People Before Profit blog

A “conservative solution to inequality,” or, what they really think

Tue, 31 Jan 2012 14:07:00 +0000

Last week's Newsweek magazine contained a truly amazing piece ("Rich America, Poor America," Niall Ferguson, 1/23/12). Billed as a "conservative historian's solution" to the issue of growing inequality in our nation, this piece stands out not because of any true "solution" that is offered, but for the real peek at how the wealthy actually look at us and the world they live in.

The cause of inequality isn't seen by most of us as a great mystery - most might point to the capitalist class structure of our nation and the ongoing class struggle. There, according to Ferguson, is where you'd be wrong! He approvingly quotes the book "Coming Apart," by Charles Murray, declaring that the rising inequality has its source in the fact that the upper class has gotten rich because of the "financial returns on brainpower," and they "produce a disproportionate number of the smartest children."

If that formulation just slapped you in the face with its open arrogance, Ferguson is just getting started.

Ferguson, in touting "Coming Apart," speaks of America as "two emblematic communities." The first is "Belmont, where everyone has a degree" and the other "Fishtown, or Trashtown." Give you just one guess where it is that you, I, and all our neighbors, friends and families live? Righto! Trashtown, where according to Ferguson/Murray, "industriousness has plummeted." That is opposed to wonderful Belmont, his fictional ruling class community, where "industriousness has scarcely declined!" Not only this, but, of course, "crime is much worse in Fishtown," due, again of course, to the fact that "religiosity has declined much more steeply in Fishtown/Trashtown."

"Fishtown/Trashtown is a wretched dump", says Ferguson, "the kind of blighted place where gangs of feral teens hang around on the street corner trying to figure out what part of the local infrastructure they hadn't yet vandalized!"

According to Ferguson and Murray, in our American "Belmonts" these new "cognitive elites," (I suppose as oppose to the non-cognitive ones), live in "SuperZips" and are "markedly more liberal than the national average." Ferguson offers no more support for this absurd proposition than for any of his other equally ridiculous conclusions.

In Ferguson's America, we "need to steer clear of Europe" and should "scrap the institutions of the New Deal and the Great Society," instead depending on the "traditional pillars of the American way of life: family, vocation, community and faith."

His "solution," of course, is none at all! New Deal and Great Society are rich folks' code for Social Security and Medicare - the most successful national programs in our nation's history, which have pulled seniors out of poverty, never missed a payment and have provided much-needed health care to millions. According to Ferguson, we should just take the leap and replace those pillars of American retiree security and working class prosperity with "faith." Just try to buy groceries with that one!

This article is outrageous not due to any "solution" offered. There is nothing new here. It is truly amazing because of the outright open ruling class arrogance presented. Rarely, if ever, do we get a peek at the true life-view, the real and open arrogance, through which the wealthy view the world, the actual contempt in which the rest of us, those who do the work, are truly held by these wealthy parasites. For this, Ferguson is owed a real debt of gratitude for letting us look, if even just for a minute, behind the curtain of hypocrisy that normally covers their true feelings.

Ferguson closes by urging his guy, Mitt Romney, to read "Coming Apart" (before his campaign comes apart). I was going to say that Romney wrote that book, but the truth is he paid someone to write it, then fired them!

Progressive SuperPAC targets Tea Party Republicans

Tue, 31 Jan 2012 12:13:00 +0000

The SuperPAC, a form of political committee that has served the political interests of the wealthy, is being turned on its head by the CREDO SuperPAC's Take Down the Tea Party Ten campaign. The operation is targeting Rep. Chip Cravaack (R-Minn.) and other Tea Party Republicans, with the goal of retiring some of Congress' worst members.

CREDO Mobile is a progressive San Francisco, Calif.-based phone service company, which has raised over $65 million for nonprofit organizations including GreenPeace, Planned Parenthood, and Democracy Now, and which lets its customers vote on these types of groups.

The company announced Jan. 30 the first six candidates their campaign will target. One of them is Cravaack, who represents Minnesota's 8th district - one of ten districts in which Tea Party Republicans are considered most vulnerable in the 2012 elections. The SuperPAC will gather progressive activists to organize in these districts, and online as well.

The plan is to open a field office in each of these districts and join forces with local constituents and organizers to mobilize voters and highlight the worst stances and viewpoints of the Tea Party incumbents, who CREDO refers to as "unfit to serve."

"We're talking about some of the most odious members of Congress," said Campaign Manager Matthew "Mudcat" Arnold. "Even for Republicans, these guys are low. We're going to empower local activists to organize their friends and neighbors to lay out the truth about their representatives in the most basic terms: They are anti-woman. They are anti-science. They are hypocritical, bigoted, and have said and done things that are downright crazy.

"They've done more to embarrass their constituents than they have to govern or work toward solutions. They are unfit for Congress, and we're going to help their constituents hold them accountable."

One such hypocrite may be Cravaack, who claims to support "life, marriage, and family" as "gifts from our loving God," and yet tried to stop Planned Parenthood from funding womens' health services. Cravaack has claimed that his values and those of the Tea Party are one and the same, though he did not join the Tea Party Caucus. And after being elected, rather than have his family live in the state he was representing, Cravaack moved them to New Hampshire.

Other campaign targets are Rep. Sean Duffy (R-Wis.), Rep. Steve King (R-Ind.), Rep. Allen West (R-Fla.), Rep. Joe Walsh (R-Ill), and Rep. Frank Guinta (R-N.H.). Another slate of candidates, moreover, will be selected with input from members and subscribers of CREDO.

CREDO's SuperPAC is unlike any used to support rich Republican candidates; it will "put power back in the hands of the people," according to its president, Becky Bond, "instead of consolidating it in the hands of corporate executives and the ultra-wealthy."

This progressive SuperPAC is being backed by money the company aims to raise with volunteer-driven rallies, petition drives, and door knocking, Bond noted. The SuperPAC will be able to receive unlimited donations.

"Where Karl Rove and the Koch brothers can use shady money from a few hidden donors to fund a barrage of TV attack ads," she said, "this SuperPAC will empower local voters and our list of 2.5 million activists to build a grassroots campaign that is as hard-hitting as it is progressive.

"Using innovative tactics, technology, and good old-fashioned grassroots organizing, we're going to kick Tea Party Republican Chip Cravaack out of office."

Photo: Chip Cravaack, R-Minn. is one of the targets of CREDO SuperPAC's Take Down the Tea Party Ten campaign. Steve Kuchera/AP Photos/The Duluth News-Tribune

Oakland police arrest hundreds of Occupy protesters

Mon, 30 Jan 2012 14:29:00 +0000

OAKLAND, Calif. - Police arrested some 400 demonstrators Jan. 28 in response to the latest attempt by Occupy Oakland activists to occupy a vacant building and establish a new encampment there.

Supporters said during an action they called "Move-In Day," a crowd of between 1,000 and 2,000 demonstrators marched to the Henry J. Kaiser Convention Center, near downtown, intent on turning the long-vacant building into a new encampment and social center. There they were met by police in riot gear.

Oakland police said the crowd was ordered to disperse when some protesters started destroying construction equipment and fencing. Police said they responded with tear gas and beanbag projectiles after protesters threw bottles, rocks and other objects at them. Protesters said police also used rubber coated bullets and concussion grenades.

Marchers then converged on a downtown park, and, ordered to disperse there, ended up at a YMCA on the edge of downtown, where many of the arrests took place.

The protest's final stop was City Hall, where some demonstrators broke in, cutting electrical wires, smashing glass cases holding a children's art display, and burning a U.S. flag.

Police said three officers, and one protester, were injured - a claim disputed by the protesters.

It was the first such action since an attempted building occupation failed early in November, after being met with concerted police action. Occupy Oakland's original encampment in front of City Hall was violently evicted Oct. 25, and peacefully removed a second time Nov. 14.

On Nov. 2 and again on Dec. 12, the Port of Oakland was shut down by protests.

Earlier in the week, Occupy Oakland had warned Mayor Jean Quan, the police and the City Council they planned to take over a building on Jan. 28, to serve as a "social center, convergence center, headquarters, free kitchen, and place of housing." Though they did not specifically name the Kaiser Center, discussion had focused for weeks on the likelihood of a takeover attempt there.

Occupy Oakland had also threatened that if thwarted, it would consider "occupying City Hall indefinitely," shutting down the Port of Oakland including the airport, and calling on the hacker group Anonymous for support.

Speaking on radio station KPFA the next day, Maria, an Occupy participant who didn't give her last name, challenged the contention that the attempted occupation was illegal. She pointed out that "thousands of abandoned buildings remain locked up while people are freezing and sleeping in the streets every night ... abandoned buildings, and people sleeping on the streets at night, is an example of what's wrong with our larger system, the capitalist system we live under today."

Maria added that "the purpose of police in this society is to protect the sacrosanct institution of private property at the expense of people meeting their needs."

But others have pointed to the estimated $5 million the protests have cost the city at a time when its budget woes are already so severe that city workers, many of whom are people of color, are losing their jobs.

Inspecting the damage at City hall, Mayor Jean Quan called on community members and Occupy participants to "stop making excuses for this behavior," and urged the Occupy movement to "stop using Oakland as its playground."

Some Occupy activists, meanwhile, threatened to sue the police, contending their arrests were illegal because no order was issued to disperse.

On Jan. 20, Occupy Oakland joined other Bay Area Occupy protesters and other movements in a nationwide day of action initiated by Occupy Wall St. and Move to Amend, to shut down San Francisco's financial district. The daylong nonviolent demonstration used a variety of creative means, including blocking Wells Fargo's headquarters, holding a "foreclosure party," invading Bechtel Corp.'s lobby to read a list of charges, and staging a "squid fry" at Goldman Sachs headquarters

Photo: Nov. 2, 2011, at Occupy Oakland's geneal strike mass day of action. People's World

Food safety watchdog says poultry guidelines don't go far enough

Mon, 30 Jan 2012 11:06:00 +0000

A new set of guidelines proposed by the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) is a welcome development but does not take enough steps to reduce bacteria levels, a consumer advocates' group has said. In a press release put out last Friday the Center for Science in the Public Interest, a Washington, D.C.-based nonprofit sometimes described as the nation's food police, executive director Michael Jacobson said that while the proposal "would the first major overhaul in over fifty years" it should be modified to bring down the levels of the bacteria groups salmonella and campylobacter in chicken and turkey.

"Part of the proposal would have all poultry facilities monitor for pathogens both before and after chilling the poultry, which would give companies a real-time view of conditions in their facilities," Jacobson said. "In some plants, company inspectors would check for quality defects, like bruises and sores, enabling USDA to reduce the number of its inspectors checking every carcass. Visual inspection cannot detect food borne pathogens."

Campylobacter is a bacteria group that includes a species widely recognized as one of the major causes of food-related illness in developed countries, but more than ten others can also cause or contribute to disease in humans. Campylobacter infections in humans are contagious and can be caused by ingesting raw meat or making contact with contaminated food, water or fecal matter, while they can also lead to spontaneous abortions in pregnant livestock.

While less familiar than salmonella, campylobacter causes several times more illness and death, sickening "two to four million people" in the United States each year, out of which 120 to 360 die, according to the poultry section of CSPI's Food Safety Guide. The guide largely blames current processing methods: individual birds, it says, are washed together and stripped of their feathers by mechanical rubber "fingers" that introduce bacteria, which becomes trapped once the birds are chilled
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Long associated with eating contaminated chicken eggs, contact with reptiles has also been recently associated with salmonella infection. And while rates appear to be declining, salmonella-related disease and death remain persistent and preventable - a 16 year review in the journal Foodborne Pathogens and Diseases found that about 1300 Americans were killed by the infection, with senior citizens hit particularly hard.

Announcing the proposed changes on Friday, the USDA's Office of Communications said that the new regime would "save taxpayers more than $90 million over three years" and also lower production costs for businesses while improving health, primarily by targeting "areas of the poultry production system that pose the greatest risk to food safety."

Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack, a former governor of Iowa and a Democratic primary candidate in 2008, said that a "more efficient and effective use of taxpayer dollars" would be achieved in part by "removing outdated regulatory requirements."

The USDA noted that some workers in the Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS) must currently perform some duties not related to food safety, such as identifying and reporting visual defects such as scabs, bruises and sores. The changes would maintain the service's legally mandated "carcass-by-carcass inspection" but remove these unrelated tasks from inspectors' do-to lists and ensure that poultry facilities provide evidence that their processing procedures are aimed at preventing contamination.

The current "scab check" procedure wherein staff examine each carcass for blemishes, which may reduce sales but have little impact on safety, will still be available if individual slaughter operators request it, the regulation says. J. Glenn Morris Jr., an infectious disease specialist at the University of Florida, noted in an interview with Bloomberg Businessweek that "[y]ou can't see or feel a bad bacteria on a bad chicken. ...That's not the way you detect major problems."

Following the proposal's publication in the Federal Register, individuals and groups will have a 90 day comment period to send feedback, which can be done online at the regulation's page on the Federal eRulemaking Portal or by mailing the USDA. The deadline for submission is midnight on April 26.

For CSPI, the overhaul is a net positive but should not be motivated by efforts to save money. "One can't escape the fact that the government is shrinking, and that historic programs like this one need to demonstrate their value", Jacobson wrote in his concluding statements. "The proof will be in reduced contamination rates, leading to fewer deaths and illnesses."

NAACP's Jealous keynotes National Lesbian and Gay Rights Task Force convention

Mon, 30 Jan 2012 08:20:00 +0000

Marylanders who needed a break from the never-ending Republican debates were in luck this past weekend when the 24th National Lesbian and Gay Task Force annual convention came to Baltimore with Ben Jealous, president and CEO of the NAACP, giving the keynote address.

Over 3,000 mostly young activists representing a rainbow of sexual orientation and ethnicities, crowded into the Baltimore Hilton Hotel, January 26-29, to learn ways to win LGBT rights and marriage equality, and push a progressive agenda in an election year.

"Creating Change" was the theme of the conference, and the fact that that change is already taking place was made clear by the NAACP leader's presentation.

If in the past civil rights and gay rights activists couldn't see how they to support each others' agendas, the crowd's enthusiastic response to the keynote speaker proved those days are definitely over.

Benjamin Jealous is the youngest person to lead the NAACP, but he has civil rights activism in his DNA.

His father was jailed in Baltimore in 1966 during the desegregation struggles, and he already made his own mark in history as a major force behind the abolition of the death penalty for juveniles in the U.S.

He is responsible for forming the LGBT Equality Group within the NAACP which partners with the NGLTF to change laws and work with African American churches on LGBT issues.

He used his own life as an example and symbol of the power of big tent politics (solidarity between LGBT and civil rights activists), describing his adopted brother Jason who has a "transgendered spirit." The two boys together learned to fight bullying, first because they were black, then later because of Jason's gender identification. He spoke of the moment when he realized that an injury to his brother was an injury to him as well.

This year in Maryland, he pointed out, the NAACP will be testifying for a marriage equality bill as well as pushing for the ENDA legislation federally. Jealous asked the audience for help to abolish the death penalty in Maryland, also up for possible passage in 2012.

He invoked the memory of Bayard Rustin, a closeted gay man whose organizational genius made the the March on Washington in 1963 so powerful. He then reminded the crowd that Julian Bond (former chair of the NAACP) came to Maryland to stand up for the right to marry interracially. He talked about the NAACP's successful efforts to pass the Matthew Shepard and James Byrd, Jr. Hate Crimes Prevention Act, telling the audience, "Haters hate; they don't distinguish whether their victim is poor, of another race or has a different sexual preference."

Paraphrasing Frederick Douglass who spoke against the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882, Jealous said the U.S. could because of its diversity, and should because of its Constitution become "the most perfect example of human unity the world has ever seen."

"History," the NAACP president said, "has taught us we can never win the fight for justice, equality and freedom as long as we act in silos." However in the U.S., the fear of diversity has resulted in racism in education, and job opportunities as well as the rampant criminalization of African Americans. There are seven million prisoners around the globe, a full two million of them are in prison in the U.S.

Then turning to a truly current crisis, Jealous focused the audience on the 2012 issue of voter suppression. "Historically, voter suppression always increases after there has been an expansion of the voting population - after the XIII, XIV and XV amendments, after the passage of the Voting Rights Act and now after the election of an African American president," said Jealous.

The NAACP believes that 2012 is going to usher in a wave of voter suppression greater than any since before the organization's creation in 1909.

In Florida alone, the right-wing Republican Governor Rick Scott has reactivated Jeb Bush's voter purging tactics of 2000. This will guarantee that 500,000 Floridians who were able to vote in 2008 will be denied that right in 2012.

Jealous praised the vision of Rea Carey, the director of the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force, and her commitment to diversity politics. Ending his address, he exhorted the crowd that "The NAACP is there for you and we thank you that we are able to depend on you." His final quote came from Harvey Milk, who said "It takes no compromising to give people their rights. It takes no money to respect the individual and it takes no survey to remove repressions."

Judging from excited conversations overheard after the keynote speaker's address, opportunities for coordinated organizing will be blossomed at the NGLTF conference and beyond.. The NAACP leader's concept of increasing strength by recognizing diversity as well as joint commonality, energized the attendees and made them aware that all is possible with one other.

Photo: Creative Commons 2.0

Domestic workers and their children march for rights

Fri, 27 Jan 2012 15:05:00 +0000

SACRAMENTO, CA - Early Tuesday morning, buses of domestic workers and their children began arriving at the huge grassy mall in front of California's state capitol building. Dozens of Mexican, Filipina, and African American moms, kids in tow, poured out onto the steps leading into the legislature's chamber. When the crowd grew to several hundred, they took up their placards, pushed their strollers out in front, and began marching around the building.

Some of the kids had clearly done things like this before. One five-year-old raised her fist in the air as the crowd chanted, calling on members of the state Assembly and Senate to pass the Domestic Workers Bill of Rights. Another girl, who looked about three, knew the chant by heart: "We are the children, mighty mighty children, fighting for justice and our future." She didn't miss a beat, and as one of the organizers held the bullhorn up to her mouth she did a little militant dance to accompany it.

With balloons and even a couple of clowns, it all seemed very festive. But the happy atmosphere didn't hide a more unpleasant truth: Many of the moms there probably see less of their own children than the youngsters they care for. And in the case of those caring for the aged, sick, or disabled, the conditions of that work can seem like something from a century ago.

Domestic workers often don't get an eating break, even working many more than the eight-hour workday considered normal for most workers. Others cook for the families they work for, but can't use the same implements to cook for themselves. If they have to sleep in the homes of clients, they often have to get up during the night several times to perform basic services for them, like taking them to the bathroom, or giving them medicine. And the night is considered a rest period, for which they sometimes don't get paid.

One Filipina caregiver from the East Bay explained that she sleeps in the same bed as her client. "What I'd like would be a bed where I could sleep by myself," she said.

Even at five or six, the kids marching with their moms are old enough to understand a little of those bitter truths. When one young girl, who looked about kindergarten age, held up a sign saying "trabajo digno," or "decent work," she knew enough to explain, "she doesn't get enough money, and she works too hard."

Last year the state Assembly passed AB 889, authored by Assembly members Tom Ammiano and V. Manuel Perez, that would give domestic workers some state-recognized rights in their efforts to curb abusive conditions. It would provide meal and rest breaks, overtime and reporting pay as enjoyed by other workers, and expand domestic workers' access to workers compensation. In addition, it would guarantee eight hours of sleep for those who work around the clock, and allow them to use kitchen facilities.

The bill would affect the 200,000 people who work in California domestic service, who are almost entirely women, immigrants, or people of color. While domestic workers face the same excuses for substandard conditions faced by other women, namely that they're only working to supplement the income of men, most of them are either the sole source of income for their families, or are bringing home pay that their families can't live without.

One woman in her 70s explained that she was still working many more than 40 hours a week.

The Domestic Workers Bill of Rights is modeled on one that was enacted in New York State in 2010. It is supported by dozens of statewide worker and community advocates, including the California Labor Federation and many other unions (Filipino Advocates for Justice, the Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights of Los Angeles, Mujeres Unidas y Activas, the Women's Collective of the San Francisco Day Labor Program, a number of churches and synagogues, and Hand in Hand, the Domestic Workers Employers Association). Its main opponent is the business association for agencies that provide domestic workers to clients.

At the end of the last session of the legislature, the bill was in the appropriations committee of the state Senate. The marchers hoped to pry the bill loose, get it passed through the Senate, and convince Governor Jerry Brown to sign it. One of several legislators who spoke to the crowd, Watsonville Assembly member Bill Monning explained in Spanish, "This bill is just, and we're going to make sure it becomes law and that domestic workers finally get the same basic rights as other workers."

Human Rights Watch issues stinging indictment on conditions here

Fri, 27 Jan 2012 12:57:00 +0000

NEW YORK - Human Rights Watch, an internationally respected group that tracks rights issues worldwide, on Jan. 22 issued its annual worldwide report summarizing conditions in every nation in 2011. The report amounts to a stinging indictment of the United States in the area of labor rights:

"U.S. workers continue to face severe obstacles in forming and joining trade unions, and the federal government and many state governments are failing to meet their international obligations to protect the free exercise of these rights. Several states -- including Arizona, Indiana, Michigan, New Hampshire, Ohio, Oklahoma, and Wisconsin -- placed severe restrictions in 2011 on workers' rights to bargain collectively.

"Hundreds of thousands of children work on U.S. farms. The 1938 Fair Labor Standards Act specifically exempts farmworker children from the minimum age and maximum hour requirements that apply to all other working children, exposing them to work at younger ages, for longer hours, and under more hazardous conditions.

"As a result, child farmworkers, most of who are of Latin American descent, often work 10 or more hours a day and risk pesticide poisoning, heat illness, injuries, life-long disabilities, and death. More than half of all working children who suffered fatal occupational injuries in 2010 worked in crop production, up from previous years.

"Many child farmworkers drop out of school, and girls are sometimes subjected to sexual harassment. Federal protections that exist are often not enforced: Agricultural inspections and child labor law violations declined in 2010. Notably, in August, the Department of Labor proposed to expand the list of hazardous agricultural tasks prohibited for children under age 16. (Outside agriculture, federal law bans hazardous work for children under age 18.)

"Millions of U.S. workers, including parents of infants, are harmed by weak or non-existent laws on paid leave, breastfeeding accommodation, and discrimination against workers with family responsibilities. A February 2011 Human Rights Watch report showed that having scarce or no paid leave contributed to delaying babies' immunizations, postpartum depression, and other health problems, and caused mothers to stop breastfeeding early."

Justice Department investigating over 100 voting rights violations

Fri, 27 Jan 2012 12:38:00 +0000

Attorney General Eric Holder, speaking in Cincinnati on Thursday, said the Department of Justice has opened up over 100 investigations into possible voting rights violations across the country.

Holder, speaking at the National Underground Railroad Freedom Center, was making his third presentation on the subject in recent weeks. In December, Holder spoke on the subject in Austin Texas, at the Lyndon Johnson library.

On Martin Luther King Day, the nation's top law enforcer discussed the issue as he joined NAACP head Benjamin Jealous and tens of thousands of others at a South Carolina event honoring the slain civil rights leader.

Holder's remarks come at a time of stepped up Republican efforts "to redraw political boundaries and impose requirements that could reduce voting by minorities who enthusiastically supported Barack Obama in the 2008 election," writes the AP.

Under Section Five of the Voting Rights Act, jurisdictions attempting redrawing voting boundaries must prove these efforts are not discriminatory.

Addressing this issue directly Holder said, "Despite the long history of support for Section 5, this keystone of our voting rights laws is now being challenged as unconstitutional by several jurisdictions."

He continued, "And, as we have proven repeatedly, when a jurisdiction fails to meet its burden of proving that a proposed voting change would not have a racially discriminatory effect - we will object."

Holder noted that great concern exists about the threat to voting rights. "In my travels across this country, I've heard a consistent drumbeat of concern from citizens, who - often for the first time in their lives - now have reason to believe that we are failing to live up to one of our nation's most noble ideals; and that some of the achievements that defined the civil rights movement now hang in the balance."

Republican efforts to roll back voting rights include attacks on same day registration, early voting and voter ID laws. Such measures are underway in over 37 states. Members of Congress have called for hearings on the subject in both the House and the Senate.

One such hearing is scheduled to take place in Florida today on the eve of the GOP primary. The hearing was requested by Sen. Bill Nelson, D-Fl.

In a press release, Sen. Dick Durban, D-Il., chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee's Subcommittee on the Constitution, Civil Rights and Human Rights, said, "Among other things, Florida's new law reduces the number of early voting days from 14 to 8, prohibits early voting on the Sunday before an election, and creates a series of new administrative requirements for individuals and volunteer organizations that register voters."

At the Cincinnati event Holder praised measures taken in Ohio to provide bilingual services to Spanish speaking voters: "Two of our recent voting rights cases in this state - in lawsuits the Department filed in Cuyahoga County and in Lorain County - have been brought to protect the rights of Spanish-speaking Puerto Rican voters. I'm pleased to report that, in both counties, we have reached agreements to ensure that bilingual ballots are available on county voting machines, and that bilingual poll workers are stationed in targeted districts."

Photo: Creative Commons 2.0

Calif. State Assembly hearing says men of color need jobs

Fri, 27 Jan 2012 10:14:00 +0000

OAKLAND, Calif. - As income disparity takes center stage around the country, a special spotlight is being trained on the economic, educational and social challenges faced by boys and men of color.

Efforts are being stepped up to change the dire situation the Children's Defense Fund found in 2007: young African American men facing a one in three chance of going to prison in their lifetimes, with homicides a leading cause of death among black men ages 15-19.

In California, the Assembly Select Committee on the Status of Boys and Men of Color, chaired by Assemblyman Sandré Swanson, D-Alameda, is gathering recommendations for legislative policies. The committee held its first hearing in Oakland Jan. 20.

The urgent need for good jobs, and training and services to help young men qualify for them, was a main concern of some 400 participants in the standing-room-only session.

"A central issue for boys and men of color is employment and creating real solutions, and not seeing young men of color as the problem. This isn't just a crisis for young men of color, it's a crisis for all of us," Olis Simmons told the crowd. Simmons heads Youth Uprising, which builds leadership among youth in a poor working-class area of the city.

Citing 50 percent unemployment among African American men, he urged the lawmakers to take into account the kinds of work and skills needed in the future, and to remove barriers faced by many men of color, including the question on many job applications about prior criminal convictions.

The necessity of "wrap-around" services was stressed by Jose Malvido of the American Indian Child Resource Center. While Native Americans urgently need jobs, he said, support systems such as job training and life skills are vital to help young people become employable.

Alex Briscoe, who heads the Alameda County Health Care Services Agency, said his agency told a career day at an area juvenile facility about becoming an emergency medical technician.

"We were incredibly surprised how many came" to the EMT training program the agency set up, Briscoe said.

Briscoe said he told the young men that if they passed the exam and got national certification, the agency would make sure they got an EMT job. He said 11 have graduated from the program and another 22 young men and women are now being trained.

Tony Iton, former Alameda County Health Officer now with the private health foundation California Endowment, told the hearing that a black boy living in a poor working-class Oakland neighborhood will die, on average, 15 years earlier than a white boy born in more affluent areas of the city.

"Manmade structures have made the odds; we can reset the odds," he said, urging starting in early childhood and breaking down barriers between health, education and other agencies serving young people.

A number of young people shared their views and experiences. As discussion turned to education, Roy Ramos, a Fremont High School senior, said his school "looks like a prison," and called on schools to do a better job of preparing students of color to graduate and move forward to college and careers.

"We do more harm, to deal with harm," Fania Davis, director of Restorative Justice for Oakland Youth, told the crowd. She described how restorative justice at one Oakland school has drastically cut suspensions and expulsions and improved academic performance.

Swanson said the committee's mission is important, because "we were walking by this problem and not paying attention to it ... This is about rescuing young people, letting them know we value them. We can find the resources right now, to change the situation."

Future hearings are slated for Los Angeles, Fresno and Sacramento.

Photo: Assemblyman Sandré Swanson with young participants in the Jan. 20 hearing on the status of boys and men of color. Marilyn Bechtel/PW

Indiana House passes right to work for less bill

Thu, 26 Jan 2012 16:51:00 +0000

In an assault on workers and their unions in the heart of the once heavily industrialized and unionized Midwest, Indiana's Republican-controlled House passed a right to work for less bill yesterday.

The Senate must take up the issue again before anything can be sent to the governor for his signature because the measure that passed in the Senate last week was a different version of the bill that passed in the House yesterday.

If the bill is eventually signed into law by Republican Gov. Mitch Daniels Indiana would become the first right to work for less state in the country's traditional manufacturing belt.

The House approved the law by a 54-44 margin, despite five Republicans having joined Democratic lawmakers to oppose it.

The state Senate voted 28 to 22 in favor of the senate's version of the bill, with nine Republicans joining all 13 Democrats in voting against it.

The vote in the House yesterday came as hundreds of protesters in the Statehouse shouted their disapproval, chanting, "Kill the Bill," and after weeks of protests by Democratic lawmakers themselves who tried numerous ways to stop the bill.

They refused to show up for debate despite the threat of fines that totaled $1,000 a day and introduced dozens of amendments aimed at delaying a vote. They finally agreed to allow a vote yesterday, conceding that they could not keep up their tactics forever since they were clearly outnumbered.

Indiana AFL-CIO President Nancy Guyot said unions are still working on the long shot bid to kill the measure in the Indiana Senate. "We're going to do everything in our power, we're only at the halfway point," Guyot said after the House vote.

Dean Baker, co director of the Center for Economic and Policy Research, said that the bill, in effect, imposes a tax on any worker who chooses to support a union.

He said that this was the case "because the bill requires that workers who support a union at the workplace must pay for the representation of workers who choose not to pay for the union's representation. This means that non-members not only get the same wages and benefits that the union gets for its members, they also are entitled to the union's protection in the event of disputes with the employer. It requires unions to provide free representation to non-members."

Democrats argued yesterday, in the hours of debate leading up to the vote, that the bill will lead to a downward spiral of wages that will hurt all workers, not just those in unions.

Rep. Scott Pelath, D-Michigan City, was in tears as he spoke of his father and grandfather, union members who, he said, fought for the principles that workers have a voice.

"Mr. Speaker, I implore you. Please do not do this," he said.

Democratic Rep. Linda Lawson called the GOP measure an attack on union strongholds throughout the state.

"What you are doing is destroying my community," said Lawson, who represents a northwest Indiana district with heavy manufacturers and a BP oil refinery.

"What if I came into your community and said no more cows and no more pigs?" she said, referring to the agriculturally heavy districts represented by many of the Republicans who backed the right to work for less bill.

Teamsters President Jimmy Hoffa, in a statement released right after the vote, promised a voter backlash like those seen in other states.

"I have little doubt in my mind that Gov. Daniels and Indiana's Republicans will see a tremendous backlash from their constituents if right-to work is passed," Hoffa said. "If there is one thing we have seen this past year, its that working men and women will rise up to challenge any legislation that threatens the welfare of their families."

Photo: Charles Cain of Columbus, Ind., holding a sign during a rally in the hallways of the Statehouse in Indianapolis, Jan. 23. Darron Cummings/AP

North Carolina to pay $50,000 to sterilization victims

Thu, 26 Jan 2012 12:44:00 +0000

A North Carolina task force has recommended that victims of forced sterilization be awarded $50,000 as compensation for the tobacco state's eugenics program.

Eugenics, a racist theory that calls for achieving racial purity by selective breeding, gained wide prominence in Nazi Germany prior to and during World War II.

Several prominent U.S. capitalists were behind the American program. Among them, were Dr. Clarence Gamble of Proctor and Gamble and James Hanes of the stocking and underwear company with the same name.

In the U.S. in the last century it was the Human Betterment League that attempted to popularize selective breeding.

Over 7,600 people, mainly women, were sterilized under North Carolina's program. Most of the surgical procedures happened after World War II. Forty percent of those sterilized were African American women.

Although state eugenics programs operated in over 30 states, North Carolina was one of the most vigorous in the pursuit of forced sterilization.

In the 1990s, the state law allowing the program was repealed and in 2002 North Carolina apologized to the victims. North Carolina is the only state that has offered a cash settlement, however.

According to AP, "The panel recommended that the money go to verified, living victims, including those who are alive now but may die before the lawmakers approve any compensation. The Legislature must still approve any payments."

The Amsterdam News writes that according to Hilda Schmitz, a spokesperson for the North Carolina Final Solution Task Force, the $50,000 award will be taken up this spring.

Those eligible have three years to apply.

Between 1,500 and 2,000 people who are believed to be still alive would receive payment at an estimated total cost of $100 million.

North Carolina's laws allowed for sterilization of: "People with a mental illness, such as schizophrenia. People with epilepsy. And people who were classified as 'feebleminded' - which generally meant they had an IQ of less than 70," according to the Charlotte Observer.

Photo: Mary English testifies before the Justice for Sterilization Victims Foundation task force compensation hearing in Raleigh, N.C., June 22, 2011. Jim R. Bounds/AP

Tucson bans Mexican-American studies, students walk out

Thu, 26 Jan 2012 12:43:00 +0000

On Monday, after the Tucson, Ariz. school district banned its acclaimed Mexican-American studies program, hundreds of high school students throughout the city walked out of their schools in protest.

The protesters gathered downtown at the administrative offices of the Tucson Unified School District. The administrators targeted were at least partially responsible for the ban.

Demonstrators were angered by what they see as the immorality and unfairness of a decision to confiscate, in front of students, books that reflect the heritage of the students themselves. (60 percent of the students in the Tucson district come from Mexican-American backgrounds.)

The ban follows by only a week an incident involving a school superintendent (who comes from Texas) who told students that if they wanted to study their own history, they should "go to Mexico."

Although the district is partially to blame for doing away with the Mexican studies program and shuffling teens into other classes, a report in the New York Times indicates that, had it failed to shut down the program, it would have lost over $14 million in state funding.

This proved to be the desired outcome for Republican Arizona school superintendent John Huppenthal, a tea party activist who has long crusaded against ethnic studies. Huppenthal went as far as to claim that they are "brainwashing" students into "thinking that the Latino community is a victim of white oppression."

Huppenthal, perhaps conveniently, saw the school program as potentially being in violation of a law that prohibits "programs that promote the overthrow of the United States government."

Tucson school officials argued that Huppenthal misunderstood and misinterpreted the program, and that Mexican-American studies was meant to engage students, push them to do well, and achieve better grades and class attendance.

Cholla High School student Ahtziri Iniguez, who was part of the walkout, remarked, "I think it's very unfair that people here don't let us learn about our own culture. My brother took Mexican-American classes during his junior year, and he would go home and discuss it with my mom. It interested me in education, so I knew I wanted to take these classes.

"We did this walkout to prove [that] if you want something, you should fight for what you believe in, because if you don't do anything, nothing will change."

Some community leaders seem to be willing to fight as well: Rather than adhere to Huppenthal's crackdown, they intend to ask Tucson's school district to join a federal court suit against the state and call on the Department of Justice's Civil Rights Division to investigate Huppenthal for racial profiling, hate crimes, fraud, and even possible extortion.

The Republican agenda, meanwhile, is now to replace the slot previously filled by Mexican-American studies, with a new elective course about how "the Bible and Biblical principles" influenced Western civilization and democracy. At least, that's the intention of a bill introduced by Tea Partier and Arizona State Representative Terri Proud. The bill would allow all public schools to teach this proposed religious course.

Victoria Lopez, a program director with the Arizona office of the American Civil Liberties Union found the idea of a Bible-oriented class "troubling."

"It's very easy for teachers to cross the line and violate students' religious rights," she said. "There's a lot of room here for those violations to take place."

Notably, the Tucson school district is nearing its celebration of the 104^th anniversary of its founding by immigrant Estevan Ochoa, who became mayor of Tucson in 1875. Also approaching is the anniversary of Arizona native and United Farm Worker leader Cesar Chavez.

Apparently, the irony of doing away with an important ethnic program at a time when Mexican-Americans are being celebrated for their achievements has been lost on prejudice-oriented Republicans.

Photo: Tucson students protest the dismantling of the Mexican American studies program. D.A. Morales/Commondreams.org.

Obama's SOTU receives mostly cheers from the 99%

Wed, 25 Jan 2012 17:52:00 +0000

WASHINGTON - President Obama threw down the gauntlet in his State of the Union address, Jan. 24, vowing to fight for an economy that serves the interests of the vast majority, not the wealthy few, and also requiring millionaires to pay their "fair share" in taxes.

The speech was widely seen as the opening shot of Obama's reelection bid and he went on the attack. Without mentioning the Occupy Wall Street movement by name, he echoed their "99% vs. 1%" populist theme, hammering Wall Street banks, corporate greed, deregulation, and lawmakers who serve the interests only of the wealthy one percent while running roughshod over the working class majority.

"The State of the Union is getting stronger," he said. "And we've come too far to turn back now. As long as I'm president, I will work with anyone in this chamber to build on this momentum. But I intend to fight obstruction with action and I will oppose any effort to return to the same policies that brought on this economic crisis in the first place."

The speech was greeted by many grassroots organizations, even as some voiced concerns or hoped he had gone further on a range of specific issues he mentioned.

AFL-CIO President Rich Trumka said, "The president voiced the aspirations and concerns of those who are too often ignored" laying out a vision of an America that creates "jobs and prosperity for all instead of wealth for the few."

The labor federation president cited Obama's stress on restoring manufacturing and contrasted his speech with the Republican's answer delivered by Indiana Gov. Mitch Daniels who is pushing a union-busting "Right-to-work (for less)" law through the Indiana legislature.

Benjamin Jealous, president of the NAACP, applauded the president for "adopting our longstanding priority of economic stability in communities of color, for his bold stand on job creation, and for leading the charge on reversing the economic crisis."

At the same time, Jealous denounced the "obstructionist leaders in Congress" and called on the House and Senate to approve Obama's job creation legislation including the American Jobs Act that "would create 1.9 million jobs" and "his summer jobs and tourism initiative that will create hundreds of thousands more..."

The National Council of La Raza welcomed Obama's call for comprehensive immigration reform and for speedy enactment of the Dream Act "allowing hundreds of thousands" of immigrant youth to stay in the U.S. to study and work toward citizenship.

The Sierra Club, 350.org and the Energy Action Coalition staged a protest demonstration on Capitol Hill the day of the speech to protest the "pipeline of money flowing between Big Oil and Congress." They thanked Obama for halting the Keystone XL tar sands pipeline, while at the same time raised concerns about parts of his energy plan.

A Greenberg, Quinlan, Posner telephone survey after the speech of 50 swing Denver voters, 44 percent Republican leaning and 32 percent Democrat was headlined "President Obama Scores with Middle Class Message."

Before the speech, 50 percent had a favorable view of Obama. After the speech, his job approval rose 8 percent and his personal rating rose 16 points to 66 percent.

In his speech, the president announced that he has ordered the Attorney General to set up a special unit to investigate Wall Street fraud to "hold accountable those who broke the law..."

In response, MoveOn called on their members to thank the president via Facebook.

"President Obama did exactly what hundreds of thousands of us have been calling on him to do," said Elena Perez, MoveOn political action director. "This is truly a huge victory for the 99 percent movement."

MoveOn had just sent 360,000-signed petitions to the White House urging an investigation of Wall Street crime.

Obama touched on a wide range of issues in his 65-minute speech. He called for a "Buffet rule" to force millionaires like Warren Buffet to pay their share of taxes. He called for passage of the Dream Act to allow undocumented youth who have lived most of their lives in the U.S. to attend college and apply for citizenship.

End tax subsidies to oil companies, he said, and increase subsidies for renewable energy sources. Impose a tax on corporations that export jobs and use the revenues to help subsidize manufacturing in the U.S.

"Washington is broken," he said, calling on the lawmakers to clean their own house by adopting rules that bar "insider trading" by Congress members. He decried as a "fiasco" Republican threats to shut down the government if the administration didn't go along with extending tax cuts for millionaires. "Can you blame them [the people] for feeling a little cynical?"

Just before he mounted the platform, Obama greeted Rep. Gabriela Giffords, D-Ariz., standing on the House floor beside her Arizona colleague, Rep. Raul Grijalva. She was gravely wounded in the head by a deranged gunman in Tucson a year ago. Giffords, who has fought heroically to regain her health, had just announced her resignation. The president walked over and embraced her, a tender moment that brought home the cost of the nation's unbridled gun violence and rightwing hate.

Photo: President Barack Obama delivers the State of the Union address in the House Chamber at the U.S. Capitol in Washington, D.C., Jan. 24. (Official White House Photo by Chuck Kennedy)

Obama to investigate mortgage fraud

Wed, 25 Jan 2012 16:54:00 +0000

Responding to public demands to prosecute the banks responsible for creating the financial crisis by speculating in sub-prime mortgages, President Obama announced on Tuesday a new financial irregularities task force. The new unit was announced in the State of the Union address.

The task force will be headed by New York's attorney general Eric Schneiderman. Schneiderman, along with the attorney general in California and other states, has been critical of efforts by the Department of Justice to rush negotiations for a settlement with the big banks responsible before possible criminal activity has been adequately investigated.

California, one of the states with the largest number of foreclosed homes, had withdrawn from the talks.

Schneiderman promised to move ahead quickly. ""There have been investigations going on in various states and branches of the federal government," he said. "We're now making a concerted effort to pull everything together and move forward aggressively to address these issues."

According to the Los Angeles Times, the new investigation will be separate from the Department of Justice's effort to make a deal with the banks. "The multistate talks all relate to post-crash conduct. These are abuses in the foreclosure process," he said. "Our working group is focusing on the conduct related to the pooling and creation of mortgage-backed securities...the conduct that created the crash, not the abuses that happened after the fact."

Prior to the president's announcement, colorofchange.org and other civil rights and progressive groups had initiated a signature campaign demanding that the banks be investigated. More than 360,000 signatures were delivered in the recent period to the Obama administration.

In addition, on Monday Democratic lawyers joined Sen. Sherrod Brown, D, Ohio, in his criticism of the size of the settlement federal regulators have been proposing to the Attorneys General. Brown, describing the deal to the Washington Post, said, "We're talking about not much more than a slap on the wrist."

While the settlement seems to be in the range of $25 billion, making it one of the largest such cases on record, housing advocates and other groups are calling for much more. Van Jones and George Goehl, in a recent op-ed, called for a minimum of $300 billion. They write, "The banks must pay a minimum $300 billion in principal reduction for homeowners with underwater mortgages and/or restitution for foreclosed-on families. This is essential. Every effort to reboot the housing market has failed because it has not done the most essential thing: actually reduce the massive debt load carried by homeowners."

Banks and mortgage companies reaped hundreds of billions in profits both prior to and after the financial crisis. Over 8 million families have lost their homes since the start of the housing meltdown.

Black and Latino homeowners were singled out by the bank's predatory lending practices, resulting in the biggest wealth loss in these communities in U.S. history.

Unlike the savings and loan scam of the 1990s, to date no one has been criminally prosecuted for fraud.

Photo: Protest in Washington State. Tim Wheeler/PW

State of the Union address, DREAM Act Undocumented youth respond

Wed, 25 Jan 2012 16:30:00 +0000

Last night in his State of the Union address, President Obama described the challenges faced by many of the nation's undocumented youth and many of them are already responding favorably.

Lucy Allain, directly affected by the issue, responded to the President's words via a video she uploaded. "With your State of the Union address," she said, "You motivated the country, with an idea of a better America. I'm a DREAMer and I believe myself to be an American. I have hope."

Allain noted, however, that the problem for her and many other people who are denied the chance to earn citizenship is that "Congress is obstructing the DREAM Act. And, in light of the congressional gridlock, you need to take action as the President."

The DREAM Act was a bill intended to provide permanent residency for undocumented people who arrived in the U.S. before the age of 18 and have graduated from a U.S. high school.

Allain had previously confronted GOP presidential hopeful Mitt Romney at a Sheraton Hotel in New York City. Of the experience, Allain said that he shook her hand, but quickly withdrew it when she revealed she was undocumented. Romney, she said, then proceeded to look at her as though she were a criminal.

In his 2008 election campaign, Obama noted, "One thing we can do immediately is pass the DREAM Act."

Allain is concerned, however, that three years later, this still has not happened. She quoted Obama's latest words about undocumented students: "Send me a law that gives them the chance to earn their citizenship. I will sign it right away."

Well, said Allain, there is a potential law that would do just that - the DREAM Act.

Tania Unzueta, organizer with Chicago's Immigrant Youth Justice League, spoke with People's World about her views on the President's position.

"I think he's been saying all this since before he's gotten elected," she said. "It feels like there's a lot he could do to alleviate the issues that undocumented youth in this country currently face.

"There are things he could do beyond just comprehensive immigration reform - little administrative things that could be do-able right now." For example, she noted, "An undocumented worker who uses fake credentials should not be permanently banned from the country."

Tackling small individual issues like these, she felt, would still be taking steps forward.

"The President is right [to say] that everyone's playing politics," Unzueta conceded. "Both the Republicans and the Democrats." But what it all comes down to, she concluded, "Is that it needs to stop being about the politics - it needs to be about helping people."

AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka, leader of the nation's largest labor federation, liked what the president had to say about making things better for immigrant youth.

"The President gave hope to our nation's young people with his words of support for DREAM students, immigrants brought to this country by their parents and committed to the quintessentially American vision of hard work at school or in military service," he said in a special statement the AFL-CIO issued today.

Immigration Equality, a national organization fighting for equality for undocumented people, with a particular focus on those in the LGBT community, also responded positively to Obama's State of the Union Address:

"The President laid out an eloquent vision of an America where everyone plays by the same rules, and shares the same opportunities and chances," they said in a statement. "It is past time to tackle comprehensive immigration reform and, as the President pointed out, it is imperative that Congress pass the DREAM Act to extend opportunity to undocumented youth."

"We live in fear of deportation," Allain concluded. And to the President: "We, the nations of DREAMers, support you. But you must support us."

Photo: Demonstrators gather in San Bernardino, Calif. in protest of the Secure Communities law, which causes local police to essentially act as ICE agents. Gabriel Luis Acosta/AP

Chicagoans demand "people's library hours"

Wed, 25 Jan 2012 14:40:00 +0000

CHICAGO - Mayor Rahm Emanuel was forced to back off his unilateral closure of neighborhood branch libraries on Mondays after the move sparked a public uproar. The city will restore half-day Monday afternoon library hours beginning in February..

However, widespread community support remains for restoration of full-day hours, which were cut as a result of the recent city budget agreement.

Librarians, community patrons and tots staged lively "People's Library Hours" protests in front of three branch libraries on January 23. They demanded full funding for city libraries and recall of all laid off librarians.

A steady blare of honks and cheers from passing motorists greeted the protests.

"There are plenty of people who rely on the libraries on Monday mornings and we need the libraries open regular hours and fully staffed," said Adrienne Alexander, AFSCME Council 31 policy and legislative specialist.

"The idea of cutting hours - how is that serving the community?" asked Marianna Alter, a neighborhood resident who brought her daughter to the protest at the Little Village Branch Library. "I'm here for Story Time (a children's reading program) rain or shine. It's an important part of our day. Where are we going to take our kids?"

Emanuel's original city budget called for much deeper cuts. But public outrage fueled opposition in the City Council leading to a compromise of less cuts and shuttering branches for a half-day on Mondays and Fridays.

The deal was contingent on an agreement with the library employees' union, AFSCME. However, librarians balked, saying they wanted full restoration of eight-hour days and six-day weeks at branch libraries.

On January 6 Emanuel, without consulting AFSCME, imposed a unilateral Monday closure. This was seen as an attempt to bully the union into an agreement.

Library workers, many of whom earn $11 an hour and are among the lowest paid public workers, are being called upon by some of Emanuel's leading council allies to forego scheduled 3.5 percent wage increases.

However, the closures violated the contract between the union and city. Emanuel reversed course after taking a lot of public flack, and found $2 million to restore the half-day Monday hours.

"The mayor has taken this in the right direction," said Anders Lindall, public affairs director of AFSCME Council 31. "He found $2 million of the $3.3 million that was needed, so let's find that other million."

"Just two years ago libraries were open 64 hours a week. Mayor Daley reduced that to 48 hours due to layoffs. And now we have Mayor Emanuel pushing to go to 40 hours a week," said Lindall.

Library users want those closures prevented altogether, he said.

Emanuel justified the cut in library hours based on decreased library usage. But according to Jeremy Kitchen, chief librarian at the Richard J. Daley Branch Library in the Bridgeport neighborhood, library usage has been cut because library hours have been cut.

"When the libraries are closed people in the community have no place to better themselves. That's our main mission and we want that for everyone. We're passionate and committed about what we do," he said.

Librarians complain the Emanuel administration doesn't understand all of what goes on in the libraries, which they call the "gems of the community."

In addition to checkout of books and movies, Kitchen says they are places for people to access the Internet for job searches and to read newspapers. They serve as warming centers in the winter and places where students do their homework after school and children listen to stories.

What galls many is while the city was cutting libraries and other services it eliminated the corporate "head tax" and cut $15 million in taxes for the Chicago Mercantile Exchange. In addition it continues dispensing millions of Tax Increment Financing monies to a variety of corporations and developers, including $5 million to $6.5 million to the billion-dollar food conglomerate Sara Lee.

At the same time Emanuel has said he will seek private funds to cover a portion of the anticipated $40 million to $65 million in expenses for the NATO and G8 summits the city will host this spring.

"Library services are much more important to Chicago's neighborhoods than bringing the G8 to the city," said AFSCME Council 31 President Henry Bayer. "If those people can afford to put up $45 million or $60 million, why isn't he out there asking them, 'Wouldn't you be willing to pay a little bit more - just a fraction of that $60 million - which could be used to keep the libraries open' six days a week?"

Photo: John Bachtell/PW

Journalist files suit against Obama on NDAA

Wed, 25 Jan 2012 12:51:00 +0000

Chris Hedges, an author and columnist at Truthdig.com and former Middle East bureau chief at the New York Times, filed a legal complaint at the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York on Friday, as part of his opposition to the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA).

This year's version of the act, which has been passed each year for nearly 50 years to identify and implement defense spending, gained particular notoriety for provisions in its counterterrorism section. Specifically, how the government is required to deal with those suspected of terrorist activities.

Other parts of the legislation, which President Barack Obama signed on Dec. 31 and due to take effect in March, impose new economic sanctions on Iran, and order the review of Iranian, Russian, and Chinese military capacities.

The president issued a signing statement expressing disagreement with some of the NDAA provisions.

Hedges, who resigned from The Times when the paper warned him against continuing his public antiwar stance, told Democracy Now that he is suing President Obama and Defense Secretary Leon Panetta because the provisions are "clearly unconstitutional" and "a huge and egregious assault on democracy."

Hedges went on to explain that the administration's prior reservations about the bill were mainly due to a desire to secure executive authority over decisions about detainees, and noted that a resolution to exempt Americans from the indefinite detention provisions, presented by Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., was ultimately rejected.

Assisted by public interest attorneys Carl J. Meyer and Bruce I. Afran, Hedges outlined his motivations in a column for Truthdig.com, calling the bill's passage a "catastrophic blow to civil liberties." The ACLU and others have criticized the detention provisions, highlighting the possibility for arrest and indefinite detention without trial of American citizens on U.S. soil, including by members of the armed forces.

Hedges also warned that "[i]t's a very seamless step to include in some of the obstructionist tactics of the Occupy movement" and highlighted that the legislation was passed without support from American national security agencies.

The litigation's purpose, Meyer explained, is to "have a federal court declare the act unconstitutional" and highlighted Hedges' past as a journalist who has documented the actions and perspectives of dissident groups, including some who are viewed as terrorists.

Meyer emphasized that the wording in the NDAA has been left undefined enough so that it could easily apply to journalists such as Hedges or otherwise "encompass people who are engaged in free speech and all sorts of activities [.]"

Photo: from Wikimedia

Better chance of being hit by lightning than finding voter fraud

Wed, 25 Jan 2012 11:09:00 +0000

DETROIT - Voter fraud is so rare "you're more likely to get hit by lightning than find a case of prosecutorial voter fraud," said Judith Browne Dianis, co-director of the Advancement Project during a panel discussion at the recent AFL-CIO Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Holiday Observance here.

If that's the case, why the rash of voter suppression bills occurring in Michigan, Florida, Texas and throughout the country?

Browne-Dianis had the answer: "They are not preventing voting fraud, they are preventing voting." She said Republicans are out to undermine democracy by targeting key segments of the coalition that elected president Obama in 2008, including first-time voters, poor people, and people of color.

The numbers tell the story: 600,000 people in Texas, the majority of them poor and people of color, do not have a photo ID. In Wisconsin, 78 percent of Black males between the ages of 18 and 24 do not have a photo ID.

Testifying against photo ID restrictions in the Michigan bill, Susan Smith, president of the state's League of Women Voters, said, "Photo ID laws address impersonation of another registered voter at the polls, an exceedingly rare form of voter fraud."

Making voting accessible for everyone and low voter turnout, not voter fraud, are the real problems in Michigan. In the 2010 midterm election, for example, only 44 percent of the state's 7.3 million registered voters cast a ballot.

Another attack on voting rights has been mounted via a second bill, SB 754. It makes it more difficult to conduct voter registration campaigns by requiring organizations and individuals to be registered, trained and certified by the state. Left open in the bill is how often training will be offered, potentially thwarting the quick organization of a voter registration drive.

People describe as "chilling" a situation where the Michigan League of Women Voters, a non-partisan organization that for 90 years has set the "gold standard" for expanding participation in the electoral process, now faces a law that would restrict its ability to register voters.

As the League's president said in a recent opinion piece, "Registering people to vote is not a complicated process. You hand people a short form, they fill it out and you return it to the clerk. This work does not require specialized training."

The bill also requires that during the final week of the voter registration period registration forms procured from the election board be returned within 24 hours. Fines and penalties await those who fail to comply. The result, of course, is that many who once saw voter registration as a form of public service are now intimidated into considering refraining from doing it altogether.

Civil and voting rights groups are particularly angry, however, that GOP efforts to limit participation in elections do not include anything that would curtail participation of powerful groups that favor Republicans.

In contrast to voting laws restricting voting access to millions, the Citizens United Supreme Court ruling, they note, has opened the door for a few wealthy corporations, the top tier of the one percent, to dominate the electoral process by spending unlimited and unregulated sums of money in political campaigns.

Photo: John Rummel/PW

Will Twinkies, Kodak wreck the American dream?

Tue, 24 Jan 2012 15:53:00 +0000

First it was Twinkies, now it's Kodak. Two weeks ago, Hostess Foods, maker of Twinkies, Wonder Bread and other iconic American food items, filed for bankruptcy. Last week, Eastman Kodak, another American icon, filed for bankruptcy as well.

It seems another American icon - call it the "American way of life," or working hard and being rewarded by security in our "golden years" - is being chiseled away.

In the case of Hostess, now controlled by Ripplewood Holdings, a New York private equity firm, the company placed virtually the entire blame for its financial woes on "labor costs" and "restrictive work rules," according to the New York Times.

Hostess said it was compelled to undergo bankruptcy reorganization as a result of "uncompetitive and unsustainable" union contracts, pension plans and health benefit programs, Bloomberg Business Week reports.

With Kodak, on the other hand, the bankruptcy is largely attributed to the 131-year-old company's race to keep up with challenges of foreign competition and, especially, rapidly emerging new technology.

Yet, buried deep in the Times' story on Kodak is this: "bankruptcy protection could also allow Kodak to shed hundreds of millions of dollars in pension obligations." Kodak has been for some time seeking to "shrink" its pension liabilities "to a more manageable level," according to the Times.

In a letter to retirees, Kodak says it "will be examining" retiree health, dental, life insurance and survivor benefits and "as necessary seek to adjust them." Kodak says it aims to stay in business and therefore, "currently it is expected" that its basic retirement plan will be unchanged. Retirees receiving supplemental pension benefits are told those payments have been suspended and will be considered unfunded plans - i.e., at the bottom of the creditors' list.

Under Chapter 11 bankruptcy, retirees in line for pensions are considered unsecured creditors - at the bottom of the list of who gets paid.

"Chapter 11 in the United States is the darling of the international business world," University of Michigan law professor John Pottow told USA Today. "If you are a company or even a rich person, you can go into the bankruptcy system and confront your failures, and you will not be punished."

The USA Today report notes that "In England, management is fired when a company declares bankruptcy."

At Kodak, according to news reports, the company has had difficulty dealing with foreign competition, new technology, and conflicts over patents. Kodak "has been struggling for years to adapt to an increasingly digital world," said the New York Times report.

Bloomberg.com says the Kodak bankruptcy came "after consumers embraced digital cameras, a technology Kodak invented and failed to commercialize."

As to Hostess, columnist Daniel Meyer writes on food writer Mark Bittman's New York Times blog, "Somewhere along the way Hostess decided to trade on its iconic status rather than reimagining itself for the next generation of lunchbox-toting kids and lunchbox-packing parents.

Hotess workers are represented by several unions, including the Bakery workers, Teamsters and Stationary Engineers. The company is expected to file motions shortly to terminate existing union contracts and retiree benefits.

There has never been a labor union at Kodak.

Reacting to the Hostess bankruptcy announcement, Bakery Workers President Frank Hurt said in a statement: "I find it deeply offensive and highly disingenuous for the company to claim [that] its financial woes are the result of its union contracts and pension and health benefits obligations. We contend the company is in dire financial shape because of a string of failed business decisions made by a series of ineffective executives who have been running this company for the past decade."

The Teamsters said the bankruptcy was the result of management's failure "to adjust their business plan to a changing and more competitive marketplace," according to Business Week. Labor costs were "one of the few areas in which Hostess achieved its forecast," the Teamsters said.

Photo: Joost J. Bakker IJmuiden

Defense funding act assailed for assault on civil liberties

Tue, 24 Jan 2012 13:04:00 +0000

On New Year's Eve, President Obama signed the National Defense Authorization Act, the funding bill for the Defense Department, even though it contained items that many see as an assault on constitutional rights and civil liberties. The president issued a signing statement in which he expressed reservations about some of these measure.

But civil libertarians have been pointing out the ways in which either this administration or some future one could use this legislation to arrest people it does not like, even U.S. citizens, on U.S. soil and hold them indefinitely without trial.

The objectionable language was inserted by Senators John McCain, R-Ariz., Carl Levin, D-Mich., Joe Lieberman, I-Conn., and Lindsey Graham, R-S.C.

The bill passed in December by a margin of 283 to 136, with 14 not voting, in the House; and 86 to 13, with one not voting, in the Senate (to find out how your senators and congressperson voted, you can look them up on the website of the Library of Congress). Initially, President Obama said he would veto it, but changed his mind just before Congress passed it.

Among other things the legislation requires the government to arrest and detain indefinitely without trial non-citizens suspected of supporting this country's enemies in the "war on terror" (Al Qaeda, the Taliban or possibly others in the future), even if they are on U.S. soil. The bill as finalized also permits the government to dish out the same treatment to U.S. citizens (again, even if they are arrested on U.S. soil). The military would be involved in the arrests and detentions, which effectively overthrows the 1878 "Posse Comitatus" Law. The law also contains language to prevent the president from closing the prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and from moving Guantanamo prisoners stateside.

In his signing statement, President Obama reiterated his qualms about some of these measures, and promised that as long as he is president, U.S. citizens will not be imprisoned on this basis. However, he said he felt constrained to sign because the overall bill, funding the troops, could not be allowed to fail. Yet others suggested that if he had vetoed it, Congress would most likely have been forced to respond by presenting him with a different defense authorization bill, minus the objectionable parts.

Organizations and activists who have spent a very intense decade fighting against attacks on civil liberties and constitutional rights, originally by the Bush administration, reacted with sharply worded denunciations and expressed disappointment that Obama, a constitutional lawyer, had signed a bill of very questionable constitutionality.

They see the insertion of this bill into the framework of the "war on terror" as particularly dangerous. Other wars have a specific ending point. President Abraham Lincoln suspended habeas corpus during the Civil War, for which he was much criticized, but that war ended, except for some skirmishes, when Robert E. Lee delivered his sword to Ulysses Grant at Appomattox, and the special powers of the government to detain people without trial ended at that juncture. The "war on terror" could become a permanent fixture of our lives for the foreseeable future, and the power to detain without trial could expand to fit the needs of various politicians in power.

The American Civil Liberties Union issued a statement saying in part:

The statute is particularly dangerous because it has no temporal or geographic limitations, and can be used by this and future presidents to militarily detain people captured far from any battlefield ...The ACLU believes that any military detention of American citizens or others within the United States is unconstitutional and illegal, including under the NDAA. In addition, the breadth of the NDAA's detention authority violates international law because it is not limited to people captured in the context of an actual armed conflict as required by the laws of war."

For its part, the Center for Constitutional Rights in New York, which has been heavily involved in the defense of the due process rights of the detainees held at the Guantanamo Bay Navy Base in Cuba, conjured up a frightening picture of what might happen in the future: "President Obama did pledge in a signing statement not to use this law to detain American citizens but this provides little comfort, as signing statements have no legal force and he has repeatedly failed to uphold similar promises in the face of political pressure - including his pledge to close Guantanamo during his first year in office. More important, even if President Obama were to keep his promise, the law authorizes a future president, such as President Romney, President Bachmann, or President Perry, to use this authorization in the most aggressive manner possible."

The legislation will be challenged in the federal courts. Meanwhile, legislation has been introduced in Congress to make sure that U.S. citizens and permanent legal residents are not arrested and detained indefinitely without trial: HR 3703, which already has 40 co-sponsors, and S 2003, which has 13.