People Before Profit blog

Health crisis hits kids

Fri, 30 Apr 2004 05:09:00 +0000

When you have over 40 million people without any health insurance at all – and another 70 million with limited and poor coverage – while suffering is widespread, some categories of people are at greater risk. A recent report released by the prestigious Commonwealth Fund found that, “Despite a number of noted successes, American children largely don’t get the quality of health care they should, with up to three-quarters of children and adolescents not receiving care scientifically proven or recommended.”

It is an internationally agreed-upon standard that you can judge a country’s humanity by the way it treat its old and young. We just witnessed the Bush administration’s attempt to gut the Medicare bill. And now this report.

‘Healthiest part of life’

The Fund’s report was based on research conducted at the University of North Carolina School of Public Health, whose report was, in turn, based on a literature search of 500 studies. In other words, this a report that is beyond reproach.

What makes the report all the more compelling is that kids and adolescents are supposed to be at the healthiest point of their lives. This may be why so little attention is paid to their health status.

The principal researcher of the Fund’s study, Sheila Leatherman, stated, “The report shows dangerous lapses in patient safety, substantial shortcomings in providing effective and recommended care, persistent racial and ethnic disparities in care, and widespread failure to provide needed preventive services to teens.”

The report points to the lack of any systematic approach to family medical needs. Of course, this is only a reflection of a health system in the United States which emphasizes payment for services over the quality and effectiveness of the same services.

Asthma crisis

Two-thirds of children who need asthma-control medications do not receive them, according to the report. This is totally preventable. Chlamydia is another totally preventable condition, yet up to 75 percent of sexually active adolescents are not tested. Furthermore, five key vaccines recommended by medical and public health professionals are not administered on time. For example, in Massachusetts, only 14 percent of kids receive their needed vaccines in time. In Colorado, only 37 percent receive them. The lack of federal requirements, and enforcement policies which leave these extremely important vaccine programs to the states, make this disaster possible.

Mental health deficiencies

Among young people, mental health problems are extremely important. Being able to make an early diagnosis of a mental health problem can be a life and death issue for these kids. But the report finds that 79 percent of kids diagnosed with severe mental health problems did not get needed follow up. An estimated 7.5 million children don’t get the mental health care they require.

Additional problems cited by the report include extremely poor prenatal care in the first trimester of pregnancy and poor quality of care in hospitals.

Racism and disparities in care

While high percentages of all children face major health problems, poor, minority and urban young children are less likely than non-poor, white and suburban young children to receive timely immunizations. Black and Latino children with asthma are less likely to be using the proper inhalation medications than their counterparts, although they have more severe asthma than white children.

Roads to improvement

The report showed that with proper national monitoring programs, pediatric infection rates have been reduced. Statewide lead-screening programs, such as Rhode Island’s, reduced lead poisoning for kids. Community and migrant health centers have significantly improved adolescent health among populations they serve; and, where community outreach programs were initiated, flu shots increased and problems with asthma were reduced. Fewer hospitals and emergency room visits were required.

National policy makers, especially politicians in this election year, can be approached with information from this important report with the message to make the health status of kids, their parents and communities the priority over the profits of the industry.

The author can be reached at pww@pww.org.

Leonard Peltier struggles on for freedom

Fri, 30 Apr 2004 04:02:00 +0000

After 28 years, the courts still won’t correct the wrongs of the past. On April 19 the U.S. Supreme Court refused to review the 10th Circuit Court of Appeals’ denial of Leonard Peltier’s request to be considered for parole, despite the Circuit Court’s recognition that the government indisputably engaged in misconduct in the prosecution of Peltier.

Peltier, a Native American Indian activist and a recent candidate for the Nobel Peace prize, is serving two life terms for the 1975 shooting deaths of two FBI agents, Jack Coler and Ronald Williams, on the Pine Ridge reservation in South Dakota. His appeals have been exhausted.

Barry Bachrach, lead attorney for Peltier, told the Circuit Court that the Parole Commission strayed from its own guidelines when it repeatedly refused to consider setting a parole date until 2008. Had it followed such guidelines, Peltier would have been released more than 10 years ago.

In November 2003, the Circuit Court acknowledged “Much of the government’s behavior at the Pine Ridge reservation and in its prosecution of Peltier is to be condemned. The government withheld evidence. It intimidated witnesses. These facts are not disputed.” Yet the court claimed it lacked power to address the issue.

Bachrach and other members of Peltier’s legal team recently submitted a formal request to the U.S. Congress for an investigation into the Justice Department’s actions against Peltier and the American Indian Movement (AIM) during the 1970s. Such an inquiry, Bachrach said, “is long overdue.”

Peltier supporters have asked the House Judiciary Committee to include the case of Peltier in their investigation of FBI misconduct following the House Government Reform Committee report on the “Deegan case,” in which the FBI cultivated a hit man as a star informant and government witness, and watched silently as he falsely accused four men of the murder.

Internal FBI documents show agents and their supervisors knew the identities of the real killers in the Deegan case, but that federal officials took “affirmative steps” to make sure that the four innocent men convicted in the case would not obtain post-conviction relief and would die in prison. Two of them did.

The most damaging evidence at Peltier’s trial was the testimony of an FBI ballistics expert, who claimed that a firing pin test of an AR-15 rifle, believed to be owned by Peltier, matched shell casings found near the slain agents. However, the Leonard Peltier Defense Committee (LPDC) obtained FBI documents stating that the test proved inconclusive. Even prosecutor Lynn Crooks, during oral arguments for a new trial, said, “We can’t prove who shot those agents.”

In an earlier appeal, the Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals stated that, had evidence not been withheld from the defense at the original trial, the jury “possibly” could have come to a different conclusion. However, according to the Bagley standard (U.S. v. Bagley), the defense needs to prove that the jury “probably” could have come to a different conclusion.

Another approach of Peltier’s legal team is getting the release of FBI documents to prove Peltier’s innocence. The FBI has recently turned over 797 pages from its Buffalo field office concerning Peltier. The FBI also admitted to the defense team that 140,000 pages related to the case are in field offices, far more than previously admitted. At the Peltier trial in 1977, the U.S. government said only 3,500 pages existed.

In June of 2002, about 30,000 pages of FBI documents were released to Rep. Barney Frank (D-Mass.), who said he was “only doing his job” by responding to constituent requests for the release of the documents. The LPDC has learned that up to an additional 100,000 pages of files are still being withheld, and is urging people to contact members of the Senate Judiciary’s Subcommittee on Terrorism, Technology and Homeland Security to demand public hearings for the release of the remaining documents.

It is also asking people to contact members of the House and Senate Judiciary Committee to finish the work the Church Committee began nearly 30 years ago to uncover the COINTELPRO tactics employed against the American Indian Movement and Leonard Peltier. Members of the congressional committees can be found and contacted by logging on to www.congress.org and clicking on “U.S. Congress.”

The LPDC is planning a march during the Democratic National Convention to raise the issue of executive clemency for Peltier.

For more information, visit www.leonardpeltier.org.

The author can be reached at pww@pww.org.

National Clips

Fri, 30 Apr 2004 03:35:00 +0000

HOOVER, Ala.: Residents defend immigrant workers

Since April 14, over 50 immigrant workers have been “detained” here, kicking residents into action in defense of immigrant rights and protesting racial profiling.

According Chip Lollar of the Birmingham office of the federal Bureau of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), the arrests resulted from an “ongoing investigation by the Bureau, not complaints from local residents or businesses.”

Isabel Rubio, director of the Hispanic Interest Coalition of Alabama, said, “When something like this happens, it’s very disturbing, but our only real concern is they’re making blanket arrests and not checking documents. These things happen very quickly. You can just fall into the black hole of missing people.”

Once a person is “detained” and moved from a local jail to a federal jail, Rubio continued, it is hard to find them.

Unlike other countries, the U.S. is not required to contact the respective consulates when a foreign-born person is arrested. Under U.S. law, the person arrested must contact their country’s consulate.

NAPLES, Fla.: Bush “green” policy puts profits first

“When it comes to the Bush administration’s wetlands policy, hypocrisy reigns supreme,” said Frank Jackalone, spokesman for the Sierra Club in Florida.

Wetlands provide not only invaluable habitat for countless birds, mammals, fish and insects, but naturally clean the water of pollutants.

On his way to a $25,000-a-plate lunch, April 23, President Bush stopped off at the Rookery National Estuarine Research Reserve, boasting of his administration’s efforts to restore vital wetlands.

The reality is totally opposite, according to Jackalone. In January 2003, the Bush administration ordered the Army Corps of Engineers to halt Clean Water Act enforcement for up to 20 million acres of wetlands, including southwest Florida. Jackalone cites the granting of building permits to Barron Collier Company, a developer, to build golf courses and houses on 2,000 acres of wetlands near the headwaters of the Everglades National Park near Naples.

In a related Sierra Club development, the oldest and largest environmental group defeated a threat from the right wing to destabilize its mission of preservation of the country’s natural resources. The votes are in for the leadership board of the 757,058 member organization, and right-wing forces calling for an anti-immigrant policy to be installed were defeated 141,407 to 13,090.

SPRINGFIELD, Mass.: Defies ‘Drug Lords, Inc.,’ saves $2 million

Health care in the U.S. makes big profits, run by private industry and costs more than any other in the world, but Springfield, Mass., defied the drug companies and the Bush administration and saved taxpayers $2 million.

For the past nine months, Springfield has been purchasing prescription medications from Canada, which has a public national health care system. In a voluntary program established in July, city workers, retirees and their dependents have enrolled to get prescriptions filled in Canada. The $2 million in savings is only the beginning as only 3,000 workers, or 15 percent, have signed up so far.

Boston Mayor Thomas Menino plans to launch a similar program for Boston in July 2004.

Skyrocketing drug costs and the success in Springfield caught the attention of federal legislators, Republican and Democrat. On April 21, Senators Kennedy (D-Mass.), Daschle (D-S.D.), Dorgan (D-N.D.), McCain (R-Ariz.) and Snowe (R-Maine) introduced legislation enabling U.S. residents to immediately import medications from Canada and Europe.

“All of the fear mongering and rhetoric of the FDA (Food and Drug Administration), all of the obstacles are being completely removed,” said Andy Troszok, president of the Canadian International Pharmacy Association.

WASHINGTON, D.C.: Corporations break the law, get a contract in Iraq

At least 10 corporations with $7 billion in contracts from the Bush administration for Iraqi reconstruction and services to U.S. troops had a history of bid-rigging, fraud, delivery of faulty military parts and environmental damage. The 10 were dirty before the Iraq war and paid more than $300 million in fines before 2000 for breaking the law.

A report released by the Associated Press, April 26, is based on a survey of government documents and showed a pattern of criminal activity by Bechtel, Halliburton, AMEC, a British corporation, American International Contractors, Inc., Fluor Corp, Great Lakes Dredge and Dock, and Northrop Grumman.

In 2001, the Bush administration repealed regulations enacted by the Clinton administration making it illegal for corporations convicted of criminal activity to be awarded government contracts.

National Clips are compiled by Denise Winebrenner Edwards (dwinebr696@aol.com). Julia Lutsky contributed to this week’s clips.

SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA, Gearing up for the elections

Fri, 30 Apr 2004 03:28:00 +0000

LOS ANGELES – “California must defeat Bush by an overwhelming majority,” said Jarvis Tyner, executive vice-chair of the Communist Party USA, “and we must say to the Terminator (Republican Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger): Bush is now and you’re next!”

Tyner’s remarks evoked a roaring ovation at a conference on “Socialism, Democracy, and Defeating Bush in 2004,” held here April 18.

Speaking to a multiracial gathering of over 60 trade union, civil rights, peace, youth and senior activists from throughout Southern California, Tyner said, “The whole world is hoping we do the right thing and defeat Bush.” He reported that opposition to Bush’s policies was the most unifying theme of the over 100,000 participants at the World Social Forum held in Mumbai (Bombay), India, Jan. 16-21, where he delivered a speech titled “Prospects for socialism in the U.S., and the fight against the new imperialism.”

Noting that the CPUSA does not endorse candidates of other parties, Tyner said the Party recognizes there are real differences between right-wing Republican Bush and Sen. John Kerry, the presumptive presidential nominee of the Democratic Party, on issues of unilateral aggression, export of jobs, outreach to minorities, labor rights, choice, gay rights, environment, Social Security and funds for education and health services as opposed to space weapons.

Rosalio Muñoz, organizer for the Southern California district of the CPUSA, which sponsored the conference, stated, “It may be possible to trounce Bush in California and, if so, defeat right-wingers in Congress.” He added that ending right-wing control of both houses would create possibilities for real policy changes.

Muñoz said a majority of California’s voters supported Democrat Al Gore over George W. Bush in 2000, even with Ralph Nader on the ballot. He said in California’s recent primary, a Los Angeles Times exit poll indicated 52 percent of the voters were Democrats and only 34 percent Republicans. Independents made up 8 percent of the vote for Democratic primary candidates and only 3 percent voted for GOP primary candidates.

Muñoz called on the Communist Party membership and progressive activists to prioritize building for a mass anti-Bush turnout amongst workers, the working poor and unemployed, pointing out that the exit poll indicated only about one-third of the primary voters were from households with incomes under $60,000 a year.

Conference participants raised many issues, including the need to start voter registration efforts based on issues right away, educating voters on the dangers of U.S. foreign policy all over the globe, the right-wing threat to liberal Sen. Barbara Boxer, vigilance on vote count issues, and defense of immigrant rights.

Jessica Marshall, national coordinator of the Young Communist League, greeted the conference and said, “On virtually every front Bush is attacking youth and doesn’t show any signs of letting up. But neither will we! Young people all over the country are mobilizing and getting fired up to take back our future. The YCL will be there too ... helping build a stronger YCL and a stronger youth and student movement to kick Bush out of the White House in 2004!”

Greetings were also brought by Juan Lopez, chair of the Northern California district CPUSA, and Marilyn Bechtel, editorial board member of the People’s Weekly World.

Conference participants stressed that despite a setback in the October 2003 recall of Gov. Gray Davis and election of Schwarzenegger, strong labor and community support for the grocery strike, scores of continuing neighborhood peace vigils, the overwhelming rejection of a Wal-Mart store by a solid multiracial majority in Inglewood, and continuing successes of the labor movement in helping elect progressive candidates in state and local races, were a good basis for defeating Bush now and Schwarzenegger next.

In closing the discussion, Tyner noted how his candidacy for vice president on the CPUSA ticket with Gus Hall in 1972 and 1976 had helped build support for progressive change and a future socialist USA, but that “this was in a period when the dangers from the right were not so great. But now a right wing … fascist danger has to be our concern.”

“If Bush wins, he will be a lame duck but with no re-election concerns and he will give full force to his ugly and deadly policies,” Tyner said.

Health care: HR 676: Everybody in, nobody out!

Fri, 23 Apr 2004 04:26:00 +0000

WASHINGTON – “Health care in the U.S. is racist, sexist and discriminates against the poor.” That’s how USWA President Leo Gerard began his remarks to a conference called to organize passage of HR 676. The conference was held April 16-17 in the auditorium of the Howard University Medical School here.

Rep. John Conyers (D-Mich.), the bill’s sponsor, hosted the conference. It calls for expanding and improving Medicare to cover all people residing in the U.S. Conyers announced that 28 representatives have signed on to the bill. Conference delegates added two more to the list in lobbying efforts the first morning of the meeting.

Gerard pointed out that those most affected by the lack of health care are African American and Latino populations, which are 40 to 60 percent uninsured or underinsured. In a slide presentation, Gerard showed how employers could save costs if the U.S. went to a national health care program. He pointed to the example of Canada, which arrived at a national system by first passing it in several provinces. In Canada, taxes are lower than the U.S. and medical care is less expensive as well, he said. The Steelworkers union has endorsed single- payer health reform, though not any specific legislation. “We have to work immediately on defeating Bush,” Gerard said.

Activists from across the nation spoke of organizing for a national or state health care plans. Calling the meeting an “historic conference that will mark the beginning of the movement to bring health care to all,” Dr. Quentin Young from Physicians for a National Health Program focused on the needless deaths resulting from 45 million Americans lacking health care insurance. Dr. Rudy Muller, a physician from upstate New York, said that it was not just a question of getting coverage to those who don’t have it. “It is a sick system,” he said. “Who ever heard of ‘pre-existing conditions?’” he asked. “A person with a pre-existing conditions is a sick person, and a system that excludes sick people does the opposite of giving care,” he added. The American Medical Students Association was officially represented and presented a video they had prepared in support of HR 676.

The conference formed a steering committee to build a movement to pass HR 676 or its equivalent. Conference organizers, Rick and Michelle Tingling-Clemmons and Joel Siegel, Conyers’ legislative aide, urged supporters to go to the website of Campaign for a National Health Program Now (cnhpnow.org) to sign a petition in support of HR 676.

The author can be reached at pww@pww.org.

No recovery for state budgets

Fri, 23 Apr 2004 03:34:00 +0000

A big untold story in the emerging economic “recovery” is the precarious position of many state budgets.

Unlike the federal government, most states do not have the ability to run deficits. They must balance budgets each year.

Following the “End of Welfare as We Know It” in the ’90s, and the collapse of the stock market after Bush took office, many states have found themselves overwhelmed with challenges of the long recession without reserves, and with big losses in market-indexed capital assets.

States are facing the largest budget gaps in half a century, ranging from $70 billion to $85 billion this year. Many are still figuring out how to close last year’s deficits, which totaled $50 billion. The Bush administration is making the problem worse through new tax cuts that drain resources from states.

States have performed virtually all the budget patchwork they can – accounting gimmicks, higher fees, reduced services, reduced payrolls, tapping tobacco settlement money, and resorting to bonds to maintain roads. They have cut back on homeland security and public safety. These policies are leading to more layoffs and slower economic recovery.

Hundreds of thousands of people nationwide have already lost Medicaid coverage due to state budget cuts. That number will climb to 1.7 million people if the cuts proposed by governors in 22 states are approved.

Now very difficult choices are the only choices left to avoid draconian cuts in essential services.

1. States can borrow, charging today’s spending to tomorrow’s taxpayers. Arnold Schwarzenegger, with his $15 billion bond measure, is suddenly the poster child for state borrowing. Other state leaders are clearly tempted, and are stretching their constitutions’ restraints on deficit spending.

2. States can cut spending by “reinventing” and only budgeting for “critical functions.” Gov. Gary Locke balanced Washington State’s budget that way last year. But states have already made all the easy cuts.

3. States can raise taxes, and reform tax systems. Politically, this has been a perilous course. Still, under great pressure, some 17 states raised taxes significantly in the current fiscal year, and some 25 governors have proposed raising taxes for the coming year. These increases usually have fallen most heavily on working people, with tax-the-rich proposals failing or being reduced to tokens.

The question on many minds is: Will the much-awaited economic recovery produce a surge of revenues, relieving politicians of these tough decisions?

State budget and revenue experts at the Rockefeller Institute of Government in Albany, N.Y., believe the severe crunch on state budgets will endure for quite some time to come.

• State tax collections fell off precipitously in 2001-2002, much deeper and faster than in past recessions.

• Reserve funds are depleted.

• State tax receipts are recovering, but slowly. Legislation to let states tax fast-growing Internet sales has not passed Congress.

• Medicaid and corrections obligations are growing rapidly.

According to the Rockefeller Institute, state fiscal fortunes make a big difference for the entire nation. They pay more than 90 percent of the bill to educate 48 million children in 93,000 public schools. They provide higher education for 12 million students and run massive law enforcement, corrections and health programs. They’re the front line of defense in homeland security.

State funding for higher education has taken the biggest hit, despite the fact that higher education provides individuals with skills to participate in the increasingly competitive global economy. Demand for higher education will increase, as more students graduate from high school each year.

Meanwhile, Medicaid and corrections spending have been increasing. Projections for the cost of Medicaid show rapid growth as health costs continue to spiral in the absence of a national health care system.

In this regard, Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry’s health care plan has focused on federal aid to states in coping with high Medicaid costs. In exchange, states would have to cover SCHIP (State Children’s Health Insurance Program) for kids and parents. This would assure states an extra $15 billion in the first years.

The link between a tangible gain in health coverage for millions of workers and improved state budgets is an excellent campaign issue in the battleground states.

The author can be reached at pww@pww.org.

N.Y.C. Students defend open admissions

Fri, 23 Apr 2004 02:51:00 +0000

NEW YORK – The City College of New York (CCNY) celebrated the 35th anniversary of the open admissions policy in the City University of New York (CUNY) here April 22. CCNY is part of the CUNY system.

Until 1969 CUNY denied admission to many Black and Latino students, who often attended low-income high schools and needed some college preparatory classes. After a movement successfully fought for an open admissions policy and CUNY hired faculty to ensure these students were given the remedial classes they needed, students flocked to the CUNY system.

In 1975, due to New York City’s financial crisis, the university imposed tuition for the first time in 100 years. Many said at the time that it was not coincidental that tuition was imposed only six years after open admissions, which resulted in the enrollment of thousands of women and minorities. Nevertheless, the policy continued for 20 years.

Then in the early 1990s, CUNY revisited the policy of open admissions. The governing board at CUNY decided the policy at its four-year colleges was flawed and should be stopped, even though 85 percent of U.S. colleges offer some type of tutoring or remediation for students. This, in effect, made “tracking” a system at CUNY.

If students had any need for tutoring, they could no longer go to four-year colleges. Instead, CUNY relegated them to the community colleges. One noticeable effect of the remediation ban was the reduction of the number of English as a Second Language (ESL) students. In 1981 there were 1,000 ESL students at CCNY. Today there are 70, although New York City continues to be a city of immigrants. Overall, there once were 8,000 ESL students at the four-year colleges, down to 2,000 today.

According to a report prepared by the CUNY chancellor’s office for its 2004-2005 budget request, since the 1960s “CUNY has produced about 800,000 graduates. The great majority of the alumni remain in New York City contributing to the economy of New York.”

Now CUNY is trying to restrict admission into its two-year colleges, which is why many celebrating the 35th anniversary of open admissions are calling for a strong initiative to bring back the policy to the four-year colleges and to make sure the policy does not get derailed at the two-year schools.

The author can be reached at pww@pww.org.

Republican PAC fined for illegal money scam

Fri, 23 Apr 2004 02:48:00 +0000

AUSTIN, Texas – The Federal Election Committee has fined the Republican National Congressional Committee $280,000 for illegally channeling corporate funds to finance “attack ads” against Democratic congressional candidates during the 2000 elections.

Some of the people identified by the Federal Elections Commission as principals in the case are the same people being investigated by the Travis County district attorney for illegally using corporate funds to aid in the election of 22 Republican candidates running for the state House in 2002.

Democrats allege that illegal corporate money was key to Republican victories in these campaigns. Republican victories in all but a handful of the races led to their takeover of the state House of Representatives and the subsequent redistricting of Texas’ congressional districts.

In 1999 Jim Ellis, a Republican political operative with close ties to U.S. House Majority Leader Tom DeLay, arranged for the Republican National Congressional Committee to funnel $500,000 in corporate donations to the United States Family Network, a group founded by Ed Buckham, DeLay’s former chief of staff.

The Family Network handed over $300,000 of the money to Americans for Economic Growth for whom Ellis was working as a consultant. Americans for Economic Growth used the money to run ads accusing Democratic members of Congress of using Social Security money to fund domestic programs and foreign aid. The FEC said that the use of corporate money to fund these ads violated federal election laws.

Ellis allegedly played a similar role in state legislative races in 2002. The Dallas Morning News and the Austin American Statesman have both reported that Ellis gave $190,000 in corporate contributions made to the Texans for a Republican Majority to the Republican National Committee, which in a matter of weeks returned the same amount of money to Republican legislative candidates in Texas. Republican candidates in tight races received between $20,000 and $40,000 as a result of this transaction.

Ellis was also the behind-the-scene manager of the Republican redistricting coup that in 2003 resulted in the gerrymandering of Texas’ congressional districts and the disenfranchisement of minority voters in the state.

These campaign contributions and other actions of Republican operatives that appear to violate state campaign financing laws are being investigated by District Attorney Ronnie Earle in Austin.

Fred Lewis, executive director of Campaigns for People, a campaign watchdog group, told the American Statesman that the FEC action shows that Ellis had previous experience with laundering corporate political donations for Republicans. “There always was a motive to turn the $190,000 into money that could be given to candidates,” Lewis said. “Now we know that one of the principals has engaged in such activity in the past. We have motive, opportunity, knowledge and prior acts.”

Earle has been presenting evidence to the grand jury investigating allegations that Texans for a Republican Majority and the Texas Association of Business illegally funneled corporate contributions to Republican legislative candidates in 2002. The grand jury adjourned on March 31 without issuing indictments. A new grand jury will convene soon and Earle will continue presenting evidence concerning these allegations.

The author can be reached at pww@pww.org.

National Clips

Fri, 23 Apr 2004 02:23:00 +0000

PITTSBURGH: Peace, education keys to election

With the National Rifle Association (NRA) holding its national convention downtown featuring keynote speaker Vice President Dick Cheney, Democratic presidential hopeful John Kerry addressed an estimated 8,000 at the University of Pittsburgh April 16. Then Bush rolled in April 19, marking his 27th trip to the state. The Pennsylvania primary is April 27.

Behind banners calling for a ban on gun violence, Pittsburghers prayed and marched on the NRA convention. Many marked the anniversary of the shootings at Columbine High School. According to the NRA, it has 1 million members in Pennsylvania.

Hundreds protested Bush’s arrival to raise money for Republican Sen. Arlen Specter, who faces a primary challenge this year. Outside the convention center, residents, youth and seniors demanded U.S. troop withdrawal from Iraq. Others called for taxing the rich to restore federal funding to education and child care.

Pittsburgh police arrested six people and punched Annie O’Neill as she tried to take a picture of cops arresting demonstrators. O’Neill is a photographer for the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, the largest newspaper in Western Pennsylvania.

MONTGOMERY, Ala.: Death penalty moratorium on agenda

After four years of battling, state Sen. Hank Sanders (D-Selma) finally got legislation that would place a three-year moratorium on the state’s death penalty out of committee, April 14. The committee voted 7-1 to send the bill to the full Senate floor for debate.

Sanders successfully argued that minorities and people who use court-appointed lawyers are more likely to end up on death row than wealthy whites. “Quite often people don’t receive a fair trial,” Sanders said.

The committee also sent up legislation that would prohibit execution of anyone under age 18 at the time of the crime, and people who are mentally retarded. It also endorsed a bill that abolishes Alabama’s practice of allowing judges to impose the death sentence when a jury recommends life imprisonment.

Furthering the struggle for justice, Family Members of Inmates held their convention in this city, April 16. Freddie Brookins, one of a group of 46 working-class people – 39 of whom are African American – who were arrested in Tulia, Texas, on a phony drug sweep in 1999, addressed the group.

Most of those arrested were convicted and sent to prison. A lawsuit won their freedom and recently the group was awarded a $6 million civil settlement.

The group was originally convicted on the testimony of one cop. “The way people look at things, this is a police officer,” Brookins said. “But I think racism had a lot to do with it, also. They saw us as guilty before we ever went to court.”

BRUNSWICK, Ga.: Free speech under attack

On June 8-10, Bush will be on secluded Sea Island near Brunswick to host a meeting of leaders of G-8 countries, England, Japan, Germany, Italy, France, Canada and Russia, to broker “free trade” deals. Thousands of fair trade and anti-globalization protesters are expected to demonstrate.

The town responded with draconian regulations on “public gatherings.” According to Robert Randall, local spokesman for the coalition organizing the public response to G-8, Brunswick requires a $150-$700 per day fee to use a public park plus $1.50 per participant toll to pay for cleanup and police. The town prohibits signs bigger than 2 by 3 feet or mounted on sticks, and limits gatherings to two-and-a-half hours. Brunswick can deny a park permit if it believes a gathering would impede traffic or commerce.

“This law would not exist if G-8 were not coming here,” Randall said. “It makes it impossible to express oneself through assembly or speech on public property unless you have money.” The American Civil Liberties Union is investigating.

DES MOINES, Iowa: Bush nixes student reporters

In the heartland, Des Moines, the Bush campaign locked out all student newspaper reporters who attempted to cover the president’s visit, April 15. Mike Allsup, reporter for the Ankeny campus of the Des Moines Area Community College Chronicle, said that the White House press office said that the president did not want students covering the campaign event in Des Moines.

National Clips are compiled by Denise Winebrenner Edwards (dwinebr696@aol.com). Bruce Bostick and Julia Lutsky contributed to this week’s clips.

Its about control

Fri, 23 Apr 2004 02:05:00 +0000

Con·trol – power or authority to guide or manage.

When it comes down to it, so many issues in life orbit around this single word and subsequent questions like – who controls what?

This issue of the People’s Weekly World is being distributed to the thousands of concerned women and men demonstrating in Washington at the “March for Women’s Lives” and the “International Days of Action Against the IMF and the World Bank.” One could argue that these protests deal with issues of control.

Who controls a woman’s decisions about childbirth? Who controls whether all women can get access to health care? Prenatal care? Birth control? Sex education? Termination of a pregnancy?

Who controls how much a woman is paid? And why do gender and racist wage gaps still exist?

Who controls a country’s economy? Its natural resources? Its political and social structures?

A tremendous battle is taking place in our country against a corrupt, reactionary bunch of thugs, thieves and liars known collectively as the Bush administration. They make no bones about their allegiance. It’s not to John and Janine Q. Public. It’s not to democracy or hard-won democratic, labor and civil rights. It’s not to peace, or a “good neighbor” foreign policy. It’s not to workers, immigrants, women, African Americans, Latinos, Asians, American Indians, gays, lesbians, religious minorities, the elderly, the youth, students or the disabled – the diverse people who populate this country.

Their allegiance is to the private profit system – the plunder and exploitation that reaps huge profits for obscenely wealthy individuals.

Control of profits, control of Iraq, control of oil, of people, of women, of workers, of information, education, housing, food, water, the environment. Control freaks!

This administration is implementing corporate control in a multitude of ways. Their policies – from the illegal and unilateral war on Iraq, to taxes, jobs and the economy, to No Child Left Behind, to court appointments, overtime, Medicare and Social Security, affirmative action, the Patriot Act – are aimed at permanently changing democracy and the role of government as we know it.

For example, Bush’s tax policies have benefited the top 1 percent, ballooned deficits and put social programs on the chopping block, including TANF, Head Start and food stamps. No Child Left Behind is squeezing the public out of public schools and starving our children of needed funds and equitable education.

The extreme right-wing court appointments, like Bill Pryor or Charles Pickering, put civil rights and reproductive rights on the fast track to being history. Court decisions have long-lasting effects – far beyond the term of a president.

Unity is key for any people’s victory. The movement to defeat Bush has many faces, voices and concerns. It is not monolithic. But we are all determined that the first step to making the country – and the world – a better place is to get rid of Bush.

The People’s Weekly World salutes the courage, intelligence and leadership of the co-sponsoring organizations of the March for Women’s Lives. Your foresight to hold a mass demonstration this election year on such a key democratic issue as health care and reproductive rights is inspiring. The women’s vote is a key component to defeating Bush.

This march, and the demonstrations against the IMF, should motivate all of us to go back home, reach out, organize, do voter registration and education, build at the grassroots to dump Bush.

Control: power or authority to guide or manage. The people can do it.

Terrie Albano (talbano@pww.org) is editor of the People’s Weekly World.

Is birth control next?

Fri, 23 Apr 2004 02:00:00 +0000

“The lady came over to the window and said, ‘I’m so sorry I’m not going to be able to fill your prescription.’ I said, ‘Is there something wrong with the prescription?’ And she said, ‘No, I just personally do not believe in birth control.’”

Julee Lacey of North Richland, Texas, told NBC her conversation with a CVS pharmacist, who refused to fill her prescription for birth control. It sounds outrageous, but many fear it will be the wave of the future if George W. Bush and his congressional and judicial pals aren’t stopped in their all-out drive to dismantle Roe v. Wade and strip women of their most precious right, control of their own bodies.

Pharmacists playing doctor may be shocking but what is just plain scary to many is the brazen, bullying – and unconstitutional – way the Bush administration is trampling on democratic rights.

In April 2001 President Bush stressed “the right of every American to have confidence that his or her personal medical records will remain private.” That was then.

This is now: “Patients no longer possess a reasonable expectation that their histories will remain completely confidential,” according to the Department of Justice in a 2004 legal brief.

On Nov. 5, 2003, President Bush signed into law the first-ever federal ban on abortion. He did this despite the fact the U.S. Supreme Court in June 2000 had ruled that similar late-term abortion bans were unconstitutional.

Pro-choice organizations and the ACLU filed suit in federal courts in San Francisco, New York and Lincoln, Neb., maintaining that the ban on safe abortion procedures violates the Constitution and jeopardizes women’s health. The judge in each case issued a temporary restraining order against the law.

That’s when Attorney General John Ashcroft and the DOJ stepped in to demand the medical records of some 900 women who had abortions in clinics around the country. Medical personnel refused to comply and rulings in the case expose the government’s ploy as nothing more than intimidation.

In Northwestern Memorial Hospital v. Ashcroft, the judge ruled against Ashcroft, stating that “the government seeks these records on the possibility that it may find something [useful]” to impeach the credibility of a pro-choice expert witness.

The government appealed but the ruling by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit backed the original judge. Circuit Judge Richard A. Posner wrote that “the government’s response ... remained vague to the point of being evasive.” In other words, just give us the records and don’t ask why.

The government also argued that since it is seeking a “limited” number of records and would not use patient names, compliance wouldn’t be a problem for the hospital or the patient. The court called that “unrealistic and incomplete,” noting that the natural sensitivity people feel about the disclosure of their medical records “is amplified when the records are of a procedure that Congress has now declared a crime.”

While Ashcroft claimed that the women’s names would not be used “the government expressly reserved the right, at a later date, to seek the identity of the patients whose records are produced,” court documents stated.

The decisions from the three lawsuits should be handed down late this summer. The restraining orders currently in effect “should stay in place through the appeals process,” Ellen Sweet, communications director for the Center for Reproductive Rights, a plaintiff in the case before the Nebraska federal court, told the World. Whatever the verdict, there will be an appeal, she said.

Since 1995, states have enacted 380 bills restricting a woman’s right to choose. The Republican-controlled Congress has relentlessly fought to roll back reproductive rights. The Supreme Court has a razor-thin majority protecting the right to choose.

“Those are the sober facts,” NARAL Pro-Choice America stated in an appeal for the April 25 March for Women’s Lives.

“This march is a vital step in support of women, in support of reproductive freedom, and in support of our individual liberties,” said Sue Wagner, executive director of Planned Parenthood Affiliates of Michigan. “Our rights are under attack like never before. Roe v. Wade is on life support and the policymakers in the nation’s capital must be aware of how many people agree with having a choice.”

The author can be reached at crummel@pww.org.click here for Spanish text

10,000 march against violence in Philly

Fri, 16 Apr 2004 06:06:00 +0000

NORTH PHILADELPHIA – Dee Smith pushed her son, Marcus, in a wheelchair. Other mothers carried poster-size photos of their children – Michael Keel, 14; Keith Lovett, 17; Jason Sweeney, 16; Thiayanna Son, 10; Antwine Kellam, 18; Faheem Thomas-Childs, 10; Jazmine McDonald, 13; and Kyree Cohen, 17 – all killed in acts of violence.

“We want people to see our pain,” said Terrance Berry, whose son was one of the victims.

Marcus Smith was severely injured in 1991 when a teen shot into a crowd six weeks before Marcus was to graduate high school and enter Harvard University. Twenty-six students have died from violence this school year.

Some 10,000 people joined the parents in the April 10 March to Save the Children, sponsored by the NAACP, the Philadelphia School District and state Rep. Jewell Williams, who called for gun control legislation.

Mayor John Street addressed the marchers when they assembled at Dobbins Technical High School in North Philadelphia. Parents pushing strollers lined up with elders walking with canes. Boy Scouts and Girl Scouts led the march as flag bearers. Members of AFSCME District Council 47 and 33 carried signs that said, “Stop Killing Our Children.”

Other union contingents, including the Laborers and Temple University Employees, carried banners reading, “Bury Guns, Not Children” and “Our Children Are Our Future.” Neighborhood clubs, organizations and churches wore their T-shirts for identification.

In February, Faheem Thomas-Childs, a 10-year-old honors student, was shot in the schoolyard at T.M. Pierce Elementary School at 8:30 in the morning, caught in the crossfire between two rival drug gangs. Although many witnessed the gun battle – the gang members fired 94 rounds – no one is willing to testify in court. In similar cases in the past, witnesses have been murdered.

“We’re fed up. I’ve lived in North Philly all my life. We had pride,” said Alva Green. “I can’t afford to move, but I’m too scared to stay.”

As marchers filled the Pierce Elementary schoolyard and the streets around the school, speakers pleaded with neighborhood residents to be courageous and turn in Thomas-Childs’ killers. Students from the school recited poetry, sang and danced. The school principal said the school was still in a state of mourning and described his feelings of remorse for not being able to protect one of his own.

As a follow-up to the march, student leaders will meet with the Chamber of Commerce requesting summer jobs for every youth who wants to work. They will appeal to all levels of government to provide funding to establish safe corridors around troubled schools and the cleaning and repair of recreation facilities in economically depressed neighborhoods. They will urge parents to become more active in their childrens’ school and to make sure their children are safe going to and from school.

The marchers expressed the emotion that comes from years of destabilization of many city neighborhoods due to thousands of jobs leaving the city, massive unemployment and cuts in education and other social support programs. Two weeks before the march, Mayor Street announced a $227 million deficit for the city in 2005 and said some recreation centers and pools would have to be closed.

The Eastern Pennsylvania district of the Communist Party distributed a leaflet, “No More Cuts, Make Corporate Philadelphia Pay Its Share,” which noted that 82 percent of companies in Pennsylvania pay no income tax. It called for taxing the corporations and the rich to fund human needs.

The author can be reached at phillyrose1@earthlink.net.

Pittsburgh Students battle racism

Fri, 16 Apr 2004 05:06:00 +0000

PITTSBURGH – It was a ticking time bomb bred in segregation and fed by arrogance that exploded on the front pages of two student publications in affluent communities recently. Racism, misogyny and homophobia blew up in student newspapers at Carnegie Mellon University (CMU) and at North Hills High School (NAHS). Students and the administration at CMU took action. The high school has so far been silent.

In late March, about 30 parents met in the northern suburbs of Pittsburgh to discuss a response to anti-affirmative action editorial and an unsigned letter to the editor that ran in the NAHS newspaper, The North Star. Both the editorial and letter argued that affirmative action programs are biased against white people.

No one from the school administration, school board or student editorial staff attended. NHHS is 93 percent white, the newspaper staff is all white and male. The parents’ group decided to draft a letter to Superintendent Lawrence A. Butterini.

“The turnout (at the parents’ meeting) here said that there are other parents who are concerned,” said Mary Perdue, who is African American and whose daughter is a student at NAHS. “This environment so often makes our children uncomfortable as minorities in the system.”

Members of the school board said that they were aware of the editorial and letter but that they had not discussed them nor was a discussion scheduled.

Within days of the racist incident at NAHS, The Tartan, CMU’s student newspaper, whose staff is all white and all male, ran its annual April Fools’ Day edition – 12 pages of violent racism, homophobia and degradation of women. The next day a multiracial group of students protested on the campus. The Tartan’s staff gathered up 1,500 of the 6,000 copies in circulation. Cartoonist Bob Rost was fired. The editor, Alexander Meseguer, publicly recanted and is under pressure to resign. After publishing an apology April 5, the newspaper ceased publication for the term. That same day, CMU hosted a forum on the incident. University President Jared Cohon has convened a commission to provide recommendations for disciplinary action and other changes.

Mad cows and sick chickens: capitalism and the food supply

Fri, 09 Apr 2004 03:57:00 +0000

Are you becoming afraid of the grocery store? If you are, it’s no wonder. Mad cow disease, avian flu, and mercury in salmon are the latest dangers to our food supply. With the first diagnosis of bovine spongiform encephalopathy (mad cow disease) in a U.S. cow, Dec. 23, 2003, Agriculture Secretary Ann Veneman and spokesmen for the beef industry rushed to reassure us that the food supply was safe, that we need not change our eating habits. Thirteen other nations were just as quick to ban imports of U.S. beef. Japan’s ban is still in place.

The Food and Drug Administration adopted new rules banning the use of cow blood in feeding cattle. Inspections for mad cow disease increased tenfold, suggesting there was some risk. Yet the Agriculture Department and beef producers resisted the proposal of Creekstone Farms to test all of its cattle.

More recently, avian flu has been found in Delaware, Maryland, and Texas. Hundreds of thousands of birds have been destroyed. We have been assured that it is safe to eat poultry, that the avian flu in the U.S. is less virulent than that found in Asia. High levels of mercury have been found in farmed salmon. Again, the industry involved is assuring us that these fish are safe, even as we are warned that pregnant women and children should limit their consumption. Even if these assurances are valid, the pattern is troubling.

Those who remember the E. coli scares of a few years ago and increased public awareness of salmonella in chicken will recall similar patterns. Now we are warned to cook our beef, chicken, and eggs thoroughly. Enjoying steak tartar or original key-lime pie are risky behaviors. If your beef or chicken makes you sick, the blame is laid on what you did in the kitchen, not what the producer did in the plant.

Why does our food supply present such risks? After all, we have new technologies, new ways of processing these foods. We might expect improved safety. That would be a mistake.

Much of the new technology and new processing systems appear to be more dangerous, rather than less. Meat is processed at dramatically higher speeds, in vastly larger volumes. A single contaminated chicken can now foul much more meat than ever before. Even if the dangerous parts of cattle (brains and spinal cords) are separated from edible meat, the high speed at which the carcasses are cut up leaves open the risk that some of that material will end up in the food supply.

Generally when we think about industries that qualify as manufacturers of illness, we think of tobacco, alcohol, or coal mining. The fact is that the food we eat is produced by major industries. As with any industry, the first goal is profits. Speed-up, safety practices just this side of legal, and “let the buyer beware” are as present in the manufacturing of food as any other product. And regulatory agencies are not putting people before profits, not even for food.

The author can be reached at pww@pww.org.

Starving Section 8 housing to fund war

Fri, 09 Apr 2004 03:31:00 +0000

SEATTLE – The new Bush budget would devastate the Section 8 housing program, the National Low-Income Housing Coalition has warned.

The slash in funding for housing and other domestic programs is coupled in the Bush budget with proposals for a 7 percent increase in military spending, to $421 billion, and new tax favors for corporations and the wealthy.

The proposed cuts have an ugly racist edge. A high percentage of Section 8 tenants are African Americans, Latinos, Native Americans, or immigrants from Asian and Pacific nations.

Housing activists and homeless advocates have organized a nationwide call-in to urge Congress to protect funding for the Section 8 voucher program and for the 2 million families it currently serves.

In Washington State, 41,200 low-income seniors, persons with disabilities and the working poor depend for their housing on the voucher program. In Seattle and King County, the figure is 24,500 households, with an additional 12,000 households on Section 8 waiting lists.

The housing coalition reports that the Bush budget for fiscal year 2005 allocates $1.6 billion too little to fund all housing vouchers currently in use. Beyond 2005, the cuts would be even deeper. By 2009, funding would be slashed by 40 percent – a loss of 800,000 vouchers.

The Bush budget would also remove important tenant protections. Public housing authorities would no longer be required to serve people with the lowers incomes, nor would they be required to keep rent at no more than 30 percent of a resident’s income. Current voucher-holders would not be protected. Housing authorities would be under pressure to serve the same number of families with fewer dollars. As a result, low-income families would be at risk of losing their vouchers to higher income families.

Reprinted with permission from The Retiree Advocate, publication of the Puget Sound Alliance for Retired Americans, pscsc@qwest.net.

National Clips

Fri, 09 Apr 2004 02:44:00 +0000

HUNTINGTON, W.Va.: 500 workers, students protest Bush

“I was invited to Mr. Bush’s rally down the road,” Huntington Mayor David Felinton told 500 coal miners, steelworkers, building trades workers, firefighters and students, April 2. “But I chose to come here with working families. We’ve seen too many of our jobs disappear. And we are in a war fighting for Halliburton.”

Defeating Bush in the November election is the mission for the West Virginia AFL-CIO, said state federation President Jim Bowen. Turnout for the “dump Bush” demonstration defied a driving, cold rain.

In 2000, West Virginia voted for Bush. According to Sen. Robert Byrd (D-W.Va.), over 20,000 state residents have lost their jobs since 2001 when Bush was sworn in.

Don Stiltner, business agent for Sheetmetal Workers Local 24, brought 25 unemployed union members to the anti-Bush rally. “If Bush is not defeated, the working man will be,” he said.

CHARLOTTE, N.C.: Demand for jobs heats up

Scores of protesters lined the street as the Bush motorcade sped past them to a $2,000-a-plate Republican fundraising dinner, April 5.

Swooz Glenn, a member of the National Organization for Women and a hair stylist, proudly held her sign, “Shame on you – Don’t you know $2,000 could feed a lot of people?”

Other protesters demanded jobs and an end to the occupation of Iraq.

Since the Bush administration took office, 162,800 manufacturing jobs – 22 percent of the state’s total – have been lost. Working families are hungry.

Local press reports said that Bush told reporters that he joked with Rep. Robin Hayes (R-N.C.) on Air Force One flying into Charlotte about hunting and fishing. Hayes’ district includes Pillotex, which laid off 4,800 workers, the largest layoff in the state’s history.

The Bush campaign war chest is reported to stand at $182.7 million.

ALBUQUERQUE, N.M.: How to maximize profits? Steal

Ever wonder how retail stores could “slash prices” and still make a profit? According to Drew Pooters, formerly of Toy ‘R’ Us, and other department managers for similar franchise stores, their bosses electronically cut workers’ paychecks.

Pooters, a father of five and a former Air Force military policeman, blew the whistle on a widespread practice known as time-shaving, where managers use computers to change the number of hours workers have worked, slashing their paychecks.

To date, courts have forced Kinko’s to settle lawsuits for $56,600 for time-shaving at their stores in Ithaca, N.Y., and Hyannis, Mass.

Attorney William Rutzick represented Taco Bell workers, who just won $1.5 million in back pay and damages. He said the reason companies get away with time-shaving is because they have no job protections, like a union. “A lot of this is that district managers might fire you as soon as look at you.”

Workers and managers have Wal-Mart and Pep Boys in court to restore workers’ paychecks.

ELBACON, W.Va.: Seventh miner killed on job in 2004

A miner at the Brooks Run Mine in Webster County, whose name had not yet been released at press time, died on the job when mining machinery pinned him to the wall of the underground mining complex. Brooks Run Mining is a subsidiary of Alpha Natural Resources.

Kerry Holliday, 50, died in the same mine on March 2, prompting an investigation by the Mine Safety and Health Administration (MSHA). Holliday died because the company failed to follow routine procedure, MSHA concluded.

In addition to the deep mine in Webster County, Brooks Run owns numerous strip mines. The company has a history of environmental and safety violations at their strip operations going back to 1980.

DETROIT: Car dealers sue DaimlerChrysler

In two separate lawsuits filed by car dealers in two separate states, DaimlerChrysler is being asked to explain why it changed a computer program that reviews loan applications for new cars, trucks and other vehicles. The ACE program is designed to examine an applicant’s credit, income and other factors to grant a loan. It originally didn’t consider race, but supervisors at DaimlerChrysler’s finance department, do consider race and changed the program, the suits allege.

Gerald Gorman, who owns a dealership in Chicago, is suing DaimlerChrysler on behalf of his customers because nonwhite buyers have been routinely denied loans to buy a car. In October an employee in the AG department sent Gorman a fax of an official memo detailing company policy, * whereby certain ZIP codes come under super-scrutiny. Usually, said Gorman, loans were denied to customers who were not white.

Gorman’s lawsuit is scheduled to go to trial in March 2005.

National Clips are compiled by Denise Winebrenner Edwards. Paul Kaczocha contributed to this week’s clips.

In Massachusetts: Same-sex couples set to wed in May

Fri, 09 Apr 2004 02:33:00 +0000

Despite potential setbacks, gay and lesbian couples will be able to wed in the state of Massachusetts in a matter of weeks. On May 17 marriage licenses will be issued to same-sex partners, the result of the November 2003 state’s Supreme Judicial Court decision that civil unions were unconstitutional. Republican Gov. Mitt Romney has threatened to stop the licenses by court injunction, but state Attorney General Thomas F. Reilly has declined to act on such a move.

In the meantime, state agencies are preparing for the state’s first legal same-sex marriages. In addition to making forms gender-neutral, agencies are reviewing rules on items such as insurance and lottery winnings and revising tax forms for 2005, the first year same-sex couples will be able to file joint tax returns.

On March 29 the state Legislature voted 105-92 to amend the state’s constitution to ban gay marriage while the proposed amendment upheld civil unions. The “compromise” will go before a constitutional convention in 2005 and, if passed there, before the state’s voters in 2006.

MassEquality, a coalition of groups working in support of same-sex marriage, called the measure discriminatory and a setback for civil rights.

In next-door Rhode Island, House Majority Leader Gordon Fox surprised many by announcing that he is gay. Fox, the co-sponsor of legislation that would legalize same-sex marriage in the state, came out during a rally in support of the bill. The state’s Legislature is also debating a bill that would ban same-sex marriages.

In Georgia, after the debate stalled earlier in the month, the state House voted 122-52, March 31, to ban gay marriage. The ban will be put before voters in this November’s election. The constitutional amendment would also ban any same-sex unions.

Leaders of the civil rights movement testified before a Senate committee on the issue of a federal constitutional ban. Rep. John Lewis (D-Ga.), a leader of the historic march from Selma, Ala., to Montgomery, said, “We have been down this road before in this country. The right to liberty and happiness belongs to each of us and on the same terms, without regard to either skin color or sexual orientation.”

While speaking in Pomona, N.J., Coretta Scott King, widow of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., spoke out against a constitutional ban on same-sex marriage.

“Gay and lesbian people have families, and their families should have legal protection, whether by marriage or civil union,” King said. “A constitutional amendment banning same-sex marriages is a form of gay bashing and it would do nothing at all to protect traditional marriages.”

The author can be reached at jbarnett@pww.org.

Voters say No to Wal-Mart

Fri, 09 Apr 2004 02:21:00 +0000

By a 60 percent vote, residents of Inglewood, Calif., rejected a ballot initiative April 6 that would have given Wal-Mart Corp. carte blanche to ignore zoning, traffic and environmental regulations to build a mega-store in their Los Angeles County community.

“They pay poverty-level wages, usually without health care, forcing their employees onto welfare to survive,” said civil rights leader Rev. James Lawson at a press conference of the Coalition for a Better Inglewood. Gil Mathieu Jr., a 40-year Inglewood resident, said, “After they put everybody out of business, they’ll raise the prices. People will have fewer places to shop and lower quality of goods.”

Wal-Mart spent $1 million on a TV advertising campaign aimed at African American voters. It brought them only 4,573 votes, at $218 a vote.

The author can be reached at rwood@pww.org.

Best health insurance deal in the United States

Fri, 02 Apr 2004 05:39:00 +0000

I want to tell you about the best health insurance deal in the United States, bar none. Here it is: The purchaser pays $35 per month. In return he or she gets ...

• unlimited doctor’s office visits • accident care • unlimited physical therapy • routine exams • unlimited specialty care • durable medical equipment • unlimited on-premises lab & x-ray • unlimited EEG/EKG (expensive, sophisticated medical tests) • unlimited hospital visits • unlimited prescriptions • pap smears • unlimited medical consultations

“But wait, there’s more,” as they say on TV. There are no deductibles. In other words, patients don’t have to pay, say, the first $500 in medical bills before the insurance kicks in. Moreover, there are never any co-payments. Patients with this health insurance get 100 percent coverage for all medical benefits listed above from the first time they see the physician. These patients are never stuck paying 50 percent, 30 percent, or even 20 percent of any charges for any covered visit or medical procedure.

By now you are probably thinking, “Wow! That’s fantastic! Where do I sign up?” I would love to be able to tell you that you can rush right out to your local health insurance sales office and sign on the dotted line, but unfortunately, it is not that easy.

This is a very exclusive deal. In fact, it is only offered to 535 people in the entire United States. You would think that these would be low-income individuals, maybe, to get such affordable health insurance, but they are not. No, in fact all these people earn $158,000 a year or more, and quite a few of them are millionaires. Have you guessed yet who these lucky, well-insured folks are? They are your elected officials, the 535 members of Congress!

And how was the cost of this health insurance determined? According to the Congressional Committee on House Administration: “Based on an analysis of several databases on health care statistics, an independent consulting actuary estimated that the relative value of the services provided by the Attending Physician amounts to less than 45 percent of a federal employee’s average annual share for prepaid health care plans available to federal employees in the Washington, D.C., area.” In other words, they claim that this is based on what other federal employees pay for comparable health insurance coverage. I suspect that the other “federal employees” would not agree.

So remember, while President Bush and his cronies in Congress spend hundreds of billions of dollars making war around the world, and while they cut hundreds of billions of dollars from health care and social services for children, the elderly, and low-income families, these elected officials have the best health insurance deal in the nation.

Finally, here’s a fun thing to do with large numbers. First, multiply $35 times 12 months. That comes out to $420 per year for a great primary care health insurance package. (In other words, it includes all the benefits listed above, but does not include long hospital stays or certain long-term physical or mental health treatments.) Next, let’s divide $420 into, say, all the money President Bush has spent invading and occupying Iraq – that’s now about $106 billion. The answer is ... $252 million. In other words, all the money wasted by Bush and the other armchair corporate warriors invading Iraq and killing tens of thousands of people could have provided primary care for four of every five Americans for an entire year.

War around the world, or health access across the nation? Only our political struggle can determine the answer.

The author can be reached at pww@pww.org.

School budget battle looms in New York

Fri, 02 Apr 2004 03:48:00 +0000

BUFFALO, N.Y. – As the deadline for New York’s 2004-5 budget approaches, education rights activists are demanding the state find money to comply with last year’s ruling that every child be provided with a “meaningful high school education.”

The Campaign for Fiscal Equity (CFE), which fought on this issue for 10 years and brought the successful lawsuit before the Court of Appeals, commissioned the New York Adequacy Study. That study has determined it will cost an additional $7 billion to fulfill the mandate.

Given that Gov. George Pataki, a Republican, has only allocated a 1 percent increase (less than inflation) for education in his proposed budget, a big fight is in the making. In a January 2001 decision, the state Supreme Court found that New York has consistently violated its constitution by failing to provide every child with a “sound, basic education.”

The ruling ordered the State Legislature to throw out the current school funding formula and create a new one. Gov. Pataki appealed that decision and, in June 2002, won the appeal with a now infamous finding by the court that an 8th grade education is all that New York’s children are entitled to.

Subsequently, in 2003 the CFE won its appeal of that decision when the Court of Appeals ruled that every student is entitled to a “meaningful high school education,” and that the current state school funding formula is unconstitutional. (In New York, the Court of Appeals is the highest court.)

The Alliance for Quality Education (AQE), a statewide coalition of over 230 groups, is calling for a $2 billion down payment in the 2004-05 budget as a first step in fulfilling that decision. This money would be utilized for urgent needs, such as smaller classes, enough qualified teachers and up-to-date learning materials.

Under Pataki’s current proposal, school districts such as the “Big Five” (Buffalo, Rochester, Syracuse, Yonkers and New York City), which have large numbers of minority and poor students, will not be able to maintain current programs. Over the last three years, the Buffalo School District has laid off hundreds of teachers, including librarians and counselors, cut many programs and increased class sizes. The district also faces a $45 million budget gap for the 2004-05 school year.

Overall, the state is facing a $5 billion budget deficit, smaller than last year’s record deficit but still a huge gap. According to AQE, tax cuts enacted in the state since 1994 add up to $15 billion in lost revenue. They argue that if New York could afford to cut revenues by $15 billion because that was a priority, it can find $7 billion over the next four years to fund education.

New York has until July 30 to meet the court ordered deadline. If not, the case will go before a court appointed “special master,” who will then personally determine the formula. This would also mean that only New York City will receive additional funds, since the court case was based on the facts of that city’s school district.

New Yorkers can find out where their state representatives stand on this issue by checking the websites of AQE (www.aqe.org) and the Campaign for Fiscal Equity (www.cfe.org).

The author can be reached at pww@pww.org.