Mn-prog-events Mailing List: Progressive Calendar 09.13.10

[David Shove (shove001]

             P R O G R E S S I V E   C A L E N D A R    09.13.10

1. Cuban 5 rally    9.13 4:30pm
2. Immigration      9.13 6:30pm

3. ObamaNONcare     9.14 5pm
4. 5CD Greens       9.14 6pm
5. Gay mens chorus  9.14 6:30pm
6. 9/11 meet/film   9.14 6:30pm
7. Pentel Gov/meet  9.14 7pm

8. Alliant vigil    9.15 7am
9. Better blogger   9.15 6:30pm
10. Debate lock-out 9.15 6:30pm

11. David Micheal Green - I Have a Dream - 2010 version
12. Richard Trumka      - Most workers will outlive their savings
13. ed                  - Bumpersticker

--------1 of 13--------

From: Joan Malerich <joanmdm [at] iphouse.com>
Subject: Cuban 5 rally 9.13 4:30pm

12TH YEAR OF UNJUST IMPRISONMENT FOR THE CUBAN FIVE RALLY MONDAY,
SEPTEMBER 13, 4:30 TO 4:30 PM NICOLLET MALL AT 4TH STREET SOUTH IN
MINNEAPOLIS

This September 12th will mark the twelfth anniversary of the unjust
imprisonment of Gerardo Hernandez, Ramón Labañino, René Gonzalez, Antonio
Guerrero and Fernando Gonzalez, our five brothers who are political
prisoners in the United States for fighting against terrorism. Locally,
the Minnesota Cuba committee will hold a protest on Monday, September 13,
from 4:30 to 5:30 pm on Nicollet Mall at 4th Street South, in Minneapolis.


--------2 of 13--------

From: Women Against Military Madness <wamm [at] mtn.org>
Subject: Immigration 9.13 6:30pm

ECPC Potluck: Immigration - A Christian Faith Issue: Comprehensive
Immigration Reform
Monday, September 13, 6:30 p.m. Macalester Plymouth United Church, 1658
Lincoln Avenue, St. Paul.

Reverend John Guttermann is a UCC pastor and currently serving as Church
World Service's Minnesota Field Director for Comprehensive Immigration
Reform. Sponsored by: Every Church a Peace Church (ECAPC). FFI: Visit
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/MnECAPC/message/120 .


--------3 of 13--------

From: Eric Angell <eric-angell [at] riseup.net>
Subject: ObamaNONcare 9.14 5pm

"A Critique of ObamaCare"
Few people have an understanding of the massive 2000 page national health
care bill, commonly referred to as "Obamacare", signed into law earlier
this year.  Longtime health care reform activist, economist and
practitioner Joel Albers outlines some of the features of the complex law
being phased in over the next several years.  While implying that the law
is not economically sustainable, Albers suggests some hope in the coop
aspect of the new law. (Sept.'10)

SPNN 15 viewers:
"Our World In Depth" cablecasts on St. Paul Neighborhood Network (SPNN)
Channel 15 on Tuesdays at 5pm, midnight and Wednesday mornings at 10am,
after DemocracyNow!  Households with basic cable may watch.

Tues, 9/14 @ 5pm & midnight + Wed, 9/15, 10am
"A Critique of ObamaCare"


--------4 of 13--------

From: Susan Leskela
Subject: 5CD Greens 9.14 6pm

We are going to try to have our Membership Meeting on a week night to free
up your weekends. We had a tough time finding a space though. In the
future we are going to try to book the best spots way in advance.

We have a room reserved Sept 14th at Armatage Recreation Center in
Southwest Minneapolis, 2500 57th St W.  It's one block off of Penn Ave S
and close to Crosstown and Penn Ave. although there is a bit of
construction and the exit may still be closed.

Agenda:
6:00PM Finance Report
6:05PM Supporting Green Party candidates in the 2010 election:Dan Craigie
6:20PM Supporting Green Party candidates in the 2010 election: Annie  Young
6:35PM Review strategic plan
7:05 GP endorsement position statement on gun violence
7:20PM Elected Official Reports - Annie Young and Cam Gordon
7:40PM State Report: Andy Exley
7:45PM National Information/Discussion
8:00PM Adjourn

Hope to see you there. We have an election coming up and 2 endorsed
candidates who could use our support!
 Sue Leskela Minneapolis


--------5 of 13--------

From: patty <pattypax [at] earthlink.net>
Subject: Gay men's chorus 9.14 6:30pm

Tuesday we are in for a treat in viewing the documentary, The Chorus.
This is the story of the San Francisco Gay Men's Chorus.  It was done by
Thierry Vivier, a French documentarian, who also happens to be my son=in
- law living in Los Angeles.  It is really a beautiful film.  It documents
some of the men who had aids and how they coped with this while being a
part of the chorus.

Then, there will be no salons until the 3rd Tuesday in October.

Pax Salons ( http://justcomm.org/pax-salon )
are held (unless otherwise noted in advance):
Tuesdays, 6:30 to 8:30 pm.
Mad Hatter's Tea House,
943 W 7th, St Paul, MN

Salons are free but donations encouraged for program and treats.
Call 651-227-3228 or 651-227-2511 for information.


--------6 of 13--------

From: shirley k johnson <skjohnsn [at] comcast.net>
Subject: 9/11 meet/film 9.14 6:30pm

Minnesota 9/11 Truth

Tuesday, Sept 14, 2010 Rondo Community Library
6:30 PM: Business meeting; 7:30 PM:  anyone interested in studying
what really happened may come to view a short video and discuss how to
further the goal of educating the public and achieving a new
investigation into the events of 9/11/01.

"Real Peace Requires Real 9/11 Truth."
Shirley Johnson 703 Laurel Avenue Unit 1E St. Paul, MN 55104 651-291-7053
skjohnsn [at] comcast.net


--------7 of 13--------

From PRO826 [at] aol.com
Subject: Pentel Gov/meet 9.14 7pm

Ken Pentel for Governor Campaign Meeting

Welcome to all of the new sign ups we gathered at the MN State Fair.  We
will be building on our campaign the next eight weeks and will be holding
a special volunteer meeting:

September 14th, 7:00 pm
Bryant Square Park Building
3101 Bryant Ave. S. Minneapolis 612-370-4907
On the corner of Bryant Ave. S and 31st St. in Minneapolis (one block
south of Lake St. and one block east of Lyndale Ave.)

Come share your creative ideas on how to build the campaign or learn more
about what you can do to help.  Outer state signups will be contacted to
help build regional support.


--------8 of 13--------

From: AlliantACTION <alliantaction [at] circlevision.org>
Subject: Alliant vigil 9.15 7am

Join us Wednesday morning, 7-8 am
Now in our 14th year of consecutive Wednesday
morning vigils outside Alliant Techsystems,
7480 Flying Cloud Drive Eden Prairie.
We ask Who Profit$? Who Dies?
directions and lots of info: alliantACTION.org


--------9 of 13--------

From: Women Against Military Madness <wamm [at] mtn.org>
Subject: Better blogger 9.15 6:30pm

Excited about WAMM's New Blog? Become a More Effective Blogger.
What's Your Story? Citizen Journalism 101: Wednesdays, September 15, 22,
29 and October 6, 6:30 to 8:00 p.m. Rondo Public Library, 461 North Dale,
St. Paul.

In this series, participants will develop ideas about what they see going
on in their communities and turning it into meaningful content. We'll
cover how to best use a blog, using pictures to tell your story and
fundamental best practices for telling your story online. TC Daily Planet
editor Mary Turck will facilitate this series. Come to one or more
session, as your schedule permits.

Sponsored by: the Twin Cities Daily Planet. Endorsed by: the WAMM
Media Committee. FFI and to Register: Email jeremy [at] tcmediaalliance.org.


--------10 of 13--------

From: Meredith Aby <awcmere [at] gmail.com>
Subject: Debate lock-out 9.15 6:30pm

Picket the Governor's Debate & Demand Immigrant and Economic Rights
Wednesday, September 15th @ 6:30pm @ Pantages Theater @ 710 Hennepin Ave.,
Downtown Mpls

The candidates for governor will be debating this Wednesday at the
Pantages Theater in downtown Minneapolis. Join the Minnesota Coalition for
People's Bailout as we gather to send the politicians, the audience
members and passersby our message for "Jobs or income now!" "Stop
foreclosures and evictions!" "Stop attacks on immigrants!".  This event
will be co-emceed by the Minnesota Immigrant Rights Action Committee and
the Welfare Rights Committee.

[The corporate parties will not allow other parties into large public
debates. This is anti-democratic and high-handed. But it works for them,
because most voters will vote for them no matter how nasty they are. So
they're not going to stop. Nastiness pays. Just don't imagine we have
freedom of electoral choice in America. A more effective tactic is to
publicly stop giving them money, and give it to third parties instead.
Like a 2x4 to the head, that'd get their attention.  -ed]


--------11 of 13---------

2010 Version
I Have a Dream
By DAVID MICHAEL GREEN
September 13, 2010
CounterPunch

This week, Barack Obama called for a $50 billion spending program to
launch a long-term public works infrastructure upgrade of road, rail,
airport and other transportation facilities over the next six years.

According to coverage in the New York Times, "officials said that, under
the best case scenario, if Congress acts quickly, the plan could start
creating jobs over the course of 2011.  But the officials emphasized that
the White House does not view the proposal as a 'stimulus, immediate jobs
plan,' calling it instead a 'six-year reauthorization that's
front-loaded"."

"With only a few weeks of this year's Congressional session left before
lawmakers head home to campaign for re-election, the White House concedes
it may face an uphill battle in getting the plan passed this fall, either
before lawmakers break for the mid-terms or afterward, in a lame-duck
session.  Typically, transportation measures do get bipartisan support,
but they often require months of work".

Hmm.  Like Martin Luther King before him, it would appear that Barack
Obama truly has a dream.

And look at how much our dreams have shrunk in forty years.  King dreamed
of a society in which people were judged by the content of their character
without regard to the color of their skin.  Barack Obama has a dream about
being able to scratch together a few nickels so that the country can do
what it manifestly should have been doing decades ago.

And look, as well, at how much we've shrunk as a country.  A substantial
chunk of King's magisterial dream has already come true (with, of course,
much yet to be done).  Obama's puny one is dead on arrival.

I can't imagine what the guy was even thinking.

It's a dream to believe Republicans would agree to anything whatsoever at
this point, after they've blocked every possible initiative they could, so
why is he still indulging that fantasy?

It's dream, now that Obama has helped Democrats boot away Teddy Kennedy's
seat in liberal Massachusetts, that Republicans would even let this plan
come up for a vote in the Senate.

It's a total and complete dream to believe that they would do so right
before an election.

It's a dream to believe, with the administration having completely blown
the national discourse these last two years, that the public would favor
any further government spending now.

It's even a dream to imagine members of Obama's own party passing this
legislation in the current political environment.

And it's a dream to think that it would matter if they did.  Obama is the
great master of far too little, far too late, and far too poorly done -
when and if it's done at all.

So many dreams.  Given the president's evident desire to indulge deeply in
hallucination, I say if he wants to dream, why doesn't he let himself
go...?

Why doesn't he just dream that the economy will double in size overnight?
It would be so much easier than doing the hard work of actually building
it.  It would be so much easier than having to show the political muscle
necessary to make things happen in the current environment.

Why doesn't he just dream that Planet Earth will grow a thermostat - right
near the Potomac for that matter - so he can just reach over and turn down
the temperature?  It would be so much easier than actually leading the
battle necessary to stop a handful of global-scale predators from getting
rich by cooking life forms on this planet out of existence.

Why doesn't he just dream that regressives will fall down on their knees
and ask the country's forgiveness for ripping it off blind over thirty
years and running?

Why doesn't he just dream that Iraqis will forget about a millennium of
ethno-religious conflict and just make nice with each other next week?

Why not dream that Islam disappears from the planet?  Maybe then America
could win in Afghanistan.

Why not dream that Judaism disappears from the planet?  Maybe then the
settlers will unsettle the West Bank and Obama's pathetic Middle East
peace initiative could actually work.

Why not dream that Christianity disappears from the planet?  Maybe then we
Americans could all start thinking, rather than just fearing, hating and
killing.

Why doesn't he just dream that it was January 2009 again, and he could
have a do-over?

I watched Obama's press conference this week, and I was reminded again of
what a misfit he is for the presidency, and what a misfit he is for our
time.  He doesn't seem to get the concept that an effective president has
to get in fights.  He doesn't seem to understand that there are genuine
enemies to the public interest out there (and, mostly, that they're not to
be found overseas).  He doesn't seem to understand that the reason
presidents have to get into fights is because these enemies exist, because
they are ruthless and entirely sociopathic, and because their victories
are the public's losses.

Instead, there was Barack at his latest public event, demonstrating once
again how it is possible for abysmal communication skills to reside within
the body of a sometimes gifted communicator.  There was the halting,
ineffective, delivery.  There was the blood-drained absence of passion on
topics where the expression of some serious outrage is not only not a bad
thing - as he seems to believe - but would be eminently healthy and highly
welcome.  There was the president almost never taking the opportunity to
grab the bully pulpit, stake out the ethical high ground, show the kind of
leadership that the public always craves from its chief executive, and
deliver a moral lecture to call us to our senses.  There he was continuing
to treat the oligarchy of this country and their Republican marionettes
not as predatory enemies of the people, but rather as nice,
well-intentioned folks who have a slightly different but just as
respectable a set of ideas from his.  There was the president ducking
difficult questions about his own previous assertions, hiding from the
word "stimulus", and almost never grabbing affirmative control of the
discourse and the agenda.  And there he was, frankly, looking altogether
and all-too-often rather annoyed with the whole business.

Watching performances like that, I frequently find myself really wondering
why this guy ever sought the presidency.  Getting there is one of the most
physically and emotionally difficult things a person can do.  It's one of
the biggest mountains there is to climb.  So why did he go through all
that just to be a placeholder president?  Why succeed at campaigning only
to tank at governing?  Why be a historically great candidate only to have
history regard you as a failed president?

Notwithstanding this repeat of yet another rather tepid public
performance, there's lots of media buzz this week that "Obama is back!",
because of one or two speeches he gave recently.  For example, here are
the opening lines from an email blast just sent from the folks at
MoveOn.org:  "Dear MoveOn Member:  Remember what it felt like to watch
Barack Obama back when he was Candidate Obama?  Seeing him fired up and
ready to go in front of a crowd of 20,000?  Well, as of this week, that
Obama's back.  On Wednesday, he gave a feisty, tough speech that showed
just how irresponsible Republicans have been, how crazy it'd be to give
them back control of Congress this fall, and what he proposes to do to get
our economy back on track".

You know, this whole concept just infuriates me beyond belief.  Let's just
take the best case scenario here, to start with.  Let's just say that over
the last two years Barack O'Bambi was too nice a guy, too committed to
changing the bitter partisanship in Washington, too much a believer in the
healing powers of his own magical self.  That is the best case scenario -
the most generous interpretation of this failed presidency - and even that
is enough to disgust me to the bone.  Sorry, but I don't want a president
that shockingly naive.

Our national problem isn't that we honorably disagree over two equally
respectable philosophies of governance and therefore don't get along
because we're all such good citizens that our passionate commitment to the
public weal as we each see it best pursued leads us to be occasionally
intemperate.  No.  Our problem is that there is a group of elite raptors
who are seeking to vacuum every ounce of wealth out of the pockets of the
other 99 percent of us and scoop it into their own pockets instead, and
that they've employed a set of politician stooges who have in the last
several decades jettisoned all meaningful behavioral limitations on what
they're willing to do to achieve those ends.  In that sense, the idea of
some religious crackpot cracker in Florida burning the Koran isn't some
bizarre anomaly.  It is, instead, precisely the logical outcome of a set
of politics in which you have "mainstream" members of Congress challenging
the president's very nationality and his religion, calling him a
socialist, and accusing him of legislating death panels to kill grannies.
It is precisely what we should expect to have happened.  It is precisely
the product of three decades of Atwater/Gingrich/Rove style politics.

These (alleged) people cannot be negotiated with, because they are not
interested in public policy-making that is in the national interest.
That's not their mission, and only a naive fool or someone who had spent
the last thirty years underground excavating the seventh moon of Jupiter
would fail to understand that.  Changing the tone in Washington - which,
in any case, is always a far secondary aspiration relative to getting
people jobs, protecting the environment, ending criminal wars, and so on -
simply will never happen until all the bomb-throwers and barrier-builders
in Congress are driven from the temple, and until political aspirants
across the land get the message that whatever form of McCarthyism du jour
they are contemplating employing in order to get elected will cost them
more votes than it will gain them.  Neville Chamberlain is almost
universally despised and derided today for trying to negotiate with
Hitler.  Which part of that lesson do you not get, Barack?

But, of course, this is only the most charitable interpretation of how
Obama's presidency might be explained.  The second-to-the-worst-case
scenario is that he has exactly the same masters as Republicans do, but is
simply a bit nicer fellow than they are in terms of implementing their
common plutocratic objectives.

Which leaves the very-worst-case scenario, being the same
oligarchy-serving Obama just described, with the added bonus of a
boundless cynicism.  This Obama governs in the interest of the overclass,
but shows up on your television set three months before every election
talking like some sort of progressive champion of the people.

I suspect that's what we're looking at right now, and it makes my eyes
bleed.  Like many progressives, I feel duped by the Obama of 2008.  (I
know there are many other lefties out there who think that any of us were
fools to believe that Obama might have done great things as president, but
I think those folks were wrong to assume that.  I'm quite sure they would
have said at least as much in 1932 about the theretofore aristocratic,
safely uncontroversial and careerist Franklin Roosevelt.  But look how
that turned out.  FDR became a "traitor to his class" and turned crises
into great progressive achievements.  LBJ - a Texan, for chrissakes - did
much the same during his at-bat.  Obama had at least as much potential to
join that club.)

I'm furious enough at Obama for squandering opportunity, for taking care
of the privileged and allowing the rest of us to suffer, for reviving the
monsters of the right instead of finishing the job of crushing them, and
for setting back the cause of policies and ideas I care passionately
about.  But it adds massive insult to injury for him to turn around and
come, hat in hand, back to the people who put him into office, singing his
populist song right before an election.

Maybe he's even sincere.  Maybe even slow-learning Obama has truly learned
a lesson and turned a corner.  Maybe.  But how do I and tens of millions
of people like me know that?  How do we know that if we were to drag our
weary butts to the voting booth to endorse his party again, that
Progressive Barack won't bait and switch us once more, disappearing for
another two years in favor of Corporate Obama, only to resurface just in
time for the next election?

Screw that.  I'm way too pissed off to take the remotest chance of that
happening.  The irony of Obama is that nothing has so distanced me from
the Democratic Party than the great socialist himself.  Even another John
Kerry-style yawner in 2008 would have done far less damage to my nearly
non-existent affections for the party at that point.  Let's face it -
among progressives, the Democrats had been living off of a combination of
reputational inertia and the endless insanities of the alternative
Republicans for three or four decades leading up to the last election.
However, because Obama was no ordinary politician engaged in ordinary,
cheap campaign rhetoric, because he came to office at a time of crisis -
thus opening the door to more serious reforms than would otherwise be
possible - and because the right had so badly repudiated their own
politics, I believed there was a real chance this time could be different,
just as it was under LBJ and FDR.

And there was, indeed, a real chance.  It's just that Obama booted it.
The result has been disastrous all around.  I know I speak for many in
saying that I can't imagine ever trusting him with my vote again.  I don't
even expect to vote Democratic again in my lifetime.  The exception would
be if the left were to do what the far right has done to the GOP - namely,
hijack the party.  That might happen, but I don't it see it on the horizon
right now, that's for sure.

As for Obama, it's hard to imagine any way in which he has not sealed his
fate as a one-term president, and one of the great failures in that high
office.  He's the James Buchanan of our time - the milquetoast who faced
great crises but brought only tepid, conventional, status quo and
restrained solutions to the table.  He has failed, just as Buchanan
failed, and he will likely therefore join Buchanan on the list of the
lousiest presidents.

Obama is going to get whacked hard in November, and this election will be
a more personal repudiation of the president than are most mid-terms.  It
will be widely seen as his loss more than the party's.  He will have three
choices at that point.  He can make little strategic change and keep his
existing politics.  But the pressures from within and without to alter
course will be too enormous for that to be likely.

Second, he can turn to the left and become truly the people's president.
Despite the fact that this is the only real possibility for salvation
(though he probably doesn't even have time for that anymore), he is
extremely unlikely to do so, not least because the election will be
falsely but nearly unanimously read as a wholesale repudiation of Obama's
already "socialist" tendencies.  A turn to the left would be loudly and
endlessly trumpeted by the right as spitting in the public's eye.  And
since Democrats never, ever, argue back, that narrative will carry the
day, just as the socialist narrative has ludicrously carried the day so
far.

The last option will be to turn to the right, as Clinton did, and hope
that in 2012 he can convince grumbling voters that the GOP nominee is
slightly more insane than he has been anemic.  I have little doubt that
this is the direction he will go.

Unlike Clinton in the 1990s, however, he is unlikely to have an economic
boom that could allow people to forget politics and vote for incumbents.
My guess is that current unemployment levels will not abate in the coming
two years.  Indeed, because the half-baked stimulus of 2009 is now about
out of gas, there is a very real chance that things will get worse.
Nothing kills a presidency like recession.  But add to that slow drip
decline the endless GOP investigations of bogus administration scandals
you'll be seeing on a television set near you starting next January, and
you can stick a fork in this president.

That's all well and good and completely just, as far as I'm concerned.
I'd relish doing the sticking myself, actually.  It's just that - and I
hope here that the president can pardon another eruption of my silly
tendency toward civic responsibility that occasionally gets the better of
me - it's a disaster for America and for the world.

Maybe if Barack dreams energetically enough, though, it doesn't have to
happen.

Maybe if he just dreams that he has a chance to be one of the great
figures in American history because he inherited great crises requiring
profound solutions, it will come to pass.

Oh, wait a minute.  That dream already did come true.

Only he turned his dream opportunity into a nightmare by showing up for
the war armed with a cap gun.

David Michael Green is a professor of political science at Hofstra
University in New York.  He is delighted to receive readers' reactions to
his articles (dmg [at] regressiveantidote.net), but regrets that time
constraints do not always allow him to respond.  More of his work can be
found at his website, www.regressiveantidote.net.


--------12 of 13--------

Most Workers Will Outlive Their Savings
How the Corporados Wrecked Retirement
By RICHARD TRUMKA
CounterPunch
September 13, 2010

Today's retirement security crisis is just one of the many painful
consequences of the failed economic policies of the past 30 years-policies
of radical deregulation and corporate empowerment.

These policies allowed - and even encouraged - employers to walk away
from what had been a system of shared responsibility. The result? Today,
fewer than 20 percent of private-sector workers have real, defined-benefit
pensions.

Today only 13 percent of workers say they are very confident about having
enough money for a comfortable retirement - that's the lowest level in 16
years. And this lack of confidence is justified. The majority of America's
workers will face retirement with far less security than their parents.

Before the rise of the labor movement in the 1930s and 40s, elderly
Americans were the most impoverished age group in our society, and only a
privileged few received government or employer pensions.

With the enactment of Social Security and the growth of union-negotiated
pensions, elderly Americans became the least impoverished age group.

After the New Deal, it was collective bargaining that set the pattern for
labor markets-and not just for workers covered by union contracts.

These were the years that produced the three-tiered American retirement
system: Government provided a foundation with Social Security, employers
provided defined-benefit pensions and individuals saved for their
retirement. . .

Today, all three tiers of that retirement system we built are in danger.
Employers are increasingly abandoning their pension plans. Workers with
lost jobs and stagnant incomes are unable to save.

In this bleak landscape, Social Security stands out as the one feature of
what passes for our retirement system that works for all Americans. But
too many in Washington seem bent on perpetuating the Bush administration's
attacks on Social Security.

When people lump together Social Security attacks with deficit reduction
efforts, we have to remind the public of this basic fact: Social Security
is not contributing to our budget deficit-in fact, the buildup of the
Social Security Trust Fund is financing our budget deficit.

And while the program faces a funding shortfall over the next 75 years, in
pension plan terms, Social Security is 88 percent funded over that 75 year
period of time and by any measure would be considered a healthy pension
plan. Relatively modest adjustments-without benefit cuts-can address even
this long-term issue.

Social Security is the most important family income protection program and
the most effective anti-poverty program ever enacted in the United States.
One-third of Social Security beneficiaries receive more than 90 percent of
their income from Social Security. Two out of three depend on it for more
than half of their income.

Social Security is the sole source of income for nearly one in five
seniors. The average Social Security benefit is just little more than a
minimum wage income-meaning a typical retiree needs almost twice the
average monthly Social Security benefit for a reasonable standard of
living.

And if that's not bad enough, growing Medicare cost-sharing means our
seniors will need higher benefits just to maintain the replacement rate of
the past 25 years. . .

If you are lucky enough to have a union, there is still a good chance that
you have a pension plan. Sixty-six percent of union workers have pensions,
compared with only 15 percent of nonunion workers. But unions are under
increasing pressure at the bargaining table to allow employers to cut or
eliminate real pensions.

In the private sector, the funding rules for single employer pension plans
in the Pension Protection Act of 2006, coupled with new accounting
standards, have contributed to an environment in which even healthy
companies are freezing their pension plans entirely or closing them to new
hires.

Our current economic downturn has made this much worse. In many parts of
this country, public-sector workers have the right to form unions. Not
surprisingly, state and local government workers are four times more
likely than private-sector workers to have defined-benefit plan coverage.
But public-sector plans are under attack through legislation and ballot
initiatives.

In the private sector, over the past decade, many employers have abandoned
their real pensions for 401(k) plans-plans with little or no employer
money . . . plans with no protection for workers against market risk or
outliving your money. . . and plans with high investment management fees.

We hear different reasons for this, but here's the bottom-line problem:
Our current system lets employers off the hook. They can refuse to provide
any benefits at all. If there ever was an implicit social contract, it has
eroded.

Look at the data: The median account balance in 401(k) type plans for
62-year-old workers is worth an annuity payout of about $400 a month. $400
a month. That just doesn't cut it. And most workers will outlive their
savings.

Richard Trumka is president of the AFL-CIO.


--------13 of 13--------

                          -----------------
                           Bronze the rich
                          -----------------


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                           Capitalism NO


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 --------8 of x--------
 do a find on
 --8

 Research almost any topic raised here at:
  CounterPunch    http://counterpunch.org
  Dissident Voice http://dissidentvoice.org
  Common Dreams   http://commondreams.org
 Once you're there, do a search on your topic, eg obama drones