People Before Profit blog

Floridas universal health campaign

Fri, 26 Apr 2002 05:35:00 +0000

Activists across the country will be watching this year’s Florida elections for three reasons: Gov. Jeb Bush is running for reelection, Florida Secretary of State Katherine Harris aspires to be elected to Congress and, three, health care advocates hope to place a non-binding measure on this year’s ballot calling for an amendment to the state’s constitution mandating a universal health care system based on the proposition “Everybody in, nobody out.”

Among those involved in the campaign for the amendment is the Labor Party (LP) of Alachua County. The party says the effort will focus on a three-year, three-step campaign aimed at getting the measure on the ballot in 2004. In a leaflet explaining the campaign, the LP says: “We believe the key to passing the amendment lies in consistently building momentum and demonstrating the overwhelming popular support for universal health care through non-binding referenda.”

The statement called for “reconvening an alliance” to carry on the massive voter education and signature campaign needed to win health care for all. “Please join us,” it concluded.

The Florida State AFL-CIO has also joined in the campaign, with a resolution at its 2001 convention lending “strong support” to the efforts to encourage non-binding referenda on universal health care on ballots in several Florida counties for the 2002 elections as part of the effort “to build a campaign to place a universal health care constitutional amendment on the 2004 Florida ballot.”

The federation promised to “collect a portion of the 480,000 signatures required to put the amendment on the 2004 ballot.” If approved, the measure would effectively eliminate insurance companies and HMOs from the state’s health care system.

Meanwhile, the national campaign for universal, affordable and comprehensive health care came to New York with an appearance of Rep. John Conyers, Jr. (D-Mich.) and principal sponsor of House Concurrent Resolution 99.

The resolution, introduced on April 4 with the support of 28 members of Congress, “Direct[s] Congress to enact legislation by October 2004 that provides access to comprehensive health care for all Americans.” Others appearing with Conyers included Democratic Reps. Major Owens, Jerrold Nadler, Anthony Weiner and Gregory Meeks, all from New York City.

The flyer calling for universal health care includes language that can be useful to other activists: “Polls show most Americans favor universal health care. In all other industrial countries this sentiment led to creating publicly controlled health systems that have less paperwork, guaranteed coverage, and overall better quality care then we have in the United States.”

The Florida resolution can serve as a model for activists in other states. Copies can be obtained by sending an e-mail to flaflcio.org or by calling (850) 224-6926.

The author can be reached at pww@pww.org

Corporate media hide truth about Venezuelan coup

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

Last week’s abortive coup d’etat against Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez had the fingerprints of the CIA all over it. However, when Chavez speaks of the incident, he also calls it a “media coup,” referring to emerging facts about how the coup was prepared and carried out that show how international monopoly capital seeks to use the mass media, not only to define, conceal and distort the facts, but to manipulate actual events.

In Venezuela, all but one major newspaper and one TV station have been howling for Chavez’s blood for months. When the coup broke after street violence in April, the TV stations distorted events in a very significant way:

• They showed only scenes of pro-Chavez individuals firing pistols, but not that the violence was very likely started by anti-Chavez forces. They appear to have had the footage, but edited in such a way as to make it appear as if pro-Chavez people had started firing for no reason at all. Thus, they helped to provide a pretext for overthrowing a legally elected president.

• Then, when the poor rose up to demand that Chavez be restored to power, the TV stations did not cover this news, but instead ran cartoons and the film Pretty Woman.

• When Chavez was restored on April14, none of the anti-Chavez newspapers were published that day.

• Now that Chavez is restored to power and is not carrying out massacres or witch-hunts as they had feared, they are screaming about Chavez the repressive, Chavez the dictator, and all but openly callling for another coup.

But in this week’s Newsweek magazine and in an article by David Adams writing in The St. Petersburg Times on April 18, a more sinister role on the part of the Venezuelan media is laid out. According to these sources, at least one major media mogul, Gustavo Cisneros, of the Venevision TV channel, was intimately involved both in the planning and execution of the coup, and in working with U.S. officials to help bring it about.

Cisneros is said to be a disgruntled former supporter of Chavez. Be that as it may, he now hates the president. He has documented contact with Otto Reich, the U.S. Under-Secretary of State for Hemispheric Affairs. Reich admits having conversations with Cisneros during the coup, but claims he did not instigate or encourage it.

Others claim that Cisneros not only supported the coup, but was the central planner of activity, with meetings of coup plotters, including the coup’s flash-in-the-pan puppet president Pedro Carmona, taking place right in the Venevision headquarters.

Other TV, radio and newspaper magnates, especially those of Globovision, RCTV and the El Nacional newspaper chain, may also have been directly involved in planning the coup.

We are affected in the United States because of the interlocking relationships between the Venezuelan media and media here. For example, Adams claims that Globovision CEO Alberto Ravell telephoned CNN in the United States to ask them not to broadcast news of the efforts to restore Chavez to power. Globovision is affiliated with CNN, which claims it did not alter its coverage on the basis of any outside request.

In particular, UNIVISION, which serves many Spanish-language TV markets in the United States, has been acting like the mouthpiece of the same Venezuelan media conglomerates that were instrumental in carrying out the coup. Not that English- language media here have been appreciably better.

People in the United States are being fed a diet of misinformation that serves to justify the next coup attempt in Venezuela, the third largest supplier of oil to the United States and a country that has annoyed the Bush administration by cooperating with Cuba, refusing to cut oil prices to suit the U.S., refusing to support pro-corporate trade policies and other great sins.

So: Have you renewed your membership to the People’s Weekly World yet? How about getting your friends, relatives and co-workers to subscribe, and you will have them plugged into the real scoop on Venezuela and everything else.

Emile Schepers is a reader in Chicago. He can be reached at pww@pww.org

Letters

Fri, 26 Apr 2002 03:55:00 +0000

Church controversy The increasing number of allegations and cases of sexual abuse of children and minors by Catholic priests has engulfed the Church in controversy and is being discussed in newspapers, magazines and on talk radio programs and cable news outlets daily.

The Human Rights Campaign (HRC) and the Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation (GLAAD) have received numerous reports from throughout the country about commentators and spokespeople linking homosexuality to pedophilia and sexual abuse of minors. In some cases increasingly inflammatory rhetoric is being used to characterize this crisis as a “homosexual problem.”

As this controversy continues to grow, HRC and GLAAD want to make sure that their members and GLBT community leaders have some research and action steps readily available that can be used in responding to anti-gay rhetoric and commentary where necessary and appropriate.

GLAAD’s web site (www.glaad.org) includes “Resources for Covering the Catholic Church Sex-Abuse Crisis,” which includes suggestions for fair, accurate and inclusive reporting; a list of contact information for media spokespeople and resources; and an archive of recent news and opinion coverage of the story.

HRC (hrc.grassroots.com) has developed a fact sheet of bullet points, research citations and expert opinions that clearly debunk the myth that gay men and lesbians are more likely to engage in sexual abuse of children and minors.

Dignity/USA (www.dignityusa.org), the nation’s oldest and largest organization of gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender Catholics also has useful information on its website.

If you hear a news outlet or talk program or spokesperson try to make a connection between homosexuality and pedophilia or charge that gay men are inclined toward sexual abuse of minors, please consider doing the following:

1. Please express your opinions to the outlet directly.

2. Inform the reporter, editor or host of the distinction between healthy adult sexual orientations – gay, straight or bisexual – and any tendency to sexually abuse minors. Since it began reaching out to journalists on this issue earlier in the year, GLAAD has found that reporters who may not be conscious of this distinction are receptive to information that debunks this long-perpetuated myth.

3. Include in your response that any and all sexual contact between adults and children of any age is wrong and should be punished.

4. Use the resources from GLAAD and HRC to refute charges that sexual abuse of minors is in any way reflective of gay life, identity or sexual orientation.

5. E-mail or call GLAAD with the name of the news program or person that you spoke to so that we may track the stories. When possible, please copy GLAAD and HRC on your correspondence at glaad@glaad.org and field@hrc.org.

Gary DottermanBoston MA

Hearings in order I sent the following to my Sentaors:

I am embarrassed that the United States government apparently gave aid and comfort to the authors of the coup against the democratically elected government of Venezuela.

The role of the Bush administration in this coup deserves thorough scrutiny, and congressional hearings are in order.

We cannot allow the present administration to use the extraordinary times in which we are living as a cover for anti-democratic actions at home or abroad.

Will you call for hearings on the situation in Venezuela?

Marc AuerbachSeattle WA

Union struggles In the March 30 edition, an article headlined “Economics of Injustice” leaves the impression that there is no use for unions under capitalism, because they can never win gains.

We agree that capitalism can’t solve the problems of the people. However, we disagree that it is not possible to win gains under capitalism.

The Communist Party is committed to taking on every struggle of working people to make our lives better. The struggle to make life better under capitalism goes hand in hand with the struggle for socialism. They have to go together.

Union struggles are key to making gains, including higher wages, better working conditions, and security. In the course of union struggles, workers learn more about the limitations of capitalism.

The People’s Weekly World is a vital tool to help workers draw conclusions and raise their sights about the possibilities of a more fair and just society in which workers control the resources.

The People’s Weekly World should emphasize building unions and labor-community coalitions, and should reject the idea that unions are not doing any good.

Winchester Club, Conn. CPUSAvia e-mail

Editorials

Fri, 26 Apr 2002 03:50:00 +0000

Bush’s recent setbacks

George W. Bush has taken several political “hits” in recent weeks, proving that his vaunted “war on terrorism” is wearing thin as a smokescreen for his ultra-right gameplan. First was the vote by the Senate Judiciary Committee to reject his nomination of Charles Pickering to the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals.

Then came the Senate vote by a wide margin to kill Bush’s scheme to drill for oil in the arctic refuge.

Bush threw his support to former L.A. Mayor Riordan in the California primary as the GOP candidate to defeat Democratic Gov. Gray Davis. But GOP voters instead picked the utra-rightist William Simon, Jr., throwing the GOP into disarray.

Bush faced foreign policy setbacks, as well. His mixed message on the Middle East has left him discredited throughout the world, which has condemned Sharon’s brutal attack on the Palestinian people.

Arab nations are especially outraged just when Bush is seeking to expand his “war on terrorism” with an attack on Iraq.

The fact that the Bush administration took so long to condemn the coup in Venezuela and the information which points to possible U.S. involvement in organizing it, isolated the administration among the countries in Latin America and Caribbean and exposed their double-talk on the issue of democracy.

There are other signs of potential trouble. His administration is spinning hard to contain the Enron scandal as a purely “corporate” scandal. They fear that the Bush administration will be exposed as a servant of thieving corporations like Enron.

These setbacks are a sign of a shift in public attitude, a growing perception that Bush is using the “war on terrorism” as a cover for right-wing policies long rejected by the popular majority.

In this election year, we need to open wide the chinks in Bush’s armor and inflict defeat on the GOP ultra-right in next November’s election.

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Reich, White must testify

Sen. Christopher Dodd (D-Conn.) has raised sharp questions about the Bush administration’s role in the abortive Venezuela coup d’etat. He points out that Assistant Secretary of State for Western Hemisphere Affairs Otto J. Reich telephoned coup leader Pedro Carmona just hours before the coup.

We urge Dodd to subpoena Reich to testify under oath before his Subcommittee on Western Hemisphere Affairs to explain his role in overthrowing democratically elected President Hugo Chavez.

A Sept. 8, 1988, report of the House Foreign Affairs Committee says that the State Department Office of Public Diplomacy, then directed by Reich, was crawling with “CIA specialists in covert operations, military intelligence and psychological operations.” They secretly planted opinion pieces in The Wall Street Journal and arranged interviews on CBS, branding as traitors lawmakers who had pushed through a bill cutting off aid to the mercenary contras in Nicaragua.

Reich, the report adds, oversaw “a private network of individuals and organizations” who “raised and funneled money to offshore accounts in the Cayman Islands or to the secret Lake Resources bank account in Switzerland for disbursement at the direction of Oliver North. Almost all these activities were hidden from public view.”

Reich is not the only Iran-contra conspirator Bush has appointed. Others include Elliot Abrams and John Negroponte, cronies with North in the murderous Iran-contra enterprise.

Then there are the Enron executives named by Bush, starting with Army Secretary Thomas White, who now admits he consulted with Ken Lay and other Enron execs 60 times in person or by telephone from his Pentagon office. Earlier he lied, saying he spoke with them only 16 times.

What are the Democratic Senators waiting for? They hold the Senate majority and could convene public hearings to blow wide open Bush’s close links with these crimes, a thousand times more sinister than the Whitewater and Monica Lewinsky scandals. This is an election year.

The Democrats need to overcome their timidity and take the gloves off.

Letters

Fri, 19 Apr 2002 05:28:00 +0000

A lasting peace

The following letter was sent to Senator Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.):

I have been a follower and supporter of your rise to prominence ever since you were elected to the N.Y. State Legislature from Flatbush. I lived there at that time and you spoke at both my sons’ elementary school graduations. I followed the news of your marriage and the birth of your daughters with interest. More importantly, I have supported your activities, especially in the recent period, in defense of civil rights and for the interests of the working people of our country.

I feel compelled to take issue with your position in relation to the conflict in the Middle East and your defense of Israeli actions no matter what they do. Of course, I abhor the suicide bombings of innocent Israelis. However, responding in kind will not bring an end to it.

As a Jew, my father always said that our history and survival taught us of the need to be concerned with justice and brotherhood for all peoples. That we as Jews cannot survive alone. That Israel cannot survive alone. If Israel is to survive, it must make peace with its neighbors. It must withdraw to its 1967 borders. It must accept a Palestinian state alongside its own with both peoples living together as equals. Expansion of its borders will not make Israel more secure. Destruction of the Palestinian Authority will not make it more secure.

The only security for Israel is a negotiated political settlement with involvement of the international community and the implementation of the latest United Nations resolution. That is the way to a lasting peace.

It is not anti-Semitic to disagree with Israel. No, it is our responsibility as Jews to speak out and be critical when it is necessary. The 15,000 who demonstrated in Israel against the war, and the military personnel refusing to serve in the occupied territories, are taking on that responsibility.

So, I ask you as the Senator from New York to see that our country uses all its influence to seek a cease-fire and support negotiations toward the formation of an independent Palestinian state that would end this long- standing violent conflict.

Esther MorozeNew York NY

Show your power

In hundreds of corporate board rooms throughout our country, small groups of men and an occasional woman sit at meetings that have only one purpose: to increase profits. They know, without any discussion, that the only place to get their profits is from the people who work for them, whether it be directly or indirectly.

Directly, they make efforts at lowering wages, lowering benefits, reducing safety procedures, etc.

Indirectly, they understand the importance of politics. Necessary to their requirement for increased profits is: the law which keeps minimum wages low; the law which relaxes standards on their products despite the many recalls (which occur only when they’re caught) on products from baby cribs to autos.

They want laws to reduce, restrict and defeat unions. They want to elect legislators who will pass Right-to-Work laws. They want to keep women, ethnic and religious minorities, as well as political dissenters on the run, in jail, sufficiently divided and fighting among themselves so as not to be a threat to their corporate bottom line. They know how important it is to have their conservative, right wingers get elected so they can achieve their ends.

However, while they are powerful and have the millions of dollars to mislead, we have the millions of people who can vote. We still have a democracy in which votes make a difference.

Most workers know that the drive for money by their employers is detrimental to the needs of workers. However, the corporate media has convinced many they can not fight city hall, that all politicians can not be trusted, that their vote doesn’t have meaning. Or they get them to vote for a single issue.

It is our job to convince the workers of our country that they have the vote, they have the power, they can demand justice for their families.

This coming election is critical. The people presently in power are ruthless.

The 2002 election affects every social issue, every so called safety net, every civil liberty to a greater degree than I have ever seen. It will affect whether we live in peace or live with a never ending war.

Karl DennisTucson AZ

Stop “Radical Right” tax cuts

I am writing to urge your readers to contact their congressional representative and urge that Bush’s tax cuts NOT be made permanent!

House GOP leaders are expected to bring legislation to the floor this week that would make permanent the entire package of federal tax cuts passed last spring. This move would inflate the cost of Bush’s irresponsible tax plan from $1.35 trillion to a staggering $6 trillion dollars over the next two decades.

Every federal program people care about, including education, health care and Social Security, would be cut to pay for these give-aways to the super-rich and corporations.

We the people have to act.

Marie LawrenceChicago IL

Editorials

Fri, 19 Apr 2002 05:20:00 +0000

End the external debt crisis

No matter how one looks at them, the numbers are staggering: More than a billion people in the world living on less than a dollar-a-day. There are 6.5 million AIDS orphans in Africa, with the number expected to double by 2010. Foreign debt of the world’s poorest countries now stands at more than $215 billion, up from $55 billion in 1980. In 1993 commercial banks, governments and international lending agencies took back three times as much money in debt repayment as they gave in aid to poor countries.

These numbers all have a common denominator – they are the product of the external debt crisis facing the 41 countries the United Nations calls Highly Indebted Poor Countries. They pay more in debt service than they spend on education, health or social programs.

Between 1982 and 1990, debtor countries paid more than $12 billion per month to their creditors – as much as the entire third world spends each month on health and education. This is money that flows from the world’s poorest people into the coffers of wealthy banks in the capitalist world.

As Cuban President Fidel Castro recently stated at the U.N.’s summit on poverty and development in Monterrey, Mexico, third world debt is a form of “plunder like no other in history.”

Julius Nyerere, former president of Tanzania, once asked if African countries should let their people starve so they could pay their foreign debt.

We need a movement strong enough to rewrite the rules, cancelling the unpayable debt and setting up a U.N. Development Fund as suggested by Castro, that provides the capital needed for sustainable growth and national independence.

Where would the money come from? Cut Bush’s $397 billion Pentagon budget by half. Divide that $193 billion peace dividend between our unmet human needs here at home and the U.N. Development Fund.

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U.S. out of Afghanistan

U.S.-British combat operations in eastern Afghanistan announced this week remind us that there has been no letup in the Bush administration’s “war without end.” Although there is the pretense of a coalition effort, make no mistake: this is a U.S.-run operation in the interest of the most reactionary sections of the U.S. ruling class.

The U.S. presence in Afghanistan has nothing to do with democracy or human rights, despite all the lipservice. In fact, the Bush administration has given skimpy support to humanitarian aid or implementation of women’s rights there.

What it’s about is installing a stable, compliant regime with some democratic trappings that will fully cooperate with the requirements of U.S. transnational corporations and their organizations, the World Bank and International Monetary Fund.

The ongoing U.S. involvement in Afghanistan is a beachhead for a permanent U.S. presence in Central Asia, part of the Bush administration’s effort to construct an arc of unchallenged political, military and economic dominance from Africa, across the Middle East and the southern regions of the former Soviet Union, and east to Indonesia. The overriding aim of the Bush administration is to utilize the war against terrorism in Afghanistan and beyond to solidify its single superpower status. Let’s call it by its name: Imperialism.

The U.S. military occupation in Afghanistan is not bringing peace or security either to Afghanistan or to our own country. Rather, like the current atrocities against the Palestinian people, it increases the risk of further violence and terrorist attacks, and heightens the danger of wider wars and use of nuclear weapons.

To achieve real peace and security, our government should immediately pull its troops and “advisors” out of Afghanistan and instead fully support international peacekeeping and humanitarian aid under the auspices of the United Nations and other international humanitarian agencies.

Further, the U.S. should promptly ratify the International Criminal Court and the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women.

But this won’t happen unless we, the American people, raise our united voices to demand it.

Venezuelan people save democracy

Fri, 19 Apr 2002 02:21:00 +0000

A coup by high-ranking military officers and business leaders April 12 forcibly removed Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez from office and installed Pedro Carmona, head of the nation’s business association, as “president.”

Forty-eight hours later Chavez was back in residence at the presidential palace, put there by protests in the sprawling working-class neighborhoods of Caracas and a demonstration of 100,000 that surrounded the presidential palace and forced Carmona to resign.

The Communist Party of Venezuela blamed Caracas Mayor Alfredo Penata for shootings that left 11 dead during clashes between pro- and anti-Chavez demonstrators on April 11. The statement says nine of the 11 victims were known supporters of Chavez, as were four of the five who had been shot in the forehead – thus assassinated at close range.

The Party statement said the purpose of the coup was to hand over Venezuela’s oil and other natural resources to transnational corporations.

As one of his first acts, Carmona stopped shipments of oil to Cuba. He also threw out the Venezuelan Constitution by abolishing the National Assembly and Supreme Court.

The Bush administration faced sharp questions on their role in the coup and their failure to join the unanimous condemnation by Latin American countries at the forced removal of a democratically elected leader.

On April 16, the White House admitted that Otto Reich, assistant secretary for Western Hemisphere affairs, phoned Carmona on April 12. The disclosure raised questions about whether Reich was stage-managing the takeover by Carmona.

Reich has lots of experience undermining democracy in Latin America. From 1983 through 1986, Reich headed the State Department’s Office of Public Diplomacy in which he collaborated with Lt. Col. Oliver North in delivering arms secretly to the Contra mercenaries in Central America.

Under Reich, the U.S. State Department reportedly contracted with a dummy corporation, International Business Communications, which funneled arms to the Nicaraguan Contra rebels violating a Congressional ban.

Reich was a lobbyist for Lockheed Martin and is supported by the far-right anti-Cuba mafia.

Carmona, was but one of many Chavez opponents who had visited Washington for talks with White House, State Department and Pentagon officials in recent weeks, secretly scheming to oust Chavez from office.

Others – including Carlos Ortega, head of the million-member Venezuelan Confederation of Labor, and Gen. Lucas Romero Rincon, chief of the Venezuelan military high command – met with Rogelio Pardo-Maurer, a former Nicaraguan Contra, now the Pentagon’s official responsible for Latin America. Ortega was hosted at AFL-CIO headquarters in December.

Sen. Christopher Dodd (D-Conn.), chair of the Senate Sub-Committee on Western Hemisphere Affairs, said, “While all the details of the attempted coup in Venezuela are not yet known, what is clear is that the vast majority of governments in the hemisphere lived up to their responsibilities under the Inter-American Democratic Charter, and denounced the unconstitutional efforts to take power from a government which had been freely elected.”

The OAS met April 14 and adopted a resolution expressing concern at “the alteration of constitutional order in Venezuela.”

That same day National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice arrogantly warned Chavez “to right his own ship,” which she said “has been moving in the wrong direction for quite a long time.” (Chavez won his six-year presidential term with 59 percent of the popular vote; Bush lost the popular vote in 2000 and was installed by the Supreme Court.)

Venezuela cast the only vote against the Free Trade Area of the Americas and has close relations with socialist Cuba, reflecting Chavez’ political independence. Venezuela’s state-owned oil company ships 1.6 million barrels of oil daily to the United States. Chavez has brought Venezuela into close harmony with OPEC in charging the U.S. a fair market price for oil, enraging the Bush administration.

The author can be reached at fgab708@aol.com.

A new day for Venezuela

Fri, 12 Apr 2002 05:43:00 +0000

The 11th Congress of the Communist Party of Venezuela (PCV) opened on the evening of International Woman’s Day with a speech by Venezuela’s president, Hugo Chávez Frias.

Roberto Hernandez, of the PCV, spoke at the opening of the Congress of the PCV’s history and its responsibility in this important moment of Venezuela’s history. The PCV has played a role in all the struggles of the Venezuelan people since its inception in 1933, whether taking up arms or waging electoral campaigns.

The PCV has been a participant in the Bolivarian Revolution, led by President Chávez, since its early days. Hernandez called this current peaceful revolution, “The most outstanding historical moment since independence.” Indeed it takes its name from Simon Bolivar, the Liberator, who won independence from Spain in the early 19th century.

The origins of the current revolution are to be found in 1989, when the Venezuelan people rose up in revolt after a series of economic measures drove the prices of basic goods and services out of reach. A 50 percent hike in bus fares was the spark that lit the fuse of rebellion that resulted in the deaths of hundreds at the hands of the Venezuelan army and police, and the imposition of martial law.

Then a Lt. Colonel of the paratroopers, Hugo Chávez founded the Bolivarian Revolutionary Movement among military officers outraged at both the use of the military against the people and corruption among the country’s high-ranking military and political leaders. In 1992, Chávez led a frustrated coup d’etat, resulting in his imprisonment.

In the years that followed, successive governments of the country’s two main political parties, Accion Democratica (AD) and the Christian Social Party (COPEI), instituted economic policies, advocated by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank, that continued to worsen the situation of the majority of Venezuelans. These measures included privatizing state-owned enterprises, raising the prices of consumer goods and cutting social programs.

Venezuela, a member of OPEC, is the fourth leading oil exporting nation in the world. It exports roughly one million barrels of oil to the U.S. daily. The wealth created by this industry did not reach the Venezuelan workers and peasants. By 1999, 80 percent of Venezuelans were below the poverty line.

Chávez was pardoned and released from prison in 1994. He organized a new political movement and ran for president in 1998. He promised a new constitution and policies that would help those living in poverty. Chávez won the election with 56.5 percent of the vote.

He quickly began the political changes he promised. In rapid succession, voters approved a consituent assembly (85 percent), elected the assembly, with Chávez supporters of various political parties winning 121 of the 131 seats, and approved the new constitution (72 percent). Chávez was re-elected under its statutes to a six-year term in July 2000, garnering 59 percent of the vote.

Chávez continued making the promised political changes, instituting a new agrarian reform designed to give to the landless and small farmers. He has also guaranteed free health care and education to the university level, protected indigenous people’s rights, stopped further privatization of the state-run oil company and limited foreign penetration of the industry, and approved new conservation measures to protect Venezuela’s marine resources. Chávez has also set up five new banks for women, small enterprises and farmers and established a new National Women’s Institute. In addition, he expelled U.S. military advisors and forbade overflights by U.S. military aircraft with missions in Colombia.

The Communist Party of Venezuela, with members throughout the nation, came to its Congress ready to reorganize and prepare itself for the struggles with the “oligarchies,” i.e., the rich and the two political parties that served their interests for so many years. As Chávez said during his speech, “We are in full battle and cannot lose it.”

The revolution’s enemies include all the major newspapers of the nation and four of the five TV stations. Supporters of the old order organize demonstrations of middle-class elements, members of COPEI and AD, and have tried to foment rebellion among the country’s military officers.

The U.S. government is working with the oligarchies to create a situation of economic and political instability, much like what was done against Salvador Allende in Chile before the bloody military coup that overthrew him. Secretary of State Colin Powell has stated that the U.S. will “put Venezuela in diplomatic isolation.”

Chávez is being portrayed as undemocratic with intentions of becoming a dictator. “Polls” are released in the domestic and foreign press supposedly showing his dwindling support. He is accused of being incompetent and unstable. All of this forms a part of the destabilization campaign.

The PCV remains solidly behind the Bolivarian Revolution and sees its task as both supporting it and amplifying it. The PCV stands for bringing socialism to Venezuela and creating a society organized for the workers and peasants. As Chávez spoke the over 400 delegates to the Congress and other party members frequently interrupted with shouts of “No Volveran” (They shall not return) and “No Pasaran” (They shall not pass), referring to the enemies of the Bolivarian Revolution.

The government has organized “Bolivarian Circles” throughout the nation. These circles are to help mobilize citizens in their communities to improve in areas such as education, health, housing and public services. The PCV organizes and participates fully in these organizations.

During its congress, the PCV elected new leadership, rewrote its constitution and examined how well they were functioning throughout the country in the unions, peasant and women’s organizations.

The Venezuelan communists see this revolution as the way forward for the mass of Venezuelans who for so long have been excluded from full participation in the country’s politics and from sharing in its wealth. They realize its importance not only for their own nation but all of Latin America. Everywhere in the continent, except Cuba, living conditions are worsening, with Argentina being the most salient recent example.

Venezuela was the only country at the meeting of Western Hemisphere nations in Montreal last year that refused to sign on to the Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA) as presented. The FTAA will only lead to further U.S. penetration and degradation of the economies of Latin America, as has happened to Mexico under NAFTA.

The PCV will continue to live up to its proud history of struggle and called upon Communist parties around the world to do more to support the Bolivarian Revolution.

The author can be reached at oct191706710@yahoo.com

Letters

Fri, 12 Apr 2002 04:32:00 +0000

Giving workers a voice This year has been one of fear, uncertainty and exploitation for many Rhode Island workers. Near the end of last year, thirty-five Guatemalan dock workers at Town Dock, Inc., a fish processing plant in Narragansett, RI, lost their jobs after speaking out at a town meeting about their working conditions: sub-minimum wage salaries without overtime pay, sexual harrassment and lack of respect.

Their right to speak out is protected under the National Labor Relations Act, but the plant owners chose to ignore this.

Union workers at New England Gas, after demanding safer work conditions and an acceptable contract in January, were locked out by the company.

Their struggle to have some kind of control of their working conditions continues, as does the lockout.

At Providence College, the janitors have been working without a contract since January. Although cleaners at most other Rhode Island universities and colleges receive at least $11 an hour with benefits, PC janitors must make due with $8.06 an hour without benefits.

Local students and labor activists have spoken out about the situation, demanding justice from the Providence College administration.

The situation for working men and women in Rhode Island is much like the situation for workers all over the country. It is important that these struggles be told and that workers around the country and the world see that it is time for a change. I would like to thank the PWW for giving workers around the country a voice.

Eric PelkeyNarragansett RI

Stop funding the carnage It seems that the only bright spot in the Mideast tragedy is the probability that George Bush won’t nuke Bethlehem.

Sharon’s merciless assault on the Palestinian people is an outrage. It is Israel’s unceasing repression and indignities against Palestinians that have created people despearate enough to resort to suicide bombings.

Few U.S. citizens can imagine the hopelessness and despair that would lead a young person to make such a choice. Perhaps only Native Americans or African Americans can look back to the history of genocide against their people to be able to visualize how certain death might seem a necessary choice against unendurable oppression.

The only chance for peace in the Middle East is for Israel to return the Occupied Territories and recognize a sovereign Palestinian state with the right of return for all Palestinian refugees. We in the U.S. can help make this happen by forcing our government to stop funding the carnage. Under no circumstances should U.S. armed forces set foot in Palestine.

Helen GilbertSeattle WA

The best analysis I always look forward to receiving the paper out here where things are so different from New York City.

However, the issue of Feb. 2 was just super, and in particular the spread by Tim Wheeler about Enron. This was the most informative, the most clear and concise analysis of any I’ve read. And of course, given the Marxist understanding, which we need to be reminded of constantly.

This article should really be reprinted as a flyer for general distribution.

Clara KrellDenver CO

Connect the dots Though many are beginning to see the light when it comes to Bush and his cronies being in tight with the corporate execs, a lot more has to be done by the PWW and the other alternative press to connect the dots.

The dots go from corporate domination of elections through the money they pour into campaigns to the need for a government that has proportional representation in Congress of workers, minorities, small businesses and environmentalists, all those who are against the corporate control of every aspect of life.

So it would be important to have articles that explore why and how we can get from where we are to where we need to be to have more democracy. Don’t get me wrong, I love the World but I think we need more on that issue.

Connie Kesey El Reno OK

Editorials

Fri, 12 Apr 2002 04:26:00 +0000

Zapping Medicaid beneficiaries To use a commonly accepted phrase, the 37.8 million Medicaid beneficiaries are caught between a rock and a hard place – the rock of declines in state revenue and the hard place of rising prescription drug prices, which are climbing 15 to 20 percent a year.

As a result, more than one-quarter of Medicaid beneficiaries, many of whom suffer from chronic illnesses such as diabetes, heart disease or depression, could not afford to fill some of the prescriptions ordered by their physicians last year. The proportion increased for those suffering more two or more chronic conditions, where 40 percent of beneficiaries reported they couldn’t afford to fill a prescription.

So says a study released by the Center for Studying Health Care Change, released on April 9. The study, titled “Prescription Drug Access: Not Just a Medicare Problem,” says the problem is “a consequence of aggressive cost-control policies” that have resulted in a reduction in access to prescription drugs by Medicaid beneficiaries.

Although they vary from state-to-state, these policies often impose copayments, restrict the number of prescriptions, mandate substitution of generic drugs or require prior authorization for certain drugs.

Although cost-control techniques are also used by private insurers, they are more likely to curtail access to prescription drugs among Medicaid recipients because they have lower incomes and are more likely to have chronic illnesses.

Obviously “more of the same” is no solution. Rather, the movement for health care reform should be carrying on a two-front war. A state level fight for reforms mandating state limits on drug prices, as was won in Maine, should be coupled with the demand for a prescription drug benefit under Medicare.

But the bottom line is that the only solution to the health care crisis – inclding provision of prescription drugs for Medicare and Medicaid beneficiaries – lies in winning a universal, comprehensive and affordable national health care system based on the principle, “Everybody in, nobody out.”

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Sharon policies mean destruction of Israel Any solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict must be based on U.N. resolutions calling for the creation of a Palestinian state and Israeli withdrawal from territory occupied after the 1967 War. These just demands, backed by world public opinion, are being flagrantly violated by the military incursions into Palestinian territory ordered by Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon as his troops plunder and terrorize civilians.

Sharon’s war is fraught with unintended circumstances. While deliberately aimed at the Palestinian people and their hope for a Palestinian state it is also destroying the state of Israel and it’s people. In the name of a “secure Israel,” the policies of occupation and war are undermining Israel’s integrity and security.

The systematic abuse of the Palestinian people spreads the bloodshed and strengthens all right-wing extremists who oppose a political solution to the years-long conflict. And it does nothing to quell the senseless suicide bombings.

And it strengthens the hand of the amalgam of ultra-right Zionists and Christian conservatives here, thus erecting roadblocks in the path of those in this country demanding an end to the Bush administration’s support for Sharon’s war.

The heroes and heroines of Israel are not the Sharons. They are the Jewish and Arab Israelis who have courageously stood for a peaceful, two-state solution and an end to the occupation.

The cause of peace is not advanced when ultra-right Zionists attack Jews, like the family of Adam Shapiro, because of their anti-Sharon activity, instead exposing the fact that the ultra-right agenda is, rather than in the interests of the Jewish people, a cover for the arms merchants who sell 63 percent of their wares in the Middle East.

In a recent Israeli poll 73 percent of respondents said they supported an independent Palestinian state “if the terrorism will stop.” That is a sentiment upon which to build a truly peaceful Middle East.

Senate debate on ANWR set

Fri, 05 Apr 2002 06:04:00 +0000

Legislation authorizing drilling for oil in the Alaska Natural Wildlife Refuge (ANWR) will top the Senate calendar when Congress returns from its Easter vacation on April 15. The Republican-controlled House passed its version of a national energy plan in August; drilling in ANWR is a top energy priority of the White House.

Opponents of opening the refuge’s 1.5 million-acre coastal plain to drilling scored two important victories during Easter week that they hope will provide ammunition with which to block opening the ANWR to drilling for oil.

The first was the release of 11,000 pages of documents showing the close relationship between energy conglomerates and Vice President Richard Cheney in developing President Bush’s energy program. (Story page 4)

The second came with the release of a report by U.S. Geological Survey biologists saying the region’s wildlife are especially vulnerable to the kinds of disturbances that drilling will bring.

Although drilling proponents often say there are 16 billion barrels of oil under the refuge’s coastal plain, the U.S. Geological Service says the amount is more like 3.2 billion barrels. The National Resources Defense Council website says this small amount of oil would come at an “enormous, and irreversible, cost” to the many animals that live in the refuge.

Opponents of drilling point to Prudhoe Bay, with its 1,500 miles of roads and pipelines, 1,400 producing wells and three jetports – and more than 60 contaminated waste sites – for a sense of what big oil’s heavy machinery would do to the refuge.

In their analysis of the legislation currently being debated in the Senate, Public Citizen says several provisions would contribute to the nation’s energy security, safeguard the environment and give consumers a break. “Unfortunately,” the statement continues, “the sweeping energy bill ... mirrors many of the misguided energy policies that were announced last year in the Bush administration’s energy plan and adopted by the Republican-controlled House last August.”

These policies include further deregulation of energy markets and erosion consumer protections by piling tax breaks and direct subsidies on energy corporations to promote fossil fuels and nuclear power.

On March 29 the Bush administration pointed to the report’s conclusions that risks to wildlife could be reduced by restricting and closely managing oil exploration and production. Still the report is likely to provide new ammunition to those vowing to block efforts in Congress to allow oil companies into the refuge.

The report is based on 12 years of research into wildlife activities and the ecology of the Arctic refuge’s 1.5 million-acre coastal plain. Kenneth Whitten, a retired Alaska state biologist who participated in writing the report, told reporters there is ““There’s intense pressure within the Department of Interior to come up with findings of no impact.”

The author can be reached at fgab708@aol.com

Letters

Fri, 05 Apr 2002 05:06:00 +0000

Redefinitions The article titled “Human toll in Afghanistan” (2/16) was excellent. I especially liked the quote from McDaniels about redefining what is meant by security. I am going to use this redefinition when I’m talking to people and attempt to change their perception.

This gets back to a lot of meanings that we need to redefine, such as the phrase family values. Health care, education and jobs, as stated eloquently in the People’s Weekly World many times, should be perceived as family values, not war, revenge and the almighty profit (all related, of course).

I will expand on this as I talk to groups in this area, as my current job responsibilities require. It really gives me opportunities to discuss health care issues, poverty, class, etc. That’s one main reason I have attempted to keep my position as HIV prevention coordinator for the Sault Ste. Marie Tribe of Chippewa Indians. The grant appears a little fragile as we compete for money from other entities just as needed. The drain of resources from primary health services to the military is already being felt here.

Larry KleinKincheloe MI

Working hard for peace The Dallas Coalition for a Just Peace is setting a hot pace of activities. On March 8 they participated in a “Rally in Solidarity with the Palestinians under Israeli Occupation,” at the Kennedy Memorial downtown. The next day they were at the Women’s Museum in Fair Park for “Women Change the World: Afghanistan is Everywhere,” in conjunction with the Revolutionary Association of the Women of Afghanistan.

On March 11, the 6-month anniversary of the World Trade Center tragedy, coalition coordinator Julie Ryan gave a press statement that reviewed the world situation and asked, “Are we safer, now?” Duane Ediger, editor of the Peace Times newspaper, gave a talk about his recent trip to Colombia at a lunch meeting on March 12 at the Peace Center.

On March 28, Dallas activists picketed internationally famous war criminal Henry Kissinger while he was speaking on “Ethics” at Southern Methodist University. Coalition activists joined Pax Christi for the annual Good Friday “Walk for Justice” in downtown Dallas on March 29. Sixty activists gathered for religious services at a long list of corporate and government buildings.

The twice-monthly coalition meetings continue planning more events. On the night of the expected beginning of United States bombing of another foreign nation, they will protest in the plaza outside Dallas City Hall. A “War Debate” is planned as soon as they can find a single area pro-war organization willing to expose their views in an open forum.

On April 6 the coalition will help with a day-long picnic and educational event in Waco, Texas. At noon that day, they will form a car caravan to protest near Crawford, Texas, where they expect President George W. Bush and British Prime Minister Tony Blair to be planning an invasion of Iraq.

On Tax Day, April 15, the coalition intends to sponsor leafleting actions at the main post office. Their leaflets will show the large share of American taxpayers’ money that goes to support war efforts.

On Earth Day, April 20, some of the activists will cooperate with environmentalists at an all-day event on Flagpole Hill at White Rock Lake. Others have already bought airline tickets to attend the April 20 March on Washington. Ground transportation is also being organized in Dallas, Austin and San Antonio. The coalition continues to raise money and recruit people to go to Washington.

Jim LaneDallas TX

Where we’re headed “If we do not change our direction we are likely to end up where we are headed,” says a Chinese proverb, and that is annihilation of humankind and all civilization.

Since wars begin in the minds of men, alternative thinking is needed desperately now.

No longer are conflicts and wars confined to the battlefield between adversary combatants. Now with super-advanced technology, civilians are targeted and killed by thousands, mostly women and children, who are the repositories of future generations. The threat to use nuclear weapons, if carried out, could mean the destruction of all life on earth.

Men no longer have that prerogative or the right to use these weapons of mass destruction. Mankind was endowed with reasoning power, which is the highest form of thought. That faculty of intelligence must be exercised now and into the future, if life is going to exist furthermore.

Minerva Massenvia e-mail

Editorials: No more Enrons, Wars increase deficit

Fri, 05 Apr 2002 05:02:00 +0000

No more Enrons

A coalition – organized by American Family Voices (AFV) and including the AFL-CIO, American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, USAction and the Campaign for America’s Future – staged events in 30 states April 3 on the theme “No More Enrons.”

Consumer rip-offs, fraud, tax evasion, merger-mania, plant closings, union-busting and discrimination are standard practice for corporate America. So why is Enron stirring such a response?

Maybe because Enron CEO Ken Lay told Enron workers to buy more Enron stock even as he sold his off. He walked away with millions while they lost everything. The idea that two sets of rules exist, one for the rich and another for the rest of us, has exposed the raw class nature of our society in a new way.

Another reason is Enron’s ties to the Bush family, so close that AFV features on its website a chart, “Enron Family Bush.” George W. Bush’s oil company Spectrum 7 formed a partnership with Enron on a Texas oil and gas project in 1986, a year after Enron was formed. At every stage in Enron’s rise, it was linked with the Bush clan. And Enron returned the favor by bankrolling the political careers of Bush Sr., George W. Bush and Jeb Bush.

“Never in modern times has a single private entity been as successful as Enron in penetrating and ultimately compromising U.S. political and regulatory institutions,” AFV states. “In its 16-year lifespan, Enron and its operatives burrowed their way deeply into energy and securities regulatory agencies, Congress and finally the Oval Office.”

Enron has declared bankrupcty, but Bush remains. It stands to reason that if we are serious in saying, “No more Enrons,” we must also fight for the removal of Jeb Bush and George W. Bush from office. As long as their greedy hands are on the levers of power, more Enrons will be in the making.

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Bush’s war increases U.S. deficit

According to the Bush administration, the new deficit faced by the federal government is a result of the weak economy, the war in Afghanistan and the cost of domestic security. No matter what budgetary configurations the Bush administration comes up with, the fact of the matter is their war on terrorism has been a cover to shift billions of dollars of taxpayers’ monies into corporate and military coffers. Every so-called economic bailout for the poor economy has been giving billions to corporations while laid off workers get nothing in comparison.

The war in Afghanistan comes with a price tag of billions of dollars that goes directly to the military-industrial complex to produce more and more hi-tech weapons of mass destruction. It hasn’t made the world any safer from terrorism and violence.

War is just another form of terrorism. They both come from the same origins – the system of capitalism and its inherent drive for exploitation. Billions of dollars are going not to end terrorism, but to perpetuate it, in order to guarantee U.S. corporate global domination. They seek the highest rate of profit and exploit the world’s labor and natural resources to that end.

The cost of domestic security, the third reason given for the federal government’s deficit, is also full of the corporate right-wing agenda and contradictions, not really providing any true public safety measures. The rounding up of immigrants based on country of origin – targeting men from the Middle East and Asia – is not in the interest of public safety, but only in the interest of the ultra right and racist forces who seek to create an atmosphere of fear in order to push through their anti-people and anti-labor agenda.

The Bush administration is stealing money in order to guarantee U.S. corporate interests. In order to be truly patriotic, Congress should adopt a pro-people budget that takes money away from the military and corporations and puts it towards ending poverty, inequality and many other problems faced by humanity.

War or Medicare?

Fri, 05 Apr 2002 04:29:00 +0000

President Bush’s aggressive pursuit of imperialist wars has pushed even the editors of The New York Times to express a sense of outrage about the resulting destruction of Medicare and the rest of the domestic “safety net.”

An early February Times editorial, “The Axis-of-Inefficiency Budget,” warned that “the budget undermines the security of the nation’s social safety net and the government’s ability to carry out some of its basic responsibilities over the next two decades.”

The editorial continues, saying the budget “jeopardizes the future of Social Security and Medicare, whose trust funds would be siphoned away to underwrite outmoded military projects and tax reductions favoring the rich.”

The very next day the Times ran another editorial, “The Pentagon Spending Spree,” which hammered home the same point. The editorial noted that the President wants to give the Pentagon $378 billion in the next fiscal year, which is an increase over this year of $48 billion or 11.6 percent.

In addition, Bush would like to hand over $2 trillion to the military in the next five years. The editors of the Times responded: “Spending so much on defense … squanders money needed for compelling domestic priorities, like protecting Social Security and Medicare and expanding health coverage for the uninsured.”

Medicare is already a seriously damaged program that increasingly fails to protect the health of the elderly. Medicare provides health insurance coverage to some 40 million mostly elderly people in the United States. The number of those covered by Medicare is projected to double by the year 2030, due primarily to the aging of the population. However, coverage by health insurance is not the same thing as affordable, accessible health care.

Between 1999 and 2001, out-of-pocket expenses for elderly people in ill health in a Medicare health maintenance organization (HMO) rose 62 percent to $3,578. For sick Medicare patients in a traditional Medicare program, their out-of-pocket expenses for drugs and services not covered by Medicare may be as much as twice that of Medicare patient in an HMO. Millions on Medicare are already foregoing needed medical services and prescription drugs because they simply cannot pay for it.

At the same time that Medicare costs have become impossibly high, patient access to health care under Medicare has been evaporating. During the last four years HMOs have dropped 2.2 million Medicare patients, reportedly because Medicare reimbursement rates were too low and are getting lower. In January, for example, Medicare payments were cut 5.4 percent. For many providers, that was the last straw.

According to the American Academy of Family Physicians, 17 percent of family doctors and general practitioners are refusing to take new Medicare patients. Some physicians are going a step further and are refusing to take new patients in their late 50s and early 60s because these potential patients are approaching the age when they will be eligible for Medicare.

Finally, the practices of health care providers who are established in under-served, economically depressed areas, such as inner cities or rural areas, are being hit the hardest. At one time they had the ability to charge higher rates to patients with private insurance than they charged those with Medicare. In this way, they were able to subsidize the low Medicare reimbursements with the higher private insurance reimbursements.

Now, however, the health insurance industry uses reimbursement formulas that consider low Medicare reimbursements as part of the “usual and customary” charges. The result is that the private health insurers pay lower reimbursement rates in communities that have higher proportions of Medicare patients. It is a double whammy.

There are two parts to a permanent and effective solution to this massive failure to provide adequate health care to the elderly. The first is to stop the hemorrhage of the nation’s wealth to feed the Pentagon’s permanent world war. The second is to take all profits out of health care. Support proposals like Congresswoman Barbara Lee’s United States Universal Health Service Act (HR-3080).

The author can be reached at pww@pww.org