People Before Profit blog

John Hope Franklin: an appreciation

Tue, 31 Mar 2009 10:04:00 +0000

John Hope Franklin, the author of academic and popular works of African American history over six decades, passed away last week at the age of 94. More than any other U.S. scholar, he advanced the study and teaching of African American history in U.S. universities in the second half of the 20th century.

Born in Oklahoma in 1915, Franklin graduated from the segregated Booker T. Washington High School and then from Fisk University, a Black college, in 1935. Thanks to his own remarkable abilities and the work of a generation of pioneering scholars, especially W.E.B. DuBois, he earned a Ph.D. in history at Harvard University (1941), suffering many indignities at segregated research facilities as he began his lifelong journey to study African American history and “weave” it into the larger narrative of U.S. history. In 1947, he published “From Slavery to Freedom,” a general history of African Americans which has gone through eight editions and sold over 3 million copies worldwide.

In many respects Franklin’s life mirrored the struggles and achievements of the African American people, although he was spared many of the setbacks of recent decades. From 1947 to 1956, he taught at Howard University, the most prestigious Black university in the U.S. In the early 1950s he joined other African American scholars in providing research assistance to the NAACP’s Legal Defense Fund as it developed the Supreme Court case, Brown v. Board of Education, which declared school segregation to be unconstitutional.

In 1956, a year after the Montgomery Bus Boycott, he went to Brooklyn College, a free-tuition, integrated public college in New York, to become the chair of its all-white history department — the first African American to hold the chair of any history department outside of historically African American universities, even though he faced discrimination as he sought to purchase a home in New York.

Franklin was known for his kindness and generosity to colleagues and especially students of all backgrounds. He also was a consistent defender of civil liberties. David Levering Lewis, a former colleague of mine at Rutgers and the winner of two Pulitzer prizes for his biography of DuBois, remembered at his retirement that Franklin had defended DuBois’s right to think and write as he saw fit, the essence of academic and intellectual freedom, in the 1950s, at a time when most figures in the arts, sciences and other professions were either hailing or remaining silent about the denial of such freedoms to advocates of Marxism, communism, or any point of view which could be linked to Marxism and communism.

In 1964, the year that the most important civil rights law of the 20th century was enacted, Franklin moved to the elite University of Chicago, where he later became department chair.

As the civil rights movement and scholarship on the experience of African Americans grew and reinforced one another, Franklin served as president of the American Studies Association (1967), the Southern Historical Association (1970), the Organization of American Historians (1975) and the American Historical Association (1979). In 1980, the Carter administration appointed him to the United States delegation to the UNESCO General Conference in Belgrade, in what was then socialist Yugoslavia. In 1995, the Clinton administration awarded him the Medal of Freedom, the highest civilian award given by the U.S. government.

To use an analogy that I think he would have liked, John Hope Franklin was a kind of Jackie Robinson among U.S. historians, the first in so many areas to break down barriers of segregation and discrimination. There were other and in some instances greater African American intellectuals and scholars (W.E.B. DuBois most of all), as there had been greater baseball players in the Negro leagues than Robinson, but they did not gain the access he gained to the “mainstream” scholarship, government and mass media.

Like Robinson, Franklin faced and prevailed over countless indignities and showed that scholarship like sports teams and society as a whole would be better and more productive for all when there was integration and inclusion.

The honors mounted over the years — membership on presidential commissions, a research center named after him at Duke University, where he spent his final years before formal retirement and then continued to be active as a professor emeritus. But Franklin was never a token for a conservative or liberal establishment. He continued to write and lecture for the rest of his life, to seek to educate Americans and people everywhere to the history of African Americans and all other Americans, a history that he struggled to see fully merged through racial equality.

Last year he endorsed Barack Obama for the presidency and lived to see Obama’s election. The finest tribute to John Hope Franklin would be to read as many of his accessible and insightful works of history as possible. Americans of all ethnicities will learn much about both African Americans and themselves.

----- Norman Markowitz is a history professor at Rutgers University.

American Idol helps me dream big

Tue, 31 Mar 2009 09:32:00 +0000

There is just something about watching live singing competitions on national television that gets you hooked.

American Idol this year has me tuning in week after week.

As a guy who loves sports and watching my favorite local teams go for the win I feel a little corny and almost embarrassed about how much I’m really into Idol this year.

This “Idol addiction” may need some perspective given the economic circumstances facing millions of families who watch every week.

Idol is probably the best reality show on the talking box these days. With all the problems facing working families that struggle just to get by during the recession, Idol is just what folks need to tune out bills and other financial worries.

In a weird way watching these young talented performers take to the stage every week gives hope that maybe one day everyone will be in a better position to “win big” and achieve our dreams and aspirations.

Somehow by watching contestants reach for the stars, their success stories give viewers the personal confidence to take control and overcome economic problems.

Last week’s contestants certainly fit this bill. Idol candidates performed songs by the legendary Motown record label, a historic African American-led company that produced some of the biggest hits of the 20th century.

Adam Lambert from Hollywood, Calif., sang Smokey Robinson’s “The Tracks of My Tears.” He really rocked the microphone with soft yet extremely smooth and hypnotic vocals – a stellar performance. Prediction: he will be in the top three and could probably win this year for sure.

Allison Iraheta, 16, from Los Angeles, Calif. was quite good singing, “Papa Was a Rolling Stone” by the famous Temptations. Iraheta has great range and shows vocal flexibility. It’s her spunkiness and rock and roll appeal that amazes - and the fact that she is only 16! If she keeps it up I predict she could be in the top three.

Danny Gokey from Milwaukee, Wis., sang Eddie Kendricks’ “Get Ready.” I like Gokey and sympathize with his personal story but think last week’s performance was not his best: too jumpy and inconsistent. Firstly, his song choice was off. I think Gokey needs to step up his game and stick to doing what he’s good at: performing with his vocals. Don’t worry about getting the crowd’s reaction, control energy and sing songs that connect not just energize.

Unfortunately Matt Giraud’s version of Marvin Gaye's “Let’s Get It On” was, well, not right on since he landed in the bottom three last week. Giraud, from Kalamazoo, Mich., actually has a great voice and his ability to sing like Justin Timberlake is real effective. He’s got good vocals and can really hit those high notes. Lot’s of potential there. But it appears he could use a stronger fan base if he plans on moving up.

There is a lot of hype about Lil Rounds, from Memphis, Tenn. Rounds is the only African American and one of three remaining women left on the show. She sang Martha Reeves’ “Heatwave.” It was a bad song choice - too fast of a song for her. Rounds is a good singer, but needs to be more connected to her song choices. Rounds needs to show viewers that when she sings she not only can demonstrate range but that she is emotionally invested as well. Personally I don’t see all the hype but hope to see more if she hopes to make it in the finals.

College student Anoop Desai, from Chapel Hill, N.C is a favorite. Desai seems like a real cool cat, not the best singer in the competition but real likeable. He sang Smokey Robinson’s “Ooo Baby Baby.” He did a decent job rocking the falsetto but he’s playing it safe and singing the love ballads, which could help him survive during the show as long as his fans don’t get bored.

Kris Allen, from Little Rock, Ark., sang “How Sweet It Is (To Be Loved By You)” by James Taylor. Allen did a good job with his guitar and sings well. He has a unique popular style that I think many would agree could keep him around. We’ll see.

Unfortunately, Scott Maclntyre, from Scottsdale, Ariz., who sang Diana Ross’s “You Can’t Hurry Love,” was in the bottom three. He’s not my favorite and I don’t think he’s going to last. Scott lacks star-pop appeal and is just a little top plain sounding. Sorry Scott, but you need to sing as if you’re a pop star and not in a church choir.

Megan Joy from Sandy, Utah, has great showmanship but failed to execute Stevie Wonder’s “For Once In My Life.” Joy needs to pick her songs wisely if she hopes to advance. She’s adorable but she needs to be more confident and work her jazzy vocals.

And finally, Michael Sarver, a former Texas oil-rig worker, and his version of “Ain't to Proud To Beg” found him singing his final song on the show last week. He plans to spend time with his family and after touring with Idol this summer he hopes to pursue a career in music. Good for him.

So at the end, nine finals are left standing after 22.4 million viewers tuned in last week. Last year’s winner David Cook along with Lady Gaga are expected to make appearances on Wednesday night.

Rumors are saying Idol contestants are expected to perform “iTunes chart-toppers” this week. Not sure what that could mean since songs on iTunes vary from all types of genres.

I guess we’ll just have to wait and see.

So be sure to tune in and maybe you’ll be inspired. Hopefully Idol will move us to also reach our potential and strive for the best so long as we work hard and fight for a better future. Or at the least Idol will allow us to escape the reality of rough economic times facing many, even if it’s only for a couple of hours each week.

100,000 voters sign pledges backing Obama 2010 budget

Tue, 31 Mar 2009 08:49:00 +0000

WASHINGTON—Organizing for America (OFA) volunteers went door-to-door in all 50 states March 28 and collected more than 100,000 signatures on pledges of support for President Obama’s 2010 Budget.

The Salt Lake Tribune reported that Maggie Flanigan, 14, and Rose Nelson, 15, answered the President’s appeal and recruited 12 people to knock on doors in Salt Lake City that Saturday. Flanigan had volunteered as much as 40 hours weekly in the Obama election campaign last year.

Denise Mavor, who was Flanigan’s Third Grade school teacher joined the effort. She told the Tribune, “I believe in what President Obama is trying to do for the people of our country. He has the best interests of everyone in mind and heart. It’s the way he listens to people, as if to say, ‘Together we can do this…’”

Retiree Robert Archuleta who spent 34 years in the Salt Lake City public schools as a teacher and administrator hailed the door-to-door effort in his city. “Everyone in Utah is feeling good about Obama’s education budget,” Archuleta told the World by phone. “Cutbacks were being planned but funds from the stimulus package arrived and they were able to put those layoffs on hold.”

Archuleta praised the youth in Utah for jumping on the bandwagon. “A lot of the credit for that goes to Obama himself who has inspired young people to get involved and make the changes. There is a spirit in Utah and in the country that change for the better is coming,' he added.

Charles Strickland, 65, of Port Angeles, Washington, telephoned his Senators Maria Cantwell and Patty Murray, both Democrats, to ask them to support Obama’s budget. “I am a borrow and spend Democrat who believes that we must support our President’s program to invest in universal health care, education and green energy for the sake of our children and grandchildren and their future,” he told the lawmakers.

Strickland accused Republicans of “hypocrisy” in whipping up hysteria against deficit spending. “This is not the time to worry about running up the national debt,” he said. “They should have been worrying about that debt over the past eight years when they were pouring tens of billions down that rat-hole in Iraq.” Washington State’s government, he said, is struggling because of the economic crisis. “Only the federal government can help prevent a collapse,” he told the World in a phone interview.

OFA Media Director Natalie Wyeth told the World via email that one of the volunteers in Denver, Colorado, had voted for Republican John McCain but spent last Saturday collecting pledges for the Obama budget. A canvasser in Pennsylvania knocked on the door of a Republican and opened a friendly conversation about the need for Obama’s budget.

“That speaks to one of OFA’s objectives,” she said, “to engage voters across the country in a dialogue regardless of their political affiliation about the important issues facing our country and provide them with the tools needed to play a part in the legislative process.”

The House and Senate are racing this week to finish the debate and vote on the Budget Resolution, the first step in approving President Obama’s $3.6 trillion Fiscal Year 2010 budget that will take effect next Oct. 1. Obama went to Capitol Hill to meet with Democratic Senators to urge rejection of cutbacks proposed by the Republicans and a handful of conservative Democrats. After that meeting, Sen. Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) and Senate Budget Committee Chair Kent Conrad (D-ND) said virtually all of Obama’s program will be approved. It requires only a simple majority vote in the Senate to pass the Budget Resolution so it is impossible for the Republicans to block it with a filibuster.

WCCO-TV in Minneapolis-St. Paul reported that OFA volunteers fanned out across the Twin Cities to collect pledges in support of the budget. Chris Kramer, 17, told a TV news reporter, “It's important to continue the support we had at the end of the (Obama) campaign. Almost all the contacts we have had have been positive. People have signed.”

Teacher Nancy Dana said, “I think its incredibly important. I’m an educator and I think that if we don’t do something about education really soon, we’re going to have many, many more problems. This is a critical time.” Obama’s budget allocates $115 billion next year in federal aid to education, nearly three times more than ex-President George W. Bush’s budget.

Americans United for Change released a statement signed by 100 mass organizations that said in part, “It is our firm belief that if (Obama’s budget) priorities are enacted we will turn back the trend of rising poverty, unemployment, hunger, and homelessness.”

COMMENTARY: Textbooks on the front lines our minds are the prize

Tue, 31 Mar 2009 03:55:00 +0000

Throughout written history, two giants have wrestled to ultimate death with our minds as the prize. One adds stealth and cunning to his incredible strength, but the other is slightly the victor, despite general indifference.

The Texas State Board of Education, by an 8-7 vote, decided on March 27 that it would not require Texas teachers and textbooks to question the very basis of biological science, Darwin’s theory of evolution. So ends, for the time being, the years-long effort to undermine science by one of the world’s largest purchasers of school textbooks.

Also on March 27, one of the few doctors remaining in America who maintains the courage to perform legal late-term abortions, George Tiller of Kansas, won his court case against 19 criminal charges.

Only three months earlier, the Associated Press headline was, “Vatican moves to embrace Galileo.” Nearly 400 years ago, in 1633, Galileo had offended religious leaders by offering clear evidence from telescope observations that the Earth moves around the sun and, thus, may not be the center of the universe. They forced him to recant and put him under house arrest for the rest of his life. They put an anathema (curse) on him that was only relieved in 1992. Although he made breakthrough contributions in other fields, the great Galileo never worked in astronomy again. In May 2009, experts from the Vatican expect to review the case.

The pundits continue their battles across the op-ed pages over whether or not millions of victims of paralysis and other incurable conditions deserve to have any hope of relief from stem cell research.

Because they have not burned any witches lately, we may think that the forces of dark superstition have retreated. But they haven’t. They have to be beaten back by those of us who value our minds.

----- Jim Lane (flittle7 @ yahoo.com) is a labor activist in North Texas.

Never Turning Back: The World of Peggy Lipschutz

Mon, 30 Mar 2009 10:01:00 +0000

“Never Turning Back: The World of Peggy Lipschutz” is a film about 88-year-old artist and political activist Peggy Lipschutz of Evanston, Ill.

Lipschutz and her “chalk talks,” sometimes called “Songs You Can See,” have been part of the many struggles of Chicago’s labor, antiwar and civil rights movements since the 1960s. Her illustrations have become synonymous with messages of worker unity, democracy and the fight for justice.

The DVD is great for union and art events, schools and colleges. Interviews with Pete Seeger and Angela Davis.

To purchase the DVD visit:

Oakland responds to slayings with a vision of community

Mon, 30 Mar 2009 08:27:00 +0000

OAKLAND, Calif. ― The fatal shooting of four Oakland policemen by a lone gunman March 21 has prompted a weeklong outpouring of condolences and solidarity with the families of the slain men and with the police department.

People from all parts of the community are calling for the city, which has been wracked by homicides and by the Jan. 1 police killing of Oscar Grant, an unarmed young Black man, to join together to end violence from all quarters.

The multiple slaying has also brought calls to examine the functioning of the prison and parole system.

Some 21,000 people jammed the city’s Oracle Arena and the nearby Coliseum March 27 for funeral services for police officers Mark Dunakin, 40, John Hege, 41, Ervin Roman, 43, and Daniel Sakai, 35.

Among the mourners were Sens. Dianne Feinstein and Barbara Boxer, Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, Oakland Mayor Ronald Dellums and dozens of other state and local officials and community leaders. A message was read from President Obama.

During the days following the shootings, streams of Oaklanders poured into City Hall to sign a condolence book for the slain men. A candlelight “Hope and Healing” vigil March 24 at the East Oakland site of the slaying was joined by over 1,000 residents from all parts of the city. Dunakin and Hege were killed by 26-year-old Oakland resident Lovelle Mixon after what started out as a routine traffic stop. An hour later, after Mixon was found to be hiding in a nearby apartment, he fatally shot SWAT team members Romans and Sakai, and was then fatally shot by another officer.

Mixon was on parole for a 2002 assault with a deadly weapon. He was suspected in a rape and was being sought on a warrant for violating his parole last month. His family said he had been despondent over his inability to get a job, and had talked of moving out of the area to search for work.

Mayor Dellums told the crowd at the vigil, “We gather this evening in the spirit of community … It is my hope that each of us in our own way will leave this gathering and say to ourselves that we will renew our commitment to burden ourselves with each other’s humanity, thereby expanding our respect for human life, and finally opening a wider door to a vision of a community without violence, without killing, without war.”

One step toward realizing that vision would be to examine the functioning of the prison and parole systems, Oakland City Councilwoman Jean Quan said in a March 24 interview with radio station KPFA.

Emphasizing that there was no excuse for the slayings, she said, “We have to stop spending 10 percent of our state budget just to lock people up and give them no job preparation.”

Noting that Mixon dropped out of school in the ninth grade, and had spent 10 of his 26 years in prison, Quan added, “If we’re going to spend so much money on prisons ― more money than it takes to send a kid to Stanford University ― we’ve got to help people turn their lives around while they’re there, with education and a chance for a job.”

Recalling the widespread community outrage and concern over the murder of Oscar Grant, the Oakland-based online organization Color of Change said in a statement, “These more recent killings are testament to how destructive the climate of distrust that exists between law enforcement and many people in our community truly is.”

Color of Change, which highlights issues involving the African American community and other communities of color, condemned a handful of extreme reactions that sought to justify the officers’ slayings as retribution for Grant’s death, or to say Mixon’s killing spree justifies brutal treatment Oakland residents of color have received from police.

“We join the people of Oakland in seeking a common understanding from which we can achieve meaningful change,” the organization said.

mbechtel@pww.org

Archie Green, 91, union activist and folklorist, dies

Mon, 30 Mar 2009 06:18:00 +0000

Original source: The New York Times

Archie Green, a shipwright turned folklorist whose interest in union workers and their culture transformed the study of American folklore and who single-handedly persuaded Congress to create the American Folklife Center at the Library of Congress, died last Sunday at his home in San Francisco. He was 91.

The cause was kidney failure, his son Derek said.

Mr. Green, a shipwright and carpenter by trade, drew on a childhood enthusiasm for cowboy songs and a devotion to the union movement to construct a singular academic career. Returning to college at 40, he began studying what he called laborlore: the work songs, slang, craft techniques and tales that helped to define the trade unions and create a sense of group identity.

“He countered the prevailing, somewhat romantic notion that folklore was isolated in remote, marginal groups,” said Simon Bronner, who teaches folklore at Pennsylvania State University. “He showed that each of us, in our own work lives, have a folklore that we not only perform but that we need.”

At the same time, Mr. Green energetically promoted the idea of public folklore — that is, that folklorists should work outside the academy to gather, preserve and publicize local cultures through government agencies, museums, folk festivals and radio stations. His signal achievement in this area was the lonely lobbying campaign he conducted for nearly six years to create a national folklife center, which became a reality when Congress, by a unanimous vote, passed the American Folklife Preservation Act, signed into law by President Gerald R. Ford in January 1976.

“By his energy, determination and enthusiasm he was able to impart his passion to members of Congress,” said Peggy Bulger, the director of the American Folklife Center in Washington. “Without Archie, there would be no American Folklife Center.”

Mr. Green was born Aaron Green in Winnipeg, Manitoba. His father had fled Chernigov, in present-day Ukraine, after taking part in the failed 1905 revolution in Russia. When he was a small boy, the family moved to Los Angeles, where he listened to cowboy songs on the radio, absorbed socialist politics from his father and developed a passionate dedication to the labor union movement and the New Deal.

After earning a degree in political science from the University of California, Berkeley, Mr. Green decided to throw in his lot with the working class. He joined the Civilian Conservation Corps, working as a road builder and firefighter along the Klamath River and became a shipwright and union activist on the San Francisco waterfront. For the rest of his life, he identified himself first and foremost as a worker and a union member.

Besides his son Derek, of Montara, Calif., he is survived by his wife, Louanne Bartlett, whom he married in 1944; another son, David, of San Francisco; his daughter, Debra Morris of Boone, Iowa; a sister, Mitzi Zeman of Tarzana, Calif.; and four grandchildren.

After serving as a Navy Seabee during World War II, Mr. Green returned to the waterfront and later switched to carpentry. But as the union movement lost some of its energy, he went back to academia, enrolling at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, to become a labor historian. There, as an adviser to the campus folk music club, he sent students out into the field to record the indigenous music of central and southern Illinois and wrote a seminal article, “Hillbilly Music: Source and Symbol.”

He went on to earn a doctorate in folklore at the University of Pennsylvania. His dissertation, on the songs of Kentucky coal miners, was published in 1972 as “Only a Miner.”

Mr. Green wrote for academic publications like The Journal of American Folklore, but starting in the late 1960s he spent much of his time lobbying Congress for the folklife center, dressed in a T-shirt and sneakers.

“He looked like a hobo, and carried everything around in a paper bag,” said Roger D. Abrahams, a retired folklore professor at the University of Pennsylvania. “He would just sit in the corridors of Congress and wait until people let him in to talk.”

Persuasion was his strong suit, in the Capitol and on campuses. With gusto, Mr. Green orchestrated the activities of a widening circle of professional acquaintances. He was a notorious academic matchmaker and connector, issuing orders to at least two generations of folklore students, directing their attention to this or that neglected topic in labor studies or folk music, on occasion steering them to the large musical archive that he had deposited at the Southern Folklife Collection at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill.

His approach to occupational folklore was not far short of revolutionary. “Before Archie, the field did not have a clear vision of what occupational folklore was,” Ms. Bulger said. “There was a huge disconnect between academics, who took a literary, almost 19th-century, view of what folklore was, and someone like Archie, who wanted to tell the pile driver, or the auto worker, ‘You have your own culture that is unique, that no other occupation has.’ ”

After teaching at the University of Texas, where he spent quality time in Austin’s honky-tonks and analyzed the “cosmic cowboy” phenomenon, he returned to San Francisco and wrote a series of highly regarded books. “Wobblies, Pile Butts and Other Heroes” (1993) and “Torching of the Fink Books and Other Essays on Vernacular Culture” (2001) included many of the word studies that were among his most captivating essays. “Tin Men” (2002), a description and analysis of tinsmith artistry; “Millwrights of Northern California, 1901-2002” (2003); and “Harry Lundeberg’s Stetson and Other Nautical Treasures” (2006), about the Sailors’ Union of the Pacific, reflected a lifelong commitment to the writing of labor history.

In 2007, Mr. Green completed a project nearly 50 years in the making, “The Big Red Songbook,” which he helped to edit. It included the lyrics to more than 250 songs in the various editions of the Little Red Songbooks published from 1909 to 1973 by the Industrial Workers of the World, best known as the Wobblies. They were gathered by John Neuhaus, an I.W.W. machinist, who left his collection to Mr. Green when he died in 1958.

In his final months, Mr. Green continued to organize and agitate, issuing directives from his deathbed to colleagues and friends. His pet project was to convince Congress that it should, as in the days of the New Deal and the Works Progress Administration, set aside money for artists, filmmakers, photographers, writers and, yes, folklorists, to document the projects put into motion by the stimulus bill. The last letter he wrote, his son Derek said, was addressed to Representative Nancy Pelosi, the House speaker, telling her exactly what she needed to do.

Obama admin. weighs in on side of women workers in Wal-Mart case

Sun, 29 Mar 2009 05:32:00 +0000

(PAI) The Obama administration, represented by the federal Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, has weighed in on the side of the female workers who filed a class action sexual discrimination suit against Wal-Mart eight years ago. The government was silent until now, but EEOC attorneys who sided with the women are career personnel, not GOP Bush government appointees.

In a friend-of-the-court brief sent March 19 to the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco before that 11-judge court’s March 24 trial on the case, the agency supported a lower-court ruling on how back pay could be determined, should the lawsuit ever come to trial. Six women filed the suit against the monster retailer, and asked that it cover all women presently or formerly working for Wal-Mart.

Wal-Mart has tried to throw out the case twice, but lost both in the lower court and before a smaller panel of appellate court judges. This trial was before the full court.

“To achieve Title VII’s key goal of providing make-whole relief to victims of discrimination, this court and others have held that class-wide relief may be appropriate where, because of factors such as the passage of time and the employer’s own subjective employment practices, any attempt to reconstruct individual employment histories more precisely would drag the court into a quagmire of hypothetical judgments,” the EEOC told the judges in its brief.

Title VII is the sweeping enforcement section of the Civil Rights Act, which outlaws discrimination based on race, sex, religion or other factors. Pre-trial investigation showed Wal-Mart, unlike its retail competitors, consistently paid female workers less than it paid men in the same jobs with the same experience, and discriminated against women in promotion as well.

EEOC said any court’s power to determine back pay for a class of workers without individual hearings and trials on each case is “an important tool for ensuring individuals injured by systemic discrimination may obtain redress for those injuries.” That principle holds not just for class action cases the agency brings, but for private cases, too, EEOC said. “We therefore urge the court to ensure that nothing in its decision restricts the availability of these relief procedures in Title VII pattern-or-practice cases,” its brief added. Its attorney called Wal-Mart’s position “nonsensical.” The lawyers for the women in the case, Dukes et al vs. Wal-Mart, told the judges that “following two years of discovery, including review of over a million pages of documents -- including Wal-Mart's employee compensation data -- depositions of both (continued) Press Associates, Inc. (PAI) -- 3/27/2009 (Wal-Mart case, cont. -2) Wal-Mart executives and our clients, testimony of statisticians, a labor economist and a sociologist, the (federal) District Court certified the class, finding that common questions of fact and law existed.

“The court also found there was significant evidence of corporate-wide practices and policies of excessive subjectivity and gender stereotyping in personnel decisions. The class was certified for injunctive relief and punitive damages,” they pointed out.

Wal-Mart stuck to saying it wanted each individual female worker to sue it for discrimination, and prove her case. It was joined by business lobbies, including the Chamber of Commerce, along with the Pacific Legal Foundation, a Radical Right organization well-known for suing for corporate property rights.

“When broad social justice goals are embedded in the law, then courts must redress these claims,” the womens’ lawyers replied. “Title VII was enacted with the stated goal of eliminating the societal norm which relegated women and men of color to second-class status in employment, excluding them from many jobs, paying them lower wages and subjecting them to the least-desirable working conditions.

“Class actions were established as a vehicle for addressing systemic harms, and Wal-Mart and many other large businesses seek to convince the courts that justice is better served on an individual case by case basis. But given the astronomical disparity in resources between Wal-Mart and the underpaid female class members, this case presents the textbook example of why class actions have been -- and still are -- the only viable means of redressing systemic discrimination,” the lawyers declared.

“A Wal-Mart employee has a better chance of winning the Lotto than garnering the resources to sue one of the largest profit-making enterprises in the world. Wal-Mart knows if it can defeat class certification, it diminishes the likelihood it will be held accountable for its wide-spread discriminatory practices,” they concluded.

Predatory payday lenders target Black and Latino communities

Sun, 29 Mar 2009 04:43:00 +0000

Original source:

As the misdeeds of major financial institutions continue to make the headlines, it should be no surprise to find out the many ways people have been cheated by financial institutions at the community level. The controversial practice known as 'payday lending' is one of the most egregious examples. The process gives cash-strapped consumers an advance -- with exorbitant interest rates -- on their paychecks. For years consumer advocates have pushed for more regulations on the payday loan industry, arguing that these firms are in fact predatory lenders that trap the working poor in a cycle of debt.

Now a new study released today by the North Carolina-based research nonprofit Center for Responsible Lending found that race and ethnicity is the leading factor in determining payday lender locations. In essence that means minority communities are the largest targets of these predatory lending operations.

Payday loan stores are nearly eight times more concentrated in California's African-American and Latino neighborhoods as compared to white neighborhoods, draining these communities of some $250 million in payday loan fees annually, according to the new CRL study. Even after accounting for factors like income, education and poverty rates, CRL still found that these lenders are 2.4 times more concentrated in African-American and Latino neighborhoods.

Putting a cap on the industry

The payday lending firms claim they are providing a needed, short-term service to the working poor. But studies have shown that every year payday lenders strip $4.2 billion in excessive fees from Americans who think they're getting a two-week loan and end up trapped in debt. Borrowers end up paying more in interest - at annual rates of 400 percent (about 20 times the highest credit card rates) - which is much more than the amount of the loan they originally borrowed.

The good news is that state legislatures across the country are taking steps to regulate payday loans; hundreds of bills pertaining to such lenders have been introduced in more than 30 states in the past two years. In all, fifteen states and the District of Columbia have either capped rates leading to payday lenders shutting their doors or banned them outright.

In fact the South has led the charge in cracking down on the $28-billion industry. Georgia and North Carolina have already banned the practice. States like Virginia have passed reforms that help borrowers. This week Kentucky Governor Steve Beshear signed into law a ten-year moratorium on new payday lenders in the state. State legislatures in Texas have filed legislation that would mean greater transparency in the lending industry, cap interest rates at 36 percent, and close loopholes in state law that allow lenders to bypass tighter regulation. An intense battle is currently taking place in the South Carolina over reform legislation.

One long-term solution, consumer advocates like CRL argue, is for stronger federal legislation that would put a 36 percent cap on interest rates, which is the same cap that Congress already has in place for military families. A bill with a 36 percent cap has been introduced in the U.S. Senate (S500) and House (H.R. 1608), and would not prohibit states from instituting their own caps.

Colibri Workers for Rights and Justice

Sat, 28 Mar 2009 03:52:00 +0000

NE health summit: Hundreds demand reform

Fri, 27 Mar 2009 10:01:00 +0000

BURLINGTON, Vt. — Two different groups of people gathered here March 17 to talk about solving the health care crisis. Inside the Davis Center at the University of Vermont were some 400 people invited to the White House Northeast Regional Forum on Health Reform, hosted by Democratic Gov. Deval Patrick of Massachusetts and Republican Gov. Jim Douglas of Vermont.

Outside, under a bright and unseasonably warm sky, 200-300 people from the five-state region gathered to tell the forum attendees that they refused to be the marginalized majority, that they were demanding that the forum address HR 676, the Medicare for All bill, to fundamentally reform health care in America.

The protest was called by single-payer advocates, the Vermont AFL-CIO, nurses unions in the region, the United Electrical Workers (UE) and the Vermont Workers’ Center, when it became obvious that only a token number of single-payer advocates were to be invited to the forum. Most invitees were “stakeholders” not advocates, with a few people representing patients who had been mistreated or let down by the current system.

Gov. Patrick did facilitate his part of the meeting to encourage a dialogue between those who wanted real reform and those who represented the status quo, but both governors made it clear that the summit’s mandate was to find ways to reform the present system without changing it in any fundamental way.

Outside, the demonstrators, carrying signs saying “Pass HR 676,” “Medicare for All,” “Single Payer Now” and “Health Care is a Human Right,” rejected that approach. Welcoming President Obama’s insistence on providing health care for all and reforming the cost structure of the system, Dr. Deb Richter, leader of the single-payer forces in Vermont, told the crowd, “The president is with us, but he is on a large ocean in a very leaky boat surrounded by sharks. We cannot expect him to jump in the water on his own. He needs our help.”

Alluding to the financial crisis, she said, “We cannot continue to bail out the insurance companies or continue with this insurance industry in the middle of health care doing nothing but draining resources away from keeping people healthy and taking care of the sick.”

Jen Henry, president of the AFT Nurses union at Vermont’s major hospital, told of one of her patients who died for lack of health insurance. “Health care,” she said, “is a human right and the right time is now!”

Drawing attention to the fight for single-payer in Vermont, Dawn Stanger, UPS driver and representative of the Vermont Workers’ Center, a labor and community solidarity organization, told the group, “We are only asking for the kind of change that is politically possible here in Vermont, and change to a single-payer system is possible now.”

The rally concluded with Dr. Marvin Malek, from Barre, Vt., who described our health care system as suffering from a triad of dysfunction: 1) terrible access, with millions not covered; 2) terrible outcomes, with the worst life span, rates of chronic illness, disability and birth defects of any developed country; and 3) the most expensive system in the world.

The main speakers from the rally were invited at the last minute to participate in the forum. Thus there actually was a dialogue between the two groups. The president’s representative promised to relay to Washington the different views expressed in Burlington, both inside and outside the meeting’s walls.

Neo-con ideologues launch new foreign policy group

Fri, 27 Mar 2009 08:11:00 +0000

WASHINGTON, Mar 25 (IPS) - A newly-formed and still obscure neo-conservative foreign policy organisation is giving some observers flashbacks to the 1990s, when its predecessor staked out the aggressively unilateralist foreign policy that came to fruition under the George W. Bush administration.

The blandly-named Foreign Policy Initiative (FPI) - the brainchild of Weekly Standard editor William Kristol, neo-conservative foreign policy guru Robert Kagan, and former Bush administration official Dan Senor - has thus far kept a low profile; its only activity to this point has been to sponsor a conference pushing for a U.S. 'surge' in Afghanistan.

But some see FPI as a likely successor to Kristol’s and Kagan’s previous organisation, the now-defunct Project for the New American Century (PNAC), which they launched in 1997 and which became best known for leading the public campaign to oust former Iraqi president Saddam Hussein both before and after the Sep. 11 attacks.

PNAC’s charter members included many figures who later held top positions under Bush, including Vice President Dick Cheney, Secretary of Defence Donald Rumsfeld, and his top deputy, Paul Wolfowitz.

FPI was founded earlier this year, but few details are available about the group, which has so far attracted no media attention. The organisation’s website lists Kagan, Kristol, and Senor, who came to prominence as a spokesman for the occupation authorities in Iraq, as the three members of its board of directors.

Two of FPI’s three staffers, policy director Jamie Fly and Christian Whiton, have come directly from foreign policy posts in the Bush administration, while the third, Rachel Hoff, last worked for the National Republican Congressional Committee. Contacted by IPS at the group's office, Fly referred all questions to Senor, who did not return the call.

The organisation’s mission statement argues that the 'United States remains the world’s indispensable nation,' and warns that 'strategic overreach is not the problem and retrenchment is not the solution' to Washington's current financial and strategic woes. It calls for 'continued engagement - diplomatic, economic, and military - in the world and rejection of policies that would lead us down the path to isolationism.'

The mission statement opens by listing a familiar litany of threats to the U.S., including 'rogue states,' 'failed states,' 'autocracies' and 'terrorism', but gives pride of place to the 'challenges' posed by 'rising and resurgent powers,' of which only China and Russia are named.

Their prominence may reflect the influence of Kagan, who has argued in recent years that the 21st century will be dominated by a struggle between the forces of democracy (led by the U.S.) and autocracy (led by China and Russia). He has called for a League of Democracies as a mechanism for combating Chinese and Russian power, and the FPI statement stresses the need for 'robust support for America’s democratic allies'.

This emphasis may also indicate that FPI intends to make confrontation with China and Russia the centrepiece of its foreign policy stance. If this is the case, it would mark a return to the early days of the Bush administration, before 9/11, when Kristol’s Weekly Standard took the lead in attacking Washington for its alleged 'appeasement' of Beijing.

For its formal coming out, however, FPI has chosen to push for escalating the U.S. military effort in Afghanistan. The organisation’s first event, to be held here Mar. 31, will be a conference entitled 'Afghanistan: Planning for Success'.

The lead speaker will be Senator John McCain, the 2008 Republican presidential candidate and long a favourite of both Kagan and Kristol. In February, McCain gave a well-publicised speech at the neo-conservative American Enterprise Institute (AEI) arguing that the U.S. could not afford to scale back its military commitment in Afghanistan and calling for a redoubled effort to win the war.

Other speakers will include AEI fellow Frederick Kagan, Robert's brother and one of the key proponents of the 'surge' strategy in Iraq, counterinsurgency expert Lt. Col. John Nagl, the new director Centre for a New American Security, and hawkish Democratic Representative Jane Harman.

FPI has inevitably drawn comparisons to PNAC, a 'letterhead organisation' founded by Kristol and Kagan shortly after their publication in 'Foreign Affairs' of an article entitled 'Toward a Neo-Reaganite Foreign Policy' which called for Washington to exercise 'benevolent global hegemony' and warned against what they saw as the post-Cold War drift of the Republican Party toward 'neoisolationism' after it lost the White House to Bill Clinton.

'This reminds me of the Project for the New American Century,' said Steven Clemons, director of the American Strategy Programme at the New America Foundation. 'Like PNAC, it will become a watering hole for those who want to see an ever-larger U.S. military machine and who divide the world between those who side with right and might and those who are evil or who would appease evil.'

PNAC’s membership was a veritable who’s-who of neoconservatives and other future Bush administration hawks. In addition to Cheney, Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz, charter members included then-Florida governor Jeb Bush, who was at the time considered a more likely presidential candidate than his elder brother; Cheney’s chief of staff, I. Lewis 'Scooter' Libby, who left the administration after being indicted for perjury in October 2005; and Elliott Abrams, who became Bush’s top Middle East aide at the National Security Council; among several others who later served in senior Bush administration posts.

The group’s June 1997 statement of principles called for 'a Reaganite policy of military strength and moral clarity' that entailed 'increas[ing] defence spending significantly' and 'challeng[ing] regimes hostile to our interests and values'.

In January 1998, PNAC published an open letter to President Clinton calling for 'the removal of Saddam Hussein’s regime from power', by military force if necessary. The letter was signed by many who would become architects and backers of the 2003 invasion of Iraq, including Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz, Abrams, future deputy secretary of state Richard Armitage, and future U.N. ambassador John Bolton.

In September 2001, only days after the 9/11 attacks, another PNAC letter called on President Bush to broaden the scope of the 'war on terror' beyond those immediately responsible for the attacks to include Iraq and Lebanon's Hezbollah.

And in April 2002, the group labeled Yasser Arafat and the Palestinian Authority (PA) 'a cog in the machine of Middle East terrorism,' compared Arafat to al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden, and called on the U.S. to end support for both the PA and the Israeli-Palestinian peace negotiations as a whole.

'Israel's fight against terrorism is our fight,' it said, urging Bush to 'accelerate plans for removing Saddam Hussein from power.'

That FPI's debut public event should focus on why Washington should escalate its involvement in Afghanistan is ironic given the role played by PNAC and other hawks in and outside the administration in pushing for the invasion of Iraq so soon after the U.S. campaign to oust the Taliban and al Qaeda in Afghanistan in late 2001. Many experts believe the diversion of military and intelligence resources to Iraq made it possible for both the Taliban and al Qaeda's leadership to survive and rebuild.

The top priority given by the Bush administration - again, with the strong encouragement of PNAC and its supporters - to Iraq as the 'central front in the war on terror' also meant that aid needed to bolster the western-backed government of President Hamid Karzai was unavailable.

PNAC effectively ceased its activities at the beginning of Bush’s second term. This may partly have been due to the large amount of bad publicity the group attracted for its seminal role in bringing about the Iraq war.

But the formation of FPI may be a sign that its founders hope once again to incubate a more aggressive foreign policy during their exile from the White House, in preparation for the next time they return to political power.

*Jim Lobe's blog on U.S. foreign policy can be read at http://www.ips.org/blog/jimlobe/.

Unemployment hits harder among Blacks, Latinos

Fri, 27 Mar 2009 05:28:00 +0000

(AP) The ax fell without sound or shadow: Tatiana Gallego was suddenly called into human resources and laid off from her job as an admissions counselor for a fashion college.

'The way people tried to explain it to me was, I was the last one hired so I was the first one out,' said Gallego, 25, who had worked there for 17 months.

Last hired, first fired: This generations-old cliche rings bitterly true for millions of Latinos and Blacks who are losing jobs at a faster rate than the general population during this punishing recession.

Much of the disparity is due to a concentration of Latinos and Blacks in construction, blue-collar or service-industry jobs that have been decimated by the economic meltdown. And black unemployment has been about double the rate for whites since the government began tracking those categories in the early 1970s.

But this recession is cutting a swath through the professional classes as well, which can be devastating to people who recently arrived there.

Since the recession began in December 2007, Latino unemployment has risen 4.7 percentage points, to 10.9 percent, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Black unemployment has risen 4.5 points, to 13.4 percent. White unemployment has risen 2.9 points, to 7.3 percent.

Gallego, whose parents were born in Colombia, graduated from the University of Rhode Island. Her mother is self-employed, and her stepfather works in construction.

She was stunned when she was told to pack up and leave by the end of the day because enrollment was down at her New York City school. She said she had recently received a positive performance review, and her bosses were planning to send her to a conference.

'Maybe I just don't know that much about the business world, because I felt like I did more, I went above and beyond more than other people in my office did,' she said.

William Darity, a professor of economics and African-American studies at Duke University, said that 'Blacks and Latinos are relative latecomers to the professional world ... so they are necessarily the most vulnerable.'

'We don't have those older roots to anchor us in the professional world,' Darity said. 'We don't have the same nexus of contacts, the same kind of seniority.'

There are no recent government statistics that measure jobs lost by race and income. But Darity and others believe that professional Latinos and blacks are more likely to lose their jobs in the recession.

'Many times Blacks and Latinos are the last to be hired, so naturally they are first to be fired,' said Jerry Medley, who has been in the executive search business for 30 years.

'Not saying that it's racism,' Medley said, 'but if a manager or a senior executive is looking at a slate of individuals and has to let one of them go, chances are he or she will not let the person go that they spend a lot of time with at the country club or similar places.'

The less wealth you have, the harder unemployment hits. Darity cited 2002 data that showed black households with a median net worth of $6,000, Latino households with a median of $8,000, and white households with a median of $90,000.

Philip Salter was creative director for a Chicago advertising firm where about 75 percent of the revenue came from a contract with a Fortune 500 company to create ads targeted at minorities. When the firm lost that contract plus two general-market accounts, Salter's job evaporated.

'When companies cut back their ad dollars, minority budgets are where they start,' said Salter, 62, who is Black. 'Unfortunately in this business, most clients just view (minority advertising) as an overlay or meeting an obligation that social organizations might place on them.'

His last day was in January 2008. With alimony payments and two kids in college, Salter moved from his four-bedroom house into an apartment and has scraped by on consulting gigs.

Salter's mother worked as a housekeeper, and his father was a custodian. Before his divorce, Salter's stepdaughter and her four children lived with him for many years.

Professional Blacks 'don't usually start out with an inheritance,' he said. 'On top of that, quite often things happen in our families to cause us stress. An unexpected child or grandchild, drug problems. When you try to set aside money to put your kids through college, all of a sudden you have to say, 'I can't let this family member fall and become homeless.'

'I would say eight out of 10 people I know have a similar situation.'

Then there are those clinging to the bottom of the ladder, laid off from lower-paying jobs.

For them, 'once the primary breadwinner loses his or her job, there isn't much backup,' said Harry Holzer, former chief economist for the Department of Labor who now is a professor at Georgetown University and the Urban Institute.

The Great Depression ended after the government created a 'safety net' of wide-ranging social-assistance programs. Since then, the overall unemployment rate peaked in 1981-1982, at 10.8 percent on a monthly basis, Holzer said.

Economists believe we could reach that level in the current recession, Holzer said - but he added that unlike in the 1980s, today the safety net has been largely dismantled by restrictions placed on welfare and unemployment eligibility.

'You worry about populations of concentrated poverty and having less access to the safety net,' Holzer said. 'It could lead to social unrest, higher crime rates - no one knows.'

'It will obviously have an effect on the crime rate,' said Maya Wiley, director of the Center for Social Inclusion, which recently issued a report stating that nonwhites are bearing the heaviest burden during the recession.

'There also are all sorts of health-related issues connected with that,' Wiley said. 'We could see higher rates of everything from homicides to tuberculosis.'

As racism wanes and Blacks and Latinos advance up the economic ladder, many cite this progress as proof that it would be unfair to offer race-based remedies to those left behind. Even many minorities have embraced themes of self-help and personal responsibility.

Others, like the Duke professor Darity, say that America 'has never come to terms with racial economic inequality.'

'The current situation,' Darity said, 'is reinforcing and widening those inequalities.'

Webcams show Bald Eagle hatchlings

Fri, 27 Mar 2009 01:43:00 +0000

A webcam at the Chincoteague National Wildlife Refuge Visitor Center in Virginia caught the hatching of two Bald Eaglets born six days apart late last month, according to the National Wildlife Refuge System's website.

A second webcam at Blackwater Refuge on Maryland's eastern shore also showed the birth of two other eagles in early March. Despite hatching in the midst of severe winter weather in Maryland the two eagles appear to be doing well, according to the refuge's website.

'We've never had chicks hatch into bad weather before, and to be honest, we were more than a little worried about them since we know eaglets have perished at other cam nests when hatching into storms,' a post at the Blackwater website stated. 'But we caught a break with the weather in that the storm moved through rather quickly (although it left a lot of snow) and our parents have been doing an amazing job – as a team – to keep the eaglets safe and fed.'

A third webcam at the National Wildlife Refuge System's National Conservation Training Center (NCTC) in Shepherdstown, WV showed the hatching of another eagle in mid-March. That nest started with three eggs, but two of them failed to hatch out, according to the latest post at the NCTC website.

Experts believe that the introduction of the use the highly toxic pesticide DDT is linked to the decline of Bald Eagle populations beginning in the late 1940's. Breeding pairs dropped to about 450 in the lower 48 states. As a result, the Bald Eagles was designated an endangered species in 1978.

With the ban on the use of DDT in 1972 and other recovery efforts, the Bald Eagle has begun to recover. By 1995, the species was downgraded to threatened status, and in 2007, the Bald Eagle was removed from the federal list of threatened and endangered species.

A wintering population survey of North America in 1997 revealed at least 96,648 individual birds, with about 75 percent found in Alaska and British Columbia .

Readers can view updated still photos and live video feeds of the eagles here:

Blackwater: NCTC:

Pass the budget! Grassroots coalition demands action

Thu, 26 Mar 2009 05:20:00 +0000

WASHINGTON—President Obama appealed to the people to throw their support behind his first federal budget to help pull the country out of the deep economic crisis. Speaking at his second White House news conference the President said the $3.5 trillion Fiscal Year 2010 budget is “is going to need the support of the American people,” adding that it is “inseparable” from his economic recovery program.

Obama rebutted arguments that his budget will add too much to the federal deficit. The biggest cause of the deficit, he said, is the runaway costs of health care which his budget begins to address.'

He defended the billions allocated for green, renewable forms of energy, for health care, and education, all initiatives that will create millions of jobs. He renewed his call for tax cuts for middle-income families and higher taxes on the wealthy. He called for elimination of wasteful spending on Medicare and in military procurement.

A reporter pointed out, one in fifty children in the U.S. are now homeless.

“With shelters at full capacity, tent cities are sprouting up across the country. What would you say to these families, especially children who are sleeping under bridges and in tent cities?” the reporter asked.

“It is unacceptable for children and families to be without a roof over their heads in a country as wealthy as ours,” Obama replied.

The most important task, he said is to “make sure their parents have a job” and “make sure that when people do lose their jobs that their unemployment insurance is extended, that they can keep their health care.”

A coalition of 100 organizations initiated by Americans United for Change was already answering Obama’s appeal, launching a grassroots campaign to push through Obama’s budget in the face of stubborn opposition by the Republican right and a handful of Blue Dog Democrats.

The coalition includes the AFL-CIO and many of its affiliated unions, ACORN, SEIU, U.S. Catholic Conference, the YMCA and YWCA, NAACP and dozens more organizations with tens of millions of members.

Organizing for America, with more than 14 million people who helped elect Obama in its database, launched a door-to-door campaign March 21 in support of the budget. MoveOn has scheduled a similar effort.

“We’ve been seeing AIG and CitiGroup on bended knees asking for handouts,” said Michael Petit, president of Every Child Matters, one of the groups in the coalition. “If they can do it for General Motors, why can’t they do it for our kids?”

Petit told the World, Obama “has done a remarkable thing early in his term, extending SCHIP health care to three million more children and pushing through an economic recovery package with more funds for children and families than any initiative since Lyndon Johnson’s Great Society.”

Now Obama’s budget promises even more for children and families, he said.

“Obama gets an A, close to an A+,” he continued. “There is no question that he is a kid-friendly President. We don’t need to lobby him or pressure him. He believes we have a moral responsibility to each other and especially to children.”

He assailed Republican stonewall tactics. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) and House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-Ohio), “have been the architects in dismantling programs that serve children and families,” Petit charged. “Instead of criticizing the president’s budget, they should study the facts and figures on the status of our nation’s children and step forward and offer a helping hand.”

Colleen Moriarty, executive director of Hunger Solutions in Minneapolis echoed that view. “We support the president’s budget on hunger issues,” she told the World.

“Hunger in Minnesota has grown astronomically. It’s directly tied to people being unemployed and underemployed.”

The number of people visiting emergency Food Banks has skyrocketed 100 percent in Minnesota, she said. “There are 35 million people in the U.S. who are ‘food insecure’ meaning they don’t know where their next meal is coming from.”

She hailed Obama’s economic stimulus package for increasing the per-family Food Stamp benefit by $79 additional each month for a family of four. Obama also increased by $1 billion spending for children’s nutrition programs.

Robert Borosage, co-chair of the Campaign for America’s Future and William McNary, president of USAction announced a grassroots campaign to pressure Blue Dog Democrats to vote for Obama’s budget. Eight of these Democrats joined with Republicans in opposing efforts to win passage of a Budget Resolution that included the $684 billion health care fund and tens of billions more for Obama’s green energy program. It requires only a simple majority of 51 senators to pass a Budget Resolution so it is not subject to a Republican filibuster that requires 60 senators’ votes to end.

Borosage accused Blue Dog Democrats led by Sen. Evan Bayh (D-Ind.) and Kent Conrad (D-N.D.) of “giving away the store.”

“If they feel a little heat at home they may see the light in Washington,” he said.

McNary said 50,000 members of USAction will mobilize in the Blue Dogs’ districts.

“The people voted for change last November,” he said. “We cannot allow senators to get cold feet or become unwitting accomplices of those who don’t want change.”

Abuse raises question about law for disabled workers

Thu, 26 Mar 2009 05:17:00 +0000

Reposted from

A scandal rocking an Iowa town of barely 250 has ballooned into a statewide story. But it has national implications.

Last month, FBI agents, social services and health department officials in Iowa converged on a 106-year-old bunkhouse. It’s where dozens of mentally retarded men lived when they were not working for as little as 37 cents per hour gutting turkeys in a processing plant, according to news [1] reports and documents [2] released by state officials.

Some of the men had been working at the plant and living at the company-owned bunkhouse since the 1970s. The arrangement grew out of a Depression-era federal law that allows employers to pay disabled workers less than the minimum wage. Roughly 400,000 workers are currently covered by the law.

The 21 men in question are Texans who work for a company called Henry’s Turkey Service. According to reports [1] in the Des Moines Register, Henry’s took advantage of a section of the labor law that allows the company to pay lower than minimum wage to disabled workers – and to deduct their living expenses from their pay.

Henry’s, a Texas company, in the 1970s started taking the deinstitutionalized men to Iowa, where they worked at a plant owned by West Liberty Foods [3], one of the nation’s largest turkey processors.

West Liberty released a statement [4] to the Register saying it had an 'agreement' with the turkey service and played no role in housing the men or paying their wages. Turkey service owner Kenneth J. Henry declined to comment but referred ProPublica to his attorney.

The men were treated well and the bunkhouse was comfortable, Iowa attorney David Scieszinski said. Further, he said the furor over the men’s situation is simply 'politics' on the part of legislators who have never set foot in the bunkhouse.

'[Politicians] don’t know,' Scieszinski said to ProPublica. 'But they start making political statements.'

The men lived in the building that Henry’s Turkey Service rented for $600 per month from the city of Atalissa. In turn, Henry’s deducted as much as $40,000 per month from the men’s wages and Social Security income, said Sen. Tom Harkin in a hearing [5] last week.

'Needless to say, the abuses exposed at Atalissa shock the conscience,' Harkin said during the hearing.

Harkin convened a Senate labor committee hearing last week on the section of the Fair Labor Standards Act that allows employers to pay disabled workers lower-than-minimum wages.

The provision was well-intended: It would give companies an incentive to give disabled people a vocation and sense of life’s worth.

But since the waning days of the Great Depression, the law has been widely abused, according to a 2005 investigation by the Oregonian [6], which revealed companies enriching themselves at the expense of poorly paid, high-functioning workers.

Last week’s hearing focused on oversight of the law. It’s up to for-profit employers, like Henry’s Turkey Service, to submit an annual application to the Labor Department justifying their practice of paying workers low wages, describing workers’ productivity and abilities.

John McKeon, a department enforcement official, testified [7] that three employees in Chicago each review about 800 applications each year.

More than 700 Labor Department investigators inspect the work sites around the country. Investigators are also charged with checking that companies only deduct the fair cost of room and board from workers’ checks.

McKeon said the department is low on resources – in 1975 the wage and hour division fielded twice the number of inspectors. And, he said, its clout to penalize employers who exploit workers has diminished as the number of attorneys who work on behalf of the department has waned.

McKeon did not speak about Henry’s Turkey Service specifically and spokespeople have declined to comment to the press.

The arrangement, it turns out, had been exposed long before. The federal Labor Department was aware of the payment arrangement as early as 1999.

A Labor Department inspector general's report [8] (page 20) shows that department staffers knew that in 1998, Henry’s Turkey Service claimed to pay about 50 men $5.65 an hour, but after deducting rent and board, ultimately gave them each $60 per month.

The company’s justification? It had to keep $60,000 that year to recoup the cost of renovations to the men’s bunkhouse that had been completed in the 1970s.

Last month an Iowa fire marshal noted the profusion of space heaters in the building and declared it unfit for habitation. Iowa social services officials moved the men from the home.

The story has also peeled back a page in Iowa history. As early as 1974, a social services worker in Iowa called the program 'obscene.'

'Once a resident becomes an employee of Henry’s Turkey Service, he...loses most basic human rights,' social worker Ed George wrote in a memo released [2] Feb. 24 by the Iowa Department of Human Services.

In 1997, the county social department fielded complaints that the men had sustained bruises and unhealed fractures. But officials failed to act, with one official noting [2] in an e-mail that he didn’t want Muscatine County to be left 'holding the bag' for Texas’ residents.

Scieszinski said that each time officials looked into Henry’s Turkey Service, the company asked if there was anything it could do and was consistently told 'no.'

UN votes to continue Afghan aid mission

Thu, 26 Mar 2009 00:30:00 +0000

Original source:

The UN security council has voted unanimously to extend a mission in Afghanistan for a year to lead international civilian efforts to provide aid, promote reconstruction, combat corruption and help improve civilian-military co-operation.

The council's resolution on Monday also authorised the UN mission to strengthen and expand its presence throughout the country to promote 'good governance and the rule of law' and to support the Afghan government in conducting crucial presidential and provincial council elections on August 20.

The security council voted a year ago to expand the UN mission in Afghanistan and refocus its work to improving co-ordination of international civilian efforts to help promote peace.

The mission has about 270 international staff, 1,160 local staff, 16 military observers, seven international police and 32 UN volunteers.

The security council called on the Afghan government, backed by US-led military forces, 'to continue to address the threat to the security and stability of Afghanistan posed by the Taliban, al-Qaida, illegally armed groups, criminals and those involved in the narcotics trade.'

In a report to the council earlier this month, UN secretary general Ban Ki Moon painted a grim picture of deteriorating security, widespread corruption and the failure of the government and the international community to meet the expectations of the Afghan people.

Elsewhere, Iran's former president Seyed Mohammad Khatami likened US-led military forces in Afghanistan to a man who finds that, the more he cuddles a baby, the more it cries.

Speaking at a Canberra university, Mr Khatami said: 'Someone came and told him to just leave the baby alone: 'It will be quiet, it's your face that's the real problem'.'

Solitary confinement in US prisons making thousands psychotic

Thu, 26 Mar 2009 00:22:00 +0000

The United States today is housing tens of thousands of inmates in long-term solitary confinement, a form of numbing mental torture that drives about one-third of them psychotic, induces irrational anger in 90 percent, and ups the likelihood they will commit violent crimes upon release.

“It’s an awful thing, solitary,” U.S. Senator John McCain once wrote of his two years spent in a fifteen by fifteen foot prison cell in Viet Nam. “It crushes your spirit and weakens your resistance more effectively than any other form of mistreatment.” Testimony from other notables that have endured long stretches in solitary have elicited like comments.

Yet, the U.S. today has the dubious distinction of incarcerating “the vast majority of prisoners who are in long-term solitary confinement” around the world, according to an article in the March 30th The New Yorker magazine. And they make up a growing portion of our 2.3 million inmates, a shameful statistic that ranks America first among all nations. Gawande’s article is titled “Hellhole.”

The first supermax built anywhere was Sydney, Australia’s “Katingal” unit at Long Bay Correctional Centre in 1975. Dubbed the “electronic zoo,” it lasted a brief two years before it was closed down over human rights concerns, according to Wikipedia.

In the 17 years beginning with the construction of the first U.S. “supermax” prison in Marion, Ill., in 1983, 60 such prisons have sprouted---prisons specifically designed for mass solitary confinement, reports Atul Gawande in the The New Yorker. The Federal Bureau of Prisons euphemistically refers to its solitary cells as “Special Housing Units.” Most of the supermax prisons have been erected by State governments and two-thirds of all states have them.

“The number of prisoners in these facilities has since risen to extraordinary levels,” Gawande writes. “America now holds at least 25,000 inmates in isolation in supermax facilities. An additional 50,000 to 80,000 are kept in restrictive segregation units, many of them in isolation, too, although the government does not release these figures.”

The Urban Institute found the per cell cost for confining one prisoner in solitary for one year is $75,000. Taxpayers could put a dozen students through community college for the same bucks and society would get a better return. From every indication, money spent on a supermax is money poorly spent.

Boston psychiatrist Stuart Grassian, who interviewed more than 200 prisoners kept in solitary, concluded that about one in three of them had developed acute psychosis with hallucinations. Prisoners so confined spend their time talking to themselves, pacing back and forth like animals in cages, and blank out mentally. Some beat their heads against the walls until blood flows. Others lapse into catatonic states, utterly destroyed as functioning human beings. “EEG studies going back to the nineteen-sixties have shown diffuse slowing of brain waves in prisoners after a week or more of solitary confinement,” Gawande writes.

Often, prisoners can be confined in solitary for minor infractions of prison rules, such as taking too much time in the shower or associating with a gang member. By denying an inmate social interaction, “the human brain may become as impaired as one that has incurred a traumatic injury,” Gawande points out. After all, he notes, “Human beings are social creatures.” The writer quotes Craig Haney, a psychology professor at the University of California at Santa Cruz allowed to study inmates at California’s Pelican Bay supermax, as finding many prisoners “begin to lose the ability to initiate behavior of any kind---to organize their own lives around activity and purpose. Chronic apathy, lethargy, depression, and despair often result.” Additionally, many of the solitary inmates become consumed with revenge fantasies. We need to ask, “What is the cost to society in treasure and blood after their release?” “How many go straight to mental hospitals?” “How many wind up right back in prison?”

There are defenders of the supermax model, however. One inmate wrote the Denver Post he was not affected by the boredom and considered the silence “wonderful.” He said, “I still have a relatively intact mind. It could be infinitely worse.” And in Forbes magazine, author Ian Ross (no kin), wrote, “It’s worth considering that the Supermax model--which includes prisoner isolation for 23 out of every 24 hours a day--may be serving as a deterrent to some violent criminals, a kind of brightly lit billboard that advertises the life of rather extreme measures they are facing. There’s no way to quantify that, but it’s not out of the realm of possibility.” (It may be, indeed!)

In June, 2006, after a year-long study, the Commission on Safety and Abuse in America’s Prisons called for an end to long-term isolation of prisoners. It said there were no benefits to the practice beyond 10 days of punishment. What’s more, Gawande writes, “evidence from a number of studies has shown that supermax conditions---in which prisoners have virtually no social interactions and are given no programmatic support---make it highly likely that they will commit more crimes when they are released.”

The writer says our willingness to confine our own citizens to solitary made it easy to discard the Geneva Conventions prohibiting similar treatment of foreign prisoners of war. “In much the same way that a previous generation of Americans countenanced legalized segregation, ours has countenanced legalized torture. And there is no clearer manifestation of this than our routine use of solitary confinement---on our own people….” Since prolonged solitary is little more than the sadistic crucifixion of thousands of human beings, where, oh where, is the public outrage? #

(Sherwood Ross worker as a reporter for the Chicago Daily News and as a columnist for wire services. He currently operates a public relations company for worthy causes. Reach him at sherwoodr1@yahoo.com.)

Hero pilot tells Congress how airline cut pay, axed pension

Wed, 25 Mar 2009 09:39:00 +0000

The veteran pilot who saved everyone on board when he glided his crippled plane to a splash landing in the Hudson River last year told Congress, March 24, severe pay cuts are forcing experienced pilots and crew out of the cockpits and into other careers.

The pay cuts have put “pilots and their families in an untenable financial situation,” said Chesley Sullenberger. “I do not know a single professional airline pilot who wants his or her children to follow in their footsteps.”

The Aviation Subcommittee of the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee had called in the crew of Flight 1549 to examine what safety lessons could be learned from the accident. What they heard amounted to an indictment of a profit-hungry, de-regulated airline industry willing to sacrifice anything, including safety, in its drive for maximum profits.

Sullenberger, 58, who joined US Airways in 1980, told Congress that his pay has been cut 40 percent over the last few years and that his pension has been terminated.

The airlines claim that increased bankruptcy rates after the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks forced them to cut wages. Sullenberger said “the bankruptcies were nothing more than a way for the airlines to get concessions in wages and benefits that they could not get in normal times.”

He told Congress that the real problems in the industry began with de-regulation in the 1970’s.

Sullenberger’s copilot Jeffrey Skiles said the rolling back of wages and benefits means “experienced crews in the cockpits will be a thing of the past.” Sullenberger cut in and said, “Without experienced pilots we will see negative consequences to the flying public.”

Sullenberger said he has started a consulting business to help make ends meet. Skiles said, “For the last six years, I have worked seven days a week between my two jobs just to maintain a middle class standard of living.”

The Congressional reps also received a dramatic account that underlined for them the importance of an experienced workforce to the safety of the flying public. Patrick Harten, the air traffic controller involved, discussed the final 3 minutes of Flight 1549.

When Sullenberger said he couldn’t make it either back to LaGuardia or to Teterboro Airport and would ditch in the Hudson River, Harten testified, “I believed at that moment I was going to be the last person to talk to anyone on that flight alive.”

Nevertheless, Sullenberger glided the jet into the river in one piece near ferry boats that picked the passengers off the plane’s wings before it sank in the icy waters.

Harten had struggled in vain to help get the plane safely to a landing strip.

Making quick decisions, Harten communicated with 14 other entities in the three minutes after Canadian geese struck the plane’s engines. He diverted other aircraft and got other controllers at other locations top hold aircraft and clear runways for 1549.

First Harten tried to return the plane to LaGuardia, clearing runway 13. Sullenberger said, “We’re unable.”

Then Harten offered another LaGuardia runway. Sullenberger said, “We’re unable.”

When Harten directed Sullenberger to turn into a heading for Teterboro, Sullenberger said, “We can’t do it. We’re going to be in the Hudson.”

“I asked him to repeat himself even though I heard him just fine,” Harten said. “I simply could not wrap my mind around those words.”

At that moment, Harten said he lost radio contact with the plane and was certain “it had gone down.”

Obama admin. moves to curb mountaintop mining impacts

Wed, 25 Mar 2009 08:18:00 +0000

With massive water pollution from coal mining practices much in the news in recent months, the Obama administration this week asked the US Army Corps of Engineers to scrutinize coal mining practices such as mountaintop mining. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Administrator Lisa Jackson also announced her agency's intention to review requests for mining permits for this type of surface mining.

In a couple of letters to the Corps of Engineers, the EPA head noted that coal mines cause water quality problems in streams below the mines and would cause significant degradation to streams buried by mining activities.

In a press statement, Jackson said, “The two letters reflect EPA’s considerable concern regarding the environmental impact these projects would have on fragile habitats and streams.'

Mountaintop refers to the removal of the top layers of earth to expose coal that can be extracted. The waste is dumped in adjacent valleys and often buries or harms neighboring watershed, according to the EPA. Additional mineral deposits and other pollution can negatively impact fish populations and promote deforestation among other harmful effects.

EPA also requested to meet with the Corps of Engineers and the mining companies seeking new permits for mountaintop mining to discuss alternatives that would better protect streams, wetlands and rivers.

Said Jackson, “I have directed the agency to review other mining permit requests. EPA will use the best science and follow the letter of the law in ensuring we are protecting our environment.”

The Corps of Engineers oversees permit approval for mountaintop mining as mandated by the Clean Water Act.