Cesar Chavez Lives on the struggle of working people

César Chávez: "Presente"
By Duane E. Campbell

The spirit of Cesar Chavez lives on in the struggle for union rights and justice in the fields of California. Along with Dolores Huerta, Philip Vera Cruz, and others, César created the United Farm Workers (UFW) the first successful union of farm workers in U.S. history. There had been more than ten prior attempts to build a farm workers union.
The United Cannery and Packinghouse Workers (UCAPAWA) organized in the 1930's, the National Farm Workers Union (NFW) led by Ernesto Galarza tried to organize Farm workers in the 40's and 50's. In 1959, the AFL-CIO tried to organize again with the Agricultural Workers Organizing Committee (AWOC). AWOC continued the prior efforts of Ernesto Galarza and the NFW in struggling against "braceros" or guest workers, contract workers imported from Mexico, for breaking strikes. A renewed "guest worker" bill is presently before Congress.
Each of the prior attempts to organize farm worker unions were destroyed by racism and corporate power. Chávez chose to build a union that incorporated the strategies of social movements and community organizing and allied itself with the churches, students, and organized labor. The successful creation of the UFW changed the nature of labor organizing in the Southwest and contributed significantly to the birth of Latino politics in the U.S.
Today, under the leadership of UFW president Arturo Rodriguez, over 28,000 farm workers enjoy benefits on the job. They are incorporated into California's educational, health and civic communities. The UFW has shown the AFL-CIO that immigrants can and must be organized.
César Chavez, Dolores Huerta, Philip Vera Cruz, and others deliberately created a multiracial organization, Mexican, Mexican American, Filipino, African-American, Dominican, Puerto Rican and Arab workers, among others, have been part of the UFW. This cross racial organizing was necessary in order to combat the prior divisions and exploitations of workers based upon race and language. Dividing the workers on racial and language lines always left the corporations the winners.
In the 60's Chávez became the pre-eminent civil rights leader for the Mexican and Chicano workers, helping with local union struggles throughout the nation. He worked tirelessly to make people aware of the struggles of farm workers for better pay and safer working conditions. It is a testament to Cesar Chavez's skills and courage that the UFW even survived. They were opposed by major interests in corporate agriculture including the Bruce Church and Gallo Corporations as well as the leadership of the Republican Party then led by Ronald Reagan. Workers were fired, beaten, threatened and even killed in pursuit of union benefits . Non union farm workers today continue to live on sub-poverty wages while producing the abundant crops in the richest valley, in the richest state in the richest nation in the world.
In response to corporate power, Cesar developed new strategies, such as the boycott, based upon his personal commitment to non-violence in the tradition of Ghandi and Martin Luther King Jr. César Chavez died in his sleep on April 23, 1993 near Yuma, Arizona.
Today Mexican, Mexican American and Puerto Rican union leadership is common in our major cities and in several industries. For myself and others, the UFW was a school for organizing. Hundreds of activists in labor and community organizations owe their skills to UFW training and experience. Along with improved working conditions, salaries, and benefits, training this cadre of organizers remains a major legacy of the UFW.
César taught us that all organizations have problems, that all organizations are imperfect. But, if you wait for the perfect organization, nothing gets done. Building popular organizations builds people's power, and democracy.
In creating the UFW Chavez organized thousands into a union and inspired millions. Children in school study his life. Many curriculum packages stress his emphasis on service to others. The service side of Cesar’s work was certainly inspiring.
The organizing side changed the Southwest and organized labor. In a 1988 campaign and fast Cesar focused attention on the many dangerous problems of pesticides used in the fields. Artists have captured his image in hundreds of ways. Schools, parks, and highways have been named for him. Establishing Cesar Chavez holiday in California and other states has increased knowledge of his contributions.
The movement led by Cesar created a union and reduced the oppression of farm workers. Many people, descendents of earlier generations of farm workers, learned to take a stand for justice. We learned to not accept poor jobs, poor pay, unsafe working conditions as natural or inevitable. Rather, these are social creations which can be changed through organizing for economic and political power. Dolores Huerta continues her important education and organizing work throughout the nation.
Now, thousands of new immigrants harvest the crops and only a small percent are in unions. The new generations of immigrants and migrant labor hardly know Chavez’ name nor his contributions. Yet, in other regions immigrants are being organized into unions such as Justice for Janitors, by activists who learned their organizing skills working with the UFW. And, Latino political leaders often made their first commitments on a UFW picket line.
The generation that created the UFW is passing. A new generation of political activists, mostly within the Democratic Party, have emerged since the Chavez generations. In the 2006 massive immigrant rights movements, several new organizing practices emerged. The organizing of these demonstrations was significantly assisted by persons trained within the UFW. A new, significant Latino union and political base has been created.
Chavez' legacy to popular struggles, to Chicano/Mexicano self determination and to unions for the immigrant workers is beyond measure. The union taught us how to organize for power and for justice. He is present in all of our work. I plan to march on March March 28,2009 in memory of Cesar Chavez' contributions to building a more democratic society for working people. You can find our more about this remarkable leader at www.ufw.org And, www.cesarchavezfoundation.org
And, http://www.farmworkermovement.org/ Duane Campbell is a Professor of Bilingual/Multicultural Education at Calif. State University-Sacramento and the author of Choosing Democracy; a practical guide to multicultural education. 4th. edition. (Allyn and Bacon,2010.

Nafta or Fair Trade ?

Trade Experts: Renegotiate NAFTA

by James Parks, Mar 18, 2009
Trade experts from throughout the Americas say U.S. trade policies
must be completely revised and existing agreements renegotiated and
agree with the Obama administration’s proposal to renegotiate part of
the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) that allowed unsafe
Mexican trucks to drive on U.S. highways.

In a forum hosted by the International Labor Rights Forum, the Global
Policy Network and the Economic Policy Institute, trade union leaders
from the United States, Mexico, Central America and Colombia said
that existing and proposed trade agreements have failed to live up to
their promise and have actually made things worse.

Patricia Juan Pineda, counsel for the FAT, Mexico’s independent union
federation, told the forum:

During the negotiation of NAFTA, critics claimed that many small
businesses that maintain most of Mexico’s employment, would close and
that the agreement would create lower salaries and unstable work
conditions. Fifteen years later, many of the criticisms have become a
reality.

A big problem with NAFTA and the Central American Free Trade
Agreement (CAFTA) is that neither protects workers’ rights. Bama
Athreya, executive director of the International Labor Rights Forum,
said:

Twenty-five years of experience promoting labor rights conditions in
trade agreements has shown us that we need better ways to measure
progress and better tools to hold governments accountable for
protecting workers’ rights.

Omar Salazar Alvarado, executive director of ASEPROLA, a Costa Rica-
based labor rights advocacy organization, added:

It’s a major mistake to believe that labor rights are protected under
CAFTA. The intention was always to protect trade and investments and
not labor rights. Today we have the possibility to correct this mistake.

Participants in the forum also called on the U.S. government to drop
consideration of a proposed trade agreement with Colombia. Francisco
Ramirez Cuellar, president of Sintraminercol, Colombia’s coal miners’
union and a human rights activist, puts it this way:

If the U.S. and Canadian governments approve the Colombia Free Trade
Agreement, they would be legitimizing the crimes against Colombian
labor leaders, crimes that occur on average once every three days.
Those that are responsible are basically the corporations and the
governments, the same groups that would be the first to benefit from
the agreement.

Colombia is the most dangerous country in the world for union
members. The Colombian government has not vigorously investigated or
prosecuted the killing of trade union members. At the current pace of
investigations and trials, it would take 37 years to prosecute the
backlog of cases. And the caseload is growing—the rate of killings,
which had fallen for a few years, jumped sharply last year by 25
percent.

Meanwhile, as part of the omnibus fiscal year 2009 appropriations
bill, Congress banned unsafe Mexican trucks on U.S. highways. The
Bush administration ignored a congressional ban on Mexican trucks
operating beyond the 25-mile commercial zone around the U.S.-Mexico
border.

The Transportation Department’s inspector general reported on Feb. 6
that despite repeated assurances that the federal inspectors would
“check every truck, every time” it crossed the border, the
Transportation Department couldn’t determine whether such inspections
had occurred.

Teamsters President James Hoffa says the “driving public is put at
risk when trucks from Mexico that don’t meet U.S. standards are
allowed to roam our highways.

The Mexican government has not held up their end of the bargain to
meet U.S. standards. Mexican trucks are unsafe and Mexican drivers
are not required to meet the same criteria that American drivers must
meet to earn a commercial driver’s license. It’s long past time to
close the border to these unguided missiles.

Mexico is planning to increase duties on $2.4 billion of U.S. exports
of commodities like wheat, beans, beef, and rice in retaliation for
the truck ban. Jane Winebrenner writes in the Daily Labor Report the
Obama White House has asked for new legislation to create a new
trucking project that meets the concerns of Congress and the union
movement.

The expansion of Mexican trucking in the United States was negotiated
under the 1994 NAFTA.

Chavez March Saturday

The annual Cesar Chavez Day march.
A WORKER’S RIGHT TO ORGANIZE!
When: Saturday March 28, 2009
Where: Southside Park 6th and "T" Street @ 10:00 am
Arriving: César Chávez Park @ 11:30 am approximately
Free Rapid Transit. All day bus & Light rail tickets
Come and Celebrate César Chávez’s life and legacy by carrying on the tradition in marching
for struggling families, fair wages, working conditions and workers rights, enactment of both
the Employee Free Choice Act, and the Dream Act, Jobs Now!, Immigration Reform for all,
End the War!, and No to State furloughs & LAYOFFS! Now is the time when we must unite
under the umbrella of solidarity. Join us on March 28th, bring your family, friends, your signs,
banners & posters.
“SÍ SE PUEDE!” – “YES WE CAN!”
“UNITY IN OUR COMMUNITY!”
For More Info: (916) 446-3021 or nadm916@aol.com
SACRAMENTO CHAPTER

Which Side Are you On?

Which Side Are You On?
100 Days
By Christopher Hayes

This article appeared in the April 6, 2009 edition of
The Nation. March 18, 2009.

Legislative fights in Washington rarely break down
neatly along class lines. Often, the coalitions on
either side of an issue are unwieldy and eclectic, with
one sector or industry battling another. The notable
exception is the Employee Free Choice Act (EFCA), which
would reform a broken labor elections system, making it
easier (one might say possible) for workers to
unionize.

On March 10 the bill was reintroduced in the House and
the Senate, ushering in the final act in a six-year
legislative battle that has become the most bruising
and intense in Washington, one that--literally--pits
Capital against Labor.

For the GOP the politics are straightforward. Woven
into the DNA of the modern conservative is opposition
to unions and unionism of any kind. Defeating the bill
has become a kind of jobs program for right-wing hacks:
no fewer than sixteen groups are raising money,
mobilizing constituents, running ads and lobbying
senators to kill it.

But for a Democratic Party that for several decades has
awkwardly attempted to be the party of both business
and labor, it's a very difficult circle to square. "It
comes at a bad time," says a wealthy, business-friendly
Democratic donor. "[Democrats] are blaming bankers,
blaming lots of people, and it sounds like these people
are anti-business.... A lot of us warned the guys
working for Obama that [EFCA] would be a problem. They
said, Don't overreact to this--it's a long way from
becoming law, blah, blah, blah."

In this particular fight, class solidarity--if I may
use a phrase that has long since gone out of
fashion--seems to trump partisan loyalties.

Obama supporter and advocate of progressive taxation
Warren Buffett has come out against the legislation.
And according to that wealthy Democrat I talked with,
he's not alone: "I think a lot of Democratic donors are
downright pissed off," he told me. His fellow
well-heeled Democratic donors, he said, are complaining
that "this is the danger of having Democrats control
Congress and the White House." The head of a large
progressive nonprofit echoed the point. The act, he
said, "happened to come up a few times" recently with
donors. He was surprised by how intense their
opposition is. "The passion of it threw me off a bit,"
he added.

Part of the source of these tensions is the fact that
the disgraced financial sector (which increasingly
leans Democratic in its donations) has largely thrown
its weight behind opposing the bill--despite the fact
that these same businesses are being kept on life
support by the government. A Citibank retail analyst
downgraded Wal-Mart's stock for fear that the bill
would pass; the next day she hosted an "informational"
conference call featuring a representative from the US
Chamber of Commerce, who spent the entire call warning
darkly about EFCA. (After the Huffington Post broke the
news of the anti-EFCA call in mid-March, Citi hurriedly
hosted a call with members of the United Food and
Commercial Workers.)

"This is the biggest battle between labor and
corporations in this country since the Taft-Hartley Act
of 1947," the AFL-CIO's organizing director, Stewart
Acuff, told me. What makes the battle especially
intense is that while both sides have attempted to
shape public opinion, polls show that the issue doesn't
amount to even a blip on voters' radar. A recent poll
found majority support for a bill that would make it
easier to organize, but only 12 percent of respondents
said they were following the EFCA bill "very closely."

That means victory will ultimately come not from
shaping public opinion but from pressuring the handful
of swing senators. Each side is ferociously organizing
constituents in those senators' states.

A few of these red state Democrats--in a kind of parody
of squishy centrism--have hinted they'd like to find
some legislative compromise. "This legislation is not
perfect," Arkansas Senator Mark Pryor said recently.
"And while I have been supportive in the past, I will
consider amendments to make it better if and when it is
considered by the Senate." Nebraska Senator Ben Nelson
said he thinks that "there'll be a major effort to
modify it before it ever comes up for consideration,
and I'll have to take a look and see what it is then."
Some senators have floated compromises, such as
extending the amount of time management would have to
negotiate a first contract before binding arbitration.

If Senate Democrats think an amendment will give them
political cover, they're fooling themselves. Just ask
big business. Speaking on the Citi conference call,
Glenn Spencer of the Chamber of Commerce said, "There
is no amendment you could make to this bill to make it
acceptable. From top to bottom it's a bad piece of
legislation. You'd have to start with scrapping this
bill."

Labor also sees EFCA as a black and white issue and is
eager to take away the middle ground. Acuff says the
fundamental question is, "Are you for unions or are you
against unions? If you're against this legislation,
you're against unions. You can't say you're for unions
if you don't think workers should be able to form
unions without fear of retaliation."

Sometime in the next few months, every Democratic
elected official is going to have to answer a very old
question that in a post-meltdown world is newly
resonant: Which side are you on?


About Christopher Hayes Christopher Hayes is The
Nation's Washington editor. His wife works in the White
House Counsel's office.

______________________

Change NCLB and fund it

No Child Left Behind should be re authorized, funded, and changed.

This is time for a change for our society and in our schools. We face a marked crises in the economy, the banking system, government, politics, families, communities and in the schools.
All children deserve a good education to participate in our democracy. Lack of education is a ticket to economic hardship. The more years of school that a student completes, the more money they are likely to earn as adults and the better their chance to get and keep a good job. Unemployment is highest among school dropouts as is incarceration for crimes.
We need to invest in urban schools, provide equal educational opportunities in these schools, and to recruit a well prepared teaching force that begins to reflect the student populations in these schools. We must insist on equal opportunity to learn, without compromise.

The school reform movement from 1983- 2008, including NCLB, was largely driven by corporate goals and corporate thinking. Corporate rule was established through the corporations influence and contributions to elected officials and their funding of “research” institutes. (Emery, 2007) This corporate view of school reform –called neo liberalism in economics- came to dominate the media and the government. Non corporate goals such as freedom, extending democracy, equal opportunity were driven from the curriculum and driven from the reform packages. And, at present, clearly the neo-liberal agenda is winning particularly as advanced in law in the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001 and stalled for re-authorization in 2008.

President Bush worked with political leaders in both parties to pass PL 107-110 - The No Child Left Behind Act In 2001. He considers it one of the major victories of his tenure. NCLB made assessment based reform (testing) and accountability the central components of a new national policy on school reform. The results of NCLB and the accountability drive are now in: like Katrina relief, NCLB has been a dismal failure.
On national tests given by the U.S. Department of Education, student achievement is either flat (as in 8th grade reading) or has improved less than in the days prior to NCLB. NCLB is bad policy because it is punitive to schools and to teachers. It has caused nearly 40% of the nation's schools to be labeled "failing," and by 2014 over 90% of the schools will be declared to be failing. It is dysfunctional to not recognize the differences between really failing schools and schools that are doing quite well. Under NCLB when a school is struggling, there is little help on the way, just more tests, more punishment: fire the staff; close the school; turn the school over to private entrepreneurs (profiteers, charters ) , etc. 

Rather than facing the inequality of resources between schools, the NCLB imposed school reform efforts stress standardized testing. Current testing measures the ability to memorize small bits of information. It cannot measure critical thinking skills, the ability to function in a community or commitment to democratic principles. NCLB testing has not improved schools, improved school funding, nor improved teaching.
NCLB and its state by state progeny argue that the education system should operate primarily in service of the economic system. This is a business model of public schools, and we can see how well business is operating in the finance, credit, and banking system.
A substantial opposition to the re-authorization of NCLB developed in 2008. Its passage was blocked in Congress . NCLB will be re-written and re-authorized in 2009. NCLB testing does not, unfortunately, provide teachers with useful information on what to do to improve student learning and instruction. It also does not provide resources to improve the schools while it ignores the substantial inequality of resources in both schools and neighborhoods.
According National Assessment of Education Progress (NAEP) data there has been little improvement in student reading scores and only a small improvement in math scores. In California, with its large ELL population, there has been no measured improvement in scores by ELL students . At the same time The U.S. has one of the highest rates of high school drop outs in the industrialized world as well as one of the highest rates of incarceration for young people, particularly African American and Latino males.
The Bush Administration used NCLB sanctions including shifting money from public schools to private charters to respond to failing to raise test scores. The new Obama Administration has appointed Arne Duncan, as Secretary of Education and Russylynn Ali, as director of the Civil Rights division of the department. Both believe that more testing, not less testing, will improve schools.
The U.SA. spends less per student than 16 other modern industrialized countries . And, California spends less per pupil than 47 other states when you adjust the figures for cost of living differences. The recent California budget crisis, where schools were again cut by over $ 11.6 billion dollars demonstrates the failure of the political system to adequately fund some of our schools.
The collapse of tax revenues is leaving state and local governments with substantial shortfalls while demand for government services, like unemployment benefits, food stamps, and Medicaid is rising rapidly. Schools face severe budget cuts at the state level. The Center on Budget and Policy Priorities calculated the shortfall in state budgets at $350 billion for 2009 through the first half of 2011. It also calculated that the recently passed stimulus package will reduce this shortfall by approximately $140 billion, leaving a gap of $210 billion.
The schools will receive some relief in the stimulus plan but not enough to make up for the state budget cuts.

Middle class schools could benefit from reform, but most middle-class schools work rather well. Most schools in urban areas, however, are unable to provide the equal educational opportunity. There will be no significant change in the quality of urban education without substantial new funds allocated to these schools. In the current economic crisis, while federal funds are being added, state funds ( over 80% of the school budget) are being cut). The only real school reform we will see in the next 3-4 years will be reforms carried out by dedicated teachers. Congressmen such as Chair George Miller of the Committee on Education and Labor should recognize that lack of funding for reform makes existing state and federal mandates irresponsible.

In addition to more funding for schools, if politicians were really interested in improving student achievement, recent research by David Berliner reveals that the following out of school factors. We could improve school achievement for the working poor by:


• Reduce the rate of low birth weight children among African Americans,
• Reduce drug and alcohol abuse,
• Reduce pollutants in our cites and move people away from toxic sites,
• Provide universal and free medical care for all citizens,
• Insure that no one suffers from food insecurity,
• Reduce the rates of family violence in low-income households,
• Improve mental health services among the poor,
among others.

(For a quick synopsis, see: http://epicpolicy.org/newsletter/2009/03/blame-school-achievement-gap-misplaced
The full paper is at: http://epicpolicy.org/publication/poverty-and-potential)

Declining state funding for the last thirty years has produced a two tiered school system in California, one for the middle class and one for the working poor. When schools succeed for the middle class and fail for working-class students and students of color, schools contribute to a crippling division along economic and racial lines in our society.

Duane Campbell blogs at Choosingdemocracy.blogspot.com.
He is the author of Choosing Democracy: a practical guide to multicultural education. 4th. edition. Allyn and Bacon. 2010.
He is the director of the newly formed Institute for Democracy and Education: Sacramento.
www.democracyeducationinstitute.org

Cesar Chavez Day

César Chávez: "Presente"
By Duane E. Campbell

The spirit of Cesar Chavez lives on in the struggle for union rights and justice in the fields of California. Along with Dolores Huerta, Philip Vera Cruz, and others, César created the United Farm Workers (UFW) the first successful union of farm workers in U.S. history. There had been more than ten prior attempts to build a farm workers union.
The United Cannery and Packinghouse Workers (UCAPAWA) organized in the 1930's, the National Farm Workers Union (NFW) led by Ernesto Galarza tried to organize Farm workers in the 40's and 50's. In 1959, the AFL-CIO tried to organize again with the Agricultural Workers Organizing Committee (AWOC). AWOC continued the prior efforts of Ernesto Galarza and the NFW in struggling against "braceros" or guest workers, contract workers imported from Mexico, for breaking strikes. A renewed "guest worker" bill is presently before Congress.
Each of the prior attempts to organize farm worker unions were destroyed by racism and corporate power. Chávez chose to build a union that incorporated the strategies of social movements and community organizing and allied itself with the churches, students, and organized labor. The successful creation of the UFW changed the nature of labor organizing in the Southwest and contributed significantly to the birth of Latino politics in the U.S.
Today, under the leadership of UFW president Arturo Rodriguez, over 28,000 farm workers enjoy benefits on the job. They are incorporated into California's educational, health and civic communities. The UFW has shown the AFL-CIO that immigrants can and must be organized.
César Chavez, Dolores Huerta, Philip Vera Cruz, and others deliberately created a multiracial organization, Mexican, Mexican American, Filipino, African-American, Dominican, Puerto Rican and Arab workers, among others, have been part of the UFW. This cross racial organizing was necessary in order to combat the prior divisions and exploitations of workers based upon race and language. Dividing the workers on racial and language lines always left the corporations the winners.
In the 60's Chávez became the pre-eminent civil rights leader for the Mexican and Chicano workers, helping with local union struggles throughout the nation. He worked tirelessly to make people aware of the struggles of farm workers for better pay and safer working conditions. It is a testament to Cesar Chavez's skills and courage that the UFW even survived. They were opposed by major interests in corporate agriculture including the Bruce Church and Gallo Corporations as well as the leadership of the Republican Party then led by Ronald Reagan. Workers were fired, beaten, threatened and even killed in pursuit of union benefits . Non union farm workers today continue to live on sub-poverty wages while producing the abundant crops in the richest valley, in the richest state in the richest nation in the world.
In response to corporate power, Cesar developed new strategies, such as the boycott, based upon his personal commitment to non-violence in the tradition of Ghandi and Martin Luther King Jr. César Chavez died in his sleep on April 23, 1993 near Yuma, Arizona.
Today Mexican, Mexican American and Puerto Rican union leadership is common in our major cities and in several industries. For myself and others, the UFW was a school for organizing. Hundreds of activists in labor and community organizations owe their skills to UFW training and experience. Along with improved working conditions, salaries, and benefits, training this cadre of organizers remains a major legacy of the UFW.
César taught us that all organizations have problems, that all organizations are imperfect. But, if you wait for the perfect organization, nothing gets done. Building popular organizations builds people's power, and democracy.
In creating the UFW Chavez organized thousands into a union and inspired millions. Children in school study his life. Many curriculum packages stress his emphasis on service to others. The service side of Cesar’s work was certainly inspiring.
The organizing side changed the Southwest and organized labor. In a 1988 campaign and fast Cesar focused attention on the many dangerous problems of pesticides used in the fields. Artists have captured his image in hundreds of ways. Schools, parks, and highways have been named for him. Establishing Cesar Chavez holiday in California and other states has increased knowledge of his contributions.
The movement led by Cesar created a union and reduced the oppression of farm workers. Many people, descendents of earlier generations of farm workers, learned to take a stand for justice. We learned to not accept poor jobs, poor pay, unsafe working conditions as natural or inevitable. Rather, these are social creations which can be changed through organizing for economic and political power. Dolores Huerta continues her important education and organizing work throughout the nation.
Now, thousands of new immigrants harvest the crops and only a small percent are in unions. The new generations of immigrants and migrant labor hardly know Chavez’ name nor his contributions. Yet, in other regions immigrants are being organized into unions such as Justice for Janitors, by activists who learned their organizing skills working with the UFW. And, Latino political leaders often made their first commitments on a UFW picket line.
The generation that created the UFW is passing. A new generation of political activists, mostly within the Democratic Party, have emerged since the Chavez generations. In the 2006 massive immigrant rights movements, several new organizing practices emerged. The organizing of these demonstrations was significantly assisted by persons trained within the UFW. A new, significant Latino union and political base has been created.
Chavez' legacy to popular struggles, to Chicano/Mexicano self determination and to unions for the immigrant workers is beyond measure. The union taught us how to organize for power and for justice. He is present in all of our work. I plan to march on March March 28,2009 in memory of Cesar Chavez' contributions to building a more democratic society for working people. You can find our more about this remarkable leader at www.ufw.org And, www.cesarchavezfoundation.org
And, http://www.farmworkermovement.org/ Duane Campbell is a Professor of Bilingual/Multicultural Education at Calif. State University-Sacramento and the author of Choosing Democracy; a practical guide to multicultural education. 4th. edition. (Allyn and Bacon,2010.

The value of Alternet

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The AIG Debacle

The AIG Saga: A Brief Primer
By Dean Baker

The awarding of $165 million in bonuses to AIG executives has dominated the news in the last week. There has been widespread outrage over the idea that taxpayers' dollars are being used to reward the people who effectively bankrupted AIG and cost the government more than $160 billion in bailout funds to meet the company's obligations. This primer addresses some of the issues raised by both the bonuses and the much larger sum going toward the AIG bailout.
The Bonuses: What Did They Know and When Did They Know It?
One of the silliest distractions in the AIG saga has been the various accounts of when AIG told Treasury Secretary Geithner of the bonuses and when Geithner passed the information along to President Obama. This discussion is silly because Geithner almost certainly knew of the bonuses ever since the initial takeover on September 15th. He just didn't think they were important.

Geithner was the chair of the New York Fed at the time of the original takeover. In that capacity, he was the person directly overseeing the takeover. As the chairman of the New York Fed, Mr. Geithner was undoubtedly familiar with the Wall Street culture and knew that financial firms paid out large bonuses each year to their most-valued employees. Since he did not issue any directives to AIG telling them not to pay bonuses, it was reasonable to expect that AIG would do so, just like it always did.

In other words, Geithner had every reason to believe that AIG would continue to pay out bonuses even after it was bailed out by the government, because he did not tell it stop paying bonuses. He may not have considered this issue important until the last week. And, he may not have known the exact size and the structure of the bonuses, but for all practical purposes he has known for six months that AIG would be issuing million dollar bonuses to certain employees, in spite of the fact that it was dependent on massive infusions of government money to stay alive.
Should the Government Have Gotten Something in Return for Giving Tens of Billions to the Banks?
When the government lent hundreds of billions of dollars to the banks through TARP, it got preferred shares of stock in return, in addition to placing conditions on the banks' conduct. By contrast, the government received absolutely nothing for the tens of billions of dollars that it passed on to the banks through AIG. It may have been desirable to ensure that AIG's defaults did not lead to the collapse of the major banks that were its counterparties, but this could have been accomplished by directly giving these banks capital through TARP or some equivalent mechanism. There is no obvious reason why it was necessary to give the money through AIG without getting anything in return.

It is worth noting that if the government had instead lent the AIG money to the banks through TARP, and under similar conditions, it would own an even larger share of these banks. Obviously the banks prefer that the money instead pass through AIG without conditions, but there is no reason that the taxpayers should prefer this route.

It is also worth noting that several of the recipients of AIG money were foreign banks. While the public has an interest in the stability of the world economy, which means preventing major foreign banks from going bankrupt, there is no obvious reason that American taxpayers should be forced to bail out foreign banks of wealthy countries. It is possible that there is some quid pro quo under which foreign governments are bailing out U.S. banks on losses suffered in their countries, but there has been no public acknowledgement of such an arrangement.

There is a possible alternative explanation. The government may have made these payments in order to preserve the international reputation of the U.S. financial industry. If that is the case, then this is a rather expensive subsidy to the financial industry. To date there has been no explanation as to the reason for making these payments.

Socialism: lets use the terms correctly

Socialism Without a Soul
Posted on Mar 10, 2009

By Robert Scheer

Newt Gingrich is right: “It is European socialism transplanted to Washington.” How else to describe an economy in which the government controls the entire financial center and is now supplying life support for the auto industry? That’s on top of the existing socialist economy run by the military-industrial complex, which, thanks to George W. Bush, now absorbs upward of 60 percent of the non-entitlement federal budget.

Although we still have a way to go to catch up with the good parts of the European system, including universal health care, high-quality public education and decent working conditions, we do have a system that is now as socialist in budget size as Europe’s. That part I get when I listen to the right-wingers on Fox News bemoaning the reversal of the Reagan Revolution. But what I don’t understand is how in the world they can blame this startling turn of events on Barack Obama.

The vast majority of money allocated so far on President Obama’s watch is an extension of Bush’s banking bailout, which has committed trillions to failed Wall Street conglomerates. I certainly don’t want to defend the bailout and personally think the banks and stockbrokers deserve to go belly up, but what does that mess have to do with Obama, who was in college when the Reagan Revolution launched the deregulation that allowed Wall Street to run wild?

Didn’t Obama inherit the current financial meltdown less than two months ago from the Republicans, who for eight years under Bush assured us that the markets were not in any need of tighter regulation? Wasn’t it GOP congressional members led by folks like Gingrich who pushed though the deregulation legislation that enabled the growth of “too big to fail” financial institutions that now have to be saved by the taxpayers?

Nor has Obama demanded anything more in the way of accountability from those Wall Street swindlers than had the Bush administration. Under both presidents a total of $170 billion was given to insurance giant AIG, and, as The Wall Street Journal reported, at least $50 billion of that money was passed on to top foreign and domestic banks without any public accounting. Indeed, the second in command at the Fed told a Senate committee last week that he wouldn’t reveal the names of the banks that grabbed our money.

Nor has there been any serious demand put on the banks to use the hundreds of billions in federal funds they received to increase liquidity. Indeed, the banks are raising interest rates and cutting limits on credit cards at a time when the government is hoping consumers will use those cards to pump some life into the retail market. As bank industry analyst Meredith Whitney wrote in a Wall Street Journal Op-Ed article, consumer credit card lines “were reduced by nearly $500 billion in the fourth quarter of 2008 alone.” She estimates that credit card limits for consumers will be halved over the next year, mostly on consumers who have not done anything wrong. This will take “credit away from people who have the ability to pay their bills,” she notes.

So what we have here is socialism without even the pretense of a soul. Certainly that has been the case with the abject refusal of the banks that received government bailouts to be more aggressive in preventing home foreclosures. And the Obama administration has made it clear that it has no intention of taking over the operation of any of the mega-companies that are in trouble, even when, as in the case of AIG, the government already owns 80 percent of the shares. The reason? Because that would be viewed as nationalization.

So what exactly would Obama’s critics do differently? Nothing on the bailout side. Instead, they have settled for carping criticism of the stimulus package, playing games by nitpicking lesser-cost programs while ignoring the big items that most governors, be they Republican or Democrat, eagerly want. The great fear of the GOP seems to be that some of the stimulus program might actually prove helpful to struggling Americans, but the Republicans can’t just come out of the closet and say so.

What they have picked up on instead is that Obama’s tax cuts provide some redistribution of income to favor the rapidly disappearing middle class at the expense of the super-wealthy, who have profited wildly from Bush tax cuts. Which brings us back to Gingrich’s complaint that Obama is importing European socialism. If that means a system of governance in which a robust middle class is rewarded for work with a strong social safety net supported by higher taxes on the most affluent, well, let’s get it on.

A Progressive Journal of News and Opinion. Editor, Robert Scheer. Publisher, Zuade Kaufman.

Bill Moyers on Socialism: http://www-tc.pbs.org/moyers/rss/media/249essay.m4v

Banking crisis:

We do not need to defend the Obama Administration for its economic policies- although they have been half correct. They have the ability to defend themselves. What we can do is clearly define and repeat that the banking crisis and the economic crisis were created during the Bush Administration, as were the contracts for the AIG bonuses.
The TARP was drafted in September 2008. The Bush Administration designed the system which enriched the AIG rich.


The economic crisis began at the international level but it is deeply effecting state and city governments. School funds are slashed, safety net programs are being cut.

A proposal for defending the safety net is here.
http://sites.google.com/site/sacramentodsa/Home/national-safety-net

Can we survive the Great Collapse?

Surviving the Great Collapse

By Robert Kuttner | March 12, 2009

THIS ECONOMIC CRISIS doesn't have to be a second Great Depression - if government does nearly everything right, and soon. But if government doesn't do more, and fast, this could be worse than the 1930s. Why? Three big reasons:

Finance: A Doomsday Machine. The financial system is in far worse shape than it was when the stock market crashed in October 1929. In the 1920s, there was a stock market bubble, mainly because people could play the market "on margin," borrowing to invest in stocks. There were also scams like the original Mr. Ponzi's. Like in the present decade, the Federal Reserve helped to enable the game, with low interest rates and few rules.

But today, thanks to "securitization" of loans and the ability of insiders to create exotic and unfathomable financial instruments, the speculative system makes buying stocks on margin look like child's play. In the aftermath of the crash of 2008, the process of sorting it all out and getting banks functioning again is something that markets simply cannot do.

We are not even clear who owns what. The wise guys on Wall Street invented a doomsday machine from which there is no market escape.

In 1929 when the stock market crashed, the banking system was relatively healthy. Bank customers played these speculative games and took the losses, not banks. This time, the banks drank their own Kool-aid.

It took until the awful winter of 1932-'33 for the general depression to fully infect the banking system, and cause over 7,000 banks to fail. But Roosevelt's cure - deposit insurance and a temporary bank holiday to sort out good banks from bad - quickly got the financial system up and running again. Today, the banking mess is still dragging down the real economy, with no effective cure in sight.

Wealth, Deficits, and Demand. The economy now bears all the hallmarks of a depression. Between the housing collapse and the stock market crash, American households are out several trillion dollars (in the 1920s, there were no 401(k) plans and less than 2 percent of Americans owned stock).

When people are suddenly out a lot of money, they spend less. Weak demand in one sector is cascading into other sectors. People spend less on autos, air travel, hotels, restaurants, clothing - any optional purchase. Business sales and profits are down, which causes other layoffs, and the cycle deepens.

Roosevelt was said to be a big spender, but his biggest peacetime deficit was only about 6 percent of GDP. This year, the deficit will exceed 11 percent, and the recession will deepen all year. It took the truly massive deficits of World War II - nearly 30 percent of GDP - to finally end the Great Depression

A Debtor Nation. America in 1929 was a major international creditor. Today, we are the world's biggest debtor. The financial bubble created the illusion of prosperity.

During the bubble years, the foreign borrowing disguised domestic weaknesses, such as our much-diminished manufacturing sector. For now, foreigners are still willing to lend us vast sums, but that may not continue indefinitely.

All these economic calamities have solutions, but each is more radical than what's currently on offer. The government will have to temporarily nationalize major banks, sort out good assets from bad ones, and then return banks to responsible private ownership. To cure the housing collapse, government should directly refinance mortgages, rather than bribing banks to ease terms.

Deficits will have to be a lot larger before they can get smaller. That should not require a war; this is just as grave a national emergency. Those deficits could purchase much broader prosperity.

This crisis doesn't yet have a name. It has all the hallmarks of a depression, but people are understandably reluctant to use the D-word. So let me suggest one: The Great Collapse, since this was both a financial collapse and an ideological one.

Can America recover from a Great Collapse? Can we avert a second Great Depression? To coin a phrase, yes we can. But we need the right strategies and we don't have much time.

Robert Kuttner is co-editor of The American Prospect and author of "Obama's Challenge: America's Economic Crisis and the Power of a Transformative Presidency."

Nationalize the Banks: don't protect the bankers

The Nationalization Option
By Harold Meyerson
Washington Post
Wednesday, March 18, 2009; A13

You might think that having anted up $173 billion of our own money, we taxpayers would have some leverage at AIG, now that we own 80 percent of the shares. You might think that when chief executive Edward Liddy, a holdover appointee of Hank Paulson's, told Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner that he had just mailed $165 million of our money as bonuses to the geniuses at the firm's financial products unit -- who probably did more on a per-banker basis to destroy global capitalism than any other kindred group -- that Geithner, upon hearing this news, would have responded, "Liddy, you're fired."

But Geithner's indulgence of bankers' indulgences is fast becoming the Obama administration's Achilles' heel. The AIG debacle is the latest in a series of bewildering Geithner decisions that threaten to undermine the administration's efforts to restart the economy. So long as it's Be Kind to Bankers Week at Treasury -- and we've had eight straight such weeks since the president was inaugurated -- American banking, and the economy it is supposed to serve, will remain paralyzed. The Geithner plan to restart the banks provides huge taxpayer subsidies to hedge funds, investment banks and private equity companies to buy the banks' toxic assets without really having to assume the risk. That's right -- the same Wall Street wizards who got us into this mess, using the same securitization techniques that built mountains of debt within a shadow financial system that remains unregulated, are the saviors whom Geithner has anointed to extricate us -- with our capital, not theirs -- from the mess that they created.

A more plausible solution would be for the government to assume control of those banks that are insolvent, as it routinely does when banks go under. It could then install new management, wipe out the shareholders, take the devalued assets off the banks' books, restart lending and restore the banks to private control at a modest profit for the taxpayers. There may be reasons that Geithner's plan makes more sense than this one, but if they exist, Geithner has failed to explain them.

It's certainly not because Americans are dead set against bank nationalization: A Newsweek poll this month found that 56 percent of respondents supported it. Hell, Alan Greenspan supports it. But Geithner seems unable to imagine a banking system not run by its current leaders or owned by its current shareholders or engaged in the same arcane securitization practices that led to its collapse. An administration that is busily creating alternatives to our health-care system and our energy policies is being dragged down by a Treasury secretary who cannot conceive of an alternative to our catastrophic system of banking.

Fortunately, Geithner is not the only public servant grappling with banking's daily outrages. In the Senate, Vermont's Bernie Sanders, joined by Illinois' Dick Durbin, has introduced a bill to cap the interest rates on credit cards. Even as banks are borrowing funds from the Fed interest-free and are counting on taxpayer largess to keep them from going bust, they are still charging usurious rates of interest. In 2007, the Demos Foundation found that one-third of credit card holders were paying rates in excess of 20 percent, in some cases as high as 41 percent, and the rates have not dropped notably since then.

Once, states were able to regulate their banks' rates, but in 1978 the Supreme Court ruled that banks operating nationwide could charge whatever they wished if they moved their operations to states that had no usury laws, such as South Dakota. Shortly thereafter, Citigroup moved its credit card headquarters to South Dakota, and, as we know, Americans began funneling more and more of their money to the banks. Sanders's bill would cap interest rates at 15 percent, which is the same rate cap that Congress set 30 years ago for federal credit unions.

In 1991, New York Republican Alphonse D'Amato authored a bill to cap credit card rates at 14 percent. It passed the Senate 74 to 19, but died in the House. Today, as populist rage at the banks rises, Congress and the administration should be racing to pass the Sanders bill.

Sanders and Durbin have two things that Tim Geithner sorely lacks: a capacity to envision a less predatory, more salutary form of banking and a determination to enact such reforms. No one expects Tim Geithner to become a born-again populist, but is it asking too much of him that he come up with a plan that doesn't throw our money at the same bankers engaged in the same old practices that brought us to this pass? Is it too much to ask that he nationalize the insolvent banks and stop shoring up a bankrupt system?

Harold Meyerson, Washington Post
meyersonh@washpost.com

Bill Maher vs teacher unions

Real Time with Bill Maher
On the March 13, 2009 show, Bill Maher used Barack Obama’s comments on the need for school reform as a foil to launch into some extended criticism of teachers unions- This was not part of the President’s message. Unfortunately Maher seemed to be operating from Business Roundtable talking points rather than a serious analysis of the school crisis.
I have not yet been able to get the transcript.
His first claim was that union rules prevent teachers from being fired and that many teachers should be fired. He implies that problem with our schools in crisis was that administrators could not fire teachers.
Well, lets look at that. Large numbers of new teachers quit each year, almost 50% in the first 5 years of teaching. So, there is significant turn over.
And, to understand our school crisis, you need to know that there are many schools that work just fine, usually in middle class neighborhoods, and many urban schools that are crisis zones. There are few teachers fired in both parts of the system. There is a radical difference in where teachers quit. So, there does not seem to be evidence that not firing teachers makes the difference between successful and failing schools.
Where is the evidence?
Maher properly cited drop outs, as did Michael Eric Dyson as a measure of school failure. The drop out crisis is real and severe. What are the causes? Well there are many. However, note that the drop out rate between Freshmen and Seniors in college is higher than the drop out rate between Freshmen and Seniors in high school. And, the drop out or push out rate at community colleges is even higher.
So, what is the cause of the drop outs? Is it unionized teachers? No evidence has been provided.
Most cities now have a number of charter schools where teaches do not have union protection. Some of these charters are doing a good job, like the KIPP schools. The drop out rates, and the push out rates in the charter schools is parallel to the drop out rates in the public high schools. Teacher turn over, including firings, is high in these charters. Yet the achievement rates and the drop out rates are similar.

There is much more to say on this subject. But, this is a blog, not a textbook. You can read the detailed version by reading my book, Choosing Democracy: a practical guide to multicultural education. ( 4th edition, 2010).
While the media and the corporations argue that the schools are failing, I think it is more likely that the society has failed the schools – in particular state legislators and local governments have failed the schools.
First, we need consider the processes of schooling in the social, political, and cultural, and economic context which surrounds the school and to a significant degree controls the schools. Schools did not create and can not resolve the racial, class and gender divisions in our society. But, what schools can do is to effect individual students lives every day. Our multicultural society requires multicultural schooling. Students from all cultural and ethnic groups must succeed, and must learn to get along and to respect each other.

As my friend the late Henry Trueba said
“Education is crucial to the realization of the American dream. The reason is that it is primarily through the acquisition of knowledge and skills associated with formal education that immigrant and low-income students become empowered and a part of mainstream America. It is particularly relevant to speak of multicultural education as the kind of education that will permit Americans to become aware of “democracy at work,” realize their full potential, and live in harmony.”
This is time for a change for our society and in our schools. This generation must renew our democratic society. We face marked crises in government, politics, the economy, families, communities and in the schools. Public schools have a particular responsibility to reverse these crises and to renew our democratic society. The first mission of pubic schooling is to equip all students for the responsibilities and privileges of citizenship – and many of the schools in low income areas are presently not fulfilling this mission. If we do not solve the problems of low performing schools our democracy suffers. For our democracy to survive we need to create schools that value all of our children and encourages each of their educational achievement.

All children need a good education to participate in our democracy and prepare for life in the rapidly changing economy. Making schooling valuable and useful is vital to prosperity for all. Lack of education is a ticket to economic hardship. The more years of school that a student completes, the more money they are likely to earn as adults and the better their chance to get and keep a good job. Unemployment is highest among school dropouts as is incarceration for crimes. When we fail to educate all of our children, the high costs of this failure come back to hurt us in unemployment, drugs, crime, incarceration, violence and social conflict.


We need to invest in urban schools, provide equal educational opportunities in these schools, and recruit a well prepared teaching force that begins to reflect the student populations in these schools. We must insist on equal opportunity to learn, without compromise. When we do these things, we will begin to protect the freedom to learn for our children and our grandchildren, and to build a more just and democratic society.
Teacher advocates for democratic educational opportunities challenge those social forces acting to preserve the present inequalities and injustices in our schools. We consider schools as sites for the struggle for or against more democracy in our society. The struggle for education improvement and education equality will be a long one. The struggle for multicultural education, based in democratic theory, is an important part of the general struggle against race, class, and gender oppression and for democracy.
Schools serving urban and impoverished populations need fundamental change. These schools do not open the doors to economic opportunity. They usually do not promote equality. Instead, they recycle inequality. The high school drop out rates alone demonstrate that urban schools prepare less than 50 percent of their students for entrance into the economy and society. A democratic agenda for school reform includes insisting on fair taxation and adequate funding for all children. Political leaders in most states have not yet decided to address the real issues of school reform. We cannot build a safe, just, and prosperous society while we leave so many young people behind.
At present there is not a political agreement to make the necessary investments to bring about substantial school reform. The U.S. government and your state government will not make the necessary investments to improve education, nor to improve health care or to rebuild the economic infrastructure until we stop investing over 850 Billion dollars in the war in Iraq and Afghanistan and whichever military intervention follows. Funding choices made at federal, state and local levels directly affect our children.
The conservative/ media emphasis on accountability for schools, and Bill Maher’s talking points are a distortion. We know which schools need improvement, and we know how to improve them..

The problem is to provide the resources, including well prepared teachers with adequate support, needed to make the current schools successful. We face a choice between providing high-quality schools only for the middle and upper classes, and underfunded, understaffed schools for the poor. Or, we can also choose to work together to improve schools that are presently failing.

Duane Campbell
Director. Democracy and Education Institute – Sacramento
http://sites.google.com/site/democracyandeducationorg/

Lula: The Future of Human Beings is What Matters

Lula: The Future of Human Beings is What Matters

By Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva
President of Brazil.

Financial Times
March 9, 2009

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/4623a78e-0ce2-11de-a555-0000779fd2ac.html

For me, capitalism has never been an abstract concept.
It is a real, concrete part of everyday life. When I
was a boy, my family left the rural misery of Brazil's
north-east and set off for Sao Paulo. My mother, an
extraordinary woman of great courage, uprooted herself
and her children and moved to the industrial centre of
Brazil in search of a better life. My childhood was no
different from that of many boys from poor families:
informal jobs; very little formal education. My only
diploma was as a machine lathe operator, from a course
at the National Service for Industry.

I began to experience the reality of factory life,
which awoke in me my vocation as a union leader. I
became a member of the Metalworkers'

Union of Sao Bernardo, in the outskirts of Sao Paulo. I
became the union's president and, as such, led the
strikes of 1978-1980 that changed the face of the
Brazilian labour movement and played a big role in
returning democracy to the country, then under military
dictatorship.

The impact of the union movement on Brazilian society
led us to create the Workers' party, which brought
together urban and rural workers, intellectuals and
militants from civil society. Brazilian capitalism, at
that time, was not only a matter of low salaries,
insalubrious working conditions and repression of the
union movement. It was also expressed in economic
policy and in the whole set of the government's public
policies, as well as in the restrictions it placed on
civil liberties. Together with millions of other
workers, I discovered it was not enough merely to
demand better salaries and working conditions. It was
fundamental that we should fight for citizenship and
for a profound reorganisation of economic and social
life.

I fought and lost four elections before being elected
president of the republic in 2002. In opposition, I
came to know my country intimately. In discussions with
intellectuals I thrashed out the alternatives for our
society, living out on the periphery of the world a
drama of stagnation and profound social inequality. But
my greatest understanding of Brazil came from direct
contact with its people through the 'caravans of
citizenship' that took me across tens of thousands of
kilometres.

When I arrived in the presidency, I found myself faced
not only by serious structural problems but, above all,
by an inheritance of ingrained inequalities. Most of
our governors, even those that enacted reforms in the
past, had governed for the few. They concerned
themselves with a Brazil in which only a third of the
population mattered.

The situation I inherited was one not only of material
difficulties but also of deep-rooted prejudices that
threatened to paralyse our government and lead us into
stagnation. We could not grow, it was said, without
threatening economic stability - much less grow and
distribute wealth. We would have to choose between the
internal market and the external. Either we accepted
the unforgiving imperatives of the globalised economy
or we would be condemned to fatal isolation.

Over the past six years, we have destroyed those myths.
We have grown and enjoyed economic stability. Our
growth has been accompanied by the inclusion of tens
of millions of Brazilian people in the consumer market.
We have distributed wealth to more than 40m who lived
below the poverty line. We have ensured that the
national minimum wage has risen always above the rate
of inflation. We have democratised access to credit. We
have created more than 10m jobs. We have pushed forward
with land reform. The expansion of our domestic market
has not happened at the expense of exports - they have
tripled in six years. We have attracted enormous
volumes of foreign investment with no loss of
sovereignty.

All this has enabled us to accumulate $207bn in foreign
reserves and thereby protect ourselves from the worst
effects of a financial crisis that, born at the centre
of capitalism, threatens the entire structure of the
global economy.

Nobody dares to predict today what will be the future
of capitalism.

As the governor of a great economy described as
'emerging', what I can say is what sort of society I
hope will emerge from this crisis. It will reward
production and not speculation. The function of the
financial sector will be to stimulate productive
activity - and it will be the object of rigorous
controls, both national and international, by means of
serious and representative organisations. International
trade will be free of the protectionism that shows
dangerous signs of intensifying. The reformed
multilateral organisations will operate programmes to
support poor and emerging economies with the aim of
reducing the imbalances that scar the world today.
There will be a new and democratic system of global
governance. New energy policies, reform of systems of
production and of patterns of consumption will ensure
the survival of a planet threatened today by global
warming.

But, above all, I hope for a world free of the economic
dogmas that invaded the thinking of many and were
presented as absolute truths. Anti-cyclical policies
must not be adopted only when a crisis is under way.
Applied in advance - as they have been in Brazil - they
can be the guarantors of a more just and democratic
society.

As I said at the outset, I do not give much importance
to abstract concepts.

I am not worried about the name to be given to the
economic and social order that will come after the
crisis, so long as its central concern is with human
beings.

__________________

Banking crisis: Baker

A Talk With Dean Baker: "We Really Need Much More
Stimulus"

By Leo Gerard Campaign for America's Future March 4,
2009

http://www.ourfuture.org/blog-entry/2009031004/talk-dean-baker-we-really-need-much-more-stimulus

Leo W. Gerard: Economist James K. Galbraith, the Lloyd
M. Bentsen Jr. Chair in Government/Business Relations
at the University of Texas, recently told Deborah
Solomon of the New York Times that you are 'the person
with the most serious claim' for predicting the
onslaught of the current credit disaster.

The promo for your most recent book, "Plunder and
Blunder: The Rise and Fall of the Bubble Economy"
(PoliPoint Press, 2009), says the fall of the bubble
economy was 'completely predictable.' But you were
standing nearly alone out there for some time yelling,
'The collapse is coming, the collapse is coming.'

When did you get the first inkling that the collapse
was impending and what did that feel like?

Dean Baker: I learned from the stock bubble in the
1990s that the timing was hard to predict but I first
became convinced that it was starting to burst in the
fall of 2006, (house prices had begun to fall) and I
wrote a forecast projecting a recession for 2007. It
turned out that I was still somewhat premature. I was
expecting the price decline to gain speed more quickly
and to have a more immediate impact on the economy.
However, according to the National Bureau of Economic
Research, the official arbiter of recessions, the
current recession did begin in 2007, so I was not too
far off.

As a more general matter, I did feel somewhat
vindicated, although it was striking to me, that even
as the bubble was very much in the process of deflating
in late 2007 or even early 2008, most economists were
still convinced that it would have little consequence
for the economy. I recall repeated pronouncements from
former Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson and Federal
Reserve Board Chairman Ben Bernanke that the problems
were contained in the subprime market.

Gerard: What were the clues you saw that others ignored
or missed?

Baker: For most economists, the idea that a market
would take leave from its senses - that it would be
driven by speculation - is almost inconceivable. Given
that we had just seen a massive bubble in the stock
market, it really should not have surprised people to
see one also develop in the housing market.

The main factor that attracted my attention was the
sudden spurt in house prices beginning in the mid-90s.
For the hundred years from the 1890s to the 1990s,
house prices nationwide had just tracked the overall
rate of inflation. Yet, from 1995 to 2002 (when I first
noticed the bubble), house prices rose by 30 percent in
excess of the rate of inflation.

There was no explanation for this sudden jump in prices
based on the fundamentals of supply and demand. Income
growth had been healthy in the late 90s, but not
extraordinary by the standard of the early post-war
years. Furthermore, income growth had largely stopped
during the 2001 recession.

Population growth was slowing, which should have slowed
housing demand. On the supply side, we were building
houses at near record rates, so clearly there was no
serious supply constraint.

If there is a big run-up in house prices and no obvious
force driving it on either the demand or the supply
side, then it sure looks like a bubble. Just as
additional confirmation, I checked rents, which tend to
more or less follow sale prices. Rents had increased
only slightly more than the rate of inflation in the
late 90s, and by this decade, they were falling behind
inflation. There certainly was no evidence of growing
demand pressure on the housing market there.

Finally, I noticed the rise in vacancy rates. This is
consistent with people buying homes for speculative
purposes. Many investors were willing to gamble on a
high price for a new home or condo, betting that it
would go up even more in the future. Of course, this is
not sustainable. Not many people can afford to keep a
unit vacant for a long time, since it means that they
are paying the mortgage and getting little or nothing
back. The high vacancy rates of this era virtually
guaranteed that the bubble would burst.

Gerard: Did you also see problems with subprime
mortgages contributing to the bubble?

Baker: The problems in the mortgage market were hardly
a secret. The subprime share of the market nearly
tripled from 2002 to 2006. The Alt-A share, which are
typically mortgages taken out by small business owners
with variable income (and often in accurate tax
returns), exploded from around 1 percent to 15 percent.
This should have set off flashing red lights to any
serious economist.

And, the stories about liar loans and phony documents
were everywhere. I was getting e-mail from people
around the country telling me about friends and
relatives employed by mortgage banks who were told to
put in fake numbers so that the banks could issue
loans. Certainly the regulatory agencies must have
known this was going on.

Gerard: But if you noticed those clues, and looking
back on it, those clues are actually quite obvious, why
did the vast majority of financial analysts and
economists and managers for large investment funds
including pensions and endowments, fail to see the
bubble and its implications?

Baker: The bulk of financial analysts and economists
largely repeat the conventional wisdom without ever
seriously trying to assess whether it makes sense. They
unthinkingly follow the conventional wisdom because of
the structure of incentives in their profession. No one
is going to get fired because they didn't see the
housing bubble. In fact, few people are likely to even
miss a promotion because they didn't see the bubble.

Economists and financial analysts are not like
steelworkers or people in other occupations. They don't
get evaluated based on their performance. They can mess
up every day of the week through their whole careers,
and this would be just fine, as long as they messed up
in the same way as their peers.

On the other hand, the few economists/analysts who
spoke up to warn about the bubble were taking huge
risks. Of course, we were all ridiculed at the time. If
you were an economist working at a major investment
bank and tried to tell them that all their big money-
making deals were going to get them in trouble, they
would probably tell you to shut up and fire you if you
didn't.

If the housing market stayed strong and house prices
kept rising or just remained stable, then any economist
who had warned of the bubble would be laughed off as a
chicken little.

In short, the incentives are such that the overwhelming
majority of economists will never challenge
conventional wisdom even if they think it is wrong.
They are there to hold on to their jobs, not to inform
the public about the economy.

Gerard: Did you know the collapse would be this bad?
How bad will it get?

Baker: I knew that it could be very bad. I was trying
to be contained in my pessimism (I couldn't completely
ignore the conventional wisdom either), but I did warn
that the downturn could develop into a Japan-style
financial crisis. This obviously is the case that we
are looking at. Of course, if the Fed and Treasury had
moved more quickly, they could have prevented some of
the damage that the financial system is now seeing.

The same applies to fiscal stimulus. It was painful
sitting through the months of the election campaign and
then the transition when the government was completely
paralyzed. At that point, economists from across the
political spectrum all recognized that the economy
needed further stimulus, but the politics were such
that nothing could move.

As it is, the stimulus package passed by Congress is a
good start, but it is nowhere near big enough to turn
the economy around. The unemployment rate is virtually
certain to shoot past 8.0 percent in the February jobs
report and is likely to hit 9.0 percent by summer. If
we are lucky, the stimulus will provide enough of a
boost to keep the unemployment rate from reaching 10
percent, although I would not take this for granted at
this point.

In addition to higher unemployment, house prices will
continue to fall at least until summer. The big
question in my mind is whether house prices return to
their pre-bubble level or they overshoot on the way
down. At this point, I would bet on overshooting. This
implies an even larger loss of wealth for homeowners,
more foreclosures and more big losses for banks.

Gerard: Will the stimulus stop the free fall?

Baker: If we are to turn things around, we really need
much more stimulus and we need it quickly. My favorite
idea at this point is a tax credit to employers for
giving workers paid time off. For example, if employers
offer paid parental leave or sick leave, or paid
vacation, or increase the days they already offer, then
the tax credit would cover the lost work. This can be a
quick way to get millions of people back to work.

The arithmetic on this is straightforward. Suppose that
employers of 100 million people give their workers an
amount of additional paid time off that is equal to 5
percent of their work time. These employers would
suddenly have demand for 5 percent more workers, or 5
million workers. I can't think of a quicker, less
bureaucratic way to create jobs at this point,
especially now that we have already funded most of the
shovel-ready infrastructure projects.

Gerard: What must be done to prevent this from
recurring?

Baker: There are two key points. First we must rein in
the political and economic power of the financial
sector. The financial sector must serve the real
economy, not the other way around. There is a long list
of reforms that are needed to ensure this outcome, but
the main point is that an efficient financial sector is
a small financial sector.

One way to keep it small is to tax it. If we had a very
modest financial transactions tax, for example 0.25
percent on the purchase or sale of a share of stock, it
would have very little impact on people who invest for
the long-term. However, it would have a huge impact on
people who are buying at 2:00 and selling at 3:00. This
sort of tax would discourage such speculation, making
the markets friendlier to long-term investors.

It would also reduce the size of the financial sector,
since the industry makes much of its profit off this
sort of speculation. In addition, such a tax could
raise more than $100 billion a year. That's real money
even in Washington.

The other point is that a balanced economy, in which
workers share in the gains of growth, is not conducive
to financial bubbles. We didn't have any major bubbles
in the three decades following World War II. During
this period, productivity gains were passed on in wage
gains, which in turn fed consumption, which led firms
to invest in expanded capacity. The basis for the
bubble economy was created in the 80s when this
virtuous circle broke down and workers could no longer
count on seeing their wages rise in step with
productivity.

In short, if we want to prevent another financial
bubble and the sort of economic collapse caused by its
bursting, we should support policies that allow workers
to share in the gains of growth. That sort of world
favors investment in the productive economy rather than
financial speculation.

=====

[Leo Gerard is president of the United Steelworkers of
America (USWA)

[Dean Baker, co-director of the Center for Economic and
Policy Research in Washington, D.C., has written
several books. His most recent, "Plunder and Blunder:
The Rise and Fall of the Bubble Economy" (PoliPoint
Press, 2009), chronicles the growth and collapse of the
stock and housing bubbles and explains how policy
blunders and greed led to the catastrophic market
meltdowns.]

__________________________

Wall Street vs working people

Stimulus funds sent to schools

March 9, 2009
U.S. to Nation’s Schools: Spend Fast, Keep Receipts

By SAM DILLON
Arne Duncan, the secretary of education, sent a message to the nation’s school officials last week: Heads up! We’ll be sending you billions of dollars by month’s end. Spend the money quickly but wisely. And keep receipts; we’ll be asking.

The message, which went out Friday in documents e-mailed to governors, state education commissioners and thousands of school superintendents, provided the first broad guidelines for how the Education Department intends to channel $100 billion to the nation’s 14,000 school districts over the next few months. The expenditure is part of the Obama administration’s economic stimulus package.

Some $44 billion will be made available to states before the end of this month, Mr. Duncan said, in the hope that layoffs can be averted. Hundreds of thousands of job losses in schools had been projected for the fall because of growing state budget deficits caused by a steep drop in tax revenues.

More school stimulus money will be distributed in the spring through the fall, the documents said, after states apply for the financing and provide Congressionally mandated “assurances” to Mr. Duncan that they are complying with federal education laws.

“Spend funds quickly to save and create jobs,” a five-page guidance document sent to the education officials said. It also urged educators to use the money in the stimulus package, known as the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, in ways that “improve school achievement through school improvement and reform.” It also warned them to keep records of expenditures.

The guidance admonished educators to spend the stimulus money, which is temporary, in ways that would minimize the dislocation that could follow when it ran out in two years. Some department officials are describing the exhaustion of the stimulus money in two years as a “cliff” over which school districts could plunge if they do not spend the money wisely.

The money to be made available to states this month includes $5 billion in Title I financing, for disadvantaged students; about $6 billion for disabled students; and about $33 billion in fiscal stabilization money, which governors are to use to replenish education programs slashed in recent years and to prevent cuts to state education budgets for the coming school year.

Obama on schools, teachers, and education

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/03/10/AR2009031000146.html?hpid=topnews
Obama Pitches Strategy to Improve Teaching Corps, Overhaul U.S. Education

By Scott Wilson
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, March 10, 2009; 1:55 PM
President Obama today sharply criticized America's public school system, and he outlined a strategy to reward good teachers and fire bad ones, establish uniform academic achievement standards and increase spending on the first and final stages of a person's education.
In a speech to the U.S. Hispanic Chamber of Commerce, Obama called on teachers unions, state education officials and parents to change a "relative decline of American education" that "is untenable for our economy, unsustainable for our democracy and unacceptable for our children."

"For decades, Washington has been trapped in the same stale debates that have paralyzed progress and perpetuated our educational decline," Obama said. "Too many supporters of my party have resisted the idea of rewarding excellence in teaching with extra pay, even though it can make a difference in the classroom. Too many in the Republican Party have opposed new investments in early education, despite compelling evidence of its importance."

Obama's speech, his first devoted to education since he became president, had a tone of urgency at a time when the public education system is scheduled to receive about $100 billion of new federal money under the recently passed stimulus plan. The money might give Obama and his education secretary, Arne Duncan, more power to change a public education system traditionally guided more at the state and local levels than by the federal government.

Although many of the ideas he outlined have been proposed before or are in the works, Obama used the speech to offer a sense of his priorities, linking many of them to the success of the U.S. economy. He encouraged experimentation in the public school system, including lifting the limits on the number of charter schools allowed in some states and considering longer school days to bring U.S. classroom hours in line with some Asian countries where students are scoring higher on standardized tests.
The president signaled a willingness to take on some traditional Democratic constituencies, including teachers unions, which in the past have been skeptical of some merit pay proposals. Senior administration officials, who declined to be named because they were describing the speech before it was delivered, said Obama would include the unions in discussions about any incentive plans.

He said he intends to treat "teachers like the professionals they are while also holding them more accountable." Good teachers will be given pay raises, he said, and "be asked to accept more responsibility for lifting up their schools."

But Obama also said stated that school systems must be "taking steps to move bad teachers out of the classroom."

"Let me be clear: If a teacher is given a chance but still does not improve, there is no excuse for that person to continue teaching," Obama said. "I reject a system that rewards failure and protects a person from its consequences."

Randi Weingarten, president of the American Federation of Teachers, a union with more than a million members, said in a statement that "teachers want to make a difference in kids' lives, and they appreciate a president who shares that goal and will spend his political capital to provide the resources to make it happen."

"As with any public policy, the devil is in the details," Weingarten said. "And it is important that teachers' voices are heard as we implement the president's vision."

Obama's call for states to adopt uniform academic achievement standards is likely to anger many Republicans, who generally favor giving local school systems the ability to design curriculum and set testing standards. To make his point, Obama said, "Today's system of 50 different sets of benchmarks for academic success means fourth-grade readers in Mississippi are scoring nearly 70 points lower than students in Wyoming -- and getting the same grade."

Obama chose the venue, senior administration officials said, to emphasize the growing proportion of Latinos entering the public school system. Obama said a quarter of public-school kindergartners are Latino, adding that they "are less likely to be enrolled in early education programs than anyone else." He said the stimulus plan includes $5 billion to expand the Early Head Start and Head Start programs.

He also noted that Latino students are "dropping out faster than just about anyone else," a national problem that cuts across ethnic lines he said must be resolved. He noted that "just 2,000 high schools in cities like Detroit, Los Angeles, and Philadelphia produce over 50 percent of America's dropouts."

Regarding higher education, Obama said he would expand several federally funded grant programs, including allowing Pell Grants to rise at the rate of inflation and take on "wasteful student loan subsidies." The goal, he said, was to make "college affordable for 7 million more students."

"So, yes, we need more money. Yes, we need more reform. Yes, we need to hold ourselves accountable for every dollar we spend," Obama said. "But there is one more ingredient I want to talk to about. The bottom line is that no government policies will make any difference unless we also hold ourselves more accountable as parents."

How the bankers robbed the banks

Blame beyond Washington
March 9: Countdown - Keith Olbermann places the blame for the economic downturn past President Barack Obama and President Bush to the Wall Street executives who paid politicians and brought deregulation.



http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/3036677/vp/29604900#29604900

President's sister to speak on campus

President’s sister to speak on campus


Maya Soetoro-Ng with her brother President Barack Obama and his daughters, Sasha (in his arms) and Malia and her daughter Suhaila. Soetoro-Ng will speak on campus March 17.


Maya Soetoro-Ng, sister of President Barack Obama, will give a speech on leadership and service at 2 p.m., Tuesday, March 17, in the University Union Ballroom.

The lecture is sponsored by Sacramento State’s Cooper-Woodson College Enhancement Program, UNIQUE Programs and the Departments of Pan African Studies, Asian American Studies and Ethnic Studies.

Ng was invited to speak by Boatamo Mosupyoe, director of CWC. She and Ng are board members of Global Majority, a non-profit organization promoting non-violent conflict resolution.

Ng, who was born in Jakarta, Indonesia, is a high school teacher at a school for girls in Hawaii. She teaches world cultures, U.S. history and the Constitution and Peacemakers, a course she designed on the power of nonviolence. She is also a lecturer at the University of Hawaii's College of Education where she teaches multi-cultural education and the history of education.

She holds a master’s degree in secondary education and a doctorate in international comparative education. She and her husband Konrad have a 4-year-old daughter, Suhaila.

For more info on the visit, contact Mosupyoe at 278-7570.