Class War news---tune in tonight.

It's handy deciding what is reported on the TV news and how it is reported. Here's a small example.  I actually don't watch too much local news because it's pretty bad, very provincial. On comes a story about county supervisors who were "forced" to vote to close a number of fire stations because "voters" refused to pass a parcel tax to pay to keep them open.  A parcel tax is a homeowners tax, or property tax.   These taxes on workers and the middle class are put on the ballot as the only way we can save education, save public services etc. I never support these taxes because they don't save what they are claimed to and it is simply continuing the assault on workers and the middle class and lastly, it makes it harder to build a united mass movement that can go after the minority who actually are stealing all the money.

So the reason that there are potential life threatening closures of fire stations is the voter won't increase their own taxes and reduce their disposable income.   There is no way one could come away with a different conclusion and that's intentional, it was stated as such.

The reporter could have said: "Due  to the 6 trillion or so of taxpayer money that Washington and the Pentagon are spending on wars to secure profits for US corporations abroad, Americans will have to do without vital services at home."

Or he could have said: "Due to the massive accumulation of wealth by fewer and fewer individuals and their shifting of this wealth , more than $26 trillion of it, in to offshore tax havens, Americans will have to do without more and more public services."

On the other hand, the reporter could have quoted Business Week, a very sober and astute journal of the 1% that warned over thirty years ago, "

-->It will be a hard pill for many Americans to swallow--the idea of doing with less so that big business can have more...Nothing that this nation, or any other nation, has done in modern economic history compares with the selling job that must be done to make people accept this reality. "Business Week 10-12-74.  He then could have apologized but added that we can't say we weren't warned.

All the above would be true of course.  But why tell the truth.  As I reported on this blog some time ago, I was sitting in my bosses office in my capacity as a shop steward one day and as he was out copying some document I glanced at the book he was reading.  I didn't get past the first page and the advice from the author who wrote: 

-->

"If you're going to strive to motivate workers through autonomy and empowerment, it's important to remember that the primary burden is to make sure employees believe what you say. Don't tell them you want them to be empowered to increase the company's profits.  Tell them you want them to be empowered because it's the best way to remain competitive and guarantee everyone their jobs."

Carl Robinson, Vice President, Organizational Psychologists.

But that's the advantage of owning the media and the means of information in society. It has a class point of view.  It's not an accident that the dominant ideology in feudal times was the Divine Right of Kings. The king was king by the grace of the creator of all life. I wonder where that idea came from.

And the story immediately following the one about stupid voters that put their community in danger because they didn't want to raise their taxes?   A detailed report on fraud and waste among public sector workers.

And there's no such thing as class war!

Family reunion?

Best of Craigslist

Feline Lap Surrogate

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Date: 2012-11-28, 11:46AM EST

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This title says it all. I work from home and I need someone to sit next to me and allow my cat to sit on their lap (the cat is attention seeking, and has been decreasing my productivity as of late). This is a morning shift from 8am-12pm at $15/hr. I do not need anyone in the afternoon since the sun warms the window sill by that point, and the cat will prefer the window sill to a lap. Breakfast and lunch will be provided each day.

You must have experience handling cats, no allergies, and a plus for experience with older cats (mine is 18yrs old).

Fox newsman punched: Things getting hot in Michigan

There is no doubt, especially due to the role of the Labor officialdom that supports the bosses' "shared sacrifice" policy, that sections of the US capitalist class are a little overconfident. They are forgetting our history and the battles fought to win what we have today in the face of the most blatant violence on the part of the bosses. Michigan is the home of the great 44 day Flint sit down and the factory occupations that forced the mighty GM to accept Unions. Flint should be US labor's 4th of July.  This anger we see here is the result of years of cuts and savage attacks on workers and our living standards and rights. The auto workers especially have seen drastic cuts. Unity, defiance of the law, opposition to racism, sexism, and all efforts to divide and weakens workers is what will turn this thing around. Factory and workplace occupations are what will win, organized anger.

Millions of Americans disgusted with Democrats and Republicans

There is no doubt that class polarization has increased in US society.  The massive widening of the inequality gap is accepted barring a few nutcases, the same types that might deny that global temperatures are on the rise, or that label climate change as a hoax.

In the electoral arena we have a dictatorship, a monopoly of the electoral process by the Democrats and the Republicans, the two political parties representing the corporations and Wall Street.  They have mapped out the electoral turf and designed it so that there are fewer and fewer areas that might be called “swing” states so that, as the Wall Street Journal points out, Republican areas are growing “darker red”while Democratic areas “darker blue.”

This is very useful in that there is no need for politicians of either party to waste much time in these “safe”areas.  The name of the game is to simply increase the number of “safe” areas for each party and battle it out on a much smaller scale for the rest. Their media will reach the others; that's what ads are for. That's one reason why elections cost hundreds billions of dollars really.  Outside of these safe areas, the red or the blue, the so-called “swing states”are rapidly declining in number. “The number of states that are so clearly red or so clearly blue that they aren’t seriously contested in presidential races, is climbing while the number of swing states in the middle is falling” the Journal reports. In 1960, 20 states were tight races, with the outcome decided by less than 5% of the votes. In 2000, only 12 were considered competitive states and this year only 4.

The Journal explains (something we all pretty much know) that there are many states, “..that have become so clearly aligned in presidential politics…..that neither parties presidential contenders seriously compete in them.”

This is all interesting stuff.  But there is a very stark and obvious statistic that doesn’t find its way in to the mix and that is those who have withdrawn from the political process altogether. It’s hard to determine that but we can get some idea. According to the Elections Project and leaving out the 5 million or more felons denied the right to vote because of felony disenfranchisement, there are 240,926,957 Americans of voting age.  Although the turnout for the fall election has not yet been calculated, the Bipartisan Research Center estimates it at 57.5% of the eligible voters.  I am assuming “eligible” is the same as voting age minus felon disenfranchisement, those living abroad etc. By my estimation that means that 138,000,000 Americans able to vote chose not to.

How can a figure like this be ignored?  It’s not hard to figure that out. If we take the right to vote, it was won from the capitalist class through a long heroic struggle.  White men without property were unable to vote, blacks were unable to vote, not even considered citizens, women etc. Full enfranchisement was realized in 1965 with the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965, and the ratification of the 24th Amendmentin 1964.  (See here)

One hundred and thirty eight million possible voters are ignored because the political parties and their representatives have nothing to say to them that might inspire them to.  In some of these local elections, candidates are endorsed by the local trade Union movement (which means the leadership), as well as the Chamber of Commerce.  This is absurd when you think about it.  The US Chamber of Commerce supports the Right to Work (for less) laws and is anti-Union.

Some people argue that these people don’t vote because Americans are “apathetic”or we “don’t care”.  But this is the wrong conclusion to draw. They have simply drawn the conclusion that in the main their lives will not change that much, certainly on the issues that matter most, food, shelter, a job that pays the rent, health care, etc. Because the two Wall Street parties both agree that the burden of the capitalist crisis will borne born by workers, the poor and sections of the middle class, people who feel they must vote (for the right reasons) tend to vote on “moral”issues of importance to them personally, identity politics is the result: abortion or gun rights, prayer in school gay marriage etc.  It’s not that these issues are not important to people but the issues that matter most are food, shelter, security, health a job etc. If you’re going to earn $8 an hour no matter who gets in, then the other issues take on a greater importance.

The unfortunate aspect of this is that millions make the mistake that all politics is bad, all politicians are corrupt. Many young people are completely opposed to political activity due to this view that is strengthened with the absence of a genuine mass workers party.  That we have no party of our own is primarily the fault of the heads of organized Labor who are wedded to capitalism, the market and the Democratic Party.

This absence of a political alternative for workers has meant huge and at times violent battles in the streets and workplaces. We have seen a resurgence of this side of our heroic traditions with the Occupy Movement, that with all its weaknesses used direct action and open defiance of their laws while the Labor officialdom bow down to their laws, their courts and legality; the capitalist class responds to this with violence.   And despite the success of the Democrats and their allies atop organized labor to derail it, we saw 100,000 workers, many fresh layers, on the streets of Madison Wisconsin.  It’s clear that organized labor has been working inside Walmart and other retailers and the fast food industry trying to organize as recent actions in this sector show. The Union hierarchy sees tremendous revenue potential here. But, as is always the case, regardless of the intentions of those that initially give it life, a movement can get out of their control.

These 138 million people, and those that felt the need to vote if just to keep the nastier and most openly racist of the parties out of the White House, are not the conservative mass that the mass media would have us believe.  The continued attacks on basic Union rights is likely to intensify clashes on the streets and in the workplaces in the period ahead, especially as further economic crisis looms, and it is most likely out of such movements the workers’ independent political voice will be born.

Chinese farmer has built survival pod Mayan apocalypse

With just ten days to go before the Mayan apocalypse supposedly spells the end of the world, many believers may be looking for ways to dodge doomsday.

But one farmer in China believes he is ready for any eventuality after building seven emergency survival pods.

Liu Qiyuan created the fibreglass shells - dubbed Noah's Ark - after being inspired by the apocalyptic Hollywood movie 2012

Building them around a steel frame in a yard at his home in the village of Qiantun, Hebei province, south of Beijing, he says the pods can offer life-saving shelter during natural disasters such as tsunamis and hurricanes.

The pods are able to float on water and some of have their own propulsion.   The airtight spheres with varying interiors contain oxygen tanks and seatbelts with space for around 14 people, and are designed to remain upright when in water.

 source

Darwin the IKEA monkey had quite the wardrobe