People Before Profit blog

Jazz CD honors Chicago 7

Fri, 17 Dec 2004 10:52:00 +0000

Music Review

CHICAGO — The 1969 Chicago Seven conspiracy trial and surrounding investigation spiraled into a circus-like event, exposing the dirty underbelly of law enforcement at the time, and shocking the entire nation.

Now, Chicago’s own Ernest Dawkins — composer, reedist and leader of the critically acclaimed New Horizons Ensemble — has written a new piece of music about this turbulent time, featuring a who’s who of Chicago’s creative jazz scene. A celebration of the CD release will take place Jan. 7 at HotHouse (www.hothouse.net), the Center for International Performance and Exhibition, 31 E. Balbo, at 8 p.m. Admission is $20 (21 and over).

Titled “Misconception of a Delusion and Shades of a Charade,” the piece commemorates the 35th anniversary of the infamous Chicago Seven conspiracy trial, providing a vivid musical account of the turbulent trial against eight antiwar activists, including Black Panther Party leader Bobby Seale, who was bound and gagged in a courtroom proceeding.

This all-star Chicago band includes: Greg Ward, Corey Wilkes, Norman Palm III, Kevin Neighbors, Aaron Gedsug, Khari B., Isiah Spencer, Hamid Drake, Harrison Bankhead, Josh Abrahms, Justin Dillard, and Ernest Dawkins, composer/director. The evening’s activities also include a performance by the Corey Wilkes-Greg Ward Exchange as well as a Tribute to John Coltrane, featuring Ari Brown, Ernest Dawkins, Kirk Brown, Harrison Bankhead, Isaiah Spencer. This will be the first event recorded for the newly formed Chicago Creative Arts Online, an organization that has plans to stream live video of Chicago’s jazz community over the web.

Letters

Fri, 17 Dec 2004 09:59:00 +0000

Unconstitutional travel ban

I have been reading about the travel restrictions to Cuba and everything I’ve read makes me believe that even if the ban was constitutional when Cuba was supported by the Soviet Union, it isn’t now. Cuba is surely not a combatant with the U.S. now, does not present a clear and present danger, and large U.S. companies now sell millions of dollars of food and drugs to Cuba.

So how in the world can the restrictions hold up constitutionally? In particular, how can they hold up in view of freedom of movement decisions written by the Supreme Court and equal protection under the law? If U.S. corporations can sell millions, why can’t a U.S. citizen buy a $10 piece of art?

Bob HamiltonVia e-mail

End torture

It is time that the U.S. government takes a stand against torture. There was a time when the “rules of war” allowed victorious soldiers to enslave, rape, loot, pillage, and plunder. I assume that our government is against these war crimes. But for some reason, torture has become a gray area. If the government won’t tell the world that it will not allow torture, then we, the people, should. Torture has always been and will always be wrong.

Chuck MannGreensboro NC

Thanks to immigrants

Let us give thanks to Hispanic immigrants. Because they work hard. Because they maintain their families, back home and also here. Because they pay taxes and they contribute to social programs, but almost never benefit from them. Let us thank them for their immense capacity to adapt to a hostile environment. They contribute to our nation’s freedom and spirit of tolerance.

Juan CatalinaVia e-mail

Lights out!

Once upon a time in California, there was an energy crisis. Traffic lights were turned off, consumers were asked not to use their appliances during the day, the electric grid system operator was operating at emergency level, and the Democratic governor was blamed for it all and subsequently removed from office. The new actor, Arnold Schwarzenegger, said everything would be better now that he was in charge.

Now we seem to have lots of electricity to burn. All the stores look like they’re open, even after hours. The lights are all on all night, but nobody’s home. Some crisis!

Joseph Hancock Los Angeles CA

From Norway’s snowy woods

Here is a short poem, written in reaction to the return of the “Son of the Bush” monster:

The Revolutionary Optimist’s Dream Just as the ice broke he caught himself Thinking it could not last forever.

Tor Einar BekkenNorway, via e-mail

Job safety not a priority

Our family was devastated when my brother Gary was killed on the job at a concrete plant on Aug. 15, 2001. Gary had been employed there only three months as a cement truck driver. He fell 25 feet to his death, from a cement tower, while shoveling gravel off the hopper to clean it. The company claimed Gary just wandered up there on his own at the end of his driving shift rather than being assigned this unpleasant task because he was the “new man.”

Our grief was compounded when this implausible story was accepted by OSHA. After admitting no wrongdoing, the company paid a $6,000 fine for repeat violations for not posting danger signs at a confined space and not implementing measures to prevent unauthorized entry. We learned this company had multiple serious violations issued only months before my brother was killed. These were informally settled with reduced fines, through a process called “abatement,” only a few weeks before his death. This process, combined with inadequate workers’ compensation laws, makes it impossible to hold negligent employers criminally and civilly liable.

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. The percentage of cases being downgraded from “willful” to less serious violations has been rising steadily.

In 2001, the year my brother was killed, 60 percent of all cases were downgraded. Of the mere 1,700 “willful” cases out of 170,000 fatalities in the past 20 years, only 196 were referred to prosecutors. In these 20 years there were only 81 convictions and only 16 carried jail sentences. It is a misdemeanor to kill a worker by willfully violating safety laws. The maximum sentence is six months in jail.

My brother’s death was not an isolated case of bad luck. Almost 6,000 Americans were killed in workplace accidents in 2002 — about twice as many people as were killed on 9/11. Another 50,000 die each year from occupational diseases caused by asbestos, pesticides, solvents and chemicals. OSHA lacks the resources to protect the 100 million workers under its jurisdiction. OSHA’S current budget of $475 million amounts to about $4 per worker. The number of hours spent per OSHA inspection has decreased between 1999 and 2003, the number of cases “downgraded” to less serious violations is rising and the penalties for serious violations remain low. The average penalty for a serious violation in 2003 was around $900.

Work for justice in honor of Gary Puleio. Thank you for your coverage of Workers Memorial Day 2004 (“Pray for the dead, fight like hell for the living,” 5/08/04).

Donna Puleio Spadaro, M.D. Via e-mail

Editorials

Fri, 17 Dec 2004 09:50:00 +0000

2005 and beyond

As we put this special issue to bed, honoring 80 fighting years of our Communist, working-class press, we look ahead to the holidays and a New Year of struggle. Our next edition will be Jan. 8.

Although the tremendous efforts to defeat George Bush and the ultra-right on Nov. 2 were not successful, the unprecedented coalition that came to life has set the stage for future victories.

We’d like to go out on a limb and offer a few predictions for 2005.

• The historic, labor-led, all-people’s coalition will continue to grow and deepen — but not without many “divide and conquer” challenges from corporate, racist and ultra-right forces, making unity in action all the more important.

• Struggles will sharpen. Class and socialist consciousness will grow among those engaged in struggle.

• Bush’s electoral coalition will show cracks and instabilities as his administration continues to pursue its extreme agenda. Some of Bush’s support can be peeled away during the upcoming battles.

• The illegal and immoral occupation and war in Iraq will continue to be a quagmire created by the Bush administration’s drive for oil and U.S. corporate domination. A growing majority of Americans will questions the costs of the war as the truth about Iraqi and U.S. casualties comes out, and as cities, towns and states are forced to slash budgets. It will be possible to force the administration to pull our troops out.

• Bush’s “war on terror” will fail to halt terrorism. But the global democratic and people’s movement, including in the U.S., will begin to formulate a real program and strategy to end terrorism and war, refusing to cede this issue to the ultra-right.

• The Bush administration will become even more aggressive towards Latin America, seeking to destabilize socialist Cuba and the growing number of left and center-left governments in the region. But the developing progressive trend in the hemisphere will positively influence U.S. labor and people’s movements.

• The battle over Social Security privatization will become a pivotal struggle. Rushing to hand the program over to Wall Street, the Bush administration will discover why Social Security is called the “third rail” of American politics.

• Bush’s millionaire-friendly tax program and the ballooning deficit will cause rebellions in the GOP ranks and militant actions against budget cuts.

• The 40th anniversary of the Voting Rights Act will expose the depth of racist vote suppression and fraud in our country, causing many to wonder how this administration can claim it will bring democracy to the world when it can’t do it at home.

• Bush’s judicial appointees will target civil rights and Roe v. Wade. Labor will face vicious attacks, with the White House leading the charge. Democrats who don’t stand up to these attacks will be targeted for defeat by the people’s movement.

* * * * * *

We’d also like to offer some awards.

Our slimebag of the year award goes to Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld. It was a tough choice, given the field. Rumsfeld dodged the resignation bullet over Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo torture revelations. But his recent arrogant remarks to GIs headed to harms’ way raises anew the demand that he resign.

Our courage award goes to the labor and multiracial, multi-national all-people’s movement for its unprecedented grassroots electoral struggle.

Finally, here are our picks for “shake your head while you laugh and cry” quotes of 2004:

“I couldn’t get a job with the CIA today. I am not qualified,” – Bush’s new CIA director, Porter Goss, in an interview last March.

“Our enemies are innovative and resourceful, and so are we. They never stop thinking about new ways to harm our country and our people, and neither do we.” – George W. Bush, Aug. 5.

Seriously, though, in this holiday season, seen as a time for “peace on earth, goodwill to all,” our world is in a deepening crisis of war, poverty, exploitation and inequality. Capitalism is unable to solve these problems — in fact it exacerbates them. That, plus its commercialization of the holidays, sometimes — as columnist Maureen Dowd put it — makes you want to rip the smile off Frosty’s face.

But we can see another side of Frosty: undaunted, saying “Catch me if you can.” Let no obstacle deter us in the struggle for a brighter future.

Economist exposes Colombias misery

Fri, 17 Dec 2004 06:09:00 +0000

CHICAGO — Hector Mondragon is not your typical economist.

He doesn’t have a desk job as an adviser to a big bank or multinational corporation, nor is he a government bureaucrat. Neither does he hold a comfortable position teaching macroeconomic theory at a university, although he’s well qualified to do so.

Instead, for more than 30 years, Mondragon has been an economic adviser to the dispossessed in Colombia, particularly indigenous peoples, Afro-Colombians, campesinos, the workers and the urban poor. He has been an outspoken advocate for the economic, environmental, and cultural rights of the Colombian people.

That career path has made him a marked man.

“For 16 years I’ve been living under the threat of death,” he said in a recent interview with the World. “My children’s lives have been threatened, too.” The threats are not idle. Mondragon, 50, was tortured for nine days by right-wing paramilitary elements in 1977, and political assassinations happen daily in Colombia today.

“I don’t teach classes or appear at conferences in Colombia, and I try to avoid a regular routine in my daily activity,” he said. To avoid the assassin’s bullet, he’s become accustomed to changing lodgings from night to night and to having others chauffeur him around.

Assault on workers

The situation of the country’s working people is very grave, he said. “More than 100 trade unionists were assassinated last year, and the year before that 180 were killed. The purpose of these assassinations is to reduce the capacity of the workers to resist the attacks on their living standards.”

Even though the economy grew by 4 percent over the past year, he said, workers’ wages and food consumption have fallen. “The level of poverty has increased, especially since many traditional labor agreements between workers and the companies are no longer recognized.”

Colombian President Alvaro Uribe, a good friend of President George W. Bush, has pushed through “labor reforms” stripping Colombia’s workers of basic labor and democratic rights. In place of long-standing labor agreements, contracting-out and “contractual services” have come to dominate the employment scene.

“The so-called contractual services are a way of allowing the employers to deny workers their health and retirement benefits,” Mondragon said. “They are also a way of evading the minimum wage law.” Many workers’ hours have been cut, and underemployment and unemployment have mushroomed.

President Uribe’s neoliberal agricultural policies have only aggravated these problems, he said. Over a million campesinos (farm workers), unable to make a go of it at traditional farming, have been driven from their land and have flooded the cities, causing overcrowding and heightened competition for gainful employment. “People are desperate for jobs,” he said, “and this has only helped the employers push their ‘contractual services’ model and drive down wages.”

The electorate rebuffed the Uribe government’s attempt to institutionalize these anti-labor reforms through a referendum in 2003. The government has since found other routes to translate them into law. To enforce them — and to put through the accompanying cuts in workers’ living standards — the government has been happy to look the other way as employer-backed, right-wing paramilitaries have terrorized Colombia’s workers and campesinos.

“The most severe repression has been directed at workers in the petroleum, electrical and social service sectors, so as to weaken the power of their unions,” he said. “Another objective of this repression is to pave the way for the privatization of publicly owned enterprises and services later on.”

“Take the case of the hospital workers in Cartagena,” Mondragon said. “There was a wave of public hospital closings in the city earlier this year — like little coups d’état. The top regional leader of the hospital workers was assassinated. The night before the closings, the army moved in and occupied the hospitals. The authorities didn’t want a repeat of an earlier situation in Bogota, where the workers had occupied the hospitals and operated them for the public good.”

Fighting back

But the army’s maneuver backfired. People organized, and a general strike took place involving 700,000 workers. “It was a political strike, and it paralyzed the country,” he said. “Shortly thereafter a demonstration of 1 million people protested the ‘free trade’ agreements that lead to such closings and privatization.”

Another dramatic illustration of the workers’ fighting mood was the recent strike at the state-owned oil company, Ecopetrol, involving over 5,000 workers. “The workers were on strike for 35 days,” Mondragon said, “and they were ultimately successful. They won government guarantees that the contract with the oil workers union would remain in force and that Ecopetrol wouldn’t be sold off to private interests.”

At one point the government declared the Ecopetrol strikers “terrorists,” arresting 17 strike leaders and firing over 250 workers. But the workers held out.

“The strike broke the back of the government’s plans. They thought it would be easy to crush the workers by imposing unconstitutional ‘reforms’ that prohibited them from protesting,” he said. “But they failed.”

We asked him about how Colombia’s people viewed the U.S. administration’s “Plan Colombia,” its program to facilitate regional “free trade” and to ostensibly combat narco-trafficking. The U.S. has given over $3 billion in military aid to the Colombian government since 2000.

Phony war on drugs

“Plan Colombia is portrayed as a ‘war on drugs,’ or as a ‘war on terrorism,’” Mondragon said. “In reality, it is a plan to protect the interests of private corporations in the region — not only Colombia, but also Ecuador and Venezuela.” He noted that there are substantial oil reserves in the region.

On the day of our interview, a story appeared in the New York Times about U.S. military advisers helping Colombian troops protect private oil company pipelines in the oil-rich Putamayo region.

“As is well known, the war on drugs has not been successful,” he said. “But the U.S.-backed fumigation and defoliation of the countryside with herbicides has ruined thousands of acres of farmland, destroyed crops, poisoned farm products, and polluted the waterways.”

Mondragon said the main problem is not the cultivation of coca plants, per se, but that farmers are unable to survive raising traditional crops because of the domination of agribusiness and the relentless pressure of free trade. Coffee, for example, has traditionally been one of the country’s prize exports, yet prices have collapsed and Colombia has had to resort to importing coffee beans. “All this adds up to more human misery,” he said.

Economic distress in the countryside has resulted in land falling into fewer and fewer hands, Mondragon said. “Once people leave, a small handful of wealthy people move in to acquire the land — not for agriculture, but for speculation, investment, development, and privatization.” About 30 percent of the landowners now control 95 percent of Colombia’s land. “We call it the ‘anti-agrarian reform’ of the Uribe administration,” he said.

While some Indian tribes have won protection for their lands, Mondragon believes that unless there is a change in the country’s direction, it’s only a matter of time before their protections are stripped away, too. Government-provoked political violence in the countryside has displaced several million more campesinos over and beyond those who have fled because of economic hardship.

U.S. role needs to change

As for the much-vaunted U.S. aid to Colombia, Mondragon said, “Most of the funds do not stay in Colombia but are used to purchase military material, like Sikorsky helicopter gunships, and herbicides from U.S. companies. Therefore the funds go back as profits to U.S. corporations. The next chunk of funds goes to pay military personnel. A small amount goes to help the displaced campesinos that the Plan Colombia has itself created. A minimal amount goes to micro-agricultural projects that have the potential of being helpful, but are not the priority of Plan Colombia.”

“Getting labor groups and church organizations to visit us from the U.S. and Europe is very important,” Mondragon said, “because during such visits people get to see and hear how Plan Colombia is being implemented.

“Word gets around,” he continued, “and that is of enormous help to the workers and campesinos. It give them hope that the world is not blind to their plight, that the world is behind them in their fight for their rights.”

Our telephone interview with Hector Mondragon took place Oct. 22, while he was visiting Chicago for a solidarity event sponsored by the Chicago Religious Leadership Network on Latin America. A member of the Mennonite Church, he continues to work as a full-time consultant to indigenous and campesino groups in his homeland.

Not your typical economist.

The author can be reached at malmberg@pww.org. Sijisfredo Aviles contributed to this article.click here for Spanish text

Canada court OKs marriage equality

Fri, 17 Dec 2004 06:03:00 +0000

VANCOUVER, British Colombia — A Supreme Court ruling on Dec. 9 that same-sex marriage is constitutional has paved the way for the introduction of legislation that will legalize gay marriage in Canada.

The court observed that the legal definition of marriage will likely change with public opinion over time. “Several centuries ago, it would have been understood that marriage be available only to opposite-sex couples,” it said. “The recognition of same-sex marriage in several Canadian jurisdictions as well as two European countries belies the assertion that the same is true today.” The court also ruled that churches cannot be forced to marry same-sex couples.

Prime Minister Paul Martin said his government will introduce a bill shortly after Christmas to legalize same-sex marriage, and that while cabinet ministers would be compelled to support the bill, Members of Parliament would be free to vote their conscience. “For many Canadians and many Parliamentarians, this is a very difficult issue involving personal and religious convictions, and it represents a very significant change to a long standing institution,” he said.

Liberal Party sources told the Toronto Globe and Mail that legislation allowing same-sex marriage would pass by a margin of about 25 votes in the 308-member Parliament.

“Equal marriage is something whose time has come,” stated Gilles Marchildon, executive director of the gay and lesbian advocacy group EGALE, who welcomed the Supreme Court ruling. “Just last week, South Africa expanded civil marriage to include same-sex couples. Spain will soon follow. Around the world, people are realizing that discrimination against lesbian and gay people is wrong.”

The author can be reached at tpelzer@shaw.ca.

CBS deems equality ad unacceptable

Fri, 10 Dec 2004 09:09:00 +0000

The United Church of Christ was set to launch its first-ever nationwide advertising campaign on Dec. 1. Research conducted by the UCC found that many people across the country have felt alienated by churches; this new campaign was designed to welcome all people, regardless of ability, age, race, economic circumstances or sexual orientation, into the UCC.

The 30-second ad shows two bouncers outside a church, choosing which people may enter and turning down a male couple in the process. The voice-over states, “Jesus didn’t turn people away. Neither do we.” A female couple appears among the diverse group of people shown at the end of the ad.

A long list of TV outlets accepted the ad, including ABC Family, AMC, BET Discovery, Fox, Hallmark, Nick at Nite, TBS, TNT and TV Land. But, on Nov. 30 negotiations broke down between church representatives and network officials at CBS and NBC.

In a written statement CBS said: “Because this commercial touches on the exclusion of gay couples and other minority groups by other individuals and organizations, and the fact the executive branch has recently proposed a constitutional amendment to define marriage as a union between a man and a woman, this spot is unacceptable for broadcast on the [CBS and UPN] networks.”

“The networks’ attitude would be comical if it were not so frightening,” said NOW President Kim Gandy. “Apparently the networks, which ran seemingly endless negative ads during the election season, are now prepared to redefine the word ‘controversy,’ and ban all mention of any subject which might offend the new morality police at the FCC.”

Call or e-mail CBS and NBC headquarters to let them know that you support the United Church of Christ’s message of fairness and equality and want the ad to air nationwide. CBS: 212-975-4321, NBC: 212-664-4444.

Arizonas anti-immigrant Prop. 200

Fri, 10 Dec 2004 08:33:00 +0000

Opinion

Arizona’s anti-immigrant Prop. 200 remains in quagmire! Even though it passed on Nov. 2 with a 56-44 margin, no one seems to know what it will mean to Arizona. Even its sponsors can’t agree. What is abundantly clear is the racist character of its promoters. Most of their funding came from the Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR), a Washington, D.C., right-wing foundation.

Confusion started when two separate versions of the initiative petition were circulated to meet the number of signatures required by the state constitution. Two separate ultra-right groups have differing interpretations of the language and intent of the proposition.

Proposition supporters claimed that undocumented immigrants are receiving welfare in Arizona, an issue already covered by state law. A second claim was that non-citizen immigrants are registering to vote. Yet no single instance has been presented that this is the case. Nevertheless the proposition requires submission of proof of citizenship when registering to vote and opens the door for voter intimidation at the ballot box.

Some of the proposition’s backers insist that the proposition’s proof of citizenship requirement also applies to all government programs including driver’s licenses, public libraries and emergency services. State Attorney General Terry Goddard issued an opinion that the intent of the proposition only covers welfare. His statement set in motion an alarmist protest by the promoters of Prop. 200, while others felt it will better withstand a court challenge if interpreted narrowly.

Prop. 200 opponents hope the Federal Elections Commission will throw out the measure because it violates the Voting Rights Act.

For those of us who have spent many decades in the fight for equal rights and the right to vote, one thing is clear. This proposition represents a right-wing, racist movement that is an attempt to return us to the pre-civil-rights-movement era. It’s clear that they have an agenda way beyond the borders of Arizona.

Already groups in several other states are actively working to initiate similar propositions. The strategy is clear — they keep filing these propositions looking for a successful model. If and when they find one, they will all use it, hoping that the U.S. Supreme Court will throw out any challenges.

The reality of life is that Mexican Americans and Latinos still constitute a minority population in most states. In order to sustain the advances we have accomplished thus far, we need to remain united in the interest of the working class. We need to continue to win allies among the labor unions and help them organize the unorganized workers — men and women. As in the past, we need militant organizers and organizations.

There can be no slack and no illusions that racism is a thing of the past. Racism is still alive and massive. Therefore the struggle to organize as a multinational, multiracial working class is still the best path to our continued advancement. Narrow, sectarian approaches will prove disastrous.

In the last couple of decades we’ve been losing some ground on the anti-discrimination front. The call now is for harder work and cohesiveness amongst us and our allies, regardless of race, nationality, gender, religion or non-religion. What do you think?

Lorenzo Torrez is chair of the Communist Party of Arizona. He can be reached at Lptorrez1@wmconnect.com.

Letters

Fri, 10 Dec 2004 08:28:00 +0000

Religion and Marxism

I agree with “Religion, faith and communism” (PWW 12/4-10) in that Marxists should work with the religious community. In fact, I often paraphrase Lenin to my religious friends: It is more important to unite and fight and build a better world on earth than to argue about whether there is a better world in heaven.

I also agree “communism is not anti-religion.” After all, communism (with a small “c”) predates Marxism, and there are religious forms of communism.

But I think it is wrong to suggest that there is no contradiction between the philosophical outlook of Marxism (materialism) and the philosophical outlook of religion (idealism). In his essay “The Attitude of the Workers’ Party to Religion,” Lenin wrote, “Marxism is materialism. As such, it is as relentlessly hostile to religion as was the materialism of the 18th century.”

I’m not suggesting that we should proclaim an ideological war on religion. As Engels said, that would be stupid. But I think it is naïve to suggest that there isn’t any conflict between Marxism (and, for that matter, all science) and religion.

Kevin LindemannWinfield IL

Stop sacrificing young

In anticipation of our “moral values” president reactivating the military draft to provide more cannon fodder for his current hegemonic war in Iraq and others expected soon in Iran, Syria and maybe even North Korea, draft counseling of young people is growing by leaps and bounds. If you know of people in need of such counseling, the best way to find help is to go online and seek out on the web “Conscientious Objector.” You will find an array of choices that probably will lead you to someone in your home community.

Otherwise, find a local veterans group or ask members of the clergy. If this catches on en masse we can choke off the supply of bodies for Bush to sacrifice and maybe force him to end his empire building at the expense of our younger generation. While we’re at it, we all must demand of our congresspeople that they call for an immediate end to this illegal, immoral war and vote to end its funding NOW!

Willard B. Shapira Minneapolis MN

No ‘just’ wars

The editorial, “Ditching Private Ryan, Saving Mr. DeLay” (PWW 11/20-26), has the following line: “It also shows the horrors of war — even a just one.”

Coincidently, on Nov. 20, I was participating in an E-discussion about the war in Iraq, sponsored by the Washington Post, when one of the other participants asked the question what makes a “just” war.

I responded by saying, “War is humanity at its worst. As such, humanity cannot afford to accept the concept of a ‘just war.’ To talk of war as being ‘just’ or ‘unjust’ is to legitimize the ultimate evil that it is. World leaders who talk of ‘just’ and ‘unjust’ wars do so to cover up their failure to prevent the conditions for war to develop. The greed for wealth and power lay the foundation. The rush to build on that foundation at the expense of others leads to the conflict.”

When it is the workers, or the sons and daughters of workers, who fight the wars, should we be saying the war is “just”? Even in the struggles of liberation we strive to bring about change through peaceful means, taking up arms only when attacked, and even then only when the all other options are exhausted. In this case the response is “just.” The war is tragedy!

Bill AppelhansChicago IL

Black men and racism

I was just reading some appalling statistics about the number of Black males incarcerated, mainly on drug trafficking charges. Black males constitute 43.9 percent of all detainees. Five percent of all Black males are behind bars, compared to 0.6 percent of white males. The legal system is so institutionally racist that Black males have little if any chance for success in this political economy. First, they are born into a social inferno that leaves no margin for error. The likelihood that they will be born into poverty is almost 100 percent, which helps lead the racist society at large to write off an entire Black male population, generation after generation.

Another problem concomitant with the staggering incarceration statistics is that once a Black man is released, he has to overcome the additional burden of a criminal record, on top of being Black. Black and a convicted felon — the double whammy — who can overcome those hurdles?

As a society, we simply have to do better. Locking up all Black young men is not the answer.

A readerVia e-mail

Why is the U.S. meddling in Ukraine?

It takes an open and brazen attempt by U.S. imperialism to take over Ukraine. This recent and most blatant move to add Ukraine — with over 500 years of close harmony with Russia — to the list of new U.S. “satellite states” marks a critical and qualitative change in American-Russian relations that could have dire consequences.

For the veterans of hanging chads and missing voting machines it far exceeds the hitherto unknown limits of chutzpa to charge, as Colin Powell has done, that there were voting irregularities in the recent voting in Ukraine. In his defense it probably can be said that if anybody would know about voting irregularities, he would.

There seems to be no limit to American imperialism’s gargantuan appetite. Its slogan might well be, “Today the world, tomorrow the universe!” One can readily see Bush being introduced on world TV as the commander in chief of the earth, the moon, and all nine planets as he mouths a folksy, down-to-earth speech on the virtues of poverty written for him by a former ad writer for Smell-o toilet cleaner. You bet!

Phillip BonoskyNew York City NY

Editorials

Fri, 10 Dec 2004 08:19:00 +0000

Soldiers raise their voices

Soldiers on their way to Iraq interrupted Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld’s pep talk Dec. 7. “Why do we soldiers have to dig through local landfills for pieces of scrap metal” to add their own protective armor to their vehicles, demanded Army Specialist Thomas Wilson.

A cheer erupted from the 2,300 National Guard soldiers at the base in Kuwait. Rumsfeld blandly replied, “You can have all the armor in the world … and still be blown up.”

Another soldier asked how much longer the Army will use “stop-loss” powers to retain soldiers after they have fulfilled their obligations. Rumsfeld said the policy “will continue to be used.”

But the Center for Constitutional Rights filed a class action lawsuit Dec. 7 on behalf of eight reservists trapped in Iraq under “stop-loss.” They are asking the court to stop this “backdoor draft” as a violation of the soldiers’ contractual rights. In addition, hundreds of National Guard and Ready Reserve soldiers are refusing deployment to Iraq.

This movement has mushroomed since Staff Sgt. Camilo Mejia refused to return to Iraq because he would no longer participate in the bloody occupation and the abuses exposed in the Abu Ghraib outrage.

Some of the signs of revolt have erupted in the combat zone. Twenty-three soldiers refused orders to drive inadequately armored tanker trucks filled with fuel up “Ambush Alley” a few months ago. They called it a “suicide mission.”

This movement is receiving the full support of the peace movement, but it deserves far wider support, including support from all those folks with “Support Our Troops” bumper stickers on their cars. The anger is going to continue building.

Within days of gaining a second term, George W. Bush announced that troop levels will be boosted to 150,000. Rumsfeld says the U.S. occupation of Iraq will continue for at least four more years. If you truly support the troops, then write your senators and representatives a simple message: “Bring them home! Bring in the UN!”

* * * * * *

Obstruction of justice

The Bush administration argues that torture of prison detainees at the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq and Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, are “isolated” instances of abuse by a few low-ranking bad apples like Private Lyndie England.

But the ACLU released documents Dec. 7 proving that a “special operations task force” in Iraq and at Guantanamo resorted to threats and intimidation to silence Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) personnel who had witnessed the torture. This means that officials high on the Pentagon chain of command knew of the torture and engaged in an organized cover-up. It’s called “obstruction of justice,” and it led in 1972 to articles of impeachment against President Richard Nixon.

The documents obtained by the ACLU are a damning indictment. A June 25 memo from DIA chief Adm. Lowell E. Jacoby titled “Alleged detainee abuse by TF 62-6” describes how DIA personnel who complained about abuses were threatened, had their car keys confiscated and e-mails monitored by the task force. They were ordered “not to talk to anyone in the U.S.” or leave the base “even to get a haircut.” The same memo reports that a prisoner was punched in the face so badly “he needed medical attention.” But the task force confiscated photos of the injured detainee.

The ACLU obtained notes describing 15 interviews of FBI personnel who were at Abu Ghraib, “some of whom observed nudity, sleep deprivation, and humiliation of detainees.” E-mails from an FBI behavioral analysis adviser revealed “aggressive” and “extreme interrogation practices” at Guantanamo, as well.

ACLU attorney Amrit Singh said, “While these documents confirm the systemic nature of detainee abuse, it appears that the government is still withholding many more documents that shed light on which high-ranking officials are responsible for the abuse.”

These latest revelations underscore the need for a criminal investigation that reaches right to the top of the Bush-Cheney administration. The detainees of Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo Bay should be released and these infamous prisons closed.

When does 2+2 not equal 4?

Fri, 10 Dec 2004 07:20:00 +0000

In capitalist schools, we are taught that two plus two always equals four. But Marxism, and science in general, points to a different, more dynamic result, one that more accurately reflects reality. The difference can help us better assess economic statistics and the world as a whole.

Let’s take a simple example. What do we get if we combine two two-quart containers of water? “Four quarts!” we may have learned. But water, like everything else in the universe, is matter in motion. Some of it is constantly changing form. Even as the two containers are combined, some water will evaporate. Accurate measures will repeatedly, positively indicate that adding two quarts and two quarts of water does not yield four.

For cooking purposes, the difference may not be critical. For scientific purposes, the difference can be critical. Even for cooking, if the water is left to sit a while, enough evaporation will occur as to possibly affect a recipe’s outcome. And let the container sit long enough, and two plus two quarts of water will equal zero. On the other hand, add two plus two measures of some radioactive minerals, and the result can be a whole lot more than four, if critical mass is exceeded.

Let’s apply some of that lesson to economic statistics. For most capitalist economists, gross domestic product — the dollar value of all goods and services produced in a country — is the best, most general indicator of an economy’s performance. The Commerce Department reports that U.S. GDP was $9,872.9 billion dollars in 2000, rising to $10,208.1 billion in 2001. But household income fell and unemployment rose between 2000 and 2001, as did child poverty, hunger and imprisonment rates. Doesn’t add up.

In both 2000 and 2001, over $300 billion was spent on pervasively-damaging tobacco products, plus several hundred billion more on health care required as a result of smoking and chewing. Both expenditures were added to GDP. Shouldn’t they have been subtracted? The cost of existing housing rose, and was added to GDP — shouldn’t it have been subtracted? Or consider that the U.S. government now spends over $1,000 billion every year on arms, wars, union-busting, and prisons — shouldn’t these be subtracted, not added to GDP? We think so.

In a welcome development in China, the state today is experimenting with “Green-GDP” accounting. Environmental and some other costs of production are being subtracted from GDP. This points the way to more accurate social accounting, and a rejection of the profoundly misleading GDP arithmetic that the U.S., World Bank and IMF have tried to impose on China.

Or consider the fable that a dollar is equal to a dollar. A corporation’s capital, for example, is defined as its stock plus its debt. Through pension funds and mutual funds, workers’ savings are largely channeled into corporate stocks or risky debt; the leading Wall Street families prefer to hold capital in the form of “senior” debt, which has priority over all other company’s obligations.

If the corporation runs into problems — and that happens all too often these days — the pension fund’s holdings can evaporate overnight, and the worker’s dollar is suddenly worth a dime. Wall Street’s dollar, on the other hand, gets repaid with interest, or at most suffers a minor trim. A dollar is not a dollar.

Behind the teaching that a dollar is a dollar, or that two plus two equals four, lies the idealist assumption of absolute values. But there is no such thing. Both physical and social reality consist of ever-changing, ever-contending forces. The more scientifically we assess those contending forces, the better we can point the way for the working class to change reality in its interest, and that of all oppressed.

In the meantime, PWW readers who excelled in arithmetic may find they need to refine their answers. Readers who did not do so well in Mr. Joyce’s class can feel more confident in reaching scientific answers — not only to two plus two, but to the bosses’ accounting as well.

The author can be reached at economics@cpusa.org.

Chicago PWW banquet to hear Fernando Suarez del Solar

Fri, 10 Dec 2004 05:20:00 +0000

CHICAGO — Fernando Suarez del Solar will be the featured speaker at the annual People’s Weekly World/Nuestro Mundo banquet here Sunday, Jan. 16. The banquet theme, “We’ve just begun! Forging unity to block the Bush agenda,” will hail the tremendous 2004 people’s electoral movement as the basis for a renewed fight against the Bush policies of unending war, ruthless attack on labor and civil rights, and destruction of social services and the environment.

The event will celebrate the 80th anniversary of the People’s Weekly World/Nuestro Mundo and the Rev. Martin Luther King’s birthday.

Suarez del Solar’s son, U.S. Marine Jesus Alberto Suarez del Solar Navarro, was one of the first U.S. soldiers killed in Iraq in March 2003. Since then his father has been an outspoken opponent of the war. He has traveled the country and world to confront the Bush administration and expose the lies underpinning its war policies.

Suarez del Solar is a founder of Military Families Speak Out and has established a foundation in his son’s honor called the Guerrero Azteca Project to reach young people about the harsh reality of military service, particularly in the Spanish-speaking communities where large numbers are being forced into the military because of the “green card” and poverty draft.

The Chris Hani/Rudy Lozano Award will be presented to organizations and coalitions that participated in the historic electoral mobilization during the 2004 elections, including those who helped to register thousands of new voters, participated in the historic Barack Obama campaign and who sent thousands to canvass door to door in the Midwest battleground states.

The event will begin at 2 p.m. and take place at the New Furama Restaurant, 2828 S. Wentworth Ave. in Chicago’s Chinatown neighborhood. Tickets are $40 and proceeds will benefit the People’s Weekly World/Nuestro Mundo Fund Drive. For reservations or more information, please call 773-991-7930 or 773-667-5154.

The author can be reached at jbachtell@rednet.org.

Gregory Charles a musical life

Fri, 03 Dec 2004 09:51:00 +0000

Music Review

NEW YORK — Canadian Gregory Charles is the son of a Trinidadian father and Quebecois mother, hence the title of his one-man musical, “Black and White.” Charles began a U.S. tour with performances Nov. 12 and 13 at the Beacon Theater here.

Charles is “the man who took Canada by storm,” according to his publicists. He can sing, he can move and he can definitely play the piano. Now in his 30s, he won his first piano competition at age 7. When he was 13, he played at Carnegie Hall.

His current show has two segments separated by an intermission. The first part is all about him — his life and where he came from. In strong voice he sings about his African heritage, at one point doing a very credible version of Paul Robeson’s “Ol’ Man River,” then launching into a Motown medley.

The second part is all about the audience. While entering the show and during intermission, the audience is asked to suggest songs they would like him to sing. It is a fun way to show off his vast repertoire. Adding to the fun, when he pulls a song title out of the hat, he just

tells his music director what key to play in, but not what song he is going to sing. The pianist, the back-up band and the audience wait in anticipation. The audience and the band love it and it is a good audience participation device.

One gimmick that many in the audience seemed to be expecting was his playing of two pianos at the same time. This display demonstrated his musical pull between classical (his mother) and jazz (his father). The man has skills, no doubt about it. The show ends with a couple of standard gospel songs performed by a youthful choir.

Charles is talented, energetic, engaging and aiming to please. He is a man who has done many things: hosted television shows in Canada and France; gone to law school; acted in plays; conducted the New World Choir; and toured with Celine Dion.

Charles is comfortable being on stage — maybe too comfortable, which leads to some lack of discipline and self-indulgence. At times there was more talk than music. Charles has the potential to be a great all-around performer in the mode of Sammy Davis Jr., but that will require revealing more of himself, laying himself bare.

The author can be reached at nyblackradicalcongress@yahoo.com

On moral values

Fri, 03 Dec 2004 09:00:00 +0000

Opinion

Some of us who consider ourselves to be liberals or progressives have been just too quiet in the conversation about moral values. Some have argued that those who live in the so-called “blue states,” those which voted for John Kerry, haven’t even been aware of the conversation or have been, at best, uneasy in it. Thus, they say, not only did John Kerry seem hesitant to talk about his own faith and how it informs his life and his decision-making process, but so, too, did Howard Dean and even John Edwards, a Southerner.

I happen to agree with them — we need to talk about moral values and we must talk about how our faith informs who we are and what we say and do. I believe that those of us who are Christians must take back Jesus and those of us who are people of faith must take back our ability to frame our positions on critical social issues in the context of our faith.

The Jesus I am talking about is the one who turned over the tables of the moneychangers right inside the temple. The Jesus I am talking about said at the beginning of his ministry, “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me because he has anointed me to bring good news to the poor.” The Jesus I am talking about said, “Blessed are the peacemakers for they will be called the children of God.” The Jesus I am talking about said, “You have heard it said you shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy. But I say to you love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you.” The Jesus I am talking about said, “Let anyone among you who is without sin be the first to throw a stone at her.” The Jesus I am talking about never said one word about homosexuality. The Jesus I am talking about ate with the sinners, the outcasts and the tax collectors. He drew to himself those who were marginalized by those in the faith — the women, the children, the lepers, the unclean.

This Jesus that I know and follow challenged the Roman Empire in its oppression of the poor, in its war against the Jews, and he challenged the Pharisees and scribes in the temples for their fastidious following of the law at the expense of healing and justice for the people. This is the Jesus we must reclaim and proclaim in this conversation about faith and values.

It is this Jesus, and the God who requires us to do justice, love kindness, and walk humbly with our God, who informs my positions on tax cuts for the wealthy in a nation where one in every five children lives in poverty. It is this God who makes me ask what is wrong with us when tens of thousands of people die every day from starvation and the United Nations estimates that $13 billion allocated above current spending levels would mean that everyone in the world (including Americans) would have basic food and health care. At the same time, Americans and Europeans spend $17 billion on food for their pets every year. It is this God, who created the earth and all that is in it, who informs my position on our unwillingness to sign the Kyoto protocol or to even admit that there is global warming while we in the U.S., who are 5 percent of the world’s population, use 25 percent of the world’s fuel and provide at least four or five times our share of the earth’s pollution.

I do want to talk about moral values. I want to talk about the moral values of a pre-emptive strike war which we now know was based on half-truths at best and lies at worst. I want to talk about the more than 1,000 Americans who have been killed in that war, and the 10,000 who have come back home injured, and the tens of thousands who will return with significant mental conditions. I want to talk about the tens of thousands of Iraqi women and children — civilians all — who have been killed since the beginning of this war.

I do want to talk about integrity and truth and honesty and fairness. I do want to talk about democracy and freedom and justice for all.

Moral values is about so much more than the right of a woman to choose and the rights of gay and lesbian Americans. It’s about how we live life together in the 21st century, understanding that as Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. said, “The moral arc of the universe is long, but it bends towards justice.”

Bernice Powell Jackson is executive minister for Justice and Witness Ministries of the United Church of Christ, www.ucc.org/justice/.

Letters

Fri, 03 Dec 2004 07:40:00 +0000

Remember the Butterflies

I just got through reading “In the Time of the Butterflies” by Julia Alvarez. It’s an incredibly moving account of the courageous Mirabel sisters of the Dominican Republic, who were jailed, tortured and eventually murdered for their political activism against the dictator Rafael Trujillo. The United Nations declared Nov. 25 the International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women, commemorating the Mirabels, known as the Unforgettable Butterflies, who came to symbolize the crisis of violence against women.

Your readers should know about Nov. 25 and the Mirabel sisters and read Alvarez’s stirring book.

Melissa LodiChicago IL

Update on Marine CO

Our son, Trent, was interviewed the other day by the investigating officer whose conduct was inappropriate. He belittled and berated our son and told him he found his letters of support “annoying.” The letters, many of which were from active duty and retired military, included some from people who held important positions and some of whom are still active-duty Marines. The officer certainly did not come to the interview feeling impartial to the situation as he should have done, but rather tried to bait our son, and treat him with little respect and dignity making our son feel like a criminal that has committed a serious crime.

Trent stopped the interview and said he would not answer any more questions without talking to his lawyer, who now plans to be present for the next interview. We are quite disappointed in the behavior of some of the people in the Marine Corps, an organization that brags about taking care of their own and never leaving anyone behind. A major recently told our son if he went on “Unauthorized Absence” or did anything wrong he would keep him there as long as possible. He said he loved to mess with Marines that cause trouble. He was told by a Marine sergeant at Lejeune, that has harassed him, that as far as they were concerned he was nothing more than a piece of government property and to let him go would be like their property got broken, and he said they did not like broken property. Another person at Lejeune who has been helpful and whose name will not be given said, “By letting your son go, they, the Marines, will feel like they have lost, and Marines are trained to always win.”

Kathie HelmkampFredericksburg VA

Editor’s note: The original story “My son, a Marine” ran in PWW 11/6-12.

Was the 2004 election stolen?

Do people agree with the assessment by writer Greg Palast, which was published in Common Dreams and Zmag that Kerry in fact won the vote, especially in Ohio? However, due to “dirty tricks” and the many uncounted ballots, his vote total, as recorded, in the key states of Ohio and New Mexico was not enough to give him the electoral votes. According to Palast, exit polling indicated he should have had. When I read the Palast theory that the election was stolen, my faith in the basic sound sense of the American people was restored. We (I am a U.S. citizen resident in Canada) were not bamboozled by Bush; we were robbed by Bush and his Republican vote stealers. Comments, please.

Michael P. NevinToronto, Canada

Embargo, not blockade

The article “UN condemns blockade of Cuba” (PWW 11/12-19) bothered me because of personal experience that I won’t bore you with. The U.S. action against Cuba, in my view, is an “embargo” and not a “blockade.” A blockade is isolation by troops or ships, whereas an embargo is prohibition on commerce. Many people use the words as you did and extended definitions tend to make these words interchangeable; however, it just seems to me as though there is a difference between a blockade and an embargo.

Shel PlotkinVia e-mail

Vilification of Iran

With elections behind us now, the vilification of Iran has begun again in earnest, a scare campaign that even Colin Powell supports. It seems we’re all supposed to be tied in knots over the possibility of an Iranian nuclear bomb program. Well, excuse me if my knees aren’t shaking.

As one ponders the lengthening list of nuclear-armed nations, the hoopla surrounding the unproven charges against Iran seems quaint. It’s unclear why we should be so unusually concerned about yet one more nuclear power, when life goes on with nine already in that category. Living with these weapons has become second nature for the American people. As the only nation to have ever used them, after all, we’re none too repentant at that.

The Congress just defunded a pet Bush project to develop a new generation of U.S. nuclear weaponry. For strictly fiscal reasons, it was decided to presently get along without these bombs. However, the intent to develop them remains and the whole world knows it.

It should be obvious that so long as the U.S. refuses to renounce the first-use of these terrible weapons, other nations will inevitably continue to seek their own deterrent forces. It’s quietly acknowledged that Iran would not be violating any international law should it choose to go atomic. Interestingly, though, the oft-cited Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty does ban all signatories, including the U.S., from developing new generations of nuclear weapons, though the Congress never mentioned that when they killed the Bush WMD plan.

Cord MacGuire Boulder CO

Editorials

Fri, 03 Dec 2004 07:35:00 +0000

The debate in labor

After the elections the labor movement emerged bruised but unbowed. A mood of stubborn determination and resistance is settling into union halls and central labor councils.

Labor gave its all to defeat George W. Bush and ultra-right Republicans in Congress. Not since the CIO organizing days has labor been so united, energized and in the streets as in these elections. Labor carried its weight nobly. With African Americans, Latinos, women and youth, labor anchored an incredibly broad and progressive all people’s coalition that fought like hell. Still it was not enough.

Ruthless corporate downsizing, attacks on labor rights and the export of capital to low-wage countries have decimated union strength. Declining membership, especially in the private and manufacturing sectors, is taking its toll, despite incredible efforts in organizing, political action and coalition building over the last 10 years. Labor faces a hostile administration intent on more union busting and driving down workers’ living standards. So it is no wonder that a critical debate is reopening in labor over direction and program.

The AFL-CIO is taking steps to organize, broaden and deepen the debate, to make it the property of rank-and-file union members. And they are opening it up to friends of labor and coalition partners.

But progressive change requires that the debate unify, not divide or split the labor movement. Real change requires the debate be conducted in the midst of united action to defend unions and working families — campaigns around national health care and the great pension rip-offs come to mind.

Militant, class-struggle trade unionism, unionism that clearly sees global corporate power and the reactionary politics that serve it, is the key to building a bigger, more powerful labor movement that can win victories.With the mighty efforts of the elections at its back, and the fight of a lifetime in front, a basic discussion of labor’s direction and program can bring about vital and historic change.

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Profit system worsens AIDS crisis

World AIDS Day, Dec. 1, shined a spotlight on an epidemic threatening the lives of millions of people.

While there is still no cure, new medicines and technologies have been developed that can greatly lengthen the life expectancy of those infected and control its spread. At the same time, for millions of people around the world — especially in sub-Saharan Africa, but also in other countries, including the United States — HIV-AIDS is a death sentence, because they cannot afford needed medicines. In some parts of Africa, average life expectancy is only 33, with 1 in 3 people infected.

The United Nations projects that money needed to adequately fight AIDS — including medicine, support for AIDS orphans, education, counseling — will go from $12 billion in 2005 to $20 billion by 2007. These figures are not likely to be met. However, the Bush administration is cutting the amount the U.S. will spend on the global fight against AIDS from $540 million to $200 million per year.

This puts the entire health-for-profit system — where health care is administered based on profits, and not on human needs — on trial. While some infected with AIDS — those who have the money to pay for needed antiretroviral and other drugs — can prolong their lives indefinitely, whole sectors of the world will be wiped out. Big corporations profit off of the AIDS crisis by keeping drug prices high and fighting tooth-and-nail to stop poor nations from manufacturing their own generic versions of AIDS drugs.

Whatever happened to promoting “inalienable rights” of “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness”? These aren’t limited to the rich, powerful and corporations. They are also rights for the sick, poor, oppressed and exploited.

While we wear our red ribbons for AIDS awareness, we must recommit to fight the policies of the Bush administration, and the health-for-profit system as a whole.

Cuba honors PWW supporter

Fri, 03 Dec 2004 05:17:00 +0000

Wisconsin Peace and Justice Committee Chairman John Gilman was decorated with the Cuban Medal of Friendship, Nov. 12, in Havana. Sergio Corrieri, president of the Cuban Institute of Friendship with the Peoples (ICAP) and member of the Communist Party of Cuba’s Central Committee, presented the prestigious award to Gilman.

ICAP’s First Vice President Enrique Román told the audience Gilman deserves not only the medal, but “all the affection and recognition of the Cuban people” for his extensive work for peace, friendship and solidarity.

Gilman, a steadfast supporter of the Cuban Revolution since 1959, has worked to end the criminal U.S. blockade against Cuba. He has organized support for numerous Cuba solidarity struggles, including the current campaign to free the five Cuban political prisoners now in U.S. jails.

A decorated World War II veteran, Gilman told the Havana audience, “I’m a Cuban.”

Later he told the World, “When [President] John Kennedy flew to West Berlin in 1960, he proudly acclaimed, ‘Ich bin ein Berliner’ (I am a Berliner). If Kennedy can claim to be a German in support of capitalism, exploitation and super-profits for the imperialists, I can claim to be Cuban in support of free health care, free higher education and a socialist society. For that reason, I now proclaim, ‘Soy Cubano.’”

Gilman is a supporter of the People’s Weekly World newspaper and writes regular opinion pieces. In 2001, the PWW honored Gilman with its “Courage Award” for his lifelong commitment to working-class struggles.