Tidbits and Announcements - July 2, 2012

* Overcoming Racism: A Radical Approach
* “Under Tents”: International Campaign Launch for
  Housing in Haiti
* Statement on the Supreme Court Decision on the Affordable
  Care Act (aka, "Obamacare") (Democratic Socialists of
  America)
* Re: Bonobo, Chimp and Human Genomes -- Close But
  Complicated (Marc Beallor)
* Re: Mexico's Hidden Success Story (David Bacon, Phil
  Josselyn )
* Re: Share the Work, Share the Cash - Mondragon Coops
  Surviving Europe's Job and Credit Crunches (Martin Morand)
* Re: Victory! TIAA-CREF is Divesting from Caterpillar
  (Laurel MacDowell
* National Lawyers Guild delegation to Egypt: initial
  findings, and New York City July 10 reportback event

==========

*Overcoming Racism: A Radical Approach

Free Weekly Classes

Monday evenings, July 9 – August 27, 6:30 – 8:30pm

Solidarity Hall, 2122 W. Jefferson Blvd., Los Angeles
(off the 10 freeway at Arlington on bus lines 38 and
209). Solidarity Hall is disabled accessible.

Is racial conflict inevitable in a multi-racial
society? Or is it the product of social and economic
conditions – past and present – that can be understood
and changed?

This two-part class will utilize works by writers of
color, feminists and radicals to explore these
questions and the vanguard role of people of color in
social justice movements, including the challenges and
rewards of organizing across color lines.

Class fees are $3.00 per session or $20 for entire
series. Readings and class materials are included in
the cost. Hearty after work snacks served at 6:00 pm
for a $5 donation.

Co-sponsored by Radical Women and the Freedom Socialist
Party. For more information or to get the readings in
advance, call 323-732-6416 or email
[log in to unmask] www.socialism.com

Everyone is welcome to attend. Join at any time.

===

*“Under Tents”: International Campaign Launch for
Housing in Haiti

"The quantity of people who are homeless in
Port-au-Prince today is not acceptable. We need the
support of other governments, like the US, to demand
that the Haitian Government create a social housing
plan. We are looking for allies to help our advocacy.
We are asking simply for quality homes where people can
live." - Jackson Doliscar of the grassroots group Force
for Reflection and Action on Housing (FRAKKA).

Haitian grassroots organizations and international
allies are launching an urgent housing rights campaign
this week calling for permanent housing solutions for
the nearly 400,000 people who are still living in
displacement camps more than two years after the
earthquake.

As part of the Under Tents campaign, Haiti’s homeless
are demanding that the government immediately halt all
forced evictions until public or affordable housing is
made available. They request that the Government of
Haiti, with the support of its allies and donor
governments in the U.S., Canada, and Europe move
quickly to: (1) designate land for housing; (2) create
one centralized government housing institution to
coordinate and implement a social housing plan; and (3)
solicit and allocate funding to realize this plan.

The campaign will press for US Congressional and
European Parliamentary action, raise international
awareness about the crisis through news media, mobilize
international grassroots pressure through a petition,
and build an international support movement especially
with US and international housing rights organizations.

Under Tents is a joint initiative of dozens of Haitian
grassroots groups and international allies who are
committed to a solution for earthquake victims. The
hundreds of thousands still living under shredded
plastic tarps and tattered tents face high rates of
gender-based and other violence, lack access to clean
water and toilets, and combat a surge in the cholera
epidemic. One in five is also at risk of imminent
forced eviction.

To add your name to the petition, click here. For
updates, check out the campaign's website, Facebook
page, and follow us on Twitter at @[log in to unmask]

===

* Statement on the Supreme Court Decision on the Affordable
Care Act (aka, "Obamacare")

The DSA National Political Committee (NPC) welcomes the 5-4
Supreme Court decision upholding the constitutionality of
the Affordable Care Act ("ACA"). The decision affirms the
right of Congress to legislate in the interest of the
general welfare of the American people.

We applaud the gains for ordinary American families that
will come with the ACA. Over ten million members of moderate
income families will gain coverage under Medicaid; millions
of young Americans between the age of 21 and 26 will be able
to stay on their parents' insurance; children and adults
with pre-existing conditions will now be covered by the same
policies as those deemed by insurers to be "healthy"; and
over one hundred million Americans will now be free of
lifetime expenditure limits on their coverage.

DSA also recognizes, however, that the ACA will fail to
curtail ever-rising health care costs driven by the profit-
seeking of private insurers and private health-care
providers. Only a single-payer or "Medicare for All" system
would provide truly affordable universal coverage by
granting a single public insurer bargaining leverage over
private providers.

Therefore, DSA will work with the health care activist
community to transition the ACA towards a single-payer
system. We will join the fight for single-payer at the state
level and for the reintroduction of a public option at the
federal level.

Progressives, in the short run, must also pressure Congress
to appropriate sufficient subsidies to enable uninsured
moderate income families to purchase affordable insurance.
Otherwise, the anti-"free rider" mandated fee will become a
resented burden on those families that still cannot afford
to purchase private insurance. We must also organize in
favor of Congressional regulations that would prevent
corporations from dropping existing health insurance
coverage for their employees (in order to switch the course
of coverage onto the general public).

DSA also worries that the Court's rejection of the commerce
clause as a justification for national health care
legislation may be part of the conservative court's effort
to whittle away at the commerce clause's use to justify the
momentous labor rights legislation of the 1930s and the
civil rights laws of the 1960s. Democratic socialists
recognize that only strong federal regulation of corporate
behavior can insure that the economy serves the people
rather than the people serving the interests of corporate
masters.

Even though Justice Roberts may have made his "switch in
time" on the ACA to refute the charge that he presides over
an ideological, political, and conservative Supreme Court,
DSA recognizes that the overall direction of the Court (as
manifested by the other decisions handed down this week in
the Arizona immigration, Montana corporate contributions,
and the SEIU union assessment cases) threatens to overturn
80 years of jurisprudence and declare almost all social
legislation unconstitutional, including minimum wage and
child labor laws.

--adopted by the Democratic Socialists of America National
Political Committee, June 29, 2012

==========

* Re: Bonobo, Chimp and Human Genomes -- Close But
Complicated

Portside is to be commended for disseminating articles such
as this one which deal with a subject that is considered
taboo by too many on the left.  Any serious examination of
human society and human behaviors must consider the evidence
of heritable behavioral traits.  If humans, common
chimpanzees, and bonobos share a common ancestor that dates
back only six million years (a relatively short time in
evolutionary terms), it is unlikely that humans have not
retained some suite of behaviors similar to those of our
closest relatives.

Further, considering that the evolutionary history of
male/female sex differences dates back at least 500 million
years, it is also unlikely that we wouldn't find behavioral
differences between women and men. As the article points out
"Bonobos are also ruled by alpha females, while chimps are
ruled by males."  When we look at our own societies, we see
that male domination is ubiquitous.  Does it make a
difference that all large-scale societies throughout human
history have been male dominated?  The answer should be
obvious and provides clues as to why male dominated
societies have been characterized by oppression,
exploitation, war, racism, and episodes of genocide.

Marc Beallor,
Brooklyn, NY

==========

* Re: Mexico's Hidden Success Story

I can't believe Portside ran this article.  It could have
been written by Tom Friedman, and is as false a picture of
what life is like for working people in Mexico as you can
get.  And to run it right now especially, endorsing the PRI
the evening of the election, is a betrayal of the Mexican
left, which is fighting for its life. Where's your sense of
solidarity?

David Bacon

===

It appears that the hidden success story may be hidden for a
reason: eg that it isn't such a success story.  While time
has not stood still in Mexico, the following piece from CEPR
reveals significant cracks in the story:

The Washington Post Still Can't Talk Honestly About Mexico's
Economy by Dean Baker
Center for Economic and Policy Research - July 1, 2012
http://www.cepr.net/index.php/blogs/beat-the-press/the-washington-post-still-cant-talk-honestly-about-mexicos-economy

Phil Josselyn

==========

* Re: Share the Work, Share the Cash - Mondragon Coops
Surviving Europe's Job and Credit Crunches

No mention is made of the relation to a government program
related to Unemployment Compensation -- Work Sharing (aka
"Short-Time Compensation") widely used (and perhaps
originating) in Germany as "kurzarbeietergeld".) Does this
play a role in Mondragon?

Martin Morand

==========

* Re: Victory! TIAA-CREF is Divesting from Caterpillar

Glad to see this. What an awful company! I was familiar with
its ruthless labour relations practises, its anti-unionism,
plant shutdowns, exploitation of workers and its arrogance.
How such corporations ever get this way I do not know! But
in addition to this divessment of investments in the
company, I wish consumers would also boycott CAT products.
They deserve to go under. I am sure other more socially
responsible companies could produce their products.

Laurel MacDowell

==========

* National Lawyers Guild delegation to Egypt: initial
findings, and New York City July 10 reportback event

Findings and demands:
http://www.defendegyptianrevolution.org/2012/06/28/nlg-egypt-delegation-findings-and-demands/
or
http://www.nlginternational.org/news/article.php?nid=479
(plus photos from trip:
http://www.nlginternational.org/news/article.php?nid=478

July 10th NYC reportback and launch of ongoing campaign:
http://www.defendegyptianrevolution.org/2012/06/28/july-10-nyc-reportback-from-delegation-to-egypt/

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