People Before Profit blog

Colonial exploitation and the rape of the Congo

Tue, 31 Jan 2006 17:00:00 +0000

Movie Review Congo: White King, Red Rubber, Black Death Peter Bate, director, 2004, Belgium/UK ArtMattan Productions (U.S. distributor) 100 min., English/French/Dutch with English subtitles

An African proverb reminds us “Until the lions have their historians, tales of the hunt shall always glorify the hunter.” I reflected on variations of this sentiment as I made my way home teary-eyed after seeing “Congo: White King, Red Rubber, Black Death” recently in New York.

British filmmaker Peter Bate’s stirring documentary brings to the silver screen the unspeakable horrors of Belgian colonialism in the Congo. The crimes committed by the Belgians were met with American and European acquiescence, well described by Mark Twain in his book, “King Leopold’s Soliloquy,” more than a century ago.

The film begins with scenes of terror — Congolese children, men and women without their hands. We learn that their hands were cut off by the colonizers or their puppet troops in a macabre system of accounting. Sometimes hands were cut off because workers didn’t work fast enough. Sometimes the puppet troops brought back hands as evidence they had killed workers who had failed to meet their rubber bounty. Other times such hands helped the puppet troops “prove” they hadn’t wasted any bullets on hunting game, an offense in the eyes of the colonialists.

Children’s hands were chopped off as punishment for late deliveries of rubber.

Later in the film an African chief employs another kind of accounting: a fact-finding commission views a huge bundle of sticks representing the chief’s many “missing” villagers. Such stories about the destruction of villages, rape and torture abound in the film.

Fittingly, the film takes us to Brussels for a look at the other side of the tragedy as we see the magnificent infrastructure and children salivating over chocolate hands reminiscent of those missing on the amputees.

The fanatical rush for colonies, rubber and other raw materials was part of the drive to industrialize Europe. These valuable resources helped usher in Europe’s motorized transportation and the proliferation of many other commodities. African raw materials were prime targets of these insatiable demands.

For example, during the Belgian reign of terror, John Dunlop created the pneumatic tire, setting off a surge in bicycle sales and creating a huge demand for rubber latex and wild Congolese vine rubber.

In order to properly manage and maximize exploitation of Africa and to ease conflict among themselves, European imperialists powers sat around tables in Berlin, Germany, between 1884 and 1885 and decided the partition and colonial fate of Africa. Like butchers with knives dripping blood, the imperialists divided the continent into spoils. No regard was given to traditional borders or other historical factors.

It was to Congo’s misfortune that King Leopold was given this the largest and, soon to become evident, richest chunk of the richest continent.

The film presents in almost elementary fashion the machinery of colonialism. It sheds light on how Belgium used European soldiers, administrators, businesspersons, missionaries, journalists and African collaborators to set in motion a system that transformed the huge, resource-rich, heart of Africa into a zone of death and conflict. That legacy is still with us today, and the region remains among the poorest areas on earth.

Over the next 20 years of direct Belgian rule, 10 million Africans would die by murder, disease and the deplorable conditions of life. Resistance was put down by wanton murder and what today we would call “ethnic cleansing.” In the meantime, the Anglo-Belgian India Rubber and Exploration Company was racking up 700 percent profits on its shipments of rubber from the Congo. The company’s stock-market valuation increase 30 times in six years. King Leopold was celebrated in European capitals as a humane and progressive pioneer of Christian values to the “darkest Africa.”

The film includes intermittent scenes from an imaginary trial of Leopold, placing the responsibility for “civilizing” the Congo on his shoulders. The bearded monster appears in full regalia all too often in the film for my tastes, but his trial for Hitler-like crimes, when it does take place, seems long overdue. Yet this writer feels that Leopold’s role was given too much emphasis, while a wider concert of sadistic players in a global system got too little attention.

Today the colonial exploiters of the Congo are, under a different, neocolonial guise, still reaping profits from its land and people. In the meantime, the people of the area known as Great Lakes Africa still bleed.

Director Peter Bate and the film’s narrator, Congolese Professor Elikia M’Bokolo (Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales in Paris), follow the tradition of Mark Twain in proving to us that the “lions can have their historians.” The film should also remind us that the hunt for the Congo’s enormous riches, including metals like colton for the burgeoning telecommunications, gaming, and electronics industries, is not yet over.

You can see “Congo: White King, Red Rubber, Black Death” in Chicago at Facets Cinematheque, 1517 W. Fullerton Ave., Chicago, Jan. 27 - Feb. 2.

Poster exhibit, cash gift, boost Meyers Collection

Fri, 27 Jan 2006 10:31:00 +0000

FROSTBURG, Md. — The year 2005 was good for the George A. Meyers Collection at Frostburg State University (FSU) library, boosted by a generous cash gift and capped by a dramatic poster exhibition last October that drew a sizeable crowd of admirers.

The cash gift came from the estate of the late Thomas P. Kapantais, who had served as a hearing and appeals judge for the Social Security Administration in West Virginia until he retired in 1992. Kapantais willed $107,000 each to the George A. Meyers Collection, the People’s Weekly World and the Niebyl-Proctor Library in Oakland, Calif.

Kapantais, who had served as a public defender in Maine and a civil rights/civil liberties attorney before moving to West Virginia, donated to the Meyers Collection his enormous personal library which had to be trucked in to Frostburg from his home. Over the years, he became a close friend of Meyers, who served for many years as labor secretary of the Communist Party USA and often traveled in the Appalachian region where he was born.

Meyers founded the collection in the mid-1990s when he donated his library of labor, civil rights and Marxist literature to FSU. The college is just up Georges Creek from Lonaconing where he grew up, son of a coal miner. As a young man, Meyers served as president of the Textile Workers Union local at the Celanese plant in nearby Cumberland.

Twelve other people have given their private libraries to the Meyers Collection, which is now one of the largest left-progressive collections in the nation. It includes the complete works of CPUSA economist Victor Perlo. The collection also includes more than 10,000 pamphlets, one of the largest collections of its kind.

“We have posted 5,140 of these pamphlets online,” said Dr. David Gillespie, director of FSU’s Lewis J. Ort Library, as he led this reporter on a tour of the collection housed in the J. Glenn Beall Archives. “We send out five to 10 photocopied pamphlets from the collection each month” for use by historians and other scholars. The originals, some nearly a century old, are rare and extremely fragile and are preserved in a climate-controlled room.

Just recently, Gillespie said, a researcher at Northwestern University had requested photocopies of documents from the National Negro Congress dating from 1936.

Gillespie proudly held up original autographed sketches of a welder by Anton Refregier, a study for a massive mural the artist later completed in San Francisco. It is part of a collection of working-class art that also includes some originals and reproductions of works by Ralph Fasanella and Alice Neel, as well as hundreds of political posters.

Scores of them, now matted and framed, were put on display in the Stephanie Ann Roper Gallery on the FSU campus last October. More than a hundred guests came for the opening of the exhibition, which featured many labor, peace, civil rights and Communist Party election campaign posters. It also included posters from the Soviet Union, Cuba and many other nations. “The Palette and the Flame,” a book of Spanish Civil War posters, was on display in a case alongside many of Meyers’ personal memorabilia. Above it, matted and framed, was Joelle Fishman’s centerspread article from the PWW headlined, “In honor of George Meyers and Victor Perlo.”

Joe Uehlein, who spent 30 years as a staff worker with the AFL-CIO’s Industrial Union Department and ran the AFL-CIO’s Strategic Campaign until he retired recently, was there with his son Justin, an incoming freshman at FSU. “We came because we happened to see it in the program,” Uehlein said, shaking his head in wonder at such a remarkable and unexpected display. “I was thrilled to see such an outstanding exhibit of labor graphic arts,” he told the World. “I see here posters signed by Ralph Fasanella. And here is a poster honoring SWOC, the Steel Workers Organizing Committee. My father, Julius Uehlein, was a founder of Steelworker Local 1104 in Lorain, Ohio. He was a member of SWOC.”

Harlowe Hodges, a graphic arts teacher at FSU, echoed the excitement. “As an artist, I look at it from an artistic point of view,” he said. “Yes, the political message is very interesting but I see the quality of line, the composition, the style. This is excellent! Every piece in this room is remarkable. I am urging all my students to come here and look at these works.”

The collection continues to grow, said Al Feldstein, a local historian who had traveled to Washington Sept. 24 for the giant demonstration against the Iraq war. While there he picked up a sample of every poster he could lay his hands on. They were prominently displayed in the exhibit. “Bring the Troops Home Now! End the War in Iraq,” proclaimed one poster.

Also present was Roberta Roper, mother of Stephanie Ann Roper, an art student at FSU who died tragically at the hand of an unknown assailant in 1982. The Ropers built the gallery in their daughter’s memory. “It’s important that her legacy lives on here,” she said.

Gloria Freedman: Theres always a way to contribute!

Fri, 27 Jan 2006 07:54:00 +0000

We can climb the mountain at Mt. Etna But we can’t cross the bridge at Gretna They shot helter-skelter As the people were searching for shelter From the storm called Katrina Could anything be meaner?

Gloria Freedman, 90 years young, penned that poem after watching the “60 Minutes” feature in which the New Orleans suburb of Gretna blocked off a bridge and fired on a group of hurricane evacuees, the majority African American, refusing them entry into the town.

Freedman, a 70-year member of the Communist Party USA, read the poem to me in her New York apartment. Smiling, she said, “As disabled as I am, I find ways to make a contribution. I’ll always find a way to be of service to the party, the People’s Weekly World and the movement.”

Freedman contributes generously to the People’s Weekly World fund drive and sells subscriptions to her neighbors.

Displayed proudly on her wall is a plaque from her union, the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, for her 40 years of service, half of it as a member of the retirees executive board.

Freedman grew up on New York’s Lower East Side. At 19, she joined the Young Communist League. It was during the upsurge of the 1930s and New York was boiling with working-class struggles. “I would give speeches about the Daily Worker on the corner of 2nd Avenue and 12th Street and why it was such a wonderful newspaper and educates all of us,” she recalled.

After serving in the Army in World War II, Freedman went to Columbia University on the GI Bill and worked for the city’s Department of Human Services. She has accrued many insights on life, which she freely shares, including with her two sons who still seek her advice.

“Devoting your life to struggle and the party makes you a better person. I hope all the young people learn this and that we teach them to want to give their money and their time to this cause.”

Thank you Gloria for all you have taught us!

Spirit of St. Louis boosts phonathon

Fri, 27 Jan 2006 07:52:00 +0000

ST. LOUIS — There’s something highly infectious about the “can-do,” positive spirit of People’s Weekly World supporters in St. Louis. You can’t help but feel it when you’re around them, and it puts a little extra lift in your walk for several days afterward.

Maybe it’s the influence of the mighty Mississippi that runs along the city’s banks. Maybe it’s the rich history of working-class struggle here, where workers and oppressed people have been fighting for dignity and justice for many years, never letting up.

Whatever the source, that spirit was in abundance at a Jan. 22 national phonathon here. Seven dedicated volunteers used state-of-the-art technology in a union-owned call center. They personally spoke with over 340 people in the course of only three hours. They raised over $2,800 for the People’s Weekly World fund drive.

And the amazing thing was that they seemed to take it all in stride.

“I’ve done this kind of calling several times before,” said Tony Pecinovsky, district staff for the Communist Party USA in Missouri and Kansas. “So I guess I’m used to it. But I have to say we got pretty good results today.”

Cinnamon Brothers was more enthusiastic, noting the excellent response from the newspaper’s subscribers. “This is a really good list,” she said. “Raising this amount of money from a little over 300 direct calls shows the paper has very strong support.”

In many ways, of course, we at the People’s Weekly World already know our readers are strong supporters. They’re a committed, dedicated bunch. They’re among the most determined fighters for social justice, equality and peace. They keep up with the news. They take action. They put their money where their mouth is, especially if they’re asked.

So ask we did. And thanks to advanced technology, we made over 2,900 calls to households from Portland, Ore., to Philadelphia and almost everywhere in between. More than 10 percent of those calls yielded good conversations and in many cases contributions to the fund drive.

During the calling, the center was buzzing with voices and occasional shouts of success. “I just got a contribution of $500,” said Quincy Boyd, newly elected president of Local 2730 of AFSCME, where workers and the community are fighting to keep a health center open. Jim Wilkerson, a veteran trade unionist and leader of the Communist Party and Coalition of Black Trade Unionists here, was frequently overheard taking down credit card numbers and thanking contributors for their generous support.

Similar, less hi-tech phonathons have been held elsewhere, including one in Chicago on Jan. 23. John Bachtell, district organizer for the CPUSA in Illinois, said the local effort “was enough to put us over the top of this year’s goal.”

It’s not too late. If you haven’t already done so, send in your contribution today — and get your co-workers and friends to send in theirs, too. You can give online or call (646) 437-5363 with a credit card, or you can mail your check or money order to PWW, 235 W. 23rd St., New York NY 10011.

Catch the spirit of St. Louis. Give today!

A better world is necessary! World Social Forum opens in Venezuela, peace mom Sheehan draws cheers

Fri, 27 Jan 2006 07:48:00 +0000

CARACAS, Venezuela — Under the slogan “A better world is necessary, with you it’s possible!” tens of thousands of Venezuelans joined activists from 160 countries to take part in a giant “March against war and imperialism” here Jan. 24. The march opened the sixth World Social Forum, which is being held in the Venezuelan capital through Jan. 29.

The first day of the forum, which this year is being held on three continents, included the march and a rally/concert with speakers and musical groups from throughout the world. Other sites of this year’s World Social Forum are Bamaki, Mali, and Karachi, Pakistan.

The gathering in Caracas, which is also being billed as the “Second Social Forum of the Americas,” includes over 2,000 forums, panel discussions, presentations and meetings on a diverse number of issues organized by social movements, networks, nongovernmental organizations and other civil society organizations opposed to neoliberalism — the “free trade” and anti-social policies aggressively being pushed by the Bush administration and others.

Issues range from the rights of trade unions, minority nations, and women to questions of economic development, especially development for the benefit of the people instead of the giant corporations.

Over 200 cultural presentations are also scheduled to take place during the forum.

Not all the discussions here are taking place in the scheduled workshops. Many delegates, especially young people, are making connections with others from different countries and discussing approaches and solutions to common problems as well as learning about related issues.

The various delegations marched with the flags of their countries and colorful banners and signs demanding an end to the United States’ war against and occupation of Iraq, defense of Venezuela’s Bolivarian Revolution, headed by President Hugo Chávez, as well as signs against capitalist globalization and the pro-corporate neoliberal policies governments have put in place for the benefit of the transnational corporations.

One of the speakers who received sustained applause, Cindy Sheehan, thanked the people of Venezuela and the forum for having invited her. Sheehan spoke of the death of her son Casey and other children who died in the invasion of Iraq. She said, “Fighting a war to make Bush and Cheney and the neocons rich is not a noble cause.”

Sheehan’s demand to “bring George Bush to justice for crimes against humanity” brought thunderous applause. As she spoke many in the crowd held up signs which read, “Bush Asesino” (Bush – Murderer).

Another popular sign in the crowd was one denouncing the failure of the U.S. to turn admitted terrorist Luis Posada Carriles over to Venezuela, where there is an indictment against him for terrorist activities.

The Cuban delegation in Caracas for the forum held a special rally in conjunction with a march in Havana of 1.3 million demanding the extradition of Posada to Venezuela. Ricardo Alarcón, president of Cuba’s National Assembly, said in a press conference after the rally, “We prefer he be judged here [in Venezuela] instead of there [the U.S.].”

Alarcón contrasted the treatment of Posada with that of the five Cubans still in jail for having notified Cuba of the actions of Miami-based Cuban American terrorist groups. “All we are asking for is that they [the U.S. government] follow their Constitution” and free the five pending a new trial. An appeals court ordered a new trial after finding that their right to a trial free of prejudice was violated, but the Justice Department has won a review of that decision and the five remain in prison.

Other speakers highlighted issues including defense of the sovereignty and independence of countries in the developing world, women’s rights, and the right to organize unions.

Musical groups from Latin American nations, including indigenous peoples, entertained the crowds.

DeLay lashes out as support plummets

Fri, 20 Jan 2006 08:20:00 +0000

HOUSTON — Support for Tom DeLay (R-Texas) is dwindling in his home district even as the former Speaker of the House threatens to “sue any station” that runs advertisements linking him to corruption. A new poll conducted for the Houston Chronicle indicated that only half those who voted for him in ’04 would do so again today. Sixty percent gave him an overall unfavorable rating while only 28 percent gave him a favorable rating.

DeLay faces an indictment in Travis County over charges of laundering campaign funds, and has abandoned efforts to regain the House majority leader post he relinquished as a result of the indictment.

DeLay’s threat came after two public interest groups, the Campaign for America’s Future and the Public Campaign Action Fund, released television, radio and billboard ads targeting DeLay and Rep. Bob Ney (R-Ohio) for their ties to corruption.

“Rep. Tom DeLay is a central figure in the Jack Abramoff wing of the Republican Party,” said Toby Chaudhuri, communication director of the Campaign for America’s Future, in a statement responding to DeLay’s threat to sue. “He is caught in the middle of the worst corruption scandal to hit Washington since Watergate. The dirty tactics that got Rep. DeLay in this mess aren’t going to get him out.”

According to the Houston Chronicle, “The 30-second ad lists the money and travel that DeLay allegedly received from [lobbyist Jack] Abramoff and calls on the Sugar Land Republican to resign from Congress. … The ad says DeLay ‘pocketed tens of thousands in campaign contributions from’ Abramoff, which is true.”

DeLay and his political action committee have received nearly $50,000 from Abramoff and his wife. The ad reveals that DeLay has taken 48 trips to golf resorts, 100 flights aboard company jets and 200 nights at world-class resorts and hotels.

Several local Houston stations decided to pull the ad after the threats from DeLay, but it aired on CNN Headline News and CNBC in the Houston area, and is still running on local cable stations.

Meanwhile, DeLay staffers are reported to be handing in their BlackBerries and clearing out the former House majority leader’s office. They are also trying to figure out where they will go next. A lot of people are wondering where Rep. DeLay will eventually go. The question lingers “Will the Hammer go to the slammer?”

Calif. govs new leaf budget

Fri, 20 Jan 2006 08:19:00 +0000

Still trying to reinvent himself as a moderate, California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger unveiled a proposed $125.6 billion state budget Jan. 10 with more funds for transportation and education but with significant cuts for welfare recipients.

Schwarzenegger’s State of the State message called for a 10-year, $222 billion infrastructure program including $68 billion in new borrowing.

The budget would slash funds for CalWORKS welfare programs by nearly $200 million over two years. Cost of living increases for welfare recipients and for aged, blind and disabled people would be delayed.

The governor’s proposal would add $1.7 billion to constitutionally required funding for schools, cancel fee increases at state higher education institutions, and increase funds for health care for poor children.

Schwarzenegger also said that he would again request authority to make cuts in midyear if the budget goes out of balance, despite the decisive defeat of his ballot measure to that effect.

Criticism came quickly from both Democratic and Republican legislators.

The Democrats, who hold the majority in both the Assembly and Senate, “are holding firm to our core values,” said Assembly Speaker Fabian Nunez (D-Los Angeles). Citing the proposed welfare cuts, Nunez added, “A rising tide should lift all boats … we believe that we can produce a budget that leaves no one behind.”

“Although the budget is fatter, any trimming has been done at the expense of the poor,” said Assemblyman Mervyn Dymally (D-Compton). Dymally, a Budget Committee member, pointed out that that besides the cut to CalWORKS, Schwarzenegger also wants to take back about $40 million the state had allocated for childcare services to welfare recipients.

On the other hand, conservative Republicans in the Legislature are expressing concern over the potential for cost increases of the infrastructure proposal. They say they will keep pushing for program cuts.

Nor do the proposed increases for education satisfy the education community. While the governor’s proposal “is a start,” California Teachers Association President Barbara Kerr said in a statement that California continues to rank near the bottom nationwide in per pupil spending.

Schwarzenegger’s efforts to turn over a new leaf haven’t boosted his standing with voters. A recent poll by the Survey and Policy Research Institute at San Jose State University found that 48 percent of voters say they are less likely to vote for his re-election this year.

Mentally ill lose out

Fri, 20 Jan 2006 08:19:00 +0000

Disabled suffer irreparable harm after losing access to vital medications under new privatized prescription drug plan

I work in the field of mental health, and have managed or worked at group homes for people with psychiatric disabilities for several years. Most of my clients are able to live stable lives, outside of mental hospitals and in the community, largely due to the development of many new anti-psychotic medications that manage the symptoms of mental illness (i.e. hearing voices or hallucinations).

It can take years of working with a client just to get them to be willing to try taking medications. Now, because of the new prescription drug policies, many people are at risk of their lives destabilizing due to lack of medications.

Medicaid formerly paid for drugs

Up until Dec. 31, 2005, Medicaid paid for medications for poor people with mental health issues. Co-pays were low — typically between $1 and $3 per prescription — and there were no premiums or other charges.

All of that has changed. Effective Jan. 1, 2006, the Medicare prescription drug benefit — a new program touted by the Bush administration and its allies in Congress as “helpful” to the elderly and disabled — took over payment for medications for all elderly and disabled individuals who were enrolled in Medicare. Medicare recipients had until Dec. 31 to select and enroll in a privately managed prescription drug plan. If they didn’t sign up in a plan, one was selected for them.

In Massachusetts, default prescription drug plans were selected largely at random. Many plans cover as few as 70 out of the 100 most-prescribed medications. This is forcing doctors to prescribe alternative, covered medications that may be less effective for some patients.

Many plans charge premiums

Adding insult to injury, many of the private Medicare plans charge monthly premiums. People with mental illness tend to rely on tiny Social Security benefit checks to survive. Even a $20 or $30 monthly cost puts a huge dent in their income. Social workers, case managers and clinicians have had to scramble during the past few weeks to enroll their clients in plans that would cover their medications without premiums.

One of my clients, who I shall call Rick, was enrolled in Aetna Medicare, which charges a premium of $19.04 per month but only covers 86 out of the 100 most-prescribed medications. Rick informed me that he couldn’t pay this amount. Like many people with severe psychiatric illness, he smokes heavily and isn’t willing to quit. He stated that he would rather stop taking his medications and keep smoking than to fork over the monthly premium. Presently his clinician is trying to switch Rick over to another plan.

No regulation of profits

Many of the companies that manage Medicare drug benefits operate on a for-profit basis, but there is little regulation of these corporations. They have plenty of incentives to cut costs at the peril of poor people with mental illness. At any time, they can choose to change which medications they cover. This places benefit recipients at risk for relapse in their psychiatric or medical symptoms.

The obvious solution to this problem is for the United States government to adopt a National Health Service, as other advanced industrial countries have done. It is imperative that activists continue the struggle so that adequate health care is made accessible to all.

Bruce Burleson is a mental health care worker in Boston.

The housing bubble

Fri, 20 Jan 2006 08:18:00 +0000

The “Wal-Mart, low-wage, limited-benefit” stage of the U.S. economy is built on a foundation of unsustainable increases in debt: household debt, corporate debt, and government debt.

The January 2001 tax cuts directed toward the rich, combined with rapidly increasing military spending, have increased the national debt by $2.5 trillion, bringing the total federal debt to $8.15 trillion.

During Bush’s first term, U.S. household debt increased from $7.6 trillion in 2001 to $11 trillion by the third quarter of 2005, when the household savings rate plunged for the first time into negative territory. Total debt in the economy increased at a 9.1 percent annual rate to $25.7 trillion, according to the Federal Reserve’s quarterly “flow of funds” report.

Low interest rates have sent housing prices significantly higher. Adjusted for inflation, housing prices have increased approximately 55 percent over the last eight years. Tapping into this substantial pool of home equity has contributed to a sense of economic well-being.

But “Are Housing Prices, Household Debt and Growth Sustainable?”, a study by the Levy Economics Institute, suggests that the housing bubble might be about to spring a leak. “Much of the recent growth in GDP can be attributed to house price appreciation and private-sector borrowing,” says the report. It raises concerns about the implications of nontraditional, interest-only and variable-rate mortgages. Debt service can rise “unexpectedly” and interest-only periods elapse. What happens when the house is no longer a “bank?” it asks.

Debt slavery

For a decade, the credit card, automobile and banking industries have been pushing legislation to make it much harder for debtors to avail themselves of bankruptcy protection. Their wish was granted in April 2005 when Congress approved a major overhaul of the nation’s bankruptcy law, the so-called “Bankruptcy Abuse and Protection Act of 2005.”

The language of the sponsors of the legislation accuses those who seek bankruptcy protection of engaging in fraud. The truth, however, is that half of all bankruptcy filings are the result of medical costs, says David Swanson of DebtSlavery.org. “Another 40 percent,” Swanson reports, “is due to job loss, divorce or a death in the family.” Most of the remaining bankruptcy filings are due to natural disasters, identity theft or being called up for Iraq. At most, according to the American Bankruptcy Institute, only 3.6 percent of the filings are fraudulent.

The amendments to the new bankruptcy bill that were voted down offer a window into the souls of the bill’s sponsors. One rejected amendment would have eliminated the trust loophole for millionaires; another would have created a minimum homestead exemption to save the homes of the elderly. The bill’s sponsors refused to include a provision to protect employees and retirees from corporate practices that deprive them of their earnings and retirement savings when a business files for bankruptcy. They would not include measures to curb predatory lending practices, nor include protection from losses due to identity theft. They refused to limit the “amount of interest that can be charged on an extension of credit to 30 percent” or provide protection for homeowners burdened by medical debt.

Wheelchaired activists demand access rights

Fri, 20 Jan 2006 08:17:00 +0000

SACRAMENTO, Calif. — Street theater drew the attention of passers-by to a demonstration Jan. 13 by 45 wheelchaired people and their supporters protesting the launching of an initiative that would deny access rights to Californians with disabilities.

Black-coated, top-hatted villains representing the California Building Industry Association (CBIA) and the California Restaurant Association (CRA) used orange plastic bats to clobber wheelchaired demonstrators who loudly proclaimed, “You can’t have our rights! We won’t let you keep us out!”

The rally in front of the Sacramento offices of the CBIA and CRA protested the proposed “Opportunity to Repair Act of 2006,” which would eliminate the right of people with disabilities to sue for damages for discrimination or personal injury when they cannot enter a public building or use its facilities, such as a restroom.

“The voters of California would never vote to force Rosa Parks back to the back of the bus,” said Laura Williams, president of Californians for Disability Rights.

Security guards would not allow disability rights advocate Terrell Terry, who entered the office building in her wheelchair, to take the elevator to the CRA office on the 12th floor. They locked the lobby entrance, allowing only “walkies” to enter, reported disability rights activist Susan Barnhill.

Barring people with disabilities from using public restrooms is an act of discrimination that has been illegal in California since 1968. But the initiative would change disability access code violations into “construction defects” and require the complainant to pay the costs of lawyers, experts, and negotiators.

The initiative would also eliminate the current statutory 90-day time limit to correct disability access violations after they have been reported.

Venezuela lends a hand in Maine

Fri, 20 Jan 2006 08:17:00 +0000

“This is not about politics. This is about improving the lives of poor people. This is about people helping people.”

That was Felix Rodriguez, CEO of Citgo Petroleum Corp., speaking in the small town of Windham, Maine, on Jan. 12. There, Rodriguez, Maine Gov. John Baldacci and Bernard Alvarez, Venezuela’s ambassador to the United States, signed an agreement making heating oil from Venezuela more readily accessible to low-income people in Maine this winter. Citgo is a subsidiary of PDVSA, Venezuela’s state-owned oil company.

Last September, while attending a United Nations meeting in New York, Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez announced the availability of cheap oil to low-income people in the United States. Venezuela had previously offered oil at discounted prices to U.S. citizens trying to cope with the devastation of Hurricane Katrina.

Since then, Citgo distributors in Massachusetts and in the Bronx, N.Y., have been providing poor people with low-cost heating oil through nonprofit organizations at about a 40 percent discount. Starting in January, subsidized Venezuelan oil will also be available to people in need in Rhode Island.

Altogether 25 million gallons of Venezuelan home-heating oil will be sold to 100,000 poor households in the Northeast at discounted prices. That region consumes 80 percent of the heating oil used in the United States. The program ends on April 1, 2006.

The Chicago Transit Authority has recently rejected a Citgo offer to discounted diesel fuel for public buses.

Nonprofit organizations have been assigned leading roles in the distribution of Venezuelan oil. In Maine, such groups are unavailable. Accordingly, Citgo, which has 160 gas stations in Maine, plans to sell 8 million gallons of fuel at market prices in that state and then transfer an amount equivalent to 40 percent of the revenues to the state of Maine. The projected donation amounts to $5.6 million, according to the Portland Press Herald.

That money will enable the state government to provide 48,000 low-income residents with $100 worth of extra heating oil apiece through the Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program.

The timing was opportune. The Maine Legislature was forced to add $5 million to the state’s fuel-assistance program in response to federal cuts in the program at a time when home heating costs were rising.

Citgo also plans to donate 120,000 gallons of heating oil to 40 homeless shelters in Maine.

Right-wing critics took Gov. Baldacci to task a month ago for his part in negotiating $20 million in agriculture sales to Cuba. Kenneth Fletcher, ranking Republican on the Legislature’s Utilities and Energy Committee, referred to “a very shaky strategy to have to depend on another kind of government — a dictatorship —for our supply of oil.”

Baldacci responded, “The cost of heating oil has risen dramatically and the federal government has failed to provide the resources needed to help Maine citizens.” A spokesperson added, “The governor is not going to let anyone freeze to death.”

On Jan. 12, Baldacci, Alvarez and Rodriguez were on Indian Island in the Penobscot River meeting with the governors of four Native American tribes — the Penobscots, Micmacs, Passamaquoddies and the Maliseets. The tribes will buy 900,000 gallons of Venezuelan oil at a savings of $543,000.

Micmac Chief Bill Phillips praised the Venezuelan president: “He is a fellow Native from the Americas, and we appreciate Chávez trying to bring low-cost heating oil for our elderly.”

Interviewed in Portland, Maine, Felix Rodriguez said that Citgo’s shareholders are the Venezuelan people, adding, “All of the oil will come from the allotment that Citgo has to sell in the U.S. None of it will come at the expense of poorer countries.”

Venezuela has invited Maine tribes to participate in a cultural exchange in Venezuela. “I would happily go down to pay a visit,” said Chief Phillips.

World Notes

Fri, 20 Jan 2006 08:16:00 +0000

India: Activists protest toxic waste ship

The decommissioned French aircraft carrier “Clemenceau,” which saw duty during the 1991 Gulf War, is on its way to the Alang scrap yard in Gujarat, India, where workers are to dismantle the 24,200-ton ship. The ship’s lining, however, is contaminated with about 500 tons of asbestos, a known carcinogen and toxic waste.

Greenpeace India Toxics campaigner Ramapati Kumar said of the French government, “Instead of investing in safe removal and disposal of the asbestos on the Clemenceau, they are trying to dupe the Indian government and dump their toxic wastes onto the poorest of the poor of the world. This is absolutely reprehensible.”

Environmental activists in India have demanded the ship be thoroughly decontaminated before it is allowed to enter India. To do otherwise, they insist, is a violation of the Basel Convention, an international treaty prohibiting trade and movement of hazardous waste materials. The use and manufacture of asbestos is banned in many European countries, including France.

Guantanamo Bay, Cuba: New charges of U.S. torture

Jan. 11 marked the fourth anniversary of the first transfers of detainees from Afghanistan to the U.S. Naval Base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. To highlight the occasion, Amnesty International released a report containing new allegations of torture and cruel treatment of inmates at the facility, which serves as a detention center for 500 prisoners. Only nine detainees have been charged with any crime.

“The U.S. government would like to turn Guantanamo into a permanent prison camp with no legal recourse for detainees and to create a permanent legal black hole in which hundreds of individuals are held without being charged,” Anthony Romero, executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union, told The Associated Press.

Jumana Musa, a legal observer for AI, commented, “The U.S. continues to try and assert that Guantanamo is a place that exists sort of beyond the law, that no rules apply.”

Amnesty has called for an independent investigation. Meanwhile, some detainees are participating in a hunger strike to protest their detention and harsh living conditions.

Chile: Workers at copper mine on strike

Copper prices rose to a record high in London and New York last week while 28,000 Chilean workers at Codelco, the state-owned copper mine, stepped up their protests in a nationwide walkout.

The non-unionized workers perform maintenance, food service and cleanup work. They are not involved in ore extraction. Their demands include a $960 bonus to reflect the high price of copper and employment terms comparable to those of the unionized miners.

The strikers tried to prevent miners from entering El Teniente, the largest underground copper mine in the world, located in the south of Chile, and blocked the road to Ancina Mine in central Chile. There have been clashes with the police and several arrests, according to Prensa Latina. Codelco is the world’s biggest copper producer, and copper prices have climbed more than 50 percent over the past year, said Bloomberg News.

Bolivia: Miners and farmers lead the way

When Evo Morales makes his processional walk through the streets of La Paz following his inauguration on Jan. 22, he will be flanked in the front lines by miners and farmers in traditional dress. Prensa Latina reported the representative of the Movement towards Socialism (MAS) who is coordinating the procession stated, “We want to express that those who took Morales to the presidency will support, defend and protect his government.” Morales will walk through the city streets to Plaza de los Heroes, a place where traditionally people hold demonstrations and the spot where he began his election campaign.

Global report: Africa bears brunt of conflicts

In a report released last week, Doctors without Borders listed the 10 most under-reported humanitarian crises of 2005. These stories were almost invisible in the U.S. media. Five of the 10 crises were in African countries: Democratic Republic of Congo, Cote d’Ivoire, southern Sudan, Somalia and northern Uganda.

Also listed were Colombia, Haiti, Chechnya, Northeast India and the worldwide AIDS crisis, which hits the poor hardest, the report said. The root of every country-based humanitarian crisis was violent conflict. The consequences: extreme poverty, illness, malnutrition, displacement of hundreds of thousands and complete disruption of normal, everyday life. The most vulnerable are young girls, women and children.

World Notes are compiled by Pamella Saffer (international@cpusa.org).

McCarthyism resurrected in Europe

Fri, 20 Jan 2006 08:15:00 +0000

On Jan. 24-27 the Council of Europe will vote on a resolution demanding international condemnation of communism and statements of renunciation from all communist parties in European Union member states “condemning the crimes committed by totalitarian communist regimes.” Equating communism with Nazism/fascism, the resolution claims that “communist ideology, wherever and whenever implemented … has always resulted in massive terror, crimes and large scale violation of human rights,” and says these are “a direct result of the class struggle theory.”

The resolution, if adopted, could launch a new period of anticommunist hysteria. It leads the way to prohibition of communist parties that do not issue the renunciations. Observers note that in numerous former socialist countries in Europe, communist parties and communists are being actively persecuted, communist leaders jailed and communist symbols forbidden. In this context, this resolution threatens to create a European-wide climate encouraging increased anticommunist persecution.

Calling for a major rewriting of the history of the 20th century, the resolution demands that the historical contribution of communist parties and communists on the front lines of struggles for national independence, social justice, democracy and human rights be renounced. It attempts to erase from popular memory the sacrifice of the lives of millions of communists in the fight for a more just world, and the 20 million dead of the former Soviet Union in the war against fascism. By equating communist and fascism it attempts to rewrite the history of World War II, minimizing if not concealing the responsibility of fascism with the claim that “other totalitarian regimes” existed.

The resolution was set in motion in August 2003 with a condemnation of communist ideology in the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE), which urged the council to “take the necessary measures to get rid of the inheritance of former communist totalitarian states.” In May 2005, on the 60th anniversary of the victory over fascism, the European Parliament (EP) adopted an extreme anticommunist resolution. In October, PACE presented a memorandum even more reactionary than that of the EP, asking for the international condemnation of communism “without further delay.” Its author, Goran Lindblad, has been publicly quoted stating that “communism is satanic as an idea” and the “French Revolution was abhorrent.”

This resolution is part of an all-out attack by the forces of reaction in Europe against the ideology of communism. Fifteen years ago, when European socialist states were overthrown, the death of communism and the “end of history” were declared, with capitalism the “victor.” However, as capitalism is seen as spreading misery and poverty throughout the world and people in former socialist countries have tasted the harsh reality of capitalism, communist ideas and prospects for socialism are apparently not so “dead” after all, and reactionary forces are uneasy.

This resolution targets not only communists but the entire working-class movement. Struggles against neoliberalism, globalization, the monopolies and the “new world order” are increasingly inspired by ideals that conflict with capitalism. With this resolution, European representatives of capitalism apparently hope to obliterate these ideals using openly fascistic methods.

A public outcry against the resolution in many European Union countries and across the world continues. A Europe-wide meeting of communist and workers’ parties was set for Jan. 21 in Brussels. On Jan. 24 a mass protest will be held outside the Council of Europe in Straussberg on the day the resolution will be voted on. Demonstrations are being held in various countries. An online petition against the resolution at www.no2anticommunism.org has drawn signatures from thousands of people around the world.

In Greece public outcry against the resolution has been overwhelming, spanning the entire political spectrum from right to left. Internationally renowned composer Mikis Theodorakis said the Council of Europe has decided to “distort” history “by equating the victims with the villains. The criminals with the heroes. The conquerors with the liberators and the Nazis with the communists.”

The resolution opens the way for “the ghosts of Hitler and Himmler,” who “began their career by outlawing the Communist Parties and by locking up the Communists in death camps,” Theodorakis said.

Meanwhile the council has been silent on U.S. aggression, torture and other human rights violations, he noted. “I have but one word to address to those ‘gentlemen’: Shame!”

Laura Petricola (laurajopetricola@yahoo.com) writes from Athens, Greece.

National Clips

Fri, 20 Jan 2006 08:14:00 +0000

RICHMOND, Va.: Rally demands clean streams

Virginia Voters for Clean Water (VVCW) gathered, over 800 strong, on the steps of the State Capitol Jan. 16 to demand that the Legislature approve $242 million to clean up the state’s 7,000 miles of streams and rivers.

The total cost to restore Virginia’s waterways for safe swimming and fishing is estimated to be $2.3 billion. In 2000, under orders from the Environmental Protection Agency, the state signed on to the Chesapeake Bay Agreement, which set 2010 as the deadline for the cleanup. But only a fraction of the money needed has been appropriated.

Last year, as a result of prodding from environmental activists, the State Assembly earmarked an initial $50 million toward the effort. But the Legislature’s foot-dragging has prompted the VVCW to intensify its lobbying campaign.

MIAMI: 5,000 students opt out of military

In just two months, Mi Familia Vota (My Family Votes), an organization dedicated to building the Latino community’s political power, has convinced 5,000 high school students to ‘opt out’ — to remove their names from lists supplied to military recruiters by their high schools under Bush’s “No Child Left Behind” act.

“We found out a lot of the kids were just signing up because they needed the money,” said Luis Cerros of Mi Familia Vota. “Recruiters were taking advantage of that.”

Franco Caliz, a junior at Miami’s Coral Park High School, said military recruiters “run up to you after school and harass you to enlist.” Formerly in Junior ROTC, Caliz says the recruiters’ pitch includes money for college and travel overseas, but “they pretty much avoid mentioning that you could get killed.”

School district records indicate that recruiters are targeting low-income students. For example, the low-income Felix Varela High School had 176 visits from military recruiters, while upper-income Coral Reef High had 20.

Nationally, the anti-recruitment group Leave My Child Behind estimates that 37,000 students have had their names removed from military recruiters’ lists.

BOSTON: Lawmakers crush students’ dreams

Patricia Oliveira’s parents brought her to the U.S. from Brazil when she was 6. She does not have a “green card” and is considered an undocumented resident in the eyes of the law. She graduated from Cambridge Rindge and Latin High School in 2003 and hoped to attend college.

The Massachusetts House dealt Oliveira’s dreams a blow Jan. 11 when it voted 96-57 to reject a bill that would have enabled her to pay in-state tuition for college, just like her classmates.

“The fear and hatred that fueled today’s vote are a product of the Romney (Republican governor) administration’s sheer contempt for the community,” said Massachusetts Immigrant and Refugee Advocacy Coalition (MIRA) executive director Ali Noorani. “In fact, his record of eliminating health insurance for elderly and disabled immigrants, and now leading the fight against the In-State Tuition Bill, shows what type of immigrant he values: unless an immigrant is of the age and skills to push a broom or clean a toilet, Gov. Romney sees no need for them in Massachusetts.”

MIRA plans to support state candidates, including for governor, who support the rights of undocumented workers in 2006 elections.

SAN FRANCISCO: California executes man in wheelchair

On Jan. 17 California executed Clarence Allen, a 76-year-old Choctaw Indian who is legally blind, diabetic and has suffered two heart attacks and a stroke. Allen served 23 years in San Quentin. A predominantly white jury in a rural county imposed the death sentence on Allen for ordering the murder of three witnesses while he was in prison for another murder.

“The spectacle of Mr. Allen being wheeled into the death chamber, unable to walk and unable to see those who have come to witness his execution, violates all standards of decency and would amount to nothing more that the purposeless and needless imposition of pain and suffering prohibited by the Eighth Amendment,” said Annette Carnegie, one of Allen’s attorneys.

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger rejected a stay of execution, saying that age and health of the condemned man did not matter.

The U.S. Supreme Court also upheld the execution, although Justice Stephen Breyer filed a dissent, arguing it constituted “cruel and unusual punishment.”

The State Assembly is expected to act sometime this year to suspend the death penalty, pending an investigation into charges of racial bias in its use and the inadequate legal representation of low-income defendants.

National Clips are compiled by Denise Winebrenner Edwards (dwinebr696@aol.com).

Hurricane funds aid private schools, deregulation

Fri, 20 Jan 2006 08:13:00 +0000

Before adjourning for the holidays, Congress passed the Hurricane Education Recovery Act, which provides $1.6 billion in assistance to public and private schools and their students affected by Hurricanes Katrina and Rita.

The funds, which must be applied for, are to be distributed by the U.S. Department of Education through state education agencies. Some $750 million has already been appropriated to restart schools in Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama and Texas.

Public and non-public schools educating K-12 students displaced by the hurricanes can receive up to $6,000 per student and $7,500 per disabled or special education student under the new law. As of Dec. 3, Texas had the most displaced students, 41,000, although the accuracy of such figures is subject to dispute.

At a time when federal funds for public schools have been cut, critics of the new law have asked why public tax money is being given to private and religious schools.

Reg Weaver, president of the National Education Association, called the bill part of the worst assault on public education in American history. “Taxpayers will be forced to pay for a nationwide voucher program,” Weaver said. “Religious schools will be allowed to receive taxpayer dollars and proselytize and discriminate in hiring on the basis of religion.”

Abraham Foxman, director of the Anti-Defamation League, denounced the legislation and said it sets a disturbing precedent. American Federation of Teachers President Edward J. McElroy said the Bush administration is using the relief efforts in New Orleans and elsewhere as a laboratory for its misguided policies.

In a related development, the Wall Street Journal reported that two weeks after Hurricane Katrina hit, 40 members of a conservative congressional caucus met at the Heritage Foundation to plan the rebuilding of the Gulf Coast region. Rep. Mike Pence (R-Ind.) told the Journal, “The desire to bring conservative, free-market ideas to the Gulf Coast is white hot.”

The document that evolved from that meeting is titled “From Tragedy to Triumph: Principled Solutions for Rebuilding Lives and Communities.” Some of the “principled solutions” are private school vouchers, deregulation, tax breaks, cuts in social services, limits on a victim’s right to sue and weakened anti-discrimination, wage and environmental laws. “Eliminate any entitlement expectations for disaster relief,” the lawmakers said.

The big-business-oriented plan for New Orleans is to not rebuild large areas where Black and/or poor people used to live, such as the 9th Ward and eastern part of the city. The Bring Back New Orleans Commission recently proposed a plan that reflects this very thinking.

The citizens of New Orleans have little or no power over the planning or rebuilding. The city’s imposition of a four-month moratorium on the rebuilding of its most damaged neighborhoods, combined with its willingness to liberally use eminent domain laws to take over property for public use, infuriated residents at a recent meeting to discuss the commission’s plan.

Joseph C. Canizaro, a real estate developer and a major fundraiser for President Bush, heads the commission’s urban planning committee. Although New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin, who appointed the commission, can accept or alter the proposed plan, considerably more power resides in the state rebuilding commission, which controls how the billions of federal dollars in aid is spent.

Members of the Louisiana Legislative Black Caucus see political motives behind these actions. They say that because Blacks are viewed as most likely to be Democrats or progressive voters, the Gulf Coast region can’t be transformed into an ultraconservative region without a decrease in the Black population. New Orleans has a 67 percent African American population. In the eyes of conservatives, Hurricane Katrina accomplished “the removal” of this section of the electorate, and the rebuilding plan must prevent many of its African American citizens from returning.

Anti-immigrant bill moves to Senate

Fri, 20 Jan 2006 08:11:00 +0000

News Analysis

The Senate Judiciary Committee will shortly begin debate on the measures it will send to the Senate floor on immigration law, one of the key legislative and electoral issues of 2006.

Committee staff are “looking at the possibility of marking up immigration legislation as early as Feb. 2,” says Douglas Rivlin, communications director for the National Immigration Forum.

The committee is expected to take up several immigration bills submitted by members as well as HR 4437, an extremely punitive measure passed by the House of Representatives in December. A growing coalition of immigrant rights, labor, religious and civil rights groups, racial and ethnic minority communities and some key business groups is building up steam in an uphill battle to block HR 4437 and other anti-immigrant measures. The coalition is united in proposing increased opportunities for legalization and citizenship as the basis of immigration law reform.

HR 4437 would make being an undocumented immigrant a felony, expand the definition of smuggling to include those who provide services to aliens, eliminate due process in many immigration proceedings, further militarize the border with walls and military equipment, and deputize employers and police to assist in enforcement of federal restrictions.

Republican House and Senate leadership and the president argue that cracking down on immigrants with greater restrictions and penalties should be the basis of immigration policy, although Senate Republican proposals as yet do not approach the extreme measures of HR 4437. The Senate proposals and President Bush’s position include provisions for temporary or guest workers with fewer labor and civil rights than workers with permanent resident status.

Most immigrant rights groups support S 1033, authored by Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) and supported by Sen. Edward Kennedy (D-Mass.) and some other Democrats. S 1033 includes a temporary worker program allowing for adjustment to permanent resident status. Working and living conditions for immigrant workers have been steadily worsening with increasing loss of rights as a result of local, state and federal policies, so support for legal status with a path to citizenship is a priority along with defeat of new punitive measures.

There are divisions among Republicans. Extreme anti-immigrant House members oppose any legalization, including guest/temporary worker measures. Most others are closer to Bush’s position, which contains severely restricted access to full legal status and includes support for many provisions in HR 4437.

Democrats are also divided. Most support a path to full legalization with some increased enforcement provision. Those from more metropolitan areas where racial minorities and immigrant communities, unions and civil rights groups are strongest are the strongest immigrant rights supporters. Those from more rural areas who are more vulnerable to Republican challenges are weaker on immigrant rights.

There are also divisions in business. The U.S. Chamber of Congress has opposed HR 4437 and supported the McCain bill, but major global corporations that have been the mainstay of the Bush administration — the military industrial complex, energy, international finance, outfits like Halliburton and Bechtel — have been silent on immigrant rights. Much of the corporate media has editorialized for a “carrot and stick” approach, but has given wide play to right-wing groups that advocate enforcement only.

Polls show that while a majority of voters favor greater control of immigration, they also favor legal status for the undocumented who have worked hard, raised families, paid taxes and integrated themselves in communities.

Mobilization of the public to oppose extreme measures and to support more democratic immigration policy can block the rightward direction of the Republican leadership. Moving millions of voters to see denial of rights to immigrants as undermining democracy for all is critical, starting with the approaching debate in the Senate.

Full court press urged to block Alito

Fri, 20 Jan 2006 08:10:00 +0000

A week’s delay in voting on the nomination of Samuel Alito to the Supreme Court gives vital days for an all-out push to block Alito, progressive groups say.

After wrangling with the GOP leadership, Senate Democrats won the delay, which sets the Senate Judiciary Committee vote for Jan. 24. That is one day after the Jan. 23 anniversary of the 1973 Roe v. Wade decision, expected to draw hundreds of thousands to the nation’s capital to defend women’s reproductive rights. If the nomination passes the committee, it will reach the full Senate by Jan. 31.

The National Organization for Women appealed for phone calls urging senators to filibuster if needed to block Alito’s confirmation. NOW President Kim Gandy said, “Senators must not ‘roll the dice’ and vote on a hope and a prayer that he will not take the country in a dangerous direction with rulings that will affect the lives of millions.”

MoveOn.org sent out a mass e-mail urging phone calls to senators. “We’re aiming to make 10,000 calls to break through the spin and ask them to do what it takes to keep Alito off the court,” organizer Ben Brandzel wrote.

Ralph Neas, president of People for the American Way, said in a statement, “The evidence is stronger than ever that Judge Alito should not be confirmed to our nation’s highest court.” More than 1 million Americans have already signed petitions opposing Alito, “and that’s just a start. The fight has just begun.”

“We hope to go from 1 million petitions to a couple of million by the time the committee votes,” Neas told the Christian Science Monitor. PFAW is also launching new television and radio ads “to express to the American people the magnitude of what is at stake.”

“Nothing is over until it’s over,” Marcia Greenberger of the National Women’s Law Center told the Monitor, responding to the media drumbeat that approval of Alito was a “done deal.” She said, “What’s really important is to let the dust settle a little and to let the implications of these hearings settle in.”

Alito’s evasion of direct answers on key issues, undoubtedly carefully orchestrated by Bush aides, is drawing wide anger.

Judiciary Committee member Joe Biden (D-Del.) commented on NBC’s Today show that nominees “come before the U.S. Congress and resolve not to let the people know what they think about the important issues.”

It is seen as White House manipulation of the confirmation process, blocking the Senate’s constitutional checks-and-balances role in lifetime appointments to the nation’s top court.

“Judge Alito’s steadfast refusal to give answers should give every senator, Democrat or Republican, real pause,” Gandy said in a statement.

“Alito bobbed, weaved and sidestepped question after question, even when asked repeatedly about his views on Roe v. Wade and a constitutional right to privacy,” Gandy said. “This kind of evasion distorts the purpose of the hearings.”

Alito’s record is seen as documenting a pattern of hostility to women’s rights, civil rights, workers’ rights and civil liberties comparable to the extremist right-wing views of Justices Clarence Thomas and Antonin Scalia. It shows “a clear pattern of siding against individuals and for powerful institutions, and a troubling willingness to look the other way in the face of abuses of power by the president and other government agencies and officials,” said Neas.

“Alito came into the confirmation hearings with the difficult burden of demonstrating that, in spite of his record to the contrary, Americans would be able to count on him to uphold their rights, legal protections, and access to justice. He failed to meet that burden.”

During the battle over the John Roberts nomination last year, a bipartisan agreement by 14 senators ruled out a filibuster except in “extraordinary circumstances.” The urgent challenge for progressive Americans is to move their senators into “extraordinary circumstances” mode.

“It’s hard to get people to understand what the court means in their daily lives,” Debra Ness, president of the National Partnership for Women and Families (formerly the Women’s Legal Defense Fund), told the Monitor.

In a statement last month, Ness said, “When President Bush proposed to give one of the country’s most conservative jurists a lifetime appointment on our highest court, he put his allegiance to the far right ahead of the best interests of the nation. And he gave senators a stark choice: support the president, or stand up for the women and working families they represent.”

As the Jan. 24 Senate Judiciary vote approaches, says Gandy, “the real fight has just begun, and it’s a full court press.”

New Yorkers dial for PWW dollars

Fri, 20 Jan 2006 08:08:00 +0000

NEW YORK — A phonathon for the People’s Weekly World fund drive here pulled in over $2,500 in the first few hours, Jan. 16.

New York’s readers have taken on the highest goal in the country at $35,000. With the new proceeds just being turned in, they have now topped $20,000. That leaves just over two weeks to raise the final $15,000.

Elena Mora, chair of the N.Y. State Communist Party, is not worried by this task. “We’re confident that when we talk to the readers of the paper in New York, they’ll come through like they did last year, like they always do,” she said.

A year ago, in the final week of the 2004 PWW campaign, New York raised $10,000, pushing its total well over the goal.

This year, the phonathon was marked by “lots of enthusiasm,” said Jenn Perna, who helped organize the event. “It was very encouraging.”

The phonathon was launched on Jan. 16, Martin Luther King Jr. Day, for a reason, organizers said: the holiday represents exactly what the People’s Weekly World/Nuestro Mundo stands for — the struggle for justice and equality for all people.

The PWW has used its pages, in print and on the web, to battle racism nationwide and here in New York. Although the print version was not published over the December holidays, the Online eXtra carried daily updates on the city transit workers’ strike and their ensuing victory, helping to build support and exposing divisive racist attacks by Mayor Michael Bloomberg and other officials.

Phonathon organizers pointed out that this continues the long history of the PWW and its predecessor the Daily Worker in crusading coverage of New York-based struggles. They recalled that the Daily Worker used its pages to wage a battle against segregated baseball, when no other news publication in the country would touch that story. The paper’s sports editor Lester Rodney was recognized for his role in getting the Brooklyn Dodgers to break the racist color bar by hiring Jackie Robinson, the first African American ever admitted to the major leagues.

Phonathon participants said they were happy to make phone calls for the PWW because of its 80-year history on the side of peace, justice, democracy and socialism.

To make a contribution, call (646) 437-5363 to pay by credit card, or send a check to People’s Weekly World, 235 W. 23rd St., New York NY 10011.

Maryland makes Wal-Mart pay

Fri, 20 Jan 2006 08:06:00 +0000

Health care drive expands to 30 more states

BALTIMORE — Labor and community organizations are celebrating the Maryland Legislature’s vote Jan. 12 to override Republican Gov. Bob Ehrlich’s veto of the Fair Share Health Care Act, better known as the “Wal-Mart bill.”

An exultant Vinnie DeMarco, president of the Maryland Health Care For All Coalition, told the World, “Fair Share Health Care is going to sweep the nation. This is an important step for health care. Corporations like Wal-Mart cannot shift this burden to taxpayers.”

Already, a coalition spearheaded by the United Food and Commercial Workers is planning to introduce legislation modeled on the Maryland bill in 30 or more states.

UFCW President Joe Hansen hailed the veto override. “Working families nationwide will take heart from the passage of Fair Share Health Care,” he said. “We have a national health care crisis in this country but that doesn’t excuse large employers like Wal-Mart from shifting their health care costs onto taxpayers and responsible employers.”

Every time UFCW members negotiate health care benefits with their employers, said Hansen, “they face demands for cutbacks. … Large employers like Wal-Mart game the system to get unfair business advantages.” He was referring to a bitter strike battle by 70,000 grocery workers in California just to save their health care benefits from a Wal-Mart instigated takeaway drive.

The legislation stipulates that any corporation with 10,000 or more employees must earmark at least 8 percent of its payroll to provide health care or pay an equivalent amount to the state to provide health care benefits for its workers.

Only four employers in the state — Johns Hopkins, Giant Food, Lockheed-Martin and Wal-Mart — have that many employees. All but Wal-Mart already provide health benefits above that threshold. Critics accuse Wal-Mart of spending 5 percent or less of its payroll on health care compared with unionized Giant Food, which spends 23 percent of its payroll costs for health care. Giant supported the bill. Wal-Mart employs 17,000 employees in Maryland and instructs its workers to seek health care under Medicaid, costing taxpayers more than $2,000 annually per worker.

An internal memo was leaked last fall in which Wal-Mart Vice President Susan Chambers admitted, “Wal-Mart’s critics can easily exploit some aspects of our benefits to make their case. In other words, our critics are correct … our coverage is expensive for low-income families and Wal-Mart has a significant percentage of our associates and their children on public assistance.”

On learning of this memo, DeMarco said, “We couldn’t have said it better ourselves.”

Wal-Mart flooded Annapolis with lobbyists who threatened to cancel plans to build a distribution center employing 1,000 workers in poverty-stricken Somerset Count on the Eastern Shore. But the coalition called their bluff. Even so, Wal-Mart is threatening to seek a court injunction to block the law.

Jim Baldridge, a Johns Hopkins Hospital worker active in the Maryland Universal Health Care Action Network (UHCAN), told the World that labor and its allies unleashed a campaign that began as soon as Ehrlich vetoed the measure last fall.

“Overriding that veto is a victory for health care,” Baldridge said. “UHCAN’s position is that the Wal-Mart bill is another reform measure that deserves support. It is a step forward but it doesn’t answer the question of universal health care. We need a single-payer health care program administered by the government to solve this crisis.” For the fifth time, a single-payer health care bill will be introduced in the Maryland Legislature this year, he said.

The Legislature also voted Jan. 17 to override Ehrlich’s veto of an increase in the state’s minimum wage to $6.15 an hour. Critics say these vetoes expose Ehrlich, who is running for re-election next November, as a stooge of the corporate rich and the ultra-right.

Tim Wheeler contributed to this story.

Bush spying called threat to the republic

Fri, 20 Jan 2006 08:05:00 +0000

Former VP issues call to defend Constitution, investigate lawbreaking president

WASHINGTON — In a Martin Luther King Day speech at Constitution Hall Jan. 16, Al Gore drew cheers as he called for appointment of a special prosecutor to investigate George W. Bush’s “strongman” abuses of power, including spying on the American people and other impeachable offenses.

“A special counsel should immediately be appointed,” said Gore, the Democratic presidential candidate in the stolen 2000 election. “Republican as well as Democratic members of Congress should support the bipartisan call of the Liberty Coalition for the appointment of this special counsel to pursue the criminal issues raised by the warrantless wiretapping of Americans by the president.”

He was referring to Bush’s 2001 secret order that the National Security Agency (NSA) engage in widespread surveillance of law-abiding people without obtaining a warrant. Bush’s illegal spying, he added, “should be a political issue in any race, regardless of party, section of the country, house of Congress” in this year’s election.

In Baltimore, three leaders of the peace movement walking in the Martin Luther King Day parade echoed Gore’s charges. Max Obuszewski, Cindy Farquhar and Ellen Barfield told the World the NSA spied on them with the assistance of the Baltimore Police Intelligence Unit and the Joint Terrorism Task Force. A Baltimore City Council resolution approved overwhelmingly three years ago ordered Baltimore police not to cooperate with USA Patriot Act-sanctioned spying.

The three were arrested in October 2003 while protesting at the NSA complex at nearby Fort Meade. During their trial in August 2004, Farquhar, serving as her own attorney, questioned NSA Police Major Michael E. Talbert so persistently he let slip an eight-page NSA “action plan“ which revealed extensive spying on the Baltimore peace movement. It proved that protesters engaged in peaceful, constitutionally protected protest activities are the real target of Bush spying, not “terrorists.”

“This administration is shameless,” said Obuszewski, a leader of Baltimore Pledge of Resistance. “Bush is taunting us. He wants this NSA spying to go to the Supreme Court stacked with his appointees John Roberts and Samuel Alito. He wants to get a ruling that this is ‘wartime’ and he can do as he wants.”

Barfield, leader of the Baltimore chapter of Veterans for Peace, said the aim of Bush spying “is intimidation.”

“They won’t succeed in intimidating us,” she said. “But there are other people out there who may be just as concerned about the war in Iraq as we are who will be intimidated. They have jobs to worry about.”

Gore pointed out that Bush admitted the NSA spying in a recent speech and “in the next breath declared that he has no intention of stopping or of bringing these wholesale invasions of privacy to an end.”

Gore recalled that in the 1960s, FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover ordered spying and dirty tricks against Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and hundreds of thousands of others protesting the war in Vietnam. “The FBI privately labeled King the ‘most dangerous and effective Negro leader in the country’ and vowed to ‘take him off his pedestal.’ The government even attempted to destroy his marriage and tried to blackmail him into committing suicide. This campaign continued until Dr. King’s murder.”

Gore added, “At present, we still have much to learn about the NSA’s domestic surveillance. What we do know about this pervasive wiretapping virtually compels the conclusion that the president of the United States has been breaking the law repeatedly and insistently. A president who breaks the law is a threat to the very structure of our government.”

In a recent poll, a majority of Americans, by a margin of 52 to 43 percent, say they want Congress to impeach Bush if he wiretapped U.S. citizens without a judge’s approval. The poll was conducted by Zogby International.

Gore cited Bush’s claim of “inherent power to seize and imprison any American citizen that he alone determines to be a threat to our nation … without notifying them about what charges have been filed against them, without even informing their families that they have been imprisoned.”

Gore also denounced Bush’s claim that he has the authority to torture, abuse and humiliate detainees at CIA and Pentagon “black sites” at home and around the world. “Over 100 of these captives have reportedly died while being tortured by executive branch interrogators and many more have been broken and humiliated,” he said. When Congress enacted the McCain Act to end the torture, Bush used a “signing statement” to proclaim his authority to defy the law under the doctrine of a “unitary executive” power, Gore charged.

Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney have unleashed a drive to undermine the Constitution’s system of checks and balances in the name of the war on terrorism, a danger compounded by Republican control of the House and Senate and, increasingly, the judiciary, Gore continued. “As a result of this unprecedented claim of new unilateral power, the executive branch has now put our constitutional design at grave risk. The stakes for America’s democracy are far higher than has been generally recognized.”

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