People Before Profit blog

LETTERS

Fri, 28 Jul 2006 07:58:00 +0000

Don’t leave, Citgo

When Citgo headquarters in Houston, Texas, announced that they would not be delivering gasoline in many parts of the United States, two kinds of North Texans were dismayed.

One group consisted of progressive activists who had been buying Citgo because they knew it was the state-owned oil company of the leading progressive government in Latin America, Venezuela. The other group liked Citgo’s low prices. With $80/barrel oil on the horizon and the lowest cost quality gasoline leaving, it’s pandemonium at the pump!

Citgo announced that they just didn’t have enough gasoline to make all of their commitments and would have to cut back somewhere. Texas journalists have speculated that Bush’s home state might have been targeted by Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez’s “oil diplomacy.” The progressive government there has made a number of arrangements whereby the most desperately poor nations and people get good deals on Venezuelan petroleum products; consequently it is no surprise that Citgo can’t make all of its former obligations.

Whether it’s a random disaster or deliberately aimed at Bush’s home state, North Texans will suffer the loss of Citgo.

Jim Lane Dallas TX

New heat record set

NOAA (National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration) has announced that average temperatures for the first half of 2006 were the highest ever recorded in the USA. NOAA scientists say that temperatures for January through June were 3.4 degrees Fahrenheit above average for the 20th century. Previously, NOAA said that 2005 was the hottest year on record, so we’re not doing so well when it comes to battling global warming.

Sara Goudrarzi writes in LiveScience.com that Texas, Oklahoma, Kansas, Nebraska and Missouri set the records for the highest heat. No state had cooler-than-average temperatures, although that’s part of global warming too, so that may happen in the future.

Gail Sheehan Boulder CO

Shout it from the rooftops

I wish to express my thanks to Carolyn Trowbridge for her excellent analysis of the current struggle for women’s rights (PWW 7/22-28). I wanted to highlight and underline every sentence! How important it is that we impart a sense of urgency, especially on our young men and women, for as Ms. Trowbridge accurately points out, the gains fought so hard for are slipping away.

Ms. Trowbridge’s article is a clarion call to every one of us to fight the extreme-right at the polls in November. We must do all that we can to support pro-women candidates, but we do not have the luxury of assuming one political party will always support us in these efforts. There are at least 31 anti-abortion Democrats in Congress today. More anti-choice Democrats are currently running strong races at all levels of government; the senatorial race in Pennsylvania between the Republican Santorum and the Democrat Bob Casey Jr. is a prime example.

My hope is that everyone involved in the workers’ struggles will research their local candidates, support those who prove unflinching in their resolve to protect women’s rights, and vote in November. Because, and make no mistake about it, the election results will have long-lasting and far-reaching consequences for all.

Lisa Casey Perry Via e-mail

Where’s the condemnation?

The PWW July 8-14 issue headlines a statement by the National Board of the Communist Party USA stating: “CPUSA condemns Israeli assault on Gaza.” Where is the CPUSA resolution, or your news story, condemning the June 25 attack on Israel by Hamas militants who tunneled under the Gaza-Israel border in order to kill and capture, escaping with one Israeli soldier? Where is the condemnation of the Hamas leadership who refused and continues to refuse to heed the call of Palestinian leaders, such as President Abbas and others, to release the captured soldier? Where is the condemnation of Hamas for demanding the release of hundreds of prisoners in exchange for information about the captured prisoner (not his release as your editorial in July 1-7 issue erroneously stated). This Hamas demand for prisoner release was made before any invasion by Israel of Gaza and while some Arab leaders were trying to broker a settlement. The concluding paragraph of the CP National Board statement that “We condemn all terrorist acts, all attacks on civilians, Palestinian or Israeli,” is contradicted by your continued failure to specifically condemn, or even report, terrorist acts against civilians when committed by Palestinians. Shame on you.

Irwin Gostin Las Vegas NV

Time for worker co-ops in U.S.

In reading Shelby Richardson’s article “An American worker in Venezuela” (PWW 6/24-30), Mr. Richardson laments the job loss and theft of pension plans, health care and other benefits U.S. workers face. In complicity with bankruptcy courts, such employers as auto’s “Big Three,” but many others file for bankruptcy and are so granted as a ruse to despoil their workers, often despite handsome profits.

The connection to Venezuela’s workers is right on target. In Bolivarian Venezuela, under co-management, workers have the option to take over failed or unproductive industries to then run them cooperatively. So why not do the same here in the USA?

I suggest that if a plant or other workplace is closed down as unprofitable or as bankrupt, its workers take over it and operate as cooperative with full compensation to owner (else it would be “communism”) for the fair market value of a business that is unprofitable or bankrupt. Else the tax-declared value of the past years preceding the bankruptcy.

There y’all have it!

The ex-owner will get real cash payment, in proper due time, for a bankrupt industry. So then all are happy and everybody rides into the sunset. So, how about it UAW?

Ana Lucia Gelabert Gatesville TX

EDITORIAL: Cuba stands tall

Fri, 28 Jul 2006 07:55:00 +0000

On July 26, 1953, small bands of militants attacked two Cuban Army installations in eastern Cuba. Most of the young revolutionaries were tortured and killed. The survivors went on to oust the U.S.-backed Batista dictatorship.

July 26 is celebrated today as the anniversary of the onset of the Cuban Revolution, a revolution that has brought independence, dignity, free health care and education to the Cuban people.

Batista’s regime was overthrown despite its big military battalions and weapons. The rebels had one major advantage. They had a simple idea, against which tyrants are no match: they believed that all people — the workers, the poorest, those bereft of hope, the racially oppressed and women — should be able to survive and live in dignity. The Cubans believe that these rights belong to everyone, everywhere.

Today Cuba has 11 percent of Latin America’s scientists, an infant mortality rate bested only by Canada in the Western Hemisphere, and one of the world’s lowest rates of HIV infection. Washington sees these achievements as a “threat” to the order of things.

As Cuba has gone worldwide — sending out 30,000 medical workers to far corners of the planet; bringing in tens of thousands of students from Africa, Latin America, Caribbean, Asia, and even the U.S., for college training; exporting literacy programs to 16 countries — Washington’s hostility has only multiplied. The cruel blockade has been tightened, anti-Cuba terrorists like Luis Posada Carriles have been coddled, and those who fight terrorism, like the Cuban Five, have been persecuted.

New, monstrous schemes for returning Cuba to the status of a U.S. colony have been hatched under the Bush administration. The exploiters want to re-privatize Cuba, to reopen it to plunder.

But Cuba remains strong — a beacon for all fighters for a better world.

In a recent speech, Cuban President Fidel Castro predicted imperialism’s demise in 50 years. He also said, “The battle will not be fought with weapons, it will be fought with ideas.”

Socialist Cuba stands tall. We join those who salute its achievements, and say end the blockade, extradite Luis Posada Carriles, and free the Cuban Five!

EDITORIAL: A civil rights milestone

Fri, 28 Jul 2006 07:53:00 +0000

It has been 14 years since the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) went into effect.

When the ADA was passed by Congress and signed into law in 1990, it was hailed as a major victory that would benefit the millions of people in the U.S. who were disabled. It was also hailed by many others who realized the possibility they would be regarded as disabled at some point in their lives.

The law became effective on July 26, 1992. The 14 years that have elapsed since then have certainly been educational with respect to how ultra-right political forces regard this civil rights legislation.

Because of the ADA, public buildings, hotels, supermarkets, shopping centers and transportation are more accessible today than they were two decades ago. The ADA also makes it illegal to inquire as to an individual’s disability in the employment process, and requires accommodations for employees with physical or emotional disabilities.

But in Tennessee, the state’s attorney general sought to declare the ADA unconstitutional on the basis of states’ rights. Although Tennessee was not successful, in another ADA case the U.S. Supreme Court ruled the law’s definition of who is disabled is altogether too vague and confusing. President Bush’s appointment of ultra-right ideologues to lifetime sinecures on the Supreme Court poses a danger to the gains realized because of the ADA.

However, as good as the ADA is, it isn’t enough. The ADA is not an affirmative action law. Its gives companies a loophole, geared toward protecting corporate profits, saying they are obliged to provide access to persons with disabilities “to the maximum extent feasible.”

What is needed is the recognition that full employment for all persons, irrespective of whether they are disabled or non-disabled, is a right and not a privilege. What is needed is universal health care and programs that provide live-in attendants for all who need them. What is needed is a struggle against barriers caused by attitudes as well as cement. The ADA is a small but important step in that direction, and it is a step we believe is worth defending and expanding.

North Carolina pork packers undeterred

Fri, 28 Jul 2006 07:23:00 +0000

On the same day that hundreds of Smithfield workers in the company’s Tar Heel, N.C., plant boldly wore union T-shirts to work in a show of solidarity, 75 community supporters turned out in support at a supermarket in nearby Fayetteville, July 21. The demonstrators highlighted what they called “inhumane and unsafe” working conditions at the world’s largest pork processing plant and Smithfield’s anti-union tactics.

In the latest development in a 10-year struggle, Smithfield, which broke labor law repeatedly to keep the United Food and Commercial Workers out of the Tar Heel facility, now wants a quick up-or-down union recognition vote there.

The request, sent to the National Labor Relations Board on June 29, has understandably left the UFCW wary. The NLRB has yet to reply.

An NLRB vote won’t satisfy UFCW any more. The union says Smithfield has created such a climate of fear around Tar Heel that no election would be fair. It wants card-check recognition, company neutrality and independent verification instead.

Smithfield’s demand comes just as the UFCW converted its campaign to organize the 5,500 workers at the plant into a nationwide crusade. It has enlisted clergy, community groups, activists, the rest of the labor movement, and a wide range of allies in its drive to expose the exploitation at the plant.

Rallies for Smithfield workers occurred in late June in seven cities, from Brooklyn to Boston to Washington to Atlanta. They focused on the inhuman working conditions, company tactics to pit African American against Latino workers, human rights violations and outright labor law-breaking in prior organizing drives.

The company’s law-breaking was so pervasive the NLRB threw out two previous elections, in 1994 and 1997, as being illegally tainted, and a federal appellate court in D.C. backed the board. Smithfield decided not to appeal the decision, but rather to call for the third election — quickly — instead. It also said it did nothing wrong in the prior vote.

The court ruling, upholding the NLRB, ordered Smithfield to halt its illegal firings of pro-union workers, post notices saying it would not break labor laws, and reinstate 10 workers with back pay. In their May 2006 ruling on the 1997 vote — backing the NLRB’s decision against Smithfield — the judges said Smithfield “assaulted, intimidated, coerced, spied on, threatened, confiscated union literature, threatened employees with plant closure and job loss, illegally fired union supporters, unlawfully arrested an employee and interfered with their employees’ legal right to choose a union in a free and fair election.”

That’s why UFCW wants card check and neutrality instead, says UFCW campaign director Gene Bruskin.

The situation in Tar Heel contrasts with that in other Smithfield plants where the union represents the workers. UFCW represents just over 40 percent of the firm’s 50,000 workers nationwide. In those plants, UFCW President Joe Hansen noted, relations are good, wages are high and the firm trumpets its cooperation with the UFCW — unlike at Tar Heel.

Bruskin warned UFCW will still stay on guard. “The history is so long, the river is so polluted. The absolute arrogance of the company in thinking they can kick people around for a decade and then come out as champions of democracy and expect people to trust them is a joke.”

— Press Associates Inc.

Calif. agency probes insecticides

Fri, 21 Jul 2006 07:43:00 +0000

SACRAMENTO (AP) — California’s pesticide agency is conducting a review of popular insecticides because many are ending up in urban streams and killing tiny aquatic creatures. The review could lead to restrictions and even bans on many products used on lawns and gardens.

The chemicals, called pyrethroids, are man-made versions of natural compounds in chrysanthemum flowers. American consumers and exterminators have increasingly used them in recent years to replace dangerous insecticides already banned.

Last year, a scientist at the University of California at Berkeley, Donald Weston, reported pyrethroids are polluting streams in Northern California suburbs, wiping out crustaceans and insects vital to ecosystems.

Notices will be sent to manufacturers of about 600 pyrethroid products informing them that the state is reevaluating their use, said Mary-Ann Warmerdam, director of the state Department of Pesticide Regulation.

“This is a shot across the bow to the manufacturers that we found a reason for concern and you need to provide us with data to either eliminate the concern, reformulate your products or consider taking them off the market,” Warmerdam said.

Allan Noe, a spokesman for CropLife America, representing pesticide manufacturers, said the companies were unaware of California’s intentions but will cooperate with any requests.

“The valuable contributions that pyrethroids make through agricultural and urban uses are many and these benefits need to be considered,” Noe said.

Beyond lawn products, the compounds are prevalent in pet sprays and in insecticides used by exterminators and farmers. Many cities and counties spray a pyrethroid for mosquito control to prevent the spread of West Nile virus.

Use of pyrethroids by California farmers and exterminators has nearly tripled, growing from about 420,000 pounds in 1999 to 1.1 million pounds in 2004. State officials say consumer usage is probably double that.

Creeks in the Sacramento suburb of Roseville that contain high pyrethroid levels are devoid of tiny crustaceans called hyalella, while nearby streams with low levels are inhabited by them, according to Weston’s study, published in October. In lab tests, nearly all samples of the pesticide-tainted sediments from the creeks killed the creatures.

The shrimp-like amphipods live in bottom sediment and are important prey for small fish, frogs, salamanders and aquatic insects. Their presence is considered a sign of a healthy waterway.

LETTERS

Fri, 21 Jul 2006 07:06:00 +0000

What if?

What if India responded to the terrorist attacks in Mumbai (Bombay) in the same fashion as Israel is responding to the kidnapped soldier in Gaza and the Hezbollah bombings and kidnappings from Lebanon? Wouldn’t India be within its right to launch attacks against (presumably) Pakistan, who aids and abets Kashmiri extremists suspected in the bombings, according to this logic? If that was the case then it would lead to the Gandhian saying: “An eye for an eye and tooth for a tooth leaves the whole world blind and toothless,” especially with nuclear weaponry.

Of course President Bush responds that it’s OK for Israel to take such extreme measures because that is the same policy that he advocates for the U.S.: shoot first, ask questions later. This is not how to deal with terrorist violence or provocations of any kind. Look at the mess in Iraq about which Bush lied and said it had to do with 9/11. This military-only policy just creates more violence and war leading to a bigger mess than we already have. Is that the kind of world we want to leave for our kids? Why do parents tell their kids to use their words and not their fists if leaders don’t follow the same advice? We have to put a stop to this senseless cycle of war and violence, otherwise the 21st century will be known as the new Dark Ages.

Penelope Curtis Via e-mail

Ludlow monument update

Can we get an up date from a 2003 People’s Weekly World article about the Ludlow Memorial being desecrated? Was it rebuilt? Were those who destroyed the monument apprehended? Those who broke the monument are so low that they need an extension ladder to reach the belly of a rattlesnake!

Jerry Aschermann St. Joseph MO

It’s the pipes

This year, dozens of cities across the country had their worst sewage spills in decades, if not ever. And it is going to get worse.

And no one is writing about it.

This week, it was Spokane. Last week, Annapolis. In the last six months it was Hawaii, Raleigh, Boston, Santa Monica, Stockton, Key West, Texas, Wisconsin, Wilmington, Durham, and on and on and on. Just recently, there was a big story in Irving, Texas, about looking for a little boy that disappeared and may have fallen into a large hole in a large sewer pipe.

Here’s why we have a quiet epidemic of sewage spills all over America: It’s the pipes, stupid!

Most of the sewage systems in America were built 60 years ago, and meant to last for 50 years. Do the math. Read the clips: Sewer pipes are breaking at an unprecedented rate. Last year, the EPA said there were 73,000 sewer spills in America.

Lots of people are not paying attention.

Colin Flaherty Winchester CA

Fitness with Fido

Say you know someone who really needs to get more exercise (and don’t we all know someone like that?). Now, if that someone had an enthusiastic exercise companion who needed physical activity as much they did, one who was always willing and ready to go, you’d think they’d be more likely to get out more often, right?

Wrong. Tragically wrong!

At least, that was the finding of researchers in Australia, where 40 percent of households have just such a companion — the family dog! But those Australian dogs seldom get the opportunity to encourage or accompany their owners on any kind of activity.

In fact, the majority of those pooches are prisoners of their owners’ sedentary lifestyles. No amount of furry fervor seems very effective at getting the owners to walk those dogs, even though it would be good for everyone involved.

There is abundant data that show much diabetes, cardiovascular disease and even some cancers could be avoided altogether if only people were more physically active.

Typically, I stick to issues of human health, but given Americans’ famous devotion to their pets, perhaps the whole idea of Fitness with Fido would be more likely to take off if Americans understood how much their dogs need their “walkies,” too.

If you’re the indulgent dog owner, consider that really pampering your pet means getting him healthy, right along with you! To reach the U.S. Surgeon General’s recommendation of 150 minutes a week of exercise, your Fitness with Fido program could start with just a 20-minute walk each day — of course, that’s without stopping every 10 feet to sniff a bush.

Caroline Cederquist, MD Naples FL

Delivery blues

I have been having a lot of trouble the last few months with receiving the PWW in the mail. There were some issues in the past which I never received, and I haven’t received any issues for about the last two months. I did call my local Post Office, but they said that there were no issues left there to be delivered. My father also receives the paper and lives in Philadelphia (I live in the suburbs). He was also having some problems, but now receives the paper regularly. I realize that this is probably not the fault of the PWW, but I wanted to check with you.

Alan Horwitz Via e-mail

Business Manager Dan Margolis writes: Thanks for letting us know. We have had numerous problems with the Post Office and are looking into them. It is our mission to make sure that the PWW comes to all subscribers on time, every time. We are waging a campaign to ensure that in the future all subscribers get all their issues in a timely fashion. If you have a problem, I want to know personally right away! My direct line is (646) 437-5363, and my e-mail is dmargolis@pww.org.

CWA deploys soldiers for democracy

Fri, 21 Jul 2006 06:29:00 +0000

“A trained, motivated army of 50,000 stewards and activists to defend workers’ workplace interests will be deployed by the Communications Workers of America, according to a decision by its annual convention held July 10-11 in Las Vegas. The army of stewards will join with activists in other unions to “build a movement for fundamental change.”

The union aims to “change the terms of engagement with our employers and reshape the economic landscape,” said the union’s president, Larry Cohen. “Offense, not defense,” is the point of a newly established $24 million-per-year Strategic Industry Fund, he said.

Cohen’s goal, which he has taken to the entire AFL-CIO as its new organizing committee chairman, is to make union stewards “soldiers for democracy.” Cohen, nearing the end of his first year in office, was a founding leader of Jobs with Justice.

CWA also wants to build a new political program to take on local community fights for good jobs, health care and the right to organize, among other causes, said the union’s secretary treasurer, Barbara Easterling. CWA will increase resources for political campaigns through stepped-up voluntary contributions from members, she said, citing a $5 million fundraising goal.

Easterling warned the delegates that “anyone who sits back and waits for the Democrats to run a dynamic, competent campaign would be making a huge mistake.” That leaves the fight up to the union movement, she declared. “We have no choice but to fight. Politics is not a spectator sport. Whether we like it or not, we are all participants in our democracy,” she said.

Half of the CWA’s 700,000 members work in the nation’s telecommunications industry.

— Press Associates Inc.

FBI mosque raid sparks united outcry

Fri, 21 Jul 2006 05:15:00 +0000

PITTSBURGH — As the mostly African American and Latino congregation was preparing for weekly Friday prayers at Light of the Age mosque here on June 30, a dozen FBI agents raided the building and lined up worshippers outside at gunpoint. Agents ransacked the building and asked individuals detailed personal questions, demonstrating intimate knowledge of their private lives.

The agents had a warrant for a mosque member over a parole violation, but he and his vehicle were already seized outside hours before. Later a federal judge declared the man was no threat and released him without bail. The formerly incarcerated member had been pulled over in Utah for tinted windows. Because he was “nervous” his van was searched, turning up pieces of his wife’s permitted handgun. He was allowed to leave Utah and spent the night at the mosque. The FBI also tried to charge a parole violation in the State of Washington but the state wasn’t interested.

The real target of the raid may have been the unity of the local Muslim community and its allies. Over the past years, foreign-born Muslims who were voluntarily interviewed by the FBI noticed that African American mosques and personalities were central to the FBI’s questions. The day after the raid, the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette published erroneously that the mosque is not part of the Islamic Council of Greater Pittsburgh, an umbrella group. The prosecutor cited the article in court to justify the raid, and sensationalized the alleged parole violations.

The raid and media coverage galvanized the multiracial, multi-class Muslim community to respond. An emergency outdoor leadership meeting was convened in a city park with members of African American and foreign-born mosques.

A prescheduled cookout and piñata game for the mosque’s working-class neighborhood was held with a high turnout of support. A documentary crew making “The New Muslim Cool” for PBS, about African American and Latino Muslim hip hop, was on site.

It would take two weeks for the Islamic Council to reach consensus, but the raided mosque and African-American Muslim leaders organized an immediate response press conference July 7.

A vacant lot next to the mosque was packed with diverse supporters. Luqman Abdus-Salaam, the mosque director who is also a hip-hop performer known as “B-Tree,” read a statement asking why the FBI disrupted a community-service-oriented multiracial mosque.

Tahir Abdullah, assistant director, read a statement citing the FBI’s history of harassing African Americans from the Muslim Alliance of North America (MANA), the mosque’s national organization which is predominantly African American in its makeup. Speakers from the foreign-born community and the Nation of Islam also read solidarity statements. Leaders of civil rights, economic justice and labor organizations were also present.

Khari Mosley, local Democratic Party ward chair and League of Young Voters regional director, told reporters the mosque is a community asset and asked why “we have a war going on overseas, and poverty is escalating, yet we’re using our resources to be Big Brother and to raid mosques in a police state, Gestapo fashion?”

LETTERS

Fri, 14 Jul 2006 08:31:00 +0000

Cuba and winds of change

The following comments relate to an article I read in the May 21 issue of Granma International about recent discussion in Congress.

Winds of change are blowing in regard to U.S./Cuba relations. To quote U.S. Rep. Jeff Flake (R-Ariz.), “It is time to change the law and allow U.S. industries to explore and extract resources in ‘our own region’ before foreign companies monopolize potentially profitable resources.”

The problem exists in the application of an interventionist attitude that everything south of the Rio Grande be exclusively controlled by U.S. Big Business interests. How else could such an arrogant, unjust law as the Helms-Burton Act (1996) be passed by a Democratic administration?

The ideas of equity, justice and dignity of the people, expressed by Jose Marti in an essay written in 1891, reflect on the threatening nature of imperialism. The turn to the left in Latin America should be interpreted as a return to the concept that natural resources and biodiversity in “Our America” belong to all its peoples.

The possibility to uproot a 45-year-old blockade will occur only when U.S. government officials admit that Cuba is a sovereign, independent country like every other nation. Their government has earned the support and admiration of the international community. We must urge Congress to do the same.

Richard Grassl Auburn WA The author is a union carpenter.

Is Gitmo closing or just moving to Afghanistan?

A friend just e-mailed me an article that Gitmo was closing. Is it? Or just moving to another place? While in Afghanistan with Global Exchange, I visited a lot of nongovernmental organizations and at one of them someone mentioned that the U.S. was building a prison outside of Kabul that would hold Afghan Guantanamo prisoners. According to them, it’s being administered by the Justice Sector Support Program of the U.S. State Department.

Jane Stillwater Via e-mail

Standing for what’s right

Years ago I was giving a friend who was visiting a ride from Midway Airport. As we drove through one of the many destitute areas of Chicago I noticed my friend became very quiet and looked sad. I asked what was wrong. He told me, “James if people won’t fight back against this kind of poverty and exploitation, there is no hope.” I thought about what he had said and then speculated, “It’s not that they will not fight, it’s just that they don’t know how.”

Another time I was telling someone about the situation where the CIA at one time was funding the Khmer Rouge, and the U.S. Air Force bombing that killed perhaps 200,000 people in Kampuchea, etc. This person listened with interest but finally told me that she could not stand to hear anymore, it was just so terrible to know how despicable our government has acted.

I compare that reaction to what I felt when I realized that there is no God. The truth that there is no God, no soul, nothing supernatural can be a very bitter pill to swallow but at the same time it can be a very liberating truth, because then I understood that the future is in our hands.

It has been suggested that perhaps 50,000 children die each day from the effects of malnutrition and preventable disease. Nobody can tell me that a better world than this is not possible. I always wanted to dedicate my life to helping people and making this world a better place. I know that cause is right. Even if the day comes when nobody else believes, I will still believe.

James Wagner Via e-mail

Dellums and health care

Marilyn Bechtel’s excellent article on “Mayor-elect Dellums: Oakland ‘can be a great city,’” (PWW 6/24-30) mentions a few of the congressman’s achievements. In 1975, Rep. Dellums addressed the 50,000-member American Public Health Association annual meeting where 13,000 of the membership showed up. The meeting was in New Orleans. At the meeting he announced his National Health Service Act introduced into Congress and APHA endorsed it. This legislation was launched alongside the Kennedy-Griffiths national health insurance legislation.

For the past 30 plus years that national health legislation has been introduced into Congress, most recently by Rep. Barbara Lee, Dellums’ successor in Congress.

Phil E. Benjamin New York NY

Yucca Mountain dirty bomb?

The U.S. federal government is building the world’s largest dirty bomb at Yucca Mountain where over 77,000 tons of plutonium, uranium and other radioactive materials are to be stored in 392-degree “F casks” in tunnels that will be hot enough to evaporate minor leaks. The layer of porous rock above the tunnels is advertised as beneficial, but it can hold large quantities of water after heavy rains. Two earthquake faults intersect both the porous layer and the planned tunnels. If an earthquake were to occur, Yucca Mountain could experience a steam explosion similar to Mount St. Helens, but with deadly fallout as dust and rain.

Nuclear power can be beneficial, but not with underground storage systems. Basalt internment or recycling into the Earth’s core along subduction zones are safer and less expensive methods.

Bill Holmes Portland OR

Paris Commune monument

The June 17 issue of PWW had a photo of the “Monument to the Martyrs of the Paris Commune.” This is truly one of the most beautiful works of art I have ever seen. After almost an hour of online research, I learned that it was sculpted into the same wall that the communards were lined up and shot against. But I could find no mention of who the sculptor was. Perhaps it was not a famous artist but an anonymous tombstone-carver, possessed of great genius and empathy. Any information you could give me would be much appreciated. Thanks.

Jerry Allison Via e-mail

NATIONAL CLIPS

Fri, 14 Jul 2006 07:14:00 +0000

HOUSTON: Will DeLay run again?

As resilient as the cockroaches he used to exterminate, Tom DeLay may again run for Congress after having resigned earlier this year in disgrace. U.S. District Judge Sam Sparks ruled July 6 that Texas State Republican Party Chair Tina Benkiser cannot substitute another candidate for DeLay in the November election to fill the District 22 congressional seat.

Former House Majority Leader DeLay, who once operated a pest extermination business, resigned in April amid allegations of influence-peddling and a cornucopia of scandal and corruption. Nine Republican hopefuls have jumped in to fill the void, but the judge’s ruling puts all of them in limbo until further court action is taken.

DeLay claims to have moved and switched his residency to Virginia. However, he maintains his home in Sugar Land, Texas. A Houston Chronicle reporter arrived on his doorstep to interview him about the judge’s ruling and he answered the door, but refused to be interviewed.

Meanwhile, labor-friendly Democratic candidate Nick Lampson has continued to campaign as if he had a Republican opponent. Republicans have appealed Sparks’ decision. Even if it is overturned, it still gives Lampson another month without a Republican opponent.

Pundits have speculated that if DeLay remains on the ballot and wins, he could then resign and the Republican governor could pick his replacement or call for a special election.

WASHINGTON: Fasting to bring the troops home

Mahatma Gandhi perfected fasting as a protest tactic in the campaign to end British rule in India. Cesar Chavez followed Gandhi’s example in his drive to organize U.S. farm workers. And on July 4, U.S. peace activists began a fast in front of the White House, demanding an end to the U.S. occupation of Iraq.

The antiwar fast now has 3,547 participants. Musicians Willie Nelson and Michael Franti are fasting while they proceed with their summer performing schedule. Others, like actors Danny Glover, Sean Penn and Susan Sarandon, are fasting in their hometowns. Labor leader Dolores Huerta and author Alice Walker are part of a “rolling fast” as they crisscross the country.

Reps. Lynn Woolsey (D-Calif.) and Cynthia McKinney (D-Ga.) are fasting in solidarity. The Rev. Al Sharpton is fasting, as is the Rev. Bob Edgar of the National Council of Churches.

Led by CodePink, activists plan to fast until Sept. 21, the International Day of Peace, and then take their protest to Crawford, Texas, where President Bush has his ranch. Their demand remains the same: bring the troops home.

In Washington, peace fasters lobbied Congress, urging money for human needs, not war. With the crucial November congressional elections on the horizon, fasters initiated a Voters for Peace drive, registering new voters and urging them to sign a pledge vowing only to vote for peace candidates.

CHARLESTON, S.C.: Blacks demand Vesey monument

The federal government spent millions raising the Confederate submarine the Hunley, now on display here, but so far not one dime for the man who organized and led the largest rebellion of enslaved African Americans in history.

In 1822, Denmark Vesey, a freed slave, was hanged with 34 members of a network of insurrection that included as many as 9,000 slaves in the Charleston area. The 35 men were executed before the uprising could take place. Their bodies were tossed into an unmarked mass grave. It was and remains the largest execution ever ordered by a U.S. court.

The “Denmark Vesey and Spirit of Freedom Monument Committee” began when high school teacher Henry Darby was walking through the city with a friend and remarked that among the hundreds of plaques and monuments, not one recognized African Americans. Now an assistant high school principal and county councilman, Darby said, “Nothing was ever named for Vesey, so I said we should do something with him. We would be coming from a historical perspective instead of a racial perspective.”

In 2001 the City Council appropriated $25,000 toward a monument, but efforts bogged down when supporters said it should be erected downtown.

“There are certain elements in the community who say, ‘Over my dead body will this monument be put up,’” said committee member James Smart. “But just as the Black community is awash in being confronted with Confederate history, there is another history. It’s inevitable this monument will be built.”

Efforts continue to raise $200,000 for the monument and locate it in a place of honor in the city.

National Clips are compiled by Denise Winebrenner Edwards (dwinebr696@aol.com). Paul Hill contributed to this weeks Clips.

LETTERS

Fri, 07 Jul 2006 07:58:00 +0000

He’s no George Bush!

Re: “An Inconvenient Truth” (PWW 6/10-16). In a dark auditorium with remote in hand, open collar and pudgy-faced, Al Gore explains that the sun’s heat gets trapped in the earth’s atmosphere, which creates an excess of carbon dioxide, a greenhouse effect. He uses pictures and charts. What is startling is that the changes in the last 20 years are more than the changes over the past 5,000.

The sky is falling! The earth is coming to an end! Katrina will seem like a drizzle. A pretty startling picture shows the snows of Mount Kilimanjaro in Kenya disappearing. The scene is true for Patagonia, the last tip of South America. And as Greenland melts, the water’s gotta go somewhere — why not New York?

But most startling to see is a sea that’s now sand in the Middle East, and a giant ship, never moved, sitting in that sand.

Gore argues in a friendly and folksy way that the lack of political will is the only thing that’s in the way of solving this. And without naming Bush, everybody in the audience on screen gets it right away, just as does everyone who’s in the movie.

One reason the movie is so powerful is that in its first 14 days, more people have seen Gore’s presentation than in the 10 years that he has been making it.

Because Gore’s bio is included, it begs the question of whether the politics of the film will be used by him to kick off and run for president in 2008. A Gore and Obama ticket?

And no matter how unfairly Hillary Clinton seems to be treated, some say she just can’t win. Would Gore be a green and blue candidate that can?

If you live in a cold climate, it’s better to say “saving the earth,” because global warming can sound awful inviting to people who live in cold climates like Chicago’s.

Political will that starts with the removal of a Congress that doesn’t acknowledge the problem, the removal of a Bush that’s oblivious to the truth, let alone the end of the earth, or worse, with his corporate friends, he’s fanning the flames.

Curly Cohen Chicago IL

Forget GM

Let’s see, we have General Motors using Congress to slow down the transition to hybrid cars, while at the same time forcing its employees into early retirement and seeking ways to weasel out of its pension commitments. GM, a car company founded in the United States and given tax breaks by the United States, now wants to thumb its nose at the citizens of the United States. Corporate greed and incompetence will finally cause the company to go bankrupt, just as they nearly did when Japan stomped it, back in the 1970s. Well, guess what, GM: I plan on buying a Toyota Camry in spite of your lobbyists’ efforts to shortchange the American people. Good riddance.

Joe Bialek Cleveland OH

HR 676 — a vital bill

I am writing you to mention that the St. Louis SOAR (retired steelworkers) has also endorsed the Conyers health care bill, HR 676. As retired steelworkers, we can attest that companies have not honored health care commitments and they lied about benefits. We think the bill is a step in the right direction towards justice to the American people. It is barbaric to allow folks to go without proper medical treatment in the richest nation in the history of the planet. It is unthinkable that the government allows companies to short their workers in such an open and blatant fashion. We will do our best to help promote this vital bill.

Gary Roller St. Louis MO

Voting Rights Act is crucial to all

We need the Voters Right Act because it is the very core where working people can exercise their right to vote. In the future, as we know, an election will determine whether our class will finally rid ourselves of the corporate capitalist class but we must have a means of reaching the working people. Re-passing the Voters Right Act is essential to this struggle and we need to let every progressive member of our society know how essential this is not only to the fall election but for all future elections. Removing the Voters Right Act would be a complete counterrevolution and a step backwards, shocking not only the nation but the working people and farmers, and a sign that the U.S. is becoming even more dangerous.

Keep up the excellent work. I have done “professional lobbying” for people with disabilities, the Right to Know Law and other legislation. I am currently studying at Empire State College in the field of labor and public policy. Whatever I can do please let me know. The only thing I lack, like most of us, is the money to do things.

Tom Siblo Via e-mail

Teacher delegation to Cuba?

Re: Ed Guzman’s letter to editor (PWW 6/24-30).

I did find People to People International (www.ptpi.org) that sponsored a similar delegation of early childhood professionals a few years back.

Deb Wilmer Tucson AZ

Here is what I think!

I do not know if your mindset is left-wing, it does seem to be from that ilk. The problem with people who come from that vogue of thinking is that they are contemptible of anyone who is not of that same stripe. If you are going to help the need for real news, try being a little more objective and less inflammatory of people with whom you do not agree with.

If you are only intending to reach shallow-minded, easily incited, noise-making, emotive people, then keep on doing it! They like it and enjoy it. But for people who have an appreciation for truth and fair-mindedness, we will not bother.

Medvis Jackson Via e-mail

Editor’s note: Let us know which article(s) you thought were “inflammatory.” We avoid name calling of ordinary, working-class people of any political persuasion, which we do find inflammatory. One time our front page had a photo of President George Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney with the headline: “Liar, liar.” Some may call that “inflammatory.” We would disagree. We were just telling it like it is.

NATIONAL CLIPS

Fri, 07 Jul 2006 05:32:00 +0000

MILWAUKEE: Immigrant worker voter registration drive kicks off

The League of United Latin American Citizens (LULAC) chose the backyard of Rep. James Sensenbrenner (R-Wis.) for their annual convention, which closed with attendees taking to the streets to register voters.

Sensenbrenner is the author of the notoriously anti-immigrant HR 4437, which passed the House last December, igniting massive protests around the U.S.

“Rep. Sensenbrenner has been no friend to the Latino community,” said Mickey Ibarra, who served in the Clinton administration. He urged attendees to support Bryan Kennedy, the Democratic candidate, for Sensenbrenner’s seat.

The Rev. Jesse Jackson brought the convention to its feet saying, “Don’t take Bush’s agenda lightly. The Confederates have risen again.”

Scores of volunteers, affiliated with Voces de la Frontera, fanned out in the Milwaukee neighborhoods signing up new voters. Voces de la Frontera is part of the national Democracy Summer campaign to register 1 million new voters.

TRENTON, N.J.: State shuts down, thousands laid off

For the first time in state history, New Jersey closed the doors to 31 agencies, including the Motor Vehicle Commission, laying off 45,000 state workers July 1. The shutdown continued as the week began with casinos and racetracks closing because they cannot operate without state inspectors.

Beaches, parks and historic sites padlocked their gates after the Fourth of July holiday.

About 35,000 state police, prison employees and children and youth service workers will remain on the job, without a paycheck, during the shutdown.

The dispute is focused on the governor’s budget, which includes a regressive sales tax increase, from 6 percent to 7 percent.

“While I don’t think [the shutdown] is a good outcome, we ought to get budgets done well before deadlines,” said Democratic Gov. Jon Corzine.

There is a billion dollar hole in the budget.

Led by veteran legislator Assembly Speaker Joseph Roberts, a Democrat from Camden, legislative opposition to Corzine’s budget crossed party lines.

The state budget has been reeling since former Republican Gov. Christine Todd Whitman slashed taxes on the state’s wealthiest corporations and residents by 30 percent.

WASHINGTON: OK to coastal drilling provokes fury

The House of Representatives passed a bill allowing energy corporations to drill off the Atlantic coast and expand the drilling area on the Pacific and Gulf coasts. The measure lifted a 25-year ban on the expansion of ocean oil and natural gas drilling. The House vote was 232-187. The bill now goes to the Senate.

“Americans already believe that their Congress lacks the guts to stand up to Big Oil,” said Sierra Club Executive Director Carl Pope. “They billed this as ‘energy week,’ but sadly, the only idea they could muster is sticking more oil and gas rigs off our coasts.”

House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi charged the bill is fiscally and environmentally irresponsible. “The Republican answer to our energy crisis is to drill in protected areas and provide tax breaks to Big Oil,” she said. “In my home state of California, we have learned from bitter experience that a large oil spill can cause long lasting damage to the marine ecosystem at all levels.”

DURHAM, N.C.: $2 million hush money offered to rape victim

Only the African American press is reporting that a group called the “Alums of Duke” had quietly approached the woman who charged that three university lacrosse players raped her with $2 million to drop the case. The university quickly said it had no information about the offer.

Jakki, a cousin of the victim who concealed her last name to protect the victim and both their families, told the Wilmington Journal and Carolinian newspapers that her relative had received the offer but rejected it.

“She told me that they wanted her to make the case go away,” Jakki told the media. “It’s not about money to her. It’s about her [being] brutally raped, sodomized, and called a n———. Can you imagine being choked and held down? The thought of it — it reminds me of slavery days when the women were brutally raped by the masters — makes me furious because they want to make these [guys] out to be golden boys.”

Since March, the victim’s family has been harassed and received death threats.

Three Duke lacrosse players, Colin Finnerty, Reade Seligmann and David Evans, are charged with first-degree rape, first-degree sexual assault and first-degree kidnapping. The trial is scheduled to begin in 2007.

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