People Before Profit blog

Letters

Fri, 18 Nov 2005 04:28:00 +0000

The ‘memory hole’

On Veteran’s Day, which is a hallowed day to honor the sacrifice of military personnel, George Bush decided to attack certain groups questioning his rush to war in Iraq. In his speech Mr. Bush said, “It is deeply irresponsible to rewrite the history of how the war began,” and then proceeded to attack only Democrats and antiwar critics. Isn’t it Mr. Bush who is rewriting history? Bush can claim that only Democrats and antiwar critics are against his “splendid” little war in Iraq, but as I write this letter numerous Republicans that belong to his party are questioning and even adamantly opposing the war.

The church he is a member of just released a statement condemning the Iraq war. Sixty-seven percent of Americans now oppose the war and want to bring U.S. troops home. George Orwell writes in his book “1984” about a “memory hole.” The memory hole is a government-sponsored propaganda program that constantly destroys, falsifies, and rewrites the past to justify present wars and the loss of civil liberties. A more apt title for “1984” would have been “Mr. George Bush.”

Lydia Padilla

Via e-mail

Bush lies

This morning listening to NPR I wanted to throw up when I heard our president say we don’t torture prisoners. How dumb does he think we are? George W. will claim that we don’t torture people by defining torture in some twisted, tortured way.

Please help us get rid of this Republican thing that has us hopelessly in debt and bogged down in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Please participate in the election process and encourage those around you to do so also.

Bush won the last election because we didn’t participate enough. Too many people who disparage the government don’t participate. They just complain.

Cletis Harry Beegle

Tucson AZ

Doubts ICE report

Paul Hill’s article “Lifting the curtain: Immigrant detention centers in U.S. charged with abuse” (PWW 10/22-28) appeared very slanted and postulated opinion more than factual reporting. The article claims widespread abuse of detainees by ICE in Oklahoma City, and then later indicates that government immigration facilities might be staffed by personnel from many government and private agencies. I’ve done some research on my own and I don’t find many facilities that ICE owns or operates. Most appear to be legitimate state, local or private jail facilities where ICE leases detention space. Most local, state or federal jails, prisons and detention facilities have to meet and maintain nationally accepted standards. While singular instances of prisoner mistreatment could potentially occur at any one of the thousands of jails in this country, I seriously doubt Amnesty International’s claim that “there seems to be a pattern and practice of abuse on the part of ICE officers in Oklahoma City.” Amnesty International’s claims and political agenda have been suspect on many past occasions, so that don’t enjoy the privilege and credibility of a truly independent, unbiased observer.

R. Jones

Gulfport MS

Paul Hill responds:

I appreciate R. Jones’ comments. Unfortunately, the comments do not cite any facts. Jones attacks a review of articles published in the Houston Chronicle and the Associated Press as “very slanted and postulated opinion more than factual reporting” and then dismisses the internationally acclaimed work of Amnesty International as a “political agenda.” Unfortunately with no facts to back up his remarks, the letter writer’s comments appear to be “agenda driven” and, I would add, represent a grave danger to this nation’s civil liberties.

Stop Garland extradition

Thank you for highlighting the recent arrest and possible deportation to the U.S. of Sean Garland, leader of the Workers’ Party of Ireland (PWW 11/5-11). PWW readers can learn more about Garland’s case at www.seangarland.org. Please visit the site and make your protest known wherever you can.

Our campaign cannot match the vast resources available to the U.S. administration or the hostile media, which has sought to blacken the name of Sean Garland and prejudice his legal rights. But we can mount a strong campaign with your help.

Justin O’Hagan

Belfast, Northern Ireland

Embryonic stem cell conflict

One way the capitalist class maintains its control of society is to forge alliances with movements that have no direct involvement in controlling the profit economy. The large and influential religious right is one such movement. It is largely responsible for the election of the present administration and Congress. However, its nonsensical and dogmatic positions against science and progress pose major threats to profitable technologies.

Embryonic stem cell research has potential of enormous profits (besides relieving human suffering) and has created a major rift in the anti-people forces of reaction. On Nov. 1, the Associated Press reported that the World Stem Cell Hub in Seoul, South Korea, began receiving patient registrations for stem cell therapies. They were flooded by nearly 2,600 applications the first morning from patients with Parkinson’s disease, damaged spinal cords, diabetes, cancers, etc.

Embryonic stem cell therapy has the potential for curing many of the most debilitating diseases and transforming the entire field of health care. Unless the backward policies of our government are defeated, Americans will have to wait their turn as more enlightened societies care for their citizens.

David Kennell

University City MO

PWW on campus

I am a Fordham University student and the Community Coordinator of Global Outreach- a university based organization dedicated to grassroots social justice, social awareness, and social change through education, research, action, and cultural immersion. I believe that there is a need for independent voices and visions. The New York Times is available everyday to Fordham students at no cost. It’s the only newspaper available and I think that that is a disgrace. I wanted to know if the People’s Weekly World newspaper was willing to donate some copies of the newspaper on a weekly basis to be distributed to Fordham at no cost. So far, I’ve been successful with three other newspapers: The Haitian Times, The Caribbean Voice and El Sol. My teammates and my school would be grateful for whatever help you may provide.

Catherine Ruiz

Via e-mail

Editor’s note: We couldn’t agree with you more on the need for “independent voices and visions.” The PWW would be more than happy to provide you with however many newspapers you need. Thank you for your request.

Letters

Fri, 11 Nov 2005 05:03:00 +0000

Whose oil?

The Arctic National Wildlife Reserve contains one of the last major oil deposits in the U.S. Estimates are it has 10.6 billion barrels of oil. Projections are it will take 8 to 10 years to develop the production of 200,000 bpd (barrels per day). This represents about 0.01 percent of our daily consumption. At $60 per barrel it would be worth $4,380,000,000 per year minus development and operation costs. Considering the needs of our “energy crisis”, and the growing demand for relief from high fuel prices, the ANWR will be used. But by whom is the question? All mineral rights on public land are held in “trust” by the government. Since the people are the government it collectively belongs to all of us. Natural resources such as oil, coal, timber and other minerals should be developed by the government and sold to private industry at market prices. These revenues could be used for social programs like education, Medicare and Medicaid, prescription drugs, etc. Our elected officials must stop giving away our heritage and our country. They obviously need to hear from us.

Ken Appelhans

Gary IN

Fight the Bush tax plan

I enjoy reading your paper. I’m writing to let people know, if they haven’t heard, about Mr. Bush selecting a panel to eliminate federal deductions and credits for mortgage interest rates, and local taxes and education among others.

This greedy person gives “Big Business” all the breaks and makes all others pay for mistakes.

I have called Obama and Durbin, our senators from Illinois. We can’t sit on our hands anymore. Too many deaths and taking everything from the working class!

Virginia Ohren

Granite City IL

Virginia Ohren is a “Woman of Steel” and member of United Steelworkers Local 1899.

All we need is love

There’s no such show as “Everybody Loves Earl” (PWW 11/5-11, “Tales from a couch”). It’s “My Name is Earl.” Everyone loves Raymond, and they hate Chris.

Brandon Slattery

Philadelphia PA

Carolyn Rummel responds:

Did I really say “Everybody Loves Earl”? I know I originally wrote “Everybody Loves Chris” but I caught that. I must have had that on the brain. That damn Raymond! Now my credibility is shot. No wonder I never leave my couch. Blame it on too many trans-fats. Editor’s note – We’ll have to get rid of our carton of Oreos, too.

Put the people in control of Peoples Gas

Recent coverage of struggles against heating cost increases by Curly Cohen and Pepe Lozano are inspiring. The gas and oil sector of monopoly capital is crucial for the most reactionary political forces, including especially the Bush administration. A defeat for that sector in the form of a freezing or even rollback of heating fuel prices would be an important working class victory. However, the people who run that industry will use every stratagem they can to deflect public anger, including playing their adversaries off against each other: Heating fuel customers versus their own oil and gas company workers, and low versus middle income working class customers.

A winning strategy will seek to unite all of these sectors. Last time around, public pressure on the fuel companies was somewhat dissipated when Peoples Gas in Chicago announced a program of cost breaks for the very poorest residents, which was seen as a major victory by some, as a lost opportunity by others. The problem was not that the company gave help to some of the poorest, which was fine, but that the struggle against the company then wound down considerably. Many people who did not qualify for the program found themselves with the dilemma of paying for food or medical care versus paying the heating bill. A better strategy would be to build a labor-led coalition that would mobilize the political support, not only of the lowest income people, but of middle income workers and even small to medium sized businesses. Such a coalition could even raise basic issues about private versus public ownership of such entities as Chicago’s grotesquely misnamed “Peoples Gas.”

Emile Schepers

Via e-mail

Leak story is just the beginning

Now that a direct indictment has come to the Bush administration, I hope that the public will not be led to believe that the scandal ends there. The press needs to dig deeper still because the big picture is still missing. Why would senior administration officials lie to such a degree and divulge treasonous information unless there was something very important at stake? This story and its players are still coming out but at this juncture I am afraid the Bush spin machine will come out with such fervor and nerve, as it has before, that the public will again be fooled. Here’s hoping that won’t happen. The press needs to stay focused.

Pete Bragansa

New York NY

Why not impeach?

Just read Terrie Albano’s commentary “The Republicans’ arrogance of power” (PWW 10/8-14). It begins, “You need a scorecard” and then goes on to enumerate all the lying and sleaze of this administration. Why he hasn’t yet been impeached is a big question. I wish you would send a copy of this to every member of Congress, especially the Democrats and independents. It’s right on the money. (Pun intended.)

Linda Livingston

Via e-mail

Rebuilding nightmare

Three or four years down the road Katrina’s victims will feel the aftershock. The no-bid contracts to Halliburton, Bechtel, Fluor, and Bush’s sweeping aside the Davis-Bacon prevailing wage law for the area is only the tip of the iceberg. In the rebuilding of New Orleans, the developers, as usual, will seek to maximize their profits. Sections of the city will be declared urban blight and under eminent domain will be seized, with little or no compensation, especially for those who never return. For others who do return, they will challenge eminent domain in terms of just compensation. Thanks to the Supreme Court’s decision, those who challenge eminent domain’s legality will have a tough row to hoe. New Orleans will become the litigation city of the South. This tragic city is headed for gentrification, a gold mine for developers and Bush’s other crony corporations. This is the aftershock that awaits Katrina’s victims. Will this happen? I am not sure, but can we expect anything less from capitalism?

David Reid

Daytona Beach FL

Editorial: Oil execs squirm

Fri, 11 Nov 2005 05:02:00 +0000

Oil company executives testifying before a Senate committee Nov. 9 arrogantly rejected any suggestion that the federal government should act to limit their profits and provide relief for consumers. The hearing was carefully orchestrated by the Senate leadership to shield the industry, and the Republican Party itself, from rising public anger in the face of soaring gas and home heating prices, accompanied by unprecedented profits for the oil corporations.

Energy Committee Chairman Peter Domenici (R-N.M.), ever respectful to Big Business, rejected demands to have the executives testify under oath.

Several Democratic senators called for a windfall profits tax, but ConocoPhillips chairman James Mulva said of his company’s $3.8 billion profit last quarter — an 89 percent increase over a year earlier — “We do not consider that a windfall.”

Republicans took a gentler approach to the industry. Domenici dismissed a windfall profits tax but acknowledged that “the oil companies owe the country an explanation,” while Sen. Charles Grassley (R-Iowa) asked the corporations to voluntarily donate 10 percent of their profits to the federal low-income heating assistance program.

The very fact that public hearings on oil profits are being held is a people’s victory of sorts under an administration so totally dominated by that industry. But people across the country face the immediate need to be able to afford fuel to get to work and keep their homes warm this winter. That urgency demands a higher level of action than “an explanation” or “voluntary donations.”

A windfall profits tax to recapture some of the $96 billion oil companies are expected to make this year is a necessary start. Sens. Byron Dorgan (D-N.D.) and Christopher Dodd (D-Conn.) are expected to introduce such legislation.

But this year’s energy crisis is not a one-time event. Without government intervention, high energy prices will be the new permanent reality. As Exxon Mobil CEO Lee Raymond sarcastically commented to the Wall Street Journal, “Welcome to the world.”

This industry, so crucial to the environment, the economy and the well being of the nation’s working people, must be brought under public control, and ultimately, public ownership.

Ed Roybal Presente

Sat, 05 Nov 2005 04:06:00 +0000

Ed Roybal, first 20th Century Mexican American elected to the Los Angeles City Council (1949-1963) and to the House of Representatives (1963-1992) was a progressive Latino politician long before there was something called a Chicano movement. His political contributions should be deeply studied by Latinos and progressives.

He was a New Deal Democrat with left of center politics all his life. He stood up against the loyalty oath of the McCarthy era, he was an early Congressional critic of the Vietnam War, and was a supporter of labor rights and put domestic need over militarism all his life.

He kept running for higher offices like Lt. Governor and County Supervisor and was a founder of the Mexican American Political Association well as the National Association of Latino Elected and Appointed Officials. In his later years in Congress he held important committee appointments defending important programs against Reaganism.

The Los Angeles Times article says he voted against the Landmark Amnesty law, that is a distortion, he voted against the vicious employer sanctions provisions of the bill that also included the amnesty. Without the fight of Roybal in Congress against sanctions along with Latino, civil rights and progressive labor activists, the amnesty provisions would never have been written, much less passed. (Today we need to extend the “amnesty” and get rid of the employer and other sanctions.)

I remember the first mass Chicano demonstration I went to, it was in downtown LA in June of 1968 and was a protest of the conspiracy charge arrests of the LA 13, organizers and supporters of the student walkouts that year. I remember hesitating going fearing the police might attack, but hundreds and maybe thousands were there downtown including Roybal. A few weeks later I had the courage to help lead a protest to get UCLA cafeterias and vending machines to stop selling grapes during the farm worker called boycott. Having principled politicians around helps.

As an activist and also a writer for the Peoples World and Peoples Weekly World I had a chance to learn of and see Roybal in action at key points. At labor meetings I heard him speak how as a young child in New Mexico during a railroad strike he would join with the other “manito/a” children in throwing rocks at passing trains.

At a meeting with the establishment “LA 25” after the police attack on the Chicano Moratorium of Aug 29 1970 he told of how as a youth in Boyle Heights a siren would go off near sunset signaling a curfew for Mexicanos. At this critical time he told the LA establishment something like “police brutality was a top priority when I was first elected, and it is today as well”!. Just before the moratorium he had joined in a mass downtown demonstration protesting the police killing of the undocumented Sanchez cousins.

In the back issues of the Peoples World of the early fifties are articles about Roybal standing up to the loyalty oath, standing up against the elimination of rent control, protesting the Bloody Christmas police brutality, protesting the prohibitions on public housing projects, and much more. In one story, I believe it was on the abolition of rent control, Roybal was the lone “no” vote and his colleagues were mad. One of the council members came up with the canard that Roybal had threatened him with a knife”.

Yes like Rosa Parks, Ed Roybal was a pioneer who had to take heat. He was no radical, not a leftist but he came from the New Deal era, he was part of the CCC program that showed government could and should do much more for the working people. He benefited and joined in united front programs and issues and developed.

I remember an article critical of Roybal in La Raza Magazine that accused him of being an “arco iris” a rainbow politician who came out after the storm. Looking back on this I can see that article two ways, Roybal was a man of coalition who came out for well organized events and issues for progressive issues. As a left wing and communist activist there were many issues I worked on that Roybal did not speak out on, but I was always working in his district and never recall his “machine” trying to silence or punish me.

It is important to remember that in the 9th Council District where Roybal made his breakthrough in 1949 the largest voting group was African American and that his coalition went beyond Mexican Americans, Jewish and labor activists as is usually recounted. When Roybal finally moved on to Congress he did not insist that a Mexican American replace him as the biggest group in the district was African American. Roybal did however put energy and clout behind the formation of the Mexican American Political Association that fought for Mexican American (Chicano and Latino) representation as an independent progressive political group.

Ed Roybal went to UCLA in the thirties, a later alumnus, former L. A Controller Rick Tuttle tells me Roybal lived in student Coop housing there with Tom Bradley (later L.A. Mayor) and George Brown (a leading peace advocate in Congress). In the mid sixties Brown (who then represented part of East L.A.) was among the first two to vote against the Vietnam War, the next vote Roybal and a few others joined in. Roybal also was key in winning Latino Votes for Bradley’s successful mayoral campaign in 1973.

At one time I did organize a picket of Roybal. In a bill that added rights for immigrant workers he included provisions to use the Social Security card for I.D. purposes. A few of us in an immigration coalition protested. He responded with a meeting with us including broader forces. He also invited pioneer African American Congressman Augustus Hawkins to join in. In effect Roybal explained that immigration was one of the more racist federal departments and to get even small positive action took compromise, and that often usually perfunctory request for cooperation from him were ignored. Hawkins corroborated the discrimination. I still objected to the provision but recognized the context of his action.

Roybal was a very dignified person, “buen educado” (well educated)” socially as we say in the community, always impeccably dressed and very civil, his style helped win people over and when he showed emotion his emphasis stood out. I could see in his approach his background as a new deal social worker winning over a community theretofore denied and outcast to use new public programs. When he got into a fight his style became more that of an organizer in the style of Alinskyite Fred Ross who helped Royal in developing the Community Services Organization. Cesar Chavez, who also had Fred Ross as a mentor, had that seemingly low key approach as well.

Roybal had a sense of irony. In one of the Congressional sessions in the early eighties when House Democratic Speaker Tip O’Neill was pushing hard for the passage of employer sanctions Roybal led a heroic successful blocking action with the passion of an organizer, despite the important committee assignments O’Neill had apportioned him. The next session Roybal put his name on a bill with moderate sanctions in it but did nothing to move it. It died early on and Roybal called press conference to point out that he had put out the bill at the request of “leadership” (ie Tip O’Neill, to make the point that it was community opposition not his personality that gave force to the anti sanctions. His sober demeanor at the CSPAN covered press conference was belied by a faint grin as he announced the defeat of the measure.

In these days when we face the vicious far right politics of Bush and Schwarzeneggar we need to keep in mind the correlation of the organization grassroots based coalition and the ability of progressive politicians to make principled stands. Ed Roybals career in politics is an important model of one style of such correlation. Latino and progressive activists and politicians have much to learn from his contributions.

Bush nominee slaps Parks legacy

Fri, 04 Nov 2005 06:46:00 +0000

We stand on the shoulders of giants, and one of those, the diminutive Rosa Parks, was honored by the American people this week, as her body lay in the Capitol Rotunda and thousands walked to pay their respects. Even as we honor Rosa Parks for her courage and her historic commitment, we must not romanticize her mission.

She was not an innocent seamstress when she refused to give up that seat on the bus in Montgomery, Ala. She was a freedom fighter, an officer of the NAACP at a time when the organization was banned from most parts of the South.

Her mission was to end legal apartheid in this country, to even the playing field, to afford all Americans equal protection under the law. In 1954, the Supreme Court ruled that separate but equal was not legal under the Constitution. But states continued to defy the law and to vilify the court as “legislating” change. That’s when segregationists first began demanding “strict constructionists,” by which they meant judges who would defend segregation as the law of the land.

Racial segregation remained entrenched in schools, public transportation, pubic housing, workplaces and our voting process. Rosa Parks and many others worked to challenge that injustice on the ground. Emmett Till was lynched on Aug. 28, 1955. The lynch mob was not prosecuted, and the FBI did not investigate. His body was brought to Chicago, and 100,000 African Americans paid tribute to him. The Black press told his story, led by Jet Magazine. The entire African American community erupted.

I once asked Rosa Parks why she did not go to the back of that bus, given the risks. She said, “I thought about Emmett Till, and I could not go back. My legs and feet were not hurting, that is a stereotype. I paid the same fare as others, and I felt violated. I was not going back.”

Her act, of course, led to the emergence of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. and the famed Montgomery Bus Boycott. And from Montgomery to Selma, it took years of struggle, more sacrifice, more arrests, more bombings, more murders — but eventually that struggle ended legal segregation and freed the South even as it gave African Americans the right to vote.

When Rosa Parks refused to get up and let a white man have her seat, the white bus driver would not drive off. The white police officer arrested her. They were following the legal, political and religious edicts of their day. Rosa Parks was following a higher law, a moral imperative. If they would not have done their jobs, they would have lost their jobs. If she had not refused to get up, she would have lost her dignity.

There are those who will honor her now in the morning while working to overturn her legacy in the afternoon. President Bush honored her and then nominated Samuel Alito, a states’ rights, strict-constructionist throwback to a bygone age, to the Supreme Court. Alito is a “favorite” of the conservative right wing in the nation that has stood on the opposite side of history from Rosa Parks. His legal foundation is clearly adverse to civil rights, women’s right to self-determination and labor. He has even earned himself the nickname “Scalito,” after Justice Antonin Scalia, the court’s most radical reactionary.

To truly honor Rosa Parks, we urge three simple steps: First, support Rep. Jesse Jackson’s (D-Ill.) bill to place a permanent statue of Rosa Parks in the Great Hall of Congress. Give Rosa a chance to stare down the champions of slavery and segregation that line those halls. Second, Congress must pass the extension of the Voting Rights Act, the key provisions of which will expire in 2007. Finally, the Senate must stand up against those judicial nominees who would turn their backs on equal opportunity for all. We cannot afford to go back to the age when the law worked against equal rights.

Rosa Parks’ legacy is secure, but her mission is unfinished. We have gone from the back of the bus in Montgomery to the back of the rescue in New Orleans. Her struggle for justice now falls upon the living. She is gone to glory. We are left to carry her torch.

And to Rosa Parks, goodbye, sweet angel, take your rest. You prepaid your ticket on a heavenly flight. Now you can sit where you choose. When you get tired of sitting, you can just walk around heaven all day.

The Rev. Jesse Jackson is president and founder of Rainbow/PUSH Coalition. This article originally appeared in the Chicago Sun Times, Nov. 1.

Letters

Fri, 04 Nov 2005 06:44:00 +0000

Cause and effect?

I respect the views of Norman Markowitz and have been educated and enriched by his many articles and letters. However, I was disappointed in his argument appearing in “The London attacks and the ‘war on terror’” (PWW 7/10-8/5).

I take issue with his claim that by the Soviet military’s occupation of Afghanistan and its war against the U.S. backed warlord tribes, the Soviet Red Army was, in effect, “defending the people of New York and London.”

This claim involves a convolution of logic, and sets the truth on its head. Markowitz seems to think that his maxim, that military interventionism to fight terrorism only breeds more terrorism, only applies to bourgeois states. Actually, the Soviet intervention in Afghanistan is a prime historical example illustrating the truth of his maxim. It was the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan which gave the U.S. government the impetus and excuse to deploy CIA Special Ops forces as a conduit for funneling money, supplies and weaponry to tribal warlords. It was this backing and CIA training over time, combined with the tribal fighters’ resentment and feeling of abandonment when the U.S. presence and support abruptly ended, which became some of the key ingredients toward their evolution into al-Qaida and other terrorist forces.

Erik Ray

Tampa FL

Norman Markowitz responds: My reading of the events in Afghanistan is very different. The Soviets failed in Afghanistan to successfully support the People’s Democratic Party government and the Afghan revolution. They were not directly fighting to “protect” London and New York, but were fighting a savage counter-revolution that within a few years would threaten London and New York. Their aims, to support a revolution that would advance mass literacy, land reform, women’s rights, economic and social progress, were much more in line with and in the interests of the people of the United States and the United Kingdom than the forces of British and U.S. imperialism.

Pakistan and its CIA-linked intelligence service, the ISI, had already involved itself in supporting right-wing guerillas fighting in Afghanistan in opposition to the revolutionary government that had been established in 1978. Zbigniew Brezinski in mid-1979 convinced the Carter administration to have the U.S. actively support the Pakistanis in order to have the Soviets fall into what he called the “Afghan trap.”

Many left radical groups attacked the Soviet intervention in Afghanistan out of an uncritical support for Third World guerrilla wars, regardless of the social purposes of the guerrillas.

Proposal One – step in right direction

On Nov. 8, New Yorkers can significantly improve state government by voting ‘yes’ on Proposal One – the Budget Reform Amendment of 2005.

Every time our state budget is late — and it’s been late in 20 of the last 21 years — school aid and other vital state services are disrupted. We can do better.

Proposal One would reform Albany’s budget process so that these vital services never again are interrupted. It would create two-year budgeting cycles for our schools, a nonpartisan Independent Budget Office and more transparency in Albany, something we’ve all wanted for years.

Proposal One is strongly supported by the New York State School Boards Association and by good government groups, including Common Cause, the New York Public Interest Research Group (NYPIRG) and the League of Women Voters.

It is an important step toward reform of the state budget process.

Barbara Bartoletti

Albany NY

Barbara Bartoletti is legislative director of the League of Women Voters of New York State.

Corporate stadiums

While PWW staffers celebrate the World Series victory of their neighbors, the Chicago White Sox, a handful of us in the Minneapolis-St. Paul area continue our 10-year battle to keep greedy rich professional sports team owners from tapping the public treasury to build themselves new stadiums from which only they would profit.

Minnesota apparently is the only community in the U.S. successfully fighting off these public bloodsuckers. Our No Stadium Tax Coalition has no budget, hardly ever meets, but we get it done by monitoring and communicating regularly with the state Legislature, county boards and city governments and with strategic letters to the editor and op-eds to local publications and the occasional radio and TV appearance.

Willard B. Shapira

Minneapolis MN

White Sox working-class team

After a long drought, 1917 to be exact, Chicago finally has won a World Series. On the night of the White Sox sweep, residents in the Southwest Side working-class neighborhoods, from Bridgeport to Mount Greenwood and all those in between, took to the streets to celebrate without any confrontations.

I must take to task the letter of Joe Hancock (PWW 10/29-11/4) who called for readers to rally behind the Houston Astros. Since he is not a Chicago resident, the writer possibly does not realize the White Sox are the team of the working class. Fans attending the White Sox games tend to be much more blue collar than our counterparts on the other side of town. Even more so, the neighborhoods around Comiskey Park were the birthplace of organized labor and its neighborhoods are still working class.

Tom Downes

Chicago IL

Congrats to the Sox

My congratulations to all of you at the PWW in Chicago as the White Sox celebrate our World Series victory! I’m a diehard, never surrender White Sox fan for over 30 years! White Sox rule!

Kimball Cariou

Vancouver, Canada

Kimball Cariou is the editor of People’s Voice, the newspaper of the Communist Party of Canada.

Opiate of the people?

I was dismayed to see the PWW celebrate the World Series with a front-page story and photo. Insult was added to injury by the headline on page 2: “Baseball fans of Chicago unite!” I am a Marxist who believes that professional sports is just one more way of distracting and pacifying the working class, turning our attention away from class struggle and the need to make revolution. Why should any worker take joy or pride in the athletic exploits of narcissistic, arrogant, millionaire baseball players and their capitalist owners? What’s next? NASCAR coverage? America has a corporate media designed to lull workers into passivity and false consciousness. We need something different from the PWW.

Michael James

Via e-mail

Oil company profits soar

Fri, 04 Nov 2005 06:26:00 +0000

Exxon Mobil Corp. broke records as its third-quarter profits soared to almost $10 billion and it became the first public company ever with quarterly sales topping $100 billion. Royal Dutch Shell wasn’t far behind, posting profits of $9 billion for the quarter.

They followed similar eye-popping gains by BP, ConocoPhillips and Marathon Oil Corp. Chevron’s profits rose “only” 12.5 percent, compared with Exxon Mobil’s 75 percent leap to $9.92 billion from $5.68 billion a year ago.

“They are just printing money right now,” said oil analyst Fadel Gheit at Oppenheimer & Co. in New York. “They are making so many trips to the bank because they can’t take all the money there at one time.”

The staggering numbers led Democrats in Congress to demand a new windfall profits tax and public hearings on oil company price gouging. “Big oil behemoths are making out like bandits, while the average American family is getting killed by high gas prices and soon-to-be-record heating oil prices,” Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) said in a statement. Energy Secretary Samuel Bodman said President Bush opposes any windfall profits tax.

Nervous about facing voter outrage in next year’s congressional elections, some Republicans asked the industry to increase production and ease back prices. But reports indicate that, even after the recent hurricanes wrecked a significant chunk of the nation’s oil refineries, the oil companies are in no rush to build new refineries. Gheit commented, “Exxon is a good corporate citizen but it does not work for the welfare of the country.”

Bush and the GOP are using the crisis to try to push through expansion of oil drilling in Alaska’s Arctic National Wildlife Refuge and other wilderness areas. But many experts say this will not produce sufficient oil to meet the nation’s energy needs. Instead, they say, the federal government should implement energy conservation programs and alternative energy development, measures the Bush administration has opposed.

Oil and natural gas prices were surging before Hurricanes Katrina and Rita, and then skyrocketed to record levels afterward.

The major oil companies are now making profits at the rate of more than $100 billion per year. That’s more than the U.S. admits to paying for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. It’s more than the federal government spends on education at all levels ($59 billion) or veterans ($61 billion). It’s more than is spent on housing and food nutrition combined ($84 billion). And oil profits are approaching 50 times the amount spent on heating assistance to low-income families.

Last week the Senate fell short of the 60 votes needed to increase the underfunded federal Low Income Heating and Energy Assistance Program (LIHEAP) from $2.2 billion to $5.2 billion. This $3 billion could be paid for by the increase in Exxon’s third-quarter earnings.

The Associated Press and Art Perlo contributed to this story.

Bienvenido Pepe Lozano!

Fri, 04 Nov 2005 06:24:00 +0000

We are glad to welcome our new staff writer, Jose “Pepe” Lozano.

Lozano, 28, grew up in an activist Mexican American family in Chicago’s Little Village neighborhood where he still lives. “I’m really proud that I am part of the People’s Weekly World and so are my mom and my brothers,” he said. His Chicago beat will focus on youth issues and peace and justice struggles. He also has a passion for baseball, especially the White Sox.

Lozano sees his role as a PWW reporter as that of reaching people and helping them to become engaged in real life struggles. His background in the arts and his medical studies give him a unique, compassionate approach to interviewing and writing.

“When I was a kid I used to take campaign signs and draw on the back of them,” he said. “Most of my drawings were of demonstrations and of speakers at the podium — speakers like my dad [the late labor organizer Rudy Lozano], Mayor Harold Washington and others like them.”

Lozano’s first jobs included “working as a stock boy at my uncle Jaime’s gas station. I also babysat his kids, changed diapers, the works!” One of those kids, now a teenager, was part of the U.S. delegation to the World Youth Festival in Venezuela this year, a delegation that Lozano helped organize. Lozano also made use of his bilingualism there, translating for delegates visiting Caracas neighborhoods.

Asked what he thinks of statements in the media that newspapers are on their way out, Lozano replied, “Young people are interested in newspapers as an important source of information. With your morning coffee, at the bus stop, on break, newspapers are an essential, very human form of communication. I want to be sure that what I write and what the PWW produces in each edition appeals to and interests young workers, students, youth activists and teachers.”

In addition to other stories, he hopes to write a description of how the PWW is produced each week, a remarkable story in itself.

“We are delighted that Pepe has joined the PWW and Nuestro Mundo team,” said PWW editor Terrie Albano. “He brings energy, smarts, working-class partisanship and a host of other talents to our newspaper. Some of us think his reporting was instrumental in helping the Sox win the World Series!”

Ed Roybal Presente

Wed, 02 Nov 2005 10:46:00 +0000

Ed Roybal Presente

Wed, 02 Nov 2005 10:46:00 +0000