People Before Profit blog

Reflections on Obama's world tour

Wed, 30 Jul 2008 13:55:00 +0000

By most media accounts Barack Obama’s tour of Iraq, Israel, the West Bank, Jordan and Western Europe was a big success. The visits showed his worldwide popularity is very broad and ranges from people in the street, to US military personnel, to heads of state.

Obama’s visit to Iraq – to the regret of Bush and McCain no doubt – revealed that the al-Maliki government supports his timetable for withdrawal. This was a big plus for the Democratic candidate for president.

His speech in Berlin drew an amazing 200,000 people and by almost all accounts was a triumph for the senator.

The tour also showed what everybody knew, namely, that George W. Bush is probably the most disliked US president in history. To embrace Obama is in itself a militant protest against the Bush neo-conservative policies. The war in Iraq destroyed most of the good will and solidarity with the US administration that existed after the September 11th 2001 attack. McCain’s notion of 100 years in Iraq along with his militaristic world outlook to most means perpetual war and aggression. The cast of Bushite characters that surround the Republican nominee and his commitment to continue Bush’s basic anti-working-class economic and social policies makes his presidency a continuation of the Bush nightmare and perhaps worse.

Berlin was perhaps the apex of the trip as measured by the sheer size of the audience that tuned out to hear him. There were many important and positive points made in Obama’s speech. The high points were when he called for peace and social and economic justice – these words drew the most applause.

He called for an end to the war in Iraq to prolonged applause. When he called for an end to torture and discussed the elimination of all nuclear weapons in the context of relations with Iranian the roar from the crowd was deafening. The same response occurred when he called for welcoming immigrants and breaking down the barriers based on regions, race, religions and citizenship. The Democratic presumptive nominee called for bottom up economic growth that wouldn’t just benefit the super rich and emphasized negotiation and building bridges when dealing with adversaries, again to vigorous applause. The same when he called for the peace between the Israelis and Palestinians and for end to the genocide in Darfur.

The speech was in a different league from what McCain has been saying in both form and content. Still, there were also more than a few by now weary and overused strains from the past. Obama echoed Kennedy and an even Reagan in drawing on Cold War language even claiming capitalism had won the “battle of ideas.” This did not fit his image as an agent of change. It is no small matter that these words did not get the same level of applause.

People may have wondered that while he mentioned the Berlin wall coming down in the US there is a wall of economic and racial oppression being built on the Mexico border.

And if negotiations are viable in Iran why not in Afghanistan where the fight to defeat the Taliban and El Quada could cost tens of thousands more lives? It is time for a new era of international relations, and to eliminate all nuclear weapons. It is time for cooperation to eliminate poverty and racism.

These issues will not go away and will sharpen the debate and struggle in the post election period. In the meantime it must not divert the broad anti-ultra-right coalition from defeating McCain in November. That is the first priority.

It goes without saying that George W. Bush has set a very low threshold for world leadership. The world will give a great cry of relief if McCain is defeated. All democratic and progressive people will profoundly welcome the restoration of a level of sanity to US foreign and domestic policy worldwide.

With his trip to the Middle East and Western Europe Barack Obama established his credentials as a world figure. He stepped into a vacuum that the failed presidency of George W. Bush has created. McCain is unable to fill that vacuum.

A recent Gallop poll shows Obama’s lead has grown to nine points in response to his trip.

John McCain’s campaign is pretty much reduced to personal attacks, racism and McCarthyism because he is losing the debate. McCain says he would rather lose an election then lose a war – as I see it looks like he is on his way to losing both.

Did hate speech lead to murder of Mexican immigrant?

Wed, 30 Jul 2008 09:49:00 +0000

Commentary

Three white youths have been arrested and charged by the Schuylkill County State’s Attorney with homicide and ethnic intimidation in the murder of undocumented Mexican immigrant Luis Ramirez in the small Northeastern Pennsylvania town of Shenandoah. Ramirez, 25, was attacked by a group of youths as he walked home on July 12, and witnesses said that his attackers yelled anti-Mexican epithets as they beat and kicked him. A kick in the head put him into a coma and he died on July 14 in a nearby hospital.

Ramirez’s fiancée and mother of his children, Crystal Dillman, 24, told the press she is now leaving town because she does not want her kids to have to put up with the kind of ethnic attacks that were leveled against their father.

Though Shenandoah officials claimed that there had been no anti-Latino or anti-immigrant agitation in their town, these claims are suspect.

Shenandoah is only 20 miles as the crow flies from Hazelton, Pennsylvania, where the mayor, Lou Barletta, is running as a Republican candidate for Congress based on a vicious anti-immigrant platform.

Barletta’s main claim to fame is his city ordinance that made it illegal for any landlord or merchant to employ, rent to or otherwise do business with undocumented immigrants. It was clear from the start that the town of Hazleton was going to enforce this ordinance selectively against Latinos. Although Hazleton is in a different Congressional District, there surely has been some regional impact. The Shenandoah town council considered a similar ordinance but it did not advance. However, Shenandoah did pass an English-only ordinance.

Hazleton and Shenandoah were both foci of massive immigration in the late 19th and early 20th century, as people from Ireland, Wales, Slovakia, Poland, Italy and other places flocked to the then prospering anthracite coal mines.

The area also has a history of militant labor struggle involving the United Mine Workers Union. In 1897, Hazleton was the site of the Latimer Massacre, in which Luzerne County Sheriff’s deputies fired on unarmed striking immigrant miners, killing 19. “Hunkies” was then the epithet hurled at the immigrant workers by their murderers, today it is “Dirty Mexicans”.

Then after the Second World War, much of the anthracite coal mining industry closed down, and towns like Hazleton and Shenandoah were left high and dry. Shenandoah shrank from nearly 30,000 inhabitants at its height in the 1920s to about 5,600 today. The income level of the area is, unsurprisingly, below national averages.

These are not stereotypical clannish “Southern” communities steeped in antebellum traditions of racial superiority. Their people are themselves the descendents of immigrants who, when they first came to the United States were treated as badly as Latinos are today, and fought back hard.

So whence the hate? It is being whipped up by right wing, mostly Republican politicians who have absolutely nothing to show for eight years in power except an illegal war and a tanking economy, and who therefore have to find red herrings to distract the voters. This is being facilitated by irresponsible media personalities like Lou Dobbs who retail slanderous information about Latinos, Mexicans and immigrants for hours every week. The Bush administration has pitched in with its immigration raids which it justifies on the basis of false information about immigrants as criminals and terrorists. It is an old, old story, whose victims have sometimes been Jews, sometimes Chinese, sometimes African-Americans, and now Latino immigrants.

There is a fight back. The Mexican American Legal Defense and Education Fund (MALDEF) has sent a letter about the Shenandoah incident to U.S. attorney general Michael Mukasey, demanding action by the Criminal Section of the Department of Justice’s Civil Rights Division, including an investigation and federal prosecutions for hate crimes. More generally, Latino and civil rights organizations such as the National Council of La Raza have mounted organized efforts to counter the hate campaigns. The Chicago City Council recently passed a resolution denouncing the hate speech (see “Chicago resolution rejects anti-immigrant rhetoric,” ).

But more is needed. We need to ask all our political, labor, community and religious leaders to make it a priority to speak out more strongly in defense of immigrant workers like Luis Ramirez, or more will die.

For a downloadable article debunking lies about immigrants, click here: .

International law? Not in Texas

Wed, 30 Jul 2008 09:47:00 +0000

Commentary

The World Court has issued a ruling demanding that the United States live up to one of the most important treaties to which it is signatory, the Vienna Convention on Consular Relations. The demand by the World Court is likely to fail because of a bizarrely arrogant stance taken by the state of Texas, but U.S. voters could make sure that the circumstances which led to this case never happen again.

The step taken by the World Court, formally known as the International Court of Justice in the Hague, Netherlands, is a follow up of a 2004 ruling in a suit brought by Mexico against the United States, in which the court declared that death sentences against a number of Mexicans citizens in U.S. Courts were invalid because the accused were not informed of their rights under the Convention, or were denied those rights.

The Vienna Convention, ratified in 1963, requires, among other things, that police in one signatory country who arrest a citizen of another signatory country inform the arrestees of their right to contact and seek help from their own embassy or consulate. That help often involves the facilitation of obtaining high quality legal representation in court, which can make the difference between life and death.

Indeed, many U.S. citizens have got out of bad scrapes in other countries, including Mexico, because of the Vienna Convention.

However, in Texas and other parts of the United States, the same right is not accorded to foreign citizens, especially Mexicans arrested by U.S. police. Police authorities say it is too much trouble to tell non-citizens about their Vienna Convention rights, and in some cases even if the arrestees know about such rights, they are denied them. The general attitude is one of contempt for the treaty. Texas lawmen have been hanging Mexicans for more than a century, and aim to keep doing so.

After the initial World Court ruling in favor of Mexico, the Bush administration eventually came around to trying to pressure Texas to obey the rules. However, Texas went to federal court to argue that the Vienna Convention is only applicable to federal authorities and not to state or local police. In other words, they tried to argue that the Vienna Convention does not apply to Texas.

And they won. In March, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled 5-4 on ideological lines (Roberts, Alito, Scalia, Thomas and Kennedy in the majority; Souter, Ginsburg, Stevens and Breyer dissenting) that the Vienna Convention does not have to be followed by Texas, because the wording of the Congressional measure ratifying the treaty did not specify that state authorities have to obey it. Constitutional scholars were aghast. It is not clear how many other U.S. international agreements could now be said to be invalid in Texas (and potentially other states) for the same reason. The Geneva Conventions? NATO? NAFTA? Better look at the fine print!

So now the World Court has again demanded a review for the five Mexicans currently on death row, but nothing is likely to happen as the World Court has no enforcement mechanisms. The court requires the U.S. to provide a deposition answering its charges by Aug. 29, by which time one of the death row prisoners may already have been executed.

The logical thing for Mexico to do if its citizens are denied review and are executed is to say that the U.S. has unilaterally abrogated the Vienna Convention, and that U.S. citizens arrested in Mexico no longer have rights under its terms. However, this is rather improbable, because it could turn away tourist dollars which Mexico has come to need as a vital source of investment and foreign exchange. So neither the World Court, nor the Mexican government, has any effective leverage in the matter.

The voters of the United States have the power to prevent this absurd, embarrassing and offensive situation from recurring. Who wins in November is critical to who gets appointed to the bench.

Obama in Berlin

Sat, 26 Jul 2008 23:34:00 +0000

BERLIN -- I attended the big rally with Barack Obama here, July 24, not as a press representative but as one of the crowd. And what a giant crowd it was! The news reports counted “over 200,000” but to someone sandwiched in so tight I could hardly lift my hand to scratch my itching nose, much less applaud, it seemed like a million! The predictions had been for “anywhere between 10,000 and 100,000” and the official start was at 7, so I stupidly arrived at 6.30, too late to find anything but a tiny spot to stand on (when the pushing ceased), so far back from the monument where Obama spoke that I couldn’t even see the big screen. I saw only the heads and backs of those in front of me.

The crowd, overwhelmingly friendly, was amazingly international; partly, no doubt, because the speech was only in English with no translation. I saw countless African Americans, African Germans as well as Africans carrying or wearing flags and banners from Kenya, Angola and other countries. Among those sandwiched in next to me were a very tall French-speaking African fellow (just in front of me), a father and son from Dublin, Ireland, three young women from Italy (one little student too short to see even the heads in front of her), also a Frenchman, two Californians and a young man of possibly Arab background. All the same, I guess the majority were of German background. I would guess that 90 to 95 percent of the crowd could be classified as “youth” under thirty. The event resembled a giant pilgrimage.

Most came to cheer and applaud, and cheer they did – and applaud when, unlike me, they could move both hands. Barack Obama is immensely popular in Germany, about 80 percent detest the present president and this is even more intensely true of the young people and the international community so well represented at the rally

Obama spoke freely, without notes or prompter, and as eloquently as ever. He was constantly interrupted by the cheering, but it gradually became apparent that the cheering varied with his message and with the varied views of the listeners.

In the first large section of his speech Obama – like so many political orators in Berlin – dealt at length with the Berlin Wall and the western air lift to West Berlin and Berlin’s great victory over tyranny and communism. Probably because so many in his audience were neither originally West Berliners nor even alive during the air lift of 1948-1949 and either unborn or very young when the Berlin Wall came down, their enthusiasm for such sentiments was nothing like what it had been for a Kennedy or Reagan when they spoke in West Berlin years ago.

Only a few old-timers like myself will have noted that when Obama spoke of “the bullet-holes in the buildings” still visible not all too far way he ignored their meaning, the struggle to free Berlin from the Nazis waged by the Soviets at an incredibly heavy cost; in fact, he carefully – or tactfully - avoided any mention of Germany’s Nazi past, while hid words and sentiments about (West) Berlin’s fight for freedom had been repeated so often they may have become clichés to many.

There was even less enthusiasm when Obama said: “My country and yours have a stake in seeing that NATO’s first mission beyond Europe’s borders is a success…For the people of Afghanistan and for our shared security…the Afghan people need our troops and your troops…We have too much at stake to turn back now.”

Despite the positions of all major German parties except the Left, close to 80 percent of the German people oppose sending German troops to that country, and very few clapped at these remarks. All posters and banners had been banned from the rally at the request of the Obama campaign committee, but near me a young woman handed up a banner she had been hiding to three young men who had climbed to the top of a street lantern. When they unfurled it we could read its message, “No troops for Afghanistan,” and on a smaller poster, “End the death penalty.” Not many in the giant crowd saw this, Obama certainly couldn’t, but one TV channel did show it the next day.

And there were more doubtful nods than loud applause when he stated: “In Europe the view that America is part of what has gone wrong in our world rather than a force to help make it right has become all too common.”

A leading member of the right-wing governing Christian Democratic Union summarized the speech by saying: “Except for personal nuances it could have been made or almost made by John McCain.” This certainly applied to many of Obama’s words about the past but also those regarding Iran and free trade.

But it did not apply to some statements, and these were the ones which received the loudest applause and cheers. We must “stop the spread of nuclear weapons,” he said, “This is the moment to begin the work of seeking the peace of the world without nuclear weapons.”

He got cheers for “We must support…the Israelis and Palestinians who seek a sure and lasting peace” and loud approval when he stated: “Let us resolve that all nations – including my own – will act with the same seriousness of purpose as has your nation, and reduce the carbon we send into our atmosphere.”

It was hard to judge, but the cheers seemed loudest to me when he demanded that “we reject torture and stand for the rule of law,” that we “welcome immigrants from different lands and shun discrimination against those who don’t look like us or worship like we do and keep the promise of equality and opportunity for all of our people.”

I heard varying impressions from those who walked off to find their bicycles or find their way through the wooded Tiergarten, Berlin’s Central Park, to the nearest stations of the el, the subway, bus or tram. I heard no one speak against him; a tiny group of US Republicans had waited uselessly in back of his hotel, but represented almost no one but themselves and a few right wing politicians in leadership positions, possibly including Angela Merkel.

Some of those I heard in the el seemed thoughtful, however, and occasionally disappointed at the many clichés, while others justified their use as required by the campaign for president and his guest status in Berlin. I heard one woman, the American wife of a Berliner, saying that even if Obama wins a lot of pressure will be necessary, not only in policies toward Afghanistan. She would certainly vote for him, she said, explaining to those nearby, “In the USA they used to talk about ‘a Great White Hope’. After eight years with Bush and the danger of more years with McCain, we think of Obama as our ‘Great Black Hope.’” I think that summed up the feelings of most of the quarter of a million people of Berlin, more or less, who jammed into the park that hot evening to hear the man they hoped would visit in coming years as U.S. president.

Victor Grossman is an American journalist and writer who has lived in Germany – including what was once East Germany – for many years. He is the author of “Crossing the River: A Memoir of the American Left, the Cold War, and Life in East Germany” (University of Massachusetts Press, 2003).

Aliquippa For Obama fired up, ready to go

Sat, 26 Jul 2008 08:29:00 +0000

Organizing for Obama in a hard-hit steel town

You knew something special was happening when the youngest, freshest face in the room got up, took charge and called the meeting to order — “Hello, I’m Scout Sanders, and welcome to the first meeting of Aliquippa for Obama!.”

Sanders was a full-time Obama volunteer, a student from the University of Connecticut, and her bright smile and enthusiasm brightened up a room of about 30 residents of Aliquippa and a few other nearby towns. Those who came were all ages, from young teenagers to retired workers in their seventies, a little more than half were African American, about two-thirds were women.

Aliquippa is a severely stressed milltown in Beaver County, Western Pennsylvania. At one time nearly 30,000 people lived here, mostly steelworkers and their families. Now it’s down to 12,000, with 6,000 low-income African Americans hanging on in the central area, with the white workers living in the border neighborhoods. The home of Mike Ditka, Tony Dorsett and other great athletes, it’s a tough, no-nonsense place in dire need of a hopeful future. The meeting was in a bright and well-cared-for church-run coffee house, Uncommon Grounds, on the mostly boarded up main street.

“As a young person, I was concerned for my future,” Scout explained, “and I saw a lot of social injustice around me. I wanted change, and when I heard about Barack Obama and his programs, I felt he was different, and he offered real hope for change. That’s why I’m here, but enough about me. I want to hear why all of you are here.”

It was a tried and true opener. One by one, everyone got to know everyone.

Some spoke bitterly about the past and present, but everyone was hopeful for the future and the prospects offered by this election.

“There’s a change gonna come,” said one young African American woman working a number of part-time jobs. “You can sense it in the street, you can feel it in the air. Lord knows it’s about time.” The whole room agreed.

“This young man, Obama, knows about us,” said an older Black man, a former steelworker in the now shut down mill. “His first job was being a community organizer among out-of-work steelworkers in Chicago. He knows about us first hand. When have we ever had a candidate like that? McCain? McCain don’t know nothing about us. He just hangs out with those who created this mess. We have got to put Obama in the White House, no two ways about it.”

A middle-aged white woman from one of the working-class housing “plans” on the surrounding hills agreed. “I’ve studied his positions, and they’re the best by far,” she said. “But I’ve also learned about Michelle. I even read her college thesis. I tell you, she is one smart, strong woman, with a very analytical mind. She will be a powerful partner and help to him, and we need a First Lady like her.”

“We know what has to be done,” said another older worker. “First, we have to stop this war, because it’s ruining everything else. Then we have to start on the country’s infrastructure, which is rusting away and falling apart. We can get some mills up again, and start on some alternative energy investments. Then we can get some jobs, some health care, some decent schools.”

“Yes, the war and health care,” says a women from Ambridge, a neighboring town. She gives everyone a “Healthcare Not Warfare” single-payer flyer from the local 4th CD Progressive Democrats of America. “And come to our vigil against the war every Saturday at the Beaver Courthouse, 1 p.m!”

“Obama can’t do it alone,” added another. “It’s got to start right here. We got to get some better people in office right here, and then every other level of government, all the way to the top. We know what happens when they’re not accountable to us.”

Nearly everyone had a sense of history about 2008. “We haven’t seen anything like him since Dr. King and Kennedy,” one man said. “Both Kennedys, Bobby too.” Aliquippa, Black and white, still has strong affection for the Kennedys. One Black woman describes how she met JFK just a block away from the meeting site, and how she tells her children about it.

“We are going to make history,” an older Black man says. “I have been waiting for it all my life. We are going to be part of something truly great.” One woman nearly brings everyone to tears. “You can see it in the faces of the children — five, ten, thirteen years old. Obama comes on TV and their faces beam, they stop whatever they’re doing, and they listen with quiet excitement. They know, they KNOW this is different.”

And so it goes, until everyone has had their say. Scout takes charge again, and the other volunteers are passing out lists. “Get out your cell phones. We like to make calls at all these meetings.” She gives quick instructions on how these are registered Democrats, and our task is to find out where they stand.

Next is program and organization. “Where are the best places we can register voters?” she shouts. “Giant Eagle, the supermarket,” says one. “The San Rocco Italian Festival next month,” says another. “That’s fine,” says one Black man, “but you white folks have to help us out in some of these places.” Everyone agrees.

Organization? One guy puts out a plan for running a tight ship, with people responsible for different tasks. Everyone likes it, but wants to think over who does what.

“This is a good start, but there’s people who should be here who aren’t here yet,” says one. “So next time every one bring one, no, bring two!”

They’ll meet again in a week, and they leave, fired up. It will be a tight race, with the right wing stirring up racism and religious bigotry out in the surrounding townships. But it looks like McCain is still going to have a tough fight in this neck of the woods.

Carl Davidson, an organizer of Progressives for Obama, lives in Western Pennsylvania’s Beaver County. This article originally appeared at .

Oil companies threaten America

Sat, 26 Jul 2008 08:23:00 +0000

The specter of runaway inflation haunts our country. It is already beginning to create havoc and wreak devastation to our national economy.

It is deepening and spreading hunger to new millions. It has caused the loss of tens of thousands of jobs in an ongoing job loss spiral. It is creating a crisis for rent payers and homeowners. It is complicating the struggle to stem the rising tide of home foreclosures.

Inflation is a universal phenomenon in the U.S. It corrupts and distorts every single economic activity. Nothing is spared. People are curtailing health care because they cannot afford it. A population transfer is taking place as people try to find jobs near their homes to cut travel costs. The unusually hot summer threatens health and safety as air conditioners are turned down or off. A serious tragedy is in the making. This winter, millions will not be able to afford fuel to heat their homes. Food price inflation will cause even more hunger.

While new millions are swept into the horrific vacuum of this developing inflation, there are always those millions hardest hit who suffer most under capitalism even in the so-called best of times. This profit-driven crisis falls most heavily on those who are at the bottom of the economic ladder. African Americans are the last hired, first laid off, paid the lowest wages, work the least number of hours in a year and are least able to deal with the ravages of inflation. Latinos, women and other nationally and racially oppressed also endure inflation disproportionally. Inflation threatens their very lives.

Seven-dollar-a-gallon gasoline prices are predicted by oil experts by 2010. Already prices are leaping toward $5.00 to $6.00 a gallon by 2009.

Who is to blame? The greedy oil monopolies and Wall Street speculators. The main gimmick for raising oil prices is for the speculators to buy and sell the same barrel of oil back and forth to each other for ever higher prices. Each such transaction results in more expensive oil for which you and I have to pay, even though the barrel of oil involved in the transaction never actually changes hands.

A major consumer is the U.S. military. It is the biggest user and waster of petroleum products in the country. It buys refined gasoline in the United States at retail prices and ships it to the Middle East. In addition, the government until recently was buying oil for storage at today’s high prices instead of using up stored up oil from the reserves which it bought at much lower prices years ago. This oil administration is doing everything it can to help its oil company buddies rake in billions of excess profits. Anti-oil-monopoly fever and anger are running high. Tens of millions of people are angry and ready to take action against this corporate greed which threatens our country.

What are some winning demands?

• Outlaw the oil futures market and put the speculators out of business. This would cut oil prices 25-50 percent.

• Roll back gasoline prices to 2006 levels.

• Establish an Office of Price Administration (OPA) as was done during World War II. It works.

• Boycott Exxon-Mobil — the largest and greediest U.S. oil corporation.

• Nationalize the oil industry, as many other countries have done. Use the profits for research for alternative, safe energy sources.

• Contact your congressperson and Senators. Demand action now.

Pat Barile is a retired trade unionist and member of the Communist Party USA National Board.

Free-marketeers have their history wrong

Sat, 26 Jul 2008 06:58:00 +0000

As he refines his economic message on the campaign trail this summer, Republican John McCain has made it clear that, previous positions notwithstanding, he has now embraced the Republican economic orthodoxy: eliminate regulation, cut taxes on corporations and the wealthy and the free and unfettered market will take care of everything.

This economic formula was fashioned most thoroughly by economist Milton Friedman in the mid-20th century, and brought to the federal government by Ronald Reagan. Friedman and his current devotees have looked to the late 19th century for their model of how an economy should work. They have imagined that era as a golden age of free-market competition and laissez-faire government. Many of these Friedmanites want us to return to that golden age.

The problem is that these free-marketeers have their history exactly wrong. The Gilded Age, as Mark Twain and Charles Dudley Warner archly called it, was certainly not a period of a genuinely free market or of laissez-faire government. Government at a variety of levels and in many ways intervened regularly in the economy. It did so, however, on behalf of big business. Take just a few examples:

Railroads were among the biggest enterprises of the industrial age. After the Civil War, much of their expansion came because of government land grants. In fact, in the trans-Mississippi West, railroads received roughly 185 million acres of public land free in exchange for laying track. Free public land, therefore, lay at the foundation of the railroad industry.

The courts did their part to help big business as well. In a series of cases, most importantly the 1886 decision in Santa Clara County v. Southern Pacific Railroad, the Supreme Court used the 14th Amendment, written originally to protect the rights of newly freed slaves, to define corporations as “persons.” As such, they thus enjoyed the same constitutional protections as individual citizens. The effect of these decisions was to put corporations largely beyond the reach of any state legislature or Congress that might regulate their abuses.

Nowhere was the laissez-faire ethos flouted more than over the question of labor unions and strikes. During the 1890s, as the Supreme Court was refashioning the 14th Amendment to protect corporations, it used the 1890 Sherman Antitrust Act to undermine many union activities, ruling that unions constituted illegal “cartels.” When workers went on strike, big business repeatedly called upon the armed force of the state — local police, state guards, federal troops. They got it.

Far from “leaving alone,” government intervened in the economy during the late 19th century over and over, but almost always in one direction, on behalf of private businesses and against the interests of citizens, consumers and workers.

So it is today in our new Gilded Age. Banks and mortgage companies, which lobbied to have regulations in their industry loosened, came to Washington expecting to be bailed out when the real estate bubble popped. And they were, even as millions of Americans faced foreclosure without any help from government. Oil companies want access to even more public land, and large-scale agribusiness lobbies successfully for tariffs on lower-cost ethanol from Brazil.

Even Free-Marketer-in-Chief George Bush has benefited from the public intervention in the private market. When he sold his stake in the Texas Rangers, Bush profited handsomely because the value of the team increased dramatically when a new stadium was built. The citizens of Arlington, Texas, subsidized that stadium to the tune of nearly $200 million. They have seen almost none of the revenue returned to them.

Since the late 19th century, those who have called for laissez-faire government have never really wanted government to stay out of the economy. Rather, they believe that the power of government ought to be used to promote business interests, whether suppressing strikes 100 years ago, or propping up the mortgage industry today.

Over the next several months, we ought to have a vigorous debate over the direction of the nation’s economic policies. When we do, we ought to acknowledge that there never was a golden age of laissez-faire economics. Government has been and will always be involved in the economy. The real question we need to ask is: on whose behalf?

Steven Conn is a professor of history at Ohio State University. This article was distributed by the History News Service.

EDITORIAL: A Change America platform

Sat, 26 Jul 2008 06:45:00 +0000

Under the title “Listening to America,” the Obama campaign issued an open invitation to voters to organize meetings in their homes, union halls, churches and schools this month to discuss what planks should be added to a 2008 “Platform for Change.” In the past, the Democratic Party platform was written by “paid professionals,” the call said. “This year, that’s going to change.”

Most times these platforms are sterile documents to which hardly anyone pays attention. Barack Obama’s message of change, unity and hope – in short, a new vision for America — has important democratic and class dimensions that, if reflected in the platform, could energize millions of people to not only vote but also participate in making that vision a reality.

After eight long years of extreme right-wing rule, the country is hungry for change.

The stark reality of economic insecurity hitting millions of Americans, while the wealth gap grows between the super-rich and everybody else, cries out for redress. A platform for change needs to come down squarely on the side of working-class families.

Certainly a top priority is national investment in job creation — meaningful, necessary jobs like rebuilding schools, parks, bridges and water systems, expanding mass transit and tackling the 21st century environmental and energy challenges, with livable wages, collective bargaining rights, and priority to the hardest hit communities.

Affordable, universal health care, protection and expansion of Social Security and investment in quality public education are also steps in the right direction.

Global problems such as terrorism, poverty, trade issues, climate change and pandemics all need international cooperation that puts people first, not belligerence, “shoot first, ask questions later” and unilateralism. A new vision for America has to put our foreign policy firmly on the side of peace and respect for human rights, worker rights and national sovereignty. That means a speedy withdrawal from Iraq, and de-escalating other conflicts in the Middle East and Asia.

Americans want a government that is really of, for and by the people. A new vision for America must restore democratic Constitutional protections so badly trampled by the Bush administration, and expand hard-won civil liberties and rights. And it must move to curb the rampage of unbridled corporate greed.

That’s a platform for change.

EDITORIAL: Hungry for change

Fri, 18 Jul 2008 07:18:00 +0000

Karl Marx once noted, “The rate of profit is the motive power of capitalist production. Things are produced only as long as they can be produced with a profit.” Does this apply to food?

Every day millions worldwide are going hungry as food prices shoot up. In the U.S. prices jumped 9 percent in 2007 and are expected to rise another 5 percent this year. Eggs are up almost 30 percent. Milk is up more than 15 percent. Grains, fruits, vegetables and meats are sky high. A trip to the supermarket has become a painful experience for American families, as they contemplate the gold-plated prices and try to figure out how to put a decent meal on the table.

Yet food is a nothing but a highly profitable commodity for giant agribusinesses. Conglomerates like Archer Daniels Midland and Cargill dominate the worldwide production, processing and distribution of food, destroying local sustainable agriculture in the process, and reap mammoth profits as a result. For example, Cargill’s profits jumped by 82 percent last year, as food riots erupted in many poverty-stricken areas of the world, and in our own country low- and middle-income people were forced to choose between paying for groceries or for rent, mortgage payments or filling up their cars.

While fuel costs, biofuels, weather disasters and environmental degradation are all factors in rising prices, so is the pursuit of ever-bigger profits by investors and corporate chiefs. And food has become another hot item in Wall Street portfolios. Many experts charge that speculation on food commodities has helped drive prices to the record highs we see in our supermarkets today. While the soaring prices are causing hardships for consumers, family farmers are going under to the food conglomerates.

Wholesome and affordable food is a basic necessity of life. Corporations and private greed should not be deciding who eats and who doesn’t. Wall Street hogs cannot be allowed to treat our food as their profit-trough — strict regulation should be imposed to prevent this.

More fundamentally, we need a comprehensive national food and agriculture policy that protects consumers, family farmers and our nation’s food supply and farmland. This is a real national security issue that needs urgent attention.

EDITORIAL: A welcome pledge

Fri, 18 Jul 2008 07:16:00 +0000

After the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, the United States had the chance to do something good and right, Barack Obama said in a major Iraq policy speech this week. But a failure of leadership and ideas on the part of the Bush administration led us down the wrong path.

“Instead, we have lost thousands of American lives,” Obama emphasized, “spent nearly a trillion dollars, alienated allies and neglected emerging threats — all in the cause of fighting a war for well over five years in a country that had absolutely nothing to do with the 9/11 attacks.”

Obama’s reassertion of his plan to end the Iraq war within 16 months of his inauguration is a welcome pledge.

In a July 14 op-ed in The New York Times, Obama sharply contrasted his goal to end the war and bring U.S. troops home with the position of Republican John McCain. The McCain-Bush war plan is a “strategy for staying” in Iraq, Obama wrote.

McCain has called for continuing the occupation of Iraq for 100 years. His efforts to blunt criticism from all quarters by insisting that he would only stay there if U.S. troops were not in harm’s way is belied by the dangerous realities in Iraq, by his own record of pushing for attacking Iraq just two months after 9/11, by his support for the war all along, and by his current attempts to describe changing that policy as surrender or defeatism.

Obama seems to understand that the occupation of Iraq by foreign troops is blocking political reconciliation, and that security and peace in Iraq is a multinational concern that requires a diplomatic surge with all of the region’s countries involved. Further, no social progress in the U.S. can be accomplished while we are spending $10 billion per month on this war.

While it is possible to disagree with some features of Obama’s foreign policy — points that will form the basis of renewed struggle in the event of his victory in November — ending the war in Iraq, shifting to multilateral diplomatic measures and re-engaging the international community in a unified and necessary struggle against real problems of terrorism (which have been fueled by the Bush-McCain policies) are points on which we can find no fault.

LETTERS: July 19

Fri, 18 Jul 2008 07:14:00 +0000

Speaking out for Nader

In every publication of PWW articles are written about government lies, crimes, injustices, breaches of the Constitution, illegal surveillances, government-assisted profit scams and on and on. I also am reading in the PWW pressing issues that are in dire need of being addressed: U.S. occupation of Iraq, U.S. support of Israeli occupation of Palestine; continuing and increasing the military budget of the Pentagon; skyrocketing cost of health care, failing government-mandated educational policies, public services cut and/or eliminated and on and on.

PWW insinuates the way to resolving the plight of the U.S. is with Obama rather than McCain. Neither Obama nor McCain have addressed these issues except for McCain who would continue war for 100 years if necessary and except for Obama and McCain who would expand military and foreign policy based on militarism which equates to more war.

Who is speaking out on the issues? Ralph Nader. He speaks out against pharmaceutical and health care corporate control and is in favor of a single-payer health care system projected to save $175 billion plus a year. He speaks out against the bloated military budget of the Pentagon that keeps alive U.S. occupations and interventions for the benefit of corporate fat cats.

How sad it is that the PWW isn’t seizing the moment to speak out for a candidate who does speak out.

From someone who speaks out.

A retired teacher Boston MA

Best take on Obama

A friend of mine who gets most of her news from New York’s lefty/independent WBAI radio just e-mailed me and asked what I think about Cynthia McKinney running for president on the Green Party ticket, and how I feel about Obama’s “recent shifting opinions.”

My friend is a sensible person who “gets it” that electing Obama would be a huge step forward for progressive politics in this country, and that a McCain win would be a disaster for working-class people, women, African Americans, etc.

But she, like many others who move in left circles, is constantly hearing or reading carping about Obama — he’s not left enough, he changes his position on things, he’s too moderate, he’s really a centrist (surprise!). I don’t know what these complainers expect, or what they propose in order to bring about meaningful change on Jan. 20, 2009. Those who actually think McKinney or Ralph Nader offers something useful — don’t they remember the 2000 elections? Do they seriously think it didn’t make a difference who won then?

I’m going to send my friend the editorial you ran last week (“Eyes on the prize” PWW 7/12-18) because it gives the best take on her questions. As the editorial said, “It’s sad that some who seek progressive change are missing the forest for the trees. But they will not dampen the wide and deep enthusiasm for blocking a third Bush term represented by John McCain, or for bringing Obama by a landslide into the White House with a large Democratic congressional majority.”

Keep up the good work.

Rhonda Schneider Queens NY

How loathsome

As recently reported, the democratically elected government of Iraq has officially and repeatedly asked that U.S. troops soon withdraw under a sharp timetable. Not surprisingly, the U.S. government has huffily rejected Iraq’s sovereign request.

What is the world to make of this, given the titanic efforts the Bush administration has made, we were told, to create a liberated, democratic Iraq? The implications tend to devastate this most idealistic justification for the invasion of Iraq, a corrupt enterprise that’s already discredited serial rationales.

The obvious explanation is the most difficult to accept: that thousands of U.S. troops have died simply so Bush’s cronies could grab Iraq’s petroleum reserves, while using Iraqi territory as a permanent Pentagon “lily pad,” to use Don Rumsfeld’s dainty expression, from which to threaten and dominate the entire region. And all this over the expressed objections of both American and Iraqi voters.

How banal, how utterly predictable.

How loathsome.

Cord MacGuire Boulder CO

Note of thanks

Thank you so much for all of the great writing and effort that you put into spreading the word about the University Museum (PWW blog “Houston museum exposes capitalist slavery”). I am forwarding the blog to everyone on our mailing list.

Natasha Turner Houston TX

Don’t forget

Jesse Helms is dead and gone, and some people may try to revise his views because he became friends with Bono. We must never forget that Jesse Helms was a racist who never supported civil rights.

Chuck Mann Greensboro NC

Texas agency defies history

Fri, 18 Jul 2008 07:10:00 +0000

A fruitful way to understand the fanatical efforts of America’s right wing is to realize that they want to turn back the clock and the calendar. Their efforts are clearest within the Texas Education Agency, where crazy scandals are epidemic.

On July 2, former state science curriculum director Christina Comer announced her lawsuit against the agency for having terminated her on charges of favoring science over superstition. Specifically, she is accused of forwarding an e-mail favoring scientific evolution over religious “creationism.” TEA claims that it has established an employee policy of “neutrality” on this fact-versus-myth issue, and that Ms. Comer was not sufficiently neutral.

Comer’s lawsuit correctly says that such “neutrality” violates the “establishment clause” of the U.S. Constitution by effectively endorsing religion. According to the Dallas newspaper, the agency intends to rewrite the standards for science classes for all Texas schoolchildren. Presently, it includes the scientific fact that humans evolved from lower forms of life.

Christina Comer’s brave battle for reality isn’t likely to create much of a stir in Texas, because it’s only one of a long string of battles in which the right wing tries to impose its unscientific nonsense on Texas children. As far back as the 1960s, Texas textbook hearings have produced shameful attempts to conceal the truth in all types of textbooks. Texas is one of the largest and most influential textbook buyers in the world, so the stakes are high.

Another ongoing scandal from the Texas Education Agency has to do with school vouchers. By a narrow vote, the Texas Legislature decided to stop trying to undermine the public schools in this particular manner, but TEA went ahead with a program to use tax money to pay for private schools enrolling older dropouts. The teachers’ unions and progressive state legislators are fighting the effort to bring in a voucher system “by the back door.”

Several times in 2008, scandals have broken concerning charter schools that get tax money to help them undermine public education. Even though the highly vaunted state testing system has revealed the failure of such schools as compared to public education, our “experts” at the TEA continue to advocate them. Even when some charter schools have been revealed to have cheated on their recordkeeping in order to keep getting state funding, the right-wingers keep endorsing them.

In the Texas election system, TEA officials are usually far down on an overcrowded ballot; consequently, “stealth campaigns” have been successful in getting religious nuts elected to positions of influence during the ascendancy of G.W. Bush and the rest of the right wing. It will take a reversal of previous election trends to change the situation. Fortunately, help is nigh in 2008!

Jim Lane (flittle7 @yahoo.com) is a labor activist in North Texas.

Justice for immigrants is a united effort

Fri, 18 Jul 2008 07:04:00 +0000

Movie REVIEW

As I left the theater after watching “The Visitor” I started thinking about all the things we have lost in the last eight years. Loss of civil liberties and justice are a couple of the main casualties that have been delivered to the working class behind the veil of the “war on terror.” This movie highlights the human victims of the terrorism that has been used against all of us.

Richard Jenkins is stunning as a stodgy old economics professor who is literally brought back to life by a couple of young immigrants who describe themselves as “illegal.” When the young man is detained, you can see the helplessness on the face of the newly revived professor who has his new friend snatched from him by a couple of goons. His pain is palpable and the rebirth of his humanity is visible.

The scenes from the detention center are accurate (I have been inside detention centers myself) and the inhuman treatment of detainees is also dead on.

As in most flicks from the U.S., the emphasis is on individual effort to combat injustice. Our rugged individualism has made us easy prey for capitalists and their henchmen. What is missing is an acknowledgement of the need for mass action to demand justice for immigrants. People are left thinking the only way to support immigrants is through individual legal efforts.

In individual cases, this may be true, but I just attended a Jobs with Justice conference where they talked about coordinated efforts in different parts of the country that are happening to counteract the vicious immigration raids.

Groups of people can work together to make detentions and detention centers a public relations nightmare for the government. With coordinated planning and organization, many immigrants can be saved from detention and eventual deportation.

Hundreds of thousands of people have marched in the streets around the country demanding justice, dignity and respect for immigrants. Many organizations have taken up the issue and are fighting hard to reverse the negative direction our country has taken with Bush and his wealthy cronies at the helm. With a united effort, we can move forward and set an example for the world to admire in how we treat our diverse population.

PHill1959 @comcast.net

The Visitor

Directed By Tom McCarthy

Overture Films, 2008

1 hr. 48 min., PG-13

Drama grows over Calif.s overdue budget

Wed, 16 Jul 2008 10:10:00 +0000

The drama is intensifying around California’s budget for the fiscal year starting July 1. Last week the Legislature’s Budget Conference Committee announced a counterproposal to roll back many of the draconian cuts to health, education and social services proposed by Republican Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger.

The battle revolves around how to cope with a $15 billion-plus deficit in the state’s $101 billion general fund.

The conference committee called for reinstating higher tax brackets for the wealthiest state residents, closing a tax loophole for large corporations, rolling back a loophole and suspending a tax adjustment for the wealthy, restoring the franchise tax and stepping up tax enforcement. It rejected the governor’s plan to plug part of the gap by selling bonds to be repaid from future state lottery proceeds.

“In every poll we’ve seen and every conversation I’ve had, Californians are telling us don’t decimate education, don’t shred the safety net, don’t close parks and … don’t close clinics,” Assembly Speaker Karen Bass (D-Los Angeles) said in a statement. “And the straight truth is we can help solve this budget deficit by closing tax loopholes and rolling back overly generous tax breaks that were given to big corporations and the wealthiest Californians — rolling them back to levels they were under other Republican governors.”

Reflecting the majority Democrats hold in both houses of the Legislature, the conference committee consisted of two Democrats and one Republican from each house. Foreshadowing the bumpy road ahead, many committee votes split along party lines.

The conference report now awaits final votes in the Assembly and Senate. Republican Assemblyman Roger Niello predicted the committee budget “will be a troubled and very challenged proposal on the Assembly floor.”

The legislative Democrats’ budget is “a very nice job of getting the right taxes and framing them properly,” Lenny Goldberg, executive director of the California Tax Reform Association, said in a telephone interview. However, Goldberg noted that the proposal “didn’t touch the vehicle license fee,” which was reduced by then-Gov. Gray Davis, a Democrat, in 2002. It is estimated that restoring the fee to its level under earlier Republican governors could bring the state a yearly $6 billion in revenue.

California is the only state to require a two-thirds legislative vote both to pass a budget and to approve any tax increase. Since the Democrats’ current majority doesn’t reach this level in either house, some Republican legislators would have to support the conference budget. But the Republicans remain unanimously opposed to raising taxes, even (or especially) on the wealthy.

“If this were a normal government,” Goldberg observed, “there would be negotiations between the majority party in the Legislature and the governor, and you’d have a budget.”

Even with the additional revenues in the committee’s proposal, the Health Access California coalition points out that real cuts remain, especially for children, through new paperwork requirements the coalition says could cause a quarter million children to lose coverage in the next few years. Also cited were higher Healthy Families program premiums and suspension of efforts to bring eligible but unenrolled children into the program.

Expressing similar concerns, Ellen Wu, executive director of the California Pan-Ethnic Health Network, added, “I think the Republicans need to step up. It’s time that we turned around the way we look at government” to recognize that it provides vital services and needs appropriate resources.

Bass, a former Los Angeles community organizer, was sworn in last May as the first woman Democrat to serve as Assembly speaker, and the country’s first African American woman to serve in this powerful legislative role. At that time she called for a bipartisan independent “blue ribbon” commission to examine the state’s tax structure.

mbechtel @pww.org

Supreme Court decisions are a mixed bag

Fri, 11 Jul 2008 06:07:00 +0000

NewsAnalysis

Elections will determine high court’s future direction

A review of U.S. Supreme Court decisions in the 2007-2008 term should be enough to convince doubters of the importance of a massive vote to end the far-right Republican rule in government.

While the nine justices often aligned ideologically, Chief Justice Roberts and Associate Justices Alito, Thomas and Scalia usually gave right-wing opinions. Justices Breyer, Stevens, Ginsburg and Souter gave more liberal opinions. As in previous years, one swing vote – that of Justice Anthony Kennedy in many cases – determined which way the decision would go.

Starting with the positive, a major victory for due process was Boumediene v. Bush where the high court ruled that prisoners being held by the U.S. at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba as enemy combatants have a habeas corpus right to challenge their detention in U.S. courts. At its essence, this 5-4 decision declared the Military Commissions Act, a key piece of the Bush administration’s assault on due process, unconstitutional. Liberal justices plus Kennedy made up the five-vote majority. Judging by the reaction of Bush administration cheerleaders, the Boumediene v. Bush decision was a major blow to the neoconservative project to undermine constitutional rights in the name of fighting terror.

But the news on the civil liberties front was not all good. Much trouble will result from the 6-3 ruling on Crawford v. Marion County Election Board that allowed the state of Indiana’s voter ID law to go ahead, in spite of clear evidence that the law is unnecessary and will disproportionately disenfranchise lower income, minority and elderly voters. Justices Souter, Ginsburg and Breyer dissented. The court also declared unconstitutional the so called “Millionaire’s amendment” which allowed opponents of wealthy candidates who finance their own elections extra leeway in raising campaign funds (Davis v. Federal Elections Commission). Here Kennedy’s vote, this time with the conservatives, once more broke the tie.

The death penalty came up in a few different cases with mixed results. In Baze v. Rees, the court voted 7-2 that Kentucky’s use of lethal injections was not unconstitutional, in spite of worry that it actually causes excruciating pain. The court voted 5 - 4 (Kennedy again being the swing vote) to prohibit the death penalty for the rape of a child, limiting the scope of capital crimes. And again, the court voted 7-2 (Snyder v. Louisiana) to vacate the death sentence of an African-American man because Blacks had been systematically excluded from the trial jury.

International law took a hit in Medellin v. Texas, when the court ruled 6-3 that the Vienna Convention, which requires signatory countries to inform foreigners of their right to communicate with, and get help from, their consulates when they are arrested, is not applicable in Texas, because although Congress ratified the treaty, it did not pass specific federal legislation to require state authorities to comply with it. And in Exxon Shipping Co v. Baker, the environment took a hit as the court radically reduced punitive damages inflicted on the petroleum behemoth because of the Exxon Valdez disaster of 1989.

Finally, the court ruled 5- 4 (DC v. Heller) that the strict gun control law of the District of Colombia is unconstitutional because it violates the Second Amendment to the Constitution. The conservative majority felt that this amendment guarantees the rights of all individuals to possess weapons, while the liberal dissenters believed that it meant that the people are allowed to form a militia.

The next president is more likely to have opportunities to replace liberal Supreme Court justices than conservative ones. The oldest, John Paul Stevens, a liberal, is 88 and is thus very likely to retire or pass away during the next administration. Liberal Ginsburg is 75, while right wingers Roberts, Alito and Thomas are the three youngest justices.

If a Republican (John McCain) sits in the White House, he is likely to fill slots vacated by liberal justices with right wingers. This could lead to a situation in which 5-4 progressive votes turn into 7-2 reactionary votes on a whole range of cases.

EDITORIAL: Eyes on the prize

Fri, 11 Jul 2008 06:02:00 +0000

Barack Obama is not a left candidate. This fact has seemingly surprised a number of progressive people who are bemoaning Obama’s “shift to the center.” (Right-wingers are happy to join them, suggesting Obama is a “flip-flopper.”) It’s sad that some who seek progressive change are missing the forest for the trees. But they will not dampen the wide and deep enthusiasm for blocking a third Bush term represented by John McCain, or for bringing Obama by a landslide into the White House with a large Democratic congressional majority.

A broad multiclass, multiracial movement is converging around Obama’s “Hope, change and unity” campaign because they see in it the thrilling opportunity to end 30 years of ultra-right rule and move our nation forward with a broadly progressive agenda.

This diverse movement combines a variety of political currents and aims in a working coalition that is crucial to social progress at this point. At the core are America’s working families, of all hues and ethnicities, whose determination to move forward does not depend on, and will not be diverted by, the daily twists and turns of this watershed presidential campaign. They are taking the long view.

Notably, the labor movement has stepped up its independent mobilization for this election. It is leading an unprecedented campaign to educate and unify its ranks to elect the nation’s first African American president. Last week, AFL-CIO Secretary-Treasurer Richard Trumka told the Steelworkers convention that there is “no evil that’s inflicted more pain and more suffering than racism — and it’s something we in the labor movement have a special responsibility to challenge.”

If Obama’s candidacy represented nothing more than the spark for this profound initiative to unite the working class and defeat the pernicious influence of racism, it would be a transformative candidacy that would advance progressive politics for the long term.

The struggle to defeat the ultra-right and turn our country on a positive path will not end with Obama’s election. But that step will shift the ground for successful struggles going forward.

One thing is clear. None of the people’s struggles — from peace to universal health care to an economy that puts Main Street before Wall Street — will advance if McCain wins in November.

Let’s keep our eyes on the prize.

LETTERS: July 12

Fri, 11 Jul 2008 06:00:00 +0000

Angry, broke, in pain

I just spent a very hot, humid day being driven to a medical appointment that has left me angry, frustrated, broke and in a lot of pain. Others may recognize these feelings and hopefully with enough of us demanding change we may began to see real progress in this country.

I am considered low income under federal standards as I am legally disabled on a fixed income. I am not considered low income under my state standards (in some states I would be). I receive a program called Quimby [“qualified medical benefits”], but my coverage only pays my Medicare deductible and co-pays.

I have post-polio syndrome. I am in a power wheelchair with numerous problems with my feet and legs. I have a traumatic wound from a bad fall that will not heal. My doctors have told me I must wear special stockings for the rest of my life. These cost over $350 each, I need a pair of them. I am told they will not only save my legs but could even save my life. Medicare pays for only standard stockings, which will cause me more harm then good according to the specialist.

I had to have my son-in-law drive me several hours to a specialty clinic, to find out I could not get the stockings as my insurance will not pay for them. $50 worth of gas later I am left with the fact I may lose one or both of my legs in the future because I have the wrong insurance program.

I make about $25 a month too much for the insurance but not enough to actually pay my bills. I will have many more problems with my feet and legs in the future that the stockings would have prevented, which will end up costing Medicare far more then the stockings. This should not happen here in the U.S. where there is more then enough money for every single one of us to have quality health care coverage. We just have to set our national priorities straight so that each of us, regardless of income, has the same health care coverage as the men and women who make the laws of this country.

Sheila Malone Waterville ME

Patriotism

I’ve read Santi Suthinithet’s very interesting op-ed (“Should the left celebrate the 4th of July?” PWW 7/5-11) and took the liberty of translating it into Hebrew and publishing it in the Internet discussion forum of the Young Communist League of Israel .

Although the Independence Day celebrations carry a very different meaning in Israel than in the U.S. (because it is historically connected to the Nakba, the ethnic cleansing of the Palestinian people), still there are very important lessons in your article, that are universal to the left everywhere in the world. The need to be patriotic, and not a national nihilist, in order to truly defend the interests of the people, is something the radical left in Israel needs to be educated about.

Uri Weltmann Haifa, Israel

What defines public radio?

The other day, I came down to my kitchen and turned on the radio. The program this particular morning was all about the stock market, what oil futures and other commodities were doing and what to look for in the coming days and weeks. I thought I was listening to Bloomberg News, but no … it was National Public Radio (NPR).

More recently the miraculous Colombian army rescue of the three prisoners held by the Revolutionary Colombian Army (FARC) played over and over while Uribe’s blatant disregard of the Colombian Supreme Court’s ruling overturning the fraudulent vote that changed the constitution so Uribe can run for another term was completely ignored.

We thank: Novartis, Exxon Mobil, AstraZeneca, AARP. Then the message: If you would like to become an NPR underwriter-sponsor, please call.

I’ve been listening to NPR for at least 30 years. What has been a somewhat subtle change over those years towards a more corporate view is now quite slanted in that direction.

Please take the “public” out of National —- Radio.

What do you think?

Gabriel Falsetta Glendale, NY

Annul Chile’s amnesty law

I am a physician married to a Chilean physicist. My husband’s college friends were “disappeared” in 1976. We are beginning a campaign to annul the Chilean amnesty law so that those who disappeared our friends will be brought to justice. We are running half-marathons and marathons in the U.S., Chile and Europe to bring sympathetic individuals together to put pressure on the Chilean government to end this horrible law that pardoned the crimes of the Pinochet dictatorship.

This campaign is still in its beginning stages but we wish to gain your support. We have made a couple of videos to spread the message but we plan a web site soon that will allow individuals to send letters to President Bachelet and the Chilean Congress and Senate. We hope that you will support us as it is time for the impunity that has reigned for 35 years to end. For more information e-mail:

Frances Chavez Santa Fe NM

TAKE ACTION

Tell Congress:

•No war with Iran.

•Negotiations, not threats and sanctions.

•Oppose H. Con. Res. 362 and other provocative measures.

Call your senators and representatives.

Capitol switchboard:

(202) 224-3121

Beyond the landslide

Fri, 11 Jul 2008 05:48:00 +0000

The candidacy of Barack Obama for president of the United States is a long stride forward toward throwing off the last vestiges of the slaveocracy. The power and strength of the rank and file upsurge is making it extremely difficult for the inner circles of the ruling class power elite to stop the forward march against their deep-seated racist policies.

They will try to minimize and marginalize Obama. They will attempt to demean his eloquence, question his loyalty, cast aspersions on his motives and imply that at his best he is not capable of governing. All this will be wrapped in the race card. None of it will be based on fact or truth. They will not be able to tarnish a person whom the Newark Star Ledger called “elegant.”

The struggle in this election campaign will be between the power elite brain trust of U.S. finance capital and the broad-based forward march of the people toward a new America. That power elite has tried to thwart every effort to unite black, brown and white since the Civil War. The new people’s movement has within it not only the ability to defeat this racist offensive, but also the ability to build a new, more representative, more democratic electoral structure in the country.

This movement will be the main driving force in the period ahead to bring to fruition those struggles which gave it birth, nurtured it, energized it and gave it hope, wisdom and finally the maturity to guide those struggles. There are many groups, elements and components which make up the amalgam that has jelled into the “Obama movement.”

Wither the movement?

This is a non-monopoly movement. Forces within it range from those who want to save and restore balance to the market economy to those who fight to reorder priorities. There are those who want to curb monopolies. And there are those who see the need for a new and different social and economic order.

The post-election struggle for legislative implementation of the agenda for a new America will in due course demonstrate the need for creating new, independent democratic electoral structures to guarantee the movement becomes a permanent feature of political life in our country. These new independent electoral forms, working alongside of and in cooperation with existing parties, will be better able to struggle for enacting new pro-people agendas now and in the future.

No one can predict with any certainty the path and the form for empowerment that the struggle will take. However, the process to fulfill the demand “power to the people” is under way.

While our electoral system continues to degenerate, many other countries have developed electoral systems far more democratic and more representative of the various sectors of their society.

Our system has become stultified and distorted so that it can always be manipulated to perpetuate monopoly control. The system as it is structured does not allow for guaranteeing representation of labor, African Americans, Latinos, women, youth and other sectors of our population. In fact elections can be and are stolen. The new movement signals the moment is at hand to make real breakthrough gains in our electoral process.

It is not too early to start looking to the future. Will the movement blossom out into the beginnings of a labor-led people’s party or will it take different forms? New advanced democracy is in the offing. To achieve this we need to topple the racist barriers, curb the power of the monopolies and demilitarize government policy. We can, we must, we will. The American people are worthy. Our country is worth it. The first step is a landslide victory for president and Congress in November.

Pat Barile is a retired trade unionist and member of the Communist Party USA National Board.

Letters: July 5

Fri, 04 Jul 2008 09:11:00 +0000

Gentrification

I just read Pepe Lozano’s article “Chicago gentrification is a global issue” (pww.org 11/14/2006). I’m a college student, and I recently moved into the Pilsen neighborhood. Prior to moving into the neighborhood, I was becoming aware of the realities of gentrification within the city, but as time has passed it has become more and more of an interest to me.

I recently went to a reading an author had, and his book was about the gentrification of San Francisco in the 1990s. This information led me to learn more about Pilsen.

I feel frustrated because as a student I don’t want to be living in neighborhoods such as the North Side’s Wicker Park. I was drawn to Pilsen because of the family feel of the neighborhood. Plus, living in this neighborhood the money I would be spending on food would be going to businesses that have been around for ages, instead of large corporate chains. Being a student, an art student nonetheless, who is disgusted with the accumulation of wealth and power and its effects on those without wealth and power, a neighborhood such as Pilsen seems an ideal place to reside in.

But then, on the other side of it, I see how people such as myself can lay the way for gentrification. But, I want to stop the gentrification from occurring. I feel as though I may be seen as an enemy since I am a new white resident.

Lozano’s article was incredibly thought-provoking and has me thinking about how to stop this area from being gentrified.

Mary C. Chicago IL

Increasing PWW readership

I recommend that you include periodic reminders in the PWW for subscribers to give their copies to prospective readers.

Subscribers could also request that they be mailed more than one copy regularly to distribute as above.

Costs would increase. Hopefully subscribers would increase also. Possible a first-year sub discounted price?

Tom Perna Philadelphia PA

Question/pregunta

Hola, mi nombre es Orman. Is a print version of Nuestro Mundo available? I would like to subscribe, so I can enjoy your paper while learning Spanish.

Also, I have tried repeatedly to subscribe to Granma, but the subscription link on their site has been dead for months. Is the embargo the reason I can’t get the paper? If so, that really pisses me off.

Orman Via e-mail

Editor’s note: Yes we have a print version of People’s Weekly World/Nuestro Mundo! It’s only $30 a year to get it mailed to you each week. You can subscribe online at www.pww.org/subscribe, or send a check to PWW, 235 W. 23 St., New York NY 10011.

Who speaks for Mother Earth?

Who will speak for the interests of the American people and our Mother Earth? Certainly not George W. Bush Jr. or his appointed Supreme Court. The Exxon Mobil court decision illustrates who controls and owns our highest court in the land. Only a fool would believe this a fair decision.

The punitive damages originally awarded by the federal district court and the appeals court were not enough then. Now it is worse since the Supreme Court, in a 5-3 decision, reversed the lower courts’ decisions by limiting damages to what the corporation has already paid.

It illustrates that the majority of jurists certainly are reflecting their own narrow class interests of siding against the people and Mother Earth. With this one decision all the big business corporations and their Chamber of Commerce pundits are declaring victory for capitalism. Yes to the almighty oil greedy monopoly!

Still, to this day, the greatest environmental disaster is being felt socially, economically and culturally by the local native people, the ecosystem, the shorelines and the entire planet — the loss forever of species soaked in Exxon goop. Where is Smokey the Bear when we need him? He passed away but his shovel is still there and it’s being picked up by another generation of Americans bent on restoring their country along the path of sensible rational energy use and ending the careless quest of profits for a few.

Tom Siblo Saugerties NY

Get back Charlie Black

“Another successful attack on the United States of America could have devastating consequences.” — Sen. John McCain.

John McCain’s chief political strategist Charlie Black recently shared with Fortune magazine his opinion that Benazir Bhutto’s brutal assassination “helped us.” Additionally, Charlie Black also admitted that another 9/11-like event on American soil “would be a big advantage” for the Republicans.

As revealing as Republican Party reptile Black’s startling cold-blooded candor may be, what is even more telling is this following partial list of Washington lobbyist Black’s corporate clientele:

Maxxam Inc ($430,000), Lockheed Martin ($487,500), General Electric ($680,000), General Motors ($570,000), AT&T ($1,185,000), JP Morgan Chase & Co. ($724,00), Phillip Morris ($1,292,500), Rolls Royce ($320,000), Occidental Petroleum ($1,650,000), Chevron Texaco ($140,000), Yukos Oil ($155,000) and — in the interest of “free” trade, no doubt — the Colombian Textile & Apparel Industry ($80,000).

Black has been employed by every Republican presidential campaign since 1972, and is head of BKSH and Associates.

Ironically, when McCain required a campaign “spokesliar” to take to the airwaves to protest The New York Times’ explosive exposé of the 71-year-old’s relationship with 31-year-old lobbyist Vicki Iseman, McCain chose lobbyist Black for the job — proving that though you may never get the truth from a potential President McCain, you are guaranteed to get lots and lots of lobbyists!

Jake Pickering Eureka CA

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Struggles and fireworks

Fri, 04 Jul 2008 08:57:00 +0000

It’s that time of year when Americans of all cultures and creeds take the day off (if they can) to barbecue, watch fireworks and maybe drink a few beers or soft drinks.

It’s the Fourth of July, a time to celebrate America — our history, and our future.

The history of the American people is a history of struggle and progress. The American Revolution established the world’s first democratic republic. Yet it was a flawed one, stained by slavery, extermination of Native Americans, suppression of women, and class oppression

But, while the tasks of establishing a just society weren’t finished, neither was the struggle for progress. The American people went on to overthrow slavery in the Civil War — often referred to as the Second American Revolution — and then to secure the rights of African Americans and women to vote and to end Jim Crow segregation.

American working people built a massive labor movement in the 1930s, one that is resurgent today. They fought for and won sweeping social reforms such as public education, wage and hour laws, ending child labor, health and safety measures and environmental protection.

The struggle to protect and extend civil rights and liberties is as old as the birth of the republic, and continues sharply today. From the beginning, this was a nation of immigrants as well as native-born. From the beginning too, there have been struggles to make our country a beacon of multi-ethnic, multinational inclusiveness.

While the ruling class has often involved this country in immoral wars, the American people often rise to stop them. Such was the case with the Vietnam War, and such is the case with the Iraq war today.

We can see this tradition continuing today. Most strikingly, we’ve seen millions of people of all races and nationalities, young and old, male and female, cast their ballots either for the first African American or the first woman president in our history.

We saw more than 60,000 people, mainly white, pour into the streets in Oregon to support Obama — the largest political rally in our nation’s history. And we seem poised to elect our first Black president and oust the ultra-right.

So let’s celebrate our country and struggle: past, present and future.