People Before Profit blog

Judge OKs minor fine on terror-sponsor Chiquita

Fri, 28 Sep 2007 04:21:00 +0000

Colombia’s right-wing paramilitaries are terrorists. Washington named them as such in September 2001. But the AUC, as they are known from their Spanish initials, rule the roost in Urabá in northern Colombia. So what should a U.S. corporation have done when much of its annual $4.5 billion income depended upon free rein there?

It was a “difficult dilemma,” declared Fernando Aguirre, head of banana giant Chiquita Corp. Difficult, indeed. The AUC murdered more than 10,000 Colombians over two decades, helping to displace 3 million Colombians and confiscating between 6.2 million and 16.3 million acres of land.

Chiquita ended up paying $1.7 million in 100 installments to terrorists between 1997 and 2004, ostensibly for “protection” against left-wing guerrillas. In 2003, lawyers warned Chiquita executives that U.S. anti-terrorism laws were being violated.

Now Chiquita is off the hook. Federal Judge Royce Lamberth agreed to Chiquita’s proposal to pay $25 million in fines. Federal prosecutors accepted the proposal in March. On Sept. 17, Lambert also relieved Chiquita officials from prosecution, and allowed their identities to remain secret. Chiquita is on probation for five years.

At Colombiajournal.org, analyst Garry Leech makes a comparison. The Danish government charged seven clothing workers with financing terrorism because they had pledged, but not sent, money from T-shirts sales to a FARC radio station. FARC is Colombia’s main left-wing guerilla force. If convicted, the clothing workers face up to seven years in jail.

Colombian prosecutors are not happy. For Justice Minister Carlos Holguin, the plea agreement “gives the idea that impunity can be bought for a few million dollars.” Attorney General Mario Iguaran is considering extradition of responsible Chiquita executives. U.S. State Department official Thomas Shannon said that is allowable.

For former Colombian Attorney General Alfonso Gomez, the principle of reciprocity demands that the 500 Colombians sent to trial in the United States be matched by trials of Chiquita executives in Colombia. U.S. lawyers have launched civil suits on behalf of 173 Colombian victims of Chiquita-sponsored

AUC terror.

The full extent of the company’s crimes is not well known, however. There are reports of a delivery across the Chiquita dock in November 2001 of Israeli rifles and millions of ammunition rounds. But there was more.

Phillip Robertson, writing in the Virginia Quarterly, recounts interviews with an AUC functionary in Uraba designated as “Lorenzo” and with Salvatore Mancuso, a top AUC leader detained under Colombia’s Law of Peace and Justice, under which AUC chieftains confess their crimes in return for reduced

sentences.

Robertson reports that Lorenzo, who helped unload the arms shipment in November 2001, emphasized that “there was not a single shipment but a series of them, and these deliveries occurred at the time when the AUC was taking new territory, killing with impunity, and making millions.”

He learned that Chiquita boats delivering weapons left with bananas and drugs. Lorenzo, who “was there when it happened,” recalled orders that came down from AUC higher-ups: “‘We are going to send this many kilos of drugs and I need this many rifles,” Lorenzo said.

“Without access to the Chiquita port,” Robertson added, “the AUC couldn’t have exported drugs and bought weapons so easily and could not have grown quite so fast.”

The AUC capo Mancuso confirmed this. He “leaned over the desk and said, ‘Phillip, we did it many times. We exchanged drugs for guns. Basically, almost all the arms transactions were made either in drugs or dollars.’”

Robertson says the AUC is “merely a symbiont [a cooperative organism] on the body of a larger corporation that happened to share its interests. It, too, was a kind of corporation. They fed off each other.”

atwhit @megalink.net

Aurora clinic fight continues

Fri, 28 Sep 2007 04:15:00 +0000

AURORA, Ill. — The opening of a Planned Parenthood clinic here was again delayed Sept. 20 after a federal judge denied the organization’s motion that the city of Aurora allow the clinic to open as scheduled.

The judge rejected Planned Parenthood’s arguments that city authorities are keeping the clinic closed because of religious and political pressures. Specifically, Planned Parenthood claimed that the city is overly scrutinizing the permit process because the clinic would provide abortions among its various services.

Steve Trombley, CEO of Planned Parenthood/Chicago Area, said that Planned Parenthood would amend the motion and resubmit it to the court.

Lawyers picked by two city aldermen to review the permit process have been disqualified because of a potential conflict of interest. Their law firm donated money to one of the alderman’s campaigns, and the same alderman recently attended an anti-abortion rally.

At the request of the Aurora City Council, John Barsanti, states attorney for Kane County, began a review of Planned Parenthood’s permit process. The family planning organization had filled out the paperwork on behalf of its subsidiary, Gemini. Foes of Planned Parenthood and other women’s health clinics have seized on that technicality, charging fraud, with the aim of blocking the clinic.

Barsanti’s report is expected Sept. 28 and will likely play a key role in determining the immediate future of the now empty facility, which is fully equipped to provide a wide range of ob-gyn health needs.

LETTERS: Sept. 22

Fri, 21 Sep 2007 05:29:00 +0000

A beseech to impeach

I was against impeachment because once impeachment is put on the table, the possibility for addressing economic needs and war will be overtaken. Then I spoke with several friends who travel the world. They said people there believe that because we elected Bush we support him. My world-traveling friends believe impeachment is a vital message that would change individual and group motivation from attack to cooperation with the U.S. I now agree with Dennis Kucinich and his beseech to impeach Cheney.

June Krebs Philadelphia PA

A progressive bilingual paper. Un periódico progresista bilingüe

I would like to thank Fátima Rojas/Joelle Fishman and the PWW staff for the feature article “New ID card unifies the Elm City/Nuevo carta unifica New Haven.” It’s great to see more bilingual writing in the paper. Especially on an issue as important as the developments in New Haven, Conn., which hopefully will serve as a model for other cities.

We live in a bi- and multi-lingual nation, notwithstanding the slanderous attacks by the right wing on immigrant communities, and we need a bilingual paper to address the challenges facing this nation. I think the PWW/Nuestro Mundo is that paper. I look forward to seeing more of these articles.

Quiero darle las gracias a Joelle Fishman y al PWW por el artículo en las páginas del medio “New ID card Unifies the Elm City” “Nuevo Carnet unifica New Haven”. Es maravilloso ver un artículo bilingüe en el periódico. Especialmente sobre un asunto tan importante como estos nuevos acontecimientos en New Haven que servirá con optimismo como un modelo para otras ciudades. Vivimos en una nación bilingüe, no obstante las calumnias de la ultraderecha contra las comunidades de inmigrantes, y nosotros necesitamos un periódico bilingüe para dirigirnos a los retos que enfrenta a esta nación bilingüe. Pienso que el PWW/Nuestro Mundo es ese periódico. Espero ver más de estos artículos.

Sam Delgado Jersey City NJ

When a terrorist is ‘our terrorist’

“When a terrorist is ‘our terrorist’” (PWW 9/15-21) demonstrates how covert operations may be employed to destabilize a government the U.S. doesn’t like. What caught my eye is that a Marine colonel was to receive the cartridges. Presumably he is the CO of the Marine guard at the U.S. Embassy. It must be a very important embassy because usually only a senior sergeant or low-level officer is in charge of such commands. A colonel in that position makes me wonder if he is really doing something other than security work.

In any case, last I checked, Marine colonels use an M9 pistol as a sidearm and that takes a 9-mm Lugar cartridge, not a 45-caliber bullet. Perhaps, indeed, the cartridges were intended for someone else, and certainly not for gun range “target shooting.”

Al Sargis Oakland CA

What destroyed New Orleans

I rode out Katrina in the same home in which I rode out Hurricane Betsy 40 years earlier. Then the water started to rise. As a “survivor,” I am not so concerned with getting money as I am at getting someone to expose the criminal political responsibility.

I wish I could find someone who would expose the truth behind the flooding of New Orleans, which was caused by graft, not Katrina. As a civic activist I tried to expose the corrupt monster over 10 years before the disaster.

While the Corps of Engineers is certainly culpable, this disaster would never have happened without the gutting of the engineering department of the Sewerage & Water Board. The board lost veteran engineers who knew the soil conditions, and knew that those flimsy, stage-prop floodwalls that the Corps was planning were disasters waiting to happen.

A year before Katrina, people living along the drainage canals complained of salt water seeping into their yards from the canals, killing plants. (When there is little rainfall, the lake becomes more brackish and salt water from the lake backs up into the canals.) To a competent, honest engineer this would be a clear sign that something was dangerously wrong with the levee foundations. But the whole thing was swept under the rug.

This does not mean that the Corps of Engineers is not guilty. Had those sheet pilings been driven to a proper depth, and properly reinforced at the top, even incompetent dredging would not have weakened them enough to collapse.

Edwin Weber Jr. New Orleans LA

When will lies stop?

As I watched the speech by the president last week, I could not help but feel angry at his habitual lying. Supposedly he is bringing some troops back from Iraq because he has taken the “advice” of his general in charge. Since when has he ever listened to any of his generals? Retired Gen. Abizaid has been saying that the strategy of this administration in Iraq will not work, and other retired generals had said the same!

Who does he think he is talking to when he keeps reminding us of the danger of Al-Qaeda in Iraq? Are we a group of children to be constantly reminded? Of course Iraq has become the center of Al-Qaeda because of his strategy. When will these lies stop? Does he have any feelings?

Jad Ghanem Tucson AZ

NATIONAL CLIPS: Sept. 22

Fri, 21 Sep 2007 04:28:00 +0000

WASHINGTON: Thousands march against the war

Congressional hearings on the status/benchmarks of “progress” in Iraq just ended as thousands converged on the capital demanding the president and Congress act to bring U.S. troops home.

Army veteran Justin Cliburn, 25, of Lawton, Okla., marched with a contingent of Iraq veterans, stopping long enough to tell reporters, “We’re occupying a people who do not want us there. We’re here to show that it isn’t just a bunch of old hippies from the ’60s who are against this war.”

Garett Reppenhagen, 32, of Colorado, who was a sniper in Iraq in 2004 and 2005, marched with the same group. “The Iraqi people do not see us as peacemakers. They see us as occupiers and murderers.”

Starting at the White House, the march ended at the Capitol where many staged a “die-in,” lying on the lawn with the names of military personnel killed in Iraq pinned to their shirts. Police took no immediate action until some tried to climb a barricade at the foot of the Capitol steps. Police then pepper-sprayed demonstrators, arresting more than 190.

MILWAUKEE: Workers jam park vs. crackdown on undocumented

Isauro Blas, 41, a construction worker, took a day’s vacation to add his voice to nearly 10,000 people demanding a halt to deportations and “no-match” letters sent to companies from the Social Security Administration saying that Social Security numbers do not match an employee’s name. Immigration and Customs Enforcement then uses these letters as a basis for raids and deportations.

“We all have to lend our support,” said Blas. “I’m an immigrant and we are all paisanos. I want to help families who are here.”

Busy signing up volunteers from the United Steelworkers union Rapid Response program, Douglas Drake, an organizer for the USW, called for unity, saying, “All workers must speak up with one voice and say no to Social Security match.”

A federal judge issued a temporary order blocking the no-match rule. A hearing on the temporary injunction will be held on Oct. 1.

Milwaukee joined 15 other cities hosting rallies to stop the crackdown. “We want to send a message that we want the new rule stopped,” said Christine Neumann-Ortiz, director of Voces de la Frontera, a worker and immigrant rights group that organized the rally. “It would create social and economic crises for millions of workers, documented and undocumented.”

TUSCALOOSA, Ala.: School ‘resegregation’ plan protested

In February 2005, a group of white parents here told the school board that the middle school their children attended was overcrowded and suffered discipline problems. Their children had been bused from a mostly white enclave to an integrated school. The parents demanded a new school in their neighborhood.

In May, the board adopted a rezoning plan over the objections of three board members (two African American and one white), which forced hundreds of Black students to move from the integrated school to all-Black schools. There are 10,000 students in the Tuscaloosa school system.

Black parents and residents jammed school board meetings and are preparing to go into court using the No Child Left Behind (NCLB) law to overturn the rezoning decision. “We’re talking about moving children from good schools to low-performing ones, and that’s illegal,” said Kendra Williams, a hospital worker whose two children were rezoned. “And it’s all about race. It’s as clear as daylight.”

“This is a case study in resegregation,” said Gerald Rosiek, who studied the Tuscaloosa rezoning plan while at the University of Alabama. Rosiek currently teaches at the University of Oregon.

TRENTON, N.J.: State sues over children’s health insurance

With a showdown looming between the president and Congress over enactment of the State Children’s Health Insurance Program (SCHIP), New Jersey Gov. Jon Corzine is taking the Bush administration to court to save health insurance for some 10,000 middle-income children.

Calling the new federal rules “onerous,” Corzine, in a letter, said New Jersey would not obey the new income requirements.

“I am deeply concerned about the devastating impact that this misguided policy will have on our efforts to address the growing problem of the uninsured,” he said.

New Jersey is going to court to restore full funding.

The state also argues that the Bush administration broke the law by imposing the income changes without going through process, which includes public comment.

Under the new rules, 14 states face elimination or drastic cuts in their SCHIP programs.

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

No Child Left Behind proposals spark debate

Fri, 21 Sep 2007 04:23:00 +0000

After a year of public hearings on the No Child Left Behind Act, many education advocates are disappointed because revisions proposed by the House Education and Labor Committee leave the basic complex structure of NCLB unchanged.

The House committee, chaired by Rep. George Miller (D-Calif.), has issued a 435-page discussion draft for the reauthorization of the bill, first passed by Congress in 2001 and signed into law in January 2002.

A first proposal, released Aug. 28, was to reauthorize the core Title I programs covering schools in low-income communities. On Sept. 6, additional proposals addressed teacher quality and professional development, services for English language learners, the Reading First program and a long list of other NCLB programs.

Some proposals attempt to make the law more flexible and less punitive. But critics say the language in the draft is sometimes just as obscure as it was in the original NCLB Act. American Federation of Teachers President Edward J. McElroy said the draft provided more flexibility, but cautioned that it is “very complex and needs serious discussion on what its effect will be in the classroom.”

The 1.2-million-member AFT and the National Education Association with 3.2 million members both strongly object to the draft’s provisions for “pay-for-performance” bonuses tied to students’ standardized test scores.

NEA President Reg Weaver said, “The draft’s pay-for-performance plan (merit pay) undermines educators’ rights to bargain local contracts.” He noted that in some states local unions have negotiated experimental plans that compensate teachers partly based on test results, but these agreements were part of collective bargaining. Weaver also said the draft continues high-stakes standardized testing and fails to ensure tools and resources needed for great public schools for every child.

The NEA has been in the forefront of confronting the Department of Education on the NCLB’s unfunded mandates. From January 2002 when the law was signed until the present, nearly $40 billion promised by Congress has never been appropriated.

The new draft says “unfair funding must be corrected.” It also says that NCLB must ensure that Title I schools are not shortchanged in funding. But it does not spell out what measures will be taken to ensure that schools in poverty areas receive the funding they need. Both the NEA and AFT strongly support ending the achievement gaps that exist between wealthy and poor students, between Black and white students, between special education students and regular education students, between English language learners and those fluent in English, and between disabled students and those without disabilities. The testimonies of union members at their conventions, at NCLB hearings and on their blogs simply say they want fairness, flexibility and adequate funding to do their important jobs.

The draft gives a great deal of attention and dozens of pages to accountability and to closing loopholes in the formula for calculating whether or not a school or a district has made “adequate yearly progress” (AYP). Schools that don’t make AYP are put on a failing list and are subject to being closed, changed to a charter school or privatized. Teachers are pressured to drill students so that they pass or improve their test scores. Some positive changes are suggested in the draft, such as measuring individual student progress rather than groups of students, and using other measures in addition to reading and mathematics. It calls for coordinating state and local testing relating the tests to the actual curriculum used in the classroom. It incorporates into NCLB the TEACH Act, which will help school districts pay competitive salaries to teachers, recruit talented college students into teaching with tuition assistance, and provide bonuses for teachers who transfer to high poverty areas.

President Bush’s education secretary, Margaret Spellings, complained that the draft waters down penalties and gives parents fewer options for “choice” (transfers to charter schools and private schools along with private tutoring).

It will take weeks of discussion and analyzing before a true understanding of the draft is possible. Most involved agree that NCLB reauthorization won’t be an easy task.

phillyrose623 @verizon.net

LETTERS: SEPT. 15

Fri, 14 Sep 2007 08:47:00 +0000

It’s an occupation

It’s very tiresome to keep hearing reference to the so-called “war in Iraq” when there isn’t an actual war in Iraq.

Instead, following the illegal invasion of that ruined, but still sovereign, country, for more than four years U.S. soldiers have been clumsily trying to enforce a foreign military occupation upon Iraq, unable yet to quell the resultant patriotic armed resistance. The ensuing chaos has prompted the deaths of near a million Iraqis, while creating a desperate flight to refuge by millions more now forced to huddle in neighboring countries to escape the carnage.

Our national discourse is highly confused, as politicians debate ghosts and illusions cynically created by our leaders’ dishonest, inaccurate rhetoric. The lazy, lapdog media only amplify this unceasing fog of dangerous misinformation.

Meanwhile, we have lost many of our liberties and even some of our constitutional rights due to a willfully hyped concern over “national security,” a hoary justification all tyrants employ while driving to undermine freedom. And our armed forces have been hijacked for essentially partisan purposes, even as they are eviscerated by the president’s craven quest for some elusive “victory.”

In reality, our troops have been ordered to fight and die in order to assuage Bush’s neurotic vanity and to enable America’s debilitating addiction to Middle East oil.

Cord MacGuire Boulder CO

88 glory years

In Chicago, 88 years ago on Sept. 1, 1919, the Communist Party USA was founded and has been working in America for sweetness and light ever since. Let’s hope it can continue to be an intelligencer of peace and socialism until the whole world is set free!

Kudos for the party that opposes evils and stands for good.

George Gaylord Anaheim CA

Mumia Abu-Jamal legal update

We continue to await a decision from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit, Philadelphia, concerning my client, Mumia Abu-Jamal. This complex case was orally argued before a three-judge panel on May 17, 2007. In my experience of successfully defending a large number of murder cases involving the death penalty, it was a great day.

It is impossible to know what the federal court ruling will be. If the judges follow the law and fairly apply the U.S. Constitution, we will win. One thing is certain: whoever loses will seek a rehearing and petition the U.S. Supreme Court.

I have previously described the different rulings that the federal court could make. Nevertheless some people have recently sent out e-mail containing false information. Contrary to their claim, the federal court cannot impose a sentence of life in prison without parole. Only a jury verdict could result in such an outcome, unless in the event of a penalty reversal the prosecution elected not to seek the death penalty. Likewise the court unfortunately cannot order that Mumia be released, for that would require a new guilt-phase jury trial and a favorable verdict which is certainly our goal. To once more clarify the legal situation, the scenarios of how the U.S. Court of Appeals might rule include:

Grant an entirely new jury trial of the guilt phase;

Order a new jury trial limited to the issue of life or death;

Remand the case back to the U.S. District Court for further proceedings;

Deny all relief.

Racism, fraud and politics are threads that have run through this case since Mumia’s 1981 arrest. The issues in this matter concern the right to a fair trial, the struggle against the death penalty, and the political repression of an outspoken journalist.

Mumia’s objective is a reversal of the murder conviction and death sentence, and the granting of an entirely new trial. At the end of that jury trial, I expect to win and see my client freed so that he can finally go home to his family.

Thank you for your interest in this campaign for human rights.

Robert Bryan San Francisco CA Robert Bryan is lead counsel for Mumia Abu-Jamal.

Labor laws

I’d like to correct this statement in the Sept. 1 This Week in Labor: “It’s no wonder that the battle for the Employee Free Choice Act, which would make harassment of union organizers illegal, continues to go strong.”

Harassment of union organizers is already illegal under the National Labor Relations Act. The EFCA simply adds penalties for engaging in illegal activity, which makes following the law more attractive to scofflaw corporations who are willing to violate the law when it is profitable.

Unfortunately the Employee Free Choice Act is stalled in the Senate, and our “labor friendly” Democratic senators continue to allow Republicans and business lobbyists to characterize the bill as “undemocratic.” Republicans refuse to increase the penalties for violations of the law because the EFCA also makes the currently optional “card check” signature count mandatory, which eliminates government administered “secret ballot” elections.

These senators could stop talking about upholding “labor rights” and actually enforce them, by compromising and adding the much-needed penalties for the existing law and keeping the contentious mandatory “card check” procedure as optional.

If the Republicans insist on maintaining a “big government” program to administer a superfluous secret ballot election, then let them. But with proper penalties to enforce the law, and additional funding of the National Labor Relations Board to conduct secret ballot elections in a timely manner, the effect of the Employee Free Choice Act would be the same, allowing employees a fair opportunity to choose to organize.

Of course, the Republicans might also oppose enforcing current labor laws, but unless the Democrats propose the compromise how would we know? Until the Democrats lead, they merely support the status quo of corporate illegal activity, which harms all Americans, whether they are in a union or not.

John Rose Larkfield CA John Rose is president of Liberty Cookies, Inc.

NATIONAL CLIPS: Sept. 15

Fri, 14 Sep 2007 07:15:00 +0000

ALBUQUERQUE, N.M.: Students say bring troops home, fund human needs

Meetings of the University of New Mexico’s Graduate and Professional Student Association (GPSA) are usually staid affairs. That changed when state Sen. Gerald Ortiz y Pino and City Councilor Isaac Benton urged student representatives from all the professional schools, including engineering, medicine and law, to speak their minds on the Iraq war and occupation.

Speak they did, passing a resolution calling on Congress to bring the troops home and to fully fund their higher education and health care needs.

“The billions of dollars being squandered in Iraq could be much better spent making the campus safer and more family friendly and providing health care and affordable housing to students,” said GPSA President Joseph J. Garcia.

The professional schools at UNM do not represent the racial and gender diversity of the state, Garcia said. Instead of using tax money to fund war, he said, the money should “go towards more financial aid for aspiring graduate students from traditionally excluded backgrounds.”

HUNTINGTON, Utah: Coal miners mourned, gov’t inquiries begin

The Crandall Canyon Mine is a sacred place for the mining communities of Carbon and Emery counties in central Utah.

On Aug. 6, the mine collapsed, trapping six miners nearly 2,000 feet beneath the surface of a mountaintop. Days later, two miners and a federal mine inspector died trying to rescue the men.

On Sept. 9, over a thousand family members, miners, friends and neighbors gathered on the junior high school field to say goodbye to miners Kerry Allred, Don Erickson, Brandon Phillips, Jose Luis Hernandez, Carlos Payan and Manuel Sanchez, and to rescuers Brandon Kimber, Dale Black and Gary L. Jensen. The bodies of the original six miners have not been recovered.

Gov. Jon Huntsman paid homage to the deceased miners and their communities, who united “regardless of religious affiliation, regardless of country of origin.” In the wake of the deadly mining practices of Murray Energy Corp., owner of the mine, “our community and our state have been left hurting,” Huntsman said.

Rep. Jim Matheson (D-Utah) delivered a unanimous resolution of condolence from Congress. He said he remains unconvinced that the miners’ bodies should remain entombed in “that damaged tunnel as their final resting place.”

Meanwhile, congressional hearings on the collapse of the nonunion mine began Sept. 7. Although the Senate panel requested that mine owner Robert Murray appear before it, Murray declined to do so.

Mine Safety and Health Administration head Richard Stickler, a former coal operator, did testify at the hearing, but said only that the technology to locate the trapped miners does not exist. That claim is disputed by mining engineers and by the United Mine Workers union.

Meanwhile, the first-ever Utah commission of inquiry, which includes representatives of the union, has also begun work.

CORAL GABLES, Fla.: Dems debate on Spanish TV, GOP bows out

The first-ever presidential debate focusing on issues in the Latino community, broadcast in Spanish, took place on Sept. 9.

Univision, the largest national Spanish-language television network, beamed the positions of seven of the eight Democratic Party candidates into the homes of 47 million Latinos. The Iraq war and immigration issues dominated the debate.

Jorge Ramos and Maria Elena Salinas posed questions in Spanish and candidates, two of whom speak fluent Spanish, heard a simultaneous translation through an earpiece. All responses were in English, again simultaneously translated into Spanish. English-speaking viewers read responses by closed captions on their TV screens.

Latinos have a new voice in the Democratic nomination process, with Nevada holding an early caucus on Feb. 5 and Florida, breaking party rules, moving its primary up to Jan. 29.

In 2004, Bush won 40 percent of the Latino vote and Kerry garnered 52 percent, down from the 62 percent Gore got in 2000.

Although Univision scheduled a Republican debate for Sept. 16, only Arizona Sen. John McCain agreed to participate. The debate has been canceled. Most Republican candidates also ignored invitations to attend the conferences of the National Association of Latin Elected Officials and the National Council of La Raza.

WASHINGTON: Civil liberties groups hail two rulings

The Bush administration responded to the 9/11 attacks by bulldozing Congress into enacting the repressive USA Patriot Act. For five years, the American Civil Liberties Union and other groups have been fighting an uphill battle in the courts to restore the Bill of Rights.

On Sept. 5, U.S. District Judge Henry Kennedy rejected the government’s broad claims of secrecy in its refusal to make public documents involving the National Security Agency’s (NSA) warrantless wiretapping program.

“[The] ruling deals a blow to the administration’s sweeping and often unfounded secrecy claims,” said Nasrina Bargzie, an attorney with the ACLU’s National Security Project.

The next day, another federal district judge, Victor Marrero, struck down a key section of the Patriot Act, the one that allows the FBI to secretly seize personal records about customers from Internet service providers, phone companies, libraries, banks and other businesses. The government has 90 days to appeal.

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

James E. Jackson dies

Fri, 07 Sep 2007 08:46:00 +0000

The staff of the People’s Weekly World was deeply saddened to learn of the death of Dr. James E. Jackson last weekend in New York. Jackson was editor of our predecessor paper, The Worker, during the difficult period of the 1960s. We will run a full obituary in an upcoming issue. Our deepest sympathy goes out to his widow Esther.

Film salutes Peggy Lipschutz

Fri, 07 Sep 2007 08:38:00 +0000

“Never Turning Back: The World of Peggy Lipschutz” is a film about 88-year-old artist and political activist Peggy Lipschutz of Evanston, Ill.

Lipschutz and her “chalk talks,” sometimes called “Songs You Can See,” have been part of the many struggles of Chicago’s labor, antiwar and civil rights movements since the 1960s. Her illustrations have become synonymous with messages of worker unity, democracy and the fight for justice.

The goal of this new film, currently in production, is to celebrate the life and work of this unique woman and reveal her lifelong commitment to art and social change as an inspiration for the next generation.

The film will cost approximately $50,000 to finish. The filmmakers are approaching both individuals and foundations to help bring Lipschutz’s story to life. They have raised approximately half of the needed funds and need an additional $25,000.

If you would like to make a contribution to this project, mail a check payable to The Collected Image, 806 Monroe St., Evanston IL 60202. Contributions of $500 or more will receive a 13-by-19 inch signed, limited edition print of Lipschutz’s “The Common People.”

For additional information, contact Jerri Zbiral, producer/director, (847) 328-6994 or jerri @thecollectedimage.com.

To read Susan Webb’s feature: The World of Peggy Lipschutz: Women, workers, angels — soul of her purposeful art, click here .

LETTERS: Sept. 8

Fri, 07 Sep 2007 08:08:00 +0000

Great Labor Day quote

I was pleased to receive your Labor Day greetings (“How wealth is created,” editorial, PWW 9/1-7). The quote you started with is one of my absolute favorites, perhaps second only to Eugene Debs’ “As long as there’s a lower class, I’m in it ...” I use Lincoln’s “labor quote” at the end of my poem “Soylent Greed” to further illustrate my point.

Soylent Greed

I stand with the “Little Man” upon whose back the balance of America stands, whose blood, sweat, tears and humiliation are the raw materials used to create the Wealth of Nations. Money cannot plant or reap, drive steel, make cars, sew clothes, kill meat. Products do not assemble themselves at the whim of those with the means to invest in them. Vast fortunes cannot be amassed by any single man. Workers are the engine that generate the profit that one, alone, never can. But the engine of industry operates by consuming human “resources” — people — the collateral damage of unregulated capitalism and is considered a necessary evil by those who feed on their fellow men via gluttonous economic cannibalism yet have the nerve to proclaim themselves shining examples of American entrepreneurism. “Labor is prior to, and independent of, capital. Capital is only the fruit of labor, and could never have existed if labor had not first existed. Labor is superior to capital, and deserves much the higher consideration.” — A. Lincoln

Thank you again for your greetings. Labor Day greetings to you also.

Vi Ransel New York NY

Nursing home reform

In the “Letters” section of the Labor Day issue (PWW 9/1-7) was a letter concerning health care reform by a writer from Houston who indicated he was searching for a union entity trying to unionize nursing home workers in Texas.

My wife works in the health care industry as well and has also complained of the very issues which concern the letter writer. Many of the organizations my wife has worked for as a CNA/CMA have repeatedly failed state and federal health inspections. There have been numerous occurrences of theft and mistreatment of elderly residents that have gone unnoticed or have been deliberately ignored. We, as a working-class family, share in the letter writer’s concerns.

As a member of HCWA/USW Local 11228, I wish to relate that the USW helps health care workers to organize under the Health Care Workers Council. According to the USW web site (www.uswa.org), the Health Care Workers Council offers education and training, research and wage analysis, assistance for collective bargaining and contract campaigns, and excellent communication.

I hope that this information is useful to health care workers willing to organize.

Mike Linaweaver McPherson KS

End poverty!

Is the South Asia monsoon a harbinger of things to come and will we be ready the next time around? The perennial monsoon floods that have devastated parts of Bangladesh, India and Nepal are said to be the worst in 30 years. The death toll has surpassed 2,200. Meanwhile, the event made over 20 million people homeless and has resulted in massive crop failure — ensuring hunger, poverty and homelessness for millions of men, women and children in South Asia for some time to come.

The related flooding is particularly dangerous for children. With many completely cut off from clean water, ingesting floodwater laden with assorted kinds of contaminants is unavoidable. It has resulted in widespread diarrhea. Diarrhea is one of the most deadly and common killers of poor people, especially the young ones.

The monsoon season goes through September and more flooding is expected.

All considered, this year’s flood could and should be a wake up call. With global warming now an obvious reality and the gradual melt of the Himalayas happening, the displacement of people, caused by rising waters, is more difficult than ever with which to deal. Therefore, governments not preparing for it can only be construed as cruel, selfish or foolhardy.

Meanwhile, the United States, as the richest and most developed country in the world, has a moral and humanitarian obligation to help the poor regions of the world. As such, the U.S. should scrap its “war on terror” and its militarism that only benefits the arms industry, while solely representing attempts to control oil and other resources outside of the U.S. The war on terror should be replaced with a Global War on Poverty.

Brian McAfee Muskegon MI

Free Jena 6 actions

On Sept. 20, we expect more than 2,000 ColorOfChange members to come to Jena, La., to protest the sentencing of Mychal Bell, the first of the Jena 6 to be convicted. We’re organizing a national Day of Action for that day, so you can help take the rally, and the issue, beyond Jena and into communities all across the country. The first step is to get a “Free the Jena 6” T-shirt to wear, at www.colorofchange.org.

Over 130,000 Color-OfChange.org members have taken action on behalf of the Jena 6 so far. Tens of thousands of you wearing these shirts on the 20th will be an action in itself, but there will be more that you can do.

Closer to the 20th, we’ll be providing flyers that you can download and hand out to people who ask about your shirt; you can also post them in local businesses, cafes and other places. Building word-of-mouth awareness is critical; it’s the reason so many of you have already taken action and why more people join this fight every day.

On the Day of Action, we’ll also ask you to flood Louisiana state officials and agencies — particularly those who care about the state’s reputation and who have influence on the governor — with phone calls. And we will publicize not only the action happening in Jena, but the local actions you take, broadening the coverage, and making it clear that there’s national support for these young men.

Again, thank you again for working to support the Jena 6. Together, we will make a difference.

ColorOfChange.org team Via e-mail

Western Sahara continues decolonization talks

Fri, 07 Sep 2007 05:53:00 +0000

More than 50 years after the United Nations vowed to ensure the right to self-determination for every occupied territory, Western Sahara is still fighting for its independence.

The current struggle began in early 1970s, when the Polisario Front formed to fight against the country’s Spanish colonizers. Two years later, neighboring Morocco invaded Western Sahara under the auspices of assisting the liberation effort.

When the Polisario Front, aided by Morocco, compelled the Spanish to withdraw in 1976, Morocco stayed in the region and declared itself administrator of Western Sahara. Rejecting this, Polisario declared an independent Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic. They have been fighting for self-determination ever since.

Since a UN-monitored cease-fire between Morocco and Polisario began in 1991, Western Sahara’s struggle for independence has moved into the diplomatic sphere. The latest talks took place Aug. 10-11 in Manhasset, N.Y. Delegations from the Polisario Front, Morocco, and neighboring Mauritania and Algeria discussed their latest proposals in the presence of UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon’s personal envoy for Western Sahara, Peter van Walsum.

The Moroccan delegation offered an autonomy plan it called an honorable paix des braves — or peace of the brave — similar to a proposal France offered its former colony Algeria during the Algerian War of Independence. Polisario delegation head Mahfud Ali Beiba rejected the proposal, saying that under the UN-monitored cease-fire, elections are required among the Saharawi people to determine their desired form of political administration.

Beiba said “the so-called autonomy” proposed by Morocco could only be one option, along with full independence.

Polisario also objected to Morocco’s continued abuses in the occupied territories, listing frequent occurrences of “practices of torture, arbitrary detention, abduction, unfair trials and forced disappearance.” Morocco has also built a sand separation wall on the border of the disputed territory, complete with landmines and other anti-personnel measures.

Despite Morocco’s participation in the UN-brokered discussions, its king, Mohammed VI, continues to insist that Western Sahara will receive “autonomy and nothing but autonomy.”

On Aug. 9, 27 U.S. congresspersons, including Sens. Edward Kennedy (D-Mass.), Russ Feingold (D-Wis.) and Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.), wrote to President Bush expressing opposition to U.S. support for the autonomy plan. They said such a policy “is deeply disturbing,” and that “denying the Sahrawi ... the right to self-determination would subvert our broad-based efforts to bring greater tolerance and stability to the Maghreb Region.”

While both the Moroccan and Polisario delegations said the latest talks were fruitful, the lack of consensus continues.

UN Security Council Resolution 1754 (2007) calls for a referendum “which will provide for the self-determination of the people of Western Sahara.” The current negotiations are still working to fulfill that mandate. The Polisario Front has agreed to accept the outcome of such a referendum, be it autonomy under Moroccan rule or complete independence.

All that remains, Polisario’s Beiba says, is for the Moroccan delegation to accept a “free and fair referendum on self-determination” to allow the people of Western Sahara to end one of the world’s last remaining cases of colonialism and determine their own future.

maryslosson @gmail.com

NATIONAL CLIPS: Sept. 8

Fri, 07 Sep 2007 05:31:00 +0000

SACRAMENTO, Calif.: Voters have chance to speak on war

State representatives and senators voted to place withdrawal from Iraq before California voters on the Feb. 5, 2008, presidential primary ballot. Voters would be the first in the country to speak up statewide on the Iraq war.

The bill, SB 924, now sits on Republican Gov. Arnold Schwartzenegger’s desk. If he signs the bill or does nothing, voters get the chance to vote on ending the “occupation and achieve the immediate, complete, safe and orderly withdrawal of United States forces” and that the United States provide “diplomatic and nonmilitary assistance to promote peace and stability in Iraq and in the Middle East.” If he vetoes it, the measure goes back to the State Assembly, muzzling Californians.

Over 3,700 U.S. service personnel have been killed in Iraq since the 2003 invasion, including more than 400 from California. Over 800 members of the state’s National Guard are serving next to thousands of Californians who are in the regular military.

“Your statements urging an end to the war garnered national attention,” the measure’s sponsor, Senate President Pro Tem Don Perata, wrote in a letter to Schwarzenegger. “Regrettably, the voices of everyday Californians — mothers and fathers, husbands and wives, sons and daughters of soldiers serving in Iraq — aren’t being heard. Ignore the politics, trust the people.”

SEATTLE: Going condo crazy

“I love this country. I’m not against capitalism and I’m not against free enterprise,” said Loch Vista resident Tad Van Patten. Loch Vista is a large, privately owned apartment complex, home to many of the city’s artists. “But I’m getting the impression that the land of opportunity is turning into the land of unbridled savagery.”

Van Patten and 200 of his neighbors are facing the sale of the complex to a developer who plans to convert apartments into condominiums, driving out medium- to low-wage workers.

Miko Robertson, 28, pays $760 a month for a one-bedroom apartment at Loch Vista and makes a monthly payment on her student loans. She believes, as most residents, that the developer will charge $250,000 per condo. She and many Loch Vista renters are appealing to the city to buy the complex. “I was hoping to live here for a very long time,” she said. “I don’t think the city should be forcing us to live above our means.”

Residents have met with city officials who agreed to try to find the money to buy Loch Vista.

In 2006, 2,300 apartments were converted into condominiums, more than five times the number in 2004. So far this year, developers have changed 1,500 rental units to condos.

DICKSON, Tenn.: Environmental racism on Senate stage

For three generations Shelia Holt-Orsted’s family owned a 150-acre farm near Dickson, Tenn., a predominately African American town. The family’s wells were poisoned by a leaky landfill, located 54 feet from their property.

When her father Harry died of cancer in January, just the most recent death in what scientists have called a “cancer cluster,” Holt-Orsted had enough. Despite federal and state officials telling the family that their land and water were safe, Holt-Orsted took action. She organized her neighbors and wrote articles and letters that were picked up by many, including Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton.

At Sen. Clinton’s invitation, Holt Orsted testified before the first ever Senate hearing on environmental racism in late August. It realized her father’s dream that the federal government needs to take action and not ignore African American and other communities of color around the country.

In response to a 1988 study, “Toxic Waste and Race in the United States,” then President Bill Clinton ordered the EPA to focus on African American and other minority communities suffering from deadly corporate or governmental pollution. This order halted with the election of Bush.

“Getting the government to respond to the environmental and health concerns of low-income people and people of color communities has been an uphill struggle long before the world witnessed the disastrous Hurricane Katrina response two years ago,” Dr. Robert Bullard of Clark Atlanta University told the Senate committee, urging that President Clinton’s Executive Order 12898 become law. “It should not be at the whim of whether an administration wants to do or not.”

DURHAM, N.C.: Woman named to lead top medical school

While women have reached near equity in admittance into medical school, the glass ceiling of running the school has been firmly in place until now. Nancy Andrews, M.D., Ph.D., has been named dean of the Duke University School of Medicine, named one of the top five in the country.

According to the Association of American Medical Colleges, in 2005 women comprised 49.5 percent of total enrollment in medical schools but only 14 percent of the teachers. In 1990, only 1 woman served as dean of a medical school. By 2000, that number limped to six.

Andrews told National Public Radio that she is looking forward to the day when such an appointment does not make the news because the glass ceiling had been shattered.

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