People Before Profit blog

Youth protest Kissinger speech

Fri, 21 Dec 2001 14:29:00 +0000

St. Louis, Mo. – When Former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger spoke at the Powell Symphony Hall here Dec. 6, he was met by protesters. Kissinger was invited as a guest of Maryville University and KMOX and RCGA radio stations.

Over 150 people, mostly youth and students, protested the event. Serena Karp, a student from Washington University, standing next to a plastic grave stone, said, “I am disgusted at the atrocities that Kissinger is responsible for.”

Kissinger helped to topple the democratically elected socialist government of Salvator Allende in Chile, and bring to power the brutal dictator Agusto Pinochet. In 1976 Kissinger and Pinochet met. During their discussion Kissinger said, “We welcome the overthrow” and he hoped that “our relations and friendship improve.”

“We are here to confront what Henry Kissinger did,” said Bill Ramsey of the Human Rights Action Network/War Tax Resisters. “Nearly 30 years ago, when I was in college, Kissinger orchestrated the invasion of Cambodia ... It is great that we are out here.”

The protest was very festive. Giant puppets, mocking caricatures of Kissinger, paraded the street and sidewalk, as people driving by honked their horns in support. An anti-Kissinger pom-pom squad sang and danced.

Steve Hollis, president of American Federation of Government Employees Local 3354, said, “It is great to see all the young people here. You are the seed of the peace movement.”

Human Rights Day marked by peace rally in Tucson

Fri, 21 Dec 2001 14:26:00 +0000

TUCSON, Ariz. – International Human Rights Day was observed here Dec. 10 with a spirited march and a rally demanding peace in Afghanistan and an end to attacks on civil liberties and racist scapegoating.

Demonstrators gathered at the University of Arizona, where they painted anti-war signs and listened to music by folk singer Ted Warmbrand. After a rousing send-off by Chicana activist Celeste Espinoza the crowd of about 200 people marched two miles through rush hour traffic for a rally downtown at Pennnigton Park.

With people joining marchers along the way and dozens more greeting marchers as they arrived at the park, the crowd for the rally had grown to nearly 300.

Speakers at the rally called for peace, an end to U.S. foreign adventures, defense of civil liberties for citizens as well as non-citizens and an end to racial profiling and harassment of Muslims and immigrants.

Speaking at the rally were representatives of local peace and human rights organizations as well as Christian, Muslim and Native American religious leaders.

Isabel Garcia, co-chair of the Coalicion de Derechos Humanos, called for a world where every day is a human rights day. Garcia urged everyone present to commit themselves to the struggle for peace.

University of Arizona Law Professor Andrew Silverman condemned the newest legislation in Congress as an attack on the bill of rights. “Our government, our president and the attorney general are calling us terrorists for what we are doing right now,” he said.

Silverman called this policy “McCarthyism of the 21st century.”

“Who pays for this war?” asked Jon Miles, president of Tucson’s chapter of Veterans for Peace. “We veterans can talk about the human costs of war ... the quality of education will suffer, university tuition will rise as will your taxes, while government services will deteriorate.”

Chicago shows solidarity with Afghans

Fri, 21 Dec 2001 14:23:00 +0000

CHICAGO – Organized by the Peace Response and coordinated with similar mobilizations in other cities, march to protest the war in Afghanistan attracted more than 200 people here Dec. 7. Many of the participants carried blankets draped over their shoulders, to represent the suffering of refugees in Afghanistan.

Speakers at the rally not only denounced the war, but pointed out the way in which it is undermining all the other struggles for social justice in the United States.

John Donahue of the Chicago Coalition for the Homeless derided the empty rhetoric about “standing together” that is coming out of Washington.

Pointing out that 80,000 people are homeless in Chicago, Donahue asked “Do we stand united for real? The world hasn’t changed for the poor and homeless in our cities since Sept. 11 ... Patriotism is much more than just waving flags.” It should entail he said, making the United States a better place for all and a better neighbor to the rest of humanity.

Norman Ospina of the American Friends Service Committee pointed out the extreme problems immigrants are now facing as a result of Sept. 11 and the economic downturn. Not only the changed economic circumstances, but also the turn toward repression and scapegoating, are hitting immigrants very hard, he said, before calling for a return to the struggle for the legalization of the undocumented, which was cut short by the terrorist attacks.

Rev. Seichi Michael Yasutake, an Episcopalian priest and a second generation Japanese- American, reminded the marchers that Dec. 7 was the anniversary of Pearl Harbor.

For Japanese-Americans like him, he said, the memory is not just of an attack but also of scapegoating and repression of the 130,000 Japanese-Americans who were hustled into concentration camps at that time. He called for marchers to oppose any new efforts to treat Arab-Americans the way that Japanese-Americans were treated by the U.S. government during World War II.

Constitutional rights lawyer Michael Deutsch pointed out the similarity of the current mood in official circles with those which presaged previous bouts of severe political repression in the United States, especially denouncing the recently passed USA Patriot Act. He warned of the ultra-right background of Attorney General John Ashcroft and other Bush administration officials who want to use Sept. 11 as a pretext for crushing all dissent.

Hakim Husien of the Palestinian Aid Society spoke about the fact that the Israeli ultra-right regime of Ariel Sharon has been using the current international crisis to carry out a wave of terror against Palestinians.

Husien denounced recent acts against the Arab and Muslim communities in the United States, including the Dec. 3 firebombing of the Arab-American Community Center in Chicago and the government’s use of civil forfeiture procedures against the Holy Land Foundation.

Bush, GOP block aid for jobless

Fri, 21 Dec 2001 14:18:00 +0000

WASHINGTON – Playing the “Grinch who stole Christmas,” President Bush and his Republican helpers on Capitol Hill blocked a Senate bill that would provide an additional 13 weeks in jobless benefits and extend health care for millions of unemployed workers, many of them under a temporary federal Medicaid plan.

Sen. Majority Leader Tom Daschle (D-S.D.) had blocked the House-passed “economic stimulus” package on grounds that it would lavish tens of billions in tax giveaways to wealthy corporations while offering nothing to the hundreds of thousands of workers laid off in the current recession. He pushed for Senate passage of a package that extended the coverage an additional 13 weeks and increased the benefits modestly.

Daschle’s plan also provided for extended health care coverage for jobless workers and their families either in the form of Medicaid benefits or as targeted tax credits to employers conditioned on their continuing to provide coverage.

To counter Daschle’s plan, Bush added to the GOP stimulus package a scheme to give unemployed workers tax credits in the form of vouchers that would pay 60 percent of premiums charged by private, for profit, HMOs.

Democrats pointed out that jobless workers would be hard-pressed to cover the 40 percent balance on these private health care plans. The entire cost of this $210 billion “stimulus” package would come from Social Security taxes paid by workers through payroll deductions, a scheme to force workers to shoulder the entire burden of “jump-starting” the economy. Democrats also blasted the scheme as a trick to clear the way for dismantling the system of employer-provided health care benefits.

Bush made a trip to Capitol Hill to promote his package considered a key element of next year’s GOP election strategy. Republicans, who have lost control of the Senate and hold only a razor thin margin in the House, fear being exposed as obstructionists of measures to aid the unemployed.

They seek to shift blame to the Democrats for the deadlock. Daschle told a Capitol Hill news conference that the Bush-GOP plan “is going nowhere, in large part because it doesn’t have the votes.”

Rep. Charles Rangel (D-N.Y.) angrily assailed the Republican’s attempt to package their “stimulus” package as assistance to the unemployed.

“To have the concept that we’re giving relief to the rich at the expense of the payroll taxes that people are putting in is repugnant to everything that is fair and equitable, especially at this time of year,” Rangel said.

U.S. grain arrives in Cuba

Fri, 21 Dec 2001 14:15:00 +0000

Two ships, one loaded with frozen chicken parts worth $300,000 and the other with 26,400 tons of corn, arrived in Havana, Cuba Dec. 16, marking the first direct sales of U.S. products to Cuba in since 1963.

The shipment was arranged by agri-giant Archer Daniel Midland (ADM), who will send seven more shipments of grain to Cuba by the end of February at a cost of $14 million to the Cuban government.

Illinois Gov. George Ryan joined ADM officials and leaders of the Illinois agricultural industry in bidding the Mexican-owned ship bon voyage when it departed New Orleans Dec. 14. Ryan said the shipment of corn, which came from nine Midwest states, was “historic in more ways than one. This shipment of corn is another part of the bridge we are building in our relationship with the people of Cuba.”

Ryan, who led a 40-member delegation to Cuba in 1999, said the purpose of that mission was to build abridge of friendship between the people of Cuba and Illinois. “With this shipment, I think we are doing that,” he said.

Christopher Noun, a spokesman for the American Farm Bureau, said that organization, which represents 5.1 million family members, was in “full support” of lifting U.S. restrictions on food and grain.

“We do not believe sanctions are effective,” he said.

The U.S. blockade of Cuba was imposed by the Kennedy administration in 1963, soon after Cuba nationalized U.S.-owned oil refineries that had refused to refine oil produced in the Soviet Union.

The United Nations General Assembly has voted on a resolution calling upon the U.S. government to end its illegal blockade every year since 1991. The vote in 2001 saw 167 countries voting to end the blockade while only Israel and Mauritania supported the United States.

Consumerism run amok

Fri, 21 Dec 2001 14:06:00 +0000

Lasn Kalle, the founder of Adbusters Magazine, mixes satire, comedy and social commentary into Culture Jam: How to Reduce America’s Suicidal Consumer Binge – and Why We Must.

Culture Jam, a collection of short essays dealing with a wide variety of topics like mood disorders, media virus, your corporate connection, the revolutionary impulse and redefining progress, is highly readable, in style, and, at times, even more immature.

Lasn Kalle, who “started a market research company … made a lot of money [and] traveled the world,” like many well-to-do reformers, has one key to his prose – arrogance. Kalle says, we see ourselves, “Culture Jammers,” as “the advance shock troops of the most significant social movement of the next twenty years.”

Though Culture Jam is humorous most of the issues talked about and the proposed resolutions of those issues are oversimplified, completely lacking any class analysis and organizational structure.

In the chapter called The Cult You’re In Kalle raises the issue of consumer culture. He says that “we wear uniforms - not white robes but, let’s say, Tommy Hilfiger jackets or Airwalk sneakers ... Cult members aren’t really citizens ... We’re not fathers and mothers and brothers. We’re consumers.”

While we do live in a consumer society, Kalle seems to forget that we also live in a capitalist society. He seems to have forgotten that most people, working class people are unable to afford many of the products he mentions. By having us point our fingers at each other, Kalle’s analysis seems to confuse who the real perpetrators of exploitation are.

There is a real problem with consumer culture. The problem is that a small group of people, let’s call them the capitalist class, consume everything while we, the working class, produce everything.

Kalle is way of the mark when he assumes that working class people have the luxuries he mentions. And he is even further off the mark when he suggests that we indulge in these luxuries to the point of alienation.

All serious documentation confirms that the working class is having a hard enough time just paying bills, keeping the heat on, feeding families and trying, hoping to plan for some kind of future.

Though Kalle does acknowledge that the corporate-controlled media and globalization are the main obstacles in the way of a more democratic society, he does very little to initiate a plan of action, aside from spontaneous individual acts of “billboard liberation” or buying time on CNN for “Buy Nothing Day” commercials.

Kalle does not mention the trade union movement as the number one bulwark against globalization. He does not mention the trade union movement at all.

It seems “the most significant social movement of the next twenty years” is to be brought about by the isolated acts of isolated individuals buying commercial time from the same corporate-controlled media that they denounce.

Many people may enjoy Culture Jam and Kalle’s writing style. He does have a sense of humor. I for one, would rather read the AFL-CIO journal America at Work or Philip Foner’s History of the Labor Movement in the United States. Both offer real analysis and real solutions for working class people.

– Tony Pecinovsky

Why TV news ignores wars opponents

Fri, 21 Dec 2001 14:01:00 +0000

If you think no one in America opposes the Afghan war, it’s not because you’ve been living in a cave. You’ve just been watching too much television news. The war’s opponents have been largely absent from TV news since the bombing began. For the most part, only viewer-friendly Phil Donahue and the occasional anti-war movie star have broken through.

In their own defense, news executives told the New York Times that war’s opponents are on the margin of mainstream public opinion and are not credible.

Since when has lack of credibility stopped television news? TV reporters make a living by chasing the most freakish events, like the attack of the giant tumbleweeds or meat loaf week in Texas. Fluff – along with mayhem – is the mainstay of TV news shows.

Television news loves a good spectacle. But even the most far-out opponents of the war don’t make the cut? There’s got to be another explanation for the absence of war opponents on the tube. Here it is: News executives don’t have the guts to put them on the air.

They are fearful that anti-war sentiments might make viewers change the channel. Of course, the opponents of the Afghan war are not limited to anti-war freaks and celebrities. As Phil Donahue has noted, there are plenty of credible people willing to speak out, but, unfortunately, there’s little enthusiasm at TV stations to hear from them.

In fact, about a third of Americans – particularly women – tell pollsters that they would oppose the war if it results in large numbers of civilian deaths. While this thread of public opinion may seem inconsequential compared to the overall support for military action in Afghanistan, it is nonetheless significant and reflects an underlying uncertainty among citizens. Journalists should explore these views.

The near absence on TV of criticism of the war is bad enough, but when you add it to the sudden disappearance of televised statements by Taliban spokesmen and Osama bin Laden, the TV landscape becomes eerie. (After a meeting between the Bush administration and TV news executives, videotapes from the world’s most wanted criminal suddenly all but disappeared from the airwaves.) If a tirade by Osama bin Laden does not meet the mayhem standards of TV news, then surely Rep. Gary Condit, wherever he went, would love to know why.

The administration’s argument that bin Laden could have been using his videos to send secret messages to terrorists around the world is simply laughable. Any person intent on seeing the bin Laden tapes could find satellite access to them.

News executives removed bin Laden from TV for the same reason that they’ve ignored American voices of dissent. They are more concerned about the bottom line than about journalism.

Here’s the scenario that flashes in their minds: A brave network executive broadcasts a new bin Laden videotape. Uproar ensues, as members of Congress and pundits denounce the decision to air the tape. The cable chat shows, which will cover just about any angle on the war except opposition to it, whip up a furor over the story.

The other networks defend their decisions not to air the tape in patriotic and journalistic pronouncements. The network that aired the tape is branded as “unpatriotic” and, in fact, loses viewers. And loses money.

It could happen, and news executives know it. So, rather than take any risks for the sake of informing the public or practicing real journalism, they take the low road and avoid broadcasting bin Laden or serious opposition to the war.

The sad irony is this: Even network executives concerned only about ratings could easily justify taking the journalistic high road and airing bin Laden and Taliban statements – and thoughtful anti-war sentiments.

Americans might well appreciate being given the opportunity to consider for themselves what bin Laden and serious opponents of the Afghan war have to say.

– Jason Salzman is chairman of the board of directors of Rocky Mountain Media Watch, a nonprofit organization that challenges journalists to meet the highest standards of professional journalism.

A New Year's message

Fri, 21 Dec 2001 13:57:00 +0000

Without socialism, the countries of the world cannot reduce their illiteracy rate to zero, attainable and necessary for progress.

Without socialism, all the people of the world will not have access to potable water that is so vital for their health and safety.

Without socialism, children will not be in school through their learning years instead of in the fields and factories and the maquiladoras at starvation wages.

Without socialism, there will not be sufficient secondary schools and universities for all who are deserving and willing.

Without socialism, there will not be enough institutions to train the essential doctors, architects, engineers, writers, musicians, teachers, nurses, technicians of all sorts and scholars so that popular progress can be a reality.

Without socialism, the world’s athletes cannot train and perform in the spirit of wholesome competition and without the burdens of commercial demands.

Without socialism, there will be no universal adequate pensions for the elderly and the infirmed.

Without socialism, there can be no comprehensive health care for everyone with adequate hospitals, doctors and health care professionals.

Without socialism, our farmers would not be able to till their lands and raise their livestock without the fear of foreclosure from the megaagricombines and the demands to use genetic modified seeds and feed

Without socialism, there can not be universal access to electricity and ample energy to guard from the weather and accidents of nature

Without socialism, we cannot have adequate mass transit, free highways and full communication resources to reach our friends and families

Without socialism, we cannot possibly have full employment

Without socialism, women cannot take their rightful places as equals in society

Without socialism, people of color and our minorities cannot feel free of bigotry and racism

Without socialism, we cannot have a society without beggars in the streets and children that sleep in the gutters

Without socialism, our urban infrastructures will continue to crumble, burdened by the weight of an arms race that distorts our priorities and funding

Without socialism, the world will be wanting of the freedom of the arts, music, literature and the cultural outlets for everyone to participate and enjoy

Without socialism, computer and other coming technologies would be reserved for the privileged few and be a weapon of control of people rather than for their common good and advancement.

Without socialism, our economies will remain subservient to the world’s lending institutions and debt service that restrain and enslave

Without socialism, our streets cannot be drug free

Without socialism, there will be no minimum living wage for all and working conditions that provide for the health and security of the people on the lines

Without socialism, we will continue to plunder our environment and destroy our air and waterways for the sake of rabid profits that benefit only the elite

Without socialism, our most precious asset, our children, will be born into a world that denies them the tools to start their lives

Without socialism, our animals will continue to be abused and exploited for profit

Without socialism, the military budget will not be cut in favor of the needs of peacetime activities and endeavors

Without socialism, the world community of nations will not abort its gunboat diplomacy in favor of salubrious peaceful communication to solve our disputes

Without socialism, population control, achieved only through an improvement in our standards of living, cannot be accomplished

Without socialism, our exploration and use of outer space will become militarized and not be harnessed for the good of all instead of the wealthy few

Without socialism, there will be profits before people, guns over butter. Billions in the world of today will continue to suffer from birth, never knowing a moment of good health free of pain from disease and hunger. They will never realize their full potential as human beings in a world that has the resources for all to partake and flourish. For this alone, those of us in the solidarity movement must continue to strive and work to that end.

– Don Sloan

Going too far?

Fri, 21 Dec 2001 13:52:00 +0000

On Nov. 1, Nancy Oden, an organic farmer, drove 100 miles from Jonesboro, Maine to the Bangor airport. A member of the National Coordinating Committee of the Green Party USA, she was going to an important committee meeting in Chicago.

At the ticket window she learned that her bags would be searched. She passed through the scanning machines, but in the boarding area a search of her two small bags by national guardsmen led to an altercation. Because of alleged non-cooperation with a search, she was prevented from boarding any airplane leaving Bangor that day.

Two days later the Bangor Daily News reported on the story. Picked up by the Associated Press, it became national news. The Green Party USA denounced the National Guard action as an “attack on the right of association of an opposition political party.” Other left groups joined in. Then Oden’s story seemed to disappear.

Oden provided further details about the airport incident during the interview and in a description found on the Green Party USA web site. They lead to some conclusions:

• The military is in charge. They were the ones who searched her bags, passed a metal detecting device over her body, and told the airport manager to keep her off airplanes for the rest of the day.

• All that power leads to bullying. During the search a guardsman twice grabbed her arm (Oden had reached out to help with a zipper), delivered an accusatory pro-war lecture, and stood her up with arms outstretched in the middle of the waiting room to perform the metal detecting search.

• There is a pattern. A fellow committee member heading for California at the conclusion of the Chicago meeting was subjected to an embarrassing body search and to a search of his bag so prolonged that he missed his flight.

Infirm, he asked for a wheelchair both in Chicago and later on in San Francisco – requests denied! Missing his connecting flight, he had to argue for over two hours for hotel accommodations. He and Oden were the only committee members who had traveled to Chicago by air.

On the Green Party USA web site, Oden stated: “So long as the military are in charge of civilian affairs, we are not free. We will not accept killing democracy in order to save it. We do not want corporations with their only interest in the next quarter profits running the world.”

W.T. Whitney is a reader in Maine.

What's wrong with free trade?

Fri, 21 Dec 2001 13:47:00 +0000

The uneven consequences of free trade founded upon neoliberal policy protecting the interests of Big Business hurts people from every walk of life. With government complicity, supply side economics, gunboat diplomacy and tax breaks for the rich have been frequent obstacles to the advancement of democracy and human rights.

Throughout our history, corporations have exploited working people from each country, playing one against the other. Penetration of capital, which dictates commerce in the marketplace, upsets the balance between traditional and cultural values accumulated by custom, lifestyle or preference. Local economies are disrupted and displaced due to economic advantages by conglomerates through large-scale production in their drive for maximum profit. Union-busting, factory relocation and employee displacement contribute to subsistence wages and inequality of opportunity. In addition, market control may result in monopolization, thus causing a downward spiral in working conditions that affect human and environmental concerns.

This race to the bottom often includes more government dependence on capitalist remedies (war on terrorism), which deepen the crisis. Poverty, deprivation and human need no longer become a powerful tool for motivation.

Instead, the fear and insecurity that lead to violence and greater exploitation is used to manipulate or weaken workers resolve and class unity.

Socialism interrupts this vicious cycle. By putting workers in charge of the production process through increased ownership of the job site itself, the fuller development of our economic potential is realized. Democratic participation by the majority becomes a political necessity for the realization that capitalism cannot be reformed.

Socialism, so important for human growth and advancement, provides the best path to freedom and independence for working men and women. Profits become subordinated to the good of all for health care, education, decent housing and especially union jobs. In this way, the fruits of our labor are utilized for the benefit of children and the disadvantaged.

Progressive groups should beware that the annexationist design of the Free Trade Area of America is yet another ploy for economic plunder, power and social control by multinational corporations. By proposing to deny Cuba entry into the international economic arena, the Bush administration seeks to polarize people by a fast track scheme extending a long outdated isolationist policy.

A program ending U.S. sanctions on travel and trade with Cuba, and honest dialogue and negotiation for normalization of relations, would benefit workers, farmers and business, both public and private. Finally, repeal of Helms-Burton, the Torricelli Act and the (anti-) Cuban Adjustment Act (1966) are critical before the U.S. government claims to recognize Cuba. Then we can say with one voice, “Fair trade for the Americas. Cuba si, Bloqueo no!”

Richard Grassl is in the carpenters union in Washington State.

Fighting terrorism without destroying the law

Fri, 21 Dec 2001 13:42:00 +0000

In the aftermath of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, there has been a lot of attention paid to the Portland, Ore. Police Bureau’s response to a request by federal authorities to question 23 men of Middle Eastern origin in our community.

Our response and our city have been characterized by some as unpatriotic.

Given the important battle against terrorism that our country is engaged in, I would like to share some facts and background information directly with you, whether you support or oppose the city’s position. We can aggressively fight terrorism and follow the law.

It’s important to know that U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft has said that the 23 men in question are not suspected of any crime. Nor is there any indication that they were in any way involved in the Sept. 11 terrorist acts.

It’s essential to understand this fact in order to understand the city attorney’s interpretation of state law in this case.

You may be interested to know that, according to media reports, other [areas] across the country, including Seattle, San Francisco, San Jose, San Mateo County, Denver and Detroit, also have declined to participate in the interviews.

Two state laws guide our response to the Ashcroft request.

The first, enacted in 1981, makes it unlawful for our police to “collect or maintain information about the political, religious, or social views, associations, and activities of any individual ... unless such information directly relates to an investigation of criminal activities, and there are reasonable grounds to suspect the subject of the information is or may be involved in criminal conduct.”

The second law, enacted in 1987, makes it unlawful for police to “use agency moneys, equipment or personnel for the purpose of detecting or apprehending those whose only “crime” is that they are persons of foreign citizenship residing in the United States in violation of federal immigration laws.

More simply, we can question anyone about any matter related to the Sept. 11 attacks.

However, we can’t question innocent people about personal information not related to those attacks or other criminal acts. Nor can we question people solely to ascertain whether they’re complying with federal immigration laws.

There is disagreement among lawyers on this issue. In the opinions given by Oregon’s Attorney General and our local district attorney, the suggested areas of questioning are acceptable. Our city attorney and the attorney for the Oregon legislature both concluded that some of the specific questions go over the legal line.

According to Willamette Week, they have been joined by six former U.S. Department of Justice officials and many legal scholars who have said that the federal request raises legal issues.

We asked the U.S. Attorney if he would be willing to retool five of the 33 questions we had legal problems with. He declined and said that all the questions had to be asked as they were presented.

Thus, we are unable to participate in the 23 local interviews. This decision does not affect any of our other law enforcement efforts. The interviews are being done by federal agents and are almost completed.

According to Oregon law, local law enforcement agencies must rely on the legal advice given to them by their attorneys. That is why the Portland Police Bureau is following the advice of the Portland City Attorney. We believe that the city attorney’s expertise on this issue is unmatched.

Portland was one of the first to sign up in the war on terrorism. In 1997, well before the Sept. 11 attacks, we joined with the FBI and other law enforcement agencies to create the Portland Joint Terrorism Task Force. There are eight police bureau members assigned to work on the Task Force full time.

In response to vigorous citizen debate, I made a solemn commitment that our police would strictly follow the letter of the state law. Today we are one of only 36 cities in the country to have such a local terrorism task force.

I was honored to lead nearly 1,000 Oregonians to New York City just weeks after the attacks on the World Trade Center.

Our lives were forever changed by the destruction, and by the sadness and sense of violation that we shared with the people who experienced that direct attack on America.

In our fight against terrorism we must do so as a nation under law. Especially in times like now when we are under attack by terrorists, it is important not to lose sight of the personal freedoms that makes us a beacon of liberty for the world.

President Bush has called on all of us to join him in the war against terrorism. In response to that call, and to recent anthrax exposures across the country, I have convened regular meetings to discuss regional preparedness and response to potential biological and chemical terrorist threats to this region.

Portland police officers and other staff have logged hundreds of hours of overtime since Sept. 11, investigating leads and suspects, responding to bomb and “powdery substance” threats, and working to calm a panicked public.

Portland has actively joined the president and the rest of the country during this time of national crisis. Police Chief Mark Kroeker and I are fully committed to continue working closely with all local, state and federal officials in our country’s effort to combat terrorism.

We are also committed to obeying the laws of our state. We can and will do both, because only in that way can we protect our nation, and preserve that which makes it worth protecting.

Vera Katz is the mayor of Portland, Oregon.

Bush proposes police state public health law

Fri, 21 Dec 2001 13:34:00 +0000

How could anyone oppose a strong public health system – one with a mandate to protect everyone from such potential disasters such as smallpox or anthrax? Given the disastrous shape that the U.S. public health system is in, there is certainly a need to infuse millions of dollars into the system.

Prior to the World Trade Center disaster there were many proposals in Congress to rebuild the U.S. public health infrastructure. Years of underfunding and the drive to privatize many functions of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services rendered state and local health departments almost helpless against the West Nile Virus, tuberculosis, measles and other threats to public health.

But, before Sept. 11, these calls were given almost no attention. Even during the economic upswing of the 1990s, few federal dollars were spent in public health. Why? In those days, the market system was seen as the method of delivering health care and preventing disease and illnesses.

The American Public Health Association issued warning after warning, but Congress turned its collective heads and thoughts toward the market/profit system. That decision was a total failure.

Like most things these days, what you see is not what you will get. For example, the Bush administration’s Model States Emergency Health Powers Act is a proposal that must be opposed by health activists and everybody else.

Under this proposal, clearly inspired by Attorney General Ashcroft’s infatuation with attacks on civil liberties and support for military tribunals, people could be detained without a court order in the event of a “public health crisis” and isolated in stadiums or clinics and be denied the opportunity to challenge the decision. The proposal would shield health officers from legal liability, along with anyone working under their direction. Clearly, Bush officials are using the threat of bio-terror attacks as a cover for broader and more dangerous goals.

Small wonder that George Annas, of the Boston University School of Public Health, says, “This law threatens American citizens as if they are the enemy.”

Joanne Hustead, senior attorney at the Health Policy Project at Georgetown University, warns that the proposal abuses the definition of an emergency. She says it would allow collection and sharing of protected private health information under circumstances that do not, even remotely, involve bio-terrorism.

Mohammed Akhter, executive director of the American Public Health Association, said that organization will review the proposal when its executive committee meets in December. He sounded the theme voiced by health officers across the country – that public health officials need more resources and financial support than they do new legislation.

A counterproposal would be to simply provide the financial support to state and local health departments to deal with the increasing number of infectious diseases threatening our country: measles, tuberculosis and the continuing hazards of HIV/AIDS, among others.

If the public health infrastructure of our country, especially state and local health departments, are adequately funded, they will be able to deal with any bio-terrorism attack. And, at the same time everyone’s civil liberties and freedom will be protected.

Dont invite the Marlboro man to dinner

Fri, 21 Dec 2001 13:28:00 +0000

As holiday shoppers scramble for last-minute gifts, the barrage of advertisements taking advantage of the season of giving is reaching its peak. The same rule of thumb that explains the sell-out of the must-have toy of the season also applies to tobacco: the most heavily advertised brands are the most popular. The leading brand among teens in the United States is Marlboro, peddled to kids by what has been called the number one advertising icon of all time, the Marlboro cowboy.

This insidious image, which was designed to “capture the youth market’s fancy,” according to its creator, made Philip Morris the world’s largest and most profitable tobacco corporation.

Philip Morris is now trying to cover the Marlboro Man’s tracks by changing the corporation’s name to Altria, supposedly derived from a Latin word which means “high.” This most recent trick pulled from its bag is just another public relations stunt. Philip Morris is still trying to convince the public it’s a new and improved company, without changing the abusive practices that make it one of the world’s most reviled corporations.

The proposed name change is only its most recent attempt at public deception. Philip Morris has been trying to obscure the reality of its deadly tobacco business from the public for years. Attempts to hide behind the wholesome image of its subsidiary Kraft Foods have backfired.

A Harris Interactive Poll released earlier this year found that 16 percent of respondents familiar with Philip Morris had boycotted its products within the past year. That figure is even more surprising given that between 1998 and 2000, Philip Morris increased its corporate image advertising by over 1,700 percent! Unlike the hot new toy in the marketplace, consumers aren’t buying Philip Morris’s PR ploys.

What Philip Morris doesn’t seem to understand is that consumers want real change, not a name change. A recent report released by the corporate accountability organization Infact tells the real story behind Philip Morris’ window dressing. Over 160 countries are negotiating the world’s first public health treaty, which has the potential to rein in Big Tobacco and help prevent the spread of global tobacco addiction, which will claim 10 million people per year by 2030 if current trends are not reversed. The Infact report documents that Philip Morris has been working at the international level to undermine the treaty and other public health regulations in many countries.

One example highlighted in the report is that this past July, Philip Morris, which controls 85 percent of the Czech tobacco market, commissioned and circulated a study claiming that tobacco cuts government spending for programs such as health care, pensions, and housing for the elderly due to the premature deaths of smokers, resulting in a net economic gain.

Not only is this a frightening logic on which to base public health policy, but it’s not true. The study flies in the face of a 1999 World Bank study, which found that comprehensive tobacco control policies could bring unprecedented health benefits without harming economies.

This holiday season, as Philip Morris bombards us with slick ads touting Kraft’s wholesome image, consumers from coast to coast will be sending a powerful message to the tobacco giant.

As we begin to shop for ingredients for family recipes, families will take care not to purchase Kraft products in order to keep the Marlboro Man away from the holiday table. People will not support an abusive tobacco corporation that systematically undermines public health regulations and uses advertisements like the Marlboro cowboy to hook kids on tobacco.

Patricia Lynn is Infact’s associate campaign director. Infact is a Boston-based national grassroots corporate watchdog organization.

Non-citizen airport security workers to lose their jobs

Fri, 21 Dec 2001 11:07:00 +0000

Of about 28,000 people employed in airport security nationally, almost a fourth are non-citizens. But with the new airport security law passed by Congress, this could change radically, and all 7,000 could abruptly lose their jobs.

The rationale is that non-citizens may not be “loyal” to the United States and therefore cannot be trusted with security-related jobs. Even the Democratic Party’s version of the same bill requires the firing of all naturalized citizens who have not held their U.S. citizenship for at least five years.

Of course, the whole idea of targeting non-citizens is to take the public’s attention away from the many real problems of airport security. The pay from privatized airport security jobs is outrageously low, the training minimum and the turnover is unacceptably high. But all this was swept under the rug by Congress. When in doubt, bash the immigrants.

The non-citizen security personnel are strongly protesting both this sudden blow to their families’ survival and the insulting judgment it implies. The Service Employees International Union, which represents many of them, has also weighed in with a call for supplementary legislation to allow them to keep their jobs. This is an effort that should be supported, and not only because the sudden firing of one- fourth of the airport workers and their replacement with inexperienced, untrained newcomers is not going to enhance airport security, but the reverse.

The fact is that there is not a smidgen of evidence that non-citizens are less efficient or responsible workers than citizens. As far as the issue of their being a “security risk,” there is no evidence of that either, just the assumption that only “real Americans” (like Timothy McVeigh, perhaps?) are the only ones to be trusted with such things. Why should we assume that more foreigners than U.S. citizens are capable of mass murder?

The attack on immigrants – and by extension, “foreigners” – is a natural outgrowth of the whole “spin” the Bush administration has put on the Sept. 11 terrorist attack and its desire to use these events as a pretext for military action. Otherwise, the American people might have been more receptive to Cuban President Fidel Castro’s calls for prosecution of the perpetrators of these crimes against humanity by an international tribunal rather than a war in Afghanistan.

Many of the non-citizen airport workers who are now to be thrown into the street without an income are Mexican or Central American, and numerous Mexicans and Central Americans were killed on Sept. 11.

Another argument is that non-citizen workers might be tempted to take bribes to allow people with weapons beyond security checkpoints. Where is the evidence for this implicit stance? And by the way: Why has Attorney General John Ashcroft been so determined not to allow security agencies to examine the files of those who have purchased handguns in the search for potential terrorists?

Simply put, the issue of the citizenship of airport workers is nothing more than crass ethnic prejudice and jingoistic nationalism, and we should handle it as such.

Emile Schepers is a reader in Illinois.

King George attacks civil rights

Fri, 21 Dec 2001 11:03:00 +0000

Nearly 30 years ago, Arthur Schlesinger characterized Richard Nixon’s administration as the “Imperial Presidency.” George W. Bush has revived the concept, wrapping himself in the red, white and blue, as he strides forward, claiming new territory at every step.

With every stride, Bush has stepped on the separation of powers defined in the Constitution. He has usurped judicial power by decreeing, without any consultation with the legislative branch, the establishment of military tribunals. He is surely heir not only to Richard Nixon, but also to King George III of England.

In the hysteria following the tragedies of the Sept. 11 attacks, the Bush administration pushed a draconian measure into law. Congress passed, almost unanimously, the USA Patriot Act, granting the FBI expanded powers, including surveillance of conversations between defendants and their attorneys, heretofore confidential and protected.

On Nov. 13 President Bush, claiming “extraordinary emergency” issued a directive empowering him to order military trials for “suspected international terrorists and their collaborators.”

Even arch-conservative William Safire took issue with such extraordinary powers. The Bush tribunals exceed established military courts with their secret proceedings, verdicts, sentencing, including the death penalty, to be decided by only a two-thirds majority, and no appeal; the established military courts stipulate public trials, proof beyond reasonable doubt, the right of the accused to choose counsel, unanimity, should the death sentence be under consideration, and finally, appellate review by civilians confirmed by the Senate.

Civil liberties groups as diverse as the Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR) and the conservative Cato Institute have spoken out against the order creating the tribunals.

According to Timothy Lynch, head of the Cato Institute’s criminal justice program, “If the president can suspend one constitutional principle today ... he can suspend others tomorrow.” The Cato Institute is expected to take part as a friend of the court in the suits challenging the military tribunals .

Bill Goodman, legal director of the CCR, founded in the 1960s to provide legal help to civil rights protesters, said his group is planning to challenge the order along with the lawyers representing some of the detained men. Steven R. Shapiro, legal director of the American Civil Liberties Union, called the president’s establishment of military tribunals an attempt to make law and, as such, an infringement on the Constitutional powers invested in the legislative branch of government.

The Bush administration’s hunt for terrorists began immediately after the Sept. 11 attacks. Terrorists were defined as Arab and/or Muslim – or Sikh, or Hindu – anyone from the Middle East or South Asia. This amounts to state-sponsored racism.

Attorney General John Ashcroft has detained over 1,100 immigrants who fell into three categories: material witnesses (out of the 1,100, there were 15 or fewer in this category); visa regulation violators; and suspects of felonies or misdemeanors totally unrelated to the attacks.

When a breakdown of the 548 people detained on immigration charges was finally released it showed the majority – over 400 – came from the Middle East and South Asia.

Of those detained and charged with federal criminal violations, they were held for such crimes as “fraudulent statements, conspiracy to embezzle, document fraud, perjury, false claim to U.S. citizenship” and the like. None of the names of those detained were released until news of the detentions finally reached the press.

Those might be charges on which one ought to be arrested; it is, however, another matter to hold an individual without allowing him or her contact with an attorney or his or her embassy.

When questioned, Ashcroft defended these measures saying that terrorists did not deserve justice. He also recently testified before the Senate that anyone who questions his tactics to fight terrorism is helping the terrorists.

There is more: not content to detain only those he could trap even with flimsy pretexts, Ashcroft has determined that 5,000 young non-citizens – again largely Muslims, Arabs and others from the Middle East and South Asia – needed to be questioned. The names of the young men between the ages of 18 and 35 who have received visas since Jan. 1, 2000, have been forwarded to all U.S. Attorneys.

The reaction throughout the country has been mixed. In Michigan, where there is a large Middle Eastern and South Asian population, law enforcement officials are sending letters to hundreds asking them to call for appointments to discuss the Sept. 11 attacks. However, the department of safety of the University of Michigan has declined to cooperate with the FBI in the interviewing of foreign students or those here on temporary visas.

In Oregon, the law enforcement agencies in three cities refused to call in residents for the “voluntary” interviews. The police chief of Eugene said his department would be willing to cooperate with federal officials but only if the interviews were modified to avoid racial profiling.

Portland’s acting police chief had earlier said that to interview immigrants would violate a state law that prevents the department’s maintaining records on anyone not connected to criminal investigations. He was contradicted, however, by Oregon Attorney General Hardy Myers, who denied the interviews would conflict with state law.

The city of Cornwallis declined to conduct the interviews on the grounds that the city would better spend its resources in pursuing criminal suspects.

Ashcroft now seeks to free the FBI from restrictions which prevent it from investigating religious or political groups. These restrictions came about after the FBI’s COINTEL program activities were revealed. Former FBI chief J. Edgar Hoover had directed the spying campaign on anti-war groups, the Black Panthers, the American Indian Movement, the Communist Party and even on Martin Luther King, among others, during the ‘60s.

Something terrible happened on Sept. 11, but we must not be blinded by Bush’s flag-waving or deafened by his calls to war. Our civil liberties are too important. Let’s remember our country’s revolutionary heritage, with Thomas Jefferson’s maxim that “the price of liberty is eternal vigilance.”

Julia Lutsky is a reader in New York and Terrie Albano is associate editor of the People’s Weekly World.

In The Bedroom: America in denial and worse

Fri, 21 Dec 2001 10:56:00 +0000

David Ansen of Newsweek said of this film: “Once it gets its hooks in you, you can’t turn away.” But I’m concerned about what it is that gets its hooks into the viewer and why all of us in our post-Sept. 11 world may not be able to get away with our First Amendment rights, our Bill of Rights, and numerous other hard-won laws and principles that undergird a democratic society.

In effect, In The Bedroom promulgates the simplistic notion that a bad deed is committed by a bad seed. Period. As if we never learned that history, context, race, poverty, privilege, all sorts of extenuating factors, don’t more typically come into play where crime is concerned.

It also promotes the unfortunate idea that only vengeance can bring closure to families of crime victims.

Bedroom presents a crime where the suspect’s guilt is not proven but where the audience is nevertheless encouraged to approve of the ultimate punishment because of his probable guilt. In our capital punishment-prone nation – which is now embarking as well on shadowy military tribunal “justice” – here is a validation of the retributive or vengeance model in dealing with crime.

In the broadest philosophical sense, these models view crime as symptomatic of something seriously awry in an entire community. They seek to establish a humanistically appropriate condition of balance in the community by compensating individuals and effecting more equitable distributions of wealth and benefits.

While Bedroom was shot pre-Sept. 11, it might as well have been tailor-made to the response to that day of horror on the part of our political-corporate establishment.

For this story about what befalls a thoroughly decent family in its picturesquely, thoroughly decent, all-American (in this instance, good Yankee) town, is a tale about Good vs. Evil – with none of the messy complexities, including the devastating effects of greed and the abuses of power, that certainly characterize human interactions in our world.

Adding insult to injury is a particularly vulgar instance of the product placement that seems to infect every institution and activity in our global corporate paradise.

The rather reserved and even-tempered father, Matt (played by The Full Monty’s Tom Wilkinson), is a consummate caretaker and decent man, a physician and understanding father who is still romantic with his wife Ruth (Sissy Spacek).

Though feistier and more demanding, Ruth is a fine wife, mother and high school music teacher. They’re devoted to their only child, the sweet and talented Frank (Nick Stahl) who is slated to go to college to study architecture. Frank is involved with the older Natalie (Marisa Tomei), a sensitive hairdresser raising two young sons.

The fly in this less than idyllic ointment is Natalie’s sleazy soon-to-be ex-husband Richard (William Mapother), who belongs to a well-heeled local family. It’s “let’s get the lawyers time” as well as “let’s get the law itself” because, as this film blatantly suggests, they tend to let bad people get away with murder.

Never mind the highly civilized and civilizing principle that an accused person shall be deemed innocent until proven guilty – based on the conviction that it’s a far lesser violation of human rights that a guilty party should occasionally get off than that one innocent party should be wrongly convicted.

One of the upstanding men here who takes justice into his own hands has an American flag planted in his garage and his license plate reads “Veteran.”

I found Todd Field’s direction and dialogue to be generally wooden, one-dimensional and clinched. One aspect of the film, however, was darned good. It was sensitively revealing of why and how couples who have experienced a terrible mutual loss tend to turn against one another and often break up. Field also created the effect of a mystery thriller.

The casting was right on and the acting terrific. Wilkinson as Matt delivered a complex interpretation of what could easily have been a simplistic character. No wonder he and the always dependable Spacek won the 2001 Sundance Film Festival Special Jury Prize for Best Acting. Mapother was perfectly cast as Richard Strout.

Helen Winter 1908 - 2001

Fri, 21 Dec 2001 10:51:00 +0000

Helen Winter, a life-long member of the Communist Party, died Dec. 13. She is survived by a daughter, Michelle Artt, granddaughters Elizabeth Meggison and Ruth Foster, and several great-grandchildren and great-great-grandchildren. A memorial celebration of her life is planned for Jan. 21.

Maryanne Mahaffey, president of the Detroit City Council, is preparing a council resolution commemorating Winter’s life. “I’m going to talk about her life-long commitment to organizing people and her steadfast and unswerving commitment to the world socialist movement,” Mahaffey said. “She worked tirelessly for international solidarity and was an active figure in the world peace movement.”

Mahaffey said she was “particularly impressed” with the stubbornness of Winter’s resistance to fascism, be it Hitler in the 1940s, McCarthy in the 1950s, or “the current anti-terrorism laws that will be used against everyone if they are not stopped. Helen knew about fascism from first-hand experience.”

Mahaffey continued, “Both she and her husband, Carl, were arrested and jailed for ‘conspiring to teach and advocate the overthrow of the United States government by force and violence’ during the post-World War II anti-communist hysteria.”

Sam Webb, national chairman of the Communist Party, said Winter’s life was a “textbook for the young people of our movement. She had been there in good times and bad and never lost her enthusiasm for the good fight. Hers was a life of commitment, of quite courage and of faith in a future free of racism and war – a world with economic security and freedom for all peoples. Hers was a life we all might wish to emulate.”

Dave Moore, a founding member of UAW Local 600 at the sprawling River Rouge Plant of the Ford Motor Company, said he had known the Winter family “since way back in the 1940s.” He remembers Winter as one who “never backed down” in her defense of the struggles of the African American people. “She was one of the few white people to join with the African American community to protest the brutality of the Detroit PD and could often be heard speaking at demonstrations and community meetings. It was things like that that got her arrested under the Smith Act.”

Moore laughed as he told the story of the “red blanket incident” that took place during Winter’s Smith Act trial: The judge ordered her to appear despite the fact that she was suffering from an attack of phlebitis. She was brought into the courtroom on a stretcher, covered by a red blanket.

“That blanket threw the judge into a tizzy,” Moore remembers. “He ordered it removed and recessed court. I guess he thought the blanket represented some kind of a subversive political statement!”

Winter was born in Seattle, Washington, the daughter of Hortense Allison and Alfred Wagenknecht, both of whom were leaders of the Socialist Party. The family moved to Cleveland in 1913, where Winter was introduced to the world of left wing politics: a socialist Sunday school, helping mail copies of the Ohio Socialist, and visits to her father in the Canton workhouse where he was imprisoned for his opposition to the first World War.

Winter joined the Young Communist League in 1923 and the Communist Party soon after. Three years later she found herself in Passaic, N.J., working beside her father during a textile workers’ strike. “This was my first involvement in any kind of labor activity,” she said. “Passaic was the first time I actually felt the strength of labor.” After moving to New York in the late 20s, she worked in the office of the Trade Union Unity League, helping to organize office workers.

Winter also worked in the business office of the Daily Worker and later became Communist Party organizer among New York City’s textile workers. In the 1930s, she and her husband worked in Europe, where they helped organize the international struggle against fascism. Upon their return, both continued that effort as they worked diligently on behalf of the Abraham Lincoln Brigade, made up of Americans who fought in Spain with the anti-Franco forces.

The late 1930s saw the Winters on the move, first to Cleveland, then to Minneapolis and, by the early ’40s, to Los Angeles, where their daughter was born in 1942. Three years later the family moved to Michigan where they were to live for the next 20 years. In 1965 the Winters returned to New York, Carl to work with the Party newspaper and Helen as the Party’s international affairs director.

Since Carl’s death in 1981, Helen has fulfilled several leadership posts in the Communist Party’s Michigan District, where she is remembered for her attention to organizational detail and her commitment to the People’s Weekly World.

“She helped keep things moving and played a leading role in the Party until the very end,” Carl Reinstein, who worked closely with Winter, said.

Strikers demand justice from Grinch

Fri, 21 Dec 2001 10:34:00 +0000

CHICAGO – Striking workers from Carousel Linens and their supporters gave holiday shoppers at Marshall Fields Department Store here something to see Dec. 8. The strikers were chasing “the Grinch,” decked out in Santa attire, from floor to floor.

As shoppers jostled to get pictures, they were handed leaflets detailing the grievances of strikers. Shoppers were urged to press Marshall Fields to drop its contract with Carousel.

Forty industrial laundry workers have been on strike against Carousel, located in suburban Highwood, for 10 weeks. They are demanding union recognition for UNITE, the needletrades union, increased wages and benefits and improved working conditions.

“It is horrible that workers and their families have to put up with this,” said one shopper. “I come from a union household and support you 100 percent. Everyone deserves a living wage.”

One of the strikers said, “No one wants to be on strike during the holidays. We have children who won’t get presents this year. But we will do what we have to until we get justice.”

Marshall Fields was one target of a flying picketline, organized by UNITE, the strikers and Chicago Jobs with Justice, aimed at Carousel Linen clients in the downtown Loop, including the Chicago Athletic Association and the American Medical Association, where they were joined by striking V&V Supremo workers. This was the tenth time strikers had visited Marshall Fields, urging shoppers to take their business elsewhere.

The strikers are working hard to expand the boycott during the crucial holiday season when so many parties and banquets are held. There is hope that if the boycott is expanded to include Carousel’s larger clients, including Abbott Laboratories and Aramark, it may be enough to force the Grinch to have a change of heart.

Messages of solidarity can be sent to UNITE, Chicago and Central States Joint Board, 333 South Ashland Avenue, Chicago IL 60607-2775; fax (312) 738-9985.

Lawsuit filed to stop Edison school takeover

Fri, 21 Dec 2001 10:31:00 +0000

PHILADELPHIA – At a Dec. 17 press conference here, hosted by the Philadelphia Federation of Teachers, the Coalition to Keep our Public Schools Public announced that it will file a lawsuit in Commonwealth Court and Superior Court seeking an injunction to against Edison Schools, Inc. They are seeking to bar Edison a for-profit school management corporation, from participating in or profiting from any contract with the state of Pennsylvania in the state takeover of the Philadelphia public schools.

Ralph Teti, the attorney for the Coalition to Keep our Public Schools Public, called the hiring of Edison an conflict of interest under the Pennsylvania Adverse Interest Act. “This law states that if you are a consultant for he state and you recommend a course of action or agreement, you cannot have an interest or benefit from it,” said Teti.

Last week, acting Gov. Mark Schweiker met with Edison to finalize a contract that would pay Edison $101 million over six years for consulting, recruiting and intellectual property. Former Gov. Tom Ridge hired Edison, at a $2.7 million cost to taxpayers, to do an assessment of the Philadelphia public schools and recommend options for improvement. Edison proposed that private management companies, such as itself, should be hired to help run the schools.

NAACP President J. Whyatt Mondesire called the lawsuit a message to City Hall and Harrisburg that the opposition to a state takeover has not changed. The takeover of the School District of Philadelphia is scheduled for Dec. 22.

The coalition has also filed a lawsuit to void Act 46, which was passed in 1998 without public hearings and set up the School District of Philadelphia for state takeover if it has a deficit.

In October, Act 46 was amended to dismiss the school Board and replace it with a school reform commission, four members appointed by the governor and one by the mayor for terms of five to seven years. Jim Nevels, an investment advisor and a Republican, is slated to be the interim chair of the commission. The commission can nullify all non-professional contracts with the district, such as those with the unions representing custodial workers, bus drivers, mechanics and cafeteria workers. The commission also has the power to levy tax, appoint a CEO and hire private companies to run 60 schools. Edison has been named as one of those companies.

Bush plan leaves some children behind

Fri, 21 Dec 2001 10:28:00 +0000

This week the Senate passed the misnamed No Child Left Behind Act, which gives the federal government an unprecedented say in the standards public school children must meet. Yet it doesn’t provide funding to meet those goals. The main outrage in this bill is the lack of funding for special education.

Sen. Paul Wellstone (D-Minn.) summed up the problem and who is responsible: “The really cynical part of all this is that while House Republicans were busy cutting Minnesota’s special education funds, they were passing billions of dollars in wild tax cuts, including legislation to let giant corporations pay nothing – zero– in federal taxes.”

In fact, the education plan is the exact opposite of Bush’s corporate bailouts, where the federal government gives billions of tax dollars to corporations with no standards, nor accountability for its spending.

The GOP is sending a message to parents: if your child has special needs, don’t come looking to the public school system for his or her education.

Bush and his Congressional attack dogs are also sending a message to the public school community: we expect you to do better but we are not going to give you the resources. No, they say, instead we will pit special needs children against general education children and let it be fought out on the local level.

The GOP-dominated conference committee did not include in the final version of the Act a bipartisan Senate amendment that required funding for 40 percent of special education costs.

Bob Chase, president of the National Education Association, criticized the conferees in a Dec. 11 news release when he said they rejected the will of the majority in Congress when they refused to fully fund special education. “This action is simply irresponsible and misses the opportunity to truly leave no child behind,” Chase said.

The Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) of 1975 authorized the federal government to pay for up to 40 percent of a local district’s special education costs; present appropriations pay only 15 percent. As a result, local school districts are often faced with such decisions as whether to fund a speech-language teacher or fund a music program – both essential to a rounded education.

Because the Act will not fully fund special education, the financial burden is placed on local school districts at the same time it imposes significant new demands on students and schools.

However, Bush’s education bill comes at a time when states are running deficits. According to the National Governors’ Association, states now face a $35 billion shortfall in the wake of recession and the tax cuts for the rich passed earlier this year.

Sen. Jim Jeffords (I-Vt.) recently wrote that this will be the first education bill he votes against during his career in the Senate. He said it’s better to pass no bill than a bad bill. Jeffords, a longtime education advocate, wrote: “Special education has been an incredibly important program for millions of children. Graduation rates have increased, and the number of young adults with disabilities enrolling in college has more than tripled.”

And to underline how the Bush plan puts local districts between a rock and a hard place, Jeffords added, “But special education is very costly, and by not providing the federal funds we promised, we force states and local school districts to increase property taxes and shift funds from other programs.”

The conscious defunding of special education puts unbearable pressure on educators, parents and children, with some school districts directing their staff not to recommend children for special education evaluations and provide evaluations only when a parent requests it.

It took years of struggle to get this far in recognizing the rights of the disabled. And there is still a ways to go. This intentional underfunding of special education undermines all the gains from that important civil rights movement. Before passage of IDEA, it was nearly impossible for a disabled child to attend public school.

Since Sept. 11, the movement for equal and quality public education has taken a back seat to Bush’s war on terrorism. The important demands to reduce class sizes, pay teachers more, guarantee equal school funding for majority minority schools and full funding for special education, bilingual and other important programs have been buried in the rubble. It’s time for a public education supporters to dig it out. Clearly the right wing has already dug out and even dusted off its agenda.

The author can be reached at Talbano@pww.org