Occupy Wall Street (OWS) has given our timorous, unimaginative, and politically ambivalent unions a much-needed ideological dope slap. Some might describe this, more diplomatically, as a second injection of “outside-the-box” thinking and new organizational blood.

Top AFL-CIO officials first sought an infusion of those scarce commodities in labor when they jetted into Wisconsin last winter. Without their planning or direction, the spontaneous community-labor uprising in Wisconsin was in the process of recasting the debate about public sector bargaining throughout the U.S. So they were eager to join the protest even though it was launched from the bottom up, rather than the top-down, in response to headquarters directives from Washington, D.C.

Why Health Care Strikes Should Demand “Health Care For All,” Not Just “Hands Off My ‘Middle Class’ Benefits”



For two weeks in August, thousands of Verizon strikers provided an inspiring display of picket-line militancy and resistance to contract concessions. From Massachusetts to Virginia, members of the Communications Workers of America (CWA) and the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers (IBEW) reached out to labor and community allies to help counter the barrage of mass media and company propaganda about the strike. Throughout the U.S., other workers showed their solidarity by joining consumer-oriented protests at Verizon Wireless, which operates retail outlets nationwide.

From: The Massachusetts Whistleblower

Like many others of Italian-American heritage, I experienced some discomfort when in 1951 Senator Estes Kefauver, a Democrat from Tennessee, launched his highly publicized investigation into the organized rackets, uncovering scores of thugs with Italian surnames. Subsequent decades produced an endless parade of such rogues whose mugs were repeatedly splashed across the print and broadcast media.

I must admit that when it came to names, the mafia operatives really had them: Lucky Luciano, Scarface Al Capone, Sammy the Bull Gravano, Joey Bananas Bonanno, Crazy Joey Gallo, Jimmy the Weasel Fratianno, Sonny Red Indelicato, and Sonny Black Napolitano.

For many months I have been astounded by the absurdity of those Americans who equate Obama’s Private Insurance Bailout Bill with Communism or Socialism. A reader of an op-ed piece of mine wrote me explaining she had demonstrated against Obama’s health plan because she was opposed to Socialism. I said she must mean “National Socialism,” and I’d protest that too. A government that legislates increased profits and price deregulation for the nation’s largest Capitalist corporations, while passing laws that require the entire population to purchase the products of those particular for-profit enterprises, is more often associated with Fascism - particularly when the national economy is dependent upon military production and requires cuts in social welfare programs, public infrastructure maintenance, and workers’ real wages.

January 18, 2010

Dear President Obama,

Last year, on or around November 5th, one of your Revenue Officers hand delivered an envelope to my family’s home, addressed to me. The Internal Revenue Service has decided I owe them about $30,000, and the handwritten letter inside carefully detailed missing tax returns, requests for payment, and deadlines and threats about future actions if I decline to pay. Unfortunately, the officer, Matt Corewitz, dropped the envelope at the front door, which hasn’t been used by anyone since the house was bought nearly 40 years ago. If it hadn’t been spotted by my sister as she walked her dog, it would probably still be there today, with the full gravity of its threats of levy and seizure and summons languishing powerless in the snow. I guess the good news is that the house isn’t under surveillance (yet), or surely Officer Corewitz would have known to take his letter to the door that everyone uses. But I’m not writing to you to recommend hiring more competent revenue agents, or to put a camera on the house, or even to thank you for the friendly reminder about my delinquent payments. I’m writing to tell you about war tax resistance, or why the IRS hasn’t heard from me since 1998.

The health reform endgame is over for low-income senior citizens, but the national hoax continues. Seniors in the state where I live don’t have to wait for the finale of “what is expected to be a bruising, full-scale health care debate after Thanksgiving” to find out how their health care costs and benefits will be impacted. (AP/Espo, 11/21/09) No, the low-income elderly in Massachusetts already got notices in the mail, weeks ago, from their Medicare Advantage insurance providers announcing big premium increases for 2010.

“While investigators probe for a motive behind the mass shooting at the Fort Hood military base in Texas Thursday, in which an army psychiatrist is suspected of killing 13 people, military personnel at the base are in shock as the incident ‘brings the war home’… Tragically, Fort Hood has also born much of the brunt from its heavy involvement in both occupations. Fort Hood soldiers have accounted for more suicides than any other Army post since the U.S. invasion of Iraq in 2003. In this year alone, the base is averaging over 10 suicides each month - at least 75 have been recorded through July of this year alone.” (Dahr Jamail, Inter Press Service, 11/6/09)



“The parents of US Army Reserve Specialist Chancellor Keesling, an Iraq war veteran, received a letter yesterday from the VA asking that their son complete his ‘Post Deployment Adjustment.’ The only problem is, Chance Keesling had killed himself in Iraq nearly five months ago….” The father of Chancellor Keesling stated “I don’t think as a country we understand mental health…as we go through the longest war in our history since Viet Nam, and multiple deployments, using civilian soldiers like reservists and the Guard in ways we have never used them in this country before…we have to be very conscious that mental health issues are going to impact these soldiers.” (DemocracyNow.org 11/1l/09)



Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan, an Army psychiatrist accused of shooting to death 13 people and wounding 30 others on November 5, 2009, was responsible for treating a heavy caseload of PTSD patients whose severely disabling trauma symptoms result from horrendous combat experiences in the ongoing bloody and violent occupations of Afghanistan and Iraq. The Major is opposed to US military invasions of those two countries. He is also a practicing Muslim, who also feels it is wrong for Muslims to kill Muslims. This much we all now know.

An opinion video produced by Press Pass TV on the need for comprehensive prison reform in the United States - featuring some of Boston's best known performers. The production takes the form of an open letter to Pres. Barack Obama.

Press Pass TV is a Boston-based youth-adult partnership non-profit whose mission is to produce socially responsible video journalism which promotes a more diverse media, empowers communities, and increases civic engagement.

During Q & A at the Arlington Town Meeting on Health Care with Representative Ed Markey (10/12/09), one brave woman suggested to the Congressman that if we would end US occupations of Iraq and Afghanistan, the federal government would have more than enough money to provide comprehensive health insurance for every American citizen. Mr. Markey responded that President Obama’s health care plan isn’t going to require any new spending. It is "deficit neutral," meaning it will pay for itself! So, he said, there is no need to cut the military budget or any other funding.