People Before Profit blog

Shes The Mother

Fri, 28 May 2004 06:32:00 +0000

Movie review

She’s ‘The Mother’

May, the mother in the movie of the same name, is actually an ordinary grandmother from the suburbs. When her husband dies on a family visit to London, she loses her place in her adult children’s busy city lives. She doesn’t want to go back to an empty house but realizes she’s in the way where she is. Her biggest fear is becoming an invisible old lady whose life is more or less over.

“The Mother,” which had its New York premier during the Tribeca Film Festival this month and opened in limited release May 28, is the story of how she finds her own way, with the help of a carpenter half her age.

This movie is worth the price of a ticket just to watch Ann Reid as May. Her performance is funny, brave, shocking and sad. She deservedly has won several awards for her portrayal and was nominated for the 2004 British equivalent of the Academy Award for Best Actress.

“I saw May as a woman who has lived half a life without realizing it,” Reid says about her role. “May settled for something when she was very young ... but it wasn’t until her husband dies and she suddenly starts to see herself and find herself that she really begins to realize who she is.”

Although director Roger Michell also did “Notting Hill,” don’t expect a sweet, but rocky, love story. “The Mother” takes those lovable misfits from “Notting Hill,” slaps them around a few times, turns them against each other and then spits them out in a dysfunctional heap.

Writer Hanif Kureishi says the film is about older people and real lives. “The cinema has to be, to a certain extent, a place where you can talk and think about serious things.”

– Carolyn Rummel

The Jungle, uncut, spotlights class oppression

Fri, 28 May 2004 06:21:00 +0000

Book Review

The Jungle: The Uncensored Original Edition By Upton Sinclair Sharp Press, 2003 Softcover, 352 pp., $12

Upton Sinclair (1878-1968) was a prolific writer as well as a socialist. He authored 90 books. Without a doubt, Sinclair’s most famous work was “The Jungle,” a novel first published as a newspaper serial (1905) and later as a heavily censored book (1906).

“The Jungle” details the experiences of Jurgis Rudkos, a Lithuanian immigrant, his family, and the work and lives of persons in Chicago meatpacking district and its neighborhood, “Packingtown,” in the early 1900s. Sinclair wrote the book in 1904 while working as an investigative reporter for the Socialist Party newspaper, The Appeal to Reason.

Few people are aware that 1905 newspaper version of “The Jungle” and the 1906 book are significantly different versions of the same story. The newspaper serial had been well-received upon its initial publication. Sinclair, who lacked the resources to publish a book, sincerely desired that his work reach a far broader audience. He cut out nearly one-third of his story to make it acceptable for a capitalist publisher, Doubleday, Page Company.

This new publication contains the original uncensored 1905 newspaper version. It also contains a useful foreword by Earl A. Lee, and a detailed introduction with an analysis of the two versions of the novel by Kathleen DeGrave.

“The Jungle” has an important place in American history. Publication of the 1906 book led to widespread public outrage against the meatpacking industry. President Teddy Roosevelt, who read the book version, refused to believe it, but then learned that the Department of Agriculture had lied to him about conditions in Chicago. In fact, the department’s inspectors had been bribed.

The publishing company was so worried about a possible libel suit that it sent to Chicago its own private investigators, who confirmed the truth of Sinclair’s charges. The reaction to “The Jungle” led to passage of the first Pure Food and Drug laws in the U.S. – a significant reform. However, Sinclair is later reported to have said, “I aimed at the public’s heart, and by accident hit it in the stomach.”

Through the years, millions of readers have read the 1906 book version, not knowing how much was changed or missing. The new edition brings back the original version as published in 1905. People familiar with the work will see and feel the difference.

The original version of “The Jungle” is a novel that sees beyond a particular abuse in society to something much bigger. Sinclair did not mean to write a reformist work, but a revolutionary one.

Unfortunately, as DeGrave explains, “By eliminating a compassionate adjective, a gut-wrenching scene, or an explanation, Sinclair missed the reader’s heart.” She believes that Sinclair was “courageous” to write a truthful work about the working class at a time “when the capitalists had a free hand. But the courageous book was not the one published in 1906.”

DeGrave explains, for example, that “Cut from the 1905 version are passages that create sympathy for the immigrant worker; grimly detailed descriptions of disease and death; the reasons for alcoholism and prostitution among the workers; stories of cheating and lying among the businessmen; indictments of the rich, of the police, of the press.”

The 1906 book downplays the nature of class oppression. References to the wider system and its faults are cut out. As DeGrave notes, Sinclair was forced to realize “if he wanted the novel published at all, he would have to appear to restrict the problem to Chicago and the meatpacking industry.” Even the reform laws resulting from the 1906 version dealt with “adulteration of edible products, not the inhumane treatment of workers who process the products.”

This new uncensored version is a strong indictment of what capitalism has done to its many victims. If you have never read “The Jungle,” don’t waste your time on the 1906 censored version. Go right to the original, now available, at a reasonable price, and feel and experience the real message that Upton Sinclair so deeply desired to convey to his readers.

The author can be reached at pww@pww.org.

Mr. Bush, youd have liked my brother

Fri, 28 May 2004 06:10:00 +0000

The following is an open letter to President Bush written by the brother of Sgt. Sherwood Baker, who was killed in Iraq.

My brother, Sherwood Baker, died in Iraq last week. I tried to call you and I tried to write to you, but you never responded. I’m writing to you again because I believe, had you known him, you would have liked him ... And maybe if you knew him, if you knew the other soldiers, you’d have thought differently about sending them.

Sherwood was a foster kid, and he came to our family before I was born. He had limited contact with his biological family. Our parents never let him go. They received him, raised him, and he was their child. He was their son and my brother.

In so many ways, Sherwood represented the country he loved. He was dealt a tough hand and turned it into opportunity. Always struggling between optimism and reality, he seemed to be on a life-long quest to codify a family.

When he became a father at 21, he embraced the role with enviable enthusiasm.

He joined the Army National Guard in Wilkes-Barre. He wanted to help his community, wanted to support his wife and his son, and wanted to pay off his college loans. He discovered brotherhood in the Army as well.

Now he was part of one more family. He found it whenever he sat and talked.

I can certainly find things about him that you would appreciate. I know you’re familiar with fabrications. You remember the things you said about the weapons and the terrorist ties?

Well, he wasn’t as good as you, but listen to him: He told us he would be OK, he’d return safe, we’d see him soon.

And check this out – he was a “C” student, too. When he was called up, I told him that if he wanted to get out of guard duty, he, too, could apply to Harvard Business School.

Sherwood just laughed. You made him laugh. Yet, he still went to fight in your war. He never wavered, never cried, never expressed a desire to somehow get out of this mess. He went. Because he knew responsibility.

He knew it as well as he knew how irresponsible you had been for sending him. He had honor, and he had pride. Sherwood had commitment – to his country, to his job and to his unit. Maybe not so much to his commander-in-chief, quite honestly, but that’s probably because he didn’t know you. Because you didn’t sit down with him.

You just sent him a letter and a plane ticket to Baghdad.

I heard that you have yet to attended the funeral of a fallen soldier. I, too, had never been to a soldier’s funeral before Tuesday. I fully understand why you’re ducking it. It’s tough.

I heard Sherwood lived two hours after he was struck in an explosion. Long enough, I hope, to make his peace with everybody he called family. But I can’t say for sure if he made peace with you. He didn’t know you.

Sherwood is in a grave now and there’s a folded flag in his wife’s arms. He’s at rest, but he’d be happy to listen to what you have to say. Even now, you can still help him to make peace. You said we need to finish the work of the fallen. You may be surprised to know that the real work he started was not in Iraq. Sherwood’s work is here.

Mr. President, I want you to look into the eyes of his 9-year-old son and see his unfinished work. Feel free to get back to me. We ought to talk. You won’t have a problem finding me. I stick out in a crowd these days. I’m the proud little brother of Sgt. Sherwood Baker.

With hope, Dante Zappala (See related infomation below)

* * * * * *

Sgt. Sherwood Baker was one of two soldiers killed in an explosion in Baghdad April 26. He became the first member of the Pennsylvania Army National Guard to die in combat since 1945. He was 30 years old and left behind a wife and a 9-year-old son.

“My son went over there based on a bunch of lies,” sobbed his father, Al Zappala.

Any death is disheartening, whether of Americans, Iraqis or those from the few other nations who were conned into the Bush administration’s illegal war. But when a family that has devoted itself to peace loses a son in Iraq, the pain is magnified 1,000 times.

Baker was a foster child, who came to live with Celeste and Al Zappala at 13 months of age. The subsequent birth of brothers Dante and Raphael completed the family unit.

The Zappalas’ loving home shepherded Sherwood through his youth into adulthood and college, where he met his wife, Debra.

Through the years Celeste and Al took their three children to peace demonstrations in Philadelphia, New York and Washington. Like his parents, Baker had a strong since of community and justice. Several years ago his town, Wilkes-Barre, was in danger of being flooded. He joined the mobilization helping National Guard troops sandbag the river banks to prevent flooding.

This community service intrigued Sherwood and he looked into what National Guard service would entail. For enlistees like him, one of the attractions was being able to pay off college loans. To date, the government has not lived up to that promise for Baker.

At the time of his death, Baker was working in a child care center. His love for children extended beyond his job. He wrote an appeal to his son’s school district, asking it to declare Dr. Martin Luther King’s birthday a school holiday.

As a legacy to Sherwood, his family is asking others to pursue this campaign by writing the Wyoming Valley West School District, urging them to institute the holiday. Letters should be addressed to: School Superintendent August Piazza, 450 N. Maple Ave., Kingston PA 18704.

Baker’s brother, Dante, sent the above letter to President Bush.

* * * * * *

A mother speaks

The following letter from Celeste Zappala was published by The New York Times May 23.

To the Editor:

In “The Hawks Loudly Express Their Second Thoughts” (Week in Review, May 16), you note that the shapers of thoughts and architects of the war now have troubling doubts about their enthusiastic support of the invasion of Iraq. How sad for them.

I am the mother of Sgt. Sherwood Baker of the Pennsylvania National Guard, soldier 720. That number is seared on my soul now, along with the screams and despair of my family and the wind carrying the sound of taps above the weeping crowd at the grave site of my son.

To me and mine, the consequences of the failed judgment and outright lies of the Bush administration and its apologists and spokesmen are not just becoming “depressed” or “angst-ridden.” We have lost our brave and beloved son, who was ordered to the war these folks dreamed of and hoped for.

The explosion that killed my son in Baghdad will go on in our lives forever. Sherwood gave the full measure of his responsibility as an American citizen doing his duty for an administration that betrayed him.

Celeste Zappala

What it means to be a Communist

Fri, 28 May 2004 05:05:00 +0000

A Tribute

For Memorial Day, the People’s Weekly World pays tribute to our former labor editor and veteran journalist, Fred Gaboury, who died Jan. 29. Gaboury was in the Air Force during World War II. Below are excerpts from a tribute delivered at a memorial for Gaboury April 4 in Chicago.

“A communist is a person who believes the woes we are experiencing today are not owing to the faults of individuals but to the economic system of capitalism under which we live.

“A communist believes that the ultimate solution to the problems of poverty, depressions, inflations and war lies in the establishment of a socialist society.

“The communists believe in absolute equality of rights and opportunities for all peoples, regardless of race or nationality.

“They believe that such a better world will never come into existence through dreaming and talking alone, but must be achieved by … participating to the full in every immediate struggle for the benefit of the common [person] be it improved street car service, free milk for school children, or a gigantic union struggle for better wages or conditions.”

Author Mike Quin wrote that in an essay, “What is a Communist?” Quin was one of Fred’s favorite writers. He would recite many a poem by Quin, Robert Service or A.A. Milne. Fred’s life was the very reflection of Quin’s description.

There are many vivid words to describe Fred. He was gruff and rough, with a booming voice. He was larger-than-life, a colorful figure who used colorful phrases.

When you were having a hard time: “Illegitimi non carborundum – Don’t let the bastards grind you down.”

When someone asked how he was doing: “I’m up to my ass in alligators.”

When one of his ideas was met with silence: “That fell like a turd from a tall ox.”

He was a worker’s worker, a man’s man, a journalist’s journalist. He would never ask you to do something he wouldn’t do himself. He learned that from the lumber camps where he would volunteer for the most dangerous jobs. He had a heart of gold. Just like the working-class folk heroes, who came out of the wild and beautiful Pacific Northwest from where he hailed.

I knew Fred for 20 years. I met him when I first joined the Young Communist League. I learned my first lesson in class struggle and vocabulary from him. I was working in a machine shop. I was telling him about the job and I kept saying, “In my shop.” He finally interrupted me and said, “Your shop! It’s not your shop. You don’t own a goddamn bolt in that shop!”

He loved life, he loved the struggle for a better world, and he loved to use the written word to advance that struggle. He could write, edit, get others to write, interview – he would get on the phone or get in his car to go get an important story. He was a working class intellectual and Marxist – a hard worker. He would raise money and get subscriptions. He worked to build the Communist Party. He did it all.

But he placed the emphasis on action. So when the Bush administration was building up for an invasion of Iraq and the world’s peace forces were building up in opposition – Fred didn’t just write about it – he sprang into action. He worked with others to get a statement signed by local labor leaders, which they took to the Chicago Federation of Labor meeting and got delegates to sign. Then he worked with his companion Marianne to get their town board to pass a resolution against the war.

Fred was incredibly sensitive to kids and moms. He was chivalrous. He taught my son poker. Now that and the word “chivalrous” may seem like a strange fit, but it makes perfect sense.

Fred was quite opinionated, which may be an understatement. There were so many arguments we had. When he died, someone said – and I think it’s true – unless you had a fight with Fred, you really didn’t know him.

Fred’s indomitable fighting spirit lives on in all of us. We loved him and miss him. Thank you, Fred.

Terrie Albano is editor of the People’s Weekly World. She can be reached at talbano@pww.org.

The unfinished business of Brown v. Board

Fri, 28 May 2004 04:57:00 +0000

Opinion

As the 50th anniversary of Brown v. The Board of Education of Topeka, Kansas, is commemorated, many recognize the progress, retreat and failure of the desegregation of U.S. public schools. On May 17, 1954, the Supreme Court declared that segregation deprived Black students of the equal protection of the law guaranteed by the 14th Amendment to the Constitution. Said Chief Justice Earl Warren, “Separate but equal has no place in the field of public education. Separate educational facilities are inherently unequal.”

On May 31, 1955, the Supreme Court asked the states to desegregate their schools “with all deliberate speed,” but set no guidelines and allowed local school districts to decide how and when to comply.

Brown v. Board combined cases in five different states that attacked forced segregation of Black students. The NAACP’s Legal Defense Fund led the fight with attorney Thurgood Marshall at the forefront. Similar cases had been in the courts since the 1800s. In 1947, a federal appeals court, in the Mendez v. Westminster School District decision, struck down segregated schools for Mexican Americans. Then-California Gov. Earl Warren signed a repeal of a state law that segregated Native American and Asian students.

But racism was so deeply embedded within our society that strong and violent resistance by whites to desegregation prevented implementation of Brown v. Board for years.

In 1971, desegregation became widespread, with the busing of Black students to white schools. By 1980, 45 percent of formerly all-white schools in the South were racially integrated. But integrated schools existed only a short time in many Northern cities due to “white flight” to the suburbs. In 1974 the Supreme Court ruled against metropolitan cross-district desegregation in Detroit, effectively preventing desegregation there. Re-segregation accelerated in the 1990s. Today Illinois, New York and New Jersey – not the South – have the most segregated schools in the country.

Even in many desegregated schools, Black students are segregated by tracking and biased testing, and are treated differently from white students. Segregation has always been about resources and Black schools have been systematically separated from needed resources. For many leaders, the focus is now on equity for Black schools.

A recent survey by the AARP and the Leadership Council on Civil Rights showed a great change in attitudes since the 1950s. Seventy percent of whites said they approve of interracial marriage, compared to only 4 percent in 1958. Over 57 percent of whites said they would rather live in a racially mixed neighborhood and send their children to a mixed school.

But when asked if the goals of the civil rights movement had been accomplished, 56 percent of whites said “yes” while 79 percent of Blacks said “no.” Asked if Blacks are treated fairly or very fairly in the U.S., 76 percent of whites said “yes,” while 62 percent of Blacks said “no.” Clearly, although attitudes have changed, the white majority has a false idea of what it means to be Black or Latino in the U.S.

Racism hurts everyone, but especially African Americans and other people of color. The lack of quality education, along with diminishing living wage jobs, the illegal drug trade, the guns industry, an unjust criminal justice system and a growing prison industrial complex, is funneling young Blacks into prisons and jails – over 1 million incarcerated, 48 percent of the prison population. This frightening crisis must be addressed.

Racism is a powerful tool of the ruling class that keeps the working class divided. Every child should have the opportunity to learn with children of other races. This is the only way to destroy the myth of “white supremacy” and build unity within the working class. Children learn what they live.

Education must be a primary issue in the 2004 election. We must build a powerful social justice movement for the 21st century and turn our country away from the brink of disaster.

Rosita Johnson is a retired teacher and a member of the editorial board of the People’s Weekly World. She can be reached at phillyrose1@hotmail.com.

Using facts to fight health disparities

Fri, 28 May 2004 04:07:00 +0000

The struggle against racism in the U.S. health system continues even in these terrible times of the Bush administration and the right-wing controlled Congress.

Standardized data collection is critical to understanding and eliminating racial and ethnic disparities in health care, according to the Institute of Medicine.

The IOM is an important quasi-governmental organization that brings together respected U.S. medical and public health professionals to analyze, discuss and issue reports that are supposed to affect public policy.

A few years ago they took on the goal of eliminating or curtailing the worst healthcare abuses of patients due to their race or ethnicity.

Now comes a major new study by the prestigious Commonwealth Fund, which says, “A critical barrier to eliminating disparities and improving the quality of patient care is the frequent lack of even the most basic data on race, ethnicity, and primary language of patients within health care organizations [mostly hospitals].”

The report is titled “Who, When and How: The Current State of Race, Ethnicity, and Primary Language Data Collection in Hospitals, May 2004.”

Importance of the law

In its 2002 report, the IOM found that far and away the most important reason hospitals collect race and ethnic data is that they are legally bound to. In their survey, 42 percent of these responding cited legal requirements as the reason they collected this data. In other words, to make sure this kind of data is collected, there must be a law requiring that collection.

U.S. Census categories not used

Incredible as it may sound, according to both the IOM and Commonwealth Fund, hospitals by and large did not use the most convenient categories for race and ethnicity, that is, the U.S. Census method.

The need for a standardized method of collecting national data would dictate the use of the Census methods.

Racism in health care

Black communities do not receive the level of physician and hospital care that the rest of a city or state receives. Combined with class issues, it is no wonder that mortality of infants and older Black Americans reflect a lower standard of health. Infant mortality for Black families is twice that of other families. Longevity of Black males is a woeful 61 years of age compared to 68 for white males. For white females, longevity is well in the upper 70s, while for Black females it is only about 68.

Recommendations

A new national administration in the White House and Congress would do well to make sure that qualified public officials are employed in data collection. The Commonwealth Fund recommends these officials not rely on the personal observations of intake personnel to determine race and ethnicity, a practice that takes place all too often, and that a standardized data collection system for all hospitals in the U.S. be established. The U.S. Census should be used as the basis of categories for race and ethnicity. Following these simple steps could make a big difference in the allocation of federal health dollars.

Attack on data collection

The recent rejection by voters in California of the racist proposal to drop all racial identifiers does not mean that the effort by the right wing will end. Racism is alive in the ultra-right and its think tanks. Correcting the delivery of health care by first making sure that Black, Latin and other racially and ethnically oppressed people get equal health care is the road to go.

Given the level of awareness, technology and need, this goal is achievable. But, it requires a change in the current administration and its biased way of making decisions.

The author can be reached at pww@pww.org.

Workers sue Quebecor for bias

Fri, 28 May 2004 04:02:00 +0000

OLIVE BRANCH, Miss. (PAI) – Workers here at the Quebecor World, Inc., printing plant – one of the Quebecor plants the Graphic Communications International Union is trying to organize – filed a racial discrimination complaint against the huge printing firm May 4.

The workers told the federal Equal Employment Opportunities Commission that Quebecor discriminated against African American workers in hiring, training and promotions.

Their complaint says 96 percent of African American female workers at Olive Branch toil in the lowest job categories. It adds that one-third of all workers there are African American women, but none are managers.

“Discrimination is blatant,” said worker Lloyd Mayes. “Although most of the workers are African American and almost half are women. The overwhelming majority of managers are white men.”

The workers told the agency white men are most likely to be promoted and that the plant lacks formal training for workers. As a result, “white supervisors pick white employees to train for higher-level and supervisory positions,” the complaint said.

“We have a major company that has taken away the dignity and respect of workers and substituted that dignity with a discriminatory work environment,” said NAACP Mississippi Vice President Kelvin Buck after the civil rights group joined the workers’ EEOC complaint. “The community wants to help workers to form a union to correct these wrongs.”

“Workers can correct the injustice of discrimination by forming a union. Unions help women and people of color open doors that have previously been closed,” added GCIU Vice President Larry Martinez.

Quebecor, the world’s second-largest commercial printer, employs 39,000 workers in plants worldwide. GCIU’s organizing drive in its North American plants is part of a multinational campaign at the printing giant.

Workers raised questions about Quebecor’s conduct at the firm’s annual shareholders’ meeting in Montreal. They filed the EEOC complaint the same day GCIU sent a new law-breaking charge against Quebecor to the National Labor Relations Board.

This charge, the 23rd since December, says Quebecor illegally banned workers in its Versailles, Ky., plant from distributing pro-union material during time off work.

Owners of gay bars say no to Coors again

Fri, 28 May 2004 03:59:00 +0000

CHICAGO – Chicago’s three gay newspapers are carrying a March 19 open letter ad signed by almost two-dozen Chicago gay bar owners urging people not to buy Coors Company products.

The signers charge that Coors family members are some of the biggest contributors to anti-gay organizations and initiatives. Coors has faced gay and labor boycotts since the 1970s and has tried for years to place its products in Chicago’s gay and lesbian nightclubs.

“With the renewed effort to place Coors products in our establishments, we thought it necessary to remind our community of the Coors family’s anti-gay history,” said Art Johnston, co-owner of Sidetrack, one of Chicago’s largest and most popular gay establishments. “Enriching the Coors family enriches the anti-gay movement in our country. We won’t underwrite our community’s enemies.”

The ad, signed by the bar owners and Chicago’s most notable gay rights activists, states: “Profits from the Coors companies flow substantially to members of the Coors family. Coors family members have a long and continuing history of funding right-wing, anti-gay causes with their profits.”

The signers acknowledge that it is the family’s right to use its profits as it wishes. “It is also our right not to purchase products whose profits are used against us.”

Organizers of the ad have also established the anti-Coors website: whatareyoureallybuying.com.

From the late 1970s on, Coors faced numerous boycotts among gays, immigrant groups, and labor because of the company’s questionable labor practices and anti-gay policies.

The Coors Brewing Company substantially changed its policies in response to the boycott. In addition, the Coors Brewing Company has funded gay organizations. Nonetheless, profits from the company continue to go to Coors family members who heavily fund anti-gay initiatives.

“We are the first to admit that the Coors Brewing Company has initiated good policies and has changed substantially,” Johnston said. “Nonetheless, profits from the company are used by the Coors family to support some of the most anti-gay organizations and initiatives in this country. That is their right. And it is our right to turn our backs on products that enrich anti-gay activity.”

– Reprinted with permission from Gaywire.net.

Calif. education and health on chopping block

Fri, 28 May 2004 03:37:00 +0000

Across California, students and those who depend on publicly-funded health care programs will be among the hardest hit if the draconian cuts in programs and services proposed by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger survive in the final budget the Legislature passes this summer.

The governor’s proposals to close a $15 billion budget gap reject even modest tax increases on the wealthiest corporations and individual Californians. Instead, they take funds from social programs and bank on revenues that experts call uncertain at best.

“The governor is basically paying for his tax cut by slashing funds for K-12 and higher education,” Francisco Estrada, director of public policy for the Mexican American Legal Defense and Education Fund (MALDEF), told the World. While things look less bleak for health and human services than they did in January, he said, the biggest remaining cuts are in education. “This governor is doing as previous governors have done,” he added, “trying to balance the budget with smoke and mirrors.”

After vigorous protests, Schwarzenegger rescinded two of the most controversial cuts to health care proposed in January – a cap on enrollment in public health insurance programs benefiting children, immigrants, AIDS patients, and the disabled, and a 10 percent cut to health providers serving Medi-Cal patients. The statewide Health Access coalition of over 200 organizations called the move “a victory for ... the hundreds of thousands of Californians that would have been denied care under the enrollment caps, and the millions that would have had their access to care restricted under the provider rate reductions.”

However, community health clinics face an unprecedented cut of more than $72 million, and premiums would rise for some children in the Healthy Families program. While redesign of the Medi-Cal program serving poor Californians is postponed until August, Health Access says the revision heralds a future of “severe and long-lasting” cuts.

Also retained in the May revision is a $40 million cut in Children’s Medical Services Programs, which provide care for poor children with disabilities and chronic health problems as well as a program of regular health screenings for children and teenagers. MALDEF points out that the reduced funding for the screenings “will jeopardize the health of thousands of ailing Latino children in California.”

In a back-room deal bitterly resented by students and faculty, the heads of the University of California and California State University accepted the governor’s proposal to cut hundreds of millions in funding from the two systems in the next two years, with the promise of increased funding later. As a result, student fees will rise sharply while enrollment will be slashed by 10 percent. This will force many who would otherwise enroll at UC or CSU to take their first two years at community colleges instead, seriously overburdening these institutions which guarantee higher educational opportunity to poor working class students.

In a statement issued earlier this month, Matt Kaczmarek, president of the UC Student Association and student body external vice president at UCLA, denounced the pact and said, “This is not the end, and UCSA will continue to advocate against the governor’s cuts to be made on the backs of students.

“Education is a right, not a privilege,” he added. We look forward to working with legislative members who have voiced anger at this agreement and education advocates to protect the right of all students to a quality and affordable higher education.”

The author can be reached at mbechtel@pww.org.

More bad news for Bush: his budget stalls

Fri, 28 May 2004 03:32:00 +0000

WASHINGTON – A rebellion by four Republican senators against George W. Bush’s tax giveaways to the rich has forced the GOP leadership to postpone a vote on Bush’s 2005 budget for at least a month.

Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist (R-Tenn.) announced May 20 that with four Republicans joining the nearly solid Democratic opposition, he lacks the votes to push through Bush’s $2.4 trillion 2005 budget. It squeaked through the House by a 216-213 vote.

The story was overshadowed by the deepening crisis in Iraq, but it was a huge embarrassment to Bush, another sign of his sharp decline. A CBS poll released May 25 shows that Bush’s overall job approval has plunged to 41 percent with a decline among Republicans for the first time. Fully 65 percent said the nation is “headed in the wrong direction” and 61 percent disapproved of his handling of Iraq. Democratic presidential contender, John Kerry, was preferred by 49 percent compared to 41 percent for Bush.

Bush made a much-publicized foray to Capitol Hill for a closed-door pep rally with Republican lawmakers many fearful that Bush has placed their own re-election in jeopardy. A few hours later, Frist announced he was pulling the Bush budget from the Senate floor, clear evidence that Bush’s stroking session had failed.

One of the rebels, Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), said he wanted to send a message to Republican “fat cats” who wallow in Bush tax cuts, unwilling to make any sacrifices while U.S. soldiers are dying in Iraq.

Bush made a trip to Ohio hoping he could force Sen. George Voinovich (R-Ohio) to reverse his position and support the budget bill. But Sen. Lincoln Chafee (R-R.I.), a third rebel, scoffed. “I have a feeling this is going to backfire on the president,” Chafee told CNN. “George Voinovich has been around a long time. … He knows about making budgets, meeting budgets as a mayor and as governor. … We have to make sure we’re not getting into these tremendous deficits.”

Chafee added, “I think most Americans have the same questions that Sen. Voinovich … Snowe … McCain … and myself have about this: How can you be proposing more tax cuts? The big tax cuts, the $1.5 trillion in the spring of 2001, didn’t stimulate the economy. At the same time we had these enormous expenditures in Afghanistan, with homeland security, with the war in Iraq. It just doesn’t make sense.”

Bush’s Pentagon budget totals $402 billion. That does not count the $165 billion already approved for the wars and occupation of Afghanistan and Iraq or the $25 billion supplemental appropriation the White House has just asked for the Iraq occupation.

According to some pundits, Bush, seeking to avoid “sticker shock” among voters, will wait until after the Nov. 2 election to request another $50 billion for the Iraq occupation – a grand total of $240 billion for these wars.

Yet Bush demanded that the lawmakers make permanent his tax cuts for the rich, swelling next year’s deficit to a near record high $367 billion. It is also loaded with savage cutbacks in education, health care, food stamps and other human needs.

The author can be reached at greenerpastures21212@yahoo.com.

International notes

Fri, 28 May 2004 03:29:00 +0000

Greenland: U.S. base to expand

The U.S. is “close to an agreement” with Greenland and Denmark to expand Thule Air Base for use in the Pentagon’s missile defense program, Nordic Business Report said May 17. A difficult issue in the talks is whether Denmark and Greenland could prosecute U.S. troops stationed at the base who might commit a crime.

Since the U.S. signed an agreement with Denmark in 1951, Thule has been home to advanced U.S. radar systems and has been a staging point for nuclear-capable bombers.

President Bush’s December 2001 abrogation of the Anti-Ballistic Missile (ABM) Treaty paved the way for a “Star Wars” missile defense system.

Greenland’s home rule government has taken the position that it would not support upgrading Thule if U.S. plans there violated the ABM Treaty.

Japan: Okinawans sit in at U.S. base

Okinawans are conducting daily sit-ins to prevent a geological survey of the seabed off the island as a preliminary to the building of a new U.S. military base there, Japan Press reported. The new sea-based facility near Henoko in Nago City would substitute for the U.S. Futenma Air Station on the island, which is now to be returned to Japan.

The sea off Henoko has many coral reefs and is known as the feeding grounds of the dugong, an endangered marine mammal. The construction plan calls for drilling 63 holes in the reefs. In the eight years since plans for the new base were first announced, the protesters have succeeded in stalling its construction.

“Having experienced the tragic Okinawa battle [during World War II], Okinawans wish for peace,” said Japanese Communist Party national legislator Akamine Seiken, speaking at the site. “It’s a fight that flows together with the world current moving toward peace.”

China: Unions help the jobless

Trade unions should give special help to workers laid off from reorganized state-owned enterprises and from collective enterprises in small cities, and to self-employed people and migrant workers with temporary jobs, Zhang Junjiu, vice chairman of the All-China Federation of Trade Unions, told a conference on re-employment last week in Beijing.

“Trade unions at all levels should include them into professional training, job consulting and other re-employment programs,” Zhang said.

“We should look into and help solve the employment and re-employment problems of these groups, especially in respect to labor contracts, social insurance and workplace safety and health conditions.”

By the end of last year over 2 million laid-off workers had found new jobs after training. The unions are also working to improve vocational training schools, and the national federation is encouraging local unions to provide loans for small business start-ups. Also by the end of 2003, unions had invested 133 million yuan ($16 million) in re-employment programs, China Daily said.

Colombia: Oil workers fired

The ICEM international federation of chemical, energy and mine workers has sent a strong protest to the far-right government of Colombian President Alvaro Uribe for its brutal efforts to break the month-long strike at the national oil company, Ecopetrol.

ICEM General Secretary Fred Higgs told Uribe in a letter that Colombia’s use of “armed military personnel in and around Ecopetrol’s petroleum facilities has escalated the conflict,” making resolution more difficult. Some 100 striking union oil workers have been fired so far. Arrests, death threats and other forms of harassment have been reported against the workers.

The union struck Ecopetrol because of the government’s restructuring of oil reserves and production, with contracts to multinationals rewritten on more favorable terms. The union says this will rob the country of natural resources and is the start of selling off Ecopetrol.

South Africa: YCL to campaign for free education

The Young Communist League of South Africa has announced it will launch a national campaign for free education, together with other youth organizations.

“The YCL is concerned that colleges and universities continue to exclude students on the basis of their ability to pay fees,” said YCL National Secretary Buti Manamela. “This is unacceptable. What does democracy mean if poor people cannot access education?”

The campaign will be a main agenda item at the YCL’s forthcoming national meeting. Other YCL priorities include working to end the National Student Financial Aid program’s punitive practices against poor students who cannot repay their student loans, and finding ways to organize young people into an anti-capitalist struggle through culture, music, education and other youthful activities.

International Notes are compiled by Marilyn Bechtel (mbechtel@pww.org).

HAITI: Police shoot pro-Aristide marchers

Fri, 28 May 2004 03:24:00 +0000

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti – Special Forces units of the Haitian National Police, acting as part of a larger U.S. Marine “peacekeeping” force, killed at least nine Fanmi Lavalas demonstrators here May 18, as U.S. troops stood by and watched. The Lavalas movement is associated with ousted President Jean-Bertrand Aristide.

In one episode, about 6,000 Lavalas demonstrators tried to converge with other marchers near the Champ De Mars for a larger demonstration. The march had been planned well in advance and organizers had written approval from the police to hold it.

As the marchers approached Champ de Mars, a Haitian Special Forces (SWAT) unit appeared out of nowhere and began shooting into the crowd. One demonstrator, Titus Simpton, 23, was killed by a gunshot wound to the head. Simpton was unarmed. The only item in his possession was a portable CD player.

While it is hard to estimate the actual size of the demonstration, figures of 30,000 to 60,000 demonstrators marching in various parts of the city seem credible. Even though witnesses said the demonstrators were angry, there were no reports of rock-throwing or other violent acts that would have provoked the shooting.

Eyewitnesses said the U.S. Marines seemed to be coordinating the carnage, and stood by with heavy artillery in case the population tried to stop the killers.

Later reports indicate that the U.S. Marines began further reprisals against Lavalas supporters once darkness descended on Port-au-Prince.

– Haiti Information Project

Parliamentary elections called in Canada

Fri, 28 May 2004 03:15:00 +0000

VANCOUVER, Canada – On May 23 Canadian Prime Minister Paul Martin called new elections for June 28. While eight parties are competing, polls show the Liberal and Conservative parties as frontrunners.

Liberal Party leader Martin promises to maintain and improve Canada’s public health care system and social safety net if re-elected.

Steven Harper’s Conservative Party promises a 25 percent tax cut for middle-income citizens and corporations and an increase in spending on health care and defense.

Martin challenges Harper’s commitment to social programs, saying that tax cuts would undermine the federal government’s ability to maintain health care and social services.

He points out that Harper has advocated greater private sector involvement in health care, something that would undermine Canada’s socialized system.

The Quebec-based nationalist Bloc Quebecois – the third largest party in Parliament – is campaigning to maintain its presence in Ottawa to safeguard Quebec’s interests.

On the left, the New Democratic Party (NDP), led by charismatic leader Jack Layton, is calling for more social spending, protection of public health care against privatization, stronger environmental measures, the introduction of proportional representation and opposition to Canadian involvement in the U.S.-sponsored anti-missile shield.

Layton has been able to raise the party standing in the polls from 9 percent to 17 percent.

The Communist Party (CPC) is running 50 candidates, campaigning for the election of a progressive majority to Parliament. The CPC is calling for greater social spending, policies to create more employment such as reduction of the workweek, and the implementation of proportional representation.

The Green Party – which regularly receives 4-5 percent in the polls – is calling for tax cuts and the creation of “green” jobs.

The left parties are also taking aim at Martin’s policies. Since the 1990s, the Liberal government – in which Martin played a key role as finance minister – has pursued a right-wing agenda, signing the North American Free Trade Agreement, cutting expenditures for social programs and health care and reducing taxes for the wealthy.

CPC leader Miguel Figueroa charged, “The Martin government represents an even further shift to the right. … The recent budget makes clear that Martin’s government will continue tight fiscal policies, slashing funding and privatizing services, paying down debt while increasing military spending, and cutting corporate taxes – all to the benefit of its wealthy friends and benefactors.”

The author can be reached at tpelzer@sprint.ca.

National Clips

Fri, 28 May 2004 03:10:00 +0000

AUSTIN, Texas: Death penalty foes blast execution

Death penalty opponents blasted Gov. Rick Perry for ignoring a rare recommendation of mercy from the Texas parole board and allowing the lethal injection of a paranoid schizophrenic to go forward.

Kelsey Patterson, a 50-year-old African American man, was put to death on May 18. During his trial for two murders he frequently talked about “remote control devices” and “implants” that controlled him. Patterson fatally shot an oil businessman and his secretary in 1992.

The United Nations Commission on Human Rights has repeatedly passed resolutions against the execution of the mentally ill. Amnesty International, the human rights organization, said in a statement, “The evidence of war crimes committed by U.S. forces in Iraq has left the USA’s claims to be a global human rights champion in tatters … the USA has serious human rights problems at home as well as abroad.”

SEATTLE: March for affordable health care

Washington State Jobs with Justice joined grocery workers, nurses, health care workers, state employees, community allies, and religious groups at a march May 22, led by Rep. Jesse Jackson Jr. (D-Ill.) and Rep. Jim McDermott (D-Wash.), to demand health care and workers’ justice.

Grocery workers have recently made headlines fighting against corporate grocery chains’ efforts to cut back worker health benefits. The United Food and Commercial Workers union contract affects over 25,000 workers here and was originally set to expire on May 2, but is now extended into June.

Union health care workers, who toil hard to provide quality care to patients, also face upcoming contract negotiations. Marchers said the crisis in health care – both cost and lack of coverage – hurts both workers and patients.

OLD BRIDGE, N.J.: Community vs. Omnipoint

Residents here are questioning a proposed plan to build a 130-foot cellular tower. At a May 6 zoning Board of Adjustment meeting, members of the community group, Residents Emerge Against Cell Tower (REACT), had a chance to confront representatives from Omnipoint Communications, Inc. about their plan. Omnipoint cancelled its appearance at the March and April meetings.

If approved, Omnipoint’s cell tower would hold 12 antennas. The company also wants to decrease the zone from 500 ft. to 400 ft. between an unmanned command center and residents’ homes.

Richard Conroy, a radio frequency engineer who testified for the residents, said there are already six cellular towers in the area. REACT President Luis Medeiros said he has never had trouble with his cell phone service. “I get service on Amboy Road, Route 34, Route 516 and the Garden State Parkway. I get service in all areas.”

Another resident, Allesandro Maniscalco, said Omnipoint should revisit two other sites, Nappi and Transport Resource. “Those are available. I don’t know why you don’t look in to them.”

LA PAZ, Calif.: Terminating Huerta? Say, No way!

United Farmworker co-founder Dolores Huerta’s term as member of the University of California Board of Regents expired on March 1. Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger has not yet acted to reappoint her. The UFW has launched a campaign urging her reappointment.

Huerta is the only Latina representative from the San Joaquin Valley and represents low-income populations and people of color. Her experience as a national leader on labor, civil rights, immigrant rights and women’s issues makes her contribution unique, the UFW said.

Urge Schwarzenegger to reappoint Huerta. Phone: (916) 445-2841; fax: (916) 445-4633; or e-mail: governor@governor.ca.gov.

CHICAGO: Equal rights, equal marriage

Part celebration, part demonstration, Equal Marriage NOW! held a rally May 17 to celebrate the first same-sex marriage licenses issued in Massachusetts, while demanding licenses for same sex couples in Cook County.

Outside City Hall, Scott LaBoda, of Equal Marriage NOW, read from the list of over 1,000 benefits accrued by married, heterosexual couples but denied homosexual couples. “Because lesbians and gay men cannot marry, they have no right to hospital visitation rights, sick leave and bereavement leave, and access to health insurance and pension,” he said.

The demonstrators, led by Michelle Baladad and Jennifer Widd of Skokie, Ill., filed into the Cook County Clerk’s Office. Widd and Baladad presented their $30 application fee and identification for a marriage license. The couple was denied an application. The 75-plus demonstrators refused to leave, chanting, “Marry us or marry no one.”

Protestors sat down and told personal stories on marriage, sang songs, and even ordered a pizza until the 5 p.m. closing time.

Protest organizer Sherry Wolf said, “Today is a success. Although we did not receive marriage licenses, no one in Cook County did either.” For more information: www.equalmarriagenow.org.

HUDSON, N.Y.: Suspensions rooted in racism?

Parents of a local middle school here are concerned about an alarming rate of student suspensions, worried they might be rooted in racism. Parents say that for every little infraction a student makes there comes a heavy suspension. The numbers are staggering. There were 200 suspensions last year.

According to the parents’ research, the suspended students are disproportionately Black. This raises the question of whether race has something to do with it. They submitted their concerns to the state education commissioner.

Terrie Albano (talbano@pww.org) compiled this week’s clips. Matt Helme from New Jersey and Blake Wilkinson from Chicago contributed.

100 days and counting: N. Calif. grocery workers ready for action

Fri, 28 May 2004 03:04:00 +0000

PLEASANTON, Calif. – Hundreds of workers from Safeway and other area grocery chains filled the space in front of Safeway’s corporate headquarters here with a sea of bright yellow T-shirts May 20, giving a resounding welcome to Safeway CEO Steve Burd and other company bigwigs at their shareholders’ meeting.

The workers, who stood in solidarity with their Southern California sisters and brothers during their recent 138-day strike, are gearing up for the Sept. 11 expiration of their contract covering 30,000 grocery workers. As in most recent labor actions, health care is the crucial issue.

Speakers for the United Food and Commercial Workers union emphasized that the workers who built Safeway and other grocery giants are fighting not only for themselves, but for the retirees and the workers of the future. Retirees joined members of the youth organizing committee on the platform, to resounding applause.

UFCW leader Jim Grogan, in charge of mobilizing the fightback in Northern California, warned that if the companies make the same demands in this area as they did in Southern California, the union will call for a boycott.

The support of the entire Bay Area labor movement and key community allies was shown by the participation of Judy Goff and John Dalrymple, heads of the Alameda County and Contra Costa County Central Labor Councils, along with the Rev. Phil Lawson of the Northern California Interreligious Conference and the Northern California Council of Churches.

“I believe Steve Burd has a vision – to eliminate health care from the workplace,” said Goff. “It doesn’t matter that you worked for it and won it in negotiations. Steve Burd is joining with the Wal-Marts of the world, and workers say No!” she declared.

Pointing out that millions of nonunion workers in California lack any health coverage, Dalrymple said, “We have to take this as a struggle for every working family, union and nonunion.” Both stressed the importance of this year’s ballot-box fight to save SB 2, requiring employers of 50 or more workers to provide health coverage, from a corporate-inspired effort to overturn it.

Said Lawson: “Nothing gives more power to your life than when you come together for an act of justice. We need to make this nation understand that health care is a human right. It is not optional, not negotiable.”

After the rally the workers continued to pound their message home, as the sea of yellow shirts morphed into a mass picket line outside the shareholders’ meeting place.

The author can be reached at mbechtel@pww.org.

Music sampling

Fri, 21 May 2004 06:00:00 +0000

Music reviews

My Favorite Distraction

Coral Egan (Justin Time, 2004)

“My Favorite Distraction” is another strong effort by Canadian singer Coral Egan. Like her previous release, “Path of Least Resistance,” this talented performer displays a wide musical repertoire. Egan’s “I Don’t Think So” pays homage to Southern blues while “My Favorite Distraction” is dance, edged funk. “Lullaby Life” is a beautiful ambient edged tune. Egan, no flash in the pan, produces enduring music.

Venceremos

Angel Parra, et. al. (Last Call, 2003)

This CD pays homage to the great former socialist president of Chile, Salvador Allende, who died defending his government from a U.S.-backed military coup on Sept. 11, 1973. Angel Parra and other artists perform various well-crafted troba songs honoring Allende. Recordings of Allende’s radio speeches that he made on the day of the coup, including his last words, are sprinkled between the songs.

Experience

World Saxophone Quartet (Justin Time, 2004)

This is no ordinary jazz release. The World Saxophone Quartet has produced a CD of Jimi Hendrix covers with no vocals or electric guitars, just saxophones, trombone, violin, bass guitar and drums. Despite the differences between jazz and rock, the Saxophone Quartet captures the power and energy of Hendrix’s music.

– Tim Pelzer (tpelzer@sprint.ca)

Puncturing the myths of the New Economy

Fri, 21 May 2004 05:53:00 +0000

Book review

After the New Economy By Doug Henwood New Press, 2003, Hardcover 269 pp., $24.95

During the 1990s, conventional wisdom said that the old rules of capitalism no longer applied. The New Economy made recession a thing of the past, free markets would make us wealthy, and only those refusing to be flexible team players would be left behind. But the bubble burst, a nasty recession followed, and the New Economy came in for reassessment.

Unfortunately, much of the reassessment, according to Doug Henwood, author of “After the New Economy,” treated it as “a mix of collective folly and outright criminality – never as something emerging from the innards of the American economic machinery.” Furthermore, despite its demise, many of the myths that grew and sustained the New Economy continue to be influential.

Henwood’s book is an excellent deconstruction of these myths. One of the dominant myths held that the New Economy transcended the material production of things. George Gilder, author and New Economy booster, celebrated the “overthrow of matter” made possible computers and bandwidth. Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan chimed in with his agreement.

But as Henwood, editor of The Left Business Observer, notes, “[D]iscourses like Gilder’s and Greenspan’s typically forget that their miraculously weightless blips depend on a vast infrastructure of computers and cabling,” and that if the production of things had become so insignificant, “would we really have to worry about global warming?”

Another popular myth is that the New Economy revolutionized work. According to the experts, we accelerated productivity by working smarter instead of harder, making our lives at work and away from work better. But the data Henwood presents tells a different story. Life and work are only better if by “better” you mean that we work longer and harder for less pay.

In 2001 the average manufacturing worker had to work 81 weeks to earn a median family income. In 1947, it took the same worker 62 weeks to do the same. Furthermore, U.S. manufacturing and service workers work more hours per year than our Western European counterparts. But if we’re working harder, then we should be getting our just rewards.

According to Henwood, however, the only ones benefiting from our hard work are the wealthy. According to the U.S. government, adjusted wages have declined since 1973, but the wealth of the wealthiest increased by 496 percent.

“After the New Economy” isn’t a theoretical work, but it raises one theoretical question: Does the revolution in communications and the use of computers, one of the most important features of the New Economy, represent a qualitative change in the means of production?

Henwood persuasively argues that it doesn’t. Most jobs created by the New Economy were old economy service jobs (truck drivers, retail sales persons, and office clerks) or jobs created by the “commodification” of domestic work (fast food workers and home health care aides). Furthermore, the substantial productivity increases were confined to specific sectors of the economy.

While productivity increased substantially in the manufacturing of high tech equipment, it remained flat in other manufacturing sectors. Even computer-heavy sectors such as finance, real estate, and insurance lagged in productivity increases.

Henwood also observes that the Wal-Mart effect is responsible for much of the New Economy’s productivity gains. Many companies are following Wal-Mart’s example by squeezing more out of their workers, making them work off clock, paying regular wages for overtime work, and monitoring every aspect of employees’ time on the job.

Henwood’s strength is his ability to transform dry economic data into a clear and lively critique of capitalism. He also applies a level of rigor absent among New Economy boosters and some of their critics.

Henwood’s prose style is nimble, but at times he gets sidetracked by his own nimbleness. For example, his chapter on finance meanders into the pop culture of the bull market and the rise to stardom of CNBC’s on-air financial analyst Maria Bartiromo.

Henwood questions the relevancy of this side trip but can’t resist taking it. He should have listened to his inner editor. He also could have done a better job of organizing his material.

The book consists of five stand-alone chapters, Novelty, Work, Income, Globalization, and Finance, plus an introduction and conclusion. What’s lacking is a unified theme. These criticisms don’t diminish Henwood’s accomplishments. He demystifies the hokum of the New Economy, showing it to be little more than a manic stage of a typical capitalist boom bust cycle. The main thing that distinguishes the New Economy from the old is that bosses used laptops and cell phones to impose their imperative to maximize profits on the rest of us.

The author can be reached at pww@pww.org.

Schoolhouse to jailhouse

Fri, 21 May 2004 04:42:00 +0000

Opinion

Fourteen-year-old Ricky was arrested by school police one Halloween and charged with a second-degree felony: “throwing a deadly missile.” While this sounds serious, Ricky’s “deadly missile” wasn’t made with dynamite or biotoxins, nor did it contain gunpowder or dangerous chemicals. That Halloween, instead of trick-or-treating with friends, Ricky found himself cuffed, read his rights, and led away for carrying an egg in his pocket. That Halloween the real trick was that school officials were ready to transform a moment of juvenile mischief into a felony conviction that could haunt Ricky for the rest of his life. Ricky had just been derailed from the schoolhouse to the jailhouse.

Ricky’s story is not unique.

In Palm Beach County, Fla., a six year-old student was arrested for trespassing on school property while walking through the school yard on his way home. In Indianola, Miss., elementary school students have been arrested and taken to the local jail for talking during assembly. In New Hampshire, a young student was charged for simply pushing a peer in the schoolyard.

This rigid, unthinking approach has reached the point of being ludicrous. Students are being arrested and placed in the juvenile justice system for misbehavior that previously would have merited nothing more than a reprimand, detention or, at most, a suspension.

Advancement Project, a policy and legal action organization, recently released “Derailed: The Schoolhouse to Jailhouse Track,” a first-of-its-kind report that looks at how zero-tolerance policies are derailing students from an academic track into the juvenile justice system.

The report documents dramatic increases in student arrests from across the country. For example, there was a 300 percent jump in student arrests between 1999 and 2001 in Miami-Dade Public Schools. In other districts, the numbers of arrests were staggering as well. In 2001, arrests in the Houston Independent School District and Baltimore City Public Schools totaled 1,959 and 845, respectively. In Palm Beach County, Fla., school police made 1,287 arrests and there were 1,895 student arrests in Philadelphia during the 2001 school year. A majority of these arrests were for disorderly conduct, schoolyard scuffles and acts so petty that they are categorized as “miscellaneous.”

This rush to punish and incarcerate youth for trivial acts is the result of a spike in juvenile crime during the 1980s and mid-90s and highly publicized incidents which led to the “superpredator” theory. This theory suggested that our country faced the emergence of a generation of young, remorseless killers. Lawmakers responded fiercely, instituting “zero tolerance” policies in the educational realm and making draconian changes to juvenile criminal law, including creating broad definitions of what constitutes criminal behavior. Policies that were ill-conceived from the outset have become a fixture in our schools and in the juvenile justice system.

The truth is – juvenile violence and school violence, in particular, are on the decline. Yet, society has labeled and mistreated this generation of youth at great expense.

The criminalization of children by their schools can leave them with no education and no future. Students face the emotional trauma, embarrassment and stigma of being handcuffed and taken away from school, and later face a number of consequences such as strict, “no-slip-up” probation and juvenile detention facilities. Once released, students are often excluded from their schools or are re-admitted to face the same staff that participated in the original prosecution of the student. Many never return to school. Once in the system and saddled with a criminal record, they rarely escape with their dignity and future intact.

Students who engage in truly criminal behavior such as murder, serious violence, or the sale or possession of illicit drugs, should be subjected to criminal charges – as they were even before zero tolerance became the watchword. However, students should not be subject to the serious consequences that are sometimes engendered by nonsensical practices by school officials.

Zero tolerance and its outgrowth – overzealous arrests of students for minor conduct – are a cure in search of a disease. Schools were, and remain today, the safest places for children. The unnecessary, often ridiculous, criminalization of students is a runaway train that the Bush administration’s “No Child Left Behind” policy fails to stop. Ultimately, derailing children from an academic track to a prison track creates a lose-lose situation for us all.

Judith Browne is senior attorney with the Advancement Project, www.advancementproject.org. This article is reprinted, with permission, from the project’s web site.

A brutal prison culture

Fri, 21 May 2004 04:34:00 +0000

Opinion

We have all seen the Abu Ghraib pictures, and steeled ourselves for worse to come. The brass are trying to fob this off as an aberration created by a few sadistic guards. Is this so?

Control over the prisoners was placed in the hands of a shadowy mix of military intelligence, “civilian contractors” and the CIA. The CIA has never been called to account for decades of mayhem and mass murder. In Vietnam, the CIA organized the murder of thousands of civilians thought to be against the United States (Operation Phoenix). In Latin America, the CIA trained many a local “interrogation expert” in the refinements of torture and degradation.

The civilian contractors are often adventurers hired to do the dirty work precisely because it is easier for them to avoid accountability for crimes they commit. For example, the civilian contractor employees in Iraq include many former members of South Africa’s apartheid-era death and torture apparatus, including the notorious “Koevoet” (crowbar) unit, which committed some of the worst crimes against the South African people.

But what about those members of the Abu Ghraib team who came from the U.S. criminal justice system? This is no source of comfort. The evil methods of “softening up” prisoners for interrogation (or for easier control) are widespread in the United States and in some places atrocities like those in Abu Ghraib, and worse, are standard practices.

In Illinois where I live, hardly a month goes by without a new scandal about such abuses. The best known is the saga of Jon Burge, a police commander who, through the 1980s and into the 90s, made a regular practice of torturing African-American prisoners in his South Side Chicago police station, mostly to get them to confess. Electroshock (applied to genitals, ear lobes, etc.), suffocation and near drowning were preferred because they left fewer signs on the body. Burge was fired after the scandal erupted, but was never prosecuted. Currently, a special prosecutor is investigating the Burge case. In 2002, former Illinois Gov. George Ryan released some of Burge’s victims from death row and put a moratorium on the death penalty.

Yet Burge could not have acted alone. His own and his subordinates’ activities in what came to be known as “the house of screams” were too well known. Prosecutors must surely have realized that they were presenting cases based on confessions extracted by torture. Implicated in this prosecutorial complicity are then-Cook County State’s Attorney Richard M. Daley, now the mayor of Chicago, and present-day State’s Attorney Richard Devine, who then served under Daley.

Some writers have compared the U.S. sexual humiliation of prisoners in Iraq with Maricopa County, Ariz., where Sheriff Joe Arpaio’s made male prisoners parade around in pink female underwear. The person selected by Attorney General John Ashcroft to train prison guards in Iraq, Lane McCotter, was pushed out of his position as head of the Utah prison system in 1997 because of scandalously brutal conditions under his watch, which led to the death of a mentally ill prisoner who had been chained up naked for 16 hours. It is simply not believable that Ashcroft and others in the Bush administration did not know about McCotter’s background. Anyone who is up for an important government position these days is very carefully screened by the FBI. The Bush administration must not have cared, or perhaps they saw the brutality in McCotter’s resume as a “plus.”

Two of the worst abusers cited in the Abu Ghraib news reports had a corrections background. One, Spec. Charles Graner, worked at the Greene State Prison in Waynesburg, Pa., a notorious hellhole (where Mumia Abu Jamal is on death row).

“Lockdown America: Police and Prisons in the Age of Crisis” (Verso, 1999) by Christian Parenti depicts what may happen when you put stateside corrections officers in control of prisoners in a foreign country. He shows that prison authorities are often complicit in creating a prison culture that encourages homosexual rape (prisoner on prisoner), heterosexual rape (mostly male guards raping female prisoners), violent racial conflict and other forms of extreme brutality. Parenti and many others who have studied the situation conclude that this behavior is tolerated and even encouraged by prison authorities because it makes prisoners easier to control.

In one case cited by Parenti, California prison officials deliberately made use of a particularly vicious individual nicknamed the “Bootie Bandit” to control rebellious young male prisoners by raping them into submissiveness. The Bootie Bandit did not have to go looking for victims. Prison guards delivered them to his cell, and actually rewarded him for raping these men.

Although these things go on all the time in U.S. prisons, there is not nearly the public outcry about them that there has been concerning Abu Ghraib. What happened at Abu Ghraib constitutes war crimes. Surely what happens every day at the hands of police and prison authorities in the United States also are crimes against humanity, nothing less, and must be treated as such.

Emile Schepers is an activist in Chicago. He can be reached at pww@pww.org.

Good public policy would put jobs before profits

Fri, 21 May 2004 04:26:00 +0000

Opinion

Allan Greenspan, Federal Reserve Board chair, has been talking to the U.S. Congress. Once more he has been explaining what the best ways are for U.S. capitalists to raise profits to higher levels. Profits are rising so high now that Wall Streeters describe them as “fabulous.” They say these profits can be maintained through more technology and higher productivity.

Higher productivity, they hope, will also help put off the day when the Federal Reserve Board might find it necessary to raise interest rates and thereby slow down economic growth. Slowing down economic growth, of course, means slowing down job growth. But then Greenspan isn’t speaking about the jobs crisis. He’s speaking about avoiding a profits crisis.

Even though the Federal Reserve Board has not raised interest rates, its constant utterances about the potential need to raise rates have already caused rates to rise sharply. He has let the fox get into the chicken coop.

U.S. finance capital is already squeezing every drop of blood from working people, who are forced to live in a credit-card economy.

Capitalism as a system can only move in one direction – toward the sphere that produces the highest rate of profit. Capitalists have but one aim – to make the highest rate of return on their investments. Greenspan’s interest rate chatter is helping them do it.

But what if this “public servant” were to speak in defense of the interests of the whole people, not just the corporations? If he did, this is what he might have said to Congress:

“It would be good public policy – good for business and good for the working people – if Congress were committed to a program of providing a job at livable wages for every worker who is ready, willing and able to work.

“Our country needs an overhaul, land, sea and air. Our health care, education and transportation systems are in disrepair.

“You have the power and authority to enact such a program. It would create new mass purchasing power. And, new sorely needed tax revenues for state and local budgets.”

Needless to say, Mr. Greenspan did not advocate this logical program because he isn’t answerable to the people. But Congress is. The members of Congress who listened to Greenspan are answerable to the voters. Yet they didn’t ask Greenspan if he thought that kind of program could better serve the nation.

However, if we are ever going to create meaningful numbers of jobs, Congress must adopt such a program – if not this war-spending Congress, then the new one we elect Nov. 2.

It will take every bit of energy and resources that labor and its allies can bring to bear to elect a responsive Congress and president. That’s the priority now.

It will be that new-found strength that will give labor a real voice in renegotiating trade agreements so that ideas such as Rep. Dick Gephardt’s, for an international minimum wage and safety measures, become part of the trade deals.

Pat Barile is a member of the National Board of the Communist Party USA. He can be reached at pbarile@cpusa.org.