People Before Profit blog

George Harrison, Irish American activist, 89

Fri, 29 Oct 2004 08:14:00 +0000

A capacity crowd filled the mid-town Manhattan auditorium of SEIU 1199, Oct. 20, to honor the memory of George Harrison, a lifelong Irish Republican, anti-imperialist activist, socialist, and People’s Weekly World supporter. Harrison died on Oct. 6 at the age of 89.

Although Harrison was involved in people’s struggles since the age of 15, he rose to international prominence in the early 1980s when he and four other Irish-American activists were arrested in a CIA frame-up for allegedly smuggling weapons to Irish Republicans resisting the British occupation of Northern Ireland. The trial took place during the murderous, anti-Irish policies of the extreme-right British government led by then-Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher. Because of the blatant nature of the frame-up, the trial resulted in the acquittal of all five defendants.

Harrison was an activist’s activist, who saw the cause of the Irish people in the context of a broader struggle. Speaker after speaker at the memorial spoke of Harrison’s unwavering commitment to the Irish struggle, anti-imperialism and the support of people’s struggles all over the world, from the Sandinista revolution in Nicaragua to the African National Congress’ struggle to free South Africa from apartheid. “No task in the service of justice was too small or trivial,” said lawyer Mary Pike. “His rich legacy is how to live a principled existence.”

Newspaper columnist Jimmy Breslin said Harrison was also dedicated to the Cuban people and their revolution. Harrison also admired Cuban President Fidel Castro, Breslin said.

Spanish Civil War veteran Moe Fishman described Harrison’s support for the Spanish Republic during the 1930s and his leading role in conceiving and financing a monument to Irish International Brigade martyr Tommy Patton.

Irish radio show host Sandy Boyer said Harrison was the man who tied the broad anti-imperialist movement together and that “George hated racism every bit has much as he did British imperialism.”

Speakers repeated a unified theme that the best way to honor Harrison is to defeat Bush and the extreme right in November.

As the memorial ended and the crowd dispersed, people walked into the New York City night, motivated and energized to do just that.

— Gary Bono (gbono@cpusa.org)

Floridians to vote on minimum wage hike

Fri, 29 Oct 2004 08:09:00 +0000

On Tuesday, Nov. 2, Florida voters will have the chance to raise wages for over 300,000 minimum wage workers in the state by voting to raise the minimum wage to $6.15 per hour. The Florida Minimum Wage Amendment creates a state minimum wage covering all employees covered by the federal minimum wage. The state minimum will start at $6.15 per hour, and be indexed to inflation each year.

Amendment 5 will help the mothers and fathers who struggle to make ends meet on less than $11,000 a year. Florida would join many other states with a higher minimum than is federally mandated. As of July 2004, states with higher minimum wages include Alaska ($7.15), Conn. ($7.10), Calif. ($6.75), Delaware ($6.15), the District of Columbia ($6.15, set $1 above the federal minimum), Hawaii ($6.25), Illinois ($5.50, scheduled to rise to $6.50 in 2005), Maine ($6.25), Mass. ($6.75), Oregon ($7.05, adjusted annually), Rhode Island ($6.75), Vermont ($6.75, scheduled to rise to $7 in 2005), and Washington ($7.16, adjusted annually).

Testimonials given to the “Yes on 5” campaign include Irene Licharew from Orlando, who said, “I worked for Dollar Rent-a-Car earning $5.15 an hour, without health care, and without ever getting a raise. This year Hurricane Charley devastated my mobile home. I’m not the only one in my community or in the state who has been ravaged by the hurricane. A minimum wage job could not provide me with enough income before. How will I pay to repair my home now?”

Kendra Johnson of Miami said, “I know what it is like to be a single parent trying to raise two kids, while making $5.15 an hour. Everyday you have to struggle to keep a roof over your head. There is no money to pay for daycare. You can’t afford to buy clothes for your children.”

Rebecca Gardner of Tampa agreed. “We all know that $5.15 per hour is not enough. I will vote yes on 5 to give Florida raise.”

Monster Mash legend fights to save areas under Bush attack

Fri, 29 Oct 2004 08:02:00 +0000

Music Review

WASHINGTON — The song that defines Halloween for many — “Monster Mash” — is being brought back to life today with the help of the original recording artist.

A new web-based appeal (www.monsterslash.org) from the Campaign to Protect America’s Lands (CPAL) and Defenders of Wildlife Action Fund (DWAF) opposes the Bush administration’s controversial plan to permit logging, mining and other commercial exploitation of roadless federal forest areas. The comment period on the administration’s widely criticized bid to repeal forest protections ends Nov. 14.

The new song — “Monster Slash” — was recorded by Bobby “Boris” Pickett, the co-creator of the 1962 hit “Monster Mash” and also the vocalist on the original recording. “Our goal here is to make sure that people understand that the scariest thing to happen to our forests in a long time,” said CPAL Director Peter Altman, “is the Bush administration’s plan to surrender vast quantities of virgin wilderness areas to the logging, mining and oil industries.”

DWAF President Rodger Schlickeisen said: “While the big timber companies get all the treats from President Bush, the American public gets nothing but tricks. ‘Monster Slash’ gives people a chance to laugh, share something fun with their friends, and then get active to protest the Bush plan and restore some balance in our national forests.”

Explaining his decision to release a new version of the rock hit with which he is most closely identified, entertainer Pickett said: “I decided to do this new recording because, like millions of people, I think this president has the worst environmental record in the history of our great nation.”

The Bush administration’s scheme to repeal the federal roadless rule would eliminate existing federal protections for 58.5 million acres of wild national forests, and allow road building that assists clear-cut logging and other commercial uses.

On his first day in office, President Bush suspended the Roadless Area Conservation Rule, which was enacted after three years of public and scientific input that included 600 public meetings and record-breaking citizen input. Of the more than 1.6 million comments submitted, an overwhelming 95 percent favored the strongest possible protection for roadless areas.

Recorded by Pickett and the Cryptkicker Five, “Monster Mash” still gets a substantial amount of air time every Halloween. The song has been described as “arguably the most popular novelty song ever.” Over the years, “Monster Mash” has sold over 4 million copies and received three gold records.

Tracking Bushs assault on the environment

Fri, 29 Oct 2004 07:55:00 +0000

Book Review

In his recent work, “Crimes Against Nature,” Robert F. Kennedy Jr., an environmental attorney, writes a scathing critique of the anti-environment policies of the George W. Bush administration. Kennedy observes, “George W. Bush will go down as the worst environmental president in our nation’s history.”

Bush’s policies threaten wholesale destruction of our environment as a result of his sellout to polluting corporate interests. A compliant corporate media has abandoned its public trust and maintained silence while the environmental tragedy unfolds. A media that either kowtows to corporate polluters or is outright owned by them, such as NBC and General Electric, has abdicated its responsibility to inform the American people.

Ominous signs first appeared during Bush’s governorship of Texas. Under Bush, Texas had the worst pollution record of the 50 states, and was 49th in terms of environmental spending. Texas also ranked first for the most important pollution indexes, and Houston replaced Los Angeles as the smoggiest city in the country.

In anticipation of resistance to his policies in Texas, Bush declared “tort reform” to be an emergency and “appointed judges who made it all but impossible for Texans to bring class action lawsuits against polluters.”

Kennedy charges that during Bush’s Texas years, the future president “developed tactics and policies that guide his autocratic leadership today: closed-door meetings with industry insiders, who are among his biggest campaign contributors; reliance on pseudo-scientific studies by right-wing think tanks; emasculation of regulations that cut into industry profits; citizens muzzled in debates that affect their communities.”

Upon becoming president, Bush wasted no time in attacking the environment. On Inauguration Day, the new administration froze every one of Clinton’s pending environmental regulations. Appointees with anti-environmental sympathies and backgrounds were placed in key positions throughout the government and followed an intentional policy of ignoring environmental laws and regulations.

The author notes how the administration has “slashed funding for environmental science,” and has at its disposal from private sources “a lavish-funded brigade of hired guns and ‘biostitutes’ — crooked scientists on industry payroll, housed in fancy think tanks that publish junk science to persuade the public that there are no environmental crises and undo the laws challenging their pollution-based profits.”

Bush officials have pressured scientists to alter findings and even rewrite studies. Reports from agencies such as the National Academy of Sciences, National Aeronautics and Space Administration, and the National Oceanic and Atmosphere Administration have been altered, suppressed, or discredited by the administration.

The Bush administration’s reverse Midas touch has been felt in nearly every area of the environment, from chemical pollution to carbon dioxide emissions to the wanton destruction being carried out in Appalachia. Kennedy describes how the Appalachian Mountains, especially in eastern Kentucky and West Virginia, are now undergoing a tragic and irreversible change.

The coal industry is literally “dismantling the ancient mountains and pristine streams through a form of strip-mining known as mountaintop removal.” Many hundreds of feet are being blown off the tops of these ancient hills and mountains in order to reach the thin coal seams that lie beneath them. Mountains have been reduced to level plains.

So far, over 4 million acres of forests have been turned into flat, barren wastelands. The process does not create jobs and has “nearly dispensed with human labor.” West Virginia, which had 115,000 mining jobs in 1960, has less than 15,000 today.

Kennedy explains how the courts were able to temporarily halt the mountaintop removal process as a result of enforcing an Environmental Impact Statement (EIS). However, in the most blatant and arrogant misuse of their power, former coal industry officials now working for the Bush administration simply rewrote the EIS, converting most of it into a “discussion of how to make it easier to get permits” for this process.

One activist quoted by Kennedy, Julia Bond, notes, “Definitely the Bush administration and the coal industry have teamed up to wipe Appalachia off the map. This is Appalachia’s last stand. When the mountains go, so goes our culture and our people, and it’ll be the Bush administration that drives a stake through our heart.”

With the exception of Kennedy’s “obligatory” paeans to the alleged virtues of free-market capitalism, the book is a well-thought-out, informative critique of the systematic environmental destruction now being carried out by the Bush administration.

The author can be reached at pww@pww.org.

9/11 and the decline of our democracy

Fri, 29 Oct 2004 07:43:00 +0000

Opinion

President Bush has taken over 9/11, to use whenever it serves his purposes. He seeks to own it all — except the acknowledgment that he and his war cabinet were accessories.

The 9/11 Report says, “The terrorists exploited deep institutional failings.” But, as Bill Moyers points out, “institutions are the lengthened influence of individuals — the system is the sum of the men and women who take an oath to make it work.”

Condoleezza Rice testified to the 9/11 Commission: “I don’t think anyone could have predicted that these people would slam planes into the World Trade Center.” But the commission reports that the administration had 12 separate warnings from intelligence agencies about planes as weapons.

In the first few weeks of his administration, Bush and/or other top officials were warned in the strongest terms by George Tenet, Richard Clarke, Sandy Berger and the Hart-Rudman Report that bin Laden was a major threat.

In the crescendo of warnings in the summer of 2001, there were over 40 references to bin Laden in the President’s Daily Briefings (PDBs). The CIA took pains to refer to aircraft in the Aug. 6 brief titled “Bin Laden Determined to Attack in the United States,” delivered at the ranch on the first day of the president’s vacation. Our commander in chief could have returned to Washington and mobilized a defense. He could have informed Congress and the public of a state of emergency. This would have alerted Norad and the airlines and crews, and might have energized the intelligence community to “connect the dots.” He chose instead to spend another 27 days cutting brush.

As a result of his inaction, “The defense of U.S. airspace on 9/11 … was improvised … there was no meaningful coordination by the White House, the Defense Department and the FAA” (9/11 Report).

Top administration officials showed, over a period of months, colossal indifference to a clear and present danger, and did nothing to prevent the 9/11 attacks. The attacks might have been averted or blunted had these officials applied their full authority and power to the challenge. Their negligence, regardless of its cause, appears consistent with the Constitution’s definition of high crimes and misdemeanors.

The mindset of these individuals included (a) an obsessive preoccupation with Iraq beginning at the first National Security Council meeting on 1/30/01; (b) an understanding of the political advantage of a war president; (c) a belief that the “virtue” of their ends justifies any means; and (d) a sense that they could out-maneuver any call for accountability.

They were right regarding the last assumption. The administration obstructed and stonewalled two major inquiries.

The White House fought against initiating the congressional Joint Intelligence Committees inquiry; made itself off-limits for investigation when the inquiry was finally established; censored the final report; and delayed its release for six months. Even now, two years after their request, the committees are still fighting to get release of an internal CIA inquiry.

Seeing the difficulties of the congressional investigation, 9/11 widows fought for and won the establishment of the “independent” 9/11 Commission. This was also hamstrung by the White House; for instance obtaining access to the PDBs was a protracted nightmare, and the president refused to testify under oath. But even so, Benjamin DeMott, who is highly critical of the 9/11 Report (“Whitewash As Public Service” in the October Harper’s), notes that it contains “brief glimpses [of] behavior on which fair judgments of character and intelligence could and should have been based.” Many of the incriminating facts described in the report cast doubt on the legitimacy of Bush’s right to govern for another four years.

The president testified to the commission that he knew that Al Qaeda wanted to attack America and that Al Qaeda was dangerous; but he denied that he had been specifically warned about possible domestic attacks. Given the facts cited above, it is difficult to avoid the conclusion that either the president lied or he is mentally incompetent. The report’s failure to make such judgments leads DeMott to conclude that it “defrauds the nation.”

The 9/11 tragedy was the pivotal event on which the president hung his strategy for political ascendancy. Absent a widely publicized assessment of accountability, most citizens are unaware that there is incriminating evidence of criminal negligence on the part of the president and other high officers.

The electorate is thus put in the compromised position of having to vote, without relevant information, on a candidate who may be guilty of a “high crime” as defined in the impeachment article of the Constitution.

Probable criminal negligence by George Bush with regard to the 9/11 tragedy, with nearly 3,000 dead, is an issue which must be addressed. As long as the nation remains in a state of denial regarding accountability, it is acquiescing to an imperial leadership which puts the welfare of our citizens and the good name of our nation at risk.

David Leventhal is a science and mathematics educator. He can be reached at dleventhal2@earthlink.net.

In dark and hopeful times, we shall overcome

Fri, 29 Oct 2004 07:39:00 +0000

Opinion

These are dark and hopeful times — dark because the Bush administration is waging an endless war in the face of worldwide opposition, but hopeful because it has brought us together. We are the children of faith and social justice, and history tells us that together we are an unstoppable coalition and a reflection of the very best virtues and values of our country. We will come together to defeat Bush at the polls and compel the next president to pursue social justice and protect ordinary people from the powerful and selfish.

We are part of a significant tradition of activists and advocates, community, faith and labor leaders, students, citizens and public officials who have always worked to hold the powerful accountable, and we are called upon to do so again. We are the descendants of King and Gandhi, Cesar Chavez and Mary McDowell, Eugene Debs and A. Phillip Randolph. We, and people like us, ordinary, conscientious, hard-working, open society loving and community minded people, created unions to fight for and win the workers’ rights struggles of the ’20s and ’30s and the progressive movement that secured the legal existence of civil rights in the ’60s and ’70s. People like us are the souls working to create a world built on human rights and just economics, instead of blood and oil, and we will prevail.

We have the burden and privilege to be the moral voice that ended slavery and apartheid and we will do what we have always done, save this nation from the shortsighted and venal. We have historically had the honor and responsibility of standing up as principled people in defense of liberty and for justice and peace. We are the patriots who have saved this country from zealots and bigots again and again because dissent is democracy and a moral voice is one that speaks truth to power and creates justice by doing so. We are called upon once again to stand shoulder-to-shoulder and sister-to-brother, across lines of faith, race, creed and class, to prevent this fraudulent administration from destroying the very freedoms it purports to defend. We are the place where America’s best values and greatest hopes come together, and we refuse to allow our nation to be reduced to a unilateralist bully whose foreign policy is driven by greed and powered by violence.

I say all of that to say this: We must remember that the Bush administration did not change its positions on civil liberties and foreign policy after Sept. 11; it just took advantage of our shared sorrow to greatly diminish them. We must remember that the Bush administration did not change its ideas on social justice after Sept. 11; it just used it as an excuse to fuel a war machine that enriches its corporate benefactors, assaults the environment and attacks the rights of anyone not fortunate enough to be born into power or privilege. It is important that we remember that the Bush administration was not changed by the tragedy of the 11th and has no intentions of doing anything but expanding the morally bankrupt practices and principles that nurtures them and feeds on us. They have already taken us into a quagmire in Iraq complete with torture and intense incompetence and an endless war in Afghanistan, for profit alone. This is an administration supported by lies and built on greed. We must stop them … it is on us to answer them.

We will answer them with teach-ins, rallies, civil disobedience and the enunciation of a positive set of policies to change the way the world works. We will fight for change by voting and writing and marching and debating these small-minded men at every turn and we will bring their misdeeds to the American people, and our good, great people will cast them out. We will not allow them to hide behind tragedy, or sully the American flag with actions that go against the values it flies for. We will not allow them to use faith to justify aggression and avarice. We will demand an ethical foreign policy grounded in international law, not unilateral force, and we will win. We will win because we are the children of faith and social justice and we shall overcome.

Don Washington is associate director of the Community Renewal Society in Chicago, and the keeper of two large and mischievous cats.

Protect the vote! 1-866-OUR-VOTE

Fri, 29 Oct 2004 07:35:00 +0000

Opinion

With widespread predictions of a close national election, an unprecedented wave of new voter registration and new voting systems in place, the potential for problems is high. These can come from poorly trained poll workers, confused voters, and improper actions by some state and local election officials. On top of all that, unscrupulous political operatives are looking for any advantage that will help them win, including voter suppression and intimidation efforts.

This is nothing new. In virtually every election, voters — particularly African Americans and other minorities — have faced calculated and determined efforts to keep them out. While poll taxes, literacy tests and the physical violence of the Jim Crow era have disappeared, more subtle, cynical and creative tactics have taken their place.

In fact, the scope of efforts to limit voting in minority communities during the past two decades is startling.

“Ballot security” or “voter integrity” initiatives targeting minority communities are just one often-used method of intimidating voters. At least three times, these initiatives have been successfully challenged in federal courts as illegal attempts to suppress voter participation.

Other methods include distributing flyers and other information containing false information about where, when and how to vote. There have even been recent incidents of operatives challenging individual voters at the polls by using armed private guards, off-duty law enforcement officers, and fake poll monitors.

Robbing citizens of their votes undermines the very foundations of our democratic society. Politicians, political strategists, and party officials who may consider voter intimidation and suppression efforts as part of their tactical arsenal should be exposed and prosecuted. State and federal officials, including Justice Department and national political party officials of both parties, should publicly repudiate such tactics and make clear that those who engage in them will face severe punishment.

In a nation where children are taught in grade school that every citizen has the right to vote, it would be comforting to think that the last vestiges of voter intimidation, oppression and suppression have been swept away. It would be good to know that voters are no longer wrongly turned away from the polls, never knowingly misdirected, misinformed, deceived or threatened.

Unfortunately, it would be a grave mistake to believe it.

To report incidents of voter suppression or intimidation, or to get help with other kinds of problems on Election Day, call 1-866-OUR-VOTE for assistance.

Ralph G. Neas is president of People For the American Way, www.pfaw.org. This article was distributed by MinutemanMedia.org.

The vote is the central issue in 2004

Fri, 29 Oct 2004 07:31:00 +0000

Opinion

Both personality and issues will affect who is elected president in 2004. Most agree George W. Bush’s personality and John Kerry’s issues are most appealing. Both are focused on getting votes — however, there may actually be something more fundamental.

What may actually be central in this campaign is the foundation upon which our democracy, the candidates’ personalities and all the issues rest — the vote.

After the election debacle of 2000, most Americans thought Congress had basically fixed our voting system when it passed the Help America Vote Act (HAVA) and provided over $2 billion to implement it. Now it appears the 2004 election may be worse than 2000.

The president gave various reasons for going to war in Afghanistan and occupying Iraq, but now he says it was to establish democracy. An election of sorts was held in Afghanistan and one in Iraq is scheduled for January. Yet it is turning out that our own democracy and its voting mechanisms may again become the central issue in the campaign.

Many questions continue to surface. Will everyone entitled to vote actually be able to vote? Will all voters who cast legal votes have their votes counted accurately? Are the new electronic voting machines reliable or will they be manipulated? If a machine’s results are suspicious can they be verified through a paper trail? Have legitimate new voters been disenfranchised by partisan election officials using technicalities to knock them off of the voter rolls? Will polling places be moved or closed at the last minute with little or no notice? Will the worst and most unreliable voting machines (punch card) disproportionately end up in minority communities as happened in Chicago, Florida and elsewhere in 2000?

We now know punch card voting machines are the least reliable, but skepticism over electronic voting has led many states to keep them in place. For example, in the critical swing state of Ohio, according to a Century Foundation study, only four of 31 Ohio counties that were eligible to replace punch-card machines are actually doing so. Nationally, 32 million voters “including many in key battleground states still live in jurisdictions that will use punch card ballots,” likely meaning “far fewer African American votes will count relative to uncounted votes by white citizens.”

Will harassment play a role? Local election officials threatened to discount students who registered and planned to vote from their campus at Texas’ Prairie View A & M until a judge stopped them. Will election officials in other college towns have other tricks up their sleeve? Will “Ballot Security” and “Ballot Integrity” bullies attempt to suppress the vote in minority communities, especially in the African American community, which has been documented as having happened on a regular basis?

Will the Defense Department — which is responsible for members of the military and American civilians voting from abroad, approximately 6 million voters in all — have an efficient and fair system of voting? There are some indications it won’t. Military people who it is felt are more pro-Bush are being asked to fax their “secret” ballot to the Defense Department to be passed on to their local election board, while civilian Americans thought to be more pro-Kerry have had difficulty getting their ballots on time.

Just as Florida’s election officials engaged in some hanky panky with respect to alleged ex-felons in 2000, it was tried again in 2004 with only press exposure stopping them. Will the erroneous denial of so-called ex-felons’ right to vote in 2000 turn out to be another embarrassment in 2004?

Finally, after 100 million-plus popular votes will the presidency again be decided by one vote by a Supreme Court justice? It is almost certain with all of these shenanigans, questions and administrative fallacies that if the election is close, allegations of wrongdoing will surface and there will be dozens of lawsuits seeking to change the election results.

A recent New York Times editorial stated, “In a well-run democracy, the government would be running elections of … unquestioned integrity. ... But the mechanics of American democracy are deeply flawed, and Congress, state governments and local elections officials have been unwilling to do what is necessary to fix them. If this election is going to be a fair and honest one, concerned citizens will have to do their part to ensure that every vote counts.” In other words, Americans are left to monitor their government-administered democracy with voluntary oversight!

Congress may or may not be willing to fix our flawed system. The reality is Congress is unable to fix it. Why? Because we have a “states’ rights” voting system and Congress has no power to fix it. Unlike free speech, assembly and religion, there is no individual right to vote in the Constitution — the main lesson of Bush v. Gore! And the Constitution has not authorized Congress to fix it! Only by adding an affirmative individual right to vote to the Constitution, and assigning Congress the power, can Congress design and implement a unitary voting system that provides every American an equal opportunity to vote and assures them that every vote will be counted accurately.

Rep. Jesse Jackson Jr. represents Illinois’ Second Congressional District.

From COINTELPRO to the Patriot Act: The long battle for justice and civil liberties

Fri, 29 Oct 2004 06:19:00 +0000

Jailed Black Panther calls for amnesty

BALTIMORE — From his jail cell at the Maryland House of Corrections in Jessup where he is serving a life sentence, Marshall “Eddie” Conway has launched a drive for amnesty for himself and other victims of the FBI’s COINTELPRO dirty tricks program 30 years ago.

At the same time, Conway is calling for freedom for hundreds of innocent people jailed since Sept. 11, 2001, under the infamous USA Patriot Act.

Conway, a leader of the Baltimore Black Panther Party (BPP), has served nearly 35 years on false charges that he murdered two Baltimore police officers the night of April 24, 1970.

Conway has never wavered in proclaiming his innocence. He has alibis proving he was not at the scene of the crime and there is no physical evidence to support the charges against him. He was tried in an atmosphere of Vietnam War hysteria, in the era of Richard Nixon’s “enemies list” and the Watergate conspiracy.

In a recent telephone interview from prison, Conway told the World he sees many parallels between the Nixon administration and the Bush administration in their reliance on repression, intimidation and fear. People angered by the imprisonment of thousands of innocent people under Attorney General John Ashcroft’s Patriot Act, he said, can understand that he, too, is a victim of a racist frame-up.

Conway ticks off a list of other, better known victims of COINTELPRO (“Counter Intelligence Program”): American Indian Movement leader Leonard Peltier, journalist Mumia Abu Jamal, and the advocates of Puerto Rican independence, all languishing in prison. Some, such as Elmer “Geronimo” Pratt and Richard Moore Diruba, have won their freedom after decades of proclaiming their innocence.

Dirty tricks

“We need a blanket pardon of all the COINTELPRO victims,” Conway said. “There are many who are still incarcerated 35 years after (former FBI Director) J. Edgar Hoover’s secret dirty war. I think it is the grassroots effort that is going to play the major role. This is not really a legal case. It’s a political case. It depends on people understanding the issues.”

Throughout recent American history, he said, the FBI, CIA and other federal agencies have tried to legalize their attempts to suppress groups seeking social change. “There were the Palmer Raids in the 1920s, the FBI infiltration of labor unions, the Socialist and Communist parties during the 1950s. The Patriot Act represents their latest attempt to legalize their repression,“ he said. “People need to stand up against the repression because they don’t want to end up in the same situation I am in.”

Like the FBI’s COINTELPRO, the Patriot Act has given federal law enforcement authorities sweeping new powers to infiltrate legal organizations, to harass and intimidate people, Conway said.

“We’re reading every day about preventive detention of so-called ‘material witnesses,’ warrantless wiretaps, the FBI going into people’s personal records. People’s personal property is searched and seized. They declare people ‘enemy combatants,’ and deny them their rights of due process. These are the powers that Bush, Cheney and Ashcroft claim for themselves, the power to investigate anybody without accountability or judicial oversight.”

Bush extends repression worldwide

The Bush administration has extended these policies of mass repression worldwide, Conway said. He cited the detention of so-called enemy combatants at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, since Sept. 11, 2001. Thousands more are languishing in Pentagon and CIA operated prisons around the world, including the infamous Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq and the Bagram detention facility in Afghanistan, where inmates have been tortured and even murdered.

There are also people accused as enemy combatants here in the U.S., such as Jose Padilla, a U.S. citizen held in a military stockade at Camp LeJeune, S.C. Several sensational cases, including an attempt to frame Portland, Ore., attorney Brandon Mayfield, and four Muslim men in Detroit, have collapsed for lack of evidence.

Last June, the U.S. Supreme Court handed down two rulings rejecting Bush’s claim of powers to throw people in jail indefinitely without criminal charges or the right of due process. The high court upheld the legal rights of detainees both at Guantanamo and within the U.S.

“The multinational corporations, those who control the wealth, have always repressed movements that threaten their privileges,” said Conway. “Some people call these policies a ‘mistake’ but they were not mistakes. It’s part of their operating procedure to maintain control of society. It cuts into their profits when workers are unionized or people join together to fight for justice so they use methods of repression to suppress or destroy these movements.”

With the help of the American Friends Service Committee (AFSC), the Partnership for Social Justice, the National Lawyers Guild and other progressive organizations, Conway is circulating a draft resolution calling on the 108th Congress to reopen the famous 1976 Senate Church Committee hearings that first laid bare the criminal abuses of COINTELPRO. The resolution would extend that congressional probe to “the impact of the more recently enacted USA Patriot act on organizations and individuals” and would clear the way for “legal redress for victims of both of these intrusive operations.”

Councilman Kwame Abayomi, who pushed through the Baltimore City Council resolutions opposing the war on Iraq and the Patriot Act, has introduced Conway’s resolution before the council.

Free Conway and reopen hearings

Stevenson had a very positive meeting with Rep. Barbara Lee, said Dominique Stevenson, director of AFSC’s Baltimore Programs, referring to the African American congresswoman from Berkeley, Calif. “We are seeking meetings with members of both the Congressional Black Caucus and the Progressive Caucus to urge them to introduce the resolution in the U.S. Congress.”

Stevenson said AFSC has launched a simultaneous campaign to win freedom for Conway with a rally set for Nov. 6, from noon to 4 p.m., at the University of Baltimore on the theme, “35 Years is Too Much: A Rally to Free Marshall ‘Eddie’ Conway.”

She added, “At this point I’m hopeful we can build a campaign on several levels to win his release, both legal and political. We hope that by reopening the Church Committee inquiry on COINTELPRO it will shine a spotlight on all the victims of political repression in jail, including those imprisoned under the Patriot Act. About two dozen Black Panther Party members are still incarcerated, most of them in New York and Georgia in both state and federal prisons.”

Slander, harassment and assassinations

The draft resolution states, “COINTELPRO was an illegal, extra-judicial program designed to disrupt and destroy opposition groups and movements such as the Black Panther Party, American Indian Movement, and other organizations that were targeted by the FBI.”

Tactics included “slander and harassment of members, the framing of leaders like Geronimo Pratt, and ultimately the assassination of high ranking members like Fred Hampton,” the resolution continues. Hampton was the founder of the Chicago chapter of the Black Panther Party murdered by Chicago police as he was sleeping in his bed Dec. 4, 1969.

COINTELPRO, initiated in the early years of the Cold War, targeted the Communist Party USA by employing an army of spies to infiltrate and disrupt the party’s legal, peaceful activities. J. Edgar Hoover authorized “Operation Hoodwink” in which FBI agents forged letters on fake CPUSA letterhead addressed to New York underworld gangsters denouncing their criminal activities. It was an attempt to incite violence against party leaders and members.

Later, COINTELPRO was vastly expanded, targeting Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and thousands of other peace and justice advocates.

Said Conway, “The aim was to neutralize the movement, to disrupt legal activities. Dozens were murdered or assassinated. Hundreds were forced into exile. The result was that effective movements for social change were disrupted and in some cases destroyed.”

Conway was a postal worker at Baltimore’s main post office in the late 1960s when he joined the BPP. “There are FBI files proving that the FBI followed me around, contacted my employer to get me fired. They were harassing me prior to my being incarcerated.”

He believes the FBI targeted him for frame-up in revenge for his role in ferreting out a National Security Agency spy named Warren Hart planted in the Baltimore chapter of the BPP in 1969. Hart had been attending BPP Central Committee meetings at a time when the FBI and local police departments across the nation were waging open, violent warfare against the BPP.

During his decades in prison, Conway has struggled to improve conditions for himself and his fellow inmates. He organized a family literacy program so that prisoners could read books together with their children when they visit. He organized the first library at Jessup, which now has thousands of books.

Through Conway’s efforts, computers were acquired by the library to teach the inmates computer literacy. He has recruited outside speakers to come to address the prisoners on issues vital to their interests. He earned a college degree at Baltimore’s Coppin State College and is seeking his doctorate through an extension program at the University of California.

Fightback by Arabs, Muslims

Arab Americans and Muslim organizations have angrily denounced the Bush administration for its frontal assault on civil liberties. “What does it mean for Muslim Americans if President Bush is re-elected?” asked Mukit Hossain, president of the Muslim American Political Action Committee. “It means more constricting laws and policies to curtail the civil liberties of Muslim Americans and harsher foreign policies toward Muslim countries in the name of combating terrorism,” he said. “It also means a continuing and menacing rise of anti-Muslim sentiment in America, covertly nurtured by the neoconservatives and openly fanned by government officials like Lt. General William Boykin and Attorney General John Ashcroft.”

Hossain added, “Since Senator Kerry is not controlled by religious and political ideologues, the possibility of an open and productive dialog with the Kerry administration for the Muslim Americans remains alive.”

A recent Zogby poll showed that Arab Americans and Muslim Americans are tilting 9-to-1 for Kerry, a sharp reverse of the 2000 election when many were fooled by Bush promises to restart the stalled Middle East peace process.

Abed Hammoud, president of the Arab American Political Action Committee (AAPAC) representing 3 million Arab Americans, charged that “under George Bush, hate crimes against Americans of Middle Eastern descent increased by 1,600 percent.” He accused the Bush administration of “collecting secret evidence” and ordering the FBI “to monitor personal records and break into homes and offices without probable cause.”

Not a single terrorist prosecuted

A series of articles in the New York Times Oct. 24-25 exposed a clique of extremist neoconservatives headed by Vice President Dick Cheney as the authors of the plan for mass incarceration of 560 mostly Muslim and Arab men at Guantanamo and other Pentagon prisons. They were to be denied rights guaranteed under the Geneva Conventions and other international laws. The plan was considered so sensitive that senior White House officials “kept its details secret from the president’s national security adviser, Condoleezza Rice, and Secretary of State Colin L. Powell.” The article quotes Cheney saying the brutal system “guarantees that we’ll have the kind of treatment of these individuals that we believe they deserve.”

The Times adds, “But three years later, not a single terrorist has been prosecuted.” The article reports that lawyers in the Pentagon’s Judge Adjutant General’s office were ignored when they warned against the global dragnet. A worldwide outcry has forced the Pentagon to release hundreds of the detainees.

Osama Siblani, a former AAPAC president who endorsed Bush in 2000, charged, “George Bush has shaken the very foundations of this country with his assault on civil rights.”

Tim Wheeler, national political correspondent for the People’s Weekly World, can be reached at greenerpastures21212@yahoo.com.

Vote or die is no joke

Fri, 29 Oct 2004 06:10:00 +0000

The phrase “Vote or Die” is a favorite among young voters and meant to get them to the polls. For health care activists, this is not an empty phrase but a grim reality. The policies of the Bush administration, if not stopped, will bring suffering and death to tens of thousands.

John Henshaw, head of the Occupational Safety and Health Administration, says workers should rely on their employers to provide a safe and healthy workplace. Bush prefers “voluntary compliance” rather than using OSHA federal marshals to regulate and punish employers who violate the law. The strategy is backed up with sharp cutbacks on enforcement budgets.

While OSHA may talk about involving unions, it regularly meets with employers only. Any worker knows that relying on employers to fix their own hazards is useless. That was why OSHA was enacted in the first place. Strictly enforced federal regulations, established by strong worker and union participation in hearings and standard setting, was the congressional intent when the law was passed in 1970.

The Bush administration response to workers and their unions is the opposite. For example, in addition to gutting the enforcement rules, they propose downgrading the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health to a level that would leave it severely underfunded and unable to fulfill its congressional mandate of conducting research and education programs to protect workers and their families.

When Bush baits John Kerry about the role of government, he is really saying that the health care system is meant to be profit-motivated, not service-motivated. When Bush talks about self-reliance for patients, he is handing the medical industrial complex millions of dollars in federal monies and more power to determine the future of health care in our country.

Missing from the administration’s equation for health and occupational health are the people at whom these programs are aimed, that is, workers, their families and the unions and other organizations that represent them.

The crudest example of the “profits first and people last” policy is the administration’s payoff to the powerful drug companies via their phony Medicare program. With Bush as president, there is no hope for policy changes that would significantly adjust the Medicare law so that its benefits will actually help seniors and the disabled.

Bush won’t do anything that would limit drug company profits. He won’t allow the federal government to negotiate the price of drugs so that they are affordable. In fact, Bush and his drug company allies are trying to stop other governments from negotiating the price of drugs. As a lame duck president, Bush will push for more profits, not less.

Just as education advocates have shown the hypocrisy of Bush’s underfunded “No Child Left Behind,” his contempt for children is just as dramatic in his health policy. He proposed a 30 percent cut in funds for children’s hospitals in the year 2004 budget. And, in 2001 he actually proposed a reduction in the Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP) by $11 billion.

John Kerry has promised to do what child health advocates have been demanding, that is, change the policy so that a newborn child is immediately enrolled in the CHIP program. Bush sees this as “government interference.” Currently, parents have to apply for the program — sometimes not even knowing such a program exists. This is why only about 35 percent of eligible children are enrolled.

The author can be reached at pww@pww.org.

Bush vs. Kerry on job growth

Fri, 29 Oct 2004 05:53:00 +0000

If you are like most working people in the U.S. today, your job security has never, it seems, been shakier. Never mind the huge job losses under Bush’s watch: whole careers, entire trades, have been swept away in the span of a few years. So what the presidential candidates have to say about their plans for job growth is of keen interest.

George W. Bush’s jobs plan is simple. Cut taxes for the rich on the theory that the rich will invest it in the stock or other capital markets, and this investment will stimulate growth. Of course, wealthy investors will only invest if they have reason to expect a return. Firms do not often expand capacity if it looks like their customers are getting poorer. Despite Bush’s massive tax cut for the rich, business investment has been weak ever since 2000.

It gets worse. The Bush tax cuts have already provided whatever stimulus they could have by now; they have run their course. The results are invisible in many areas of the economy. And whatever “bounce” the economy got from Bush’s tax cuts and war spending was obtained through massive deficit spending. Bush put all of it on the credit card, leaving future generations of workers to foot the bill.

So now what? When asked in the presidential debates what else he might do, Bush championed education. Of course, he did the same thing last election, passed an education bill with bipartisan support and then did not fund it.

The Bush message is: “You are going to lose your job. That’s tough. You’ve got to go back to school. I want to help you. But you will have to wait until the war on terror is over before I can find any money. I have no idea when that might be. Maybe you should consider enlisting....”

Senator John Kerry has provided a considerably more detailed plan. He proposes steps like the following:

• Cut the domestic corporate tax rate 5 percent and raise taxes on foreign corporate income so as to encourage domestic manufacturing and trade.

• Provide significant health care relief to workers whose companies cannot afford rising premiums.

• Provide a variety of incentives to encourage small and medium-size business growth, including an ambitious “New Jobs” tax credit program.

• Encourage high-tech venture capital expansion into medium-sized manufacturing.

• Provide direct subsidies to job-producing research and development on energy independence.

Kerry also has a strong emphasis on education. A few of his training proposals:

• Significantly expand the Trade Adjustment Assistance program to protect more workers dislocated by globalization.

• Create increased access to four years of college through the College Opportunity Tax Credit — up to $4,000 per student.

• Double funding for the Manufacturing Extension Partnership (MEP).

• Establish a trust fund of approximately $200 billion over 10 years to fully fund the No Child Left Behind law, with the aim of improving America’s K-12 math and science education.

And on public works:

• Establish universal broadband access.

• Fund R&D in manufacturing technologies at the defense advanced research projects agency.

It’s true that, on the surface, both candidates propose tax cuts and education as the core of their jobs program. But Kerry provides substantive details, with targeted investments that make sense. My own preference would be for even stronger public works investments in infrastructure, energy and education.

Kerry differs from Bush further in that he favors reducing the deficit, whereas Bush appears to be following Reagan’s maxim that the best way to kill the public sector is to bankrupt it.

So these are among the reasons I am voting for Kerry. Another reason is Bush’s war fever, which threatens to bury any positive movement in the economy and maybe a lot more. It’s not entirely certain that Kerry will avoid being sucked into the vortex of the Iraq occupation, itself part of the larger vortex of instability churning around nearly all oil-producing regions. But Kerry seems to have a much stronger grasp the dangers of war and realities of world politics than Bush.

I’m helping to get out the vote for Kerry this week in my West Virginia community. I hope you find time to get out and talk to your neighbors and co-workers in your community too. Make sure everyone gets to the polls!

The author can be reached at jcase@steuber.com.

Housing discrimination alive and well in Alameda

Fri, 29 Oct 2004 05:50:00 +0000

A series of tests with pairs of Black and white investigators has revealed a high level of housing discrimination against African Americans in the city of Alameda, Calif., the nonprofit organization Sentinel Fair Housing said last week.

In its report of a study funded by the federal Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), the housing watchdog organization said its trained pairs of investigators found that 66 percent of African American testers received differential or discouraging treatment.

The study was initiated after a number of African American rental tenants who had been forced to move from a large apartment complex told Sentinel Fair Housing of their concerns about discrimination as they searched for new accommodations.

In race audit tests in the spring and summer of 2004, Sentinel sent 27 pairs of testers — matched as to jobs, income and rental histories except that Black testers were slightly more qualified — to 23 locations in Alameda. Locations were selected randomly from published listings, or were chosen from units advertised with phrases like “Good safe neighborhood” and units in census tracts with lower than average African American residents.

Only 11 percent of tests clearly showed no differential treatment against African Americans.

In 44 percent of tests differential treatment was recorded including general discouragement, assumptions that Black applicants had rent subsidies, being quoted higher security deposits, being informed of fewer available units, being offered less promotional materials and not being told of move-in specials, being told different rental terms and conditions, and encouraging statements to white testers.

Another 44 percent of encounters were deemed “inconclusive” because testers saw different rental agents at the same complex. But even in this group, African American testers experienced different treatment in 58 percent of cases.

The incidence of discrimination in the Alameda study was much higher than in other HUD studies nationwide.

“Many of the managers or owners have a stereotypical and erroneous opinion that a Black person is going to be a less desirable tenant,” Sentinel’s Executive Director Ramona Breed told the San Francisco Chronicle.

Alameda, an island community of 72,000-plus residents, across the bay from San Francisco, is far from the only California community where housing discrimination is rife. Frances Espinosa, executive director of the Housing Rights Center in Los Angeles, said her agency received some 1,400 complaints and investigated over 500 of them during the fiscal year that ended last June 30. Over the last three years, she said, the largest number of complaints were received from individuals with disabilities, with discrimination based on race and national origin, or on “family status” (children under 18 in the household), close behind.

“We have seen many cases where recent immigrants — especially those from Mexico and elsewhere in Latin America — have been targeted because landlords think they won’t complain,” Espinosa added. Because many tenants are being forced to move by rising rents, she said, many cities are strengthening their protections for renters.

Espinosa said the Housing Rights Center regularly employs matched testing, including a recent survey which found a high incidence of discrimination in home sales.

The most recent audit with matched testers by Fair Housing of Marin, north of San Francisco, found racial discrimination in 60 percent of instances where applicants of color sought to enter assisted residential care facilities in Sonoma and Marin counties.

In studies involving general rental housing, Executive Director Nancy Kenyon said Latino residents experienced the greatest discrimination, while issues involving disability and children were also common, she said.

“It often happens in subtle ways,” Kenyon added. “The ‘smile of discrimination’ or the statement that ‘it’s taken’ while the ad is still running in the newspaper.” She said Latinos and African Americans also often experience discrimination in applying for mortgage loans and homeowner’s insurance.

Kenyon said the Marin Board of Supervisors and Fair Housing have joined together to form a task force on housing issues which has been conducting trainings for property owners concerning federal anti-discrimination laws.

The author can be reached at mbechtel@pww.org.

International notes

Fri, 29 Oct 2004 05:45:00 +0000

South Africa: Corporate pay hikes ‘shock’ unions

Congress of South African Trade Unions (COSATU) spokesman Patrick Craven said last week that the union federation is “appalled” by the revelations of business executives’ soaring pay last year, as revealed Oct. 18 by the South African economy news agency Business Report. Heading the list this year was CEO Chip Goodyear of the mining company BHP Billiton, with compensation of $4.5 million.

Craven said COSATU deplored that “regardless whether their companies are increasing their profits, top executives keep getting salary increases way above the inflation rate.” Yet, he added, these are “the same business leaders who complain about the dangers of wage inflation and do everything possible to prevent their workers from getting even modest real increases in pay.

“Far from moving toward a more equitable distribution of wealth,” Craven added, “we are widening the chasm between the richest and poorest South Africans,” he said.

Spain: Protesters block NATO train

In a dramatic demonstration of nonviolent civil disobedience, three protesters last week chained themselves with metal tubes to the tracks being used by a train carrying military equipment to a NATO training camp near Zaragosa, according to Indymedia Center Barcelona. The San Gregorio camp is to be the site of exercises for the new NATO Response Force.

The activists, supported by other demonstrators who hung banners with the legends “Stop NATO” and “Let’s Stop Wars,” were able to halt the train for two hours before they were dragged away by police.

The protesters demanded closure of all NATO facilities in Spain, which they said are turning Spanish soil into “a gigantic training and military aggression platform,” and their conversion to socially and ecologically positive uses. They called on supporters to “block the train of military expenses” by raising “conscientious objection” on their tax returns to that portion which funds the military.

Germany: GM workers return to the job

Workers at GM’s Bochum plant, who struck Oct. 14 after GM announced plans to cut 12,000 jobs, one-fifth of its European workforce, returned to work last week. Talks with GM were slated to resume Oct. 21.

“We will do our utmost so that management does not implement its horror plans,” said workers council head Dietmar Hahn.

On Oct. 19, nearly 40,000 people demonstrated across Germany against the cuts and the possibility that one plant might actually close. As some 20,000 demonstrated in Bochum, GM workers and their families were joined by workers from other car plants, including Volkswagen and Porsche.

The German workers received moral support from thousands of other European GM workers at factories in Poland, Spain, Britain and Belgium, Agence France Presse reported.

East Timor: Clash with Australia on oil

The latest talks in the ongoing dispute between East Timor and Australia over ownership of oil and gas fields in the Timor Sea ended in failure Sept. 30, the Guardian of Australia said.

Australia has refused to submit the dispute over location of the boundary between the two countries to the International Court of Justice, the Guardian said, because the court would almost surely draw the border half way between the land boundaries of the two countries, consistent with the law of the sea. This would give East Timor control over far more of the rich oil and gas resources that lie between it and Australia, allowing the impoverished country more revenue to spend on helping its 800,000 people. On the other hand, the newspaper said, acceptance of the boundaries claimed by Australia would give Australian companies the lion’s share of the resources.

Colombia: Huge nationwide protests

At least 700,000 Colombians participated in one-day nationwide protests Oct. 12 against the government of President Alvaro Uribe Velez, Weekly News Update on the Americas reported. The one-day strike closed schools, hospitals and courts around the country, while marches were held in the departmental (state) capitals.

The participation of 300,000 marchers in Bogota made the demonstration the largest protest there in recent years.

The national protest was called by a “Great Democratic Coalition” of labor unions, grassroots organizations, student associations, indigenous and peasant organizations and opposition parties. Demonstrators demanded a political solution to the armed conflict in the country and an end to the persecution of trade unionists. They also opposed negotiations for a free trade treaty with the U.S., expansion of the value-added tax to basic necessities and an effort to change Colombia’s constitution to allow Uribe’s re-election.

In some areas police attacked protesters with tear gas and pepper spray.

International Notes are compiled by Marilyn Bechtel (mbechtel@pww.org).

Protests continue vs. U.S. bases in Japan

Fri, 29 Oct 2004 05:35:00 +0000

On Oct. 14, Okinawa’s Ginowan City Assembly unanimously adopted a resolution protesting the U.S. Marine Corps’ resumption of CH53D helicopter flights — the same type of helicopter that crashed into a building at Okinawa State University on Aug. 13.

According to Japan Press Weekly, the resolution criticized the U.S. forces for resuming the flights on Oct. 13 without providing area residents with a convincing plan to protect the population from accidents in the future, and in disregard of the shock many residents experienced as a result of the August crash.

The city assembly called for an immediate halt to U.S. flights over residential areas and urged the early removal of the U.S. Marine Corps Futenma Air Station. It also strongly protested the central government’s approval of the renewed flights.

Also in mid-October, the Zama City Assembly unanimously protested the planned relocation of the U.S. Army 1st Corps Command which covers the whole Asian-Pacific region up to the east coast of Africa, to the U.S. Camp Zama in Kanagawa Prefecture. The resolution pointed out that the relocation would violate the Japan-U.S. Security Treaty under which U.S. forces in Japan are supposed to cover the “Far East” areas. Welcoming the resolution, Nakazawa Kunio, chair of the Japanese Communist Party Assembly Member group, declared, “Mayors of both Zama and Sagamihara, cities which host the base, have expressed opposition to the plan. We will struggle until the plan is lifted, hand in hand with Zama’s mayor, assembly and citizens.”

Last month the Okinawa helicopter crash brought some 30,000 protesters into the streets in the island’s largest recent demonstration. Residents have long objected to the U.S. military presence on the island, and for the last seven years have effectively blocked plans to replace the Futenma facility with a new base offshore. In April, residents started a sit-in against the new base, which was joined by thousands of demonstrators including some from as far away as South Korea and the U.S.

Also on Oct. 13, the Okinawa Prefectural Assembly unanimously adopted a resolution protesting two other incidents involving U.S. aircraft – an Oct. 4 mid-air collision involving an F-15 fighter, and the parts from a FA-18 that fell on Chatan Town last June. The resolution demanded a thorough investigation of the incidents, suspension of F-15 and FA-18 flights until measures are in place to prevent accidents, and cuts and reorganization of U.S. bases and forces on Okinawa.

Mexico readying to oust the right wing?

Fri, 29 Oct 2004 05:25:00 +0000

News Analysis

Political turmoil in Mexico may portend a leftward motion.

In 2000, angered by scandals involving the long ruling Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) and declining living standards, Mexican voters elected as president Vicente Fox Quezada of the right-wing National Action Party (PAN). Fox won on the basis of a moderate image and a slick media campaign.

Some prominent figures of the main left-wing opposition, the Democratic Revolutionary Party (PRD), helped confuse the public by supporting Fox, saying that this was the only way to get the PRI out. So Fox, an executive of the Coca-Cola Company with little political experience and no coherent program, charmed the voters and won.

Now Fox is in trouble. The economy continues to decline. Crime has exploded. Young women continue to be murdered in horrifying numbers in Ciudad Juarez, and nothing is done. The Zapatista rebellion in Chiapas has settled down into a 10-year armed truce, without a settlement in sight, because neither PAN nor PRI members of Congress are amenable to making meaningful concessions. No party has a majority in Congress, which leads to stalemate.

A bitter blow to Fox has been the attitude of the Bush administration. Fox has been accommodating to Bush to the point of servility, but has been treated shabbily in return. Because Fox, heeding public opinion in Mexico, did not support the U.S. on Iraq, Bush has stopped talking to Mexico about immigration reform, one of the main things that Fox has promised the Mexican people. So he has little to show for his first four years.

Yet Fox and his supporters keep pushing the right-wing, neoliberal line. For example, last week they set off a confrontation by sharply cutting federal aid to Mexico City schools, and earlier this year by moving to cut the benefits of health care workers.

Most surveys show the strongest candidate for president in 2006 is the regent, or governor, of the Federal District — the area including Mexico City — Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador of the PRD. Lopez Obrador is popular because he is tough and forceful, and because he has increased social services to the poor in Mexico City.

Like some other PRD leaders, Lopez Obrador was originally active in the PRI, but broke with it over its slavish allegiance to the neoliberal model of economic development. He made a name for himself leading efforts to prevent the privatization of natural gas resources in Tabasco before being elected to his present post.

The ability of Lopez Obrador to win depends on a number of things. First, the PRD itself is a shaky vehicle. Its membership is heterogeneous, including former members of the PRI, of the Mexican Communist Party and other left and center-left groups, and thus it has monumental internal fights. Second, Lopez Obrador has to disentangle himself from some controversies.

There is a corruption scandal that appears to be a setup against Lopez Obrador by both PRI and PAN politicians. There is also a legal case against Lopez Obrador for allegedly having defied a court order to stop work on a hospital driveway, which Lopez’s predecessor had began building on land seized from private landowners. If the Congress strips Lopez Obrador of his immunity regarding the latter, he may become legally ineligible to run.

But the PAN also has a candidate problem. The Mexican Constitution forbids Fox from re-election, and most other PAN leaders are hard-right figures who do not have Fox’s personal appeal. Fox’s wife, Martha Sahagun, backed off from suggesting her own candidacy when cries of nepotism arose. The PRI, still mistrusted by many, has an effective political machinery in many areas, and is eager to make a comeback.

The anger created by neoliberal, pro-corporate policies continues to generate mass resistance. Unionized workers in Mexico’s national health care system are furious with Fox for attacking their job benefits, and have mobilized effectively. National feelings have been hurt by the contemptuous attitude of the Bush administration, and there are militant protests against the construction of a giant Wal-Mart store on the grounds of the important archeological site containing the ruins of the ancient city of Teotihuacan.

If the left can connect with these grassroots trends, it seems likely that the PAN will be ousted after one term in the presidency. Whether the PRD or the PRI will occupy its place remains to be seen. Stay tuned.

The author can be reached at pww@pww.org.

Women will lead turnout

Fri, 29 Oct 2004 05:18:00 +0000

WASHINGTON (PAI) — Thanks to massive voter registration drives, issues campaigns, get-out-the-vote efforts and record opportunities for voting early, there should be a large jump in voter turnout for this year’s election, several top analysts say.

And in a telephone press conference, the analysts — Rutgers political science professor Susan Carroll, National Organization for Women President Kim Gandy, Marie Wilson of the White House Project, and Feminist Majority Foundation President Eleanor Smeal — predicted the higher turnout will also be highly female.

Combining new registrants and early voting, they expect more than 8 million more women than men will vote this year. The high turnout, spurred by efforts by unions, civil rights groups, women’s groups and African American and Hispanic organizations, may produce results that surprise pollsters, the analysts said. That’s because the polls, which currently show a virtually tied race between Democrat John Kerry and Republican George W. Bush, underestimate turnout by young voters and minority voters, they said.

Smeal said young voters are underestimated because pollsters call past voters on regular phones, while younger voters predominantly use cell phones. Gandy said college student voters are using the early-voting option, and standing up to challenges to their right to vote.

“On one campus in Iowa,” where NOW and other groups are active in get-out-the-vote efforts, “half the school voted on the first day” of early voting in October, Gandy said.

The analysts said Kerry’s higher concentration on women’s issues will also help raise turnout. “The Kerry campaign has stepped up its outreach to women in the last month,” Gandy said. The other analysts cited Kerry’s answers on health care, the minimum wage and choice during the third debate as contributing to his support among women voters.

“One major reason for a big increase is what happened in 2000 and that caused people to see how every vote counts,” Smeal said. “It also adds to the determination of women’s groups to get every vote out.”

Texans wary of touch-screen

Fri, 29 Oct 2004 05:15:00 +0000

DALLAS — Americans are closely watching the computerized voting machines that are expected to record one-third of the votes in the presidential election.

The Austin Chronicle reported that some voters in Austin, Texas, who tried to vote straight Democratic, had their presidential vote changed to George W. Bush by the machines. If straight Democratic ticket voters in Austin tried to skip a referendum on the bottom of the ballot, or didn’t realize it was there, the machine automatically changed their vote to a vote for Bush, according to the Chronicle.

In Arlington, near Dallas, a referendum favoring a new stadium for the Dallas Cowboys tended to disappear from the on-screen presentation. Some voters had to scroll backwards to find it.

At the same time, initial returns from Texas’ early voting period, which began Oct.18, point to a record turnout. The Texas AFL-CIO reported that a total of 144,598 people voted on the first day in the 15 largest counties, an increase of 70 percent over the comparable figure for early voters in the last presidential race.

Still, distrust of the touch-screen, computerized ballot process being used in some of the early voting may have deterred some voters from going to the polls. On Election Day in Dallas County, regular paper ballots will be used; consequently, some progressive activists have encouraged people to skip early voting and wait until Nov. 2 to cast their ballot.

Before Florida in 2000, most voters had confidence in the validity of the voting procedure. Now they are not so sure. The owner of Diebold, Inc., of Sherman, Texas, the largest manufacturer of the computerized voting machines, is a major Bush supporter. That connection to Bush and the lack of a paper trail for some machines has made many voters wary.

The author can be reached at flittle7@yahoo.com. Paul Hill contributed to this story.

Rally on the Range

Fri, 29 Oct 2004 05:12:00 +0000

HIBBING, Minn. — An enthusiastic crowd of 5,000-7,000 Iron Rangers packed the Hibbing Memorial Building Oct. 19 to hear Democratic vice-presidential candidate John Edwards. The crowd was warmed up with anti-Bush chants like: “Like father, like son — one term and you’re done!”

Union members and their leaders were prominent at the rally, especially those of AFSCME and the USWA. Former Vice President Walter Mondale reminded the crowd that Harry Truman and John F. Kennedy both stopped in Hibbing during their campaigns and both went on to win close elections.

The size and spirit of the rally, which was organized on short notice, indicates that Iron Rangers are mobilized and motivated to remove Bush and his anti-worker administration on Nov. 2.

A slogan this writer has used effectively this election season is: “November 2, 2004: America takes out the trash!” There are few undecideds in this struggling region, which has been hard hit by plant shutdowns and the general decline in the steel industry.

What makes northeastern Minnesota important to a Kerry victory is the high voter turnout here, which often approaches 80 percent, and the lopsided margins that means to Democratic candidates from this voter-rich and solidly working-class area.

The NRA has endorsed Bush and has tried to divert hunters and sportsmen and women from voting their economic interests. Edwards reminded the crowd that the Kerry-Edwards ticket will protect their rights to hunt and use motorized sports vehicles on federal lands.

This last-minute diversion on gun rights is undoubtedly a desperate tactic by the Bush campaign and its allies to try and prevent a complete rout in northeastern Minnesota. Judging from the Oct. 19 crowd in Hibbing, people on the Iron Range are not likely to be thrown off target.

— A Ranger

Philadelphia revs up to get out the vote

Fri, 29 Oct 2004 05:08:00 +0000

PHILADELPHIA — More than 100,000 people filled the center of the city here Oct. 25 to welcome Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry and former President Bill Clinton. Just two days earlier in the same city the Black Radical Congress (BRC) hosted a forum to get out the vote on Election Day.

Many in the crowd to hear Kerry and Clinton had waited up to three hours for the duo. A band played and thousands of signs proclaimed, “8 more days to a fresh start,” “Women for Kerry,” and “Teamsters for Kerry.”

“If this isn’t good for my heart, I don’t know what is,” said Clinton, who underwent quadruple bypass surgery only seven weeks ago. “From time to time I’ve been called the Comeback Kid. In eight days John Kerry is going to make America the ‘Comeback Country.’”

Kerry called George W. Bush’s policies on security wrong and reckless and said Bush has failed at the basics. “Are you ready for a president who can make common sense decisions about our lives?” he asked. The crowd shouted, “Yes!”

He promised to protect jobs, fully fund the No Child Left Behind law and support stem cell research. “This election is about us, not me,” said Kerry. “The world is waiting to see what you do on Nov. 2. Just remember, I’ve got your back.”

The Philadelphia BRC proclaimed, “an informed voter is an empowered voter,” at their forum at the Berean Institute. Vanessa Abernathy, president of the city’s League of Women Voters, went over the voting process, which will involve new electronic voting machines. The League is waging a campaign to have the machines print a paper record. It has also called for the Electoral College to be abolished.

“Bring an ID with you, vote early and, if your name is not in the book, ask for a provisional ballot,” Abernathy advised.

State Rep. W. Curtis Thomas appealed to the crowd to help get the vote out Nov. 2. “It is our duty and obligation,” he said. “The present administration began with fraud, and has burdened the country with the greatest deficit in U.S. history, cuts to all social programs and services including education, a needless war that worsens daily and an increase in unemployment.”

Jay Woodson, a delegate to the National Hip-Hop Political Convention and a BRC member, spoke about his experiences registering voters and said he plans to go door-to-door in costume on Halloween with other convention delegates to remind young people to vote.

“A huge turnout in Philadelphia and other U.S. cities,” a leader of the local BRC reminded participants, “can result in a victory for democracy.”

The author can be reached at phillyrose1@earthlink.net.

National Clips

Fri, 29 Oct 2004 05:00:00 +0000

SMITHERS, W.Va.: Coal miners picket for health care

Members of the United Mine Workers of America (UMWA) from Ohio and Kentucky converged here Oct. 21 to walk the picket line with their brothers and sisters at the Cannelton mine. The West Virginia miners are defying a bankruptcy judge and demanding restoration of health care benefits.

“This is not just about what happened at Cannelton, this is not about West Virginia or Kentucky or Ohio,” UMWA President Cecil Roberts told miners and their families. “This is about public policy in America!”

Horizon Resources, owner of the Cannelton mine and several others in Kentucky and Ohio, went into bankruptcy court in 2002. The judge trashed the union contract, destroying health care and pension benefits for 5,000 miners. Horizon then sold its mines to pay off creditors. A.T. Massey bought the Cannelton mine and has vowed to re-open the mine in early 2005 with nonunion workers.

“Come January or February,” said Roberts, “there are going to be people trying to come to work here and I’m going to be sitting in the middle of the road. If [A.T Massey CEO] Don Blankenship thinks he’s going to scab these mines, we’ll have coal miners in here from everywhere.”

The looming issue, said Roberts, is a national fight to reform the bankruptcy laws to protect workers’ interests.

FRANKFORT, Ky.: Teachers save their health care

A special session of the state Legislature approved a health insurance plan Oct. 19 for 229,000 public school workers, state workers, retirees and their dependents, which keeps all their benefits and existing co-pays intact. The action prompted teachers to cancel their strike scheduled for Oct. 27.

Despite state law barring teachers from striking, the Kentucky Education Association took a strike vote and set the date for the walkout to save their health care from Republican Gov. Ernie Fletcher’s ax. The union staged an impressive “Day of Action” on Sept. 27 to press their demands, closing schools in 23 districts across the state.

“I think it should be noted that the real focus should be on those who brought us to this day, and that’s the teachers that stood up, took a strong position that forced us to come in here and do what had to be done,” said state Sen. Gerald Neal (D) of Louisville.

“The Legislature, in a bipartisan, history-making fashion, restored benefits, reduced out-of-pocket expenses and helped in redesigning the process,” said Kentucky teachers union President Frances Steenbergen. “They heard our message and they responded.”

WASHINGTON: Anti-Patriot Act resolutions dwarf Act itself

On Oct. 25, the Bill of Rights Defense Committee (BORDC) sent George W. Bush a binder containing ordinances and resolutions from 355 townships, municipalities, cities, and counties, and four states, representing 55 million residents protesting and challenging the USA Patriot Act, which Bush rammed through Congress on October 25, 2001. The binder, with over 400 pages, is triple the size of the Act itself, according to Nancy Talanian, BORDC director.

“One in five U.S. residents now live in communities, counties or states with resolutions condemning parts of the USA Patriot Act and other measures which affect their rights and liberties, making this one of the largest mass movements in U.S. history,” she said.

Talanian continued, “We all want to be safe from terrorism, but the government has failed to convince most Americans that we’ll be safer if we give up our freedom of speech, our privacy and our right to due process of law.”

LAS VEGAS, Nev.: Early voting signals huge turnout

Going into the second and final week of early voting, more than 168,000 Nevadans had cast ballots in major counties, and Democrats held the lead in turnout. Early voting began Oct. 16 and lasts until Oct. 30.

After the first three days of early voting, Democrats held a 2,104 vote lead in Clark County, home to Las Vegas, a union town. Clark County, encompassing Las Vegas, accounted for about 143,000 of the early voters, with Democrats making up 45 percent and Republicans 41 percent of the balloting total in the county, according to an Associated Press report.

Although Democrats in Clark County have a registration margin of 57,000, Sean Smith, a spokesman for the Kerry campaign, said, “We (Democrats) don’t traditionally vote early. Our internal polling showed that we would do better with voters on Election Day, so we think this is a very good start for us.”

National Clips are compiled by Denise Winebrenner Edwards (dwinebr696@aol.com).: