People Before Profit blog

LETTERS: JULY 26

Sat, 26 Jul 2008 06:51:00 +0000

Struggle vs. supply and demand

The global class struggle was unfortunately absent from the analysis of expensive oil in “Oil dreams” (PWW 7/5-11). The article also failed to mention monopolization of the oil industry, its ties to the families that control the most important financial monopolies and the unfolding crisis in finance.

Oil prices have more than doubled since finance’s first “heart attack,” on Aug. 9, 2007. As capitalism’s contradictions deepen, the exploiters are impelled into efforts to cheapen and weaken labor. Expensive oil is a weapon in their arsenal.

Expensive oil has lowered wages and plundered billions around the world. Without struggle against expensive oil, labor organizations have suffered, including airline and autoworkers’ unions. Expensive oil also loots and destabilizes Chinese society, which was formed by a socialist revolution.

There is 160 years of work by Marxists on wages, prices, capitalist crises, monopolization, imperialism and other fundamental questions, from which “Oil dreams” could have benefited. Relevant work includes the Communist Manifesto, Lenin on imperialism, Gus Hall’s “The Energy Rip-Off,” Victor Perlo’s “Empire of High Finance” and subsequent Marxist analyses.

One key lesson is that prices are set primarily by struggle, not “supply and demand” as capitalist economics claims. Organizing struggle against expensive oil is vital to the defense of the interests of labor and 99 percent of humanity worldwide.

Wadi’h Halabi Via e-mail

Answered

I must inform you of the experience I have had with the PWW here thanks to the Deutsche Post. The following is a translation of the letter I sent to the German Post Office.

“Since the year 2004 I have paid air mail charges to receive the People’s Weekly World which is being sent to me in an envelope postmarked with every Thursday’s date and the zip code in the USA. Unfortunately I cannot speak of the equally reliable punctuality regarding its delivery to me by the Deutsche Post. Instead of the paper being delivered on Mondays as it usually had been the first years, since 2006 the PWW arrived later and later in the week, and several times 12 days later.

“Written complaints and two phone calls have remained unanswered. On the phone I was only angered more through the reply: ‘There is no guarantee; it isn’t sent express.’ I kept hoping for corrections and an explanation as to what happened to my paper and why. This letter I shall send to the People’s Weekly World and to journals in this country.”

Hardly had I written this when the explanation came through the very PWW 6/28-7/4 with Doug Smiley’s column on DHL, “Restructuring put people on the streets.” I shall add some excerpts of this article to my letters to the German journals.

Thank you and love to you PWW!

Miriam Pandor Berlin, Germany

Campaign financing

Your July 12-18 issue criticizes the U.S. Supreme Court decision which struck down the “Millionaire’s Amendment,” part of the McCain-Feingold campaign finance law. I feel the court’s decision is progressive and in conformity to civil rights ideals. The case is called Davis v. Federal Election Commission, and was handed down June 26.

The law said if a candidate contributes at least $350,000 of his own money to his own campaign, then the contribution limits for his or her opponents would be tripled. Furthermore, the opponents could get unlimited funds from a political party.

Having different restrictions on different candidates for the same office violates core principles of equality before the law, so I applaud the Supreme Court opinion. Furthermore, not everyone who donates $350,000 to his or her own campaign is necessarily a millionaire. One of the victims of the law was Oscar DeRossett, who mortgaged his house and emptied out his retirement fund, to spend that money on his congressional campaign. He was not a millionaire. Not only did he lose his primary, the FEC then fined him $59,000 because he had not reported to the FEC within 24 hours that he had donated his own money to his own campaign. Civil rights are safe when the principle of equal treatment under the law is followed for all candidates for the same office.

Richard Winger San Francisco CA Richard Winger is editor of Ballot Access News.

Armed robbery

The armed robbery of the Iraqi people’s oil is now complete. Big oil will move in like vultures and feed off the carcass of what is left of Iraq. First we bombed Iraq. Then we invaded and destroyed the country. Then when the Iraqi people resisted we genocided about 1.5 million Iraqis. Then this created 5 million refugees. Then we tortured the Iraqi people. Then when that didn’t work we paid off all the militias.

Meanwhile Congress never stopped the war money because 40 percent of Congress profited. All the American and Iraqi families and Iraqi refugee families that have died and been injured in the criminal war for oil should sue these oil companies for war reparations. What we have done to the Iraqi people is worse that what Nazi Germany did to Poland.

Daniel Gawain Waters Troy MT

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Obama tackles war issue

Thu, 17 Jul 2008 01:01:00 +0000

The Obama campaign opened this week with a focus on the Iraq war, despite the claims of pundits who insist the war is John McCain's strongest point.

On the same day Barack Obama published an op-ed in the New York Times, July 14, characterizing John McCain's Iraq policy as no different from George W. Bush's and as a 'strategy for staying,' Obama campaign surrogates sharply criticized the Arizona Republican in a teleconference with reporters for failing to live up to his claim for straight talk.

Sen. Joe Biden (D-Del.) recalled his years of friendship and collegiality with Sen. McCain, but insisted that when it comes to Iraq McCain has little understanding of the facts on the ground. 'He doesn't get it,' Biden told reporters.

Biden stated that McCain's comparisons of the Iraq war and occupation to U.S. involvement in Korea and World War II are faulty at best. It 'absolutely demonstrates a lack of understanding of the problems America faces,' Biden said.

Obama's senior foreign policy adviser Dr. Susan Rice added that McCain's is 'fundamentally disconnected from reality.'

McCain wants to deny the fact the Iraqi's are now calling for a timetable for withdrawal linked to any security agreement, Rice said. The Iraqi government has not come close to a political settlement, the main aim of the surge, she added.

Despite McCain's poor judgment and failure to understand the Iraq issue, Rice added, his campaign has not failed to attack Obama personally for his position on ending the war.

Instead of acknowledging his problems on the issue, the McCain campaign 'went about impugning the character of Sen. Obama and the Democrats by saying that indeed it is our aim to lose in Iraq,' she noted.

Labeling the smear campaign as 'old school' politics, Rice said, 'It's all meant to obscure the fact that John McCain has been wrong on Iraq from the very beginning and is wrong to this day.'

Dating back to November 2001, McCain campaigned for an attack on Iraq, has supported staying the course and has helped to block measures to bring the troops home.

July 15, Obama delivered a major policy speech on Iraq in in Washington which he reiterated his plan to end the war in Iraq. The 36-minute speech put forward a realist foreign policy in which Obama linked the use of military power, diplomacy, economic resources, and multilateral institutions to U.S. global interests.

'Instead of pushing the entire burden of our foreign policy on to the brave men and women of our military,' he said, 'I want to use all elements of American power to keep us safe, and prosperous, and free. Instead of alienating ourselves from the world, I want America – once again – to lead.'

Obama further drew sharp contrasts between himself and John McCain. 'I warned that the invasion of a country posing no imminent threat would fan the flames of extremism, and distract us from the fight against al Qaeda and the Taliban; Senator McCain claimed that we would be greeted as liberators, and that democracy would spread across the Middle East.... Senator McCain wants to talk of our tactics in Iraq; I want to focus on a new strategy for Iraq and the wider world.'

Sen. Obama did not pledge a reduced role for the U.S. or for imperialism in the world, but he did offer an alternative to a 'single-minded, open-ended' focus on Iraq.

Miami loses two radio hosts to anti-Cuba bias

Fri, 11 Jul 2008 05:27:00 +0000

Media censorship just doesn’t let up in Miami. On June 13, maverick journalist Max Lesnik gave his last broadcast on Radio WOCN where his programs had been heard each weekday for five years.

Francisco Aruca also learned in April that his daily broadcasts of 17 years would end the same day. Both shows have been replaced by sports programming.

The two Spanish-language broadcasters thought they had negotiated new homes for their broadcasts on Miami radio WKAT beginning the following week. But on their last day, Lesnik and Aruca learned that WKAT, owned by the McClatchy news chain, had disowned their contracts because of views that were “too controversial.”

Aruca, director of Marazul Tours and the progreso weekly.com web site, was allowed to return to WOCN for a two-hour Saturday morning show.

On talk shows and in news coverage, both broadcasters have long inveighed against the U.S. blockade against Cuba, Bush travel restrictions and what they see as Cuban-American laundering of money from Washington to fund anti government plotting in Cuba.

As a student in Havana fighting the Batista dictatorship, Max Lesnik was a friend of Fidel Castro, whom he visited on frequent trips to Cuba. Dissenting from the revolution on tactical questions, Lesnik, a self-described socialist, emigrated to Florida in 1961. Banned from Miami radio until the 1990s, he experienced death threats and bomb attacks against his magazine Replica. The Cuban government honored his brand of independent journalism by awarding him the Félix Elmuza prize in 2007.

Francisco Aruca, who arrived in Florida in 1962 after escaping from a Cuban prison, is likewise no stranger to violent attacks. Offices of his Marazul tour company, which specializes in Cuba travel, were bombed in 1989 and in 1996. The latter incident took place just weeks after Aruca had resumed radio broadcasting.

atwhit @roadrunner.com

If not to Venezuela, send Luis Posada to Panama

Wed, 09 Jul 2008 14:47:00 +0000

Jose Pertierra is Venezuela’s U.S. lawyer. He is demanding that Luis Posada be returned to Panama to finish out jail time there in connection with an attempt with three others in 2000 to murder former Cuban President Fidel Castro, then in Panama City.

Pertierra wants Panama to issue an arrest warrant for Posada, and Washington to comply. Posada now lives freely in Miami.

The attorney was responding to a unanimous ruling June 30 by Panama’s Supreme Court that pardons granted the four by outgoing Panamanian President Mireya Moscoso in 2004 were unconstitutional. Their convictions and sentences stand.

Declassified U.S intelligence documents show that ex-CIA operative Luis Posada, a citizen of Venezuela and Cuba, engineered the bombing of a Cuban airliner in 1976 resulting in the deaths of 73 people. Posada acknowledged to a New York Times reporter that he was responsible for organizing bombings of Havana hotels in 1997 in which an Italian tourist died. Posada’s other crimes are legion.

The U.S. government has refused to honor requests from Caracas for Posada’s extradition so that judicial proceedings can proceed in Venezuela. With CIA help, Posada walked out of a Venezuelan jail in 1985.

Moscoso, who now lives in Key Biscayne, Fla., pardoned the four criminals at the U.S. government’s behest. The move was supposedly intended to cement support in Miami for Bush’s re-election that year. The three U.S. citizens among those released from jail returned to Miami as heroes. Posada entered the country illegally in 2005.

Allegations surfaced in 2004 that to encourage Moscoso to fit in with U.S. plans, Miamians raised $4 million to fund her retirement, adding a Lincoln Town Car as part of the deal.

Meanwhile, those who defended Cuba by working to combat murder and mayhem out of Miami remain in U.S. jails. As of Sept. 12, Gerardo Hernandez, Fernando Gonzalez, Rene Gonzalez, Ramon Labinino and Antonio Guerrero will have served 10 years. Three of the five share four life sentences.

atwhit @roadrunner.com

Cuba Caravanistas Do Dallas

Fri, 04 Jul 2008 08:18:00 +0000

DALLAS, TX – We are one of the cities where routes converge for the dozens of Americans heading for Laredo, Texas, then to revolutionary Cuba. On June 27, 41 of them came to Munger Place United Methodist Church from Little Rock, Oklahoma City, Albuquerque, and Denver.

They enjoyed a dinner, music, and the company of another 40-50 North Texans who enthusiastically back their plan to break the Cuba blockade and delivery much-needed supplies to the Cuban people. The caravans are organized by Pastors for Peace in Chicago. By long-distance telephone on June 25, national leader Reverend Lucius Walker joined Dallas organizer Ernest McMillan on radio KNON’s “Workers Beat” program to explain that every American should stand up against the embargo and reach out to other nations in friendship – in spite of the hatred advocated by the current government.

After the “Caravanistas” left Dallas, Ernest McMillan reported that the material aid collected was at least 500 pounds: included wheel chairs, walkers /walking canes, oxygen pump, medicines, medical supplies, and Baseball helmets (150). The effort also grossed $1,722 in cash and checks.

Even more Americans will converge in Laredo as the group crosses the border and heads for the Port of Vera Cruz.

LATE BREAKING DEVELOPMENT: Humanitarian Goods for Cuba Seized in Texas

At approximately 9:30 am local time today [July 3], the 19th annual Caravan to Cuba convoy attempted to cross from the United States into Mexico at McAllen, Texas. At this hour, U.S. border authorities are holding up the ‘Friendshipment” while agents search for and confiscate all donated computers.

There is so far no indication U.S. authorities will prevent other essential items included on America’s broad embargoed materials list passing through the checkpoint, or harass further American and international volunteers en route via Mexico to the Caribbean island nation.

Africa says no to Pentagon

Wed, 02 Jul 2008 03:06:00 +0000

Plans to base the much-talked-about United States Africa Command (AFRICOM) in Africa have been dropped for now. The U.S. government acknowledged defeat in its all-out campaign to convince any African ally to welcome the installation on its territory. AFRICOM will begin operations this October in Germany instead.

The corporate media has been relatively silent about this setback to the so-called war on terror. Only a few months ago, news reports highlighted America’s desire to establish AFRICOM somewhere on the continent as one of the main reasons for President Bush’s Africa tour. In February, Bush visited five African nations, all considered allies, hoping to persuade one to accept AFRICOM. With the sole exception of Liberia, Bush was met with a resounding “no” throughout his trip. Even a proposal to locate five smaller regional offices to coordinate with AFRICOM in Germany is on hold as the U.S. military still seeks hosts.

AFRICOM will coordinate American military activities across the African continent, except Egypt. The Bush administration deemed Africa an area of “strategic concern” and initiated plans for AFRICOM in 2006. Aware of the apprehension this would generate, Washington attempted to present AFRICOM as a “partnership” with African allies, which also would coordinate relief work and humanitarian activities. As the Financial Times explained, American military engineers have built projects from chicken coops to clinics, hoping to win trust on a continent where suspicion of U.S. military motives often runs high. Even American non-governmental organizations opposed Washington’s plans, rejecting any role for the U.S. military in aid distribution and development projects.

The real agenda of AFRICOM is twofold: securing oil resources and “fighting terrorism.” That is why U.S. military activities are focused on the Gulf of Guinea in western Africa which in the next few years will supply one-quarter of America’s oil, and the East African coast, strategically located near the Iraqi and Afghani war zones and other so-called areas of strategic interest, such as the Red Sea.

U.S. Navy instructors, for example, have been training soldiers in Cameroon how to defend oil drilling rigs in the area, many operated by Exxon and Chevron, against what Washington calls “pirates” and “terrorists.”

A third factor underlining U.S. policy in Africa is China’s rapidly expanding economic and political presence across the continent. Especially worrisome to the Bush administration is China’s African partnerships in oil exploration and extraction.

African opposition to AFRICOM has been nearly universal, whether relayed behind closed doors in diplomatic meetings or expressed publicly, because it is viewed as a threat to African sovereignty. Last year’s invasion of Somalia by Ethiopia, one of Washington’s closest allies in Africa, was regarded by many observers as an illustration of AFRICOM’s true purpose, as the U.S. provided strategic and material assistance to the Ethiopian military from the nearby American command base in Djibouti.

Many African leaders fear the remilitarization of the continent after decades of conflict during the Cold War. As retired Lt. Gen. Daniel Opande of the Kenyan army told the Washington Post, “AFRICOM was seen as a massive infusion of military might onto a continent that was quite proud of having removed foreign powers from its soil.”

So, stung by rejection, the U.S. military quietly announced in May that AFRICOM will begin operations on another continent. At least for the time being, Africans successfully have kept a major foreign military command headquarters off their soil. And, instead of relying on outside military interference, the African Union will create its own peacekeeping force, called the Africa Standby Force. Plans for a “Gulf of Guinea Guard Force” also are being discussed by West African nations.

Despite this rebuff, the U.S. military remains engaged in various campaigns across Africa, all coordinated from the far-away Kelley Barracks in Stuttgart, “for the foreseeable future,” in the words from the AFRICOM website .

AFL-CIO officially endorses Obama

Tue, 01 Jul 2008 08:54:00 +0000

The AFL-CIO officially endorsed Barack Obama for president on June 26.

In the statement issued with the endorsement, the General Board declared that Obama “secured the nomination of his party in a campaign that has energized millions of Americans and spoken to the hopes and dreams of people from every corner of our nation. His leadership can re-engage disenfranchised Americans and bring our country together. Sen. Obama has advocated a change of direction for our nation that mirrors the priorities of the labor movement.”

Announcing the endorsement, AFL-CIO President John Sweeney declared, “Barack Obama has proven from his days as an organizer, to his time in the Senate and his historic run for the presidency, that he’s leading the fight to turn around America.” Sweeney described Obama as a “champion for working families who knows what it’s going to take to create an economy that works for everyone, not just Big Oil, Big Pharma, the insurance companies, the giant mortgage lenders, speculators and the very wealthy.”

The endorsement by the 10-million-member AFL-CIO puts virtually the entire organized labor movement behind the Obama candidacy. The 6-million-member Change-to-Win federation has already endorsed Obama. The unaffiliated National Education Association which, with its 3.5 million members the largest union in the country, says it will endorse Obama at its convention July 2-4.

Immediately after the federation announced its endorsement it launched a new “Meet Barack Obama” web site. The web site already has reports on Obama’s record, including his support for strikes and union organizing drives and his position on health care.

AFSCME President Gerald McEntee, chairman of the AFL-CIO Political Committee, said the federation will “work our hearts out for Barack Obama. Our program is going to be worker to worker and neighbor to neighbor. We’re ready to mobilize. We’re ready to rock and roll. This country and our people are ready for change.” AFSCME endorsed Obama a week before the federation endorsed. It had backed Hillary Clinton in the primaries.

After the federation announcement United Steelworkers President Leo Gerard said, “Sen. Obama’s plan to revitalize American manufacturing and his commitment to make workers the top priority in any trade agreement give our members hope that his election will lead the country in a new direction that’s long overdue, and inspire us to work as never before to secure his victory.

The AFL-CIO will give particular emphasis to work on the Obama campaigns in Minnesota, Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. It will also be involved in 60 House races and key Senate races. With activity planned too in gubernatorial and state legislative races, the federation will be involved in a total of more than 500 races nationally.

The plan is to put 250,000 volunteers into the field, make 300,000 home visits before Labor Day, make 300,000 phone calls and distribute more than 2 million fliers. The AFL-CIO has already distributed 1.5 million fliers to workers on the job, outlining John McCain’s anti-worker record. It has thus far mailed 500,000 letters outlining how McCain has, with his voting record, hurt workers.

Its member unions are expected to spend $200 million or more on the election effort this year. This is over and above $54 million that the federation has set aside for get-out-the vote, voter registration, and voter protection campaigns.

One of the major reasons labor is so enthusiastic about Obama is his support for what is perhaps the key issue for unions – the Employee Free Choice Act.

Were it to become law, the EFCA would help level the playing field between companies and workers in union organizing campaigns and in bargaining for initial contracts.

It would provide for automatic mandatory recognition of a union by the employer as soon as a majority of workers in a bargaining unit indicate their desire to be represented by the union. Workers would only have to sign a card expressing this desire, thus avoiding a prolonged campaign and “election” rigged by the company.

The EFCA passed in the Democratic controlled House but was killed by a GOP filibuster in the Senate. McCain backed that filibuster.

Other positive features of the proposed new law include stiffer fines for labor law breakers and an end to “captive audience” meetings at workplaces where employers, campaigning against union recognition, force workers to listen to anti-union propaganda under pain of job loss, with no opportunity for the pro-union position to be heard. McCain has said the fines violate the employer’s free speech rights while Obama has said this aspect of the law protects freedom of choice for workers.

The federation’s General Board, which made the Obama endorsement, consists of the presidents of unions in the AFL-CIO, and Executive Council members and representatives of state and local federations, trade departments and constituency groups.

Only one of the AFL-CIO’s 56 constituent unions, the Machinists, was not yet ready to go along with the federation’s endorsement. When the tally of the General Board members was taken, the Machinists voted “present.” Thomas Buffenbarger, the union’s president said, “I still have questions for Obama.” Buffenbarger’s union had endorsed Hillary Clinton in the Democratic primary. The union took the unusual position of also endorsing a candidate in the Republican primary, Mike Huckabee. When Huckabee dropped out the Machinists did not endorse any other Republican. Since Clinton dropped out of the race they have not yet endorsed Obama.

Buffenbarger, who is a delegate to the Democratic National Convention, has changed his status, however, from a Clinton delegate to “Uncommitted.”

“Blue collar workers are born skeptics,” Buffenbarger said after the federation’s endorsement announcement. “Their skepticism grew during this campaign and to turn skeptics into supporters takes more than a perfunctory knock on the door of labor of the House of Labor.” Buffenbarger said he was “looking forward” to talks with Obama about policies “that can resonate with blue collar Democrats.”

Observers note that Obama has won the votes of blue collar workers, both Black and white, in many states and that in recent polls he is winning among these groups, including among white workers, even in Ohio, Michigan and Pennsylvania, states Clinton carried in the primaries. Obama has already won the backing of major unions with large numbers of white collar workers, including the Steelworkers, the Miners, Building and Construction workers and the Ironworkers.

jwojcik @pww.org

Contradictory China

Tue, 01 Jul 2008 08:41:00 +0000

Almost everything you’ve heard about China is true — at least, that’s my impression from a short week-and-a-half visit to Beijing at the end of May.

The scale of everything in China is hard for anyone to wrap their mind around. China is the world’s third-largest country, has the largest population in the world by far (about 1.2 billion people), features extreme variation in climate and geography from low-lying coastal agricultural regions to almost the highest Himalayas to vast deserts, and exhibits a wide variation in economic development from the poorest subsistence farms to the most modern skyscrapers. Not least of all, China is making widespread and important efforts toward socialism, alongside capitalist development with extreme exploitation and environmental pollution and devastation. It’s all true.

Just looking out the window of a bus driving through Beijing and environs, you can see the impressively modernistic “Bird’s Nest” Olympic National Stadium, pervasive advertising in the Beijing business district, walls surrounding massive city blocks behind which you can glimpse everything from gigantic apartment complexes to run-down slums to the imposing and impressive remains of Imperial China to the ever-present construction cranes building skyscrapers, hotels, apartments and national institutions. You can see well-tended garden plots next to large-scale agricultural production next to rapidly expanding urbanization and highway construction.

Revolutionary symbols clash and compete with advertising for the latest luxuries for the super-rich. The crowded main streets bustle with regular buses, tourist buses, Mercedes and Toyotas, bicycles and scooters, and pedestrians (who don’t seem to have the right-of-way but must proceed at their own peril, which they do by ignoring lights and crosswalks as often as the cars and buses ignore them).

Tour guides boast of the increase of trees and ground cover in Beijing from 9 percent 20 years ago to more than 35 percent today.

Flowerbeds are ubiquitous in many parts of the city. The steps being taken by the government to improve Beijing in advance of the Olympics are obvious, intense and impressive — from tree planting, subway expansion, shutting and moving factories, and recycling to campaigns against spitting in public, a long-standing Beijing habit. Equally impressive are the pervasive pollution and smog, the sewage smells from inadequate or non-functional sewer systems in old Beijing neighborhoods, the rampant commercial construction and the market-driven consumerism. There are also many symbols of a proud country struggling to keep up with its own development.

The contradictions include commonly held views about China’s own history. The same person will tell you that the Mao-initiated Cultural Revolution led to “10 wasted years,” and also that his family members have photos of Mao on their walls. Others object to what they see as the descent into capitalism by clinging to the most ultra-left aspects of Maoism. Most seem to matter-of-factly accept the realities of socialist goals of equality alongside capitalist excesses and inequalities, since in many respects life for the majority is improving.

These contradictions are the field of intense struggles. There are good laws and policies in many fields, and widespread evasion of those same laws and policies due to inadequate funds for enforcement. There are struggles over environmental policy, over the new labor law (designed to adjust to unions in capitalist enterprises, opposed by most of the big U.S. corporations in China — who lobbied hard against its recent adoption), over the evasion of laws such as building codes in Sichuan Province, the site of the recent catastrophic earthquake.

While that earthquake exposed many problems with the building boom, it also provided a stark contrast both to Bush’s inhumane reaction to Hurricane Katrina and to the current disgraceful actions of the Myanmar military government preventing or obstructing international aid to cyclone victims. China’s emergency mobilization of people from rescue workers to replacement teachers, the welcome given to many international aid efforts including portable hospitals, emergency housing, food and clothing, the daily news conferences informing the entire nation about details of the rescue and recovery activities — all are examples of proper government response to a crisis.

Another truth we can’t ignore is that some of the problems in China are caused by rapacious capitalist corporations based in the U.S., some of the pollution in China (likely at least 25 percent) is the result of production for export to the U.S. and Europe and some of the rush to development is caused by the overwhelming task of feeding a nation of 1.2 billion.

China’s rapid development is almost entirely responsible for the total world improvement in lifting hundreds of thousands out of abject poverty in the last 20 years — no other country has been as successful in actually accomplishing such goals, not on anywhere near the scale.

Those looking for simplistic understanding or easy choices or answers will not find them. Without much trouble, you can find obscene hucksterism combined with nationalistic boosterism, and you also find much sincere commitment to socialist goals, equality and improving life for all. As the many contradictions in China meet the challenges of the future, we need to support their positive efforts as well as examine their shortcomings and failures. China’s problems, limitations, opportunities and potential combine into an irreducible complex whole.

Marc Brodine (marcbrodine @inlandnet.com) is chair of the Washington State Communist Party and co-authored the second edition of the CPUSA environmental program, “People and Nature Before Profits.”

LETTERS: June 28, 2008

Tue, 01 Jul 2008 08:39:00 +0000

Housing help falls short

The final shape of the housing bill in Congress is becoming clear. A fairly narrow group of homeowners facing foreclosure due to subprime mortgage failures will be able to refinance fixed-rate mortgages at roughly 15 percent below the property’s sale price. Home values have fallen an average of 16.5 percent nationally and are expected by many to fall closer to 30 percent or more from their peak values, a measure of how far speculation became removed from real value.

The entire process is voluntary, and there are substantial fees involved in negotiating any new mortgages.

However, the bill’s refinance provisions will not prevent most foreclosures. Most of those defrauded by the unregulated, bandit mortgage brokers will be left to fend for themselves. Someone will get the billion dollars set aside for this but it will not be families facing foreclosure.

The $4 billion to assist communities redevelop abandoned properties is the best part of the bill. But it is likely to be discarded or also reduced to invisibility by Bush veto threats unless a sufficient campaign is mounted to prevent it.

It’s amazing, staggering in fact, to see Bush and McCain satisfied leaving ghost towns all over the country, and everyone who lived in one should just pick up and move on! Unless, of course, the “ghost town” starts to invade the areas around country clubs! Then — “OK,” they say, “let’s lift some caps and get some refinancing for anyone who can still pay some bills and club fees.”

While many states and communities are taking bold action, a strong and broad effort by the federal government is badly needed. But that’s not what Congress and the White House have been doing.

John Case Harpers Ferry WV

Parole for juveniles?

Should juvenile offenders be afforded the opportunity for parole? This is a question Illinois state lawmakers are trying to answer through legislation (HB 4384) submitted by Rep. Robert Molaro.

In the state of Illinois 103 juveniles ages 13 to 17 years have been sentenced to natural life without the possibility of parole. Some of these inmates have been incarcerated since 1979 within the Illinois Department of Corrections.

Natural life sentences given to juvenile offenders are greatly disproportionately administered by Illinois court judges. Seventy-four (of the 103) are African Americans. Nearly all the 103 came from Cook County. Some are victims of Chicago police torture, some could not read or write, many were taken to the police station and denied juvenile officers to oversee their rights. Some were beaten or tricked into signing confessions mainly because they suffered from mental problems.

Do you feel that kids should be locked up forever inside Illinois prisons and never given some form of parole opportunity after 10 years? Please contact your Illinois state representative or senator and voice your opinion now.

Mark Clements Pontiac Correctional Center Pontiac IL

Musings on democracy

America is a free country. By free I do not mean just to speak and write anything and everything one likes. But, just the idea of walking into a coffee shop or traveling from Texas to Alaska, or from California to New York, dressed as you please. Again the only limit is the size of your wallet.

On the other hand, democracy is an entirely strange animal. American democracy is not designed to protect minorities, it protects majority groups. Problems of accommodating minorities, or vesting them with equal power in the larger society — will the parliamentary system as practiced in Western Europe or Israel be the solution? Or how about the African traditional system decision by consensus?

Society is always evolving. My senior citizen friends in the Bronx tell me at one time in America, Jews, Italians, Polish and Irish were all discriminated against. One fellow senior citizen in fact told me that at one time there were signs in storefronts in Riverside announcing, “No Irish need apply for jobs here.”

I believe we can discuss, debate, analyze and arrive at some kind of conclusion or consensus to make this a more perfect democracy.

Gus Kifle Bronx NY

Boot straps or getting the boot?

The wealthy and powerful who control the American economic system preach to those on the bottom of the religious and political ladder that they must pull themselves up by their boot straps into the system.

However, as a result of capitalist profiteering, the cost of boots is too high to purchase to wear while climbing the economic ladder.

Then there are those like President George W. Bush and company, who, with their boots, step on those people on the bottom of society.

Raymond Daugerdas Pittsburgh PA

Lozano legacy lives on today

Tue, 01 Jul 2008 08:18:00 +0000

CHICAGO — “The great thing about people who lead great lives is they inspire others years later to stand up for what is good and just,” declared Rev. Calvin Morris. “Rudy Lozano’s footprints show us the way for activism in today’s historic struggles.” Morris, director of the Community Renewal Society opened a June 22 gathering of over 250 people paying tribute to the remarkable life of Rudy Lozano, cut short by an assassin’s bullet 25 years ago.

Speaker after speaker illustrated how the seeds sown by Lozano and his fellow activists in countless struggles have blossomed into today’s mass people’s upsurge cresting in the electoral arena. A short video included remarks by Rep. Danny K. Davis (D-Ill.), Cesar Chavez and several of today’s young activists.

Lozano emerged as a leading force in the Mexican American community here in the late 1960s as a student. He organized a movement demanding a new high school in Chicago’s Pilsen neighborhood and a curriculum that respected the contributions of Mexicans to history. That struggle eventually led to the construction of Benito Juarez High School.

“There are three pillars to the essence of Rudy Lozano, observed Jesus Garcia, director of Little Village Economic Development Corporation and a close friend and co-worker. Garcia said Lozano was a man of action, believed in the power of organized labor and multi-racial unity and fought for involvement of the Mexican American community in the electoral process and building of political independence.

Lozano was instrumental in building a multi-racial coalition around the historic mayoral campaign of Harold Washington in 1983. Lozano helped bring the Mexican American community into the winning alliance and ran for alderman against an entrenched machine candidate. He lost by 17 votes and was to be appointed vice mayor by Washington. However, Lozano was assassinated in his home before the appointment.

Lozano’s widow and co-worker, Lupe Lozano spoke about the struggle to create the 22nd Ward Independent Political Organization, which remains on the forefront of political independence in city politics. Twenty-second Ward Alderman Ricardo Munoz told the crowd he couldn’t take on Mayor Daley without the IPO’s strength and support.

Lupe Lozano said despite losing the first aldermanic election “we won the founding of a multi-racial coalition and the election of Harold Washington. Rudy saw a bigger vision – victory for people of all of Chicago. Rudy represented a symbol of unity,” she said.

Garcia won an aldermanic election shortly after Rudy’s death and then became the first Mexican American elected to the state legislature. He noted the movement continues to grow and that it elected a block of independent labor-backed aldermen in Chicago last year.

Lozano became the Midwest organizing director for the International Ladies Garment Workers Union, the precursor of Unite Here. He was organizing tortilla workers when he was killed. Those behind the murder remain a mystery.

The keynote speaker was Joel Ochoa, a Lozano friend, organizer for IAM Local Lodge 727N and the California Immigrant Workers Association. Ochoa said the movement Lozano helped create with Burt Corona and others put the whole discussion of amnesty for undocumented workers in the center of public debate.

“The AFL-CIO has completely changed its position and millions have taken to the streets. For that I can say thanks Rudy Lozano and Burt Corona. The fight was and is about political power. They realized the Mexican American community needed to unite with other communities and needed to create coalitions,” he said.

Richard Barnett, an aide to Mayor Washington summed up Lozano’s political legacy in a Chicago Tribune quote. “It was people like Lozano who built the foundation for Barack Obama’s historic run for the presidency” through his dedication to grassroots work and unity.

The event ended when the next generation of Lozanos took the stage. Sons Rudy, Jr., Pepe and David are all deeply involved in the progressive political life of the city carrying forth their father’s mighty vision. Pepe Lozano implored the crowd to become engaged in the 2008 elections and to not let this moment in history pass anyone by.