I want to teabag some of these Teabaggers

All across America yesterday, idiots who are totally enthralled with right-wing ideologies and apparently have no idea how taxes and government finance works got together and had “tea parties”, which were supposed to be in the spirit of the famous Boston Tea Party I guess. Anyway, I thought it was worth noting how ridiculous these little protests are.

They are all obviously anti-Obama and anti-Democrat, which is the thing that is dumb. Apparently they feel that when they filed their income taxes (if they did) they were paying hugely outrageous income taxes to pay for Obama’s yet-to-exist deficit. Here’s why that’s stupid:

• You’re paying income taxes for 2008. Before the last election. Before Obama became President. It’s not like Obama woke up on April 15th and decided “Gee I think I’m going to charge this much for income taxes today!” The tax scale that you’re paying for comes from the Bush era.
• A lot of people might ASSUME that they’re going to be paying more taxes if the Obama budget passes because it runs a deficit. But where were all these “teabaggers” during the past 8 years of Bush’s deficits?
• All of these people who think that Obama is ruing them are drawing conclusions from their preconceived notions, not from reality. The man has been President for what, three months? There hasn’t been time for him to really get anything major passed into law, let alone evaluate the results. If you want to tear the guy down, whatever, but how can you seriously be protesting something Obama’s done when he hasn’t had time to do anything?

Look, I’m not just all about rubber stamping everything the guy does. But I’m not going to go spouting off idiotic rhetoric and throwing a little protest over something that hasn’t happened.

It’s a Party…a COMMUNIST PARTY!

I know I have a pretty huge following out there on the internet, being Montana’s only known Communist blogger and all. In fact, I bet that many of you out there have been thinking these past two-some years, “This Red Montana guy is pretty rad, I wish I could totally party down with him.”

Well now you can.

This Wednesday, the 15th — TWO DAYS FROM NOW — I’ll be hosting the coolest pro-union get toether this little town has seen in decades. I cordially invite you to the…

Employee Free Choice Act Letter-Writing Party
Hosted by the Butte area Young Communist League
WHEN: Wednesday, April 15th — 7:30pm
WHERE: Butte, MT (contact me for the address…all are welcome, I just don’t want to publicize it on the blog)
WHAT: We’ll be writing letters to Montana’s Senators to tell them that we support the Employee Free Choice Act. This week is the Senate recess, so they’ll all be in the State. It’s the best time to get in touch with our people in Washington. If we get enough people to show up to make it worth doing, we will discuss plans to hand deliver the letters to the Senators’ local offices. Oh, and there will be some light refreshments served.

Again, everyone is welcome. If you want to swing by, contact me for the address. And bring  a friend. Bring four friends. Bring 100. Bring your grandma. Any pro-labor letter writers are welcome. We’ll have paper and pens and all that jazz available, so don’t worry about a thing (although if you wanna throw a few cents in to the paper fund we’ll gladly let you utilize our donation jar). We’ll also have good company, snacks, communist propaganda, maybe some tunes, some and a little time to munch & mingle.

So please, please, PLEASE get in touch with me, and swing by Wednesday night. I would really like to see as many people as possible. See you there!

Announcing MTFreeChoice.Info

The past couple weeks I’ve really been hammering on the Employee Free Choice Act on this blog, and it has become the semi-official cause of the Butte-area Reds at the moment. Toward that end, we’ve published a website about the Employee Free Choice Act — what it is, why it’s good, what you can do to help, etc.

http://www.mtfreechoice.info/

Please go ahead and check it out! I hope it will help some of you pro-labor people get involved and take action. Also, if you could, we have a flyer up for the website, and I’d really appreciate it if you could print out a few copies and help spread the word around Montana.

We’ll probably be trying to ramp up the actions around this issue, each one building on another. First we’ll hand out some flyers/leaflets, then if we generate a “buzz”, get a petition table set up. And if that goes really well, possibly even having a rally or demo of some sort. So anyway, please help get the word out about the Act and the website, and stay tuned for any updates.

Montana: Mobilize for EFCA!

On March 11th, the Employee Free Choice Act was re-introduced to Congress. It is currently in both houses as Senate bill S. 560 and House bill H.R. 1409. It’s time for Montanans to organize and put the heat on our representatives in Congress to pass this historic piece of legislation. Here’s how you can help:

1. Get educated. Not sure about the Employee Free Choice Act? Read up on how these bills would help workers and the American economy. Check out this fine article from the People’s Weekly World: America’s Choice: Union Yes!
2. Contact your Senators and Congressmen. The Missoula Area Central Labor Council is trying to get as many people to write letters to their representatives as possible. As of this writing, none of our people in Washington have sponsored either bill. Tell them that it’s important for them to get behind it TODAY!
   • Senator John Tester (D): You can e-mail Sen. Tester here. You can also contact one of his offices or write him. The information is available here.
   • Senator Max Baucus (D): E-mail Sen. Baucus here, or contact/write one of his offices (information available here).
   • Congressman Denny Rehberg (R): You can use the House’s e-mail search to find Congressman Rehberg’s e-mail here. Or, you can write/locate his office with the information given here.
   • If you live in another state (or are registered to vote there), you can find out if your Senators & Congresspeople are co-sponsors of these bills at the Library of Congress’ Thomas Database. If they are, write/call/fax them and thank them. If not, write them and tell them that you support workers’ right to organize and the Employee Free Choice Act.
   • If you are new at this or aren’t sure what to say, use one of the sample letters that the Missoula Central Labor Council sent me. If you want to write something more personal, great, but just remember to keep it short and sweet. It’s better if we get many people to send concise letters than a few people to send lengthy ones.
3. Get your friends, family, comrades, whoever to do the same! Big business and the ultra-right is trying to twist the truth to make EFCA sound like an assault on workers. This is an outright lie! Let’s get as many working-class people and allies to stand up and say that we want our right to organize protected.

Thanks for taking the time to get behind this. I feel like we’re on the verge of getting it through this time, but so far there have been only one Republican co-sponsors so it might be a harder fight than expected. We can’t afford to take it for granted that these bills will pass into law. Let’s get out there and mobilize for EFCA!

The Battle is Not Over.

Things have gone well. Obama won the White House with a massive electoral vote blowout and the Democratic Party has strengthened its lead in both houses of congress. Some races that were initially feared lost still have at least a glimmer of hope: in Alaska, Mark Begich is within 4,000 votes of ousting Republican Ted Stevens, the Senate’s longest serving member and it’s only convicted felon, with over 40,000 votes left to count. Al Franken’s bid to capture one of Minnesota’s Senate seats has fallen just 500-some votes short, well inside the margin for a recount. There is hope that they could pick up another seat or two. And, of course, we can take pride in knowing that — much to the chagrin of many out there — our country has elected its first African-American President. These are all good things.

For communists, though, our intention was never just to elect as many Democrats as possible. Our goal is to defeat the ultra-right. In this election, progressive and centrist forces have gained the upper hand against the ultra-right, however, the battle is far from over. We don’t want to turn the corner only to allow them to come back with a vengeance a couple years down the road.

No, the battle to defeat the ultra-right is not over. The battle is not just to relegate them to a large minority party; the battle is to utterly smash the right-wing movement as a political force and render it incapable of ever playing a major role in American politics again. This may seem like a radical thing to say. Well, I am a radical after all. But so are the ultra-rightist that have been dominating Washington. Make no mistake about it, there are plenty of very radical elements within the Republican Party, and if Americans want real qualitative change in their daily lives, we need to shift the framework of the political spectrum far enough that the Republican ideology in general is relegated to the position it belongs: the fringes. It is my hope that, in the future, voting for a Republican will sound as ridiculous as voting for a Communist sounds today.

There is bound to be plenty of celebration on the Left today after last night’s election results, but let’s not get ahead of ourselves. In order to accomplish our goals, we need to keep the pressure on. This election could be a turning point. Or it could be the point where we fall asleep at the wheel. The choice is yours.

Is Obama a Socialist?

Republicans and other conservatives in the media and around the nation have been labelling Presidential candidate Barack Obama as a “socialist” mainly because he wants to reverse the portion of the Bush tax cuts that let the super-rich run away with loads of cash. Is this all it takes to make someone a socialist? Could Barack Obama really be trying to lead our country down the path to a glorious proletarian revolution?

To answer this question, who would be better to ask than a member of the Communist Party? Actually, who would be better to ask than former CPUSA National Chair Gus Hall? The late Comrade Hall wrote an piece called “Socialism USA” which is an explanation of the main vision of the Communist Party as far as what socialism would look like in the United States. In order to determine whether or not Obama is a socialist, let’s see how America under Obama would compare to America under socialism.

I’m going to pull a series of quotes from the text of Socialism USA, which can be found in its entirety here. You’re more than welcome to check out the whole document. First lets see what Hall has to say about economics (emphasis added by yours truly):

Political power would be in the hands of working people. Socialism starts with nationalization of the main means of production – the plants, factories, agri-business farms and everything necessary to produce what society needs. The large monopoly corporations and banks come under public ownership, that is, under the collective ownership of the entire working class and people, who have the leading role in building socialism.

Socialism also means public ownership of the energy industry and all the natural resources. It eliminates forever the power of the capitalist class to exploit and oppress the majority.

Does Barack Obama advocate the nationalization of America’s main industries, particularly energy industries and all natural resources? If he does, it’s news to me. As far as I can tell he’s pretty un-socialist in that department. So far on his “socialism scorecard” he’s got a big goose egg. Let’s move on:

A socialist government draws up plans covering the entire economy. They are drawn up with maximum participation of the people, from the shop level on up. Such plans are achieved because they harmonize the interests of all, because there are no conflicts arising from exploitation of workers and no dog-eat-dog competition.

Production increases much faster than under capitalism, with a planned economy, advancement of science and technology, and the protection and preservation of our environment and natural resources.

Obama seems to fail the socialism test by these criteria also. I’ve never heard him advocate a national economic plan drawn up with the input of workers. However, I think that the government may invest more resources into science and technology research with Obama as President, and do significantly better than McCain and Sarah “Drill, Baby, Drill” Palin in the realm of environmental protection. So let’s give Obama a 1.5 on these three questions. That brings his socialism score up to 1.5 out of 4. On to the next issue…

Full employment will be quickly achieved as production is expanded to satisfy the needs of people. Automation at the service of the working people will lead to both reduced hours of work and higher living standards, with no layoffs.

Has Obama proposed any ways to ensure full employment and eliminate layoffs? Not that I know of. These are key goals of socialism and he hasn’t suggested any way to reach them. More zeroes.

Poverty will be ended quickly with the recovery of the vast resources now wasted in war production, corporate profits and the extravagent lifestyles of the filthy rich.

I’ll give Obama a point here. He has talked about ending the Iraq war and investing the resources elsewhere, and increasing the tax burden on the rich to “spread the wealth around.” So by may calculation, he’s up to a 2.5 out of 6. That’s less than a 50%, which is failing in any gradebook I’ve ever seen. But let’s see if old Barack can pull his act together:

All education will be tuition-free. Every person will have access to unlimited medical and health care without charge. These rights will be realized as rapidly as facilities can be built and the personnel trained.

I’ve never heard Obama say anything about eliminating tuition. Zero there. As far as unlimited health care without charge, I’ll give him half a point. His health care plan would extend coverage for those people who don’t have benefits available through their jobs; but those who stay covered through work would have to pay premiums and co-pays, and by “unlimited” I think Hall means vision and dental, which aren’t mentioned in his policies. That brings Obama’s socialism score up to a 3 out of 8. Not so hot!

The children will reap all the benefits of socialist child care, free nurseries and schools with the very best facilities and teachers.

Free child care? Uhm, haven’t heard anything like that. Zero there. That’s the last point of conention I have to bring to the table, and when we total it all up, Obama has scored three “points” out of a possible 9. That makes him about 33% socialist. I’d think that even John McCain could find a couple things in Hall’s document that he could agree with. Obviously there’s more to the text, so go ahead and read it for yourself and let me know what you think.

This is kind of a bummer for me. I would love it for Barack Obama to be a socialist. I think that would be pretty awesome actually. But, looking at things objectively, I think the Republicans are giving him a little too much credit.

Am I accusing the Republicans of hyperbole? How dare I? Well, Obama naturally agrees with me:

By the end of the week, he’ll be accusing me of being a secret communist because I shared my toys in kindergarten. I shared my peanut butter and jelly sandwich.”

Granted, I could be mistaken in some of my judgements and I would be more than happy if I was. That would only make me want to vote for the guy even more, so go ahead and point out any ways in which I understate his socialist-ness. However, Obama has a long way to go before he can turn that F into a passing grade in Socialism 101. Maybe I’m wrong. I’d be happy to say I am. But I doubt it.

Revolt with a Vote

One reason that many on the left don’t vote is that they believe it “accomplishes nothing”. The truth is that there is much to be accomplished “within the system”. One good example: the Employee Free Choice Act. Without the Republicans blocking it, it would be law today, and it would greatly increase the ability of workers to form unions. If Barack Obama is elected President, and them Democrats pick up a few more seats in Congress, it will almost certainly become law. Is organized labor not an important part of the class struggle? Or are unions just part of “the system” too?

Maybe we don’t have much to gain, but we certainly have a lot to lose. The ultra-right has been at the forefront of an intense attack on the American worker since the 1980’s. Barack Obama is no Vladimir Lenin,  but it is vitally important that we defeat the ultra-right and that we do it now.

I disagree that it is impossible to bring socialism via the ballot box. Look at Venezuela! Hugo Chavez came to power through the ballot box. Of course, I realize that we’re a long way from an American Chavez. But so what? You can’t be bothered to take five minutes out of your busy life of posting pictures of Stalin or Trotsky on internet forums to go to your polling place and fill in a couple bubbles on a Scantron card because there isn’t a place on the ballot to vote for “proletarian revolution”? That doesn’t mean you’re a revolutionary, it just means you’re lazy.

I understand that a lot of people who abstain from voting think they’re sending some sort of message; that the act of not voting is a political act in itself. Just today I received a MySpace bulletin that someone sent me, reposting an article by Linda Averill from the Freedom Socialist Party: “100 million nonvoters send a stinging message of disenchantment”. Yeah, right. The only message nonvoting sends is nothing. Do you really think that John McCain or any of the other ultra-right candidates would win an election and say, “You know what guys, I just don’t think our victory is legitimate because if everyone had voted we probably would have lost. I guess I’d better just resign!” That’ll be the day!

The powers that be have traditionally tried to keep the voters in this country to a minimum. The original intent of the “founding fathers” was to keep the vote limited to only white land-owning men, and keep democracy out of the hands of workers, women, and people of color. It took nearly two centuries of struggle to make sure that every adult citizen of the United States had the right to vote unmolested.

If the ruling class really cared whether or not their rule was legitimized by a truly popular vote, why would they have resisted universal suffrage so hard for so long? And why would they continue to launch voter suppression campaigns, like they recently tried to do right here in Montana? If they wanted you to vote, why would they try so hard to keep you away from the ballot box? If you’re not going to vote for them, the ultra-right would rather you just stay home, which is exactly what many youth on the Left are doing. The last thing they want is a bunch of rebellious youth exercising their right to vote!

Still yet, many on the left are afraid that by voting they will be seen as endorsing “the system”, and that it will undermine the argument for radical change. I, myself, am not conceited enough to think that the masses look up to me as a role model and will be confused by my apparently contradictions. But for many people that doesn’t matter, because they would have to deal with their own inner contradictions. To me, that is even more foolish. A true revolutionary would use every means available to them to further the cause. The ballot box is one arena of the class struggle; a “communist” who avoids the vote simply to take some sort of moral high ground is no communist at all. If you get more satisfaction out of patting yourself on the back than you do from actually engaging in the class struggle, then go right ahead. Just don’t call me your comrade.

The choice is yours: you can take five minutes to do your duty and go vote, or you can stay home and feel like you’re the coolest because you’re clean and pure of “the system”. Only one of those options has the potential to accomplish anything.

YouTube!!!

I’m not usually on the whole YouTube bandwagon. In fact, when it comes to my internets, I usually hate video. But my friend from high school in Alaska made a Sarah Palin video, and it’s pretty funny, so I just have to share it:

And what the hell, while I’m at it, I thought I’d throw in another good one. This one’s on the Employee Free Choice Act and goes straight to the funny bone.

GOP backs off Montana voters

A couple days ago I posted an article detailing the efforts of the Montana GOP to hassle potential Democratic voters by challenging their voter registration. Well, good news: thanks to public outcry over their schiesty maneuvers, the Montana Republican Party has ceased its campaign. From the Montana Standard:

In a letter to Vicki Zeier of the Missoula County elections office, Jacob Eaton, executive director of the Montana Republican Party, wrote that the group no longer wished to challenge thousands of Missoula county voters or any other voters statewide.

…

“As a disabled combat veteran who has fought Al Queada to defend this country and our democracy and who has voted absentee en route to a war zone, I regret that my actions have been perceived as [an effort to suppress voter turnout],” Eaton wrote.

I included that last paragraph because it made my stomach turn. I don’t mean to take anything away from any disabled veteran, Eaton included, who has sacrificed their well-being for our country. But to hide behind their military service, as though we’re supposed to say “oh well he’s a disabled vet, I guess that means he isn’t a slick weasel after all”, is almost as deplorable as his underhanded tactics are.

But hey, let’s not kick him while he’s down. Good work to everyone who helped reject this obvious case of voter intimidation.

The history of Afghanistan according to John McCain

Watching the Presidential debates, it’s obvious that John McCain either has a very poor grasp of history, or wants to deceive us so that we don’t notice the contradiction of his beliefs. Or maybe he deceives himself to reconcile his inner contradictions. Either way, I noticed that his version of the history of Afghanistan is a little lacking. Here’s what he says happened:

1) In the 1980’s, we helped Afghan “Freedom Fighters” drive the USSR out of Afghanistan.

2) We thought we had won and took off.

3) The Taliban government and Al Qaeda popped up out of nowhere after we had turned our back.

4) Today we’re involved in Afghanistan because we didn’t “finish the job” in the 80’s.

BULLSHIT. Bully bully bullshit. Here’s what John McCain either doesn’t realize, or doesn’t want you to realize: the “freedom fighters” and the Taliban/Al Qaeda are the same people. Ideologically they are exactly the same. Some of them are literally the exact same people.

Let’s take a look at the real history of Afghanistan during the 70’s and 80’s. The April 1978 “Saur Revolution” led to the establishment of the Democratic Republic of Afghanistan. This government was apparently communist but was hardly a carbon copy of the Soviet Union; its ideology was more of an Islam-influenced social democracy. The Afghan government then committed its most terrible sins: banning forced marriages, giving women the right to vote and be elected to office, teaching women to read, replacing Islamic law with secular rule, promoting the cultural revival of ethnic minorities, and providing electricity and infrastructure to the countryside.

The Afghan “Freedom Fighters”/Terrorists preceded the presence of the Soviet Union. So did “Operation Cyclone”, the massive campaign of support that the United States gave to the Afghan rebels. The movement that eventually led to the Taliban government, which would become the protectors of the Al Qaeda terrorist organization, was launched in response to the secular and modern policies of the People’s government. They did not arise as a response to a foreign occupation. Likewise, the United States did not have to wait until the Soviet Union stepped on Afghan soil; the establishment of a Soviet-ish government was reason enough to back some very unsavory elements.

Naturally the young government of People’s Afghanistan did not have the might to fight off US-backed insurgents. The only recourse they had was to ask for help. So it came to be that the Soviet “invaders” — invaders who were invited — entered Afghanistan to help the legitimate Afghan government fight a US-backed radical Islamist insurgency. At first the Afghans, with the help of their Soviet comrades, were successful in turning back the terrorist rebels, but as US aid poured in the war became costly at the USSR eventually pulled out. The extremists did not stop at “liberating” their soil from the “invaders” though, they continued to fight a three-year civil war against the People’s government until they succeeded in establishing their own radical theocracy: the Taliban. That government, which we helped to establish, gave Osama bin Laden’s terrorists safe haven to train and plot the September 11th attacks.

I have no problem with the principle of our war in Afghanistan because we’re responsible for making the mess over there in the first place. If we had just let the Soviets take care of Osama bin Laden and the Taliban movement in the first place we wouldn’t have to go in there and fix it. But to suggest that we’re back there because we didn’t “finish the job” is a complete and total lie. We finished the job alright. We got exactly what we wanted. In the eyes of our leaders during the climax of the cold war, an extremist, fundamentalist theocracy was better than a workers’ state. Our government wanted the Taliban to take power and they got their wish.

In the midst of this bloody conflict, in 1983, John McCain was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives. You’d think he’d know a thing or two about it. Sadly this latest example of his trademark “straight talk” is about par for the course.