People Before Profit blog

King anniversary marchers pledge voter drive

Fri, 29 Aug 2003 03:35:00 +0000

WASHINGTON – In an atmosphere charged by the “war on terror” and the Bush administration’s severe curtailments of civil rights, thousands of people marched and rallied here Aug. 23 to celebrate the 40th anniversary of the historic 1963 March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom where Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. delivered his famous “I Have a Dream” speech.

King said at the time, “1963 is not an end, but a beginning.” In that spirit, organizers at the anniversary event vowed to push his struggle forward with a national voter registration drive “designed to present Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. with the gift of full voter registration on his birthday, Jan. 15, 2004,” as part of a “rolling mobilization” that will “mobilize the forces of goodwill in our nation to redeem the heart and soul of America.”

Rev. Jesse Jackson told the rally, “Today we suffer from discounted votes in Florida, where the Supreme Court intervened to stop the count and determine the outcome of the election. From organized disorder in Texas to a destabilizing recall in California … the right wing does not seem to respect the normal tools of democracy.”

According to rally organizers, one of the aims of the anniversary events, led by King’s son, Martin Luther King III, was to “bring together the sit-in generation and the hip-hop generation.”

Ajita Talwalker, vice president of the United States Student Association, said, “The key to preserving our future and the future of generations to come is to fight for educational access for all regardless of income, race, ethnicity, sexual orientation, or ability. Education is a right and not a privilege. It is education that breaks the cycles of poverty and oppression.”

Sponsors of the event included the AFL-CIO, the NAACP, the Arab American Institute, NOW, the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, United For Peace and Justice, Rainbow/PUSH Coalition, the Fellowship of Reconciliation, and the National Council of La Raza.

“The hard-won progress achieved over the last 40 years in civil rights and economic justice is in mortal danger,” said Matt Foreman, executive director of the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force, which was included this year for the first time in the march’s sponsoring coalition. Foreman said that no survey shows the right wing is in power because the American people want “what they are inflicting on the nation.”

“This minority is in power,” Foreman said, “because they … drive wedges into the heart of America and into our beloved community. Over and over again, we’ve witnessed their vicious dehumanizing and demonizing tactics, shamelessly exploiting race, immigrants, choice and poor women … To all of this evil, let us collectively say, ‘enough!’”

A second march, the Poor People’s March for Economic Human Rights honoring the 35th anniversary of Dr. King’s “Poor People’s Campaign,” crossed Washington’s Key Bridge on the morning of Aug. 23. Later that day, its participants joined the 40th anniversary rally. The Poor People’s March, sponsored by the Poor People’s Economic Human Rights Campaign and the Kensington Welfare Rights Union, was organized to continue “the struggle to make King’s vision of true equality and peace a reality in this nation and around the world.” They had begun their trek in Marks, Miss., on Aug. 2.

“We are marching now because more and more American families are being forced into poverty everyday,” said one of the march organizers. “We are marching because the growing health care crisis has left 71 million Americans without health care this year. We are marching because we live in the richest country in the world, yet our people die poor in the streets every day.”

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Puget Sound challenges White House

Fri, 29 Aug 2003 03:26:00 +0000

SEATTLE, Wash. – President George W. Bush met some heated opposition when he visited the Puget Sound region last week, posturing about his weak environmental policies and raising $1.7 million for his reelection campaign at a single reception in Hunts Point at the home of telecommunications billionaire Craig McCaw.

Bush was met by demonstrators in Seattle, Bellevue, and Hunts Point (a tiny, ultra-rich community on the eastern shore of Lake Washington, across the lake from Seattle). On Aug. 21, several hundred demonstrators rallied in Bellevue, led by a delegation of workers from the Bremerton Naval Yard local of the International Association of Machinists. Their jobs are threatened by privatization.

Later that evening, Rep. Jay Inslee (D-Wash.) sponsored a packed public forum on whether Bush misled the country about Iraq. The forum attracted an overflow crowd of 1,100. The turnout, partly organized by MoveOn.org, surprised Inslee, who had originally reserved a room for 200. The event was moved to a larger conference room, and spilled over into five additional rooms.

The panel featured the last U.S. diplomat to meet with Saddam Hussein, former Ambassador Joseph Wilson, who debunked the claim that Iraq was obtaining uranium from Africa. Ambassador Wilson said he was sent by the Bush administration to investigate claims that Iraq was buying uranium in Niger, and found such claims to be groundless. His report was ignored by the administration in its rush to war.

Rep. Inslee is among those calling for a congressional investigation into the White House’s case for invading Iraq. The audience loudly applauded his call.

Retired Navy Adm. Bill Center, a former deputy to Secretary of State Colin Powell, said he never believed administration claims that Iraq possessed weapons of mass destruction, and asked why the administration had not passed on intelligence to the UN weapons inspectors.

Panelists and audience members condemned Bush’s misleading statements as an attack on the foundations of U.S. democracy, often evoking loud applause. No one rose to defend White House policies, despite Inslee’s appeal for someone to do so.

Earlier in the day, about 500 demonstrators chanted along the route Bush’s motorcade took to the McCaw mansion. They were pushed back by police from the previously okayed site and split into two groups. At the same time, in downtown Seattle, about 1,000 demonstrators met at Victor Steinbruck Park, at the north end of the Pike Place Market, protesting Bush’s visit to the region and rejecting his lies about the environment and Iraq, and attacking his opposition to women’s reproductive rights.

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Families demand, Bring em home!

Fri, 29 Aug 2003 03:01:00 +0000

CRAWFORD, Texas – Something is new in the fight against President Bush’s military aggressions in the Middle East. It is the growing resistance of the military men and women as expressed by their families here at home.

Near President Bush’s “western White House” vacation ranch here, 150 antiwar protesters gathered on Aug. 23 to listen to the views of families of seven soldiers. At first, it seemed like an ordinary gathering. Many of the protesters were longtime activists; some of their signs had been seen before. Sensitive to the change in the antiwar struggle, though, were the newspersons. Among those covering the new phenomenon were media giants Newsweek, CNN, and even People magazine.

Each of the reporters paid careful attention to Candance Robison from the tiny town of Krum, Texas. Her husband, Mike, is a lieutenant in Iraq. Though she had no experience in protest before, Robison organized this event on her own. She and the other speakers are members of a new and growing organization, Military Families Speak Out (www.mfso.org). They are holding regional rallies such as the one in Crawford all over the United States in order to encourage other families and activists to join the demand, “Bring Our Boys Home!”

Robison had no previous knowledge of some of the other speakers who came forward at her rally. Her own heartfelt speech revealed her desperate hope for the safety of her husband, and her clear understanding of who was responsible for putting him at risk: George Bush.

She repeated the themes, “Bush does not care for our soldiers,” and “bring them home,” until the crowd picked them up as chants and repeated them with her. She said that active soldiers and veterans were losing pay and benefits. She said that information is being withheld from America. She said that maimed and mutilated soldiers are being hidden away from American reporters in German hospitals. She said that soldiers are being threatened with courts-martial if they speak out about bad conditions and unnecessary risks in Iraq. Robison told the crowd, “Bush lies to our nation and our soldiers about our reasons for going to war!”

“It is not their job to challenge the conduct of the war. That’s our job,” said Shannon Sharrock speaking of her husband in Iraq and the other American soldiers there. She and her husband both attended West Point Military Academy, but she later received a medical discharge. She lives in Temple, Texas, while her husband, Captain Joseph Sharrock, is risking his life in Iraq. Sharrock said that our government had provided, “false info, by which most of us were initially beguiled.” She quoted General MacArthur: “The soldier, above all others, prays for peace.”

Maria Longoria brought the wife, the siblings, and a nephew of her son to stand on the stage together to testify to their love and concern for Raymond Longoria, Jr. She was grateful for the chance. Then a grandmother, clutching her little dog, cried as she pleaded for help in keeping her loved one away from Afghanistan. A mother blasted Bush for bringing on this war. Fists were clenched and tears were shed on the stage and in the crowd. Robison concluded her presentation: “It is time to speak out because our troops are still dying and our government is still lying. Morale is at an all time low and our heroes feel like they’ve been forgotten. We are gathering in Crawford to let them know we do care and to let George Bush know we will not stop speaking out until every American soldier is brought home safely.”

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Prop. 54 poses threat to equality

Fri, 29 Aug 2003 02:47:00 +0000

While the California recall vote will get most media attention before the Oct. 7 election, progressive-minded voters are also gearing up to defeat a ballot initiative that will appear on the same ballot – Proposition 54. This is a follow-up measure to Prop. 209, the anti-affirmative action or so-called “civil rights” initiative passed in November 1996, proposed by right-wing University of California Regent Ward Connerly and his so-called American Civil Rights Institute.

Connerly once again used a misnomer to get the necessary signatures to qualify Prop. 54 for the ballot by calling it the “Racial Privacy Initiative.” However, the California attorney general rejected his language and it will now appear as the “Classification by Race, Ethnicity, Color or National Origin Initiative.”

The vast majority of the funding for Prop. 54 has been provided by the ultra-conservative Lynde and Harry Bradley Foundation of Milwaukee. Prop. 54 would also appear to be another attempt by former Republican Gov. Pete Wilson and his right-wing supporters to bring out right-wing voters and thus aid efforts to oust Democratic Gov. Gray Davis. “They’re using Ward Connerly again to pull the vote out to help recall the governor. How dare he come around again,” said Rep. Diane Watson.

The key phrase in the proposed amendment to the state constitution is the first one which reads: “The state shall not classify any individual by race, ethnicity, color or national origin in the operation of public education, public contracting or public employment.” While Prop. 209 prohibited the state government from making decisions based on race, universities, community colleges, public schools and medical institutions all collect racial data for the purposes of research, to target areas for specific services and qualify for federal funding – such as the additional funding provided to public schools whose student populations have large numbers of minority students from low income families.

Law enforcement officials also collect racial data on those who are arrested or ticketed that allows outside groups to keep tabs on whether or not one ethnic group is being singled out for special attention – i.e., instances of racial profiling. Prop. 54 would block such monitoring efforts.

The Coalition for an Informed California says, “The initiative is a radical measure that would damage our ability to address disparities by race or ethnicity in health care and disease patterns, educational resources and academic achievement, and hate crime and discrimination.”

Most civil rights groups view Prop. 54 as another attempt to reverse the gains made by African Americans and other minority groups over the last 40 years. Civil rights attorneys find the law objectionable because they say it would preclude them from having access to an important tool in any legal battles over racial discrimination in housing, employment, and lending and insurance practices. It would also make the enforcement of the state’s hate crime laws virtually impossible.

Among the groups most strongly fighting Prop. 54 are those in the health care field. Over 40 groups, including the Latino Coalition for Healthy California, Orange County Asian and Pacific Islander Coalition, Planned Parenthood Affiliates of California, Public Health Institute and California Medical Association, have publicly come forward in opposition to the passage of Connerly’s attempt to make California allegedly “color-blind.”

The author can be reached at

Utility workers urge blackout probe

Fri, 29 Aug 2003 02:27:00 +0000

The FirstEnergy transmission line failure in Ohio that quite possibly triggered a massive blackout in the country’s Northeast earlier this month may have been caused by neglected maintenance stemming from the industry’s deregulation, the Utility Workers Union of America said last week.

The UWUA has called on the Public Utilities Commission in Ohio to investigate the electric industry’s maintenance policies and urged the Ohio Legislature to revise the state’s deregulation law, mandate more stringent inspections, and heighten maintenance standards.

“Deregulated utilities are taking a ‘run it until it breaks’ approach to critical wires, poles, transformers, and substations,” UWUA National President Donald Wightman said in a statement. “Meanwhile the workforce has been slashed to the bone and replacement parts are not being kept in supply.”

Bob Fronek, president of UWUA Local 270 in Cleveland, said, “Utility companies slashed their workforces by 35 percent or more between 1990 and 1998 as they ramped up for deregulation. We have fewer line workers today, and the system disrepair is clearly showing.”

Fronek was among the labor and consumer advocates who raised the alarm about the possibilities of a system meltdown when utility deregulation was being implemented in Ohio.

“The worst nightmares predicted by our consumer coalition are coming true,” he said. “The massive blackout, as bad as it was, may be just the opening chapter in the failure of the transmission grid. Ohio needs to re-regulate their electric utilities so that Ohio remains in control of the infrastructure and can mandate a preventive maintenance program that insures the reliability of the system.”

The Thrill and the Agony...This week in sports

Fri, 22 Aug 2003 08:22:00 +0000

Perfect in Pawtucket

I rarely have the opportunity to see a major league baseball game in person. The Baltimore Orioles played about an hour north of where I grew up in Virginia. Now I live in Providence, R.I. – and the Boston Red Sox are likewise an hour north. Home games, for me, are far away. But minor league baseball is another story.

One of the joys of the minor leagues is their proximity. Although the caliber of play is perhaps a notch below the majors, the intimacy of the setting and the ticket price more than make up for it. It’s not just that McCoy Stadium, home of the AAA Pawtucket Red Sox, is a mere 10 minutes north of Providence. It’s also that for five bucks I can get in, or for eight bucks I can get a box seat on the level of the field.

Sometimes magic can happen in the minors. For example, the longest baseball game in history was played at McCoy, a deadlocked struggle lasting 33 innings and played over a span of three days in the summer of 1981. The Rochester Red Wings, an Orioles farm team that included future major league star Cal Ripken, Jr., lost to Wade Boggs and the PawSox 3-2 after more than eight grueling hours of baseball.

Magic was again in the air at McCoy on Aug. 10. Right-handed pitcher Bronson Arroyo pitched a perfect nine innings as the PawSox defeated the Buffalo Bisons 7-0. A perfect game is pitching’s rarest accomplishment: in the 120 years of the International League, there have only been four perfect nine-inning games. Two of them have happened in Pawtucket – the previous being Tomo Ohka’s on June 1, 2000.

Arroyo retired every single batter that he faced. None were walked, none got on base. With nine strikeouts, a third of the batters never even left the batter’s box. Arroyo threw just 101 total pitches, 73 of which were strikes. Arroyo had plenty of offensive help from his teammates, and the PawSox defense was solid as well – including a leaping catch at the wall by center fielder Adrian Brown.

“It was one of those days,” Arroyo commented. “After you get through three or four innings of easy work and you haven’t thrown many pitches, you kind of keep rolling and rolling. As the game goes on and the crowd the way they were, it’s hard not to have some energy out there.”

And just think – I could have been there!

The author can be reached at pww@pww.org

Desperately seeking Arnold

Fri, 22 Aug 2003 07:56:00 +0000

Big as he is, it’s not easy to find Calif. gubernatorial candidate Arnold Schwarzenegger. If you dial 411, his campaign office is not listed. Use the Google search bar on your computer and you can’t find his office address.

While in Los Angeles I wanted to ask him, or at least his spokesperson, the questions our readers are asking: Why did he scoff at unions as a “special interest group”? Why did he support anti-immigrant Prop 187? What does he have to say about the actions of his campaign chair, Pete Wilson, in cutting California workers’ overtime pay?

The Republican Party in Burbank finally spilled the beans and I took off down the Santa Monica freeway. I found his headquarters nested on the upper floors of a small office complex attached to a flower-decked garden restaurant.

A guard armed with a cordless phone barred the elevator. “Sorry ma’am, you can’t go up without an appointment.”

“An appointment to get campaign literature?” I asked.

“You can call and see if they’ll come down,” he said sympathetically, offering the phone.

I made the call, but no, “they” wouldn’t come down, said a man who refused to identify himself, but gave me a press office phone number. At that number “Karen,” who declined to reveal her last name, also could not say where the office was located. She had some questions for me though: “What kind of paper are you from? Who do you target? Is it union households?” she asked before letting me know there were no press releases, no literature, and that none of the candidate’s scheduled appearances would be announced in advance.

Determined not to come away completely empty-handed, I snapped a photo of the building entrance. “They don’t want you to take pictures of the lobby ma’am,” the guard admonished, a bit sharper than before.

I drove off thinking the only tangible trace of this candidate is the slightly rotten smell of whatever it is he has to hide.

The author can be reached at rwood@pww.org

Provide health care for vets

Fri, 22 Aug 2003 06:25:00 +0000

The military newspaper Army Times, in an angry editorial denouncing planned cuts in imminent danger pay, family separation allowances for active soldiers, and payments to families of soldiers who are killed on active duty, says the cuts “make the Bush administration look mean spirited and hypocritical.”

Veterans are becoming increasingly angry and protesting cuts in healthcare for active soldiers and veterans. “We are going to show them that veterans know how to vote,” says Steven Robinson, executive director of the National Gulf War Research Center.

American Legion National Commander Ronald F. Conley, an Air Force veteran and Pittsburgh pipe fitter, is on a national crusade to restore veterans health care. “We have a veterans health care crisis throughout this country right now,” says Conley. With hundreds of thousands of veterans waiting in line for health care, some for years, he says, “veterans feel betrayed.”

Raymond C. Ogden Jr., a retired Air Force Master Sergeant of Abilene, Texas, says “President Bush pats us on the back and with his speeches and stabs us in the back with his actions.” James Cook, a 24-year Air Force veteran, says “Bush is a liar.”

“Nothing but lip service”, is what the troops are getting from the administration, headlined the Army Times.

Contradictory statements by Donald Rumsfeld and several top generals leave soldiers in a situation where they “can’t believe anything they’re told,” says Charles Sheehan-Miles. Sheehan-Miles is a Gulf War veteran and founder of the National Gulf War Resource Center. He is presently director of the Nuclear Policy Research Center, placing him at the center of research on the harmful health effects of depleted uranium weapons that the U.S. used in both wars against Iraq. “A lot of my friends got sick,” he says.

A new group, Families Speak Out, consisting of families of soldiers in Iraq, are planning a trip to Washington to lobby their legislators to bring the troops home. One member, Susan Schuman, of Shelburne Falls, Mass., calls Iraq “a quagmire” with parallels to Vietnam.

The author, a World War II Air Force veteran, can be reached at pww@pww.org

Older women: Fodder for profit mill?

Fri, 22 Aug 2003 06:21:00 +0000

Historically ageism and sexism have come together nicely in the arena of menopause – nicely for profit-making, that is. Menopause is a normal, natural part of women’s aging, but has been transformed into a medical problem, complete with lab tests for diagnosis, a disease label, and a treatment that threatens women’s health-hormone replacement therapy (HRT).

In Victorian days menopause was seen as a sign of sin and decay. Freud came along and softened the view to one of neurosis. Today, with hard, objective science, we are more sophisticated than this. In the1960s the development of synthetic hormones gave the pharmaceutical industry a treatment that lacked only a disease. The medical community came to the rescue with menopause, redefining it as a hormone deficiency disease.

Hormone replacement therapy (HRT) was born. The benefits touted for this therapy have included relief of menopausal symptoms, such as hot flashes; the prevention of osteoporosis, wrinkles, thinning hair, and heart disease; and hints that it cures aging itself. Early promotions of HRT to physicians openly played on stereotypes of older women as unattractive, hopeless and anxious burdens. These were so effective that in 1975 half of all post-menopausal women had used hormones. In the ’80s doctors were being advised to treat all menopausal women, regardless of symptoms, and by the mid-’90s Premarin was the bestselling prescription drug in the U.S.

Surely these drugs wouldn’t have been prescribed if there were concerns about their safety, right? Wrong. There has been discussion of an HRT and breast-cancer link from the beginning, with at least some research to support the link since the early ’80s. HRT has also been connected to endometrial cancer, blood clots and other problems. Yet the scrips continued to be written.

In 2002, early results of the Women’s Health Initiative study of HRT were a wake-up call. Researchers found that HRT was tied to increased risk of heart attacks, blood clots, strokes and invasive breast cancer. These findings were so strong that the study was stopped years ahead of schedule. But go on the internet today and you’ll find site after site that downplays these findings and/or continues to encourage HRT as treatment for “hormone deficiency.” Now, a year later, the British Million Women Study shows again that HRT increases the risk of breast cancer.

How could this situation continue for so long? For decades healthy aging women have been cold-bloodedly treated as a market by pharmaceutical corporations, with heavy, unceasing promotions to physicians of risky drugs. Physicians, the majority of them male, have been too slow to question the need for and value of these drugs. And women have trusted their doctors.

Is there a place for HRT? How would one know? How many other drugs have similarly cloudy histories? The problems in our current profit-driven health care system go well beyond issues of insurance and cost of medications. Medical research, education, and practice are all poisoned by the profit motive. As we demand access to health care and prescription drugs, we also have to insist that the care and medications are designed not to line private pockets, but to treat our illnesses and promote our health.

The author can be reached at pww@pww.org

Sacramento clamps down on free speech

Fri, 22 Aug 2003 06:17:00 +0000

The Sacramento City Council appears to be doing John Ashcroft’s dirty work by having passed two unconstitutional ordinances, 2003-026 and 2003-028, that suppress freedom of speech. The Council unanimously voted for the secretive resolutions on June 17, just prior to the USDA Conference on Biotech and Agriculture, June 23-25.

Supposedly fearing “another Seattle,” the Council set chilling restrictions on the size and construction of protest signs. Ordinance 2003-026 states, “It shall be unlawful for any person to carry or possess any sign, poster, plaque or notice” unless it “is constructed solely of a cloth, paper or cardboard material no greater than one-quarter inch in thickness.” The thickness of picket lumber is to be limited to three-quarters of an inch.

The same ordinance outlaws possession of glass bottles or jars, conceivably making it illegal to carry a bottle of mineral water.

Although the protest organizers had been meeting with the Police Department for months about the plans and had gone out of their way to get the necessary permits, they were never informed of the pending ordinances.

Thousands of people from California and elsewhere demonstrated at the conference against the meeting’s promotion of genetically engineered food. The repressive ordinances were buttressed by an unprecedented presence of thousands of “Robo-cop” attired officers from the city, California Highway Patrol, state police and the federal government. A total of 77 people were arrested, three in Davis and the rest in Sacramento.

Apparently only six of those have been charged by the district attorney, including three under the ordinances, said Amy Sprowles, a member of the mobilization’s legal team. Two of those arrested were local pranksters holding “Save naboo!” and “Stop the Imperial Senate!” – signs making fun of the protesters.

Outraged about the large number of arrests and the ordinances, over 30 members of the Sacramento Coalition for Sustainable Agriculture (SCSA) and supporting groups, such as the Gray Panthers, Peace Action and Veterans for Peace, held a press conference before the July 17 City Council meeting.

Heidi McLean, coalition spokesperson, presented three demands: that the biotech ordinances be rescinded, that the city drop all charges against those arrested at the demonstrations, and that an independent evaluation of the city’s use of resources during the ministerial meeting, particularly law enforcement, be performed.

During the City Council meeting, Julia Harumi Mass of the ACLU said the “overly broad” ordinance was a “constitutional loss,” and supported the call for an independent review of police misconduct during the conference and a repeal of the ordinances.

The huge police presence at the demonstrations undoubtedly had a chilling effect.

“I thought it was the right of everybody to show opposition to the city’s closing of our sustainable community garden,” said Rita Gonzalez, a member of the Mandella Community Garden Board who was arrested during the conference. “But I chose to keep my 7-year-old daughter at home for her own safety during the ministerial [meeting] because of the heavy police presence.”

At press time, the ordinances remained on the books.

The author can be reached at pww@pww.org

National Clips

Fri, 22 Aug 2003 04:48:00 +0000

Petoskey, Mich.:Nurses demand respect, patient care

About 280 nurses, members of Teamsters Local 406 at Northern Michigan Hospital (NMH), have been on strike since Nov. 14 to improve wages, pensions, working conditions, nurse-patient ratios, and other patient-care issues.

Teamster Local 406 spokesperson Sharon Norton told the World that after nine months on strike “the nurses are holding out wonderfully well.” On the condition of the strikers, she commented, “They are as strong and as committed as they were last November.” This is Local 406’s first contract fight.

The union says that nurses at NMH are forced to care for so many patients – often as many as eight per nurse – that providing appropriate care is close to impossible.

Nurses were forced to walk out after the NMH’s Board of Trustees refused to bargain in good faith late last year. The Board has since retained the services of notorious union-busting law firm, the Fishman Group, which advertises itself as helping to keep employers “union-free.” In addition to this, the hospital contracted with Denver, Colo.-based temp firm, U.S. Nurses, to replace striking nurses.

The strike has met with broad support from the local community, from Michigan political leaders, and from the national labor movement. As the strike has dragged on into the summer, signs appeared around Petoskey reading, “NMH negotiate.”

Norton described the support from the labor movement as “one of the greatest efforts on the part of organized labor to support the nurses.” She said that the Teamsters’ international and Teamster locals, nurses in other unions, and even non-union nurses have supported the strike based on patient-care issues.

Tucson, Ariz.:Retirees rally to save Medicare

Hundreds of retirees, people with disabilities, and supporters, led by members of the Alliance for Retired Americans (ARA) braved the blazing heat and demonstrated in front of ultra-right Sen. Jon Kyl’s (R-Ariz.) offices in both Phoenix and Tucson to protest his efforts to privatize and weaken Medicare.

In Tucson, two demonstrators, Charlie Salaz and Vikki Marshall, members of Steelworkers Organization of Active Retirees, were handcuffed and arrested for trespassing when they attempted to cross the parking lot to Sen. Kyl’s office to deliver a letter explaining to the senator why they oppose the prescription drug bills and calling on him to hold a town hall meeting on the legislation.

On July 24 five ARA members were arrested for trespassing when they refused to leave Sen. Kyl’s Phoenix office until he agreed to hold meetings with constituents. So far he hasn’t budged.

“It is shameful that Sen. Kyl refuses to listen to the concerns seniors have with the prescription drug legislation,” said Edward Coyle, executive director of the ARA. “Seniors are going to do what it takes to be heard. They are not afraid to get arrested, they are not afraid to protest and they won’t stop until Congress comes up with a simple, comprehensive, affordable prescription drug bill under Medicare.”

At the Tucson rally, Pima County Supervisor Richard Elias told cheering seniors, “We need to put an end to privatization of government services. They are not thinking about the people served. It’s wrong.”

The ARA rejects current House and Senate bills because they fail to provide a guaranteed premium for seniors, have wide gaps in coverage and put patients at the mercy of private insurers, who can change premium costs at will.

Patterson, N.J.:Hunger striker in critical condition

As of Aug. 16 Nigel Maccado, a detainee in county jail, was enduring his 58th day without food. His hunger strike is a protest to his 21 months of internment. Although he is threatened with deportation to his native India, no charges have been brought against him. He is one among thousands of immigrants who are being held without any prospect of release.

Hemuauth Mohabir, another detainee, is an immigrant from Guyana who has been interned for 16 months despite his status as a legal permanent resident. He joined his fellow captive in the hunger strike 10 days after it began.

Maccado is unable to leave his bed. The doctor and nurse of the jail have failed to treat his dangerous heart condition or move him to a proper medical facility, allegedly telling Maccado that “you are trying to kill yourself anyway.”

The New Jersey Civil Rights Defense Committee held a Aug. 6 vigil outside the jail pleading for his transfer and release. Both Maccado and Mohabir have said their actions are an expression of outrage against the unjust internment of all detainees.

Joel Wendland, Brandi Kishner, and Joe Bernick contributed to this week’s clips.

Tucson protests Bush visit

Fri, 22 Aug 2003 04:42:00 +0000

TUCSON, Ariz. – Over 1,700 spirited demonstrators greeted President George W. Bush when he arrived for a brief visit to the area on Aug. 11. Bush came to Tucson to push the administration’s misnamed “Healthy Forest Initiative,” a measure that would serve the interests of the logging industry in the name of fire protection.

Although Bush never actually set foot in the city proper (he flew to Mt. Lemon, the site of the recent Aspen fire, for a photo-op with right-wing politicians), a number of demonstrations erupted in response to his visit.

Before Bush arrived over 350 demonstrators protested the Healthy Forest Initiative at the foot of Mt. Lemon. During his visit, 1,500 people demonstrated in 100-degree temperatures at Republican Party headquarters in Tucson, calling for “regime change” in Washington, D.C.

Susan Willis, a school nurse, told the World that she was there to oppose the administration’s anti-people policies. “Bush and his rich cronies are dangerous for our country,” she said. Eric Reyes, an airport worker and member of the Machinists Union, said he came out to protest because millions of people are losing their jobs while Bush is squandering billions on Iraq. That money would be better spent on guaranteeing that all children have medical coverage, he said.

Phil Gentry, a union railroad worker, rejects “the Bush agenda” of war, privatizing Social Security, and attacks on peoples’ economic well-being. He said, “We need to vote Bush out in 2004, and elect a more progressive Congress, as well.”

The author can be reached at stelnik@webtv.net

Bush lies, who dies?

Fri, 22 Aug 2003 03:46:00 +0000

It’s time to lobby your congressional representative and senators to demand that they support an independent investigation of Bush’s lies about the reasons for waging war on Iraq.

United for Peace and Justice, a national coalition of over 600 groups, is teaming up with the Education for Peace in Iraq Center in a campaign to urge members of Congress to support a genuine investigation into whether the Bush administration misled the public with claims that Iraq was an imminent threat to the U.S. and its neighbors.

“We want open, thorough, timely, televised public hearings and an investigation with a broad mandate,” says a UFPJ statement. “We need the truth.”

UFPJ is urging visits and calls to members of Congress while they are in their home districts, before Congress reconvenes after Labor Day. Both Rep. Henry Waxman (D-Calif.) and Rep. Ellen Tauscher (D-Calif.) have introduced legislation (H.R. 2625 and H. Res. 307, respectively) that would investigate the Bush administration’s misuse of intelligence. Senators should be encouraged to introduce companion legislation.

For more information, call the UFPJ at (212) 603-3700 or visit their web site at www.unitedforpeace.org

Leaders urge no vote on Prop. 54

Fri, 15 Aug 2003 07:18:00 +0000

LOS ANGELES – Civil rights leaders and public officials announced their opposition to Proposition 54 at an Aug. 12 press conference on the steps of City Hall here.

Los Angeles Mayor James Hahn called Prop. 54 “a recipe for disaster.” If passed, Prop. 54 would bar any public agency from keeping records on race and ethnic origin. The initiative will be on California’s Oct. 7 recall ballot.

From health care to ending racial profiling by the police, Prop. 54 would put communities at risk, Hahn said. Prop. 54 would “hinder our attempts to track racial profiling,” which can send the message that racial profiling is acceptable, he said.

Rep. Diane Watson (D-Calif.) said Prop. 54 is an attempt to bring out the right-wing conservative voters in the Oct. 7 recall election.

Prop. 54 is a follow-up measure to Prop. 209, the anti-affirmative action measure or so-called “civil rights initiative” passed in November 1996, which prohibits affirmative action in state government. Prop. 54 is proposed by right-wing University of California Regent Ward Connerly. Connerly, who was appointed by Republican former Gov. Pete Wilson, also led the campaign for Prop. 209.

NAACP Chairman Julian Bond said Prop. 54 will affect the ability of minorities to seek redress for discrimination in housing or employment. “It will make it impossible to file these complaints,” he said.

Race impacts everyone in the country every day, Bond said. “As long as race counts in America, we will count race in America,” he said, underscoring the proposal would not only have a negative impact on African Americans and Mexican Americans, but also women and seniors.

Los Angeles Councilman Antonio Villaraigosa said Prop. 54 was an attempt to turn back the clock to another era prior to the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and other measures to end racial discrimination. Villaraigosa said he had done some checking around since the passage of Prop. 209 and while 27 African-Americans enrolled in law school in Mississippi, there was only one at UC Berkley.

The California attorney general rejected recently Connerly’s attempt to use the misnomer “Racial Privacy Initiative” on the ballot. Prop. 54 will appear as the “Classification by Race, Ethnicity, Color or National Origin Initiative.”

Other groups opposing Prop 54 include the American Public Health Association and The Anti-Defamation League (ADL). In a press statement Jonathan Bernstein, director of the ADL’s Central Pacific Region said, “This damaging initiative will reverse the tremendous progress the state has made in tracking hate crimes and providing equal opportunities for all Californians.”

The author can be reached at tribfeb2493@aol.com

Vets in same boat as injured workers

Fri, 15 Aug 2003 05:38:00 +0000

Sick and injured war veterans and victims of industrial workplace accidents have a lot in common. Both are treated disgracefully.

The medical treatment of our military veterans is shameful. The Iraq war is the latest example. While the Bush White House was announcing its war in Iraq, it was simultaneously announcing cutbacks in veterans’ benefits. The Republican-controlled Congress actually cut $25 million from the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) on the same day that the war was announced.

Veterans’ hospitals throughout the country have been either eliminated or have had their services sharply curtailed, a process that started under Reagan. These hospitals are the veterans’ last hope. Ask any veteran who has to rely on these hospitals and VA benefits and you’ll see rage and fear come into their eyes when you mention the cutbacks.

Veterans’ groups have tried to bring these facts to the attention of the mass media and to politicians (including many Democrats), but almost no one has listened.

A similar callousness prevails in employer and government attitudes toward workers who are disabled or killed due to workplace hazards. Workers’ compensation is under relentless attack, and sick and injured workers are constantly being subjected to benefit takeaways.

Each year, in every state of the union, a corporate media blitz takes place to oppose any pro-worker changes in the workers’ compensation laws. The blitz is coordinated through trade associations such as the National Association of Manufacturers and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. They demand cutbacks wherever possible, often threatening to move out of state unless they get the their way.

A little history: Workers’ compensation laws in the U.S. were the result of long and difficult struggle led by workers in the early years of the 20th century. Out-of-control industrial growth and workplace injuries, including unprecedented carnage on the railways, led to a surge in worker lawsuits against their employers and popular pressure for reform.

A “great trade-off” was struck: workers would give up their right to sue their employer for negligence following an injury or death, in return for the employers and the government setting up an insurance system providing workers with medical coverage and wage replacement in the event of such a misfortune.

European workers, through mass labor struggles, had won a progressive workers’ compensation plan (linked to their national health care programs) years before.

In the U.S., however, the system that emerged was quite different than Europe’s. Corporate policymakers successfully lobbied for a weak workers’ comp law, where each state would have its own program and where private insurance carriers would be in charge. (It should be noted that there is a federal workers’ comp law that covers federal workers and longshore workers that is far superior to the state programs.) The absence of a national health care program further limited the law’s effectiveness.

From outset employers tried to weaken the law still further. Now, after almost 100 years of cutbacks, experts agree that corporations pay only a small portion of the actual death and disability benefits at their workplaces. This is especially true for occupational diseases such as those related to worker exposure to asbestos, chemicals, lead and other toxic substances. This doesn’t stop corporations from crying about worker fraud and malingering. They aren’t dumb: By keeping up a steady ideology of gloom and doom, and spending millions in payoffs to state-based politicians, they are often in the driver’s seat when it comes to shaping the laws.

The national AFL-CIO is the only body with strength to promote a national coordinated effort to improve the meager medical and wage replacement benefits. Each year they document the cutbacks being sought by corporations in various states. The AFL-CIO is warning that in the upcoming year we will see a major offensive by the Chamber of Commerce and their corporate allies to further undermine workers’ comp.

It would be interesting if war veterans and veterans of industrial accidents came together to help each other out. They are often one and the same person. One thing is for sure; a new strategy is needed to bring energy into both movements. The public would be very receptive.

The author can be reached at pww@pww.org

The Office of Tax Propaganda

Fri, 15 Aug 2003 05:15:00 +0000

The honesty-impaired Bush administration does not limit its deception to weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. When it comes to taxes, the spin starts when they call their program the “Jobs and Growth Tax Relief Act of 2003.” If this legislation was breakfast cereal, the Consumer Protection Agency would be forced to prosecute the Bush administration for misleading packaging and lying about the ingredients. It would be more accurate to call it the “Economic Destruction and Millionaire Welfare Act.”

Columnists in major newspapers across the country have exposed the “tax cut” as yet another gift to the wealthy, who receive almost all of the permanent benefits. Some (including in this newspaper) have pointed out that the legislation is actually a weapon of tax destruction, whose goal is to starve the government of revenue and force it to cut spending for health, education, housing and, eventually, Social Security.

In order to gain political cover for this robbery, the administration allowed a few crumbs for many working families – a temporary increase in the child tax credit, with the added propaganda value of rebate checks being mailed out this summer. But even this measure has come under attack, because low income workers get reduced benefits, or nothing at all.

Which brings us to the latest round of Bush’s dancing with truth.

As described by Paul Krugman in The New York Times, “Tim Russert [of “Meet the Press”] asked the Treasury Department to prepare examples showing how repealing the Bush Tax cuts would affect ordinary families.” These examples were also released to other media at a Treasury news conference. They show that six families, with incomes between $40,000 and $80,000, will receive tax cuts in 2003 ranging from $720 to more than $1,900.

Fortunately, Robert Greenstein of the Center for Budget and Policy Priorities took a second look at the figures. He showed that the families chosen by Treasury are hardly typical. Over one quarter of the households in the U.S. will get no tax cut, and half will get less than $500. But all of the Treasury’s examples get over $700. And four of the six examples get over $1,700 – while only about one out of six real families get that much. Greenstein shows many other ways that Treasury’s examples are completely unrepresentative of ordinary families.

In focusing on those middle- and upper-middle income families who qualify for significant tax cuts, the Treasury Department also ignores most of the cuts, which go to the very rich. The biggest stockholders with fat dividend checks and windfall capital gains could each save millions under the provisions of the “Jobs and Growth Tax Relief Act.”

Martin Sullivan, in the June issue of the highly respected journal Tax Notes, is most distressed at the decline of professionalism in the Treasury Department. He notes that Treasury has developed excellent tools for estimating the distributional effect of changes in the tax code – that is, how the changes affect households at different income levels. But, “The Treasury Department now releases only the most rudimentary of distributional analyses. The repackaging … is clearly politically motivated by the arrival of the Bush administration officials in the White House and in the Treasury.” Sullivan goes on to say, “If this continues, the Treasury’s Office of Tax Policy (OTP) may have to change its name to the Office of Tax Propaganda.”

By the way, it makes a difference. When Tim Russert interviewed Howard Dean on “Meet the Press,” he used Treasury’s misleading figures as if they represented typical Americans. Dean handled himself well, saying, “I don’t believe [the Treasury figures]. The administration has not been candid about the impacts of this tax cut.” But right-wing commentators are already using that interview to attack Dean’s call to roll back the Bush tax cuts. Expect to see a lot more White House distortion as the campaign heats up.

The author can be reached at economics@cpusa.org

National Clips

Fri, 15 Aug 2003 04:40:00 +0000

ANNISTON, Ala.:‘Stop burning of chemical weapons’

Despite years of protests and court action by residents, the U.S. Army began burning chemical weapons along one of the most densely populated sections of the Atlanta to Birmingham corridor of I-20 on Aug. 9. Over 250,000 people live within a 30-mile radius of the burn site where the Army has begun burning 660,000 weapons packed with VX gas, mustard gas and sarin, a deadly nerve gas. The weapons are of Cold War vintage and have been stockpiled for decades.

“We’re very disappointed,” said David Christian, a grassroots leader of protests demanding that the burning be moved. “They’re putting poisons in the air and we may not know for decades what the effects will be.” The Army has previously disposed of chemical weapons in Tooele, Utah, and Johnston Atoll, near Hawaii.

BRADENTON, Fla.:Harris confiscates seniors’ drug leaflets

Rep. Katherine Harris (R-Fla.), the infamous Florida Secretary of State in the 2000 elections, took a “fact sheet” about the current prescription drug bills in Congress and copies of her voting record from retirees distributing the information at a public town hall meeting. Retired workers, members of the Alliance of Retired Americans (ARA), attended that meeting to not only ask questions about the pending legislation, but to blow the whistle on Republican efforts to privatize Medicare.

Harris also insisted that all questions be submitted in writing before she would answer any.

“This is wrong,” said Tony Fransetta, Florida ARA president. “We have never been restricted in what we hand out at other town meetings.”

Harris’ seat is up in 2004.

ASHEVILLE, N.C.: Union victory over Verizon

Communication workers, 150 members of CWA Local 3673, went back to work Aug. 11, following a solid 12-week strike that achieved wage, health care and pension improvements and control over overtime. Workers voted to approve the new contract which includes a 12 percent wage increase over the three-year life of the agreement.

This western North Carolina unit of Verizon had been part of GTE. The settlement can only help the 85,000 union members at Verizon in the Northeast and Middle Atlantic states who are still in contract negotiations with the communications monopoly.

“These members really hung together in a strike that was all about family issues, not money,” said Communication Workers’ southeast district leader Jimmy Smith. “Their sacrifice and solidarity paid off with a fair settlement that they can be proud of.”

CWA Local Union 3673 President Tommy Pool publicly thanked all the communities, merchants and restaurants in the rural mountain towns who supported the union members. Over 50 CWA and International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers (IBEW) locals sent donations and volunteers for the picket lines, some from as far away as Austin, Texas, La Porte, Ind., and Lafayette, La.

WASHINGTON, D.C.:Stockade nation

The Federal Bureau of Justice Statistics reports that while the country’s crime rate continued to decline, the number of people in state or federal jails skyrocketed. Commenting on the sharply racist edge of incarceration, the Charleston Gazette (W.Va.) wrote, “something is horribly wrong as long as 10 percent of Black men, ages 25 to 29, are in cells compared with only 1.2 percent of white men.”

The report covered 2001-2002 and found that 2,033,331 Americans are in jail, a 2.6 percent increase over 2000-2001. Meanwhile, statistics showed that crime declined, nationally, by 0.2 percent.

According to The Sentencing Project (analysis available at sentencingproject.org), 60 percent of the people in federal prison are serving non-violent drug convictions. It costs taxpayers at the federal and state levels $40 billion a year. The cost for each person behind bars is $20,000 each. Louisiana leads the country in the rate of incarceration. For all age groups, Black men are jailed at a rate that is 7.6 percent higher than white men. One in every 19 African American men is in jail.

ROCKFORD, Mich.: Wolverine threatens to boot jobs abroad

Tannery workers, members of the United Food and Commercial Workers (UFCW) Local 600 A, have been on strike for over six weeks fighting to improve their pensions and prevent the fashionable Wolverine Worldwide from sending their jobs to other countries. Currently, only 10 percent of the boots are made in the U.S.

Wolverine responded by advertising for scabs in local newspapers in July. No talks are scheduled.

For more information or to express solidarity: www.ufcw.org

National Clips are compiled by Denise Winebrenner Edwards (dwinebr696@aol.com). Jack Blaine, Gabe Falsetta, and Joel Wendland contributed to this week’s clips.

AFL-CIO 2004 election plans

Fri, 15 Aug 2003 04:31:00 +0000

CHICAGO – The City of Big Shoulders was an appropriate place for the mid-year AFL-CIO Executive Council meeting Aug. 5-6. Here organized labor, deliberately and with little fanfare, began the heavy lifting of coordinating and mobilizing the nation’s working families to stop the corporate onslaught against the American people’s standard of living and democratic rights in the 2004 elections.

Alongside the Council’s deliberations, a constellation of related meetings created their own light. Two hundred grass roots Immigrant Workers Freedom Ride organizers from Seattle to Miami converged for two days of logistical and political planning for that fall event. At the same time, union political directors were putting their heads together, refining strategy-making to a working-class science.

“We’re not going in with a shotgun approach,” one participant told the World. The plan is to use a sophisticated matrix to identify key union-member swing voters in targeted states,” he continued, “then we’re going to mail and door-knock to educate them.”

Rev. Jesse Jackson made the point to the Council that the 5,000 to 15,000 vote margin in so many congressional and Senate races in 2002 was small compared to the number of unregistered voters in those districts.

Those unregistered voters are not just union members, AFL-CIO Executive Vice President Linda Chavez-Thompson told the World. “What’s different about this campaign’s mobilization will be our concentration on voter registration within our communities,” she said, adding that the alliances built during the campaign will continue after the election.

“Those we register are potential union members,” Chavez-Thompson said. “This is an ongoing project.”

The author can be reached at rwood@pww.org

Texans are getting fired up!

Fri, 15 Aug 2003 04:04:00 +0000

When Texas progressives gather together they often complain. And yet, at a recent Dallas meeting of the North Texas Friends of the People’s Weekly World, participants couldn’t help but note a number of positive developments in the state.

First, someone recalled the historic 6-3 vote of the U.S. Supreme Court overturning the notorious, anti-gay Texas sodomy law. This was a great victory. Even the reactionary editors of the Dallas daily paper began their commentary with the headline, “Good riddance!”

After that, there was almost no stopping the outpouring of good news. A schoolteacher cited the Texas Federation of Teachers’ success in turning back many of the right-wing assaults on public education in the recent legislative session. Republican legislators failed with proposals to broaden school voucher programs and license untrained teachers, among other things. The teachers held a formidable rally and lobby day in the state capital. A new concept, “virtual lobby day,” had prompted an estimated 20,000 hits per hour on legislators’ phones, fax machines, and e-mail boxes.

Throughout May and June, unions and other progressive organizations bombarded the State Capitol with rallies and lobbying efforts. The Texas State Employees Union mobilized thousands of their members and supporters to defend worker interests.

Democrats showed real backbone with their dramatic flight to Oklahoma to thwart Republican redistricting. The public relations battle was clearly won by the Democrats and state progressives, and it continues today with lawsuits and investigations of illegal activities carried out by state and federal agencies who pursued the runaway legislators. One participant in the Dallas meeting said of the right-wingers: “Their arrogance and disregard for individuals is going to bite them in the end!”

There’s more. Big demonstrations in Texas against the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq have given expression to a growing peace movement here. Peace organizations are not disbanding today, but are continuing to organize. The North Texas Coalition for a Just Peace found immediate partners from unions, civil rights organizations, and community groups when it picketed a Bush fundraiser in Dallas on July 18.

The Immigrant Workers Freedom Ride supporters in North Texas, who expect buses from Los Angeles to pass through Dallas Sept. 26, have already formed a wide and diverse network of supporting organizations. San Antonio, Austin, and Houston are organizing Freedom Ride activities, too.

The upsurge in Texans’ understanding and willingness to take action is also being reflected in other ways. The People’s Weekly World picked up a number of new subscriptions and supporters during June and July. Three of them came from the Dallas meeting. Another activist was inspired to write a check to top off the Texas Communist Party’s fund drive goal, and two new CPUSA members paid their first dues.

Last and best of the good news came in a report from the nearby Denton, Texas, chapter of the Young Communist League. We learned that five Texas youths were traveling to Cuba this summer. The report ended: “We set up a table during registration at the University of North Texas, and the YCL picked up ten new members yesterday!”

The author can be reached at pww@pww.org

The Thrill and the Agony

Fri, 08 Aug 2003 03:17:00 +0000

Royals jack up the Sox, 13-9

At the All-Star Break in mid-July, the Kansas City Royals were seven games ahead of the Chicago White Sox in the race for first place of the American League Central Division. But over a series at the end of the month, the Royals extended a special hospitality to the visiting White Sox, allowing them over 30 total runs in three games and to sweep the series.

The tide was turning, and it seemed that the Sox were asserting themselves as the rightful league leaders, as pre-season pundits had predicted. With their undefeated star pitcher Jose Lima out of the line-up because of a groin injury, the Royals appeared to be on their way to passing the crown.

This week witnessed another series between the two teams.

With their lead reduced to a mere two games, the Royals were outspoken and determined not to slip any further. But in Monday’s game (the only one completed by press time), it first looked like they might. At the end of five innings, they trailed 6-3.

Suddenly in the top of the sixth, the Royals exploded, jacking seven runs off of relievers Scott Schoeneweis, Matt Ginter, and Kelly Wunsch to take a 10-6 lead. Chicago bounced back with two runs in the bottom of the inning, including Frank Thomas’s 2000th career hit, a 454-foot home run. Shortstop Jose Valentin added another run in the seventh inning, bringing the Sox to within one run.

But KC closer Al Levine pitched two solid innings – striking out three of the six batters he faced – and the Royals added another three runs in the ninth to seal the deal. The win ensures that the Royals will still be in first place when the series ends on Wednesday.

With only one batter each hitting above .300 (Royals, Carlos Beltran; White Sox, Magglio Ordonez), and rosters full of starting pitchers with mediocre ERAs, the ongoing struggle between these teams seems more about solid team play than shining individuals. Both teams seem very out-staffed when compared to some of the other teams in major league baseball that either could face in the playoffs.

But then again, baseball has always been about surprises.

The author can be reached at pww@pww.org