People Before Profit blog

The age of progress?

Fri, 30 May 2008 10:26:00 +0000

Karl Marx and Frederick Engels ushered in a new philosophical view in their various works. Dialectical materialism became the scientific method which made sense of the universe. It has been borne out in quantum physics and other scientific endeavors including the study of history.

Thomas Paine wrote about the Age of Reason in the late 1790s and early 1800s and the Age of Enlightenment was also a movement of the 1700s. What followed this was an Age of Progress which started with Marx and Engels in the mid 1800s.

It is important to try to conceptualize our history since the emergence of viable Communist parties in Russia, Cuba, China, Vietnam, the U.S. and around the world. These egalitarian, democratic efforts have been met with the most vicious response from capitalist reaction, but steady progress has been made around the world in terms of democracy, human rights, worker’s rights and justice.

The assault of capitalism on working people

Capitalism has used all the terroristic tools available to attempt to crush strivings for economic justice. In the forefront of this effort has been the U.S. The Bush administration has clarified the tactics used by capitalism in a way not seen before in history. Indeed, the efforts of the Bush administration might be characterized as “the age of confusion.”

Perhaps it is the contribution of modern media which makes so much information available to people and has put these tactics on center stage. Although the corporate media strives to soft soap the brutal, terroristic side of capitalism, new avenues for acquiring information are now available to working people on the Internet. This has increased confusion among people due to the massive amounts of information easily accessible. However, there appears to be a dawn of progressive thinking not seen before. Progressive thinkers now have a media easily accessible through the Internet which can readily spread people-centered rather than profit-centered thinking throughout the world.

History witnessed a progressive momentum in the 1920s and 1930s which was subjugated to the struggle against fascism in the 1940s. In the 1950s, after the defeat of fascism, a virulent anti-people’s agenda took center stage with the full backing of the corporate elite. Anti-communism, racism, sexism, anti-unionism and a permanent war mentality became dominant. Socialism and Communism became the bad boys and people were propagandized and made to believe that it is “better to be dead than Red.”

J. Edgar Hoover’s book “Masters of Deceit” slandered the Communist and people’s movement in a way that has been hard to overcome. The people, however, are beginning to recognize who really are the “Masters of Deceit.”

In the struggle between the wealthy and the poor which Marx characterized as the “class struggle,” it is clear that the wealthy have used deceit to wage a war to make the world safe for capitalism and ever expanding profits. This has resulted in massive confusion among working people which has served well the interests of reaction.

We have seen the use of unscrupulous propaganda which characterized the Vietnam War as a war for the liberation of the Vietnamese people. The ruthless capitalists waging this war were merely striving for world domination and trying to increase profits in Southeast Asia. This senseless struggle resulted in the slaughter of untold Vietnamese and American working class people. However, many well meaning Americans were confused by the rhetoric and thought that the U.S. working class soldiers brutally slaughtered by capitalism were “serving their country.” In fact, their sacrifices only served to further the interests of their masters, the capitalists.

Martin Luther King was a fighter for justice for working people and was demonized when he opposed the Vietnam War and stood up for worker’s rights. Character assassination was followed by assassination de facto. Nevertheless, the principles he stood for live on and are cherished by working people everywhere.

Many others who carried the banner of the people were assassinated or destroyed by reaction including the Rosenbergs, Robert F. Kennedy, Malcolm X and untold labor and civil rights leaders during the maelstrom which resulted from progressive struggles. Progressives were massacred and martyred in the Haymarket uprising merely for advocating the 40 hour week.

All of these acts of terrorism by the wealthy resulted in increased confusion and fear of progressive movements among the general population.

Endless war, racism, sexism and other negative propaganda

Fast forward to the present and we see an administration which condemns communism and unions while extolling the virtues of torture and endless war. The same forces which told us that communists and socialists were enemies of the people have engaged in an unprecedented fleecing of working people to enrich the major corporations.

These same forces justified the Iraq debacle by claiming that country possessed weapons of mass destruction. These same forces have demonized immigrants in the most vicious, racist attacks seen since the slaughter of Native Americans and African Americans in this country. Immigrants are being placed in detention centers at an unprecedented rate not seen since the detention of Japanese Americans during World War II. Racist attacks on the African American community are well documented and understood. African Americans are prepared for incarceration from the moment they enter the educational system and serve the “prison industrial complex” in untold numbers.

The Bush administration has attempted to privatize our toenails while simultaneously attempting to dismantle education and social security and any other social programs which might benefit working people. Religion has been enlisted in this massive propagandistic extravaganza and right-wing preachers have recently claimed that Adolf Hitler's actions actually benefited the Jewish people. Such subterfuge and distortion of the facts has resulted in massive confusion.

Bill Moyers has noted the exacerbation of the class struggle beginning with Secretary of the Treasury William Simon under President Richard Nixon. He maintains that Simon declared class war and called for the wealthy to “take back what has been taken from us.” Of course, we see the results of this now with a faltering economy but a greatly enriched bourgeoisie.

What is to be done?

So, where does this leave us in our current state of affairs? In other words, what is to be done? Lenin’s question is of utmost importance in the current political situation.

With the recent upsurge in interest in electoral politics, particularly those forces demanding change, and the assertiveness of organized labor, a new 'age of progress” should be declared and fought for.

The foundation is already being laid and must be enacted when the new administration takes power. Pressure must be applied to encourage lawmakers to pass the employee free choice act, a national health care plan and to reverse the anti-labor, anti-people legislation passed by the right wing. Social security should be strengthened and expanded so that people getting benefits receive a living wage. Scientific endeavor and research should be removed from private hands and returned to the public domain. All of the setbacks dealt to our precious public education system must be reversed and our education system must be set on a positive course. Foreign policy should hinge on diplomacy, rather than dictatorial despotism and international terrorism. Our future depends on it.

In other words, science and rational thinking should become dominant rather than idealistic, mythological, superstitious justification of reactionary policies leading to self-destruction of our people and the peoples of the world. It is time for the working class to become the ruling class. Only with a united people’s movement can we accomplish these goals.

Taking global poverty seriously

Fri, 30 May 2008 09:00:00 +0000

Scatter-shot efforts, no matter how innovative, will not suffice to reverse the awful trends now evident around the world. New plagues — AIDS, drug-resistant tuberculosis and hospital-acquired “superbugs” of all sorts — sweep rapidly across vast swathes of land, blurring national boundaries. Old maladies that should have been history, like smallpox, remain rooted in long-standing and increasingly unjust social and economic structures. Malaria, hookworm and other parasites claim lives or simply drain energy from hundreds of millions; it’s hard to work when you’re tired and anemic or pregnant a dozen times before the age of 30. There are still rich people and poor people, but most economists agree that social inequalities, both global and local, have grown rapidly over the past three decades. The earth itself is tired and malnourished. Man-made environmental crises dry up lakes, wash topsoil into the seas and smother reefs, and — from what we can tell — spark huge storms. A billion people do not have safe drinking water. A war built on lies will cost, one Nobel laureate economist tells us, three trillion dollars.

What cause have we for hope? As a doctor working in Africa and Haiti, I see first-hand just how wide the technology gap is. It’s more of an abyss than a gap. Yet I feel hopeful.

Some of that hope is tied to an increasing awareness of the great world around us. There is, as is often reported by cheerleaders of commerce, vast and rapid growth in the global economy. China and India, not so long ago poor and agrarian, are already economic powerhouses and these economies continue to grow rapidly, if unevenly, and if fueled by coal and oil. With 50 years of peace, Europe is more prosperous than ever. In spite of trade imbalances, a recession, and imprudent wars built on lies, the United States remains rich and is still an incubator for new ideas and novel technologies. And here is another cause for hope: our citizens, if famously ill-informed about the world, are generous: almost half of American households responded to a tsunami in Asia, more than any other nation, and even more tried to respond to the worst hurricane ever to hit our country’s Gulf coast.

Haiti’s ‘rice wars’

If you’ve been reading the paper recently you will have seen news of the food riots happening in Haiti. This is not just a problem of rampant malnutrition — though that is of course a huge problem in most of the country. It is, rather, a problem of global collusion, unfair trade agreements, and crazy agricultural subsidies.

I was in Haiti during the years the country was pushed, by countries with their own ridiculously high agricultural supports for rice and others cereals, to drop import tariffs on rice and sugar. Within less than two years, it became impossible for local farmers to compete with what the Haitians called “Miami rice.” The whole market in Haiti fell apart as cheap, U.S.-subsidized rice — some of it in the form of “food aid” — flooded the market. There was violence — “rice wars” — and lives were lost. Within that time, Haiti, once the world’s largest exporter of sugar and other tropical produce to Europe, began importing even sugar — from U.S.-controlled sugar production in the Dominican Republic and Florida. It was terrible to see Haitian farmers put out of work, and all this sped up the downward spiral that led to last month’s food riots.

Within a decade of all of these pressures to “open up Haitian markets,” Haiti was still under intense pressure from the so-called international community to privatize. In the mid-’90s, when U.S. support for President Aristide’s return was linked to continued privatization and removal of any trade protections that might have helped the farmers — most of them working small plots of land — become competitive, Oxfam declared Haiti’s economy one of the most “open” in the world. This at a time when U.S. agribusiness continued to enjoy ludicrous levels of subvention.

This is an awful story that is hidden away from all the headlines of rioting Haitians, and it reminds us that no one group of innovators, not even agricultural whizzes who can come up with drought-resistant, super-high-yield, supersize-me maize or wheat, will be enough to solve the global problem of food insecurity. It will require technical innovation and a movement for social justice. That’s what we need to build here, and what the generation now in college needs to take on.

Why we must preserve the public sector

Medicine and public health will not solve the world’s problems, but can offer part of the solution to some of them. What’s been shocking to me over the past 25 years is the lightning speed at which many policymakers decide that a complex intervention is “too difficult” or “not cost-effective in Haiti or Africa,” or “not sustainable.” In microfinance parlance, many of my patients are “poor credit risks,” but aren’t they the very people we claim to serve in the first place? How many times have you heard that people will value something more if they pay for it? Does anyone really believe that a mother loves her newborn more if she had to pay some sort of users’ fee to access prenatal and obstetric care?

Let me be clear: this is not an “anti-market” stance. It’s merely the argument that market alone will not solve the problems of adequate housing, nutrition, employment and educational opportunities for those who need them most. It’s the argument that even the best and most needed technologies will not somehow be magically spread across the poorest parts of the world simply because they are innovative. It’s the argument that we need to do everything in our power to make sure that the public sector does not shrivel and die. Why? Not only because a functioning public health or education system is often the only way to bring a novel program to scale, and not only because we need the participation of governments to address the current environmental crises at the transnational scale needed to make a difference. There is another reason to fight the neoliberal gutting of the public sector, and that is this: only governments can confer rights. And without basic rights — to water, security, health care, the right not to starve — the world’s poor do not have hope of a future.

Enlarge the meaning of human rights

The funny thing is that, among self-proclaimed human-rights experts, these socioeconomic rights tend to be the neglected stepchildren: the focus in what we call “the West” is largely upon civil and political rights. We should not give up on the rights paradigms, but rather enlarge them to include what many call the rights of the poor. Water. Food. Health care. Jobs. Education.

When effective treatment for tuberculosis was developed, it would have been a good idea to make it available to anyone with tuberculosis, regardless of social station. To sell treatment for an airborne disease was not smart, since those who could pay might get better but those who could not would buy what they could and then develop drug-resistant TB. Public health experts, uncomfortable with the notion of a right to health care, began speaking of “public goods for public health. Here was an airborne disease; it was a public problem, not a private one. A hard-won lesson.

Then came a change in the culture. Instead of “health for all by the year 2000,” we had “structural adjustment” imposed by the international financial institutions that today claim amnesia regarding these events. There is still no admission that it is wrong, in settings of great squalor, to insist on “user fees” or “cost recovery” from the poorest.

Our last great hope

We need to link our rights-based arguments to more subtle and honest notions of sustainable development, and to sell these to leaders of good will. Bertolt Brecht, who is almost always right, has argued that “the compassion of the oppressed for the oppressed is indispensable. It is the world’s one hope.” I fear that, at this late date, an additional kind of solidarity is necessary. A social justice movement that links the rich world and the poor, one that links concern for the earth with respectful solidarity towards its poorest inhabitants, is our last great hope for a world marked by less suffering and violence and premature death. It’s our last great hope for the generations to come, and for our own children.

But we need hope and courage and a plan to end, for example, an unjust war. We need hope and energy to tackle the diseases that should have been wiped out decades ago or never allowed to spread so rapidly. We need hope and sheer grit to spread green technology and food security to the poorest parts of this planet. We need hope to counter the neoliberal policies that have weakened and even wrecked public-sector institutions without ever delivering on the promise to lift all boats. We need hope to speak to people in powerful positions whose hearts, unlike the polar icecaps, show little signs of melting. We need hope, and we need each other.

Paul Farmer, M.D., Ph.D., is Presley Professor and Associate Chair, Department of Social Medicine, Harvard Medical School; Associate Chief, Division of Social Medicine and Health Inequalities, Brigham and Women’s Hospital; and a co-founder of the nonprofit organization Partners In Health (www.pih.org). This article is excerpted, with permission of the author, from a recent address delivered at the Inaugural Millennium Campus Conference, Global Poverty Initiative, at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Three contrasting congresses meet in Germany

Thu, 29 May 2008 06:40:00 +0000

Berlin – Three all-German congresses were held this past weekend; all important but very different.

The bad news first. The beautiful old city of Bamberg hosted the national congress of the National Party (NPD) – the main neo-Nazi party. All attempts to bar it from the city's Congress Hall foundered on a Bavarian court decision, since the party is legal.

The 500 or so delegates, ranging from ancient Nazi SS-veterans to the plug-ugly toughs who beat up foreigners, the homeless and the handicapped, were dominated by well-dressed 'new Neo-Nazis,' now striving with some success to enter the local and state political scene and perhaps even the federal Bundestag in 2009.

They are launching more and more popular activities like town fairs and stealing progressive slogans on jobs, pensions, wages and even the rejection of military adventures, but always betray their true nature with attacks on 'non-Germans.'

Three counter-demonstrations involved some 3,000 to 4,000 people, even the mayor and the bishop. The most militant group had the usual run-in with the police, who as usual protected the neo-Nazis and arrested 20 anti-Nazi militants.

Balancing this in Berlin was a congress of the Association of Victims of the Nazi Regime/Union of Antifascist Men and Women (VVN-BDA), an amalgamation of former East and West German organizations. About 200 delegates met under the slogan 'Joining together against attacks on human rights, fascism and war.' Survivors of the Hitler years – in exile, concentration camps or armed struggle in Spain, in the underground or in allied armies – are rapidly thinning out, so a main aim is to win young members, like those demonstrating against neo-Nazis in Bamberg.

One key campaign is to get the NPD outlawed. The petition to achieve this states that 'Fascism is no political position, it is a crime.' Forbidding the party would hardly end its growing menace but would prevent neo-Nazis from using the large sums of the government money offered all political parties to spread hate propaganda and would end the legal protection the NPD receives for its weekly marches and rallies all over Germany.

Another VVN-BDA congress aim was to oppose growing attempts to equate Nazi rule with the GDR as 'two dictatorships,' thus downgrading in people's minds the degree of torture and murder of millions by the Nazis while squelching increasing dissatisfaction with the prevailing capitalist system.

Finally, in the East German city Cottbus, the party called The Left (Die Linke) held its first regular congress since its founding a year ago. An amalgamation of the former Party of Democratic Socialism in East Germany (a child of the old ruling party of the GDR) and a young West German organization of militant trade unionists and disgruntled Social Democrats, it has amazingly altered the entire political scene in Germany.

Formerly there were four main parties, two right-wing and two vaguely left of center (Social Democrats and Greens) who had, however abandoned, virtually all former positions on social and international issues. The emergence of the Left, which has already overcome the five percent barrier and won seats in four West German states (in Eastern Germany and Berlin it is already the first, second or occasionally third party), has changed the entire constellation.

With poll and election figures varying from six to 13 percent, it has forced the old parties to alter their programs if they are not to lose even more votes and elections. Suddenly the other parties picked up the call of the Left for a minimum wage – hitherto a taboo theme. They suddenly discovered how unjust the pension schemes were – for which all four old parties were responsible – and which the Left had attacked. Affordable child care – available to all families in the GDR and now championed by the Left – was now backed even by the right-wing Christian Democrats of Angela Merkel, though goals were set for many years in the future. Even in foreign policy: the Left demanded withdrawal from all military ventures outside Germany. This was unattainable but Germany has been far more cautious in the past year.

The next big test will be the state elections in September in Bavaria, the most rightwing state. If the Left can overcome the five percent hurdle there, and help break the power of the so-called Christian ruling party, the whole German situation will be further changed, even before the national elections in 2009.

This was the up-beat message at the Cottbus congress. To answer accusations by the almost entirely hostile media that the Left made 'populist' demands for social improvements which were financially unrealizable, the party offered a long list of areas where the growing number of millionaires and billionaires could finally be forced to pay taxes.

Almost inevitably, a main media focus was on possible disagreements and splits. Undeniably, two general tendencies have developed in the party. One group, largely in support of Lafontaine (ironically a former Social Democratic leader), stressed militancy: no more privatization of public utilities, support of union actions, even the possibility of a general strike, no departures from basic principles to reach compromises with the old parties. This policy finds support with many in West German sections of the party as well as with more 'leftist' groups in the East, like those in the 'Communist Platform' within the party.

The other main group stresses reforms and seems more inclined to form coalitions with the Social Democrats, as in the present Berlin government, even on the national level. The Social Democrats would have to alter their policies to some degree, it is maintained, but the question remains as to what degree – and is this trend aimed too much at participation in government (with all its perks) rather than in a fighting opposition?

Gregor Gysi, a leading figure in the party and head of the large Left caucus in the Bundestag, added new issues recently by calling for a clear rejection of 'anti-Zionism' and clear support for Israel. He went further by claiming that issues like imperialism and anti-imperialism were hardly relevant today, when no country is seeking colonies, and he indicated support for a sort of German consensus on such issues.

A small youth group, going further, called for an end (all in one breath) to anti-Semitism, anti-Zionism, anti-Americanism and 'regressive anti-capitalism.'

In the historic context of Germany's past, there is an unquestioned need for a rejection of all anti-Semitism (increasingly used by right-wingers, aided by the widespread unpopularity of Israel's policy in Palestine). But labeling all criticism of Israeli military and occupation policies as anti-Semitism can represent another extreme. This issue was hardly mentioned at the congress, but contains real perils to future unity.

Indeed, there were only two hours for discussion; much time was taken for elections of party officials. The East German Lothar Bisky (8 1.3%) and the West German Oskar Lafontaine (78.5%) were reelected as co-chairmen, though with lower percentages than last year, partly reflecting the disapproval of some East German leaders for Lafontaine's militant positions. Four vice-presidents were elected, two from the East, two from the West, three women and a man. This ratio was reflected in the new Executive Committee, with 16 men and 19 women. The highest votes went to Sahra Wagenknecht, the brilliant leader of the Communist Platform (70.5 %) and Bodo Ramelow (73.6 %), the leader of the strong Left party in Thuringia and one of the top 'reformers.' The membership has grown since the founding convention and stands at 73,455, making it the fourth largest party in Germany.

Victor Grossman lives in Berlin.

Missourians triumph over anti-civil rights plan

Sat, 24 May 2008 08:28:00 +0000

NewsAnalysis

ST. LOUIS — Over the last few months one of the most important electoral struggles of 2008 played out in Missouri. The deceptively-named Missouri Civil Rights Initiative (MoCRI), which would have outlawed affirmative action programs here was blocked May 4 because petitions to get the measure on the ballot were not submitted.

Ward Connerly, an African American multi-millionaire lobbyist for the construction industry, who also financed successful anti-affirmative-action initiatives in California, Washington and Michigan, was the main backer of the measure here.

Earlier this year he announced his “Super Tuesday for Equal Rights,” a five state, multi-milliondollar program designed to place anti-affirmative-action initiatives on the ballot in Nebraska, Oklahoma, Colorado, Arizona and Missouri.

He was supported by major construction firms and reactionary segments of the economic and political elite.

For Connerly’s anti-civil-rights movement, this year was supposed to be a watershed moment eventually leading to a majority of states banning affirmative action policies, and eventually a federal law.

Also, the prospect of an African American or woman Democratic presidential nominee meant that the extreme right wing in the GOP needed to mobilize voters using racism and sexism, with the belief that they would vote for the Republican candidate in November.

Much like anti-choice or anti-marriage equality measures used by the right wing in the past, this initiative was viewed as their best bet in mobilizing a Republican victory in key states.

After Connerly made his intentions known, Missouri labor, community, civil rights and faith groups came together to form Working to Empower Community Action Now (WeCAN) and decided the best way to stop the initiative was to do direct action voter education.

By tirelessly searching out anti-civil-rights petitioners and then giving Missouri voters information about the true intent of the petition, we informed thousands of Missourians, most of whom said to the petitioners, “No, thank you.”

Why did we do this? Because the petitioners if seldom ever said that the initiative would ban affirmative action. Most said it would end workplace discrimination. It was necessary to speak with voters at the point of contact, so that they would be aware of the true meaning of the petition.

Missouri became the poster child for the national right-wing campaign. Outside money and resources began pouring into MoCRI’s coffers. They not only increased the amount they paid per signature (some petitioners were being paid as much as $10 per signature) started to pay for flights and lodging for signature gatherers to come to Missouri.

Suddenly we saw more and more unfamiliar faces, who we later found out, were Minutemen, Nazis, and sundry white supremacists. This was a sign of desperation on the part of MoCRI.

When MoCRI failed to deliver it spetitions to Missouri’s secretary of state on May 4, the WeCAN coalition announced a victory had been won. (See pww.org for the coalition’s full statement).

While Connerly and his surrogates made rambling excuses about why they were unable to gather enough signatures, the reason was obvious to others. “Missouri is a state that believes in fairness and equality,” said Lynn Oldham, Missouri ACORN member “Once our voter educators got the word out, people learned quickly that this initiative was bad for everyone.”

Missouri is known as the Show Me State, where you have to try hard to win trust and back up your promises with action. Right-wing forces believed that they would easily triumph here. But, in the end, it was the voters of Missouri who showed them.

Glenn Burleigh is St. Louis Metro political director for MO ACORN and lead organizer of the statewide effort to defend affirmative action.

Cartoons: Police Injustice

Fri, 23 May 2008 01:19:00 +0000

News Analysis: Missourians triumph over anti-civil rights plan

Fri, 23 May 2008 00:37:00 +0000

Over the last few months one of the most important electoral struggles of 2008 played out in Missouri. The deceptively-named Missouri Civil Rights Initiative (MoCRI), which would have outlawed affirmative action programs here, went down to defeat May 4 for failing to submit their petitions to get the measure on the ballot in November.

Ward Connerly, an African American multi-millionaire lobbyist for the construction industry, who also financed successful anti-affirmative action initiatives in California, Washington, and Michigan, was the main backer of the measure here.

Earlier this year he announced his “Super Tuesday for Equal Rights,” a five state, multi-million dollar program designed to place anti-affirmative action initiatives on the ballots in Nebraska, Oklahoma, Colorado, Arizona and Missouri.

He was supported by major construction firms and reactionary segments of economic and political elite.

For Connerly’s anti-civil rights movement, this year was supposed to be a watershed moment eventually leading to a majority of states banning affirmative action policies and eventually a federal law.

Also, the prospect of an African American or women Democratic presidential nominee meant that the extreme right wing in the GOP needed to mobilize voters using racism and sexism, with the belief that they would vote for the Republican candidate in November.

Much like anti-choice or anti-marriage equality measures used by the right wing in the past, this initiative was viewed as their best bet in mobilizing a Republican victory in key states.

After Connerly made his intentions known, Missouri labor, community, civil rights, and faith groups came together to form Working to Empower Community Action Now (WeCAN) and decided the best way to stop the initiative was to do direct action voter education.

By tirelessly searching out anti-civil rights petitioners and then giving Missouri voters information about the true intent of the petition, we informed thousands of Missourians, most of whom said to the petitioners, “No, thank you.”

Why did we do this? Because the petitioners seldom ever said that the initiative would ban affirmative action. Most said it would end workplace discrimination. It was necessary to speak with voters at the point of contact, so that they would be aware of the true meaning of the petition.

Missouri became the poster child for the national rightwing campaign. Outside money and resources began pouring into MoCRI’s coffers. They not only increased the amount they paid per signature (some petitioners were being paid as much as $10 per signature) but also to pay for flights and lodging for signature gatherers to come to Missouri.

Suddenly we saw more and more unfamiliar faces, whom we later found out, were Minutemen, Nazi’s, and sundry white supremacists. This was a sign of desperation on the part of MoCRI.

When MoCRI failed to deliver their petitions to Missouri’s Secretary of State on Sunday, May 4, the WeCAN coalition announced a victory had been won. (See pww.org for the coalition’s full statement).

While Connerly and his surrogates made rambling excuses about why they were unable to gather enough signatures, the reason was obvious to others. “Missouri is a state that believes in fairness and equality,” said Lynn Oldham, Missouri ACORN member, “Once our voter educators got the word out, people learned quickly that this initiative was bad for everyone.”

Missouri is known as the Show Me State, where you have to try hard to win trust and back up your promises with action. Rightwing forces believed that they would easily triumph here. But, in the end, it was the voters of Missouri who showed them.

Glenn Burleigh is the St. Louis Metro Political Director for MO ACORN and Lead Organizer of the statewide effort to Defend Affirmative Action.

Opinion: We are all Sean Bell

Sat, 17 May 2008 09:11:00 +0000

I was arrested last Wednesday.

It was one of the most rewarding experiences I have ever had.

I was not alone.

That afternoon at six locations around New York City, thousands of people of all races gathered to protest the innocent verdict in the police killing of Sean Bell and to call attention to the larger issue of reforming the New York Police Department.

Dozens of us then peacefully moved to block key transportation hubs in a well-orchestrated “pray-in,” to force the city to listen to community demands.

The Rev. Al Sharpton and Bell’s family and friends led a group to the nearby entrance to the Brooklyn Bridge.

Police blocked our way. News trucks swarmed. Commuters stopped to watch. A young white office worker in a necktie and button-down shirt approached me and asked if it was too late to get arrested.

We knelt in prayer, were warned several times of our impending arrest, and were eventually segregated by gender and carted off in buses to Central Booking.

We were Muslim, Christian, Jewish, atheist, union members, mothers, grandparents, students, clergy, veterans, journalists, business people, professionals. Members of SEIU Local 32BJ, Transport Workers Union Local 100 and other trade unions were in our number, as were members of the NAACP, Sharpton’s National Action League and United for Peace & Justice and City Councilman Charles Barron of Brooklyn.

Hours ticked off as we were photographed and cataloged. We greeted each other as long-lost friends. The men around me began chanting: “We are all Sean Bell!” The women somewhere distant chanted back: “We are all Sean Bell!”

Someone would begin: “Count it off!” and we screamed: “1, 2, 3, 4, 5 …” up to 50, the number of shots fired into Bell and his friends Joseph Guzman and Trent Benefield, all unarmed. Bell died just hours from his planned wedding. “50 shots means murder!”

My name was called. I was brought to a large room, circled in bulletproof glass. Inside, nearly 100 men were holding a spontaneous rally. The crowd welcomed me like a hero.

As an African American man, there is something counter-intuitive to voluntarily risking arrest. So it was powerful that, among the interracial crowd, African American men made up a majority. Many talked of their experiences in prison, their negative interactions with the police and their identification with Bell. One brave man said he was an ex-con, currently on parole, but was so angered by the Bell case that he asked permission from his parole officer to participate in the civil disobedience. While police violence affects everyone, Black men face a particular threat.

Even Benefield and Guzman, who had everything to fear from the police, were in the cell that day, both bearing bullet wounds that may never heal. Guzman addressed the men around him, saying, “I want to shake every one of your hands before I leave.”

Racist policing is so pervasive that it is hard to find an African American man who has not encountered the criminal justice system. But instead of fearing jail, dozens of Black men made a statement by getting arrested that day.

Numbers the NYPD released the week of our arrest prove the racial bias in city policing. Of the sobering half-million arrests made in the city in 2006, an indefensible 50.8 percent were of Blacks. Stops in the first quarter of 2008, in fact, were the highest ever. The police claim that their stop-and-frisk policies are based on actual complaints or suspect descriptions, but very few of those stopped were even arrested, let alone charged.

Just last week, police officers harassed and detained an African American who happened to be an off-duty police chief.

Yet almost everyone who spoke in the holding cell noted that the police killing of Bell, and all police violence, is a universal human rights issue. It is everyone’s business to solve.

One young man said, “This room looks like New York. We have Black and white, Latino and Asian.” He pointed out that everyone is at risk when the police can act with impunity — any New Yorker could have been killed that night, shot on the nearby train platform or in a neighboring apartment.

One by one we began being released. I was issued a ticket for disorderly conduct. But we had won the day. We had become galvanized, unified and dedicated to making the city fulfill the demand of justice for Sean Bell and real changes to policing.

We pledged to spread the word, to ensure that there is never another crime like those experienced by Sean Bell, Amadou Diallo or Abner Louima. We are all Sean Bell.

Libero Della Piana (ldellapiana @ cpusa.org) is a resident of Harlem, N.Y., and chairperson of the New York State Communist Party.

Editorial: Israel's 60th anniversary

Thu, 15 May 2008 03:34:00 +0000

May 14 marked the 60th anniversary of the formation of the state of Israel. It has had a complex, troubled history, with many conflicting views about what happened and why.

For the decades-old Jewish population in Palestine and the survivors of Hitler’s Holocaust, May 14, 1948, meant the achievement of a state that was majority Jewish. But for many Palestinians, 1948 is known as the Naqba, the catastrophe, when people whose families had lived there for centuries were driven into exile and their homes and villages obliterated.

In 1947, the United Nations called for establishment of a Jewish state and a Palestinian state in the British mandate in Palestine. It was supported by the Soviet Union and by the Jewish and Arab Communists in Palestine, as well as by the Communist Party USA, as the only workable solution to meet the needs and aspirations of the Jewish and Palestinian peoples.

On May 14, 1948, the Jewish People’s Council, meeting in Tel Aviv, issued a Declaration of the Establishment of the State of Israel. The signers represented political trends from right to left, including Communist Meir Vilner. The Soviet Union was the first country to officially recognize the new state.

The state of Israel, the declaration said, “will foster the development of the country for the benefit of all its inhabitants … based on freedom, justice and peace.”

It extended a hand of “peace and good neighborliness” in “a common effort for the advancement of the entire Middle East.”

Sadly, these ideals still wait to be realized.

Despite the presence of progressives, socialists and communists among the Jewish and Arab peoples, events were largely driven by reactionary forces, including British and later U.S. imperialism, which had little interest in the Jewish or Palestinian people, viewing them as pawns in a battle for control of the region.

Today we celebrate the struggles of progressive Jews and Arabs of Israel and Palestine to make their decades-old hopes of peace and justice a reality.

The road to achieve that today is a two-state solution based on the pre-1967 borders with East Jerusalem as Palestine’s capital, and a negotiated solution to the refugee issue. Israeli settlements in Palestinian territories will have to be removed. And clearly, negotiations will have to include Hamas. Polls show the majority of Israelis support such steps.

We need to press our government to fully support this solution.

No Child Left Behinds reading program marked failure

Tue, 13 May 2008 07:13:00 +0000

NewsAnalysis

A key education program created under George W. Bush’s No Child Left Behind Act has failed to produce results, according to a recent study by the Institute of Education Sciences, the research arm of the U.S. Department of Education. The study concluded that there was no difference in the reading comprehension scores between students who participated in the Reading First program and those who did not.

The Department of Education has spent more than $6 billion on Reading First since 2002, about $1 billion a year. Reading First has been a core program of the No Child Left Behind Act with 1.5 million students in grades kindergarten to third grades participating in 5,200 schools in 13 states.

Sen. Edward Kennedy (D-Mass.), chair of the Senate Education Committee, said, “The Bush administration has put cronyism first and the reading skills of our children last, and the report shows the disturbing consequences.” Because of the criticism and accusations of conflict of interest of Reading First officials, congressional hearings were held in April 2007.

The hearings disclosed how those who implemented and designed the $1-billion-a-year Reading First program profited from steering states and school districts to purchase certain textbooks, tests and services. Reading First was also charged with mismanagement.

Chris Doherty, former director of Reading First, sent an email to a staff member which exposed his motives when referring to a reading program he disapproved. Said Doherty, “They are trying to crash our party and we need to beat the [expletive] out of them in front of all the other would-be party crashers who are standing on the front lawn waiting to see how we treat dirt bags.”

Doherty and other Reading First officials awarded grants only when states and school districts used the reading programs they favored such as McGraw-Hill’s Direct Instruction and Voyager Expanded Learning. Even when other programs such as Reading Recovery and Success for All complied with the legal guidelines and criteria, they were not approved to be used. They were the “dirt bags.”

The Expert Review Panel did not function. Some grant applications were funded without documentation, while others were denied for no reason, the hearings revealed.

During the hearings, Rep. George Miller (D-Calif.), chair of the House Education Committee, told a panel of Reading First officials, “This sounds like a criminal enterprise to me. You don’t get to override the law. But the fact of the matter is that you did.”

Following the hearing, House Appropriations Committee Chair Rep. David Obey (D-Wisc.) led the fight to cut Reading First’s budget from $1 billion to $393 million in 2008. Bush’s fiscal 2009 budget seeks to restore funding to previous levels. Chris Doherty resigned right before the Department of Education Inspector General, John Higgins, published his Investigation Report of Reading First.

Actually, the goals and purpose of the Reading First program are laudable: “To assist States and local school districts to establish reading programs for low income students in Kindergarten to 3rd grade based on scientific research resulting in these students being able to read on grade level.”

The tragedy of the Reading First Program, however, is not the program itself but the officials who mismanaged it and their total disregard for the laws and guidelines under which the department was to operate. Cronyism and corporate greed was allowed to override the educational needs of the young children the program was to serve.

Rosita Johnson is a retired teacher and member of the PWW editorial board. This article was first published at pww.org. See related letter to the editor on page 6.

At Bush-Calderon-Harper summit Security, prosperity for whom?

Sat, 10 May 2008 07:27:00 +0000

NewsAnalysis

Last month’s summit in New Orleans brought together President Bush, Mexican President Felipe Calderon, and Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper, all right wingers, for the fourth meeting of the Security and Prosperity Partnership of the Americas (SPP), which is a tri-national grouping designed to coordinate strategy to create a corporate friendly atmosphere.

The key power grouping within the SPP is the North American Competitiveness Council composed of 35 representatives of New York Life, Ford, General Motors, Merck, General Electric, Chevron, Wal-Mart, Lockheed-Martin, Gillette, Whirlpool, Home Depot, Scotiabank, Mexicana Airlines, Kimberley-Clark of Mexico and other U.S., Canadian and Mexican big business interests.

Labor, environmentalist and other non-business sectors are completely locked out of SPP. Nor is the SPP accountable to the legislative bodies of the participating countries. Bush administration comments suggest that the goal is now to “institutionalize” the SPP so that whoever wins in November will have trouble changing it.

But all three governments find themselves on the defensive, because of opposition to the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA). While NAFTA is not the same as the SPP, the latter is seen by many as “NAFTA plus,” a mechanism to increase corporate profits within the context of NAFTA through coordinated efforts on trade and business regulations, energy policy, infrastructure development and national security.

Democratic presidential candidates have made “renegotiation” of NAFTA part of their 2008 electoral programs, while Republican candidate John McCain defends the deal. U.S. workers have been seething with anger at NAFTA in particular and free trade in general, which they blame for massive loss of industrial jobs.

In Mexico, small farmers, workers and the left denounce NAFTA as having destroyed the livelihood of millions of grain farmers due to the vast inflow of heavily government subsidized U.S. corn at prices with which Mexican farmers, who receive little or no subsidy, can not compete.

In Canada, a member of Parliament from the New Democratic Party, Peter Julian, has taken the lead in organizing a tri-national legislative task force with representatives from all three countries.

In a statement on the New Orleans summit issued by Julian, U.S. Rep. Marcy Kaptur (D-Ohio) and Mexican Sen. Yeidckol Polevnsky of the Revolutionary Democratic Party, the three legislators asked rhetorically: “On energy policy, for example, should U.S. citizens place unquestioning trust in the Bush administration after it battled all the way to the Supreme Court to conceal the participants in Dick Cheney’s energy policy meetings? Should Canadians place faith in leaders who push relentlessly to squeeze oil from Alberta’s tar sands while disregarding the environmental risks and refusing to assure any broadly based benefit for the resource sell-out? Should Mexico’s people trust a government that just this past week introduced legislation to privatize Mexico’s oil industry – currently the source of at least a third of total government revenue?”

In a statement to the press Calderon sang the praises of NAFTA, claiming that it had greatly increased Mexico’s prosperity despite the fact that now 500,000 Mexicans feel forced to cross the U.S. border without papers every year because they can not find work in their homeland.

Nobody mentioned dealing with undocumented immigration, controlling skyrocketing food prices or protecting the environment. However, Presidents Bush and Calderon used the occasion to launch an impassioned defense of the U.S.–Colombia Free Trade Agreement, which has run into big trouble in Congress. Bush also plugged the “Merida Initiative,” a component of the SPP whereby his administration pledged $1.4 billion to suppress drugs and terrorism. The first installment of $550 million is now being debated in Congress. Critics point out the very high likelihood that these funds will end up financing the brutal repression of protests against the neo-liberal policies that the SPP is aimed at intensifying.

Amazingly, Calderon invited Bush to the next SPP summit which will take place when Bush is long out of office. As analyst Lauren Carlsen of the Americas Program of the Center for International Policy put it, “Officially inviting an ex-president to the next trilateral summit is unprecedented and completely outside diplomatic protocol. It should be considered an affront to the incoming president of the United States and to the people of the United States.”

In fact, depending on what happens in November, there may be no “next meeting.” But the “invitation” to Bush can be seen as emblematic of the arrogance of three reactionary politicians who consider themselves accountable to nobody but their big business friends and supporters.