People Before Profit blog

Illegals dropped from papers lexicon

Fri, 29 Aug 2003 03:27:00 +0000

TUCSON, Ariz. – The Tucson Citizen newspaper is changing the terminology it uses to refer to undocumented migrants, according to editor Michael Chihak. The Citizen will stop using the words “illegal” and “illegals” as nouns.

“Instead, now we will use different words – ‘migrant’ is our foremost candidate,” Chihak said. “We also will stop presuming that people are in the United States illegally unless that determination has been made in the judicial system.”

The policy change was announced after activists from human rights groups in Tucson bombarded Chihak with letters of protest and met with him in person at his headquarters. Chihak had stated that he often inserted “illegal” in journalists’ articles after submission and used the term as a noun in headlines “because it fits” so nicely. “It is the journalistic style of our paper,” Chihak had explained.

In response to Chihak’s invitation to comment about the newspaper’s use of the term “illegals,” Lil Wynne Avila wrote, “The connotations are negative, slanted, and irrefutably loaded with imagery that I would not think a rational news operation would deem responsible to present.”

“People are not illegal. The headline use of ‘illegals’ rejects any presumption of innocence,” wrote Jack Cohen-Joppa, editor of the Nuclear Resistor. Rev. John Fife said, “It is an assumption not possible to be known until proven in court,” and Joseph Bernick asked, “Is this just another attempt to dehumanize Third World immigrants?” Still another reader, Dereka Rushbrook, wrote, “This characterization is generally irrelevant to the story and serves to mask the complexity of the multiple processes (U.S. border policy, globalization, neoliberal economic policies, family ties, history, etc.) that lead border crossers to undertake these journeys.”

“Responsible journalists having done their homework should know that labels historically have served to dehumanize certain populations, to control them, and to justify any harm or misfortune that befalls them,” wrote Anna Ochoa O’Leary, a professor at the University of Arizona.

Jose Pac from Guatemala had come to Tucson five days earlier to claim the bodies of two women from his hometown who died while trying to cross the Arizona desert. “They only wanted to work,” he said. “It is ugly to see people called illegals.”

The author can be reached at

The Thrill and the Agony, This week in sports: The founding sisters

Fri, 29 Aug 2003 02:59:00 +0000

Soccer is probably the sport most played by our country’s youth: it teaches strategy, teamwork, and endurance (as well as encouraging the eating of juicy orange slices). And yet our national attention span remains far too short. By adulthood, we desire quicker gratification, and so we tune into sports with heavier hits and higher scores. We turn to football instead of futbol.

But the Women’s United Soccer Association (WUSA) has seen a steady growth in popularity since its founding in 2001. One reason is that the caliber of play is tremendous. Recently, U.S. women have dominated international women’s soccer. The U.S. team won the FIFA Women’s World Cup in 1999. The eight teams in the WUSA include all of the players from this team; in fact, the league itself was founded by them.

The WUSA attracts top-notch players from around the world – quite distinct from the American men’s pro league. Major League Soccer (MLS) in essence serves as a farm league for its far superior European counterparts, or a dumping ground for those who can’t quite hack it there. And while the U.S. men’s team performed solidly in the 2002 World Cup, few of the players stick around the states for their professional careers.

These women ought to be proud of the league they are forging, and of the fan base that they are building. We were tuned in Aug. 24 as the Washington Freedom claimed the Founders’ Cup III with a dramatic overtime goal to lift them 2-1 over the Atlanta Beat.

Abby Wambach scored both goals for Washington. Her first was a pinpoint header to the lower-left corner of the goal, off of a beautiful cross from Sandra Minnert in the seventh minute. Nearly 90 minutes later, she nailed a left-footed one-timer to the same corner on a similar cross from Jenny Meier. This was the first time Washington defeated Atlanta this season.

“I thought it was behind the net because she didn’t have a great angle,” teammate Jacqui Little said. “All of a sudden I saw the net move and I said, ‘Oh my God. We won.’”

Though the season has concluded, it is not too late for would-be fans. The 2003 Women’s World Cup begins in late September in six host cities: Boston, Columbus, Los Angeles, Philadelphia, Portland, and Washington, D.C. More information can be found at www.fifaworldcup.com and most games can be seen on ESPN2.

The players are ready. Are you?

The author can be reached at

Labor College: 10 years and going strong

Fri, 29 Aug 2003 02:57:00 +0000

TUCSON, Ariz. – Salt of the Earth Labor College will kick off its eleventh year with a fall semester that tackles some of the most important questions facing working people today. The school will open the semester on Sept. 6 with a special workshop titled “Learning to Live Without War.” The workshop will feature a panel of local peace activists including Veterans for Peace leader Jon Miles, Pat Birnie from Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom, and Rev. Kenneth Kennon, a leader in the movement to close down the notorious School of the Americas. It is hoped this discussion will help clarify the need to reorganize last winter’s peace movement for another peace offensive.

The Labor College was founded in 1993 to serve as a place for working people to come together to learn about the political, economic, social, and cultural forces shaping our lives. It uses lectures, workshops, and cultural programs that teach about the struggles of Arizona’s multinational working class for a better life.

On Sept. 20, the school will host Young Communist League National Co-coordinator Adanjesus Marin who will teach a class on “Organizing the Unorganized.” The last time the school had a class on workplace organizing, it helped ignite organizing drives in Tucson. Organizers are hoping for a repeat performance.

The October schedule will include a presentation on the evils of privatization by AFSCME leader Linda Bohlke, who has been leading struggles against privatization of city and county services. Also in October, Dr. Eve Shapiro, co-coordinator of the 1,000-member strong Arizona Physicians for a National Health Program, will lead a discussion about the struggle for National Health Care and how to make it part of the 2004 campaign.

In November, local Jobs with Justice leader Steve Valencia will lead a workshop on “Independent Politics and the Labor Connection” that will discuss this fall’s Tucson city elections and the upcoming 2004 election year. Arizona will have a first time Democratic primary in 2004 and it will be early in the election season, only one week after the New Hampshire primary. The state could play a pivotal role in selecting the Democratic nominee. The need to defeat Bush in 2004 will be a focus of this, and probably all, of this year’s classes at Salt of the Earth Labor College.

The semester will end with a showing and discussion of the working class classic Salt of the Earth, the movie that gave the school its name. Discussion will be led by veterans of the film and of the Empire Zinc strike. For a fall semester schedule, write to Salt of the Earth Labor College at 1902 E. Irene Vista, Tucson AZ 85713.

The author can be reached at

Bilingual teacher cuts denounced

Fri, 29 Aug 2003 02:55:00 +0000

LAWRENCE, Mass. – School Superintendent Wilfredo Laboy, who came to Lawrence, a majority Latino city, in 2001, is under attack for having fired 24 bilingual teachers for not passing an oral English examination while he, himself, has repeatedly failed a similar exam.

Laboy’s critics say he was hired to help destroy the bilingual program here. He changed it into an English-immersion program for students of limited English proficiency. Until then, the bilingual program taught students their subjects in their native language while they learned English.

From the beginning Laboy attacked the bilingual program and told parents their children should learn Spanish at home or in church. Now he says that English is his second language and that is why he did not pass the exam in English for educators. Laboy has taken the test three times.

After the news of Laboy’s failing the test was made public, lawyers for the teachers and the school department reached an agreement to bring the teachers back into other jobs until they pass their own tests. Even though the School Committee reportedly rejected the agreement, saying that it would put other employees out of work, Mayor Michael Sullivan (who also chairs the School Committee) announced that the teachers would be rehired into other positions with $1 million of extra state money.

Although Laboy suspended the Latino and Cambodian teachers without pay because they had marked accents, he is still receiving his own $3,000 per week salary. Recently he went before the School Committee to ask for a raise of eight percent and a half million dollar life insurance policy.

Laboy began the English immersion program before the voters of Massachusetts approved such an approach for all the schools, making bilingual programs illegal. The anti-bilingual education initiative was financed by California millionaire Ron Unz, who has sponsored similar referendums in other states. Although the majority of voters in this state voted against bilingual education, 94 percent of Latinos voted to defend it, according to voter exit polls.

Graciela Trilla, an assistant principal fired by Laboy, told the World that the superintendent has taken his cue from successive Republican administrations in the state that have “dedicated themselves to dismantling the bilingual program with a concentration on the Hispanic communities.”

Trilla said linguistic theory and research shows that early childhood immersion is most dangerous because “we have a person who is educated in neither of the two languages.” Laboy is a living example of the problems that result, she added.

Another teacher who did not want to be identified alleged that Laboy fired a teacher because the teacher wanted to alert parents about the attack on bilingual education, and that he forced early retirement on three teachers.

Jose Balbuena, a parent activist and former School Committee candidate, commented, “For me it is a type of fraud. He came as a Hispanic to destroy the bilingual program.” Balbuena is a former chair of the Parents’ Advisory Council for the Lawrence School Department.

Marcos Devers, City Council president and a high school teacher himself, said that “it’s a shame for our community” said Leboy “should give back dignity and respect and their jobs to the teachers.” Devers said it is time to “set things straight and stop making concessions to the conservatives.”

The author can be reached at

Baltimore elections focus on inequality

Fri, 29 Aug 2003 02:50:00 +0000

BALTIMORE, Md. – A recent “Tour of Shame” of some of Baltimore’s poorest, working-class, and racially oppressed neighborhoods spotlighted the extent of the economic devastation that has been visited on large sections of this city.

Organized by the Association of Community Organizers for Reform Now (ACORN), the tour visited neighborhoods like Rosemont and Southwest Baltimore with their dilapidated and boarded-up houses, vacant lots, and piled-up trash. Organizers charged that Mayor Martin O’Malley and many incumbent members of the City Council have neglected the city’s neighborhoods, catering instead to the wealthy business interests at the city’s Inner Harbor.

Sultan Shakir, an ACORN organizer in Baltimore, said, “The incumbent members of the City Council are giving themselves raises … while in these neighborhoods people are being laid off from their jobs and left with no visible means of supporting themselves and their families.” Shakir noted that the mayor and the council have voted to close schools and libraries in poor, working-class and minority neighborhoods. At the same time, he said, they are financing the expansion of libraries and other facilities in wealthier parts of the city.

These glaring inequalities are fueling an electoral fightback, the first round of which will be fought on primary election day, Sept. 9, one of the earliest in the nation.

Carl Stokes is running for president of the City Council against the incumbent, Sheila Dixon. Stokes is African American, as is almost 70 percent of the people of Baltimore, and is focusing his campaign on the needs of the working class and poor.

Wendy Foy, an ACORN board member and candidate for City Council from the 9th District, is opposing the incumbent, Agnes Welsh. Foy told the World, “I’m running for City Council because I am dedicated to changing our community. I’m dedicated to getting rid of vacant, boarded-up houses, which endanger nearby houses and are used by drug dealers.”

Addressing the bigger economic forces at work, Foy said, “I’m opposed to the laying off of city workers and other workers in this city. I’m opposed to paying them a mere minimum wage instead of a real living wage, while the CEOs of major corporations receive salaries into the billions every year.”

Charlie Metz is running for City Council in the 10th District. He told the World, “I am sick and tired of services being provided only for the wealthy, privileged few. The working-class citizens in the poor, minority neighborhood have really been forgotten.”

Willie Ray, president of Baltimore ACORN, is from Park Heights in Northwest Baltimore. Ray noted that the present mayor and many City Council members are getting big campaign contributions from big business interests in the city. He told the World, “We, the working people of Baltimore, both Black and white, don’t have that kind of money, but we have rights.”

The author can be reached at

The path to Californias future

Fri, 29 Aug 2003 02:45:00 +0000

The Bush administration needs California to win the 2004 presidential elections. The grand prize will be its large number of Electoral College votes in the winner-take-all elections – California has the most electoral votes in the nation. In the last presidential elections California voters overwhelmingly voted for Al Gore. Bush political advisor Karl Rove has said that he believes California can be won for Bush this time.

In order for Bush to win California two things must take place.

First, the Republicans, with the assistance of the Bush administration, must make inroads into the current Democratic-controlled state legislature.

Second, the Republicans need to increase the Latino voter turnout in their favor and convert Latino voters to the Republican Party.

The Republicans and the Bush administration have already started to implement the Rove/Bush take-back-California plan.

The Bush people realize that both houses of the California legislature are controlled by the Democrats. In addition, the Democrats have a structural advantage in the top-of-the-ticket election contests. Every statewide position is held by a Democrat.

To accomplish the takeback of California the Republicans have sponsored a recall election against the twice elected and current governor, Gray Davis.

Republican Rep. Darrel Issa spent $2.96 million to get the recall on the ballot for an Oct. 7 special election that will cost taxpayers $60 million.

The recall effort has given the Republicans the opportunity to attack the Democrats in the state legislature as solely responsible for the budget crisis over the $38 billion state deficit. The Republicans are now using a pro-corporate message to attack Democrats as anti-business. For this reason they have blamed the Democrats for the state’s high unemployment, high taxes and what they call “out of control” worker benefits, based on the Democrats’ support for pro-labor issues such as prevailing wage, worker compensation, paid family leave, better health and safety rules and daily overtime.

Not surprisingly, nowhere in the Republican message is mention made of the Bush administration’s anti-worker economic policies, the effect of foreign trade policies such as NAFTA or the Enron/Bush administration scandal, and of course there is no mention of the war with Iraq, all of which have contributed to the budget crisis.

With the recall just weeks away, right-wing candidates such as Arnold Schwarzenegger, who is now running as a “moderate,” and Tom McClintock, a staunchly conservative Republican state senator, have qualified for the ballot, as well as literally dozens of other candidates. The top Republican candidates march in line with the Bush administration, and their message is clear: Now is the time to take back California.

The only Democratic candidate will be Lt. Gov. Cruz Bustamante. His candidacy may secure the Latino vote for the Democrats. This will present a problem for the Republicans in their efforts to increase Latino participation in favor of their party. In addition, another problem for the Republicans will be California labor. The California State AFL-CIO held a special convention this week to map strategy for blocking a Republican takeover of the state. This will have a major impact on the recall election.

The Republicans need to gain more votes from Latinos if they are to win California. In the last presidential elections they received about 27 percent of the Latino vote in California.

Over the past decade Latinos have had a net increase of about 1.1 million voters in California. By contrast, there has been a net decline of about 100,000 white non-Hispanic voters in the state, according to a Field Institute report.

Democrats outnumber Republicans among Latino voters in the state 3-to-1. Sixty percent of registered Latinos are registered as Democrats, 22 percent are registered as Republicans, and about 18 percent are nonpartisan or registered with another party.

Overall, there are approximately four million Latinos living in Los Angeles County, constituting over 40 percent of the total California Latino population and 12.5 percent of the nation’s Latino populace. There is no secret why the Republicans and the Bush administration are actively courting the Latino voters. The Bush people are aware of this tremendous growth and change in Southern California. Latino outreach and conversion is part of the take-back-California plan by the Bush administration and the Republican Party.

Beating back the right-wing anti-worker attack on California will take an all peoples’ front with labor, community and other progressives working to repel this attack with strength, coordination and resolve. The direction of the all peoples’ front will determine not just the outcome of the recall election, but the path of California’s future.

David Trujillo is a union organizer in Los Angeles. He can be reached at pww@pww.org

Yale strikers draw national support

Fri, 29 Aug 2003 02:13:00 +0000

News Analysis NEW HAVEN, Conn. – As picket lines went up at Yale University and its affiliated hospital Aug. 27, striking workers were electrified by the news that eight union retirees had occupied the university’s investment offices. Denied food, water and bathroom facilities for five hours by Yale police, the retirees – all in their seventies – held their ground, protesting poverty-level pensions. They were joined overnight by Rev. Jesse Jackson and Hotel Employees and Restaurant Employees President John Wilhelm, with union members standing vigil outside.

Jackson connected the action to the national struggle by seniors to save Medicare and Social Security and for affordable prescription drugs. At a negotiating session days before the strike, one of the retirees declared, “I’m going to fight you Yale, until there is no breath left in my body.”

Yale workers walked out this week after two years of fruitless negotiations for a new contract. The immediate issues are pensions, wages and job security. The strike has national implications.

Attacks on workers’ rights and living standards by the Bush administration and big corporations set the stage for this battle. Yale University has openly referred to the climate of layoffs and takebacks as justification for its tough bargaining. The resistance of Yale workers to this offensive is giving inspiration to unions and working-class communities across the country.

Yale, a leader in producing national political leaders and CEOs, is also a leader in running a university like a multinational corporation, including high executive compensation, increased use of subcontracting and outsourcing, and an aggressive anti-union stance. Yale’s record of forcing nine strikes in 38 years is unmatched, and the university has taken the lead in encouraging other universities to deny graduate teachers the right to organize.

According to the unions, Yale is “a model of the new post-industrial company town. One out of four jobs in New Haven is a Yale job. Yale sets the labor market for the entire area and enjoys tremendous economic and political power in one of the nation’s poorest cities.” Large educational-medical complexes have emerged as the dominant economic force throughout urban America, they say, and the strike’s outcome “will determine and be an example to the nation as to whether this new economy will provide decent livings and security for people of every occupation.”

The unions and their allies have developed an innovative and inclusive organizing model. “Never before have such a seemingly disparate group of workers of a single employer joined together for a common goal,” says labor historian David Montgomery.

The union workers, in three locals of two international unions, are united in the Federation of Hospital and University Employees. Representing service and maintenance, clerical and technical, and hospital food service workers, the leadership and members of the three unions work closely together and have a common strategy for winning new contracts.

Also part of the struggle are 2,000 workers at Yale New Haven Hospital and graduate student teachers at Yale, each seeking union recognition. Other unions are lending their support, too.

An unprecedented movement has emerged, bringing together many church denominations, social clubs, elected officials and community leaders. This multiracial movement for a “social contract” between Yale and New Haven calls for hiring and upgrading the jobs of Latino and African American residents, and increasing Yale’s contribution to the city. Local organizing for the Immigrant Workers’ Freedom Ride have brought graduate teachers and researchers at Yale, hundreds of whom come from other countries, together with thousands of Latino immigrants in New Haven. Very few immigrants get hired into union jobs by Yale, and instead have to work for low-wage, low-benefit, non-union subcontractors that Yale increasingly uses.

There is a remarkable coming together in New Haven – an awareness extending from the neighborhoods up into City Hall, that the city’s interests lie with the Yale workers. At a rally held 36 hours before the strike deadline, HERE Local 35 officer Virginia Henry summed it up: “We have no choice but to fight.”

The author can be reached at pww@pww.org

Support the Peoples Weekly World/Nuestro Mundo

Fri, 29 Aug 2003 01:59:00 +0000

Sept. 1 is Labor Day, a holiday that is too seldom a real celebration of workers and their contributions to society. We’ve chosen Labor Day to be the kick-off of the annual Fund Drive as a way to honor the kind of people whose struggles the PWW/Mundo covers in every issue. This year’s fund drive, an essential requirement for maintaining and expanding our work, has a goal of raising $200,000 by Dec. 15 – a fraction of what it costs to produce the every year.

We are often exhorted to “invest wisely.” But the best investment isn’t in the stock market, or the bond market, or the commodity futures market – the best investment is in a paper that speaks truth to power, that takes the side of us regular folks, that prints the news media conglomerates see fit to ignore.

The best use for some of your hard earned dollars is to guarantee the expansion of the .

We need your contributions so we can help make change. Other newspapers report news; our paper helps people make news. Other papers try to hide their support for the right wing and super-rich; our paper is proudly partisan, taking the side of workers, poor people, and all who want peace, justice, equality, and socialism.

In too many newspapers, you read White House and Pentagon press releases, reported as if they were news. Why bother with editorials that do little more than promote the corporate agenda?

Instead, why not support and, if you haven’t already, subscribe to what many have called the best labor paper in the country? Read the most incisive editorials, written with passion and working class partisanship, and get inspired by stories of picketlines, demonstrations, and struggles.

Help the to expand our coverage and distribution – donate today!

Send checks or money orders made out to Long View Publishing to 235 West 23rd St., New York, NY 10011 with your name and address or use the coupon below.

Tragedy strikes the Baraka family

Fri, 22 Aug 2003 08:29:00 +0000

On Aug. 13 the city of Newark, N.J., woke up to the shocking news of the death of Shani Baraka, 31. Shani is the daughter of Amiri Baraka, award-winning playwright, civil rights and political activist, and his wife, Amina Baraka, poet, political activist and writer for the People’s Weekly World. Shani’s brother, Ras Baraka, is presently the deputy mayor of Newark.

Shani Baraka was killed with her friend, Rayshon Holmes, 30, in a double murder on Aug. 12 at her sister’s house in Piscataway, N.J. Both women died of gunshot wounds. Police are investigating.

Shani was a schoolteacher and a basketball coach who was dearly loved by her students, colleagues, friends, and many more people throughout the city of Newark.

On Aug. 16 more than a thousand people attended Shani’s funeral at the Metropolitan Baptist Church in Newark, which testifies to the love and respect the Baraka family enjoys among the people of the city for their dedicated commitment and struggle in defense of people’s civil and political rights.

The Communist Party of New Jersey has released a statement that said, “We are deeply saddened by this senseless tragedy, and express our deepest sympathy and condolences to Amina, Amiri, Ras and the entire Baraka family.”

– Bahman Azad

Who is Hugo Chavez?

Fri, 22 Aug 2003 08:17:00 +0000

I have to admit, before I saw this film, I’d only followed the situation in Venezuela on a cursory level. I knew Hugo Chavez was better than the presidents who had preceded him in Venezuela, but I had also bought some of the pervasive right-wing propaganda against him. After seeing The Revolution Will Not Be Televised, I’ve become a believer in Chavez and the Bolivarian Revolution in Venezuela.

President Chavez seems to be a quite ordinary, working class person of color – but also an extraordinary leader. His first comments captured on film after he was returned to the Presidential Palace after the coup were something like, “I knew that we, the people, would win.” It wasn’t about him. It was about what the will of the majority wanted. It was about what the constitution demanded.

His first broadcast to the people of Venezuela after the coup was directed toward calm and reconciliation. This was amazing for me to see. If he was as brutal as U.S. media portrayed him, he would have incited his followers to go after those who supported the coup. Instead, he said to those who dissented, “go ahead and disagree with me.” No squashing of dissent there. Quite a contrast from the restricted freedom of the press known for decades under the ruling oligarchy of Venezuela.

The film has a number of candid moments with Chavez. One of the most striking was his recalling his grandfather, who was deemed a “killer” by his grandmother. As Chavez studied who his grandfather was, he found out he was not killer – he was a revolutionary. And that is what Chavez has striven to be.

A terrific documentary by Irish film-makers who happened to be in the middle of their production during the coup shows once again that we can’t trust the corporate media.

– Todd Tollefson (commiett@yahoo.com)

The 1937 Memorial Day Massacre: A community remembers

Fri, 22 Aug 2003 08:12:00 +0000

On Memorial Day 1937, hundreds of steelworkers and supporters, led by the Steel Workers Organizing Committee, attempted a peaceful picket of Republic Steel in Chicago. They were met by several hundred Chicago police who, unprovoked, charged the demonstration with billy clubs, tear gas and pistols. When the dust settled, ten picketers were dead and dozens wounded.

Sixty-six years later capitalist globalization has not been kind to Chicago’s southeast side community. The mighty Republic Steel works (later LTV) is now down to a handful of workers from a spin-off operation of this once great South Chicago mill.

Out of years of struggle, and surmounting many obstacles, including the 1937 police violence, steelworkers built a proud union at Republic, Local 1033 of the United Steelworkers of America (USWA). The union and thousands of Republic workers and their families were the backbone of this community.

Local 1033 built a beautiful union hall right across the street from the mill and the meadow where the Memorial Day Massacre took place. They named it Memorial Hall and placed a plaque with the names of those killed on a monument in front. The union was – and is – determined to remember those who fought to build the union. Memorial Hall played a tremendous role in the community, not just with union meetings, but with weddings, parties, clubs, political rallies and much more.

But with global restructuring destroying jobs, and the mill down to next to nothing, Local 1033 has been forced to sell the union hall. Fortunately, the new owner – the Southeast United Methodist Youth and Community Center – cares about the community and about the steelworkers’ heritage.

This past week a play based on those 1937 events was produced at Memorial Hall for three performances. What a treat!

Unfriendly Fire is an original play that tells the “Massacre” story. It is based on historical record dramatized to show the deliberation of the steelworkers as they convinced themselves of the need for a union.

The production, acting, and sets were all magnificent – a real work of art. There were no professional actors. Victor Storino, the last president of Local 1033, and Ed Sadlowski, a former district director of this region of the USWA, both had important roles in the play as actors and in its production. Many other steelworkers and family members also starred in the play.

Special note should be made of Steve Castro, a retired steelworker, who wrote a moving poem that he read at the end of the play celebrating the courage and determination of those 1937 marchers.

Rev Zaki L. Zaki, the director of the community center, told the audience that he had made an ironclad agreement with the steelworkers to preserve their heritage and the memory of the Memorial Day Massacre. He said producing the play was part of that commitment. “Look around you now,” Zaki said, “Note all the children and young people. This is how their heritage and history will be passed on.”

I loved every minute of the play and the community this production highlighted.

The author can be reached at scott@rednet.org

PWW/NM a hit at Bud Billiken parade

Fri, 22 Aug 2003 03:44:00 +0000

CHICAGO – The Bud Billiken parade, this city’s biggest parade and the largest gathering of African Americans in the country, has been held every year since 1929. It was started by the late Robert S. Abbott, founding publisher of the Chicago Defender newspaper, as a tribute to youth and the struggle against racism.

The parade is named after Bud Billiken, a mythical figure who serves as a guardian angel over children and who welcomes them back to school after their summer vacation.

This year’s parade on Aug. 9 featured hundreds of floats, marching bands, baton-twirlers, elected officials, and an enthusiastic audience of over one million people on Chicago’s south side.

Carolyn Black was among them. Black, a member of the Illinois bureau of the People’s Weekly World, was helping staff a table sponsored by the PWW, the Communist Party of Illinois, and the Young Communist League.

“Despite the fact that the vast majority of people are of African American descent, there is a growing Latino and Asian contingent in the parade,” Black said. She said she’s invariably inspired each year by “the very large number of talented youth who participate in the parade,” notwithstanding the heavy presence of corporate, military-related, and politician-sponsored floats.

The PWW has been a part of the parade for as long as anyone can remember, she said.

The literature table, a bee-hive of activity during the parade, was staffed by a multi-racial group of members and friends of the Communist Party and the YCL. It was located under a bright a red canopy with a huge banner reading “Push Bush out the door in 2004!”

“The banner attracted a constant flow of people to our table who agreed with our slogan,” said Black. A variety of progressive and Marxist literature on the table was picked up by the parade-goers, and people were encouraged to register to vote.

Nearby a group of volunteer PWW distributors, including CPUSA district organizer John Bachtell and PWW editor Terrie Albano, handed out over 3,000 copies of the Aug. 9 issue, which bore the headline “More jobs, less bull!” That headline was very popular with the crowd, they said. Unemployment is pervasive in Chicago, as is dislike for George W. Bush.

YCL members helped distribute the newspaper, too. Celica Vasquez said that she was encouraged by seeing “a lot of people working together.” Megan Marshall commented, “This is where the youth can have fun.” Brandi and Neil also worked hard to get the papers into the hands of the crowd.

During the parade I met David, who said “I still have the last paper I got from you last year. As soon as I get my act together I will take out a subscription.” Delores Pittman of Gary, Ind., told the World that she has 27 grandchildren and four great grandchildren. Originally from Chicago, she said, “I was in one of the first Bud Billiken parades when I was a little girl. I was a baton twirler from my church. I’ve been coming here a long time, but never have I seen so many people in Washington Park. This is our day!”

The author can be reached at cpilance1@aol.com

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Iraq blast sparks call for UN to take charge

Fri, 22 Aug 2003 01:34:00 +0000

A deadly bomb explosion at the United Nations headquarters in Baghdad Aug. 19 sparked calls for a stronger UN role in Iraq and a rapid end to the U.S. occupation. The attack killed 20 people including the chief UN representative to Iraq, Sergio Vieira de Mello, a Brazilian who had been the UN commissioner for human rights. The UN office was destroyed by the blast and 100 people were wounded. A UN spokesperson said the UN had depended on the U.S. for the building’s security.

Russia’s foreign ministry said the attack proved that the international community must become more heavily involved in restoring order in Iraq.

“The UN is paying a price for the U.S. occupation,” Phyllis Bennis of the Institute for Policy Studies told the World. UN members overwhelmingly opposed the U.S. war, she noted. The Bush administration had to fight to get the UN to agree to “a kind of partial legitimation” of the U.S. occupation, and then refused to give the UN any real authority in Iraq. The solution, she said, is for the U.S. to get out of Iraq, to be replaced a truly international UN-led peacekeeping force and an infusion of money to enable Iraqis to rebuild their country.

Steven Zunes, a Middle East expert at the University of San Francisco, told the World the attack makes the case even stronger for turning authority for Iraq over to the UN “as a genuine UN trusteeship.” He called the attack on UN humanitarian workers “particularly tragic and ironic” because they have been among the most outspoken opponents of the U.S. war and occupation.

Just days earlier, The New York Times reported that the

Bush administration had dropped the idea of allowing the UN a bigger role, insisting on retaining sole control over Iraq. According to the Times, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld “vehemently opposes any dilution of U.S. military authority.”

But the administration is facing heavy domestic pressure, including from U.S. troops themselves, to bring American soldiers home quickly. And U.S. occupation head L. Paul Bremer said last week that the money needed for Iraq over the next four years would be “staggering.” Some estimate the amount at tens of billions of dollars.

A meeting of possible “donor” countries is planned for Oct. 24 in Madrid. But France, Germany, Russia and other key countries, who have their own interests in the region, have said they will not contribute funds unless the UN has more say in Iraq’s reconstruction.

France, India and others have refused to send troops without greater UN authority over peacekeeping efforts. Currently 139,000 U.S. soldiers and 20,000 British troops are in Iraq. Other countries that have sent handfuls of troops are Albania, the Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Georgia, Hungary, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Macedonia, the Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Romania, Slovakia, Spain and Ukraine – all serve under U.S./British command.

Last week, blasts destroyed Iraq’s main oil pipeline to Turkey and a Baghdad water main. Also, a Reuters journalist filming outside a U.S.-run prison in Baghdad was shot and killed by U.S. soldiers, sparking international protests.

With U.S. troops and Iraqis being killed and injured daily, President Bush backtracked on his May 1 photo-op statement that combat in Iraq had ended.

In an Aug. 14 interview with the Armed Forces Radio and Television Service, Bush interrupted the interviewer to insist that his much-publicized aircraft carrier speech referred to “major military operations” but not to “combat operations.”

“Because we still have combat operations going on,” Bush blathered. “It’s a different kind of combat mission, but, nevertheless, it’s combat, just ask the kids that are over there killing and being shot at.”

In an apparent damage control effort, a White House spokesman said Bush was not making a distinction between combat and military operations, according to the Washington Post.

In the same interview Bush claimed the U.S. military presence in Afghanistan is being “gradually replaced” by other troops. “We’ve got about 10,000 troops there, which is down from, obviously, major combat operations,” he said. In fact, the 10,000 U.S. troops are the largest number of U.S. soldiers in Afghanistan since the war there began.

Bush also said Poland will send a “major contingent” of troops to Iraq. In reality, Poland has agreed to send 2,400 troops, and the Pentagon will pay much of the cost.

As the administration continues to play fast and loose with the truth, 112 members of Congress have signed on as co-sponsors of Rep. Henry Waxman’s (D-Calif.) bill to establish an independent commission to investigate the evidence Bush used to make the case for war. MoveOn, Win Without War, and United for Peace and Justice have launched a grassroots lobbying campaign on this issue.

The author can be reached at suewebb@pww.org

Celebrating the life of Nelson Brown

Fri, 15 Aug 2003 07:35:00 +0000

The work and life of Nelson Brown, Sr., who died on July 25, was celebrated at a memorial service recently at Philadelphia’s Canaan Baptist Church with family, friends, community leaders, and comrades from the Eastern Pennsylvania and Delaware district of the Communist Party USA. He was 77.

A message of condolences was received from the Philadelphia City Council.

Nelson Brown’s life was dedicated to the struggle for African American equality, peace, jobs and working-class unity. He was a community activist and longtime leader of the CPUSA in Eastern Pennsylvania, serving on its district board for many years.

Nelson loved the People’s Weekly World/Nuestro Mundo and distributed it for decades. When walking and standing became too difficult, he delivered small bundles of the paper to stores and institutions in the neighborhood.

Born on July 31, 1925, in Roanoke Rapids, N.C., Nelson Brown survived three bouts with cancer, the first causing him to lose a leg at age eleven. In spite of his health challenges, Nelson was admired for his pleasant personality and hard work.

Nelson was also dedicated to his loving family – his wife of 52 years, Florine, and their five children and 10 grandchildren. He enjoyed working in the garden. He was an avid reader and was always ready to debate political issues. “We will celebrate Nelson’s life by continuing the struggle for a better world,” said Rita Perna, CPUSA district organizer, at the service.

Woody Guthrie: This Machine Kills Fascists

Fri, 15 Aug 2003 07:30:00 +0000

I have decided long ago that my songs and ballads would not get the hugs and kisses of the capitalistic “experts.”

– Woody Guthrie

Though the Left of the United States has always celebrated the arts, it initially tended to do so via the products of European socialists. It was not until the latter 1930s that cultural organizers and critics began to look closer at the home-grown songs, theater, poetry, dance and visual art that would define this nation’s creativity. It was only in this period that there was a diligent search for, in the words of Daily Worker writer Mike Gold, “a Communist Joe Hill.”

Woodrow Wilson Guthrie was born in Okemah, Okla., on July 14, 1912. His home was a musical one and he grew up listening to the local high-lonesome sound as well as the church music of both African Americans and whites. He was also moved by the customs, the dialects and the plight of the Native Americans living in his community. At a young age he began performing old-time and devotional songs, but he would, with the passage of time, become the prototypical protest singer. Guthrie, by virtue of his heritage and formidable skill, established the connection between pre-existing folk songs and one’s own contemporary issue-oriented topical music.

Woody was among the migrants who climbed out of the Dust Bowl, but he brought a series of original songs with him that catalogued the sights and emotions of the time that have since become legendary: “So Long, It’s Been Good To Know You,” “I’m Blowin’ Down This Old Dusty Road,” and “Talkin’ Dust Bowl Blues,” among many others. Like many migrants, he eventually moved to California. However, instead of struggling in fruit orchards, he became a performer on radio where he played many of his Dust Bowl numbers as well as other songs that were humorous, sad, sweet and homey. And somehow in this mix there was one called “Mr. Tom Mooney Is Free,” his 1939 composition about the labor activist Mooney, a cause célèbre in Left circles, who’d been wrongly imprisoned for 22 years.

Woody’s song was a shock to Ed Robbin, a California Communist Party leader who had a radio show that aired just after Woody’s. Guthrie – lanky, back-woods, often unkempt – stood in sharp contrast to most Party cultural workers. So Robbin’s invitation to Woody to perform his song at the gathering to welcome Mooney home was not made without hesitation. Yet Woody soon became a Left celebrity in his own right.

Following several months of performing work for Party events and left-wing unions, Woody headed east (at the insistence of actor Will Geer, whom he performed with in California at so many Party-based functions). It has been well-documented that during this winter trip across country, via hitchhiking and boxcar-jumping, Guthrie wrote the prototype for his anthem, “This Land is Your Land.” Originally called “God Blessed America,” the song was a biting protest response to the smash hit Irving Berlin song, “God Bless America.”

Viewed by most as the model for summer camp sing-alongs, “This Land is Your Land” began its life in 1939 as Woody came to experience the lingering Great Depression in its overwhelming depth. Guthrie saw that at least one-third of the people (according to official figures), if not more, remained ill-fed, ill-housed and ill-clothed.

The greatest irony was that the Irving Berlin hit blared from every roadside juke joint, every neighborhood tavern and every living room radio set. As Woody observed the destitute masses in the streets and on the railways, the need for a musical response grew within him. The song’s often bitter and sardonic verses told of the ravages of poverty, but also spoke of beauty of our nation. Woody wrote of a world that could be – should be – shared by all. Most notably, the song contained a bold stanza pointing toward socialism:

Was a big high wall there that tried to stop me A sign atop it said ‘Private Property’ But on the other side it didn’t say nothing That side was made for you and me.

Though his activism has never been questioned, Guthrie’s formal connection to the Communist Party has long been debated. While some writers have stated that Woody was never an accepted member of the Communist Party, his daughter Nora (director of the Woody Guthrie Foundation and Archives) has reported that, indeed, he was.

Further, Sis Cunningham reported that the Almanac Singers, of which both she and Woody were members in the early ’40s, joined the Party together. Apparently, he held membership but was categorized as one of the Party’s cultural workers. Although they were an important part of organizing and outreach, some CP artists were not always that tightly organized into the Party’s structure. Woody wrote:

I drew pen sketches for the People’s World and learned all I could from the speeches and debates, forums, picnics, where famous labor leaders spoke. I heard William Z. Foster, Mother Bloor, [Elizabeth] Gurley Flynn, Blackie Myers. I heard most all of them and played my songs on their platforms.

In the period leading up to and during the Second World War, Woody’s songs were infused with a militant spirit of anti-fascism.

Woody was a mainstay in the New York City Communist Party in the 1940s and 1950s. In addition to working as a performer, he wrote a Daily Worker/People’s World column for many years, “Woody Sez,” and was known to volunteer as a sign and placard painter (actually, his first profession). While Guthrie’s reputation is often that of a cliché hobo singer, his personal writings, songs, and columns tell a vastly different story.

Woody Guthrie would go on to write a series of ballads about labor martyrs Sacco and Vanzetti, a classic about undocumented Mexican migratory workers (“Deportee: The Plane Wreck at Los Gatos”), songs and poems about the atom bomb, the homeless, oppressed women, several albums of thoughtful children’s songs, and a daring piece which spoke frankly of how Jesus Christ was a grave danger to the wealthy power structure of his time – and of ours.

By the middle 1950s, the effects of Huntington’s Chorea would steal Woody’s ability to make and perform music, but his legacy was already secured. He succumbed to the disease on Oct. 3, 1967.

Woody had dedicated his life to the cause of socialism and the role of the cultural worker. There has been no artist, before or since, more deserving of carrying a guitar adorned with the warning: “This Machine Kills Fascists.”

– John Pietaro (leftmus@aol.com)

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Fri, 15 Aug 2003 03:30:00 +0000

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Big fight takes shape in California recall

Fri, 15 Aug 2003 02:14:00 +0000

OAKLAND – While front-running Republican gubernatorial contender Arnold Schwarzenegger dominates the airways with cute sound bites, organized labor and other people’s movements are vigorously gathering their forces to oppose California’s special recall election Oct. 7.

“This is personal! They are out to get your wages, your pensions, your health benefits,” Bill Camp, Sacramento Central Labor Council executive secretary, told a spirited crowd of more than 125 trade union activists gathered in Sacramento on Aug. 9. Camp was speaking at the fifth in a series of training workshops being held statewide entitled Workers Against Recall, or WAR. The State Building and Construction Trades Council of California, in cooperation with central labor councils and the California Labor Federation, is sponsoring the sessions.

Dorothea Revell, NAACP California state secretary, blasted the recall as “a clown act” with serious consequences for democracy and the people. Two hundred forty-seven candidates have entered the race for governor in the event Democratic Gov. Gray Davis is recalled by a majority of the voters. The number of certified candidates was unknown at press time.

If the recall passes, a replacement to Davis could be installed with as little as 10 to 20 percent of the vote, since only a plurality, not a majority of voters is needed to elect.

“Why spend $35 [to $70] million to do a recall instead of putting it in the schools to teach our children,” Revell told the World in an Aug. 12 phone interview. Revell said the NAACP and the AFL-CIO constituency groups are sponsoring California appearances by NAACP leaders Kweisi Mfume and Julian Bond against both the recall and Proposition 54, “Classification by Race, Ethnicity, Color, or National Origin Initiative,” to help mobilize massive voter registration, education and get out the vote drives.

“Arnold is out there smiling,” Sofia Mendoza, longtime San Jose community activist, told the World in a phone interview, “but I’m sick of hearing him talk about how much money he has while avoiding the critical issues affecting working people’s lives.”

The economy in the Silicon Valley, where San Jose is located, is in shambles, largely due to “Bush administration big business policies,” which Schwarzenegger is expected to emulate for California, she said.

Meanwhile, it was former Republican Gov. Pete Wilson, Schwarzenegger’s campaign chairman, who stood in for the multi-millionaire actor in last weekend’s news talk shows. Despised by organized labor, minority groups and others, during his tenure as governor Wilson overturned daily overtime pay regulations, prevailing wage guarantees in construction, pushed through electricity deregulation, which later led to the monopoly-created energy crisis during Davis’ tenure, and successfully promoted Propositions 187 against immigrants and 209 against affirmative action. He also pushed anti-union proposition 226, which failed. Wilson’s top advisors and staff have all taken top posts in the Schwarzenegger campaign.

While Schwarzenegger initially made much about someone like himself, an immigrant (from Austria) making it big in America, under public pressure this week the actor revealed he voted for Prop. 187, which denied undocumented immigrants and their children, including those born in the U.S., the right to public education, social services and democratic rights.

“How can an immigrant have voted for it?” Mendoza asked, “Where’s this guy’s head?”

Speaking to the labor activists, Sacramento’s Camp was more blunt: “Pete Wilson’s head is on the Terminator’s body,” he quipped.

“It’s not about Davis,” Judy Goff, executive secretary treasurer of the Alameda County Central Labor Council, told the World, Aug. 11, in a phone interview. “It’s about a narrow right-wing agenda pushed by an extremist part of the Republican Party that wants to recall daily overtime, prevailing wages, small class size and public schools, the new paid family leave law [first in the country], and other very positive legislation,” she said. These gains were won by organized labor and its allies after a Republican right-wing governor was replaced with Democrat Davis and both chambers of the state legislature went into Democratic hands.

At the same time, Goff said, “It’s a disgusting power ploy” aimed to install a Republican governor who “they see as helpful in the 2004 presidential elections.”

Labor, civil rights, women, environmental and other major progressive social groups, along with the Democratic Party and independent activists generally, vigorously oppose the recall. However, there are differing views over whether to support a major candidate running to replace Davis as governor in case the recall passes, and, if so, who.

The California Labor Federation, which is energetically focusing on a “no” vote on the recall and strong opposition to Prop. 54, has called a Recall Election Special Convention on Aug. 26 to mobilize its affiliates. Whether or not to endorse a candidate is also on the agenda.

The authors can be reached at ncalview@igc.org

Lou Diskin, Marxist educator, working-class activist

Fri, 08 Aug 2003 03:26:00 +0000

Lou Diskin, Communist and long-time working class activist, died July 28 at the age of 84. Lou was a carpenter, book publisher and seller, educator, and political leader. He was admired for his wisdom, modest character, deep concern for the well-being of all around him, and his daily humorous story. He was well-read in literature as well as politics.

Lou Diskin was born October 28, 1918 to poor, Jewish working-class parents in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. The family lived in a fourth floor walk-up, cold water tenement flat.

During those Depression years, Lou listened to Socialist and Communist Party neighborhood street corner speakers. In response to a speech by Socialist Party leader Norman Thomas, Lou and a buddy went to the Communist Party office and joined the Young Communist League. They were assigned to build the first YCL club in Williamsburg. Within a couple years their work resulted in 1,300 YCL members in that community.

After graduating from Alexander Hamilton High School, Lou had to go to work. Some of his many different jobs in factories and construction were short-lived, because he was fired for helping organize a union.

Lou first met Bernice Blohm, a Queens YCL activist, at a YCL dance. Bernice loved to dance. Lou soon became her partner, co-worker, and friend for life. They devoted their lives, from their teenage years on, to the fight for a better world and socialism.

Within weeks of their marriage in 1941, Lou left for Europe to fight fascism. He landed on Omaha Beach D-Day + 1. He fought all across Europe, participating in the link-up at the Elbe with the Soviet Army. During the Battle of the Bulge, Lou won the Bronze Star, with two citations for bravery under fire. He also received a battlefield commission as a second lieutenant.

Shortly after returning from the war, Lou worked with the newly-formed World Federation of Democratic Youth in Prague. Upon returning to the U.S. Lou was active in the American Youth for Democracy and Young Progressives of America and then served in the leadership of the Labor Youth League.

At the request of the Party, Lou took a number of organizing assignments. From 1951 to 1969, Lou and Bernice lived in Chicago. There, Lou worked with the 600 Party members who were workers in the meat packing industry.

Later in Chicago, Lou was manager of the Modern Bookstore. Always imaginative and creative in his work, he took the bookstore to young people rather than waiting for them to come to it. During those years, Lou often spoke on campuses, challenging the anti-communist laws of that time that prohibited Communists from doing so.

From 1969-1972, Lou and Bernice lived in Los Angeles, where Lou served as the district organizer of the Southern California district of the Communist Party. In 1972, Lou and Bernice returned to New York where he was head of International Publishers. Lou brought new approaches to broadening IP’s book list and distribution.

In 1982, Lou helped expand the Communist Party’s Education Department beyond inner-Party education and public Marxist schools to work among academics, cultural work, and mass education through audio-visual means, literature, and presentation of the history of the CPUSA.

In 1992, during the period of great turmoil in the U.S. and world Communist movements, Lou and Bernice reluctantly left the Party they had loved and joined the Committees of Correspondence for Democracy and Socialism. Without cutting off their recent associations, the Diskins rejoined the Communist Party in 2001, impressed by the soundness of its policy of all people’s unity to defeat the ultra-right Bush administration and Congress and by its progress on many fronts.

During the last years of his life, Lou worked on Marxist education programs, a study of the economy and politics of New York City, and U.S.-China friendship efforts. He also worked on an ad hoc committee which produced an affirmative action ad in the New York Times signed by 900 leading personalities, including five Nobel Laureates and national figures in the labor, civil rights, religious and academic communities. After returning to the Communist Party, despite illness, Lou spared no effort to help the Party as he could.

Lou is survived by Bernice, who has always been active in community struggles, especially those of tenants and in the cultural field.

– Daniel Rubin (pww@pww.org)