot and, in the current year, the city is teeming with anti-American agitators and a skyrocketing murder rate. But this was not an isolated incident, this was part of a long train of abuses imposed upon the American public by [a] treasonous horde.

The wicked deeds of this horde are not merely historical events; as many witnessed this weekend, an American hating brigand attempted to take the life of Donald Trump. He did not get there as part of some grand conspiracy, no one dare implies the Secret Service or Trump’s own security knowingly allowed this marauder into the rally. How did this son of a Democrat establishment cog get so close to Donald Trump? The same way as the scores of hooligans infiltrated the Trump rally in Chicago: lies.

The Lion’s Guard, true to its 21st-century establishment, monitors anti-Trump protesters online. Their motto (“Better to be a lion for a day, than a lamb for eternity”) is a paraphrased quote by Mr. Trump that is itself a quote of Benito Mussolini, Italy’s World War Two-era dictator and leader of the Italian fascist movement. Mister Trump is known for making provocative statements on Twitter.

It would be fascinating to know the actual demographics of the Lion’s Guard. They are no doubt almost completely white and male, but what is their ideology? Are they simply conservative or explicitly fascistic and reactionary?

White supremacist terrorists such as Timothy McVeigh have killed in the past, and it is very likely that similarly aligned right-wing groups will strike out again.

In 2014, the Southern Poverty Law Center released a list of active “patriot” anti-government militias. There were 1,096 of these groups operating around the country.

Perhaps the ultimate hypocrisy is that left-wing radical groups such as the Black Panther Party and others are systematically targeted by the government while hate groups are protected by local and state law enforcement agencies. Whereas Weimar Germany had an opposition Roter Frontkämpferbund under the aegis of the Communist Party of Germany, America does not really have an analogous organized group dedicated to physically confronting fascist paramilitaries. Though Skinheads Against Racial Prejudice or SHARPS are somewhat active in America, there is very little of the organized anti-fascist or “antifa” movement that exists in Europe. This is not for lack of fascistic groups to fight against, so where are these anti-fascist groups? What elements is the American left missing to foment an anti-fascist mass movement?

Another WordPress blog points out the dangers of this new paramilitary.

It is important to compare and contrast liberal and radical anti-fascism, both in practice and in theory. whereas liberal antifascists protect the rigts of fascists to speak but demonstrate against them, radical antifascists want the rights of fascists to demostrate and proselytize substantially curtailed and will often confront fascists with violence or the threat of violence.

 

The question is, which are you?

Review: A Shoeleather History of the Wobblies

In 2013, Steve Thornton published a superb history of the Induustrial Workers of the World in Connecticut. The short book was printed by worker-owned an -operated Red Sun Press cooperative in Boston, which is proudly a member of United Auto Workers Local 1596. The book chronicles the triumphs and challenges of the IWW -also known as “the Wobblies”- during the first two decades of the last century. for those trying to better understand the labor history of the Constitution State in the 20th century, there are few better works I can think of. We at Oakroot News highly reccomend this book.

In the introduction, A Shoeleather History itemizes the ideological points of the Wobblie code, including opposition to:

• The Blacklist
• Discrimination and Exploitation
• Long hours, poverty pay
• Deadly jobs
• Speed ups and
• Poor housing

It eloquently outlines why Connecticut workers should join the IWW and how the idea of “One Big Union” can liberate working people and create a new society in the ashes of the old.

I the section Freedom to Speak and Sing, Thornton’s book chronicles the IWW’s fight for freedom of speech in Connecticut

Between 1907 and 1916, Wobblies mounted spectacular campaigns in the U.S. and Canada to liberate the public square. In order to spread the union gospel, organizers had to battle big business, police, city councils and courts, all of which colluded to silence the IWW. More often than not, the Wobblies won, sometimes at a very high price. (Page 21)

The IWW was in the vanguard of organizations fighting for freedom of expression and assembly across the state and the country. They used the Connecticut Constitution -the first in the nation- to justify their speeches in public parks and on city sidewalks and compared the State’s policing tactics to those of Tsarist Russia. Organizers like Philidelphia’s Joseph P. Campbell operated from 2 State Street in Hartford and enticed workers into organizing.

Much as songs like Rage Against The Machine’s Killing in the Name was an anthem for activists at the 1999 Seattle WTO protests, the Wobblies’ Little Red Songbook was an album for an entire generation for radical union organizers. They sung these songs at rallies, strikes and protests, keeping their spirits high even in the darkest of times.

The direct action tactics of the IWW contributed to the contemporary strategems of the Occupy and Black Lives Matter movements. We in the activist community owe a great deal to the IWW.

Victories & Defeats talks about strikes in Bridgeport, Norwalk, Hartford, Willimantic and the repercussions of the Bread and Roses strike in Lawrence, Massachussets.

On page 71 the book quotes an article in the Waterbury American saying that the strikers “apparently have no leader.” This is strongly reminiscent of the mainstream media cogerage of the Occupy movement that painted the movement as a lawless, leaderless mass of dissafected people without a goal or any demands.

Newly-deputized students were armed with pistols and began patrolling with the local police. It was not the first time college students had been recruited to break a strike, noted IWW organizer Jean Spielman. they were “intellectual thugs,” according to Ben Legere, who reported on the strike for local newspapers. When they were not breaking bones on the football field, Legere declared, they were breaking strikers’ heads with baseball bats. (Page 61)

Though this is unheard of today, it is similar to the way the political right encourages violence at its political rallies.

The section also lays out the way the IWW was the only union to reach out to Afro-American workers. Black organizers like Ben Fletcher were adamant in their stand for workers rights, an the IWW helped them to take that stand. Blacks in Connecticut had the worst housing, the worst jobs and virtually no political power or social standing.

In Reaction & Repression, Thornton outlines the mechanics of state repression used by the national, State and municipal governments to strike back at the Wobblies, including but not limited to use of Pinkerton agents and the press. The First Red Scare was in full effect by 1919 in reaction to the recent Russian Revolution. Many Wobblies were arrested and deported while trying to work for a better world.

The Wobblies publically disavowed hero worship, but stuck by their leaders closely. Their motto “no gods, no masters” was more than just empty talk: it was a lived experience and a way of life.

A Shoelether History of the Wobblies talks about the escapades of powerful national and international organizers such as “Big Bill” Haywood, Eugene V. Debs, Carlo Tresca and Arturo Giovannitti. But it also details the professional careers of lesser-known Connecticut agitators such as J.T. Bienkowski, Louis Nelson, Matilda Rabinowitz and Benjamin Legere.

The book also contains multiple references to powerful woman organizers, theorists and orators like “Red Emma” Goldman, Elizabeth Gurley Flynn and even IWW and Socialist Party supporter Helen Keller, who many think of as the deaf-blind woman who overcame her disability to become an icon, but who few know was a radical and democratic socialist.

The tactics of Occupy and black Lives Matter aren’t new: they re revamped and reurbished tactics used by the Wobblies

Unions must continue to integrate people of different ethnicities into their organizations if they desire to remain relevant.

Though the book would have been well served by being fully chronological and by adding some of the recent campaigns of the union (e.g. their efforts to unionize Starbucks), this work is well crafted and highly researched. As a historian myself, I deeply appreciate this contribution to the corpus of Connecticut labor history. The IWW practiced social movement unionism nearly a century before the term became a part of union studies vocabulary. But the reason A Shoeleather History is so powerful is because, like all good histories, it lays out the history of the Wobblies in Connecticut as a story rather than a boring, academic narrative. Modern-day unionists would be better off if they followed the long and storied history of the Wobs and took to their example.

Another review of the book can be found here at Counterpunch. You can purchase your own copy here or request it from your local library.

 

 

Puerto Rico, Our Experiment in Colonialism

A short an superb summary of why US treatment of Puerto Rico is unfair and unsound.

Shoeleather History Project

Mariana Bracetti, revolutionary and propagandist.  She created the first flag of the Puerto Rican nation during the 1868 Lares rebellion.

Puerto Rico is in a severe economic crisis, and Connecticut shares some of the responsibility. After all, we made the island what it is today: a colony. Not a colony in the “Thirteen Original Colonies” sense, where we cursed King George, whistled Yankee Doodle, and kicked out the Brits. In the early 20th century, the U.S. was experimenting with a new kind of imperial domination. Call it Colonialism 2.0.

In 1898, U.S. Armed Forces invaded Puerto Rico, allegedly to free its people from Spain. But then we imposed a civilian government and passed laws in Washington that forced the native people to bend to our whims. Since American soldiers still occupied their land, this new arrangement was not exactly voluntary.

That’s where Connecticut came in. U.S. Senator Orville H. Platt represented…

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An Open Letter to Joe Courtney and the Democratic Party about Bernie Sanders

Dear Congressman Courtney,

My name is David Coffey. I’m a 23-year-old graduate of Eastern Connecticut State University. I graduated with my major in Political Science, and I support Bernie Sanders.

Let me first tell you that we have met before. You came to the second congressional district’s Bernie Sanders office in Norwich to listen to me and several other Bernie supporters. To my understanding, you were the only representative from the five districts in Connecticut who came to meet with us. For that, I thank you.

I would also like to thank you for the work you’ve done for Connecticut. You have consistently gotten the endorsement of the Working Families Party, and I have voted for you on more than one occasion. Thank you for being the best choice when I went to the polls.

On October 19th, 2015, you announced on your website that you, “heartily endorse Hillary Clinton as the Democratic Nominee to become the next president of the United States.” I respect your decision, and I respect that you’ve listened to the reasons why so many of your constituents disagree with you. That being said, there’s more that I’d like to express. I think it is especially important in the context of you being one of Connecticut’s superdelegates.

When you came to the Bernie headquarters in Norwich, you stuck around to talk to us one-on-one, which was excellent. I was even fortunate enough to speak with you. I told you about how for the past few years I’ve been a cynic about the American political system. I then went on to say that, “Bernie is threatening to kill my cynicism.”

You laughed. I kept a straight face.

I doubt you meant any malice in your response. And, admittedly, I probably could have phrased what I said better. But it was not meant to be a joke. My loss of faith in the Democratic Party, and politics in general, was a gradual one.
I remember being optimistic when I saw Obama get elected for the first time. I really thought my country, despite its hardships and shortcomings, was on a path to get better. I was a patriot and I proudly voted in my first state election in 2010.

Things changed when I went to college in 2011. This was right about the time that Occupy Wall Street came into being. It excited me to see so many people coming together to protest corporate greed— something that the Democratic Party claims to take a strong stand against. I even heard Obama say something to the effect of, “these people are the reason I ran for president.”

My optimism ended shortly thereafter. I watched protestors get beaten, maced, and have their right to freedom of expression trampled upon. Not only in Zuccotti Park, but at UC Davis, in the streets of Oakland, and several other occupations. I was afraid to express myself. This was not the kind of country I wanted to live in.

I can understand wanting to distance oneself from the Occupy movement. There were demonstrators with extreme views. But still, never once did I hear Obama speak out on the police brutality. With all due respect, I also do not recall you ever saying anything. Neither of you ever called out the brutality or commented on the protestors’ right to expression. (Correct me if I’m wrong. For the record, though, Sanders did speak in support of the demonstrations.) I did not see nearly as much force—if any—used against right-wing protests like the Tea Party.

Through all this, though, I still kept my head up. I still had faith in the Democratic Party and the Obama administration to represent the people in the end. That last bit of faith died when Obama got a super PAC in 2012.

Having previously condemned Super PACs, Obama had now embraced big money. I felt like I was not represented. This was a clear message that money really did rule politics-no matter which party. (The recent rolling back on lobbying restrictions by the DNC furthers this point.) For these reasons-and a variety of others I do not have the time to mention-I have been an unaffiliated voter ever since.

It was not until Bernie started running that I registered with the Democratic Party.

Bernie has consistently fought for noble causes. He was ahead of his time on matters such as gay rights, civil rights, income inequality and economic justice, and foreign policy. Bernie has stuck to his principles, even when they were not popular.

Sadly, Hillary Clinton simply doesn’t have the consistency in her record. She claims to have always championed gay rights, but during her time as a senator, she defined marriage as between a man and a woman. She claims to have always been for worker’s rights yet supported NAFTA. She claims to always have been supportive of minority rights yet campaigned for Barry Goldwater, an arch conservative who opposed the Civil Rights Act.

Just recently, Hillary was presented with an opportunity to prove what kind of politician she was. At a recent event she was hosting in South Carolina, she was interrupted by a Black Lives Matter protestor. The protester asked about Hillary’s part in the tougher crime laws that disproportionately put African-Americans in prison. She also asked about her comments about “at risk youth,” and her allegation that black youth were “Super Predators.”

Claiming that “no one had ever asked” her about that, she had the young woman removed. Bear in mind, this woman had paid $500 to be at this event in an attempt to reach out to someone running for the highest office in the country. Hillary barely acknowledged her and after she was removed, she said, “back to the issues,” as if racial justice and mass incarceration did not matter.

Now, contrast this against the way Bernie handled a similar situation in Seattle. Two Black Lives Matter protestors interrupted Bernie-and much more forcefully than the woman in South Carolina. Did Bernie have security escort the women off of the premises as Hillary did?

He did not.

Acknowledging that every American has a right to express themselves—even if it is critical of him—he let them speak. Bernie politely stood back, and let them express their contempt with the system. Agree with the protestors or not—every American deserves to be listened to. That is the very essence of democracy.

Tell me, which of these two candidates sounds like the candidate of the people?

I recall you saying that, as a superdelegate, you were going to vote with your conscience. That is how you voted in past elections. You brought up how in 2008 you went against the will of your district and voted for Obama-even though the 2nd Congressional District voters went for Hillary. I don’t fully understand what changed to make you endorse a politician that you opposed not so long ago.

How can your conscience side with a candidate who campaigned for segregation in the sixties over one who protested segregation during the same era? How can you, in good conscience, support a candidate who took millions in speaking fees from the same banks she claims to oppose?

Furthermore, in regards to these speaking fees: when Hillary was asked about releasing the transcripts of her speeches, she said that she would release them “when everyone else does.” She has let the Republicans, and other public officials that have been financed by wealthy individuals, set her personal standard on how to deal with campaign transparency.

The point I am getting at is that we have another option in Bernie Sanders. We have the option to vote for a candidate who defied the odds, and has successfully run a campaign without a Super PAC. We have a candidate who is not beholden to wealthy Wall Street executives. We have a candidate who is principled enough to always fight for the working and middle class. Listen to Bernie’s speeches; he has been committed to his principles for decades.

You say that you are, “particularly heartened by Hillary’s call for tackling student loan debt.” Meanwhile, Bernie has a precise plan to make student loan debt a non-issue. (Look into his .05% tax on Wall Street transactions.) He also wants to save social security by doing away with the cap on taxable income. Meanwhile, Hillary has failed to present a precise plan on this issue.

Please, Mr. Courtney, and this goes for all Democratic Party representatives, make the right choice. This goes beyond the presidency, this is about the future of the Democratic Party. This is about your children’s’ future, what kind of America do you want to leave for them?

Make no mistake; I do not think that Sanders can single-handedly save America. I am not naïve. I know that the Democratic Party is going to have work very hard and cooperatively to get things done. The effort can’t end after November 8th.

I do think electing Sanders, though, will be a great step in the right direction for the Democratic Party to win back its legitimacy. Sanders is truly a people’s candidate, and he is unifying people in a way that Hillary simply cannot. (I know multiple people who have changed their party affiliation from Republican to Democrat because of Sanders-none for Hillary.)

I want to see the Democratic Party listen to and represent all people, not just a wealthy, elite few. I don’t want my cynicism, and the cynicism of so many other millennials, to overpower my will to be politically active. Again, think of the future of your party, and more importantly, think of the future of the country that you’re leaving for your children.

For one of the first times in my life, my generation feels hope.

Regards,
David Taylor Coffey

Opinion: The Austerity Governor and his War on the Disabled

Governor Dannel P. Malloy’s Democratic administration plans on cutting $35.8 million from the budget of state Department of Developmental Services which serves children and adults with severe developmental and physical disabilities.

Families and labor unions have been among the many groups to criticize Governor Malloy’s budgetary cuts to DDS:

The union representing workers at group homes and those who provide services inside family homes said Malloy was “balancing the budget on the backs of the state’s most vulnerable citizens.

“A budget reflects a state’s priorities and values, and while we understand the fiscal challenges facing the state, we are disappointed the governor has proposed continued cuts to the Department of Developmental Services,” said Jennifer Schneider, spokeswoman for Local 1199 of the Service Employees International Union.

Though it is a bit dated, Stanley and Kathleen Peters’ editorial in the Hartford Courant from January 2015 is excellent, heartfelt and necessary.  I can hardly imagine the difficulties of parenting an adult child with such a severe disability, and I stand in solidarity with them. They speak eloquently on the devastating cuts that have been made to DDS within the last four years:

“The administration cut the Department of Developmental Services budget by $30 million in 2012, $5.5 million in 2014 and is proposing cutting it by $8.4 million this year. Of the 40 state agencies affected by the 2012 cuts, only two lost more funding than the Department of Developmental Services, according [to the] Arc of Connecticut. The cuts to the agency’s budget in 2014 accounted for 10 percent of all the cuts announced by the governor.”

In “The Shock Doctrine“, Naomi Klein spells out how national and smaller governments use natural and anthropogenic disasters to justify “downsizing” social services to save money. And, just as Klein outlines in her book, the Malloy Administration is using the man-made disaster of fiscal crisis to privatize group homes for the developmentally disabled. Historically, even with privatization, group homes have been chronically underfunded. Turnover is high, and some group home employees have not had raises in years.

There are two terms that need to be defined in order to fully understand Governor Malloy’s ideology: austerity and neoliberalism. Though they sound like academic terms, they are really very simple concepts. Austerity is basically the process by which a government cuts back spending across the board in order to reduce deficit spending. Unfortunately, this often negatively impacts the least fortunate among us and makes us even more vulnerable.

Neoliberalism is a socioeconomic system in which capitalist governments limit intervention in the market and increase deregulation and processes of austerity. It would seem that the Malloy administration fully subscribes to this model and that they want to deepen cuts in some vain attempt to jump-start the economy. Both austerity and neoliberalism are the opposites of what we need in the State of Connecticut and in America.

Already, the waiting list for residential funding for severely disabled adults is as long as the Connecticut River is wide. With the proposed budget cuts to DDS enacted, the waiting list will get longer and existing residential facilities will be privatized… scrapped for parts and sold to the highest bidder.

To be sure, the budgetary crisis the state of Connecticut is facing is a major obstacle. But instead of gutting social services and continuing subsidies to private companies like ESPN and Cigna, the state should be raising taxes on the insanely wealthy (or as the clown show on the right likes to call them, the “job creators”) who live mainly on the “Gold Coast.” Eventually, if the state continues on its current path of austerity and neoliberalism, you will have to be rich to afford care for your adult child with a disability.

In order to become financially solvent, the State of Connecticut must focus on the redistribution of existing resources rather that cutting wantonly from the budget of social services agencies. With the $262,000 per person per year budget of Southbury Training School, the state could open multiple new group homes and finally serve the disabled residents of Connecticut fully.

The ultimate irony in this is that Governor Malloy is himself an individual with a learning disability. He talks openly about his struggle with dyslexia, a struggle that I have profound respect for despite the onerous cuts he is attempting to make to the DDS budget. It is truly sad that a man who has felt the sting of pejorative labels for people with disabilities can so easily abandon a community that had such high hopes for him.

You can watch Malloy’s full announcement of the budget cuts in his State of the State address here.

 

Opinion: The Real Impact of Bernie Sander’s Campaign on the American Left

 

In the wake of the New Hampshire primary and with the Nevada caucuses being held today, supporters of Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders’ presidential bid -I like to call us “Sandernistas”- are rejoicing at the statistical tie in the polls between Sanders and Hillary Rodham Clinton in the Silver State. They are dreaming of a victory by the 74-year-old “democratic socialist” and the implementation of his promises of tuition-free post-secondary education and universal, single-payer healthcare. They are also biting their nails at the chance that Senator Sanders’ electoral victory could be negated by the undemocratic structure of super-delegates that was put in place in order to prevent just such an uproarious victory.

With all of this emotion flowing around, it is important to review the real ideology of Senator Sanders in a logical way and acknowledge that his candidacy has opened the eyes of Americans and opened  debate in the broader leftist community in the United States.

In truth, Bernie Sanders is more of a social democrat or a classical progressive than a true democratic socialist. His proposals are more Keynesian than communist, more reformist than radical. Regardless, the fact that Americans are even talking about any form of socialism is a tremendous improvement on this country’s Red Scare mentality of rabid anti-leftism.

In that vein, it is this writer’s opinion that democratic socialism is the best system to combat capitalist exploitation, white supremacy and patriarchy because it takes both the means of production and halls of government from the vested elite and places them firmly in the hands of the working class, regardless of identity politic. It makes a democratic economy for the 99% rather than one controlled by one percent of the population. It replaces mass incarceration, systemic redlining and police brutality with reparative social policy and massively inclusive, transracial democracy. And it challenges chauvinistic conceptions of heteronormative and male-dominated political discourse with a radically feminist one.

In contrast with Marxist-Leninist “Communism,” democratic socialism gives power directly to the working citizens of a country rather than to a single-party state run by an elite intelligentsia who run the country’s government, economy and social life. The “21^st Century Socialism” of Ecuador, Venezuela and Bolivia are examples of socialist and socialistic parties taking power through the ballot box. And the poverty rates in these countries (Ecuador, Venezuela, Bolivia) have plummeted since these governments have taken power, despite some of the issues that have risen in Venezuela in particular (namely inflation and the murder rate)

But, true to form, Sanders’ has distinguished his “democratic socialism” from the democratic socialism of the above countries.

Some members of far-left political parties such as the Party for Socialism and Liberation and anarchists believe that Sanders’ bid is simply an extension of the capitalist system attempting to co-opt genuine movements for social change.They also deride Sanders’ cries for “political revolution” as an attempt to sheepdog leftists into the Democratic fold.

Ultimately, I would agree that, more than electing erstwhile progressive politicians to office, the left needs mass social movements similar in focus to the Occupy movement, only wider in scope. Perhaps the left should eschew some electoral tactics and focus more of our energies on nonviolent direct action to achieve our goals. And the #BlackLivesMatter movement should acknowledge the intersection of white supremacy and capitalism. (Bernie Sanders is, unfortunately, against reparations for descendants of slaves.) Ultimately, in order for genuine democratic socialism to be created, we need to vest power in our communities and in some form of participatory economics and government.

But what of politicians such as Socialist Alternative Seattle city councilwoman Kshama Sawant, who has endorsed Sanders? Should the left completely ignore the electoral arena when Sawant has immensely helped Seattle’s #Fight For15? This strategy would be foolhardy. This writer believes that we must fight on ALL fronts rather than constrain ourselves to one.

The precariat is in a dire situation in this country and across the entire developed world, and the rise of reformist leaders such as Canada’s Justin Trudeau, Britain’s Jeremy Corbyn and, of course, America’s Bernie Sanders is an example of that precariat trying to fight back with the ballot rather than the bullet.

Perhaps the most important question for the American left to consider is this: can democratic socialism come to be when it is being implemented by the capitalist Democratic Party? I would point out that the Democratic and Republican parties are simply two wings on the same capitalist eagle. Eugene Debs, five-time Socialist Party candidate for President during the first twenty years of the twentieth century, said in his opening campaign speech in 1904 that:

The Republican and Democratic parties, or, to be more exact, the Republican-Democratic party, represent the capitalist class in the class struggle. They are the political wings of the capitalist system and such differences as arise between them relate to spoils and not to principles. With either of those parties in power, one thing is always certain, and that is that the capitalist class is in the saddle and the working class under the saddle.

It is with this in mind that leftists should continue to organize outside of the Democratic fold. We may perhaps be able to work with them, but we should never consider this more than a tactical alliance.

Still, it is hoped that Senator Sanders’ campaign can reintroduce the more positive image of socialism that existed in the later part of the 19th and earlier part of the 20th centuries. Perhaps, coupled with the impact Occupy had on the discourse of political economy in 2011-2012, Sanders can push socialism into the mainstream of American political thought.

Action is Everything

“In our cause, mere words are nothing — action is everything.” -David Ruggles

Most people do not know who David Ruggles was or his impact of American or World history. Even most people from his hometown of Norwich, Connecticut would be hard-pressed to identify his accomplishments. Most Americans -unfortunately- have a relatively poor grasp of history as it is.

David Ruggles was an abolitionist and Underground Railroad activist, as well as the founder of the first black-owned bookstore in New York City. He helped Frederick Douglass escape to safety once Douglass reached New York.

So why, you ask, is the inaugural post of this blog dedicated to David Ruggles? The answer is simple: he is a role model for those fighting against oppression in the current day, and we at Oakroot News work tirelessly for the liberation of all people, and that is the purpose of this blog. We hope that our words will inspire you to action, and that we can work together in the creation of a better world!

You can contact us at oakrootnews@gmail.com or tweet at us @OakrootNews.

And remember: action is everything.