People Before Profit blog

Hoosiers say no to privatization scheme

Fri, 22 Dec 2006 11:37:00 +0000

INDIANAPOLIS — Gov. Mitch Daniels and Family and Social Services Administration Secretary Mitch Roob are planning to privatize the food stamp and other state welfare application processes in Indiana. The privatization scheme would put the state of Indiana in the same situation as Texas and Florida.

International Business Machines will lead a business group that includes Affiliated Computer Systems. ACS will manage welfare applicants’ information for the next 10 years.

Over 300 Hoosiers braved single-digit temperatures to attend a Dec. 8 hearing in this city’s downtown — the only public hearing scheduled on the matter.

David Warrick, executive director of AFSCME Local 62, questioned the transparency of the plan. Warrick pointed out that businesses exist “to make a profit” and public welfare exists to “provide for the people” and the two underlying ideologies are in direct conflict.

He cited ACS’s troubled history of ethics violations. (On Nov. 27 the company’s CFO and CEO resigned for having allegedly backdated grant dates for their stock options to increase their value.) Warrick also told reporters present that Roob used to work for ACS, calling the deal “crony capitalism.”

Ben Medina, a caseworker with the Texas Department of Family and Protective Services, testified to the plan’s failure in that state. Since the privatization plan was implemented, Medina said, the state has been overbilled as much as $173,000. He stressed the plan’s failure, stating that it is only up and running in four of Texas’ 264 counties, and there has been no reduction in operating cost.

“Whoever it benefits, it’s not the children or the families,” said Betty Bledsoe, adoptive mother of 17 children. … I’m here to tell you, I’m in the trenches, and I know.” Bledsoe, like many others in attendance, regarded the public hearing as a farce.

Cornell Burris, president-elect of the Marion County chapter of the NAACP, called the public hearing a “sham.” Burris said the decision to go ahead with privatization has already been made.

Also at stake are the jobs of 2,200 state employees who will face layoffs, and loss of pensions and other benefits, after IBM’s initial two-year commitment. State Rep. Mae Dickenson, a Democrat, voiced her opposition to the plan, saying that as a labor committee member in the General Assembly, “these are the people I represent.”

Gov. Daniels and Secretary Roob were not present at the hearing. A written transcript and videotape of speakers’ testimony will be presented to the governor for review.

labourleft @ gmail.com

Pacific Northwest Native people a brief history

Fri, 22 Dec 2006 11:33:00 +0000

Native American Indians in the Pacific Northwest are engaged in a struggle for their human, economic and civil rights that takes many forms. Every four years, for example, there are “paddles” in which tribes travel long distances in their dugouts for big, festive gatherings with much singing, dancing, story telling and feasting reminiscent of “potlatches” of centuries past.

Two summers ago, the Lower Elwha band of S’Klallams staged “Paddle to Elwha” in part to protest the desecration of their tribal burial site at the base of the Ediz Hook spit in Washington. This past summer, the tribe won a major victory when Washington Gov. Christine Gregoire signed an agreement with tribal Chairwoman Frances Charles on the disposition of the burial ground, which was badly damaged during excavation to build a giant facility for construction of bridge pontoons.

The heightened political activism dates back to the role of the tribes in defeating Washington state’s reactionary and virulently racist Republican Sen. Slade Gorton in 2002. Indians throughout Washington delivered a powerful vote for Democrat Maria Cantwell in that election, providing her razor-thin margin of victory over Gorton.

This report by Elizabeth Yates from Seattle offers valuable background on the history of similar struggles by the Nisqually, Muckleshoot and Puyallup tribes in the Puget Sound region.

Tim Wheeler

The story of how three Northwest states acquired much of their land includes a war, an execution and eviction. 2006 marks the 150th anniversary of the end of that war, with repercussions still felt today.

Before the Europeans arrived, the Native Americans of the Northwest Coast were among the few hunting and gathering societies in the world that produced wealth beyond that needed for subsistence, and built up a strong trading system. Salmon was the center of their livelihood and their diet, and on the land along the rivers where they had fished for generations, the focus of their cultural and spiritual life.

In 1853 Isaac Ingalls Stevens, appointed governor and superintendent of Indian affairs for the new territory claimed by the U.S., was determined to get control of the land. The only language that was used to conduct treaty negotiations was Chinook jargon which contained about 300 words. Translators made mistakes, in some cases deliberately mistranslating, and provided limited information.

“In less than a year Gov. Stevens had made treaties with more than 17,000 Indians and in so doing had extinguished the Indian title to more than 200,000 square miles (64 million acres) of land now making up much of the territory of Washington, Idaho and Montana, leaving the Indian people with less than 6 million acres,” according to historians.

Chief Leschi of the Nisqually people, in present-day western Washington, strongly objected to this taking of their land, and this resistance led to the Puget Sound War of 1855-56 and ultimately to his execution on the orders of a kind of kangaroo court. And it led his people to a century of struggle under the new government. (In 2004 Leschi was exonerated through a Legislature-mandated Historical Court of Justice judicial review.)

In 1856, under new negotiations, the Nisqually and Puyallup lands became larger but still small, with some land on both sides of the Nisqually River. The U.S. and state governments originally wanted the native people to become farmers and, presumably, to “melt” into the new economic way of life. For people whose history and knowledge for centuries was bound to fishing, this radical course caused great hardship, “plus the prairie land did not cooperate,” said Cecelia Carpenter, Nisqually historian.

In 1917 came the second taking of their land by the U.S. Army, in order to build Fort Lewis. Those living on the north and west half were evicted in mid-winter, with no advance notice and no opportunity to line up other arrangements. So they scattered. Many disappeared and many died. In the 1920s the population of the tribe was reduced to about 40 people on the reservation. They continued fishing. One provision of the 1854 treaty was that they could continue to fish “in all their usual and accustomed places.”

The Washington state government over the years passed many contradictory laws regarding fishing. Controversy over interpretation of various laws and treaties, building of dams, growing competition with commercial and sports fishermen, and failure in the first place to consult with the true original experts on fish conservation led to environmental degradation.

In the late 1960s, “fish in” protests by the closely related Muckleshoot, Puyallup and Nisqually tribal members drew national attention and support. After 100 years, their struggles to retain treaty rights to fish culminated in 1974 in the Boldt decision. Federal Judge George H. Boldt’s ruling affirmed that Indian people had the right to fish off the reservation. Several tribes together soon established the Northwest Indian Fisheries Commission.

With help from federal grants to implement the Boldt decision, and improved income, the Nisqually tribe began to establish legal services and an infrastructure. From a reservation of ten families with no electricity or running water or health care because promised treaty funds were never distributed, the situation began to change after 1977 as little by little they became able to buy back the land. The reservation, with a population of about 500, now covers more than 4,000 acres, north and west of Olympia, dedicated to reclaiming the land and experimenting with new crops.

Today the Nisquallys have a complete political and economic organization with social, legal, health and education services, enabling them to function as an independent entity and to take care of virtually all of their people’s needs, said Cynthia Iyall of the tribal planning commission.

The Nisqually salmon-recovery plan, developed in cooperation with others, is a key element and example for a broader plan under discussion to resuscitate the state salmon industry, thus helping to expand the economy of the state. In the Nisqually River watershed, between Tacoma and Olympia, there just 400 fish spawned a decade ago, about 2,600 did in 2004.

“It’s an ongoing battle to make sure your treaty rights and sovereignty are protected,” said Georgiana Kautz, natural resources manager for the tribe and tribal elder. “The state has come to recognize our ability, in cooperation with all the people of the state, to manage and protect our natural resources. The quality of life we are trying to protect benefits everybody.”

Chicago banquet celebrates, and dances

Fri, 22 Dec 2006 11:21:00 +0000

CHICAGO — Grupo Yubá, a group of Puerto Rican percussionists, singers and dancers who issued the first CD of “bomba” and “plena” music in Chicago, drew listeners into a spontaneous dance during this year’s festive People’s Weekly World banquet here Dec. 3.

In an upbeat mood, more than 140 labor, community, peace and justice activists gathered at the Parthenon Restaurant to celebrate the November election victory and honor several groups for their outstanding work during 2006.

In a spirited keynote, Alderwoman Freddrenna Lyle blasted the obscene wealth accumulated by global corporations and said this proved the need for the labor movement. Lyle was a leader of the fight to pass a Big Box Living Wage Ordinance in the City Council that would have required Wal-Mart and other giant retailers to pay a living wage with benefits. The measure prompted a hostile attack by big business and was later vetoed by Mayor Daley.

Lyle and other aldermen who led the fight are being targeted by the Chicago Chamber of Commerce for defeat in the February municipal elections.

Elwood Flowers, Illinois AFL-CIO vice president, who introduced Lyle, said she had stood with labor in every difficult fight. More Lyles are needed at all levels of government, he added.

John Bachtell, Communist Party district organizer, welcomed the gathering.

Dr. Margaret Burroughs, co-founder of Chicago’s DuSable Museum of African American History, read her poetry and presented her beautiful art prints to Lyle and each of the honorees. Kyle Snyder, a U.S. Army resister threatened with jail, gave greetings and was given a standing ovation.

Every year the PWW banquet gives awards in honor of Chris Hani, South African Communist Party leader, and Rudy Lozano, revered leader of the Mexican American community. Both were brutally assassinated standing up for justice.

Five awards were presented this year. Among the recipients were Health Care Employees Acting at Resurrection Together (HEART), a group of Resurrection hospital workers organizing the hospital chain with AFSCME; and Chicago ADAPT, Americans Disabled for Accessible Public Transit, a group that pioneered the fight to make Chicago’s buses accessible to the disabled. ADAPT recently helped lead a sit-in at the Tennessee governor’s office over Medicaid cuts devastating to the disabled community.

Elvira Arellano of La Familia Latina Unida, who has taken sanctuary in a church to avoid deportation, was another honoree. Arellano represents 3 million families in danger of being split up by the Bush policies. Unable to leave the church, she sent a video greeting. Emma Lozano, president of the immigrant rights group Pueblo Sin Fronteras, and Arellano’s son Saul accepted on her behalf.

Also honored was the March 10th Movement, organizers of the first gigantic immigrant rights rally in 2006 in Chicago. It helped spark rallies nationwide, including 1 million who marched on May Day in Chicago. Accepting were José Artemio Arreola, SEIU Local 73 executive board member, and journalist/activist Jorge Mújica, who observed, “Immigration is indeed a difficult problem. Here is an event with a Puerto Rican group playing African-inspired music, singing in Spanish, in a Greek restaurant, in a city founded by someone [Du Sable] born in Haiti.”

Bea and Frank Lumpkin, lifelong members of the Communist Party USA and well-known leaders of many labor and community struggles, were honored as well. Recounting her personal encounters with Hani and Lozano, Ben Lumpkin declared, “Ideas of freedom and socialism can never be defeated.”

PWW writers Susan Webb and Pepe Lozano emceed the event, which featured a photo slide show of the struggles of 2006.

It was an inspiring event and everyone had a great time. Best of all, over $5,000 was raised for the PWW Fund Drive!

European Union embraces repressive laws

Fri, 22 Dec 2006 11:13:00 +0000

New, repressive measures will soon be implemented in the European Union in the name of “combating terrorism.” Critics say the measures are actually aimed at nipping a growing European left-wing radicalism in the bud.

The EU Council of Ministers of Justice and of Internal Affairs met Dec. 4-5 to approve a series of new mandates that authorize the gathering and retention of personal data on individuals and the monitoring of their activities, increased coordination between the police and the military, and heightened immigrant and refugee control.

Gijs de Vries, coordinator of the EU’s anti-terrorist commission, set the tone for the council meeting. His report summarized the progress his commission has made since June 2006, and emphasized, “The strategic obligation of the EU is to combat terrorism on a worldwide level.”

The report opens with a focus on “strategies against violent radicalization,” which is defined by the EU Council as “the phenomenon where people adhere to viewpoints, opinions and ideas that may lead to terrorist actions.” The Internet was cited as a key conduit for the dissemination of these ideas.

Notably, the commission is now funding a series of studies on radicalism, including “Causes of radicalization among youth.”

The council makes reference to the EU’s anti-terrorist laws, according to which actions carried out by unions and mass movements could theoretically be characterized as “terrorist.” In a similar vein, because of the vague wording, many labor and community activists could plausibly be labeled terrorists.

While the anti-terrorist laws indicate their starting point is “extreme Islamic radicalism,” they also claim to cover “every form of violent radicalism, nationalism, anarchism, autonomous, extreme-left or right-wing action.”

Given recent anti-communist measures (e.g. the banning of the Young Communist League in the Czech Republic, and an anti-communist motion in the Parliamentary Assembly of Europe), the new mandates clearly constitute a dangerous threat to all those who challenge the capitalist system, even in the realm of thought.

Systems of monitoring and recording personal information of all EU citizens, residents, and now visitors are being perfected and extended. The council plans to centralize in one giant database all information gathered via immigration and visa procedures, and to include biometric data in all EU country passports (only 18 have such data now).

Increased police and military response mechanisms were also approved, especially for border points. The creation of a “rapid intervention force” which could intervene in any member country if the member government were facing a “large-scale crisis” is being reconsidered.

Special police units are being set up that would permanently patrol the Mediterranean and Aegean coastlines. Critics say these units, when combined with newly enacted immigration laws, will lead to increased persecution against immigrants and refugees.

The 1.4 billion euros ($1.8 billion) that have been approved for 2007-2013 exclusively for “research relevant to security” show what EU rulers’ priorities are, in a vast area where the majority of citizens are trying to survive under a system of never-ending economic austerity.

It has become clear that, as capitalist restructuring intensifies, so does repression, police terror and the erosion of democracy, both EU-wide and in each member country.

Laura Petricola (laurajopetricola @ yahoo.com) writes from Athens, Greece.

Dixie Chicks still ashamed of the president

Fri, 22 Dec 2006 11:03:00 +0000

MovieREVIEW

Shut Up and Sing

Directed by Barbara Kopple

and Cecilia Peck

The Weinstein Co., 2006, 93 min.

The new documentary about the media flurry around the Dixie Chicks singing band brings recent American history into clear focus.

In 2003, lead singer Natalie Maines assured a young British audience that the Chicks sympathized with their antiwar views and added, “Just so you know, we’re ashamed the president of the United States is from Texas.”

Media conglomerates and right-wing commentators then carried out a whirlwind witch-hunt worthy of the infamy associated with the McCarthy period in America or, possibly, even the heyday of legendary spin-meister Joseph Goebbels under Hitler.

The Dixie Chicks were banned from country radio, their main source of fame and success. Publicity stunts involving the destruction of their recordings were held across the nation. At least one minor country singer, Toby Keith, boosted his own career by crudely maligning the three Texas women. A right-wing commentator wrote a book with the same title as the new movie. The women received at least one death threat, appropriately in Dallas!

Anyone who did not publicly oppose the Bush administration’s headlong dive to the right would have difficulty in understanding the events and the times they characterized. Everyone who did speak out, in any way, since Bush came to power, will understand all too well.

The main contribution of this film is to help make sense of the first six years of the Bush administration and, possibly, to prepare oneself to deal with the next two. The timing of the film’s release is amazing.

It went into full release five days after the American people united in rebuking Bush and all that he has stood for. If it had been released, as possibly intended, before the 2006 election, it would have been blamed for the right-wing downfall. The release itself became an issue when media conglomerates initially refused to sell advertising for the film. Add that development to the list of charges against right-wing control of American information.

Because we only heard one side of the ongoing story, that of big corporations and the media they control, Americans were left with questions: How were the three women and their families affected? What career moves did they make as they confronted the firestorm? How politically committed were they to opposing the war in Iraq? Would the group stand together around the statement that Maines made, or would they fragment under the pressure?

Most of all, would they say it again?

Getting the answers to those questions is a good reason to see the new documentary. Another reason is to see how well a story can be told by skillful movie artists like Barbara Kopple, who has already thrilled audiences with her handling of other working-class and political issues such as coal miner strikes in Harlan County. Another good reason is to get to know the three deliciously talented and genuinely humorous musicians whose success has set the bar for all female artists.

Another good reason is to hear some ass-kicking modern country music!

flittle7 @ yahoo.com

Profile of a Hollywood blacklist victim

Fri, 22 Dec 2006 10:55:00 +0000

BOOKREVIEW

The Final Victim of the Blacklist: John Howard Lawson, Dean of the Hollywood Ten

By Gerald Horne

University of California Press, 2006

Softcover, 360 pp., $24.95

The Hollywood blacklist of communist and suspected communist writers, actors, directors and others is widely viewed as having been an unconstitutional attack on civil liberties and political rights. Having said that, few people understand the basis on which the blacklist was imposed and the effects it had on the film industry.

“The Final Victim of the Blacklist,” by Gerald Horne, details the life of John Howard Lawson, the “Dean of the Hollywood Ten,” who served as its pre-eminent symbol.

Horne excavates the motives that served to promote the blacklist hysteria: profits for the movie corporations, anti-unionism, anti-Semitism, racism, xenophobia and anti-Sovietism.

Lawson began his career on Broadway and mingled with the great writers of his generation, such as Theodore Dreiser, John Dos Passos, Edna St. Vincent Millay, Mike Gold and many others. His early work places him among the “lost generation” which included renowned writers Ernest Hemingway and F. Scott Fitzgerald. His contribution to early 20th-century playwriting was significant.

Hollywood, along with the challenges of filmmaking, lured Lawson to the West. He soon found himself in the factory-like conditions of early Hollywood. Lawson found that he and his colleagues were the most exploited and least appreciated “talent” on the lot. Writers were sometimes forced to work 70- and 80-hour weeks. Their work was unrewarded by egotistical directors and profit-greedy producers.

Lawson’s budding radicalism impelled him to lead union organizing efforts among screenwriters, and he joined the Communist Party USA. He became a leader for the organized left in Hollywood. Left-wing screenwriters and playwrights brought scripts and story ideas to him. He helped organize several writers’ collectives, including the League of American Writers (LAW) and the Hollywood Writers’ Mobilization.

Writers in the LAW, including Upton Sinclair, Richard Wright, William Faulkner, John Steinbeck, I.F. Stone, Dashiell Hammett, Meridel Le Seuer and Ernest Hemingway, among scores of others, amplified their collective opposition to the fascist Franco regime in Spain.

Lawson became an organizer with the Hollywood Democratic Committee, helping end 44 years of Republican control of California’s governorship and bringing Democrat Cuthbert Olson to office in 1938. Lawson’s role as an activist and leader in Hollywood by the late 1930s became a full-time job in addition to his occupation as a screenwriter.

Lawson produced memorable films of the 1930s and 1940s, such as “Blockade,” “Sahara,” “Action in the North Atlantic” and “Smash Up.” He also wrote several important books on filmmaking and cultural theory.

Several factors gave momentum to the right-wing hysteria that inspired the blacklist. Horne argues that the existence and ideas of the Communist Party, in and of themselves, constituted only a secondary factor.

Communists led in organizing the Hollywood unions, especially the Screenwriters Guild (SWG) with Lawson at its head. Communists made up a large portion of the guild’s membership, numbering in the hundreds. But it was the growing strength of the union the communists helped lead — and the corresponding threat to studio owner profits — that the employers were most alarmed about.

Anti-communism became a means for the employers to weaken the union.

California Republicans launched an attack on Hollywood, specifically targeting communists and sympathizers. State Sen. Jack Tenney and future president Richard M. Nixon led investigations on communist influences. Anti-Semitic and racist FBI reports attacked communists for pro-civil-rights activities, culminating in the right-wing-led HUAC hearings in 1947 and the trial of the Hollywood Ten.

By the late 1940s, the SWG became little more than a small discussion group after leading members like Lawson and others sympathetic to the CPUSA were forced out.

Horne’s special contribution, besides sparkling writing and insightful analysis, is his combination of personal and public elements that will change the image of one of the most maligned figures in American history. Rather than a rigid “commissar” of culture, Lawson is a complex and brilliant figure whose contributions to popular culture and the political landscape deserve renewed consideration.

In an era where red-baiting idiots like David Horowitz have sought to revive McCarthyism, this book serves well to remind us to speak out and make a stand for political freedoms.

jwendland @ politicalaffairs.net

CARTOON

Fri, 22 Dec 2006 10:45:00 +0000

2006: The ultra-right crashed in flames

Fri, 22 Dec 2006 07:30:00 +0000

WASHINGTON — 2006 was the year the people of the United States went to the polls and voted to end right-wing Republican majority control of the House, Senate and Statehouses across the nation. Led by the AFL-CIO and its allies, the Nov. 7 midterm election was a sweeping rejection of the war in Iraq and the rest of the Bush-Cheney corporate right-wing agenda.

It was the biggest electoral victory over the ultra-right in a generation. Removed was a long roster of Republican rogues and neo-con demagogues, starting with Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld. His fantasy, shared by George W. Bush and Dick Cheney, of U.S. global hegemony enforced by unilateral, pre-emptive war, terror, torture and “extraordinary rendition” was rejected resoundingly. Even voters in so-called “red states” broke with the Republican right, defeating Republicans and electing moderate or liberal Democrats instead.

Karl Rove’s bag of tricks, so potent in the 2002 and 2004 elections, was empty this Nov. 7. None of the GOP’s well-worn “wedge issues” resonated. Voters were unmoved by Republican pleas that only they could protect the nation from “terrorists,” “illegal immigrants,” “gay marriage” “abortions” and other “threats.”

Not even crass exploitation of tragedy worked for the Republican right in 2006. Both Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist (R-Tenn.) and Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum made grandstand appeals to keep Terri Schiavo connected to life support. They joined House Majority Leader Tom DeLay in calling Congress into special session to keep Schiavo on the ventilator.

Now, Frist has been forced to end his 2008 presidential bid. Santorum was dumped by outraged Pennsylvania voters. DeLay is facing possible jail time.

What resonated, instead of Republican spin, was headlines exposing Washington as an open sewer of corporate corruption under their rule. Bush and Cheney’s tight crony ties to Iraq war profiteer Halliburton and other corporations emerged as a hot issue. The corruption and incompetence were on display in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina in 2005 when Bush and the GOP-majority Congress abandoned majority-Black New Orleans while showering no-bid Gulf Coast reconstruction contracts on Halliburton. By 2006, New Orleans was still abandoned.

In 2006, lobbyist Jack Abramoff pleaded guilty and testified on his corrupt ties to scores of Republican senators and representatives. Bush’s chief of procurement, David H. Safavian, pleaded guilty and went to jail for his links to Abramoff. Ohio’s Rep. Bob Ney, openly bribed by Abramoff, is facing jail time. Montana’s Sen. Conrad Burns, who accepted more than $160,000 in Abramoff bribes, was ousted from office.

2006 was the year that more than 1 million marched for immigrant rights, including legalization and a “path to citizenship” for millions of undocumented workers. The movement erupted seemingly from nowhere after Republican Rep. James Sensenbrenner (R-Wis.), chair of the House Judiciary Committee, introduced legislation that would criminalize these workers and their families and even those who provide health care, education, or other assistance for them. In the Nov. 7 election, voters ousted racist lawmakers who took the lead in the criminalization of immigrants. And Rep. John Conyers (D-Mich.) replaces Sensenbrenner as chair of Judiciary.

It was the year that South Dakota voters beat back that state’s anti-woman law, and now Rep. Nancy Pelosi will make history when she is sworn in as the first woman speaker of the House.

2006 was the year that the death toll of U.S. soldiers in Iraq pushed near to 3,000 and the number of terribly wounded surpassed 20,000. On April 29, half a million marched down Broadway in New York, led by active duty soldiers and military families, to demand an end to the war and that the troops brought home.

When the people joined together at the ballot box and said, “Enough” to the war, corruption, cronyism, racism and incompetence, 2006 became a watershed year. The labor movement and its allies made political gains with long-lasting implications. But 2006 was also the year that this movement hit the ground running — after the elections — continuing to push and mobilize for its independent, working families, peace and civil rights agenda.

Indeed, what a year!

greenerpastures21212 @ yahoo.com

Too late Milton Friedman

Fri, 22 Dec 2006 07:12:00 +0000

Had Milton Friedman landed on earth in 1712, his work may have earned a mention in early national accounting schemes. But he was born in 1912, too late.

Growing up in an epoch of crises, wars and revolution, Friedman, who died last month, made a profitable career as a propagandist for the ruling class. The University of Chicago, founded by the Rockefellers, was his home.

Friedman’s fan club consisted of people who’d like labor weaker and cheaper, indeed “free.” Club members included Ronald Reagan, Margaret Thatcher, the Nobel committee (1976), Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet, George W. Bush and his treasury secretary, Henry Paulson, and lesser reactionaries.

Friedman thought that regulating the amount of money in circulation would regulate a market economy’s output. This was easy to disprove, theoretically and empirically. Even his supporters at the Federal Reserve ultimately rejected his simplistic claims.

Karl Marx methodically showed that the capitalists do not control economic cycles. Market economies are regulated by the boom-bust laws of commodity production and exchange, operating independently of ruling-class wishes. If the capitalists controlled the economy, they would eliminate crises and recessions, which cut profits and can threaten their rule.

But capitalist economics must maintain the fiction that the capitalists control the economy. In the 1930s, Lord Keynes at least correctly realized that crises are caused by growing imbalances between production and demand, which the exploiters perceive as “overproduction” or “overcapacity.” These imbalances result in economic losses, unemployment and misery.

Keynes’ “remedies” called on governments to spend money by borrowing, thus creating demand. This does not eliminate cycles, and turns governments into armed debt collectors on behalf of wealthy lenders. Furthermore, for every “Keynesian mechanism” used by an oppressor country, ten “anti-Keynesian mechanisms” are imposed on oppressed countries.

Capitalist banks and U.S.-dominated agencies such as the IMF have forced dozens of brutal “restructurings” and budget cuts on oppressed countries, from Africa to the Middle East, South Asia to Latin America. The terrible result has been loss of jobs, nutrition, shelter, education and health. Keynes can be termed the chief theorist of imperialism 40 years into its decline.

By the 1970s, 80 years into the decline, Friedman became the theorist of choice. Friedman’s hypocrisy was astonishing. He claimed to support monetary stability, yet defended the massive, destabilizing speculation in currencies by the Rockefellers’ and other big banks. Currency speculation jumped at least 200-fold between 1973 and 2006. His defense of currency speculation in the name of free markets continued even after speculation had clearly precipitated crises in Thailand, Argentina, Mexico and elsewhere.

Friedman championed “free markets,” but somehow was blind to the Rockefeller and other monopolies charging 10 and 20 times their cost of production for commodities they controlled, such as oil, while underpaying for commodities made by small producers, such as coffee or cotton (unequal exchange).

Friedman praised the “freedom” that came with “free markets” but was blind to the massive use of force — army, police, prisons — required to maintain markets’ ever-more-unequal workings. Chile under Pinochet was a blatant example.

Ironically, Friedman’s obsession with money could help where he would have least wanted it — China. Friedman correctly if unoriginally warned that an unstable currency will destabilize a society.

Today Wall Street is demanding that China open its currency to “market forces,” i.e. speculation. This is part of a comprehensive and intensifying U.S.-led effort to promote counterrevolution in China. Treasury Secretary Paulson focused on China while at Goldman Sachs, where he also championed and personally profited from speculation.

China looms large in a recent Fortune magazine interview of Paulson (along with “reform” of Social Security and Medicare). Paulson says, “As I talk with the Chinese on currency, I encourage them to move much more quickly with opening up their capital markets to competition ... they’re going to need to have a currency that is flexible.” “Flexible” is a code word for speculation, just as “flexible labor” is a code word meaning to brutally exploit workers 20 hours one day, then lay them off the next.

If Friedman’s warning on currency instability strengthens China’s resistance to Wall Street demands, great! The professional anti-communist would flip in his grave. Too late.

economics @ cpusa.org

WORLD NOTES

Fri, 22 Dec 2006 07:04:00 +0000

Latvia: Occupying powers at odds over Afghanistan

At a NATO leaders’ conference held in Riga, Latvia, in early December, French, German, Italian, and Spanish delegates rejected the Bush administration’s plan to open up the organization to wider membership to obtain more troops for the occupation of Afghanistan. According to the UK newspaper The Guardian, they were also objecting to possible U.S. plans for enlarging the pool of troops available for U.S. wars anywhere.

European nations, notably Germany, where antiwar sentiment is strong, also turned down Bush’s request for easing the Geneva rules of warfare for troops serving in Afghanistan.

In a related development, a British court has ruled that many soldiers wounded in Afghanistan and Iraq are eligible for reimbursement up to $985,000 each, the Sunday Telegraph reported. The court viewed such injuries to be the results of crime, not war, which, according to Bush, ended in May 2003.

Spain: Reparations law stirs debate

Controversy has erupted as the Spanish Parliament debates a proposed law granting reparations to victims of Generalissimo Francisco Franco’s dictatorship. Franco, an ally of Hitler and Mussolini, died in 1975 after 36 years of rule.

Victims and prisoners’ families would receive one-time payments or pensions. The law would require local authorities to help families find the remains of relatives buried in mass graves, and to receive requests for declarations of past injustices under Franco.

The law, if passed, would also permit memorials honoring both sides in Spain’s 1936-1939 Civil War to be placed in the “Valley of the Fallen” outside Madrid.

Right-wing forces in Spain, still strong, have demanded the proposed law be withdrawn, alleging it aggravates old wounds. The coalition United Left Party has criticized the law for failing to annul political prisoners’ sentences, according to a BBC report.

United Nations: Children’s welfare tied to women’s status

The United Nations children’s agency UNICEF released a report Dec. 11 titled “The State of the World’s Children.” The main theme, UNICEF Director Ann Veneman told Inter Press Service, is that “gender equality and the well-being of children are inextricably linked.”

Throughout the developing world, women have prime responsibility for the protection and welfare of children, yet millions of women suffer from physical abuse at home, discrimination at work and inferior education. Only 43 percent of girls attend secondary school.

Women’s education correlates with child survival, maternal health, prevention of HIV/AIDS, and children attending school, the report says.

Japan: Growing militarization criticized

Japan’s House of Representative voted Nov. 30 to upgrade Japan’s Defense Agency to the status of a ministry, a prelude to Japanese troops being deployed to foreign wars, according to Communist Party leader Shii Kazuo. Kazuo and other critics say that the overseas use of Japanese troops violates Japan’s constitution.

In the House, Communist and Social Democratic representatives were alone in their opposition to the move. Referring to troops serving now in Iraq at Washington’s behest, they saw the measure as enabling Japanese troops to “become ‘U.S.-support forces’” in other situations that go against “the world’s order for peace.”

In a related development, the citizens of the city of Yokosuka are petitioning for a referendum on the decision by city officials to allow the city’s harbor to serve as home base for a U.S. nuclear-powered aircraft carrier. Critics quoted by Japan News Service say that the move contributes to U.S. first-strike capabilities and adds to the risk of nuclear accidents. U.S. nuclear submarines visit the port also.

Egypt: Workers strike for bonuses

About 27,000 textile workers struck Dec. 17 at a state-owned textile factory in Al-Mehalla Al-Kobra, an industrial area 60 miles northwest of Cairo. The strike, the first there since 1988, has revived Egypt’s labor movement, according to union leaders quoted by IPS. Night workers went out first and the entire work force occupied the factory a day later.

Demands centered on payment of bonuses promised two months earlier. Union leaders denounced corruption and profiteering by management, along with government plans for privatization under World Bank auspices. Company spokespersons alleged heavy debt as justification for withholding bonuses and also charged Muslim Brotherhood involvement in the strike. The union denied both claims.

On Dec. 19 the workers turned down a company offer of partial bonus payments, but later accepted immediate partial payments plus promises of more in January. One-fourth of the strikers were women.

World Notes are compiled by W.T. Whitney Jr. (atwhit @ megalink.net).

CPUSA leaders return from China, Vietnam

Fri, 22 Dec 2006 07:02:00 +0000

A Communist Party USA delegation to China and Vietnam returned to the United States on Dec. 12 with a wealth of political and cultural experiences they say they hope to share with the U.S. public in order to build better understanding and friendship between the peoples of the U.S., China and Vietnam.

The delegation, made up of National Chair Sam Webb, Executive Vice Chair Jarvis Tyner, International Secretary Pamella Saffer and Labor Secretary Scott Marshall, visited at the invitation of the Communist Parties of China and Vietnam.

In China, they were hosted by the CPC’s international department and were able to meet with leaders of the All China Women’s Federation, the All China Federation of Trade Unions — including a leader of the now famous Wal-Mart union — and other leaders, party members and everyday citizens.

Saffer said that, although she’d been to China before for a UN conference, this was the fist time she had ever had the chance to “experience” China. While much of the U.S. news media portrays China as a land of freewheeling capitalism and exploitation, Saffer said she was impressed by the country’s socialist construction.

“You have to get out of the mindset that socialism looks a certain way, and that we know what it looks like,” she said. “In China, laws are made to support working people.”

While no one would deny China’s current problems, such as the gap between urban and rural areas, or the hardships faced by migrant workers, Saffer said that the Chinese leadership seemed to be determined to solve them.

This is what CPC leaders mean, she said, when they talk about building a “harmonious society.” She added, “They’re lifting people out of poverty. It’s an enormous task, if you picture the population of 1.3 billion.”

China’s Communist leaders expressed a desire for peace and better state-to-state relations. Saffer added, “The Chinese were pretty clear on that. They’re not into getting into any conflicts or confrontations. They want to develop their own country, continue to lift people up to a better standard of living.”

The entire delegation engaged in cultural activities, such as a visit to the Peking Opera and a visit to the China Folk Cultural Heritage Village, which showcases the culture of China’s 55 minority ethnic groups.

The delegation then traveled on to Vietnam. While the CPUSA has sent people to Vietnamese party congresses, and Tyner himself had visited Vietnam in 1972 while bombs were falling, this was the first official CPUSA delegation to ever visit. They described it as a moving experience.

“All of us were of the generation that had opposed the Vietnam War,” Saffer said. “It’s astonishing, the progress that Vietnam has made. One of the things that was very clear to me, and very moving, was how they have always made a distinction between the government that dropped bombs and Agent Orange on their people, on the one hand, and the American people, on the other.”

“One of the challenges for Vietnam is how they are taking care of victims of Agent Orange, and their children,” she said. “These are disabled people. How do they fit them into society, to be contributing members of society? This is a challenge.”

Saffer noted Vietnam’s stunning progress since the war. It has been able, despite immense destruction wrought by the U.S. during the 1960s and 70s, to become one of the most economically dynamic nations in the world. In doing so, it has brought huge swaths of its population out of poverty — and has plans to eradicate all poverty within a few decades.

Saffer and Webb both said that relations with between the CPUSA and the Chinese and Vietnamese parties had been further strengthened, and they look forward to building even stronger relations in the future.

dmargolis @ pww.org

Send solidarity greetings

Fri, 22 Dec 2006 07:00:00 +0000

Five Cuban men — the “Cuban Five” — have been in U.S. jails for over eight years. They were seeking to expose organizers of terrorism against Cuba. The appeal process has not yet run its course. For more information, visit www.freethefive.org or www.antiterroristas.cu.

Ricardo Palmera, known as Simón Trinidad, served the Revolutionary Army Forces of Colombia as a peace negotiator. The CIA arranged his capture in Ecuador in 2003. Extradited to the U.S., Palmera is in solitary confinement. His first trial ended as a mistrial, but he faces more. His alleged guilt, in essence, is that of association. For more information, see www.freericardopalmera.org.

Letters tell the imprisoned that friends are on their side. And they remind jailers that the world is watching.

Write to the Cuban Five:

Antonio Guerrero Rodríguez, #58741-004, USP Florence, PO Box 7500, 5880 State Hwy 67, South Florence CO 81226.

Fernando González Llort (Ruben Campa), #58733-004, FCI Oxford, PO Box 500, Oxford WI 53952-0500. (Address the envelope to “Ruben Campa,” but address the letter inside to Fernando.)

Gerardo Hernández Nordello, #58739-004, USP Victorville, PO Box 5500, 13777 Air Expressway Road, Adelanto CA 92301.

Ramon Labañino Salazar (Luis Medina), # 58734-004, USP Beaumont, PO Box 26035, Beaumont TX 77720. (Address the envelope to “Luis Medina,” but address the letter inside to Ramon.)

René González Sehwerert, #58738-004, FCI Marianna, PO Box 7007, Marianna FL 32447-7007.

Write to Ricardo Palmera:

Ricardo Palmera, c/o Federal Public Defender for D.C. Robert Tucker, 625 Indiana Ave. Suite 550, Washington DC 20004.

Winds of change buffet U.S. Cuba policies

Fri, 22 Dec 2006 06:58:00 +0000

The Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) announced recently that film director Oliver Stone and four associates would pay a $6,322 fine for traveling to Cuba.

Stone’s film crew had been in Cuba in 2002 and 2003 to make the film “Comandante.” Cuba’s Granma newspaper speculates that Stone is being punished for remarks earlier this year in Spain. At a film festival there, Stone called Fidel Castro “one of the most knowledgeable men. He’s a survivor and a Quixote. I admire his revolution, his faith in himself and his honesty.”

The Bush administration may have penalized Stone because of his celebrity status, hoping to generate publicity helpful to its anti-Cuba policy. But now there is competing publicity.

In a remarkable celebrity challenge to the travel ban, writer, historian and critic Gore Vidal visited Cuba Dec. 10-14. Asked if he feared OFAC sanctions, Vidal said he “would be grateful if the U.S. government so obliged me.”

He told a journalist, “If we were to restore the [U.S.] Constitution, we would be able to have a country with aspirations and results like those of Cuba. Don’t believe that I am not jealous as a North American about what I have seen in Cuba. I am a great patriot and I am envious.”

Even Congress is giving hints of change, especially with new congressional leadership beginning in January. In the past, amendments to defund OFAC enforcement of travel restrictions have been attached to other bills, only to have them removed by Republican leaders.

Reps. Jeff Flake (R-Ariz.) and William Delahunt (D-Mass.), members of the House International Relations Committee and leaders of Congress’ Cuba Working Group, took a 10-member congressional delegation to Cuba Dec. 15-17 to encourage a process of easing restrictions on trade and travel. It was the largest congressional delegation to go to Cuba since 1959.

Delahunt said the delegation aimed to “determine whether there is the political will — on the part of the Cubans — to initiate a real dialogue.” The group met with the president of Cuba’s National Assembly, the foreign minister, minister of basic industry, president of the Central Bank, agricultural import officials and European diplomats.

Acting Cuban President Raul Castro has twice signaled his government’s desire to negotiate with the Bush administration, the last time on Dec. 2. Swiss Ambassador to Cuba Bertrand Louis traveled to Washington in November to meet with State Department officials and Cuban American leaders in order to reiterate Cuba’s desire to open talks.

Thomas Shannon, head of Western Hemisphere affairs for the State Department, brushed aside possibilities of dialogue. He told reporters Dec. 13, “When we engage, it has to be part of a process of democratic change.”

On their return to Washington, members of the congressional delegation issued a statement declaring, “We unanimously believe that the United States should respond positively to the proposal made by Raul Castro in his speech of Dec. 2.”

Advocates for change are preparing to lobby Congress, particularly on travel restrictions. Cuban Americans are demanding easy visits with family members in Cuba, and solidarity activists are determined that similar openings be extended to all citizens.

The Venceremos Brigade and Pastors for Peace are recruiting Cuba travelers to defy the travel ban this summer.

atwhit @ megalink.net

Journalists, singers: Stop corp. media grab

Fri, 22 Dec 2006 06:43:00 +0000

NASHVILLE, Tenn. — “We gather here with a goal — to protect this country’s democracy by ensuring that many independent, credible voices are heard on our nation’s airwaves and in the press,” St. Louis Post-Dispatch investigative journalist Carolyn Tuft told a Federal Communications Commission hearing on media deregulation here Dec. 11.

Also testifying was singer Naomi Judd, who urged the FCC to “hear the voice of public interests, not special interests.” Country legend Porter Wagner labeled the multinational corporations that own the airwaves “broadcasting dynasties.”

They were among more than 500 unionists, community leaders, students and other concerned citizens who attended the hearing.

Tuft, a 14-year Post-Dispatch veteran, told the World she had traveled to Nashville with a half-dozen other St. Louis Newspaper Guild members (including this reporter) because we have to “stop the media conglomerates from stripping our country of more media outlets, further eroding the checks and balances that a strong free press provides the public and our democracy.”

The trip was especially important to the St. Louis Guild members, who have seen the effects of FCC deregulation first hand.

Earlier this year, Lee Enterprises purchased the Post-Dispatch, along with 13 other Midwest daily newspapers and 32 local Suburban Journals, for about $1.5 billion.

“Since Lee swallowed the Post, nearly 50 journalists have marched out the door, taking early retirements,” Tuft said. “With them went more talent and knowledge than I fear will ever be regained.” Tuft is the only remaining full-time investigative journalist at the Post.

According to the Guild, over 44,000 media-related jobs have been lost nationally since 2001 — 34,000 at newspapers alone — partly because of deregulation.

Lee Enterprises is now one of the largest media chains in the country, competing with McClatchy, Gannett and the Tribune corporations. All, including Lee, are anti-union.

Wendell Rawls, former reporter for The Tennessean, owned by Gannett, told the FCC, “This is really a discussion about money. This is all about greed, pure and simple.” Citing the Constitution’s First Amendment, guaranteeing freedom of the press, Rawls said, “That protection was not provided to guarantee profits. It was provided to guarantee access to information.” He criticized the FCC for caving in to media lobbyists “that wine and dine you.”

Currently, the FCC allows a single company to own 38.5 percent of any market. Proposed new regulations would allow one company to own 45 percent in any market, and would allow one company to own radio and television stations and newspapers within the same market.

Rep. Jim Cooper (D-Tenn.) told the hearing that deregulation would limit the number and diversity of voices. “Preserving a diverse spectrum of media voices is important to Nashville, and it’s essential for a healthy democracy,” he said. Harold Bradley, American Federation of Musicians international vice president, charged, “The public owns the airwaves, but corporations are the gatekeepers. They determine what we see and hear.”

By contrast, Ginny Welsh from Radio Free Nashville noted that since April her station has trained over 130 community programmers who provide “local voices and diverse programming that commercial radio broadcasters leave out.”

The FCC has scheduled more public hearings, but hasn’t released the locations yet.

tonypec @ cpusa.org

Rallies support Goodyear strikers

Fri, 22 Dec 2006 06:29:00 +0000

The Steelworkers union, joined by other unions and community supporters, held national protests Dec. 16 at 168 Goodyear Tire stores to dramatize the fact that the profitable corporation forced 15,000 USW members to strike weeks ago. Key issues are company moves to break the union and to strip its retirees and their dependents of health care. Goodyear also wants to shut down its Tyler, Texas, plant, throwing 1,100 union workers on the unemployment lines and devastating the town. Above, Chicago Goodyear solidarity protest, PWW photo by Scott Marshall. See this week’s related story, “Striking Goodyear workers seek global support.”

Florida event welcomes Cindy Sheehan, via phone

Sat, 16 Dec 2006 06:24:00 +0000

TAMPA, Fla. — Participants packed the hall for a Dec. 11 banquet organized by Chapter 119, Tampa Bay Veterans for Peace, that celebrated voters’ rejection of the Bush administration’s “stay the course” policy and urged Floridians to keep up the momentum by lobbying all elected representatives for immediate disengagement and a start to withdrawing all American forces from Iraq.

Those attending included elected community leaders, teachers, Pinellas County School Board members, students, union and peace activists, Gold Star families and veterans of U.S. wars and police actions over the past 65 years. Chapter 119 veterans were encouraged to wear their military uniforms and awards, or a military hat, and many did.

Gold Star Mother and peace activist Cindy Sheehan had been invited to deliver the keynote speech, but at the last minute she was unable to attend because she had to appear in court in New York City, where she and three other women were found guilty of trespassing for trying to deliver an antiwar petition to the U.S. Mission to the United Nations last March.

Sheehan telephoned the event to express her regrets, and promised to travel to Florida in the near future.

Michael McPherson, executive secretary of Veterans for Peace, spoke of the need for all peace organizations to reach out to the community, to explain what is really happening in Iraq, and to encourage them to join VFP and other peace groups.

“Keep up the pressure, don’t back off,” said McPherson, emphasizing that the climate is very favorable for growth of resistance to the Iraq war.

Zeina N. Salam, staff attorney at the ACLU Foundation of Florida, described the support the American Civil Liberties Union is giving to Chapter 119’s education committee in its campaign to help high school students counter pressure from military recruiters. VFP, which is still not permitted inside the schools, is among the peace and justice groups trying to inform high school students of non-military career opportunities.

Many veterans present served in combat during the “police action” in Korea and more were involved in the “deep muddy” of Vietnam and every conflict since, including the “liberation” of Grenada and Panama, Desert Storm and the present Operation Iraqi Freedom.

Asked by this reporter if an order for speedy withdrawal from Iraq would lead to a wave of depression among our troops, or a feeling they have not finished their job, most vets just laughed, and said their brothers and sisters would be eager to climb aboard the first plane leaving Iraq, no matter where it was headed.

How to pass the Employee Free Choice Act

Fri, 15 Dec 2006 11:18:00 +0000

Passing the Employee Free Choice Act will require a massive shift in the culture of the labor movement, Communications Workers President Larry Cohen told national union leaders gathered for the AFL-CIO’s organizing summit.

“Labor law reform is not a lobbying issue, it’s a worker power issue,” he explained. Cohen said the traditional role of steward must expand beyond grievance handling and workplace issues to building a national movement for change. He called for development of such educational materials shared across union lines to make up 20 to 25 percent of stewards training.

Cohen, a founder of Jobs with Justice, didn’t hold back on marching orders for the new “army.” After mobilizing support for the Dec. 16 Goodyear strike solidarity actions across the nation [see story page 3] and a brief break for the holidays, the “steward’s army” must take the next three weeks to insure that 235 members of Congress sign on to the Employee Free Choice Act. “In January we will have some kind of event for each of them in their district,” he said. “We will mobilize like we haven’t for generations around passage of the bill.”

The summit also made the case for changing not only the labor movement but its relationship to the community. “The most powerful arithmetic in the union movement is adding us with our allies and friends,” explained AFL-CIO Executive Vice President Linda Chavez-Thompson. Chavez-Thompson was one of many speakers who emphasized the need for unions not only to reach out for help with their own battles, but to be there in full force for the struggles of their allies. “It’s a two-way street,” she said. “We want to get a better contract, have people understand why we are on strike. But it’s also about what is needed in that community — public services gone wanting, children who don’t have after-school care.”

One important ally is immigrant workers, many of whom are organized in day labor centers. Pablo Alvarado is the leader of a network of 29 of these centers that has recently entered into an alliance with the AFL-CIO. “We commit ourselves to advancing workers’ rights and bringing closer dialogue between the day labor centers and local unions, opening space for the day labor centers to participate in central labor councils,” he told the summit. “When you go to day labor centers you see workers just like you see in union hiring halls,” he pointed out.

Chavez-Thompson added that community alliances — with people of color, the LGBT community, academics and people of faith — will be much more important with the new Congress. “There’s no way we can get the Employee Free Choice Act on our own,” she concluded.

— Roberta Wood

Denouncing the killings in Oaxaca

Fri, 15 Dec 2006 11:16:00 +0000

The Mexican Consulate in downtown Sacramento, Calif., locked its doors Dec. 1 when protesters lined up with signs condemning the Mexican government’s violence against thousands of strikers in Oaxaca. At least 17 strikers have been killed.

For about seven hours, more than 120 members of North Americans for Democracy in Mexico (NADM), League of United Latin American Citizens, Labor Council for Latin American Advancement, International Longshore and Warehouse Union and other organizations took turns holding signs and banners and chanting in English and Spanish.

Their slogans included “Stop the killing now” and “No to Calderon!”

“We want the Mexican government to understand that we won’t tolerate what they are doing in Oaxaca,” said Al Rojas of NADM.

The event coincided with a raucous session of Mexico’s Parliament, where legislators booed Felipe Calderon as he took the oath of office for president after what many have called a fraudulent election.

— Gail Ryall

PWW events salute peoples leaders

Fri, 15 Dec 2006 11:05:00 +0000

Dec. 3 was a day the People’s Weekly World can be proud of. Still celebrating the results of the Nov. 7 elections, readers held banquets and dinners in various places across the country, attracting elected officials, leaders of people’s movements and rank-and-file fighters for justice and democracy.

A highlight of the Northern California banquet in Oakland was hearing former Daily Worker sports editor Lester Rodney, now an energetic 95. He told the multigenerational, multiracial audience about the years-long struggle to integrate Major League Baseball, leading up to Jackie Robinson’s first appearance with the Brooklyn Dodgers in April 1947.

Calling Robinson “a great American hero,” Rodney, who anchored the Worker’s sports desk from 1936 to 1958, told how Robinson, despite abuse including from opposing players, led his team to the pennant — a feat Rodney called “the most amazing and courageous feat in the history of American sports.”

“Jackie Robinson changed baseball, and when you’ve changed baseball in this country, you’ve changed this country!” said Rodney.

Other honored guests included anti-nuclear-weapons leader Jackie Cabasso, the Blue Diamond Workers Organizing Committee and two Sacramento-based immigrant rights coalitions. All received certificates from U.S. Rep. Barbara Lee as well as from Friends of the People’s Weekly World/Nuestro Mundo.

In Connecticut, guests packed the New Haven People’s Center to “Carry the People’s Election Victories Forward” and honor three activist leaders.

Merrilee Milstein, one of the original organizers of the dietary workers at Yale-New Haven Hospital (YNHH) in 1973 and former Northeast deputy regional director of the AFL-CIO, was presented with the “Amistad” award by John Olsen, president of the state AFL-CIO, and Mamie Evans, a longtime dietary worker at YNHH. Milstein called for support of 1,800 additional YNHH workers in their unionization vote Dec. 20-21.

Roger Vann, executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Connecticut and former state president of the NAACP, was presented with an award by Emanuel Gomez, a retired Winchester worker, and John Jairo Lugo of Unidad Latina en Acción, for his courageous efforts for all working people, including immigrant workers.

Also honored was the Rev. Emilio Hernandez, of Knowing God Ministries and the Connecticut Center for a New Economy. Hernandez has organized Hispanic, African American and white clergy in support of workers at YNHH.

Michael Bayer, treasurer of the Vermont Progressive Party, spoke about left Independent Bernie Sanders’ election to the U.S. Senate as a fighter for working-class people. Bayer also stressed the continuing need to pressure Congress for universal health care, minimum wage increases, the right to belong to a union and the return of U.S. troops home from Iraq.

Events were held in other cities as well, including Philadelphia, Chicago and New York. In New York, Rep. Major Owens and Betty Smith, president of International Publishers, were honored.

Long-established PWW friends groups were not the only ones to hold successful events. On Dec. 11, PWW business manager and UN correspondent Dan Margolis spoke at the kickoff meeting of the Washington, D.C., Friends of the PWW. Community members, including a group of progressive Salvadorans, joined with labor activists to hold the kickoff event.

Jeff Elkner and Arturo Griffiths, who organized the kickoff, said that they were looking forward to having their group become an established force in the D.C. community.

Marilyn Bechtel and Dorothy Johnson contributed to this story.

Colombian prisoner holds Bush prosecutors at bay

Fri, 15 Dec 2006 11:02:00 +0000

An extraordinary trial, remarkable among other things for a novel legal doctrine unveiled by the Bush administration during the course of it, ended as a mistrial Nov. 21 in Washington. The jury could not reach a verdict in the case of Colombian political prisoner Ricardo Palmera, also known as Simon Trinidad.

Unofficially, the Marxist-oriented Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, to which Trinidad belongs, was in the dock too. For 42 years, the FARC has sought to undermine one right-wing, U.S.-supported government after another. Its 20,000 combatants control 40 percent of Colombia’s territory. In effect, Colombia has been in a state of civil war for four decades.

In late 2003, Trinidad was in Ecuador preparing for discussions with UN official James LeMoyne aimed at exchanging 60 prisoners held by the FARC for 600 guerrillas held by the Colombian government. With CIA help, Ecuadorian and Colombian police arrested him in Quito, Ecuador’s capital, on Jan. 2, 2004.

Imprisoned first in Colombia, Trinidad was extradited to the United States on Dec. 31, 2004. During the time he has been confined to a U.S. prison cell, he has been denied visitors, access to a lawyer of his choice and access to important documents needed for his defense.

He is also being tried in absentia in Colombia.

Central to the U.S. prosecutor’s case in Trinidad’s trial, which began Oct. 16, was the FARC’s capture on Feb. 13, 2003, of three U.S. “contract soldiers,” or mercenaries, who survived the downing of their reconnaissance airplane in Colombian territory.

The principal charge leveled against Trinidad was “conspiracy to take hostages,” although he was charged also with supporting “terrorism.” President Clinton designated the FARC as a terrorist organization in 1997.

Trinidad was never alleged to have had prior knowledge of, participated in or directed the capture of the mercenaries.

Yet, prosecutors described the FARC as a “criminal hostage-taking conspiracy,” initially summoning (and then retracting the summons to) 20,000 FARC members as co-conspirators with Trinidad.

The government’s case broke new ground in that proclaimed Trinidad’s guilt by association. Notions of criminal conspiracy were expanded to hold all members of a “terrorist group” responsible for the alleged crimes of a few.

In effect, Washington was experimenting with a tool for de-legitimizing any and all political movements not to its liking, thereby undermining international and domestic legal protections.

However, the U.S. government’s lawyers did not prevail. The jury was deadlocked and the judge declared a mistrial.

Much of the credit goes to Trinidad himself, according to lawyer and daily courtroom observer Paul Wolf. Disqualified from summoning witnesses but testifying on his own behalf, Trinidad told jurors why he joined the FARC. Having shown signs of lack of interest in prosecution arguments and Colombian politics, they began to listen as Trinidad told them of the “very special conditions” in his home country.

He described the demise of the liberal politics he and his friends pursued in the early 1980s. He told about his own torture in 1982, and about comrades who were murdered whose only offense was to have won an election. He said they and he wanted “to fight for social, political and economic changes in my country and to reach peace.”

Shedding tears as he recounted the 1987 killing of presidential candidate Jaime Pardo Leal, Trinidad aroused an up-till-then unengaged jury.

The Bogota weekly La Voz designated him as “Simon Dignidad” because he challenged “gringo justice — arrogant and classist — [and he] defended the right of rebellion.” Not least, he advocated for the FARC, the shadow defendant in the case.

U.S. District Judge Thomas Hogan announced hearings on Dec. 14 for fixing a new trial date. Meanwhile Simon Trinidad and 50 co-defendants in Colombia go to trial in May 2007 on charges of “drug trafficking.”

The story of Simon Trinidad sheds light on the U.S. attitude toward peace in Colombia. Significantly, Trinidad’s punishment resulted from preparations for peace talks between the FARC and the Colombian government.

Simon Trinidad told the jury, “The only way to find peace in Colombia is through humanitarian accords.” For top dogs in Washington and dependent military chieftains in Colombia, sentiments like that are clearly subversive.

atwhit @ megalink.net