>democracy.
>
>Over the past two decades Republicans have controlled the
>White House for 12 years, the Democrats for eight years.
>Congressional control has shifted back and forth.
>
>During this time there has been an immense increase in the
>U.S. prison population, which now exceeds 2 million people-
>-over four times what it was in 1980.
>
>The Republican presidential candidate, Texas Gov. George
>W. Bush, has been rightly labeled "Gov. Death" for the 140
>executions carried out under his regime. But his Democratic
>predecessor, Ann Richards, was no less an advocate of the
>racist, anti-poor death penalty.
>
>In California, Democratic Gov. Gray Davis enthusiastically
>supported Proposition 21, which allowed 14-year-olds to be
>jailed in adult prisons and executed.
>
>At a time when police brutality is exploding everywhere,
>it
>
>
>should be remembered that in 1992 Democratic candidate Bill
>Clinton promised to put 100,000 more cops on the street.
>President Clinton fulfilled that pledge--unlike the
>promises he made regarding health care, education,
>equality, lesbians and gay men in the military, and so on.
>
>Clinton signed the Anti-Terrorism and Effective Death
>Penalty Act of 1996, which greatly restricts death-row
>prisoners' right to appeal and has speeded the pace of
>executions.
>
>Bush promises to continue and intensify the war against
>Iraq launched by his father 10 years ago. George Sr.'s war
>killed up to a quarter of a million Iraqis and destroyed
>the country's infrastructure.
>
>But the Clinton-Gore administration continued the
>sanctions begun under Bush and continues to bomb Iraq
>several times a week.
>
>Now the death toll has reached genocidal proportions--more
>than 1.5 million Iraqis dead from the sanctions. Most have
>died since the Democrats took over in 1993.
>
>PARTY OF IMPERIALIST WAR
>
>As much as the Republicans, the Democratic administrations
>have led the country into war in the past century. The
>United States entered World War I and World War II under
>Democratic administrations. Democratic presidents launched
>the wars against Korea and Vietnam.
>
>Democrat Harry Truman ordered atomic bombs dropped on
>Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945, when Japanese imperialism
>was already close to collapse. The nuclear incineration and
>poisoning of hundreds of thousands of civilians was carried
>out to test the new weapons on live subjects and send a
>lethal warning to the Soviet Union.
>
>The wars that followed in Asia took the lives of 7 million
>Koreans and Vietnamese and more than 100,000 U.S. troops.
>
>The Republican administrationss, of course, have had their
>share of wars and militarism, from Southeast Asia to Latin
>America to Africa.
>
>Both Democratic and Republican administrations have
>engaged in a war against the poor at home.
>
>When Clinton took office in 1993, he pledged to "end
>welfare as we know it." He carried this out in 1995-1996 in
>partnership with the Republican-controlled Congress,
>demolishing an already inadequate social safety net.
>
>Welfare, food stamps, health care, housing and other
>programs for unemployed, low-paid, immigrant and disabled
>workers were terminated or slashed, overturning gains won
>by the working class in the 1930s and 1960s.
>
>Those advances, along with civil and democratic rights for
>African Americans and other oppressed nationalities, were
>the products of tremendous mass struggles in which many
>gave their lives.
>
>Yet they are often attributed by corporate media mythology
>to the Democratic presidents of those eras: Franklin
>Roosevelt, John F. Kennedy and Lyndon Johnson.
>
>The fact that the massive cuts of the 1990s were carried
>out by the "party of the people," meaning a Democratic
>administration in the White House, was of immense value to
>the ruling class. The mobilizations in response to these
>attacks by unions and other organized forces were muted
>because a Democratic president carried them out.
>
>Clinton's draconian cuts in social programs, as Workers
>World noted at the time, succeeded in doing "what Ronald
>Reagan could only dream of--the destruction of the social
>welfare system."
>
>SERVE RULING-CLASS INTERESTS
>
>Why would the same Democratic Party carry out significant
>social and political reforms in the 1930s and 1960s, and
>then be the vehicle for overturning these reforms in the
>1990s?
>
>In both cases, the Democratic leaders' main motivation was
>to serve the interests of the capitalist ruling class.
>
>In the 1930s, the worldwide crisis of capitalism known as
>the Great Depression spurred a mass upsurge in the working-
>class movement in the United States. Millions of workers
>established unions in major industries for the first time.
>Communists and socialists led many of these struggles.
>
>The capitalist system was increasingly seen as the cause
>of unemployment, hunger and poverty. The concessions made
>to the workers' movement--Social Security, unemployment
>insurance, the legalization of union organizing, welfare,
>public housing and other programs--were seen by Roosevelt
>and his advisors as a form of "insurance" against
>revolution.
>
>Many in the ruling class resisted the bad-tasting medicine
>that "Dr. Roosevelt" prescribed. But Roosevelt prevailed
>and saved the capitalists' system in spite of them.
>
>In the process, the Democrats won over much of the
>leadership of the new labor movement. In this, they were
>unfortunately aided by the Communist Party USA, which to
>this day remains remarkably devoted to the Democrats.
>
>`SOLID SOUTH'
>
>The Democratic Party of Roosevelt's era and for decades
>afterward was a coalition of the labor movement and
>oppressed nationalities, on the one hand, and the anti-
>union, southern segregationists and Ku Klux Klanners, on
>the other.
>
>The Klan was a powerful political machine. Together with
>its reactionary allies, it controlled many state
>governments, including non-southern states like Indiana and
>Oregon.
>
>The former Confederacy was known as the "Solid South,"
>where the Democrats had returned to power after the Civil
>War as the party of segregation.
>
>After the overthrow of progressive Reconstruction
>governments in the 1870s, Black people were disenfranchised
>throughout the South. The southern Democratic governments
>and their cops were the legal enforcers of apartheid-like
>segregation.
>
>State repression was reinforced by Klan lynchings and
>other forms of extra-legal terror against African
>Americans, union organizers, and others who sought
>progressive change.
>
>Elsewhere, the Democrats' base was among organized and
>unorganized workers. There were two reasons for this:
>first, the Republicans were openly the party of the bosses
>and Wall Street; and second, many people credited the New
>Deal programs to the Democrats.
>
>In the late 1950s and early 1960s, the Democratic Party
>was still based on the same unstable coalition. In 1960,
>for instance, the northern liberal Democrat John F. Kennedy
>was elected president, while in Alabama, Democrat George
>("segregation today, segregation tomorrow, segregation
>forever") Wallace was elected governor.
>
>Kennedy and Wallace had much in common. Both were staunch
>defenders of capitalism and virulent anti-communists. The
>liberal Kennedy, moreover, would never have been elected
>without the support of Alabama and the "Solid South."
>
>But the heroic struggle of the African American people and
>their allies to end legal segregation in the South blew the
>Democratic coalition apart. When the Civil Rights Act of
>1964 and Voting Rights Act of 1965 were signed by President
>Lyndon Johnson of Texas, it was a reflection of the Black
>movement's power.
>
>As in the 1930s, concessions had to be made to a powerful
>and growing people's movement in order to head off more
>radical consequences for the system.
>
>Again, like three decades earlier, Democratic Party
>politicians took credit for reforms that were really a
>product of a mass movement in which many suffered jail,
>beatings and death.
>
>When the same party presided over the gutting of these
>programs in the 1990s, it brought cries of "hypocrisy" and
>"betrayal" from many rank-and-file Democrats.
>
>But from the point of view of the Democratic top leaders,
>it was all very consistent. In each situation the ruling
>class's interests prevailed.
>
>INSTRUMENT OF SOCIAL CONTROL
>
>Another role the Democratic Party plays in the U.S.
>political system is that of a gigantic suction pump which
>siphons hundreds of thousands of progressive activists into
>its ranks and away from militant, revolutionary organizing.
>
>"Be realistic." "Accomplish the possible." "Sure, some day
>there might be a workers' party, but that day hasn't come
>yet." These are a few of the common arguments the Democrats
>put forward.
>
>Then there's the fear approach: "Voting for a socialist
>candidate will help the Republicans. Do you want George W.
>Bush appointing the next Supreme Court justice?"
>
>These arguments are backed by the promise of
>respectability and material gain for radical activists who
>join the "mainstream" through the Democratic Party.
>
>This process has transferred an enormous amount of energy
>from street, workplace and campus organizing to the sterile
>and pointless debates of caucus rooms.
>
>Through its diversion and weakening of the mass movement,
>the Democratic Party serves as a vital instrument of social
>control for the ruling class.
>
>Why? Because it's not the party holding office that
>determines society's direction. It's the strength of the
>mass movement.
>
>Roosevelt and Johnson would never have dreamed of signing
>the reforms they did without the mobilization of millions
>forcing their hands.
>
>The capitalist class will win in November whether Bush or
>Gore gets the most votes. Many of the biggest corporations
>are investing equally in the Democrats and Republicans,
>just as they have in the past.
>
>Many who are justifiably disgusted by the Democrats and
>Republicans will cast their votes for Ralph Nader and the
>Green Party. But while the Greens raise several progressive
>points in their literature, they stand for restraining the
>corporations and reforming the system.
>
>The problem with the reformist program is that capitalism
>is driven by the need to maximize profit. Maximization of
>profit is the unbreakable law of capitalism, and it brings
>with it environmental destruction, unemployment, mass
>incarceration, racism, poverty and other dire social
>consequences.
>
>Whatever reforms are won through mass struggle, they
>cannot change the nature of capitalism. The drive for
>profit constantly acts to undermine whatever gains are won
>by the workers through struggle. When the system goes
>through one of its periodic crises, this tendency is vastly
>accelerated.
>
>Capitalism cannot be turned into a humane system. It can
>only be abolished and replaced by a system based on human
>need and planning--socialism.
>
>The main problem for the working class and progressive
>movement is not which party holds office, but which class
>holds power.
>
>The U.S. capitalist-imperialist ruling class and its
>repressive state--the military, cops, prisons and death
>chambers--have become the main enemies of humanity.
>
>The only effective way to fight this death-dealing system
>of exploitation is to build a militant, revolutionary
>movement that is completely independent of the capitalist
>parties.
>
> - END -
>
>(Copyleft Workers World Service. Everyone is permitted to
>copy and distribute verbatim copies of this document, but
>changing it is not allowed. For more information contact
>Workers World, 55 W. 17 St., NY, NY 10011; via e-mail:
>[EMAIL PROTECTED] For subscription info send message
>to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Web: http://www.workers.org)
>
>
>From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
>Date: Thu, 10 Aug 2000 01:23:56 -0400
>Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII
>Content-transfer-encoding: 7BIT
>Subject: [WW] 86,000 Workers Strike Telecom Giant
>Message-ID: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
>
>-------------------------
>Via Workers World News Service
>Reprinted from the Aug. 17, 2000
>issue of Workers World newspaper
>-------------------------
>
>READY TO FIGHT IN 2000: 86,000 WORKERS STRIKE TELECOM
>GIANT
>
>By Shelley Ettinger
>
>As of the evening of Aug. 8, over 86,000 workers in 13
>states had concluded the third day of their strike against
>Verizon the same way they started: strong and united.
>
>Over 15,000 workers picketed outside more than 550
>telephone-company buildings from Maine to Virginia. About
>72,000 strikers are members of the Communications Workers
>union. Another 15,000 are represented by the Brotherhood of
>Electrical Workers.
>
>In New York, where picket lines dotted the city despite
>90-degree heat, the multinational work force, women and
>men, was well represented. Strikers told Workers World's
>Mary Owen they really were "ready to fight in 2000," a
>slogan on a popular strike button.
>
>In a 5 p.m. statement on Aug. 8, the Communications
>Workers reported some progress in negotiations "but noted
>that a number of serious issues concerning job security
>must be resolved."
>
>Those issues include overwork, speedup and forced
>overtime. Two matters have emerged as the most important.
>
>For one thing, the strikers are fighting to stop the
>company from moving work to non-union areas. "When
>companies merge," said union spokesperson Candice Johnson,
>"sometimes they look to consolidate operations. That means
>people face the risk of facilities shutting down, or work
>being shifted hundreds of miles away. ... Verizon does have
>some non-union locations so that's a real fear for people."
>
>Johnson said that "bargaining hit a snag" on that issue on
>Aug. 7.
>
>But strikers are not only concerned about stanching the
>loss of union jobs. They are also fighting for union
>representation for tens of thousands of workers who don't
>yet have it--workers in the new, rapidly expanding
>wireless-communication operation.
>
>Only 46 of Verizon's 32,000 wireless workers are in the
>union.
>
>Verizon is the country's biggest wireless carrier. It
>counts 25 million mobile-phone customers and 4 million
>paging customers.
>
>In fact, this is one big company all around. This is a
>monopoly, created with the just-completed merger of Bell
>Atlantic and GTE.
>
>Verizon is now the biggest local phone company in the
>country. In addition to the wireless side, it has 63
>million conventional local-access lines in 31 states.
>
>The old-style monopoly with the shiny new name has some
>260,000 employees. It had revenues of $60 billion in 1999
>and expects $8.4 billion in profits this year.
>
>And it's not done gobbling up competitors. On Aug. 8,
>Verizon announced it had purchased a 55-percent stake in
>NorthPoint Communications Group Inc. for $800 million in
>cash. NorthPoint provides high-speed Internet access.
>
>Executives are looking to pass along all these merger
>costs and further boost profits on the backs of the
>workers. They definitely want to safeguard the "union-free"
>environment in the burgeoning wireless sector.
>
>Donaldson Lufkin & Jenrette telecommunications analyst
>Richard Klugman said on Aug. 7: "Wireless is an industry
>that has traditionally been non-union. I'm sure they'd like
>to keep it that way."
>
>According to Jeff Miller of the Communications Workers,
>the pay scale for unionized service representatives at
>Verizon reaches $44,400 a year for high-seniority
>employees. Non-union service representatives in its
>wireless operation top out at $33,000.
>
>The rest of the industry is watching this battle with
>great concern. Unionized companies like AT&T, Cisco, Lucent
>and BellSouth are all looking to cash in with new non-union
>operations in wireless, cable, the Internet and so on.
>
>Next year contracts covering over 200,000 workers will
>expire at companies including BellSouth and Qwest
>Communications. Next month the Communications Workers will
>merge with the International Union of Electrical Workers.
>The bigger union will be in a stronger position to
>safeguard union jobs and organize the new workers.
>
>HISTORY OF STRUGGLE
>
>Verizon's lawyers spent the first three days of the strike
>running to courtrooms up and down the Eastern Seaboard,
>seeking injunctions to limit the number of strikers allowed
>to picket. According to a Communications Workers statement,
>"in Maryland and elsewhere, the courts have refused to
>issue such orders."
>
>The courts' reluctance to step in can only be explained by
>the fact that this is a strong strike, carried out by a
>work force with a long history of struggle.
>
>In 1989, workers at Nynex, which later merged into Bell
>Atlantic, staged a 17-week strike. They won that battle to
>stop the company's plan to make workers pay for health-
>insurance premiums.
>
>In 1998, a two-day walkout at Bell Atlantic won a no-
>layoff clause in the contract.
>
>Now, again, these staunch fighters are doing what they do
>best. With unions in many industries facing similar
>challenges, the labor movement is pledging solidarity.
>
>On Aug. 7 in New York, scores of people representing city
>workers from AFSCME District Council 37 joined a picket
>line near the World Trade Center. Strike chants rang out in
>front of the mammoth Verizon building.
>
>Verizon strikers applauded and cheered the DC 37
>contingent. City workers are in their own contract
>struggle. The two groups of workers chanted in unison, "The
>workers united will never be defeated."
>
> - END -
>
>(Copyleft Workers World Service. Everyone is permitted to
>copy and distribute verbatim copies of this document, but
>changing it is not allowed. For more information contact
>Workers World, 55 W. 17 St., NY, NY 10011; via e-mail:
>[EMAIL PROTECTED] For subscription info send message
>to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Web: http://www.workers.org)
>
>
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