Hundreds of thousands demand strike action in the US
1 October 2018
The American news media and political establishment are singularly obsessed with the degrading spectacle surrounding the Senate confirmation of Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh. The issue is dominating every newspaper and broadcast channel and was the sole subject on the Sunday morning network news shows.
A fundamental aim of the Democrats’ focus
on the sexual allegations against
Kavanaugh,is to hijack popular opposition to
the Trump administration and subordinate it to
the Democrats’ own reactionary agenda of
war, censorship and social inequality. This
requires the endless promotion of the lie that
race and gender, not class, are the central
divisions in American society.
on the sexual allegations against
Kavanaugh,is to hijack popular opposition to
the Trump administration and subordinate it to
the Democrats’ own reactionary agenda of
war, censorship and social inequality. This
requires the endless promotion of the lie that
race and gender, not class, are the central
divisions in American society.
The goal is to somehow divert attention from and cover up social and political reality, which is characterized above all by the growth of class tensions and conflict, in the US and around the world. A decade after the crash of 2008, which was used by the ruling class in the US and internationally to carry out a historic transfer of wealth from the working class to the rich, workers are engaging in a series of strikes and mass protests over basic class issues.
In the United States, after a decade of falling real wages, rising medical costs and the proliferation of precarious employment, hundreds of thousands of workers are pressing for strike action, while thousands are engaged in ongoing strikes.
In Chicago, more than 4,000 hotel workers are continuing their strike, which began on September 7, to demand better wages and year-round health care. The walkout is continuing at 11 hotels after the UNITE HERE union announced a settlement with Hilton on Sunday. Another 8,000 workers authorized strikes at Marriott International, the world’s largest hotel chain, in Waikiki and Maui in Hawaii, and San Francisco, Boston, Detroit and other cities.
Warehouse workers and truck drivers are set to start a three-day strike at ports in Los Angeles and Long Beach, California Monday to demand their transition to full-time status instead of remaining “independent contractors” forced to pay for their own medical insurance, fuel costs and truck payments and repairs.
More than 30,000 steelworkers at US Steel and ArcelorMittal in Indiana, Illinois, Pennsylvania, Michigan, Alabama and other states have unanimously voted to strike against demands for sweeping concessions, including on wages and health benefits, by the highly profitable steel companies.
A quarter-million UPS workers, who already voted overwhelmingly to strike, are scheduled to finish voting this week on a widely hated labor agreement signed by the Teamsters union, which maintains poverty wages for part-time workers and extends lower-paid, part-time status to a new class of delivery truck drivers.
The United Teachers of Los Angeles (UTLA) has agreed to mediation after 33,000 teachers and support staff in the nation’s second largest school district voted to authorize a strike. The action follows a wave of teacher strikes in the state of Washington and the statewide strikes earlier this year in West Virginia, Oklahoma, Arizona, Colorado, Kentucky and other states.
Seven thousand registered nurses at 15 hospitals affiliated with Hospital Corporation of America (HCA Healthcare) have voted overwhelmingly to strike facilities in Florida, Missouri, Kansas, Texas and Nevada to demand higher staffing levels and better wages. Nurses’ aides, respiratory therapists and other patient care workers at University of California facilities will vote October 9 and 10 to strike over subcontracting of work and other issues. Over the weekend, the University of Michigan Professional Nurses Council announced it reached a deal for a new agreement after 4,000 nurses voted by 94 percent to strike.
Seven thousand Fiat Chrysler workers at the company’s Kokomo, Indiana transmission plants voted 10 weeks ago to strike over 200 unresolved grievances involving health and safety. The United Auto Workers has kept the workers on the job, with Local 685 President Rick Ward declaring, “There is no expiration date on the strike vote.”
For workers, the strike votes express a growing militancy and determination to fight. On the part of the unions, the votes are a way of letting off steam and smothering opposition. Far from leading any struggles, the unions are seeking to divert this growing opposition behind the Democratic Party, based on the fraudulent claim that the Democrats will address workers’ concerns over plunging living standards and the gutting of health care, pensions and social programs.
American Federation of Teachers (AFT) President Randi Weingarten, a leading figure on the Democratic National Committee, has declared that the union’s intention is to “turn the walkouts into walk-ins to the voting booth” this November. The main slogan of the AFT and the National Education Association as they were selling out the teachers' strikes earlier this year was “Remember in November.”
This week, the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) is calling a bogus “strike” by cooks, cashiers, janitors and airline workers at several airports across the country. While these workers face real issues—poverty wages, part-time status, the lack of health care—the SEIU is turning these events into a get-out-the-vote canvassing effort for the Democrats in so-called battleground states like Florida and Wisconsin.
This follows small protests earlier this month at McDonald’s headquarters in Chicago organized by the union-aligned “Fight for $15” campaign, which urged fast food workers to look to the unions, the Democratic Party and the deeply reactionary #MeToo campaign to address real concerns over sexual harassment and other abuses on the job.
The corporatist and anti-working class unions claim that it is possible for workers and young people to fight the Trump administration by backing the Democrats. They all hope that workers will forget that it was the eight years of the Obama administration—which oversaw endless wars, a fall in real income and the largest transfer of wealth to the rich in US history—that paved the way for Trump in the first place.
The Democratic Party and its coterie of ex-CIA agents and military candidates are opposing Trump on the most right-wing, militarist basis possible. In the nearly two years since Trump was elected, the Democrats, representing dominant sections of the military-intelligence apparatus, have sought to focus opposition on the unsubstantiated claims of “Russian meddling,” which are being repeated in relation to the midterm elections. The Democrats have used the #MeToo campaign and the Kavanaugh hearings to mobilize broader support among sections of the upper-middle class around issues of gender and racial identity, while creating the conditions for undermining due process and further eroding democratic rights.
The interests of the working class must not be subordinated to either faction of the ruling class. The development of class conflict, rooted in the objective crisis of the capitalist system, requires the formation of new organizations of struggle—rank-and-file factory, workplace and neighborhood committees—independent of the unions, to unite all sections of the working class in a common fight against the corporations and their political representatives.
This must be connected to the development of an independent political movement of the working class, in opposition to the Democrats and Republicans, on the basis of a socialist, revolutionary and internationalist program.
Despite the efforts of the unions to put a “progressive” face on the Democratic Party, the growth of the class struggle will rapidly expose it for what it is: a pro-war party.
October 1, 2018
New York Times finally admits how Obama screwed up the economy
in 2016
http://globalistbarackobama.blogspot.com/2018/09/sociopath-barack-obama-gets-award-for.html
“My guess is that the students and employees at the U of I who listened to Obama's self-righteous speech believe that Obama is ethical because most of the media intentionally hid the mass corruption, or if they reported on it, they downplayed it. The corruption and unethical behavior started as soon as Obama took office.” JACK HELLNER / AMERICAN THINKER.com
“They knew Obama was an unqualified crook; yet they promoted him. They knew Obama was a train wreck waiting to happen; yet they made him president, to the great injury of America and the world. They understood he was only a figurehead, an egomaniac, and a liar; yet they made him king, doing great harm to our republic (perhaps irreparable.)” ALLAN ERICKSON
There’s a reason why Soros, Bezos, Zuckerberg, Bloomberg, Gates and the Koch Brothers love the Obomb!
http://mexicanoccupation.blogspot.com/2018/09/barack-obama-and-his-muslim-style.html
October 1, 2018
New York Times finally admits how Obama screwed up the economy
in 2016
Calling
it “The Most Important Least-Noticed Economic Event of the Decade,” the New
York Times finally acknowledges the degree to which Barack Obama’s
policies were strangling business investment in his final year in office.
During the presidential campaign, acknowledging this “mini recession that many
missed” was taboo, of course. And among those “many” who “least-noticed” it was
the New York Times. So, why is the Times admitting it now? Why, of course, to
denigrate the achievements of President Trump in rescuing the economy from the
miasma Obama inflicted on it with taxes and regulatory policies. Neil Irwin
writes:
[In 2015 and 2016] There was a sharp slowdown in
business investment, caused by an interrelated weakening in emerging markets, a
drop in the price of oil and other commodities, and a run-up in the value of
the dollar.
The pain was confined mostly to the energy and
agricultural sectors and to the portions of the manufacturing economy that
supply them with equipment. Overall economic growth slowed but remained in
positive territory. The national unemployment rate kept falling. Anyone who
didn’t work in energy, agriculture or manufacturing could be forgiven for not
noticing it at all.
Even
though the Times and its readers were able to disregard the suffering in the
oil patch, on farms, and in the rest belt manufacturing strongholds, candidate
Trump actively campaigned with these constituencies and won the
presidency on his promise to revive them from the suffering inflicted upon
them. He knew, he acted, and after he won, he revived them. As
Instapundit’s Glenn
Reynolds quips:
It wasn’t invisible — Trump saw it — they just
didn’t report it because they didn’t want to make Obama look bad or hurt
Hillary’s prospects.
Now,
the Times acknowledges the reality, and immediately turns to crediting Obama. I
kid you not
It helps explains the economic growth spurt of
the last two years. The end of the mini-recession in the spring of 2016 created
a capital spending rebound that began in mid-2016, and it has contributed to
speedier growth since. Oil prices have reached four-year
highs, a major factor in a surge in business investment this year.
Actually,
in very different language, I acknowledged
weeks ago that the wreckage left by Obama did help Trump look good in
comparison:
Obama shackled existing businesses and
entrepreneurs contemplating new businesses with tax increases and years’ worth
of red tape. That’s why his recovery from the 2008 financial shock was the
slowest recovery from a recession on record.
But during this period, technological innovation
did not stop, nor did opportunities for business projects stop developing in
the minds of people who would carry them out, should the business environment
(taxes + regulations) improve. There was, in other words, a substantial backlog
of business opportunities that built up during the 8 years of Obama’s
oppressive anti-business policies.
But
far be it from the Times to recognize achievement on the part of Trump. No,
they have to wag their fingers and warn of danger!
The episode is stark evidence of the risk the
Trump administration faces in threatening economic damage to negotiate leverage
with other nations on trade and security. What happens overseas can return to
American shores faster and more powerfully than once seemed possible.
Here
is a sign of the actual risk over which the Times frets, unveiled hours ago:
OBAMA'S ASSAULT ON AMERICA -WHY WALL STREET,
ILLEGALS, CRIMINAL BANKSTERS and the 1% LOVE HIM, AND THE MIDDLE CLASS GETS THE
SHAFT TO PAY FOR HIS CRONY CAPITALISM
CEO pay is higher than ever, as is the chasm
separating the rich and super-rich from everyone else. The incomes of the top 1
percent grew more than 11 percent between 2009 and 2011—the first two years of
the Obama “recovery”—while the incomes of the bottom 99 percent actually shrank.
Meanwhile,
Obama is pressing forward with his proposal, outlined in his budget for the
next fiscal year, to slash $400 billion from Medicare and $130 billion from
Social Security… AS WELL AS WIDER OPEN BORDERS, NO E-VERIFY, NO LEGAL NEED
APPLY TO KEEP WAGES DEPRESSED
THE RISE TO
POWER OF BANKSTER-OWNED BARACK OBAMA
'Incompetent'
and 'liar' among most frequently used words to describe the president: Pew
Research Center
The larger
fear is that Obama might be just another corporatist, punking voters much as
the Republicans do when they claim to be all for the common guy.
OBAMA’S CRONY BANKSTERISM destroyed a 11 TRILLION
DOLLARS in home equity… and they’re still plundering us!
Barack Obama created more
debt for the middle class than any president in US
history, and also had
the only huge QE programs: $4.2 Trillion.
OXFAM reported that during Obama’s
terms, 95% of the wealth created went to
the top 1% of the world’s wealthy.
PATHOLOGICAL LIAR BARACK OBAMA MOCKS TRUMP
Obama orchestrated the greatest transfer of wealth to the rich in
U.S. history!
THE WALL STREET BOUGHT AND OWNED DEMOCRAT PARTY
SERVING BANKSTERS, BILLIONAIRES and INVADING ILLEGALS
THE CRONY CLASS:
Income inequality grows FOUR TIMES FASTER under
Obama than Bush.
“By the time of Bill Clinton’s election
in 1992, the Democratic Party had completely repudiated its association with
the reforms of the New Deal and Great Society periods. Clinton gutted welfare
programs to provide an ample supply of cheap labor for the rich (WHICH NOW
MEANS OPEN BORDERS AND NO E-VERIFY!), including a growing layer of black
capitalists, and passed the 1994 Federal Crime Bill, with its notorious “three
strikes” provision that has helped create the largest prison population in the
world.”
OBAMAnomics for the
rich:
Crony Capitalism,
Economic plunder by Wall Street, Bottomless Bailouts and Wider Open Borders to
Keep Wages Depressed and Profits up.
The
stupendous run-up on the global stock exchanges and vast increase in the
personal fortunes of the financial oligarchy have depended on the
relentless downward pressure on workers’ wages and conditions.
This is a class conscious decision by the
central bank executives, who understand that investors tend to make far more
money when the sword of mass unemployment and poverty is kept swinging over the
heads of workers.
GET THIS BOOK!
Obamanomics: How Barack Obama Is Bankrupting You and Enriching His Wall Street Friends, Corporate Lobbyists, and Union Bosses
BY TIMOTHY P CARNEY
Editorial Reviews
Obama Is Making You Poorer—But Who’s Getting Rich?
Goldman Sachs, GE, Pfizer, the United Auto Workers—the same “special interests” Barack Obama was supposed to chase from the temple—are profiting handsomely from Obama’s Big Government policies that crush taxpayers, small businesses, and consumers. In Obamanomics, investigative reporter Timothy P. Carney digs up the dirt the mainstream media ignores and the White House wishes you wouldn’t see. Rather than Hope and Change, Obama is delivering corporate socialism to America, all while claiming he’s battling corporate America. It’s corporate welfare and regulatory robbery—it’s Obamanomics.
http://globalistbarackobama.blogspot.com/2018/09/sociopath-barack-obama-gets-award-for.html
“My guess is that the students and employees at the U of I who listened to Obama's self-righteous speech believe that Obama is ethical because most of the media intentionally hid the mass corruption, or if they reported on it, they downplayed it. The corruption and unethical behavior started as soon as Obama took office.” JACK HELLNER / AMERICAN THINKER.com
“They knew Obama was an unqualified crook; yet they promoted him. They knew Obama was a train wreck waiting to happen; yet they made him president, to the great injury of America and the world. They understood he was only a figurehead, an egomaniac, and a liar; yet they made him king, doing great harm to our republic (perhaps irreparable.)” ALLAN ERICKSON
JUDICIAL WATCH TEN MOST CORRUPT
GLOBALIST FOR BANKSTERS, THE SUPER RICH and OPEN BORDERS ADVOCATES TO FINISH OFF THE AMERICAN MIDDLE-CLASS.
There’s a reason why Soros, Bezos, Zuckerberg, Bloomberg, Gates and the Koch Brothers love the Obomb!
http://mexicanoccupation.blogspot.com/2018/09/barack-obama-and-his-muslim-style.html
“Democrats Move Towards ‘Oligarchical Socialism,’ Says Forecaster Joel Kotkin.”
NO POL IN HISTORY SUCKED IN MORE BRIBES FROM BANKSTERS THAN BARACK OBAMA, AND HE DID IT BEFORE HIS FIRST DAY IN OFFICE. What did the Wall Street banksters know that took us so long to find out???
"One of the premier institutions of big business, JP Morgan Chase, issued an internal report on the eve of the 10th anniversary of the 2008 crash, which warned that another “great liquidity crisis” was possible, and that a government bailout on the scale of that effected by Bush and Obama will produce social unrest, “in light of the potential impact of central bank actions in driving inequality between asset owners and labor."
Obama, of course, covered up his own role, depicting his presidency as eight years of heroic efforts to repair the damage caused by the 2008 financial crash. At the end of those eight years, however, Wall Street and the financial oligarchy were fully recovered, enjoying record wealth, while working people were poorer than before, a widening social chasm that made possible the election of the billionaire con man and Demagogue in November 2016.
“The response of the administration was to rush to the defense of the banks. Even before coming to power, Obama expressed his unconditional support for the bailouts, which he subsequently expanded. He assembled an administration
dominated by the interests of finance capital, symbolized by economic adviser Lawrence Summers and Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner.”
Trump criticized Dimon in 2013 for supposedly
contributing to the country’s economic downturn.
“I’m not Jamie Dimon, who pays $13 billion to
settle a case and then pays $11 billion to settle a
case and who I think is the worst banker in the
United States,” he told reporters.
contributing to the country’s economic downturn.
“I’m not Jamie Dimon, who pays $13 billion to
settle a case and then pays $11 billion to settle a
case and who I think is the worst banker in the
United States,” he told reporters.
Crony Capitalism, Economic plunder by Wall Street, Bottomless Bailouts and Wider Open Borders to Keep Wages Depressed and Profits up.
The stupendous run-up on the global stock exchanges and vast increase in the personal fortunes of the financial oligarchy have depended on the relentless downward pressure on workers’ wages and conditions.
This is a class-conscious decision by the central bank executives, who understand that investors tend to make far more money when the sword of mass unemployment and poverty is kept swinging over the heads of workers.
BARACK OBAMA, LA RAZA FASCISM and the CULTURE of DEM CORRUPTION
They Destroyed Our Country
“They knew Obama was an unqualified crook; yet they promoted him. They knew Obama was a train wreck waiting to happen; yet they made him president, to the great injury of America and the world. They understood he was only a figurehead, an egomaniac, and a liar; yet they made him king, doing great harm to our republic (perhaps irreparable.)”
OBAMA'S ASSAULT ON AMERICA -WHY WALL STREET, ILLEGALS, CRIMINAL BANKSTERS and the 1% LOVE HIM, AND THE MIDDLE CLASS GETS THE SHAFT TO PAY FOR HIS CRONY CAPITALISM
CEO pay is higher than ever, as is the chasm separating the rich and super-rich from everyone else. The incomes of the top 1 percent grew more than 11 percent between 2009 and 2011—the first two years of the Obama “recovery”—while the incomes of the bottom 99 percent actually shrank.
Meanwhile, Obama is pressing forward with his proposal, outlined in his budget for the next fiscal year, to slash $400 billion from Medicare and $130 billion from Social Security… AS WELL AS WIDER OPEN BORDERS, NO E-VERIFY, NO LEGAL NEED APPLY TO KEEP WAGES DEPRESSED
IMAGE:
BANKSTERS’ RENT BOY FORMER ATTORNEY GEN ERIC HOLDER POSES WITH HITLER PRAISING LEADER OF RACIST, HOMOPHOBIC, ANTI-SEMITIC HATE MONGER LOUIS Farrakhan.
“Attorney General Eric Holder's tenure was a low point even within the disgraceful scandal-ridden Obama years.” DANIEL GREENFIELD / FRONTPAGE MAG
NO PRESIDENT IN HISTORY SUCKED IN MORE BRIBES FROM CRIMINAL BANKSTERS THAN BARACK OBAMA!
This was not because of difficulties in securing indictments or convictions. On the contrary, Attorney General Eric Holder told a Senate committee in March of 2013 that the Obama administration chose not to prosecute the big banks or their CEOs because to do so might “have a negative impact on the national economy.”
10 years after the
financial crisis,
Americans are
divided on security of
U.S. economic system
A decade after the 2008 financial crisis, the public is about evenly split on whether the U.S. economic system is more secure today than it was then. About half of Americans (48%) say the system is more secure today than it was before the 2008 crisis, while roughly as many (46%) say it is no more secure.
Opinions have changed since 2015 and 2013, when majorities said the economic system was no more secure than it had been prior to the crisis (63% in both years), according to the new survey, conducted Sept. 18-24 among 1,754 adults.
Republicans are now far more likely to view the system as more secure than they were during Barack Obama’s presidency. Three years ago, just 22% of Republicans and Republican-leaning independents said the economic system was more secure than before the crisis. Today, the share saying the same has increased 48 percentage points to 70%.
Views among Democrats and Democratic-leaning independents have moved in the opposite direction. Today, Democrats are less confident that the economy is more secure than it was before the 2008 financial crisis: Just a third say the economy is more secure – a drop of 13 percentage points from 2015 (46%).
Meanwhile, the public’s views of current economic conditions – and the trajectory of the U.S. economy over the next year – have changed little since March.
About half of Americans (51%) now rate the national economy as excellent or good, among the most positive measures in nearly two decades.
As has been the case since Donald Trump took office, Republicans are far more positive than Democrats about economic conditions: 73% of Republicans and Republican-leaning independents say economic conditions are excellent or good while just 35% of Democrats and Democratic leaners agree.
Partisans also are divided in their expectations for the economy. Republicans (57%) are much more likely than Democrats (12%) to say they expect the national economy to get better in the next year. Partisan differences in opinions about the economy – current and future – are about as wide as they were in March.
Similarly, there has been little recent change in Americans’ views of their own financial situations. About half (49%) say their finances are in excellent or good shape.
Partisan differences in people’s assessments of their personal finances, which were modest during most of Obama’s presidency, have increased since then.
A majority of Republicans (61%) say their personal financial situation is excellent or good, compared with about four-in-ten Democrats and Democratic leaners (41%).
Most Americans remain optimistic about their personal financial future. Almost seven-in-ten adults (68%) expect their financial situation to improve some or a lot over the next year. Republicans (79%) more than Democrats (59%) are optimistic about their finances getting better next year.
Note: See full topline results and methodology here (PDF).
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