US--Average CEO made $10.4 million in 2008

[From: http://www.mediamouse.org/]

Average CEO Earned $10.4 Million in 2008

The AFL-CIO has launched its annual "PayWatch" website which reports that the average CEO received $10.4 million in total compensation in 2008.

According to the AFL-CIO: Even as the U.S. economy went into a tailspin, the median salary for CEOs of 200 large corporations increased by 4.5 percent to $1.08 million. On top of that, these corporations keep plying executives with generous freebies, despite the public outcry over private jets and other executive perks.

...the perks for executives rose on average by 12.5 percent in 2008 to $336,248--or nine times the median salary of a full-time worker. Even more appalling is the practice of rewarding executives who drive their companies into the ground.

For example, the site reports that in 2007--the year the financial crisis began to unfold--the top 10 recipients of the federal government's Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP) collectively paid their CEOs a combined $242 million in total annual compensation. That averages nearly $25 million per CEO to run companies that might have gone bankrupt if not for billions of dollars in taxpayer assistance.

While CEO pay is down from 2007, it still dramatically outpaces earnings by workers. CEO pay has grown at an astronomical rate since 1980 when the average CEO earned 42 times what the average worker earned. In 2007, that had grown to 344 times.

The AFL-CIO also highlights a number of practices from stock options to retention bonuses that are keeping CEO pay high even as public outrage of CEO pay grows.

All of this is another reminder of why we need reforms like the Employee Free Choice Act (EFCA) to level the playing field between workers and CEOs. Strong unions and a revitalized labor movement are essential to reversing this dynamic.

US soldier apologizes to Afghan legislator for US occupation of Afghanistan

Published on Wednesday, April 15, 2009 by CommonDreams.org

An Apology for an Occupation

Apology of US Sergeant Matthis Chiroux to Afghan leader Malalai Joya

by Matthis Chiroux/Malalai Joya/Elsa Rassbach

On April 21st, 2009, U.S. Sergeant Matthis Chiroux, 25, faces Army prosecution in St. Louis, Missouri for publicly refusing to deploy to Iraq last summer. Like many other resisters, Chiroux was in military service for many years before he came to the conclusion that the wars and occupations in Iraq and in Afghanistan are wrong and found the courage to speak out. Since last summer he has been a key activist in the U.S. veterans' organization, Iraq Veterans Against the War (IVAW).

Malalai Joya, 31, is the youngest person to become a member of the Afghan Parliament (one of 68 women elected to the 249-seat National Assembly, or Wolesi Jirga, in 2005); after she spoke out against the fundamentalists and former warlords in parliament, she was suspended. She was one of 1,000 women nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize in 2005, is one of the World Economic Forum's 250 Global Leaders for 2007, and was nominated for the Sakharov Prize for Freedom of Thought by the European Parliament. In 2007, she was in Berlin and spoke at the Human Rights Commission of the German Parliament. She heads the non-governmental group Organization for Promoting Afghan Women's Capabilities (OPAWC) in the west of Afghanistan. She has survived many assassination attempts and can only travel in Afghanistan with armed guards.

From April 1st to 5th, Chiroux joined peace activists in Germany and France to speak out against NATO and the war and occupation in Afghanistan. If not jailed by the U.S. Army on April 21st, he will join European peace activists in Ireland on April 26th for their campaign against the use of Shannon airfield by the U.S. military.

On April 4th, at a large demonstration in Strasbourg, France, Chiroux planned to publicly apologize to Afghan peace activist Malalai Joya for participating in the occupation of her country; however, before he could do so, the demonstration was disrupted by attacks of the French police. He made his apology instead on April 5, 2009, at the NATO Congress in Strasbourg. Published on Wednesday, April 15, 2009 by CommonDreams.org

Read the text of Sgt. Chiroux' apology and an interview with him at:

http://www.commondreams.org/view/2009/04/15-4

Obama, "an imperialist with charm," defeats the anti-war movement

First Black President Defeats U.S. Antiwar Movement

A Black Agenda Radio commentary by Glen Ford

The arrival of the Obama administration has crippled the U.S. anti-war movement, which has neither the fortitude nor political depth to confront imperialism with a Black face. The Out of Iraq caucus on Capitol Hill might as well call itself the Out of Action caucus, since it can’t figure out a way to respond to President Obama’s expanding military budgets and wars. National anti-war organizations cling to the fiction that Obama is really seeking a military withdrawal from Iraq. “The anti-war movement has hit rock-bottom because of its failure to challenge this particular president, an imperialist with charm, a warmonger with a winning smile."

First Black President Defeats U.S. Antiwar Movement
A Black Agenda Radio commentary by Glen Ford

“Obama pretends he wants peace, and anti-war members of Congress pretend to believe him.”

In the streets, on the campuses and on Capitol Hill, the anti-war movement is no longer moving anywhere. It has been crippled by the Obama Effect, the deep and wide delusion that imperialism with a Black face is somehow – something else. When a movement disbands itself without coming even close to achieving its objective, that is a defeat. We can now definitively state that, for the time being, the U.S. anti-war movement has been defeated – not by Republicans, but by Barack Obama’s Democratic Party.

A recent article in The Hill, a newspaper that covers Congress, relates a meeting among staffers for Out of Iraq caucus leaders Barbara Lee, Maxine Waters and Lynn Woolsey. They were supposed to come up with a response to President Obama’s announcement that he would immediately send 4,000 additional troops to Afghanistan, with lots more to come. Obama is determined to leave at least 50,000 troops in Iraq for an open-ended period of time under the guise of “training” the Iraqis, and is rapidly merging Afghanistan and Pakistan into one theater of war, called Af-Pak. Clearly, the Obama administration is expanding its war in Af-Pak, and has no intention of ending the U.S. military presence in Iraq – ever. The staffers for the Out of Iraq caucus leaders spent two hours trying to come up with a position. They failed.

For all intents and purposes, the Out of Iraq caucus has ceased to function. Black Congresswomen Barbara Lee and Maxine Waters have at times shown great courage in the face of stupendous odds. But they will not confront Barack Obama, even when he expands the arenas of war, claims that combat soldiers are merely trainers and advisers, and pushes through a war budget that is bigger than any of George Bush’s war budgets. Obama pretends he wants peace, and anti-war members of Congress pretend to believe him.

“The anti-war movement has hit rock-bottom because of its failure to challenge this particular president.”

Another Capitol Hill publication, the Congressional Quarterly, recently ran an article on the low demonstration turn-out and money woes of the anti-war movement. A March 21st rally at the Pentagon drew pitiful numbers of demonstrators, only 3,000 according to police. Organizers claim they can’t raise money these days, and have been forced to cut staff. A spokesperson for ANSWER, the Act Now to Stop War and End Racism Coalition, said the peace movement is seeing the impact of the “promises the Obama campaign made.” Outgoing United for Peace and Justice leader Leslie Cagan says her money people aren’t giving because “It’s enough for many of them that Obama has a plan to end the war and that things are moving in the right direction.”

But Obama has no plans or intention to end his wars except on imperialism’s own terms – which means never-ending war, just like under Bush – a basic truth that United for Peace and Justice refuses to recognize or admit. ANSWER organizers also fail to confront the Obama White House head-on. The Congressional Quarterly article concludes that the anti-war movement is suffering from the results of “its own success.” That’s absolute nonsense. The anti-war movement has hit rock-bottom because of its failure to challenge this particular president, an imperialist with charm, a warmonger with a winning smile. Obama has whipped them, but good. And they will stay whipped, until they stand up like men, like women, like leaders. For Black Agenda Radio, I’m Glen Ford. On the web, go to www.BlackAgendaReport.com.

Bombing civilians: An American tradition

[From History News Network , via marxmail.org]

4-13-09

Bombing Civilians: An American Tradition

By Marilyn B. Young

Ms. Young is a professor of history at New York University. This excerpt originally appeared in Bombing Civilians: A Twentieth-Century History edited by Yuki Tanaka and Ms. Young.

Airpower embodies American technology at its most dashing. At regular intervals, the air force and allied technocrats claim that innovations in air technology herald an entirely new age of warfare. Korea and Vietnam were, so to speak, living laboratories for the development of new weapons: the 1,200-pound radio-guided Tarzon bomb (featured in Korean-era Movietone newsreels); white-phosphorous-enhanced napalm; cluster bombs (CBUs) carrying up to 700 bomblets, each bomblet containing 200 to 300 tiny steel balls or fiberglass fléchettes; delayed-fuse cluster bombs; airburst cluster bombs; toxic defoliants; varieties of nerve gas; sets of six B 52s, operating at altitudes too high to be heard on the ground, capable of delivering up to thirty tons of explosives each. A usual mission consisted of six planes in formation, which together could devastate an area one half mile wide by three miles long. Older technologies were retrofitted: slow cargo planes (“Puff the Magic Dragon”) equipped with rapid-fire machine guns capable of firing 6,000 rounds a minute; World War I– era Skyraiders, carrying bomb loads of 7,500 pounds and fitted with four 20-millimeter cannon that together fired over 2,000 rounds per minute.

Read the whole story at: <http://hnn.us/articles/67717.html>

Obama asks $83.4 billion more for Bush's wars

[From wire.antiwar.com] [IIRC, some time ago, a prominent economist (Stiglitz?) estimated the total cost of US aggressions in the Middle East as $3 trillion, so the "almost $1 trillion" figure in the following story has already been challenged by a knowledgeable source. Also, I seem to remember reading that when Obama was in the US Senate, he actually voted *in favor* of funding Bush's wars, at least 9 times, contrary to the impression created by the following text. Finally, we will soon be able to watch congressional Democrats tripping over each other in their eagerness to vote tens of billions more for wars they have occasionally claimed to oppose. I repeat: The Democrats are NO alternative and NO solution.-- YM]

Obama to seek $83.4 billion for Iraq, Afghanistan wars as costs near $1 trillion

ANDREW TAYLOR AP News Apr 09, 2009 13:56 EST

President Barack Obama is seeking $83.4 billion for U.S. military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan, pressing for a war supplemental spending bill like the ones he repeatedly voted against when he was senator and George W. Bush was president.

Obama's request would push the costs of the two wars to almost $1 trillion since the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks, according to the Congressional Research Service. The additional money would cover operations into the fall.

Budget office spokesman Tom Gavin said the White House will send an official request to Congress Thursday afternoon. Congressional aides briefed on the request revealed its overall cost on condition of anonymity since the briefing was private.

Obama was a harsh critic of the Iraq war as a candidate, a stance that attracted support from the Democratic Party's liberal base and helped him secure his party's nomination. He opposed a war spending bill in 2007 after Bush used a veto to force Congress to remove a withdrawal timeline from the $99 billion measure.

The upcoming request will include $75.5 billion for the military and more than $7 billion in foreign aid.

Obama announced plans in February to withdraw U.S. troops from Iraq on a 19-month timetable.

Obama's request would push the amount approved for 2009 to about $150 billion, a drop from the $171 billion cost incurred in 2007 and the $188 billion approved for 2008, when Bush increased the tempo of military operations in a generally successful effort to quell the Iraq insurgency.

US--Barack Obama becomes President: "New era" or imperialist continuity?

From: www.ft-ci.org

US--Barack Obama becomes President: "New era" or imperialist continuity?
By Celeste Murillo Wednesday, January 21, 2009

Amidst great expectations in the United States and overseas, on Tuesday, January 20, Barack Obama took the oath as the 44th President. In front of two million people who witnessed the ceremony in Washington and millions around the world who followed it by television, Obama delivered the inaugural address of his presidency, that begins with two wars under way, no less, Iraq and Afghanistan, and an economic crisis of historic magnitude.

But the illusions and expectations for Obama's administration will collide with reality sooner rather than later; Wall Street, which welcomed Obama with the worst plunge in its history during a presidential inauguration, partly showed that. The worsening of the economic crisis is a fact, not only in the United States, but also among the European economies, showing that the bailouts of billions of dollars in recent months were completely insufficient (at press time, it was announced that in 2009 Germany will suffer the worse recession in years). The recent announcements of losses of millions by US and European banks, after having been "bailed out" during the previous months, only shows the seriousness of the economic situation, that is added to an international scene where the crisis is pushing to bigger conflicts between classes and states, with sharp conflicts, as in the Middle East.

In this complex international scene, Obama and his cabinet are preparing to respond to the numerous challenges that the battered US hegemony faces, the decline of which has been accelerating these last eight years of Republican government. The same factors that led to Obama's victory, the crisis and the wars, are now the main challenge for the Democratic administration that will also have a congressional majority in both houses. In this sense, Obama warned, "... no less profound is a sapping of confidence across our land — a nagging fear that America's decline is inevitable ... the challenges we face are real. They are serious and they are many. They will not be met easily or in a short span of time."

The imperialist replacement that the election of Barack Obama expresses, and the expectations of the financial and political establishment, of restoring the position of the United States in the world, will be put to the test, just like the illusions of broad groups of the mass movement, immediately after the festivities in Washington.

Illusions and realities of the new administration

The symbolic weight of the arrival of the first African-American in the White House, with little experience in Washington and representing a supposed new generation, in addition to the broad rejection of George W. Bush, and the records that his two administrations leave, have nurtured the expectations of broad groups of the population, especially young people, women and the African-American and Latino communities in the US.

However, these last few months of "transition" have shown that, in spite of the promises and rhetoric of change of his campaign, Obama has been on the frontline of the bailout of billions of dollars for the banks and firms responsible for the crisis, which has meant growing unemployment and poverty for millions of working-class families in the US. Another sign was Obama's silence when faced with the State of Israel's brutal attack against the Gaza Strip.

As we suggested in the article, "Obama, candidate of change, President of continuity," in the new issue of the magazine Estrategia Internacional: "But this promise of change appears to be completely meaningless. Far from expressing any change in the sense that a big part of his voters were waiting for, the personnel of the future administration display a clear continuity with the last few decades of US politics, a bipartisan synthesis between the moderate wing of the Republicans and key figures from the Clinton era, which indicates that it will involve no radical change, but will attempt to recover the 'center' of the political spectrum."

Although the first measures by the new administration, like the suspension of trials at Guantánamo and the plan for gradual and "responsible" withdrawal from Iraq, appear to be gestures that they will try to leave behind some of Bush's hated policies, essentially Obama and his cabinet — which has more old faces than new ones — will give continuity to the United States' imperialist policy. Obama also made that clear during his words on January 20: "We will not apologize for our way of life, nor will we waver in its defense, and for those who seek to advance their aims by inducing terror and slaughtering innocents, we say to you now that our spirit is stronger and cannot be broken; you cannot outlast us, and we will defeat you." And, with the veneer of a promise of a kind of return to multilateralism, he once again confirmed the continuity of imperialist policy and its "war against terrorism," now focussed on Afghanistan: "Guided by these principles once more, we can meet those new threats that demand even greater effort — even greater cooperation and understanding between nations. We will begin to responsibly leave Iraq to its people, and forge a hard-earned peace in Afghanistan."

Nor are radical changes concerning Latin America to be expected, beginning with continuing the blockade against Cuba (in force since 1962), which will not be lifted for now (there is only talk about remittances and trips to the island). In order to put an end to expectations that Chávez had once taken charge of spreading, Obama even declared that "Chávez has been a force that has interrupted progress in the region" and that "Venezuela is exporting terrorist activities [and] supporting malicious entities like the FARC."

In the first weeks of the administration, it is expected that Obama and his cabinet will speed up negotiations with Congress and the Senate for approval of the $825 billion stimulus and assistance package, besides continuing bailout measures for firms (by continuing the bailout with billions of dollars initiated by the Republican administration), and job creation, something that "neo-Keynesian" economists like Paul Krugman consider completely insufficient for an economy that has already lost more than 2 million jobs.

Beyond being the first African-American President, Obama and the Democratic Party defend and represent the interests of the imperialist bourgeoisie, by seeking to safegard and guarantee the deals of its banks and firms. US workers are currently paying for the crisis with joblessness and wage cuts. To the extent this increases, the tendency will not be towards "reformist" solutions, but to new attacks against the masses of the people. This, combined with a deepening of the contradictions at an international level, could speed up the workers' experience with the Obama administration more than anticipated, giving rise to a new stage of class struggle. Only the mobilization of the US working class, united to the anti-imperialist struggle of the entire continent, can offer a progressive perspective, in view of the horizon of suffering and savagery of imperialist capitalism.

We invite our readers to read more about Obama's presidency in issue 25 of the magazine Estrategia Internacional, where articles about the international economic crisis, Latin America and Europe can also be found.

US: The struggle at Republic Windows & Doors

[From www.ft-ci.org]

United States: Factory occupied in Chicago
By Celeste Murillo Thursday, December 11, 2008

On Friday, December 5, the workers of Republic Windows & Doors, a Chicago factory, faced with the sudden announcement of closure, voted to occupy the factory until the bosses pay for vacations they owe and severance pay. The same day the government announced that more than 500,000 jobs had been lost in November (2 million jobs lost in 2008), 250 workers, mainly Latinos (80% of the factory), decided not to bow their heads. With an enormous, serious social crisis, 6.7% unemployment (or 12.5%, counting those who are no longer looking for work and the underemployed), the struggle at Republic could become a first step of resistance against layoffs and the crisis.

“You got bailed out, we got sold out”

The bosses broke a basic labor law that demands 60 days’ advance notice and failed to pay the workers wages and vacation time owed, much less severance pay. Although the workers assert that the order books never indicated a crisis like the one the bosses are describing, the businessmen’s excuse is a lack of enough credit to go on functioning.

One of the most irritating factors, that provoked a wave of commitments to the workers’ struggle, is the fact that the bank that withdrew credit to finance wages and other expenditures is none other than the Bank of America, which got 25 billion dollars as part of the gigantic bailout the government carried out with public money. For that reason, one of the most frequent slogans is “You got bailed out, we got sold out!” Last weekend, the factory was visited by politicians and union leaders, on the edge of the massive solidarity from the Latino community, from Chicago workers, students and neighbors.

Yesterday’s outrageous bailout for the banks and financial institutions, denounced by some demonstrations, is now being questioned again and explains the ample national coverage of the conflict and the pressures the bank is getting to resume offering credit. The thing is, medium-sized businesses like Republic (with around 300workers, though at the peak of the real estate bubble it reached 700) are a sector particularly sensitive to the crisis underway, since they closely depend on bank credit. Besides, according to the official census (Bureau of Labor Statistics), 80% of workers work in businesses like Republic (companies with fewer than 1,000 employees). On the edge of this reality, these “average” businessmen have responded to the crisis just like capitalists of all sizes, by unloading the costs on the shoulders of workers. And businessmen like the Illinois Manufacturers' Association are afraid the struggle at Republic will become a symbol among factories that confront similar credit difficulties.

A struggle that bears witness

The method of struggle the workers chose, the plant occupation, the “sit-in,” as it is called in the US, has not been used since the 1930’s, when big struggles like Auto Lite in Toledo or General Motors in Michigan were carried out (see the supplement Lucha de Clases Nº 6), that challenged the bosses, who were speeding up the pace of production in factories, to recover from the crisis. Other than isolated examples, since that time, the workers have never occupied workplaces, a method that could be extended in a situation where layoffs are multiplying and there are fewer possibilities of getting work. Beyond its weight in the economy, the fight by the Republic workers raises an important precedent for working-class struggle. The action by the Chicago workers also has an enormous symbolic weight, since the plant occupation and direct action are quite rare among pressure tactics promoted by union bureaucrats, and that is why this struggle has won enormous sympathy among workers.

Union bureaucrats, legislators, the Governor, and even Obama himself, quickly came out to say that the workers “are right,” to ask for what belongs to them. What unites them [politicians and bureaucrats] is their fear of workers’ direct action. What they want to avoid, at all costs, is that this struggle should become an example in a wave of layoffs. That is why they do not dispute when businessmen unload the crisis onto the workers; neither the bureaucrats nor the bosses’ politicians are demanding that the firm should be reopened or that their books should be investigated, not even when there are rumors that the bosses would open a similar factory in another state! It is vital that the workers not allow themselves to be blackmailed by the “lack of credit” or the consequences of bad deals by the bosses. In the face of closures and layoffs, it is necessary to fight for nationalization without compensation of these businesses under workers’ control. At press time, negotiations were still being carried out, since, although the bank had agreed to a “limited loan,” the UE union said that an accord had not been reached.

“Now we are an example for lots of workers, if the companies treat them unfairly.” “This is going to change something,” said a worker at the door of Republic. The workers at Republic have to win and affirm once again that there is an alternative to what is offered by the conciliating bureaucracy, that never tires of surrendering the rights of the working class. A victory at Republic would strengthen the entire class that has been harshly punished and has big challenges in front of it.