People Before Profit blog

African-American history: The Gabriel Prosser slave revolt

Fri, 22 Feb 2002 10:56:00 +0000

The following is an excerpt from American Negro Slave Revolts by Herbert Aptheker, New York: International Publishers, 1974, pages 219-226 (original edition: Columbia University Press, 1943).

Probably the most fateful year in the history of American Negro slave revolts is that of 1800, for it was then that Nat Turner and John Brown were born, that Denmark Vesey bought his freedom, and it was then that the great conspiracy named after Gabriel, slave of Tomas H. Prosser of Henrico Country, Virginia, occurred.

This Gabriel, the chosen leader of the rebellious slaves, was a 24-year-old giant of six feet two inches, “a fellow of courage and intellect above his rank in life,” who had intended “to purchase a piece of silk for a flag, on which they would have written ‘death or liberty.’”

Another leader was Jack Bowler, four years older and three inches taller than Gabriel, who felt that “we had as much right to fight for our liberty as any men.”

Gabriel’s wife, Nanny, was active, too, as were his brothers, Solomon and Martin. The former conducted the sword-making, and the latter bitterly opposed all suggestion of delaying the outbreak, declaring, “Before he would any longer bear what he had borne, he would turn out and fight with his stick.”

The conspiracy was well-formed by the spring of 1800, and there is a hint that wind of it early reached Governor Monroe, for in a letter to Thomas Jefferson, dated April 22, he referred to “fears of a negro insurrection.”

Crude swords and bayonets as well as about 500 bullets were made by the slaves through the spring, and each Sunday Gabriel entered Richmond, impressing the city’s features upon his mind and paying particular attention to the location of arms and ammunition.

Yet, as Callender wrote, it was “kept with incredible secrecy for several months,” and the next notice of apprehensions of revolt appears in a letter of Aug. 9 from Mr. J. Grammer of Petersburg to Mr. Augustine Davis of Richmond.

This letter was given to the distinguished Dr. James McClurg, who informed the military authorities and the governor. The next disclosure came during the afternoon of Saturday, Aug. 30, set for the rebellion and was made by Mr. Mosby Sheppard, whose slaves, Tom and Pharoah, had told him of the plot.

Monroe, seeing that speed was necessary and secrecy impossible, acted quickly and openly. He appointed three aides for himself, asked for and received the use of the federal armory at Manchester, posted cannon at the capitol, called into service well over 650 men and gave notice of the plot to every militia commander in the state.

“But,” as a contemporary declared, “upon that very evening just about sunset, there came on the most terrible thunder accompanied with an enormous rain, that I ever witnessed in this state. Between Prosser’s and Richmond, there is a place called Brook Swamp, which runs across the high road, and over which there was a ... bridge. By this, the Africans were of necessity to pass, and the rain had made the passage impracticable.” Nevertheless, about 1,000 slaves, some mounted, armed with clubs, scythes, home-made bayonets and a few guns, did appear at an agreed-upon rendezvous six miles outside the city, but, as already noted, attack was not possible, and the slaves disbanded. As a matter of fact even defensive measures, though attempted, could not be executed.

The next few days the mobilized might of an aroused slave state went into action and scores of Negroes were arrested. Gabriel had attempted to escape via a schooner, Mary, but when in Norfolk on Sept. 25, he was recognized and betrayed by two Negroes, captured and brought back, in chains, to Richmond.

He was quickly convicted and sentenced to hang, but the execution was postponed until Oct. 7, in the hope that he would talk. James Monroe personally interviewed him, but reported, “From what he said to me, he seemed to have made up his mind to die, and to have resolved to say but little on the subject of the conspiracy.”

Along with Gabriel, 15 other rebels were hanged on the seventh of October. Twenty-one were reported to have been executed prior to this, and four more were scheduled to die after Oct. 7.

A precise number of those executed cannot be given with certainty, but it appears likely that at least 35 Negroes were hanged, four condemned slaves escaped from prison (and no reference to their recapture has been seen), while one committed suicide in prison.

These Negroes, who were conscious revolutionists, behaved nobly. A resident of Richmond declared, in a letter of Sept. 20, 1800, “Of those who have been executed, no one has betrayed his cause. They have uniformly met death with fortitude.”

An eminent eyewitness of the rebels’ conduct while in custody, John Randolph, six days later, stated, “The accused have exhibited a spirit, which, if it becomes general, must deluge the Southern country in blood. They manifested a sense of their rights, and contempt of danger, and a thirst for revenge which portend the most unhappy consequences.”

Monroe’s laconic comment concerning his interview with Gabriel a short time before the latter’s execution has already been quoted. Such testimony adds credibility to the story told by an Englishman who visited Virginia in 1804.

On the afternoon of Sept. 25 of that year, as he tells the tale, “I passed by a field [near Richmond] in which several poor slaves had lately been executed, on the charge of having an intention to rise against their masters. A lawyer who was present at their trials at Richmond informed me that on one of them being asked what he had to say to the court in his defence, he replied, in a manly tone of voice: ‘I have nothing more to offer than what General Washington would have had to offer, had he been taken by the British and put to trial by them. I have adventured my life in endeavouring to obtain the liberty of my countrymen, and am a willing sacrifice to their cause; and I beg, as a favour, that I may be immediately led to execution. I know that you have pre-determined to shed my blood, why then all this mockery of a trial?’”

The character of the rebels and their aim caused conscience-searching on the part of the one-time rebel who was at the moment governor. He wrote to another who had played a leading role in a bloody revolution, written an immortal manifesto of rebellion and was at the moment the key figure in a bloodless revolution – the presidential campaign of 1800; James Monroe wrote to Thomas Jefferson asking his advice about the execution of the Negro leaders.

Mr. Jefferson replied: “The other states and the world at large will forever condemn us if we indulge a principle of revenge, or go one step beyond absolute necessity. They cannot lose sight of the rights of the two parties, and the object of the unsuccessful one.” Ten of the condemned slaves were reprieved and banished.

As has been previously mentioned (and this again is an indication of the attitude of the slaves), Methodists, Quakers, and Frenchmen were to be spared by the rebels. It is also very interesting to observe that the Negroes expected or, at least, hoped that the poorer whites would aid them in their effort to destroy the system of slavery.

The Negroes had been aware, too, of the strained relations between the United States and France, which from 1797 to 1799, had brought the two nations to the thoroughly modern stage of undeclared war, leading the slaves to hope for French assistance. And the very recent reductions in the Federal army, following improvement in those relations, were also noticed and used as an argument against postponement of the uprising. It had been planned, too, to recruit allies from among the Catawba Indians.

It is difficult to say just how many slaves were involved in this conspiracy. One witness at the trials said 2,000, another 6,000, and a third 10,000. The Governor of Mississippi Territory said 50,000. Monroe, himself, asserted: “It was distinctly seen that it embraced most of the slaves in this city [Richmond] and neighbourhood, and that the combination extended to several of the adjacent counties, Hanover, Caroline, Louisa, Chesterfield, and to the neighbourhood of the Point of the Fork; and there was good cause to believe that the knowledge of such a project pervaded other parts, if not the whole of the State.”

Although Monroe was of the opinion that the plot did not extend beyond the borders of his state, there were repercussions elsewhere. There were rumors of rebelliousness in North Carolina, but what foundation in fact these may have had is unclear.

It is, however, a fact that at the trials of the Virginia rebels, a slave did testify that he had asked Gabriel whether he or Jack Bowler was versed in the art of war, and that Gabriel had replied in the negative, but had declared that “a man from North Carolina, who was at the siege [sic] of York town” was to be with them and provide the necessary technical knowledge.

---

Herbert Aptheker

“The Gabriel Prosser Slave Revolt” is taken from American Negro Slave Revolts by Herbert Aptheker, a leading scholar of African-American history who helped lay the foundations for Black Studies at U.S. universities. Born in Brooklyn in 1915, Aptheker has authored over 250 books and articles.

His 1943 Columbia University doctoral dissertation, American Negro Slave Revolts, overturned establishment history portraying slavery as benevolent and slaves as passive. His seven-volume Documentary History of the Negro People of the United States (1951-94) was the first comprehensive compilation of the writings of African Americans. Custodian of W.E.B. Du Bois’ papers, Aptheker has edited numerous collections of Du Bois’ writings.

Always a political activist, in 1938-39 Aptheker organized field workers in the South and led a life-risking escape of a hundred African Americans from peonage. During World War II, he commanded a battalion of Black troops in Louisiana in the then-segregated U.S. Army. He took part in combat in Europe as a major in the artillery.

A member of the Communist Party USA National Committee for several decades, Aptheker frequently contributed to progressive publications. He also edited Political Affairs and Jewish Life. In 1964, he founded the American Institute of Marxist Studies, the principal source of information on Marxist scholarship during the Cold War.

In 1966, he led, in open defiance of the government, a three-person mission to Hanoi, bringing back Vietnamese negotiating terms. His mission to Hanoi was important in the campaign to end the war.

As a Communist, Aptheker was denied a regular university appointment, receiving only temporary ones. In the late 1970s, he created – and taught for 10 years – a course on “Racism and the Law” at the University of California, Berkeley. In 1996, the University of Massachusetts awarded him an honorary doctorate.

Copies of American Negro Slave Revolts can be purchased from International Publishers, 239 W. 23 St., New York NY 10011, (212) 366-9816, www.intpubnyc.com. – Erwin Marquit

At the movies:Watch the movie, dump the sponsor

Fri, 22 Feb 2002 06:07:00 +0000

George Pullman built his financial empire not only on the manufacture of railroad cars but also on the luxury service provided to passengers by the 10,000-man work force who staffed the famous Pullman sleeping and dining cars. But management treated these African-American workers with both contempt and miserable wages. They encouraged the degrading practise of ignoring the men’s given names and encouraging passengers to address every one of them as “George.”

10,000 Black Men Named George lovingly and respectfully portrays the story of the organizing of the Pullman porters. While focusing on the role played by A. Philip Randolph, it does not neglect the courage and initiative played by the rank and file. The message to today’s workers is clear: unity and determination of workers can defeat even the most powerful and evil corporation.

The movie, starring Andre Braugher as Randolph, premieres Feb. 24 on Showtime as part of a tribute to African-American history month.

The production of this feature was co-sponsored by AT&T Broadband. A screening in Chicago last week was attended by a group of AT&T Broadband workers from a facility just a stone’s throw from the site of the old Pullman Car Works. The handbills the workers distributed made clear that to the public AT&T may be saluting A. Phillip Randolph, but the face they’re showing to their predominantly African-American workforce in Pullman looks a lot like George Pullman.

According to Jerry Rankins, a 13-year cable TV veteran, now business representative with International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers Local 21, nearly two years have passed since these workers voted to unionize. But AT&T Broadband management, led by $56-million-a-year CEO Michael Armstrong, has “played every trick in the book to deny these workers the dignity and respect and compensation of a union contract.”

Rankins stated that the union’s goal is to bring AT&T Broadband workers, who do the same highly skilled work and provide the same high-tech services as telephone workers, up to the standards of the unionized telecommunication industry.

AT&T Broadband, on the other hand, while charging consumers top dollar, is fighting to keep its workforce non-union and to continue paying them as little as 50 percent of the industry standard wages.

A reminder of a terrible history

Fri, 22 Feb 2002 06:05:00 +0000

At the Hands of Persons Unknown: The Lynching of Black America by Philip Dray. Random House, 2002.

Philip Dray, co-author of We Are Not Afraid: The Story of Goodman, Shwerner, and Chaney and the Civil Rights Campaign for Mississippi, has brought to life the tortures and torments, hopes and aspirations of people of color, in his latest book.

At the Hands of Persons Unknown: The Lynching of Black America is an amazing work of historiography and a stark reminder of America’s terrible history, told in a highly readable and informative fashion.

In the chapter titled “A Negroes Life is a Very Cheap Thing in Georgia,” Dray depicts in vivid detail the lynching of Sam Hose in 1899. Hose, 21, was a farmhand in Coweta, Georgia. He was accused of murdering a Mr. Cranford and then raping his wife.

Dray, relying on contemporary sources, shows the state and local governments’ contempt for due process of the law when it came to people of color. From Rep. James M. Griggs to Gov. Allen D. Candler, not only was lynching was condoned but it was accepted and looked upon favorably by local politicians.

The Georgia Constitution described Hose in bold type on its front page, offering a $500 reward for his capture. In addition, Gov. Candler offered $500, Coweta County $250, the town of Palmetto $250 and a Mr. Jacob Haas $100 – a total of $1,600, a small fortune in 1899!

On April 22, 10 days after the alleged crime Hose was apprehended by two men and taken to the Newnan, Ga. sheriff. It was agreed between the two men and the sheriff that Hose would be locked up “for a moment” and then released to the mob, ensuring that the two men would still receive their reward.

Hose was taken to the pinewoods beside Palmetto Road, tied to the trunk of a tree, tortured and then kerosene was dumped on him and he was set on fire.

The detail in Dray’s research adds new depth to the barbarity of this horrendous act by making clear the profit motive of some that participated and are just as guilty. The Atlanta and West Point Railroad announced two “special” excursions to Newnan. People in the surrounding communities, by the thousands, loaded the trains, “clambered on board” and climbed in the windows.

Local shopkeepers and businessmen sold sandwiches and coffee to the horde as they waited to see the “spectacle lynching.”

Following the murder, mementos such as ears, fingers, teeth and genitals were sold as keepsakes. Hose’s knuckles were for sale in a grocery store. Even the wood used to burn him alive was for sale.

It is almost impossible, and to some too painful, to go into the horrific details of our past. But to truly understand the pain and suffering that was felt, and to better learn and build fostering relations with people of all colors, we should all look into this past.

At the Hands of Persons Unknown contributes so much. To many it can be a first step in the direction of understanding what racism has meant and still means today.

– Tony Pecinovsky

Tel Aviv rally demands end to occupation

Fri, 22 Feb 2002 06:02:00 +0000

TEL AVIV – Over 15,000 Israelis marched here Feb. 16, from Rabin Square through the main streets to a rally in Museum Plaza, across the street from Israel’s Defense Ministry. The theme of the demonstration was “Get out of the Occupied Territories – Get back to ourselves!”

The demonstration took place during the Middle East’s bloodiest weekend in 17 years. On Feb. 19, Israeli troops killed 15 Palestinians in retaliation for an earlier attack that left four Israeli soldiers dead.

The rally followed a similar one at the same site the previous Saturday, called by 28 peace groups and those opposed to the government of Prime Minister Ariel Sharon.

The Feb. 16 march was organized by the Peace Now movement, which did not participate in the earlier demonstration, maintaining that too many left-wing radicals were among the initiators. But most of the 28 organizations participated in the Peace Now rally for the sake of unity in action of the peace forces.

As the rally opened, news was received of another suicide bomb attack, perpetrated by a Palestinian in the Jewish settlement Keren-Shomron in the occupied West Bank.

Two teenagers were killed and about 30 settlers were wounded. The rally opened with a moment of silence for the victims.

Peace Now Chair Didi Remez, remarked that this latest atrocity again showed that Sharon’s hard-line military aggression against the Palestinians and their leadership would bring Israel neither the longed-for peace nor security, but only more victims, both Israelis and Palestinians.

Remez welcomed the activists of the other peace groups who joined the march.

He mentioned especially those from the Gush Shalom peace bloc, the Coalition of Women for Peace, the Jewish-Arab Ta’ayush (Arabic for together) group, which organizes solidarity convoys to blockaded Palestinian villages.

Remez stated that the aim of the peace forces was to fight for a political solution for the Israeli-Palestinian conflict that will break the present cycle of violence.

He referred to protests that drew up to half a million demonstrators in the early 1980s and led to Israel’s withdrawal from Lebanon and the end of the Lebanon war.

“While we marched through the streets, we felt the public mood,” he said, “which showed that it is only a matter of time before hundreds of thousands will fill the Rabin Square again.”

A highlight of the rally was the address delivered in Hebrew by the Palestine Liberation Organization’s representative for Jerusalem affairs, Dr. Sari Nusseibeh.

He stressed that the path to peace necessitates Israel’s complying in principle with international law and U.N. Security Council resolutions, which demand withdrawal to the pre-1967 borders, including in Jerusalem.

Furthermore, he said, the path to peace also demands the return of the Palestinian refugees to Palestine, and the return of Jewish settlers to Israel proper.

The Venezuelan revolution and Bush

Fri, 22 Feb 2002 05:51:00 +0000

The Bolivarian revolutionary process is on the march – in spite of its “defeaters” as President Hugo Chavez would say – but it is also surrounded by danger. In spite of the difficulties that pursue it, every day the people’s creative thinking and the tenacious and intelligent way that Commander Chavez is showing the world that the possibilities of restarting on the road to the second independence is not just words.

The last few weeks have been full of counter-revolutionary mobilizations and actions, promoted by businessmen, the corrupt trade union aristocracy, top church leaders, the old parties that have been defeated in seven consecutive democratic elections and forces from outside the country. The media projects a false picture of a defeated revolution, of a frustrated president and an isolated government.

We are at a point that is full of attacks from the class enemy, nevertheless, it is something that is positive and shows that the revolution is going forward and is deepening. This enthusiasm of the oligarchy is positive because it has activated the people’s forces.

We have decided: if the class enemy was to applaud us, then we would be worried; but if the bourgeoisie condemns us or condemns the revolution, then that means that we are on the right road. While the oligarchy makes its counter-revolutionary moves, revolutionaries raise their commitment to the process and have expressed this in many ways.

The main support received by the counter-revolution comes from the United States, which historically has interfered a lot in the internal affairs of Venezuela. We have been firm in our position, not just in dealing with the U.S., but with all the countries of the world. We respect the sovereignty and the self-determination of all peoples, and ask that the same respect be given to us. It is now common to have U.S. government officials attack President Chavez.

Lately, Secretary of State Colin Powell said that he “deplored Chavez’ unorthodox democracy” and admitted that Washington considered its relationship with Caracas affected by an “irritating factor” – Chavez’ criticism of Bush’s war campaign and his visits to countries Bush said were part of an “axis of evil,” such as Iran, Iraq and Libya.

Deepening this course of opposition to U.S. hegemony in the region, the Venezuelan leader rejected the implementation of the Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA) for 2005 as proposed by George W. Bush and the presidents of the countries of the hemisphere at the Quebec summit in April of last year. He said that implementing the FTAA on that date “would be suicide for us, because unemployment would reach 90 percent, and it would bankrupt our small and middle size businesses and the farmers.”

The following day George Tenet, head of the CIA, arrived in the capital. He stated that he was very much concerned with the situation in Venezuela because it is the third largest provider of oil to the U.S. The spy chief put what’s happening in Caracas, the Colombian civil war and the social outburst in Argentina in the same bag. “Latin America is becoming more volatile” he said so as to justify his agency’s huge budget.

The “architecture” of these destabilizing plans is known because of previous historical actions. Following the logic of these previous attempts, the plan would be put into play from Washington by a Task Force composed of the State Department, and the Pentagon. The coordination and supervision would be left in charge of the Director of the National Security Council, who reports directly to the President.

Within the destabilizing alliance that wants to overthrow Hugo Chavez from power, there are two tendencies: one that plans for the long term and wants to destroy, together with the Bolivarian Project the hopes of a people for a profound change that is viable; the second tendency, with shorter time frame, wants the immediate overthrow of the president.

The State Department under the Bush administration is surely planning for the first option. The coup conspirators, both military and civilian, that one can observe in this country, are, obviously, part of the second option. Nevertheless, there can be a unity of both tendencies if the government were to weaken.

The success of the Bolivarian Revolution is of transcendental importance for all of Latin America, because Venezuela is a key country for the defeat of the FTAA and Plan Colombia, with which the United States is trying to annex the Greater Motherland in the year 2005. The time left to stabilize the revolution is dangerously short. The clock is at five minutes before midnight in the country of the Liberator – Simon Bolivar.

The author is International Relations Secretary for the Communist Party of Venezuela.

3,000 years standing for peace and justice

Fri, 22 Feb 2002 05:43:00 +0000

ATHENS, Greece – A cold wind was blowing and dark clouds filled the sky the day I visited the Acropolis in December. There, in all her glory, stood the Parthenon, the temple to the goddess Athena.

Cranes were deployed around the Acropolis as reconstruction of the 2,600-year-old ruins continues, part of the preparation for the Olympic Games of 2004. It is the first time the games will be held in Greece since the modern Olympics were founded in April 1896.

That year the Greek runner Viradon Louis won the marathon. That race celebrates the Greek courier Pheidippides who, legend says, ran 26 miles from the Plains of Marathon to Athens in 490 B.C.

He brought news of the Greek victory over a far larger Persian army. The runner’s dying words were “Rejoice, victory is ours.”

In my six-day visit, I was to learn that the Greek people have defended their country against heavy odds throughout history. The Turkish Ottoman Empire ruled Greece for 400 years, at one point using the Parthenon as a powder magazine. It exploded in 1687, nearly destroying the sublime edifice.

In 1806, the Turks granted British Lord Elgin permission to remove most of the marble statuary from the Parthenon for “safe keeping” in the British Museum. Much of this loot was lost when a British ship sank in the Mediterranean.

Recently, the Greek government politely asked the British Home Office to “lend” them the Elgin Marbles during the Olympic Games. This ancient struggle is in plain sight everywhere in Greece. I took home with me a 5,000-drachma bank note with an engraved portrait of Theodore Kolokotronis, who led the Greeks to victory over the Ottomans in 1821.

The European Union (EU), struggling to convince the Greeks to give up their drachma, platered Athens’ brand new subway system with posters showing a hand holding out the new euro currency and the message, “It’s your euro.” The Greek Communist Party (KKE) answered with a poster of an obese banker in top hat grasping the euro in his pudgy hand and the words, “It’s all mine.”

I had been invited by the KKE to speak at a conference on the threat to civil liberties in legislation approved by the European Parliament (EP) to “combat terrorism.” It is modeled on the Patriot Act rammed through the U.S. Congress by Attorney General John Ashcroft.

The EP law establishes a prosecutor, based in Brussels with, authority to gather intelligence, compile dossiers, arrest, detain and prosecute “suspected terrorists” anywhere in the EU. Speakers denounced this law as an encroachment on Greek sovereignty and a violation of the Greek constitution.

The law contains such a sweeping definition of “terrorism” that Greek farmers, then blocking roads with their tractors to protest ruinous prices imposed by the EU, could be defined as “terrorists.”

Orestes Kolozof, a member of the KKE’s Political Bureau and a leader of the Party’s International Affairs Department, told me that Greek Communists strongly condemned the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, in which thousands of innocent people of many nationalities were killed.

“It has created a new situation,” he said. “It has given imperialism an opportunity to accelerate the programs they had planned well in advance of Sept. 11. Our assessement is that the United States will try to consolidate its newly acquired positions in Central Asia.”

Greece, he said, is in a particularly complicated position because in both the Balkan crisis, the Middle East crisis, and the crisis in Cyprus, “our country is in the zone of destabilization. Our party is in favor of cooperation by all the peace and democratic forces in mobilizing against imperialism and war.”

Evangelos Maxairas, president of the Greek Peace Committee and former president of the Athens-based World Peace Council, is a revered civil liberties lawyer who said his main task as an attorney will now be defense of Greek trade unionists and farmers threatened by the new “anti-terrorism” law.

During World war II, Maxairas was a leader of the Greek partisans known by their acronym, ELAS, who fought heroically against the fascist armies of Germany, Italy and Bulgaria.

ELAS and its political arm, the EAM, had assembled a broad democratic front that liberated 90 percent of Greece, forcing the Nazi army out in April 1944. Maxairas stressed that the movement embraced both Communists and non-Communists. “I myself belong to no Party,” he said. “I am of the independent left.”

EAM was ready to take on the post-war reconstruction of Greece, he said, but British and U.S. imperialism instigated a civil war and then deployed troops to put in power the extreme right-wing Metaxhas regime.

“I was exiled along with thousands of other resistance fighters at internment camps on the islands of Ikaria and Makronissos,” Maxairas told me.

“Hundreds were beaten to death and I, too, would have been executed. But a delegation, led by former French Premier Leon Blum, arrived. They insisted that trials be convened in Athens. My life was saved.”

U.S. domination has been enforced ever since, he said, with the American embassy playing a treacherous role in the military coup d’etat of 1967 that plunged Greece into fascist rule.

A mass upsurge led by Communists and socialists finally overthrew the U.S.-backed junta in 1974. The U.S. Navy decided to move the home base of the U.S. Fifth fleet from Pireaus to Naples. Thousands of U.S. troops were withdrawn and some U.S. and NATO bases were closed.

It is not unusual for the Greek peace movement to mobilize 30,000 or more protesters in recent years, Maxairas told me. Tens of thousands protested the 1991 Persain Gulf War, and later the war to destoy Yugoslavia and Serbia.

The Peace Committee has built a broad coalition that includes human rights organizations, the labor movement, youth and students, the women’s movement and community organizations.

“We have two main tasks. First, is to oppose wars such as the U.S. war on Afghanistan, the war against Iraq and to support the rights of the Palestinian people,” he said.

“Second is the movement against corporate globalization. We are trying to coordinate this movement against globalization with the peace movement ... I have been in the struggle without interruption for 65 years. I am always in the front lines of the peace demonstrations. I will keep marching for peace as long as I live.”

Marlboro Man: into the sunset please

Fri, 22 Feb 2002 05:40:00 +0000

The case of Enron is one of the clearest examples of corporate abuse of power that has been dragged out into the daylight in recent memory. The unfolding scandal is creating a public outcry for checks and balances over corporate behavior. The fight to reform the campaign finance system has been given a new breath of life.

It has become common practice for corporate executives to grease the palms of the political decision-makers meant to regulate them. It is also no secret that the Bush administration’s ties to Enron run extremely deep. But because blatant corporate influence-peddling has become the norm in our political system, that does not mean that most people in the United States think that it is okay.

On the contrary, the overwhelming majority of Americans believe that giant corporations have too much power in D.C. For all of the pain that the Enron debacle has caused to ordinary people who have lost their jobs and life savings, the positive side may yet be that the scandal provides enough momentum to pass long-overdue campaign finance reform laws.

The idea of corporate accountability, only recently dismissed as a little left of left-wing, has moved to center stage. Even President Bush, who has consistently prioritized corporate profit over public health and the environment in his tenure thus far, is responding – in words if not actions yet – to the growing public concern about corporate abuse. In his State of the Union address, Bush called for corporations to be more accountable.

There is a long list of people who should take note of the public demand for corporate accountability, including public policymakers and corporate executives. At the top of that list is Louis Camilleri, who was recently named as the next CEO of Philip Morris, the world’s largest and most profitable tobacco corporation. The Camilleri announcement came just one day after Bush’s State of the Union address.

Corporate accountability advocates are urging Camilleri to use his upcoming role as Philip Morris CEO to halt the tobacco giant’s abusive practices.

The national corporate watchdog organization Infact, which since 1993 has been challenging the tobacco industry to stop advertising and promotion that appeals to young people and to stop interfering in public health policy, joins others in raising concerns about where Camilleri will lead Philip Morris.

When Camilleri assumes his CEO position, he will take the helm of a corporation that has tried desperately to polish its tarnished image with little results.

Despite a 1,712 percent increase in spending between 1998 and 2000 on corporate image advertising highlighting its ownership of Kraft Foods, Philip Morris ranked 59th out of 60 corporations in a recent Harris Interactive survey on corporate reputations released by the Wall Street Journal. The latest in a series of dramatic PR moves came last November when Philip Morris announced plans to change its name to Altria Group, Inc. later this year.

Camilleri claims to want to make Philip Morris a better corporate citizen, but actions speak louder than words. He will face a growing Kraft boycott, pressuring him to break from Philip Morris’s deadly history.

Retiring the Marlboro Man, the image that has made Marlboro the number one kids’ cigarette in the United States and the number one brand internationally, will be an important first step for him to take.

The Marlboro Man has ridden into stores and homes for decades, carrying children into the sunset of tobacco addiction and illness. Communities across the country have joined in calling for an end to the Marlboro Man promotional campaign, focusing on retail outlets where the image is still prominent.

From Philadelphia to Seattle and Miami to Minneapolis, more than 300 stores have responded to community pressure by removing the Marlboro cowboy and related imagery.

The movement to drive the Marlboro Man image out of towns from coast to coast is rooted in the growing demand for corporate accountability recently fueled by the Enron fiasco. In homes and stores across the United States, ordinary people are demanding that the voice of giant corporations be tempered.

Patricia Lynn is Infact’s associate campaign director. Since 1977, Infact has been exposing life-threatening abuses by transnational corporations and organizing grassroots campaigns to hold corporations accountable to consumers and society at large.

Black history and Marxist education

Fri, 22 Feb 2002 05:35:00 +0000

The relationship between Black history and Marxist education is quite profound. Marx elaborated quite extensively on the connection between the slave trade and slavery to the primitive accumulation of capital.

Marxists provide the most credible explanations of why slavery re-emerged in history as an appendage of capitalism, the colonial and neo-colonial domination of Africa, as well as other areas of the world, and the factors which gave life and momentum to the struggles of the African-American masses.

Marxist analysis is also invaluable to understanding racism and giving class definition to not only the history but also the culture of the African-American people.

We could summarize that Marxist education has several goals. One is to explain how class struggle is the driving force of history. Another is to help interpret the lessons of history and our more immediate experience.

Also, Marxist education tries to give expression to working-class culture and lifeways. In addition, Marxist education has the goal of theoretically training leaders of struggle for a more democratic and just world.

For Marxist education, there is an intersection of being familiar with rigorous analysis on the one hand and the experience of struggle on the other. This intersection is most profound in the context of the African American example.

The early history of the United States provided the framework in which Marx could produce the historic analysis that labor in the white skin could never be free as long as labor in the Black skin was branded.

In the 1800s that analysis meant that wage labor could not be free until slave labor was destroyed. In the 1930s that analysis meant that labor, Black and white, had to be organized as one in industrial unions though segregation was the law of the land.

In the 1950s it meant Black-white unity in the fight to defeat segregation and the denial of the rights of citizens, civil rights, to the African-American people. The question looms: of what significance is this pivotal analysis today?

The challenge of the present moment is to advance class consciousness and class unity across lines of race, nationality and gender. But that, one could argue, is just the appearance of the quality of consciousness and unity that must be forged.

The system of capitalism inherently sows disunity between high and low wage and employed and unemployed workers. Marx was adamant in arguing that the decisive unity that was lacking but must be built was the unity between the employed and unemployed and high and low wage workers. No matter how high the wage, you are still a slave, Marx argued.

Today, what brands Black labor are low wages, job segregation and discrimination, and disproportionate underemployment and unemployment. Though 30 percent of Black people live below the poverty level, the reality of life for the overwhelming majority says that this possibility is only one pay check away.

Class consciousness, but even more so socialist consciousness, reveals that any section of labor can be reduced to the misery and poverty routinely experienced by Black and Brown labor.

The present state of crisis of steelworkers is an excellent example. Unity in struggle of all workers for a better quality of life for all workers (for health care, income benefits from job to job, educational opportunity, child care, low and moderate income housing, the advancement of democracy, etc.) is the only protection against the natural law-governed ravages that plague and threaten the whole of the working class under capitalism.

The only protection for the working class is to defend itself as a whole. Otherwise, the struggles of the class will be splintered and fractured. The key is to help the leading force of the working class reach higher levels of consciousness. Racism obscures this reality and severely retards the effort of the working class to fight for itself.

Marxist thinkers, Black and white, have shown that capitalism has wreaked havoc on the lives of people who are of the darker hue throughout the world. Capitalism has nothing to offer the Black masses in any part of the world.

The peoples of a darker hue have contributed much to world development, and it is Marxist scholarship which has worked along with others to make that truth known. It is for these reasons most emphatically, as well as others, that “we must plant red roses in the hearts of Black people” as stated by Olivia Santana, a Black female leader of the Brazilian Communist movement.

Dee Myles is the new chair of the Education Commission of the Communist Party USA and a member of its African American Equality Commission.

International Notes

Fri, 22 Feb 2002 05:32:00 +0000

WFTU criticizes Bush threats vs. Iran, Iraq and North Korea

The World Federation of Trade Unions (WFTU) has written to U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan, expressing “grave concern at the serious threats to international security” implied in President George Bush’s statements against Iran, Iraq and North Korea in his Jan. 29 State of the Union address. The WFTU said there is “wide apprehension that the unilateral military actions that were undertaken without reference to the U.N. Security Council will be further escalated to include these countries.” The WFTU noted that several U.N. member states, including the European Union, have expressed serious concern, “since the unilateral actions by the U.S. administration threaten the peace and security of nations and peoples of the world.” It asked the Secretary General to urge the U.N. Security Council “to examine these extremely serious threats and take all possible measures to ensure that all members states respect international law and the U.N. Charter.”

Canadian university students demand tuition freeze

College and university students and their supporters rallied in 70 communities throughout Canada Feb. 6, demanding a freeze in tuition fees, the Canadian newspaper People’s Voice reported last week. One of the most dramatic protests was in Halifax, Nova Scotia, where students took over a downtown bank for three hours. After increases totaling 127 percent over the last decade, Nova Scotia undergraduates now pay over $4,500 a year for an arts program. The province’s 11 universities say they plan to raise tuition by as much as 14 percent next year unless the province increases funding. The provincial government in turn blames cuts in federal funding for the situation. Sid Ryan, Ontario president of the Canadian Union of Public Employees, urged students to work with the labor movement. “The factory workers, the people picking up garbage in the street, the average working class person can’t afford to send their children to school. Let’s work to change that,” he said.

Greek troops in Balkans to get new medical tests

Greek soldiers who are serving or have served in the Balkans will undergo new medical tests, the Greek newspaper Nea said last week. Some 6,500 troops will undergo tests with special equipment with higher sensitivity in counting depleted uranium levels. Concern has been widespread over the dangers presented by use of depleted uranium ammunition by U.S. and NATO forces during fighting in the former Yugoslavia.

European Network for Peace and Human rights established

“We come from many different countries, municipalities and organizations ... We hold in common the belief that the first aim in all disputes should be to find solutions which build and secure peace, guarantee human rights, and protect the environment,” the European Network for Peace and Human Rights stated at its founding conference in Brussels Feb. 1. “A better world is possible,” said the Network, but warned that “we face a turning point. We are in a situation where the greatest military and economic power on earth has declared war on its enemies as it perceives them,” with the support of most European governments. “We express our profound sympathy for all victims of terrorism, including state terror,” the Network said. “But war cannot be the way to defeat terror.” The U.S. is prepared to use the most dangerous mass destruction weapons, and is extending its power into space in its search for “full spectrum dominance,” the statement said. The Network called on the growing protest movements to join together to resist military solutions and search for peace and justice.

Opposition leader criticizes Nepal over rebel attack

In the wake of last week’s attack by Maoist rebels on government facilities in a remote area of Nepal that left at least 154 people dead, the leader of the main opposition party sharply criticized the government for not taking preventive action. “The government has failed to provide security and prevent the attack, despite having information about the possible assault,” said Pradeep Nepal, spokesperson of the main opposition party in Parliament, the Communist Party of Nepal (Unified Marxist Leninist). The raids were the deadliest since the rebels launched their revolt in 1996. The UML had criticized the rebels for breaking the ongoing dialogue for a national consensus and criticized both the government and the rebels for pursuing their own interests at the expense of the civil rights won through mass struggle over a decade ago.

South Korean women protest Bush statements

Over three dozen South Korean women’s organizations are warning that President George Bush’s “hard-line rhetoric directed at North Korea is a threat to Koreans who have worked so hard for peace and peaceful reunification on the Korean peninsula.” Their statement was issued as students, labor and religious organizations were protesting before Bush’s first visit to South Korea. His characterization of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea runs counter to South Korean president Kim Dae Jung’s official policy of dialogue with the north. “Bush’s pronouncement has come at a time when many active non-governmental exchanges have been revived among South Koreans and North Koreans, again building a spirit of trust between South and North,” the women’s organizations said. They protested Bush’s “promotion of an atmosphere of war” and rejected “any kind of military action that increases tension and conflict on the Korean peninsula.”

Redistricting plan released

Fri, 22 Feb 2002 05:31:00 +0000

NEW YORK – The Latino Voting Rights Committee of Metro New York released its Latino Legislative Redistricting Plan for the Assembly and State Senate for the City of New York Feb. 12. The plan calls for the expansion of Latino districts as a result of the dramatic growth in the city’s Latino population to over 2.1 million, now accounting for more than 27 percent of the total population.

The Latino Redistricting Plan, presented at a news conference at the Puerto Rican Legal Defense and Education Fund (PRLDEF) in Manhattan, proposed the increase of majority Latino Assembly Districts from 11 to 14, and the increase in majority Latino State Senate Districts from four to six. The group indicated that it would be submitting its plan to the New York State Legislative Task Force on Demographic Research and Reapportionment, which oversees the redistricting process for the State Legislature.

“This Latino Redistricting Plan reflects the growth of the city’s Latino population,” stated Mayra Cappas, co-chair of the group, “and tries to make sure that Latino voters can make effective choices in their representatives, whether they vote for Latinos or not.”

According to Arturo Sanchez, a member of the group from Queens, the plan “is historic as the product of a truly bottom-up process of community consultation and empowerment. In this sense it contrasts with the overly secretive process being controlled by our state legislative leaders.”

“Our goal is to democratize the redistricting process,” explained Lucía Gómez, who coordinates the PRLDEF Latino Voting Rights Project. “In most places we are working, this has definitely been an uphill process, as legislatures only reluctantly allow the public to participate in this important process.”

Chicago protesters call for Haddads release

Fri, 22 Feb 2002 05:28:00 +0000

CHICAGO – Noisy chanting pickets marched in front of the Immigration and Naturalization Center here Feb. 12 to denounce the jailing of Rabih Haddad, a Lebanese citizen charged with a technical visa violation. Authorities have also announced their intention to deport his wife and three of his four children

Haddad has been held in solitary confinement since being arrested in Michigan Dec. 14. Neither he nor his attorneys have been allowed to see the evidence that led to his arrest.

Haddad’s wife, Salma Al-Rushaid, is a Kuwaiti citizen and there is no guarantee that the family would not be broken up in the deportation process.

Haddad’s real crime seems to have to have been his connection to Global Relief, a Chicago-based Muslim charity, whose assets were seized by the government under civil forfeiture procedures. Under these procedures, presumption of innocence is not applicable and the government doesn’t have to give a reason for the seizure. Neither Hadad nor anyone connected with Global Relief have been accused of any criminal act.

At the time its assets were seized, the government’s only accusation against Global Relief was that it had provided financial help to poor people in Palestine and did not have a policy of excluding the widows and orphans of suicide bombers.

Detroit Rep. John Conyers (D-Mich.) has sharply denounced the arrest of Haddad and his family as a gross violation of due process.

“Attorney General John Ashcroft has made a mockery of our criminal justice system”, he said. “This sounds more like a dictatorship than America.” Conyers, the ACLU and others have filed suit to open the Hadad hearings to the public.

Secret hearings in deportation cases were authorized long before Sept. 11 under the Anti-Terrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996.

The demonstration was organized by the Coalition Against War and Racism, the Palestine Aid Society, the 8th Day Center for Justice and other Chicago-area peace and justice groups. Speakers included Jim Fennerty, Chicago Chapter president of the National Lawyers Guild, who denounced the fact that Haddad allowed only one phone call and one visit with his family each month.

Andy Thayer of the Coalition Against War and Racism pointed out the irony whereby Haddad, who is accused of no crime spending months in solitary confinement, while Enron exec. Kenneth Lay, whose actions have cost thousands their livelihood, walks free.

Emma Lozano of Sin Fronteras, a mostly Mexican immigrant organization, related the plight of Haddad and his family to that of Mexican immigrants through the decades: “As Mexicans, these actions are not new to us,” she said, demanding that the government charge Haddad if they have any evidence of criminal activity.

Lozano accused Ashcroft and President Bush of acting to frighten the foreign-born into silence on the government’s war policies. “Those of us who are born here better stand up and speak out, because later they’ll come for us too.”

The predators in lending

Fri, 22 Feb 2002 05:24:00 +0000

While Ken Lay and the folks at Enron may be the biggest money-grubbers of all time, the people who make loans for people to purchase a home or refinance their mortgage are no amateurs when it comes to beating people out of their money – and, all too often, their homes.

It’s called “predatory lending,” which the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN) has defined as “imposing unfair and abusive loan terms on borrowers, often through aggressive sales tactics, taking advantage of borrowers’ lack of understanding of extremely complicated transactions, and outright deception.”

ACORN went on to say: “The damage done is increased by the fact that predatory loans are made in such concentrated volume in poor and minority neighborhoods where better loans are not readily available and the loss of equity and foreclosure can devastate already fragile communities.”

ACORN released a nationwide study of the predatory lending practices of 7,800 financial institutions on Nov. 14, 2001.

ACORN said predatory loans “do tremendous damage both to individual borrowers and their families. They rob borrowers of the equity in their homes and their peace of mind as they struggle to pay unaffordable mortgages or face the loss of their homes, and in the worst cases lead to forced sales or to foreclosure. The threat is particularly serious if we consider the fact that for most Americans the equity in their homes represents the majority of their lifetime’s accumulated wealth.”

The ACORN study also shows the sharp racist edge of the home mortgage business, with African Americans, Latinos and other nationally oppressed minorities the particular victims of subprime lenders. According to ACORN, African Americans accounted for 40.5 percent of all refinance loans made in the District of Columbia, 26.4 percent of such loans went to Latino homeowners, while just 9.3 percent of these loans were made to white homeowners.

For the nation as a whole, African American home buyers were four times more likely than white home buyers to receive a subprime loan and Latinos were twice as likely. Although poor white homeowners are targeted by predatory lenders, the number of subprime refinance loans to minorities continues to grow at a rate much faster than for whites.

ACORN adds and the rate of growth of subprime lending has been much faster than the rate of growth of prime lending, especially to African American borrowers.

The predators have worked long and hard to develop schemes meant to enhance their bottom line. Among them is the practice of rolling excessive fees – generally a hair under 8 percent – into the loan, thus adding even more interest to the amount to be repaid. Fees of 8 percent or more trigger federal regulations that require additional disclosure to borrowers.

Another stock-in-trade is to push borrowers into higher risk categories – and thereby higher interest rates – than a borrower’s credit warrants. ACORN concluded that “borrowers with perfect credit are regularly charged interest rates 3 to 6 points higher than the market rates; with some subprime lenders, there simply is no lower rate, no matter how good the

credit.”

Many subprime, predatory lenders make loans with the full knowledge – and, indeed, intent – that ultimately the homeowner will not be able to make the monthly payments, the lender will foreclose on the property and resell the family home to some other unsuspecting person and the cycle will begin all over again.

One of the devices favored by lenders is the “balloon payment” – the requirement that after a certain number of years (usually between five and seven), the borrower must pay off the outstanding balance of the loan. But, as anyone who has ever bought a house or refinanced a mortgage knows, it takes more than 20 years before half of the monthly payment on a 30-year mortgage is applied to principle.

The buyer makes regular (often high) mortgage payments for years and suddenly must refinance to pay off the existing loan. Once again, the cycle repeats itself, for often these homeowners have no alternative but to begin anew with another subprime, predatory loan.

Although balloon payments per se are not an evil practice, for most borrowers caught in the subprime loan trap they are, as the ACORN report said, they are “extremely harmful. Balloon mortgages, especially when combined with high interest rates, make it more difficult for borrowers to build equity in their home.”

Congress sustains farm subsidies

Fri, 22 Feb 2002 05:21:00 +0000

The Senate and House of Representatives have passed sharply differing versions of a new farm bill but both would continue substantial farm price subsidies, which are vital for the vast majority of American farmers.

This reverses the Republican Freedom to Farm Bill enacted in 1996, which called for the ending of all farm price subsidies by 2002. That law was such a disaster that farmers called it “Freedom to Fail.”

Last summer the agriculture committees of both the House and Senate held field hearings. At the same time, farm organizations held rallies to voice that farmers had to have continuing subsidies for mere survival.

The chair of the House Agriculture Committee, Rep. Larry Combest (R-Texas), fashioned a bill that would continue for 10 years massive farm subsidies for the biggest and most affluent operators. It was quickly approved last fall.

Sen. Tom Harkin (D-Iowa), chair of the Senate Agriculture Committee, drafted a version that was approved this month. It elicited extraordinary praise from the National Catholic Rural Life Association, long known for its support for the needs of rural America.

“Thanks to all for a generous effort for the common good, for the integrity of creation and for solidarity,” the organization’s statement said.

The statement praised Harkin’s innovative shift of billions of dollars in cash subsidies for storable crops to cash awards for good stewardship of the land, including conservation measures such as protecting the soil from erosion and the air and water from pollution.

Of course, it is well known that family farmers are usually good conservationists, since they so often hope to pass their productive farm along to their children. This is the first time they will be receiving payments for their husbandry.

If the Senate bill becomes law, there will be an annual saving of $1.3 billion over past costs of subsidies. The Senate proposal is to apply the full savings to increase the budget for food stamps by $2 billion and restore these benefits to immigrants.

Other provisions of the Senate bill would prohibit meat packers from owning cattle or hogs for more than two weeks before slaughter. The purpose is to stop a recent trend by packers who buy many thousands of animals and concentrate them in feedlots creating the danger of disease outbreaks. Entire regions near these feedlots suffer from heavy pollution, a hazard of “industrial” agriculture.

There now remain two hurdles before the farm bill can become law. The first is the meeting of the House and Senate conferees to iron out the differences between the two versions. Sen. Harkin hopes this process can be completed early in March.

Another major provision in both House and Senate bills limits the amount of subsidy allowable for any one farm. In the past there has been no effective limit. This has meant that there have been subsidies for single giant farming operations of up to $1 million. These megafarms are mostly cotton farms in Texas and rice farms in Arkansas and Louisiana. Last year less than 20 percent of farms receiving subsidies collected 70 percent of the total outlay.

These megafarm operators were horrified that Harkin’s version limits subsidies for a single farm to $275,000. The House proposal raises this limit to $550,000.

Finally there remains the action President Bush may take. Saying there was no threat of a Bush veto, the Houston Chronicle quoted the president as saying, “I am committed to sound farm policy that supports American farmers and ranchers and am disappointed that the Senate passed a bill does not get the job done.”

To this Sen. Harkin replied, “Farmers are bleeding right now. The problems are now, not eight years in the future.”

Mechanics nearly walked

Fri, 22 Feb 2002 05:19:00 +0000

CHICAGO – United Airlines (UAL) mechanics and maintenance workers around the country were poised to walk off the job Feb. 12. Here in Chicago many had already cleaned out their lockers.

Capping a two-year, sometimes bitter dispute, the International Association of Machinists (IAM) District 141-M reached a last-minute tentative agreement with UAL Feb. 12. A ratification vote is scheduled for March 5. To allow for the vote, the IAM extended their strike deadline until March 7. While the District 141-M negotiating committee is recommending the contract, the full membership must ratify it.

Negotiations for a new contract had begun in December 1999. United’s IAM mechanics were ready to strike last December when President Bush used emergency powers to stop the strike and establish a Presidential Emergency Board (PEB). The PEB then tried to impose a contract on the workers.

Last week the last of the PEB proposals was overwhelmingly rejected by the union membership. The PEB’s last proposal ended a 60-day “cooling off” period invoked by presidential decree. This set the stage for the first real collective bargaining sessions that included the union’s right to strike.

Robert Roach Jr., a vice president of the IAM, hailed the agreement as a victory for collective bargaining without government interference. He said that it was the strike deadline that forced the company into serious negotiations.

The new contract would cover roughly 13,000 workers. The tentative agreement includes a 37-percent wage increase, improvements in the pension plan and increased retroactive pay to cover the time without a new contract.

In 1994 the union made big concessions to United in exchange for stocks. Many of the workers were bitter that up until this new agreement they had only recovered their 1994 wage levels. This left them behind other workers in the industry.

One of the main areas of contention in the emergency board’s last proposal was a new concession plan that was to be imposed on the union after a new contract was signed. United’s new CEO, John Creighton, wanted a blank check from the IAM to impose concessions and cutbacks as part of a “recovery plan.”

The new agreement affirms the union membership’s right to vote on any future changes in the contract, as well as any “recovery plans.” Many IAM members are still angry about the president’s airline bail-out plan that provided billions for the airline companies and nothing for the thousands of airline workers still laid-off as a result of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.

Provided the membership ratifies the new agreement, United still has to come to terms with 23,000 other employees who work the ramps, costumer services and other non-maintenance jobs at the airports. These workers, also members of the IAM, have been in the same contract limbo. But the substantial wage increases and the backing off of imposed concessions won by the mechanics can help set the stage for similar victories for these other United workers.

Ohio schoolworkers win strike

Fri, 22 Feb 2002 05:16:00 +0000

NEWS ANALYSIS

JEFFERSON, Ohio – The schoolworkers in Jefferson Village in Ashtabula County, Ohio, have won their battle to save their union contract, wages and benefits. The 92 members of the Ohio Association of Public School Employees (OAPSE) Local 419 had been on strike for three months. Negotiations stretched out over a six-month period with the union refusing to accept “massive concessions,” as stated by OAPSE Representative Joe Eck.

Three days after a massive rally at the county fairgrounds, followed by a thousand-strong march through the streets of Jefferson Village, the board signed what Eck described as “a heck of a contract.”

All of the board’s 32 concessionary demands were swept off the table, except for lowering health coverage for all new hires. New employees will now acquire full coverage on a graduated basis based on hours worked. A 50-cent wage increase was won for each of the first two years of the contract, with a wage reopener the third year.

At issue was also the privatization of the public schools. The Jefferson School Board supported the idea being promoted by business interests, that the education of all the children of working families and strengthening public school systems are no longer prime concerns and that business should control the education system.

The path to destroying our public schools and turning school tax money over to private corporations requires that union contracts covering schoolworkers and teachers be eliminated and their unions broken. A bill introduced into the Ohio State Senate (SB-194) is aimed at doing exactly that.

What the businessmen who make up the Jefferson School Board didn’t count on during the strike was the determination of the school workers to stand up for their rights and the tremendous support given to Local 419 by OAPSE and the entire labor movement statewide.

Parents and students rallied around the workers who took care of their schools, provided services and health care and drove their buses. A parents’ committee was organized that published figures showing the board was squandering a half million dollars of taxpayer money on an out-of-state strikebreaking outfit, Huffmaster Crises Management. Parents began turning in payment vouchers for transporting their children and bagging their school lunches, which state law requires the board to provide.

The high school’s student newspaper published reports of filthy restrooms and cafeterias. Letters poured into local newspapers from students and parents, complaining of lack of health care and counselors. Political and religious leaders intervened to help get the strike settled. School board meetings were packed with hundreds of students, parents and irate taxpayers demanding the board members do some serious negotiating with the union and get the workers back in the schools.

The political capital gained for organized labor in winning this strike has great significance for workers throughout the county and beyond. The mobilization of labor and community forces in support of the schoolworkers has created a momentum that will be carried into elections this year.

The parents’ committee is working on a legal petition to have board members removed from office and is discussing board candidates. The Ashtabula labor movement is planning to examine all candidates for public office from the perspective of where they stand on a Workers’ Bill of Rights, as has been done with great success in Cleveland. Working class candidates for targeted races are being sought.

The position of school teachers, and workers in public and private industry, facing new contract negotiations is stronger. Building Trades unions have a better chance of turning back recent encroachments by non-union construction employers. Non-union workers will gain more confidence to organize.

The 92 schoolworkers who stood their ground, enduring great personal hardship, struck a powerful blow that will benefit all working people. The fact that 80 percent of them are women, many single mothers, makes their achievement all the more laudable. Added to walking picket lines and loss of income, these workers had to find child care, set up food banks and a strike fund.

Labor federations throughout Northeast Ohio were involved in organizing support and helping build rallies and the Jefferson march, and they are celebrating along with the Jefferson school workers. The story of this strike and how it was won will be studied by union leaders throughout the state.

Build the movement for better care

Fri, 22 Feb 2002 05:08:00 +0000

An article in the Oct. 25, 2001 edition of the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) put it simply: “Although the U.S. health care system is often touted as one of the best in the world, disparities exist in quality of care received by different populations, in different regions, and across different institutions and clinicians ... availability of insurance coverage does not automatically lead to high-quality care.”

Faced with a situation where the number of uninsured is increasing daily and now approaches 40 million, it is easy to understand why the health-care movement has been focused on gaining access to health services via the “single payer” movement and other efforts such as extending Medicare to everyone without health insurance. The major shortcoming of both is that they are not linked to the delivery of health services.

But, as the JAMA article said, “being insured does not guarantee access to all services and all clinicians and institutions. Certain services may not be covered, certain physicians and hospitals may not be included among those participating in a plan or contracting with it, a provider may be unwilling to accept payment fees. Cost-sharing requirements may deter patients from seeking care. While these limitations may result from cost-cutting efforts to make insurance more affordable, collectively they represent another potential drop in the conversion of available insurance into quality care.”

How better to describe the failure of the U.S. system, where workers gain health insurance from a hodge-podge of insurance options provided by labor contracts and/or employers. In the final analysis the system benefits the insurance companies, pharmaceutical companies and the rest of the for-profit providers. Or, put another way, it is total failure.

Under the National Health Service in the United Kingdom and, to a lesser extent systems in France and many other countries, the government’s commitment to providing access to health care combines financing health care at government-owned hospitals and community-based clinics as well as at other facilities.

In those countries the public money spent to provide access to health services remains in the public sphere. In the U.S., the single-payer proposal and expansion of Medicare, both important advances, will use taxpayer money to pay for mostly private, for-profit hospital, clinic and physician services. Quality is not monitored in this system.

The U.S. system of providing health care has a sharp racist edge, especially when applied to provision of specialty services. Disparities across different populations have become a source of public policy concern. Researchers have documented, for example, that African Americans undergo fewer coronary procedures than do whites and that African Americans with early-stage lung cancer are less likely than white patients to undergo surgery, a factor that may explain much of the difference in lung cancer survival rates between these groups.

The struggle to improve the quality of health care, that is, the care of those already insured, when combined with the efforts to gain coverage for the uninsured, will dramatically expand the overall movement for national health legislation. It will help bring the labor movement, Medicare and Medicaid recipients into the struggle for everyone’s needs. The simple logic of this proposal slides past too many health policy “experts,” who would rather focus only on the financing of health insurance.

That latter approach is too narrow to generate a mass movement to force Congress to act. Obviously, Congress must be pressured to pass legislation outlawing the most abusive of these practices.

Bush ignores equality issues in State of Union

Fri, 22 Feb 2002 05:05:00 +0000

While mentioning increasing “minority homeownership,” for the most part George W. Bush was mum on issues affecting African-Americans, Latinos and other communities of color in his State of the Union address Jan. 29.

The next day the Amsterdam News, New York City’s oldest Black newspaper, had no less than three articles addressing this omission. They weren’t the only ones raising criticism.

“It’s more what wasn’t in the speech than what was,” said Debbie Bell, chair of the Communist Party’s commission on African-American equality. “Seventy-five percent of it was balanced towards world-wide conflagration.”

Bell, who was active in the civil rights and peace movements during the 1960s and ’70s, said support for Bush’s war on terrorism is “not very deep.”

Bush’s emphasis on widening the war, calling North Korea, Iraq and Iran the “evil axis,” is a dangerous message, according to Bell.

“[Bush] keeps putting the country in debt to fight invisible enemies at the same time [that] people don’t have jobs and decent living conditions. There is a connection between peace and good economic conditions for the people,” Bell said.

“Since day one, there have been demonstrations against the war as well as a tremendous number of lectures and workshops. These aren’t being advertised.”

Actions speak louder than words regarding the Bush administration and its policies toward ending inequality. The day after Bush promised to create jobs, his budget slashed job-training programs.

After no mention of ending racial profiling, his Department of Justice undertook one of the largest racial profiling programs directed towards Middle Eastern, Muslim and South Asian communities.

Bush’s nominee to the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals, Charles Pickering, is notorious for opposing civil rights. His nomination is being contested by a coalition that includes People for the American Way and the NAACP.

“There’s an economic crisis where tens of thousands of African Americans and Latinos have been laid off. Corporations have either downsized, merged or moved and people of color are usually the last hired and the first fired,” said Bell.

Layoffs for Latinos and Blacks are twice as high as for whites but President Bush didn’t indicate how he would address this part of the economic problem.

“There is a close relationship to what’s in the budget and whose needs are overlooked,” said Bell, a retired teacher and union activist in Philadelphia.

“There are no funds to make substantive improvements to public education. The funds going to security and war are giveaways to Big Business.”

Bell recently helped led a sit-in of teachers, students, and parents against the takeover of the Philadelphia public school system by the state and the for-profit Edison Schools, Inc.

Bell stressed that this was the fifth year of welfare reform, where people with the most need, including children, will be wiped from the rolls for life, losing any economic security net.

“Anyone who is thinking and breathing knows there aren’t enough jobs,” she said.

Looking to this year’s elections as a way to blunt the Bush agenda, Bell spoke about the possibilities and problems ahead.

“The passion generated following the stolen presidential election is still on people’s minds. But that doesn’t mean it will bring out the vote,” she said.

“In some contests people feel the candidates are the same. There is the factor of African-American males being disenfranchised [because of the disproportionate number in prison]. So all this becomes difficult to mobilize, especially during a midterm election,” she said.

“People vote when they have a vested interest. The issues of democracy, electoral reform and Bush treading on the Constitution have to be highlighted in terms of political education.”

Bell emphasized the unity of people of color, labor and other democratic movements as the coalition that can defeat Bush’s agenda.

The author can be reached at talbano@pww.org For information on the CPUSA African-American Equality Commission e-mail damisbell@aol.com.

50,000 in Brazil proclaim:Another world is possible

Fri, 22 Feb 2002 05:01:00 +0000

PORTO ALEGRE, Brazil – While thousands took to the street the week of Jan. 28 to protest the World Economic Forum in New York City, an estimated 60,000 people joined together here in proclaiming “Another World Is Possible” at the second World Social Forum held Jan. 31 through Feb. 5.

The event, created as a response to the World Economic Forum, featured a number of demonstrations, workshops, panel discussions, debates, art expositions and concerts, all focused on fighting neoliberal globalization policies and imperialism.

Representatives from trade unions, religious groups, non-governmental organizations, political parties, youth groups, farmer organizations, women’s organizations and anti-racism organizations joined together in their outrage at the neoliberal economic and social policies that have aggressively attacked the environment, workers, women, children, people of color and poor people throughout the world.

Many of the discussions focused on ways of uniting various social movements and organizations in the struggle against global capitalism. In a workshop entitled “Labor and the Anti-Globalization Movement,” one Canadian auto worker discussed the challenges that face the coalition between the trade union movement and other popular movements in the struggle against globalization and discussed the need to focus on inclusivity and representation in the anti-globalization movement.

“We’ve got to face new ways of organizing”, she said as she stressed the need to continue to develop strategies to increase representation in the areas of gender, age, race and ethnicity.

Many participants also noted a lack of Asian representation at the World Social Forum and discussed ways of making the next World Social Forum more representative of all of the world’s progressive forces that are struggling against capitalist globalization.

One of the major discussion points of the six-day event was the struggle to defeat the Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA) legislation, which has been labeled a “NAFTA on steroids” for all of the Americas. One proposal that seemed to generate interest among the World Social Forum delegates was mentioned by Osvaldo Martinez, the head of the Economic Commission of the Cuban National Assembly, at the International Student Seminar on Education and Free Trade.

Martinez discussed the idea of national referenda and plebiscites as a way for workers and students throughout the Americas to voice their opposition to the FTAA.

On the last evening of the forum over 50,000 people marched in opposition to the FTAA. The march culminated in a mass rally where the crowd, much larger than expected, spilled over into the surrounding streets.

Though this was only the second year in which the event was held, it was so successful that plans are already being made for the 2003 World Social Forum. The progressive Worker’s Party government of Porto Alegre has shown its willingness to continue to host the event here and the World Social Forum has every sign of becoming an annual event.

CPUSA leaders honor Dr. James E. Jackson

Fri, 22 Feb 2002 04:58:00 +0000

The Feb. 9-10 meeting of the National Committee of the Communist Party USA was marked by a stirring tribute to veteran Communist leader Dr. James E. Jackson.

In a moving tribute delivered by Jarvis Tyner, executive vice chairman of the CPUSA, Jackson’s long history of struggle was highlighted. Wishing Jackson a belated happy 87th birthday, Tyner said that for over 70 years Jim Jackson has been in the struggle on behalf of the working class and people of our country.

“Jim Jackson’s lifetime is a record of enormous practical and theoretical contributions to the working-class movement,” Tyner said.

Tyner traced Jackson’s life, including his days as a student of science at Howard University, as an activist in the Deep South, a journalist and editor for the Daily Worker and Daily World, a leader and activist in the peace movement and a Marxist-Leninist theoretician.

Tyner said that Jackson, authored the Party’s report “On the Theory of Black Liberation in the United States,” made a “pioneering contribution” to the struggle. The report argued for a basic shift in the Party’s position, that the African-American people were not a separate nation.

The 1957 report summarized the history of the Black freedom movement as that of “amassing the maximum self-organization, unity and strength of Black people and allying their forces with the major progressive causes and developments in complementary struggle for full equal rights for Black people and progress for the nation.”

The path to equality, Tyner quoted, “must be within a broad multiracial coalition of the oppressed and exploited to put an end to the rule of the monopoly successors of the slave power.”

Speaking of the work of Jackson and his wife Esther, Tyner described how they risked their lives to go into the Deep South as organizers of the Southern Negro Youth Congress (SNYC). This was in the 1930s, Tyner said, “when KKK terror was at floodtide, lynchings were commonplace, as were beatings, burnings, and other forms of genocide.” Jim and Esther, he said, like their close friend Paul Robeson, were “forerunners of the heroic struggles that were to come.”

Tyner quoted Julian Bond, NAACP chairman of the board, who said that Jim and Esther “were a model of what Black youth should and ought to do.” SNYC, Bond said, “preceded us, dared as we dared, dreamed as we dreamed.”

Tyner also quoted David Levering Lewis, Pulitzer Prize-winning historian from Rutgers University, who had interviewed Esther and Jim several times. Lewis said, “apart from Jim and Esther Jackson’s quite special relationship with Du Bois, what stands out for me is Jim’s career in the South. It would be hard to make sense of the civil rights struggles of the ‘60s without a knowledge and appreciation of this earlier movement in the south ... Jim and Esther were very much a part of that movement.”

Tyner pointed out that as editor of the Worker, as education director and as international affairs secretary, Jim traveled to many countries, including Vietnam where he went into the war zone. Jackson was the “last western reporter to interview Ho Chi Minh.”

Tyner described Jackson as a “hero of our party” whose brave deeds would not be forgotten. He concluded with a salute from the National Committee of the Communist Party USA for “your life, your great achievements, your contribution, without which we would not be standing here today.”

When Tyner presented Jackson with a framed certificate of honor, the entire Winston Unity Auditorium rose to their feet in enthusiastic applause. In response Jackson told those assembled, “The Party is in good hands” ... “You are in route to a future that will honor humanity.”

Get on the for justice bus

Fri, 22 Feb 2002 04:56:00 +0000

PITTSBURGH – Steel corporations are down, but steelworkers, clergy, elected officials and supporters are going to be rolling to the White House Feb. 28, demanding that President Bush act immediately on recommendations from the International Trade Commission (ITC) to impose a 40 percent tariff on steel imports that would pay for a government takeover of retiree health-care costs.

The same day, the United Steelworkers of America (USWA) will be mobilizing to fill the courtroom in Youngstown, Ohio, to ensure that steel will continue to be made at LTV in Cleveland. The fate of steelmaking in the country’s most industrialized city will be decided in bankruptcy court.

It is now or never for the country’s industrial heartland. At stake are thousands of jobs, health care for 600,000 retirees and the survival of towns and cities and their schools. The USWA has been on full-scale mobilization for over a year, while the corporations have been running into bankruptcy court to protect golden parachutes for a handful of top executives. Of the 75 domestic steel corporations, 29 are in Chapter 11 reorganization bankruptcy and LTV is in Chapter 7 liquidation proceedings.

In what can only be termed anarchy driven by greed, the steel corporations bulldozed 15 percent of capacity (the machinery to make steel) and slashed the work force by 56 percent, or 243,600 jobs, while domestic demand for steel grew by 39 percent.

USWA President Leo Gerard said, “We need companies that can invest in research and development to be able to compete through technological advancement. We don’t need companies that can compete through producing less and less steel.”

On Feb. 15, over 1,000 steelworkers and supporters rallied in Harrisburg, Pa. The state’s Republican-controlled legislature voted to support the union’s efforts to save and rationalize domestic steelmaking and protect retiree health care. The Alabama Legislature followed suit. Both states sent resolutions of support for the USWA campaign to President Bush.

The union’s Rapid Response network has generated nearly 200,000 handwritten letters from the shops, mill floors and iron mines. Communities from the Atlantic Ocean to the Great Plains have held rallies and dispatched delegations to federal representatives demanding that steelmaking and health care be saved.

The Steelworkers Organization of Active Retirees and the Alliance for Retired Americans are filling buses for the Feb. 28 White House rally and filling out postcards to the president.

To get on the bus or for more information, contact the USWA or the AFL-CIO in your state.