Immigration, the Economy, and Globalization

I have been avoiding writing about the topic of immigration into the United States of America. I have found most political people, the kind who would be reading a relatively obscure blog like mine, have set views that they do not want challenged by the many facets of the issue. Left and right, people want a simple position they can get their emotions behind. To differ from your crowd risks social rejection. As we have seen in the recent federal funding debates, factions digging into their positions and not seeing an overview (which would give some validity to opposing views) leads to paralysis. Which is great if you want to be frozen into the dysfunctional status quo. I believe that truly understanding all aspects of an issue leads to the best possible (though not necessarily ideal) solutions. So here we go, starting with a legal dissection.

There are two types of immigrants into the United States: legal and illegal (allowing for a handful that occupy gray areas). While many anti-immigrant sentiments, and arguments, may apply to legal immigrants, most Americans seem to be okay with legal immigration, to the extent that it currently exists. Legal immigration can be addressed by Congress, and most people are willing to let the issue be fought out there. Illegal immigrants provoke different reactions. These two types of immigration get tied together when there are proposals to legalize illegal immigrants who have become long-term residents, something also in the power of Congress. I will start with an initial look at illegal immigration, since this is where greatest controversy has been.

One common attitude towards illegal immigrants, the welcoming one, is usually rationalized on a civil rights basis. If all people are created equal, as it says in the Declaration of Independence, then an illegal person is still a person, and standing on American soil should be treated as an equal person, with a path to official citizenship.

There are typically three main reasons many American citizens want illegal immigrants to be removed and to have no pathway to a legal status. One is economic: in effect such immigrants are scabs who lower wages and take jobs from citizens. The second is a dislike of the cultures (or ethnicity) of illegals. The third is based on the act of entering the country illegally: there are legal ways to enter, and illegal entry is a criminal act. This initial act of defiance of U.S. law puts them at odds with those who style themselves as law-abiding citizens.

For me only the racist or ethnic argument is easy to dismiss. I like for new spice to be added to the American melting pot. I don't like narrow-minded or racist culture. The other criticisms, however, are not so easy to dismiss.

There are two good, yet contradictory arguments about the economic effects of illegal immigrants. One is that they take jobs that no one wants, and like any other paid persons, spend their pay mostly on local goods and services and so help keep the wealth creation cycle intact. The others is that they lower wages and use taxpayer funded services to which they contribute nothing or little. I have seen that both of these phenomena exist (ideology bound thinkers refuse to notice one or the other), but the question is, to what extent? The reality is that no single snapshot gives the whole picture. The economic impact varies according to whether the U.S. is in a boom or a recession, and it varies by locality and economic sector. It can be subtle too: according to contractors, for the same rate of pay, many illegals will work harder, with fewer breaks. That benefits the construction corporations, but does it benefit the general economy is nearly-as-productive workers are idled?

To the extent that illegal immigrants do benefit the economy, the obvious solution would be to bring them in legally, either through temporary work programs or by expanding quotas. Then, to the extent that some people focus on the illegality of immigrants, that can be separated from economic impact arguments. The Republican Party has had quite a problem with this aspect of the immigration issue. Capitalists want cheap labor, and love the union-busting tendencies of illegal immigration. Rank and file conservative Republicans feel threatened economically and culturally, and so oppose increasing quotas and temporary work programs. Bachmann, Perry, Romney and crew have to balance the need for big campaign donations from their bosses against the need for the votes of the little people.

I am for maximizing economic benefits to the downtrodden American worker. That means I favor temporary work visas only when there really are no workers already present in this nation who want the jobs available. That means the law would have to be flexible, letting more workers in during booms, maybe excluding them during recessions. Also, such work should really be temporary. If a worker is needed most of the time for a period of say, over two years, they should be given the opportunity to choose to become first a permanent worker and then a citizen.

If this rational policy were followed, illegal immigrants would only be here for their own benefit. They have made a choice to not go through the quota system or temporary labor programs. They have, in effect, stolen someone else's place in line. I think the civil rights argument is inappropriate in this context. I don't believe scabs have a civil right to lower other people's wages or take their jobs. I want to emphasize that I admit to thinking narrowly here, within the context of a national economy box that I think is outmoded. My problem with applying the civil rights argument, in its present context, is that it provides a giant loophole for American capitalists to maximize their own profits while starving working people. We don't need that kind of help.

So far I have kept the argument in a national context, and I think that is part of the problem. We live in a regionalized economy where capitalists think nothing of packing up a plant in Rhode Island and reassembling it for production in Wuchou. NAFTA unites the economies of Canada, the United States, and Mexico, but our freedom to work where we choose in these three nations is excluded from the deal.

Mexico is the Godzilla of the immigration debate. Often illegal immigrant is synonymous with illegal Mexican immigrant. Anti-immigrant sentiment sees Mexico as a horde of people seething to inundate the U.S., held back only by immigration and anti-immigration laws.

This is absurd. Open the borders and there would be some brief acceleration of immigration from Mexico, but it has never been all that hard to get into the U.S., despite tragic deaths in the deserts near the border. There just are not that many people in Mexico. The population of Mexico is about 112,000,000. The U.S. population is about 312,000,000.

If anything, open borders would be a problem for Mexico. Remember, the Mexico used to include Texas, New Mexico, Arizona, and California. American birth rates and illegal immigration into those states in the 1840s were a precursor of their theft by the U.S. government. I believe that given the lower cost of living in Mexico today, a lot more Americans would move there if they were free to come and go, buy housing, and work there. 10% of the American population moving to Mexico would have a far greater impact there than 10% of the Mexican population moving to the U.S. The failure of Canada and the U.S. to arrange for mutual citizenship is even more absurd.

What is true regionally is true globally. While I believe there would be enormous cultural and economic benefits to having global citizenship, to everyone being able to live and work where they choose, in the short run I would want the transition to be well-managed. The gates should come down slowly. If someone is coming to America, they should have a plan, basically a job lined up, and the same for Americans emigrating to greener pastures.

Another big context is overpopulation. I believe it is a fact that the world is overpopulated with humans. I believe the global number of humans needs to be substantially reduced over time if the environment that supports us all remains healthy. Therefore I support a two-child maximum policy in the U.S., and think that is appropriate in much of the rest of the world as well.

I don't think my immigration ideas are likely to be implemented by the U.S. anytime soon (even though they have been implemented within the European Union). To allow for mutual immigration between the U.S. and any other country, notably Mexico, I would like to require that the partner country recognize women's rights to birth control and abortions, and implement a two-child maximum policy. Of course if every nation did that, less people would feel compelled to emigrate from their native lands.

When the GOP Was Still Grand: the Republican Platform of 1884

"The Republican Party has gained its strength by quick and faithful response to the demands of the people for the freedom and equality of all men; for a united nation assuring the rights of all citizens; for the elevation of labor; for an honest currency; for purity in legislation, and for integrity and accountability in all departments of government, and it accepts anew the duty of leading the work of progress and reform."

That is from the opening of the 1884 Republican Party Platform. It might be dismissed as rhetoric, except that the Democratic Party, in opposition, was doing its best to relegate African Americans to renewed slavery. The Grand Old Party (GOP) still was dominated by men who had fought for the Republic in the Civil War. The farmers and working men far outnumbered the business men, and the men with small businesses outnumbered the genuine capitalists in the party.

They weren't the bitter, tiny-souled Republican leaders of today who would allow most Americans to starve rather than make the rich pay taxes or cut the bloated military and homeland security budget.

Let's return to the Grand Old Platform:

"We therefore, demand the imposition of duties on foreign imports shall be made, not for "revenue only" but that, in raising the requisite revenues for the government, such duties shall be so levied as to afford the security of our diversified industries and protection to the rights and wages of the laborer, to the end that active and intelligent labor as well as capital may have its just reward and the laboring man his full share in the national prosperity."

My god, isn't that ... Socialism? The government protecting industry and workers? Were the conservative Republicans of 1884 to the left of not only today's Republicans, but to the left of today's Democrats? But there is more ...

"The principle of the public regulation of railway corporations is a wise and salutary one for the protection of all classes of the people, and we favor legislation that shall prevent unjust discrimination and excessive charges for transportation, and that shall secure to the people and to the railroads alike the fair and equal protection of the laws."

OMG, when something went wrong with the economic system, the GOP dared to use the federal government to do something about it. They took on the most powerful capitalists of their era, the railroad barons.

The Republican Party Platform of 1884 also called for federal civil service reform, for "the establishment of a national bureau of labor, the enforcement of the eight-hour law, [and] a wise and judicious system of general education by adequate appropriation from the national revenues wherever the same is needed." It called for legislation to "secure to every citizen, of whatever race and color, the full and complete recognition, possession and exercise of all civil and political rights."

But we live in an age of ignorance. Basic lessons in good government and economics have been forgotten. Congressmen (and women) spout an economic faith that is as lunatic as medieval physics, biology, and theology. Republicans do not know their own history (neither do Democrats). They believe that Moses wrote the Constitution and that free market capitalism is based on the Ten Commandments. The only thing they are experts at is taking money from rich donors and using it to manipulate the equally ignorant.

When the Republican faithful are taught to treat Mitt Romney as a left wing nut case, there is something seriously wrong. A tragedy is unfolding. What Al-Qaeda did to the American people is nothing compared to how we have been done in by our own corporate security state. Our only hope is that the tragedy will shake the lethargy of good, ordinary people, and that they will aspire to a government by political parties and independent politicians that truly represent their interests.

Obama Raids Peace Activist Homes

The FBI, acting on orders from President Barack Obama, raided the homes of eight antiwar activists on Friday, September 24, according to the New York Times [see FBI Searches Antiwar Activists' Homes]. The homes were ransacked, but rather than arresting suspects they were asked to report to a Grand Jury. The victims appear to be highly respected peace activists. The office of the Minneapolis Anti-War Committee was also raided.

Doubtless President Obama felt empowered to attack his leftist critiques because of the failure of civil rights activists to defend right-wing militia members who were previously arrested on phony charges. Any failure to respond to the current provocation will doubtless lead to Obama trying to use further arrests and intimidation to prop up his failing presidency.

Over the years the ruling elite of the United States, including the national security apparatus and every President and Congress, Republican and Democrat, has tried to use "national security" as a rational to limit citizen's rights of free speech and assembly. I assert another right: to give material support to anyone I feel justified to give it too. The elite's enemies are not my enemies. I may not like the religious fervor of Hamas, for example, but if I want to give to a Hamas charity, that is my human right. If the U.S. government tries to deny that right, I say they have no right to govern me.

Of course I don't know the particulars of the case the FBI is prosecuting. "The warrant said agents were gathering evidence related to people “providing, attempting and conspiring to provide material support” to terrorist organizations, and listed Hezbollah, the Popular Front for Liberation of Palestine, and the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia." I have no fondness for any of those three organizations, but I see no reason why each American citizen should not make his or her own judgment. The activists say they were just protesting U.S. foreign policy. Is that now grounds for harassment, as it was during the Vietnam War?

The judgment of the security apparatus, and their current puppet Obama, is bad. The U.S. security apparatus like the rulers of Saudi Arabia, even though they are dictators pushing radical Islam and oppressing their women subjects in particular. They love Israel, even though it ignores the private property rights of Palestinians. They hate Cuba, because that government ignored the private property rights of American organized crime syndicates and allied itself with Stalin's apprentices. I could go on and on, but the point is: what is the point of freedom of speech if we can't differ with the Federal Government on foreign policy? The U.S. government used to be allied with Joseph Stalin's regime (from 1940 until 1946); it has supported and even installed numerous right-wing dictatorships over the decades. That is good judgment? That represents the American people?

At times the U.S. has insisted on elections in other nations, only to overthrow elected governments when the voters chose leaders the U.S. did not like. It happened in Algeria in 1991, and more recently it happened in Palestine. If the Taliban won an election in Afghanistan, what would Barack do?

I don't have very much material support to offer to any group out in the world that I think will make the world a better place. Nothing that would begin to counter the billions in aid the U.S. gives annually to Israel, for example. But I repledge myself to dismantling the security apparatus of the United States and our mis-ruling class. It is a long shot, but it's what is right.

The only U.S. foreign policy worth pursuing is the complete withdrawal of all U.S. military forces back into the United States. At least if they waste our taxpayer dollars in the United States, it would provide some local employment for civilians.

I am thinking I am going to, if I can get the "free" press to turn out, put a dollar bill in an envelope and send it to Hamas through the U.S. mail. Will Obama's thugs arrest me over a dollar? Will anybody join me? I'll supply both the dollar and the stamp!

Organic Farming, Meat, and Mendocino County

Jan and I are thinking of moving to Seattle, at the request of Jan's son, my stepson Evan. On the other hand, he can't guarantee that he will stay in Seattle himself. I say this because it brings into question projects like Mendoday.com and California Democracy. I seem to be accumulating a large number of questions, although they still swirl about some pretty bedrock answers.

Last night I attended a forum at the Garcia Grange in Manchester, California, a tiny coastal hamlet a few miles north of Point Arena. The forum was sponsored by some Mendocino County organic farming groups, but the panel consisted of the four candidates for fifth district Supervisor. I am not neutral. I am volunteering on Dan Hamburg's campaign committee. The question before the forum was how could more small scale, organic farming be economically successful in Mendocino County. Also, how could we keep the money generated by economic activity in our county. Money tends to get drained out of our economy by the bigger players, who send it back to corporate headquarters, where ever that may be.

We talked about the need to get a slaugherhouse started in the county, preferably in the 5th district. There used to be one. Now, if a farmer (organic or not) wants to slaughter an animal, they have to transport it long distances, or do the slaughter under the regulatory radar. All four candidates, and the entire audience as far as I could tell, agreed that a local slaughterhouse would be a good thing.

This contrasts with the recent argument I had within the Green Party (specifically, within the California delegation to the Green Party of the United States). California's Green Party platform recommends that people "consider a vegan lifestyle." Vegans, for those of you who have not run into these annoying creatures, reject the idea that life is part of a cycle with death. They refuse to eat any animal products, including products that did not kill the animals like eggs, cheese, and even honey. They also won't use animal products; no leather shoes or clothing, etc. Some members of my delegation wanted to take the phrase from the California platform and insert it in the U.S. national Green Party platform. They also want to ban all scientific study of animals.

I put up a fuss, other members of the delegation joined me, and the "vegan" motion was defeated (if passed by us, it would then be considered by the entire national committee). But then the platform committee people started submitting a whole huge stack of revisions (our platform is way out of date). Less and less discussion happened with each proposal; the general attitude was to pass the new planks on to the full national committee, where they can be amended or rejected. Amidst this deluge the vegan plank appeared again, and the exact same people who had rejected it before, now passed it. They were tired of arguing.

Which reminds me of quaint historical phenomena. The Democratic Party, for instance, started having a racial civil rights plank way back when, during the New Deal if not earlier. But it was a sham. The Democratic Party was very dependendent on the South (former Confederate states), where African Americans were not allowed to vote, and all white people voted Democrat, thus assuring that between 1932 and 1969 all the presidents of the United States were Democrats except Dwight Eisenhower. The racist Democrats did not mind the civil rights plank to much because they controlled Congress; there was no possibility that it would be put into effect. President Lyndon Johnson finally forced enough Democrats in Congress to vote for the Civil Rights Act of 1964 to change things. It is often said that he did not run in 1968 because of internal Democrat opposition to the Vietnam War. But that was only a secondary reason. The main reason was the alienation of the white racist vote in the South. That is why George Wallace did so well in 1968 (he was a Democrat who sometimes ran as an independent).

The Green Party platforms, both California and National, contain many portions I don't agree with, but mainly it is a question of gray areas. People who write platform planks tend to specialize in those issues, and push for what the rest of us may consider extremes. Just for instance, we have an anti-fluoride plank, which is like having an anti-vitamin plank as far as I am concerned. But Greens tend to love vitamin supplements and hate toxins, and see fluoride as a toxin, not a mineral supplement.

How do I tell the local organic farmers, who are in tune with nature, that a bunch of urban vegans want to shut down their milk, poultry, and meat operations? So far I have not. I'll just keep fighting over the party plank when I get a chance. What is really funny is watching the California Greens chow down at a state convention. They eat meat, and the vegans usually stage a guilt-trip protest. Your are right, we should be vegans, pass the ham, please.

So why am I still in the Green Party? I've thought a lot about changing my registration status to Decline-to-State (Californian for independent) lately. In general the Green Party is right about social justice and the environement. But the real thread holding me to the party is its opposition to war (on the other side, pushing me out, is its nonviolence plank, which I would like to amend to support people's right to self-defense). The Democratic Party wants peace, supposedly, but always delivers war. Voting Green sends a message that I want to dismantle the entire U.S. military apparatus. I really do.

I remind myself that the real, basic problem is human overpopulation. It is a global problem, it is certainly a California problem, and it is getting to be a Mendocino County problem.

We don't have enough water in Mendocino County for our current level of population and agricultural production. We take too much out of our streams, which has hurt the salmon. We really need to only grow foods that can survive mostly from the winter rains. We grow a lot of fine grapes here, but the vines are planted too close together. We need to tear out about 1/2 the grapes so that the vines will need very little supplemental watering beyond the winter rains.

And what we don't need is nuclear power. We don't need iPads. We don't need the Congressmen from Mississippi, Texas and New York telling us what to do. We don't even need the fools in Sacramento telling us what to do. Maybe San Francisco needs all that, maybe Lost Angeles needs all that, but we don't.

Constitution and Commerce

I just learned about the "dormant commerce clause" from Jane Anne Morris's recently published Gaveling Down the Rabble. Morris presents difficult material in a witty and insightful manner. Her book is about how the commerce clause was used to create a free trade zone in the U.S.

The Commerce Clause, of course, is in the Constitution of the United States of America. Most national law in America is enforceable inside the States because it is tied ("pegged") to the Commerce Clause. This is the full extent of the clause, from Section 8 of Article I:

"Congress Shall have power ... to regulate commerce with foreign Nations, and among the several States, and with the Indian tribes;"

According to Morris, in legal jargon "dormant commerce clause" does not just mean that Congress is not exercising its power to regulate commerce. The theory of the dormant commerce clause went through three phases. In the first phase, starting in 1829 with a Supreme Court decision, dormant did mean Congress had made no law about a particular commerce issue. The Court ruled that if Congress did not act, individuals States were free to act to regulate their own commerce as they saw fit.

In Phase II, running from 1851 to until 1876 (a period of time when corporations, monopolies and trusts came to dominate the American economy), the Supreme Court ruled that when Congress was silent, it was up to the Supreme Court to decide whether states could act. The Court wanted to help corporations reach national markets. It started interpreting free trade to mean not just that goods were not taxed when they moved across state borders, but that local laws and regulations that impeded any business operating from out of state were unconstitutional.

In Phase III, starting in 1876 and running up to the present, dormancy and the Constitution were turned on their head. The Supreme Court ruled that when Congress was silent, the states could make no law regulating trade (or a particular article in commerce). States could only regulate trade to the extent Congress specifically allowed to them.

With that turn the power granted to the federal government to regulate commerce "among" the states became the power to regulate all commerce, including commerce that stays in any particular state.

In the 1960's civil rights legislation needed to go beyond asserting the right for all adults to vote (until then Democratic Party denied non-white Americans the right to vote in the former states of the Confederacy). The Federal Government wanted to say that a black American could go anywhere a white American could go. If the owner of a particular restaurant in a particular state did not want to serve food to blacks, the federal government wanted to be able to prosecute the owner.

Rather than basing such legislation on the 14th Amendment, it was based on the Commerce Clause. The idea was that Congress can regulate all commerce, so it could regulate commerce at a particular restaurant, so it could say black Americans could eat, or work, at that or any other restaurant or establishment.

Racist segregationists asserted "states' rights," correctly pointing out that the commerce clause was not meant by the writers of the Constitution to allow the Federal Government to boss around the owner of a small store.

Civil rights activists and sympathizers defended the federal interference with local business people, and thus defended the dormant commerce clause. For decades anyone who mentioned "states' rights" was assumed to be, at least secretly, a racist.

Yet the right to abolish slavery in a state, before the Civil War, had been states' rights. The infamous Dred Scott Decision (brought to you by the Democratic Party) declared that northern states had no right to make slavery illegal inside their borders.

Powers are two edged swords. Most people are for states rights when that gets them what they want; against states rights when that would go against my desires. The Supreme Court is no different. There was a fear that the current conservative court might be generally sympathetic to states rights arguments. Instead they have favored states only when that helped their conservative agenda. With respect to the commerce clause, they have no interest in states rights.

See also states' rights at wikipedia

Barack Obama and Sarah Palin

Citizens of the United States can't lose in the next election. Either we will have a non-white President, Barack Obama, or we will have a female Vice-President. Either would stand in contrast with centuries of white male dominance of American politics.

On the other hand, citizens of the United States can't win the next election. Unless they are already among the economic winners. Despite being a working-class woman who became Governor of Alaska almost by accident, Sarah Palin, even if she become President, belongs in the Chicago School of economics (free-market capitalist). Barack Obama, despite being a super-educated product of super-educated parents, one of African ancestry, actually taught law at that very Chicago School.

For those sophisticated enough to see beyond Presidential election cycle dog-and-pony shows, this is going to reinforce the most basic lesson in the politics of change in the United States of America. Winning civil rights for groups of people denied civil rights is simply not on a level playing field with economic justice. In the later half of the 2oth century a variety of groups had their rights recognized: African-Americans, Native Americans and other citizens not of European descent, women, the disabled, and homosexuals. That is a good thing. It was not easy. People struggled and quite a few people died getting these reforms.

But in 2008 we have less economic equality of opportunity, much less economic equality, than we did in 1950. There are women and minority CEOs; there is a black middle class. The new discrimination is economic. It is harder today to get out of poverty than it was in the 1950's, regardless of your sex or race. Schools are worse. Destructive cultural habits - drugs, alcohol, negative attitudes towards education and work - are more prevalent among the poor and working class.

The class system has ossified. Requirements for entering professions have been elevated. A college degree is not nothing, it creates opportunities that a high school degree does not, but in most cases to get a chance at a good job you need a graduate degree. The economics of staying in college and then graduate school are daunting even for students from highly-educated families; they are nearly impossible for those who have working class parents and received their early education in public schools.

Tax codes are fiddled with, but in the end the rich must be taxed in the United States. They are the only people with money. Here I do not mean the super-wealthy, I mean the people who have professional and management jobs as well.

The ruling class has not stopped ruling. They have just admitted blacks and women to the club. It is funny to see the partisan froth being whipped up. On the right Barack Obama, a man whose economics are nearly identical to Ronald Reagan's, is blasted as a Communist. On the left Sarah Palin is being called a Neanderthal for her views on abortion, even though she is the first working class person I know of ever to be nominated for the Presidency or Vice-Presidency.

As people go, thinking within the two-party, one ruling class system, I think all four candidates are decent people who would try hard to do a good job. Of the four I like Joe Biden the least because of his ties to credit card companies, but then someone has to pay for people to buy their political offices.

Just don't expect anything beyond the usual posturing once the election is over. The basic economic structure and tax structure will not change. Your status in life will depend mostly on the status you were born with. With great effort, you can prevent yourself from sinking further still.

The vast majority of incumbents will be elected to Congress, as always. Democrats who supported the Republican agenda when that buttered their bread, like Congressman Mike Thompson of California, will still want to eat buttered bread. The Democrats (presuming Barack Obama wins) will throw breadcrumbs to their constituencies. Environmentalists will get some tighter regulations. Women will get a few cabinet posts. Gun control freaks will see a few types of guns added to the banned list.

But the basic attitude of Barack Obama and crew will be: Don't ask what your country can do for you. Ask what you can do for your country. Don't expect Barack Obama or John McCain either to do anything about excessive CEO pay, the fact that capital gains can go untaxed for decades, the lack of sufficient federal dollars to include locally produced, healthy, organic foods in the free and reduced lunch program for public schools, or any other issue that will actually help those at the bottom get a chance at the having the economic privileges of those in the middle; or that would allow those in the middle the same economic privileges as those at the top.

Harry Truman, Civil Rights, and Barack Obama

As I've mentioned in prior blogs, I have been reading the Memoirs of a former President of the United States of America, Harry S. Truman.

In this essay I'll take a look on Harry's civil rights record and compare that to what we might expect from likely Democratic Party nominee Barack Obama.

As I've pointed out before, the predecessor of President Truman was Franklin Delano Roosevelt, known as FDR. FDR made a deal with the racist Democratic Party establishment: he could have his welfare programs, and Jim Crow segregation would remain in force in much of the nation. In the end Roosevelt depended on massive government spending on war preparations to pull the U.S. economy out of the Depression.

Harry Truman had saved the country billions of dollars by running a congressional committee that audited World War II defense spending. This got him selected as FDR's running mate in 1944. FDR died in 1945 and Harry Truman became President. Harry pushed for civil rights for Jews and African-Americans (then called colored people). Powerful Democrats did not like that and tried to keep Harry from being the Democratic Party nominee in 1948.

From Harry's Memoirs:

When J. Strom Thurmond, the governor of South Carolina, who headed the revolt, made his dramatic departure from the convention floor in Philadelphia with his followers, he was asked by a reporter to clarify his position.

"President Truman is only following the platform that Roosevelt advocated," the reporter pointed out.

"I agree," Thurmond replied, "but Truman really means it."

Truman had shown that by creating a Committee on Civil Rights, which in October 1947 made ten major recommendations, including a federal guarantee of the right to vote and to what we now call equal opportunity employment. In early 1948 he urged Congress to pass legislation that would end segregation in transportation facilities. While the legislation failed to pass, Truman had ordered, as Commander in Chief, that the armed services, including civilian employees under military contracts, be integrated.

Truman's efforts were mainly a failure. Even thought they voted Dixiecrat in the 1948 election, the southern Democrats stayed in the Democratic Party for congressional purposes and held most of the powerful committee chairs that enabled them to block legislation they did not like.

Integration, civil rights for non-European Americans, would come gradually and painfully. Republican Earl Warren, heading the Supreme Court, stood above the political fray and did more to bring civil rights to America than any other person in power. Anarchists, socialists, communists, non-violence activists and black activists of all sorts pushed hard (and even violently) at the establishment until Lyndon Johnson finally said "uncle" and pushed substantial civil rights legislation through Congress.

Barack Obama would be the first part-African to be President of the United States. Even if he loses, just being the Democratic Party nomineee is a first. But what would an Obama presidency mean for Civil Rights?

First, President Obama would find himself in the same situation every President is in: he is an executive officer. Congress legislates. He could choose to vigorously execute the current civil rights laws, or not, but he needs Congress to make substantial changes.

Second, the Obama Presidency will be taken by many to mean that civil rights is no longer an issue. They will reason that if a man with an African father can be elected President, then low-class blacks, like poor white people, are just somehow losers who are individually responsible for their own fate. Many people of color are doing fine or even great, but not very many people of color have white mothers who sent them to fancy white prep schools and fancier colleges, as Obama did.

Barach Obama's positions on civil rights and education at his Web site are all fine and good. But Barach is inheriting an economically exhaused nation with an astonishing national debt and budget deficit.

Senator Obama says No Child Left Behind has "failed to provide high-quality teachers in every classroom." There are many aspects to teachers being of high-quality, the two main ones being motivation and training. But another one the Democrats always leave off the table is firing teachers who refuse to be motivated or to do what is needed. This is because the Democrats, and Barack Obama in turn, are way indebted to the teacher's unions, who unfortunately represent the bad teachers as well as the good ones. I like what Obama says about spending more money, particularly on programs like the "Zero to Five Plan," but where will the money come from?

Quality education for all students, regardless of their parantage, is a key component of both civil rights and a strong economy. But civil rights enforcement is also critical. Here Obama is really weak. Nothing really new is presented. Doing better at enforcing the current law, and subduing ongoing prejudices, is a good thing. But nothing he mentions is going to break up the gang culture that uses young men for cannon fodder. Nothing is going to compensate African-American families for their economic losses under slavery and segregation. I don't see any mention of compensation for the abuses of white working class people or sharecroppers either.

Which brings us back to Taxes. The web site has no page for taxes or the federal budget. In the economy section there is a tax cut plan for a new $500 per person tax credit for working families. That is going to expand the budget deficit and not provide money for education or for breaking the cycle of poverty in America's poorest neighborhoods.

So what we seem to have is a promise of lower taxes and higher spending. Wow. It's so simple. No politician in American history even thought of promising that.

Going back to Truman, I think he really meant to end discrimination against non-white people in the United States. But meaning it and being President is not, in itself, enough.

The Brown v. Board of Education Murders

Most Americans who are not totally ignorant of U.S. history know about the law case Brown v. Board of Education (See text of Brown v. Board of Education). In 1954 the Supreme Court ruled that public schools segregated by the race of the students were inherently discriminatory. This reversed the infamous Plessy v. Ferguson of 1896, in which the Supreme Court ruled that separating the races was legal in the United States.

Until I read David Halberstam's The Fifties (See pages 430-441) I did not know about what could be called the Brown murders. After the Brown decision was made the usual racist social institutions, particularly but not exclusively in the states of the former Confederacy, organized a backlash. This consisted largely of threatening rhetoric and well-established methods of economic coercion and public humiliation of African Americans

The Reverend George W. Lee of Belzoni, Mississippi tried to pay his poll tax and register to vote in 1955. When the local sheriff, Ike Shelton, refused to accept the poll tax, George Lee threatened to take the matter to court. On May 7, 1955 Lee was murdered while driving his car. Sheriff Shelton engineered a cover-up. No one was arrested.

A small number of African Americans had been registered in the South since the Xth Amerndment had given them the right to vote; most were registered Republican not just because Lincoln had freed the slaves but because the Democratic Party and racism were synonymous throughout that period of time. Lamar Smith, however, must have been Democrat, but that did not help him when he voted in the Mississippi Democratic Party primary in Brookhaven. In broad daylight on August 13, 1955, in front of the Lincoln County Courthouse, he was killed by a shotgun blast. No one was brought to trial for the murder.

It was the 3rd Brown murder that shook the news media and then the nation from their slumbers. Emmett Till was fourteen years old. He lived in Chicago, but had gone to Tallahatchie County, Mississippi, to spend the summer with relatives. He was not a civil rights activist, but he made the mistake of making a lewd remark, or a remark that was interpreted as lewd (we don't know his side of the story) to Carolyn Bryant a married white woman who worked as a store clerk. Till was murdered by the the husband, Roy Bryant, and his half-brother J.W. Milam a few days later. He was shot in the head and dumped in the Tallahatchie River on August 28, 1955. He had been brutally beaten before being shot.

This time there was a trial. This time the national press showed up. Among others, a black Congressman from Detroit, Charles Diggs, attended the trial. The jury set the men free. Bryant and Milam later sold their story to Look magazine for $4000 described the killing in detail.

But outside the South both white and black Americans were repulsed by what they had heard. Even among predjudiced white segregationists in the South their was repulsion at the brutality of the murder.

It would be a many years before civil rights legislation would end most segregation in the United States. But with then Vice-President Richard Nixon pushing for executive action to uphold the Supreme Court ruling, with the national press largely turned against segregation, and with African Americans willing to push harder for their rights, in retrospect we can see that the tide had turned. Civil Rights were for all American citizens, not just white men.

Barack H. Obama's True Colors

The Democratic Party's long history of war crimes and crimes against humanity is nowhere near complete, not if the junior Senator from Illinois and Presidential (okay, vice-presidential) nomination seeker Barack Hussein Obama gets his way. This week Barack proved his national security credentials by threatening to bomb Pakistan if elected.

How much do you want to bet that the left wing of the Democratic Party, the people who style themselves "progressive," and "for peace," abandon Barack and seek a new candidate. I am betting against it. Because every Democrat I have ever met has been willing to rationalize Democratic Party war crimes and crimes against humanity. Otherwise they would not be Democrats.

Barack is seeking to become the first black, or sort-of black, President of the United States. Most African-American politicians are Democrats, and most African-Americans vote for Democratic Party most of the time. If you know anything about history that might seem strange. Boiled down, it comes to this: the Democratic Party was the party of slavery. The Republican Party was the party that ended slavery. (For details see my Brief History of the Democratic Party and my Brief History of the Republican Party). Most African-Americans are descended from slaves.

Before analysing Mr. Obama's war on Pakistan, which would become part of the ongoing U.S. War Against Asia, and which fits perfectly with long-standing ruling class policies, I want to state why I think African Americans are mostly Democrats. Most were Republicans in 1930; at that time they could not even vote in states dominated by the Democratic Party. But in 1932 the Democrats swept into power and set up the New Deal. African-Americans were allowed to receive welfare benefits under the New Deal (denying them that would have hurt white Democratic Party businessmen in the South). Politics is mainly about gravy-trains, and the Democrats controlled the gravy trains. So in the north, where blacks could vote, most black politicians became Democrats. In the South, well, anyone wanting to be a black politician was lynched by the Democrats, so most politically active blacks remained Republicans or were non-partisan or joined a socialist or black nationalist group.

In the 1950's the Republicans aided the fight for civil rights for African Americans in the South; Vice-President Richard Nixon deserves a great deal of credit for this. But the Republican Party had voting base in the South (hence it could afford to support civil rights and alienate white southern voters).

In 1961 Democrats controlled both houses of Congress, the Presidency, and the Supreme Court. Yet civil rights for southern African Americans were not high on their agenda. True, John F. Kennedy and others realized the tremendous propaganda value that Communists derived from advertising the practice of segregation in the Democratic Party-controlled southern states. But he knew that the segregationists in Congress had enough votes to derail any and all of his programs (a situation President-for-Life Franklin Delano Roosevelt had shared). So he did what self-serving politicians always do: he talked about civil rights without doing anything much about civil rights.

After Kennedy's death President Lyndon Johnson, a Democrat, did push for black civil rights; despite being a war criminal of epic proportions, this was a good and brave thing he did. But I don't think that is why blacks in the South joined the Democratic party. They joined it because their leaders joined it, and their leaders joined in because that was where the gravy was. There was no Republican Party in the South at that time worth joining. In addition the southern Democrats knew a flood was about to hit them; black political leaders were needed to keep the flood in acceptable channels.

Given the economic conditions of black Americans at the time, the choice becomes more understandable. Convert the charge of "tax and spend" Democrats to "tax and buy votes" Democrats, and you have boiled down reality pretty well. I like Lyndon Johnson's Great Society program, but effectively it taxed the middle class to buy the votes of poor (not just black) Americans with various forms of welfare. And in the long run we have learned it was not the best solution. But neither was the Republican attitude that once you removed legal barriers blacks would just start little businesses and soon be millionaires. There were tens of millions of poor whites living in the U.S. back then, as now; poverty has other causes besides legal barriers.

So most black Americans are Democrats today, and most of them, so far, are supporting Hillary Clinton. It is a simple equation: bet on the most likely winner. That is where the gravy is.

How removed is Mr. Obama's threat to bomb Pakistan from George W. Bush's threat to bomb Iran? To me they are one and the same, a combination of lunacy and criminal intent. But to the left wing of the Democratic Party they are very different, because one was proposed by a Republican, and the other by a Democrat.

Who, exactly, would we bomb in Pakistan? Doesn't anyone remember that the Taliban soldiers were all, to a man, orphans brought up in religious orphanages? Is creating more orphans and more people pissed off at the U.S. going to solve this problem? It's like bombing Pendleton, New York because that is where Timothy McVeigh grew up. In Afghanistan we learned that many of our bombing targets were proposed by confidential informants who were simply settling old tribal scores. Do we have no learning curve?

How often to you get to test the moral character of the left wing of Democratic Party by seeing if they will withdraw their support from candidates who premeditate war crimes and crimes against humanity (because that is what aerial bombing amounts to)?

I think the left-wing of the Democratic Party is as morally bankrupt as its "centrist" leadership, and in many ways more bankrupt than the Republicans. Just registering Democrat is an act of self-corruption because you are becoming an apologist for its past war crimes and crimes against humanity.

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