People Before Profit blog

Massachusetts candidates debate Iraq war

Thu, 31 May 2007 10:53:00 +0000

CHELMSFORD, Mass. — More than a hundred people packed the Chelmsford police station May 23 to hear five candidates seeking to replace Rep. Martin Meehan (D-5th C.D.). Meehan is stepping down from Congress to become chancellor at the University of Massachusetts-Lowell effective July 1.

The theme of this first forum of the race was the effects of the Iraq war on the economy, education and health care. The candidates, all Democrats, also discussed veterans’ services and issues relating to active-duty members of armed forces and their families.

Last year, voters in 39 legislative districts in urban, suburban and rural areas, representing one-quarter of the state, voted in favor of “withdrawing immediately” from Iraq.

The only Republican candidate, James Ogonowski, was invited to the forum but did not attend. Ogonowski, an active-duty Air Force officer, said he would discuss the Iraq war at a press conference in June, when he retires.

State Rep. James Eldridge said ending the war was his number one priority and that he has been against the war in Iraq since before it started. He said he supported a plan like the one presented by Rep. James McGovern (D-Mass.), which calls for withdrawing all the troops within one year, starting in three months.

Eldridge, a former legal services lawyer who has a 100 percent AFL-CIO voting record in the state Legislature, has also set himself apart from the other candidates by being the only one who supports a universal single-payer health care plan.

Niki Tsongas, widow of former Sen. Paul Tsongas, also said she supported the McGovern plan. She came out against the war in the last few weeks.

Eileen Donoghue, a City Council member from the neighboring city of Lowell, also called ending the war a priority, saying she did not want to “jeopardize any more lives in Iraq.” One of the soldiers who recently went missing in action, Alex Jiménez, is from the nearby city of Lawrence.

Donoghue criticized any Iraq war-funding bill in Congress that lacks a timeline for withdrawal. She said the U.S. should no longer “referee this civil war in Iraq.”

State Rep. Barry Finegold called for ending the war, but only after the U.S. divides Iraq into three areas, one Sunni, one Shia, and a third for the Kurds. While not supporting a timeline, he said he wanted to see U.S. soldiers home by the end of 2008.

The only candidate who spoke against ending the Iraq war, state Rep. James Miceli, claimed it is a war against terrorism. He called any talk of producing a timeline “lunacy.” Miceli also expressed “concern” about Iran, leading a number of participants to suggest he might be willing to approve an attack on that country by the Bush administration.

All the candidates were critical of the level of veterans’ services provided by the Bush administration and vowed to increase them. Eldridge, Tsongas and Donoghue said they would introduce a new G.I. Bill of Rights, with Donoghue saying it would be her first priority.

The forum was sponsored by Citizens for Civic Courage, a newly organized group of Gold Star families and veterans.

Gov. Deval Patrick (D) has scheduled a primary election for Sept. 4 and the general election for Oct. 16 to replace Meehan.

jacruz @pww.org

Ohioans urge end to foreclosure frenzy

Fri, 25 May 2007 09:22:00 +0000

CLEVELAND – Residents appealed to Congress May 21 to end the epidemic of home foreclosures wrecking their city. Community leaders, public officials, researchers and banking experts charged in testimony at a Congressional hearing that the Federal Reserve Bank had abdicated its regulatory responsibility and was complicit in the raping of inner city neighborhoods especially in the African American community.

“It is heartbreaking to see the devastation,” said Barbara Anderson of the Predatory Lending Action Committee of Empowering and Strengthening Ohio’s People.

“Five of the ten homes on my street are vacant,” she said. “You can walk up and down virtually any street in my neighborhood and you will find a similar situation.”

Not only do vacant home reduce property values, she said, “what is more devastating is that I can’t allow my grandchildren to play outside because squatters, usually high on drugs, are now occupying some of these homes as they sit wide open.”

Noting that Ohio has the highest foreclosure rate of any state – three times the national average – Anderson said the crisis cannot be simply attributed to the area’s rust belt economy. It is “a result of years of neglect by local banks and regulators.”

Over the past decade, she charged, depository banks have pulled out of inner city neighborhoods and the vacuum has been filled by unscrupulous loan sharks, check cashing shops, payday lenders and mortgage brokers, many of which are connected to the regulated banks.

National City and Key Bank, she charged, are examples of financial institutions that “pulled out because they could make more money vis-à-vis their sub-prime affiliates,” which avoid regulation. The sub-prime loans are sold to people desperate for credit “with low initial ‘teaser rates’ that are fixed for the first two years. Beginning in year three, the interest rate increases as often as every six months, so the monthly payment grows dramatically.”

Underscoring Anderson’s statement, Cuyahoga County Treasurer James Rokakis, testified that close to half the subprime loans in the area are currently in foreclosure or delinquent. In the last 12 years, he said, foreclosures have more than quadrupled in the county and are expected to reach 16,000 this year.

“Unscrupulous telemarketers” have especially targeted the elderly, he said, to refinance their homes “stripping their equity out of their property and saddling them with a debt level they cannot afford.”

The Federal Reserve Bank, he charged, has failed to use its authority “to ban all the practices that have fed this mortgage craze and led to this foreclosure frenzy.” This includes allowing loans without documentation of the borrower’s income and failing to require the escrow of taxes and insurance when high-rate loans are made.

“I don’t believe the Federal Reserve Bank will take the measures they need to take,” Rokakis said. “Congress must act…to rein in the excesses of the mortgage industry because the market has proven itself to be greedy, unreliable and willing to destroy cities like Cleveland.”

Over 100 residents attended the hearing called by area Congressman Dennis Kucinich, chairman of the House Subcommittee on Domestic Policy of the Committee on Oversight and Government Reform. Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Calif.), the ranking minority member, also participated in the two and a half hour event held at the Carl B. Stokes Federal Courthouse in downtown Cleveland.

ricknagin @yahoo.com

Minutemen draw flak near San Jose

Fri, 25 May 2007 07:08:00 +0000

CAMPBELL, Calif. — In response to the May Day pro-immigrant rights demonstrations, members of the so-called Minuteman Civil Defense Corps staged a rally here, May 12, but were unsuccessful in spreading their anti-immigrant message.

Their 10-person rally in this small town near San Jose was outnumbered 4 to 1 by local community members, including people from the South Bay Mobilization, the Raging Grannies, and youth from nearby community colleges and San Jose State University.

The Minutemen held their demonstration at the heart of the city’s shopping district located at the corner of Hamilton and Bascom avenues, otherwise known as the local “peace corner.”

At 11:30 a.m., a lonesome Minuteman planted a plethora of small American flags that competed with the yellow and orange balloons of a local jewelry store’s advertising banner at the southeast corner of the intersection.

Pro-immigrant-rights demonstrators soon arrived in small groups and began sporting signs that read: “Campbell: Hate-free zone,” “No raids,” “No human being is illegal” and “Stop border militarization.” By noon, the northeast side of the intersection was crowded with immigrant rights supporters. The pro-immigrant-rights crowd eventually spilled into the adjacent corners of the intersection, outflanking the Minutemen.

The Minutemen held signs calling for pardoning border patrol agents Ignacio Ramos and Jose Compean, who were sentenced to 11 and 12 years in federal prison for assault with a deadly weapon and civil rights violations. A Raging Granny said their convictions stemmed from the shooting of an immigrant in the back while he was fleeing.

The demonstration was part of a series of similar actions aimed at establishing new Minuteman chapters in the Bay Area. A prior action in Redwood City was met with opposition, but it was not as strong as in Campbell.

Popular opposition to the anti-immigrant message of the Minutemen in Campbell was made abundantly clear as many passing motorists honked their car horns in support of the immigrant rights demonstrators.

Only one instance of confrontation occurred as the pro-immigrant-rights crowd neared the Minutemen’s corner. Racist remarks such as “go back to Mexico” by the Minutemen exposed their true nature and mission. The protesters were not provoked, however.

By 1:30 p.m., reinforcements from a local Latino youth group and students from Foothill College arrived and helped carry banners until the Minutemen rolled up their flags and finally left.

John Pappademos, Marxist scholar and activist, 82

Fri, 25 May 2007 07:05:00 +0000

John Pappademos, a Marxist scholar, fighter for peace and justice, and longtime member of the Communist Party, died on May 6. He was 82.

Pappademos was born into a poor working-class family in St. Louis. During the Depression, his parents were unable to care for Pappademos and his brother, and the children were put in orphanages. A member of the Communist Party, Jim Moore, provided the support that made it possible for the family to be reunited.

When Pappademos was 16, Moore arranged for him to attend Harris Teachers College. From there, he went to the University of Iowa, which he attended while serving in the Naval Reserve. In 1951, Pappademos earned his master’s degree from Washington University, where he participated in a campus desegregation campaign. In 1964, he received his doctorate in physics from the University of Chicago.

During the 1950s and later, Pappademos and his wife, Ella, and their interracial family faced racist and anticommunist harassment. Nevertheless, Pappademos secured a job teaching at the University of Illinois in Chicago (UIC).

At UIC, Pappademos was involved in attempts to organize the faculty into a union. He was also active in the fight against the Vietnam War, serving as the national chair of Scientists Against the Vietnam War.

Pappademos frequently wrote articles on science for Political Affairs, the Communist Party USA’s theoretical journal, as well as writing for Marxist and non-Marxist scholarly journals. From 1988-2001, he was a referee for the American Journal of Physics.

One of Pappademos’ areas of scholarly interest was the African origins of math and science. His paper, “An Outline of Africa’s Role in the History of Physics,” was published in Ivan Van Sertima’s seminal anthology, “Blacks in Science: Ancient and Modern.” He was also a contributor to the Journal of African Civilizations.

After his retirement from UIC, Pappademos and his wife moved to Nevada. He took a retirement job as customer service representative for an airline and participated in a drive to organize his co-workers into a union. He also was a regular distributor of the People’s Weekly World and wrote many articles for it.

Later Pappademos and his wife returned to St. Louis, where he served on the board of the Missouri/Kansas District of the Communist Party in addition to being on the party’s national committee. In May 2005, he was honored at the Missouri/Kansas Friends of the People’s Weekly World annual awards breakfast, where he received a standing ovation. He had just celebrated his 55th year in the Communist Party.

During that year, though, Pappademos had been suffering from problems with his balance. In September of 2005, he underwent major brain surgery, but he recovered and resumed his political activities, including writing for the People’s Weekly World.

A week before his death, he fell and broke several vertebrae.

His funeral was held on May 21 in St. Louis.

He is survived by his wife, two daughters, two grandchildren (a third is expected in August) and many friends and comrades.

Another view of Lives of Others

Fri, 25 May 2007 07:03:00 +0000

“The Lives of Others,” the German film that won the 2007 Best Foreign Film Academy Award, and which was reviewed positively on these pages last month (PWW 4/21-27), is a sophisticated attack on socialism that tries to discount many of the extraordinary achievements made by the German Democratic Republic before it was absorbed into the Federal Republic of Germany (West Germany) in the early 1990s.

The main characters are the playwright Georg Dreymann (Sebastian Koch) and Gert Weisler (Ulrich Muehle), a domestic surveillance specialist with the GDR State Security Service (Stasi).

The playwright is an honest supporter of socialism, who in his works emulates ordinary people who struggle for a better life. The surveillance agent is also an honest man, dedicated to his mission to protect socialism from its enemies.

The writer starts turning against socialism because a director he admires appears to have been blacklisted from getting any work by a higher-up in the cultural ministry. The director commits suicide, and Dreymann is devastated.

In comes a cultural ministry bigwig who wants to hit on the writer’s girlfriend, a drug addict actor. Mr. Minister gets his bootlicking flunkie in the Stasi to set up a surveillance of the writer’s apartment, with the aim of getting “anything” on the writer that could discredit him, push him out of the way and give Mr. Minister unrestricted access to the drug addict girlfriend.

“You are an informer for the people now,” she is told, as she is slipped a box of pills.

Meanwhile, the writer is so upset about the director’s suicide that he writes an article about it in the GDR and gets a copy of it to a West German magazine mogul who publishes it in the West. Stasi, which had nothing to really look for in the beginning, now has some fresh meat to go after.

The film’s entire focus therefore was on a narrow band of almost irrelevant trash.

Writers and actors, as well as musicians and artists in the GDR rose to the top on the basis of their ability and their popularity, not on the basis of their success in scraping up money or financial backers. Hundreds of West German musicians, writers, dancers and actors performed daily in GDR theaters because they could get heard and noticed based on talent, rather than financial connections.

The film made much about the West German editor who had to scale the Berlin Wall to meet clandestinely with our writer hero. Ridiculous. West German writers and editors walked into East Berlin every single day and walked out again when they were finished with what ever they had to do. You showed your passport at the checkpoint and you went in. You showed it again and you went out. Tens of millions of West Germans traveled into the GDR every year. Thirty percent of the people of the GDR traveled into the West every year to visit family and friends.

The border between east and west was closed in the first place because you could change a West German mark into eight or more East German marks and go to the GDR and literally clean off the shelves of the stores, leaving nothing for workers to buy. When the GDR closed the border, the country, in 12 years, became the 10th largest industrial nation in the world. Fifteen years after socialism, there is 20 percent unemployment in the GDR and what was the GDR is about 40th on the list in terms of industrial production.

This film tries to give us the idea that socialism can’t work because there is too much rotten in human nature. It is a pessimistic film because it says the best we can do is to become like the actor, one of the few “good” men. The brave attempts by several generations of German workers to build a better world, attempts they made with the building of the German Democratic Republic, are sneered at.

The German workers, however, like workers around the world, can always be counted on to rise up after a defeat. “The Lives of Others” notwithstanding, I am sure they will.

jwojcik @pww.org

Loss of memory unleashes shaky past

Fri, 25 May 2007 07:00:00 +0000

MovieREVIEW

Away from Her

Directed by Sarah Polley

Lions Gate Films, 2007

110 minutes, Rated PG-13

At 28, Sarah Polley, director of “Away from Her,” a Canadian film, has taken on some heady and tough issues and refuses to use sympathy as a tool to capture the audience.

The film is based on a short story, “The Bear Came Over the Mountain,” by Alice Munro.

In a scene set in the woods, after a deep-snowed Ontario winter, Fiona (Julie Christie) and her husband Grant (Gordon Pinsent) come across a wildflower. Fiona kneels down to caress the bloom, and then standing, turns to Grant and says, “When I turn away, I forget what yellow means.”

Pow!

The camera is on Grant, whose eyes pour sadness without tears. He seems to be wrestling with the thought, “Who is this person? And why does she seem so different from the person I’ve been married to for the last 40 years?”

Fiona, with dedication, is almost rushing to move into a nursing home. And conventional wisdom demands it. She’s admitted, and in keeping with the nursing home’s rules, it will be 30 days before Grant can see her, so she can “settle in.”

When he does visit, she has become emotionally attached to Aubrey, another resident. Aubrey is in a wheelchair and he’s married to Marian (Olympia Dukakis).

The film doesn’t try to explain how, but Fiona is able to get Aubrey out of the wheelchair and take some steps. He also begins using his hands to sketch simple but beautiful portraits of Fiona.

Grant comes every day to visit Fiona, and she only responds to her husband by saying, “You’re very persistent. I suppose you’ll be back tomorrow.”

When Aubrey leaves to return to his wife, Fiona begins to deteriorate quickly.

What do you do if you’re married for 40 years and in one month’s time your partner barely recognizes you? How do you respond to that?

What we witness is what happens when the unlikely combination of the aged and the unglued meet. The movie suggests more is involved in this process than the mind-ravaging and physical deterioration that is known as Alzheimer’s.

We get to piece some of the story together through flashbacks. In a humorous flashback scene, with Fiona’s narration, she describes her husband, a university professor, whose students — all women, all wearing sandals — are ready to put their toes on the first spot of skin above his sock-line. They all demand special attention, and Grant is an accommodating teacher.

This in turn raises the question of whether Fiona’s reaction is more complicated than just “Alzheimer’s.” Could this be one of the reasons why she doesn’t want to recognize Grant?

The near-silence of the film is broken by Olympia Dukakis and the nurse, a straight-speaking “American” who is also aware of the attachment between Fiona and Aubrey, and whose frank observations also give the story more weight and more sadness.

However, Julie Christie steals the show. She was able to look 40 and 70 at the same time. Her eyes feel like they hold every secret of the past 40 years. And when she speaks, she’s jarring in a matter-of-fact kind of way.

But be sure that no matter what Fiona’s level of clarity may be at any given moment, she won’t have it any other way but her own. We’re watching her will as a woman at work, and in an odd way, it seems perfectly reasonable for such sadness to ensue when you have to wait until you’re 70 or have Alzheimer’s to release all those violations of a 40-year union.

Stop global warming? Start with the Pentagon

Fri, 25 May 2007 06:52:00 +0000

Global warming is on the minds of people all over the planet. They are talking about how strange their weather is these days. Severe fluctuations are causing new weather patterns alien to communities worldwide. Obviously, the growth in greenhouse gases is a primary reason for global warming. Our lifestyle, especially in the U.S. with less than 5 percent of the world’s population, is a major contributor as we produce 25 percent of global carbon emissions. But few ever ask what role the U.S. military plays in contributing to global warming. And as people like Al Gore and other environmentalists look for solutions, rarely is the Pentagon mentioned as a polluter and a place that we can look to for change if life is to survive on our mother Earth. The Pentagon has been studying, and testing, the idea of using weather modification as a battlefield weapon for many years. Can we begin to talk about what impact weather modification experimentation could be having on our planet already? In a recent article called “What’s Possible in the Military Sector? Greater Than 100 Percent Reduction in Greenhouse Gases,” Green Party activist Don Fitz says, “The military is the only sector of the economy where emissions of greenhouse gases can be reduced by greater than 100 percent. … Regular economic activity of the military is not exactly small. According to the February 2007 Energy Bulletin, the Pentagon is the single largest consumer of oil in the world. Only 35 countries consume more oil.” Fitz continues, “This domination of industrial activity by the military is often referred to as the ‘permanent war economy.’ There is an even more insidious meaning to the phrase. That is the need of the military to have ever-shorter periods of time between wars. The only way to have a true test of a weapon is to use it against people. … Military spending is like a cancer which has metastasized throughout the body politic, with every congressional district demanding its place at the trough.” Many environmental groups are working on solutions to global warming. One, for example, is the Apollo Alliance, which is calling for the creation of a new economy — a new industrial policy that moves toward building alternative sustainable technologies. Uniting labor and environmental groups, who usually are on opposite sides of the fence, the Apollo Alliance is showing that a new environmental policy can also create good jobs which is something the labor movement and low-income communities can get excited about. But there is just one huge concern. Where will the funds come from to invest in this new industrial policy? When the military industrial complex is soaking up over 50 percent of every American tax dollar, where will the funds come from to create the investment for this new industrial infrastructure? Space technology development will only exacerbate this trend as the Pentagon brags that Star Wars will be the largest industrial project in the history of the planet Earth. Major private corporate industrial investment is leaving the country like rats off a sinking ship. Corporate disinvestment in U.S. industry is the reality today. Most politicians understand this new reality very well. They know that weapons production is currently the number one industrial export product of the U.S. They know that major industrial job creation is largely coming from the Pentagon. Thus most politicians, from both parties, want to continue to support the military industrial complex gravy train for their communities. Across the nation, colleges and universities are turning to the Pentagon for greater research funding as Congress and successive administrations have cut back on scientific research and development investment. As this trend worsens, we find growing evidence that engineering, computer science, astronomy, mathematics and other departments are becoming “militarized” in order to maintain funding levels. Student protests against campus weapons research have been growing in recent years at places like the University of Hawaii, University of New Mexico, University of Oregon and UC Berkeley. It is abundantly clear that no real alternative sustainable technology investment will be possible on the scale needed to avert catastrophic global warming without conversion of the military industrial complex. It is imperative that the peace movement, environmental movement, social justice movement and labor movement create a unifying vision and political demand calling on Congress to use our hard-earned tax dollars for conversion of the military industrial complex. We must do as the old saying goes — follow the money. And increasingly the money in the U.S. today is in weapons production. By converting the military, we can make large strides in dealing with greenhouse gases, create new sustainable industries and stop our free fall into endless war. Bruce Gagnon is coordinator of Global Network Against Weapons & Nuclear Power in Space .

Lessons from the suburbs

Fri, 25 May 2007 06:48:00 +0000

Farmers Branch, Texas, a suburb of Dallas, has earned the distinction of being the first city in North America to criminalize landlords who provide shelter to non-citizens. While almost 50 cities across the country have attempted similar bans, many have been defeated in the courts and none have been enacted by city residents via the ballot box. Ordinance 2903, the first ban to succeed in a citywide vote, requires landlords to verify U.S. citizenship and will apply a $500 per day fine to owners for every tenant who is not a legal resident.

The anti-immigration measure won by a margin of 68 percent to 32 percent, prompting proponents to boast that residents had “stood up for Farmers Branch.” In fact, although the mainstream press had been predicting a historic turnout, the final numbers indicate that less than half, only 43 percent of registered voters, cast a ballot. Higher voter participation occurred in a nearby suburb where a secondary school bond initiative was on the ballot.

Disastrous consequences

Although the immediate effect of the new law may seem to impact only a small number of North Texans, the message from supporters has been that this is only the beginning of their agenda. They see the election result as sending a loud message to the federal government to enact harsher immigration legislation.

Spearheading the divisive and xenophobic movement in Farmers Branch is council member Tim O’Hare, a personal injury lawyer whose name is now prominent among Texas reactionaries.

O’Hare claims to have been contacted by many city administrators around the country and has offered to help them in their efforts to crack down on the undocumented.

A campaign of disinformation and fear-mongering has assaulted residents in Farmers Branch since the summer of 2006, and Ordinance 2903 proponents were able to convince voters that everything wrong with the city, from property values to public school performance, could be blamed on a growing illegal population.

The local mayor, economics professors from the nearby University of North Texas, and the state comptroller all tried patiently to explain that these purported facts were skewed. Unfortunately for residents who could not or would not see the real numbers, the city’s financial problems are now inevitable. Four lawsuits have been filed against Farmers Branch, and a law firm representing the town in its related legal work has already billed $262,000. Observers expect legal costs to rise to about $5 million over the next few years.

Meanwhile, landlords have already begun experiencing a decline in occupancy rates.

I spoke with two former apartment managers with 20 years’ experience between them. They now work in the corporate offices of one of the nation’s largest owners of apartment communities.

“It doesn’t seem fair to me that a law would actually require landlords to discriminate against people who need homes for their families, ” said former manager Casey Thornton. “And in areas where occupancy rates drop dramatically, managers have no choice but to begin reducing income and credit guidelines for prospective tenants, which is likely to have the effect of creating substandard communities within a city.”

Her colleague Janine Rodriquez-Zuniga stated, “Just the fear of being targeted by hate will drive many legal citizens from Farmers Branch. They sense it already, shopping for groceries, taking their children to school. They feel unwanted, even threatened by their Anglo neighbors.”

Despite damage to the city’s image — a town pitting neighbor against neighbor in an almost Twilight Zone-like episode of hysteria and fear — proponents of the anti-immigrant measure celebrated and proclaimed a great victory.

Learning from defeat

It is likely that more local referendums are on the horizon. While the noncitizens of Farmers Branch garnered the support of Latino organizations such as the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund and League of United Latin American Citizens, many progressive groups did little more than lend their organizations’ names as endorsers for the opponents of Ordinance 2903.

Exceptions include local state representatives who organized a workshop aimed at assisting immigrants in completing their citizenship paperwork, Danna Pyke of the Dallas Peace Center and the grassroots organization Let The Voters Decide, which worked tirelessly to educate and register voters. Unfortunately, voter turnout among opponents of the ordinance still fell short.

Successfully combating racism and xenophobia will mean that citizens of all races and all workers whose future is certainly bound up with their immigrant neighbors must come forward in the fight and show up at the polls. Erroneous and sensational information will have to be challenged at every opportunity and on a very local level. Resistance to reactionary nationalism and bigotry must be a priority for every citizen. Only through unity will we prevail.

Lisa Casey Perry (perry5 @swbell.net) is an activist in North Texas.

CARTOON: Tin Ear

Fri, 25 May 2007 06:44:00 +0000

Ask the Communists

Fri, 25 May 2007 06:38:00 +0000

Q:Where does the Communist Party USA stand on the idea of freedom of expression, both in speech and political viewpoints that go against the party? Does it feel that diversity of opinions can help the society grow? Also, does it believe in a diversity of news providers, as one single state network could be used negatively (no one wants another Fox News)?

A: Our program calls for Bill of Rights Socialism, built on the revolutionary traditions of our country. The working people of our country have consistently fought for an expansion of democracy, for guarantees of political liberty and for a free press. We support those struggles, and want to expand our formal political democracy into a real, economic democracy. It is not only possible but necessary to have a socially organized economy as well as civil rights and liberties. In fact, socialism means involvement of the people, and it cannot be built and maintained without democracy and civil liberties.

Today in the U.S. and other capitalist countries, giant corporations and billionaires control most of the mass media and are gobbling up more every day. They are able to limit the information and range of ideas that most people have access to, and this helps the capitalist system keep its grip on society.

By contrast, we believe socialism requires debate, innovation, exploration, literacy and creative empowerment of an informed public. Our view is that socialism will most likely come about in our country through coalitions of many groups, not through a “monolithic” single party that “controls” everything.

The history of our party has been intertwined with the fight to protect and extend civil rights and liberties. We fought, at great personal cost to many of our leaders and members, against the efforts of McCarthyites and later right-wing politicians and corporate interests to demonize and suppress all left/progressive politics and weaken and break unions, and to pass laws that were not only anti-free-speech but also unconstitutional. These struggles continue today, and are part of moving our society toward a socialist transformation.

We do think there have to be some limits, namely on toxic hate speech — racist, sexist, homophobic, and the like — that hides behind free speech protections to stigmatize and marginalize entire groups of people, fueling discrimination and violence and blocking people from achieving their fullest development and participation in society. This is the social equivalent of yelling “Fire” in a crowded theater just to cause a panic.

We invite readers to submit questions about the Communist Party USA, its basic policies and a Marxist viewpoint on current social issues. The answers are provided by Marc Brodine, chair of the Washington State Communist Party. Questions can be sent to cpusa @cpusa.org.

THIS WEEK IN LABOR

Fri, 25 May 2007 05:31:00 +0000

Presidential hopefuls back unionists at D.C. rally

Three Democratic presidential candidates — Sens. Hillary Clinton (D-N.Y.) and Joseph Biden (D-Del.) and Rep. Dennis Kucinich (D-Ohio) — talked union at the Machinists’ “Enough is Enough!” rally near the U.S. Capitol May 17. The rally drew participants from major national unions representing hundreds of thousands of workers, including the International Association of Machinists (IAM) and the Transportation Workers Union (TWU).

The purpose of the rally, IAM President Tom Buffenbarger said, was to send a message to Congress and to President Bush that U.S. workers “have had it with policies and politicians who hate unions and wreck the working class.” He labeled Bush “the worst president in history.”

Biden said, “The main reason we have to get out of this war in Iraq is because this president has waged a war on labor’s house like no other president has.

“They want to break you,” he told the trade unionists, “because you stand between them and their drive for total control. We need a president who can say the word union,” he declared to thunderous applause and cheers.

Clinton asked the crowds if they were “ready for a President who brings universal health care, who stands for good jobs with good incomes, who is pro-labor and who will deal with worker safety, and who will put us on a path to energy independence, to create millions of good jobs.” The crowd gave her a resounding “yes” to each of the questions.

Kucinich strongly endorsed the Employee Free Choice Act and called for repeal of trade agreements that result in the export of American jobs and in brutal working conditions and poverty wages for workers overseas.

Companies reclassify workers to escape pay and tax obligations

Among the many concerns workers have taken to the halls of Congress recently is the story of how unscrupulous employers reclassify workers as “independent contractors” in order to dodge pay and tax obligations and to underbid legitimate contractors who treat their workers as regular employees.

Gonzalo Valencia, a carpenter from Covington, Wash., testified earlier this month before Congress on how construction contractors abuse both their workers and the law. Valencia was a Carpenters Union member until after the 2001 housing construction slump, when he was “reclassified.” The reclassification resulted in his losing workers’ compensation coverage and all of his rights under labor law, with his employers no longer paying into Social Security or Medicare.

Valencia told lawmakers that the mislabeled “independent contractors” like himself are paid not hourly wages but at “a piece rate by square footage.” The rate can be arbitrarily cut and the boss can force the worker to do things totally outside of the so-called contract. Valencia told how he had been forced to do “freebies,” including building a garage for his boss in order to keep his job.

“The workers often get paid less than they were promised or don’t get paid at all,” he testified, adding, “None of the tract homebuilders in our area hire carpenters as employees.”

Rep. James McDermott (D-Wash.), who chaired the congressional hearing, vowed to work on eliminating the misclassification of workers into the “independent contractor” category. McDermott said the problem, uncorrected, would only worsen as globalization forces workers to compete with lower cost labor abroad.

Paid family leave in Washington state

After a strong lobbying effort by unions and women’s groups, Washington became the second state in the union to enact a paid family leave law. The new law covers only parents of babies and will not take effect until 2009. California has a similar law.

Unions and women’s groups hailed the achievement. Federal law, which Bush has been trying to undercut, lets workers of both sexes in firms of 50 or more take 12 weeks of unpaid family leave to care for ill family members or for themselves.

The Washington plan starts October 1, 2009, and covers workers in all firms with at least 25 employees. It will pay parents of newborn or newly adopted children $250 a week for five weeks, after a one-week waiting period.

Workers win a union four years after vote

In a classic example of why labor law must be overhauled, the 600 workers at the Walker Methodist Health Care Center in Minneapolis finally won union recognition last week — four years after they won the election for union representation.

The win came when the National Labor Relations Board finally rejected all appeals by the care center’s management.

Conceding defeat in the first week of May, Walker Methodist CEO Lynn Starkovitch phoned the executive director of Council 5 of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees Union (AFSCME), Eliot Seide, to recognize the union as the representative of the center’s nursing assistants, LPNs, housekeepers, and maintenance, laundry and dietary workers.

The Walker case had been cited by lawmakers when the House approved the Employee Free Choice Act on March 1. Rep. Keith Ellison (D-Minn.), whose district includes Minneapolis, pointed to Walker as an example of how an employer can use the NLRB to delay and frustrate workers’ rights.

Victory for immigrant workers at Dulles Airport

After a nine-month campaign, Lane Construction Company agreed to voluntarily recognize and bargain with Laborers Local 11, which had won a majority among 120 mostly immigrant construction workers at the D.C. area’s Dulles International Airport. A contract followed quickly, featuring a pay hike, benefits and recognition of the union workers on three airport expansion projects.

This Week in Labor is compiled by John Wojcik (jwojcik @pww.org). Press Associates Inc. contributed.

Mich. AFL-CIO urges stepped-up action

Fri, 25 May 2007 05:17:00 +0000

TROY, Mich. — Mark Gaffney, president of the Michigan AFL-CIO, addressed its 27th biennial convention here May 15 and called for labor to put the word “movement” back on its agenda.

He cited labor’s history and its responsibility to both build a powerful organization and to reach into the community to build a movement for labor rights, equality and justice.

Gaffney said the progressive movement could not survive without labor, but that a period of “business unionism” in the 1960s and 1970s had separated labor from too many progressive movements and all suffered because of it.

“That is beginning to change,” he said, citing “labor’s leading role in the political tide that swept the country in 2006. We fed it, and it fed us.”

Gaffney told the delegates that the AFL-CIO will launch an initiative in Michigan to go door to door to sign up people in 200,000 households as associate members of the AFL-CIO. He said unions must unite with the community of nonunion workers and their families.

Andy Levin, deputy director of the Michigan Department of Labor, spoke about what needed to be done to “get Michigan moving.”

“While capital goes wherever it wants,” Levin said, “we need rules of the road for global trade that guarantee workers the right to organize and ensure workers get equitable wages.”

Levin, who worked in the national AFL-CIO’s organizing department for 10 years, said the only way to stop the “terror campaign” that companies initiate after workers vote to form a union is to pass the Employee Free Choice Act, which contains stiff penalties for such abuses.

Regarding the state’s budget crisis, Levin said Michigan is one of only eight states with a flat income tax. While Republicans only want to take an ax to state programs, “we need to put workers, justice and children back into the discussion. We have to have the guts to get a progressive income tax.”

Levin called for a “No Worker Left Behind” program that would give any unemployed worker — and anyone currently working with a family income under $40,000 — up to two years of free tuition for retraining. Gov. Jennifer Granholm supports the proposal, he said.

jrummel @pww.org

WORLD NOTES

Fri, 25 May 2007 05:11:00 +0000

Egypt: Women go on strike, occupy garment plant

At the Mansoura-Espana Garments Co. in Talkha, in the Nile Delta, workers earn about 120-250 Egyptian pounds per month ($21-$43). They pay the equivalent of $5-$15 a month for transportation and $5 a month for midday meals. If they refuse to work overtime — at 48 cents an hour — their pay is cut.

Women make up three-fourths of the plant’s 284 workers. As of May 17, over 150 had been on strike, occupying the plant for 26 days. The owners refuse to negotiate, and plant managers threatened to cut off their water supply and electricity.

Labor federation officials asked the workers to go home, promising an inquiry. Strikers don’t trust the company union. Several were seen on the rooftop, calling for the government to intervene.

Thailand: Gov’t spurns big pharma

Thailand recently began buying generic anti-AIDS drugs allegedly in violation of drug manufacturers’ patent rights. Washington responded in May by placing Thailand on a “watch list” of countries ignoring intellectual property rights.

The World Trade Organization, however, allows developing countries to break patents in situations of public health crisis.

Thailand stopped buying Efavirenz made by Merck Sharp and Dohme, and Kaletra made by Abbott Laboratories. On May 14, Brazil followed suit by announcing plans to secure an alternative to Efavirenz, used by 75,000 of 180,000 Brazilians receiving free anti-AIDS drugs. Brazil spends 80 percent of its health budget on imported drugs, half for three anti-AIDS drugs.

Since 2002, 13 developing countries have broken patents on AIDS drugs, including Cuba, which manufactures five of them.

Greece: Big strike targets conservative gov’t

Public service workers affiliated with the General Confederation of Employees of Greece (GSEE), the country’s private sector union, and the main civil servants’ union, ADEDY, carried out a nationwide 24-hour strike in Greece on May 15.

With participation reaching almost 100 percent, the walkout paralyzed the state-run airline, inter-city train service, and all but emergency care in the nation’s public hospitals. At issue was a pension fund scandal involving risky bond investments that caused Greece’s labor minister to resign April 28.

Speaking in Athens, union President Christos Polyzogopoulos said, “We can no longer endure the results of this neoliberal economic policy that constantly degrades the workers.”

Union leaders accused the right-wing government of penalizing workers as part of its deficit reduction program aimed at warding off European Union sanctions. Reuters reported that the rally in Athens attended by 30,000 workers was the largest in decades.

Iran: Washington plans Iraq talks with Tehran

The Bush administration announced on May 12 that it would be holding talks with Iran. They are planned for Baghdad, possibly on May 27, and Iraq would be the main topic. Iran has sought such discussions since 2003.

Analysts cited in the Inter Press Service report see this development as consistent with recent U.S. contacts with Syria and negotiations with North Korea. They suggest that right-wing extremists associated with Vice President Dick Cheney have had to give way to the “realist tradition” associated with “old-line cold warriors” like Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Defense Secretary Robert Gates.

The development comes 18 months after President Bush approved plans for then Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad to engage Iran on stabilizing Iraq, only to have Cheney’s forces overturn the project. The present overtures to Iran go along with recommendations from the 2006 Iraq Study Group.

However, a huge U.S. battle group consisting of warships, stealth bombers, fighter planes and cruise missiles remains poised to strike Iran on short notice.

Colombia: Murder scandals shake Uribe regime

In Medellin, on May 15, Salvatore Mancuso presented judges with a PowerPoint presentation about his role in arranging for 336 murders.

Mancuso, one of the 53 Colombian right-wing paramilitary leaders serving light sentences in return for confessions, named three generals with whom he planned joint paramilitary-army operations during the 1990s.

He told of meetings with politician Mario Uribe Escobar, President Alvaro Uribe’s cousin, and with Francisco Santos and his brother Juan Manuel Santos, now Colombia’s vice president and defense minister, respectively. During the reign of President Ernesto Samper, the brothers discussed “knocking off” the then head of state.

Mancuso, according to rebelion.org, testified that banana companies paid the paramilitary groups one cent on the dollar for each box that left the country. He told the judges, “Paramilitarism is orchestrated by the moneyed groups and fed by the military.”

Revelations like these have shaken Uribe’s regime.

World Notes are compiled by W.T. Whitney Jr. (atwhit @megalink.net).

Venezuelas rightists raise din on TV issue

Fri, 25 May 2007 05:07:00 +0000

The Venezuelan television channel RCTV will be ending its operation at midnight May 26. The government of President Hugo Chavez is not renewing the station’s 20-year-old public broadcasting license.

Chavez’s opponents will mark the occasion by mounting all-out protests, and the resulting turmoil, observers say, could rival that which surrounded the two-day attempted coup against him in April 2002.

Chavez’s government accuses RCTV of having served right-wing opposition forces by transmitting lies before and during that coup, and of having violated hundreds of laws and regulations.

RCTV owner and multimillionaire Marcel Granier, writing in The Wall Street Journal, denounced Chavez for his attempt to “stifle the pluralism of opinion in news and talk programs, and to cut off the free flow of information and debate in Venezuela.”

The U.S. State Department in January criticized “any attempt to restrict a free press, in Venezuela or elsewhere,” while conservative members of the European Parliament, lobbied by Granier in early May, tried unsuccessfully to pass a pro-RCTV resolution.

A new channel called Venezuelan Information Television (TEVES) will take over the frequency vacated by RCTV. According to a spokesperson, TEVES is a “public” rather than a government entity and will broadcast independently produced programs.

After initial subsidies, TEVES will become self-financing through advertisements and a public-private partnership. The channel will be inclusive and “very participatory” and will welcome all opinions, the spokesperson said.

On May 18, the Supreme Court refused to grant Granier’s request for an injunction against Chavez, leaving the matter up to the National Telecommunications Commission. Further court action is possible.

Massive anti-Chavez demonstrations are expected for May 26. Right-wing media, which still dominate Venezuela’s news and entertainment outlets, have called for large turnouts. The government has warned of possible violence, provocations and destabilization attempts. Chavez’s supporters have called for a big pro-government demonstration on the same day.

Both sides have staged preliminary protests, including an opposition march May 19 in East Caracas. On May 20 a “Socialist Force of Professionals, Technicians, and Intellectuals” marched in every state in support of the president.

National Assembly President Celia Flores, alluding to the previous coup attempt, reported May 15 that right-wing plotters, “trying to replay an April 11,” distributed a false copy of the Official Gazette, a government journal, testifying to the elimination of private education, redistribution of real estate and confiscation of property.

Opposition politicians in Merida sued Chavez on May 16 for “politicizing” the military, accusing him of forcing soldiers to proclaim, “Homeland, socialism or death,” especially when subordinates address superior officers.

On May 17, from exile in Miami, former President Carlos Andres Perez called for international pressure to “keep Hugo Chavez from delivering another blow to an already weakened freedom of expression.”

On May 6, police in Miranda state confiscated five automatic weapons and three days later discovered a cache of 144 Molotov cocktails. They arrested two individuals allegedly preparing to blow up the pro-Chavez local legislative council.

Telesur, a regional Latin American news service initiated by Venezuela, held an international conference on communications in Caracas, May 19-20. At the conference, Jesse Chacon, Venezuela’s telecommunications minister, said that ideas about “democratizing communication” are what led to RCTV’s loss of its license.

“Communication is not a matter of merchandising,” Chacon said, citing Venezuela’s “constitutional mandate” to provide citizens with full access to television, radio, Internet and books.

U.S. actor Danny Glover attended the conference as a member of Telesur’s advisory council. “The people,” he said, “have to take power and establish themselves as architects of the mass media.” Glover denounced the U.S. media’s cover-up of the Katrina disaster and its manipulation of information.

Chris Carlson, writing for Venezuelanalysis.com, suggests that U.S. experience in Eastern Europe serves as a precedent for Washington’s role in Venezuela, where its goal is to “destabilize the government by organizing and directing opposition groups to commit acts of peaceful resistance and mass protests.”

The Bush administration has funded Venezuelan nongovernmental organizations to the tune of millions of dollars.

atwhit @megalink.net

Media often abets sex trafficking

Fri, 25 May 2007 05:05:00 +0000

UNITED NATIONS — At a recent conference here sponsored by the Republic of Belarus on the global problem of sexual slavery, two high-ranking officials from Belarus spoke to the World about the responsibility of the mass media in the fight against sex trafficking.

The U.S. government estimates that about 20,000 people, mainly young girls and women, are trafficked into the United States each year. Unlike prostitutes seeking earnings, the victims are unpaid captives under the total control of their owners. Some are baited into slavery by promises of well-paying jobs, while others are abducted. Still others are sold to traffickers by desperately poor families.

The problem is truly global in scope. Belarus Interior Minister Vladimir Naumov said it involves countries of origin like Belarus, where the victims are found; countries of interim transit; and countries of destination, where the victims end up.

The media in countries of origin should fight trafficking, Naumov said, by alerting potential victims of the dangers they face. Traffickers lure potential victims by “offering extremely good conditions when people want to get a job somewhere abroad, or [by telling] girls or women that somewhere in the world they can simply earn a lot of money.” The media has a duty to expose their likely fate, he said.

The mass media in countries of destination, he said, should fight trafficking by bringing public attention to the fact that “if in some particular country somebody is making a lot of money or getting some kick out of it, in another country this causes nothing but grief.”

Natalya Petkevich, deputy head of the presidential administration in Belarus, told the World that even after sex slaves escape their situation, they are often stigmatized.

“Let us be frank,” she said. “People in a society can take different attitudes and view differently women who have become victims of human trafficking.” She underscored the importance of education, and the role of the mass media in particular, in removing such stigmas.

Unfortunately, Petkevich observed, the media not only ignore their role in fighting sex trafficking, but often end up promoting it through the advertising columns of profit-oriented newspapers.

In countries of origin, the main announcements of jobs or study somewhere appear in such papers, while in destination countries, certain newspapers help line their pockets by advertising sex-trafficked women, she said.

Bolstering Petkevich’s remarks, the U.S. Department of Justice reports that ads featuring specific ethnicities, like those that appear in the pages of the Village Voice and other U.S. newspapers, are often placed by sex traffickers. The Voice alone currently generates about $80,000 per month through “adult” advertising.

dmargolis @pww.org

Abu-Jamal lawyers cite bias in call for new trial

Fri, 25 May 2007 04:53:00 +0000

PHILADELPHIA — Lawyers for Mumia Abu-Jamal told a federal appeals court here May 17 that Abu-Jamal should get a new trial because prosecutors illegally excluded Blacks from the jury that convicted him in 1982.

Abu-Jamal was sentenced to death for the fatal shooting of police officer Daniel Faulkner. The jury that convicted him was composed of two Blacks and 10 whites.

Attorney Robert R. Bryan told the appeals court that prosecutors had struck 15 potential jurors, 10 of whom were Black. NAACP Legal Defense Fund attorney Christine Swarns said evidence of discrimination was substantial and went beyond the strike rate, such as differences in the kinds of questions asked of Black potential jurors.

The government argued that since the issue of discrimination was never brought up at the original trial, it was not timely now. The three-judge panel suggested that it would be necessary to compare the percentage of Blacks struck from the jury to the racial composition of the jury pool, to determine if there really was discrimination, but Bryan said no such record exits. “We should not have to climb Mount Everest” to establish a case for a new trial, he said. “That’s all I’m asking for. Discrimination was at work in the D.A.’s office during that period.”

A 1986 U.S. Supreme Court decision declared that a criminal defendant who can prove that his prosecutor excluded potential jurors on the basis of race is entitled to a new trial. According to the transcript of Abu-Jamal’s trial, any Black potential juror who said that he/she had heard him on the radio was excluded from the jury.

In 2001 a federal judge overturned Abu-Jamal’s death sentence but upheld his conviction. The government immediately appealed and asked that the death sentence be reinstated. Meanwhile Abu-Jamal remained on death row.

The appeals court heard the arguments May 17 before a packed courtroom, including celebrities and foreign observers. Among them were Dick Gregory, former Congresswoman Cynthia McKinney, former Black Panther Kathleen Cleaver, civil rights lawyer Lynne Stewart, a delegation from France and a group of German lawyers.

Outside, a crowd of over 500 held signs and banners demanding freedom or a new trial for Abu-Jamal. Among them was Coli Clark, a longtime civil rights advocate, who came all the way from Albany, N.Y., with a group called Grandmothers for Mumia.

It may take several months before the court makes a decision.

phillyrose623 @verizon.net

Fighting the ravages of luxury towers

Fri, 25 May 2007 04:41:00 +0000

BROOKLYN, N.Y. — In most of the country, the housing boom is past. Not in New York City. Apartments, office towers, hotels, luxury entertainment facilities and mixed-use complexes rise to 70 stories. In recent years, housing costs were 30 percent of family income, but now in Manhattan they are 50 percent for many families.

The drive to privatize public housing, which affects close to 1 million people, has accelerated. So has the drive to complete the privatization of what was the Mitchell-Lama cooperative housing. The largest city complexes constructed with substantial public financing, but already owned privately, have been sold. Or many are in the process that would end rent stabilization for tenants and turn them into luxury complexes. These include Stuyvesant Town and Starrett City. Efforts are under way, against major resistance from tenants, to privatize the 50,000-resident Coop City.

Multibillion-dollar transnational development corporations have been the driving force. These corporations are closely associated with finance capital and Wall Street, which provide the needed capital for their luxury projects. Among the major social consequences of these developments is the driving of the poorer sections of the population out of the city.

Among the poorer sections of the population, African Americans are especially heavily represented. The result is a decline in the African American population of Harlem and central Brooklyn and in the Puerto Rican, Dominican and Latino populations in nearby communities. Also poorer whites are being forced to move out of Manhattan to areas of Brooklyn that are somewhat less expensive.

The Bloomberg administration, led by billionaires like the mayor, has been doing everything to promote this boom with huge tax concessions and subsidies. There are additional subsidies from the state and federal levels. The wealthy are being encouraged to move back into the city into luxury housing. These demographic changes have the potential for changing the politics of the city from Democratic to Republican.

Billionaire developer Bruce Ratner plans to build the Atlantic Yards Project at the busiest intersection in Brooklyn. It would bring 17 towers, some up to 60 stories high, for housing, offices, a hotel and a basketball arena for 19,000. It would be the most densely populated complex in the United States.

A large community movement against it, supported by several African American progressive public officials, has fought for the last three years. As a result, 30 percent “affordable housing” (but possibly offsite) was promised. There would be 225 units available for those with incomes below the area median income of $28,800 for a family of four. But 3,000 families are expected to be displaced from the community as a result of the project, driving up rents and real estate taxes. The rest of the “affordable housing” goes up to $113, 400.

Since the state approval of the project, 13 home owners, renters and small businesses filed a suit that will likely go to the state Supreme Court claiming violation of the Constitution’s eminent domain clause, as there is no “public taking” but simply an attempt to provide private profit to a developer. A second suit, joined by 26 community organizations, claims violation of state law in approving the project.

It will likely take two years to conclude these suits. The developer is tearing down houses it bought previously to convince the public it is useless to fight. The opposition, led by Develop Don’t Destroy Brooklyn, continues to publicize its stand through a documentary film, “Brooklyn Matters,” that is shown several times a week. The group has joined with others in circulating a petition to Gov. Spitzer against the project and for the demands of public housing tenants in the area.

Angry opposition to the developers has been growing rapidly all over the city. Now the Working Families Party has taken the initiative in bringing together many of the neighborhood and citywide organizations engaged in these struggles, along with some labor unions, into a coalition called “New York Is Our Home.” It is calling for changes in laws and regulations — some modest and some more far-reaching — to protect those in public housing and in rent stabilized apartments from the ravages of the developer-inspired boom and inflation of housing costs.

Among the activities in support of these demands was a citywide rally surrounding the Stuyvesant Town housing complex on May 23. The coalition is a force that cannot be ignored.

Autoworkers wary of Chrysler sale

Fri, 25 May 2007 04:38:00 +0000

DETROIT — The restructuring taking place in the auto industry took a dramatic turn May 15 when Cerberus, the New York private equity investment firm, acquired an 80.1 percent controlling share of Chrysler and renamed it Chrysler Holdings. Daimler, formerly DaimlerChrysler, will retain a 19.1 percent share.

Chrysler has about 80,000 employees and the United Auto Workers union represents 50,000 of them. While Cerberus has said it will honor the union contact, that contract expires in September. UAW negotiations with Chrysler Holdings, GM and Ford are set to begin this summer.

Whatever Cerberus’s pronouncements, private equity firms do not buy companies for the long haul. They have a history of “stripping and flipping,” as UAW President Ron Gettelfinger has said. They come in with aggressive plans to reduce costs and make things look good for the sell, always at the expense of the workers.

In February, Chrysler said it would shed about 13,000 workers as part of a plan to cut production capacity by 400,000 vehicles a year. Cerberus is going forward with those cuts.

Workers worry as they take a look at some of the management personnel at Cerberus. CEO Steve Feinberg, along with his wife, gave $50,000 to the National Republican Congressional Committee in 2004 and followed that with $25,000 in 2005. Cerberus Chairman John Snow was the Bush anointed U.S. treasury secretary in 2003. Prior to that appointment, he had been the chairman of CSX, the railway company that had not paid taxes on over $1 billion in profits, but which had collected $164 million in tax rebate checks from the federal government.

The company also employs former Vice President Dan Quayle as a consultant.

One major concern for workers is the funding of pension plans and health care for both active and retired employees. Notwithstanding a Cerberus pledge to contribute to pension funds, workers feel there remains a danger that the company will target their benefits and that GM and Ford will jump on the bandwagon.

The Detroit Free Press quoted an unnamed source saying that discussions among Big Three auto executives on this matter are under way at “the highest levels.”

There is also speculation that Chrysler, GM and Ford may pressure the UAW to agree to a retiree health care plan similar to one reached at Goodyear Tire and Rubber Co., where the United Steelworkers union agreed to let Goodyear shift $1.2 billion in future health care liabilities to a fund managed by the union. This would represent a move away from defined benefits to defined contributions, and the ever-rising costs of health care would be absorbed by the workers, not the companies.

Prior to the sale of Chrysler, both Gettelfinger and Canadian Auto Worker President Buzz Hargrove had said they were against a private equity company buying Chrysler. But both changed their opinions after receiving the assurances from Cerberus. In an online discussion last week, Gettelfinger and General Holiefield, a UAW vice president, told union members, “We were not a part of the bidding process nor did we have input in the selection process.”

Gettelfinger and Hargrove may have felt they were between a “rock and a hard place” after having seen Daimler’s determination to sell Chrysler. Observers point out that now, more than ever, autoworkers need labor unity and support from all sections of the community.

jrummel @pww.org

Congress misses scale of Gonzales crimes

Tue, 22 May 2007 07:09:00 +0000

Viewpoint

HOUSTON — As congressional politicians are honed in on nailing U.S. Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, they are missing the most obvious crimes he committed. The U.S. Congress is bogged down over whether Houston attorney and Bush sycophant, Alberto Gonzales, was involved in the firing of nine U.S. attorneys and whether he pressured ailing former Attorney General John Ashcroft to sign an illegal presidential order authorizing unlimited wiretapping of U.S. citizens. Although these crimes are horrific, they don’t hold a candle to his previous crimes.

Gonzales has a long history of writing legal briefs that contradict international law. These briefs targeted international laws that interfered with the policies promoted by his benefactor, George W. Bush. Gonzales served as legal counsel to Gov. George Bush when he was governor of Texas.

Gonzales first attempted to circumvent international law by presenting the absurd argument that the state of Texas was not signatory to the Vienna Convention and asserted that Texas was not subject to this international treaty. This, of course, ignores the fact that Texas is not an independent nation and is a state of the United States and subject to its laws and treaties. On the basis of this argument, a Mexican national, Irineo Tristan Montoya, was executed without legal counsel and without access to Mexican authorities.

In fact, Gonzales has been instrumental in protecting “the Decider” from day one. During his confirmation hearings for the office of attorney general, it was disclosed that Gonzales maneuvered to excuse Bush from jury duty in Texas, which would have brought public attention to Bush’s 1976 arrest and conviction for drunken driving in Kennebunkport, Maine.

Scott Horton, a New York attorney and a lecturer in international humanitarian law at Columbia University, has written articles in the Los Angeles Times and elsewhere that Gonzales has been at the forefront of arguments that international treaties should be interpreted unilaterally.

In other words, the U.S. can hold other countries accountable when they break such treaties, but no other country should attempt to hold the U.S. accountable. The interests of the state trump international obligations in Gonzales’ interpretation of the law. This standpoint was one of the cornerstones of fascism and set the stage for the Nazis to justify their invasion and occupation of various countries.

Horton points out that there was dissention in the German elite during the time of Hitler. One German military attorney, Helmuth von Moltke, was a strong believer that international law could reduce the brutality of war and eventually end war. Horton notes that Moltke courageously opposed the brutal treatment of Soviet POWs in a memorandum that was “close to identical to the arguments that are made by Gen. Colin Powell in the letter that he sent to Alberto Gonzales.”

Horton notes that von Moltke was opposed by Nazi legal authorities, including Franz Schlegelberger, who argued, “Well, under our system, the Fuhrer was the source of all law and all authority.” He draws the parallel with the position of John Yoo, a Gonzales subordinate, who argues that President Bush has unlimited authority, is not beholden to international law or to congressional enactments.

Helmuth von Moltke was also opposed by notorious Gen. Field Marshal Wilhelm Keitel, who openly displayed his contempt for the Geneva Conventions. Keitel attempted to justify the execution of Soviet political leaders on the basis that they were “terrorists,” which is a term we have been hearing a lot about recently. Prior to his execution at the Nuremberg trials, Keitel asserted that the Soviets were not a party to the Geneva Conventions and were not entitled to these protections.

As is well known, Attorney General Gonzales, while chief White House counsel, wrote a similar brief to President Bush asserting that the Geneva Conventions were “quaint” and “obsolete” and not applicable to the “war on terror.”

Many are asking, “Why does the U.S. Congress dither over the firing of a few attorneys when Attorney General Gonzales has a long history of attempting to circumvent international law which has resulted in the torture and death of prisoners by U.S. authorities?”

phill2 @houston.rr.com

Mushroom workers in spotlight on May Day

Fri, 18 May 2007 16:11:00 +0000

KENNETT SQUARE, Pa. — The Philadelphia County Central Labor Council and the Philadelphia Area Project on Occupational Safety and Health (Philaposh) celebrated Workers Memorial Day and May Day this year by marching and rallying with the Kaolin Farms mushroom workers in the small town of Kennett Square, Pa., population 5,300, on the first of May.

The decision to march in support of the Kaolin workers was reached at an April 27 breakfast program that highlighted the struggle of immigrant workers in the Kennett Square area.

Ninety-eight percent of the workers who pick the mushrooms in the area are immigrants from Mexico. Thirty percent of the nation’s mushrooms are produced in area farms, earning Kennett Square the moniker of “Mushroom Capital of the World.” Mushrooms are Pennsylvania’s leading cash crop.

Picking mushrooms is dirty and hard work. Mushroom pickers typically face notoriously squalid living conditions. In many camps, the workers have been crowded into shacks infested with rats, mice and flies. Gaps in the walls and roofs are common, as are exposed electrical wiring, boarded-up windows, broken toilets and erratic hot water.

A union organizing drive brought improvements, and the mushroom workers won union recognition and their first union contract in 1999 after prolonged struggle, including a nationwide mushroom boycott.

On May Day, a caravan of cars traveled the 30 miles from the Sheet Metal Workers’ headquarters in Philadelphia headquarters to Anson B. Nixon Park in Kennett Square.

The mushroom workers led the 300 marchers from the park through town and back again. The marchers chanted in Spanish and English, “The people united can never be defeated.” Signs declared, “No human being is illegal,” and “Uphold the right to struggle — pass the Employee Free Choice Act.”

Among the speakers at the rally was Ana Maria Vasquez, a board member of the Farm Workers’ Support Committee.

Vasquez spoke of the plight of the immigrant workers. “We come to this country in order to survive and provide for the well-being of our families,” she said. She called for recognition that “we are workers and that we contribute to the economy, to our communities and to society in general.”

Vasquez continued: “We need laws that protect us and recognize our right to organize without retaliation.” She concluded with a call for amnesty for the 12 million undocumented persons already living in this country and a border policy that complies with the fundamental principles of human rights as affirmed by the United Nations.

Jim Moran, executive director of Philaposh, spoke about the need to end the secrecy about May Day, a working-class holiday that originated in the United States and which is today celebrated throughout the world, but not in the U.S. or Canada.