People Before Profit blog

Letters

Fri, 22 Feb 2002 06:11:00 +0000

Israel out of Palestine

Israel should pull out of the West Bank, Gaza and Jerusalem, so the Palestinians can create a Palestinian state. Jerusalem is a West Bank city. If it is not ceded to the Palestinians, then it should be partitioned between the Israelis and the Palestinians.

Anthony DePalmaBronx NY

Warmongers

Big business controls our government in Washington and gives big support to the right-wingers and warmongers in both the Bush administration and Congress. Now Bush threatens to once again attack the Iraqi people even after they have sufferered through ten years of U.S. and British bombings.

Peace must prevail in Asia and in the Middle East. No U.S.-led attacks on Iran, Iraq or North Korea! No more U.S. support for Israeli assaults on the Palestinian people.

L. VukmanovichSan Gabriel CA

No butts about it

The other day my daughter and I took in the film A Beautiful Mind at a local theater. By and large it was a brilliant film, thanks largely to Russell Crowe’s great performance as the extraordinary mathematician John Nash. However, after reading Sylvia Nasar’s award-winning biography of Nash, I was very disappointed to see him depicted in the film as a cigarette smoker, particularly in his recovery process from his first attack of schizophrenia.

In fact, Nasar makes it clear in her book that tobacco was clearly a life-long Nash annoyance. Nash is depicted in the book reacting violently to cigarette smoke throughout his life, ranging from biting a fellow graduate student who brought second-hand smoke into Nash’s room to creating a public scene with his bride over her youthful smoking. In a life that has been rich with changes, Nasar’s book makes clear that her subject’s hatred of cigarettes has remained a constant.

Why then has Hollywood made this Nobel laureate a cigarette champion by example in this movie? Or why is there so much smoking by so many role modes in today’s movies? Is it because the tobacco industry has enormous money to enable movie production to be paid for more quickly in exchange for a few key smoking scenes? Truly the Marlboro Man is dead of lung cancer, but there are clearly plenty of other heroes to stick out there with cigarettes in their lips for a new generation of smokers.

It is a real shame that this kind of shilling has been stuck now on the image of John Nash, who is in his mid-seventies and who has battled mental illness most of his life. He was probably misrepresented in this way because Hollywood dismissed his own life’s value system as being unenforceable toward influencing this film. In any case, I had a conversation with my daughter afterward explaining that no matter how many brilliant or courageous people are shown smoking in movies today, this is one of the subtle and insidious ways that a new generation of young smokers is told it is “Kool to smoke.”

If you would like to send a letter of your own to Hollywood’s elite, go to www.smokefree.org/movies.

Chris SharpSanta Clarita CA

Protest Israel bombing

In a letter to Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon today, the Global Union Federations expressed “grave concern about the attack by the Israeli air force, which we understand took place in the early morning on Feb. 17 on the headquarters of the Palestine General Federation of Trade Unions (PGFTU), an organisation affiliated to the International Confederation of Free Trade Unions (ICFTU), our partner in the global unions family.”

The Global Union Federations are sector-by-sector worldwide trade union organisations. They include the 20-million-strong International Federation of Chemical, Energy, Mine and General Workers’ Unions (ICEM). The letter was sent on their behalf by David Cockroft, general secretary of the International Transport Workers’ Federation (ITF).

The bombed Palestinian union headquarters was “built with the support of the international labour movement,” Cockroft tells Sharon. The building “was apparently severely damaged in this attack. I am sure that you will agree that military assaults on legitimate civil institutions like trade unions have nothing to do with the fight against terrorism. Such attacks risk instead damaging the functioning of legitimate, democratic civil institutions and movements, movements that will be essential on both sides in any future lasting peace for the region.”

The Global Union Federations called on the Israeli government to “publicly investigate the circumstances behind this air attack on the PGFTU and to make appropriate compensation to the organisation for what was, we hope, accidental damage to their headquarters and property.” In a similar protest to Sharon, the ICFTU said it was “appalled” by the bombing.

Fred Higgs ICEM Prague, Czech Republic

Milosevic trial opens

Fri, 22 Feb 2002 05:57:00 +0000

The International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) trial of Slobodan Milosevic, former president of Yugoslavia opened Feb. 12 in The Hague, Netherlands.

In his opening statement Milosevic charged the leaders of the NATO powers with genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity – the same crimes for which he has been indicted by the ICTY. Speaking before the tribunal after seven months of incarceration, Milosevic presented detailed evidence and showed graphic video footage backing up his defense.

Milosevic again challenged the legality of the ICTY and demanded that his charges be answered. The tribunal was created in 1993 by the United Nations Security Council, which Milosevic asserts has no power to do so under the U.N. Charter. He had requested they seek the advice of the International Court of Justice on this matter but that they had failed to do so.

Evidence presented by prosecutor Geoffrey Nice before Milosevic spoke has been exposed as based on fabrications. For example Nice repeated the accusation that Milosevic’s speech on June 28, 1989 at Kosovo Field called for ethnic hatred. A reading of the speech reveals just the opposite – an appeal for ethnic harmony.

Milosevic criticized Nice for referring to his political party as the “Serbian Socialist Party,” which would limit it to just Serbian people. “We are the Socialist Party of Serbia,” he said. “We have in our ranks Muslims, Albanians, Roma, Goran, all of the 27 nationalities who make up Serbia. Would they join a racist organization?”

Tens of thousands demonstrated in support of Milosevic in Belgrade on Feb. 9. The signatures of 120,000 Yugoslav citizens demanding Milosevic’s freedom were presented to the tribunal. The Russian Duma voted 316 to 6 demanding his release and accused the tribunal of ignoring crimes by NATO and Albanian extremists in Kosovo. The Ukrainian Rada (parliament) also demanded his release.

“Over the past two days all the prosecutors [said] they are just trying an individual ... and not a nation,” Milosevic said. “But in all the indictments, they are accusing the whole nation ... Everybody who lent support – the government, the parliament, the various political organizations, the media – they all stand accused here.”

Milosevic demanded that the court bring as witnesses former leaders of the U.S. and other NATO nations, as well as United Nations General Secretary Kofi Annan, and the entire U.S. negotiating team at the 1995 Bosnian peace talks in Dayton, Ohio.

Milosevic spoke of his role as a peacebroker in Balkan conflicts, particularly at the Dayton negotiations in 1995, that ended the war in Bosnia. “I was engaged in peace there, not war,” he said.

Editorials

Fri, 22 Feb 2002 05:56:00 +0000

The real ‘axis of evil’

When George W. Bush called Iran, Iraq and North Korea an “axis of evil” in his State of the Union address, protests began flooding in from around the world. Governments, peace and democracy movements and media commentators have protested Bush’s “axis of evil” as the new front in his global war.

The world’s reaction to the “axis of evil” has further isolated the administration, forcing it to play its real hand: they don’t really care what the world thinks. It’s going to pursue a policy of U.S. hegemony, full speed ahead.

Some of the most resolute protest has come from South Korea. A country divided for years by U.S. troops and nuclear weapons, the governments of both North and South Korea have made tremendous strides in normalizing relations, beginning a process that could lead to eventual reunification. Bush’s refusal to back down from his war-mongering has endangered that process.

Many countries, most notably Russia, have warned the U.S. to lay off its belligerent rhetoric towards Iraq and Iran. In an obvious public relations ploy, both Condoleezza Rice and Colin Powell have been on TV defending the “axis of evil” charge and calling these governments “opaque.”

If “opaque” is the standard for evil, we shall have to call our own government into question. Aren’t military tribunals opaque? Isn’t Vice President Cheney’s claim of executive privilege in his dealings with Enron opaque?

The Bush administration’s claim that these countries are developing weapons of mass destruction – the main justification for targeting them – is not substantiated. What is substantiated is that U.S. military contractors – all well represented in the Bush administration – and the Pentagon have developed weapons of mass destruction and have used them.

There is an axis of evil in this world: corporate greed, military domination and ultraright ideology. The Bush administration operates on that axis, thrusting our world deeper into chaos and crisis.

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First casuality of war

It has long been said that truth is the first casualty of war. So it is with President Bush and his “war on terrorism.” This is one of the most censored wars in U.S. history.

But the Bush administration has gone one better by establishing the Office of Strategic Influence (OSI) at the Pentagon. Leaks to the press revealed that its mission was being debated and that the head of OSI, Brig. Gen. Simon Worden, sees it carrying out psychological operations, a campaign of misinformation distributed to foreign press in order to influence public sentiment and policymakers. In short, the mission is to promote the U.S. imperialist war drive.

Things were bad enough when all that existed was the Voice of America, the U.S. Information Agency and the machinations of the CIA and FBI. But now the OSI?

Getting the truth about this war has been difficult – witness the stonewalling of Defense Secretary Rumsfeld when asked about civilian casualties in Afghanistan or the treatment of prisoners of war at Camp X-Ray in Cuba, or Attorney Gen. John Ashcroft’s refusal to release the names of those who have been rounded up by the INS.

One thing is clear. The Bush administration plays fast and loose with the truth domestically, and now wants to do the same thing internationally.

Negative reaction to the OSI has been strong and vehement from a wide political spectrum. If the leaks were to test the democratic sentiments, then the answer is clear. Democracy and truth – yes!

With the OSI, the fight for a free press will be more difficult here and abroad. But its need will be even greater and imposes new responsibilities on the mass media – responsibilities that, with but a few honorable exceptions, have not been met.

We count ourselves, and what is often called the independent media movement, among those honorable exceptions and promise to, as a French philosopher once said, “pursue the truth no matter where that search may lead.”

Honor Cesar Chavez

Fri, 22 Feb 2002 05:44:00 +0000

Cesar Chavez, founder of the United Farmworkers of America (UFW) was one of the heroic figures of the 20th century.

Many lessons can be learned from Chavez’ life. He, like Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., was an adherent of nonviolent civil disobedience and led many strikes and boycotts for his cause. Chavez was also an early environmentalist, warning the public of the devastating effects of pesticides on both farmworkers and consumers. Chavez fought for the rights of immigrants, refusing to let the forces of agribusiness and racism scapegoat immigrant workers.

Chavez is a beloved hero of the Mexican-American people, the labor movement and, indeed, of all people who believe in justice.

The People’s Weekly World will be honoring Chavez, his work and memory with a full-page ad to celebrate his birthday. Readers will have the opportunity to pledge to carry on his work for labor rights, equality for Mexican Americans and Latinos, and dignity for all by signing onto the ad and getting friends, neighbors and co-workers to sign on, too.

To honor Chavez sends a clear message to President Bush, John Ashcroft and other ultraright forces, that we refuse their attempts to polarize our nation, especially using anti-immigrant racism and increased racial profiling in the wake of Sept. 11. The demand of amnesty for all immigrants, high on the agenda before Sept. 11, is under attack from these forces. Honoring Chavez will help blunt and reverse these attacks.

The text of the ad, along with deadlines, will appear in upcoming issues. Name listings will be $25 each.

Ralph Fasanellas America

Fri, 15 Feb 2002 08:04:00 +0000

“Know your roots. Remember who you are.”– Ralph Fasanella

The New-York Historical Society, in association with the New York State Historical Association, has announced a major retrospective on the life and work of folk artist and labor activist Ralph Fasanella.

A second-generation Italian-American, Fasanella painted what he knew: New York’s garment industry, its diverse make-up, trade unionism and grassroots American politics. Fasanella captured the struggles and triumphs of working people in large, colorful and detailed paintings.

Culled from several different collections, the exhibit includes 50 of the artist’s greatest works from the 1940s through the 1990s.

Fasanella was a self-taught artist who created a stunning and diverse body of work depicting labor history, American politics and urban working-class life. His works bear a direct relationship to the culture of the streets, tenements and sweatshops.

Fasanella was born to Italian immigrants in New York City. His father was an ice deliveryman and his mother worked in the garment industry.

The most formative influences on Fasanella’s life were his parents: his father introduced him to the physical rigors of working-class life, while his socially-conscious mother taught him about working-class struggle and the value of self-education.

Fasanella’s political beliefs were radicalized by the Great Depression and he became active in antifascist and trade unionist causes. His antifascist zeal lead him to volunteer for duty in the International Brigades fighting fascism in Spain, where he served from 1937 to 1938. Upon his return to New York City, Fasanella became an organizer for various unions.

In 1944, Fasanella started to draw. He left organizing and began to paint full time.

In 1950 he married Eva Lazorek, a schoolteacher who supported the couple through more than two decades of artistic obscurity and blacklisting by the FBI. In 1972 Fasanella was featured in New York magazine and in an illustrated coffee-table book, Fasanella’s City.

His large-scale, intricate paintings of urban life and American politics were then introduced to art critics and the public.

In the late 1970s, Fasanella spent two years in Lawrence, Mass., researching the 1912 Bread and Roses strike. The result was a series of 18 paintings depicting the life of the mill town’s immigrant populations and the events of the strike.

The Lawrence series represents one of the largest and most significant bodies of historical painting by any American self-taught artist. In the 1980s and 1990s, Fasanella largely painted scenes that refined familiar subjects, such as urban neighborhoods, baseball and labor strikes. He died Dec. 16, 1997.

His work can also be viewed on-line at www.bread-and-roses.com/rfasanella.html.

Editorials

Fri, 15 Feb 2002 07:11:00 +0000

Budgets and elections

While the Enron hearings are grabbing the headlines, President Bush is running around the country building support for his 2003 budget. At issue is who gets and who pays.

If the stimulus fight is any indicator, Bush has his answer: Tax breaks for those in the top 1 percent and billions to the military-industrial complex, cuts in social programs that benefit the rest of us, be it health care, education, workers’ rights, protection of the environment or programs benefiting low-income children. That’s who gets and who doesn’t.

Then there’s the “who pays” part of the equation. In large measure that will be decided when voters go to the polls Nov. 5.

For now, the challenge is to make Nov. 5 “Payback Day” by building a coalition with enough strength to break the right wing’s control of the House of Representatives and reduce their numbers in the Senate.

Two ingredients are essential to any successful coalition – its breadth and its demands. Neither is a given; both have to be carefully nurtured and developed.

We begin with the elements of the coalition: the labor movement, the civil and immigrant rights movements, the women’s movement, the African-American and Latino communities, the senior and youth movements, the peace movement and environmentalists. Such is the material out of which to build a winning campaign for social justice, equality and peace

If such a coalition is to be developed its program must address common isues that will benefit all the victims and intended victims of the right-wing offensive: Universal health care, a livable wage, improved public education, affirmative action, defense of democracy, preventing further tax giveaways and cutting military spending. We believe it can be done and pledge our best to making it happen.

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The Enron-omy, stupid!

The rumbling of what could be a mass rebellion against corporate greed and the buying of government influence seems to be stirring across the country in the wake of the Enron collapse.

Tremors of that political earthquake were felt in widely scattered places in recent days. In Houston, Enron workers, backed by the AFL-CIO, convened a news conference to demand severance pay for 4,000 jobless Enron workers.

In California, state legislators called for the arrest on contempt charges of Enron officials.

On Capitol Hill, American Indian peoples demanded a halt to oil drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR) and the termination of the Bush-Cheney energy ripoff. Welfare recipients crowded a Capitol Hill news conference to blast the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) program for leaving millions in poverty while the rich grow richer.

Many now speak of fighting the “enronization” of the economy. Often we hear the charge that Bush and Cheney are using the Sept. 11 tragedy to silence opposition to their “steal from the poor, give to the rich” policies. At the top of that agenda is insuring super-profits for the oil and gas corporations like Enron that put George W. Bush in the White House.

Another den of thieves is military corporations, such as Lockheed Martin, which are reaping untold billions from Bush’s war policy and arms buildup in the spurious name of “national security.”

The best way to address the crisis symbolized by Enron is at the ballot box. We must work to elect legislators in 2002 who are independent, who put people’s need above corporate greed.

Hearings are going on in so many committees on Capitol Hill that your mind could spin. But somehow they aren’t capturing the growing anti-corporate anger. People deserve hearings that will allow a full airing of the system that gave rise to Enron.

Because it’s not the last corporate scandal. We need a people’s committee with full subpoena power to investigate the manipulation of government policy both domestic and foreign to put the corporations on notice.

A people’s committee made up of former Enron employees and other victims of Enron’s policies, trade unionists, environmentalists, retirees, elected officials and community leaders to uncover the history and, even more importantly, to propose the remedies.

Letters

Fri, 15 Feb 2002 06:59:00 +0000

Anti-terrorism, anti-communism

Anti-terrorism has replaced anti-communism, or the Cold War. That so-called war killed millions more worldwide than the declared conventional wars of the 20th century.

After World War I, a war for control of the world mineral resources, Germany became terrorized by its own social unrest, so it clamped down on its socialists and working class, becoming a fascist state.

However, its capitalist leaders felt threatened by the fledgling nation to the east, the USSR. It had to be defeated, for it would always be a threat to the German ruling class.

So after subduing France and Britain, Germany began a massive attack on the Russian nation.

After a bitter war of four years, Germany was again defeated, with millions of lives lost on both sides.

The United States, emerging as the other superpower from the war, could not tolerate the rivalry of the other emergent superpower, the USSR.

The Cold War was launched in 1947. Anti-communist campaigns were launched within the U.S. and abroad by undeclared wars in Korea, Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia, Central America, Africa and the Middle East.

The socialist nations of Europe were being worn down by economic sanctions, harassment, and propaganda. Finally, in 1989, the USSR collapsed.

The U.S. emerged as the sole super power. It quickly exerted its economic and military hegemony by its political program of globalization.

Controlling the mineral resources of the world, the U.S. becomes richer and richer at the expense of the poor underdeveloped countries, and by its corporate power, the American people within the U.S. suffer from the relentless stride for more corporate profits and cut of welfare programs.

Minerva MassenSan Mateo CA

Great statement

I read the center pages of the Jan. 26 paper with much interest. The Communist Party statement with respect to the Palestine/Israel situation was excellent.

I especially appreciated the way it brought the issue home by pointing out that we are paying for it – which not only deprives us of adequate health care, investment in job creation, infrastructure repair, etc., but also makes us indirectly responsible for the policies that are causing such death and destruction.

Thanks for stating the whole thing so clearly and succinctly.

Julia LutskyNew York NY

Disappointed

The photograph of rodeo bulls running through the streets of Philadelphia in your Jan. 26 issue is a disappointment to all of us who cherish the rights of animals. The PWW should consider exploited animals as being among the earth’s downtrodden.

Ron Harnervia e-mail

No to misinformation

The article on Danny Glover in your Jan. 19 issue was quite interesting, yet the inclusion of Milosevic with such names as Hitler and MacVeigh cannot be ignored.

This is done casually by people who accept the media’s message, or perhaps simply because they have seem the name included in another such list.

The corporate owned media has consistently praised East European countries for accepting IMF demands (called “reforms”) or for begging to join NATO.

Since Yugoslavia resisted “reforms” and showed no interest in joining NATO, it might have been suspected that Serbian leadership and people would be maligned.

Some dishonesties are more easily noted: despite being elected, Milosevic was consistently referred to as a “dictator.” Some require more study: such as the Rambouillet ultimatum, called “treaty” and described as “fair,” which actually demanded NATO be given free access to all of Yugoslavia.

One letter cannot begin to describe the misinformation that has become too frequently, carelessly believed. I can only suggest further reading on this subject, such as the recent book by Michael Parenti.

Barbara SkutschTucson AZ

Honor Cesar Chavez

Fri, 15 Feb 2002 04:32:00 +0000

To include your name in an ad in the Mar 30 edition of the PWW, go to the end of this article.

Letters

Fri, 08 Feb 2002 10:09:00 +0000

Needs a hearing

President Bush’s state of the union bellicosity was exceeded only by his hyperbole. He was way over the top, what with his apocalyptic warnings of “evil ones,” indeed a terrorist “axis,” bent on devastating chemical and nuclear attacks on American soil. He demanded that the nation appropriate vast new monies for his military and intelligence forces, the very agencies that failed so damnably on Sept. 11 to protect the American people.

The White House will brook no talk of congressional hearings into this massive security and intelligence failure, which previous applications of hundreds of billions of dollars couldn’t prevent from happening in broad daylight. Don’t forget that the Pentagon itself was attacked by Saudi terrorists, citizens of a country close to the CIA’s heart, who were inspired by a rogue former CIA agent, we are told.

There ought to be immediate congressional hearings into the waste, fraud and abuse long acknowledged to exist within the Pentagon’s global superstructure. That the Bush family is so closely associated with both the CIA and the Saudi royal family ought to be of more than passing concern.

But, due to strong pressure from the White House, there won’t be any such hearings for now. Bush’s generals and corporate arms makers want the money first.

Cord MacGuire Boulder CO

Food for thought

After pondering the Sept. 11 tragedy and the tragedy at Columbine High School and other cases when suicide and murder seem logical options among life’s choices, I tried to analyze our social conditions.

They can be divided into two kinds – the competitive, glorifying the individual and his selfish desires, and the cooperative glorifying society and generosity.

An emphasis on the competitive results in the miseries and perversities we see so much of around us now, while the cooperative would result in just the opposite.

It also seems obvious that the more we emphasize the values of cooperation with generosity a common factor, as opposed to the opposite, competition, with selfishness popular, the better the society will be, with a minimum of violence and a maximum of peaceful activities in the pursuit of happiness.

If this is so, then the glorification of cooperation in society, carried to its extreme, will lead to socialism – a word the average person has been taught to hate and fear. While the opposite, of course will lead to more of our present donnybrook.

However, the common theory is that human nature is not capable of doing any better and that any attempt to improve our conditions would be naive, to say the least. But dare I mention that Jesus Christ advocated the development of all our best possibilities, leading toward socialism?

I suspect our present conditions are a deliberate design by the rich to keep us stupid and submissive.

Al Amery Pepperell MA

He stood for peace

Westside Peace Action wishes to express its deep sorrow at the death of [PWW editorial board member] Roy Rydell a true friend and the beloved husband of our president, Lillian Rydell. We shall always remember his untiring support in every way of our endeavors to guide us on the way to Peace on Earth for all mankind.

Shirley L. Hyman New York NY

World peaceor world in pieces

I want to thank Lorenzo Torrez for his letter of Dec. 22. Two wrongs never make a right. The Peace Pilgrim had as a slogan “Overcome evil with good, falsehood with truth, hatred with love.” We could all be better citizens of the world by ascribing to these few simple truths.

With the fall of the Taliban in Afghanistan, I feel that a great gesture of world community would be all religions of the world to gather resources and rebuild the ancient Buddhas the Taliban destroyed.

We are after all, one world, all brothers and sisters. Like it or not.

Larry Golden Mountain Home AR

Editorials

Fri, 08 Feb 2002 09:59:00 +0000

Time to speak out for peace, international law

As a former CEO, Treasury Secretary Paul O’Neill is used to getting his way. So is Secretary of State Colin Powell, a former general, schooled in issuing orders.

For them, the Bush administration is the self-appointed “top cop” of the world. So it was no surprise that they delivered highhanded speeches at the World Economic Forum (WEF) in New York.

Powell told the 3,000 WEF delegates the U.S. will “go after terrorism wherever it threatens,” a reaffirmation of Bush’s “Axis of Evil” in his State of the Union address proclaiming the right to send military forces anywhere in the world anytime.

O’Neill defended the Bush administration decision to cut off assistance to Argentina, blaming the Argentines for the nation’s bankruptcy. “They just didn’t reform,” O’Neill said, even though the crisis was brought on by policies imposed on Argentina by the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund.

Nor is the Bush family without blame: An article in Nacion, a Buenos Aires newspaper, says that George Bush I leaned on his crony, Argentine President Carlos Menem, to allow Enron to set up its notorious fleecing operations in Argentina.

A State Department official told a WEF panel that the peacekeeping force must stay in Afghanistan for two years or longer, and must be expanded to 25,000 so it can patrol the entire country – and this despite the fact the U.S. refuses to contribute to these peace forces.

The New York Times reported this arrogance was met with widespread “disagreement and apprehension.” It is well that it did.

We would go one step further and tell the Bush administration to look in the mirror when it speaks of “rogue regimes.”

Now is the time to demand that Congress curb these war policies. We must win the battle to defend peace and respect for international law or face the rising peril of endless war.

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Bush favors unborn over born

When the Bush administration approved an extension of the Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP) to cover fetuses as unborn children it sent a multi-tiered and dangerous message to the public. Tommy Thompson, Bush’s head of Health and Human Services, paid lip-service to guaranteeing health care for low-income pregnant women. However, the extension could have been written to include pregnant women and not “unborn children.”

Reproductive and women’s rights groups have been warning the public that the extreme right-wing forces who oppose abortion have taken another tact in their drive to undermine a woman’s right to choose. They are concentrating on giving legal status to the unborn.

Last year Congress passed a federal law criminalizing anyone who harms a developing fetus (abortion was exempted). Although there were other ways to protect pregnant women from violence, the right-wing chose to focus on giving legal status to an embryo.

At the same time, the already-born have immense health care needs that cry for immediate government attention. Why couldn’t Thompson, with the flick of the pen, guarantee a comprehensive prescription drug plan for seniors? Or couldn’t the Bush administration move as quickly to cover the 40 million, 10 million of whom are children, who don’t have health care? This is a number which is expected to grow with the recent economic crisis, lay-offs and down-sizing from the welfare rolls those most in need.

No – the message is clear. Because of their political agenda to undermine a woman’s right to choose when she will bear children, the Bush administration cares more about that undemocratic agenda then the lives of the millions suffering without sufficient health care.

The Bush administration’s extreme agenda – from the war on terrorism to their attacks on civil rights and liberties to their huge tax give aways to corporations and the super-rich – presents a clear and present danger to humanity’s well being. The public can send a clear message back to them by voting the worst out of office this November.

Labor confronts World Economic Forum

Fri, 08 Feb 2002 06:23:00 +0000

NEW YORK – “The global economy does not work for working people and that is why we are here in New York to challenge Enron economics at home and abroad,” AFL-CIO President John Sweeney told the hundreds of anti-globalization activists gathered at the kick-off protest event during the annual meeting of the World Economic Forum (WEF), where corporate and civic leaders gather to discuss the direction of global capitalism.

“We are here to strengthen and deepen the spirit and solidarity that were born in Seattle and changed the direction of the debate over globalization,” he said, referring to the massive protests against the World Trade Organization in 1999.

The AFL-CIO hosted a panel, “Working Families Economic Forum,” Jan. 31. Workers from different countries discussed the effects of globalization on their lives.

U.S. workers talked about their growing understanding of the role that corporate globalization plays in other countries while struggling to save their own jobs here at home.

Russell Sheffler, from the United Steelworkers of America Local 1157 in Cleveland, Ohio, is currently fighting the shutdown of LTV Steel, which threatens the livelihood and retirements of thousands of steelworkers.

“I think Seattle opened a lot of eyes in this country. These were people [from around the world] fighting for social change, for worker rights, environmental standards,” Sheffler said.

“Some of our corporate leaders would rather leave this country, go to a different country, exploit that work force because they don’t have to spend that extra money. I think it’s a shame and a crime. I think some of these CEOs should be in jail.”

Sofia Sazo worked in one of the largest apparel assembly plants in Guatemala that does contract work for the Gap. Forced overtime, physical abuse and inhuman treatment for the sake of meeting production goals was the daily routine. “They would search us and touch us all over at the beginning and end of every day. We worked 12-15 hours a day,” she said. “I am here today to help my fellow workers have dignified work. And to remember that all of us are human beings.”

Agnes Wong, a garment worker in New York City, where 20-30 percent work in sweatshops, said, “I think workers want work and fair pay any place in this world. No matter what country they don’t want sweat shops to be continued.”

Marcos Santiago Perez Meza from Adlixco, Mexico is a union leader at a company that makes shoes for Nike. He said, “The victories that the union have achieved are not ours alone but yours as well,” he said.

“It’s true that globalization affects us all, but it seems to affect some countries harder. It seems to put some people in more misery than others. We can see that the wealth is poorly distributed. There are many more poor people than rich people,” he said. “We ask that you remember that it is not important one’s race or color or nationality ... if we unite forces to struggle we can achieve victory against globalization.”

Uniting forces is just what the AFL-CIO did by taking the forum participants into the streets to a Global Justice Rally where 1,000 anti-sweatshop activists rallied outside the flagship store of the Gap on Fifth Avenue.

“Right now the only voice being heard is theirs,” Edison Severino, business agent for Laborers’ International Union Local 78, said. “The best way to get our message out is to protest.”

Severino’s local of 3,000 have been working at Ground Zero where the need for peaceful solution to terrorism is often expressed as “You can not right a wrong with another wrong.”

Sweeney captured the mood there. He said, “It may take years of unceasing efforts, but ... as Dr King taught us, that the moral arc of history is long, but it bends towards justice.”

Letters

Fri, 01 Feb 2002 08:41:00 +0000

Controversy is democracy

Our history is not good. We scalped the Indians when we conquered the land and we lied and said they scalped the whiteman first. We broke every treaty and agreement with them. Abraham Lincoln was killed by a hungry actor, Booth, but it was a conspiracy by plantation owners and industrialists to keep slavery going. Eight men and two women were hung in Chicago for this conspiracy.

France sent us the Statue of Liberty for freeing the slaves, but we are now saying they sent it for the immigrants who were getting away from suffering conditions and coming to the land of opportunity. The Blacks are not free yet in America and the Indians are still demanding their democratic rights.

Workers on the production and speed-up lines had to organize into unions and strike in order to get a living wage. The rich are getting richer today, and the poor are getting poorer.

NATO is a military alliance of the six(6) super-military powers of the world, plus others. We are brain-washed into war every day by the Super Powers and people are afraid to speak out. Don’t bite the hand that feeds you. Cheap labor is the name of the game, The religious leaders of the world should speak out, inside the church and outside, siding with working people and the suffering for peace and a better life.

Let’s have a peace century.

Tor BergstromEdgewater NJ

Memories

As memorial meetings are held in the U.S. for Helen Winter, who died Dec. 13, she is being mourned with honor elsewhere in the world as well. She won great respect among members of brother parties during the period when she served as head of the international department of the CPUSA.

Helen is remembered with particular affection by Filipino Communists in the Partido Komunista ng Philipinas (PKP) with which she maintained close ties. My wife, Celia, and I were involved in international relations of the PKP at that time and retain some of the comradely correspondence of Helen at that time.

An act of hers that was especially appreciated was her turning over to the PKP the personal papers, notebooks, photographs, and documents from the files of her father, Alfred Wagenknecht, concerning his visit to the Philippines in 1924. He was sent by the CPUSA (than known as the Workers Party of America) to help establish the international links of the Philippine trade unions with the trade union section of the Comintern.

Helen donated the Wagenknecht materials to assist the writing of the PKP history, the first volume of which, published in 1998, has a chapter on this historical episode of CPUSA internationalism.

In honoring Helen Winter, it is of particular significance to note this aspect of continuity in her background and lifetime of Communist activity.

William PomeroyLondon, England

Free Hereford

We are awaiting the decision on the conviction of Darron Hereford (age 20) for robbery. It was a bench trial and many strange things happened with the evidence in the local criminal justice system, which makes us hopeful that Darron will be released from prison when all the facts are known and all the probative evidence becomes part of the record at a new trial.

Darron is the son of Ronnie Hereford, a courageous union ironworker. He has been the director of the Detroit Area Minority Construction Workers Task Force for over a decade. The DAMCWTF has been fighting for jobs in the building and construction industry in the Detroit area. For more information about this case call Ronnie Hereford at (248) 356-1931.

Kenneth SmallwoodDetroit MI

Deserves attention

In the November 24th issue of PWW there is a picture of government workers in Venezuela protesting “overdue pensions, bonuses and salary raises.” This picture reminded me that PWW has not yet had an article about that situation in that country. I think that the efforts of Hugo Chavez and his Polo Patriotico to address the needs of the poor deserve attention by the PWW. I hope that you can find the resources to look into what is happening in Venezuela.

Greg LaMotta via e-mail

Facing facts

Your “Maine City To Push For Universal Health Care” (11/24//01) article reported that “52 percent of Portland, Maine voters supported the concept of universal health care.”

What it didn’t report was that Anthem Blue Cross Shield outspent the grassroots coalition, in Maine, 20 to 1 in trying to defeat this referendum.

Let’s face facts: all over the world – except here in the United States – people believe that health care is a fundamental human right. The drug cartel’s incentive for high drug prices are for the benefit of their stockholders. Profits in the drug industry and in the overall health care industry in America always take precedence over the human rights of individuals.

John AntonichUFCW Local 88 St. Louis MO

Editorials

Fri, 01 Feb 2002 08:34:00 +0000

Meeting the challenge

African-American History Month begins against the backdrop of deepening working-class poverty and unemployment, ongoing racial profiling and more Black men and women in jail than in college. The Sept. 11 attack is still an open wound, and, with the collapse the steel industry, Enron and Kmart, it’s no wonder that many are feeling “fragile and forlorn, stumbling briefly among the stars,” as the poet Maya Angelou wrote.

When African-American scholar Carter Woodson established the Association for the Study and Negro Life and History on Sept. 9, 1915, it was against the backdrop of U.S. troops invading Haiti, the revival of the Ku Klux Klan and in a year with 62 recorded lynchings. Woodson’s organization launched a campaign to rescue the truth – the full, rich history of African Americans in the United States. There are many similiarities to today.

Thanks to Woodson, W.E.B. Du Bois and countless others, we celebrate February as African-American History Month – a truthful look at reality, a celebration of heroism and a fountain of ideas and inspiration.

But history is not simply a passive, static account of deeds done. It is a beginning. It is about tomorrow’s history being written today. Each generation building upon the other’s struggles.

African-American History Month is about confidence in ourselves, ordinary Americans, Black, Brown and white, who go to work, pay taxes and build the future, “The Dream,” writing history every day.

We the people – Black, Brown and white – are celebrating African-American History Month, attending town hall meetings, engaging, reading, as did those who preceded us. They did well; they set a standard. We, the working class, united and in action can meet the challenge of ending racism and for full equality for African Americans.

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Grass-roots action

The World Economic Forum (WEF) is meeting this week in New York City, holding its annual conference of corporate, academic, civic and governmental representatives from around the world..

We welcome those who have come from the labor, peace, environmental and youth movements to protest the capitalist globalization it will be discussing and the devastating effect of it on the lives of working people around the world. These protest actions will unfold in a context of worldwide economic crisis and an ever widening war drive by U.S. imperialism.

This will be the first national gathering of the anti-globalization movement in the U.S. since Sept. 11. No doubt the atmosphere generated has dampened organizing efforts. However, the protests have set off a media frenzy warning of possible violent clashes with police.

But, even worse, the issues are being ignored and the aim is to stir public opinion against those whose voices should be heard. Great care has been taken in this mobilization for peaceful, well-organized actions.

From the right-wing assassinations of Colombian trade unionists to the continued corporate drive to destroy the environment, and from the denial of democratic rights of indigenous peoples as part of thedrive for corporate control of natural resources to the Bush administration’s commitment to far flung military interventions, the expansion of capitalist globalization requires a stronger, more united U.S. anti-globalization movement.

The question that remains to be answered since the 1999 “Battle in Seattle” is how to involve wider numbers of people in the struggle to curb corporate globalization, defend workers’ rights, save the environment and defend democracy.

Millions are learning about what could be called “Enron economics” – corporate deceit and greed mixed with political intrigue. We need campaigns, targeting the grassroots, on the policies and inner workings of the global corporations and local actions that give working families a chance to participate, like the Gap campaign.

Protesting at meetings of worldwide financial institutions is needed, but tending the emerging consciousness at the grass-roots level is even more of a necessity.

Major victory at Chicagos V&V

Fri, 01 Feb 2002 07:54:00 +0000

CHICAGO – On Jan. 21, production workers at V&V Supremo Cheese in the mostly Mexican Pilsen community here voted to ratify their first union contract.

They had voted more than a year ago to be represented by Teamsters Local 703, the union that already represented distribution workers at the company.

The workers had gone out on strike for decent wages and working conditions in May 2001. They struggled through the summer and fall with no strike fund and constant harassment by a thuggish force of security guards who filmed workers as they picketed the plant.

The company had spent hundreds of thousands of the millions they made in profits last year on union-busting lawyers.

Just before Thanksgiving, V&V convinced distribution workers, who had gone out on strike in support of production workers, to return to work, promising that the production workers could also return to work while negotiations continued.

But when these workers showed up the day after Thanksgiving, the company went back on its word and locked them out. In an unusually quick decision, the National Labor Relations Board ruled the lockout illegal.

The V&V workers won their fight because they refused to give in to such aggressive union-busting tactics.

They also had the solid support of their community, including unions, political leaders, religious leaders, community groups and individuals who used a range of tactics to keep the pressure on V&V throughout the strike.

St. Pius Parish, a Catholic church in the community, opened its doors to the workers and organized a “posada,” a chanting procession of more than 100 people who sang in front of the homes of company owners.

Other Chicago unions contributed money for clothes and food and a truckload of Christmas trees. Rep. Luis Gutierrez (D-Ill.) brought public attention to the struggle.

Jobs with Justice, together with the Midwest Regional AFL-CIO and Teamsters 703, organized a campaign that convinced consumers and stores to stop buying or selling the cheese until the contract was ratified.

Clearly, there was broad public support for these immigrant workers.

“Anyone who knows the obstacles workers face in trying to form a union,” said Midwest Regional AFL-CIO Field Representative Nelson Soza, “as well as the background of these workers and this community, should understand the reach of this victory.”

Texas labor endorses minority candidates

Fri, 01 Feb 2002 07:21:00 +0000

AUSTIN – The Texas AFL-CIO Committee on Political Education (COPE) endorsed two minority and pro-affirmative action candidates for governor and Senate at its Jan. 15 convention here. For many delegates, the defining issues were previous political activities, affirmative action and fair trade.

Tony Sanchez, a Mexican-American banker who is running for the Democratic Party nomination for governor, garnered the nomination over former state legislator Dan Morales, even though Morales claimed a 90 percent pro-labor voting record.

Sanchez, who has never been elected to public office but was appointed a University of Texas regent by former Gov. George W. Bush, has a strong pro-affirmative action record, while Morales opposes affirmative action.

Sanchez was a backer of the Mexican American Legal Defense and Education Fund (MALDEF) lawsuit, which won a more equitable system of school financing. In his speech to the convention, Morales said he fought against it and reaffirmed his support for the infamous Hopwood case, in which white students sued the University of Texas Law School for “reverse discrimination.”

In contrast, Sanchez said that the Hopwood case “set Texas back 50 years.” He recalled the precedent set by Texas African Americans when Heman Sweatt integrated the law school in the early days of the civil rights movement.

“In [Sweatt’s] time,” Sanchez said, “they had a greater percentage of African American law students than they have now!”

A dual endorsement was given to Ron Kirk and Rep. Ken Bentsen for the U.S. Senate seat being vacated by ultra-rightist and Enron-supporter Phil Gramm.

Kirk is the former mayor of Dallas and African-American. He told the convention that he would not vote for Fast Track-type legislation.

“Protection for the workers will be there before I sign on!” Kirk said.

Bentsen is a congressman with an excellent labor voting record, except for the Dec. 6 pro-Fast Track vote, a vote that convention delegates were keenly aware of. Both candidates were endorsed for the Democratic Party primary.