A Proud New Dealer Runs for Congress

The special election to fill Rahm Emanuel’s seat in Illinois's 5th District in the House of Representatives should be getting more attention from progressive and liberal elements of The Democratic Party. The simple reason is about who is running for the Democrats. Thomas Geoghegan, labor lawyer, writer, and staunch advocate for the poor who Thomas Frank glowingly praises in a commentary written in the Wall Street Journal. Thomas Frank describes Geoghegan’s writing skills as “brilliant ... possessed of an elegant, conversational prose style and an eye for the haunting detail.” And so it was: the silent, suffering antithesis to the great choir then starting its hymn to omniscient markets and the ever-ascending Dow. For decades Mr. Geoghegan has been a brilliant defender of “organized labor" ... through times "when everyone else was coming to accept the post-industrial order. The basic point that he would make was that the decline of unions wasn't a reflection of consumer choice, in the way that hot movies and popular toys are said to be. Labor unions were hemorrhaging members because the game was rigged against them; because it was nearly impossible for workers to organize when the penalties incurred by management for firing pro-union employees were so slight.” Frank praises Geoghegan’s writing by declaring his “1991 book, "Which Side Are You On?" -- the best book on labor to appear in the past 50 years” that "continued my education about the blue-collar world. An "anti-world," Mr. Geoghegan called it, a "secret world" Mr. Geoghegan knew so much about. Frank adds his own remarks to reinforce Mr. Geoghegan's observations: "And so it was:" Frank elucidates; "the silent, suffering antithesis to the great choir then starting its hymn to omniscient markets and the ever-ascending Dow.” Frank posits that the collapse of "conservative orthodoxy" into "a heap of complex derivatives" makes this a perfect time for Mr. Geoghegan to spread his “refreshing dose of plain-spoken Midwestern reality ... to the nation as a whole.” Frank provides a number of insightful observations regarding Mr. Geoghegan’s views on government, working people and the economy: “To begin with, Mr. Geoghegan thinks big while Democrats in Washington tend to think small, proposing a stimulus package here and better oversight there." Frank adds from a conversation he recently had with Geoghegan in which Frank remembers that (t)he government's goal should not merely be in Geoghegan’s view "to pump up demand again." Frank explains that the purpose of government "should be to enact sweeping, structural change," which Geoghegan believes will force government "to get in a position where we're not bleeding jobs out of the country." And Frank continues the point, as: “For the view that working people have no business with retirement and health care in the lean, mean, inevitable future, Mr. Geoghegan has a certain contempt. He wants to increase Social Security payments to make up for the destruction of private pension plans and expand Medicare with the goal of arriving, eventually, at single-payer health care." Geoghegan believes: "The $700 billion bank bailout," he explains, "proves that such expenses can be borne. What's more, they're necessary.” Geoghegan explains that: "Economic security is not only compatible with being competitive globally," he tells Frank; "it's crucial to it." Frank concurs that: "Until we shift the burden of pensions and health care from companies to government we will continue to endure" what Geoghegan describes as "debacles like General Motors" and other entities. "It is also time," Geoghegan believes according to Frank, "to change the relationship between the financial sector and the rest of the economy. After all," Geoghegan tells Frank: "We bought into these banks, we ought to have directors on the boards. We the people, as stockholders, have different interests than some other stockholders because we have some other ideas about how we prosper in the long term." Mr. Geoghegan elaborates: "rather than go for high-roller returns on financial speculations," Frank adds in to suggest "a publicly appointed director" that Geoghegan explains "might be willing to accept lower returns in manufacturing where we can be globally competitive and create good jobs." Thomas Frank gets it: “This is supposed to be a time for bold ideas on the left, with the failures of the free-market consensus becoming more glaring and more painful by the day. And Mr. Geoghegan's ideas should be part of the debate." "Indeed,” Frank concludes of Mr.Geoghegan: “this scholarly labor lawyer may be exactly the man for the moment. He is an unrepentant New Dealer with an old-fashioned sense of civic duty and an admitted fondness for Washington. Unlike so many who have been called to service in this economic crisis, he has no period of embarrassing new economy enthusiasm to apologize for. And despite the stories we tell ourselves about corrupt Chicago, change is possible. Voters need merely to seize the opportunity.” If only our nation could produce more thinkers, writers and politicians that demonstrated, on a daily basis, Geoghegan’s highly perceptive understanding of how America does not work for the laborers who keep the nation tirelessly advancing and instead, understand how the financiers and managerial class work to maintain the lowly status of labor. If only our legislators were moved to produce laws that would provide for easy union membership and protect the rights of the unions against the rich and powerful. If such a reality existed where the insights of Mr. Geoghegan formed the underlying thought for people to understand how the system is rigged against their best interests and their ability to make a decent middle class living; America would be a much better nation. America would take its rightful place as the provider of free for all regardless of race, ethnicity, class, gender, beliefs or sexual preference; the defender of the powerless, the guardian against the powerful. We can create a world that operates and provides acceptable means of maintaining a healthy and robust economic system; such a reality would give people, regardless of their personal characteristics, a sense of worthiness and dignity that would assure equitable treatment for the unions and the laborers they represent. The masses of Americans who take on the drudgery of daily labor need to recognize and assimilate the teachings of Mr. Geoghegan as a means for furthering a better nation that is responsive to the needs of all Americans.

French Government Reports Raise Concerns of the ‘Rebirth of the Violent Left’

Jason Burke, Paris correspondent for The Observer at the website, guardian.co.uk, reports that:” The French government fears a wave of extreme left-wing terrorism this year with the possible sabotage of key infrastructure, kidnappings of major business figures or even bomb attacks. Secret French government reports, seen by the Observer, describe an "elevated threat" from an "international European network ... with a strong presence in France" after the radicalisation of "a new generation of activists" in recent years. Senior analysts and experts linked to the government have drawn parallels with the Action Directe group, which carried out 50 or more attacks in the early 1980s. Others cite the example of the Baader-Meinhof gang. A report by the French domestic intelligence service talks of "a rebirth of the violent extreme left" across Europe that is likely to be aggravated by the effects of the economic crisis. Other secret documents expose alleged links with activists in Italy, Greece, Germany and the UK. "It has been growing for three or four years now and the violence is getting closer and closer to real terrorism," said Eric Dénécé, director of the French centre of intelligence research and a former Defence Ministry consultant.” While the truth of the French government reports are questioned by several experts; the outbreak of severe violence in Athens recently adds an air of concern for many Europeans that “angry and alienated young people and a hard core of violent left-wing extremists” could result in numerous outbreaks of violence across the European continent. Recent appearances of posters in Paris have urged youth who are "forced to work for a world that poisons us" to follow the example of their Greek counterparts. "The insurrection goes on. If it takes hold everywhere, no one can stop it," the posters urged. The surge in the recruitment of mostly middle class youth, creating an upsurge of activism is most often blamed on “changes in employment law in 2006... Gilles Gray, assistant director of economic protection of the French domestic intelligence service, spoke recently of "a philosophy that was spreading in Europe.” That justifies terrorism. So far, the formation of violent groups and organized illegal activities have centered in Greece, France, and Germany. “But some accuse France's right-wing government of both exaggerating and exploiting the left-wing threat. "They are turning my son into a scapegoat for a generation who have started to think for themselves about capitalism and its wrongs and to demonstrate against the government," said Gérard Coupat, father of the alleged ringleader of one of the French youth groups. Mr. Coupat continued: "The government is keeping my son in prison because a man of the left with the courage to demonstrate is the last thing they want now, with the economic situation getting worse and worse. Nothing like this has happened in France since the war. It is very serious." For those who feel the French government is overreacting such as: “Author and researcher Christophe Bourseiller told the Observer the threat was being exaggerated. "Yes, there is a certain renewed level of agitation, but there is a huge difference between deliberately slowing down a few trains without injuring anyone and something like the Madrid bomb blasts," he said. Mr. Bourseiller continued:"The Ministry of the Interior has made it look like (they have) halted a serious campaign of violence with a huge, huge media operation." In addition to the real or contrived violence posed by youth groups: “Trade unions have promised a series of mass stoppages in the coming months. Among a population already made bitter by static salaries, rising prices and structurally high levels of unemployment, the lay-offs and wage cuts that could result from the economic crisis will fuel anger.” So governments across Europe are on alert because “...there are other groups in France, in Italy, in Germany, which, having lost faith in a political left in disarray, are tempted by violent action and are in a phase of semi-clandestinity," Alain Bauer, a criminologist at the Sorbonne, told the Observer. "With Action Directe and the Red Brigades, there was a first intellectual phase, followed by a radicalisation and then a transition to physical action.”