People Before Profit blog

Senator Allens monkeyshines

Tue, 22 Aug 2006 04:54:00 +0000

Mel Gibson drove drunk and, when stopped by a traffic cop, slurred some anti-Semitic slurs. Some defended him thus: “it was just the liquor talking.” Trouble is, liquor does not talk, but people do, and as the old Romans said, “in vino veritas” — what we blurt out when drunk may well be what we really think, at other times suppressed by our inhibitions.

As far as I can tell (I was not there), U.S. Sen. George Allen (R-Va.) was stone cold sober last Friday when he managed to call an opposition supporter of South Asian extraction a monkey. Since Allen not only wants to be re-elected to the Senate (over Democrat challenger Jim Webb), but is thought to be interested in running for president in 2008, he had better get his story straight. If it wasn’t the liquor talking, what was it, Senator? And why did you say “Welcome to America” to a man who was born and raised in Fairfax County, Virginia? Could it be that he was the only non-white person within sight?

What happened was that S. R. Sidarth, a young man who was born in Virginia and is of South Asian extraction, was attending an Allen campaign event as an observer and photographer for Webb. Seeing him in the crowd, Sen. Allen called him “Mr. Macaca” and said “Welcome to America.”

“Macaca” is the Latin name for a genus of monkeys found mostly in Asia and Africa. The famous “Gibraltar apes” are not actually apes but are one of the macaca monkey species. So are the cute “snow monkeys” of Japan, and the rhesus monkeys from India, so often used in scientific research. These monkeys are more often called “macaques” (from the French) when referred to in English by people who can tell one kind of monkey from another. I, like many people, happen to like monkeys and am interested in their evolutionary relationship to people. But most people can tell the difference between monkeys and people. Sen. Allen probably can too.

Allen now claims that he did not know that “macaca” meant a kind of monkey. He was just making up nonsense words, perhaps in emulation of the current White House incumbent, who has graced our language with wonders like 'misunderestimate.' Supporters said that Allen was referring to Sidarth’s “Mohawk” haircut because “macaca” sort of sounds like “Mohawk” (it doesn’t, and Sidarth does not have a Mohawk haircut). Or maybe the senator was just riffing on the word “caca.” Whether he was calling Sidarth monkey or excrement, it was equally ugly. That he added the pseudo-friendly “Welcome to America,” addressed to someone born only a couple of hundred miles from where the speech was made, gives away the motivation. If Sidarth had been named Smith and were blue-eyed, blonde-haired and pink-skinned, would Sen. Allen have said, “Welcome to America” to him? When he is on the campaign trail, does he usually greet potential voters with “Welcome to America”? I think not.

This year, the Republican plan for re-election includes baiting and bashing immigrants. This is supposed to deflect public anger away from the manifold abject failures and crimes of the Bush administration, including the Iraq war, Hurricane Katrina, and the failure to address any of the real economic and social problems this country faces. Allen has been participating fully in this mean-spirited scapegoating game — more, for example, than Virginia’s other Republican senator, John Warner. The racist content of the anti-immigrant movement is clear for all to see. It is dark-complected immigrants from Latin America, the Middle East, Asia and Africa, not those from Europe or Canada, who are being portrayed as contaminating our culture, stealing our jobs, bankrupting our social services and bringing in crime, terrorism and disease. Anti-immigrant propaganda seeks to portray these immigrants as less than human. A horde of 'macacas' perhaps?

Could it be that, whether he knew what “macaca” meant or not, what Sen. Allen was doing was baiting the young man as a non-white “foreigner”?

Do we need someone like this in the Senate, or the White House?

Emile Schepers is an immigrant rights activist living in Virginia.

Lieberman defeat shows anger with status quo

Fri, 18 Aug 2006 05:32:00 +0000

NewsAnalysis

An uprising of Democratic voters in Connecticut delivered a stunning victory to peace candidate Ned Lamont over three-term incumbent U.S. Sen. Joe Lieberman in the Aug. 8 primary. It was a revolt against the policies of the Bush administration and the Republican-controlled Congress.

Defying the mandate of the vote, Lieberman is now campaigning on the “Connecticut for Lieberman” line. Of voters polled, 61 percent said Lieberman should not run as an independent after losing the primary. Efforts in Connecticut and around the country have been launched to get Lieberman to bow out.

“The status quo must be transformed, and the voters recognized in Ned Lamont a forceful advocate for change,” said Kim Gandy, president of the National Organization for Women. She called on Lieberman to “stand down from further campaigning.”

Lamont, who emerged from a 50 point deficit to win with a 4 point lead of 10,000 votes, gained support with his slogan, “If Joe Lieberman won’t stand up to George Bush, I will.” He galvanized voters by calling for an end to the war in Iraq and bringing home the $250 million a day being spent on the war, to use it for universal health care, public schools and good jobs.

New voters swelled the ranks of the Democratic Party in order to participate in the election. Over 14,500 unaffiliated voters switched their registration to Democrat, and 14,380 registered to vote for the first time. On the day of the primary, 43 percent came to the polls, up from the usual 25 percent.

It is anticipated that the momentum from the Lamont campaign will aid Democratic challengers to three vulnerable Republican House incumbents in Connecticut.

Alarmed by the prospects of a political realignment, Karl Rove and right-wing spin-doctors called the primary results a terrorist threat. Vice President Cheney lamented that voters would “purge a man like Joe Lieberman” because “the al Qaeda types … are betting on the proposition that ultimately they can break the will of the American people.” The next day, Lieberman himself cited the terrorist bomb scare in Britain as a reason that he must continue to serve in the Senate.

These scare tactics have been met with outrage. MoveOn.org is urging letters to the editor across the country to reject this baseless Republican posturing on security.

National pundits are attempting to paint the Lamont victory as one that will marginalize Democrats in the November elections. Refuting that claim, Robert Borosage, co-director of Campaign for America’s Future, called the Lamont victory “a triumph for the new moral center … that represents a growing voter revolt against the failed policies and politics of the Bush administration and its congressional enablers, particularly the debacle in Iraq.”

In a further attempt to undermine the election, right-wing talk show hosts are mocking Lamont as “some rich guy with no experience,” a frequent refrain from Lieberman’s stump speech.

In fact, Lieberman, with a $12 million war chest, spent twice as much as Lamont in the campaign. Lamont, a millionaire who founded a cable company, refused political action committee monies and relied on grassroots support. Lieberman emphasized his contributions from unions, but his treasury was flooded with contributions from the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and other national conservative PACs.

Asked in a press conference if Bush will support the Republican candidate for Senate in Connecticut, Alan Schlesinger, whose support is less than 10 percent in polls, White House spokesperson Tony Snow declined to answer. Snow also declined to say if the president prefers Lieberman, who has won endorsement from New York’s Republican Mayor Michael Bloomberg.

During the primary, both campaigns attracted support from national Democratic leaders, labor organizations and women’s rights and civil rights leaders. Most of them pledged to support whoever won the primary. Unions and other organizations that had endorsed Lieberman are now reassessing what they will do for the general election.

The Machinists union and both teachers unions endorsed Lamont in protest against Lieberman’s support for NAFTA, CAFTA and school vouchers. Most unions endorsed Lieberman in the primary, acknowledging that he had walked their picket lines.

Aside from this race, labor’s top priority is to defeat three vulnerable Republican U.S. representatives in the state’s 2nd, 4th and 5th Congressional Districts. The challenges of Joe Courtney to Rob Simmons, Diane Farrell to Chris Shays and Chris Murphy to Nancy Johnson are all top tier competitive races nationally. These House campaigns can serve to unify opposition to the Bush agenda.

Joelle Fishman is chair of the Communist Party USA’s Political Action Commission. She lives in New Haven, Conn.

EDITORIAL: A vote heard round the world

Fri, 11 Aug 2006 07:42:00 +0000

Connecticut Democratic voters took a dramatic stand that shook the nation in last Tuesday’s primary. Their vote to send Joe Lieberman home and put Ned Lamont in the U.S. Senate changes the political landscape and adds to the growing upsurge in the country.

An uprising of old and new voters in cities and towns across the state said “enough is enough” to Lieberman’s status-quo position of compromise with the policies of the Bush administration.

Connecticut Democrats voted to change the direction of the country. They voted to bring the troops home from Iraq and invest the $250 million a day being spent on the war in universal health care, public schools and good jobs.

They voted against Lieberman’s eagerness to compromise with Bush on Social Security privatization, trade deals and school vouchers.

This vote creates a new standard. It says that bold opposition to Bush and the war is needed to inspire voters and defeat right-wing Republican control of Congress in November.

When Ned Lamont announced his candidacy a little over six months ago, he was 50 points behind in the polls. The campaign took hold like wildfire because it brought hope and offered a mechanism to stand up for change.

“It’s a story of expanding the political process and demanding a real, substantive debate on the things that matter to real people,” said Lamont. “We’ve brought new energy to our democracy. And that’s the type of victory where we all win.”

Many of the campaign leaders are skilled veterans from 25 years of battle against the right wing. They took a bold approach and put in long hours of organizing, door knocking and phone calling, reaching out to new voters and to those who had been ignored.

Lieberman’s support over the years for issues that faced the labor movement, women and environmental groups resulted in split endorsements in the primary. National leaders campaigned on both sides. Now that the primary is over, it is time to come together.

It is a big job to end right-wing Republican control of Congress. Winning the necessary 15 seats in the House and six seats in the Senate will take unity of all labor and people’s forces.

Connecticut voters have the opportunity to defeat three vulnerable Republicans in the 2nd, 4th and 5th Congressional Districts.

Lieberman can contribute toward that effort and take a stand against Bush by listening to the voters and bowing out of his announced run on a “Connecticut for Lieberman” line.

This tidal wave sends a loud and clear message to the country and the world that voters are fed up with the Bush agenda. It is a battle for the heart and soul of America.

The economic mainsprings of U.S. foreign policy

Fri, 11 Aug 2006 06:48:00 +0000

From 1961 to 1999, Victor Perlo’s “People vs. Profits” column in the Daily World and the People’s Weekly World set the standard for a Marxist analysis of U.S. capitalism.

Two collections of these columns have been published. In 2003, Volume I of “People vs. Profits” focused on “The Home Front.” Volume II, subtitled “The United States and the World,” has just been published.

Volume II shines a very timely spotlight on the architects and architecture of U.S. imperialism, taking the reader through the period of the Cold War waged against “communism” to the early stages of the “new Cold War,” conducted under the slogan of the “Global war against terrorism.”

The book begins with a passage from a 1953 lecture Perlo gave about the Korea War. “Let’s discuss U.S. foreign policy: what it is, who profits by it, where does it lead, what can be done?” The answer to these questions is the theme of this book.

“In summary, the foreign policy of the U.S. government is the attempt to establish U.S. monopolies as owners of everything of value everywhere, as exploiters of labor everywhere, backed by puppet rulers and by the armed forces of the United States,” Perlo writes. “That is the foreign policy of imperialism.” Fifty-three years later, these answers provide a framework for understanding the otherwise inexplicable and irrational policies pursued by our government.

Representatives of U.S. monopolies — now multinational corporations — have been and continue to be routinely appointed to the top power positions in Washington: Director of Central Intelligence (DCI), Secretary of State, the Pentagon, the National Security Council. The particular role of the oil industry is a recurring theme.

In the 1950s, John Foster Dulles, veteran Standard Oil lawyer and chairman of the Rockefeller Foundation, was secretary of state. His brother Allen Dulles was DCI when the agency toppled the democratically elected prime minister of Iran because he nationalized Iranian oil. In successive administrations, the names changed but the interests remained constant.

An article from 1971, titled “Standard Oil and the War,” identifies oil monopolies as “the biggest profiteers of all from U.S. foreign policy, and its most influential advocates.” In “Oil and Imperialism” (1969) the work of the liberal energy economist Michael Tanzer is drawn on to show “how the U.S. government aggressively equates the profit interests of the oil corporations with the national security interest of the United States.” Today this has reached its logical conclusion with a president and vice president who are directly tied to the oil industry.

An important theme of the book is that American people are also victims of the policies of U.S. imperialism. In 1980, he writes about “preparation to intervene militarily in order to regain absolute control of Middle Eastern oil for Exxon, Texaco, and the others.” That policy, he says, “is costing the American people untold billions of dollars, creating lower living standards, and resulting in failure to take rational steps to solve our energy crisis.”

In the mid-1990s, Perlo warned against President Clinton’s aggressive policy against Iraq, adopted under pressure from the Republican Congress. In 1998, as U.S. taxpayers were paying for more air strikes, Perlo wrote, “A war against Iraq would signal a new stage not only in U.S. imperialist aggression, but also, inevitably, a new stage in the drive against American workers.”

The thousands of dead and wounded in the Iraq war, along with $250 million spent every day, are costs overwhelmingly born by the working class in the U.S. It is no coincidence that along with the war, the Bush administration has supported and often led an unprecedented attack on workers’ pensions, health care, job security, safety, civil rights and unions.

This book provides fascinating insights into recent history. But it is much more. Perlo was one of the foremost Marxist economists of the last century. His approach to issues of the 1960s through the 1990s provides a framework for understanding a whole range of issues facing working-class activists today.

Efforts by developing countries to break free from U.S. corporate domination, a class struggle approach to U.S. trade policy, efforts to overcome weaknesses in centrally planned socialist economies — this book sheds light on these and other questions that are of urgent interest in people’s struggles today.

“People vs. Profits: The United States and the World” is available in softcover for $14 from International Publishers, 235 W. 23 St., New York NY 10011, or at www.intpubnyc.com.

Coming to a town near you: the battle over immigrant rights

Fri, 04 Aug 2006 05:46:00 +0000

NewsAnalysis

Action in Congress on immigrant rights legislation is suspended at least until the fall session. But action is intensifying in state legislatures, in municipal councils and within the nooks and crannies of our social system.

The House Republican leadership has blocked the conference committee that, under normal procedures, would reconcile the House immigration bill, HR 4437, with the rather different Senate bill, S 2611. Instead, the House is holding a huge number of “field hearings” — 21 scheduled for August alone — on the Senate bill. The purpose is to give the Republicans a chance to use undocumented immigrants as a collective “Willie Horton” or scapegoat to save their necks in the November midterm elections. They have little else to run on.

In addition, the Department of Homeland Security is carrying out numerous arrests of undocumented workers and legal permanent residents, some of whom are being deported under the terms of draconian 1996 legislation that mandates arrest and deportation for all non-citizens convicted even of some relatively minor offenses, sometimes decades old. The way the government is carrying out the arrests — with big publicity and scooping up anybody else they run into who can’t prove that they are legally in the country — is designed to intimidate immigrants and to pander to the ultra-right.

Not to be outdone, more than half of the state legislatures have passed or are trying to pass anti-immigrant legislation as an electoral gimmick. These include laws against hiring the undocumented, preventing them from getting driver’s licenses and public services and so forth. Colorado’s legislation is so harsh that it is feared that many impoverished elderly people, not only immigrants but native born, will be kicked out of programs like Meals on Wheels because they can’t come up with their birth certificates.

And small towns around the country are also looking at ways of making immigrants’ lives impossible. In Hazleton (population 30,000), a southeastern Pennsylvania mountain community which is about one-third Latino, the town council has passed legislation prohibiting hiring, or providing services to, undocumented workers, as well as prohibiting the public use of any language but English.

The Hazleton ordinance would force anyone wishing to settle in the town to prove their legal status. All landlords would be obliged to check the citizenship status of anyone applying to rent an apartment.

What is not said is that this ordinance, like similar legislation elsewhere, would greatly increase racial profiling as authorities are likely to only enforce it against people with “foreign” accents or dark skins. The Puerto Rican Legal Defense and Education Fund is preparing a suit against Hazleton.

But these measures are meeting with increasing resistance, and not only from immigrants. Unions, churches, local organizations and informal networks of neighbors do not take kindly to their members, friends and neighbors being grabbed, put in handcuffs and spirited away. The main propaganda weapon of the anti-immigration movement, which is that undocumented immigrants are bringers of crime, disease and illiteracy, falls completely flat when non-immigrant families have come to know their immigrant neighbors at a personal level.

An example of this is the public response to a Homeland Security immigration raid at the Petite Jean poultry plant at Arkadelphia, Ark., reported by Molly Hennessy-Fiske in the July 23 edition of the Los Angeles Times.

Last year, the government rounded up 119 mostly Mexican immigrant workers, handcuffed them and processed them for deportation. To the government’s surprise, many ordinary citizens — including the sheriff — of this socially conservative town stood up for the immigrants, many of whom they also know personally.

Many cities, including New York, Boston and Chicago, have explicit policies limiting cooperation of their employees with federal deportation actions.

The possibility that harshly anti-immigrant measures might backfire against the Republican right is also reflected in national polls. Last week, results of such a poll, carried out jointly by the Republican-connected Tarrance Group and Democrat-connected Lake Research Partners, showed that 71 percent of a national sample favor an approach that “does something” about the borders but also would give at least some undocumented immigrants a chance to legalize themselves.

The lesson for supporters of immigrant rights is that efforts to appeal for support to the non-immigrant population are far from being a waste of time, and should be greatly strengthened.

Floridas elite casts menacing glance at Cuba

Wed, 02 Aug 2006 15:03:00 +0000

News Analysis

Despite a growing number of Floridians, including Cuban Americans, who want normal diplomatic relations with Havana, the Sunshine State has long been a base of foul schemes against the Cuban Revolution.

A story in Miami’s El Nuevo Herald dated June 22 describes right-wing terrorist plotting against Cuba among the upper echelons of Miami’s exile community.

Two years ago, Jose Antonio Llama told the Herald that in 1992 he joined other leaders of the Cuban American National Foundation (CANF) — a purportedly peaceful lobbying group — to create a military wing of the organization. The mission of the new force was to kill Fidel Castro and otherwise sow terror in socialist Cuba.

Llama and 15 “named conspirators” bought a cargo helicopter, 10 small remote-control airplanes, seven boats, explosives and ammunition. The 40-foot speedboat Midnight Express would take then-CANF President Jorge Mas Canosa to Cuba as soon as Fidel Castro was gone. Llama borrowed money to loan $1.47 million for the purchases.

In 1997 the U.S. Coast Guard stopped Llama’s Esperanza yacht off Puerto Rico, crewed by four of the group and loaded with guns and ammunition. One of them blurted out they were headed for Margarita Island off Venezuela to assassinate Fidel Castro, who was attending a diplomatic summit there. All five were acquitted two years later.

Jose Antonio Llama is now bankrupt. He accuses his former associates of disposing of the unused equipment and keeping the proceeds. By talking to the newspaper, Llama hoped to gain public support in his fight against the CANF. Recently he’s been handing out pamphlets in Miami detailing his claims. He expresses no regrets over his preparations for terror.

Intrigued, the Cuban newspaper Granma reported Llama’s story on June 21. El Nuevo Herald was forced to publish what it knew the next day.

An additional wrinkle is that the current CANF leadership (Mas Canosa died in 1997) accuses the associated newspapers El Nuevo Herald and the Miami Herald of validating “a longstanding defamation campaign” against them “orchestrated by the Castro regime.”

The Granma story cited Cuban documents used in the trial of five Cuban nationals, widely known today as the Cuban Five, who sought to frustrate right-wing terrorist schemes emanating from Miami. The documents characterized the CANF as a terrorist group, and described how Rene Gonzalez, one of the five, was asked to monitor CANF’s menacing activities.

As compensation for his courageous efforts to save both Cuban and U.S. lives, Gonzalez, along with his four comrades, continues to languish in a U.S. prison.

But there’s more going on in Florida than plans for violence. Business people there would replace Cuba’s socialist revolution with unbridled market rule.

That was the message at a June 14 conference in Miami titled “A Future and Free Cuba — Opportunities and Threats for Florida.” Miami’s Chamber of Commerce sponsored the event.

Speakers were confident that a capitalist takeover of Cuba is imminent. Business owners, managers and publicists envisioned favorable prospects for service, trading and investment sectors in Florida, along with dangers awaiting Florida’s agriculture and tourism.

Andy Gomez, provost at the University of Miami, regarded Cuba’s high literacy rate and good schools as potentially useful to Florida entrepreneurs. A consultant took note of Cuba’s “superior transportation infrastructure,” but foresaw problems in a Cuba with only 800 gas stations and very few private car owners. Massive investment will be needed in “ports, electricity plants and other infrastructure,” he said. Increased trade with Cuba and travel would lead to expansion of Florida ports and changes to Miami Airport.

Such dreams by would-be capitalists have been floated before, but have come to naught.

To defend its socialist revolution, Cuba relies upon ideas — of social justice, equality, solidarity and an end to exploitation, oppression and war. The notion of “people before profits” has spread has sunk deep roots among the population. Cuba’s extraordinary achievements in health care, education and culture have won it broad, solid support both domestically and internationally.

Nonetheless, Cuba remains vigilant in the face of provocations from Florida and Washington. And Cuba’s leaders speak up for those who defend it from such attacks: hence their call for worldwide days of action in September and October calling for the release of the Cuban Five.

We in the U.S. can do no less. Mark your calendar for a Sept. 23 demonstration in Washington for the freedom of the Cuban Five and for an end to terrorism. And work to defeat Bush’s clones in Congress this November, as a step toward rejecting torture, lies and violations of international law.