People Before Profit blog

Bechtel the Evil

Fri, 20 Jun 2003 04:26:00 +0000

Opinion

The term “evil corporation” has become somewhat of a cliché over the years. However, in some cases this term is far too kind. The Bechtel Group of San Francisco is a prime example.

George Shultz, former Bechtel president, was Secretary of State under President Reagan. In November 1983, Shultz received an intelligence report detailing almost daily chemical weapon attacks by Saddam Hussein against Iran. No action was taken against Saddam, perhaps due to the very close relationship Bechtel was trying to develop with Saddam. Later, in December 1983, Reagan’s envoy Donald Rumsfeld (yes, the very same) proposed that Bechtel work with Hussein to build an oil pipeline from Iraq to Jordan. Unfortunately for Bechtel, Hussein dropped the deal because he felt that Bechtel was overpricing the project, up to twice what the actual construction would cost.

In 1988, after Saddam Hussein gassed thousands of Kurds with chemical weapons, Bechtel won a contract with Saddam to build a chemical plant in Iraq. (It should be noted that Bechtel was named by the United Nations last year as one of the corporate providers of weapons of mass destruction to Saddam.) Yet, fortune again did not shine on Bechtel. The company was forced to halt construction after Iraq invaded Kuwait because Saddam began arresting Bechtel employees.

At this point Rumsfeld and other U.S. officials could hardly control their anger as major contracts with Hussein were lost to companies from France, Russia, and China. So Rumsfeld and his corporate friends, including George Shultz from Bechtel, demanded that “Hussein must go.”

In March 2003 the Bush administration attacked Iraq and heavily bombed water production facilities. In April 2003 the administration awarded Bechtel a $680 million contract to rebuild Iraq’s water systems.

Oh, Bechtel loves water. And Iraq isn’t the only place that the company attempts to profit from it. According to Vijay Prashad, author of “Fat Cats and Running Dogs: The Enron Stage of Capitalism,” Bechtel was a major player in the water privatization scandal in Cochabamba, Bolivia. The government of dictator Hugo Banzer promised that it would create better economic conditions for big companies in Bolivia. Part of this plan included privatizing the nation’s water, and the winner of the secret contract for this project was Bechtel. Later the Banzer government made it illegal for people to collect rainwater.

Bechtel began to charge over 60 percent more than the price of water before privatization. The cost of water made it almost impossible for many Bolivians to raise a family. Bechtel’s greed sparked a revolt – thousands rioted in the streets and Bechtel was forced to withdraw. Today Bechtel is suing Bolivia through the World Trade Organization for damages resulting from its failed plan.

Corporations like Bechtel prove that capitalism cannot and will not be reformed. To make a profit corporations will literally starve impoverished citizens to death. To appeal to stockholders, corporations will build chemical plants for dictators who are using chemical weapons against women and children.

These same corporations have enough power to decide where U.S. bombs should be dropped and then get contracts to rebuild the destroyed area.

This “legal” criminal behavior by Bechtel and other corporations should be at the top of our list of today’s corporate crimes.

Teddy Wood is a student in Santa Cruz, Calif. He can be reached at Scsk8er35@cs.com

The big lie

Fri, 20 Jun 2003 04:22:00 +0000

Opinion

More and more each day, the lies and deception spewed from the mouths of George W. Bush, Secretary of State Colin Powell, National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, Vice President Richard Cheney, U.S. Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz, British Prime Minister Tony Blair and his Foreign Minister Jack Straw are now coming back to haunt them.

Wolfowitz, in an interview in July’s Vanity Fair, stated, “the Bush administration focused on alleged WMDs as the primary justification for toppling the Iraqi regime because it was politically convenient.” He continued, “For bureaucratic reasons we settled on one issue, weapons of mass destruction, because it was the one reason everyone could agree on.”

This rogues gallery of criminals who have deceived the American and British people are now making up new lies. Rumsfeld says that Iraq probably destroyed all WMDs before the invasion. Powell keeps insisting on repeating the lie that Iraq is a big country and that these weapons will be found. Rice practically swore on the Bible in every possible TV appearance that “we know that Iraq has those weapons.”

These claims of WMDs by high-ranking officials presented a false bill of goods before the United Nations and the entire world. And to this very day they have not been called before the U.S. Congress or the British Parliament charged with crimes against humanity. Yet, there is ample evidence to bring them before a court of justice.

U.S. and World Report reports that the first draft of Powell’s speech to the UN was prepared by Cheney’s chief of staff, Lewis Libby, in late January. In this draft, he wanted to include that Iraq had purchased special computer software that would allow it to plan an attack on the United States. This was even too much for Powell, according to the report. Powell threw those pages of the inserted material in the air and shouted, “I’m not reading this, this is bull.” As it stood, the magazine stated that the CIA did not support the allegations in Powell’s report to the UN.

Now with the invasion and the conquest of Iraq, it turns out that the millions of people in the world who demanded “no blood for oil” were right. Oil was the reason for the conquest of Iraq. Cheney’s firm, Halliburton, is now in charge of those oil wells.

American and British troops were killed in this war, as were thousands of innocent Iraqi citizens. This information provides more proof that the Bush and Blair administrations are guilty of violations of international law and should be brought before the World Court. They should be considered as much a bunch of criminals as if they had robbed all the gold from Fort Knox.

John Gilman is a peace and solidarity activist from Wisconsin and can be reached at johngilman@aol.com

Health of U.S. children gets failing grade

Fri, 20 Jun 2003 04:16:00 +0000

Opinion

In the annual “Report Card on Children’s Health” released by the American Health Foundation, the U.S. received a “D” rating for its children’s health, down from a “C” last year.

Here we are, not talking about the plight of hundreds of millions of children who are dying yearly of hunger, diseases, violence and war all around the world – a calamity that is directly related to the greedy acts of imperialism.

But we can clearly see the continuously increasing misery of the children of the U.S., the leading imperialist country.

A study prepared for Kaiser Permanente by Oakland’s Children Now found that large numbers of young people feared for their personal safety. Small children fear death, violence or abuse, while teenagers report that they or their peers are increasingly suicidal.

A Colombia University report shows that child poverty is increasing in the U.S. and one in four children live in poverty.

In Clay County, W.Va., the majority of people are living under the poverty line and the majority of their children satisfy their hunger with free food provided by their schools, without which they would go to bed hungry.

ABC News reported last year that 28 percent of Hispanic children and 30 percent of African American children (about 12 million) live in absolute poverty, hungry and deprived of health care and education.

New York City had a 60 percent increase in the number of homeless people from 2001 to 2002. Every night, about 35,000 homeless people, of which 15,000 are children, line up to spend the night at a shelter, with cockroaches, mice and fear of violence.

In many states child welfare benefits are being cut to meet budget deficits – Florida, New York, North Carolina and California are examples. Access to Medicare is denied and children are left defenseless against the simplest diseases. Recently, even child foster care funding has been decreased dramatically. And last but not least, subsidized daycare for many children is being cut this year.

We are witnessing a rapid increase in the misery of the people, all around the world, coinciding with the growing aggressiveness and greed of imperialism. This blind system of exploitation hits the most vulnerable – the children – most severely. It is a trend that will continue with the existence of capitalism.

H. Salari is a doctor and writer and can be reached at pww@pww.org

Reform the Rockefeller Drug Laws

Fri, 20 Jun 2003 04:09:00 +0000

Opinion

May was the 30th anniversary of the New York state legislature’s enactment of the so-called Rockefeller Drug Laws. Proposed by Governor Nelson A. Rockefeller, the “get-tough” laws were supposed to solve the burgeoning drug and crime problem by locking up significant participants in the drug trade and thus deterring others from involvement. But it hasn’t worked out that way. Yes, the sentences are harsh. A single ten-dollar sale of cocaine brings a minimum sentence of one to three years in prison – and four and a half to nine years if the offender has a prior conviction. A first-time offender convicted of participating in the sale of two ounces of cocaine will draw a minimum sentence of fifteen years and, possibly, a life-term sentence. However, contrary to the original justifications that they would target the major traffickers and violent individuals, the laws have largely been ineffective in thwarting the drug trafficking and violent crime they were designed to stop.

According to Ernest Drucker, professor of Epidemiology and Social Medicine and Professor of Psychiatry at Montefiore Medical Center /Albert Einstein College of Medicine, in New York City, 60 percent of those incarcerated were convicted of offenses in the three lowest classes of drug felonies, which involve very small amounts of drugs. And less than 25 percent of them had any prior violent felony convictions. Nearly a third had no prior felony convictions at all. Since May 1973, more than 150,000 people have been sentenced to New York’s prisons for nonviolent drug offenses-helping to fuel the state’s astounding boom in both inmates, from 14,400 then to more than 70,000 today, and in prison expenditures.

But, as James Lanier, senior resident scholar for Community Justice Programs at the National Urban League’s Institute of Opportunity and Equality, points out, “more than any other single legislative act, New York’s adoption of the Rockefeller Drug Laws [symbolized] the beginning of the massive surge in incarceration” in states across the country. Both Lanier and Drucker also say that because police drug enforcement is concentrated on the street-level trade in Black and Hispanic communities, the effect of the Rockefeller drug laws has been to exacerbate to an astonishing degree the racial character of who gets arrested, convicted and imprisoned for drugs in America.

Nationally, African Americans account for 13 percent of the nation’s drug users, their proportion of the general population. But they make up 35 percent of drug arrests and 53 percent of drug convictions. Moreover, such massive incarceration has been fiscally foolish. It’s a highly expensive but ineffective deterrent in the important war against drugs and violent crime in America. A better approach, now supported by experts across a wide philosophical spectrum, is to focus on drug education, prevention, and intensive treatment. There’s no doubt that the Rockefeller drug laws are unjust; and there is widespread, nonpartisan agreement that they should be substantially changed. Such government officials as Gov. George E. Pataki, a Republican, and Sheldon Silver, the Democratic Speaker of the State Assembly, and a host of other politicos have publicly supported revising them. Yet, the laws remain as they have been. Thus, it’s welcome to see Russell Simmons, co-owner and founder of Def Jam Records, Sean “P. Diddy” Combs, and others involved in the hip-hop music industry at the head of a campaign that uses the appeal of hip-hop to mobilize ordinary citizens, particularly adolescents and young adults, to press for reform of the laws.

This is a vitally important effort for several reasons. One is that the two latter groups are most “at risk” of, on the one hand, succumbing to the street-level lure of the illicit drug trade, and thus, becoming a statistic of the Rockefeller drug laws; or, in the neighborhoods in which many of them live, becoming an innocent-bystander victim of the variety of crimes associated with the drug trade. Equally important, however, is the fact that, regardless of their musical tastes, these young people, and society as a whole, can reap enormous benefits from their becoming politically aware and motivated, these benefits go well beyond the immediate, just campaign of righting what has been a terrible wrong.

Marc H. Morial is president and CEO of The National Urban League.

Take back America with hope, not fear

Fri, 20 Jun 2003 04:02:00 +0000

Opinion

As the deceptions of the Bush administration hit home, anger is turning into organizing throughout the country. A new movement is being born, based on hope not fear.

The “Take Back America” conference held in Washington, D.C., this month was a signal light toward stopping the anti-democratic, anti-people, never-ending war crusade of the far right. Over 1,500 labor, civil rights, women’s, environmental, peace and community activists soundly slammed the policies of the Bush administration and called for an all-out 17-month campaign to “take back” the country.

The main lessons were (1) Everything between now and November 2004 is connected to the elections; (2) Bush cannot be defeated with a program that makes compromises with the right wing; (3) A strong program for jobs, health care, peace, the defense of Social Security, Medicare, public education, affirmative action and democratic rights can inspire new voters, young and old, to come to the polls; and (4) It takes a united fight to win. The answer lies in movement-building, holding candidates accountable and getting out the vote.

The conference reflected a deep sensibility that democracy – and life as we know it – are in grave danger. Gerald McEntee, president of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME), spoke of a “widespread feeling of betrayal.”

Journalist Bill Moyers charged that “right-wing wrecking crews” are engaged in “a deliberate, intentional destruction of the United States of America.” He urged the crowd to “get back in the fight … the flame of democracy will never go out as long as there is one candle in your hand.”

Presenting the need for an “inside-outside strategy,” Rep. Jan Schakowsky (D-Ill.) implored, “I want to see you, hear you, and feel you louder and better … or it will be a different world in 2008.” She added, “Don’t stop now against the war. Keep it up.”

The huge demonstrations against the war on Iraq have moved many progressive Democrats to conclude that leaving the issues of war and terrorism to the Republicans is a losing strategy.

“How to get peace?” asked Tom Andrews of Win Without War. “Defeat Bush and Company. Candidates can win the day on economic issues but if they stay away from foreign policy they will cede the election.”

Those presidential candidates and speakers who expressed opposition to the war drive received ovations. Those who opposed the repressive measures of the USA Patriot Act got big applause, as did every speaker who denounced tax cuts to the rich.

On behalf of the more than 250,000 steelworkers who have lost their pensions and retirement health care benefits, United Steelworkers of America President Leo Gerard said creation of new manufacturing jobs and inclusion of workers rights and environmental rights in trade agreements are at the top of the agenda. Calling for international workers’ solidarity, Gerard received big applause when he said, “We’re not against workers in other countries. We’re against the system that exploits them and us.”

The invitation of Democratic presidential candidates to conferences like this one has helped spotlight issues facing working people and to shape the election debate. The more advanced candidates in the Democratic field are also helping to move the debate toward a program that can inspire voter involvement.

In his closing remarks, Jesse Jackson cautioned against dismissing any candidates as “unelectable.” Be careful about “abandoning your principles too quickly. Sometimes principles make the winner.” He emphasized that voters are driven to vote against their interests by fear, not hope.

When Sen. Paul Wellstone “crossed the color line” to lead the Jackson presidential campaign in Minnesota, he showed equality to be a winning position.

Jackson said the Rainbow/PUSH Coalition will conduct a voter registration crusade in the South this fall “to cross the color line with a winning coalition of Black, Latino and white.” He also called for state by state marches, culminating in a “gigantic working people’s march on Washington.”

The Take Back America conference became a center of coordination and unity for 2004. Broadly built independent efforts at the grass roots can help produce an electoral victory, such as the Immigrant Workers’ Freedom Ride, the Wellstone Action training efforts, the Partnership for America’s Families’ labor-community coalition building, the Cities for Peace election organizing in 13 swing states, ACORN-initiated Livable Wage ballot initiatives, and next spring’s demonstration for a woman’s right to choose.

The stakes couldn’t be higher in 2004. Take hope, roll up your sleeves and get involved.

Joelle Fishman is the chair of the Political Action Commission of the Communist Party USA. She can be reached at joelle.fishman@pobox.com.

Road map leads to Free Trade zone

Thu, 19 Jun 2003 08:34:00 +0000

TEL AVIV – During this last week, just after the dramatically-performed “road map” proclamations, more blood was spilled than in any other week during the past 30 months of the Palestinian Intifada uprising against the Israeli military occupation. This increased bloodshed from the Israeli military and terrorist actions, plus the motives of Sharon’s government and their “greater-Israel” policies, have called into question the legitimacy of the road map.

Astonishingly, what has been almost the entirely left out of the road map equation is George W. Bush’s message, calling for the establishment of a U.S.-Middle East “Free Trade Zone.” This zone would be dominated by U.S. monopoly corporations, and set-up to oust the European Union, particularly Germany and France, from their current position of being the main trading partners in the region. Bush’s real aim is to strengthen the “New World Order” globalization policy in the interests of the leading capitalist power and its big corporations.

According to the Agence France-Presse, Bush’s “move to end the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is part of a wider policy to redraw the political map of the Middle East after the U.S. victory in Iraq and his war on terrorism.”

In addition to moving toward a regional free-trade area, similar to one contemplated for Central and South America, the U.S. would also lobby on behalf of some Middle Eastearn countries that want to join the World Trade Organization, according to CNN.

Although Bush’s words about “free trade” bringing peace and democracy to the region sound nice, the reality faced by many workers around the world is that “free trade” means more exploitation, war and insecurity with the erosion of wages, jobs, workers rights and environmental protection.

Terrie Albano contributed to this article. The author can be reached at pww@pww.org

Puerto Rico fights federal death penalty

Thu, 19 Jun 2003 08:29:00 +0000

New Analysis

U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft has called on federal prosecutors to be more aggressive in seeking the death penalty, provoking angry denunciations from civil libertarians all over the U.S. and, indeed, the world.

In Puerto Rico, the decision to push for the death penalty in the impending trial of Hector Acosta and Joel Rivera, accused of murdering a storekeeper is becoming a critical national struggle.

The last time the death penalty was invoked in Puerto Rico was in 1927. The Constitution of the Estado Libre Asociado (or “Commonwealth”) outlaws the death penalty, an idea inspired by the United Nations’ Universal Declaration of Human Rights. As part of the 1953 agreement between the U.S. and the UN that gave sanction to continued U.S. control of the island, the U.S. recognized that provisions of its Constitution gave Puerto Rico a higher level of sovereignty than U.S. state or Native American tribal constitutions have. Puerto Rico would be within its rights, under U.S. and international law, to claim that any execution that takes place there is unconstitutional and illegal.

If the Puerto Rican Constitution can be overridden by U.S. law, executive order or court decision while, at the same time, the people of Puerto Rico do not have the right to vote for the President of the U.S. or have representation in Congress, then Puerto Rico is simply a colony, which violates the 1953 accord between the U.S. and the UN on the status of the island.

Fermin L. Arraiza Navas, a Puerto Rican legal scholar at the Rauol Wallenberg Institute for Human Rights and Humanitarian Law at the University of Lund, Sweden, put the issue squarely when he said, “The level of sovereignty reached by the Puerto Rican people, as well as their right to external self-determination and independence, distinguish them from the previous examples [e.g. of states within the U.S. and Native American tribes].”

This underscores, he said, “the incapacity of the federal government to intervene in our legal jurisdiction by means of ordinary congressional legislation.” Arraiza points out that taking the prisoners out of Puerto Rico to execute them, another proposal of the Justice Department, would also be a violation of international law. He also urges the Puerto Rican government to protest this situation to the UN.

Pro-independence groups and other progressive forces in the island are demanding that the governor of Puerto Rico and the Resident Commissioner (non-voting representative of Puerto Rico in Congress) take a stand on the issue.

The New Movement for Independence (MNIP) sharply denounced the effort, calling the death penalty a barbarous act and a violation of the Puerto Rican constitution.

Maria de Lourdes Santiago, vice president of the Puerto Rican Independence Party (PIP), warned against waiting for the court to impose the death penalty before mounting a protest: “The Supreme Court of the United States has refused to rule on the applicability of federal death penalty law in Puerto Rico until a sentence of death has been issued. But here [in Puerto Rico] we well know the history of political problems channeled through the courts for, let this offend whom it may, the phantom of colonial status, for which neither the United States nor its local allies can answer, now raises its head through the issue of the death penalty.”

According to Santiago, PIP Senator Fernando Martin is raising this issue in the Puerto Rican legislature demanding that the US Congress exempt Puerto Rico from this illegitimate imposition of the death penalty.

Emile Schepers is an activist in Chicago and can be reached at

Lies, cork, and weapons of mass destruction

Fri, 13 Jun 2003 04:06:00 +0000

Opinion

Conservative Republicans boast of freedom, which they equate with tax cuts and a government strong on military power and weak on social services. They demand accountability from everyone but themselves. This is not new, but the mass media and the Bush administration seem to be carrying it to extremes that combine Julius Caesar with Sid Caesar.

Sammy Sosa, a great baseball player, breaks a bat with cork in it and the mass media pounces. Baseball has been besmirched, and national honor threatened. Meanwhile, Sosa explains this as a mistake, takes full responsibility and is vindicated when X-rays of all his other bats prove negative.

Still, punishment must be meted out, the pundits howl, if the honor of the national pastime, and the belief system of children of all ages, are to be preserved.

A society based on collective responsibility and honor, a socialist society, would take Sammy at his word, respect him and move on, since he is the greatest player in the history of the Cubs, a player who is most responsible for the Cubs’ greatest fame since it won its last World Series in 1908.

Meanwhile, the Bush administration is caught in a massive series of lies about weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, the ostensible reason for fighting the war before “Iraqi freedom” became the main spin line.

But no one is talking about the besmirching of national honor and the imposition of penalties on the administration (maybe a suspension for Bush, Powell and Rumsfeld).

The administration, out of one side of its mouth (Wolfowitz, Rumsfeld), suggests that the weapons were probably destroyed before the invasion and, out of the other side of its mouth, perks up at the sight of any possible microbe in Iraq.

No one in the administration has stepped forward and taken responsibility “like a man,” as Sammy Sosa said and did about his bat incident.

American presidents have been caught in big international lies before, but have at least admitted culpability when the evidence against them was overwhelming. In 1960, when a U-2 spy plane was shot down over the Soviet Union, President Dwight Eisenhower initially denied U.S. involvement. The CIA told Eisenhower that the pilot, Frances Gary Powers, had to be dead and carried nothing incriminating with him, and that the plane wreckage could be labeled “Communist propaganda.” When Powers turned up alive in Moscow and made a full confession, Eisenhower sheepishly changed his story.

A year later, as the CIA carried forward its scheme to invade Cuba with a battalion of counter-revolutionaries trained in Central America, CIA pilots pretending to be Cuban Air Force defectors bombed Cuban installations. President Kennedy and United Nations ambassador Adlai Stevenson hotly denied U.S. involvement in the attack, which they attributed to independent Cuban “freedom fighters.” However, the Cubans had proof. The planes the CIA pilots were flying were the same make and model as Cuban Air Force planes the Batista dictatorship had bought from the U.S. in the 1950s, but Batista had bought cheap planes with Plexiglas noses – he was probably saving his money for the gambling dens and bordellos of Havana – while the CIA planes had solid nose cones. Stevenson particularly was humiliated, and Kennedy was compelled to admit responsibility after the invasion turned into a disastrous defeat.

But Bush is admitting nothing, while Iraqis and U.S. troops continue to die.

In Britain, members of parliament who opposed the Iraq war are putting pressure on Tony Blair, who is responding with pledges to “prove” the existence of weapons of mass destruction. But there are no “no confidence” votes leading to new elections.

The Bush and Blair administrations believe that they can lie with impunity, going from one lie to the next, with media running interference for them if the lies are big enough. The assumption seems to be that most people will think what you want them to think in a specific situation, and then forget when the lies are exposed, because you will be hitting them with new lies. A distinguished journalist, analyzing Sen. Joe McCarthy’s methods in the 1950s, called this tactic “the multiple untruth.”

If we are to prove Bush wrong, we must begin the campaign to defeat him with a serious candidate like Dennis Kucinich, who opposed Bush’s war policies in a principled way and has stuck to his guns while others in the Democratic Party have waffled and scattered.

Norman Markowitz is a history professor at Rutgers University. He can be reached at pww@pww.org

Jim Crow revived in cyberspace

Fri, 13 Jun 2003 03:57:00 +0000

Opinion

Astonishingly, and sadly, four decades after the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. marched in Birmingham, we must ask again, “Do African Americans have the unimpeded right to vote in the United States?”

In 1963, Dr. King’s determined and courageous band faced water hoses and police attack dogs to call attention to the thicket of Jim Crow laws – including poll taxes and so-called “literacy” tests – that stood in the way of Black Americans’ right to have their ballots cast and counted.

Today, there is a new and real threat to minority voters, this time from cyberspace: computerized purges of voter rolls.

The menace first appeared in Florida in the November 2000 presidential election. While the media chased butterfly ballots and hanging chads, a much more sinister and devastating attack on voting rights went almost undetected.

In the two years before the elections, the Florida secretary of state’s office quietly ordered the removal of 94,000 voters from the registries. Supposedly, these were convicted felons who may not vote in Florida. Instead, the overwhelming majority were innocent of any crime, though just over half were Black or Hispanic.

We are not guessing about the race of the disenfranchised: A voter’s color is listed next to his or her name in most Southern states. (Ironically, this racial ID is required by the Voting Rights Act of 1965, a King legacy.)

How did mass expulsion of legal voters occur?

At the heart of the ethnic purge of voting rights was the creation of a central voter file for Florida placed in the hands of an elected, and therefore partisan, official. Computerization and a 1998 “reform” law meant to prevent voter fraud allowed for a politically and racially biased purge of thousands of registered voters on the flimsiest of grounds.

Voters whose name, birth date and gender loosely matched that of a felon anywhere in America were targeted for removal. And so one Thomas Butler (of several in Florida) was tagged because a “Thomas Butler Cooper Jr.” of Ohio was convicted of a crime. The legacy of slavery – commonality of Black names – aided the racial bias of the “scrub list.”

Florida was the first state to create, computerize and purge lists of allegedly “ineligible” voters. Meant as a reform, in the hands of partisan officials it became a weapon of mass voting rights destruction. (The fact that Mr. Cooper’s conviction date is shown on state files as “1/30/2007” underscores other dangers of computerizing our democracy.)

You’d think that Congress and President Bush would run from imitating Florida’s disastrous system. Astonishingly, Congress adopted the absurdly named “Help America Vote Act,” which requires every state to replicate Florida’s system of centralized, computerized voter files before the 2004 election.

The controls on the 50 secretaries of state are few – and the temptation to purge voters of the opposition party enormous.

African-Americans, whose vote concentrates in one party, are an easy and obvious target.

The act also lays a minefield of other impediments to Black voters: an effective rollback of the easy voter registration methods of the Motor Voter Act; new identification requirements at polling stations; and perilous incentives for fault-prone and fraud-susceptible touch-screen voting machines.

No, we are not rehashing the who-really-won fight from the 2000 presidential election. But we have no intention of “getting over it.” We are moving on, but on to a new nationwide call and petition drive – available at www.gregpalast.com – to restore and protect the rights of all Americans and monitor the implementation of frighteningly ill-conceived new state and federal voting “reform” laws.

And so in May in Birmingham we marched again as our fathers and mothers did 40 years ago, this time demanding security against the dangerous “Floridation” of our nation’s voting methods through computerization of voter rolls.

Four decades ago, the opposition to the civil right to vote was easy to identify: night riders wearing white sheets and burning crosses. Today, the threat comes from partisan politicians wearing pinstripe suits and clutching laptops.

Jim Crow has moved into cyberspace – harder to detect, craftier in operation, shifting shape into the electronic guardian of a new electoral segregation.

Martin Luther King III is president of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference. Greg Palast is author of The Best Democracy Money Can Buy, and his investigation of computer purges of Black voters appeared in Harper’s Magazine.

Nothing like a little good news

Thu, 12 Jun 2003 08:45:00 +0000

Sometimes we need to hear a little good news. So often all we hear and read about is bad news – things that bring you down, make you doubt yourself or your neighbor – heck, things that make you doubt humanity. After skimming your local paper or listening to the evening news, admit it: don’t you just shake your head? Some people have given up reading newspapers or watching the news altogether since it can be so depressing.

Well, this newspaper often reports on issues that may be so serious and overwhelming in scope that they could bring you down, but because we try to show not only the problems but also the struggles for change and progress, our reporting adds hope. There’s nothing more inspiring than to see people standing up for what’s right, putting themselves out there – taking a risk, a chance, not turning and running, but standing and fighting.

This newspaper often brings you struggles of ordinary people engaged in heroic battles. Many of the battles don’t turn out how we’d like them to. Or some are in progress, yet to be decided. But there are some victories. And when they come, they are sweet. Here are two recent victories:

We ran a box reporting that an international performing arts center called the HotHouse was suddenly closed down by the city of Chicago. The shutdown threatened to put the center out of business. But after a lot of hard work from HotHouse staff, friends and supporters, the city dropped its charges and the HotHouse has re-opened its doors! PWW readers can be proud that you responded to the call for support. You can see the center’s new schedule of events at www.hothouse.net.

The other piece of good news comes from Minnesota’s Iron Range. We ran a story about a threatened home foreclosure related to a case of predatory lending. The story’s protagonists, Janet Johnson and her family, won the battle and came to a reasonable settlement, avoiding the foreclosure. Johnson and her supporters sent out a big thank-you to all who helped in the struggle.

Two small stories, two small victories. It’s refreshing to hear a little good news.

U.S. dollars back murder in Palestine

Fri, 06 Jun 2003 03:48:00 +0000

Opinion

Even people who feared Israel would take advantage of the international focus on Iraq to increase repression in the occupied Palestinian territories were surprised when a young American became one of the first casualties of this strategy.

She came from the ranks of United States and European pacifist groups that sent human-rights monitors to the region. These volunteers took great risks for peace by placing their bodies between the antagonists after the United States vetoed a UN Security Council resolution calling for the placement of unarmed human rights monitors in the occupied territories.

Rachel Corrie was a 23-year-old student at Evergreen State College in Olympia, Wash. Like many volunteers, she expressed concerns about the Israeli practice of bulldozing Palestinian homes and orchards. The practice violates UN Security Council resolutions that call upon Israel to abide by this legally binding international human rights covenant.

The Bush administration, like the Clinton administration before it, aimed to stop the United Nations from enforcing its resolutions when they were directed at a strategic ally such as Israel, even as the United States prepared to invade Iraq in the name of enforcing UN resolutions.

On March 16, in the Rafah refugee camp in the Israeli-occupied Gaza Strip, Israeli occupation forces were planning to destroy the home of a Palestinian physician and his family. Rafah is supposed to be under the exclusive control of the Palestinian Authority, according to a series of disengagement agreements brokered by the United States. Though the United States is supposed to be the guarantor of the accords and UN Security Council Resolution 1435 calls upon Israel to withdraw to its September 2000 zones of control, the Bush administration has refused to insist that Israel end its re-occupation of Rafah and other parts of designated Palestinian territory.

Rachel was one of several international observers who stood in front of a bulldozer on March 16. Palestinian and United States eyewitnesses said Rachel stood in plain sight of the bulldozer’s driver in a fluorescent orange jacket and had engaged the driver in conversation. After an initial pause, the bulldozer surged forward anyway.

The bulldozer trapped her feet under the dirt. She could not get out of the way and the machine ran over her. The bulldozer then backed up, running Rachel over a second time, mortally wounding her. She died in a nearby hospital a short time later. The Israeli government claims this was an accident. Incredibly, the Bush administration has accepted this interpretation. This response to Rachel’s murder isn’t surprising.

While Amnesty International and other reputable organizations, including Israeli groups such as Rabbis for Human Rights, have condemned widespread attacks by Israeli occupation forces against the civilian Palestinian population, leading members of Congress, such as House Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi, have insisted that Israeli military actions have been aimed “only at the terrorist infrastructure.”

Four months ago, the United States vetoed a UN Security Council resolution criticizing Israel for the murder of three UN workers in two separate incidents in the occupied territories in December. Among these was British relief worker Iain Hook, who was assisting in the reconstruction of Palestinian homes destroyed during an Israeli military offensive last spring. This veto signaled to Israel’s government that it could literally get away with murder, even if it meant killing foreign nationals.

President George W. Bush is preparing to increase aid to Israel by $1 billion despite these deaths and enormous cutbacks in domestic spending for education, health care and housing. The administration is also proposing an $8 billion loan guarantee to Israel’s government. Israel already receives more than a quarter of all U.S. foreign aid, even though it’s a relatively affluent country.

It appears that the Democrats will be joining the Republicans in support for this additional aid package that will further militarize the already militarized Middle East. Indeed, Pelosi and most Democrats in Congress have praised Bush’s “leadership” in his unconditional support for Israel’s policies in the face of widespread international condemnation.

In short, both Republicans and Democrats give short shrift to the lives of Americans who work for justice in impoverished conflict areas.

Stephen Zunes is associate professor of politics and chair of the Peace and Justice Studies Program at the University of San Francisco. He is Middle East editor for the Foreign Policy in Focus Project (www.fpif.org) and author of Tinderbox: U.S. Middle East Policy and the Roots of Terrorism.

The doctrine business

Fri, 06 Jun 2003 03:42:00 +0000

Opinion

I want to get in on this doctrine business. I’ve been trying to figure it out, and it seems to me that doctrines, at least U. S. policy doctrines, go something like this: Someone, most likely a presidential speechwriter, comes up with a catchphrase that puts a spin on policy, then the President declares it somewhere, then pundits all over take it seriously.

It used to be that doctrines had some thought behind them. Take the Monroe Doctrine, much taught in the schools of my day. They taught it as a reaction to European imperialism by the U. S., but ignored the reality that it substituted U. S. imperialism, which wasn’t such a great deal for the Central and South American and Caribbean countries this doctrine got imposed on. It wasn’t a good doctrine, but it was a doctrine.

Nowadays, what passes for a doctrine seems a little bit flimsier, though no less of an imperialist stance.

George W. Bush has proclaimed two doctrines. Not to be an intellectual snob or anything, but these doctrines seem to have the advantage of being shorter than sound bites, with even less real substance behind them. Their substance seems to be in inverse proportion to their scary and threatening nature.

Here’s Boy George’s Terrible Two:

The doctrine of preemptive strike, and

The doctrine of you’re either for us or against us.

The amazing thing is that so many people take these pieces of nonsense seriously. They write newspaper columns about them (not that I have anything against newspaper columns!) and discuss them in editorials and essays. They are referred to in speeches and public pronouncements.

George W. “Stop Me Before I Steal Another Election” Bush likes to look serious and determined when he spouts this blather.

Translated, the first one, the doctrine of preemptive strike, means that the U. S. gets to do whatever it wants, as long as they can make up a threat that enough people will buy. Since the Bush administration, whatever its other failing, is expert at creating excuses and rationalizations, that is no obstacle at all.

The second doctrine, that you’re either with us or against us, is playground logic masquerading as foreign policy. Bush feels right at home with playground logic – just read any of his speeches, which are filled with over-simplifications more appropriate for elementary school boys than for a President.

Anyway, I want to try out this doctrine business. I want to proclaim a doctrine of my own, the “Follow the Money” doctrine. This states that if only you follow the money, you will figure out more easily the real meaning of U. S. foreign policy than if you try to figure it out from what Bush, Powell, and Rumsfeld actually say. A corollary: If money doesn’t explain it all, look at who gains power.

Here’s my second doctrine, the doctrine that peace is better than war. I feel sure that there are a few tens of millions of people who join me in proclaiming this doctrine, not a bad start.

I’ve proclaimed them, now let’s see if any pundit or politician takes them as seriously as they take the Bush doctrines.

Marc Brodine is chair of the Washington State Communist Party. He can be reached at marcbrodine@attbi.com

Local health care struggles tied to 2004 elections

Fri, 06 Jun 2003 03:37:00 +0000

Opinion

The fight for affordable health care and the struggle of health care workers for decent wages and union representation come together at Yale New Haven Hospital (YNHH).

When a top-ranked hospital is exposed as engaging in aggressive debt collections and home foreclosures, it spotlights both the crisis in coverage and the corporatization of medicine. At the same hospital, the drive by 1,800 workers to join the union exemplifies the problems of health care workers who at YNHH, as at many hospitals, form one of the largest concentrations of workers in the area.

In recent years, YNHH has resorted to aggressive tactics to collect on hospital bills owed by poor patients with no health insurance. A study released by the Connecticut Center for a New Economy (CCNE) discovered hundreds of liens against patients’ homes and numerous foreclosures.

The story received national attention in March, when the Wall Street Journal profiled Quinton White. White, 77, had been paying on his wife’s medical bill for twenty years, but, with added interest and legal fees, he now owed $39,000 – more than twice the original debt. CCNE reported many other cases of low-income workers, lacking health insurance, whose medical emergencies exposed them to crippling debt, high interest rates, wage garnishment, foreclosures, harassment from collection agencies, and “bank executions” (where money is seized directly from the patient’s bank account). Victims include workers at YNHH and Yale University School of Medicine.

Adding to the community’s outrage is the existence of $37 million in “free bed” funds, donated with the express purpose of providing free medical care to the poor. Victims of the hospital’s aggressive debt collections say they were never told they could apply for the funds, and Connecticut’s Attorney General is suing the hospital for misusing the donations.

The hospital’s 150 dietary workers have long been members of Health Care Workers’ District 1199, Service Employees International Union (1199/SEIU). They have been working without a contract for over two years, while 1,800 housekeeping and patient care workers are seeking union recognition from YNHH. Over 1,100 workers have signed public statements calling on the hospital to agree to recognize the union when a majority of workers sign union cards. Management has refused this and similar proposals, insisting that it will only recognize an election by the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB). The NLRB process often takes years, and provides employers opportunity for coercion and intimidation.

CCNE’s Hospital Debt Justice Project and 1199/SEIU’s organizing drive at YNHH are closely intertwined. For more than three years, CCNE has worked with 1199/SEIU and the service, clerical and graduate teaching unions at Yale University. YNHH and the university are legally separate, but have overlapping Boards and share buildings, and their employees work side by side.

CCNE and the Yale unions have developed a broad movement for justice for the workers, and for a social contract between the university and hospital and the city of New Haven and its communities. Neighborhood meetings throughout the city have brought together workers, clergy and community activists to discuss the impact of the two Yale institutions both as employers and corporate citizens. A thousand community supporters rallied in support of the unions during a one-week strike this March.

Following a packed May 1 town meeting on YNHH’s uncharitable care, the hospital announced it was closing 170 accounts more than five years old, and was reviewing the remaining 9,900 collection accounts. The first debt cancelled was that of Quentin White. However, the hospital still refuses to meet with representatives of the clergy and the debtors to discuss the coalition’s demands to cancel all prior debt and for public accountability.

The fights for health care and workers’ rights cannot be won only on a local level. Grassroots movements in New Haven and around the country lay the basis for a growing movement for national health care, for workers’ rights, and to change the current pro-corporate, anti-worker policies coming from Washington and many state capitals. The most important part of this struggle will be to oust the ultra-right from Congress and the White House in 2004.

The growing number of uninsured – 40 million and rising – is becoming a top issue as the 2004 elections approach. At the same time, the Bush administration is engaged in a full-scale attack on unions, creating an atmosphere difficult for organizing.

Yale University cites the national economy as an excuse for offering its workers minimal raises. Both the university and the hospital rely on Bush appointees to the NLRB and the courts to block union organizing.

The anti-union stance adopted by YNHH’s corporate-minded Board is in direct contradiction to efforts to provide more national resources for health care. Allowing workers to freely choose union representation, and cooperating with labor and community movements to win a national program of health care for all, would be more in keeping with the hospital’s stated mission. A strong and united movement by workers and communities is the best way to persuade the hospital to such a position.

Arthur Perlo lives and works in New Haven, Conn. He can be reached at authur.perlo@pobox.com

Marxism and prices

Fri, 06 Jun 2003 02:43:00 +0000

The sky-high prices of housing, fuel, medicines and many other necessities raise the question: How are prices really set? The answer has profound implications for billions of people worldwide – and for the class struggle.

The monopoly media often claim that the impersonal “law” of supply and demand is the key factor in determining prices. Supply and demand does affect prices. But “overproduction” is plaguing most industries, including oil. If supply and demand was decisive, the prices of oil and most necessities should be rock-bottom today. More than one-quarter of U.S. industrial capacity is currently idle. An even larger portion is idle worldwide. The reason for the idleness is lack of paying demand (not lack of need).

The media also claims high prices are caused by “excessive wages.” Their real aim is to set the mass of consumers against workers and unions. The Federal Reserve Bank is a champion of that theory. But even the Fed’s studies have shown that wages lag behind prices. In other words, struggles for higher wages follow rising prices, not vice versa.

What “law” did Marx believe was decisive in setting prices? To get to the perhaps surprising answer, consider the price of a bus or subway ride in New York City. A few weeks ago, it jumped 33 percent, from $1.50 to $2.00. This amounts to a significant pay cut for millions of workers and self-employed. In ramming the increase through, NYC transit management cried poverty and losses.

A few months earlier, the same NYC transit management had also cried poverty and demanded considerable givebacks in contract negotiations with the transit workers’ union. “Open your books,” responded the union’s leader, Roger Toussaint. He correctly raised doubts about management’s accounting.

Ignoring the union’s call, the state and city governments threatened to break the union and arrest its leaders. The union settled with the contract containing some significant, but relatively small, pay raises, as well as concessions.

Shortly thereafter, transit management pushed the outrageous fare hike. It justified it on claims of losses, now supposedly exacerbated by the union contract.

But the union’s call to open the books struck a chord. Investigations recently confirmed that management did in fact keep two sets of books, with a false one used against both the union and the millions of transit riders.

A struggle joining the city’s unions with civic and immigrant groups actually has a chance of rolling back the fare hike. Such a struggle in turn can greatly strengthen the transit workers’ and other unions.

Developments around NYC transit hold profound lessons. The union’s call to open the books has the potential of joining labor and millions of transit riders in common struggle. This can result in both lower fares and higher wages. Productivity increases alone more than allow for both.

The decisive factor in ultimately setting the price of a commodity turns out to be struggle. That is also true for wages, the price of labor – the most important “commodity” of all under capitalism.

This is the greatest lesson in the best introductory economics textbook of Marxism, Marx’s “Value, Price and Profit.” In this work, Marx demonstrates that the amount of socially necessary labor embodied in a commodity is what establishes its value.

But Marx also points out that the value of a commodity, and its actual price on the market, can and often do diverge. And the most important factor in setting a commodity’s price is – struggle.

If the capitalists can get away with it, they can and will charge high prices for necessities, such as fuel. The average cost of producing a barrel of oil is only around $2.30. But they currently charge more than ten times that.

If the capitalists can get away with it, they will cut wages. They have recently done just that at several airlines around the world.

But workers, leading other classes, can successfully combat the capitalists. There are many examples of that in history, from struggles to raise wages, even in the Depression years, to struggles to keep down the prices of necessities, including housing. Because production is global, the equations in the struggle are not only local and national, but worldwide.

The author can be reached at pww@pww.org