People Before Profit blog

Groups gear up to defeat anti-GLBT ballot measures

Fri, 26 Apr 2002 05:49:00 +0000

Campaigns in Nevada, Florida and Michigan are working to defeat anti-Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, Transgender (GLBT) measures scheduled to appear on ballots this fall. Human Rights Campaign (HRC) is working with state and local activists to ensure that voters are aware of the issues threatening the GLBT community in their area.

In Nevada, voters will decide in a final vote on a state constitutional amendment to ban same-sex marriage. Equal Rights Nevada is running the campaign against this measure and can be reached at www.equalrightsnevada.org or 702-650-9141.

In Florida, a campaign is working to preserve Miami-Dade County’s ordinance prohibiting discrimination based on sexual orientation. The 3-year-old amendment that extends basic civil and human rights protections will be challenged in a Sept. 10 referendum. Save Dade, the local campaign working against the anti-gay referendum, can be reached at www.savedade.com or 305-751-SAVE (7283).

In Michigan, the Ypsilanti Campaign for Equality is working against an attempt to repeal a local ordinance banning discrimination based on sexual orientation. Contact the campaign at 734-480-3988 or www.ycfe.org.

Statewide groups in Oregon and Maine are also gearing up for campaigns. Anti-gay activists in both states are collecting signatures in attempts to place measures on state or local ballots. For more information, contact Basic Rights Oregon at www.basicrights.org – the Maine Lesbian and Gay Political Alliance at mlgpa@javanet.com.

Harvard students on tour for justice

Fri, 26 Apr 2002 05:49:00 +0000

ST. LOUIS – Harvard students are touring campuses across the country as part of the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) Justice for Janitors Campaign. Allegra Churchill, a Harvard student, and Frank Morley, a Harvard janitor, spoke at Washington and Webster University April 17 and 18, respectively.

Last April 17, students at Harvard, including Churchill, started a 21-day sit-in on behalf of SEIU Local 254. Harvard, the second wealthiest non-profit institution in the world, paid its janitors “poverty wages,” said Morley.

Between 1994 and 2001 the inflation adjusted-wages of Harvard janitors fell 30 percent and two-thirds of all Harvard janitors could not afford healthcare. Many worked two and three jobs.

In 1998 Harvard refused to adopt a living wage standard similar to that of the city of Cambridge, where Harvard is located.

After the sit-in, things began to change, and in February 2002 Harvard agreed to a new union contract. Janitors at Harvard will receive an “immediate raise” that puts them above the Cambridge living wage; by 2005, they will make $14 an hour. As part of the contract, janitors will also receive full-family paid health insurance and a guarantee from the university that all subcontracted workers will receive equal pay and benefits.

“When enough people get together,” said Morley, “they can do anything.”

Students at Washington and Webster University are helping SEIU Local 50 in their Justice for Janitors Campaign. Local 50 has been negotiating with the Contract Cleaners Association (CCA) since November 16, 2001. CCA, an association of eight cleaning companies, has offered a 25-cent annual wage increase. Local 50, director of organizing Charlie Hatcher, called the offer “chump change.”

Janitors at Washington University are now employed by Spann Cleaners. The President of CCA is also the President of Spann Cleaners. “CCA has been making millions for decades. They don’t want to give up their profits,” said Hatcher.

In 1998 Washington University changed food service companies. Bon Appetit took over for Mariott and, according to Hatcher, “broke every labor law in the book.” That same year Local 50 filed charges with the National Labor Relations Board. They won on every count. But Bon Appetit was “slapped on the wrist,” said Hatcher and “65 percent of the workers had moved on,” in essence breaking the union.

Webster University has agreed that all their janitors will have union representation, but has done little to pressure CCA to pay the janitors a living wage with healthcare.

While speaking at Webster, Churchill said, “the tour is meant to inspire and stimulate similar student and labor alliances. It is amazing,” she continued, “when you get students and labor together.”

Recently Local 50 won a victory a St. Louis University (SLU). Janitors at SLU will receive a 66 percent wage increase in the first year of the new contract and tuition costs for themselves and their families. Local 50 has also signed 13 independent cleaning companies on to the new master agreement.

There are currently over 50 living wage campaigns on campuses across the country. SEIU represents janitors, dietary, clerical and technical workers on nearly 200 campuses.

The author can be reached at tonpec2000@yahoo.com

Vieques activists plan actions

Fri, 26 Apr 2002 05:46:00 +0000

BRONX, N.Y. – “Put it in writing” was the message being sent to President George W. Bush from the National Vieques Summit for Peace with Justice held here April 12-13. The activists were demanding that Bush issue an Executive Order to put force behind his stated commitment to end the use of Vieques as a practice area for the Navy by May 2003. A number of members of Congress have sent letters to Bush demanding an Executive Order to that effect.

The political, labor, religious and community leaders and activists also seconded the proposals of the Committee for the Rescue and Development of Vieques (CPRDV) that the firing zone must also be decontaminated and returned to the people of Vieques for sustainable development.

Dámaso Serrano, the mayor of Vieques, said, “We have to win in Vieques for the benefit of Vieques, for the benefit of Puerto Rico, and the benefit of the United States.” Noting that he had served in the U.S. Army for eight years, the Vieques mayor said that being against the bombing in the island municipality of 9,300 inhabitants, was not to be anti-U.S.

New York State Assemblyman José Rivera told the conference how he and others were attacked with tear gas in Vieques on April 5. Rivera said that the attack was unprovoked. “We were peacefully demonstrating. We were not even involved in civil disobedience.”

Rivera was videotaping the demonstrations in Vieques when Naval military police launched tear gas into the crowd. His video tape clearly showed that two lines of Puerto Rican police and police barricades stood between the fence surrounding the bombing zone and the demonstrators.

Nilda Medina, a leader of the CPRDV in Vieques, reminded people of the vote taken last summer in Vieques, which showed that 68 percent of the people wanted the Navy out immediately.

That was when the Bush administration announced that it would not go through with the vote that was scheduled to take place last fall and would order the Navy to leave by May of next year. That vote, which was to be supervised by the Navy, did not have the option of immediate withdrawal.

Medina said that even though the Navy has been using inert ammunition, the “dust that is raised is carried by winds to the populated areas.” That dust is contaminated with cancer-causing toxins that were left there because the Navy has bombed the area since the 1940s, she said. Studies have shown that the people of Vieques have a 27 percent higher rate of cancer than the rest of Puerto Rico.

The Navy was forced to stop using live ammunition after bombs fell by an observation center, killing a civilian guard. The military was unable to use the firing range for the next year as hundreds of Puerto Ricans and others set up camps in the area to act as human shields against the bombing.

Medina said that the people of Vieques want all the lands returned to them. Currently, the Bush administration and the Navy have spoken of transferring the land to the U.S. Department of the Interior. She said that the returned land will be entrusted to a land trust so that the area can be developed for ecologically sound tourism.

She noted that the struggle for peace for Vieques “has created a unity among all Puerto Ricans” that is unprecedented. “We know we will win,” she said, and thanked “the North Americans who support this struggle because they know that the future is one of peace and justice.”

The meeting endorsed “non-violent, peaceful civil disobedience and other efforts … as valid means of safeguarding the lives and health of the people of Vieques.”

Rivera announced that 24 were arrested that day in acts of civil disobedience and that others were hiding in the bombing zone. The Navy has admitted that the entrance of people into the area has delayed its maneuvers.

The conference participants, who came from as far away as California, agreed to form a network so that actions could be coordinated throughout the U.S. as well as in Puerto Rico.

The author can be reached at jacruz@attbi.com

Speakers denounce Bush war on people

Fri, 26 Apr 2002 05:45:00 +0000

WASHINGTON – Speakers at peace rallies in the nation’s capital, April 20, touched off cheers as they denounced George W. Bush for using the Sept. 11 terrorist attack as a smokescreen for “war” against poor and working people at home and abroad.

Michael Letwin, a founder of New York City Labor Against the War and president of United Auto Workers/Legal Aid Attorneys Local 2325, told the “United We March” throng at the Sylvan Theater that people ask him why labor should speak out against the war. “When blowback from a corrupt foreign policy leads to the Sept. 11 terrorist attack and 1,000 union members die, then war is a labor issue,” he said, referring to the union workers who perished in the World Trade Center collapse. “When Bush sends workers and people of color to kill and be killed in countries like Afghanistan, that is a labor issue.”

Letwin called on the labor movement to speak out for peace and join in the call for the Israeli government to “end the war on the Palestinian people, and end U.S. support for the war on Palestine.”

Citing the Port and Maritime Security Act, which would open the door for requiring three million transport workers to carry identity cards, Clarence Thomas, Secretary-Treasurer of International Longshore and Warehouse Union Local 10, blasted Attorney General John Ashcroft for using the Sept. 11 tragedy “as an excuse to take away union rights and civil liberties. ... They don’t want us to have the right to organize and strike.”

Phoebe Jones, a spokesperson for the Every Mother is a Working Mother Network, blasted the Bush administration for punitive measures against poor single mothers.

President Bush and Secretary of Health and Human Services Tommy Thompson seek to attach these measures to the reauthorization of the Temporary Assistance to Needy Families (TANF).

Welfare reform, she said, “puts forward that caring for your own children has no value ... We demand that the value of caring work be reflected in welfare benefits, and end to time limits, other punitive measures and discrimination.”

Jones also criticized Bush’s budget, saying, “While $80 billion would alleviate the worst poverty and suffering, $940 billion a year is spent on military budgets worldwide. The brutality of those priorities that the U.S. inflicts on the world is also inflicted on us here.”

Amy Goodman, moderator of the Paficia Radio “Democracy Now!” program, served as M.C. of the rally, She read a message from Detroit Bishop Thomas Gumbleton denouncing “structures of violence that take from the poor and give to the rich. Our nuclear arsensal has only one purpose: to protect our privileged position in the world.”

Martin Luther King III, president of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, said that if his father were alive today he would be in the forefront of the peace and justice movement.

“We all want to see terrorism stopped,” he said. “If you treat people with dignity and respect, you don’t have to worry about terrorism. We’re going to fight a violent system with non-violence. As my father said, ‘If you don’t learn non-violence, we will face non-existence.’”

Civil liberties attorney Michael Ratner denounced the Bush administration for holding hundreds of prisoners of war at the U.S. Naval Base at Guantanamo, Cuba.

He called it “America’s Devil’s Island penal colony” and charged that the detainees are subject to torture. “There is no regard for treaties or international law by the world’s sole superpower.”

He hailed the courage of the masses of poor people in Venezuela in repelling the Bush-supported coup d’etat and restoring their elected president Hugo Chavez to power.

The crowd fell silent when members of a group called “Peaceful Tomorrows,” family members of victims of the Sept. 11 attacks, were introduced.

Amber Amundson, her two young children beside her, spoke of her grief at the death of her husband, Army Specialist Craig Scott Amundson, in the attack on the Pentagon. She told the crowd her husband had a “Visualize World Peace” bumper sticker on the car he drove to the Pentagon each day.

She called for ending the “cycle of violence” and resolving conflict through peaceful means. “Our grief is not a cry for war,” she concluded, as the crowd erupted in cheers and applause.

At the final rally near the Capitol, the Rev. Lucius Walker, founder of Pastors for Peace, surveyed the enormous crowd and hailed it as proof of a new level of unity in the struggle against the reactionary, ultra-right Bush administration.

Rep. Cynthia McKinney (D-Ga.), recalled the 2000 presidential election when “the Republicans stole from America our most precious right of all – the right of free and fair elections.” She blasted Bush for “spending $1 to $4 billion a month on the war in Afghanistan while slashing funds for human needs at home.”

Bush, she added, rammed through the Ashcroft Patriot Act “a law that denies our sacred freedoms cherished under the Constitution. We must dare to remember all of this and that is why we are here. To wage peace instead of war, we stand together as one. Because through our efforts, I believe we can again make America a force for good in the world.”

The author can be reached at greenerpastures21212@yahoo.com

Im here to walk the talk

Fri, 26 Apr 2002 05:44:00 +0000

CHICAGO – Beth Johnson had never been to a national demonstration before. Now, on a chilly Chicago street, she was one of about 400 people setting out on a 14-hour bus trip to Washington, D.C., for the April 20 Stop the War demonstration.

“It’s got to be okay for people to question what our government is doing,” she said. “They want to be able to do that without being called a traitor or unpatriotic. Many people are afraid to speak out.”

Johnson is a member of the Fox Valley Pledge of Resistance, in Kane County, Ill., in House Speaker Dennis Hastert’s (R-Ill.) district. The group was formed in the 1980s to protest U.S. intervention in Central America. It has held weekly vigils since November against U.S. bombing of Afghanistan.

Mary Shesgreen, another member of the group, said, “We are protesting any spread of this war to other countries.” Johnson said many people are upset that “the Bush administration has decided Iraq needs a regime change … If the U.S. doesn’t uphold international law, who will?”

Bettina Perillo, who belongs to the Church of the Brethren, a “historical peace church,” said she is also very concerned about the war in Colombia.

Marge Frana, from DuPage County, teaches a social justice class in a girls’ Catholic high school in Chicago. She told the World, “I’m here to be an example for my students. I’m here to walk the talk.”

As four packed buses pulled out past the darkening waters of Lake Michigan, Northwestern University freshman Tegan Jones said she wants to do “anything I can to make my voice heard.”

Jones, who is from an autoworker union family in Warren, Mich., said it is “refreshing to see a whole busload of other people” doing the same thing. She said she is very concerned about justice in Palestine, about people being forced out of their homes, killed in the streets, denied medical care.

Fellow Northwestern freshman Shom Dasupgta commented that after Sept. 11 there was a push for “blind patriotism.” “The fact that so many people are showing up” for this protest, he said, shows that “people are still thinking.”

Settling down for a long night on the road, another first-time demonstrator, Mary Bugallo, said, “I’ve never been much of a political maven. Sept. 11 was a turning point. It gave me an awareness of the time we’re allotted … to make a difference.” Bugallo said she was stunned by Bush’s post-Sept. 11 speech and its call for an endless war scenario. “Haven’t enough people been killed?” she asked.

The day of marching and mingling with people from around the country proved exhilarating, many participants said.

It was a “tremendous outpouring,” Sarah Staggs, Chicago Peace Response steering committee member, told the World as she waited to board the bus for the ride home. “Seven months ago the notion of speaking out to oppose Bush’s ‘war on terrorism’ was very difficult. Today, Bush has to accept that there is a strong cross-section” opposing his policies.

Staggs said Peace Response, a coalition of nearly 30 Chicago-area organizations, would continue to pressure Congress for stronger opposition to Bush’s war policies. “There’s still more emergency work to be done to bring peace to the Middle East,” she said.

American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees member Shelby Richardson said the day’s events “will make our work easier in talking to people about Bush’s way of dealing with things … It demonstrated that so many people have a different view.”

Many, including the African-American community, see the connection between the war at home and abroad, he said. “I’d like to see much more labor input,” he told the World. Now, he said, “we can clearly make the case that lots of people oppose Bush’s policies.”

Iowans hold state peace conference

Fri, 26 Apr 2002 05:40:00 +0000

DES MOINES – The All Iowa Anti-War Convergence brought 200 Iowans from throughout the state to Drake University recently to support the April 20 March on Washington and strengthen the anti-war movement in Iowa. The event was sponsored by faith, peace and student groups statewide and built on the many local peace actions since Sept. 11.

“I’m delighted with the response,” said American Friends Service Committee staffer and conference organizer Kathleen McQuillen. “Many of us felt it was time to coordinate our efforts. Now’s the time to review and strengthen all our work.”

The two-day event reflected the growing influence and organization of peace forces throughout the state. It also provided an encouraging indication of the increasing commitment of Iowans and their organizations to confront and condemn the Bush administration’s war on terrorism.

“We’ve all struggled with the war on terrorism. This isn’t a war – it’s a massacre. This is a war on innocent people at home and abroad,” McQuillen pointed out.

Iowa Peace Network Coordinator Patti McKee readily agreed. “It’s been very frustrating,” she said. “ We’re just continuing the cycle of violence. Rather than helping the poor and impoverished around the world, we provide state-sponsored terrorism.”

Z magazine co-founder and author Michael Albert gave the conference’s keynote address. Albert provided an energizing perspective of current anti-war efforts nationwide and emphasized the need to build a multi-class people’s movement to strengthen the struggle for peace. The veteran activist also warned that the success of the anti-war movement will depend on the ability of activists to move beyond parochial concerns to confront equally important class, gender and racial justice issues.

The conference provided a variety of panels and workshops. Topics highlighted were the root causes of terrorism, globalization and world poverty, U.S.-sponsored terrorism, the USA Patriot Act; the human face of Afghan casualties and Muslim experiences in America since Sept. 11.

“The Convergence brought lots of new faces. More people are coming forward. There’s a growing dissatisfaction with the Bush administration and the direction it’s taking the nation. People are eager to learn, act and mobilize,” said McQuillen.

The author can be reached at TMohan5444@aol.com

Unions unite for environment, safety

Fri, 26 Apr 2002 05:40:00 +0000

LONG BEACH, Calif. – The West Coast International Longshore and Warehouse Union (ILWU) and the International Brotherhood of Teamsters joined forces at a protest rally last Monday in support of two bills before the California legislature that would protect the environment and increase highway safety in port areas.

The action is part of a nationwide coalition effort by three of the nation’s most important transport unions to pass standard legislation at U.S. ports. While the ILWU is working with Teamsters on the west coast, the International Longshoremen’s Association (ILA) is working with Teamsters on the East and Gulf Coasts.

The rally was attended by dozens of port workers and was organized outside of the Port of Long Beach administration building preceding a Long Beach Harbor Commission meeting. Unionists were seeking Commission support for Assembly Bill 2650 introduced by Alan Lowenthal (D-Long Beach), which would help solve the port pollution problem; and Senate Bill 1507 introduced by Gloria Romero (D-Los Angeles), which would ensure that terminal operators are held responsible for giving drivers truck chassis that meet basic safety standards.

“The port drivers are exploited enough,” said Gary Smith, the West Coast Teamster representative for the Port Division, representing 10,000 truckers. “We are uniting with the ILWU to put a stop to it.”

Joining Smith at the rally was Ramon Ponce De Leon, president of ILWU Local 13, representing his International union, who echoed Smith, saying, “it’s about time that we get together” in this effort to “secure legislation in the interests of labor.”

The Lowenthal bill would restrict the time trucks stand idling at terminal gates, spewing diesel pollution into the ports and the harbor communities, and fine terminal operators $250 for every truck that waits at the terminal gates more than 30 minutes.

“We have to wait as long as three or four hours for our trucks to be inspected,” trucker Lorenzo Modesto told the World. “Every time the waiting truckers start up their engines, there is more pollution.”

Six thousand longshore union members and 10,000 truck drivers at the ports are the first to be impacted by the diesel-polluted air, including most of their families, who live in the harbor area, but it is a major problem for the entire community as well.

The Romero bill would require that unsafe chassis, which containers are loaded on, be red-tagged and isolated on the terminals until they are repaired. The terminal operators will also be fined for unsafe chassis and will be required to pay for any tickets drivers receive as a result.

Placing more responsibility on operators for safety conditions and roadworthy chassis is necessary for safety, say union leaders, especially considering that in the Long Beach/Los Angeles port area, 35,000 containers are hauled out everyday.

“Truckers who are paid by the load instead of by the hour should not be forced to choose between wasting more time to make their delivery and getting a safe piece of equipment,” stated the unions.

The Long Beach Harbor Commission agreed to put the matter on a future agenda and to continue to discuss the legislation and other possible solutions with the two unions. Steve Stallone, ILWU communications director, said, “This is a first step in dealing with the pollution and road safety problems that expanding international trade brings to port communities. Our two unions are committed to passing this legislation and finding further solutions.”

The author can be reached at evnalarcon@aol.com

International Notes

Fri, 26 Apr 2002 05:29:00 +0000

Massive French protests vs. Le Pen

Massive demonstrations continued across France this week against extreme rightist Jean-Marie Le Pen, who emerged as one of the two finalists in Sunday’s first-round presidential election.

French media reported tens of thousands of demonstrators including high school and college students, held rallies and sit-ins with slogans including “Le Pen is Fascist,” “Le Pen Out,” and “We are all children of immigrants.”

Le Pen received almost 17 percent of the vote in the first round, behind incumbent conservative President Jacques Chirac, but slightly ahead of Socialist Prime Minister Lionel Jospin, who was eliminated from the May 5 runoff.

The vote for the extreme right means that a “heinous, racist and xenophobic” party will participate in the runoff, the French Communist Party (FCP) said in a statement.

The FCP, which received over 3 percent of the vote, said, “We are clear and without illusion about Jacques Chirac,” but the French political system and electoral rules leave no other choice but to avoid Le Pen.

China urges support for developing countries

A senior official of the Chinese People’s Bank, Li Ruogu, this week told a conference of the U.N. Economic and Social Council and the Bretton Woods Institutions at U.N. headquarters in New York that it is crucial for developing countries to participate fully in building a new world economic order.

Li said that in the fast developing world economy, the developing countries, with widening income gaps and growing populations, have benefited much less than have economically developed countries.

Li called on developed countries to provide full market access to developing countries, to expedite transfer of capital and technology, and to increase their Official Development Assistance (ODA) to the previously stated goal of 0.7 percent of Gross National Product.

“At the same time,” he said, “the conditions they attach to ODA should conform to realities in the recipient countries.”

Niger cuts ties with Israel

The sub-Saharan nation of Niger became the first country to sever ties with Israel since the Sharon government’s brutal campaign against the Palestinian people.

The government acted after thousands protested in the capital city, Niamey, last weekend to protest the Israeli government’s actions and demand the break in relations. Of Niger’s 10 million people, 80 percent are Muslim.

The country had renewed diplomatic relations with Israel in 1996, after a 23-year break following the 1973 Mideast war.

In announcing the government action, Lawal Kader Mahamadou, government secretary-general, declared that “Palestine must live as a sovereign state.”

Ukraine elections bolster anti-people reforms

Preliminary results of the March 31 elections for People’s Deputies in the Ukraine show that mainly the political forces serving the interests of the ruling system have come to the fore in the legislature and in the local governing bodies, the Communist Party of Ukraine said last week.

“These forces will continue the realization of the anti-people policy of ‘radical market reforms,” the CP said.

The party also called attention to numerous violations of democratic standards during the election campaign and on election day.

The Central Electoral Committee reported that nearly 70 percent of eligible voters cast their ballots.

Nearly a quarter of those voted for the “Our Ukraine” bloc, another 20 percent voted for the CP of the Ukraine, nearly 12 percent for the bloc “For United Ukraine,” and the rest for a variety of smaller parties.

Beware the home-ownership Enron

Fri, 26 Apr 2002 05:26:00 +0000

In a cruel hoax, the capitalists are singing “home ownership” as a solution to the terrible insecurity their system creates daily. President George W. Bush is the current lead for the “Culture of Ownership” band. But beware the “Enron” in their siren song!

The insecurity on which they play is justified. At least one-third of U.S. jobs are highly insecure today, almost twice the 1973 proportion. And who wants to be at the mercy of a landlord?

Owning one’s home is not like owning capital, i.e., exploiting labor. But the business of selling homes is all too much like the business of selling stocks, with the associated speculation, loans and fees.

As with stocks in the 1990s, house prices appear to be defying gravity. They climbed 9 percent in the U.S. in the past year, despite a downturn in the economy. This is particularly extraordinary, considering there were over 10 million vacant homes and apartments.

In an unsustainable trend, house prices in nearly all rich capitalist countries in the ‘90s outpaced economic growth, inflation and income year after year – with two big exceptions. In Japan, the bubble burst, and house prices have fallen to less than half their 1990 peak. In Germany, they have dropped 30 percent since 1992. People are holding mortgages often greater than their homes are worth, resulting in a form of indentured servitude.

There are signs of an “Enron” in the U.S. housing market. With Enron the capitalists mobilized their forces – including their bankers, accountants and brokers – to artificially inflate the company’s worth. “Home appraisers say their mission is in jeopardy,” The Wall Street Journal reported last year, “and the risk to the market is great, because they’re under pressure to raise prices as high as possible so brokers and lenders can make more and bigger loans and collect bigger fees.” The Journal goes on to quote Mark Vitner, an economist at First Union Bank, “‘The upward spiral of prices becomes self-reinforcing.’ Some believe home prices are beginning to act like technology stocks before the bubble burst last year, and Mr.Vitner says they’re moving up so fast that any value seems reasonable.... Rep. Jan Schakowsky (D-Ill.) has introduced a predatory lending bill that includes a provision making it illegal for lenders to coerce appraisers.”

The New York Times recently reported that defaults on mortgages for low and moderate-income families in the N.Y. region have soared, from 3 percent in 1992 to 11.7 percent in February 2002. The cumulative impact of racism – in hiring, firing, pay, predatory lending, law enforcement, etc. – was particularly evident. “A kind of default and foreclosure belt snakes through predominantly Black neighborhoods,” the Times reported.

Even home “ownership” statistics (67.7 percent in 2001) are misleading. Two-thirds of home “owners” have one or more mortgages outstanding. And in this society, the capitalists’ claims – commonly known as loans – have legal priority, be they in corporate assets (as Enron showed) or home equity.

If a “homeowner” has paid off 99 percent of a mortgage but falls behind on final payments, the lender can take possession (foreclose), evict the home “owner,” sell the property to satisfy the debt and collect punitive fees, leaving the “owner” with little or nothing. And with valuations rising, regressive property taxes are climbing. Tax liens can also lead to loss of home.

It will not take a big rise in unemployment or interest rates, or a big fall in home prices, for much of the $6 trillion in outstanding U.S. mortgage debt to become unpayable. The question then becomes on whose terms will the debt not be repaid, the capitalists’ or the working class’? The working class will cancel debts to capitalists and will make certain that production – and existing housing – are to meet human needs, not for profit.

The truth is that there are no individual solutions to capitalism’s problems. By reducing mobility, homeownership can even make life harder for workers at a time of tremendous “churning” in the U.S. “labor market.” (Friedrich Engels’ work on “The Housing Question” remains a classic.)

Only class struggle and a socialized economy can bring about the economic – and housing – security all should enjoy. Real solutions will come from “investing” in the Communist Party and the class struggle. This includes the struggle against evictions and foreclosures, and for quality and affordable housing for all, including for our youth.

The author can be reached at pww@pww.org

WTOs third try a charm for Southern nations

Fri, 26 Apr 2002 05:23:00 +0000

Two years ago in Seattle, the transnational corporations at the meeting of the World Trade Organization (WTO) expected to extend so-called “free trade,” already in place under NAFTA, around the world. Their plot failed due to the opposition of two potent forces.

One was the opposition of international delegates to the conference. These included the “South,” the less industrialized nations mostly from the Southern Hemisphere. These delegates were supported by those from France, Germany and Japan, whose governments were forced to heavily subsidize their farmers. In the case of France and Germany, this was because of grain dumping below farmers’ costs by the United States, and in the case of Japan, rice dumping.

The Seattle defeat of WTO’s Seattle plans represented a major setback for international capital’s plans for world trade domination – the 21st century form of imperialism. The major force behind this victory was the U.S. labor movement.

The AFL-CIO called on all organizations of good will – environmental, farmers and religious – to join thousands of trade unionists for a mass demonstration on the streets of Seattle all during the sessions of the conference. The huge popular mass that responded encouraged the third world delegates to oppose and defeat the plans for worldwide trade domination.

But the WTO has not quit.

Seattle was but one stop in a continuing campaign. Under various names, the WTO has been hard at it for the past three years. First was the Uruguay Round, Seattle followed and just last December another round was held in Doha, Qatar.

Qatar, a tiny oil-rich country on the Arabian peninsula, is not a place that favors mass demonstrations. But despite no friendly demonstrations, the third world delegations were on the job .

The Doha ministerial seated Ministers of Trade from 142 countries, hundreds of journalists and business lobbyists. Wary of another failure, and applying the right combination of threats and compromises, an agreement was reached in a final statement.

It was the kind of agreement that both sides could claim as a success. Southern nations could claim that agreement was reached to end export subsidies for farm products, a form of dumping that has been ruining farmers of developing countries.

This success by the Southern delegates was weakened by Australia and some European countries that kept the issue off the general agenda but conceded general language in the final statement that would reduce export subsidies.

It is expected that this issue of export dumping, so vital to the South, will come up again at the next meeting of the WTO ministerial in Mexico in 2003.

Another success was achieved by a number of third world countries supported by Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs) on the issue of stopping drug companies from using their patents to impede or prevent health authorities from making generic drugs available to AIDS patients in Brazil, South Africa and other countries. The adoption of a special section of the final document was opposed by the United States, United Kingdom, Germany and Switzerland, but passed just the same.

This Ministerial Conference marked a new unity among third world countries. Divisions remain, but they, with the help of many NGOs, effectively raised new issues, such as the peril of land mines in former areas of conflict, a continuing hazard for rural people. Also global warming and biological diversity will be on future WTO agendas.

The great significance of the Qatar ministerial is the growing power of the third world where the poorest people on the planet live. These developing nations have shown that they have the power to positively challenge the transnational corporations that set up the WTO in the first place.

The author can be reached at pww@pww.org

300 rally for peace and justice

Fri, 26 Apr 2002 05:14:00 +0000

TUCSON – “This kind of movement can lead the way to world peace,” thundered local Jobs with Justice leader Steve Valencia to equally loud applause from the hundreds of people gathered at Catalina Park here.

Valencia was speaking to an April 20 rally for Peace and Justice in solidarity with the over 100,000 marchers gathered in Washington D.C. The rally followed a spirited two-mile march by over 200 protesters angered by the Bush administration’s threat of endless war abroad and attacks on our living conditions at home.

Marchers chanted anti-war slogans and carried signs calling for peace, justice for the Palestinian people and for the funding of social programs instead of wars and weapons.

People came out of shops and coffee houses to express their solidarity, and several youths joined the marchers. Along Tucson’s busy Speedway Blvd. car horns honked in support.

Back at the park they were greeted by a waiting crowd and a peace song by local folksinger Ted Warmbrand. Speakers at the rally also included Claudia Elquist, a national executive member of the National Organization for Women, high school activist Adrian Manriquez, Mohyeddin Abdulaziz, of the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee, and Jon Miles, from Veterans for Peace.

Abdulaziz said, “this is a rally against war, racism, destruction and starvation, sanctions, occupation and all sorts of crimes against humanity.”

Abdulaziz called for the enforcement of U.N. resolutions that direct Israel to withdraw from all territories occupied in 1967. He criticized the U.S. administration for its continuing support for Israeli aggression against the Palestinian people.

The march and rally was called by the Tucson Peace Action Coalition and was supported by 23 Southern Arizona peace, social justice and labor organizations.

The author can be reached at stelnik@webtv.net

Progressive programs under attack

Fri, 26 Apr 2002 05:11:00 +0000

NEW YORK – Marymount Manhattan College (MMC) is a small liberal arts college located on the Upper East Side here. The beginning of the spring terms marked a fundamental change in the way MMC is administered.

A new president – Judson R. Shaver, Ph.D., a conservative budget-slashing cowboy – was selected. Since his inauguration, progressive programs in the once very progressive college are getting their funds cut left and right.

Shaver is attacking minority-based and gender-based scholarships and programs. One such program is the Community Leadership Program (CLP). The CLP is a scholarship that is granted to minority youth who devote their time to volunteering in non-profit, community-based organizations.

The students of the CLP recently received a brief, one-paragraph statement in the mail, informing them of the cuts to their summer and winter semester funds. The CLP was a growing program that was encouraging its students to go out and change the world for the better.

The cutting of funds was not the only attack on the CLP, though. Three weeks before the announcement of the cuts, the director of the CLP was fired for administrative infractions.

All signs indicate that Shaver is out for blood. He has initiated a review of these “special programs,” which he believes do not maximize profits. Other progressive programs on his hit list are the Educational Enrichment Program, Women in Urban Leadership, Higher Education Opportunity Program and the list goes on.

At a time when funds from the City University of New York and other colleges are being cut, this can be expected of Shaver, but not accepted. The CLP students, in coalition with the Young Communist League (YCL) of MMC, are fighting back.

The administration expected the students of these programs to be demoralized and unorganized. They were extremely wrong. Students from the CLP and YCL marched into a meeting Shaver was attending and demanded to speak to him.

He responded to their pleas callously and unremorsefully, saying, “You should appreciate what you have and not what was taken away from you.”

Shaver has an “if you give them and inch, they’ll take a mile” mentality. The students of the CLP don’t want a mile; they just want their inch back.

The author can be reached at pww@pww.org

May Day: Born in the USA

Fri, 26 Apr 2002 05:11:00 +0000

On June 22, 1835, in Philadelphia, on the Schuykill River coal wharves, the workers paraded in the streets behind banners demanding, “From 6 to 6, ten hours work and two hours for meals.”

They won their demand, only to lose it in 1841 when the vast majority of workers were forced to return to a workday of 12 to 14 hours, six days a week.

In 1884 the Order of the Knights of Labor declared their desire, “To shorten the hours of labor by a general refusal to work more than eight hours.” But the statement was never followed by any effort to win the eight-hour day.

Meanwhile, until May 1, 1886, unions agitated for the eight-hour day through mass meetings and distribution of circulars.

“Arouse, ye toilers of America! Lay down your tools on May 1, 1886, cease your labor, close the factories, mills and mines for one day in the year. One day of revolt – not of rest,” one flyer said.

“A day of protest against oppression and tyranny, against ignorance and war of any kind. A day on which to begin to enjoy ‘eight hours for work, eight hours for rest, eight hours for what we will.’”

They sang the Eight Hour Song, one verse of which said: “We want to see the sunshine,/We want to smell the flowers./We’re sure that God has willed it./And we mean to have eight hours.”

Newspapers speculated on the size of the coming strike and some bewailed the influence of “Communism, lurid and rampant” and predicted “loafing and gambling, rioting, debauchery, and drunkenness, bringing lower wages, more poverty and social degradation for American workers.”

Workers across the country downed tools on May 1, 1886, prompting AFL President Samuel Gompers to tell a New York City demonstration, “May 1 will be forever remembered as a second declaration of independence.”

Eleven thousand Detroiters marched on May 1; 5,000 in Troy, N.Y.; 10,000 in Milwaukee; in the largest march, some 50,000 in Chicago.

Interracial solidarity reached a high point when 6,000 Blacks and whites marched through Louisville’s National Park, which was closed to Black people.

Marches and demonstrations continued in Chicago, where several hundred striking sewing women – the Tribune called them “shouting Amazons” – marched on May 3.

Four strikers at the McCormick Harvester plant were killed when police opened fire on a demonstration protesting the use of scabs.

This barbarous act by a police force already hated for its savagery against labor brought forth a May 4 demonstration in Haymarket Square, which ended when a bomb was thrown into the crowd by an unknown person. Several police were killed and the remaining police emptied their guns into the panic-stricken protesters.

Hundreds were arrested, eight union leaders were accused of murder, but not of throwing the bomb.

Although the evidence presented at the trial was questionable, seven were found guilty, four of whom were hanged Nov. 11, 1887. In 1893 Gov. John Peter Altgeld pardoned the rest and stated that the hanged men had not received a fair trial.

At the December 1888 AFL convention in St. Louis a call to enforce an eight-hour day climaxed with a mass strike on May 1, 1890.

Labor organizations in England, France, Germany and other European countries, many of them affiliated with the International Working Men’s Association, led by Karl Marx, supported the U.S. workers by advancing the call for an eight-hour day.

On May 2, 1990 the front-page headline of the New York World screamed: “Everywhere the workmen join in demands for a normal workday.”

Hundreds of thousands of workers secured increases in their wages and reduced their hours of labor in the strikes and other struggles sparked by the May Day struggles of the 1880s and ‘90s

Despite efforts in our country by the giant corporate media and their subsidized think tanks to negate, substitute and trash this workers’ holiday, it continues, throughout the world, to be a day during which labor’s banners affirm their struggle for a better life.

The author can be reached at pww@pww.org

Groups protest INS raids and arrests

Fri, 26 Apr 2002 05:03:00 +0000

OAKLAND – Leaders of labor, immigrant rights and community groups held a press conference April 17 at the Federal Building here to protest the action of the Immigration and Naturalization Service(INS) in harassing and arresting immigrant workers at area airport terminals.

Since Sept. 14, more than 700 workers have been charged, arrested, fired or deported in the course of raids at 14 airports – 44 of them at four northern California terminals.

Katy-Nunez Adler, Immigration Specialist with the Center for Third World Organizing and a speaker at the press conference, labeled the INS raids as “the worst kind of hypocrisy. First the INS forces undocumented workers into the shadows. Then they claim these workers are a security risk because they are in the shadows. The fact that not one immigrant airport worker has been charged with terrorist activities shows how irrelevant this operation is to promoting aviation safety.”

Alameda County Central Labor Council Executive Secretary Judy Goff pointed to the strong support for the rights of immigrant workers registered by the National AFL-CIO at conventions and regional rallies across the country. “I call on our elected representatives in Congress,” Goff said, “to pass legislation defending the workplace rights of immigrant workers and their right to join unions without harassment or threats of deportations.”

Adolph Felix, representative of Teamsters Local 78 and speaking for the local’s 6,500 members, said, “I resent the INS raids. They attack working people trying to support their families and create fears of deportation. We have to stand together.”

A delegation that included Goff; Susan Starr, a leader of the Unitarian Church in Oakland; Lillian Galedo, director of the Committee for Immigrant Rights; Keith Carson, president of the Alameda County Board of Supervisors; and David Bacon, labor journalist, left the press conference to meet with INS officials in the federal building.

The meeting had been arranged by Rep. Barbara Lee (D-Calif.), The delegation was able to submit a list of questions to the INS representative, but the INS refused to give any answers, saying that they would pass the questions on to their national office in Washington.

The author can be reached at ncalview@igc.org

Earth Day signals battles to come in 2002 elections

Fri, 26 Apr 2002 05:03:00 +0000

President George Bush tried to look outdoorsy for an Earth Day photo-op in the Adirondack Mountains, but his environmental policies are being assailed by environmentalists, leading Democrats and others.

Political commentators expect environmental issues to be among the hot political battles in the 2002 elections.

“Our landmark environmental laws face the gravest challenge since the assaults of the Newt Gingrich Congress of 1995, and perhaps ever,” Gregory Wetstone, Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) director of advocacy, said recently.

“The threat this time is more insidious, and potentially more dangerous. The Bush administration is quietly subverting federal agency rules that translate environmental laws into specific requirements for industry.”

The NRDC says the administration intensified its efforts after Sept. 11, when public attention was diverted by the war on terrorism.

SaveOurEnvironment.org, a coalition of 16 national environmental groups, charges the White House with spearheading a coordinated effort to “identify and target environmental regulations that industry finds most objectionable.”

In his Earth Day speech, Bush trumpeted his “Clear Skies” plan as one that will give companies “flexibility to find the best ways” to meet air pollution limits. But environmental experts say the Bush plan will actually allow more industrial air pollution than the existing Clean Air Act.

Under the Bush plan, the amount of coal electric power companies burn will increase by 7.3 percent, according to an Environmental Protection Agency analysis.

“It makes no sense to replace … effective programs with one that increases coal emissions,” said John Walke, director of NRDC’s clean air program. “The ‘Clear Skies’ initiative is a prime example of how coal state politics, not public health, is driving the administration’s policy.”

Bush also wants to weaken the Clean Water Act by allowing mining and other companies to fill wetlands, streams and other waters with waste materials. A national battle is raging over the Bush administration’s proposal to make Yucca Mountain, Nev., the nation’s nuclear waste dump.

There are major concerns about groundwater contamination from leaking radioactive waste and dangers posed by transporting up to 100,000 radioactive waste shipments through 44 states and the District of Columbia.

On April 8, Republican Gov. Kenny Guinn vetoed Bush’s recommendation to open the facility, citing the many safety concerns. His veto triggered a 90-day deadline for Congress to act.

The Republican-dominated House is expected to support Bush’s plan, but the real battle will be in the Senate.

On another front, environmental groups and Democrats charge the Bush administration with drastically slowing toxic waste site cleanups and shifting the cost from corporate polluters to taxpayers. Under the Superfund program, created by Congress in 1980 to clean up the nation’s worst toxic waste sites, the costs were borne primarily by the polluters, in part through special environmental taxes on corporations.

Now, Bush is opposing reauthorization of these “polluter-pay” taxes and wants taxpayers to cover the gap. In place of the 75 sites slated to be cleaned up in 2001 and 65 targeted for this year, the administration downsized to only 47 cleanups in 2001 and 40 in 2002.

“The Bush administration is only interested in providing relief to the polluters,” said Nancy Stoner, director of NRDC’s clean water program. “Meanwhile, citizens are getting stuck with the mess and the cleaning bill. What’s wrong with this picture?”

Battles are raging over numerous Bush administration efforts to open public lands to corporate interests, including efforts to allow mining, oil and gas development and unregulated off-road vehicle use at some national monuments, and to allow commercial logging, invasive road construction and oil and gas drilling in national forests and grasslands.

In its 2001 Presidential Report Card, the League of Conservation Voters gave Bush a D- for poor environmental performance during his first year in office. The coming months will see mounting campaigns to defeat the Bush anti-environmental agenda and elect pro-environment candidates this fall.

The author can be reached at suewebb3@lycos.com

Castro pressured to leave summit

Fri, 26 Apr 2002 04:59:00 +0000

The events behind Cuban President Fidel Castro’s abrupt departure from the U.N. Conference on International Financing for Development at Monterrey, Mexico, last month were dramatically revealed by Castro himself this week, after a narrow 23-21 vote, with nine abstentions, against Cuba in the U.N. Human Rights Commission (HRC) at Geneva.

In both developments, the hand of the Bush administration shows through just as clearly as it did in last week’s right-wing coup attempt thwarted by popular uprising in Venezuela.

The Cuban leader abruptly left the Monterrey conference shortly after speaking, saying a “special situation created by my participation” obligated him “to immediately return to my country.”

Mexican Foreign Minister Jorge Castaneda and the Bush administration categorically denied that he had been pressed to do so.

However, the hypocritical nature of the denials was revealed when Cuban Assembly Speaker Ricardo Alarcon, tapped by Castro to head the delegation in his place, was denied access to the rest of the sessions.

But as Castro said this week, Mexican President Vicente Fox had put pressure in a lengthy late-night phone conversation on the eve of Castro’s departure for Monterrey, during which the Cuban president agreed to remain in Mexico only a short time. Castro said he revealed the transcript of the conversation only after the Mexican government violated its earlier commitment not to support any motion against Cuba in Geneva.

Early this year, on Mexican initiative, President Fox and a high-level delegation visited Cuba. “We were perfectly aware,” said Castro, “that one of the purposes was to request that we not participate in the [Monterrey] conference,” because President Bush had threatened not to attend if Cuba participated.

“I started by reminding them of the invitation extended to our country by the United Nations to take part in that summit and went on to analyze in depth the perfidious and hypocritical maneuvers against Cuba in Geneva.”

As a result, Castro said, neither Fox nor Castaneda raised the issue of the Monterrey summit. “[Castaneda] did promise, however, that Mexico would neither sponsor, promote nor support any motion against Cuba in Geneva.”

Last week Mexico was one of the 23 countries voting in the HRC for an anti-Cuba resolution drafted by Washington and presented by Peru and other Latin American countries. Despite intense U.S. pressures, 30 of the 53 HRC member countries either voted against the resolution or abstained.

As Castro concluded, “The aftermath of telling these truths could be that diplomatic relations are severed. However, the fraternal and historical bonds between the peoples of Mexico and Cuba will last forever.”a

Earth Day signals battles to come in 2002 elections

Fri, 26 Apr 2002 04:31:00 +0000

10 million workers strike across India

Fri, 26 Apr 2002 04:14:00 +0000

CHENNAI, India – Ten million workers, including workers from the banks, ports and mines were in the frontline of a nationwide general strike, April 16. The general strike, called by most of the leading trade unions of India, was against privatization and the disinvestments of Public Sector Undertakings (PSUs).

The strike brought the entire nation to a standstill for 24 hours. Kerala, one of the Indian states, was exempted from the general strike as there was a month-long strike by its government employees in February.

The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), which heads the national government coalition, is already under pressure over its handling of communal riots in Gujarat state in which more than 2,000 people have died.

The opposition and the National Human Rights Commission have charged the Hindu-nationalist BJP with instigating and organizing the violence which has claimed many Muslim lives. Many, including the Communist Party of India and the Communist Party of India (Marxist) have pressed for the resignation of the Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi.

Hailing the strike as a great success, All India Trade Union Congress (AITUC) General Secretary Gurudas Dasgupta and several other trade union leaders told a press conference in Delhi that millions of workers had displayed their militancy by observing the strike.

The late Jawaharlal Nehru, first Prime Minister of India, once said “Our PSUs are the holy shrines of this nation.”

Yet the right-wing BJP-led government is “corporatizing” the public sector, including ports, which would make them independent companies instead of government trusts.

The strike was a clear-cut warning to India’s government, which is implementing new economic policies in the country, and also for the multinational corporations. The strike showed the unity and strength of the trade union movement here in the struggles against liberalization, privatization and globalization policies.

The BJP administration created the Ministry for Disinvestments, headed by Arun Shourie, which is aimed at privatizing PSUs. Major Indian PSUs have huge capital investment and profit-making capabilities.

Some PSUs, like Balco and Modern Foods, have already been sold. Now they are trying to sell off Air India, Indian Oil Corporation, Cochin Port, Hindustan Latex, FACT, etc.

The government says that privatization of vital sections are the only way to stabilize the economy and to create an investor-friendly environment.

Yet, in India thousands of workers have lost their jobs due to the “liberalization, privatization and globalization” process.

Economic recession is in its high peak. Yet the government is making the false claims that there will be job security in the private sector.

The Vajpayee administration introduced the “Hire and Fire Scheme” in the Indian private sector, which is seen as a way to destroy trade unions. Many of the state governments are also doing the same.

Some of them, not only by the ruling BJP or its allies but also by the Congress Party, categorically stated that getting a job in government or in public sector will be a dream for the younger generation.

The central government is downsizing its operations by cutting 10 percent of the total employees every year. The result will be disappointment for jobseekers after completing their education. Compulsory and voluntary retirement schemes are hanging like Damocles’ sword on government employees and workers in PSUs.

Another example of the disastrous privatization policies is in food distribution. Since the destruction of the public distribution, millions of tons of grain have rotted in the Food Corporation of India’s godowns.

The BJP government and the Prime Minister are deliberately working overtime to increase the profit of the private sector, and the BJP is rolling back taxes for the rich and middle classes.

India’s Finance minister Yashwant Sinha announced new tax deductions for corporations and big business while cutting subsidies for food grains, sugar, kerosene and cooking gas, which will make the common man’s and woman’s life miserable.

Electricity tariffs as well as public transportation charges were hiked twice in the last year by state governments, which are under pressure from central government.

Bharathiya Mazdoor Sangh (BMS), the trade union wing of the BJP, also took part in the strike, illustrating differences between BMS and BJP.

Besides BMS, left-linked trade unions like AITUC, Center for Indian Trade Unions (CITU) and Hind Mazdoor Sabha (HMS), were in the strike and led mass rallies. Indian National Trade Union Congress (INTUC), which is affiliated with Indian National Congress, did not participate in the strike.

The World would like to welcome M.K.N Moorthy as a regular correspondent from India.

Moorthy is the editor of a progressive Malayalam-language magazine, Janayugom Monthly, and lives in Kerala. He can be reached at pww@pww.org.

10 million workers strike across India

Fri, 26 Apr 2002 04:13:00 +0000

Slavery: Not as dead as you think

Fri, 26 Apr 2002 04:04:00 +0000

Few Americans learned in school that slaves were about half the workforce that built the White House and the U.S. Capitol. A slave named Philip Reid supervised construction of the Statue of Freedom hoisted atop the Capitol dome in 1863. Such revelations rightly disturb our view of important symbols of democracy and remind us that slavery is at the foundation of our nation’s history.

Well-known bastions of American capital also have the institution of slavery at their foundation. Recent reporting has exposed how some of America’s most prosperous companies profited from slavery.

A February USA Today series spotlighted numerous corporate slavery beneficiaries, from Union Pacific railroad and textile giant WestPoint Stevens to J.P. Morgan Chase Manhattan Bank and FleetBoston Financial Group.

Railroads utilized slave labor to lay rail. Tobacco firms used slaves in the harvest. Southern utilities used slaves to construct oil lines. Mining companies used slaves to process salt and coal. Insurance giants Aetna, New York Life and American International Group (AIG) each own companies that reportedly sold policies to slave owners insuring their human assets. Companies may face a lawsuit demanding reparations for their slave-derived profits.

The unpaid productivity of these slaves was converted into corporate income and wealth that still sustains many companies today. Slaves were denied not only wages but the opportunity to build companies and pass assets on to future generations.

Many people know the expression “40 acres and a mule,” but don’t know it was a false promise. In 1865, General Sherman issued an order providing homesteads to freed slaves. But President Andrew Johnson, Lincoln’s successor, overrode the order and gave the land back to white Confederate landowners. Instead of 40 acres and a mule, freed slaves got brutal sharecropping and segregation.

The descendants of slaves continue to find their ability to jump on board the asset-building train impaired. Fault lines laid long ago forged a vast and enduring wealth gap between white Americans and African Americans. In 1998, the median net worth of white households was $81,700, while the median net worth of African-American households was just $10,000. The homeownership rate among white families is 74 percent, while for African-American families it is just 48 percent nationally, and much lower in some local areas.

If the foundation of the Capitol was dug and laid by slaves, and some of America’s most successful corporations have profits from slavery in their early capital formation, perhaps the story we tell ourselves about the creation of all wealth needs to be examined and those invisible foundation stones be brought into the light.

Slaves weren’t poor because people of African heritage are lazy. They were poor because the laws of the land prohibited them from getting paid for their work and from owning assets.

In generations since, structural obstacles have continued to impede Black asset development. African-American homeowners are often subjected to discriminatory and predatory lending practices that unfairly inflate their mortgage costs and rob them of the home equity that so many Americans draw on for college, starting businesses and retirement. Insurance companies are only now coming to acknowledge that for many years they charged African-American customers unjustifiably higher rates than whites. After World War II, the GI bill and Veterans Administration almost exclusively helped white families to become homeowners.

When Black farmers filed their historic lawsuit against the Department of Agriculture (DOA) in 1997, DOA investigators presented damning evidence of decades of discrimination: 84 percent of the white applicants had their loan applications approved, while only 56 percent of the Black applicants received loans. The result was that Black farmers lost their farms at more than triple the rate of white farmers.

We can no more replace the foundation stones of the U.S. Capitol than we can change the wealth foundations of many American businesses. However, with the truth of these foundations now being excavated, we can and should adopt fair rules to redress the injustice of the past and adopt new policies to assure that people of all races can build lasting financial security.

We can protect and strengthen affirmative action policies that redress past discrimination. We can launch a new GI bill to offer all working families a boost to homeownership. We can ban predatory lending practices. We can enforce non-discrimination for farmers of color by the Department of Agriculture. These are the kinds of policies that should serve as democratic cornerstones of our 21st century economy.

Meizhu Lui is the executive director of United for a Fair Economy. Rose Brewer is associate professor of African American and African Studies at the University of Minnesota. Lui can be reached at mlui@faireconomy.org and Brewer at brewe001@maroon.tc.umn.edu