Woman Jailed for Getting Pregnant Dies From Medical Neglect

The following article was taken from womensrights.change.org.

Thrown in jail for getting pregnant? That seems like a particularly absurd violation of women's reproductive rights. But it's actually an established policy in Allegheny County, PA. Cara reports at the Curvature that, for Amy Lynn Gillespie, becoming pregnant meant violating the terms of her work release under probation, and getting thrown in jail. Yet this story comes to an even more tragic ending, because Gillespie died while in custody from advanced pneumonia.

Gillespie's grieving mother has decided not to let the people who caused her daughter's death off the hook: she has a lawsuit against the Allegheny County jail warden, Allegheny Correctional Health Services Inc., the county itself, and a few other implicated individuals charging that medical neglect caused Gillespie's death. Though the young woman spent weeks complaining to guards of trouble breathing and mucus in her lungs, they refused to send her to access medical care until it was too late. The hospital, which is not charged in the lawsuit, says that Gillespie was beyond saving due to the long delay in getting her treatment.

Gillespie should not have been in jail in the first place: to imprison a woman for becoming pregnant is a violation of her human rights, and should not be a condition of probation or work release. To then neglect her, when the very pregnant condition she was locked up for meant that she needed extra medical attention, is horrifying. The crimes that got her in trouble with the law in the first place were minor shoplifting (when caught stealing food, she told the police officer she was hungry) and prostitution (which, though illegal, hurts nobody). Amy Lynn Gillespie's unnecessary death is nothing short of tragic, and highlights deep flaws with the Allegheny County prison system.

New Voices Pittsburgh: Women of Color for Reproductive Justice is organizing a march to take place tomorrow, Novemeber 23rd, at noon outside the Allegheny County Courthouse and Jail. In a press release reprinted at The Curvature, the advocacy organization states, "The death of any pregnant woman from preventable causes is reproductive injustice and is especially egregious in the custody of the Allegheny County Jail. We challenge the coercive and intrusive practice of conditioning work release on not getting pregnant. We must expose the criminalization of women and pregnancy as a threat to Human Rights that risks women’s health and women’s lives." Efforts earlier this year by the organization's The FOCUS on Women Campaign helped to pass a Senate bill banning the shackling of women during birth (it needs the support of the House to pass).

Click here to sign a petition to the Allegheny County government.

China Calls for Emergency Talks in Beijing

China has called for emergency talks in Beijing in early December among the delegation leaders from the stalled Six-Party Talks. This is China's latest move to prevent further deterioration of peace on the Korean Peninsula.

"The Chinese side, after careful deliberation, proposes emergency consultations among the heads of delegation to the Six-Party Talks in early December in Beijing to exchange views on major issues of concern to the parties at present," said Wu Dawei, Chinese special representative for the Korean Peninsula affairs.

China has continuously called for peace and is now pushing for a return to the Six-Party Talks involving China, North Korea, Russia, Japan, South Korea, and the United States.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov has stated that Russia is committed to “work toward easing the tension between the two Korean parties, as well as resuming the six- party talks.”

Chinese State Councilor Dai Bingguo met with South Korean President Lee Myung-bak in Seoul today. Both countries agreed that dialogue should be used to maintain peace in the region, but Lee Myung-bak has refused to return to the Six-Party Talks. He claims the time is not right for it, even though this refusal clearly creates more obstacles to maintaining peace.

Tensions Escalate in Asia, North Korea Readies Missiles

North Korea has recently placed surface-to-air missiles on its launch pads in the Yellow Sea. This comes when the US and South Korea are conducting military exercises immediately after the North fired on South Korean military installations near the border between the two Koreas. The North was provoked when the South began shooting into the North's waters while conducting a drill that simulated an invasion of the North.

China has opposed the new South Korea and US military drills. China and Russia have been calling for peace in the region, but China refuses to criticize their ally North Korea.

The chairman of North Korea's Supreme People's Assembly will meet with Chinese officials on Tuesday.

The North Korean attack on Southern military infrastructure resulted in the death of two South Korean marines and two civilians. North Korea has called the civilian deaths "very regrettable."

South Koreans protested outside of a US Navy base in Pyeongtaek yesterday. They called for a halt to the war exercises between their country and the United States, and held signs calling for the USS George Washington carrier to "go home."

The USS George Washington further irritated China recently when it entered waters just west of the Korean Peninsula. China considers that area to be its "exclusive economic zone" and has objected to the foreign navy drills being held there without permission. Barack Obama, however, claims that China was notified of their plans ahead of time.

In a seemingly related note, two Chinese patrol boats came close to Japanese territorial waters today to patrol disputed islands, upsetting Japan. Known as Senkaku in Japan and Diaoyu in China, both countries claim these islands. It is worth mentioning that Japan is a close ally of the United States and foe of North Korea.

The Role of Unemployment in Capitalism

The following article was taken from propertyistheft.wordpress.com

Unemployment in Britain currently stands at roughly two and a half million. This is not far from the three million mark of the Thatcher era, which became a watermark for social discontent. With public sector job losses – and the private sector fallout – expected to claim another million people, it is unsurprising that people fear a return to those dark days.

As such, it seems a rather apt time to look at unemployment and the role it plays within a capitalist society.

Like most areas of economics, unemployment is a subject which has been entrenched in dogma by the advocates (including the less sincere ones) of the capitalist “free” market. Thus, in looking at its real function, we first need to sweep away the cobwebs of laissez-faire mythology.

Joblessness and the fables of the market

The most prevalent idea on the economic right, in this area, is one presented to be on Twitter during a conversation with @verybritishdude. Namely, that “trying to protect jobs results in fewer jobs (more unemployment).“

Or, as Ludwig von Mises put it;

The height of wage rates at which all those eager to get jobs can be employed depends on the marginal productivity of labor. The more capital — other things being equal — is invested, the higher wages climb on the free labor market, i.e., on the labor market not manipulated by the government and the unions. At these market wage rates all those eager to employ workers can hire as many as they want. At these market wage rates all those who want to be employed can get a job. There prevails on a free labor market a tendency toward full employment. In fact, the policy of letting the free market determine the height of wage rates is the only reasonable and successful full-employment policy. If wage rates, either by union pressure and compulsion or by government decree, are raised above this height, lasting unemployment of a part of the potential labor force develops.

Firstly the notion – prevalent generally in capitalist theories – the combination of workers is a “manipulation” of markets whilst employers are but neutral arbiters who invest capital needs to be challenged. Going right back to Adam Smith, it is a truth that “whoever imagines, upon this account, that masters rarely combine, is as ignorant of the world as of the subject. Masters are always and every where in a sort of tacit, but constant and uniform combination, not to raise the wages of labour above their actual rate.” Indeed, they “are disposed to combine … in order to lower the wages of labour.”

Thus, the idea that the problem is “union pressure and compulsion” is an absurdity. And, even if it wasn’t, how would we challenge the equivalent movements by the bosses without either the collective strength of the workers or “government decree?” We cannot – and indeed the free marketeers would not want to, as what they really advocate is private feudalism.

As to the ability of a capitalist labour market to reduce unemployment if freed from the constraints of job security and able to hire and fire at will? Well, it’s true, but only on the most superficial level.

Looking at employment statistics in Britain today, we get a glimpse of life under unrestrained capitalism. After a recession which took hundreds of thousands of jobs, the Office for National Statistics (ONS) tells us (PDF) that unemployment fell by 9,000. However, evidence suggests that full-time employment lost has been replaced with part-time jobs and self-employment. Average pay in the public sector rose by 2.1% on a year earlier, with the public sector equivalent being 1.9% – which against a Retail Price Index (RPI) up 4.5% from last year is a real terms cut of 2.4% and 2.6% respectively.

The point on wages, in particular, is backed up by Hugh Stretton in Economics: A New Introduction;

In defiance of market theory, the demand for labour tends strongly to vary with its price, not inversely to it. Wages are high when there is full employment. Wages – especially for the least-skilled and lowest paid – are lowest when there is least employment. The causes chiefly run from the employment to the wages, rather than the other way. Unemployment weakens the bargaining power, worsens the job security and working conditions, and lowers the pay of those still in jobs.

The lower wages do not induce employers to create more jobs … most business firms have no reason to take on more hands if wages decline. Only empty warehouses, or the prospect of more sales can get them to do that, and these conditions rarely coincide with falling employment and wages. The causes tend to work the other way: unemployment lowers wages, and the lower wages do not restore the lost employment.

To spell the point out, what we’re looking at under Mises’ vision is a steady casualisation of work, which may increase the profits of the bosses immeasurably but only makes life more miserable for everybody else.

And that, of course, is the endgame. If Mises, or any of his co-thinkers, were serious about a free market, they would not have failed to address the question of the economic power the employer holds by wielding capital, and acknowledging that worker organisation is simply the counter-point to that. Instead, he sticks with the tag line that anything which challenges the dominance of the employing class is “manipulation,” and even agression. Because, when the worker has the upper hand in the labour market, it’s terrifying.

As Dean Baker wrote in The Conservative Nanny State (PDF);

In periods of low unemployment, workers don’t only gain from higher wages. Employers must make efforts to accommodate workers’ various needs, such as child care or flexible work schedules, because they know that workers have other employment options. The Fed[eral Reserve Board, a government agency] is well aware of the difficulties that employers face in periods of low unemployment. It compiles a regular survey, called the ‘Beige Book,’ of attitudes from around the country about the state of the economy. Most of the people interviewed for the Beige Book are employers.

From 1997 to 2000, when the unemployment rate was at its lowest levels in 30 years, the Beige Book was filled with complaints that some companies were pulling workers from other companies with offers of higher wages and better benefits. Some Beige Books reported that firms had to offer such non-wage benefits as flexible work hours, child care, or training in order to retain workers. The Beige Books give accounts of firms having to send buses into inner cities to bring workers out to the suburbs to work in hotels and restaurants. It even reported that some employers were forced to hire workers with handicaps in order to meet their needs for labour.

All of which might seem to be an argument in favour of the free market, except for one practical point – the “pressure and compulsion” by the bosses which Mises conveniently overlooked;

From the standpoint of employers, life is much easier when the workers are lined up at the door clamouring for jobs than when workers have the option to shop around for better opportunities. Employers can count on a sympathetic ear from the Fed. When the Fed perceives too much upward wage pressure, it slams on the brakes and brings the party to an end. The Fed justifies limiting job growth and raising the unemployment rate because of its concern that inflation may get out of control, but this does not change the fact that it is preventing workers, and specifically less-skilled workers, from getting jobs, and clamping down on their wage growth.

Thus we come to the purpose that unemployment serves in a capitalist economy.

The reserve army of labour

It is revealing that controlling inflation is the justification for measures which maintain unemployment at a level favourable to employers over workers. Milton Friedman, a co-thinker of Mises, developed the theory of the “Non-Accelerating Inflation Rate of Employment” (NAIRU) to argue exactly such a point.

Or, as Edward Herman scathingly put it in Beyond Hypocrisy;

Conservative economists have even developed a concept of a ‘natural rate of unemployment,’ a metaphysical notion and throwback to an eighteenth century vision of a ‘natural order,’ but with a modern apologetic twist. The natural rate is defined as the minimum unemployment level consistent with price level stability, but, as it is based on a highly abstract model that is not directly testable, the natural rate can only be inferred from the price level itself. That is, if prices are going up, unemployment is below the ‘natural rate’ and too low, whether the actual rate is 4, 8, or 10 percent. In this world of conservative economics, anybody is ‘voluntarily’ unemployed. Unemployment is a matter of rational choice: some people prefer ‘leisure’ over the real wage available at going (or still lower) wage rates.

…

Apart from the grossness of this kind of metaphysical legerdemain, the very concept of a natural rate of unemployment has a huge built-in bias. It takes as granted all the other institutional factors that influence the price level-unemployment trade-off (market structures and independent pricing power, business investment policies at home and abroad, the distribution of income, the fiscal and monetary mix, etc.) and focuses solely on the tightness of the labour market as the controllable variable. Inflation is the main threat, the labour market (i.e. wage rates and unemployment levels) is the locus of the solution to the problem.

The flaw in Friedman’s reasoning, however, is that his “natural” rate is not natural at all. In fact, it alters based on exactly the same “manuplating” factors that Mises decried. As he put it himself in an article for The American Economic Review (PDF), it is not “immutable and unchangeable” because “many of the market characteristics that determine its level are man-made and policy-made.” Thus, “in the United States, for example, legal minimum wage rates . . . and the strength of labour unions all make the natural rate of unemployment higher than it would otherwise be.”

In other words, the natural rate of unemployment will be driven up (by state policy, as Baker details and Friedman concedes) in response to the strength of the working class – to avoid precisely the problem of employers having to compete for workers by attending to their needs and treating them with dignity.

And so, in practice, the theory of the “free market” transforms into the mechanism to control class conflict for the benefit of the ruling class.

This is not a new concept. In his unpublished manuscript, Wages, Karl Marx made the same point;

Big industry constantly requires a reserve army of unemployed workers for times of overproduction. The main purpose of the bourgeois in relation to the worker is, of course, to have the commodity labour as cheaply as possible, which is only possible when the supply of this commodity is as large as possible in relation to the demand for it, i.e., when the overpopulation is the greatest.

Overpopulation is therefore in the interest of the bourgeoisie, and it gives the workers good advice which it knows to be impossible to carry out.

Since capital only increases when it employs workers, the increase of capital involves an increase of the proletariat, and, as we have seen, according to the nature of the relation of capital and labour, the increase of the proletariat must proceed relatively even faster.

The above theory, however, which is also expressed as a law of nature, that population grows faster than the means of subsistence, is the more welcome to the bourgeois as it silences his conscience, makes hard-heartedness into a moral duty and the consequences of society into the consequences of nature, and finally gives him the opportunity to watch the destruction of the proletariat by starvation as calmly as other natural event without bestirring himself, and, on the other hand, to regard the misery of the proletariat as its own fault and to punish it.

The logical conclusion of which point, is that the capitalist system under which we all dwell not only generates permanent unemployment by its nature but actively demands it.

That said, this is not a conclusion which will be accepted by capitalists, of any stripe. In Pierre-Joseph Proudhon’s words, “political economy – that is, proprietary despotism – can never be in the wrong: it must be the proletariat.”

Polls Show Americans Opposed to War With North Korea

Despite the rhetoric from Barack Obama about committing US soldiers to a potential war in Korea, and despite the offer of the US Air Force to help South Korea should they start bombing the North, most Americans are opposed to the idea of a new Korean War.

According to a new Chicago Council on Global Affairs poll, 56 percent of Americans are opposed to unilateral military action in the highly unlikely event of a North Korean invasion of the South. The poll also showed that most Americans are against the US taking it upon itself to "punish" North Korea.

When the South Korean Navy ship called The Cheonan sank earlier this year, polls showed that only 27 percent of Americans wanted their country to help retaliate against North Korea.

Also according to the Chicago Council, only 27 percent of Americans felt it was very important to prevent China from supposedly "dominating" the Korean Peninsula.

The polls also showed growing opposition to the United States having bases overseas. Only 50 percent of Americans support having bases in Iraq, which is a decrease of seven percent since 2008. Support for bases in Afghanistan is now at 52 percent, which is a decrease of five percent.

The IMF's Takeover of Ireland‏

The following article was emailed to The Partisan by the online forum of the Irish Republican Socialist Party.

The Irish Republican Socialist Party has warned of the threat to Irish democracy through the imposition of EU bureaucrats and the IMF on the Irish people.

Ross Gildea of the IRSP said:

“This government is an affront to democracy and obviously has no respect for Irish citizens. We now face a disastrous situation whereby the vultures of the capitalist class, the IMF, are circling and their influence in Ireland not only represents a further erosion of Irish democracy and sovereignty but also will serve to have a devastating social effect. The IMF are the enemy of working class people and their record in other countries should act as a warning for what is to come. They champion privitisation and will provide a recipe for even further unemployment in Ireland. This will mean that investors in London and New York will have significant input and power over your future and the lives of your children. The IRSP will not stand idly by as another draconian austerity budget looms with the most vulnerable in our society, as always, being left to pick up the tab for the boom and bust capitalist system”

He continued:

“It is outrageous that this government, which has it’s fingerprints all over the current economic crisis, is still in office. Likewise, it is a disgrace that private financial institutions can effectively hold the Irish people to ransom. The banks must be nationalised, but as we have seen from Anglo-Irish Bank, that is not enough. In both the political and economic spheres we as a country need to re-assess what we mean by the term democracy. We need representatives that are subject to recall at any time by the population and we need democratic worker control over any institution that is vital to building a sustainable economy. Our recent political and economic woes have shown the necessity of this.It is clear that those who walk the corridors of power have decided to move away from any semblance of social protection and are encouraging a race to the bottom with regard to workers' wages and living standards. The presence of the IMF is disastrous for Ireland and mass emigration will continue. We need only look at what the IMF did in Argentina and Jamaica, to give just two examples, to know what is in store for Ireland"

The IRSP activist concluded by saying:

“We need to send a clear message to this government, EU bureaucrats and the IMF. The Irish people will fight for their sovereignty and will resist any attempts to make the working class pay for this crisis. The IRSP will continue to oppose undemocratic and draconian cuts both North and South of the border and we believe that people taking to the streets is the only way in which this situation can be changed. The establishment parties are only interested in power, they will not bring about the radical changes we require and therefore we must stand up and do it for ourselves”.

The IRSP urges workers, the unemployed and all progressive forces in Irish society to mobilise for the upcoming protests in Dublin on November 27th and December 7th.

GA Police Arrest Innocent Press Member

A Russian news reporter, a legal and recognized member of the US and Russian press, was arrested along with other innocent people at a protest against the School of Americas. As you can see, she did nothing wrong. Notice the cruel treatment she receives. Imagine if she were your friend, girlfriend, mother, daughter, or sister. You would be angry, wouldn't you? The American police don't recognize her rights, or yours, and they are fond of torture, thuggery, rape, and murder, regardless of whether you are innocent or not. The police aren't your friends, they don't protect you, and they should be viewed in the same way one would view Hitler's Gestapo. The police should be hated to the most extreme point possible in your mind.

North and South Korea Exchange Fire

South Korea held controversial military drills today, provoking a fiery response from the North. Today's events have been called the worst incident since the actual Korean War of over 50 years ago.

Simulating an invasion of North Korea, 70,000 South Korean soldiers held a drill near the border with North Korea and repeatedly fired shots into Northern waters. North Korea responded by firing on South Korean military installations on the island of Yeonpyeong, which is seven miles from the North. At least 15 Southern soldiers were wounded and 2 Southern marines were killed.

South Korea responded by returning fire with K-9 155mm self-propelled howitzers and dispatching fighter jets. There have been no reports on the number of North Korean casualties. The shoot out between the two Korean militaries lasted around an hour.

This fight sent stock prices down. However, the US dollar, Treasury prices, and gold all rose in value as investors sought safe places to put their money.

"It brings us one step closer to the brink of war because I don't think the North would seek war by intention, but war by accident, something spiraling out of control has always been my fear," said Peter Beck, a research fellow from the Council on Foreign Relations.

"Any differences should be resolved by peaceful means and dialogue," said UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon via his spokesman.

"....[Both sides should]... do more to contribute to peace and stability on the peninsula," Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Hong Lei said.

Representatives from the Administration of US President Barack Obama, in an amazing bout of double-speak, also called for restraint on both sides but also stressed its firm military commitment to South Korea.

South Korean President Lee Myung-bak was more direct, saying that, "Enormous retaliation should be made to the extent that North Korea cannot make provocations again."

While China and the United Nations are calling for peace and restraint, South Korea and its President are pushing for further conflict. The US, too, is feeding this fire by reminding the world of its staunch military commitment to South Korea.

Peace cannot be achieved through simulating invasion plans at the North Korean border knowing that Pyongyang would take it as a threat. Nor can it be achieved by indirectly threatening war through the stressing of America's military ties to the South.

It is clear that the United States would be the only country to benefit from a renewed war in Korea, and the fact that the value of its currency went up during this incident proves it. Clearly the ruling elites of the USA are seeking to profit from yet another war. Peace can only be achieved when the United States leaves Korea entirely.

Christmas drive for Republican Socialist POWs

The following was taken from http://irspscotland.wordpress.com/

Below we print a request from Teach na Fáilte requesting support for IRSM prisoners both financially and materially through book donations, or even sending a xmas card. All expressions of support are always welcome.

The IRSP Alba/Scotland Support Group will be playing our part to support the prisoners and would encourage you to do likewise. All donations gratefully received.

*************************

Teach na Fáilte
Republican Socialist Ex-Prisoners Support Group
Costello House
392 Falls Road
BT12 6DH
Belfast

A Chara,

As I’m sure you are aware there are a number of Republican Socialist prisoners incarcerated in prisons throughout Ireland at this point in time. Some are serving lengthly sentences and are incarcarated many miles from their homes so they would be glad of your support especially around the festive season.

As the festive season is approaching I was wondering if you or any of your family, friends or comrades would be interested in sponsoring one of our prisoners or even sending them a Christmas card at this time.

In relation to sponsoring a prisoner you can send your correspondence directly to me at the address below. If you would prefer to send cards etc to me I will see that they get it or you can send cards directly to the prisoners themselves.

Anything that you choose to do would be greatly appreciated by the prisoners themselves as it would let them know that there are people still thinking about them

Fundraising efforts have also begun in many areas and we ask you to continue to support these.

Thank you for your time and effort

Gerard Murray.

—————————————————————

GERARD MURRAY
TEACH NA FAILTE
392 FALLS ROAD
BT12 6D BELFAST
IRELAND
gerardm042000@yahoo.com

E4 Landing
Portlaoise Prison
Portlaoise, Co Laois
Ireland

DENIS DWYER
PAUL KELLY
EUGENE KELLY
EOGHAN CLAIL
GERARD MACKIN
THOMAS KELLY
PADDY WALL
NOEL MOONEY
JONATHAN KEOGH
GERARD KELLEGHER
NEIL MYLES
ANTHONY LEE
GARETH BYRNE

The Grove
Castlerea Prison
Castlerea, Co Roscommon
Ireland

EDDIE MC GARRIGLE
JOHNNY MC CROSSAN

Roe 4
Maghaberry Prison
Old Road
Ballinderry Upper
Lisburn, Co. Antrim BT 28 2PT
North of Ireland

SEAN CARLIN

(Not all of the above named political prisoners are necessarily facing charges relating to RSM activities but for one reason or another they now find themselves on the INLA wing.)

Bloomberg appoints Hearst Magazines CEO to lead schools

The following article was taken from PSLweb.org.

In a Nov. 9 press release, New York City mayor Michael Bloomberg announced that the current chancellor of education, Joel Klein, would be resigning to take a position as the executive vice president of media mogul Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp. Cathie Black, the current CEO of the multi-billion-dollar Hearst Magazines, will be appointed as the new NYC school chancellor.

Black will have to be granted a waiver by the New York State Education Department in order to assume her position, because she lacks a master’s degree, professional certificate and teaching experience. Black attended parochial schools in Chicago growing up, and her children, while raised in New York City, attended private school in Connecticut. Despite her lack of experience with public education, Mayor Bloomberg can legally appoint the school chancellor without any checks or balances from parents, students or Department of Education employees due to a state law he pushed through the state legislature in 2002 at the beginning of his first term.

Black’s appointment is representative of a trend across the country of hiring corporate executives to manage the nation’s public schools. Black’s acceptance, together with Klein’s new appointment to the News Corp., signifies a deepening of this relationship in New York City. While Black has yet to make any detailed public statements outlining her strategy, she was quoted in the Nov. 9 press release as saying:,“My main goal will be to build on the work that has been accomplished during the Bloomberg Administration, and Chancellor Klein’s tenure,” meaning that NYC schools are headed for more public school closings, charter school openings and back-room deals with private educational management companies.

By passing the mayoral control law in 2002, which disbanded the Board of Education and created a Department of Education headed by the mayor, Bloomberg has effectively cut parents and school workers out of the equation in making decisions about city schools. In March of this year, a New York State Supreme Court judge ruled against the closing of 19 public schools because the Department of Education had committed “significant violations” of the state education law with its lack of community involvement.

Mayor Bloomberg, who is also the richest man in New York City with an estimated net worth of $16 billion, has no business presiding over the education of the city’s 988,000 public school students, when more than half this number of the city’s children are living in poverty. (Children’s Defense Fund, 2006)

Bronx high school teacher Rebecca Carter stated, “I'm discouraged that legislators still cling to the belief that we can improve our public school system by aligning it to a business model.” The education system should belong to the students, parents and school staff whose lives it actually touches, not a small circle of CEOs and VPs.

Parent, teacher and community organizations have already issued the call for Black’s nomination to be struck down, and the Party for Socialism and Liberation joins in that demand. Education does not belong to corporations or media moguls, it belongs to the people.

Obama to Give Medals to Two Right-Wing Politicians

Shocking his supporters, United States President Barack Obama announced yesterday that he would award the Presidential Medal of Freedom to George H.W. Bush, an ex-US President from the Republican Party.

This award is considered the highest civilian honor. Obama's announcement came a day after George W. Bush, ex-President and son of George H.W. Bush, said, “The decisions of governing are on another President’s desk, and he deserves to make them without criticism from me.” The last President said this at the groundbreaking of his library in Dallas.

Other Presidential Medal of Freedom recipients will include German Chancellor Angela Merkel and Warren Buffett.

“These outstanding honorees come from a broad range of backgrounds and they’ve excelled in a broad range of fields, but all of them have lived extraordinary lives that have inspired us, enriched our culture, and made our country and our world a better place. I look forward to awarding them this honor,” said Obama.

This is clearly an attempt by Obama to get on the good side of the Republicans. By awarding medals to George H.W. Bush and Angela Merkel, two conservatives, he has proven what The Partisan has been saying all along. The Democrats and Republicans represent the same group of people, the super-rich. Bourgeois unity and class interests, not working and middle class interests, will always come first on Barack Obama's agenda and this proves it.

In 1932, Fox Helped Make Propaganda Films for Hitler

The following article was found in the Rock Creek Free Press (linked to on left), but was also published elsewhere.

By Webster Griffin Tarpley, PH.D.

Observers of the current US election season have noted the prominent role of Rupert Murdoch’s reactionary Fox News Channel, which currently employs GOP and “Tea Party” partisans Sarah Palin, Glen Beck, Mike Huckabee, Newt Gingrich, Rick Santorum, Sean Hannity, and others. Some have alleged that a television network carrying so many potential political candidates and propagandists on its payroll is unprecedented. But there is a precedent for large-scale Fox intervention into a political campaign.

In 1932, the German newsreel subsidiary of Fox News Channel’s corporate ancestor, Fox Films, intervened in national elections in Germany.

The candidate Fox supported was Nazi leader Adolf Hitler.

The basic facts are available in German historian Hans Mommsen’s authoritative study entitled The Rise and Fall of Weimar Democracy, which is translated into English and widely available in over five hundred libraries in this country. Mommsen, one of the most distinguished postwar German historians, is now Professor Emeritus of History at the University of Bochum. In Mommsen’s account of Nazi propaganda techniques, we find the following: “There was nothing that escaped the ingenuity of Nazi propagandists. A case in point was the use of film. Under Goebbels’ influence the party had begun to exploit the potential of the political propaganda film to an unprecedented extent as early as 1930. Such films were shown mostly in places where Hitler and other prominent party leaders were not able to appear as speakers. For the manufacture of outdoor sound film, the NSDAP turned to an American company, Twentieth Century Fox.“1

Scholar William G. Chrystal confirms this account and provides further important details in his 1975 article on “Nazi Party Election Films, 1927-1938.” Chrystal writes: “Support for two additional 1932 election films, Der Führer (The Leader), and Hitlers Kampf um Deutschland (Hitler’s Struggle for Germany) came from the German-based subsidiary of Twentieth Century Fox, Fox Tönende Wochenschau (Fox Weekly Sound Newsreel [i.e., Fox Movietone News]). In addition, they also supplied some mobile sound film vans to be used during the campaign. Thus at least part of Hitler’s support in that critical time was the result of Fox’s help. The background for this assistance is unknown since Fox Tönende Wochenschau records were destroyed during the war,” according to a July 9, 1974 letter to Chrystal from Joseph Bellfort, who was at that time the vice president of the Twentieth Century Fox International Film Corporation.2

Fox Helped Hitler’s Voice to Reach Many Germans for the First Time

Of the first of these two films, Chrystal writes: “…Der Führer (The Leader) was one of two sound films subsidized by Fox Tönende Wochenschau. Released on April 13, 1932, it was originally titled Volk und Führer (Nation and Leader). It was a relatively short film, 263 meters long, but it provided many people with their first opportunity to hear Hitler speak. These films were accompanied by an apparently popular tide which enabled their wider dissemination. In his diary on March 6, 1932, [Nazi propaganda boss Joseph] Goebbels noted: ‘We now also win the movie theater for our propaganda.’”3

This film lasts about five minutes. In it Hitler, speaking in Berlin on April 4, 1932, develops his characteristic theme that the German army was betrayed and stabbed in the back in November 1918 by the Weimar politicians, especially the Social Democrats. This speech was part of Hitler’s campaign for president, in which he was defeated on April 10, 1932 by von Hindenburg but nevertheless received almost 37% of the votes, which represented a new high in Nazi support up to that time. In the subsequent parliamentary election held on July 31, 1932, the Nazis added 19% to their previous totals to emerge for the first time as the largest single party in Germany with 38% of the votes — thanks in part to the assistance rendered to Hitler by Fox Movietone News.

Concerning the second film Fox made for Hitler, Chrystal writes: “…new Reichstag elections were called for November 6, 1932…. The second of the Fox-subsidized productions, Hitlers Kampf um Deutschland (Hitler’s Struggle for Germany), appeared on August 30. It comprised 606 meters of Hitler’s July, 1932 Eberswalde speech. An indication of the effectiveness of this speech and its film record can be found in its later use. When Reichstag elections were held again in March 1933, this same film was re-issued under a new title, Reichskanzler Adolf Hitler Spricht (Reich Chancellor Adolf Hitler Speaks).”4

Hitler’s speech in the Brandenburg Stadium in Eberswalde on July 27, 1932, one of three he gave that day, is a classic demagogic performance. As Mommsen points out, “in the hectic 1932 election campaign” the Nazis organized mass rallies featuring “speeches that Hitler tailored specifically to the psychotic public mood that had been created by the deepening crisis.” (Mommsen, p. 338) “We are intolerant,” raved Hitler, promising to drive more than thirty other political parties out of Germany. “We have one goal before us, to fanatically and ruthlessly shove all these parties into the grave,” he added. This was the message which Fox Movietone News helped deliver to the German public. Six months after he gave this speech, Hitler seized power as chancellor and began consolidating his power as dictator — once again thanks in part to the help of Fox Movietone News.

Note that Chrystal speaks of Fox has having “subsidized” Hitler’s critical 1932 election campaigns. This can be considered as the 1930s equivalent of illicit contributions in kind to a politician under current US election law, which is the charge often made against Fox News today, as for example in a recent filing by the Democratic Governors’ Association in regard to the Kasich gubernatorial campaign in Ohio.

Fox Movietone News and the Rise of European Fascism

Robert Edwin Herzstein, in his article entitled “Movietone News and the Rise of Fascism in Europe, 1930-1935,” explored the partial archive of Fox Movietone News for these years now at the Thomas Cooper Library at the University of South Carolina.5 It is clear from this article that the regular weekly Fox Movietone newsreels also played into the hands of the Nazi and fascist media strategy. Proud of this record, “Fox called its newsreel operations ‘the mightiest of them all.’” (Herzstein, p. 314)

In the Fox Movietone newsreels and outtakes of Nazi rallies, says Herzstein, “one senses the enthusiasm, the communion between leader and masses…. Hitler is often seen standing in the presence of his friend and foreign press chief Ernst Hanfstaengl, apparently oblivious to the prying movie camera…. Hitler, in part a media creation, was better equipped to manipulate the masses by putting them on the movie screen. He made them part of the media action, and the outtakes show us how that was done.” (Herzstein, p. 317) Hitler’s rivals and adversaries, including his predecessor as chancellor, von Papen, the Austrian leader Dollfuss, and the Social Democrat Dittman all appear in the Fox footage in a negative or unflattering light by comparison.

One big fan of Fox Movietone News was the Italian fascist dictator Benito Mussolini, who was given the opportunity to make one of his famous bravura speeches for the Fox camera. According to Herzstein, one of the first sound newsreels shown in the United States depicted Mussolini in March 1929 speaking in English directly to the American people, saying: “Your talking newsreel has tremendous possibilities. Let me speak through it in twenty cities in Italy once a week and I need no other power.” (Herzstein, p. 318) In the mind of the Duce, newsfilm was thus already the handmaiden of fascist power. Herzstein’s extensive survey of the Fox Movietone archive for 1930-1935 apparently yielded no examples of any criticism or unfavorable coverage of the fascist dictators, since none is mentioned in his article.6

The last Fox Movietone newsreels appeared in the United States in 1963. According to the Wikipedia article on Movietone News, parts of the Fox Movietone newsreel collection are still “owned and managed by the Fox Film Corporation’s corporate successor (and namesake), Fox News Channel. The majority of the collection is stored in New Jersey, mostly unseen since the newsreels were originally shown in theatres. During its early years, Fox News Channel had a weekend show which played the newsreels.”7

As the philosopher George Santayana rightly observed in 1905, “when experience is not retained, as among savages, infancy is perpetual. Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.”


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

References:
1 Hans Mommsen, The Rise and Fall of Weimar Democracy, Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1996, p. 339. emphasis added. Fox Film Corporation merged with Twentieth Century Pictures to form Twentieth Century Fox in May, 1935.
2 William G. Chrystal, “Nazi Party Election Films, 1927-1938,” in Cinema Journal XV:1, Autumn 1975, p. 32, published by the University Texas Press for the Society for Cinema and Media Studies, emphasis added. See also Hans Barkhausen, “Kurzübersicht: Filme der NSDAP, 1927-1945,” and “Die NSDAP als Filmproduzentin,” in Günter Moltmann and Karl Friedrich Reimers, Zeitgeschichte im Film- und Tondokument: 17 historische, pädagogische, und sozialwissenschaftliche Beiträge, edited by Günter Moltmann and Karl Friedrich Reimers (Göttingen: Musterschmidt-Verlag, 1970).
3 Chrystal, p. 33.
4 Chrystal, p. 35.
5 Robert Edwin Herzstein, “Movietone News and the Rise of Fascism in Europe, 1930-1935: A Guide for the Researcher, Teacher, and Student,” The History Teacher XXI:3 (May 1988), pp. 313-320, published by: Society for History Education.
6 For part of Mussolini’s remarks, see http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tTXhez2mNmM
7 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Movietone_News

Richmond Sheriff's Platform Committee

The City of Richmond spends more on jailing its citizens than any expenditure. Those in charge of the jail have created one of the highest incarceration rates in the country with the biggest prison population on the planet. The current jail was built to house 888 inmates however the jail regularly holds 1500 people. Woody, Herring, Norwood, Jones,and Richmond City Council have conspired to create a inhumane unconstitutional jail in order to line their pockets and serve the interests of the capitalist powers that have put them in their roles.

Now the criminal local power structure is positioning themselves for a 137,000,000 dollar cash windfall coming to the jail from the ironically named Virginia Public Private Education Facilities and Infrastructure Act. The local money grubbers, AKA the Richmond Government and their string pullers, want to build a jail that will house over 1,800 people more than double the size of the current jail. This is unusual because the powers that be including Woody have stated their intention to reduce the number of inmates. Unusual until one understands that the people in control of our City, State and Federal Government are disingenuous liars that say one thing and do another.

On May 8, 2010 I announced my intention to be the next Sheriff of Richmond. When I am Sheriff many of the functions of city government will change. Most notably an immediate reduction in the population of the current jail to 850 people because we will not jail people for violating unconstitutional laws. In order to serve the people the Sheriff will carry out the will of the Richmond Sheriffs Platform Committee which is now forming and will be open to the public. The RSPC will set the agenda for what will become the umbrella constitutional regulator for all city,state,and federal,government agencies. When I am Sheriff I will take only one third of the salary that the current head of the inhumane jail pockets. Constitutional enforcement, public safety, and transparency will replace crony capitalism and back room deals.

The current leaders of our government are sociopaths that use positions of public service to live in big houses and drive expensive cars. Our tax dollars are being wasted by crooks. This corruption will end when I am Sheriff and the will of the people is enforced. Furthermore I challenge anyone in this criminal government structure to debate me on this or any other issue.

Chris Dorsey
contact at RVA4peace@gmail.com

Indigenous Peoples and countries expose scam US Periodic Review

The following article was taken from Censored News (click here).

The first ever US Periodic Review on Human Rights to the United Nations, delivered Friday, Nov. 5, 2010, in Geneva, failed Native Americans with a pathetic brief summary that ignored the United States far reaching and ongoing genocide of American Indians.

Countries from around the world lined up in Geneva to document the United States’ ongoing torture in violation of the Geneva Conventions, the US phony war on terrorism and US racial profiling leading to the deaths of migrants by US officers at the US/Mexico border. Countries challenged the US for ongoing hate crimes against Muslims, Arabs and South Asians.

As countries challenged the US continued use of torture, assassinations and kidnapping, neither President Obama nor Secretary of State Hillary Clinton were present in Geneva to justify the torture and unjust imprisonments. George Bush and Dick Cheney, popularized by the media and book tours, were not present to be held responsible for their use of torture or creation of laws enabling US torture.

Although the US attempted to ignore the rights of Native Americans, other countries focused on the failure of the US to adopt the Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples.

US officials in Geneva responded to Australia, Cyprus, Finland, Germany and Norway, about the failure to adopt the Declaration and said it is reveiwing its position.

In Mexico’s advance questions, Mexico pointed out the ongoing racial profiling in the United States and the role of law enforcement. It also challenged the US to investigate deaths in custody. Further, it questioned the use of lethal force at the US Mexico border and the execution of Mexican nationals in violation of international law.

This issue of US torture was the primary issue that dominated the questions from around the world. In particular, Mexico asked the US about the provisions of its Army operations manual and violations of human rights.

The School of Americas’ operations manual, made public in 1996, was used to train Latin American military officers for decades, resulting in the torture, mutilation, rape and assassination of peoples, including tens of thousands of Indigenous Peoples, throughout the Americas.

Even today, a protest is planned at Fort Huachuca Army Intelligence Center in southern Arizona, where the School of Americas’ torture manual was published. In the annual protest at Fort Huachuca, to be held this weekend, Nov. 14, human rights activists point out the ongoing role of Fort Huachuca. Drones continue to kill civilians, and are used for US rogue assassinations in Iraq and Afghanistan. Fort Huachuca officers have not been held responsible for their role in the torture at Abu Ghraib.

In advance questions, Mexico asked the US at the UN: “What mechanisms does the US have in place to periodically review the provisions of the Army operations manual are compatible with International human rights norms and international humanitarian law, in particular on measures to prevent and punish torture?”

Mexico questioned why local law enforcement now has the authority to enforce immigration laws, when only the US federal government has this authority.

In preparation for the review, the United States wasted the time and money of Native Americans, asking people to travel to Listening Conferences to testify about human rights abuses in the US. Nearly all of the testimony was ignored by the United States State Department in its final report to the United Nations.

While the US ignored or minimized its own human rights abuses, the United Nations compiled the documents from independent sources.

The United Nations has compiled summaries and a list of the Stakeholders. Stakeholders include the Western Shoshone, fighting Barrick Gold mining on sacred land at Mount Tenabo in Nevada, and the Navajos, long targeted by Peabody Coal mining for destruction of its land, air and water. Navajos demanded a halt to the relocation of Dine’ and other Indigenous Peoples from their homelands. Havasupai and Hualapai were among those documenting the uranium mining now threatening the pristine water and land in their homeland, the Grand Canyon in Arizona.

The independent US Human Rights Network has also published an extensive document on the US human rights abuses, including the abuse of sacred land and the extensive ongoing uranium mining targeting Lakotas and others Indian Nations.

The Human Rights Network report includes submissions on human rights from the Indigenous Environmental Network, International Indian Treaty Council, International Justice Program Owe Aku (Bring Back the Way), Laguna Acoma Peoples for a Safe Environment, Nation of Hawaii (Oahu and Maui Hawaii), National Native American Prisoners’ Rights Coalition, Pit River Tribe and Wintu Nationk, Venetie Traditional Council, Gwich’in in Athabascan Nation, Wanblee Wakpa Oyate, Pine Ridge Reservation and Western Shoshone Defense Project.

The report points out the legacy of death from uranium mining in the Southwest. "The Pueblo, Navajo, Hopi, Havasupai, and Western Shoshone Peoples were exposed to the ruinous effects of uranium mining milling, waste storage and weapons testing, since the late 1940’s. Uranium production has killed hundreds of Indigenous Peoples, including hundreds of miners still dying from radiation poisoning and cancers of all sorts. Radioactive residue blown by 324 the wind and seeping into surface and ground water in a continual poisoning of Indigenous communities has never been remedied."

Still, many of those who testified wasted their money traveling to the so-called Listening Conferences, because their testimony was not included in the summary. The US State Department has placed its pathetic summary online, which lacks names and key issues.

Since many victims of the United States policy of genocide, including the poor and people of color, lack access to the Internet, they were never informed that the US was collecting information on its abuses of them.

As countries challenged the US record of human rights in Geneva, the country of India pointed out the racism that leads to the high rate of imprisonment of blacks. It also pointed out the sexual harassment of women in the military.

The rape of US soldiers, by fellow US soldiers, in Iraq and Afghanistan is one of the most censored issues.

India said it is "concerned about human rights abuses by business corporations and inquired about the United States’ position on its Alien Tort Claims Act. It was concerned at the sexual harassment of women in the United States military and the disproportionately high conviction rates for African-Americans, as well as their low access to education, health and employment."

While the US failed Native Americans with a pathetic US Periodic Review, American Indians and the countries of the world have documented, and continue to document, the ongoing human rights abuses which the US mainstream media and US government censors.

As countries challenged the US on the promised closure of Guantanamo, Brazil challenged the US on its human rights abuses under the guise of counter-terrorism and Vietnam pointed out the discrimination toward migrants in the US.

There was this capsule, challenging the US in Geneva, as stated in the UN draft summary from Nov. 5.

"The Libyan Arab Jamahiriya was concerned at, inter alia, the racial discrimination and intolerance against persons with African, Arab Islamic and Latin American origins, the denial of the indigenous community of their rights, human rights violations resulting from its policies of occupation and invasion and the imposition of blockades. It was concerned over the large number of prisoners at Guantanamo, deprived of their right to a fair trial."

G-20 Disagreements Spark Fears of World Trade War

Fears of a global trade war have appeared as Group of 20 (G-20) countries, which are the first world and rising countries, wrestled with each over trade in Seoul, South Korea on Friday.

Accusations that both China and the United States are manipulating their currencies has brought back the specter of protectionist economic policies. Such policies were seen in the USA before the Great Depression. The possibility of a return to protectionism has sparked fears that the world may soon return to a higher level of recession.

The United States argued that China should let the value of the yuan rise, making Chinese exports more expensive and American imports in China cheaper for Chinese consumers. It is argued that this would shrink the American trade deficit with China, which is set to tie its 2008 record of $268 billion.

At the same time, other countries found the United States to be hypocritical on this matter. The American Federal Reserve plans to inject $600 billion into the US economy. This would decrease the value of the dollar, making American exports cheaper and giving the US an advantage.

Richard Portes of the Center for Economic Policy Research in London called the low chances of a substantive agreement "dangerous."

Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva spoke out against first world countries trying to export their way to more wealth. He fears that there will be less consumption of goods from rising countries.

Failure to agree on currency and trade could intensify the desire of G-20 countries to manipulate their currencies to gain the upper hand. This could lead to an all out trade war, which would set up barriers to imports.

Gregory Chin, a senior fellow at the Center for International Governance Innovation said that the US Congress "wants to see some blood ... wants a bit of a spat with China on currency wars."

The American House of Representatives recently voted to harm China for keeping its currency low.

South Korea and the United States, so far, have been unable to work out a stalled free trade deal, which is harming the possibility for other agreements. Developing countries have voiced concern over the falling yields of American government bonds. The developing world is vulnerable to economic collapse if investors decide to take their money elsewhere.

China and Taiwan have announced this week that they will restrict the amount of foreign money going into their markets.

Outside of the meeting place, the National Museum of Korea, thousands of protesters rallied against the G-20 and South Korean government and clashed with police. However, the protest was peaceful compared to others.

Bourgeois commentator and author Fareed Zakaria commented in his book The Post-American World that certain international issues, both economic and political, remind him of the tensions that led up to World War One. The First World War was caused by capitalist and inter-imperialist rivalries. What the world is witnessing among the G-20 governments, which usually cooperate a little better with each other, is probably the collapse of cooperation among the world's ruling classes. This could possibly lead to another World War, which, judging from the past two, always results in a Communist Party seizing power somewhere (but in no way is The Partisan trying to be prophetic).

Monroe Park Issue

(Richmond, VA) Two pieces were recently published in the Richmond Times-Dispatch. One was against the Monroe Park renovation plans, and the other was a letter in favor of them.

The first piece, by Michael Paul Williams, stated that the renovation plans are part of a gentrification process. Williams spent much of the article discussing the matter with regards to Food Not Bombs, which feels that relocating feeding programs to the Conrad Center is a bad idea.

“It’s inaccessible. It’s stigmatic. It is not a community meal. It’s across from the city jail,” said Mo Karn of Food Not Bombs. “It’s a completely different dynamic if you’re in a building.”

Homeless people were also quoted in the article.

If you'd like to read the entire update, see a video of the community meeting on Monroe Park, and read the City Council renovation plans, click the link below.
http://richmondspark.wordpress.com/2010/11/09/update-on-monroe-park-issue/

The class basis of US elections

The following article was taken from Lenin's Tomb (click here).

The Democrats have lost the House of Representatives but kept the Senate by a slim margin. The Tea Party 'movement' will be credited for giving the Republicans this energy in the polls, but in fact there will be little evidence when the dust settles that anything particularly remarkable happened here. A few whack jobs got elected, quite a few didn't, turnout was probably around 40% (which will be hailed as a record high if true), and capitalism remains firmly in control of the political process. The dominant faction of the 'political class' will still comprise rich corporate lawyers, the majority of senators will still be millionaires, and Wall Street will still control the Treasury.

The Republican sweep, announcing a "seismic shift", will be every bit as flimsy as the 'revolution' of 1994. This was when Gingrich's hard right rump took control of both houses of Congress for the first time in fifty years. They added 54 seats to their total in the House of Representatives (2010 equivalent: 36, with 14 undecided), while adding 8 senate seats to their total to gain the upper house (2010 equivalent, 5, with 3 undecided - and no prospect of gaining control of the upper house). But the 'Republican revolution' took place with the support of less than 20% of eligible voters, with a turnout of less than 40%. Many of the same personnel who drove that 'revolution', and drafted the 'Contract with America' that few read or understood, are now 'activists' in the Tea Party movement. The FT calls Dick Armey an 'activist', for christ's sake.

This change in the political composition of the elected chambers as a result of the 2010 mid-terms will be even less significant than the 1994 congressional elections. The GOP's 'surge' will be predicated on, again, just about a fifth of eligible voters. Bear in mind that voter eligibility is, thanks to a racist criminal justice system and voting laws that deprive convicted felons of the right to vote, biased against poor and black voters anyway. But it will be depicted as a populist upsurge against what is perceived to be a tax-and-spend administration with socialist, Muslim, Kenyan anti-colonialist roots. In fact, the Tea Party 'movement' will probably not have had the effect that the commentariat is looking for. It is the result not of 'grassroots' right-wing anger, but of class-conscious business intervention in the political process - particularly by the billionaire Koch brothers. The 'grassroots' that are mobilised tend to be whiter and wealthier than the population at large, and they are heavily dependent on the media to talk up their activities.

In reality, just as in Massachusetts in January, millions of Democratic voters will not have turned out. Obama and his supporters have relied on a strategy of condescendingly lecturing the base, telling them off for expecting too much, which is grotesque and pathetic. (He saved capitalism, you fools!) His staff, as well, have been known to insult the base, especially progressives, as idiots and morons for being furious over the healthcare sell-out. So, why would grassroots Dems mobilise for an elitist pro-Wall Street clique that treats them like dirt and tells them they should be grateful? More on this in a bit. The point is that voters, just like the Tea Party 'movement', and just like the Republican base, will be heavily skewed toward the whiter and the wealthier, and the majority of the working class will have been effectively squeezed out of the electoral system.

***

If we understand electoral politics as a particular expression of the class struggle in the US, the bizarre trends noted above can be comprehended better. First of all, the obvious. Unlike in much of the world, the United States does not have a party of labour, that is a party created by and rooted in the organised working class. The electoral system is entirely dominated by two pro-business parties. The Democrats have, since the 'New Deal', tended to gain from whatever votes are cast by the working class, and have ruthlessly and jealously guarded that advantage against all potential 'third party' rivals. But the correlation between class voting and Democratic voting declined in the post-war era. This has usually been measured by the gap between the number of 'working class' and 'middle class' voters supporting the Democrats in any given election. You subtract the percentage of the 'middle class' vote that backs the Democrats from the percentage of the 'working class' vote that backs the Democrats and you have a class voting index - the Alford Index. This is not particularly sophisticated, and tends to rely on simplistic, occupational grading models of class. But the results of applying it do disclose a trend, which is worth noting.

One study, which focused on white voters (because African Americans were for much of the relevant period prevented from voting in much of the country), noted that the gap in 1948 was 44%. In 1952 it was 20%. In 1960 it was 12%. In 1964 it was 19%. In 1968, it was 8%. And in 1972, it was 2%. This form of 'class voting' benefiting the Democrats is subject to considerable variation depending on the context. I suspect that it would have been relatively high in 2008 and relatively low in 2004, for example. But the secular trend is one of decline. And the declining relevance of this particular index of class to determining voter behaviour has been interpreted by the usual dirt - sorry, by some academics - as a decline in class voting as such. It's been tied into a broader claim about the demise of class as an important factor in American life, most notably by Terry Clark and Seymour Lipset. This is just the American version of 'electoral dealignment' theory, which became popular among psephologists in the UK in the 1980s, and it maintains that as class loses its social significance, voters become more like consumers, choosing electoral brands based on the values they associate with that brand.

More plausibly, it has been claimed that since the Goldwater campaign in 1964, the Republicans learned how to use 'culture wars' effectively to win over a sector of racist white wokers. This is arguably the very effect that Republicans were unable to produce in 2008. Thus, the 'southern strategy' using a fusion of racial and religious politics, helped depress the overall levels of class voting. But it's important not to exaggerate this. Most white workers still don't vote Republican. In most cases, a majority of them simply decline to vote. Further, 'class voting' in the sense of working class mobilisation for the Democrats was in decline well before the overthrow of segregation and the onset of the Nixonite 'southern strategy'. Most of the decline cannot be explained by racism. According to Michael Hout et al (1995) [pdf], adjusting the research to take account of advances in stratification and class theory, and using multivariate analyses rather than just the Alford Indez, produces a very different picture. They build on the approach of critical psephologists such as John Curtice and Anthony Heath in the UK to suggest that 'electoral realignment' is a more plausible description of the trends than 'electoral dealignment'. Class still profoundly determines voting behaviour, and it determines it all the more if you consider non-voting one form of that behaviour.

The study shows changes in the make-up and alignment of the electorate. The number of owners and proprietors has declined - perhaps as ownership becomes more concentrated. Meanwhile the number of professionals and managers has increased. There has been an overall increase in white collar non-managerial voters, the votes of unskilled and semi-skilled workers remain steady, and the representation of skilled workers has fallen sharply. So the class structure has been recomposed, and the electorate has changed accordingly. Secondly, when you look at the partisan preferences of different class, you see that skilled workers became less Democratic between 1948 and 1992, while white collar workers went from being modestly Republican to being strongly Democratic. Professionals became more Democratic, while owners and managers became strongly Republican. Finally, on turnout, you see that managers, professionals and owners are much more likely to vote in presidential elections than workers of all kinds. The study concludes "The gap between the turnout for professionals and for semiskilled and unskilled [workers] ... corresponds to a range of 77 percent to 40 percent (using 60 percent as the average turnout)."

***

Thus, you have an electoral system that vastly over-represents owners, managers and professionals, and under-represents the working class by a wide margin. Incidentally, there's no sign that education has any impact on this. The increase in high school and college education among 'lower socioeconomic groups' has not led to a corresponding increase in turnout. Other research looking at non-voting corroborates this picture. Reeve Vanneman and Lynn Cannon's classic study, The American Perception of Class, looked at voting and non-voting behaviour in the US, comparing it with the UK, for the period covering the Sixties and early Seventies. They found that voters who were most inclined to self-identify as working class overwhelmingly voted for Labour in the UK, but overwhelmingly didn't vote in the US. By contrast, they found that more than two-thirds of supporters of the Democratic Party, which claims a near monopoly on all social forces left-of-centre in national elections, self-identified as middle class. Thus the perception of class, which Vanneman and Cannon show is strongly correlated to the reality of class, powerfully drives voting and non-voting behaviour.

Frances Fox Piven and Richard Cloward argued, in Why Americans Still Don't Vote, that the exclusion of the working class from elections is actively desired by politicians. They suggest that if politicians were interested in crafting a policy mix that would appeal to the poor, the poor would respond, and they would be able to command electoral majorities. Pippa Norris of Harvard University concurs: the evidence suggests that turnout among the working class will increase at elections if there are left and trade union based parties that are capable of mobilising them. But it is again worth stressing that the exclusion of the poor from the electoral system is not wholly voluntary. Thomas E Patterson, in The Vanishing Voter (2009), points out that the electoral system in the US has had a long tradition of seeking to exclude the uneducated and the poor, and Patterson argues that voter registration rules still work to limit the size and composition of the electorate. He notes that the US has a disproportionately high number of non-citizens among its total population (7%), and ineligible adults (10%). Thus, 17% of the total adult population at any given time is legally excluded from voting. The exclusion of so many voters is the result of deliberate projects: in one case to manage labour migration flows to benefit capital (non-citizens cause less trouble than those permitted to naturalise); and in the other case to construct a carceral state that imprisoned more poor and black Americans than ever before. On any given day, 1 in every 32 American adults is directly in the control of the criminal justice system, either through jail, parole, probation or community supervision. This only hints at the wider effects that this behemoth has on American society, but suffice to say that it deprives millions of the right to vote where it would easily make a significant difference to the outcome.

***

The 2010 mid-term elections have thus taken place not only without the participation of the majority of voters, but with the pronounced exclusion of millions of working class Americans and particularly African Americans. Don't believe me? Let's look at the exit poll results. You can see that there's a strong Democratic bias among voters with incomes under $50k, but they only represent 37% of the total vote, while making up just over 55% of the population. Those earning $100,000 or more make up more than a quarter of the vote (26%) and have a strong Republican bias, yet they represent less than 16% of the population. Breaking it down even further, 7% of the electorate is composed of those on $200,000 or more - again, strongly Republican - which is more than double their representation as a whole. In fact, I'm over-representing the higher income earners and under-representing lower income earners because I'm relying on figures for households rather than individuals. The percentage of individuals on $50k or less is 75%. Those on $100k or more make up just over 6% of the population. So, the turnout is enormously skewed in favour of the wealthy.

The two main parties will have constructed their electoral coalitions with a disproportionate reliance on professionals, owners, and managers. Their leading personnel, those who frame and carry through policy, will be bankers, laywers, and other members of the wealthy minority. Their daily consultations and coordinations will be with the industrial and financial lobbies who fund campaigns. And the "seismic shift", the "grassroots insurgency" that is supposedly propelling reactionary populists to the levers of power will have been effected principally by a relatively small shift in an already exclusive electoral system in favour of middle class and rich voters. I raise all this merely to put it in perspective. The drama of headlines, and of the vaunted new political eras, does not have much bearing on the real state of American society.

Lastly, the Tea Party. If these results are supposed to demonstrate the enormous clout of this movement, its great popular resonance, and so on, I am singularly unimpressed. They were up against a hugely unpopular Democratic Party, whose control of the executive has disappointed so many, amid a recession that has made everyone terrified. The economy is the number one issue in this election, and the numbers of voters who said they were optimistic about the future for the economy were tiny. If the Tea Party was such a wildly popular 'movement', it would not have contributed only a small fraction to the GOP's small slice of the voting age population. As dangerous as these creeps can be, as a Poujadist movement seeking to mobilise a mass base, it's a flop. And that's a key lesson of 2010.