People Before Profit blog

Oh, Canada! Wherefore art thy drugs so cheap?

Fri, 31 Oct 2003 05:40:00 +0000

A toe-to-toe “people versus profits” slugging match is under way over the issue of importing prescription drugs from Canada. On the side of profit protection are the giant pharmaceutical companies and the Bush administration. Arrayed against them are outraged constituents by the thousands, now joined by state and local elected officials, demanding that Congress act to legalize the importation that is swelling like a river at flood stage.

The drug industry fears the potential collapse of a price structure that allows it to comply with government price controls in other countries while charging all the traffic will bear in the U.S.

In an October Washington Post/ABC News survey, 69 percent of those polled said importing drugs from Canada and European countries should be legal. Responding to this public outcry, a bipartisan House majority has passed HR 2427, a bill allowing importation from the industrial countries. The Congressional Budget Office says it would save consumers $40 billion over ten years.

The bill passed over the strong opposition of the Bush administration and the drug industry, which has spent a record $29 million on lobbying thus far in 2003. The Pharmaceutical Manufacturing and Research Association (PhRMA) alone invested $8.5 million in lobbying in the first six months of the year. Eli Lilly spent $2.9 million; Bristol-Myers Squibb, $2.6 million; Johnson & Johnson, $2.2 million; Hoffman-LaRoche, $2 million; and Pfizer, $1.8 million.

Rep. Gil Gutknecht (R-Minn.) described the drug industry campaign as “the most intensive full-court press,” adding that “members who had been here 20 years said they had not seen anything like it.” The lobbying has paid off richly in that neither the Senate nor the House Medicare prescription drug legislation contains language to curb pharmaceutical prices. In fact, the House bill expressly forbids Medicare from using its bulk purchasing clout to negotiate lower prices.

But the issue of Canada’s lower priced drugs keeps buzzing angrily, like a hornet trapped in a sedan. Ignoring the sour public relations side effects, five major drug companies have now cut back on sales of their products to Canadian pharmacies. Eli Lilly, GlaxoSmithKline, AstraZeneca, Wyeth and Pfizer are limiting their deliveries to an amount calculated to supply the Canadian market – and not one capsule more.

The Food and Drug Administration is piously mouthing the same anti-importation arguments as the industry it is supposed to regulate, contending that counterfeit, over-aged and tampered-with drugs are rife among the imports. The FDA is trying to shut down the largest chain of stores that helps Americans buy drugs from Canada.

But a thorough investigation ordered by Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich demonstrated that “Canadian procedures for safety are comparable and sometimes even better” than those in the U.S. “That’s a very powerful finding,” the governor said. The Blagojevich study showed that Illinois would save as much as $90.7 million a year if drugs for active and retired state employees were bought in Canada.

Along with Blagojevich, the governors of Minnesota, Iowa, and Wisconsin are researching the possibility of easing their budget crises by importing drugs. “The reason you have the beginnings of a prairie rebellion here is that there is a crisis and nobody has properly responded,” said Republican Gov. Tim Pawlenty of Minnesota, announcing a program to help state residents purchase drugs from approved Canadian pharmacists. New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg is also probing the Canadian option.

Senator Edward Kennedy (D-Mass.) and other Massachusetts Congress members have also called on the FDA to reverse its anti-imports stand. “In light of the enormous impact of high drug prices on U.S. citizens, it is simply not sufficient to assert that pharmaceuticals may not be safe or effective without advancing a proposal that would resolve these concerns,” the Massachusetts delegation wrote to FDA Commissioner Mark McClellan.

In Springfield, Mass., Mayor Michael Albano has petitioned McClellan “to waive, change or cancel FDA’s interpretation of statutes and regulations” that bar importation. Blagojevich presented his 70-page report on Canadian drug safety to the FDA and other Bush administration officials on Oct. 27. “We have a lot of ammunition now,” he said. “And it’s hard to stop an idea whose time has come.” The FDA, said Blagojevich, “cannot ignore the people forever.”

The author can be reached at pscsc@qwest.net

GOP to challenge Black voters in Louisville

Fri, 31 Oct 2003 05:32:00 +0000

LOUISVILLE, Ky. – The Republican Party has appointed voter challengers to work election day in the 59 precincts in Louisville where African Americans are concentrated. The GOP-assigned challengers will work at polls in west and central Louisville and in Portland and Newburgh, but there will be no challengers in the whiter and wealthier eastern precincts.

Raoul Cunningham, NAACP voter registration director, and Georgia Powers, a civil rights leader and former state senator, condemned the appointment of challengers as a blatant attempt to intimidate and suppress the vote in African American areas. County Democratic Party Chairman Tim Longmeyer blasted the GOP challenging plan as an effort to intimidate African American voters.

County Republican Chairman Jack Richardson IV asserted that the challengers are needed to assure that the voters are bona fide and claimed that the precincts were chosen at random.

Under Kentucky law, any political party may place a challenger at each poll. The challenger has the right to question the credentials of any voter. Unless an election officer rules that the challenge is not valid, a voter whose credentials are challenged must sign an oath swearing that he or she is a legitimate voter in order to cast a ballot. The Democratic Party does not plan to use challengers.

Kentucky is one of only three states that will be voting this November for a new governor. The Kentucky governor’s race is hotly contested. Republican Congressman Ernie Fletcher is opposed by Democratic Attorney General Ben Chandler, who is waging his campaign against the Bush economic policies that brought hardships to Kentucky. Fletcher, a physician who voted no on the patients’ bill of rights, has strongly supported the Bush agenda. Fletcher’s campaign has benefited from the generosity of the pharmaceutical companies, and Fletcher has strongly opposed the re-importation of prescription drugs from Canada. Patients could save as much as two-thirds on their drugs bills by buying through Canada.

The winner of the Nov. 4 election is expected to lead by no more than a nose, and if Chandler is to win he needs an overwhelming majority in Louisville, particularly in the African American communities.

Kentucky, with an overwhelming Democratic registration, voted for Bush in 2000 and is often described as a bellwether state. Political observers say the Kentucky governor’s race will be a referendum on the Bush presidency.

The author can be reached at pww@pww.org

Community activist gets labor backing

Fri, 31 Oct 2003 04:20:00 +0000

LAWRENCE, Mass. – Community activist Martina M. Cruz was recently endorsed by the Merrimack Valley Central Labor Council in her run for School Committee here. Cruz is one of three candidates being endorsed by the labor council in this year’s municipal elections.

Cruz said, “I am proud to have the endorsement of the organizations that represent the working people of Lawrence and the rest of the Merrimack Valley.”

Cruz, a pre-school teacher, has been a longtime supporter of workers and their unions. Shortly before the endorsement, Cruz participated at a rally in support of workers fired for union organizing at Telcom, a Lawrence plastics items manufacturer. At the rally, Robert Haynes, president of the Massachusetts AFL-CIO, urged her to seek the Central Labor Council endorsement.

“One of the reasons I got into this race was because of the way the bilingual teachers were being treated,” Cruz said. Under the new state law that outlaws bilingual education in favor of an “English-immersion” plan, bilingual teachers were fired for “lack of fluency” in English. Cruz, who met with the fired teachers, said, “I am outraged at what they did.” She explained that the test consisted of calling bilingual teachers on the phone to listen to their accents. She indicated that she would fight for fairness for the teachers. Reports from other municipalities indicate that the same method was used in other districts.

The new English-immersion law was passed in a referendum last year and implemented this past September. Cruz, who was one of the Lawrence organizers in support of bilingual education, said, “The ultra-right’s slogan urging people to ‘teach English’ fooled many people. Today we have children coming from Puerto Rico or the Dominican Republic and being put into all-English classes, where the teachers are prohibited from using Spanish to teach them. I know of classes where other students are made to translate for these students. This is not fair to the new student and it is not fair to the other students who are there to learn, not to work translating,” Cruz said.

Noting that the labor movement put resources against the anti-bilingual efforts, Cruz said that she would make the fight for bilingual education a priority.

Carmen Chalas, host of a popular local radio talk show, called Cruz “a real activist and leader.” Cruz told the listening audience that her campaign should be seen “as part of my activism.” She is one of the organizers of local peace activities, was the main organizer in getting people to New York for the recent immigrant rights rally, and is the local contact and legislative liaison for a campaign to provide state-funded universal pre-school programs.

Philadelphia mayoral race heats up

Fri, 31 Oct 2003 04:16:00 +0000

PHILADELPHIA – With only a few days left before the mayoral election, Democratic Mayor John Street, the city’s second African American mayor, reportedly has a 5 percent lead in the polls against Sam Katz, his Republican opponent, with 12 percent of voters undecided.

It seems that the discovery of an FBI eavesdropping device in Street’s office and a wide-ranging federal investigation into city contracts just as the campaign started has angered many voters and resulted in increased support for Street.

When U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft visited Philadelphia to speak at a meeting of the International Chiefs of Police, the city’s three congressmen demanded to meet with him regarding the FBI investigation. Ashcroft refused.

A poll showed that 62 percent of all Philadelphia voters and 88 percent of Black voters believe the FBI investigation is a dirty trick by Republicans in Washington, D.C.

Street has the support of many unions, including the Philadelphia Federation of Teachers, the Building Trades and AFSCME District Council 47, which represents white-collar city workers. But District Council 33, which represents the city’s blue-collar workers, a majority of them Black, is supporting Katz. Two of its 14 locals, however, have rebuked that decision and are supporting Street. Those locals represent sanitation workers and Department of Welfare workers.

In a statement released Oct. 24, the Communist Party of Eastern Pennsylvania and Delaware charged the White House with “dirty tricks” in the Philadelphia mayoral election.

“The incursion of the FBI in Philadelphia’s election is clearly a plot to destroy and defeat a Black mayor and clear the way for a Republican takeover,” the statement said. “Only with the use of racism could they possibly get away with it. George Bush wants a Republican victory in Philadelphia at any price.”

The statement, titled “Put an end to the racist plot for a Republican takeover of Philadelphia!” asks, “How many times in the history of the United States have mayors or city governments been exposed for corruption? Many, many times! How many times has the FBI intervened in exposing such corruption in the midst of an election? And, how many white mayors have faced such attacks? None!”

Noting Bush’s silence in the face of the FBI actions, the statement continues, “And what about Sam Katz? Are not free and democratic choices touted as the pride of our system’s free elections? Why has he lent credence to this sorry state? No, not a word of anger or protest at the destruction of free elections, if not for the use of racism from Katz.

“The attacks against Mayor Street are vicious racist acts that threaten the most democratic forms of our government and all of our people. Our right to free elections is being destroyed.”

The statement concludes: “Call. Write. Demand the Justice Department stop all racist persecution now! It is incumbent upon all those to whom racism is repellent, to whom democracy is treasured, to go to the polls on November 4th to defeat the attack against democracy.”

In many ways this year’s mayoral election in Philadelphia, where Al Gore amassed a 4 to 1 margin over George Bush in 2000, will set the stage for the November 2004 elections.

The author can be reached at phillyrose1@earthlink.net

Southern Calif. fires raise hard questions

Fri, 31 Oct 2003 04:07:00 +0000

Progressives throughout Southern California are asking some hard questions regarding the devastating and deadly fires sweeping the area, from just north of Los Angeles through San Bernardino and San Diego counties and into Mexico.

In a letter to the editor circulated via e-mail, one woman writes:

“At a time of massive tragic fires that have taken lives, destroyed homes and devastated families in San Diego, it is time to ask some hard questions.

“Where are the State National Guard personnel, whose original mission has always been to do rescue work in the event of natural disasters? Why are they in Iraq and Afghanistan fighting wars while U.S. citizens are left to fend for themselves?

“Where are the firefighting helicopters that drop fire retardants and water in major fires? Why are they shooting people in foreign lands when they are needed for rescue work at home? … It is time to reverse the trend in this country that neglects the public sector, supports only profit-driven enterprises and always, the military, at the expense of everything else. A country that spends all its resources meddling in foreign lands and does not care for its own citizens in need does not deserve our support. It’s time to speak out! No more silence!”

Seventeen deaths have already been reported and nearly 2,000 homes have been destroyed. More than 100,000 people have been evacuated. The California Governor’s Office of Emergency Services says a total of 14 fires are now burning, nine of them major. More than 11,000 firefighters, including emergency back-up from the nearby states of Nevada and Arizona, are battling the flames. The area has been declared a major disaster.

One PWW/Mundo reader called from San Diego, which is surrounded by three major fires, to report on the serious situation people faced there. The air quality is so bad – full of smoke and ash – that schools, campuses and the shipyards have been closed. People are urged to stay indoors. The United Food and Commercial Workers have suspended their area picket lines at supermarket chains Ralphs, Vons and Albertsons. Only essential government workers are on duty and the infrastructure, especially water and electricity, are stressed. Many people are wearing masks and respirators when outside.

“Besides the issues of public resources being siphoned off by war and occupation in Iraq, the over-development of wilderness areas by real estate interests has also contributed greatly to this disaster,” the reader said.

National Clips

Thu, 30 Oct 2003 10:49:00 +0000

NORTHAMPTON, Mass.: More cities reject Patriot Act

The grassroots movement to defend democratic rights and reject the Patriot Act now represents 25.5 million Americans as Bisbee, Ariz., Robbinsdale, Minn., and Urbana, N.Y. all declared their respective municipalities “civil liberties safe zones.”

The Bill of Rights Defense Committee (BORDC), based here, launched the campaign to pass resolutions in local, county and state governments in November 2001, just after Congress passed the Bush administration’s Patriot Act. About 200 cities have now gone on record against the Act.

“This movement of cities, towns, and states passing resolutions against the Patriot Act and certain executive orders has helped educate people across the country about threats to their libraries and has encouraged Congress to propose fixes,” said BORDC Director Nancy Albanian.

PHILADELPHIA: Going to court to defend free speech

Bill Neel, a retired Pittsburgh steelworker, decided to protest President Bush’s economic policies during his visit on Labor Day, 2002. Police forced Neel onto a remote baseball diamond. “I could see people behind the fence (around the diamond), with their faces up against it and their hands on the wire,” Neel recalled. “It looked more like a concentration camp than a free-speech area to me, so I said, ‘I’m not going in there.’” Police cuffed and arrested Neel.

A year later, the American Civil Liberties Union is going into federal court here, challenging a Secret Service policy that quarantines protesters against the administration.

The suit cites 17 separate incidents where “protesters are moved further away from the location of the official and/or the event, allowing people who express views that support the government to remain closer.”

Paul Wolf, an Allegheny County (Pittsburgh) Police assistant supervisor in charge of the 2002 presidential visit, said that the Secret Service ordered local police to “pen protesters in.” The suit does not challenge the responsibility of the Secret Service to protect the president.

BESSEMER, Ala.: Jury rules against coal operator

In the largest award in its history, a Bessemer jury fined Black Warrior Minerals $20 million in the death of Jimmie Bogue.

Bogue died in July 2002, when a trailer carrying 46 tons of coal separated from the cab, slamming into Bogue’s Chevy Tahoe, then struck a church van, injuring two people. The truck was 2 tons over the legal limit.

Testimony showed that the driver took a back road to avoid scales on the interstate and was traveling 70 mph in a 35 mph zone.

“The coal companies have to be held responsible for overloading these trucks, said plaintiff attorney Ralph “Buddy” Hornsby. “I think this verdict will send a message.”

Overweight, speeding and unsafe coal trucks are major issues in West Virginia and Kentucky.

PHILADELPHIA: Auto, steel workers unite for clean air

In January 2001, auto workers at the TRW plant in Mount Vernon, Ohio, were admitted to the local hospital’s intensive care unit with lung disease. By November of that year, 107 were placed on medical restrictions and 37 suffered long-term disability.

More than 1 million workers who make cars, farm equipment, aircraft and other metal products work with metalworking fluids that cause severe respiratory ailments. The National Institute of Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) found that metalworking fluids can cause cancer of the larynx, rectum, pancreas, skin, scrotum and bladder. Since 1971, medical evidence has shown that current standards regulating metalworking fluids are insufficient.

The United Auto Workers union (UAW) and the United Steelworkers union (USWA) are suing Secretary of Labor Elaine Chao to reduce workplace exposure to these deadly fluids.

“This is an egregious example of a public rulemaking process that has been obstructed by backroom industry lobbying,” said USWA President Leo Gerard. “It is way past time for OSHA [Occupational Safety and Health Administration] to stand up to the industry lobbyists who don’t care how many workers suffer from exposure to metalworking fluids.”

“Workers and their unions have spoken out about the hazards of exposure to metalworking fluids; so have scientists and the Standards Advisory Committee,” said UAW President Ron Gettelfinger. “We’re going to pursue every available remedy on behalf of the men and women who are being exposed – unnecessarily – to hazardous chemicals in the workplace.”

National Clips are compiled by Denise Winebrenner Edwards (dwinebr696@aol.com). Roberta Wood contributed to this week’s clips.

Kucinich: A time to rekindle the dreams

Fri, 24 Oct 2003 04:16:00 +0000

Rep. Dennis J. Kucinich (D-Ohio) formally announced his bid for the U.S. presidency in a speech in the Council Chamber of Cleveland City Hall Oct. 13. He had served as a city councilman there in the 1970s and was elected mayor of Cleveland in 1977 at the age of 31.

He has served four terms as a U.S. congressman representing Cleveland. He was instrumental in rallying 136 House members to vote against the resolution authorizing Bush’s preemptive, unilateral war on Iraq. Staunchly pro-union and anti-racist, his campaign has energized a nationwide grassroots movement. The media has virtually boycotted his campaign. We offer here, as a public service, extensive excerpts from his announcement speech.

Thank you for joining me for this important moment, not only for myself but for the Cleveland community. My brothers and sisters will remember this story. There is a fiery torch which lights the night skies over our beloved Cleveland. It rises from the furnace of a steel mill. I remember a time when that light played against the interior of our car. As a young child I pressed my face against the car window and watched as the flame reached up. It filled me with wonder, it gave me a spark of hope. It made me forget that my mom and dad, my brothers and sisters, all seven of us, were living in that car.

Light has the power to enkindle dreams. And though we lived in 21 different places by the time I was 17, including a couple of cars, I breathed in the image of blazing light and I breathe it out at this very moment. ...

So I dedicate this day to the light bearers of today and tomorrow. The children who seek hope, who seek homes, who seek our help to be lifted up, to learn how to look for the light, how to read, how to dance, how to sing, how to play, how to love, how to summon from seemingly nothing the new realities which some call miracles. …

Daycare for kids, cuts for the Pentagon

Last month, I introduced a bill and as president will seek to enact a program to provide for universal pre-kindergarten for children ages 3-5; to give each child the earliest start in a five-day-a-week program, in a school setting, to learn reading skills, educational, social skills and to have proper nutrition available. This day care program would be funded by a 15 percent reduction in the bloated Pentagon budget. You know and I know that there is massive waste in the Pentagon budget, and this would not jeopardize our national security. ... [I]t would instead enhance the economic security of our nation, of our nation’s families ... it would allocate families at least $5,000 per child to do this. I will match an effort to provide free tuition to public colleges and universities for all of America’s youth. ...

A Secretary of Peace

I am running for president of the United States to create a cabinet level department of peace and nonviolence. Fifty members of Congress already supported the bill I introduced in July of 2001. The Department of Peace will facilitate the dream and vision of Dr. Martin Luther King, that dream will still seek to make nonviolence an organizing principle of our society, and we can do that, through education, we can do that, through teaching our children peace, sharing, charity, giving and mutuality. ... The men and women … who serve this country honorably, stand in Iraq because there are those who believe that war is inevitable. ... As president, I will work with leaders of the world to make war a thing of the past, to abolish nuclear weapons. If America is to lead in peace, it must lead through rejoining the world community.

We must rejoin the world community through signing the biological weapons convention, the chemical weapons convention, the small arms treaty, the land mines treaty, join the international criminal court and sign the Kyoto climate change treaty. It’s time for America to rejoin the world!

And after we rejoin the world community, we can then work to make sure our principles of peace are carried aloft throughout the Middle East at the moment when our brothers and sisters, Israelis and Palestinians alike, find themselves locked into internecine conflict. This is the moment when the hand of peace which seeks to create conditions where all nations live together and coexist peacefully is so needed. America cannot put its foot on the accelerator of war and advocate peace simultaneously! ...

Heal the wounds of exploitation and slavery

Today is an appropriate day to remind ourselves of the necessity of healing the grief with Native Americans, who were dispossessed when exploration turned to exploitation. ... I have joined Congressman John Conyers’ call to study reparations for those whose African American ancestors suffered enslavement. ... [W]e must recognize the debilitating effects of slavery which are with us still. ... [S]o many of our African American brothers and sisters are locked still in prisons of poverty, substandard housing, unemployment, run-down schools, without health care, without hope. I know this. And my brother Gary, my brother Frank, my brother Larry, my sister Terry, my sister Beth, my brother Perry – we know this, because often we were the only Caucasian family living in a community of color. ...

And we need, too, to stop the breaches that are occurring right now with an immigration policy which causes so many of our Latino brothers and sisters to be reduced to another kind of slavery because they have to come into America to try to receive an opportunity to survive financially, but they don’t have the protection of law, they don’t have the protection of the Fair Labor Standards Act, their children don’t have health care, their children don’t have education. We must do everything we can to create legalization and amnesty for immigrant workers; we must lift them up, too. …

And we must heal America from the pain and the suffering and the fear of 9/11 which, unfortunately, led this administration to attack a nation which did not attack us, and to pass a Patriot bill which undermines our civil liberties. ... I ask you: how can we afford to be the policemen of the world, when we can’t afford to hire police, firefighters, and EMS back here at home in our cities?

No more lies! Bring our troops home

That is why this week I will ... vote against funding $87 billion for the occupation of Iraq. I am running for president of the United States to end the United States occupation of Iraq, and put an end to the lies which brought us into Iraq. ... We must challenge those lies. ... I am here at this moment to say that it is time to support our troops, and I say: Support our troops, bring them home!

People ask: Oh well, that sounds great, how can you do it? I put on my website, at www.kucinich.us, a few days ago an exit strategy to bring our troops home by New Year’s, and here’s how we can do it. The United States must go to the UN with a resolution that has these features:

Number one: that the UN will handle all of the oil assets on behalf of the Iraqi people with no privatization – until the people of Iraq can handle their own affairs. Number two: that the UN will handle the contracts – no more Halliburton sweetheart deals! No more war profiteering, no more contracts going to political contributors of the administration. Number three: that the UN handles the clause of creating new governance in Iraq, until the Iraqi people can handle their own affairs. ... We need to bring the UN in and get the U.S. out, and to bring our troops home. ...

The passage of the Patriot Act was an abomination and as president I intend to lead the effort to repeal it. We need to regain the trust of the American people and we need to have a government which trusts the American people.

Cancel NAFTA, WTO, create public works jobs

Americans have lost 3 million manufacturing jobs since July of 2000. NAFTA and the WTO have facilitated the movement of jobs out of America. ... Corporations move where workers don’t have rights, where nations provide little legal protection. America can change that. America can set new rules for trade, but to do that you must set aside NAFTA and the WTO. I’m running for president to cancel NAFTA and the WTO. ... We must put into our new bilateral trade agreements workers’ rights, the right to organize, the right to collective bargaining, the right to strike, the right to decent wages and benefits, the right to a safe workplace, the right to a secure retirement. ...

We need to remember another time when America was hurt economically, and an American president by the name of Franklin Delano Roosevelt faced a nation that was broken economically, and said “We have nothing to fear but fear itself,” and enacted a range of social and economic programs to restore America. As the next president of the United States I intend to lead the way to restore our cities by having a new WPA-type program to rebuild our bridges, our roads, our water systems, our sewer systems, to build new energy systems. We can rebuild America; we can put millions and more back to work. ...

Take profits out of health care, Medicare for all

Last month, I introduced a bill which takes the profit out of health care, together with John Conyers and Jim McDermott. This proposal brings to the American people a universal, single-payer system, Medicare for all. It is time for health care for people, not for profit. You know ... and I know that insurance companies … make money by stopping people from getting the care they need. ... They make money because they are interested only in profit. ...

[T]his proposal ... covers all medically necessary procedures, complementary and alternative medicine. ... And it includes vision care, and it includes dental health care. ...

No more health poverty in America because people need long-term care! It covers mental health care. ... In my district in Cleveland, Ohio, senior citizens are splitting their pills to try to make prescriptions last. They are giving up meals. ... This proposal for universal health care includes a fully-funded prescription drug benefit, another way to take our people out of health poverty. ...

I say that now is the time to, once again, break up the monopolies and restore competition in our economy. And we must do so again on behalf of small businesses, and on behalf of family farmers. And as president, I will move to break up the monopolies in agriculture, which strangle the market from seed to shelf. And to make sure that our family farmers are able to get their product to market and get the price that they are entitled to. ...

Defend public power! No privatization!

It was here in this very Council Chamber, 25 years ago, that I had the privilege of stopping the sale of Cleveland’s municipal electric system. ... I recognized then, as I recognize now, that it matters how much people pay for electricity. That’s why I fought to make sure that the people of this community would be able to have access to cheaper power. ...

Cleveland is my home. Cleveland is where my heart resides. Cleveland is where my dreams started. ...Years ago, my grandfather, John Kucinich ... the name was spelled K-u-c-i-n-i-c. When he came over on the boat, they added the “h.” A lot of names were changed there. … And my grandfather, when he traveled from Croatia as a very young man, he traveled to Ellis Island, and he was welcomed by a light as well ... the Statue of Liberty that holds its lamp high. ... So, by the lights which guided my grandfather to America; by the light still shining celebrating public power; by the lights which still emblazon the sky over Cleveland’s steel valley, I stand here, ready to light up America. I am Dennis John Kucinich and I am running for President of the United States!

In whose interests does Bush act?

Thu, 23 Oct 2003 11:37:00 +0000

On Sept. 9 the front page of the Wall Street Journal headlined an article, “U.S. opposes EU effort to test chemicals for health hazards.” The article describes the Bush administration’s aggressive efforts to block the European Commission’s plan, known as REACH (Registration, Evaluation, and Authorization of Chemicals), which would require the testing of all chemical products before they go to market. The aim of REACH, of course, is to safeguard public health and safety.

The administration’s fervor in opposing the European Commission’s plan shows its unabashed partisanship in favor of U.S. chemical and plastics companies and against the interests of the health of U.S. people and people around the world.

This is just one more example of the administration’s surrender to corporate greed in its search for political contributions to the coffers of the Bush 2004 election bid. In earlier days, one could say that the Bush administration had no shame. But what can you say of an administration that is beyond all human emotion?

These struggles are taking place against the backdrop of meetings of the World Trade Organization. The recent meeting in Cancun was but one example of the ability of progressive forces to hold corporate greed at bay. The struggles in France and elsewhere against genetically modified foods have received wide notice and the strikes in Bolivia have driven a president from office.

In the United States, union and community groups have been fighting chemical companies for decades through federal regulations and direct action. Most of these are for worker protection and environmental laws. Federal toxic substances regulations are in place and are very useful. But the chemical companies are always pushing for a weakening of these protections.

You can guess the cast of greedy guts: Dow Chemical, Rohm & Hass, and the Lyondell Chemical Company. Dow, with its role in the napalming of Vietnam, is a poster child of the horrendous and unsafe use of chemicals. Their claims were, then as now, that their chemicals have been fully tested and non-cancer-causing.

The American Chemical Council cries that EU regulations would cost over $8 billion. U.S. corporations claim that they conduct their own tests and government testing is not necessary.

The most damning issue that emerged in this debate about the exposure of workers and communities to cancer-causing agents is the cost of not having government regulation. Here in the U.S., corporations never calculate the human costs of not regulating the safety or quality of their products. They simply don’t care about the human costs of chemical exposures and cancer. In the U.S., since there is no national health system, neither the government nor the corporations care in the least about the human costs of inadequate regulation.

While the EU countries and their corporate supporters basically agree with U.S. estimates, they also put forward the cost of not regulating, saying it will cost from 18 to 54 billion Euros in the next 30 years’ period. Those sobering figures are pushing the EU toward some kind of regulation of chemical products.

Clearly labor, community and political groups from around the world must keep up the struggle against the WTO, IMF and World Bank and add these environmental and occupational heath issues to broaden the coalition. Hammering away at the costs of not regulating is one effective tactic; struggling to establish a national health system here and protecting those in Europe is another.

The author can be reached at pww@pww.org

Philly to vote on health care

Thu, 23 Oct 2003 11:33:00 +0000

Philadelphia, Pa. – The Nov. 4 election will provide Philadelphians the opportunity to change the city’s Home Rule Charter so that the Department of Health is directed to develop a plan for universal health care coverage for all residents. The ballot question states, “Health care is an essential safeguard of human life and dignity, and there is an obligation for the City of Philadelphia to ensure that every resident is able to realize this fundamental right.”

The Philadelphia Area Committee to Defend Health Care (PACDHC) has worked tirelessly for years to get this referendum on the ballot. Dr. Walter Tsou, the former health commissioner of Philadelphia, is a founding member of PACDHC.

Sylvia Metzler, a member of the committee, said, “We collected 20,000 signatures on petitions and presented them to City Council and Mayor Street. The City Council unanimously passed a resolution and now the voters will decide.” Currently at least 43 million Americans have no health care coverage. About 94,000 of them live in Philadelphia. The uninsured have higher mortality rates and are more likely to require emergency care and hospitalization.

The inability to pay for rising medical costs accounts for one-third to one-half of all bankruptcies in the U.S. Despite spending 40 percent more per capita on health care than any country in the world, the United States is the only industrialized country without a health care system that covers all its citizens.

“A ‘yes’ vote would carry tremendous weight so that our elected officials can carry the results to the state and federal governments, showing that Philadelphians want universal health care,” said school nurse Diane Mohney.

The author can be reached at phillyrose1@earthlink.net

Poll: Public supports health care for all

Thu, 23 Oct 2003 11:25:00 +0000

WASHINGTON – An ABC News-Washington Post poll released Oct. 19 says the public’s growing anger with the current health care system has built support for a new approach that would guarantee care for all. The same poll says the public supports changes in laws governing prescription drugs.

Seventy percent of those polled said it should be legal to buy prescription drugs outside the United States.

The poll found 54 percent of those polled to be dissatisfied with the overall quality of health care, 10 percentage points higher than in 2000 and higher than it has been in the past decade when compared with earlier surveys.

While a solid majority of people tended to be happy with their own quality of health care, the poll found “significant concern with the system more broadly,” said ABC pollster Gary Langer, who directed the survey.

Those concerns included worries about future costs, declining coverage and the problems of people who lack insurance.

The poll found that 6 in 10 people surveyed say they are worried about being able to afford health insurance in the future. More than 1 in 6 said they have no insurance. The poll found that 53 percent of those who are insured say they are worried about losing their insurance because of loss of a job.

The percentage of those who have health insurance and are satisfied with the cost, 64 percent, has dropped by 9 percentage points since 1997. By almost a 2-1 margin those persons said they preferred a universal system that would provide coverage to everyone under a government program, as opposed to the current employer-based system. When people were asked the question slightly differently in a poll a year ago, they were less enthusiastic. Asked if they wanted a taxpayer-funded health care system run by the government, fewer than half said yes. The poll results show the public’s worries about health care have increased this year.

Robert Blendon, a specialist on health care public opinion at Harvard University, says, “Health care is really rising as a political issue. When the economy gets bad and health care costs continue to rise, this becomes an economic issue.”

Among the poll’s other findings:

• Eight in 10 in the poll said it is more important to provide health care coverage for all Americans even if it means higher taxes, than to hold down taxes but leave some people uncovered.

• Almost two-thirds said they think the country is headed toward rationing of health care so that some medical procedures are no longer covered by insurance.

• Almost one-third of those who make less than $20,000 a year were uninsured, compared with 8 percent of those who make more than $50,000 a year.

The author can be reached at

(See related story below)

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Canadian health system expert to tour U.S.

Doug Allan, a Toronto-based trade union health care researcher and health coalition organizer, will be making a speaking tour of several U.S. cities this November. His topic will be “Lessons from Canada’s Public Health Care System: Trade Union and Community Coalition Unity.”

Allan is an authority on the Canadian health care system, particularly in Ontario, Canada’s most populous province. A key focus of his work has been stopping the privatization of Canada’s health services. His tour is being sponsored by the People’s Weekly World/Nuestro Mundo. Look for him in the following cities: Philadelphia (11/9), Boston (11/10), Cleveland (11/14), and Detroit (11/16). See also his article in this week’s issue, on page 14.

Once again on socialist market economies

Thu, 23 Oct 2003 11:19:00 +0000

The subject of a socialist market economy is a contentious one, with Vietnam’s recent economic history bringing questions about it into sharp relief, as the response to the “People Before Profits” columns of July 12 and 19 illustrates. I will attempt here to address some concerns raised in readers’ comments, realizing that our discussion of these matters here is necessarily limited for reasons of space.

I made the point that the socialist countries found it necessary, as they developed their economies, for their products to compete on the world market. Several readers argue that socialist countries could have set their own pace for technological development independently of the capitalist world. I maintain that this independence was not possible, because the imperialist counties were able to use their economic superiority to force the pace of development. The escalation of the arms race by the United States was openly designed to force the socialist countries, the Soviet Union in particular, to maintain a level of military technology and production that burdened their economies severely. Such economic pressures, without a comparable technological infrastructure, were among the factors contributing to the collapse of the socialist countries.

Economic expansion required increasing imports of anything that could not be produced domestically. To obtain convertible currencies for these imports, the socialist countries had to export to the world market. In the mid-1970s, the European socialist countries began to borrow heavily to buy technology for exporting products to the capitalist market. They were unable to keep these technologies up to date, however, because their economic model lacked incentives for trading on the capitalist world market. They then could only trade much of this new production among themselves, and the resulting nonconvertible rubles were useless in servicing their debts.

The constant propagandistic display of Western consumer goods in film and television generated the demand for comparable products among the populations of the socialist countries. Counterpropaganda proved ineffective. The contradiction between the rising cultural/educational level of the people and the lack of material access to the achievements of modern technology had severe ideological consequences; people in the socialist countries saw the gap between themselves and the West growing instead of narrowing. In 1987, when I was a guest researcher in the Physics Department at Humboldt University (Berlin, German Democratic Republic), the only desktop computers in the laboratory of my research group were the two that I brought and left there.

Demoralization with and alienation from the socialist cause grew uncontrollably; one manifestation was the growth of an underground economy to satisfy the demand for consumer products. Support for abandoning socialist development grew. The consumerist orientation grew particularly strong in Hungary, Czechoslovakia, Poland, and the GDR, while in the USSR and other European countries the economic dislocations led to periodic shortages even of basic necessities and social services. The latter first became evident to me in the case of the Soviet Union in the mid-1970s when data on infant mortality (which had begun to rise) mysteriously vanished from its statistical yearbooks. During subsequent stays in the Soviet Union in the 1980s, I observed first-hand the shortage of meat products, for instance, and even items of clothing like socks and gloves, again stimulating the underground economy.

Some ask whether, if market forces come to dominate, this would not lead to periodic crises similar to those experienced in all capitalist countries. Possibly so, but probably less severe, since a socialist market economy is not completely unplanned. The state stimulates investments on the basis of its long-range goals of development. Considerable leverage is obtained through state control of the basic infrastructures, credit, and taxation policies. For example, the Chinese authorities have just warned auto manufacturers that the industry is threatened by possible overproduction and are enacting measures to curtail investments in this industry, such as raising the tax on the assembly of a car to equal the tax on production of the entire car. Moreover, speculative activities are greatly restricted, which is why the Asian financial crisis at the end of the 1990s did not hit China or Vietnam.

Several responses express the valid concern that future growth of the capitalist sector can undermine the socialist course of development. The socialist direction can be maintained only if state power rests in the hands of a Marxist-oriented working class. A strong state sector is not enough. After all, heavy industry in Austria is largely in the state sector, but the country remains capitalist. The issues around class struggle in a socialist-oriented mixed economy are complex. The Communist parties must heed Lenin’s call to serve as the conscience of the nation to guarantee adherence to the goal of socialist transformation.

The author can be reached at marqu002@umn.edu

Free Speech fight draws on militant history

Thu, 23 Oct 2003 11:15:00 +0000

HOMESTEAD, Pa. – With post-9/11 attacks on civil liberties running amok, nearly a hundred marchers poured out of the historic Carnegie Library here recently, heading off on a “Free Speech March” where they would stop along the way to honor three women who made a difference for worker rights and civil liberties in the early 20th century.

Led by folk singer and hell-raiser Anne Feeney, the marchers filled the cool, autumn air with defiant labor chants and songs. Several of the marchers noted the irony of having assembled in the library that the robber baron Andrew Carnegie donated to the community shortly after crushing a steelworkers strike in 1892.

After passing century-old ethnic churches that tower over nearly every street corner in this former steel town, the marchers stopped at the intersection of 9th and Amity, where two state historical markers were dedicated in honor of legendary labor organizer Mary Harris “Mother” Jones and Frances Perkins, the first woman cabinet member and longest-serving U.S. Secretary of Labor.

The borough council had designated the intersection as “Free Speech Corner” last spring in recognition of the important struggles for labor and civil liberties that took place here, and in anticipation of the marker dedication ceremony.

It was at this intersection that Mother Jones was jailed in the old municipal building for addressing thousands of striking steelworkers “without a permit” in 1919. When a judge asked who gave her a permit to speak publicly, Mother Jones replied, “Patrick Henry, Thomas Jefferson, John Adams!” It was also at this intersection in 1933 that U.S. Secretary of Labor Perkins held an open-air meeting in 1933 with aggrieved steelworkers in defiance of local authorities who had barred her from meeting at nearby Frick Park.

At the marker dedication ceremony, Homestead Mayor Betty Esper, the first and only woman mayor of any town in the Mon Valley, decried the destructive effect the mill’s closing has had on its workers and the town. “There was no reason for it to close, except company greed,” Esper, a former Homestead steelworker, said.

After the marker dedication, the marchers headed for the 1941 Steel Workers’ Organizing Committee Memorial for a memorial observance and wreath-laying ceremony honoring USWA organizer Fannie Sellins, who was brutally murdered by company thugs in the “Black Valley” on the eve of the Great Steel Strike of 1919.

Speaking at the Sellins memorial, Rosemary Trump, former president of Service Employees Local 585, called on those in attendance to carry on the fight in Sellins’ memory. “We owe it to her memory to stand up to George Bush and John Ashcroft and tell them that we are going to fight like hell for our civil liberties,” Trump said to hearty applause.

The Free Speech March was held in conjunction with the annual conference if the Pennsylvania Labor History Society, titled “Free speech in Homestead! Civil liberties then and now.” The conference concluded with a rousing labor music concert, featuring labor troubadour Joe Glazier, Feeney, and hard rockin’, ex-steelworker Mike Stout and the Human Union.

The author can be reached at jthomp690@yahoo.com

National Clips

Thu, 23 Oct 2003 10:14:00 +0000

PHOENIX: Defending labor’s rights at America West Airlines

When pilots, flight attendants, mechanics and other workers at America West Airlines (AWA) agreed to concessions following Sept. 11, 2001, they thought they were saving their jobs and helping a staggering industry get back on its feet. AWA got back on its feet, all right, and ran out the door with workers’ investment.

On Oct. 15, all four unions, working in coalition, held a midday rally demanding that their contracts be honored, benefits restored and layoffs halted. Workers jammed Tempe Beach Park. They mounted billboards on trucks bringing their issues directly to the community.

“The [union] Coalition finds it atrocious that senior management rewarded themselves first with a very lucrative bonus plan last quarter and then just recently, again rewarded some managers with stock options, while at the same time ignoring the needs of labor,” said pilot and union leader Captain Terry Stadler. “The union employees of AWA are the lowest paid and most productive employees in the industry. Management needs to stop exploiting its employees and reward our industry-leading service.”

FORT STEWART, Ga.: Soldiers rip Army health care

There are 633 National Guard and Army Reserve troops suffering from Iraq war wounds or injuries, but they are waiting weeks or months for treatment, are housed in non-air-conditioned barracks and share bathrooms.

“The medical care here, in my personal opinion, I feel is substandard, if any,” said Spc. Joseph Eason who arrived here from Iraq in August. Eason has five metal shards lodged in his lower body from a mortar round. Since then, his “treatment’ has amounted to one doctor appointment, a visit to a physician assistant and one physical therapy session.

Spc. Chris Rinchich has been on a waiting list for knee surgery since May. He spent the summer in non-air-conditioned barracks and does not expect to leave Fort Stewart until next summer.

Defensive Army officials said they do not have the money to provide adequate housing or quality health care.

WASHINGTON: Hailing down racism

For decades, African Americans have formed their own “jitney” cab service because commercial taxi cabs refuse to transport them. That began to change when Bryan Greene, 35, sued a taxi company for discrimination in federal court and won.

On April 2, 2000, a Your Way taxi driver would not pick up Greene at Lowe’s L’Enfant Plaza. Greene said the driver looked right him, “sized me up” and then pulled away as a hotel doorman tapped on the cab for the taxi to stop.

The court ordered the parent company of Your Way taxi, Amritsar Auto Services, to pay Greene an undisclosed sum, and to spend $2,000 on advertising saying that Your Way requires drivers to pick up all passengers and carry them to any destination in the District.

“It was embarrassing, and I was stunned,” said Greene. “The driver’s actions were brazen in the presence of others. The settlement gives me an opportunity to improve the situation for others.”

NEW HAVEN, Conn.: Yale Law School sues Pentagon

The Yale Law School has denied the military access to the campus for recruitment because it discriminates against Gays and Lesbians. The Department of Defense (DoD) retaliated by withholding $300 million in aid for scientific research. In a legal suit signed by two-thirds of the Law School students, Yale is fighting to restore the research grants and enforce their non-discrimination policy.

David Rosen, Yale’s lawyer, said that the DoD “is not interested in compromise. They are interested in drafting the faculty into its war on gays and lesbians. That is not fair. That’s bullying.”

DETROIT: Public outcry over home health care cuts

With a $900 million hole in the state budget, Michigan decided to slash $17 million from the program that delivers in-home health care to disabled and elderly residents. In two weeks, over 500 letters arrived on the desk of T.J. Bucholz, spokesman for the Department of Community Health, and “not one of them was in support,” he said. The Department announced that it is reassessing proposed cuts.

“This is an important first step,” responded Bob Allison, of the Michigan Quality Home Care Campaign. “We think it’s fantastic that [Gov. Jennifer Granholm’s] administration views home care as a viable, cost-effective form of long-term care.”

National Clips are compiled by Denise Winebrenner Edwards (dwinebr696@aol.com). Dan Bosh and George Fishman contributed to this week’s clips

Texas redistricting fight moves to courts

Thu, 23 Oct 2003 10:02:00 +0000

AUSTIN, Texas – On Oct. 14, Texas Democrats filed suit in federal court to block the Republican redistricting power grab. The motion contends that the redistricting map, which the Republican-dominated Legislature approved on Oct. 12, violates the voting rights of minorities.

Almost simultaneously, on Oct. 16, the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund filed a motion in federal court against the newly redrawn map. MALDEF filed the suit on behalf of the American GI Forum, a Latino civil rights organization that led protests last spring and summer against redistricting.

This action is important because Republicans argue that their new congressional districts increase minority voting power in the state. But according to MALDEF’s regional counsel and lead attorney in the case, “the newly-enacted congressional redistricting plan for Texas does not accurately reflect Latino voting strength in the year 2003.” Perales also said that while Republicans contend that their new map creates “an additional Latino majority district in South Texas, in fact it eliminates one district and adds another, with no net increase in electoral opportunity.”

The proposed map splits so many communities with common interests that even some Republican state senators balked at supporting it. It took a visit from U.S. House Majority Leader Tom DeLay and intense arm-twisting by Republican leaders to muster the votes needed for passage in the Senate.

DeLay’s intervention signals how important Texas redistricting is to the right wing’s efforts to advance their anti-working-class program even if they lack national support. According to a leaked e-mail analysis of the new map, authored by Republican congressional staffer Joby Fortson, the new map, if it survives the court challenge, will have “a real national impact that should assure Republican control of the House [of Representatives] no matter the national mood.”

The new map does two things to reduce minority voting strength. First, it shifts some minorities in competitive districts with Democratic incumbents to districts that already are dominated by minority voters. Second, it shifts other minority voters from those districts into ones dominated by affluent white suburbs, many of which consist of 60 percent or more white voters, thus marginalizing minority voters.

The perfect case in point is U.S. Rep. Martin Frost’s district in the Dallas-Fort Worth area. Frost is a moderate Democrat, whose district consists of more than 50 percent minority voters. Fort Worth African Americans from the former district are moved into one dominated by affluent white suburbs and Dallas African Americans are moved into one that already sends an African American to Congress. Latino voters are moved into GOP Representative Pete Session’s district, which is dominated by rich Dallas and North Dallas, the city’s affluent white suburbs.

Passage of the map was a big victory for Texas House Speaker Tom Craddick and West Texas oil and gas special interests. Under the old map, Midland, the center of the West Texas oil and gas industry and Craddick’s hometown, was in a district dominated by Lubbock and big agribusiness. Craddick insisted that the new map create a district anchored by Midland. It took some ugly gerrymandering that ignored the wishes of some fellow Republicans to accomplish this goal.

Craddick and his cronies have already selected K. Michael Conaway, who was the chief financial officer of the Midland bank that loaned Bush $500,000 to buy the Texas Rangers baseball team, to represent Midland in Washington.

It is possible that no court decision will be rendered in time for the spring primaries. If that’s the case, then the old districts will remain in effect for the 2004 elections.

Opponents of the power grab are not giving up. Rep Garnett Coleman (D-Houston) told the Houston Chronicle, “We are proud of what we have done. All of you thought this as a fait acompli before June and here we are in October. We’re going to continue the fight in the courts … to make sure the people of the state are represented fairly.”

The author can be reached at pww@pww.org

Youth, unions in spotlight at PWW banquet

Thu, 23 Oct 2003 09:54:00 +0000

OAKLAND, Calif. – Youth groups and unions on the front line for youth and workers’ rights will be honored at this year’s Northern California People’s Weekly World/Nuestro Mundo banquet on Sunday, Nov. 9.

Following the International Longshore and Warehouse Union’s victorious contract struggle last year, Longshore Local 10 President Henry Graham said the local and its brother locals are now focused on ensuring the giant shipping transnationals comply with the pact. The contract secured vital health and pension coverage, Graham said, but the union’s biggest challenge is employers’ constant efforts to cut the workforce, with clerks’ jobs under special pressure because of new technology.

Based on a survey last year of 1,000 students at three Oakland high schools, student organizers from Kids First are pressing for real student council powers concerning school safety and security, teacher quality, classes and extracurricular activities. “We also believe helping youth take more ownership of issues affecting their daily lives is an important step to help lower the dropout rate,” Kids First Membership Coordinator Germaine Ashley told the PWW. Kids First formed eight years ago in the midst of the struggle to win more services for Oakland’s multiracial youth population.

Asian Youth Promoting Advocacy and Leadership (AYPAL) is campaigning for repeal of a 1996 federal law that says non-citizens can be deported for an offense with a prison sentence of a year or more. AYPAL says this breaks up families, punishes people twice, and sends people who grew up in the U.S. to a culture they may no longer know. AYPAL, which comprises six youth social justice organizations in the Cambodian, Chinese, Vietnamese, Laotian and Mien, Korean, Filipino and Pacific Islander communities, also works with prominent area artists to develop quality youth cultural performances.

Youth of Oakland United, the youth organization of PUEBLO (People United for a Better Oakland) is campaigning to win more jobs for both youth and adults. YOU’s video, “There Goes the ‘Hood,’” dramatized Mayor Jerry Brown’s plans to gentrify Oakland, while YOU organized against two of his favorite recent projects – a proposed anti-loitering law ostensibly against drugs, but actually targeting youth of color, and a $70 million anti-violence measure with most funds going to police instead of preventive programs.

The program will also feature Immigrant Rights Freedom Riders from HERE Locals 2 and 2850, just returned from their triumphal nationwide tour, as well as SEIU Local 1877 janitors from the Greater Bay Area.

The program will celebrate the 50th anniversary of the historic film, “Salt of the Earth,” with a tribute to Lorenzo and Anita Torrez, who participated in the miners’ strike and the making of the film during the very difficult McCarthy era. Also featured will be music, dance and poetry by outstanding Bay Area performers. The banquet will be held Sunday, Nov. 9, at 1:00 p.m. at Hs Lordships Restaurant on the Berkeley Marina. Reservations are $40. Call (510) 251-1050 for information and reservations.

Paul Robeson honored with postage stamp

Fri, 17 Oct 2003 06:22:00 +0000

CHICAGO – Bowing to a six-year grassroots campaign, the U.S. Postal Service has announced that it will issue a stamp commemorating the life of Paul Robeson. The announcement is being greeted with joy in the ranks of those who fought for its issuance.

The campaign for the stamp was launched in 1997, a year before the 100th anniversary of Robeson’s birth. Mark Rogovin, a leader of the Chicago-based Paul Robeson 100th Birthday Committee, credited two people as initiators of the idea of honoring Robeson with a stamp – Dr. Margaret Burroughs, founder of Chicago’s DuSable Museum of African American History and a friend of Robeson, and Veterans for Peace activist LeRoy Wolins.

“We had this idea about pushing for the stamp and we obtained contacts from all over the United States in connection with the 100th birthday celebrations,” Rogovin said. “We decided to come up with a very simple petition urging the Citizens’ Stamp Advisory Committee to issue a postage stamp in honor of Paul Robeson.”

Many thousands or even tens of thousands of signatures were gathered at the DuSable Museum, he said. Every day, busloads of school children would visit the museum on field trips, learn about Robeson, and sign the petition.

The Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom was another group whose members threw themselves into the campaign, especially members of the Los Angeles WILPF branch, and members from Philadelphia to Miami and from Portland, Maine, to Portland, Oregon.

“In the end, I think we gathered nearly a quarter million signatures from all over the country,” Rogovin said. “We went to the Citizens’ Stamp Advisory Committee and turned them in. After working on this for nearly four years, every month or two we’d call and ask them for an update and they’d say: ‘It’s still under consideration.’”

He added, “We were never certain that we were going to have a success, but we always felt that whether we got the stamp or not, the campaign would have been worthwhile to do anyway since we introduced so many people, especially young people, at the grade school level, at the high school level, who had never heard of Robeson, to this great man.”

Now, he said, the task of educating the people about Robeson has been made easier but at the same time a greater challenge.

“I think this is a tremendous victory,” Rogovin said. “We should think about holding celebrations all over the United States, stamp parties, and so on.”

The stamp, part of the Postal Service’s Black Heritage Series, was unveiled at a Sept. 29 news conference at Columbia University where Robeson earned a law degree in 1923. It will be released in time for African American History Month this coming February.

Professor Manning Marable, director of Columbia’s Institute for Research in African American Studies, told the news conference that Robeson “was a man who spoke truth to power.”

Robeson’s life, he said, is an argument for affirmative action to increase enrollment in the nation’s colleges and universities by men and women of color.

Columbia Law School’s vice dean, Richard Briffault, spoke at length of Robeson’s legacy at the law school, from which he graduated in three years. “He is one of our greatest graduates,” Briffault said, hailing his stand against colonialism and fascism and for civil liberties and civil rights.

Former New York Mayor David Dinkins told the news conference, “We thought this day would never come. For years we got stamps for Mickey Mouse and Minnie Mouse and no Paul Robeson.” He praised Robeson as a giant in the struggle for African American equality and against racist oppression. “We all stand on the shoulders of Paul Robeson,” Dinkins said.

Present at the event was Jarvis Tyner, executive vice chair of the Communist Party USA. “This is a great victory,” Tyner told the World. “The U.S. Postal Service could not have honored a greater American. Now, every school child will be told about Paul Robeson, the great fighter for equality and world peace, the great athlete, singer, actor. He was a genius who gave his heart and soul to the people.”

Robeson, he added, “embraced all the advanced ideas of the Communist Party USA, the need for a socialist transformation of society, the need for unity of Black, Brown and white. He played an outstanding role in the defeat of McCarthyism.” Tyner was referring to Robeson’s scathing testimony during an appearance before the House Un-American Activities Committee, in which he denounced lawmakers who were covering up for lynchings and segregation in the South. The witch-hunters had put Robeson on the blacklist in an attempt to block him from singing in concerts or speaking. They revoked his passport to keep him from traveling abroad.

Tyner said the grassroots petition movement for the Robeson stamp deserves thanks for their efforts and congratulations for a hard-won victory. “We need a grassroots movement urging people to buy this stamp. Every stamp that goes through the system is like a picket sign for justice.”

He warned that the Postal Service is threatening to terminate the Black Heritage Series claiming “low demand.” Said Tyner, “We need a campaign to get people to use these stamps that have honored giants like Harriet Tubman, W.E.B. Du Bois, Thurgood Marshall and Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.”

The stamp is a black and white photo portrait of Robeson. On the back Robeson is described as an “incomparable artist and singer, human rights advocate, scholar and athlete, defender of Black freedom.”

Tyner said he met Robeson at a rally in New York in the early 1960s. “I came up from Philadelphia to deliver my first speech as leader of the W.E.B. Du Bois Clubs,” Tyner said. “I was very nervous but I finished my speech. To my surprise there was thunderous applause and cheers.” Tyner chuckled. “I thought it was my speech, but then I looked to the back of the room and there was this towering giant of a man coming in. It was Paul Robeson. He had just arrived home from Europe. He shook our hands and then delivered a powerful speech. He sang ‘Deep River’ and the crowd cheered. It was a life altering experience for me, to find myself in the same room with the great Paul Robeson. It steeled me in my beliefs.”

The authors can be reached at

(See related story below)

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Paul Robeson, a brief biography

Paul Robeson was a famous African American athlete, singer, actor, scholar and advocate for the civil rights. He rose to prominence in a time when segregation was legal in the United States, and Black people were being lynched by racist mobs.

Born on April 9, 1898, in Princeton, N.J., Paul Robeson was the youngest of five children. His father was a runaway slave who went on to graduate from Lincoln University, and his mother came from an abolitionist Quaker family.

In 1915, Paul Robeson won a four-year academic scholarship to Rutgers College. Despite violence and racism from teammates, he won 15 varsity letters in sports and was twice named to the All-American football team. He received the Phi Beta Kappa key in his junior year and graduated as valedictorian. However, it wasn’t until 1995, 19 years after his death, that he was inducted into the College Football Hall of Fame.

At Columbia Law School (1920-1923), Robeson met and married Eslanda Cardoza Goode, who was to become the first Black woman to head a pathology laboratory. He took a job with a law firm, but left when a white secretary refused to take dictation from him. He left the practice of law to use his considerable artistic talents in an acting and singing career.

In the 1920s Paul Robeson performed Eugene O’Neill’s “Emperor Jones” and “All God’s Chillun Got Wings.” In 1930 Robeson earned international acclaim for his role in “Othello” on a London stage. Robeson played Joe in “Showboat,” and was later to change some of the words of the song “Old Man River” from the meek “I’m tired of livin’ and ‘scared of dyin’” to a declaration of resistance, “I must keep fightin’ until I’m dyin’.” [He made] 11 films, including Proud Valley (1939).

Paul Robeson used his deep bass-baritone voice to promote Negro spirituals, to interpret through song the cultures of other countries, and on behalf of the labor and social movements of his time. He sang for peace and justice in 25 languages throughout the U.S., Europe, the Soviet Union, Asia and Africa. Among his friends were future African leader Jomo Kenyatta, India’s Nehru, historian Dr. W.E.B. Du Bois, anarchist Emma Goldman, and writers James Joyce and Ernest Hemingway. In 1933, Robeson donated the proceeds of “All God’s Chillun” to Jewish refugees fleeing Hitler’s Germany. In 1938 Paul Robeson traveled to Spain and sang in hospitals and on the front lines to troops of the International Brigades [against fascism].

During the 1940s, Robeson continued to perform and speak out against racism, in support of labor, and for peace. He was a champion of working people and organized labor, speaking and performing at strike rallies, conferences, and labor festivals worldwide. As a passionate believer in international cooperation, he protested growing Cold War hostilities and worked tirelessly for friendship between the U.S. and the USSR. In 1946, he headed the American Crusade Against Lynching, challenging President Truman to support anti-lynching laws. In the late 1940s when dissent was scarcely tolerated in the U.S., in a speech in Paris, Robeson openly questioned why African Americans would want to take up arms against anyone in the name of those who have oppressed them. Because of his outspokenness, he was accused by the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC) of being a Communist Party supporter. While he was indeed an advocate of socialism, he considered HUAC to have opposed the freedom of expression of those who worked for international friendship among nations and peoples.

The accusation nearly ended his career. Sixty of his concerts were cancelled, and in 1949, two interracial outdoor concerts in Peekskill, N.Y., were attacked by racist mobs while state police stood by. Robeson responded, “I’m going to sing wherever the people want me to sing … and I won’t be frightened by crosses burning in Peekskill or anywhere else.” In 1950, the U.S. revoked Robeson’s passport, leading to an eight-year battle to re-secure it and to travel again. Beginning in 1952 the Mine, Mill and Smelters Workers Union sponsored four annual Robeson concerts. They were held at Peace Arch Park at the U.S.-Canadian border with as many as 40,000 people in attendance. In ill health, Paul Robeson retired from public life in 1963. He died on Jan. 23, 1976, at age 77.

Excerpted from the booklet Paul Robeson’s Living Legacy, by Barbara Armentrout and Sterling Stuckey, 1999.

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Taking a stand

From a 1937 anti-fascist speech in defense of republican Spain:

“Every artist, every scientist, must decide now where he stands. He has no alternative. There is no standing above the conflict on Olympian heights. There are no impartial observers. Through the destruction, in certain countries, of the greatest of man’s literary heritage, through the propagation of false ideas of racial and national superiority, the artist, the scientist, the writer is challenged. The struggle invades the formerly cloistered halls of our universities and other seats of learning. The battlefront is everywhere. There is no sheltered rear. … The artist must elect to fight for Freedom or for Slavery. I have made my choice. I had no alternative.”

– Paul Robeson

French heat deaths point to health funding crisis

Fri, 17 Oct 2003 05:35:00 +0000

The World Health Organization has ranked the French health insurance system, where the labor movement is involved in its policy-making from top and bottom, as the best in the world. While doctors are self-employed, the major hospitals are public. The cost of prescription drugs is controlled. There is little profit. So the question arises: how could 15,000 mainly elderly people die in the crushing heat wave of last August?

The right-wing government of France lead by Jacque Chirac has been mostly silent. A lot of the press focused on Chirac being in Canada during all of August while the health minister was vacationing in the South of France. Chirac’s apologists pointed to the fact this was the normal vacation period and the French people just forgot about their elderly mothers and fathers. Others pointed to the new 35-work week, including for physicians, as the culprit.

What the media left out of the discussion were Chirac’s cutbacks to health budget. Chirac was elected to head the French government by almost 90 percent of French voters. Chirac interpreted the election as a mandate to bring in for-profit insurance companies to replace the current system. Although Chirac has not been successful to date, this struggle at the front door has enabled back-door cutbacks in community health programs.

The visible part of the Chirac cutbacks was to the health insurance system where the government would cover less of the physician and hospitals bills, thus requiring more out-of-pocket cost from individuals. But these cutbacks to the health insurance system did not cause this crisis.

Just paying physician, hospital, and prescription drug bills does not solve the health crisis in France, in the U.S., or anywhere in the world. These costs must be paid. Under an efficient system these costs would be held to a minimum, as is the case under socialized medicine in the U.K. and the health insurance systems in most of Europe.

But focusing on this part of the health crisis is simply not enough. For example, in the U.S., the focus of most health insurance legislation is paying the bills, excessive bills at that. HR 676, the Conyers National Health Insurance bill, is an extremely important advance and will make sure that physician and hospital bills will be paid. HR 3000, the Barbara Lee National Health Service bill, goes the next step by making sure that health services are available and other crucial public health activities are operative.

In the French crisis, activists and labor policy leaders are now focusing on the failure to fund and expand what might be called a “community-based health surveillance system” that immediately identifies problems. In this case, the heat crisis and the deaths of those people who are at risk – the elderly, disabled, people with respiratory problems – would have been identified immediately.

Health policy makers in the U.S. should take a lesson from the French crisis and make sure that proposals being put forward by all presidential candidates cover not just the paying of bills but also a public health infrastructure, including massive federal support for local, state and federal health department activities to protect everyone.

The French heat crisis is a good lesson for all of us. Let’s not forget it.

The author can be reached at pww@pww.org

Zeal for market: But what about justice?

Fri, 17 Oct 2003 05:07:00 +0000

In a recent column on “Socialist Market Economy,” Erwin Marquit argues for the merits of market-based economies and against the deficiencies of planned economies. Since the collapse of the Soviet Union and the European socialist community, this position has found a significant following among left intellectuals. My strong impression is that there has been a decided swing away from supporting planned economies in favor of market-centered economies.

In addition, self-professed socialist countries like China and Vietnam seem to embrace the notion of markets, though it is not always clear to what extent, in what way, and to what purpose.

For these reasons alone, advocates of socialism should examine the thinking behind these developments.

An honest appraisal of markets and planning must begin with the warning that they are not two mutually exclusive options. Stalin characterized the Soviet economy – at its most rigidly planned moment – as still a commodity producing, exchange-based economy. Conversely, the modern transnational corporation wholeheartedly embraces planning. With the development of information technologies, corporate executives develop extensive and detailed plans involving product development, production and marketing, plans that extend forward many years. Ironically, as advocates for socialism retreat from planning, the captains of industry welcome it.

Friends of the market accept other myths. Professor Marquit asserts that previous socialist economies suffered from non-cyclical crises, a failure to meet goals, balance distribution, and achieve productivity, suggesting that these factors caused the decline and collapse of the Soviet Union and its allies. The collapse of the Soviet Union was largely a political collapse brought on by political failures. Even today, opinion polls show strong support among Eastern Europeans for the benefits of the now-dismantled socialist economy.

Of course there were economic problems in the Soviet Union, some associated with planning, some not. For example the war in Afghanistan proved to have enormous economic consequences much as the U.S. war in Afghanistan and Iraq is demonstrating for our economy. Likewise, Chernobyl was a profound setback for the Soviet economy. Neither can be laid at the doorstep of planning.

Of course, capitalist enterprises are inefficient, fall short of goals, and fail in spite of the market. Market advocates explain this as a victory since the market is rationalizing production and distribution. But should socialists and Communists welcome this rationalization process? Should socialists and Communists celebrate the dislocation and unemployment of workers? The useless production of vulgar and frivolous products? The profit-driven merging and selling-off of enterprises? The competitive drive to reduce costs including wages, benefits, and safety?

But these questions are precisely the issues that Marquit (and other defenders of the market) evade. In their zeal to defend the efficiency of the market, they ignore entirely the issue of justice.

For example, by making productivity the centerpiece of the success of the market over planning, market advocates shrug off the unemployment, intensified exploitation, and dangerous working conditions that may accompany gains in productivity. U.S. economists are in awe of the productivity increases we have “enjoyed” over the last two years, gains that were achieved through massive layoffs and increasingly grueling and dangerous effort on the part of the remaining workers.

Professor Marquit faults planned economies because of they are incapable of “competing with a capitalist economy on the world market.” But should a socialist economy compete on the world market? When socialist economies first emerged, they were neither allowed nor particularly motivated to compete in the world market. All socialist economies were, and in the case of Cuba are, interested in fair and mutually beneficial trade. But where does the notion of competition take us? Historically, competition brings low labor costs, intense exploitation, and poor working conditions. Is this the vision of “market” socialism that Marquit espouses? Have we forgotten that the big fish eats the little fish?

While we follow market experimentation in China and Vietnam with great interest, we should not lose sight of the many danger signs: increased unemployment, rapidly expanding income differences, labor migration, individualism, alienation, crime, poor health, and foreign exploitation. These problems have increased dramatically as inefficient public enterprises have been replaced with efficient private businesses under pressure from the world market. But who will pay for this elusive efficiency? It would be a great tragedy if debates over the future of socialism revolve around growth rates, competitiveness, productivity and technical innovation and not health and welfare, cultural opportunity, equality, solidarity, peace and security. We should judge both market mechanisms and planning initiatives against these standards.

The author can be reached at pww@pww.org

Arnold moves to pay back energy traders

Fri, 17 Oct 2003 03:03:00 +0000

Actor Arnold Schwarzenegger hasn’t even taken office yet and already he and his Republican handlers are moving quickly to make California “business friendly.” They are scheming more deregulation of the electricity market, certain to hit Californians with huge rate increases and fill the coffers of energy traders.

Democratic lawmakers in Sacramento with a majority in both the House and Senate vow to block Schwarzenegger’s moves to further deregulate electricity. “Not only is the Legislature in no mood for it, the public is in no mood for it,” said state Sen. Joseph Dunn, a Democrat from conservative Orange County.

Dunn is planning an initiative for the November 2004 ballot to re-impose regulation on the electricity market. “The polling shows that 75 percent of Californians want to re-regulate the electricity system,” Dunn said.

Jason Leopold, who covered California’s energy crisis two years ago for the Dow Jones News Wire writes in Common Dreams, Oct. 10, “Forget about the Terminator. Arnold Schwarzenegger is taking on a new role as Governor-elect of California: The Deregulator.” He warns that among Schwarzenegger’s highest priorities is terminating measures enforced by Gov. Gray Davis to curb skyrocketing electricity rates brought on by the deregulation policies of his predecessor, Republican Gov. Pete Wilson. Schwarzenegger named to his transition team Jessie Knight, architect of Wilson’s 1996 deregulation plan, which opened the door for Enron, Reliant, El Paso Natural Gas, and other energy traders to “game” California’s energy market. The conspiracy was exposed in Enron internal memos with codenames like “Death Star,” “Get Shorty,” and “Fat Boy.”

The conspirators generated fraudulent electricity shortages with rolling brownouts that were used to force California to sign ruinous contracts that have cost ratepayers $50 billion in overcharges. But with their crony ties to George W. Bush and Dick Cheney, none of the ringleaders of this colossal extortion has been prosecuted. At the height of the crisis, Schwarzenegger, L.A. Mayor Richard Riordan and other Republican bigwigs met secretly with Enron CEO Ken Lay at the Peninsula Hotel in Beverly Hills on May 11, 2001, to hear his demand for even more energy deregulation. Asked about that session during the recall election, Schwarzenegger claimed he “can’t remember details of the meeting.”

Schwarzenegger has already announced that he will fire dozens of energy regulators appointed by Davis and appoint Republicans who favor “free market” energy policies. The Electricity Oversight Board, Schwarzenegger aides say, “may soon be out of business.” The Public Utility Commission, also a defender of regulated markets, faces a Schwarzenegger shake-up when two of its most vocal members, Loretta Lynch and Carl Wood, end their terms at the end of next year.

Also slated for termination may be the California Consumer Power and Conservation Financing Authority (CCP&CFA) created in August 2001 to finance publicly-owned power plants. The rapid construction of 26 public power plants, all by union labor, during Davis’ tenure, is credited with “keeping the lights on” in California when other regions suffered a plague of blackouts.

But on his official website Schwarzenegger declares, “to build and operate publicly-owned power plants is in direct competition with private industry and serves only to divert private investment in electricity generation and transmission away from the state.” Davis forced the energy companies to pay back about $3.3 billion in refunds and vowed to fight for at least $9 billion, even if the state had to go to court to recover more of the stolen money.

Schwarzenegger aides say they are ready to drop these lawsuits. “It’s time to settle and move on,” a senior Schwarzenegger aide told Leopold. “We don’t want to inherit litigation.”

With Schwarzenegger’s “business-friendly” policies, consumer advocates expect the worst.

The author can be reached at greenerpastures21212@yahoo.com

National Clips

Thu, 16 Oct 2003 10:16:00 +0000

SOUTH BEND, Ind.: Cheney picks up checks, anger

Vice President Dick Cheney thought it was a garden variety $2,000-a-plate luncheon, but outside the Notre Dame University’s Joyce Athletic and Convocation Center, hundreds of students, community residents and workers protested the Iraq invasion and occupation and demanded health care, jobs and social services.

Wearing yellow protection suits, the Women’s Action for New Directions conducted a mock search for weapons of mass destruction, but discovered only Cheney.

Antwan Edson drove 200 miles from Flint, Mich., to march against Cheney and demand that federal dollars be used to provide health care and jobs for the U.S. people.

HARRISBURG, Penn.: High court rejects Mumia Abu-Jamal’s appeal

In an “Alice in Wonderland” decision, the state’s Supreme Court rejected an appeal by Mumia Abu-Jamal and refused to hear testimony from Arnold Beverly who confessed to murdering Philadelphia police officer Daniel Faulkner on Dec. 9, 1981. Mumia was convicted of the killing and has been on death row since. In rejecting Beverly’s confession, the court cited the infamous 2001 ruling where Federal District Justice William H. Yohn ruled that “innocence is not defense.”

Only one of the nine Supreme Court justices dissented. Of the eight judges who agreed, Ronald Castille did not recuse himself. Castille prosecuted Mumia in 1981.

Mumia’s case now returns to the Federal District Court where his life sentence could be reversed and the death penalty reinstated.

MISSOULA, Mont.: Blue/Green coalition saves union jobs

The surest to start a bar fight in Missoula is not religion or politics but the environment vs. jobs debate. That is starting to change as Ironworkers Local 1 worked with environmental groups to preserve union jobs on the construction of a Lowe’s.

The Jobs with Justice coalition in the Missoula Central Labor Council organized nine environmental leaders and organizations to sign a letter to the general contractor on the Lowe’s project to reject a nonunion, out-of-state subcontractor who submitted a bid $50,000 lower than local union companies. The pressure worked, and the sub-contract was awarded to a local company where workers are union members.

Building on the success in Missoula, Blue-Green coalitions have sprung up in Billings and Great Falls.

BROOKLYN, N.Y.: Women defy racism, build safe haven for moms and kids

Immigrant women face a double whammy if they find themselves in an abusive situation. In addition to violence in their home, they face the Immigration and Naturalization Service and possibility of deportation if they seek help.

The New York Asian Women’s Center is one of several groups acting to protect women and children. They have run into a buzz saw of racism as they build a women’s shelter in the Carroll Gardens neighborhood. The new million-dollar, 20-bed shelter is scheduled to open next month.

In August, the “Concerned Citizens of Carroll Gardens” organized to stop the project. The code language of racism has been used to attack the center. Some opponents picketed the construction site, and its address has been widely publicized on the web and through leafletting.

Kyung Yoon, project coordinator, has led the fight to defend the center. “This was real ‘strategy’ on their part,” she said. “They wanted to ‘out’ the address so that the location would be compromised and we would not be able to use this as a place of safety for women.”

The Women’s Center has three other shelters in New York, and have never had a violent incident on their property.

DICKSON COUNTY, Tenn.: Corporate greed contaminates drinking water

“In Tennessee, at least half of the ground water [drinking water] is contaminated,” said Mike Apple, director of the state’s Solid Waste Department. “Ground water in all urban areas, including Nashville, contains toxic chemicals.”

In October, rural communities in Dickson County found their wells polluted with toxic chemicals. Nearby landfills, used primarily by manufacturing companies for waste disposal, were the culprit, Apple’s department concluded. Residents can not drink water from their tap nor can they wash clothes or dishes. The County has rushed in water buffaloes and is working to tie residents into the Nashville water system.

Residents first contacted the Southern California law firm of Masry and Vititoe, where Erin Brockovich, subject of a recent movie, is the director of research. The firm has been working with the Environmental Protection Agency.

“It’s scary because no one knows what’s going on 100 feet underground,” said Dickson County attorney Larry Ramsey. “It’s a horrible problem created by ignorance and corporate greed.”

National Clips are compiled by Denise Winebrenner Edwards (dwinebr696@aol.com). David Bernt and Lee Gloster contributed to this week’s clips.