Views in brief
Happy birthday to SocialistWorker.org
EVERY ONCE in a while, SocialistWorker.org produces an article that just blows me away with its analysis, depth of information and sheer originality--and makes me proud to be a supporter.
That interview with Michael Schwartz was such an article ("The return of civil war"). I mean, really, where else in mainstream media or even left-wing press do you get such insight into the complicated, completely obscured world of the U.S. occupation of Iraq? Analysis that is so critical at a time when so many eye are moving away from the pivot point of U.S. imperialism.
I'm not even going to try and summarize all I just read, but just say "Thank you" for existing. Thanks you for the interview and so much more.
If you are reading this, stop, go read the article and then make a contribution to SocialistWorker.org.
Happy Birthday! And please accept my birthday present as a small contribution to what you folks are doing to make Marxism a living, breathing reality in the U.S.
Andy Libson, San Francisco
A call for intelligent activism
A FRIEND recently pointed out that I was quoted in the article "Free speech and the right to protest."
First of all, thank you. I think any venue willing to carry on a discussion about the event at University of North Carolina (UNC) at Chapel Hill, and the larger issues surrounding that event, are an immense benefit to the community.
I do want to respond the use of my statement. It was very specifically addressed to "my activist brothers and sisters at UNC," and very specifically to this event. I in no way wanted to suggest that activists should abandon radical politics altogether, nor did I want to suggest that dialogue is always possible or practical.
However, the events at UNC were unique. First of all, many other activists--specifically, members of local ethnic communities for whom immigration is a critical issue--attended specifically to spark a dialogue with Tom Tancredo about this issue. The protesters (largely white students) not only silenced Tancredo, but also silenced the voices, shadowed the faces and completely overshadowed those communities for whom the issues at hand were most important.
Further, the protesters seemed unorganized about what exactly they were protesting. Youth for Western Civilization? Tancredo? What they have managed to do is makes sure that no one--at UNC or in Texas--is talking about the serious issues surrounding immigration policy that affect both of our states.
I am all for impassioned activism, which at times cannot take "the rules of the establishment" into account. However, I am adamant about intelligent activism.
As I also mentioned in my open letter, when activism becomes blind and deaf, when it ceases to consider efficacy, when olume becomes it's only goal, activism becomes fundamentalism. Little separates that kind of activism from the likes of Fred Phelps' Westboro Baptist Church.
Janel Beckham, Carrboro, N.C.
Change the banking system needs
SOME INTERESTING points were made regarding the banking scandal on a recent Bill Moyers' Journal by William K. Black, author of The Best Way to Rob a Bank Is to Own One.
He analogized the fraud involved in the sub-prime crisis to that of a huge Ponzi scheme. The fraud involved top CEOs deliberately implementing a scheme--and bank managers knowingly approving junk mortgages--all to increase the banks' papers assets and thus justifying obscene performance bonuses.
The ratings agencies, such as Standard & Poor's, were also complicit in the fraud by refusing to review the files of the loan packages they were rating. Had they done so, says Black, they would have discovered systemic fraud.
The government regulators in turn failed to regulate either the banks or the ratings agencies. But as Black pointed out, the government's complicity didn't stop with the Bush administration.
A law passed in the 1980s in the wake of the savings and loan crisis, the "Prompt Corrective Action" law, mandates the government to force a receivership of any bank or lending institution it deems insolvent. Black charges that the Obama administration is engaged in a deliberate cover-up to hide from the American people that the banks are insolvent in an effort to prevent a panic.
So far, Obama's only answer is to throw billons at a problem whose solution may necessitate tens of trillions--far more than the system can tolerate without massive devaluation of the U.S. dollar and/or massive inflation.
Hope will not solve the current crisis--only change will do that. Throwing billions at the banks is hoping--without much reason to do so--that their gangrene state will be cured.
Real change will necessitate nationalizing the banks and using the billions otherwise spent on paying off all residential mortgages now in default (and restoring those previously foreclosed upon).
The first 100 days don't hold much hope that Obama is about this kind of change--let the next 100 days be about people organizing to force him to "see the merits" of real change.
David Bliven, Briarwood, N.Y.
Smithfield's lack of concern
IN RESPONSE to "Labor wins at Smithfield": Smithfield Foods has a history of malfeasance and chicanery when it comes to increasing their bottom line.
Several years ago, Smithfield went to Poland and hired residents to go around and buy up the local pig farms that were later turned over to Smithfield. They then owned what appears to be a monopoly on pork production in the European Union. A new pig farm was established by Smithfield that was so egregiously run that the operation can be smelled from an airplane. Most all the potable water was contaminated, and the local residents were becoming sick.
Smithfield did not respond with concern or with remedy. And we wonder why the rest of the world is beginning to hate us. Bravo for the union victory!
Ronald Teska, Wind Ridge, Pa.
The truth about medical marijuana
I RECENTLY read your article regarding our collective ("Lies they tell about marijuana"). Just to clarify, Suzanne Pfeil is a patient member of our organization, Wo/Men's Alliance for Medical Marijuana. For the real scoop see our Web site or call our office at 831-425-0580.
Valerie Leveroni Corral, executive director, WAMM
