This edition's playlist

These are the albums we listened to while working on this edition.





1) Ebony Bones's Behold, A Pale Horse.

2) Carly Simon's This Kind Of Love,

3) Diego Garcia's Paradise

4) Melanie's Ever Since You Never Heard Of Me.

5) Animal Collective's Centipede HZ

6) Joss Stone's LP1.

7) Jack Johnson's From Here Now To You.

8) Diana Ross' The Boss

9) Beachwood Sparks' Desert Skies

10) Arctic Monkeys' AM

Ty's Corner

[Note, no links in this article are work safe.]




Gay porn.

Is it a window on a larger world?

I've been wondering that for some time now.

Blond haired gay porn star Paul Wagner has a new porn film, Back On Site.  In it, he plows Dan Broughton.  I'm using "plows" intentionally to make the point of what role he's playing in the film.

For the gay porn world, Wagner was the talk of the last half of January.  He's a porn star and has been one for some time.  And one online 'report' on the film found the author asking readers who they'd rather have sex with: Wagner or Dan Broughton.

In gay porn, there's still a hierarchy, tops on the top.

For those who don't know, a top is the one who does the screwing, a bottom is one who gets screwed.  These are rigid roles.  In the real word, you will encounter many more types of gay people.  A versatile gay, for instance, is one who can top or bottom.  There are also gays who do not have anal sex.  There are all sorts of things -- things more suited for the scope of a book -- or series of books -- and not a column.

In the gay porn world -- the mainstream gay porn world, at least -- there are certain rules.  For instance, nipple play is at a minimum and you're more likely to see a clothespin or electrical current applied to a nipple than a mouth.  Nipples may receive a quick lick but don't look for a suck.

There's also the lack of mixing it up.

Mainstream gay porn is not known for being racially diverse, to put it mildly.

And when interracial takes place in the mainstream gay world, the man of color has to bottom.  Every now and then, the man of color may be able to flip f**k -- which mean the two men take turns topping -- but he will have bottomed in the film as well.


The late White twink Joey Stefano broke a porn rule.

As documented in Charles Isherwood's Wonder Bread and Ecstasy: The Life and Death of Joey Stefano, Stefano became a gay porn star.   And bottoms didn't become porn stars.

Joey was the first breakout porn star who became famous for bottoming.

There was another break through as 2013 ended.


Last month, another gay porn rule got broken.  Christmas Day saw the release of Jake Jaxson's Answered Prayers:  The Healer.  African-American Diesel Washington is a gay porn star and he stars in the film as the top, a massage therapist whose client is a smug, White, TV conservative played by Chris Harder.

From smug, Harder's character quickly becomes insulting.  In response to Harder's verbal weapons, Washington overwhelms him and they come to a new understanding.



In the process, Chris Harder went from a gay porn performer to a star.  The first White gay performer to become a star by bottoming under a man of color.  Another gay porn rule broken.

And the reaction to Harder's new found stardom and to Answered Prayers: The Healer has included an amount of racism.  The film itself is an attempt at a New Wave porn, so it's not going to be everyone's ideal gay porn.  But when comments online aren't about the secondary story or cutaways, when they're about the pairing of Washington and Harder and contain calls like "unnatural" (about the pairing itself, not the acting), it's racism.  No one has to be turned on by the coupling and being not turned on by it doesn't make you a racist.  It probably just means you're not into the body shapes or the type of interaction or the lighting or the presentation or whatever.  But when you're a gay man making comments that a Black man having sex with a White man -- especially when the Black man is the top -- is "unnatural," you're commenting from a base of racism.

What was really amazing in these threads was to see people dismiss the men making these comments but never to apply a label to what the thoughts being dismissed were: racism.

There's a lot of denial in the gay community -- just as there is the community of people at large.

But in the gay community, the denial really struck me.

Paul Wagner's where we started.

Some readers of the report chose Paul, some chose Dan Broughton, some said they'd taken them both.  But on the ones choosing Paul (either choosing just Paul or Paul and Dan both), some insisted they did so because he was a top.



Josh Logan, Brandon Lewis and Rogan Richards are the names of only a few gay porn stars who've topped Paul Wagner.

In other words, as a performer, beefy Paul Wagner is more correctly labeled "versatile."

So were the ones hailing him as a top expressing (a) the belief that he was a better as a top, (b) unconvincing as a bottom, (c) unaware he had bottomed and had bottomed often, (d) expressing their own lustful desire to be topped by Wagner or (e) continuing the still lingering class or caste-system?

One wonders what Marx and  Engels would have made of it if they were writing today and were evolved enough to tackle the topic without prejudice or homophobia.

Tweet of the Week

. . . goes to Noam Chomsky.

                          Retweeted 135 times

Noam Chomsky ‏@daily_chomsky 17h

There’s a lot of killing in Darfur. On the other hand, it isn't a fraction of the dead in Iraq, let's say, and it isn't even a tiny fraction

Expand         

How racist is Wikipedia?

It started innocently enough, as these things often do.  Betty's daughter had been flipping the channels and caught an episode of A Different World that Leslie Uggams guest starred on.  Who was this woman?



Betty explained that she was Leslie Uggams, a singer and actress.  Her daughter went to Wikipedia to learn more and found only disappointment.

"She only made one film," Betty's daughter announced, "Poor Pretty Eddie."

"Who?" asked a passing C.I.

Leslie Uggams.

"Oh, no, no, no," C.I. said in that dismissive tone she uses for what she and Ava dub Crapapedia.  "Leslie's film debut was Skyjacked and her first leading role was Black Girl which was directed by Ossie Davis."

Not seeing it in Leslie Uggams Wikipedia entry, Betty's daughter went to Ossie Davis.

"What year?" she asked C.I.

"Try 1972."

And on Ossie Davis' entry, it was there.

C.I. stepped over to the laptop to look at the Uggams' entry.

"This is such crap.  They don't even have Fantasy, the NBC daytime game show she hosted for one year and won a Daytime Emmy for..  In fact, they don't even note that she's an Emmy winner."

So we thought of other things, people and projects,  to look up.

A Martinez, Ava and C.I. suggested, noting he has had a long and steady career.

He got an entry.  But no "filmography."

IMDB notes the Latino actor who came to fame as Cruz on the soap opera Santa Barbara has 130 acting credits.  But Wikipedia doesn't think he rates a filmography.

Chris Calloway?

She doesn't get an entry but is briefly mentioned in the entry for her father (jazz great Cab Calloway).  She debuted singing on The Ed Sullivan Show with her father, she was a singer for the Lionel Hampton Orchestra, she also sang for many years with her father's Hi-De-Ho Orchestra, her Broadway debut was in Hello Dolly, she performed in the touring company of Eubie, she was back on Broadway with a revival of The Pajama Game, she played Ivey Goodling on the soap opera The Doctors and she played Billie Holiday in the touring company (US and in Europe) of Lady Day at Emerson's Bar and Grill, she performed regularly in cabaret, was one of the first African-American dee jays in Los Angeles . . .  When you consider how many White males seem to have to do little besides sprout their first pube in order to get an entry on Wikipedia, the fact that Chris Calloway doesn't even rate an entry is alarming.

Get Christy Love was the next suggestion.  Teresa Graves became the first African-American woman to be the star of a TV drama with ABC's Get Christy Love.  But the TV show doesn't even get an entry at Wikipedia.  They do have an entry for the 70 minute TV movie that launched the TV show the following season but they can't be bothered with doing an entry on what remains a historical TV program which aired 22 episodes.

Peter De Anda.

Who?

We typed it in and nothing.

C.I. said search Ellen Holly.

Ellen Holly is an actress most famous for playing Carla on One Life To Live.  Wikipedia explains:

When Holly began on One Life to Live in October 1968, her African-American heritage was not publicized as part of the storyline; her character, named Carla Benari, was a touring actress of apparently Italian American heritage. Carla and a Caucasian physician, Dr. Jim Craig, fell in love and became engaged. But she was falling for an African-American doctor. When the two kissed onscreen, it was reported that the switchboards at ABC were busy by fans who thought that the show had shown an African-American and Caucasian kissing. The fact that Carla was actually the African-American "Clara Grey" posing as Caucasian was revealed when Sadie Grey, played by Lillian Hayman, was identified as her mother. Sadie would eventually convince her daughter to embrace her heritage and tell the truth.

Do you follow that?

Probably not because Carla's mentioned and the White guy Jim Craig.  "But she was falling for an African-American doctor.  When the two kissed onscreen . . ."  The what what?

Who?

Dr. Price Trainor was who Carla kissed and he was played by Peter De Anda.  The kiss was notorious but they're not going to mention the name of the Black character or the actor who played him?

He's got movies and mini-series and TV guest spots (Police Woman, Beverly Hills 90210, Cannon, What's Happening Now!, etc.) to his name and he was part of the TV kiss that prompted  'racial outrage' but he's got no Wikipedia entry and when they write about the kiss on Ellen Holly's page, they don't even mention his name or his character's name?

Fernando Alvarado?

The Latino actor appeared in 17 US films, 8 of which were credited roles. A Medal for Benny, is a historic film with a story co-created by John Steinbeck.  Then there's Thrill of a Romance, a film Wikipedia has an entry for but fails to note him in the cast list -- despite noting 19 performers including seven of which who were billed after him in the actual credits of the film.  And as was often the case, he's the sole Latino in this Esther Williams film.


Adela Sequeyro?

No entry at Wikipedia.

From Columbia University Libraries' Women Film Pioneers Project:


Adela Sequeyro was born in the port city of Veracruz, Mexico, to Federico Sequeyro Arreola and Virginia Haro y Gutiérrez Zamora. The Mexican Revolution, which extended from 1910 to 1917, devastated the family fortune and compelled them to move to the town of Cuautitlán on the outskirts of Mexico City. Sequeyro studied at a French-English school in the capital and, at an unusually early age, began a career in cinema journalism in 1921.
The recent discovery (in the Agrasánchez Film Archives) of well-preserved 16mm copies of two films directed by Adela Sequeyro —Más allá de la muerte/Beyond Death (1935) and La mujer de nadie/Nobody’s Woman(1937)— sparked an overdue reevaluation of Sequeyro’s importance in the history of Mexican cinema. Before the discovery of these two films, Sequeyro was known primarily for her acting roles in Mexican silent film melodramas and as a journalist whose work appeared in many Mexico City newspapers and periodicals.


As C.I. and Ava continued to throw out titles and names, we saw that the "W" in Wikipedia really does stand for White and we agree that it has more than lived up to the nickname Ava and C.I. long ago gave it in the early days of this site: Crapapedia.

Jim's World

With the exception of the weekend we were in DC (2007) covering a protest, we've never had an edition go up later.  And I'm making it go up even later because I decided to write a solo piece.

I need to go over a few basics.

1) Thank you for invitations to Twitter or Linc-whatever or whatever.

However, we don't Tweet.  We're online here.  The only one in the community that even Facebooks is Ann.

2) In July, we changed our e-mail address to thethirdestatesundayreview@yahoo.com.

No one checks the old one.  We were hacked and we stopped using it.

Melvin E. wrote, "I have repeatedly written you and have had no response, not an e-mail, not a response at the site.  I want to repeat what I have said one more time, your strength is in the television writing and you should confine yourself to that.  I have written you at [] 16 times in the last two months.  Now I see a new e-mail address.  I would suggest that you go back and change your e-mail address on past articles."

I edited out our old address since we no longer use it.

Ava and C.I.'s TV writing is wonderful, yes.  It is also our most popular feature.  And it is our calling card.  But I doubt we could put together a weekly edition about television week after week.

3) Melvin's e-mail made me log into our old account.  I couldn't even remember the password.  Ty couldn't remember, I was saying, "Does anyone know --" when C.I. interrupted me with the password.

I was surprised to see that Melvin isn't the only one still using the old e-mail address. I'm not going to go through old articles and change our e-mail address.  Sorry.  I don't have the time and they're a record of what our address was at that point in time.  Our new address is on our profile and included often in articles.

Most of the e-mails at the old account were not ones I felt regret over having not seen.  Catherine Jones' "Important message from God" was, in fact, neither important nor from God.

A few of the e-mails were from readers and I dashed off a quick note.  Ten were from outlets or organizations and I replied to them to inform them of our new addresses.  But most readers have grasped that our e-mail address changed.

4) There is a thing called the spam folder.  Yahoo puts some e-mails in our inbox and some in our spam folder.

We only check the spam folder about once a month.  And "we" is me and Ty.  If Ty's on vacation, sick or just needs a break, Ava and C.I. will work the inbox but otherwise they never read e-mails and only know what Ty passes on.

'But I loved their ____ and I wrote 15 paragraphs on it!'

And Ty or I enjoyed reading it and conveyed it in some form to them.

But they don't read the fan mail.  Too much praise makes them nervous.  They prefer to stay focused on what they're doing and not what they've done and they argue that's the only way they've managed to write a piece every week -- at least one -- for over 9 years now.

When I've made the mistake of offering how many page views a TV article got, for instance, the only effect it has had is to (a) make them nervous and (b) make them deliberately write in a different way to ensure that they're not playing a popularity game of trying to repeat what was successful for popularity sake.

5) Jonathan K. e-mails, "I am a longterm reader who's been with this site for years and years but I must object to the current TV illustration using Barack Obama.  I find it to be disrespectful.  Please reconsider using it."

This is the illustration he's referring to.







That is a screen snap from a speech by Barack that was then put through the oil paint effect in Photo Shop.
We had another one of Barack that we used before that.  We have a Diane Sawyer one that I made (or oil painted or whatever effect in Photo Shop).  But Ava and C.I. said it would appear to be promoting ABC World News and since they sometimes cover news programming, they didn't want to have to explain how there was no conflict of interest because they weren't promoting . . .

Before that?

Well the first illustrations for Ava and C.I.'s articles . . .

Let me back up.  We used Isaiah's cartoons here many times in the early days.  We still do.  But those were the first illustrations that went up here.  Then Jess (who was and is involved with Ava) felt that since Ava and C.I.'s TV pieces were regular, weekly pieces and so popular, they should have their own illustration.

He did spin art and some other things.  He would also Photo Shop his artwork.

That's one example of art that Jess created for the TV articles.  Only one of many early examples.

At some point in 2007, this became the illustration.





The White House had teleconferenced with Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki.  I don't remember if this was from a video (a screen snap) or just a photo.  The backs of the three people?  It's Condi Rice, Bully Boy Bush and I think Dick Cheney.  They're looking at a TV screen where Nouri's speaking to them.

When Jess came up with this, they thought it was perfect.

So perfect that, as late as 2009, they were still using it.


At some point in 2010, this became the image for the TV articles.




What Ava and C.I. liked was that it had the viewer all in the shot.  More and more, people watch TV online, so they liked that.  What they didn't like was that the Photo Shop effect -- I believe it was oil painting, Jess and Ty did it --  has that red dot.  No one ever complained in an e-mail but Ava and C.I. were sure someone would misread it and start griping.

Which was why I came up with the Diane Sawyer image to begin with.

At some point, Jess came up with this.





Ava and C.I. loved that.  They wish it was still being used.

It's a TV screen and it's an eye.  But it only became both of those things in Photo Shop.

It was very popular but we felt it was time for an update and have been using the one that "longterm reader" Jonathan is bothered by.

If Jonathan is a "longterm reader," he has a very bad memory.  The current image was not our first usage of a Barack image.  And if he's concerned about disrespect of the office, he should have objected in the three or so years we used the image of Bully Boy Bush.

But if we're disrespectful, if Jonathan's right about that?

Good.

There's far too much worship of public servants -- especially ones in the Oval Office.

Barack is worshipped, Bully Boy Bush was before him.  Seems like the last Oval Office occupant people could be somewhat honest about was President Bill Clinton.

6) Nardo e-mailed insisting, "I don't understand why you have to be so gay all the time.  Every article at your site is about gay this or gay that.  Why do you have to push homosexual rights so much?  You and the other homosexual advocates do little to convince the rest of us who are the majority of this country."

Hmm.  First up, I'd note that Third is Dona, Ty, Jess, me, Ava and C.I.  (I word it that way because Ava and C.I. are a writing team and they've also become a hugely popular search term.)  Ty is gay.  That's not a secret.  He and his boyfriend have been together since college.  They live at C.I.'s house and have for years now.  Before Ty moved to California, he lived with Jess and me.  Ty isn't just a friend, he's family.  And so not only is Ty going to speak out for equality, we all are going to.  Betty, Ruth, Marcia and Stan join us in the writing of many articles here.  Betty's brother is gay, Ruth's grandson Jayson is gay, Marcia is gay and Stan is her cousin.  So there are additional connections.

That said, while we are strongly pro-equality, I'm confused as to where this assertion that we have all these gay articles is coming from?

I told that to Ty and C.I. and we will have a gay article this edition.  Ty was joking about a gay porn topic or issue and C.I. had told him he should write a piece on that.  Ty had brushed off the suggestion but thanks to this assertion that all we do is promote gay rights, Ty says he's got to write the piece now.

In terms of TV, if they're doing a history of piece, Ava and C.I. will often note Ellen and her coming out and her sitcom.  When Happy Endings debuted, Ava and C.I. were the first to hail Adam Pally's Max as a breakthrough gay character. They wrote about the TV show Partners once and included it in two other pieces.  They've probably noted Sean Saves The World four or five times now this year (including this week's edition).  They wrote about that bad show Ellen Barkin ruined -- they wrote about that probably three times. The New Normal, Jess just told me the name of the show.  They think Will & Grace is one of the great sitcoms of all time.  They wrote at least two pieces on it when the show was still in production (one tearing it apart for the awful concluding episode) and they've mentioned it since.  In November, they wrote "TV: Gay characters: Two networks stand still while a third retreats."

It's an issue Ava and C.I. cover.  It's not the only issue they cover.  You do realize Ava and C.I., just by themselves, write over 52 TV or media pieces a year, right?  That they do at least one every week and several weeks they do more than one?  And that they've now been doing this for over nine years?

It's an issue they cover, it's far from the only issue they cover.

In terms of group pieces, I'm sure we've editorialized on many issues -- on many gay issues.  I know we did on marriage equality and I would argue we coined the phrase here.  I know we cover crimes against gay people in New York because we have friends from our old college who live there and will call us up and say, "Did you hear there was another hate crime?"

Ty's written pieces about his life.  Ava and Dona have done the same -- the two have both written about their pregnancies.  Ty's life and his partner are as valid as Ava's life and her partner (Jess) and Dona's life and her partner (me).

I wrote a piece about buying Ty his first gay porn magazine back in college.  We were roommates, Jess and I had our straight porn.  Ty was interested but had never bought.  So I went out and bought a magazine for him.

I've also written Jim's Worlds taking on the reporter for the Miami Herald, Joel Wing (twice), and others.

So my point here is I don't see how we're gay obsessed.

I'm not insulted,  Nardo's world seems to be either anti-gay or gay obsessed so I'd rather be on the gay obsessed side.  But while we are very pro equality, I'm just not seeing how every article we write is about promoting gay rights.

Maybe I'm missing something.

If so, that's fine because, again, if the choices are anti-gay or gay obsessed, I'll go with the second one.

If obesity is rising, blame poverty, profit and stress (UK Socialist Worker)

Repost from Great Britain's Socialist Worker:

If obesity is rising, blame poverty, profit and stress

The pressures of our sick society make healthy eating harder for ordinary people, explains John Parrington

---

The Change4Life obesity campaign targets individuals

---

Hardly a day goes by without some newspaper article giving tips about how to lose weight by eating less and exercising more.  


But the message doesn’t seem to be having much effect according to a new report by the National Obesity Forum (NOF).


It was estimated in 2007 that half the British population would be obese by 2050.


Now the NOF has said this may be a dramatic “underestimate of the true scale of the problem”.


A government-sponsored campaign, Change4Life, is supposed to be tackling the problem.


But the new report says a much more “hard-hitting approach” is needed, akin to that used against smoking.


So how worried should we be? And why do existing campaigns seem so ineffective?


There are good reasons to be alarmed at the current trend. Becoming obese significantly increases the risk of becoming afflicted by diabetes, stroke, heart disease and cancer.


Why should carrying around more fat pose such a health risk? One reason is that fat cells also secrete hormones.


Some of these send signals to the parts of the brain that control appetite.


Others regulate the metabolism of organs such as the heart and liver.


When people become obese, fat cells stop functioning normally and their hormonal output becomes abnormal.

This can cause excess fat to build up in heart and blood vessels, increasing the risk of stroke and heart disease.


The ability of insulin to control blood sugar is impaired, leading to diabetes. And the hormonal imbalance leads to greater susceptibility to certain cancers.


Imbalance


Unfortunately losing weight is far from straightforward.


The hormonal changes that occur in obese people do not simply reverse when they lose weight.


Instead chemical signals  indicating to the brain that the person should be eating more to regain their former weight persist.


But the difficulties faced by those losing weight are only partially due to biology.


The pressures of capitalist society are just as important. And those pressures are also central to the alarming rise in obesity.


The cheap processed foods that now line so many supermarket aisles make huge profits for the giant food companies.


And ironically the same firms market many “diet” products that have no nutritional or scientific basis.


Some say it is the responsibility of the individual to eat healthily. But healthy foodstuffs are increasingly out of the price range of many people as wages and benefits are slashed.


And finding the time to cook from scratch is increasingly difficult for workers forced to put in more hours for less pay.


A recent report showed how increasing numbers of low-income families hit by savage cuts in benefits can’t even afford to pay for the fuel to cook.


Importantly, “comfort eating” can also fulfil a psychological role, as the pressures in society mount.


Campaigns such as Change4Life point the finger at individuals rather than tackling the social causes of obesity. They may make it even harder for people by making them feel guilty about their weight.


And such guilt is reinforced by “perfect body” images in adverts and the media.


The fight for cheap, healthy food should be an integral part of the struggle for socialism.


But it will require taking on the food companies—and challenging a system that sacrifices the long-term health of society for profit.

Payments © Socialist Worker (unless otherwise stated). You may republish if you include an active link to the original.

Sherborne Publications Limited. Registered office: Marquis House, 68 Great North Road, Hatfield, Hertfordshire, AL9 5ER. Company Number 2652964 Email finance@sherbornepublications.co.uk Tel: 020 7819 1173. Terms & Conditions

Senator Ron Wyden on the illegal spying

Senator Ron Wyden's office issued the following last week:

Wyden Statement at Senate Intelligence Committee’s Open Hearing

Wednesday, January 29, 2014


WASHINGTON – U.S. Senator Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) delivered the following statement prior to questioning senior Intelligence Community officials during the Senate Intelligence Committee’s open hearing. Wyden is a senior member of the Intelligence committee.


“The men and women of America’s intelligence agencies are overwhelmingly dedicated professionals and they deserve to have leadership that is trusted by the American people. Unfortunately, that trust has been seriously undermined by senior officials’ reckless reliance on secret interpretations of the law and battered by years of misleading and deceptive statements that senior officials made to the American people. These statements did not protect sources and methods that were useful in fighting terror. Instead they hid bad policy choices and violations of the liberties of the American people.

For example, the director of the NSA said publicly that the NSA doesn’t hold data on U.S. citizens. That was obviously untrue.  Justice Department officials testified that section 215 of the Patriot Act is analogous to grand jury subpoena authority. And that deceptive statement was made on multiple occasions. Officials also suggested that the NSA doesn’t have the authority to read Americans’ emails without a warrant but the FISA court opinions declassified last August showed that wasn’t true either.

For purposes of trying to move this dialogue along, because I don’t think this culture of misinformation is going to be easily fixed, I’d like to get into several other areas where the government’s interpretation of the law is still unclear.”


The statement and subsequent questions may be viewed below or here:

Why each $1.3 million GM invests creates just one job (WW)

Repost from Workers World:

Why each $1.3 million GM invests creates just one job

By Fred Goldstein on February 3, 2014

On Dec. 13, General Motors announced with great fanfare that it was going to invest $1.3 billion, mostly in Flint, Mich., to “create or preserve” 1,000 jobs. The company did not say how many of the jobs would be preserved — how many workers would be saved from layoffs — and how many would be new.


Giving GM the benefit of the doubt, let’s say that all those 1,000 are new jobs. Do the math and you find that each added job takes a $1.3 million investment. If only 500 new jobs resulted, that would be an investment of $2.6 million per job.


In fact, GM says that it has invested $10.1 billion in operations since it emerged from bankruptcy in 2009 and that this has “created or kept” 26,500 jobs — or $380,000 per job.


At this rate of hiring, the hundreds of thousands of autoworkers and other workers laid off during the economic crisis in Michigan have little to cheer about. The mass of workers in Detroit, who face the destruction of their city and severely high rates of poverty and unemployment, can take little solace in the announcement by GM billionaires that they have “created or preserved” 1,000 jobs.


With Gov. Rick “right-to-work-for-less” Snyder on the platform together with United Auto Workers officials, GM announced it would put $600 million into a new paint shop at the Flint assembly plant. It also designated $493 million for a new 10-speed transmission at the Romulus Powertrain plant. And there was $121 million for a new “logistics optimization center” at the Detroit-Hamtramck plant.


Paint shops in the auto industry are highly automated. GM will undoubtedly put in the most modern equipment at the transmission plant. And the logistics optimization center is focused on cutting jobs out of the supply chain. So much for job creation.


This GM situation illustrates that the new high-tech era has made investment so expensive that creating new jobs has become monumentally difficult under the capitalist profit system.


Irreversible mass unemployment


This is something that Karl Marx pointed out over 150 years ago when he analyzed the capitalist system and its laws of development. Marx explained that as the capitalist system develops, the struggle of the capitalists for profits throws them into competition with each other. In this competition each one tries to introduce technology that compels fewer workers to turn out more and more products or services in less and less time.


This law has been confirmed by developments over the last 60 years. Bloomberg’s Business Week, voice of the billionaires, ran an article in its Jan. 27 edition crudely entitled “Factory Jobs Are Gone. Get Over It.”


The article showed that manufacturing output in the U.S. has more than tripled since 1953. At that time there were 16 million manufacturing workers. In 2012 there were only 12 million. So output went up by 300 percent while employment went down by 25 percent. Productivity in manufacturing, or output per worker per hour, went up 189 percent just between 1980 and 2012.


The scientific-technological race by the bosses — which forces fewer workers to be more productive and raises production so the company can capture more market share from its rivals — has reached the stage at which permanent mass unemployment and underemployment have become irreversible.


What goes for GM goes for the entire auto industry, for manufacturing and for the capitalist economy in
general.


GM, like Ford, Chrysler, GE, Caterpillar, IBM, Walmart, McDonald’s and other corporate giants that dominate the system, cannot invest anywhere near enough to employ the tens of millions of unemployed and underemployed.


This is the age of low-wage capitalism. Low wages are being imposed throughout the capitalist system. Fast food workers, big-box store workers, airport workers, janitors, nursing home workers, home health care workers, security guards, and tens of millions of others work for survival wages. Even the new workers who will be hired at GM will be making $13.50 or $14.50 an hour — less than $30,000 a year.


The needs of capital are to make profits. The bosses will hire only enough workers to fit their profit needs. Capital is so productive now that if it were to expand its production, it would rapidly create far more goods than the mass of the working class could buy. So the bosses hold back on investment, which means holding back on hiring or resorting to firing where that will “create or preserve” their profits.


In his fundamental work, “Wage-Labor and Capital,” Marx wrote about this process of using technology against the workers in the war for profits.


“This war has the peculiarity that its battles are won less by recruiting than by discharging the army of labor. The generals, the capitalists, compete with one another as to who can discharge the most soldiers of industry.”

Instead of applauding the bosses for creating a handful of jobs, they should be denounced for the millions of jobs they have destroyed and the millions of workers they have driven into poverty, low-wage jobs, and lives of permanent suffering and insecurity.

Goldstein is the author of “Low-Wage Capitalism” and “Capitalism at a Dead End,” which has been translated into Spanish as “El capitalismo en un callejón sin salida.”

Books available at Amazon.

Articles copyright 1995-2014 Workers World. Verbatim copying and distribution is permitted in any medium without royalty provided this notice is preserved.