People Before Profit blog

A crime without borders

Fri, 31 Aug 2007 08:13:00 +0000

I have a confession to make.

I assumed that those responsible for the horrific murders in Newark, N.J., of Terrence Aeriel, Dashon Harvey and Ofemi Hightower looked like me.

That is, I assumed that they, like each of the victims, were Black.

Indeed, a recent U.S. Department of Justice study confirmed that I was justified in my belief.

The study, recently released by the department’s Bureau of Statistics, showed that although Blacks comprise only 13 percent of the U.S. population, they represented nearly half of the nation’s murder victims in 2005.

The study’s most startling finding, though, was that most of the Black murder victims — an astonishing 93 percent — were killed by other Black people.

In other words, more than 9 out of every 10 Black murder victims die at the hands of another Black person.

I assumed, incorrectly, that the same was true here. And I was not alone.

It turns out, however, that those charged with the murders of the three young friends are not Black folks. They are Latinos, at least one of whom is in New Jersey illegally.

To be sure, many of Newark’s racially diverse residents have been drawn together after the shocking murders.

Others have sought, with some increasing frequency, to make an issue of the perpetrators’ immigration status (and the immigration issue more broadly), arguing that we should “send illegals back” to their home countries.

The statistic above clearly demonstrates that mass deportation of undocumented immigrants would have virtually no impact on the rate at which Blacks are murdered in communities like Newark.

More fundamentally, the plight of immigrants mirrors the struggles faced by Blacks not that long ago.

Consider this scenario:

In the years between 1915 and 1970, 7 million migrants crossed Southern borders bound for economic opportunities in Northern cities like Newark, Baltimore, Detroit, Chicago and New York. A great number of them had little, if any, formal education. They were unskilled but were willing to work.

Enticed by industries that promised gainful employment, those migrants worked for less money than the existing labor force, building resentment amid claims that these migrants were stealing jobs and driving down wages.

This is the story, not of the undocumented immigrants who are at the center of the current debate, but of the millions of Blacks who left the American South following the abolition of slavery.

Black people are this country’s first and only involuntary illegal immigrants. We were kidnapped from the African coast and dragged to the American shores for decades after the “legal” slave trade ended in 1808.

In the cloud of historical amnesia, and faced with this horrific tragedy, some of us overlook the fact that the debate surrounding immigration today echoes the issues that confronted Blacks in the recent past.

The lessons taught by Black history provide the strongest argument for rejecting forces that seek to weaken all of us by dividing us.

And division is precisely what focusing on the irrelevant immigration status of perpetrators creates.

In the wake of the tragic murders of three of Newark’s promising young people, we must, more than ever, bond together and rebuild our city and indeed our country.

And we must do that together.

Ryan P. Haygood is a resident of Newark’s South Ward and a civil rights attorney in New York City.

EDITORIAL: Gonzales out, whats next?

Fri, 31 Aug 2007 08:05:00 +0000

As most Americans breathed a sigh of relief over the departure of Attorney General Alberto “torture is OK” Gonzales, President Bush told reporters he had “reluctantly” accepted Gonzales’ resignation.

“It’s sad that we live in a time when a talented and honorable person like Alberto Gonzales is impeded from doing important work because his good name was dragged through the mud,” Bush declared.

What’s the message here?

I, the president, can disregard the Constitution and U.S. and international law, spy on Americans, torture detainees, turn our “Justice” Department into a Republican campaign operation, have my appointees lie to Congress, and you’d better not question all this, ’cause if you do you’re a slimy no-good un-American?

We applaud the announcement by Democratic congressional leaders that they will press ahead with investigations of the actions of Gonzales and other top administration officials.

In addition, new legislation is needed to restore civil liberties and privacy protections that this lawless administration has stripped away under the cover of “fighting terrorism.”

Clearly, though, as the Talking Points Memo political blog points out, Gonzales’ departure “can hardly be said to herald a new era so long as Bush (and Cheney) occupy the White House.”

With the departure of Rove and Gonzales, Republican operatives appear to be trying to clear the deck in their drive to hold onto the White House next year. And perhaps they want to free up Rove for more electoral dirty work.

But make no mistake: it was the action of voters across the country last fall, spurred by the labor/progressive grassroots mobilization campaign, that forced Bush to “accept” Gonzales’ resignation. That voter revolt put people’s leader John Conyers and liberal Democrat Patrick Leahy at the helm of the House and Senate Judiciary Committees, where they pushed the investigations that began to expose this administration’s lies and law-breaking and ultimately forced Gonzales out.

The grassroots upsurge that brought us this victory now has to gear up for the big battle of 2008.

Katrina survivors march for justice

Fri, 31 Aug 2007 05:20:00 +0000

NEW ORLEANS — Undaunted by a tropical downpour, Hurricane Katrina survivors rallied in the Lower Ninth Ward and marched across the Claiborne Street bridge, Aug. 29, chanting, “Justice … now!” They were protesting President Bush’s failure to deliver on his promise two years ago of quick, generous assistance in rebuilding this devastated city.

“Houses and lives were washed away and we are facing a government that has done nothing to bring the people home,” Malcolm Suber, director of the People’s Hurricane Relief Fund, told the crowd. “We’re going to keep fighting until all the people come home.”

The marchers had gathered for a prayer service at the point on the Industrial Canal where the levee broke on Aug. 29, 2005, unleashing a deluge that killed anywhere from 1,600 to 2,000 people. A row of placards propped against the new concrete levee wall listed names of those who died. A makeshift altar was festooned with flowers and candles. Olay Eela Daste, a Yoruba preacher, led the crowd in a prayer.

The levee has been rebuilt, but behind it block after block has been swept clear of houses. Concrete slabs and porch steps are all that remain, many of them cared for lovingly by the former residents. Beyond are blocks of boarded up, abandoned homes, most of them the quaint “shotgun” houses with ornate gingerbread decorations that make New Orleans so picturesque.

Patrice Milton knelt and pointed at a name on one of the memorial placards. “Darryl Milton,” she told the World. “He was my cousin. His home was right across the street from mine. He and his house were swept away. My house was knocked off the foundation but here I am. I am saddened because we have not had the attention that was given to some other national disasters.”

Her cousin Angela Valdery interjected, “We should make this a major issue in the 2008 elections. If it can happen here, how do we know it isn’t going to happen somewhere else next time? Will the response be the same as it was here?”

Many people want to come home, she said, “but can’t because they lack the resources. Even if you find a job, finding affordable housing here is really hard. My husband was working as a carpenter in Kansas City for $31 an hour. Now he’s back in New Orleans earning $18 an hour.”

Stephanie Mingo, a People’s Hurricane Relief Fund leader, was holding a sign reading “Re-open public housing.”

“They closed down the Lafitte housing project and displaced 900 families,” she said. “They closed down the St. Bernard project where I lived. That displaced 1,400 families. They don’t want to reopen it.”

Federal and local officials, she charged, want to turn these public housing sites over to a developer who plans to build a movie theater and luxury condos where low-income workers once lived.

These government officials “think low-income people are not deserving,” Mingo continued. “But they forget that we are the hardest-working people in America. We’re not afraid of cooking and cleaning.

“We went back in and cleaned up our houses,” she added. “We said we would even pay with our own money. They wouldn’t let us.”

On Aug. 28, she and other public housing tenants converged on the Housing Authority of New Orleans office with the aim of staging a sit-in to demand full funding of public housing and the re-opening of the closed housing units.

“We were met by NOPD [New Orleans police officers] who blocked our way,” she said. “But we are going to go back. We’re not going to give up. Affordable housing is our right.”

Lionel Blake, 80, was standing outside the “Blue House” in the Lower Ninth, headquarters of the Common Ground Relief Collective. It is one block from the breach in the levee that destroyed the ward.

Blake had warm praise for Common Ground’s tireless work on behalf of the people. He moved into the community with his family in 1951 and lives here still. His wife is in a nursing home now, and he is awaiting his federal-state “Road Home” grant so he can rebuild. It will be the second time for him. In 1965, Hurricane Betsy engulfed his home.

“I’m looking ahead to the future,” Blake said. “We can get the tax dollars we need to rebuild if we can get out of that war we had no business getting involved in. We rebuilt Europe and Asia after World War II. We can rebuild New Orleans. They are spending billions over there in Iraq and now they’re getting ready to go into Iran. We need those tax dollars right here in New Orleans.”

Jarvis Tyner, executive vice chair of the Communist Party, who just returned from the Gulf Coast area, called it “a national disgrace” that the federal government has failed to rebuild the area for its former residents. “It’s also a real example of racist indifference,” starting with the White House, he said. “Every presidential candidate must have a program to address this.”

greenerpastures21212 @yahoo.com

A few billion here, a few billion there

Fri, 24 Aug 2007 07:19:00 +0000

The market is up! The market is down! The speculators are losing money! Government better do something quick!

Interestingly, among the loudest voices calling for the Federal Reserve to take quick action were the same voices who call for smaller government and for government to “get out of the way of business” — a little odd, don’t you think?

Some financial columnists reassure us that the basic economy is healthy, there’s nothing to worry about, don’t panic. Others say there are indeed problems in the subprime mortgage lending game, but it should be fairly easy to “contain” those problems after a short “market correction.” A few, more sober than the others, note that there are underlying problems in the entire mortgage industry and in the number of unsold homes accumulating on the market. (Odd, when there are so many homeless people, isn’t it?)

Well, is the problem little or big? Short-term or long-lasting? Restricted to the stock markets or something us regular folks should worry about?

One clue is what the governments of the world have been doing. Between Aug. 9 and Aug. 13, governments and central banks added billions of dollars to boost “market liquidity.”

How many billions? As of Aug. 13, European central banks had added $279 billion. The U.S. Federal Reserve had added $62 billion. The Japanese central bank had added a measly $5 billion. That’s a grand total of $346 billion! It’s kind of hard to define what a “little” problem on world financial markets amounts to, and where it slops over to become a big problem, but in my world, $346 billion is a big chunk of money.

I emptied out my coin jar and there was less than $50 in it, all those quarters, dimes, nickels and pennies that I dropped in to clear out my pockets over the last year. Fifty dollars is not a lot of money, not these days. A few hundred dollars might be a bit much for me to pony up on the spot, but in the grand scheme of things, that’s not a lot of money either. But it would take emptying a lot of coin jars and piggy banks to find $346 billion.

Even just the $62 billion added by the Federal Reserve thus far amounts to lots of money per person in the U.S.

I’m confused. If the U.S. government (of which the Federal Reserve is a part) can find $62 billion in a couple of days to make sure that finance and mortgage companies don’t go broke, why can’t they find a few billion to improve health care for kids? (Bush is threatening to veto a bill providing additional health coverage for U.S. children.) That $62 billion would be a good down payment on a national public health care system that covers everyone.

Maybe this week they can find another $62 billion somewhere in the White House and do something useful for the people of the U.S. rather than just bailing out the financial markets.

But I wouldn’t advise you to hold your breath waiting. They will only find that kind of money for human needs when millions of us demand action and force the government to do its real job.

Marc Brodine (marcbrodine @inlandnet.com) is chair of the Washington State Communist Party. He is holding onto the coins in his coin jar.

EDITORIAL: Sickest of the Sickos

Fri, 24 Aug 2007 07:09:00 +0000

If anything should be a no-brainer for the world’s richest country, it is making sure all its children have basic health care. That’s part of securing our nation’s future, right?

Wrong, says the Bush administration.

In a Friday night stealth attack, Dennis Smith, head of the federal Center for Medicaid and State Operations, told state health officials they must meet draconian new standards if they want to expand coverage under the 10-year-old State Children’s Health Insurance Program (SCHIP). The program covers children with family incomes too big for Medicaid but too small to afford private coverage.

Under the new rules, if states want to cover families up to 250 percent of the federal poverty level — an income of $51,625 for a family of four, they must show that such families have been uninsured for at least a year. They must also prove that at least 95 percent of children whose families earn less than 200 percent of the poverty level are already enrolled, something experts say is impossible to do.

Smith said allowing higher income limits to cover more kids makes the program “more likely to substitute for private coverage.” He said waiting periods are needed to make sure children don’t move directly from private to public coverage, and states should charge co-pays and premiums close to the cost of private coverage.

In other words, this outrageous administration is more concerned about health insurance company profits than children’s health.

Earlier this summer, bipartisan majorities in both House and Senate passed increased funding for SCHIP, raising the hope that Congress might override Bush’s threatened veto. SCHIP is strongly supported by both Republican and Democratic governors.

New Jersey, New York and other states are vigorously protesting the new Bush move. Many already allow higher income thresholds and some want to raise them still further.

In California, SCHIP plays a key role in achieving coverage for all children, a goal supported by Republican Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger as well as Democratic leaders.

As N.Y. Daily News columnist Bill Hammond aptly said, “On this issue, it’s our president who needs a checkup — from the neck up.”

EDITORIAL: The housing hurricane

Fri, 24 Aug 2007 07:07:00 +0000

Two years ago, Hurricane Katrina caused tens of thousands of families to lose their homes.

Last year, the home mortgage meltdown that is now sweeping the country took the homes of 800,000 families. This year, the number could reach 2 million.

When the levees broke in New Orleans, rising floodwaters forced people to flee.

Today, surging mortgage payments, rising by hundreds of dollars per month, are drowning families in debt. Not floodwaters, but waves of bankers, lawyers and sheriffs are driving families from their homes.

Nature did not trigger this new crisis — it is the product of deregulation, rampant speculation and profiteering by real estate and financial interests, and a mass media that acts as cheerleaders for those interests.

What to do?

As with the post-Katrina disaster, communities need to come together with unions and local governments to help the victims of this disaster, to identify families facing foreclosure or in danger of falling behind on payments. With organization behind them, homeowners can negotiate with lenders for a manageable payment schedule. The terrible feeling of isolation and failure faced by families on their own can be replaced by the strength and solidarity of a community united and fighting back.

But, as with Katrina, this is a national problem, demanding national solutions. And, as with Katrina, the Bush administration is focusing on helping the big money interests.

Some Democratic members of Congress and presidential candidates are calling for measures to protect homeowners from foreclosure. But only a loud demand from the grass roots can make these proposals into reality.

A moratorium on foreclosures is urgently needed. Lenders should be compelled to restructure problem mortgages so that payments do not exceed 25 percent of a family’s income.

Criminal fraud and conspiracy charges should be issued against the mortgage lenders and their Wall Street backers who paid themselves obscene salaries and bonuses by trapping hard-working families in a nightmare version of the American dream.

And, at long last, Congress should enact a federal program to rebuild New Orleans and fund its public schools, hospitals and infrastructure, so all of its residents can return and have good jobs.

As hog boss goes for the kill, workers unite for the fight

Fri, 24 Aug 2007 05:18:00 +0000

Smithfield Packing employs 5,500 workers who slaughter and package the meat of 32,000 hogs a day at its sprawling plant in Tar Heel, a tiny town 80 miles south of Raleigh, N.C. The facility has become a rallying point for the nation’s labor movement and for civil rights, immigrant rights, community and human rights groups seeking an end to injustice.

On Aug. 29, thousands of supporters of Smithfield workers are expected to converge on Williamsburg, Va., to protest at the Smithfield Foods annual shareholders’ meeting.

Although killing animals is inherently dangerous, the fast line speeds, dirty killing floors and lack of training make the company one of the most dangerous places in America to work.

According to U.S. Department of Labor statistics, at least one in three Smithfield workers has suffered job-related injury and illness every year since the plant opened in 1992. These figures hide the real story because the company has been cited for firing workers who report injuries. Even Smithfield’s skewed figures show a rate of stress injuries 35 times higher than for workers in other manufacturing jobs.

Smithfield has refused to slow the lines or buy appropriate safety gear for workers because these would cut into the company’s bottom line.

In its 175-page exposé on the meat industry’s worker exploitation, “Blood, Sweat and Fear,” Human Rights Watch charges, “These are systematic human rights violations imbedded in employment at Smithfield.”

Jim Adams, an African American now permanently disabled and unable to use his left hand, was fired after he tried to file a compensation claim.

“They love you if you are healthy and work like a dog,” he said, “but if you get hurt you are trash. They will look for a way to get rid of you before you report it. They will look for a reason to fire you or put you on a worse job like the cold room, or change your shift so you quit. So a lot of people don’t report their injuries. They just work with the pain.”

Like much of the non-unionized meat packing industry, the company has lured immigrants far from their homes with false promises of good jobs.

“Rosa,” who worked at the plant since 2001, told the World she and her husband got on a bus near the Mexican border and were brought to a homeless shelter in North Carolina. She said she knew others similarly bused to meat plants in Minnesota.

In July 2006 the company voluntarily joined the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) Mutual Agreement Between Government and Employers program (IMAGE). Latino workers saw this as Smithfield’s way of warning them to stop supporting the union.

When 400 Latino employees walked out in protest they were joined by 100 African American and 50 white workers.

When 400 African American workers walked out on Martin Luther King Day this January, 100 Latino and 50 white workers joined them.

Days later federal immigration officials arrested 21 workers inside the plant on administrative immigration charges.

“Rosa’s” husband was among those taken in that raid. He has been deported back to Mexico. She remains in the U.S. with three young children born here.

Workers at Tar Heel narrowly lost a vote for the union in 1997 but a federal appeals court ruled the company used illegal tactics to disrupt the vote. They have waged a 14-year struggle to be represented by the United Food and Commercial Workers union.

Some 500 livestock workers walked off the job Aug. 6 after management refused to meet with them over access to clean drinking water as temperatures in Tar Heel hit 100 degrees. “You’re talking much hotter than that with the heat index and the heat coming off the hogs,” said Keith Ludlum, a white worker who had signed the complaint. The water that finally arrived four hours into the shift was contaminated with animal feces and blood.

Smithfield’s public relations director Dennis Pittman said the company refused a meeting because “it is company policy to meet with only one worker at a time and we took care of everything. As far as I know they got their water.”

The next day plant worker Jose Figueroa was terminated. Pittman said it was for being four minutes late but the union claims he was fired for union activities. Figueroa played a leading role in all three walkouts.

The movement for justice at Smithfield has scored major successes. On Aug. 1 the city of Boston suspended all purchases from the Tar Heel plant and urged all city supermarkets to do likewise.

A month earlier the city of Cambridge, Mass. did the same.

New York’s Pathmark Supermarket chain has removed all products packaged at the Tar Heel plant from its shelves.

jwojcik @pww.org

Some of PWW’s earlier stories on the Smithfield workers:

World’s biggest hog boss meets its match: Smithfield workers take on global Goliath, by John Wojcik

Southern labor stirs in North Carolina, again, by Scott Marshall

On 2nd anniversary of Katrina Gulf Coast needs a New Deal

Fri, 24 Aug 2007 05:06:00 +0000

Eyewitness account

NEW ORLEANS — Two years after his wife was swept away by Hurricane Katrina, Calvin Bernard still comes to sweep the slab and water the flowers where their house once stood in this city’s Lower 9th Ward.

It is his way of keeping alive the hope that he can rebuild his life and his community.

I met Bernard working as a volunteer electrician this summer. Both of us are construction workers who offered our skills with Common Ground, the community organization that has played such a vital role in rebuilding this devastated city.

Bernard, 53, showed me his property, located within 50 yards from the point on the Industrial Canal that collapsed the night of Aug. 29, 2005. When it broke, a wall of water smashed everything in its path starting with Bernard’s house.

“The night Katrina hit, I was in Baton Rouge working on a construction project,” he told me. “The storm passed and all seemed well. Then I got a call from my daughter. She told me our house was gone and Mama was missing. My dear wife was washed away along with my home and my entire life.”

Her body was found eight weeks later, Bernard said. She left behind her husband, two sons and a daughter. “The government killed my wife. She and thousands of other people died because of government neglect and indifference. Now I’m determined to help my neighbors come home to the Ninth Ward. They don’t want us to come back.”

A recent report by the Washington-based Brookings Institution verified his charge. Only 25 percent of the 148,000 applications for the federally-funded “Road Home” grants offering up to $150,000 to rebuild homes have been approved. Bernard could not even apply because he did not have the deed and could not prove ownership of the house that has been in his family for six generations.

His experience is typical of red tape and technicalities the government cites in denying financial assistance to working class people in the mostly African American Lower Ninth Ward.

Bernard scorned President Bush, FEMA officials and other politicians who promised swift, generous aid to reconstruct New Orleans. “Two years later, where are they now? I’m angry. Just look at that bridge,” he said, pointing at the Claiborne Street overpass up the street from his lot. “That old rusty bridge is the first thing you see coming into the Lower Ninth. The federal government has plenty of money. Look what they are doing over there in Iraq. But they won’t give it to us. Look at how we live down here. No one is supposed to live like we do. Now they want to charge rent to people living in FEMA trailers.”

Bernard now lives with other Common Ground volunteers in an old flood-ravaged house, one of the few left standing. There is no shower so they have rigged up a canvas shower stall in the back yard. They eat donated food. His only source of income is donations from his volunteer work with Common Ground.

Volunteers have played a crucial role. I first came here in spring 2006 with the Veterans for Peace Gulf Coast March from Mobile to New Orleans protesting Bush’s squandering of billions in Iraq while displaced families here are abandoned. I was immediately pressed into volunteer work.

I came back to volunteer a few months later and was assigned to lead a brigade of 20 Middies from the U.S. Naval Academy. While we worked to restore electricity to St. Mary of the Angels Catholic school, I discussed with them the insanity of Bush’s war in Iraq.

Later, I wired up the homes of several families who were living here without electricity. The people’s gratitude was overwhelming. They prepared one feast after another to repay us.

I decided to move here two months ago. As a member of International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers Local 24, I got a job through IBEW Local 130. Evenings and weekends I volunteer. This past weekend, I repaired an electrical short that kept knocking out power at the Women’s Shelter in the Lower Ninth.

Volunteers cannot rebuild this city. Take medical care. A row of hospitals and clinics in the heart of downtown is still closed, their walls thick with poisonous black mold. It is an outrage that after two years, the federal government has not intervened to rebuild and reopen this medical complex.

What New Orleans needs is a crash federally funded and directed rebuilding project on the scale of the New Deal’s WPA during the Great Depression. The Gulf Coast Civic Works Project, a campus-based grassroots organization, is pressing Congress to enact a WPA-style program to create 100,000 jobs rebuilding the schools, hospitals, roads and bridges on the Gulf Coast, still devastated by Katrina and Rita. The Corps of Engineers could start by strengthening the levees to withstand another Force Five hurricane.

Tim Wheeler contributed to this article.

Also by Morgan P. Wheeler:

Veterans march to New Orleans: ‘Make levees, not war’

A veteran’s account: Gulf Coast march for peace, justice

Calif. stealth initiative could grab White House for GOP

Fri, 17 Aug 2007 05:07:00 +0000

Under the guise of “electoral reform,” California Republicans are preparing to launch a deceptively-named ballot initiative which could seriously distort the results of next year’s presidential election.

In mid-July, Thomas W. Hiltachk, acting on behalf of an entity called Californians for Equal Representation, submitted to the state attorney general’s office the so-called Presidential Election Reform Act to eliminate the current system of awarding the state’s 55 electoral votes to the winner of the statewide popular vote. Instead, all but two electoral votes would be awarded based on who wins in each of the state’s 53 congressional districts.

Since then, a spate of articles in publications ranging from the New Yorker and Newsweek to the Los Angeles Times and California Progress Report have used adjectives like “stealth,” “mischief” and “audacious power play” to describe the measure.

With over 10 percent of the nation’s 538 electoral votes, California voters, who since 1992 have consistently favored Democratic presidential candidates, play an especially important role in presidential balloting.

Republicans now occupy 19 of the state’s 53 congressional seats. In 2004, President Bush won majorities in 22 congressional districts while losing statewide to John Kerry by 54-44 percent. Had the proposed change been in effect, the resulting shift to Bush would have been comparable to his winning of Ohio’s 20 electoral votes, which turned the election his way.

In a telephone interview, California Labor Federation political director Bryan Blum called the measure “not real reform, but an effort by corporate interests and the Republican Party to unfairly manipulate the system to elect a Republican president.” Calling the California-only effort “a naked attempt by the Republicans to keep power,” Blum said the federation is “totally opposed” and hopes its advocates will “see the folly of this” and not move forward. If the measure does proceed, he said, the labor movement will work vigorously for its defeat.

The measure is aimed for the June 3, 2008, primary, expected to draw a low turnout because California has shifted its presidential primary to Feb. 5 while leaving other primaries in place for June.

Hiltachk is a partner in the law firm Bell, McAndrew & Hiltachk, which represents the California Republican Party. The Presidential Election Reform Act is the latest in a series of under-the-radar actions in which the firm has been involved. Others include the recall election that resulted in Republican Arnold Schwarzenegger’s replacing the recently re-elected Democratic Gov. Gray Davis in 2003, and the so-called Fair Play Workplace Flexibility Act of 2006, which would have marginally raised the state minimum wage while virtually barring future raises and gutting the state’s overtime pay rules.

Hiltachk was formerly Schwarzenegger’s personal lawyer for election matters. Californians for Equal Representation uses the law firm’s address.

Schwarzenegger’s office, the California Republican Party and the Republican National Committee all said they have nothing to do with the proposed initiative. “We’ll take a serious look at it once it qualifies for the ballot, said State Republican Party chair Ron Nehring.

Schwarzenegger told the Sacramento Bee, “I haven’t looked at this, but I’m interested to learn more about it.”

Fund-raising was to start earlier this month, to raise up to $500,000 for polling and other preparatory work. Actually gathering the needed 434,000 signatures could cost $2 million.

Currently, only Maine and Nebraska, with nine electoral votes between them, award electoral votes based on congressional districts, though some other states are considering changes. A similar but Democrat-sponsored move in North Carolina, with 15 electoral votes, has reportedly been sidetracked for now.

mbechtel @pww.org

Eerie silence at bridge disaster site

Fri, 17 Aug 2007 04:59:00 +0000

MINNEAPOLIS — Cars have been removed and the ninth victim’s body was recovered Aug. 13 from the I-35W bridge collapse here. Tall black cranes, one with the American flag on top of it, moved slowly on the horizon over the site. A wide area surrounding the bridge is closed to all but recovery workers.

From an apartment building parking lot you could see the southernmost bridge section cut in two, looking like a giant concrete slide with its twisted green undergirding lying on the ground next to the Mississippi River. The absence of the usual traffic noise gave an eerie silence to the view.

The bridge was built in the 1960s to hold 60,000 cars per day. But some 140,000 cars a day had been traversing the interstate span, which connects south Minneapolis to north Minneapolis. Trucks, which are bigger and heavier nowadays, also used I-35W as a major thoroughfare.

Perhaps worried about images of a collapsed bridge in the background during the 2008 Republican National Convention here, Republican officials have “fast-tracked” the rebuilding of the I-35W bridge. The goal is to have a new bridge within the year. Designs have been submitted and the Bush administration has promised to pay.

As one letter writer from Winona, Minn., said in the Pioneer Press, “If you believe President Bush’s promise of a quick rebuilding of the I-35W bridge, I have one word for you: Katrina! But wait. The big Republicans are coming to the Twin Cities in 2008. Maybe, just maybe ...!”

The political and legal struggles over the bridge collapse are far from over. The state is mulling a victims’ compensation fund, while the governor, other officials and companies may be in court for a long time to come as family members of the dead and others try to find out who the responsible parties are.

The Democratic/Farmer Labor Party-controlled state Legislature has sent Republican Gov. Tim Pawlenty a gas tax increase to pay for road and bridge repairs. Pawlenty has vetoed such a measure twice before. Now he says he will sign the tax increase.

The bridge collapse, along with the Hurricane Katrina disaster and the recent crippling of the New York subway system by a heavy rain, have all brought new media attention to the poor state of the nation’s infrastructure. According to the American Society of Civil Engineers, at least $1 trillion would be needed over the next 10 years to bring the nation’s transportation, water systems, electrical grid and school buildings up to standards. They gave the country’s infrastructure a grade of “D.”

Many civil engineers and others say that maintenance budgets for projects are always a battle. A 2007 Urban Land Institute report on infrastructure needs said, “The state of deferred maintenance is so gargantuan nobody knows where to begin.”

The state of the infrastructure entered the presidential arena last week during the AFL-CIO’s presidential debate, where the seven Democratic candidates were grilled on their approach to it. “Putting our country back to work begins by cutting the funding for the war in Iraq,” said Connecticut Sen. Chris Dodd. He said $1 billion in domestic infrastructure spending would create 40,000 jobs.

“I tell people the Iraq war killed the bridge victims,” said one resident, Bill Comiskey, a retired truck driver.

Meanwhile, debris removal here will begin after the recovery efforts are finished. There are four more people missing. About 100 were injured and eight remain hospitalized.

The ninth body recovered was of 20-year-old Richard Chit, who was riding with his mother, Vera Peck, when the bridge collapsed. His mother’s body is among those still missing. Chit had Down syndrome, and family members said Chit and his mother were always together.

talbano @pww.org

Mortgage crisis stoked by incredible greed

Fri, 17 Aug 2007 04:46:00 +0000

Baton Rouge, La., Kansas City, Mo., and Bethlehem, Pa., are far from Wall Street, but they are among the ground zeros in the financial crisis now grabbing headlines. It’s a crisis caused, some say, by “incredible greed and looting” by the nation’s financial institutions.

The home mortgage scams that triggered the crisis have delivered a double whammy to residents of Baton Rouge and nearby New Orleans. “We have a double crisis here because we’re in the post-Katrina rebuilding era,” said Emma Dixon, project director for the Louisiana Community Reinvestment Coalition.

“We have a lot more vulnerable population — we still have a lot of people living in trailers,” she said.

Many people, already in debt, were lured into expensive home loans they couldn’t afford, a practice known as subprime lending. It’s no surprise they are having trouble making payments, and even losing their homes, she said.

In Kansas City, Richard Halliburton (no relation to the oil firm), executive director of Legal Aid of Western Missouri, said, “We’re seeing foreclosures increase dramatically over the last couple of months and years,” much of it related to subprime lending. “Anybody that’s low-income is already in somewhat desperate straits, and can easily be sucked in,” he noted, but higher-income people fall victim as well.

Northeast Pennsylvania’s Lehigh Valley, which includes Bethlehem and Allentown, has seen rapidly rising home prices, with houses bought by people who commute to work in New Jersey and New York. “What we’ve got in the great new world of predatory lending is a great new market of victims,” said Alan Jennings, who heads the Community Action Committee of the Lehigh Valley. The loan industry has been “helping people of greater means buy more than they can afford,” luring people in “not because they’re poor but because they want to be middle class,” he said.

Area foreclosures have increased about 50 percent in the last year, Jennings estimated.

As a cascade of mortgage companies go under, “the upside,” he said, is “the destruction of an industry that never should have happened in the first place.”

The house of cards has worked something like this: Mortgage companies, largely unregulated, sell high-priced mortgages to as many people as possible, then offload the risk by selling the mortgages to banks, who replace the money by issuing securities based on these mortgages, which are purchased by investors. Banks have also started selling high-risk mortgages. They all make huge amounts of money on the fees and interest. It works fine for them as long as homebuyers keep paying on their mortgages. If they default, as is happening now, the mortgage holders are left with houses they can’t sell.

Meanwhile investors have gotten nervous and don’t want to buy these securities, or any other bonds. So there’s a “liquidity” crisis — banks don’t have cash to lend to other businesses, and mergers, acquisitions and normal business activity can’t be financed.

European financial institutions have invested in the U.S. mortgage market, so now Europe has joined the U.S. government in trying to contain the crisis by lending billions to banks and other financial players.

“The subprime mortgage crisis is the trigger that has set off a whole number of financial imbalances — it triggered the whole pile to start falling,” said Art Perlo, who chairs the Communist Party USA’s economics commission.

“This crisis was caused by incredible greed and looting by the financial sector and incredibly bad policies particularly by this administration,” Perlo said.

The housing bubble was driven by the approach that “instead of guaranteeing affordable housing, we’re going to encourage people to borrow far more than they can afford,” he said.

“It bleeds over into the ‘real’ economy in a lot of serious ways,” he said. Companies that make things and employ workers have had easy credit. If it dries up, they could be forced into bankruptcy. And a lot of people involved in home construction and related industries can lose jobs.

Overall unemployment is starting to increase, said Perlo.

New residential construction is down about 25 percent. The number of unsold houses is at record levels.

Economists note that much of the recovery from the last recession in 2001 was because of growth in consumer spending, spurred by people borrowing on their home equity as home values rapidly inflated — the “housing bubble.” Now, with home prices dropping, people are not spending.

Business Week reports that state sales tax revenue is suffering the most in states with the largest drop in home prices. Lower state and local revenues from sales, income and property taxes will mean growing government inability to meet basic commitments.

Perlo called for a moratorium on foreclosures.

He singled out companies who specialize in subprime mortgages. “They don’t care. The execs are paying themselves millions every year. Even if the company goes bust, so what? They can retire.”

“The homebuyers who allegedly ‘should have known better’ are victims of fraud,” he said. These lenders “should all be sent to jail.”

Halliburton, of Western Missouri Legal Aid, said, “We need more low-income housing in this country.” His area has waiting lists of thousands for public and public-subsidized housing, he said.

suewebb @pww.org

The American Revolution revisited

Fri, 10 Aug 2007 07:36:00 +0000

Readers’ Corner

Are those who sing our national anthem, “The Star Spangled Banner,” and those who enjoy the huge fireworks displayed over our entire nation every July 4 really aware of the significance of this historic holiday?

Some years ago in Madison, Wis., a Capitol Times reporter took a petition door to door asking people to sign it. The petition, he said, would be sent to the president and Congress to make it into law. The petition read:

“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. That to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed. That whenever any form of government becomes destructive to these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or abolish it and to institute new government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their safety and happiness.”

Not one person would sign this petition. Some said the reporter had such nerve asking people to sign a “Communist petition.” Others threatened to call the police if he continued to ask others to sign it.

Today, most Americans have no idea that the Declaration of Independence was the beacon of light that kindled the flame of the French Revolution and was also the basis for the constitution of Vietnam after the Vietnamese people defeated the American military aggression.

Our government today has violated every iota of freedom and justice that was laid down in the Declaration of Independence. The Bush administration’s actions rival the persecution that King George perpetrated against the American colonists. The British government attacked all who opposed its domination. King George III murdered over 1,200 colonists by locking them up in quarters without food, water or proper air.

The Bush administration and other American administrations have likewise been guilty of invading many countries, pillaging their lands and murdering their people. Those who control the means of production, the press and the laws in our country have violated the Declaration of Independence and the entire promise of the American Revolution.

Our government has spent billions of our tax money slaughtering thousands of Iraqis and violating the rights of countries who wish to be sovereign. The United States has military bases in over 250 countries. The U.S. has blockaded Cuba for almost 50 years, spending millions of dollars trying to create havoc among the Cuban people. Our country has framed five Cubans who were fighting terrorism, and jailed them with outrageous sentences. Our government has released a terrorist who bombed a Cuban plane, killing all 73 of its occupants.

From the beginning, the U.S. government was guilty of perpetrating slavery of African Americans, wiping out Native Americans tribes and stealing their lands. Some people call the Civil War the Second American Revolution, since it abolished slavery on U.S. soil.

The U.S. government has been hypocritical in ignoring our country’s Declaration of Independence and its principles of peace and justice.

Bush’s “democracy” is the antithesis of free thought, justice and security.

We, the people, must take back America, elect honest and forthright legislators and clean the slate of the misdeeds carried out by our government in violation of the essence of the Declaration of Independence. It is time now for our halls of education, at an early grade, to begin teaching what the July 4 holiday really means. Once the American people learn what the American Revolution stands for, they can fight for its implementation.

John Gilman, World War II veteran and peace and justice activist, livies in Milwaukee, Wis.

Solving New Orleans health care crisis

Fri, 10 Aug 2007 05:18:00 +0000

The post-Katrina catastrophe in New Orleans has ripped the mask off the ruling class. Unlike a festive Mardi Gras unmasking, the greed, racism, arrogance and brutality of the Bush administration and the class whose interests it represents are out in the open for all to see.

Barbara Bush, former first lady and mother of President Bush, was one of the first to make things clear when she said that the poor people sleeping on cots in the Houston Astrodome were “better off” — it was better for them to be ripped out of their homes and displaced to a strange city, dependent on the mercy of others, than to live in their own community and homes.

Today, there is no solution on the horizon for the plight of these people after two years of political malarkey and incredible boondoggling of federal money. This money should have been spent on real rebuilding projects, jobs programs, public education and health care but instead has been squandered on feathering the nests of wealthy contractors who are Bush cronies and not connected in any way to the New Orleans community.

A July 24 New York Times report reviewed the disastrous state of health care in New Orleans. It pointed out that this is blocking economic recovery. The article notes, “Only one of the city’s seven general hospitals is operating at its pre-hurricane level; two more are partially open, and four remain closed.” There has been an exodus of doctors because of the reprehensible conditions. City residents must travel to adjacent parishes to seek care in the emergency rooms of private suburban hospitals.

Both Charity Hospital and the VA Medical Center remain closed. They were the main providers of indigent health care before the storm. Charity Hospital, opened in 1736, is one of the nation’s oldest public medical institutions. Charity was rejuvenated under President Franklin D. Roosevelt with a new 20-story hospital completed in 1939. Michael DeBakey, famed Houston heart surgeon, was trained there.

There are plans now to replace Charity and the VA with a $1.2 billion medical complex that would serve the indigent, as well as veterans and others. The complex would provide a much-needed boost to the local economy and could create jobs for unemployed New Orleans residents.

But, predictably, the Bush administration is opposed to this plan and would prefer to build a small hospital and spend the money on private insurance. Louisiana health officials say such a plan would help less than half of the uninsured.

The question is, as always, “What is to be done?”

A first step is for the people of New Orleans and their supporters across the country — led by unions, civil rights groups and other progressive organizations — to unite and organize a struggle for full funding to reopen Charity Hospital and establish medical facilities to serve all New Orleans residents. Providing first-class public medical care for New Orleans would help reverse the exodus of doctors as well. Perhaps it is time for sit-ins or other mass protests to win this.

This struggle would get a boost from passage of HR 676, which would provide universal health care coverage for everyone in this country.

After Katrina hit, the Cuban government offered to send 1,100 doctors specially trained in post-hurricane medical care. The Bush administration declined this generous offer. Perhaps the people of Louisiana and Mississippi and the rest of us should demand that the government either provide necessary medical personnel for the region or accept Cuba’s offer of assistance. The residents of New Orleans and surrounding areas need medical help now and if doctors from Cuba are able to help, how can we refuse their humane offer?

The New York Times article was instructive about the plight of the people of New Orleans. However, what are needed now are real solutions to this ongoing crisis. Only the people united can stop the hemorrhage of money to wealthy leeches and direct the funds to the benefit of the people devastated by Katrina.

Paul Hill (phill1917 @comcast.net) is a health care provider in Texas.

EDITORIAL: Bonds did it

Fri, 10 Aug 2007 05:10:00 +0000

Barry Bonds finally claimed baseball’s all-time home-run record, hitting his 756th homer on Aug. 7.

Enter haters.

The next day, the New York Post’s Brian Costello qualified Bonds’ accomplishment by referring to him as the “Sultan of Syringe.” Chicago Sun-Times columnist Jay Mariotti told us, “There’s no cause for celebration.” And Jeff Schultz of the Atlanta-Journal Constitution concluded, “[Alex] Rodriguez is at 500. Start the countdown. Please.” Some have even extended their hate beyond the sphere of baseball. Former National League MVP Dale Murphy railed on Bonds as “a terrible example for our kids.”

Every broken record is accompanied by a chorus of naysayers who look for excuses to put an asterisk by someone’s name. Roger Maris played too many games. Hank Aaron was too Black. Mark McGuire ... wait a minute.

The truth is steroid use in baseball is more common than Commissioner Bud Selig would like to admit. Players are encouraged to do anything to enhance their performance, by an industry in need of power hitters and players with superhuman abilities to draw bigger crowds at higher ticket prices. Why not call for an asterisk for Bud Selig and the Major League owners?

Lay blame where blame is due.

And to Bonds, his family and the San Francisco Giants: congratulations! We love the players, and we love the game!

EDITORIAL: No to warrantless spying

Fri, 10 Aug 2007 05:07:00 +0000

Last week, Congress gave in to a campaign of Bush administration fear-mongering and approved the Protect America Act by a vote of 60-28 in the Senate and 227-183 in the House. Bush immediately signed the bill into law.

House Republicans supported the bill with only two “no” votes while Democrats mostly opposed it, but 41 of them voted for it. In the Senate, Republican support was almost 100 percent, while 15 Democrats broke with the party leadership and supported the bill. All four Democratic senators who are running for president voted against the bill.

Fear of being accused of being soft on terrorism and weak on national security did the job once more.

This legislation gives the executive branch, specifically the National Security Agency, the right to carry out warrantless electronic surveillance of phone and e-mail communications of U.S. citizens. Up to now, such surveillance required a warrant from the secret FISA (Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act) Court. Members of the FISA Court, federal judges serving on a revolving basis, have repeatedly asserted that they can hear government requests for warrants at a moment’s notice, making this legislation unnecessary. But this was ignored.

The Bush administration has shown its contempt for due process and the Constitution. Congress should be trying to take away the powers Bush has so grievously abused, not giving him new ones. There’s a chance to change the situation. The law is for only six months and is expected to be revisited after the August break.

Let your Congress members know that warrantless spying does not protect the country; it endangers it.

The Silent War: Taking on guns and gangs with positive alternatives

Fri, 10 Aug 2007 04:49:00 +0000

CHICAGO — Growing up on this city’s Southwest Side, I could never get used to street gangs, shootings and witnessing neighborhood friends die from violence. Why do so many youth join street gangs? How can someone just pull a trigger and take the life of another human being?

I’ve lived in the same city neighborhood for 30 years, and I’m proud of my predominantly Mexican American community’s rich culture. But I remain troubled by many of the political, social and economic disparities that stop any real progress for change here.

Since school started last year, 34 Chicago public school kids have been killed, most of them by shootings.

The violence that lurks in the corners of poor and working-class communities is a constant threat, and it is the children who pay its deadly price.

A loving son

Blair Holt was an African American 16-year-old honors student at Percy Julian High School located on the far South Side. He planned to major in business administration in college.

Blair, known as “Busy B,” enjoyed making music and writing hip-hop lyrics. He loved Air Jordan gym shoes and often recorded his songs at a local studio. He would pass out his demo CDs to friends at school.

He was adored by both his teachers and his peers. He was a loving son.

On May 10, Blair was riding a city bus on his way home from school when a gunman got on the bus and opened fire. Blair threw his body in front of a bullet to save a friend. He died the next day.

Police said the gunfire was gang-related, and that neither Blair nor his friend were the intended targets.

I visited his school last week and spoke with some summer students. Several said gangs are a deadly problem and something has to change, including getting guns off the street.

“He was a funny guy,” said Nelsonmandela Jackson, an 18-year-old senior at Julian. “A ladies man, just like me, a positive guy.”

“It shouldn’t have happened,” he said. “Stuff always happens to innocent people.”

Death sits over Little Village

Roberto Duran, 14, would usually walk his mother to the door every morning as she headed off to work, kissing her and telling her that he loved her. Roberto’s family lives in the mostly Mexican American Little Village neighborhood on the city’s Southwest Side.

His friends called him “BTB” after the PBS cartoon character “Bob the Builder,” because of his big cheesy smile. He loved soccer and swimming. His family described him as a very bright, gentle, sweet and caring young boy.

It was about 8:40 p.m. on June 11 when Roberto was walking with his friends not far from his home. A car stopped nearby. A young man got out and aimed a gun toward the group and shots were fired.

Sammy Garcia, 23, a violence prevention coordinator in the trauma center at Stroger Hospital, was driving home from work with a friend when they heard the gunshots.

“We paused,” he said, not sure if what they were hearing were firecrackers. But neighbors in the street quickly flagged them down.

“People were frozen, stunned with cold faces, in shock and couldn’t move. Everybody was still,” he said.

Roberto had been hit and was laid out on the concrete. His eyes were open and rolling back. Garcia said Roberto had a pulse but was unconscious.

“Blood was all over the place,” he said. “We wrapped his head with a T-shirt and put him in our car.” Garcia rushed Roberto to the nearest hospital, where he was pronounced dead on arrival.

Roberto Duran was murdered, police say, in retaliation for the slaying of a rival gang member earlier that day. Roberto’s family says he was not in a gang.

Rudy Sosa, 34, works as an outreach worker for CeaseFire, a citywide gang prevention group. Sosa said Roberto was not a gang member but his friends were.

“He couldn’t cut his ties with them,” he said.

Sosa said gang retaliation has become a normal reflex. “I’ve seen violence go from fist-fighting to pipes to knives, and now it’s guns.”

Garcia knew Roberto. He encouraged him to stay in school and stay out of trouble. “We need to build a movement of unity among our youth,” said Garcia. “Little Village is a great, vibrant and family-oriented community, but it suffers the plague of gang violence. It’s like death sits over us.”

Another bullet, another child

Schanna Gayden, 13, was an honors student and a gifted basketball player for her Northwest Side middle school. She loved math, the Chicago Cubs and riding her bike.

Schanna’s family lives near the Funston Elementary School playground in the predominantly African American and Latino working-class section of the Logan Square community.

Schanna was buying some fruit from a vendor on June 25 when a stray bullet hit her in the head, the result of rival gangs clashing on opposite sides of the street. Schanna died the next morning.

I recently visited the playground where Schanna was gunned down. It now includes a neighborhood memorial with colorful teddy bears, candles, flowers and pictures.

A woman who works at the school spoke to me during one of her breaks on the condition that I not use her name.

“Schanna was different than all the rest,” she said. “She was a wonderful, very respectful, real smart and loving child.” She said the neighborhood is scared of the gangs, but since Schanna’s death things have been quiet.

A fellow student also knew Schanna. “She was a good student and liked going to school,” said the young girl, who also did not want to reveal her name. “She was real nice and liked hanging out with friends. I’m scared because of what happened to her.”

A young African American couple from the area approached the memorial to pay their respects. Connie, the young woman, said she remembers watching Schanna play basketball.

In the wake of Schanna’s death, she said, “you don’t want to let your kids outside, because you don’t know what’s going to happen.”

She said parents need to talk to their children and that they need positive role models. “We need more youth and after-school programs.”

Connie’s husband, himself a former gang member, said, “We have to get the gangs out and turn the guns in, and give these guys a job.” If more youth had jobs, he said, the situation would improve.

Stop the gun flow

The Rev. Michael Pfleger of St. Sabina Church on the South Side said easy access to deadly weapons is a serious problem. Pfleger, who is white, said that in 2002 and 2003, when the Chicago Police Department recovered guns used to commit crimes, 800 weapons were traced back to Chuck’s Gun Shop in Riverdale, just south of the city.

According to the Americans for Gun Safety Foundation, Chuck’s Gun Shop sells more guns than any other dealer in the nation. Pfleger, along with Rainbow/PUSH leader the Rev. Jesse Jackson, are conducting a campaign to stop the flow of guns from the shop.

I visited Pfleger at his church. He told me he was with the family of Blair Holt the night he died. Holt’s mother is a member of St. Sabina’s parish.

Pfleger pointed out that each year more children die from gun violence in the United States than U.S. soldiers die in Iraq.

The death toll of U.S. soldiers in the Iraq war is over 3,600 since the war began in 2003.

According to a Children’s Defense Fund report titled “Protect Children, Not Guns 2007,” 101,413 children and teens in America have died from gun violence since 1979. This is more than the total number of American fatalities in all wars since World War II, including in Korea, Vietnam, Afghanistan and Iraq.

“We live in a time where guns have become part of America’s wardrobe,” Pfleger said. “Kids have always been angry and enraged, but now they have a gun on them. We have to stop the easy access to guns.”

Needed: jobs and opportunities

Pfleger said the job market lacks opportunities for poor communities, which causes other problems, including unaffordable housing and failing educational institutions. Daily life for families in these communities, particularly for single-parent households, becomes very difficult, he said.

Many gangs offer youth false alternatives such as a quick money fix or a place of belonging, he said.

“When you have broken families, communities that struggle with economic disparities, then those areas are vulnerable for gangs to grow. Communities have to rise up and say we are not going to tolerate shootings on our corners.”

Communities are beginning to do just that. In the days following the killing of Holt, students at Julian High School marched out of school to protest the violence.

But political action is also needed, Pfleger indicated. “We have an administration that supports guns in America and the NRA.” The National Rifle Association is a powerful lobbying organization and chief proponent of lax rules for gun ownership.

Pfleger pointed out that too much money is being spent on incarcerating and criminalizing young people and too little is being used on prevention measures to keep them from going to jail.

Plus, as many others have observed, the billions of dollars wasted on the Iraq war could go toward creating opportunities for young people.

More policing doesn’t work

A new study titled “Gang Wars: The Failure of Enforcement Tactics and the Need for Effective Public Safety Strategies” was released last July by the Justice Policy Institute in Washington, D.C. It found that heavy-handed suppression efforts have a poor track record when it comes to reducing crime, and can actually increase gang cohesion.

More police, more prisons and more punishments don’t work, the study indicates.

Gang members account for a relatively small share of crime in most jurisdictions, it says. And street gangs do not dominate or drive the drug trade. The public face of the gang problem may seem Black and Latino only, yet it is whites that make up the largest group of adolescent gang members and the majority of gun victims.

Job training, mentoring, after-school activities, and recreational programs make significant dents in gang violence, according to the report. Its authors urge legislators to allocate more money to social programs and less for large-scale arrest and prison initiatives that often show short-term gains, but make gang problems worse.

Never forget

I had a roundtable discussion with activists from the Alliance of Logan Square Organizations and the Logan Square chapter of CeaseFire.

Maggie Pagan, a director with the violence prevention initiative of ALSO, was with Schanna’s family the night she was shot. She accompanied Schanna’s sister as they rushed to the hospital. “I remember her saying, ‘I can’t lose my sister, she’s my best friend.’”

Several participants, some of them former gang members, said a caring community and an atmosphere of love and support is critical, along with jobs.

David Cassel, executive director of ALSO, said a lot of youth who join a gang do so when they don’t have someone to look after them and when they lack economic opportunity. “Unemployment puts a major strain on the family,” he said.

“It’s a fight every year for more funding” for youth programs, he said. “We need more city, county and state money.”

When it comes to race, Cassel, who is white, said, “On the community level, young people of color are not shooting each other because of race, but institutional racism has put people of color into situations and environments that lead to violence.”

Pagan sighed and said, “After all this happens, our work does not die down, it picks up. We never forget what happened.”

plozano @pww.org

Soldier stands up against unjust war

Fri, 10 Aug 2007 03:59:00 +0000

LOS ANGELES — Agustin Aguayo has a decision to make. Aguayo is seeking conscientious objector status, and may appeal his case to the Supreme Court. His deadline is Sept. 5.

At issue is whether a soldier’s conscientious objection to war can develop after enlistment and outside of an organized religion, as well as whether the Army can deny a soldier’s claim to conscientious objection without a response to the soldier’s arguments.

“The courts have sided with the Army, saying the proper procedures were followed even though they [the Army] did not give a reason for denying me CO status,” Aguayo, 35, told the World in a recent interview.

He said his lawyers say he has a strong case and are prepared to go forward with the appeal, but he won’t make a decision until he and his wife travel to the East Coast to talk with them in person. Politically, the decision must take into account the direction of the high court and the danger of a far-right majority using the case to further undermine soldiers’ rights.

If successful, Aguayo’s case could block a right-wing current that seeks to eliminate the broader definition of conscientious objection established during the Vietnam War.

Aguayo’s story is informative, troubling, dramatic and inspiring. It gives insight to the physical, psychological and moral damage inflicted by an unjust war.

Aguayo, a Mexican American immigrant, enlisted in the Army in the fall of 2002. He was 30 at the time and married to Helga, his high school sweetheart, for 12 years. They had 8-year-old twin daughters. He enlisted to serve the country as a medic, hoping to get training for a fulfilling career to better provide for his family.

The soft-spoken and modest, if not shy, family man was jolted and revolted from the first combat training. This revulsion grew into a deep objection to war. He filed for a conscientious objection discharge when ordered deployed to Iraq from a base in Germany in February 2004.

During his year in Iraq, for which he was awarded a medal for meritorious service, he abstained from putting ammunition in his weapons while on patrol. Based on what he observed among Iraqis, he came to reject the U.S. occupation as unwelcome and wrong.

During his deployment and afterwards, while stationed in Germany, he followed the procedures of his petition for CO status, and subsequent legal appeals, to the letter.

Still his petition was denied by the Army and civilian courts.

When ordered to a second deployment in Iraq on Sept. 1, 2006, he deliberately did not report. The next day he turned himself in to face disciplinary charges. When his commander instead threatened to take him to Iraq “handcuffed and shackled to avoid a domino effect,” he found a way to elude Army guards.

Aguayo returned to Los Angeles, where he publicly declared his continuing fight for recognition as a CO and turned himself back in to Army custody. He was returned to his base in Germany to await court-martial. On March 6, he was court-martialed for desertion and “missing movement,” and sentenced to eight months in prison. He had already served six and a half months.

He attributes the relatively light sentence to the public support he received. “These are two felonies, however, and I cannot vote or get a job in government,” he said. “It is painful to be punished for being for peace,” and he also wants to clear his name.

Speaking to youth about “informed enlistment” is now a passion for him. “We are told we will come out from the service better,” he said. “Instead, it puts you at a disadvantage. Many do not come back, and some don’t come back sane.”

Returning soldiers often have to grapple with divorce, post-traumatic stress, depression, and alcohol and drug abuse, he said. Many face a second deployment.

Both Agustin and Helga are active in antiwar efforts, including with Iraq Veterans Against the War.

“Working with veterans and others who feel the same way about peace and want change is a blessing,” he said. “War, violence is not a way to solve problems.”

Aguayo is especially disturbed about the growing number of Latinos being targeted for recruitment. Many are immigrants like him. “So many are disadvantaged and want opportunities, and they are targeted. It’s really unfair.”

More information on Aguayo’s case can be found at , couragetoresist.org, and a recent video of he and Helga speaking recently in Portland at .

rosalio_munoz @sbcglobal.net

Court strikes down anti-immigrant measures

Fri, 10 Aug 2007 03:56:00 +0000

HAZLETON, Pa. — In a stinging rebuttal to anti-immigrant forces, a federal court has struck down this city’s ordinances against undocumented immigrants.

The decision is expected to have wider repercussions. But Latino residents here, while happy over the ruling, say the ordinances have already poisoned the atmosphere against them.

The ordinances would have fined business owners for renting, hiring or “providing goods and services” to undocumented immigrants. They also prohibited providing city services in any language but English, even to citizens and legal residents.

César Perales, president of the Puerto Rican Legal Defense and Educational Fund, one of the groups who filed the lawsuit challenging the ordinances, called the July 26 decision “historic” and said it “sets a precedent for the 21st century.”

U.S. District Court Judge James Munley ruled that the ordinances were invalid because enforcement of immigration laws is a federal government responsibility. Munley also ruled that, contrary to what Hazleton city attorneys maintained, undocumented immigrants are “persons” whose rights are protected under the Constitution. He emphasized that “persons who enter this country without legal authorization are not stripped immediately of their rights because of this single illegal act.”

Several hundred similar city, county and state measures have been introduced around the country, and some have passed.

While this verdict applies only to Hazleton, other courts are expected to look to the legal thinking behind Munley’s decision in deciding those cases.

Those filing the suit here included the ACLU and several immigrant rights organizations and law firms, acting on behalf of individual residents, business owners and organizations. Four of the 11 plaintiffs were listed as John Doe 1, 3, 7 and 5 because of their status as undocumented immigrants.

City attorneys attempted to force disclosure of the John Does’ identities, to compel them to drop out of the case or be subjected to possible arrest by Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents. Munley agreed to let them proceed anonymously citing an earlier decision permitting anonymity in cases where there may be a danger to the plaintiff.

Munley noted that Dr. Agapito López, a Hazleton Latino leader who was not a plaintiff in the case, testified during the trial that he had received hate mail directed at him and at Anna Arias, a Latina resident who serves on the Governor’s Advisory Commission on Latino Affairs.

At a rally supporting Hazleton’s Republican Mayor Louis Barletta, who introduced the ordinances, a reporter for a local Spanish-language newspaper was escorted out by police after he was threatened by people in the crowd. The Ku Klux Klan in New Jersey had announced that they would be in Hazleton to support the mayor.

In introducing the ordinances, Barletta blamed the undocumented for what he said was an increase in crime with a city police force that was stretched to the limit. At the trial, he admitted that he himself had cut the police force when he took office.

In many towns that have introduced or considered a Hazleton-style ordinance, “walking while Latino has become a crime,” said Foster Maer, Puerto Rican Legal Defense and Educational Fund senior counsel on the case.

María, an undocumented Mexican living here, agreed. “I feel afraid. I don’t feel very free to go out walking in the streets.” She said she stays home “with my baby, who was born here.”

Julian Figueroa, working in his brother’s grocery store, Jazmin Market, said he was glad the ordinances were overruled, “even though they don’t affect me” as a Puerto Rican. “Many Hispanics have left because of the harassment” from local police and residents, he said, although he noted that “not all of them are racist.”

Ramón and Patricia Batista, among the many Latinos who have moved to Hazleton and opened new businesses, revitalizing what was a depressed area, were happy with the court’s decision.

Ramón said he expected the town would get back to normal and noted that he is seeing new customers in his restaurant.

The mayor “has lost some strength because of the court’s decision,” he said. “But immigrants still have to go on fighting.”

Ana Cintrón, a Dominican immigrant, was considering moving back to the New York area despite the court victory. “When I first got here I liked it here a lot. But I have seen that they don’t want us immigrants here. They don’t attack just the undocumented, but all immigrants,” she said.

“Nevertheless, we have made this place. Everywhere you go you see grocery stores and businesses and it’s because of us, the immigrants,” she said, as her Mexican husband nodded his head in agreement.

Francisco and Jesús, both undocumented, are also considering leaving. Francisco said the local police were harassing people “because we are not white but brown-skinned.” He said he was tired of “gross comments” by white residents.

“We are going to another place where they will treat us better,” he said.

Jesús added, “All we did was come here to have a better life.”

Expressing hope for “a new initiative” for immigration reform that will benefit immigrants, he said, “We came to work.”

jacruz @pww.org

Bridges, not bombs, Minnesotans say

Fri, 10 Aug 2007 03:45:00 +0000

Steve Share, editor of the Minneapolis Labor Review, was in his office the evening of Aug. 1 when he heard the sirens wailing, a din that grew so loud he stepped out to see what was the matter.

In a steady stream, police cars, ambulances and fire engines were racing toward the I-35W bridge that spans the Mississippi.

He grabbed his camera and hurried to the disaster scene: the sudden collapse of the steel and concrete span, packed bumper to bumper with rush hour traffic. He shot photo after photo of the nightmare.

What struck him was the bravery of people who rushed to save lives. One young man risked his own life to drag children from a school bus.

So far, five people are confirmed dead, at least eight are missing and 100 injured.

“This could have been anybody on that highly traveled bridge,” Share told the World in a phone interview. “My letter carrier crossed the bridge just 15 minutes before it collapsed. Everybody here in the Twin Cities has been impacted by this tragedy.”

President Bush visited, offering bland condolences to the grieving families, Share noted, “but then he moved on to complain that the Democrats want to exceed his spending limits in the federal budget. He says it would mean a tax increase.”

“It is ironic that we are pouring all this treasure into Iraq and we have bridges falling down at home,” Share said.

Dick Anfang, president of the Minnesota Building and Construction Trades, AFL-CIO, said an alarm was sounded on Minnesota’s roads and bridges at the MBCT convention in Mankato the week before the bridge collapsed. “We had elected officials who talked about their frustration that Gov. Tim Pawlenty [a Republican] vetoed bills to improve our roads and bridges,” Anfang told the World.

“We predicted something like this. My gut reaction is that this could have happened in any state in the nation at any time. The federal and local government have never given the infrastructure the priority it needs.”

Anfang compared the bridge collapse to Hurricane Katrina’s devastation three years ago. The hurricane “sped up the process” that breeched the levees, he said, but local officials had pleaded without success for decades that the Army Corps of Engineers needed to strengthen the levees to protect New Orleans.

Nearly three years later, the Bush administration is still refusing billions of dollars in promised funds to rebuild the city. The corps has rebuilt the levees but not strong enough, as promised, to withstand a force 5 hurricane.

Critics also cite the explosion of a high-pressure steam pipe in New York’s midtown Manhattan last month in which one person died and dozens were injured.

“This is certainly going to be an issue in the 2008 elections,” Anfang said. “The candidates who take a stand for protecting our public safety from disasters like this ultimately are going to be the winners.”

Share said one positive result of the bridge collapse “is that a vigorous public debate is beginning here on why this happened. This accident is a reminder that we have to invest in roads, bridges and other infrastructure needs, and it can’t be done on the cheap.”

A 2005 report card by the American Society of Civil Engineers gave the nation an overall grade of D on its crumbling physical infrastructure, which includes roads, bridges, dams, levees, water and sewer systems, the electric power grid and schools. That was down from D+ five years earlier. Across the country, 160,570 highway bridges are in danger of collapse, the report found.

Just a few days before the Minneapolis bridge collapse, ASCE President Bill Marcuson wrote on the ASCE blog, “The crumbling state of our infrastructure poses a real threat to public safety and the nation’s economy. Financing the urgently needed repairs must become a priority for our nation’s leaders.”

ASCE estimates the cost of repairing, replacing and upgrading the U.S. infrastructure will exceed $1.6 trillion, an enormous cost that rivals the $1 trillion estimated cost of occupying Iraq. Congress has been appropriating roughly $60 billion annually for roads and bridges while ASCE argues that at least $100 billion a year is needed.

Just hours before the bridge collapse, Sens. Chris Dodd (D-Conn.) and Chuck Hagel (R-Neb.) introduced a bill “to revitalize, repair and replace America’s aging and crumbling roads, bridges, transit system and water treatment facilities.” In a joint statement, the senators warned of “a looming crisis that jeopardizes the prosperity and quality of life of all Americans.”

Rep. Dennis Kucinich (D-Ohio) has introduced a similar bill in the House.

Every Wednesday in recent years, Twin Cities antiwar protesters have vigiled on one of the bridges over the Mississippi River, demanding an end to the U.S. occupation of Iraq. The weekend after the bridge collapse, crowds joined vigils near the disaster site with the theme, “Build bridges, not bombs.”

Mary Beaudoin, executive director of Minneapolis-based Women Against Military Madness (WAMM), told the World, “Instead of deliberately destroying the infrastructure of Iraq, we want the infrastructure of the United States to be maintained. We want reparations paid for the damage done by our government both here and abroad. We need to alter our national priorities to preserve life and not destroy it.”

greenerpastures21212 @yahoo.com