People Before Profit blog

Lem Harris, farm labor writer, dies at 98

Fri, 27 Sep 2002 05:20:00 +0000

Lem Harris, a lifelong defender of family farmers and the rural working class, died Sept. 21. He was 98 years old. He was a member of the Executive Board of the Connecticut Communist Party, and was active in politics up to his death.

Harris wrote regularly for this newspaper, as well as others, with his last World story published just before his death. When The New York Times recently carried a story denouncing a farm bill enacted by Congress, Harris’ reply defending parity farm prices was printed.

Harris was the eldest delegate to the 2001 Communist Party USA’s (CPUSA) 27th Convention, where his speech on the need for farmer-labor unity was greeted with a standing ovation.

Lement Harris was born March 1, 1904, in Chicago, the son of a wealthy grain exporter who later established a lucrative stock brokerage on Wall Street. The family moved into a Tuxedo Park mansion where presidents of banks, steamship companies and railroads were regular guests.

Harris graduated from Harvard. But he spurned a partnership in his father’s firm and decided to spend three years as a farm laborer on a Pennsylvania dairy farm. He developed a deep love for the land and the people who till it.

The Russian Revolution was still fresh and in June 1929 he sailed to the Soviet Union where he joined Harold Ware, a CPUSA member who had settled in the Verblud region of the USSR, to help in the drive to collectivize and mechanize the farms. Harris witnessed the tremendous surge of farm production under socialism and the rising living standards and cultural life of Soviet collective farmers. It convinced him of the advantages of socialism.

That conclusion was driven home when he and Ware returned to the U.S. in 1930 to find the nation locked in the worst economic depression in history with millions, including farmers, facing starvation brought on by “overproduction.”

Ware and Harris set out on a nationwide tour to conduct a “farm survey.” It included study of impoverished African-American and white tenant sharecroppers in Alabama and Texas, as well as wheat farmers on the Great Plains ruined by grain prices a fraction of the cost of production.

In his memoirs, My Tale of Two Worlds (International Publishers, 1986), Harris tells of the grassroots movement of farmers and workers that sprang up in those years with the slogan, “Fight or starve.” He dedicates the book to many of the heroes and heroines of that movement, including Mother Ella Reeve Bloor, many of whom were Communists. Harris himself joined the CPUSA in 1931. His father took him out of his will but Lem never expressed a word of regret.

He served as Executive Secretary of the Farmers National Relief Conference, which met Dec. 8, 1932, and drafted a program calling on the federal government to set up a “price regulating body controlled by actual consumers and producers … whose function shall be to reduce prices to consumers and raise prices for all farm products sold.”

The movement employed militant tactics such as “penny auctions” to stop farm foreclosures. The “Farm Holiday” movement was a form of strike action by farmers that was subject to police violence and mass arrests. Harris was arrested moments after speaking in favor of a farm-relief bill to a crowd rallying near Sioux City, Iowa.

Political action based on unity of farmers and workers was key to winning election of Franklin Delano Roosevelt and enactment of New Deal legislation, including the system of non-recourse loans for farm commodities to stem the tide of farm bankruptcies.

Fascism was rising and in 1935, Harris was selected as a delegate to the 7th World Congress of the Communist International in Moscow where the strategy of the United Front Against Fascism was first put forward.

Harris remained active during the war against fascism and throughout the Cold War years, never wavering in his work on behalf of family farmers and in defense of socialism.

As recently as last spring, he traveled to Minneapolis where he met with leaders of the National Farmers Union and the Institute for Agricultural and Trade Policy on the struggle against agribusiness and the ultra-right Bush Administration.

Harris is survived by his wife, Louise, and her two children from a previous marriage and by his three children from an earlier marriage, as well as by thirteen grandchildren and six great grandchildren.

Give now to keep PWW/Mundo rolling

Fri, 27 Sep 2002 05:10:00 +0000

Dear friend,

As a reader of the People’s Weekly World and Nuestro Mundo, you, like tens of thousands of ordinary, decent people throughout our country, are taking heart that for the first time since the Sept. 11 attacks, the reactionary Bush administration is on the defensive and its support in the polls is falling.

The close ties of this gang with corporate crime, the deepening economic decline and the administration’s total inability to provide any credible way out are the basic causes for its crumbling support.

The desperate efforts to use “national security” as a cover for a massive, right-wing assault on labor, immigrants, minorities and democratic rights are unraveling. Deep splits have emerged in the Republican Party over punishing corporate crime, the threat to invade Iraq and the embargo of Cuba. The rats are beginning to desert their sinking ship. But they will always need a push.

Most significantly, labor and its allies are showing a renewed spirit of defiance, resistance and rebellion.

Tens of thousands of West Coast longshore workers and their supporters have taken to the streets to defy Bush’s threat to use troops to break a possible strike. They have won the support of the mayors and Congress people in every major city from Los Angeles to Seattle.

The steelworkers are pressing a broad-based campaign for federal guarantees of health and pension benefits lost by 600,000 retirees from companies that have gone bankrupt. Their agenda calls for national health care.

A “Coalition of Conscience” including major African-American, Latino, Arab-American, women’s organizations and labor unions, led by Rev. Jesse Jackson, called a national demonstration in front of the U.S. Justice Department to challenge the Bush-Ashcroft assault on democratic and civil rights.

A new peace movement was re-born on April 20, when 100,000 people went to D.C. to say no war at home and abroad. The PWW/Mundo is working to fortify the peace sentiments and concern for saving the world from military and environmental destruction.

We are working especially hard to help turn the November elections into the most decisive setback possible to the ultra-right power bloc in Congress and the state governments.

The People’s Weekly World/Nuestro Mundo is proud to be part of this growing, grassroots, labor-led fightback movement. All of these stories and more have been under-reported or ignored in the corporate media. We are proud to give these struggles and movements voice and, through the process of reporting, to help it expand and be more effective. And it is a known fact that in order to complete that process the PWW/Mundo has to be more widely read.

The PWW/Mundo is part of a growing movement of independent and anti- corporate media willing to challenge the monopolies’ spin and control of information. Many of our stories are utilized by other publications and organizations to this end. Pro-worker, pro-people advocacy journalism has always been an important part of social change and we are working to uphold this tradition into the 21st century.

We know you also want to help make this happen. And you can. Through your financial support, you can personally guarantee the expansion of freedom of speech, freedom of assembly, freedom of the press. It is one of the most powerful ways you can help turn the tide against the ultra-right and build the historic fightback movement to preserve our country’s basic democratic and social rights.

So, please, give generously to the People’s Weekly World/Nuestro Mundo Fund Drive. Thank you.

Sincerely,

Tim Wheeler Editor

Bush axes kids health plan

Fri, 27 Sep 2002 04:25:00 +0000

The Bush administration is poised to launch an attack on children’s health care. Crying the blues of “fiscal prudence,” the president is withdrawing one-fourth of the federal financing of children’s health insurance coverage, exposing millions of children to illnesses that could be cured and/or stopped from getting worse.

These cuts would take place from 2002 to 2004. In addition, Bush is planning to return $2.8 million to the U.S. Treasurer of SCHIP funds previously given to the States.

The mostly federally financed State Children’s Health Insurance Program (SCHIP) has been an important band-aid for 45 million people without health insurance. It is modeled after the Medicaid financing mechanism, that is, there are both federal and state matching funds. In New York State, a Family Health Plus program was grafted on this children’s program to get health insurance to adults who earn too much for Medicaid, but cannot afford regular health insurance. This program will probably face a difficult future.

At a time when SCHIP faces cutbacks, the Commonwealth Fund reports that New York employers plan to scale back health coverage for workers.

When this program was enacted in 1997, there were 10 million children without health insurance; five years later about one-third of them are covered.

If these federal funds are withdrawn, states will have to freeze enrollment, increase premiums for this coverage (why there is a premium to begin with is crazy); and stop the new simplified enrollment procedures that many states were instituting.

The next weeks of campaigning for Congress should be filled with very direct questions of both Republicans and Democrats. To cover themselves, some Republicans are supporting the SCHIP program. For example, Chaffee of Connecticut and Hatch of Utah are supporting continuation of SCHIP.

Examples like SCHIP are pushing more and more elected officials to call for a universal national health plan. The stop-gap method of covering different groups of people gives right-wing politicians the ability to cut back those same programs.

The increasingly flawed Medicare program, the federal health program for seniors, is uncovering another defect – the unwillingness of physicians to participate in the program because they are not receiving enough reimbursement. New York Senator Charles Schumer’s answer is to feed more money into the system. He is especially interested in feeding the already greedy HMOs, be they for profit or not for profit.

A universal solution to this problem is the only answer. A universal health system in the U.S. must start with our public system, where physicians and other health care providers work for a salary. In fact, in the U.S. well over 50 percent of physicians are salaried.

The examples of SCHIP, and the increasingly failing marks given to Medicaid and Medicare, show that a new approach is needed. HR-99, the Universal Health Care legislation introduced by Rep. John Conyers (D-Mich.) is the broadest approach to the massive problem we have and deserves to be supported by every member of Congress.

The author can be reached at pww@pww.org

Dockers protest increased work loads

Fri, 27 Sep 2002 04:20:00 +0000

OAKLAND, Calif. – As part of a mounting campaign to pressure employers to begin bargaining seriously about maintaining union jurisdiction over new technology jobs on the waterfront, hundreds of members of the International Longshore and Warehouse Union’s (ILWU) held noon-hour protests at the docks and offices of Stevedoring Services (SSA) of Long Beach and Oakland, California, and in Seattle, Washington.

In Oakland, Maersk/Sealand, a major shipping company and object of a union protest a week earlier, shifted lunch hour from noon to 11 a.m. in an effort to keep longshore workers from taking part in the SSA protest. The effort failed, as most of the workers participated in a rally followed by a march to the gates of Matson Co., a company that contracts with SSA. While there, Local 10 officers presented a letter to SSA management calling on the company to cooperate in “pursuing meaningful negotiations between PMA and ILWU.”

In a fact sheet given to reporters, the union pointed out that as far back as the mid-1990s SSA “systematically moved” several hundred ILWU jobs to Salt Lake City. The company operates several off-dock container storage yards under the guise of separate corporate entities to avoid honoring ILWU contracts. SSA claims to have no control over these containers, the handling of which is now being done by union workers.

Work at facilities owned by Container Freight Stuffing (CFS) was formerly done by ILWU members at terminals such as Matson at Los Angeles/Long Beach. But when SSA became Matson’s stevedore company, the CFS work was shut down and shifted to off-dock non-union workplaces.

The ILWU also charged SSA, which has the largest block of votes on the PMA bargaining committee, of being responsible for hiring Joseph Miniace, who has taken a hard-line position against recognizing ILWU jurisdiction over new jobs.

SSA is the largest stevedoring company in the U.S and fourth largest in the world. In other countries SSA is known for working to undermine union contracts. Workers at SSA have been involved in two fatalities among five that occurred on West Coast docks in the past six months. The fatalities served to underscore the fact that longshore work is among the most dangerous occupations in the country.

ILWU President Jim Spinosa said, “PMA’s constant push for more productivity is making a bad problem worse. It’s way past time our employers start taking health and safety concerns seriously. It’s bad enough when accidents happen, but now they [the PMA] are opposing safety regulations or attempts to minimize hazardous exposures.”

The author can be reached at ncalview@igc.org

International notes

Fri, 27 Sep 2002 04:16:00 +0000

Iraq: CPs in Arab countries protest U.S. threats Communist parties in six Arab countries stated in a Sept. 16 communique that “the situation facing our region signals a dangerous turnabout in the orientation of U.S. policy, especially after the tragic events of Sept. 11.” They called the plans to invade Iraq “enormously out of proportion” with the pretext for the aggression, getting rid of mass destruction weapons. The statement, signed by the CPs of Jordan, Iraq, Syria, Sudan, Lebanon and Egypt, called the Bush administration program part of “a universal American strategy” to consolidate sole U.S. control of the future world development, “especially in our region, which is considered, with its huge oil reserves, particularly in Iraq, a principal link in achieving this mad dream of American monopolies.” The parties said Iraq’s refusal to allow U.N. weapons inspectors to return and to comply with relevant U.N. resolutions helped the U.S. administration find a pretext for its overall scheme, including the invasion of Iraq. Complying with the resolutions “will constitute support for the broad international forces which reject the war against Iraq,” the parties said. They stressed that “the task of changing the political system on a democratic basis in Iraq is the responsibility of the Iraqi people alone, with their patriotic forces which enjoy their support.”

Italy: Huge protest vs. Berlusconi policies In the year’s biggest protest to date against far right Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, some 800,000 demonstrators filled central Rome in mid-month to oppose a government bill on judicial reform. Opponents say the bill could cause the collapse of a trial in which Berlusconi is accused of bribing judges in the 1980s. The bill, which has already passed the upper house of parliament, has been approved by two committees in the lower house, and could become law within weeks. It would allow defendants to request their trials be moved to different courts on “legitimate suspicion” that the judges hearing their cases are biased. Meantime, the militant leftwing CGIL labor federation called for a one-day strike Oct. 18, to protest the Berlusconi government’s proposed reforms of the employment, tax and welfare systems.

South Africa: AIDS activists accuse giant drug firms AIDS activists last week filed complaints with South Africa’s Competition Commission against British-based GlaxoSmithKline and German-based Boehringer Ingelheim, accusing them of causing thousands of deaths through overpricing their medications. The Treatment Action Campaign (TAC), the Congress of South African Trade Unions (COSATU), three physicians, a nurse and four people living with HIV/AIDS said in affidavits that the firms were charging unreasonable prices for AZT, nevirapine, Combivir and 3TC. The complainants want the commission – an independent monitoring body – to fine the firms up to 10 percent of their annual receipts in South Africa and to declare publicly that they have conducted prohibited practices. This would allow people who suffered a loss because of past excessive pricing of the drugs to sue the companies. COSATU General Secretary Zwelinzima Vavi urged the government to issue compulsory licences to local firms so they could produce cheap drugs.

Brazil: Overwhelming vote against FTAA Brazilians voted overwhelming against signing the Free Trade of the Americas (FTAA) treaty. Of the 10,149,542 Brazilians who participated in the plebiscite, 9,979,964 (98.33 percent) maintain that Brazil should not sign the Free Trade Area of the Americas treaty, versus 113,643 persons (1.67 percent) who believe that Brazil should join this economic bloc. Participation surpassed the four million persons who voted two years ago on the Plebiscite on the Foreign Debt. The results were released September 17, from Brasilia. Brazilians also voted against continuing to participate in the FTAA negotiations by 96 percent. Ninety-nine percent of the voters answered no to the third question – whether Brazil should deliver control over the Launch Base in Alcántara, in Maranhao, to the United States.

Slovakia: CP wins 11 seats in parliament For the first time since 1989 the Slovak parliament will include Communist MPs. The Communist Party of Slovakia won 11 seats in last weekend’s elections to the 150-member National Council. It polled 6.2 percent of the vote, more than doubling its support since the last election in 1998. The next Slovak coalition government will probably consist of four rightwing parties – current prime minister Mikulas Dzurinda’s Slovak Democcratic and Christian Union (which polled 15.09 percent); the Christian Democratic Movement (8.25 percent); a new party formed by Berlusconi-like media magnate Pavol Rusko, the New Citizen Alliance (8 percent); and the Hungarian Coalition Party (11.6 percent).

Cuba rejects Iraq war

Fri, 27 Sep 2002 04:05:00 +0000

The following are excerpts from the statement delivered by Felipe Perez Roque, Cuban Minister of Foreign Affairs, to the UN General Assembly on Sept. 14.

A year ago, the holding of this General Assembly had to be postponed on account of the ruthless crime committed on Sept. 11. There was then a worldwide wave of solidarity towards the American people and, particularly, towards the families of the almost 3,000 innocent victims of that unjustifiable terrorist attack.

The stage was thus set for the creation of a genuine international alliance under the auspices and leadership of the United Nations Organization, with absolute respect for the purposes and principles enshrined in its Charter. Nearly all countries, beyond ideological, political, cultural and religious differences, expressed their willingness to cooperate actively with this endeavor of unmistakable common interest.

However, another vision prevailed. In an unprecedented fashion, it was stated that whoever did not support the war decided upon by a single country would then be on the side of terrorism. It was even announced to the Security Council that such country reserved the right to launch future attacks on its own against other nations.

A unilateral war was then unleashed, whose death toll is still unbeknownst to us and whose most tangible consequence is probably the striking blow rendered to the credibility of the United Nations Organization and to multilateralism as a means to cope with the complex challenges currently ahead of us.

What is the outcome today? There are greater feelings of hatred, vengeance and insecurity, not helpful in the fight against terrorism. Dangerous xenophobic and discriminatory tendencies threaten the existence of a plural and democratic world. There has been a step backward in the field of public freedoms and civil rights.

In the meantime, there is a lack of political will by certain powers to rigorously apply, without selectivity and without double standards, the 12 existing international legal instruments on terrorism. In addition, no advances have been made in the definition, so indispensable today, of State terrorism.

Cuba, on its part, a victim of terrorist acts for over four decades – that stated its opinions in this Assembly with poise and firmness and that unwaveringly condemned the crime of Sept. 11 and terrorism as such, but that also opposed the war out of ethical considerations and the respect for International Law – signed and ratified the twelve international conventions to combat terrorism, adopted a national law to fight this scourge, has cooperated fully with the work of the committee set up for such purposes by the Security Council and, at the bilateral level, proposed to the U.S. administration the implementation of a program to combat terrorism, which was inconceivably rejected by such government.

* * *

A new war against Iraq seems already inevitable; an aggravation of the situation of constant aggression that such people has lived over the last 10 years. The buzzword now is ‘pre-emptive war’ – in open violation of the spirit and the letter of the United Nations Charter.

Cuba defends principles and not vested interests; therefore, although its supporters may feel upset, it emphatically opposes this war. Cuba is not driven by an anti-American spirit, even when its government maintains and strengthens a 40-year-old blockade against our people.

But refraining from telling the truth out of cowardice or political calculation is not characteristic of Cuban revolutionaries. Therefore, Cuba hereby states that it opposes a new military action against Iraq. It does so while recalling that at one point in time it supported the Security Council resolution asking the Iraqi Government to end the occupation of Kuwait.

We believe that the development of weapons of mass destruction today would be insane, because the only possible way that we envision for world peace is through general and complete disarmament, including nuclear disarmament, and the rechanneling of the money currently spent on weapons to address the dire socio-economic problems of humankind.

The Arab countries have been emphatic in their rejection of this war; most European countries do not approve of it; the international community is increasingly concerned about the announcement of a new war on the basis of unconfirmed allegations – and even disregarding the obvious reality that Iraq cannot pose a danger to the United States.

If the U.S. government unleashes a new war against Iraq, either by imposing it on the Security Council or deciding upon it unilaterally in opposition to the international public opinion, we will bear witness to the emergence of the century of unilateralism and the forced retirement of the United Nations Organization.

It will then seem that the Cold War years – with the remote memory of bipolarism, mistakes and contradictions – were not as futile and perilous as the stage that is now relentlessly looming over the world.

* * *

Longshore union files NLRB charges

Fri, 27 Sep 2002 03:59:00 +0000

LOS ANGELES – The International Longshore and Warehouse Union (ILWU) has filed unfair labor practices with the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) against their employers, the Pacific Maritime Association (PMA), and the Stevedoring Services of America (SSA), charging them with manufacturing a national crisis in order to sabotage contract talks.

This action comes in response to a lockout notice served to the ILWU by the PMA on Sept. 19, in which the shipping association falsely accused ILWU Local 13 of slowing down work at the Los Angeles/Long Beach port. The PMA then announced publicly that it would shut down the nation’s two largest ports on Sept. 20 due to slowdown.

The lockout was withdrawn only hours later, with the PMA stating the union ended its slow down. But the union says that not only was there never a slowdown, but the situation in Los Angeles was created by the PMA itself when the employers’ “sky is falling” predictions were followed by an overload of cargo, resulting in a labor shortage of trained personnel.

“The PMA is whipping up hysteria over a possible longshore strike and encouraging shippers and retailers to move all their goods as soon as possible. This caused such a crush of cargo that the port’s infrastructure can’t handle it and there are not enough [trained] workers to fill all the jobs,” Steve Stallone, ILWU Communications Director, told the World.

“The ILWU membership will not be intimidated or coerced by the PMA employers’ unjustified and unlawful, hostile actions. Nor will the union be deterred from our efforts to obtain a fair and equitable contract settlement for all port workers,” stated ILWU President James Spinosa, in response to the PMA’s “reckless and provocative” action.

Adding to the SSA’s irresponsibility is its failure to attend a labor-management meeting Sept. 19. Other PMA employers and the ILWU were present to discuss SSA’s complaints of labor shortages, but the SSA no-show insured no resolution could be achieved.

The union also filed NLRB charges against the SSA for threatening to fire workers unless the union agrees to economic concessions which benefit the employer.

In the meantime, ports up and down the coast have been experiencing personnel shortages, especially in the more skilled categories. The huge volume of cargo has also required many terminals to move to “grounded operations,” stacking containers four high, instead of the previous “wheeled operation,” where containers are kept on chassis for easier movement out to waiting trucks.

The union also charges the PMA with retaliating against the union for its insistence that established safety rules be complied with at SSA in Long Beach. An arbitration decision mandated that only industry-trained and fully registered workers operate the massive “tophandler” machinery, which has been the cause of recent deaths and injuries. But SSA, which has a reserve of qualified crane operators, chooses not to use them to fill open jobs.

Instead, employers used the shortage at a single SSA facility in Long Beach to argue for the total closure of all waterfront terminals at the ports of Long Beach/Los Angeles, which together make up the third busiest port facility in the world. This was done while ILWU workers are “handling cargo flow 15 percent greater than average and when the negotiating parties are making significant progress on contract provisions for new technologies and the free flow of data in the ports.”

The union also reports that in Southern California two of the largest shipping companies – Maersk and Hanjin – are moving from their old terminals to new ones, causing further disruptions. Some terminals have had to close their gates early because of truck congestion inside.

This situation continues to pose severe safety problems for workers. However, despite all these problems, and contrary to PMA statements, more cargo is being moved now than any time in the history of the West Coast docks.

The author can be reached at evnalarcon@aol.com

NGOs meet to protect Palestinians

Fri, 27 Sep 2002 03:53:00 +0000

NEW YORK – Under the slogan “End the Occupation,” non-governmental organizations (NGOs), and religious and civil organizations from around the world gathered at UN Headquarters here Sept. 23-24 to address the humanitarian crisis affecting the Palestinian people. The meeting was held as Israel’s military incursions into Palestine increased and suicide bombings in Israel resumed.

The United Nations International Conference of Civil Society in Support of the Palestinian People was opened by the Chairman of the Committee on the Exercise of the Inalienable Rights of the Palestinian People, Senegal’s Ambassador to the UN, Papa Louis Fall. “This meeting is being held at one of the most critical moments in the history of the Palestinian people,” said Fall.

Nasser Al-Kidwa, the Permanent Observer of Palestine to the UN arrived late to the opening session due to the emergency meeting of the UN Security Council. The Security Council passed Resolution 1435, condemning last weekend’s attacks on the compound of Palestinian Authority President Yasser Arafat. Fourteen countries voted in favor, with the U.S. the only abstention.

Al-Kidwa, on returning from the Security Council meeting, called the most recent Israeli attacks “an escalation,” and an attempt to “break the will of the people and destroy the Palestinian Authority.”

The conference addressed the deepening crisis facing the Palestinian people under the ongoing occupation, military attacks and “curfew” imposed by the Israeli military. Many Palestinian organizations and international NGOs operating in Palestine highlighted the scale of the humanitarian crisis in the West Bank and Gaza. The ongoing occupation has destroyed infrastructure, caused widespread hunger and poor sanitation and has prohibited service organizations from providing necessary aid.

Thomas Neu, a member of the Association of International Development Agencies in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, said the “NGOs and service organizations are not allowed to move to where they need to go.” He also pointed out that while most organizations came to Palestine for development programs, most are now engaged in emergency relief work.

The role of the U.S. as the main political and financial backer of Israel was reiterated throughout the conference. Many speakers felt that Israel would never end the occupation unless the U.S. ceases its annual $3 billion support to Israel. A new U.S. organization, the Campaign to End the Israeli Occupation (www.endtheoccupation.org), was founded to pressure the White House and Congress to abide by international law, enforce the UN resolutions and stop funding the occupation.

Phyllis Bennis, co-chair of the Campaign’s Steering Committee, said that the international campaign to end the occupation must be “grounded in international law and human rights.” The Israeli occupation of Palestine beginning in 1948 was illegal and contrary to international law and the UN resolutions that created Israel itself. Dozens of UN General Assembly and Security Council Resolutions have demanded that Israel return to the pre-1967 border, allow the return of Palestinian refugees, observe the Geneva Convention and end the illegal settlements.

The NGO gathering reiterated that the fundamental cause of the crisis in Israel and Palestine remains the occupation itself, and called for its immediate end. Also, the meeting called on Israel to abide by the Geneva Convention, that demands the protection of civilians under occupation. Furthermore, the NGOs called for an international security force to protect Palestinian civilians during the dismantling of the occupation, since Israel is unwilling to do so.

The final declaration of the gathering also condemned the Bush administration’s plans for invasion of Iraq, stating that “such a war could be used to conceal the transfer – ethnic cleansing – of Palestinians from their homeland.”

According to all the eyewitness reports, the Sharon government is attempting to make a permanent system of exclusion and occupation in Palestine through the imposition of “cantons” and check-points. This NGO conference noted the urgency for civil society and the world’s people to take action to end the illegal and worsening occupation of Palestine before it is too late.

The author can be reached at ldellapiana@pww.org

Iraq war: Destructive, senseless, illegal

Fri, 27 Sep 2002 03:43:00 +0000

Groups who traditionally form the bedrock of conscience at difficult and dangerous times are organizing to stop the Bush administration’s drive for war. In fact, most say the polls do not reflect what is becoming a rising tide of questions about the use of military force in Iraq.

The growing peace sentiments are reflected in resolutions, congressional lobbing, demonstrations and vigils by churches, peace groups and unions who say no to war in Iraq.

The 70,000-member California Federation of Teachers (CFT) unanimously passed a resolution, Sept. 21, saying, “Whereas, a war with Iraq would require the re-direction of vital resources and funds to a destructive, senseless, and illegal goal while further strengthening an administration that has restricted the civil liberties of its citizens.”

CFT President Mary Bergan told the World in a phone interview, “We’re facing problems all over and going to war isn’t going to make it any better.” The resolution will be shared with the California congressional delegation and the state AFL-CIO at its next meeting.

Other labor councils and union locals passed similar resolutions. The International Longshore and Warehouse Union (ILWU) Local 10 passed a resolution citing its opposition to the 1991 war in Iraq and highlighting that “under the guise of national security Bush will attempt to recruit unions to his war drive for big oil companies,” and that the issue of national security is also being used by the Bush administration and the local’s employers to undermine their ongoing contract negotiations.

Washington State Labor Council urged the AFL-CIO to oppose the U.S. government’s open-ended war on terrorism with participation in demonstrations and lobbying “to pressure President Bush and Congress to stop the war and redirect money from corporate handouts and the military budget to assist laid-off workers, restore and expand public services and promote global justice by providing humanitarian and economic aid, administered by unions, to our brothers and sisters in other countries.”

The labor statements highlight the shift in public opinion.

Dramatizing the need for more visibility of the anti-war feelings, Scott Lynch, communication director for Peace Action, told the World, “The grassroots has to keep hammering on their senators. From the VFW to the traditional left community, people have very strong doubts about the wisdom of starting a war in the Middle East. They understand it’s unstable there and war inherently makes things less stable.”

U.S. history is proving to be a big factor in today’s public opinion avalanche. Wilson “Woody” Powell, national administrator for Veterans for Peace (VFP), told the World, “Viet Nam vets are saying deja vu all over again.”

Powell, who educates groups on war, said people are looking at the long term impact of a war. “A lot [of people] are getting a feeling of fear, that there is something looming in their midst, not just coming from overseas, that is very dangerous and critical to the survival of this country.”

Many in the religious community are mobilizing against the pre-emptive strike philosophy guiding the Bush strategy. National Council of Churches General Secretary Rev. Bob Edgar, a former 11-term congressman, and the Churches for a Middle East Peace sent a letter to Bush signed by 48 Christian church denominations.

Detroit Auxiliary Bishop Thomas Gumbleton made one of the most dramatic calls to action at the National Assembly of Pax Christi. He called on the 600 assembled to sign a pledge of resistance and commit to civil disobedience to stop the war.

“The war in the Persian Gulf in 1991 was an unjust war, condemned by Pope John Paul II. Any new war against Iraq will be an unjust war. ... when you sign that pledge you really are saying, ‘I am ready to get out in the streets and do civil disobedience if they attack,’” he said.

The call for civil disobedience has spurred on other religious and peace groups to join Pax Christi and many other groups to organize civil disobedience in cities across the country Oct. 3-7.

But the question remains, can we prevent this war?

“The answer is yes, but ...,” said Joe Volk, executive secretary of the Friends Committee on National Legislation, “it won’t happen unless tens of thousands of U.S. citizens work in concert in the next two weeks to deter or defeat vote for war. The opposition span the political spectrum. ... Our solution is to mobilize voters to give voice to their opposition now.”

The author can be reached at jleblanc@pww.org

World Bank and International Monetary Fund strangle economies of Third World countries

Fri, 27 Sep 2002 02:45:00 +0000

The World Bank’s origins go back to the Bretton Woods conference of July 1944, when leaders from 43 nations assembled to start building the global economy in the aftermath of World War II. U.S. Treasury Secretary Henry Morgenthau, hoping to avoid another worldwide depression, called for creation of institutions that would create “a dynamic world community in which the peoples of every nation will be able to realize their potentialities in peace.”

The International Monetary Fund was created at the same time and the two institutions were supposed to facilitate the kind of global economic relations needed to foster peace and security. The IMF would enhance international trade by standardizing monetary policies and maintaining stable exchange rates while providing temporary financial assistance to countries having difficulty with their balance of payments. The World Bank would assist global trade by lending money to war-ravaged and impoverished countries for reconstruction and development, hence its name: International Bank for Reconstruction and Development/World Bank.

In the 1960s the anti-colonial revolution – with moral and material support from the Soviet Union and other socialist states – brought formal political independence to European colonies, particularly in Africa. But the economic tremors of the 1970s brought with them a changed role of the Bank and IMF, who expanded their mission to become the bill collectors of third world debt. In the years since, the dream that national liberation would open new horizons of a better life became a nightmare where hundreds of millions now find themselves sucked into a downward spiral of debt, despair and disease.

Much of the debt accumulated by African countries was built up during the 1970s. In most African countries the debt burden has cut into spending for health care, leaving the annual budget for health care at six or seven dollars per person. But, since there is no provision in international law, countries cannot go bankrupt and must repay their debts no matter the conditions under which they were undertaken. And to make sure of repayment, the IMF and World Bank take virtual control of the economies of borrowing nations by imposing structural adjustment policies (SAPs). That includes South Africa where, in what may be the irony of all ironies, a government headed by Nelson Mandela was required to pay back loans made by a government that helped pay for the repression that kept him in jail for 27 years.

The massive debts that led developing countries to surrender their economy to international banks have accumulated due to predatory lending policies by private banks, loans for infrastructure projects which were poorly conceived or executed; the oil crisis of the 1970s; the dramatic jump in interest rates at the end of the 1970s initiated by the U.S. Federal Reserve Board; and money lost to corruption. They were made worse by wasteful military spending, the cost of civil wars in Angola, Mozambique, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Rwanda and other countries.

The standard package of IMF “conditionalities” includes:

• Privatization of state-run industries, leading to massive lay-offs with no social security provision and loss of services to remote or poor areas;

• Currency devaluation and export promotion, leading to the soaring cost of imports, land use changed for cash crops; and reliance on international commodity markets to generate the foreign currency needed to service the external debt;

• Raising interest rates to tackle inflation;

• Removal of price controls, and a rapid rise in prices of basic goods and services.

African countries have been among the hardest hit by a global order that has integrated their economies into the global economy as exporters of primary commodities and importers of manufactured goods. These policies have been made even more unequal by neo-liberalism, privatization and deregulation, as well as SAPs imposed by the World Bank and IMF that have combined to generate a level of debt that has crippled Africa’s economies and undermined its ability to determine its own course of economic and social development.

Africa’s manufacturing industries have been destroyed, agricultural production of food and domestic needs is in crisis, public services have been severely weakened and the capacity of African governments to institute policies in support of balanced and equitable national development, emasculated. The costs associated with these have fallen disproportionately on workers, peasants and small producers, with particularly severe consequences for women and children. The numbers tell the story:

• The poor countries of sub-Saharan Africa – in general, the countries lying south of the Sahara Desert but excluding South Africa – owe more than $200 billion in foreign debt, three times more than they earn annually in exports. About 20 percent of sub-Saharan African countries’ export income goes to service foreign debt.

• Half its people live in poverty and, in many countries, per capita income has fallen to levels below those of the 1970s.

• Africa spends four times more on debt interest payments than on health care.

• Thirty-three of the region’s 44 countries are on the United Nations list of heavily indebted poor countries.

• A combination of climate, AIDS and debt have left about six million people in southern Africa facing critical food shortages, in part because the IMF and World Bank have abandoned all subsidies on maize and fertilizer in Mozambique, Zambia and Malawi. Malawi was also forced to sell off its food reserves, a move that has greatly aggravated a famine and resulted in the death of thousands.

• The government of Zambia spent $37 million on primary school education between 1990 and 1993. During that time it spent $1.3 billion – 1,300 million – on debt repayment.

• Per capita external debt for sub-Saharan Africa is $365. GDP per capita is $308.

• Average real wages decreased in 26 out of 28 African countries during the 1980s.

• African children account for about 40 percent of the world’s infant deaths.

• Forty percent of the sub-Saharan African population suffers from some degree of malnutrition.

Africa, where more than 28 million people live with HIV/AIDS, ranks at the top of the victims list of the pandemic that is sweeping countries in the developing world. In Africa alone, 17 million people have died from AIDS, in part because governments are forced to spend more money servicing their foreign debts than they are able to spend on health.

HIV/AIDS is more than a human tragedy. The United Nations says it is rapidly weakening the economic stability of already fragile markets of the developing world. In its UNAIDS Report, the UN warned the disease is erasing decades of development and pointed to the external debt as one of the most important issues in the fight against HIV and AIDS.

Already, the growth rate in sub-Saharan Africa has fallen by as much as 4 percent and labor productivity has been cut by 50 percent in the countries hardest hit by HIV/AIDS. The UN says that by 2020, more than 20 percent of the workforce may be lost in these countries.

According to the United Nations, debt relief has proven to work in dozens of cases in the battle against HIV/AIDS. Malawi received an initial cut of $28 million in debt repayment and used these funds to finance the purchase of critical drugs for hospitals and health centers, hiring extra staff in primary health centers and training nurses. In Uganda, where the external debt was also reduced, the prevalence of adult HIV declined by 40 percent in two years.

Investment by transnational corporations is at the core of the international economy. Private investment in developing countries grew from $44 billion in 1990 to $256 billion in 1997. U.S. private foreign investment increased by $36 billion annually between 1997 and 2000, far in excess of the $11 billion in official development assistance for 2000. Today 100 transnational corporations control a quarter of all foreign-owned assets.

Capitalist globalization and IMF bailouts, the most recent being the $30 billion loan to Brazil, have distorted economies, reduced self-sufficiency, expanded unsustainable use of natural resources, displaced families and communities and made billions of people dependent on foreign markets.

As far as IMF officials are concerned IMF-orchestrated bailouts serve an even more important purpose – they provide money so that developing countries can pay off their foreign creditors, including private banks. In 1999 the fund contributed almost $18 billion to a U.S. bailout of the Wall Street interests that stood to lose billions with the peso devaluation in Mexico.

The same thing happened with the Asian financial crisis, where BankAmerica, Citibank, J.P. Morgan, Bankers Trust, the Bank of New York and Chase Manhattan had approximately $20 billion in outstanding debt in South Korea. With the loans threatening to go bad, the IMF swooped in, pushed the government to take on debts for failing private sector companies and provided tens of billions of dollars to the government to pay off the debts owed to private lenders.

IMF and World Bank policies are premised on “neo-liberalism,” a set of economic premises that have become widespread during the last quarter century. Although conservative politicians hate political “liberals,” they have no problem with neo-liberalism, meaning economic liberalism. The capitalist crisis of the past 25 years, with its shrinking rates of profit, inspired the corporate elite to revive economic liberalism with its elimination of all controls over business and banking. Therefore the “neo;” the new.

The first clear example of neo-liberalism at work came in Chile after the 1973 coup against the government of Salvador Allende. Other countries followed, including Mexico, where wages declined by as much as 50 percent in the first year of NAFTA while the cost of living rose 80 percent. In the years since, over 20,000 Mexican small businesses have failed and more than 1,000 state-owned enterprises have been privatized.

Nor have we in the United States escaped. Neo-liberalism has brought NAFTA and FTAA as well as Enron and WorldCom and the loss of billions in worker’s 401(k) retirement plans. It is destroying welfare programs, attacking the rights of labor and cutting back on social programs – all in the name of the “market” and “getting the government off our backs.”

The battle that hit the public consciousness in 1999 with the “Battle in Seattle” has since been replicated in countries around the world as people in all walks of life have picked up the torch demanding an end to corporate rule. The organizations that initiated the events of Sept. 27-29 in Washington, D.C., demanding an end to corporate rule, have performed a public service that demands the support of everyone.

Fred Gaboury is a member of the Editorial Board of the People’s Weekly World/Nuestro Mundo and writes frequently on economic, labor and political issues. The author can be reached at fgab708@aol.com

Struggle forced state govt to withdraw power hike

Fri, 27 Sep 2002 02:36:00 +0000

TRIVANDRUM, India – Widespread protests forced the Kerala state government to cancel steep power rate increases last month. It was the second time the government was forced to back down on increased meter charges and imposed line rent on consumers. The hefty increase in tariff ranged between 40 and 140 percent.

The Communist Party of India (CPI) and the All India Youth Federation (AIYF) were the first to organize a statewide protest on August 29. Day by day the street protests escalated, with more and more parties and organisations joining it.

Police beat AIYF activists with hockey sticks. Thirteen were seriously injured and admitted to the hospital, only after the CPI state secretary intervened.

Police ransacked one CPI office. Police force was misused by the government against protestors from other organisations throughout the state.

Hundreds of CPI and AIYF cadres were arrested and remanded to judicial custody.

This is not the first time the state government, headed by Shri A.K. Antony, misused police force, even resorting to torture. When state government employees went on strike earlier this year, they too faced police repression. There is no such precedent in the recent history of Kerala, which had a Communist and left-led state government, until this year. Kerala is known world-wide for its close to 100 percent literacy rate, and land reform policies – all instituted by the former Communist government.

The state government tried to raise the power tariff under the dictates of the Asian Development Bank (ADB) as a condtion for obtaining an ADB loan. One of the ADB’s conditions was privatization of the power sector and a minimum 11 percent profit, to be achieved by any means.

CPI and Left Democratic Front leaders urged that the taxes on industrialists, who are among the major defaulters, be collected. They said there is no justice in putting the entire burden on individual consumers. There are other ways to improve the efficiency of the Kerala State Electricity Board as well, they said.

Even the division bench of the Kerala high court expressed these views after going through the facts in several public interest litigation cases against the power tariff hike.

Soni Thengamom is the president of AIYF. The author can be reached at pww@pww.org

Elections in Germany

Fri, 27 Sep 2002 02:32:00 +0000

BERLIN – The old question is “Who’s on first?” Or rather, who slid in first in the German elections? To hear some of the media, it was the left. That is correct if you count Gerhard Schroeder with his Social Democrats (SPD) and Joschka Fischer with his Greens as Left. With a slim majority of 306 to 295 in the Bundestag, they can rule the roost until 2006.

But if you see the Party of Democratic Socialism (PDS) as the left, or its major sector, it was a very bitter loss. For the first time since unification, the PDS will be represented in the Bundestag neither by a fraction nor a group – but by Petra Pau and Gesine Loetsch from East Berlin, the only PDS candidates to win pluralities in their districts. The party got only four percent in Germany as a whole – one percentage point short of the required entry hurdle.

When Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder took office four years ago he stated that if he did not cut unemployment figures he did not deserve reelection. He failed and his opponent, Bavarian Premier Edmund Stoiber, kept harping on it, forgetting that the four million unemployed were the result of sixteen years of Christian Democratic Union rule. Several factors saved Schroeder. The flood disaster hit eastern Germany especially hard, giving him a chance to run from one inundated area to another, promising aid and looking far more authoritative than the clumsier Stoiber.

But the deciding factor was Schroeder’s decision to speak out against an anti-Iraq war. It was a surprising turn-around but it paid off.

Many people supported the PDS, especially in Berlin’s provincial election a year ago, because it was the party of peace, sharply and clearly rejecting every government decision to send tanks, troops or bombers anywhere outside German borders – in keeping with the (originally West) German constitution.

But the canny Schroeder and Fischer stole their thunder. Why vote for the PDS when the ruling coalition is also against the war? If they were to lose and Stoiber win – a buddy of neo-fascists Haider in Austria and Berlusconi in Italy – God help us! The old “lesser of two evils” principle worked again after the vigorous anti-war statements by both government parties.

The PDS had not only opposed war, it pushed for improved rights for women, the unions, the jobless, the handicapped; it had actively fought for minorities and oppressed groups abroad, like the Kurds, and against neo-nazis at home. But while many PDS elected officials did an exemplary job, there was next to no PDS-led action in the streets. There was little active support of union struggles. Even the peace marches were led by other groups.

All this showed up in the election figures. In Germany as a whole, dropping from 5.1 percent in 1998 to 4.0 percent meant a loss of about 20 percent of PDS supporters.

The PDS will hold a convention in the Gera, in Thuringia, in several weeks. Many of its 80,000 members believe that the PDS still has good chances to grow again as a fighting party, both for disadvantaged east Germans in particular, but basically for all Germans who work hard for a living.

Struggle for peace in the Mideast continues

Fri, 27 Sep 2002 02:27:00 +0000

News Analysis

TEL AVIV – The latest acts of state terror against the Palestinian people and their elected leadership last weekend have awakened a fury of mass protests by Palestinians and have met sharp criticism and protest actions in Israel and around the world.

Despite curfews, mass demonstrations were held in Palestinian towns under the slogan, “We are ready for peace but not for capitulation; we will not give up our part of Jerusalem or any grain of our land, guaranteed by international law and resolutions.” Obviously, the furious Israeli attack on Palestinian President Arafat’s office has backfired.

Gush-Shalom staged a peace vigil Sept. 22 joined by many peace activists in front of the Defense Ministry in Tel Aviv. The participants carried posters saying that the attack on Arafat’s presidential headquarters is “contradicting Israel’s true security interests” and “can only result in much more hatred, much more blood on both sides” and that “Only negotiated Peace can bring true Peace for Israel and Palestine.”

Prime Minister Sharon and his cabinet were forced to stop short of expelling Arafat from the West Bank. They make no secret of their aim to destroy his headquarters and rob him of all his means of power, or of their hope that Arafat will surrender.

They have destroyed all but the wing of the headquarters occupied by Arafat. Sharon and his cabinet ordered the destruction as retaliation for a suicide attack upon a bus in Tel Aviv last Thursday.

Many in Israel ask why Sharon’s fury was directed at Arafat, who denounced the suicide atrocity, and not against the Hamas militants, who openly said that they had perpetrated the Tel Aviv attack.

Bush administration criticism of Sharon’s “excessive actions,” is seen here as lip service to public opinion, because these actions might interfere with Bush’s war designs in the Middle East.

Many of Israeli political observers and media commentators agree with Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak, who warned Israel that its destructive attacks and threat to Arafat’s life would lead to new acts of vengeance from growing Palestinian resistance. In the long run, the Arab world would not stand aside much longer, he predicted.

For Wednesday and Thursday this Sukkoth week (Sept. 25-26), the Women for Peace Coalition and the Jewish-Arab Ta’ayush movements are calling for a two-day Sukkoth tabernacle meeting at the Meggido highway a cross from one of the major prisons for Palestinian detainees in central Israel, and near the crossing into the West Bank near Jenin.

The author can be reached at pww@pww.org

Its hurricane season for workers

Fri, 27 Sep 2002 01:17:00 +0000

In our states and cities, we are caught between a drenching rain and a freezing wind. We are getting soaked by the layoffs, lower wages and vanished pensions brought on by the recession and the burst bubble of corporate corruption. And as our need for help increases, we are frozen out by the chill wind of state budgets: Medicaid and libraries, schools and parks, child care and public transit are cut. Tuition at state universities is being hiked, along with taxes paid by working people.

The recession has caused a big drop in state revenues, made worse by the disastrous policies followed by most of the states in the last decade. Facing big deficits from the 1990 recession, many states raised taxes on working people. Later in the decade, when finances improved, they cut taxes. But the tax cuts mostly went to upper-income people and corporate interests.

Some of those tax cuts were passed with the help of Enron-style accounting fraud. In 1999 George W. Bush, then governor of Texas, justified new corporate tax breaks with “creative accounting worthy of Enron,” according to Princeton economist Paul Krugman. And New Jersey Governor Christine Todd Whitman paid for tax breaks with money that should have gone to the state pension fund.

These policies were repeated throughout the country. And with the economy slumping, the states faced a combined shortfall of $50 billion for the budget year beginning last July. Most state governments have responded with more corporate economics and Enron accounting. They have cut spending on schools and thrown kids out of health-care programs. They have cut aid to cities and towns, resulting in local service cuts. They have raised sales and cigarette taxes, which hit low-income people the hardest. And then, to “balance” the budget, they have used emergency funds, bonds, and accounting gimmicks.

Next year, the budget crisis will be even worse in most states. Economists Peter Orszag and Nobel Laureate Joseph Stiglitz wrote that the best solution is for the Federal government to increase aid to cover the state deficits. Tax increases on higher-income families are next best. The worst alternative: “Reduction in government spending on goods and services, or reductions in payments to low-income families, are likely to be more damaging to the economy…” And, we might add, more damaging to the people’s welfare!

In the past year, the right-wing Republicans in Congress have resisted any responsibility to help the states – instead, they have cut vital programs. And the Bush administration’s answer to hardships and unemployment is: more tax cuts for the rich, more giveaways to the corporations, more money for war. If the Republicans lose ground in the November elections, it will be possible to demand that the new Congress change course and help solve the economic problems facing our communities.

At the state level, there is serious discussion of what has to be done to stabilize state finances: tax the rich, end corporate welfare, and reduce regressive taxes that hurt workers and destroy central cities and poor rural areas. In a number of states, bills were introduced this year that moved in the right direction.

In my home state of Connecticut, the legislature passed a modest, temporary 1 percent tax on incomes over $1 million. It was vetoed by Republican Governor John Rowland, who put the interests of 7,000 super-rich households against the other million families in Connecticut. Similar struggles took place in other states.

Rowland, along with most governors and state legislators, is up for election Nov. 5. Will the budgets be balanced on the backs of the working class once again? Or will we elect governors and legislators who will stand up to big money and fight for the people? Setting a pro-people agenda on the state level can be a first step to changing the national agenda. And the union and community leaders we elect to state office this year can become Representatives, Senators and Presidents in the future.

The author can be reached at arthur.perlo@pobox.com

Homecare workers win recognition

Thu, 26 Sep 2002 09:02:00 +0000

Commentary

IMPERIAL COUNTY, Calif. – Homecare workers celebrated a major victory here on the way to dignity and respect. On Sept. 17, the Imperial County Board of Supervisors unanimously supported homecare workers by approving an Employer of Record Ordinance and an Employer/

Employee Relations resolution. This historic vote demonstrated the board’s first step to recognize the 2,500 In Home Supportive Service (IHSS) homecare workers as “real” employees.

The United Domestic Workers called the board action historic and is planning to file for union representation. United Domestic Workers of America (UDW) is a labor union founded in 1977 in Cesar Chavez’ La Paz, Calif., backyard. Inspired by Chavez’ vision, UDW represents domestics and other homecare workers and is affiliated with the National Union of Hospital and Healthcare Employees, AFL-CIO.

The ordinance created a public authority to manage the needs of county homecare workers. These workers earn less than minimum wage, without benefits, overtime, vacation or any of the labor protections that apply to many other workers in the United States.

Legislation (AB-1682) signed in 1999 by California Governor Gray Davis ended a legal pretense that homecare workers are employed by the respective disabled or elderly citizens for whom they care. Although these individuals often choose their homecare worker, the program is overseen by the county, which requires workers to submit timecards to the government, and they receive their paycheck from the government.

Taking care of disabled, elderly and frail citizens is hard and often times thankless work. Homecare workers clean, cook and provide a range of personal care to the elderly, blind, frail and disabled people who are too sick or unable to care for themselves. California provides these services to income-eligible individuals to keep them safely in their own homes. It is also a “cost-effective alternative” to nursing homes.

While the UDW says this program has some cost savings, there are flaws. Instead of using money to improve wages and benefits and helping to improve care, IHHS wastes money by looking for ways to exploit labor at the highest possible rate.

Providing wages and benefits to this previously “invisible” workforce was the major issue. The state and federal government pay 73 percent of the $17 million cost of establishing the public authority and employing the homecare workers. The county will pay the remaining 27 percent. Yet in this agriculture-based valley where 75 percent of the population is of Mexican descent, many of whom have roots just a few miles to the south in Mexicali, Mexico, the power base is held by the status quo. The unemployment rate here is consistently at 30 percent, and supervisors say they fear union negotiations would bankrupt the county.

“I might end up out there selling tamales,” exclaimed Supervisor Maruca to the more than 130 UDW homecare workers who had packed the chambers, Sept. 17, the majority of whom were of Mexican origin.

Imperial County CAO Ann Capela, said, “in the past our society depended on members of our family to take care of us in our old age. Now, we not only pay family members, but we’ve been forced to employ them.”

The bottom line is that quality care is often culturally constructed. Individuals who are sick or disabled often prefer to receive care from people who are ethnically, racially like them or from those with whom they are most comfortable, including family members.

As is usually the case, jobs such as homecare, which require nurturing qualities, are performed primarily by a female workforce who are underpaid. Sadly it seems jobs that are socially and morally worthwhile, but do not create a product to which a price can be affixed, are wildly undervalued.

The economic pressures of the “care system” are intensifying. Baby boomers will add to the existing demand for care providers in the coming years. Already 16 percent of all workers in the United States are in the “care sector,” according to economist Nancy Folbre of the Center for Popular Economics.

Homecare workers need higher wages, the lack of which leads to a turnover rate of about 30 percent. Recruitment of quality homecare workers has traditionally been difficult under the current standard of compensation.

Unionization, the implementation of AB-1682 and a collaborative approach to raising awareness about the economic and intrinsic value of care work will be essential in bringing about a new standard a standard which is not based on the usual capitalist scale or commensurate with a product’s marginal value. We need to start looking at how best to utilize our resources. The exploitation of homecare workers, sub-standard wages and denial of their worth is not the way to go.

Sara Martinez is the lead organizer for the UDW. The author can be reached at pww@pww.org.

The PWW/Mundo is publishing an ongoing series about organizing the unorganized and welcome submissions, which can be sent to pww@pww.org

River of Lies By Fred Stanton

Thu, 26 Sep 2002 08:52:00 +0000

Review

‘River of Lies’ By Fred Stanton

Even in the heat of summer, down here it’s always 60 degrees. They send us to work in raincoats, rubber boots up to our knees. The walls are wet, and the bosses bet There’s riches on the other side. We are buried in a graveyard of greed, Drownin’ in a river of lies.

Maybe the miners were careless, maybe the maps were wrong. Maybe God had a really bad day, so goes the company song. The government calls it an accident, But for us it is no surprise. We are buried in a graveyard of greed, Drownin’ in a river of lies.

The top side of this mountain used to be a union mine. Now a company that is union free is comin’ in from behind, Drillin’ fast and straight beneath an underground lake, Racin’ toward that bottom line. We are buried in a graveyard of greed, Drownin’ in a river of lies.

We tie ourselves together, singing while the headlamps go dim. A little Elvis, a union song, a long-forgotten hymn. One man goes slack, the others pull him back, Holding on while the waters rise. We are buried in a graveyard of greed, Drownin’ in a river of lies.

The rescue team doesn’t follow a prayer, they just follow the map. Homing in on where we must have been, listening for our taps.

The governor calls us heroes, the President slaps my back. Cheap coal from Pennsylvania, cheaper oil from Iraq. We’re not media stars, we’re the grunts in their wars, Hard-workin’ regular guys. We are buried in a graveyard of greed,

Drownin’ in a river of lies.

Fred Stanton’s songs (along with his lumberjack voice and jumbo 12-string guitar) embody the political folk-singing tradition. Fred has been an industrial worker (a welder of oilfield equipment an electronic assembler and a railroad electrician, hostler and brakeperson) as well as a political organizer and union activist. This life is at the heart of his songs – moving, personal ballads, rollicking satires, and working-class anthems. Fred has been singing in concerts, union rallies and political protests since the 1960s. His union songs celebrate the struggles of strikers at Peabody Coal, poultry processing workers in North Carolina, and strawberry pickers in California. And his “Singing Cars,” a Bronx salute to car alarms, has been featured on NPR’s “Car Talk” show. Newest songs include: “Elián,” “Dry Spell” (farmers in the drought of ’99), “Sweatshops of Manhattan” (a response to the Seattle protests), and “How Love Begins.” You can hear “River of Lies” and other songs on the web (or download it) at www.mp3.com/fredstanton.

Commemorating the life of Victor Jara

Thu, 26 Sep 2002 08:41:00 +0000

Review

Victor – An Unfinished Song, by Joan Jara

The media is filled with stories these days, commemorating the tragic events of Sept. 11, and they should be memorialized. We should also note that Sept. 11 is the date of the bloody coup of General Augusto Pinochet in Chile, aided by the CIA, in overthrowing Chile’s president, Salvador Allende.

By chance, a friend recently lent me a hard-to-come-by copy of Victor – An Unfinished Song. (The book is not generally available in bookstores, but can be ordered from Amazon.com.)

The book is a story of the life of Victor Jara, the Chilean songwriter, singer, theater director and folk song researcher, who was the most popular singer in Chile and among the first victims of the coup.

The book was written by his wife Joan, a British dancer who met Jara when she was on a dance tour that visited Chile in 1960. The book begins with an autobiographical account of Joan’s early years living through the Nazi Blitz of London and then beginning her career as a dancer.

Her life in Chile after meeting and marrying Jara paralleled the rise of the people’s movement that led to the election of the Socialist, Allende, as president of Chile. In the course of those 13 years, Joan describes in great detail and with a keen political understanding, the development of Victor’s talents and influence as a powerful cultural force that helped build the people’s movement.

Without preaching, the book makes a powerful and eloquent statement about the invaluable role that the cultural movement, and especially the folk music of the people, plays in the radicalization and fighting spirit of a people’s movement for justice and social change.

The concluding chapters that describe the charged atmosphere that prevailed in Santiago in the days leading up to the coup and the terrible, bloody attacks by the military on the people of the city, are chilling.

– Herb Kaye (ncalview@igc.org)

Stop Bushs Blitzkrieg towards Iraq war

Thu, 26 Sep 2002 08:31:00 +0000

News Analysis

In his United Nations speech on Sept. 12, President Bush replaced Osama bin Laden with Saddam Hussein as the nation’s primary enemy and set the stage to win world support for U.S. intervention in Iraq. But his speech was also about removing exposure of corporate crimes against working people and the economy and about the failed campaign to defeat Al Qaeda from the front pages – all, as Senator Tom Daschle (D-S.D.) said, “curiously timed to coincide with the fall re-election campaign.”

On Sept. 19, Bush sent Congress a resolution giving him a blank check to invade Iraq and “dislodge” Hussein. Bush hopes to have a vote before the elections, in order to make war with Iraq the decisive issue in this tight election campaign.

Removal of Hussein is not a new objective. Scotland’s Sunday Herald exposed the fact that “secret” plans for invasion of Iraq preceded Bush’s election. Its author, Neil Mackay, disclosed a blueprint creating a “Global Pax Americana.”

The document, entitled “Rebuilding America’s Defenses: Strategies, Forces And Resources For A New Century,” written in September 2000, was drawn up for Dick Cheney (now vicepresident), Donald Rumsfeld (defense secretary), Paul Wolfowitz (Rumsfeld’s deputy), George W. Bush’s younger brother, Jeb, and Lewis Libby (Cheney’s chief of staff).

The plan states, “The United States has for decades sought to play a more permanent role in Gulf regional security. While the unresolved conflict with Iraq provides the immediate justification, the need for a substantial American force presence in the Gulf transcends the issue of the regime of Saddam Hussein.”

The document supports “maintaining global U.S. pre-eminence, precluding the rise of a great power rival, and shaping the international security order in line with American principles and interests,” and describes American armed forces abroad as “the cavalry on the new American frontier.”

The cost of this war – estimated by the Pentagon to be some $200 billion – represents a planned theft from the already dwindling public coffers. It also threatens to further destabilize the precarious economy, pushing us deeper into a recession. The Pentagon’s estimate of 200,000 ground troops required for such a war signals the high probability of the return of a large number of troops in body bags.

The situation is changing rapidly and is still fluid. The die is not cast. While Germany has remained opposed to any unilateral U.S. intervention, France and Russia initially seem to concur with the U.S. proposition that a UN resolution threatening military intervention should be passed. When the Iraqi government announced they would allow the return of weapons inspectors without conditions, there was a collective sigh of relief around the world, except for the White House. BBC News reports, “Secretary of State Colin Powell has said the United States will find ways to stop weapons inspectors going back to Iraq unless there is a new United Nations Security Council resolution on the issue.”

And what does the U.S. hold out as the carrot to these countries besides the threat of the stick? It is becoming clearer the price of non-cooperation is preventing countries from sharing in the spoils of war – namely a piece of the action in Iraqi oil once Hussein is gone. This is a powerful inducement for countries whose dependence on Middle East and Iraqi oil is much greater than the U.S.’s.

It appeared the U.S. suffered a setback in its UN strategy now that other nations, Russia, France and China, are ready to let the weapons inspectors enter Iraq and do their job without additional UN resolutions threatening war. Nor can Bush draw any satisfaction from the German elections that returned Gerhart Schroeder to power.

The war is not a done deal and can be stopped. Any attack on Iraq – whether it is unilateral or with UN approval – must be opposed.

Having signed a few too many blank checks in the past year since Sept. 11, some in Congress are beginning to protest. Congress is the battleground. Leaders of both parties have pledged to deliver to Bush a resolution within weeks, if not days. But there is growing Congressional opposition.

Last week Sen. Robert C. Byrd (D-W.Va.) said President Bush’s plans to invade Iraq are a conscious effort to distract public attention from growing problems at home. Byrd said his belief in the Constitution will prevent him from voting for Bush’s war resolution.

How do we assess the mood of the U.S. public? A look at the Sept. 11 ceremonies provides a snapshot of the nation one year after. Most observances refrained from overt reference to continued war on terrorism. Many raised questions of how to struggle for peace and justice without war. Members of Congress are getting petitions with thousands of signatures, phone calls and visits insisting on peace with Iraq.

Demonstrations against Bush are growing. A full-page ad in the Sept. 19 New York Times by Not in Our Name, demanded a peaceful resolution of the crisis. Although public opinion spiked upward following Bush’s UN speech, broad sentiments is developing against Bush’s drive to war. The people must act, the stakes are high.

Sarah Staggs is the chair of the Communist Party Peace and Solidarity Commission. The author can be reached at pww@pww.org

The 2002 elections: Dump Bush, not bombs

Thu, 26 Sep 2002 08:25:00 +0000

News Analysis

The stakes in the 2002 elections couldn’t be higher – nor the outcome less certain, with 47 seats in the House and nine in the Senate seen as “toss-ups.” But we’ve learned one thing: Beware the racist politics of division and “wolves in sheep’s clothing” as Nov. 5 approaches.

The Bush Republicans are beating the war drums louder and louder in a frenzied effort to drown out the pain and suffering of hungry children, jobless parents and seniors unable to afford needed medicines. West Virginia Senator Robert Byrd called this strategy “the worst kind of election-year politics.”

The rightwing does not want this mid-term election to be a referendum on the Bush administration policies. Instead, they want them portrayed as a collection of individual races, fought out in the context of a country at war.

They know if the rightwing loses control of the House and seats in the Senate, Bush will have a harder time pushing through a unilateral war against Iraq and a Department of Homeland Security with unlimited powers, and will derail Bush’s plans to use armed forces as scabs in case West Coast dock workers strike.

The White House is certainly aware of the steady decline in public support of their policies, of concerns about a war on Iraq and about abridgment of constitutional rights. Especially, there is anger and distrust at corporate looting of workers’ pensions, health care and jobs.

Yet, the voice of the voters is coming through.

At the Justice Department, Rev. Jesse Jackson rallied with the AFL-CIO, the National Organization of Women and others to challenge Attorney General John Ashcroft’s attacks on democratic rights, including the warehousing of African-American youth in prisons at home, and plans to send them abroad to die in a war for oil .

As a result of all the questions asked about the Bush war policy at Iowa coffee klatches and New Hampshire town hall meetings, Democratic presidential candidate and Vermont Governor Howard Dean changed his position to question the war on Iraq.

On Sept. 19, Rep. Dennis Kucinich (D-Ohio) and 18 members of Congress announced their opposition to Bush’s request for unlimited power to wage war against Iraq.

They say their counter-resolution, calling for cooperation with the United Nations, is much closer to the feelings of their constituents.

An even louder outcry can forestall sending troops to Iraq and, at the same time, solidify the national mood to defeat a Republican majority in both the House and Senate.

After having seized the White House in 2000, there’s no telling what the corporate ultra-right will do to capture the House and Senate this year. They have opted to divide and conquer in an effort to woo as may unions away from the AFL-CIO’s Labor 2002 campaign.

As Gerald McEntee, president of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees union, warned, “There is a deliberate plan on behalf of the [Bush] administration to try and divide the AFL-CIO and separate some of the unions away from the House of Labor.”

It’s no wonder. Labor 2002, with its thousands of flyers, phone calls and union-member-to-union-member home visits has the potential of reaching every union worker on the issues, and a get out the vote campaign on Nov. 5 that will change the balance in Congress.

There are parallel campaigns in the African-American and Latino communities and by organizations of women, seniors, youth, environmentalists and family-farm organizations. This alliance is key to winning universal health care, union rights and living wage jobs. But the rightwing has a specific approach toward creating divisions and breaking off the historically progressive African-American vote.

The dirty deed was carried out in Alabama and Georgia when Earl Hilliard and Cynthia McKinney, members of the Congressional Black Caucus and the Congressional Progressive Caucus, who had spoken out for a just peace in the Middle East, were targeted. With the complicity of some Democratic leaders who backed her opposition, plus a national mobilization of right-wing Zionist forces and a vicious media campaign, 40,000 Republicans crossed over to vote in the democratic primary and unseat McKinney.

Cynthia McKinney serves on the Armed Services and International Relations committees. She asked the common sense question on many minds – shouldn’t there be an investigation into the facts surrounding September 11? As a result of that question, many disturbing facts are now being brought into the light of day.

“Throughout my career,” said McKinney, post-election, “ we have proudly brought Blacks and whites, Asians and Latinos together. ... as we continue to speak out ... on behalf of those who are sick and tired of greed being more important than human needs, my supporters will be right there.”

The end of right-wing control of Congress is the single most urgent task before the people’s movement, in order to put a brake on Bush’s unending war abroad and at home. Every race is critical. Every vote counts. Every action, no matter how small, counts.

Joelle Fishman is the chairwoman of the Communist Party’s Political Action Commission. The author can be reached at joelle.fishman@pobox.com

Attorney General Ashcroft a foe of womens rights

Thu, 26 Sep 2002 08:17:00 +0000

The following are excerpts from the statement of National Organization for Women (NOW) President Kim Gandy at the Sept. 13 “March to Justice” Rally at the U.S. Department of Justice.

From the day that John Ashcroft’s nomination as Attorney General was announced, feminist leaders and civil rights leaders have warned that he is an enemy of women’s rights, civil rights, voting rights, separation of church and state, the right of free speech and the right to petition the government.

Throughout his political career, all the way back to Missouri, he has abused his power to go after his political enemies (including NOW) and refused to answer charges of misusing public resources for private political purposes. He has demeaned and slandered others to advance his career.

Just days before Ashcroft was confirmed to head the Justice Department, NOW released a statement saying this:

“We do not have confidence in Sen. Ashcroft’s assertions that he will uphold the Constitution and enforce the law of the land diligently and equally. We are convinced that the nominee, if confirmed, will use the powers of this high office to advance his personal political and religious ideology.”

And today, standing before the building that is supposed to represent justice, I’m sad to say that these fears have proven true.

He said that he’d enforce the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances Act, but it took pushing, prodding and pulling to get him to enforce that landmark legislation during an announced campaign (summer of last year) by violent anti-abortion extremists. He even denied protection to one of their top targets – a Kansas clinic operated by Dr. George Tiller, who in 1993 was shot at close range in front of his clinic. Only after three abortion rights groups called a news conference to denounce Ashcroft’s decision did the Justice Department reverse itself and announce it would send U.S. deputy marshals to help protect Tiller and his staff from further violence.

* * *

As the country’s chief enforcer of the important Violence Against Women Act, Ashcroft’s first move on the issue was to close the Violence Against Women Office. Are you surprised?

Even the committee that advises the Department on this issue is being stacked with friends of the Bush administration with little record on the issue. Two of Ashcroft’s most recent appointments to the task force are members of the Independent Women’s Forum (which started life as Women for Clarence Thomas), including their president, Nancy Pfotenhauer. Not surprisingly, IWF was one of the most vocal opponents of the Violence Against Women Act. The IWF has gone so far as to claim that there’s no such thing as date rape. Are you surprised?

Ignorance on an issue apparently doesn’t disqualify you from being an expert in the eyes of John Ashcroft.

Since Sept. 11 last year, George W. Bush and John Ashcroft have used the “war” on terrorism as an excuse to morph the U.S. Department of Justice into a Ministry of Injustice where civil liberties have become negotiable.

In fact, one of the hidden consequences of Sept. 11 is the fact that this Attorney General, and this administration has taken advantage of peoples’ fears to press forward a right-wing domestic agenda – and they’re demanding that the Congress support it to prove that they are patriotic Americans supporting their president.

And woe to the ones who dare to complain. As John Ashcroft moved to create unprecedented limitations on civil rights and liberties, he quickly squelched dissent from several quarters –

“ ... to those who scare peace-loving people with phantoms of lost liberty, my message is this: Your tactics only aid terrorists,” and then he said, “They give ammunition to American’s enemies.”

Well, I’m here to tell you that speaking up when the government wrongs is the highest form of patriotism — and it’s become a badge of true patriotism to be called unpatriotic by the likes of John Ashcroft.

With so many threats on the horizon, I think that indeed the greatest threat to our civil rights and civil liberties does in fact come from John Ashcroft, … because his Justice Department is the one screening candidates for lifetime judicial appointments to the federal bench, and there is no question that the judicial candidates he approves are indeed made in his image. The federal courts are being stacked with right-wing zealots who have already changed the balance on the courts of appeal, and their next stop is the Supreme Court.

* * *

Just two days after the first anniversary of Sept. 11, the National Organization for Women has joined forces here in front of this so-called Department of Justice to make our demands for protection heard – of women against violence, protection of clinics from domestic terrorism, and protection of the civil rights and civil liberties we hold dear.

We know about bullies, and we know how to stand up to them. And we must. Without respect for right of all of “we the people,” democracy loses and terrorism wins. I know YOU won’t let that happen.