People Before Profit blog

Letters

Fri, 28 Mar 2003 04:20:00 +0000

Hope for the Iraqi people

Each day when I have the stomach to listen to the news I find myself hoping to hear that Bush and co. have come to their senses and stopped the slaughter.

This is desperate wishful thinking on my part, for I know, the only way this administration will stop this crime is if we stop it. And we can. I have a new confidence in the American people. It comes from the all people’s movements. Here and around the world it has proven itself to be a mighty, mighty force for peace and justice.

Keep the presses rolling for the PWW. It gives me the confidence and nourishment I sometimes need to continue the struggle.

Gabe Falsetta

Glendale NY

Thanks for the ‘Memo’

I just got the March 8 issue of PWW, and finished reading Terrie Albano’s “Memo.” We, as individuals and as a movement, are in serious need of more of this form and content of analysis and criticism. Excellent! I’m going to e-mail it around South Carolina to a number of groups I belong to.

Jim Campbell

Via e-mail

Pattern of death

We should not be surprised by this war after the number of executions George W. Bush allowed as governor of Texas. It is a character flaw representing no reverence for live.

Carolyn Plummer

New York NY

War is not a football game

The following was sent to the Mesabi Daily News, a newspaper in northern Minnesota, which serves the Iron Range.

I guess no one should expect a newspaper to represent all sides on complex issues such as war and peace, but I found the editorial and content of the March 18 Mesabi Daily News offensive. You seem like the cheerleader at a pep rally before the homecoming football game. Many, if not most Americans, do not own newspapers, but they are, however, deeply troubled by our government’s rush to war, no matter what.

Have you no shame? Don’t you realize that thousands of people, Americans and Iraqis alike, may die or have their lives changed forever?

Don’t you have any compassion for human life or is it just the good guys (us) vs. the bad guys (them)?

While I did serve in the military during the Vietnam War I also fought to stop that war because it was wrong. The same kind of arguments were raised then about opposing the war and/or supporting our government. If millions of Americans had not taken risks and protested the Vietnam War, we might still be there today.

Unilaterally attacking Iraq will not make the world or our people more secure, but it will be costly and will take away from domestic priorities such as healthcare, education and restoring our country’s economy.

I urge my fellow Americans to express their outrage and opposition to an Iraq war.

David Bednarczuk

Via e-mail

Paris talks

In your article about France (PWW 3/22/03 “Without French solidarity, would there be a U.S.A.?” by Tim Wheeler) you should also put how they assisted us in getting out of the mess in Viet Nam.

Thousands of lives, both American and Vietnamese were saved because of the Paris peace talks.

J. Crites

Via e-mail

Fairness for the world

I read “A turning point in human history” in the 3/15/03 issue of PWW.

What Sam Webb wrote about two world views (the Bush administration’s and the world peace movement’s) “colliding in a battle over the future” is beautiful, poetic and philosophical.

In “this alternative world view,” I would add only one specific point to an “economically secure and equitable world.” The U.S. is roughly 5 percent of the world’s population, using approximately 42 percent of the world’s natural resources. This is not fair to the rest of the world.

So the only way for the U.S. to achieve equality with the rest of the world is to use only 5 percent of the world’s natural resources. Are we, as U.S. citizens, willing to be fair?

Patricia Collier

Burlington VT

Editorials

Fri, 28 Mar 2003 04:01:00 +0000

Protecting veterans

“For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also,” says the gospel of St. Luke. The Bush administration’s heart appears to be more in the tax cuts and multi-billion dollar war contracts it’s awarding than in the veterans who will live the rest of their lives with the war’s effects.

Two hundred thousand working class youth have been pressed onto a bloody battlefield, many forced by lack of job and educational opportunities. They will become America’s next generation of veterans.

The Bush budget, which slashed $20 million from the Veterans Administration (VA), reveals just how little it intends to stand up for today’s troops in their future as veterans. In fact, plans are to cut $15 billion from veterans’ programs over the next 10 years. Even before this war, the VA was only budgeted to provide care for 4.8 of the 6.5 million patients enrolled in 2004. Amvets reports that in January, 200,000 veterans had waited six months to see doctors at veterans’ facilities. The VA system has started drastically rationing its health care; some veterans get care, other don’t. How will the cuts affect health benefits for troops returning from Iraq?

In Chicago, Rep. Danny Davis, who has fought the closing of veterans’ hospitals in his district, charged, “While veterans are sleeping under viaducts and the VA hospitals are closed down, … [Bush is] saying we just love our troops.”

A mighty coalition of the mainstream of the American people – religious, union and peace organizations – is fighting to end this bloody war and bring our troops home to safety.

For the working class people of the U.S., our precious youth are both our hearts and our treasure. We strongly feel our obligation as a nation to care for our veterans of all generations

While the Bush administration is only too eager to kick veterans to the curb, we must see this fight as an integral part of the struggle for peace and justice.

* * * * * *

Bush suffers Senate setback

A day after George W. Bush sent a bill to Congress for $75 billion to pay for the invasion of Iraq, the U.S. Senate voted 51 to 48 to reduce by half his tax cut for the rich.

Three Republican senators, Olympia Snowe of Maine, Lincoln Chaffee of Rhode Island, and George Voinovich of Ohio, joined Democrats in handing Bush a rare defeat.

Earlier, the House approved Bush’s full $726 billion tax giveaway.

Bush is certain to twist arms for reversal of the Senate vote. The Republican leadership is fanatical in its zeal to slash taxes on the wealthy while starving Medicare, Medicaid and other vital programs. But Bush’s plan to eliminate taxes on dividends on top of the skyrocketing federal, state and local deficits, combined with his initial request for $75 billion to fund the Iraq war, was just too much for the handful of moderate Republicans.

The White House has not forgotten that control of the Senate shifted to the Democrats in 2001 when Vermont Sen. James Jeffords bolted the GOP. Perhaps they are asking themselves: is the decision of three Republican senators to break with Bush on his tax rip-off a harbinger of the things to come?

In a March 26 statement, AFL-CIO President John Sweeney said the vote to halve the president’s tax cut would save billions that could be used for programs to help working families, such as desperately needed emergency jobless benefits, an increase in child care assistance for working parents, increases for after-school programs, and strengthening homeland security.

Sen. Ernest Hollings (D-S.C.) argued that the entire Bush tax cut plan should be rejected and reluctantly agreed to support the final compromise bill.

Should Bush succeed in overturning the Senate action and pushing through his original tax plan, reliable estimates say that the national debt will balloon, resulting in mounting interest payments to the transnational banks and Wall Street. Reason enough to keep the heat on both the White House and Congress.

Who is Miguel Estrada?

Fri, 28 Mar 2003 03:20:00 +0000

If you ask this question of the Bush White House and the GOP leadership, they will paint a picture of a poor Honduran kid (he actually is the son of a lawyer and bank vice president) who came to the United States, applied himself, learned English, and became an American success story. They will tell you that another rung on his success ladder is his nomination to the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals based on his merits. This court is considered the second most powerful court in the country and its judges tend to be candidates for the Supreme Court.

However, what neither the Bush administration, the GOP, nor Estrada himself will tell you is his legal philosophy. In the hearings before the Senate Judiciary Committee, Estrada refused to answer questions about his legal views, and the White House won’t release memos written by Estrada during his five-year stint as Assistant Solicitor General.

Liberal and progressive leaders and organizations have charged the White House with presenting a “stealth candidate” with the purpose of stacking the courts with right-wing ideologues. Senator Patrick Leahy of Vermont, the ranking Democrat on the Judiciary Committee, said he had “difficulties … in obtaining straightforward answers” from Estrada and the White House.

Nevertheless, even a stealth candidate leaves some trail which can point to his thinking.

Estrada is a member of the Federalist Society and the ultra-right Center for the Community Interest (CCI) on whose Board of Directors he has served. While on the board of the CCI, Estrada voted for that organization to file a friend of the court brief that argued against Miranda warnings of self-incrimination.

The Federalist Society, calls itself a “membership organization dedicated to bringing conservative and libertarian ideas into law schools and the organized bar” and believes that “law schools and the legal profession are currently dominated by a form of orthodox liberal ideology…” The liberal group, People for the American Way, has called the Federalist Society, “the driving force for right-wing activism on the federal judiciary.”

The CCI, formerly known as the American Alliance for Rights and Responsibities, hailed a Chicago Police Department program which resulted in the arrests of over 40,000 youths in a two-year period. The Chicago police operated under a municipal ordinance which made it illegal to be in a public place “with no apparent reason,” as long as the police officer “reasonably believe[s] that a group of loiterers contains a gang member.” Anyone who does not leave when ordered by the police is in violation of the ordinance. The Illinois Supreme Court, in 1998, issued a decision stating that those arrests were illegal. That decision was backed up by the U.S. Supreme Court the following year.

Estrada did pro-bono work in support of the Chicago ordinance when it was challenged, arguing against the First Amendment rights of minority youth to hang out on the streets. He did the same for the city of Annapolis, which had enacted similar legislation. Ironically, after interviewing him Congressional Hispanic Caucus noted that Estrada “has never provided any pro bono legal expertise to the Latino community or organizations.”

When Estrada was asked on a National Public Radio program whether the Chicago ordinance could be used for racial profiling, he admitted that it could but proceeded to dismiss the issue saying that those arrests were taking place in Black and Latino neighborhoods.

Estrada worked for two years as an Assistant U.S. Attorney. He concentrated on criminal cases and argued for giving police greater powers to search and arrest suspects.

This record has caused organizations like the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund (MALDEF) and the Southwest Voter Registration and Education Project to question whether Estrada would defend “the First Amendment rights of Latino urban youth and day laborers, [and] fairly review allegations of racial profiling or follow the 1966 Miranda ruling.”

The GOP leadership accuses the Democratic senators of filibustering and refusing to support Estrada because he is Latino. But the Puerto Rican Legal Defense and Educational Fund (PRLDEF) said after interviewing Estrada, “It is indeed ironic that someone promoted as a Hispanic has neither shown any demonstrated interest in, nor had any involvement with, any Hispanic organizations or activities throughout his entire life in the United States. Nor has he been involved with, supportive of, or responsive to, issues of concern to Latinos.”

While the record is sparse, the evidence points to Estrada being a right-wing ideologue who will let his reactionary ideological views color his judicial decisions. This has prompted many Latino, African-American, feminist, labor, civil liberties and civil rights organizations to oppose his nomination to the federal bench.

José Cruz is the editor of Nuestro Mundo and can be reached at jacruz@attbi.com

Letters

Fri, 21 Mar 2003 04:46:00 +0000

Worldgives hope

Being a Norwegian, living in a remote rural part of Norway, I have to congratulate you on publishing one of the most sincere and outspoken newspapers in America. You seem to be able to stand up for yourselves in the midst of all the political chaos and mayhem that constitute American politics to an outsider like me.

It is good to see there are people in America who work towards collective solutions to important social and political issues. However small your publication may be, it brings hope to all non-Americans who hope that your country – with all her possibilities of true greatness – will someday rise to meet her challenges with the common good in mind; not just the needs of the big corporations and the rich.

In Norway, there is deep concern and worry about the American involvement in Iraq. A majority of Norwegians feel that it is wrong to attack Iraq, and many fear what an attack will lead to. It is very easy for us to forget that George W. Bush and cohorts do not represent all Americans, or the way in which they think about the world.

Please do your best to keep up the collective spirit. Please do not stop the struggle for peace and world-wide changes, socially, culturally and politically. Please keep on being a sharp corrective for the Bushes, Powells, Cheneys and Rices of this world.

Tor E. Bekken

Norway

Standing together

I continue to be an avid reader of your newspaper. The war with Iraq is a strong possibility. Neither Bush nor his entourage have proven their case to the world.

I always laugh when I watch Bush on TV struggling to prove his case. I teach English as a second language to foreign students and I am truly amazed at the poor quality of English he uses. Few world leaders have already called him a moron, but it seems as if he enjoys such a title.

We, as Americans, are becoming the mockery of the whole world thanks to him. Our policy as a nation is definitely wrong, the double-standard is plain to see. It now does behoove all of us to stand against such policy, letting the world know that we are not on the side of such a mad administration.

“In unison there is power.”

Jad A. Ghanem

Tucson AZ

Not our enemy

No Third World country should be considered an enemy of the U.S. – just as minorities inside U.S. borders are not the enemy. Over the centuries the U.S. and other developed countries have greatly benefited from their labor and resources – much more than the Third World countries received in return. We need to help, not demonize, them and try to make up for past injustices.

Lanetta Williams

Oakland CA

Lights for peace

Please join me in taking a simple action for peace. Together with thousands of folks around the world, I’m putting a light in my window. If enough of us do the same, we can send a strong message of continued opposition to war and continued hope for peace. It could be a Christmas string or candle, a light bulb, or a lantern. It’s an easy way to keep the light of reason and hope burning, to let others know that they are not alone, and to show the way home to the young men and women who are on their way to Iraq.

MoveOn’s keeping a count of the people who are joining in this simple act, from places all over the globe.

Many readers

via e-mail

Trail of lies

The article by Tim Wheeler (2/15/03) on the Feb. 5 speech of Secretary of State Colin Powel to the UN Security Council brought to my memory other instances of perfidy and plagiarism by spokespersons for the U.S. government.

In the late 1950s officials of the Soviet Union reported that they had shot down a U.S. spy plane which had invaded the air space of the USSR without permission. Adlai Stevenson, then the U.S. Ambassador to the UN, flatly denied to the Security Council that the U.S. was spying on the USSR in contravention of international protocols regarding any such overflights. He was embarrassed to learn that neither he nor President Eisenhower had been informed by the CIA that their agent, Gary Powers, was at that very moment being interviewed by officials of the USSR. That was of course a minor fib compared to the tidal wave of lies by Kennedy, Johnson, Nixon, McNamara, the Bundy brothers, Kissinger, the Joint Chiefs of Staff, et al. during the war in Viet Nam.

Terence E. Carroll

Reston VA

Editorials

Fri, 21 Mar 2003 04:36:00 +0000

Peace is patriotic

When Bush invoked the Constitution in his prime-time ultimatum this week, pundits and politicians praised his “patriotism.” These same pundits and politicians have attacked anti-war protesters as being “unpatriotic.”

Well, look up “patriot” in the dictionary and you find it defined as “a person who loves, supports and defends his or her country.” The National Museum of Patriotism defines it as “Love for one’s country, to support, serve, and defend, to be inspired by, to change for the better and to care deeply for its citizens.”

Nowhere do they say “supporting war or the misguided and illegal policies of that country’s president.” To the contrary. The true patriot holds dear the basic ideas our country was built upon – those found in the Declaration of Independence, Constitution and Bill of Rights.

That means the pursuit of life, liberty and happiness, not the pursuit of war, oil or “pre-emption.”

Hundreds of thousands of anti-war protesters have come out across the country – and around the world – to oppose the Bush administration’s drive to war. They hold dear the rights in the First Amendment to gather in protest of the government’s policies. And they care deeply for the citizens of this country, including those who have been sent to fight Bush’s war.

The U.S. has deployed 225,000 troops to fight a war against Iraq’s 350,000 troops. But to speak of war in terms of “troops” sanitizes the fact that these are people. Brothers, sisters, mothers, fathers, children, grandchildren.

To protest for peace is not to protest against the troops, or for Saddam Hussein. It is to question the legitimacy of war, to express concern about the lack of diplomacy and to worry about where this war will take our nation and our world.

Those working for peace come from many backgrounds. Veterans march next to moms, students march next to seniors. What unites them is their patriotism – their honest desire to have their country do the right thing.

Taxes, taxes and more taxes

George W. Bush continued playing his favorite roles this week: policeman of the world and sugar daddy to the rich and super-rich who helped grease his path to the White House.

He has tied them together in a neat package known as the budget for fiscal year 2004. On one side of the ledger is the expenditure of $399.1 billion for the military, up 4.4 percent over 2003, with more to come when a Pentagon request for money to defray the cost of war with Iraq is factored into the equation, to say nothing of the additional money necessary to pay for post war occupation. On the other side are tax cuts totaling $1.6 trillion – $2 trillion when interest is added – on top of the cuts enacted in 2001 that have not yet become effective.

Given its Constitutional authority to initiate tax and spending measures, the House has already approved a $2.2 trillion budget resolution that broadly reflects the priorities of the budget the White House submitted to Congress in February. The battle has now moved to the Senate where the best that can happen is action that, the Senate leadership says, will reduce the cost of the tax cuts from $1.59 to $1.28 trillion. However, as Bush the First would say, that claim is based on sleight-of-hand “voodoo economics.”

But be that as it may, one outcome is certain: Reductions in public revenue of even $1.28 trillion – plus interest – will make it much harder to meet real needs in education, in helping to solve the states budget crises, in providing federal funding for extended unemployment benefits and in providing for “first responders.”

But “harder” doesn’t mean “impossible.” The budget process will end sometime this fall, ample time to get rid of some of its worst features. The challenge is to take the unity and militancy that has developed during the fight for peace and bring it to bear on the budget fight as well.

A jewel

Fri, 14 Mar 2003 06:08:00 +0000

Opinion

Sometimes it gets rained on. At other times, the cold winds of winter whip it. That just makes it more resilient. Sometimes it’s out for hours in snow. There are other days when the sun heats it to its very core. On all of those days it seems to glow from deep within, light coming from some well of calm, exciting brilliance.

Its light sometimes shines all over the world, especially when C-Span is there. Sometimes, its light burns the way a candle in a window glows, its steadfast warmth welcoming the weary and frightened.

The jewel has many colors. They glow in beautiful browns, rich ebonies, The colors have, as well, a sun-burnished gleam of copper, the glow of ivory, and lovely rays of amber, amber-tinged shades of pink, and glowing yellow and tan.

Day by day, the jewel is getting brighter. The ruling class can no longer hide its existence. The jewel frightens them. They, especially, understand the power of its penetrating brilliance. The exploited of the world look at the jewel and praise its beauty. It does not frighten them. It’s brighter than anything ever dug out of a mine owner’s means of production by an exploited worker. It is a jewel unlike any other. It’s a working jewel, showing us the way out of the catastrophe of imperialist war. We must blind the warmongers with its ever more brilliant light. It’s a funny jewel. The more varied yet coalesced its colors appear, the brighter it shines.

While it is a thing of natural beauty, its maintenance requires diligent action. If its light is ever successfully dimmed by red-baiting tactics and other tactics of division from those it frightens, they will then be free to slaughter innocent human beings for oil. They would love to splinter the beauty of the antiwar movement into millions of separate pieces. Working together, we will keep it whole and brilliant; and, with it, we will lead the world away from absolute catastrophe.

Barbara Jean Hope is a reader in Philadelphia. She can be reached at Bjhope2000@cs.com

Letters

Fri, 14 Mar 2003 05:38:00 +0000

Letter to Congress

I do not feel that our representatives deserve to be called public servants. I write as an extremely concerned, disillusioned and disappointed-in-our-government-system citizen. I am stunned. I cannot believe that you are willing to go through with this criminal act, this massacre of the Iraqi people, who have done absolutely nothing to deserve being blown up to smithereens. Where are your values? Your ethics? Your morals?

Stop pointing fingers to other governments. Look at yourselves. And please refrain from using such phrases as “in the name of the American people” and “God bless America.” We no longer trust you.

What direction are you taking the people in this country who have trusted you? Oh, I forgot, for the per$$$$$onal intere$$$$t of Bush, Perle, Cheney Wolfowitz and Rumsfeld. Shame on you if you do not stop this massacre.

Vickie Romero

via e-mail

Conversation between driver and passenger on the bus:

You think there’ll be a war?

I hope not.

Yeah, it’s too much blood. I was in Vietnam in ’68, I saw legs blown off, heads blown off, bodies blown up – I was wounded over there, in the hospital five months. I had nightmares for a long time.

My niece is in the navy.

She on a ship over there?

Yeah. I write her letters but she only writes back two sentences: I am fine, hope you are all fine. She was in the JROTC and then in the navy.

How old is she, 19?

20.

Well, war ain’t good for nothin’, too much blood.

Barbara Russum

Chicago IL

Letter to O’Reilly

This letter was sent to pro-war Bill O’Reilly, host of the O’Reilly Factor on Fox

You are a chicken hawk with three deferments during Vietnam War. You praised the war in Vietnam and the horrors of Cambodia. You once said “It’s a soldier’s job to die.” So I guess that’s why you chose to get out of the draft.

You also said the American people will accept body bags if we go to war with Iraq. Do you know how many body bags the government has ordered?

You often ask anti-war people “What if you are wrong?” Ask yourself, “What if O’ Reilly is wrong?” Can you resurrect the dead or piece together the shattered bodies?

D. Martinez

Commack NY

Vive la France

The House Republicans announced on March 11 that French Fries and French Toast would be called “Freedom Fries” and “Freedom Toast” in their cafeteria to show their outrage towards the French government’s refusal to humor the Bush administration and its war preparations.

During World War I, conservatives actually changed the name of Sauerkraut to “Liberty Cabbage,” Frankfurters to “Liberty Sausage,” and tried to throw every German word they could out of the English language, which wasn’t easy, because English is a Germanic language. But at least they didn’t do that until the war started, and they did it against the enemy. During World War II, the Roosevelt administration had the good sense to avoid such nonsense.

But not these Republicans! They have turned on the French. Not the Russians and the Chinese, their old enemies, who also sit on the Security Council and oppose the war. Maybe, they hate the French because France supported the United States during the American Revolution and French support was decisive to the revolution’s victory. Maybe they are so reactionary that they hate all revolutions – including the American Revolution!

Norman Markowitz

New Brunswick NJ

From the heart of Texas

Martin Luther King, Jr. said, “There comes a time when silence is betrayal. That time is now.” For several months, large fountains in a roundabout across from Houston’s Museum of Fine Arts have served as the backdrop and gathering place for anti-war protestors at Friday evening candlelight vigils. Starting at 5 p.m. people of all ages begin arriving – families, students, workers – stopping first to pick up their candles. The number of protestors has also grown steadily. The weekly candlelight vigil is just one example of an exciting growth in political activism and coalition building occurring in Houston and across Texas. Houstonians and Texans are realizing the power of raising their voices and working in solidarity.

Elizabeth Hurst

Houston TX

Editorials

Fri, 14 Mar 2003 05:29:00 +0000

Support the troops: stop the war!

In its fanatical drive for war on Iraq, the Bush administration is painting a picture of a sanitary “shock and awe” blitzkrieg that will overwhelm Iraq and produce a rapid U.S. victory with little loss of U.S. lives. The fact that many thousands of Iraqi civilians would die horrible deaths is brushed aside.

The 1991 Gulf War should serve as a warning. In the 100-hour ground offensive, 157 U.S. soldiers were killed, but the number of service people now listed as casualties of that war is higher than in any other modern war the U.S. has been involved in.

The Defense Department defines a casualty as any person who has been declared dead, whereabouts unknown, missing, ill, or injured.

722,000 Americans fought in the 1991 war. The Gulf War Veterans Association lists 207,000 as casualties, nearly one in three. One in three of the soldiers who served in that war have filed claims with the Veterans Administration for a variety of symptoms. Some were exposed to poison gases and U.S.-administered medicines. Many were exposed to depleted uranium used in U.S. weaponry.

The more than 200,000 troops awaiting war today are overwhelmingly the sons and daughters of the working class. Many are Black, Latino and other people of color. Many of the youth were attracted to join by military recruiters offering education and jobs. Youth activists have dubbed this the “poverty draft.”

They are being asked to go to war by “chickenhawks” like Bush, Cheney and Rumsfeld, who avoided military service in their own youth.

Millions in our country and around the world are rejecting this administration’s brutal war policy. This war will not make our country safe. It will not give our young people a better life.

To support our young people now serving in the armed forces, the best thing we can do is march, vigil, e-mail, phone call, petition – to prevent this war and bring our troops home now!

* * * * * *

The immorality of war!

“When people speak to you about a preventive war, you tell them to go and fight it. After my experience, I have come to hate war. War settles nothing,” President Dwight D. Eisenhower said.

“Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and not clothed,” Eisenhower, a former general, also said.

This is the moral language and leadership of a president. Something we’re not getting from George W. Bush.

Bush, in his evangelical language, is trying to convince the American people that his plans to obliterate Iraq is a moral cause. The White House hawks and their supporters talk about a new “moral clarity” in American foreign policy, which includes using 21,000 ton bombs against the children of Iraq. Countries that dare to say peaceful disarmament is possible in Iraq feel the “moral clarity” of the Bush administration’s threats and bribes.

But where is the morality in planning to destroy another country and then inviting your corporate buddies to bid for its rebuilding? Where is the morality in giving billions of dollars to this industry of death, instead of “industries” of life: public education, health care, job creation, environmental clean-up and affordable housing.

This organized crime syndicate lodged in the White House and their “goodfellas” cannot possibly convince the American people or the world by stating their true plans – to dominate the world through military might.

So they wrap it in the language of moralism and religion, hoping they can sweeten the poison pill with piousness. They use the people’s moral and righteous indignation against terrorism and the Sept. 11 attack and try to transfer that to Iraq. History calls that kind of tactic “The Big Lie.”

And where is the morality in that?

Code Pink women say no to war

Fri, 14 Mar 2003 03:57:00 +0000

WASHINGTON – Warning that George W. Bush’s war could kill, maim, or starve millions of Iraqi women and children and squander funds needed here at home, 10,000 women, many with their families, marched on the White House, March 8, chanting “Money for the homeless, not for war.”

The “Code Pink” protest, a “women’s pre-emptive strike for peace,” attracted busloads of protesters from as far away as Minnesota and Vermont. The women wore pink coats, sweaters, and berets and carried clotheslines festooned with pink underwear for delivery to the White House, a parody of color-coded Homeland Security. During a pre-march rally in Malcolm X Park, Medea Benjamin, an organizer of the march, said, “The majority of women oppose a war on Iraq. We’re determined to stop the Bush administration from putting our families at risk and inflaming anti-Americanism all over the world by attacking a country that has not attacked us.”

Gloria Johnson, president of the Coalition of Labor Union Women (CLUW), drew cheers when she decried the $200 billion cost of war on Iraq and the military occupation that follows. “Wouldn’t it make more sense to take that money and provide health care for the 47 million people who lack it?” Johnson demanded as the crowd cheered. “I am proud that so many women have come together to try to convince Bush that what he is doing is wrong. We are on to you,” she said, gesturing toward the White House.

Kim Gandy, president of the National Organization for Women, warned that Attorney General John Ashcroft is impugning the patriotism of anyone who protests Bush policies, “This is one patriot who doesn’t intend to be silenced by John Ashcroft.” she said.

Gandy, holding her daughter, Cady, on her lap, later told the World, “An enormous number of innocent Iraqi civilians would die” if the Pentagon unleashes its “Shock and Awe” attack. “More than half the population of Iraqi cities is children. And many of our own sons and daughters are in harm’s way as well. Iraq is destroying its weapons. The inspections are working.”

The threat of war, Johnson said, has impacted very negatively on the economy. Since Bush took office, more than two million jobs have been lost. Bush’s tax giveaways to the rich have eaten up budget surpluses and the states are now saddled with huge budget deficits, she said. “One reason Bush is pushing this war is that it is a diversion. He knows the economy is going to hell and his popularity is going down. He’s got to focus attention on the war. It’s all he’s got going,” Johnson said.

She assailed Bush for “trying to destroy “… all the programs to meet human needs … we are really in a sad state. This man with his war, his budget cuts, has got to go,” in 2004, she said.

The crowd flowed down 16th Street toward the White House beneath a sea of banners and placards. Twenty-five of the protesters were arrested when they defied Bush administration regulations severely curtailing the First Amendment right to “peacefully assemble.”

Audrey Nwanze, owner of the Mocha Hut, a small coffee shop in the capital, marched for the first time, accompanied by her four young children. “I think this is the most important time to be speaking out for peace,” she told the World “War could have an effect on our livelihoods. Our business goes down on the threat of war. War will affect the lives of my children and Iraqi children as well. One of my children asked me the other night, ‘If bombs destroy their homes, who will rebuild them?’”

The author can be reached at greenerpastures21212@yahoo.com

UNITE to organize Cintas industrial laundry

Thu, 13 Mar 2003 09:52:00 +0000

HOLLYWOOD, Fla. – Victor Hidalgo is a man on a mission. Even though the outspoken father of four was fired from his job as an unloader at a Cintas industrial laundry facility in Connecticut, he still goes to his plant nearly every day, to bring fliers to his co-workers and to keep the organizing drive going. Hidalgo and his fellow workers are part of a nationwide campaign with UNITE, the Union of Needletrades, Industrial and Textile Employees, to build a union for the nation’s industrial laundry workers.

Hidalgo, a native of El Salvador, described his $9 an hour job. “Three of us worked hard to unload 32 trucks a day,” he told the World. “We have to unload and separate – shop towels, kitchen towels, towels from health clubs, and uniforms from shops like mechanics or waste management.” Hidalgo says the smell of the laundry that has been sitting in closed bags for days can be overpowering, but that’s not his main concern.

Hidalgo is worried about safety, and that’s what led to his firing. “We had to handle uniforms from the Red Cross, spattered with blood. I stood up at a meeting and asked for gloves and safety equipment. Instead of giving us the gloves, they showed us a film about safe practices and the need to get hepatitis injections. Because I had spoken up, they offered to me to get the hepatitis injection, but not to all the workers. At the meeting, I asked for hepatitis protection for all the workers.” The laundry was soon abuzz with union activity. Hidalgo continued, “Next they had captive meetings. They locked all the employee doors for three or four days. Everyone could only go in or out the truck dock. If there was a fire, many people would not be able to leave. We passed out leaflets saying this was against the fire law. Finally they opened the doors.”

Not long after the “safety” meeting, management called Hidalgo into the office, demanding he sign a paper saying he had read the company rule book. Since this was the first he had ever even heard of the rule book’s existence, he figured it was a trick and refused to sign. Referring to the legal rights even workers in non-union shops have, Hidalgo said, “I took out the card the union gave me and said, ‘The law says I have the right to a witness.’ They said, ‘We don’t know that law and anyway, one of us here in this room can be your witness.’ There were four people in the room – the plant manager, my supervisor, the lady from personnel and me. I said, ‘No, I want who I want to be my witness.’ Then they fired me.”

Cintas supplies and launders uniforms worn by 5 million workers in America. With $2.3 billion in sales, they were named top outsourcing business in the Fortune 2002 survey. Their website claims to be in touch with a half million business customers “who need our services to run their businesses every day.” Their participation in basic industry can be seen by a list of their corporate customers: Chevron, Delta, Exxon, Ford, General Motors, Firestone, Kraft, Sears and UPS.

Richard Farmer, one of the Republican Party’s largest contributors, is Cintas’ chairman and founder.

Cintas’ 300 facilities have a work force of 17,000, mostly women and people of color, including a large immigrant component. The company’s low wages set the standard for the industry, and their union busting practices include buying up unionized competitors and shutting down their organized facilities.

But UNITE, having made industrial laundry one of its core industries with the addition of 40,000 laundry workers to its membership in the last four years, seems ready and able to take on the Cintas empire.

At the recent meeting of the AFL-CIO Executive Council, UNITE president Bruce Raynor pledged “We are going to show the power of the people.” Raynor, who became president of UNITE in 2001, was the leader of the Southern region of Amalgamated Clothing and Textile Workers Union, one of UNITE’s predecessor organizations during the 10-year period when it organized 20,000 new members. He played a major role in the successful drive to organize workers at J. P. Stevens dramatized in the 1979 movie Norma Rae.

The union has added hundreds of organizers to assist in the “card check” campaign, in which, rather than going through the National Labor Relations Board process, the union demands company recognition when a majority of workers have signed cards.

Raynor acknowledged organizing Cintas could be a long and difficult struggle, but, he told the World, “We’re in it for the long haul.”

The author can be reached at rwood@pww.org

PDF version of 'UNITE to organize Cintas industrial laundry'

Letters

Fri, 07 Mar 2003 09:56:00 +0000

Political action to stop war

A while back the President said that he would decide in two weeks whether or not to invade Iraq. Then he said he would decide by mid-March. Personally I find it incredulous that he doesn’t flat out understand that he will never get reelected if he gives the order to invade. It is antique politics that he is engaged in. He is a blueblood from an era long past.

I was pleased to hear about the e mail, telephone, fax effort by a coalition of the Sierra Club, Council of Churches, and NOW that effectively shut down Washington for a day. We must continue to exert such political pressure to keep this insanity from transpiring. It is a turning point in the history of this country. We called ourselves the land of the free. What right do we have to invade a country that hasn’t attacked us?

None. Get on the phone, send e mails and faxes to the White House and your elected representatives. Maybe we can actually preclude this travesty from going further.

Cletis Harry Beegle

Tucson AZ

Americans please save America

The Bush administration’s ultra-right, crazy movement is deliberately moving into a world war. First Iraq, then North Korea what’s next, Pakistan, China, etc? Who is going to believe Saddam Hussein is that dangerous? The real truth is that Saddam is just an excuse to obtain oil and control of the Middle East area for the Bush administration. The world is not blind.

The sentence “the end justify the means” is a sick and dangerous statement. The world does not need another Hitler. The consequences of these possible wars are so negative and dangerous. The economy could be a disaster, deficits a mess, human discontent a fact and terrorism would increase without solution. The solution for terrorism is diplomacy, verification and justice.

Intelligence, diplomacy, humanity, respect, construction, education and honesty are some of the requisites for a good politician, which is the best way to love a country. No more violence! Antagonizing the world is not the answer. Nobody wants another Hitler who was hated by the world.

Please, Americans save America!

Carmen Compáns

Madrid, Spain

Salute to Mr. Rogers

I am sending this message of remembrance for Mr. Rogers, who presented for many years a TV program for children.

Some of you might be surprised: why this Arab Palestinian guy is taking the pains to write a few lines about Mr. Rogers, an American host of a children’s TV program.

When my wife Iftikhar and myself arrived in Roanoke, Virginia, in 1973, we saw Mr. Rogers for the first time on TV. Our daughters: Nadeen in 1974 then Nasreen in 1976, both born in Philadelphia, Iftikhar used to put the TV for the two little girls to watch Mr. Rogers while their daddy was getting his training in pathology at Temple University Hospital.

His calls for less violence on TV, for stronger family and “neighborhood” values, for compassion and love for others and accepting them the way they are, his stories and dialogues on moral and ethical issues were very valuable to us and our children.

Mr. Rogers represents to my family and myself the America we admire and cherish. America which is caring, compassionate and loving. America that is calm and dignified. America which has serenity and responsibility. We had tears in our eyes when we heard about the death of Mr. Rogers. Is he a breed now extinct in America? I hope not.

Our salute to an American gentleman.

Samir and Iftikhar

Dhahran, Saudi Arabia

Rumsfeld’s harsh face

Don Rumsfeld has become the harsh face of a new America that disappoints even as it frightens the world. Whether he’s stomping off to war, dismissing international law, insulting our friends and allies, threatening aggression against any and all who dare to disagree, Rumsfeld seems to be the militarist mouthpiece of Bush’s foreign policy, even drowning out Colin Powell’s softer rhetoric. Not since Al Haig commanded attention in Reagan’s first term has our nation had such a megalomaniacal personality in top leadership.

It’s a dangerous situation when a weak president allows himself to be so clearly directed by the likes of Rumsfeld and his coterie of Pentagon chicken hawks, who’ve been waiting in the wings for years to hatch their long-contemplated doctrine of America Uber Alles. They seem unable to accept that their imperialist designs have met with such determined domestic and international resistance.

Rumsfeld represents the dying throes of an “old thinking” about the U.S. role in an increasingly inter-dependent global community, so desperate for enlightened leadership. Rumsfeld’s inordinate influence in the White House must be pre-empted. A global coalition is struggling to deter America from needless aggression.

Cord MacGuire

Boulder CO

Editorials

Fri, 07 Mar 2003 09:21:00 +0000

It’s up to ‘We the Peoples’

George W. Bush’s campaign of bribes and threats aimed at corralling enough votes in the United Nations Security Council to provide cover for a pre-emptive war against Iraq makes us wonder: Did President Bush ever read the UN Charter?

But it’s there: “We the peoples of the United Nations, determined to save succeeding generations from the scourge of war [and to ensure] that armed force shall not be used save in the common interest … do hereby establish an international organization to be known as the United Nations.”

Among the charter’s provisions was the establishment of a Security Council, charged with keeping the peace – and it seems that most of its 15 members are taking that responsibility seriously.

After Secretary of State Colin Powell presented the U.S. “case” for a military attack on Iraq to the Security Council on February 5, the media spin made UN support appear to be a “done deal.”

But failure of this support to materialize has turned into a major diplomatic pratfall, in spite of veiled warnings that a vote against the U.S. in the Security Council would be considered “unfriendly.”

Bribery hasn’t worked either (just ask Turkey), nor have invitations to the White House swayed the votes of Guinea, Cameroon or Angola. Although it’s too early to count the chickens, one thing is certain: it’s been a lousy week for Bush as his “coalition of the willing” now includes only Spain and Bulgaria in addition to Britain.

There are other developments that have served to force Bush to slow down and look over his shoulder: The inspections are working, with or without Iraqi help. Missiles are being destroyed. U-2s are surveying Iraqi territory. Additional scientists have agreed to interviews.

George W. Bush may be determined to go to war come hell or high water. But “it’s not over ‘til it’s over.” As the last few days have shown, war can be avoided. And THAT is the task history has given to the “we the peoples” who established the United Nations in June 1945.

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Reclaiming International Women’s Day

This year marks the 93rd observance of International Women’s Day, a working class holiday that, like May Day, was “born in the U.S.A.”

These holidays have been officially ignored in the U.S. because of their socialist, militant working class origins. Thus for decades, International Women’s Day and May Day were celebrated by hundreds of millions of workers everywhere else except the U.S. Yet consider: May Day commemorates Chicago’s Haymarket Martyrs and the worldwide worker struggle for the eight-hour day. International Women’s Day honored a 1908 demonstration on Manhattan’s Lower East Side to demand voting rights and economic rights for women as well as a bitter 1909 strike battle by 30,000 garment workers in New York City.

Clara Zetkin of Germany and Alexandra Kollantai of Russia introduced a resolution establishing International Women’s Day at the second International Conference of Socialist Women in 1910. Zetkin specifically mentioned the women’s battles in the U.S.

On March 25, 1911, a fire erupted in the Triangle Shirtwaist factory near Washington Square Park in Manhattan. The owner had padlocked the fire exits on specious grounds that the workers were “pilfering.” In fact, the action was taken to keep union organizers out. Scores of the young women, mostly Jewish and Italian immigrants, leaped to their death from the seventh floor of the factory. Ever since, International Women’s Day has been linked to this tragedy – and stands as a permanent protest against the crimes of greedy corporate owners.

In recent years, organized labor and the women’s equality movement in the U.S. have been reclaiming these two holidays as our own. Thousands of American women observed International Women’s Day this year by joining in a “Code Pink” protest outside the White House against George W. Bush’s war on Iraq. Clara Zetkin would have been proud!

Salvadoran doctor appeals for strike support

Fri, 07 Mar 2003 06:24:00 +0000

BALTIMORE – Dr. Evelyn Martinez de Calderon told a crowd here, Feb. 28., that 5,500 medical doctors in El Salvador are still standing strong despite death threats aimed at smashing their five-month strike against privatization of the nation’s health care system.

In introducing the speaker, Share Foundation Advocacy Director Erik Manuel Giblin praised her courage and urged the crowd to write their lawmakers and the White House in support of the Salvadoran people’s struggle.

“We recognize that we are fighting a big global monster,” Dr. Calderon said. “The five richest families in El Salvador have the support of the government and the corporations that would like to come in and take advantage of privatization.”

But polls show that 89 percent of the people support the strike by medical doctors and union health care workers. On Feb. 6, an estimated 300,000 Salvadorans dressed in white marched in San Salvador and other towns in solidarity with the strikers.

Another march is set for March 15, eve of elections to El Salvador’s General Assembly now narrowly controlled by the ultra-right Arena Party. Fearful that the surging street protests might spur voters to unseat them, the ultra-right is turning to death squads to terrorize the people. As many as 50 striking doctors have received death threats from terrorists calling themselves “Commandos of Extermination.”

Dr. Calderon, a gynecologist, stressed that the health care strikers are non-partisan. But, she added, “There is one party that stands against privatization, the FMLN.” She was referring to the Faribundo Marti Liberation Nacional that waged a bitter struggle against the Arena death squads during the years of the Iran-contra conspiracy. The Arena Party was founded by the late Roberto D’Aubisson, who planned the assassination of Archbishop Oscar Romero and the murder of eight Maryknoll nuns and tens of thousands of Salvadorans during the fascist dictatorship backed by the Reagan-Bush administration.

That era presumably ended with the signing of the Chapultepac Peace Accords in 1993. “It stopped the bullets flying,” Dr. Calderon said. “We have had three ‘democratic’ governments. They paint a picture of peace and calm. But it is all a shell. We are going backward. We have a terrible infant mortality rate. People are being killed. I saw my neighbor killed by the police.”

Calderon, herself the mother of three young children, said the doctors have set up sidewalk clinics “to show the people that they are not the enemy, the government is the enemy.”

If the Arena government succeeds in privatizing health care, she warned, “they will move on to privatize education, our water system. They’ve already privatized electricity, the ports, the pension system. … This whole drive to privatize is linked to the so-called Central America Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA). They want to extend NAFTA to Central America.” Opposition is so overwhelming the Bush administration was forced last month to move the CAFTA negotiations from San Salvador to Cincinnati.

Currently, 40 percent of Salvadorans are protected by government health care programs. About three percent are covered by private health care plans. Since 1997, health care advocates have struggled to push through a reform plan to provide health care for all Salvadorans. “The President took that proposal and put it in a drawer. No one saw it again,” Calderon said.

Yet last Nov. 14 the General Assembly bowed to the pressure, enacting a new law, the “State Guarantee of Health and Social Security,” outlawing privatization. Ultimately, Arena was able to buy off smaller rightwing parties and the historic law was repealed.

The people reacted with fury, redoubling support for the doctors, occupying clinics and staging non-violent marches and rallies.

President Flores, Calderon charged, seeks to divert $70 million from the $270 million Social Security trust fund to bankroll five private, for-profit HMOs. “This is money that came from me, from my parents, my neighbors. They are going to take that money and give it to private companies to start HMOs. They consider health care to be a commodity. They are telling the people, ‘If you don’t pay, you die.’”

The author can be reached at greenerpastures21212@yahoo.com