People Before Profit blog

'Michael Clayton': a converted soldier breaks the chain

Sat, 27 Oct 2007 11:09:00 +0000

As odd as it sounds, 'Michael Clayton' is an anti-action movie. It's a movie about the power of words, information and language. It's riveting. Tony Gilroy’s directorial debut (he’s been a screenwriter) is a direct and frontal assault on capitalism.

Michael Clayton (George Clooney) is a lawyer in a high-powered law firm. We meet him in a card game, and his phone rings. He is needed. A client has killed a pedestrian with his car, and has left the scene of the accident.

In the middle of the night, Clayton drives to a gated suburb of mansions. The man is not only justifying what happened, but is insulted that they’ve sent Michael Clayton to see him. Clayton doesn’t get upset, he just explains he’s a cleanup man, a janitor, trying to make a really messy situation a little less messy by digging the law firm’s claws a little deeper into the client.

Clayton has been at the law firm for about 15 years, but he’ll never make partner. Driving back to the city at sunrise, he stops. Maybe he’s having a moment of self-doubt. He walks up a hill where three horses are. His car is then blown up.

The rest of the movie is given to us in flashbacks. It’s a good, tricky device to keep us thinking, because contrary to everything in Hollywood, there are no big action scenes in “Michael Clayton.”

Going back in time, Clayton flies to Milwaukee. The firm’s chief litigator, Arthur Edens (Tom Wilkinson), is defending a Monsanto-ADM conglomerate called U North. He’s also a highly medicated litigator. While doing a deposition against a plaintiff in a class action lawsuit charging U North with contaminating the ground water, Edens decides to finish his deposition with no clothes on, with the exception of his socks. Hence the fixer Clayton is needed to convince Mr. Edens that he might need a little more medicine. Damage control is on everyone’s mind.

When we first see Karen (Tilda Swinton), the chief attorney for U North, she’s in the bathroom having a panic attack. Sweat from her armpits is flowing and staining her shirt. She’s looking in the mirror, mimicking and practicing her “corporate-speak” of how her clients have been unjustly accused. You can see traces of Meryl Streep in “Swinton,” and here she seems possessed by the lies in her representation of this corporate conglomerate.

She has hired Arthur Edens to litigate the case and is obviously not happy when she hears about Edens’ escapades.

Don’t go to see “Michael Clayton” if you think you’re going to see a Rocky-like Erin Brockovich hero. There’s almost no one to like in this film except the young plaintiff from a Wisconsin farm family being run off of their land.

Edens might have gone crazy, but not because of the meds. He’s gone crazy because he’s uncovered a document that proves U North has, in fact, poisoned the ground water. Karen, on her own, hires a “Blackwater-like” contract killing firm to do some real damage control.

Film director Kilroy could not have known that within weeks of the opening of the film, Blackwater would gain international attention for murdering 14 Iraqi civilians, but nevertheless his timing is perfect. The three men, portrayed in their very Nazi style, make a clear case against hiring contract killers.

Clooney and the cast seem bent to bring us the bad news that we keep forgetting. And there seems to be a whole Hollywood cadre that seems to expose the nature of this beast. As the nightly news becomes more “National Enquirer” and entertainment, it seems we have to go to the movies to see the real “unquieter” when we should be seeing this on the network news.

In a week where Hillary Clinton’s laugh has garnered the center of attention, it seems almost obscene for us to fork over $10 to watch what should be straightforward news.

“Michael Clayton” works because the delight of the movie is in the words, not in the motion of the picture. It's a very moving one.

Bury My Heart actor: We are a proud, strong people

Fri, 26 Oct 2007 05:45:00 +0000

Flipping through channels on television, I came across an HBO film called “Bury My Heart At Wounded Knee,” directed by Yves Simoneau. The film is based on Dee Brown’s book, published in 1971, about the systematic subjugation, displacement and slaughter of the Native American population during the latter half of the 19th century.

The movie begins with the Sioux victory over General Custer at Little Big Horn and gives historical accounts leading up to the killing of hundreds of Lakota men, women and children by the U.S. at Wounded Knee on Dec. 29, 1890. The massacre was one of the most grievous atrocities in U.S. history.

Three characters stand out during the movie, Charles Eastman (Adam Beach), a young, Dartmouth-educated, Sioux doctor representing the alleged success of assimilation; Sitting Bull (August Schellenberg), the Lakota chief who refuses to submit to U.S. government policies designed to strip his people of their land and identity; and Sen. Henry Dawes (Aidan Quinn), one of the architects of U.S.-Indian policies under President Grant’s administration.

Adam Beach, who is Native American, said in an HBO interview that it’s important to show the struggles of Indian people and to tell their story.

The executive producer of the film, Dick Wolf, said the Indian experience is really one of near-genocide and is not a proud moment in our history.

“There is an enormous mirror into the current world, because it is really the story of the United States trying to impose its will on what was essentially a foreign country with a population living a life that was totally different than what this country was becoming,” Wolf said.

The book details the history among the various Native American tribes and their relationships with the U.S. federal government during 1860-1890, beginning with the displacement of the Navajos, the Apaches and other Southwest tribes. Brown outlines the history of U.S. military efforts against Native American chiefs such as Geronimo, Red Cloud, Sitting Bull and Crazy Horse, who tried to save their peoples and resisted the violent crimes imposed on them.

The European colonization of the American continent nearly obliterated the indigenous populations and cultures of the Native Americans. Throughout the 16th-19th centuries, European explorers and colonizers, bringing disease, displacement, enslavement and warfare in their wake, ravaged Native communities.

The explicit policy of land confiscation forced on Native Americans resulted in the deaths of tens of thousands, and tribes were generally relocated to reservation camps where they were forced to assimilate into European-American and “Christian society.”

In the colonizers’ efforts to “civilize” the indigenous population, many Native American children were forbidden to speak their native languages in schools, which were run by Christian missionaries. Often this proved traumatic to Native children, and there are many documented cases of sexual, physical and mental abuses that occurred at these schools on reservation camps.

And it wasn’t until 1924 that the U.S. granted citizenship to Native Americans.

Today there are 561 federally recognized tribal governments in the U.S. that possess the right to form their own government, enforce laws (both civil and criminal), to tax, to establish membership, to license and regulate activities, to zone and to exclude persons from territories. The limitations are the same on U.S. states, for example, neither tribes nor states have the power to make war, engage in foreign relations, or coin money (this includes paper currency).

According to a 2003 U.S. Census Bureau report, a little over one-third of the 2.8 million Native Americans in the U.S. live in three states, California, Arizona and Oklahoma.

As of 2000, the largest tribes in the U.S. were the Navajo, Cherokee, Choctaw, Sioux, Chippewa, Apache, Lumbee, Blackfeet, Iroquois and Pueblo.

“I’ve come to understand where the pain comes from in living on a reservation, at being corralled onto a little piece of land,” said Beach. “The generation that I speak for now is just starting to come out of it, to say, we are proud, we are a strong people.”

The film received many Emmy nominations and won Best Movie for Television. It will air through December. Go to for more information.

“So now I’ve come to understand that we, as a people, have a lot to share with the world,” added Beach. “And when you learn what the Indian peoples have gone through to hold onto their culture and traditions … wow, it’s an amazing story.”

plozano @pww.org

Marx and Che: films to look forward to

Fri, 26 Oct 2007 05:43:00 +0000

TORONTO — Film festivals are fast becoming one of the few places to see world cinema, including documentaries and progressive movies, as giant theater complexes rapidly sell out to Hollywood-escapist blockbusters. And the Toronto International Film Festival has become home for the Western Hemisphere’s largest and most impressive display of great world feature films.

Before we comment on the many films of interest that were shown at this year’s festival, it’s exciting to note some significant works in progress.

After years of neglecting one of 19th century’s most important figures, the film world is finally bringing to the screen the story of Karl Marx. Raoul Peck, the socially committed director of “Lumumba,” is heading this daunting task.

Haitian-born Peck will be covering 18 years of the great philosopher’s life, from his youth up to the publication of the Communist Manifesto in 1848. The English-language “Karl Marx,” slated for production next year, will include the story of his lifelong love, Jenny von Westphalen, and his friendship with Manifesto co-writer Friedrich Engels. A draft of the film is due at next year’s Cannes Film Festival.

Another film in progress is of the charismatic and most notable revolutionary life of Ernesto Che Guevara, also scheduled for next year. Following on the heels of the highly successful “Motorcycle Diairies,” and considering the world’s interest in the 40th anniversary of Che’s death in Bolivia, American director Steven Soderbergh is on the case.

Known for his many skillful and creative independent productions, including “Sex Lies and Videotape,” “Erin Brockovich,” and “Traffic,” Soderbergh is on a roll as a producer of some recent political blockbusters, including “The Good German,” “Goodnight and Good Luck,” and “Syriana.”

The Che film, with the working title of “The Argentine,” is likely to provide a realistic historical perspective, given that part of the film is scheduled to be shot in Havana. The famous Puerto Rican actor Benicio Del Toro has been chosen to star as the world’s most beloved revolutionary.

Richard Kelly, director of the cult classic “Donnie Darko,” a philosophical musing on death and time, tested his new film, “Southland Tales,” at Cannes last year, where it met with severely critical reviews. The film has since undergone major revisions and has now been picked up by Sony Films.

Part of the reason for some of the unfavorable reviews was the daring futuristic theme of the project, addressing the end of civilization that is pictured as starting in South Los Angeles. With a direct attack on U.S. imperialism and its lethal actions around the world, the film is sure to attract controversy, but Kelly is up to the task.

Two-thirds of the devastating American trilogy from the Danish director, the enfant terrible Lars von Triers, has been released. “Dogville” tells the tale of murder and greed in a Western town. “Manderlay” tells the story of slavery in the South. And “Wasington” will complete the trilogy with a scathing indictment of Washington’s power and greed.

Von Trier’s films, including the award-winning “Dancer in the Dark,” offer a fresh outsider’s take on U.S. history and the American psyche.

Many exciting films for progressive viewers were premiered in Toronto. This year’s festival not only included a film about Jimmy Carter’s recent book tour that provoked debate about apartheid in Palestine, but also a dialogue with the former president and his wife Rosalind.

Michael Moore, on the tail of his recent super-hit documentary “Sicko,” presented his newest film “Captain Mike Across America,” formerly titled “The Great Slacker Uprising 2004.”

“Battle in Seattle” is one of the first dramatic re-enactments of the great anti-World-Trade-Organization protests.

Several films focusing on the war in Iraq and its effects in the world seemed to be a hot topic this year, including Phil Donahue’s “Body of War,” Nick Broomfield’s “Battle for Haditha” and Brian de Palma’s “Redacted.”

These are just a few of the films that we take a deeper look at in forthcoming articles.

Bill Meyer is a musician from Michigan and will be writing over the next several weeks reviews of feature films that premiered at the 2007 Toronto International Film Festival.

CARTOON: Trigger finger

Fri, 26 Oct 2007 05:38:00 +0000

Keep a date with peace

Fri, 26 Oct 2007 05:09:00 +0000

The War Resisters League has put out a 2008 peace calendar titled “Salaam, Shalom, Solh: Nonviolence and Resistance in the Middle East and Beyond.” The slender volume, edited by Jim Haber, features heart-warming and heart-rending stories from movements bringing people together for peaceful change across dozens of political, religious and cultural divides. Reflecting today’s great struggle to end the war and occupation of Iraq and prevent a war with Iran, it focuses on the Middle East.

One vignette is featured for each week, opposite a week-at-a-glance page highlighting a anniversaries — triumphs and tragedies alike — from the peace, labor, civil rights, women’s and other people’s movements.

As Kathy Kelly, co-founder of Voices in the Wilderness, writes in her introduction, “The stories build our belief that nonviolence can change the world, that the poor should be society’s highest priority, that people should love their enemies, and that actions should follow conviction, regardless of inconvenience.”

A special feature is the calendar’s emphasis on the existence of a vigorous civil society in Iraq, a crucial aspect of that country’s current reality that is almost totally absent from the mainstream media. Here are those rarely told stories of union, women’s and religious organizations striving for a united, democratic, peaceful Iraq free of U.S. occupation and of sectarian violence.

From Israel and Palestine come stories of the united Arab and Jewish movements for solidarity in day-to-day life and in nonviolent resistance to Israeli occupation.

Another profile highlights Khan Abdul Ghaffar Khan, “the frontier Gandhi,” who helped lead the struggle for a united independent India, and who played a leading part in progressive developments in Afghanistan from the 1920s through the ’80s.

Not surprisingly, among such a sweeping view of struggles and actions, there are a few entries for which readers might prefer to substitute their own favorites.

All in all, WRL’s 2008 calendar brings together a remarkable kaleidoscope of struggles to end war and poverty and to win a world of peace and justice. For more information, visit .

mbechtel @pww.org

WORLD NOTES: October 27

Fri, 26 Oct 2007 04:54:00 +0000

Canada: Air travel falls under U.S. purview

The Air Transport Association of Canada, acting on behalf of Canadian airline companies, protested Oct. 13 against a new U.S. requirement that air carriers supply the Bush’s administration’s Department of Homeland Security with passenger data on flights crossing U.S. airspace.

The ruling, which went into effect on Oct. 22, requires that passenger lists be handed over to the U.S. agency 72 hours prior to takeoff time.

The right-wing government of Prime Minister Stephen Harper accepted the intrusion despite having already instituted no-fly lists in June at Bush administration insistence.

The airline companies fear possible U.S. grounding of Canadian planes, even mid-flight interceptions, according to the Canadian Broadcasting Corp.

Critics also note that such lists place passengers flying to and from Latin American and Caribbean countries under U.S. surveillance, notably 600,000 of them traveling annually to Cuba.

Afghanistan: Six years after U.S. invasion, troubles mount

By Oct. 6, the sixth anniversary of the U.S.-led invasion of Afghanistan, the number of U.S. and allied foreign troops has risen to 50,000, Taliban attacks are sharply increasing (they doubled since last year), and Helmand Province, according to iwpr.net, is supplying nearly “half the world’s opium and its major derivative, heroin.”

U.S. occupiers have targeted Helmand for “reconstruction and development” at a cost so far of $200 million. U.S. humanitarian aid workers there are protected by Blackwater contractors at the annual rate of $1 million per worker, reports the U.K. Independent.

Another contractor, DynCorp, which is charged with curbing the opium poppy crop, has antagonized the province’s farmers, who are increasingly supporting the Taliban. Not coincidentally, Afghan President Hamid Karzai has offered ministerial posts to the Taliban.

There is no end in sight for U.S. occupancy of the Bagram Air Base: “Whether five or 10 years, we don’t know,” said spokesperson Col. Jonathan Ives.

Brazil: Bank of the South shaping up

Seven South American finance ministers signed a “Declaration of Rio de Janeiro” Oct. 8, establishing the Bank of the South. Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, joined by Bolivian and Argentine presidents, proposed the bank two years ago as a funding source for social and development projects and an alternative to the U.S.-controlled International Monetary Fund, World Bank and Inter-American Development Bank.

The presidents of Argentina, Brazil, Bolivia, Ecuador, Paraguay, Uruguay and Venezuela will inaugurate the bank Nov. 3 in Caracas, where it will be headquartered. Member states, each with one vote, will contribute 10 percent of their monetary reserves to capitalize the bank at $7 billion, an arrangement allowing for their “asymmetric” financial capabilities.

Even U.S. ally Colombia may eventually join for the sake of “Latin American integration.” Visiones Alternativas suggested that direct participation by U.S. trading partners may prove problematic.

North Korea: Kim Jong Il hosts Vietnamese counterpart

Nong Duc Manh, general secretary of the Communist Party of Vietnam, was in the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea Oct. 16-18 for a state visit. Meetings with DPRK head of state Kim Jong Il coincided with the 50th anniversary of Ho Chi Minh’s visit there, the last by a Vietnamese Communist Party head.

The leaders surveyed the functioning of their parties and governments, honored the traditional friendship between their countries and acknowledged mutual achievements in building socialism and defending national independence. They resolved to continue with meetings and pledged mutual economic, cultural, scientific and educational cooperation.

The Vietnamese leader expressed support for Korean reunification, applauded the results of the recent six-party talks and called for openings between the DPRK and other Southeast Asian nations.

Kim Jong Il will reciprocate by visiting Vietnam, according to the Vietnamese party newspaper Nhan Dan. Another top DPRK leader, Premier Kim Yong Il, will soon visit Vietnam, Malaysia, Cambodia and Laos.

South Africa: Dire predictions on HIV/AIDs

The UN children’s agency’s representative in South Africa warned Oct. 17 in Geneva that South Africa may be “losing the battle against HIV/AIDS.”

Macharia Kamau of UNICEF cited low treatment rates — 380,000 persons treated out of 1.58 million infected — leading to 400,000 HIV-related deaths annually and life expectancy falling from 69 in 1990 to 47 today. Some 30 percent of South Africans are infected — 14 percent of the worldwide total — and 13 percent of them are children. AIDS has orphaned 1.5 million children there, with 5 million orphans projected by 2015.

The French news agency AFP quoted Kamau as calling for expanded treatment programs and education in South Africa to erase the stigma associated with HIV-positive status. He commended Botswana, Zambia, Kenya, Uganda and Rwanda “where the political leadership ... has taken ownership of this issue.”

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

Venezuela, Cuba deepen their many-sided ties

Fri, 26 Oct 2007 04:50:00 +0000

Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez’s visit to Cuba Oct. 13-15 was distinguished by poetic homage to revolutionary Latin American heroes and by practical agreements aimed at strengthening both the Venezuelan-Cuban alliance and regional economic independence.

The visit roughly coincided with worldwide observances of the 40th anniversary of Che Guevara’s capture and murder by CIA-assisted Bolivian soldiers in October 1967. Chavez broadcast his weekly television program from the memorial and museum complex in Santa Clara dedicated to Cuba’s internationalist hero. The day before he talked for four hours with Cuban President Fidel Castro.

The program included another long conversation with Castro and lengthy exchanges with Che’s surviving family members and comrades.

In his conversation with Castro, Chavez noted that Che had thought about joining guerrilla struggles in Venezuela against the U.S.-backed regime during that period. He also recalled Castro’s 1991 prediction that “In just a few years the revolutionary forces will arise in Latin America again [and that] Bolívar’s great homeland will play a decisive role.”

Castro replied: “We are seeing Che’s prophecy come true in Venezuela, Bolivia and Ecuador. There is an ever-increasing awakening of peoples’ consciousness in Latin America. This is part of the Bolivarian idea of regional brotherhood.”

Affirming Cuba’s commitment to the Venezuela’s Bolivarian Revolution, Castro quoted Jose Marti, the Cuban national hero: “Should Venezuela command me to do anything, she will find a son in me.”

Chavez extolled Castro as a “sower of awareness [and] the father of all revolutionaries in this continent.” He emphasized, “We have a commitment to sow again and to harvest in order to save humanity. Only socialism can save humanity.”

In Havana, on Oct. 15, Chavez and acting Cuban President Raul Castro signed 21 economic agreements, including the creation of joint ventures to build cement factories, develop commercial fishing, conduct petrochemical research, and exploit nickel and oil deposits. They also signed agreements to expand telecommunication capabilities, including Cuba’s Internet service, and to build a tourist hotel.

At the signing ceremony, Raul Castro said ties between Cuba and Venezuela have grown within the context of the Bolivarian Alternative for the Americas (ALBA), initiated by Cuba and Venezuela in 2001 and since joined by Nicaragua and Bolivia.

Raul Castro noted that the founding document declared, “Commerce and investment must not be ends in themselves, but instruments for achieving a just and sustainable development, since true Latin American integration can not be the blind creature of the market.”

The day before, Chavez had journeyed to Cienfuegos, on Cuba’s southern shore, to inaugurate a refinery and industrial complex being built by a Venezuelan-Cuban joint venture. He congratulated workers for nearly completing the Camilo Cienfuegos Refinery with its anticipated daily capacity of 65,000 barrels of crude oil.

Chavez pointed to the area’s refinery, petrochemical complex, and re-gasification plant (with Venezuela supplying the liquid natural gas) as examples of ALBA in action, adding, “The union of Cuba and Venezuela is demonstrating how to make a regional power.”

Manufacturing plans at the complex include the production of oil by-products, plastic goods, fertilizer, cosmetics and cleaning materials.

atwhit @megalink.net

N.Y. cabbies strike over GPS tracking scheme

Fri, 26 Oct 2007 04:47:00 +0000

NEW YORK — New York cabbies held a successful 24-hour strike here Oct. 22 in protest of the new global positioning system devices being mandated by the city’s Taxi and Limousine Commission (TLC). The strike, which comes just six weeks after a previous 48-hour strike on the same issue, was called by the New York Taxi Workers Alliance, a member of the New York City Central Labor Council.

Subways were clogged during the morning commute and passengers at airport taxi lines stretched along the curb, as few cabs broke ranks with the strike. Mayor Michael Bloomberg initiated a contingency plan that included zone fares and multiple fares per taxi, amounting to a big bribe to scabbing cab drivers.

A noon rally outside of the lower Manhattan offices of the TLC drew over 1,000 cab drivers and their allies. Ed Ott, executive director of the Central Labor Council, spoke to the crowd, saying, “You represent a new era of the labor movement in this city. Your fight is our fight.”

Other speakers included Randi Weingarten, president of the United Federation of Teachers, City Councilmember Robert Jackson, Rabbi Michael Feinberg of the Greater New York Labor-Religion Coalition, representatives of Local 32BJ of the Service Employees International Union and the Professional Staff Congress at the City University of New York.

Bhairavi Desai, executive director of the taxi workers alliance, claimed the strike as a victory, stating that 75 percent of the 44,000 city cab drivers stayed off the road. “We have to believe in our unity, because in the long run, we will win,” she said.

Unity among the racially and nationally diverse taxi workforce is running high, according to union organizers. The mayor’s office and the TLC have tried sowing disunity through public statements, bribes and backing a puppet union led by Republican Party activist and multimillionaire Fernando Mateo.

Cabbie Billy Acquaire rallied the crowd by reminding drivers of the corruption and cronyism behind the GPS deal. “Everybody knows about the ‘GPS insider’s club,’” said Acquaire. “Ron Sherman, president of the Metropolitan Taxicab Board of Trade, is also a GPS vendor.” Drivers in the crowd went wild when Acquaire challenged TLC Chairman Matthew Daus to come down from his office to explain the insider contract.

The Metropolitan Taxicab Board of Trade is the association of the large taxi garages that dominate the industry. Sherman also owns Midtown Garage. Sherman’s company Creative Mobile Technologies received the largest of the five contracts to put GPS into cabs. A number of TLC officials bagged jobs with Creative Mobile Technologies after the contracts were secured, including Jed Applebaum, who previously was assistant commissioner of safety and emissions.

Not only was the process corrupt, but cabdrivers also feel that the GPS equals a cut in pay for drivers and invades their privacy. A 5 percent service charge is deducted from every transaction, and drivers cannot earn fares when the machine doesn’t work.

Drivers plan to continue their fight through continued public pressure and a federal lawsuit, and by seeking solidarity from labor allies and passengers.

ldellapiana @cpusa.org

As worker anger grows, Chrysler buys votes

Fri, 26 Oct 2007 04:35:00 +0000

As the anger of Chrysler employees about their recently negotiated tentative contract put into question the entire deal, last week the company moved at the last minute to try to buy votes from 600 “enhanced temporary workers” at its Belvidere, Ill., assembly plant. The plant employs 3,800 workers and is one of the company’s largest.

Chrysler, on Oct. 24, told each of the 600 enhanced temporary workers at the plant that they will receive a $3,000 signing bonus if they vote to approve the contract. The offer was made after a Bloomberg News tally released Oct. 23 showed 11,160 votes against the contract and only 9,210 for the deal.

Members of the UAW executive council reportedly went to the plant a day earlier to promise those workers that they would be the first in line for full-time positions.

Six large locals, most of them representing workers at assembly plants, have turned down the deal, while nine small locals approved it. Chrysler has 45,000 UAW members, but neither the company nor the union will say how many workers are eligible to vote, leaving room for disputes over the legitimacy of final vote tallies.

The attempt to buy the votes of temporary workers at Belvidere is notable because those workers constitute a second tier, or second class, at that plant. Belvidere was the first assembly plant to institute what amounted to a full scale two-tier wage/benefits system almost two years ago. The “enhanced temporaries” there work side by side with regular employees, doing the same work but earning far less in pay and benefits.

Tom Littlejohn, president of Local 1268 in Belvidere, is one of the UAW leaders who opposed the pact. “I’m not recommending that the workers in my plant ratify this,” he said. Littlejohn had been pushing for total elimination of the second-class status for the temporaries in his plant.

Even if the contract is approved, it is clear that it has been spurned by the majority of auto assembly workers. They do not feel that it goes far enough to secure work for Chrysler plants as far into the future as does the agreement with GM. They also oppose both a two-tier wage system and the offloading of health care responsibility by the company onto the laps of the union.

jwojcik @pww.org

Egypt: The Untouchables

Thu, 25 Oct 2007 10:39:00 +0000

Commentary

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

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

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

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

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

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

World Day for Audiovisual Heritage: NYU Unveils Lost Films Of The Communist Party USA

Thu, 25 Oct 2007 10:28:00 +0000

New York City, October 18 — The United Nations’ Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) has established October 27, 2007 as the first-annual World Day for Audiovisual Heritage. To commemorate this event, New York University’s Moving Image Archiving and Preservation Program and NYU Libraries are proud to present a showcase of rare 16 mm films from the Communist Party USA Collection.

The screening will be the first public glimpse into a landmark collection donated by the Communist Party USA to the University’s Tamiment Library & Wagner Labor Archives in 2006. The eight short films selected for this program will raise eyebrows and challenge stereotypes by offering fresh perspectives on everyday life in the Communist world.

What does it take to be a teenage Cosmonaut? How did camerawork convey meaning in propaganda films of South Vietnam? What music was popular on the far side of the Berlin Wall? What kind of future did the Communists foresee for an independent Angola?

Find the answers in

TEENAGE COSMONAUTS (USSR, 1980);

GOING UP THE LINE (South Vietnam, c. 1969);

ANGELA DAVIS REPORT (East Germany, 1972);

WHAT THE WAGE PACKET DOES NOT SHOW (East Germany, 1978);

WE NEVER TIRE OF SPEAKING ABOUT MOTHER (USSR, 1975);

MOSCOW OLYMPICS (USSR, 1980);

THE VOICE OF FREE ANGOLA (USSR, c. 1976);

and NATIONAL DAY CELEBRATION (China, 1959).

With this screening, NYU Libraries and the MIAP Program hope to raise local awareness about the significance of moving image collections to cultural history and collective memory. The program will also highlight challenges faced by today’s moving image archivists, from conserving obsolete formats and prolonging the life of decaying materials, to addressing the ethics of preservation for works historically underrepresented by governments and media conglomerates.

UNESCO World Day for Audiovisual Heritage is hosted by New York University on October 27, 2007 from 2:00 – 4:00 PM at the Languages and Literature Building, 19 University Place, Room 102. The event is free and open to the public. For additional information on the event, contact:

Sarah Ziebell New York University

(212) 998-2692

About UNESCO — The United Nations Educational, Scientific and

Cultural Organization was established as a specialized agency of the UN in 1945. UNESCO works to promote international collaboration through education, science and culture, and to promote universal respect for human rights and fundamental freedoms proclaimed in the UN Charter.

About NYU’s Moving Image Archiving And Preservation (MIAP)Program — MIAP is a two-year M.A. program that trains future professionals to manage preservation-level collections of film, video, new media, and other types of digital works, providing an international, comprehensive education in the theories, methods, and practices of moving image archiving and preservation.

Help us get to $100,000 by Nov. 1

Fri, 19 Oct 2007 09:11:00 +0000

The People’s Weekly World/Nuestro Mundo fund drive has been progressing at a pretty good pace. But now we have to step it up. As of Oct. 15, we are at $76,723, about 38 percent. We want to reach $100,000 by Nov. 1. Can you help us? Please make a donation today for the fund drive.

To donate online today click or phone (646) 437-5363.

This is our annual collective appeal for readers to help us keep going strong. We’ve been there — bringing you stories and voices of those in struggle for economic and social justice from Jena, La., to Detroit; from Oakland, Calif., to Portland, Maine.

I hope you can be there for the PWW like the PWW has been there for you.

For a generous gift of $500 we will send you the fabulous Smithsonian-produced CD of Paul Robeson’s independent recordings.

Thank you.

In struggle,

Teresa Albano Editor

Study of deaths in police custody raises questions

Fri, 19 Oct 2007 09:01:00 +0000

A first-ever Justice Department study of deaths in police custody raises more questions than it answers.

The study, “Arrest-Related Deaths in the United States, 2003-2005,” released Oct. 11 by the Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS), covers people who died in the custody of state and local police. It is based on reports by state governments supplemented by federal data. Although state cooperation was required by congressional mandate as a condition for getting federal corrections funds, three states — Georgia, Montana and Maryland — did not participate. District of Columbia figures are included.

As this is the first time such a report has been compiled, there is no easy way to compare its statistics with those of previous periods. So it is not possible to tell from this whether deaths in police custody are increasing or decreasing.

The study deals with deaths from the moment police attempt to stop or arrest someone to the point that the person is placed in holding cells. Deaths include shootings on the street and also persons who turn up dead in the cell. Not included are deaths related to federal custody, or deaths in prison beyond the point that a person is booked.

According to the report, 2,002 people died in police custody from 2003 through 2005. The overwhelming majority were men. African Americans, 12 percent of the U.S. population, represented 31.9 percent of deaths in custody, while 20.2 percent were Latinos and 43.9 percent were white. In 54.7 percent of the cases, the cause of death is listed as “homicide” by police, meaning the police shot or otherwise killed the individual. Thirteen percent of deaths in custody resulted from alcohol or drug intoxication and 12 percent were suicides. Smaller numbers died from accidents, illnesses or other causes.

In about 55 percent of the cases, the police were arresting the person for a violent offense.

When broken down by race, the rates of “homicide” deaths were about the same as the rates for all causes. But the proportion of Blacks who died in custody from causes listed as “accidental,” “illness” and “other” was sharply higher.

In 80 percent of the homicides, the police claimed to have been threatened by the individual. The report does not say whether such claims were sustained by police review boards or the courts. Thus one cannot tell from this report whether the police officers killed the individual without provocation, or in fact were defending their own lives.

The number of people killed by police tasers jumped from 3 in 2003 to 24 in 2005. Recent highly publicized cases have demonstrated that police may be using tasers, not as a substitute for deadly force as designed, but in circumstances where force would formerly not have been used at all.

The study does not attempt to explain why there is so much violence between police and, in particular, lower-income and minority working-class communities. Such an analysis is not likely to be forthcoming from the Bush Justice Department.

A review of cases in which police killed civilians over the last decade reveals patterns not addressed by the DOJ study. These include:

• police killings of mentally ill individuals,

• police killings of individuals who made a sudden movement which police suspected was to reach for a weapon, but which turned out to be an innocent action such as reaching for a wallet or cell phone,

• killings carried out by police in plain clothes who did not identify themselves, and

• killings following persistent police harassment of an individual.

Chicago spotlights non-Hollywood films

Fri, 19 Oct 2007 08:58:00 +0000

CHICAGO — Approaching half a decade now, the Chicago International Film Festival features movies from 44 countries, including some that produce very few movies like Puerto Rico, Bulgaria and Burkina Faso.

The festival running this month includes more than 300 non-Hollywood films shown over 30 days, which is especially nice after a summer of deadly blockbusters. Non-English-language movies are subtitled.

Similarly, the International Chicago Children’s Film Festival (Oct. 18-26) is screening 124 films, 33 of them feature length, from 40 countries.

Fourteen Iranian films are being shown in October at the Gene Siskel Film Center. If you have never seen an Iranian movie, it is time to see one of their outstanding productions. “Shadow Company,” a documentary about contract killers hired to go to Iraq, is also being featured.

Meanwhile, the University of Chicago’s Doc Films is showing a Thursday evening retrospective series of films by Ousmane Sembene, a working-class hero and one of the most famous African filmmakers, who died last summer.

Here are some mini-reviews from these festivals.

“Jump” : If you enjoyed the excesses of “Spellbound” — the documentary about the National Spelling Bee — you will love “Jump.” The film tells the history of jump rope. The jumpers and their coaches’ passionate obsession and neuroticisms make the movie even more pleasurable.

“America the Beautiful” : Chicagoan Darryl Roberts almost outdoes Michael Moore’s style in this documentary about beauty standards in the U.S. The camera points directly at a teenage girl who explains to us how ugly she is. The girl, who is called “giraffe” by her classmates, rises and falls as a teenage supermodel. The indictment of the scary beauty industry is on par with Moore’s indictment of the U.S. heath care system.

“Half Moon” : Using contemplative magical realism, men with guns and strong-willed women create an Iranian stew as we follow the mythic king of Kurdish music from Iran to Kurdish Iraq on a bus trip that makes the 1960s seem tame. It’s both more and less political than it seems. There’s only one sentence in the movie about “the Americans,” but it’s pretty potent. If you only go for the film’s visual images, you will still value it.

“Operation Filmmaker” : This is a story of an MTV decision to follow an Iraqi film student who goes to Prague and becomes the subject of a documentary while working for a movie that is being shot by an MTV subsidiary. You will enjoy this gut-wrenching journey. The film includes a scene with Duane “the Rock” Johnson who also shot a film in Prague.

“La Leon” : Shot in golden black and white on the wetland islands of Argentina, the film is meditative and mysterious, with the silence outweighing the narrative.

“Chicago Ten” : Using animation and real footage, this film is about the 1968 Democratic Convention and the gagging, chaining and shackling of Black Panther Party leader Bobby Seale during the conspiracy trial of antiwar activists.

“Killer of Sheep” : Charles Burnett’s UCLA thesis film has waited 23 years to get its commercial release. The story focuses on a family living in Los Angeles’ Watts community, where the father works in a slaughterhouse. This stark, vivid and truthful movie shot in black and white makes us feel like we are watching something ancient because of how much has changed since then — and how much hasn’t.

International Film Festival movies are playing at AMC21 and Landmark theaters. Children’s Festival films are at Facets, Kerasotes and Davis theaters. Film prices and parking can be expensive. Share a pass with a friend and split the cost.

If you’re not in Chicago or can’t get to these showings, ask your local theater about running them, or look for them on DVD.

Lorraine Hansberry playwright and agitator

Fri, 19 Oct 2007 08:52:00 +0000

Lorraine Vivian Hansberry was one of the most relevant playwrights of the 20th century. Her work highlights the struggle for equality and justice, as an African American woman who in her early years was also a leader of the Communist youth movement.

Born in 1930, Hansberry grew up in Chicago. Frequent visitors to her home included African American figures such as W.E.B. Du Bois, Paul Robeson, Langston Hughes, Duke Ellington, Jesse Owens and many others.

Eventually her family moved to a suburban community, which Hansberry described as a “hellishly hostile white neighborhood.” Her father fought segregation policies, which sought to institutionalize discrimination based on race, all the way to the Supreme Court. The Hansberry v. Lee ruling became an important victory during the civil rights struggle.

Meanwhile, Hansberry was sent to an all-white public school as a protest against segregation, which was the inspiration for her most famous work, “A Raisin in the Sun.”

In 1948, she attended the University of Wisconsin at Madison, where she became active on campus including with the Labor Youth League, which was that era’s incarnation of the Young Communist League. Hansberry became a member of the editorial staff of the LYL’s publication, “The New Challenge.”

Hansberry moved to New York City where she studied at the New School for Social Research and the Jefferson School for Social Sciences (a school run by Communists and independent socialists). She took a seminar on Africa taught by W.E.B. Du Bois that heightened her awareness about Africa’s fight against colonialism.

She found a job with Paul Robeson’s magazine Freedom, initially as a secretary, though she quickly moved up to become associate editor.

Hansberry met Langston Hughes, who became another major influence in her life. The title of her play “A Raisin in the Sun” comes from Hughes’ poem “A Dream Deferred,” in which he asked, “What happens to a dream deferred? Does it dry up like a raisin in the sun, Or does it explode?” Completed in 1957, the play was celebrated for its insight into everyday Black life.

In 1959, “A Raisin in the Sun” opened in Philadelphia and New Haven, Conn., followed by Hansberry’s hometown Chicago, where the play is set. It finally made Broadway, where it was a hit, running 530 performances. The cast included Sidney Poitier, Ruby Dee, Ossie Davis and Louis Gossett.

It was the first play written by an African American woman to be produced on Broadway, and Hansberry became the first African American, as well as the youngest person, to produce a work that won the New York Drama Critics’ Circle award for best play of the year.

As a college student Hansberry had written: “We want to see films about people who live and work like everybody else, but who currently must battle fierce oppression to do so.” The movie adaptation of “A Raisin in the Sun,” released in 1961, won Hansberry a special award at the Cannes Film Festival and was nominated for a Screen Writers’ Guild Award. Recently, it was chosen as one of the 100 most significant works of the 20th century in a British theater poll of playwrights, actors, directors, journalists and other theater professionals.

After divorcing her husband of four years, Hansberry joined the Daughters of Bilitis, the nation’s first lesbian organization. She contributed to their publication, The Ladder, writing scathing critiques of sexism and homophobia, pointing out their political roots.

“Homosexual persecution has at its roots not only social ignorance, but a philosophically active anti-feminist dogma,” she wrote. Because of aggressive repression of the LGBT community, the publication used only writers’ initials to protect their identities. Her involvement with the early lesbian movement has only recently been discovered.

Hansberry died of pancreatic cancer at age 34, leaving behind several unfinished plays. Her ex-husband Robert Nemiroff completed and released several of them, including “Les Blancs” and “To Be Young, Gifted, and Black.” She also left several more that were never finished, such as an opera about 18th-century Haitian leader Toussaint L’Ouverture.

Hansberry once stated, “All art is ultimately social: that which agitates and that which prepares the mind for slumber,” and even today her writings succeed in agitating and raising awareness.

Brandon Slattery is a Young Communist League leader in Philadelphia. Adapted from an article published in Dynamic, the YCL’s magazine.

CARTOON: School supplies

Fri, 19 Oct 2007 08:40:00 +0000

Defending Rachel Carson

Fri, 19 Oct 2007 08:36:00 +0000

2007 marks the 100th anniversary of Rachel Carson’s birth. And while the writer of “Silent Spring” and the woman credited with launching the modern environmental movement has been praised by many, some have used the anniversary to launch scathing and unfounded attacks. The wrangling over Carson’s legacy has even reached Congress.

Maryland Senators Ben Cardin and Barbara Mikulski have introduced a resolution celebrating Rachel Carson’s life that states: “Congress honors the life of Rachel Carson, a scientist, writer and pioneer in the environmental movement, on the occasion of the centennial of her birth.” Sens. Arlen Specter, a Republican, and Bob Casey, a Democrat, both from Pennsylvania where Carson was born, are co-sponsors.

Meanwhile, Sen. Tom Coburn, an Oklahoma Republican and an opponent of environmental causes, is single-handedly holding up two Senate bills that would honor Rachel Carson and her book, “Silent Spring.”

To clarify this controversy, let’s examine the facts. Rachel Carson was a trained scientist who valued species diversity. In “Silent Spring” she expressed a deep concern about agricultural pesticide use and its impact on all native species; of special concern were organo-chlorine chemicals, such as DDT, poisons that she recognized have the ability to destroy embryos of birds and fish, leading to the near extinction of the bald eagle. The basic message that Rachel Carson conveyed to the public was that “all life on the planet is interrelated and should be considered when major policies are made.”

“Silent Spring” and Rachel Carson were attacked even before the book was released, by pesticide companies, pest control operators and weed control specialists. Despite those attacks, President John Kennedy established a presidential commission to examine whether chlorinated insecticides, including DDT, should be banned. A year later the commission recommended that DDT and related insecticides be taken off the market, a U.S. ban taking effect in 1972.

Since then, opinions pro and con concerning pesticide use have waxed and waned. Despite the strength of Carson’s scientific findings, many pesticide users have expressed their support of the unrestricted use of DDT and other pesticides. Even Norman Borlaug, Nobel Prize winner for his contributions to the Green Revolution, claimed in BioScience in the early 1970s that if DDT and other pesticides were banned, a total of 50 percent of U.S. crops would be lost. Subsequently several graduate students and I found that for the early 1970s the U.S. Department of Agriculture reported that only 20 percent of U.S. crop acreage was then treated with pesticides. In our BioScience rebuttal to Borlaug, we asked the question, how could the U.S. lose 50 percent of its crops, if only 20 percent were treated?

In June of 2007, columnist John Tierney, writing for The New York Times, caricatured Carson’s work as a “hodgepodge of science and junk science, dubious statistics and anecdotes.” He stated that studies have failed to prove that DDT is hazardous to humans. Almost universally, scientists have refuted this statement. In fact, the National Cancer Institute has found an association between DDT and various cancers, and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has classified DDT as a probable human carcinogen.

Then in July, Carson came under attack from Rush Limbaugh. He and others blame her for the DDT ban, and for causing the deaths of 30 million people in Africa and Asia from malaria — more deaths, he claims, than caused by Stalin or Mao. Limbaugh is not a scientist, but as the host of a public affairs program he should at least get his facts straight. Although banned in the United States, DDT is not banned in countries where malaria is endemic, including countries in Africa and Asia.

Besides, the fact is that Rachel Carson never recommended banning DDT for mosquito control in reducing the hazards of malaria to the people of Africa and Asia. Carson died in 1964 before the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency was founded, and there was no evidence at the time of her death that she advocated the total ban of the use of DDT. Certainly she never proposed that DDT be banned for use to control mosquito and malaria in developing nations in tropical regions.

Mosquitoes and malaria are responsible for 1.2 million to 2.7 million human deaths each year worldwide. And though we can never know Carson’s final position on the issue, it seems likely that she would not have supported an outright ban on pesticides. She would have likely called for their judicious use, taking into consideration their impacts on the natural environment — exactly the stance she took in “Silent Spring.”

Whether Rachel Carson will be honored by the U.S. Senate, we cannot predict. However, that we’re having a dialogue at all is truly Carson’s legacy. Her fondest hope was that we consider the environment in all our deliberations.

David Pimentel is a professor of entomology at the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences at Cornell University. © 2007 Blue Ridge Press.

Dont misuse Social Security, Texas activists say

Fri, 19 Oct 2007 08:03:00 +0000

DALLAS — North Texas Jobs with Justice joined activists across the nation Oct. 12 in protesting Social Security’s relatively new involvement in immigration law enforcement.

Outside the office building at 1301 Young Street, where the regional office of Social Security is headquartered, state Rep. Roberto Alonzo led a delegation of activists that included local members of ACORN, Unite Here, the United Food and Commercial Workers, Alliance/AFT (teachers), and the United Auto Workers. They presented Wes Davis, the regional Social Security communications director, with a packet of protest letters from area union, church and community leaders.

Reporters asked why the activity was taking place, since a San Francisco judge had ruled just two days earlier that Social Security must be temporarily restrained from its role, assigned by the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) on Aug. 10, in pressuring employers to fire workers whose names do not match their Social Security numbers.

The response was that the public needs to know how DHS is attempting to hijack one of America’s most valuable social programs and use it against working people.

Social Security was never meant to serve as an identification number, an activist said. The database is often incorrect because of the ways that people spell their names, the ways that people change their names, and the fact that different ethnic groups treat their names differently. The point was made that the DHS rule would tend to discriminate against any foreign or dark-skinned worker.

Alonzo called for a fair resolution of immigration problems at the national level. He decried recent local efforts by political opportunists, racists and other reactionaries to impose their own “solutions” on the immigration problem.

For example, Farmers Branch, a suburb of Dallas, recently ruled that undocumented workers could not live in their town. In a more recent anti-Latino effort, reactionaries launched a campaign to stop people from painting their homes with bright colors.

Efforts are being made in nearby Irving to increase deportations. Such actions have reached a point where the Mexican Consul has cautioned Latinos about avoiding the city. School officials in Irving are concerned by the drastic increase in school truancy, as families move toward a more underground existence.

As the Dallas protest showed, rebuffs to the government-encouraged rise in anti-immigrant sentiment are also increasing in North Texas.

flittle7 @yahoo.com

Outlawing abortions doesnt stop them, study says

Fri, 19 Oct 2007 06:44:00 +0000

Abortion rates are similar in countries where the procedure is legal and in countries where it is not, and the number of abortions worldwide is declining due to increased access to contraception, according to a study conducted by the Guttmacher Institute and the World Health Organization and published Oct. 12 in The Lancet, The New York Times reports. The study also found that abortions were “safe in countries where it was legal, but dangerous in countries where it was outlawed and performed clandestinely,” according to the Times.

For the study, Gilda Sedgh of the Guttmacher Institute and colleagues from WHO examined abortion trends from 1995 to 2003 in developed and developing countries where the procedure is legal and prohibited. The researchers used national data for countries where abortion was legal and estimated abortion rates from countries where it is illegal, using data on hospital admissions for abortion complications, interviews with local family planning experts and surveys of women in those countries, the Times reports.

Unsafe abortions tied to poverty

The study found that the number of abortions worldwide has decreased from about 46 million in 1995 to about 42 million in 2003. The majority of abortions, 35 million, occurred in developing countries, and 97 percent of all unsafe abortions — those performed either by people without the necessary skills or in a setting that does not conform to minimum medical standards — were performed in low-income countries, the study found. About 20 million unsafe abortions were performed each year, and about 67,000 women died from complications from those abortions, mostly in countries where the procedure is banned, according to the study.

Regional differences

In Eastern Europe, where contraceptive access has increased in recent years, abortion rates declined by 50 percent, the study found. However, there are 105 abortions per every 100 live births in Eastern Europe, compared with 33 abortions per 100 live births in North America and 17 abortions per 100 live births in Africa, according to the study. The largest number of abortions, 26 million in 2003, occurred in Asia, including about 9 million procedures in China.

In Uganda, where abortion is illegal and sex education programs focus on abstinence, the estimated abortion rate was 54 abortions per 1,000 women in 2003. The rate in the U.S. was 21 per 1,000 women, and in Western Europe, where abortion is legal and contraception is widely available, the abortion rate was 12 per 1,000 women.

Laws vs. women’s decisions

“We now have a global picture of induced abortion in the world, covering both countries where it is legal and countries where laws are very restrictive,” Paul Van Look, director of WHO’s Department of Reproductive Health and Research, said, adding, “What we see is that the law does not influence a woman’s decision to have an abortion. If there’s an unplanned pregnancy, it does not matter if the law is restrictive or liberal.”

Sharon Camp, CEO of the Guttmacher Institute, said the data also suggested that the best way to reduce abortion rates was not to make the procedure illegal but to make contraception more widely available. “Generally, where abortion is legal it will be provided in a safe manner,” Van Look said, adding, “And the opposite is also true: where it is illegal, it is likely to be unsafe, performed under unsafe conditions by poorly trained providers.”

Maternal mortality stillbig problem

In a related Lancet study also published Oct. 12, maternal mortality rates declined less than 1 percent annually between 1990 and 2005, “far below” the 5.5 percent annual decline needed to meet the UN Millennium Development Goals target of reducing the number of women who die during pregnancy and childbirth by three-quarters by 2015, Reuters reports. For the study, researchers used figures from WHO, the World Bank and other nongovernmental organizations to assess maternal mortality trends.

Half of the maternal deaths occurred in sub-Saharan Africa, and the region showed a “particularly small drop” in its maternal mortality rate, BBC News reports.

“The huge difference in risk [between countries] dwarfs differences for other commonly used health indicators, such as the infant mortality rate, and makes it likely that effective interventions to reduce maternal mortality exist but are not being widely implemented,” the researchers said.

— Excerpted from Kaisernetwork.org

Calif. unionists charge police brutality

Fri, 19 Oct 2007 06:36:00 +0000

Over 150 members of the International Longshore and Warehouse Union (ILWU) gathered outside the Yolo County Courthouse in Woodland, Calif., Oct. 5, to protest the arraignment of two ILWU Local 10 members on charges of obstructing justice.

The protesters charged that, instead, the two were victims of police brutality when police officers assaulted and arrested them on the West Sacramento docks Aug. 23.

Local 10 spokesmen said the two workers, Aaron Harrison and Jason Ruffin, both African Americans, were stopped by port security as they returned from their lunch break to the terminal where they were working. When the two challenged security personnel’s right to search their car, and phoned their union representative, the guards called West Sacramento police.

The union said the police then dragged Harrison and Ruffin from the car, maced them and arrested them for trespassing and resisting arrest.

Former Local 10 President Trent Willis called the incident “a clear case of police brutality and racial profiling,” and urged that the charges be dropped.

West Sacramento police claimed the search was a routine, random procedure.

Arraignment of the two was continued until Oct. 22, to give their attorneys time to review the evidence.

mbechtel @pww.org