McCain "criticizes" Obama "Elitist Remark." You Can't Make This Stuff Up

by Norman Markowitz

John McCain told a group of editors and journalists that the comments Senator Obama made in Pennsylvania were "elitist." Earlier today, I spoke with a staff person here who comes from a small Pennsylvania town, is white, and works in a lower managerial position. When he heard me talking about Senator Obama's comments, who came over and told me that he was talking with his family in Pennsylvania and that is pretty much how they look at it--people are angry because they are "hurting" economically and prone to chase their tails politically around issues like gun control and gay marriage. This guy, who I don't even think is necessarily supporting Obama, isn't the son and grandson of admirals.

But McCain went on tell the group that small town Americans were the backbone of the country (politicians have been saying that since there was universal white male suffrage and cities were small) and that "These are the people who produced a generation who made the world safe for democracy. These are the people that have fundamental cultural, spiritual and other values that in my view have very little to do with their economic condition." To say what Obama has said, McCain went on, was to express a "fundamental contradiction about what America is all about."

You don't have to be a Marxist to understand that peoples consciousness, however fantastic, reflects their social-economic conditions and experience, their being. The United States is a multi-ethnic nation with its own remarkable culture and civilization, not a set of political and social conservative institutions and ideologies which exist to protect corporate leadership and the upper classes, who are the real elites in all class divided societies.

Although McCain for his own reasons threw in Woodrow Wilson's old World War I slogan about "making the world safe for democracy"(which had little to do with what Wilson's policy really was, although he has a penchant to go back to wars whatever the issue) he didn't dare mention what Senator Obama has in effect been campaigning against, the last two
freedoms of Franklin Roosevelt's World War II Four Freedoms slogan, "Freedom from Want and Freedom from Fear."

It is fear and want that McCain perpetrate and Hillary Clinton in her attacks against Obama is appeasing--fear and want which produce scapegoating and political escapism, attacling messengers for truthful messages.

"Freedom" without social responsibility is not an American or any other value, but a desire that exploiters everywhere promote to solidify and intensify their wealth and power. The founders of McCain's Republican party, who were called in the 1850s, "black Republicans," and enemies of both the constitution and American "liberty" for challenging the expansion of slavery and the Slave Power would understand the emptiness of McCain's remarks, as would Franklin Roosevelt, who was great at mocking his rightwing political enemies who always wrapped themselves in the flag and talked about the "American Way of Life" while they pursued policies that made life insecure for the majority of Americans.

Unfortunately, Hillary Clinton has in this and other instances given McCain and the rightwing Republican propaganda machine ammunition to use.

As a few postscripts, McCain told the editors that he would "fall into a deep depression" if he lost the election. Apparently the growing and very plausible fears of millions of Americans that the present economic crisis will be more, much more than just another recession, is comical to him, a little bit like the joke in the present commercial where a group of people are lamenting the weak dollar only to have someone come in and praise what he good on a fast food chain's "dollar menu," which leads them all to begin to hail the strength of the dollar.

Speaking of fast food chains, McCain, who will be seventy-two later this year was given coffee with cream and sugar and a number of Dunkin Dough nuts with "sprinkles" which he called his favorites. It is obvious that McCain could, along with realistic economic advisers, use some realistic nutritional advisers.

What would you do with $3 trillion?

From $3trillion.org

Doc Humes Lives Through His Great Novels

by ERIC GREEN

"Doc" Humes Left Two Important Books: Men Die and Underground City

Anti-War and Insights into the Communist and Left Wing Resistance & Victory over the Nazis Occupation in Wartime France

Earlier this year, Immy Humes, the daughter of Harold HL "Doc" Humes, released her poignant film "Doc" about her father. It was barely distributed. The Film Forum screened it in NYC. It has yet to be released on DVD. The film is a tribute to her father, a charismatic personality who was a political activist, novelist, filmmaker, educator and one of the founders of the Paris Review. He wrote only two novels in the late 1950s.

Both novels are based on real life historical events which apparantly affected him deeply.. The first book, published in 1958, Underground City, follows the life a US army operative, a "spy", as he establishes official USA contact with the French Communist Party underground in the South of France. It was probably Humes' sympathetic portrayal of the communists that made him a CIA target for political surveillance which later plays an important role in the paranoia that is part of his downward spiral of mental illness. Humes went to his grave convinced of this surveillance, but it wasn't until after his death and the Freedom of Information Act proved that he was correct and the CIA did have the Paris Review under regular and intense surveillance. He wasn't paranoid, on the contrary, his feelings and political judgments were completely correct.

The book is a long one [754 pages], but given Humes easy to read prose, it moves very quickly.

Humes brings his characters to life. They suffer, love, and completely engage in the immense difficulties of resisting and fighting against the Nazi occupation. You end the novel wishing to learn more about what happens to each of his characters.

In Men Die, which was published in 1959, Humes moves adroitly in the field of racism in the armed services, in this case the US Navy. Here he develops his characters to a high pitch of the same feelings, love, hate and in fact all the human emotions.

Given the very independent and creative personal world that Humes lived in he felt that he didn't need to write anymore.

As Immy's documentary painfully describes, when Humes returned to the USA from France in 1960 to become Norman Mailer's campaign manager for NYC Mayor, he becomes consumed with demons that he never overcame until his death in 1954. He spent his last 20 years on the campuses of Harvard and Columbia Universities where students and faculties alike enjoyed his humanity and brilliance.

Together, Underground City and Men Die take us to a place in history where few US writers, especially at that time, went.

In the film, William Styron talks of Humes as does George Plimpton, Paul Auster and Tim Leary. The film leads viewers to believe that much of Humes' mental health problems became accelerated during his relationship to Tim Leary and LSD. Who Knows?

What is important is that Humes has left two books that can help correct two historical periods that desperately needs to be corrected. Immy Hume's film is probably responsible for Random House deciding to reprint both of these books in 2007. During the time period between their original and current publication, almost 50 years, these books
were not available. Thank you Immy. It was a really brave act on the part of Immy. As you will learn, if you are fortunate enough to see the film, her life was not an easy one. Fortunately, there is some resolution in this father daughter relationship at the end of his life.

BAM ROCKS

by Eric Green

For three nights and one matinee, the Brooklyn Academy of Music BAM rocked with the vibrant lyrical music of Paul Simon, called, "Under the African Skies."

Opening with the great Ladysmith Black Mambazo, the concert was full of energy and fun throughout. This world famous group sang a couple of songs to open the evening and then a couple of more into the nite. They also accompanied other artists.

The evening's artists both sang songs from their own countries and Simon's creations. That was certainly true for Ladysmith and also Kaissa a great singer from Cameroon who traveling to Paris and now works out of NYC. Her songs speak out against war and injustice.

She was joined by another great female singer from Sao Paulo, Brasil, Luciana Souza a three-time Grammy nominees. About 8 month pregnant, Souza a sang a number of songs from the Bossa Nova genre. Her family is made up of Basso Nova composers. She also performs with symphony orchestras and is currently in NYC.

A main highlight of the evening, and one which brought the audience to its dancing feet, was the incomparable David Byrne singing "Call Me Al" Simons big hit. He also sang "I know What I kow." He joined with the female singers in dancing and singing to, "Born at the Right Time." Byrne's on state dancing and singing certainly reminds of Steve Martin's antics.

Simon and Ladysmith brought the house down with, "Diamonds on the Soles of Her Shows."

Simon also sang a great Cajun song which included direct references to Lafayette, Louisiana and Clinton Chenier, the great Cajun performer.

Simon's concert brought with it a great intergerartional participation that is always great to see.

BAM is totally sold out for these performances; and, so are his other 4-night performances "Songs from the Capeman," and, "American Tunes" coming up on April 23 to 27th.

Obama gets "denounced" for telling the Truth

by Norman Markowitz

The press and assorted politicians are criticizing Senator Obama for having the courage to say what people throughout the world understand--that in the U.S. some working class people, faced with a deepening economic crisis in their own lives and distrusting media and politicians to change anything have focused on social issues, what Richard Nixon called "wedge issues" in the 1970s and what I call social resentment issues.

Republicans particularly and some Democrats have called him "arrogant and elitist," but they are the ones who are arrogant and they are the ones who support the rule of elites. These are the sort of people who winked at the Klu Klux Klan in the 1920s when it "crusaded against Catholics, Jews, Blacks of course, opponents of prohibition, and all foreigners in the name of "American values." These are the sort of people in the North who earlier denounced abolitionists as an "arrogant elite" seeking to free slaves who were better off than white workers in the North. These people are at one with the late Spiro T. Agnew, Nixon's corrupt reactionary Vice President, who denounced opponents of Nixon's policies as "impudent effect snobs" and limousine liberals."

Those poor whites, particularly in the South who fought for slavery and in the North who used racism as a security blanket to deny their own poverty were pawns and victims of reactionary forces. Abraham Lincoln said it best when he said that those who want to keep people in the gutter (like those who were encouraging working class whites to support slavery) could do it best by getting down in the gutter with them, i.e., slavery was pushing free whites into the gutter.

Franklin Roosevelt rejected 1920s social resentment politics by getting rid of prohibition as a way to fight the depression, supporting successfully a higher level of unity between Protestant and Catholic and Jewish Workers (and promoting people of Catholic and Jewish background to high positions in his government which de-emphasized the prejudice against them) and supporting a labor movement which began to include African-Americans.

Barack Obama has the capacity I think to become another Franklin Roosevelt and that terrifies not only reactionary Republicans but also significant parts of our power elite in the corporations and the media. In Pennsylvania he called working people working class as against "middle class," which politicians are supposed to do. He said they were angry at what is happening to them in the economy and of course they are.

I support strongly both gun control and animal rights and regard the first as a simple and necessary condition of modern society and the second a a humanizing moral and ethical issue. I know that there are large numbers of people who shoot and kill animals for sport, not for food or clothing. across all classes and I see this as negative and destructive, for them as human beings and for society. But I know it will take a great deal of education over a long period of time to end these practices, unlike the control of firearms, which has pretty much been established in all developed countries and many developing countries, and outside of the U.S. is generally supported by ruling class groups and conservatives as a way not only to reduce violence and crime but to keep weapons in the hands of the army and police.

I support Gay Rights and see same sex marriage (which by the way has from my observation been most actively supported by conservative elements among the gay community) as a useful way to expand the civil rights of gay people under law and also reduce homophobia. But I know that the "religious" right particularly continues to sell homophobia and, unlike racism, sexism, anti-Semitism, which is no longer considered "normal" in society(even though all continue to exist institutionally and in private ideologically) homophobia has yet to reach that point in that it homophobic statements are still very wide spread.

Besides those influenced by conservative religionists, many people across all social classes still see Gay men particularly, to use Spiro T. Agnew's words, as "effect snobs," with higher incomes than straight people because they don't have children to support, living a forbidden life of promiscuous sex and conspicuous consumption (which capitalist media both sells in commercials for heterosexuals and denounces hypocritically at the same time).

Instead of looking at gay people as they really are, a microcosm of the larger society, looking at the discrimination they face in all areas of life, such straight people are encouraged to see marriage as something for "them," the way in the past they were encouraged to see certain residential communities and before that religious practices as something for "them," not for stigmatized minorities.

Barack Obama has stated the obvious, that we must get beyond that if we are to free ourselves. Calling people working class is a good beginning. Saying that the "wedge issues" only divide and conquer the working class is a good beginning. It is neither arrogant nor elitist, although its critics in the contempt that they show for the working class by living off such appeals certainly are.

Seniors Must File Tax Returns to Get Rebate

From Alliance for Retired Americans:

Tax Filing Deadline Has Added Significance for Retirees This Year
Tuesday, April 15th is the regular deadline for filing taxes, and the date holds special implications for seniors in 2008. Up to 20 million Americans who rely primarily on Social Security income qualify for an economic stimulus rebate check from the federal government. Even seniors who do not earn income through current employment can qualify for a stimulus check, if their Social Security benefits, Veterans Affairs (VA) benefits, and railroad retirement benefits totaled at least $3,000 in 2007. In most cases, retirees will receive an economic stimulus check ranging from $300 to $600. Seniors need to file a 2007 federal tax return on IRS Form 1040 or 1040A (short form) to receive the check. Seniors must file a 2007 tax return even if their income is normally low enough that they were not required to file in previous years. Those filing later than April 15, with or without a tax-filing extension, may delay receipt of the rebate check. Those who qualify for a stimulus check will receive one by the end of 2008, as long as they file by October 15, 2008 - but no rebate checks will be issued after 2008. “For years, Alliance members have been instrumental in spreading the word to fellow retirees about key pocketbook issues,” said George J. Kourpias, President of the Alliance. “Please keep that up by telling your friends and neighbors about filing a tax return to get the stimulus rebate.”

The Business of War

“War,” the progressive activist Randolph Bourne wrote during WWI, “is the health of the state.” It is also the “health” of military contractors, and the huge corporate side of the military industrial complex.

read the whole story here...

"Where is the Justice for Me?" The Tragic Case of Troy Davis

From Death Penalty Focus:

We can now add the case of Troy Davis to the ever-growing list of injustices in the system of state killing.

Davis was sentenced to death for the murder of Police Officer Mark Allen MacPhail at a Burger King in Savannah, Georgia; a murder he steadfastly maintains he did not commit. There was no physical evidence against him and the weapon used in the crime was never found. The case against him consisted entirely of witness testimony which contained inconsistencies even at the time of the trial. Since then, all but two of the state's non-police witnesses from the trial have recanted or contradicted their testimony. Many of these witnesses have stated in sworn affidavits that they were pressured or coerced by police into testifying or signing statements against Troy Davis.

One of the two witnesses who has not recanted his testimony is Sylvester "Red" Coles the principle alternative suspect, according to the deefense, against whom there is new evidence implicating him as the gunman. Nine individuals have signed affidavits implicating Sylvester Coles.

Troy himself has explained what happened:

"In 1989 I surrendered myself to the police for crimes I knew I was innocent of in an effort to seek justice through the court system in Savannah, Georgia USA. ...

Read more...

Tell Congress No Colombia Free Trade Agreement

Colombia's government has thwarted workers' right to organizeand bargain collectively-by weakening labor protections,refusing to register legitimate unions and failing to enforce the law against anti-union discrimination. The Colombia FTA extends NAFTA and CAFTA, so-called "free trade" agreements that have already undermined workers rights and environmental protections for U.S., Canadian, Mexican, and Central American workers.

U.S. and Colombian workers need agreements that guarantee the right to organize and improve living and working conditions for all workers. This agreement does none of that. Join Jobs with Justice in demanding fair trade and an end to the global race to the bottom.

You can take action on this alert either via email (please see directions below) or via the web at:
http://www.unionvoice.org/campaign/colombia_fta08/5n8ib297nxemb6?

Democratic campaign news

Barack Obama won several key endorsements this week. Utah Democratic Party Chair Wayne Holland endorsed Obama. (Holland is a superdelegate.) The Postal Workers union (APWU) endorsed Obama, citing their support for his message and for inspiring old and new voters. (A total of 10 unions with about 6 million members have done so, so far.) The Portland (Oregon) Tribune (that state's primary is just around the corner) endorsed Obama, describing him as "transformative" and the best at energizing new voters to be part of the process. The Charleston (West Virginia) Gazette also backed Obama this week saying that it hoped West Virginia voters would support "the brilliant, inspiring, eloquent frontrunner" Barack Obama.