People Before Profit blog

Letters

Fri, 30 Jan 2004 09:49:00 +0000

Illegal detentions

Conceivably, the United States government, by holding prisoners incommunicado at Guantanamo Bay in eastern Cuba, has relinquished legal responsibility for due process according to law. With evidence that most detainees may not know the accusation against them after two years, such delinquent justice begs the question: Are these inmates in fact innocent? Did warlords kidnap them as a politically expedient way to blackmail U.S. voters into “signing off” on the Patriot Act? If the U.S. Supreme Court fails in its duty to interpret whether human rights have been violated, there may be only one solution. Return jurisdiction over the naval base to its rightful owner – the Havana government that represents the Republic of Cuba.

Richard GrasslAuburn WA

Questions on 9/11 remain

I’m writing to thank C.F. Niles and the People’s Weekly World (1/24-30) for the excellent report on the shameful failure of our government to inform the American people about the events leading up to the 9/11 attacks. Niles’ report is the clearest and most concise that I’ve found. It’s ever so clear that the Bush administration is doing everything it can get away with to keep the truth from being disclosed. They are certainly acting very guilty of something. And the Congress is just looking the other way. Ever since a friend alerted me to a press release about Ellen Mariani’s RICO suit, I’ve had Google’s new News Service send me an e-mail notification each time it finds a news article that includes “Ellen Mariani” and “RICO.” There have been only a handful. That’s how I found the report at www.pww.org. It’s shocking and extremely depressing to find that the mainstream media has had a 100 percent blackout of news about her lawsuit. When Google searches all sites, not just the news sites, it comes up with 2,000 hits. So the word is slowly getting out, despite the news media blackout. Keep up your good work.

Ward ClarkVia e-mail

Schools and food for Mars?

President Bush has proclaimed, “Mars or bust!” Apparently the U.S. Treasury Department is running off money on a non-stop basis to cover various billion-dollar ventures, including billions for Iraq and tax cuts for the U.S. rich. As if the “on earth” expenses that neglect U.S. families are not devastating enough. We will now be spending for “Mars or bust,” but at whose expense? Schools and food for the Martians?

Rohn WebbMelba ID

Greetings from the U.K.

It was good to read the articles on your site. I live in England and share your views on both Bush and Blair. Fraternal greetings!

Win LewisVia e-mail

Others ignore Moon Treaty

Sir, I found Bruce Gagnon’s editorial (“Bush launches a dangerous space policy,” PWW, 1/17-23) a bit disingenuous regarding U.S. refusal to ratify the 1979 Moon Treaty. He conveniently neglected to mention that no other country with a significant space program (i.e. Russia and China) has signed it either. Only nine countries have ratified it (Australia, Austria, Chile, Mexico, Monaco, Netherlands, Pakistan, the Philippines, and Uruguay) and just five have signed it (France, Guatemala, India, Peru, and Romania).

Powell B. CappelHong Kong

The author replies:

As is the case today, at the time that the U.S. refused to sign the Moon Treaty in 1979, we were the leader of the arms race pack. Then, as now, we were the country introducing new technologies of weapons of mass destruction and we had already made a highly acclaimed series of landings on the moon. When the U.S. refuses to sign an important treaty like the Moon Treaty other nations sit back and hesitate as well. We did sign the 1967 Outer Space Treaty when it was in our interest to do so because we feared that the former Soviet Union might also be able to put weapons of mass destruction into space. As we led the way into that treaty, other great nations followed. Today the U.S. refuses to even discuss a global ban on weapons in space at the U.N. As a result there will be no such treaty until we, the leader of the arms race pack, decide to do it.

Bruce K. GagnonGlobal Network Against Weapons & Nuclear Power in Space

Editorials

Fri, 30 Jan 2004 09:29:00 +0000

Liar, liar

Where is the outrage? Where are the calls for a special prosecutor? The current president, and all of his men and women, have perpetrated a colossal fraud. They told lie after lie to justify their war on Iraq. With over 500 U.S. soldiers and thousands of Iraqi people dead, billions of dollars spent, a country destroyed and under occupation, the American people – indeed the world – demand accountability.

Former top U.S. weapons inspector David Kay now says that no large stockpiles of WMDs will ever be found in Iraq because they never existed. Kay’s carefully constructed statement places the blame on the CIA, but that won’t wash.

Thirteen of the top 20 newspapers, including papers that supported the war, have felt compelled to call for probes. Many have questioned the White House role in “cooking” the intelligence to fit its own narrow agenda. Senate Minority Leader Tom Daschle (D-S.D.) has called for an independent commission to investigate – not just the Senate Intelligence Committee query.

Daniel Ellsberg, a Kennedy-Johnson-Nixon official who leaked the Pentagon Papers exposing the Vietnam War lies, has made a patriotic plea to other similarly placed officials to come forward with documents on Iraq.

“I have no doubt that there are thousands of pages of documents in safes in London and Washington right now – the Pentagon Papers of Iraq – whose unauthorized revelation would drastically alter the public discourse on whether we should continue sending our children to die in Iraq,” he wrote.

However important these developments are, they are not enough. The corporate media “embedded” with this administration will cooperate in the cover-up. It will take the action of thousands and thousands of people to pressure their representatives to set up an independent investigation. Lies less than this resulted in the impeachment of one president and the resignation of another. This is bigger than Watergate and certainly bigger than Monica Lewinsky.

“Bush lied, thousands died,” as the slogan goes. The American people have a responsibility to end this outrage.

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Ban the death penalty!

The U.S. Supreme Court agreed Jan. 26 to review a Missouri court decision that the death sentence handed down against a man who was a juvenile when he murdered a woman in 1993 is unconstitutional.

The high court ruled 6-3 in 2002 to ban executions of the mentally ill or retarded. In 2003 they banned executions of those who were younger than 16 when they committed their crime. In that case, Justice John Paul Stevens wrote that “the practice of executing such offenders is a relic of the past and is inconsistent with evolving standards of decency in a civilized world.” Three other justices concurred.

Now the justices may be poised to extend that ban to all those younger than 18. At this writing, there are 74 inmates on death row nationwide who were juveniles at the time of the crimes for which they were convicted. Of those, 26 are on death row in Texas.

Capital punishment is the most extreme form of class justice, or more accurately, injustice. Every survey shows that it is inflicted on poor and working-class people and on African Americans, Latinos, and other racially and nationally oppressed peoples and almost never on the wealthy.

As he was leaving office a year ago, Illinois Gov. George Ryan commuted the death sentences of 167 inmates on death row and pardoned four others because so many innocent people had been wrongfully convicted. The Illinois Supreme Court recently upheld Ryan’s legal authority to stay all those executions. We may be witnessing the step-by-step abolition of the death penalty despite the fanatical zeal of Attorney General John Ashcroft, and his boss, George W. Bush, to expand the use of this “cruel and unusual” punishment. As Texas governor, Bush executed more people than any other public official in the U.S., and perhaps even in the world. It’s another reason to send him packing next Nov. 2.

U.S. war on Colombian rebels escalates

Fri, 30 Jan 2004 05:05:00 +0000

The beginning of the new year coincided with a new, menacing increase in U.S. hostilities against the Colombian guerrilla movement, particularly against the 40-year-old Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC). A number of signs point to a possible U.S. invasion of that country in the months ahead.

Since 2000, the U.S. government has poured over $2 billion in military aid into Colombia to “combat narco-trafficking.” According to critics of the program, such aid has been a thinly disguised way of fighting one of Latin America’s oldest and most deeply rooted movements for independence and social justice. The FARC commands a rebel army of approximately 18,000.

Under the U.S.-backed “Plan Colombia,” the Colombian military has been equipped with scores of Black Hawk helicopters, armored personnel carriers, drone aircraft, and other counterinsurgency equipment. Colombian troops have been trained by elite, U.S. “special forces” units in anti-guerrilla warfare technique. But it appears that the Pentagon may be readying its own forces for a direct military intervention from outside.

On Jan. 3 the Mexican newspaper La Jornada published an expose by reporter Carlos Fazio describing the Pentagon’s quiet military occupation of Ecuador near the Colombian border. Fazio details the dramatic growth of the Manta naval and air base, located on Ecuador’s Pacific coast, only an hour’s flight from Colombia.

U.S. Orion C-130 spy planes depart from Manta each day and fly over Colombia on reconnaissance missions.

The base “is under the exclusive jurisdiction of the U.S. Armed Forces’ SouthCom (Southern Command),” he writes, and is a “command center directing key mercenary operations under contract to Dyncorp, a Pentagon private subcontractor, conducting the installation of three logistics centers in the provinces of Guayas, Azuay and Sucumbios.” Currently Manta is home to 162 U.S. officers and 231 employees of Dyncorp.

The three logistic centers were authorized last September, Fazio says, by Ecuador’s foreign minister, Patricio Zuquilanda, in a secret agreement with the U.S. military attaché in Quito, Arnold Chacón. The stated purpose of these centers is to serve populations affected by natural disasters caused by El Niño.

Miguel Morán, leader of the Tohalli movement, an organization opposed to the base, said, “Ecuador is already a U.S. base, not only Manta. They inaugurated seven military detachments in Amazonia and are now after key ports. … The construction of the logistic centers is a smokescreen to conceal military activity.”

Fazio reports that Gen. Wendell L. Griffin, SouthCom Planning and Strategy Director, and U.S. special envoy for Western Hemispheric Affairs, Otto Reich, visited Ecuador recently and, in the case of Griffin, toured the border near Colombia. Many see that visit as a sign that “Washington is accelerating preparations to unleash military skirmishes inside Colombian territory” and that Ecuador will serve as a “U.S. aircraft carrier in an undercover war of aggression,” Fazio says.

Launching the invasion from Ecuador, he says, would facilitate giving the action a multinational or multilateral cover, one that Ecuadorian President Lucio Gutierrez would readily vouch for.

Meanwhile, Colombian government repression of trade unionists and right-wing paramilitary attacks on villages deemed sympathetic to either the FARC or the other guerrilla movement, the ELN, continue. Just after New Year’s, a group of 500-800 armed men in the uniform of the “United Self-Defense of Colombia,” a fascist-like group allied to big landowners in the country, reportedly terrorized several villages in the Arenal municipality. Two villagers were killed, many were savagely beaten, and more than 200 families fled the area out of fear.

On Jan. 2, one of the FARC’s top commanders, Simon Trinidad, 53, was seized in Quito by U.S. and Colombian security agents. While initial news reports said that he was in Quito for medical treatment, the FARC said that Trinidad was there for a secret diplomatic initiative, seeking to arrange a meeting with United Nations General-Secretary Kofi Annan, UN Special Adviser James LeMoyne, and representatives of the French government to discuss a prisoner of war exchange.

Trinidad is a distinguished political leader of the FARC, and was a top negotiator in peace talks with the Colombian government in 2002. Those talks eventually broke down.

The FARC leadership sees Trinidad’s arrest as part of a larger picture of “ever-increasing interference of the U.S. government” in Colombia’s affairs, and urges worldwide solidarity with the Colombian people.

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

Lucy Flato, labor activist, writer

Fri, 23 Jan 2004 10:13:00 +0000

Lucille Burman Flato died peacefully Jan. 7 in San Francisco, of complications from a massive stroke.

Born in Oakland, Calif., on Sept. 21, 1922, to Daisy Whitney and Frank Burman, Lucy Flato moved to New York City as a young woman. There she wholeheartedly involved herself in union and community struggles. She returned to San Francisco in the 1950s. Her husband, Charlie Flato, died years earlier.

Lucy was a highly respected activist and proud member of her union, Local 400 of the Service Employees International Union, AFL-CIO, which later became Local 790. She participated fully in all aspects of the union’s program, including the women’s caucus, international workers’ solidarity activities, fighting for good contracts for city workers and, in recent years, building the retirees’ chapter in San Francisco. For many years she was a delegate to the San Francisco Labor Council. She continued to champion the rights of all workers, marching on myriad picket lines and participating in countless demonstrations, until her final illness.

She also volunteered much time to work with Local 2, Hotel Employees and Restaurant Employees, including devoting many hours to the campaigns and boycotts which finally won union contracts at the Parc 55, San Francisco Marriott and Sir Francis Drake hotels.

A contributing writer for several publications, Lucy wrote extensively for the People’s Weekly World under the name of Lucille Whitney, and did much to help build the paper’s circulation. She was known for her ability to convey the spirit as well as the facts of any story she covered.

Lucy Flato joined the Communist Party USA as a young woman, and was active in the party’s work until her death.

Among Lucy’s major commitments were the anti-apartheid struggle and the peace movement. She was an enthusiastic participant in the labor movement’s political action campaigns. Her many concerns also included volunteering to help the poor and homeless and those in substance abuse programs, her love for animals, and her support of the arts, including music. Lucy worshipped at San Francisco’s Glide Memorial Methodist Church, an institution renowned for its progressive social activism. She graduated from San Francisco State University, cum laude, in 1995.

Lucy Flato leaves behind many loving friends. Her memorial celebration is being held Jan. 24 at 10 a.m., at the SEIU Local 790 union hall, 1390 Market St., San Francisco. Donations can be made to the Rosenberg Fund for Children, 116 Pleasant St. #3312, Easthampton, MA 01027.

Letters

Fri, 23 Jan 2004 09:11:00 +0000

Voting machine story on target

Barbara Jean Hope’s Jan. 17 commentary, “Who is counting your vote? Diebold & Bush vs. the public interest,” is both timely and alarming. I have been watching for years the increasingly brazen takeover of America by so-called Republicans, while Americans for the most part turned a deaf ear and blind eye. I’m amazed at how willing Americans have become to be duped, to not question questionable tactics and behaviors, and to let themselves be ripped off by these anti-American criminals and traitors. The farther a cancer spreads the harder it is to remove, and I fear it may already be too late to cure this malignancy that has infected American virtues and ideologies. At this point it seems that the only safe means to vote anymore is by absentee ballot. I hope it is not too late to save your once great country. Thanks again for a great piece.

William SweetlingHalifax, Nova Scotia, Canada

Ashamed of fellow Texan

Activists in Dallas, Texas, were ashamed but not surprised to see that G.W. Bush was attempting to hog the spotlight during Martin Luther King Jr. celebrations in Atlanta. When he was first running for governor of Texas, he used that same ugly tactic to exploit Dr. King’s good name for his own benefit. Without authorization, he inserted himself at the head of our gigantic Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. parade. We were stunned and ashamed of this crass low-life who calls himself a Texan!

Jim LaneDallas TX

GOP playing for keeps

In case you haven’t been paying attention, this election year, Republicans are playing a deadly game of attrition – death by a thousand tiny cuts, so to speak: extreme gerrymandering in Texas, the recall of a governor in California, the installation of non-auditable, easily “preprogrammed” DRE e-vote machines in as many counties as will allow them to be stuffed down their throats, relentless and bloody character assassinations in a bought-and-paid-for Murdoch-dominated media empire, and stacked courts ready to deliver decisions for which 2000’s Gore vs. Bush set the precedent. In case you haven’t connected the dots, this time the GOP is playing for keeps. And so, I challenge you: this is a battle we perhaps cannot win, but, at all costs, must not lose. The consequences of surrender will be incalculable: one by one, like dominos, institutions we cherish will fall – environmental laws, Social Security, independent media, healthy advocacy groups, assistance for the unemployed, impoverished and disenfranchised – and, foremost, the right to choose our leaders. Don’t let the dream die. Stand up and fight for the vote.

Eric A. SmithTokyo, Japan

Elated about socialist content

I was elated to see the article by Dr. H. Salari on capitalism (PWW, 1/10-16). The article explains, on one level, why we need socialism. I am particularly delighted because, as I ring doorbells asking people to subscribe to the People’s Weekly World and telling them it is a Communist newspaper, for the past few years there have been virtually no articles telling why they should join. Articles on the socialist solution to our capitalist problem are welcome.

Karl DennisTucson AZ

Ousting Bush the top priority

I believe that our first responsibility as activists is to stand in opposition to the very undemocratic Bush administration. Our nation has suffered over these last four years, firstly through a bogus election. The chipping away of civil liberties in great chunks is clear. The deceptions on top of deceptions that brought us into a state of endless, greed-based war are a threat to our very existence. A vote for any candidate outside of our two-party system is nothing less than self-injurious. Cutting off our nose to spite our face? No. More like lobbing off the whole head. I could never, ever advocate a left organization that tells members and the public to vote for their candidate – sadly, one with the ability to reach but a handful of voters – when we are facing another term of Bush, Ashcroft, Cheney and Rumsfeld. So I urge all radicals to remember what the larger battle is: we need to remove George Bush from the White House.

John PietaroNew York NY

Editorials

Fri, 23 Jan 2004 08:59:00 +0000

Under the cover of darkness

One thing George Bush wasn’t bragging about in his State of the Union Address was his cowardly use of an obscure parliamentary gimmick to secure the promotion of notorious racist Charles W. Pickering to the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals.

As a judge, Pickering violated judicial conduct in 1994 by meeting privately with prosecutors to try to get a break for a young white man convicted of burning a cross in front of the home of an interracial family. Pickering successfully appealed for sympathy on the grounds that the man just got drunk one night with his pals and was only having a little fun. Pickering was also caught lying to a Senate committee. He swore he had never had any relationship with Mississippi’s racist Sovereignty Commission. But the Commission’s records were found to include a memo from Pickering.

Judge Pickering’s racism was so flagrant his confirmation couldn’t make it through even a right-wing, Republican controlled Senate. Bush had to resort to a “recess appointment” to bypass the Senate’s confirmation process. “Judge Pickering’s record deems this recess appointment fully appropriate,” said Mississippi Republican Sen. Trent Lott with unintended irony.

Bush’s hypocrisy matches Pickering’s racism. He made the appointment after returning from a trip to lay a wreath at the tomb of Dr. Martin Luther King. The 5th Circuit handles appeals from Mississippi, Texas and Louisiana, and the federal judges on that circuit have often been trailblazers on desegregation and voting rights in the past.

Pickering’s record on labor and women’s rights is just as reprehensible as his civil rights record. He has called for a constitutional amendment to ban abortion and for the immediate repeal of OSHA, the Occupational Safety and Health Act, which according to the resolution he signed, “threatens to enslave us all.”

Recess appointments are valid until the next Congress takes office – in this case January 2005. Pickering’s tenure on the bench can’t expire soon enough. It’s just one more reason to make sure there’s someone else in the White House to appoint his successor, a president committed to appointing judges who will enforce, not desecrate, our nation’s hard-won civil rights laws.

* * * * * *

The ‘electability’ factor

The issue of “electability” surfaced forcefully in the Iowa caucuses. Voters seemed prepared to back a candidate whose positions may differ from their positions in order to beat George W. Bush. For example, an exit poll showed 70 percent of caucus-goers opposed to the war in Iraq. Rep. Dennis Kucinich (D-Ohio) and former Gov. Howard Dean of Vermont both campaigned as antiwar candidates. Yet a majority of those opposed to the war backed Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.) who voted for the Iraq war authorization resolution. When asked why they preferred Kerry, many answered that he is more “electable.” Being a seasoned senator, with a decidedly anti-Bush message, money, veteran and anti-Vietnam war credentials, many voters in Iowa saw someone they thought can beat Bush.

Dean was targeted by the media and by rival candidates intent on knocking him out of his frontrunner position. Dean lashed back in self-defense and his hot temper was on display for all to see. Many voters were turned off both by Rep. Richard Gephardt’s negative ads on Dean and by Dean’s abrasive, combative reaction. Both lost big.

Voters were looking for a candidate who has a positive, unifying message. Kerry and Edwards were the big winners in Iowa.

Sometimes the aim of this “electability” concept is to narrow the choices of the voters to candidates acceptable to the powerful corporate interests. Pundits once said Franklin Delano Roosevelt could not be elected because he was disabled, John F. Kennedy because he was a Catholic. Today some say voters will never elect an African American, a Latino, or a woman as president. Or a left-winger. History will prove them wrong.

But it would be wrong to dismiss the voters’ search for a candidacy that has a message, organization, character, and personality they believe are essential to win. The battle for the nomination has just begun.

Japanese Communists adopt new program

Fri, 23 Jan 2004 06:53:00 +0000

ATAMI, Japan – Approximately 1,000 delegates representing 400,000 members of the Japanese Communist Party (JCP), meeting here at the party’s 23rd congress, voted Jan. 17 to adopt the party’s revised program and a resolution outlining its basic domestic policies and its approach to world politics. The congress was also attended by 24 guests from 14 countries, including Communist Party USA Vice Chair Scott Marshall. Atami, a town of about 44,000, is located 60 miles southwest of Tokyo.

The JCP congress addressed domestic problems, such as wage cuts, plant closings, forced overtime (much of which is unpaid), curtailment of social services, and increases in the cost of health care. Also singled out for criticism were government proposals for an increase in the national sales tax, continuing environmental degradation, and the economic crisis facing farmers and fishermen.

The congress condemned the new military strategy of the Bush administration, including its preemptive attack strategy, its unilateralism, and its creation of new forms of colonialism involving the overthrow of other governments by military force and occupation. The congress also denounced the Bush administration’s threat of using military force, including the use of a new generation of smaller nuclear weapons, to dominate potential competitors.

The main political resolution calls for a struggle to break away from the Japanese government’s “extraordinary subordination to the United States,” which it characterizes as a major task facing Japan in the 21st century. Key steps include the elimination of U.S bases from Japan, blocking Japan’s participation in the missile defense strategy, and opposing the dispatch of Japan’s Self Defense Force to Iraq (a measure that violates Article 9 of the constitution that prohibits the use of military force to resolve international conflicts). The JCP also opposes efforts by Prime Minister Koizumi to amend Article 9 so as to legitimize the build-up of a Japanese military force for use abroad.

The resolution sharply condemns Bush’s war on Iraq. In the discussion that followed, speaker after speaker denounced the war and the dispatching of Japanese troops to Iraq.

In presenting the draft of the new JCP program, Central Committee Chair Tetsuzo Fuwa said the party will best be able to face the difficult problems of the 21st century by equipping itself with policies for democratic changes aimed at meeting the immediate needs of the people, combined with a program that sets forth the prospects of a future society that overcomes capitalism.

The report on the draft political resolution, presented by JCP Executive Committee Chair Kazua Shii, focused on the party’s political strategy and activities in preparation for the House of Councilors election scheduled for July. “The vital task is for the JCP to win at least five seats in the proportional representation constituency.” He said that to achieve this goal the party must receive 1.3 times the votes it obtained in the recent election for the House of Representatives, where it now holds nine seats after receiving 7.8 percent of the vote.

Another point in the resolution deals with the dangerous situation of nuclear weapons on the Korean Peninsula. Cautioning against any forms of “brinkmanship,” the resolution emphasizes the importance of denying the United States any “pretext for making a lawless preemptive attack” against North Korea or other countries in the region. The resolution stresses that the question “must be resolved by diplomatic and peaceful means, and it is important to thwart all moves leading to war.”

The JCP called for strengthening the international campaign to eliminate nuclear weapons worldwide. The resolution restates the JCP’s opposition to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, which, it says, “allows a few nuclear powers to maintain their monopoly over nuclear weapons.”

The congress gave high priority to expanding the circulation of the party’s daily newspaper, Akahata, and its role in the growth of the party. The paper, with a daily circulation of 300,000, is hand-delivered door-to-door to its subscribers by 140,000 party members. Still more members participate in delivery of the paper to the 1.73 million subscribers to the Sunday edition.

The reasoned and spirited commitment to a socialist future for Japan displayed throughout the congress may help explain why the Japanese Communist Party is the largest Communist Party in any developed capitalist country.

The author can be reached at marqu002@umn.edu.

Aaron Cohen: Educator, organizer

Fri, 16 Jan 2004 09:54:00 +0000

Longtime Communist leader, educator and union organizer Aaron Cohen died Dec. 12 at the Oakland retirement community where he had lived in recent years. He was nearly 95 years old.

A CPUSA National Committee member for many years and member of the leadership in its Illinois, Southern California and Northern California districts, Cohen was an outstanding educator who reinvigorated party bookstores, expanded the circulation of Marxist literature and organized many classes, seminars and public meetings. He and his wife, Jane Hodes, founded the Niebyl-Proctor Marxist Library for Social Research in 1989.

Aaron Cohen is warmly remembered for his kindness and keen sense of humor as well as his profound theoretical and historical knowledge. He had a special affinity for working with young people throughout his adult life.

“Aaron was a mentor and an inspiration to many of my generation,” said Juan Lopez, the chair of the Northern California district of the CPUSA. “He was always steady, in good times and bad, and modest to a fault. A brilliant working-class intellectual, he invariably imparted a clear understanding of theory as a guide to action.”

Cohen was born Dec. 25, 1908, in Odessa, the Ukraine. The outbreak of World War I barred Aaron, his mother and siblings from joining his father who had emigrated to the U.S. The family’s dire straits deprived him of any formal schooling. Instead, he went to work at age eight, first in the fisheries and later on a Black Sea barge. Despite these harsh circumstances, Aaron taught himself to read and write. His lifelong love of classical music was sparked by the snatches he heard as a boy, wandering Odessa’s streets.

After the October 1917 Revolution, Odessa was attacked by counterrevolutionary White Guards and blockaded by western interventionist forces seeking to destroy the new Soviet government.

The young teenager nearly starved – and his mother did die of starvation – as famine struck the Ukraine. Rescued and nursed back to health, Cohen finally left for the United States just before his 16th birthday.

There he soon discovered New York City’s exciting left political currents, and by age 17 had made his lifelong commitment to the Communist Party. His working life would take him to factories, mines and truck routes; his political life would center on the struggles for equality, justice, democracy, peace and socialism.

During his years in Illinois, Aaron Cohen became a coal miner, a reform movement leader in the United Mine Workers, and an organizer of Unemployed Councils during the Great Depression. He participated in the steel workers’ demonstration that was attacked by police in the infamous 1937 Memorial Day Massacre.

Moving to Los Angeles, Cohen worked as a teamster during the 1940s and 1950s, continuing his union activism and enduring FBI harassment during the McCarthy years.

Following the death of his first wife, Mary, Cohen married Jane Hodes in 1979. In 1982 the couple came to the Bay Area, where both continued their political and educational activities.

Aaron Cohen is survived by his wife of 25 years, Jane Hodes, and by his three stepchildren, William, Nancy and Peter Hodes. A memorial celebration is planned for Feb. 28, at 1 p.m. at the Niebyl-Proctor Library, 6501 Telegraph Ave., Oakland. For information and directions, call (510) 595-7417.

Letters

Fri, 16 Jan 2004 08:55:00 +0000

Attack on labor studies

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger has just terminated the funding for the University of California Institute for Labor and Employment, a new and vital center for labor education and strategic planning, using the California budget crisis as an excuse. The attack on the ILE is part of a national campaign against labor education led by right-wing centers like the Manhattan Institute, whose conception of academic freedom is to eliminate all think tanks that are not right-wing. Trade unionists and labor-oriented scholars, though, are fighting back (see David Bacon’s “Class Warfare,” in the Jan. 12 issue of The Nation). All PWW readers should be on guard against campaigns to eliminate labor studies programs and labor libraries from universities, to stop purchasing labor books and journals for general libraries, and to otherwise censor the labor movement.

Norman MarkowitzNew Brunswick NJ

Remember history

What exactly is Gov. Schwarzenegger remembering? In his inaugural speech he said, “As a boy, [I] saw Soviet tanks rolling through the streets of Austria,” which implies some kind of Soviet invasion. The facts are Hitler annexed Austria in 1938. His father was a member of the Nazi Party. Soviet tanks liberated Austria from the Nazis in April 1945. The governor was born in 1947. Austria was divided into four occupation zones – one for each of the Allies – U.S. Britain, France and the USSR. Austria was granted sovereignty in 1955.

Sally BreiterSanta Monica CA

Compasionate conservative or pathological liar?

Could the O’Neill interview be the beginning of the end for G.W. Bush? Will more former Bush cabinet members come out of the closet?

He lied about Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction and Saddam’s connection to Bin Ladan’s terrorist organization. That lie has resulted in the death of many thousands of Iraqis and the loss of over 500 of our own military personnel.

It wasn’t WMDs! It wasn’t Saddam! It was the Iraqi oil reserves!

If you care about the future of our country, your children’s future or the nest egg you set aside for your retirement then you must reject this Bush regime in the November 2004 election, that is, if they allow us to have a fair and honest election!

Mr. Bush is not noted for his intelligence, but he is a very good manipulator!

If anyone questions my concerns for our country’s future, please read a document compiled by a conservative right wing think tank titled “The Project for the New American Century.”

Tom F. TullyVia e-mail

ABBEL

As the rubble clears away and the Democrats filter down to their slate, and although ABBEL (anybody but Bush except Lieberman) holds sway, it is more evident than ever that for the first time since the McGovern debacle of 1972, the progressive movement has a real possible candidate – Dennis Kucinich. Although all of the others (don’t forget the EL) have their attributes (as well as their drawbacks), Rep. Kucinich stands out as the candidate of peace, labor, choice, jobs, health care and people before profits.

We must all now get it together and work for his candidacy. The President-select is beatable. His father used his Iraq Desert Storm but it was poorly timed for his campaign. Remembering what was pulled off in Florida in 2000, the Bush cabal is capable of anything. That thievery was not for just one term but for the long haul. We must stay alert as 2004 unfolds. In unity there is strength.

Don Sloan M.D. New York NY

Enola Gay

I have just read the on-line version of “Enola Gay: the Smithsonian edits history” in PWW, 1/10-16, by Norman Markowitz. Congratulations. The piece is a very fine summary of the threat posed by the new exhibition of the Enola Gay.

Here’s a detail which you might find of interest:

When I attended the opening of the new museum on Dec. 15, I found and read a series of panels on “Aviation in the Cold War” which, in fact, do describe the mission and “achievements” of the U-2 spy planes. (Other Cold War examples are also described.)

I thought, “How weird: Planes not on display like the U-2 receive a modicum of interpretation, whereas planes actually on display like the Enola Gay and the SR-71 are covered by the stated policy of ‘ tell[ing] visitors [only] what the object is and the basic facts concerning its history [and] allowing visitors to evaluate what they encounter in the context of their own points of view.’” Some double standard!

Edward W. LollisKnoxville TN

Editorials

Fri, 16 Jan 2004 08:46:00 +0000

Continuing King’s dreams

Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. is remembered this week for his selfless contributions to the African American freedom struggle, antiwar and democratic struggles. His words touched many movements, and his ability to move hundreds of thousands of people into struggle was what won victories and effected democratic change.

Best known as a fighter for civil rights and against racism, King also worked for labor rights, economic justice, and peace, interconnecting all these issues with working people’s self-interest.

In “Remaining Awake through a Great Revolution,” King said: “There is another thing closely related to racism that I would like to mention as another challenge … poverty. Like a monstrous octopus, poverty spreads its nagging, prehensile tentacles into hamlets and villages all over our world. They are ill-housed, they are ill-nourished, they are shabbily clad. I have seen it in Latin America; I have seen it in Africa; I have seen this poverty in Asia.”

As our country spends billions of dollars on weapons of mass destruction, wars for oil, and fattening the corporate greedy, we must remember King’s ideals. How can it be that people in the United States and around the world go hungry, face disease, poverty and violence when the resources to end suffering exist? All of us can choose to follow King’s legacy and become “drum majors for justice.” We have to. We have no choice.

Everything King stood and fought for is being systematically attacked and rolled back by the ultra-right Bush administration and its corporate agenda. Working to defeat the Bush administration this November, we must keep in mind King’s unwavering commitment to mass struggle and coalition-building, voter registration and education.

To honor King’s memory, we must ensure that the depth of his multi-faceted struggle is not forgotten. As Wall Street tries year after year to capitalize on his words and image, it is the job of the people to make sure the revolutionary and democratic essence of what King did and stood for are not brushed aside.

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Millions disenfranchised

“Governments derive their just powers from the consent of the governed …”

So states our country’s Declaration of Independence. Yet among this nation’s “governed” are millions of members of America’s working class – immigrant workers – who find themselves frozen out of this nation’s voting process.

While President Bush’s “Employer Choice” immigration proposal makes it easier for corporations to readily access a low-wage labor supply, it leaves in place – indeed shores up – a gross aberration of democracy: While members of America’s capitalist class operate freely in the electoral arena, a huge portion of the working class, which could potentially oppose their anti-people policies, is barred from participation.

The immigrant workers who harvest our crops, pour the concrete for our buildings, put roofs on our homes and care for our sick and elderly have no say in where their tax monies go.

For members of the multi-millionaire capitalist class who jet set around the globe, the heaviest lifting they might have to do in a day involves lifting a pen to move their factories overseas, yet they have the uncontested right to vote on where the taxes of their disenfranchised workers are spent.

Last fall, buses from the Immigrant Workers Freedom Ride criss-crossed our country mobilizing thousands of immigrants of every nationality and their supporters honoring the legacy of the civil rights Freedom Riders, who fought for the voting rights of African Americans in the 1960s.

The straightforward program the IWFR took to Washington called for a path to citizenship and voting rights, as well as family unification and equal rights in the workplace, for America’s immigrant workers. The program of the IWFR was supported by labor, religious, civil rights, and community organizations. This is the immigration reform program needed to redress the travesty of democracy that is this nation’s immigration policies.

Philadelphia Community rallies to save hospital

Fri, 16 Jan 2004 08:20:00 +0000

PHILADELPHIA – Overflow crowds are becoming commonplace in the battle to save historic Medical College of Pennsylvania Hospital since the announcement Dec. 18 by Tenet Healthcare Systems of its plans to close the facility. The hospital has been serving Philadelphians since 1850. Outrage over the proposed closing was fueled by the timing of Tenet’s announcement which came on the very day nurses were voting on a contract won following a difficult four-week strike.

MCP was the first medical school for women in the country.

Tenet, a for-profit corporation, claims MCP lost $20 million this year and cannot be profitable with 42 percent of its patients being on Medicare. Coming in the midst of the nurses’ strike to end forced overtime, the announcement adding MCP, with 1,000 employees, to the list of hospitals that Tenet has closed and sold, led to the formation of the Association to Save MCP. This organization of physicians, hospital workers, union leaders, politicians and concerned residents filed suit against Tenet seeking a permanent court injunction to stop the closing. The suit charged that Tenet violated the commitment it made to patients and hospital staff when it took over the hospital in 1998.

A judge granted an injunction at the end of December requiring that Tenet remain open with full services for at least 10 days. Over 100 people packed Judge Carafiello’s courtroom in City Hall Jan. 8 to hear arguments at the end of the 10 days. The Save MCP Coalition presented evidence proving that Tenet had violated the agreement by refusing to accept patients, moving equipment out of the hospital and refusing to rehire needed staff following the strike. The audience members, many of whom work in the hospital and have witnessed Tenet’s actions, gasped in response to the blatant lies of Tenet’s lawyers. Judge Carafiello ordered the injunction to stand until Feb. 19, when another hearing will take place.

In a neighborhood serviced by the hospital, a multiracial crowd of 500 overflowed the Devereaux Methodist Church the evening following the hearing in Judge Carafiello’s courtroom. City Councilman Michael Nutter said Tenet has received millions of dollars in tax breaks as well as cuts in gas bills. City Council hearings, he said, would determine whether Tenet broke its agreement with the city by attempting to close MCP after it received tax breaks to operate in Philadelphia.

“If you see one patient turned away, one piece of equipment moved, you let us know. We’re going to haul them into court,” said state Reps. Jewel Williams and Vincent Hughes. Statements of support have also come from Gov. Ed Rendell and Sen. Arlen Spector (R-Pa.), who has proposed federal assistance for the hospital.

On Dec. 30, hundreds rallied to save the hospital. Henry Nicholas, president of Hospital Workers Union 1199C, told that rally that Tenet “no longer wanted to take care of poor people.” Nancy Pickering, a cardiologist at MCP and a leader in the Save MCP coalition, said that shutting MCP would leave the community without a trauma center and critical emergency care. MCP is a Class 1 trauma center and the only bioterrorism decontamination center in the region. Dr. Pickering said that the hospital had been routinely transferring critically ill patients to other hospitals and threatened staff with termination notices effective Jan. 10. She said that some employees have been sent home early, leaving the hospital understaffed.

The author can be reached at pww@pww.org. Dennis Barnebey contributed to this story.

Letters

Fri, 09 Jan 2004 08:55:00 +0000

Happy New Year

Hi there, I just wanted to take a moment to wish you a happy holiday season and a wonderful start to the New Year! Look forward to working with you in 2004! All the best,

Barbara Kwateng Press Officer International Confederation of Free Trade Unions Via e-mail

Going to the dogs!

Just a quick note of thanks for Brandi Kishner’s piece on her and Adam (PWW, 12/13-19). I just finished my daily walk with my Akita. Actually he thinks he’s walking me which is probably closer to the truth. Had small talk with two neighbors. I agree with the health aspect of your piece. However, there is actually a hidden political benefit. When I speak at local town meetings and/or write a letter-to-the-editor, I’m viewed as a whole person, a neighbor, who also has a thought or two on the way life should be, rather than in narrower political confines. OK, time for my nap . . . with my dog, of course. Thanks again,

Nick BartNaugatuck CT

GOP aided Hussein

The Reagan/Bush/Cheney team viewed Saddam Hussein as the linchpin of stability in that region and provided him the means to carry out his atrocities, continuing right up to his invasion of Kuwait. It was after Reagan re-established diplomatic relations with Iraq in 1982 that the dictator first got going with his WMD programs. Don Rumsfeld, acting as Reagan’s personal envoy, traveled to Baghdad in 1983 to meet with Saddam in order to initiate hundreds of supply contracts that would allow U.S. agencies and firms to ship anthrax and botulism to Iraq. The CIA began helping the Iraqi military to target areas that Saddam wanted to gas by providing him with classified satellite imagery. Iraqi scientists were given tours of Los Alamos and other top secret U.S. nuclear weapons facilities. Things got so bad, that in 1985 the Democrat-controlled House of Representatives passed a resolution demanding that the State Dept. reimpose sanctions that had been placed on Iraq by the Democrats under President Carter. But, Reagan pressured congressional leaders to withdraw the resolution by citing how vital Saddam was to U.S. national interests. I find it terribly odd that no Democrat officials have yet reminded the voters that it was their party that officially opposed Saddam years before the Republicans did.

Cord MacGuireBoulder CO

Fan mail

We want to commend the PWW for having articles by John Pietaro. The last one on Ochs was most interesting and informative as were the other articles about progressive artists. We look forward to seeing more of them in the future.

C. L. KirshVia e-mail

Darn tootin’

I usually enjoy the sports columns carried by PWW, especially when they are about events outside of the northeastern section of the country. But the most recent (12-18, Horn on the Horn) went too far. When I saw that Joe Horn had pulled a cell phone out of the goal post padding and made a call. I laughed for about 2 hours. For a short while, it made up for a lot of the garbage the Bush administration was trying to pull about capturing Saddam Hussein and the direction of its war on Iraq. Did the Horn story actually get more press? Who cares if Horn toots his own horn? Who cares if Terrell Owens signs a football or shakes some pom-poms? It is only a game, after all. The article seemed to be mirroring a lot of the sports reporters who also chastised Horn for what he did. They try to represent professional football as some sort of holy game that cannot be denigrated by silly antics. There is no reason to be sanctimonious about what football players do. Just enjoy the game – and the antics. Save the harsh words for the dangerous antics of the Bush administration.

Joel WendlandYpsilanti MI

Editorials

Fri, 09 Jan 2004 08:25:00 +0000

Celebrating 80 fighting years … and counting

When the Daily Worker first rolled off the press in Chicago on Jan. 13, 1924, it was hailed as the first English-language Communist daily in the U.S. That would begin another chapter for America’s working class. And so it did. The Daily Worker was widely-recognized as applying the phrase, “The pen is mightier than the sword” – by employing journalism to help break Jim Crow racism in the Major Leagues, build the Congress of Industrial Organizations and solidarity with striking workers, fight Nazi fascism, and support socialism and national liberation.

Observers in today’s independent press circles see the launching of the Daily Worker as part of our country’s history of the independent press. The Independent Press Association’s timeline, “A History of the Independent Press in the United States,” 1924 is marked with the following:

“The Daily Worker begins publication. The Daily Worker not only consistently and openly opposed all racism, it also attracted skilled writers, covered sports and culture and paved the way for the literary left in the 1930s.”

Eighty years later and standing on the shoulders of those revolutionary journalism giants, the People’s Weekly World carries on that fighting class struggle history under present day circumstances.

Today, five monopoly corporations control about 90 percent of what Americans see, hear and read. And many of them are embedded with the Bush administration, promoting its agenda like lap dogs.

This administration represents the most reactionary section of monopoly capital, which is hell-bent on using war, violence, racism and exploitation to fatten itself with profit while the overwhelming masses of people in this country and around the world suffer the consequences of poverty, environmental degredation and an over all race to the bottom.

People need an independent and fighting press now more than ever. The People’s Weekly World pledges to continue fighting for democracy, economic justice, equality, peace, liberation, and socialism.

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People’s power in Cuba

“Dreaming of impossible things is called utopia; struggling for goals that are not only attainable but essential if the species is to survive is called realism.” These words by Fidel Castro, marking the 45th anniversary of the Cuban revolution on Jan. 1, capture the essence of that revolution and the socialist system that it ushered into existence. They describe the Cuban people’s struggle today.

Despite seemingly overwhelming odds the Cuban people fought for freedom from dictatorship, colonization and U.S. domination. They not only have survived 45 years of U.S. sabotage and economic blockade, but also have nourished a society of people’s political power, economic security and social equality.

The Cuban people have chosen a path that inspires many the world over to believe that socialism – a system built by, for and of the people – is a realistic alternative to the multinational corporate trail of preemptive war, hunger and inequality. Cuba’s humanitarian example is recognized around the world: it has more doctors on international missions than the World Health Organization.

We North Americans confront our own realism: The Bush administration takes from the mouths, minds and spirits of our children, and our impoverished, ill and elderly, to give to the rich and the corporations.

This administration is now beginning to prosecute Americans for traveling to Cuba over the past decade. This week the White House cancelled a new round of negotiations with Cuba to reach an agreement on migration. Evidently the Bush crowd prefers that people wanting to come to the U.S. from Cuba use dangerous, provocative, illegal “photo op” methods. This is yet another cruel Bush campaign ploy.

We celebrate 45 years of people power in socialist Cuba. We defend the right of our people to travel to Cuba, and demand an end to the illegal blockade of that tiny island.

And we must do what is “essential for the survival of our species” – defeat Bush and the far right in the 2004 elections.

U.S. companies loot Iraq & U.S. taxpayers

Fri, 09 Jan 2004 04:55:00 +0000

As Americans at home returned to post-holiday routines, the news from Iraq continued a familiar pattern – U.S. troops and Iraqi civilians killed and wounded daily. But sharing the spotlight is the looting of Iraq by corporate war-profiteers, fueling mounting anger among the Iraqi people, with U.S. states and communities footing the $166 billion bill.

A poll two months ago showed only 6 percent of Iraqis believed the U.S. is there to help. Since then, as the occupation drags on, reporters in Iraq say the outrage and frustration have widened.

Bechtel Corp., the engineering and construction giant closely tied to the Bush administration, has just been awarded a new $1.8 billion contract to rebuild Iraq’s electrical and water systems, roads and schools. Bechtel got the deal with two other U.S. firms as subcontractors, in an apparent effort to deflect mounting charges of cronyism and corruption around the Iraq contracts.

Last April, Bechtel was handed a no-bid contract for Iraq worth up to $1.03 billion. That contract included reconstruction of 1,500 Iraqi primary and secondary schools. But Iraqi school principals say they have gotten only superficial repairs, using cheap materials, leaving major problems – like sewage pipes – untouched. Needed supplies were never provided despite repeated requests. An education ministry official responsible for one-fourth of the schools Bechtel is supposed to be fixing said none of the work is checked by Bechtel. One principal told a reporter he had to pay out of his own pocket to weld a broken banister that had caused a child to fall to the floor below – it was not part of Bechtel’s project plan. “Why do we need Bechtel? They have done absolutely nothing,” the principal said.

At a power station in Basra, an electricity ministry official begged Bechtel for months to deliver vital spare parts to repair the turbines. Instead, Bechtel finally delivered giant new air conditioning units, unrequested by the plant manager and useless until next summer. The requested spare parts are available from the Russian, French and Germany companies that built the turbines, but the Pentagon has banned those countries from getting contracts in Iraq.

Bechtel executives gave thousands of dollars to Bush’s 2000 campaign. Bechtel board member George Schultz, who was Nixon’s Treasury Secretary and Reagan’s Secretary of State, chairs the advisory board of the Committee for the Liberation of Iraq, a group set up just over a year ago to support Bush’s war drive.

Kellogg, Brown, and Root (KBR) the Halliburton subsidiary and no-bid contractor for rebuilding Iraq’s oil infrastructure, is also angering Iraqis for its failure to get oil refineries operational. With its refineries unrepaired, Iraq has been unable to meet domestic needs. So the Pentagon has paid KBR to import gasoline from Turkey and Kuwait.

In December, Pentagon auditors found that KBR overcharged the government by $61 million for fuel it imported from Kuwait. But immediately after that was reported, the head of the Army Corps of Engineers okayed allowing KBR to continue to buy fuel from Kuwait without submitting cost and price information required by federal contracting rules. “The Defense Department is ignoring their own audit that showed Halliburton had bilked taxpayers out of $61 million,” Sen. Frank Lautenberg (D-N.J.) said this week.

Vice President Dick Cheney was Halliburton’s CEO from 1995 to 2000, and continues to have financial ties to the oil giant. Halliburton received a multi-billion-dollar no-bid contract for Iraq last March.

Meanwhile, attacks on U.S. troops in Iraq continue unabated.

Debbie C., mother of a soldier serving in southern Iraq, says her son told her Dec. 27 his unit is being shot at and shelled almost daily. But his biweekly military paycheck has decreased by $200 – his unit was told that combat or hazard pay (he was not sure which) was being discontinued. They were also told there would be no more R&R after early January. “That means that he will have been in that country without any rest from mid March until they finally agree to send their unit home, but who knows when that will happen,” Debbie wrote to Military Families Speak Out, hoping her letter “might wake people up to how unimportant our soldiers really are to our government.” She continued, “Not only have they been put in to a country that does not want us there but they were put there for no apparent reason.”

U.S. and British officials say occupation troops will stay in Iraq for years.

Pentagon officials said this week they will be telling soldiers due to return from Iraq and Afghanistan over the next several months that they will not be allowed to retire or otherwise leave the service for three months after they return to their home base.

The order, known as “stop loss,” adds on to a similar order imposed last November on the thousands of soldiers to be sent to Iraq and Afghanistan this year.

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