People Before Profit blog

Facade of good intentions

Fri, 29 Jun 2007 06:29:00 +0000

A commentary in my local newspaper the other day caught my attention. It concerned a married couple who had chosen some time ago to adopt an autistic child. They knew the child’s biological mother who, for whatever reason, was forced to place the child in foster care — where the child was terribly abused.

When the couple’s friends learned they were planning to adopt the child, the friends made comments along the lines of “God has a special place for you,” and “You’re young — why do you want to take on so much trouble?” The couple, according to the commentary, found such expressions hurtful and offensive.

In my own life, I know of two recent cases where babies were born with Down’s syndrome and the parents were asked by their physicians whether they wanted life-sustaining treatments withheld from their newborn infants.

What struck me as I read the commentary and reflected on the stories of the two families I personally knew, is that the statements made by their friends, family members or doctors had behind them the best of intentions. This sent a chill through me, and I immediately thought of a phrase coined by Hannah Arendt when she wrote about the trial of Adolf Eichmann: the banality of evil.

Arendt’s thesis was that great evil is not perpetuated solely by fanatics and sociopaths, but by ordinary human beings under certain conditions. The great, recurring and only semi-rhetorical question that is often asked by people of good will about the Holocaust and the crimes of the Nazi regime is, “How could this happen?” Yet many of these same people, who react with justifiable revulsion at what took place in Europe in the 1930s and 1940s, think nothing about asking a couple why they want to adopt a disabled and abused child, or whether they would like to be “relieved of the burden” of caring for a child with Down’s.

It is worth remembering that the Holocaust began with the gassing of developmentally and emotionally disabled men, women and children.

Many of these same well-intentioned individuals were silent during the ethnic cleansing that took place in Bosnia, have kept themselves in the dark about what is taking place in Darfur and don’t join the increasingly active movement against the U.S. military intervention in Iraq which, like Hitler’s invasion of Poland in 1939, was begun under false pretenses. “I am only one person,” they’ll say. “What can I do? What difference can I make?” Too many people said that in Europe seven decades ago, although active and clandestine opposition to the Nazis took place in Germany and throughout the continent, often organized by communists.

The fact is that Germany did not “descend into barbarism,” in the late historian William L. Shirer’s phrase, by suddenly jumping off a cliff into the sea like lemmings. The descent was gradual, and the German people were tested and probed for how much they would accept. And by the time many of them discovered things being done that the average German found abhorrent, it was too late.

Since 2001, the Bush administration and ultra-right have tested and probed. Like all criminal regimes in history, their rhetoric is couched in words of duty, honor and concern. They want to “protect our freedoms,” while taking some of them away. They want to “guard our national security,” while making us less safe around the world. They want to “protect family values,” while destroying families in their drive for greater profits, while instilling self-centeredness, fear and bigotry.

Last November’s midterm elections, as CPUSA National Chair Sam Webb noted recently, marked a change in the political terrain and created new arenas of struggle. Let’s fill those arenas and build a movement that challenges people of good intentions to make a difference in their lives, and the lives of millions of others.

Lawrence Albright is a PWW reader, writer and disability rights advocate in Florida.

What foreign language threat?

Fri, 29 Jun 2007 06:22:00 +0000

The town of Carpentersville, Ill., has passed a resolution declaring English to be its “official language.” This happened in the context of a yearlong battle in which a faction of the town’s government has been trying to get legislation passed against the presence of “illegal aliens.” Forty percent of Carpentersville’s population is Latino. Often the worst anti-immigrant and anti-foreign agitation happens in communities where there is a possibility that Latinos or other immigrants may in the not-too-distant future become a majority of voters.

The Carpentersville resolution is only one instance of many of right-wing, xenophobic political forces trying to scare the public about supposed threats to the English language in this country. Similar resolutions have been passed in other communities, and there have been several proposed amendments of this kind to immigration legislation in Congress.

It is all malicious nonsense. There is no threat to the English language. In fact, English is so dominant in this country that it is hard to get Americans, even university students, to learn other languages. And, although first-generation immigrants may struggle a bit with English, their children here almost always are fluent in it, and by the third generation, the problem is not to get people to learn English, but to re-teach them the language of their grandparents. So this is a non-problem. When politicians try to turn a non-problem into a problem, you can bet that the purposes are demagogic.

Furthermore, there have always been non-English language communities in this country, and the sky has not fallen.

• Some 150 Native American languages are spoken here still, although in many cases only by a dwindling group of seniors. But in Native American communities where indigenous language use is strong, with children and young people as well as middle-aged and elderly people routinely using the language, there is both a practical need and a desire to have services provided in that language.

In some other communities, efforts are under way to preserve or even restore indigenous tongues. Surely nobody can claim that Navajo, Western Apache, Cherokee, Choctaw or Hopi are “foreign languages” in the United States. And what right does anybody have to suppress them or discriminate against their speakers, including in the provision of government services?

• Nor is Spanish a “foreign language” in the United States. Before English settlers arrived in Jamestown, Spanish was spoken in two areas of what is now the United States: St. Augustine, Fla., and the Southwest, especially New Mexico. True, most Spanish speakers here today are not direct descendants of these early Spanish and Spanish-Mexican settlers, but neither are most English speakers descendants of the English settlers of Jamestown or the Mayflower group.

• Other long-standing communities of non-English European language speakers in the United States include “Cajun” (Acadian) French speakers in Louisiana and Plautdeutch (Low German) speakers in Pennsylvania, who were there before the United States was an independent country. None of these people have ever constituted a “problem” for the unity of this country.

In fact, in other countries where soul mates of the English-only crowd claim that multiple language use has led to disunity, the disunity has almost always come from the efforts of one language community to suppress the language of the others, not from the mere existence of multiple languages. Belgium and Canada are examples. Switzerland, on the other hand, is an example of a country where four languages (German, French, Italian and Romansch) are official and language has never been a threat to national unity. In places where disunity is at its most violent right now, like Iraq and Lebanon, language is not the issue.

• And what about the Puerto Rican people? Although it is my view that the Puerto Ricans are a distinct nation and that Puerto Rico should not be ruled by the U.S. anyway, current U.S. law claims Puerto Ricans as citizens. Yet nobody doubts that this is an essentially Spanish-speaking population. By what right can the federal government, let alone the government of a small town like Carpentersville, deny this?

Early English settlers arrived here to find, to their horror, that the place was full of “foreigners” speaking “foreign tongues” and following “barbarous foreign customs.”

It did not occur to most of the English settlers that they themselves, in fact, were the only “foreigners” around. But surely we have got beyond that backward attitude, and will reject the demagogy of the “English only” and “official English” movements.

Emile Schepers is an immigrant rights activist.

Editorial: Watering the Tree of Liberty

Fri, 29 Jun 2007 06:15:00 +0000

The signers of the Declaration of Independence must be turning in their graves this July 4th over the shredding of basic democratic rights by corporate right-wing politicians in Washington.

The picture is so bad that thousands, led by the American Civil Liberties Union, rallied at the Capitol to demand an end to torture practiced by the Bush-Cheney gang. They also demanded restoration of habeas corpus rights. Those rights have been nullified by President Bush as he insists on endlessly imprisoning “enemy combatants” without criminal charges.

We were reminded this week that the assault on the Bill of Rights has been going on for decades.

The CIA released 702 pages of memos revealing its sordid schemes, including assassination plots against foreign leaders such as Congolese Premier Patrice Lumumba and Cuban President Fidel Castro.

One memo reports a request by President Richard Nixon’s Watergate “plumbers,” all of them CIA, for a “lockpicker,” presumably to break into the Democratic Party headquarters.

Also this week, the Tamiment Library at New York University opened for inspection 400,000 pages of FBI files on its spying against the National Lawyers Guild. Among them were files on FBI spying on the Michigan Guild and on the Communist Party of Michigan.

One 1964 memo marked “confidential” shows John Conyers Jr., now chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, was a target.

A memo from FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover instructs the FBI’s Detroit Bureau to sabotage George W. Crockett Jr.’s campaign for a judgeship. A leaflet was produced showing a hammer and sickle and branding Crockett an “enemy collaborator.”

Crockett, a leader of the Lawyers Guild, had served as a defense counsel to Communist Party leaders during the Smith Act trials in the late 1940s. A courageous man, he never wavered. And the people of Detroit elected and re-elected Crockett to Congress by landslide margins.

The American people rejected McCarthyism, FBI/CIA abuses, and Nixon’s “enemies list” schemes, and they are rejecting the Bush administration, which has brought this country to a new low in its trampling of civil liberties and the Constitution. July 4th is a good time to renew our commitment to defend our liberties and rights.

New Yorks police on rampage, critics charge

Fri, 29 Jun 2007 04:41:00 +0000

BROOKLYN, N.Y. — The New York Police Department is running wild in Black and Latino neighborhoods, using racial profiling as a tool of choice, charges a group of students and residents of Brooklyn’s Bushwick neighborhood.

The latest incident began May 21, when police arrested over 30 youths, some as young as 13, walking to the subway, which they intended to ride to the wake of a slain friend in Coney Island. While police have said that the friend, Donnell McFarland, who was 18, was a gang leader, and that the teens were fellow gang members causing trouble, there is virtually no evidence to back up this claim.

The mainly Black and Latino youth were arrested on misdemeanor charges, such as disorderly conduct and unlawful assembly. After police searched them, they were found to have no drugs and no weapons — only notes from their school giving them permission to attend the funeral. Although they did not resist arrest, a number were held in prison for 36 hours and denied food and water for up to 12 hours.

Many of the youth, most of whom attend Bushwick Community High School (BCHS), were wearing shirts commemorating McFarland’s life. The police confiscated the shirts, calling them “evidence.”

“We just wanted to mourn our friend’s death,” said one of the young men who were arrested. “We didn’t have a chance to do that. We were locked up for 36 hours. We didn’t even have anything to eat for 12 hours. Our parents brought us food, and they [the police] didn’t give us the food that they brought us. It was a real agonizing experience.”

According to several accounts, the police were lying in wait: the students were less than a block into their journey when they were surrounded and arrested.

Dana Jordan, a BCHS student who helped form Students Concerned about Racial Profiling (SCARP), told the World, “There was no gang affiliation. They [the arrestees] were not even involved in a gang.” She said her group meets daily at the high school and is working to find ways to end racial profiling.

Data provided by Make the Road By Walking, a community organization in Brooklyn, shows that in 2006 over 85 percent of the people stopped by the police citywide were Black or Latino, and that 90 percent of the stops resulted in no summons — meaning no crime was committed.

Tabari Bomani, a teacher at BCHS, said the problem is systemic. Certain high-profile incidents occur, like the recent shooting of Sean Bell, and police brutality comes into the public spotlight. But, he said, police brutality has not disappeared at any point.

“If you talk to Latino youth, African American youth, poor youth,” Bomani said, “they will tell you what they go through on a daily basis. Everything from cops cursing at them, to pushing them, to arresting them for no reason, or making them run their pockets because they didn’t like the way they responded to them. This is what people go through every day.”

City Council Member Charles Barron, Make the Road By Walking and SCARP have called for Brooklyn District Attorney Hynes to drop the charges against the youths and to charge the police involved for violating anti-profiling laws.

Saying that poverty and crime are connected, Barron said the city should reopen recreational centers and fix the schools. He noted that the city plans to give hundreds of millions of dollars to a private developer, Forest City Ratner, to build luxury apartments and a sports

arena. Pour that amount of money into the neighborhoods, Barron said, “and watch crime go down.”

In a related story, civil rights lawyer Michael Warren and his wife Evelyn were arrested last week for “interfering with an arrest” when they demanded that police stop punching a man in handcuffs. Both Warren and his wife were punched by police, witnesses said.

dmargolis @pww.org

Restore our liberties

Fri, 29 Jun 2007 04:21:00 +0000

Rights coalition presses to close Gitmo, end torture and bring back habeas corpus

WASHINGTON — One week before our nation’s July 4 celebration, thousands of protesters wearing Statue of Liberty crowns and holding signs reading “Torture is wrong” rallied on Capitol Hill to demand that Congress restore constitutional freedoms shredded by the Bush administration.

Organizers delivered about 200,000 petition signatures to Congress demanding immediate action to “restore habeas corpus, fix the Military Commissions Act, end torture and rendition and restore our constitutional rights.”

The June 26 rally was the centerpiece in a series of actions across the U.S. calling for restoration of fundamental freedoms.

Anthony Romero, executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union, welcomed the crowd to Upper Senate Park, hailing them as “true heroes” for traveling overnight by bus to spend a sweltering day lobbying the House and Senate.

Romero urged lawmakers to repeal the Military Commissions Act, which was passed in the waning days of the Republican-dominated Congress last year. It eliminated the basic civil protection of habeas corpus — literally meaning “show me the body,” this is the long-standing right of anyone detained to be told why he or she is being held.

Rally speakers urged passage of S 185, the Habeas Corpus Restoration Act of 2007, now before the Senate. (Readers can call toll-free to the U.S. Capitol, 800-862-5530, and ask to be put through to senators’ offices to urge their support for the bill.)

Romero recalled the “dark days” following Sept. 11, 2001, charging that the tragedy “was used by the Bush administration to advance a highly ideological agenda and seize greater powers.” In the wake of Sept. 11, Congress passed the Patriot Act, which opened the door to the administration’s warrantless spying, detentions without criminal charges or the right of legal representation, secret prisons and torture.

“But the pendulum is swinging back in our direction,” Romero said. “We demand the restoration of habeas corpus. We demand the closing of Guantanamo.”

Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.) said enactment of S 185 “is the first and most important step to restoring law and justice.”

He compared suspending habeas corpus to the mass internment of Japanese Americans during World War II. “That didn’t make America safer. It put a stain on America,” he said.

When Leahy mentioned Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, author of a memo for President Bush justifying torture and mass detention, a chorus of boos drowned out his words.

“I yearn for the day when we have an administration in the White House that upholds the Constitution and follows the rule of law,” Leahy said.

Sen. Tom Harkin (D-Iowa) blasted Vice President Dick Cheney’s role in trampling the Bill of Rights and other hard-won civil rights and liberties. Cheney “has a dismissive attitude toward laws that get in the way,” Harkin declared. “Now we learn he does not even acknowledge that he is part of the Executive Branch. What is he anyway? The Dick Cheney branch of government?”

Harkin spoke of his 1970 journey to Vietnam as a young congressional aide, when he visited the infamous U.S.-sponsored “tiger cages,” South Vietnamese jails where prisoners were tortured as they are today at Guantanamo. “There are disturbing parallels between these secret prisons,” Harkin said. Addressing Bush, Harkin shouted, “Mr. President, we have an answer: Tear down that prison!”

Renee Pecot of Harrisburg, Pa., was sitting in the shade with her hand-lettered sign, “Torture is un-American.” She told the World, “Guantanamo is just horrendous. When they suspend habeas corpus, all our rights and freedoms are in danger.” She added, “This scapegoating of immigrants is a blemish on our history. Look at Mexico with 40 percent unemployment because of our NAFTA that was supposed to create jobs. We should be ashamed that now we want to build a wall to keep the Mexican workers out.”

Greg Zensen rode the bus with 50 other protesters for more than 24 hours from St. Louis. “A lot of new authority was taken by the government, new investigative powers without subpoena or court order,” he said. “Giving this much power to a few people without any kind of judicial oversight, putting people in a hole somewhere without any legal recourse, it’s unacceptable. Look at what happened in Germany. You scapegoat somebody and ultimately it is you, standing by yourself, and nobody left to speak up for you.”

Rep. Jerrold Nadler (D-N.Y.) told reporters that legislation to restore habeas corpus will be acted on by several House committees within the next few weeks.

Caroline Frederickson, ACLU legislative director, told the crowd, “Lobbying is so much more effective when you stand with thousands of people and you represent millions of Americans across the country.”

The ACLU partnered with Amnesty International, the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights, the National Religious Campaign Against Torture and more than 50 other organizations, representing more than 4 million Americans, for the campaign to restore rights.

The rally came as the media reported new releases of declassified intelligence files that underscored for many the urgency of protecting civil liberties. The files, dating back decades, show, among other things, widespread government spying on peace groups and secret plans to assassinate foreign leaders.

greenerpastures21212 @yahoo.com

New terrain requires new tactics

Fri, 22 Jun 2007 06:29:00 +0000

The new balance of forces in Congress, the greatly weakened position of the Bush administration, and the growing activity of the labor-led people’s coalition have rearranged the political playing field in our country. Everyone involved in politics has to adjust their tactics to these new realities.

Those of us on the left are no exception. Some sections of the left have adjusted, others are in transition, but some are still stuck on an outdated approach that doesn’t serve either them or the larger movement well. Below I outline some of the Communist Party’s thinking on tactics taking into account the new realities and opportunities now shaping our nation’s political life.

ssues that stir millions

First of all, the left has to engage in the main struggles of our working and oppressed people. Mass struggles, not on issues that roil the left but on the issues stirring tens of millions, are the ground floor of any serious tactical policy. The struggle to end the occupation of Iraq is the most compelling issue at this moment, but developing struggles for universal health care, real immigration reform, union rights, and equality and against racism are also important. In addition there are many local issues where the left must be engaged if it is going to be a relevant and growing factor.

Second, people on the left have to be an integral part of what we call the core constituencies of the people’s coalition — the working class, the nationally and racially oppressed, women and youth — and their organizations. Their efforts in the 2006 elections were the main reason for the favorable shift in the political terrain on which we all find ourselves. They are not left-minded in their majority. But they are angry and open to new ideas, engaged in battles of one kind or another, and looking ahead with great hope to the 2008 elections. Neither victories in the struggle for peace or any other issue nor a decisive defeat of the extreme right in 2008 is attainable without the active engagement and leadership of these very forces. The left can’t do it alone — if it could, it would have done it a long time ago.

Republicans vs. Democrats

Third, notwithstanding all the deficiencies of the two-party system and the obvious need for an independent party based in the core forces of the people’s movement, we on the left have to make distinctions between Republicans and Democrats. While neither party is about to challenge the overall imperatives and rationale of U.S. capitalism, their policies and constituencies are not identical. It is a mistake to ignore the differences between and within the two parties and their presidential candidates over issues like preventive war, diplomacy, nuclear proliferation, global warming, democratic rights, racism, abortion, affirmative action, immigration — and a real timeline for withdrawal from Iraq.

To approach the two parties as a single party of corporate capitalism when there are obvious divisions will surely isolate the left from the developing progressive coalition that makes such distinctions, both in immediate struggles and in the 2008 elections.

Partial steps

Finally, left-thinking people should avoid counterposing their demands against the demands of others and expressing displeasure toward those who aren’t yet ready to embrace advanced demands, but are ready nonetheless to support more partial ones.

Instead, the left should have the view that supporting legislative demands that fall short of their own demands, and embracing compromises, is absolutely justifiable morally and politically in many circumstances. In no way does supporting a partial measure, say real drug benefits for seniors, delay the struggle for far-reaching measures, such as universal health care, or risk alienating the left’s constituency.

In our view, a serious left tactical policy shouldn’t be reduced to simply staking out a left position and not budging from it, on the assumption that this will shift the debate in Congress to the left, force liberal and centrist Democrats to either get off the fence or reveal their opportunism, and prevent needless compromises.

Such left pressure does influence the political-legislative process, but if it is the only consideration that enters into our calculations it easily becomes simplistic and counterproductive.

Arriving at an effective tactical approach requires that we take into account the evolving balance of forces in Congress and the country, and keep our focus on the Bush administration and the extreme right.

Alliances are necessary

It requires that we try to win allies, no matter how temporary, and strive for the broadest unity. It compels us to examine closely the complex dynamics and diverse political makeup of congressional Democrats. It obliges us to be mindful that mustering a majority in Congress to end the war or pass any positive legislation requires the support of not only progressive Democrats, but also centrist Democrats and moderate Republicans.

Above all, it requires the left to appreciate that participation in day-to-day struggles for partial steps addressing the problems confronting millions, whether peace or other issues, is the main way that millions gain experience, achieve broad unity, and come to understand that a deeper perspective and more comprehensive measures are necessary to defeat U.S. imperialism.

The tactical policy of the left should assist, unite and lead millions to more advanced positions and forms of struggle, to be sure. But it will only be accomplished to the degree that the left engages in struggles and embraces demands that are readily embraced by tens of millions, only to the degree that it is able to flexibly develop and combine various levels and demands of struggle and popular education, only to the degree that its tactical policy is grounded in concrete realities.

Thus, the vote on the nonbinding resolution and supplemental bill with a timetable for Iraq withdrawal this spring, for example, was a missed opportunity for some of the left to deepen unity within the antiwar coalition and to draw peace-minded people into struggle who were not yet ready to fight for more advanced slogans, such as “out now” or “cut the funding now,” but who wanted to register their bitter opposition to this foreign policy disaster.

It was also a missed opportunity to deepen the thinking of those in the left’s constituency who cling to the notion that nothing short of maximum demands is worthy of support.

No compromises?

Politics inevitably involves compromises. The issue is, what is the nature and context of the compromise; does it strengthen the struggle or weaken it going forward? To go into any struggle with the position that no compromise is permissible on political and moral grounds yields an unnecessary advantage to the opponent.

What is more, we should retire the idea that any compromise on the Iraq war or some other issue will necessarily erode the constituency of the left. Some people will see any compromise as an unprincipled retreat, but many won’t if the reasons for the compromise are explained forthrightly. This is especially the case with the nation’s multiracial working people. More than any other grouping in our society, working people (particularly racially and nationally oppressed working people) appreciate the contradictory nature of struggle, are well aware of the overriding importance of the balance of forces in setting the contours and prospects of struggle, and realize that compromises, partial demands and tactical flexibility are an inescapable part of political life.

Opportunities and challenges

With the possibility of ending the Iraq war looming large, and of decisively defeating the extreme right in 2008, it is imperative that these kinds of understandings of our nation’s working people inform the tactical policy of the entire left.

A left that hopes to exercise a decisive impact on our nation’s political direction has to combine realism with radicalism, carefully and concretely measure the balance of class and social forces at every moment, not stand aloof, but fully engage in the struggles that are most deeply felt by millions. It has to accent at every turn the necessity of broad unity and the struggle for racial, gender and other forms of equality, combine different levels of action, demands and education, and qualitatively deepen its connections to our multiracial, multinational working class and the broad people’s movement.

Not since the 1950s has the left been sufficiently rooted in the multiracial working class and trade union movement. The working-class-based left was shattered for all practical purposes by Cold War politics and political repression.

Nearly a half-century later, we have an opportunity to positively resolve this shortcoming. A left embedded in the core constituencies of the people’s movement is the best guarantee that broad and flexible strategy and tactics, derived from a sober analysis of the political situation, will guide the struggles of millions on a political terrain filled with new hopes, new possibilities and new challenges.

Sam Webb (swebb @cpusa.org) is national chair of the Communist Party USA.

Labor applies Capitol Hill heat for worker rights

Fri, 22 Jun 2007 04:44:00 +0000

WASHINGTON — No matter how hot and sweaty it got here June 19, support for the Employee Free Choice Act was hotter. Some 3,000 union members and allies rallied on Capitol Hill for the most radical reform of U.S. labor law in over 70 years. The bill would help restore the right of workers to organize a union, a right that has been steadily eroded by corporate America.

“My brother-in-law was fired for trying to organize a union when he worked for a cable TV company,” Beverly Jackson, a Communications Workers of America member from Maryland, said. “Unions protect jobs and provide good benefits.”

Larry Scanlon, political action director for the public employees union, AFSCME, said, “Public education, an 8-hour day, family medical leave, higher wages, a voice at work” are just some things that have come about because of unions. “If you are just one person, there’s no power in that, but the more people who join together, the more power.”

Recent polls show that 62 percent of Americans believe workers would be “worse off” if there were no unions.

Yet the EFCA, which passed the House of Representatives in March by a 241-185 margin, faces stiff opposition in the Senate, where the Democrats hold only a one-vote majority. The National Association of Manufacturers, Chamber of Commerce and other employer groups have unleashed a massive campaign against the bill and most Republican lawmakers stand with them. President Bush has promised to veto the bill if it passes the Senate.

Passage of the EFCA would improve existing labor law so that workers could form a union as soon as a majority sign cards indicating their desire to do so. Under current law, the company can insist on an “election,” triggering what usually amounts to a long, drawn-out process during which employers typically harass, intimidate and fire union supporters before any vote ever takes place.

Anti-union corporate-backed groups took out a full-page ad in Washington papers, claiming to uphold the right of workers to these so called “free elections.”

“I have something to say about this,” Sen. Ted Kennedy (D-Mass.), one of the bill’s top advocates, told the rally crowd. He tore up the newspaper ad, throwing the pieces to the ground. “Our members have to clean that up,” joked rally emcee Gerald McEntee, president of AFSCME.

Kennedy introduced the EFCA in the Senate in March, along with 46 co-sponsors. The co-sponsors include presidential candidates Joe Biden, Hillary Rodham Clinton, Chris Dodd and Barack Obama. Democratic candidates not in the Senate — former Sen. John Edwards, Gov. Bill Richardson and Rep. Dennis Kucinich — all support the bill as well.

Teamsters President James Hoffa told the rally, “Joining a union should be as easy as just signing a card.” But, “there’s a war of intimidation, fear of discharge,” going on in America, he said. “The EFCA would take the fear out of union organizing.”

The EFCA is a “close second to the Iraq war” among important issues before Congress, said freshman Sen. Sherrod Brown of Ohio.

Senate debate began June 18. Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) told the crowd a vote to end debate could come shortly. The bill has 52 backers, but 60 votes are needed to end a Republican filibuster that could kill the bill.

CWA President Larry Cohen urged the crowd, “Call your senators and tell them: ‘We’re watching, we’re watching. The whole world is watching, the whole labor movement is watching, and we will be there.’”

The fierce drive across the country for passage of the bill extended beyond rallies in 100 cities. Thousands of e-mails and phone calls poured into the offices of every senator. The AFL-CIO, moments before the Capitol Hill rally, finished collecting 50,000 signed online cards from all 50 states, combined them with thousands of signatures collected in towns and cities across the U.S. and delivered the whole package to the Senate.

In Columbus, Ohio, 350 workers rallied at the Statehouse demanding passage of the EFCA. Petie Talley, Ohio AFL-CIO vice president, accused the Bush administration of hypocrisy on workers’ rights.

“This administration goes around the world self-righteously preaching democracy to everyone else,” Talley said. “All the while they deny the most basic right to organize and join a union of their choice to workers here in the United States.”

talbano @pww.org

John Wojcik contributed to this story.

Apologizing for slavery and segregation

Fri, 15 Jun 2007 08:05:00 +0000

You may not know it living in the United States, but this year most of what historians call the Atlantic World is commemorating the 200th anniversary of the British abolition of the transatlantic slave trade.

In Ghana, one of the African countries from which millions were enslaved, an international conference is planned this summer at the Cape Coast slave fort.

In March, across the ocean, a special ceremony termed “the funeral of the ancestors” observed the bicentenary this past March in Jamaica, the final destination of some of those slaves.

And, in the United Kingdom itself, outgoing Prime Minister Tony Blair said the commemorations across his country that same month were “an opportunity … to express our deep sorrow and regret for our nation’s role,” according to the BBC News.

So, why the silence here in the U.S., where slavery continued for nearly 50 years after the British Parliament passed the Abolition of the Slave Trade Act in March 1807?

The U.S. ruling class is notorious for resisting any acknowledgement of its past misdeeds, from the decimation of Native Americans to the atomic bombing of the Japanese. When Bill Clinton tested the waters by suggesting slavery was wrong during a 1998 trip to Uganda, then House Republican Whip Tom DeLay lashed out at the president and the discussion abruptly ended.

And while several states now have passed bills apologizing for slavery — most recently, Alabama, where the resolution expresses “profound regret” — the Confederate flag still flies across parts of the South as a reminder that many politicians deny the crimes of slavery and the Jim Crow segregation which followed it until about 40 years ago.

If freshman Rep. Steve Cohen (D-Tenn.) has his way, however, the U.S. will be forced to confront its shameful past through House Resolution 194, “Apologizing for the enslavement and racial segregation of African-Americans,” which he authored. The measure states, in part, “that the House of Representatives: (1) acknowledges the fundamental injustice, cruelty, brutality and inhumanity of slavery and Jim Crow; (2) apologizes to African-Americans on behalf of the people of the United States, for the wrongs committed against them and their ancestors … [and] (3) expresses its commitment to rectify the lingering consequences of the misdeeds committed against African-Americans.”

The Memphis Democrat hopes his resolution will shed light on the persistent legacies of slavery and segregation today, such as discrimination in housing and employment. His resolution also has the potential to educate Americans about the key role slavery played in the development of the U.S. and the debt owed to African Americans.

Marxists understand that the surplus from slave labor, performed over hundreds of years by Africans in the most institutionalized and violent system of slavery in history, fueled the rise of capitalism. Africans not only worked on the cotton plantations of the South, but more importantly brought with them expertise in iron-making, rice cultivation and indigo manufacturing, sectors which were the foundation of the early U.S. economy.

Whenever calls for an apology are made by activists, the U.S. government and media counter with arguments appealing to racist elements, intended to divide the working class. Search the Internet and you will discover many examples of the ultra-right-wing propaganda posted against Rep. Cohen’s bill.

What is the basis for this hostility? On a practical level, the ruling class is concerned about the financial consequences, as demands for reparations surely will follow an official apology. And, ideologically, recognizing the debt owed to the descendants of slaves would shatter the myth that the U.S. was built only through the ingenuity and hard work of capitalists.

The 200th anniversary of the slave trade’s abolition offers a symbolic opportunity for the U.S. government to apologize for the injustices committed against African Americans. Of course, slavery did not come to an end merely because, after enslaving over 12 million Africans, European capitalists suddenly decided the trade was immoral. The rise of industrial capitalism demanded new forms of labor — so-called “free” labor, but in reality wage labor — and it is not a coincidence that the center of the abolition movement, England, also was the first capitalist power.

Moreover, Africans played a pivotal role in ending slavery themselves, through everyday forms of resistance to slave revolts to outright revolution in places like Haiti. And, let us not forget that the “illegal” slave trade lasted well until the end of the 19th century, and slavery was sanctioned in many parts of the Americas until then, too.

Yet, it is significant that imperialist leaders like Blair are marking the anniversary and equally striking that the nation which prospered most from slavery, the U.S., has yet to formally concede its own despicable past.

So, in this bicentennial year of abolition, let the U.S. commemoration take the form of Rep. Cohen’s resolution. While an official apology will not eradicate the racist realities of capitalism, it will initiate a national dialogue about the legacies of slavery and segregation, especially crucial in the aftermath of episodes like the Don Imus rant.

Encourage your representative to support this measure — which as of late May had nearly 100 co-sponsors in the House and was under consideration by the Judiciary Committee — as an important step towards righting the wrongs of the past.

Dennis Laumann (dlaumann @memphis.edu) is associate professor of African history at the University of Memphis.

EDITORIAL: Saying no to Bushs yes-man

Fri, 15 Jun 2007 07:54:00 +0000

Ever since President Bush began to build his administration’s track record of undermining the U.S. Constitution and restricting Americans’ civil liberties, he has had a loyal yes-man and enabler, Alberto “Can’t Recall” Gonzales.

First as White House counsel and now as attorney general, Gonzales has had a hand in every White House maneuver to increase spying by government agencies, to sanction abuse and torture of people incarcerated under the war and occupation of Iraq and the “war on terror,” and to turn the Department of Justice into a support system for the extreme right instead of a defender of the American people’s rights.

This week the Senate voted, 53-38, to proceed with a nonbinding vote of no confidence in Gonzales.

The attorney general’s critics failed to reach the 60 votes needed to act on their resolution that Gonzales “no longer holds the confidence of the Senate and of the American people.” But seven Republicans, including Sens. Chuck Hagel and Arlen Specter, joined the Democratic majority. Others who opposed the resolution nevertheless criticized the administration, including Republican George Voinovich, who said, “If I were president, I would have asked Alberto Gonzales to resign as attorney general.” Presidential candidate John McCain sidestepped the no-confidence vote altogether.

Sen. Charles Schumer, a key backer of the measure, said the vote should still be interpreted as an expression of no confidence. Gonzales “ought to have the decency himself to resign,” Schumer added. “Clearly, he is not up to the job.”

In typical imperious style, Bush dismissed the Senate action. “They can try to have their votes of no confidence,” he said, “but it’s not going to determine who serves in my government.”

As Anthony Romero, head of the American Civil Liberties Union, wrote in an open letter to the Senate before the vote, “The attorney general provides tailor-made legal support for the president; the president reciprocates with unwavering political support. It’s a cozy relationship for those two, but disastrous for our nation and its rule of law. ‘No confidence’ doesn’t even begin to cover it.”

How do you pay for your education?

Fri, 15 Jun 2007 04:56:00 +0000

Students seek relief from mounting debt

CHICAGO — Graduating with a college degree is more than ever a necessity today. Students and their families are doing whatever it takes to pay for higher education, including taking on excessive amounts of debt.

As the costs of college have soared, average student debt levels have more than doubled in the last decade, and nearly two-thirds of four-year college graduates now have student loans, according to studentdebtalert.org. Thirty-nine percent of student borrowers graduate with unmanageable levels of federal student loan debt. The number of students graduating owing over $25,000 has tripled since the early 1990s.

“If people don’t take out student loans, then how will they pay for their education?” asked Paul Rockwood, 20, a junior majoring in criminal justice at the University of Illinois at Chicago (UIC).

Joining Rockwood as he worked at an information desk on campus was Hina Shaikh, 19, a third-year architecture major. She added, “There are a lot of people who want to go to college but they can’t because they don’t have the money.” Generations of potential college students wind up working at McDonald’s and Burger King, she commented. “They can’t move on, they’re just stuck there.”

Phillip Mosley, 19, an African American junior studying accounting, said attending UIC costs roughly $10,000 a year if you live off campus, and $20,000 if you live on campus. It’s expensive, he said, especially if you can’t get help from your parents. Mosley told the World he is certain to have $27,000 in student loan debt, not including interest, after he graduates. He wants to go to graduate school, which could easily mean another $40,000 in loans.

“You’ll be in debt for at least 25 years,” said Mosley. “I feel like considering only getting my bachelor’s and not a master’s.” He added, “There is not enough money going toward education.”

Ashley Ruggles, 22, a senior psychology major, said, “A lot more people would take advantage of higher education if the government paid for everyone.” Sitting with a book before her next class, Ruggles told the World she had considered not going to college because it was too expensive, especially since her parents could do little to assist her. Ruggles said the federal government should devote more money toward positive things rather than on building jails or the Iraq war.

Lauren Asher, associate director of the California-based Project on Student Debt, said in a phone interview that, over the years, higher education costs have shifted more and more onto students and their families, while state tuition and other fees have risen.

Asher’s organization works to make higher education more available and affordable for people of all backgrounds and is a member of the College Affordability Coalition.

“The aid has not kept up and Pell Grants have eroded,” she said. Student loans can provide educational opportunity for students, she noted, but having student loans the only way to pay, especially for lower income students, “sends mixed messages” about the importance of higher education. Asher said students are beginning to speak out on this issue and it is starting to get national attention.

Chris Lindstrom, director of the Affordable Higher Education Project, told the World, “The more young people go to college the better off we are as a society. And the more people are likely to vote.”

“Our society has relied on going to college. Students help solve our problems and for that reason people need to become educated,” she said. However, grants and financial aid just don’t cover as much as they did 10 and 15 years ago.

New York State Attorney General Andrew Cuomo has exposed scandals in the $85 billion student loan industry, in which loan firms have offered gifts and payments to college financial aid officers to promote business among student borrowers.

The House of Representatives last month overwhelmingly passed a bill that would require colleges and lenders to abide by new codes of conduct; ban gifts from lenders to aid officers; require disclosure of college-lender links; and protect students from aggressive marketing. It would affect major lenders such as Sallie Mae, Bank of America, JP Morgan Chase and Citigroup. The senate has not yet acted on the bill.

Lindstrom commented, “This is very much a question of how we curb the banks and lenders who are very anti-public and are only trying to make more profits. The bottom line is we need more aid.”

United States Students Association President Jennifer Pae said the private loan industry has grown exponentially off the backs of the most vulnerable students.

“Congressional action is needed now more than ever,” Pae told the World. “We encourage students and their allies to contact their representatives,” she said.

The root problem is that resources are not being allocated toward higher education, said Geoff Banks, a UIC sociology graduate student who said he owes at least $30,000 so far. It “doesn’t hit you until the loan bills start coming in the mail right after you graduate,” he said.

plozano @pww.org

Oil company price gouging provokes fightback

Fri, 08 Jun 2007 04:49:00 +0000

WASHINGTON — Anger over skyrocketing gasoline prices is turning to fightback with more than 570,768 people signing an online petition to the U.S. Senate demanding that they approve a bill that makes gasoline price gouging a federal crime.

The petition, initiated by the online grassroots group, MoveOn.org, cites gasoline prices zooming well above $3 per gallon “and no sign of declining anytime soon. … The American people have had enough and its time for a change.” The petition states, “Gasoline price gouging should be made a federal crime before the summer price increases hurt more American families.”

MoveOn.org warned that “Big Oil is fighting new legislation tooth and nail, and the Senate is voting on an anti-price gouging bill in just two weeks. If we can reach 750,000 names, we’ll hand deliver the petition to Congress to remind them that we’re watching. … Big Oil will stop at nothing to protect their profits and they’ve got lobbyists all over Capitol Hill.”

The House approved language sought by the oil companies that makes it far harder to enforce the anti-price gouging regulations. The Senate, the MoveOn.org statement continues, “needs to hear even louder from us not to cave and weaken the bill.”

Tyson Slocum, energy program director of the grassroots consumer group Public Citizen, told the World in a telephone interview that oil company profits are at “windfall levels” amounting to a huge “transfer of wealth” from the pockets of working people to the coffers of the rich.

The people, he added, “need to contact their senators and demand that they stand up for consumers and hold the oil companies accountable.” Since George Bush became president in 2001, he added, “the top five oil companies in the United States have recorded profits of $464 billion through the first quarter of 2007, with Exxon Mobil leading the way with profits of $158.5 billion.”

Slocum pointed out that none of the oil companies are investing any of these enormous profits in programs that benefit motorists or the public at large. Exxon Mobil, for example, spent $37.2 billion last year buying back its own stock and paying out dividends rather than investing it in measures that protect the environment.

In recent testimony to the House Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations, Slocum said the profit margin for U.S. oil refiners has shot up 158 percent since 1999. A decade ago the top five refiners controlled one-third of U.S. capacity. By 2005, because of mergers, that increased to 55 percent control for the top five.

“The energy bill that President Bush signed in 2005 does nothing to address the U.S. factors that are driving oil and gas prices to record highs,” Slocum said. “Congress and the White House explicitly rejected efforts to improve fuel economy standards for our cars and trucks.” Instead, he told Congress, the energy bill lavished more than $34 billion in new tax giveaways on the oil companies.

Slocum told the hearing that Public Citizen advocates repeal of all existing oil company tax breaks and closing loopholes that allow Big Oil to avoid paying adequate royalties on oil pumped from public lands. A windfall profits tax should be imposed, he said, “dedicating the new revenue to financing clean energy, energy efficiency and mass transit.”

greenerpastures21212 @yahoo.com

EDITORIAL: Taking back America

Fri, 01 Jun 2007 05:12:00 +0000

The Campaign for America’s Future (CAF) will convene its sixth annual “Take Back America” conference in Washington, D.C., June 18. Every year for the past five years thousands of union members, peace, civil and human rights activists, and environmentalists have gathered for these conferences. They are unique in bringing together a wide array of progressive forces seeking to defend democracy and reclaim our country from the tentacles of the extreme right wing.

The conferences have cheered fiery speeches against the Bush agenda by labor, civil rights, women’s rights leaders and progressive politicians.

The gatherings also feature workshops and panel discussions on a vast range of topics: the growing economic inequality, the need to strengthen union rights as promised in the Employee Free Choice Act, the Apollo Project for energy independence, jobs and environmental protection, defense of Social Security, Medicare, and enactment of legislation to insure health care for all.

Last year, the Take Back America conference came out swinging against the war in Iraq, a topic that looms this year as well.

The brainchild of CAF co-directors Robert Borosage and Roger Hickey, these conferences are among the most important forums for discussing strategy to defeat the Republican right while exerting pressure on the Democrats to fight for working families. Many if not all of the Democratic presidential contenders will speak at this year’s conference, along with other candidates.

These gatherings are a chance for left and progressive forces to counter the pervasive dog-eat-dog ideology of “free market capitalism” that blares non-stop from our corporate media.

It was this type of broad coalition of progressive forces that helped bring into being the New Deal in the 1930s and ’40s. The New Deal created jobs for millions of people, guaranteed an income for seniors and disabled through Social Security, encouraged union organizing and funded the building of many state and national parks that we enjoy today.

Participants in these conferences are guided by a vision that together we can defeat the forces of war, racism and reaction and build a world of peace, equality and prosperity. We share this vision.

EDITORIAL: Reverse unequal pay ruling

Fri, 01 Jun 2007 05:10:00 +0000

The U.S. Supreme Court’s extreme right majority handed down a decision May 29 crippling the right of women workers to win justice in pay discrimination cases. The court ruled 5-4 that women have 180 days to file a wage bias complaint against their employer. If they miss that deadline, they are barred forever from winning redress.

The case involved Lilly Ledbetter, who worked for 19 years at the Goodyear Tire and Rubber plant in Gadsden, Ala. Shortly after retiring in 1998, she filed a complaint with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission stating that she was earning $3,727 per month while men performing the same job were paid up to $5,236 per month. A lower court awarded her $360,000 to compensate for this flagrant discrimination.

But Justice Samuel Alito, writing for the Supreme Court majority, reversed that award. “Ledbetter should have filed an EEOC charge within 180 days after each allegedly discriminatory pay,” he wrote. He was joined by Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr., and Justices Antonin Scalia, Anthony M. Kennedy and Clarence Thomas.

Dissenting were Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg, David Souter, Stephen G. Breyer and John Paul Stevens. Ginsburg was so outraged that she called on Congress to immediately enact legislation to reverse the decision. Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.) did just that.

These five men have issued an open invitation for employers like Goodyear to keep enforcing their sexist and racist wage differentials that squeeze many billions in super-profits from the backs of women and racially oppressed workers every year. This ruling makes it harder for women to close the earnings gap, 77 cents for every dollar a man earns.

The Democratic leadership in both House and Senate must act quickly on the Clinton bill to reverse this decision.

The Roberts court’s increasingly reactionary, pro-corporate rulings help to illustrate the stakes in 2008. We must not allow the election of a Republican carbon copy of George W. Bush who will further pack our highest court with cynical agents of the corporate rich and the ultra-right.

Dead last: health care quality in the U.S.

Fri, 01 Jun 2007 05:00:00 +0000

A few paragraphs in the executive summary of a new report quickly reveal the brutal truth:

Among the six nations studied — Australia, Canada, Germany, New Zealand, the United Kingdom, and the United States — the U.S. ranks last, as it did in the 2006 and 2004 editions of [our report]. Most troubling, the U.S. fails to achieve better health outcomes than the other countries, and … the U.S. is last on dimensions of access, patient safety, efficiency and equity.

The most notable way the U.S. differs from other countries is the absence of universal health insurance coverage. Other nations ensure the accessibility of care through universal health insurance systems and through better ties between patients and the physician practices that serve as their long-term “medical home.”

It is not surprising, therefore, that the U.S. substantially underperforms other countries on measures of access to care and equity in health care between populations with above-average and below-average incomes.

The study was conducted by the Commonwealth Fund, a prestigious and progressive private foundation in New York City that “aims to promote a high performing health care system that achieves better access, improved quality, and greater efficiency, particularly for society’s most vulnerable, including low-income people, the uninsured, minority Americans, young children and elderly adults.”

The total sample across all countries was approximately 16,000 adults and over 5,150 primary care physicians sampled over a period of three years.

The report, titled “Mirror, Mirror on the Wall: An International Update on the Comparative Performance of American Health Care,” includes the following key findings:

Quality: The indicators of quality were grouped into four categories: preventive care, safe care, coordinated care and patient-centered care. Compared with the other five countries, the U.S. appeared to deliver better preventive care; however, low scores on all other aspects of quality care pulled the overall quality of health care score down. In addition, the other countries are more advanced than the U.S. in the use of information technology, which allows health care providers to more effectively monitor patients with chronic illnesses and to more effectively manage medications and patient care.

Access: The profits-before-people “fee for service” orientation of the medical industry in the U.S. means that people go without needed health care because of cost more often than people do in the other countries. Americans were the most likely to say they had problems getting medical care because of cost. However, patients in the U.S. with adequate health care plans — an ever-decreasing proportion — have timely access to specialized health care services. In the U.K. and Canada, patients have little to no financial burden, but they may experience longer wait times for such specialized services based on medical and public health criteria rather than income or type of health insurance. The U.S. is among the worst in terms of timely appointments with physicians.

Efficiency: The U.S. ranks last among the six countries on indicators of efficiency. For example, the U.S. spends way too much on national health expenditures and administrative costs compared to the other countries in the study.

Equity: The U.S. is dead last on all measures of equity. Compared to comparable populations in the other countries, low-income Americans were much more likely to report not being treated by a physician when sick — foregoing a recommended test, treatment or follow-up appointment; skipping a prescription; or not seeing a dentist — because of cost. More than two-fifths of lower-income adults in the U.S. said they skipped needed care because of cost in the past year.

Healthy lives: Tragically, and not surprisingly, the people of the United States rank last overall with poor scores on all three indicators of healthy lives used in this study. The U.S. had much higher death rates from conditions that can be treated by medical care. These rates were 25 percent to 50 percent higher than Canada’s and Australia’s.

In the U.S. today, profits could not be better, but the quality of health care for working people could hardly be worse. It is a deadly and necessary relationship that can be reversed only with the establishment of a real national health service in the United States based on the sound concept of people before profits.

New Yorkers rally for affordable housing

Fri, 01 Jun 2007 04:35:00 +0000

NEW YORK — “When I left New York City in the early ’80s, I paid only $150 a month in rent,” said a Jamaican-born cabdriver who participated in last week’s demonstration here against the city’s growing crisis of affordable housing. After living in Florida for 15 years, he recently returned, finding that “the same kind of apartment in the same neighborhood is maybe $1,000.”

Such stories are common in every region of the city, and virtually everyone at the demonstration, which occurred at a large housing complex on Manhattan’s East Side, had their own tale to tell. As the crowd was assembling, buses of additional participants continued to stream into the rally site.

Thousands of people of all ages and races came out May 23 for what was possibly New York’s largest housing rally since the 1930s. Protesters held hands, forming a human ring over a mile in length, completely surrounding the development — actually two contiguous developments treated as a single entity spanning 14th to 23rd streets on the East Side.

Jean, who did not want to give her last name for fear of reprisals from her landlord, told the World that the corporation that owns her apartment on Sixth Avenue had been letting her home deteriorate in hopes that she would move out.

“I’ve been there for years,” she said, “and am under rent control. If I give in and leave, they will make a lot of money.”

Jean’s story is a consequence of “vacancy decontrol,” a policy that removes rent regulations from most apartments once they become vacant. It harms people looking for an apartment, as it forces more of them to pay the market rate. It also gives landlords reason to pressure current tenants, like Jean, to leave.

Although 70 percent of the rentals at Peter Cooper Village-Stuyvesant Town, the site of the rally, are currently rent-regulated, the market rate apartments in the complex start at $3,275 per month.

“It’s horrible,” May Chen, international vice president of the Unite Here union, told the World. “Only very rich people can afford to live in many apartments in New York.”

“I was just talking today to a member who has cancer,” she said. “She lives by herself. She can’t even afford to retire, because her Social Security won’t even pay the rent.”

Chen said that the only way thousands of people are able to pay their rent is to crowd a large number of income earners into the same apartment.

“We need to stand together to end vacancy decontrol, because that’s what allowed this to happen,” said Daniel Garodnick, a city councilmember who lives in the development, told the crowd. He also called for home rule, the term used for the demand that the city be allowed to control its rental laws. Currently that power resides far away in the state capital, Albany.

City Council member Charles Baron (D-Brooklyn) said, “Rents have gone up in the last three years by 9 percent, and salaries have gone down 6 percent. Eleven percent of the affordable units have been lost, and we’re saying now we will not lose another unit.”

Among those represented at the rally were AFSCME District Council 37, representing 125,000 city public workers; the United Federation of Teachers; other municipal unions and the Teamsters. The event was called by the newly formed New York is Our Home coalition, as well as by the Working Families Party and several religious, peace and civil rights organizations.

dmargolis @pww.org