People Before Profit blog

Political suicide

Fri, 27 May 2005 06:59:00 +0000

More about the Communist Party’s draft program

The following are reader responses to “Upholding Theoretical Foundations”(Tillow, Godwin, Kenny) which appeared in this column in our 5/14-20 issue.

My club had just finished going door-to-door with the AFL-CIO petition to save Social Security and giving out PWWs when I read “Upholding Theoretical Foundations.”

Too often, during our convention review of work and in projecting direction for the coming period, we fall into a “we’re doing it right, we just need to be bigger” mode. Such an uncritical approach does little to hone our tactics, strategy and theory. “Upholding Theoretical Foundations” is not in that mode. Unfortunately, I found it wildly off the mark.

It sets up a straw man and proceeds to pillory it.

The authors want the CPUSA to project “advanced ideas” and move “beyond a defensive posture and draw masses to the idea of socialism.”

They claim the strategy outlined in Sam Webb’s comments (PWW 4/16-22) “appear to reflect a retreat from the theoretical foundations of communist activism.”

However, Webb explains the basis in communist experience for the party’s anti-Bush-administration strategy. He states that the draft program “singles out the Bush administration as the main obstacle to social progress, and the struggle against it as the main form of the class struggle at this moment.” He cites Lenin’s conclusions that “the struggle for socialism goes through different stages and phases during which the configuration of contending class and social forces changes, requiring, in turn, new strategic policies to match the new alignment of political forces and the new level of political consciousness of tens of millions.”

Tillow, Godwin and Kenny proceed to confuse the situation in the U.S. with the conditions faced by Venezuela and Cuba. The authors appear ready to foist a one-size-fits-all strategy on these countries as well.

Who’s retreating? Those who would function, strategically and otherwise, as if a revolutionary moment is upon us would lead us into a self-satisfied sectarian retreat. Such an approach is in a historical and harmful to the working class and the CPUSA. Up in my neck of the woods, it would be political suicide.

Nick Bart is an environmental activist in Connecticut.

Letters

Fri, 27 May 2005 06:54:00 +0000

Mark Twain and Jonathan Swift move over…

Alberta’s new oil reserves are huge. Does this mean Bush will invade Canada next?

When I opened up the San Francisco Chronicle, this was the headline: “Canadian oil sands — vast reserves second only to Saudi Arabia.” Then there was a graph. Apparently, Saudi Arabia has 259 billion barrels of oil in reserve, Canada has 180 billion barrels and Iraq only has 113 billion barrels. Shhhhh! Don’t tell Dubya! He’ll be invading Canada within the week and we all know what this means: Shock and Awe will be coming to Ottawa.

British Columbia will soon have its own Abu Ghraib.

Halliburton will get another $200 billion in contracts, we will all learn to live in terror of infidel “maple-leaf-heads” and Americans will have to go without cheap prescription drugs.

All too soon, resistence cells will be forming in Quebec while suicide bombers attack the U.S. green zone in Toronto. And Laura will soon be flying in to teach Nova Scotians how to read.

Jane Stillwater

Via e-mail

Media half-truths on Social Security

It is amazing how often the capitalist media get away with half-truths — such as the canard that the younger generation now working will have to pay in such a burden of money to finance Social Security.

But if there were even 1 million more decent jobs, the Social Security contribution from these workers would add about $l.5 billion per year to the Social Security funds. Not to mention 2 million jobs, all of which are needed by the unemployed and part-time workers.

So an important part of the fight for Social Security is the fight for decent jobs. But did you ever see that in the capitalist press?

Betty Smith

Astoria NY

‘Downfall’ disappointment

With regard to your review of the film “Downfall” (PWW 5/5-13): There were no “innocents” in that hell-hole-bunker as dishonestly depicted in the movie. There were no beatific angels fighting heroically and then escaping the Russian “invader” unscathed on bicycles into the tranquil countryside with gentle smiles of relief on their wide-eyed faces. With no context against which to comprehend what we are seeing, we are left with a dangerously empty and deceptive work: great acting and special effects, but to what purpose?

The Nazis hijacked the word “socialism” in an era when almost the entire German working class was revolutionary. Now, with contemporary audiences rendered by the media ignorant of the real history of that period, what is the effect of the fascist false use of the word “socialist” — guilt by association, suspicion and hostility, perhaps? Fascist pathology and egoism in the actual world was a tool behind which were the corporate cartel directors and paymasters.

In this seductive film, we see the Nazis’ (and the director’s) infatuation with style and the Hollywoodization of the character of Hitler’s secretary.

The SS were the specially trained instruments of the most merciless oppression. To show that there were a few humane and decent individuals among them is misleading and dishonest.

Sympathetic and confused reviews of works such as this film have no place in the People’s Weekly World.

A reader

Brooklyn NY

Reviewer Jim Lane replies: I think the writer and I would agree on the horrors of fascism and the responsibility of the Nazis. We would probably also agree that we should do everything we can to understand what happened so that we can do our very best to prevent its recurrence, which now seems much more likely than it did a few years ago. We seem to disagree on whether or not this film contributes to the understanding needed. I think it does.

Remember FDR, protect Social Security

This letter, by a PWW reader, appeared in the Riverdale Press, a local Bronx newspaper.

Franklin Delano Roosevelt died 60 years ago on April 12, 1945. Since the Bush administration is going all-out in its privatizing plans to kill Social Security as we know it, remembering FDR in this anniversary year of his death is most appropriate.

FDR, the creator of Social Security, had the foresight at its inception in 1935 to protect it with these fighting words: “Those taxes were never a matter of economics. They are politics all the way through. We put those payroll contributions in there so as to give the contributors a legal, moral and political right to collect their pensions...With those taxes in there, no damn politician can ever scrap the Social Security System.”

Amen

Edna Farkas

Bronx NY

Parallels between ‘war on terror,’ Iraq and Vietnam

Both the Johnson and Nixon administrations used the lie that if Vietnam fell to the communists, it would trigger the ‘domino theory’ where all of Southeast Asia would fall like dominoes to communism. That was their first big lie to rationalize the war.

The Bush administration used the big lie that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction. The top circles of American imperialism had Bush and his criminal cohorts seek to conquer Iraq for its oil and U.S. domination of the Middle East.

Unfortunately, the majority of the American commercial press echoes the wishes of the top rulers in American society.

Seymour Hirsch exposed the torture by the American military in the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq, and at Guantanamo, Cuba. White House counsel, now Attorney General, Alberto Gonzales twisted the meaning of torture as outlined in the Geneva Conventions. Gonzales said that even if one interpreted the maltreatment as torture it was legal since these men were not prisoners of war but detainees and therefore the Geneva Conventions did not apply.

But nowhere did the punishment go higher than the soldiers who committed these reprehensible acts.

Then there are more lies like the story about American G.I. Pat Tillman, a former football player, stationed in Afghanistan. As the Pentagon’s story went, he fought against the enemy and was killed by Taliban forces but saved his company from capture.

This story was a huge lie. Tillman was shot and killed by his own soldiers — “friendly fire.”

The Pentagon also lied in the case of Private Jessica Lynch.

There are many other instances of lying by the military and the entire Bush administration. It’s their policy.

Until the American people learn the truth, we will be held captive to such administrations.

John Gilman

Milwaukee WI

Editorial: Debatable deal

Fri, 27 May 2005 06:51:00 +0000

The recent deal between 14 Democrats and Republicans on the filibuster and judicial nominees leaves much to be desired. Democrats agreed not to block judges appointed by the administration except in “extraordinary circumstances,” while, in exchange, the Republican ultra-right won’t invoke the so-called “nuclear option” — changing Senate rules to end the filibuster.

In fact, the filibuster has only been used in “extraordinary circumstances” to block a handful of the most outrageous extremist Bush nominees —of more than 200 judicial nominations Bush sent to the Senate, only 10 were held up. In contrast, Republicans blocked more than 60 appointments made by Bill Clinton.

The deal has been attacked by progressive groups who are rightly concerned about protecting rights of workers, women, gays and lesbians, environmental protections, civil liberties, and our very democracy — all endangered by the extreme “activist” judges George W. Bush is trying to appoint.

On the other hand, some on the ultra-right are fuming over the deal. GOP leaders apparently backed off from this particular showdown with an eye on public opinion, with polls showing Americans opposed changing historic rules of the Senate aimed at preventing autocratic rule. The deal also reflects concern among some more reality-based Republicans that their party is going over the top in its far-right extremism — evidenced in the unprecedented move by Ohio GOP Sen. George Voinovich, who circulated a letter to his Republican colleagues urging them to vote “no” on Bush’s nomination of “make the facts fit our policy” Bolton the bully.

Democratic Sen. Robert Byrd said of the Senate deal, “The Republic has been saved.” That is not the case — our democracy is still in grave danger. The Senate “compromise” will lead to the installation of a number of the worst of these ultra-right judges — Priscilla Owen to start with. But some of Bush’s dangerous nominees can be stopped. We did it in 1987 with Robert Bork. We can do it again.

More than ever, mass grassroots pressure is necessary to defeat the ultra-right attempt to steal the judiciary branch, and eventually to defeat the far-right altogether. Only then will “the Republic be saved.”

Letters

Fri, 20 May 2005 04:47:00 +0000

Swords into ploughshares

Aside from owning the means of production, what can be done to provide employment for the millions of unemployed and underemployed — victims of corporate globalization and this frantic hunt for the lowest wages possible? One possibility would be to transfer the monies destined for the military back to domestic spending to repair and improve our aging and crumbling infrastructure.

This administration is spending hundreds of billions on high-tech weapons systems that will not make this country any safer, but surely will enrich those who profit from the production of war materials.

Who among us can honestly look in the mirror and not say that spending $256 billion — and counting — for the next generation of fighter aircraft, when the one it is due to replace is superior, is nothing but a government giveaway of the people’s money to the armament manufacturers?

Nor will multi-billion-dollar cruisers, destroyers or aircraft carriers make our country more secure. We already have 13 carrier groups and are currently building number 14 to be named the G.H.W. Bush. All in the name of fighting terrorism? Although these military contracts do create jobs, they are strategically spread in order to maintain congressional support. The jobs are a small fraction of what would be created if the money were spent for domestic needs. Many studies have shown that dollar for dollar domestic spending creates many more jobs than does military spending.

William Mackovich

Chicago IL

When will it end?

Stories about how the base closure in Clovis, N.M., would hit their workers hard have prompted many thoughts. Why hasn’t the media given similar importance to the outrageous court approval to terminate pension obligations of United Airlines and US Airways workers? Both involve huge suffering for thousands of employees, some of whom have devoted many years to their jobs.

New Mexico’s heavy economic reliance on the military has not kept it from being one of the poorest states with the lowest overall personal incomes, education statistics, etc. We have to think in terms of peacetime conversion to uplift New Mexico’s prospects.

As for the airline workers, United is only the beginning of a domino trend. If the airline industry succeeds in cheating its employees while paying its CEOs obscene salaries and bonuses, with the government’s complicity, workers will inevitably fight back just to survive.

The government and big industry are determined to put all their obligations on the backs of the American working people. It was public taxes that bailed out Chrysler and the savings & loan debacles. When will it end?

Rose Shaw

Rio Rancho NM

A wonderful gift

I recently received a tax refund from federal and state income taxes. I gave that amount to the “Building for the Future” capital campaign. I wonder if other people would be willing to do likewise?

Angie Lebowitz

New York NY

Editor’s note: If more readers are interested in this exciting campaign you can contact: Chelsea Fund for Education at (646) 437-5318 or the Workers Education Society at (773) 446-9925.

Scoundrel time

The outrageous behavior and atrocious rhetoric of Tom DeLay and Bill Frist are tantamount to treason, and put our judicial system and the safety of fair-minded judges at terrific risk. These “leaders” represent the real danger to this country.

They are determined to destroy the filibuster, forever ending fair debate. Extremist judges will be easily installed on the U.S. Supreme Court and appeals courts and will turn the clock back to pre-1937 when crucial protections for minorities, women, the elderly, and factory and farm workers were nonexistent! There was also no minimum wage, no environmental protection and the list goes on!

DeLay and Frist should be exposed for the outlaws they are and ejected from our government.

We need courageous, ethical Republican senators to take a stand now! Brave individuals who will help preserve the filibuster, and thus our Constitution — otherwise we are in grave danger of losing democracy as we know it.

Kelly Taylor

New York NY

Working class pride

Submitted is a suggested PWW masthead, “Published in Chicago: The city that gave the world May Day.”

Bill Bunge

Montréal, Canada

More on Communist Party

I distribute this great paper door to door, sometimes in 100-degree weather, and speak to people about our newspaper. The average person I talk to has only negative things he or she has been told about communists. Unfortunately, there is little in the PWW to counteract their understanding of the Communist Party.

I suggest the PWW print in a box on page 2 of every issue the following, taken from the draft program of the Communist Party:

“The Communist Party fights the abuses of the capitalist class by organizing at the grassroots and in broad coalitions for immediate needs. We expose the capitalist system as the root cause of poverty, racism, war and human suffering and point the way to socialism as a fundamental solution. Our vision is one of Bill of Rights Socialism, where people and nature come before profit.”

Karl Dennis

Tucson AZ

Italian elections

Here is some good news from Italy. The April 3-4 election was a big victory of the center-left and left-wing parties in some regions.

The biggest victory was in Puglia in south Italy. Communist Nichi Vendola won with more than 1 million votes. He is also Roman Catholic and gay. There was a center-left victory in the Lazio region — its capital is Rome — with almost 51 percent of the votes, and in Emilia Romagna — its capital is Bologna (always the most red, now even more red) — with almost 63 percent.

I have been reading your newspaper for 25 years. Congratulations to the PWW. It is always more beautiful, the best newspaper to read, and the many new names I see as writers show that the PWW is growing every day.

Here is my donation in memory of my father Giuseppe Righi (1913-1995), a lifetime antifascist, a faithful Communist all his life. Saluto!

Aldo Righi

Repubblica di San Marino, Italy

Labor Update

Fri, 20 May 2005 04:31:00 +0000

Support grows for health care bill

Steelworkers Local 1375 in Warren, Ohio, and International Association of Machinists Local 794 in Albuquerque, N.M., have joined the list of labor organizations calling for the passage of HR 676, the “Medicare for All” act introduced in Congress by Rep. John Conyers Jr. (D-Mich.). Thirty-five labor organizations, including the Coalition of Black Trade Unionists and the Coalition of Labor Union Women, have called for passage of the bill, a universal single-payer health care plan which supporters say would provide Americans all medically necessary care and remove profiteering from the nation’s health care system.

More information on the bill and copies of sample resolutions of support can be found at www.pnhp.org.

Labor on the air

DALLAS — A new tool of struggle for working people has developed thanks to the tireless efforts of local labor editor, Gene Lantz. He has created a new hourly radio program on local FM station KNON 89.3 called “Worker’s Beat,” a show devoted to the issues and struggles working people face both locally and nationally.

The show often plays host to local labor leaders and activists, and it also takes calls from listeners. Listeners can also enjoy a collection of rare labor tunes throughout the lively hour-long show.

KNON broadcasts “Worker’s Beat” every Wednesday at 8:00 a.m. on the local airwaves and all over the world through the web site www.knon.org.

American-Islamic group supports EFCA

The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) formally endorsed the Employee Free Choice Act Feb. 24. The group also agreed to promote its support of this legislation throughout its U.S. chapters and encouraged members to become more involved in workers’ freedom to form unions at the local and state levels.

CAIR is America’s largest Islamic civil liberties group, with regional offices nationwide and in Canada.

Union addresses high cost of housing

NEW YORK (PAI) — Faced with New York’s notoriously high housing costs and city residency requirements for municipal workers, Communications Workers Local 1180 is taking the extra step to help its members find a place to live. It plans to build apartments.

With a 2-bedroom apartment in the Big Apple so expensive that you must earn $40,700 to even look at it, the local created the nonprofit New York Workers Family Housing Corp. Its objective is to get city land in Far Rockaway, Queens, and build 1,500 affordable housing units, a senior center, a community garden and recreation facilities. “We’re not just building housing, we’re creating a community,” says Local 1180 President Arthur Cheliotes, who is also president of the new corporation.

Bush targets FMLA

The Bush administration has sided with businesses in considering the overhaul of the regulations carrying out the Family and Medical Leave Act. FMLA allows eligible workers up to a total of 12 workweeks of unpaid, job-protected leave during any 12-month period for childbirth, medical leave, or the care of an immediate family member with a serious health condition.

FMLA opponents are pushing to change the definition of “serious health condition” to only include leave lasting more than 10 days; the current definition is any condition that requires leave for at least three days for treatment and recovery. Half of all those who have utilized the FMLA have taken leave for less than 10 days.

The proposed changes also include allowing employees to take no less than half days at a time without pay, which would affect employees requiring frequent short treatments, such as prenatal visits.

The administration claims that the changes will help ease the burden on U.S. manufacturing firms.

The FMLA has allowed more than 50 million Americans to benefit from job-protected leave since it was enacted 12 years ago.

Labor Update is compiled by Roberta Wood (rwood@pww.org). Matt Parker, Carolyn Taylor and PAI contributed items to this week’s column.

Prisoner needs medical care

Fri, 20 May 2005 03:46:00 +0000

PHILADELPHIA — Russell “Maroon” Shoats, 61, has been in prison for over 33 years for the death of a policeman in a case known as the “Philly 5.” He is a father, grandfather and model prisoner, with only one minor rule infraction during his imprisonment. Despite his good behavior, he has spent more than 10 of those years in solitary confinement.

“Maroon,” as he is widely known, is a former community activist and founder of the Black Unity Council. He has written for a number of independent newspapers while incarcerated.

He is currently at Pennsylvania’s SCI Greene Prison, 300 miles away from his family and friends in Philadelphia.

Several years ago, Shoats underwent a blood test that revealed an abnormality. He should have received further tests and treatment at that time, but he was not informed of the nature of the test or the results. Several weeks ago, after receiving a similar test, Shoats was told he might have prostate cancer.

The cancer is now at a stage where it might not be treatable. Despite its legal obligation to care for its inmates, the Department of Corrections has failed to give Shoats the medical attention he so desperately needs.

A town meeting to address Shoats’ situation took place on April 25 in West Philadelphia. Petitions were distributed for gathering signatures in the hope that Shoats can not only be moved closer to his family and loved ones, but also receive this possible life-saving treatment.

Phila. MOVE tragedy recalled

Fri, 20 May 2005 03:42:00 +0000

Over 200 MOVE supporters and members gathered May 14 near the site where Philadelphia police dropped a bomb on the group’s row house 20 years ago. Police Commissioner Gregore Sambor ordered the fire department “to let the fire burn.” Eleven MOVE members, including five children, died in the blaze.

Two members who escaped testified that police fired on those who tried to leave the burning house. Sixty-one houses in the block burned to the ground leaving 250 people homeless. Then-Mayor W. Wilson Goode, Philadelphia’s first African American mayor, knew about the police plan to drop the explosive on the house and later apologized. A 1985 investigation report condemned government officials for irresponsibility but no city officials or employees faced criminal charges. Ramona Africa, a victim, was convicted of riot and conspiracy and served 7 years in prison. She sued the city and received a $1.5 million settlement.

“It makes no sense, even today,” said William H. Brown III, the lawyer who chaired the investigation. “Every time I think about it, the angrier I get. There was no reason to drop that bomb.”

FBI agent admits: no case vs. Cuban 5

Fri, 13 May 2005 07:32:00 +0000

There was no evidence the Cuban Five posed a threat to the U.S., the lead FBI investigator in the case has admitted.

In May 1998 Hector Pesquera led the FBI’s efforts in Miami to formulate a criminal case against the five men, who had infiltrated anti-Cuban paramilitary groups in the U.S. The five — Gerardo Hernández, Antonio Guerrero, Ramón Labañino, René González and Fernando González — hoped to warn the Cuban government about terrorist plots against it. The FBI arrested the men in September 1998. They were tried and convicted on various charges, including, in three cases, conspiracy to commit espionage.

In January of this year, two of Pesquera’s friends — one said to be an FBI informant, the other reportedly part of a 1997 campaign of bombings in Havana — interviewed him on Radio Marti, the U.S.-funded station that broadcasts right-wing propaganda to Cuba.

They asked the now-retired Pesquera, “Do you believe that at some moment the security of the United States was in danger or that they had access to some intelligence information that could be valuable to the enemies of the United States?”

“No,” he answered. “For example, in the case of Guerrero, a retrospective study of the information that he had taken was made; the investigation was unable to determine if he had such intelligence information.”

The prosecution apparently never shared this information, favorable to the accused, with his defense team.

The extent to which the prosecution failed to share evidence is unknown. But such a failure could constitute prosecutorial abuse, and could lead an appeals court to invalidate the trial, some legal experts suggest.

After 17 months of solitary confinement and a trial rife with judicial flaws, a federal judge gave the five severe sentences, including life for three of them. At the trial, U.S. military officers and security experts testified that the men had done nothing to harm U.S. military preparedness or security interests.

Pescuera told another interviewer in 2003 that just before the arrests, “others in the Justice Department didn’t want to touch this.” He said then-Attorney General Janet Reno, in particular, was reluctant to arrest the men.

Commenting on the revelations, the Rev. Lucius Walker of Pastors for Peace said, “The world can be thankful that a former FBI official, who was primarily responsible for the arrests, has stated on the record that the Cuban Five posed no threat to the United States. Perhaps this will be an opening for justice for the five anti-terrorists.”

Geoff Bottoms, a leader of the British campaign to free the five Cubans, said, “All along it has been obvious that this was a political trial in which the FBI acted in the interests of the Miami Mafia with the full complicity of Washington.”

“With the appeal judges in Atlanta expected shortly to announce their decision on the case of the five, this further nail in the coffin of the prosecution should bring the day forward when these five Cuban heroes receive justice at last,” he said.

The 11th Circuit Court of Appeals heard defense arguments just over a year ago.

A recent Supreme Court decision in Blakely v. Washington put limits on the power of judges to ignore guidelines set up for matching sentences with defendants’ crimes. The ruling may put the brake on judges who extend sentences on their own, as was the case with the Cuban Five.

In a related development, Cuban National Assembly President Ricardo Alarcón announced March 16 that Cuba’s permanent representative to the UN had delivered a letter on the prisoners’ behalf to UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan. Calling the Cuban men innocent, their trial unfair and their sentences cruel, the letter requested UN intervention to secure visiting rights for the prisoners’ family members.

This article is based on a March 15 report by Jean Guy Allard in Granma Internacional.

'Storm Signals'

Fri, 13 May 2005 07:28:00 +0000

Upon leaving Grenada after a visit during the U.S. invasion and occupation in October 1983, then-Secretary of State George Schultz looked out of his official jet at the lush greenery below and proclaimed, “What a lovely piece of real estate!”

Almost 22 years later this “lovely piece of real estate” is again commanding international attention — this time not because of an invasion by the world’s strongest military power, but because the tiny island nation was left almost barren by one of the most powerful storms ever to cross the Atlantic, Hurricane Ivan.

Hurricane Ivan devastates Grenada

The eye of the category 5 storm passed directly over Grenada on its path to the U.S., Sept. 7, 2004, battering the 133-square-mile island for 12 horrifying hours. The storm left two-thirds of Grenada’s 90,000 people homeless, caused the deaths of 39, and left a recovery price tag of $1 billion, more than twice the country’s annual budget.

Recovery is projected to be very long because the agricultural sector, including bananas and Grenada’s main cash crop, nutmeg, was laid to waste. Nutmeg trees will take between five and 10 years to reach maturity again.

In 1983, the U.S. hastily sought to build a regional coalition to facilitate the invasion and occupation of Grenada after an internal crisis resulted in the death of Prime Minister Maurice Bishop and several others in top leadership. There was no such U.S. initiative to build the necessary international coalition to aid Grenada’s devastated population following Ivan.

The contrast between the U.S. attitude that spurred the invasion and its reaction to the hurricane did not escape keen observers in and outside of Grenada. Unlike the overwhelming might and speed with which the U.S. responded to Grenada’s internal crisis in 1983, the response to Ivan was slow and piecemeal. At first, the U.S. only promised a few thousand dollars in emergency relief. Later, upon Secretary of State Colin Powell’s brief stopover, it pledged $100 million total for Grenada, Jamaica, and Haiti — the three countries most affected by Ivan. It remains to be seen whether the pledge will fully materialize.

Climate change poses growing threat

A distinct feature of international relations has been that industrially developed countries disregard the interests of small nations like Grenada. Because there has been little attention on the part of several U.S. administrations, especially the Bush administration, to scientific evidence associating climate change with global warming, small countries and low-lying coastal areas around the globe are going to remain on the front lines of increasingly volatile climate fluctuations, resulting in more deadly natural disasters.

George W. Bush pulled out of the Kyoto Protocol in 2001 because his administration claims there is no proof that global warming is causing a change in weather patterns. The Kyoto Protocol requires the world’s major polluters to combat global warming by reducing greenhouse gas emissions through 2012. After years of wrangling, a weak and watered-down protocol took effect Feb. 16 without participation of the world’s worst polluter — the U.S.

While there is some debate among scientists on the extent of the impact of global warming, the strongest sentiments suggest that the phenomenon affects us directly with increasingly deadly results. Scientists and environmentalists argue that doing something about global warming will at least stabilize conditions. Doing nothing will doubtlessly maintain the status quo of environmental injustice.

According to NASA and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, 1998 was the hottest year ever, 2002 the second hottest, and the past two decades the hottest since global records were first documented in 1860. “[H]eat waves, ice storms, and floods are but a hint of what future generations may endure if we don’t act now,” warned President Clinton in his State of the Union address in January 1999.

Island nations vulnerable

These issues are most urgent for a category of nations known as Small Island Developing States (SIDS). Scientists predict that warmer climates will trigger more violent storms and cause increased coastal erosion, threatening the very existence of low-lying islands such as Tuvalu in the Pacific and many islands and coastal areas around the world, including the Caribbean.

The next hurricane season is less than half a year away, and islands like Grenada do not know what that season will bring. Worse, many are unprepared. Six months after Ivan, Grenada’s economy remains in shambles, its economic base destroyed, its infrastructure in ruins. According to local doctors, many children still exhibit varying manifestations of post-traumatic stress syndrome.

SIDS like Grenada represent a group of countries vulnerable to both the frequency and intensity of natural disasters. They are approximately 40 islands sprinkled around the world, with two big concentrations in the Caribbean and the Pacific. These are the most vulnerable of developing countries — in political, environmental and economic terms. This vulnerability is even more acute because such natural disasters are on the rise, according to a World Meteorological Organization report issued in Buenos Aires, Argentina, earlier this year.

Even aside from the disastrous South Asian tsunami, 2004 is on record as the most catastrophic year globally, with record numbers of deadly Pacific typhoons, 10 destructive storms in Asia and Japan alone, and back-to-back storms in the Philippines that killed hundreds.

The 2004 hurricane season caused more than $43 billion in damage in the U.S., in Caribbean nations such as Grenada, Jamaica, Cayman Islands, and on Hispaniola island, home to Haiti and the Dominican Republic. In Haiti, as many as 2,000 people perished in mudslides and flooding last September as a result of Hurricane Jeanne.

Organizing for change

Many SIDS (a significant block in the Americas) are beginning to organize to defend their interests. There is international recognition that the adverse effects of climate change are seriously impacting their well-being and, for some, their very survival.

In the recent UN-sponsored meeting of SIDS in Port Louis, Mauritius, off the east coast of Africa, the main demand from the 2,000 participants was for the international community to give “necessary support to all efforts made by Small Island Developing States in their drive towards sustainable development.” The participants called for “greater support in coping with climate change, sea-level rise, and natural and environmental disasters.”

In recognition of the tragedies of the December earthquake and resulting tsunami that devastated so many islands and coastal areas of the Indian Ocean, as well as last year’s hurricane season in the Caribbean and the Pacific, UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan called for a global early warning system to be set up as soon as possible. The Asian tsunami tragedy has brought closer attention to two active underwater volcanoes in the Eastern Caribbean that could cause a similar catastrophe in the Caribbean basin, Central America, and U.S. coastal areas. Coral reefs, mangroves and other natural coastal defenses stressed by pollution and global warming make these areas even more vulnerable.

Unfair trade

Environmental injustice and issues of climate change and sea-level rise are but one aspect of the problems affecting small developing countries. Unfair trade has rendered poor countries at a disadvantage in their ability to prepare for and recover from natural disasters. Grenada and Indonesia — two countries severely affected by the 2004 Caribbean hurricane season and the tsunami disaster, respectively — account for almost 100 percent of the global nutmeg trade. The price of nutmeg has remained low over the past decades, and nutmeg farmers are some of the world’s lowest-paid agricultural workers. Grenada is presently considering whether the nutmeg industry is viable.

Due to their limited population and land resources, SIDS should be on the front line of fair trade and global economic justice struggles. But because of leadership that has yet to fully come to terms with the priority of such national and global questions, many Caribbean SIDS end up being manipulated into trading their votes in international bodies for less relevant issues such as the China/Taiwan question or supporting Japan on international whaling. For example, Japan has been providing economic assistance to seven small island nations (including Grenada) in exchange for pro-whaling votes within groups such as the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species.

Solidarity needed

There is little international solidarity on issues of direct relevance to Caribbean SIDS, such as the World Trade Organization ruling that ended preferential treatment for Caribbean bananas in the European market. U.S. corporate banana interests (particularly the strong U.S. Chiquita lobby) forced the European Union to end this preference and pitted Caribbean growers against their counterparts in Central America, where U.S. transnational corporations have market control. The banana industry feeds most families in the Caribbean islands of Dominica, St. Vincent and St. Lucia.

Among the world’s developing nations, SIDS have special disadvantages. Like others, they are being hampered by capitalist globalization but they are also constrained by their limited size and population. Many SIDS find their quests for self-determination in trade or environmental protection thwarted as their interests come into conflict with those of developed countries.

Confronting imperialism

Grenada’s experience of a war with the mighty U.S. exemplifies these limits. After its enormously popular March 13, 1979, revolution, Grenada embarked on a path of self-declared socialist orientation, which ushered in unprecedented economic growth and a qualitative improvement in the living conditions of the average citizen. The revolution instituted many programs that directly benefited the working poor, such as a national literacy program, free education, universal free medical care, maternity leave with pay and laws respecting women’s rights in the workplace. New participatory democratic forms were instituted that allowed for open national debate on the economy and on the national budget. During this period Grenada had its first-ever conference on science and technology, which looked at, among other things, preparation for natural disaster and environmental protection.

This renewal of national spirit propelled Grenada as a self-made model, and the country was a magnet for and an example to Caribbean SIDS. After years of threatening to invade Grenada in order to end purported “communist influence” in the Caribbean, the U.S. exploited an internal power struggle in the Grenadian government and invaded the island in October 1983, resulting in the reversal of the revolution, the death of scores of Grenadians and 24 Cuban internationalist workers who were building the country’s first international airport. Grenadian patriots who perished defending their country are yet to be recognized, but the U.S. erected a monument at the airport for the 19 Americans killed in an operation appropriately dubbed Urgent Fury.

Sustainable growth an urgent challenge

Today, as Grenada continues to slowly rebuild in the wake of Ivan, many people are realizing that sustainable development for SIDS like Grenada is an extremely urgent undertaking. It requires both national and international mobilization of resources to protect the islands’ fragile environments, in order to achieve sustainable development and even to enable the population to survive.

However, these efforts cannot be accomplished without international conventions and regulations to address and redress global environmental, political and economic injustices, and also respect the self-determination of the developing countries, particularly the extremely vulnerable SIDS.

Martin Frazier (mfrazier@pww.org) is a PWW correspondent with a focus on African American/Caribbean/African affairs.

U.S. labor group defies ban on Cuba travel

Fri, 13 May 2005 04:54:00 +0000

The U.S. Treasury Department recently issued a “cease and desist order” to the U.S. – Cuba Labor Exchange because of that organization’s plan to send a delegation to Cuba at the end of April. The group went anyway, despite threatened criminal charges.

In Havana, members of the UAW, SEIU, AFSCME, UNITE HERE, and the Teamsters union, along U.S. peace activists, attended a conference on the FTAA, a gathering that had specifically been put off limits by the Treasury order. The U.S. activists were present May 1 for Cuba’s International Workers’ Day celebration.

The US/Cuba Labor Exchange, founded in 1991, has sent more than 30 delegations to Cuba to learn about Cuba and the role of unions there, plus interact with Cuban workers. The Detroit-based group has also brought Cuban trade unionists to the United States.

On travel to Cuba, the Labor Exchange is not alone. Sen. Max Baucus (D-Mont.) told a Cuba Action Day gathering in Washington, April 27, “We cannot credibly urge freedom for others if we don’t respect our own citizens’ most fundamental right to travel wherever they want.” Two days earlier he joined others to introduce a bipartisan bill (S 894) to repeal the travel ban. The bill has 16 co-sponsors.

The Labor Exchange plans to fight prosecution and will continue “to encourage international discussion, exchange and solidarity between workers in Cuba and the United States.” Pledges and contributions may be sent to: Justice for Cuba Coalition, P.O. Box 39188, Redford, MI 48239. The group’s e-mail address is laborexchange@aol.com.

Letters

Fri, 13 May 2005 04:29:00 +0000

Leaving a haunting legacy

With the dawning awareness that, in many ways, the president and his team are incompetent nincompoops when it comes to foreign policy, it’s easier to comprehend just how badly their efforts have fared in Iraq, currently a political and economic wasteland after several years of U.S. war and occupation.

A recent editorial by an Iraqi journalist at azzaman.com/english describes certain aspects of that country’s present calamitous situation since the widely noted elections some three months ago.

Fatih Abdulsalam writes that in the past few weeks “several cities, including Qaim, Tel Affar, Haqlaniya and Samarra, were attacked with massive military force” and “U.S. troops have turned these entire cities into jails and detention centers.” Of course, this is news to most Americans.

Furthermore, this Iraqi correspondent observes that U.S. troops have “drained these cities’ resources to the extent that the inhabitants no longer have access to the minimum conditions acceptable for a human being. Tens of thousands of families have lost loved ones, and they have no redress for their tragedy.”

According to this account, similar to others, “Iraqis have less access to food, clean water and health care than at anytime before. Whole cities live under strict curfews that may extend for more than 12 hours a day.”

This is the “free Iraq” so often referred to by Bush acolytes. The fact is conditions in Iraq are even worse than before Saddam was ousted. And the war has already been lost in many critical ways, not least of which is that our nation’s honor has been besmirched, our treasury bankrupted and our military prestige badly damaged. The human toll alone will haunt us for generations.

Cord MacGuire Boulder CO

Great job with real news

I am a graduating senior from the University at Buffalo, and I wanted to congratulate you on a great job. I truly enjoy reading your articles, as they “tell it how it is” and not too many newspapers are willing to do so in such a manner.

I especially enjoy the focus on Latin American news stories. I am Salvadorian and I was thoroughly surprised to read about the union leader who had been killed in El Salvador, as El Salvador is sometimes forgotten.

I, however, am writing in response to the book, “Confessions of an Economic Hit Man” by John Perkins. It is truly fascinating — not for what it details, but how it is detailed. The fact that Mr. Perkins was actually in the midst of much of that activity makes the book even more intriguing.

Many times, I have been outraged by an article I have read in your weekly, but it is because of the stance of the current administration and the ever increasing anti-immigrant stance most citizens are taking. It is true, this administration is fueling the issue by utilizing the terrorist scare for its own purposes. I have seen it first-hand here on campus. Of most outrage to me is the “Real ID” question. If this law is not anti-immigrant in nature, then what is it?

Gerry J. Ruiz Buffalo NY

Help Iraqi kids

Hundreds of Iraqi kids injured in the war need your help, not your money. I found this web site while I was trying to find info on radiation sickness from depleted uranium weapons and I urge you to visit and help this group. I plan to open a local chapter here in Atlanta. Rather than griping we can actually do something ourselves without depending on lip service from our congressman. Check it out: www.VeteranOrganDonors.org.

Did you realize 18,000 Iraqi civilians were killed and over 800 of them were kids? So much for “smart bombs.”

Vernon Jensen Via e-mail

Don’t raise retirement age

Back in the late 1970s my mother received Social Security disability benefits while she struggled with cancer. My youngest brother was in school at the local community college and he received benefits too on her account to help pay for his education. When Mom died he received survivor benefits while in school. Mom grew up during the “Great Depression” and worked in an airplane factory during World War II.

After the end of the war my parents married and raised a large family. As we kids grew up, Mom worked part-time outside the home to help with the family budget. Although her earnings weren’t high, she was able to receive the help of Social Security disability benefits, as did my brother.

My dad was a factory worker in the auto industry. He’d been in the Navy in World War II, a Pearl Harbor survivor. He worked hard all his life and took early retirement at age 62. He died just after his 68th birthday, so he had a few years that weren’t so backbreakingly hard. When I hear a proposal to raise the base retirement age even higher than it already is, I want to scream, “Unfair!”

If there is concern over the future of Social Security, then we need more jobs at a living wage and we should raise the cap for people who are very highly paid. But don’t flush our present and future down the stock market toilet!

Barbara Carpenter Chicago IL

What about here at home?

Speaking in Latvia on the 60th anniversary of the end of WWII, George W. Bush lectured Russia and Vladimir Putin, saying, “The promise of democracy is fulfilled by minority rights, and equal justice under the rule of law, and an inclusive society in which every person belongs.”

Mr. President, you support amending the U.S. and state constitutions to deprive a minority — gay people — of a right the majority takes for granted and sees as fundamental, namely marriage. You oppose giving gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender Americans equal protections under the law from discrimination in employment, housing, and public accommodations. Your administration has relentlessly sought to exclude even the words “gay,” “lesbian,” “bisexual” and “transgender” from any federal funding initiative.

So, the question is: If minority rights, equal justice under the law, and inclusive society are good for the Baltics and Russia, why not here at home?

Matt Foreman Executive Director National Gay and Lesbian Task Force

Looking for Hawaii info

For a forthcoming book on the Communist Party in Hawaii (and the region) before statehood, I would appreciate hearing from any person with memories, documents, reflections or the like.

Gerald Horne

EDITORIAL: Holocaust denial

Fri, 13 May 2005 04:14:00 +0000

In conjunction with the 60th anniversary of the defeat of Hitler fascism, a new Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe opened in Berlin May 10.

It is a memorial to the 6 million Jews who were systematically, horrifyingly exterminated by the Nazis, giving rise to the new term, “genocide.”

The memorial has provoked controversy for its omission of other victims of the Nazi killing machine, including a million or more communists and other political prisoners, hundreds of thousands of gypsies, the disabled, and gays and lesbians.

Paul Spiegel, president of Germany’s Central Council of Jews, expressed reservations about the memorial, calling it “an incomplete statement.” By excluding non-Jewish victims, Spiegel said, the memorial suggests a “hierarchy of suffering,” when in reality “pain and mourning are great in all afflicted families.”

Nevertheless, the memorial is a reminder that such crimes must never be allowed to happen again.

But as it was being unveiled, President Bush was busy dismissing the significance of the victory over fascism, and disparaging the decisive role played by the Soviet Union in that victory. In a speech in Latvia, Bush bemoaned the Soviet liberation of Eastern Europe from fascism, lumping the Soviet role together with that of Hitler Germany.

In so doing, Bush in effect is a Holocaust denier. He is diminishing and denying the monstrous crimes of Nazism – the gas chambers, the “Arbeit Macht Frei” death camps, the ghoulish experiments on humans, in short, the barbaric extermination of entire populations, using pseudo-scientific racial, genetic and anticommunist “big lies.”

Bush’s attempt to rewrite history is a calculated part of his own criminal policies — of militarism, nuclear first-strike, torture, and racist, ethnic and national chauvinism. As he prattles about “humane foreign policy,” his administration is blocking the worldwide call at the United Nations to abolish nuclear weapons.

Those who care about humanity do well to heed the words of Holocaust survivor Sabina van der Linden at the memorial opening. “What have I learned?” she asked. “I have learned that hatred begets hatred. I have learned that we must not remain silent and that each of us must fight discrimination, racism and inhumanity.’’

My military tribunal

Fri, 13 May 2005 03:55:00 +0000

Pages from workers’ lives

Too young to join the Army during World War II, Richard Neill worked in the Merchant Marine. That was an equally dangerous job. He was drafted and wounded in the Korean War (June 27, 1950, to July 27, 1953). The McCarthy Red Scare was at its worst in the ’50s. Many members of the National Maritime Union were denied the Coast Guard papers needed to work as seamen.

I was ordered to appear before a military tribunal being held at the Schuykill Arsenal in Philadelphia. The young lieutenant assigned to represent me encouraged me to confess. What was I to confess to? Wasn’t it enough that I served my country honorably and retuned home as a disabled veteran?

I thought about this confession and what brought me before this tribunal. I would have to go back in time when I shipped out to sea at age 15. I was apolitical at the time. The adventure of sailing in the Merchant Marine and as a member of the National Maritime Union consumed my entire life.

A ship is like a small community of the United States. Our little community may move about the world carrying the commerce of our nation, but under our American flag we never become unattached. We lived and worked under the protection of the laws of our country and under our Union contract.

Sailing throughout the world was just about the greatest life a person could live. Then dark clouds loomed over the horizon. Not pirates, but company agents came on board, ship after ship. They took down the American flag and ran up a flag of convenience. They removed our little community from the United States. We became part of what is called the “Third World” with no protection, no union and work for slave wages.

Three other seamen and I protested by handing out informational leaflets in front of the shipping company office in the port of Baltimore. This action brought out the police with their clubs and guns. The FBI appeared on the scene taking our picture. This was truly my first frontal attack against the capitalist system. It earned me a place high on the FBI blacklist.

The military tribunal was not interested in what flag our ships sailed under. The tribunal had nothing to do with my military service. The military, the FBI and the police are all part of the state apparatus. Minus campaign finance reform, big business buys up and controls the state. The military tribunal, as part of the state, was used to punish people under their control who attack the profit system.

Meanwhile, the ship owners, dragging their bags of money behind them, are crying all the way to the bank. Crying about foreign competition. What may I ask happened to the law that required American ships to carry 50 percent of our trade?

Every crossword puzzle I ever worked that called for a fair share, the correct answer was always half. What could be more fair then 50/50? The way I figure it, if we must carry 50 percent of our foreign trade in ships flying the American flag, there would be no foreign competition within that 50 percent.

Standing before a stone-faced tribunal, it was clear to me that the plight of the maritime worker was no concern of theirs. Our great maritime nation was being turned into a nation of landlubbers. Confined to the riverbank while our jobs sail down the river.

Letters

Fri, 06 May 2005 09:54:00 +0000

New dangers for Social Security

We are entering a new phase in the fight to protect Social Security. Up to now, we have focused on opposing the administration’s plans to privatize Social Security. The national movement to protect SS has been successful: the majority of people, Democratic Congress members and enough Republicans have stood firm.

No one thought the administration would simply give up. Their new approach centers on convincing the public that Social Security needs some serious fixing, and quickly. Some Democratic politicians and those Republicans who oppose privatization are being lured into this deadly trap.

In order to appear “reasonable,” most have agreed that there is a problem to be fixed. Once having said that, the administration is now saying, “If not privatization, then what is your alternative?” The idea of price-indexing benefits (as opposed to wage-indexing) has been floated around before, including by some Democrats. Now they are being put into a position of “not being reasonable.”

If you acknowledge there is a problem, then you have to come up with a solution. In this situation, there is no solution that doesn’t cut into the fabric of Social Security. There is no crisis or emergency! We have 30-40 years to solve any possible problem in the future. Raising the cap on income contributions is the obvious one.

We now have to consider a slight adjustment in our focus to include those elected officials who ostensibly oppose privatization but might be willing to “discuss” alternatives to solve a non-existent problem. And they are out there, on both sides of the aisle.

That is why our continued efforts are so important. We must not ease up before the battle is won. There is no record for the fastest time for the half-mile in a mile-long race. We’ve got to finish strong.

John Gallo

Cleveland OH

Laura Bush not funny

Am I the only person is the USA who didn’t think Laura Bush was funny at the press conference? Maybe the families (at home and abroad) of the victims of “Mr. Excitement’s” immoral war are also “Desperate Housewives.”

Perhaps the horror the American people have allowed “Mr. Excitement” and his “chain saw” buddies to create has caused me to lose my sense of humor.

Gretchen Nielsen

Tucson AZ

‘Nuclear option’ is priority

There are many struggles right now. Yet, I believe the “nuclear option” or Sen. Frist’s initiative to torpedo the Senate filibuster is the single most serious one in front of us. It will impact all the other struggles: livable wage, women’s choice, environment and civil rights. If we lose on this one, it will have a major impact on the struggle for civil rights, the women’s movement, and result in vast exploitation and undermining of workers’ rights in our country.

Everyone now should be writing and targeting their senators and everyone else, including moderate Republicans. This should be the top issue on everyone’s list. Please cover this issue. The Republicans claim they have the votes now to torpedo the filibuster. They don’t need to and don’t want to compromise. They want to take our country away from us. Please write and call your senators now!

Valerie Linder

Oakland CA

Nonunion auto plants

Glad that someone is taking an interest in the growth of the nonunion auto companies (“Toyota truck plant to open in San Antonio,” PWW 4/16-22). In 1973, 73.2 percent of vehicles sold in the United States were UAW made. Now this is 56.8 percent and dropping. Job loss and decreased tax base have devastated many communities. The UAW is under increased pressure to give back what so many of us sacrificed for. Until recently Toyota, Nissan and Honda paid comparable wages and benefits to keep the union out. Now at the new Nissan plant in Canton, Miss. (where the Titan truck is being built to compete with the Ford 150), assembly line workers are paid $14 an hour, skilled trades $18 an hour — about 50 percent of UAW wages.

The Canadian Auto Workers have not been able to organize these nonunion companies either. Honda has been in Ohio for 25 years and we have only been able to organize the boiler operators. The anti-union atmosphere makes it very difficult to organize. These companies are very adept at keeping the union out.

By the way Toyota owes its sales and popularity to its perceived and actual quality (Lexus, Camry), not the myth of “its relatively environmentally friendly standards,” because like all capitalists they are pumping out SUVs and trucks to make profits.

I think it is a good article, but a little arrogant in trying to tell the union how to organize.

Jim Glenn

Detroit MI

Communism and religion

It was very refreshing to see your article on the dialogue developing between the CPUSA and persons of faith (PWW 4/30-5/6). This is a healthy trend which I hope continues; a voice from the religious left would be a welcome answer to the dominance of attention that the right currently enjoys in this area. It is especially encouraging to see persons of faith who understand the common social goals that both the party and Christianity embrace.

I have always taken inspiration from the quote by Robespierre, “The true worship of the supreme being lies in the carrying out of human duties.” He followed by listing the duties entailed, all of which were ones of social betterment, particularly dealing with defense of the poor against tyranny. The recognition of these common threads between Communism and Christianity can only lead to a better relationship between the two, to the enrichment of both.

John Beckham

Fontana CA

The history of society in two parts

Part 1: January 1848

“The history of all hitherto existing society (that is, all written history) is the history of class struggles.”

Part 2: May 2005

“The history of all hitherto existing society since Part 1 is the history of class struggle burdened further by endless futile attempts to refute Part 1.”

Bill Appelhans

Chicago IL

Mother’s Day

My mother used to say she hated Mother’s Day. “One day a year you love mother and the rest of the year she can go to hell,” she’d say. That pretty well sums up Bush’s hypocrisy when it comes to women.

Renee Weisman

Bozeman MT