People Before Profit blog

Build Oakland for everyone, say residents

Fri, 30 Nov 2007 10:49:00 +0000

OAKLAND, Calif. — Over 400 residents here came together 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 community summit, “Building Oakland for Everyone: a Summit on Jobs, Housing and Justice,” was sponsored by the Oakland Network for Responsible Development (ONWRD), a coalition of labor, community, housing, and environmental organizations, and the Oakland People’s Housing Coalition.

A new film, “Oakland Speaks,” featured problems residents share in neighborhoods across the city. Housing and jobs headed the list, as homeowners and renters alike face soaring costs while Oaklanders must increasingly go elsewhere for jobs that pay enough to raise a family.

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.”

Shirley Burnell, a leader of Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN), called for inclusionary zoning to ensure that new housing developments include enough affordable housing. “Low-income people are in dire need of affordable rentals and home ownership,” she said.

Environmental problems and the link between community violence and the lack of good-paying jobs were also discussed.

City 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.” Fellow board member Gregory Hodge called quality education “a civil and human right.”

A top aide to Mayor Ronald Dellums brought the mayor’s message of appreciation for the summit’s leadership. Last spring, Dellums announced an initiative to create 10,000 new jobs in the next five years.

Outreach to youth and others that they can get training and jobs, and the need for child care, health care and transportation services were also highlighted.

Participants signed postcards urging the City Council to adopt a development strategy putting Oakland residents first, and carried “Build Oakland for Everyone” signs.

Distribution of postcards and signs is continuing, said Kate O’Hara, spokesperson for the East Bay Alliance for a Sustainable Economy (EBASE). When enough postcards have been collected, she said, delegations will visit City Council members to discuss the summit’s findings.

“We look forward to working with the mayor and regard him as a leader for development that will benefit the whole community,” O’Hara said. “We think his vision is very similar to ours, focusing on good jobs for Oakland residents, especially those with barriers to employment.”

ACORN organizer Benjamin Naquin emphasized the summit’s diversity. He called for more meetings, “at least quarterly, to stay in contact,” and urged the groups to continue to work together.

EBASE and the Oakland Network for Responsible Development have just released a report recently showing 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,” says more than half the city’s residents spend over 30 percent of income on housing. It also finds significant income disparity. Overall unemployment officially sits at 6.9-8.8 percent, but African Americans experience nearly four times as much joblessness as whites.

The report calls for moving 10,000 of the city’s high-need residents into family-sustaining jobs over the next five years, and urges 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 responsible contractor and living wage laws and other measures benefiting low-wage workers, and to promote higher labor standards, training and local hiring requirements in construction and other sectors.

mbechtel @pww.org

Marchers protest racism, police brutality

Fri, 30 Nov 2007 09:18:00 +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 Nov. 17 for a “Stop Hate Crimes and Police Brutality” concert sponsored by the Hip Hop Caucus. 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.

Nicholas Heyward Sr., whose son was shot to death by New York police on Sept. 27, 1994, is trying to get the case reopened. 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.

“I would like to see the youth organize themselves. We need to organize,” he said.

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. “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.”

Must-see documentaries showcased in Toronto

Fri, 30 Nov 2007 09:14:00 +0000

For the first time in its 32-year history, the Toronto International Film Festival screened a film that was simultaneously available for free streaming on the Internet. The seven-minute short film, “Shock Doctrine,” based on Naomi Klein’s bestselling book, is co-directed by Mexico’s acclaimed director Alfonso Cuarón. The powerful short is succinct and to the point in defining capitalism’s shock tactics. The book is still on bestseller lists. See the film free at naomiklein.org.

“Man From Plains” follows former President Jimmy Carter around the country as he confronts challenges to his claim that the Israeli government practices apartheid against Palestinians. Homespun interviews and personal stories bring a deeper understanding for a former president who’s gaining more respect after his term in office.

Klaus Barbie, known as the Butcher of Lyon, France, figures into two fascinating biographies. “My Enemy’s Enemy” covers his life since World War II and makes the point that Barbie’s existence as a Nazi didn’t end with the war. It’s well documented that Nazis were used by the U.S. to fight the emerging Soviet superpower. The chronicling of Barbie’s escape to Bolivia with U.S. assistance, and his ongoing ties with the CIA, reveal his hitherto unknown involvement in many historical events, including Che Guevara’s death.

Probably one of the most complex figures represented in all the films shown this year at Toronto is the enigmatic French-Vietnamese lawyer Jacques Verges. In “Terror’s Advocate,” we examine the seemingly contradictory actions of a revolutionary attorney who defended clients as far-ranging as Pol Pot, Saddam Hussein, Carlos the Jackal and Klaus Barbie. Always an anti-colonialist, his first major client was Djamila Bouhired, a leader of the Algerian resistance immortalized in the classic film “Battle of Algiers.” He went on to marry her upon her release from prison, a release won by his own defense.

Holding the firm position that all those accused, however reprehensible, deserve counsel has put the eloquent Verges on the defensive quite often.

“Promise to the Dead: The Exile Journey of Ariel Dorfman” is a documentary from the acclaimed American-Chilean writer. A penetrating and emotional examination of the joyous and hopeful times of Salvador Allende’s Popular Unity government, this film allows the viewer to see — through the eyes of Dorfman — the tragic loss caused by the Sept. 11, 1973, military coup. This “other Sept. 11” tragedy is fading from history.

An intriguing piece of investigative reportage about the mysterious poisoning of a former KGB agent and reporter forms the basis of “Rebellion: The Alexander Litvinenko Case.” Director Andrei Nekrasov’s discoveries put the blame squarely on the corrupt Putin government in Russia and the Federal Security Service (FSB), and delivers a barrage of accusations against the current state apparatus.

Two more documentaries about Iraq are told from fresh perspectives. “Iraq: Heavy Metal in Baghdad” tells of the trials and tribulations of a rock band, probably the only one of its type left in Iraq. And they are determined to perform, somewhere, regardless of the extremely dangerous conditions that currently exist throughout the entire country. They manage to pull off one concert in a rundown hotel with a very small audience — the most determined heavy metal fans in the country.

The musicians, being quite astute observers of the U.S. occupation, show us the tragic decline of their community and the fears and dangers that plague their friends and families. Along with many other Iraqis, they are eventually forced out of their country in order to survive.

The same situation befalls Muthana Mohmed, a 25-year-old Baghdad filmmaker, in the film “Operation Filmmaker.” A fortunate recipient of an MTV grant, the young Iraqi is offered a dream job on a Prague film set. The good intentions of these Americans gradually become a nightmare for the aspiring young director, and the realities of his homeland, cultural barriers and competitive life in America eventually set in motion an irreversible disaster.

To read more reviews by Bill Meyer, go to .

Who are the real American gangsters?

Fri, 30 Nov 2007 09:08:00 +0000

If you want fast-paced, episodic plotting and the latest Hollywood version of “Super Fly,” go see “American Gangster.” But whether you’ve seen it or not, here is my opinion. And I’m 65 years old and come from these same streets by way of St. Louis, Chicago and New York, so not only do I have an opinion, but I have a qualified one at that!

What is the fascination with American gangsters? Or perhaps a more precise question would be: why the present fascination? There have always been gangster movies; many of us are old enough to remember James Cagney, Edward G. Robinson and Humphrey Bogart who were the OGs (old gangsters) of the silver screen of the ’30s, ’40s and ’50s.

Back then, when capitalism was very sanctimonious and hypocritical about law and order, and the “American way of life” consisted simply of “good guys” and “bad guys” — or the “cops” and the “robbers” — it was usually the good guys and the cops who won.

You will notice that today there is no clear line of demarcation between “good” and “bad,” and good doesn’t always win. And having lived through this era of bifurcated hypocrisy, I can really appreciate the fact of people pointing out, as Frank Lucas (played by Denzel Washington) does repeatedly in “American Gangster,” that the gangsterism on the streets is a mirror reflection of the gangsterism in the suites.

At any rate, most of us who are still involuntary denizens of the ghetto have learned, not just from reading, but living in the school of hard knocks, that greed is the universal creed of capitalism and that not money, but the lack of money, is the root of all evil.

How money is acquired becomes insignificant compared to the freedom and power it renders, and this applies to ghetto gangsters and Wall Street gangsters alike.

“American Gangster,” the movie, is sort of like the Horatio Alger story, ghetto-style. In fact, Lucas (the protagonist and antagonist wrapped into one) invokes the Protestant work ethic and paints a clear picture that in America, if you want to succeed, then you gotta do what you gotta do: murder, extortion, corrupting public officials (especially cops) and let’s not leave out, if you are an African American gangster, being a participant in the genocide perpetrated against your own people.

In real life, there are mobsters like Meyer Lansky who never went to jail. They make Lucas look like a midget throwing pebbles at Paul Bunyan. In Mario Puzo’s “Godfather,” the mobsters get away with their crimes and live like kings — but not Lucas: there is no equal opportunity for Black folk, period, not even in crime.

Bumpy Johnson, Frank Lucas and Nicky Barnes were Black. They were members of an oppressed part of the social order. They rose to their zeniths by exploiting and oppressing Black people in ways that would disgrace a nation of savages, to use the words of Frederick Douglass.

What could they expect to get out of the system except what they got: destroyed?

What’s revealed as the movie unfolds is that nobody is clean — they’re all dirty, right on up to the drug “warlords” in Washington, and that is truly the moral of this flick.

Check it out: government troops provide Lucas with the vehicle he needs for getting his heroin from the Southeast Asian poppy fields. And Italian mobsters, who are also being secretly supplied by Lucas, are Nicky Barnes’ suppliers.

Finally, I can’t resist mentioning that there was a much more powerful moral in the documentary movie “Mr. Untouchable.” In the end, Frank James sends the message to Nicky Barnes: Tell the young people not to follow in our footsteps, because we really didn’t do anything positive.

The real gangsters are still at the top, where they’ve always been. What a difference there is between fantasy and reality. Hollywood makes money off of the fantasy, and we’re stuck with the reality. It’s not going to change until we change it!

Movie REVIEW

American Gangster

Directed by Ridley Scott

Universal Pictures, 2007

157 minutes, rated R

Gambling with our money

Fri, 30 Nov 2007 09:05:00 +0000

The increasing use of gambling as a source of revenue to close budget shortfalls is spreading like the plague across our nation.

Cities both large and small, devastated by the loss of hundreds of thousands of manufacturing jobs and the tax base that went with them, are eyeing “games of chance.” The politicians see it as a way out of their financial difficulties, their well-heeled cronies as a way to fatten their wallets, with absolutely no concern for the social ills that accompany the legalization of gambling or, to use its more “acceptable” version, “gaming.”

Since the end of World War II, up to the present, administration after administration has slowly but steadily shifted the tax burden away from corporations and onto the backs of working people. At the beginning of this period, corporations paid the bulk of federal taxes, roughly 80 percent, with the rest coming from individuals. Today, these numbers have been turned on their head. It has become so pervasive for corporations to avoid paying taxes that corporate tax lawyers, using obscure provisions of the tax code, help their employers in some cases to evade paying taxes altogether. If you looked at their tax returns you would think that they were no longer in business.

What to do with all this money? Hmmm! Let’s buy back some shares. That should raise the share price! Good idea. How about sharing the loot with our Wall Street friends by paying dividends? Ditto. Sure beats giving it to the feds. Heck, they might decide to spend it on programs to help working people.

The deliberate efforts by past and present administrations to concentrate the wealth of this country into the hands of the top 20 percent have had devastating effects for this country and its working class. Creating more billionaires does not improve our infrastructure. Creating more millionaires does not improve our schools or give us better health care. Spending for war enriches only those who invest in war.

Only by permanently reversing this trend, and instituting a tax structure similar to what we had after World War II, will the monies be available to do what needs to be done. When asked why he robbed banks, the bank robber Willie Sutton was quoted as saying, “‘Cause that where the money’s at.” We must tax those who are most able to pay. After all, their wealth came from the surplus value created by the working people of this country.

Other sources of revenue could be tapped too. Why not a 0.5 percent tax on all currency and stock transactions, treat capital gains as income, and tax profits from foreign subsidiaries at the same rate as domestic profits? All of that could generate billions of dollars of additional revenue. And last but not least, how about creating million of good-paying union jobs? Surely these workers would not mind paying their fair share, especially if they knew that their tax money would be spent to make life more pleasant and harmonious for all.

For those politicians who tell their constituents that the introduction of gambling is a panacea for their financial woes, I say bunk! Bringing in gambling also brings in all the social ills associated with it, and besides, all it really is, is a voluntary tax on working people. I say no to institutionalized gambling as a source of government revenue and yes to Friday night poker parties.

Bill Mackovich is a retired industrial worker and longtime poker player in Chicago.

CARTOON: 'Tis the season

Fri, 30 Nov 2007 08:58:00 +0000

Speaking up vs. anti-immigrant hate campaign

Fri, 30 Nov 2007 08:57:00 +0000

New York Gov. Eliot Spitzer has backed down from a plan to make regular driver’s licenses available to undocumented immigrants, after being targeted by a national hate campaign in the right-wing media.

This is one more manifestation of a growing and increasingly racist anti-immigrant campaign and of the failure of some liberal and centrist leaders to stand up to it.

The hate campaign is being coordinated by a small group of organizations that share funders, board members and misinformation. The bigoted message is amplified by the loudmouths of cable TV, right-wing talk radio, the press and the blogosphere.

Although studies show that immigrants, even those without papers, have lower crime and disease rates than comparable sectors of the native-born population, the reactionary agitators try to frighten the public with stories of nonexistent waves of crime and exotic diseases.

Although the immense majority of immigrants come only to work or to join their families, fantastic stories are spun of Mexican takeover plots.

In a number of communities, right-wing Republican political machines have felt their hold on power threatened by demographic changes. So they resort to the tactic of passing local anti-immigrant measures to drive out Latinos and other minorities.

The Republican Party, facing catastrophe in the 2008 elections, seems to have decided that immigrant-bashing will be its key tactic. Almost all the Republican presidential candidates have now jumped on the anti-immigrant bandwagon.

The Bush administration is contributing mightily to the anti-immigrant rampage by jacking up repressive enforcement actions and then justifying them by repeating the lies about an immigrant crime and terrorism “menace.” Routine arrests of completely peaceful undocumented workers are hyped into major blows against the terrorist threat.

Bush and his corporate backers don’t care if this propaganda leads to vigilante violence. Their aim is to maintain a supply of low-paid workers without rights. These could be guest workers or terrorized undocumented workers. The repressive tactics will not get rid of the estimated 12 million undocumented immigrants, but only make them even more vulnerable to exploitation. This is why the demand of the immigrant rights movement and organized labor has been for legalization of the undocumented.

I recently received two surveys from the Democratic Party asking my views on different issues. Nowhere in either survey is the issue of immigration reform even mentioned. There is a tendency among some Democrats to run away from the immigration reform issue as supposedly favoring the Republicans.

Agreed, the GOP is using the immigrant-bashing as a red herring to distract the attention of voters from the crimes of the Bush administration, from Iraq to the home mortgage crisis and Hurricane Katrina. No doubt this is why many Democrats want to leave immigration reform legislation until 2009, or even 2013. Some are even jumping on board anti-immigrant legislation, like the harshly repressive SAVE Act, HR 4088. The main sponsor, Rep. Heath Shuler (N.C.) is a Democrat, as are 43 of its 95 co-sponsors. They are doing the Republicans’ work for them.

In Germany, the Nazis used anti-Semitism for the exact same red herring purpose. By blaming everything on the Jews, they aimed to cover up the crimes of capitalism and block a transition to socialism. It was the clear duty of all progressive people then to denounce Hitler’s anti-Semitism at the top of their lungs and do what they could to stop it, and not say, “Wait until after the elections,” or “Jews are a Nazi issue, let’s stay clear of that.” Some did speak out and some didn’t, with the results we know.

Tactical maneuvering has to take place in the overall context of principled struggle. On immigrant rights, too many are taking a stance of all maneuvering, no struggle. This abandons the field to the anti-immigrant racists, leaves immigrant workers and their families in the lurch and weakens the progressive movement overall, by uncoupling from the energy shown in the massive immigrant rights marches of 2006 and 2007 — energy which helped Democrats to win in 2006.

Immigrants and their allies are fighting desperately, through demonstrations, boycotts and litigation. But legislation is also needed and, above all, responsible political leaders need to denounce the campaign of lies and hate.

The fear of losing a few votes cannot be a pretext for standing aloof from this vital struggle and dropping the immigrant rights issue from the legislative agenda.

Emile Schepers is an immigrant rights activist.

Lightbulb moment: The mercury dilemma with compact fluorescent lights

Fri, 30 Nov 2007 07:19:00 +0000

VANCOUVER, British Columbia — The Four Sister’s Housing Cooperative, a leafy, three-building complex with over 400 residents near Vancouver’s bustling waterfront, has replaced all incandescent light bulbs with compact fluorescent lights (CFL) in public areas. The underground parking lot, hallways, office space, common rooms, laundry rooms and outdoor lights now only use CFLs. According to the Four Sister’s maintenance committee, the CFLs were installed to reduce energy bills.

The cooperative’s decision to replace conventional bulbs with CFLs is an example of a broader trend. California, Canada, the European Union and Australia have opted, or are considering banning incandescent light bulbs in favor of CFLs. Cuba and Venezuela use CFLs on a wide scale.

Less energy, yes, but less mercury?

According to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, CFLs use 75 percent less energy and last six times longer than standard incandescent light bulbs. While each light bulb has 5 milligrams of mercury (the size of the ball point of a pen), the EPA argues that CFLs will help reduce mercury emissions.

“A power plant [fed with coal, the most common fuel used in the U.S. to generate electricity] will emit 10 mg. of mercury to produce the electricity to run an incandescent bulb compared to only 2.4 mg. of mercury to run a CFL for the same time,” according to the EPA.

These claims are echoed by environmental groups such as the Vancouver-based David Suzi Foundation, Greenpeace and Environmental Defense. They point out that CFLs will also generate fewer greenhouse gases responsible for global warming, because a smaller amount of fossil fuels need to be burned to produce electricity.

Concerns remain

However, critics are concerned that the EPA and environmentalists are minimizing the dangers of mercury contamination from CFLs. Mercury, an essential component of CFLs, is a neurotoxin that the EPA classifies as a hazardous household material.

According to the EPA, “Exposure to mercury, a toxic metal, can affect our brain, spinal cord, kidneys and liver.”

The U.S. National Institutes of Health reports, “Exposures to very small amounts of these compounds [mercury] can result in devastating neurological damage and death. For fetuses, infants and children, the primary health effects of mercury are on neurological development. Even low levels of mercury exposure, such as result from a mother’s consumption of methyl mercury in dietary sources, can adversely affect the brain and nervous system. Impacts on memory, attention, language and other skills have been found in children exposed to moderate levels in the womb.”

“I feel it’s very important to warn people these ‘green’ bulbs contain mercury, which will end up in landfills throughout the country if we make the switch to them,” said Andrew Michrowski of the Ottawa-based Planetary Association for Clean Energy Inc. “In addition to filling our landfills with mercury, if the bulbs break you will be exposed to the mercury they contain.”

Michrowski urged people not to buy CFLs.

Where does the mercury go?

According to Ron Pushchak, a professor at Canada’s Ryerson University School of Occupational Health and Safety, CFLs are often broken when thrown out. The mercury vaporizes and travels with the wind in a northern direction and is deposited into the environment. It is then absorbed into plant and animal systems and soils.

EPA press officer Roxanne Smith acknowledged in an e-mail interview with the World that CFLs pose environmental risks. “Mercury releases can occur if CFLs break during transportation or during placement in the landfill,” she wrote. “Inorganic forms of mercury may be transformed into methyl mercury, which can cycle through the environment.” Small amounts of mercury can cause environmental problems for decades, ending up in the soil, water, air and living organisms.

Smith said that the “EPA does not have data on the accumulation of mercury from CFLs in landfills, so we cannot speculate on what may happen over time. Because mercury is an element, it remains at risk for release from landfills forever.”

EPA says it outweighs the risks

Smith reiterated that the environmental benefits of CFLs outweigh the risks. She said CFLs will help reduce mercury emissions because coal-fired plants, which account for 40 percent of mercury emissions in the U.S., will need to generate less electricity to power a CFL than a conventional bulb.

However, the EPA already plans to reduce mercury emissions generated by coal-fired plants by 70 percent by 2018, with or without CFLs, Michrowski pointed out.

Better recycling programs would help

One of the principal problems is the absence of a national curbside recycling pick up program for CFLs to prevent the release of mercury into the environment. What exists now is a hodgepodge of collection schemes that are not always easy to access. In some places, there are no recycling facilities available and it is left to the consumer to dispose of CFLs in a safe manner.

“The companies producing and selling these bulbs don’t have any economic interest in paying for a collection and disposal system, nor [for] the education of consumers. They just want to sell more product,” said Marc Brodine, chair of the U.S. Communist Party’s Environmental Commission.

The danger exists that tens of thousands of old CFLs will end up broken before or by the time they reach landfill sites, spewing more mercury into the environment, already at an alarmingly high level, according to scientists. Even if a recycling system were set up, there would likely be significant number of people who choose not to participate, something that occurs with all voluntary recycling programs.

Debate erupts for green builders

Michael Driedger, a Vancouver-based architect and building specialist who works with builders interested in using new green technologies to lower energy consumption, is aware of the flaws and limitations of CFLs. A major debate has erupted within his profession about the pros and cons of CFLs, and many architects are “now calling for lower mercury in lighting systems [CFLs].”

A voluntary rating program called Leadership, Energy and Environmental Design (LEED), established by the nonprofit U.S. Green Building Council to promote environmentally safe, sustainable building materials and technology, is now calling on architects and builders to use low-mercury CFLs.

“Many people, especially in the lighting industry, are waiting for the lighting industry to develop mercury-free light emitting diode (LED) lighting as a safe substitute for CFLs,” said Driedger. He said large companies such as General Electric are investing a lot of money to develop LEDs.

LED possibilities, limitations

While LED technology is available, technical barriers still need to be overcome. For instance, to use LEDs in residential housing an electrical converter would have to be installed to each light socket because LEDs use much less electricity than either a CFL or conventional bulb, said Driedger. The other hurdle is that LEDs do not generate any heat, so lights become frosted during cold weather. LEDs produce a point light but little diffuse light. LEDs would have to be mounted in new fixtures that reflect light off the ceiling to produce diffuse light, Driedger pointed out.

The lighting industry is now only targeting the commercial market, selling LED lights for outside fixtures — and Christmas lights — “because you can leave them on forever and there is hardly any electricity being used. In the next five years there will be a really big push for LED lights to become more mainstream,” Driedger predicted.

Natural light is best

In the meantime, as a safe alternative to CFLs, Michrowski recommended the following: “Use natural light to its fullest effect, including scheduling your tasks to take advantage of natural light; buy smaller wattage bulbs; use candles; buy LED bulbs. They do not contain mercury.”

Tim Pelzer (tpelzer@shaw.ca) is a Canadian journalist who writes frequently on international issues.

Safety and health starts with changing the workplace

Fri, 30 Nov 2007 07:13:00 +0000

After more than nine years of stalling, the federal Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) has finally taken the important step of establishing a federal regulation requiring employers to furnish, at no cost, all protective equipment that workers need. The new rule is to take effect in mid-May 2008, six months after its publication by OSHA.

Labor unions will have to make sure employers comply fully with the new requirement. Where there is no union, OSHA and state safety and health departments must act aggressively and not wait for a complaint from a worker who hasn’t been provided with the needed equipment.

Family members and friends of workers can also help enforce this rule. The new law is equivalent, in effect, to posting a sidewalk sign outside a construction site inviting the general public to call OSHA if work at the site is not being performed safely.

Safety boots, safety glasses, respirators, chemically resistant clothing, metal mesh gloves and hard hats are the most obvious items of personal protective equipment (PPEs). While federal rules governing worker exposure to asbestos, lead and other occupational health risks already require employers to furnish respirators, the new regulation can help assure employer compliance.

Engineering controls

But workers do not want to be outfitted head-to-toe with equipment that makes working an eight-hour day, plus overtime, miserable. In fact, employers could actually use this kind of regulation to avoid fixing the conditions of work. Don’t think some vengeful employers won’t do this. They will.

What is needed is for employers to improve the actual conditions of work so that no protective equipment is needed. And if some PPE remains necessary, employers should guarantee that the equipment will not be needed for a long period of time during the workday.

Such structurally corrective actions by employers are called “engineering controls.”

Engineering controls require industrial engineers and construction supervisors to make sure, for example, that all ventilation systems are working in top condition. Installation of safe and effective ventilation ducts and motors is a good first step. However, they need to be maintained in excellent condition so that they perform as effectively as when they were first installed.

There is nothing worse than having faulty protective systems which workers think are protecting them. An independent pro-worker maintenance group should be employed to thoroughly check such systems every six months. Employers also need to make sure all industrial solvents are used with the very minimum of worker exposure.

Administrative controls also help workers. These force employers to give workers time off between long work operations that involve repetitive motion. Administrative controls may even require the boss to employ one or more additional workers to help do the job.

Safety and health committees

But besides requiring personal protective equipment, engineering controls and administrative controls, there is no substitute for a powerful labor union to keep the employers honest.

Effective trade union education programs are essential to workers understanding their rights. And every local union needs a strong and educated safety and health committee as the first line of defense against employer neglect and abuse. This committee should have the full support of the union leadership, including the local’s executive board.

These committees are also the key source for on-the-ground information that can get federal and state officials to enforce the rules and regulations.

Shades of Green: Dec. 1

Fri, 30 Nov 2007 07:02:00 +0000

WORLD NOTES: Dec. 1

Fri, 30 Nov 2007 06:16:00 +0000

South Korea: Gov’t promotes North-South integration

South Korea’s National Assembly received a proposal from the South’s unification ministry Nov. 22 for an “Inter-Korean Cooperation Project.” The five-year plan was propelled by talks in October between leaders of South Korea and the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK, or North Korea).

Focusing initially on economic cooperation, the plan calls for assisting road and railway repair efforts in the DPRK; construction of a communications center at the Kaesong inter-Korean industrial site and the expansion of that site; joint shipyards; a new industrial zone in the DPRK; and establishment of offices in Seoul and Pyongyang, the two capitals, for permanent representatives. Cross-border rail cargo service begins Dec. 11.

The project is to eventually encompass bilateral denuclearization, “recovery of national identity,” humanitarian issues and establishing a legal framework for ongoing relations.

However, support from the administration that succeeds that of outgoing President Roh Moo-hyun, who steps down in February, is far from certain, according to the Hankyoreh web site.

Russia: Ford workers on strike

Workers at Russia’s largest foreign-owned car assembly factory, a Ford plant located near St. Petersburg, undertook a one-day warning strike Nov. 7 followed by an open-ended walkout starting Nov. 20.

Negotiators from the Interregional Automobile Workers Trade Union had failed after four months to secure a 30 percent wage hike and collective bargaining rights. Inflationary pressures have fueled demands nationwide for increased pay, according to laborstart.org.

Marina Pustilnik, writing for Moscow News Weekly, lamented that apart from 20 Renault workers picketing in front of a Ford dealership, the 1,500 striking Ford workers have gained little public support. “It’s a dog-eat-dog world out there these days,” she said. “We are all living in a market economy, holding on to our jobs for fear of losing them.” But on the other hand, she suggested, “maybe the Ford plant workers are setting an example for all of us.”

Afghanistan: Taliban gains ground

Joining NATO Secretary General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer at a Kabul press conference, Afghan President Hamid Karzai reported Nov. 22 on his government’s expanding contacts with Taliban leaders.

Scheffer took the occasion to denounce a Senlis Council report, released the day before, asserting Taliban control of 54 percent of Afghanistan (senliscouncil.net). The NATO chief called for member nations to step up troop contributions and efforts to equip and train Afghan soldiers.

According to Senlis, a European nongovernmental organization, the Taliban exercises “significant psychological control and gains, day by day, more legitimacy in the eyes of Afghans.”

“The question is not if the Taliban will arrive in Kabul,” the report adds, “but when ... and how.” Oxfam also issued a report recently that, according to aporrea.org, condemns the corruption of the Afghan central government and calls for preventive measures to blunt an expected humanitarian disaster in the country.

Nigeria: Leaders reject Pentagon buildup

At a meeting in Abuja Nov. 19, Nigerian President Umaru Yar’Adua, joined by his Council of State, announced Nigeria’s refusal to host a base operated by the U.S. military’s Africa Command (Africom), preferring instead to back a multi-nation African Standby Force.

The president called for other African nations to follow Nigeria’s lead.

In July the 14-nation Southern African Development Community rejected an expanded U.S. military presence in Africa, and Libya and South Africa recently condemned the initiative as aimed at protecting U.S. oil interests.

Last week U.S. Deputy Secretary of State John Negroponte toured African countries in search of support. So far, according to allAfrica.com, only Liberia has signed on with the Pentagon’s Africom, presently based in Stuttgart, Germany. Coincidently, the General Assembly of Nigeria’s Presbyterian Church issued a statement opposing a U.S. base in Nigeria as a potential threat to the country’s independence.

World Notes are compiled by W.T. Whitney Jr. (atwhit @megalink.net).

World celebrates Russian Revolution

Fri, 30 Nov 2007 06:14:00 +0000

MOSCOW — Over 20,000 people marched and rallied here Nov. 7 to celebrate the 90th anniversary of the Great October Revolution. The date marks the victory by the Russian working class and its peasant allies for political power, sending shockwaves around the world. Commemorative events involving thousands more were held across the country.

The demonstration was held after work hours. Since the counter-coup restoring capitalism in 1991, the national holiday on Nov. 7 has been abolished. It is part of the continuing attempt to wipe out memory of the Soviet heritage. To acknowledge the persistent strong feelings for the October Revolution but not openly embrace it, the Moscow city government organized a military parade of veterans on Nov. 4 to commemorate an event during World War II.

The temperature was frigid, but spirits were jubilant as marchers, beginning at Pushkin Square, poured down Tverskaya Street, Moscow’s main artery. The rally took place at Manezh Square, under the watchful eyes of a bust of Karl Marx.

The crowd, a cross section of all ages, included veterans who carried red flags, banners and signs blasting Russian President Vladimir Putin and his government’s policies. Also present was a contingent of representatives of 73 communist and workers parties who traveled from Minsk in the Republic of Belarus, where an international meeting was held Nov 3-5. A large delegation also traveled from Italy to participate.

The rally had a campaign atmosphere, since federal elections are fast approaching on Dec. 2. The Communist Party of the Russian Federation (CPRF) is fielding a slate of candidates headed by General Secretary Gennady Zyuganov, including Zhores Alferov, a Nobel Prize-winning physicist, and cosmonaut Svetlana Savitskaya, the second woman in space. The CPRF is the main opposition party to the Putin government.

In his speech, Zyuganov said, “There was no greater event during the 20th century than the October Revolution, and it has affected all of human history.” He recounted the achievements of socialism in the USSR that took a backward country into the 20th century, defeated Hitler fascism and became the first into space while providing free health care and education and low-cost housing for all.

Zyuganov said the capitalist counter-coup has brought on untold misery to the working class, resulting in a great gap in wealth, the looting of the people’s treasury and public assets by the new domestic capitalist oligarchs and global corporations, and the loss of basic economic and social protections. Zyuganov said the only way out of the mess was a return to socialism and urged the crowd to work hard to get out a big vote Dec. 2.

The BBC quoted Arseny Svidersky, an 18-year-old participant, as saying, “Some people thought that communism went into the past. We think it is a good idea for the future.”

In addition to the speeches, including greetings from the Communist parties of Greece and Italy, there was plenty of music and singing. The event ended with a fireworks display.

As part of the celebrations organized by the CPRF, a concert was held Nov. 6 in the historic House of Unions, featuring some of Russia’s most famous artists. It opened with the People’s Orchestra playing a famous Russian composition to a film montage of the history of the Soviet Union projected on a giant screen. People openly wept.

Among those giving solidarity greetings was the Cuban ambassador to Russia, Jorge Marti, who said the Great October Revolution touched every country and part of the world. He said humanity was at a crossroads and, in order to survive, a global transformation would have to be guided by the ideals of the revolution.

Also speaking was a representative of the Communist Party of China. He said the “root of the Chinese Revolution lies in the October Revolution, which introduced Marxism into China. We are taking our own path to socialism, but we will always remain loyal to the ideals of October.”

Svetlana Savitskaya recounted the story of Yuri Gagarin, the first human in space. She said he came from a poor family in a rural town. “Look what socialism did for him, what he and the scientific community achieved,” she said. “We want that for every child today — a future with free education and health care.”

The program ended with all the performers on stage. A chorus line of Young Pioneers, who have experienced a growth in membership in the last year, joined them in a very moving display.

Earlier in the day, Zyuganov and Tatyana Golubeva, general secretary of the Communist Party of Belarus, led the international delegation in a wreath-laying ceremony at the Lenin Mausoleum. Flowers were also left at the graves of other revolutionary heroes, including Communist Party USA leaders John Reed, William Foster, Charles Ruthenberg and Bill Haywood.

John Bachtell (jbachtell @rednet.org) represented the Communist Party USA at the Minsk meeting of Communist and workers’ parties and at the anniversary events in Moscow.

Colombias Uribe blocks prisoner exchange

Fri, 30 Nov 2007 06:08:00 +0000

Amid recriminations and hyperbole, Venezuela-Colombia relations have deteriorated following Colombian President Alvaro Uribe’s suspension of negotiations toward an exchange of 500 imprisoned combatants of the Revolutionary Army Forces of Colombia (FARC) for 45 prisoners held by the FARC, the left-wing guerrilla movement that has been fighting conservative Colombian governments since 1964.

Uribe’s spokesperson announced late Nov. 21 that Colombian Sen. Piedad Cordoba had lost the mandate Uribe had given her three months earlier to facilitate the negotiations. Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, who had been serving as mediator, was simultaneously dismissed. Uribe’s action came shortly after U.S. Ambassador William Brownfield criticized the negotiation process.

The trouble arose after Chavez supposedly violated Uribe’s ban on direct contacts with Colombian officials. According to reports, Cordoba was conferring by telephone with Mario Montoya, head of the Colombian armed forces, from Caracas, Venezuela, earlier that day when she handed the telephone to Chavez, whose conversation with the general lasted 30 seconds. Montoya was asked about the number of soldiers and police held by the FARC.

Foot-dragging by Uribe had already been apparent. The Colombian president recently accused FARC leaders of currying international favor. FARC leader Manuel Marulanda was forbidden to meet with Chavez, on pain of death, if he surfaced in Caracas. Later, Uribe agreed to such a meeting only if the FARC released prisoners beforehand.

For weeks the media had covered agitation for a humanitarian exchange from highly placed families of prisoners and hostages held by the FARC, including the families of three captured U.S. “drug war” mercenaries, and the family of Ingrid Betancourt, citizen of Colombia and France, whom the FARC seized during her 2002 presidential run.

French President Nicolas Sarkozy had discussed an exchange with Chavez in Paris the day before the process was ended. He spoke out for restarting negotiations, suggesting that “President Chavez is the best chance of securing the release of Ingrid Betancourt and all the other hostages.”

Colombian governments have long favored attempts at military rescue of the FARC’s prisoners over their negotiated release. Political opponents and hostage families have rejected what they call Uribe’s preference for “blood and fire” tactics. In 2005, talks on a humanitarian exchange ended abruptly following a shoot-out at a Bogota military academy. The shoot-out was widely believed to have been staged by the government.

The left coalition Alternative Democratic Pole joined opposition parties in denouncing Uribe’s action and attributing the government’s “warlike posture” to dependence on the “North American empire.” Washington’s Plan Colombia “delivers $2.5 million daily to the armed forces, more than Colombians themselves pay through war taxes,” according to a statement.

President Chavez responded to Uribe’s action initially on television by announcing that Venezuela “will be revising bilateral relations with Colombia,” adding that his “good faith has been betrayed.” In Colombia, he claimed, “the extreme right defends the idea they are going to finish with the guerrillas. It’s impossible.” Chavez saw Uribe as subservient to high military commanders and wealthy oligarchs.

Rhetoric has flourished since then with bite, color and serious import. “I’m putting relations with Colombia in the freezer,” Chavez said Nov. 25. He said he has “lost confidence with everyone in the Colombian government.” As far as reconciliation goes, “It’s impossible.”

Within hours, Uribe embellished a scheduled speech with charges that Chavez is “spreading an expansionist project on the continent” and desires “Colombia [to] be a victim of a terrorist government of the FARC.” He associated Chavez with “people who legitimize terrorism.”

In a television interview the next morning, Chavez accused the Colombian president of lying, adding, “We’ll have to wait for a new government in Colombia we can talk with. … I hope it arrives sooner than later.”

Chavez suggested that the controversy serves as a “smoke screen” for Uribe to obscure the scandals he faces over right-wing paramilitary infiltration of his government, epitomized by Chavez’s recent telephone partner. According to the Los Angeles Times, Gen. Montoya is a longtime practitioner of joint army-paramilitary operations against left-wing insurgents. Such operations are notorious for causing civilian deaths.

At the recent Ibero-American Summit in Chile, Uribe denied Chavez’s request to talk with Colombian military officers. “Don’t speak to my generals,” he joked. “You’ll return them to me as Chavistas.” Montoya was an unlikely candidate for conversion.

Meanwhile, Colombia’s Supreme Court is preparing to consider treason charges directed at Sen. Piedad Cordoba. The French government has offered her political asylum.

atwhit @megalink.net

Jewish Americans speak out for Middle East peace

Fri, 30 Nov 2007 06:06:00 +0000

CLEVELAND — Anna Baltzer, author of “Witness in Palestine: Journal of a Jewish American Woman in the Occupied Territories,” spoke on Nov. 19 at the Middle East Peace Forum here, a “culturally diverse group” committed to promote a just and lasting peace in the Middle East. Also speaking were Hannah Mermelstein and Alison Weir.

A graduate of Columbia University, Baltzer was a Fulbright scholar in Turkey in 2003 when she decided to visit neighboring Arab countries. Her grandmother, who had fled Europe and lost most of her family in the Holocaust, had always spoken of Israel as “a tiny victimized country” surrounded by hostile Arab regimes.

In Lebanon, Baltzer met a family of Palestinian refugees who told her of being violently expelled from their homeland. They spoke of military attacks, colonization, house demolitions, imprisonment without trial, torture and government-sponsored assassinations. At first she didn’t believe them.

She traveled to Palestine in late 2003 as a volunteer with the International Women’s Peace Service, a grassroots solidarity organization dedicated to documenting and nonviolently intervening in human rights abuses in the West Bank, and to supporting Palestinian-led nonviolent resistance to the occupation.

She said, “Nothing could have prepared me for witnessing firsthand the injustices that characterize Israeli rule in the West Bank, including the expansion of Jewish-only colonies on Palestinian land, the virtually unchecked brutality of soldiers and settlers against Palestinian civilians, and Israel’s Apartheid Wall, which separates hundreds of thousands of Palestinians from their land, jobs, hospitals, schools and each other.”

Mermelstein, a Jewish American raised in a Zionist household in Philadelphia, also served as a volunteer with the International Women’s Peace Service and is co-founder of Birthright Replugged, which takes Palestinian children to visit the home towns and villages from which their families were expelled.

Weir, who is not Jewish, is executive director of If Americans Knew and maintains that more non-Jewish Americans need to become outspoken on the plight of the Palestinians. The three activists insist the United States should “stop sending our tax dollars to Israel” for brutality and support boycotts of and divestment from American companies doing business in Israel.

Attention Ohio readers: If you have a story to share, contact Rick Nagin, ricknagin@yahoo.com, (216) 881-5350

Terrorist Posada is some kind of exception

Fri, 30 Nov 2007 05:45:00 +0000

It was “the first time the case of Luis Posada has been heard before Congress,” said Jose Pertierra, the Washington lawyer representing Venezuela in its request for Posada’s extradition. He was referring to the hearing Nov. 15 called by Rep. William Delahunt (D-Mass.), chair of a House foreign affairs subcommittee.

Reached by telephone in Caracas, Venezuela, Pertierra claimed the inquiry, carried out under a congressional mandate to review the functioning of the executive branch, “put a magnifying glass on the conduct” of the Bush administration. “Rather than prosecuting [Posada],” he declared, “the government has protected him.”

Posada, a Cuban exile, organized the bombing of Havana hotels in 1997 and plotted to assassinate Cuban President Fidel Castro in Panama in 2000. Arriving in Florida in March 2005, he was held on immigration charges from March 17 until May 8, 2007, when a federal judge, canceling his trial, freed him. He now walks the streets of Miami as a free man.

Together with fellow exile Orlando Bosch, Posada engineered the 1976 bombing of a Cuban airliner. Opening the hearing, Delahunt designated that crime, which caused the deaths of 73 people, as “the worst single act of international terrorism in this hemisphere prior to 9/11.”

Although Posada was arrested and faced trial in Venezuela for the crime, he escaped from jail there in 1985 with CIA help.

The hearing elicited comprehensive, compelling testimony as to Posada’s criminality and U.S. complicity.

Roseanne Persaud Nenninger set the stage. “I am here today,” she said, “to put a human face to the untimely end to my brother’s life,” killed in the 1976 airliner bombing while en route to Cuba to study medicine. “My father borrowed 80 chairs from the church to accommodate all the guests at Raymond’s farewell party ... the same chairs used for his wake and memorial service.”

Citing President Bush’s promise “to bringing to justice those who are involved in acts of terrorism,” Nenninger suggested that “in [Posada’s] case, there seems to be some sort of exception.”

Reviewing declassified U.S. intelligence documents, Peter Kornbluh of the National Security Archives demonstrated Posada’s prior knowledge of bombing plans, possession of a list of Cuban sites targeted for attacks, and his employment of two Venezuelans convicted of placing bombs on the plane.

Documents revealed that one of his employees called Posada immediately after the bombing and that U.S. intelligence sources identified Posada and Bosch as authors of the attack.

Ann Louise Bardach summarized information gathered from interviews with Posada she used in five New York Times articles appearing in 1998. Posada told her that Cuban exile groups in Florida and New Jersey had supplied money for him to arrange bombings of Havana hotels the year before.

Bardach reminded the committee that in 2003 the Miami FBI office closed its investigation of Posada, destroying relevant files and potential evidence in the process. Posada at the time was in jail in Panama for his part in plotting to kill Castro.

Freelance journalist Blake Fleetwood told about a long interview with Posada and Orlando Bosch recorded in 1977 inside their Venezuelan prison. Fleetwood said Posada told him: “I was on a CIA draw of $300 plus all expenses. The CIA helped me set up my detective agency from which we planned actions.” Posada boasted about murdering Cuban diplomats, bombing embassies and airline offices, and destroying the Cuban airliner, Fleetwood said.

Fleetwood reported that on learning of the interview, the CIA in Caracas set the Venezuelan secret police after him, necessitating a quick, surreptitious exit from the country. In September 2005, he offered prosecutors “this information, notes and tapes,” plus testimony — without a response.

Delahunt’s subcommittee heard from Posada’s lawyer Arturo Hernandez, who declared that Posada’s “singular mission [was] to combat Castro’s violent revolutionary communism ... wherever it has reared its ugly head” and “to avoid the Sovietization of Latin America.”

In his opening statement, Delahunt insisted, “America cannot have two rules for terrorists. There are no good terrorists or bad terrorists. There are only terrorists.” That Delahunt’s interest in Posada is not new is apparent from his pressure on the Justice Department shortly after Posada’s unacknowledged arrival in Florida to investigate “media reports of his presence.”

Delahunt anticipates more hearings on administration tolerance of terrorism, although no dates are set, according to Mark Forest, his chief of staff. Testimony is expected from the two men who placed the bombs on board the doomed Cuban airliner.

atwhit @megalink.net

French rail strike enters 8th day, spreads to civil servants

Thu, 22 Nov 2007 08:02:00 +0000

PARIS — French rail workers entered the eighth day of their nationwide strike to defend their hard-won retirement benefits on Nov. 21, buoyed by parallel strike actions by teachers, firefighters, utility workers, airport personnel, customs agents, tax inspectors, and weather service employees who walked out the day before in a dispute over proposed job cuts.

The transport workers strike is the largest nationwide labor battle in 12 years. Thousands of protesters took to the streets in support of the workers, and about half of the country’s public universities were shut down. Many high school students have also joined the solidarity actions.

French President Nicolas Sarkozy criticized the spreading strikes on Nov. 20, insisting he will not water down plans to cut the retirement benefits of public employees. Currently public employees can retire after working for 37.5 years; Sarkozy wants to increase that number to 40.

“France needs reforms to meet the challenges imposed on it by the world,” Sarkozy said in a speech to mayors. “These reforms have been too long in coming.” In recent days he has invoked the name of Margaret Thatcher, the notoriously anti-labor former British prime minister, as a positive example.

But the striking workers would have none of it.

Other issues are involved, too. The French have become increasingly concerned about their diminishing purchasing power. At least 48 percent of the population now cites their pay or income as their number one worry.

When Sarkozy was campaigning for president, he said his goal was not merely to keep purchasing power stable, but to increase it. Polls show that nearly three-quarters of the population believes his government has failed to deliver on this promise.

Sarkozy’s popularity has declined from 71 percent three weeks ago to 51 percent today, according to another poll.

The French Communist Party, during its election campaign earlier this year, called for increasing the minimum wage and boosting welfare benefits. It also called for a hike in the wages of the country’s public workers.

The French rail workers were also heartened by the giant strike by German transportation workers, which continues to paralyze much of Germany’s rail traffic.

Talks with the French transport unions were to start Nov. 21 and the government said state representatives would take part.

The CGT union federation estimated 700,000 people joined protest marches around France on Nov. 20 in defense of the civil service.

At a demonstration in Paris, the “Internationale” song of working-class solidarity blared from loudspeakers and marchers chanted “All as one!” They marched across the Left Bank to the gold-domed monument at Les Invalides, site of Napoleon’s tomb.

National newspapers were absent from kiosks as printers and distributors jumped on the strike bandwagon. Strike-hit France-Inter radio broadcast music and a message of apology instead of regular programming.

The Associated Press, L’Humanité and Mike Tolochko contributed to this story.

Middle East talks in Annapolis: photo-op or talk-fest?

Thu, 22 Nov 2007 05:09:00 +0000

Commentary

There is one thing certain about the international (or regional or bilateral) Middle East peace conference (or meeting or get-together) called by Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice (or George Bush or Elliott Abrams) for November (or maybe December): it’s going to be held in Annapolis, Md. (probably).

Rice’s sudden renewal of interest in and commitment to a new Middle East “peace process” has two main goals: buying support from Arab regimes for Washington’s war in Iraq and escalating threats against Iran, and providing a photo-op to restore Rice’s tarnished legacy. The agenda for the talks has not yet been finalized, but it will not include the goal of reversing Israeli occupation and dispossession and ending Israel’s discriminatory apartheid policies. Because of U.S.-Israeli control of the agenda, “success” in Annapolis will depend on whether the Palestinian leadership can be coerced to sign on to a U.S.-Israeli text that many Palestinians will view as further abandonment of Palestinian national goals, and many in international civil society will see as violations of international law and human rights. There are serious questions whether the meeting as currently envisioned will be convened at all because of Palestinian refusal to accept U.S.-backed Israeli preconditions. With the U.S.-Israeli-led international boycott remaining intact, the conference is unlikely to lead to any even short-term improvement in the humanitarian crisis exploding across Gaza. To elaborate:

There is serious doubt about even the official viability of the conference. Ten days from the anticipated opening, invitations have not been issued (because Arab governments and even the Palestinian leadership have not so far agreed to U.S.-Israeli terms), an agenda has not been announced, and no preliminary statement of goals and/or principles has been agreed to. Palestinian officials have so far — at least publicly — rejected at least some of Israel’s preconditions. Besides her urgent need to update her legacy (which is currently that of the person who stood before the world at the United Nations and announced “we don’t want a ceasefire yet” as Israeli jets bombarded Lebanon in summer 2006), Secretary Rice urgently needs to win flagging Arab government support for the Bush administration’s failing war and occupation in Iraq and its escalating mobilization against Iran.

While most Arab governments remain quite happy to join the U.S. crusade, their people do not share support for the occupation of Iraq or for the anti-Iranian fervor now ascendant in Washington. As a result, the unpopular and often unstable Arab regimes (absolute monarchies, family dynasties and military regimes masquerading as democracies) must provide some kind of concession for the Arab rulers to pacify their restive populations.

The latest version is to offer a high-profile (however low the results) diplomatic show aimed at allowing Arab governments to announce that the U.S. is now helping to give the Palestinians a state. As The New York Times described it, “Now the United States is mired in Iraq and looking for a way to build good will among Arab allies.” The Bush administration apparently anticipated that Arab governments, at the highest levels, would welcome invitations to Annapolis. But so far, even Jordan and Egypt, the two Arab governments with full diplomatic relations with Israel, have hesitated, and Saudi Arabia has remained unconvinced. Even if the Arab governments agree to participate, they may send low- to mid-level officials, without the political clout — and photo-op value — of kings and prime ministers. The stated U.S. goal for the Annapolis meeting is to realize a two-state solution. But in fact, if the conference takes place at all, the result will be to continue the approach of the long-moribund 2003 “Roadmap to Peace.” It will, at most, provide a high-visibility launch of a new edition of the same Israeli-Palestinian “peace process” that has failed so many times before: a process based on acceptance of Israeli dominance over Palestinian lives and territory.

Its real goal will be to create something that the U.S. can anoint as an “independent Palestinian state,” while leaving largely unchallenged Israeli strategic, military, and economic domination over the entire area of Israel-Palestine. The meeting’s agenda will not be based on what international law, as well as Palestinian and global public opinion, requires for a just, lasting and comprehensive settlement of the conflict: an end to Israeli occupation and settlement projects, realization of the Palestinians’ rights of self-determination and return, and an end to Israeli discrimination and apartheid policies. If the U.S.-Israeli goals for Annapolis are realized, they would probably lead to the following “two-state solution” results: Borders A Palestinian “state” would be announced on a series of non-contiguous truncated Bantustan-like cantons comprising something less than 50 percent of the West Bank plus Gaza. Israel might, with great fanfare, charitably “adjust” very slightly the current route of the Apartheid Wall to seize slightly less land that the current route (which Israeli Foreign Minister Tsipi Livni earlier announced would be the basis for any border). All of the West Bank’s major water aquifers will remain on the Israeli side of the wall. Settlements All the major West Bank settlement blocs would remain intact on the Israeli side of the wall, leaving between 180,000 and 200,000 of the current 250,000 West Bank settlers in place. With great fanfare, most of the 105 small symbolic “outpost” settlements constructed since 2001, which together house only about 2,000 settlers, will be dismantled. The entire Jordan Valley would remain in Israeli hands. In exchange, Palestinians would be offered a “land swap” which would almost certainly involve a significantly smaller amount of land, of far less arability and viability. Refugees The Palestinian right of return, codified not only in general international law but specifically in UN Resolution 194 (1949), has already been officially rejected by Israel but also by the United States, in the Bush-Sharon letter exchange of April 2004. Israel’s Annapolis agenda plans to reassert that rejection though a demand that the Palestinians accept language recognizing the “Jewish character” of Israel, or accepting the definition of Israel as “the state of the Jewish people” as opposed to a state of its own citizens.

So far Palestinian officials have indicated they will not accept that language, which Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert says is a precondition to any negotiations. The rejection of the right of return will be further entrenched by an Israeli “offer” to Palestinian refugees the privilege of “returning” to the erstwhile new “Palestinian state,” rather than the right to return to their actual home territory inside what is now Israel. Jerusalem International law (UN Security Council Resolution 181, which divided Palestine into what was supposed to become a Jewish and an Arab state) calls for Jerusalem to belong to neither state, but rather to be a “separate body” under international jurisdiction. Virtually no governments (not even the U.S.) recognize Israel’s annexation of occupied Arab East Jerusalem, and numerous UN resolutions have reaffirmed that East Jerusalem is occupied territory.

The Israeli settlements in East Jerusalem (known as neighborhoods, not settlements) include over 200,000 Israeli settlers, and they will remain in Israeli hands. The Israeli position in Annapolis will call for continuing Israeli control of all of Jerusalem, with some kind of Israeli-controlled “autonomy” for Palestinian neighborhoods and parts of the Old City’s Muslim shrines.

Other implications If the U.S.-Israeli agenda for Annapolis succeeds with an official Palestinian imprimatur, the already reduced legitimacy of the Palestinian Authority could diminish further, and the existing Palestinian political crisis, especially the Fatah-Hamas divide, could be seriously exacerbated.

It is important to remember that that the U.S. as well as Israel bears significant responsibility for the divisions, tensions and violence inside the Palestinian polity. In his leaked confidential report, former UN representative to the so-called Quartet, Peruvian diplomat Alvaro de Soto stated directly that “the U.S. clearly pushed for a confrontation between Fatah and Hamas — so much so that, a week before Mecca [the Saudi-brokered unity agreement between the two factions], the U.S. envoy declared twice in an envoys meeting in Washington how much ‘I like this violence,’ referring to the near-civil-war that was erupting in Gaza, in which civilians were being regularly killed and injured, because ‘it means that other Palestinians are resisting Hamas.’” The talks in Annapolis will likely not even address the current humanitarian (as well as political) crisis currently ravaging the 1.6 million people of Gaza. The U.S.-Israeli-led international boycott of Gaza, as well as Israel’s designation of Gaza as an “enemy entity” will remain in place.

Israel’s restrictions on the supply of fuel and electricity to Gaza have already began to bite; with electricity supplies down the availability of fresh water is diminishing, and the declining stocks of transport fuel are expected to reach crisis point some time in the next few days. New U.S. aid to the Palestinians recently proposed by the Bush administration remains stalled in Congress pending “success” at Annapolis; in any case, that aid is almost entirely limited to support, especially military/security assistance, for the Fatah-led government in Ramallah, with virtually nothing designated for the desperately impoverished Gaza Strip.

Phyllis Bennis is a Fellow of the Institute for Policy Studies and serves on the steering committee of the U.S. Campaign to End Israeli Occupation. She is author of “Understanding the Palestinian-Israeli Conflict: A Primer.” This article was prepared as a “Talking Points” item for United for Peace and Justice and was originally published on Nov. 17.

***

The following fact sheet was prepared by the U.S. Campaign to End the Israeli Occupation (www.endtheoccupation.org).

The Annapolis conference: toward a just Israeli-Palestinian peace — or apartheid?

On Nov. 26, the United States is scheduled to convene an Israeli-Palestinian peace conference in Annapolis, Md. This U.S. attempt at Israeli-Palestinian peacemaking is the highest-level effort made since the final collapse of the Oslo peace process in 2001.

Given the sustained U.S. diplomatic efforts that have gone into convening this conference and its potential to reframe public discourse in the United States about Israel/Palestine, the U.S. Campaign to End the Israeli Occupation has put together this fact sheet to raise critical questions for the public and for policy makers, the answers to which will determine if this conference will be successful.

Is the United States willing to be an ‘honest broker’?

Previous U.S. attempts at Israeli-Palestinian peacemaking have foundered because the United States has failed to act as “honest broker.” The United States cannot simultaneously provide Israel with uncritical military and diplomatic support and function as an even-handed mediator.

Moreover, the Annapolis conference comes just three months after the United States and Israel signed a memorandum of understanding for an additional $30 billion in U.S. military aid for Israel over the next 10 years. This proposed increase in military aid for Israel comes despite clear and ongoing Israeli violations of the U.S. Arms Export Control and Foreign Assistance Acts.

The United States has an obligation under domestic law to sanction Israel for its continued misuse of U.S. arms. It also has an obligation to follow the 2004 advisory opinion of the International Court of Justice, which ruled that no country can “render aid or assistance in maintaining the situation created” by Israel’s construction of an illegal wall in the occupied Palestinian West Bank.

Will the conference manage Israel’s occupation or aim to resolve core issues?

If recent history is a guide, the conference will do little more than try to buy time for Israel to complete its colonization of West Bank land. Rather than ending Israel’s illegal military occupation of Palestinian territory, the Oslo peace process sought to create mechanisms to better manage occupation while Israel doubled the number of its settlers.

The peace process shifted the burdens of military occupation from Israel, as required by the Fourth Geneva Convention, to a powerless Palestinian Authority, creating the illusion that Palestinians were now a self-governing people with functioning, sovereign institutions. In reality, the Oslo peace process provided Israel with an opportunity to deepen and entrench its military occupation of Palestinian lands.

Unfortunately, a recent bipartisan letter from members of Congress to Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice reveals that the likely agenda for the Annapolis conference again will deal with managing the humanitarian catastrophe created by Israel’s military occupation and siege policies, rather than ending these policies. The letter, written by Reps. Gary Ackerman (D-N.Y.) and Charles Boustany (R-La.), speaks of new U.S. assistance programs because “the immediate needs of the Palestinian people are for clean government, public order, economic opportunity and salaried employment.”

Increased U.S. humanitarian assistance to the Palestinian people cannot replace core issues such as ending Israel’s occupation, the status of Jerusalem, guaranteeing Palestinian refugees their right of return, and Palestinian self-determination.

Is the envisioned peace based on human rights and international law or on the consolidation of Israeli apartheid?

For a just and lasting peace to be established, the United States and Israel must recognize Palestinian individual and collective human rights guaranteed under international law. These rights include ending Israel’s illegal military occupation and colonization of Palestinian lands, the right of Palestinian refugees to return to their homes and properties, the right of Palestinian citizens in Israel to full equality, and the Palestinian people’s right to self-determination. Anything less than the acknowledgment and implementation of these rights will perpetuate Israel’s system of apartheid rule over the Palestinian people and fail to bring about a just and lasting peace.

What actions can we take?

Many well-meaning people and organizations made a fateful decision to demobilize their civil society efforts to achieve a just and lasting Israeli-Palestinian peace when the Oslo peace process was launched in 1993. Many assumed mistakenly that official negotiations were all that was then needed to bring about a just and lasting peace.

We should have learned from that mistake and not repeat it again. Now is the time to launch public awareness and corporate accountability campaigns, including campaigns of boycott, divestment, and sanctions (BDS) against Israel and corporations that profit from its human rights violations. Now is the time to continue to pressure our decision makers to insist that the United States truly become an “honest broker” and uphold the tenets of human rights, international law, and equality for all as our country’s policy toward Israel/Palestine.

Who are the real American gangsters?

Wed, 21 Nov 2007 10:33:00 +0000

Movie review

American Gangster Directed by Ridley Scott Universal Pictures, 2007 157 minutes, rated R

If you want fast-paced, episodic plotting and the latest Hollywood version of “Super Fly,” go see “American Gangster.” But whether you’ve seen it or not, here is my opinion. And I’m 65 years old and come from these same streets by way of St. Louis, Chicago and New York, so I not only do I have an opinion, but I have a qualified one at that!

What is the fascination with American gangsters? Or perhaps a more precise question would be: why the present fascination? There have always been gangster movies; many of us are old enough to remember James Cagney, Edward G. Robinson and Humphrey Bogart who were the OG’s (old gangsters) of the silver screen of the 1930s, ’40s and ’50s.

Later on came “The Untouchables” television series with Robert Stack, narrated by Walter Winchell. Back then, when capitalism was very sanctimonious and hypocritical about law and order, and the “American way of life” consisted simply of “good guys” and “bad guys” — or the “cops” and the “robbers” — it was usually the good guys and the cops who always won.

You will notice that today there is no clear line of demarcation between “good” and “bad,” and good doesn’t always win. And having lived through this era of bifurcated hypocrisy, I can really appreciate the fact of people pointing out, as Frank Lucas (played by Denzel Washington) does repeatedly in “American Gangster,” that the gangsterism on the streets is a mirror reflection of the gangsterism in the suites. At any rate, most of us who are still involuntary denizens of the ghetto have learned, not just from reading, but living in the school of hard knocks, that greed is the universal creed of capitalism and that not money, but the lack of money, is the root of all evil.

The thief or gangster (who is the member of a gang of organized thieves) has often been portrayed as the hero of American pop culture because, after all, independence and freedom of movement is predicated on money. The way most poor people look at it is that they don’t have any problem that money can’t solve.

How money is acquired becomes insignificant compared to the freedom and power it renders, and this applies to ghetto gangsters and Wall Street gangsters alike. “American Gangster,” the movie, is sort of like the Horatio Alger story, ghetto-style. In fact, Lucas (the protagonist and antagonist wrapped into one) invokes the Protestant work ethic and paints a clear picture that in America, if you want to succeed, then you gotta do what you gotta do: murder, extortion, corrupting public officials (especially cops) and let’s not leave out, if you are an African American gangster, being a participant in the genocide perpetrated against your own people.

In the end, any gangster has to put on a facade of morality for his public image, because in point of fact he must be relentlessly go about his business, which is to make money. He has no permanent friends, just permanent interests, in his quest to make more money for as long as he can make it last. And this is about as far as the movie goes with the truth.

In real life, there are mobsters like Meyer Lansky who never went to jail. They make Lucas look like a midget, throwing pebbles at Paul Bunyan. In Mario Puzo’s “Godfather,” the mobsters get away with their crimes and live like kings — but not Lucas: there is no equal opportunity for Black folk period, not even in crime.

Incidentally, we must not leave out of this inequality the fact that it is the Rockefeller law that has made the prisons in New York overwhelmingly Black and Latino. Bumpy Johnson, Frank Lucas and Nicky Barnes were Black. They were members of an oppressed part of the social order. They rose to their zeniths by exploiting and oppressing Black people in ways that would disgrace a nation of savages, to use the words of Frederick Douglass.

What could they expect to get out of the system except what they got: destroyed?

What this movie is really about is a stupidly “honest” cop, Richie Roberts (Russell Crowe), who is incorruptible. He captures and gets together with a brutally “honest” gangster (Lucas), who thrives on corruption, to make a deal so together they can get rid of the dirty cops. The irony of all this is that there is this “honest” cop who is secretly working for the government and not only uses Lucas, but also a handful of “scumbag” cops to do his cleanup job.

Anyway that’s the plot, but what’s revealed as the movie unfolds is that nobody is clean — they’re all dirty, right on up to the drug “war lords” in Washington, and that is truly the moral of this flick.

Check it out: government troops (and they were not all Black and low-ranking MPs) provide Lucas with the vehicle he needs for getting his heroin from the Southeast Asian poppy fields. And the Italian mob, who were also being secretly supplied by Lucas, are Nicky Barnes’ suppliers.

Frank and Nicky go to jail, but the government and the mob, as we all know, are still in business in Harlem and throughout these United States. The real bad guys are always slippery in that they always get away!

Finally, I can’t resist mentioning that there was a much more powerful moral in the documentary movie “Mr. Untouchable.” In the end, Frank James sends the message to Nicky Barnes: Tell the young people not to follow in our footsteps, because we really didn’t do anything positive.

The real gangsters are still at the top, where they’ve always been. What a difference there is between fantasy and reality. Hollywood makes money off of the fantasy, and we’re stuck with the reality. It’s not going to change until we change it!

20,000 protest torture school at Fort Benning

Wed, 21 Nov 2007 08:49:00 +0000

In what has become the nation’s largest annual gathering for peace and human rights, over 20,000 people protested outside the gates of Fort Benning, Ga., on Nov. 18. Eleven people were arrested on federal criminal charges and face up to six months in prison.

Fort Benning is the site of the internationally notorious U.S. Army training school for Latin American military and security personnel. For decades it was called the School of the Americas (SOA). It is now called the Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation (WHINSEC).

The school has graduated hundreds of military officers who have lead or participated in nearly every human rights atrocity in the hemisphere. Organizations across the world, including Amnesty International USA, have called for its closure since discovering copies of torture manuals used at the school.

In June 2007, 203 members of the U.S. House of Representatives voted to close the scandal-ridden school, six votes shy of the margin of victory.

This year thousands listened quietly as Adriana Portillo-Bartow told how her father, stepmother, sister, sister-in-law and two daughters, ages 9 and 11, were “disappeared” in Guatemala in a war directed and carried out by graduates of the U.S. Army School of the Americas.

Thousands moved towards the gates of the Fort Benning compound and called out “presente!” as the names of hundreds of other victims of graduates of the school were sung out.

Veterans of World War II, Korea, Vietnam and the never-ending Gulf wars marched side by side with Catholic sisters and Buddhist monks. Flowers, posters, pictures and thousands of small white crosses bearing the names of people executed by graduates of the school were put on the closed padlocked gates topped with barbed wire.

Thousands of college and high school students chanted and prayed alongside Grandmothers for Peace as military loudspeakers blared warnings and law enforcement helicopters hovered overhead. Huge puppets, singing children and drum circles alternated with the spirited calls of priests and rabbis and ministers of many faiths and races. Songs in many languages, indigenous chants, guitars, horns and mountain flutes filled the air.

The 11 people who crossed onto the grounds were arrested by military police. The eleven, ranging in age from 25 to 76, are scheduled for federal criminal trial on Jan. 28 for trespass punishable up to six months in federal prison.

Over 200 people have served federal prison time for civil disobedience at prior protests; dozens of others arrested have served years of supervised federal probation.

The movement to close the school started in 1990 when about 20 people held the first protest outside Fort Benning.

Even if the U.S. government is reluctant to close the school, Latin American countries look like they will do it themselves. Argentina, Bolivia, Costa Rica, Uruguay and Venezuela have announced they are withdrawing their militaries from the school.

Crimes by graduates continue. Colombia recently arrested five high-ranking military officers who received training at the U.S. Army School of Americas and two additional officers who were instructors at WHINSEC. All are charged with providing security and troops for the major drug cartel in Colombia.

Simultaneous protests occurred in Santiago, Chile; Tucson, Ariz. outside of Fort Huachuca (where three people were also arrested and face federal criminal charges); Toronto, Canada; as well as Berkeley and Monterey, Calif.

For more on the movement to close the School of the Americas, visit www.soaw.org.

Bill Quigley is a human rights lawyer and professor at Loyola University New Orleans College of Law. He is also a member of the legal collective of School of Americas Watch.

Who is Ron Paul?

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

It is relatively easy to see why far-right presidential candidate Ron Paul of Texas is driving some of the other Republicans crazy. He clearly won the straw poll after their first debate. On Nov. 5, he set a one-day fund-raising record through the Internet. Polls show that, although he is still far behind the big-money candidates, he is beating TV star Fred Thompson and in a dead heat with war hero John McCain.

So-called “conservative” candidates customarily lure voters with nostalgia for earlier times. They play into a natural disdain for today’s values and events when compared to those of our own youth. “Why, when I was coming up ...” begins many a complaint in ordinary political conversation. Successful Republicans, especially the current occupant of the White House, imply that, if elected, they can and will physically turn our clocks and calendars backward.

Ron Paul bedevils the other Republican hopefuls because he goes much further with that fantastic promise than they do. Instead of asking, “ Who is Ron Paul,” it is much more appropriate to ask, “ When is Ron Paul?” There is absolutely no argument that Dr. Paul would make the best president of the United States that the 16th century could offer.

A quick glance at Paul’s campaign positions as listed on www.ronpaul2008.com, his campaign web site, shows they have a certain simple-minded appeal. Alone among the Republicans, he opposes Bush’s wars and occupations abroad. He absolutely despises “so called free trade deals and world governmental organizations like the International Criminal Court (ICC), NAFTA, GATT, WTO and CAFTA.” He wants to stop the NAFTA highway. He condemns government spying on the citizenry, and would like to overturn the Patriot Act. He seems to support Social Security, even though he oversimplifies the issue of taxing benefits and is completely mistaken about undocumented workers’ receiving Social Security payments.

Many of Ron Paul’s other stated positions may raise antennae. As one might expect, he is strongly pro-gun and anti-abortion. He condemns the United Nations. He opposes eminent domain, not because it is misused for corporate interests but because he believes “property is sacred.” He wants to return to the gold standard. His proposed legislation for a federal voucher system would completely undermine public education. He says, “I support giving educational control back to parents.” Ron Paul is thoroughly anti-immigrant. He sees no reason why government should play any role whatsoever in stopping racism.

What Rep. Ron Paul advocates, in short, is the idea that raw capitalism, its “invisible hand” unchecked by centuries of democratic workers’ struggle, would solve all ills in 2008. It would be true, if our ills were those of serfdom or outright slavery. Capitalism did, indeed, put an end to barbarism and bring in an economic system with incredibly higher standards of production and fewer horrors from the caprices of royal aristocrats. But that was 400 years ago, and this is now.

Jim Lane is a labor activist in Dallas.