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<font face="Arial"><small>in this email:<br>
<br>
1) </small></font><small><font face="Arial"><b>9/20 - PROTEST! -
MASSACHUSETTS is in an ECONOMIC STATE OF EMERGENCY!</b></font></small><big><br>
</big><small><b><font face="Arial">2)</font></b>
<b><small> <font face="Arial"><big>Capitalist
Meltdown - Workers, oppressed to pay billions to bail out Wall Street</big></font></small></b></small><!---headline-->
<div class="deck">
<hr size="2" width="100%"><small><font face="Arial">1)</font></small> <small><font
face="Arial">Everyday we see the economic crisis get worse -
people are
losing their homes, jobs and healthcare. Families are being forced to
chose between food or heat. The government gives huge tax breaks to
the wealthy, hundreds of billions of dollars to large banks and Wall
Street investment firms and nearly one trillion dollars to the Pentagon
to wage war. Meanwhile, services for our communities have been slashed
to the bare bones and more and more of our youth are in prison. ISN"T
IT TIME TO PUT PEOPLE BEFORE PROFITS? </font></small><big><br>
</big></div>
<small><font face="Arial"><br>
</font></small>
<div align="center"><small><font face="Arial"><b><big>Come get involved
and help build a movement that puts the needs of the people before
profits. </big></b></font></small><br>
</div>
<small> </small><small><font face="Arial"><big><b><br>
</b></big></font></small>
<div style="text-align: center;"><font color="#800000" face="Arial"
size="5"><b>MASSACHUSETTS is in an ECONOMIC STATE OF EMERGENCY!</b></font></div>
<div style="text-align: center;"><font color="#000000" face="arial"
size="4"><b><i>Heat, Housing, Jobs, Food and Fuel are a Human Right!</i></b></font>
</div>
<div style="text-align: center;"><font color="#008000" face="Arial"
size="5"><b>Saturday, Sept. 20 - 12 pm</b></font><br>
<font color="#000000" face="arial" size="4"><b><font color="#800000">Rally</font>
- Countrywide / Bank of America<br>
<font size="3">811 Mass. Ave, South End</font></b></font><br>
<font color="#000000" face="Arial" size="2">(corner of Albany St.,
across from Boston Medical Center)</font><br>
<font color="#000000" face="arial" size="4"><b><font color="#800000">March</font>
- South Bay Prison, NSTAR, and South Bay BoA</b></font><br>
<font color="#000000" face="Arial" size="2">(Mass. Ave to entrance of
South Bay Shopping Center)</font></div>
<p><a
href="http://www.iacboston.org/WFN/No_Utility_Shutoffs/092008/rally_092008.pdf"><font
color="#008000" face="Arial" size="2"><b>
<div style="text-align: center;">download flyer & "Economic State
of Emergency" petition</div>
</b></font></a></p>
<div align="center">
<table border="0" height="263" width="658">
<tbody>
<tr>
<td valign="top"> <font color="#000000" face="Arial"><b>Governor
Deval Patrick,</b></font><br>
<font color="#800000" face="Arial"><i><b>We Demand that you
Declare a State of Emergency, Now!</b></i></font>
<ul>
<font color="#000000" face="Arial">
<li>Stop Utility Shutoffs & Restore Services Immediately!</li>
<li>Declare a Moratorium on Foreclosures & Evictions!</li>
<li>Roll Back Food & Fuel Prices!</li>
</font>
</ul>
<font color="#000000" face="Arial"> </font>
<div style="text-align: center;"><font color="#000000"
face="Arial"><a
href="http://www.iacboston.org/WFN/No_Utility_Shutoffs/091108_joblosses.html"><font
color="#008000" face="Arial" size="2">Job losses signal change for the
worse</font></a></font></div>
<br>
<div style="text-align: center;"><a
href="http://www.workers.org/2008/us/mortgage_0918/"><font
color="#008000" face="Arial" size="2">Instead of saving people's homes
- Gov't gives away</font></a><br>
<a href="http://www.workers.org/2008/us/mortgage_0918/"><font
color="#008000" face="Arial" size="2"> billions to big mortgage bankers</font></a></div>
</td>
<td> <img src="cid:part1.04070804.08010601@iacboston.org" alt=""></td>
</tr>
</tbody>
</table>
</div>
<small><font color="#000000" face="Arial">The Winter of 2008 is
predicted to be very severe. This will be no natural disaster, but a
life-threatening
crisis made in government and corporate boardrooms. We will not stand
by as people freeze or go without
lights, while NSTAR ($7.8B in assets), National Grid and the Oil
Companies make $$ billions more in profits.
$150 million more a day goes to the Iraq war. We need to bring this
money back to our communities, now!</font></small><font color="#000000"
face="Arial" size="2"><br>
<br>
The government has just taken over the largest mortgage banks in the
world, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac,
which have overseen millions of families evicted from their homes. The
government must not be in the
business of foreclosing and evicting us from our homes. Responsible
government must now use its power to
declare a State of Emergency, and immediately halt all foreclosures and
evictions!<br>
<br>
This economic crisis brings with it a rise in violence against people
of color, women, and
lesbian/gay/bi/trans people who are scapegoated in an attempt to divert
attention away from greedy
corporations and banks. Poor and working families are struggling with
housing, jobs, gas prices, healthcare,
and feeding our children. Youth need education and good union jobs, not
police roundups and more jails.
Discrimination against people with CORI should be outlawed.</font>
<p><font color="#800000" face="Arial" size="4"><b>
<div style="text-align: center;"><i>Heat, Housing, Jobs, Food and Fuel
are a Human Right!</i>
<font color="#000000"><br>
Together we have the power to build a movement to turn this unnatural
disaster around!<br>
</font><small><font face="Arial"><br>
<br>
<font color="#000000">For more info: <br>
(617) 522-6626 <a class="moz-txt-link-abbreviated"
href="http://www.iacboston.org/wfn">www.iacboston.org/wfn</a><br>
Women's Fightback Network / F.I.S.T / International Action Center<br>
284 Amory Street, Jamaica Plain, MA 02130</font></font></small><font
color="#000000"><br>
</font></div>
</b></font></p>
<small><font face="Arial"><br>
</font></small>
<hr size="2" width="100%"><small><b><font face="Arial">2)</font></b></small><br>
<div class="streamer"><font face="Arial"><big>Profit system wreaks havoc</big></font>
</div>
<!---headline-->
<h1><font face="Arial">CAPITALIST MELTDOWN</font></h1>
<!---deck-->
<div class="deck"><font face="Arial"><big>Workers, oppressed to pay
billions to bail out Wall Street</big></font></div>
<font face="Arial"><br>
</font><!---byline-->
<div class="byline"><small><font face="Arial">By Fred Goldstein
<br>
</font></small></div>
<!---page text-->
<!--begin page--><!--begin paragraph-->
<p><small><font face="Arial">Sept. 17—With the $85-billion government
bailout of insurance giant AIG,
the Federal Reserve Board and the Treasury Department have made another
desperate attempt to shore up a collapsing global financial structure.</font></small></p>
<!--end paragraph--><!--begin paragraph-->
<p><small><font face="Arial">This latest attempt to rescue a huge
capitalist financial firm comes on top of
the $200-billion-plus bailout of the two largest mortgage banks in the
world,
Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, just 10 days ago.</font></small></p>
<!--end paragraph--><!--begin paragraph-->
<p><small><font face="Arial"><strong>Secret deals stick workers with
the bill</strong></font></small></p>
<!--end paragraph--><!--begin paragraph-->
<p><small><font face="Arial">President of the Federal Reserve Bank of
New York, Timothy Geithner and
Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson have been huddled in round-the-clock
meetings,
hammering out deals. It has been done in secrecy, behind the backs of
the
workers and the middle class, who will get stuck with the bill. They
have been
working out these deals with the same loan sharks of high finance whose
orgies
of speculation, gambling and deception in pursuit of profit led to the
crisis
in the first place.</font></small></p>
<!--end paragraph--><!--begin paragraph-->
<p><small><font face="Arial">Wall Street’s speculative binge has led to
a truly formidable world
crisis.</font></small></p>
<!--end paragraph--><!--begin paragraph-->
<p><small><font face="Arial">Over the last three days, AIG, the largest
insurance company in the world with
a TRILLION dollars in assets, came within hours of bankruptcy.</font></small></p>
<!--end paragraph--><!--begin paragraph-->
<p><small><font face="Arial">Lehman Brothers, a prestigious,
158-year-old investment bank with $639 billion
in assets and $613 billion in debts, went under in the largest
bankruptcy in
U.S. history.</font></small></p>
<!--end paragraph--><!--begin paragraph-->
<p><small><font face="Arial">Merrill Lynch, another pillar of
investment banking with another TRILLION
dollars in assets, averted bankruptcy only after being swallowed up by
Bank of
America.</font></small></p>
<!--end paragraph--><!--begin paragraph-->
<p><small><font face="Arial">Washington Mutual, the largest savings and
loan in the U.S., had its bond
rating reduced to junk and is on the ropes.</font></small></p>
<!--end paragraph--><!--begin paragraph-->
<p><small><font face="Arial">As the bankruptcy crisis was developing on
Thursday, Sept. 11, Paulson told the
bankers that the government was through stepping in and that they would
have to
solve the problem among themselves. That was last week. Now the U.S.
government
has put up another $85 billion to bail out the banks. It is a sign of
crisis
and weakness.</font></small></p>
<!--end paragraph--><!--begin paragraph-->
<p><small><font face="Arial">While the bailout of Fannie Mae and
Freddie Mac had given relief to the holders
of trillions of dollars of debt owed them by the two mortgage banks, it
also
put an enormous strain on the financial system and was another sign of
profound
weakness and fragility. Further bailouts were ruled out, the government
said.
It was drawing a “line in the sand.”</font></small></p>
<!--end paragraph--><!--begin paragraph-->
<p><small><font face="Arial">But Paulson’s and Geithner’s declarations
made no impact on the
bankers. They all pursued their own immediate interests and stonewalled
their
own government. In the end, while Washington let Lehman Brothers fail,
AIG was
another story. The Federal Reserve Board and the Treasury made a
humiliating
about-face and stepped in at the last minute, “fearing a financial
crisis
worldwide.” (New York Times, Sept. 17)</font></small></p>
<!--end paragraph--><!--begin paragraph-->
<p><small><font face="Arial">The Fed bailout of AIG is instructive
about the depth of the crisis. AIG is not
even a bank. It is not regulated by the federal government. The Fed had
to use
emergency powers to intervene, which it deemed necessary not only
because AIG
issues insurance policies to millions of individuals and commercial
enterprises
but because it also has insured over $400 billion in mortgage-backed
securities
and other risky investments of gamblers and speculators all over the
globe.</font></small></p>
<!--end paragraph--><!--begin paragraph-->
<p><small><font face="Arial">AIG has borrowed money from many of the
big banks and gambled its assets in
order to make bigger profits. As the mortgages began to fail and the
holders of
the mortgage-backed securities began to demand their insurance payoffs,
AIG’s financial position was deteriorating on a daily and hourly
basis.</font></small></p>
<!--end paragraph--><!--begin paragraph-->
<p><small><font face="Arial">It is a measure of the system’s financial
recklessness that an insurance
company, which is supposed to be regulated to keep it conservative,
precisely
because it is the custodian of funds that must be available to meet the
emergency needs of the insured, was free to participate in the global
casino.</font></small></p>
<!--end paragraph--><!--begin paragraph-->
<p><small><font face="Arial">AIG operates in over 100 countries, has
116,000 employees—62,000 in
Asia—and has private banking facilities for wealthy people. It brokers
deals in stocks, manages mutual funds, owns 900 planes for its leasing
business, and in general has leveraged its insurance business into a
globalized, speculative operation.</font></small></p>
<!--end paragraph--><!--begin paragraph-->
<p><small><font face="Arial"><strong>Crisis of workers and oppressed is
ignored</strong></font></small></p>
<!--end paragraph--><!--begin paragraph-->
<p><small><font face="Arial">The crisis of the bankers has made
sensational headlines, with hour-by-hour
accounts of the agony of a handful of millionaires and billionaires on
Wall
Street. But the capitalist media has sidelined the real drama of mass
foreclosures and layoffs affecting the lives of millions of workers.</font></small></p>
<!--end paragraph--><!--begin paragraph-->
<p><small><font face="Arial">Hundreds of billions of dollars have been
doled out to bankers who got into a
crisis largely because of predatory mortgage lending and the reselling
of those
mortgages on the global capital market. No relief has been forthcoming
for the
victims of the mortgage banking industry.</font></small></p>
<!--end paragraph--><!--begin paragraph-->
<p><small><font face="Arial">Little attention was paid to the news that
in August there were 303,879
foreclosure filings—a 12-percent increase from the previous month and a
27-percent increase from a year ago. One in every 416 households in the
U.S.
received a foreclosure notice in August. In California alone there were
101,714
filings, up 40 percent from the previous month and 75 percent over a
year
ago.</font></small></p>
<!--end paragraph--><!--begin paragraph-->
<p><small><font face="Arial">While shedding tears over the travails of
bankers, the capitalist press had no
headlines about a recent study entitled “State of the Dream:
Foreclosed,” which showed that the foreclosure crisis has resulted in
the
greatest destruction of personal wealth in history in the
African-American and
Latin@ communities.</font></small></p>
<!--end paragraph--><!--begin paragraph-->
<p><small><font face="Arial">According to the study, African-American
borrowers have lost between $71
billion and $92 billion because of loans taken out over the last eight
years.
The figure for the Latin@ population, which is even higher than the
African-American population, shows losses of between $75 billion and
$98
billion.</font></small></p>
<!--end paragraph--><!--begin paragraph-->
<p><small><font face="Arial">Alongside the financial crisis is the
growing crisis of the capitalist economy
overall, as overproduction results in mounting unemployment. More than
84,000
workers lost their jobs in August, bringing the yearly total up to
605,000.
More than 2 million people have been added to the jobless in the past
12
months, bringing the official total to 9.4 million out of work.
Long-term
unemployment is also rising.</font></small></p>
<!--end paragraph--><!--begin paragraph-->
<p><small><font face="Arial">Unemployment for Black workers reached
10.6 percent, mainly due to job losses
among Black women. Unemployment among single mothers and youth is also
growing.
And these government figures do not include millions of discouraged
workers who
have given up looking for jobs.</font></small></p>
<!--end paragraph--><!--begin paragraph-->
<p><small><font face="Arial">In the midst of the credit crisis, it was
announced that industrial production,
the basis of jobs and income, fell in August by the most in three
years. There
was a 1.1 decrease in output in factories, mines and utilities. Auto
production
went down by 12 percent, the most in a decade.</font></small></p>
<!--end paragraph--><!--begin paragraph-->
<p><small><font face="Arial">One thing is clear from the present
crisis: Neither the capitalist class, which
owns all the productive wealth, nor the capitalist government, which
oversees
the system, is in control of the economic or the financial situation.</font></small></p>
<!--end paragraph--><!--begin paragraph-->
<p><small><font face="Arial">Each measure they take to stem the credit
crisis is followed by another
outbreak of panic. Each time the stock market surges, it quickly loses
all its
gains and more. And no matter how much the pundits declare that there
is no
recession, the steady growth of unemployment and the decline in
production
continues, regardless of any so-called “economic stimulus.”</font></small></p>
<!--end paragraph--><!--begin paragraph-->
<p><small><font face="Arial"><strong>Shift in ruling class psychology</strong></font></small></p>
<!--end paragraph--><!--begin paragraph-->
<p><small><font face="Arial">The intervention of the capitalist
government in the banking crisis has brought
about a sudden shift in the psychology of the ruling class as they
watch their
system spinning out of control. After the capitalist system got over
the crisis
of the 1930s, the bosses in the U.S. began to forget why President
Roosevelt
had taken unprecedented measures to rescue the economy. They began to
scorn any
government intervention in their affairs.</font></small></p>
<!--end paragraph--><!--begin paragraph-->
<p><small><font face="Arial">Of course, they have always been ready to
take handouts in many
forms—subsidies, military spending, special legislation, tax cuts, etc.
But they have felt themselves to be the high and mighty corporate
rulers of the
world.</font></small></p>
<!--end paragraph--><!--begin paragraph-->
<p><small><font face="Arial">Government intervention, they said, was
for Europe and for social democrats.
The European ruling classes had been rocked by the workers and by class
struggle, division and war. Because the European rulers were weak and
needed to
be propped up by the capitalist governments, they had to submit to
state
monitoring of their affairs. Such a course, however, was strongly
rejected by
Wall Street and the giant industrialists.</font></small></p>
<!--end paragraph--><!--begin paragraph-->
<p><small><font face="Arial">This latest crisis is a huge comedown for
U.S. finance capital, which is used
to lecturing the other capitalist governments on the evils of
government
intervention. Suddenly, however, the bankers and bosses are all united,
from
the right wing to the moderates and liberals, in applauding the
Treasury and
the Federal Reserve Board for their “timely” intervention. They are
submitting, grudgingly but clearly, to government oversight and
monitoring in
the interests of saving their system from collapse.</font></small></p>
<!--end paragraph--><!--begin paragraph-->
<p><small><font face="Arial">With this crisis, the structure of U.S.
capitalism is entering a new stage. The
capitalist government has begun, on a piecemeal basis at first but
perhaps more
systematically in the future, to absorb the liabilities and bad debts
of the
gambling and speculating financial oligarchy. This can only deepen the
crisis
in the long run by driving it deeper into the organism of U.S.
capitalism.</font></small></p>
<!--end paragraph--><!--begin paragraph-->
<p><small><font face="Arial">This is bound to have not only economic
but political repercussions around the
world as rival imperialists see the vulnerability of the rulers in the
U.S. It
is bound to weaken U.S. imperialism and at the same time make it more
dangerous
as it seeks to get out of its crisis.</font></small></p>
<!--end paragraph--><!--begin paragraph-->
<p><small><font face="Arial">It is no accident that the Wall Street
Journal on Sept. 16, in the midst of
in-depth reporting on the financial crisis, ran an article entitled
“Keeping Their Powder Dry: Draft Boards Hang On, Just in Case.” The
Journal does not necessarily speak for the whole ruling class, nor for
the
Pentagon at the moment. But one reflex emerging in the midst of the
crisis from
some section of the ruling class is beginning to think about an
expanded war
drive as a solution.</font></small></p>
<!--end paragraph--><!--begin paragraph-->
<p><small><font face="Arial">With the “New World Order” stoking
conflict with Russia in Georgia,
invading Pakistan and escalating the war against Afghanistan, the
possibility
of a new military adventure should never be ruled out.</font></small></p>
<!--end paragraph--><!--begin paragraph-->
<p><small><font face="Arial"><strong>Capitalism’s basic contradiction</strong></font></small></p>
<!--end paragraph--><!--begin paragraph-->
<p><small><font face="Arial">The Democrats want to blame things on Bush
and call for more regulation. Of
course the financiers have gotten the government to overturn most of
the
regulations, dating back to the Depression, putting restraints on their
gambling operations. This deregulation started with the Reagan
administration
and reached a high point in the Clinton Administration. At the
instigation of
Citicorp and Robert Rubin, who left Goldman Sachs to become Secretary
of the
Treasury, the Glass-Steagall Act was repealed in 1998, under the
sponsorship of
now McCain economic adviser Phil Gramm. The law forbids commercial
banks from
becoming involved in investment banking, underwriting stocks and stock
market
operations, underwriting and other activities that facilitated
widespread
hyper-speculation of the type that preceded the Depression.</font></small></p>
<!--end paragraph--><!--begin paragraph-->
<p><small><font face="Arial">And of course the Bush administration
undermined all attempts to inhibit the
predatory mortgage lenders and gave a complete free hand to all manner
of
unregulated speculation in trillions of dollars worth of speculative
gambling,
which increased the overall risk in the global financial system. But,
Democratic Party demagogy notwithstanding, the Bush administration is
not the
cause of the crisis.</font></small></p>
<!--end paragraph--><!--begin paragraph-->
<p><small><font face="Arial">Government intervention, stronger
regulation of the monopolies and more
“prudent” practices cannot overcome the fundamental contradiction
of capitalism: private ownership of the globalized, social means of
production.</font></small></p>
<!--end paragraph--><!--begin paragraph-->
<p><small><font face="Arial">It is an irreconcilable contradiction that
a tiny minority control the
production of the world’s wealth for their own profit. It is an
irreconcilable contradiction that this global apparatus stops
functioning when
there is a crisis of profitability for the bosses. And such a crisis
always
arises, sooner or later, because of the anarchy of capitalist
production.</font></small></p>
<!--end paragraph--><!--begin paragraph-->
<p><small><font face="Arial">No capitalist knows where what is produced
can be sold. But in the rush for
“market share” for the highest profit, each capitalist grouping is
compelled to expand production.</font></small></p>
<!--end paragraph--><!--begin paragraph-->
<p><small><font face="Arial">Simultaneously, the laws of capitalism
compel each capitalist to reduce the
wages of the workers as much as possible. In the last three decades,
the
capitalist class has created a low-wage capitalist system that pits
workers
against each other on a global basis. This just aggravates and
accelerates the
contradiction of the profit system.</font></small></p>
<!--end paragraph--><!--begin paragraph-->
<p><small><font face="Arial">Under capitalism production is anarchic
and eventually expands to a point where
the workers cannot buy what has been produced at a price that will
bring the
bosses a profit. This anarchy of production is being reflected in the
anarchy
of the financial system in the present crisis.</font></small></p>
<!--end paragraph--><!--begin paragraph-->
<p><small><font face="Arial">In the present crisis, billionaires at the
top of capitalist society may be
losing part of their wealth, which really existed only on paper, but
they are
keeping their mansions, servants, limousines and Lear jets. It is the
workers
who are bearing the brunt of the economic crisis.</font></small></p>
<!--end paragraph--><!--begin paragraph-->
<p><small><font face="Arial">The only way out is the way of
resistance—like the movement to stop
foreclosures, which is gathering steam around the country.</font></small></p>
<!--end paragraph--><!--end page--><!--UdmComment--><!---copyright-->
<hr>
<pre class="moz-signature" cols="72">--
*******************************************
Women's FightBack Network
Boston:
617-522-6626
<a class="moz-txt-link-abbreviated" href="mailto:wfn@iacboston.org">wfn@iacboston.org</a>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="http://www.iacboston.org">http://www.iacboston.org/wfn</a>
National Office:
212-633-6646
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="http://www.iacenter.org">http://www.iacenter.org</a>
</pre>
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