People Before Profit blog

Culture or clutter? Dont Pick up da phone

Fri, 26 Sep 2003 05:00:00 +0000

If we act fast we can get 1,000 anytime minutes for only $30 a month. Now we can all afford to talk to anyone anywhere anytime. We can even talk while listening to the newest hip-hoppin’ pop hit “Pick up da phone,” which gives a detailed narrative of the virtues of the fast-moneyed and fast-paced cell phonin’ life.

I can also get a cell phone that matches every outfit in my wardrobe, whether it’s red, white, and blue, pink, or aquamarine. I’ll be talkin’ to my friends and family in style while I’m 5, 4, 3, 2 and 1 minutes away. Next month I’ve scheduled that procedure that implants a direct telecommunications link into my head.

My own mother and sister are loyal cell phonies, it is a must for their personal, parental, and even professional lives. On my way to work, as I duck and dodge the hordes of excited cell phony drivers, I’m really worrying about my own family 2,000 miles away. And what about that guy talking on a walkie-talkie who dashed out into the intersection, never noticing my speeding car coming his way. (I didn’t hit him, but it was close.) Will that be my niece someday?

And those kids in the movie theater last weekend who seemed to call every person on earth to tell them what a cool sound track the movie has. I just know that my nephew Elisha is gonna be one of them.

But those are just annoyances. In the grand social calculus of today, cell phones do more good than harm. It’s more cost effective to have a workforce that can work anytime from anywhere. And it is better to give our kids an over-the-phone kiss. Ten minute relationships are better than no relationships at all? We are saving time and money. Or are we just spending what we have faster?

Cell phones are causing some problems. Toxic waste and radio signals can’t really be good for our health or the planet’s health.

Is it an endless cycle of corporate moneymaking, or do we have a choice? What would really happen if we turned off the ringer and didn’t ‘Pick up da phone’?

The author can be reached at bkishner@pww.org

The weeks baseball wind-ups

Fri, 26 Sep 2003 04:55:00 +0000

The Thrill and the Agony

The week’s baseball wind-ups

With six games to play in the regular season, only two teams have clinched their division titles: Atlanta in the National League East and San Francisco in the NL West. Barry Bonds has played another incredible season for the Giants, with 44 home runs, 88 RBIs, and a .337 batting average. Opposing pitchers tremble at his swing: he has been walked 147 times this season, more than once per game.

In the NL Central division, the Houston Astros are dead even with the Chicago Cubs, with St. Louis trailing only by three and a half games. In the AL East, the New York Yankees have secured a playoff spot, though they remain one game shy of the division title. The Kansas City Royals and the Chicago White Sox are tied for second in the AL Central – five games behind Minnesota, a team that has won its last nine games. The Oakland Athletics are holding off the Seattle Mariners by four games in the AL West.

In the race for the American League wild card playoff berth, Seattle trails the Boston Red Sox by two and a half games. The National League wild card race is cutthroat, with eight teams still in a fight for one spot. The Florida Marlins lead the pack, with Philadelphia in hot pursuit one game back. Two games behind are the Central Division leaders, the Astros and Cubs, and the Los Angeles Dodgers trail by three and a half.

When the dust settles early next week, the last left standing will count their blessings, tally their hopes, and grit their teeth for the playoffs.

The author can be reached at pww@pww.org

Blacked out Baltimore asks why?

Fri, 26 Sep 2003 04:50:00 +0000

BALTIMORE – George W. Bush flew to Richmond, Va., Sept. 22, surveying a region with one million households without electricity six days after Hurricane Isabel barreled through. Bush then flew back to the White House where he met with Iraq’s minister of electricity who is also struggling to get the lights back on in a country devastated by Bush’s war.

Bush recently asked Congress for $87 billion for his occupation of Iraq and Afghanistan, including $5.7 billion to restore Iraq’s electricity service knocked out by U.S. missiles six months ago. But thousands here in this old city, still waiting in darkened houses, are thinking they live in “Baghdad West” and asking, “What about us?”

Baltimore Gas & Electric warns that it may take several more days to restore service to the 167,000 still without power. Line crews, reinforced by 600 repair crews from 27 states and Canada, have toiled around the clock to restore service. Three workers have been electrocuted underlining the extreme danger of working exhausting hours amid wreckage of splintered utility poles and downed wires.

While the predominant mood has been one of stolid good spirits and understanding, patience is beginning to wear thin. Questions are surfacing. Tony Bullock, a spokesman for Washington Mayor Anthony Williams, pointed out that neighborhoods with an “antiquated distribution system” contributed to the crisis. “If you have bare copper wires and old ceramic insulators and frail, brittle poles you’ll suffer more impact than if you’ve invested some money into improving the system,” Bullock told reporters.

A school teacher from Columbia, Md., told this reporter that affluent Howard County was hit far less hard because most of their electric transmission lines are underground. Privatization and deregulation have sharply cut investments in upgrading the electricity transmission system across the country. “We’re squeezed,” said Robert A. Dobkin, a spokesperson for Potomoc Electric Power Co. “We’re investor owned and the obligation to the investor is to generate profits.”

The American Society of Civil Engineers recently released a “Progress Report” on its 2001 Report Card on the U.S. physical infrastructure. It gave a “D+” for the nation’s electricity transmission system. Investment barriers, including “lack of regional integrated planning, difficulty in siting transmission lines, and uncertainty regarding investment risks and returns,” were listed as factors.

Over the last two decades, transmission investment has decreased by $115 million a year, dropping from $5 billion annually in 1975 to $2 billion in 2000. Officials are now calculating the full extent of the losses from this devastating storm that killed at least 34 people, some of whom died of carbon monoxide poisoning from portable gas-powered generators. At least 326 homes were destroyed in eastern Baltimore County alone and 1,633 sustained major damage. The Sparrows Point steel mill was shut down when a 10-foot storm surge flooded the mill’s power plant.

Just around the corner from this reporter’s home, the top of a sycamore tree is standing in the middle of the street, propped up by wires from nearby utility poles. The treetop came down six nights ago, one of several downed trees that cut off electricity to houses in the neighborhood. Police stretched yellow tape around the site to keep people away but residents are still waiting for the crews to arrive to restore service. Children on their way to a nearby elementary school duck under the tape and walk past the downed wires with a shrug of resignation.

The author can be reached at greenerpastures21212@yahoo.com

Corporate America and far-right buy grassroots campaigns

Fri, 26 Sep 2003 03:49:00 +0000

A mockery of democracy: Corporate America and far-right buy ‘grassroots’ campaigns

Back in July, Judge Charles McCoy dismissed a lawsuit filed in Los Angeles by Taxpayers Against the Governor’s Recall charging widespread fraud in the collection of 1.6 million signatures which forced the special Oct. 7 election on the recall of California Gov. Gray Davis.

But an angry backlash is gathering steam against both the recall and Proposition 54, Ward Connerly’s measure that would outlaw collection of data on race, an attempt to nullify the Supreme Court’s recent decision upholding affirmative action.

Both ballot measures have been denounced as a perversion of the original purpose of the recall and ballot proposition laws adopted nearly a century ago under Gov. Hiram Johnson to break the corrupt stranglehold on all levels of government by the Southern Pacific Railroad and other corporate giants. Now these measures are being used by the wealthy to nullify and overturn the will of the people.

In arguing against the recall, attorney Paul R. Kiesel told the court, “This lawsuit challenges the legitimacy of out-of-state professional signature gatherers hiring felons and non-registered voters to gather signatures.” Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Calif.), a San Diego millionaire, plowed nearly $3 million of his own car alarm fortune into the project, paying professional petition circulators $1 per signature to collect the names needed to win ballot status. His “Rescue California” front group brought in Republican Tom Bader, described as a “retired California signature-gathering executive” now living in Missouri, to orchestrate the drive. Even though the recall was driven by cold corporate cash, it is presented in the media as a “grassroots rebellion” by angry Californians against Davis, reelected just 10 months ago.

“This lawsuit contends that the proponents of this recall hired these bounty hunters in order to promote their conservative agenda and stick the California taxpayers with a $30 million to $50 million bill for their special election,” Kiesel charged.

The anti-recall group submitted affadavits to prove their case. In one, William Byrd, a petition gatherer whose real residence is Tacoma, Wash., testified that the company instructed him to register to vote in California using as his address the Travel Lodge in Pomona where they were housing him.

Kim Dickson, a resident of Arizona, was told to register using as her address the Red Roof Inn in Santa Ana where the petition company was putting her up. Judge McCoy brushed all this aside, arguing that he was bound to uphold the “rights” of who those signed the petitions.

There is ample precedent for people going into a state not their own to circulate petitions on vital issues or to get an independent candidate on the ballot. These petitioners are usually volunteers motivated by their commitment to principle. But the ultra-right increasingly depends on for-profit corporations to put its anti-labor, racist propositions on the ballot, a grotesque parody of real “grassroots” activism.

Take for example National Petition Management, Inc., of Roseville, Calif. Headed by Republican entrepreneur Lee Albright, NPM describes itself as a “full-service petition management company” with a “performance record virtually unmatched in the industry.” The NPM web site proclaims, “With our vast experience we are able to assist our clients on a variety of fronts – from qualifying local and statewide measures and conducting voter registration drives to assisting in grassroots signature gathering and one-on-one grassroots contact work … . At NPM, we will take the guesswork out of your campaign and ensure your success. We hire and train signature coordinators and circulators. We verify the validity of signatures.”

It boasts of its role in qualifying Prop. 54 for the ballot. “A financial push at the end of the project helped generate a total of 960,773 signatures, enough to qualify the issue on the March 2, 2004, primary ballot,” it states. Later, Prop. 54 was certified for the Oct. 7 ballot.

Another “client” of NPM was the “Inglewood Committee for Open Competition,” which it describes as “a coalition of Inglewood residents and Wal-Mart stores.” NPM gathered the signatures needed to put a measure on the ballot to reverse a vote by the Inglewood City Council denying Wal-Mart’s application to build a store in the California town.

Another NPM project was “Santa Monicans Fighting Against Irresponsible Regulations.” The NPM blurb reports, “This very volatile issue involved a living wage ordinance passed by the City Council.” NPM brags that they collected the 7,500 signatures for a ballot question to repeal the living wage ordinance despite “strong opposition from unions.”

The ultra-right has used ballot initiatives to advance its agenda since 1978, when Howard Jarvis pushed through Prop. 13, an amendment to the California constitution limiting property taxes. It slashed by 57 percent revenues for public education, libraries, public health and a host of other vital services. In the years that followed, California plunged from first in the nation in the quality of its public schools to near the bottom.

Other right-wing outfits took their cue from Jarvis. In 2001, for example, union-busters in California placed Prop. 226 on the ballot. The so-called “Paycheck Protection” measure was aimed at crippling organized labor by requiring unions to get written permission before union dues could be used for political activities. The AFL-CIO succeeded in defeating it in a hard-fought campaign.

Connerly hired petitioners to put Initiative 200, the deceptively named “Civil Rights Initiative,” on the Washington State ballot in 1998. Voters approved it thinking they were casting a ballot for equal rights. It inflicted a devastating blow on African Americans, Latinos, and other people of color by outlawing affirmative action.

Connerly even hired African Americans from out of state who unwittingly circulated the petition thinking it was a “civil rights” measure. Many quit when they learned the truth. Connerly left them marooned in Seattle.

There are many cases of progressive movements using ballot initiatives to win victories and certainly it is the right of voters to recall corrupt politicians from office. But weary California voters are saying, “Enough!” If the current trend continues to build, this recall as well as Prop. 54 will go down to a well deserved defeat. And voters may read more closely the fine print in the next ballot proposition they are asked to sign.

The author can be reached at greenerpastures21212@yahoo.com

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The real grassroots mobilization is unmistakable

LOS ANGELES – The right wing has packaged its scheme to recall Gov. Gray Davis as “grassroots.” But from one end of this state to the other, the real grassroots movement is the alliance of unions, civil rights and women’s organizations that is phone-banking and doorbell-ringing to defeat both the recall and the racist Prop. 54.

Nowhere is that movement working with greater energy and determination than here in Los Angeles. The Los Angeles County Federation of Labor, AFL-CIO, had more than 200 organizers at several events in L.A. and its environs on Sept. 13, when this reporter visited. They included 46 union members who were phone-banking in both English and Spanish in a special phone-bank room.

Five of them took a break to share their views with the World. Paulesparza Adnandalon, an organizer for Hotel Employees and Restaurant Employees Local 11, said, “Fighting this recall is paramount for us because removal of Gov. Davis will put in jeopardy all the gains we have made over the past five years.”

“We are calling predominantly union members and their families. A big majority is against the recall and against Prop. 54.”

Miguel Raya, also a member of HERE Local 11, added, “They brought in a bunch of out-of-town carpetbaggers to put this recall on the ballot. It cost $2.50 per signature. They paid for their meals and lodging. It’s pure money. What does Arnold Schwarzenegger know about running this state? When I talk to people about Schwarzenegger, I tell them: ‘His father was a Nazi.’”

Paula T. White, a member of Service Employees Local 1877, said, “A recall is supposed to take place when an elected official engages in a criminal act. But they haven’t accused Davis of any criminal act. The backers of this recall are undermining the democratic process. Davis was elected fairly just last November.” She blasted Ward Connerly for deceptive packaging of Prop. 54. “When I came here, I thought Prop. 54 was something totally different. The Republicans’ secret weapon is confusing people.”

Freddy Harris, a member of SEIU Local 99, said, “They’ve made California the laughing stock of the nation. What is the sense of a ballot with 135 candidates for governor? The bottom line is that a candidate could win with 15 percent of the vote. Where is the democracy in eight million voting for governor and 1.6 million signing a petition to throw it out?”

Charles Lester, political action director of the L.A. Federation of Labor, told the World, “I honestly believe that what’s happening in California today can be traced back to the 2000 presidential election when the Republicans said: ‘We’ve got to take it at all costs.’ They stole the election in Florida. They want to disenfranchise people in Texas and Colorado.”

The GOP, he said, was enraged by last November’s election in California, “a complete shut-out – not a single Republican won statewide office. This recall is definitely one of their ploys to reverse that.”

He decried Judge McCoy’s decision to throw out the lawsuit on petition fraud. “Many of the petition gatherers were proven to be from out-of-state. There were so many ridiculous things about this recall. What’s the movement in the polls? It’s against the recall and against Prop. 54. All along we’ve said this is not about one politician. It’s about what is good for working people and what we have won in the past five years.”

Earlier that morning, hundreds of SEIU home care workers staged a rally at Griffith Park to launch a “Poor People’s Campaign.” Staffing a joint voter registration and education booth were Neighbor-to-Neighbor Youth Director Elliott Petty, and NAACP Region I Youth Field Director Laini M.H. Coffee. Petty said African American, Latino and other minority enrollment has been hard hit by Prop. 209, the anti-affirmative action measure that passed in 1999.

Passage of Prop. 54, he charged, “would have a disastrous impact on diversity and it would hamper the effort to end racial disparities and equalize educational opportunities.” Neighbor-to-Neighbor and the NAACP are working strenuously on campuses throughout the state for a big student vote against both Prop. 54 and the recall. “I believe we’re making headway,” he said. “Prop. 54 will not make us color-blind. It will just make us blind.”

Coffee said, “This fight against Prop. 54 and against the recall is really a test run for the 2004 elections. If people vote no on recall and no on Prop. 54, it will mean the voting population is paying attention. It’s not only a question of registering people to vote. It’s a question of getting them to come out to the polls and cast their ballots on Oct. 7.”

– Tim Wheeler

Bush attacks OSHA

Fri, 26 Sep 2003 03:14:00 +0000

This year’s proposed budget has the Bush administration cutting the already meager budgets of the federal Occupational Safety and Health Administration and the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health. OSHA is the agency designated by Congress to promulgate and enforce worker health and safety standards. NIOSH is designated by Congress to research and recommend regulations that govern worker exposure to toxic substances in the workplace, heat and cold exposure, weight-lifting limits and ergonomic standards designed to protect workers from repetitive motion injuries.

NIOSH recommends these standards to OSHA for enactment into law, but this process has been stymied by years of governmental inertia. Even though the recommendations cannot be enforced by OSHA federal marshals, union safety and health committees often use these recommendations to force their employers, through contract negotiations and labor contracts, to adopt them as if they were federal standards. Once in the labor contract, they have the force of law. Bush’s cutting back on both OSHA’s and NIOSH’s budgets is a real attack on workers’ lives and their survival.

Cuts in OSHA budget cruelly directed

The current budget cuts proposed by Bush will directly affect any further development of federal standards. There is a line forming as OSHA waits for NIOSH recommendations to become federal law.

If the Bush cuts go through, 64 federal compliance officers will be laid off. There are already fewer than 1,500 federal compliance officers in the country. This is why most labor activists say the perceived threat to employers of an OSHA inspection is more likely than an actual inspection.

These cuts will also affect the extremely popular program of workers’ safety and health training and education grants, along with severe cutbacks in the safety and heath statistics program. The picture is clear. Keep education programs for workers at a minimum so that workers and their unions are simply not aware of the federal rules and regulations that Congress has enacted for their protection. Right-wing advocates have been attempting to get rid of these programs since the heyday of OSHA enforcement in the late 1970s.

The cynical intent of cutbacks in funding for federal statistics programs which document injuries and illnesses at the workplace is obvious. If federal investigators and policy makers have diminished statistical proof that toxic substances and work practices are causing injuries and illnesses, they will have less ammunition to present to congressional committees to propose safer working conditions. This has been the right-wing agenda starting with the passage of OSHA under Nixon, continuing under Reagan/Bush and now under the current White House.

Money for employer ‘self-compliance’

A recent article in the American Public Health Association’s American Journal of Public Health by Dr. James Weeks cites the wrong-headed policy in the Mine Safety and Health Administration laws which allows mine owners to conduct their own respirable coal mine dust testing. He correctly titled the article “The Fox Guarding the Chicken Coop.”

The overall design of the Chamber of Commerce, the National Association of Manufacturers and other Bush ideologues is aimed at keeping OSHA and NIOSH weak but alive. Bush and his cronies don’t intend to eliminate OSHA since keeping OSHA around precludes lawsuits from being brought by workers and their unions. The goal is to keep the OSHA and NIOSH agencies, but hand enforcement over to the employers. Bush is actually requesting an increase of over $7 million for the employer-controlled compliance assistance program. That program now eats up $67 million of the meager OSHA budget.

Under this pro-employer policy, the Bush administration can point to the OSHA and NIOSH rules and say, “They are still there.” But everyone knows that, without strong enforcement, they are of increasingly little value to workers.

The author can be reached at pww@pww.org

The fight to close corporate tax loopholes

Fri, 26 Sep 2003 03:09:00 +0000

JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. – The Coalition to Protect Education and Health Care, a non-partisan group of concerned parents, teachers, health care employees, seniors, and working families, rallied here on Sept. 9 at the state capital urging the General Assembly to close corporate tax loopholes and restore funding for education.

The coalition, whose member organizations includes Metropolitan Congregations United (MCU), the Service Employees International Union, ACORN, and Jobs With Justice, among others, contends that funding education is more important than giving tax breaks to large out-of-state corporations and the wealthy.

“Ninety of Missouri’s biggest corporations – those with $50 million in taxable income – didn’t pay a penny in state corporate taxes in 2002, while more than 16,000 of the state’s most profitable corporations paid less in taxes than the average Missourian,” according to Rich Creason of MCU. Closing corporate tax loopholes is at the center of the coalition’s work.

At the Sept. 9 General Assembly Special Session, Creason told Missouri legislators to “make sure every Missourian pays their fare share of taxes, including large corporations.”

Amy Blouin, executive director of the Missouri Coalition for Budget and Policy Priorities, said, Missouri ranks 46th in taxes of large corporations. She added, “The other four don’t require corporations to pay taxes.”

Some of the state’s most outrageous corporate tax loopholes include:

• The “Geoffrey” loophole, which allows corporations to transfer profits to an out-of-state “passive investment company” to avoid paying Missouri taxes. Corporations that use this loophole include Toys R Us, GAP, Burger King, Kmart, and Long John Silver’s. Closing this loophole would raise $15 million.

• The “Yacht Loophole,” which allows luxury boats weighing over five tons to be registered with the U.S. Coast Guard to avoid paying Missouri taxes. Owners of smaller boats are required to pay the full tax. Closing this tax loophole would raise $4.2 million.

• The “Timely Filing Discount for Withholding Tax Loophole,” which allows Missouri corporations to receive a discount for sending the withholding taxes they collect from employees to the state. Missouri is the only state that provides this discount. Closing this loophole would raise $18.4 million.

Closing Missouri’s 40 corporate tax loopholes could generate more than $186 million for the state budget, money that could be spent on health care, education and other social services for working families.

At the state capitol rally Missouri State Sen. Jacob, Days, Shoemyer and Johnson all voiced their support. As protesters chanted, “ABCs not CEOs,” Gov. Bob Holden said, “The issue is very simple. Are we going to support school children or corporate interests?”

The coalition held a press conference Sept. 8 at Carver Elementary, one of 16 St. Louis city schools closed because of the state’s budget crisis, to dramatize its position that “before making deep cuts into education, health care, and other basic services, the state should close corporate tax loopholes.” The Missouri Legislature has cut more than $340 million from the public school system, increasing class sizes and threatening thousands of teachers’ jobs.

Missouri’s budget cuts are just one example of a broader, national crisis. The Bush administration’s economic policy of tax breaks for the rich places the burden of the economic crisis on working families. And, as a result, funds for social services, education, health care and other necessities needed by working families are no where to be found.

The author can be reached at tonypec@pww.org

INS shipping migrants out of state

Fri, 26 Sep 2003 02:56:00 +0000

TUCSON, Ariz. – On Sept. 8 the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) started the daily busing and flying of 300 of the approximately 1,100 undocumented Mexican migrants who are picked up by Border Patrol in Arizona every day to ports of entry hundreds of miles away in Texas at McAllen, Laredo, Del Rio, and El Paso.

Justifying this “lateral repatriation” plan as a safety measure that would disrupt people-smuggling rings, Mario Villarreal, a spokesman for the Department of Homeland Security’s Customs and Bureau Protection stated, “They will be deported into an urban area where resources exist to help them rather than already-stressed border cities like Nogales.” Villareal claimed that Border Patrol officials embarked on the plan in Arizona after the migrant death toll continued to mount this summer following the deployment of additional agents, search-and-rescue teams and surveillance aircraft.

Kat Rodriguez from Derechos Humanos, a Tucson human rights group, calls the plan “just another shameful attempt to justify a failed border policy. It will be certain to split families, cause even more hardship, and inevitably result in more drownings in the Rio Grande as desperate migrants are left destitute along the Texas border.”

Alarmed mayors and other officials in Texas were never notified of the Border Patrol’s plan and many are fighting it. Texas Republican Congressman Henry Bonilla said he plans to introduce legislation next week that would halt what he calls a costly and dangerous deportation program. “Let’s allow each state to deal with their immigrant issues,” he said. “Shipping them to another region is inhumane, dangerous and downright expensive.” No cost estimates were given for the chartered planes and buses.

Rodriguez is also alarmed that immigrants separated from loved ones and friends may be dumped in Ciudad Juarez, south of El Paso where, during the past 10 years, none of the cases of 93 women brutally murdered and dozens missing have been solved amid horrifying tales of human rights abuses by police.

Human rights activists note that, years ago, migrant workers crossed safely without the aid of smugglers for the most part. Now, as border patrol activities have made it harder for people to cross by sealing off urban areas and driving migrants further into the Arizona deserts, people-smuggling has become a dangerous and profitable business.

The Border Patrol’s policies have proven increasingly deadly: while 79 migrants died in the Arizona desert in 2001; 152 have already perished in 2003.

“Dropping off migrants hundreds of miles from their families, friends, and other possible support they may have had in Arizona to some of the most destitute urban areas of Texas will not stop the deaths and suffering by both migrants and border communities,” predicted Isabel Garcia, co-chair of Derechos Humanos.

The author can be reached at susan@susanthorpe.com.

National Clips

Fri, 26 Sep 2003 02:24:00 +0000

EAST LOS ANGELES: Latinos protest Schwarzenegger

Republican gubernatorial candidate Arnold Schwarzenegger was greeted in East Los Angeles Sept. 16 by over a hundred picketers shouting “No to the recall”and “Hey hey, ho ho – Schwarzenegger has got to go!” Protesters were appalled at Schwarzenegger’s quickly-organized town hall meeting in the heart of a Mexican American/Latino immigrant neighborhood to share his views on immigration in the face of his support for Prop. 187 – one of the most anti-immigrant, anti-Latino measures ever passed.

Most of the 200 immigrants who participated in the town hall meeting were not Latino and were not from East L.A., but were brought in from places like conservative Orange County.

Newly appointed UC Board of Regents Trustee Dolores Huerta, a co-founder of the United Farm Workers, distributed a letter signed by many state legislators criticizing Schwarzenegger for his opposition to the new law signed by Gov. Gray Davis that would allow undocumented immigrants to obtain driver’s licenses.

DEARBORN, Mich.: Workers protest phony Bush jobs plan

For three weeks, unemployment lines in Michigan have grown longer and longer. Since Bush took office, one in six of the state’s manufacturing workers’ families, or 160,000 workers, use an unemployment check instead of a paycheck to keep the lights on.

So, when Bush administration Commerce Secretary Don Evans came to town Sept. 16, the state AFL-CIO “greeted” him, hundreds strong, outside a fancy hotel.

“President Bush’s tax cuts – billions of dollars worth – have done nothing to create the jobs American workers so desperately need,” Michigan AFL-CIO President Mark Gaffney told protesting workers. “Since the president took office, we have lost more than 3 million private sector jobs and a stunning 2.5 million manufacturing jobs. Michigan has lost over 160,000 manufacturing jobs – one out of six.”

COLUMBUS, Ohio: Unity = Victory for Rx coverage

Led by the state AFL-CIO, two million Ohio seniors and low-income residents will soon be covered by a prescription drug plan, Ohio Best Rx. After three years of grassroots organizing, including a petition campaign which garnered the support of 143,000 registered voters state-wide, the Ohio Coalition for Affordable Prescription Drugs negotiated a groundbreaking medication program with the drug companies. Among the many provisions of the program, said William Burga, president of the state AFL-CIO and one of the chief architect’s of the plan, is raising the income cap on qualifications. Now, single Ohioans earning $22,450 a year and Ohio families of four earning $46,000 a year will qualify for state prescription drug benefits.

The coalition included 24 statewide organizations and 300 local groups. The plan will be presented to the state legislature with bipartisan support and the backing of Gov. Bob Taft.

NASHVILLE, Tenn.: African Americans live sicker and die sooner

James Lawson is chairman of the Metro Planning Commission, but, because he is African American, his doctor, who is white, failed to warn him that his blood sugar level is high. Lawson has diabetes.

Lawson was one of scores of African Americans who delivered direct testimony into the record at a forum on racism in the U.S. privately-owned health care system. The forum held in Nashville is a collaborative effort between Harvard and Vanderbilt universities to document racial discrimination in health care.

Dr. David Blumenthal of Harvard told forum participants that surveys showed that 65 percent of African Americans reported lower quality of medical care. Statistics bear out the survey’s findings: A final diagnosis of breast cancer takes twice as long for Black women than white women; cancer rates are higher for Blacks than whites and all racial and ethnic groups; the death rate for Black women during childbirth is 3.5 times higher than whites; and infant mortality rates are 1.5 times higher for Black children and Native Americans than whites.

Nashville attorney told the panel of doctors that universal health care is “an essential step to eliminating disparities.” Dr. Glenn Flores warned that Bush administration cuts will only deepen the life and death discrimination in health care.

National Clips are compiled by Denise Winebrenner Edwards (dwinbr696@aol.com). Evelina Alarcon, Bruce Bostick and Joel Wendland contributed to this week’s clips.

PWW story among most censored

Fri, 26 Sep 2003 02:18:00 +0000

An article by Karen Talbot titled “Coup-making in Venezuela: The Bush and oil factors,” which appeared in the July 27, 2002, edition of the People’s Weekly World, has been named one of the 25 most censored stories of 2002-2003.

The award was made by Project Censored, a program based at Sonoma State University in California. This year’s stories, including Talbot’s, were selected by more than 200 student researchers and faculty.

Project Censored highlights stories that are underreported or unreported in mainstream media. Its goal is to “explore and publicize the extent of censorship in our society.” By doing this, they aim “to stimulate responsible journalists to provide more mass media coverage” of these censored stories.

Talbot’s story spotlighted the role of the Bush administration in the drive to privatize Venezuela’s state-owned oil company, PDVSA, and the administration’s involvement in the attempted right-wing coup against President Hugo Chavez in April 2002.

“As efforts to overthrow President Hugo Chavez intensify,” Talbot wrote, “two facts are inescapable: the power elite in the United States has never been happy with the democratically-elected Chavez, but it took the Bush administration, with its corporate oil and energy connections, to turn up the heat against him.”

Talbot is the director of the International Council for Peace and Justice, an organization dedicated to promoting education and action for “real human rights as enshrined in international human rights instruments.” She is also an executive committee member of the World Peace Council.

This is the second time that one of Talbot’s articles has been selected for the “Most Censored” honor.

“The People’s Weekly World is delighted that Karen Talbot has been recognized in this way,” said Terrie Albano, editor. “Her hard-hitting, investigative journalism sets a high standard and provides a profound public service. We are honored to be associated with her.”

An event to recognize the authors will be held at the Jewish Cultural Center in San Rafael, Calif., on Oct. 4. Speakers include former Georgia Rep. Cynthia McKinney and author Michael Parenti.

For more information, or to view the full list of the 25 most censored stories of 2002-2003, go to www.projectcensored.org.

Californians gird to block recall Oct. 7

Fri, 26 Sep 2003 02:02:00 +0000

SAN FRANCISCO – The labor-led fight to defeat the recall of California Gov. Gray Davis is surging forward despite a Sept. 22 court ruling that reinstated Oct. 7 as the date of the special election.

An 11-member review panel of the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals meeting in San Francisco reversed an earlier decision by a three-judge panel of the same court that had ordered postponement of the election until next March. The larger panel swept aside a finding by the three judges that the ballots of 40,000 voters, mostly African American and Latino, would be discarded because of dimples or hanging chads on the punch card ballots still used in six counties with 44 percent of California voters.

Walter Johnson, executive secretary treasurer of the San Francisco Labor Federation told the World Sept. 17 that the movement against the recall as well as against racist Proposition 54 has gained ground in recent days and can be defeated Oct. 7. “We’re now going in the right direction and I think we will beat both the recall and Prop. 54 on Oct. 7,” Johnson said following a tumultuous mass anti-recall/anti-Prop. 54 rally at the Third Baptist Church in San Francisco.

Earlier, Johnson told an overflow crowd in the church gymnasium, “We all say: ‘Vote NO on recall.’ We all agree on that.” Then he led the crowd in chanting, “Slam the door on 54!”

Also on the platform were Gov. Davis, the Rev. Jesse Jackson and other civil rights leaders, Rev. Cecil Williams, and Rev. Amos Brown, as well as other trade union leaders.

Jackson told the crowd, “This kind of mass disenfranchisement is unacceptable. It is a violation of the Voting Rights Act.” He accused the extremist Republicans of scheming “to disenfranchise voters and destabilize our democracy, the same forces that used literacy tests to disenfranchise Black voters, the same forces that used the extraordinary powers of the Supreme Court to intervene in a state election and stop the vote count (in Florida in 2000), where the loser won and the winner lost. The same forces are using those same powers to reorganize the Congress and disenfranchise two millions voters in Texas. There is a line of disenfranchisement, a line of destabilization.” Jackson warned that the Republican will “steal the 2004 elections,” if the people are not on guard. The crowd erupted in chants, “No Recall! No Prop. 54!”

The latest poll shows that as Davis and his allies barnstorm the state, support for the recall has dropped to just 50 percent, a statistical “dead heat.”

No Child law hurts kids, schools

Fri, 26 Sep 2003 01:58:00 +0000

CHICAGO – The letters were sent in August. Hundreds of thousands of parents received the news. Their children were going to failing schools.

The new federal law, No Child Left Behind, is wreaking havoc on public schools. “No Child,” which passed with bipartisan support in the wake of Sept. 11, 2001, is the centerpiece of the Bush administration’s program to dismantle public education. The law demands that districts track student performance through Department of Education approved tests. Test scores are divided into “subgroups” based on ethnicity, race and income along with other categories, such as limited English speaking children and children in special education. If fewer than 40 percent of a subgroup fails to pass the test, the whole school fails. The rate will go up to 50 percent next year.

In Illinois alone, 574 schools were labeled bad or the nicer sounding “in need of improvement.” That is 20 percent of all public schools, involving some 410,000 children.

What’s a parent to do when they receive such a letter? No parent wants their kid to go to a lousy school. So parents look on the list of “higher performing” schools or “good” schools and try to hustle their kid into one of them.

But the problem is the “choice” promised to them by the law turns out to be merely another Bush administration “exaggeration.” In Chicago, there are about 270,000 students in the “failing” schools and only 1,097 slots in the “good” schools – a situation being repeated everywhere. About 19,000 students applied for those 1,097 slots. This kind of ratio is being repeated across the country.

Waters Elementary, one of 365 Chicago schools put on the government’s “bad” list, is a bilingual, neighborhood school on the city’s north side. With dedicated teachers and staff, community and parent involvement, Waters school is a nurturing, learning environment for some 570 children in grades K-8. To create that environment, it took years of careful tending – like the community garden that grows adjacent to the cement playground.

And what happened along the way? The standardized test scores had improved as well.

But all of that was trashed with the government’s failing list.

One parent whose child goes to Waters told the Chicago Tribune that her daughter cried when she learned she had to go back to the school. “I felt awful because I didn’t want her going to Waters, but there isn’t anything I could do,” this mom said.

“They have taken and ripped up everything this school stands for,” Tomas Revollo, Waters School principal, told the World. “Teachers were very positive and now their morale is shot.”

At a recent meeting of the Local School Council, Revollo told of how children in the bilingual program, who are still learning English, were forced to take the test. It’s not that children with limited English or those in special education are not tested, or their academic progress is not measured. There are measurements and tests for kids in these programs. It’s just these measurements are not approved by the Bush administration.

Revollo charged that it is racist to force children, who are learning English, to take such a high-stakes exam. “That’s discrimination and there should be a lawsuit,” he said.

Revollo, who has 30 years of experience in public education, calls the Bush-inspired law “the worst thing that has ever happened” in education, and sees “No Child” as paving a path for vouchers and other far-right privatization schemes.

Revollo also said “No Child” should be seen in concert with other administration policies.

“The president asks for $87 billion for Iraq using our passion and patriotism to get more money. We better wake up – there are less jobs, an immigrant like me can get arrested on the spot, there’s less funding for education and soldiers are asking ‘how long’ do we have to be [in Iraq],” he said.

Revollo isn’t alone in his anger. There is a growing recognition enveloping whole school districts – large and small, urban and rural – that the public was sold a bill of goods with “No Child Left Behind.”

The intent of the law – “to improve student achievement” – is admirable, but single test scores are not a fair measure, National Education Association President Reg Weaver, wrote recently. Weaver also placed the issue of funding “No Child” in the context of the current state budget crises.

“The administration proposes a cut of $1.2 billion for K-12 schools while imposing additional mandates. At the same time, from coast to coast, cash-strapped states are laying off teachers and other school employees, and cutting student and teacher programs,” Weaver said.

Or as my third-grade daughter told me, “You lied to us, Bush.”

The author can be reached at talbano@pww.org

Health crisis fueled by greed

Fri, 19 Sep 2003 04:08:00 +0000

The escalating health care crisis, while causing an ever-widening circle of human misery, is also revealing the ugly underbelly of U.S. capitalism. The health crisis is giving rise to a raft of illegal and fraudulent practices, all driven by greed.

Insurance policy scams

A recent report from the prestigious Commonwealth Fund, titled “Health Insurance Scams Leave Thousands with Large Medical Debts and No Coverage,” says that a proliferation of phony insurance companies have “left nearly 100,000 people with approximately $85 million in unpaid medical debts and without health coverage” since 2001. They reported that Florida leads the nation with 30,000 victims of this swindling. While the primary targets of these phony insurance plans have been senior citizens trying to fill the gap between what Medicare pays and what doctors and hospitals will pay for health services, other Floridians are also being scammed.

The other state prominently cited in the report is Texas, where the Texas Insurance Department has shut down 129 phony insurance companies that swindled over 20,000 people.

It is painfully obvious that the Bush brothers, Jeb (of Florida) and George W., are not cracking down on these practices. Quite the contrary: They are allowing these swindlers to do their dirty work under cover of darkness, with little or no public scrutiny.

The report recommends greater public oversight and an increase in penalties to those who prey on people seeking health insurance. They make a few more window-dressing recommendations, but their final recommendation points to the real solution: “Expand access to health insurance coverage to reduce the need for affordable insurance that allows phony plans to thrive.”

Dumping family coverage

The Kaiser Family Fund reports that health insurance premiums rose by 13.9 percent in the past year, the largest increase since 1990. Premiums for family coverage increased by 49 percent from the already high figure of $1,619 to $2,412.

Insurance carriers claim that the increasing premiums merely reflect higher health costs, but they rarely offer proof. At the same time it’s clear that the insurance companies are handsomely increasing their profits.

It should therefore come as no surprise that the Wall Street Journal published a front page story on Sept. 9 titled “Company Health Plans Try to Drop Spouses.” The article cites Verizon’s demands in their recent contract negotiations to impose restrictions on their workers’ spousal coverage, along the lines of what Boeing workers have had to face. The General Electric contract with the electrical workers unions contains similar revisions. These revisions are a foot in the door for greater cutbacks.

One thing is for sure: the days when workers, through their labor contracts, were able to count on coverage for their spouses and children are almost finished. The most cynical attack from employers is to follow the insurance company lead by charging more for family coverage if the family is a large one over a small one. So much for family values.

‘Rationing’ health care

Another front page article in the Wall Street Journal (Sept. 12) finally says what is really happening in our health care system: “Rationing is Here.”

Our backward economic and health delivery systems are based on profit. Under capitalism, profit governs everyday decision-making. Money has long served to ration health care. The more money a person has at his or her discretion, the more services the person is able to afford.

In the past, insurance policies and workplace health benefits limited the risks for everyday people. Medicaid would take care of people suffering from unemployment and poverty and Medicare would protect retirees. Cutbacks in both of these programs are now being coupled with sharp cutbacks in employer-based and negotiated programs.

Why? The answer is simple: skyrocketing prices being charged by pharmaceutical and insurance companies, medical and hospital supply companies and similar charges. The sky’s the limit for profits under Bush and the Republican Congress. “Let the market decide” is their decree. Well, the market is deciding, and people are suffering, people are dying prematurely; and the crisis is reaching epic proportions.

Changing course will require a major struggle. Every candidate for public office has to choose a side: “The People’s Health or Health for Profits.”

The author can be reached at pww@pww.org

Retirees reject Medicare drug bills

Fri, 19 Sep 2003 04:03:00 +0000

WASHINGTON, D.C. – It rained and it poured, but still 1,000 retirees came out on Capitol Hill, Sept. 4, to stop the privatization of Medicare. Some were in wheel chairs, still they bravely held up their signs in the rain to demand affordable medicines. The rally was the highlight of the Legislative Conference of Alliance for Retired Americans (ARA), held Sept. 3-5 in Washington, D.C.

“No bill is better than a bad bill!” the retirees roared. The shouts were loud enough for their senators and congressmen to get the message: “Vote No on HR-1 and SB-1, or any similar bill that that comes out of the Senate-House Conference.” After the rally, demonstrators delivered this message personally to their senators and representatives. George Kourpias, ARA president, voiced their feelings: “Older Americans support Medicare. We just want prescription drug coverage – not the dismemberment of Medicare.”

Of the two bills, the ARA considers HR-1, the House version, the worse. HR-1 requires total privatization of Medicare by 2010. Benefits, such as they are, do not start until 2006, two years after the crucial 2004 presidential election. Only after 2006 would older Americans learn that the plan is very expensive and that insurance companies, not Medicare, would control the benefit.

Even worse, these bills actually prohibit Medicare from trying to lower the price of medicines. The drug companies would be free to continue to raise prices at will. Under these bills, retirees who have drug coverage from their former job may lose coverage.

This cynical plan counts on fooling retirees. But older Americans are finding out that the Bush bill is a scam. A new poll shows that 76 percent think the Bush bills “don’t do enough to help senior citizens,” reported ARA Executive Director Edward Coyle. A Harris poll shows that by 2 to 1, retirees want to scrap the Bush bills and start over. Coyle said that the ARA will continue to lead the fight for a real drug plan, under Medicare, that is affordable, controls prices and is voluntary.

The conference honored militant activists arrested in Phoenix and Tucson, Ariz. They were arrested as they stepped out of the parking lot on the way to visiting their senators on the prescription drug issue. Sen. Jon Kyl (R-Ariz.) refused to meet with the retirees but did not escape. They left him a clear message in his Washington office: “Vote NO on the sham Bush bill!” Other militant actions were reported from Cleveland and Philadelphia. It was noted with pride that every Democratic candidate for president felt pressure to support Health Care for All plans.

Strategy to win the 2004 elections was the focus of the union and state caucus meetings. In addition to the health care and Social Security issue, every guest speaker opposed the Bush perpetual war policy and the administration’s attack on civil liberties. These included Linda Chavez-Thompson, executive vice-president, AFL-CIO; Andy Stern, SEIU president; Rep. Richard Gephardt (D-Mo.) and Rep. Dennis Kucinich (D-Ohio), candidates for U.S. President; and Helen Thomas, former White House correspondent.

The author can be reached at bealumpkin@aol.com

National Clips

Fri, 19 Sep 2003 02:31:00 +0000

MONROE, Mich.: Marching for jobs and clean air

As President Bush addressed a captive audience at Detroit Edison’s coal-fired electrical generation plant Sept. 15, hundreds of environmentalists rallied outside the complex protesting the administration’s “Clear Skies” initiative and rule changes in environmental protection laws.

“The government’s own data show that nearly 300 people a year will die prematurely from this plant’s pollution alone, and thousands will suffer asthma attacks, hospital visits and lost workdays,” said Megan Owens, field coordinator for Public Interest Research Group Michigan.

“According to the Environmental Protection Agency’s own analysis of the president’s Clear Skies plan, the Monroe plant will not reduce its emissions of sulfur dioxide,” said Vicki Levengood of the National Environmental Trust. Faithful implementation of the Clean Air Act would result in a 90 percent reduction in emissions, she said.

SPRINGFIELD, Ill.: State to get drugs from Canada

The war over prescription drugs heated up Sept. 14 when Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich announced that the state would purchase prescription medications for 240,000 state workers and retirees from Canadian suppliers.

Illinois joins thousands of U.S. residents crossing the border daily, including bus trips organized by their unions, to buy their medications. The savings is that dramatic, as high as 80 percent per prescription.

The announcement drew immediate attacks from the Bush administration’s Food and Drug Administration, which has tried to use the Patriot Act to halt the prescription drug express.

DENVER, Colo.: Peltier parole demand

Leonard Peltier, 59, leader of the American Indian Movement, has never had a parole hearing. On Sept. 19 the 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals will decide whether or not the U.S. Parole Commission erred when it denied the civil rights leader a parole hearing until 2008.

In 1975, Peltier was convicted of killing two FBI agents on the South Dakota Pine Ridge Indian Reservation. Peltier denies the murder.

“Under federal guidelines, someone convicted of murder is considered for parole at 200 months [Peltier has served 204 months],” said the AIM leader’s attorney, Barry Bachrach. “There is no evidence in the record which supports that he [Peltier] ambushed and executed two FBI agents,” Bachrach continued.

In 1986, the 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in St

Louis found “inconsistencies casting strong doubts upon the government’s case” but did not order a new trial.

PITTSBURGH: AK Steel charged with racism

African American steelworkers are suing AK (Armco Kawasaki) Steel for discrimination, and the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, a federal agency, is taking their case.

About 1,950 steelworkers who are members of an independent union, not the United Steelworkers of America, work in the Butler complex. Less than 20 AK steelworkers are African American.

Gerald Patterson of Lyndora, Pa., filed charges on behalf of all Black steelworkers at the mill. Among the many racist acts committed at that plant were the display of Confederate flags on cars in company parking lots, nooses hung over doorways and KKK videos shown in lunch rooms.

“Title VII [of the 1963 Civil Rights Act] as been the law of the land for 38 years, but you would not know it from the facts of this case,” said Jacqueline McNair, EEOC’s regional attorney.

AK Steel could face federal penalties of up to $300,000 for allowing the racist behavior.

WINSTON-SALEM, N.C.: College teacher fired for antiwar remarks

Forsyth Technical College fired English instructor Elizabeth Ito on May 15 for her comments on the Iraq war. On Sept. 12, the first-year teacher filed an appeal to get her job back.

On March 28 Ito spent 10 minutes at the beginning of her business writing class voicing concerns with the call-up of an additional 30,000 troops for the Iraq war. She asked students their reaction to the possible re-institution of the draft. After the class ended, two students complained to Susie Keener, Ito’s boss. Within a week, Ito was called before the college dean and Keener, and the incident was discussed for over two hours. A disciplinary letter issued by the department ended with the statement, “This matter is resolved.”

At the end of term, Keener fired Ito.

“It is clear that Elizabeth didn’t lose her job because she expressed a personal opinion in the classroom,” said Ito Defense Coalition member Liz Seymour. “She lost her job because of the opinion she expressed.”

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

Texas redistricting plan threatens equality

Fri, 19 Sep 2003 02:22:00 +0000

AUSTIN, Texas – The return to Texas from Albuquerque, N.M., by Texas state Senator John Whitmire (D-Houston) broke the back of his fellow Democratic state senators’ fight to stop the Karl Rove, George W. Bush, Tom DeLay power grab in Texas. These right-wingers are seeking to increase their slim majority in the U.S. Congress by redrawing Texas’s congressional districts in order to send five to seven more right-wing extremists to Congress from Texas.

Eleven Democratic senators, including Whitmire, left Austin in July before Gov. Rick Perry could call a second special redistricting session of the legislature. Nine of the 11 are African American or Latino. They left to deny the governor and his right-wing cronies a quorum in the Senate, which prevented the Bush, Rove, DeLay redistricting putsch from being enacted.

After Whitmire returned, Perry called a third special session that convened on Sept. 15. Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst, who presides over the Senate, said that he was suspending a longstanding Senate rule that requires two-thirds of the body to approve debate on a measure before it can be considered by the Senate. Dewhurst sidestepped tradition because 12 senators, including Bill Ratliff, a Republican from East Texas, have said that they would oppose the consideration of any redistricting plan.

Republicans will likely prevail in the third special session, but because redistricting dilutes the political power of Texas’s African American and Latino communities it will surely be challenged in court as a violation of the Voting Rights Act.

Most of the attacks aimed at the redistricting plot in Texas correctly cast it as part of a national right-wing power grab. While this criticism is absolutely true, what is often overlooked or underplayed is the racist nature of Republican redistricting.

All of the Republican redistricting proposals undermine minority political clout in the state. Republicans argue that their proposed plans are not racist because they create at least one new district that should be won by an African American. However, the key to making it possible for right-wing Republicans to pick up more seats in the state is to take minority voters out of districts represented by urban, white Democrats and put them in districts dominated by conservative white suburban voters.

When minority communities are included in these suburban districts, their power will be diminished. There will be fewer federal dollars flowing into minority communities and their issues will be relegated to the back burner.

But there’s another, related reason for splitting up minority voters and moving them into districts where they are a significant minority. The demographics of the state are shifting. Within 20 years, Latinos will be the largest ethnic group in the state. Latinos and African Americans will constitute a majority of the population. Their majority status could result in a huge shift in the state’s politics, similar to the one that has taken place in California.

Latino and African American voters tend to vote Democratic and are more likely to support the passage of laws that give working people more power and oppose those that diminish it. For example, polls show that African Americans and Latinos oppose in far greater numbers than white voters the Bush administration’s proposal to deprive millions of workers of overtime pay.

The Republican redistricting power grab is a pre-emptive action against Texas’s emerging majority. Karl Rove, Tom DeLay, and their right-wing cohorts are hoping to minimize the political impact of this demographic trend by drawing congressional boundaries in such a way as to create safe districts for more Republicans for years to come. In doing so, they are hoping to build a dike that will protect the privileges of their political base in the state at the expense of tomorrow’s majority.

The author can be reached at pww@pww.org

Court delays recall, upholds voting rights

Fri, 19 Sep 2003 01:58:00 +0000

LOS ANGELES – Ultra-right Republican plans to seize control of this state ran into a roadblock when an appeals court Sept. 15 ordered postponement of California’s recall election. A three-judge panel of the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that punch card ballots used in six counties, including Los Angeles, would deny voters the equal right to have their votes counted, in violation of the “equal protection” clause of the U.S. Constitution.

An enraged Ted Costa, head of Rescue California, the main committee seeking to recall Gov. Gray Davis, announced that his group will appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court to reverse the ruling.

“This is a victory for democracy and for California,” said Mark Rosenbaum, legal director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Southern California. The ACLU filed the lawsuit on behalf of California branches of the NAACP, Southern Christian Leadership Conference of Greater Los Angeles, and the Southwest Voters Project. “The message is clear,” Rosenbaum said. “We must not sacrifice political equality in favor of political expediency.”

Art Pulaski, executive secretary-treasurer of the California AFL-CIO, said, “Everyone deserves to have their vote counted. There are serious defects in the voting system that will lead to disenfranchisement of voters, so we support the 9th Circuit’s decision.” In the 2000 presidential election, Pulaski added, “the Supreme Court violated the right to vote, and they owe us on this one. But because we can’t count on the Supreme Court to do the right thing, our campaign against the recall is going forward. Full steam ahead.”

Even if reversed, the ruling by Judges Harry Pregerson, Sidney R. Thomas, and Richard Paez has presented in stark terms the threat to democracy posed by the attempt to remove Davis, who was re-elected last November with 3.5 million votes. Many here have branded the recall a “bloodless coup,” comparable to George W. Bush’s theft of the 2000 presidential election in Florida.

The court’s 66-page ruling warned that the votes of 40,000 or more voters are certain to be thrown out because of dimples or hanging chads on their punch card ballots. The judges pointed out that the system of punch card balloting is “so flawed that the secretary of state has officially deemed it unacceptable, and banned its use in all future elections.” All of the antiquated punch card machines are to be replaced by next March.

The judges also warned that a quarter of the state’s polling places will not be operational because election officials have insufficient time and staff to get them ready by Oct. 7. Furthermore, men and women in the U.S. armed forces will be disenfranchised, they charged, “because they did not expect to be overseas for this length of time” and therefore did not apply for absentee ballots.

Avoiding an election “that promises to dilute the votes of any particular community – let alone communities with disproportionately high concentrations of minority voters – firmly promotes the public interest in a fair election,” the judges wrote. “The public interest strongly favors holding the recall election during the general election in March 2004 to avoid any equal protection violation.”

The judges argued that the anti-recall plaintiffs “equal protection claims mirrors the one recently analyzed by the Supreme Court in Bush v. Gore in which the justices ruled that the state ‘may not by arbitrary and disparate treatment value one person’s vote over another.’” It was seen as a shrewd line of argument that will be difficult for the Supreme Court to rebut without eating their own words.

The labor-led anti-recall effort is surging here in this battleground city which is crucial to defeating the recall. This reporter visited the the headquarters of the L.A. County Federation of Labor where volunteers from a dozen unions were phone-banking, in both English and Spanish, in a room with 50 computer phone stations. Freddy Harris, a member of Service Employees Local 99 told this reporter, “People tell me, ‘Where is the democracy when 1.6 million people sign a recall petition and it throws out an election where eight million people voted?’”

At a special Democratic Party convention Sept. 13, Gov. Davis drew strong applause as he shook hands with Lt. Gov. Cruz Bustamante while the 600 delegates chanted, “Recall No! Bustamante Si.” The next day, the Rev. Cecil Murray welcomed Davis and former President Bill Clinton to the First AME Church in South Central Los Angeles. The crowd overflowed the sanctuary and packed the basement to watch on a big screen as Murray urged the crowd to turn out a huge vote against the recall.

Robin Harris, a Los Angeles schoolteacher, stood in the church basement. “This is bigger than Gray Davis,” she told the World. “It’s big money, big business, removing from office somebody the people have voted for.”

The author can be reached at greenerpastures21212@yahoo.com

Florida court blocks Medicaid-funded abortions

Fri, 12 Sep 2003 04:33:00 +0000

Continuing to put women’s health at risk, Florida’s Third District Court of Appeals issued an opinion Sept. 3 refusing to overturn Florida’s ban on Medicaid-funded abortions. The Center for Reproductive Rights challenged the ban last August in A Choice for Women, Inc. v. Florida Agency for Health Care Administration, charging that the ban discriminates on the basis of sex.

Florida’s Medicaid program provides all medically necessary services for men’s reproductive health, yet fails to provide medically necessary services for women’s health when the service they need is an abortion.

In the opinion issued, the court ignored the sex discrimination claim and upheld the ban as “rational,” thereby allowing the state to continue violating women’s rights at the expense of their health. The Center for Reproductive Rights is considering appealing the decision to the Florida Supreme Court.

“By providing poor men with Viagra while denying women abortions that are needed to prevent serious health problems, Florida is making women second class citizens,” said Bonnie Scott Jones, staff attorney for the Center for Reproductive Rights and lead counsel on the case. “Sadly, the opinion issued today fails to even address the plaintiffs’ sex discrimination challenge, leaving low-income women with unequal treatment and without needed medical care,” added Jones.

At a hearing in June, the Center for Reproductive Rights argued that it is unconstitutional to deny low-income women Medicaid-funded abortions when their health is threatened by a pregnancy. By covering all reproductive health services needed by men, and denying a particular reproductive health service needed by women, Florida is discriminating against women on the basis of sex. The Center is challenging the law on behalf of a Miami health center, its physician, and one of their patients – a woman who was denied Medicaid funding for an abortion even though she suffers from epileptic seizures and her epilepsy medication posed a serious threat to the health of the fetus.

Without Medicaid coverage for medically necessary abortions, some low-income women are forced to carry medically complicated pregnancies to term or to significantly delay obtaining the procedure while they seek alternate funds. Either alternative threatens those women’s health.

Currently 17 states cover all medically necessary abortions in their Medicaid programs. Courts in New Mexico and Connecticut have specifically ruled that denying Medicaid coverage for low-income women’s abortions is a form of sex discrimination.

Tulia 35 pardoned

Fri, 12 Sep 2003 04:26:00 +0000

Joe Moore and 34 co-defendants in the Tulia, Texas, drug bust fiasco were pardoned on Aug. 22 by Gov. Rick Perry. Perry’s pardon clears the 60-year-old Moore, who is African American, of charges that he sold cocaine to special undercover investigator Tom Coleman of the Panhandle Regional Narcotics Task Force.

Despite his innocence, Moore paid a steep price for the racist frame-up. After being wrongfully convicted and spending three and a half years in the Texas state penitentiary, Moore lost his farm and his diabetes worsened. He now lives in an apartment in Tulia and told the Austin American Statesman that “It’s hard to know how I’m going to make a living. I’ve got nothing. I just leave it in the hands of the Lord.”

What happened to Moore and the other 34 defendants is being characterized in the media as a tragic but atypical miscarriage of justice. With the pardons, Gov. Perry and the authorities are hoping to put this shameful act to rest.

But the events that led up to the convictions show how racist the West Texas law enforcement system is. The convictions were based on testimony of Coleman, who is white. Coleman had no witnesses or other evidence to corroborate his story.

Not only was there no evidence to back up his assertions, but local authorities knew that Coleman had an unsavory reputation. After the arrests but before the first trials were held, local authorities learned that Coleman had an arrest record for theft, but tried to keep this information from defense attorneys. When the defense attorneys learned of Coleman’s background, they filed a motion with Judge Ed Self asking that the jury be made aware of Coleman’s background. The judge ruled that this information was not relevant.

As a result of Coleman’s lies, Moore received a sentence of 90 years in prison. But West Texas justice is not always applied equally. Terry McEachern, the white prosecutor who tried the Tulia cases, was arrested in New Mexico last year and charged with driving under the influence. Before he began driving, he had three drinks and took Valium. In June of this year, he was convicted and sentenced to two days in jail. Despite his arrest and conviction, he continues to hold his job as county prosecutor in Swisher County, where Tulia is located.

The author can be reached at pww@pww.org

Oil company greed fuels rage at pumps

Fri, 12 Sep 2003 04:16:00 +0000

OAKLAND, Calif. – I stopped to gas up my economy rental car at the Shell station in Gilroy (“Garlic capital of the nation”) late one night as I crisscrossed the state covering the fight against the recall of Gov. Gray Davis.

I recoiled in shock as the pump racked up $29.22 for just over 12 gallons at $2.12 cents per gallon. The guy next to me was gassing up his pickup and laughed aloud when I exclaimed, “It’s robbery!”

“Your lucky,” he said. “I’ll have to pay forty bucks to fill this rig up!”

The anger and outrage across this state is palpable. Californians burn 1.25 billion gallons of gasoline every month and economists estimate that the oil corporations added $300 million in additional revenues last month alone with gas prices ranging as high as $2.50 a gallon. It is costing the average two-car family in California an extra $64 each month. Attorney General Bill Lockyer released a report blasting Chevron-Texaco and the other refiners for jacking up their wholesale prices 152 percent, from 27.6 cents a gallon to 69.6 cents a gallon, between January and March. He said the figures “raise legitimate questions” that the public is being “gouged.”

Lt. Gov. Cruz Bustamante tapped into the angry mood when he denounced “oil company price gouging” and called for regulating the price of gasoline. The oil companies let it be known they will stop delivery, creating 1973-style lines at the gas pumps, should anyone interfere with their highway robbery.

It is not limited to California. The American Automobile Association in a report just before the Labor Day weekend charged that gasoline prices skyrocketed 13 percent in one month to $1.74 per gallon, 50 percent higher than a year earlier.

Rep. Ed Markey (D-Mass.) sent a letter to Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham urging an investigation. “Why has the price of gasoline increased by 20 percent in just two weeks?” Markey demanded. “Please fully describe all accounts of price gouging … as well as what steps have been taken to halt these activities and punish those responsible for them.”

Markey isn’t so naïve as to expect answers from Abraham, who takes his orders from oil-man George W. Bush. The oil corporations are spinning out one excuse after another: Iraqi oil has not arrived yet. Venezuela’s oil deliveries are disrupted. A pipeline ruptured near Tucson. A tank farm caught fire in New Jersey.

But Californians heard these excuses before from people like Enron’s Ken Lay, only to find out later that the energy moguls were “gaming” the energy market to the tune of $45 billion in electricity overcharges.

In the first quarter of 2003, Exxon-Mobil reported profits of $7.04 billion, more than triple the $2.09 billion they reported in the same period last year. For the second quarter, Exxon-Mobil reported $4.7 billion in profits. Their revenues soared to $63.8 billion compared to $43.5 billion for the same period last year.

Chevron-Texaco’s profits nearly tripled to $1.9 billion from $725 million in the first quarter of 2002. Second quarter earnings, $1.6 billion, were quadruple the $400-plus million a year earlier. Royal Dutch Shell raked in $3.9 billion in the first quarter of this year, up 96 percent from a year earlier. No wonder the oil men were so determined to put one of their own in the White House who will keep the loot rolling in.

These record profits come while the economy is in the pits. And oil company profiteering is a huge factor retarding economic recovery since every wheel of our industrial economy costs so much more to turn. Direct Action to Stop the War staged another of a series of demonstrations at Chevron-Texaco’s refinery in Richmond, Calif., Sept. 9, protesting the importation of “stolen Iraqi oil” to the huge facility and the tons of toxic pollutants the corporation dumps on Bay area residents. Motorists gouged by Chevron-Texaco have a good reason to join in these protests.

The situation calls for nationalization. Let the people take over these refineries. End the profit greed. End the pollution. But also end our near total reliance on gas guzzling, smog-belching private automobiles.

The author can be reached at greenerpastures21212@yahoo.com

City of Dallas Proclamation on the Immigrant Workers Freedom Ride

Fri, 12 Sep 2003 04:12:00 +0000

WHEREAS, Dallas is home to a diverse immigrant and refugee population that have shared in the building of our nation and contribute to making America a land of ethnic and multicultural diversity; and

WHEREAS, immigrants and refugees continue to contribute to the building of a better Dallas, and have proved to be more durable than the forces of bigotry and discrimination and they have graced this country’s political and cultural life with a spirit of courage and idealism; and

WHEREAS, a Coalition of Labor, the community, churches, students, politicians, and immigrants workers are joining forces for a nation-wide Immigrant Workers Freedom Bus Ride event; and

WHEREAS, the Immigrant Workers Bus Ride event will be modeled after the Freedom Ride Bus Rides of the 1960s, with the focus being on immigrant workers, their rights on the job, the rewarding of their work with a legalization program and access to citizenship; and

WHEREAS, the kick-off for the Immigrant Workers Freedom Bus Ride will take place on Saturday, Sept. 27 at 3 p.m. [gather at 2 p.m.] at the John F. Kennedy Memorial; and

WHEREAS, in an effort to encourage all people to live together in peace and harmony, the City of Dallas salutes those committed to this worthwhile endeavor and reaffirms its commitment to ensure equality and freedom for all people regardless of race, religion, or ethnic background.

Now, THEREFORE, I, Laura Miller, Mayor of the City of Dallas, and on behalf of the Dallas City Council, do hereby proclaim Sept. 27, 2003, as Immigrant Workers Freedom Ride Day in Dallas, Texas.