Cozzarelli on Chicago's Mayor Race

Chicago Mayor-elect Brandon Johnson
(source)

Tatiana Cozzarelli, one of Left Voice's better and more interesting columnists, writes about the city of Chicago. I moved to Chicago back in 1972 to help build the Socialist Workers Party (SWP) branch there. In subsequent years I drove a cab for five years, and eventually graduated from the University of Chicago. In total I spent 13 years living in or near the City of Chicago, and it is the town to which I am most sentimentally attached. While there, I cast the worst vote I ever cast in my entire life--I voted for Jane Byrne for mayor in 1979!

To atone for my sins, were I still a Chicagoan I would have voted for Paul Vallas, who Ms. Cozzarelli describes as (links omitted)

Vallas was a “law and order” candidate funded by big business and conservative donors, and he was strongly supported by the Chicago police union. He received over $1 million from Trump voters and even spoke at a fundraiser for anti-queer far-right group Awake Illinois. He is the former CEO of Chicago public schools and supports a program of pro-charter privatization, attacking the Chicago public school district and the Chicago Teachers’ Union [CTU--ed].

Among the biggest issues in the election were crime (aka "law and order"), the city's imminent bankruptcy (the chief concern of "big business and conservative donors"), and the total failure of the Chicago Public Schools (CPS). Mr. Vallas, to his credit, at least addressed those concerns. His opponent ignored them.

His opponent and ultimate victor in the race was Brandon Johnson, a very progressive Democrat who Ms. Cozzarelli describes this way:

Johnson is a former public school social studies teacher. He left teaching to become a staff organizer with the CTU and was in that position during the 2012 teachers’ strike. He spoke out against police brutality and anti-Black racism, making speeches in the Black Lives Matter movement. He ran on a progressive platform, promising to invest in affordable housing, public schools, and public transportation — paid for by taxing big corporations.

Police brutality is a problem, but a relatively minor one. Anti-Black racism is mostly not a problem--at least not in the way Ms. Cozzarelli imagines it. Black Lives Matter (BLM) is a fascist organization which never had the depth of support that our friendly journalist supposes. But worst of all, Mr. Johnson wants to tax productive businesses to fund things that don't need to be funded: e.g., housing, schools and transportation.

Nevertheless, Ms. Cozzarelli agrees with Mr. Johnson in every particular. She's against police brutality (who isn't?), she's against anti-Black racism (again, who isn't?), and she's in favor of good things paid for by magic unicorns and the tooth fairy. Put more generally, Ms. Cozzarelli supports the progressive Democrat platform down the line, on everything from excessive Wokery to antisemitism.

So why isn't she a Democrat?

Unlike an elected legislator, the mayor is directly responsible for running the city, including the police and the budget. Winning and taking this position is qualitatively different from taking a legislative position, where a socialist could run on an independent ticket and primarily use the position for protest votes and to advance class struggle.

This is a very profound paragraph! Apparently it's OK for a socialist to be in a legislative body, (e.g., Kshama Sawant in Seattle) who, like Ms. Cozzarelli, is allied with the Democrats 99% of the time. But the minute a Democrat actually wins executive office, then, like Mr. Johnson, they run headlong into reality and discover that compromises have to be made. In other words--unlike a city councilwoman or kibitzing journalist--they can no longer count on the magic unicorns to come through in a pinch.

Ms. Cozzarelli will claim she doesn't believe in magic unicorns. But she uses different verbiage that mean the same things. Here's an excerpt where I have italicized places where words like "unicorn" and "tooth fairy" could be freely substituted.

Refusing to support Democrats does not signify relegating ourselves to the sidelines of class struggle.  We should participate side by side  in every struggle of the working class and oppressed, discussing the need for our own party, for our own program and highlighting the need to fight to end this oppressive system.

So let's consider a serious problem Chicago has: crime. According to Wikipedia, Chicago had 796 murders in 2021. Of those, 398 (50%) were cleared by the police--that is, the police arrested and charged somebody with murder. That means that 50% of all murderers in Chicago got away scot-free! No wonder Mr. Johnson wants to hire more detectives--Ms. Cozzarelli disagrees with that because she's worried about the poor criminals and apparently cares not a whit for the parents whose children were killed. Of course that's a position she can hold only as long as she has no responsibility for anything.

On the day Ms. Cozzarelli's article was posted, Walmart issued a press release announcing the closure of four stores in Chicago, most notably including the one in Chatham at 83rd and Stewart. This is an all-Black neighborhood--the last time I drove through there about 15 years ago it was a tidy, working-class community. The Walmart store likely served 100,000 or more people in that part of town.

While Walmart was too polite to say so, a major reason for the store losing money was shoplifting. The police never arrested the culprits, and if they did the DA wouldn't have charged them. I'm sure Ms. Cozzarelli thinks the shoplifters are all single moms desperately trying to feed their children--but she'd be mistaken in that belief.

To the contrary, shoplifting in Chicago is a criminal enterprise, probably much like this report from New York:

Nearly a third of all shoplifting arrests in New York City last year involved just 327 people, the police said. Collectively, they were arrested and rearrested more than 6,000 times, Police Commissioner Keechant Sewell said. Some engage in shoplifting as a trade, while others are driven by addiction or mental illness; the police did not identify the 327 people in the analysis.

Of course professional shoplifters likely minimize the number of times they're arrested, and they also steal the most valuable items, so despite being only a third of arrests, they probably account for a majority of the expense. So by putting 327 people in jail, more than half of all shoplifting in New York would stop. 

The stats are likely very similar in Chicago. Jailing relatively few individuals would make the difference between a profitable store and an unprofitable, closed store.

Who pays for the shoplifting? It's certainly not the Walton family! Does Ms. Cozzarelli really believe that shareholders will pay for her friends' stealing? No, the people who pay are the minimum wage employees and their comparably poor customers. Whole neighborhoods will now not have a convenient grocery store because Ms. Cozzarelli and her BLM comrades defend wholesale theft.

It's worth noting that the Chatham store was comprehensively looted during the George Floyd/BLM riots. I'm pretty sure that Ms. Cozzarelli didn't participate in the looting, and I doubt she does any shoplifting, either. Somewhere in her character is basic human decency and common sense, which unfortunately she hides behind an army of unicorns and tooth fairies.

Further Reading:

• 63rd & Halsted
• Chicago: Ilona Gersh Runs for Mayor
• Left Voice and the SWP

 

Chicago: Ilona Gersh Runs For Mayor

 

Ilona Gersh, right, Socialist Workers Party candidate for mayor of Chicago, discusses fight of rail workers and the need for solidarity with co-workers at Alpha Baking Company Dec. 18.
(Picture & Caption Source: MILITANT/LISA ROTTACH)

I knew Ilona Gersh very well. She was the organizer of the Chicago Branch when I first moved there back in 1972. For at least a few months I shared an apartment with her and her roommate, Pearl Chertov. It was among the happy times of my life: I had a mission, I had friends, and we had fun.

I recall Ms. Gersh as a very serious but kind hearted person. She rarely smiled. I regarded her as my boss in those days, and I very much respected and admired her. She was totally business-like and competent. I'm not surprised she's still in the Movement.

If good character is required of a Chicago mayor, then Ms. Gersh is more than qualified.

I confess I wouldn't have recognized her from the picture. The sunglasses certainly don't help, and neither does the winter coat. It reminds me of our January days selling Militants at 63rd & Halsted. Then again, she's a lot older than she was back in 1972 and it's been a very long time. She is at least a couple years older than me, which puts her about age 73 or 74. I think she's probably in better physical shape than I am--which means she probably wouldn't recognize me, either.

The sad thing is that she is still working! The article announcing her candidacy (by Naomi Craine) has this lede:

The Socialist Workers Party announced Nov. 29 that it is running Ilona Gersh, a lifelong fighter for the interests of the working class, for mayor of Chicago. Gersh is a bakery worker and member of Bakery, Confectionery, Tobacco Workers and Grain Millers union Local 1.

So I suppose bakery work involves some strenuous physical activity. I doubt I would be capable of doing it today. And surely most bakery workers at her age have retired. At very least she should be living off social security by now, and union bakers must have some kind of pension plan. I think it's very sad that she still has to work to support herself.

Perhaps she is working just so she can participate in the union movement? That would be consistent with her character. In that case it's voluntary and I admire her for still having the stamina to do it.

Or perhaps she's working because she has contributed all her savings over the years to the Party? This looks to be foolish. It's one thing to contribute to the Party if that is such an important part of your life, but to forfeit your retirement savings is taking it too far. She should have put some money aside.

Related to the above, perhaps she doesn't get a pension at all? Pensions are awarded to long-time employees--those who put 20 or 30 years into the job. The Party has a habit of moving comrades about fairly regularly, which means they can't keep a job for any length of time. It may be that Ms. Gersh has only had her current job for only a few years, in which case no pension will be forthcoming.

I suspect she is still working in part because she has no choice. As I say, I think this is very sad.

Ms. Gersh's campaign program can be summed up in a short paragraph (from Ms. Craine's article).

“Working people need to break with the Democrats, Republicans, and all other capitalist parties,” Gersh told the Militant. “We need to build our own party, a labor party, based on our unions, that can organize to fight for our own class interests in face of the economic, social and moral crises of the capitalist system. ..."

That's pretty much it. If you vote for Ilona Gersh you'll get a promise to build an as yet non-existent labor party built on a union movement that represents about 10% of the workforce (most of whom are public employees).

There is nothing about crime, homelessness, the terrible schools, the city and state's crushing debt, or any other issue that confront Chicago voters. What they really need, claims our candidate, is a party that doesn't even exist.

This alleged party does have some programmatic planks, to wit:

“Employment is a central question facing working people in Chicago and beyond,” Gersh said. “We need a union-led fight for jobs, with wages, hours and schedules that mean workers can be with their families and be politically active, rather than be torn apart by the bosses’ drive for profits.

That's weird. The BLS (pdf) reports that the unemployment rate as of October, 2022, in Chicagoland metro was 4.3%. In Cook County it was 4.9%. In the city it is about 5.3%. The national average (Oct., 2022) was 3.4%.

So Chicago is above the national average, but that's because of very high taxes and corrupt government. Still, unemployment is historically low, and wages for low-skilled workers are rising faster than average. Poor employment prospects does not seem like a major campaign issue right now.

“The labor movement needs to fight for a nationwide government-funded public works program, to create jobs and build and produce things that working people need,” the SWP candidate said.

Just what we need--more public employees! Unlike Ms. Gersh (who actually bakes something that people want to buy), most public employees contribute little to our total welfare. The teachers' union, for example, has reduced the public schools to a glorified babysitting service--when they're not pretending to teach over Zoom calls. We have more than enough public employees already, yet Ms. Gersh is calling for more of them.

Finally,

Gersh and her campaign supporters will join in fights in the interests of working people worldwide, including against Moscow’s assault on the independence of the courageous Ukrainian people and the protests by workers and youth in Iran today.

Ms. Gersh is entitled to her opinions on foreign affairs, but this has nothing to do with the City of Chicago, and she has no right to hijack its citizens into supporting her disparate causes, no matter how worthy.

I'll vouch for Ms. Gersh's character, but there is no other reason to vote for her for Mayor in 2023. 

Further Reading:

• Teachers Can't Teach
• Taxi Troubles
• Does 2013 Rhyme With 1934?

Teachers Can't Teach

Teachers get a bum rap. If Richie can't read and Suzie can't do her sums, it's all the teacher's fault. The failure of our public schools is chalked up to the perfidy of the teachers' unions. Even I have piled on, blaming teachers for the existence of "systemic racism" because they've failed to educate us white folks out of our primordial prejudices.

Of course it's not true--or at least not the whole truth. Richie might be dyslexic, and Suzie maybe isn't very bright. A lot of kids watch too much TV, are obese and unhealthy, have mental health issues, have fallen foul of the law, are smoking too much dope, or, like Suzie, aren't all that smart.

No bespoke third grade curriculum is going to overcome all those handicaps, no matter how good the teacher is.

But I'm still gonna cast some shade on the teachers' unions, because to them it seems it all reduces to not enough money. Teachers aren't getting paid enough--and if only their salaries were doubled or tripled then all the above problems would be solved. Or, as a condition of going back to work after the pandemic, the ventilation system of every school in the country has to be completely rebuilt. Failing that, or perhaps in addition to that, teachers need to be first in line for vaccinations.

If those conditions aren't met, they threaten to go on strike.

Left Voice, a high-quality blog published by a loose collective of New York City college professors and their hangers-on, has the education beat covered. They include this picture of Catholic school students.

(Source)

Alert, physically-fit, neatly attired in bespoke uniforms, hair laboriously primped--these are the kids educated by Catholic schools. The parents have obviously invested lots of money and hours of time into their offspring. The teachers don't do any of this--they don't buy the uniforms, arrange for the extra-curricular dance classes, make sure the kids do their homework, or get them ready for school every morning. The parents do all of that--leaving it to the Catholic schools to take credit for being better than their public counterparts.

And yet it's not enough for Left Voice author Ellie Thomas, who writes about the Catholic school where she works.

In August, my school district gave families the option of either full-time, in-person learning or full-time, remote learning. At my school, more than half of all students returned in person, and in some grades nearly all returned in person. Over the summer, Catholic school teachers in my district were likewise offered the option of teaching in person or remotely, which came as a relief to many teachers who were afraid to contract the virus or spread it to vulnerable family and community members. However, that mandate quickly changed: in the end, all teachers were required to teach both in-person and remote students while in the school building, without any additional compensation for the additional workload. Those who refused were told they could sign a voluntary resignation letter. 

Ms. Thomas seems remarkably ungrateful. With all the obvious sacrifices that parents make to send their children to a Catholic school, it is surely reasonable to expect school employees to reward the effort. We learn later in the article that the school did accommodate the employees with release time, and nowhere in the article does Ms. Thomas claim there was a Covid outbreak--so it's all just one big whine.

Meanwhile, James Dennis Hoff--history professor, union activist, and Left Voice journalist--reports from Chicago (dated 2/11/21)--

After three weeks of fierce negotiating and threatening to strike, the Chicago Teachers Union (CTU) has reached a tentative agreement with the Chicago Public Schools (CPS) administration to reopen all of the city’s more than 600 public schools.

Chicago's schools have been closed since March 17th, 2020 (nearly a year ago) on Governor Pritzker's order. Prior to the governor's edict, Chicago's mayor Lori Lightfoot had vowed to keep the schools open. She was forced backtrack on that. While we right wingers occasionally accuse her of not having much of a backbone, there's no question but the lady has heart. Here's what she said (3/13/20):

“In light of this order, the best place for our students to be is at home,” she said Friday evening. “I’m asking residents to remain in your homes. Of course, I know that’s not possible for everyone. CPS serves thousands of children who’re experiencing homelessness or housing instability.” … 

Lightfoot is calling on the business community to accommodate workers who are CPS parents and may not have access to paid sick leave.

“No parent should be forced to choose between staying home with a child or earning a paycheck. That is why my team is finalizing our contingency plan to meet the needs of our children and families,” Lightfoot said. “In Chicago, we know that schools are more than just places of learning.”

Unlike Mr. Hoff, Mayor Lightfoot realizes that public school students are not always like the well-cared-for, intelligent, carefully groomed pupils in Catholic schools. Some of them are hungry and homeless, more haven't showered in weeks, a few are just plain stupid, and many others hugely unmotivated. There are those who are abused, or who live in foster homes, or who are lonely and abandoned.

These kids don't come to school to be educated--instead they just need a safe place to spend the day. If they're lucky, there's a teacher who can spare them a smile. Lori Lightfoot understands that.

Mr. Hoff doesn't. Instead he argues that schools should remain closed indefinitely.

Though they did not go on strike, the CTU managed to postpone sending most teachers to classrooms until it was safer and until all faculty and staff were vaccinated. In a country where right to work laws have increasingly undercut the power of unions, postponing school reopenings for more than an entire month is a significant victory. This was made possible because the CTU members voted overwhelmingly in January to support a strike if needed to win their demands. That strike threat was made all the more powerful, however, by the fact that the CTU had already shown twice in the last decade that they are willing to do more than make idle threats, and that they are ready to strike and strike big. That strike muscle is strong in the CTU and it is the reason why they were able to remain firm in their negotiations with Lightfoot and eventually win their demands.

So who are the teachers gonna strike against? According to Emma Lee, the foe is the evil Lori Lightfoot herself. Never mind that Ms. Lightfoot has humored the unions for nearly a year, keeping schools closed despite increasing evidence that opening them won't spread the virus. Meanwhile, the rightwing media accuse her of coddling the unions--the lady can't win. At the end of the day, she's just the messenger--she doesn't really control the purse strings.

My friends at Left Voice will say battle is against the millionaires and billionaires who supposedly have endless amounts of money stashed away in some safety deposit box. So let's imagine a selfish billionaire who lives not in Chicago but on the North Shore, and she hears that Chicago's teachers are going on strike. "Great!" she says. "Now the state can save money by not paying those stupid teachers. Hope they stay on strike forever." The teachers' union can't win against that attitude.

Or maybe the strike is against middle class homeowners, liable for property taxes, and who themselves depend on the public schools--if only for the sake of civil order. But they don't have a lot of money. Raising property taxes will reduce their home values, and ultimately force them to move. That's happening in Chicago already--the city is losing population.

In reality, the strike is against poor people--people who don't pay any taxes, who live on food stamps and Section 8, who spend time in jail and are functionally illiterate. The French have a word for them: Les Misérables--The Miserables, Those are the folks who the teachers' union really wants to screw over--with help from Mr. Hoff and his friends over at Left Voice.

A kid can't even get a smile anymore.

Further Reading:

• "A Program to Unify the Exploited and Oppressed"
• The Revenge of the Lumpen Proletariat
• Louis Proyect and the More-Poverty Solution

Black Dispersal from Cities

Glen Ford, executive editor of Black Agenda Report, often has his work reprinted in Socialist Viewpoint. The post that caught my attention today is entitled Great, Bloody Black Dispersal from the Cities. It's typical of Mr. Ford--always one to take the most extreme, radical position possible, facts and logic be damned.

It is true that, since 2000, Blacks are gradually moving away from large cities, reversing a trend from the prior several decades.

The rapidly unfolding dispersal of Blacks from the cities, like the white invasion of the surrounding hinterlands in the previous era, is the result of deliberate state policies, dictated by finance capital. But, this time, the demographic makeover has been effectuated and politically finessed with the active collaboration of a Black misleadership class that, paradoxically, owes its existence to the concentration of Black populations during the Sixties and Seventies.

True to form, Mr. Ford sees it as a giant conspiracy, where some all-powerful racist/capitalist/government yokel has, for mysterious reasons, decided to depopulate America's cities.

He cites no real data, so I'll take data from Chicago, which I have close at hand. According to the Chicago Tribune, the city lost 186,000 Black residents between 2000 and 2010. The same article reports that the Chicagoland area lost 46,000 Black residents since 2010.

Mr. Ford speculates this is due to the destruction of housing projects. He writes

The de-Blackening of urban America is a wrenchingly painful and bloody amputation-in-progress. In a frenzy of demolition, the U.S. has lost a quarter-million units of public housing since the mid-1990s, only a small fraction of which has been replaced with new public housing, according to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities. Black mayors and heavily Black city councils have, typically, bought into the notion that concentrations of poor Black people are, by definition, vectors of pathology, while concentrations of affluent whites are the indispensable ingredients of urban “renaissance.” It is the logic of apartheid, cloaked in phony economics.

Chicago's Robert Taylor Homes were the infamously inhumane high-rises alongside the Dan Ryan Expressway, containing 4,415 units. They were demolished between 1998 and 2007, replaced by 2,300 low-rise homes and apartments. (Wikipedia) So while Mr. Ford is correct that on net public housing was destroyed, the fraction that was replaced was more than 50%. Not really a "small fraction," especially if you consider that many apartments in the original towers weren't habitable.

Does Mr. Ford really think Chicago's Black citizens were better off living in the Robert Taylor Homes? The crime was building them in the first place--not their destruction.

He claims that Blacks have been forced out of the cities into the suburbs. "No mayor has been more intent on driving Blacks from his city than Chicago’s Rahm Emanuel," he says. But I think he's wrong.

1) Like whites, Black folks are richer than they were 40 years ago--they have more choices. Nobody with any money at all is gonna want to live anywhere close to the Robert Taylor Homes. Much better is a house and yard in the 'burbs. Like whites before them, Blacks want to lead civilized, suburban lives.

2) We're all getting older, and Black demographics are only slightly younger than us white folks. Old people, living on social security, want low prices, low crime, and quiet neighborhoods. One can live in Mississippi or Alabama quite comfortably on social security and a small pension. No wonder folks are leaving Illinois in droves (and not just Blacks).

3) Chicago has the highest sales taxes of any jurisdiction in the nation. And the city is so hard-up for revenue that they've resorted to stupid things, like soda taxes and red-light cameras. Of course these penalize poor people more than rich ones. Again, for people of modest means the suburbs or Mississippi look really good by comparison.

Then Mr. Ford condemns the city for closing 50 public schools. He never tells us about the drop in enrollment, described by the Sun-Times.

Chicago Public Schools on Friday announced another five-figure enrollment drop, counting 371,000 students in the country’s third largest school district. ...

CPS has lost about 21,000 students from its rolls in the last two years and now has just about 26,000 more students than the fourth largest, Miami-Dade County Public Schools in Florida.

Why should schools stay open when the district is losing 10,000+ pupils annually? Mr. Ford gives us a really silly reason.

The result [of school closings--ed] was catastrophic, as students were forced to transit unfamiliar gang turf to attend schools that were often no better than the shuttered ones in the old neighborhoods. Many kids died. “What people don’t understand is that if you are 16 years old and get on a bus, when you get off that bus you are gang-affiliated whether you are gang-affiliated or not,” said activist Jitu Brown.

Mr. Brown is certainly right--we whites don't understand that. I've never been in a gang, nor do I have any friends who have ever been in a gang. Gang membership is just one of those things we white people don't do (mostly). But now Mr. Ford will have the government enforce turf boundaries established by street gangs! Is that supposed to be the job of the school district? Are we taxpayers (people in housing projects don't generally pay taxes) now required to subsidize gang warfare by keeping unnecessary schools open?

Mr. Ford will likely respond by saying that gangs are the result of poverty/racism/capitalism, etc. He's sorta right, but he's got the causal arrow backwards. By coincidence there's an article in The Atlantic about "Brastell Travis, a 21-year-old who lives in the city’s Englewood neighborhood." He did all the things a young man is supposed to do--went to school to learn a trade: welding. But he can't find a job, "...because of where he went to high school, he can’t apply for jobs in certain neighborhoods, because he could become a target of violence if he goes to the wrong areas of town, he said." So in this case gangland crime causes poverty, not the other way round.

Mr. Travis should move to the suburbs. To do that he'd need a car (which he doesn't have) and money for a deposit on an apartment (which he doesn't have). His parents apparently have saved up zero capital to help get him started on life. And that's the real problem--no capital accumulation by Black families. (I'm not talking millions here--a couple thousand dollars would solve a lot of problems.) So he's screwed.

Mr. Ford's real concern is to maintain a majority Black population in large cities, such as St. Louis, where Blacks became a minority this century. He wants to use this majority to enact far-reaching reforms, one of which is the "Right to free education through post-graduate level."

I can't think of a stupider idea. Surely more education is not something that Mr. Travis, for example, actually needs right now. At best it would be a waste of time. And nothing is more a waste of time than "post-graduate" schooling. All it does is postpone becoming an adult until one turns 30. I think we're already waaaay over-invested in education at all levels. But apparently Mr. Ford thinks higher sales taxes and soda taxes are a fair price to pay for yet more silly schoolwork.

Further Reading:

• If Everybody is a Racist, Then Nobody is a Racist
• Charlottesville
• 63rd & Halsted

Bernie's Brownshirts & The American Left

Trigger Warning: This post contains the f------ word.

According to last night's news a group of about a thousand Bernie supporters protested and disrupted a Donald Trump rally in Chicago. Their goal was to get the event canceled, and in this they succeeded.

So people have thrown accusations of fascism toward The Donald. As evidence they cite his occasional quote from Mussolini, the rapturous cheering from his audiences at what seem to be content-free statements, his cult of personality, a perceived authoritarianism, and (most tellingly) occasionally roughing up some protesters who attend his meetings.

It's all Mr. Trump's fault, so claim his critics on both the Left and the Right. "A campaign bears responsibility for creating an environment when the candidate urges supporters to engage in physical violence," Ted Cruz is quoted telling Megyn Kelly.

So I'm not going to defend the actions of every last supporter at every Trump rally, some of which have tens of thousands of people. Of course some of them went over the top. I'll even stipulate that Trump himself has encouraged them occasionally. But what happened in Chicago last night is in an entirely different league and has nothing to do with the Trumpers misbehavior.

What Bernie's supporters did last night was to actively disrupt and eventually prevent a rival candidate from holding a perfectly legal and appropriate rally. This is not a minor misdemeanor or error of judgement--this is a felony against the very spirit of the Constitution and the American way of life. For we in these United States (supposedly) value free speech. "I may not agree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it" (attributed to Voltaire). Ted Cruz, in particular, who claims to value the Constitution above all else, should be very ashamed of himself.

Now I will not accuse Mr. Sanders himself of being a fascist, but some of his supporters certainly are. Those proud of disrupting Donald's rally last night are undeniably fascists. In prior eras they would have been described as brownshirts.

My shorthand definition of fascism is a belief that we're poor because the foreigners stole all the money. Foreigners usually refers to an ethnic group, though not always. The Bernie crowd sees Rednecks, Hillbillies, Yokels, Uneducated people, Religious fanatics, etc. as unacceptable strangers who need to be shut up and are undeserving of Constitutional rights. For the record, it is worth noting that Bernie's supporters are more White than any other campaign.

The American Left is increasingly infested with fascist grouplets. First among them is the explicitly racial group Black Lives Matter. Those folks are more catholic in their choice of targets, extorting groveling obeisance from whatever candidate they choose to disrupt. This is a fascist gang pure and simple.

Similarly, the Boycott, Divest, Sanction group is a viciously antisemitic group targeting "Zionists." Their trademark tactic is to disrupt any speech by any Israeli citizen, whatever that person's point of view might be. These people are fascists in the old-fashioned, Hitlerian sense of the word.

Jonah Goldberg, in his book Liberal Fascism, argues that Hillary Clinton is a fascist. I think he makes a convincing case, but she's not a danger to civil liberties in the way these other examples are.

My Trotskyist friends are mostly not fascists, though they do have tendencies in that direction. In particular, Socialist Action and Solidarity ardently support Hamas, which is an avowed fascist organization. But let's consider that an anomaly and not typical of Trotskyism.

Trotskyists subscribe to a politics that I regard as pro-poverty. For them global ideals are much more important than the welfare of any group of people. For example, saving us all from climate change is sufficient reason to drive a billion people back into subsistence farming. Or similarly, changing the legal ownership of the means of production is cause to completely destroy the world's economy.

Solidarity, for example, is quite explicitly Luddite.

The fact is that ecosocialism simply does not need everyone to have her/his own private automobile (we do not, in fact, need for anyone to have a private automobile) nor a big screen TV in every room of the house, private swimming pools, meat three times a day, and much else.

Not only will the Rednecks be deprived of their pleasures, but workers around the world will be deprived of their livelihoods. This is a semi-fascist doctrine, but to their credit our comrades in Solidarity don't engage in brownshirt tactics.

Similarly, Socialist Action and Louis Proyect are avid, pro-poverty campaigners. While I've argued often against Mr. Proyect's viewpoint, there is no way the man is a fascist. And to his credit he's against Bernie almost as much as I am (albeit for different reasons).

So that brings us finally to the Socialist Workers Party (SWP). They are also not fascist, though like the other grouplets they support fascist-like governments. They are, for example, keen on Castro's Cuba and Kim Jong-un's North Korea. The latter seems to me to be indistinguishable from fascism, based as it is on an ethnocentric ideology. (Kim Il-sung, apparently, has ascended into heaven.)

But the SWP distinguishes itself for the better in that they do not support Hamas, and they have come down foursquare in favor of preserving Constitutional rights for citizens. More, they see Trump's followers as potential recruits rather than class enemies. Instead of disrupting the rally they'd rather be part of it (though not in support of the rally's program).

So there is no way the SWP is fascist in any sense that we've been discussing. They're not even consistently pro-poverty (e.g., they have not signed on to the Climate Crusade).

Trotskyists believe in something called the Transitional Program, a route by which Socialist Revolution can be achieved. By this guide today's activists fight for seemingly obvious demands (e.g., "free college tuition for all"), secure in the knowledge that capitalism will not be able to satisfy those demands without bringing itself to collapse.

The SWP's gamble is that American capitalists will not be able to grant workers their Constitutional rights and still remain in power. So they demand the rigorous implementation of the Constitution supposedly knowing full well that such will ultimately bring down the system. After which we can all live in a North Korea-style utopia.

But for the moment it puts them on the side of Donald Trump.

It is very odd to think of Donald Trump as the defender of free speech and Constitutional liberty. But by some odd sequence of events, and by no design of himself, that is exactly where we are.

For that reason this blog endorses Donald Trump for President.

Down with fascism!
Down with poverty!

Further Reading:

• Good Trump, Bad Trump
• Louis Proyect's Pro-Poverty Alliance
• Fascism!

Taxi Troubles

A headline on today's Drudge Report reads "UBER Drivers Protest Over Lowered Fares In NYC..." But the linked article doesn't claim that: instead it reports that primarily Yellow Cab drivers were protesting Uber's lowered fares. And for good reason--the move potentially puts them out of business.

Uber announced that it is lowering it's fares for UberX and UberXL by 15%. Of course given the decrease in gas prices that makes some sense (though that's unmentioned in the article).

But it's driving the medallioned Yellow Cabs crazy. "Beleaguered yellow cabbies say they can’t compete with the lower fare since their rates are determined by the Taxi and Limousine Commission." Hoist on their own petard, I'd say, since until now the cabbies have been hiding behind the medallion to protect their monopoly. But now they've woken up on the wrong side of the issue.

A few Uber drivers joined the protest, claiming that the reduced fares would hurt their income. Not true, claims the company. "Uber is guaranteeing drivers who work the minimum will make more, and if they don’t, Uber will pay the difference. Spokesman Josh Mohrer adds that the ultimate goal is to reduce the use of personal cars."

Put another way, the lower fares will reduce the profit per trip, but the difference will be made up on increased volume. But only full-time drivers will generate the volume necessary to increase revenue. So Uber calculates that it will a) generate more total revenue for the firm, much of which will be shared with the drivers, and b) professionalize its workforce by discouraging part-time and casual drivers.

It sounds like a win on all counts. But it will put the Yellows out of business, and maybe sooner than anybody thinks.

For recently the Yellow Cab companies in San Francisco and Chicago have both declared bankruptcy. In both cases it's because they lost liability lawsuits because of accidents. The Chicago firm (my employer for about a year in the 1970s) is on the hook for about $26 million. The much smaller San Francisco company owes $8 million.

Two points can be made. First, these sound like one-off events. But liability is something all cab companies have to deal with. The sums involved are relatively paltry--a company with a strong balance sheet or good insurance should be able to survive this.

Second, it illustrates an Achilles heel for the medallion companies--they can't keep their workforce. Good, professional drivers will make more money with Uber, and that's where they're going. The Yellows, meanwhile, are left with the dregs--part-timers with spotty driving records. Indeed, the photo below can hardly inspire confidence in cab safety.

Chicago Yellow cab and victims
(Clifford Law Offices via Chicago Tribune)

It completely negates the long-standing taxi argument that the medallion somehow equates with safety.

Bill Onasch, over at Socialist Action, points me to an article at LaborNotes.org, a useful site reporting on labor news. There Sonia Singh authors a piece about an attempt to unionize Uber drivers in Seattle.

The drivers, who are mostly Somali and Eritrean immigrants, have gone to the city council and gotten a resolution allowing them to unionize. Uber has taken the issue to court, where it will likely languish for several years.

Nevertheless, Teamsters Local 117, which already organizes cab drivers, has set up the App-Based Drivers Association. During my stint at Chicago's Yellow Cab I was a member of the International Seafarers' Union, a mob-run outfit if there ever was one. It's doubtful the Teamsters will be more honest, for if they're successful they will generate a permanent revenue stream from Uber drivers. The temptation to skim off the top will be hard to resist.

Ms. Singh asks "will drivers sign up? Ajema is confident this will be the easiest part, even though he expects Uber will try to dissuade them." Count me skeptical. I think this whole effort is a non-starter.

So the taxi industry is changing faster than anybody predicted. I think that medallion cabs will be out of business across the country within the next five years.

Further Reading:

• Book Review: Walmart
• Precarious Taxis
• Working on the Railroad

Does 2013 Rhyme With 1934?

"History never repeats, but it does rhyme." - Mark Twain

Joe Johnson is an old Trotskyist, a one-time comrade of Farrell Dobbs and Vincent Ray Dunne. Dunne was a leader of the famous 1934 Minneapolis Teamsters' strike, vividly chronicled by Farrell Dobbs in his excellent book, Teamster Rebellion. Dobbs was also the National Secretary of the Socialist Workers Party (SWP) from 1953 to 1972.

Johnson's thesis, in a piece published in Socialist Viewpoint, is that 2013 is an echo of 1934. He predicts a major upswing in the labor movement. His title, also a rhyme on history, is Today's Situation and What Is To Be Done Next. At first impression, Johnson's claim is silly. Upon closer reading--well, it's still silly. But the argument makes for a fun ride.

Johnson begins by pointing out two important innovations that, back in 1934, led to the Teamsters' victory. Most unions in that time were craft unions, and thus divided carpenters from plumbers from electricians from machinists. The Teamsters initiated the concept of industrial unionism, i.e., a union that organized all workers in an industry, regardless of craft. This gave them much more power than they previously had. The second new idea was an ability to connect with the larger community--in Johnson's example the Teamsters successfully turned small merchants into allies.

So how does it rhyme today? Johnson reasonably suggests that today's unions are much more like the craft unions of yore than the industrial unions they claim to be. The union movement has gotten too small and too isolated to effectively counter capital. Strikes are increasingly impossible. Johnson blames anti-union legislation for this--I think more fundamental changes in the economy are a likelier culprit.

In his telling the modern day echo of the Teamsters' industrial union is the fast-food strike! (You never heard of that? That's only because you haven't been reading the Trotskyist literature enough.) Most recently, 500 fast food and retail workers from Chicago's Michigan Avenue went on a one-day strike demanding $15 per hour. There's a nice news account (by Josh Eidelson from The Nation) reprinted in Socialist Viewpoint here. Similar demonstrations took place in New York, Milwaukee, and other cities.

Johnson argues this is a Teamster-like response to a 1934-like problem. Rather than trying to organize individual companies, such as McDonald's or Macy's, as a traditional union is wont to do, instead it goes after the whole shootin' match. Anybody who works minimum wage retail is invited to join--who cares who your capitalist boss is. Beyond this, gone is the traditional union strategy: organize a union, bargain for a contract, and then call a strike if you have to. No--instead these folks went straight to the strike--screw the bourgeois process. It's all very exhilarating and radical--and doomed to fail.

It will fail for at least three reasons:

1. The companies are simply incapable of paying $15 per hour. They can't raise prices, and their profit margins are already pretty thin. So the demand is impossible to meet. (Eidelson recognizes this.)
2. Retail workers are not in a very strategic position vis-a-vis the economy. There will always be a non-union retail sector, including family-run businesses. Indeed, many Dunkin' Donuts franchises come under that category. No union will ever be able to shut down retail in the way the Teamsters shut down trucking.
3. Even if hurdles 1 and 2 are surmounted, then automation will do them in. Long run, Baxter can flip hamburgers better than any human being. With sufficient capital investment, McDonald's can  greatly reduce the number of employees. Macy's and Walmart are already being undercut by Amazon.com, who books the same revenue with a fraction of the workforce. 

Retail unionism is doomed. And this explains the small turnout--500 retail workers in Chicago is not a very effective strike. It's not even that good--there were 500 people at the demonstration, but only a percentage were actually skipping out on work. This isn't serious, and reading between the lines in Eidelson's piece, the companies don't take it seriously, either. They all took the employees back as if nothing had happened. Actually, nothing did happen.

For the second rhyme--making connections with the community--Johnson points to the Chicago Teachers' Strike. He claims the teachers "were only able to get support by enfolding within their union demands the needs of the community." I think he is on pretty thin ground here. The teachers demands are mostly in opposition to the community, for they insist that property taxes be raised to support their privileged position. I don't think community solidarity had much to do with this strike's success.

To the contrary, the teachers won only because of special circumstance. The 2012 strike was right before the election in Obama's home town, unions are a core part of Obama's coalition, and Mayor Emanuel is closely associated with the Obama administration. This was not a fight Emanuel wanted to take on, so he just caved. In almost every other instance the public employee unions have gotten their clocks cleaned: Wisconsin, New Jersey, and most recently, Michigan. The Chicago teachers are an exception, not the start of a trend.

So I think Mr. Johnson has it mostly wrong. He is correct that, had it been successful, the fast-food strike would be a game-changer. That's the interesting idea which inspires this post. But it was mostly a non-event, and it is nearly impossible to imagine how it can ever be more than that. He badly misinterprets the teachers' strike, which was a once-off success in an election year.

The rest of Mr. Johnson's article goes off the deep end. He writes about forming soviet-style assemblies--councils of working people representing different constituencies: unions, neighborhoods, environmentalists, etc. He asks that these take over government, and suggests Detroit would be a good initial target. He cites the "fact" that Congress has a 90% unfavorable rating as evidence the time has come for revolutionary change. He's just wrong.

So history has no rhyme, and methinks Mr. Johnson has no reason.

Further Reading:

• Collapsing Pensions
• Where the Customer Always Comes Last
• Union Man

63rd & Halsted

When I was in the Socialist Workers Party, back in the early 70s, we used to go on Saturday morning Militant sales to the neighborhood shopping center at 63rd & Halsted, the heart of the Englewood neighborhood. Some of you may remember Pearl Chertoff--she accompanied me on many of those outings. We did this year round, but I remember it being very cold and windy, as if it were always January.

Many 20-year-olds have done stupider things than sell Militants at 63rd & Halsted, but few have done anything sillier. Folks must've thought I just stepped out of a Monty Python skit. I cringe at the memory, and have not told my wife or children about it. I was a lousy newspaper salesman. I think in two hours I'd sell three or four papers at 25 cents each--hardly enough to cover gas or car fare, even in those days.

In my old age I'm a bit more tolerant of my former self. However silly the reason, and unlike my children, I at least have spent some time in a poor, Black neighborhood. I know more than they do about poor places. So in that spirit, let me tell you briefly about what happened to me in Englewood.

• Nobody called me "honky," or any other nasty name.
• Nobody called me a "dirty Commie," even though I was both.
• Nobody robbed me, or tried to rob me.
• Nobody hassled me or threatened me.
• Nobody slashed my tires.
• Nobody tried to sell me drugs.
• Nobody joined the Stupid Socialist Workers Party.

In short, my time at 63rd and Halsted was boring. The people were invariably polite and friendly. I think the few who actually bought a paper did so more out of charity than anything else. For they were a big-hearted people with friendly smiles, who were much more generous toward me than I was toward them.

I drove by the corner a few years later--must have been mid-80s--and found that all the stores were abandoned and boarded up. I haven't been back since, but I doubt it's gotten better. Englewood has earned a new status as the murder capital of America. This is really sad.

What brings this to mind is the Paul McKinley for Congress campaign. In his intro video, Mr. McKinley says "I believe in prosperity." Well, I can just hear his critics scoff. Doesn't everybody believe in prosperity? they ask. How trite can you get.

No, everybody does not believe in prosperity. In fact, among the political class ("The Machine" in Mr. McKinley's Chicago-style formulation) few people believe in prosperity.

• Those numskulls who fought for a 9% sales tax certainly don't believe in prosperity. No wonder all those stores closed.
• The folks who think schools exist for the benefit of their patronage employees instead of for children don't believe in prosperity.
• The people who spent 30 years fighting Walmart definitely don't believe in prosperity. I hear Walmart finally opened up at 87th & the Dan Ryan. I certainly hope that's true. They certainly got no help from the patronage-driven, anti-prosperity crowd.
• The Sinaloa drug gangs, who decided they'd rather fight it out in the streets of Chicago than in Juarez. Where ever they fight, they don't believe in prosperity.
• Mayor Emanuel, who at very least is too much of a coward to take on the gangster/patronage interests who don't believe in prosperity. I guess they don't call him "The Godfather" for nothing.

So Mr. McKinley is unique among Chicago pols, which is why this webpage endorses him enthusiastically. Still, Mr. McKinley, you need to show us you believe in prosperity. I'll give you a couple of years after you take office, but then I'm going back to 63rd & Halsted, and I'm bringing my family with me. This is what I want to find:

•  A grocery store.
• A discount store, like the Dollar General that's in my neighborhood.
• A good place for lunch. And if they serve good fried chicken I'll be back in Englewood every chance I get.
• A local gift shop. For my immigrant wife, and even for my kids, a neighborhood like Englewood will be exotic. My wife will want to buy some souvenirs and local handcrafts, talk to some locals, and learn something.
• Kids on the street. I don't mean gangster kids. I mean little kids playing, or walking home from school.
• A cop on the corner.
• If you really want to put on the Ritz for us, put in a store like TJMaxx or something. There used to be a Goldblatt's there, so this isn't really impossible.

As I say, I'm bringing my wife and kids. I'm a big tipper, and my wife loves to shop. We'll spend money. But here's one better. The primary election is Tuesday a week from today. If you contribute to the McKinley for Congress campaign right now, then lunch is on me. Just take the Englewood train to the end of the line and I'll meet you at the station.

We believe in prosperity.

Campaign Contributions

I'm jinxed when it comes to campaign contributions. In 2008 I donated money to Rudy Guiliani--a couple weeks later he dropped out of the race. In 2012 I gave money to Herman Cain--and look what happened to him. I refused to contribute to the Romney campaign, partly because he was so uninspiring, but mostly because I wanted him to win.

Anyway, I'm trying it one last time--I just contributed to a Republican running for Jesse Jackson Jr's seat in Chicago. His chances of winning are about zero, and I'm probably not helping any. But I can't resist. I'm a sucker for courageous people who struggle against long odds and try to do good in the world. After my recent post about Mumia Abu Jamal, this guy is just a breath of fresh air. Anyway--here's his Youtube introduction.

http://youtu.be/UITQ-YvVbS8

If you can send him a dollar or two you can't go too far wrong. And if by some fluke you live on Chicago's south side (I used to live in Hyde Park), then please get out the vote. His politics (which I totally agree with) are described more fully on his webpage, mckinleyforcongress.com.

Update: h/t LegalInsurrection

Update 2: Here's an even better video: http://youtu.be/1-5BzyrKX3c

Update 3: A follow-up post is here.