Three trade unionists Richard Gallardo, Luis Hernández and Carlos Requena, leaders of the pro-revolution National Union of Workers (UNT) and also members of the United Socialist Left party were shot dead late Thursday night in Aragua state, Venezuela.

The union leaders were gunned down by an armed assassin on a motorbike as they made their way home after participating that day in a labor dispute with the Colombian-owned Alpina food processing company.

There is speculation that the attack was carried out by paramilitaries hired by the Colombian company, which is reported to have utilized paramilitaries in similar disputes in its home country. Patricia Rivas writing for YKVE Mundial on November 28 pointed out that the attacks resembled a method of assassination commonly used against unionists and social movement activists in Colombia, known as sicariato, whereby hired gunmen on motorbikes carry out drive-by shootings.

However, the day before, the unionists had also been attacked by the Aragua state police aligned with outgoing opposition governor Didalco Bolivar. Bolivar, who was previously an ally of Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez but defected to the right-wing opposition in the lead up to the Constitutional reform referendum in Venezuela in 2007, has previously deployed the state police against workers in labor disputes.

In a press conference on November 27 Hernández had denounced that 400 Alpina workers had been brutally repressed by the police, “The workers were inside the factory demanding from the company that they pay, in full and quickly, the money owing, when the police unexpectedly entered the premises and in a brutal manner began to kick out the workers.”

We immediately contacted workers in the rest of the area and “in a matter of minutes the company was surrounded by workers affiliated to the National Union of Workers. Thanks to this act of solidarity we managed to recuperate control of the factory and the workers have occupied it again,” Hernandez had told the media.

Hernández, Gallardo and Requena were known as, “implacable fighters” for workers’ rights who “never bowed down in the face of constant threats by bosses, union bureaucrats and elements of the public force that are enemies of the workers,” a statement by the United Socialist Left said.

“We render tribute to our murdered comrades who showed us, by their example and behaviour, that the rights of workers must be respected. The comrades offered their life for the principle of the defence of the interests of the working class and of socialism.”

“In their name and with their example we will continue the battle for the socialist revolution, expropriating from the bosses, breaking definitively with imperialism and building a government of the workers and the people,” the statement continued.

The workers are calling for the incoming governor of Aragua Mario Isea, a member of Chavez’s United Socialist Party of Venezuela (PSUV) and the national government to immediately carry out a full investigation.

The Attorney General’s Office responded that it has launched an investigation and assigned national public prosecutor Orlando Villamizar and Aragua state prosecutor Elas Pérez, to head up investigations.

The incident highlights the growing class conflict that has erupted across Venezuela in the aftermath of the November 23 regional elections. Numerous reports have surfaced of Venezuela’s elite, US-backed opposition launching a campaign of violence and intimidation against trade unionists, grass roots community organisations and pro-revolution social movements, particularly in the areas where they won.

In a statement in solidarity with the workers in Aragua, the Carabobo section of the UNT said the incidents are not isolated and that many cases of sicariato have occurred across the country, particularly in the construction sector, against unions in the private sector and against peasant leaders fighting for land reform in the countryside.

The statement argued that there had been no serious investigations into the many cases of sicariato and that the governmental bodies such as the police and the Attorney General’s Office had been incapable of responding to such incidents.

Stalin Perez Borges, a national coordinator of the UNT argued “President Chavez and the national government must carry out an investigation to the ultimate consequences and with mobilization we must defeat impunity.”

Perez Borges added that workers could not simply rely on the “ordinary justice” system because it often sided with the right-wing opposition and bosses against workers and instead called for the formation of a special commission comprised of workers organisations whose investigations “have the force of the law.”

“For this reason, at the same time, we convoke the immediate organisation of popular workers self-defence. The government must grant all the resources for the training and armed defence of the workers and their leaders. It will not be the corrupt police, in many cases the direct assassins, who will prevent these crimes. It will be us, the workers. We propose…our own self-defence against fascism,” he said.

Similarly, in a speech on Thursday highlighting a number of opposition attacks against Cuban doctors, education and health missions and community organisations Chavez, who described himself as a “subversive” in Miraflores presidential palace called for the “permanent mobilization” of the Venezuelan people to defend the Bolivarian revolution.

8:30am – Registration with light breakfast – Atrium lobby

10:00am - Panel I- Leftist critique of the Republican and Democratic parties - Shea Auditorium

Dr. Joseph Schwartz, Chair of the Department of Political Science at Temple University, author of
The Future of Democratic Equality.
Dr. Michael Thompson, professor of political science at William Paterson University, author of Confronting the New
Conservatism: The Rise of the Right in America and The Politics of Inequality: A Political History of the Idea of Economic Inequality in America, and Founder and Editor of Logos: A Journal of Modern Society & Culture

11:45am – workshops – Hunkiker Hall

Racial Issues (rm 109), Feminist Rights (rm 110), LGBT Issues (rm 201), Environmental Sustainability (rm 202)
Lunch – 12:30pm - Multi-Purpose Room (Student Center) -
Includes short talks by several speakers including Stuart Hutchison of Impeach Them and a representative
from Rutgers Tent State/SDS

2:30pm – Panel II - US foreign military and economic policy – Shea Auditorium

Greg Palast, investigative journalist who broke the story of how Jeb Bush purged thousands of Black Florida citizens from
voter roles before the 2000 election and New York Times bestselling author of Armed Madhouse
and The Best Democracy Money Can Buy

John Perkins, author of the New York Times bestseller Confessions of an Economic Hit Man, which has been published in 25 languages. His new New York Times bestseller, The Secret History of the American Empire, details the clandestine operations that created the world’s first truly global empire and provides a compassionate plan for crafting a world that future generations will be proud to inherit.

4:00pm – book signing with John Perkins and Greg Palast – Shea Auditorium lobby

4:45pm – workshops – Hunkizer Hall

Immigration (rm 109), Education (rm 110), Militarism and Foreign Policy (rm 201), Democratic Socialism (rm 202),
Human Trafficking (rm 209)

5:45pm – Closing – Multipurpose Room (Student Center)

Dr. Christine Kelly, professor of Political Science at William Paterson University and serves on the Editorial Boards of two
peer-reviewed journals — New Political Science: A journal of politics and culture and Labor and Social Policy. She is an Editorial Board member of the book series Contemporary Issues and American Political Theory with the University Press of Kentucky.
*Moderators for the workshops include: Madelyn Hoffman, Executive Director of New Jersey Peace Action; Dave Watson-Hallowell, President of Sustainable West Milford; President Stafford X; Professor Carole Sheffield; Professor Karie Gubbins; Professor John Mason

For any questions email: wpu-yds@hotmail.com
To RSVP go to http://www.idealist.org/if/i/en/av/Event/108866-167
For directions visit http://ww2.wpunj.edu/aboutus/directions.cfm
*NJ Transit Available to Campus
______________________________________________________________________________________
Sponsored by:
*Young Democratic Socialists (YDS) *Brothers For Awareness (BFA)
*Feminist Collective *Organization of Lat in American Students (OLAS)

an excerpt from a larger Democracy Now interview

AMY GOODMAN: Can you talk about just this latest news that came out last night—of course, not the official announcement, but Eric Holder, the former deputy attorney general under President Clinton, being tapped as the next attorney general, if confirmed?

CORNEL WEST: Well, two things. First, on a personal level, I know Brother Eric Holder. I’ve spent good time with him in meetings and so on. He’s a brilliant lawyer. He’s a very decent human being. I know he was very upset about Clinton’s attitude toward crime. We know during the Clinton administration we got the tightening of the mandatory sentences that’s had devastating effects on poor communities, especially disproportionately black and brown poor communities. And Eric took a strong stand in that regard. I appreciate that, because there’s a sense that we kind of whitewash the Clinton administration—welfare bill, crime, deregulation and so forth. We’ve got to be honest about some of the flaws during the age of Reagan and the Clinton moments during the age of Reagan. And Eric did take a stand.

On the other hand, of course, I’m sure I have some disagreements with him. But I am a little suspicious, in fact, highly suspicious, of the degree to which my dear Brother Barack Obama seems to be recycling all of these Clintonites. I’m looking for an age of everyday people, not a Clintonite recycling in this new period. And so, I’m a little bit suspicious of this, though I think Eric Holder is much better than many of the other Clintonites that’s being recycled.

AMY GOODMAN: Well, let me ask you about this comment of Mario Murillo, who’s a professor at Hofstra, talking about Eric Holder. You know, he worked as a partner at the D.C. law firm of Covington & Burling.

CORNEL WEST: Yeah.

AMY GOODMAN: His clients included Chiquita.

CORNEL WEST: Yes, I heard that.

AMY GOODMAN: Last week, we reached Mario in Colombia, and he talked about Holder’s representation of Chiquita.

MARIO MURILLO: There’s been talk about a close ally and friend of Obama as a potential Attorney General for the United States, Eric Holder, who is currently defending Chiquita Brands International in its defense against dozens of plaintiffs here in Colombia, working families who were targeted by paramilitaries who were funded to the tune of $1.7 million over the last several years. It’s a major scandal. And if this guy becomes the Attorney General under an Obama administration, then it’s going to be really hard to find justice in this case coming from the United States.

AMY GOODMAN: That was Mario Murillo in Colombia. Professor Cornel West?

CORNEL WEST: Yeah, no, again, this is one of the reasons why we love the work that you do, Sister Amy. This is the first that I’ve heard of this. I would want to hear from my dear Brother Eric and see what he has to say. Now, we know, of course, so many of these corporate firms, they defend all kind of different elites in various parts of the world, and we want to know the degree to which Eric Holder personally and politically and ideologically supports the kind of things going on, as opposed to the kind of role that one plays within a legal firm. Oftentimes, these firms take stances that are not in agreement with the individual lawyers themselves. You know that lawyers take a variety of different cases. It could be criminals and a whole host of others. Lawyers tend to go where they are told. But I would want to hear what Brother Eric Holder has to say about this. This is very interesting, actually.

Diana Buttu, Palestinian Canadian lawyer. She used to work with the Negotiations Support Unit of the Palestinian Liberation Organization, or PLO.

Rev. Edwin Makue, General Secretary of the South African Council of Churches.
—–

JUAN GONZALEZ: The United Nations refugee agency, which distributes food to half of Gaza’s 1.5 million people, has warned that it will run out of food in a day if Israel’s blockade of the Gaza Strip does not stop. It called the blockade “a physical as well as a mental punishment.”

Israel is now allowing limited amounts of fuel after Gaza’s sole power plant came to a halt Monday, plunging the area into darkness. But Israel is still blocking food deliveries, and aid agencies estimate the new supply of fuel will run out within a day and a half.

An Egyptian-brokered ceasefire that began in June has been disrupted following the imposition of the blockade, and Israel’s foreign ministry has accused Hamas of exploiting the situation for political gain. Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said Tuesday that a violent confrontation with Hamas was inevitable.

PRIME MINISTER EHUD OLMERT: [translated] We’re in no hurry, but we know very well that the moment of confrontation will eventually come. The question is not whether there will be a confrontation, but when it will take place, under what circumstances, and who will control these circumstances, who will dictate them, and who will know to exploit the time from the beginning of the ceasefire until the moment of confrontation in the best possible way.

AMY GOODMAN: The Bush administration has strongly backed Israel’s stranglehold on Gaza. It’s unclear whether the policy will change under an Obama White House. Obama’s first major appointment was to select Congress member Rahm Emanuel as his chief of staff. On foreign policy, Emanuel is thought to represent the right wing of the Democratic Party, vocally backed Israel’s occupation of the West Bank and Gaza and its 2006 attack on Lebanon.

Emanuel’s father, Benjamin Emanuel, was a member of the Irgun, a right-wing group that carried out attacks on Palestinians in the years leading up to Israel’s establishment as a state in 1948. [Benjamin Emanuel] recently made some controversial comments on his son’s appointment. In an interview with an Israeli newspaper last week, Rahm Emanuel’s father said, “Obviously he will influence the president to be pro-Israel. Why wouldn’t he be? What is he, an Arab? He’s not going to clean the floors of the White House.”

We’re joined now in our firehouse studio by two internationally recognized human rights advocates. Diana Buttu is a Palestinian Canadian lawyer. She used to work with the Negotiations Support Unit of the Palestine Liberation Organization, or PLO. Reverend Edwin “Eddie” Makue is General Secretary of the South African Council of Churches, involved in the anti-apartheid struggle in South Africa from 1982. In 2005, he traveled to the Palestinian territories to monitor the elections. They are both on an anti-apartheid speaking tour across this country for the next two weeks.

We welcome you both to Democracy Now! Diana Buttu, I wanted to start with you on Rahm Emanuel’s father’s comment, its significance.

DIANA BUTTU: It is. It’s a very significant comment, not just because it’s coming from his father, but the fact that Rahm Emanuel himself has not backed down from this comment. He hasn’t made any statements separating himself or distancing himself from his father’s comments. And his voting record in the past in Congress leaves a great number of Palestinians and people who are concerned about Israel’s occupation of Palestine—leaves a number of us concerned.

JUAN GONZALEZ: And the situation right now in Gaza, this latest crisis, what triggered it, and what are the prospects for being able to end it?

DIANA BUTTU: Well, very interestingly enough, last week, as people here were celebrating the election victory of Barack Obama, Israel used that opportunity to go into the Gaza Strip and kill six Palestinians and kidnap another six Palestinians. And since that time, the Egyptian-brokered ceasefire has actually come to a halt.

I think that we’re going to continue to see much more violence, primarily because of the fact that Israel is now leading up to an election. And as has been the case with every election in Israeli history, each candidate tries to use his or her strength to demonstrate just how strong they are and how much they’re going to fight the Palestinians, rather than demonstrate how much they’re going to try to bring peace to the region.

AMY GOODMAN: Now, what about Ehud Olmert, who is about to step down, but is still the prime minister, saying you’ve got to give up the land, which is remarkable, given what his position has been as prime minister? What’s the significance of this?

DIANA BUTTU: I think it’s very interesting that all of these politicians are now coming forward and saying this. You know, twenty years ago, Amy, you wouldn’t have been able to find an Israeli politician who would say that they have to get out of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. Today, the numbers are increasing.

The question then becomes, how are they going to withdraw? Are they going to withdraw and have equality for the Palestinians being in the form of an equal state? Or is it going to be equal rights? I haven’t heard any of these politicians come forward and mention the idea of equality.

That said, I think that Olmert’s comments are very telling, but I think that any prime minister who’s going to come into power after Prime Minister Olmert is going to face the same problem, which is, the Israeli political system is driven in such a way that it ends up rewarding right-wing extremist parties. That’s the way they form coalitions. And these right-wing extremist parties end up getting a lot of money from the government in order to fund and continue to build settlements. If they don’t get the money, the coalition will break. And as been the case over the course of the past few decades, the only way that governments fall in Israel is either a corruption scandal or a failure to pass the budget. So all of these politicians know very well that the way to move forward is to keep the—to placate the right, and I fear that they’re going to continue to do so.

AMY GOODMAN: Do you see change with the Obama administration?

DIANA BUTTU: It really depends on who he’s going to put in into the administration, and I’m a little bit worried that we’re going to see the same faces that we saw under the Clinton era: Dennis Ross, Martin Indyk, so on and so forth.

AMY GOODMAN: Martin Indyk, former US ambassador to Israel.

DIANA BUTTU: Precisely. I’m concerned that there are going to be people who were formally affiliated with the pro-Israel lobby that are going to be put into place to work on the Obama administration. More importantly, I’m concerned that this is going to be item number twenty on Obama’s agenda, and because it’s so far down on the agenda, that I don’t think that we’re going to see any change anytime soon. That’s what I’m afraid of.

JUAN GONZALEZ: And the question of the relationship with Hamas? Obviously, during the Bush administration the attitude was no dealing whatsoever with those who were elected by the people. Your sense whether this will change at all?

DIANA BUTTU: I don’t think it will change, although it should change. There is a very interesting article that came out in Haaretz, which is an Israeli paper, just two days ago. The person interviewing members of Hamas is an Israeli journalist named Amira Hass. And in the interview, Hamas came out very clearly and said that what they want to see is they want to see a two-state solution. So there is no longer the pretext there for not talking to Hamas. But, unfortunately, we continue to put our head in the sand.

AMY GOODMAN: So, Reverend Eddie Makue, how did you end up going to the Palestinian territories, to the Occupied Territories, from South Africa?

REV. EDWIN MAKUE: The leading or the majority political party in South Africa at the moment is the African National Congress, and they are also the party in government. They have had an historic relationship with the Palestinian Liberation Organization. And when Yasser Arafat passed on, there was the need to have the elections there, and the South African government felt that it’s going to be important that we also look at bringing in civil society organizations in the observation of that election process, because we know that very often election results are disputed. And it is against that background, but very importantly also that we, in terms of our faith, have an historic relationship with that particular region of the world, looking at it as the holy land. And we are very disturbed at the fact that while there’s all this talk in the world about peace, we find that we in the faith communities will preach peace, very often experiencing great difficulty in actually realizing peace for people in that important region.

JUAN GONZALEZ: And in South Africa itself, you’ve been undergoing a political crisis in recent months. There was the decision of President Mbeki to resign. And your council has raised questions as to how the ANC is handling this issue of the presidency. Can you talk about that?

REV. EDWIN MAKUE: We already started expressing our concerns towards the buildup of the ANC’s conference that happened at the end of December last year in Polokwane, where we noticed that there was a lot of name-calling, what we in theological terms prefer to call the politics of disgrace. And we are mindful that it is important that we continue to nurture a democratic culture and that we allow people to establish political parties, political formations, as they wish.

And therefore, the recalling of President Mbeki a month or so ago was something that we observed with concern, particularly in light of the fact that there is a national election that should be held around about April, May of next year. But as the faith communities and as the Council of Churches in the country, in particular, we have been engaging with various political leaders in South Africa, making sure that we do not go back to where we were in the period building up to the first democratic elections in 1994, where our country was plagued by a lot of violence and intolerance.

AMY GOODMAN: And one of the great South African anti-apartheid ambassadors, you could say, cultural ambassadors, was Miriam Makeba, died a few days ago. Her significance?

REV. EDWIN MAKUE: We are pained when we look at how we as a nation are losing people that have played a very meaningful role in the international campaign to focus attention on apartheid, as it has been experienced in South Africa at that time. And Miriam Makeba selflessly used her skills as an artist to promote the cause for justice in South Africa. And I’m sure if she could hear us now, her spirit continues to identify also with the struggle against the apartheid that we’re experiencing in Palestine.

JUAN GONZALEZ: And in the situation in Zimbabwe, your government has been very instrumental in trying to reach some kind of an accord there. Your sense of how that is going to work out in the next few months?

REV. EDWIN MAKUE: We have always expressed very grave concern at the notion of silence diplomacy, as being practiced by our former president Thabo Mbeki. We are very worried about the levels of violence and suffering and the hunger and poverty that’s escalating in Zimbabwe at the moment. And we feel that it is imperative that an urgent solution be found for the crisis in Zimbabwe, and we continue to urge the political leadership in SADC and also in the African Union to do something meaningful to bring that particular crisis to an end and are saying to the political leadership in Zimbabwe, forget about the politicking and look at the interest of the people of the land.

AMY GOODMAN: We only have a few seconds left. But, Diana Buttu, where are you going on this “Separate Is Never Equal” tour?

DIANA BUTTU: We’re going to eleven cities. We were already in Washington, D.C. and in New York. We’re going to be going tomorrow to Dearborn and then Milwaukee, onto Chicago, Denver, Los Angeles, Louisville, Atlanta. We’ll be at the School of the Americas Watch vigil on November 22nd and ending up in Sterling, Virginia.

AMY GOODMAN: I want to thank you both for being with us, Diana Buttu, Palestinian Canadian lawyer, used to work with the PLO, the Palestine Liberation Organization; and Reverend Edwin Makue, general secretary of the South African Council of Churches.

THE MOST common view of history is that it’s created by the personalities of a handful of important figures. So world events can be explained by the fact that Churchill was strong, or Henry VIII wanted a divorce, or Napoleon had a complex about being short; as if an era of revolution and war was a result of him stretching in his kitchen, grumbling: “I can’t reach the top shelf. I know, I’ll invade Italy, that’ll sort that out.”

Or that the English Civil War happened because Charles I was weak, and Parliament would have been put in its rightful place if only he’d called on Supernanny, who would quickly have taught him to set Oliver Cromwell firm boundaries, and issue punishments he was prepared to follow through on, such as sitting the New Model Army on the naughty step.
One of the flaws in this approach is that it can’t explain how the same leaders can appear strong, but then suddenly seem pathetically weak.

For example, four years ago, the commanders of the Project for the New American Century seemed invincible. They’d had their invasion of Iraq and won a second election, and it felt as if Bush, Cheney and Rumsfeld were sat on a settee flicking through travel brochures, trying to decide where to obliterate next, with Wolfowitz peering over Bush’s shoulder to say: “Iran looks nice,” while Richard Perle would add: “Then, if all goes well we can have an extra short-break family weekend bombing Syria.”
Now, they’re all discredited and disgraced, to the extent that the next time we see Donald Rumsfeld, he’ll probably be making his comeback on Celebrity Big Brother playing blind man’s buff with Kerry Katona. George Bush will be presenting a late night phone-in quiz show on ITV, and Dick Cheney will commit suicide after discovering no one picked him out as the ex-vice president in the line-up on Never Mind the Buzzcocks.

But this transformation, culminating in the election of a president who made a virtue out of not supporting the war, can’t just be due to a sudden collapse in self-esteem among the warmongers. Maybe it’s a result of an entirely different atmosphere, created by millions of tiny invaluable actions by countless people.
From mass marches to letters in local papers, poetry nights against the war to statements from soldiers and their relatives, a feeling has been created globally that means anyone associated with the war in Iraq has been damaged beyond repair.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
BUT FOR those who are old enough to remember the civil rights movement, Barack Obama’s election must be even more extraordinary. Malcolm X wrote that one of the moments that shaped him was when he told his teacher he wanted to be a lawyer, and was told he was being ridiculous because “no nigger can become a lawyer.” If he was still around, he’d probably regret not saying: “Alright then, I’ll have to take my second choice and become president.”
Just as it seemed at times that the antiwar protests were having no effect, there must have been times in the 1960s when to imagine there would ever be an end to segregation seemed hopelessly utopian. But it happened, not just because of a strong or charismatic leader, but because millions of people, with tiny and apparently futile actions, defied that logic.
Maybe that’s why, in a reversal of most American elections, the poorer and blacker that people were, the more enthusiasm they crackled with as they queued to vote. Those who see history as conducted by a handful of the powerful are obsessed now with the actions of Obama himself. But just as important is the excitement and vigor created by the millions who now believe, at least a little bit, that their actions can change the world.

For the final battle in the American Civil War, Abraham Lincoln insisted the slave-dealing town of Charleston, S.C., was occupied by a Black regiment. In Richmond, Va., Lincoln marched alongside the Black soldiers, and it was reported that a freed slave knelt before him to give his thanks, to which Lincoln replied: “No. You must stand up. Your days of kneeling are over.”

Similarly, it’s the actions of those who are usually denied a place in history that have made this week possible, and they should recognize their potential, whatever sort of president Obama turns out to be.

First published in the Independent.

The count has been called and Barack Hussein Obama, Jr. has become the 44th President of the United States of America.

But, in truth, history will record him as #1 - the first African-American president.

It is undeniable that this is a singular political achievement, a work of impressive political skill, and (we must admit) a gift of the political gods.

Among friends, in the privacy of a prison visiting room I’ve often made the following half-joke. Obama wins handsomely, and in his acceptance speech, flush with victory, loaded with ‘political capital’, he would open by saying, “My fellow Americans — first and foremost, I want to thank the one person who made my election possible (if not inevitable): George W. Bush!”

I always got a laugh, for like all good jokes the truth makes it happen.

And the truth is, without the blunders of Bush, Obama would’ve been an also-ran. His fundamental issue, which set him apart from the rest of the Democratic pack, was his early opposition to the Iraq War. That gave him a wind that carried him far and long beyond his competitors, who were, for the most part, half-hearted war supporters — or worse, people who supported the war only because to not do so, would’ve harmed their political careers (or so they thought).

That wind carried him to the Oval Office, the grandest prize in U.S. politics.

But what does it mean?

We cannot deny its symbolic value. In millions of Black homes, his picture will be placed on walls, beside Martin, John F. Kennedy, and a pale painting of Jesus. I’d bet that quite a few African homes (especially in Kenya) will also boast his smiling visage.

But beyond symbol is substance, and substantively, some scholars have defined Obama as little different from his predecessors. Political scientist Clarence Lusane, writing in a recent issue of The Black Scholar pointed to the money men behind both Obama and the Democratic Party, and noted the following:

The promotion of U.S. hegemony, expansion of markets for U.S. corporations, security-based multilateral relations, protectionist trade policies, and a focus on terrorism will likely be key
priorities demanded by the major political and financial backers of the Democratic Party. In other words, in a number of key areas, an Obama administration would echo the policies of both George H.W. Bush and Bill Clinton.

Yet, symbols are powerful things. Sometimes, they have a life all their own. They may come to mean something more than first intended.

History has been made.

We shall see exactly what kind of history it will be.

Markos Moulitsas

What a night of contrast, going from celebrating the first African American president and the defeat of another anti-abortion ban in South Dakota, to the narrow victory of the hateful and bigoted Proposition 8 in California. It seems that in the culture wars, we’re winning on race and abortion. The new front lines are gay rights and immigration.

Immigration took a back seat this cycle (thanks to McCain’s wobbly status on the issue), and the one race in which it played a huge role — PA-11 — embattled incumbent Democrat Paul Kanjorski survived a spirited challenge from hateful anti-immigrant activist Lou Barletta. The anti-immigrant forces still haven’t been able to gain much traction, but they bear watching. The issue will be back in full force in 2010.

But for now, the flashpoint in the culture wars is gay rights, and I have to say, as wonderful as yesterday might’ve been, losing Prop 8 hit me hard. That California would vote for a black president with a margin of 61-37 and then shit on gays was horrifically disappointing. We have a long way to go. The anti-Prop 8 campaign wasn’t helped by a shoddy operation that most observers who interacted with it admit was incompetent and ill-suited to wage a statewide campaign. While the Mormon Church flooded the state with ground troops for the fight, our side had no ground game. Inexcusable, but borne out of a complacency that I myself shared. No longer.

I admit, I was feeling run down yesterday, crawling across the finish line after a long marathon. Losing the Prop 8 battle has re-energized me. I’m ready for a rematch in 2010.

Perhaps the best solution, and one mentioned before, is to give all couples civil union licenses. Gay or straight, it’s irrelevant. Then leave the “marriage” thing up to individual churches. They can decide if they want to be bigots or not.

But I doubt that happens anytime soon. So it’s more likely that we’ll get to do this all over again in 2010, fighting and arguing and spending tens of millions of dollars over whether it’s still okay, in this day and age, to discriminate against an entire class of people. If nothing else, there will be more of us, and less of them in two years:
CNN exit poll

Vote by Age
Yes No
18-29 (20%) 39 61
30-44 (28%) 55 45
45-64 (36%) 54 46
65+ (15%) 61 39

That’s why the Mormon Church and their bigoted allies are so desperate in this fight. Young people aren’t afraid of the gays. They’re on the losing side of history.

And I’m not just ready for this fight, I’m eager for it.

{EDITOR}:
UPDATE: There are still absentee and provisional ballots outstanding, so there is some semblance of hope.

by Micah Landau

The Puerto Rican Federation of Teachers (FMPR) has done the near-impossible: solidly defeating one of the world’s most powerful labor organizations in an election for representation of Puerto Rico’s 42,000 public school teachers.
In results from the election, which took place over the course of several weeks in October and announced on October 23rd, just 14, 675 teachers voted in favor of representation by the U.S.-based Service Employees International Union (SEIU), while 18,123 voted “no.” Because of its legally proscribed strike activities, FMPR was banned from participating, and instead orchestrated a “Vote No” campaign. Given estimates that some 2,000 “no” votes were stolen, the big plurality to reject affiliation is a stunning defeat for President Andy Stern and the rest of SEIU’s international leadership.

The conflict between the two organizations began almost a year ago and since then has only become more intense, culminating in the recent elections. Last fall, before SEIU stepped onto the scene, members of the FMPR voted at a mass meeting of more than 7,000 members to authorize a strike. The teachers had suffered through more than two years without a contract and had had enough: “Contract or Strike!” they told Puerto Rico’s Secretary of Education Rafael Aragunde in November. The response of the government was swift and unusually harsh. On January 8, before the teachers had even begun their strike, the Public Sector Labor Relations Commission of Puerto Rico and the island’s governor, Anibal Acevedo Vila, recently indicted on 19 criminal counts of corruption, unilaterally decertified the Federation, invoking Puerto Rico’s Law 45, which grants public employees the right to bargain collectively but denies them the right to strike.

Enter SEIU. While the leadership of the FMPR prepared to fight their decertification in court and the union’s rank-and-file prepared to fight for their contract demands in the street, SEIU’s international leadership was busy rolling out its own plans for Puerto Rico’s teachers. As Juan Gonzalez subsequently revealed in the New York Daily News (2/29/08), Dennis Rivera, an SEIU international vice-president and one-time member of the Puerto Rican Socialist Party (PSP), had met secretly with Acevedo Vila on multiple occasions while negotiations between the island’s government and the FMPR were ongoing. As reported by Gonzalez, the governor told Rivera prior to the strike that the Federation is “yours to take.”
It comes as no surprise, then, that almost simultaneously with the FMPR’s decertification, SEIU announced the affiliation of the Teachers’ Association of Puerto Rico (AMPR), the island’s association of school principals and supervisors – itself a longtime rival of the Federation – and its intention to replace the Federation with an offshoot of its new affiliate, the Puerto Rican Teachers’ Union (SPM).

At a time when the leadership of SEIU should have expressed its solidarity with the striking teachers, Stern, Rivera, and company chose instead to strike a deal with the government-employer and forge with them a company union in an effort to cut the ground from beneath the feet of the FMPR. Stern’s top-down approach to unionism and his strategy of union-member accretion at all costs have been roundly criticized by democratic reformers and rank-and-file activists in the labor movement, but his bid to raid the FMPR reaches new lows. Gonzalez called the raid “a shameful betrayal of solidarity.” Labor journalist Steve Early told Democracy Now! (10/27/08) that the raid “tarnish[ed] the image, not only of SEIU, but all unions.”

At a time when the labor movement is extremely weak, it is imperative that unions be able to count on the support of other unions in fighting their real enemy: the boss. Apparently, however, this logic is lost on the leadership of SEIU. Rather than remaining true to their commitment to organize the unorganized, they opted in Puerto Rico for a policy of reorganizing the already organized, something that has done little for either the strength or the unity of an already fractious labor movement, whether on the island or the mainland.

But despite the betrayal of SEIU’s leadership and their best efforts to undermine the FMPR, the Federation has persevered, winning several important concessions from Acevedo Vila and Aragunde in their February strike and dramatically defeating SEIU in their recent head-on confrontation in the elections for representation. The strike, which paralyzed Puerto Rico’s public school system for 10 days, drew unprecedented support from parents, students, and local communities sympathetic to the teachers’ struggle for a just settlement of their grievances and the improvement of public education on the island. As a result of this critical support and the determination and militancy of the teachers and their union, the government was forced to accept several of the strikers’ key demands, including an immediate raise of $250 per month for all teachers, a freeze on the government’s plans for privatization of the public education system, and a pledge from the governor to slowly but surely increase teachers’ starting salaries to $3000 per month. In the scope of both its demands and its base of support, the strike, by its end, had become a small social movement – and its success was a victory not only for the FMPR but also for defenders of public education.

The implications of the FMPR’s electoral victory against SEIU, however, are much greater still.. In the first place, it is important to keep in mind that the FMPR is a militant and democratic union of the rank-and-file and that its sitting president, Rafael Feliciano of the Commitment, Democracy, and Militancy (CODEMI) caucus, is an avowed socialist. In this context, SEIU’s raid was not simply an attack on the Puerto Rican teachers and their union, but also on the ideals of militancy and democracy, which the FMPR – and, in particular, CODEMI – upholds. SEIU sought by its raid not only to replace FMPR as the teachers’ representative, but also to replace FMPR’s style of militant and democratic unionism with its own brand of top-down, management-friendly unionism. The rank-and-file’s rejection of SEIU, therefore, also represents a rejection of bureaucratic unionism as such – and an embrace of union militancy and democracy. The battle between SEIU and FMPR thus forms part of the much larger war of ideas now raging in the U.S. labor movement and the victory of militancy over cooperation is in fact a victory for those among us who believe securing the future for labor and working people depends on recreating a fighting movement for democratic, social justice unionism.
The FMPR’s victory also points to the possibility that a relatively small but extremely dedicated band of labor activists and reformers can make headway against a much larger and more powerful foe. FMPR spent approximately $60,000 – half of it borrowed – on the election and fielded a small staff made almost entirely of volunteers. SEIU, in contrast, is estimated to have spent upwards of $10 million and fielded a staff of approximately 300 professional organizers. This is a classic case of David and Goliath, and SEIU’s loss at the hands of the FMPR might also be likened to the US defeat in Vietnam, where a much larger, technically superior invading U.S. force was defeated by a smaller but extremely dedicated opponent. Only time will tell if the recent conflict in Puerto Rico will serve as corporate unionism’s Vietnam.

The analogy to Vietnam reveals another important aspect of the FMPR’s victory over SEIU: the strong rejection by the Puerto Rican teachers of North American labor imperialism. In voting against SEIU, the teachers not only opted for union militancy and democracy over corporate unionism; they also asserted their independence from the North American labor movement and sent a clear message to North American unions that, while their solidarity is welcomed, attempts to manipulate or control Puerto Rican unions and unionists are not. Perhaps SEIU has now learned an important lesson about meddling in the internal affairs of foreign labor movements. Either way, their actions in Puerto Rico have certainly raised concerns as to their plans for the rest of the Americas, and with good reason: the AFL-CIO’s uncritical support of rightwing US foreign policy in the region in the 1970s and 1980s, which earned it the moniker “AFL-CIA,” remains a sore subject for Latin American unionists today. SEIU is engaged in important solidarity work with the persecuted trade union movement in Colombia; and just this past July Stern called on the Bush administration to grant visas to the wives of the Cuban Five, five Cuban nationals accused by the U.S. of spying and whose spouses have thus far been barred from visiting their husbands in prison. There is no doubt, then, that SEIU does some very good solidarity work. The question is at what cost: What will the union ask – or demand – as the price for its support? The FMPR has drawn a line in the sand. A true and equal partnership between North American and Latin American labor organizations cannot be built on a basis of labor imperialism; the independence of Latin American unions from North American domination is the prerequisite for any meaningful joint work.

FMPR’s victory over SEIU in the recent elections is a heartening development, but it represents the beginning, rather than the end, of the struggle between the two organizations and the different models of unionism which they offer to the teachers of Puerto Rico. By voting ”no” in the recent elections, the teachers have rejected SEIU’s labor-imperialist effort to install a management-friendly union in the Puerto Rican public education system and have expressed their continued support for the FMPR, which has served as their exclusive bargaining representative for the past 40 years. At the same time, however, the “no” vote victory comes at a cost. The prospects for an FMPR return to official bargaining status have been improved by the ”no” vote, but Puerto Rico’s teachers are still without a bargaining representative or agreement. While the FMPR remains decertified, SEIU took out a paid ad in the San Juan daily, El Vocero, asserting that the employer, and not the Federation, won the elections and declaring their intention to continue to struggle for representation of the island’s teachers. A new and daunting challenge lies ahead: to see the FMPR re-elected within the next 12 months as the exclusive bargaining representative of Puerto Rico’s teachers and the return to the teachers of their full labor rights as unionized workers.

Surely you have heard by now of the imminent socialist takeover of America, and if you find the prospect unlikely, ask yourself: How many socialists do you know who lost millions in the recent stock market crashes? Just as I thought—none—and that’s not only because you don’t know any socialists. The truth is that we, the Socialist International Conspiracy, not only saw this coming, we are the ones who made it happen.

The plan took shape during a particularly intense criticism/self-criticism session at our 2000 annual convention in a booth at an Akron IHOP. We realized that we’d been recruiting no more new members per year than the Green Bay Packers and that, despite all our efforts, more Americans have been taken aboard UFO’s than have embraced the historic promise of socialism. So we decided to suspend our usual work of standing on street corners and hissing, “Hey, how’d you like to live in a workers’ paradise?” Instead of building socialism, one worker at a time, we would focus on destroying capitalism, hedge fund by hedge fund.

First, we selected a cadre of crusty punks from the streets of Seattle, stripped off their Che t-shirts, suited them up in Armani’s and wingtips, and introduced them to the concepts of derivatives and dental floss. Then we shipped them to Wall Street with firm instructions: Make as much money as you can, as fast as you can, and as soon as the money starts rolling in, send it out to make more money by whatever dodgy means you can find – subprime loans, credit default swaps, pyramid schemes – anything goes. And oh yes: Spend your own earnings in the most flamboyantly gross ways you can think of — $10,000 martinis, fountains of champagne – so as to fan the flames of class resentment.

These brave comrades did far better than we could have imagined, quickly adapting to lives of excess and greed punctuated only by squash games at the Century Club. But we could not have inflicted such massive damage to capitalism if we hadn’t also planted skilled agents in high places within the government and various quasi-governmental agencies. When all this is over, Phil Gramm, for example—the former senator and McCain economics advisor — will be getting a Hero of Socialism award for his courageous battle against financial regulation. That’s the only name I can name at this moment, but I will tell you this: If you happened to have been in a playground in the suburbs of DC any time in the last few years, and noticed an impeccably dressed elderly man poking around under rocks, that was a certain Federal Reserve Chairman, looking for his weekly orders from the central committee.

Things were going swimmingly until about a week ago, when the capitalists suddenly staged a counter-coup. We had thought that the nationalization of the banks would bring capitalism to its knees, but instead, the capitalists were craftily using it to privatize the government. Goldman Sachs, former home of Henry Paulson, has taken the lead, planting its agents so thickly about the erstwhile public sector as to earn the nickname “Government Sachs.” Among the former Goldman Sachs operatives now running the country, in addition to Paulson, are the president’s chief of staff, the chairman of the New York Fed, the man appointed to take over A.I.G., and the 35-year-old boy wonder selected to oversee the bail-out program.

According to the New York Times, “Goldman supporters” insist there is no “conspiracy” and not a black helicopter in sight – just a bunch of public-spirited investment bankers sacrificing their normal 8-figure salaries for the good of the nation. But we socialists know a conspiracy when we see one, and some in our ranks are complaining bitterly that as capitalism began to collapse, the bankers seized the life raft that was intended to save the laid-off, the foreclosed-upon, and the exploited masses in general.

Ah well, we socialists still have the election to look forward to. After months of studying the candidates’ economic plans, we have determined that one of them, and only one, can be relied on to complete the destruction of capitalism. With high hopes and great confidence, the Socialist International Conspiracy endorses John McCain!

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John McCain hopes to revive his campaign by suggesting that Barack Obama is some kind of socialist.

The Republican nominee for president says that his Democratic rival’s plan for stimulating the economy sounds “a lot like socialism.”

“At least in Europe, the socialist leaders who so admire my opponent are up front about their objectives. They use real numbers and honest language. And we should demand equal candor from Senator Obama,” the Arizona senator claimed over the weekend.

Asked if he thinks Obama is a socialist, McCain offers an insinuating raised eyebrow and a shrug non-response: “I don’t know.”

McCain is not really concerned about socialism. He is trying to suggest that Obama is somehow un-American.

Obama’s no socialist.

But, as a Wisconsinite, I can’t buy the basic premise of McCain’s argument.

I grew up in a state where socialism was as American as my friend Frank Zeidler.

Zeidler, an old-school American socialist who served three terms as the mayor of Milwaukee from 1948 to 1960, died two year ago at age 93. His passing was mourned by Democrats and Republicans, liberals and conservatives, who recognized the gentle radical as one of the most honorable men ever to cross the American political landscape.

Zeidler actually ran for president in 1976 as the nominee of the American Socialist Party. In fairness, it was more an educational campaign than a serious bid for an office that the former mayor never really coveted. Like so many of the great civic gestures he engaged in over eight decades of activism, Zeidler’s 1976 campaign promoted the notion that: “There’s nothing un-American about socialism.”

Campaigning on a platform that promised a shift of national priorities from bloated defense spending to fighting poverty, rebuilding cities and creating a national health care program, Zeidler won only a portion of the respect that was due this kind and decent man and the values to which he has devoted a lifetime.

Had Zeidler been born in another land — perhaps Germany, where the roots of his family tree were firmly planted — his Socialist Party run would have been a much bigger deal. Indeed, he might well have been elected.

In most of the world, the social-democratic values that Zeidler advanced throughout his long life hold great sway. Latin America has been experiencing a revival of socialist fervor in recent years. And virtually every European country has elected a socialist government in the past decade. Indeed, the current leaders of Britain and Spain head political parties that are associated with the Socialist International, of which Zeidler’s Socialist Party was a U.S. affiliate. In the recent Canadian elections, the socialist New Democratic Party experienced a substantial boost in its parliamentary delegation.

In Zeidler’s youth, America’s Socialist Party was a contender. During the 1920s, there were more Socialists in the Wisconsin legislature than Democrats, and a Wisconsin Socialist, Victor Berger, represented Milwaukee in the US House. When Norman Thomas sought the presidency as a Socialist in 1932, he received almost a million votes, and well into the 1950s Socialists ran municipal governments in Reading, Pennsylvania; Bridgeport, Connecticut and other quintessentially American cities – including Zeidler’s Milwaukee.

For millions of American voters in the past century, socialism was never so frightening as John McCain would have us believe. Rather, it was a politics of principle that added ideas and nuance to a stilted economic and political discourse.

For the most part, Zeidler and his compatriots campaigned along the periphery of presidential politics, especially as the Cold War took hold.

But they earned respect in communities such as Milwaukee, where voters kept casting ballots for Socialist candidates even as Joe McCarthy was promoting his “red-scare” witch hunt.

Years after he left the mayor’s office, Zeidler’s contribution — a humane, duty-driven, fiscally responsible version of socialism that is reflective of the man as much as the philosophy –- was always recognized by Wisconsinites as a very American expression of a legitimate and honorable international ideal.

Zeidler was the repository of a Milwaukee Socialist tradition with a remarkable record of accomplishment — grand parks along that city’s lakefront, nationally recognized public health programs, pioneering open housing initiatives, and an unrivaled reputation for clean government — that to his death filled the circumspect former mayor with an uncharacteristic measure of pride.

Because of its emphasis on providing quality services, the politics that Zeidler practiced was sometimes referred to as “sewer socialism.” But, to the mayor, it was much more than that. The Milwaukee Socialists, who governed the city for much of the 20th century, led a remarkably successful experiment in human nature rooted in their faith that cooperation could deliver more than competition.

“Socialism as we attempted to practice it here believes that people working together for a common good can produce a greater benefit both for society and for the individual than can a society in which everyone is shrewdly seeking their own self-interest,” Zeidler told me in an interview several years ago. “And I think our record remains one of many more successes than failures.”

Would that John McCain – and, frankly, Barack Obama — had the intellectual honesty to assess those successes, and the ideals that underpinned them. The candidates would not, necessarily embrace socialism. But they would recognize the absurdity of tossing the “S” word around as an epithet.

Written by John Nichols, originally published in The Nation