Happy Bastille Day! "Liberty consists in the freedom to do everything which injures no one else"

Today, July 14, is La Fête Nationale in France, or, as it is better known in the Anglophone world, Bastille Day.  It is the French equivalent of the US “Fourth of July,” commemorating the storming of the Bastille in Paris in 1789.  The Bastille was both a military fortress and a political prison, thus becoming a lightning rod for the French Revolution and those who sought to overthrow the feudal system.

Shortly thereafter (August 4) feudalism was abolished, and on August 26, the Déclaration des droits de l’homme et du citoyen (Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen) was proclaimed.  The Declaration serves as France’s counterpart to America’s “Bill of Rights” (see below).   National Celebrations will take place this weekend not only throughout France, but in New York City in Brooklyn’s Cobble Hill neighborhood, Soho, and on East 60^th Street. Other noteworthy celebrations (in no particular order) take place in Seattle, Washington; Milwaukee, Wisconsin; Philadelphia, Pennsylvania;  Liège, Belgium; Montréal, Québec; New Orleans, Louisiana; Budapest, Hungary; London, England; Franschoek, South Africa; St. Thomas, U.S. Virgin Islands; and Cayenne, French Guiana.

Bonne Fête à touts nos amis français!

Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen

 Men are born and remain free and equal in rights. Social distinctions may be founded only upon the general good.

1. The aim of all political association is the preservation of the natural and imprescriptible rights of man. These rights are liberty, property, security, and resistance to oppression.
2. The principle of all sovereignty resides essentially in the nation. No body nor individual may exercise any authority which does not proceed directly from the nation.
3. Liberty consists in the freedom to do everything which injures no one else; hence the exercise of the natural rights of each man has no limits except those which assure to the other members of the society the enjoyment of the same rights. These limits can only be determined by law.
4. Law can only prohibit such actions as are hurtful to society. Nothing may be prevented which is not forbidden by law, and no one may be forced to do anything not provided for by law.
5. Law is the expression of the general will. Every citizen has a right to participate personally, or through his representative, in its foundation. It must be the same for all, whether it protects or punishes. All citizens, being equal in the eyes of the law, are equally eligible to all dignities and to all public positions and occupations, according to their abilities, and without distinction except that of their virtues and talents.
6. No person shall be accused, arrested, or imprisoned except in the cases and according to the forms prescribed by law. Any one soliciting, transmitting, executing, or causing to be executed, any arbitrary order, shall be punished. But any citizen summoned or arrested in virtue of the law shall submit without delay, as resistance constitutes an offense.
7. The law shall provide for such punishments only as are strictly and obviously necessary, and no one shall suffer punishment except it be legally inflicted in virtue of a law passed and promulgated before the commission of the offense.
8. As all persons are held innocent until they shall have been declared guilty, if arrest shall be deemed indispensable, all harshness not essential to the securing of the prisoner's person shall be severely repressed by law.
9. No one shall be disquieted on account of his opinions, including his religious views, provided their manifestation does not disturb the public order established by law.
10. The free communication of ideas and opinions is one of the most precious of the rights of man. Every citizen may, accordingly, speak, write, and print with freedom, but shall be responsible for such abuses of this freedom as shall be defined by law.
11. The security of the rights of man and of the citizen requires public military forces. These forces are, therefore, established for the good of all and not for the personal advantage of those to whom they shall be entrusted.
12. A common contribution is essential for the maintenance of the public forces and for the cost of administration. This should be equitably distributed among all the citizens in proportion to their means.
13. All the citizens have a right to decide, either personally or by their representatives, as to the necessity of the public contribution; to grant this freely; to know to what uses it is put; and to fix the proportion, the mode of assessment and of collection and the duration of the taxes.
14. Society has the right to require of every public agent an account of his administration.
15. A society in which the observance of the law is not assured, nor the separation of powers defined, has no constitution at all.
16. Property being an inviolable and sacred right, no one can be deprived of it, unless demanded by public necessity, legally constituted, explicitly demands it, and under the condition of a just and prior indemnity.

Green Party's Jill Stein chooses Cheri Honkala for VP

Green Party Presidential candidate Jill Stein announced at the Green Party National Convention this week that she has chosen Cheri Honkala, “the nation’s leading anti-poverty advocate,” as her Vice-Presidential running mate.

The Green Party expects to be on the ballot in 45 states this election, and, along with Libertarian Party candidate Gary Johnson,  could make the difference in key swing states such as New Mexico.  In 2000, Ralph Nader did well enough as the Green Party candidate to anger many Democrats who thought he took key votes from Al Gore, thus throwing the election to Bush.  The Green Party, with a thoroughly ‘pedigreed’ Progressive platform, may also take votes from Barack Obama, who has sought to placate liberals while keeping a Clintonesque centrist stance on many issues.

Stein and Honkala promise a “Green New Deal,” that like FDRs original New Deal, would create 25 million jobs, as well as downsize the military, restore civil liberties lost under the Patriot Act and NDAA, legalize marijuana, and guarantee college education for everyone.

 

Honkala is the national coordinator for the Poor People’s Economic Human Rights Campaign, an advocacy group led by poor and homeless people. She ran for sheriff in Philadelphia last year.

“Compelled by her own experience as a homeless, single mom, Honkala has spent nearly three decades working directly alongside the poor to build the movement to end poverty, and has organized tens of thousands of people to take action via marches, demonstrations and tent cities,” Stein’s campaign said in its announcement.

Honkala said, “It’s immoral that children are hungry and homeless in the richest country in the world. It’s time for the 99% to stand united to serve our collective human needs instead of selfish, corporate greed. The Green Party is the only one standing up to Wall Street, and Jill Stein’s Green New Deal is the best plan for saving this sinking ship. I’m honored to fight beside her.”

Episcopal Church Approves Same-Sex Blessings, Removes Transgender Bias

The Episcopal Church in the USA has just become the largest Christian denomination in America to approve Blessing Rites for same-sex marriage. In addition, the Church removed discriminatory barriers towards transgender individuals seeking to enter clerical service, specifically banning bias based on both “gender identity” and “gender expression.”

The Church, which has its roots in the Church of England, is meeting at its Triennial Convention in Indianapolis. It is comprised of two ‘chambers,’ a House of Bishops and a House of Deputies; the House of Deputies is itself comprised of clergy (priests) and elected laypersons from every diocese in America.  The measures had to pass muster with all three groups, and they did by large margins.

On Monday, July 9, the House of Bishops approved liturgical resources for blessing same gender relationships (known as Resolution A049)  by a lopsided vote of  111-41 with three abstentions. The new liturgy is considered provisional and its content will be reviewed over the next three years.

“That will mean different things in different locales,” Bishop Thomas Ely of the Diocese of Vermont said when discussing the resolution. “There is a place in this process for every Episcopalian regardless of their level of support for the material. Read it. Reflect upon it. Use it, but please don’t ignore it.”
Bishop Leo Frade of the Diocese of Southeast Florida evoked laughter and applause from both bishops and members of the crowded gallery when responding to an assertion that passage of the same-sex rites would drive Hispanics and Latinos from the church.

“The reality is that we, like everybody else, have gay children. We have gay parents. We have gay uncles. We are like everybody else. We process things the same way…you cannot generalize that Hispanics are going to run away from the Episcopal Church because we have a door that’s open. We are going to run from immigration that’s trying to deport us, but not from the Episcopal Church.”

With the approval of a same-sex blessing rite on Monday, the issue then was sent to the House of Deputies.  The vote, which took place in the last hour, broke down as follows:

Laity:  
Yes - 86
No - 19
Divided – 5 (meaning that the lay delegates in 5 dioceses split evenly, and so cast a single ‘divided’ vote)

Clergy:
Yes - 85
No - 22
Divided – 4 (same as above)


With that vote, the 2-million member strong Church approved same-sex Blessings.

Some in the media have questioned why the Church approved ‘Blessings,’ rather than calling it a “marriage rite,’ and have suggested a sort of second-class rite.  However, this misunderstands the current Episcopal approach to Marriage.

In much of the Episcopal Church, the clergy and bishops have urged a return to the original understanding of a division between the civil role and the spiritual/theological role of the Church in blessing unions.  Bishop V. Gene Robinson of New Hampshire, the first openly gay Bishop in the Church (whose election caused global repercussions within the Anglican Communion) urged churches in his diocese to consider conducting the civil “marriage ceremony’ in the rear of church buildings (representing governmental approval), and then arranging for the official Church spiritual Blessing at the altar in the front of the Church.  As the Church has no authority to change civil law, the liturgy approved is for Church use at the altar, regardless as to whether or not the civil law in that Diocese recognizes same-gender marriages. 


Deputies also adopted Resolution A050, authorizing a task force to study marriage. It calls for creation of a 12-member task force to study marriage, including needs for pastoral responses by clergy for same-sex couples in states where civil marriage is legal, as well as issues “raised by changing societal and cultural norms and legal structures.”

In addition, the House of Deputies agreed with the bishops to offer support for the transgender community by adding gender expression and identity to two canons that prevent discrimination. One makes clear that the ordination discernment process is open to them, and another guarantees their equal place in the life, worship and governance of the church.

Debate on Resolution D019, which addressed the canon titled “Extending the Rights of the Laity,” drew speakers who told of the need to make explicit the church’s welcome – using its slogan “The Episcopal Church Welcomes You” – to those who are transgender.

The Rev. Carla Robinson, deputy from Olympia, Washington, spoke as a transgender person of the importance of specifically including people like her. “By including gender identity and gender expression in this canon, you will rightly name us,” she said. “By naming us in this canon we as a church are continuing to incarnate the Christ-like welcome that is central to our way of faith, and to make it clear to the whole world that the gospel of God’s love in Jesus Christ is for everyone.”
Deputy Natalie Vanatta of Kansas said that as a lesbian her rights as a member of the church are protected under this canon, but they currently are not for transgender people. She said, “The trans community has stood and fought for the rest of the LGBTQ community time and time again, and I would not be living out my baptismal covenant if I did not do the same for them now.”

A vote by orders on this resolution was called, and 89 lay deputations and 92 clergy deputations (out of 109) voted yes.

The Episcopal Church – my Church -  has an official rite for the Blessing of Same Sex Unions.

Laus Deo!

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Con Ed Holds Labor, NYC Residents Hostage During Heat Wave

Electric Utility Consolidated Edison, which supplies electricity in New York City and Westchester County, has continued to lock out  8,500 workers for the second week in a row, despite a series of  brownouts (carefully directed at low-income neighborhoods in the Bronx and Brooklyn), manhole explosions, injuries to managers, a loss of electric capacity, and unprecedented heat wave.

Another Con Ed transformer exploded on Saturday underneath E. 56^th Street in busy midtown Manhattan, setting off an explosion in a parked vehicle and sending flames up the scaffolding around an adjacent 16-story building. This was the most recent in a series of accidents and injuries related to the lockout. Con Ed is attempting to maintain an overtaxed infrastructure with a force of 5,000 managers, who have been brought in to replace 8,500 locked-out workers. Two of these managers have already been hurt in accidents. Most recently, a Con Edison manager filling in for a locked out union worker was injured Wednesday in a manhole explosion on the Upper West Side.  His face was burned  when he was working underground in front of 145 W. 70th St. just after 1 p.m., according to the NY Fire Department said.  The Fire Dept expects that the explosions are directly related the current heat wave…exacerbated by the loss of a knowledgeable workforce in the field.

While brownouts continue in Brooklyn and the Bronx, Con Ed has removed locations of outages from its website and is providing little or no public information on the status of its systems.

"This is what we have been saying all along, that the company would run into these problems when the weather heats up. They needed to reduce voltage because they could not keep the system up," John Melia, a union spokesman, told Reuters.  "This is an extremely dangerous situation for the people of New York," Melia said, noting that replacement workers were getting hurt every day due to a lack of experience.

It should be noted that the workers did not go on strike; rather, they were locked out by Con Ed Management.

Con Ed, which made a billion dollars in profits last year, is demanding substantial concessions in health care and pensions from the union that negotiates for the workers, the Utility Workers Union of America (UWUA) Local 1-2. The company locked the workers out July 1 when the union did not agree to give advanced notice of possible strike action. Meanwhile, CEO Kevin Burke received at least 11 million dollars in compensation in 2011 in cash and stock options. In fact, all of Con Ed’s Officers make over three-quarters of a million dollars each.

Jose Torres, a locked-out union worker with five years service at Con Ed, said, “The issues in the lockout are wages, pensions and health care. They are trying to break our wages down to nothing. They want to give us a 1.5 percent wage increase over a four-year contract.”

One Con Ed customer service representative said, “I’m not very happy about this. I was here Saturday night when the contract expired. I thought it was going to be OK until 2 AM. There were about 150 of us here at about 10 PM. Union reps let us know what was happening. At midnight they kept talking, and it still sounded good. Then Con Ed locked us out.

The work here is not like Verizon where they can turn people off with a switch. We have to go to every location to turn a customer’s power back on and repair the wires. I don’t think management can handle a big power surge or a blackout. They don’t have enough people to handle this. I would say only 2,500 of their 5,000 could do field work.

 Con Ed has already threatened lives and caused widespread suffering by calling the lockout on Saturday. We always send teams to help out with power outages and disasters around the country. With last week’s storm along the East Coast, power was out in New Jersey and on Long Island and many other places for long periods of time. Con Ed locked us out so we couldn’t send out teams as we regularly do, and the people along the East Coast were forced to suffer with power outages and breakdowns longer than they should have because of Con Ed’s action…

 They should leave the pensions alone. We do a dangerous job. You have to go down in manholes where there are live wires. The firefighters and police don’t go down there. Sometimes there are explosions and fires. People call the fire department when this happens, but they don’t go down in the manholes. If it is 100 degrees up on the street, it is 130 down in the manholes. There is the same kind of danger dealing with transformers and wires up on the poles. We come out to fix them, not the Fire Department or police. They should leave our pension like it is.”

Another worker reporter,

“They have stopped our health benefits. I have heart trouble, and I was supposed to go for a stress test. Oh my god. I am disappointed that none of the politicians have come out to condemn this. I know a family whose daughter needs constant medical care. She needs a number of medications and care. This might stop because Con Ed stopped our health care, and the father is the only one in the family working…. We are aware that all the other unions are watching this. We know this is critical. Everyone is looking at us, and we can’t let them take this back. I look at this personally as a civil rights struggle. Enough is enough, and I’m not going to take it anymore. In an ideal world, all the other unions would come out with us, especially Verizon and transit. We are making a stand, and I am asking all other unions to come out and support us. I don’t think the union leadership will issue a call for others to come out because they are too close to the company. But we shall overcome. We have to. It is do or die.”

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[It should be noted that under the federal Taft-Hartley Act of 1947, “sympathy strikes,” where a union strikes in solidarity with another union’s treatment, are illegal.]

Recession is NOT over: "Hard Times on Long Island"

 

As an Economist, I have been *insisting* that the "Recession" has not ended. Government practice is to claim that a Recession is taking place when Gross Domestic Product ("GDP"), the summed value of all goods and services created in a society's economy, falls for two quarters in a row.  Since the GDP appears to be growing at a paltry1% - 3%, they claim the recession is 'over.'

Unfortunately, the purely number-based approach to calculating GDP ignores the distribution of that growth (Is Goldman Sachs selling 5% more investment instruments, while more Americans lose jobs?), as well as the quality of that growth ($1 million dollars worth of new military hardware is considered 'better' than only a half million dollars worth of new health care provided).  The pure numbers ignore what is happening 'here on the ground.'  And while gigantic financial firms got bailed out with tax dollars from the Federal Government for risky and unethical practices, these same firms are foreclosing on American's homes at unprecedented rates (I always thought that if the Feds were going to 'give' money to banks, it should have been *required8 that all funds be used to pay up all overdue mortgages, thus saving a crumbling middle class while still infusing cash into the banking system).

Finally, a documentary by Blowback Productions, puts a "Human Face" on the suggestion that the recession is over by chronicling the lives of four families from my old stomping grounds: Long Island, New York. Due to air on HBO this Monday (July 9), Blowback issued the following promotional piece:

"The Great Recession "officially" ended in the summer of 2009, but for 25 million unemployed and underemployed Americans the fallout continues. For too many, their middle-class life has been foreclosed and their dreams have turned into nightmares. Sadly, their stories have too often been ignored. In a strange way they have been “disappeared,” evicted from our collective conscience – a permanent new underclass of long-term unemployed.

Located on Long Island, the birthplace of the post-war suburban American Dream, this documentary follows the story of the long-term unemployed and the shrinking of the middle class by chronicling the lives of four families. Starting in the Summer of 2010, which was supposed to be the summer of recovery, and continuing through the holiday season six months later, we witness the growing difficulties and despair as these people search in vain for employment while their plight and pain are too often invisible to the political and media elite.

This film hopes to remind us of their humanity and restore respect and dignity to their struggle.

Monday July 9th @ 9 PM Eastern on HBO "

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On America's Birthday: A "Thank You!" to France

For some reason I will never fully comprehend, there is a tendency among Americans – at least, among self-described flag-waving, ‘patriotic’ types – to roll their eyes and make dismissive comments when it comes to the French, or international politics involving France.  There is almost a knee-jerk ‘put-down of Things French….the way some New Yorkers refer to New Jersey….

But the reality is, the American Revolution – which is embodied in this holiday we call Independence Day – was not an American victory.  In spite of all of our civil mythology about the brave souls at Lexington and Concord, the brutal winter at Valley Forge, escaping from Brooklyn in the fog, Washington Crossing the Delaware, the Battle of Ticonderoga, ...the American Revolution was, at the least,  a Franco-American victory – and one could easily argue that it was largely a French victory.

A mere five months after the Continental Congress adopted the Declaration of Independence, Benjamin Franklin was dispatched to France (December of 1776) to gain an alliance with the French.  Within weeks, French support of the Americans’ cause was being organized.

King Louis XVI and his foreign minister, the compte de Vergennes arranged for the large-scale sale of  gunpowder and ammunition to the colonists,  who had little capacity for mass production. The French arranged for the undercover use of a Portuguese shipping company to smuggle arms through the Dutch West Indies island of St. Eustatius.  If not for this channel of arms deals, George Washington could not have lasted a year.  In fact, British General Burgoyne’s defeat in the Champlain region of New York occurred entirely at the hands of American marksmen  - firing French ammunition.

 

In 1777,  Marie-Joseph Paul Yves Roch Gilbert du Motier, Marquis de La Fayette sailed for  America at his own expense (the Americans had already run out of money) and became a Major-General in the Continental Army and an aide-de-camp to Gen. George Washington at Valley Forge. He uncovered a plot to dismiss Washington, and secured the alliance of the Oneida Tribe for the colonists.  By February 6, 1778, France formally recognized the United States and signed a Treaty of Alliance, leading to numerous engagements between British and French ships in Europe. Lafayette recognized how outnumbered the Americans were, and  returned to France to recruit additional forces.

In the meantime,  the French (under d’Estaing) made attempts at capturing Newport, Rhode Island and Savannah, Georgia.  While unsuccessful, the efforts involved more French forces than American, and gave an early indication of the price France would pay for helping the Americans.

 
By March 1780, Lafayette returned from France and landed in Boston with his recruits: 5,500 men and 5 frigates.  In addition to Lafayette’s forces, the Americans received another French ally: Jean-Baptiste Donatien de Vimeur, Comte de Rochambeau, who arrived in Newport, RI with 7,000 troops and was given the rank of Lt. General in the Continental Army. Rochambeau actually commanded a larger force than George Washington. Rochambeau met up with Washington in Wethersfield, Connecticut to plan a decisive assault on the British.

Washington wanted to drive the British out of both New York City and the Chesapeake Bay, but Rochambeau believed that the Chesapeake would be a more strategic battle. Either way, the Generals determined that additional naval forces would be needed for either effort, and Rochambeau dispatched a request to 

French Navy Lt. General François-Joseph Paul, marquis de Grasse Tilly, comte de Grasse, commander of the French West Indies forces, to sail to the Chesapeake.  Rochambeau and Washington then restaged their forces in White Plains and Dobbs Ferry, NY. 

De Grasse received the letters in July, agreed with Rochambeau’s analysis, and set sail. At the same time, British General Lord Cornwallis was setting up a major British military presence in the Chesapeake and Potomoc area of Virginia, but was being contained and harassed In Yorktown by Lafayette, who had confronted and contained him there. Washington and Rochambeau set out on a combined march to Virginia, while Cornwallis waited for additional supplies from the British Navy.

 In September 1781, Washington and Rochambeau met up with the Marquis de Lafayette's troops. 
Within days, De Grasse’s naval fleet reached the Chesapeake as planned. The British fleet arrived to deliver supplies to Cornwallis, only to find themselves in a battle with de Grasse for control of the bay in the Battle of the Chesapeake.  The naval battle was a decisive win for the French. 

On September 28, 1781, with DeGrasse’s French fleet blockading the British reinforcements, the combined forces of Rochambeau, Lafayette, and Washington laid siege to Lord Cornwallis’ forces. 

Cornwallis surrendered on October 19, 1781, and American Independence was won.

Ammunition, military expertise, troops, naval power….all were brought to bear by France…and without French participation, there would have been no American victory.  So the next time you have an inclination to say something smug about France or French military capabilities….a  "merci, mes frères!"  might be more appropriate.

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