The Worker, Vol. 39, Number 6
Contents:
I. Family Well-Being Requires Prioritizing People's Needs
II. How to Advance the Struggle against US-Israeli Aggression in the Middle East
I. Family Well-Being Requires Prioritizing People's Needs
II. How to Advance the Struggle against US-Israeli Aggression in the Middle East
Note from the editor:
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Family Well-Being Requires Prioritizing People's Needs
Over the last 50 years, trends around retirement have largely been characterized by a decline in economic security and a shifting of financial burdens onto individual workers and retirees, driven by capitalist economic policies and political actions. This stands in stark contrast to the period immediately following World War II and to the historical guarantees of social welfare in socialist systems.
Below we outline some of these key trends:
Shift from Guaranteed Pensions: Guaranteed pension benefits have been all but eliminated in recent decades. The trend is towards replacing traditional defined benefit plans, which guaranteed a fixed monthly income for life, with defined contribution plans like 401Ks. This shift has resulted in a significant cut in pensions, in many locations as much as 50%.
Corporate Underfunding and Default: Corporations have consistently underfunded pension plans by tens, even hundreds, of billions of dollars, diverting these monies to boost profits. This underfunding has been legalized by legislation, increasing the risk of default, with many major companies like airlines and steel corporations already defaulting on their pension obligations. The Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation (PBGC), which insures pensions, has seen its deficit double and has even refused to honor some obligations.
Government Underfunding: Federal, state, and local government pension plans are also illegally and deliberately underfunded, with many individual state governments owing 100s of billions of dollars to their employees' pension fund.
Attacks on Social Security: Since the 1970s, there has been an ongoing campaign to raise the retirement age (e.g., from 65 to 67, or even 70), and privatize the Social Security Trust Fund.
Privatization Proposals: Plans for privatization involve diverting billions or trillions of workers' tax dollars from the public treasury into private investment accounts managed by Wall Street bankers and stockbrokers. When it occurs, this makes pensions dependent on market fluctuations and strips away guaranteed benefits and the government's legally recognized responsibility.
Poverty among Seniors: Despite the aid provided by the existing programs, millions (around 40%) of senior citizens live below the official government poverty line, and many face extreme financial insecurity after a lifetime of labor. Average Social Security benefits are often meager even though they constitute the primary source of income for most retirees.
Forced Extension of Working Lives: Due to cutbacks in pensions and benefits, the fastest-growing section of the workforce includes individuals over age 55, with many forced to work years past traditional retirement age. This signifies a regression to a time when you had to "work until you die".
Increased Costs and Reduced Coverage: Since the 1970s and 1980s, corporations have slashed health benefits for current and retired workers, shifting a heavier burden of co-premiums, deductibles, and co-payments onto them. This has led to millions losing health coverage entirely.
Medicare Underfunding and Benefit Gaps: Despite being a vital social investment that emerged as a huge victory for working people as a result of popular struggles in the 1960s, Medicare has been repeatedly cut back since the 1980s. It now covers less than 50% of health care expenses for seniors, forcing them to pay a substantial portion of their income (18-21%) out-of-pocket for medical bills, excluding crucial services like prescription drugs, long-term care, and dental/vision. Many seniors consequently go without needed medical care or reconcile themselves to early death.
Privatization of Health Care: The government is actively pushing Medicare and Medicaid recipients into private "managed care" plans and introducing voucher systems, which funnel public monies to large for-profit healthcare corporations. This system prioritizes profit over patient care, leading to reduced quantity and quality of services.
Government's Stance on Responsibility: Politicians, from both major parties, consistently claim that entitlement programs "cost too much" and that society cannot afford to guarantee health care for retirees. This reflects an ideology that denies governmental or societal responsibility for the well-being of its members, effectively stating that workers are discarded once they can no longer produce profit.
"Jobless Recoveries" and Wage Stagnation: The economy has experienced repeated "jobless recoveries" where corporate profits soar due to restructuring and downsizing, but unemployment remains high and real wages continue to fall for the majority of workers. This includes a rise in part-time, temporary, and contingent labor, often with low pay and no benefits.
Political Exclusion and Lack of Responsibility: Both Republican and Democratic parties are serving the interests of monopoly capital, maintaining a political system that excludes the masses from decision-making and denies governmental responsibility for the well-being of the people.
Below we outline some of these key trends:
Shift from Guaranteed Pensions: Guaranteed pension benefits have been all but eliminated in recent decades. The trend is towards replacing traditional defined benefit plans, which guaranteed a fixed monthly income for life, with defined contribution plans like 401Ks. This shift has resulted in a significant cut in pensions, in many locations as much as 50%.
Corporate Underfunding and Default: Corporations have consistently underfunded pension plans by tens, even hundreds, of billions of dollars, diverting these monies to boost profits. This underfunding has been legalized by legislation, increasing the risk of default, with many major companies like airlines and steel corporations already defaulting on their pension obligations. The Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation (PBGC), which insures pensions, has seen its deficit double and has even refused to honor some obligations.
Government Underfunding: Federal, state, and local government pension plans are also illegally and deliberately underfunded, with many individual state governments owing 100s of billions of dollars to their employees' pension fund.
Attacks on Social Security: Since the 1970s, there has been an ongoing campaign to raise the retirement age (e.g., from 65 to 67, or even 70), and privatize the Social Security Trust Fund.
Privatization Proposals: Plans for privatization involve diverting billions or trillions of workers' tax dollars from the public treasury into private investment accounts managed by Wall Street bankers and stockbrokers. When it occurs, this makes pensions dependent on market fluctuations and strips away guaranteed benefits and the government's legally recognized responsibility.
Poverty among Seniors: Despite the aid provided by the existing programs, millions (around 40%) of senior citizens live below the official government poverty line, and many face extreme financial insecurity after a lifetime of labor. Average Social Security benefits are often meager even though they constitute the primary source of income for most retirees.
Forced Extension of Working Lives: Due to cutbacks in pensions and benefits, the fastest-growing section of the workforce includes individuals over age 55, with many forced to work years past traditional retirement age. This signifies a regression to a time when you had to "work until you die".
Increased Costs and Reduced Coverage: Since the 1970s and 1980s, corporations have slashed health benefits for current and retired workers, shifting a heavier burden of co-premiums, deductibles, and co-payments onto them. This has led to millions losing health coverage entirely.
Medicare Underfunding and Benefit Gaps: Despite being a vital social investment that emerged as a huge victory for working people as a result of popular struggles in the 1960s, Medicare has been repeatedly cut back since the 1980s. It now covers less than 50% of health care expenses for seniors, forcing them to pay a substantial portion of their income (18-21%) out-of-pocket for medical bills, excluding crucial services like prescription drugs, long-term care, and dental/vision. Many seniors consequently go without needed medical care or reconcile themselves to early death.
Privatization of Health Care: The government is actively pushing Medicare and Medicaid recipients into private "managed care" plans and introducing voucher systems, which funnel public monies to large for-profit healthcare corporations. This system prioritizes profit over patient care, leading to reduced quantity and quality of services.
Government's Stance on Responsibility: Politicians, from both major parties, consistently claim that entitlement programs "cost too much" and that society cannot afford to guarantee health care for retirees. This reflects an ideology that denies governmental or societal responsibility for the well-being of its members, effectively stating that workers are discarded once they can no longer produce profit.
"Jobless Recoveries" and Wage Stagnation: The economy has experienced repeated "jobless recoveries" where corporate profits soar due to restructuring and downsizing, but unemployment remains high and real wages continue to fall for the majority of workers. This includes a rise in part-time, temporary, and contingent labor, often with low pay and no benefits.
Political Exclusion and Lack of Responsibility: Both Republican and Democratic parties are serving the interests of monopoly capital, maintaining a political system that excludes the masses from decision-making and denies governmental responsibility for the well-being of the people.
How to Advance the Struggle Against U.S.-Israeli Aggression in the Middle East
Organizing independently and in opposition to U.S. imperialism is necessary for ending all U.S. aid to Israel because Israel is a core component of the U.S. capitalist-imperialist system's foreign policy. This system is the root cause of war and aggression.
In the first place, Israel is a U.S. Outpost and Tool: Israel is a client state, military garrison and regional policeman of the U.S. in the strategic, oil-rich Middle East. Its role is to serve U.S. economic and strategic interests, including maintaining control over vast oil wealth and asserting hegemony against regional liberation movements.
Secondly, the Republican and Democratic parties, as well as mainstream media, are instruments of the U.S. monopoly capitalist class, working to uphold its imperialist agenda, including support for Israeli aggression. Presenting opportunist elements tied to them as lead of the anti-war movement is a key policy directive of the U.S. ruling class for diluting demands, suppress initiative, and preventing genuine change.
Moreover, both parties try to use these opportunistic organizational practices to propagate the ideology the present-day system of imperialism and colonialism within the institutions of the society, hoping to confine all discourse into a straightjacket which reflects the drive of the U.S. monopoly capitalist class to control global resources, establish neo-colonial regimes, and impose its will through military force.
This ideology claims the "moral superiority" of the "American way of life," including its "free market" system and "democracy," to justify trampling on sovereignty and exploiting peoples worldwide. It is inherently anti-people and anti-social, directed against both foreign nations and the American working class and people. It aims to sacrifice lives for capitalist profits, rob the public treasury for military spending, and impose a culture of racism and violence at home.
A principled stand against chauvinism is a matter of being true to the class interests of the vast majority of the people. It also paves the way for the organizational unity of various currents of anti-militarist and anti-war struggles into a broad, popular front. This unity is crucial because it rallies people around their own independent aims and programs, rather than those imposed by the capitalist class. It is a key weapon to protect against the splits and diversions actively created by opportunist forces allied with capitalist parties.
Opposing American chauvinism involves taking a principled stand in support of the liberation struggles of oppressed peoples and defending the right of every nation to self-determination. The American working class has a historical tradition of internationalism, sympathizing with and supporting struggles against U.S. imperialist aggression and intervention worldwide. By actively opposing chauvinism, this struggle becomes part of a broader "world front against war and imperialism," working towards a new world of peace, friendship, and equality among all nations
Recognizing this political starting point is vital for the anti-war movement. It opens the way for exposing the real economic and strategic interests of the monopoly capitalist class that drive the U.S. war program and its international policy. It calls for linking various anti-war struggles into a broad, popular front against war, targeting the monopoly capitalist class and its political parties.
The U.S. military outpost state of Israel is a settler-colonial project first sponsored in the 19th century by European imperialism and, primarily today, by U.S. imperialism. This sponsorship involves financial aid and military support, with Israel serving as a military beachhead for Western corporate interests in strategic, resource-rich Middle East.
The U.S. began supplying arms to Israel shortly after WWII, through the Tripartite Declaration of 1950 signed by the UK, the United States and France. Under the Mutual Security Program Act of 1951, Israel received $3 billion in military aid.
In the 1960s, Israel became one of the "main pillars" of U.S. imperialism in the Middle East, along with Iran. Both were armed to the teeth by U.S. imperialism to wage wars against national liberation movements. Beginning in the Nixon years, the U.S. adopted a program of building up regional military allies, turning Israel into a garrison for the U.S. military and a permanent dagger stuck in the heart of the region's peoples. The Shah's overthrow then destabilized this U.S. network of alliances in the region.
Following the Iranian Revolution in 1979, the U.S. significantly shifted to a direct military presence. This new phase of moving away from primary reliance on regional surrogates to a direct military presence was marked by a frantically Pentagon drive to expand its own direct military force into the Gulf. President Jimmy Carter initiated the Rapid Deployment Force, a specialized detachment of the U.S. military trained as a mobile, quick-strike counter-insurgency force. During the Reagan administration, this force was upgraded to command status, renamed the Central Command Force, and its troop strength was increased by 50% to over 300,000.
From the 1980s onward, the U.S. actively set up air and naval bases in countries like Bahrain, Iraq, Oman, Saudi Arabia, Somalia, the Sudan, and nearby. Saudi Arabia organized the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) in 1981 and its Joint Military Command in 1982, at the initiative of the U.S., to integrate the armies of smaller Gulf states with Saudi armed forces. This has been a key step in trying to rebuild a new network of military alliances to integrate the armies of smaller Gulf states with U.S. Central Command.
In the aftermath of President Eisenhower signing of the Tripartite Declaration of 1950, U.S. taxpayers have paid for military aid to Israel to the tune of some $15 million per day.
To end U.S. aid to Israel, the American people must foster their own conscious and organized independent political movement. This movement must actively oppose both Republican and Democratic parties, which serve the interests of the capitalist-imperialist system that profits from and perpetuates wars and conflicts, including the continued support for Israel and its actions. Our demand can be nothing less than the immediate and unconditional end to all U.S. aid to Israel.
In the first place, Israel is a U.S. Outpost and Tool: Israel is a client state, military garrison and regional policeman of the U.S. in the strategic, oil-rich Middle East. Its role is to serve U.S. economic and strategic interests, including maintaining control over vast oil wealth and asserting hegemony against regional liberation movements.
Secondly, the Republican and Democratic parties, as well as mainstream media, are instruments of the U.S. monopoly capitalist class, working to uphold its imperialist agenda, including support for Israeli aggression. Presenting opportunist elements tied to them as lead of the anti-war movement is a key policy directive of the U.S. ruling class for diluting demands, suppress initiative, and preventing genuine change.
Moreover, both parties try to use these opportunistic organizational practices to propagate the ideology the present-day system of imperialism and colonialism within the institutions of the society, hoping to confine all discourse into a straightjacket which reflects the drive of the U.S. monopoly capitalist class to control global resources, establish neo-colonial regimes, and impose its will through military force.
This ideology claims the "moral superiority" of the "American way of life," including its "free market" system and "democracy," to justify trampling on sovereignty and exploiting peoples worldwide. It is inherently anti-people and anti-social, directed against both foreign nations and the American working class and people. It aims to sacrifice lives for capitalist profits, rob the public treasury for military spending, and impose a culture of racism and violence at home.
A principled stand against chauvinism is a matter of being true to the class interests of the vast majority of the people. It also paves the way for the organizational unity of various currents of anti-militarist and anti-war struggles into a broad, popular front. This unity is crucial because it rallies people around their own independent aims and programs, rather than those imposed by the capitalist class. It is a key weapon to protect against the splits and diversions actively created by opportunist forces allied with capitalist parties.
Opposing American chauvinism involves taking a principled stand in support of the liberation struggles of oppressed peoples and defending the right of every nation to self-determination. The American working class has a historical tradition of internationalism, sympathizing with and supporting struggles against U.S. imperialist aggression and intervention worldwide. By actively opposing chauvinism, this struggle becomes part of a broader "world front against war and imperialism," working towards a new world of peace, friendship, and equality among all nations
Recognizing this political starting point is vital for the anti-war movement. It opens the way for exposing the real economic and strategic interests of the monopoly capitalist class that drive the U.S. war program and its international policy. It calls for linking various anti-war struggles into a broad, popular front against war, targeting the monopoly capitalist class and its political parties.
The U.S. military outpost state of Israel is a settler-colonial project first sponsored in the 19th century by European imperialism and, primarily today, by U.S. imperialism. This sponsorship involves financial aid and military support, with Israel serving as a military beachhead for Western corporate interests in strategic, resource-rich Middle East.
The U.S. began supplying arms to Israel shortly after WWII, through the Tripartite Declaration of 1950 signed by the UK, the United States and France. Under the Mutual Security Program Act of 1951, Israel received $3 billion in military aid.
In the 1960s, Israel became one of the "main pillars" of U.S. imperialism in the Middle East, along with Iran. Both were armed to the teeth by U.S. imperialism to wage wars against national liberation movements. Beginning in the Nixon years, the U.S. adopted a program of building up regional military allies, turning Israel into a garrison for the U.S. military and a permanent dagger stuck in the heart of the region's peoples. The Shah's overthrow then destabilized this U.S. network of alliances in the region.
Following the Iranian Revolution in 1979, the U.S. significantly shifted to a direct military presence. This new phase of moving away from primary reliance on regional surrogates to a direct military presence was marked by a frantically Pentagon drive to expand its own direct military force into the Gulf. President Jimmy Carter initiated the Rapid Deployment Force, a specialized detachment of the U.S. military trained as a mobile, quick-strike counter-insurgency force. During the Reagan administration, this force was upgraded to command status, renamed the Central Command Force, and its troop strength was increased by 50% to over 300,000.
From the 1980s onward, the U.S. actively set up air and naval bases in countries like Bahrain, Iraq, Oman, Saudi Arabia, Somalia, the Sudan, and nearby. Saudi Arabia organized the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) in 1981 and its Joint Military Command in 1982, at the initiative of the U.S., to integrate the armies of smaller Gulf states with Saudi armed forces. This has been a key step in trying to rebuild a new network of military alliances to integrate the armies of smaller Gulf states with U.S. Central Command.
In the aftermath of President Eisenhower signing of the Tripartite Declaration of 1950, U.S. taxpayers have paid for military aid to Israel to the tune of some $15 million per day.
To end U.S. aid to Israel, the American people must foster their own conscious and organized independent political movement. This movement must actively oppose both Republican and Democratic parties, which serve the interests of the capitalist-imperialist system that profits from and perpetuates wars and conflicts, including the continued support for Israel and its actions. Our demand can be nothing less than the immediate and unconditional end to all U.S. aid to Israel.