People Before Profit blog

States move to boost minimum wage

Fri, 27 Jan 2006 10:47:00 +0000

Congress has frozen the federal minimum wage of $5.15 an hour for nine years, but state legislatures have taken action to boost that minimum locally. On Jan. 17, Maryland became the 18th state to do so when the Legislature overrode GOP Gov. Robert Erlich’s veto of a bill setting the floor on wages at $6.15 an hour. The same day, New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson announced in his ‘State of the State’ address that he proposes the Legislature raise the state’s rate to $7.50 an hour over three years.

“I think it will continue to be a hot issue for the states in 2006,” said Jeanne Mejeur, who tracks minimum wage issues for the National Conference of State Legislatures. She predicts that as many as 30 states will consider minimum wage increases this year.

Campaigns to increase wages for low-wage workers are already underway in Nevada, Arkansas, Michigan, Montana, Ohio and Arizona, according to the Ballot Initiative Strategy Center.

Pennsylvanians press for minimum wage increase

Fri, 27 Jan 2006 10:46:00 +0000

HARRISBURG, Pa. — The signs filling the Capitol Rotunda here told the story: “We Want Fair Wages,” “Help the Working Poor,” and “Vote Now!” For the third time in seven months a broad coalition of labor, community and religious groups brought hundreds of workers, unemployed and their supporters to the state capital to bring their message to state legislators. Workers in steel, health care, education, hotel and restaurant and other industries joined community activists from across the state.

Pennsylvania AFL-CIO President Bill George opened the noon rally, saying, “This is not a labor rally; this is a people’s rally!” He was followed at the podium by an array of speakers, including many state legislators, demanding that the Keystone state increase its minimum wage from the current $5.15 to $7.15 by January 1, 2007.

The state’s minimum wage has not been raised since 1997. According to the Pennsylvania AFL-CIO, inflation has reduced its value to $4 in 1997 terms, a cut of over 20 per cent.

Minimum wage legislation has been bottled up in committee by the Republican Senate leadership for several years, but pressure to bring it out for a vote has intensified recently, especially since legislators voted themselves a hefty pay increase last summer. Voter outrage was so intense that legislators were forced to rescind the pay raise, but many are still smarting from the experience.

The rally here capped a week of activity across the state aimed at forcing passage of legislation sponsored by state Sen. Tina Tartaglione and state Rep. Mark Cohen, both Philadelphia Democrats. Both bills have long lists of co-sponsors.

On Jan. 19, simultaneous rallies in Harrisburg, Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, and Erie heard low-wage workers and Gov. Ed Rendell call for passage of the legislation via a statewide audio feed on loudspeakers.

The coalition was spurred to action by concern that the Senate Republican leadership, feeling the heat, plans to hustle out a bill calling for a nominal increase in an attempt to undercut support for the $7.15 figure.

As ACORN member Traci Green of Philadelphia told the rally, “If you don’t fix this issue now, with inflation going up, there’s going to be a lot more poverty in our community. A lot of people will be desperate for food and housing.”

Speakers noted that most of Pennsylvania’s neighboring states have already raised their minimum wage, putting the lie to the argument that employers will simply move across the border to avoid paying the increase.

Young communists hold national school

Fri, 27 Jan 2006 10:40:00 +0000

NEW YORK — Over a dozen members of the Young Communist League USA participated in a seven-day National Youth School facilitated by four leading members of the Communist Party USA here during the week of Jan. 8-14.

The school entertained a diverse array of YCLers who discussed topics such as capitalism, socialism, the working class, Marxism-Leninism, dialectical and historical materialism, and strategy and tactics. It also took up issues relating to women and equality, racism and national oppression, youth and labor, and the role of the YCL and the Communist Party.

Questions like, “What’s wrong with capitalism, and can it be patched up? Who makes up the working class and how did it come to be? Are we on the doorsteps of fascism? In whose interest is socialism? Are all women equally oppressed? What defines racism?” were asked throughout the weeklong course.

Classic films were presented at lunch, such as Charlie Chaplin’s “Modern Times” and “The Good Fight,” a documentary about members of the U.S. Abraham Lincoln Brigade who sacrificed their lives to fight heroically against the rising tide of fascism in Spain in the 1930s. The school explained that fascism is the “open terrorist capitalist dictatorship,” consisting of the most “racist, chauvinist, militarist reactionary sector of the bourgeoisie.”

One speaker, noting the “great scientific discovery” of socialism by Karl Marx and Frederick Engels, and drawing on the experience of the first socialist state, the Soviet Union, led by Vladimir Lenin, said that socialism in the 21st century requires a “working-class led state, social ownership of the means of production and democracy.”

“Philosophers have only interpreted the world in various ways; the point, however, is to change it,” Marx said. This quotation and others, like Clara Zetkin’s “True emancipation of women is not possible except through communism,” were highlighted throughout the school. In a discussion about racism the comments of Gus Hall, the late national leader of the CPUSA, were cited: “White chauvinism remains the most persistent and widespread poisonous ideological current influencing the thinking of the white masses.”

At the end of the week, students commented that the school was “extremely helpful,” “thought provoking” and “well organized.”

The YCL is also preparing for its Eighth National Convention to be held May 27-29 in New York City. It’s calling upon its members, friends and allies to build for the convention with the slogan, “Our Future, Our Fight: Youth Beat Back the Ultra-Right.” The convention is the highest body of the YCL and it brings young activists together to share strategies and tactics, to elect leadership, to set its direction for the next period, and to enjoy recreational and cultural activities.

As the Bush administration and the ultra-right continue to attack the rights of working people here at home and initiate imperialist wars over seas, the YCL school made it plain that the organization remains committed to building a broad, united, labor-led, all people’s front in defeating the backward policies of the ultra-right.

Gibran exhibit visits Arab American museum

Fri, 27 Jan 2006 10:34:00 +0000

DEARBORN, Mich. — The Arab American National Museum will feature an exhibition of works by Lebanese American poet and artist Kahlil Gibran (1883-1931). The exhibition, “To Discover Beauty: The Art of Kahlil Gibran, Selections from the Collection of the Telfair Museum of Art,” will be on view from Feb. 1 through April 30.

Although Gibran is primarily known for his literary works — most notably bestseller “The Prophet” — he was a graphic artist as well.

“Just like the Arab American National Museum, this exhibit is historical — it’s the largest public collection of Gibran’s art,” said Dr. Anan Ameri, director of the museum. “We are very delighted to host this exhibit especially since he was also an accomplished visual artist, which was an important aspect of his creative life.”

Incorporating cultural traditions from both East and West, Gibran’s artworks integrate the stylistic mysticism of his native Lebanon with Western artistic genres including aestheticism and symbolism. In his art, as in his writing, Gibran attempted to express universal themes and abstract concepts. To achieve this he often used ethereal human figures as a visual medium. This preoccupation with the spiritual and the sublime runs throughout Gibran’s work, tying his poetry and painting together.

The Arab American National Museum documents, preserves, celebrates and educates the public on the history, life, culture and contributions of Arab Americans. It serves as a resource to enhance knowledge and understanding about Arab Americans and their presence in this country. For more information on the Gibran exhibition and on the museum, visit their web site, www.theAANM.org, or call (313) 582-AANM (2266).

Dirigo works! Maine citizens fed up with attacks on Dirigo Health

Fri, 27 Jan 2006 09:56:00 +0000

Maine’s Dirigo Health Plan is working! Supporters gathered at the Maine Statehouse in Augusta on Jan. 12 to rally support for the program that Gov. John Baldacci, Democrat of Bangor, is fighting hard to preserve.

John Henderson, diabetic from the age of 4, challenged Maine legislators. “If any of you out there don’t think that Dirigo is worth your active, enthusiastic support and vote, then I have a challenge for you. Drop your health insurance and go without for a year. Drop your family’s health insurance for a year. See what the 130,000 uninsured people of Maine have to contend with. See what it is like to stare sickness, and bankruptcy, in the face. If you are not willing to do that, then you are morally obligated to support Dirigo.”

In 2003, at his first press conference as governor of Maine, Baldacci announced that his number-one political priority was to guarantee quality, affordable health coverage to all Maine citizens.

Recognizing that the state was unprepared to institute single-payer health care, the governor called on all Maine “stakeholders” (e.g. citizens, physicians, nurses, hospitals, businesses and insurance companies) to work together to insure universal coverage by 2009. After months of cooperative study by all stakeholders, Maine’s Dirigo Health legislation passed by sizeable margins in both Houses of the Legislature and was signed into law. “Dirigo,” Latin for “I lead,” is the state’s motto.

Dirigo Health, which consists of five components, is more than just health insurance. Four of the five Dirigo Health Commissions were designed to assess the state’s current health care delivery system.

The Commission to Study Maine’s Hospitals has already filed its report, resulting in important legislation: (1) hospitals must report the income of for-profit as well as not-for-profit subsidiaries, (2) all contributions to the salaries of top hospital executives must be made public, and (3) hospitals in the state must collaborate, using the same terminology in describing certain in- and out-patient procedures and reporting their charges for these same procedures.

The Commission to create a State Health Plan released its first draft last November. Based on citizen input, public health data and economic research, the plan demonstrates the many values of a primary care, preventive approach to health care. The state health plan will prioritize addressing obesity (including good nutrition and physical exercise), chronic medical illnesses, substance abuse, tobacco dependence and depression.

DirigoChoice, the first public/private health insurance collaboration in the nation, is designed to provide access to quality health care for all Mainers by 2009.

Just over a year ago, DirigoChoice began providing health insurance to small businesses and individuals throughout the state. Today, DirigoChoice has demonstrated profound successes. Over 8,000 Mainers (formerly uninsured — or underinsured by expensive, high deductible policies that in fact discourage seeking preventive, primary care) receive affordable, comprehensive health care coverage. At the same time, Dirigo Health has saved Mainer citizens over 43 million health care dollars through a wide range of cost-containment measures.

Unfortunately, from its inception Dirigo Health has been the victim of concerted attacks by in- and out-of-state insurance companies, corporate health care and ultra-conservative interests. Recently the Portland Press Herald reported that four top Republican legislators have created a political action committee to discredit Maine’s health care initiative. The PAC has spent $10,000 to run 60-second radio ads blasting Dirigo on 10 radio stations across the state. PAC leaders have admitted that money was raised from out-of-state individuals “involved in the insurance industry.”

In response to this partisan political opposition, Maine state citizen action groups, labor, small business owners and individuals enrolled in the DirigoChoice program held a press conference at the Statehouse on Jan. 12.

“Recent attacks from insurers and some legislative leaders have compelled us to create a forum to let the voices of real Maine people be heard,” said Faye Pertuis, a member of the Maine People’s Alliance and DirigoChoice enrollee. “Thousands of individuals are enrolled in and benefiting from the DirigoChoice program, and many more were on a waiting list and are now able to enroll, but their voices are being drowned out by the attacks from Republican leaders and the insurance industry. We’re counting on our legislators to put the Maine people first. We elected our leaders to represent us, not big insurance companies.”

Sara Stalman (sarastalman@yahoo.com) is chair of the Maine Peoples Alliance Physician Group.

Labor, religious groups defend immigrant rights

Fri, 27 Jan 2006 09:47:00 +0000

Labor, religious and civil rights groups are urging that supporters of immigrant rights should focus now on the Senate Judiciary Committee, which is likely to begin debate on immigration legislation in February.

In a Jan. 17 letter to the Committee Chair Arlen Specter (R-Pa.), AFL-CIO Executive Vice President Linda Chavez-Thompson urged that legislation should “work toward a system that protects and guarantees the rights of all workers, both native and foreign-born, and that guarantees the safety of our nation without compromising our fundamental civil rights.”

The Catholic Church’s Justice for Immigrants nationwide campaign is giving emphasis to contacting the members of the Senate Judiciary Committee in their mobilization to win legal status of undocumented workers and defeat repressive measures, says campaign director Leo Anchondo. “We want people to contact their own states’ senators as well as the committee,” he added.

Extremely repressive legislation was railroaded through the House of Representatives by House Judiciary chair James Sensenbrenner (R-Wis.). Sensenbrenner limited the House Committee discussion to a few hours for his more than 160-page bill, HR 4437. Then the bill was rushed through the House floor and passed with the support of President Bush and the House Republican leadership.

On Jan. 20 the National Immigration Forum issued a legislative alert that called on immigration advocates who “have a senator who sits on the Judiciary Committee to weigh in with your senator immediately.”

On Jan. 19, SEIU President Andy Stern, Laborers President Terence O’Sullivan, Thomas Donohue the president of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and representatives of the Catholic Conference of Bishops and the American Health Care Association called on the Senate to pass comprehensive immigration reform that provides legalization with a path to citizenship for undocumented immigrants. PAI reported that after the press conference, SEIU’s Stern said the union would be working on the issue in key states and congressional districts and that senators who focus primarily on border enforcement “like (California Democrat Dianne) Feinstein have the wrong idea.” Feinstein is a member of the Senate Judiciary committee.

Local and state immigrant rights coalitions are building pressure as well. In a recent Minneapolis press conference, the Alliance for Fair Federal Immigration of Minnesota criticized a restrictive plan by Gov. Tim Pawlenty as paralleling the extreme measures in HR 4437.

Although coalition groups differ in their emphases, all stress the rejection of the enforcement-only measures of HR 4437. All stress the importance of legalization with a path to citizenship for undocumented workers, priority on family unification, protection of due process procedures, and strong labor protections. Many groups around the country are mobilizing for pro-immigrant rights actions in response to President Bush’s Jan. 31 State of the Union address.

Hearings, lawsuit slam Bush spying defense

Fri, 27 Jan 2006 08:01:00 +0000

WASHINGTON — The White House has unleashed a hard-line defense of the Bush administration’s spying on Americans without a warrant, claiming that only “credible threats” linked to al-Qaeda have been under surveillance and the snooping is necessary to protect “national security.”

Conveniently, a new Osama bin Laden tape diverted attention from a tidal wave of angry questions about the spying. But targets of the eavesdropping called it a dangerous assault on their constitutional rights, aimed at intimidating people into silence in the face of Bush’s grab for unchecked power.

The warrantless spying secretly ordered by Bush in 2001 includes wiretapping by the National Security Agency and a separate Defense Department project, Operation Talon.

Richard Hersh, an activist with the Truth Project in Palm Beach, Fla., which distributes counter-recruitment literature at local high schools, called surveillance directed at him and his group “absolutely ridiculous.”

“We are exercising our constitutional rights,” he told the World. “Our purpose is to educate teenagers, to give them enough information so that they can make an informed choice about whether to enlist in the military, to help them balance the misinformation they are getting from the recruiters.”

NBC News obtained a secret 400-page Pentagon document that listed the Truth Project as a “credible threat” to national security. The Pentagon sent an agent to spy on the group’s first meeting at the Quaker Meeting House in Lake Worth in 2004, one of almost four dozen similar meetings nationwide infiltrated on Bush-Cheney orders.

The report revealed that the Defense Department spy operation kept tabs on 1,500 “suspicious incidents” such as distribution of antiwar leaflets at high schools, peace vigils and town hall meetings.

Eight people are active in the Truth Project, Hersh said, including Quakers, a 79-year-old grandmother and Hersh himself, partially disabled by a nerve disease that often confines him to a wheelchair.

Hersh added with a chuckle, “Yes, I guess we are a ‘credible threat.’ The truth is always a threat to those who are lying. We are always a threat to illegitimate and unjust powers.”

The Truth Project is not “undermining the troops,” as Bush has charged, Hersh said. “The money wasted in spying on us could be better spent on protecting the troops. Four out of every five Marines who have died could have been saved if they had

better body armor.”

Hersh testified in a Jan. 20 hearing on the illegal spying convened by Rep. John Conyers (D-Mich.), ranking member of the House Judiciary Committee.

Conyers opened the hearing, warning, “We are in a constitutional crisis that threatens the system of checks and balances that has preserved our fundamental freedoms for more than 200 years.”

“There is no better illustration of that crisis than the fact that the president is openly violating our laws by authorizing the NSA to engage in warrantless surveillance of U.S. citizens,” Conyers said. “If we let this president convince us that we are at war, so he can do what he wants, we will let stand the principle that the president alone can decide what laws apply to him.”

Hersh told the hearing that agents “rummaged through the trash, snooped into e-mails, packed web sites and listened in on phone conversations. We know that address books and activist meeting lists have disappeared.”

The American Civil Liberties Union, meanwhile, filed a lawsuit on behalf of a long list of plaintiffs seeking a court injunction stopping the NSA spy operation.

In a statement released by the ACLU, plaintiff Nancy Hollander, an Albuquerque, N.M., civil rights attorney, said she was the target of FBI, CIA and Chicago Police Department spying on her antiwar and civil rights activities in the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s. That was an attempt “to chill my First Amendment rights,” she said. But today “the government has succeeded in chilling my First Amendment rights and jeopardizing my clients’ First, Fourth, Fifth and Sixth Amendment rights. This time the government has gone far beyond listening to what I say in public. … This time the government has invaded not only my privacy but the sacred bond I have with my clients to keep their confidences.”

There is every indication, Hollander said, “that the government has listened to conversations I have with my clients both here and abroad.” She no longer uses phone, fax or e-mail and is forced to travel to speak with clients, lawyers and witnesses around the world.

She concluded, “If the Executive chooses to take it upon itself to ignore the Constitution and the laws Congress has passed, we have no recourse and our democracy is in peril.”

Kill the bill Coalition fights budget that doles out billions to drug companies, cuts for students

Fri, 27 Jan 2006 07:41:00 +0000

By Tim Wheeler

WASHINGTON — The Emergency Campaign for America’s Priorities (ECAP), uniting labor, community and low-income advocacy groups, is staging vigils at congressional offices, telling lawmakers to reject a Budget Reconciliation Act that inflicts $42 billion in Medicaid cuts and slashes billions more from other social programs over the next decade.

A weeklong national “call-in” to the offices of U.S. congresspersons was launched Jan. 23, to urge them to vote down the 774-page bill on Feb. 1.

The Republican leadership rammed the original bill through the House mostly unread in the dead of night, Dec. 19, by a razor thin 212-206 vote. The Senate approved a somewhat modified version Dec. 21 on a 51-50 vote with Vice President Dick Cheney casting the tie-breaking vote. Because the Senate’s version is slightly different, the House must vote again on final passage. A switch of only four Republican votes to “no” could kill the bill.

The call-in is sponsored by the Coalition on Human Needs (CHN), representing more than 700 low-income advocacy groups. The American Friends Service Committee is providing a toll-free number, (800) 426-8073.

Debbie Weinstein, CHN’s executive director, told the World the coalition is staging more than 100 vigils and congressional visits targeting moderate Republicans such as Connecticut Rep. Christopher Shays.

The GOP leadership says cuts in Medicaid and other vital programs are essential to offset the cost of assisting Hurricane Katrina victims and reducing the federal deficit.

“It is outrageous that they would ask one set of poor people to pay to help another set of poor people while also pushing through billions in tax cuts for the affluent,” Weinstein said. “They are asking the most vulnerable people to sacrifice, people not able to take those golfing trips to Scotland.” She was referring to former House Majority Leader Tom DeLay’s golf junket paid for by Republican lobbyist Jack Abramoff.

Weinstein predicted that in his Jan. 31 State of the Union address President George W. Bush will dwell on rooting out Abramoff-style corruption. “But the next day they are scheduled to vote on a budget reconciliation that is the fruit of corruption,” she said. “It is legalized corruption where special interests have the inside track and make gains at the expense of everyone else.”

The budget reconciliation bill doles out billions to pharmaceutical giants and HMOs through higher co-payments and deductibles, she said. “There are far too many provisions in this bill that hurt children, seniors, people with disabilities, students and struggling families. The House should vote ‘no’ and simply kill this bill.”

Jackie Lee, an ECAP organizer in Dover, Del., said a coalition that includes the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees and other unions and community groups will stage a vigil outside the Wilmington office of Rep. Michael Castle (R-Del.) to urge him to vote against the budget bill.

Castle “may not have realized when they voted in the middle of the night just how much these cuts are going to hurt,” Lee told the World. “We think these lawmakers are very worried. This is an election year and frustrated voters are paying attention to how their congressmen vote on these budget cuts.”

Connecticut Citizen Action organizer Melanie Kelly told the World, “We will have 72-hour round-the-clock vigils starting Jan. 30 in front of the offices of Reps. Chris Shays, Nancy Johnson and Rob Simmons, all Republicans. This budget reconciliation will cut social services needed here in Connecticut and across the country while they give billions in new tax breaks for the wealthy.”

Lester Holmes, a Michigan Citizen Action organizer in Detroit, said they are focusing on GOP Rep. Fred Upton, who represents the Kalamazoo area. “We’re talking about billions in cuts to Medicaid health benefits that poor families need to take care of their children. We’re talking about $12.7 billion in cuts for student aid over the next five years. A lot of dreams are going to die because youth can’t afford a college education. I couldn’t have gotten through Wilberforce [University] without grants and other student aid. There are many thousands of inner-city youth who have a dream. Are we going to let that dream die?”

In Sacramento, Calif., Michael Herald of the Western Center on Law and Poverty said a broad state coalition is demanding that Republican Rep. Mary Bono vote “no” on the budget bill. “She announced she would vote against the bill if it contained co-pays for children under Medicaid,” he said. “Well, the bill contains co-pays for children under Medicaid and she voted for it anyway. We are demanding that she keep her promise and vote ‘no’ on final passage.”

The coalition is also demanding that Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger speak out against the bill, which would inflict $5 billion in cuts to TANF and other child welfare programs in California in the first five years alone. That does not include billions in cuts to Medicaid in California, Herald said. “If Congress approves this budget reconciliation and also approves tax cuts for the rich, voters will understand very soon the misplaced priorities of this Congress,” he said. “They will remember next November.”

King Day events breathe life into dream

Fri, 20 Jan 2006 10:06:00 +0000

Despite efforts to dilute and trivialize Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s birthday, the only national holiday celebrating a people’s freedom movement, the people once again rescued and defended “The Dream” in actions spanning the United States.

From the thousands who took to the streets of San Antonio, to observances at tiny Campbell College in Edwards, Miss., the multiracial U.S. working class and their children took a day “on” instead of a day off, breathing new life into King’s dream of peace, racial justice, unity and prosperity for all.

Texas led the day as 100,000 marched in San Antonio behind banners reading, “MLK lived for peace, the military lives for war.”

Controversy had simmered for weeks when the city’s MLK Commission invited the nearby Air Force base to conduct a military “flyover” above the march. Not even the fact that the fighter squadron was heir to the famous Tuskegee Airmen, the first military unit of African American pilots, could dampen San Antonians’ anger at the hypocrisy.

“Shame, shame on you, MLK Commission,” they roared, competing with the noise of the aircraft. City Councilwoman Patti Radle joined in the storm of protest against the flyover. She held her sign up high: “Keep King’s message clear: Love, understanding, nonviolence.”

The Rev. James Meeks, an Illinois state senator and executive director of Chicago-based Rainbow/PUSH Coalition, said he had never seen a King observance “like you have going on in San Antonio.” In his keynote speech at the rally ending the three-hour march, Meeks said, “Black people only own 2 percent of the nation’s wealth. African Americans are in a deep hole in America. If we start focusing on white America as the opposition, we’ll never make it.”

The initiator of the bill that created the holiday, Rep. John Conyers (D-Mich.), remarked, “I’m pleased that it hasn’t deteriorated to another bargain day at the mall or a shopping day.” Conyers introduced his bill in 1968. While all government offices are closed for the 20-year-old King holiday, only a third of businesses recognize it by giving their workers a day off.

In Denver, 30,000 braved icy streets for the city’s “marade,” a combination march and parade that started 24 years ago when the fight to establish the holiday was in full swing.

In San Francisco, citing the growing number of Americans without health care and the deepening income divide, Mayor Gavin Newsome told thousands that this was a day to commit to doing the important work that still needs to be done.

Young people defined King Day, reading their poetry in Columbia, S.C., singing civil rights songs in Butte, Mont., holding up their art work in Lawrence, Kan., and honoring a teacher of nonviolence in St. Louis.

At Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta, Dr. King’s birthplace, Mayor Shirley Franklin called on the audience to “comprehend the full message of Dr. King” by helping the young and the old and the poor and demanding increased federal funding for the victims of Katrina.

In Fort Lauderdale, Fla., election activists kick-started a voter registration and “voter restoration” drive aimed, among other things, at enabling those who have served time in prison to regain their right to vote.

In Lakeland and Jacksonville, Fla., Philadelphia and New Orleans tens of thousands of volunteers built homes, picked up litter and debris and repaired playgrounds.

In Durham, N.C. singer/actor Harry Belafonte, who marched with Dr. King and is marching still, drew frequent cheers as he recounted his recent trip to Venezuela. Belafonte praised the government of President Hugo Chávez and thanked Venezuela for providing low-cost heating oil to residents of the Bronx, Boston and the state of Maine. He condemned President Bush as a “tyrant” and his administration as “terrorist.” Comparing the far-right slime machine that has heaped criticism on him to the attacks on King, he said, “I’ve been here before. We didn’t stop then. We are not stopping now.”

Denise Winebrenner Edwards, Rosita Johnson and Vivian Weinstein contributed to this story.