People Before Profit blog

Letters

Sat, 26 Jan 2002 08:47:00 +0000

Free the Cuban five The recent political trial last year in Miami of five Cuban patriots resulted in a total breakdown in communication.

Forty years of an inhuman criminal blockade has not destroyed the spirit of the Cuban Revolution. In reality, the threat to U.S. security will not come from a people like the people of Cuba. It is inspired through nationalist hatred and prejudice from the Cuban American National Foundation (CANF) in Miami, Fla.

Introducing chemical and biological agents on Cuban territory, interfering with Cuban airspace, bombing tourist hotels in Havana, kidnapping innocent Cuban children, intimidating government officials through subversive legislation as Torricelli (1992); Helms-Burton (1996); Cuban Adjustment Act (1966) and ignoring U.S./Cuban Migration Agreements are public knowledge.

Initiative for recognition of Cuban sovereignty and the right to count all votes during elections are two sides of the same democratic coin.

But the war against terrorism can be won in the United States by a battle against violence first. Call the White House to demand freedom for the five Cubans.

Richard GrasslAuburn WA

Somalia and Sudan are targets In Sarah Staggs’ article, “Building U.S. peace movement is crucial,” Iraq, Palestine, and Columbia are listed as places in immediate danger of U.S. attack. Please, let us not forget Somalia and Sudan, both focal points of U.S. militarism for a number of years. Bush the Senior attempted to occupy Somalia, Clinton bombed the pharmaceutical plant in Sudan, and both countries suffer continuing problems as a result of these actions. U.S. helicopters currently fly low over Somalia, mapping targets.

Rick GantlyBoston MA

Auto corps. vs. environment Here we are again and still fighting a war caused ultimately by Middle Eastern oil. So what are all the car companies pushing? You guessed it: big gas-guzzling SUVs. They must think most Americans are stupid, like we don’t already realize that we should conserve oil in every possible way: recycling, carpooling, developing hybrid cars, finding alternative energy sources (coal, shale oil, nuclear, hydroelectric and solar among others), and simply using less of the damn stuff.

My response: friends don’t let friends buy SUVs.

It looks like our do-nothing congress has finally proposed mileage-requirements for SUVs. It is high time they did this. I hope it is going to be something serious, not ‘must get 5 miles per gallon by the year 2050!

J KyleNew York NY

Unionize Temps! Numerically a growing number of non and semi-skilled temp workers remain locked in and forced to subsist on dead-end minimum wage and low paying scale jobs. Which offer no medical insurance, comparable pay, job security or other fringe benefits that make work rewarding.

Blue-collar temps more than any other urgently need the unwavering support, collective bargaining power and progressive leadership of a strong labor union to help unionize and lead their fight for more economic parity. Furthermore full union representation will also help safeguard their collective interest and ensure that their basic economic necessities of life are met under more favorable working conditions.

Shakir MuhammadAlexandria VA

No intervention in Philippines I am writing to express my opposition to the Bush administration’s expansion of the war against Afghanistan to the Philippines. By putting 650 “advisors” on the ground to combat so-called “bandit” groups there, the Bush administration clearly is trying to regenerate cold-war-style warfare.

In the Philippines political and community leaders have questioned its legality, have accused the Macapagal Arroyo government of using the “war on terrorism” to go after her political enemies in the people’s and working class movements (aside from the “bandits”) and polls show that most people there oppose it. Her new found love for U.S. military interventionism goes against the last 15 or 16 years of victories against U.S. puppet and militarist regimes that the Filipino people have so steadfastly opposed.

Even U.S. politicians such as Sen. Brownback (R-Kans.) has openly called the Philippines “the next target.” If so, how many people do the Republicans plan to kill there? I hope progressive people in the U.S. can gather momentum to oppose what is already being referred to as the new Vietnam!

Joel WendlandYpsilanti MI

Editorials

Sat, 26 Jan 2002 08:00:00 +0000

Time to fight, not run

This session of Congress faces a multi-tiered crisis that includes George W. Bush’s “war on terrorism” and a declining economy, made worse by the collapse of Enron and the bankruptcy of K-mart that have added hundreds of thousands to the 8.3 million who are already unemployed.

Bush, House Majority Leader Tom Delay and other Republican lawmakers all received huge campaign contributions from Enron proof, if proof is needed, that they and the rest of the GOP ultra-right are bought and paid for.

The problem is that the Democrats received just enough cash from Corporate America so they pull their punches. And that feeding-frenzy explains why they are unable to come up with real alternatives to the right-wing agenda. Only full public funding of elections can block the sewer of corporate money that pollutes the political process.

While Bush, Delay and Trent Lott propose more of the same “steal from the poor, give to the rich” policies that got us into this mess, Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle (D-S.D.) goes, timidly, with hat in hand and many salutes to Bush, begging for an additional 13 weeks of jobless benefits and a $300 tax rebate for low income workers who received nothing in Bush’s $2.6 trillion tax gift to the rich. In the process he leaves behind the demand that the package include payment of health care benefits under COBRA for the unemployed.

Why the retreat when the moment calls for a fight – especially in an election year, with all 435 House seats and one-third of Senate seats are up for grabs and where there is overwhelming public support for cracking down on Enron and other corporate thieves. Polls show that voters will rally behind a program to save the steel industry, to provide jobless benefits and health care for the unemployed. We need a fighting, grass-roots people’s movement to hold these Enron-tainted officials’ feet to the fire!

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Abide by the Geneva Accords

The unilateral effort by the United States to re-write the Geneva Convention dealing with prisoners of war has drawn sharp rebukes from European leaders and the International Red Cross.

The U.S. has refused to grant prisoner of war status to Afghan prisoners being held at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba. Instead, the White House insists that they are “unlawful combatants” or “battlefield detainees” and are thus outside the protections guaranteed under the Geneva Convention dealing with POWs.

Germany, seconded by The Netherlands and the European Union, has said the detainees should be treated as POWs as provided for in the Geneva Convention. Chris Patten, external affairs minister for the 15-member European Union, said the EU was “concerned about justice, not vengeance” and that the detainees should be treated humanely.

In a marked departure from its usual refusal to publicly criticize governments, the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), said the detainees should be treated as POWs and that it “is not up to the U. S. military” to decide differently.

The outrage followed the Defense Department’s release of a photograph showing several prisoners, their hands and legs restrained, wearing black goggles and forced into a kneeling position as they awaited, what The New York Times described as being “put in their cages” – the six foot by eight foot living quarters with their concrete floors and chain link “walls.”

This refusal to grant the detainees POW status is more than a fight over definitions. Rather, it is a deliberate effort to craft a legal morass where it is not clear what the legal standards are, thus making it possible to side-step international law dealing with the rights of POWs.

The warden at Camp X-Ray boasts that he is determined to maintain “positive control” in dealing with the detainees – of imposing on them a sense of isolation, domination and futility. In other days such treatment would be called what it is – a form of torture. That’s what it is today.

Save Roe v. Wade

Sat, 26 Jan 2002 06:50:00 +0000

The following is a press release issued by NOW President Kim Gandy.

Roe v. Wade is in more danger today than at any other time in the last 29 years. George W. Bush’s anti-abortion agenda could completely tip the scales of justice against women’s rights. His commitment to stacking the federal courts with right-wing ideologues is frighteningly clear.

Our clear message to the Senate is this: you many not negotiate away our rights. And you have more to fear from the women’s vote than from right wing ideologues in the Bush administration. Come November, supporters of reproductive rights will remember every Senator who failed to oppose George Bush’s effort to stack the federal courts with anti-abortion, anti-woman judges.

To any Senator – Democrat or Republican – who votes to confirm such judges: you might as well start packing your bags now. Last night I joined with Washington area activists at a vigil in front of the Supreme Court building. Events like that are a launch pad for the mock filibusters, sit-ins and meetings that NOW chapters across the country will hold in their Senator’s home offices on March 8, International Women’s Day. At these events activists will urge their Senators to stand up for women’s rights and do whatever it takes to stop George Bush from stacking the federal courts with ultra-conservative judges.

To date, Bush has sent 66 nominations to the Senate Judiciary Committee. The Senate has already confirmed 28 of them for lifetime appointments (22 trial level and 6 appellate level). The Judiciary Committee has held 11 hearings on judicial nominees since July, while during the Clinton years the Republican-dominated committee held barely half a dozen hearings per year.

Bush’s judicial appointees serve for life – they’ll be on the bench for decades after Bush leaves office. Just a few new judicial appointments by Bush could result in every federal circuit being dominated by right-wing judges. And with all the circuits in conservative alignment, fewer cases will make it to the Supreme Court. We need justices committed to justice for women, not ideologues committed to turning back the clock.

Every woman and every man who cares about women’s reproductive freedom and bodily integrity needs to be on guard – on the phone, on the internet and on record demanding that their U.S. Senators not only commit to vote against, but commit to filibuster every single bad nominee as long as it takes until George Bush gets the message that we will not go back to the back alleys.

Mexican steelworkers occupy complex

Sat, 19 Jan 2002 05:13:00 +0000

From published reports

On Dec. 20, over 2,000 iron ore miners occupied the Sicartsa plant and three other neighboring steel plants in the huge steel complex located at Lázaro Cárdenas-Las Trujas, in the Mexican state of Michoacán. ISPAT Mexicana, the largest steel plant in Mexico, was included.

ISPAT, which also owns ISPAT Inland in East Chicago, Ind., acquired the plant after the Mexican government sold the plants in the steel complex that were built by the state in the 1970s.

The occupation by the workers was supported by a historic march on Jan. 12 of over 10,000. The National Mining and Steelworker Union is also planning a national strike of all 250,000 workers on Jan. 31 if the workers’ demands are not met.

The dispute at the complex began when the company and the government refused to recognize the local union leadership that was elected July 31 by the vast majority of workers in the plant. The new leadership defeated what the workers called a company union. Management’s reaction to the new committee was the issuing of 82 disciplinary measures or terminations and the setting up of a company union leadership on Oct. 23.

The dispute came to a head Dec. 19 when a picket line went up at the plant and 300 state guardsmen were brought in to attack the workers. Several workers were shot, one seriously. The next day the workers regrouped and held a huge meeting where they decided to take over the four steel plants. The workers are maintaining the facilities, but nothing is coming into the complex or going out.

On Dec. 21, over 3,000 workers marched to demand a resolution to the conflict. They also have made six demands, including: recognition of the union executive committee; formal dialogue before the Office of the Secretary of Labor; removal of the penalties and rehiring of fired workers; a wage increase that they have not had in a year-and-a-half; and that there be no reprisals taken against any worker.

On Jan. 2, there was another march, including teachers and popular groups. On Jan. 6 the government withdrew recognition of the company union and set up an election on Jan. 8, when over 75 percent of the workers ratified the new leadership of the local. As of press time the workers were still occupying the complex and there was no word on the status of their demands.

Cheryl Llera contributed to this story.

U.S. blockade abuses Cuban children

Sat, 19 Jan 2002 04:41:00 +0000

Military might and patriotic display are now in charge, ever since Sept. 11. Yet reminders surface of U.S. misbehavior over many years in the name of anti-communism and defending U.S. interests. Here the plight of Cuba’s children is recalled.

The place to begin is the U. S. blockade of Cuba, now 40 years old. I first began to think about that policy in 1994 during a trip to Cuba. I discovered that the Cuban people were healthy despite crushing shortages. Cuba’s life expectancy and infant mortality rates rivaled those of the United States.

After the revolution, the government transformed a constitutional right to health care into reality.

One medical school in 1961 had become 24 by 1994; 3,000 doctors in l961 became 55,000 in 1994 and today there are 65,000.

With the world’s highest ratio of doctors per capita, all Cuban citizens have had free care available for common health problems or complicated illnesses. Cuba’s research institutions and specialty hospitals became referral centers for all of Latin America.

I chose to be a pediatrician because pediatrics is concerned with the health of all children in the community. Thirty years of practice have taught me that U.S. society accepts as normal striking inequalities in health status among groups of children.

I learned from Cuba’s example that an alternative was possible. During that 1994 trip, I made hospital rounds in Havana with Dr. Alberto Ruiz, a pediatric surgeon. We visited two girls who suffered from corrosive esophagitis, the result of their having accidentally swallowed homemade soap made from lye. Cubans have very little soap, he noted, and people have to make their own.

Dr. Ruiz had had to replace parts of the esophagus – with sections of their colon – of over 100 such children.

The U.S. government turned out to have been involved. State Department representatives had informed the Spanish soap manufacturer providing most of Cuba’s soap that it would lose its U.S. markets if exports continued to Cuba.

Pressure was also put upon a Mexican soap-maker, and U.S officials allegedly arranged for the sale of a soap factory in Dominica to Proctor & Gamble, thereby putting that soap, too, under embargo rules.

Foreign companies with connections to U.S. corporations come under embargo restrictions, if their products contain U.S. components or if they have financial ties to U.S. corporations. Cuba had come to depend upon those foreign subsidiaries for food and medical supplies after the fall of the Soviet block.

In the era of globalization, almost 70 percent of the world’s new drugs are now being manufactured or marketed by U.S. companies or their foreign subsidiaries.

The 1992 law placing foreign subsidiaries under embargo restrictions did allow foreign exporters to apply for a license to export humanitarian materials to Cuba, but administrative roadblocks are so onerous that foreign subsidiaries rarely seek licensure. Subsequently I learned from Cuban pediatricians about specific shortages and their effects on doctors and on children. The shortages include:

• Asparaginase, an anti-leukemic drug made only in the United States. In Cuba, children with leukemia consequently have a 75 percent chance of being alive in five years, rather than the 95 percent likelihood granted to U.S. children.

• X-ray film supplied by Canadian companies and spare parts for X-ray machines made by Siemans of Germany. These companies have U.S. connections, and shortages often make X-rays examinations impossible.

• Replacement parts for pumps and valves for the Cuban water system. Their U.S. origin makes repairs difficult, and now intestinal infections have increased.

• Anti-vomiting medicines. Doctors are sometimes unable to relieve the vomiting caused by chemotherapy.

• Anti-cancer drugs. Pediatric specialists often have to make cruel decisions about withholding or shortening courses of treatment.

• Pre- and post-operative medicines. Urgent heart operations have had to be postponed until supplies arrive from Europe.

• Baby scales, hospital bedsheets and surgical gloves.

• English-language medical literature. McGraw-Hill purchased a Spanish company that provided all Latin America with such material.

Embargo-related extra costs take money away from replenishing the stocks of everyday items. U.S. drugs obtained through third countries are expensive, as is reliance upon air freight.

Ships are reluctant to visit Cuba because, if they do they may not sail to the United States for the next six months. I suggest that the mean spirit behind our own health-care system extends to Cuba and that U.S. policy makes Cuban children suffer. An exemplary health-care system is being trashed.

In the name of simple decency, the American people need to lend a hand to health workers in Cuba and honor them for their accomplishments.

Second, we need to oppose Washington’s war against Cuban health care. Third, we need to finish off the whole policy of blockade.

Finally, we need to make a reality of universal health care in our own country. Where is the good in harassing doctors and patients in Cuba? The U.S. embargo is a crime against humanity.

W.T. Whitney is a pediatrician in Maine and active in U.S.-Cuba solidarity movement.

Letters

Fri, 18 Jan 2002 10:45:00 +0000

2002: A year of challenges

Happy new year and thank you for the New Year’s greeting by Sam Webb (12/29/01). We do, indeed, face challenges in the coming year, challenges possibly greater than any before. The Bush administration, or at least its dominant group, seems bent on imposing a fascist-like solution on the U.S. and the world.

What are they so afraid of? Either their system is a lot weaker than its hype makes it out to be, or there is an even bigger crisis looming on the near horizon. Either way, it certainly proves that global capitalism offers no security for democracy and peace.

Now is a time to reach out to all democratic and peace forces for unity against the main danger of the ultra-right and war, for democracy. Labor and the African-American people’s movement will, again, be key. We already can see the central role that racism is playing in the game of the ultra-right in the administration.

To start with, Congress must be held accountable for the activities of the “secret government,” the so-called “intelligence community,” which acts with unlimited resources, above the law. These – the CIA, the FBI, the NSA and the NSC – are the primary instigators of terrorism in the world, and there’s evidence that this includes activity inside the United States. Their covers must be torn off and they must be replaced with security organizations accountable to our elected representatives.

Ted PearsonChicago IL

Stop the war in Colombia

Prior to the Sept. 11 attacks, the U.S. was poised to intervene in Colombia’s internal affairs with a $1.3 billion military package and introduction of military advisors. With its goals interupted, the U.S. has secretly trained Colombian troops in the art of assassination and torture techniques – skills not usually associated with defendng freedom.

With its troops occupied in Afghanistan and preparing to attack other “terrorist” nations the U.S. has opted to use the Colombian army as its proxy there. To the surprize of the leftist rebel group FARC, who were negotiating a peaceful solution, President Pastrana gave orders to halt the talks. Where peace was once a possibility, with U.S. influence on Pastrana, bloodshed is a probability!

The U.S. continues to use the outdated Monroe Doctrine as its means to control Latin America, from rigging electons in Nicaragua to a coup in Chile.

Racist policies towards Hispanics in the U.S. and Latin America must end. A start would be to ease the immigration laws with Mexico and to end the embargo against Cuba. In this new century, gunboat diplomacy of old has been upgraded, yet the results remain the same, oppression of our Latin neighbors.

Dan Doltvia e-mail

History as a guide

The bombastic futility of U.S. military action in Afghanistan becomes more apparent with each day”s inconclusive news reports. Osama bin Laden is still on the loose, and the many friends of Mullah Omar are protecting him from hesitant U.S. special forces, now reduced to bribing the locals for information on his whereabouts.

Nearly four months of bombing has stirred unease about thousands of Afghan deaths. Worried that unsatisfying results from his vaunted Afghan campaign won’t justify his triumphalist rhetoric, Bush may be tempted to broaden his war aims.

Elections loom in November. Without foreign hostilities distracting the country, Bush”s party can lose big. If history is any guide, there will likely be little progress by then for Bush to point to in a splintered, embittered Afghanistan.

We need only look to the Balkans. A decade of NATO operations there has not produced viable democracies and alleged war criminals remain at large, illustrating the growing failure of military means to usefully manage the crises of capitalist globalization.

Cord MacGuireBoulder CO

Situation getting worse

Your article on homelessness (1/12) hit home, pardon the pun. I work for a homeless shelter agency here in Boston and the situation is getting worse here, too.

An annual count of homeless people in Boston in December indicates that the numbers are now over 6,000. That’s a 3 percent increase over the previous year.

As I walk around the city I notice hundreds of homes boarded up, just sitting there. What a waste. Not only that but recent budget cuts from the state of Massachusetts threaten to make the situation for homeless people, particularly the homeless mentally ill, even worse.

But, waste of housing and stealing from the poor to give to the rich are what one can expect from capitalism. We need to build united movements that can tell this system to quit wasting money on war and personal aggrandizement, and get its priorities straight.

Bruce BurlesonBoston MA

Editorials

Fri, 18 Jan 2002 10:38:00 +0000

Election battles forming

Battle lines are already shaping up in the crucial 2002 elections, in which all 435 House seats and one-third of the Senate seats will be up for grabs. President Bush and the Republican ultraright seek to increase their majority control of the House and regain control of the Senate. They will also seek to extend their domination over state and local governments by electing more ultra-right governors and state legislators.

Bush will continue to wrap his right-wing agenda in the “war on terrorism,” giving tax relief to the greedy from the budget for the needy. Attorney General John Ashcroft will attempt to silence opposition with his witch hunt lie that critics of Bush give “aid and comfort” to the terrorists.

The issues are clear. Unemployment continues to skyrocket with Ford announcing the layoff of 35,000 workers. Steelworkers are fighting to defend their jobs and “save the steel industry.”

States have no money to provide Medicaid coverage for the poor. Every state, city and town is faced with budget deficits that will force cuts in essential human services. How will the people’s coalition exert its influence in these turning point elections? Enron’s bankruptcy has shown a whole campaign money trail to the Bush administration and members of Congress, opening wide the window on influence buying, political favoritism and corporate greed’s influence in the political system. Our power lies in organizing.

The 2002 elections are a battle the people can win. What is needed is strong multiracial unity around a program and candidates who will fight for it. The program must include livable wage jobs, health care for all, defense of civil liberties and civil rights.

This movement must not permit differences over the “war on terrorism” to split its ranks. On some issues, we must be prepared to “agree to disagree” in the interests of the unity we must have if we are to end the hammer-lock Enron’s man, Republican Tom DeLay, has on the House.

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Colombia’s peace at risk

Colombia’s peace process, seemingly doomed last weekend, resumed this week after intense efforts by the U.N. special envoy and diplomats from 10 countries, including Cuba. Resumption of the talks between the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC-EP) and the government headed by President Andres Pastrana relieved, at least for the moment, the terror felt by tens of thousands of residents of the demilitarized zone (DMZ) who had faced the prospect of invasion by Colombian army troops and the ultra-right militias allied with them, and by millions of Colombians outside the DMZ frightened of intensified government and militia action. These fears are all too rooted in the deaths of untold thousands of innocent civilians, including thousands of trade union organizers, at the hands of the ultra-right.

The near-catastrophe to the talks, with all this would have meant in intensified repression and bloodshed for Colombia’s working people, can be laid squarely at the doorstep of the Bush administration. Plan Colombia, approved by Congress two years ago, has assigned $1.3 billion in mostly military aid, including U.S. military advisers and Blackhawk helicopters, to Colombia under the pretext of fighting drugs.

Now the Bush administration seeks to make Plan Colombia an instrument in its unilateral “war on terrorism.” Without the Bush administration’s backing, the Pastrana government would scarcely have tried to unilaterally halt the three-year-old talks, broadly supported by the Colombian people.

The Colombian Communist Party called the resumption of talks “a victory for good sense, dialogue and civility,” and commended the many people’s organizations “who daily defended peace with their declarations, actions, marches and vigils.” They warned that it is necessary to be vigilant because the enemies of peace will seek pretexts to destroy the talks, and called on the negotiators to work for “real, significant changes” in the official government policies that have mired millions of Colombians in misery and inhuman living conditions.

Here at home, support for the Colombian peace process can start with vigorous opposition to Plan Colombia.

Charlotte Gray

Sat, 12 Jan 2002 09:55:00 +0000

Charlotte Gray, directed by Gillian Armstrong, is faithful to Sabastian Faulks’ prize-winning book on which it’s based. It sharpens the roles of the key players in the German occupation of France during World War II.

The book described the Vichy government collaboration with the occupying Nazi army.

A central figure in the book and film is Julian, the lead anti-Nazi fighter and a Communist. His key role in the resistance struggle in this small southern French town is something rarely acknowledged in WW II movies.

Faulks’ historical novel described the hateful and backward role of collaboration and the movie succeeds in dramatically driving the point home.

Cate Blanchett turns in an excellent performance. In fact, it’s been reported that Faulk’s wrote the book with her in mind. Billy Crudup (Almost Famous) is equally fine as Julian.

This is a must movie for its entertainment value, but also for its historical value.

– Eric Green

Letters

Sat, 12 Jan 2002 08:22:00 +0000

Mayor’s race begins to boil

African American civil rights leaders presented a list of demands for the mayoral candidates in the Jan. 19 election.

Lee Alcorn and Rev. L. Charles Stovall gathered a group of reporters at City Hall to present the list developed by a large number of civil rights organizations and individuals.

The list called for strengthening the Living Wage ordinance and assistance in economic development for African Americans. They demanded that municipal authorities take a hand to end domination of drug interests in parts of the city.

The coalition of African American organizations and citizens did not make an endorsement in the mayor’s race, but the spokespersons said that candidates Domingo Garcia and Laura Miller had signed on with “very little disagreement.”

Insurance executive Tom Dunning had refused to sign and said that it was “offensive” that he had been asked.

The civil rights group demanded that the mayoral race stop being a “popularity contest” and take on real issues.

A readerSeattle WA

Movement for peace and jobs

Readers of the People’s Weekly World in South Chicago are among the leaders of a community peace campaign here.

On Oct. 24, an initial discussion was organized at the local library entitled “Is War the Answer? Will bombs stop terrorism; will bombs stop the coming depression?”

The room was packed with community activists including steelworkers, clergy and church leaders. A committee followed up with meetings at the local Steelworkers Union Hall and circulated a peace-and-jobs petition.

A committee of seven, mostly trade unionists, presented hundreds of signatures at a meeting with Rep. Jesse Jackson Jr. Dec. 17.

The petition called for bringing those responsible for the Sept. 11 attacks to justice before an international court; an end to the bombing of Afghanistan; stop the billion-dollar giveaways to corporations; protect Social Security and create jobs by passing the Steel Revitalization Act (HR-808) and the Rebuild the Infrastructure Act (HR-1564).

Jackson said that his vote for the war in Afghanistan was limited to finding the perpetrators of Sept. 11. “It was not a vote for an open-ended war,” Jackson said.

Jackson is a co-sponsor of both economic bills. Moreover, he proposed a high-speed rail network, which he said would put steelworkers to work and provide new jobs.

The next meeting will be Jan. 14. For information, call (773) 370-7769.

Beatrice LumpkinChicago IL

Editorials

Sat, 12 Jan 2002 08:16:00 +0000

Silence is deadly

The Justice Department announced a new drive to round up 6,000 Middle Eastern men out of 300,000 people who have visa violations. This dragnet based on racial profiling is yet another step in the strangling of civil rights and liberties by the Bush administration in the name of fighting terrorism.

Wade Henderson of the Leadership Council on Civil Rights said, “A dragnet approach to law enforcement – rounding up men based on national origin rather than suspicious behavior or credible evidence – is highly questionable.”

The first sweep right after Sept. 11 resulted in the detention of over 1,000 people, held without due process, legal representation or public scrutiny. Most were of Middle Eastern origin and hundreds are still being held.

The Constitution and the Bill of Rights guarantee the rights of all who live in the United States, whether citizen or immigrant. Public safety must be ensured, but not by hammering away at the cornerstones of democracy.

With these actions, the administration is creating an anti-immigrant atmosphere, targeting Arab people today, perhaps Latino people tomorrow and so on. Pastor Niemoller’s famous quote seems appropriate, “First they came for the communists, but I didn’t speak up …”

The fight for democracy is moving many to take a stand. Some 300 civil rights lawyers signed a statement calling for the defense of due process. The AFL-CIO called for a stepped-up struggle against racial profiling and for the protection of civil liberties. Elected officials, like Rep. John Conyers (D-Mich.) and Sen. Russell Feingold (D-Wisc.), are actively resisting the right wing’s war on civil liberties. Some police departments have refused to cooperate with the Justice Department dragnets.

While the Bush administration tries to drive wedges between people based on race and nationality, between immigrants and citizens, all organizations and public officials have to speak out against these divisive and unconstitutional policies.

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Time for a change

We’ve always supported a single-payer national health insurance system, a position premised on two fundamental propositions: First, that access to comprehensive health care is a human right and it is the responsibility of society, through its government, to assure this right; and second, that pursuit of corporate profit and personal fortune have no place in care-giving.

But something new is happening. More people are ready to consider this option. Most recently The Des Moines Register endorsed a single-payer system. Maybe this is fueled by the stark reality.

The U.S. trails most of the developed world in infant mortality and life expectancy unable to assure such basics as prenatal care and immunizations; more than 38 million people between the ages of 19 and 64 have no health insurance and millions more are underinsured; HMOs and insurance companies spend 13.6 percent of premiums for overhead compared to 3 percent in the Medicare program.

A universal health-care system would free workers and their families from the fear of losing health care when they lose their jobs. And that fear is real and growing: 750,000 laid-off workers have lost their health coverage since the recession began and thousands of retired workers – among them 600,000 steelworkers – face the loss of health insurance. HMOs, have raised Medicare costs by billions and drug firms, which have secured the highest profits and lowest taxes of any industry, price drugs out of reach of those who need them most.

Only a single, comprehensive program, covering rich and poor alike, can help end disparities based on race, class and region that compromise the health care of everyone living in the United States.

We agree with The Des Moines Register: “The current health-care hodgepodge in this country is a failure.” It’s time for a change.

Poll: UT staff unhappy

Sat, 12 Jan 2002 08:12:00 +0000

KNOXVILLE, Tenn. – The results are in from a survey distributed at the University of Tennessee (UT) here by the United Campus Workers throughout the fall semester of 2001. The survey set out find out the most important issues facing the hourly UT employee.

The union received close to 300 responses (out of an hourly work force of about 2,000) from departments across campus and plans to use this information to strengthen the campaign for a living wage at UT.

The results showed that 80 percent reported that they make less than a living wage. This follows the Dec. 10 UT Board of Trustees vote to split unequally the funds from the recent tuition increase, giving 3.5 percent to faculty and only 1.5 percent to staff. This vote was in spite of a resolution passed by the Faculty Senate calling for equal raises for faculty and staff.

The results of the survey also showed that 42 percent feel that they rarely or never get a fair response to a grievance or complaint and 21 percent report some form of discrimination.

The United Campus Workers expressed their feeling that that these results are a disgrace and that UT should immediately provide every employee with an hourly wage that will adequately provide for health insurance, food for the family and a decent living.