People Before Profit blog

Letters

Thu, 27 Nov 2003 04:47:00 +0000

‘Press Box Red’ misses key point

I attended the book signing for “Press Box Red” – even obtained a double autographed copy, one from the author, Irwin Silber, and one from the subject, Lester Rodney. At the lecture/signing someone asked why this event was not held in Harlem.

It was a good question. As one of two African Americans in the audience, I realized that this was not about African Americans really. It was about the color line, which we have been placed on, but it was not about us.

It reminded me of the controversy over “Schindler’s List.” Jews felt that non-Jews were and have been getting credit for the rescue and survival of Jews during WWII; as if Jews were helpless – either physically and/or spiritually – to help themselves and one another; as if there had been no Jewish resistance.

Like the controversy around the lack of mention for Jewish resistance, abolitionism and baseball is presented in the same way. As if those of us of African descent had to wait for non-Africans to come along. There had been African resistance not only from the beginning of the enslavement – hence all the laws and efforts to try to keep us in some place we refused to stay.

So “Press Box Red,” while mentioning the campaigns by the African American press that had been going on since the beginning of the Jim Crow laws, credits the Communist Party (of which I am a member since last May Day) with leading the campaign and suggests that African Americans would have never and could have never achieved any success on their own. But it was African American agitation in the first place that initiated much of the abolitionist movement and the baseball movement over the color line.

‘Jessica Watson-CrosbyNew York City

‘Council no rubber stamp

There is a campaign afoot by U.S. administration officials, and widely reported by the media here, to the effect that the Iraqi Governing Council is “ineffective, very slow in taking decisions, is missing a quorum most of the time,” ad nauseam.

This U.S. administration and media blitz is intended to discredit the council after the occupation authority discovered, to its dismay and horror, that the majority of council members are independent-minded and not a rubber-stamp tool of American imperialism, and after the council challenged several edicts of the American viceroy Paul Bremer.

This discrediting and shifting the blame to the council for imperialism’s failures and bankruptcy in Iraq is meant to reconstitute the council (or any new form of Iraqi governing entity) into a spitting image of the moribund occupation authority. Let us emphasize that freedoms are wrested by struggle. Let us not have any delusions about imperialism’s schemes and intentions for Iraq.

‘HazimDetroit MI

‘Class action vs. Wal-Mart

It’s about time that this anti-union, anti-worker, sweatshop outfit was taken to task! This lawsuit could also have a major impact on our struggle to win UNION rights for owner-drivers in the ports. The plaintiff is alleging that Wal-Mart was in fact a co-employer and thus a co-conspirator along with the contractor who actually hired and provided these immigrant workers. Wal-Mart not only benefited directly and profited from the labor provided by these workers, but they were also under the control of Wal-Mart, while working on Wal-Mart premises – thus Wal-Mart became responsible and liable for the abuses and the violation of state and federal laws. Does this sound similar to what we have been claiming all along in the ports? You bet it does, Brothers and Sisters!!

‘A readervia e-mail

‘Maytag’s far-reaching greed

Re: your article “The High Cost of Free Trade” (PWW, 11/15-21), my company is one of those run over by the “Maytag race to profits on the backs of Americans.” We are a parts distributor who had a relationship with Maytag for over 30 years. We were number nine (of 90) in the country as far as sales go. Then one day they decided to cut their shipping cost so they cast away 60 distributors. This hit us hard. We tried to continue without laying anyone off. After two years of multimillion-dollar losses we had no choice but to lay 26 of our 70 employees off. Unlike Mr. Hake [the CEO of Maytag], I could not just order it done and forget about it, I had to look each one in the eye and tell them we were letting them go even though they had been loyal and hard working employees.

Thanks to Maytag, this has been the worst two years of my company’s life. We have recuperated and have made a profit for the last seven straight months. Now we just received a letter from Electrolux. It seems they want to cut their cost of distribution. Well here we go again. At least this time we are a little better prepared and have expanded into other product lines. This will help insulate our company and our employees from the greedy whims of large companies.

‘Dan EvansPortsmouth VA

Editorials

Thu, 27 Nov 2003 04:39:00 +0000

That all may eat

George W. Bush and his wealthy patrons will probably feast this Thanksgiving without a thought to the millions of people made hungry by their “steal from the poor, give to the rich” policies.

In trumpeting “economic recovery,” Bush is sounding like Herbert Hoover with his “chicken-in-every-pot” malarkey. But facts are facts. The U.S. Census Bureau reports that the number of Americans in poverty jumped by nearly 2 million last year, soaring to 34.9 million in 2002. For African Americans, the poverty rate was 24.1 percent and for Latinos, 21.8 percent. And this is based on the federal government’s absurdly low definition of poverty, $18,392 for a family of four.

These statistics translate into hunger. The U.S. Department of Agriculture reported in October that “food insecurity” jumped 2 million to 35 million in 2002, up from 33 million a year ago. Of these, 13 million are children. Utah, Texas, Mississippi, Arkansas, New Mexico and Oklahoma all had “food insecurity” rates of 14 percent or higher. At greatest risk are single-parent families, African Americans, Latinos, Native American Indians and other victims of racist discrimination.

Second Harvest, the Chicago-based anti-hunger group, warns that food banks “are seeing last year’s donors and volunteers becoming this year’s clients.” The hunger danger grows in this “jobless recovery” when workers are unemployed so long they run out of their unemployment benefits.

The Food Research and Action Center is appealing to supporters to join a “call-in” to the White House Dec. 1-5 demanding that Bush add $550 million to child nutrition programs like WIC, school lunches, and food stamps. The White House number is (202) 456-1111.

The Bush-Cheney economic royalists believe the poor have only themselves to blame. “Let them eat cake” and “Greed is good” are their mottoes. So telephone the White House. Ask that Bush wipe the gravy from his chin and help feed hungry people.

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Terrorist attacks serve war interests

The suicide bombings in Istanbul, Turkey, of two synagogues, the British Consulate and the London-based bank HSBC resulted in 57 deaths, hundreds of people wounded and a country reeling with fear and anger. These are condemnable criminal acts and crimes against humanity. Such is the goal of terrorism – killing, maiming and instilling fear in the majority of the people.

Terrorist actions, while often using as their cover legitimate demands and grievances against U.S. foreign policy and corporations, have nothing to do with ending war, oppression, racism and poverty. Terrorism furthers the interests of the ultra-right extremists who favor militarism, unilateralism and multi-sided attacks on secularism and democratic, civil, workers’ and women’s rights. That’s why, throughout the years, the forces of imperialism have supported and trained terrorists to help carry out their agenda. It was the CIA that set up and funded training camps used by Osama bin Laden in Afghanistan.

After the horrific events of Sept. 11, the Bush administration unleashed its “war on terror.” Since then the world has seen more violence, war, terrorism, death, instability, destruction and corporate plunder. Meeting terrorism with war just continues a vicious cycle of violence giving the Bush administration the upper hand.

Turkey, in a historic vote, went against U.S. wishes and opposed the war on Iraq. A mass peace movement in Turkey prevented the U.S. from using its territory to launch air assaults into Iraq.

The Communist Party of Turkey, in a Nov. 21 statement, condemned the terrorist bombings and said they play into the hands of imperialism and those who “condemn Turkey to the arms of the U.S.” The statement points out that the attacks coincided with a debate in Turkey about sending troops to Afghanistan.

After the bombings, thousands of Turks marched against violence and anti-Semitism and for tolerance. Only through united, militant, mass struggle for peace, equality, democracy and economic justice can terrorism, war and the ultra-right be defeated.

Vietnam today

Thu, 27 Nov 2003 04:17:00 +0000

In October, Chicagoans Beatrice Lumpkin and her husband Frank, the chairman of the Wisconsin Steelworkers Save Our Jobs Committee, traveled to Vietnam for two weeks. Here are some of Beatrice’s travel notes.

Hanoi. We learn it is two words: Ha Noi, “city in the mouth of the Red River.”

Vietnam is a country of lakes, ocean bays, rivers and mountains. I think of Chile, which also has a long coastline and mountains running the length of its spine. Unlike Chile, the rivers of Vietnam are long and navigable. There are always rivers and warm temperatures. Some places even yield four crops a year.

A big problem is flooding. Lacking the funding to control the floods, they have decided to live with them. Each year, the people get out of the way as the floods take over. Then they return and work to produce rich crops from the new, fertile soil left by the flood.

Hanoi is the capital of the Socialist Republic of Vietnam, a city of 1.1 million people. “You will not see people living in the streets,” Han, our guide tells us. “Everyone has at least a little land.”

Hanoi is a beautiful city, with green trees and gardens everywhere and classic French colonial architecture. At every turn there are lake or river views.

Yet everywhere you see scars from the wars – the “French War” and the “American War,” as they are called in Vietnam. The day we arrived, Vietnam News reported that four school children were severely injured by the explosion of an undetonated bomb dropped during the American War. “Three school children were killed in the same area last month from a similar incident,” the paper reported. The United Nations reports that millions of unexploded bombs and landmines still litter Vietnam’s landscape.

A required tourist visit to the Government Center and Presidential Palace turns out to be a pleasant surprise. The huge square is surrounded by green plantings and towering trees. The Presidential Park park was designed by Ho Chi Minh himself. It is a place of great natural beauty, a perfect setting for rest and reflection.

Ho Chi Minh refused to live in the Presidential Palace. He moved to a very modest house nearby, where he could live in the simple style he was accustomed to and preferred. Because Ho Chi Minh lived only for the people of Vietnam, took nothing for himself and never had children of his own, he is called “Uncle Ho” by everyone in Vietnam.

“That’s certainly a different picture of Ho Chi Minh than we were told in the United States,” one of our tourist friends observed.

Our visit to the grim, French-built prison in Hanoi was hard to forget. It was like a combination of the Slave House in Goree Island in Senegal and the Buchenwald concentration camp in Germany. During the French occupation, Vietnamese prisoners were shackled at the legs and forced to lie on boards, crowded side-by-side, day after day. The guillotine was in daily use, especially against political prisoners who fought for their country’s independence.

During the war with the U.S., the prison was cleaned up and used to house U.S. aviators shot down over Hanoi. According to the exhibits, these prisoners received humane treatment. Examples of games played by the prisoners were on display. The U.S. prisoners named it the “Hanoi Hilton.” A few have come back to visit.

When Vietnam finally gained its independence and drove out the U.S. invaders in 1975, many people wanted to tear the prison down. Instead it was turned into a museum so young Vietnamese could learn their country’s history.

Just 37 miles from Hanoi is Halong Bay, a World Heritage Site designated by UNESCO. The spectacular scenery is enough reason to travel to Vietnam. Great changes in the earth’s crust left this bay with ragged, rugged crags sticking out from the sea floor in fantastic shapes, row after row. The scale of beauty was too great for the U.S. bombers to destroy, although bomb they did.

In the local Internet café we met two U.S. soldiers, among the few people of African descent that we saw in Vietnam. They were based in Hawaii but were being sent up into the mountains to search for the remains of American MIAs (Missing in Action). The Vietnamese government has given generous assistance to this effort.

Vietnam is divided into three geographic zones, ruled by separate kings in the past. The North and South are rice growing areas, productive enough to make Vietnam the world’s second greatest exporter of rice, after China. These are delta areas at the mouth of the Red River in the North and Mekong River the South. The central sector was the home of Hue, the former regional capital. A look at the rice farmers showed how the majority of Vietnamese farmers are living. They make up 75 percent of the population.

Traditional, family-based rice farming is intensive work. The technology is ancient but productive. No machinery was used, just manual labor aided by cattle or water buffaloes. Water buffaloes are preferred and easier to train but cost more. Much of the urea fertilizer is supplied by the family itself. They raise green and root vegetables, chickens and hogs to complete a balanced diet. The children look healthy.

The land is nationally owned and cannot be sold. Families pay a tax in rice and live largely outside of a cash economy. The surplus rice, not needed by the family, brings in a cash income used to buy clothes, electrical appliances, bicycles or small motorcycles. Children go to school in five-hour shifts and work on the farm the rest of the day. The first five years of school are free. The literacy rate is among the highest in that part of the world, about 94 percent.

From Hanoi we flew to Da Nang and visited China Beach, used by the U.S. armed forces for R&R. The beach was full of small, circular fishing boats. A trip through the hills showed the ravages of Agent Orange. The mountains were green again but gone were the great hardwood trees that had grown for hundreds of years.

After U.S. chemical defoliants stripped the mountains of trees, the soil washed away in the heavy typhoon rains. Later, eucalyptus trees were planted to retain the little soil that remained. We had thought of these as scrap trees but the Vietnamese used the wood and the bark for roofing and homes. These roofs have to be replaced in four to five years, but the price is right. It seems labor is more available than lumber. Hopefully, in the next 100 years, it will be possible to replant the great native trees of Vietnam.

We stayed a couple of nights in Hoi An. This is a historic old town, clogged with tourists. A high point was a bus trip to the My Son ruins of the Champa Kingdom, an extensive area reminding me of Tikal in Guatemala. These precious ruins of an ancient Hindu-influenced kingdom had been carpet-bombed by the U.S. Air Force. All that remained were many piles of rubble and a few temples that had miraculously survived. French archaeologists had made many drawings of the ruins in the 19th century so it is possible to restore them. Clearly it will take a big international investment to do so.

The bus took us to Hue where we had hotel rooms overlooking the Perfumed River. Perhaps it was perfumed by the original sandalwood logged on its banks and shipped to market downstream.

We visited a Buddhist-operated orphanage where children were getting tender loving care. A large state-operated school for disabled children was even more remarkable. Children were learning trades and becoming skilled artisans, salespersons and managers.

Dinner was at the home of a family descended from the old mandarins (nobles) and who still lived in the traditional, substantial home of that earlier time. The head of the family was a scholar. Despite his family’s mandarin past, he seemed very comfortable with the government and party established by Uncle Ho. The Communist Party of Vietnam is the sole political party and plays an active role in guiding the economy.

Flying south from central to southern Vietnam, we arrive at Ho Chi Minh City, originally named Saigon after the river that flows through it. A highlight of our trip was a visit to the Cu Chih tunnels where 5,000 Vietnamese fighters lived deep underground, out of reach of the carpet-bombing U.S. Air Force. At night the Vietnamese would emerge and fight the invaders.

At first the tunnels were used to fight the French. Then they were extended for 200 miles to fight the U.S. military. The tunnels were dug with shovels and the earth removed, basket by basket. The soldiers survived on rats and whatever else they could find.

I went down to experience one of the tunnels for myself. It was barely wider than me and I had to bend over double. Every few feet it made a sharp turn, making it easy to defend. Not used to the dark, I could barely see. It was scary. After a few minutes I had enough. When I came up, the guide was coming down to look for me.

But thousands lived in those tunnels for years. In the end, the Vietnamese fighters won. Unity, determination and brilliant strategy defeated the high technology of the invaders.

A cruise in Mekong Bay yielded a view of tropical abundance. There was fruit of many kinds, including dragon fruit – red with a gnarled appearance, like dragons. They are somewhat pear-shaped, melon-sized, with firm white meat dotted with tasty, tiny black seeds. We visited some islands and gorged ourselves on the tropical fruit.

Incidentally, Vietnamese food is superb as well as healthful. Not one of the 15 in our group got sick after two weeks of overindulgence. That spoke very well for the sanitation and the health of the food handlers.

We took rides up the bay’s feeder streams in small, round-bottom boats paddled by two women. Here exotic butterflies, 10 inches across, fluttered to and fro to my delight. To make the tourists even happier, there was traditional music played at many of our stops.

So Vietnam is a wonderful tourist destination. What about the life of the people in a poor, socialist country?

Yes, Vietnam – a country of 79 million people – is very poor by most measures. But as mentioned above, about three-quarters of the population is made up of farmers who get most of their food and housing outside the cash economy. People look well-nourished and almost all have access to schools and some health care. Life expectancy is going up about five months each year. In 2001, it had reached 69.6 years.

But a country cannot lift itself up by its own bootstraps in this technological age. Some access to investment capital is needed to build factories and develop technology. Given the low prices of agricultural exports and the high price of manufactured imports, Vietnam cannot produce sufficient capital by itself.

As a consequence, Vietnam has proclaimed an “open door” policy and invited foreign investment. Foreign companies include many from the U.S. since the restoration of relations in 1995. The foreign companies account for 35 percent of Vietnam’s industrial production. They employ 650,000 workers who are paid, on average, $1,000 U.S. a year. Workers receive social insurance benefits, but many foreign companies have failed to pay the tax that finances these benefits.

While in Hanoi, we made an unplanned, unofficial visit to the Vietnam General Confederation of Labor (VGCL). Chau Nhat Binh, deputy director of the International Department, received us and gave us a copy of their federation’s constitution and their VGCL pins. Later, we read the constitution and found it to be oriented to socialist state production. It must have been written before they had to deal with capitalist employers.

We gave Chau Nhat Binh a steelworkers’ union cap and a copy of our book, “Always Bring a Crowd – The Story of Frank Lumpkin, Steelworker.” He expressed great interest in receiving representatives of the AFL-CIO and its affiliated unions. The West Coast Longshoremen’s Union has sent representatives already.

We expressed our solidarity with the union federation’s battle to defend workers’ interests. Given the Vietnamese people’s heroic history of struggle, I would expect them to fight for more equal pay and benefits sooner rather than later.

The author can be reached at bealumpkin@aol.com

Letters

Sat, 22 Nov 2003 05:45:00 +0000

Repeating mistakes of the past

As U.S. occupation forces find themselves increasingly on the defensive, a note of desperation can be detected in the national debate over how best to respond to an increasingly tough Iraqi armed resistance.

Some analysts have advocated a near scorched-earth policy in areas like Tikrit and Fallujah, known to support the rebels. Others have even called for “carpet bombing” the most intransigent towns and villages. As for handling those millions of angry, anti-American Iraqis, Sen. Trent Lott suggested recently that “we should just mow ’em all down,” a remark he soon retracted.

It is often said that Iraq is becoming a new Vietnam. The more apt comparison is to the Soviet experience in Afghanistan. Funny how little the last, though declining, superpower has learned from recent history. The U.S. was supportive of “terrorist” methods against the Soviet occupiers then; you’d think they’d be more prepared for them now in Iraq. What goes around, comes around.

Cord MacGuire

Boulder CO

Who is a saint?

The Catholic Church is in process of making Mother Teresa a saint according to its criteria. She was an Albanian nun who worked in the poorest area of Calcutta for many years and is known around the world for this. Aside from the questions of religious belief, a person whose life is promoted as saintly is set up as an example worthy of emulation by others.

Is Mother Teresa’s life one to emulate? What can we learn from the way she lived and worked?

Personally I do not think it is useful for someone who chose to live celibate to comment on contraception and abortion (Mother Teresa opposed these). Nor do I consider a life of celibacy better than a life involving sex because sex is part of normal human behavior and is an important part of human relationships – sex is good, not sinful.

Nor do I think it is excusable for a widely known public figure to claim not to be involved in politics, when in fact Mother Teresa had a friendship with the wealthy and notorious Duvalier family which did such horrible damage to the country of Haiti.

But aside from these aspects, the main problem I have with emulating Mother Teresa’s life is that her caring work with the poor for years and years never had an impact on the root causes of poverty, never made a dent in the economic and social system that tolerated the misery she tried to assuage.

In this world today there are thousands, perhaps millions of dedicated people of faith who work not only to provide the immediate needs of the hungry, the sick, the homeless, the imprisoned. But also they work to organize people as a force for material change for the better in the short run, and the elimination of poverty and all its associated ills in the long run.

Mother Teresa was once asked what she would so if there were no more poor people to care for and she said in effect that she would be out of a job. I think that would have been a more saintly goal.

Barbara Russum

Chicago IL

Brach’s candies leave foul taste

The following is an excerpt from the text of a letter sent to Brach’s Candies on their announced plans to shut down their Chicago plant:

Due to a recent decision (moving your manufacturing facilities out of the country) by your corporate leaders, I will no longer be purchasing any products containing the Brach’s or Stollwerck’s Trademark. Recent news releases state “Brach’s is excited about the future potential here in the United States” and speak of “the substantial expansion” of U.S. activities, but the decisions made by your corporate executives seem to contradict these statements.

As corporate giants such as yourselves continue to move more operations to other countries, you will drastically reduce your manufacturing costs. This will greatly benefit your corporate executives in short-term profits. However, as more and more companies follow this trend, more and more American families will find themselves unemployed or employed at greatly reduced wages.

Meanwhile the top corporate executives who were responsible for the decisions that led to the whole situation will have enough financial freedom to live the remainder of their lives enjoying the sunset from their beachfront property in the Caribbean islands. I, for one, will not allow myself, my family, or anyone else that I can possibly convince to contribute to this unethical treatment of your American employees.

I am a business owner, community leader, leader of the Christian Community, and a very concerned US citizen. I will be aggressively speaking-out to the community about your recent decision, in the hope that I can persuade my fellow American citizens to boycott your products, and help do their part to stop this “emotional and financial rape” of your American employees and the American consumer.

David W. Huffman

via e-mail

Editorials

Sat, 22 Nov 2003 05:43:00 +0000

Georgia on our mind

Want to end world terrorism? Thousands of human rights activists gathering outside Fort Benning, Ga. think the terrorist training camp there would be a good place to start.

Fort Benning’s School of the Americas is the U.S. army-run combat-training school for Latin American soldiers. School of the Americas graduates are responsible for some of the worst human rights abuses and terrorist actions in Latin America over recent decades. Among those targeted by SOA graduates are union leaders, educators, religious workers, student leaders, and others working for human rights and economic justice. Hundreds of thousands of Latin Americans have been tortured, raped, assassinated, “disappeared,” massacred, and forced out of their countries by SOA graduates.

In response to a determined campaign to close the school, the institution was recently renamed Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation (WHISC), and placed under the Department of Defense. The changes are cosmetic; its mission remains.

The protesters in Georgia will be in the streets this weekend as tens of thousands of labor, farm and environmental activists from across the United States are in the streets of Miami wrapping up a week of protest against the FTAA.

The pro-corporate foreign policy represented by FTAA wreaks economic terrorism against workers and farmers both at home and abroad. Critics of the SOA/WHISC charge that the school’s underlying purpose is to clear the way for U.S. corporate interests. “The SOA is part of a corporate-hijacked foreign policy,” said Fr. Roy Bourgeois, founder of SOA Watch. It is fitting that protesters in the streets in Georgia are calling for the shut-down of the veritable terrorist mill being run in our country, by our own government – a mill that churns out the torturers, assassins, and anti-democratic plotters who will be called on to enforce corporate America’s policies in our hemisphere.

No more blood and bombs

As the Vietnam War came into American living rooms in the 1960s and 70s, we saw horrifying scenes of innocent women, old people, and children shot down in cold blood. Entire villages were wiped out by massive U.S. bombing raids.

Ordinary Americans, including many of the “boots on the ground” in Vietnam, were horrified by the senseless murder and destruction in the name of freedom and democracy. All the bombs, all the house-to-house raids, all the destruction, the deaths of 58,000 American soldiers and at least 3 million Vietnamese, did not succeed in stifling opposition to a U.S. imperial war.

The Associated Press announced Nov. 19 that U.S. forces had dropped 2,000- and 1,000-pound bombs on Iraqi homes and towns as part of their “Iron Hammer” operation to stamp out resistance to the U.S. occupation. In Tikrit, Americans used artillery and mortars on some sections of town. AP quoted Maj. Gen. Charles Swannack Jr.: “We are going to take the fight to the enemy using everything in our arsenal necessary to win this fight!”

The wire service had no idea of how much damage had been done, as newspersons are greatly limited in their coverage of the occupation. A Bush decree has banned photos when coffins bearing dead American soldiers arrive at U.S. bases. News coverage of the thousands of maimed and wounded Iraqis and Americans hardly exists. We won’t see the Iraqi families who were blown to bits by advanced weaponry.

Newspersons were encouraged, however, to cover George Bush and his “Mission Accomplished” banner last May. His declaration of triumph and the end of the “war” was spread across our newspapers and TV screens. But months have passed, covered with the red blood of Iraqis and Americans. Long after the declaration of success, Bush is still bombing civilians in their homes. And Americans are coming home in coffins and wheelchairs.

Let’s end this disaster. Bring the troops home!

Letters

Fri, 14 Nov 2003 05:43:00 +0000

Illuminating bus ride

On a cross-town bus the other day a tired looking woman got on with her bundles and settled into an empty seat. Finding herself next to an old friend, she brightened up and greeted her with “Hi, Samantha!” and the familiar “Long time no see!” “Ya got that right, Harriet,” Samantha replied. “How you doin’? Makin’ lots of money?” “Of course I am,” said Harriet, and with a wry smile added, “for the boss!” I thought about their conversation for a moment. Then it struck me. Whether she knew it or not, Harriet is a Marxist! She had just stated Marx’s principle of surplus value. “Right on Harriet!” I mused. Then “Damn, too bad I left my People’s Weekly World on the subway seat!”

Charles KellerNew York NY

Voting rights under siege

Re: “GOP to challenge Black voters in Louisville” (PWW/NW, 11/1-8), I think that we need to be very concerned about this kind of activity to disenfranchise Black and other working-class voters in 2004 on behalf of George W. Bush. I hope you are planning a more in depth follow-up to this story. I’ve read that Chandler lost, and it would be very important for the whole country to know how much such racist attacks on the right to vote might have played a role. Thank you. And keep up the good work.

Ted PearsonChicago IL

Uplifting journalism

The People’s Weekly World is the best written material I receive. You give me hope.

Lorena TinkerFayette MO

For quality, public education

Polls show most Americans want universal medical care by a single-payer, federal income tax funded system like that of Canada. Overdue is a U.S. outcry for single-payer public education. Voucher plans, charter schools, and “No child left behind” fail to bring equitable public education to both rich and poor. Congress should scale federal income tax rates steeply upward, close to 90 percent of income from the richest, to pay for both universal health care, and a single-payer K-12 nationwide public school system of equal expenditure per pupil, after initial rehabilitation of presently under-funded schools. Also needed are standardized national proficiency testing of teachers and a nationwide, modern and flexibly wide in scope core curriculum, to start with and enabled by mastery of the three Rs.

Judith Segard HuntBerkeley CA

On ‘partial birth’ abortion ban

Although the specific abortion practice in question is probably inappropriate in most situations, at prescribed times it is the best and only option available to physicians to save a woman’s life due to complications in the second trimester. Interference in complicated medical procedures by people with absolutely no medical background places American lives at risk. All politicians, including Mr. Bush and his so-called bipartisan group of legislators, should be reprimanded, not commended.

Matthew Watsonvia e-mail

NBC victimized Jessica Lynch

Jessica Lynch was a patient, not a prisoner. She needed a ride home, not a rescue. By its retelling of the lies surrounding her ride home, has NBC lowered itself to the level of those who made propaganda films for the Nazis? Where is the moral or journalistic distinction between the two?

Richard Curtisvia e-mail

Guns or butter

The stories of the killings in Iraq of our occupation forces and the tragic abuse of neglected children placed in foster homes in New Jersey and elsewhere are not unrelated. It was predicted that as Bush gave his tax abatements to the wealthy and allocated those billions to Iraq’s infrastructure (read: contracts to Halliburton), our own people would suffer. Our worst fears are being realized. The strangling of our infrastructure is resulting in the horrible mistreatment of our children due to lack of funds for proper supervision. Butter before guns and people before profits takes but one thing: a change in those priorities.

Don Sloan, MDNew York City

Editorials

Fri, 14 Nov 2003 05:36:00 +0000

Stop the ‘free trade’ highway robbery

A decade ago, the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) was sold with promises it would create 200,000 new jobs in the U.S. in the first two years while raising the living standards of the people of Canada, Mexico, and the U.S. Instead, NAFTA has destroyed jobs and living standards in all three countries. It has only raised the profit “standards” of corporations.

Here in the U.S. it has been a huge factor feeding unemployment and poverty, a “race to the bottom” in wages, health care and pension benefits. NAFTA has also created a humanitarian crisis for workers and farmers in Mexico, forced to leave their homes and families to seek employment in the U.S.

Now, the Bush administration is ramrodding the Free Trade Area of the Americas, FTAA. It is described as “NAFTA on steroids,” an agreement that would open the door for even more vicious corporate takeaways.

Labor, farmers, environmentalists, peace activists, students and youth are heading to Miami for a week of protests demanding cancellation of the FTAA. Many Democratic presidential contenders have backed away from the Clinton administration’s pro-NAFTA line and are calling for termination or overhaul of FTAA, including protection of workers’ rights and the environment. FTAA is not a done deal.

These “free trade” agreements are really “free capital flight” agreements, which have nothing to do with improving the standard of living for workers and impoverished countries. One of the laws of capitalism is: the race to the bottom for workers means a greater profit rate for the capitalist class.

There is another point: The Bush-Cheney doctrine of preemptive and unilateral war is the flip side of this so-called “free trade” policy. If they succeed in their conquest of oil-rich Iraq, expect them soon to set up a “free trade zone” in the Middle East.

The time to outlaw this highway robbery is now.

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Air, water, wildlife Bushwhacked

The Bush administration last week dropped Environmental Protection Agency investigations of 50 power plants for massive violations of the Clean Air Act. The decision reflected heavy arm-twisting by Vice President Dick Cheney’s energy task force, a secretive body dominated by the oil and gas monopolies that also control coal production.

The move is a frontal attack on efforts to curb air pollution from coal-fired power plants along the Ohio River that is contributing to a major increase in respiratory diseases. It also strikes a heavy blow against efforts to curb acid rain that has killed fish and plant life in the lakes and rivers in the Northeast. It is a brazen payback to energy corporations that poured more than $40 million into Bush-Cheney coffers in the stolen 2000 election. Now these corporations are lining up again to buy Bush a second term.

Sen. Frank Lautenberg (D-N.J.) spoke the truth about this outrage when he said, “This latest attack on the environment sends a clear message to the president’s corporate polluting cronies: Do whatever you want to do to improve the bottom line. Profits are more important than cleaning the air for children who suffer from asthma and seniors with respiratory diseases.”

It goes hand-in-hand with Bush attacks on the Kyoto Accord on global warming, his drive to expand logging and oil and gas drilling in national forests and in fragile protected lands such as the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. He is open in his contempt for the Endangered Species Act. Bush is racking up a record as the worst environmental president in history, earning the wrath of nature lovers throughout the land.

The environment looms as a crucial issue in the 2004 election with environmentalists understandably proclaiming: “Anybody but Bush.” Voters should demand that candidates seeking the presidency speak out clearly on how they will reverse Bush-Cheney pro-corporate, anti-environment policies and protect the nation’s air, water, and wildlife.

Letters

Fri, 07 Nov 2003 08:58:00 +0000

Candidates support clemency?

I feel it is an important stipulation for potential endorsers to ask whether the presidential candidate supports clemency for American Indian Movement activist Leonard Peltier. So far, Carol Moseley Braun, former senator from Illinois, stated that she supports clemency for Leonard Peltier. Although I am a strong supporter for Dennis Kucinich and have admired him since the 70’s, he and others have not yet committed to clemency for Mr. Peltier.

Despite the prosecutors admitting that they can’t prove who shot their agents and the fact that FBI documents revealed that a firing pin test between an AR-15 rifle and shell casings found near the slain agents were found not to match after an FBI ballistics expert testified at Leonard’s trial that there was a match, Mr. Peltier remains incarcerated. Martin Luther King once stated, “Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.” I hope the presidential candidates and their potential endorsers remember this and not forget Leonard Peltier. For more information, log onto www.leonardpeltier.org

John GallagherWoonsocket RI

Iraqization of the war

It is interesting to be reminded of Karl Marx’s words of history “repeating itself first time as tragedy, second time as farce.” While these words have been repeated so many times as to be nearly clichéd I’m struck by the efforts of the Bush administration to Iraqinize the occupation. As the population grows more restive, as the U.S. becomes more isolated, their actions are becoming ever clearer to the people of Iraq; the “coalition” wants a civil war in the service of the U.S. and the Ahmad Chalabi led Iraqi council. But it is also clear that the people are not buying into the U.S. program. It is incumbent upon activist and citizens, that we get the U.S. to turn its responsibilities over to the United Nations without further efforts to foment civil war, an action which will have unforeseen consequences and blood loss not seen since the Iran-Iraq war.

Ken Baileyvia e-mail

Critique of Geneva Accord

Judith Le Blanc’s recent front-page article entitled “Israeli, Palestinian Activists Take New Peace Steps” claims the Geneva Accord signed between the parties is an “important, new development for a negotiated resolution” of the issues.

Concerning the latter, Article 5 (9)(b)(i) reads, “The Israeli Air Force shall be entitled to use the Palestinian sovereign airspace for training purposes.” With national boundaries as they are understood today, infringement on someone’s sovereign territory is a serious problem. Why is this a positive development then in the context of Palestine? Article 7 deals with refugees. Assuming this agreement to take effect, the now 5 million Palestinians refugees, whose right to return to their homes, property, and land is imbedded solidly in international law, will only be allowed to enter the new Palestinian state, none of which constitutes their property or homes or land. The bottom line: the right to return is foregone, without consulting the refugees themselves. The agreement will perpetuate Zionist domination of Palestinians and Palestine and thus, the conflict will continue unabated.

Brian WoodChicago IL

Indymedia compliment

Thanks from Chicago Indymedia for posting “Salt of the Earth.” I’d received it in my email through the grapevine and was pleasantly “pleased” to see the article was already posted to the newswire. I appreciated reading the article. I’ve noticed PWW really puts out good articles, in-depth, sophisticated and engaging. Thank you.

Garth LiebhaberChicago.Indymedia.org

Impeach Bush

In Tim Wheeler’s front page “Protests across the nation: ‘Bring the troops home’” article (PWW, 11/1-7, 2003), he cited the sign “Impeach Bush now” but didn’t mention that Ramsey Clark, former Attorney General of the United States, said at the rally that Bush’s invasion of Iraq was a war crime. To invade another country without provocation is a crime against peace in the Geneva Convention. In the U.S. Constitution, to commit “high crimes” is an appropriate reason for impeachment; Bush ought to be impeached.

Mansur Johnson Tucson AZ

Editorials

Fri, 07 Nov 2003 08:42:00 +0000

Fuzzy economics

George W. Bush’s claim that his tax cuts to the super-rich are what’s behind the “spectacular” economic growth of 7.2 percent from July-September is fuzzy economics.

The fact is there are two ways to look at the economy: the view from Wall Street or the view from Main Street.

Wall Street and their political hacks trumpet a 7.2 percent growth because there is an upturn in profits, including from the war in Iraq and military spending. Prices, especially oil, are up, consumer spending went up, businesses got a tax credit for making investments that didn’t create jobs and the banks got a gift from mortgage refinancing and deficit spending. None of these “trickled down” in the form of benefits for middle-income, working class or poor families.

Economists of all stripes say the growth does not include any significant numbers of new jobs. Treasury Secretary John Snow said that “job creation has yet to take hold” and Georgia Republican Party boss Alec Poitevint, in a press release, could not state an increase of jobs as one of the hallmarks of this “roaring” economy.

The view from Main Street is this: no new jobs, wages and pensions slashed, sky-rocketing health care costs, new racist and anti-immigrant policies, no new spending for education, infrastructure or social programs. Yet $87 billion goes for the occupations in Iraq and Afghanistan. The cost of the deficit spending will be visited upon future generations. These deficits also increase the pressure to privatize Social Security and Medicare.

The “spectacular” economic growth is a cynical attempt to get traction for Bush’s 2004 reelection bid. His spin team may try to obscure these views with their creepy double-speak. They will use racism and other divide-and-conquer dirty tricks to convince people they have our best interest at heart. But, in the end, there is no obscuring the fact that this administration only acts on behalf of the narrow Wall Street, and not the much wider Main Street.

Bush and the California wildfires

Last April 16, California Gov. Gray Davis wrote to George W. Bush pleading for emergency funds to clear away thousands of dead trees in the forests of Southern California. Davis warned that the trees could fuel wildfires in Riverside, San Diego, and San Bernardino counties, with 75,000 residents at especially high risk. He asked Bush to release $300 million in U.S. Forest Service funds and $300 million in FEMA funds to remove the trees.

Eight days later, a bipartisan group of lawmakers that included Democratic Sen. Barbara Boxer and Republicans Reps. Mary Bono and Darrell Issa, wrote to Bush with the same appeal.

Bush ignored their pleas, just as a year earlier he rejected Davis’s appeals that the White House act to curb Enron and the other energy thieves then looting California to the tune of $50 billion in electricity overcharges.

Cutting off federal assistance to California and giving free rein to corporate thieves there fit in with Bush-Cheney plans to remove Gov. Davis from office and install muscleman Arnold Schwarzenegger in his place. Schwarzenegger now says he has Bush’s ear and will be able to get the assistance Davis couldn’t. Haley Barbour, former chairman of the Republican Party, delivered the same pitch in his successful race for governor of Mississippi.

Bush uses the power of the federal purse strings like an emperor, doling out federal dollars to some and denying it to others to reinforce his total power. But millions who are now voting Republican have found themselves on the losing end of this Republican scam.

Consider those folks in Southern California. Bush blocked aid that could have saved their homes and many of them, obviously, are Republicans, including Rep. Duncan Hunter whose San Diego home burned to the ground. Using federal tax dollars as a political weapon is a high crime deserving of impeachment. Voters should remember that crime on Election Day a year from now.