People Before Profit blog

LETTERS: Sept. 1

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

Victory for students, peace

At last, after two years, a victory for Chapter 119 Veterans for Peace (Tampa Bay, Fla.). Vets and their friends will be “permitted” to sit at a table inside Pinellas County schools and advise students of career choices that do not require enlistment in the military. A really great day!

Jesse Kern St. Petersburg FL Jesse Kern is a Korean War veteran and a member of Veterans for Peace.

OSHA should do its job

This is excerpted from a letter to the editor of The Meadville Tribune on its recent story, “Runaway wrecking ball injures three,” involving Kebert Construction.

As my brother, Gary Puleio, was killed at Meadville Redi-Mix Concrete on Aug. 15, 2001, I am painfully familiar with workplace injuries and fatalities.

The Occupational Safety and Health Administration has recently found three serious violations in its investigation of July’s “runaway wrecking ball” incident at Allegheny College and is proposing total fines of $7,500 for Kebert Construction. While OSHA regulations propose a mandatory penalty of up to $7,000 for each serious violation, the penalties may be adjusted downward “based on the employer’s good faith, history of previous violations, the gravity of the alleged violation, and the size of the business.”

Corporations routinely “negotiate” with OSHA to downgrade fines through a process called “abatement.” Aggrieved families of dead workers have no such access to OSHA.

In the past 20 years, 170,000 workplace fatalities occurred but only about 1,700 were considered by OSHA to be due to the “willful” violation of safety laws. Without a “willful” designation it is difficult for prosecutors to make a case that an employer was criminally liable and civil suits pursued by families are not likely to succeed.

It is a misdemeanor to kill a worker by willfully violating safety laws. The maximum sentence is six months in jail.

OSHA fines are not issued as punishment and no amount of money can ever compensate for the loss of life. However the issuance of trivial fines and citations results in no accountability, nor any acknowledgment of responsibility on the part of the offending company.

Donna Puleio Spadaro, MD Franklin PA

Nursing home reform

“Republican Sen. Chuck Grassley probably thought coming home meant family picnics with sweet corn, instead of scores of constituents outside his home office windows, July 18, protesting his recent vote to continue funding for the Iraq war,” wrote Denise Winebrenner Edwards in National Clips (PWW 7/28-8/3).

Grassley also gives much lip service to nursing home reform to stop abuse/neglect. He speaks forcefully while allowing the Center for Medicare/Medicaid Services give the nursing home industry a free ride on penalties.

I tried to find out if there is a union entity that is trying to unionize nursing home workers in Houston. Maybe you can give me a referral.

Sam Perlin Houston TX

Denise Winebrenner Edwards responds: I urge you to contact the Houston labor federation and attend Labor Day festivities. At aflcio.org, there is a section titled “Working America” where you could join a union by city and state. You might check that out as well.

On guns and gangs

Pepe Lozano’s centerpiece story on guns and gangs (PWW 8/11-17) is very timely. Maybe we need a massive Rebuild America program to improve our infrastructure (Minneapolis bridges?). That would put a lot of our young people to work on constructive projects.

I am not sure if guns are the problem. Many areas of our country have guns without this senseless violence. I think there is a deeper problem of a general breakdown in values and a disrespect for life. All one has to do is watch TV or films to see a culture that glorifies this lifestyle.

Jim Gallo Detroit MI

Save the Internet

I recently found an article in The Nation on how the corporate world wants to totally destroy the freedom of the Internet. I sincerely hope PWW reprints it and everyone who reads my short letter tries to save the Internet from the capitalist corporate greed. The destruction of the free use of the Internet is a very, very real possibility. With the destruction of the Internet, the freedom of PWW and Political Affairs to post their articles online would be lost, resulting in the articles not being accessible to anyone.

Gary De Santis Trenton NJ

Re-tool the industrial revolution

Re: Bill Mackovich’s “Mining black gold, and profits, from northern sands” (PWW 8/25-31): Coal, gas, oil and atomic energy are destroying the planet’s livability. The last 44 years of an ecological green revolution has brought into being the high-tech tools to put in place wind, tidal and solar power. This is a non-pollution solution. End pollution wars, not endless wars for more pollution. Pollution is the deepest war as it alone portends the total destruction of the planet’s livability.

Marty Via e-mail

Prisoner exchange vexes Colombian politics

Fri, 31 Aug 2007 06:01:00 +0000

“Sadly our children, our loved ones, are there in the forests, and we are in the middle of this political game between the government and the FARC,” said Gustavo Moncayo, a primary schoolteacher in Colombia, on Aug. 2. Moncayo, nicknamed “the Professor,” was lecturing Colombian President Alvaro Uribe in Bogota’s Plaza Bolivar.

For 46 days the Professor walked 800 miles from his home close to the Ecuadorian border to demand the government negotiate with leftist guerillas to secure the release of his son Pablo. The Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) has held his son, a former police official, captive for almost 10 years.

Along the way, thousands listened to the Professor’s story. He plans to camp out in the plaza until his son and 45 other hostages are freed, many of them former army, police and political officials. He is well on his way to securing 2 million signatures on a petition calling for a humanitarian prisoner exchange.

The issue returned to the fore after June 18, when 11 FARC-held prisoners were killed, some say in the wake of a government military rescue attempt. For the next two weeks, 3 million Colombians marched and demonstrated. Many claimed to be repudiating the murder or disappearance of 30,000 Colombians, the kidnapping of over 5,000, and the displacement of 3 million people in the course of a four-decades-long civil war.

Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez promised to advocate for a humanitarian exchange at a meeting with President Uribe in Bogota set for Aug. 31. He was recruited as a mediator, with Uribe’s assent, on Aug. 5 by leftist Colombian Senator Piedad Cordoba, who was attending the 6th Caracas Social Congress. She will confer with FARC leaders, who have already turned down a proposal to release prisoners on Venezuelan territory.

France, Switzerland and Spain have offered support for a humanitarian exchange. President Chavez is seeking aid from the governments of Brazil, Chile, Bolivia and Ecuador.

Meanwhile, Agricultural Minister Andres Felipe Arias was telling audiences throughout Colombia that Uribe rejects the FARC’s primary demand that the government demilitarize the municipalities of Florida and Pradera in the agriculturally rich state of Valle de Cauca for 45 days before prisoner exchange talks can begin.

Uribe has also demanded that any of the 400 FARC prisoners released by his government must give up their lives as insurgents. Encountering the Professor, he relented only by agreeing to demilitarize some unspecified area for 90 days should the FARC release prisoners.

Critics have accused the Uribe government of relying exclusively on military rescues of prisoners, so-called “blood and fire.” They point to hostages killed and wounded during government attacks on FARC compounds. Hostage families support a humanitarian exchange, and representatives of 14 families met with President Chavez in Caracas on Aug. 21.

The bloody outcome of an October 2006 attack that wounded 23 bystanders at a Bogota military college worries humanitarian exchange partisans. Blaming the attack on the FARC, Uribe abruptly ended prisoner exchange negotiations that seemed headed for success. Critics say the melee was staged as a pretext.

Government opponents highlight the Colombian army’s collaboration with U.S. military contractors and with right-wing paramilitary groups in mounting attacks, even rescue attempts, on guerrilla installations.

Analysts say mutual intransigence is a legacy of lost hope stemming from many years of deaths, disappearances and displaced populations. The FARC experiment in the 1980s of entering electoral politics through its Patriotic Alliance resulted in thousands of its candidates being murdered by the state and by right-wing paramilitaries. Recent revelations that government officialdom has been deeply penetrated by paramilitary and drug trafficking groups have done little to restore confidence.

Interviewed by El Tiempo, Communist Party leader Carlos Lozano, director of the Voz newspaper, explained that negotiations for overall peace are now a distant dream. Yet he sees discussions over a humanitarian exchange as a realizable goal, potentially useful if the guerrillas can be brought into the world of collaborative, democratic politics.

Lozano suggests that solutions for the present impasse are political, not military. For guerrillas, he said, work on humanitarian exchange is a ticket of admission into a sustainable political life. Support by left parties, his own included, for the Alternative Democratic Pole exemplifies acceptance and participation within that arena. The opposition coalition is now electioneering to win local elections in October and is preparing for general elections in 2010.

atwhit @megalink.net

Iraqis condemn U.S. colonialism

Fri, 31 Aug 2007 05:58:00 +0000

President Bush plans to ask Congress for $50 billion this month to continue funding the Iraq war, the Washington Post reports.

But meanwhile, Iraqi Communists charge, “The Americans are doing everything they can to prevent Iraqis from exercising their right to self-determination.”

In an Aug. 28 phone interview, Iraqi Communist Party spokesperson Salam Ali said hints that Bush may be looking to oust Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, and calls by some Democrats for Maliki to go, “invoke memories of colonialism” among the Iraqi people. “People say, ‘Who are the Americans to tell us what to do?’”

The U.S. has become an increasingly destabilizing factor in Iraq, “contributing to divisions and manipulating those divisions,” he said.

The governing Islamic Shiite parties feel they need American support to keep their dominant position, Ali said. But now they are very concerned that the U.S. has shifted to backing former Baathists who are collaborating with the U.S. against Iraqi “Al Qaeda.” Iraqi Communists say this U.S. tactic helps proliferation of militias and destabilizes the central government.

In addition, U.S. ally Saudi Arabia has become more aggressively engaged in Iraq, supporting “Sunni” groups inside and outside the political process, Ali said, while Iran is also seeking to expand its influence there.

The ICP sees national reconciliation as crucial to compelling an end to the occupation. The public is extremely frustrated that little progress has been made toward that goal under the Maliki government, Ali said.

“Now almost every family has had people killed or forced to leave. All the promises have come to nothing. The Islamic groups, especially the Shiite, have been exposed as corrupt, only aimed at getting more and more. Ordinary people feel they have been betrayed.”

This situation has fueled tension between the Shia and Sunni groups, and fierce internal struggles within their political alliances. The fighting that broke out in Karbala during a Shiite religious celebration was an example of infighting between two Shiite groups contending for power, Ali noted.

“In a way, what you are seeing is a process by which the Islamic vision for a future Iraqi state is facing serious problems, if not already failing,” he said.

But Maliki is not on the way out, “for the moment,” said Ali, because there is no alternative right now.

As a result of pressure from within its Sunni bloc, the relatively moderate Iraqi Islamic Party, whose leader Tariq al-Hashemi is Iraqi vice president, last week said it would not, for now, join a national unity front with the two main Shia parties and the two large Kurdish parties.

But it joined those four parties in agreeing on several steps that are seen as furthering national unity, including a less harsh de-Baathification policy, release of Iraqi detainees and a more inclusive cabinet decision-making process.

The Iraqi Communist Party is part of the non-sectarian Iraqi National List headed by former interim Prime Minister Ayad Allawi, who has been promoting himself as an alternative to Maliki, possibly with some U.S. backing. The ICP has one cabinet minister in the current government. He did not join others from the National List who withdrew from cabinet meetings last month. The Communists said paralyzing the government would only hurt the Iraqi people. The boycott may be crumbling, as several National List members reportedly attended a cabinet meeting last week.

The ICP is critical of Allawi’s maneuvering. “We are still part of the Iraqi National List because its program is generally positive, but our participation is constantly under review,” Ali said. Because of the ICP’s stature in Iraq, its departure would effectively end the alliance, he said.

On Aug. 20, the ICP launched its own 14-point “Patriotic Democratic Plan.” At a well attended Baghdad press conference widely covered in Iraqi and some international media (though not in the U.S.), party leader Mohammed Jassim al-Labban said many in Iraq recognize “the urgent need for a plan that charts the way out of the crisis,” that begins to build a “modern, democratic Iraqi state, based on the principles of citizenship and social justice, and striving to end the legacy of occupation and regain sovereignty.”

The party plans a series of conferences with democratic organizations including unions. The aim, said Ali, is to establish a broad alliance.

“There is a big battle of political visions of what Iraq will be coming out of this carnage,” he said. “It is very important for democratic forces to unite around a vision.” Islamist and pan-Arab visions “will only lead to further catastrophe,” he said. “They will not provide a way out and an end to occupation.”

“The democratic forces and our party are not yet the decisive forces in Iraq, but we see the potential and we have to fight for it.”

Asked what role other countries can play, he responded, “We support all initiatives for an international and regional framework to make this happen, but it must be done in consultation with //all// segments of the Iraqi people representing the full political spectrum,” not just sectarian-based groups.

The U.S. Congress ought to pursue “real engagement with all political forces inside Iraq,” Ali suggested. “Has Congress thought about inviting a broadly based delegation from Iraq — not just ‘Sunni, Shiite, Kurds’? One should open up and see the real Iraq.”

suewebb @pww.org

A slightly abridged version of this story appeared in the Sept. 1 print edition of People's Weekly World.

A must-see play, union-made

Fri, 24 Aug 2007 05:49:00 +0000

THEATER REVIEW

Buried: The Sago Mine Disaster

Written by Jerry Starr

Music by Anne Feeney

Directed by Dale Morris

I recently attended a reading of “Buried: The Sago Mine Disaster” as part of the San Diego 6th@Penn Theatre’s Resilience of the Human Spirit Festival. Lately the news has been filled with stories of mining disasters, so I felt this was a must-see performance. I wasn’t wrong.

Each day we hear of the human costs of what’s called the extractive industries in a global economy. Playwright Jerry Starr crafts his characters in the context of a capitalism hungry for a greater rate of profit, the multiple risks of newer and deeper mines and a the Bush administration’s weakening of mine safety.

Sponsored by the United Mine Workers of America, the play focuses on the wives and daughters of the miners killed and maimed at the mine in Sago, W.Va., on Jan. 2, 2006. These are women who fight like hell for the living, blasting through the walls of gender and class. Like the heroine in the movie “Salt of the Earth,” these are women who rise up and bring others with them. The result was to bring about the most sweeping overhaul of mine safety regulations in decades.

As if by design, there are recurrences of the number 12 to remind us of the lives so needlessly taken away from us at Sago. Twelve is the number of people on stage who use the exact words given to the press and at the subsequent hearings to flesh out the characters, recreate the story of Sago and dig up harsh truths. Twelve is the number of songs sung by folksinger/agitator Anne Feeney to provide a musical bridge between the opening, the scenes and the closing. Her soundtrack to this docudrama, like the writings of the dying miners, will move you to anger, to tears, to joy and maybe even to action.

Using the public record to create a work of art in the service of social justice has been blossoming in the film industry of late. Creating coalitions of organized labor, theaters and the socially conscious to move a message, and subsequently the people, is definitely a renaissance whose time has come. The entire production at 6th@Penn came at the right time and in the right circumstances to do just that.

This production was union-made from top to bottom and included the UMWA/AFL-CIO report on the Sago mine disaster. After attending the reading and flipping through the report, I was struck by a sameness coming out of the open pits of the mine owners, the media and government officials regarding the current disasters in the extractive industries. The main characters in “Buried” humbly accept the limitations of their accomplishment. It remains for the rest of us to continue their fight.

To find out where you can see this play, or to get a production of it in your area, e-mail Jerry Starr jmstarr@comcast.net.

Murders fuel anti-immigrant tirades

Fri, 24 Aug 2007 05:36:00 +0000

On Aug. 4, four African American Delaware State University students, Dashon Harvey, Iofemi Hightower, Terrance Aeriel and his sister, Natasha Aeriel, were shot execution-style in a Newark, N.J., elementary schoolyard. Only Natasha survived. Newark Mayor Cory Booker called the victims “good kids with bright futures who had never been in trouble.”

Three suspects have been arrested. One is Jose Carranza, an undocumented immigrant from Peru. Carranza had been released on bail for the rape of a child in July and for weapons charges in April. In an interview on CNN, prosecutor Paula Dow acknowledged a public uproar about Carranza’s status and the weaknesses in the Essex County criminal justice system.

The immense sadness of this tragedy is being exploited by the anti-immigrant movement. Newt Gingrich, for example, a possible Republican presidential candidate, said, “Young Americans are being massacred by illegal immigrants.” Gingrich demanded that Bush call back Congress to a special session to honor the college students and pass legislation to establish a Homeland Security database that will verify the immigration status of anyone arrested for a felony.

“The war at home against illegal immigrants is more dangerous than Iraq and Iran,” Gingrich said. But statistics show that immigrants commit far fewer crimes than American citizens. Yet Internet blogs accused Latinos of “ethnic cleansing” Blacks. Talk show hosts invited any Black person they could find to confirm that immigrants were responsible for the high unemployment of African Americans, rather than racial discrimination.

Ryan Haygood, an attorney for the NAACP Legal Defense Fund and a resident of Newark’s South Ward, compared the present struggle of immigrants to the struggle of the 7 million African Americans who migrated from the South to the North between 1915 and 1970. Unskilled, they did the most difficult jobs and were paid lower wages than white workers for the same work, Haygood wrote in a blog. White workers accused them of “taking our jobs” and driving down wages.

Newark is New Jersey’s largest city and was once a great industrial and trade center for the region with nearly half a million residents. Between 1950 and 1960, 97,000 white residents fled the city for the newly built suburbs, while 65,000 African Americans and Puerto Ricans migrated to the city seeking better jobs and a better life. But tens of thousands of jobs left Newark for suburban industrial parks, the South and overseas. Many of the new residents never realized their dreams. Whole neighborhoods were razed and replaced with high-rise public housing. The 1967 Newark rebellion cried out for political and economic justice.

In the 1980s, the illegal drugs/guns industry filled an economic vacuum, escalating crime and homicides. Newark now has a growing population of 280,000 — 53 percent African American, 26.5 percent white and 30 percent Latino of all races. More than 28 percent of Newark’s residents have incomes at or below the poverty line. The renaissance of downtown Newark, like in many cities, has not affected most low income people.

On Aug. 25, a People’s March and Rally for Peace, Equality, Jobs and Justice will take place in Newark.

Key civil liberties case on trial

Fri, 24 Aug 2007 05:33:00 +0000

DALLAS — One of the most important civil liberties trials in recent times has been under way here since July 26. Each day, government prosecutors inundate the jury with evidence of the Holy Land Foundation’s involvement in providing assistance to the suffering people of Palestine without any mention of actual crimes.

The government’s main contention is that some of the aid may have passed through the charitable initiatives of Hamas. The United States designated Hamas a “terrorist organization” in 1995, but, so far, prosecutors have only tried to prove that Holy Land Foundation employees and Hamas had connections prior to that time.

Most of what the government has presented was seized by Israeli agents during raids on Hamas. The origins of the documents are shrouded in mystery, since the workings of Israeli security forces are being protected. The jury has heard a great deal of testimony from Israeli “Agent X” without knowing his/her identity.

Before 2001, the Holy Land Foundation was headquartered in Richardson, Texas, just outside Dallas. It provided funds to Oklahoma City bombing victims and others in need. Many of its donors are devout Muslims, whose religion requires big charitable contributions. After Sept. 11, 2001, virtually everything done by Muslims came under severe scrutiny.

Defense attorneys say the five men on trial have worked hard to provide charity for those who need it, and have gone out of their way to cooperate with government agents. One defendant, Ghassan Elashi, even met with FBI agents to ask how to comply with the fast-changing U.S. anti-terrorism laws.

Civil libertarians, some of whom have known the defendants for years, are rallying around the case. The Dallas Peace Center’s executive director, State Rep. Lon Burnam, released this statement: “We are concerned that these are trumped up charges being used to harass a legitimate nonprofit organization. We want to do all we can to make sure that these people receive a fair trial.”

Daily trial updates and background information are available on the Hungry for Justice web page .

UN says Gaza Strip facing economic collapse

Fri, 17 Aug 2007 05:34:00 +0000

UNITED NATIONS — The Gaza Strip is in danger of a general economic collapse, said a high level UN official, unless Karni crossing, the main point of entry for commercial goods into the territory, is reopened soon.

The warning was issued by Filippo Grandi, deputy commissioner general of the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestinian Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA), Aug. 9. Grandi had just completed a tour of the territory.

“Gaza risks becoming a virtually 100 percent aid-dependent, closed-down and isolated community within a matter of months or even weeks,” Grandi said. “The window of opportunity in which we can address this most urgent situation is small and fast closing.”

Israel closed the crossing to all commercial goods June 12, after Hamas took over the Gaza Strip. The Jerusalem Post reported as far back as July 16 that, as a result, 80 percent of all businesses in Gaza were temporarily shuttered. Of the establishments that remained open, they were operating at only 60 percent capacity.

The Israeli clampdown is choking Gaza. Grandi noted that in the territory the UNRWA had been forced to halt all construction projects, which amount to $93 million, because the agency was unable to import the necessary materials.

“We urgently need to get these into Gaza if we are to avoid a significant worsening of the living conditions of those who have waited months, and even years to have their own homes,” he said.

All classes of the population, from farmers to businessmen, are at risk, said Grandi. An average of half a million dollars per day, $23 million since June, has been lost in Gaza industry, according to a report given him by the Palestinian Association of Businessmen.

“If this continues,” Grandi said, “the PAB predicts that at least 120,000 workers in Gaza will lose their jobs. In the construction sector alone, about $160 million worth of projects have been halted.”

Grandi added that farmers are in a crisis. They have no way of knowing whether or not they should spend money preparing fields and paying workers, because they cannot know whether their goods will be able to be exported. They also have no way of knowing whether they will even be able to obtain such simple necessities as fertilizer.

“If the agricultural sector is allowed to fail,” said Grandi, “Gaza will pay a huge price. More than 13 percent of the workforce is engaged in agriculture.”

The United Nations has been demanding that Karni crossing be opened. On July 13, UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon demanded that the Karni crossing be reopened for commercial goods. Already at that time, his spokesperson said, “3,190 businesses have closed down, forcing over 65,000 people into unemployment.”

Grandi reiterated the call to open the crossing.

“Only this,” he said, “will allow the little that remains of Gaza’s economy to survive.”

dmargolis @pww.org

REFLECTIONS ON SOCIALISM

Fri, 03 Aug 2007 09:11:00 +0000

Is socialism dead or on the rise? What’s the Communist Party USA got to say about a socialist revolution in the United States? Read “Reflections on Socialism” by Sam Webb, CPUSA national chair, to find out.

Available on the web at

Or request a printed copy:

e-mail

or write to

CPUSA

235 W. 23rd St.

NYC, NY 10011

Donations appreciated!