Capitalist Follies: Rancheros Visitadores, Citigroup, and the CIA

A posting the other day, quoting Chris Floyd on the machinations of the U.S. power elite, prompted a regular reader of mine to send a very interesting link to a story a friend of his worked on over the past few years.

As reported by Seattle Post-Intelligencer columnist Joel Connolly, Alejandro Tomas, a senior faculty member at Seattle Central Community College, has assembled a startling photo essay on one of the conclaves where the rich and privileged meet. The horse ride known as Rancheros Visitadores takes place every May in the Santa Ynez Valley near Santa Barbara, Calif. The event is one of those elite conclaves that take place annually. The best known is probably the Bohemian Grove gathering near the Russian River in Northern California.

Connolly describes the doings at Rancheros Visitadores, where no women are allowed (except maybe prostitutes):

The men are shown with sex toys around their necks, doing skits in blackface, dressed in wigs and women's clothing and consuming copious quantities of alcoholic beverages....

Who goes on the ride? The club is exclusive, white and male, with a membership limited to 600. A couple hundred invited guests and guys from the wait list attend each year.

Photos from the 1989 ride show Reagan, an honorary member, on a buckboard beside former Interior Secretary William Clark. Gen. P.X. Kelly, commandant of the Marines, also is pictured....

"I was a little taken aback by many of the attitudes," Tomas said. "Here are men at the highest rungs of power in this country. Quite blatant forms of racism and anti-Semitism and misogyny are on display. ... The festive debauchery represents a cohesion of the power class. They seem to feel stronger by putting down others."

The Rancheros Visitadores is apparently one of a number of such events, or other "Rancheros" camps. Tomas co-wrote a paper on the event with two sociologists. According to Connolly:

They argue that the "special time" each May reaffirms the riders' sense that they are the chosen leaders of American society. "The Rancheros retreat reinforces the imminent morale or esprit de corps of the corporate leaders and the landed elite," the authors report.

Masters of the Universe, Do You Need a Dime?

The ruling class is more than a collection of ideologies and bank accounts. There is a cohesiveness to their rule that suggests a cultural and social interconnectivity that transcends mere political parties.

This has been made painfully clear in the collaboration between different political groupings to give billions of dollars away, with little or no control or oversight, to the Wall Street "masters of the universe" who have looted the economy of trillions of dollars with speculative schemes, and just out and out thievery. The latest egregious hit to the U.S. taxpayers for another financial bailout comes with the announcement of a mega-billion bailout to Citigroup.

As F. William Engdahl explains in an article at Global Research:

Citigroup and the government have identified a pool of about $306 billion in troubled assets. Citigroup will absorb the first $29 billion in losses. After that, remaining losses will be split between Citigroup and the government, with the bank absorbing 10% and the government absorbing 90%. The US Treasury Department will use its $700 billion TARP or Troubled Asset Recovery Program bailout fund, to assume up to $5 billion of losses. If necessary, the Government’s Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) will bear the next $10 billion of losses. Beyond that, the Federal Reserve will guarantee any additional losses. The measures are without precedent in US financial history.

Yet, no one in the mainstream political discourse argues to hold these criminals to account. Instead, aim has been taken lately against unions, like the UAW, who conservatives argue have made companies like GM non-competitive in the global marketplace, with their demands for humane work rules, a decent, living wage, health care, etc. Even when the liberals criticize the CEOs of the Big Three automakers, and argue that the lack of nationalized health care puts the car companies behind the economic eight-ball, they barely raise a peep when it's argued that everyone, including the workers, will have to sacrifice to "save" Big Auto (which means tearing up the union contracts, fought for by workers over decades).

In the latest sign of complete moral, ethical, and political collapse, Bloomberg now reports the capitalists' bailout will top $7 trillion dollars -- "half the value of everything produced in the nation last year"!!! For once, the use of multiple exclamation points fails to describe the exaggerated circumstances.

But will this near-total failure of the economic system lead any respectable mainstream or blogging analyst to question the bankruptcy of the capitalist system as a whole? Not unless you're waiting for Barack Obama to lay the foundation stone for a new mammoth statue of Joseph Stalin on the D.C mall. (The rot of communism -- really Stalinism -- was declared by sober folk on both the U.S. left and right, based on far less economic failure.)

A Nicer, Kinder CIA?

The liberal hopes in Obama's incoming administration demonstrates the inability to think beyond the parameters of acceptable political discourse, which means never challenging the right of capital to rule. Nor does it challenge the right of the U.S. to continue conducting covert operations wherever it wants around the world. The fact that Obama seeks to ramp up the latter in Pakistan deters the liberals nary a bit.

When John Brennan's name was floated for new CIA chief recently, a group of dissident psychologists who fought within the American Psychological Association to change their position on torture, and with whom I have sometimes been associated, launched a campaign to stop Obama from appointing Brennan, a former member of Tenet's CIA team. They rightly pointed out that Brennan was involved in decisions and policies that promoted torture against detainees held by the U.S. in the "war on terror."

But their protest letter says nothing about about CIA covert action, nor does it even question the existence of the CIA itself. It only seeks, in what I see as a sincere but Utopian fashion to reform that institution. From the letter, quoting Brennan first:

Even though people may criticize what has happened during the two Bush administrations, there has been a fair amount of continuity. A new administration, be it Republican or Democrat — you’re going to have a fairly significant change of people involved at the senior-most levels. And I would argue for continuity in those early stages. You don’t want to whipsaw the [intelligence] community. You don’t want to presume knowledge about how things fit together and why things are being done the way they are being done. And you have to understand the implication, then, of making any major changes or redirecting things. I’m hoping there will be a number of professionals coming in who have an understanding of the evolution of the capabilities in the community over the past six years, because there is a method to how things have changed and adapted.

In order to restore American credibility and the rule of law, our country needs a clear and decisive repudiation of the “dark side” at this crucial turning point in our history. We need officials to clearly and without ambivalence assert the rule of law. Mr. Brennan is not an appropriate choice to lead us in this direction. The country cannot afford to have him as director of our most important intelligence agencies.

As John Prados pointed out in his recent history of CIA covert wars, Safe for Democracy: The Secret Wars of the CIA, the use of covert action has harmed U.S. foreign policy more than it has ever helped. Furthermore, both Democratic and Republican administrations have blocked any substantive change in the intelligence agency's charter, unwilling to forego the executive's power or use of covert action. If the psychologists wanted to send a powerful statement to President Obama, they would have called for the abolition of the CIA. But that's not a politically popular stance (at least these days).

Justice and Class Society

A very sick and sclerotic set of individuals essentially run the United States. They see nothing worth prosecuting when one of their own (George W. Bush) manipulates a country into a war that kills over a million civilians. They see nothing wrong in having a covert intelligence agency that wages war and commits assassinations wherever it wants in the world. They cry crocodile tears over the torture of detainees, but do nothing to disassemble the apparatus that perpetuates "touchless torture" (Darius Rejali's term in his magnificent compendium, Torture and Democracy).

The ingrained culture of class society, as represented in part by Tomas's photo essay on one ruling class ritual conclave, represents one of the most resistant aspects to change we truly and desperately need. It may have to all come tumbling down -- and how close we have come to that in recent days -- before the old social order gives up its ghost, and radically new ways of organizing society come into being. When the power elite fades into obscurity, so too will its championing of racial, sexual, and national/religious discrimination. (Anyone who believes the election of Obama has turned around things for African-Americans in this country should visit their local housing project, or better yet, their local jail or prison.)

Perhaps the political genius of Barack Obama (if genius he turns out to be) can hold off the inevitable, but the internal contradictions of a society that runs on class privilege and national supremacy over other countries is bound to lead to either collapse or conflagration sooner or later. We need bold action and bold leaders now.

A collection of Tomas's photos can be accessed here.

Longshore Union Plans Antiwar Port Shutdown

I and certainly others will be watching this to see what it portends. Quoting from a press release from the pro-socialist Internationalist Group:

In a major step for the U.S. labor movement, the International Longshore and Warehouse Union (ILWU) has announced that it will shut down West Coast ports on May 1, to demand an immediate end to the war and occupation in Iraq and Afghanistan and the withdrawal of U.S. troops from the Middle East. This is the first time in decades that an American union has decided to undertake industrial action against a U.S. war. The action announced by the powerful West Coast dock workers union, to stop work to stop the war, should be taken up by unions and labor organizations throughout the United States and internationally. And the purpose of such actions should be not to beg the bourgeois politicians whose hands are covered with blood, having voted for every war budget for six and a half years, but a show of strength of the working people who make this country run, and who can shut it down!

Leftist propaganda and wishful thinking? or the beginning of a mass popular movement against the war, with real roots in the working class? Another leftist paper noted this action earlier this year:

OAKLAND—Three ships sat idle at the Stevedoring Services of America (SSA) terminals on May 19 as dock workers dispatched by International Longshore and Warehouse Union (ILWU) Local 10 and clerks dispatched by ILWU Local 34 honored a picket line protesting the Iraq war....

Among the picketers was a union contingent from the Oakland Education Association (OEA).

Stay tuned.

Ghosts of PATCO: Anti-Labor Campaign Targets Air Traffic Controllers

Cross-posted for Labor Day at Daily Kos and Progressive Historians

In 1981, Ronald Reagan showed the Russkies and American labor leaders that the U.S. was going to crack down on progressive, pro-labor organizations. Targeting labor unions, he fired the entire membership of the Professional Air Traffic Controllers Organization (PATCO) - all 13,000 of them.

The anti-labor Taft-Hartley Act of 1947 outlaws strikes by certain government employees. In 1981, PATCO dared to strike for better pay and lower hours, citing air safety concerns due to overworked and fatigued workers. Only twelve years before that, PATCO had won a victory over the FAA and the Nixon administration with a carefully orchestrated "sickout". They won a big pay raise and recognition as a union. But Reagan, flush with neo-conservative fervor, and conflating American labor with anti-communism, destroyed the PATCO union, declaring a lifetime ban on rehiring striking controllers, and inaugurating a period of labor decline that has not abated in a generation.

Now it's 2007, and a new air traffic controller labor union, the National Air Traffic Controllers Association (NATCA), is fighting back against a contract imposed upon it by the FAA a year ago. According to an Associated Press article yesterday:

The FAA-imposed contract cut starting pay by 30 percent, eliminated incentive pay for experienced controllers and gave managers more authority over staffing. Since last September, controllers have filed 220,000 grievances....

Brown said the agency has long known that 72 percent of its controllers become eligible to retire in the next decade. Most controllers were hired after President Ronald Reagan in 1981 fired more than 11,000 members of a predecessor union, the Professional Air Traffic Controllers Organization, after it refused to end an illegal strike.

Controller Burn-out Threatens Air Safety

Meanwhile, air controllers are retiring or resigning in waves. Over 800 retirements are expected this year, while the FAA is hiring new controllers as fast as it can. The government also touts a very record low number of fatalities on commercial aircraft the past three years --.017 per 100,000 departures. For its part, NATCA cites some recent events, including six near-misses on busy runways in the past year. In Cleveland:

Operational errors — in which planes fly closer than they are supposed to — soared to 34 this fiscal year, with a month left, compared to 16 in fiscal 2006.

In Chicago, "the center has recorded 21 operation errors for the fiscal year, compared to 12 the previous year". And elsewhere:

In New York, southern California and Charlotte, N.C., on-the-job training of controllers was temporarily suspended this summer to evaluate a rash of errors....

"These errors are the calling cards of mental fatigue," said Chicago Center controller Bryan Zilonis, a union vice president. "The FAA is slowly burning out their most experienced controllers due to their inability to properly staff positions at many facilities."

You're doing a heckava job, Blakey

For her part, FAA Administrator Marion Blakey talks about billions of dollars in savings, and the introduction of a new "multi-billion-dollar NextGen plan to replace radar control with more precise satellite tracking so planes can fly closer", due to come online in ... 2013! And we know how well the government estimates time for completion for its varied projects.

Daily Kos blogger Blue Eyed Buddhist wrote about the potential corruption behind the FAA's machinations, as Blakey set up the NextGen contract with ITT only days before announcing she would leave FAA to become the President and CEO of the Aerospace Industries Association (AIA). Not surprisingly, ITT Corporation is a member of AIA. As Blue Eyed Buddhist pointed out:

So 9 days after she's announced as the next CEO of AIA, Blakey's agency hands out an 18-year contract worth billions of dollars to a company that indirectly employs her at over a half-million dollars a year.

Is there a congressional investigation in the works? Not that I know of. Is there an outraged spate of editorials emanating from our nation's watchdogs, the press? Again, silence, so far as I can see. It's business as usual in the land of the free hand for capital, and home of the feckless labor opposition.

The Legacy of PATCO & the Fight for an Independent Labor Movement

In 1981, Reagan threw the gauntlet down to the unions in this country. It didn't help PATCO that, along with the Teamsters, in an act of stunning stupidity, they supported Reagan for president only a year before. It also didn't help PATCO workers that, despite a lot of fiery rhetoric from union leaders at Labor Day picnics across the country, concrete action in the form of sympathy strikes or even honoring picket lines at the airports were notable by their absence. Union pilots and machinists crossed PATCO picket lines, only to suffer their own ignominious defeats in contracts and labor actions of their own in the decades that followed.

The labor movement in 2007 sits at the nadir of its influence. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics:

In 2006, 12.0 percent of employed wage and salary workers were union members, down from 12.5 percent a year earlier.... The number of persons belonging to a union fell by 326,000 in 2006 to 15.4 million. The union membership rate has steadily declined from 20.1 percent in 1983, the first year for which comparable union data are available.

While there are sporadic signs of union activism and pugnacious leadership, the overall picture for labor is not pretty, as labor organizations remain mired in subservience to electoral politics and afraid of union militancy. (Is there even one Democratic presidential candidate that will call for the repeal of the anti-worker Taft-Hartley Act?) The split of the Teamsters and the Service Employees International Union from the AFL-CIO back in 2005 did not bring about any new militant stance by organized labor.

It will take a new generation of union leaders with an ideology steeped in the independent action of workers before things turn around. Such an ideology could be built on the premise that those who own the means of production, those who rule the institutions of society and impose no-strike laws upon hard-working men and women, that these people have nothing politically in common with those who work for a living, who don't control anything but their minds, their hands, and their hearts. It could start with a real, effective return to labor solidarity, and the inviolability of picket lines.

The ghosts of PATCO call upon the workers of NATCA, crying out to be remembered, for all of labor to learn the lessons of 1981, and to begin the fight for a new, reinvigorated, and powerful labor movement.