Editorial inconsistent, lazy critique of socialism

The Lamron Nov. 4 editorial “Socialist party supports radical, unrealistic campaign platform” is filled with so much anti-communist boilerplate and distortions that it is difficult to know where to begin. The editorial claims that the Socialist Equality Party—of which the Geneseo chapter of International Youth and Students for Social Equality is its youth organization—has a “radical” program.

On this charge, at least, the editorial is correct—the SEP and IYSSE call for an end to the United States war drive and the restructuring of the economy based on human need instead of private profit. This program is “radical” in the sense that none of the politicians within the confines of the “official” political spectrum—from President-elect Donald Trump to Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders—even claim to desire it.

“Contrary to the American dream and economically illiterate, socialism is fundamentally wrong,” according to The Lamron editorial. Beyond claiming that a political philosophy is “wrong,” the writer ignores the many socialist economists who were certainly not “economically illiterate,” including Karl Marx, Karl Kautsky, Rosa Luxemburg and Yevgeni Preobrazhensky.

The editorial also claims that the socialist program is “unrealistic,” but its defense of the “American dream” is unhinged. Even as labor productivity has increased, median wages have stagnated. “America’s 20 wealthiest people—a group that could fit comfortably in one single Gulfstream G650 luxury jet—now own more wealth than the bottom half of the American population combined, a total of 152 million people in 57 million households,” according to the Institute for Policy Studies.

The editorial declares, “The economies of capitalist countries tend to perform far better than their socialist counterparts,” defining these “socialist” countries as East Germany, Venezuela, Cuba and the Soviet Union. What it does not mention is that Niles Niemuth—the SEP’s vice presidential candidate and the featured speaker at a Geneseo IYSSE meeting—made clear that these were not socialist countries, despite Niemuth being part of the focus of the editorial.

Niemuth specifically advocated for Leon Trotsky’s opposition to the Stalinist degeneration of the Soviet Union. Trotsky argued that the Stalinist bureaucracy had to be overthrown by the Soviet working class and had to institute genuine, democratic planning for socialist development to occur.

The editorial, in bad faith, said nothing of this analysis—despite the fact that it was a key part of the question and answer session. Had the editorial been written in good faith, it would have attempted to refute this analysis.

The editorial also does not mention that Niemuth specified that Venezuela and Cuba are led by bourgeois-nationalist governments, which came up after a question was asked about “socialist countries like Denmark [sic]” primarily exporting “bread lines.”

I must also note the unbecoming vitriol of the editorial in question. It contributes nothing to the level of discourse and simply attacks a political program through ad hominem. Past Lamron articles discussing Trump’s fascistic candidacy and the possible effects of his administration have used more professional language.

The anti-communist pieces published in The Lamron in 2016 have been below the standards of journalism I have hoped for from our school newspaper.

As we head into four years of a Trump administration, people are going to be looking for answers, and some will look to the socialist movement. I welcome discussion on the program of the SEP and IYSSE, but I ask that The Lamron hold its columnists to a higher standard.

Clarification: November 29, 2016

This article features the sentence, "Trotsky argued that the Stalinist bureaucracy had to be overthrown by the Soviet working class and had to institute genuine, democratic planning for socialist development to occur." The sentence should read: "Trotsky argued that the Stalinist bureaucracy had to be overthrown by the Soviet working class and that genuine democratic planning be instituted for socialist development to occur." 

This article states, "The editorial claims that the Socialist Equality Party—of which the Geneseo chapter of International Youth and Students for Social Equality is its youth organization—has a “radical” program." It is to be clarified that Geneseo is not the whole of the Socialist Equality Party's youth organization. 

Presidential campaigns neglect threat of international war

The biggest issue in the 2016 presidential election is the one least discussed: the threat of a world war between nuclear-armed powers. Whether former Secretary of State and Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton or Republican nominee Donald Trump wins the election, the United States is nevertheless being drawn into a confrontation in the Middle East that threatens to spiral out of control.

The U.S. is currently directing a brutal assault on Mosul—one of Iraq’s largest cities—while hypocritically accusing Russia of war crimes in its air campaign backing the Syrian government. With the U.S. supporting Islamist “rebels” in Syria, this situation threatens war between the world’s preeminent nuclear powers.

Clinton and U.S. intelligence agencies are accusing Russia—without providing any evidence—of intervening in the U.S. elections and exposing emails from the Democratic National Committee and Clinton campaign. Between this and Trump’s misogyny and alleged sexual assaults, crucial issues are being overlooked this election season.

Many people pointed out that the threat of climate change was not discussed in any of the three presidential debates. Less discussed was the fact that Clinton refused to answer moderator Chris Wallace’s question: “If you impose a no-fly zone [in Syria] and a Russian plane violates that, does President Clinton shoot that plane down?”

Clinton outflanks Trump from the right, claims that he has ties to Russian President Vladimir Putin and would be unsuited to wage a war with Russia. This neo-McCarthyite campaign has brought back the worst anti-Russian fervor since the end of the Cold War. Democratic Representative Charles Rangel even called Putin “a communist leader that’s a potential enemy” even though Putin leads the capitalist Russian Federation.

Even as the threat of war with Russia surges, the candidates barely mention it. Instead, they focus on mutual mudslinging. When the threat of war is discussed, the consequences are ignored—as exemplified by Clinton’s answers in the third debate.

There is great opposition to war, yet no avenue for its expression in America’s increasingly rigid political system. As masses of people—especially young people—move to the left, the political establishment is preparing for war and provoking right-wing tendencies. Trump’s fascistic populism—which channels discontent into xenophobia, nationalism and racism—is the most obvious expression of this. Clinton’s McCarthyite rhetoric plays a role as well.

At Geneseo, the International Youth and Students for Social Equality unequivocally opposes the drive to war, which threatens the destruction of humanity. In this, the IYSSE supports the candidates of the Socialist Equality Party––Jerry White and Niles Niemuth––who are running in this election to build an anti-war movement based on socialist principles.

I encourage students interested in opposing the potential war plans of Clinton and Trump to research White and Niemuth’s platforms and to educate themselves about third party candidates.

Claims in socialism event article unfair, largely inaccurate

I am concerned about the publication of a March 3 editorial in The Lamron that claims in its headline that the International Youth and Students for Social Equality at Geneseo—of which I am the president—“fails to exemplify true political ideals.”

It is clear that the article was neither copy edited nor fact-checked to any significant degree. It is so sloppily written that it manages to incorrectly state the name of the organization it is attacking in the very first sentence.

The absence of fact-checking suggests that no one made a serious review of its journalistic merits. Did anyone ask, “Is this a scurrilous, bad faith attack on a political opponent and only using the school newspaper as leverage to intimidate students who hold views contrary to those of the author?”

The previous behavior of the writer suggests this to be the case. After attending the meeting he referenced in the article, he came to a second well-attended meeting, during the course of which he objected to the IYSSE receiving funds reserved for student activities.

This suggests that—far from being a political novice “eager to learn more than just [his] basic understanding of socialism” and leaving “disappointed and frustrated”—the writer holds definite political views.

And what are those views? He lets the cat out of the bag when he takes exception to our having “openly denounced the Democratic Party”—the horror—“with unfair and inaccurate criticisms.”

The writer does not elaborate on what those criticisms were, but this deficiency is easily corrected. Speaker IYSSE National Secretary Andre Damon said that President Barack Obama’s administration had bailed out Wall Street to the tune of trillions of dollars, started or supported wars in Iraq, Libya and Syria, spied on the private communications of the whole world and carried out drone strikes that have led to the deaths of thousands of innocent people, as well as at least four American citizens.

Unlike a plurality of the American people—and especially young people—who, for these and other reasons, see the Democratic Party as a tool of billionaires or otherwise undeserving of their support, the writer expresses his belief that “not voting Democrat is hurting the individual’s personal interest.”

It is his right to hold this view, but The Lamron should have sent this editorial back to him asking that he get the facts—such as the name of the organization he is denouncing—include quotations straight from the lecture and make a good faith effort to explain how the speaker’s criticisms of the Democratic Party were “unfair and inaccurate” beyond personally disagreeing with them.

These are the basic journalistic responsibilities of editors, something I picked up during my time with The Lamron as an assistant Opinion editor. Without them, The Lamron runs the risk of enabling the writer’s undemocratic project of preventing the political opposition to the two parties of big business—held in different forms by hundreds or thousands of Geneseo students—from being expressed in student activities.

The untold dangers of charter schools

The Rochester City School District has been authorized to lease building space to the True North Preparatory Charter School. In a unanimous vote, the Rochester school board gave Superintendent Bolgen Vargas permission to lease a few floors of the District’s Parent Information Center. A seemingly innocuous way for a struggling school district to get extra funding is, in reality, an assault via privatization on the quality of education in the Rochester area.

Charter schools are privately operated, but publicly funded. Yet, the Rochester City Newspaper misleadingly describes them as “public schools, [but] they do not operate under the same type of governance and oversight as their host’s public school districts.”

This is quite the understatement. In reality, charter schools are operated by corporations and funded partially by taxpayer dollars. This means that they are not subject to any substantial democratic control.

Moreover, the not-for-profit charter schools are operated by charities funded largely by rich donors with their own educational – and political – agendas.

A glance at the Uncommon Schools Board – which governs the Rochester-based True North Prep as well as other charter schools in Troy, N.Y., Newark, N.J. and Boston – reveals a veritable who’s who of “philanthropists.”

According to Uncommon Schools’ website, board member David Cooper is a partner at Bain & Co. Consulting. Yes, the same Bain & Co. that gave us the plutocrat that is former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, and not to mention, bankruptcies and job losses galore.

Gaurav Kapadia co-founded Soroban Capital, a "$3.5 billion investment firm based in New York.” Also making an appearance are chairman and CEO of Audible Inc. Donald R. Katz and James A. Peyser, Romney’s former education advisor.

This collection of vulture capitalists is hardly worth trusting as advocates for students. Indeed, they have created schools that focus on “college prep” at the expense of students’ enjoyment of education.

According to reviews on Trulia.com, Rochester Prep “believe[s] in instilling fear” in students while “focus[ing] on teaching to the test.” There were glowing reviews as well, but these probably reflect the dismal quality of education in the municipally governed schools rather than the actual quality of education at their charter alternatives.

Students as young as five years old are being trained to focus on college as the ultimate, if not only, goal of education.

This is antithetical to what social reformer and philosopher John Dewey knew education should stand for.

As Dewey, the father of modern American public education said, “Education is not preparation for life: education is life itself.”

Instead of viewing education as an inherently worthwhile activity, something students should relish in and receive actual social gains from, Rochester Prep views education as merely a steppingstone to college. From college, students presumably go on to stifling careers without having enjoyed their formative years.

Arguments that charter schools “break public districts’ monopoly” are ludicrous. First, it makes sense to have monopolies in some areas; public utilities such as water and electricity are obvious examples.

Second, charter schools undermine district-overseen public education. They divert students and funding from already struggling school districts. Bereft of funding, these districts decline until they are shells of functioning educational institutions.

When this happens, districts are left with a privatized education system. Taxpayers still pay into these systems, controlled by billionaires, on a per-pupil basis.

This is a ruinous process. Plutocrats have no right dictating education policies.

American imperialism instigates World War III

A couple of anniversaries will occur in a few months, neither of which are joyous. In August, it will have been a full century since World War I began; in September, it will have been 75 years since World War II began. These horrific wars – a product of imperialism – changed the geopolitics of the world but left their fundamental cause in place: capitalism. Today, any number of volatile flashpoints could erupt into a similar, if not more destructive conflict. This would inevitably draw in the United States.

The crisis in Ukraine and the conflict over the Senkaku/Diaoyu Islands both threaten to erupt into a thermonuclear war.

According to the Washington Post, the United States has announced plans to deploy ground troops to Poland, a North Atlantic Treaty Organization member state. This is part-and-parcel with the dangerous encircling of Russia and the former Soviet Union, seeking to turn the corpse of the USSR into a semi-colony for Western imperialism.

Because of Article 5 of the NATO treaty, any attack on any NATO member state would draw in the other 27 countries. This would include the U.S. if Estonia or Latvia were attacked by Russia.

There have also been maneuvers to integrate Ukraine into NATO, dramatically increasing the likelihood of a “miscalculation” potentially leading to World War III.

Meanwhile, the Financial Times has noted that Japan and China are marching closer to “Armageddon” over their conflict in the East China Sea.

Behind the rhetoric of Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and Chinese President Xi Jinping lie stagnating Japanese and Chinese economies. To distract from faltering growth and wages, Tokyo and Beijing played up the conflict.

It resulted in another situation in which a single “miscalculation” could cause war. Washington is obligated by a mutual self-defense treaty with Tokyo to aid Japan in a war.

These are merely two examples of where the next global conflagration could begin. Others include Syria, Iran and North Korea; all of which have seen pressure by the U.S. to conform to American imperialism.

To “defend its interests” abroad, the U.S. has resorted to military action or invasions practically on a whim since the collapse of the USSR.

In Afghanistan, Iraq (twice), Libya, Serbia, Kosovo, Somalia, Georgia, Pakistan and Yemen, the story is the same: U.S. military intervention is needed to restore democracy, protect civilians’ rights or destroy weapons of mass destruction with other massively destructive weapons.

American imperialism also attempts to prop up other countries with increasingly right-wing and unstable governments, and Ukraine’s new government is filled with fascistic and anti-Semitic forces.

These allies are chomping at the bit to assert themselves globally as junior partners in American hegemony, and are wont to provoke an incident with Russia or China.

It is inevitable that one of these conflicts will erupt into a wider-scale war. Russia and China, aspiring world powers, are increasingly on edge about American encirclement.

This conflict would draw in the U.S. – to protect democracy, of course.

Asked to protect its beloved democracy, the American public will be driven into war by propaganda, poverty and potential conscription. This would include many working-class youth here at Geneseo.

As the somber occasions of the World War anniversaries roll around – and the next war approaches – students would do well to remember that the primary aggressor in contemporary wars is the American elite.

The obstacles to peace are at home. To adapt Karl Liebknecht: The main enemy of the American people is in America: American imperialism, the Democrats and the Republicans.

Pittsburgh stabbing illuminates disparate education funding

Last week’s horrific school stabbing in a Pittsburgh, Pa. suburb is another in a disturbingly long line of “random” incidents at schools – this one remarkable only in the fact that it was carried out using a knife and not a firearm. The tragic stabbing at Franklin Regional High School reveals more than anything the need for comprehensive and adequately funded mental health care, especially in schools.

On April 9, 16-year-old Alex Hribal allegedly stabbed 20 students and a school security guard before being tackled by assistant principal Sam King. Fortunately, all of the victims are expected to survive, with one of the most critically injured students improving after leaving his fourth surgery on Sunday April 13.

Displaying immense courage, students protected each other at great risk. One student pulled the fire alarm, which may have saved others from being attacked.

This tragedy often leads to politicians waxing philosophical on the inscrutable nature of evil. This is misleading and serves to cover up any real reasons for mass violence. Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Corbett decried the violence as “senseless,” removing any blame from objective social or political pressures.

According to the Centers for Disease Control, poverty in the community, poor family functioning and poor grades all increase risk for youths engaging in violence at school. With a failing school system and stymied economy, one can hardly be expected to see violence in schools decrease.

One easily implemented stopgap measure would be the expansion of mental health services. Even 15 years after the Columbine school shooting, practically no effort has been made to increase access to therapy for students in need.

Instead the response to the economic malaise has been to cut education funding. As a result, school districts are faced with a ruinous choice – cut programs, fire teachers or drop social services.

For example, the School District of Philadelphia was forced to fire all of its school counselors to maintain funding for academic programs.

This is despite the fact that “schools are the first line of defense for mental health supports for students” and “that we are at a shortage for support personnel,” as Association of School Psychologists in Pennsylvania president Julia Szarko said in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette.

The lack of political impetus to make these changes is crystallized in Corbett’s mournful statement.

Even though Corbett opposes this violence, he has only increased its likelihood.

In his 2011-2012 budget, Corbett cut education funding by $1 billion. Much of this was due to President Barack Obama’s heralded stimulus expiring, revealing a failing in both the Democratic and Republican parties to sufficiently fund education.

While he has since restored some funding, Corbett continues to be criticized by opponents like Democratic Harrisburg city counselor Bob Koplinski who pointed out that the “amount of money put into education pales in comparison to the draconian cuts he has made in years past.”

These staggering cuts have debilitated school districts across Pennsylvania and are symptomatic of a national school funding problem.

As education is cut, mental health services are neglected. This, in turn, neglects students that need treatment.

Few of these students violently lash out at their classmates, but as anyone that has dealt with a mental illness can tell you, their lives are severely impaired.

Treatment paid for with adequate education funding is the only responsible solution.

Amidst scandal, Congress shields General Motors’ negligence

Recent exposures of extensive defects followed by a systematic cover-up have led to a congressional hearing investigating the actions of General Motors and the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. Members of Congress have, almost unwillingly, exposed serious corporate criminality within GM and complicity within the NHTSA. At the root of this is not merely the set of actions of a few executives and so-called “regulators,” criminal though they may be, but in the pursuit of profit over human life.

GM has already recalled 2.6 million cars, according to The Wall Street Journal. Readers should take note that they should immediately follow all recall instructions. Recalls in general are only issued when an automaker’s bottom line is severely impacted, so the potential problem is likely to be serious.

As The New York Times recounts, the problems started in 2002 with GM approving an ignition switch that failed to meet its own safety and technical specifications.

A failure in this switch would very easily disable the engine, power steering, power brakes and air bags, increasing the likelihood of an accident. Things as simple as having weights on car keys or bumping the ignition with one’s knee caused these failures. A car where a catastrophic failure can occur with such ease is unfit to be on the road.

Disturbingly, the most frequently cited model affected, the Chevrolet Cobalt, is commonly driven by young drivers.

Nineteen-year-old victim Sarah Trautwein was killed in 2006 while driving her own Cobalt. Her father Bill Trautwein said that the ignition failure “would have probably freaked her out.” Young drivers would find it especially difficult to cope with the lack of power steering or power brakes.

“I think they should be held liable and go to jail. I think they’re murderers,” Sarah’s mother Renee Trautwein said of the GM executives.

In April 2006, a GM engineer modified the faulty ignition switch but kept the part number the same. Popular Mechanics notes that this “is a cardinal sin in [the] engineering world.”

This screams of a cover-up within GM – an insidious attempt to bury past failures and keep federal regulators out of the picture.

Ray DeGiorgio, lead design engineer for the switch, signed off on the change but denies all knowledge of his decision. He is still employed at GM.

The NHTSA, whose job is to investigate these exact types of incidents, was aware of some problems. It received multiple reports and hired crash investigators for two of the incidents.

Despite extensive evidence of systematic corporate wrongdoing, the NHTSA refused to launch a formal investigation.

Part of this points to deregulation – the budget of the NHTSA has fallen in real terms since 2002.

But more important is an economic system in which corporations are beholden only to their stockholders and the profit motive. Government agencies necessarily become facilitators in this, rendering any idealistic regulators impotent.

This includes senators on the Senate Commerce Committee’s Subcommittee on Consumer Protection, Product Safety and Insurance.

U.S. Sen. Richard Blumenthal, one of the legislators that suggested that GM could be criminally prosecuted, is a case-in-point.

Before questioning GM CEO Mary Barra, he opened his remarks with a pathetic, “I have enormous admiration and respect for your career and what you’ve accomplished, and I have enormous respect for GM, an iconic company.”

This behavior is not that of an advocate for consumers. Instead, Blumenthal merely disguises private interests’ culpability with praise and feigned indignation.

Trautwein and the other bereaved family members are much closer to the right course of action: “They should be held liable and go to jail … They’re murderers.”

Student debt burdens leave Americans helpless

As the March 1 deadline for the Free Application for Federal Student Aid whizzes by, it is worthwhile to examine the onerous burdens involved in getting a college-level education. After all, the student loan racket is a multi-billion dollar industry, with the federal government raking in $41.3 billion in profits in 2013. According to the Congressional Budget Office, the federal government will continue to profit off our loans until at least 2024.

Meanwhile, students are often unable to pay off these loans and frequently move back in with their parents – all to pay for education, which should be free in the first place.

The costs for students are immense. According to the Detroit Free Press, the national average debt for a 2012 graduate is a whopping $29,400.

Geneseo is a public college, so one would think that graduates would have much less debt, perhaps under $10,000. Instead, the average Geneseo student will graduate with $21,000 in student loans, according to Kiplinger – a mere $8,400 less than the national average.

As Geneseo is a State University of New York college, state funds do indeed help mitigate the cost to students, but calling Geneseo a “public” college is too charitable.

In a previous editorial for The Lamron, I wrote, “For the 2012-2013 budget, a mere 28 percent of the college’s funding came from the state. Close to 70 percent came from tuition – in other words, extracted from the student body.”

Students – both at Geneseo and across the United States – use loans to supplement what they and their parents are able to pay out of pocket. These tens of thousands of dollars in debt impede students’ ability to get their lives going after graduation.

For example, a Department of Education study found that 23 percent of 26 or 27-year olds are living with their parents – much more than the 10 percent living with roommates. Additionally, having massive debt prompts graduates to accept steady but low-paying jobs rather than working on a more risky venture like starting a business or working creatively.

Any efforts to curb this are meager at best. Congress let lower interest rates for federally subsidized Stafford loans expire in the summer of 2013, doubling the rate to 6.8 percent. The bipartisan scheme to “fix” this, the Bipartisan Student Loan Certainty Act, passed quickly before the congressional summer recess and temporarily pushed rates back down to 3.9 percent.

This rate, still higher than the previous 3.4 percent, is now tied to the market. Once the government begins increasing interest rates again, the student loan rate will increase correspondingly.

Therefore, in a “healthy” economy – which still leaves millions unemployed – the rates will increase to up to 8.25 percent for undergraduates. Graduate students and parents face up to 9.5 and 10.5 percent, respectively.

The knowledge that they are likely to leave school with tens of thousands of dollars in debt undoubtedly deters working-class youth from pursuing college. Instead, they are often thrown into the poverty-wage service industry or just go unemployed.

Instead of profiting from student loans, the government should make education in every public college free. The money to run high-quality colleges can come from the bloated military, financial bailouts and corporate subsidies. Only then can the human right to an education be secured.

Under Obama, rule of law slowly eroding

If President Barack Obama gets his way, five American citizens will have become victims of announced “targeted assassinations” by the military and CIA. Coupled with disturbing statements by United States Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia, it is evident that the principle of the rule of law has lost force in the past few decades, especially after 9/11. Rule of law – the principle that society should be governed by laws that apply to everyone, including the lawmakers – is a fundamental principle of democracy. It was enshrined in the American, British and French Revolutions as sacred, and is an essential precept of liberalism.

The force of this basic principle on American political life, however, has significantly decayed.

Since taking office, Obama has engaged in activities that accelerated this decline, such as assassinating American citizens in contravention of the Fifth Amendment of the Constitution and international law.

As the Fifth Amendment states, “No person shall … be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law.” Since 9/11, however, “due process of law” has increasingly been determined by the executive branch, removing the essential democratic rights to face one’s accuser and to defend oneself.

According to The Associated Press, “If the target is an American citizen, the Justice Department is required to show that killing the person through military action is ‘legal and constitutional’” – although the only real judge (and executioner) is Obama himself.

This has already been used several times to kill Americans overseas, starting with Anwar Al-Awlaki in 2011. Al-Awlaki’s 16-year-old son Abdulrahman, also an American, was killed in a subsequent drone strike.

The American Civil Liberties Union has decried these actions, stating that the “targeted killing of an American being considered right now shows the inherent danger of a killing program based on vague and shifting legal standards, which has made it disturbingly easy for the government to operate outside the law.”

Once the government begins operating outside the law, new illegal actions can be taken. This is evident in the National Security Agency’s creation of a massive surveillance apparatus to collect as much information as possible from unsuspecting citizens.

Scalia’s remarks at the University of Hawaii law school on Feb. 3 are just as frightening. When asked about the Supreme Court’s ruling in Korematsu v. United States, Scalia criticized the internment of hundreds of thousands of Japanese-Americans during World War II.

But then, citing Cicero’s famous phrase – “Inter arma enim silent leges,” or “In times of war, the laws fall silent” – Scalia warned that “you are kidding yourself if you think the same thing will not happen again.”

In other words, in the event of another massive war, the U.S. will place any elements that could oppose its plans – based perhaps on ethnicity or political affiliation – into internment camps, and the courts will remain silent on the issue, perhaps ruling in defense of “national security” and “due process.”

If anything, Scalia’s words constitute a warning that the rule of law has deteriorated into a mere rhetorical flourish used to give unconstitutional and immoral actions a justification.

This is not the sign of a vibrant constitutional democracy but rather the jurisprudence of a police state.

How Detroit orchestrated an illegal bankruptcy

The Socialist Equality Party organized a Workers Inquiry in response to worsening economic conditions in Detroit. Held on Feb. 15 at Wayne State University, the inquiry exposed the political and social interests at the heart of the bankruptcy and examined the illegality, context, effects and significance of the bankruptcy proceedings. Detroit’s bankruptcy is undoubtedly monumental: It is the largest municipal bankruptcy in American history and will directly affect hundreds of thousands of pensioners and city workers while becoming a model for other municipalities suffering from accumulated debt.

As revealed at the inquiry by Tom Carter, World Socialist Web Site legal expert, the bankruptcy is illegal on many counts.

As Michigan’s Constitution in Article IX Section 24 declares, “Each [public] pension plan and retirement system … shall be a contractual obligation thereof which shall not be diminished or impaired thereby.” Any legal proceedings reducing pensions, therefore, are unconstitutional as per the Michigan Constitution.

According to Demos, an American public policy organization, when the state of Michigan cut $67 million per year, it dramatically weakened Detroit’s financial strength.

Moreover, the city subsidized corporate projects – allegedly to create jobs – for years, spending tens of millions of dollars per year, money that should have been going to provide social services or paying off the debt. For example, Olympia Development of Michigan, owned by billionaire Mike Illitch, is set to receive $285 million in subsidies to build a new stadium.

Finally, Wall Street is directly responsible for much of Detroit’s financial crisis. The Great Recession in 2008 spawned a massive drop in wages, and therefore lowered taxes paid to the city.

Detroit’s biggest legacy expenses, however, come from financial deals in 2005 and 2006 that have resulted in $1.6 billion in debt. These deals, known as certificates of participation, were unethical and probably illegal, given Detroit’s likelihood of being unable to pay them back.

Now that the bankers have been attributed to causing this crisis, they are demanding that workers and retirees pay. Pensioners will receive at most a mere 16 percent of their dues, meaning that $20,000 per year becomes $3,200. Meanwhile, city workers are having their wages slashed and jobs cut.

Regarding how he would reply to criticisms that he is violating pensioners’ rights, Emergency Manager Kevyn Orr responded, “[Their] rights are in bankruptcy now.”

Perhaps the most frightening development is the threat of privatization, especially for the Detroit Institute of Arts. The DIA is a publicly owned museum that features world-renowned art such as Diego Rivera’s “Detroit Industry” murals, which celebrate the productivity of the working class. Christie’s auction house appraised DIA’s artwork as being worth up to $867 million.

The elite want this priceless art. As WSWS Art Editor David Walsh explained, “Art, from the point of view of the elite, is dangerous.”

Even as access to art is threatened and pensions slashed, law firm Jones Day has been paid millions of dollars in fees. Orr, who has urged the bankruptcy along at every point, was a Jones Day employee until right before he became emergency manager.

The bankers, lawyers, politicians and journalists – from Detroit to Washington, D.C. – that have enabled this bankruptcy are violating the Michigan constitution and workers’ rights and are setting a dangerous precedent.

In any country that still had rule of law, as Carter put, they all would be “impeached, indicted, arrested and prosecuted.”

Unanimous SCOTUS ruling further erodes workers’ rights

In a surprising scene of unanimity by the United States Supreme Court, both liberal and conservative justices came together to rule on a claim by 800 U.S. Steel Corporation workers from Gary, Ind. regarding overtime pay.

The Jan. 27 decision on Sandifer v. United States Steel Corporation denied these workers their right to overtime pay for the laborious and time-consuming task of “donning” – putting on – and “doffing” – removing – protective equipment, on the basis of Associate Justice Antonin Scalia’s definition of “changing clothes.”

Workers at U.S. Steel’s Gary plant are commonly required, both by company policy and the dangerous nature of their work, to don hardhats, earplugs, safety glasses, respirators, boots and Kevlar pants and shirts, among other items. At the end of their eight-hour shifts, these workers then have to spend additional time doffing all of this equipment.

Just on its face, Sandifer v. U.S. Steel seems to be clear-cut for the plaintiffs. These workers have to spend time putting on protective equipment owned by the company before and after their shifts, and they deserve compensation for it.

The perversion of New Deal-era labor reform laws and basic diction, however, allowed for a pro-business ruling by an unusually united Supreme Court.

The case hinged on the interpretation of the Fair Labor Standards Act, which was first enacted in 1938. Amended many times since it passage, the FLSA has provided for equal pay to women, a 40-hour week, a minimum wage and other workers’ rights.

A 1949 amendment to the FLSA also allows unions to agree to deals that exclude “changing clothes” from compensable time. The United Steelworkers of America, which purportedly represents the workers at the steel plant in Indiana, has agreed to such deals for decades.

At the time, as it does now, “changing clothes” meant going from street clothes to work uniforms.

The FLSA on the whole has provided great gains to workers and resulted from labor agitation during the Great Depression and in the post-war period.

The 9-0 ruling in Sandifer v. U.S. Steel seeks to reverse these gains. Scalia interpreted “changing clothes” as broadly as he could. “Clothing” no longer means items of apparel, taking incidental time to put on and take off, determined by personal taste and intended to protect more from embarrassment than molten steel. Instead, “clothing” refers to “articles of dress,” meaning that Kevlar pants are clothes.

Moreover, “changing” – used in conjunction with clothing – no longer means substitution, but any addition, even on top of street clothes. Any items that fall outside of Scalia’s broad definition of clothing – like earplugs and respirators – are regarded as inconsequential.

A union-management deal that once only waived workers’ right to be compensated for changing into work uniforms now means that steelworkers, while spending time donning and doffing protective equipment, are working for free.

Oddly enough, President Barack Obama’s administration intervened on behalf of U.S. Steel, submitting an amicus curiae – friend of the court – brief supporting the corporation’s case. Without prompting, Obama’s administration shamelessly impelled the Supreme Court to rule in a manner friendly to business.

It is also revealing that, in a time supposedly marked by partisan bickering, justices appointed by both Democratic and Republican presidents can work together toward certain aims. Bipartisanship and “reaching across the aisle” may sound like pleasant concepts, but having both parties overcome their minor differences to enact bad legislation – like cuts to food stamps and unemployment benefits – is hardly a way forward.

Instead, as we’ve seen, it merely means more cuts, more attacks on workers and an increasingly unrepresentative government.

Capital punishment and its unfortunate persistence

In an Ohio execution chamber on Jan. 16, Dennis McGuire spent 26 agonizing minutes gasping for air before succumbing to a mixture of chemicals previously unused for lethal injections. The descriptions of his death by reporters, his adult children and his correctional facility’s Catholic priest leave little doubt that McGuire suffered through cruel and unusual punishment.Meanwhile, the execution of Mexican national Edgar Tamayo, in contravention of a ruling by the United Nations’ International Court of Justice, and recent proposals to bring back firing squads demonstrate the indifference of governments at the state and federal levels to international law and the Eighth Amendment. McGuire’s execution was experimental in the worst of ways. It utilized a new two-chemical mixture of midazolam and hydromorphone due to Ohio’s inability to acquire pentobarbital. Pharmaceutical companies have been cutting off the Ohio government and distancing themselves as much as possible from these executions, leading to the pentobarbital shortage. Dr. David Waisel, an anesthesiologist at Harvard Medical School, warned an Ohio court that the drugs would cause McGuire “agony and horror” while he experienced “air hunger.” Essentially, McGuire felt himself suffocate. The United States is the only advanced industrialized country that still executes prisoners. No other country in the Western hemisphere allows for capital punishment, and the dictatorial Belarus is the only European country with the practice in place. By killing its own citizens, the U.S. becomes a member of a dubious club. In 2012, the only countries to conduct more executions than the U.S. were China, Iran, Iraq and Saudi Arabia, according to Amnesty International. By executing foreign nationals, the U.S. forges ahead into even murkier territory. In Tamayo’s case, for example, he was not informed of his consular rights to have legal defense from the Mexican government. Had he been informed, his sentence may have been reduced to life imprisonment; he reportedly had an IQ of 67, according to The Guardian, qualifying him as intellectually disabled and therefore ineligible for capital punishment. In 2004, the ICJ ruled that the U.S. had violated the Vienna Convention by failing to notify Mexico that some 50 of their citizens had been arrested and, in many cases, failing to notify the convicts of their right to consular legal assistance. Tamayo was among these 50 Mexicans. Despite former President George W. Bush urging Texas to comply with this mandate, then-Texan Solicitor General Ted Cruz managed to have the Supreme Court rule that international law did not apply to the states without congressional authorization. Cruz bragged about this result during his successful 2012 senatorial campaign. Now, state representatives in Missouri and Wyoming are proposing to bring back firing squads as a method of execution. According to CBS, Wyoming State Sen. Bruce Burns, a Republican, introduced a bill to Wyoming’s legislature allowing for the use of firing squads. “One of the reasons I chose firing squad as opposed to any other form of execution is because frankly it’s one of the cheapest for the state,” he said, revealing that his concern was not how humane executions were but that they not burden the state. This would allow for cheaper and more frequent killings. The biggest problem with these executions is not merely their methods, horrific as they can be, but that they occur in the first place. Giving the state the “right” and moral authority to murder its own citizens or foreign nationals – to administer so-called “ultimate justice” – opens the door for totalitarian government. This disturbing trend toward more efficient forms of capital punishment reveals the creeping threat of increasingly authoritarian forms of control.

Conflicting claims over Asian islands set stage for international incident

Following years of increasing tensions with Japan, South Korea and the United States, the Chinese government proclaimed an Air Defense Identification Zone on Nov. 23. China’s establishment of an ADIZ is only the latest in a series of provocative actions by Beijing, Tokyo and Washington over the Senkaku/Diaoyu islands. Reckless Chinese, Japanese and American actions threaten to erupt into a catastrophic conflagration on a scale that has not been seen since 1945.

Chinese and Japanese governments both claim a collection of rocky, virtually uninhabitable islets, the Senkakus – or Diaoyus in Chinese. Sovereignty over these islands would allow for control of vital fisheries and the Chunxiao gas fields nearby.

Beyond the ruthless exploitation of natural resources needed by the world’s second and third-largest economies, the islands are becoming the center of a new Sino-Japanese conflict since their “nationalization” by Tokyo in 2012 and Beijing’s counterclaim.

Both China and Japan are using their competing claims to whip up nationalist sentiment under conditions of growing inequality and slowing economic growth.

Based on the Treaty of Mutual Cooperation and Security between the U.S. and Japan and repeated affirmations by the administration of President Barack Obama, a war involving Japan would likely draw in the U.S. military. Another war between China and Japan would be immensely destructive, especially given the prospect of American intervention.

Moreover, both China and the U.S. are nuclear powers, raising the specter of a thermonuclear holocaust.

The Chinese government is not solely – or even primarily – responsible for the escalation of tensions in Asia. One of Obama’s chief foreign policy initiatives is the “pivot to Asia,” whereby the U.S. would disentangle itself militarily from the Middle East in favor of countering Chinese influence in East Asia.

This has already resulted in the provocative shift of American naval power to the Pacific Ocean. According to CNN, 50 percent of U.S. warships are located in the Pacific, with plans to increase the amount to 60 percent.

The Obama administration has also aggressively backed the frightening rebirth of Japanese militarism under Prime Minister Shinzo Abe. Abe’s bellicose remarks and increased “defense” spending are disturbingly reminiscent of the 1930s, with an Imperial Japan overrunning Korea, China and Indochina.

The U.S. Air Force also flew two nuclear-capable B-52 bombers through China’s ADIZ the day after it was announced, despite the Chinese Ministry of National Defense warning of “defensive emergency measures,” according to Time magazine.

The ultimate source of these tensions is that China and America seek to expand their influence in the region in order to attain hegemonic control over natural resources and markets.

At the same time, nationalist sentiment is whipped up to divert public attention from expanding chasms between the haves and have-nots in each country.

Experts and advisors know that the risk of a “miscalculation” that could lead to a military conflict only increases with each belligerent move by Washington, Tokyo and Beijing. No one taken seriously in these capitals, however, advocates de-escalation. The American, Japanese and Chinese ruling circles have no antiwar contingency and are leading the world to catastrophe.

Worker exploitation continues amidst holiday season

It seems that the winter holiday shopping season starts earlier every year. There was a time when families would actually wait until the day after Thanksgiving to stab one another over discounted toys from Wal-Mart. But when Black Friday inexplicably commenced at 6 p.m. on Thursday Nov. 28, that idea seems like nothing more than a quaint memory.

The progressively emerging holiday shopping season comes at a major cost to the employees, who are forced to work extended hours while paid minimal wages. Though many of these workers are employed seasonally and are just looking to pick up extra cash, it is important to keep in mind the year-round labor practices of companies that cash in on the holiday season.

Wal-Mart and Whole Foods workers staged protests across the country on Black Friday with demands for better pay and benefits.

In a press release, Colby Harris, a Wal-Mart associate from Lancaster, Texas, said, “Unfair labor is working full time and living in poverty. Unfair labor is seeing your health care premiums skyrocket year after year. Unfair labor is being denied the hours needed to support your family. Unfair labor is being punished for exercising your freedom of speech and association.”

One would think that Wal-Mart, a company that made $15.7 billion in profit last year, could afford to treat its employees at least slightly better.

It’s not just big-box retailers that are guilty either. Amazon’s working conditions are tantamount to sweatshops. Employees work 12-hour shifts in sprawling warehouses and are subjected to mandatory overtime.

In 2011, one worker in an Allentown, Pa. factory quit after witnessing numerous coworkers pass out from the heat inside the factory, which consistently surpassed 100 degrees. Furthermore, when a worker from a different factory was terminated for suffering heat exhaustion and missing work, an Amazon representative contested her case for unemployment benefits.

It is mildly understandable, however, that companies know that shoppers will always flock to bargains, so the fault is not all that of the companies; consumer demand allows for the trend to continue and develop as a necessary part of Thanksgiving and the holidays as a whole.

As consumers, our backs are up against the wall. Shopping ethically is simply too costly for the average American. Not to mention, most consumers don’t think twice about patronizing companies that profit from child labor during the 11 other months of the year.

As long as our desire for cheap things supersedes concern for the welfare of the workers who bring them to us, companies will continue to cash in. Keep that in mind this holiday season.

While rich get richer, vital social services get slashed

After the destruction wrought by the 2008 market crash and the anemic economic “recovery” following the Great Recession, it may come as a surprise that there is a social layer doing fabulously well: the super-rich. Needless to say, the working poor and the chronically unemployed are excluded from this recovery, even as social services on which they rely are eviscerated.

According to the Billionaire Census 2013 by Wealth X and UBS, billionaires’ wealth has doubled since 2009, reaching the unprecedented level of $6.5 trillion. This obscene figure is larger than the gross domestic product of every economy excluding those of China and the United States.

RT reports, “The Wealth X and UBS Billionaire Census 2013 makes for sobering reading, in that it seems to confirm many peoples’ suspicions that the financial crisis, while a nightmare for so many, has actually been a windfall for the world’s richest.”

As if the fact that a mere 2,170 people possess $6.5 trillion is not appalling enough, the source of this wealth is revelatory. A full 17 percent of billionaires derive their wealth from the parasitic financial and banking sector, which continues to be profitable today only due to a multi-billion-dollar bailout at the American taxpayers’ expense.

At the same time, vital social programs received debilitating cuts, all with the claim that there is “no money.” The Billionaires Census belies this claim.

The government cut food stamps for the first time in American history on Nov. 4, which, according to USA Today, will result in the loss of funding for 21 meals per month for a family of four.

Meanwhile, according to the World Socialist Web Site, “The budget for the [Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program] is currently $74.6 billion a year, and funding the extended unemployment benefit extension, scheduled to expire in January, for one year would cost $25.2 billion. The combined net worth of the 515 billionaires in the U.S. would pay for the food stamp and extended unemployment benefit program for an entire century.”

The startling juxtaposition of massive wealth on one side and the need for funding on the other reveals the inequities inherent in a system based on exploitation.

As the Billionaires Census 2013 reveals, billionaires make their money from leeching off the propped-up financial sector, inheritance or Chinese sweatshop labor.

The easy objection to this critique of the concentration of wealth is that billionaires have “earned” their fortunes or otherwise deserve it. Heiresses notwithstanding, many argue people like Bill Gates and Carlos Slim – the two richest people in the world –deserve their vast fortunes.

This ignores the fact that Slim monopolizes the Mexican telecommunications industry, forcing Mexicans to pay his exorbitant fees. Gates uses an army of overworked Chinese laborers to make Xbox and amass his property.

And it is not as if billionaires spend their opulent wealth wisely. Ostentatious homes – with the average billionaire owning four with a value of $20 million each – and yachts are the assets valued by the world’s wealthiest, according to The Times of India.

Then there is the ethical argument. Concentration of wealth in the hands of the few endangers access to social services for billions globally. If forced to choose between allowing this kind of accumulation and providing decent housing, education and health care, who would pick the first option?

Catastrophe in Philippines highlights need for relief system

The destruction in the Philippines wrought by Typhoon Haiyan is the latest in a string of extreme weather events that have occurred over the past decade. As climate change continues unabated, these events have increased in frequency and impact. Unfortunately, most of the areas that get hit the hardest have the weakest infrastructure and the most underdeveloped economies to respond adequately.

Mayor of Tacloban Alfred Romualdez recently said that residents should flee the city. He said he was worried that the city would not be able to provide basic services and he feared the breakdown of law and order. Already, Romualdez had to choose between using the meager resources at his disposal to either provide food and water or to dispose of the dead bodies in the streets.

Now Naderev Sano, a delegate of the Philippines Climate Change Commission, is taking a stand. At the United Nations Climate Change Conference in Warsaw, Poland on Tuesday Nov. 12, Sano said he will be going on a hunger strike “until a meaningful outcome is in sight.”

According to The Guardian, researchers have found a definitive link between climate change and the rising intensity of storms.

According to professor Myles Allen of the University of Oxford, “The current consensus is that climate change is not making the risk of hurricanes any greater, but there are physical arguments and evidence that there is a risk of more intense hurricanes.” Specifically, rising water temperatures increase storms’ strengths, and rising water levels increase the risk of flooding.

Meanwhile, the developed countries chiefly responsible for the greenhouse gas emissions that drive global warming do not seem to be taking the talks seriously. Australia failed to send its environment minister, who preferred to stay home in order to work on the dismantling of Australia’s carbon tax.

A United States briefing on the Warsaw climate summit obtained by The Guardian revealed that the U.S. is worried that the typhoon will lead to extreme weather events dominating the talks. The U.S. opposed proposals of damage payments at last year’s talks in Qatar and insisted that any money should be referred to as “aid.”

The briefing shows that the U.S. is unwilling to participate in a meaningful discussion on remediating the effects of climate change.

Countries like the Philippines should not have to rely on humanitarian aid packages pieced together after each disaster. Rather, there should be a comprehensive compensation plan in which high-emission countries take financial responsibility for their role in causing climate change.

Developed countries, such as Japan, have the resources to rebuild after natural disasters like the 2011 earthquake and tsunami. Other countries depend on humanitarian aid pieced together after each disaster.

Developed countries’ consumption can serve as a cautionary example for nations in the midst of development. Rather than investing in the types of pollution-heavy industry that spurred China’s rapid growth, developing countries should look to greener and more sustainable initiatives.

Supposedly ‘liberal’ media serves to protect whoever’s in charge

News organizations like The New York Times and MSNBC are commonly held to be “leftist,” biased in favor of expanding civil liberties and otherwise generally progressive. On the contrary, however, they have degenerated to the point of sycophancy.

Nowhere is this more exposed than in the “left’s” coverage of the National Security Agency’s surveillance program and whistleblower Edward Snowden’s subsequent flight from American retaliation. A recent dialogue between Bill Keller, former executive editor of the Times, and Glenn Greenwald, a former journalist for The Guardian, is particularly revealing.

Further contextualization is useful, though. Keller’s work at the Times is extremely disappointing. In 2004, the Times representatives met with officials from former President George W. Bush’s administration to discuss a massive scoop picked up by the Times reporters: The NSA was wiretapping American citizens without warrants.

While this looks like peanuts compared to more recent revelations of an NSA vacuum consuming Skype calls, emails, phone calls, SMS messages, traffic information and social media profiles, this was groundbreaking news.

At the behest of the Bush administration, the Times waited until 2005 – after the 2004 presidential election, it should be noted – to reveal this story. This disturbing delay at the request of a criminal and, at that point, unelected, administration highlights the servile deference of establishment media.

Meanwhile, Keller, now an op-ed columnist, has found his work assailed by Greenwald and others. Perhaps it was his character assassination of Chelsea Manning, who contacted the Times but after not receiving a call back, went to WikiLeaks to publish the cache of American documents instead.

Or maybe it was the fact that columnists for various allegedly left-wing news organizations have called for Snowden to turn himself in. Despite the fact that he would forfeit his freedom, if not his life, he is told unceasingly to come on home – as if the country that revoked his passport, whose president has decreed a guilty verdict from on high and whose media berate him is still “home.”

In an embarrassingly condescending “open letter” to Snowden, MSNBC host Melissa Harris-Perry said, “Come on back to the [United States], Ed.”

She blames Snowden for media scrutiny of his actions and said, “By engaging in this Tom Hanks-worthy, border-jumping drama through some of the world’s most totalitarian states, [he is] making [himself] the story.”

I guess the totalitarian states Harris-Perry alluded to were, in chronological order, America, China and Russia.

Keller, in his correspondence with Greenwald, attempted to defend and justify his actions when he said that the Times journalists set their opinions “aside to follow the facts – as a judge in court is supposed to set aside prejudices to follow the law and the evidence – [and they] can often produce results that are more substantial and more credible” than Greenwald’s editorialist style.

This is a smokescreen behind which Keller tries to hide the Times’ undying obedience to executive authority, which includes description of waterboarding as “enhanced interrogation” when the U.S. does it and “torture” if an unfriendly regime does it. This is in addition to uncritically publishing the Bush administration’s assertions that weapons of mass destruction were present in Iraq.

Keller’s purportedly objective journalism merely hides the very real and influential biases of his reporters behind a mask of objectivity.

Greenwald succinctly summed up the current crisis of journalism when he said, “Reporting is reduced to ‘X says Y’ rather than ‘X says Y and that’s false.’”

Blindly and unquestioningly publishing state propaganda is a poor substitute for journalism. Rather, it is a recipe for dictatorship and repression.

Public prayer an unabashed violation of the Constitution

The United States Supreme Court heard arguments on Nov. 6 regarding the controversial issue of public prayer. The case Town of Greece v. Galloway is poised to decide the future of prayer in government buildings across the country. Greece, N.Y., a suburb of Rochester, is the main focus of the case. Every Greece town board meeting opens with a prayer. Per the 1983 Supreme Court case Marsh v. Chambers, legislative prayers are constitutional as long as there is no discrimination in selecting which religious groups are represented.

Does Greece adhere to the rulings of this case? No.

Tom Lynch of the Bahá’í faith has opened the board meetings twice. One was in 2008 when this issue was first brought to the public, and the second time was in 2013 when the case went to the Supreme Court. Coincidence? I would guess not.

Out of more than 130 prayers, people of non-Christian faiths offered four. How could this be considered nondiscriminatory? The town of Greece does not care about including other religions; residents only care about trying to appear innocent.

Susan Galloway, a 51-year-old Jewish resident of Greece, said she feels as if this tradition conflicts with the establishment clause of the First Amendment, which states, “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion.”

A Federal Court of Appeals in New York sided with Galloway when it found that roughly two-thirds of the prayers offered before board meetings contained the words and phrases associated with Christianity, which included “Jesus Christ,” “Jesus,” “Your Son” and “The Holy Spirit.”

President Barack Obama said that he supports the town of Greece in a Justice Department amicus curiae brief that questions the Federal Court of Appeals’ assertion, and said that phrases like “Holy Spirit” could apply to many religions, such as Islam. This is absolutely ludicrous, for if a person of Christian faith says the phrase, then it refers to the Christian “Holy Spirit.”

The administration is going back on many of its views of separation of church and state. It is unfathomable to see why the Obama administration would side with the town of Greece. It not only goes against its own views, but it goes against the Supreme Court’s 1983 ruling.

Greece Town Supervisor John T. Auberger said, “Our founding fathers believed in the right for us to pray and have that freedom of expression of prayer, and that’s what we offer here today in 2013 in the town of Greece.”

Auberger is right that the expression of prayer is a freedom stated in the First Amendment, but so is the establishment clause.

Galloway echoed the ideas of this clause when she said, “I think, for the protection of government as well as the protection of religion, that they need to be separate.” She added, “When religion gets involved with government, it can corrupt government.”

Greece is clearly violating the establishment clause. For when any level of government has prayer before legislation is discussed, that government implicitly endorses that prayer’s religion over all others.