People Before Profit blog

MEMORIALS

Fri, 30 Jun 2006 08:30:00 +0000

LETTERS

Fri, 30 Jun 2006 06:40:00 +0000

U.S. wants Sudan’s oil

By printing the article by Fathi M. El Fadl (“Sudan and Darfur: Crisis and solutions,” PWW 6/10-16), why do you get on the bandwagon of damning the Sudan government when you know that this is just what the U.S. government wants you to do?

Poor Sudan has had to contend with big bully U.S. ever since its independence from Britain in 1956. Now you publish indifferently the fact that the U.S. will build a pipeline through Sudan to send oil to the U.S. The U.S. has been itching to do this for years and you can be sure that, now that UN forces are in southern Sudan, U.S. forces will be there in full force to secure “their” pipeline. There is an invasion like in Iraq except that the U.S. is there without having to lift a military finger.

The U.S. armed and trained the rebels in southern Sudan for 22 years, which resulted in the deaths of 2 million people and made 4 million people refugees. Why doesn’t the PWW insist that the U.S. should be tried in the International Criminal Court for causing this genocide? Both the people in the north and the people in the south suffered. That was the real genocide. (Divide and conquer, you know.)

As soon as the peace treaty was signed in southern Sudan, the U.S. government indicated that this would give the U.S. access to Sudan’s oil, what it wanted all along.

Betty Kallo San Francisco CA

One view for all Puerto Ricans?

There appears to be no “devil’s advocate” on your web site. Without any opposing views, an intelligent opinion cannot be fully realized. Further, it is well understood that all decisions on my country’s political future are for only our registered voters to consider — and to deflect or discount undue pressures from outside forces.

Rafael Quinones Lopez Via e-mail

Correction on wage figure

Tim Wheeler’s review of my book, “Orchards of Eden: White Bluffs on the Columbia 1907-1943” (PWW 6/24-30) turned out quite fine. Thank you.

Maybe it is a typo but I don’t see how Bapa (grandfather F.M. Wheeler) could have made $11 an hour (as a union bricklayer). I think it is more like $1 an hour. … The other thing is, the land … was actually quite expensive at $250 per acre and they had an awful time paying cousin Walter Niven back on the refinancing they did for them. The whole thing was just so tragic that he (Don Wheeler) couldn’t write about it, said it was too hard to deal with. I guess he was glad I tackled it … the best experience of my “literary” life.

Nancy Mendenhall Nome AK

Tim Wheeler replies: Thanks, Nancy, for spotting that error. I racked my brain trying to remember where that $11 reference came from. Almost certainly it was $11 per day. We have made a correction in our online version of the review.

It’s the 4th of July

It’s the 4th of July And I’m not free I’m sitting here in limbo In the bowels of this Penitentiary This is a man minus his glory Modern day slavery

Schools are not profitable enough The prison industry is bigger business The hotel for the miseducated ones of society Warehousing human beings like commodities It’s good for the economy Illiteracy is a tool to make more money Give the poor lobotomies And lead them like zombies Directly to the penitentiary cells Where cheap labor sells for 20 cents an hour This attracts corporations like corpses attract vultures Overseers stand on guard in gun towers With rifles to stifle all rebellions And keep the slaves slaving on the plantations They seek justification for this holocaust In lost cause of fraud and pass flawed laws That have clause like hawks While the sharks racially profile And round up men, women and child In a single file line to be confined Justice in denial They turn brothers into rivals To testify against each other at trials One gets life behind bars While the other walks the green mile

It’s the 4th of July And I’m still not free I’m sitting here in limbo In the bowels of this penitentiary This is man minus his glory Modern day slavery

A prisoner’s life often depends On the ink in the pen That is in the hands of crooked men Who have their own interest to protect to remain on the bench indigent convicts often fall victims to this conflict of interest to society he is the scum of the earth who should have been aborted before birth the whole world debate over his fate no right to pro-create stagnated an object of intense hatred his life is no longer considered sacred strip searches vultures feasting off the carcass of the ignorant convicts remain under constant surveillance getting rushed around like migrants it’s man minus his glory a victim of gestapo like policies freedom justice and equality is only a fallacy in this democracy

It’s the 4th of July And I’m not free I’m sitting here in limbo In the bowels of this penitentiary This is man minus his glory Modern day slavery

I’ve seen many become complacent In this synthetic environment Some try to rationalize this experiment So they surrender their minds to become Institutionalized and remain confined Behind enemy lines and partake in the stereotypical Behaviors of their neighbors Some get religious and wait for a savior Others become jail house informers In exchange for favors from the slave master Others become jail house predators And extort the weak They expose the secrets that lay hidden Beneath and tighten the grip on their victims pockets to them every man is a potential maggot human nature is complex no two men do time like the next some play sports every day bouncing their time away a brief escape from the harsh reality of time that’s steering them dead in their faces others catch murder cases because of jail house celebrities that put their lives in jeopardy by being in grown men’s faces as for me I study the flaws in the law and formulate Arguments that’s able to destroy the content of the injustice that’s holding me captive I’m fighting a war to dismantle these bars And even when my wounds heal It will leave me with scars So no matter how far I get I’ll never forget That it’s the 4th of July and I’m not free

Written July 4, 2002

Edgar Pitts Florence CO

WORKERS' CORRESPONDENCE

Fri, 30 Jun 2006 05:08:00 +0000

UAW Convention report

A worker correspondent who attended the recent UAW convention as a delegate sent in this report:

Delegates at the UAW Constitutional Convention held in Las Vegas spent their time discussing issues important to their union and working people as a whole. AFL-CIO President John Sweeney addressed the delegates and expressed solidarity with our struggles. Sweeney said that corporate America first attached the steelworkers, then the airline workers and now the autoworkers.

Marcello Malentacchi, general secretary of the International Metalworkers’ Federation, told the delegates that today’s workers labor in a world increasingly affected by international forces. “Free-trade agreements and multinational corporations pit workers and communities against each other in a race to the bottom that nobody can win,” he continued. “In the face of such power it is more and more important for workers to work internationally to protect their interests.”

Among the resolutions passed were support for:

• Universal single-payer health care, improving the prescription drug plan for Medicare recipients, and strengthening Social Security.

• Immigrant rights: path to citizenship, equal rights and protections at work and support for unemployment and workers’ compensation.

• Fair trade: trade agreements that guarantee workers’ rights and jobs.

• An end to the war in Iraq: calling for the immediate development and rapid implementation of a plan to end the war and bring about the safe return of our troops there.

AFSCME Council defends public employees

Big corporations and anti-worker politicians are attacking public employees and the services they provide as never before, according to a report delivered to AFSCME Illinois Council 31 local presidents and executive board members June 17. The Council met to discuss the 21st Century Committee Report which was called for at AFSCME’s last international convention. The report will be ultimately discussed by delegates to the 37th International Convention this summer in Chicago.

The onslaught against decent wages, adequately funded pensions and affordable health care continues unabated, the report says. The goal of the attack is to privatize public jobs, take away workers’ rights and then dismantle the public sector. Vital services which public employees provide have been cut by President Bush and Congress in order to give massive tax cuts to the super-rich.

The report challenges the union to make big changes because, although AFSCME’s membership has grown and its political power has increased, these gains are not enough.

The 21st-century vision proposed for consideration in the report includes coordinated action at all levels of the union, a deepened commitment to organizing, strengthened political action and bold leadership in fighting for universal health care.

Henry Bayer, executive director of Council 31, stressed the need to involve the rank-and-file membership as never before, educating members through local newsletters and person-to-person contact.

The report was received with an overwhelmingly positive response by the local union leadership. This bodes well for its acceptance at the union’s upcoming convention.

One glaring omission, in this writer’s opinion, is that a discussion of the effects of the Iraq war on working people was not begun.

— Shelby Richardson (shelrichjr@msn.com), Chicago.

OAS rebuffs U.S. proposals

Fri, 23 Jun 2006 09:22:00 +0000

Foreign ministers from the Western Hemisphere met June 4-6 in Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic, for the 36th General Assembly of the Organization of the American States (OAS).

Deputy Secretary of State Robert Zoellick represented the United States, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice having been detained by business relating to Iran.

One commentator referred to the OAS as “an institution with 33 mice and one very large cat,” alluding to the traditionally dominant role of the U.S. But the cat, the writer said, has apparently lost interest, although formerly the OAS played a role in U.S. strategic maneuvers during the Cold War.

The focus this year was supposed to have been on “technological developments.” Issuing a pre-assembly statement, Thomas Shannon, the State Department’s top official for Latin American affairs, noted that, “This is an opportunity for the region to get back to work. ... There’s a lot of rhetoric. There has been too much ideology.” He, too, was a no-show at the meeting.

The assembly rebuffed several U.S. initiatives, including Guatemala as the U.S. choice over Venezuela for a seat on the UN Security Council, and a condemnation of alleged Venezuelan interventions in Peru’s recently concluded presidential runoff election.

Referring to elections scheduled for November in Nicaragua, Zoellick called for an OAS observer mission on the ground there “as soon as possible” to prevent the election of “old strongmen of corruption and communism who want to stay in power.” It turned out that eight OAS election technicians had arrived in Nicaragua on May 7 and that other members of a 33-person OAS election observer mission had been in Nicaragua for a week or so.

Addressing the assembly, Zoellick referred to the “the pied pipers of populism.” Meeting with representatives of Brazil, Argentina, and other nations, he lobbied for OAS condemnation of Venezuela. In a concluding address to the assembly, however, Brazilian Foreign Minister Celso Marín recalled for the delegates “the importance of non-intervention.”

This was the direction taken by a similar meeting convened a year ago in Fort Lauderdale, Fla. There, too, a spirit of independence prevailed amid declarations in favor of social justice and Latin American dignity.

Simultaneously, a first “People’s Alternative Summit” was unfolding in Santo Domingo. Some 200 activists representing at least 30 Latin American and Caribbean political organizations held forums and workshops on the campus of Santo Domingo Autonomous University, where they denounced capitalist globalization and lent support for alternative initiatives put forth by Venezuela and other nations.

The gathering concluded with a march to the OAS meeting to introduce a “people’s agenda.” Stopped several blocks short of their destination by heavily armed security forces and attack dogs, the marchers handed documents to an OAS representative.

LETTERS

Fri, 23 Jun 2006 08:45:00 +0000

Remembering Howie

Howie Goldberg, my father, was a maverick salesman of the Daily World, which was the forerunner on the East Coast of the People’s Weekly World. He wore an apron with Daily World logo and collected $5,000 a year for the paper, from age 58 to age 70 1/2. He sold old copies and new copies. Then-editor Mike Zagarell coined the term “the Howie factor.” As World artist Seymour Joseph said, “He used to make certain goals, so much by anniversary of marriage, of a bar mitzvah, of a birthday. He wanted people to emulate him. I have not been able to. I don’t have the same skills.”

He was born in the Brownsville neighborhood of Brooklyn. His father was a traveling salesman. His mother worked in a chocolate factory. My father had to quit school in the ninth grade. He sold ice cream in a movie theater, balloons, and worked in a leather factory. He went into the Army during World War II. He was stationed in the U.S. and read at every opportunity. His first vote was for a Communist.

After 1945 he got married and started to work for a hardware store under the banner of District 65 United Auto Workers union. A trade unionist for 30 years, he was never late for work. He demonstrated in 1944 to demand that the Allies open up the second front. He was at a concert by Paul Robeson in Peekskill, N.Y., which was attacked by a fascist mob. He collected signatures for Adlai Stevenson for president during the 1950s. He rallied against the Vietnam War. I remember accompanying him to a few such rallies. The FBI knocked on our family’s door, but fortunately he didn’t go to jail.

He was a good dancer. He used to take us children with my mother Rose to Coney Island Beach. That was a good beach with the soothing ocean. He was a loving father and husband. He loved the feeling of music, especially the song “Brother can you spare a dime?” He never learned how to drive a car, but he could ride a bicycle. I think of him often.

Steven Goldberg Philmont NY

Abolishing war is great answer

There are those among us Americans who want the total abolition of war and not just particular wars. Many Quakers and other good religious citizens traditionally antiwar feel it is time to renew the idea of perpetual peace, which the Bible says is meant to be — this noble and honorable goal.

War and peace questions should not be decided by governments or politicians but by the entire people who have the most to lose in the final analysis.

The world’s resources are finite and war is very wasteful and upsets the balance of nature. War distorts science, keeping higher benefits from millions.

Your paper, People’s Weekly World, is helping lead to reasonable answers. Good luck to your continuing publishing.

George Gaylord Anaheim CA

For Tim Wheeler

Thank you for your beautiful story about Nancy Mendenhall. (Review of “Orchards of Eden: White Bluffs on the Columbia, 1907-1943” PWW 6/3-9) Keep on. Stay well.

Pete Seeger Beacon NY

Heartfelt praise

For 35 years I have been associated with this newspaper. I distributed it to shipyard workers on strike against John and Joe Pew — now Kerr-McGee — when the newspaper was called The Daily Worker. It was a four-page tabloid then.

In all those years I’ve seen things go up and down, I’ve seen the paper change too — from a daily to a weekly back to a daily and now a weekly. I’ve seen its name change a few times.

But it is my great pleasure to say that I am so proud of this newspaper and how it is today. The newspaper has grown and surpassed all the previous editions.

I’ve been particularly impressed with Dan Margolis’ articles, which have been excellent and authoritative. Then I see his photo in the paper and he’s a good looking guy! So many new things in the paper that are exciting, especially the reports about young people and the YCL.

Last week I distributed about 35 papers in a local grocery store with the “$5.15 an hour won’t cut it” headline and people just grabbed them up. I told them it was the “Father’s Day” edition. I give $1,000 out of my Social Security check to this newspaper and ask people to subscribe and give.

John Gilman Milwaukee WI John Gilman is a highly-decorated WWII veteran and a peace activist.

Teacher delegation to Cuba?

I’m a teacher in Los Angeles and am interested in establishing contact with any organization involved in teacher delegations to Cuba.

Ed Guzman Los Angeles CA Editor’s note: If any reader has information on education delegations to Cuba please e-mail it to pww@pww.org. It will be passed on and published in the Letters to the Editor column.

Not enough analysis

Re: Sudan and Darfur (PWW 6/10-16). I understand as little (or nothing) about the cause(s) of the tragedies as I did before reading your double-page spread stating that “the problem is political.” The Communist Party leader and author merely states a conclusion in his first paragraph — I could not find a political analysis of the basic causes — only a call for a “dialogue” leading to a “peaceful and political” solution and what that solution would be like.

There is a fleeting mention of oil, and the possibility of other resources in Darfur. But no facts and no analysis of the forces — domestic, foreign, class. And if “political,” what are the political issues and what are the material bases from which they arise?

Doris Walker San Francisco CA

LETTERS

Fri, 16 Jun 2006 09:27:00 +0000

Please deliver a story

The strong-legged mail carrier who delivers to our home tells me that things are getting tougher for employees at the U.S. Postal Service. It seems that management has taken to using every trick in the book to forestall regular raises in salary and benefits. Ever longer hours are demanded of mail sorters, handlers and carriers, another postal worker tells me. He says there’s a lot of frustration in the rank and file. My mailman has for years delivered the PWW to our mailbox. He wonders whether an overview of current working conditions at the Postal Service might be published in our paper. He says he appreciates the PWW’s political coverage.

Cord MacGuire

Boulder CO

Status of DREAM Act

I have read with much interest Pepe Lozano’s article “DREAM Act renews hope for immigrant students” (PWW 2/4-10). I am a high school teacher and it breaks my heart to see these A-students leave high school with no hope for attending college. Is there any update on the act? Is there anything I can do?

B. Cadieu

Via e-mail

Pepe Lozano responds: Thank you for your letter. The DREAM Act is a provision in the current Senate immigration bill, S 2611. The debate in Congress on immigration reform will have a huge effect on how these students will have some footing in entering universities and colleges.

The fight to pass immigration reform will depend on all of us urging Congress to pass laws that grant immigrants and their children a path to legalization, hence educational opportunities.

Web site soapbox

Just reporting on a little outburst that we dearly hope will cascade into an affair that will cause some Fat Cats to yell “Ouch!” and inhale their $20 cigars.

The web site, www.STOPBIGOIL.us, is now up and we plan to add some interesting things. The people need some help, if you can spare us some ink.

Abstemious Trout

Woonsocket RI

Expose Bush’s theocracy

Thank you for Al Olson’s book reviews of “American Theocracy” and “With God on Their Side.” We need to be shouting this in the streets! Theocrats are persecuting people all over the world, sometimes for no other reason than being gay or having an abortion. Some Muslim countries give homosexuals the death penalty and there are Christians who agree with them and are running for office here!

D.L. Strong

Via e-mail

Impeachment, I agree

I agree with Rep. Karen Yarbrough (“Illinois lawmakers seek Bush impeachment,” PWW 5/13-19). Why do Americans allow “Bush the weirdo” to tell you what to do? Do you think he is God? Did he serve in any war? This just breaks my heart when I hear of all these young men being killed.

Marge Boudreau

Tonawanda NY

Suggestion for Nuestro Mundo

My friend and I have been distributing the paper for about a year now. I have found that many Mexicans don’t only gladly take the PWW when we pass them out, but come up to me and ask me for some more. This is great. But, I have two concerns:

1. There are not many pages in Spanish; there needs to be more.

2. There is no “Join the Communist Party” (or other information for CP membership) in Spanish or on the Spanish side of the PWW. In other words, there is a missing opportunity to reach potential new members.

Esequiel Armijo Vargas

Port Hueneme CA

Editor’s note: You make excellent suggestions. While presently we don’t have plans to increase the number of Spanish pages, we can increase the number of Spanish stories on our web site: www.pww.org. We can also offer more response forms in Spanish for the Communist Party USA. Thanks!

Free trade fuels immigration

The “free trade laws” in South, and Central America and now Peru are at the basis of the recent huge emigration. What hypocrisy as new laws are proposed to punish immigrants and anyone who helps them after causing them to leave their homes.

In the eight years since the passage of NAFTA, Mexican immigrants have increased by 60 percent (Pew Hispanic Center). This was caused by the agricultural provisions of NAFTA, which created a flood of subsidized corn from the U.S.A. The result, 3 million rural families forced off the land. They moved to the cities for poorly paid wage work. Real wages fell by 20 percent during the first five years of NAFTA. They continually remain lower today than before NAFTA. The maquiladora factory workers earn about 50 percent of what it costs to provide basic necessities for a family.

Loss of land, low wages, and unhealthy conditions have fueled the huge emigration. The “Free Trade Laws” NAFTA, CAFTA and PAFTA, despite warnings of the UN and the bishops of Central America, have caused millions of displaced now poor and hungry people. The options are few as they risk their lives to cross the border into the U.S.

These trade deals fuel emigration by destroying their livelihoods at home. People do not want to leave their homes.

NAFTA privatization of water and other resources and allowing global capitalists to sue the partner nations for not obeying its statutes further impoverishes these nations.

Sadly these laws cause the poverty which drives people to cross the border. A 700-mile wall will only cause more deaths. But none of this means any thing to the global capitalists as they take over the land and resources in our “partner nations.”

Vivian Weinstein

San Antonio TX

Guantanamo disgrace

Fri, 16 Jun 2006 09:17:00 +0000

“No question,” President Bush said June 14, “Guantanamo sends, you know, a signal to some of our friends — provides an excuse, for example, to say, ‘The United States is not upholding the values that they’re trying to encourage other countries to adhere to.’”

No kidding.

In the Bush administration’s view, at Guantanamo, international law, and even U.S. law, can be thrown out the window. Prohibitions against torture? Right to know what you are charged with, and a speedy trial? Forget about it.

Bush went on to say that Guantanamo will not be closed, because people there are just “too darned dangerous.” In this administration’s twisted view, the detainees, many of them seized in random “sweeps” in Afghanistan and Pakistan, are not entitled to any judicial process whatsoever. It’s perfectly OK to keep these human beings in captivity and abuse them as long as George W. Bush says so.

The United Nations, Human Rights Watch and many others concerned with human rights have all called for shutting down Guantanamo.

Of the hundreds of people held on that stolen piece of Cuban territory, only 10 have been charged with anything since the detention camp was set up four years ago. It is widely agreed that many if not most of the prisoners have no real connection with terrorism. These people have been snatched up from their home countries, locked up for years in a faraway land, tortured physically and mentally and given no hope of ever being released. It is hard to imagine the profound despair that such unimaginable treatment must provoke.

It is no surprise that, on June 10, three detainees committed suicide. What other method of escape did they have?

U.S. officials compounded their callous inhumanity by brushing off the suicides as “a good PR move.”

This criminal prison camp should be shut down immediately. The detainees should either be charged with specific crimes and given prompt access to lawyers and judicial process, or they should be immediately released and compensated for the years taken away from them and the abuse they have suffered. Those responsible — including President Bush — must be held accountable for their crimes against humanity.

LETTERS

Fri, 09 Jun 2006 07:58:00 +0000

Philly vigil

In response to Tim Wheeler’s article, May 27, with a theme of “Support Our Troops, Bring Them Home” (PWW 5/27-6/2):

Since Dec. 7 (Pearl Harbor Day) people have gathered in front of the Unitarian Society of Germantown in Philadelphia with signs asking cars to “honk against war.” Almost every vehicle does!

Demonstrators from local religious and secular organizations will continue this peace vigil every Wednesday from 5 to 6 p.m. and expand into other high-traffic areas until we get our troops home!

June Krebs Philadelphia

American Jews and Israel

Growing up as Jews in America right after World War II and concurrent with the founding of Israel in 1948, most of us accepted without question the “cause of Israel.” We planted trees there, gave money when various crises developed and otherwise were loyal to a nation we never had visited and whose citizens we rarely if ever had met. “Israel, right or wrong” was our unspoken mantra.

Over time, it became clear to some of us that we had to re-examine our attitudes toward Eretz Yisroel, that perhaps its behavior not only was less than perfect in its relations with its neighbors but was, in fact, of quite questionable morality and potentially dangerous to regional and world peace.

We began to view Israel as America’s client state in the Middle East and joked that things would be simpler if America simply made Israel its 51st state. After all, most Israelis speak English, and Yiddishisms and Jewish food pervade American cuisine.

Susan Webb’s opinion page piece on Israel (PWW 5/27-6/3) should be read by all American Jews (and non-Jews) with an interest in Israel and in peace in the Middle East.

While the picture is as clouded as ever, it is quite clear that anyone interested in world peace and social justice for all must carefully examine her/his views on Israel and realize that blind loyalty to Israel no longer will do and that one no longer can look through an outmoded, outdated and far too narrow window upon a tumultuous, complex and ever-changing Middle East and world. The olive branch of peace does not necessarily grow on trees planted in Israel by American Jews.

Willard B. Shapira Minneapolis MN

Blaming Carter?

I just got an e-mail asking for my support in censuring “The President.” Hey, I’m all for that! So I clicked on the link. But this group wasn’t referring to President Bush. They were talking about President Carter!

“Since leaving office, President Jimmy Carter has repeatedly undermined U.S. foreign policy, criticized the missions of men and women of the United States Armed Forces, as well as embracing known terrorists and terrorist organizations,” stated www.censurecarter.com.

They gotta be kidding, right?

Now that “The Decider” has clearly botched our foreign policy just as surely as he botched Katrina disaster relief by gutting Clinton’s outstanding FEMA program, the Bush bureaucracy has gotta find someone new to blame.

It’s all Jimmy Carter’s fault!

Now why didn’t the rest of us think of that?

I got an idea. How about we blame George and Condi and Powell and Rumsfeld and Cheney, the people who actually made all these rotten decisions? Sorry, Jimmy. No blame for you. Maybe next time.

Jane Stillwater Via e-mail

Education is not a commodity

Marcella Velasquez learned she cannot not receive an Arizona General Resident scholarship because she came to Arizona at age 6 without immigration documents.

Below is a letter I sent to the Arizona Daily Star:

I am writing to respond to the many letters written about Marcella Velasquez, our recent high school graduate.

Some writers view this hapless girl as wasting a precious resource that is in short supply. To view education in this manner is to mistake it for a commodity. It is natural that people have this view since in the present multinational monopoly corporate culture all things in this world are commodities. We are rushing headlong towards insuring that, like any commodity, education has as high a price as possible. Before long, market dictates will cause the closings of universities and colleges, reducing the supply of education.

This happened to hospitals over the last 40 years as health care was commoditized. We have achieved the state in which health care is extremely expensive and millions of Americans die needlessly on the altar of corporate maximum profits. Education is a social function of society, not a commodity.

Jim Hannley Tucson AZ

Relief for gas pains

With the real cost of gasoline now well above $10 a gallon — see web site (www.icta.org/press/release.cfm?news_id=12), and with “average” automobile ownership and operation costs over a lifetime now zoom-zooming past $500,000 (half a million dollars — you do the math), a few auto-related energy conservation reminders may be helpful:

Go car-free (see savings above); go carless; buy smaller, more fuel efficient vehicles and rent up or larger as needed; drive less; ride-share; trip-link or group errands; negotiate a fuel inefficiency retail price reduction for less than cost-optimally fuel-efficient vehicles; urge the auto industry to stop fighting reasonable fuel efficiency and greenhouse gas emission standards and to adopt long-proven, cost-effective fuel efficiency technologies for new vehicles which would save consumers 25 percent or more in fuel costs today; support comprehensive public transportation and auto-alternative programs, for others if not for oneself.

Create your own auto and energy fuel conservation list and keep it handy. Share it.

Rand Knox San Rafael CA

Cuba, Venezuela bring medical care to Bolivia

Fri, 09 Jun 2006 06:21:00 +0000

In early February, a week after Evo Morales was sworn in as Bolivia’s president, Cuban doctors arrived in the country to care for survivors of devastating floods. Seven hundred Cuban medical professionals are still there. They’ve cared for 500,000 Bolivians and set up 20 fully equipped hospitals. They work in 180 municipalities and nine provinces.

Cuban ophthalmologists have operated on an estimated 10,000 people in Bolivia and 2,000 more in hospitals in Cuba. They are part of Cuba’s Operation Milagro (Miracle), a hemisphere-wide program that has provided free curative eye surgery for hundreds of thousands of people.

Under recent agreements, Cuba will be training 7,000 young Bolivians as doctors, and Bolivia, with Cuba’s help, will train some 5,000 more.

On June 1 the Bolivian Medical Society organized a 24-hour strike to protest Cuban doctors practicing in Bolivia without official domestic certification. The society spokesperson pointed out that 10,000 Bolivian doctors are unemployed. Their government lacks money to pay them.

However, many observers say that even with monetary support, few Bolivian doctors would opt to live among poor patients to practice their profession. They have traditionally only served the better-off sections of the population in the big cities.

Hundreds of protesting patients marched in La Paz on June 2. One of them told a reporter, “My operation [for cataracts] lasted 15 minutes, and it was free. Doctors here in Bolivia wanted to charge me 1,500 Bolivianos,” about $200.

Another said, “When Bolivian doctors graduate from the Public University of La Paz, they have taken our money and then they don’t want anything to do with the poor.”

Above their heads a sign proclaimed, “One thousand thanks to the Cuban people.”

Cuban medical outreach is by no means limited to countries with governments that share Cuba’s egalitarian notions. On June 3, 135 Cuban doctors left for Indonesia to care for earthquake victims there. Last week the last of some 1,200 Cuban doctors returned from Pakistan, where for six months they ministered to 1.5 million survivors of last October’s earthquake.

Hugo Chavez’s Venezuela, too, has launched ambitious health care projects. It recently sent 900,000 doses of vaccines to Bolivia, and has announced plans for converting a Caracas cardiology hospital into a center for diagnosis and surgical care for children’s heart disease aimed at serving poor children throughout Latin America.

Chavez, attending the first graduation ceremonies at Cuba’s Latin American School of Medicine in August 2005, promised that Venezuela would build a replica of the Cuban school where thousands of medical students from throughout Latin America and Africa would be educated at no charge. He announced on May 21 that Venezuela’s school will be ready in October to accept 500 Latin American and Caribbean students plus 1,000 students from Bolivia.

The school, now under construction, will be located in Guri, a small city in central Venezuela. Students will take premedical courses there and later on will receive on-the-job training from Cuban and Venezuelan doctors working with Mission Barrio Adentro, a neighborhood-oriented social welfare program. The school will be named after French physician Alejandro Prospero Reverend, who assisted Simon Bolivar, the legendary 19th-century Latin American independence hero.

Under the Bolivarian Alternative for the Americas, the agreement reached by Venezuela, Bolivia and Cuba to prioritize South American unity, plans are under way to train 200,000 Latin American and Caribbean doctors over the next 10 years.

Pro-labor candidate to oppose Schwarzenegger

Fri, 09 Jun 2006 06:11:00 +0000

Labor and progressive forces scored significant victories and mounted important challenges in California’s June 6 primary election.

A strong grassroots campaign by labor and its allies was the biggest factor in State Treasurer Phil Angelides’ 48-43 percent victory over his nearest competitor, State Controller Steve Westly, to be the Democratic Party’s nominee for governor. Six other candidates split the balance of the vote.

“Our unions will help Phil Angelides defeat [Gov. Arnold] Schwarzenegger and bring our state the kind of governor we need — someone committed to creating more good jobs, expanding access to affordable health care, and fully funding our schools,” California Labor Federation head Art Pulaski said in a post-election statement. In last year’s special election, an all-out drive by a united labor movement ensured a resounding defeat for Schwarzenegger’s anti-people ballot measures.

In the 50th Congressional District, north of San Diego, where Republicans hold a 45-30 percent registration advantage over Democrats, anti-immigrant lobbyist Brian Bilbray barely edged Democrat school board member Francine Busby by 49-45 percent. This was a special election to replace recently imprisoned Republican Randy “Duke” Cunningham. Though Bilbray will take office soon to fill the vacancy, Busby will mount another challenge in November. Bilbray utilized vicious anti-immigrant and anti-Busby attack ads, chilling the political climate. Turnout was only 35 percent.

In northern California’s 11th CD, longtime incumbent Richard Pombo was challenged in the Republican primary by former Congressman Paul N. “Pete” McCloskey Jr., who garnered nearly 32 percent of the vote. McCloskey, who as a congressman opposed the Vietnam War and helped write the Endangered Species Act, came out of retirement to oppose Pombo’s drive to undo environmental regulations and his close association with corruption scandals that have rocked Washington Republicans. Wind power expert Jerry McNerney won the Democratic primary. McNerney racked up nearly 104,000 votes against Pombo in 2004 — the most so far by any Democratic challenger.

At press time, with mail ballots still being counted, former Democratic Congressman Ronald V. Dellums led the Oakland mayor’s race with 50.2 percent of the vote to 33 percent for City Council President Ignacio De La Fuente. If Dellums’ tally stays above 50 percent, he will become mayor without facing a November runoff. Dellums ran with strong labor support, on a program to bring all sections of the community together to make Oakland a “model 21st century city.”

In San Jose’s mayoral race, City Councilmember Cindy Chavez, a former political director for the South Bay Labor Council, will face fellow Councilmember Chuck Reed in a November runoff. Chavez — strongly targeted late in the race by the San Jose Silicon Valley Chamber of Commerce — had 23 percent of the vote to Reed’s 28 percent, in a field of 10 candidates.

Two state ballot propositions — Prop. 81 for a bond issue to fund libraries and Prop. 82 to tax the wealthiest Californians to make preschool available to all California 4-year-olds — went down to defeat.

Rosalio Muñoz contributed to this article.

Peacock prejudice

Fri, 02 Jun 2006 08:26:00 +0000

In Dallas, the site of one of the nation’s largest pro-immigration marches this spring, racist speech and repressive actions are on the increase. From local radio talk shows and news media to the average man on the street, the toxic fumes of racism are rising, clouding the judgment of the uninformed and the true interests of the workers in this area. Fear and ignorance may be at the core of this trend of intolerance, but public personalities bear a large responsibility as well.

Scores of workers across the state have been fired for participation in the immigrant rights actions, including 22 factory workers at Benchmark Manufacturing in Tyler. The employees say they gave advance notice to supervisors but were fired anyway. One popular television news team allotted about 30 seconds to the report, and followed the story with a full minute of news concerning a man who was preparing for a garage sale for “English speakers only”. The segment included a nice video of items offered for sale, amounting to nothing less than a commercial for a racist venture.

Local media reports are replete with the extra money the walkouts and marches have cost the city, while neglecting to mention the additional revenue generated by downtown parking fees and city bus fares. Radio talk has never been “bluer” as callers are encouraged to share their vulgar epithets, wrong-headed facts, and stereotypical speech. Anglos who participated are being challenged by everything from the dismissible roll of the eyes to the more ludicrous query, “You’re not a Mexican, why did you march?” No, I’m not and thanks for asking!

On the surface, one might see all of this peacock prejudice as the opposition’s low-road reaction to the courageous and well-organized efforts of those involved in the struggle for immigrants’ rights. Historically, ignorance and fear are known to be root causes of racism. However, another ingredient in the new mix of unabashed bigotry seems to be coming from a group of self-styled “free speech” advocates.

For years now, some news commentators, entertainers and others in the media have complained that the practice of “political correctness” has somehow limited free expression of the truth. The enlightened idea of living life out loud in a way that does not harm or devalue other persons, cultures and traditions seem to have little import with these “free expression” mouthpieces.

Recently, a commentator on a 24-hour news cable program cited a dropout statistic for Latino high school students in California, and suggested that those students protesting “should stop jumping up and down and acting silly and get back to school!” He then solicited and read e-mails in response to his comment. Emboldened by the public airing of this prejudicial tirade, the response overwhelmingly supported the commentator’s point of view.

These new “free speech” promoters irresponsibly and proudly proclaim their resistance to “pc” discourse as if they are bravely promoting an edgy new communication style. Of course, the style is not edgy, nor is it new. Most of us recognize it immediately for what it is: blatant bigotry. As the struggle to organize and advance the cause of immigrants’ rights heats up, so will the opposition’s dangerous and inflammatory intolerance.

Lisa Casey Perry (perry5@swbell.net) is a writer living in North Texas.

LETTERS

Fri, 02 Jun 2006 08:23:00 +0000

Nature vs. profits John Bachtell’s article on capitalism vs. sustainability was great (PWW 4/29-5/5). I gave a presentation on this topic to about 30 people at a United for Peace in Pierce County “salon” (discussion group) today and most of the copies in my PWW bundles were picked up by the attendees. Just one minor criticism: I wish the article could have put in a plug in for “People and Nature before Profits,” and maybe run an ad for it in that issue.

Dave Zink Seattle WA

Editor’s note: To obtain “People and Nature Before Profits,” the Communist Party USA environmental program, e-mail cpusa@cpusa.org.

Inspired in Berlin To my most loved paper, I want to send a small token of my very, very big thank you for your encouragement. The front page of the 4/29 – 5/5 issue, from “Workers of the World Uniting” to all its surrounding headlines and pictures, was inspiring and gave me confidence in our ability to win our struggles for life on earth and dignity for all.

Miriam Pandor Berlin, Germany

Ohio voting mess How come you don’t mention Ken Blackwell in your article about the foul-ups in Cuyahoga County (“As Ohio goes, so goes the nation?” PWW 5/27-6/2)? All the members of the Elections Board in Cuyahoga County serve at the pleasure of Secretary of State Ken Blackwell and were operating under procedures that he approved. Doesn’t that make him responsible for the mess?

Terry Carson Solon OH Judy Johnson responds: Ken Blackwell is, as many readers know, both the Ohio secretary of state and the Republican candidate for governor in November. Many people in Ohio see it as a conflict of interest that the person responsible for the conduct of elections in Ohio is himself a candidate (not against Ohio law). I didn’t mention Blackwell in connection with the debacle in the Cuyahoga County primary election because it seemed tangential to the story, given space problems. Blackwell has done so many negative things affecting the people of Ohio that this deserves a story in itself. Watch for a full story in a future issue of the PWW about the coming governor’s race in Ohio, in which Ted Strikland, the Democratic nominee, will face off against Blackwell.

Puerto Rico Thanks so much for Jose Cruz’s article about the fiscal shutdown in Puerto Rico (PWW 5/13-19). It was so much more informative than those in The New York Times because they never mentioned the underlying problems, i.e., the island’s indebtedness to corporations. I have the Forbes list of the 2,000 most successful world corporations. However, I would like to get a list of the 56 Fortune top 100 corporations that operate in Puerto Rico. Perhaps you can direct me to that information, Thanks and keep up the good work.

Annette Walker Via e-mail

‘Israel Lobby’ Considering the sensitivity required to broach a subject such as the effect Israel has on American policy, you did a wonderful job (“Considering ‘The Israel Lobby’” PWW 5/27-6/2). I consider myself a Christian and a liberal. I have no strong feelings for Israel other than something needs to be done to accommodate the needs of the Palestinian people because their plight should not be ignored. When I read an opinion I look for whether or not a person is able to articulate their position based on the merits of their arguments rather than on attacks on their opponents. I believe you did a very nice job indeed. Does Israel influence our foreign policy? What about our relationships with Arab countries such as Saudi Arabia? Each should be free to present their case to the American government. Most Americans are intelligent enough to understand that we have a responsibility, due to our economic and military position, to do what is right. This, however, is premised on openness and information with which the American people can decide, not operating behind closed doors or from “think tanks” who simply look for “evidence” to support preconceived ideas. I do not care if it is Israel, an Arab country or China that is looking to present their case. What does upset me is unwillingness to let the light of day shine on decisions that influence America and the soldiers, sailors and airmen that pay the price with their blood. Thank you for your well-reasoned and reasonable article. It has made me desire to look at the rest of the People’s Weekly World and see if it measures up to the honesty your article has shown.

Darren M. Peterson Neenah WI

Tripe? What a load of tripe parading as news. However, at least you claim your bias, so I have to give you credit for that. My bias is on the other side of the aisle. If you think the liberals are actually going to retake Congress this year, I believe you are going to be disappointed. The only way to win elections is to articulate a message to the American people that is truthful, uplifts them and makes them proud to be in the greatest country in the world. All the gnashing of teeth, hand wringing, pandering to fringe special interest groups, and coddling of the enemy that the left engages in is stomach-wrenching to a majority of Americans. I’ve got news for you. The American people are a lot less like the Dixie Chicks and a lot more like Toby Keith than you would probably care to believe. That is: They live like Conservatives, they are Christian, they are fiercely Patriotic, and they are very Independent. None of these labels has anything to do with a political ideology; rather, they are lifestyle choices that the so-called mainstream media and your publication detest because they are antithetical to everything you believe.

Shane Barber Via e-mail