People Before Profit blog

U.S.-Mexico anti-drug plan sparks uproar

Fri, 30 Nov 2007 09:15:00 +0000

A hullabaloo has arisen over a secretly negotiated anti-drug proposal that would include new U.S. funds for Mexican and Central American security forces.

The deal, finalized in a meeting in Merida, the capital of Mexico’s Yucatan state, was announced Oct. 22 by President Bush. Under its terms, the U.S. is to give an initial $500 million to Mexico and another $50 million to the Central American nations to beef up their drug-, crime- and terrorism-fighting capacity. The total would reach $1.4 billion over three years.

Mexican legislators were upset that President Felipe Calderon had asked Bush for the money without their permission. They were not soothed by the Calderon administration’s response that since it is all U.S. money, their authorization was not legally required beforehand.

Progressive activists in Mexico are worried about the consequences of the “Merida Initiative” for civil rights and national sovereignty. Some are calling it “Plan Mexico,” a term the government rejects because it sounds so much like “Plan Colombia,” the massive U.S. intervention on the side of right-wing President Alvaro Uribe in that country’s civil war.

A country where living standards of many people have declined sharply in recent years, Mexico is boiling with civil conflicts, ranging from multiple foci of labor unrest to long-running conflicts in the southern states of Oaxaca and Chiapas.

Upon taking power after a questionable electoral victory over left-leaning Mexico City Mayor Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador last year, Calderon, of the right-wing National Action Party, quickly mobilized the Mexican army to strike spectacular blows against the drug cartels. This strategy has U.S. support and also some internal popularity. But “La mano dura” (“the firm hand”) against crime in Latin America has a tendency to be turned against political dissidence.

And the Mexican army, like the various police agencies, does not have clean hands and is not apolitical. In 1996, then-President Ernesto Zedillo appointed army Major General Jesus Gutierrez Rebollo as the new drug czar. The general quickly pounced on the Tijuana cartel. But then it was discovered he was being paid off by the Juarez cartel, whose leaders were grateful to him for wiping out their competition. And a group of Mexican army special anti-drug operations officers trained at Fort Benning, Ga., ended up setting up their own violent drug operation.

The Merida Initiative has to be seen in the context of the Security and Prosperity Partnership (SPP), a process of economic and security integration involving Mexico, the U.S. and Canada that began in 2005.

The SPP’s purpose is to strengthen the support mechanisms of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) by increasing coordination and investment in superstructure and security coordination among the three countries. It also was initiated without authorization of their legislatures, and is run by committees of big businesspeople, evidently to evade democratic accountability.

There are serious worries in Canada and Mexico that the SPP will allow U.S. imperialism to tighten its grip on its two neighbors, besides making sure Mexico does not begin to explore integration into the Bolivarian Alternatives for the Americas, the anti-imperialist economic integration project initiated by Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez.

Though protests against the SPP and now the Merida Initiative have arisen from the left in Canada and Mexico, they have mostly caused hyperventilation among the far right in the United States. While progressives in Mexico and Canada have seen the SPP as an imperialist power grab by the Bush administration, anti-immigrant circles in the U.S. are yelling about a Mexico-Canadian takeover of our country. This coincides with lurid racist propaganda about (imaginary) Mexican plans for a “reconquista” (“reconquest”) via an “immigrant invasion” of Southwestern states.

On Nov. 14 the House Foreign Affairs Committee held public hearings on the Merida Initiative. The Bush administration got pounded by both the Democrats and the far-right Republicans. Anti-Mexican representative Tom Tancredo (R-Colo.) declared that the Mexican government could not be expected to fight against the drug cartels because Mexico is one big drug cartel.

Committee chair Tom Lantos (D-Calif.) sharply criticized the Bush administration for its underhanded negotiation of the arrangement, adding, “The administration’s focus is on the symptom — the massive flow of drugs from Latin America to the United States — rather than the cure, which would clearly be long-term, balanced economic development in the region.”

Labor leaves no stone unturned

Fri, 30 Nov 2007 09:02:00 +0000

Organized labor is flexing its muscles, showing that it is tired of taking it on the chin. If the unions have their way, between now and Election Day 2008, even the ultra-right lock on the White House and Congress could be broken.

Unions flexed their muscles in off-year election campaigns that ended in victories Nov. 6. Thousands of union members combed neighborhoods, buttonholed people at worksites and operated phone banks to rack up wins for labor at the polling places.

Nowhere was this truer than in Kentucky, where incumbent Republican Gov. Ernie Fletcher is now job hunting.

“This was payback time,” said Bill Londrigan, Kentucky’s AFL-CIO president. Fletcher was hated by labor because he had cancelled collective bargaining rights for state workers. He had privatized Medicaid and had advocated wage rollbacks for state workers. His opponent, Democrat Steve Beshear, won by a 20-point margin. Fifty-eight percent cited the economy, education or health care as their top reason for voting for him.

Cusp of a major shift

The figures support conclusions drawn right after the election by AFL-CIO President John Sweeney, who said, “We’re on the cusp of a shift that could re-define American politics for decades to come. Working people want real health care reform that covers every American. They want their freedom to form and join unions restored. They want to stop the hemorrhaging of good, middle-class jobs out of the country and they want a secure retirement.”

If labor achieves its aim of duplicating the way it operated in Kentucky this year all over the country next year, the right wing could be in serious trouble. Seven thousand union members who live in the Bluegrass State worked on labor’s campaign. They distributed 465,000 leaflets on a one-on-one, face-to-face basis at workplaces and at workers’ homes. Some 65,000 of those distributions were done on Election Day. In the last four days of the campaign, 2,100 union members made 75,000 phone calls to “pull” union voters out to the polls. On the last Saturday, 440 union members talked to 8,000 union families in their homes.

Close NLRB for ‘renovations’

Labor’s growing offensive against the right seems to be leaving no stone unturned. On Nov. 16, unions staged mass marches and rallies in more than 20 cities across the country, demanding that the National Labor Relations Board be “closed for renovations.” The unions were saying, essentially, that when you have a corporate-friendly NLRB in charge of protecting workers’ rights, it is akin to the old tale of the fox guarding the henhouse.

In Nashville, Tenn., a very evil-looking, 6-foot-tall fox took the role of the NLRB as union members marched in front of the board’s regional office to protest its long line of anti-labor decisions since President Bush took control.

The NLRB decisions the unions are out in the streets protesting include the board’s elimination of the right of some 8 million people, including nurses, building and construction trade workers, journalists and others, to form unions by expanding the definition of “supervisor.” The NLRB has issued 60 rulings that make it harder for workers to form unions but easier to get rid of existing unions; make it easier for employers to escape liability for breaking the law and weaken already ineffective remedies; and make it easier for employers to discriminate against union supporters and to replace strikers.

Three thousand trade unionists marched and rallied at NLRB headquarters in Washington, D.C., while thousands more marched or rallied at other events in Chicago, Cleveland, Denver, Detroit, Grand Rapids, Mich., Los Angeles, Pittsburgh, Portland, Ore., St. Louis and Tampa, Fla. In Albuquerque, N.M., union members were joined by community and religious activists and city and state lawmakers in a rally outside the federal building, drawing cheers and honks of support from pedestrians and drivers passing by. NLRB Chairman Robert Battista, who is supposed to be unbiased and neutral when it comes to workers, unions and labor law, issued a statement calling the protests “shrill.”

New level of militancy

Labor’s upsurge is not limited to elections, fighting for manufacturing jobs, labor organizing rights, health care and fair trade policy and fighting against the anti-union efforts of the Bush administration. The struggle for wages and justice at the workplace is also high on its agenda these days. Recent and current strikes seem to display a new level of militancy. In the first strike in its 121-year history, the stagehands’ union local in New York has shut down much of Broadway, while a walkout by 12,000 Hollywood writers is creating problems for television and film producers. These strikes come close on the heels of strikes by 74,000 workers at General Motors and 45,000 at Chrysler.

When 350 stagehands went on strike Nov. 16, closing down 27 Broadway shows, it was after the producers announced a policy that would reduce the number of stagehands per production as well as the overtime that stagehands would receive.

GM and Chrysler workers went on strike after the automakers demanded reduction of their responsibility for retiree health plans and a lower wage scale for new hires.

Whether the strikes result in victories is a question, but what is not in question is the high level of readiness by both unions and their members to use the strike weapon when they feel it is necessary.

The Writers Guild took to the picket lines after Hollywood producers refused to increase the payments they give writers from sales of DVDs and refused to offer extra payments when writers’ work was used in new media like the Internet or cell phone transmissions. Many writers were furious that the producers continued to offer them only 5 cents in payment per DVD.

Sleeping giant awakes

These highly publicized strikes are by no means the only ones that show a new level of union militancy. Six hundred nurses went on strike two months ago at Appalachian Regional Healthcare, a chain of nine hospitals in West Virginia and eastern Kentucky. The strike was the nurses’ response to management demands for higher health insurance premiums, less holiday pay and cuts in paid hours.

The heightened activity by labor includes a dramatic increase in organizing. In the last year alone, unions have organized tens of thousands of low-wage workers, particularly at hotels and in child care, janitorial service and home health care.

When you put all these trends together, many observers say, you see a sleeping giant waking up.

John Wojcik (jwojcik @pww.org) is People’s Weekly World labor editor.

LETTERS: Dec. 1

Fri, 30 Nov 2007 07:27:00 +0000

Peace Talk Radio

For the past five months I’ve had a program called Peace Talk Radio on Saturdays, 9-11 a.m. Central Standard Time on KNDS Radio, 105.9 FM. The signal doesn’t go much over 25 miles, but you can listen by “streaming” on your computer at www.kndsradio.com.

Peace Talk Radio is dedicated to exploring the possibilities for peace on our planet through inspiring dialog, creative solutions and a firm belief in the goodness of humanity. We are against war as a method of solving human problems. We invite people who have experienced discrimination based on race, economics, gender, religion, disability or whatever, to come to the station or call in to our program and tell your story. We believe that personal stories can reach the hearts of a sleepy public and build bridges of caring, compassion and community.

It is not a “hot talk” program and we will not tolerate hate calls. You can phone in to get on the air, or just to give us your input, at (701) 231-6703. You can also e-mail us at peacepeacetalk@yahoo.com.

Lew Lubka Fargo ND

Hiroshima motives

Re “Not everyone wanted to bomb Hiroshima” (PWW 11/17-23):

The quotes from military leaders against the bombing, including Gen. Dwight Eisenhower, Adm. William Leahy and Adm. William Halsey, are important to understand the decision to use the bomb.

Of particular importance are their statements that Japan was ready to surrender. Especially noteworthy is Halsey’s statement that “the first atomic bomb was an unnecessary experiment,” as the Japanese had “put out a lot of peace feelers through Russia long before.”

And Leahy’s statement that “the Japanese were already defeated and ready to surrender” needs to be emphasized. The overwhelming sentiment of the American people at that time was that a U.S. invasion of Japan was imminent and that tens of thousands of our soldiers’ lives would be sacrificed. Justification for use of the bomb is based on this belief.

It was fortified by the experiences of the Pacific war, wherein Japanese soldiers would not surrender under any conditions, and would fight until they were all killed or committed suicide. There was reason to believe fighting on Japanese soil would be block by block, village by village, and that the country’s civilians would be commandeered to “defend the motherland,” an experience our soldiers had already gone through in Europe.

Paul Tibbets Jr., pilot of the Enola Gay, argued throughout his lifetime that the bombing was just because he, like most Americans, believed we faced the above scenario. The statements of our top military leaders that the invasion could have been avoided are not part of public knowledge, and need to be broadcast widely if the real political motivation behind the bombing is to be exposed.

Are the policies of the Bush administration — control of the global economy through military means (we’ve got the bomb!) — the logical outcome of that catastrophic event of Aug. 6, 1945?

Wally Kaufman Geneva OH

New Jersey Shangri-la

When I read the article about West Milford, N.J. (“Something’s rotten in Shangri-la” PWW 10/13-19), I was interested because I live nearby.

I have little faith in most of the people in the region voting intelligently because far too many of them, although very nice people, still live by the “it’s your fault you’re not doing well” mentality — until it happens to them. In my town, we just elected our first Democrat in at least 50 years (or ever, for all I know) to the town council, by two votes.

Neighboring Ringwood just shot itself in the foot. Four or five years ago when two gas stations leaked MTBE into the ground, in part because the all-Republican town council didn’t regulate or didn’t care, hundreds or thousands of homes could no longer drink the water from their wells and Mobil has been paying for bottled water ever since — until the town can hook up the homes to public water. Another area of Ringwood has a toxic dump, now a Superfund site, that’s causing cancer and was bubbling up toxic chemicals into lawns, courtesy of the closed Ford Mahwah plant, which dumped waste paint in an abandoned mine with permission of the Ringwood town council of the time. And the council president of four years ago, who owned a landscaping business, magically obtained waivers no one else could get for developers to build on steep slopes next to a reservoir. Subsequently, effluent was found to be polluting the reservoir and it had to be corrected.

Four years ago, Ringwood replaced four (I think) of seven Republican council members with pro-environment Democrats. I don’t know the Democrats’ record or progress, if any, but I guess the Ringwood residents decided this year that they actually prefer their well water with MTBE, pollution of the reservoir and the toxic dump, because they replaced all the new Democrats with Republicans again! If that’s any indication of where we’re going as a country, it’s not looking good for intelligence — or democracy.

Name withheld Wanaque NJ

Need machine guns?

An ad in the Fort Worth Star Telegram says people can buy an AR-15 assault rifle or a Barrett .50-caliber machine gun. There are two motivational lines, “Cheaper than dirt!” and “Get them before Hillary does!”

Can we get any crazier?

Jim Lane Dallas TX

Electoral College

Your story (PWW 11/10-16) on the California Republican initiative to let each House district elect its own presidential elector seems to imagine that the Democratic Party is helpless to fight back. But the Democratic Party is free to circulate similar initiatives in the 17 states that voted for George W. Bush (and that have the initiative process). That could include Florida and Ohio.

Also the Democratic Party controls both houses of the legislature and the governorship in North Carolina, Arkansas and New Mexico (which voted for Bush in 2004), and could pass such bills in those states early next year.

The Democratic Party has been the victim of the Electoral College in 1824, 1876, 1888 and 2000. The party should use its muscle to pass the National Popular Vote Plan to end the Electoral College system. In the meantime, the California initiative, and initiatives in “red” states, will help to end the Electoral College by making it painfully obvious to everyone what a stupid system it is.

Richard Winger San Francisco CA

EDITORIAL: Mortgages & mayors

Fri, 30 Nov 2007 07:21:00 +0000

The U.S. Conference of Mayors released a dramatic new report this week, predicting the mortgage foreclosure crisis will cause big economic losses in cities around the country.

The report, “The Mortgage Crisis: Economic and Fiscal Implications for Metro Areas,” was unveiled at a meeting of mayors, mortgage industry representatives and community organizations in Detroit.

“The foreclosure crisis is no longer just about mortgages; entire neighborhoods are being negatively affected on several levels,” Detroit Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick told the gathering. “This issue is now the number one economic challenge of many major American cities.”

The report predicts that lost economic growth will reach $166 billion, over half a million fewer jobs will be created next year and billions will be lost in tax revenues.

Among other findings: at least 1.4 million more foreclosures can be expected next year, overall economic growth will be a percentage point less because of the crisis and the nation’s homeowners will lose $1.2 trillion in home equity.

The report calls for more education and counseling of borrowers, reform of the Federal Housing Administration, and support for laws to end predatory lending and prevent loan abuses in the future.

But as the 2008 elections approach, a more far-reaching agenda is needed to revitalize cities and rural areas. Federal, state, county and city governments all have a role. Among needed components:

• truly affordable housing for low- and moderate-income buyers and renters;

• many new jobs with wages and benefits to support a family;

• outreach, education and comprehensive services to bring into the workforce unemployed and discouraged workers and people with barriers to employment;

• public works projects to rebuild crucial infrastructure including schools, public transit, roads and bridges.

• health care reform bringing quality, affordable care to all U.S. residents.

All this and much more could be funded by shifting hundreds of billions from war-making in Iraq and around the globe.

Such an agenda would begin to redress the devastation corporate profit-gouging has caused for our cities and for working-class people throughout the country, with specially dire consequences for the racially oppressed, women and youth.

Largest Veterans Day parade goes to Phoenix

Fri, 16 Nov 2007 08:22:00 +0000

The Veterans Day parade in Phoenix, Ariz., claims to be the largest in the country. It certainly was long and well attended.

Among the floats in the parade was one from Veterans for Peace, an organization that had been banned from many previous parades. The float featured 104 pairs of boots representing every Arizonan that was killed in the current Iraq and Afghanistan wars.

Other Arizona peace groups, including members of CodePink, Grandmas for Peace, Ladies in Black, azpeace.org, and members of the Phoenix club of the Communist Party USA, helped build the float.

Last year many of the parade watchers turned their backs on Veterans for Peace. This year only a few did, and antiwar activists got many encouraging waves.

India's Communists decontaminate a radioactive deal

Fri, 09 Nov 2007 06:36:00 +0000

NewsAnalysis

On Oct. 12, India’s Congress Party threw in the towel. Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and the leader of the United Progressive Alliance, Sonia Gandhi, said they would step back from the U.S.-India nuclear deal.

“If the deal does not come through,” Singh said plaintively, “that is not the end of life. In politics, we must survive short-term battles to address long-term concerns.”

The Communists, who led the opposition to the deal, won the short-term battle. They argued that the nuclear deal, whose origins go back to 2005, is only one part of a wider embrace between the Indian and U.S. governments. Apart from nuclear cooperation, the alliance is geared toward partnership between India and the United States in “democracy promotion,” the opening up of the Indian economy to unleashed turbo-capitalism, and a strategic military alliance.

The U.S. architects of this linkage saw the last point as the lever: U.S. State Department official Christina Rocca said in 2002, “Military-to-military cooperation is now producing tangible progress towards [the] objective [of] strategic, diplomatic and political cooperation as well as sound economic ties.”

In other words, Wal-Mart would follow the USS Nimitz into Chennai harbor. Seen in this way, the Communist challenge is not restricted to the nuclear deal, although its defeat gives momentum to wider struggles against the drawing in of India to the platform of U.S.-led imperialism.

From 2005 onward, the Communists led a nationwide fight to reveal the class basis of these deals.

The deals are not without their benefit to a certain kind of India. Entrepreneurs would get quid pro quo tie-ins with U.S. firms, and Indian arms dealers and nuclear businesses would benefit from the commerce. The fact of an alliance would give a cultural fillip to the growing Indian middle class, for whom its “arrival” on the world stage could be signaled by this deal (including a permanent seat on the UN Security Council).

As the debate over the deal heated up in India, the navies of the Quad (Australia, India, Japan, and the U.S.) held a war game off the western coast of India.

The Communists used this act to highlight the implications of the deal. One jatha (column) of protesters left Kolkata and the other left Chennai to converge on the port city of Vishakapatnam on Sept. 8 for a massive rally. This was a contemporary version of Gandhi’s Salt March.

Back in Delhi a few days later, the Communist Party of India (Marxist)’s general secretary, Prakash Karat, led a march to Parliament and said, “We demand that the government not proceed with the deal unless it satisfies the people’s objections.” A month later, this is just what the Congress Party had to do.

In a Parliament of 545 members, the Communist bloc is only 60. These parliamentarians come in the main from West Bengal, Kerala and Tripura, the three areas where the left has a very strong presence. Elsewhere in the country, the left has pockets of influence, but is unable to translate this into electoral terms (drawing in about 2 percent of the votes at most).

The bulk of the Parliament is divided between two blocs, the soft-right Congress and its allies (217 seats) and the hard-right BJP and its allies (185 seats). Regional parties that do not line up with these three major blocs hold the remaining 78 seats (among them the largest is a party close to the left, the Samajwadi or Socialist Party, with 36 seats; although it has long since jettisoned its socialism for a corrupt populism).

The elite and middle class are split between the hard- and soft-right on such issues as their attitude toward what in India is called communalism (fundamentalism). On issues of social and economic welfare, the two blocs are virtually indistinguishable, except that the Congress Party has within it an old Gandhian section that is yet to be extinguished.

That Gandhian legacy has enabled the otherwise “party of free markets” to be held to a Common Minimum Program with the left on issues such as agrarian policy, with the left supporting the Congress government from the outside. The left, therefore, was the only brake against the enthusiasm of the elite and middle class, both of whom wanted to drown themselves in President Bush’s spittle.

Meanwhile, Robinder Sachdev of USINPAC (which aspires to be the Indian version of the Israeli lobby) said that the emerging opposition to the deal within the U.S. Congress startled him. “It is like being penny wise and pound foolish,” he said. “U.S. industry will benefit from the nuclear deal.”

Sachdev’s honesty was decried by his friends in the nuclear commerce world. As GE India’s CEO T.P. Chopra told a Wharton School periodical, “The last thing we want is to give ammunition to the left-wing parties. They would love to project the U.S. as greedy capitalists selling the country for a few dollars more. Business will keep silent until it’s signed, sealed and delivered.”

In Mumbai, the Communists held a public rally where they condemned all talk of a nuclear deal. In terms of the U.S.-India deal specifically, the CPI(M)’s Karat said, “It is part of the strategic and military relations that the U.S. wants to have with India.” It would never be allowed, he said.

In Delhi, meanwhile, Prime Minister Singh said, “I have not given up hope yet.” Hope is all that remains for the convenience-seeking bourgeoisie: the spectacle of advanced capitalism beckons, even if the price is to be paid by the millions “left behind.”

Vijay Prashad is the George and Martha Kellner Chair of South Asian History at Trinity College, Hartford, Conn. His latest book is “The Darker Nations: A People’s History of the Third World” (New Press, 2007).

B.J. Mangaoang, longtime Communist leader, 92

Fri, 02 Nov 2007 07:50:00 +0000

B.J. Mangaoang, a longtime leader of the Communist Party of Washington state, died Oct. 20 at the age of 92.

B.J. was born Baba Jean Sears in a homestead house in Bellevue, Wash., in 1915. She grew up in the then-rural area with her brother John.

In her political life, B.J. was principled, dedicated and persistent, inspiring many with her devotion and consistency. She participated in peace movements against the Korean War, the Vietnam War, the first Gulf War, and the current Iraq war. She was active in the civil rights movement, the labor movement and in many other local and state struggles.

She actively participated in the movement for socialism until her death. Her life’s work was recently honored at the western regional conference of the Communist Party USA and at the annual dinner of Jobs with Justice in Washington state. The next meeting of the King County Labor Council will have a moment of silence to honor B.J. for her union work.

As a student at the University of Washington (UW) in the 1930s, B.J. became radicalized by events of that time, including the 1934 longshore strike, and by some of her professors who introduced her to Marxism. Joining the Communist Party in the late 1930s, she also joined the mass movements of the time: the Washington Commonwealth Federation and the Washington Pension Union.

In 1940, she sang with Woody Guthrie and Pete Seeger while driving them to union meetings to perform.

In the late 1940s, B.J. lived in Tacoma, Wash., and helped lead housing struggles. She married her first husband, Robert Decker, with whom she had a daughter, Susie. In 1950, she ran for Congress on the Progressive Party ticket.

During the 50s she helped lead the fight against prosecution of CP state leaders under the Smith Act, and fought against the Canwell Committee, set up by the state Legislature in part to get radicals fired from the UW staff, including several who had been her professors, Joe Butterworth and “Scoop” Phillips.

She attended the historic Peace Arch Concert given by Paul Robeson at the border between the U.S. and Canada in 1952. The great African American signer and activist had been invited to perform for a Mine, Mill and Smelter Workers union convention in Vancouver, British Columbia, but couldn’t cross the border because his passport had been revoked, so instead the convention (and many other people) came to the border to hear him sing.

She married her second husband, Ernesto Mangaoang, a leader of the Cannery Workers Union, ILWU, in 1954, and helped him in his successful fight against deportation for his political and union organizing activities, a legal case that was finally settled by a Supreme Court decision. They had a daughter, Juana, in 1955.

When Ernesto became ill, B.J. began working for the Mechanical Engineering Department of the UW as a secretary. She became an elected member of the executive board of Local 1488, Washington Federation of State Employees, AFSCME, where she served for many years. She was widowed in 1968.

In the mid-1960s, B.J. became organizational secretary for the CP of Washington state, while continuing her full-time job. In 1975, she became district organizer, doing full-time political work. She held that post for 25 years, retiring in her mid-80s, while continuing as a member of the party’s state committee.

She was a member of the CP’s national committee, and chaired sessions at several national conventions. She frequently testified before the Seattle City Council and the King County Council on issues of public concern, from utility rate hikes to police misconduct. She helped defeat the “loyalty oath” for candidates for public office in the state.

B.J. ran for mayor of Seattle in 1977, and for governor in 1988, when she garnered over 6,000 votes.

B.J. was an avid gardener, loved sharing good food with friends, and enjoyed driving into the mountains of western Washington, stopping to sit by streams and read. She loved opera and played piano. Several years ago, she moved into senior housing at Council House in Seattle, where she played an active role in activities from card playing to building governance to peace gatherings.

All her life, B.J. lived a life rich in principles, rich in participation, rich in connections to and commitment to others. She was a mentor, teacher, comrade, leader and an inspiration.

B.J. is survived by her daughters, Susie Hunt and Juana Mangaoang, and by grandchildren Rosario Sprague, Vonetta Mangaoang, and Francesca Mangaoang-Brodine, and Will Hunt.

LETTERS: Nov. 3

Fri, 02 Nov 2007 07:20:00 +0000

Hotel workers deserve insurance

I would like to inform the public about the Holiday Inn Capitol in Old Sacramento. The problem is many of the workers are at risk of losing health insurance because the Holiday Inn is proposing to double the number of hours that we have to work to be covered. That could mean no insurance for many workers, especially those in the restaurant and at banquets. They’re even proposing to take away Labor Day as a paid holiday.

We work hard and we deserve better. I work right by the Holiday Inn and I see a lot of people stay there. But if it wasn’t for the workers, there wouldn’t be a hotel. The workers deserve health insurance. The public needs to know what’s going on. There were a couple of protests, but I feel more people need to know what’s going on.

Stop staying at that place where the workers are not treated right. They deserve health insurance.

Mautuse Myles Sacramento CA

Disaster contract

The new contract negotiated between the UAW and GM is a gut wrenching sellout. I was glad to see some reader indignation with your coverage of the issue on your letters to the editor page.

In the ’80s, when I still read The New York Times, I saw a story titled “Tragic Saga of a Steel Worker” accompanied by a picture of the worker himself. I had worked in the plant in question long, long before, and had grown up with the man. He had become head of the local — 20,000 strong — and had counseled his men to trust management’s promise to stay if the workers agreed to the concessions demanded. The local voted in favor of the contract, the plant was closed, he lost his job, his wife divorced him, and his son was killed in an auto accident.

I stopped reading the Times 20 years ago because it raised expectations of truth and courage in its reporting that it never fulfilled.

Your reporting of the UAW story, as one of your readers said in his letter, was bad. The negotiations were held in secret behind the backs of the membership. Two-tier and VEBA were already known as disastrous to the workers in plants where they had been agreed to. And here again, the company’s word is taken on trust — with loopholes big enough to drive an SUV through.

One of your readers says in his letter that it crossed his mind to cancel his sub. Well, it crossed mine too.

Pete Gourfain Brooklyn NY

Better coverage

It’s been interesting to see the development of your auto coverage over the past weeks. I know that first article in the wake of the GM strike, “Autoworkers buoyed by solidarity” (PWW 9/29-10/5), just included a roundup of press reports on what the GM-UAW agreement without any reaction from autoworkers. But then as your coverage proceeded and you got more reactions from GM — and Chrysler workers — then the outrage and problems of two-tier and VEBA were clearly reported.

You also put the two-tier system from that Chrysler plant in Belvidere, Ill., as a canary in the coal mine for the autoworkers way back in the summer by going there and talking to the workers, too. (“Auto union fights for ‘American way of life,’” PWW 7/28-8/3).

Paula Michaels Mishawaka IN

Public interest reporting on health care

That was a good article “Supporters rally for universal care” (PWW 10/6-12). It seems to me one of the biggest hopes we have is in the journalists — especially getting stuff somehow into the mainstream media and repeatedly making three points clearly to the public:

1. If they think government creates a bureaucracy, they should look at how much money is being wasted by the health insurance companies and their efforts to deny payments for treatment, and how much the administration of health care costs when administered by private companies as compared to those administered by Medicare.

2. The difficulty people have getting preventive care with health insurance companies is one of the main reasons behind the spiraling health care costs in the United States.

3. Those who are happy with their insurance are often happy because they don’t realize the liabilities it carries.

Thanks again for the article.

Michael Paransky Laguna Beach CA

Climate chaos and capitalism

Mark Brodine’s column, “Gore, global warming and the whole damn thing,” was followed by an article in the Oct. 26 edition of The New York Times, headlined “UN warns of rapid decay of environment.” The UN report, as reported, agreed with Brodine in many ways in that it warned of a coming breakdown of our planet’s environment from multiple problems. But as Brodine pointed out in his column, the reasons causing this approaching breakdown were listed as “population growth” and “unsustainable consumption” patterns by the earth’s existing population, without mentioning the role of the capitalist system. Yet the executive director of the UN’s Environment Program was quoted as saying, “The more realistic, ethical and practical issue is to accelerate human well-being and make more rational use of the resources we have on this planet.”

Exactly what socialism would bring to world! I look to forward to further discussion of environmental issues from a socialist perspective.

Blair Bertaccini Waterbury CT

Mortgage crisis and dialectics

The home mortgage crisis is a classic case of Marxist dialectical principle of “appearance and essence.” It is reported by the media that it is the poor who are the cause of the collapse of the subprime lenders, resulting in the contagion in the banking industry. Yet the essence of the problem is the insatiable greed of the homebuilding monopolies driving the ever-increasing prices up, taking profits for the capitalist class every step of the way.

The working class is driven to get in before it gets more prohibitive to buy — to buy low and sell high, taking your equity as money in the bank, building the illusion of wealth until the collapse of the housing prices. It’s when you can’t make enough on a salary or wage that you get the notion of a scheme like buying into the capitalist ploy of get rich quick on your housing investment. Somewhere, the equity has to be shouldered by someone down the pyramid.

Let’s think of a new way to build communities where housing is not a form of feeding frenzy. By the way, let’s not just get mad with the oil companies, and the media monopolies and the health insurance monopolies Capitalism is thriving in the loan shark industry, as well as with the big-time homebuilders.

Rob McElwain Phoenix AZ

EDITORIAL: War on Iran? Dj vu

Fri, 02 Nov 2007 07:15:00 +0000

We cannot allow the Bush administration to use the “war on terrorism” or its brand of “democracy” as an excuse to attack Iran, whether with sanctions or military force.

Iran has not attacked anyone. The claims that Iran is developing nuclear weapons are no more believable than the claims that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction before the U.S. invasion.

The truth is that many in U.S. ruling circles, particularly the U.S.-based oil multinationals who have such good friends in the Bush-Cheney White House, have never accepted Iran’s nationalization of its oil industry in 1951 under then-Prime Minister Mohammad Mossadegh.

It is widely acknowledged that the U.S. orchestrated a 1953 coup d’etat that removed Mossadegh. The multinationals are now busy trying to dismantle Iraq’s state-owned oil industry and steal that country’s oil wealth. They would love nothing more than to do the same with Iran. The more oil they grab, the more money they can make.

Every time Bush talks tough on Iran or Iraq, the price of oil stock goes up. The price at the pump for Americans goes up even more. Americans know that all of these “wars for oil” are wars for oil profits.

It is up to the Iraqi and Iranian people to decide, however, what they will do with their oil and who their leaders should be.

Differences among nations must be resolved through diplomacy. Shoot-first-and-think-later policies are disastrous, as we see in Iraq. By contrast, negotiations have proven very successful on North Korea’s nuclear weapons issues.

It’s shocking that this administration, which so outrageously misled the public before, would try to do it again. But if we don’t speak out loud and clear, they could get away with it, again. Contact your senators and representatives and the presidential candidates now, and tell them “No war with Iran. We want a new foreign policy based on diplomacy and international cooperation.”

Egypts untouchables

Fri, 02 Nov 2007 05:47:00 +0000

Commentary

Egypt’s independent, nongovernmental press is trying to cope with government regulations that stifle freedom of speech and deny the public access to balanced news coverage. Last month, some newspapers decided to write about Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak and his son Gamal. Most of what was written was old news to the average Egyptian — Mubarak’s health is a serious question, and he is grooming Gamal to succeed him.

But what happened afterwards is the real news. The government sued all those independent newspapers, and in less than a month, a verdict was handed down to jail 11 Egyptian journalists, five of them editors-in-chief. Nearly two dozen Egyptian newspapers struck and suspended publication to protest the jailings.

The latest crackdown on Egypt’s liberal media came soon after the crackdown on the Muslim Brotherhood movement. It sent a clear message to the Egyptian public that all forms of opposition, even peaceful ones, will be treated the same, although the amount and type of repression inflicted on different opposition groups may vary.

Mubarak has been in power since October 1981. He was re-elected in 2005 in a highly controversial election boycotted by most influential opposition parties. After the election, Mubarak promised transparency and power-sharing and assured the wary public there is no plan whatsoever to appoint his son as a successor.

In no time, however, Gamal Mubarak was appointed head of the policies committee, which makes him in reality the second most powerful figure in Egypt. And Gamal began to draft and dictate the country’s domestic and foreign policies as well.

As a friend of mine said, “Mubarak’s family owns the land of Egypt, so they have every right to manage it their way. They are the untouchables.”