People Before Profit blog

National Clips

Fri, 30 May 2003 03:43:00 +0000

NEW YORK, N.Y.: Workers killed in “mistaken” raids

Within 48 hours, New York City policemen killed 2 residents in what the department has termed “mistaken” raids.

Alberta Spruill, 57, a city worker, was home in her Harlem apartment when police suddenly raided it on May 16. Cops burst through the door, tossed in a flash grenade and handcuffed Spruill. They had the wrong apartment. She died of cardiac arrest.

The next day, police raided a warehouse in Chelsea looking for a counterfeit compact disc operation. They found West African immigrant Ousmane Zango and fatally shot him. Zango rented out part of the warehouse for his business, repairing African art. An autopsy showed that Zango had been shot in the chest, the abdomen and upper back.

At a press conference May 25, Lt. Eric Adams, a leader of 100 Blacks in Law Enforcement Who Care, called for an investigation independent of the New York City Police Department, and said a trend of police violence exists. “There is a question mark that stands over the Police Department when, in a seven day period, two unarmed civilians are lost to this city at large,” he said.

WASHINGTON, D.C.: High Court rejects deportation cases

The Supreme Court has refused to review a case brought by the North Jersey Media Group, which sought to overturn a lower court ruling barring the media from reporting on secret deportation cases immediately following the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks. In 2001, 766 immigrants in New York and New Jersey were picked up and jailed, and 505 have been deported so far. Deportation cases had been public record up until September 11, 2001.

Arguing for the First Amendment rights of the media to report on immigration cases, lawyers for the North Jersey Media Group said, “The press and the public have an overwhelming interest in knowing how, and how fairly, its government uses the power of detention and deportation. That is especially true at this moment, when the government has expressly drawn a link between deportation proceedings and the war on terrorism, and has frequently cited the number of non-citizens it has detained as evidence of the investigation’s progress. An individual’s liberty is at stake in a deportation hearing. Yet the government, nonetheless, claims power to hold these proceedings beyond public scrutiny without providing any particulars showing that secrecy is necessary.”

The Court heeded Bush administration Solicitor General Theodore Olson and rejected the case. Olson argued the 2000 Bush v. Gore case where the court anointed George Bush president. During the Reagan administration, Olson, then an assistant attorney general, provided the legal arguments for the firing of 13,000 air traffic controllers in 1981.

LOS ANGELES, Calif.: Ludlow wins council seat

Martin Ludlow, former political director for the Los Angeles County Federation of Labor, won a seat in the Los Angeles City Council from the 10th District on May 20.

Ludlow secured 55 percent in a runoff election that followed the March primary. The 10th district, located in the heart of the city, is a blue collar, working-class area where, until recently, African Americans made up the overwhelming majority. The district is the home district of former Mayor Tom Bradley.

Today the city’s largest Korean American community and large numbers of Latino and Asian immigrants live there as well.

The labor movement prioritized this campaign as it had the victorious city council race of former Speaker of the State Assembly and labor leader Antonio Villaraigosa, who was elected in March to represent 14th district in East Los Angeles. On July 1st, the two labor leaders will take office.

LAS VEGAS, Nevada: Teamsters hold organizing conference

Over 1,400 International Brotherhood of Teamsters (IBT) activists from the U.S., Canada and Puerto Rico met for the first-ever union conference devoted entirely to organizing unorganized workers, early in May. The conference implements decisions from a 2002 Special Convention, which established a fund of $60 million devoted solely to building the union’s membership.

Opening the conference, IBT President James P. Hoffa said, “The Teamsters must focus all our energy on organizing. We have a high percentage of an industry – we get good contracts. The equation is simple – more numbers equals better contracts.”

Currently the IBT is in merger talks with another union the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers, which has 35,000 members.

NEW LONDON, Conn.: Continuing the struggle for peace

A stalwart band of 75 peace activists from throughout the state conducted a four-hour vigil on May 21 outside the main gate of the Coast Guard Academy as George Bush addressed this year’s graduates. Southeast Connecticut Peace and Justice Network organized the event.

The themes of the protest focused on the unconstitutional Bush administration policies: conducting pre-emptive, undeclared war; cutting crucial social programs; declaring a first use of nuclear weapons, resuming research and development of a new class of nuclear weapons.

The vigil took place inside a corral created by the New London police. Many media reporters were there interviewing demonstrators. Vigils keep up the momentum of the peace and justice movement, many felt, even if Bush’s 25-vehicle motorcade didn’t come within eyesight.

National clips are compiled weekly by Denise Winebrenner-Edwards dwinebr696@aol.com. Evelina Alarcon and Bruce Martin contributed to this week’s clips.

Vet health care worth saving

Thu, 29 May 2003 10:21:00 +0000

Under the headline “A Storm is Brewing,” the May issue of The American Legion Magazine contains an interview with National Commander Ronald F. Conley, an Air Force veteran and pipe fitter from Pittsburgh.

“We have a veterans’ health care crisis in our country right now,” says Conley. The Legion, under a program entitled “I am not a number,” invited veterans to submit their experiences with the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) health care system. Thousands responded, many testifying that they have waited months, even one and two years, to see a doctor. Ernesto A. Tafoya has been waiting more than two and a half years for an appointment, even though he was listed as 100 percent disabled at time of discharge.

Tammy McNair-Waller is still waiting after a year with a long list of medical problems she assumes are Gulf War Syndrome related. Milton Smith, with a 20 percent VA disability, hasn’t had an appointment with a doctor since April 2002.

Conley states, “We used to have one VA. Now we have 21 VAs.” The system has been carved up into 21 sub-districts, all under-funded and understaffed. “We need to go back to just one uniform VA health care system,” says Conley.

Veterans have been classified into various categories, depending on their ability to prove their illnesses and/or disabilities are service-related. Individuals are forced to prove on their own that military service caused their medical problems, and have to deal with a complicated system of agencies woefully understaffed to address individual problems. The result is hundreds of thousands of veterans on the waiting lists and additional hundreds of thousands who have given up. Many have died waiting.

“No veteran should ever have to believe VA is simply waiting for him or her to die,” says Conley.

The Cleveland AFL-CIO Retiree Council, representing many local union retiree clubs, is aware that the general public is completely unaware of the VA health care crisis. The Council, with veterans in leadership of many affiliated retiree clubs, feels that the lack of care for veterans is an important part of the overall national health care crisis. The Council feels the situation needs a lot more publicity, and is planning a news conference at a VA hospital.

Council President Richard Henderson, an Ironworker and himself a WWII and Korean War vet, says, “It’s unconscionable that hundreds of thousands of veterans are being denied health care. Our young men and women are sent off to war only to return to a health care system that’s falling apart. The President and Congress were in a great rush to send them into Iraq but seem to be turning a deaf ear to caring for them when they return.”

The author can be reached at wallyk@ncweb.com

Fighting a home foreclosure on the Iron Range

Thu, 29 May 2003 10:17:00 +0000

When Janet Johnson went to help her mother, who is suffering from Alzheimer’s, make arrangements for her care, she never suspected that it would lead down a road of home foreclosure and even more heartache. Yet, that is the road she treds, and hers is not an isolated one.

Johnson, a botanist for the Minnesota Forest Service with two children, ages 15 and 20, lives in Eveleth, a small town on Minnesota’s Iron Range. Her father Tomi – like his father before – was an iron-ore miner. Johnson herself, at age 23, spent a year working in the mine.

Tomi, like many on the Range, built his own house. Over twenty years, blood, sweat and tears paid for every inch of the home’s hand-carved granite and “drug out of the swamp” cedar boards. When Tomi died in 1984 ownership of the house went to his wife – Janet’s mother – Shirley, who worked as a nurse. But when Shirley was stricken with Alzheimer’s the county started going after Shirley’s assets to “spend down” in order to get Medical Assistance to help pay for the incredibly high medical bills and nursing home costs. The house was her biggest asset.

“If you are anticipating taking care of a parent,” Johnson told the World in a telephone interview, make sure all your parent’s business is taken care of before it is too late. “Things can change in a heartbeat.” To avoid losing the house, it would have had to have been in Janet’s name for five years before her mother needed care.

Johnson went to a realtor who suggested she talk to a local man, Douglas Ahlgren, Sr., for a loan. Ahlgren made the loan to Johnson at a sub-prime rate and charged exorbitant fees, all characteristics of predatory lending. Johnson, whose job with the Forest Service is seasonal, was struggling to make ends meet and missed some payments. Ahlgren seized his opportunity and moved to foreclose on Johnson’s home on June 2. Ahlgren refused to talk to the World, saying, “Talk to my attorney,” without providing a number. The attorney was not found in an internet search.

“They will have to drag me out of here. No way am I leaving,” Johnson said, determined to keep the family’s home. Her 15-year-old daughter is researching how to file an emergency injunction against the foreclosure. “This whole situation has made her want to be a lawyer even more,” said Johnson.

The Minnesota Attorney General’s office opened an investigation into possible illegal loan practices. They told Johnson an illegal loan practice was involved. Unfortunately, Minnesota does not have any predatory lending laws, Johnson was told. Predatory lending includes situations where a loan is made even though it’s known the borrower cannot repay. The Attorney General returned the World’s phone call, but was not able to discuss the case without first getting permission from the Johnson family.

A number of organizations nationwide have educational and legislative campaigns trying to protect the public from predatory lending practices, which are widespread. One such group – The Don’t Borrow Trouble Minnesota Campaign – was officially launched on March 5 at the State Capitol. On its website, www.dontborrowtroublemn.org, families in financial crisis, communities of color, and the elderly are defined as “vulnerable populations,” to predatory lenders.

People on the Range, like many communities, are suffering from a deep economic crisis and state budget cuts. “Another mine just closed down, 500 people lost their jobs. That’s on top of the 2,000 people who lost their jobs from a mine closing last year,” Johnson said. “This is a rural area – so these shutdowns have a big impact. Other foreclosures will be coming. There should be a moratorium on them.”

The author can be reached at talbano@pww.org

Anger grows at deaths of 19 immigrants

Thu, 29 May 2003 10:10:00 +0000

A Mexican Air Force C-180 cargo plane flew the bodies of 19 immigrant workers back to Mexico last week for burial in many grief-stricken cities and towns. But grief is turning to anger as families of the dead vow to file lawsuits against the Bush administration and Mexico’s Fox administration for criminal negligence in the suffocation deaths of the immigrants locked inside a semi-trailer in South Texas, May 14.

Soon after they were elected, Bush and Fox met and promised a sweeping new immigration policy to avoid such tragedies. But that promise faded as Bush and Ashcroft whipped up anti-immigrant hysteria in the wake of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.

In Austin, Texas, mourners filled the Our Lady of Guadalupe Church Sunday May 18 for a prayer vigil honoring the immigrant workers and demanding government action to stop the growing death toll along the 2,500 mile U.S.-Mexico border.

The Rev. Lydia Hernandez, executive director of Manos de Cristo, a Presbyterian social justice group, told the congregation that the victims were workers who “risked all seeking a better life in the U.S.”

A father held his 5-year-old son up to a crack in the airtight door, she said, urging the child, “Hold on! We’re going to make it.” She continued, “The child stopped crying. He died and so did his father. It was well documented that people tried to call for help from inside the trailer and their pleas were ignored. We must give a litany of thanks that somebody finally did answer their pleas for help.”

Rev. Hernandez told the World this tragedy is a wake-up call to the nation. “We must answer the pleas of those who suffer extreme poverty every day. The government sets up physical barriers at our borders. They give us duct tape to create a false sense of security. It is all baloney. We must work to create a world of real justice and peace.”

Javier Maldonado, executive director of the San Antonio-based Lawyers Committee for Civil Rights Under Law in Texas, told the World, “It is awful that they were the victims of government policy. The more they tighten the border, the more these tragedies will occur. It is just undeniable that the death toll is increasing.”

He pointed out that under NAFTA, trade and the movement of capital across the border has increased “but there is no liberalization of the movement of workers across the border. I’m reluctant to endorse a guest worker program that does nothing to protect the rights of immigrant workers. But something must be done.”

Two weeks before the tragedy, the Farm Labor Organizing Committee (FLOC), the Service Employees International Union, and the Laborers International Union rallied in Washington to demand passage of the “Freedom Act,” legislation that would give undocumented workers three years of legal status and protection under U.S. labor law. As taxpayers, they would be eligible for Medicaid, food stamps, and other benefits. Their status would be renewable and could ultimately lead to citizenship. FLOC is seeking congressional sponsors for the legislation.

The border death toll has risen since the Homeland Security Department began enforcing “Operation Liberty Shield.” The tightened border security has forced immigrants to cross through remote regions like Arizona’s Sonora desert, where many have died of dehydration and heat stroke. In the year 2001, 95 immigrants died trying to cross into California’s Imperial Valley, up from 77 who died in 2000.

During the decade of the ’90s, an estimated 4,000 undocumented immigrants died crossing the border.

Tim Wheeler can be reached at greenerpastures21212@yahoo.com

FCC rule changes threaten freedom of press

Thu, 29 May 2003 09:58:00 +0000

The Federal Communication Commission (FCC) will vote June 2 on rules governing media ownership, allowing further consolidation and control by the nation’s largest media corporations.

Advocacy groups such as the Center for Digital Democracy and nearly 300 leading academics have written the FCC calling for broader public debate on the impact the change would have on what news and information Americans will see and hear. Republican Sens. Wayne Allard (Colo.), Olympia Snowe (Maine) and Susan Collins (Maine) urged the FCC to justify how any changes will promote diversity, competition and localism, goals the FCC is supposed to promote.

The five-member commission is composed of three Republicans including its chairman, Michael Powell (son of Secretary of State Colin Powell), and two Democrats. After FCC hearings in several cities on the effects of the proposed rule changes, one of the Democratic members, Michael Copps, spoke out in alarm, saying, “There has already been a tremendous amount of consolidation and it has had some severe consequences. Fewer cities have two newspapers. Artists and musicians find it more difficult to get on the airways and media outlets are increasingly failing to respond to community concerns.”

The Telecommunications Act of 1996 prohibited companies from owning multiple TV stations that would reach more than 35 percent of the national audience. Now Republican FCC members want to raise the limit to 45 percent. The major TV networks want no cap whatsoever. Independent programmers and affiliated stations are fearful of going out of business or being gobbled up. Currently an FCC rule prohibits a radio or TV company from owning or controlling a daily newspaper in the same service area (“newspaper-broadcast cross-ownership”), but the Republicans on the FCC want to eliminate this rule. Other changes would relax the rules on the number of joint ownerships of TV and radio stations in a market area and on local TV “duopolies” – a network owning two TV stations in a local area.

“The major networks are owned by huge international conglomerates”, said media advocate Sasha Costanza-Chock.

He pointed out that ABC is owned by Walt Disney Co., which owns the Disney Channel, ESPN, theme parks, MGM film studios, 720 Disney stores, five magazines, four newspapers and much more.

CBS belongs to Viacom which owns MTV, Paramount film studios, United Cinemas International, Blockbuster video rental stores, Infinity Outdoor (the world’s largest advertising company), 180 U.S. radio stations and much more.

CNN is owned by AOL Time Warner. Time Warner is the largest media company, comprised of many broadcasting, movie and publishing companies.

FOX TV (35 stations) FOX News, FOX Sports, National Geographic TV are all part of News Corporation which owns eight publishing companies, 20th Century Fox TV film studio and TV stations and newspapers in Asia, Europe and Latin America.

NBC is owned by General Electric Corp.

Clear Channel and Viacom now control 42 percent of U.S. radio stations and 45 percent of the revenues.

“The American public must speak up for its own interest, the right to uncensored information and news,” said Costanza-Chock. Write to the FCC at 445 12th St. SW, Washington, D.C. 20554.

The author can be reached at phillyrose1@earthlink.net

Taxes: No pretty sunsets here

Thu, 29 May 2003 09:25:00 +0000

On May 23 Congress passed a $320 billion tax cut. Or was it $350 billion? Or $550 billion? But what ever its size, one thing is certain: it was another bonanza for the richest of the rich – and will cost a great deal more than any of the numbers being kicked around.

One other number is worth noting: Vice President Dick Cheney had to break two tie votes in order to get the measure through the Senate when three Republicans (McCain of Arizona, Chafee of Rhode Island and Snow of Maine) and two Democrats (Miller of Georgia and Nelson of Nebraska) jumped their parties’ ships.

We all know the old saw about how figures don’t lie, but liars figure. When it comes to this year’s tax cuts, there are certain irrefutable facts that no one challenges. According to a computer analysis by the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy:

• Almost two-thirds of the cuts go to the best-off 10 percent of all taxpayers and well over half goes to the top five percent.

• In contrast, the bottom 60 percent of taxpayers will get only a little more than 8 percent of the cuts, averaging less than $100 a year over the next four years.

• On the other hand, the average tax reduction for the richest one percent over the next four years will total more than $107,000, some 38 percent of the total tax cuts. Starting in 2006,when only the reduction in taxes on capital gains and dividends would be in effect, the best off one percent will get more than half of the tax bill’s ongoing benefits.

• Reductions in the top four tax rates that were enacted in 2001 will become effective in 2003, rather than by 2006.

An analysis by the Urban Institute-Brookings Institution Tax Policy Center shows that 50 million U.S. households will receive no tax cut whatsoever in 2003 and 74 million households will receive a $100 or less. According to the center, married filers with two children and incomes between $10,500 and $21,325 will receive no tax cut. The analysis says the average 2003 tax cut for households in the middle of the income spectrum will be $217.

These statistics do not explain how some say it’s a $320 billion program while others say the cost in lost revenue is much higher. But there is an explanation: The official accounting of the tax bill shoehorns seven of the eight cuts in the bill – an increase in the child tax credit, tax breaks for married couples, etc. – into a two-year period, and adds those numbers. And eureka! a tax cut costing $320 billion.

It’s called “sun setting.” The tax cuts are designed to expire after 2004 and revert to their previous level. All except one, that is: Cuts in taxes on dividends and capital gains don’t expire until 2008. After all, the 2004 elections might change things.

But no one expects Congress to allow the cuts to expire. Rather, as House Speaker Dennis Hastert (R-Ill.) said the day before the tax bill passed, “The $350 [billion] number takes us through the next two years, basically. But also it could end up being a trillion-dollar bill, because this stuff is extendable.”

The Center on Budget Policy and Priorities says if the bill’s provisions are extended for 10 years, the cost through 2013 will be as much as $1.06 trillion.

George W. Bush paraded the tax bill as an engine of growth, saying it would create an additional million jobs by the end of next year. However, that was contradicted by a recent survey by Deloitte & Touche, a Wall Street accounting firm. The survey found few business executives who thought cuts in the tax on stock dividends would help either their business or the economy.

Even the most optimistic forecasts say Bush’s plan will increase growth by, at best, only a one-half-of-a-percent in a situation where growth is stagnating in the less-than-two-percent range. Most observers say the economy must grow at more than 4 percent annually if the 13 million unemployed and underemployed workers are to find jobs.

The New York Times said the 2003 tax bill is “a tax cut without end.” While that may or may not be true, one thing is true: We do not have endless time to build the movement to defeat George W. in 2004.

The author can be reached at fgab708@aol.com

Chicagos Hot House update and appeal

Fri, 23 May 2003 02:04:00 +0000

Since the unexpected closure on May 9, HotHouse, the Center for International Performance and Exhibition, has worked around the clock to understand and respond to the allegations levied against it by the City of Chicago. To date the HotHouse has renewed a number of licenses and is in the process of applying for others.

On May 30 an administrative hearings will be held to determine any wrongdoing and potentially assess fines associated with the citation on May 9. The HotHouse has also been issued a limited business license that allows for them resume some of the community events organized here.

A HotHouse statement said, “It is your support, letters to public officials, financial contributions and words of encouragement that have bolstered all of our spirits and helped us realize how many people throughout the world are eager to have HotHouse resume its complete range of multi-arts programming.” Letters of support and donations are still welcome and needed. Tax-deductible donations can be sent to: CIPEX, 31 E. Balbo, Chicago IL 60605. Letters of support can be faxed to: (312) 362-9708.

For more information go to:

click here

Eight days in May Birmingham and the struggle for civil rights

Thu, 22 May 2003 09:53:00 +0000

(see related story below)

The eight days between May 2 and May 10, 1963, when thousands of school children in Birmingham, Ala., defied the fire hoses and police dogs of Eugene “Bull” Connor, marked a turning point in the civil rights movement. True, there had been battles before and other battles – and tragedies – were to come. But, just as the 1936 sit-down strike by auto workers in Flint, Mich., set the stage for the massive organizing campaigns of the CIO, Birmingham helped set the stage for the civil rights legislation of the administrations of Presidents John Kennedy and Lyndon Johnson.

The Year of Birmingham began in September 1962 when the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) agreed to launch “Project C,” a campaign of marches, boycotts and sit-ins demanding desegregation of lunch counters, drinking fountains and restrooms; an end to discrimination in hiring and promotion at Birmingham stores; and the formation of a biracial committee to address segregation in schools and city-owned recreational facilities. The campaign also aimed to free any arrested demonstrators.

SCLC dispatched the Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. and other members of its national leadership to Birmingham in April 1963 to join the Alabama Christian Movement for Human Rights, headed by the Rev. Fred Lee Shuttlesworth, in the formal launch of the project.

Shuttlesworth, often described by King as “the most courageous civil rights leader in the South,” says he was “blown into history” on Dec. 25, 1956, when he miraculously survived the Christmas night bombing of his church.

Although it met with limited support, Project C fell short of its primary goal. A month of daily marches and sit-ins had failed to generate support in the Black community or publicity in the national media. Sometime toward the end of April, King and Shuttlesworth recognized the need to change tactics and it was agreed that children would become the foot soldiers of the campaign. Thursday, May 2 was set as “D-Day” where children would demonstrate in violation of the injunction banning them.

Two of Birmingham’s Black disc jockeys volunteered as recruiters for the “Movement,” calling for volunteers to come to a party in a park. “Bring your toothbrushes because lunches will be served,” they said. Earlier a blizzard of leaflets flooded the city’s Black high schools instructing students to leave their classes and report to the Sixteenth Street Baptist Church at noon on May 2.

Sixteen-year-old Cardell Gay, who was arrested three times during those momentous days, was one of those children. “But I only went to jail once,” he said during a telephone interview. “The jails were so full they didn’t have room for any more. They’d load us on a school bus, take us around the corner, tell us to go home, let us out – and we’d go back.”

Gay’s father was one of the men who stood guard over the Shuttlesworth home at night. “He didn’t talk about it but the family understood that it was important for him to leave the house some evenings.”

Claressie Hardy, then 13, spent eight days in detention. “I was arrested on May 2, the day we called D-Day, so I wasn’t there when the dogs attacked us the next day which we called ‘Double D Day.’ But my 12-year-old sister was,” she said proudly. “She was in jail for seven days.”

Over the next week, more than 2,400 youngsters were arrested and nearly 1,000 sentenced to jails. For the first time ever, the Movement had succeeded in “filling the jails.”

Florence Wilson-Davis and her family left Birmingham in 1957, five years prior to these events. She returned some years later. When asked what had changed, she said, “I thought of the things I couldn’t do and the places I couldn’t go when I was a child. The first thing I did when I returned was to go to the library and my son went swimming in the pool at the University of Alabama.”

In her book, Carry Me Home, Diane McWhorter described police chief Bull Connor’s reaction: “The presence of schoolchildren and the size of the demonstration unnerved and perplexed him … Finally Conner called for school buses to transport the protestors. By nightfall more than a thousand young protestors were in custody.”

Up until then the police had refrained from violence. That was to change, and change drastically, a day later when more than 1,000 youngsters again defied Birmingham’s firemen, police, and – this time – K-9 dogs. We turn again to Carry Me Home:

“The firemen kept their fogging nozzles on, misting their human targets as if they were prize flowers. Some marchers backed off. When a dozen flopped down on the sidewalk, the firemen switched on their monitor, fed by two hoses for maximum power. The sound of the hose spray shattered the singing like automatic machine gun fire.

“The children flung their hands to their faces and then embraced, holding their ground for a few seconds before sprawling across the sidewalk. Those trying to flee were pinned against doorways and the group leader took the high-powered spray until the shirt was ripped from his body. The marchers who continued to pour out of the Sixteenth Sreet Church, were sent skittering down the gutters. One girl surfaced with a bloody nose, another with scratches around her eyes.

“At Connor’s command, six German shepherd police dogs pulled their handlers to the front of the police line. Milton Payne, a 23-year-old African American was bitten in the heel, calf, and thigh. Two dogs jumped Lee Shambry, ripped his pants leg off and bit his arm, leg, and hip. A dog charged at 7-year-old Jennifer Fancher and knocked her down.”

TV cameras and photographers caught much of the action and scenes of Birmingham’s dogs and fire hoses dominated the Friday evening news. The Saturday edition of The New York Times featured a three-column picture of Walter Gadsden fending off one of Connor’s dogs beneath a headline screaming: “Dogs and hoses repulse Negroes at Birmingham.”

Saturday also found Burke Marshall, director of the Civil Rights Division of the Department of Justice, on an airplane bound for Birmingham.

After the events of Double D-Day, demonstrators and city authorities worked out a truce: Police and firemen would keep their dogs caged and nozzles turned off and demonstrators would peacefully submit to arrest. Although unstated, it was agreed that protests would begin at noon.

That changed on May 7 when hundreds of youngsters, riding in cars driven by Movement Moms, were already sitting at lunch counters in downtown Birmingham even as the clock struck 12:00. Although serious violence was prevented, Movement leaders, unsure of where events might go, suspended demonstrations for 24 hours pending the outcome of negotiations between the Movement and the city’s downtown merchants.

The path of negotiations was strewn with difficulty. Shuttlesworth was not at the table. He was in the hospital, the result of being knocked down a flight of stairs by a stream of water from a high-pressure fire hose.

In their first gambit, merchants demanded to know what “you people want.” (Although the demands had been put forward on April 3, none of Birmingham’s white-owned newspapers had published them. Nor had they been aired by the major broadcast media.)

Another roadblock was the reluctance of the store owners to move against the wishes of the “Big Mules” – the heads of U.S. Steel and Hayes Aircraft, Coca-Cola, the banks, utilities and representatives of the city’s major law firms. “We don’t want to get caught in the middle,” one of them said during the talks.

Negotiations with representatives of an unrepentant power structure were clouded by another problem – the need for a half-million dollars to bail out the children still in jail. Although Henry Belafonte and others had raised substantial amounts of money, the problem was finally resolved when the National Maritime Union, the United Steelworkers and the Auto Workers Union each sent some $40,000 to Birmingham.

Under terms of the settlement, the merchants agreed to desegregate their fitting rooms within three days after the end of demonstrations. Within 30 days of the change in the city administration, they agreed that signs would be removed from restrooms and drinking fountains and that within 60 days the lunch counters would be desegregated. The employment program outlined in the agreement called for “one Black sales person or cashier,” leaving it unclear whether this was for each store.

Shuttlesworth left his hospital bed to lend his less-than-enthusiastic endorsement of the agreement that brought Project C to a conclusion. He opened the press conference by reading from a prepared statement saying Birmingham had “reached an accord with its conscience” and that enough progress had been made toward meeting the Movement’s demands that there was no longer the “necessity for further demonstrations.”

King, however, was much more enthusiastic, hailing the agreement as the “moment of great victory” and counted the whites and the city itself among the victors.

For their part, spokesmen for the power structure responded with a statement beginning, “It is important to understand the steps we have taken were necessary to avoid a dangerous and imminent explosion.” The statement deplored the demonstrations that had brought the agreement about and discouraged recriminations.

Birmingham Mayor Art Hanes called the white negotiators “a bunch of gutless traitors.” Connor, while insisting that the Black community “didn’t gain a thing,” said, “I would have beaten King if those damn merchants … hadn’t given in.”

Whether the merchants had given in or not, the Klan hadn’t. Even as the agreement was being made public, the Klan was planning a rally for May 11. Before daylight on Sunday two bombs would explode, one at Rev. A.D. King’s church and the other at the Black-owned Gaston Motel that had served as headquarters for the Movement.

That afternoon, Ramsey Clark, a Justice Department lawyer, was sitting in the Birmingham airport drafting a memo to Attorney General Robert Kennedy in which he called for federal legislation that would outlaw discrimination in public accommodations and employment.

There was one more chapter – one more senseless act of racist savagery – before Birmingham Summer 1963 would end. That came at 10:22 Sunday morning, Sept. 15 when a bomb exploded at the Sixteenth Street Baptist Church, blowing a large hole in the wall of what had been the women’s lounge. Debris – concrete, stone, wood and mortar – that had once been a church wall had been blown against the opposite wall.

And somewhere in the wreckage were the bodies of four young girls: Denise McNair, Cynthia Wesley, Carole Robertson and Addie Mae Collins.

The final chapter of Birmingham summer would not be written until years later when, on May 17, 2000, Bobby Cherry and Tommy Blanton, the last living suspects of the Sixteenth Street Church bombing, were arrested. Both were convicted and sentenced to life imprisonment. Robert Chambliss, considered by many to have been Birmingham’s “master bomber,” was sentenced to life imprisonment in 1977 for his role in the bombing.

The author can be reached at Fgab708@aol.com

* * * * * *

The political economy of Birmingham

From its very beginning in 1871, Birmingham was different from other cities. It was southern and was one of the few places on the globe where quantities of iron ore, coal and limestone can be found in abundance. Thus it had industry – not just any industry, but steel – the stuff that built the nation. And because Birmingham had industry, it had a large concentration of workers who became the special interest of the CIO. This mix gave rise to a tradition of racial unity and organized protest unheard of elsewhere in the South.

Never before had the ruling class claimed racism so crudely and never again would the country’s corporations so boldly foment racial strife, with U. S. Steel setting the example by bankrolling the League to Maintain White Supremacy to spread the white supremacy gospel among its workforce.

The Birmingham Power Structure was probably the most impressive group ever assembled outside a country club – the presidents not just of the big manufacturers but also of the banks, utilities, and partners from the major law firms.

That they were the shakers and makers is best illustrated by the fact that in an effort to get negotiations in Birmingham off dead center, several Kennedy cabinet members made personal phone calls to several of these “Big Mules” urging action.

– Fred Gaboury

State budget crisis deepens

Thu, 22 May 2003 09:24:00 +0000

In her analysis of “The State Fiscal Crisis” for the Center for Budget Priorities, Lisa McNichol reveals the dimensions of the most serious budget crisis in decades.

She writes: “States are facing budget deficits of approximately $100 billion that must be closed over the next several months.” This $100 billion is in addition to the $50 billion budget gap which states have already closed through spending cuts and tax increases for the fiscal year (FY) 2003. (4/23/03)

In February 2003 the National Conference of State Legislators reported that “State budgets are under siege.” NCSL President Angela Monson called next year’s (FY ’04) budget gap “startling.” “Thirty-three states estimate budget gaps in excess of 5 percent with 18 of those facing gaps above 10 percent. There is a great cause of concern since the deficit numbers continue to grow at an alarming rate.”

The budget gaps are the result of a recession-driven drop in tax revenues; the stock market crash; unfunded federal mandates; a shift to the state from the federal government of a growing share health care costs for the elderly and the disabled; reductions in state income tax rates in the ’90s; and the impact of federal tax cuts on state tax rates due to the “coupling” of the federal and state tax codes. McNichol estimates that Bush’s tax cuts could reduce state revenues by $150 billion over the next decade.

Faced with shrinking revenues, state governments around the country have begun to raise taxes and/or reduce spending. Cuts and layoffs have occurred in Medicaid, childcare, mental health services, subsidies for poor families, corrections, housing, aid to localities and education. Tuition to state universities and colleges has sharply increased. Similar cuts have been enacted in cities, townships and villages.

The economic impact of cuts in state spending has been studied by economists Joseph Stiglitz and Peter Orszag of the Brookings Institution. What they found was that every dollar cut from a state budget translates into a dollar reduction in the economic activity of the state.

While Stiglitz and Orszag make the case for significant federal revenue sharing, the Bush administration is busily planning to make sure this can’t take place. In a Washington Post article entitled “GOP Eyes Tax Cuts as an Annual Event” (5/11/03), Dana Milbank and Dan Balz write: “Coupled with war on terrorism which ... is likely to continue indefinitely, the constant pursuit of tax reductions [for the rich] has the potential to give U.S. politics a new rhythm. With Bush perpetually fighting for lower taxes and constantly battling terrorists ... there is little room for government to discuss new programs.” If allowed to succeed, this strategy will only compound the states’ difficulties.

Yale economist William Nordhaus estimates that the cost of a short Iraqi war to be in the range of $120 billion, while the expense of occupation over 10 years could range between $75 and $500 billion. Other economists concur. (Bob Burnett, “What is the War Going to Cost Us?” AlterNet, 5/2/03.) These costs of empire building are in addition to the FY 2004 military budget of $399.1 billion – part of the administration’s plan to spend $2.7 trillion on the military over the next six years (Center for Defense Information).

Add to these vast sums the costs of billions of dollars in “aid” and U.S. treasury-backed loans to Turkey, Israel, Egypt, Jordan, and Pakistan to secure their ongoing assistance.

While Bush’s budget priorities offer financial security for the military-industrial complex, it undermines the security of seniors, veterans, workers, students, the poor, the uninsured, the unemployed, and families.

In a recent Newsday article entitled “Bush’s Tax-Cut Plan Slashes Growth,” William Gale and Peter Orszag observe that “Bush’s reckless approach to tax cuts is a huge fiscal gamble. It benefits the wealthy but would impose new and increasing burdens on low-income households and future generations and it is unlikely to succeed in restoring broad-based economic growth and fiscal discipline.”

In the space of less than two-and-a-half years Bush has miraculously replaced a $5.6 trillion surplus with an estimated $2.7 trillion deficit over the next decade. State governments are dealing with their fiscal crisis through lotteries, off-track betting, and casino gambling. When it comes to guaranteeing profits to millionaires and war contractors, however, nothing is left to chance.

The author can be reached at pww@pww.org

Innovative Maine Rx plan gets boost

Thu, 22 May 2003 09:20:00 +0000

WASHINGTON – In a preliminary victory for consumers, the U.S. Supreme Court, in a 6-to-3 decision, has lifted the injunction that had put Maine’s innovative effort to reduce the cost of prescription drugs on hold.

Drug manufacturers had filed suit to stop the Maine Rx program, which, if implemented, would lead to lower prices for 325,000 of the state’s uninsured residents. The Court’s decision allows the plan to move forward.

Under the plan, Maine would use its collective buying power to require pharmaceutical companies to negotiate price rebates similar to those under the Medicaid program. Companies refusing to agree to the rebates would have their products held back from the marketplace pending “further evaluation.” Companies are furiously resisting this.

The Court’s verdict may have a large impact nationally. Twenty-nine states filed friends of the court briefs on Maine’s behalf, and this year alone legislators in 18 states have sponsored bills to create drug discount programs similar to Maine’s.

Despite the strong ruling in favor of Maine’s Rx program, at this point the future of similar programs is still unclear. Time will only tell if large drug manufacturers will succeed in their efforts to pass federal legislation that will preempt state programs.

Bruce Vinary, an attorney for the AARP, told the World the Maine Rx decision is a good first step, showing that programs to reduce medication prices are not unconstitutional. He said the court decision will lead to reduced prices when the program takes effect in Maine.

Over 100 cities challenge Patriot Act

Thu, 22 May 2003 08:20:00 +0000

Civil liberties groups hailed passage yesterday evening of a pro-civil liberties resolution by the Baltimore City Council, making the largest city in Maryland the 108th community nationwide to officially express concern over unnecessary erosions of basic privacy and personal liberty in post-Sept. 11 America.

“Adoption of the Baltimore resolution is further evidence of the growing backlash in this country against federal policies that disregard the most basic convictions of American society,” said Laura Murphy, Executive Director of the ACLU Washington National Office. “As the resolution states, ‘there is no inherent conflict between national security and the preservation of liberty – Americans can be both safe and free.’”

Earlier this month, the city of Arcata, Calif., became the first city in the U.S. to pass an ordinance that not only denounces the USA Patriot Act and calls for its repeal, but actually forbids city employees from helping the federal government to implement the repressive legislation. Failure to comply with the new ordinance by a city department head could result in a $57 fine.

Arcata thereby joined more than 100 other U.S. cities, counties and towns that have passed resolutions calling for the Act’s repeal.

On Oct. 26, 2001, 15 days after the terrorist attacks in New York and on the Pentagon, Congress passed and President Bush signed the misnamed USA Patriot Act. This 350-page law – which authorizes wholesale wiretapping, electronic surveillance, and other violations of civil liberties – was opposed at the time by only 72 Congresspersons and one senator, Sen. Russell Feingold (D-Wis.).

Many lawmakers voted in favor of the bill without ever having read it, some of them later giving the excuse that they could not get into their offices because of the anthrax emergency.

When the American public began to realize what Congress had done, a salutary reaction against it started almost immediately. This backlash against the USA Patriot Act has now become a massive national phenomenon, and is in direct opposition to the Bush administration’s efforts to curtail civil liberties even more.

The Bill of Rights Defense Committee in Northampton, Mass., started the ball rolling by passing a resolution against the Patriot Act over a year ago. Inspired by the Northampton resolution, one community after another has followed suit. To date, 108 city or town councils and one state legislature (Hawaii) have passed such resolutions, and scores more are in the pipeline.

While many of the cities that passed these resolutions are smaller college towns with decidedly liberal political cultures, a number of major cities like Baltimore have joined in too, including Oakland, San Francisco, Denver, Detroit, and Fairbanks, Alaska. Broward County, Florida, the 14th largest county in the U.S., on May 6 unanimously passed a resolution affirming the Bill of Rights and registering strong concerns about the Patriot Act.

The resolutions vary widely in their phrasing, but most have in common the following elements:

• A commitment on the part of each city government to respect the First Amendment and due process amendments of the Bill of Rights of the U.S. Constitution.

• A denunciation of the USA Patriot Act, and often also of the Homeland Security Act and other government policies, for violating these constitutional principles.

• A request that the state’s congressional representatives work for the repeal of the USA Patriot Act and similar measures.

• An instruction to city police and other officials that they refuse to cooperate with federal government demands that violate First Amendment and due process rights.

Another aspect of the movement to pass the city council resolutions is the coalition-building involved: unions, churches, civil rights and peace groups are being brought together by the task of passing them.

The existing resolutions and other useful information can be read on-line at www.bordc.org, the web site of the Bill of Rights Defense Committee in Northampton.

The author can be reached at pww@pww.org

Illinois seniors rally for prescription drug relief

Fri, 16 May 2003 03:57:00 +0000

SPRINGFIELD – Hundreds of senior citizens from every corner of Illinois converged on the State Capitol in Springfield on April 30 to demand passage of the Senior Citizens Drug Discount Plan. Wearing their Illinois Alliance for Retired Americans (Illinois Alliance) buttons, the retirees chanted, “All Seniors! All Drugs! Best Price! This Year!”

The plan would use the buying power of the State of Illinois to provide medicines for seniors and the disabled at deep discounts. This plan would not cost the State anything because the cost of administration would be covered by the $25 annual membership fee. The pharmaceutical companies, however, are vigorously fighting the discounts.

Hal Gullett, president of the Illinois Alliance, said that this is the year to finally give seniors some relief from the high cost of prescription drugs. He said that the Senior Drug Discount Program had previously been passed in the Illinois House only to be held hostage in the Senate for three years. This year is a whole new ball game, he said, referring to the end of Republican rule in Illinois.

While the retirees were at the Capitol, a great victory was announced.

The Illinois House passed its version of the bill, HB-209, by voting 118 to 0. Since the Senate also passed the bill with a vote of 56 to 0, victory is in sight. The new Democratic Governor, Rod Blagoyjevich, has spoken out in favor of the plan.

Steve Pittman, executive director of the Illinois Alliance, said that one out of every three seniors in Illinois is without any prescription drug coverage. Thousands of others have inadequate coverage. But drug companies are averaging 18 percent profit compared to the 5 percent average of other Fortune 500 companies. It is unacceptable that seniors still have to choose between food and their life sustaining medicine, he said, noting that this program will go a long way in easing that burden.

The fighting retirees also lobbied for the Health Care Justice Act, which would put the State of Illinois on record for universal health care in the state by January 2007. The bill sets up a bipartisan commission to hold hearing around the state and bring in a plan to provide all Illinoisans with health care by 2007.

Jesse Kelley, a member of Seniors Organized for Justice in South Chicago, said, “Healthcare is a right. We should not have to beg for it. We must get bigger and stronger and next time we will demand, not beg.”

The author can be reached at pww@pww.org

Students read-in for books not bombs

Fri, 16 May 2003 03:49:00 +0000

Students from Philadelphia high schools and colleges weren’t about to let studying for finals get in the way of their participation in the National Youth and Students Peace Committee (NYSPC) May 6 “Books Not Bombs” Day of Action.

“Because it’s finals week, we came up with the idea of having a ‘read-in’ at [Senator Rick] Santorum’s office, ” said Harris Kornstein, a Swarthmore freshman. “We want to keep anti-war activism going, and ‘books not bombs’ bridges protests about tuition hikes with protests about war.”

The students, members of Youth PAWR (Philadelphia Area War Resistance), a coalition of college and high school student groups, brought hundreds of “I will vote for books not bombs” pledge cards collected from their classmates.

Ben Waxman, a senior at Springfield High School, took the 20-minute train ride on Philadelphia’s SEPTA train to bring the pledge cards from his school. “A lot of high school people became engaged in the anti-Iraq war movement,” Waxman said. “We’re trying to get people to register to vote by showing the connection with the severe funding crisis for public high schools.” Citing cuts in after-school programs, music, school newspapers, teachers and even textbooks, Waxman noted that some schools are still using decades-old books.

Ivan Booth, who will be a junior at Swarthmore next year, told the World the Philadelphia area youth activists have been discussing what to do this summer. “It was amazing. After the war, all these different groups at the same time all said ‘Let’s do voter registration.’”

Booth said this was a kick-off event for a whole voter registration and education campaign, involving many campus organizations and activists. “This summer we will be flyering at festivals and concerts [with] educational things about war, and doing voter registration at fairs,” Booth said.

The students sat several hours on the sidewalk in front of Santorum’s office under their big “books not bombs” banner, taking an occasional break from their studying to register a new voter or get an additional pledge card signed.

At 4:30 p.m., the protest moved inside the government building, but the students found Santorum’s office mysteriously closed. They weren’t surprised. “Santorum embodies all that’s wrong with the U.S. government,” Lincoln Ellis, a University of Pennsylvania senior said. Undaunted, they dug up a roll of tape and one by one posted the hundreds of pledge cards to the Senator’s door.

Same day, same confident enthusiasm, but hundreds of miles south, in a suburb of Atlanta, Georgia, Decatur High School junior Leah Fishbein delivered 60 “books not bombs” pledge cards to the office of Congresswoman Denise Majette (D–Ga.). Fishbein is part of a new student organization called SWEAPS – Students Working for an Educated and Accountable Peaceful Society. Speaking of her experience in collecting pledge cards from her classmates, she said, “It went really well. The goal was to educate teenagers on domestic and foreign policy. A lot of people I spent time talking to, I felt maybe I changed their minds. It was pretty neat.”

The author can be reached at rwood@pww.org

No jobs for youth

Fri, 16 May 2003 03:34:00 +0000

It is widely known that official unemployment figures are far too low. Millions of jobless workers are “counted out” of the labor market – they just don’t exist, as far as the statistics are concerned.

This form of under-counting is particularly bad for youth 16-19 years old. But it is possible to estimate the actual unemployment rate and compare it to the “official” rate. These are the figures for April, 2003:

Unemployment

Official Actual

White teens 15% 28%

Latino teens 16% 43%

African American teens 31% 61%

This table shows the catastrophic situation confronting young people, at a time when school costs are rising and families are facing growing difficulties. Some of the most shocking facts:

• Even using official figures, unemployment is serious for all teens, and at crisis levels (31 percent) for African Americans.

• Actual teen unemployment is twice as high as the official figures, meaning that half of jobless young people are never counted.

• African American teens have double the unemployment rate as white teens.

• Official figures show Latino and white teens have similar unemployment rates. After correcting the figures, I estimate the unemployment rate for Latino youth is 53 percent greater than for white youth.

• In numbers, 3.3 million teenagers are actually unemployed – three times the official figure of 1.2 million.

These figures are for April, when many teenagers are in high school or college. Even then, many work as all the hours they can get, to pay for school, for personal expenses, to help at home, or to support their own households. In July, millions of students will be looking for summer jobs. They will find that the city and state summer jobs programs have been dried up by fiscal crisis, and private-sector jobs in the tourist industry and other traditional summer employers have been slashed by the continuing recession.

In Connecticut this year, a program called LEAP fell victim to the state’s budget axe. In LEAP, older high school kids worked as tutors and counselors, providing mentoring for younger kids in reading, sports and recreation. The program has been cut to a fraction of its original size; most of the older kids were laid off, and the younger kids have nowhere to go after school. There are dozens of programs like LEAP in Connecticut, thousands across the country, that are victims of state and city fiscal crises, and the administration’s singleminded focus on making the rich richer.

Instead of cutbacks, we need far more of these programs. We need them for the jobs they provide older youth, and for the services they provide to younger kids and to the community. This summer, $10 billion could provide between 2 million and 5 million good summer jobs for youth. Compare that with the $75 billion spend to conquer and occupy Iraq. It’s less expensive, and far better, for youth to have jobs cleaning up neighborhoods, working in camps and sports programs, doing construction and maintenance in parks and public buildings – than to have jobs invading other countries.

Where do the numbers come from?

The “official” unemployment rates are calculated by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS). It is based on the BLS’ estimate of the size of the labor force – everyone who says they worked (even if only for an hour) in the past week, along with everyone who was unemployed. If you haven’t looked for work in the past month, you are not counted as unemployed or as part of the labor force: you simply don’t exist.

In April, 2000, before the recession, the BLS said that 53 percent of white teens were part of the labor force – they were either working, or actively looking for work. Today, only 45 percent of white teens are part of the labor force, and far less for Latinos and African Americans. But teenagers need and undoubtedly want jobs just as much now as they did three years ago. African-American and Latino youth, who are much less likely to come from high-income families or to attend school full-time without working, certainly need jobs as much as white youth.

I took the percentage of white teens in the labor force in April, 2000, and estimated that at least the same percentage of all teens would be working today if they had the opportunity. This gives the corrected size of the labor force. The BLS reports how many have jobs. The difference is the corrected number of unemployed.

The author can be reached at pww@pww.org

National Clips

Fri, 16 May 2003 02:56:00 +0000

MIAMI, Florida –Save Our Kids from Gov. Bush

On Mother’s Day scores of elected officials, community and religious leaders launched a campaign defying Governor Jeb Bush’s Florida Comprehensive Achievement Test (FCAT). The group charges that the test discriminates against African-American and Hispanic students.

The Florida Department of Education has announced that 13,000 high school seniors – 5,900 in Miami – failed the test this month and will therefore not graduate.

If no corrective measures are taken by May 22, the group vows to launch a boycott of the state’s tourism, sugar and citrus industries.

Florida House Whip Frederica Wilson (D-Miami) said she could not understand how the governor could find funding for 4,000 new prison beds, but no money for education or social services.

“I am outraged. I am livid today … I am upset with the governor of the State of Florida because he knew from the beginning who was going to pass and who wasn’t going to pass,” she said. “You will not destroy my children. If you do not adjust FCAT, we are going to boycott this state in a way you’ve never seen.”

OMAHA, Nebraska –Captive meeting turns expensive

President Bush, on the stump to sell his tax plan, scheduled a photo-op at the non-union Airlite Plastics plant, a new facility employing 570 people. Plans for his visit called for closing the plant, stopping production for 12 hours, and paying only 15 workers to stand near the podium during his speech. The other 300 workers would not be paid.

Outraged workers said that Bush’s visit would cost them over $100 each in lost wages. Just four hours before the president’s plane landed, Brad Crosby, the plant’s chief executive, announced that all would be paid their regular wages during the visit.

Outside the plant, Secret Service staff herded protesters organized by the Fair Taxes for All Coalition out of sight of the presidential motorcade.

SACRAMENTO, California – Budget deficit axes healthcare, food and public safety

While the Laci Peterson story has dominated national headlines, many seniors here are wondering where their next meal is coming from.

Sacramento County faces a $101 million deficit in its budget. County officials are preparing to close meal centers that feed 500 retirees a day and to cut health services for 38,000 people. Staffing cuts at homeless shelters will reduce available beds by 40 percent. The Department of Human Assistance will lose 330 jobs and the Department of Health and Human Services will lose 223 jobs. Legal services, public safety personnel and the coroner’s staff will also be slashed.

“In my 15 years’ experience, we’ve never had to cut homeless programs,” said Cheryl Davis, director of the Department of Human Assistance. “We’ve cut out all the fat. We’ve cut the muscle. Now we’re cutting the bone.”

OLYMPIA, Washington –Stop AIDS, violence and poverty

In April, Lynn McMullen and Jodi Bernstein were part of a group of 34 women who traveled to South Africa. They came back and applied what they learned by organizing a Mother’s Day march calling for money to combat AIDS and appealing for an end to violence and poverty.

McMullen told a rally that 26,000 of the world’s children die each day. “If those 26,000 mothers could speak, they would tell you that the four biggest causes of death [of children] are AIDS, poverty, war and debt,” she said.

Cindy Corrie, whose daughter Rachel – a peace activist who was killed in March by an Israeli bulldozer while she was trying to block a house demolition in the Gaza Strip – said, “There are times when I stayed quiet because I thought others knew more. I am no longer intimidated by the experts and the critics. I believe I can speak out and I have the responsibility as a mother to speak out for peace.”

LANSING, Michigan – Governor to veto partial birth abortion bill

The state legislature has passed a bill barring partial birth abortion, even if it is the only way to save a mother’s life, by a vote of 74-29. Newly elected Democratic Governor Jennifer Granholm has announced that she will veto the legislation as a threat to women’s health.

Previous bills banning partial birth abortion passed the legislature, were signed by then Republican Governor Engler, and then declared unconstitutional by state courts.

To counter the expected veto, Michigan Right to Life forces have threatened to organize a ballot initiative calling for the ban. The Michigan American Civil Liberties Union predicts that the courts will again throw out the ban should it pass.

National clips are compiled by Denise Winebrenner Edwards (dwinebr696@aol.com)

Protest blasts corporate media

Fri, 16 May 2003 02:48:00 +0000

PHILADELPHIA – Nearly 300 people protested monopoly control of the media at a rally and march to ABC, NBC and Clear Channel Radio headquarters here on May 12. Sponsored by a coalition of anti-war and grassroots media activists, the protest blasted pro-war bias in reporting and further deregulation of the media industry by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC). Protesters also called for legislation that supports a free, diverse local media. Five corporations control most of what the public sees, hears and reads today: Fox, General Electric Co., Viacom, Disney and AOL Time Warner.

The march attracted much attention on the two-mile trek. Colorful signs and banners promted drivers to honk their horns in support. “All We Want Is the Truth,” “War Is Just A Spectator Sport For ABC and NBC” and “Reclaim the Media” were just some of the slogans on the homemade signs.

The protesters first stopped at ABC headquarters chanting “ABC – What’s the score? Why don’t you show us the war on the poor?”

Cheri Honkala, Kensington Welfare Rights Union director, spoke about the lack of coverage of the domestic crisis where 675,000 people have recently lost their jobs, 43 million go without health care coverage, 60 million are living in poverty, and with budget cuts gutting drug and alcohol rehab programs. Honkala recounted when KWRU led homeless families to camp out in the Capitol in Harrisburg, then-Gov. Tom Ridge said, “You’ve made your point now go home.” The media was there but never reported on the issue, she said. “We depend on the independent media to tell our story.”

The crowd then crossed the street to rally in front of NBC headquarters. NBC is owned by General Electric, which has contracts with the Pentagon. Many speakers denounced the blatantly pro-war and pro-Bush coverage tying the bias directly to the corporations and their ties with the White House.

Pete Tridish, technical director for the Prometheus Radio Project, spoke about the Telecom Act of 1996 and how it led to the deregulation of the media industry. Currently the FCC is considering new regulations, which would lead to further deregulation and monopolization of the industry. Among the proposals is one to allow a single company to own TV stations that reach 45 percent of U.S. households instead of the current 35 percent. The major networks favor eliminating any cap. The vote is scheduled for June 2. Michael K. Powell, son of Secretary of State Colin Powell, chairs the FCC.

Deregulation allowed Clear Channel Radio to buy up 1,200 small radio stations. Clear Channel then fired local news staff and replaced them with machines, which gives recorded news. Clear Channel is widely known for its censorship of music, banning over 100 songs, including anti-war songs or songs by any artist who spoke out against the Iraq War. Clear Channel also sponsored a number of pro-war rallies.

Clear Channel’s Vice Chair Tom Hicks is closely connected to George W. Bush. He is a member of the Bush Pioneer club for elite (and generous) donors, according to Take Back the Media website.

Sasha Costanza-Chock, a graduate student in communications at the University of Pennsylvania, described the interlocking Board of Directors of all these corporations, saying, “Media and government are playing a game that short changes the American public. The results are unfair coverage, uninformed Americans and complacent politicians.”

The author can be reached at phillyrose1@hotmail.com. Terrie Albano contributed to this article.

Changes are happening to your World/Mundo

Fri, 16 May 2003 02:05:00 +0000

CHICAGO – I was talking to a subscriber today and mentioned that our editorial office – the place where these very pages get put together week-after-week – was moving from New York City to Chicago. He was a little surprised, but then said he thought he had “heard about it.” That struck me: the tried and true method of communication – word of mouth! Ironically, I know this subscriber wouldn’t have “heard” about it from reading this paper.

Too bad we don’t have a radio show to broadcast all that’s happening at the People’s Weekly World/Nuestro Mundo. All we have right now are these 20 pages in which we pack as much information, analysis, and opinions as possible. Our small staff and dedicated volunteers are so focused on reporting the stories we think are important to the lives of working-class families, we forget to write about stories a little closer to home. So let me try to fill that gap.

Yes, the People’s Weekly World/Nuestro Mundo editorial office is moving to Chicago – we expect to complete the shift by summer’s end. Our business and circulation offices will remain in New York City, so please continue to send all subscriptions and donations to NYC.

Our editorial board, staff and many supporters who have “heard” about the move are very excited about it. Chicago is a great working-class city – the birthplace of May Day, and the place where the Communist Party was founded in 1919. It’s the nation’s “great midland,” the crossroads between the Great Lakes, the Mississippi River and the western prairie. Sandra Cisneros places her wonderful novel, The House on Mango Street, in this melting pot of people, the “city of broad shoulders.”

Chicago is also the home of ground-breaking people’s journalism. It’s here that the fearless civil and women’s rights advocate and journalist Ida B. Wells published her expose of lynching, “A Red Record,” poet Carl Sandburg wrote for the International Socialist Review, and our pioneering predecessor, The Daily Worker, was published.

We are working hard to make the most of this opportunity to bring you a better newspaper. We know that today the independent press and especially a newspaper like ours is more important than ever as a mass educator and mobilizer to stop and roll back the far-right Bush administration assault on life and liberty here and around the world.

And, going forward, we’ll try to keep you up to date about future improvements in your World/Mundo.

Texas Democrats defy GOP power grab

Fri, 16 May 2003 01:49:00 +0000

ARDMORE, Okla. – The power grab by President George W. Bush, his advisor Karl Rove, and U.S. Majority Leader Tom DeLay to redraw Texas congressional districts in order to send up to seven new right-wing extremists to the U.S. House of Representatives suffered a serious setback when 53 Democratic lawmakers on May 12 boycotted the Texas House of Representatives.

The legislators left Texas and went across the border to Ardmore, Okla., where they vowed to stay until Texas House Speaker Tom Craddick withdraws a redistricting bill that would reduce urban and rural representation, significantly strengthening the affluent suburbs. They thereby deprived the House of a quorum.

The Texas Democrats in a joint statement said, “We did not choose our path, Tom DeLay did. We are ready to stand on the House floor and work day and night to deal with real issues facing Texas families. At a time when we are told there is no time to deal with school finance, and when we must still resolve issues like the state budget crisis and insurance reform, the fact that an outrageous partisan power grab sits atop the House calendar is unconscionable …

“By our actions today, we are fulfilling our responsibilities to our constituents and upholding the oaths we took to serve the people of Texas,” the statement continues.

“The redistricting plan scheduled today before the Texas House of Representatives is the ultimate in political greed – it is undemocratic, unjust and unprecedented. It’s a power grab by Tom DeLay, pure and simple. The current congressional plan has been ruled by our United States Supreme Court to be constitutional and in compliance with the Voting Rights Act. Elections have been held, and we should respect the will of Texas voters.”

If the Democrats are able to stay out of the state until May 15, they believe they will have effectively killed hundreds of bad bills.

A steady stream of protest has hit the Capitol all through the legislative session focusing on:

* Budget cuts of practically all state services.

* Calculated destruction of the public educational system by dismantling school finance structures, drastically cutting funds, and pushing vouchers and privatized school schemes.

* Outright attack on health care for the poor, disabled, and workplace accident victims.

* Outright attack on unions.

* Curtailment of every Texans right to sue and win damages.

The labor movement has fully mobilized behind the Texas Democrats. Texas AFL-CIO President Joe Gunn heaped praise on the House members who left town to break a quorum. He said, in a press statement, “They are resisting an unprecedented partisan power play that has run roughshod over the needs of Texas.”

The walkout began on Sunday, May 11 before the legislature convened on Monday. In a well organized effort, House members left town and sent letters to Craddick advising him that they would be absent until further notice and that he should lock the voting devices at their chairs on the House floor. Craddick had a fit.

He locked the doors of the House chambers and wouldn’t let the Republican members and the three Democratic members who did not participate in the walkout leave.

By Monday night, the Democratic legislators had been found in Oklahoma and Texas Department of Public Safety (DPS) troopers were dispatched to bring them home. But the wayward legislators, who were staying at a hotel in Ardmore, refused to return. By Tuesday, DPS troopers had surrounded the lawmakers’ hotel, but Oklahoma Gov. Brad Henry, a Democrat sympathetic to the walkout, sent Oklahoma state police to stand between the legislators and DPS troopers.

Craddick and Gov. Perry, another extreme right winger, resorted to fascist-like tactics to intimidate the legislators and their supporters. DPS troopers in Texas put the families of the absent legislators under surveillance. Associated Press reported that Texas Rangers visited the hospital where the premature twin infants of Rep. Craig Eiland, (D-Galveston) were staying. When they didn’t find him there, they went to his home at 10:30 at night, after the news services were reporting that the Democrats had been found in Ardmore.

And troopers told an aide of Rep. Elliot Naishtat of Austin that it was a felony to withhold information about the representatives’ whereabouts, which was untrue.

Ed Sills, communications director for the state AFL-CIO, reported that “U.S. House Majority Leader Tom DeLay told AP [that] he checked out whether the federal government could send marshals after the representatives.” It was also reported that Republicans explored the possibility of using the Patriot Act to arrest the lawmakers as terrorists.

The Democrats do not stand alone in their actions. Newspapers across Texas called for scrapping of the Republican redistricting plan.

“The map finally kicked out of Crabb’s committee ... is a textbook example of everything wrong with the redistricting process. It was largely done in secret,” stated the Waco Tribune Harold.

“At a time when Texas is grasping for pennies to immunize Texas children, legislators don’t need to waste resources giving booster shots to political power plays,” the Houston Chronicle said.

A similar power play with redistricting is also taking place in Colorado.

The authors can be reached at pww@pww.org

Extreme poverty up sharply among Black children

Thu, 15 May 2003 08:46:00 +0000

The number of African-American children living in the harshest, most extreme conditions of poverty has climbed to its highest level in 23 years, according to a recent study by the Washington DC-based Children’s Defense Fund (CDF). Still worse, if the Bush administration has its way, the number of Black and other poor children in these desperate straits will only increase.

The figures are alarming. In 2001 (the last year for which data is available), nearly one million African-American children lived in a family with an annual income less than half of the federal poverty level (disposable income below $7,064 for a family of three). These children, living in what is called “extreme poverty,” are among the most vulnerable and at-risk members of U.S. society.

“It is shameful that one million Black children are left behind in extreme poverty,” said CDF President Miriam Wright Edelman in a related press statement. “It is hard to be poor. It is even harder to be an extremely poor Black child in America when our President…is proposing massive new tax breaks for the richest Americans.”

Bush administration budget proposals would dismantle Head Start, undermine Medicaid and the Children’s Health Insurance Program, and slash or freeze other services designed to help the nation’s poorest children.

The CDF report notes that “fewer and fewer otherwise-extremely-poor children of all races receive cash public assistance,” and a growing number have no assistance at all, despite their extreme poverty.

Edelman has been an outspoken critic of Bush administration policy. A few days before the report, she said that “the Bush administration and congressional leadership are waging a radical budget battle” against U.S. children. Noting the administration’s preoccupation with waging war, Edelman said that more attention needs to be given to protecting “our children at home … from hunger, poverty, and lack of education.” She called upon Congress to reject the Bush budget and tax policies “for the sake of our nation and children.”

In a full-page advertisement in this week’s New York Times, the CDF spotlights poor children who are “Left behind by the Bush tax cut for America’s richest,” adding that “Bush’s tax cuts leave no millionaire behind … just millions of children.”

The full text of the CDF report can be found at www.childrensdefense.org. The author can be reached at malmberg@pww.org

Job safety worsens under Bush

Fri, 09 May 2003 03:35:00 +0000

Job safety and health under the Bush administration features less enforcement and increased big business clout, a new AFL-CIO report titled Death on the Job: A Toll of Neglect, says. The report was released as unions across the country celebrated Worker’s Memorial Day on April 28.

It noted that in 2001, the most recent statistics available, deaths on the job stayed virtually constant from the year before, at 5,920. But that doesn’t count the 2,886 people killed on the job when terrorist-commandeered airliners destroyed New York’s World Trade Center and damaged the Pentagon on Sept. 11, 2001.

Meanwhile job injuries declined slightly. That’s because companies could keep workers on the job while hurt.

Enforcement declined, both by the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) and in the states, the report said. GOP governors in Minnesota and Vermont, citing budget deficits, proposed dumping their state OSHA programs back on the federal government, but unions and their allies beat the efforts.

“Employers must stop exploiting workers and improve workplace safety, and the government must do more to hold employers accountable,” AFL-CIO President John Sweeney said.

But the employers are still exploiting workers and Bush isn’t stopping them, the report adds.

“In just two and a half years, Bush repealed the ergonomics standard and [has] gone back on its promise to seriously address the issue,” the report states.

By halting action on other standards, including one covering tuberculosis and another requiring employers to buy protective equipment for threatened workers, the administration is “abandoning or delaying action on many important worker protection measures,” it says.

Bush’s inaction on the protective equipment standard forced the UFCW and eight other groups to sue for its production.

Other key points included:

* Alaska had the worst job fatality rate, 22.6 deaths per 100,000 workers. Massachusetts had the best: 1.6 per 100,000.

* Occupational diseases – such as asbestos afflicting former shipyard and construction workers, black lung disease that kills ex-miners and radiation illnesses that kill uranium workers – claim an estimated 50,000-60,000 workers yearly.

* One-fourth of fatal work injuries, 1,404, were from highway crashes. Construction had 1,225 deaths, the largest absolute number and “a record high,” the report said. It accounted 21 percent of all workplace fatalities.

* Fatal on-the-job falls increased by 10 percent, to 808.

* Deaths among Hispanic workers rose by 9 percent, from 815 in 2000 to 891 in 2001. In prior years, Hispanic construction workers were killed in rising numbers. Last year, the increase was due to more deaths in services and agriculture.

* Federal safety inspection time, violations and fines all declined. From 1999 to 2001, the average number of hours per job safety inspection dropped from 22 to 19.1. Health inspection hours dropped from 40 to 32.7. OSHA citations for willful violations dropped by 36 percent from 1999 to 2002, from 607 to 392. The average fine dropped by 19 percent.

* 2001 saw 5.2 million injuries and illnesses in private workplaces and another 639,500 among workers in state and local governments in 29 states. The other 21, plus Washington, D.C., do not report local government job injury and illness data.

But the injury and illness data is incomplete, the AFL-CIO study says. Using ergonomics as an example, it showed a decrease in injuries and wide underreporting.

In 2001, 522,528 workers lost time from their jobs due to ergonomic, or repetitive-motion, injuries. That’s down 9.6 percent from 2000. Ergonomics still accounted for more than one-third of injuries that force workers to lose job time.

“But the numbers and rates of MSDs (ergonomic injuries) reported only represent part of the problem. They do not include injuries suffered by public workers or postal workers, nor do they reflect underreporting by employers,” it said.

“Based on studies and experience, OSHA estimated for every reported MSD there is another one not recorded or reported.”

And in an indication of the Bush administration’s attitude, ergonomics enforcement has become “voluntary” with a program covering only part of one of the most-hazardous industries – nursing homes – and programs planned for three others, including shipyards. Unions representing workers in those industries were left out of program creation, the report notes.

Reprinted from Press Associates, Inc.