People Before Profit blog

White House to control health alerts

Fri, 30 Jan 2004 09:13:00 +0000

How and what Americans are told about public health emergencies would be controlled by the White House, not by the agencies with the medical or scientific expertise to handle these crises, under a new plan proposed by the Office of Management and Budget (OMB).

Under OMB’s “Proposed Bulletin on Peer Review and Information Quality,” which could take effect as early as several months from now, environmental and health studies conducted for or used by the federal government would require White House approval before their release. The plan would also give the White House authority to select which scientists take part in the system known as peer review – the process by which fellow researchers evaluate the validity and reliability of studies before they are published.

The proposal would strip authority from federal health, safety and environmental agencies and give the White House final say over how the public is told about such emergencies as nuclear power plant accidents, outbreaks of mad cow disease or drugs that are found to be harmful.

Critics fear such a move would delay the release of critical public information and politicize the way it is presented. In comments submitted to the OMB, Dr. Jordan Cohen, president of the Association of American Medical Colleges, and Robert Wells, president of the Federation of American Societies for Experimental Biology, described several recent public health emergencies where delays in releasing information could have endangered the public. Among those examples were the emergency termination of a clinical drug trial that showed the drug was dangerous, and the announcement that hormone-replacement therapy was more harmful than beneficial to many post-menopausal women.

Critics also fear the plan would undermine the impartiality of research that guides government policies and regulations. For example, it would open the door for the administration to hand-select industry-friendly scientists to review studies that investigate the safety of chemicals in our food and consumer products, or studies that examine the environmental impact of energy plant emissions. The White House has frequently expressed its commitment to easing regulations for American industries.

In a Jan. 9 letter to the OMB, 20 former top federal agency officials, from both Democratic and Republican administrations, urged the White House to drop its proposal. The letter – signed by former EPA Administrators Carol Browner and Russell Train; former Secretary of Labor Robert Reich; former Assistant Secretaries for Occupational Safety and Health Eula Bingham and Gerard Scannell; and others – warned that the proposal, “in its current form, could damage the federal system for protecting public health and the environment.”

Currently, each federal agency controls peer review of its own projects. The government’s rules to ensure research quality are already less stringent than those used by leading biomedical journals. For example, these journals require authors to disclose who paid for the research; and the journals will only publish studies done under contracts in which the investigators have the right to publish regardless of the results. Federal agencies do not have these requirements, nor do they consistently attempt to find out who paid for the studies.

Far from ensuring the validity of the peer review process, the plan’s critics assert that allowing the White House to control it would only add a layer of politics to what should be a purely scientific process.

Reprinted with permission from http://www.bushgreenwatch.org.

Immigrant rights battle moves to Congress

Fri, 30 Jan 2004 08:40:00 +0000

CHICAGO – Debate swirls among immigrant communities in the United States about how to respond to President Bush’s recent announcement of a plan to deal with undocumented immigration. The Bush plan is viewed as a mechanism for assuring U.S. employers a steady supply of cheap labor, but which does nothing to protect immigrant workers from exploitation or to help them acquire full legal status.

At a well-attended church hall rally in the Mexican-majority Pilsen neighborhood on Jan. 19, speakers from SEIU, MALDEF, Pueblo Sin Fronteras, the Illinois Coalition for Immigrant and Refugee Rights and the general immigrant public denounced the limitations and drawbacks of the Bush plan.

Rep. Luis Gutierrez (D-Ill.) announced that he will push in this session of Congress legislation calling for a complete legalization program for immigrants (last year he introduced such a bill, HR 440, which is still on the House calendar). At the same time, Senators Tom Daschle (D-S.D.) and Chuck Hagel (R-Neb.) have announced that they will put in a similar bill in the Senate. Both the Gutierrez bill and the Daschle-Hagel proposal would allow legalization and a path to citizenship for undocumented immigrants who have been in the United States for five years, have worked and paid taxes, and are of “good moral character.”

The anti-immigrant campaign is still in full swing, however. A Mexican immigrant was arrested last week in Chicago and processed for deportation, after being detained by police for taking a “tourist photograph” of the city’s tallest building, the Sears Tower. Thousands of post cards and pictures of the Sears Tower, viewed from every angle, are available in every shop in downtown Chicago. Mexican American community groups and immigrants’ rights organizations are protesting the incident and others like it.

Another piece of immigrant-related legislation has gathered considerable support from right-wingers in Congress. This is the CLEAR (Clear Law Enforcement for Criminal Alien Removal) Act, HR 2671, which already has 112 cosponsors, mostly Republicans from southern states. If this act is passed, it will oblige state and local police to act as immigration enforcement agents, on pain of loss of some of their federal funding if they refuse. Police officers who stop and investigate people “on suspicion” of being undocumented will be protected from resulting civil rights suits, and their budgets will be enhanced by the proceeds of fines and property seizures. Immigrants’ rights advocates warn that under this act, every incompetent, corrupt or racist small town policeman will be given the right to harass anyone who looks or sounds foreign.

Furthermore, right-wing anti-immigrant forces in and out of Congress are working to present a bill that would require hospitals to check the immigration status of all patients, and to report undocumented patients to the U.S. Bureau of Immigration and Citizenship Services for arrest and possible deportation within two hours of seeing them. This bill, which does not have a name or number yet, is to be introduced by Rep. Dana Rohrbacher (R-Calif.). The bill would endanger the health of immigrants (who might defer early treatment for disease rather than expose themselves to deportation) and of the general public, as well as forcing medical personnel to either endanger their institutions’ funding or violate their professional oaths.

The author can be reached at pww@pww.org.

Crafty election economicsCraftyelectioneconomics

Fri, 30 Jan 2004 08:22:00 +0000

The presidential election season always brings a renewed interest in the economy. Every administration has two economic policies: one reflecting the economic philosophy of that administration and the second calculated to bring on the appearance of economic growth and prosperity just prior to the election. Twelve months or more before a presidential election, the incumbent economic gurus craft policies designed to convince the American people that everything is wonderful, or at least, promising. Often they do this knowing that these policies will create enormous problems after the election. But you only get one chance for re-election.

The capitalist media does everything they can to shape the perception of economic health. It is not worker income, equality, social security, life expectancy, and lower infant mortality that define economic prosperity for the opinion makers, but the growth rate of domestic product, productivity gains, and improving equity markets. In other words, the media ignore indicators that would truly reflect the well-being of working people, only keeping score on the well-being of corporate interests.

So, we are well into the presidential election campaign and the quarterly Gross Domestic Product growth rate appears to be on steroids, the Dow Jones Stock Market Average has again passed the magic number of 10,000, corporate America continues to herald the growth in productivity, and inflation appears nowhere in sight.

But before we celebrate this economic miracle, we should look carefully at what it means and how it was achieved. We will find that this vaunted “recovery” is, in fact, built upon a house of cards – dealt from a marked deck.

Most of the acclaimed growth in the last half of 2003 has been achieved with a massive shift in tax burden from the rich to the poor and enormous increases in government spending feeding a wasteful and insatiable war machine.

The administration has also sought to strong-arm its trading partners by allowing the dollar to lose value. The idea is to make U.S. exports more attractive overseas and foreign imports more costly in the domestic market. While this policy flaunts the “fair trade” mantra that free marketers worship, it is seen as another way to juice up the economy by spurring demand for U.S. goods and services.

But there is a hidden cost to this strategy. The huge deficit created by shrunken tax revenues and enormous spending must be financed: the government must issue notes to cover this spending.

But with low interests rates and a declining dollar, it is increasingly difficult to find investors interested in acquiring these notes. In October foreign investors made net purchases of only $27.7 billion in U.S. securities compared with $49.9 billion in August. September’s $4.19 billion was the lowest net foreign investment in five years.

This lack of demand for government-issued notes will create enormous pressure on interest rates. At some point, the government will need to offer better returns, higher rates to attract lenders. Chances are good, however, that the Federal Reserve will dutifully hold this off until the election. But when interest rates do climb, they may release the hounds of inflation and will certainly dampen growth, exposing the weakness and artificiality of the pre-election “recovery.”

Recognizing these dangers, the International Monetary Fund raised the flag of alarm on Dec. 7 out of fear that U.S. policies will hurt the global economy. Nonetheless, the Wall Street Journal acknowledges that the administration will ignore these dangers because these policies “prop up [the] economy in an election year.”

If the administration is successful in maintaining the appearance of a strong, recovering economy through the pre-election period, the simplistic slogan, “It’s the economy, Stupid,” will not work. Nor will it help to scold the administration about balanced budgets.

Instead, the opposition should embrace class-based economics by pointing to the widening income and wealth gaps between the rich and the poor. They should expose the loss of good-paying jobs and the availability of only low-paying jobs. Likewise, the corporate robbing of pension plans and the crisis of health care for millions shows the inherent weaknesses of the economy. The growing economic disadvantages of African Americans, other minorities, and women remain a national disgrace and a mark of a failed economic system. Attention to the economic needs of the vast majority of working people can spur millions to vote.

The author can be reached at pww@pww.org.

Dr. King Day observed across the nation

Fri, 30 Jan 2004 04:57:00 +0000

Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s birthday is a national holiday for everyone, except most workers working for major corporations. The mail carrier is off, but Wal-Mart is open.

While corporations view the third Monday in January as just another day to pile up profits, millions of working Americans – Black, white and Brown – take to the streets and churches to demand peace and racial and economic equality. Americans demonstrate a humane vision of America that stands in sharp contrast to the actions and plans of Bush’s corporate America.

In every state, in communities large and small, Americans celebrated Dr. King’s holiday, Jan. 19. Below is just a taste of the “Dream” as the U.S. people see it.

LOS ANGELES – Martin Luther King Boulevard was jammed with 100,000 people for the 19th annual Kingdom Day Parade. Floats, bands and organizations from every neighborhood of the country’s most diverse city filled the streets celebrating their culture and honoring the murdered civil rights leader. Mayor James Hahn led elected officials from every level of government in the march under the banner, “Living the Challenge of King’s Dream,” which took four hours to make its way through South Los Angeles.

DENVER – This city’s first African American mayor, Wellington Webb, and his wife Wilma established the “marade,” a combination of march and parade, and thousands marched to the Civic Center where the King commemoration was broadcast live.

The theme was inclusiveness in power.

FORT COLLINS, Colo. – Three thousand cheered a fiery speech by Rev. David Williams who called on the audience to remember that Dr. King was a dissident, an antiwar protester during the Vietnam War. “Rev. King made America better by disagreeing with it when it was profoundly wrong,” roared Rev. Williams.

MICHIGAN – From Clinton Township to Lansing to Ann Arbor to Saginaw to Detroit, Michigan residents by the hundreds and the thousands cheered Democratic Gov. Jennifer Granholm and the University of Michigan for defense of affirmative action in higher education and demanded that democratic gains be protected and expanded.

Constance Slaughter-Harvey, the first Black woman to graduate the University of Mississippi Law School, addressed students, residents and faculty at Michigan State University in East Lansing.

Barbara Seldon, 60, participated in the Southfield Peace Walk near Detroit. “We march if for no other reason than to not forget history, so it won’t repeat itself,” she said in the arctic cold. “We’ve come so far as a people, but every day we struggle to make sure we keep our rights. There are those in our society who judge by color, so we’re here to keep King’s dream alive – to continue his work.”

SAN ANTONIO – An estimated 60,000 people participated in this city’s Martin Luther King Day March, once again among the largest in the nation.

Anti-Bush and antiwar sentiments were palpable among marchers. A petition was being circulated to propose passage of a resolution by the City Council against the Patriot Act.

The march wound its way through the city’s East Side where San Antonio’s African American population is concentrated.

Present were contingents and representatives from groups such as the Esperanza Peace and Justice Center, Poets for Peace, the United Farm Workers Union, SEIU Local 1967, League of United Latin American Citizens Council 222, the Boeing Black Employees Association and the National Association of Public Employees (NAPE). NAPE was working to bring awareness to a lawsuit it has filed with the city, charging discrimination against Black municipal workers with regards to pay raises and job promotions.

When Rod Stryker of Poets for Peace was asked how he saw the role of poets in facilitating peace, he responded by stating that poets “don’t have a choice. We have to tell what we see. We have to reflect the human condition; it comes with the job.”

Traditional gospel hymns were sung sporadically throughout the 3.4-mile march, and a program took place afterward. Speakers included Congressmen Charlie Gonzalez and Ciro Rodriguez, both of whom praised Dr. Martin Luther King’s legacy of nonviolence and criticized the Bush administration’s domestic policies. The Rev. Claudette Copeland was the main speaker.

FLORIDA – Students at Florida A&M University walked out when Gov. Jeb Bush arrived to deliver the keynote address to the School of Business and Industry. In 1999, the president’s brother ended affirmative action in higher education. In a flyer, students said that the governor’s visit “disrespected” Dr. King and Black students.

In the Liberty City area of Miami, students took to the streets for several rallies to register voters, and artist Dinizula Gene Tinnie called on the hundreds attending an annual breakfast to speak out against the war in Iraq.

Through the streets of Liberty City, a parade heralding Black political, intellectual and cultural achievements met the cheers of thousands lining the streets.

BOSTON – The first woman bishop of the African Methodist Episcopal Church, the Rev. Vashti Murphy-McKenzie, said the nation should adjust its priorities.

“We can find billions of dollars to rebuild Iraq and Afghanistan and we cannot find the money to rebuild the infrastructure of the United States,” Murphy-McKenzie said.

ARIZONA – In the Tucson desert, the 4,000 marchers in the King Day parade carried their signs for peace, health care and supporting their candidates for the Democratic nomination for president, from the University of Arizona to Reid Park.

Clarence Boykins, parade organizer, called on African Americans to vote. “It’s what King fought for, lived for and died for,” he said. “When the time comes, we have to take part in the process.”

It was a cool day in Phoenix as hundreds marched from University Union to the du Bois Center, filling the ballroom. Crystal Warden of Flagstaff was inspired to see so many people of every race and nationality who shared Dr. King’s dream and took the time to participate.

ATLANTA – “We have to be concerned not just about us. We have to be concerned about all our brothers and sisters throughout our nation and world,” King’s son Martin Luther King III said in a service at Ebenezer Baptist Church, where his father preached until he was assassinated in 1968.

“How many Iraqi children have been killed? When will the war end? We all have to be concerned about terrorism, but you will never end terrorism by terrorizing others.”

King’s widow, Coretta Scott King, said, “Peaceful ends can only be reached through peaceful means.”

Atlanta Mayor Shirley Franklin brought forth a hearty standing ovation when she referred to a visit Bush made last week to King’s tomb. The visit was picketed by nearly 800 people who said the president should not have come because his policies are inconsistent with King’s principles of nonviolence.

Referring to the president, Franklin said, “Perhaps some prefer to honor the dreamer while ignoring or fighting the dream.”

But amid the criticisms, there was a tone of hope. Martin Luther King III told the audience that his father would have wanted people to work together for peace and justice even when they seem impossible to achieve.

“He had a policy of zero tolerance for despair and cynicism,” King said.

DALLAS – The city of Dallas sponsored their Martin Luther King Jr. march and parade on Jan. 17. This year, there were two labor contingents and three groups representing elements of the peace movement. Students from Paul Quinn college registered voters in the crowds, and civil liberties activists distributed leaflets calling for a City Council vote against the Patriot Act.

They made the point that Dr. King was the best-known victim of the government’s dirty tricks, and that the Patriot Act legalizes those same disgusting FBI practices.

– Compiled by Denise Winebrenner Edwards (dwinebr696@aol.com); San Antonio report written by Guadalupe Oyervidez Locandro; Dallas report by Jim Lane.

Death of homeless man spurs outrage

Fri, 30 Jan 2004 04:44:00 +0000

CHICAGO – Raymond Greenwald, a homeless man, froze to death here under a footbridge in River West Park on Jan. 18. His body was discovered by a group of 14-year-olds out playing in the snow.

About 35 community residents and children bearing candles gathered Jan. 24 by the bridge not far from the North Branch of the Chicago River in Greenwald’s memory and to express outrage that his death had occurred.

“This homeless man is a victim of misplaced federal priorities. President Bush wants to go to Mars, yet we have people hungry and homeless here,” declared Julie Peterson, a leader of Beyond Today, the neighborhood peace group that organized the vigil. “We have spent billions on war in Iraq when our cities and states are in fiscal crisis and cannot afford basic services.”

The costofwar.com web site estimates that $98 billion has already been spent on the Iraq war, which could have paid for construction of nearly 1 million new affordable housing units.

One of the youths who discovered the body, Brent Childers, 14, said Greenwald’s death was “not right. They are spending money on different things and not spending enough on the homeless.” Another said the city should be building shelters instead of more condos.

Julie Dworkin of the Chicago Coalition for the Homeless noted that Greenwald was not the only homeless person who had died this winter from the cold. Another man died during the same week when Chicago was hit by snow and subzero temperatures. He had been living in an abandoned car when his space heater caught fire. Altogether eight people have died from the winter cold here.

“The Bush administration cuts taxes to the rich while it cuts emergency homeless assistance at a time when the need is growing,” said Dworkin. “Mayor Daley and Gov. Blagojevich have all pledged to end homelessness and we must continue to struggle to make sure they fulfill their promises.”

Greenwald’s death came on the heels of the U.S. Conference of Mayors’ damning report, which showed hunger and homelessness on the rise despite claims by the Bush administration of an economic recovery. The annual Hunger and Homelessness survey noted that requests for emergency food assistance increased by an average of 17 percent over 2002, and emergency shelter assistance increased by 13 percent.

The survey also noted cities find the crisis overwhelming in the face of severe budget cuts, which limit their ability to provide emergency assistance. A record 84 percent of cities had to turn away people from homeless shelters because of lack of space. This was up 38 percent over 2002 and the largest turn-away in seven years. Sixty-one percent of people requesting emergency food assistance in the cities surveyed held jobs.

The report also revealed the crass indifference of the Bush administration when it comes to families and children. Fifty-nine percent of those requesting emergency food assistance were members of families with children.

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

Homeland Securitys faith-based initiative?

Fri, 30 Jan 2004 04:34:00 +0000

Is spying on clergy who support working people’s struggles a “faith-based initiative”? Homeland Security put its unique stamp on the president’s program when it sent undercover agents to spy on a gathering of clergy and religious activists in San Francisco last week. The gathering was one event building up to a religious “pilgrimage” organized by clergy throughout California in support of the 70,000 grocery workers on strike and locked out in that state.

Two agents of the Contra Costa County Sheriff’s newly organized Homeland Security Department were caught, out of their jurisdiction, spying on a rally of priests, ministers, rabbis and religious congregants and labor supporters. The agents, although in plain clothes, were spotted in the crowd by alert observers who recognized them as the same authorities who had visited a Contra Costa County labor union office the day before to ask questions about the pilgrimage. The agents initially refused to give their names and denied being law enforcement officers, according to California AFL-CIO Secretary Treasurer Art Pulaski. After persistent questioning, they finally admitted their role. “When did we clergy people, people of faith, become such a threat to national security?” Rev. Phil Lawson of Faith Works, one of the activities organizers, wanted to know.

The “Grocery Workers Justice Pilgrimage” began in Los Angeles Jan. 26 with a prayer service featuring two dozen Southern California clergy and 50 grocery store workers’ families who boarded buses headed for Northern California. There the pilgrimage culminated Jan. 28 in a final prayer service and procession toward the home of Safeway CEO Steve Burd in Contra Costa County. County sheriffs refused to allow any grocery workers to accompany the five-member delegation of clergy along the county road to the entrance to Burd’s gated community.

Burd, considered the driving force behind the grocery chains’ hard-line insistence on cutting workers health care is known as a conservative evangelical who is active in his church. “We will be making a special appeal to Mr. Burd to follow the conciliatory principles of his tradition and return to the bargaining table,” said Rev. Alexia Salvatierra, executive director of the Los Angeles-based Clergy and Laity United for Economic Justice, which organized the pilgrimage.

The Los Angeles Council of Religious Leaders, which represents Catholic, Orthodox, Protestant and Jewish faith communities with millions of members in Southern California, issued a statement Jan. 27 urging Burd to return to the negotiating table and encouraging congregants to observe the union’s picket lines.

While Burd’s religious connection did not appear to be influencing his stance on the issue of social justice, he was revealed to have another connection that might be more compelling. Burd is one of President Bush’s appointees to the Department of Homeland Security’s Private Sector Senior Advisory Committee. Could that connection have anything to do with the appearance of Homeland Security agents at religious gatherings and union offices and limitations on peaceful protest? Department of Homeland Security spokespersons did not return repeated calls for comment. Sheriff’s Department Public Information Officer Jimmy Lee told the World that the county’s Homeland Security Department has no connection to its federal namesake and its agents went to the San Francisco rally “for information” on the upcoming protest activity, not to spy.

The author can be reached at rwood@pww.org.

National Clips

Thu, 29 Jan 2004 12:24:00 +0000

SACRAMENTO, Calif.: Californians say ‘Tax the rich’

The California State Assembly is going where the money is to plug the gaping hole in the state’s budget. Polling in the state showed that 61 percent of residents favored increasing state taxes on the rich. With the release of the data, Assembly Majority Leader Wilma Chan (D-Oakland) introduced a bill, AB 1815, that would generate an estimated $3 billion to help keep medical centers open, books in kids’ hands and services for handicapped residents. The bill increases taxes only on the rich. Twenty-four legislators signed on immediately.

“It is only reasonable that the wealthiest Californians contribute their fair share,” said Chan.

If enacted, the bill would bump the tax rate for those whose income is more than $136,000, from 9.3 percent to 10 percent. Those whose income exceeds $272,000 would see taxes increased to 11 percent. Only 2 percent of Californians would be affected.

LOS ANGELES: City Council, judge oppose Patriot Act

In his State of the Union speech, Bush called for an extension of the Patriot Act. The next day, Los Angeles City Council voted, with only two members saying no, to formally oppose the sweeping federal law.

Resolution sponsor Councilwoman Jan Perry told reporters, “Our country was founded on an ideal of due process. … I believe the Patriot Act undermines these ideals. I do not believe that we are a city that believes police should enforce laws by taking into account someone’s ethnic background.”

Librarian Adele Wallace was thrilled with the council’s action. “I feel there is hope in this country for freedom of expression.”

Los Angeles joins 236 cities, towns and counties representing 34.5 million residents taking action to protect democratic rights and oppose the Patriot Act.

Within days of the City Council action, Federal District Judge Audrey B. Collins struck down a section of the Patriot Act. Judge Collins’ court serves the Los Angeles area and she is a Clinton appointee.

Collins was ruling on a 2003 case brought by five organizations and two individuals who tried to help Kurds in Turkey and Tamils in Sri Lanka. Her 36-page opinion in favor of the groups said that the section of the Patriot Act which bars “expert advice or assistance” was too vague.

“The ruling is significant in that it strikes the statute down as being in violation of the Fifth and Fourth Amendments, said David Cole, a Georgetown University law professor who argued the case on behalf of the Humanitarian Law Project.

COLUMBUS, Ga.: Trials begin for 27 School of the Americas activists

Fort Benning is a well-known training ground for thousands of U.S. soldiers. It is also the training center for right-wing terrorists from Central and South America. Its graduates in El Salvador were involved in the El Mozote massacre where 900 civilians were slaughtered, and the attempted 2002 coup in Venezuela, to name just a few alumni “activities.”

The foreign terrorist center operated by the U.S. military was once known as the School of the Americas. But under increased criticism and pressure from U.S. residents, Congress changed the name to Western Hemispheric Institute for Security Cooperation (WHISC).

In November, 10,000 gathered around Fort Benning demanding that WHISC be closed. During the peaceful demonstration, 27 people crossed onto federal property and were charged with trespassing. As the PWW went to press, 18 of the 27 were sentenced to prison terms ranging from three to six months, with several receiving $1,000 fines. Chicagoan Kathy Kelly of Voices in the Wilderness was given three months in prison.

Judge G. Mallon Faircloth is the presiding judge. A more complete story will appear in next week’s edition.

National Clips are compiled by Denise Winebrenner Edwards (dwinebr696@aol.com). Julia Lutsky contributed to this week’s clips.

Black youth killed by New York police

Thu, 29 Jan 2004 12:16:00 +0000

NEW YORK – A young African American couple was tragically torn apart as a bullet from a New York Police Department officer’s gun ended the life of 19-year-old Timothy Stansbury Jr.

Stansbury had been walking from one apartment to another across the roof of the Armstrong Houses, a housing complex in the Bedford-Stuyvesant neighborhood of Brooklyn, to get a CD for a birthday party when he was shot dead by NYPD housing officer Richard Neri on Jan. 24. According to reports, Stansbury was doing nothing wrong at the time. The given reason for the shooting was that Stansbury “startled” Neri when he was walking up the stairs.

Though Neri and his unidentified partner were on a routine patrol and not responding to a call about a dangerous situation, the officers, both of whom are white, already had their guns drawn when they came across Stansbury. Friends and family were shocked to hear the NYC Police Commissioner justify this, saying the city can’t “micromanage” police officers.

“You can’t fire your weapon without saying anything – halt, freeze, or stop,” said New York City Councilor Charles Barron. “The police commissioner has to be responsible for telling police officers it’s all right for them to be on the roof with their guns drawn when nobody called them to a dangerous situation.”

“That’s why we want officers that are living in our neighborhood,” Barron continued. “If they would have lived in the neighborhood, if they would have known New York City, if they knew our inner-city youth, they’d know that it’s common practice for young people to use the roof to cross to apartments on the other floors as opposed to going downstairs and coming back up. Now if you know that that’s a normal route that young people take, why would you tell your officers to have their guns ready, and drawn, when you go up on the roof?”

A neighborhood resident who did not want to be identified said, “When you have two white cops kill an unarmed Black civilian for walking to his apartment – how are you going to tell me that’s not racism?”

“We have to hold everybody accountable, from our public officials to our police department,” said Rev. Herbert Daughtry of the House of the Lord Church in Brooklyn. “If we bring everyone to be held accountable it will not happen again.”

NYC Police Commissioner Ray Kelley, responding to the shooting, admitted that it was unjustified. In response, the Patrolmen’s Benevolent Association accused Kelley of playing politics and tainting the investigation.

Councilor Barron, referring to previous instances of police violence, said, “Every time the police commissioner, in his preliminary investigation, said to the city that ‘this is a justified shooting,’ the PBA was happy. Now, with a preliminary investigation saying it was not justified, they’re screaming. … The DA’s office will determine whether there’s an indictment or not, not the PBA. And they should not protect officers when they’re doing wrong. They lose credibility like that.”

The shooting has provoked outrage across the city, from the City Council down. Dozens of people marched in front of the 79th precinct in Brooklyn on Jan. 25, demanding justice.

The District Attorney said that the case will go before a grand jury, which will consider charges against Neri. Barron suggested that the jury should have charges of murder, manslaughter, criminal negligent homicide, reckless endangerment, and depraved indifference put before them.

Aside from seeking justice, family members, friends, and community groups are also demanding that changes be made to stem the tide of police violence and racism. They urge the hiring of police from the community and more citizen control of the police force.

Stansbury left behind his family and his girlfriend, 18-year-old Patrice Hyppolite. The couple, who friends and family say loved each other very much, planned to marry when Stansbury turned 26.

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

Lawmaker threatens Dallas on Patriot Act

Thu, 29 Jan 2004 12:09:00 +0000

DALLAS – In an effort to intimidate the Dallas City Council to not go on record against the excesses of the USA Patriot Act, Rep. Pete Sessions (R-Texas) threatened the city’s ability to obtain Homeland Security funding.

On Jan. 14 the City Council voted unanimously for another delay to its vote on a resolution opposing the most reactionary parts of the Patriot Act. Attorney Chip Pitts, spokesperson for the Bill of Rights Defense Committee of Dallas, laid the blame for the council’s continuing hesitation explicitly on right-winger Sessions.

Pitts told reporters that Sessions had been given a special meeting with the council when it first began considering the petitions for a resolution. He said, “There is no question why they are delaying the vote. A lot of federal pressure has been brought to bear. An explicit threat was made by Rep. Pete Sessions. ... Pete Sessions and his ideological and partisan colleagues have threatened the city of Dallas that we won’t be able to get our own money for safety if we express our opinion on this vital public issue.”

Congress passed the Patriot Act right after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks without careful study of the over-300-page document. Civil liberties advocates warned at the time that the Patriot Act would severely curtail the Bill of Rights and the right to dissent.

To date, 235 cities and the National League of Cities, representing 18,000 cities and towns, have/ already passed similar resolutions. In addition, many in Congress who originally voted for law have since changed their position.

“Most of the country is overwhelmingly on record against these excesses and intrusions into our rights of privacy,” Pitts affirmed.

Responding to questions, Pitts named some of the worst abuses of the Patriot Act, which gives police agencies the legal power to:

• Secretly search your house

• Gather library and bookstore records.

• Arrest and hold people in indefinite detention.

Most recently a federal judge ruled that a portion of the Patriot Act is unconstitutional. This is the first court decision to declare a section of the post-Sept. 11 anti-terrorism law unconstitutional. The judge’s ruling said the law, as written, does not differentiate between impermissible advice on violence and the encouragement of peaceful, nonviolent means to achieve goals.

“The USA Patriot Act places no limitation on the type of expert advice and assistance which is prohibited and instead bans the provision of all expert advice and assistance regardless of its nature,” the judge said.

In his State of the Union speech George W. Bush urged Congress to renew key provisions of the act which are set to expire at the end of 2005. Civil liberties advocates said they expect the battle to really heat up next year. However, the placement of the issue in the State of the Union speech means Bush plans to use the “legal centerpiece” for his so-called war on terrorism in his re-election campaign. Opposition to widening government powers is widespread and includes part of Bush’s conservative base.

Rep. Sessions sits on the House Select Committee on Homeland Security. He was supposed to address Homeland Security funding when he weighed in on the city’s pending resolution, calling the officials “hypocritical” if they pass it.

But Mayor Pro Tem John Loza, who helped bring the resolution before the council, said the city must address concerns about civil liberties. The act “does affect the rights of the citizens of Dallas,” he said.

Pitts gave the example of Dallas resident Jana Zeeb, “whose husband was good enough to fly President Bush and has been held for almost a year.” He explained that Zeeb and her husband operated a flight instructor school near Dallas’ Love Field, but that he had been arrested “because he was a Muslim, an Algerian.” Pitts said, “He was good enough to fly President Bush then, but now he’s a terrorist? He has been arrested without any kind of justification. It’s time to either confront him with the charges, or let him go!”

Pitts said, “Powerful forces arrayed against us are not going to succeed in taking away the rights of all Dallas citizens.” The council has scheduled its vote for Feb. 25. “It’s time to take our country back and preserve the Bill of Rights,” Pitts concluded.

The author can be reached at flittle7@yahoo.com. Terrie Albano contributed to this article.

Iowa lucha contra Bush

Fri, 23 Jan 2004 10:42:00 +0000

DES MOINES, Iowa – Los 122.000 votantes demócratas de Iowa que desafiaron el frío la noche del 19 de enero para asistir a las reuniones del Partido Demócrata para escoger su candidato presidencial fue una muestra dramática de su resolución de derrocar a George W. Bush el próximo 2 de noviembre.

Cuatro precandidatos estaban parejos en el apoyo a sus campañas. Esto inspiró a gente salir y participar, especialmente los jóvenes y los que nunca había participado en el proceso. Iglesias, bibliotecas, y escuelas públicas estaban llenas con muchos que aplaudieron los discursos contra la guerra en Irak, los recortes en servicios vitales en el país, y la falta de seguro médico.

Los resultados fueron asombrosos cuando el senador John Kerry de Massachusetts ganó 38 por ciento del voto y el senador por Carolina del Norte John Edwards tomando un 32 por ciento. El ex gobernador de Vermont, el doctor Howard Dean que estaba en primer lugar en las encuestas, salió tercero con 18 por ciento. El congresista Dick Gephardt, otro que se pensaba estaría en los primeros, sacó solo 11 por ciento, y dejó la campaña y hizo un llamado a sus partidarios que se unan tras el ganador demócrata para derrocar a George W. Bush. El congresista Dennis Kucinich ganó solo un por ciento. Pero ganó varios delegados a las convenciones de condado cuando sus seguidores se unieron a la campaña de Edwards. La reglas de Iowa permite esto cuando un candidato tiene menos de 15 por ciento.

Robert Bell, presidente del Partido Demócrata del condado Madison, dijo, mirando al salón de la Biblioteca Pública de St Charles, a unas 35 millas al sur de Des Moines, dijo, “Han salido más gente que en hace tiempo”. No había donde sentarse de tanta gente que salieron a participar en el proceso. Bell, un ranchero de grano, le pidió a los participantes que apoyen a Gephardt, quien él considera ha trabajado en apoyo a los agricultores y trabajadores.

Gil Dawes, un ministro de la iglesia Metodista Unidos, abogó por Kucinich, diciendo que el congresista “habló honestamente contra la guerra ... contra los recortes de impuestos que fueron para los ricos y el Pentágono, dejándonos debiendo. Es tiempo que pongamos la cuestión de Irak en las manos de la ONU ...” Los participantes aplaudieron calurosamente. Encuestas hecha al salir la gente de las reuniones indican que 70 por ciento se oponen a la guerra.

Kelly Harlow, una organizadora para Edwards dijo, “Todos sabemos que tenemos que sacar a George W. Bush de la Casa Blanca ... Edwards es el que puede ganarle a Bush”.

El farmacéutico Barry Hitt alabó a Dean. “Él se opuso a la guerra en Irak desde el principio. A él lo atacan porque él preocupa a la gente de Bush. Ellos saben que él conoce donde Bush está débil. Él lo puede derrocar”.

La reunión después se separó en grupos y fue claro que Edwards era el ganador con Kerry segundo. Kucinich, Dean y Gephardt todos estaban bajo el 15 por ciento necesario para “viabilidad”. En la segunda ronda, casi todos se unieron al grupo de Edwards. Al fin y al cabo, Edwards recibió 67 votos, una mayoría de las 109 personas en la reunión.

Similarmente, 310 personas llenaron la Iglesia Congregacional Plymouth en Des Moines para la reunión del precinto 73. Jessica Ireland, una organizadora de la Red de Paz de Iowa, era la líder del grupo de 19 pro Kucinich. Kerry fue apoyado por 122, mientras que Edwards contaba con 97, y Dean con 66. En la segunda ronda Ireland convenció a 12 de los de Kucinich unirse al grupo de Edwards. Ireland fue electa como delegada al condado.

En la sede de la campaña de Kerry, Chuch Shelabarger, capitán del precinto 88 estaba contento con la ganancia de su candidato. “Yo siempre pensé que John tenía el mejor mensaje y la mejor probabilidad de derrocar a Bush”, él dijo. Él notó que Kerry era un condecorado de la guerra en Vietnam y que fundó los Veteranos de Vietnam Contra la Guerra, contrario a los que nunca pelearon en guerras y quieren hacer guerra como Bush.

“Kerry sirvió con valentía en Vietnam y después cuando regresó con aun más valor habló contra la guerra”, dijo Shelabarger. “¿Como le decimos a la madre del último hombre que muera en Irak que su hijo murió por un error? La mejor respuesta es regrésenlos. Yo estoy preparado a respaldar a quien sea el candidato demócrata. No podemos soportar cuatro años más de la agenda radical de George W. Bush. Como veterano que soy, no me gusta que nuestro soldados mueran allá, en una guerra que se podía evitar”.

La multitud sobrellenó la sede del Local 310 del Sindicatos de Obreros Siderúrgicos Unidos en una manifestación en favor de Gephardt el 18 de enero. John Campbell estaba prendido. Cuando se le preguntó que haría si otro es el candidato demócrata para la presidencia, él dijo, “George Bush no se puede quedar en la Casa Blanca. Como un afronorteamericano, como sindicalistas, y como ser humano, yo no puedo tolerar cuatro años más de Bush. Yo sé lo que es estar hambriento, ser pobre, y estar en una lucha dura. Uno no se rinde hasta el fin. Tenemos que unirnos con quien sea que esté postulando contra Bush”.

Worker safety an issue for 2004 elections

Fri, 23 Jan 2004 07:55:00 +0000

North Carolina senator and Democratic presidential aspirant John Edwards criticized the Bush administration for failing to protect U.S. workers and issued a comprehensive program to strengthen the Occcupational Saftey and Health Administration (OSHA) on Dec. 31.

Edwards was responding to a three-part, front page New York Times investigative report that exposed the highly hazardous and death-threatening workplace conditions workers are facing. (“A Trench Caves In, a Young Worker Is Dead. Is It a Crime?” by David Barstow, Dec. 19-22, 2003.) The Edwards campaign made specific mention of the Times article, which documented OSHA’s failure to seek criminal prosecution in 93 percent of the 1,242 cases of willful safety violations that resulted in the death of a worker.

Vowing to create a “culture of enforcement” by appointing a head of OSHA who is “a workers’ advocate,” Edwards’ program called for the following:

• Requiring OSHA to refer all cases of willful safety violations to the Department of Justice for possible criminal prosecution.

• Increasing criminal penalties for worker deaths from six months in jail to 10 years.

• Requiring OSHA to notify workers and their unions of the progress of investigations and giving them the opportunity to comment on proposed settlements.

• Instituting ergonomics rules and regulating reactive chemicals.

The prosecution of bosses who willfully expose workers to dangers that seriously harm or kill workers has been an issue for decades, ever since the OSHA law was enacted in 1970. In the hundreds of cases where workers died due to willful violations, everyone – senior managers and corporate owners – should have been tried for murder and, if found guilty, sentenced to major prison time for their offenses. But none of them were.

‘Willful Violation’

The law gives broad enforcement power to OSHA inspectors to deal with employers who are in “willful violation” of OSHA rules and regulations. A willful violation means an employer was aware of hazardous conditions and intentionally didn’t change them. Inspectors have the ability to impose very large fines on employers if they cite for a willful violation. Another option for the OSHA inspector is the “repeat violation” if the violation is the same as previously cited but at a different location. Finally, there is an “imminent danger” violation where a certain death or serious injury might occur, and work must stop immediately.

The Chamber of Commerce and the National Association of Manufacturers, the two key trade associations that fight against every OSHA rule and enforcement activity, opposed all of these serious citations, but came out most strongly against the “willful” designation.

Reagan/Bush

In the first 10 years after the enactment of OSHA, labor and its allies took the lead in establishing aggressive methods of applying its rules. When Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush took over the White House, the whole OSHA system was turned on its head. During those 12 years, the establishment of new OSHA standards and enforcement powers were sharply abridged. Unfortunately, the eight years of the Clinton administration did not return to OSHA the powers it had during its first 10 years.. The political contributions from employers to powerful Democrats and Republicans during OSHA’s 30 years of existence have blunted efforts to have OSHA fulfill its congressional mandates.

An issue in 2004 elections? You bet!

That takes us to this year’s elections.

It is real working-class issues like these that will bring workers and their families to the polls to vote their own self-interests. If this happens in the mass way that is possible, Bush and his anti-worker, anti-community bunch will be out the door.

The author can be reached at pww@pww.org.

Protest dismantling of home health care

Fri, 23 Jan 2004 07:50:00 +0000

SACRAMENTO, Calif. – More than 1,000 home health care providers and recipients gathered Jan. 13 outside the State Capitol to answer the call to battle against Gov. Arnold Schwartzenegger and the vicious cuts he proposes as a part of solving California’s budget problems. The protest was organized by SEIU Local 250 and the AFSCME home care workers department.

Speakers called on home care workers, clients and their families, and the concerned public to join demonstrations at the Capitol, visit senators and Assembly members in their offices, phone and write letters to elected officials, and mobilize other supporters to protest the cuts.

The governor’s proposals to dismantle the home care industry are simple and brutal. None of the poor is spared – sick children, the disabled, seniors, those on welfare – and none of the rich is burdened, in keeping with the governor’s demand for no increase in taxes.

Schwartzenegger’s proposals include:

• Cut home care wages to $6.75 an hour and eliminate benefits. Until recently, home care wages were the minimum $5.25 an hour without benefits, until SEIU Local 250 won benefits and a raise to $9.50 an hour.

• Eliminate the residual program which covers parents taking care of disabled children as well as spouses caring for spouses.

• Eliminate the law creating an Employer of Record (the Public Authority). Without an entity with which to negotiate, the home care worker becomes an independent contractor at the mercy of cost-cutters.

• Eliminate the Advisory Committees of home care workers and their clients.

• Eliminate funding for a worker who lives with a family member or consumer who needs 24/7 care. These recipients would be forced into nursing homes at an annual cost of $40,000, instead of $9,000 a year for in-home care.

The author can be reached at pww@pww.org.

Watch out for this bill!

Fri, 23 Jan 2004 07:41:00 +0000

Workers’ Correspondence

I just got off the phone with a very nice young woman by the name of Gail, who handles legislation and lobbying for the national office of the AFL-CIO in Washington, D.C. I was looking for information about Senate Bill 1878, otherwise known as the “Social Security Solvency and Modernization Act of 2003,” sponsored by Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.). S. 1878 would privatize Social Security by setting up “personal retirement accounts” to compete with Social Security.

The Bill sets up a new authority, the “Personal Retirement Account Board” in opposition to the Social Security Commission. It allows for a person to have his FICA funds transferred totally out of the Old Age and Survivors Fund into the private sector and into an entity like Enron, Metlife, or the stock market (remember how much money was lost through these entities) and have them administer their account. In other words, money will be depleted from the Old Age and Survivors Insurance Trust Fund, i.e., there will not be enough left for beneficiaries now and in the future for those who do not participate.

Getting back to my phone conversations with Gail, the young woman from the AFL-CIO, I came away really scared. She told me that S. 1878 wasn’t the only bill the Republicans were introducing to privatize Social Security. She also told me that if Bush is re-elected, there will be an avalanche of bills, some with bipartisan support, backed by big money, to privatize Social Security.

If this bill makes it out of committee, tremendous pressure is going to have to be brought on your respective senators to vote it down. Reach your Senators at the Capitol Switchboard at 1-888-508-2974.

– Gary DeSantis Hamilton Township NJ

The politics of indices

Fri, 23 Jan 2004 07:31:00 +0000

Over three decades the policies of “free market fundamentalism” have so solidified our country’s class structure that inter-generational progress has become a thing of the past. This basic social fact has been obscured by the corporate media in its role as mythmaker. Rather than reporting on the actual conditions of working families, economic news is limited to update on the “markets,” which take the daily temperature of the DOW and NASDAQ, and quarterly reviews of the condition of the Gross Domestic Product (GDP).

There are other indices available that offer a more comprehensive accounting of the socio-economic health of the nation. But they are generally ignored because they are unflattering to capitalism. These indices document the widening gap over the past 30 years between a rising GDP and the declining social health of the people, revealing in the process how the benefits of economic growth are reserved for a few.

ISP documents declining social health

University of Pennsylvania Professor Richard Estes has measured the social progress of all the countries in the world since 1970. Drawing on UN and World Bank data, Estes constructs an Index of Social Progress (ISP) which takes account of 40 different factors, including years of schooling; immunization of children; infant mortality rates; military expenditures as a percent of GDP; unemployment rates; inequality; social security; workers compensation; family allowances; and unemployment insurance.

U.S. ‘social progress’ peaked 24 years ago

What Estes has documented is that “social progress” in the United States peaked in 1980, and that the wealthiest country in the world now ranks only 27th, on a par with Poland and Slovenia. Chronic poverty, Estes reports, is the greatest threat to social progress in the America, along with sluggish economic growth, increasing unemployment, deteriorating schools and inadequate health care. (See University of Pennsylvania School of Social Work web site for details.)

Professor Marc Miringoff, director of the Institute of Innovation in Social Policy at the Fordham University, has developed an “Index of Social Health,” which is constructed from 16 indicators that measure the social well-being of the United States. The factors that make up the “ISH” include adult unemployment; poverty among those aged 65 and over; access to affordable housing; child abuse; health insurance coverage; and average weekly wages. What Miringoff’s index reveals is that for the period 1970 to 2000, the “social health” of the U.S. declined 29 percent, while the GDP increased from a little over $1 trillion to almost $10 trillion.

Stock indexes rise with savage increase in rate of exploitation

The struggle over which index captures and hold the public’s imagination is critical. It determines whose class interests are served by the government’s socio-economic policies. As long as the DOW holds sway, the interests of the top one or two percent of the population will be served, with some “trickle-down” to the next 20 or so percent. This is guaranteed by the policies that have to be pursued if the stock indexes are to continue to rise. And what lights up the markets is a policy mix that includes the export of capital; tax cuts for the wealthy; the accelerated transfer of blue collar and white collar jobs overseas; massive military spending; limited revenue sharing; large budget deficits; and privatization of Social Security, Medicare and other critical government functions. It means a savage increase in the rate of exploitation, which translates into a plummeting index of social health. This is why the popularization of the ISH and ISP is so critical. They reveal the distortions of Wall Street Week in Review, Lou Dobbs and CNBC.

The author can be reached at pww@pww.org.

National Clips

Fri, 23 Jan 2004 06:41:00 +0000

CORPUS CHRISTI, Texas: Wal-Mart locks up workers

With 1.2 million workers in 3,500 stores, Wal-Mart has hit upon a trick to increase their profits which even its competitors condemn. The mega-store locks in workers overnight in about 10 percent of its stores. Workers re-stock shelves, clean and unload trucks. They are threatened with firing if they use the fire exits.

One night Michael Rodriguez’s ankle was crushed by an electronic cart. “I was yelling and running around like a hurt dog that had been hit by a car,” Rodriguez told the New York Times. It took an hour on the phones for his co-workers to find a manager with a key to open the door so that Rodriguez could go to the hospital. “You could be bleeding to death and they’ll have you locked in,” he said. “Being locked in in an emergency like that, that’s not right.”

The multinational corporation says locking the doors increases productivity, controls “shrinkage” (theft) and “protects employees in (so-called) high crime neighborhoods.”

Locked in workers have gone into labor, suffered heart attacks, had asthma attacks, and suffered serious job injuries.

SAN FRANCISCO: DaimlerChrysler charged with murder

Between 1997 and 1983 at the DaimlerChrysler Mercedes plant in Gonzalez-Catan, Argentina, the corporation directed security forces to kidnap, torture and murder 17 union leaders, charged a group of Human Rights activists who filed suit here Jan. 14.

Speaking on behalf of the group, Pittsburgh labor lawyer Daniel Kovalik said that an internal report commissioned by DaimlerChrysler documented cases in which company officials passed on the names, addresses and sometimes personnel files of workers to state security forces with what the authors of the report described as “fatal consequences.”

DaimlerChrysler joins multinational corporations Coca-Cola, Fresh Del Monte and Drummond Coal in court facing felony charges, including murder of union organizers.

EDMONDS, Wash.: Slick Chevron-Texaco

Just as 2003 drew to a close, Chevron-Texaco overfilled a barge at a fuel transfer station, dumping 4,800 gallons of oil into Puget Sound. The oil spread out over 105 square miles, landing at a protected marine estuary, a sacred land of the Suquamish Native American Indians.

Whales migrate through this area. Herring spawn here. Now the Suquamish clam beds are black and their fishing is destroyed. Crabs are black with muck. At least one seal has died and sea birds are endangered, their feathers thick with goo.

Environmentalists have called for tougher environmental protections around oil-transfer facilities.

TAMPA, Fla.: Patriot Act goes to court

University of South Florida professor Sami Al-Arian has been under secret surveillance by the FBI for nearly 10 years. When Congress enacted the Patriot Act in 2001, Al-Arian’s surveillance turned into an arrest. Charged with 50 counts of racketeering, Al-Arian goes to trial in 2005.

John Ashcroft’s Justice Department alleges that Al-Arian used his charity as a cover to raise money for the Palestinian Islamic Jihad.

Al-Arian’s defense attorney, William B. Moffitt, says that he will challenge every part of the complicated legislation. Calling the Patriot Act a product of a “frightened society” overreacting to the heinous acts of Sept. 11, Moffit said, “What we have done is precisely what the people who attacked on 9/11 hoped we would do.”

Al-Arian remains in jail.

WASHINGTON: Science panel calls for universal health care

In one of the most detailed, comprehensive and carefully researched studies, the National Academy of Sciences is adding its authoritative voice to the movement for universal health care.

The 16-member panel said, “The lack of health insurance for tens of millions of Americans has serious negative consequences and economic costs, not only for the uninsured themselves, but also for their families, the communities they live in and the whole country. The situation is dire and expected to worsen. The committee urges Congress and the administration to act immediately to eliminate this longstanding problem.”

Although the panel did not develop a health care plan, it set out five guiding principles. Health care should be universal; continuous, with workers not losing coverage when they change jobs; affordable to individuals and families; affordable and sustainable to society; and characterized by access to quality, effective, safe, timely, patient-centered with equitable treatment for all.

National Clips are compiled by Denise Winebrenner Edwards (dwinebr696@aol.com). Gabe Falsetta, Julia Lutsky and Phyllis Wetherby contributed to this week’s clips.

Texans battle for voting rights

Fri, 23 Jan 2004 06:33:00 +0000

When a Republican District Attorney in Waller County, Texas wrote a letter claiming that students at Prairie View A&M University, which has an almost totally African American student population, did not necessarily have the right to vote in the county, 5,000 students marched two and a half hours in wet weather to the courthouse. There they held a big political rally and voter registration celebration.

African American office holders and candidates all over the state publicly applauded the students.

The Dallas Chapter of the NAACP started a coalition to coordinate and increase voter registration. Union leaders, community groups, peace activists, and other civil rights organizations, including Latino and Muslim groups, quickly joined in.

There are other signs of fightback in Texas, too. On the same day that the U.S. Supreme Court rejected an emergency appeal to block a Republican-backed congressional redistricting plan for the November elections, all but one of the Texas Democrats who were redistricted right out of their congressional seats vowed to fight on despite all obstacles.

The Democrats had argued that the GOP-engineered redistricting plan violated the Voting Rights Act of 1965 by trying to dilute minority representation. The Supreme Court, however, has allowed the plan to go forward. Further Supreme Court action will not affect the November election.

Republicans rigged the districts so that can they expect to change the present 16-16 party split in the Texas congressional delegation to 22-10 in their favor. Some of the new districts are commonly referred to as “bacon strips” due to their long and narrow shapes. Republicans found such contorted shapes necessary in order to give the more politically conservative suburban areas hegemony over the cities where more workers and minority voters dwell.

Their task was made more difficult because there are actually more votes cast in Democratic primaries than in Republican primaries, because the Democrats in the legislature stubbornly fought redistricting by fleeing the state to prevent a quorum, and because thousands of ordinary Texans joined public protests.

Only two Democratic incumbents caved in: Jim Turner decided not to run, and “Renegade Ralph” Hall, who has voted with Bush all along, changed his outer clothing to the Republican Party.

Six others proudly and defiantly declared themselves in the running in new, heavily-rigged, Republican districts. Charles Stenholm, Max Sandlin, Ciro Rodriguez, Lloyd Doggett, Chet Edwards, and Martin Frost declared their campaigns right before the filing deadline.

Frost, the senior Democrat in the Texas delegation, waited until the last day to declare. He chose to face off against Pete Sessions of East Texas, whose new district includes the richest and most pro-Republican section of Dallas County. The Highland Park suburb, located within the city of Dallas, is home to the most extravagant mansions in Texas.

Residents of Highland Park include some of the most noted right-wingers in recent American history, such as the H.L. Hunt family of John Birch Society fame and Vice President Dick Cheney.

Almost immediately after the court’s decision, union campaign activists were already knocking on doors for Democratic candidates.

The author can be reached at http://tx.cpusa.org.

31 years after Roe v. Wade: New generation redefines pro-choice

Fri, 23 Jan 2004 06:10:00 +0000

With its Jan. 22, 1973, ruling that abortion could no longer be illegal, the Supreme Court ushered in a new era for the rights of women, children and families.

The decision came at a time when women’s lives were restricted in ways we might not be able to imagine today. For instance, young women playing high school basketball were only allowed to run half court and pregnant public school teachers generally had to take a forced leave or be fired.

Thirty-one years later, a generation of women who weren’t even alive for Roe v. Wade are fighting for reproductive rights, along with their older sisters and brothers. Everyone agrees that women are better able to make decisions about their own lives and childbearing than the government, yet, in responding to the 30-plus-year attack by anti-choice forces, this younger generation is helping to redefine the language and landscape as they go.

“Being pro-choice means the freedom to choose whether or not to have sex, getting access to sex education, and affordable health care,” Choice USA Executive Director Crystal Plati told the World in a phone interview.

Plati said the young people she and her staff meet are pro-choice when the definition is broadened. “Being pro-choice doesn’t mean you have to have an abortion. That is your decision – to have one or not to have one. Being pro-choice means you understand and support someone else’s decision to have an abortion.”

Plati, 30, said Roe v. Wade is a landmark decision to celebrate even though it didn’t guarantee “choice” forever or for everyone. “There has been a 30-year strategy to chip away at reproductive rights from the local, state and federal level by the anti-choice opposition,” she said. “We got started a little late, but we have to start somewhere organizing at the grassroots.”

According to Plati, this includes reaching out to women of color and low-income and young women, who have felt the brunt of this right-wing attack. It also means changing the language and redefining what being pro-choice means.

Reproductive rights look different to different people and communities, Plati said, and the pro-choice movement has to address these issues. For example, the Hyde Amendment prohibited Medicaid from covering abortion and that affects low-income women. Reproductive rights are part of a whole group of social justice issues, to which Choice USA and other women’s rights groups are making connections.

The National Organization for Women (NOW), one of six national groups organizing the April 25 March for Women’s Lives in Washington, D.C., has issued action alerts and statements protesting the Bush administration’s attack on a woman’s right to choose – from signing the so-called partial birth abortion law to the recent, secret installation of an ultra-right, ideological judge, Charles Pickering, to the federal courts – as well as other democratic and civil rights issues.

“Reproductive freedom is under attack like never before. George W. Bush and the right-wing-led Congress are literally signing away women’s reproductive rights,” NOW President Kim Gandy said in a recent press statement. “On this year’s Roe v. Wade anniversary, NOW activists will gather at the Supreme Court to tell the leaders of this country that we are prepared to protect our right to abortion, birth control and all reproductive health services, as well as our right to have children and plan our own families without government interference.”

Local groups are organizing buses to Washington for the April 25 demonstration. Choice USA is calling on young people to sign its Young People’s All-Access Pact and is organizing a young people’s contingent to the march.

For more information go to www.choiceusa.org or call (888) 784-4494.

The author can be reached at talbano@pww.org.

Americans respond to State of the Union:What about jobs?

Fri, 23 Jan 2004 06:01:00 +0000

George W. Bush delivered the 2004 State of the Union speech to Congress and the American people on Jan. 20, and afterwards many people asked: What Union and world was he talking about?

Giving the nation a preview of his re-election campaign themes, Bush spent the first half of his hour-long speech trumpeting his unsavory foreign policy, the so-called war on terror and on Iraq. In the remaining time he cheered his floundering domestic agenda – tax cuts for the rich, keeping private profits in health care, Homeland Security, the Patriot Act, education, privatizing Social Security, and pushing hot-button issues like same-sex marriage and faith-based initiatives. Trying to sound commanding, Bush came off to many as mean-spirited, arrogant, and hypocritical.

The World interviewed four leaders from Georgia, California, Washington, D.C., and Minnesota to get their reaction to the State of the Union.

Over 3 million jobs have been lost since Bush took office, and 226,000 jobs per month have to be created just to make a dent in the job loss. December’s employment report stated that only 1,000 new jobs were created.

“The only jobs added by [Bush’s] tax cuts have been for accountants,” Georgia AFL-CIO Secretary-Treasurer Charlie Key told the World. “Sen. Kerry (D-Mass.) said it well: Bush is living in a different world than average, everyday working people.”

“The assault on overtime pay by the administration opened a lot of people’s eyes,” Key said. The Labor Department sent out a memo to employers giving tips on how to stiff employees on their overtime pay. “They might as well merge the Commerce Department with the Labor Department,” he said.

Key said his wife, a lifelong union member, couldn’t believe it when the president called for “free trade unions” in Iraq. “The only free trade unions Bush believes in are the ones that can’t charge dues,” he said.

Key also criticized the president’s insincere support for the troops in Iraq. “Half our membership supports the war, half didn’t support the war, but everyone supports the troops,” Key said. “They are working men and women, too. They have been treated absolutely despicable. The president didn’t say anything about taking care of them when they get home.”

Noticeably missing from the president’s address were the words veterans, poverty, unemployment, racism, peace, environment, Osama bin Laden, Mars and state budget crises.

In 2003, states faced their worst budget deficits since World War II. The people of California, a state facing a $26 billion deficit, are facing severe cuts to education and social services.

Rep. Loretta Sanchez (D-Calif.), who represents Orange County in Southern California, said there is a “structural” failure to the Bush economic plan, which projects a huge deficit for the next 10 years.

Sanchez said states and local communities are stretched too thin trying to keep emergency services, firefighters, and police functioning. “The administration is not even giving money to Homeland Security and first-responders,” she said.

Sanchez supports steps to strengthen national security but said, “Homeland Security resources should flow to stopping those who want to hurt us – not stopping workers picking fruit or cutting lawns – they don’t want to hurt us.”

Sanchez was critical of the administration’s immigration plan because it did not give any path to permanent residency or citizenship to those 8-10 million people already in the country.

“Bush didn’t go into how this country is going to absorb the 10,000 wounded soldiers at a time when he is cutting veteran’s benefits. That was a big omission,” she said.

The gap between word and deed was a theme for Rev. Graylan Hagler, president of Ministers for Racial, Social and Economic Justice and senior minister of Plymouth Congregational United Church of Christ in northeast D.C.

Hagler spearheaded a religious response to Bush’s State of the Union speech by organizing 50 congregations in Maryland, D.C., Pennsylvania, Ohio, Illinois, Texas, Colorado and California to come together in their houses of worship and “examine [it] theologically and morally.”

Hagler said Muslim, Jewish and Christian people of faith came together at Plymouth. “We all felt that his speech seriously missed the scriptural imperative for justice. Scriptures tells us that war is evil and not an adequate response to violence.”

Bush helps “the wealthiest of those and not the least of those,” Hagler said. “Faith doesn’t mean what we say, it means what we do. This administration has not been about the empowerment of the poor and disenfranchised.”

Bush’s marriage and faith-based initiatives only serve to promote division, Hagler said. “Tax dollars flow to those religious institutions that are homophobic, or promote racial and sexual bias,” he said.

The agenda Bush laid out in his State of the Union speech went over like a “lead balloon,” said Minnesota AFL-CIO’s Communication Director Diane O’Brien. “It was neither truthful nor sincere. This administration has a massive disrespect for the people who do the work in this country,” she said.

The author can be reached at talbano@pww.org.

Who is counting your vote? Diebold & Bush vs. the public interest

Fri, 16 Jan 2004 08:38:00 +0000

Who is counting your vote? Now is the time, before November 2004, to ask that and a few other questions.

Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., whose birthday we celebrate Jan. 19, was a courageous fighter for voting rights. He wrote an op-ed piece in the New York Times, Sept. 14, 1965, as Congress was debating the Voting Rights Act of 1965.

“In Selma, Alabama, thousands of Negroes are courageously providing dramatic witness to the evil forces that bar our way to the all important ballot box,” King wrote.

Those same “evil forces” are alive and well today, although they have found more efficient methods than poll taxes and phony literacy tests to disenfranchise voters.

Computerized voting seems to be a good thing at first glance. It is easier, right? Easy or not, computer technologists and voting-rights advocates are now sounding the alarm: Just who owns the machines? Can they be programmed to help the right wing continue their vote stealing racket so vividly displayed in the stolen 2000 presidential election?

An Aug. 28, 2003, Cleveland Plain Dealer article quoted Walden O’Dell who said he is “committed to helping Ohio deliver its electoral votes to [George W. Bush] in 2004.” O’Dell is the chairman of the board of Diebold Election Systems, the second largest company in the U.S. that counts votes … our votes. O’Dell is also a member of the Rangers and the Pioneers, those who have contributed the most money to the Bush campaign.

On occasion, O’Dell hangs out at the Bush ranch in Crawford, Texas. He hosted a $600,000 fundraiser for the Bush-Cheney campaign in Ohio in which Cheney was the featured speaker. Questions began to swirl about Diebold’s vote-counting machines soon after they began securing lucrative contracts under George W. Bush’s “Help America Vote Act” (HAVA), which provides $3.9 billion to the states to help finance a total shift to so-called direct-recording electronic (DRE) voting by 2006.

HAVA also provides funding for computerized voter rolls, including programs for removal of “ineligible” voters. It is modeled on the vote scrubbing operation carried out by Database Technologies and its parent company, ChoicePoint, in the 2000 election under a multi-million dollar contract signed by then-Florida Secretary of State Katherine Harris. Tens of thousands of mostly African American and Latino voters were improperly removed from the Florida voting rolls, key to George W. Bush’s theft of the election.

Critics discovered a web site set up by Global Elections Systems (GES) that was taken over by Diebold in 2002. It contained thousands of sensitive files on the hardware and software of the touch screen machines. It proved just how vulnerable they are to tampering and vote falsification.

Diebold sought an injunction to block circulation of the memos on grounds of copyright infringement. But Swarthmore College students had posted the memos on dozens of sites on the Internet. Democratic presidential candidate Dennis Kucinich hosted the memos on his web site. Diebold has since withdrawn the lawsuit.

Bev Harris, who has since written a book, “Black Box Voting: Ballot Tampering in the 21st Century” (available free from the site www.blackboxvoting.org), received 7,000 of the Diebold documents. Among them was a memo by GES employee Lana Hires to her supervisor during the 2000 election: “I need some answers,” she writes. “Our department is being audited by the county. I have been waiting for someone to give me an explanation as to why Precinct 216 gave Al Gore a minus 16,022 votes when it was uploaded. Will someone please explain this so that I have the information to give the auditor instead of standing here ‘looking dumb?’”

Over the past 30-40 years, where voting machine irregularities have come to light, those irregularities have “overwhelmingly favored Republican candidates.” In 2002, 74 percent of upset elections were called in favor of Republicans.

A Nov. 7, 2002, Associated Press story datelined Snyder, Texas, reported, “A defective computer chip in the county’s optical scanner misread ballots Tuesday night and incorrectly tallied a landslide victory for Republicans.” Poll workers became suspicious. As a result of those workers’ inquiry, a new computer chip was flown to Snyder, Texas, from Dallas. Once the new chip was installed, the computer verified that the Democrat had won the election. The question remains: Was this an innocent computer glitch or something far more sinister, an attempt to steal that election for the Republicans?

In a July 30, 2003, article published by Alternet.org titled, “The Theft of Your Vote is Just a Chip Away,” writer Thom Hartmann reported on another “Texas anomaly.” In the November 2002 election in Comal County, Republican state Sen. Jeff Wentworth won with 18,181 votes, Republican Carter Casteel won a state House seat with 18,181 votes, and Judge Danny Scheel (a conservative) won his race with 18,181 votes. All three in the same county, same day, same year, all three with exactly the same number of votes. However, no poll workers in the county asked for a new chip.

A key criticism of some touch screen machines is that they leave no paper trail, there is no record for the voters to see of the votes cast. The process has been described as voting into a “black box.”

Georgia and the strange defeat of incumbent Democratic Sen. Max Cleland in the 2002 election is a clear example. An Atlanta Journal-Constitution poll showed Cleland with a 49-44 percent lead over Republican Rep. Saxby Chambliss the week before the election. Cox News Service (Atlanta-based) said, “Pollsters must have goofed.” Chambliss was declared the winner by 53-46 percent.

This was an election marked by almost unimaginable Republican viciousness. Chambliss ran television ads savaging Cleland, a triple amputee Vietnam vet, as an “enemy” of George W. Bush’s “war on terrorism.” Why? Cleland had voted against Bush’s Homeland Security Act on grounds that it strips federal workers of their union rights.

Chambliss was trailing Cleland in every public opinion poll leading up to the election. Similarly, Republican Sonny Perdue was declared winner over Georgia’s incumbent Democratic Gov. Ray Barnes, 52-45 percent, despite a Mason Dixon poll prior to the election showing the Democrat with a 48-39 percent lead a month before the election.

Pundits opined that the stunning Republican upset victories were the result of George W. Bush’s barnstorming visits to the state as well as a backlash by white men angry that the Confederate flag had been abolished as the state banner. Yet, post-election polls showed there had been no such angry surge among white male voters in Georgia.

Suspicious Georgia citizens began investigating. Anecdotal reports by voters revealed that breakdowns of the Diebold machines had been widespread. In heavily Democratic Fulton County, which includes Atlanta, 67 memory cards were mislaid for 10 days and in neighboring DeKalb County, 10 memory cards were lost. State officials cannot affirm that the votes on these “mislaid” cards were ever counted.

Andrew Gumbel of the British Guardian, who observed the election, writes, “The vote count (in Georgia) was not actually conducted by state election officials but by the private company that sold Georgia the voting machines in the first place under a strict trade-secrecy contract that made it not only difficult but actually illegal – on pain of stiff criminal penalties – for the state to touch the equipment or examine the proprietary software to ensure the machines worked properly. There was not even a paper trail to follow up.”

Let’s look at Minnesota. What happened in the race to have former Vice President Walter Mondale voted into the U.S. Senate seat vacated by the death of Sen. Paul Wellstone? A Star Tribune poll on Oct. 30, 2002, reported Democrat Mondale leading Republican Norm Coleman 47-39 percent. When the vote was counted, Coleman won by 50-47 percent of the vote. Was there a sudden surge of Republicanism in Minnesota? No one asked for a new computer chip.

Who owns your voting machines? Three corporations – Election Systems and Software (ES&S), Diebold, and Sequoia Voting Systems – own the hardware and software used to count about 80 percent of the votes cast electronically in the U.S.

Both ES&S and Diebold are owned by Republican partisans. ES&S is owned by the Omaha World Herald Company, a company with solid ties to the Republican Party. Sequoia’s owner is De La Rue, based in Great Britain. Sequoia counted more votes in the California recall election than any other company. De La Rue is the world’s largest commercial security printer and papermaker.

Arthur Andersen Co. is to count Internet military votes. According to Landes, the Internet voting business is dominated by two corporations. One is Accenture (whose corporate offices are located in Bermuda) and the other is VoteHere (Seattle). “The U.S. Department of Defense recently awarded a coalition of corporations, led by Accenture, the contract to provide Internet service that will count the votes of the U.S. military and some civilians in the 2004 presidential election.” Nearly 6 million voters may be affected. “Accenture was formerly known as Andersen Consulting, a subsidiary of Arthur Andersen.” Yes, the same company convicted of destroying evidence in the Enron crime. One of Accenture’s most important business partners is Halliburton.

Admiral Bill Owens is the chairman of VoteHere, the world’s leading supplier of Internet voting software. Owens is a former high-level military assistant to former Secretaries of Defense Frank Carlucci and Vice President Dick Cheney. Also sitting on the VoteHere Board of Directors is Robert Gates, an ex-CIA director once tripped up in the Iran-Contra scandal. Carlucci (also of the Carlyle Group and a business partner of former President George H.W. Bush) was former Secretary of Defense in the Reagan administration and a Deputy Director of the CIA in the Carter administration. Carlucci is also on the advisory board of Populex, which is producing electronic voting systems for Illinois.

A striking fact about the boards of these companies is the presence of former CIA directors, including James Woolsey, Bobby Ray Inman, John Deutch, and Gates and Carlucci. When has the CIA been pro-democracy? Why this keen interest in voting technology?

Privately-held companies are in the business of counting our votes. So who monitors them? The National Association of State Election Directors (NASED). NASED is tied closely, according to Landes, to the election industry. There is no enforcement by the U.S. Department of Justice.

Private companies cite “security and competition” reasons as to why they can’t divulge every aspect of their vote-counting procedures. Those procedures and techniques have raised eyebrows and suspicions.

What is to be done? The 2004 elections are already upon us. Take a group of friends, call and go to your County Board of Elections. Ask if your machines have paper trails. Who makes the machines?

Voting machines must not be privatized. Those who would profit from skewing elections against the working class should not own the machines. The voting apparatus should be publicly owned and operated. There should be no “trade secrets” in place to ensure that a voting machine company won’t have to tell us how the machines operate.

Harvard University’s Rebecca Mercuri, a voting machine expert, had it about right: “If you want to make Coca-Cola and have trade secrets, that’s fine, but don’t try to claim trade secrets when you’re handling our votes.”

Rep. Rush Holt (D-N.J.) is sponsoring the “Voter Confidence and Increased Accountability Act of 2004” (HR-2239), which calls for paper ballots, surprise recounts and auditable software in voting machines. But some critics say it doesn’t go far enough. The critical issue is to keep the vote directly in the hands of the voters. The election laws in some countries require that as many ordinary people as possible be permitted into the room where the votes are tallied.

The U.S. right wing, frightened as usual into skullduggery and violence by any whiff of democracy, knows well that it can’t win if it does not cheat. Now is the time to look at your voting machines. Better now than after Election Day 2004.

The author can be reached at bjhope215@yahoo.com. Tim Wheeler contributed to this story.

Boston to buy Rx drugs from Canada

Fri, 16 Jan 2004 08:31:00 +0000

With the support of Mayor Thomas M. Menino, the city of Boston is joining the growing exodus of U.S. cities and states that now buy their prescription drugs in Canada. Under a pilot plan presented at a City Council meeting here Dec. 9, the city will save a million dollars by making its purchases of prescription maintenance drugs for city workers and retirees in Canada.

Legislators who spoke at the hearing acknowledged that importing pharmaceuticals from Canada is a short-term tactic, albeit with real savings. The real goal, they say, is the regulation of runaway prices for prescription drugs for all Americans.

City Councilor Felix Arroyo blamed the increasing cost of health care for those who need it most on the pharmaceutical corporations. “We need a limit to profits when our lives are on the line,” he said. City Councilor Michael Ross concurred: “There are tax breaks for the pharmaceutical industry, we provide them a safe environment for business. They export their goods and charge U.S. customers double.”

In supporting Boston’s move, Springfield’s then-Mayor Michael Albano noted, “As you go, so will the other big cities.” He pointed out that the states of New Hampshire and Minnesota are moving ahead on similar programs. According to Albano, 2,200 of his city’s employees and retirees signed up to obtain their maintenance drugs from Canada with licensed, certified pharmacies. Springfield was the first city in the nation to implement a program to import prescription drugs from Canada. Its example has been followed by Montgomery, Ala., and Burlington, Vt., as well as Boston. Springfield has saved $1 million since July, said Albano.

John Auerbach, executive director of the Boston Public Health Commission testified: “The more states and cities that buy Canadian drugs, the more pressure on the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to address the problem of the high cost of medication in this country.”

Massachusetts Senior Action Council and Community Catalyst with PHARMA were among the grassroots organizations testifying in favor of the pilot project.

In his testimony, State Sen. Jarrett Barrios, vice-chairman of the Massachusetts Legislature’s Health Committee, pointed out that the savings from the city’s program will save jobs for city employees. He attributed the high cost of drugs to a profit rate of 17 percent in the pharmaceutical industry. Marketing and administration account for 30.4 percent of drug costs, he said, while only 12.5 percent goes to research and development. “The Medicare bill does nothing” to address high drug costs, he said. In fact, it actually prohibits the government from negotiating a better price for consumers. Barrios said in addition to the action of state and city governments, millions of individual consumers are making their prescription drug purchases in Canada.

When Michael Valentino, a spokesman for the Department of Veterans Affairs, was asked by the Canadian Broadcasting Corp. in December about how much his department has spent on foreign drugs, he said, “It’s been in the hundreds of millions of dollars over the last several years.”

City Councilor Arroyo acknowledged that it is illogical to have to import prescription drugs, but, he said, “Our prime concern is for the consumer being able to purchase needed drugs for life and health.”

The author can be reached at pww@pww.org.