People Before Profit blog

King Day events call for peace, equality

Fri, 21 Jan 2005 05:22:00 +0000

LOS ANGELES — Inspired by the example of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., tens of thousands in California, Texas, and across the nation marched and rallied, calling for peace, social justice, and workers’ rights.

Thousands of African Americans and Latinos lined the route of the Jan. 17 King Day Parade through the heart of South Los Angeles, chanting “Save King/Drew!” The cheers saluted Rep. Maxine Waters who marched the entire three-mile route leading a float carrying King/Drew hospital medical staff and a contingent of community activists with placards, banners and buttons opposing the scheduled February closing of the public hospital’s trauma unit and possible closure of the entire hospital. King/Drew is the only major hospital for over 1.5 million people of color in South LA.

In San Antonio, Texas, more than 70,000 people, including many families with children, marched for three miles, with signs calling for peace, racial equality and social justice. A large banner with an image of the Virgin of Guadalupe bore the slogan, “Guerra, no. Paz y justicia!” (No war. Peace and justice!). Many marchers held up handmade signs reading, “Military recruiters: Stay away from our kids!” and “Support the troops — Bring them home!”

Asked why the march has grown into a major city event, T.C. Calvert, 2005 King March Committee chairman, told reporters, “It has a lot to do with the issues — our biggest contingent is the peace groups.” Calvert participated in San Antonio’s first King anniversary event in 1978, when about 50 people rallied.

In Oakland, Calif., Rep. Barbara Lee electrified a crowd of over 500 with her declaration, “We must end the war in Iraq and bring our troops home, and rejoin the international community … we must eradicate poverty in America … we must remove the cancer of racism from our democracy!”

The triple evils of war, poverty and racism, identified by Dr. King, are the real “axes of evil,” Lee said. “Even some Republicans are coming to recognize the folly of this war in Iraq,” she said. Besides the needless deaths of over 1,300 U.S. servicemen and women and untold Iraqis including children, she added, wounded veterans are coming back with “unbelievable” injuries and lifetime disabilities.

“I’m a proud daughter of an honored soldier,” Lee said. “I honor the service that Americans are giving to our country. But this war is unnecessary, immoral and wrong!”

“Not with my vote!” she said of the administration’s plan to ask for $100 million more, on top of the $200 billion already spent on the war. “$200 billion that will never reach a student in the classrooms of our schools — $200 billion that will never be devoted to defeating the AIDS pandemic.”

In the Los Angeles march, the outpouring of support for Waters and other leaders of the struggle to maintain and restore King/Drew hospital’s services was a sharp rebuke of the Los Angeles Board of Supervisors, the Los Angeles Times and the Joint Commission on Accreditations of Hospital Organizations, who incredibly blame Waters and other African American politicians and activists for deficiencies at the hospital.

That evening hundreds of African American, civil rights and labor leaders cheered Waters at the SCLC Los Angeles awards dinner, where her work on the King/Drew issue was awarded SCLC’s top Martin Luther King national award. She delivered a rousing keynote address calling for greater activism and sacrifice to “mend, not end” the hospital, bring all the troops home from Iraq, and confront America’s corporations on outsourcing jobs while receiving huge tax breaks.

The AFL-CIO made Los Angeles the national center of its commemoration of King’s 76th birthday, holding a five-day series of events here. Clayola Brown, vice president of UNITE-HERE, new president of the A. Philip Randolph Institute, and co-chair of the labor events, noted that it was the first such commemoration held outside the South in over 20 years. The choice of Los Angeles was due in part to the LA County Federation of Labor’s success “in forging a strong labor and civil rights agenda,” she said.

In panels, workshops, picket lines, and large breakfast and dinner meetings, hundreds of labor leaders and activists from across the nation examined successful strikes, organizing drives, contract struggles, and political action in Los Angles in recent years as examples for meeting the challenges of the second Bush administration.

William Lucy, AFSCME international secretary-treasurer and chair of the Coalition of Black Trade Unionists, told a Jan. 14 gathering of the LA County Federation the struggle for justice is international. Lucy condemned the U.S. occupation of Iraq, saying we are there “because of the oil under their soil.” The U.S. should focus on defending democracy at home in places like South Central Los Angeles, he said.

In her keynote address to the AFL-CIO’s Eye on the Prize awards dinner Jan. 15, AFL-CIO Executive Vice President Linda Chavez-Thompson said the most important rule in politics is “things can turn around much sooner than anyone can imagine … if we fight smart, and if we fight hard and if we fight creatively, and if we fight tough.”

rosalio_munoz@sbcglobal.net. Marilyn Bechtel and Roberto Botello contributed to this story.click here for Spanish text

Groups charge Bush is lying: Social Security crisis is phony

Fri, 21 Jan 2005 05:17:00 +0000

Huge coalition moves to stop privatization

“Social Security ain’t broke and Wall Street won’t fix it!” shouted hundreds of marchers in front of the Stock Exchange, Chamber of Commerce and Sen. Dianne Feinstein’s office in San Francisco, Jan. 18. From there the Gray Panthers announced a Feb. 3 national “Day of Deluge,” when people are urged to swamp their Washington representatives with the demand: “No privatization of Social Security.”

The Bush administration created the lie of a “system in crisis” in order to wreck Social Security for the profit of Wall Street tycoons, demonstrators charged. But Bush has a tough fight on his hands. The AFL-CIO, the NAACP, NOW, the Alliance for Retired Americans, and others are bringing together a massive national grassroots coalition against administration plans to privatize Social Security.

“The Social Security battle will be huge,” Linda Chavez-Thompson, executive vice-president of the AFL-CIO, said at a Los Angeles dinner in honor of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. “This is one of the most successful family protection programs, not only in our country, but anywhere in the world. Yet when Bush looks at it, there are dollar signs in his eyes, and he sees a huge pool of cash that could make his ultra-rich buddies even richer.”

In Ohio, a broad coalition involving labor, retirees, community groups, congressional representatives, Cuyahoga County and city of Cleveland Departments of Aging and activists throughout the state’s northeast corridor began to chart their course to protect Social Security from the privatizers. Among the coalition’s goals are to help form a state-wide coalition and to convince Republican Sen. George Voinovich and Mike DeWine not to support Bush’s plan. “If we can do this we’ll have contributed to the national effort,” one Ohio leader said.

Since his re-election, Bush has quickly gone on the offensive against Social Security. It is expected to be at the top of his agenda in the beginning of his second term, starting with a massive “big lie” campaign that Social Security will be “broke and busted” by the time younger workers retire.

Robert Greenstein of the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities refuted that lie. He cited a leaked White House memo that outlines the first part of Bush’s strategy: to convince the public that the system is “headed for an iceberg.”

Greenstein says the system’s trust fund contains U.S. treasury bonds that will keep the system working full-scale for decades. Estimates from the Social Security trustees and the Congressional Budget Office both foresee the ability to pay full benefits until at least 2042 and that it will never be “bust.”

Some economists say that the best answer to any Social Security concerns — including raising benefits, which are too low for many — would be to “scrap the cap.” Under the current system, people pay a Social Security tax (FICA) on their income up to about $90,000 per year. Income above that amount is not subject to Social Security tax.

The Bush plan will take money from paychecks, earmarked for FICA, and divert it into individual savings accounts subject to the gambles of the stock market. “This is an attack on the central basic entitlement of the American people, across all generations. It’s a battle we can and have to win,” William Parry, president of the Association of Retired Americans in Washington’s Seattle region, told the World.

The Wall Street-backed “Alliance for Worker Retirement Security” is pouring millions of dollars into this dishonest campaign, he said, because the people who would manage these accounts would all take a share. “Multiply that by millions of accounts — that’s billions of dollars flooding into Wall Street.”

Young people have a stake in saving Social Security and shouldn’t fall for the privatization scheme, Parry said. “It’s not something that only benefits the retired. It is also an insurance system, and protects younger workers as well as old.”

Social Security protects all workers with a disability and a life insurance policy, Parry noted. “It protects the families of workers who die or are hurt at work. There are more than 5 million children on Social Security, and non-retired people receive three out of every 10 checks the Social Security system writes.”

Rita Haley, president of NOW’s New York City chapter, said diverting money to private accounts would be “very harmful to women.” Women are much more dependent on Social Security benefits because they have fewer potential resources, she said. “No one will benefit except those on Wall Street.”

Isabel Kimble, who marched in the Jan. 18 San Francisco demonstration, said, “I was alive when President Franklin Roosevelt put Social Security in. But I wasn’t very interested then. I was only 21 years old — I thought I’d never be old. But now I see how important it is to everyone. Though I have other retirement income, Social Security is a basic element of retirement income.”

dmargolis@cpusa.org. Marilyn Bechtel and Rosalio Muñoz contributed to this story.

Privatizing Social Security will hurt women

Fri, 14 Jan 2005 08:39:00 +0000

OPINION

These remarks were delivered at a joint press conference at the National Press Club, Dec. 16, 2004, with leaders of the AFL-CIO, NAACP and others.

It’s a pleasure to be here as part of such a distinguished panel of leaders. Today I’m speaking on behalf of the more than 700,000 contributing members of the National Organization for Women, and also as co-chair of the Social Security Task Force of the National Council of Women’s Organizations, representing over 10 million women across the country.

I was a math major in college, and one of my favorite books was “How to Lie with Statistics” — it’s a real eye-opener. But when it comes to Social Security, this administration has an opportunity to turn over not billions but trillions of dollars of our money to Wall Street, so why should they bother with the numbers? Apparently if you say “the sky is falling” often enough, and it’s echoed in the corporate media, people begin to believe it’s the truth. You’ve already heard why it’s not true, so I’ll leave most of the debunking to the economists on the panel, but I’ll say this:

Social Security is NOT in trouble: The Social Security system will be able to pay full benefits for several more decades — until 2052 according to the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office. Does the system need to be strengthened? Sure it does — but the administration’s proposal is like rescuing a treed cat with an infantry battalion—you end up with an injured cat and a whole lot of collateral damage.

On the other hand, George Bush is in trouble. He’s got a big debt to pay to his friends on Wall Street, and he wants to do it fast so that the next group can belly up to the taxpayer trough. The transition costs alone — an estimated $2 trillion — are enough to make Halliburton want to expand into yet another area of government “service.” Some have called this the “biggest bonanza in mutual fund history,” and the financial industry stands to gain as much as $75 billion a year. Where does that money come from? The answer is — you.

They’re even talking about some creative accounting to keep that $2 trillion giveaway off of the budget books — hide it and hope no one notices. Have they hired the Enron accountants to advise the Social Security Administration?

So why is this a women’s issue? Here are some of the reasons:

Women are far less likely than men to have a pension from their jobs, so Social Security is likely to be their primary retirement income.

Even if they have supplemental savings, women live longer on average than men, so their savings run out sooner — and the majority of the very elderly are women whose only source of support is Social Security.

Most women earn less than $25,000 per year — so the administrative costs of such a small private account would eat up most, if not all, of the earnings each year. In Chile, where accounts are privatized, administrative costs consume not only the interest income but as much as one-half of the total contribution.

Women, no matter how clever, will need a lot more than what this administration offers to make them part of an “ownership society.” Instead, we’re heading toward a society where we’re owned by brokerage firms and the vagaries of the stock market.

Women have always been the guardians of their families’ interests, and we won’t stop now. Across the country, women will be standing up against this effort to privatize Social Security. We are determined to strengthen this important family security insurance program to make sure it will be here for our children and grandchildren.

Kim Gandy is president of the National Organization for Women.

Saving LA hospital focus of King week

Fri, 14 Jan 2005 05:13:00 +0000

LOS ANGELES — Restoring the trauma center at the Martin Luther King/Charles Drew Medical Center and maintaining the hospital as a comprehensive health care and training center are high priorities for activists here during a week of activities honoring Dr. King.

The Los Angeles Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC/LA) has organized a Save King/Drew community forum as part of its King Week festivities. SCLC was the base organization of King, the civil rights leader slain in 1968. The forum is being held Jan. 15 at the Watts Labor Community Action Center, where the coalition opposing the trauma center closure holds its weekly meetings.

Rep. Maxine Waters (D-Calif.), a leader of the anti-closure movement, will keynote the 28th Annual Martin Luther King Jr. Birthday Celebration and Awards Dinner at the Beverly Hills Hilton Hotel that evening. On Jan. 17 the coalition is sponsoring a Save King/Drew Hospital float in the Martin Luther King Jr. Annual Parade in the heart of South Los Angeles.

The central role of Save King/Drew in the week’s activities reflects the rejection by the African American community and civil rights activists of both the Nov. 22 Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors vote to close the trauma center, and a Los Angeles Times campaign to discredit Waters, her family, and other African American leaders. In a Dec. 12 editorial the Times said there is no “excuse for how Rep. Maxine Waters and other elected officials defended the deadly status quo at King Drew.”

During community meetings, hearings and interviews, Waters and other coalition members have stressed that the hospital cures and helps untold more people than are harmed by its deficiencies. At a Jan. 8 coalition meeting, Waters stressed that she continues to oppose cuts in services and supports the restoration of previous cuts, but does not oppose improvements to remove the deficiencies.

“We have to keep our eye on the prize,” Waters said. “The mission of the hospital should be to serve the community as a comprehensive hospital and teaching center.”

At the meeting Waters distributed copies of a summary of a recent assessment of the hospital by Navigant Consulting. The Board of Supervisors hired the giant consulting firm for more than $13 million for one year to administer the hospital and make recommendations on correcting problems.

The Times article on the assessment focused on “1,000 failings” of the hospital. The first executive report, however, makes it clear that strengths exist at King/Drew Medical Center “upon which to build employee and physician pride in the hospital, long-term employee commitment and loyalty. This includes support of the mission to provide comprehensive medical care to the community, its medical school affiliation, diversity of the work force and community support.” The Times article failed to mention this.

The county supervisors voted to close the trauma center despite massive community protests. Their stated aim was to reduce the workload at the hospital to allow the county and consultants to improve hospital deficiencies that have led the Joint Commission on the Accreditation of Hospital Organizations to threaten decertification of the hospital. This would have resulted in a cutoff of $200 million in Medicare funds.

The protests forced the supervisors to pledge to restore the trauma center when the accreditation problems are positively resolved. Waters told the Jan. 8 coalition meeting she believes that unless there is vigilance by the community and the labor movement, the hospital will be reduced to a small community hospital.

rosalio_munoz@sbcglobal.net

Civil rights, Latino groups charge Gonzales unfit for office

Fri, 14 Jan 2005 04:51:00 +0000

Torture role condemned, ‘No’ vote urged

In Judiciary Committee confirmation hearings, senators mostly held their punches on Alberto R. Gonzales’ role in the torture of Iraq war detainees. But defenders of democratic rights branded Gonzales unfit for the office of U.S. attorney general and called on the senators to reject him.

The Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR), which represents detainees at the Guantanamo detention center, urged people to sign their online petition calling for a “No” vote on Gonzales.

“We have seen the terrible effect of his policies on human beings firsthand,” a CCR appeal states. “Gonzales and his circle discussed specific torture techniques like mock burial and ‘water boarding’ when the victim is made to feel he is drowning, and approved the use of dogs, hooding and extreme sensory deprivation, all forbidden by the Geneva Conventions and the International Covenant Against Torture.”

Latino civil rights leaders held a press conference in San Francisco Jan. 10 to urge Gonzales’ rejection. The nominee “has a very troubling view of our government’s checks and balances,” said Maria Blanco, executive director of the Lawyers Committee for Civil Rights and former senior counsel for the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund (MALDEF). She cited Gonzales’ testimony to the Senate that the president, and not the courts, has the right to decide legal issues, including defining torture so narrowly as to allow physical punishment short of death or permanent physical harm.

“I agree that these are difficult times,” Blanco said, “but they will only be made more difficult for our troops and for our standing in the world, if Mr. Gonzales is approved.”

Dr. Zita Cabello, a Chilean-born filmmaker, told the news conference that Bush’s position on terrorism reminded her of another Sept. 11, when in 1973, the Chilean armed forces under Gen. Augusto Pinochet overthrew the democratically elected government of Salvador Allende. “For 17 long years they destroyed life, honor and human dignity in the name of defending democracy,” she said.

Her brother was murdered by the Pinochet regime. Cabello and her family came to the United States. “We felt safe.” But now, she added, “I am afraid that one day there will be no place left for us to be safe.”

“The fact that Mr. Gonzales is a Mexican American who has worked his way out of poverty gains much respect,” said Mercedes Castillo, chair of the National Latina/o Law Students Association and a law student at U.C.-Davis. “However, this is not enough to automatically garner the support of our community.”

Castillo said Gonzales should be rejected because he espouses an ideology that would deprive people of civil rights and subject detainees to torture, detention without legal counsel and even death.

Mexican American Political Association San Francisco chair, Paula Fiscal, presented a statement from MAPA National President Nativo Lopez. “MAPA cannot support the confirmation of Alberto Gonzales as U.S. attorney general,” the statement said. “We can only support a candidate who has a demonstrated commitment to the rule of law.”

Asked about Gonzales’ potential impact on California’s troubled justice system, Blanco said, “In California we have great problems of abuse and lack of accountability. When you start undermining conventions for humane trial, that kind of thinking spreads.” Fiscal noted that African Americans and Latinos make up most of the prison population, and a Gonzales confirmation would “say to the rest of the world that it’s okay to do whatever we want to prisoners.”

In Washington, People for the American Way (PFAW) cited Gonzales’ authorship of an August 2002 memo in which he concluded that “the president could lawfully order the use of torture and those following his orders would be immune from criminal prosecution.”

The senators have avoided questioning Gonzales about Bush’s culpability in the torture.

On Dec. 20, the American Civil Liberties Union released FBI e-mails and other documents obtained under the Freedom of Information Act (see PWW Jan. 8-15). It included a May 22, 2004, e-mail that refers to a secret Executive Order signed by Bush, authorizing torture.

An agent who identified himself as “On Scene Commander, Baghdad” sent the e-mail to FBI headquarters, seeking guidance on whether to report the severe abuse of detainees he was witnessing.

“We are aware that prior to a revision in policy last week, an Executive Order signed by President Bush authorized the following interrogation techniques, among others, sleep ‘management,’ use of MWDs [military work dogs], stress positions.”

It continues, “According to a Task Force 6-26 e-mail stream I have seen, the following techniques can no longer be used absent the high level authorization: stress positions, MWDs, sleep management, stripping (except for health inspection) and environmental manipulation (e.g. loud music).”

All are forbidden under the Geneva Conventions and the Covenant Against Torture both of which the U.S. is a signatory. The FBI e-mails can be viewed at the following ACLU web site: http://www.aclu.org/torturefoia/released/fbi.html.

The vast majority of the torture victims at Abu Ghraib were innocent civilians swept up in dragnet U.S. military operations. Worldwide outrage forced the military to release many of them. Yet thousands more, including the 600 detainees at Guantanamo, remain in jail, held without criminal charges or the right of legal representation. The Bush administration plans to build prisons for their permanent incarceration. click here for Spanish text