People Before Profit blog

EDITORIAL: Shopping & dropping

Fri, 30 Nov 2007 07:23:00 +0000

“Black Friday” has become a peculiar American institution. Retailers have promoted the day after Thanksgiving as the opening of the holiday shopping season, counting on this day to roll in a good percentage of their yearly sales — to get them out of the “red” of loss and put them in the “black” of profit.

Photos of people pushing through doors into stores opening at 4 a.m. have become the mainstay for that day’s news.

This shopping day frenzy has been called “a full-throated celebration of capitalism” by The New York Times, which should know celebrations of capitalism when it sees them.

Yet the Times says this year’s Black Friday was “more desperation than celebration.” Most shoppers — U.S. working people — are in a cash-tight situation. With rising mortgage rates, foreclosures and unemployment, soaring gas and heating oil prices and stagnant or declining wages, holiday spending is going to be more limited this year.

If it was “more desperation than celebration” this past week, what does this mean for capitalism?

The mortgage and credit crisis is shaking capitalism’s markets worldwide to the core. Banks are trying to shore up their capital. Citigroup, Inc., the biggest U.S. bank, agreed to sell as much as 4.9 percent of the company to the government of Abu Dhabi for $7.5 billion.

Billions of dollars are being “written down” as financial institutions that bundled subprime and other loans realize the profits they anticipated will never come to pass.

The super-wealthy and corporate elites who live on an economic Mount Olympus are not immune to the shifts in capitalism’s fault lines. But most of the boulders dislodged by the economy’s quakes are landing on the heads of us mere mortals down below.

What can we, the ordinary folk, do to protect ourselves from the boulders? Organize, build unity of all people and struggle together.

But what can we cash-strapped mortals do for the holidays? Recycle, reuse and reduce. Go to secondhand stores. Make soup. Donate babysitting time. Knit a scarf. Host a potluck. It’s good for the Earth, pocketbook and soul.

GOP recruits millionaires to replace those who fly the coop

Fri, 30 Nov 2007 07:12:00 +0000

NEW YORK — Republicans are hoping to retake control of Congress by recruiting right-wing millionaires to run for office in districts now represented by pro-labor and antiwar representatives elected in 2006.

Fearful of a historic shift in the balance of forces that could be looming on the horizon, the GOP feels that by running millionaires and billionaires for Congress it can bypass the hard work of fund-raising and jump into early campaigns to defeat progressives who were elected last time around.

Super-rich candidates are already running in more than a dozen districts now represented by liberal Democrats finishing their first term, a time when freshman lawmakers are usually considered most vulnerable. A review of required campaign finance disclosure reports shows that these new right-wing candidates have already invested $1 million and sometimes more of their own money in their campaigns.

Alexander Treadwell, the grandson of one of the founders of General Electric, has told Republican leaders here that he can spend as much as $3 million of his own money to unseat Rep. Kirsten Gillibrand, a first-term Democrat elected in 2006 when she campaigned against the war in Iraq. The district involved is the 20th Congressional District (CD), which includes the state capital Albany.

“We have been very fortunate in our recruiting efforts,” Ken Spain, a member of the Republican House campaign committee, recently bragged to The New York Times. He described the rich right-wingers as being “in position to run strong, well-financed grassroots campaigns in some of our top targeted districts.”

Karen Ackerman, political action director of the AFL-CIO, said the recruitment of millionaires by the GOP “actually shows the financial weaknesses that Republicans have since they were kicked out of their controlling positions in 2006.”

“This is a big change,” she said, “because they have always, even in 2006, been able to outspend Democrats.” A review of campaign fundraising records shows that the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee has $29 million at its disposal while the Republican counterpart has only $2.5 million. In 2006 Republicans raised $40 million more than Democrats.

Hence the GOP strategy of hunting for wealthy candidates with deep pockets.

An example of how the GOP operates unfolded in Illinois this year. The Republicans have decided to put Rep. Melissa Bean, a two-term centrist Democrat representing the 8th CD, on its hit list. Steve Greenberg, the owner of Herr’s Pacific, an art supply chain store, had been thinking of challenging Sen. Richard Durbin, a Democrat. Illinois Republicans talked him out of doing that, arguing that he could win the congressional race against Bean. The plan worked. Greenberg is now running and publicly saying he will spend as many of his millions as it takes to defeat her.

Other very wealthy right-wingers who have been courted by the GOP to run for Congress include James Oberweis, an Illinois dairy billionaire; Mike Erickson, an Oregon billionaire who is running against Darlene Hooley; and Ed Tinsley, the restaurant franchise billionaire, who is running for Congress in New Mexico.

A spokesman for Rep. Dennis Kucinich, a candidate for the Democratic nomination for the presidency, warned that the push for millionaire candidates is “dangerous because, even if they don’t win, they have money that can force progressives to spend time and money holding onto seats rather than using those resources to make the new gains that have to be made.”

A case in point was House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s recent trip to the 23rd CD in Texas where she hosted a fund-raising effort for Ciro Rodriguez, an incumbent who is being challenged by billionaire Francisco Canseco.

jwojcik @pww.org

Home foreclosures are now at 2 million per year: What you can do to save homes

Fri, 30 Nov 2007 07:08:00 +0000

Home foreclosures will remain at the rate of 2 million per year well into 2008. Before the crisis is over, 3 million families — homeowners and renters — may have been kicked out of their homes, often losing everything in the process.

People from every part of the country, of every age, income level, race and ethnicity, are losing their homes. Low-income families, particularly African Americans and Latinos and senior citizens, are most likely to be victims of this crisis.

Many families facing foreclosure are victims of high-pressure scams in which real estate agents and mortgage lenders collected fat fees while homeowners are stuck with subprime mortgages. The majority of these families do not know that after an initial period their payments will increase, leaving them completely unprepared when they are suddenly faced with higher payments.

This is a problem first of all for the families that lose their homes. It is also a problem for their blocks and neighborhoods, where vacant houses, often poorly maintained, become a magnet for vandalism and crime. It is a problem for whole communities, which are losing revenue through unpaid taxes and declines in building permit fees.

Think nationally, act locally

At the national level, legislation should require the financial institutions that are responsible for this crisis to bear the costs. They should be required to restructure outstanding mortgages so that both the principal and interest are payable. But that doesn’t mean that individuals and communities should wait for a president and Congress who will stand up to Wall Street.

The AFL-CIO is offering a national hotline (866-490-5361) to “provide information and advice to help union members and their families avoid foreclosure.”

The national community organization ACORN also offers a hotline (866-67-ACORN). It also does grassroots organizing against predatory lending practices.

A county in rural West Virginia is considering legislation to allow foreclosed families to stay in their homes in return for a fair rent.

In Cleveland, where community organizations have picketed the homes of mortgage company executives, an important precedent was set when 14 foreclosures were dismissed because the bank failed to prove they owned the mortgages on the properties they wanted to seize.

(If readers know of other examples, drop me a line).

Local governments, working with unions, religious and community organizations, can do a lot more. Here are some places to start.

Education and outreach

Success relies on early intervention. There is a much greater chance of success if action is taken before a homeowner falls behind in payments. This makes education and outreach particularly important.

• Compile a list of all foreclosures in the city in the past two years, and track pending and future foreclosures.

• Using public records, review residential property purchases and refinancing for the past three years and track new purchases. Follow up with letters, phone calls and personal interviews with the owner to determine: type of mortgage; if and when the mortgage will reset to a higher rate; if the homeowner has trouble or expects to have trouble making payments.

• Hold neighborhood hearings to get testimony on the extent and seriousness of problems and to inform homeowners and potential home buyers.

• Form a commission including representation from the local government, and from community, union and activist groups. The commission would investigate actions being taken in other communities around the country and make recommendations for local action.

Immediate help from A to F

What you can do to help residents in danger of losing their homes:

A. Provide help through city or community agencies for homeowners to negotiate with lenders. Negotiations should aim to avoid foreclosure by reducing monthly payments to no more than 25 percent to 30 percent of household income. This should be done by writing down the principal of the loan to a payable level, converting the loan to a fixed rate at prime mortgage interest levels and forgoing any special fees or penalties.

B. Identify lenders who hold a large number of local mortgages. Open negotiations with them for a streamlined process for dealing with problem mortgages.

C. Vigorously enforce existing regulations and pass new regulations where needed, requiring owners of repossessed property to maintain current tax and utility payments and to maintain the property in good condition.

D. If a multifamily property is repossessed, any tenants should be able to remain at existing rents, and the bank or other owner must maintain the property in compliance with all codes.

E. If a house is repossessed, the former owner should be allowed to remain in the house as a tenant at a fair market rent.

(Note that points C, D and E all have the effect of making it more expensive for a mortgage holder to repossess a house — this gives them an added incentive to reach an agreement instead of foreclosing.)

F. Local governments should initiate and support community efforts for grassroots organizing in city neighborhoods. Forums, petitions and demonstrations should all be used to focus attention on lenders whose discriminatory and deceptive practices have created this crisis, and to pressure state and national governments for a comprehensive solution.

Lessons from the past

In the 1930s, during the Great Depression, an even bigger wave of foreclosures and evictions swept the country.

People fought back. In the cities, when a family was evicted, neighbors gathered to help. They put the furniture back in the house, rigged the electric and gas meter, and defied the police if necessary. In rural areas, when the bank foreclosed on a farm that had been in a family for generations, neighbors would pack the auction and prevent anyone from bidding more than a penny for the land. The neighbor who bought the land for a penny would turn it back to the original owner.

Those tactics might not work today — not in the same way. But we can still learn some lessons from them, especially using the following principles:

• Solidarity. This is everybody’s problem.

• Militancy — be bold and imaginative.

• Organization is a must.

• Grassroots action creates the climate that passes national legislation.

Two numbers to call: (866) 490-5361 or (866) 672-2676

Art Perlo (pbp @peoplebeforeprofits.net) is the chair of the Communist Party Economics Commission.

Grabbing food from mouths of babies

Fri, 30 Nov 2007 05:36:00 +0000

Bush veto puts nutrition, home heating programs on chopping block

WASHINGTON — This is the season for feasting and good cheer. But President Bush, like Ebenezer Scrooge, is waging a mean crusade to force more than half a million poor women, infants and children off the WIC nutrition program.

The Coalition on Budget and Policy Priorities charged in a Nov. 27 report that Bush’s veto of an omnibus domestic spending bill Nov. 14 “could cause half a million low-income, pregnant women, infants and children to be denied nutritional benefits in one of the nation’s most effective programs.”

Zoe Neuberger, co-author of the report, decried Bush’s veto as “penny wise and pound foolish.” The WIC program “has a very, very strong track record” in providing vital nutrition to pregnant and lactating women and to children, she told the World. “There is a very large body of research documenting the health benefits, improved birth outcomes, reduced child anemia and better diets for the women and children enrolled in WIC.”

The report charges that WIC is the victim of Bush’s “guns over butter” budget priorities. “Given the level of funding being provided for the defense, homeland security and international appropriations bills, the amount of funding left within the president’s $933 billion limit for the eight domestic appropriations bills is $16.4 billion below the level provided 2007, adjusted for inflation,” said the report.

Bush proposed only $5.387 billion to serve the 8.28 million enrolled in the WIC program, far below the level needed to pay for sharply higher food prices. Bush’s proposal also did not factor in the rising demand for WIC as the economy worsens and unemployment rises.

By contrast, the House approved $5.6 billion for WIC and the Senate $5.7 billion. While both measures would serve roughly a quarter million more recipients than Bush, they would still require cutting about 235,000 recipients.

The House on Nov. 15 fell only two votes short of the two-thirds majority needed to override Bush’s veto. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) said that Congress will put together a package that will include all the domestic spending measures Bush has vetoed but reduce by half the $22 billion in funding Congress had proposed above Bush’s budget.

Deborah Weinstein, executive director of the Coalition on Human Needs, argued strongly against that compromise. “We don’t care how it is packaged,” she told the World. “What is key is the level of support for these vital programs. We have gone through seven years of cuts. We need to rebuild and invest in these programs, not cut them.”

She urged voters to seek meetings with their representatives to demand they push for full funding. She cited as an example the Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program (LIHEAP). Even as home heating prices are skyrocketing and family income for the poor is eroding, Bush’s veto would strip 1.4 million households of LIHEAP benefits; 1.2 million people will lose access to community health centers; 173,000 people will lose job training and 34,000 children will be denied Head Start.

Bush’s earlier repeated vetoes of the SCHIP children’s health program denied care to 4 million children not currently protected by SCHIP and jeopardized the 6.6 million already enrolled. That program is still in limbo.

Gerald McEntee, president of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, said the omnibus spending bill “was a carefully crafted bipartisan effort to fund essential services that promote education, economic development, job training and scientific research.”

While the president is willing to “spend billions on Iraq,” McEntee added, “he turns his back on the vital services that strengthen America’s middle class. This Congress needs to say no to the president’s wrong priorities.”

Meanwhile, the House rejected Bush’s $196 billion Iraq war request and instead approved a $50 billion “emergency supplemental” by a vote of 218-203. Sue Udry, legislative coordinator of United for Peace and Justice, said the bill contains many conditions that would cause a Bush veto. Senate Republicans blocked its consideration when the Democrats fell seven votes short of the two-thirds majority needed to terminate debate.

Called the “Orderly and Responsible Iraq Redeployment Act,” it states that the funding’s primary purpose is for “redeployment and not to extend or prolong the war.” It would require Bush to begin withdrawing U.S. forces from Iraq within 30 days and implement withdrawal of all but a “limited presence” by Dec. 15, 2008.

Reps. Barbara Lee, Lynn Woolsey and Maxine Waters, all California Democrats and leaders of the “Out of Iraq Caucus,” said they supported the legislation as “concrete steps in the right direction.”

Udry said the large vote for the measure reflects “the extraordinary efforts of peace groups across the country that have moved Congress to the point of confrontation.”

She urged the antiwar movement to “build new coalitions with domestic interest groups around a joint agenda for peace and justice.”

greenerpastures21212 @yahoo.com

Development must benefit all city residents, Oakland summit says

Tue, 27 Nov 2007 06:36:00 +0000

OAKLAND, Calif. — Over 400 Oakland residents joined in a community summit Nov. 17 to project their vision of economic development — a vision featuring well-paying jobs, affordable housing, a healthy and safe environment, and steps to overcome the severe income and employment gaps especially affecting working-class families of color.

The gathering was sponsored by the Oakland Network for Responsible Development (ONWRD), a coalition of 13 labor, community, housing and environmental organizations, and the Oakland People’s Housing Coalition.

A video, “Oakland Speaks,” featured five residents sharing the problems they and their neighbors face in working-class neighborhoods across the city. Housing and jobs headed the list, as homeowners and renters alike face soaring costs at the same time city residents are increasingly forced to go elsewhere in search of jobs that pay enough to raise a family.

The discussion continued, with translation in four languages, as other Oaklanders took the podium. Truck driver Trinette Grant, a member of Teamsters Local 70, urged more hiring of local workers. “The city government has the ability to attract large companies,” she said, “but what’s missing? Oakland residents.”

“I was a nonunion worker,” Grant said. “Now I have a decent wage and health care. I want other Oaklanders to have the same things.”

ACORN leader Shirley Burnell emphasized the need for measures such as inclusionary zoning, to ensure that new housing developments include significant amounts of affordable housing. “Low-income people are in dire need of affordable rentals and home ownership,” she said.

“I know a lot of African American families have left the city,” Burnell said, adding that to visit friends and family, she must travel long distances and sometimes even out of state.

Other speakers cited industries that pollute neighborhoods and subject their workers to pollution on the job, and emphasized the relation between violence in the community and the lack of good paying jobs.

A number of elected officials including city council and school board members and county officials expressed support for the summit’s goals. School board member Kerry Hamill emphasized the need for “a coherent job strategy linked to the schools,” while fellow board member Greg Hodge called quality education “a civil and human right.”

Josie Camacho, director of constituent services for Mayor Ronald Dellums, brought the mayor’s message of appreciation for the summit’s leadership for community development.

During breakout discussions, one group emphasized outreach to discouraged youth and others to convince them they can get training and jobs, and the need for support services such as child care, health care and transportation. Group members also said upcoming city council elections will have an important effect on the direction of development, and cited the need for national labor laws and standards including card-check legislation and a higher minimum wage.

Asked about the summit’s most important feature, ACORN organizer Benjamin Naquin emphasized its diversity. He called for more meetings, “at least quarterly, to stay in contact” and to continue to work together.

“We were able to unite and start the discussion,” said Trinette Grant. “Now we need the city government to hold contractors accountable for hiring Oakland residents first and for better benefits and health care. We have so many resources,” she added. “But we need to think of Oakland as a whole.”

The day before the summit, the East Bay Alliance for a Sustainable Economy and the Oakland Network for Responsible Development released a report showing that over 40 percent of Oakland residents have incomes at or below 200 percent of the federal poverty level (or about $40,000 for a family of four).

The report, “Putting Oakland to Work: A comprehensive strategy to create real jobs for residents,” also points out that over half the city’s residents spend more than 30 percent of income on housing. It also finds that income disparity is significant, with the richest 20 percent of households claiming over half the total income while the poorest 20 percent of residents claim only 3 percent. Unemployment officially sits at 6.9-8.8 percent, while African Americans experience a rate of 10.3 percent — nearly four times that of whites.

The report projects a goal of moving 10,000 of the city’s high-need residents into family-sustaining jobs over the next five years, and calls on the city of Oakland to significantly increase the proportion of accessible new jobs that pay a “basic family wage” of $18.53 per hour.

It also calls on the city to establish and enforce responsible contractor and living wage laws and other measures that would benefit low-wage workers, and to promote higher labor standards, training and local hire requirements in construction and other sectors.

mbechtel @pww.org

Kid Nation: harmless TV or capitalist propaganda?

Thu, 22 Nov 2007 05:50:00 +0000

CBS’ “Kid Nation” may profess to be a highbrow social experiment mixed with “reality” TV, but is it plausible to expect a group of early teens and preteens to build a viable “society” in a New Mexico ghost town abandoned many years prior?

The casting gathered a diverse mix of young Americans, aged 8-15, then deposited them in the desert wilderness to fend for themselves and find out if they can make a success of a town adults could not. At the beginning, it looked like there was no hope for a kid town, let alone a nation. “I think I’m going to die out here,” said innocent faced Jimmy, one of the shows youngest participants.

When the group arrived at “Bonanza City,” the environment was chaotic. Nobody knew where to go or what to do. There turned out to be only a single outhouse for 40 kids. They had to cook for themselves, at which point they realized you have to wait for water to boil before putting in the pasta.

And when they realized they have to sleep on dusty mattresses in filthy bunkhouses, a few started to cry, as young children would be expected to do in such a situation. Mike, one of the four designated leaders, tried to organize a “town meeting.” However, exhausted from the day, they opted for sleep instead. When the sun rose the next day, it became clear that CBS stacked the deck against the kids that first night. After one evening of total chaos, the host Jonathan Karsh rode into the picture, and became the “new sheriff in town.” Using one loud bell, he called a meeting, his authority unquestioned by the so-called Kid Nation.

It is here that the grounding for a capitalist structure would be set forth. Instead of allowing the children to work out their own system of government, they are spoon fed one. Karsh explained the “rules”: the kids are divided into four teams to compete in a series of challenges for social standing.

The first-place team automatically is designated the “upper class,” earns a salary of one dollar, yet has no specific chores; the last place or losing team are labeled the “Laborers” and have to haul water and clean outhouses for only two nickels.

Why would they need money? Is this not a fledgling society that should start as all colonies do as a communal system? No.

Karsh then unveiled shops full of treats, where the kids could buy candy, root beer and dark chocolate, reading material, even an old fashioned bicycle. One shop even held tools that could help in their day-to-day chores. It was a mean trick withholding these items when the kids were at their most confused.

The revelation immediately changed the show’s tone and apparent goal. Now we saw it’s not about kids working together to forge a “society.” Instead, it’s about kids being sorted into class-structured groups competing with each other over money and social standing assigned by adults. That is not pioneering at all. The kids embraced the familiar structure, taking the roles of the upper class, merchants, cooks, and lastly the laborers. On the previous day, no one could figure out how to boil water, the youngest team suddenly learned how to make oatmeal, grits and biscuits. Now everyone enjoyed the prize awarded to all teams completing the previous day’s challenges in under an hour: Seven new outhouses. Whereas many of the children contemplated quitting on the first night, in the end, only one elected to return home.

And so it appears that “Kid Nation” does not intend to find out whether kids can do what adults could not. It means instead to demonstrate to the young audience that these kids really would die without the intervention of adults. In case anyone doubted “Kid Nation’s” capitalist bias — even after seeing young Sophia dance for nickels so she could buy a bicycle — you are provided with another opportunity.

In each episode, a hardworking player is awarded a solid gold star worth $20,000. To hell with nickel root beer! The gold star does not help the children with their labor and does not provide any comforts for the community. It’s just money for one individual. Besides training for future reality television series, I find very little good in this program. It portrays the cruel and biased structure of class and wealth distinctions, and makes negative impressions on our children, who invariably imitate what they may see.

Darius Engel is a graduate student studying psychology in south Florida.

Thousands assail Justice Dept. inaction on hate crimes, police killings

Wed, 21 Nov 2007 10:38:00 +0000

WASHINGTON — Demonstrators outside the Justice Department on Nov. 16 and at a concert the next day protested the Bush administration’s refusal to crack down on hate crimes and racist police brutality sweeping the nation.

The March for Justice was sponsored by the National Action Network and other civil rights organizations. The families of Sean Bell, shot to death by New York police, and Mychal Bell, now serving an 18-month prison term in Louisiana, attended the protest. Mychal Bell, 17, is the first of the Jena Six tried, by an all-white jury. He is back in jail even though a Louisiana appeals court overturned his conviction on aggravated battery charges stemming from a fistfight last Dec. 4.

A thousand protesters gathered in the Sylvan Theater near the Washington Monument Nov. 17 for a “Stop Hate Crimes and Police Brutality” concert sponsored by the Hip Hop Caucus. “This is our lunch-counter moment for the 21st century” quipped the Rev. Lennox Yearwood Jr., Hip Hop Caucus president, referring to the lunch counter sit-in movement that led to passage of the 1964 Civil Rights Act.

Many speakers and performers protested the death of Khiel Coppin, a mentally ill youth who died in a fusillade of 20 bullets fired by five New York police officers Nov. 12. Coppin, 18, was holding a hairbrush that police claim they mistook for a gun. Last year, NYPD officers fired 50 shots at three unarmed Black men in a car, killing Sean Bell on his wedding day.

The crowd fell silent as three parents of African American youth shot to death by New York police officers demanded action to halt the plague of police shootings. A report, “Stolen Lives,” available at the concert, identifies more than 2,000 people, mostly African Americans, shot to death by police in the decade of the 1990s.

Nicholas Heyward Sr. told the crowd his son, Nicholas Heyward Jr., was shot to death by New York police on Sept. 27, 1994. He was a B+ student who wanted to be a doctor or professional basketball player. “I’m trying to get the case reopened,” Heyward said. “I would like to see the youth organize themselves. I should not have had to bury my son. He was 13 years old, playing with other children when the police gunned him down. We need to organize.”

Heyward told the World the police shooting of Khiel Coppin in Brooklyn proves “Mayor Blooomberg is not doing anything to address the problem of police mishandling of mentally ill people. They should have talked to him, not shot him.”

Heyward said he sent a letter to the Justice Department demanding an investigation of the police shooting of his son. “They sent me a six-line letter in reply. They said the U.S. attorney for New York reviewed the case and found the police officers’ action justifiable. Five other parents in New York got the same identical letter, word for word, about the police shooting of their children. I would describe this as an epidemic of police violence sweeping this country and the Justice Department is doing nothing to investigate it.”

Juanita Young told the crowd her son Malcolm Ferguson, 23, was shot to death by a police officer in the Bronx, March 1, 2000. “I took the case to court and the cop admitted he killed my son for nothing,” Young told the World. A jury awarded her $10.5 million, which the NYPD is appealing.

“The Justice Department only protects the higher-ups. It doesn’t protect people in the South Bronx or down in Louisiana,” she told the World. “I was down in Jena for that Sept. 20 march to free the Jena Six. Why are they going after those six boys? With all these noose hangings, the Justice Department is just letting it get out of control. We pay our taxes for the police to protect us, not murder our children. They think they are above the law.”

A day earlier, National Action Network’s board chairman, Dr. Frank Richardson, told the crowd at the Justice Department, “Jena is wherever there is injustice. Jena is our reality.” But Jena, he added, is also “wherever people are standing up for justice,” an allusion to the 50,000 people who demonstrated in Jena Sept. 20 on behalf of the six Jena teenagers.

The Rev. Frederick Haynes of Dallas drew laughter when he told the crowd, “We have to make noise until we are no longer bushwhacked by a son of a Bush in the White House.”

Rep. Albert Wynn (D-Md.) denounced the hanging of a noose on a tree at the University of Maryland, part of a wave of such incidents since nooses were hung on a “white tree” at Jena High School after Black students had dared to sit there a year ago.

The Rev. Marshall Hatch of Mount Pilgrim Baptist Church in Chicago assailed Chicago police for using a taser gun on an 82-year-old grandmother and also for shooting a Black student claiming they mistook his cell phone for a gun.

Martin Luther King III said, “It is tragic in 2007 that equal justice under the law does not exist.”

Oregonians demand fairness for immigrants

Tue, 20 Nov 2007 10:10:00 +0000

SALEM, Ore. -- A large gathering of people of faith, labor activists and workers and local civil rights activists gathered last week at St. Vincent De Paul Church here to commit to building a regional immigrant rights movement. The ecumenical church service and press conference held afterwards drew media coverage. The service and press conference took place as Oregon’s Democratic Governor moved towards making Oregon a “legal presence” state, taking away driving privileges from undocumented immigrant workers. Tens of thousands of people working in Oregon will not be able to drive after the state's Driver and Motor Vehicle (DMV) department drafts rules requiring people to produce a valid Social Security Number at DMV offices in order to get a driver’s license. These rules may be drafted as early as February.

The church service commemorated the brutal murders of human rights activists in El Salvador and linked the murders of these activists to immigrant rights in the United States today. The gathering formed in response to recent Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) raids in the region and the need to press for immigrant rights. The reinvigorated local movement is based on the demand for “fairness and respect for all people,” said one minister. The gathering came after two large meetings with immigrant workers. This is “not just about saying things, but doing things” as people of faith, said another minister at the press conference.

The local movement committed today to educating the public about immigration, urging solidarity actions, offering English as a Second Language and citizenship classes, training legal observers in preparation for future ICE raids, assisting immigrant worker families, raising funds for legal and immigrant family aid, creating an immigrant family center, creating places for sanctuary for immigrants, building a presence in local media, pushing for positive political change and building solidarity against racism.

Those present at the church service and press conference represented a major section of the Salem’s religious communities. Present were a number of members and leaders of PCUN, the state’s farm worker union, and union stewards from SEIU Local 503. Labor and religious activists announced that they will launch a regional protest campaign around the governor’s Executive Order, calling on him to reverse the damage done by the order and to repudiate racism.

Who is a patriot?

Fri, 16 Nov 2007 08:02:00 +0000

I attended the United for Peace and Justice demonstration in New Orleans on Oct. 27, which called for an end to the Iraq war, opposed military aggression against Iran and supported the long overdue rebuilding of New Orleans. I felt proud to stand next to Veterans for Peace, Vietnam Veterans Against the War and other peace-promoting organizations.

What was the source of my pride? I was standing with veterans who have the courage to stand up to the right-wing authoritarian regime of President Bush. Many have contrasted the record of these people with that of our president, who dodged combat duty and according to some reports went missing from his plush assignment in the Texas National Guard.

Was it easy being at a protest in the Deep South in the middle of one of the playgrounds of the wealthy and powerful? Absolutely not! Our peaceful protest met with some right-wing resistance. Several members of the right-wing Gathering of Eagles attempted to intimidate participants. One sported a T-shirt that read “Re-defeat communism.” Of course, these puppets of the far-right merely looked like pitiful thugs. They disappeared before the rally was over. No one to my knowledge left or changed their opinion as a result of these goons.

As we marched through the French Quarter holding signs and chanting loudly to express our opposition to the war, we were witness to a display of the brutishness of the rich and powerful. Drunken boors in suits and ties booed us and made rude remarks from their expensive balconies overlooking the streets where we were marching. One veteran marching near me became upset with their epithets and yelled back, “You don’t know what you’re talking about! I served over there!” Another marcher stepped in to calm him.

There has been a lot of talk of treason these days. They usually come from Bush supporters and are aimed at anyone who dares oppose any of his policies. A candidate for public office in Houston recently told me that he was concerned about how right-wing judges were throwing the word “treason” around in the courtroom whenever an attorney opposed their heavy-handed treatment of defendants.

After the protest ended, I was waiting to go to dinner with some comrades. I spotted an old man walking in the crisp New Orleans evening. He was wearing a white shirt with patches that read “World War II” and “Purple Heart.” We struck up a conversation and he told us he grew up in the neighborhood and was back to check it out. It turns out he had two Purple Hearts which he earned fighting the Nazis. He now lives outside New Orleans and was there to try to find Purple Heart recipients who had lost their homes in Hurricane Katrina. The organization he is affiliated with is providing $5,000 grants to these veterans.

He told us stories of the horrors of war. He told us how his comrades were wounded and had huge pieces of their heads blown away in combat. He was not there for the protest and probably had not heard about it beforehand. He was 87 and had a remarkable smile. He told us that he opposes the war in Iraq and the rush to war in Iran because he knows what war does to people.

So the questions we must ponder are, “Who is a patriot?” and “Who is guilty of treason?” According to right-wing supporters of “chicken hawk” Bush and Cheney, this old veteran would be guilty of treason for his opposition to the imperialist war.

Around 75 percent of the U.S. public now opposes the war. We need to say in a loud, united voice that this Purple Heart veteran and everyone else opposed to the war are not traitors. Is it more patriotic to have fought the Nazis or to have been missing from comfy duty with the Texas National Guard? I leave it to you to decide.

Paul Hill (phill1917 @comcast.net) is a social justice activist in Texas.

EDITORIAL: Pilgrims without papers

Fri, 16 Nov 2007 07:45:00 +0000

Three hundred and eighty-six years ago a group of undocumented immigrants and native-born Americans feasted together for three days to celebrate a successful harvest made possible by mutual cooperation.

Yes, those Pilgrims showed up in Massachusetts without immigration papers or any other kind of permission from the people who lived there. And the Wampanoag Indians helped them survive, teaching them how to cultivate unfamiliar crops in an unfamiliar land.

That feast in the fall of 1621 is considered a beginning of our Thanksgiving holiday.

In 2007, as we sit down to eat our turkey and trimmings, we would do well to reflect on those beginnings.

This year, we are getting a barrage of ugly hate-speech about undocumented immigrants — people who, like the Pilgrims and hundreds of thousands of immigrants since then, came here to escape hardship of various kinds and to create a better life for themselves and their families. For most of our history, no restrictions blocked them from coming.

It was only in the late 1800s that laws started to be passed to keep one or another group of human beings out. Chinese workers were the first targets, in the notorious 1882 Chinese Exclusion Act. The 1917 Immigration Act blocked people from an enormous “Asiatic Barred Zone” stretching from the Middle East through the South Pacific. It also barred, among others, epileptics, people who were “mentally or physically defective” and anarchists.

We’ll surely hear pious words about Thanksgiving from our president and his right-wing demagogue friends. But out of the other side of their mouths they scorn the best of our nation’s history and promote the worst kinds of racist, ethnic and anti-worker prejudice.

A lot of ugly history took place after that 1621 celebration, coinciding with the emergence of our country as a continental and then global capitalist power. But equally important are the themes of mutual aid, welcoming of newcomers and appreciation of the bounties of nature that we see in this early celebration. This Thanksgiving, let’s reflect on those themes and vow to overcome the haters and bigots in the new year.

EDITORIAL: Costs of racism

Fri, 16 Nov 2007 07:41:00 +0000

An important part of what is often called “the American dream” is the ability of successive generations to climb the economic ladder. With workers’ productivity rising decade by decade, that should be the reality for working-class families.

But a series of reports released this week by the Pew Charitable Trust’s Economic Mobility Project reveals a very different reality for Americans as a whole, and shines a spotlight on the growing disparities facing African American families in particular.

While two-thirds of today’s adults are generally better off than their parents, the studies found, the biggest gains have been at the top of the income scale, and the smallest at the bottom.

A third of Americans are now worse off economically than their parents. And income growth for the other two-thirds is strongly related to the increase in two-earner families as more women have entered the workforce.

Of special concern is the finding that while incomes of both Black and white families have risen, the gap is widening. In 1974, African Americans’ median incomes were 63 percent that of whites. In 2004 they had slipped to 58 percent.

In a separate survey by the Pew Research Center, two-thirds of African Americans said they faced prejudice when they applied for a job or tried to rent an apartment or buy a house. Only one-fifth of Black respondents felt things were better now for African Americans than they were five years ago.

When coupled with the pervasive racial and ethnic discrimination faced by Latinos, Asian Americans and Native Americans, and the “American nightmare” faced by many immigrant families, it is clear that inequalities have risen alarmingly during the decades of far-right domination.

The struggle for equality is a vital component of the broad movement to end the far right’s rule and shape new foreign and domestic policies. Affirmative action, trade union protections, workers’ rights, public responsibility for health care, and quality education for all will help to close the gap.

Only when no one is left behind, when progress includes everyone, can anyone climb confidently up that ladder toward “the American dream.”

House votes to ban anti-gay bias at work

Fri, 16 Nov 2007 06:11:00 +0000

On Nov. 7, the House of Representatives passed the Employment Non-Discrimination Act (ENDA), a historic civil rights measure that would bar discrimination against workers in hiring, firing, or promotion based on sexual orientation. The vote was 235-184.

Democrats praised the bill as a monumental piece of civil rights legislation. Speaking on the floor of the House, Speaker Nancy Pelosi said ENDA is part of a long tradition of the expansion of equal rights in U.S. history.

“Progress on civil rights is never easy,” she said. “It is often marked by small and difficult steps. We take this step today toward the ideal of equality that is both our heritage and our hope.”

Rep. John L. Lewis (D-Ga.) compared passage of ENDA to passage of past civil rights legislation. “Call it what you may, to discriminate against someone because they are gay is wrong,” he said. “It is wrong. It is wrong. It is not right.”

Rep. George Miller (D-Calif.) praised the struggle of gay, lesbian, and bisexual people for equality. “I regret that they have had to wait so long for this vote, but I’m pleased that this historic day has finally arrived,” he said.

Rep. Tammy Baldwin (D-Wis.) offered an amendment that would have reintroduced language to include protections based on gender identity. “Irrational hate and fear have no place in our society,” she said. She withdrew the amendment before it could be brought for a vote because it did not have the votes needed to pass.

The bill was originally introduced in the 1970s by Rep. Bella Abzug (D-N.Y.). Support for the bill grew over the next two decades, and many people were optimistic about its passage after President Clinton’s election in 1992. But the Republican takeover of Congress put passage of ENDA on the back burner until this year.

In the late 1990s, more and more groups came to support a version of ENDA that included protections for transgender people, including major national organizations like the National Organization for Women, the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights, and the AFL-CIO.

Language that would have extended protections from discrimination based on gender identity to transgender individuals was stripped from the bill in committee. This move sparked tremendous controversy among supporters of the bill.

Despite the fact that the employment non-discrimination bill had nothing to with redefining marriage, a last-minute amendment also incorporated language explicitly denying marriage equality.

The Senate isn’t likely to vote on the measure until after the 2008 elections.

Organizations that support an inclusive ENDA see the delay as giving them time to lobby harder to have inclusive language reinserted into the bill and to have language denying marriage equality stripped.

In a statement, the AFL-CIO’s Pride at Work, the voice of the LGBT community in the labor movement, urged “the labor and LGBT community and its friends and allies to continue the struggle for a fully inclusive ENDA.”

jwendland @politicalaffairs.net

Victory for Iraq war refuser

Fri, 16 Nov 2007 06:09:00 +0000

Supporters of First Lt. Ehren Watada rejoiced over a federal judge’s injunction last week barring a new court-martial for the officer who refused to serve in Iraq. But they also urged stepped-up pressure to drop all charges and release Watada from the Army with an honorable discharge.

Watada is the first U.S. commissioned officer to publicly refuse to go to Iraq. Last year, after criticizing the Iraq war as an illegal occupation, he refused to deploy there with his Stryker Brigade. The Army rejected his offer to serve instead in Afghanistan.

Because he spoke out publicly against the Iraq war, the Army added the charge of conduct unbecoming an officer.

U.S. District Court Judge Benjamin Settle issued a temporary injunction barring a second court-martial. The judge said Watada would probably be successful in asserting that his Fifth Amendment rights would be violated by being tried twice for the same crime, otherwise known as double jeopardy.

Settle wrote in the decision, “The same Fifth Amendment protections are in place for military service members as are afforded to civilians.”

The Army quickly announced it would file additional briefs before the judge issues a final ruling.

Watada attorney Kenneth Kagan called the injunction “an enormous victory,” but warned that the case is not yet closed.

Michael McPhearson, executive director of Veterans for Peace, told the World, “We think Lt. Watada shouldn’t have been tried in the first place, and we don’t want him to be tried again.”

“We’re very happy with the decision,” said Peter Yamamoto, a San Francisco-based member of the Watada Support Committee. “However,” he added, “it’s not over. It’s very important to keep up the pressure.”

Yamamoto said the support committee is organizing vigils on the first and third Saturdays of the month. Details are at www.thankyoult.org.

Watada’s first court-martial, earlier this year, ended in a mistrial when the military judge ruled that a stipulation both sides had earlier accepted, stating the officer had missed his deployment, constituted a guilty plea. Watada and his attorneys sought to continue the first trial but the military judge refused. They then argued a second trial would violate the lieutenant’s constitutional rights.

As a second court-martial approached, Watada’s appeal to the military’s highest court went unanswered. His attorneys then appealed to the federal court for a stay. Judge Settle’s response marked a rare civilian intervention into military court proceedings.

Settle, who served as a military lawyer in the 1970s, was recently appointed to the federal bench by President Bush.

Though Watada’s term of military service officially ended last December, the Army has not released him. He is now performing administrative duties at Fort Lewis, Wash.

mbechtel @pww.org

Fighting for that inch of space

Fri, 09 Nov 2007 08:27:00 +0000

Recently Sam Webb, national chair of the Communist Party USA, remarked in one of his reports that in the national elections the working class has to fight for that inch of space where it can have room to organize for further gains. Since we are operating in an electoral field dominated by capitalist, corporate politics, that would be as much as one could expect at this time for election 2008.

Nowhere is this more illustrated than on the subject of health care. Every Democratic presidential candidate talks about health care for all. None of them except Dennis Kucinich endorses HR 676, the Conyers-Kucinich single-payer health care bill. That’s because this bill, if enacted, would take a bite out of health industry profits.

On Oct. 29, The New York Times published an analysis of campaign contributions to the major presidential candidates by the health care industry. Clinton received $2.7 million, Obama $2.2 million, Romney $1.6 million, Giuliani $1.4 million. Why would the health care industry bestow a large portion of their contributions on candidates who, if elected, would seek to enact universal health care legislation? The only logical reason is that these candidates, no matter how much they talk about universal health care, have no intentions of enacting laws that would mean a direct challenge to the profits of the health industry. They may come up with a plan for health care reform, but only if they give the health insurance giants some subsidy protection through the back door. Under massive public pressure, they may even push for the government to negotiate with the pharmaceutical companies to lower the cost of prescription drugs.

The same thing might be said about ending the war in Iraq.

None of the major Democratic candidates are for an immediate pullout from Iraq. Why? When the whole Iraqi nation wants a timetable for the troops to leave starting now, and so do the American people, what is the real reason for these candidates to hesitate on troop withdrawal? Could it be that immediate troop withdrawal might mean the loss of lucrative U.S. oil and other corporate contracts and the resulting loss of profits for the U.S. companies that are trying to get control of Iraqi oil and other resources?

This scenario can become very frustrating to progressive activists. What are we to do? It becomes fertile ground for ideas of third-party presidential candidacies. That would make us feel good. We would get our frustration off our chests. But what would it do for the politics of this country in the current situation? Would we be with the growing labor-community coalitions that are forming across the country, or would we be outside such coalitions, and seen as divisive? Clearly, the latter. Such moves would have us be in “principle” correct and in practice wrong. The bottom line would be that come Election Day 2008, once again the right-wing Republicans would remain in control or at least maintain the minority toehold that up to this point has frustrated liberal and progressive legislation in Congress.

Does this mean that we should keep quiet and support right-wing Democrats just so that the Republicans won’t win? Not really.

The Democrats’ positions are influenced by the extent to which we organize our friends and neighbors to support an immediate pullout from Iraq and real, meaningful health care reform. The only thing that many of these candidates really care about, aside from protecting the profits of the corporations who can make or break them, is how many votes they can win from the public. Thus the more we pressure the candidates in a massive way for a quick end to the war in Iraq and for universal and affordable health care, the more they will respond with promises that we can hold them accountable for once they are elected.

This dialectical dynamic gives us that “inch” — room to struggle for progressive advance, once we get rid of the ultra-right Republican lockdown.

Emil Shaw is a labor and peace activist and New Mexico state chair of the Communist Party USA.

EDITORIAL: Just plain greed

Fri, 09 Nov 2007 07:24:00 +0000

Wall Street wizard Robert E. Rubin, former Clinton treasury secretary, is stepping in to clean up Citigroup, which recently forecast losses of $13 billion due to its role in the subprime mortgage racket. That bubble has burst, sowing misery as millions of hard-pressed homeowners are forced into foreclosure.

Rubin is part of the problem, not the solution. Over the past eight years he raked in $150 million as Citigroup’s executive committee chairman, a close adviser to Charles Prince III, who has just stepped down as Citigroup chief. What role did Rubin play in Citigroup’s risky, if not outright crooked, investment strategies?

Citigroup is the world’s largest corporation with $2.4 trillion in assets, 332,000 employees and 200 million account holders in 100 countries. Economist Victor Perlo, in his 1988 book “Super Profits and Crises,” noted that Citigroup, then called Citicorp, was instrumental in the drive to install right-wing extremists in the federal government. George W. Bush is their poster child.

The aim was wholesale repeal of laws and regulations imposed during past financial and economic crises. Perlo quoted Hans Angermueller, Citicorp vice-chairman for legal affairs: “Every day we learn how to work more effectively with political leaders, legislators, regulators … the media in spreading the deregulation gospel.”

Deregulation fed the runaway corporate-bank greed that produced the Enron and Worldcom debacles, and now the subprime mortgage disaster. Citigroup was forced by the Securities and Exchange Commission to pay $120 million in fines, truly a slap on the wrist, for its mastermind role in Enron and Dynegy swindling. The SEC wrote, “J.P. Morgan Chase and Citigroup engaged in and indeed helped their clients [Enron and Dynegy] design complex structured finance transactions … to inflate cash flow and under-report debt.” The agency ordered that the fines be distributed among Citigroup’s “fraud victims.”

It’s time the SEC slapped Citigroup with another fine. Make it, say, $10 billion this time. Distribute it among all the fraud victims losing their homes because of Citigroup greed. A sweep in the 2008 elections can help put in office people who will clean house. Ultimately, the solution is to nationalize the banks under democratic, people’s control.

Factory farming: a cruel and destructive industry

Fri, 09 Nov 2007 07:11:00 +0000

The recent shared Nobel Peace Prize to Al Gore and to the United Nation’s International Panel on Climate Change revealed the UN’s important function as a world body to provide educational leadership in major challenges facing our planet. Another related but less publicized UN report issued in November 2006 was titled “Livestock’s Long Shadow — Environmental Issues and Options” by the Food and Agricultural Organization of the UN. The report presents an in-depth scientific analysis of the impact of agriculture on the ecology of the planet.

But first, some background on changes in agricultural practices in the last several decades.

The growth of corporate agriculture

The increasing concentration of agricultural capital to fewer owners has followed the normal evolution of monopoly capitalism. In the 1930s, 24 percent of Americans worked in farming; in 2002 it was 1.5 percent. In the United States, four companies produce 81 percent of cows, 73 percent of sheep, 57 percent of pigs and 50 percent of chickens. Industrial farming, or “factory farms,” account for most livestock “production.” For example, of the 95 million pigs slaughtered in the U.S. in 2002, 80 million were raised on factory farms.

Sentient beings face factory-farm horrors

Livestock are highly evolved animals that share with humans the same emotions of fear, anxiety, joy and stress with nervous systems that cause pain very much as ours do. On the factory farm, they are merely production products for profit.

Pigs live in crowded hog confinement barns. Most of a sow’s life is in a 2 foot by 7 foot “gestation crate,” in which the animal is only able to sit or lie down, but not turn around. Piglets are fed physically separated from her in “farrowing crates.”

From ammonia burn to debeaking

According to United Poultry Concerns, there are no federal laws regulating poultry raising, transport or slaughter in the U.S. or Canada. The U.S. raises and kills 9 billion “broiler” (baby) chickens each year for food. Forced overgrowth of muscle tissue (meat) causes birds to suffer from severe lameness and pain, from gastrointestinal and blood diseases and chronic respiratory infections.

During their 45 days life, broiler chickens are crowded in filthy unchanged litter with several flocks of 20,000 or more birds in a single closed shed, often sickened by salmonella bacteria which can remain in the meat — a common cause of food poisoning. Ammonia fumes often become so strong that the birds develop a blinding and painful eye disease called “ammonia burn.”

After transport for up to 12 hours in jammed crates, chickens are shackled upside down on conveyor belts by poorly paid farm workers with speed-ups of as many as 40 chickens per minute. With broken bones and tendons the terrified animals are given electric shocks before beheading and entering the “scald tank.”

Each year in the U.S., over 300 million debeaked hens are jammed in wire cages for one or two years for egg production. There are eight or nine hens per cage in sheds holding 50,000 to 125,000 birds. Being cooped for life without exercise while constantly drained of calcium to produce egg shells, laying hens develop osteoporosis (cage layer fatigue) from which many hens die.

The lives of factory-farmed cattle are also gruesome. One need only drive through Colorado, Nebraska or the many other major cattle states and witness the powerful odors (mostly ammonia) from the feedlots of cattle crowded into enclosures to fatten before slaughter, standing in a wet mush of urine, feces and mud.

Impact on ecology, climate change

The UN report documents the significant effect of livestock production on the earth’s ecology. The meat industry is “one of the most significant contributors to today’s most serious environmental problems” and “urgent action is required to remedy the situation” according to lead author H. Steinfeld.

Livestock produce 18 percent of the world’s greenhouse gas emissions measured in carbon dioxide equivalents; that is more than is produced by the total world transportation systems. Of the total greenhouse gas emissions derived from human activities, livestock accounts for 9 percent of carbon dioxide; 65 percent of nitrous oxide, which has 296 times the global warming potential of carbon dioxide per ton and may last as long as 150 years in the atmosphere where it depletes the ozone layer; 37 percent of methane and 64 percent of ammonia, which can react to form acid rain.

Carbon dioxide is still the leading greenhouse gas, since there are 220 times more tons of carbon dioxide than methane in the atmosphere, and about 1,000 times more carbon dioxide than nitrous oxide.

Pesticides, toxins abound

The extreme overcrowding and unhealthy conditions in factory farms requires extensive use of pesticides, antibiotics and chemicals to combat the spread of diseases and of hormones to increase the yield of product. Pesticides have been found in over 90 percent of wells and streams in the U.S., with 37 percent attributable to factory farms with their 25 million gallon lagoons of toxic sewage.

Roxarsone, an arsenic-containing additive in chicken feed, is used to promote growth and kill parasites. The April 9 issue of Chemical and Engineering News (American Chemical Society) reported it could pose health threats to humans. Arsenic has been linked to several forms of cancer, heart disease, declining intellect and diabetes. While Tyson Foods, the nation’s largest poultry producer stopped using it, the article claimed it continues to be fed to about 70 percent of the broiler chickens raised each year.

Consequences of antibiotics overuse

According to the Union of Concerned Scientists, eight times more pounds of antibiotics are used in American livestock than are used in human medicine. Overuse of antibiotics has resulted in selection of bacteria resistant to one or more antibiotics. Recent news reports claimed that the number of “staph” infection deaths in the U.S. from an antibiotic-resistant Staphylococcus aureus, strain MRSA, is greater than deaths from AIDS. One in 10 pneumococci, which are responsible for many pneumonias, is resistant to most antibiotics, few antibiotics work against A. baumannii, which has infected many soldiers returning from Iraq and Afghanistan, forcing amputations in some cases, and gonorrhea and tuberculosis are making comebacks for the same reason.

Some alternatives

Factory farming is growing dramatically to meet the increased demands for meat and the big profits of a small number of giant corporations. It is a cruel industry for the animals and for the workers (many are immigrants) who are exploited to do the dirty work and be exposed to the many toxins.

In reaction to factory farming, there has been an explosion of alternatives, including organic/free-range farms, “buy local” movements and books/magazines/web sites that promote conscious, healthy choices and lifestyles.

One simple choice would be stop eating meat! Buy organic eggs and milk from “free range” chickens and cows. Many studies have concluded that vegetarians live years longer. Those years can be used productively to make a better world. We need you.

Those healthy choices also challenge the relentless drive to increase profits in capitalist production. While hunger continues and increases in our country and the world, corporate food producers dump their products to keep the prices high instead of feeding the hungry. NAFTA allows this dumping at low prices in the underdeveloped Latin American nations, driving their small farmers out of business. Many of these

ruined farmers then become exploited immigrant workers in the U.S. agriculture industry, which was responsible for their loss of jobs in their native country.

Finally, we must recognize the interdependence of all life requires us to oppose the indiscriminate destruction of plant and animal life, which threatens human society, the ecology of the planet, and our respect for all living things. These facts give reason to join the movements challenging these profit-before-people corporate practices and make a better world a healthy choice for all.

David Kennell, kennell @borcim.wustl.edu, is professor emeritus of molecular microbiology at Washington University School Medicine in St. Louis.

Senate defies Bush, approves childrens health care bill

Fri, 09 Nov 2007 06:14:00 +0000

WASHINGTON — The Senate defied President Bush, Nov. 2, and approved for a third time a new version of the SCHIP children’s health care program by a 64-30 vote. Meanwhile, House leaders struggled to win over enough Republicans to pass the measure with bipartisan support in the face of yet another veto threat.

Bush vetoed the measure last month for the second time and the House fell seven votes short of the two-thirds supermajority needed to override the veto.

Now the lawmakers are trying once again to push through renewal of the highly popular program. But Bush says he will veto it, complaining that the lawmakers are “wasting time.”

Sen. Robert Menendez (D-N.J.) retorted, “Only this president could consider it ‘wasting time’ to pursue a bill that provides health coverage for 10 million children.” Bush, he added, “holds out one hand asking for $200 billion for Iraq this year, as he uses the other hand to veto these investments in our families.”

As approved by the Senate, the measure would continue protection of the 6.6 million children now enrolled and add another 4 million youngsters. SCHIP, the State Children’s Health Insurance Program, currently costs $25 billion each year. The expansion would cost an additional $35 billion over the next five years.

Bush complains that it is too much. But a report by the nonpartisan Congressional Research Service warns that 21 states will exhaust their SCHIP funds by next March and be forced to drop millions of children now protected.

Debbie Weinstein, executive director of the Coalition on Human Needs, praised the lawmakers who have refused to buckle. “They have stood on the principle that they want 10 million children covered,” she said. “They have not retreated. But if they can’t get past a Bush veto, they may have to approve an extension of the program. But there needs to be additional funding to protect children from being cut off the program.”

Weinstein continued: “Our coalition still has strong hopes the Congress will expand health care protection to 10 million uninsured children. It would be unspeakably shameful to reduce the number of children covered.”

The coalition embraces a wide range of groups and viewpoints, with many members citing the warped priorities of spending for the Iraq war, Weinstein said. “Some of our members look at the squandering of billions of dollars in Iraq. We spend a lot more in a month in Iraq than we spend in a year for SCHIP. Others point to the unbelievable wrongheadedness of tax policies that reward the wealthy while spending for health care, education, Headstart, job training and other human needs are vetoed.”

greenerpastures21212 @yahoo.com

Chryslers signing bonus: pink slip for workers

Fri, 09 Nov 2007 06:09:00 +0000

Rank-and-file roiled by job and shift cuts as tentative deal is reached with Ford

Less than a week after Chrysler workers barely approved a concessionary contract, the company’s Nov. 1 announcement that it will slash 10,000 hourly jobs, 1,000 salaried jobs and 40 percent of its contracting jobs rocked plant floors across the country. This job-slashing offensive is on top of 13,000 job cuts Chrysler announced last February, bringing the total layoffs to one-third of its workforce.

Thousands of workers reacted with shock and anger.

“They told us that if the contract was approved, we would get a $3,000 signing bonus, not that we would lose our jobs,” a second-tier assembly worker at the Chrysler plant in Belvidere, Ill., told the World. Most of the 600 second-tier workers at that plant, technically called “enhanced temporaries,” work on the third shift, the shift that Chrysler will immediately begin eliminating. “No one would have voted for this contract had we seen this coming,” the worker said.

On Nov. 5, meanwhile, leaders of UAW locals at Ford approved a new contract with that company. Union members at Ford are expected to complete their vote on ratification by Nov. 15.

Ford won even more concessions than those secured by General Motors and Chrysler. Ford agreed to fund an independent trust for retiree health care with $6.9 billion in cash, a much smaller percentage than GM or Chrysler had to come up with.

For Ford, this amounts to only 40 percent of the $17.3 billion it agreed to pay toward its total $23 billion retiree health care obligation. GM is paying 54 percent of its obligation in cash. Because of trust fund deals involving less cash and more stock, the union is likely to become a key, if not the major, stockholder in both GM and Ford.

The two-tier wage system in the Ford pact is more drastic than those set up at GM and Chrysler. All new hires, no matter what their job, will be paid the lower-tier wage and benefit package until a 20 percent of the total workforce “cap” is reached. At GM and Chrysler, workers hired into “core” assembly jobs can be hired into the first tier.

Ford promised to keep open several plants previously slated for closing, but, in the wake of draconian cuts announced by Chrysler right after contract approval there, Ford workers are wary about any company assurances. Many don’t see Ford’s promise to invest in the plants as a big victory, because the company plans to use money it owed to retirees for their health care for this new purpose.

Expected cuts already in the works at GM, Ford, Delphi Corp. and ACH between 2005 and 2009, including buyouts and early retirements, are at least 137,500. Add the Chrysler “October surprise” figures and the total U.S. auto job reductions reach 150,000. The total, from an analysis by the Center for Automotive Research, includes 34,410 hourly buyouts and retirements at GM last year, more than 30,000 jobs eliminated at Ford since 2005, and the planned shutdowns and sell-offs of 35 Delphi and ACH plants.

On top of this, thousands of jobs have been lost at other auto suppliers affected by downsizing, and the Big Three say there is more to come.

None of these figures include the additional thousands of jobs lost, as a result, in towns and communities across the country. Seen in this context, many economists fear that the cuts in auto will fuel a recession or worse.

News of the fierce Chrysler cuts stirred immediate fears among older workers, who feel more pressured than ever now to accept buyouts. If this happens, the company will be able to much more rapidly create a workforce whose majority is in the lower- paid second tier.

“Man, this is tough,” Andy DeRose told the press. DeRose, a 29-year Chrysler veteran who is a full-time first-tier worker at Belvidere, said, “If I get another buyout offer, I think it’s time for me to get on that train.”

Chrysler eliminated a shift at its Sterling Heights, Mich., assembly plant. “It’s devastating,” a worker there said. “We were told that if we approved the contract we wouldn’t go down to one shift, so we voted for it.”

At Auburn Hills, Mich., one-third of the 1,100 contract workers slated for layoff were terminated on Oct. 31. The rest will be fired between Thanksgiving and Christmas.

A high-level UAW source said the Chrysler contract would not have passed a rank-and-file vote had the layoff plan been known.

“They blindsided us on this one,” Bruce Baumhower, president of UAW Local 12 in Toledo, Ohio, told the Detroit News.

Fred Brereton, mayor of Belvidere, told local newspapers that “the loss of 1,000 jobs at the plant is a blow to our town.”

Auto job cuts and the two-tier wage system itself have had devastating effects on communities. (See story, page 9, “Two-tier wages: a community-killing virus.”)

jwojcik @pww.org

Is GOP scheming to steal another election?

Fri, 09 Nov 2007 06:01:00 +0000

Just weeks ago, a proposed ballot initiative by far-right Republicans with links to presidential candidate Rudy Giuliani seemed dead, after efforts to put it on California’s June primary ballot imploded amid secretive financial maneuvering by its supporters.

Now, like Freddy Krueger in “Nightmare on Elm Street,” it’s back!

The ballot initiative, if it were to become law, would apportion all but two of the state’s electoral votes according to the top vote getter in each congressional district, instead of the current winner-take-all system. Had these provisions been law in 2004, President Bush would have won 22 electoral votes in California, though John Kerry won the state by 54 percent.

Supporters of Electoral College reform emphasize that, to be fair, any change in the system must apply equally to all 50 states.

California has 55 of the Electoral College’s 538 votes, the most of any state. California’s winner-take-all system is currently used by every state except Maine and Nebraska, who only have nine electoral votes between them.

Late last month, just before Halloween, a new group of campaigners — also with ties to Giuliani — picked up the muddied flag of the so-called Presidential Election Reform Act.

On Oct. 22, political strategist David Gilliard announced he would revive the signature-gathering campaign, now called “California Counts.” Working with him are strategist Ed Rollins and fundraiser Anne Dunsmore. Resuming his earlier role overseeing the signature gathering is Mike Arno of Arno Political Consultants, one of the nation’s leading signature-gathering companies.

Dunsmore was Giuliani’s national deputy campaign manager until she resigned Sept. 26. She also raised substantial funds for President Bush in 2000 and 2004. Rollins formerly worked for Bill Simon, who now chairs Giuliani’s California campaign. Both also worked on campaigns for Katherine Harris, who as Florida secretary of state in 2000 played a key role in securing the presidency for George Bush.

Giuliani has denied any connection with the initiative. But in late September, just as the first effort was collapsing, he told a Santa Barbara, Calif., television station he liked the idea.

In a telephone interview, top state Democratic Party spokesperson Bob Mulholland called the renewed effort “a fraud on the voters, a waste of voters’ time, and a sign the Republican Party is in disarray.” Mulholland said he believes the measure has no chance to make it to the ballot, and in any case would be crushed in the election.

The California Labor Federation’s political director, Bryan Blum, emphasized the revival “is not out of genuine public interest. Right-wing zealots desperate to hold onto the presidency will go to any length with any crazy idea, no matter how undemocratic.”

Blum said the labor federation is working to alert the public “to be very careful before signing any initiative,” and especially the electoral reform measure.

“Once the public hears the facts, support drops,” Blum said. He said even some prominent Republicans, including Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and state Sen. Tom McClintock, have expressed skepticism.

During the initiative’s first incarnation, the Democratic Party put together a team of over 1,000 “fraudbusters” to spread the word about the real nature of the measure and monitor signature-gathering efforts.

At a Nov. 1 news conference in Sacramento, Art Torres, state Democratic Party chair, detailed some of their observations. One petition was circulated at an Oct. 27 antiwar demonstration under the guise of a call to end all war funding, he said, while at another late October event it was camouflaged as a call for hospital care for children.

Torres and Kristina Wilfore, head of the Washington-based Ballot Initiative Strategy Center (BISC), said they had called on Attorney General Jerry Brown to “rapidly police” signature gathering to make sure no fraudulent initiatives make it to the California ballot next year.

Wilfore also warned that Arno Political Consultants has a reputation for misleading voters.

Torres told the press conference that after a concerted information campaign by the Democratic Party, labor and others, public support for the measure now stands at just 22 percent.

The first campaign collapsed in late September, when its leaders abruptly resigned after controversy erupted over efforts to conceal the identity of a mystery donor. The donor was then revealed to be billionaire hedge fund executive Paul Singer, a policy adviser and major fundraiser for Giuliani.

The new effort has inherited over 100,000 signatures gathered during the earlier campaign. Almost 434,000 signatures are required to get an initiative on the California ballot, and campaigns generally aim for about 700,000 to ensure that enough are valid.

Supporters are aiming for the June primary, when turnout is expected to be low. But they also claim that even if the measure is delayed until November, it could still affect the 2008 presidential election because the Electoral College does not meet until December.

Some observers have noted that the new signature-gathering effort lagged after the first few days, and speculate that the campaign may be short of funds. But other reports indicate that wealthy San Diego-area Republican Congressman Darrell Issa, a major funder of the state’s 2003 recall election, has now joined the campaign.

mbechtel @pww.org

The inhumanity of partial truth

Fri, 02 Nov 2007 07:33:00 +0000

There is a lot of truth to go around in this world. When you have a world of complexity, you also have, and need, many ways of looking at and understanding it.

The problem comes when people seize hold of a partial truth and inflate it by acting as if it was total truth. This happens a lot these days in economics.

Conservative economists, whose hold on truth is limited to the profits of certain kinds of corporations, almost always get it wrong, because their truth is limited to a startlingly small portion of the population.

’True’ for 0.001 percent, false for 99.999

For example, studies have shown that the tax benefits from George W. Bush’s tax cuts not only disproportionately benefit the top 1 percent of the population; even within that tiny demographic, the benefits skew towards the very top, the tiniest portion of a percentage, the top 1/10th of 1 percent. So, for those economists who champion these tax cuts, what little truth they have hold of is not true for the other 99 percent of the population, including some very wealthy capitalists.

But many liberal economists get it wrong too, when they buy into various aspects of the “free market” economy as if that represented total truth. When they restrict themselves to the “logic of the market,” they end up reinforcing the conservative program, sometimes even unintentionally.

You can see this in many commentaries on the current housing/mortgage problems.

Most conservative economists lament that the banks had such bad judgment that they lent money to the “undeserving poor,” by which they mean people who couldn’t really afford to buy such expensive houses. These economists imply that when the banks weren’t looking, those sneaky working-class people put over a fast one on the financial professionals.

The conservatives want to abandon poor and moderate-income people who bought houses they desperately needed. The prescriptions of these “experts” amount to letting all those folks lose their homes to foreclosure while the Federal Reserve guarantees the “health” of the financial markets.

Liberal economists get it more right by pointing out that the banks weren’t making irrational decisions — they were simply “bundling” mortgages and selling them for a quick profit. So these economists more correctly blame the banks rather than the homebuyers.

Many liberals say the banks are at fault and should eat the losses, the way a capitalist economy is supposed to work.

But in both of these analyses we see phrases like “the oversupply of housing is now in the millions.” They urge different policy variations to get the housing and mortgage markets to engage in “market corrections’ or “value corrections.” But they both see the problem as too many houses, or too many bad loans, or too much buying into the “housing bubble.”

Too many houses, or not enough affordable housing?

These economists do indeed have hold of one or another part of the truth. Banks were too eager to make quick profits by selling lots of mortgages. Homeowners and buyers did make decisions based on the assumption that, since housing prices had been increasing almost exponentially, that kind of increase would continue forever. Builders were eager to build ever-larger and more expensive housing that wound up driving buyers into unsustainable levels of debt.

But in all this finger-pointing, few point out the obvious truth: in a country that has millions of homeless people, millions of people need those millions of houses. The problem is not an oversupply of housing. The problem is a perceived undersupply of the excess profits desired by the builders, the banks, the stock market, the financial market and those who measure the economy only by Wall Street statistics.

As long as this Ponzi scheme had profits continuing to soar, most of these economists didn’t care about providing affordable housing for workers, poor people or families, nor did they care about the long-term sustainability of this house of cards. And they still don’t. Like Marie Antoinette, who said of the starving French masses demanding bread: “Let them eat cake,” today’s conservatives answer, “Let the houses be foreclosed” till the market corrects itself. Most liberals limit themselves to, “Let the banks eat their losses” till the market corrects itself.

What about the truth that the housing “free market” ignores so much real human need for more and better affordable housing?

What about the truth that the capitalist market drives up housing costs to unsustainable levels?

What about the families forced to spend 30, 40, 50 percent or more of their total income on housing costs, going into debt just to keep a roof over their heads?

Yes, the partial truth is that the market is indeed screwed up, the way things are isn’t sustainable, and something has to change.

Blinded by capitalism

But the larger truths are that the “free market” will always end up there sooner or later (it’s called “the business cycle”), that profit is the wrong measure on which to base public policy, that millions of people need decent, affordable housing, and that letting the market “correct” itself is a prescription for more human suffering, no matter how that correction takes place.

It’s not that all those economists are lying, but even many of the best of them too often willingly accept the blinders and limits of the capitalist system as if those define the ultimate truth. They ignore the reality that the market doesn’t respond to need, it only responds to money.

What about solutions to the present and future crisis that focus on the needs of real humans rather than the needs of the market or the corporations or the obscenely wealthy? Markets aren’t “healthy” — you have to be human (or at least animal or vegetable) to be healthy. Markets don’t need homes — people do. Markets aren’t the measure of justice or truth — people are.

Isn’t a much more fundamental economic truth that societies must meet the real human needs of their people, rather than just the top 1/10th of 1 percent?

Isn’t the solution a different system?

Marc Brodine (marcbrodine @inlandnet.com) is chair of the Washington State Communist Party.