People Before Profit blog

FROM THE PWW ARCHIVES, Sept. 28, 2002: Visiting a Hero

Fri, 29 Sep 2006 09:00:00 +0000

It was the last full weekend in August. Finally, we heard that four members of our family were granted visitor status at the Federal Correctional Institute McKean in Bradford, Pa.

We decided to make a camping trip out of this unique opportunity to visit René Gonzalez, a prisoner there, with whom we had been corresponding.

Bradford is about seven hours northwest from our home in Philadelphia. The family piled into the car on Friday after work with tents and sleeping bags.

Saturday morning we arrived at the lobby of the prison. Everyone was nervous; the shining sun was the only bright thing about approaching this barbed-wire-covered, ultra-fortified, bleached block complex. Everyone passed through the metal detector and we each received a stamp on the hand with invisible ink. Each adult was allowed a small amount of cash to purchase food from the vending machines.

At every door, our ink-stamped hands were checked again with a black light. After a short walk in the sun between two structures, we entered the visiting area where they checked us again and assigned us seats. Forty-five minutes later, in walked René.

We had learned about the circumstances leading to his imprisonment last summer while we were participating in the Pastors for Peace caravan to end the blockade of Cuba. My sons and I had the honor of hearing Ricardo Alarcon, the president of the Cuban National Assembly, describe the events that led to the brutal and unjust arrest and imprisonment of the five anti-terrorists.

The authorities threw everything they had at these five agents of peace. Their crime was preventing vicious criminals from launching violent terrorist attacks against human targets on the island nation of Cuba. The trial, held in the center of anti-Cuban South Florida, was an exercise by the prosecution in how to prevent the exposure of truth to the jury. The jury itself was threatened in the local newspapers if it dared return a not guilty verdict. Even then, guards and other employees of the court who witnessed the complete trial were shocked at the sham guilty verdict.

Sept. 12 marked the fourth anniversary of René’s imprisonment, the first 17 months of which were spent in solitary confinement in a Miami torture chamber.

We had seen René’s picture many places, so his smile helped us recognize him. The proud father of two daughters, ages four and 18, his fatherly qualities were obvious and abundant. He immediately made the children feel at ease. His own wife and children are refused a visa to enter the U.S. to visit him.

The four hours we had to visit with him seemed to just disappear. We shared experiences, our fears and joys, hopes and sorrows, little things that only seem important at this moment, big things that are essential for understanding and survival of the human race.

Small children played and laughed around us, concealing the brutality of the environment, piercing the fog of oppression that permeated every nuance of the adult relationships. Men caged and severely restricted in every movement and experience.

We walked over to the soda machine to buy lemonade and I had to pick up the bottle for René because the rules forbade him from crossing the red line on the floor about two feet from the machine.

We spoke of the irony that saturates the circumstances of his imprisonment in the Alleghenies of western Pennsylvania. These same mountains sheltered and protected abolitionist John Brown. It was here that freedom was won for many during the great struggle against slavery. The town of Bradford is filled with monuments to the industrious energies of generations of working people at paper mills, factories, gas wells and coal mines.

We spoke of the tragedy of the terrorist attack on this country last year. The Cuban people have a thorough understanding of and empathy for the victims of such an attack, having been attacked so often by the collection of terrorists who use South Florida as their base.

We talked about the other four and their conditions of solidarity and steely determination to maintain the integrity of the Cuban people against the lies about their character and motivations. Righteousness in the face of arrogance, truth in the face of lies, and courage in the face of cowardliness are all exposed in the life experiences of these five and their struggle in the United States.

We were inspired as we parted with this giant of a people who accept as their moral compass human responsibility. René Gonzalez, patriot of Cuba, is a breathing example of cooperation for the benefit of all. The U.S. government may choose to cage and abuse this ambassador of a just and peaceful world; we left dedicated to the struggle of emancipation from just such oppression.

Stephen Paulmier is a printer, a member of the Graphics Communications International Union and a reader in Philadelphia.

PhRMA got the doughnut we got the hole

Fri, 29 Sep 2006 08:31:00 +0000

SACRAMENTO, Calif. — A group of 75 seniors found the doors of the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America’s headquarters here locked against them as they attempted to deliver a basket of doughnut holes Sept. 22. “PhRMA got the doughnut — we got the hole,” they chanted outside the office building.

Many of the retirees had come from out of town to demonstrate on “Part D Doughnut Hole Day.” They called for changes to Medicare Part D, the section that supposedly covers the cost of medications.

“Today is the day all of us have been dreading, when 7 million Americans fall into the doughnut hole,” declared Joan Lee, president of the Sacramento Chapter of the Gray Panthers. That many Medicare recipients have already used $2,250 in drug coverage and now must pay the full cost of their medications (in addition to the Medicare Part D premium) until their medication cost totals $5,100 or the next calendar year starts. Most seniors will never qualify to get out of the doughnut hole, Lee said. “People are being forced to choose between food and medicine.”

“PhRMA is making huge profits, while they are tearing apart Medicare as we know it,” said Nan Brasmer of the California Association of Retired Americans. She added, “If the law allowed Medicare to bargain for lower drug prices, it would have filled the doughnut hole.”

“The drug companies have to realize what they are doing to retired people,” said Betty Perry of the Older Women’s League.

PhRMA has launched a $10 million ad campaign via the Chamber of Congress to help vulnerable members of Congress who voted for the Medicare Part D prescription drug program, news services report. The pharmaceutical industry, which helped write Part D, is recording record profits thanks to the new program, and has already funneled more than $12.7 million to largely Republican candidates in the 2006 election cycle.

After the rally, the group went to the nearby California State Capitol to urge Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger to sign 16 important bills passed by the state Legislature, including single-payer health care, nursing home patients’ rights and an increase in the minimum wage.

Roberta Wood contributed to this article.

Veterans, legal experts hit deal on torture

Fri, 29 Sep 2006 08:27:00 +0000

WASHINGTON — Human rights defenders urged the Senate to reject a deal between President George W. Bush and Republican senators that would strip hundreds of detainees of habeas corpus rights and leave the door open for use of evidence obtained by torture in military tribunals at the U.S. prison in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

The House passed the measure Sept. 27 on a mostly party-line vote, with many Democrats sharply condemning it. Rep. Dennis Kucinich (D-Ohio) said, “This bill is everything we don’t believe in.” The Senate was expected to vote before the weekend.

In an open letter to all members of Congress, VFP President David Cline charged that the legislation is an attempt by administration officials “to protect themselves from prosecution” for war crimes “even as they prosecute enlisted men and women for actions committed under their command in Iraq, Afghanistan and elsewhere.”

Cline added, “It is the highest form of hypocrisy to claim to support our troops while allowing the policymakers and planners of a war of choice that we believe is illegal, immoral and unjust to change existing law to protect themselves from prosecution for committing war crimes after ordering the troops to war.” Bush, Vice President Dick Cheney, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and others, he charged, “are trying to change the law because they believe they have broken the law.”

Cline called on Congress to “reject any effort to weaken the 1996 War Crimes Act,” and “initiate impeachment proceedings against President Bush and Vice President Cheney for the war crimes they have committed.”

Republican Senators John McCain of Arizona, John Warner of Virginia, Lindsay Graham of South Carolina and Susan Collins of Maine staged a noisy protest against Bush’s attempt to rewrite the Geneva Conventions to allow coerced testimony and use of secret evidence in military trials of alleged terrorists.

But the dissident senators have agreed to a “compromise” that gives Bush much of what he wants. Their strategy has been to convince Bush to drop his efforts to nullify Common Article 3 of the Geneva Conventions, which is international law, and to pursue his objectives instead by nullifying sections of the War Crimes Act of 1996, which is U.S. law.

Lisa Hajjar, professor of law and society at the University of California-Santa Barbara, told the World in a phone interview, “This legislation has been billed as a compromise when in fact it is a complete capitulation to the demands of the Bush administration, which seeks to formalize the torture and cruel treatment practices that the CIA has been using and make them the new standards.”

Part of the motivation of this bill, she added, “is to override the Supreme Court in the Hamdan case. The Supreme Court ruled that violations of the Geneva Conventions are criminal offenses and therefore punishable. This legislation would undo that decision. It would make it much harder to prosecute U.S. officials for past crimes.”

All people of conscience, she said, “should get on the phone to their senators and voice outrage at how much damage is being done to the rule of law by this legislation.” She pointed out that the Democrats had kept quiet, allowing the Republican senators to take the lead. But now, she said, “the Democrats should speak out against this deal.”

Christopher H. Pyle, a professor at Mount Holyoke College and author of “The President, Congress and the Constitution,” told the World that top Bush administration officials “have been in a panic ever since the Supreme Court ruled last June that they are bound by the Geneva Conventions. They could be prosecuted.”

He pointed out that the McCain-Warner-Graham bill does not expressly forbid any of the brutal practices such as “water-boarding” in which detainees are made to feel they are drowning. “But it does retroactively absolve administration officials of legal responsibility for past war crimes.”

Furthermore, it denies habeas corpus or due process rights for innocent victims of kidnapping, detention and torture such as Canadian citizen Maher Arar, he said.

The bill expressly strips the courts of jurisdiction over the military tribunals and denies detainees like Arar “any right to challenge their captivity in court. And it permits the use of evidence obtained by torture in military tribunals by camouflaging it as hearsay testimony.”

He too stressed that the aim of the deal is to immunize Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Attorney General Alberto Gonzales and others from war crimes prosecution. “The fix is in,” he said.

The high court “didn’t just declare the military tribunals illegal. It held that the Geneva Conventions protect all detainees in the ‘war on terrorism,’ which meant that anyone who abused prisoners, or authorized their abuse, was vulnerable to prosecution as a war criminal. The torture and abuse were not random acts by guards and interrogators. They were part of a deliberate administration policy that began in November 2001 when President George W. Bush authorized military tribunals that were specifically designed to admit evidence obtained by torture.”

greenerpastures21212@yahoo.com

Robert Earl Jones, acting pioneer, blacklistee, dies at 96

Fri, 29 Sep 2006 08:21:00 +0000

Stage and film actor Robert Earl Jones, father of actor James Earl Jones, died Sept. 7 at age 96.

Jones got into acting during the Depression when poet Langston Hughes cast him in the 1938 production “Don’t You Want to be Free?” Jones also made early screen appearances in the all-Black films written and directed by pioneer Black filmmaker Oscar Micheaux.

In the 1950s Jones’ acting career was shaken when he was blacklisted for his left political associations and for refusing to testify before the House Un-American Activities Committee.

Some years later he appeared on TV as well as in movies and plays, including Zora Neal Hurston and Langston Hughes’ “Mule Bone” (1991) and “The Gospel at Colonus” (1988). Among his many film performances, he is best known for the role of Luther Coleman, Robert Redford’s mentor in the 1973 film “The Sting.”

Venezeuela book falls short

Fri, 29 Sep 2006 08:18:00 +0000

BOOKREVIEW

Hugo Chávez: Oil, Politics and the Challenge to the U.S.

By Nikolas Kozloff

Palgrave Macmillan, 2006

Hardcover, 262 pp., $27.95

By Tony Pecinovsky

There are many books on the increasingly complex relationship between Venezuela and the United States. Some are very good, insightful, and provide political context to help outsiders understand the changes within Venezuela and its relationship to the U.S. Other books, though, are less inspiring and don’t add to the discussion surrounding President Hugo Chávez, or Venezuela-U.S. relations.

Nikolas Kozloff’s “Hugo Chávez: Oil, Politics and the Challenge to the U.S.” falls into this latter category.

I heard about Kozloff’s book from a friend who gave it good reviews. As someone who has traveled to Venezuela, I was eager to read the book. However, other than a hefty $27.95 and a glossy cover, it offered little, especially in analysis and insight.

First, Kozloff did little original research. His sources were mostly web site addresses of publications read by the left. This might work for some people, but I felt I had already read this before, in Counterpunch, Venezuelanalysis.com, The Progressive, the People’s Weekly World, Z Magazine or other publications.

Second, Kozloff wastes time on miniature biographies. While we should expect some biographical information on Chávez and other Venezuelan leaders — if it adds to the analysis — Kozloff’s biographies don’t help. Instead, in typical College Lit. 101 fashion, Kozloff seems to be working toward a word count, just filling space.

Kozloff lays his biography out for the world too. He writes, “In 1998, I was in South Florida, studying Latin America in the history department at the University of Miami. I had already decided to concentrate on Venezuela, and was busy researching the role of the Creole Petroleum Corporation.” Then he writes about his journey to England where he “continued his studies” and spent “days visiting the library and reading about the oil industry in Venezuela.”

He takes us down memory lane to the WTO protests in Seattle and how he found information he needed on the indymedia.org web site. “After reading the reports on indymedia, I began to get involved in organizing future protests,” he continues. “One of my principle contacts was a London anarchist who went by the e-mail pen name ‘distopia.’ I went to London to meet him.” On and on and on. Then Kozloff takes us to Germany, then Prague, where “protesters were to rendezvous at an organic farm” and apparently start the Revolution.

At times it was like reading “The Life and Times of Nikolas Kozloff.” I don’t mean to belittle Kozloff’s experiences. For him they were memorable experiences, but people don’t buy your book to learn about you. Kozloff promised an analysis of Venezuelan/U.S. relations. Something else was delivered.

I thought the end of the book (yes, I read the entire thing) might get better. Maybe the last chapter, “The Chávez-Morales Axis,” might redeem Kozloff, I thought. I was wrong.

You would think that the title would indicate what the chapter entails. Well, Kozloff doesn’t mention the Chávez/Morales relationship until 10 pages into the chapter. In fact, over half the chapter features Colombia and Ecuador.

The deceptive title of that chapter is indicative of the deceptive character of the book. It just doesn’t deliver the goods. When we finally get to the Chávez-Morales dynamic, Kozloff writes, “Although the political outlook in Colombia and Ecuador may be murky, Chávez can count on a key ally in Bolivia, Evo Morales.” Wow! That’s insightful.

It’s hard to write a review of a book that offers little original analysis. It’s harder to say good things about a bad book. The truth is that I didn’t learn anything from this book. Maybe I’m exceptional, but I don’t think so.

I don’t mind paying for a good book, for a book that says something I don’t already know. Charging $27.95 for re-hashed, web-based research is deceptive. As a person on a budget, I feel cheated and betrayed. I want my money back.

tonypec@cpusa.org

Progressive cinema at 2006 Toronto film fest

Fri, 29 Sep 2006 08:06:00 +0000

TORONTO — Many consider the Toronto International Film Festival one of the greatest film events of the Western Hemisphere, certainly the most viewer-friendly. Toronto is hosting over 350 films from 60 countries. Some 250 are feature film premieres categorized under the headings of “The Masters,” “Real to Reel,” “Midnight Madness” and others.

Films are projected digitally in state-of-the-art theaters, providing clarity and immediacy to screen images. Most filmmakers and cast attend the openings, offering viewers an educational experience and involvement.

Issues like the war on terrorism, torture, military occupation and the devastating effects of globalization are major themes this year, mostly from a progressive point of view. The New York Times coyly suggested that American conservatives concerned about the left should pay attention to the anti-Bush and antiwar films being screened north of the U.S. border.

At least 60 films would interest progressive viewers. Some have already been released in the U.S. like “When The Levees Broke: A Requiem in Four Acts,” Spike Lee’s epic HBO production, and “The U.S. vs. John Lennon,” which opened in theaters Sept. 29.

The biggest buzz this year was “Death of a President,” based on the fictional assassination of George W. Bush. It was picked up by a distributor and will be released in American theaters this fall. The movie, by British director Gabriel Range, won the Fipresci award, the most prestigious prize at the festival, granted by a jury of international film critics.

Another prizewinner was “Dixie Chicks — Shut Up and Sing,” by Academy Award-winning director Barbara Kopple. It was a festival favorite as well as runner-up for the People’s Choice Award.

Other films focused on American politics, such as “Bobby,” directed by Emilio Estevez, a re-creation of the last hours of Robert Kennedy and his appearance at Los Angeles’ Ambassador Hotel on June 4, 1968. Another was “So Goes the Nation,” referring to the pivotal role Ohio voters played in the 2004 national elections.

World politics took center stage in several documentaries. “Iran: A Cinematographic Revolution” chronicles the world-shaking events of Iran through the eyes of several filmmakers. “My Life as a Terrorist: The Story of Hans-Joachim Klein” describes the harrowing experience of a former member of a German terrorist ring during the 1970s.

Another film focuses on Iraqi journalist Yunis Abbas, who was wrongfully imprisoned for nine months in Abu Ghraib. A film from Mali portrays the destructive impact of World Bank policies on Third World countries.

Several Cannes Film Festival winners also were screened in Toronto, including best film award winner “The Wind that Shakes the Barley,” directed by British working-class champion Ken Loach, about the beginnings of the IRA in Ireland. “Indigenes,” whose male actors collectively won best actors at Cannes, honored North Africans who fought for France in World War II.

Michael Moore presented clips from his upcoming films, “Sicko,” which exposes the health care crisis in the U.S., and “The Great ’04 Slacker Uprising,” about youth activism in the 2004 U.S. presidential election. A new film about the abortion debate, a work 20 years in in the making, profiles proponents of both sides of the issue.

Historical themes highlighted the Spanish Civil War, the Algerian War, the Middle East, the Cuban Revolution, the occupation of Palestine, the Bosnian war, South African apartheid, the Jewish Holocaust and the Afghan war.

There’s more: a scathing parody about former Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi by Italian director Nanni Moretti; an expose of Iran’s drug culture; several films about the realities of modern day China, including Gianni Amelio’s “The Missing Star”; a profile of an elderly Kurdish oud player; and two profiles of musicians in Mexico.

The Toronto festival is a feast every year for those seeking meaningful film fare — intelligent, humanistic documentaries of the world’s people. Unfortunately, many of the films may never see the darkness of an American movie house. Cable television, DVDs and independent film theaters will be the best source for many of these extremely relevant films.

I plan to review some of the films mentioned above, and others, in upcoming columns.

CARTOON

Fri, 29 Sep 2006 07:43:00 +0000

THIS WEEK IN LABOR

Fri, 29 Sep 2006 07:03:00 +0000

NLRB decision looms

An upcoming decision by the Bush-appointed National Labor Relations Board threatens to impact millions of workers.

The danger is that the board could potentially designate almost anyone as a “supervisor.” Once you’re classified as a supervisor, it becomes legal for your employer to fire you or punish you for activities such as discussing your working conditions and wages with other workers. These activities are protected by federal law for non-supervisors.

The looming decision, expected any day now, relates to a group of NLRB cases known as the Kentucky River cases.

Panelists at a recent forum sponsored by the Center for American Progress estimated that 8 million workers, from nurses to construction carpenters, could lose their rights to unionize and the legal protections current labor law provides.

‘Ring my bell’

There are hundreds of volunteer opportunities for working family activists to make a difference in next month’s election, according to the Working Families

e-Activist network. At www.aflcio.org/issues/politics/labor2006/, union members can find more than 400 canvasses and phone banks across the country in an online event-locator tool. More ways to get involved are added every day, says an urgent communication from the network, which urges activists to check the web page regularly.

CBTU calls for Zimbabwe solidarity

A delegation from the Coalition of Black Trade Unionists was denied entry into Zimbabwe last week. The CBTU called this action by the Zimbabwe government “a desperate effort to prevent international labor officials from seeing the dreadful conditions” of the country’s economy and its impact on everyday workers. On Sept. 13, police arrested 256 union activists during a demonstration in Harare.

The workers’ demands included higher wages and availability of antiretroviral drugs to deal with HIV and AIDS.

Among those arrested were Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Unions General Secretary Wellington Chibebe, President Lovemore Matombo and First Vice President Lucia Matibenga. The AFL-CIO, citing reports that Chibebe and Matombo were severely beaten, gathered members of U. S. unions outside the Washington, D.C., embassy of Zimbabwe, demanding “the swift and unconditional release” of the imprisoned trade unionists.

The CBTU delegation, headed by William Lucy, called for the American labor movement and the global labor movement to come to the aid of Zimbabwean workers.

Union pie

When longtime Domino’s driver Jim Pohle saw a competitor’s sign offering an extra 25 cents an hour, he didn’t jump ship, he formed the nation’s first pizza delivery drivers’ union. Pohle, 37, is president of the recently formed American Union of Pizza Delivery Drivers Inc., representing 11 drivers at the franchise store where he has worked off and on for more than a dozen years in Pensacola, Fla.

Two workers die, manager sentenced to teach safety class

In 2001, two employees of Far West Water and Sewage Company, James Gamble, 26, and Gary Lanser, 62, were suffocated by hydrogen sulfide. They were working on an underground sewer tank. “The air in the tank had not been tested, the workers weren’t properly trained and the required safety and rescue procedures weren’t followed,” Jordan Barab reports in his workplace safety blog “Confined Space.”

A jury found company president Brent Weidman guilty of two counts of negligent homicide and two counts of endangerment. But Superior Court Judge Andrew Gould apparently saw it less seriously — he sentenced Weidman to probation, a fine and 840 hours of community service. Weidman will teach safety training classes for the Arizona Occupational Safety and Health Administration in Yuma.

Weidman seems to have gotten off easy, but what kind of working conditions did Judge Gould sentence Arizona workers to, now that those responsible for their safety are going to be trained by the likes of Weidman?

More workers in debt

More than a third of workers surveyed have been forced to go into debt in the last year just to pay for basic necessities like food, utilities and gas, according to a poll of 800 non-supervisory workers released Aug. 30 by Change to Win.

Now in aisle 6 — Wal-Mart voter guides

In the latest Wal-Mart outrage, the retail giant is now trying to tell its employees how to vote. The company is mailing 18,000 “voter guides” to its employees in Iowa, the state of the first presidential primary in 2008, AFL-CIO Now reports. The guides attack potential candidates for president — all of them Democrats — for supporting groups that opposed the company’s “every day low wages.”

World Bank’s dirty business

The Marshall Islands and Palau are given high ratings by the World Bank’s top development book because, among other features, both allow workers to be forced to work up to 24 hours per day and up to seven days per week and require no vacations or advance notice for dismissal, charged a spokesman for the International Confederation of Free Trade Unions. The World Bank’s book “Doing Business” explicitly encourages countries to dump worker protections, the ICFTU charges

When the World Bank lends money to developing countries, it often requires that they change their labor standards and social programs. The bank has frequently ordered nations to make it easier to fire workers, ban unions and abolish social programs.

Whistle blowers silenced

Federal employees who complain about public safety hazards, environmental problems or unhealthy working conditions could face retaliation now that the Bush administration has declared itself exempt from legal precedent that protects whistle blowers, according to James Parks writing in the AFL-CIO Now blog.

The Department of Labor has used an unpublished opinion issued by a Justice Department office to do away with the rights of federal workers to pursue whistle-blower claims under the Clean Water Act. The opinion was only made public after Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility obtained a copy of it under the Freedom of Information Act.

It may come as little surprise to our readers that the opinion invoked the ancient doctrine of sovereign immunity. Sovereign immunity, writes Parks, is based on the old English legal maxim that “the king can do no wrong.”

The Environmental Protection Agency has taken the position that absolutely no laws protect its employees from reprisal.

The Labor Department ruling comes just weeks after Cate Jenkins, a senior scientist at EPA, accused the agency of using misleading data about the health hazards of World Trade Center dust.

This week’s tally for health care

State labor federations in Vermont, Wyoming and South Carolina have announced their support for HR 676, in conventions held in September. The bill, introduced by Rep. John Conyers Jr. (D-Mich.) would institute a single-payer health care system in the U.S. covering every person in the country.

Other recent endorsers include IBEW Local 2313 representing Verizon directory assistance operators in Hanover, Mass., Amalgamated Lithographers Local 1 in New York City and Northern New Jersey, SEIU Local 3 in Pittsburgh, and the St. Louis chapter of the Steelworkers Organization of Active Retirees.

Workers’ comp for 9/11 workers

Out-of-state workers who worked for months on cleaning up the toxic remains of New York City’s World Trade Center after Sept. 11, 2001, should now register with the New York state workers’ comp board so they may file future claims for cleanup-caused illnesses, the New York Coalition on Occupational Safety and Health says.

The registration for the out-of-state workers runs until Aug. 14, 2007, and eligibility for workers’ comp is indefinite if the worker is registered, NYCOSH adds. A new law, signed in mid-August, waives the two-year statute of limitations for workers’ comp claims in the cases of workers who worked on “The Pile,” at the city morgue, on barges which took tons of debris to the Staten Island landfill, or at the landfill. But the workers must register — even if they aren’t ill now — by the deadline, NYCOSH notes. Recent studies show 70 percent of workers who responded to the attack and who worked afterwards at the site did not develop 9/11-related illnesses until years later.

Unionists from all over the country traveled to New York to help in the rescue-then-cleanup operation in the days after 9/11.

Contact NYCOSH at www.nycosh.org or (212) 227-6440 x23 (English) or x24 (Spanish).

Laborers get to work

With a goal of increasing their membership and market share by 20 percent over the next five years, 1,700 delegates to the Laborers convention voted to commit 25 cents an hour per member to an organizing fund. Areas of concentration for the 700,000-member union include California, Arizona, Nevada, Texas and Colorado as well as the Southern right-to-work states of Georgia, Mississippi, Alabama and the Carolinas.

The union’s plans to grow include expanding its apprentice programs and its outreach to Spanish-speaking workers, including hiring and training of Spanish-speaking organizers.

This Week in Labor is compiled by Roberta Wood (rwood@pww.org). PAI contributed.

Social Security and the November elections

Fri, 29 Sep 2006 06:56:00 +0000

George Bush is getting set for another attempt to raid Social Security by deliberately and falsely connecting the retirement program with the crisis facing health care in the U.S

One of his top priorities for after the November elections is “the unfunded liabilities inherent in Social Security and Medicare.” The president continues, “Baby boomers are retiring, fewer people are paying into the system, and the system is going broke.”

He’s lying about Social Security. The Trust Fund will be able to pay full benefits for the next 40 years.

Medicare is a different story. A separate trust fund pays for Medicare Part A hospital insurance (HI), while Part B and the new drug plan (Part D) are paid for by general revenues and by ever-rising premiums paid by the recipients. The Bush-appointed trustees say the Medicare HI Trust Fund will run out in 2018. Even so, it will not be until 2012 that the reserves are low enough to require that Congress take action.

The administration game plan is to lump Social Security with Medicare and claim there is a crisis with out-of-control “entitlements.” Most of the media plays along, never challenging the administration spin, and running editorials calling for benefit reductions to “save” the programs.

But the real situation is summed up by Dean Baker of the Center for Economic and Policy Research: “Medicare is a big problem because U.S. health care costs are projected to explode, which means that Medicare costs will explode. The moral is fix the health care system. Social Security is not a problem.”

Health care costs an excuse to privatize Social Security

Instead of fixing the health care system, it is clear that the Bush administration, along with Republicans in Congress, is using it as an excuse for a new assault on Social Security. Here’s what they’re trying to do:

• Divert part of payroll taxes into private accounts, providing a potential bonanza for Wall Street fund managers.

• Cut future Social Security benefits. This will allow them to continue using our payroll taxes to pay for the military buildup and tax cuts for the rich.

• Cut spending on Medicare, effectively pushing costs onto patients and health care providers.

The congressional elections this November will be critical. Robert Novak comments in his Inside Report, “If Democrats gain control of the House in this year’s elections, Bush’s tax and Social Security proposals will face a cold reception in the House Ways and Means Committee headed by Rep. Charles Rangel.” Rangel is a progressive Democrat and a member of the Congressional Black Caucus.

November surprise?

After the November elections, Republicans are likely to mount another full-scale campaign to scare Americans into thinking that Social Security is “going broke.” But the real budgetary problems lie with a broken health care system and a huge deficit, caused by military spending and tax breaks for the rich. Instead of changing those disastrous policies, Republicans hope to continue to finance them by “fixing” Social Security on the backs of workers and retirees. Their key tactic is to present problems with healthcare and the budget as an “entitlement” problem. They will then demand that Democrats join in a bipartisan effort to “save” Social Security.

Let’s keep our eyes on the facts.

• Social Security is not in trouble. This year, the Trust Fund will take in $177 billion more than it will spend. It will be able to pay full benefits for far longer than anyone can make accurate predictions. If rich people paid the same payroll taxes as the rest of us, we could actually afford a big increase in benefits.

• Funding Medicare will become increasingly difficult, although it is not an immediate crisis. This problem cannot be solved without a comprehensive, national health care system. The best bet is HR 676, the “Medicare for All” bill, introduced by Rep. John Conyers with 77 co-sponsors. The Republicans have blocked this bill from being heard.

• The U.S. faces a long-term problem with excessive budget deficits. In the future, this could make it difficult to repay the money that the government owes to many creditors, including the Social Security Trust Fund. The administration “solution” is to stiff Social Security. A real solution would be to make the rich and the big corporations pay their taxes, end the war in Iraq, and wind down the military budget.

Houston janitors campaign for justice

Fri, 29 Sep 2006 06:53:00 +0000

In the heart of a $100 billion oil industry, janitors struggle on $106 a week

HOUSTON — Demanding wage increases to $8.50 per hour, more work hours, and access to health care, a convention of 800 janitors voted overwhelmingly Sept. 23 to authorize their SEIU bargaining committee to call the city’s 5,300 union janitors out on strike if necessary. At contract talks on the previous day, the workers formally presented their demands to ABM, OneSource, GCA, Sanitors and Pritchard, the five largest cleaning contractors in Houston.

Houston janitors earn an average wage of $5.30 an hour ($106 a week) and receive no health insurance or other benefits. The Center for Public Policy Priorities estimates that average expenses for a family of four are nearly $700 a week in Houston. The majority of Houston janitors hold down second and third jobs. Compared with janitors in other cities who work for the same companies and are members of SEIU, the Houston workers are the lowest paid in the country.

In Los Angeles and Washington, D.C., janitors make over $10 an hour and can work full-time and have health insurance. Eliseo Medina, international executive vice president of SEIU, told the convention, “Houston, we have a problem!”

Janitor Ercilia Sandoval has been diagnosed with breast cancer and is fighting for her life. Sandoval addressed a Justice for Janitors rally in April 2005 in the midst of the fight for the right to form a union. The janitors were victorious in that struggle, joining SEIU Local 1, but still have no health care coverage.

“This is personal,” she told the Sept. 23 rally. “My daughters may grow up without a mother now because I had no health care, no early detection or timely treatment.” Dramatically taking off her wig to show the effects of her chemotherapy, she declared, “We are not a commodity, we are real human beings. I’m fighting for access to affordable health care for all working families in Houston so no one else has to go through what my family and I are facing now.”

Houston is home to the largest energy corporations in the USA. But 30 percent of the city’s children live in poverty while four of the largest oil companies in Houston made a total of over $100 billion last year, Alana Hill of ACORN noted. It’s hard to believe the office maintenance industry, which made $3 billion last year “can’t afford to do better for our city,” she said.

An impressive coalition joined the action demanding justice for the janitors including U.S. Reps. Sheila Jackson Lee, Gene Green, and Al Green, an array of state representatives, city council members and a county commissioner. Also present were the Communications Workers union, the AFL-CIO, Unite Here, NAACP, CRECEN, ACORN, and the Latino Labor Council.

“There is a need for these people to get support from everybody and every organization in Houston,” Ivonne Moreira, executive director of Young Immigrants for a Better Future, explained. “We want the workers of Houston to get equal rights.”

Avery Cooper, a young African American who works with Houston Organization for Public Employees, told the World, “I’m here to support the labor movement so the janitors can get better working conditions, health benefits and better wages.”

Hungarians call for premiers resignation

Fri, 29 Sep 2006 05:50:00 +0000

After a secret speech by Hungarian Premier Ferenc Gyurcsany, in which he admitted to having lied to Hungarians “morning, noon and night” about the state of the economy, was leaked to the press, Sept. 17, all hell broke loose. The next day, thousands protested in the capital, Budapest, and provincial towns demanding his resignation.

Police used water cannons and tear gas against a group of demonstrators demanding that the Hungarian State Television broadcast their demands, and protesters — many from the far-right — attacked police. Some protesters attacked and seized the television building, but it was later retaken by police. About 200 people were wounded, most of them police. Property damage, according to the Hungarian Communist Workers Party (HCWP), was “very high,” including serious damage to a monument to Soviet heroes who helped liberate Hungary from fascism.

Some 80 percent of Hungarians reportedly opposed the violence.

The right-wing Fidesz Civil Party and the Christian Democrat KDNP opposition parties played a role in the protests.

Gyurcsany’s party, the Hungarian Socialist Party, won the parliamentary elections in April and formed a coalition government with the Party of Free Democrats. The new government headed by Gyurcsany continued the former government’s neoliberal policies and introduced a program of radical economic and political “reforms,” including mass layoffs of state employees, privatization, imposition of new fees for health care and cuts in public services.

As popular discontent mounted, Gyurcsany told party leaders in his confidential speech that they had been “boneheaded” in concealing their program before the elections. “We screwed up. Not a little, a lot,” he said. “We did everything to keep a vital austerity program secret from the country right to the end of the election campaign.” He revealed that the country’s reported budget deficit of 4.7 percent was, in fact, more like 10 percent.

The majority of the people who took to the streets, the Hungarian Communists said, did so “to protest against the neoliberal policy and violation by the prime minister of elementary norms of political morality.” The anti-government demonstrations mean that “people do not want any more lies and manipulations, and they are against a policy which takes away everything from the poor,” the HCWP said. It called for Gyurcsany’s resignation and the convening of a new national assembly to adopt a new constitution.

However, the HCWP noted, “some radical right forces and even extremists used the mass dissatisfaction of people for their own political and personal aims.” As crowds in front of Hungary’s Parliament grew to about 10,000, the HCWP said, “most of the speakers criticized the government and began to demand a new 1956, a new reckoning with ‘Communists.’” This refers to Hungary’s 1956 anticommunist counterrevolution. Of course, Hungary today has a “free-market” capitalist economy, not a socialist one. Gyurcsany, a former member of the communist youth movement, reportedly enriched himself on state assets in the 1990s as capitalist privatization carved up the previously socialist economy.

Today a third of the population lives on or under the poverty line. The huge gap between pre-election promises and post-election policies is fueling much of today’s popular discontent.

“The majority of people are beginning to realize just now what neoliberalism means and it has led to a serious rise of dissatisfaction. At the same time people feel disoriented and manipulated, and that they do not have real possibility to influence the political decisions,” the Hungarian Communist Workers Party said.

Gyurcsany has refused to resign and observers say he may weather the storm.

Local government elections are scheduled for Oct. 1.

Marchers demand freedom of Cuban 5

Fri, 29 Sep 2006 05:45:00 +0000

WASHINGTON — The struggle for the freedom of the Cuban Five reached a new level Sept. 23 when activists from 30 U.S. cities across the nation marched on the White House to demand their release. The march was followed by a public forum at George Washington University.

The five Cuban nationals — Antonio Guerrero, René González, Fernando González, Gerardo Hernández and Ramón Labañino — were arrested by federal agents in 1998 while they were monitoring the activity of right-wing extremists in Miami. The extremists were organizing bombings and other acts of terror against Cuba.

The five men were later convicted of conspiracy-related crimes and sentenced to long prison terms. Their case is being appealed.

The activities were part of the International Days of Action on behalf of the Five. That campaign ends Oct. 6, the 30th anniversary of the bombing of a Cuban airliner by a group that included Orlando Bosch and Luis Posada Carriles. Seventy-three people were killed in the incident.

Posada is currently in U.S. custody on immigration charges. The news that his U.S. handlers may soon set him free outraged the gathering in Washington.

During the march, banners called for U.S. authorities to immediately allow family visits for all five prisoners. After picketing the White House, some 600 demonstrators gathered in Lafayette Park where Andrés Gómez, leader of the Antonio Maceo Brigade in Miami, read out names of those who died in the downed civilian airliner. After each name, listeners intoned “Justicia!” (Justice!).

The forum at the university focused on the history of right-wing terrorism, old and new.

Posada, for example, helped engineer a series of hotel blasts in Havana in 1997, one of which killed Italian tourist Fabio DiCelmo. At the forum his brother Livio DiCelmo spoke of his family’s anguish.

Leonard Weinglass, appeals attorney for Antonio Guerrero, said it was during this time period that the U.S. government betrayed a working agreement with Cuba. Instead of using intelligence provided by the Cuban government, collected by the Cuban Five, to stop the hotel bombings and other plotting, the FBI arrested the five men.

Francisco Letelier recalled the car-bombing assassination of his father, Orlando Letelier, at Sheridan Circle in Washington on Sept. 21, 1976. Luis Posada was implicated in that crime, as well.

Orlando Letelier served as Chile’s foreign minister in the socialist government of Salvador Allende, who was deposed by a CIA-backed coup in 1973. Orlando Letelier’s colleague, Ronni Moffitt, was also killed in the explosion.

Francisco Letelier spoke of similarities in “the tactics of state terror, [whenever] people confront power with truth or take their destiny or their human rights into their own hands.” He likened “the campaign that is being waged against these Five” to the smear campaign launched against his deceased father, killed by Posada and others.

In a moving presentation, Letelier drew the “historical relationship” between the campaign for the Five and “people throughout the Americas pursuing sovereignty, direct liberty, self determination, justice and human rights.”

Weinglass recalled a Miami press conference held just after the demise of socialism in Eastern Europe. At the press conference, right-wing paramilitaries defined Cuba as a war zone, explicitly warning potential tourists that they would be “entering a combat zone.”

That declaration, said Weinglass, figured into Cuba’s decision to send the men now known as the Cuban Five to south Florida. Cuban leaders could no longer tolerate disregard by Washington and the UN of their demands for action against terrorists.

“They [the Five] infiltrated the private groups,” Weinglass said, although they did not obtain “one page of classified information” from the U.S.

Highlighting the political nature of the case, Weinglass outlined the prosecution’s version of conspiracy, which was, in essence, that “although they hadn’t committed espionage, at some unspecified time in the future, they might commit espionage.”

Other presenters included Washington lawyer José Pertierra, who represents Venezuela in its fight to extradite Posada for trial for the airliner bombing; Heidi Boghosian, executive director of the National Lawyers Guild; Gloria La Riva, coordinator of the National Committee to Free the Five; Wayne Smith, former chief of the U.S. Interests Section in Havana; Saul Landau of the Institute for Policy Studies; and Akbar Muhammad of the Nation of Islam.

Sponsors of the action included the National Network on Cuba, National Lawyers Guild, National Committee to Free the Cuban Five, the Communist Party USA, Alianza Martiana and many other groups.

WORLD NOTES

Fri, 29 Sep 2006 05:37:00 +0000

South Africa: Militants step up struggle against AIDS

Meeting in Johannesburg, the Congress of South African Trade Unions (Cosatu) has denounced the government’s handling of the AIDS pandemic that kills 900 people in South Africa every day. Member unions have called on President Thabo Mbeki to remove Health Minister Manto Tshabalala-Msimang from his cabinet. Criticism mounted following her presentation to the World Conference on AIDS in which she emphasized nutrition for treating AIDS instead of antiretroviral drugs, a performance described as “embarrassing” in a report from allafrica.com.

At its congress, Cosatu honored Zackie Achmat, chairperson of South Africa’s militant Treatment Action Campaign. The campaign has recently gained support from 12 large student organizations, including the Young Communist League, which have been attracted by its civil disobedience actions.

Calling for an all-night vigil outside Parliament for access to drug treatment, deputy YCL Secretary Mazibuko Jara reminded the press that, after all, “it is the youth that is most affected with the HIV/AIDS pandemic.”

Philippines: Resistance to human rights abuses

Constancio Claver, activist, victim and physician, testified Sept. 15 at the University of the Philippines in Quezon City at the founding assembly of Hustisya. The name stands for “Victims of Arroyo Regime United for Justice.”

Over 500 human rights activists and victims of government repression joined Claver as he remembered his wife Alyce, killed July 31, allegedly by soldiers. Claver, himself a lifelong activist, declared that “the assassins kill with impunity” and that the government expects that “hopelessness will turn to lethargy and apathy.”

The Karapatan group, one of Hustisya’s founders, claims that 752 political murders and 184 “disappearances” have occurred since 2001 when President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo assumed power. Speakers representing a variety of groups sought support for human rights, especially from the media, and called for international solidarity.

Union activist Amado Inciong took the occasion to accuse Arroyo of heading a “government for and by American imperialism.”

Palestine: Humanitarian crisis intenstifies

On Sept. 20, Israeli soldiers raided over 20 West Bank money-exchange enterprises and confiscated $1.2 million on the pretext that the money was being used to finance terrorism. The Palestinian Authority flatly denied the charge.

Meanwhile Palestinians struggle to survive under mounting hardships. A report from Miftah, a Palestinian group, quoted Bethlehem physician Dr. Isa Janina who, having told a cancer patient, “I am out of medicine,” was facing “the most difficult thing I have ever done as a physician. Both she and I know that this means she will die.”

Funded almost entirely from international sources, the Ministry of Health provided 65 percent of all health care for Palestinians. That money, however, stopped after last January’s Hamas election victory. Government physicians have received no pay for six months.

Haiti: Dealing with crushing debt

The International Monetary Fund announced Sept. 19 that Haiti qualifies for its Heavily Indebted Poor Countries Initiative, which purports to provide a modicum of debt relief. The special terms will also apply to loans from the World Bank.

Brian Concannon Jr., director of the Institute for Justice and Democracy in Haiti, says half of Haiti’s $1.3 billion debt represents borrowing by the three-decade-long Duvalier family dictatorship, which began in the late 1950s, for private armies and luxuries.

According to the Haiti Action Report, two years must elapse before the debt is cancelled entirely. In the interim “structural reforms” are required, along with annual payments of $60 million.

Most Haitians survive on less than a dollar a day. Life expectancy is 53 years.

Rep. Maxine Waters of California has introduced legislation, HR 888, calling for immediate, total cancellation of Haiti’s foreign debt. It has 60 co-sponsors.

South Korea: Protests over U.S. base expansion

When the South Korean government began removing houses in Pyongtaek on Sept. 13 to allow for expansion of a U.S. military base, 18,000 protested. Last January, earth-moving activities at the site prompted a protest march to the U.S. Embassy.

Opponents of the expansion, led by People for Achieving Peace and Reunification of South Korea, say the expansion will destroy valuable agricultural land and desecrate cultural treasures. They also charge the U.S. intends to use the bigger base to enhance its nuclear first-strike capabilities.

The base will be enlarged from 1,125 acres to 3,500 acres, big enough to accommodate 44,500 people, including 14,500 combat troops.

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

Puerto Ricans rally for independence

Fri, 29 Sep 2006 05:28:00 +0000

Thousands of people in Lares, Puerto Rico, lashed out at the United States last weekend while marking the anniversary of the colony’s first call for independence and denouncing the FBI for the shooting death of independence leader Filiberto Ojeda Rios a year ago.

Demonstrators chanted “Yankees go home!” and “FBI killers!” in a reference to the Sept. 23, 2005, killing of Ojeda, who was leader of a pro-independence group called the Macheteros.

“These terrorists, that Yankee empire that wants to instill fear in us, they should know better — we won’t surrender,” Nationalist Party President Rosa Meneses told supporters who massed in Revolution Square in Lares.

The annual event commemorates an 1898 rebellion against Spanish colonial rule.

Last month, U.S. federal investigators said FBI agents were justified in shooting Ojeda, 72, a fugitive who was wanted in connection with a 1983 bank robbery in Connecticut. As recently as last week, FBI agents went to the homes of two Puerto Rican activists as part of an ongoing investigation into the Macheteros.

“If the FBI thought that threats could prevent this plaza from being filled, they were mistaken because here there are thousands of independence supporters,” Puerto Rican Independence Party spokesman Edwin Irizarry Mora remarked.

Protesters tell Blair: Take your wars with you

Fri, 29 Sep 2006 05:27:00 +0000

MANCHESTER, England — Thousands of peace protesters descended on this northern British city last weekend to tell Prime Minister Tony Blair to “take your wars and privatization with you when you go.”

Over 60,000 marchers from across Britain crammed the city center on Sept. 23 to march for peace and against a new generation of Trident nuclear weapons. Protesters encircled the meeting place of the annual Labor Party conference in the afternoon sunshine to cast a cloud of shame over Blair’s foreign and domestic policies.

At one point, the noisy demonstration fell silent as participants staged a great wave of symbolic dying to remember the countless lives lost in Iraq, Afghanistan and Lebanon.

While British and U.S. private security companies and oil tycoons fill their pockets with blood money gained from these wars, speaker after speaker at the Albert Square rally roared, “Enough is enough, Blair and Bush.”

Muslim Association of Britain speaker Sondes Malik condemned the government’s “disgraceful” inaction as Israel killed over 1,000 Lebanese people this summer.

“Britain is led by war criminals and we want justice now,” she added.

Human rights campaigner Bianca Jagger warned: “There is more torture in Iraq now than under Saddam, and many children are starving to death. You cannot export democracy at the barrel of the gun, Mr. Blair.”

Veteran peace campaigner and former MP Tony Benn demanded an end to “this nonsense about the war on terror” and refuted media claims that protests like this were pointless. “I have been on enough marches and seen many movements succeed, such as that against South Africa’s apartheid.”

Stop the War Coalition convener Lindsey German dismissed suggestions that Blair was on his last legs because of internal party bickering, which has intensified in recent months. “It is our movement against his wars which has finished him off,” she insisted. She also had a message for heir apparent Gordon Brown — “change policy or we will be back on the streets.”

Respect Coalition MP George Galloway made the observation that Blair and Brown were “two cheeks of the same arse.” He advised Brown to “cut the embryonic cord connecting us to U.S. foreign policy” or his premiership will be as stormy as his predecessor’s.

Military Families Against the War co-founder Rose Gentle praised Manchester’s “huge” support for the group’s three-day peace camp outside Blair’s luxury hotel. She had a message for the prime minister: “Before you go, do the honorable thing and bring our boys home. Don’t be a poodle — stand up to U.S. warmongering.”

Former air force surgeon Malcolm Kendall-Smith, who was jailed for refusing to go to Iraq, spoke of the “cracks” which are beginning to appear within the army as more and more soldiers wake up to the truth about their mission.

“The facts are clear,” he said. “The U.S. and Britain are the aggressors and responsible for countless deaths. The war is illegal and criminal.”

— Morning Star, UK

Making history in Massachusetts

Fri, 29 Sep 2006 05:21:00 +0000

Deval Patrick won the Massachusetts Democratic primaries Sept. 19 against venture capitalist Chris Gabrieli and State Attorney General Tom Reilly. Patrick, the former assistant attorney general for civil rights in the Clinton administration, may well be on the way to become the first African American governor of this New England state. Patrick overtook the lead from Reilly by meeting and appealing to rank-and-file Democratic Party activists. This produced an upsurge of new activists who, for the first time, ran as delegates to the state party convention, upsetting the regular party establishment.

Whats Really Good

Fri, 29 Sep 2006 05:15:00 +0000

Venezuela’s young communists urge unity

The Young Communists of Venezuela held their 10th national congress Sept. 15-17 to coincide with their 59th anniversary. The gathering included 300 delegates and guests from 100 national and international groups.

A major theme of the congress was strengthening support for President Hugo Chávez and the country’s socialist future. Discussions centered on resolutions issued at the 12th congress of the Communist Party of Venezuela last July, including one that called on communist youth to exert influence on students, workers and all young people in order to raise political awareness.

The communist youth are proposing a national unity movement in support of Chávez’s call to create a single party of revolutionary forces. Carlos Aquino, outgoing general secretary of the group, told reporters that youth have a very important role to play in the socialist process of the country.

Dolores Huerta urges youth to vote

Dolores Huerta, co-founder of the United Farm Workers union, stressed voting, nonviolence and unity to 200 students at the Freemont Federation of High Schools in Oakland, Calif., during a hip-hop-themed event Sept. 20.

“We can’t let people drive wedges between us because we are all one family,” said Huerta, 76, to a diverse crowd of teenagers. “There is only one human race.”

Speaking to reporters, Huerta said, “I see the new civil rights movement emerging. A lot of it’s around the hip-hop movement, among young people, but now it’s more about economic rights.”

Laws passed in the U.S. can cause suffering, she said, and “the only way to have an influence on the laws is to vote.” Youth Together, a multi-ethnic, leadership-building group comprising five East Bay high schools, organized the event. One youth called Huerta a living “civil rights legend.”

Youth launch ‘books not bombs’ campaign

The National Youth and Student Peace Coalition is launching a fall campaign making the link between the massive cuts to public education, higher education, job training, veteran’s benefits and healthcare with the funding for the war in Iraq. NYSPC is calling on all youth to hit the streets and the voting booths to demand “Books Not Bombs,” and is planning educational events, organizing drives and actions nationwide. For more information, e-mail NYSPC ator check out its web site at www.nyspc.org.

Youth voters underrepresented at the polls

Nonpartisan organizations are hoping to educate young voters and change attitudes on a local and national scale in preparation for Nov. 7. The Ad Council is working with the Federal Voting Assistance Program to generate interest and emphasize the importance of voting, especially among college-age citizens.

According to the U.S. Census Bureau, 19.4 percent of 18- to 24-year-olds voted in the 2002 midterm elections, making that demographic the most underrepresented at the polls.

“Our goal is to help create a generation of voters,” said Michelle Hillman, Ad Council vice president.

Tina Post, communications director of the New Voters Project, said her group registered 524,000 young voters in the last presidential elections, making it the largest nonpartisan, youth-motivated movement in history. “The youth vote in America is primed to become an important constituency,” she said. “By 2015, 18- to 35-year olds will represent one-third of the electorate.”

— Pepe Lozano (plozano@pww.org)

Missouri judge strikes down photo ID law

Fri, 29 Sep 2006 05:12:00 +0000

ST. LOUIS — Missouri voters recently won a historic voting rights victory. On Sept. 14 Judge Richard Callahan of the Circuit Court of Cole County in Jefferson City struck down section 115.427 of SB 1014, the Missouri Voter Protection Act (otherwise known as the photo ID law). Callahan called the law unconstitutional.

The state of Missouri, the secretary of state and all local election authorities were ordered by the court to cease implementation and enforcement of the law.

Callahan’s ruling was recently challenged and the Missouri Supreme Court will hear the case Oct. 4. If the high court overturns the ruling, thousands of voters will be left with only a few weeks to apply for a state-issued photo ID.

The disputed section of the law requires voters to show a federal- or state-issued photo ID at the polls. However, over 200,000 Missouri voters lack a state-issued photo ID, such as a driver’s license, including many people of color, the elderly and the disabled.

The law requires voters without a state-issued photo ID to provide proof of identity (e.g. a Social Security card), proof of U.S. citizenship (a birth certificate, passport or certificate of naturalization) and confirmation of residency (e.g. a utility bill or paycheck) in order to apply for one.

If a person’s name has changed because of marriage, divorce or for another reason, that person must also show proof of the change.

While state-issued photo IDs are free, many voters do not have birth certificates or Social Security cards, which cost money to obtain, and may have difficulty navigating state bureaucracies. Other voters, like the homeless, who have no address and usually no documentation, have to jump through even more hurdles in order to vote.

In his written decision, Callahan said the photo ID “constitutes a impermissible additional qualification to vote ... it violates the prohibition on interference with the ‘free exercise of the right of suffrage’ and the requirement that ‘all elections shall be free and open’ ... it requires the payment of money to vote ... [and] it constitutes an undue burden on the fundamental right to vote.”

According to Denise Lieberman, an attorney with the Stetin Law Center, the law places an undue burden on voters by requiring numerous forms of federal or state IDs as well as unfair bureaucratic hurdles. Lieberman told the World the law “improperly disenfranchises voters, especially the poor, the elderly, the disabled, women and people of color. It amounts to a poll tax.”

Burdensome photo ID requirements are being fought in other states, including Arizona, Georgia, Indiana and Michigan. In Arizona, Navajo Indians without government issued photo IDs, may be disenfranchised. In Georgia, a federal judge ruled that photo IDs are not required in the upcoming special elections, but may be required in November. In Indiana the law was upheld. And it is still to be decided if a photo ID law will be implemented in Michigan.

According to Lieberman, photo ID laws send a clear message. “This is a right-wing attempt to legally disenfranchise voters, especially working-class voters. Missouri is a testing ground. They want to dis-empower voters. ‘Don’t bother’: that’s their message.”

Other parts of the Missouri law were upheld. One section requires that all voter registration cards must be turned in seven days from completion. For mass voter registration organizations, like Missouri Progressive-Vote, this creates logistical and organizational nightmares.

National Clips

Fri, 29 Sep 2006 05:10:00 +0000

OXMOOR VALLEY, Ala.: Parents fight for desegregated schools

“If we don’t fight for our kids, no one else will,” was the slogan of over 200 African American parents in this Birmingham suburb. They confronted the Vestavia Hills School Board demanding that a 35-year-old desegregation order be kept in place in the mostly white district.

“You are in for a fight and you better believe it,” Jefferson County Commissioner Shelia Smoot told the board at a community meeting at the Shady Grove Baptist Church.

The desegregation order, issued in 1971, mandates that 25 percent of students in the Vestavia Hills school district be African American. On Sept. 19, the board voted to file ask the federal district court to rescind the order, claiming that the school district was overcrowded and unable to provide desks for students. Vestavia Hills has never met the 25 percent threshold. Currently 7 percent of the student body is African American.

State Sen. Rodger Smitherman, Birmingham City Councilwoman Miriam Witherspoon, the Rev. A.B. Sutton and attorney Theo Lawson also joined parents in supporting retention of the desegregation order.

School board president David Woodruff, after listening to the parents, conceded that opposition to the board’s decision was “fierce.”

SACRAMENTO, Calif.: Bring the Guard home, says Democratic gubernatorial candidate

“I believe this war is wrong for this nation, it is wrong for California, it’s weakened the security of this nation and it’s wounded our conscience and wounded our young men and women,” Democratic gubernatorial candidate Phil Angelides told the Sacramento Bee.

Angelides pledged, “On day one, I will put in a formal request to President Bush to return our Guard units to California. I will go to work to mobilize other governors so that the National Guard can be used once again for its intended purposes, not to prop up the Bush-Cheney-Rumsfeld failed war policy.”

Angelides is challenging Republican Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, who supported the Bush invasion of Iraq.

Six hundred California Guard members are currently deployed in Iraq; 21 have been killed and over 100 have been wounded.

RALEIGH, N.C.: Deputies beat up African American pastor

When the Rev. Robert D. Wise and his wife and daughter left Applebee’s restaurant Aug. 26, they never dreamed Pastor Wise would end up in the hospital and face criminal charges, but that is what happened.

Ronald L. White, president of the South Central-Wake NAACP, said his organization is seeking justice over the vicious beating of the Black minister by three Wake County deputies, apparently over a parking space. “They beat him up real bad,” White said. Wise sustained injuries to his neck, face and chest. He was pepper-sprayed and his 11-year-old daughter was maced.

The three deputies are currently on administrative leave and under investigation by the State Bureau of Investigation over the incident.

“I understand when you’re Black and you’ve been pulled out of a car by two white officers, it’s not going to be pretty,” Wise told reporters.

Although he has not been arrested, Wise has been charged with three counts of assault on a police officer and one count of resisting arrest.

WASHINGTON: GOP culture of corruption taints drug safety, reading programs

Two reports released Sept. 22 indict the Bush administration’s Food and Drug Administration and Education Department for conflict of interest, mismanagement and endangering public safety and our kids’ reading skills.

The U.S. Institute of Medicine, after a two-year study commissioned by the FDA itself, found that the agency responsible for safeguarding prescription medications is in “serious disrepair” and has too many scientists tied to the drug industry. The report called for reform including a moratorium on drug advertising and six-year drug oversight board terms to remove appointments from political cronyism.

Meanwhile, an internal audit by the Education Department’s inspector general found that a $1 billion federal program to improve reading in kindergarten through third-grade was run by staff who steered contracts to favored publishers, including ones that fit the administration’s controversial educational ideas. The inspector general recommended an overhaul of the “Reading First” program, part of the No Child Left Behind law, including removing directors and reviewing the propriety of their contract awards.

The head of the program, Chris Doherty, resigned before the audit was made public, and others have also left. Several, including Doherty, had ties to certain publishers of reading programs, the audit said.

The report cited examples such as Massachusetts, where Doherty questioned reading programs in four school districts, although state education officials approved them. One district refused to switch and lost its federal funding; the other three agreed to change and kept their funding.

NEW ORLEANS: Where’s FEMA? Try the Superdome

While the lights and pizzazz of Monday Night Football entertained a national TV audience, most Big Easy residents who have returned couldn’t watch the first Saints home game since Katrina because they have no electricity.

The Lower Ninth Ward looks as if the storm hit yesterday, not last year. But, to repair the Superdome, according to Sports Illustrated, FEMA spent $115 million, while Louisiana came up with $13 million, a bond issue brought in $41 million and the National Football League kicked in $15 million for a total of $184 million.

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

Calif. ballot props: clean elections, energy

Fri, 29 Sep 2006 05:07:00 +0000

Among 13 propositions on California’s ballot this Nov. 7, two that have attracted particular attention deal with “clean money elections” and incentives for alternative energy.

Under Prop. 89, the California Clean Money and Fair Elections Act of 2006, candidates could qualify for public campaign funding by giving up private fundraising except for a small amount of seed money, and limiting their spending to public funds they are provided. They would show broad public support by gathering signatures and $5 contributions, ranging from 750 donors of $5 for an Assembly candidate to 25,000 $5 donations for a candidate for governor.

Qualified “clean money” candidates would receive public funding on a sliding scale according to the office they seek. Clean money candidates who are being outspent by privately funded candidates could receive extra funding to help level the playing field.

The measure would limit donations to nonparticipating candidates by individuals, corporations, unions, political action committees and donor committees.

It would be funded by raising the corporate tax rate by 0.2 percent — leaving it still below the tax rate of 1980-1996.

The effort to get Prop. 89 on the ballot was spearheaded by the California Nurses Association. Supporters include the California Labor Federation, League of Women Voters, California Common Cause, the National Latino Congress, California Black Chamber of Commerce and Congress of California Seniors. Democratic gubernatorial candidate Phil Angelides has joined Sen. Barbara Boxer, Rep. Barbara Lee and other elected officials in supporting the measure.

Not all organized labor supports Prop. 89 — the California Teachers Association says the measure is poorly crafted, would take funds from education and other needs, and wouldn’t level the playing field.

Prop. 87, the California Clean Energy Initiative, would raise $4 billion through fees on oil extracted in the state to fund incentives to increase the use of wind, solar and other renewable energy sources and to boost the use of motor vehicles running on cleaner, cheaper fuels. It would also fund research on clean energy at California universities.

The oil fees would vary from 1.5 percent to 6 percent, depending on the price of oil, and could not be passed on to the consumer. Funds from Prop. 87 would be overseen by the nonpartisan California Energy Alternatives Program Authority. Once the $4 billion is raised, the fee will end. Supporters point out that oil companies pay billions of dollars in drilling fees in Texas, Louisiana and Alaska, but nearly nothing in California.

Among a long list of backers are the California Labor Federation, the American Lung Association of California, the Apollo Alliance, the Natural Resources Defense Council, Healthy African American Families II and the Latino Urban Forum.

Most of California’s oil is pumped in the Bakersfield area, and the city has the state’s worst air quality. Earlier this month, United Farm Workers co-founder Dolores Huerta and other supporters urged residents of Bakersfield to back the measure, noting that Latinos and working people in general are disproportionately affected by asthma and other health effects of air pollution.