People Before Profit blog

Singer Natalie Merchant on side of peace, labor

Fri, 30 Apr 2004 07:23:00 +0000

Music Review

Natalie Merchant fans well understand her intense commitment to peace and social justice. Most of her albums contain one or two songs that reflect where she stands. But on her latest CD, “The House Carpenter’s Daughter” (Myth America Records, P.O. Box 170 Bellows Falls, VT 05101), Merchant vents her rage at the mistreatment of working people and their unions and about the war.

She characterizes this CD as “a collection of traditional and contemporary folk music.” The second cut on the CD is the great labor song, “Which Side are You On.” She sings the song by combining a dirge and militant anger that Florence Reece, who wrote it in 1947, would have been proud of.

In the CD notes Merchant says, “Florence Reece was the wife of a labor organizer for the National Miner’s Union in Harlan County, Kentucky. In 1932 the miners of that region were locked in a bitter and violent struggle with the mine owners and their private security force. In an attempt to intimidate the Reece family, deputies hired by the mining company illegally entered and searched their home. Sam Reece was warned in advance and escaped, but his wife and daughters were terrorized. That night after the men had gone, Florence wrote the lyrics to ‘Which Side are You On?’ on a calendar that hung on the kitchen wall of their home.” Merchant’s inclusion of the song and its description bears stark lessons for today in the current context of the undemocratic USA Patriot Act.

Also on the CD is “Soldier, Soldier,” an antiwar song that came from the Deep South for which Merchant has made her own arrangement. “Bury Me Under the Weeping Willow” was the first song ever recorded by the famous Carter Family in 1927. On a contemporary folk level, Merchant includes a powerful song, “Sally Ann.” This is a CD that should be in everyone’s collection.

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

Uncovering the truth about Reds and unions

Fri, 30 Apr 2004 07:14:00 +0000

Book Review

Left Out: Reds and America’s Industrial Unions By Judith Stepan-Norris and Maurice Zeitlin Cambridge University Press, 2002, Softcover, 392 pp., $27

Now that conventional wisdom says the Communist Party and communism are “dead,” serious research is being published that gives the lie to anti-communist propaganda.

For example, recent research by Western military historians using Soviet-era documents are telling us that the Soviet army used brilliant, innovative tactics to defeat the Nazi armies. They expose the lies we have been told about the alleged ruthless, needless, and calculated sacrifice of thousands if not millions of the Soviet forces that won the Second World War.

Now comes a book by two serious scholars that examines the history of the Communist Party USA’s role in the explosion of union activity and organizing in the 1930s and beyond, up to and including the effectiveness of McCarthyism in derailing the trade union movement in the 1950s.

The authors, both professors in the University of California system, tell the story of what Communists actually did in the unions where they were in leadership.

With only a few exceptions, previous examinations of the Party’s role in unions centered on ideological questions and tried to build the “conspiracy charge” against the Communists, painting them as Stalinists who were mindlessly carrying out the orders of the Comintern.

These authors, on the other hand, state, “Our own ‘main problem,’ in contrast, is precisely, by carefully and systematically studying the ‘historical materials,’ to try to discover what Communists did in fact do to win power [sic] in American industrial unions.”

The authors picked the unions in three industries – auto, electrical and steel. The historical materials they used include a study of the leadership of these unions from the locals on up to the international bodies. Looking at race and gender particularly, they examined constitutions and bylaws, the minutes of meetings, elections, contracts and contract negotiations among other records. They did statistical analyses of the membership and leadership.

Among other areas they looked at the percentage of Blacks and women in the unions and in the leadership and their representation on the Communist-led slates. They examined the minutes to determine whether minority voices were heard and considered.

Let’s cut to the chase. What the authors found bears out the statements of leading anti-communists such as Irving Howe: “The devotion, heroism and selflessness of many Communists unionists during these years can hardly be overestimated.” Or this quote from Robert Ozane, also a devout anti-communist: “Communists were more willing than the average worker to face gross employer discrimination and even violence.”

“Left Out” is not easy reading. But there are more than enough rewards to make it worthwhile.

The story of the Communists’ struggle to get minorities into top leadership is revealing. In the United Auto Workers, it was not that the “membership was racist,” as non-communists and right-wingers claimed. The records show that the obstacle was Walter Reuther and his faction. They claimed that creating a special seat on the board for an African American, which the Party members fought for, would be “a ‘hypocritical’ demand for racism in reverse.” Sound familiar?

As for the Communist Party union members and equal rights for women, the authors cite United Electrical union conventions, official publications and contract demands. UE “actively pressed demands for women’s job training centers, equal pay for equal work, no sex differentials and free child care” from the late ’30s on. UE also raised demands calling for what is today called “equal pay for equal worth.”

All those who want to get the inside skinny on how to organize will get the basics here. In a nutshell, militant rank-and-file unionism is the basis of good unionism. Rank-and-file democracy, struggle for minorities and women at all levels of leadership, open discussion on all issues – both inner union and general political questions – is the only way to go.

The authors conclude that the militancy of the Communist led unions came from rank-and-file participation at all levels, and that led in turn to militancy at the bargaining table. The records show that these unions were the most democratic, and because of that, Communists were elected and re-elected to the leadership.

There is a lot of discussion in the trade union movement about the direction we must take. This book should become must reading for all participants, especially for those who look back to the ’30s, ’40s and early ’50s for inspiration.

The reader will find not only the positive lessons of Communist activity. The book also takes the reader through the McCarthy period to show that the path to docile unions and greater profits was to drive out the Communists.

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

Rethinking World War II

Fri, 30 Apr 2004 06:56:00 +0000

Opinion

When World War II ended, most Americans realized the enormous contribution that the Soviet Union had made to the victory over fascism. In the two years before the D-Day invasion (June 6, 1944), they had read about huge battles on the Soviet “eastern” front where the outcome of the war was decided. After D-Day, they had followed the progress of both Soviet and Anglo-U.S. forces, understanding that each army’s advance strengthened the other and helped seal Hitler’s doom.

The Cold War changed all that. As Arthur Vandenberg, Republican chair of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, advised President Harry Truman in 1947, in order to get Congress to pass the Truman Doctrine, committing the country to fight against revolutionary movements and Soviet influence everywhere in the world, as if they were one and the same, Truman would “have to scare the hell out of the American people.” The U.S. ruling class did exactly that through anti-communism – asserting that all Communists were spies and saboteurs for the Soviets, who were out to conquer the world. Over the next 44 years, the U.S. spent trillions to fight the Cold War. U.S. military and covert interventions throughout the world cost millions of lives.

The Cold War also led U.S. scholars to downplay the Soviet contribution to the war, while the Soviets greatly underestimated their devastation so as to appear less weak to the U.S. and its allies.

Today, a group of military historians are trying to set the record straight. Even for a history teacher like myself, some of the new findings are surprising.

Although it has long been accepted that the Soviet Union suffered 20-25 million deaths in the war – nearly half of all World War II deaths – new figures put the Soviet losses at closer to 50 million, and show that important parts of the war were unreported.

Given this new documentation, it becomes even more remarkable that the Soviets prevailed against the war of extermination that the Nazi Wehrmacht and their Axis allies launched against them. That their victory was the most important factor in saving the world from fascist hegemony becomes more indisputable.

Many U.S. and European historians used self-serving German army documents to portray the Soviets as victorious solely because of their large armies and the Russian winter. This fitted in nicely with anti-communist views of the Soviet Union as a nation of backward people, incapable of initiative, led by tyrants. New research clearly shows Soviet generals outmaneuvering the Nazis in many important campaigns, and Soviet weaponry and military production eventually outperforming the Nazis. Weather factors hurt and helped both sides.

New research shows the connection between the fascist genocide against the Jewish people of Europe and the fascist war against the Soviet people (see Christopher Browning, “Origins of the Final Solution”). Hitler’s war aimed at exterminating all Jewish people and all Communists, and enslaving the Slavic nationalities. In the Hitler fascists’ twisted worldview, this would complete the mission of the medieval Teutonic knights, who participated in the Crusades and a Holy War against the Slavic peoples.

Using such ideas, German fascism carried through Europe an imperialist policy of military conquest of raw materials, productive forces and labor pools, treating European lives with the same contempt that European imperialist powers had shown the peoples of Africa and Asia.

The new research also highlights the importance of the campaign – led by Communist Party activists – for the U.S. to launch a second, western front. Millions of Jews and many more non-Jews might have survived had the second front been launched a year or more earlier. The research strengthens the view that the second front was postponed to bleed the Soviets, in order to reduce their postwar power. Millions of Jews and non-Jews, as I see it, perished because of these decisions.

Finally, the new research should help us appreciate more the Soviet achievement in making possible the victory over fascism, and the enormous loss to all anti-imperialist struggles that the destruction of the Soviet Union means today. The socialist character of the Soviet Union made it possible for its people to work collectively in the face of terrible hardships, to win against the most powerful and brutal military machine in history, just as socialism has enabled the Cuban people to survive decades of imperialist encirclement. The struggles against imperialism, racism and anti-Semitism and for working-class power and socialism are inseparable.

Norman Markowitz is a history professor at Rutgers University. He can be reached at pww@pww.org.

Students, parents and teachers: March vs. education cuts

Fri, 30 Apr 2004 04:58:00 +0000

SACRAMENTO, Calif. – Fifty students, parents and teachers spent their spring break marching from San Pablo to Sacramento in a “March 4 Education” to dramatize the financial plight of the West Contra Costa County School District. That school board decided to make up a $16.5 million budget deficit by eliminating high school sports, counselors, librarians and music programs.

All along the eight-day, 70-mile march, people cheered, cars honked, drivers brought food and offered a rest to the foot-sore. Marchers passed through three friendly towns, past pastures full of cattle, refineries belching pollution, and – most interesting to these marchers – a huge new prison in Vacaville.

“That big new shiny building looked like it stretched for miles, compared to my poor old school,” one student said. “They pay $25,000 a year for care for prisoners, how about me?”

At the University of California in Davis they were met by enthusiastic supporters and invited to take part in a ceremony destroying a piñata of Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger.

Arriving at the Capitol April 16, marchers joined 300 supporters in a spirited rally. Their three demands were that the governor forgive a 1991 loan to the West Contra Costa School District, which requires $1.8 million in yearly repayments; that the state fully fund Proposition 98, which would have provided $4 billion for schools until the governor cut the amount in half in his January budget proposal; and that school funding be equalized throughout the state.

Farm workers carried two banners in the rally, reminding participants that this youth march on the Capitol is partly the legacy of Cesar Chavez, who would have been proud of the action.

State Senate Majority Leader Don Perata (D-East Bay) urged participants, “Don’t just raise your voice here, but in your counties, your districts where some millionaires pay no taxes at all.”

Many marchers addressed the rally. A 10-year-old with feet aching from the march commented, “Governor, you said you wanted to give us money, but now you’re taking it away!” Another youngster added, “Arnold, you fool, why won’t you fund our school?”

Several speakers pointed to the root cause of the crises in education. One said, “If the wealthiest 5 percent of taxpayers paid the same percentage as the average taxpayer does, we’d have plenty of money for schools. And corporate taxes are lower now than they have ever been.”

Wendy, a teacher, said that she is “using exactly the same books to teach from that I used when I was a student.” A parent said, “Our feet are tired, but our souls are rested.”

“Listen to these children,” another teacher declared, “ they are our hearts talking.”

The governor has refused to meet with the marchers.

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

International notes

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

Colombia: Coke unionist’s family killed

On April 20 armed men entered the home of the brother-in-law of Coca-Cola union leader Efrain Guerrero, in Bucaramanga, site of one of Coca-Cola’s bottling plants. They killed Efrain’s brother- and sister-in-law and seriously injured one of their three children, the Campaign for Labor Rights reported.

The union, Sinaltrainal, is trying to save the jobs of workers at the bottling plants after Coca-Cola Femsa, Colombia’s largest Coke bottler, illegally closed 11 of its 16 plants last September. Since then they have pressured over 500 workers into “voluntarily resigning” in exchange for a lump-sum payment. Most union leaders have refused to resign, and the company has escalated its pressure against them.

In February the far-right Colombian government, siding with the company, authorized the firing of 91 workers, 70 percent of whom are union leaders, in a move to essentially eliminate the union.

Cyprus: AKEL urges dialogue

On April 24 the Greek Cypriot sector voted to reject a UN plan to reunite the island, while the Turkish-occupied sector accepted the plan. In a statement the same day, Demetris Christofias, general secretary of Cyprus’ communist party, AKEL, called for a meeting of leaders of progressive forces from both communities to work out common positions.

Before the vote, AKEL, with members in both communities and a long history of working for reunification, had urged postponing the referendum so voters could better understand the pros and cons, and remaining issues could be resolved. When postponement was not accepted, AKEL recommended a “no” vote.

Christofias emphasized that AKEL “aims and continues to aim at consolidating a broad ‘yes,’ the soonest possible also from the Greek Cypriot community.” He called on the government to make sure Turkish Cypriots feel fully a part of the island nation as it enters the European Union.

Sudan: Urgent appeal to feed refugees

The UN World Food Program is appealing for $98 million in emergency funds to feed 1.2 million people affected by the ongoing conflict in the western region of Darfur, the UN’s IRIN news agency said April 26. WFP Executive Director James Morris said the need is acute, with hundreds of thousands driven from their homes and farms. Most of the aid will go to people forced from their villages before they could plant, with special attention to women, who account for most of agricultural production.

Representatives of the Sudanese government and two rebel groups from Darfur met in Chad last week, following the start of a 45-day truce April 11. But the rebels have accused the government of violating the truce, and international relief agencies say gaining access to government-held areas is difficult.

The New York-based Human Rights Watch charges that government forces massacred 136 rebels in a coordinated operation last month.

China: Rural workers to receive training

The Ministry of Agriculture and five other ministries announced last week a special program to improve the work skills of 35 million farmers in the next seven years, so they can transfer to non-farming jobs.

China’s rural labor force now totals 480 million, out of a total population of 1.3 billion. Some 160 million rural Chinese work for rural firms and other non-agricultural enterprises. Another 320 million grow crops, raise animals or fish – but the government says agriculture needs only about 170 million workers.

The project will offer short-term training to 5 million workers this year and next, in major grain growing areas and regions where many farmers have joined the migrant worker pool. Another 30 million are to be trained between 2006 and 2010.

Haiti: Factory workers win victory

Workers at the Codevi factory in the “free trade zone” near Ouanaminthe, Haiti, on the border with the Dominican Republic, have won a victory in the fight for workers’ rights, according to the Haiti-based Batay Ouvriye and the Campaign for Labor Rights. After the illegal firing and physical abuse of 34 workers in March (see PWW, 3/20), the workers’ union, SOKOWA, along with labor solidarity groups, effectively pressured the owners to rehire the workers and recognize workers’ rights.

Final negotiations on April 13 involved the workers and representatives of Codevi FTZ, the World Bank, and Levi Strauss, whose jeans have been manufactured at the factory. After negotiations, Codevi agreed to reinstate all of the workers in the conflict, payment of medical services of the worker who had been most severely beaten, payment for the time they spent without work according to the present minimum salary, recognition of union rights within the factory and immediate negotiations with a union delegation to discuss the workers’ general demands. Workers note that management is already dragging its feet in rehiring the workers, but have vowed to hold management to its promises.

International Notes are compiled by Marilyn Bechtel (mbechtel@pww.org). Julia Lutsky contributed to this week’s notes.

Charges dropped vs. Oakland protesters

Fri, 30 Apr 2004 03:20:00 +0000

OAKLAND, Calif. – In a victory for the right of peaceful protest, the district attorney’s office said April 22 it is dropping charges against 24 demonstrators and a longshoreman arrested by Oakland police during antiwar protests last April at the Port of Oakland.

Police claimed protesters attacked them with rocks and bottles. But demonstrators and observers maintained the April 7, 2003, protest had been peaceful until police used rubber bullets, wooden dowels and concussion grenades against them. The police barrage also targeted longshore workers waiting nearby to go to work. Nine workers and 50 demonstrators were injured, with several requiring surgery.

Unions, peace organizations and community members held solidarity rallies, including gathering at each hearing on the case. City Council members protested the police attack and demanded an investigation, which resulted in the Oakland Police Department changing its crowd control policies. The United Nations Human Rights Commission issued a scathing report on the incident.

Union and peace leaders hailed the dropping of the charges but warned that upholding the right of peaceful protest takes a constant struggle.

“I think they never had the intention of giving discovery information the defense asked for,” said Steve Stallone, spokesperson for the International Longshore and Warehouse Workers (ILWU). One of those arrested was a business agent with ILWU Local 10, which represents longshore workers at the Port of Oakland. “They never had anything to start with; they couldn’t risk it,” Stallone said. He cited the UN report as “putting Oakland center stage as a violator of human rights.”

“It’s a big victory, the result of labor and the community coming together and the pressure resulting from the UN report,” said David Solnit, spokesperson for Direct Action to Stop the War. “Had we not done rallies at the hearings, built broad labor and community support, the charges would not have been dropped.” But Solnit warned that despite the victory in this case, “we still have an out-of-control police force” including habitual violations of the rights of youth of color and others.

National Lawyers Guild attorney Bobbie Stein, who is working on a related lawsuit filed by the NLG and the American Civil Liberties Union of Northern California, said the dismissal confirmed there was no violence by the protesters, and the “chaos” at the port was on the part of the police.

Attention will now turn to the NLG-ACLU lawsuit, which seeks monetary damages for medical expenses, lost wages, interference with school and work, and many civil rights abuses.

Meanwhile, charges are still pending against many of the protesters who were subjected to police strong-arm tactics at the anti-FTAA demonstrations in Miami last November. On March 25, the Miami Activist Defense and the NLG filed a federal lawsuit charging that the coordinated federal, state, and city police actions violated the anti-FTAA demonstrators’ constitutional rights.

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

Ohioans demand jobs, quality schools

Fri, 30 Apr 2004 03:09:00 +0000

COLUMBUS, Ohio – School board members and superintendents, public officials, and 1,400 building trades workers demonstrated in front of the Ohio School Facilities Commission here, April 22. They demanded some control over how $360 billion in tax dollars raised by an Ohio levy four years ago is spent in rebuilding Ohio’s run-down public schools.

“We demand the right to have our local skilled work force build the schools,” said state Rep. Shirley Smith from Cleveland.

The commission is signing contracts with low-bid, sometimes out-of-state contractors without regard to their qualifications. Building Trades Attorney Jack Welson said a new school built in the town of Gibsonberg one year ago was in such bad shape the only solution is to tear it down and start over. “The roof leaks in 26 schoolrooms,” he said, “and the underground plumbing is so bad the sewage backs up and spills onto the bathroom floors.”

The rally coincided with a hearing in the statehouse on the school commission’s work. Four Ohio congressmen sent a communication to Gov. Bob Taft demanding changes in commission policy and procedures. Cleveland Mayor Jane Campbell left the hearing long enough to address the rally, calling for jobs and quality schools.

Ohio Building Trades President Gary Schaeffer read a “responsible contractors” resolution, which was submitted at the hearing and approved by the rally. The resolution sets standards for any contractor submitting bids, including a five years or more history of approved construction work, licensed workers, an accredited apprentice training program, no brokering out to unqualified subcontractors, payment into workers compensation and unemployment compensation funds, payment of local taxes where work is done, no violations of Fair Labor Standards, and a history of compliance with safety standards.

Cleveland Building Trades President Lori Soggs, who mobilized nearly 1,000 union members for the rally, joined Cleveland state Rep. Mike Skindell in ending the rally with the crowd joining in with the cry, “Jobs! Quality Schools!”

Randy Gray, member of Toledo Plumbers Local 150 and Musicians Local 1000, sang Woody Guthrie union songs during the rally, and led the assembled union members singing “Solidarity Forever.”

The author can be reached at wallyk@ncweb.com.

Cuba Friendshipment caravan set for June

Fri, 30 Apr 2004 02:59:00 +0000

In June and July, the 15th IFCO/Pastors for Peace Friendshipment Caravan to Cuba will visit over 120 U.S. cities, challenging the U.S. government to end the blockade of that island nation. An estimated 200 people will travel in painted school buses, trucks, ambulances and cars to Cuba via Mexico, with 50 tons of medicines, computers and school supplies collected from groups across the country.

According to the organizers, “We will not apply for a U.S. Treasury Department license to visit and take humanitarian aid to Cuba. Instead, in the tradition of the civil rights movement, we will openly and collectively cross the line to join our Cuban sisters and brothers.”

They added, “You can join the caravan as it passes through your community during late June. Or you can reclaim your independence on July 4th by meeting us at the Texas border as we prepare to break the blockade.”

The group plans to spend nine days in Cuba, visiting hospitals and schools, hearing from Cubans about their country’s achievements and problems, and sharing cultural activities. They will return to Texas on July 19.

For more information or to contribute, visit www.ifconews.org, or call (212) 926-5757.

Campaign to name park for Lucy Parsons

Fri, 30 Apr 2004 02:56:00 +0000

CHICAGO – A proposal to name a northwest side park in honor of Lucy Ella Gonzales Parsons, a working-class leader and spouse of one of the Haymarket martyrs, has drawn heated opposition by the Fraternal Order of Police here. There is, however, widespread support for naming the park after Parsons, including from Mayor Richard Daley.

Supporters told a recent meeting of the park commissioners that Parsons had a long history in fighting for social justice and that of the city’s 555 parks, only 27 are named for women and only one for an African American woman.

The FOP opposes the proposal on the grounds that Parsons’ husband Albert was a “cop killer” stemming from the bomb thrown in the Haymarket protest in 1886 that killed an officer. This lie has long been refuted by historians.

“This is surprising,” said labor historian William Adelman, who noted that he and FOP President Mark Donahue were part of a committee that has completed work on a design for a new monument at the site of the protest. “We revisited the entire history of the tragedy. He agreed and voted for the design.”

Albert Parsons was one of eight labor leaders framed and tried for the bombing, which is generally attributed to a police provocateur. Albert Parsons wasn’t even present at Haymarket, but was caring for the couple’s two children while Lucy was organizing a meeting of garment workers. Nevertheless, he was one of eight who were convicted and one of four executed. The survivors were later pardoned by Gov. John Peter Altgeld and are honored with a monument at Waldheim Cemetery, which Lucy led the fight to erect.

Lucy Parsons was born in Texas in 1853 of mixed African American, Mexican and Native American ancestry. She married Albert, a radical Republican, and both fought for African American voting rights and against the KKK lynch terror. Threats forced them to flee Texas and they settled in Chicago in 1873 where Lucy became a dressmaker and an early organizer of the garment workers’ union. Albert worked for a newspaper until his union activities led to his dismissal.

After the Haymarket frame-up, Lucy led the campaign to free her husband. She continued fighting for worker’s rights, civil liberties and against racism while raising their children after his execution. She became involved in the International Labor Defense, fought for the freedom of Sacco and Vanzetti, Tom Mooney and Warren Billings and the Scottsboro Nine.

She led many demonstrations of the unemployed, homeless and hungry, including a memorable 1915 Poor People’s March of the Unemployed in Chicago, where “Solidarity Forever” was sung for the first time.

For years she was harassed by the Chicago Police Department, who often arrested her on phony charges to prevent her from speaking at mass meetings. At age 86 she joined the Communist Party, USA. Following her death in a fire at her home, the police and FBI confiscated all her personal papers and writings.

Please voice your support for the park name proposal by writing to Timothy Mitchell, General Superintendent, Chicago Park District, 541 N. Fairbanks Ct., Chicago IL 60611.

Bush ataca derecho femenino

Fri, 23 Apr 2004 08:36:00 +0000

“La dama fue a la ventana y dijo, ‘Perdona, pero no voy poder llenar su receta’. Yo dije, ¿Hay algo mal con la receta? Y ella contestó, “No, es que yo personalmente no creo en control de la natalidad”.

Esa fue la conversación que Julee Lacey, de North Richland, Tejas, contó a la cadena NBC después que una farmacéutica de CVS se negó darle su receta. Puede que suene escandaloso, pero esto será el futuro para todas si George W. Bush y sus compinches del Congreso y judiciales ganan su campaña de desmantelar la decisión Roe v Wade y quitarle a las mujeres su derecho más importante, tener el control sobre sus propios cuerpos.

Que farmacéuticos jueguen el papel de médico es escandaloso, pero lo que más da miedo es la manera abierta, intimidadora – e inconstitucional – que la administración Bush está pisoteando los derechos democráticos.

En abril del 2001, el presidente Bush enfatizó “el derecho de cada norteamericano tener confianza que su récord médico personal se quedará privada”. Eso era entonces.

Esto es ahora: “Pacientes ya tienen una expectativa razonable que sus historiales se quedarán completamente confidencial” de acuerdo a un escrito del departamento de Justicia en 2004.

El 5 de noviembre, 2003, el presidente Bush firmó una ley que sería la primera prohibición federal contra el aborto. Él hizo esto a pesar de que el Tribunal Supremo de EEUU decidió en junio del 2000 que tales prohibiciones era inconstitucional.

Organizaciones pro derecho de la mujer a escoger y la Unión Norteamericana sobre Libertades Civiles demandaron en tribunales federales en San Francisco, Nueva York y Lincoln, Nebraska, dicen que la prohibición contra abortos seguros viola la Constitución y pone la salud de la mujer en peligro. El juez en cada caso emitió un mandamiento judicial contra la ley.

Eso fue cuando el secretario de Justicia John Ashcroft entró en el caso para exigir los récords médicos de 900 mujeres que tuvieron abortos en clínicas a través del país. Personal médico se negaron cumplir y decisiones en el caso revela que la estrategia del gobierno no es nada más que intimidación.

En el caso Northwestern Memorial Hospital v Ashcroft el juez decidió contra Ashcroft declarando que “el gobierno busca estos récords por “si acaso” hay algo [útil]” para contradecir los testigos expertos pro derecho a escoger.

El gobierno apeló pero la decisión del Tribunal de Apelaciones EEUU para el Séptimo Circuito respaldó al juez original. El juez del Tribunal del Circuito Richard A Posner escribió “la respuesta del gobierno ... son tan vaga que son evasivas”. En otras palabras, simplemente dadnos los récords y no pregunte porqué.

El gobierno también argumentó que como estaba buscando un número “limitado” de récords y que no usaría los nombres de las pacientes, cumplir con eso no debe ser un problema para los hospitales o las pacientes. El tribunal llamó eso “no realista e incompleto”, notando que la sensibilidad natural que la gente siente sobre revelar sus récords médicos “está amplificada cuando los récords son parte de una operación que el Congreso ha declarado ahora un delito”.

Mientras Ashcroft dice que los nombres de las mujeres no serán usado “el gobierno expresamente se reserva el derecho, en un tiempo en el futuro, de buscar la identidad de las pacientes cuyo récords fueron producidos”, dicen los documentos del tribunal.

La decisiones de las tres demandas serán emitidas a fines del verano. Los mandamientos judiciales contra que entre en vigencia la ley están vigente actualmente y “deben de tener efecto a través de proceso de apelaciones”, le dijo a Nuestro Mundo Ellen Sweet, directora de comunicación para el Centro de Derechos Reproductivos, grupo que se uno de los demandantes en el caso en el tribunal federal en Nebraska. No importa cual sea el veredicto, habrá una apelación ella dijo.

Desde el 1995 los estados han pasado 380 proyectos de ley restringiendo el derecho de la mujer a escoger. El Congreso controlado por los republicanos sin descansar ha peleado para quitar los derechos reproductivos. El Tribunal Supremo tiene una mayoría pequeña protegiendo el derecho a escoger.

En un llamado para la Marcha por los Derechos de la Mujeres para el 25 de abril, el grupo NARAL América Pro-Escoger dijo, “Eso es la realidad”.

“Esta marcha es un paso vital en apoyo a las mujeres, en apoyo a los derechos reproductivos, y en apoyo a nuestras libertades individuales”, dijo Sue Wagner, directora ejecutiva de Planned Parenthood Affiliates de Michigan. “Nuestros derechos están bajo ataque con nunca han estado”. Ella añadió que la decisión Roe v Wade está en peligro y que por eso los políticos “deben saber cuanta gente están de acuerdo con poder escoger”.

Se puede comunicar con la autora al crummel@pww.org.

Shows over and now reality hits: Go Bill

Fri, 23 Apr 2004 07:48:00 +0000

CHICAGO – If you knew me, you’d have known, that my money was on Bill to win TV’s first real-life reality show. NBC’s has a host of other surreality shows, like “Fear Factor,” “Average Joe,” “Crime and Punishment,” and “The Restaurant,” but with “The Apprentice,” NBC can confidently be called TV’s Reality Show King.

The difference between this show and all the others is that most of us know what it’s like to apply for job. Resumes, interviews, tests, and references are just par for the course. We all know what it’s like to be pitted against someone just like us. To say to our prospective employer, “I am better, than he/she is. He/she can’t do what I can.”

The reality is sad; we all fight for our own survival. Maintaining our appearance, getting to work on time, staying late, working hard, knowing that no matter how hard we try, at any moment, this week or the next, we could hear those words, “You’re fired.”

Just like Bill we all know what it’s like applying for a job, and returning every day and each workweek we re-apply just to keep the job we have. Sometimes, we will be Bill, getting the job, while watching our friends get a pink slip.

What made “The Apprentice” so true to life is that in the real work force, just as on the show, the Kwames, Omorosas, Nicks, Heidis and ourselves are all relatively well-qualified for the same job, any one of us can and deserves to get the job. But only one of us will get the job. Just like the show, the nature of the marketplace dictates that there can be only one winner at a time.

But what made Bill the winner, and why did Kwame despite being more educated, Black, and cool under pressure – lose? Truthfully the very downfall of all of Bill’s opponents is the victory of the spirit of camaraderie. At one time or another America watched all of Bill’s opponents develop friendships and rivals. But throughout the show, Bill stayed clear of anything like personal and unique relationships. Not that he’s a bad guy (one has to wonder), as Kwame walked away with a lifetime friend in Troy, could Heidi’s family be more proud of her, even Bill’s teammates Nick and Amy at least got a date out of the experience, and Katrina, well, I can’t help but think that she and Bill should have gotten together.

Bill’s focus on the game, his avoidance of friends, enemies, love, hate may have won him the game but isn’t loneliness a sour victory? Money, power, fame, may be nice, but really isn’t loneliness worst of all? And how can he not be lonely? Donald Trump may have risen to the top but, as the last few shots of the show demonstrated, while everyone else laughed, talked, hugged, remember that Trump was standing alone.

So Bill, I hope you’re prepared, as you begin in the months ahead to build that new Trump eyesore into the Chicago skyline. Not only is it lonely at the top, but if you continue as an Trump’s apprentice you may not have friends left to soften the fall.

So go, Bill. I hope you’re careful. The heights you’re about to climb may not be steady enough to climb down.

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

A doctor defends the right to choose

Fri, 23 Apr 2004 07:32:00 +0000

Book Review

Choice: A Doctor’s Experience with the Abortion Dilemma By Don Sloan, M.D., with Paula Hartz International Publishers, 2002 Softcover, 201 pp., $9.95

During this season of extreme political regression and attacks on the civil and human rights of working people, it is important that we never forget our history of struggle.

At a time when there are more than 150 pieces of anti-choice legislation up for vote in state legislatures, when fetal rights legislation that would trump the rights of living women is being disingenuously argued in Congress, when physician gag rules, phony informed consent bills, and legal intrusions into the physician/patient relationship are becoming the rule rather than the exception, and when the Attorney General of the United States is demanding a peek into women’s private medical records, understanding the struggle for women’s human and reproductive rights is a mandatory part of that historical review.

“Choice: A Doctor’s Experience with the Abortion Dilemma,” by Don Sloan evokes anger, elation, fear, and determination. Using his experiences as a physician, Sloan introduces us to the days when abortion was illegal and clandestine and carries us through the years of abortion rights struggle, the victory of Roe v. Wade, the ensuing encroachments on a woman’s right to choose, and his own internal and external ethical debates.

His firsthand recollections as an intern of attempting to save the hemorrhaging, infected, terrified, too often dying poor and working-class women (women of means could always obtain safe and sanitary abortion in private offices or by leaving the country) in the emergency room are a graphic and urgent reminder about what repeal of Roe v. Wade would bring back into our lives.

The use of case studies, stories about actual patients, makes real for the reader the conflicts and intricacies of this most personal and awful decision. Sloan also makes clear that choice and reproductive rights are more than just a legal right to abortion. The reproductive rights movement is about the struggle of women for equality in all spheres of life. He also wishes for the end to the need for abortion:

“I don’t think anyone doing abortions ... hasn’t wished at some point that the situations creating the demand for them wouldn’t just go away. That includes me. There have been plenty of times when I’ve wanted to say enough. This is more human tragedy than I want to deal with. But that would require a different world – no poverty, no contraceptive failures, no rape or incest, no genetic defects, no maternal illness, better birth-control education, better support for women and children, better day care, better health care, no unprotected moments of passion, no human fallibility.”

This book is a fine and necessary read. The young should read it to understand where we came from. The rest of us should read it to learn from all those bits and pieces of memory how to continue the fight.

The author can be reached at pww@pww.org. See ad, page 16, to order “A Doctor’s Experience with the Abortion Dilemna.”

Latina singer knows breast cancers risks

Fri, 23 Apr 2004 07:29:00 +0000

Latinas in the United States are among the least likely to contract breast cancer and among the most likely to die from it. That’s a startling statistic, but for the Colombian-American singer Soraya, it’s reality. Her mother, grandmother, and aunt all died of the disease and, at age 31, she herself is a survivor of it.

That’s why Soraya has made it her personal campaign to raise awareness among Latinas and African Americans – who have similar risks – about the disease and what they can to do to avoid joining this deadly sorority. It’s been almost four years since Soraya’s diagnosis and today she brings a message of hope to other women facing the same condition.

The effects of poverty and racism put African American women and Latinas at a disproportionate risk of any disease, including breast cancer. Inadequate access to health care, lack of insurance, and the concentration of polluting industries in communities of color and low-income neighborhoods all contribute to the problem.

“We’re trying to break the cycle,” Soraya said during a round of interviews in New York City April 6, “to make it easy for them to get the information that they need.”

As the Susan G. Komen Breast Cancer Foundation Latin spokesperson, Soraya is getting that information out through her Awareness is Love Campaign, which is targeting Hispanic and African American women ages 30-54 and their families.

Retailers, such as grocery stores and pharmacies, are sponsoring 350 “Wellness Days” through the end of May in the Metro New York, northern New Jersey and Philadelphia areas. There shoppers can pick up a breast health kit, an informational CD by Soraya and other educational literature. Similar events have already taken place in Miami, Texas and California.

“There’s not one easy way” to spread the word,” Soraya said. “You have microcommunities amongst a larger community, so you have people from different countries coming with different levels of awareness and we have to find a way to break through. That’s why this program is so great ... everybody goes to the supermarket.”

There is an alarming shortage of Spanish-speaking doctors. Staff often rely on a child or family member with no medical experience to translate information without knowing if they are being understood. Latinas also must confront child care, immigration status, lack of transportation and cultural differences.

You have cultural, economic, social and religious barriers – “You name it” – to keep Latinas from getting information about breast cancer. “It’s a matter of being more reserved about their bodies, being raised to believe that it’s not okay to do self-exams ... that going to the doctor and showing that part of your body is not quite right. It sounds a little bit archaic and yet it’s true,” Soraya said. “So we’re out there trying break the myths and trying to inspire as well.”

Soraya, who has toured with Sting, Alanis Morisette and Natalie Merchant, received her diagnosis of Stage 3 breast cancer in 2000, just two weeks before she was to start a national tour to promote her third CD. She put her career on hold to fight the disease.

Where did she find the strength to wage her fight so publicly? “When I was first diagnosed I wasn’t thinking of anyone but myself. I wanted to stay home, I didn’t want anybody to know, I wanted to go through it on my own.” Ultimately, she didn’t have that luxury.

“Somebody had either seen me at the doctor’s or something had happened and [there was a] ridiculous story that had come out.” To set the record straight, she did a short public service announcement.

“In four days, I received probably 7,000 e-mails and they kept coming and coming and they did not slow down for another two years ... and when I realized the myths ... the things that were affecting quality of life issues, and the injustices in this super-advanced country, how we have such huge disparities in access to so much information. It would have to be someone without any sort of soul to turn your back and say, ‘I’m not going to do anything.’”

Her challenge is simple. “I’m trying to teach women to take care of themselves, to respect themselves enough to learn. Early detection is the best weapon we have.”

Now Soraya is back with her new self-titled CD featuring 11 songs in Spanish and one in English. You don’t need to speak Spanish, though, to feel the energy, power and beauty of her songs – and her message.

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

This article is rated TV-G

Fri, 23 Apr 2004 07:15:00 +0000

Opinion

Both of the TV sets in my small Brooklyn apartment are equipped with the V-chip. The one in the living room even has a whole “parental control” menu. As of July 1999, all sets 13 inches and larger were required to have these built-in features. Though I’ve never used my own, V-chips are made to read encoded information about a given show’s rating and respond to that information by blocking shows that are deemed inappropriate.

You may have noticed these ratings popping up at the beginning of each show you watch. That’s the little jumble of white letters up in a corner. I’ve actually missed the first scenes of several “Law & Order” varieties by trying to figure out what “D” stands for (turns out it’s for “suggestive dialogue”).

But even with all of these innovations in blocking potentially offensive material from the naked eyes of the nation’s children, there are still the inevitable moments like this year’s Super Bowl half-time show. A flash of Janet Jackson’s decoratively covered nipple set off a firestorm of decency discussions. Poor, innocent Justin Timberlake was forced into a heartfelt apology to the people of America for the offending “wardrobe malfunction.” The Federal Communications Commission flew to America’s rescue, voting to increase fines for decency standard violations.

In the midst of all of this, I started wondering why the airwaves are so flooded with smut and indecency, as the FCC suggests. But that’s the thing – they aren’t.

TV and radio are no different today than they were this time last year, and it’s my guess that the only thing different next year will be the absence of “Friends” and “Frasier.”

I grew up in an era before V-chips, before FCC ratings after every commercial break, and when Madonna’s books most certainly were not for children. Has the result of this been that I live a life of endless debauchery, unable to tell right from wrong because of the horrible messages that might have been hidden in episodes of “Punky Brewster”? No, even if I did grow up watching “Three’s Company.” It means that I was exposed to the elements of society, good and bad, that TV showed me, and which my mom allowed me to watch. She was a living V-chip, in a way.

The FCC’s decency rampage of the last few months – in which Janet Jackson and Howard Stern have become human embodiments of indecency – is a well-timed maneuver. The FCC just happens to be headed up by Michael K. Powell (yes, he is Secretary of State Colin Powell’s son), a Republican, who was added to the commission in 1998 by then-President Clinton and named FCC chairman on George W. Bush’s second full day in office.

In 1964, Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart issued a concurring decision in the Jacobellis v. Ohio obscenity case in which his definition of “hard-core” pornography was left at “I know it when I see it ...” That vagueness, originally part of a decision that the movie in question was not obscene, is often used by conservatives to avoid defining their hot-button word of “indecent.”

By making the charge fluid, it can be leveled at anything. It has been the basis of numerous censorship trials, banned book lists, and on-air personalities being pulled off the air, and has put legions of TV censors to work. While guidelines for television and radio may be helpful in protecting what innocence there is in this world, applying undefined blanket censorship in the hopes of achieving undefined blanket decency is a foolhardy idea.

In the last 60 years, as television has gone from an anomaly to a household staple, the accepted rules for decency have come a long way. In 1952, writers for “I Love Lucy” were forced to be extremely creative to avoid using the word “pregnant,” then considered indecent. Would the world have fallen apart if that eight-letter word had slipped in? Probably not.

For centuries, artists have fought censorship. Some extended the boundaries of what was considered decent, others fought to reflect societal realities. So while conservatives are rallying around time delays for live shows and taking shows off the air in the months leading up to the election, it is our responsibility to remember that we all turned out just fine without V-chips and Michael Powell’s watchful eye.

Veronica Maday is a student at New York University. She can be reached at pww@pww.org.

Capitalism and jobs the fundamentals

Fri, 23 Apr 2004 07:10:00 +0000

Opinion

The U.S. working class is facing a new, powerful, ominous and ongoing crisis. Despite a profit recovery, it is suffering growing chronic unemployment.

Alan Greenspan, explaining why interest rates should not be raised at this time, put it like this: “The rate of layoffs is slowing … but job growth is lagging.”

The first half of Greenspan’s statement, “the rate of layoffs is slowing,” deals with the boom-bust capitalist cycle. The second half of Greenspan’s statement, “job growth is lagging,” deals with the maturation of a key part of the commodity production process – the sophistication and ever-spreading use of technology, increasingly replacing workers.

There are those who blame this job-loss “recovery” only on the export of jobs by greedy U.S. corporations. Their anger at the flagrant nose-thumbing abuse of trade agreements is wholly understandable. A struggle to set a sane, equitable trade policy with other countries is needed.

Both runaway jobs and jobs lost through productivity growth are vitally important. Both have a jackhammer impact on the well-being of the U.S. working class. But there is a downside to focusing solely on runaway jobs. It often leads to pitting workers against each other and fosters isolationist thinking that promotes dead-end and backward steps, as in the case of making Chinese workers the “enemy.” This takes the focus off both the job export crisis and the job-killing use of more and more technology. That’s where the main battles of the working class have to be aimed, ideologically and practically.

Why pay low wages here or abroad if you can get away with paying no wages? The number of jobs that have been sent abroad is relatively small compared to the number of jobs lost permanently through the application of new technology. Technology impacts on every phase of the economy, from heavy industry to the service sector. All are computerized, automated and in many cases dehumanized.

Technology continually improves. Billions are spent on research, both government and private. Today’s technology makes new, qualitative breakthroughs. Each application of advanced technology at the point of production brings with it new layoffs.

Should this job elimination be accepted passively? Shouldn’t it arouse the same passion and anger as exporting jobs? Shouldn’t technology benefit the people, not profit-hungry corporations?

Technology – that’s the real crisis facing the U.S. working class. That’s why more and more millions join the ranks of the long-term and permanently unemployed. Every week, on average, there are 350,000 first-time applicants for unemployment insurance benefits. That’s the crux of the crisis. Look behind the headline statistics.

The unemployment rate isn’t 5.7 percent. There are millions more not included in the official tally, part of the surplus labor force no longer needed or wanted by capitalism. We know 308,000 “new” jobs are just election Bushmath. When is that going to stop, Mr. President!

Government reports for over 20 years show that U.S. workers are the most productive in the world. Among the happiest thoughts running through the minds of Wall Streeters in this decade is the continuing rise in U.S. workers’ productivity, with no new hiring involved.

Greenspan’s pronouncements are reports on the fundamental nature of capitalism and the current status of its health. He proposes remedies to keep it functioning so that it can produce maximum profits for the capitalists. He has no other function. Pure and simple, Greenspan is dealing with the capitalist system, how to preserve it, extend its life, expand its domestic and world control and keep the profits rolling in. It’s “profits before people.”

He is trying to apply as many economic tools as he can to keep capitalism afloat. Juggling interest rates is one of those tools. Key to his agenda for helping his capitalist master is maintaining a murderously high level of unemployment.

Every working class leader, trade union economist, Marxist, Communist, socialist, and others who understand the gravity of this job-killing process, has a big task: to explain to millions of workers how and why they are being ripped off and laid off, and to help them organize. When workers see how they are being ripped off, who is doing it and that they can do something about it, they will get rightfully angry and demand jobs and control over the wealth they create.

Pat Barile is a member of the National Board of the Communist Party USA. He can be reached at pbarile@cpusa.org.

Hubris and Cheney

Fri, 23 Apr 2004 07:06:00 +0000

Opinion

When I was a 17-year-old freshman at the Cornell College of Architecture, I was required to take an elective in the College of Liberal Arts every semester. I suppose this policy was intended to make us little brutes “better-rounded,” but it had unintended consequences, at least for me.

I took Philosophy 101, and in it I was introduced to Plato’s “Apologia” (supposedly Socrates’, but written by his pupil, Plato). I thought this was pretty hot stuff and proceeded to read all the writings of Plato I could get my hands on. Then, to the consternation of my professor, a liberal academician of his (the early ’50s) era, I wrote a paper praising the works of Plato and espousing the very principles for which Socrates was asked to drink the hemlock. “The Need for an Intellectual Aristocracy,” I think I titled it, and I was roundly (and rightly) chastised by my professor for falling for such a line of bunkum.

I forgot the incident and Socrates’ indiscretion until some 40 years later when I read I. F. Stone’s “The Trial of Socrates.” Socrates, I learned, had been the darling of the aristocracy precisely because his teachings lent philosophical legitimacy to their own oligarchic impulses and had thus had a hand in fomenting three coups against the government of Athens in the last ten years of his life, prior to his suicide by popular demand.

We in the United States have fallen victim to another such attempted takeover. Unfortunately, history repeats itself but always with enough of a twist that present dangers are seldom recognized as having historical precedent. Today we are suffering from a new dementia. The connections with Athens in 399 B.C. are tenuous, but I see history repeating itself nonetheless.

We have Cheney instead of Alcibiades, but the same intellectual opportunism is at work. “The people are too stupid to make decisions,” they cry, “so we’ll make them for them” (and a pile of money in the process). We have a government not “of the people, by the people” but of Beltway “we-know-betters” who are smart but not wise, who think every thought extruded from their tiny minds to be pearls of wisdom, and a captive president perfectly designed (stupid but aggressive) to put their hare-brained policies into action.

There’s a fine old word for this, a Greek one as a matter of fact: “hubris.” In Greek mythology, hubris was the first step to self-destruction. Our technology is better, but we are no wiser than the ancient Greeks. We should listen to them.

Wright Salisbury is a member of September 11th Families for Peaceful Tomorrows and founder of the Alliance for Jewish-Christian-Muslim Understanding. His son-in-law was in the first plane that hit the World Trade Center. This article is a chapter from Salisbury’s upcoming book, “Waging Peace in a World at War.” He can be reached at sasmedia@rcn.com.

We refuse to go back!

Fri, 23 Apr 2004 06:59:00 +0000

Opinion

Legislation governing reproduction is dangerous to us all, unless it assures an individual the right to make decisions privately and without interference, and to receive reproductive care in safe, legal circumstances. A woman’s right to carry a pregnancy to term is protected, just as her right to have an abortion is, when the line of privacy is drawn at the door to the doctor’s office, the clinic or Planned Parenthood.

Those who march on Washington today are marching so that all women can have access to safe, effective, health care, whether it is birth control, prenatal care, quality obstetric and gynecologic care, or abortion. We are marching so that women can choose to have large families, small families or no families, and so that laws do not interfere with any of these highly personal choices.

I recall the bad old days.

The name Sherry Finkbine, an Arizona mother of four, hit the headlines in 1962 when she sought a safe, legal abortion to avoid delivering a severely handicapped child. She had taken the drug Thalidomide, known to cause severe birth defects, in the first trimester of her pregnancy. She challenged the anti-abortion laws of the time. Unsuccessful in this challenge, she went to Sweden for an abortion. She was fortunate to have the resources to be able to travel and have an abortion under safe, sanitary conditions with trained professionals to carry out the procedure.

In the 1970s individual states, New York being the first, passed laws making abortions legal. Roe v. Wade soon followed.

As with abortion, birth control has not always been legal. Pioneers in delivering birth control risked arrest and jail in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Even after it became available to married couples, it was not until years later that birth control was available to teens and young, unmarried adults. Everyone I knew in high school who became pregnant either got married, or “went to live with an aunt” in another town and put her baby up for adoption. Occasionally, a really brave young woman would not get married, and kept her baby, raising it by herself or with the help of her parents. If the young woman chose to keep her baby, whether she married or not, her education was almost always cut short, or interrupted. Prior to Roe v. Wade, women risked life or permanent injury with illegal abortions.

Even with birth control, older women and married women also had to deal with unwanted or unplanned pregnancies. I can remember a friend saying her mother had tried rolling off the couch to induce a miscarriage. Another had tried large doses of laxatives. Family doctors were approached to perform abortions, but risked their medical licenses and livelihoods. Doctors were not willing to do tubal ligations for women who had decided their families were complete. This sterilization procedure eventually became more common, but a woman’s husband had to give written permission. If a medical reason could be found, a woman could have a hysterectomy, which also produces sterilization but is a much more complicated operation.

All women strive to realize their potential as humane, capable, intelligent beings. Each woman comes to reproduction with her own set of beliefs, religious and otherwise, with her own set of standards of what is humane and what is not, and her own life circumstances. When faced with pregnancy, women have to consider their own lives and the lives of other family members. For working women, these are matters of continuing employment, of putting food on the table, and of providing shelter for themselves and their children. The reproductive decisions based on these circumstances are not to be judged by politicians and legislative or judicial bodies.

We all want some degree of choice over reproduction, whether it be the right to have as many children as we want, the right not to have children, the right to use birth control, the right to space our children, the right to prenatal care, the right to have or not have an abortion. These rights are only guaranteed by agreeing that women, with the advice of their health-care providers, are the decision makers, and by providing safe, competent health care for all of a woman’s health-care needs.

Louise Paul is a health care and women’s rights activist living in Philadelphia. She can be reached at pww@pww.org.

Texans on taxes

Fri, 23 Apr 2004 04:19:00 +0000

DALLAS – Halliburton has a big office building in Carrollton, Texas, just outside the Dallas City limits. Forty to 50 protesters gathered there on April 15 to show their outrage with corporate profiteering at the expense of the Iraqi people, American soldiers, and American taxpayers. “We’ll be here every Friday,” organizer Hadi Jawad told the rally, “until the war ends or Halliburton freezes over!”

Speaker after speaker denounced the company’s special relationship with Bush/Cheney and the profits they are draining from the blood of the people. Democratic congressional candidate Gary Page said, “The concept of awarding no-bid contracts is reprehensible to a representative democracy and the free-market system … All of this leads to a dangerous precedent of the corporatization of military conflicts and their aftermath.”

Page said allowing a state of perpetual conflict for economic reasons will lead to ruinous policy decisions. “To balance innocent lives with corporate goals should be inconceivable. In short, plain English: War should never be profitable! It should be abolished!” he declared. Page is running in CD 24, a new district said to be created specifically for G.W. Bush crony Kenny Marchant.

State Rep. Lon Burnam announced a major protest to take place at Halliburton’s stockholder meeting at 8 a.m. on May 19 in Houston. Those interested in participating can call 832-725-6220 or look at the web page: houstonglobalawareness.org.

The author can be reached at flittle7@yahoo.com.

Freedom Ride Summer Project

Fri, 16 Apr 2004 09:52:00 +0000

Activists who want to spend four to six weeks this summer doing voter registration and direct support actions for immigrant rights can apply to the New American Opportunities Campaign, a project of the Immigrant Workers Freedom Ride, at http://www.iwfr.org/voterproject.asp.

Prior to working in Arizona or Florida, participants will receive training in Mississippi from leaders of the 1964 Freedom Summer.

In South Florida, say the project’s organizers, Haitian refugees are often detained, families are separated, and civil liberties are denied. In Arizona, where there is an anti-immigrant referendum poised for a statewide vote, immigrants face armed vigilantes, ruthless smugglers, and death in the desert. These and other acts of discrimination require a movement to empower Latino and Haitian communities through mobilizing their voice and vote. Participants will receive a minimum stipend of $150 per week. Accommodations will be arranged at each site.

Building trades launch Labor with Habitat

Fri, 16 Apr 2004 09:49:00 +0000

WASHINGTON – Habitat for Humanity International will launch Labor with Habitat Week, May 16-22, to recognize its national partnership with the Building and Construction Trades Department-AFL-CIO and its 15 affiliated trade unions representing more than 3 million trades men and women nationwide. The kickoff is May 17 in Cincinnati.

During Labor with Habitat Week, carpenters, electricians, painters, bricklayers and other construction trades union members will join Habitat for Humanity affiliates around the nation to work on Habitat houses in their communities.

Edward C. Sullivan, president of the building trades plans to be in Cincinnati to volunteer his building skills to the effort and encourages all of his union brothers and sisters in the trades to do the same in their own communities. Among the unions represented by the Building Trades Department are boilermakers, bricklayers, carpenters, electrical workers, elevator constructors, heat and frost insulators, iron workers, laborers, operating engineers, painters and allied trades, plasterers and cement masons, plumbers and pipe fitters, roofers, sheet metal workers, and teamsters.

The two organizations inked an agreement in April 2003 to work together to help address the lack of affordable housing for low-income families HFHI and the building trades will help foster relationships between Habitat for Humanity affiliates and local trades unions.

Specifically, the partnership will encourage:

• resource sharing between Habitat for Humanity affiliates and building trades unions

• contributions by trade union members in the areas of professional services, building materials and tools to affiliates

• trade union sponsorship of Habitat house construction

• utilizing Habitat build sites as “living laboratories” where union apprentices can learn trades

• training of designated skills to Habitat volunteers on construction sites

• involving trade union members with Habitat for Humanity affiliate as crew leaders, committee members and community volunteers.

The Building and Construction Trades Department, AFL-CIO, coordinates activity and provides resources to 15 affiliated trades unions in the construction industry. It has 386 state, local and provincial councils in the United States and Canada. Created in 1908, the BCTD has helped its 15 affiliated building trades unions to make job sites safer, deliver apprenticeship and journey-level training, organize new workers, support legislation that affects working families, and assist in securing improved wages, hours and working conditions through collective bargaining. For more information, visit http://www.bctd.org.

Habitat for Humanity International is a Christian ministry dedicated to eliminating poverty housing. Its affiliates in more than 3,000 communities in 92 nations have built and sold more than 150,000 homes to partner families with no-profit, zero-interest mortgages. Visit www.habitat.org.

Reprinted with permission from Habitat.