People Before Profit blog

A readers report: The money game points to budget woes

Fri, 25 Jun 2004 07:55:00 +0000

LOS ANGELES – It was 6:30 p.m. on a Wednesday night in late April. Members of the community were greeted at the door by 10th District area coordinator John Choi: “Welcome to the Money Game,” he said.

Each person was given a symbolic stack of 100 dollar bills and asked how they would spend the money among the 47 city departments. They had 20 minutes to decide how to spend their money.

Where do we begin? How about the fire department? A worthy cause. If I give them $10, I only have $90 left. I put $5 in their box. What about the police department? Personally I don’t like cops much but they were watching us. So I gave them $5 too. Ninety dollars left and 45 city departments still to go: Public Works, the city engineer, the libraries, cultural affairs, general services, and more. Because I like to spend money, I managed to give something to everyone.

After we spent our money, we attended an educational program on the budget process. Los Angeles City Council 10th District Rep. Martin Ludlow spoke to an overflow crowd. This was the third of four scheduled meetings in his district. He told the crowd, “The League of Cities has a website that has a lot of information. One of the things you will find on the site is that 35 cities across America have sent early notification to President Bush of their intention to file for relief from financial insolvency.” It is clear that since Bush took office, every state and local budget is in trouble.

Mayor James Hahn presented his proposed $5.36 billion budget to the City Council on April 20. Zeth Ajemian, a budget researcher, walked us through the key parts of the proposal: a $3 million cut to environmental services, a $3.6 million cut to the cultural affairs department (one-third of their budget), elimination of 295 city positions and a hiring freeze, improved debt management and cash flow, with equitable tax collection. In all, a reduction in city spending of roughly $300 million.

One very controversial part of the proposal was a plan to transfer $60 million from the Department of Water and Power (DWP) to the city’s general fund in the form of an interest-bearing loan. Residents were not happy with this idea. Many residents voiced displeasure with the cuts to environmental services and cultural affairs, too.

So how did the money game results compare with Hahn’s budget proposal? The residents’ spending was near the same as mayor’s in most categories, but they want more of everything.

In real life, community struggles subsequently led to the restoration of funds for the Cultural Affairs, Women’s, and the Status of Aging commissions. However, the layoffs, hiring freeze, and borrowing of DWP funds were kept in the budget passed early in June.

Meanwhile, Los Angeles County is facing cuts in its programs from Gov. Schwarzenegger’s proposed budget. According to Service Employees Local 660, which represents the county workers, California still faces a $15 billion deficit despite passage of Propositions 57 and 58 last March. If the governor’s proposed cuts are enacted, libraries, beaches, parks, animal shelters, child support services, and other public services could be eliminated or drastically reduced. The cuts also threaten L.A. County workers’ 2.5 percent raise scheduled for next year.

If you live in the Golden State call 1-877-415-5155 and tell the governor we are the people and we don’t want cuts to our services.

The author can be reached at pww@pww.org.

Juneteenth celebrated across Texas

Fri, 25 Jun 2004 07:50:00 +0000

GRAND PRAIRIE, Texas – “Juneteenth,” which began on June 19, 1865, in Galveston, Texas, when General Gordon Granger of the Union Army gave a long-delayed reading of the Emancipation Proclamation, is now celebrated throughout the South and points beyond. Thirteen states have named it a holiday.

There were celebrations this year in every Texas population center where African Americans live. The commemorations were bigger than usual because the 19th fell on a Saturday, so crowds were not divided into those who take the working day off and those who don’t.

Civil rights groups rise to their highest glory on Juneteenth. In Houston, marchers included a group in Buffalo Soldier uniforms. In Galveston’s annual celebration, the state’s oldest newspaper reported that churches with big African American congregations played a dominant role.

Blues music and displays of African American history were the big features in Dallas’ Fair Park. The statue “Dream of Freedom,” by artist David Newton, was dedicated at Freedman’s Cemetery downtown. Parents and grandparents proudly taught their children about the long and continuing struggle for fair treatment in Texas.

Both of the sites in Dallas have a sobering history. Freedman’s Park was only begun after the scandal when highway construction crews began digging up cadavers from unmarked slave graves. Fair Park, constructed on the sites of hundreds of demolished African American homes, was available to African Americans only one day a year for its first several decades of existence.

Texans celebrate every June 19, but they know that the grand battle continues. For example, petitions are being circulated this year for a Juneteenth stamp. Computer users can sign up at http://www.juneteenth.com/juneteenth_petition.htm.

The author can be reached at flittle7@yahoo.com.

Kravitz learns lesson on voting

Fri, 25 Jun 2004 07:30:00 +0000

Lenny Kravitz got a lot of flak last year for promoting a peace song via Rock the Vote when it turned out he hadn’t voted in over a decade. Since then, the rocker has changed his tune and says he’s learned his lesson – and looks forward to voting in this year’s presidential election.

“The couple years I didn’t vote, I had kind of lost the feeling,” Kravitz said. “I was like, ‘Man, this is all ridiculous.’ But I realized that I was wrong. To take those years off and not vote was absolutely wrong.”

Probably no one would have noticed that Kravitz wasn’t voting – after all, he played many of the Democratic fundraisers for Al Gore during the 2000 campaign. But when he offered “We Want Peace” as a free download on the Rock the Vote site, the Smoking Gun web site took Kravitz to task and posted his voting history, or lack thereof.

Kravitz registered in New York in October 1992 and voted in that year’s presidential election, but hadn’t voted since. When reached for a response, Kravitz released a statement at the time acknowledging his voting lapse, and called it a “mistake” that he had taken the right to vote for granted.

“That’s why I’m back in this now,” Kravitz said. “Since then, I voted a couple months ago in Miami. Even just the local stuff, the small stuff, I’m voting. I just voted in the primaries, and that was within the last six months ... I realized I was wrong. And now I'm back, and everybody should vote. We’ve got to vote.”

For more of this interview with Kravitz, tune in to MTV2’s “Spoke ‘N’ Heard,” airing June 27 at 11:30 a.m. ET.

– MTV

U.S. govt threatens artist for Cuba travel

Fri, 25 Jun 2004 07:27:00 +0000

Brock Satter, aka Bojah, bandleader of “spoken-soul-hop” fusion group Bojah and the Insurrection, received a letter from the U.S. Department of Treasury requesting information on his recent trip to Cuba and threatening penalties against him for failure to comply. Satter was a featured artist at the ninth annual Hip Hop Festival in Havana.

The Havana Hip Hop Festival is a well established event, which has featured U.S. artists such as Common, Mos Def, Talib Kweli, and Dead Prez, as well as Cuban groups and others from around the world. Erykah Badu was also slated to perform at the ninth festival, which took place in August 2003, but was prevented from travelling to the island by the blackout that occurred in New York and other parts of the U.S. and Canada at that time.

Satter, a professional artist and producer, travelled to Cuba legally under current U.S. regulations.

“This is an attempt by the U.S. government to stifle freedom of expression and the right of U.S. citizens to freely exchange ideas and culture with their Cuban counterparts,” Satter said. “I intend to fight this harrassment and I encourage others who have received such threatening letters to fight them as well. Not only is this harrassment of myself, but the law itself is an attack on our basic right to travel.”

Satter’s legal team is demanding the Department of Treasury drop all inquiries and further attempts to prosecute him for violation of travel restrictions. Cuba is designated as an “enemy” country under the Trading With the Enemy Act. Unless authorized by a license, U.S. citizens are restricted from spending money while in Cuba, effectively restricting travel to the island. Maximum civil penalties for violation is $55,000. The maximum criminal penalties are $250,000 and 10 years in prison.

There are general provisions under the regulations which permit travel under certain guidelines. One guideline allows for travel by 'full-time professionals whose travel transactions are directly related to professional research in their professional areas, provided that their research: (1) is of a non-commercial nature, (2) comprises a full work schedule in Cuba, and (3) has a substantial likelihood of public dissemination.”

Satter travelled under these general provisions. Satter was not paid for his performance at the festival and has been speaking about what he learned about the Cuban hip hop scene at colleges, high schools, and community meetings around the country. Several hundred thousand U.S. citizens travel to Cuba every year with or without a license. Thousands of people await prosecution by U.S. courts. The law is being challenged by many as unconstitutional.

Film explores global rituals of dance and rhythm

Fri, 25 Jun 2004 07:24:00 +0000

NEW YORK – Australian-based Luna Pictures will present the New York premiere screening of “Dances of Ecstasy” at the Knitting Factory on Wednesday, June 30, from 7:30 p.m. to 2:00 a.m. Doors open at 7:30 with performances leading up to the screening, which begins promptly at 8:30 p.m., followed by a global party celebration. The film played in Los Angeles June 11 to a sold-out house of 800 and will open in San Francisco in July.

Filmmakers Michelle Mahrer and Nicole Ma will attend the NYC event and performers will include Yoruba trance drummers from Nigeria Omo Ibile.

“Dances of Ecstasy” explores how different cultures around the world connect with the spiritual dimension through dance and rhythm. Some of the traditions featured in the film are Sufi dervishes from Turkey, Spirit possession communities in Nigeria and Brazil, Moroccan trance and the Bushmen of the Kalahari in Southern Africa.

“Dances of Ecstasy,” a one-hour documentary, is a visual and aural feast for the senses, an innovative documentary blending exciting dance rituals, evocative imagery, interviews and a spellbinding global music soundtrack featuring original music recorded on location in Nigeria, Namibia, Morocco, Korea, Turkey and Brazil mixed with electronica and percussion. The film is an inspiration to dance, and to reconnect with a sense of the sacred that many have lost touch with in modern life.

The film’s world premiere took place in 2003 at the Melbourne International Arts Festival and then at Sydney Carnivale with global dance events that attracted sellout audiences, inspiring a diverse range of people from different communities, cultures and ages to come together on the dance floor. The success of the events encouraged the filmmakers to combine the screening of the film with the global dance party concept.

Filmmakers Mahrer and Ma began working in New York as a producer/director team of music videos. On their return to Australia they created Luna Pictures, specializing in films that explore cross-cultural themes. Mahrer is one of Australia's leading dance filmmakers. Her works include television documentaries on the Bangarra dance theater, choreographer Meryl Tankard, and leading Australian ballerinas Lucette Aldous, Marilyn Jones and Marilyn Rowe. Ma began her production career in New York working as a location manager on feature films, including Spike Lee’s “Malcolm X,” and went on to produce music documentaries for Annie Lennox, Michael Bolton and Newport Jazz Festival.

The San Francisco date and location are Friday, July 9, at 8:00 p.m. at StudioZ tv. Tickets are available through StudioZ tv 415-252-7666 or www.studioz.tv.

The Knitting Factory is located at 74 Leonard Street (B’way & Church). Tickets for the “Dances of Ecstasy” screening and party are $20. Advance tickets may be purchased through the Knitting Factory: 212-219-3132 or www.knittingfactory.com.

Interview with Robert Meeropol: Bush and his cronies are so dangerous

Fri, 25 Jun 2004 07:16:00 +0000

Robert Meeropol is the founder and executive director of the Rosenberg Fund for Children (RFC). Meeropol is the younger son of Ethel and Julius Rosenberg. In 1953, when he was 6 years old, the United States government framed up and executed his parents for “conspiring to steal the secret of the atomic bomb” despite a worldwide campaign to spare their lives. The Rosenbergs were victims of the anti-communist hysteria of the time.

Meeropol is the author of “An Execution in the Family,” recently released in paperback (St. Martin’s Press). This political memoir chronicles Meeropol’s journey from childhood victim of McCarthy-era repression, to 1960s militant activist, to politically engaged parent and law student, to founder and leader of the RFC.

The RFC provides for the educational and emotional needs of both targeted activist youth and children in this country whose parents have been harassed, injured, jailed, lost jobs or died in the course of their progressive activities.

Carolyn Rummel interviewed Meeropol for the People’s Weekly World via telephone June 15, one year after her first interview with him when “An Execution in the Family” was originally published in hardcover.

PWW: A year ago you were already warning about the similarities between your parents’ case and what’s happening in the government today. How has the situation changed in the past year? .

RM: On the one hand, the government ... is doing everything it can to bring back the McCarthy period ... the government’s line is, “Oh, all the people complaining about civil liberties, don’t they trust us? Don’t they know that we’re only going to use these powers in the most responsible way?”

And then, of course, you have the Abu Ghraib prison photos and the torture memo and all the stuff that’s come out. That has alarmed a lot of people. So while the government’s position hasn’t changed one iota, there has been a pretty massive public outcry against where they want to go.

One of the things that has struck me, I’m still going out and doing readings from my book ... I used to read from the beginning section of the book [the trial and execution of the Rosenbergs] and then a section in the middle [about his work, as an adult, to clear their name]. As time has gone by, I tend to now read from the beginning section and a portion of the epilogue. And the epilogue was written in the wake of Sept. 11 and is about post-Sept. 11 America. What surprises me ... is that although it was written in the summer of 2002, with the exception of actually invading and occupying Iraq, it could have been written yesterday. The forces that are in control pretty much are pushing the same agenda in the same way.

PWW: You mentioned Abu Ghraib prison. There’s a certain similarity to the McCarthy period in that some people who might not have approved of what they saw were afraid to speak up and say, “This isn’t right.” .

RM: That’s been shown over and over again, particularly in an army circumstance where the model is obedience. There are many ways you can characterize the Bush administration but essentially it wants to impose a military model upon society of “obey.” You obey those in authority and you don’t question. You put people in the military and you put them in this situation and it’s particularly difficult for people to come forward.

I was speaking in Baltimore recently and the guy whose house I stayed, an old friend, is a public defender. ... One of the things that he knows as a public defender and someone working in the criminal justice system is the reason these people were acting as prison guards in Iraq is because they were prison guards at home. So what does that say about what’s going on in American prisons? ... If this is the kind of thing with a little bit of encouragement they could be brought to do, you can imagine how they’re treating prisoners in the United States.

PWW: What’s your outlook on the November elections? .

RM: I’m going to vote for Kerry. In some ways it’s almost foolish that I’m voting for Kerry because I live in Massachusetts where he’s going to win and get our electoral votes anyway so what’s the point? In some ways I should be free to vote my conscience and vote for some person more to the left but I want Kerry to get as many votes as he possibly can, not because I think Kerry’s any great shakes because I don’t think he is. It’s obvious he represents powerful forces in American society who essentially want America to be the way it is, with some minor adjustments here and there. ... But I think these people who are in power, this cabal of Bush and his cronies, are so dangerous ... if Bush is not defeated the space in which we have to operate [will be diminished] and the trend toward more authoritarian government and right-wing domination ... will continue and I want to derail these folks. The best way I can think of to derail these folks is to throw them out of office.

But I have few illusions that this is going to start a trend in the right direction. This group or something like them is going to come back into power again. This group or people like them were in power during the McCarthy period, they were in power during the Reagan period, now they’re in power again. ... [T]he point is that as long as you’re in this sort of Democrat/Republican alternating power, these kind of things are going to keep coming up, this authoritarian bent, this type of right-wing fundamentalists are going to keep coming back, this kind of society, the direction we’re going in, is going to keep returning. We have to figure out a way to get beyond that and yet at this juncture I think it’s just really important to get Bush out.

PWW: What are you working on now? .

RM: The bulk of my work is the Rosenberg Fund for Children, continuing to spread the word of what we do, and gather beneficiaries, and make grants and gather contributions and do all the work that needs to be done. Sometimes people outside of institutions ... they just don’t know what’s involved in maintaining something like this. It’s more than a full-time job.

The other big thing I should mention, the thing your readers should be aware of is there’s a very important international political event taking place in Montreal October 6-9. [It] will be the second worldwide congress to abolish the death penalty. There will be people from every continent; there will be thousands of activists from all over the world. It’s really being pushed by European countries and I’ll be attending and participating. I went to the first one in Strasbourg, France, in 2001 ... and it was one of the most remarkable experiences I’ve ever had. This is not going to be a particularly radical conference but it’s going to be people with good sensibilities from all over the world and it’ll be a wonderful opportunity to meet very engaged people we should have connections to from all over. It’s going to be hard to find publicity in the United States, though there will be efforts to publicize it as we get into September but ... that’s another big thing on the horizon.

The author can be reached at crummel@pww.org. (See related story below)

* * * * * *

Rosenberg granddaughter film on HBO

“Heir to an Execution,” by Ivy Meeropol, HBO, 92 minutes.

Check local listings for showings.

In 1953, Julius and Ethel Rosenberg were executed by the U.S. government, their names seared into history. This film chronicles the efforts of filmmaker Ivy Meeropol to come to terms with the lives and deaths of the Rosenbergs – her grandparents. Meeropol weaves archival footage, family home movies and conversations with her father Michael, his younger brother Robert and other relatives and associates of the Rosenbergs. The result is a deeply personal and sometimes painfully emotional film that paints a never-before-seen portrait of a devoted couple who came to symbolize the victims of Cold War hysteria.

Robert Meeropol, in his interview with the World, said people may wonder, “Why is HBO airing this film that casts Ethel and Julius Rosenberg in a sympathetic light?” He said be believes “there are very powerful forces within our society who are far from revolutionary or radical ... but these powerful forces are actually quite anxious about the direction that the Bush administration is taking society. One of the ways they can strike back culturally is to produce mass market films like this that show what can happen if right-wing repressive people are able to do everything they want to do. The showing of Ivy’s film at this point has as much to do with today as it [does] with the McCarthy period.”

Whose mug shot on the currency?

Fri, 25 Jun 2004 07:01:00 +0000

Realizing that it will be impossible to drag out the Reagan funeral ceremonies until Election Day, the new PR ploy the Republicans came up with is to put him on our currency. On Madison Avenue this is called “subliminal selling.”

The symbolism of putting him on the dime, now adorned with FDR’s visage, is a little too heavy-handed. FDR was put on the coin because of his leadership during World War II, but also because it was under him that we got some of the safety nets that Reagan and his followers proceeded to dismantle. Ousting FDR to put Reagan in his place would thus be, in a sense, appropriate – trash his policies, oust his image – but it might make people think about these things. We can’t have that, now can we?

Somebody said Alexander Hamilton should be kicked off the $10 bill and Reagan substituted. But now they’re talking about ousting Andrew Jackson from the $20 to make room for Ronnie.

Jackson was a Democrat, the first U.S. president to identify himself as such. I don’t remember how he got on the $20 bill in the first place. Jackson was arrogant, violent tempered and pro-slavery. His detractors called him “King Andrew I.” Hamilton was killed in a duel, but Jackson has the distinction of being the only U.S. president who killed someone else in a duel (before he became president). But the worst national memory of Jackson is his brutal expulsion of the “Five Civilized Tribes” from their homeland in the southeastern U.S., a traumatic migration in which thousands died from exhaustion, exposure and hunger. These tribes – the Cherokee, Muskogee, Chickasaw, Choctaw and Seminole – had done nothing to merit this rough treatment except that they possessed land which some white people, Jackson’s people, wanted. So Jackson drove them out, clean over to Oklahoma. When the Supreme Court declared the State of Georgia’s initial expulsion of the Cherokees to be unconstitutional, Jackson shouted “[Chief Justice] John Marshall has made his decision, now let him enforce it!” Then he used his federal authority to kick out all five tribes. So in my opinion, ousting Jackson from the $20 bill is a good idea.

But replacing him with Iran-Contra Ronnie? With the “spinach is a vegetable” Gipper? No way. Notice that on our major currency, there are no women or minorities represented, except for Susan B. Anthony and Sacagawea on not-often-seen coins. This is not because we only put “dead presidents” on the money – Hamilton and Franklin are on currency, and they were never presidents. It is because rich white males rule here.

I say, oust Jackson from the $20 and replace him with a minority and/or a woman – one who fought for justice. Poetic justice would be to replace him with Tecumseh, the Shawnee war leader who tried, but failed, to warn the southeastern tribes that people like Jackson would be their ruin.

Frederick Douglass, Sojourner Truth, Harriet Tubman, Dr. Martin Luther King or Cesar Chavez would be good candidates.

And why stop with the currency? It is a rotten shame that the city of Gary, Ind., bears the name of the hanging judge from the Haymarket Trial. Re-name it as Du Bois or Robeson, Ind., and perhaps its fortunes will have an up-tick. In Evanston, north of Chicago, there is a Custer Street, which should be changed to Sitting Bull Street.

Look around your hometown and you will see that the symbolism of naming things is linked to the way power is held and exercised in society. Though most things are named for white males, you will have to search hard to find a Eugene V. Debs Federal Building or a John Reed Avenue or a William Z. Foster Branch Public Library. The symbolic code reflects the material reality, and is designed to convince the average person that the social order is natural and immutable. By fighting to change the symbolic code, we undermine, in some small way, this mystified version of reality. Let’s do it!

Emile Schepers is a frequent contributor from Chicago. He can be reached at pww@pww.org.

Bill Cosby attacks poor African Americans

Fri, 25 Jun 2004 05:51:00 +0000

At the NAACP Brown v. Board of Education 50-year anniversary commemoration, Bill Cosby gave an off-the-cuff speech condemning poor African American youth and their parents. He criticized poor Black parents for being willing to buy $500 sneakers for their children rather than spend $200 for Hooked on Phonics. Dr. Cosby also held poor African American parents responsible for not setting the proper example for their children by speaking standard English. Poor African American youth were criticized for their use of non-standard English and the widespread adoption of “pimp culture.”

Bill Cosby’s castigating comments toward poor African Americans expose an internal pain. If we care about the African American people to any extent, we share the same pain on some level or another. Still, Cosby’s behavior in issuing such an account is as bad as that of the worst misguided Black youth whose stereotyped and caricatured behavior he universalizes.

Do we pay attention? The masses of Black children have been relegated to an inferior education by way of a system that is funded inequitably and, hence, is academically unequal. Poor Black students come from families that are poor. Have we not heard that the majority of African American youth struggle to graduate from high school, stay out of trouble, and are successful in their attempt? Are we so blinded by our own pain that we, too, will resort to the easy way out of blaming the downtrodden rather than searching for the systemic causes of the problems? No doubt too many of our youth do fall, but the question for responsible adults is, how can we strengthen the fight for a better quality of life for all of our children in every realm? Is it helpful to turn away from the faults of the system and blame instead those who are oppressed and exploited as a result of the system’s inherent problems?

Where do our youth get the notion that pimp culture is equivalent to African American culture? How is mass pimp culture cultivated and by whom? Clearly, teenage children cannot be to blame for the wide propagation of the illusion that to be Black means to embrace a popularized version of the pimp lifestyle. Is it accurate to blame rap music, or should we examine further the industry which covets only the gangsta style of rap music? Are our children being pimped out as a self-directed activity or is there an organized cultivation and promotion of pimp-ology by an industry outside of the Black community?

Bill Cosby’s remarks provided an opening for many journalists to join in his assault on poor African Americans. The rest of us need to raise our voices and scream in unison, “Wait one darn minute!” Our children are not the cause of these problems, nor are their parents. Our children need voices that defend them while demanding from them that they not become the fabricated caricature promoted in various venues.

Non-standard English as spoken by African American youth in particular, especially though not exclusively in this day and time, has an element of rebellion embedded in it. Some youth choose to speak non-standard English with each other out of a sense of revolt. They constantly create new language constructs that are not meant to flow into the world of work, though the business world sees fit to exploit them quite well. Most Black youth who speak non-standard English also speak standard English. The struggle is to expose to our youth the historic fight waged by African Americans for the right to be educated, to speak, write and read English well. Almost 20 years ago, Dr. James Jackson presented such an argument and made the point quite eloquently.

This subcultural context is worth considering, as well as the influence of Southern dialect and language survivals from the period of slavery. Cosby’s remarks promote self-blame and self-loathing, the main effect of which is self-destruction in one form or another.

We need to delve deeper. We cannot take the easy way out. We have to fight for our children and their parents to have a full quality of life that includes union wage jobs, real quality public education, heath care, housing, and recreation. If this struggle is not victorious, the human species will be destroyed. Please, Dr. Cosby, join us!

Dee Myles is a Chicago activist. She can be reached at pww@pww.org.

Health care actions bridge America

Fri, 25 Jun 2004 05:02:00 +0000

PHILADELPHIA – From the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco across the country to this city’s Blue Cross and Blue Shield corporate offices, tens of thousands of union members, community activists and their families marched for “Health Care for All” on June 19.

This was the second National Health Care Day of Action sponsored by Service Employees International Union (SEIU), Jobs with Justice, Americans for Health Care and Rock the Vote. With nearly 44 million people in the U.S. without health care coverage and millions more with limited coverage, rallies in 165 cities and towns demanded that universal, quality, adequate affordable health care to “bridge the gap” be a priority issue in the 2004 presidential election.

In San Francisco, the three-mile trek across the Golden Gate Bridge kicked off the SEIU national convention in that city. The radiant energy of the purple-clad marchers shown through the early morning fog as 10,000 made the bridge walk. Afterwards marchers filled Chrissy Field to hear speakers sharing both personal stories and organizing victories in the struggle for affordable health care. With contingents of union members wearing T-shirts proclaiming “Bush a GO-GO,” the message of the march was clearly aimed at elected officials, and the 2004 presidential candidates in particular.

In Massachusetts, 1,000 marchers crossed the Longfellow Bridge from Cambridge into Boston, where they met up with 100 members of the Massachusetts Senior Action Council. Boston City Council member Felix Arroyo said, “Health care is not a privilege, not a business. It is a right.”

In New York, among those crossing the Brooklyn Bridge to highlight the need to “bridge the gap” were members of SEIU Local 32-BJ who are waging a campaign to win health benefits for 6,000 part-time janitors. About 300,000 New York City residents are uninsured.

In Chicago, speaking to a crowd of 1,000 at the lakefront Lincoln Park, former Vermont Gov. Howard Dean emphasized the importance of the struggle for universal health care in this year’s presidential campaign. He reminded voters that this was the original issue that impelled him into his historic grassroots presidential campaign. “Health insurance is a basic tenet of a civilized society,” he said.

“Drop Bush, not bombs!” chanted members of SEIU, AFSCME, the United Steelworkers and the NAACP as they marched across Baltimore’s Hanover Street bridge. Ernie Greco, president of the Baltimore Central Labor Council, told the rally Bush “is the worst president ever on health care.”

Hundreds gathered outside of Philadelphia City Hall to demand “Health Care for All.” They heard some troubling statistics from Fabricio Rodriguez of Philadelphia Jobs With Justice. Over 2.8 million Pennsylvanians have no health care. Seventy-seven percent of them are in working families. In Pennsylvania, 52.9 percent of Latinos and 43.3 percent of African Americans have no health care coverage.

Adult Basic, a health insurance plan for low-income adults funded with Pennsylvania’s tobacco settlement money, closed its enrollment after the fund was raided to plug the state budget deficit. Some 100,000 Pennsylvanians were left stranded on the program’s waiting list, State Rep. Babette Josephs (D-Philadelphia) informed the crowd. However, Blue Cross, a “non-profit” which administers the plan, is sitting on a $3.5 billion surplus. Josephs’ bill in the Legislature, HB 2562, calls for Blue Cross to use part of this surplus to fund Adult Basic for those on the waiting list. “It is a scandal,” said Josephs. “Let the governor know how you feel.”

At the Independence Blue Cross building, Susan Turpening, the uninsured granddaughter of Blue Cross founder E.A. van Steenwyk, reminded marchers of the original purpose of Blue Cross/Blue Shield, which she accused of “operating as a for-profit in every way but name.” Mindy Barbakoff, director of Childspace Co-op, said it would be impossible for the daycare center to continue paying for full benefits for its workers if insurance rates rise 29 percent. This is an ongoing problem for all small businesses and agencies.

Dr. Gene Bishop pointed out that 18,000 Americans died last year because they lacked health care. “I can’t do what I was trained to do in medical school,” he said. Before leaving the Blue Cross building, the crowd shouted, “Shame! Shame!” as a giant inflated rat was delivered to Blue Cross executives.

The author can be reached at phillyrose1@earthlink.net. Clara Webb, Tim Wheeler, Rahel Malaga, and Roberta Wood contributed to this story.

Books to Beat Bush

Fri, 25 Jun 2004 04:12:00 +0000

George W. Bush and Richard B. Cheney have created the most secretive presidency of my lifetime. Their secrecy is far worse than during Watergate, and it bodes even more serious consequences. Their secrecy is extreme – not merely unjustified and excessive but obsessive.” With these ominous words, John Dean begins his self-described indictment of the presidency of George W. Bush.

Dean, a former counsel to the late President Richard Nixon, is no stranger to dirty politics and was a key figure in bringing down Nixon. Now, he warns Americans that George W. Bush may be much worse. In fact, Dean observes that Bush and Cheney “have pushed dirty tactics into a new dimension” and what we now have is “government by virtual gag order.”

Dean has intended that his book be a bill of particulars supporting an argument for the indictment of the Bush administration. He argues that their secrecy is out-of-hand and is “so pervasive and troubling that it must be called sinister, for it has dreadful potential consequences for all Americans.” Dean charges that the post-9/11 actions of Bush are “carefully calculated policies and plans,” and it is an understatement to refer to their secret presidency as “undemocratic.”

The author’s greatest fear is that in the event of another 9/11-type terrorist incident, “we have the wrong leaders,”and Dean fears for the very fabric of our Constitution, which he expects could become unraveled. He believes that Bush and Cheney have exploited and politically manipulated the aftermath of 9/11 for their own selfish political ends.

Likewise, Dean views both Bush and Cheney as “zealots who are convinced of their own wisdom, oblivious to not only what Americans think but the opinions of the entire world.”

Dean says the vice president has become a “co-president incognito” who “works behind closed doors and does not answer to Congress or the public.” He further asserts that “Bush is not sufficiently knowledgeable about their policies, to answer questions about them adequately. … It is not that he is stupid, only ignorant and apparently by design.” Dean cites columnist Georgie Anne Geyer, who observed, “With this court, Dick Cheney has become George Bush’s Cardinal Richelieu,” i.e., a shrewd tyrant who believes the end justifies the means. The author also cites cynics who say “that if anything happens to Cheney, Bush would become president.”

The author first compares and contrasts the Bush administration with the Nixon administration and then organizes the chapters of his bill of particulars into five, often overlapping, topical areas that include stonewalling, obsessive secrecy, secret government, hidden agendas, and scandals or worse.

In terms of stonewalling, Dean’s explains that Bush and Cheney have put all of their personal and private matters off-limits, beginning with the campaign in 2000. Bush will not discuss his younger years and refuses questions on his background and character. He cites his proudest career accomplishments starting at the age of 42. Likewise, Cheney has never been forthcoming about his health, which includes five heart attacks. Dean cites medical experts who believe Cheney’s health problems could pose a very serious liability.

Dean describes the administration’s tight control of the White House as shrink-wrapping (which is what Bush literally did to his Texas gubernatorial papers when he illegally stashed them away from public scrutiny.)

When traveling, Bush used “his advance men and the Secret Service to remove demonstrators from his sight” – an illegal practice also carried out by Nixon. The administration is tight-lipped. Dean observes, “Officials have largely stopped talking to the press except in set-piece briefings. Interviews are refused. Phone inquiries are left unanswered.”

The events of 9/11 proved a real turning point for Bush. Dean claims that during the crisis it was both Cheney and Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld who were more engaged in what experts call “Supreme Command” than was the commander-in-chief himself, who initially continued to read a story to school children in Florida.

“For Cheney and like-minded associates, 9/11 was a perfect storm, a moment they had even anticipated when looking earlier for a catalyst necessary to accomplish their broader goals.” Dean accuses Cheney and associates of working for years to find an opportunity to implement a hidden agenda. 9/11 and the so-called war on terror provided an excuse to use government secrecy to hide a major part of their real agenda – world dominance and a preemptive strike military policy.

Dean charges that the administration has deliberately hidden their agenda from the American people and, as a necessary consequence, misled this country into the war in Iraq. “They wanted war and felt that without their distortions, they would be unable to muster public and congressional support.” Dean deduces that “the facts are clear – however they are sliced, diced, spun – that Bush and Cheney took this nation to war on their hunches, their unreliable beliefs, and their unsubstantiated intelligence – and used deception with Congress, both before and after launching their war.”

Dean also adds that no part of the hidden agenda “is more disturbing than the stealth mistreatment of the environment” and he charges Bush with initiating many rollbacks of environmental laws, mostly in secrecy. These changes are either not widely publicized or very hard to obtain through normal Freedom of Information Act channels. Dean notes that Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has estimated that this administration has rolled back over 200 environmental laws.

Finally, Dean cautions: “This White House cannot – and should not – be trusted in times of emergency since it has its own agenda.” The attacks by the Bush administration on our democratic freedoms in the name of fighting terror leads Dean to conclude: “Indeed, this administration is surely Osama bin Laden’s dream team, given its governing techniques.”

The author can be reached at pww@pww.org (See related story below)

******

During the days following the 9/11 terrorist attack, at a time when all commercial and private aviation was grounded in the United States, the Bush administration coordinated the air pickup and exodus of over 140 Saudi citizens who were in this country. The departees were from two families: the royal Saudi family and the family of the Bin Ladens – Osama’s family. Craig Unger, author of “House of Bush, House of Saud,” gave additional information when interviewed on the new progressive radio network, Air America. He noted that 24 of the Saudis were members of the Bin Laden family, and that eight airplanes were sent to 12 U.S. cities for the pickup.

Given that 15 of the 19 Sept. 11 terrorists were Saudis, it seemed unusual that none of the repatriated Saudis were reportedly even questioned.

Unger states in his book, “In the end, the FBI was only able to check papers and identify everyone on the flights.”

Unger further notes that permission for departure would have to come from “the highest levels of the executive branch of the President George W. Bush’s administration.”

The author views the Bush administration evacuation of Saudis a result of a two decades-long, largely unknown, personal and business relationship that had developed between the Bush family and the Saudi royal family.

Unger elaborates on some of the activities carried on between the two families, which included the Iran-Contra scandal, continued support of Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein in his long war with Iran even after it became widely known that Hussein was using poison chemical weapons, Saudi money going into an ailing oil company in which George W. Bush had a substantial stake, Saudis making common business cause with the elder Bush (George H.W.) by investing in the Carlyle Group, and Saudis fighting side-by-side with George H. W. in the Gulf War.

The Bush-Saudi relationship developed from major Saudi investment in the U.S., which began shortly after the 1973 Arab-Israeli war. Saudi Arabia was awash in hundreds of billions of dollars made from rising oil prices in 1973-74, and it needed a military partner to protect its financial interests (the U.S.), and a place to safely stash its cash (again, the U.S.).

The Saudis wove a tight military, political, and economic alliance with the United States.

Houston, Texas, more than any other city in our country, was the greatest beneficiary of Saudi cash, as over 80 Houston-based companies developed “strong business relationships with the Saudis.”

In conjunction with their investments, the Saudis successfully developed powerful political ties with American power brokers using the influence gained from their large investments. Saudi investors would even dump money into troubled companies with debt or regulatory problems especially if they “just happened to be owned by men who had or might have White House ties.”

Eventually, the Texas connections paid off and led to ties with James A. Baker III, powerful Houston attorney, a chief of staff under Reagan, and close personal friend of Reagan’s vice president, George H.W. Bush.

By this time, the Saudi royal family felt increasingly threatened by the rising tide of militant Islamic fundamentalism, especially in revolutionary Iran. The United States, feeling the loss of its loyal puppet, the Shah of Iran, in 1979, chose Saudi Arabia to replace Iran as its primary Muslim ally in the Mideast. Conveniently, Saudi Arabia had no constitutional restraints on covert operations and acted accordingly.

Unger notes that Saudi-American relations became “an ever more complex web of international defense and oil deals, foreign policy decisions, covert operations, and potentially compromising financial relationships between Saudis and American politicians who shuttled back and forth between the public and private sectors.” Standing right in the center of this complex web for 20 years has been the Bush family, first, George H.W. and then his son George W., and also Prince Bandar of the royal family – a personal friend of the Bushes, and longtime Saudi ambassador to the United States.

Central to the Saudi-American relationship is what Unger terms “a double marriage.” The author explains that “if one thought of the U.S.-Saudi activities as a steady relationship, the Saudis were already married to someone else.”

The Saudi royal family has based its political legitimacy on an alliance with the ultra-fundamentalist Wahhabi sect of Islam. Wahhabism dates back to the 18th century when marriages between the family of prophet Ibn Abd al-Wahhabi and the clan of al Saud created the alliance. The two families agreed to share power from generation to generation and still do today. Modern Saudi Arabia was founded in a sea of blood during the 1920s as the influence of the two families spread throughout the Arabian peninsula. They finally consolidated their political control following a bloody conflict in which rival tribes were massacred, 350,000 suffered amputations, and 40,000 were publicly executed (out of a population of 4 million at that time).

In what is an otherwise very informative and politically useful book, the work suffers from the lack of a chapter or so describing the state of modern Saudi Arabia, which would have added a stronger element of disgrace to the Bush family’s close relations with one of the worst violators of human rights.

There seems to be an unstated assumption that the reader is aware of the horrors that exist in Saudi society. Modern Saudi Arabia today stands for values that are the antithesis of secular and democratic values. It is a religious police state lacking the most rudimentary protections of individual rights. Religion and the state are the same.

The brutal authority of the state is enforced by religious police and a criminal “justice” system based on the Wahhabi interpretation of the Muslim holy book, the Koran. Torture of prisoners is routine and condemned prisoners are publicly beheaded. Women have no rights, and there is not even the tiniest shred of a democratic facade.

The Saudis put their religious money where their mouth is, and they have spent over $70 billion since 1975 spreading Wahhabi religious propaganda around the world. It is hardly surprising that the Bush administration classified 28 pages pertaining to Saudi Arabia in the 900-page congressional report on 9/11 released last summer.

Bush’s relations with the Saudis should be a matter of public record and knowledge. Unger’s book is an important contribution to this end.

– Al Olson

The worlds public health stake in defeating Bush

Fri, 25 Jun 2004 03:51:00 +0000

The unleashing of U.S. corporate power across the world must be halted. The criminal Iraq war launched by the Bush administration, and serving oil company insatiability, is just the tip of the iceberg. Such actions, felt in every country of the world, flow directly from the underlying ideology of the free market, as interpreted in this new millennium (“free” trade at any cost).

The anti-people policies of the World Trade Organization (WTO), International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank (WB) did not start with the Bush administration. The corporate goals pursued through these organizations have been around for decades. However, their aggressive pursuit was spurred on with the collapse of the Soviet Union and the subsequently altered economic landscape.

The Bush administration has made it clear that the economic goals of United States will not wait for the WTO and IMF. Moreover, these goals will be backed up with military power. This raised the stakes to a much higher level.

Privatizing health globally

What has this to do with health? The medical-industrial complex (medical, drug, finance capital, etc.), through the WTO, IMF and WB, is pushing to privatize every national health system in the world. If they win, these corporations will be able to do everywhere as they do in the U.S. – redirect public, taxpayers’ money away from public health care, into their own greedy pockets. Here are examples of the effect of the ideology of privatization around the world:

Before the elections in India, the British health magazine, The Lancet, published “Political Neglect in India’s Health,” which almost predicted the center-left election victory. It cited the neglect of health care financing throughout the country.

The Lancet also published a major article on the crisis developing in the Czech Republic. Abandoning socialized medicine for a system with less government control, the Czech Republic is placing itself in a very precarious position as it attempts to become more palatable to the European Union.

The Lancet discussed the admission of 10 countries into the EU, focusing on key elements of a quality health care system. For the fourth ministerial conference, taking place this month in Budapest, “pediatricians and public-health physicians do not seem to feature prominently.” The irony is that this conference is gathering 52 nations under the title, “Children’s Environment and Health Action Plan for Europe.”

Lancet editors are rightly concerned about the privatization demands of EU corporate power brokers.

France is a major target

France’s renowned health system has been ranked the top in the world by the World Health Organization, but it faces a major crisis if the Chirac government goes ahead with its WTO/IMF/WB program to privatize it. Beyond privatization, the corporate powers don’t like the pivotal role that labor plays in the French system. There will be massive struggles in the streets throughout France, especially after the center-left victories in the recent state-level elections. This showdown is in July.

The hand of Bush

You can be sure the November 2004 elections can make the difference. Removing the radical right from office will not eliminate the drive for profit. But soundly rejecting the international economic and militarist policies of the Bush administration would temper that drive with some level of reason. The next period of time requires a level of international solidarity not seen since the allied victory over fascism and Nazism in World War II. Dumping Bush and the Republicans from the Congress is the first step.

The authors can be reached at pww@pww.org.

Card check organizing under attack

Fri, 25 Jun 2004 03:46:00 +0000

WASHINGTON (PAI) – In a move that could hamper labor’s new organizing techniques, the National Labor Relations Board is seeking briefs on the legality of procedures surrounding card checks.

By a 3-2 party-line vote on June 7 in a case involving the Auto Workers, the board reaffirmed card check is legal, though it says it prefers NLRB-run elections.

But the NLRB asked both labor and management about whether card-check recognition agreements should be in place before unions present a majority of cards, and how long union foes in a workplace must wait after card-check recognition before they can petition the Board for a vote to decertify (oust) the union.

That’s the key question the AFL-CIO must answer in briefs to be filed by July 15, says federation attorney Nancy Schiffer. “I don’t know that they [the NLRB] can overturn card check in this decision,” she told Press Associates Union News Service.

“But they can undermine its legitimacy by gratuitous statements” and by “presenting employers with the possibility of an immediate election” to oust the union “even after the employer goes through the non-confrontational procedure” of a card check, she said.

The issue is important because, frustrated by the incessant delays in NLRB election cases – delays the law lets management impose in efforts to wear unions down – unions increasingly turn to card-check recognition to successfully organize worksites.

Under card check, unions convince the employer in advance to agree to recognize and bargain once the union can present signed and verified cards from a majority of the workers involved.

In its June 7 ruling, the NLRB overturned two regional directors’ decisions involving UAW card-check agreements at the Dana Corporation’s auto parts plant in Upper Sandusky, Ohio, and the Metaldyne plant in St. Mary’s, Pa.

In both cases, anti-union workers, fronting for the radical right-wing National Right to Work Committee, challenged the union recognition through decertification petitions. The board’s regional officials threw the petitions out, saying that a full year had yet to elapse before the workers could file them. When unions win NLRB elections, they have a year – after all appeals are exhausted and they finally can represent workers – before foes can file a petition to oust them. If foes get 30 percent of workers to sign, the NLRB runs a decertification election.

The Right to Work Committee wants to shrink that period to virtually nothing. The regional directors said “no,” but the board said it wants to consider the decertification issue.

“The employers have honored the [card-check] agreement and have recognized the union,” said the board’s GOP majority, led by Chairman Robert J. Battista, a management-side labor lawyer from Detroit. “The issue is whether recognition should ... bar decertification petitions by employees ... not parties” to the pact.

“Increased usage of recognition agreements, the varying contexts in which an agreement can be reached, the superiority of board-supervised secret ballot elections and the importance of rights of employees are all factors which warrant a critical look at the issues raised here,” the board declared.

The two NLRB dissenters, Democratic members Wilma Liebman and Dennis Walsh, made the same points Schiffer did. “Voluntary recognition is ‘a favored element of national labor policy’” and has been for at least 42 years, they said.

“Abolishing the bar” to decert votes “would make voluntary recognition meaningless,” they added. “Employers would have no incentive to recognize unions if they know that recognition would be subject to immediate second-guessing.”

The Right to Work Committee crowed with glee, but overstated the ruling’s impact. It claimed the NLRB could kill card-check. NLRB spokeswoman Melissa Gilbert said that’s incorrect.

UAW President Ron Gettelfinger defended card check as “fair and efficient,” recognized for decades by courts and the NLRB. “Its use should be expanded, not curtailed,” he said. The one-year ban on decertification votes after the union can act “exists to prevent a minority of workers from exercising a veto over the decision made by the majority” to unionize, he said.

No date was set for a ruling in the case, and both Schiffer and UAW spokesman Roger Kerson said the argument shows the importance of electing a pro-worker president – Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.) – this fall, since several NLRB members’ terms expire.

Watershed in India's history

Fri, 25 Jun 2004 03:41:00 +0000

May 2004 might be a watershed for contemporary Indian history. The Indian electorate marched into the voting booth and ejected the coalition government led by the right-wing Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).

In its eight years in power, the BJP and its allies sold India’s assets to the lowest bidder. It allowed itself to be bribed into Enron-type contracts. In 1998, the BJP-government even created a Ministry of Disinvestments, whose singular mission was to sell off the public sector. Since an anti-colonial freedom movement that emphasized economic self-sufficiency has shaped India’s political culture, the BJP’s actions would ordinarily have been considered treasonous.

The BJP hid its “disinvestments” with its campaign to assert the will of the “Hindu” as against Muslims, oppressed castes, women and progressives of all shades. Pogroms against Muslims, tough talk against “terrorism,” an alliance with Israel, and other such moves provided the BJP with a convenient way to get its neoliberal scandals off the front page. Hundred of farmers committed suicide in the state of Andhra Pradesh because they could not afford the basic agricultural inputs, but this sad fact disappeared from the newspapers. Instead, the papers offered pompous and racist commentaries on Muslims (whom they accused of being “terrorists” and “anti-national”).

The BJP-led government’s record in office is dismal as far as the working class is concerned. Between 1998, when the BJP came to power, and 2002, more than 800,000 workers in the organized sector lost their jobs. About 650,000 are in the state sector. Many of these workers have now moved from union jobs with decent salaries and benefits to the low-end, unorganized sector where there are no benefits, and where the perils of life without regulation means that the wages are abysmal. The government’s own statistics show that while agricultural output has remained steady, the growth rate of agricultural work is 0.13 percent. Unemployment in rural areas is rampant.

At the same time, the government slashed the food security program, which had been place for five decades. The government used to buy surplus food grains at a fixed (but still very low) price to stabilize the market. Then it would sell these foodstuffs in “fair price shops” so as to ensure that the population would have access to nutrition. However, pushed by the World Bank and the IMF, the BJP-led coalition began to undermine food security. Between 1995 and 2001, the number of undernourished people in India increased by 20 million. The UN’s Food and Agriculture Organization’s “State of Food Insecurity in the World” report of 2003 shows that of the 842 million undernourished people in the world, 214 million, or a full quarter, live in India.

Farmers lost control of water resources, now being privatized to big corporations like Coke and Vivendi. While Enron’s power earned it a massive, guaranteed profit in India, farmers could not access electricity to run their machines at a reasonable rate. Power rates in the BJP period tripled in rural areas, while fertilizer rates rose out of the reach of small farmers. The government provided little credit to tide over farmers, as rural credit fell in the past decade. In 1992, agricultural credit made up almost 20 percent of the total credit offered by government financial institutions. A decade later, the rate dropped to just above 10 percent. The government began to talk about “credit cards” for farmers – a ridiculous proposal by a government quite out of touch with the realities of India.

None of this made any impact on the BJP, which claimed that India was “shining.” The electorate turned them away.

Prime Minister Manmohan Singh of the Congress Party leads the new coalition government. In 1991, Singh was the finance minister who fashioned the architecture for India’s structural adjustment. Nevertheless, Singh is a personally honest man, itself a feat in our current world. With their largest mandate ever, the left-wing parties have decided to work with the Congress Party from outside, to ensure that the communists have a voice on the national stage and a place to critique from without. If the Congress Party continues with the BJP line, it will be political suicide.

The author can be reached at pww@pww.org.

Virginia shipyard workers score gains

Fri, 25 Jun 2004 03:37:00 +0000

NEWPORT NEWS, Va. (PAI) – After six weeks of bargaining, the 8,500 Steel Workers at the nation’s largest shipyard ratified a new 52-month contract on June 9. And, this time, they didn’t have to strike to get it.

The pact between USWA Local 8888 and Newport News Shipbuilding Company passed by a 1,877-856 margin. It gives the workers a 16.5 percent raise over its life and restricts outsourcing, union President Alton Glass said.

An end to hiring outside contractors was a key demand of the workers. “We want these outside contractors to go home,” USWA District 8 Director Billy Thompson told a mass rally of 1,500 workers before bargaining began.

As Newport News shipyard officials kept a watchful eye from atop a building on the peaceful, chanting, praying and singing workers – many of them African Americans – Thompson added: “This is our work. These are our jobs and we want them [the contractors] to leave.”

This contract, Glass said “recognizes the value of the work done by Local 8888 members for the first time. This is a contract that we can build on.”

The new pact was approved three days after the old one expired. That old pact came only after a 10-month strike which saw the local put the yard – then under another owner – on the AFL-CIO’s list of firms using taxpayer money against unions.

“We said at the time this was taxpayer money making up for the company’s losses during the strike,” then-Local 8888 President Arnold Outlaw told the People’s Weekly World.

In those talks, and during that strike, USWA said Newport News, which builds nuclear-powered aircraft carriers and submarines, paid its mostly African American workers wages far lower than the mostly white workers doing the same construction at the General Dynamics yard in Groton, Conn.

Beside the wage hike and job security provisions, other key sections of the new Local 8888-Newport News contract include:

• A 22 percent pension increase and recognition for the first time of past years of service.

• A cut, from 18 years to nine years, in the time that a worker needs to reach the top pay grade.

• A 60 percent increase, adding 1,300 slots, in higher-paid specialist positions.

• A cap on employee health premiums and a cut in employees’ share of the increase in health care costs, from a 50-50 split down to a 25 percent employee share.

The contract sets a pattern for other shipyards, since Newport News, now owned by Northrup Grumman, is both the nation’s largest shipyard and the only one that can handle all Navy demands, USWA President Leo Gerard said.

The pact’s health care cost containment provisions “significantly reduce the burden of health care costs on workers and their families, which is virtually unheard-of these days when other unions are striking over this issue,” the USWA said. It also noted the anti-outsourcing provisions “go against the grain of most recent settlements.” And Local 8888 “broke through the stubborn, patronizing culture that had prevailed in previous negotiations and laid the foundation for more normal labor relations with Northrop Grumman and other employers in the South,” the union stated.

Glass said the new pact spurred more worker involvement. He said Local 8888 gained 600 members – in a right-to-work state – since January due to its contract campaign, and created a database of 4,000 members willing to get active in the shipyard and the community. The number of members pledging money to USWA’s campaign finance committee “has soared from 65 to 420 in just two months,” he added.

International notes

Fri, 25 Jun 2004 03:32:00 +0000

Sudan: Darfur conflict continues

The UN’s refugee agency, UNHCR, estimates nearly 200,000 refugees from Sudan’s western Darfur region have fled into eastern Chad after government forces and Janjawid militia attacked their villages. UNHCR also says over a million people have been internally displaced within Darfur as a result of the 16-month-old conflict and that 2 million people affected by the conflict in the semi-arid region urgently need humanitarian aid, the UN’s IRIN news agency said.

The conflict is increasingly spreading across the border into Chad, as the Janjawid, based mostly among Arabic-speaking nomadic people, have stepped up cross-border raids in a long-standing conflict with area farming communities.

The Darfur conflict increasingly threatens regional stability. At the same time, significant progress has been made toward a resolution of the long-standing conflict between Sudan’s government and the Sudan Rebel Movement/Army (SRMA) led by John Garang.

Bangladesh: Workers demand end to privatization

All the country’s trade union federations are joining together in a massive campaign opposing the government’s policy of privatizing state-owned industries, and demanding the reopening of factories the government has closed, the Communist Party of Bangladesh said last week.

Other demands include a national minimum wage linked to the cost of living, prompt payment of wages, lower prices for essential commodities, and resistance to armed religious fundamentalist forces. A huge rally in the capital city, Dhaka, on June 15 followed mass rallies in April and May called by the Coordination Committee for Protection of Workers and Employees in Industry. A nationwide all-day action is set for July 11, and one-day strikes are planned in industries and enterprises.

The unions are urging all progressive and democratic political parties and mass organizations to actively support the workers’ action program.

Guatemala: ‘Treat immigrants in Mexico better’

Guatemalan human rights activists are calling on the Mexican government to treat undocumented Guatemalans and other Central American immigrants better. The Attention for the Immigrant office on the border between the two countries said the growing number of undocumented Hondurans, Salvadorans and Guatemalans who are repatriated from Mexico often show signs of severe malnutrition, violence and physical and psychological abuse at the hands of Mexican police and immigration authorities, who abandon them on the border. Last year Mexico expelled nearly 175,000 Central Americans, many of whom are trying to reach the U.S. because the economic situation in their countries has deteriorated markedly under pressure of U.S. based transnational corporations.

France: CGT leads actions to uphold state utility

A national day of Action June 15 by the left-led CGT union federation in protest against plans to partly privatize the state electricity utility EDF brought thousands of workers into the streets, and resulted in blackouts in parts of Bordeaux, Grenoble, Cahors, Aaras and Limoges. In Paris alone, 6,000 power workers demonstrated.

The actions cut 12 percent of EDF’s output. Besides the six cities, power was also cut to the country homes of government supporters of the privatization plan.

The government seeks to allow up to 30 percent of capital in the EDF electricity utility and the GDR gas utility to be sold to private investors starting in 2005.

Diego Garcia: Islanders barred from returning

The hopes of some 4,500 former residents of Diego Garcia and their descendants to return to their strategically located Indian Ocean island home were dashed earlier this month by the British government. The island – part of the British Indian Ocean Territory – was leased to the U.S. which used its major base there in both Iraq wars.

A high court decision four years ago had opened the possibility for the islanders to go home. But on June 10 the British Foreign Office, bypassing Parliament by using an arbitrary form called “orders in council,” barred the former residents from returning to Diego Garcia or any of 64 other outlying islands. In the 1960s and 1970s when the island was being cleared for the base, Britain had induced many residents to leave by alleging they were not permanent residents of the island.

Haiti: Marchers demand Aristide’s return

Some 5,000 supporters of Haitian President Jean-Bertrand Aristide rallied in Port-au-Prince June 19 to demand his return to office and to condemn the Bush administration for forcing him from power. Protesters accused the U.S. of kidnapping Aristide on Feb. 29, and warned that they will boycott the coming general election if the president continues to be forced to remain in exile.

Conditions in Haiti remain chaotic and dangerous, with constant reports of violence by members of armed gangs – many of them former death squad members from previous dictatorships – whose insurgency preceded Aristide’s kidnapping.

International Notes are compiled by Marilyn Bechtel (mbechtel@pww.org). Julia Lutsky contributed to this week’s notes.

Canadas Greens move to the right

Fri, 25 Jun 2004 03:24:00 +0000

VANCOUVER, British Columbia – As Canadians go to the polls June 28, one of the surprises of this year’s election campaign has been the emergence of the Green Party (GP) as the fourth most popular party among Canadians. They hover at around 6-7 percent in the polls. National leader Jim Harris has been able to break through the media blackout that small third parties face and regularly appears in the print and television media.

However, far from offering a left-wing alternative to Canadians, the GP under Harris – a management consultant and former Conservative Party member – has become a pro-market, “small government” party. The party’s economic and social platform borrows heavily from neoconservative thought.

While the New Democratic Party and the Communist Party of Canada are proposing that corporations pay higher taxes, the Greens are advocating tax cuts on corporate profits to stimulate employment and productivity. Reflecting the right wing’s obsession with tax cuts, the GP believes that high income taxes are the main source of unemployment. They also advocate increased property taxes, a regressive tax that hurts low-income people. The GP also suggests that it would keep inflation low by maintaining high levels of unemployment, a policy pursued by previous Liberal and Conservative Party governments since the 1980s.

Most parties – including the Liberals – say that they want to divert money from the country’s budgetary surplus to social programs, but the GP advocates using the budgetary surplus to reduce the national debt. The party is committed to so-called small government and resolutely opposes its expansion.

The Greens offer no analysis of how the market generates inequality and poverty, and make no commitment to raise abysmally low welfare rates or expand unemployment insurance coverage. During the 1990s, the Liberal Party government heavily cut the amount of money it contributed to provincially-run welfare programs and drastically reduced the number of people who could collect unemployment benefits, leading to greater poverty. The GP platform says only that they will “enhance the existing network of ... school nutrition ... and food bank programs” and eliminate “the gaps and tangles in the social safety net so that Canadians can find and receive the help that will reduce child poverty, while making adults self-sufficient.”

While favoring the Kyoto Accord to reverse global warming and the elimination of harmful chemicals from the environment and food production, the GP platform makes no commitment to meet these goals through government regulation. Instead, the party proposes that it will “empower [bioregional] stewards to seek intervener status in legal actions that impact the health of the ecosystem: ... work with local environment groups to reduce pollution levels in the air, water and soil; promote sustainability through education; and monitor the diversity of species, the levels of pollution and the health of the ecosystem.” Furthermore, the party favors the implementation of a national emissions trading system to reduce carbon dioxide emissions, instead of mandatory reductions.

The Greens also support the corporate sector’s position on self regulation by “encourag[ing] companies to attain ISO 14000 certification,” a program widely condemned by the environmental movement as ineffective.

As political analyst Murray Dobbin writes in the Toronto Globe and Mail, “A look at Green policies reveals that this party is really a conservative alternative, not a social democratic one. Its fiscal, economic and even environmental policies would be a near perfect fit for the old Progressive Conservative Party.”

The author can be reached at tpelzer@sprint.ca.

Left and Communist youth meet in Brazil

Fri, 25 Jun 2004 03:19:00 +0000

News Analysis

BRASILIA, Brazil – Two recent events energized the world’s young communist and progressive movement. In the first event, delegates from 30 countries representing 50 organizations converged here June 6-9 to launch the preparatory process for the 16th World Festival of Youth and Students (WFYS). The 16th WFYS will take place in Caracas, Venezuela, Aug. 5-13, 2005, under the slogan “for peace and solidarity we struggle against imperialism and war.”

Additional international preparatory meetings will take place in Vietnam and Portugal, respectively, to iron out more concrete details of the festival and to encourage more organizations from these regions to mobilize youth for it. There will also be a flag-handing ceremony between organizations from Algeria, the hosts for the 15th WFYS and organizations from Venezuela.

The choice of Venezuela reflects the delegates’ unity on defending that country’s revolution, which has for the last several years been under intense attack by reactionary forces. It has survived hostile diplomatic pressure from central capitalist countries, a long shut-down and sabotage of the country’s oil industry, and a coup-d’état. Now, it faces a new strategy from the opposition: the National Electoral Council determined that enough signatures were gathered to call a referendum on the Chavez presidency.

Traditionally, the World Federation of Democratic Youth (WFDY), a broad-based organization of democratic, anti-colonialist, and progressive youth organizations founded in 1945, takes a leading role in preparing the WFYS and mobilizing world youth to attend. The festival movement began in Prague in 1947, where thousands of youth came together under the post-war theme, “Youth United for a Lasting Peace.”

The second major event relating to Communist youth was the 12th National Congress of the Brazilian Union of Socialist Youth (UJS), the sister organization of the Communist Party of Brazil (PCdoB). Over 1,500 delegates came to the University of Brasilia campus June 10-13 to represent the 50,000 members that participated in municipal congresses in 600 cities from all 27 states. Since its 11th congress in 2002, UJS grew 250 percent. UJS currently holds the presidency of three mass-based student movements: the national high school student movement, the national university student movement, and the national graduate student movement. It is about to launch another movement that will organize hip hop groups and artists around Brazil. UJS also has a significant role in the Union of Brazilian Women and is present in the struggle of young workers through its members that promote a socialist understanding of work and unions in the national union movement. UJS is the most successful youth political organization in the country and has a central role in mobilizing youth against powerful big business, neoliberal forces whose policies are detrimental to youth everywhere.

At the forefront of this growing youth power, delegates met to discuss public policies related to youth, student movements, young worker movements, gender, the nascent organized hip hop movement, and to formulate a more clear understanding of the current political climate in Brazil and around the world. UJS understands that Brazil is currently in a crossroads of its development. It can continue in its neoliberal trajectory towards increased poverty, loss of national sovereignty, increase debt, and continued dependency; or it can adopt a new path that prioritizes national development through a sound industrial policy, agrarian reform, development of national science and technology production capacity, deeper and more representative democracy, and adopting fiscal and monetary policies that favor national development and reduction of dependency.

Despite this unique historical moment, where for the first time ever a worker (and not a member of the traditional elite), Luis Inácio Lula da Silva, won the presidency of the nation, the Brazilian government remains divided between neoliberal and national development camps. UJS will work to support the presidency of Lula while putting pressure on the government to lean towards national development and national sovereignty.

The smooth launching of the preparatory process of the 16th WFYS and the most successful UJS congress ever show that world communist youth are energized to continue the struggle for socialism and human dignity.

The author can be reached at pww@pww.org.

Cuba marches forward despite the odds

Fri, 25 Jun 2004 03:14:00 +0000

HAVANA – It was the talk of the town here. Another day passed and the badly needed rain in Cuba’s central and eastern provinces did not come.

“We’re taking emergency measures to get water to the people and farms there,” one of our hosts told us. Drinking water is trucked into the area and irrigation measures for agriculture are some of the actions reported on the nightly news.

Another problem the Cuban people and their leaders face and another step they collectively take towards solving it. The Cubans excel at problem solving. They have to. They have had many problems imposed on them since their revolution in 1959. Problem number one being the U.S. blockade on the island nation just 90 miles off Florida shores. Problem number two is a very hostile and reckless administration in the White House.

Drought, new restrictions from the Bush administration and the accumulative effect of the 40-plus year blockade was the backdrop of an official Communist Party to Communist Party visit here. Led by its national chairman, Sam Webb, the Communist Party USA sent a delegation that also included Juan Lopez, chair of the Northern California Communist Party, and myself on the invitation of the Cuban Communist Party to have a party-to-party exchange. The last such meeting was in 1992.

The Cuban Party had a full program scheduled, including visits to schools, the Center on Sex Education, a Committee to Defend the Revolution (kind of a revolutionary neighborhood block club), meetings with trade unionists, Young Communists, and the families of the five Cuban heroes who are political prisoners in U.S. jails.

The new restrictions on travel to Cuba were very much on everyone’s mind. As of June 30 the Bush administration is increasing restrictions on U.S. citizens and residents from traveling to Cuba. The category of “fully-hosted” travel, the category under which we went, will be eliminated. Cubans in the U.S. will be allowed to travel and visit their family only once every three years. Money sent to families back home, a common practice for immigrants, will be severely cut back.

The Bush administration even goes so far as to define the Cuban family. Aunts, uncles or cousins are not in their definition.

“The irony of this new family definition is that accordingly the Miami family of Elian Gonzalez would not have been considered family,” Georgina Chabau Montalvo, one of our hosts, said. Montalvo was referring to the huge struggle, in 2000, to return Elian from his cousins’ custody back to his father’s in Cuba.

The struggle for Elian’s return resulted in a renewed commitment to deepen and expand the revolution here. With the President of Cuba – Fidel Castro – taking the lead, the “Battle of Ideas” took shape.

This “battle” is involving all sectors of Cuban society and it emphasizes meeting the individual needs through collective effort, especially in education, health, culture and guaranteeing everyone can live a productive life.

This new phase of the revolution is improving education and health services and thereby improving the daily lives of Cuban citizens. Although Cuba faces an extremely difficult economic situation, the country is committed to lowering class size, building new schools and universities and training more teachers, just to name a few of the projects. Education and health care have been and continue to be totally free. This includes doctor visits and hospital stays. School is free from day care through university.

The young generation is directing these projects. A UJC (Young Communist League) leader told us, “We are running over 170 programs. No problem can’t be solved. We are investing in our country’s human resources.” A UJC slideshow presentation leads off with a quote from Fidel: “The battle of ideas … means concrete deeds and achievements.”

Throughout the whole trip, while people showed concern about the reckless nature of the Bush administration – which many here said could include a military attack on Cuba – the optimism and confidence in their revolution was evident. The attitude of struggle against the inhumane policies of the Bush administration was inspiring.

Each place our delegation went, the Cuban people made it a point to say: We oppose the U.S. government’s policies, not the people of the United States. We want friendly relations, we want trade and we think the majority of people in the U.S. want the same.

Terrie Albano is editor of the People’s Weekly World. This is first of a series on Cuba and U.S.-Cuba relations. The author can be reached at talbano@pww.org.

Radical gathering sets agenda for change

Fri, 25 Jun 2004 03:02:00 +0000

WILLIAMS BAY, Wis. – Left-wing activists of all stripes held their annual gathering known as RadFest here on June 4-6. The event, organized by Patrick Barrett and the Havens Center of the University of Wisconsin, drew hundreds of participants from across the Midwest and several from other regions and countries.

The themes that dominated the conference this year were the interconnected goals of replacing Bush, ending the war in Iraq, reforming the mass media, and inclusively building the movement for change.

The assembled socialists, communists, Greens, pacifists, Democrats and progressives voiced only occasional disagreements. When Barrett asked a panel of distinguished activists at the Saturday evening plenary session to discuss whether the removal of Bush should be the primary task of progressive movements, participants differed only on the priorities of tasks, but not their urgency. Some participants took issue with Democratic challenger John Kerry’s position on sending more troops to Iraq, and panelist Brenda Konkel, a member of the Madison City Council, said of removing Bush, “I really don’t see it as the priority.”

But Code Pink founder Medea Benjamin drew an ovation when she said, “It has to be our priority because this country is in crisis. … The rest of the world is looking to us to get rid of George Bush.” Benjamin said she agreed that the battle against Bush should not obscure other important goals such as electing a better Congress or building a broader movement, but said that done properly, it could aid in these goals.

The Saturday plenary was the only meeting among dozens to focus explicitly on Bush, yet his shadow hung over the entire gathering. The halls of the main conference building were filled with anti-Bush books and paraphernalia, and his presidency was discussed prominently in other sessions.

In one of numerous sessions focusing on media reform, John Nichols, a writer for The Nation, said that the corporate mass media had quietly admitted two “little mistakes” in the past few years: “getting the 2000 election wrong, and leading us into an unnecessary war.

“I can’t think of a more serious indictment,” said Nichols.

The war in Iraq was also relegated to just one of the many workshops, but conference-goers packed in to take part. Moderator Alan Ruff underscored the importance of the topic when he explained the “historical generalization that can be made about all wars,” that they deplete local economies, engender racial animosity, and are exploited to centralize power and destroy civil liberties, “and thus must be a focus in everything we do.”

The only negative note that was sounded at the convention concerned diversity and accessibility. The gathering has been held for several years in a rustic setting where few buildings are wheelchair accessible and which is itself remote from communities of color and not served by any public transportation.

The author can be reached at pww@pww.org.

Massive rally marks strike anniversary

Fri, 25 Jun 2004 02:54:00 +0000

CHICAGO – Shouting “No contract, No peace,” Congress Hotel workers and their supporters marked the one-year anniversary of their strike against the hotel June 15 with a massive picket line and rally. The protest jammed the sidewalk for a block in front of the hotel.

To dramatize their determination, 15 workers, labor leaders, clergy and elected officials were arrested when they blocked traffic on Michigan Avenue. As they were being arrested a giant banner was unfurled from a upper hotel floor window declaring, “Justice now!”

“We are here with one goal – to stay together and not go inside. We are not rats and are not giving in for (the hotel owner’s) cheese,” declared strike leader Leticia Cortina, pointing to the giant inflatable rat that cast a shadow over the crowd. “The owner is the rat. We’ll be here for as a long as it takes.”

The strike began after owners of the Congress Hotel refused to recognize the pattern agreement covering nearly all downtown union hotels signed between a hotel owners association and the Hotel Employees Restaurant Employees (HERE) Union Local 1 in August 2002. The agreement won major wage and benefit increases for hotel workers, but Congress owners withdrew from the association and refused to recognize it.

The Congress Hotel contract with its workers expired and after several months of negotiating, the hotel unilaterally imposed a 7 percent wage cut with no raises, the elimination of family health insurance and pension benefits and threatened to outsource union jobs. This prompted the 130 workers to go on strike.

“The Congress Hotel is a rogue employer with no respect for its workers,” said Henry Tamarin, president of HERE Local 1. “After a year on strike, this once-grand hotel is now an embarrassment to the city’s hotel industry.”

HERE National President John Wilhelm, who joined the strikers and was one of those arrested, said the union would not permit any hotel from undercutting the master agreement. “If we allowed one employer to get away with lowering the standards, then there won’t be any.” The Congress Hotel is the fifth largest hotel in downtown Chicago.

Chicago Federation of Labor President Dennis Gannon pointed out the broad support for the strike as he acknowledged the large contingent from the AFL-CIO Organizers Conference representing many international unions, the Interfaith Committee on Workers Issues, Chicago Jobs with Justice, Illinois Coalition for Immigrant and Refugee Rights and the many clergy and community organizations present.

“The strikers have given up a year of their lives for this struggle. They have tremendous courage,” said Gannon, who praised the determination of the workers to maintain the picket lines, especially through the cold winter months.

State Sen. Martin Sandoval said the experience of his family was similar to that of many of the Congress Hotel workers, a majority of whom are Latino immigrants. Sandoval’s parents came to Chicago from Mexico in the early 1960s and were deported. They returned and raised their family under great difficulties.

“The poor shall inherit the earth. I am on the side of the Congress Hotel strikers. I am on the side of working poor. Si se puede!” declared Sandoval.

“A year is a long time to be on strike,” said striker Sharon Williams. “But we’re going to be out here as long as it takes to win justice for ourselves and our families.”

The author can be reached at jbachtell@rednet.org.