Today (and over the next few days) working class people will be celebrating our holiday, May Day.

Throughout the world May Day is recognised by the labour and trade union movement as the day on which we celebrate workers and their struggles for justice. But the story of how socialists fought to make May 1st in to a holiday is one that isn’t well known by most people, because it’s part of the hidden history that you don’t get taught in school

May Day is an ancient festival, known by the Celts as Beltane and by Germanic peoples as Walpurgis. It marked the end of Winter, and the return to life and fertility for crops and for people. People were celebrating the end of the cold, hard months, and they did it by getting spectacularly pissed, dressing up in funny costumes, dancing about and shagging. Unsurprisingly, when Christianity came along, the Church took a dim view of all this, but May Day was the one festival they found it virtually impossible to ban or take over.

During May Day parades there was often a Jack in the Green, a man who would be covered in a costume made of plants and foliage. Jack in the Green was a symbol of nature, of the power of life to overcome death, and the fertility of agriculture that came back after the long winter.

For ancient peoples the fertility of the land and the fertility of people were inseparable. May Day was a time for couples to get together. May sex led to June weddings, and June was historically the most common month for weddings. They often did it while off in the woods to find a tree for the Maypole. The symbolism of dancing round the Maypole itself isn’t hard to work out.

Jack in the Green

Life in a feudal peasant village was hard. Ordinary people had to work hard throughout the year to produce their crops, and the lords and church mercilessly exploited them, taking the products of their labour. Winter was a tough time to live through every year, and there was always the threat of crops failing, which spelled disaster. The success of crops in spring, and new life in the form of babies to carry on the work, really was a miracle for people.

What May Day represented for them was a day where the world got turned upside down. Another figure in May Day parades was the fool, the king for a day. The fool mocked authority, and May Day was one day when people were free from the strict control of the lords and the church, and could laugh at their oppressors, get pissed and enjoy themselves. It was a common festival, where the common people celebrated their use of the common land together.

From the 17th century onwards this traditional order in Europe began to change, as capitalism started to develop. The lords began to enclose the land, building fences and taking common lands that had belonged to the common people and using them for profitable farming. The people, forced from the land, began to move to the cities to work in the new factories.

In the new capitalist workplaces in the city the traditional cycle of life was broken. People worked 12 hour days or more. factory owners regarded their workers as just parts of the machines that produced the profits they lived from. Child labour was common, and conditions of work could often be deadly. If you were injured at your dangerous workplace there was no kind of welfare state to protect you, and you depended on your family and friends or starved.

In the 19th century, when working people came together to form the first trade unions, their key early demand was for shorter working hours, so that they could have more time to themselves. People forget today just how hard our ancestors had to fight to get Saturdays off, or for an 8 hour working day. It was the long, hard battle to win an 8 hour day that led to the modern celebration of May Day.

It might surprise some people to learn that this battle started in the USA, where today socialists and trade unionists are so weak. But it wasn’t always that way. At its national convention in Chicago, held in 1884, the Federation of Organized Trades and Labor Unions proclaimed that “eight hours shall constitute a legal day’s labor from and after May 1, 1886.” Of course, there was no way that the bosses were going to recognise this proclamation, and so they vowed to back up the demand with strikes and protests.

The International Working Men’s Association, which today we know as the First International, was an international alliance of socialists, communists and trade unionists which counted Karl Marx among its leading members. The International drew the attention of European workers to the demand for an 8 hour day, and vowed to take the fight from the US to a worldwide level.

At this time Socialism and Anarchism were extremely attractive ideas for workers who could see the oppression they faced first hand. The defeats and difficulties for socialism in the 20th century had not started yet, and the bosses were yet to develop the kind of mass media and propaganda control they use today to control the ideas of working people. Socialists were at the forefront of leading the fight for an 8 hour day.

On May 1, 1886, more than 300,000 workers in 13,000 businesses across the United States walked off their jobs in the first May Day celebration in history. In Chicago, the center of the 8-hour day agitators, 40,000 went out on strike. Over the next few days this number swelled to 100,000. On May 3rd, strikers and their supporters at the McCormick steel works were attacked by cops, and at least two were killed as they were beaten with clubs. Enraged, the strikers called for a mass protest meeting in Haymarket Square the next day.

Unfortunately, the next day bad weather and short notice conspired to make sure there weren’t as many demonstrators as there could be, and again the police mounted a brutal attack on the strikers. The cops fired their guns indiscriminately into the crowd, which included many families with children. At least seven people were killed, as well as several cops who died from the wild shooting of their fellow officers.

Eight organisers were arrested on trumped up charges of having provoked the police violence and murder. Only three of them

The Haymarket Martyrs

had even been in Haymarket Square, and they had been clearly visible to the crowd as not having taken part in violence. But they were subjected to a show trial, where the jury were businessmen who were greatly threatened by the rise of radicalism. On November 11th Albert Parsons, August Spies, George Engel and Adolph Fischer were hung. Another of those convicted, Louis Lingg, took his own life in a final protest. The others, Samuel Fielden, Oscar Neebe and Michael Schwab, were imprisoned.

The murder of working people conducted by the cops and the justice system, at the behest of the bosses, gave new power and fury to the fight, and year on year the strikes and protests gathered strength. May 1st came to be the day every year when workers came out out on to the streets on strike, both to remember the Haymarket martyrs and to demand the fulfillment of their demands. Gradually workers around the world won the right to an 8 hour day, and as socialist parties grew stronger and more powerful, the governments of country after country was forced to recognise May Day as a holiday for the celebration of workers and their movement.

Although today many don’t know this history of how May Day came to be a holiday celebrated around the with marches and parties, it’s important that socialists remember that this is our day, dedicated to revolution and a better future. For centuries, May Day was the one day of the year where working people got freedom to party and celebrate, to change the world if only for day. When those same people became industrial workers, they began to fight again for time for ourselves, free from the burdens of work.

What May Day represents is a toehold, a beachhead, in the fight for full freedom. What we celebrate on May Day is the fight to make every day of the year a day of freedom for everyone, once we are free from exploitation by bosses, and we work for ourselves rather than to make someone else rich.

As soon as I’ve posted this I’m heading to Argyle Street in Glasgow for the celebration of May Day. Tomorrow the STUC and trade unions are organising a march at 11 from George Square. It’s ending up in the Old Fruitmarket for stalls and entertainment from 12.

In Edinburgh the SSP has played a key role in keeping May Day celebrations going. Socialists, anti war activists and trade unionists are marching from 11.30 from East Market to a rally at the Ross Bandstand under the slogan Stop the War Stop the Cuts.

If you’re in Newtongrange in Midlothian there’s a May Day social in the Dean Tavern 7.30 til late.

In Irvine marchers are heading to the Woodlands Centre for a rally.

If I’ve missed anything out, say so in the comments and I’ll add it in. For the benefit of anyone reading from outside Scotland, I’ll finish with a clip of a documentary about what May Day is actually like here every year, honest.

Today we’re reviving a regular feature you used to see the in the classic (pre-blog, paper only) version of Leftfield.

“Who the Hell is…” brings you the low down on key folk who’ve tried to make a difference to the world in the past. Previous people we’ve profiled have included Delegate Zero/Subcommandante Marcos, and Che Guevara.

Today, we’re asking: Who the Hell is… Albert Einstein?

That might seem a bit of a redundant question, since he’s one of the most famous scientists to have ever lived. Everyone has heard of him, and his name is like another word for “really really clever.” What’s less well known (but shouldn’t surprise you considering how smart he was) is that he was a lifelong socialist.

In science, Einstein completely revolutionised the study of physics, with his theories of relativity, beginning of quantum mechanics and explanation of the wave-particle duality of light, to name just a few of his massive contributions. His work was so important he was to become a world wide celebrity decades before celebrities became as commonplace as today. He used his international fame tirelessly to fight for social justice and for the rights of people who had been wronged by racism, the capitalist system and right wing politics.

Read the rest of this entry »

The US state of Arizona has just passed some of the strictest anti-immigrant laws in US history, in a move that enshrines racism in law.

Throughout the US it’s well known that migration cops use racial profiling to target people who have the most brown skin or look the most like they might have some Native American ancestry for questioning about their immigration status. This is a scandal throughout the country, but the difference about the new Arizona law, SB1070, is that it enshrines the right to do this with legal protection.

The law allows law enforcement to approach anyone they have “reasonable suspicion” of being an illegal immigrant, i.e. anyone who looks Latino, and demand they produce ID to confirm the citizenship status. Failure to do so will lead to their automatic arrest without a warrant. This effectively puts the law in Arizona on a par with the infamous “pass laws” in Apartheid South Africa, or indeed the way people were treated during the Nazi occupation of France.

The new law also makes it a major felony to give shelter to illegal immigrants, in a state where thousands of people die every year trying to cross the desert from Mexico in search of a better life. Across the whole US/Mexico border, the Mexican National Human Rights Commission estimates 3 migrants lost their lives every 2 days in 2007 and 2008.

Self-promoting wankstain Joe Arpaio on the cover of his book

The laws were heavily supported by notorious knobend Sheriff Joe Arpaio, who styles himself “America’s toughest sheriff.” Among his bright ideas in his own Maricopa County are the creation of a tent city gulag in the desert, where offenders are kept in conditions of extreme heat, with little shelter or access to basic services or even enough food. Many people have died in tent city, either as a result of the conditions, beatings and taserings from the guards, or violence from fellow inmates, which is deliberately fostered by the prison regime. He also makes criminals parade through the streets in nothing but pink underwear, and sells pink underwear merchandise as a personal money spinner. He has spent taxpayers money on purchasing for himself a penthouse apartment, a machine gun, an armoured personnel carrier and a full sized tank. The man loves publicity, and has become notorious across the US.

The issue of migration is at the heart of American politics now. As Leftfield has previously reported, the US is facing the consequence of its policies in Latin America, which have caused mass poverty for millions of people. Desperate to find a chance of economic survival, huge numbers of Latin Americans have moved to the US, where they are systematically discriminated against. The mass movement for immigrant rights has put hundreds of thousands of people on the street in recent years. However, it faces opposition from the right wing racists who fear they are losing control over the US.

What’s particularly ironic about the case of Arizona is it’s one of several state that were violently conquered by the US in the 19th century. In the Mexican-American war of the 1840s the US seized over half of Mexico’s territory by force, and later integrated the lands into the US. White Arizonans are effectively the descendants of the colonial settlers after this. Mexicans trying to cross the border are only trying to enter what was once Mexican territory.

This map shows Mexican territory lost to the US. The darkest shade is Mexico today, the lighter two what was once Mexican as well

The case of Latinos in the US is just one example of what is happening across the rich world, as people from the parts of the planet that have been devastated by the economic and ecological disasters of capitalism try to escape to the places on Earth where they face a chance of survival and a decent life. The situation is similar on the frontiers of the European Union. It may be the greatest human rights battle of the 21st century to defend these people from the racists who want to keep them out.

In the US, several prominent figures have called for a boycott of Arizona and its products in protest at the racist laws. To promote the campaign, Chuck D of hip hop group Public Enemy has released the song ‘Tear Down This Wall,’ and says in a statement:

“In 1991 I wrote a song criticizing Arizona officials (including John McCain and Fife Symington) for rejecting the federal holiday honoring Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. The same politics I wrote about in “By the Time I Get to Arizona” are alive and well in Arizona today, but this time the target is Brown people.

These actions must stop. I am issuing a call to action, urging my fellow musicians, artists, athletes, performers, and production companies to refuse to work in Arizona until officials not only overturn this bill, but recognize the human rights of immigrants. This should include the NBA playoffs, revisiting the actions of the NFL in 1993, when they moved the Superbowl to Pasadena in protest against Arizona’s refusal to recognize Dr. King. We all need to speak up in defense of our brothers and sisters being victimized in Arizona, because things are only getting worse. What they’re doing to immigrants is appalling, but it will be even more damning if we remain silent.”

You can listen to the song below, or download it for free if you sign up for an account at SLAMjamz.com

There are few countries on Earth that seem to be able to provide us with hilarious crazies like the USA. They elected George ‘Monkey with a razor blade’ Bush twice as President, they respect and admire Tom ‘The Pope of Scientology’ Cruise, they continue to listen to Sarah ‘I can see Russia from my bedroom window [no, you can't]‘ Palin (in fact, for her craziness she is rewarded with her own show!), and they elected the Terminator Governor of California in order to continue their crusade against “economic girly men.”

As a nation they have made a huge contribution to the world of religion, having invented both Mormonism (dumb dumb dumb dumb) and Scientology, (founder L. Ron Hubbard once said the quickest way to make a million dollars would be to invent a religion. Then he did.) Just take a look at some common American religious beliefs handily summarised in cartoon form for you here.

Today Leftfield wants to celebrate the great contribution that American crazies have made to our amusement. The following is by no means a definitive list of American nutjobs, and we may well add to it as more emerge from the woodwork to bring us hour upon hour of laughter. Hopefully as the New World Order is implemented by our socialist illuminati chums more people will be pushed over the brink of sanity, into the pit of hilarity.

So here we present to you a roll of honour of the American reality-challenged:

5. Bill O’ Reilly: Bill presents “The O’Reilly Factor”, the highest rated cable news programme in the US. His show is renowned for getting on people that don’t agree with his extreme right-wing agenda, so that he can shout abuse at them. Here’s an example of him getting a little bit hot under the collar about immigration:

However, it’s not just on the air that Bill can lose his cool, as shown by the number 1 result when you search his name on youtube:

It’s ok Bill, please try to understand that no one is judging you for never having heard the phrase “play us out”, despite it getting used on telly all the time.

4. Glenn Beck: Fellow right wing commentator Glenn goes into similar territory as Bill, but he just doesn’t know when to switch off the crazy tap. Noted as a racist and frequent advocate of violence, youtube has handily put together some of his greatest hits for you:

One of his most famous moments was featured briefly in the video above, but here we bring you the moment when Glenn wrote a bunch of words on the board next to Obama’s name, then picked random letters out to try and spell “oligarchy”. The only problem being that he forgot the letter c:

Glenn has provoked quite a lot of opposition to his craziness, which, while perhaps justifiable on a political and basic human level, does not serve the cause of comedy well. Examples include the ongoing effort to make companies refuse to advertise during his show, and the apparent prank played on his fans when dozens of their cars were towed away while they were hearing him speak.

3. Pastor Steven L. Anderson: Pastor Anderson is noted for his fiery sermons in which he condemns gay people, abortion, and prays for the death of Barack Obama. Apparently he wants the US President to “melt like a snail” because he “hates him personally.”

However, some of his strongest rhetoric has not been reserved for these common targets of the religious right, but for a much more insidious trend, which is undermining the very basis of American society: the creeping horror that is men pissing sitting down:

2. Pastor James David Manning: Fiery black preacher Pastor Manning has an interesting take on race relations under the Obama Presidency. He is “telling you that these white folks ain’t gonna take it no more” (he likes to say that a lot), and are ready to rise up in riots far worse than what black people could ever pull off. He constantly refers to Obama as the “long legged mack daddy,” and even expresses his anger in gargle form in the video below. However, you really do have to keep watching for the full 10 minutes, as it’s only towards the end that he unveils his true calling in life, as an amazing singer songwriter, with beautiful, heart wrenching lyrics such as “Obama and Larry Sinclair/had a steamy affair”:

But coming straight in at NUMBER 1 we have long time Leftfield favourite Alex Jones!

Alex Jones is perhaps the USA’s greatest living conspiracy theorist. On his radio and TV show he regularly informs his fans of how they face an imminent takeover by a New World Order hell bent on a programme of eugenics, mass death, and enslavement. If you ever get the chance, look out for the Jon Ronson documentary ‘The Secret Rulers of the World’, which followed Alex on one of his infiltration missions into the global elite, with hilarious consequences.

But youtube is far from short of wonderful Alex gems. Here we select for you just a fraction of the comedy gold that is out there, and we can’t recommend to you enough that you begin exploring the amazing world of Alex Jones for yourself:

Alex’s silly impressions start to annoy his own guests

Alex is slightly miffed with Barack Obama

Alex decides the best protest he can make is to dress as the joker and wreck his own studio

Alex Jones: Best rant ever

(Co-Authored by Sarah.)

Every year thousands of poor people from Latin America attempt to cross the border between Mexico and the US, in search of work so they can support their families.

Most of these people are victims of economic policies imposed by the US government and international capitalism. Because of the free trade agreement NAFTA and the policies of organisations like the WTO, millions of poor farmers around the world have been thrown off their land so it can be used for corporate agribusiness. International policies mean that poor countries are unable to put any kind of protection on their domestic industries, or enact laws that protect workers’ rights. This means that it can be very hard to find a job in countries like Mexico, and if you can it will be so low paid it will be hard to feed your family.

Latin American people who find themselves living next door to the richest country on Earth have little choice but to try and use any means necessary to cross into the US to find work. But the US border is one of the most militarised on Earth, with armed border police using the latest technology aimed at finding immigrants and preventing them crossing.

It’s also a very hostile environment-much of the border runs through desert, and huge numbers die every year of dehydration or exhaustion. Others are attacked by human predators, waiting to abuse, steal and murder immigrants. There’s little choice for most people but to hire a coyote, a professional people smuggler, to help them get across. But these people will often charge the equivalent of your life savings, and even then there’s no guarantee they won’t just take your money and run.

The ridiculous thing about the harsh enforcement regime is that it actually increases the numbers of illegal immigrants in the US, because if after all that you succeed in getting to a job in America, you’re unlikely to want to leave it and go home, knowing what would be involved if you ever tried to come back.

In short, life is not easy for people migrating to the US from Latin America. Once they’re in, they usually do the lowest paid, most menial jobs in the economy, such as cleaners, or farm labourers. The oppressive immigration laws imposed by the US government means that many have to live illegally, and are therefore in little position to take action to defend their rights, form a union or try and get their wages raised.

The only people that benefit from this state of affairs are the rich, who get super cheap labour within the US. The inability of immigrants to fight for their rights at work also helps drive down wages for workers born in the US as well. In the last few years, so many people have been impoverished by capitalism in Latin America, that the US is being transformed by Latino immigration. The centre of American manufacturing and industry has shifted from the North and Northeast to the South, and Southwest, where there are the most immigrants available.

Reform of the immigration system, so that immigrants can begin to play a full role in US society, is an absolute priority. In recent years immigrants have begun to organise a huge mass movement, capable of putting hundreds of thousands of people in the streets, and in 2006 they organised the incredible national one day strike known as ‘The Day without Immigrants.’

The weekend before last, when the US media was consumed by what was happening in Congress with Obama’s healthcare reforms, and the only protests being covered were the insane right wingers outside shouting abuse, there was another, much bigger protest taking place in Washington. Over 200, 000 people flooded into the city to demand the government take action on immigration reform, as part of the March for America. People who had come to the US from all over the world, not just Latin Americans, took part. If you look at the footage below, you’ll see the huge participation by Asian Americans, with signs in Chinese and Korean, for example.

Obama directly addressed the march through a video link, and pledged to “fix the broken immigration system.” Many on the march were greatly heartened to hear they have the support of the President. However, unfortunately, yet again Barack Obama’s government is talking progressive whilst failing to live up to his own rhetoric.

The Obama supported proposals that are likely to go to Congress, known as the Schumer/Graham proposals after the Senators who drew them up, still stand by the idea of being “tough on illegal immigrants.” These so-called reforms may actually make things worse for many immigrants.

Most importantly, the Schumer/Graham plan completely ignores the role of US policy in creating the flow of immigrants in the first place. It does nothing to tackle the unfair trade agreements impoverishing people in Latin American and round the world.

Under the plan, immigrants would be forced to carry a biometric Social Security card, which would be swiped by employers to confirm their identity. This will do nothing to stop people coming to the US illegally, but it would mean more and more people getting caught and getting sent to privately-run, for-profit immigration prisons.

The proposals treat people coming North as a labour supply rather than human beings. They propose “guest worker” programmes that would allow employers to temporarily bring in people for a limited amount of time. These immigrants would have few rights, and would be totally at the mercy of their employers. The Southern Poverty Law Centre has called the existing guest workers programmes “close to slavery.”

The central demand of the immigration reform movement is that those people already living and working in the US are legalised, so that they can begin to take a full part in American society. Schumer and Graham are arguing that people that came to the US illegally must first of all “admit that they broke the law”, and face up to the consequences-fines, community service or even prison. They then will have to “get to the back of the line”, in their words, and prove their worth as part of a lengthy process of achieving citizenship that could take years.

One of the few SBInet towers to actually get built

Crucially, the plan includes increased funding for the border patrols, greater militarisation of the border, and increased raids and policing of immigrant communities. It pledges huge sums of money for high-tech attempts to clamp down on illegal immigration. This comes after the news this week that plans to create a “virtual fence” along the Mexican border have had to be abandoned because they didn’t work.

Dubbed “the great wall of Boeing,” SBInet was a plan to create a vast chain of towers along the border, equipped with long range cameras, infrared thermal imaging, motion sensors and seismic sensors to measure people moving along the ground. This would have been supported by aerial robots scanning the border from the skies. All information would then be sent to “command centres”, where the deployment of border control agents would be controlled.

After the US government spent $1.1 billion on commissioning Boeing to develop this system, it’s emerged that it’s a bit of a high tech fantasy that won’t actually work. Huge sums of money have been wasted on the project with nothing to show for it, unless you’re a Boeing shareholder. However, leaving aside the criminal waste of public money this project represents, it’s good news that the Department of Homeland Security has finally come to its senses on the issue and cancelled it.

Another piece of good news this week is that the anti-immigrant, racist, vigilante group the Minutemen has disbanded. The Minutemen were armed groups who go out into the border crossing area to try and prevent immigrants from reaching the US. The group has taken part in many documented cases of violence, and two Minutemen members are about to go on trial for the murder of a little girl and her father when they broke into their homes.

It’s stuff like this that has led the group’s President Carmen Mercer to declare it disbanded. The Minutemen faces increasing legal costs from having to defend the actions of their members, at a time when its leaders have attempted to become more respectable, and take part in lobbying and the political process. In an internal conflict that in many ways reminds you of some of the fights that have taken place inside the BNP over here, the leaders have found it difficult to control the many members who are drawn towards far-right violence and paramilitary politics. Unfortunately, it’s likely that many of these people will keep up their campaign of racist violence under another banner.

Check out this insane recruiting video for the Minutemen, which features a mix of a ridiculous song that sounds like it was made up by South Park, chilling footage of vigilante violence, and people dressing up as if they were in a Western:

And if you doubt the racism that motivates the group, check out this footage, filmed by a man of Mexican origin, at a Minutemen protest:

In the face of organised racist violence, and their fake supporters in Congress and the White House, the need for a strong, organised movement defending immigrants in the US has never been greater. What’s crucial is that as the movement goes forward, it uses the power of workers that are already mobilised to make their own demands, and not just accept the proposals coming from the Obama administration. Here’s a few ideas that could really “fix the broken immigration system in the US”:

-Repeal all the unfair trade agreements, such as NAFTA and CAFTA that force people into poverty and migration in the first place.

-Make it quick and easy for immigrants to get legal citizenship. End the huge backlogs of cases that have kept people waiting years for a decision.

-Protect the rights of all workers, enforcing legal requirements on employers to provide decently-paid and safe jobs. Stop workers from being fired for standing up for their rights.

-Allow people to come to the US with visas that are not tied to them working, and end the near-slavery conditions of the “guest worker” programmes.

These are all things that the US Congress could do right now, that would make a huge difference to the lives of millions of Americans, and would benefit everybody, not just immigrants. But in the longer term, we all have to start asking why it is that the global elite have the right to move their money, or the production of goods, anywhere around the world they want, but working class people are restricted in where they can go.

Historically, the restrictions now placed on immigration in most countries were enacted in the 20th century. The rise of immigration controls goes along with the rise of generally accepted “scientific” racism. The reason they exist is so that states can control the ethnic make-up of their own people, and they are inherently racist. If in the future socialists and others are successful in building a more equal and fairer society globally, it’s to be hoped that more people won’t be forced to leave their homes because of poverty. But as things stand, everyone in the world has a right to survival, and to go wherever and do whatever it takes to ensure they can feed themselves and their families.

Following on from Leftfield’s exclusive coverage of Kellanos the riot dog’s role in leading the anti-capitalist movement on the streets of Greece, here’s a group of politicised dogs from Chattanooga, USA, who are more than prepared to take militant direct action against the presence of police in their communities.

. . .by wiping their handshake off on Bill Clinton’s shirt.

Against the odds, President Obama was last night able to get his healthcare reforms through Congress.

Obama-fans everywhere are ecstatic, declaring a fantastic victory. And let’s not be a total wet blanket. Around 30 million Americans with no health insurance will now get some, although unless you’re very poor or very old you’ll be forced to pay for it yourself. And it will become harder for insurance companies to cheat people out of insurance they’ve paid for by claiming that they had a “pre-existing condition.”

But as Leftfield has already pointed out, there are a whole host of problems with this new legislation, and it is far from an attack on the FUCKING EVIL health insurance companies, in fact it will probably end up making them MORE money.

Do these people live in the same Universe as us?

Of course, try telling that to the Republicans and the absolutely mental Tea Party protesters. Every single Republican voted against the bill, and Te Partyers gathered outside Congress to shout racist and homophobic abuse at representatives, as well as actually spit on them.

A key part of the success of the bill was the commitment given by Obama to sign an executive order that would continue the proud American tradition of restricting abortions to those that can afford them, by not allowing public funds to be spent on helping poor women excercise their reproductive rights (*facepalm*). This helped win over anti-abortion Democrats.

But the real reason is that Democrats were afraid that if Obama couldn’t get these proposals through he would begin to look a bit useless, and so, by extension, would they.

Views on the left about the new laws are mixed. Michael Moore, who can be grating at times with his Obama bigging-up, wrote a pretty honest letter on the subject here. It still hails the bill as a big step forward, but he’s at least honest enough to admit that the US STILL doesn’t have universal healthcare, and a big fight still has to go on to get Americans to have nearly as good healthcare as we do in the UK.

Dr Margaret Flowers

But personally, I tend to lean more towards the position of Dr Margaret Flowers, one of the leaders of Physicians for a National Health Programme. In her piece she writes that, despite the new restrictions and regulations on the health insurance industry. they are rich enough and politically powerful enough to get round them. You only have to look at the crappy proposals they got Obama to accept to see their power. There is no way to fix privatised healthcare, it is fundamentally evil and wrong. This bill is just polishing a turd.

Americans: It’s not rocket science. We’ve managed it since 1945. Get yourselves an NHS!

“As this passes, the public will be told it is a solution. They will be told to wait and see how it works when it is implemented in 2014. In the meantime, people will continue to suffer, go bankrupt, or die of preventable causes. This is unacceptable.

We want health CARE reform. Health insurance reform makes no sense. Health insurance is very regulated but they are rich enough and clever enough to evade regulation. We will not support health insurance reform: it is a waste of time, money, and human life.

If we want real reform, it isn’t going to be pretty. It can’t be brought in through the back door or by tweaking. We will have to take on a very powerful industry that currently owns the White House, Congress, and the media. But work for anything less is a waste of time. The smallest increment of change that will be effective is to change to publicly funded health care.

It is not going to be another 10 years or 50 years before we get real reform if this bill fails. The single payer movement is growing. We can organize and push for real reform. But we must stand strong and united on our principles. We must put single payer on the table. It won’t happen any other way.” -Dr. Margaret Flowers.

Still, if we all get nothing else from this bill, this headline might just make it all worth it:

Bonus: Short film takes on one of the many bastard health insurance companies:

Today some members of SSY and assorted other pro-choice activists held a picket of the anti-choice ‘International “Pro-Life” Youth Conference’ held by the UK’s largest anti-abortion campaigning group, the ‘Society for the Protection of Unborn Children’ (SPUC).

We had a successful and peaceful day of highlighting our opposition to their anti-woman views. Unfortunately, although we only wanted to show the members of SPUC that their views would not go unopposed and make them think about exactly what their anti-choice ideas mean in reality (such as the fact that over 200 women die every day because they can’t access legal abortions), they seemed to be a bit timid and chose not to venture beyond their hotel, which was insensitively placed right beside a hospital.

Protestors begin to gather

SSY thinks it’s important to continue to defend a woman’s right to control her own body. If the potential next Tory government thinks that they can get away with eroding women’s rights over the coming years, we hope you’ll stand with us in defence of choice and safety for vulnerable women.

On a related note, American filmmaker Michael Moore, a pro-choice Catholic, has written this piece condemning his anti-choice Michigan Democrat Congressman who has attempted to halt the Obama administration’s health bill on the basis that it doesn’t erode women’s rights quite enough for his liking.

It contains some pretty shocking facts about the state of abortion rights in America – such as that regardless of it being technically legal, in 71% of American counties it is impossible for a woman to find a doctor who will be willing to perform an abortion, such is the strength of the anti-choice Right in America. You can read it here.

SSY standing up for choice

Remember when the whole world seemed to feel the same way as Randy Marsh? It’s only just over a year since the US exploded with excitement at the idea that Barack Obama’s election meant that real change was coming to America.

But what has actually happened? Obama has been the latest of a series of governments elected on a wave of hope, only to disappoint their supporters. From the SNP Scottish Government to President Lula in Brazil to New Labour, people have learned again and again that promises of “change” are hollow unless those elected are really ready to fight the powerful forces that keep things the way they are.

In the first of a series exposing the bullshit promises of political fakers, Leftfield sets out to investigate the real record of the Obama Presidency so far. The best place to start seems to be the greatest battleground that the right has tried to defeat him on: healthcare reform.

If you did Higher Modern Studies, or you’ve seen Michael Moore’s brilliant ‘Sicko’, then you’re probably well aware the US isn’t a good place to get sick. Almost all hospitals and doctor’s surgeries are privately-owned profit making companies. They charge huge sums for life saving treatment, which people pay for by taking out insurance policies. The insurance companies and the healthcare companies form an unholy alliance that pours huge sums of money into the campaigns of all Presidential and Congressional candidates, making sure that both the Democrats and the Republicans continue to uphold their business interests.

Obama: Let down

Around 15% of Americans have no access to any kind of health insurance. That doesn’t sound like a lot until you realise it’s 46 million people. Far more people are “underinsured”, that is they can’t afford full insurance for everything that might happen to them. And, as Sicko so powerfully shows, even those with insurance are regularly cheated when insurance companies move the goalposts to try and avoid paying for treatment that is included within policies.

Insurance companies are some of the most publicly hated institutions in the US, precisely because people know that they care only about profit, and cheat thousands out of their right to life. Not content with this, the insurance and health companies have years been lobbying European governments to try and undermine socialised medicine over here, and so expand their potential market. A lot of the attacks on the NHS in the UK have received political support from these same companies.

Some limited numbers of people do get government help with their healthcare in America. War veterans get support. And there are also two government programmes, Medicare and Medicaid. Medicare is a federal (that is, provided by the national government) programme providing health insurance to the elderly and certain special categories of disabled people. Medicaid is a programme administered by the different states, but part funded by the federal government, that provides some means-tested help to poor people. Being poor however is no guarantee of support: an estimated 60% of Americans living in poverty do not receive Medicaid, because they don’t meet the required criteria.

One of the major problems in the US is that there are so many different programmes that provide health insurance-you can take out a policy with a company, have a programme through your employer, or a host of other options. It adds up to huge amounts of bureaucracy and costs to patients. 31% of the cost of healthcare in the US is spent on administration and bureaucracy.

An estimated 100, 000 Americans a year die because they couldn’t afford proper healthcare. Healthcare costs the individual more in the US than in any other country in the world, which shows how absurd it is to oppose a fairer system if it would mean raising taxes: they’re already paying way over the odds! Medical debt is a factor in 62% of American personal bankruptcies, as people struggle to pay the money required to keep their families alive. As a whole, the US spends more of its total income on healthcare costs than any other United Nations member apart from East Timor.

The USA is the only industrialised country on Earth that doesn’t recognise healthcare as a right, and provide universal access to free healthcare. When Obama came to power, many dared to hope that the US was about to catch up with what Britain was able to achieve in 1945, and establish universal healthcare.

Tea party protestors: Mental

Obama has made healthcare reform a major focus of his Presidency. In the process, the right wing has gone absolutely bananas, accusing him of being a socialist. Looking at the Tea Party crazies, it seems like what he wants must be at least a bit good if these people are against it. The stakes are definitely high: the right has won every battle on healthcare reform in the US since the ’40s.

There are two different versions of a healthcare reform bill that have gone through Congress, one passed by the House of Representatives and one through the Senate. The Senate bill will probably form the basis of the final laws, if they get passed.

All through the process of putting together his proposals, Obama has kept his door open to insurance, healthcare and pharmaceutical companies, meeting with them time and again to make sure, behind the scenes, and away from all the “socialism” bullshit, the capitalist healthcare industry was still happy with what he was proposing.

The Obama proposals will indeed extend health insurance to the uninsured-by forcing them to buy expensive private insurance or face a legal penalty. Obama has compared it to forcing drivers to buy a driver’s licence. Although initially there was a plan to set up a publicly run health insurance company, that was killed off by the right in Congress. Even if it had been set up, it was estimated it would only have helped 2% of Americans with their healthcare costs.

Obama has also made a big deal about how his proposals will stop insurance companies discriminating against those with pre-existing conditions. What this means is that when you get sick, insurance companies employ their own doctors who try to prove that you were already sick at the time you took out the policy, so they can avoid paying for your care. However, Obama’s plan won’t ban this. Instead, you’ll just pay up to 50% more. Oh, that’s ok then.

Part of the concessions made to insurance companies and the right in order to get something passed included scrapping a lot of regulation that currently tries to force them to behave themselves. Insurance companies will also be allowed to move their base of operations to states with the least consumer protection.

Other concessions to the right include the exemption of abortion from coverage under health plans, and the fact that undocumented migrants to the US will receive no coverage.

Effectively, the law, if passed, will force Americans to fork out more money to insurance companies, increasing their stranglehold over healthcare. At the same time, an “expert panel” is going to be appointed to try and “slash costs” in Medicare, i.e. try and reduce the quality of care the programme provides.

But the greatest scandal of all is the so-called “Cadillac tax.” A minority of workers in the US who are in jobs that are still well unionised have been able to force employers to provide “expensive” health insurance, that is health insurance that provides more money for healthcare than more basic policies. Obama proposes to put a 40% tax on these policies to pay for his reforms, taking away hard won benefits from struggling workers. The unions had promised to fight this proposal tooth and nail, but in January Obama pulled union leaders into the White House for a private meeting where he bullied them into accepting this outrageous proposal. In return they got a slight raising of the threshold required for this tax to kick in. However, the overall result will be that less employers will provide good health policies, forcing more workers to buy private insurance.

I see what you guys did there!

The so-called “Cadillac” policies aren’t even that great. Often, they aren’t more expensive because they provide better care, but because the private insurance companies have calculated that workers in dangerous industries, or older people or whoever are greater insurance risks, and so charge higher premiums.

The whole healthcare system in the US is incredibly complex and difficult to understand. Obama’s proposals are also really complex, and difficult to fathom. But the main upshot of them is that little will change for the better, and several things will change for the worse. Weakening and cutting the existing better health plans, they will force more people to buy private insurance out of their own pocket. In the process, billions of dollars will be transferred from the working class to insurance companies.

They do nothing to address the elephant in the room-insurance companies are hugely profitable entities that have massive control over the political process. The idea that the American health system represents free enterprise and competition is completely wrong, because these companies are big enough and powerful enough to operate as cartels, and completely control working class Americans’ access to life saving care.

A lot of the weakness of the final proposals has to do with the weakness of unions in the US. The fact that there is no socialised medicine is a major factor in why they are so weak. For 30 years unions have been forced into defensive battles against employers. Instead of fighting for higher wages, they’ve been fighting to try and prevent companies getting out of their obligations to provide healthcare for their employees, which effectively means a wage cut as workers have to pay more for essential help. As a result, wages haven’t risen seriously for decades, and union membership has collapsed. Union bureaucrats are so tied into the Democratic party as they only game in town they are willing to concede on what were once declared to be lines that wouldn’t be crossed, like the “Cadillac tax”.

Depressed yet? Looking at how all the enthusiasm of millions of working class Americans has been squandered by Obama’s sell out to corporate healthcare could well turn many away from attempting to bring about political change.

A protestor demanding Single Payer

But there is a silver lining to the cloud. The insanity of the current debate has galvanised a whole series of grassroots campaigners to fight for what, to the rest of us, seems blatantly obvious. A single payer system, i.e. all healthcare costs being paid for by the state, as happens in Europe, with the NHS, and in virtually every country with governments that have half a brain cell.

Radical trade unionists have been at the forefront of this battle. The Labor for Single Payer Campaign has correctly recognised the fight for an American NHS as one of the greatest battles that must be won if unions and the working class are to stand a chance of making any progress. Last year they forced the AFL-CIO (which is a bit like the American version of the TUC or STUC) to support the demand for single payer healthcare. Unfortunately, the AFL-CIO has not followed up this call with actual campaigning, or by putting demands on Obama. This just shows the need for socialists and radicals in the trade union movement to fight all the harder for control of their unions, to try and force them to take a fighting stance.

Doctors all across the US have come out in support of the campaign as well. Organised by the Physicians for a National Health Programme campaign, they have brought a lot of attention to the issue in the media.

One of the most prominent campaigning doctors is Margaret Flowers MD. In his State of the Union speech in January, Obama called for anyone that had a better idea for reform than his own to come forward. In response, Dr Flowers, a pediatrician from Baltimore, tried to hand deliver a letter outlining the case for Single Payer to the White House. The security guards turned her away, saying they couldn’t accept hand delivered letters. What they left out, of course, was unless you represent the insurance industry, in which case you’ll get invited in to meet White House staff.

Independent socialist Senator Bernie Sanders, who has had some contact with the SSP in the past, did introduce a bill proposing to extend Medicare to all Americans, and establish a single payer system for the US. Predictably, it was voted down. However, similar proposals look like having a good chance of passing in Sanders’ home state of Vermont. And the state of California’s State Assembly has passed Single Payer plans on several occasions, only to have them vetoed by Governator Schwarzenegger.

The proposal for a Single Payer health system is hardly radical stuff, or the final shape that we’d see healthcare being delivered if there was a socialist system. But even this first baby step in the right direction hasn’t been made in the US yet. The emergence of massive grassroots campaigns for decent, state provided healthcare is the first real sign of potential progress in decades.