Labor unions have always been under assault by the company bosses and their cohorts in government. This connection reveals that the government does not serve the people; it serves business interests, the elite. It is thus evidence not of democracy, but of Plutocracy. Organized labor has long been at the center of the vortex of class warfare that has always plagued America. On numerous occasions in our nation's long struggle for social justice, the state and federal militia were called forth to shoot dead striking workers while protecting the assets of businesses that often brutalized and murdered union organizers and workers alike.

So much of what we believe about America is based upon falsehoods and distortions-a viewpoint that lacks historical perspective. This way of thinking allows us to see only small segments of isolated events, out of context from the great matrix of the historical whole. Our situation is akin to catching a glimpse of a person's fingernail and being required to describe that person's religious philosophy. It is a difficult proposition that is unlikely to provide accuracy or useful results. Historical perspective is all important to understanding current events.

The demise of strong unions occurred for several reasons. Unionism has been under assault by corporate America since their inception. Keeping ordinary people apart has always worked in the interest of Plutocracy. Unions have fallen victim to widespread campaigns of propaganda as orchestrated by their business adversaries. Keeping workers isolated prevents insurrection. Isolated workers are without power and at the mercy of their employers. They are virtually without voice and have no legal redress of their grievances.

The unions themselves also played a role in their own demise by selling out to their adversaries in business. Union officials are all too often corrupt and easily bribed. Workers instinctively know when they have been betrayed. When unions lost their militant edge and became bureaucracies, they lost their effectiveness and their clout with the workers they represent.

There was a period in American history when companies feared unions. In the past, unions wielded considerable power. They had honor and integrity and understood that they were embroiled in class warfare. The Wobblies sought not only to democratize the world place-their objective was to end capitalism and remake society in a democratic image, rather than the existing Plutocracy. Eugene Debs referred to this kind of organizing as 'Revolutionary Unionism.' Debs and others recognized that justice could never be had in a system that was inherently unjust. It is a shame that the relatively weak and ineffectual unions of today no longer have this perspective.

I do not mean to say that there are not good and strong unions today-there are. But they are few in number and becoming increasingly rare. The work place and society at large are intimately connected. If there is inequality in one, how can there by justice in the other? The Industrial Workers of the World, like the Wobblies of old, is perhaps the only extant union that retains this radical and revolutionary perspective. This is the kind of unionism that we need-one that represents workers without crawling in bed with the employers, while simultaneously seeking to end capitalism. In these times of severe decline in union membership, it is no accident that the IWW is actually growing.

The working class people of today must relearn the lessons of history. We must understand, like the workers of old, that the working class and the employing class have nothing in common. Keeping workers isolated assures the continuation of the present system that exploits labor, while concentrating and privatizing wealth; which in turn creates socioeconomic class divisions known as Plutocracy. Unions unite workers, employers divide and conquer; they keep the profits of labor to themselves by compensating workers minimally in wages and benefits. The end of strong unions assures low wages, poor benefits, and harsh working conditions for the workers; higher profits for the corporations and obscene wealth for their CEOs. We see this in the Wal-Mart model that is driving down wages on a global scale.

By busting unions and preventing their reformation, employers have created a work place that in essence is a master-slave relationship. 'At will' employees have few rights in the work place, and they have no legal redress of their grievances. It is a situation that gives extraordinary power to the employer by usurping it from the employee. Since the same situation prevails throughout the country, it is of little benefit to the worker to migrate from one work place to another-they are virtually all the same. The problem is rooted in capitalism. This is industrial slavery in its purest form. Let us recognize it for what it is and call it by its rightful name.

The visionary union leadership of the past, like that embodied by Eugene Debs, realized that the workplace and the country could not be separated-they were one and the same. Debs understood that a free and democratic society could not be achieved without first creating a free and democratic work place. The key to creating democracy within the construct of the existing Plutocracy lay in democratizing the work place. That is still the problem, but we rarely see the issue framed in this way. We lack historical perspective.

Debs also recognized that allowing the private ownership of the means of livelihood would assure the continuance of Plutocratic rule, rather than promoting democracy. And this is the crux of the problem today. Private ownership of livelihood creates what is essentially a system of wage slavery. It gives rise to the class system and the concentration of wealth and power at the top of the socioeconomic ladder, by taking from all of those below the top. It robs workers of their freedom and their dignity. It reduces them to being the property of their employers and often subjects them to tyranny.

Eugene Debs understood that if a man owns the means by which you live, that man is not your employer-he is your master; and you are his slave. One's livelihood, like the genetic blueprint for life itself, should not be privately owned. The genetic library-life's blueprint-belongs to the world; being non-man created, it cannot be privately owned. The same is true of the people's right of livelihood-it is public property. Nevertheless, we see corporations that are applying for patents for the private ownership of genetic codes they did not and cannot create. This demonstrates the absurdity of capitalism.

As the history of labor makes clear, working class people have always been exploited and abused by the ruling elite. Wealthy capitalists have long fomented the wars in which working class people serve and die. War generates enormous wealth, and guaranteed profits without risk for those who wage them. Witness the obscene profits that are being generated by America's defense contractors. Dick Cheney's Halliburton and the Bush and Bin Laden Family's Carlyle Group are raking in billions, while our sons and daughters sacrifice their lives at the altar of greed, believing it is for democracy.

The generation of corporate wealth through the sacrifice of the blood of our youth, has nothing to do with democracy or liberation. It has everything to do with class warfare; the rich preying upon the poor whom they hold in bitter contempt. What are the lives of a few thousand working stiffs to the ruling Plutocrats? War is never fought for noble purposes-it is about lining the pockets of the already wealthy. It is tainted money, stained with the blood of our children and our loved ones.

While our babies are dying by the thousands in places like Iraq, and are killing our Iraqi brethren, rich white men are realizing obscene profits. Our lives, our hopes and fears, mean nothing to these people. They do not see us as their equals; they see us as their servants, as cheap disposable and replaceable property. Few of us are willing to face this awful truth, but history bears me out. War produces wealth for the rich; it produces misery and suffering for the rest of us. Let us see it for what it is.

The enemy attacks us from within, not from foreign borders, as we are lead to believe. The enemies of democracy, the foes of freedom, are those who profit from the misery and suffering of others. They do not wear turbans and speak in foreign tongues. You will find them in the White House and roaming the halls of Congress. They masquerade as servants of the people; but they are servants of class and privilege. They are the masters of war, purveyors of Plutocracy. They are the enemies of the people. See them for what they are; judge them by what they do, not what they say.

Once again, as it always has, it boils down to the fact that working class people have nothing in common with the ruling class. The wealthy have always been our tormentors and our oppressors. They believe that they are superior to the rest of us, as evidenced by the policies they enact against us.

Safe in their luxurious mansions, the masters of war send their servants to bleed and to die in the dust. They tell them they are serving their country. They tell them they are fighting for democracy, which makes the enterprise sound noble and humane. But that is not what they are fighting for. They are fighting for the continued enslavement of the poor by the rich-Plutocratic rule through coercion and brute force.

America will know no peace at home or abroad until we resolve the slavery issue. We live in a class society in which the rich prey upon and subjugate the poor of this and all nations. There are but two classes-rich and poor, employers and workers; rulers and servants. Do not take my word for it. Look around you. Weigh the evidence and make up your own mind.

Ask yourself: Does the president behave like a servant of the people; or does he resemble an emperor? Ask the same question of Bill Frist, Hillary Clinton, and all of our so called public servants. Who do their policies benefit? Who is working for whom? Do they live like you? What kind of health insurance do they have? How do their benefits compare to your own? Do they have money worries? Are their children getting killed in Iraq? How do their retirement pensions compare to your own?

This is not a democrat versus republican issue. Nor is it a conservative versus liberal issue, as it is so often portrayed. It is a class issue and it needs to be addressed as such.

The first step toward emancipation is recognition of the fact that more than ninety percent of us are slaves in a society that is deeply and irreconcilably divided by class inequities. This is a system of government in which the top one percent owns as much as the combined total of the lower ninety percent of the population. If this is not Plutocracy; if it is not elitism, what is?

Let us recognize that this is what we are fighting for in Iraq and 135 of the world's 192 nations-extending Plutocratic rule and industrial slavery (capitalism). The noble cause we are so foolishly sending our youth to die for is not democracy-it is to line the pockets of the Carlyle Group and Halliburton. Waged under the auspices of noble purpose, war is in fact class warfare packaged as democracy in order to sell it to the public. War is the natural outgrowth of capitalism and Plutocratic rule. Examine the historical record and follow the money trail. To the Plutocrats, our youth are nothing more than property; cheap, disposable and easily replaceable property-slave labor used to procure wealth for the richest one percent of the population.

One way out of the morass is through organizing the work force on a massive scale, through the creation of revolutionary unions, as envisioned by Eugene Debs and others. This union must represent all workers and it must proceed on a global scale. It can begin today. Otherwise, worker is forced to compete against worker in a race to the lowest common denominator. The times demand strong leadership and iron clad worker solidarity. Unity is our only hope. United, the people cannot lose. We outnumber our adversaries ninety-nine to one. We must make them respect and even fear us, as in days of yore. Divided we haven't got a prayer. Democratize the work place and we democratize the nation while also ending Plutocratic rule.

Charles Sullivan is a photographer, social activist and free lance writer living in the eastern panhandle of West Virginia. He can be reached at earthdog@highstream.net.

By that definition, the U.S. has fought only one justified war in this and the past century. That was World War II. Putting aside the fact that the U.S. government provoked Japan into attacking, attack it did, and the U.S. had a right to respond. We were not attacked, however, in Korea, Vietnam, Libya, Lebanon, Panama, Grenada, Yugoslavia, Afghanistan or Iraq.

In Korea and Vietnam, we intervened in a civil war as two sides of a divided country fought for supremacy. We bombed Libya in a reprisal raid for a terrorist attack in Germany. Reprisals, in World War II, were considered war crimes. We weren't attacked by Lebanon. In Panama, we attacked to change the government. I don't really know why we attacked Grenada. The pretense was that it was building an airport that could handle Soviet airplanes. I suspect it was really a political ploy designed for domestic consumption.

I don't know why we decided to bomb Yugoslavia. That, again, was a civil war that should not have concerned us. The now-late Slobodan Milosevic was only trying to do what Abraham Lincoln did – prevent the secession of states from Yugoslavia.

Our problem in Afghanistan was not the Taliban government. It was al-Qaeda. We overthrew the Taliban government but failed to destroy al-Qaeda. Only God and George Bush know why we attacked Iraq. That was clearly a war of aggression, no different from the German invasion of Poland in the 1930s.

It's ironic that the president likes to claim to be promoting peace, when we are the most warlike nation on Earth and the one with the largest war-department budget. We are also the biggest arms peddler in the world. It seems there is no country on Earth that's immune to U.S. officials telling it how to run its internal affairs.

The problem is that war, except in self-defense, is a total waste. Human lives are wasted. Accumulated wealth is wasted. The results of war are debt, taxation, human sorrow and human bitterness. The billions of dollars we spend killing other people and destroying their property are billions that can't be spent on improving education, America's infrastructure, the health of our people and preserving our land, water and air.

Wars also destroy truth and trust with their secrecy and propaganda. Instead of patriotism, which is a love of the land and the people, the war state substitutes jingoism, which is a love of the government and support of war. In America today, both liberals and neoconservatives have been corrupted by the imperialist war state. The liberals are too cowardly to oppose unjustified wars, and the neoconservatives instigate and applaud them.

It is a triumph of imperial war-state propaganda that people are afraid they will be called unpatriotic if they oppose their government's foreign wars and their domestic consequences.

Well, a continuation of the present policy will eventually destroy America. We are already $8 trillion in debt. Most of the world views us as a rogue nation. Our manufacturing base is being depleted, not to mention our natural resources. Our education system is sick. Our culture is decadent. Our government is corrupt.

It's no longer a question of supporting or not supporting any particular administration. It's a question of survival. Those who value liberty and the rule of law and believe that foreign policy should be based on the Golden Rule had better assert themselves now.

Charley Reese has been a journalist for 49 years.

© 2006 by King Features Syndicate, Inc.

The latest shooting happened at about 2:45 a.m. Friday at a Denny's near Angel Stadium after a fight broke out between two large groups of people in the restaurant, said Sgt. Rick Martinez of the Anaheim Police Department.

One victim re-entered the restaurant after being shot and died inside, Martinez said. The other victim was taken to a nearby hospital and is expected to survive.

A gun was found near the scene, but officers were not sure if it was the weapon used in the shooting. The gunman was being sought by authorities.

The shooting was the third in a Southern California Denny's in as days.

In a Pismo Beach shooting Wednesday, a transient with two guns walked in to the restaurant at lunchtime, shot two men dead and wounded a husband and wife. He then committed suicide.

A 37-year-old Pomona man was fatally shot in the parking lot of a Denny's restaurant in Ontario on Thursday after getting into an altercation with a group of people. The gunman was still being sought.

The pledge states:

"I will not vote for or support any candidate for Congress or President who does not make a speedy end to the war in Iraq, and preventing any future war of aggression a public position in his or her campaign."

The national poll found that 45.9% of US voters agree - 20.1% strongly agree and 25.8% somewhat agree. Among Democrats 67.1% agreed - 33.3% strongly, 59.2% of Independents - 25.3% strongly and even 25.7% of Republicans agreed - 5.5% strongly. The poll was conducted by ICR Survey Research of Media, Pa., which also polls for ABC News, The Washington Post and many corporations and research organizations.

This poll demonstrates that anti-war voters are significant enough in size to effect the outcome of elections - if they become organized. Just like pro-gun groups have organized, pro-choice and pro-life groups have organized - now the anti-war constituency has been identified and the peace movement is ready to organize them. This will ensure that the anti-war movement will no longer be one that can be ignored.

A new group, VotersForPeace, has as its mission to educate, organize and activate voters who oppose the war. The group begins with grants totaling $1 million for 2006 and will organize voters not only to sign the pledge (you can do so at www.VotersForPeace.US), but also to influence Congress and provide voters with the information they need to understand the issues and be effective advocates.

Already many of the leading anti-war groups in the United States among them United for Peace and Justice, Peace Action, Not In Our Name, Democracy Rising, Code Pink, AfterDowningStreet and Peace Majority are participating in the effort. The anti-war movement seems poised to focus their efforts on organizing peace voters into an effective political power.

VotersFor Peace will educate voters through an ongoing web-based and print advertising campaign. In this effort the group is working across the political spectrum from the American Conservative to the Nation Magazine. The organization's goal is to organize two million voters in 2006 and five million by 2008.

Organized anti-war voters who pledge not to vote for pro-war candidates may force the Democrats in particular to develop a stronger position against the war. The Democrats may now realize that if they fail to represent the anti-war community voters will stay home or vote for alternative party and independent candidates.

Republicans are not free to ignore the anti-war constituency either. Not only do more that 25 percent of Republican voters oppose candidates who support the war, but the fastest growing group of voters - independents - overwhelmingly support the pledge. So, that all important swing voter can cause Republicans to lose elections - and could become a new source of support for Democrats - or if both parties fail to support voters wishes then candidates running independent of the two parties may find a new foundation on which to build an independent political movement.

This new politically focused effort comes at a time when the occupation of Iraq is losing public support. Only 37% of Americans believe the invasion of Iraq was worth it, 54% believe we should withdraw within a year, and only 22% believe the U.S. is sure to win (down from 79% in 2003) according to a CNN/USA Today/Gallup Poll. A CBS poll found 70 per cent of Americans think the result of the war with Iraq was not worth the loss of American life and other costs. More and more Americans agree the invasion and occupation of Iraq was a mistake. The anti-war voting block poll comes on the heels of poll by Le Moyne College and Zogby of veterans showing 72 percent favor withdrawal from Iraq within a year. And, a poll by the University of Maryland on January 31 that shows Iraqis want the U.S. to leave and 67% believe they will be better off when the U.S. leaves.

Polls show the Iraq occupation is not wanted by Iraqis or U.S. citizens, nor is it wanted by U.S. soldiers in Iraq or the foreign policy establishment in Washington, DC. This is the war nobody wants and now anti-war voters know they have the political power to end the war - as well as end the careers of politicians who support the occupation. Politicians who don't see this new electoral power coming may find themselves out of office. And, the military-industrial complex may find themselves overwhelmed by voters taking back their government and saying "no" to the permanent war economy.