People Before Profit blog

FTAA protesters need bail money & support now!

Thu, 27 Nov 2003 05:43:00 +0000

FTAA protesters being released or calling from jail in Miami report excessive brutality, sexual assault and torture going on inside. People of color, queer and transgender prisoners are particularly being targeted. There is a confirmed report of one Latino man arrested along with 62 others outside Miami-Dade County Jail, Nov. 21, who has been hospitalized in intensive care for an injury he received after being beaten in the head with a nightstick by an arresting officer.

People have also been denied access to attorneys, visitation rights, and essential medication and medical attention.

* Call or e-mail Miami elected officials demanding charges be dropped and all prisoners released:

Mayor Manuel Diaz: (305) 250-5300 or 375-5071

or

State Attorney Katherine Fernandez Rundle: (305) 547-0100

Chief of Police John Timoney: (305) 673-7925 or 579-6565

* Money is urgently needed to get people out of jail. Please send money to: United for Peace and Justice. Online donations: www.unitedforpeace.org/ftaadonate. Mail checks or money orders to: United for Peace and Justice/FTAA Fund, P.O. Box 607, Times Square Station, New York, NY 10108. Please specify Legal Fund in the memo field.

Toronto Film Festival 2003 part 2 Reality on the screen

Thu, 27 Nov 2003 05:37:00 +0000

Certainly the richest program for progressives at the Toronto International Film Festival is the Real to Reel collection of documentaries. With the phenomenal success of Michael Moore’s films, there’s been a revival of interest in “real” cinema. Most all the screenings in this program were filled with enthusiasts searching for entertainment and truth through film.

One explanation for this phenomenon is offered by the co-president of Sony Picture Classics, Michael Barker: “The reason these films are working is that they’re simply the best films out there right now. These documentaries have something fresh and new that people want from the independent world.”

What defines a documentary? Real events with real players. But there are new variations on the theme of “reality” filmmaking. Errol Morris’s early film about an accused police killer, “The Thin Blue Line,” is one example of a film that challenged the accepted concepts by inserting re-creations using actors within the documentary format. The film was so powerful in its investigative force that it actually resulted in a re-trial and exoneration of the main character.

“Magic realism,” a form of implying something just beyond reality as an influence on events, has been a common style especially in Latin American cinema, and even in some documentaries.

Early terms such as “direct cinema” and “cinema verité” define a specific type of ”reality” filmmaking, regulating the degree to which filmmakers influence or involve themselves in the action.

Of course, “reality” cinema can be further from the truth than a fiction film. By careful editing the director can alter the sequence of events, or emphasize events or characters to produce a different reality. This was the issue when Michael Moore’s first documentary film, “Roger and Me,” was refused entry in the Best Documentary category of the Academy Awards. It went on to break box office records, and Moore credibly defended the realities in his film, as he defended the right of the documentarist to interpret reality through film.

Famed Canadian director Allan King, honored at last year’s festival, concurs with this concern about truth in documentaries: “Is that really real? – what the hell does that mean? Either the film means something to you or it doesn’t.”

The docs at this year’s festival provided a wealth of information, and reality entertainment. Mark Urman of ThinkFilm reflects on this new interest in documentaries: “It’s really kind of a miracle. There’s never been a time when so many art-house hits were documentaries, at least not in my lifetime. For a small distributor like us, this is as good as it gets.” ThinkFilm is helping to distribute Jonathan Demme’s new doc, “The Agronomist,” about the Haitian political activist Jean Dominique.

It’s certain that one of the reasons for this renewed interest is the failure of commercial media to provide the whole story. Many viewers are beginning to mistrust corporate-owned media and their inability to be objective, or offer alternative views. With the focus on profits, corporate media has been involved with strange bedfellows.

Michael Moore’s quote, “They’ll sell the rope that hangs themselves,” describes the ironic situation of Warner Bros. picking up distribution rights for “Roger and Me,” a decidedly anti-corporate satire. Moore’s successful style of fun and entertaining political filmmaking has shown viewers that the days of the boring documentary are numbered.

The author can be reached at bmeyer@macgroup.org.

Guston: when figurative art is courageous

Thu, 27 Nov 2003 05:30:00 +0000

Review

Philip Guston is considered one of the major figures of 20th century American art. A retrospective of his work has toured through Ft. Worth, Texas, and San Francisco, and is now appearing at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. It is a look at the artist’s progress through various styles during his lifetime.

Early works mimic the styles of other great artists, showing Guston’s extraordinary draftsmanship. “Drawing for Conspirators,” done during this period, depicts Klan members attacking a Black man positioned as if Roman soldiers were attacking Christ. It shows one of the driving forces in Guston’s motivation to paint: trying to come to terms with the human condition.

Like many artists, Guston got his start with the WPA Federal Art Project during the 1930s. He painted several murals around the country. Leaving that for a teaching position, he started exploring abstract expressionism. By the early 1950s he was producing works wherein brushstrokes and color only hint at form, and were of such beauty that he was thrust to the forefront of the American art scene.

However, the political conflicts of the 1960s aroused his fascination with the human condition, its cruelty and dark sides – the potential for which we all carry within us, and thus, as I believe Guston felt, must reach for some understanding of. The motivation was such that Guston developed a more figurative style, which when first shown, left the New York art community aghast. This became his personal act of courage: he did not revert back to the pure abstracts that the art scene of the time loved, but forged ahead, in isolation, developing an iconography and style that would express his exploration of that which makes us human.

A group of paintings Guston refers to as the “hoods” recalls the drawing he had done as a young man. What we perceive as Klansmen are done in a sort of cartoony style. He indicates they are self-portraits, showing himself as masked, hateful, but not truly scary – amusing in a very dark way. Aspects we all feel about ourselves at times.

A painting of a post-resignation Nixon, “San Clemente,” also carries that complexity. Nixon is caricatured in the extreme, with a contorted pose, a swollen, veiny leg (his phlebitis) and a phallic face, the jowls hanging like testicles. Looking at it, we would feel nothing but distaste for Nixon, except that there is a tear painted on his cheek, which calls forth a bit of empathy.

His work continued as an exploration of self and the society around him. A very touching picture, “Couple in Bed,” shows him holding his wife close. Musa, his wife, had previous to this painting suffered a stroke. “Street II” shows a rather manic dog with bloodshot eyes licking a shoe. The dog’s in the street and above him, separated by a curb are the legs and shoes of humanity walking by (perhaps expressing the isolation Guston felt). Shoes, or legs with shoes, is one of the symbols Guston uses to represent masses of people – humanity. Another “Street” painting shows the human penchant for conflict, as a group of people represented by legs, faces off against arms defending themselves with trash can lids.

Towards the end of his life, Guston had a heart attack and had to produce smaller work. Some of the work takes on a more spiritual tone. He died in 1980, leaving behind a wealth of art varied in its nature, some beautiful, some disturbing, some enigmatic. In an essay, he wrote, “But I do have a faith that it is possible to make a living thing, not a diagram of what I have been thinking: to posit with paint something living, something that changes with each day.”

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

Angel Torres: Militant seaman, 1929-2003

Sat, 22 Nov 2003 05:53:00 +0000

Angel Rene Torres, a lifelong fighter for democratic, member-controlled unions, died in September. Torres was a Puerto Rican who born in New York. While only in his teens, Torres shipped out as an able-bodied seaman. He joined the National Maritime Union where he fought for seaman’s unity. He fought against racism on U.S. merchant vessels and for the 40-hour workweek.

Fifty years ago, Torres fought against registry of U.S. ships under foreign “flags of convenience” as a device to transfer American jobs to low wage countries. He ran for the position of vice president of the NMU and received 7,000 votes, no mean accomplishment.

Eventually, because of his militancy, he and other seamen were “screened” off of U.S. ships. The ship owners, the National Maritime Union leadership, and the FBI pushed the Coast Guard to do this. Torres appealed, and years later the U.S. Supreme Court found that the government had violated the Constitution and ordered that he and the other screened seamen get their shipping papers back.

During the Korean War Torres was drafted into the Army. As part of his induction he swore to uphold and protect the Constitution of the United States. When he refused to sign a loyalty oath, ordered by Harry Truman, he was again targeted for harassment. Despite one and a half years of unblemished military service he was given a less than honorable discharge. Again on appeal the Supreme Court found that the government had violated the Constitution, and ordered a new, honorable discharge.

Toward the end of his years, Torres undertook, with the assistance of his son Daniel, the creation of “The Doghouse Newsletter,” a monthly publication of opinions, comments and satire from rank-and-file labor and community activists.

Torres lived in New York for many years. He was a member of the Waterfront Section of the Communist Party USA and served on the New York CPUSA’s state committee. Like many Puerto Ricans he went “back” to Puerto Rico to live in the 1970s, then returned to the U.S. and lived on the West Coast.

Although Angel Torres will be missed, his example of courage in defending and preserving our nation’s Constitution during the McCarthy era remains with us. He is survived by his daughter Maria and his son Daniel. His ashes were scattered under the Golden Gate Bridge

Toronto Film Festival 2003: Documentaries show glimpse of real life

Sat, 22 Nov 2003 05:52:00 +0000

Documentaries always provide a rich fertile ground for progressive ideas and those selected for this year’s Toronto International Film Festival’s Real to Reel Program are no exception. Outstanding titles include “The Corporation,” an impressive Canadian examination of the institution that’s taking over the world. “The Revolution Will Not Be Televised” is a “you are there” filming of the actual Venezuelan military coup and the kidnapping of President Hugo Chavez. This nail-biter offers the closest feeling most people will ever get to being part of a major historical event.

“Bus 174,” the filming of an actual hostage-taking bus hijacking in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, puts the viewer in the bus driver’s seat. “The Agronomist” is famed American director Jonathan Demme’s tribute to the assassinated Haitian radio DJ/activist, Jean Dominique. Errol Morris’s “The Fog of War” explores history and wars through the eyes of former Secretary of Defense Robert S. McNamara.

This year the theme running through many films was death and loss. With wars, many started by the U.S., leaving death and destruction around the world, and with the global economy wreaking havoc in developing nations, it’s no surprise that people are suffering everywhere.

While watching these realities is certainly no joy, the importance and opportunity of getting a firsthand glimpse of scenes the Western media avoids is priceless. The first post-Taliban film from Afghanistan, “Osama,” offers visual testimony to the horrifying destruction going on in this war-torn country. “At Five in the Afternoon” is an Iranian telling of the same realities.

“In This World” is yet another Afghan story, this one by famed British director Michael Winterbottom. The story follows a young Afghan boy smuggled out of a refugee camp entering an even more uncertain and dangerous world.

These are just a few of the films about one country, Afghanistan. A total of 55 countries were represented at this year’s festival. With limited time to see these rare films of the world, blockbusters that are soon to be released at your nearest theater were postponed for later viewing.

It’s one of the tragic aspects of the business that a film of such urgency and significance, so lovingly crafted and costly to produce, might only be seen at a film festival. Now that most American theaters and network TV stations are showing primarily Hollywood moneymakers, and art houses are becoming dinosaurs, it falls upon film festivals and select cable TV stations to carry the bulk of films from the rest of the world.

Most of us are aware that media conglomerates are dominating the airwaves with right-wing propaganda and attempting to silence alternative voices, so it’s essential to support progressive artists in all media. With film festivals quickly becoming the last refuge for non-commercial, socially-progressive art, it’s important that you try to attend screenings, or at least help to distribute films that can make a change, by informing and convincing libraries, schools, organizations, and even TV stations, local or cable, to buy and show these works of art. Or maybe you can help start a film festival in your area.

Remember it was last year’s prize winner in Toronto that went on to become the highest-grossing documentary in history, Michael Moore’s “Bowling for Columbine.” Moore credits the Toronto showing of his first film, “Roger and Me,” for jumpstarting his film career. And it’s Moore’s success that has inspired hundreds of filmmakers to revive the power of documentary filmmaking.

The author can be reached at

Book review: Maybe Caesar wasnt such a bad guy, after all

Sat, 22 Nov 2003 05:51:00 +0000

“The Assassination of Julius Caesar: A People’s History of Ancient Rome”

By Michael Parenti.

The New Press, 2003,

Hardcover, 276 pages, $24.95.

Karl Marx observed that “The history of hitherto existing society is the history of class struggles.” Michael Parenti’s “The Assassination of Julius Caesar” is a unique look at how Marx’s observation played out in ancient Rome during the last century of the Roman Republic.

Parenti views Caesar’s assassination in 44 B.C. at the hands of reactionary Roman senators as the culminating act of nearly a century of murder and terror carried on by the private death squads of Rome’s wealthy class against popular reformers and their supporters. With Caesar’s death came bloody civil war, dissolution of the Republic, and the rise of autocratic-style government which would rule Western Europe for many centuries to come.

The Roman Senate, though a conservative institution itself, still reflected many of the divisions of society. It was polarized into two major political factions: the “optimates” (very wealthy and reactionary) and the “populares” (popular, more democratic).

The wealthy class’s purge of popular reformers began in 133 B.C. with the killing of the elected tribune Tiberius Gracchus and the massacre of hundreds of his supporters. Gracchus had advocated moderate land reform. The optimates simply suspended the rules of the Senate and had their hired thugs do the dirty work.

In the years that followed, leading to Caesar’s death, other popular reformers rose up and were violently struck down by the aristocracy of Rome.

Julius Caesar was a “popularii,” the most prominent member of the populares faction. While not without personal weaknesses, he nevertheless led a struggle for popular reforms. Parenti believes the Roman leader sought power in order to break the grip of the conservative oligarchy.

During his last consulship, 46-44 B.C., Caesar initiated many reforms, including the founding of new settlements for his army veterans and the poor of Rome; enacting strict usury limits on the creditors of Rome; giving large rent breaks for middle and low income families; setting up public works projects to lower unemployment at home and abroad; and granting Roman Jews the right to practice Judaism (the first Roman ruler to do so).

Opposing popular interests was the famous orator, Marcus Tullus Cicero. Cicero is often painted as a principled Roman. Others see him differently. Friedrich Engels viewed Cicero as “the most contemptible scoundrel in history.” Parenti observes that Cicero was “A self-enriching slaveholder, slumlord, and senator. Cicero deplored even the palest moves toward democracy.” He had total disregard and contempt for the common man. Cicero denounced the working people as “the artisans and shopkeepers and all that kind of scum.”

What we know of ancient Rome, for the most part, has been written by both ancient and modern historians who are sympathetic to the privileged classes. Parenti also observes that most of the written sources used by those historians came from the writings of wealthy reactionaries such as Cicero. Poor people didn’t write history nor keep written records, the wealthy did. One expert has estimated that American and British ancient historians are 95 percent Ciceronians and a mere handful are sympathetic to Caesar.

The political struggles described by Parenti were conflicts among freemen. One-third of the population lived in slavery, however, and were generally treated with contempt. Cicero himself suggested that “it was preferable to lighten a ship in an emergency by throwing an old slave overboard rather than a good horse.”

Parenti is critical of historians such as Edward Gibbon and Jerome Carcopino who downplay slavery in their accounts of the period, and who speak of “benevolent masters” and slaves who were “treated with consideration.” He notes these “happy slaves” launched three major rebellions during the last two centuries of the Republic, which led to a level of open warfare involving thousands of armed warriors on both sides. The most famous rebellion, of course, was that of Spartacus and his valiant followers, 74-70 B.C.

Michael Parenti has made an important contribution to understanding class struggle in ancient Rome. Some of his history has frightening parallels to modern times, including 21st-century America. Parenti has demonstrated how class-biased historians have distorted or blinded our understanding of Roman society. The author has written a book that is very useful to the student of history, very informative to the general reader, and invaluable to the modern activist.

The author can be

reached at

School lunches use kids as guinea pigs

Sat, 22 Nov 2003 05:50:00 +0000

As obesity statistics continue to soar for U.S. children, schools across the country are examining their lunch menus with a critical eye. Large school districts like New York City and Los Angeles have banned soda in an effort to curb calories, and the state of Texas has banned junk food. But reducing calories and sugar shouldn’t be parents’ only concern.

Thanks to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, school cafeterias could have a new item on the menu soon – and it’s not a healthy choice. Beginning in January 2004, the National School Lunch Program may be serving your child irradiated beef in hamburgers, sloppy joes, tacos and lasagna. Due to a last-minute clause slipped into legislation by Congress, schools will decide this fall whether to buy irradiated beef.

Irradiation kills bacteria such as E. coli and salmonella by exposing food to ionizing radiation. After several large meat recalls last year, proponents insist that irradiation provides an extra layer of safety. But recent studies raise questions as to whether harmful health effects could result from eating the chemical byproducts that irradiation leaves behind in food.

Despite the controversy over the decision to include irradiated meat in school lunches, there is one fact that cannot be disputed – by approving it for our nation’s schoolchildren, the USDA’s lunch program is poised to become the largest distributor of nuked food in the world. The program feeds 27 million children annually, which means millions of young Americans could become unwitting subjects in an experiment to determine whether this technology is really safe.

Polls of consumer attitudes toward irradiated food show significant opposition. But with the food heading toward schools, the most vulnerable in our society are left without a choice. When irradiated meat shows up on cafeteria trays, more affluent students can avoid it by bringing their own food from home. But students who depend on the free or reduced-price lunch program will not have that choice. Indeed, in an effort to protect their students, several school districts in California, including Los Angeles, have already banned such food from their cafeterias.

The health impact and fairness controversies surrounding this decision may undercut the faith parents have in long-trusted USDA nutrition programs. Not only will children find that their only lunch option contains irradiated meat, but they may not know it is on their plate. Current regulations do not require identifying labels when it is served in schools, restaurants or hospitals.

Fortunately, at least some members of Congress are paying attention to parental concerns. Rep. Barbara Lee, a Democrat from California, has introduced a right-to-know bill that would require all irradiated meat to be labeled when served in school cafeterias. It would also mandate the distribution of fair and balanced information about irradiation to parents and students. And, it would ensure that children could be given an alternative choice with every meal.

Parents are instinctually wary of any technology or substance that may harm their children, understanding that kids are more vulnerable to chemical impacts because their bodies are still developing. Consideration must be given to chemical exposures during childhood that could increase health problems such as cancer later in life, especially when those exposures are avoidable.

Recent research in Europe has shown that chemicals found in irradiated food may promote cancer development and cause cellular damage in rats, and may cause genetic and cellular damage to human cells. It is not yet understood how the body metabolizes these chemicals, and long-term health effects are unknown. Scientists have warned that further research is necessary. But this research shouldn’t be done on our nation’s schoolchildren.

Irradiation is not a cure-all for food safety problems in schools. In the past year, several prominent media and government investigations have exposed a range of problems that can make school food unsafe, ranging from budget cuts to appalling conditions in crumbling school cafeterias. Much should be done to improve food safety in schools, but irradiation is not the solution.

Instead of a questionable – and potentially hazardous – quick fix, our government ought to be promoting comprehensive solutions to food safety problems. Our children deserve no less.

Wenonah Hauter is director of Public Citizen’s energy and environment program. She can be reached at cmep@citizen.org. For more about irradiated meat in school lunches, visit www.safelunch.org

Institutional racism still going strong

Sat, 22 Nov 2003 05:48:00 +0000

Coming on the heels of statistics showing vast disparities between the educational outcomes of African Americans, Latinos, Asian Americans, Native Americans and whites, a new, comprehensive report shows how far we have to go in Chicago before institutional racism is a thing of the past.

The report, “Minding the Gap: An Assessment of Racial Disparity in Metropolitan Chicago,” was produced by the Hull House Association’s Human Relations Foundation/Jane Addams Policy Institute and the Center for Urban Research and Learning of Loyola University, Chicago. The Human Relations Commission of the City of Chicago also participated. It can be read on-line at www.hullhouse.org/gap.

The report explores all areas of quality of life as they affect different racial and ethnic populations in Chicago, basing itself on both official and private statistics. It shows shocking discrepancies based on race and ethnicity. Even though the statistics used in the report mostly refer to the 1990s, described by the authors as a period when the United States experienced “unprecedented economic growth,” the results are sobering.

A few examples:

• Income: Though minorities registered considerable increases in average household income during the 1990s, in 1999 the racial/ethnic gaps were still huge. The average per-capita income was $29,043 for whites, but $15,272 for African Americans, $12,680 for Latinos, $16,489 for Native Americans, and $24,594 for Asian Americans. Illinois Department of Labor statistics show that when you remove the highest income levels from the averages, the gaps were even wider, with Black, Latino and Native American workers the worst off.

• Unemployment: “Communities of color experience unemployment rates almost twice that of whites.” This held true through the 1990s in spite of an overall decrease in unemployment. In Chicago, the official unemployment rate for persons of color was 11.5 percent, but 3.3 percent for whites.

• Housing: In 2001, according to an ACORN study, African Americans were denied mortgages five times as often whites, while Latinos were turned down two and a half times more than whites. Although there was a considerable increase in minority home ownership during the 1990s, African Americans and Latinos tend to live in housing that is much older and worth far less. Although African Americans are less than 20 percent of the population of the wider Chicago metropolitan area, they constitute more than half the homeless.

• Education: African American and Latino students have a much higher school dropout rate. White students scored far higher than African American and Latino students on state-required standardized tests – the Illinois State Achievement Test and the Prairie State Achievement Examination. Students in districts with higher median household incomes scored better. These districts are disproportionately located in white suburban communities.

• Transportation: African Americans and Latinos have been disproportionately impacted by cutbacks in public transportation and increases in commute time.

• Health and health care: African Americans have a cancer mortality rate twice that of whites and Latinos. While the death rate from breast cancer among white women has been dropping, it has stayed high among African American women. The asthma death rate for African Americans in Illinois is more than four times the national average. Death rates from diabetes and heart disease are far higher among African Americans than among whites, as are rates of morbidity and mortality rates for HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis and other diseases. In the Chicago area, 29 percent of non-elderly Latinos do not have health insurance, a figure which drops to 24 percent for African Americans, and only 10 percent for whites.

• Criminal justice: Here we see some of the most shocking statistics. African Americans and Latinos have a disproportionate rate of victimization by crime. In the specific area of drug arrests, African Americans have a far higher arrest rate although reliable statistics show drug use to be much higher among whites. The authors cite federal data showing that “whites are 125 percent more likely to use marijuana, 181 percent more likely to use cocaine, 413 percent more likely to abuse inhalants, and 516 percent more likely to abuse LSD” than are African Americans or Latinos. Yet four out of five people arrested on drug charges in Chicago in 2000 were African American, and were more likely to get a jail term rather than probation. Sixty-three percent of people incarcerated by the state of Illinois for all crimes are African American, 36 percent are white and 11 percent are Latino.

There will be a series of community meetings to strategize responses to the atrocious situation. It is to be hoped that these meetings take up the ideological and political dimensions of this blatant institutional racism, as well as its economic and social profile. As Holocaust denial is one of the most virulent forms of anti-Semitism in the world today, so we might say “racism denial” is one of the most insidious forms of racism in the U.S. To suggest that these discrepancies could be “merely a holdover” from racism of the past, and not a result of an ongoing presence of racism in our society, is simply not credible.

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

Sticky situation in Miami

Sat, 22 Nov 2003 05:47:00 +0000

The alert public authorities in Miami are to be commended for discovering a new terrorist threat, a new fundamental attack on the safety of all Americans. A threat to our way of life, a threat to our economic security, a threat to public order. A threat so dangerous that it must be immediately stopped by a hastily passed public ordinance.

That threat, of course, consists of dastardly fearsome giant puppets and the wooden sticks that support them.

All across the country, at demonstrations, at public gathering spots, even in parades and carnivals, these giant puppets are being inserted into the public debate under the guise of free speech – how can puppets be covered by constitutional free speech guarantees when puppets, most of them, anyway, especially the giant ones, can’t speak!?! Miami politicians plan to ban giant puppets, large wooden sticks, and stilts. They are clearly on the cutting edge of opposition to wooden stick terrorism. They’ve decided to stick it to the protesters.

Miami is rushing to protect us from these horrendous creatures, waved on (get this) wooden sticks! Even worse, some of the dread giant puppets are augmented by gaudily dressed protestors on stilts, which are also wooden sticks! Do you sense a pattern here? Can you image anything more dangerous to our public discourse?

The authorities in Miami claim that it’s not the puppets, it’s the sticks – they are trying to limit the size of the sticks used, which effectively limits the size of the puppets. These far-sighted leaders understand that it is not puppets that are a threat to our way of life; it is only Giant Puppets on wooden sticks that pose such a threat. How clever of them to understand the significance of these blatant weapons of wooden terrorism. If we started searching seriously, we would find millions of these potential weapons, stacked in backyards everywhere, just waiting for some protester to come along and hoist them. We can announce to the world that we will find them, no matter what sacrifices we must make. We certainly have a better chance of finding them than we’ve had in Iraq, searching for non-existent weapons of mass destruction, other than the ones the U.S. has brought.

Maybe we should eliminate all restrictions on logging, so we can cut down all the trees and stop these vicious sticks at their source. This has the added attraction of fitting right in with Bush’s forest programs.

How can we let these horrendous beasts and their hidden supports loose on our streets, spreading leaflets and laughter everywhere they go?

Congress should immediately stop debating such minor issues as war and peace, prescription drug coverage, right-wing judicial appointees, and the massive and growing deficit. Instead it should pass emergency legislation to protect us from the threat of wooden implements of destruction, sign-support, and fence construction.

Left-wingers and liberals will cry about the Constitution and free speech, but how can they justify their indifference in the face of wooden stick attacks inundating the country and threatening the very fiber of our existence?

Of course, we will have to give up some freedoms in the name of safety. We will have to tear up our picket fences. We will have to stop using wooden sticks for our election campaign signs. We will have to ban all picket lines, lest they be used to sneak wooden sticks into our economic system. We have to stop this emerging new front in the battle against terrorism. We can’t let anything stop us, not the left-wing whiners about the Constitution, not how ridiculous we will look in the eyes of the world, not even common sense!

We must say, “We will be safe from wooden sticks, at all costs! Let the chips fall where they may!”

Marc Brodine is chair of the Washington State Communist Party. He can be reached at

The real heroism of Pfc. Jessica Lynch

Sat, 22 Nov 2003 05:46:00 +0000

Watching Diane Sawyer’s interview with former Pfc. Jessica Lynch on ABC’s “Primetime,” it was easy to see why the young soldier is a hero to the people of her hometown, Palestine, W.Va., and the rest of the Mountaineer State.

She is a truck driver’s daughter, a wisp of a girl, dreaming of a bright and happy future. She plans soon to marry a fellow soldier, Sgt. Ruben Contreras. Like so many in the economically stricken heartland of our country, she joined the military seeking opportunity and a more secure future for herself.

The Humvee she was riding in crashed during an ambush in the town of Nasiriya, Iraq, March 23, with the death of 11 of her comrades.

Poised in answering even the hardest questions about her 22-day captivity and her struggle to recover from her terrible injuries, Lynch showed she has iron in her soul. The bones in one leg were so badly smashed that the Iraqi doctors caring for her planned to amputate. Despite excruciating pain, she turned her face when they attempted to anesthetize her. She also suffered such serious back injuries that they apparently caused neurological damage. Normal bowel function has not returned. She takes heavy doses of painkillers, including morphine.

It is also understandable why George W. Bush wanted to turn her into a “poster child” of the Iraq war. There is ample precedent for using the devout, plain folk of Appalachia to promote a needless and unpopular war. Sgt. Alvin York, born in a log cabin in Pall Mall, Tenn., was transformed into the “poster boy” of World War I, a sharpshooter who knocked out dozens of machine guns and captured 132 German soldiers single-handedly, according to the myths.

Similarly, the Washington Post swallowed whole the Pentagon fiction that Lynch kept firing her M-16 until the ammunition was gone as her comrades lay dead beside her. Then came the rescue by a U.S. commando team, all videotaped for consumption back home.

It could not have escaped Bush’s political operative, Karl Rove, that footage of that rescue would play well on the 2004 campaign trail alongside footage of Bush landing on the deck of the aircraft carrier Abraham Lincoln and strutting in front of a huge “Mission Accomplished” banner.

Jessica Lynch’s real courage, her real heroism, is that she refused to play the role scripted for her by the Pentagon. In fact, she said, her rifle jammed. “I’m not about to take credit for something I didn’t do,” she said. “I did not shoot. Not a round. Nothing. I don’t look at myself as a hero. My heroes are Lori (Pfc. Lori Piestewa), the soldiers that are over there …” Piestewa is a Hopi Indian woman, a single mother of two, who was Lynch’s best friend and roommate at boot camp. She died in the ambush.

Lynch thanked the Iraqi doctors and nurses for saving her life, and denied they mistreated her. She praised the Iraqi nurse who stroked her hair and sang lullabies to her.

Sawyer asked Lynch if the videotaping of her rescue bothered her. “Yeah, it does, that they used me as a way to symbolize all this stuff,” she replied. “It’s wrong. I don’t know why they filmed it.” Repeatedly she castigated those who tried to transform her into a female Rambo. “It hurt,” she said.

She criticized the administration and the media for rarely mentioning her comrades who died. Lynch remembers and is still grieving.

Lynch has also criticized the media for failing to focus on her sister POW Shoshana Johnson, who is African American. Lynch has backed Johnson’s demand that she receive comparable medical care and disability benefits.

We should be angry that chickenhawks George W. Bush and Dick Cheney put these young women and 130,000 other soldiers in harm’s way to satisfy their greed for oil and world domination. Now Bush shuns the dead – refusing to attend funerals and barring the media from filming the returning caskets.

In refusing to become a tool of Bush-Cheney war propaganda, Jessica Lynch stood up for all the dead and wounded of this unilateral, preemptive war – Iraqi, American, British, Italian.

“Fabricating that story is an extension of the big lie,” Rev. Jesse Jackson told the Chicago Defender. “She [Lynch] needs to be honored for her integrity, for telling the truth,” he said.

Perhaps the most poignant moment in the “Primetime” interview was when an Iraqi man who had guarded Lynch’s hospital room told her, “I wish you the best, a happy, normal life.”

Jessica Lynch’s face fell. She murmured words too soft to hear. But the deep sadness in her eyes seemed to ask: “How can my life be normal?”

Tim Wheeler is Washington correspondent of

the People’s Weekly World.

He can be reached at greenerpastures21212

@yahoo.com

Its a hit to left-center field!

Sat, 22 Nov 2003 05:42:00 +0000

Press Box Red: The story of Lester Rodney, the Communist who helped break the color line in American sports by Irwin Silber. Forward by Jules Tygiel. Temple University Press, 2003. Illustrated, softcover, 236 pp., $19.95

“Press Box Red” tells the story of Lester Rodney, sports editor of the Daily Worker, in developing and leading the campaign to break the color line in American sports. The book offers us insight into the history of our country, the Communist Party USA, and our national pastime.

Author Irwin Silber says he was able to convince a reluctant Rodney that his story had to be told. Silber conducted hours of interviews which complemented his own research. The People’s Weekly World provided rare photos and page proofs of Rodney’s articles from Daily Worker archives. The author weaves it all together seamlessly, forming a coherent narrative of Rodney’s life and of the campaign to integrate baseball.

The two recently spoke to an audience at Local 1199’s Bread and Roses Gallery in New York City – elaborating on stories from the book, answering questions from the audience, teasing one another, and signing autographs! At 92, Rodney remains as sharp as a line drive, and as lively as his days at the Daily Worker, which began in 1936 and lasted until 1958.

A new position on sports

“Press Box Red” begins with the story of how Rodney came to write for the Daily Worker even before he considered himself a Communist. Silber notes that in the Popular Front era of the 1930s, the Daily Worker changed its format in order to have a broader, more mainstream appeal. The paper’s Sunday edition began to include comics, cultural events, history, fiction, recipes and two full pages devoted to sports.

This was a dramatic shift from two years previous, when the paper editorialized that “American workers are greatly interested in professional sports, far too much, in fact, for their own class interest.” In August of 1935, Mike Gold, a Daily Worker columnist, author of “Jews Without Money,” called this hostility to sports “snobbism.”

Rodney’s hand would help to effect this shift. Although not yet a Communist, he read the paper and in the fall of 1936 he wrote a letter to the editors “pointing out some ways they could improve their sports stuff.” This led to a meeting where Rodney told an editor that “they needed a change in attitude.” It was wrong to paint “a picture of professional athletes being wage slaves with no joy, no élan. ... Of course there’s exploitation, but ... the professional baseball player still swells with joy when his team wins. They hug each other. That’s not put on. That’s not fake.”

The growth of a sportswriter

“I felt they needed to see the fun side of sports and the beauty, too,” says Rodney. He knew this side intimately from his days as a boy in Brooklyn, where he played sandlot baseball, ran track in high school, and even began his sports reporting career at his high school newspaper. For his first article for his high school paper, Rodney interviewed the school’s basketball coach about their chances for the coming season. The coach handed him a gem of a quote. “Well,” he said, “we’re small, but we’re slow.” Rodney was hooked on sportswriting.

He joined the Daily Worker staff in 1936. “The Daily Worker has begun a sports section,” liberal columnist Heywood Broun wrote in 1936. “It will be interesting to observe what happens,” he continued, “because, so far as I know, you can’t class-angle a box score.”

As we learn from Silber, this wasn’t Rodney’s main intent, although he firmly believed that you could strike a balance between good sports reporting and social criticism. He built solid relationships with many baseball players – in both the Major League and the Negro Leagues. Rodney even secured a column for the Daily Worker from famous Yankees third-baseman Red Rolfe during the 1937 World Series in which the Yankees beat the New York Giants. Rolfe, like many players at the time, respected the vast knowledge of sports that Rodney possessed, and the fact that he did not try to grind “an ideological ax” with them.

Many of these encounters are quite humorous, as when Rodney and Leo Durocher, the manager of the Dodgers, were talking strategy after an important game. “Suddenly,” Rodney recalls, “Leo leans over to me ,grabs my arm, and says, ‘You know, Rodney, for a f———g Communist, you sure know your baseball.’”

Crossing the line

Rodney built cordial relations with other sports reporters. While a few red-baited him, many others confided that they wished they had the freedom to do what he did; ultimately, it was editors and owners that exercised their control over what was news. From The New York Times to The Sporting News, there was a clear line that reporters were expected to maintain: the color line.

Rodney remembers that in 1937, one reporter asked Joe DiMaggio “who was the best pitcher he ever faced. Nobody was thinking of the Black players. DiMaggio stuns everybody by saying without hesitation, ‘Satchel Paige.’ He had played against Satch in a few postseason exhibition games. … Joe didn’t make a big deal out of it ... [but] he answered the question honestly and he had no compunctions about it. He knew Paige was Black and that Blacks were banned when he said that. We had a huge headline the next day. The other papers never mentioned it.”

This straight-up reporting was a part of a coordinated Daily Worker campaign to integrate American sports. The campaign was run not simply on the grounds of racial justice; it also was aimed at fans who cared about improving the quality of major league play. (After all, it was Jesse Owens and other Black Americans who helped stun Hitler’s elite Aryan athletes at the 1936 Berlin Olympics.)

In the book, Rodney explains their strategy:

“First was to simply raise hell about the color ban and get it into the public consciousness.

“Second, we set out to popularize the Black stars and document that they could compete on the Big League level.

“Third, shoot down the notion that the white players and managers wouldn’t stand for it by directly putting the question to them.

“Fourth, we immediately put the league presidents and the commissioner on the spot by challenging them to say whether there was an official ban, which they denied, of course.

“But maybe the most important was to generate fan participation in the campaign.”

Over the course of two excellent chapters, “Press Box Red” documents each of these integrated elements. We learn that Young Communist League members played a key role in circulating petitions to dismantle the ban, securing with the help of many allies more than 2 million signatures nationwide.

Young comrades and sports fans also brought skilled Black players to major league tryouts to debunk the false argument that the Black players just were not good enough. Silber really lets Lester Rodney speak for himself with Q&A interviews, so that we really feel the full wrath of his outrage at this injustice. We are also treated to a look at the character of segregationist Major League Baseball Commissioner Judge Kenesaw Mountain Landis, the baseball “czar” – and to a public upbraiding he was given by Paul Robeson, echoing the popular pressure that the Daily Worker brought to bear on him.

After more than 10 years, the campaign was finally successful: Jackie Robinson played his first game for the Brooklyn Dodgers on April 15, 1947. We also learn about impact that desegregation in baseball has on the overall movement against racism. Roy Campanella, the star Black catcher for the Dodgers, told Rodney that baseball’s integration paved the way for the Supreme Court’s unanimous Brown v. Board of Education decision outlawing “separate but equal” schools in 1954. The Daily Worker’s sports page headline read “Baseball Had Something To Do With That 9-0 Score.”

The really Popular Front

The book also demonstrates the impact that Rodney had in helping the Party and the YCL overcome sectarianism and gain in political maturity. They were able to rupture “the caricature of Communists as joyless people who don’t live a full life, don’t like sports, don’t like movies.” Rodney continues: “I’m not boasting. It’s a fact that the sports section became the most popular part of the Daily Worker. I felt it. It vibrated back to me. I was the only one at the Daily Worker who regularly got tons of mail.”

People love sports. We love watching them, studying them, and competing in them. During this year’s World Series – as in every year – I was struck by the spontaneous celebration of the victorious Florida Marlins after the last out in the ninth inning. The dancing, the hugging, the jumping, the screaming, the crying, the laughing.

There are political lessons to be learned from these moments of elation. You can see the same look on the faces of workers who have just won their first union election; I think immediately of the victory scene in “At the River I Stand,” the film about the ultimately successful Memphis sanitation workers’ strike in 1968.

“The idea of people coming together, blending their skills into a team, getting the best out of each other – and winning. That’s a remarkable feeling,” Rodney says. “That’s a wonderful human thing. And you must never forget that.”

Irwin Silber’s “Press Box Red” ensures that we never will.

The author can be reached at

Desegregating the national pastime

By Tim Wheeler

I met former Daily Worker sports editor, Lester Rodney, at a housewarming in Rossmoor, the retiree village in Walnut Creek, Calif., last September. He and Irwin Silber were autographing copies of “Press Box Red,” Silber’s wonderful book about the role of Rodney and the Daily Worker in the struggle to end segregation in major league baseball. Rodney, a self-effacing man, laughed about being “rediscovered” by the media in 1997 during the 50th anniversary celebrations of Jackie Robinson joining the Brooklyn Dodgers. “These TV producers started looking around for someone who was alive when it happened and they found me. They would ask me: Did you know Jackie Robinson? Did you know Mickey Mantle?”

I interrupted him: “Well … Did you?” He chuckled, “Of course!”

In the chapter, “Jim Crow Must Go,” Silber reports that the struggle began in 1936 when the Daily Worker announced a forthcoming series by Rodney under the headline: “Outlawed by Baseball! The Crime of the Big Leagues.”

A petition campaign demanding an end to Jim Crow was launched in 1939 by the Communist Party USA and Young Communist League directed at Baseball Commissioner Kenesaw Mountain Landis. “We had a goal of 100,000 signatures that year and we went way beyond it. That’s part of the almost 2 million signatures that wound up on Landis’ desk,” Rodney says. YCLers gathered those signatures outside major league and Negro league ballparks. Rodney also hails the role of the labor movement, with many CIO unions, especially the left-led National Maritime Union, marching in May Day parades with signs denouncing Jim Crow in baseball.

Pete Cacchione and Ben Davis, Communist members of the New York City Council, introduced resolutions to end baseball Jim Crow. Paul Robeson’s speech to a meeting of the Baseball Commissioners is quoted: “The time has come that you must change your attitude toward Negroes,” the great All-American said. “I urge you to decide favorably on this request and that action be taken this very season.” That was in 1942.

Not mentioned in this well-documented book is the role of William L. Patterson, founder of the Civil Rights Congress, who describes in his autobiography, “The Man Who Cried Genocide,” meetings with William Wrigley, owner of the Chicago Cubs to urge him to support baseball integration. Patterson played a role in arranging the one-hour meeting between Robeson and Landis that Silber discusses in his book.

Allen Barra, Wall Street Journal sports writer, in a review in the Los Angeles Times called Silber’s book “a terrific read.” And yes it is! The staff of the People’s Weekly World gave a helping hand, acknowledged with gratitude by the author. We tracked down and scanned virtually all the Daily Worker pages, photos and cartoons that illustrate the book.

HealthSouth fraud impacts millions

Sat, 22 Nov 2003 05:39:00 +0000

You may have already heard a lot about Mr. Richard Scrushy, the founder and former CEO of HealthSouth Corp. Scrushy was indicted on 85 criminal counts alleging that he was the mastermind of an enormous corporate fraud involving money laundering, conspiracy, and securities fraud, that allowed him to pocket more than a quarter-billion dollars. The government wants him to fork over $279 million worth of his own personal assets, including a 92-foot yacht; a Rolls Royce Corniche and a Lamborghini; a nearly 22-carat diamond and platinum ring; aircraft; and paintings by Picasso, Chagall, Renoir and Miro.

HealthSouth is the largest provider of outpatient surgery, diagnostic imaging, and rehabilitation services in the United States. The multinational conglomerate operates more than 1,700 rehabilitation hospitals and other facilities across the country and in Australia, Puerto Rico, and the United Kingdom. In 2002, HealthSouth generated $4.3 billion in revenue, and employed 51,000 workers.

Scrushy is only the latest criminal to emerge out of HealthSouth’s unimaginably profitable boardrooms. Fifteen former executives at the company, including all five of its chief financial officers since the mid-1980s, have pleaded guilty to taking part in accounting tricks that misled investors and lenders, or they admitted to failing to file proper tax returns.

“In this sea of fraud, with 15 senior-level executives admitting fraud, is it possible that the board of directors and the accounting firm knew nothing about this?” asked Rep. Cliff Stearns (R-Fla.), during recent congressional hearings on the case. “Did they exercise their fiduciary duty and responsibility to shareholders?”

One might think this is making a profit “the old fashioned way,” much like robber barons during the Industrial Revolution. But recent history indicates (think Enron, WorldCom) that it is really not too much different than so many other present-day Fortune 500 corporations.

We might ask, “So what?” We go to work everyday and take the bus or train, or drive an old Chevy. We have no yacht to seize or Picassos to forfeit, and we still vastly overpay for health insurance and prescription drugs. Nothing has changed for us – as the corrupt company careens from one allegation of wrongdoing to another.

But it affects us. The company’s destruction, resulting from profit mongering, has led HealthSouth to lay off many thousands of workers whose lives and families have been thrown into disarray, and perhaps into hopelessness. Millions of families have had their health care disrupted or threatened as a result of the corruption at HealthSouth and the company’s subsequent “downsizing.”

In addition, consider that, as of Dec. 31, 2001, HealthSouth’s employee pension plan held approximately 3.3 million shares of HealthSouth stock. Now, following indictments of its top executives, including some who are pension trustees, HealthSouth stock is trading at a fraction of its previous value.

Healthcare is too important to leave to the arbitrary and mean machinations of everyday capitalism. We need a National Health Service like England and so many other countries have around the world. A National Health Service means no profits in health care, no health insurance companies to steal your money, and democratic control over the entire enterprise. People before profits! Let’s never be “Scrushyed” again!

The author can be reached at

Whatever it takes!

Sat, 22 Nov 2003 05:38:00 +0000

Workers’ Correspondence

An unprecedented turnaround took place during contract negotiations between the 33,000 Chicago Teachers Union members and the Chicago Board of Education. Both the union’s governing body, the House of Delegates, and the rank and file members voted no to the first contract proposal recommended by newly-elected President Deborah Lynch on Oct. 16. The major sticking points were the length of the proposed contract – five years – health care costs, school day extension partially offset by a shorter school year and lack of improvement in working conditions.

Following the overwhelming rejection vote, Lynch reversed her original position. Passing out buttons with the slogan “Whatever it takes,” she set the tone for a very upbeat follow-up meeting. Lynch’s strike recommendation was approved by the House of Delegates. Representatives of each of the other Board employee unions gave words of support to a cheering crowd of delegates. The coalition consisted of the Service Employees International Union, Operating Engineers, Teamsters and Firemen and Oilers Unions. They were followed by Chicago Federation of Labor President Dennis Gannon.

The negotiating team went back to the bargaining table and succeeded in winning a better deal, which included 4 percent annual raises; a four-year contract; lower health care increases; and seven fewer work days in exchange for 15 minutes added to the school day.

On Nov. 14 the House of Delegates voted to approve the new proposal by over 55 percent. The membership approved the new contract proposal Nov. 18 in a close vote.

The rank and file, angry and frustrated, rejected the first proposal because they felt in the past that their concerns had not been addressed by the Board of Education, the city and the old union leadership. They thought that this was the time to go for the “gold.” The lack of reductions in class size, the increased reliance on standardized testing, school closings and the “No Child Left Behind” law make it very difficult for teachers to teach. The budget cuts caused by the war in Iraq, the poor economy and Bush’s tax cuts for the rich alongside the unchecked drive towards privatization of the public schools are some of the many problems that added “fuel to the fire.”

If we are to strengthen our future contract negotiations we must first get rid of the Bush administration. Push Bush, his administration and right-wing partners “out the door in 2004.” “Whatever it takes” is what rank and file union members are saying. Seems to me that is what we have to do.

– Lance Cohn, Retiree delegate, Chicago Teachers Union (AFT Local 1)

The author can be reached at

A clear and present danger to public safety

Sat, 22 Nov 2003 05:37:00 +0000

Police departments have joined immigrant rights advocates in denouncing the Clear Law Enforcement for Criminal Alien Removal (CLEAR) Act, H.R. 2671. The proposed law would require local police departments to enforce federal immigration laws or face losing critical federal reimbursements.

“We don’t have the time and the personnel to be immigration agents. Murderers, rapists, robbers, thieves and drug dealers present a much bigger threat than any illegal immigrant,” South Tucson Police Chief Sixto Molina told the Tucson Citizen. According to the National Immigration Forum, the bill adds significantly to the daily responsibilities of local law enforcement with no guarantee that they will be reimbursed for their time and efforts.

The bill also mandates entry of civil immigration information into the FBI-maintained database of wanted persons. Millions of new names would be added to this database.

The number one risk of local police acting as INS agents “is the potential for civil rights violations,” Ventura County Sheriff’s Department spokesperson Eric Nishimoto told the Ventura County Star. “Right now we’re involved in preventing any kind of racial profiling and this type of function could open us to that kind of risk,” he added.

One provision of the Clear Act “encourages” police participation by awarding them assets seized from undocumented immigrants.

El Paso Municipal Police Officers’ Association President Chris McGill told the El Paso Times, “From a law-enforcement point of view, I don’t know how productive it would be to have police officers ask for green cards. It’s more important that people feel confident calling the police.”

Opposition to the new immigration approach comes from the National Association of Counties, the National League of Cities and the U.S./Mexico Border Counties Coalition, according to the National Immigration Forum. San Joaquin County Sheriff Lt. Armando Mayoya worries that if police officers start reporting to the INS, more undocumented workers could wind up as victims. “Criminals soon would realize that undocumented workers would be unlikely to call police for fear of being deported and target them for attacks. Racial profiling could also intensify if police are tasked with upholding immigration laws,” he told the Dallas Morning News.

The CLEAR Act has already been introduced in the House and is scheduled for hearing Nov. 20 in the Senate Judiciary Committee’s Subcommittee on Immigration.

The author can be reached at

Nurses strike: End 12-hour shifts

Sat, 22 Nov 2003 05:36:00 +0000

PHILADELPHIA – Medical College of Pennsylvania (MCP) Hospital nurses were on the picket line at the hospital’s entrance here early on Nov. 11. Their signs expressed the issues preventing Office and Professional Employees International Union Local 112 from signing a contract: “No Mandatory Overtime” and “On Strike for Patient Safety.” The 271 nurses at MCP Hospital in Philadelphia are members of the Pennsylvania Nurse’s Association, an affiliate of the OPEIU.

Another issue that caused the nurses to strike is the lack of adequate staffing levels, said Rita Marie Quinn, a union spokesperson. “Twenty-five percent of the nursing positions at MCP Hospital are open, and we are constantly being asked to work overtime without notice,” she said.

Another nurse, who did want to give her name, said, “If you were a patient, would you want to be treated by a nurse who had just finished a 12 hour shift?”

MCP administrators are recruiting nurses from other states and offering them up to $4,000 bonuses to be scabs. When Local 112 members tried to prevent vans from bringing in these strikebreakers, the union was issued an injunction limiting the number of pickets at the hospital entrance.

MCP Hospital is owned by the for-profit Tenet Healthcare Corp. In the Philadelphia area, Tenet also owns and operates six other hospitals with a total of 1,764 beds. In all, Tenet operates 116 acute care hospitals in 17 states and employs 113,500 people. In 1998, Tenet invited Drexel University to be its “academic partner” in Philadelphia and to operate the Medical College of Pennsylvania and Hahnemann University, two medical schools associated with hospitals that Tenet had bought. In 2002, Drexel University merged with Tenet Health System Philadelphia Inc., a subsidiary of Tenet Healthcare Corporation. Drexel University was facing financial instability and received a $90 million contribution from Tenet. Drexel University focuses on technology-related and experiential learning and was declared America’s most “wired” university. All of Tenet’s hospitals now benefit from updated technology.

Because of the strike, the trauma centers at both MCP and Hahnemann University Hospital have been closed. Hahnemann says its closing is due to a shortage of trauma surgeons and physicians. Patients are being sent to other hospitals. After a week without negotiations, both sides met on Nov. 17.

The author can be reached at

Plunder unmasked in Iraq

Sat, 22 Nov 2003 05:34:00 +0000

The ugly face of imperialism is now in full view with the revelation of the U.S. occupation command’s economic initiatives in Iraq:

• The Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA) is devastating Iraq’s domestic industry by encouraging imports. By setting only a 5 percent tariff on imported goods, they have allowed U.S. and European consumer goods to flood the market.

• The CPA is advocating that the corporate and personal tax be capped at 15 percent. This extremely low rate will attract foreign corporations to compete against Iraq’s domestic industries, which have been seriously weakened by war and years of sanctions.

• To further entice foreign investment, the CPA is proposing a radical privatization plan that will sell off much of the publicly-owned industry, including cement, fertilizer, sulfur-mining, textile, and automobile enterprises. Iraqi workers already suffer from a 50 to 60 percent unemployment rate. And now, this extreme “shock therapy” privatization scheme threatens the jobs of many of the 500,000 employees from the 200 enterprises that would be affected.

• The CPA proposal permits 100 percent foreign ownership of Iraqi enterprises. It allows total profit-repatriation (that is, it would permit foreign corporations to take every penny of profits out of the country).

These are conditions so shameful they are rarely accepted in other countries.

To legitimize this exploitation-friendly plan, the CPA is attempting to get the U.S.-appointed Iraqi Governing Council to approve the measures. The council’s president in October, Ayad Allawi, endorsed the idea, but urged a slower pace.

The U.S. occupiers were careful not to broach the issue of foreign ownership of land or of the politically-sensitive oil industry. Nonetheless, the Iraqi oil ministry – no doubt with the full support of the “colonial office” – has invited 60 foreign oil companies to a Baghdad conference in December to explore “developing” the country’s oil industry. According to the Oct. 3 New York Times, the conference is aimed at companies “hungry for investment opportunities.” This is an apt metaphor for the plunder to come.

It would take a purposeful blindness to miss that the U.S. actions in Iraq are those of an imperialist country, acting solely from imperial motives.

Not human rights, not war against terror, but plain and simple imperialism.

The author can be reached at

Voters rebuff nonpartisan scheme

Sat, 22 Nov 2003 05:23:00 +0000

NEW YORK – Republican Mayor Michael Bloomberg sustained a major defeat on Election Day when the electorate overwhelmingly voted down the proposal for nonpartisan elections that he bankrolled.

Though the mayor said that nonpartisan elections, which would have eliminated party primaries, would make the city electoral process more democratic by eliminating the control of “party bosses,” opponents argued that it was a Republican Trojan horse – another attempt at a power grab along the lines of Florida in 2000, the recent recall in California, or the congressional redistricting in Texas.

In a city where voters overwhelmingly reject the Republican Party in City Council elections – of 51 councilors, only three are Republicans – opponents of the measure argued that the GOP could only gain control of the Council if its candidates were able to disguise themselves as nonpartisan. Opponents also pointed out that such a system would favor those who had money to buy widespread name recognition, giving them a distinct advantage over poor or working-class candidates with fewer resources.

Although the system would have disallowed party primaries, it would have allowed candidates, if they chose, to list a party affiliation. Those urging a “no” vote argued that it would be fundamentally undemocratic for a candidate to be able represent a political party without the party’s membership themselves making that determination in a primary.

The proposition, which appeared as Question 3 on the Nov. 4 ballot, was opposed by a broad, multiracial coalition involving most of the city’s labor unions, the Working Families Party, the Democratic Party, and grassroots community organizations – the same type of coalition that elected Annabel Palma in the Bronx and (minus the Democratic Party) WFP candidate Letitia James in Brooklyn.

Mayor Bloomberg poured over $2 million of his own money into advertising for a “yes” vote on the question. Many of the advertisements promoting the initiative, including glossy brochures and mass, pre-recorded phone messages, were condemned by its opponents as playing on racial divisions.

Although the loose coalition working for a “no” vote spent only a little over $400,000, about 20 percent of what the other side spent, the results of the referendum came back with 70 percent of the votes against Bloomberg’s plan. This can be attributed to the heavy grassroots mobilization against it organized by the Central Labor Council, individual unions, and Working Families Party volunteers.

“Trade unionists poured into the streets in yeomen-like fashion for a massive ‘Get-Out-The-Vote’ that translated into enormous victory,” the Central Labor Council said in a statement. “Congratulations and thanks to them all.”

According to a spokesperson for the American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees District Council 37, which represents 125,000 New York City public employees, “We had thousands of members out on the streets on Tuesday handing out palm cards in support of our candidates and our issues. We made tens of thousands of calls on our phone banks. We galvanized our members through our website, union newspaper, and at our Oct. 29th ‘Fair Contract Now’ rally at City Hall attended by over 20,000.”

Virtually all of the members of this coalition – the unions, the Working Families Party, and so on – have barely paused to celebrate their victory. Instead, they are already beginning to focus on the need to keep themselves mobilized and united for the 2004 elections.

The author can be reached at

Victory for science education in Texas

Sat, 22 Nov 2003 05:22:00 +0000

Right-wing radicals recently suffered a setback in Texas when the State Board of Education refused to ban 11 biology textbooks that presented evolution as scientific fact instead of a hypothesis. The ultra-conservative radicals mounted a campaign to prevent the board from accepting nine of the texts for use in the state’s public schools because they contended that the way that the texts presented evolution was inaccurate.

The vote has nationwide significance. Because Texas is such a large market for textbooks, publishers are often willing to design their texts to get approval in the state and unwilling to make these changes for smaller market states.

While this was a small victory for science, well respected and peer-reviewed texts still face challenges from zealots intent on making their biases part of the public school curriculum.

Opponents of the approved textbooks argued that they contained “factual errors.” In public testimony heard in July and September, representatives of the Seattle-based Discovery Institute, a think tank that contends that evolution should be taught as hypothesis rather than as fact, testified that the texts gave too much credence to evolution and ignored other theories of creation.

But scientists, teachers, and members of the clergy spoke in favor of the texts. Several ministers signed a letter to the board opposing “attempts to dilute or censor the teaching of evolution in biology textbooks.” The letter went on to say that the teaching of the origins of life is sacred and should be “cultivated and strengthened in homes and houses of worship” but that the signers “believe that efforts to insert religious beliefs into science textbooks misunderstand and demean both faith and science.”

A spokesman for the signers, Steve Lucas, minister of the Highland Park Baptist Church in Austin, told the Houston Chronicle that “too often in the past, we believe, a few strident voices of extremism have been allowed to determine the discussion around biology textbooks.”

The board, dominated by conservative Republicans, found it difficult to ignore Lucas and its own review committee, which found that there were no scientific weaknesses with any of the texts. However, the board did require publishers to make minor changes to the text in order to mollify opponents of the books.

The decision will affect scientific education in numerous states beyond Texas. California, Florida, and Texas spend about $1.2 billion a year on textbooks, or about 30 percent of the national market. As a result, publishers go to great lengths to sell their books in these states.

For example, The New York Times reports that in 2001, in order to get its environmental science text accepted, publisher J.M. LeBel Enterprises agreed to an “editing” session with board members. As a result, he made extensive changes, including the omission of this sentence, “experts on global warming feel that immediate action should be taken to curb global warming.” Because publishers are often unwilling to make changes to accommodate smaller market state, it’s very likely that texts “edited” in Texas will end up in classes throughout the nation.

Unfortunately, right-wingers and their corporate allies have not only been able to edit texts, they’ve actually been able to ban at least one. The board in 2001 refused to approve “Environmental Science: Creating a Sustainable Future,” by Daniel D. Chiras. Chiras’s text was in its sixth edition, well respected, and used in high schools and colleges throughout the U.S. In fact, it was used at Baylor University, the state’s top- tier Baptist university.

But the board branded the book “factually inaccurate” and banned it because the book asserts, among other things, that there is a scientific consensus that global warming is taking place. At the same time that the board was banning Chiras’s book, according to Salon.com, it eagerly approved another environmental science text, “Global Science: Energy, Resources, Environment,” prepared with the helpful input of the American Institute of Mining, Metallurgical, and Petroleum Engineers.

Chiras’s was shocked by the board’s refusal to accept his text and has since taken legal action. On Oct. 30 he filed suit in federal court challenging the board’s decision.

The author can be reached at

Bush out the door! event in Connecticut

Sat, 22 Nov 2003 05:07:00 +0000

If you’re angry about the suffering and harm caused by the Bush administration’s anti-democratic corporate agenda, don’t miss the exciting “2004 – Bush Out the Door!” reception on Dec. 7, to be held at 3:00 p.m. at 37 Howe St., New Haven, Conn. The event will kick off a year of activism, organizing and coalition building to defeat right-wing Republican control of Congress and the White House.

Building on major battles for good union jobs, racial equality and immigrant rights in Connecticut this year, along with the growing movement for peace and preservation of democratic rights, the reception will honor several new leaders who represent these struggles.

Guest speaker will be Denise Winebrenner Edwards, member of the City Council in Wilkinsburg, Pa., and a former steelworker who serves on the editorial board of the People’s Weekly World. She will travel to New Haven after participating in the demonstrations against FTAA in Miami. Edwards was elected to the City Council as part of a slate which successfully stopped an attempt to privatize the public schools in her municipality.

“The 2004 election is like no other,” said Joelle Fishman, chair of the Connecticut Communist Party. “We must not allow the struggles that won Social Security, Medicare and civil rights to be overturned. We are committed to join with all others struggling to protect and expand decent jobs, health care, housing, the environment and to bring our troops home from Iraq,” she said. “We are proud of the Communist Party’s historic contributions to those struggles.”

Honorees include Joyce Hamilton, recently appointed executive director of DemocracyWorks, and member of the statewide steering committee for the Immigrant Workers Freedom Ride; John Harrity, organizer for International Association of Machinists District 26, which has brought new industrial workers into the union movement and is leading the fight to save industrial jobs at Pratt & Whitney and Stanley Works; Mark Wilson, a leader of Local 35, Federation of Hospital and University Employees at Yale, who spoke on behalf of the need for unity during the recent strike; Migdalia Castro, a community organizer in New Haven’s Fair Haven neighborhood, and Dolores Colon, a leader of Local 34 at Yale, who both were elected in tough battles to the New Haven Board of Aldermen; and high school activists from the Hartford Young Communist League, who have participated in peace vigils, rallies and demonstrations.

The reception will include home made food, an international holiday gift table, and music. Donation is $10 or what you can afford. For tickets, or to place a message in the greeting book, write to the PWW Connecticut Bureau, 37 Howe St., New Haven, CT 06511 or call (203) 624-8664.

Lots of sweeping, but not a broom in sight

Fri, 14 Nov 2003 06:37:00 +0000

Television

Ah, November! The leaves have changed colors, the turkeys are shaking in their boots, Red Sox fans are preparing for next year, and all the shows on TV are new. It is, after all, that elusive time of the year – November sweeps.

Sweeps have been around about as long as TV has. While the viewers are guaranteed first-run episodes of their favorite shows, it’s not about entertainment at all. It’s about the economics of it all. November is when all of the ratings really count for something – money. Through a complex series of formulas, networks are able to determine how much they can charge for a 30-second advertisement in a given show.

The long and the short of it is that the more people who watch something, the more they can charge a company to advertise during it.

Pepsi might be able to pick up a 3-minute advertising spot for cheap during the 3 a.m. farm report, but how many viewers are they going to be reaching? But with 30 seconds during “Friends” or “CSI” they’ll be paying more, but they’ll be seen by the people who are likely to buy their product.

Every November, I get excited about all the new shows. The hour-long “Will & Grace,” the ripped from the headlines “Law & Order,” the season premiere of “The Simpsons.” It makes me forget about my current lack of cable.

But then I remember what it’s all about and I feel a little dirty, a little used. None of this is for my entertainment, it’s not to reward me as a faithful NBC viewer. No, it’s about me being part of the prime demographic – 18 to 34. It’s about my purchasing power. It’s about what 30 seconds of my time is worth to Pepsi and Toyota.

TV has always been about the money, though. “I Love Lucy” had commercial breaks where Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz would stop to hawk Phillip Morris cigarettes. Now there’s a public outcry when the “American Idol” judges have everything but Coca-Cola bottle costumes.

There’s a choice to be made. Personally, I’d rather watch companies put on a dog-and-pony show to get my attention than have it slip easily in and out of the shows themselves. Besides, we all need to go to the bathroom sometime. I’d much rather miss an overzealous pet owner rushing home to his cat’s request for Meow Mix than a minute of interaction between Ray and Marie Barone.

The saying is that there’s no such thing as a free lunch. The same can be said of TV. You may not pay a monthly charge to watch NBC, CBS, ABC and Fox (and you probably aren’t watching WB and UPN anyway), but there’s an economy going on behind the scenes. There’s something chugging along that pays the sometimes outrageous salaries of our favorite characters.

So while there’s a tinge of betrayal I feel every November, I can also sleep easier knowing that this economy will ensure that “Inside Schwartz” won’t be on ever again. If it’s not a widely watched show, it’s not going to get the advertising money. And if it doesn’t pay, it doesn’t stay.

(jbarnett@pww.org)