People Before Profit blog

Aramark preys on Detroit schools, union, pols say

Wed, 30 Jan 2008 11:05:00 +0000

School predators don’t always appear as shadowy figures lurking on the fringes of playgrounds. Sometimes they come in brightly lit corporate offices wearing three-piece suits.

Detroit area union officials and politicians charge that Aramark Corp., the Philadelphia-based company that bills itself “a global leader in professional services,” is preying on Detroit public school system students.

According to figures compiled by the Unite Here union, Aramark has broken its promises to turn over to the school district revenues from the lucrative public school food service program. Activists from several unions protested the situation on Jan. 18, at a rally in frigid weather in Detroit’s New Center.

In the 2000-2001 school year, the food service program generated $4.5 million for the district, according to Unite Here. Since Aramark took over the following year, total revenues for the district has not reached that level.

When Aramark took over in 2002, the union reports, it promised to bring in more than $25 million for the cash-strapped district’s general fund over the course of the five-year contract. Unite Here says that Aramark turned over only $1.4 million and the company never once brought in more revenue than the district had generated when it managed food services in-house. And over the course of the contract, Aramark was paid $6.6 million in management fees.

Despite all of this, Aramark’s contract with Detroit Public Schools was renewed in 2006.

Unite Here reports that Aramark has a track record of shabby performance. It was fired two years into its five-year contract in Philadelphia and it was the subject of state probe in Houston for not keeping an accurate count of free meals to district students. Taxpayers ended up shelling out $200,000 penalty in that case.

Phil Schloop, vice president of the International Union of Operating Engineers and business manager of Local 547 said it is a matter of accountability

“It's time for real answers from Aramark,” he said. “Aramark has literally taken millions from our schools. It’s time we take our money back.”

State Senator Irma Clarke-Coleman, who also spoke at the rally, said the school district desperately needs the money to buy supplies and fund programs for students.

“I’ve always been for the children,” she said. “I want the money to go to the children.”

To learn more about Aramark’s record, go to .

Tom Schram is a Detroit-based labor journalist.

Voices from South Carolina

Mon, 28 Jan 2008 16:12:00 +0000

The following is based on four blogs Wheeler wrote from South Carolina.

COLUMBIA, S.C.- It’s primary election day here and the army of volunteers who have flooded into the state to campaign for Barack Obama have already left the YMCA and fanned out to polling places across this city.

It is chilly and threatening rain but the media is predicting a record voter turnout of people fired up by Obama's message of hope. I rode down from Baltimore on a bus with 40 other volunteers. It was chartered by three members of the Maryland General Assembly who have kept us working diligently since we arrived. Nights we sleep on the gymnasium floor of the Y, strewn with mostly youthful volunteers from as far away as California. Early this morning two more busloads arrived from Washington, D.C.

I have been canvassing with a friend, Rev. Pierre Williams, a United Methodist minister in Baltimore. We got a vivid feel for just how deeply Obama's message is resonating here going door-to-door in a working class neighborhood yesterday.

Sherman Stewart, employed as a maintenance worker at the Governor's Mansion here in the state capital told us, 'I've been listening to all the candidates and I feel that Barack Obama is the one who can turn this country around. Everyone is feeling the insecurity from the way the economy is going. Veterans of the Iraq war are coming home and finding out their credit is all messed up, their health care is messed up. We're spending billions upon billions over there in Iraq, preaching democracy to the world, and we have millions of children here who are hungry and without health care. I'm getting ready to retire and there are so many people losing their pensions, or can't afford their medicine.'

Richard Edwards came walking by. He is a student at Midlands Technical College and a U.S. Navy veteran. He deplored former President Bill Clinton's divisive statements here in South Carolina such as his dismissive statement that Obama's message of hope is a 'fairy tale,' implying that the Illinois Senator is too young and inexperienced to be president.

'I think Clinton's statement really affected Black voters,' he told the World. 'It put the Black community in a negative light. Obama is trying to unite people of all races and backgrounds, young and old, men and women. Clinton's statement has divided South Carolina. We don't need that here. I believe Barack is going to win but by a narrower margin. I hope Barack sticks to his message, positive change, hope, bringing us together, Black, white independent, even Republicans.'

When we arrived at the Performing Arts Center here for an Obama rally, a line stretching two blocks was waiting to go through security to get inside.

It was a perfect snapshot of the multiracial movement that has sprung up to elect Obama, African American, Latino, white, young and old, men and women. There were vast numbers of South Carolinians but also thousands who have come from across the nation to work as volunteers. Conspicuous was the large numbers of young people waiting in the chill darkness.

I interviewed many. Emily Aho, a student at the University of South Carolina, Columbia, was waiting with several of her classmates. She is from Marietta, Georgia, a freshman business major. 'I'm going to listen to what he says,' she told me. 'I haven't made up my mind who I am going to vote for. I think it is a good thing that we have a Black person and a woman running for president,' she said.

Marie Triche, a second year law student at the University of Florida drove up in a van from Gainesville with five other members of the Black Law Students Association. 'This is the first time I have heard Barack Obama speak,' she said.'I think this night is just overwhelming, for us to be part of such a grand occasion. Obama is a young leader in contrast to all the other candidates. He is bringing out new ideas. He is getting strong youth support.'

Curt Anderson, a member of the Maryland General Assembly was one of three Maryland legislators who chartered a bus, bringing 40 volunteers to work in the Obama campaign. (I was one of them). He too was waiting with other Maryland volunteers outside the hall. 'Look at this line. It lasts forever and its cold out here,' he quipped. 'We spent the day campaigning for Obama and this is our reward. I think Maryland will go for Obama in our Feb. 12 primary. Our organization is getting stronger.' He listed many elected officials who have endorsed Obama including Rep. Elijah Cummings, Baltimore Mayor Sheila Dixon, the Attorney General and Comptroller. 'The grassroots is where his greatest strength is,' Anderson added.

I asked why Obama's message resonates so strongly with people. Vic D'Amato, a former Maryland legislator standing nearby interjected, 'People are starving for change,' he said. 'We have not had inspirational leadership in this country at the national level in our memory.'

Brian Smith drove down from Cincinnati over a week ago to work as a volunteer. He was one of many young white people waiting in the line. 'I think he is such an inspirational speaker,' he told me. 'He has the ability to unite a country that is pretty divided. I think Bill Clinton's comments have been disappointing. It has the potential to fracture the Democratic Party. I think the people don't want to see a negative campaign. There has been a record turnout so far in Iowa, New Hampshire and Nevada. If this negativity continues, it has the potential of affecting that turnout.'

The fact that an African American is running for president and winning, he said, 'Shows that our country has come a long way. But the polling in South Carolina shows there is a continued racial divide that we must overcome. I do think that everyone here is part of that historic moment. This is a multiracial crowd.'

We finally made it into the hall. It was packed with a crowd that greeted Obama with chants of 'O-BA-MA!' and 'Yes We Can!' and 'Ready for change.' Obama delivered a powerful stemwinder that drew thunderous cheers.

Without mentioning Bill Clinton by name, Obama referred to the former president's dismissive comment that Obama is spreading a 'fairy tale,' that he is too young and naive to be president.

Those who counsel the people to be patient do not understand 'the fierce urgency of now,' Obama said, quoting Dr. Martin Luther King's argument against gradualism.

'There is such a thing as being too late,' he said. He reminded the crowd that the nation is locked in the Iraq war, people are working longer hours and earning less, seniors have lost pensions and cannot retire, the health care system is 'broken' and 'we're on the brink of a recession.'

'We cannot afford to wait,' he said. 'We cannot wait to end the war in Iraq and bring the troops home,' he said. 'We need a different politics based not on tearing each other down but building America up.' Enormous crowds are greeting him all across the U.S. and South Carolina he said, attracted by that message of hope.

'Whatever else happens, next November the name George W. Bush will not be on the ballot.' A roar went up and the crowd chanted, 'No Bush! No Bush!'

He called for raising the minimum wage each year to offset inflation, health care for all, more money for schools than is spent for jails, making college affordable for all youth, and a change in U.S. foreign policy.

He vowed to 'use our military wisely and that is why I opposed the war in Iraq from the beginning. I will end the war but also end the mindset that got us into this war.'

He quoted President John Kennedy's admonition 'never fear to negotiate' and promised to negotiate with both friend and foe.

All the candidates are now talking about 'change,' he said. 'But change is not easy. Change is hard.' Pharmaceutical corporations and oil companies 'are not going to give up easily,' he warned.

Already, they are attacking him, he said, spreading the word, 'Obama can't be president right now. We have to slow him a little bit more, boil the hope out of him.' Anonymous e-mails falsely report that he is a 'Muslim.'

'They want to preserve the status quo by feeding on fear,' he charged.

Others say Obama 'has his head in the clouds. He's a hopemonger,' he said.

But the American people have always 'defied the odds' and chose hope over fear and cynicism: waging the War for Independence against the British Empire, abolitionists who fought to end slavery, workers who pushed through the New Deal in the 1930s, joining the worldwide movement that defeated Hitler fascism.

'Hope is not blind optimism,' he said. 'I know how hard it will be to reform our health care system. I know because I have fought on the streets as an organizer.'

He cited the courage of youth of all races in the 1960s who braved the fire hoses, clubs, and police dogs, some of them dying, to bring down the system of segregation.

'That's what hope is,' he said. 'I can't do it without you. I am ready for change. But you've got to be ready for change as well. If we are ready for change, then the days of the lobbyists running Washington will be over. We can make an economy that works for all Americans, that works for mainstreet not Wall Street.'

The crowd chanted, 'Ready for change!'

Sen. Barack Obama won big in South Carolina. It was a huge turn out of voters, especially among African American voters. It broke records. Democrats’ primary numbers outsized Republicans. The Black vote was very solid vote for Obama – somewhere around 89 percent. And the size of the support among white voters was good: about 25 percent. The size of the support of white voters for Obama - in a three-way race - is significant.

This vote really showed that people are fed up with the Clinton tactics of demonizing and division. They really backfired.

The Obama people are over the moon. I was at a precinct some four or five miles outside of Columbia, mainly a rural area. And it was a steady stream of voters all day. Overwhelmingly African American voters. There was a feeling of victory in the air.

Tim Wheeler (greenerpastures21212@yahoo.com) is the political correspondent for the People’s Weekly World.

This article is based on four blogs Wheeler wrote from South Carolina. Visit , the Political Affairs editors' blog, to read them in full.

Different Drummers: indigenous rights and corporate free trade in South America

Sun, 27 Jan 2008 07:14:00 +0000

Indigenous rights renewal in Latin America flourishes in some quarters, but there are many reminders of the continued misery of first peoples at the hands of propertied and commercial classes.

In Brazil, especially in Mato Grosso do Sul, murders of indigenous people increased 58 percent last year over 2006, according to Catholic missionaries. They said the cause was confinement, not enough land for Guarani people “to sustain their traditions.” In the Dourados reserve, 12,000 people live on less than 7,000 acres.

The hunger strike of indigenous prisoner Patricia Tronoso in Chile signals oppression. As of Jan. 25, she had fasted 106 days and was near death. She and four other Mapuche activists were sentenced to ten years in jail for allegedly burning company-owned forests; they began fasting Oct. 10. They were protesting mistreatment of other indigenous prisoners and supporting the Mapuche campaign for return of land stolen by corporations. Her companions ended their fasts several weeks ago.

Critics accuse the Chilean government of complicity with landowners in relying on Pinochet-era antiterrorist laws to suppress Mapuche demands.

Indigenous grief is often tied to environmental abuse. Interviewed by journalist Greg Palast, Ecuadorian President Rafael Correa detailed his recent trip into the Amazonian jungle to investigate an outburst of cancer among indigenous children living in areas abandoned by foreign oil corporations. Sink holes filled with oil sludge dot nearby forests. A community leader told Correa that his son’s vomiting of blood and subsequent death were related to immersion in contaminated water.

In Bolivia, President Evo Morales last week demanded that a group of exploitative landowners in the drought-stricken Chaco region provide land for 1,000 enslaved Guarani families with neither income nor land. He threatened the landowners with expropriation.

The unprecedented rise of Morales, an indigenous labor leader, to Bolivia’s presidency is taken by many as a harbinger of a new day for Latin America’s indigenous people. They take hope from his government’s progress toward public control over hydrocarbon resources and a proposed new constitution protective of indigenous rights.

A Jan. 15-17 international conference in La Paz, attended by indigenous people from 11 countries, heaped praise on “brother President Evo Morales” for “standing up to “the fascism of the right,” as one speaker put it. Another inveighed against “homogeneous societies” that make “regional, environmental, and cultural difference invisible.” A final conference declaration called for “inclusion and construction of multinational states.”

But a handful of Bolivian delegates denounced their country’s proposed new constitution for relying too much on political parties and not enough on “the direct participation of the original peoples.” Entering his third presidential year, Morales announced new priorities for “structural change” and “decolonization” of the state, according to Bolpress.com. He proposed a “National Coordinating Agency for Change,” with overview of his cabinet and independence from his own ruling party.

The experience of Quechua labor leader Sylvia Lazarte, however, hints at a rough road ahead. The heroic 44-year-old indigenous and woman’s rights campaigner served as the elected president of Bolivia’s Constituent Assembly that concluded recently after almost 18 months. She guided it through what Prensa Latina described as a “pandemonium of racism, violence and ridicule.” Lazarte experienced physical threats and racial abuse as paramilitary youth formations, proxies for whites and local oligarchs, took over the streets of Sucre.

Indigenous reactions to Ecuadorian President Correa are not all favorable. The important Ecuadorian indigenous federation known by its Spanish initials CONAIE convened Jan. 10-12 in Santo Domingo for a national congress. Some 1,300 delegates from “14 nationalities and 18 peoples” were on hand. Speakers criticized the Correa government for rejecting as allies longtime foes of transnational corporations bedeviling Ecuador. One accused the government of “basing its process of citizen revolution on the fortress of the state, not on people’s organizations.”

Founded in 1986, CONAIE led nationwide protests that helped bring down Ecuadorian governments. The recently concluded Congress elected charismatic 32-year-old Marlon Santi as the new CONAIE president. To an interviewer, Santi pointed out that “Proposals from the indigenous movement and other social sectors … are not present on the national government’s political agenda.” He called upon Correa to recognize “the demands of indigenous nationalities and peoples, and he should do so.” If not, “the bases will respond with action.”

New efforts for peace dialogue in Colombia

Sun, 27 Jan 2008 07:09:00 +0000

Democratic Reps. William Delahunt and James McGovern, both of Massachusetts, and George Miller of California, recently spent four days in Colombia looking into longstanding U.S. corporate complicity with terrorists.

Delahunt, head of the Subcommittee on International Organizations and Human Rights of the House Foreign Relations Committee, is investigating Chiquita Company’s payments of $1.7 million to right-wing paramilitaries between 1997 and 2004.

The corporation recently agreed to pay $25 million in fines, provided company executives suffer no penalties. Chiquita reportedly facilitated arms deliveries to the paramilitaries and allowed drugs to leave on Chiquita ships.

In Colombia, Delahunt met with top paramilitary leaders now in prison. “They were very specific and clear on the relationships between themselves and the American companies,” he said. For years, troops under their command subjected political activists, unionists, indigenous people, peasants, and students to massacre and mayhem. The onslaught continues.

Interviewed Jan. 16 by Bogota’s El Tiempo daily, Delahunt promised to return to Colombia for more fact-finding and to take testimony in Washington from company executives. “We are concerned,” he declared, “by the magnitude of the participation of American companies in the payments they made to the AUC,” (the Spanish initials of the paramilitaries).

Delahunt lauded Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez for facilitating the recent release of two hostages held by the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC).

Meeting later with President Chavez in Caracas, he expressed concern that all the remaining hostages be released, not just three U.S. military contractors held by the FARC. Alluding to Washington’s anti-terrorist rationale for its role in Colombia, Delahunt told reporters that his country is “two-faced in its treatment of terrorists.”

As he was arriving in Caracas, Venezuela’s National Assembly approved a proposal by President Chavez for the Colombian government and the international community to recognize the leftist insurgents in Colombia as “belligerent forces,” no longer as terrorists. Analysts see that shift as potentially helping to bring humanitarian exchange of prisoners under the aegis of international law.

The Assembly also rejected lists of terrorist organization imposed unilaterally by the United States. Characteristically, such lists include national liberation forces.

Meanwhile in Bogota, the head of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff, Admiral Michael G. Mullen, was conferring with Colombian Defense Minister Juan Manuel Santos. In a press conference, he denounced Venezuelan arms and airplane purchases as exerting a “destabilizing effect in the hemisphere.” He reaffirmed that for his government the “FARC is an organization embarked on terrorist activities.”

Dialogue on peace for Colombia is rife with bureaucratic clichés, at least at the level of command. Rep. Delahunt seems to have taken on the project of unearthing the hypocrisy inevitably underlying much of the high-level foreign policy discussions carried out in Washington. Two months ago, for example, he held hearings that nailed down the duplicity of high U.S. leaders in protecting anti-Cuban terrorist Luis Posada.

But there is another dimension of the interchange on securing peace, one relating to the realities of human suffering. That is what Gustavo Moncayo, the “Walker for Peace,” talks about. He was in Caracas when Delahunt was there, preparing to walk to Bogota. He had already walked hundreds of miles across Colombia.

Moncayo’s son Pablo has been sequestered by the FARC for ten years. Along his way, the father has called for humanitarian exchanges, talked of peace, and decried the suffering of prisoners. “The cries of the parents,” he said in Caracas, “cause no pain to authorities in Colombia, not do they know what it is to walk a day, a year, even ten years.”

Moncayo praised Chavez for attempting “to change the terminology for dialogue.” He offered to exchange himself for any prisoner: “It doesn’t matter who they are, soldiers, the political prisoners, the North Americans. What’s important is that they all go free.”

atwhit @ roadrunner.com

China, Cuba by the numbers

Sun, 27 Jan 2008 07:04:00 +0000

Public health statistics reflect overall social well being. Educational levels, nutrition, housing, preventative health care, access to urgent care, and hopes for a decent life are all big factors in what overall health looks like. That is especially true for infant mortality and maternal mortality rates.

Socialism offers the promise that all people gain the means for survival, not just those who can pay or figure out the system.

Recently collected public health data from China and Cuba, both socialist nations, are now available. The infant mortality rate (IMR) signifies the number of babies dying in their first year of 1000 babies born. The maternal mortality rate (MMR) tells the number of women dying for every 100,000 births. Life Expectancy (LE) is taken from birth.

In China, life expectancy, 71.4 in 2003, rose to 73 in 2005. LE in Cuba is 78.3; in Canada, 80: the United States, 78.2; Haiti 61; and in the world, 67.2.

Infant mortality in China, 25.5 in 2003, fell to 15.3 in 2007. For the second consecutive year, Cuba’s IMR came in at 5.3, second best in the Western Hemisphere to Canada's 4.8 rate. In 1950’s Cuba, that vital indicator never fell to 60; in 1962 it was 42.

In 2005, the IMR for the United States was 7.0, in 2006, 6.3. The most recent IMR for African American babies is 13. The IMR for the entire world is 52; that for Latin America, 26; West Africa, 108; and Haiti, 84.

China’s 2003 MMR, 51.3 maternal deaths per 100000 births, fell to 36.6 in 2007. The Cuban MMR last year was 21. For Latin America, the MMR is 190; for the world, 400; for poor nations 440; for industrialized countries, 20. The U.S. ranks 41st among 171 nations with its MMR of 11.

The choice for Rosa Luxemburg was “socialism or barbarism.” The rest of the story comes out in dry-as-dirt public health statistics. The odds makers pick it up from there: if you are poor and want to survive, choose socialism.

Baby bottles may cause cancer?

Sun, 27 Jan 2008 07:00:00 +0000

A chemical used in baby bottles, plastic containers, dental sealants and canned beverages may cause cancer and infertility, according to mounting evidence. The synthetic chemical hormone is called Bisphenol A.

The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reported recently that 88 percent of the medical studies it reviewed suggest that Bisphenol A causes harm. Many studies suggest the chemical especially at low levels, led to weight gain, cancer, hyperactivity and low sperm counts. Others found that it caused miscarriages and other reproductive failures, genital deformities, allergies and hyperactivity in lab animals. A 2005 study reported that Bisphenol A stunted brain development in lab rats. Only studies financed by the chemical industry concluded the chemical was safe. A new University of Missouri study revealed that of 115 studies of Bisphenol A, 94 found harmful effects. A National Institute of Health report found that the chemical compound could cause neural and behavioral damage to human fetuses in the womb and to children.

For many years, government regulators have sided with the chemical industry, maintaining that Bisphenol A is safe. However, in light of concern about possible harmful side effects, the government is currently reassessing. It will be weighing conflicting studies released by two scientific panels formed by the National Toxicology Program.

One panel, composed of 38 international experts issued a report finding that levels of the chemical among the population are higher than levels found to cause harm in lab animals. It also reported that these levels exceed what the Environmental Protection Agency considers safe.

Some scientists on the NTP’s non- expert panel expressed concern. Panel member Jane Adams, a professor at the University of Massachusetts will not allow her son to get dental sealants which contain the chemical. “I am concerned about this chemical. Much more research needs to be done,” she told the Journal Sentinel.

Simon Hayward, another member, stated that “When there is smoke, there is fire. There is definitely enough smoke to be worried.” Hayward is professor of prostate biology at the Vanderbilt University Medical Center.

Critics charge that federal policy on Bisphenol A was established more than 20 years ago before most studies were conducted.

The other panel, composed of 12 non-experts, ruled that the chemical may pose risks to children and fetuses, it was safe for adults.

In Canada, the federal government agency Health Canada plans to review scientific studies on Bisphenol A to verify its safety. A preliminary report is expected this spring and a final report in 2009. The Canadian government has placed Bisphenol A on a list of possible chemical hazards.

In the meantime, the British Columbia based Mountain Equipment Coop, a Canadian camping supply chain store and the Yoga-wear giant Lululemon announced recently it was pulling all polycarbonate bottled water and food containers from its shelves because of health concerns over Bisphenol A.

David Rosner, a public health historian at Columbia University, said that it is dangerous to allow widespread use of the chemical until its safety is verified. Consider what happened to lead and tobacco, he said. “Until we know that it is safe, it is more prudent to avoid it.”

Collective punishment

Sat, 26 Jan 2008 05:58:00 +0000

The blockaded and barricaded residents of Gaza performed a dramatic mass act of peaceful civil disobedience this week.

Breaking through a wall erected by Israel three years ago, they poured by the hundreds of thousands — old, young, men, women, children — into Egypt, into the long cut-off half of their town of Rafah … and shopped.

No one was killed. No shots were fired. Goats, cement, laundry detergent, televisions, milk and potato chips were purchased. One man who works with disabled people in Gaza bought air mattresses and pumps. Others bought soap, medicines, chocolate, Coca-Cola. The ordinary stuff of life.

Israel imposed a near-total blockade on Gaza last June after the Hamas takeover there. Last week, amidst heightened Israeli military attacks on Gaza, killing 30 Palestinians, and increased rocket attacks from Gaza on Israel, Israel sealed off Gaza entirely, though it backed off somewhat after international outcry.

We are talking here about a tiny strip of Palestinian land, 139 square miles housing 1.5 million people, almost entirely dependent on Israel for its economic life. Even before the latest closure, the blockade barred virtually all cross-border travel and trade, and deliveries of humanitarian aid were restricted.

Expressing sympathy for the residents of the Israeli border communities “under the barrage of Qassam missiles, mortar shells and sniper bullets,” the Israeli Communist Party said last week, “it is in no way a justification for a cruel siege which severely harms a million and half civilians — men, women and children.”

Aside from being immoral and a violation of international law, “from a practical point of view, increasing the bitterness and suffering in Gaza leads to an intensification of attacks on the Israeli side, not to their end,” the Israeli Communists pointed out.

“Unlike what we have been made to believe, residents of Sderot and residents of Gaza are not to be seen as opponents: both are victims of a stupid and vicious policy of the Government of Israel.”

(Israeli Communists and other Israeli peace and human rights groups organized a relief convoy and peace protest at the Israel-Gaza border, jointly with Palestinians.)

The Fourth Geneva Convention, adopted by the world community in the aftermath of World War II, specifically protects civilian populations in areas of conflict or occupation and forbids collective punishment of such populations. Article 33 says, “No protected person may be punished for an offence he or she has not personally committed.” It prohibits “collective penalties,” “measures of intimidation” and “reprisals against protected persons and their property.”

According to Wikipedia, “By collective punishment, the drafters of the Geneva Conventions had in mind the reprisal killings of World Wars I and II. In the First World War, Germans executed Belgian villagers in mass retribution for resistance activity. In World War II, Nazis carried out a form of collective punishment to suppress resistance. Entire villages or towns or districts were held responsible for any resistance activity that took place there. The conventions, to counter this, reiterated the principle of individual responsibility. The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) Commentary to the conventions states that parties to a conflict often would resort to ‘intimidatory measures to terrorize the population’ in hopes of preventing hostile acts, but such practices ‘strike at guilty and innocent alike. They are opposed to all principles based on humanity and justice.’”

As humanists we oppose war and acts of violence against civilians by states or individuals.

Yet everything is not equal. Who could blame people living under such bleakness, caged and isolated — while those with power to do something, like our government, aid and abet the oppression, or just stand by — for lashing out at whatever is nearest at hand?

Langston Hughes, the great African American poet, asked five decades ago in his famous poem:

What happens to a dream deferred?

Does it dry up like a raisin in the sun? Or fester like a sore — And then run? Does it stink like rotten meat? Or crust and sugar over — like a syrupy sweet?

Maybe it just sags like a heavy load.

Or does it explode?

In fact, events in Rafah show the amazing patience, resilience and ordinary humanity of the Palestinian people of Gaza who have sought life, not explosions, in the market stalls of Egypt. The world community needs to do its part to support them.

suewebb @ pww.org

Writers break through producers wall

Sat, 26 Jan 2008 05:50:00 +0000

The writers’ union approach of fighting for agreements with independent producers as part of a strategy to force major studios back to the bargaining table appears to be working.

Lions Gate Entertainment Corp., the largest independent film studio, began talks Jan. 24 with the Writers Guild of America (WGA). The company wants a temporary contract similar to those awarded by the union to Metro Goldwyn Mayer Inc.’s United Artists and Weinstein Co. The agreement, like those, would be superseded by an industry-wide contract when one is hammered out.

Another sign that the union’s strategy may be working is that the writers and major studios began Jan. 23 discussing ground rules for talks. Writers Guild spokesman Gregg Mitchell did not return calls seeking comment.

The New York Times reported Jan. 23 that an agreement between Lions Gate and the writers is close.

As the unity of the employers in the now 80-day strike began crumbling recently, six independent production companies have signed interim accords with the writers. They are MRC, Spyglass Entertainment and Worldwide Pants Inc., (David Letterman’s production company) as well as Jackson Bites, a new outfit started by “Bourne” film producer Doug Liman.

The strike began Nov. 5 with the writers seeking more pay for programs shown on Internet and mobile devices. Yet, due to the highly monopolized nature of the industry by mega corporations, writers found themselves fighting for an increase in say over productions and objectively weakening the grip of monopoly production companies over the entertainment industry.

The WGA paved the way for the beginning of preliminary talks with the major studios when it reportedly removed its demand Jan. 23 for jurisdiction over writers for reality and animated shows.

The militancy of the writers had already helped the Directors Guild of America make gains in an agreement it got Jan. 17 from the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers. That agreement increases pay for films and television shows sold on the Web.

Directors got a wage hike of three percent for primetime shows and daytime serials and 3.5 percent for other programming.

The writers’ ability to peel off Lions Gate from the once united front of producers is important because of the company’s reputation for success in the industry. The company makes the “Saw” horror flicks and produced “Crash,” winner of the Academy Award for best picture of 2005. It also produces “Weeds,” the drug dealing drama on CBS cable TV and produced “Madmen,” on American Movie Classics.

So far writers have, because of the strike, given up $211 million in pay. Eleven thousand additional film and TV workers have been idled. In Los Angeles, alone, the local economy has lost an estimated $1.6 billion.

Actors continue to support the striking writers.

“The thing I don’t understand is, we’re all in this business together, producers, entertainers, actors, writers, cameramen, set dressers, editors, crew – you name it,” Hal Holbrook, nominee for supporting actor in “Into the Wild,” told the L.A. Times Jan. 23.

“It takes all of us together to create the product being sold. What I don’t understand is, why should there be a reluctance to share the wealth?”

Meanwhile, the writers’ strike remains “the elephant in Oscar’s living room,” with the nominees themselves finding it hard to ignore. Nominees have to balance their joy with concern that the strike will dampen the Academy Award celebrations Feb. 24.

Sound Mixer Peter Karland told the Guild Reporter that he was “emotionally conflicted” about his nomination for work he did in “No Country for Old Men.”

“I’m perfectly happy to gloat about being nominated,” he said. “But it’s hard trying not to be too exuberant because all these people are out of work. I hope the strike gets settled pretty soon.”

Lets not bomb Iran

Sat, 26 Jan 2008 05:44:00 +0000

Iran has a lot more oil than we have in the U.S. We envy them that. However, that does not make them an evil empire as President Bush indicated several years ago. The fact that Iranians are enriching uranium for electrical energy, which is allowed under the International Atomic Energy Agency’s policy, also is not an indication that they are an evil empire. We can live with Iran without bombing it.

Trita Parsi, a professor of international relations at Johns Hopkins University, is president of the national Iranian American Council. He has just published a book called “Treacherous Alliance, The Secret Dealings of Israel, Iran and the U.S.” It analyzes the relationships among these countries, from the beginning of Israel in 1948 through the summer of 2007.

Parsi points out that there are 200,000 Iranian Jews in Israel and many thousands of Iranian Jews remain in Iran. Neither population is Arab. With these common segments of their populations and with Iraq as a common enemy, the two countries worked together fairly well from the days of the Shah to 1991. However, with Saddam Hussein’s army crushed by the Gulf War, things changed. Each country began to perceive the other as a threat.

The U.S. was double-minded about the Iran-Iraq war in the 1980s. Donald Rumsfeld, later George W. Bush’s defense secretary, was a special envoy to Saddam and Oliver North sold arms to Iran in the Iran-Contra scandal. Israel supported Iran and encouraged the U.S. to do so also.

Writing in The Nation last November, Parsi challenged some U.S. assumptions about Iran:

• Iran is ripe for change. Untrue, says Parsi. They will not get rid of the ruling clergy, he says. They may, however, succeed in finding a new president instead of Ahmedinejad in due time.

• Iran is irrational and cannot be deterred. Untrue, he says. “Iran has followed a systematic, pragmatic and cautious maneuvering toward a set goal of de-containment and the re-emergence of Iran as a preeminent power in the Middle East.”

• Iran is inherently anti-American. Not quite, says Parsi. Iran seeks to play a major role in regional affairs, and the U.S. aim of isolating Iran goes against this goal. But if America changes its tune, so will Iran. Actually, Iranians like our society and culture, he says.

• Enrichment equals a nuclear bomb. Parsi says the U.S. goal of zero enrichment is not realistic and is contrary to international nuclear policy. He writes, “According to nuclear experts like Bruno Pellaud, former deputy director general and head of the International Atomic Energy Agency’s Department of Safeguards, intrusive inspections is the best tool to assure that Iran doesn’t divert its civilian program into a military one. Yet these inspections can only take place as part of a package deal with Iran that includes some level of enrichment.

• Iran seeks Israel’s destruction. False, says Parsi. Ideologically they are opposed, but strategic concerns have led to cooperation, as in the 1980s when Iran was fighting the Soviet Union and Iraq.

• The pressure on Iran is working. Questionable, says Parsi. After 12 years of sanctions, Iran is more powerful and more defiant than ever.

• Stability in the Middle East can be achieved only through Iran’s isolation. Quite the contrary, says Parsi. Earlier peace talks between Israel and Palestine might not have collapsed if Iran had not been isolated after the Gulf War.

Despite the recent about-face of the U.S. intelligence community on Iran’s nuclear weapons program, which they now say ceased in 2003, the Bush/Cheney administration has not changed its tune, warning that enrichment means the bomb and the bomb means World War III. But the real threat of World War III lies with the U.S. and its thousands of nuclear weapons.

Jim Hightower of “Lowdown” urges, as I do, that we demand that Congress vote that our president cannot take preemptive military action against Iran unless Congress declares war. This has been proposed by my congresswoman, Rosa DeLauro (D-Conn.), in HR 163. Hightower also recommends that we all talk, talk, talk about this issue with everybody we see — in our grocery, church, synagogue, mosque, meetings, on busses, trains, everywhere.

Reed Smith is a peace activist in New Haven, Conn.

Shades of Green: Jan. 26, 2008

Sat, 26 Jan 2008 05:16:00 +0000

CARTOON: Lipstick pig

Sat, 26 Jan 2008 05:05:00 +0000

Kucinich drops White House bid

Fri, 25 Jan 2008 15:28:00 +0000

By Joe Milicia

(AP) Democrat Dennis Kucinich is abandoning his second, long-shot bid for the White House as he faces a tough fight to hold onto his other job - U.S. congressman.

In an interview with Cleveland's Plain Dealer, the six- term House member said he was quitting the race and would make a formal announcement on Friday.

'I will be announcing that I'm transiting out of the presidential campaign,' Kucinich said. 'I'm making that announcement tomorrow about a new direction.'

Kucinich has received little support in his presidential bid; he got 1 percent of the vote in the New Hampshire primary and was shut out in the Iowa caucuses although he has a devoted following.

Kucinich, 61, is facing four challengers in the Democratic congressional primary March 4, and earlier this week he made an urgent appeal on his Web site for funds for his re-election. Rival Joe Cimperman has been critical of Kucinich for focusing too much time outside of his district while campaigning for president.

His decision comes a month after his youngest brother, Perry Kucinich, was found dead.

Kucinich said he will not endorse another Democrat in the primary. Kucinich brought the same sense of idealism to his second run for president as he did in his first bid. He said he was entering the race again because the Democratic Party wasn't pushing hard enough to end the Iraq war.

Once dubbed the 'boy mayor' of Cleveland, he made an unpopular decision to refuse to sell a publicly owned utility that pushed the city into default and drove him from office.

After the city's financial troubles, the mayor faced death threats, and was forced to wear a bulletproof vest when he threw out the first ball at a Cleveland Indians game. He barely survived a recall vote.

But he lost his bid for re-election as mayor of Cleveland in 1978 to Republican George Voinovich, who went on to become governor and then U.S. senator. His life and his political career were derailed.

Kucinich spent more than a decade trying to get back into politics - traveling around the country and then working as a teacher, consultant and television news reporter.

In 1994, Kucinich was elected state senator and he then won a seat in Congress in 1996. His once unpopular stand against the sale of the municipal electric system was praised as courageous. In 1998, the Cleveland City Council issued him a commendation for having the foresight to refuse to sell it.

During his time in Congress, Kucinich has been one of the most outspoken liberals, opposing international trade agreements like the North America Free Trade Agreement and marching with protesters in Seattle during a meeting of the World Trade Organization.

As a presidential candidate, he has proposed a Department of Peace, backed universal health care and supported gay marriage. He also pushed for impeachment of Vice President Dick Cheney.

Kucinich married British citizen Elizabeth Harper, in 2005, ensuring his 2008 campaign would have one dramatic difference from his first campaign. Kucinich told New Hampshire audiences during the 2004 race that he was seeking a mate. Women then vied for a date with him during a contest arranged by a New Hampshire political Web site, but nothing romantic evolved from Kucinich's breakfast with the winner.

Untold heroes who fought for freedom

Fri, 25 Jan 2008 09:57:00 +0000

BOOK REVIEW

Bound For Canaan, The Underground Railroad and the War for the Soul of America

By Fergus M. Bordewich

Amistad, 2005

Hardcover, 560 pp, $18.45

“Bound For Canaan, The Underground Railroad and the War for the Soul of America,” by Fergus Bordewich, is a magnificently written and wonderful gem of historic knowledge.

A real page-turner, the book tells about the courageous rebels of the Underground Railroad.

Like an exciting action novel, the protagonists are real Americans, white and Black, but especially African Americans struggling against titanic obstacles, fighting for their people’s freedom.

While opposition to slavery came ashore with the first enslaved Americans in 1607 at Jamestown, the Underground Railroad was born among the colony of Quakers in western North Carolina, in the early 1830’s.

Levi and Vestal Coffin first began establishing networks of Quaker friends to safely hide and transport African Americans attempting to escape enslavement.

A decade later the Coffin family, with armed slaveholders close behind, fled to Cincinnati, but not before helping to rescue Josiah Henson, one of the first great African American leaders.

Bordewich ties the movement together and it’s stages from the early days of Quaker moral suasion through the building of a solid organization, such as the Vigilance Committees formed in Boston, Cincinnati, Cleveland, Detroit, Boston, New York and most major northern cities.

The expansion of its ranks included folks of all colors. The growth of militancy and fighting back became a majority movement that resulted in the Civil War and ended slavery.

There is much about William Lloyd Garrison, Harrriet Tubman and Frederick Douglass, well-known leaders, but the reader also learns about William Still, Henry Bibb, William Lambert, Jonathon Walker and others.

Still Bibb and Lambert were unschooled, self-taught former slaves and leaders of the Underground Railroad.

Still was the Pennsylvania Vigilance Committee chairman in charge of anti-slavery forces in surrounding areas that fought and defended escaping slaves or railroad conductors threatened by slave-catchers.

Henry Bibb was founder and editor of Detroit’s abolitionist newspaper, “Voice.” In 1851, Bibb organized the North American Convention of Colored People.

Lambert was the first person of color to address the Michigan legislature, calling for abolishing slavery. He helped fund John Brown’s expedition to Harper’s Ferry.

Jonathon Walker was a white working seaman who abhorred slavery and throughout his life helped slaves win freedom. He was captured and branded with SS (slave stealer) by Carolina authorities, inspiring songs, praise and a campaign that eventually rescued him. “Then lift that manly right hand, bold. Oh Ploughman of the wave, its branded palm shall prophecy Salvation to the slave!”

Lucretia Mott, Elizabeth Cady Stanton and other women leaders who built and “manned” the Underground Railroad are also highlighted. Taking inspiration from the abolitionist struggle, they also became leaders of the women’s suffrage movement.

Passage of the Fugitive Slave Law was a compromise by legislators who attempted to preserve the union. However, that law denied the rights of free speech to abolitionists, to churches, to whites as well as Blacks and circumvented rules of Habeas Corpus. Rather than being cowed, the escaped slaves and their allies fought, this time with arms, to protect their freedom.

In Boston, a huge crowd stormed the jail where a recaptured slave was being held. They freed him, killing and wounding numerous slavecatchers. In Oberlin, Ohio, hundreds mobilized to chase slavecatchers 20 miles south, to Wellington, where they beat up the slavecatchers and freed their captive.

Christiana, Pa., was the scene of a bloody, pitched battle where armed abolitionists beat off attempts to capture an escapee, killing the slave owner and a number of his thugs.

The freedom movement became a majority movement in the north, and finally the federal government was forced to stand up to the arrogance of southern slaveholding power.

The reader learns about Blacks and whites, working men and women, who dedicated their lives to a multi-racial movement for freedom in our nation.

George DeBaptiste, an underground leader in Detroit, put the following message on his store window in 1870, the day of the passage of the Fifteenth Amendment: “Notice to stockholders of the Underground Railroad. This office is closed. Hereafter all stockholders will receive dividends according to their merits!”

This book tells a history that is an inspiration to all who continue to struggle and realize the sentiments of the U.S. freedom movement.

Oscar buzz for Juno

Fri, 25 Jan 2008 09:51:00 +0000

MovieREVIEW

Juno

Directed by Jason Reitman

Written by Diablo Cody

Fox Searchlight Pictures, 2007

96 min., PG-13

“Juno,” directed by Jason Reitman and written by Diablo Cody, along with the casting, allows the characters to breathe real life into this movie set in trite and cute Minnesota.

In the middle of the movie (bear with me), Juno (Ellen Page), flustered, does something that is ethically questionable in her beat-up family van. She goes to see Mark (Jason Bateman). She is guessing that Vanessa (Jennifer Garner), Mark’s wife, is not at home. We watch Juno put on a very red lipstick. She is sixteen, still in high school, and about 12 weeks pregnant. She has already rejected an abortion.

Mark and Vanessa are a perfectly coiffed, yuppie couple who live in the biggest house in their gated community and plan to adopt Juno’s baby. At their first meeting with Mark and Vanessa, Juno and her Dad, Mac, (J.K. Simmons) feel the couple out. Economic and class differences are apparent between the two families. The couple’s lawyer is efficient and attired, ready to dot all the “i’s” for the adoption. Vanessa is nervous, knowing that a birth itself can convince a mother to keep her child. Meanwhile Juno and Mark bond over their similar taste in music and a Les Paul guitar.

Mark writes commercial jingles, and when she comes over, Juno and Mark sing a soap ad commercial together. Juno brings some music for Mark. Mark puts on a tape, a Carpenter’s song done in a punk format. They begin to slow dance.

Mark says, “Is there something between us?” Yes, a large, impregnated stomach and a metaphor for something else?

Mark then tells her he’s not ready to be a father and is going to move out. Vanessa walks in and asks, “What is going on here?” Both women are stunned. Mark seems not quite ready to put down his guitar and infantile desire to be a rock star. Juno leaves and freaks out over this new dilemma.

Part of the problem is that she has bought into the materialism of yuppie heaven while she verbally spars about the couple’s extreme consumerism. The baby’s secure future seems to be disintegrating.

Juno’s family – those that keep her secure – are her dad Mac, a retired career soldier who now works in heating and air-conditioning, his wife, Bren (Alison Janney, from the West Wing), and their five-year-old. Mac seems to be channeling a human and bubbling version of Hulk Hogan on a small scale. Bren is a nail technician and an obsessing dog lover who embroiders campy dog portraits. She is completely there to defend, criticize, and care for Juno. Juno’s mom left for a New Age escape somewhere but sends Juno a cactus once a year.

Paulie (Michael Cera) is the father of the baby. We see him mostly in his maroon, high school track sweatshirt and gold nylon gym shorts, which reveal his long, skinny legs. He is addicted to orange Tic Tacs. His hair makes him a second cousin to the movie character Napoleon Dynamite. He is inquisitive and droll at the same time. His character is set up almost to make us dislike him, but he wins us over. He’s the perfect antidote for Juno’s center-stage spunky, sarcastic and lively performance. Juno is more engaging than you could expect for someone her age who’s expecting.

She is so accessible that she could win the Oscar for best actress if the Academy can get over its issues about teen pregnancy, abortion and unorthodox families. With Roe v. Wade threatened, Reitman’s film takes on a Roberts-led Supreme Court!

Just under the cute tenderness of Juno, we’re watching a movie about a woman’s right to decide, even if she’s sixteen, and the right to trust our children and the decisions they make.

Climate change: whats the problem?

Fri, 25 Jan 2008 09:39:00 +0000

“There’s no precedent in history for the radically new relationship between humanity and the planet,” Al Gore told the 180-nation conference on climate change in Bali, Indonesia, in December.

Gore and the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), a United Nations-sponsored panel of climate scientists, recently won the Nobel Prize for their work in bringing climate change to the top of the world’s agenda.

What is the problem?

From pole to pole, glaciers are collapsing. Melting ice from the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets is adding billions of tons of water to oceans each year.

Global temperatures are rising. The 10 hottest years on record have all occurred since 1990. Violence in Darfur began in response to worsening drought that caused water and food shortages.

Only about half the human-generated emissions of planet-warming carbon dioxide are being absorbed by land vegetation and the ocean. A major reason: alteration of land cover. Wholesale destruction of forests, grasslands and wetlands, then replacing them with freeways, parking lots and strip malls, is handicapping the self-restoring capability of our planet.

Carbon storage in North American ecosystems isn’t keeping up with carbon dioxide emissions from the continent’s automobiles and power plants. Those fossil fuel burners, plus cement manufacturing, spew more than 1.8 billion metric tons of carbon into the atmosphere each year.

What the world’s scientists say

The IPCC’s fourth report on climate change, issued in November 2007, is an update and re-evaluation of data, with plenty of tables and graphs.

The report’s major points:

•1. Warming of the earth’s climate system is unequivocal, as is now evident from observations of increases in global average air and ocean temperatures, widespread melting of snow and ice, and rising global average sea level.

•2. Causes of change: Changes in atmospheric concentrations of greenhouse gases (GHGs) and aerosols, land cover and solar radiation alter the energy balance of the climate system.

“Carbon dioxide (CO2) is the most important anthropogenic (human-caused) GHG. Its annual emissions grew by about 80 percent between 1970 and 2004.

“Decreases in snow cover cause a corresponding decrease in albedo (reflectivity of the earth’s surface), which increases the rate of warming. This releases stored methane (a potent GHG) from permafrost soils, which increases warming.

•3. Projected climate change and its impacts: Continued GHG emissions at or above current rates would cause further warming and induce many changes in the global climate system during the 21st century that would very likely be larger than those observed during the 20th century. Examples of expected impacts include:

- Increased damage from rising sea level

- Increased risk from extreme weather events and flooding.”

New Orleans — a case study

Many low-lying areas around the world with dense populations, like Bangladesh and New York City, are at particular risk. This is likely to produce millions of environmental refugees.

New Orleans is a case in point.

Over millennia, the Mississippi River carried sediment from the combined Ohio, Mississippi and Missouri drainage systems, and built up the Mississippi delta. For the most part, levees have now stopped that natural process. Walking in downtown New Orleans, and looking up at passing ships is an odd perspective-challenging experience. The city is already largely below sea level and is sinking an average of 6 millimeters a year.

For a clearer understanding of how climate change is affecting New Orleans, I recommend an article in the August 2007 National Geographic titled “New Orleans: A Perilous Future,” by Joel K. Bourne. Louisiana is losing roughly 12 square miles of storm-buffering wetlands each year. In 2005, Hurricanes Katrina and Rita took out an additional 217 square miles, east and south of the city.

A map in that issue shows what will happen when sea level rises just 3 feet — a very likely scenario. The south Louisiana coast will move far inland, engulfing Lake Pontchartrain and stranding New Orleans far out at sea. Robert Giegengack, a professor of earth and environmental science at the University of Pennsylvania, puts it bluntly: “We simply lack the capacity to protect New Orleans.”

Is allowing people to move back into New Orleans and surrounding towns, directly into harm’s way, a form of environmental racism? Are we telling these people that they’re expendable?

Corals and collapse

The IPCC report also tells us: “Corals are vulnerable to thermal stress and have low adaptive capacity. Increases in sea surface temperature of about 1-3 degrees Celsius are projected to result in more frequent coral bleaching events and widespread mortality.”

All our planet’s ecosystems filter carbon dioxide from and release oxygen into the air by incorporating the carbon into wood, leaves, shells and other “biomass.” Tropical forests, coral reefs and the plankton of the open ocean are the major sites of carbon sequestration and oxygen production — the “lungs of Mother Earth.”

Historically, tropical rainforest habitat totaled 6 billion acres. Today we have less than 1.5 billion acres left, and this remaining rainforest is being cleared at the rate of 30-50 million acres per year.

This risks increasing the rate of extinction of many species in the tropics, and the resulting soil erosion runs downstream, choking coral reefs.

Species are like cogs in the machinery of nature. Take too many out, and an ecosystem — the basic unit of our planetary life-support system — collapses.

Floods and water shortages

“Warming in western mountains of North America is projected to cause more precipitation to fall as rain, less as snow. This will decrease snow pack and cause more winter flooding.

“Competition for over-allocated water resources will be exacerbated.”

In December 2007, here in Washington state, flooding in the Chehalis Valley submerged Interstate 5 — the major highway connecting Portland, Ore., with Seattle — under 10 feet of water from breached levees. Transport of needed supplies was stopped. Hundreds of people were isolated. Livestock drowned. This is one result of the too-prevalent poor planning that encourages development in at-risk flood plains.

“Sea-level rise is expected to exacerbate inundation, storm surges and erosion of low-lying and small islands.” The report cites “saltwater intrusion and contamination of drinking and irrigation water supplies in coastal areas, causing decreased freshwater availability,” and “impacts to marine ecosystem and fisheries productivity.”

Note that much of the world’s population, especially in Asia and Europe, is dependent upon seafood.

So what can we do?

Don’t get the idea that the IPCC report is all bad news. Warming temperatures are likely to reduce human mortality from exposure to cold. With warmer weather, there’ll be less disruption of transportation by severe wintry conditions.

More good news: the IPCC study suggests many practical strategies to combat this crisis. A few specific ones:

• Development of:

- Advanced nuclear power (generating less nuclear waste, less damaging than CO2, and potentially recyclable)

- Advanced renewable energy, including tidal and wave energy

- Solar design for lighting, heating and cooling

• Change agricultural practices:

- Reforestation, reduce deforestation

- Livestock manure management to reduce methane emissions. Methane is a very effective greenhouse gas. Instead of being added to the atmosphere, it should be captured and burned for energy.

- Improved nitrogen fertilizer techniques to reduce nitrogen dioxide emissions. And these emissions would decrease if more sustainable and organic methods were used.

• Incentives to spur development of low-emissions technologies.

• Reduce fossil fuel subsidies: levy taxes or carbon charges on fossil fuels.

• Public sector leadership programs: governments should buy and use technology that contributes to solutions, not worsens the problems.

Such steps can result in co-benefits (for example, improved health due to reduced air pollution) that may offset some of the costs.

Up against the system

One big constraint to adopting these strategies is resistance by vested interests. At some point these strategies will bump up against the capitalist-imperialist system.

For far too long, what is most profitable for corporations has been the driving force in decision-making. This is the primary reason we are facing the global warming crisis today. The capitalist-imperialist system, now in the corporate globalist phase, is something we can no longer afford. We need comprehensive, integrated — dialectical — planning.

Socialism on the agenda

It is possible to deal effectively with these environmental problems. Or we can retain capitalism. But we won’t be able to do both. This places environmental health, justice and sustainability — in a word, socialism —squarely on the agenda.

We all need to learn about these issues and become policymakers. The corporate policymeisters have made such a mess of things, the time to disenthrone them is clearly here.

The opportunities to create jobs and build a more sound and sustainable economic system tap directly into the creativity, entrepreneurship and ingenuity that the fossil-fuel economy has stifled. Van Jones, a champion of “green collar” job creation, puts it like this: “The green economy has the power to deliver new sources of work, wealth and health to low-income people — while honoring the Earth.”

The IPCC’s latest report is a wake-up call. If we don’t change course, we might end up where we’re headed. If you want an example of a runaway greenhouse effect, take a look at the planet Venus, which is now totally devoid of life.

Dave Zink (dcaz @juno.com) is a trade union and environmental activist in the state of Washington.

EDITORIAL: Winds of change

Fri, 25 Jan 2008 09:33:00 +0000

This past week, we commemorated two landmarks in our nation’s long march toward full equality and democracy — the 79th birthday of Dr. Martin Luther King, civil rights leader and champion of workers and all oppressed people, and the 35th anniversary of Roe v. Wade, the Supreme Court ruling that upheld women’s reproductive rights.

This year’s presidential campaign testifies to the profound changes that those two landmarks signified for our country, and indicates the forward direction that American voters are seeking.

Heading to the polls in unprecedented numbers, energized voters are rejecting 35 years of hate, fear-mongering and division pushed by the right wing.

The three Democratic frontrunners and the overall excitement they are generating show how the winds of change have transformed our political scene.

One of those candidates is an African American who has been winning enthusiastic support from enormous numbers of white voters. Another of those candidates could be the first woman president of the United States. The third has made unions and the working class the centerpiece of his campaign, and launched his candidacy in New Orleans’ Lower Ninth Ward, the place that symbolizes the plight of African Americans and the working poor in this country.

It is a testimony to the American people that, with the successful fight for a national King holiday, we have brought King and the struggles he led to the forefront of the nation’s consciousness. It is a testimony to the American people that there is not and will never be a holiday to honor his persecutors like “Bull” Connor, George Wallace or J. Edgar Hoover.

It is a testimony to the American people that voters are rejecting reactionary “values issues” like the “keep women in their place” efforts to roll back women’s reproductive rights. The primaries indicate women are fired up and determined to put an end to the reactionary anti-woman politics of the Republican right.

The democratic struggles that we celebrate this month are finding new expression in this campaign. The people are on the move.

Trades work to hire more minorities, women

Fri, 25 Jan 2008 09:28:00 +0000

PHILADELPHIA — A landmark agreement reached last month could open the way to diversifying the construction workforce here. Pending approval by the City Council, contractors, the city’s Convention Center authority and the building trades unions, new major Center City projects could be affected. The deal would set measurable goals and percentages for hiring workers of color and women.

While the agreement has not been officially approved by all parties, it would mean that, of the 1,400 workers who will be needed to build a $700 million expansion to the downtown convention center, 25 percent would be African American, 10 percent Latino, 5 percent Asian American and 10 percent women.

The deal seemed to be in jeopardy in early December when City Council member Frank DiCicco introduced a resolution that would have opened up the convention project to nonunion labor. While many council members were clearly uncomfortable with this move, the resolution put them in a bind because of a City Council tradition of respecting the wishes of members on matters concerning their own districts.

DiCicco’s district includes the Center City area where the convention center is located, and he sits on the center’s board. He claimed the resolution was necessary to insure minority participation.

Labor and African American community leaders, however, resisted DiCicco’s attempt to use the issue of minority hiring to undercut the construction unions. At a press conference, African American leaders stepped forward and distanced themselves from his proposal.

Sam Staten, president of Laborers Local 332, a predominantly African American local, said he was “totally against” DiCicco’s resolution. He was joined by public relations executive A. Bruce Crawley, a veteran advocate for increased minority inclusion, and recording executive Kenny Gamble.

Gamble said, “We want to make sure the baby doesn’t get thrown out with the bath water.” Crawley told the World, “We in the African American business community are not pushing for the ‘open shop’ [anti-union] provision. That provision is bogging down the movement for minority inclusion.”

Pat Gillespie, business manager of the Philadelphia Building and Construction Trades Council, told the World that the agreement for increased inclusion of minorities and women on the Convention Center project was on track, saying he felt that DiCicco was using his seat on the board to push his own agenda.

Gillespie supported an agreement between the building trades and the Philadelphia School District in 2006 to admit a number of public high school graduates to trade apprenticeship programs.

The urgency of addressing the issue and overcoming a past history of exclusion, racism and division was underscored by a recent report of a white worker taunting a Black worker with a noose on another Center City project. The city Human Relations Commission is investigating.

The convention center, to be built with a major infusion of state funding, is being billed as the largest public works project in the city’s history.

bikerbenn@aol.com

A day of work at UPS

Fri, 25 Jan 2008 09:25:00 +0000

PAGES FROM WORKERS LIVES

I am one of the many young people who work at UPS. As you probably all know, UPS is one of the world’s largest package delivery companies, delivering 15 million packages a day to 6.1 million customers, spanning over 200 countries. It is notorious for being gruesome, fast-paced, backbreaking work, and UPS has a history of exploitative labor practices. It seems to specifically target youth, such as myself, who are looking for some help to pay for schooling.

I am what they call a loader. My day usually starts with loathing at having to work at such a place. You walk in there and it is literally this great big machine. The minute you step into the place, the mechanical monster is roaring and all the workers are preparing for a cold or hot (depending on what season it is), sweaty day of work. You sweat no matter what season it is.

I usually stroll down to the break room a half hour before start time so I can have a couple laughs and engage in conversation with one of my many co-workers. We talk about all the usual topics and it is usually jump-started by the fact that none of us want to be there. Sports, the news, or one of the “People’s Court-type” shows are the recurring programs that set the tone for the break room. Sometimes we’ll play cards and make fun of the supervisors running around with their clipboards doing God knows what. They always remind me of that little puppy dog with its tail between its legs, contrary to us merciless cast of characters who just don’t give a shit. But of course it is a job, so we do have to take shit sooner or later.

As I said before, I am a loader. A loader is basically someone who loads the trucks with packages that are being delivered to various destinations. Most of the time we are loading two, three trucks at a time and are getting moved around constantly. They encourage you to be as fast as possible, sometimes to have superhuman speed the likes of which no person has ever seen. Often I am loading a truck that is flowing 1,500 packages an hour — that is a pretty large amount. I for the most part can handle it, but the question is, do I want to? No, of course I don’t! I only get paid $9.50 an hour. I’m overworking as far as I’m concerned.

The way I see it, if you think I’m worth $9.50 an hour, then I am going to give you what I think $9.50 an hour’s worth of work looks like. This doesn’t make management too happy, when you are working only a fraction of your body’s physical capability. But they told us when we started that the minimum work pace is 300 packages an hour and we always remember that.

When I am not feeling my usual alpha-male self — just kidding — and loading 1,500 packages becomes a hassle, the supervisors usually send a co-worker to help me, and I think to myself, “Finally someone to talk to!” Not that we can’t talk otherwise, but as soon as a supervisor sees us, it’s back to work. Sometimes when we are short-staffed, the supervisors are tempted to come help us load, which is a bad idea, especially if I see them. I don’t mind if they load as long as they realize that I make $9.50 an hour and will be more than happy to write their ass up.

Grievances are high at our dock as you can imagine, due primarily to understaffing. Unfortunately, a lot of my fellow young workers do not know the contract too well because of lack of outreach by the union. I always do my part in letting my co-workers know what’s up. We are even trying to organize a watchdog group on our dock to let management know that we are watching their supervisors.

It is a tough job to load. It is loud and dirty and I have to worry about my safety and well-being at all times. We are even tested monthly about the proper procedures on how to load boxes and also how to keep ourselves in good health.

Though I don’t plan on working there the rest of my life, it is a part-time job that will last me through college and will help me pay for it. Most of us young people can’t wait to get out of there, and a lot of them have a second job just so they can make ends meet. I myself can’t stand it there. It is a five-hour fight for freedom, with the memory of what my bed must feel like that keeps me calm through the roar of machines.

Benny James is a college student, musician and union activist.

Lawmakers: recession already here for millions

Fri, 25 Jan 2008 09:16:00 +0000

WASHINGTON — Lawmakers stood on the Senate and House floor this week and decried hunger and homelessness spreading like a plague among their constituents as the nation plunges toward economic recession.

Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio) told his colleagues a food bank in Logan, Ohio, has already run out of food twice this winter as it struggles to serve 2,000 families, up from 17 families just two years ago. Food reserves expected to last until July instead will run out in February, he said. “More and more Ohioans need food assistance but there is less and less food to go around. Standing in line at food banks, working families are teetering on the edge. Families are facing an impossible choice this winter — heat or eat.”

He said the soaring cost of basic items — meat, vegetables and fruit — has sharply reduced food bank donations from grocery stores. The U.S. Department of Agriculture has also cut back sharply on its Emergency Food Assistance Program (TEFAP). Brown urged quick approval of his bill to immediately increase TEFAP funding by $40 million.

Sen. Edward Kennedy (D-Mass.) said President Bush’s cutbacks in the Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program (LIHEAP) are leaving tens of thousands literally out in the cold this winter. Home heating will cost an average $3,000 this winter, and “closer to $4,000” in the frostbelt, Kennedy said, “yet six out of seven families in need receive no help.”

He demanded that Bush drop his veto threats against increases in LIHEAP and the State Children’s Health Insurance Program (SCHIP).

Jeremy Funk, a spokesperson for Americans United for Change, blasted Republican lawmakers who voted again to sustain Bush’s veto of SCHIP, Jan. 23. “Those lawmakers voted to deny needed health care for four million children,” he told the World. “How out of touch can they be?”

SCHIP supporters will rally outside these lawmakers’ district offices in coming months “to remind their constituents how they voted on SCHIP,” Funk concluded.

Bush’s $140 billion economic stimulus program is largely targeted at higher income taxpayers and corporations. Rep. Barbara Lee (D-Calif.) called for assistance targeted toward the poor.

The nation has just observed Dr. Martin Luther King’s 79th birthday, she said. “It is important to reflect on how far we have strayed from his legacy of eradicating poverty. The sad reality is that economic inequality continues to grow. Thirty-seven million Americans are in poverty. It has grown by five million in the last five or six years.”

MoveOn, the online political action group, has launched a petition to Congress demanding an economic stimulus aimed at low- and middle-income taxpayers. “The president’s plan — tax breaks for corporations and rebate checks for the well-off — isn’t just morally wrong. It’s based on ‘trickle down’ theories and it won’t work,” MoveOn says. Bush’s proposal would provide no tax rebates to those earning less than $40,000 per year. A family of four making less than $24,950 would get nothing.

The petition states, “Congress must quickly pass a stimulus package that helps those who need it most and will spend it the fastest. And it should include public investments that will create jobs and move us toward a 21st century, clean energy economy.”

Some analysts say the economy is replacing Iraq as a top concern of voters. But MoveOn counters that this is the “Iraq recession,” saying the war is driving the economy into the ground, sucking $2 billion each week from the pockets of working people, at a cost of $1 trillion so far.

Gov. takes meat-ax to health care in Calif.

Fri, 25 Jan 2008 09:08:00 +0000

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger’s proposed budget cuts not only slash state spending for health care but also imperil federal matching funds for Medi-Cal, the state’s Medicaid program serving millions of the poorest Californians, health care advocates say.

As part of his proposed 10 percent across-the-boards budget cut to deal with an estimated $14.5 billion deficit in fiscal 2009, the Republican governor would slash Medi-Cal spending by $1.1 billion.

Reimbursements to health care providers, including primary care doctors, specialists and hospitals, would drop by over $720 million. Analysts say California already has one of the nation’s lowest reimbursement rates, and as a result more than half the state’s doctors currently don’t accept Medi-Cal.

The governor is also urging an end to so-called optional Medi-Cal benefits including adult dental services, optometry, psychology, podiatry and speech therapy, to save nearly $134 million. Health policy experts say that without these vital services, many more people will seek care through emergency rooms.

A proposal that Medi-Cal recipients be recertified four times a year instead of twice as at present would supposedly save over $92 million, as thousands would lose coverage. But analysts point out that such a requirement would also bring a big rise in administrative costs.

The California Medical Association warned the cuts would also lose the state $1.1 billion in federal matching funds.

“These cuts represent a threat to our patients’ ability to access quality health care services — not only from our medical centers but from other facilities as well,” Melissa Stafford Jones, president of the California Association of Public Hospitals and Health Systems (CAPH), said in a statement. While CAPH recognizes the state’s fiscal crisis, she added, “cutting health care funds for the most vulnerable Californians is not the way to help solve the crisis, and may in fact exacerbate it.” Stafford Jones pointed out that Medi-Cal is more important than ever to families as the economic crisis deepens.

Calling the governor’s proposals for severe cuts, and his failure to prioritize among programs, “unfortunate,” Martin Martinez, policy director with the California Pan Ethnic Health Network, said in a telephone interview that a real solution has to involve a progressive tax increase with higher taxes for people with high incomes. “Everyone talks about working out solutions,” he said, “but progressive tax increases are always taken off the table.”

Martinez also said investing in prevention, which will cut down on illness and chronic disease in the long run, will save the state significant funds in the future.

Recalling that the Legislature has defeated similar proposals in the past, Martinez added, “We hope that people who are affected by these cuts will make their voices heard.”

Commentators, including Martinez, also highlight the irony of the governor calling for sharp cuts at the same time he is trying to get a health care reform bill through the Legislature. The bill, ABX1 1, which has the support of Assembly Speaker Fabian Nuñez (D-Los Angeles), passed the Assembly last month and is slated to be heard before the Senate Health Committee this week. The proposed funding must be passed by voters in a separate initiative. The measure would not require new spending from the general fund.

California Medical Association President Richard Frankenstein told American Medical News that Schwarzenneger’s proposed cuts would move the state in the opposite direction from the reform legislation, because doctors would be forced out of Medi-Cal, hospitals and clinics would close and “tens of thousands” of patients would have to use emergency rooms for care.

mbechtel@pww.org