by Randy Shannon

Two years ago we showed that the current crisis was unavoidable as long as the banks controlled state power in the major industrial countries. In “Japan’s Lost Decades: the US Sequel” the political and economic way out of this crisis was set forth on this blog. This agenda is still relevant and waiting to be fulfilled by popular action.

The US economy has begun a new cyclical downturn. This is the first recession since 1937 that has occurred before a full recovery. As in 1937, part of the reason for this second dip is the growth of political power among the reactionary bankers and the Republican Party. This group has thrown roadblocks in the way of real economic stimulus.

The article below shows that the political leaders and the financial media finally are face to face with the reality that the current course is unsustainable. The central banks cannot break out of their narrow mind-set. Their only solution is to print money and lower interest rates. As bankers, they see the solution as saving the banks at the cost of a stable and prosperous society.

We must move forward with nationalizing the zombie banks, imposing a carbon tax and a financial speculation tax, investing in a green new deal to rebuild and solarize the infrastructure, end the wars and retool the military industrial complex to build mass transportation.

Every day that passes without action is lost. This results in lost lives, lost hopes, and a lost future generation. The graphic of construction employment shows the gravity of the situation.

Central Banks Commit to Ease as Threat of Lost Decades Rises

By Simon Kennedy and Rich Miller
Jun 25, 2012 11:11 AM ET

Central bankers are finding it easier to support their economies than to spur expansion as the prospect of Japanese-like lost decades looms across the developed world.

Continue reading Confronting a Future of Lost Decades →

“The people of Texas are informed that in accordance with a Proclamation from the Executive of the United States, all slaves are free. This involves an absolute equality of rights and rights of property between former masters and slaves, and the connection heretofore existing between them becomes that between employer and free laborer.”

Major General Gordon Granger, United States Army

June 19, 1865, Galveston, Texas

By Len Barcousky / Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

Divided along party lines, Allegheny County’s election board voted this afternoon to file a lawsuit challenging the state’s new Voter Identification law.

Board chairman John DeFazio and county Executive Rich Fitzgerald, both Democrats, voted to sue, while Heather Heidelbaugh, the lone Republican on the three-member board, voted against the measure. Both Mr. DeFazio, of Shaler, and Ms. Heidelbaugh, of Mt. Lebanon, serve on the election board because they are at-large members of county council.

“We should be making it easier to vote,” Mr. Fitzgerald said. “This legislation [the Voter ID law] is trying to deny that right and make it more difficult for people to vote.”

The measure, which takes effect with the Nov. 6 general election, requires that all voters have some form of state-approved photo identification when they come to the polls.

Ms. Heidelbaugh noted that the bill was passed by two houses of the state Legislature and signed by Gov. Tom Corbett.

“This suit is sour grapes by an elected official who doesn’t like the new law,” she said.

County solicitor Andrew Szefi said the lawsuit likely would be brought on behalf of both the election board and the county.

The heart of the county’s argument would be that the state constitution sets just four requirements for voting eligibility: minimum age, U.S. citizenship, residence in Pennsylvania and a specific election district.

The new requirement that voters show photo identification before they can cast ballots should have been imposed via constitutional amendment, he said.

Mr. Szefi estimated it would take the county law department about a week to prepare the lawsuit, which will be filed in Commonwealth Court.

The county has standing to bring the suit, because it pays elections costs and will have to spend additional money to train poll workers to enforce the photo ID rule, Mr. Fitzgerald said.

Len Barcousky: lbarcousky@post-gazette.com or 412-263-1159.

Charles Scott Howard, Kentucky Miner, Wins Reinstatement In Whistleblower Case

Kentucky miner Charles Scott Howard lost his job at Cumberland River Coal Co. last May, after years of butting heads with management over safety issues at the mine. Now, more than 13 months later, Howard may suit up and head back into the mine, whether his employer likes it or not.

A federal judge ordered Friday that Howard’s company immediately reinstate him at the mine and pay a $30,000 fine for discriminating against a whistleblower. The sharply worded decision said managers at Cumberland River, as well as its parent company, coal giant Arch Coal, went to great lengths to find a reason to fire Howard after he brought his mine to the attention of federal safety officials.

“It is obvious that [Cumberland River] worked diligently to end Howard’s employment,” wrote Margaret A. Miller, an administrative law judge for the Federal Mine Safety and Health Review Commission. “The discrimination against Howard ran through [Cumberland River] and its parent, Arch, at the highest management levels.”

Continue reading Kentucky Miner Wins Reinstatement In Whistleblower Case →

by Randy Shannon

The growing mass movement of students in Quebec against high tuition increases has become a threat to Government control of austerity in Canada. The Government is attempting to break the student resistance to austerity with an unusually harsh law against public gatherings, rallies and marches. This anti-free speech law was a signal to the Provincial Police, who used brutal violence against peaceful marchers, using clubs to bloody and break the bones of tuition hike opponents.

The public response last week could result in a quick retreat by the ruling conservatives in Canada. Hundreds of thousands of parents of students and workers marched with the students in open defiance of the new law. Amnesty International condemned the new law against free speech.

See the Guardian article below.

Quebec student protesters split over tuition fee compromise

Disagreements come as Amnesty declares controversial Bill 78 to be in breach of Canada’s international obligations

Adam Gabbatt
guardian.co.uk, Saturday 26 May 2012 17.16 EDT

One of the student leaders in Quebec’s tuition fee row has suggested students are “ready for compromise” with the government over increases in university education.

Leo Bureau-Blouin, president of Quebec’s college student federation, made the comments in an interview with Canada‘s national public broadcaster on Saturday.

But in an interview with the Guardian, Gabriel Nadeau-Dubois, spokesman of Classe, one of the other two student groups involved in the debate, said it was “not true” that students would begin to compromise before an offer had been made by the government.

The disagreement reflects some of the intricate politics involved in the tuition fee debate in Quebec, with the government negotiating with three different student organisations, including Bureau-Blouin’s official student organisation FECQ and Nadeau-Dubois’s larger Classe.

Bureau-Blouin, whose term as president of FECQ ends on 1 June, made his comments in an interview with CBC radio’s ‘This House’ programme, which aired on Saturday.

“We are ready for a compromise — and if the Quebec government is ready for it too, I think we can come to something,” he said.

“If the Quebec government agreed to move on the amount of the tuition fee hike, I think it would be a great step in the right direction.”

The FECQ, which represents 80,000 people enrolled in CEGEP, or Collège d’enseignement général et professionnel, is one of three organisations involved in negotiations. Its counterpart, Quebec’s university student federation, represents some 125,000 students, with Classe, which has the long term aim of free university education in Quebec, having a further 100,000.

Continue reading Students Suggest Quebec Government Negotiate Tuition Increase, Fight New Repressive Law →

Bill To End Indefinite Detention Fails In House

WASHINGTON — A judge may have found unconstitutional the law that allows people to be held indefinitely without trial by the military, but the House of Representatives voted Friday to keep it anyway.

On Wednesday, Federal Judge Katherine Forrest found that the law violates rights to free speech and due process. But House members defended it, ultimately voting 238 to 182 against an amendment to guarantee civilian trials for any terrorism suspect arrested in the United States.

The measure, sponsored by Reps. Adam Smith (D-Wash.) and Justin Amash (R-Mich.), had been backed by a mix of conservatives, moderates and liberals who argued that letting the president decide to detain anyone — including Americans — deemed to be a terrorist was granting the executive too much power. And they argued that with more than 400 terrorists having been tried and convicted in civilian courts while dozens of plots were prevented, the law was unnecessary.

Continue reading House Votes for Military Detention of US Civilians →