People Before Profit blog

Indigenous News: white privilege, A Tribe Called Red, mining protests

Fri, 31 Jul 2015 14:24:00 +0000

I am a Native American woman with white privilege

I do not, and have not ever primarily identified as white. On my mother's side, I'm Native American, enrolled in my Tribe, and, to a large extent, raised in my culture. I was born on the reservation and lived on or near reservations for much of my life. Indigenous cultural signifiers are important to me - I love Coastal designs and canoes. I love to eat Salmon, attend gatherings, and socialize at potlatches or powwows. However, due to genetics (while both my grandparents on my mother's side are Indigenous, my grandmother is light-skinned, and my grandfather, of mixed ancestry) it so happens that I am light. Like, really light. Light as a ghost; 'let-me-put-my-arm-next-to-yours-and-compare-whiteness' light. Some people call me glow-worm because they think I'll be florescent beneath blacklights.
Read more at: https://mfaconfessions.wordpress.com/2015/07/24/i-am-a-native-american-woman-with-white-privilege/

Manning: Sarah Lee Circle Bear died while in police custody; family seeks justice

The death of Sandra Bland, an African American woman who died in a jail cell on July 13 , has the nation abuzz about the ongoing saga of police brutality against people of color, and this time, it is becoming even more apparent just how poorly women of color are treated.

But a lesser known story regarding a beautiful young Lakota woman is just as worthy of our attention. On July 6, 24-year-old Sarah Lee Circle Bear of Clairmont, South Dakota, was found unconscious in a holding cell in Brown County Jail in Aberdeen. Circle Bear was jailed on a bond violation.

Read more at: http://indiancountrytodaymedianetwork.com/2015/07/28/manning-sarah-lee-circle-bear-died-while-police-custody-family-seeks-justice-161204

Disappearing Indians, Part II: the hypocrisy of race in deciding who's enrolled

The U.S. Supreme Court's decision in Santa Clara Pueblo v. Martinez cut off the only federal court remedy for Indians deprived of citizenship in their tribal nations, the Indian Civil Rights Act. Without recourse to ICRA, individual Indians are at the mercy of whatever faction controls tribal government. The power to disappear Indians holds the potential to do great harm. The Cherokee Nation, of which this writer is a citizen, is demonstrating that potential in its treatment of tribal citizens who trace descent from Cherokee slaves.
Read more at: http://indiancountrytodaymedianetwork.com/2015/07/28/disappearing-indians-part-ii-hypocrisy-race-deciding-whos-enrolled-161197

Native Americans protest U.S. bill seizing land for mining

A group of Native Americans from the United States protested in front of the U.S. Capitol in Washington, D.C. against a proposed copper mine worth $6 billion that would be operative on lands they consider sacred in Arizona. The Apache Stronghold group organized a caravan from their home state all the way to Washington D.C. in order to draw attention to their cause demanding the government reserve a bill allowing the seizure of their land, known as Oak Flat, in favor of mining operations.
Read more at: http://www.telesurtv.net/english/news/Native-Americans-Protest-US-Bill-Seizing-Land-for-Mining-20150722-0002.html

A Tribe Called Red's electric powwow puts Indigenous culture center stage

The dispute began on Instagram last summer, when Bear Witness, a founding member of the electronic group A Tribe Called Red, posted a photo at the Calgary folk music festival. Taken from the stage, it shows a sea of fans dancing furiously to Tribe's blend of powwow songs, electronic music, and dubstep.

"Yes #calgaryfolkfest2014. U guys were amazing," Bear Witness wrote in the caption.

But @nikkilaes, a fan, interpreted the photo differently. What struck her most was the racial makeup of the crowd.

Photo: A Tribe Called Red (ATCR)

Birthday PIE for Medicare: celebrations urge expanding it for all

Fri, 31 Jul 2015 13:54:00 +0000

OAKLAND, Calif. - As celebrations of Medicare's first half-century swept the U.S., hundreds of union and community organization members from around the San Francisco Bay Area joined with retirees in multigenerational rallies and a march urging the landmark health program for seniors to be extended to cover everyone in the country.

As they moved from City Hall to the nearby Federal Building, marchers carried banners proclaiming "Medicare: As American as Apple Pie - Protect, Improve, Expand," "Love It, Improve It - Medicare for All," and "Health Care is a Human Right!" Many wore tee-shirts of the California Nurses Association-National Nurses United, other unions and organizations of health professionals, while others proclaimed their affiliations with the California Alliance of Retired Americans, single payer coalitions, community and disability rights organizations.

"Now, because of Medicare, our seniors have access to health care, they're living longer lives, decent lives, and we're affording them the opportunity to address each and every health care issue they have, California Insurance Commissioner Dave Jones told the crowd. "That's something worth fighting for!"

"Medicare has provided health care for literally millions of our seniors, and Medicaid, for tens of millions of the poor," Jones said. "We need to take profits out of this equation - health care decisions should be based on what's right for human beings."

California Nurses Association leader Martha Kuhl called attention to government's role in other spheres of life: "As a society, we have already made the decision to provide many essential services through paid entities like fire and police protection, libraries and even the roads we drive on."

Kuhl said a Medicare for All program, with "genuine, comprehensive and uniform benefits" paid for by "pooling all public and private funding together" would cut many costs including CEO salaries and advertising.

Celebrated civil rights leader Dolores Huerta urged pressure on all candidates in next year's elections to support universal coverage, including for undocumented immigrants.

Second-year medical student Keyon Mitchell, former state coordinator for the California Health Professional Student Alliance - an affiliate of Physicians for a National Health Program - highlighted Medicare's contribution to desegregating the South, through its denial of federal funds to hospitals that racially discriminated against their patients.

"We are facing difficult times now," Mitchell said. "We have to treat phrases like 'Black Lives Matter' as if we were transported back to the decade of Medicare's inception, and like the health care and justice movements, our cry is loud and clear: We will not stop until we have reached true health care for all!"

Banners and speakers called for support of HR 676, longtime Ohio Congressman John Conyers' Medicare for All legislation, recently reintroduced into the House of Representatives.

In a message to the rally, U.S. Rep. Barbara Lee, a Democrat who represents Oakland and neighboring communities, said she is "a proud sponsor" of HR 676. She called Medicare and Medicaid "one of our country's most successful anti-poverty programs" that has "transformed the lives of seniors, the disabled, low income families and undocumented children."

"Sadly," she said, "our nation's health care costs are constantly rising, and my Republican colleagues continue to unload those costs onto our nation's most vulnerable, the elderly, poor and disabled ... it's past time for Republicans to stop playing political games with people's health and work in a bipartisan way to ensure all Americans have access to the best possible health care."

As they waited for the rally to start, members of the crowd shared their views on the anniversary's significance.

"For me, it's pragmatic; for many, it's existential," said Sabrina Pinnell, a delegate to the San Jose-based South Bay Council from the California Faculty Association. "Single Payer may not be 'sellable,' but we need a comprehensive, universal health program, especially now that we're in a world that can be traversed in hours."

California Nurses Association member Zen Quebral emphasized the role of preventive services in saving both lives and money, while her colleague Kathy Dennis said voters should demand that candidates support health care for all.

Feng Zhuchen, among many Chinese for Affirmative Action members at the rally, urged that the state's Medicaid program not be cut, and that essential services be restored, such as dental care for her four young children.

Winding up activities at the Federal Building, participants pulled out their phones to wage a Twitter storm and besiege the White House and Congress with phone calls.

Medicare was signed into law by President Lyndon Johnson, on July 30, 1965 http://peoplesworld.org/today-in-history-hooray-for-medicare-on-its-first-50-years/.

Since its inception, it's been targeted by Republicans; Ronald Reagan famously said that if it weren't stopped, "you and I are going to spend our sunset years telling our children and our children's children what it was like in America when men were free."

Mortality and disability rates have dropped steadily, as have costs of hospitalizations, and people are far less apt to be hospitalized, according to a study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association.

And according to a study published in the Journal of Internal Medicine, undocumented immigrants pay billions more into Medicare annually than they use in health benefits.

Commenting on that study, California Insurance Commissioner Dave Jones said that although Medicare and Medicaid are different programs, he thinks "many of the same points in this research applies to Medicaid and California's Medicaid program, Medi-Cal."

Photo: Marilyn Bechtel/PW

Trump embraces “ridiculous” mass deportation policy

Thu, 30 Jul 2015 15:12:00 +0000

WASHINGTON - While Donald Trump's comments on immigrants have been mostly been bluster and bigotry, befitting his frontrunner status, he is now venturing into the realm of immigration policy.

It is not pretty.

In an interview with CNN's Dana Bash yesterday, Trump outlined his approach:

"[D]eport all undocumented immigrants and then allow the 'good ones' to reenter the country through an 'expedited process' and live in the U.S. legally, though not as citizens."

Regarding how to implement his mass deportation vision, Trump said:

"Politicians aren't going to find them [undocumented immigrants] because they have no clue. We will find them, we will get them out ... It's feasible if you know how to manage. Politicians don't know how to manage."

So, what are serious policy experts to make of this unserious idea?

Let's start with the premise. Trump says, in effect, first we round up and deport all 11 million undocumented immigrants, and he will do so because he knows how to manage. This is as extreme as it is ridiculous. There are 11 million undocumented immigrants in America. Two-thirds have lived and worked in America for more than a decade. Most live in families. Many own homes. They are intertwined in families and communities, they are settled and most are going nowhere. The idea that he will round up and deport a population the size of Ohio is un-American, unworkable and unaffordable. Politically, it's consistent with his racist comments about Mexican immigrants, and it's more extreme than Mitt Romney's infamous embrace of "self-deportation."

But wait. There's more. Once this mass expulsion is complete, according to Trump, he will set up a process of allowing the "good ones" to re-enter the nation legally. It's as if he wants his immigration policy to be modeled after one of his beauty pageants or his reality show.

Deep breath. Face palm.

It's tempting to see Trump as an outlier. But what's remarkable is that supposedly "serious" GOP contenders aren't making much more sense on immigration policy. Witness Scott Walker: he says that undocumented immigrants have to leave the country and apply to come back in. While he doesn't explicitly call for mass deportation, conceptually there's not much difference between the two plans, both of which call for people to leave the country to apply to come in legally - as if that were feasible and realistic.

Meanwhile, the rest of the Republican field, Lindsey Graham excepted, is embracing the "secure the border first" excuse for inaction on broader reforms and advancing the false notion that the border is out of control. As America's Voice outlined in our recent report on 2016 Republicans and immigration, saying the "secure the border first" riff is a coded way to say "comprehensive immigration reform never." It ignores the tremendous amount of resources already devoted to the border and is at odds with the real facts on the ground regarding border security (see the recent front-page story in the Washington Post by Jerry Markon, which noted that "illegal immigration flows have fallen to their lowest level in at least two decades"). As the Wall Street Journal has editorialized: "Republicans who claim we must 'secure the border first' ignore the progress already made because their real goal isn't border security. It is to use border security as an excuse to kill immigration reform."

According to Frank Sharry, executive director of America's Voice, "Trump's so-called plan doesn't pass the smell test or the laugh test. The notion of forcing 11 million hardworking immigrant families to leave the country is so ugly and unworkable even the anti-immigrant movement has disavowed this radical notion. Now Trump is going there, putting him to the right of Romney's radical 'self-deportation' stance and showing the country generally, and Latino, Asian American and immigrant voters in particular what the GOP's frontrunner has in mind for immigration policy in America."

Nevertheless, the Trump Effect continues to make its mark on Congress. Following a series of GOP-led hearings last week aimed at portraying all immigrants as criminals (a la Donald Trump's racist remarks), the Senate Judiciary Committee announced plans to markup a new bill (S. 1814) from the notorious anti-immigrant Sen. David Vitter that would harm community policing and prevent the federal government from focusing resources on the worst of the worst.

Over the past several years, hundreds of localities across the nation, with the support of local law enforcement, police chiefs, and sheriffs, have limited their involvement in federal immigration enforcement out of concerns for vital Fourth Amendment protections and community safety. Policy proposals-much like Senator Vitter's-"are focused on heavy-handed, enforcement-only approaches despite the fact that studies show that deportation-only policies do not reduce crime rates," the American Immigration Lawyers Association, the National Immigration Law Center, and United We Dream said in a letter.

This article is from America's Voice blog.

Photo: Donald Trump | Gage Skidmore/Wikipedia/CC

Some extraordinarily special Olympics days in Los Angeles

Thu, 30 Jul 2015 13:42:00 +0000

LOS ANGELES - From July 25 to August 2, the greater Los Angeles metropolis has been rooting for some very special athletes: Around 6,500 of them, from 165 countries, competing during the 2015 Special Olympics World Games.

Strolling from event to event through the crowds, I couldn't help but stop some of the athletes with their colorful team outfits. Where are you from? Ecuador? Viva Correa! Venezuela? Viva el movimiento bolivariano! I saw some beautiful young Cuban athletes - Cuba sent 16 to the Games. Bienvenidos, I said. Sinceramente, bienvenidos a los Estados Unidos. How happy they were to be playing volleyball on the sands of Alamitos Beach in nearby Long Beach. Teams came from tiny Gibraltar, the Isle of Man, San Marino, and from the athletic powerhouses of China, Russia, the Nordic countries, and of course from around the U.S.

One blogger, Elizabeth Ippolito, related her conversation with Olympic legend Rafer Johnson. When Johnson was awarding medals at a Special Olympics track and field meet in Arizona some years back, he witnessed a remarkable, transformative moment in the life of one athlete. Here's how Rafer tells it:

"After receiving her medal, the young lady that I presented the medal to waved across the field to her family and said, 'Look Mom, look Dad, I won!' She was crying and her family was crying, so I asked her to take me over to meet her family.

"When we got there, she introduced me to each member of her family. And as she said each name, each person began to sob. These were more than tears of joy. Something more was going on.

"So I turned to her mother and said, 'I can understand how you can be so excited, having a child do as well as she did. But could you tell me a little more about what's happening?'

"It was then that I learned what made that moment so remarkable. It was the first time they had ever heard their daughter speak. The first time they had heard her say their names. It was truly a remarkable moment."

"Amazing things happen," Elizabeth says, "when you're given the opportunity to be the best you can be."

That was, of course, a story not replicated on a daily basis at the L.A. World Games, so far as I know, though surely there must have been some little miracles. I did hear one affecting story from a Dutch parent of a roller skater whom I happened to be seated next to. That morning, she said, the announcer said over the P.A. that the next contestant gets very distracted by too much noise and won't be able to complete his routine, so please, everyone, keep the shouting and cheers down until he's finished, okay? And the audience fell into a deep, respectful hush, and the boy did just fine.

The Special Olympics was founded in 1968 by Eunice Kennedy Shriver, to "create a world that is not dominated by those who are excluded but by those who are included." Special Olympics has 4.4 million athletes involved around the world, and serves a wide range of people with intellectual disabilities. Mostly the athletes are young, but some middle-aged contestants are participating as well in certain events.

The Biennial World Games are the flagship event of the Special Olympics. The 2015 Games is the biggest event hosted in Los Angeles since the 1984 Olympic Games. It is the world's largest sports and humanitarian event this year.

Competition is taking place in 25 events at four main hubs: University of Southern California (USC), University of California Los Angeles (UCLA), Long Beach, and Los Angeles Convention Center. All competitions are free and open to the public.

The sports include: aquatic, badminton, basketball, beach volleyball, bocce, bowling, cycling, equestrian, golf, gymnastics, half marathon, handball (a team sport fusing soccer and basketball), judo, kayaking, open-water swimming, power lifting, roller skating, sailing, soccer, softball, table tennis, tennis, track and field, triathlon, and volleyball.

No one could possibly take it all in; I watched some roller skating, handball, table tennis, gymnastics, and attended several of the awards ceremonies.

As many as 100 towns across Southern California took part in the Host Town Program before the games, hosting special events for the athletes and giving them a taste of Southern California culture.

Stevie Wonder, Avril Lavigne, and even Michelle Obama, along with many other celebrities, took the stage at Opening Ceremonies to welcome the real stars this week: the World Games athletes! The Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum was sold out for the event.

The 6,500 athletes are accompanied by their 2,000 coaches, along with 30,000 volunteers and an anticipated 500,000 spectators in attendance. Athletes are housed at UCLA and USC.

I can report with all honesty that at least half the time, as I attended events and watched these dedicated, hard-working athletes compete for their medals, I had tears in my eyes. Not just for the courageous competitors, and not only out of gratitude for their coaches and trainers. Not only out of appreciation for these thousands of family members who came so far and at such great personal sacrifice to support their children and loved ones. And not only for all those who I knew could not make it because of the expense and the time off. Nor for all those back home as shutaways, as pariahs, as people made useless not by their abilities but by prejudice, shame, poverty and doubt.

I cried joyously thinking, This is one of the few places I've ever experienced, on such a mass scale, a feeling of so many people pouring out so much unconditional love, so much earnest, heartfelt devotion to see every human being of whatever their capacity, be brave, do their best, and be encouraged for it.

For these moments and days, I left my cynicism behind, my skepticism about the motivations of Coca Cola and the Bank of America and all the other corporate sponsors. I tried not to think about how limited the sports facilities must be for so many of them back home in their developing countries. All I could see was athletes and appreciative audiences here and now, bound up as one, their arms thrusting to the skies each time the medalists' names were called:

"In the spirit of the Special Olympics, let's all reach up, L.A."

This site will take you to the complete schedule of events.

Photo: Eric Gordon/PW

Boy Scouts of America to allow gay adult leaders

Thu, 30 Jul 2015 12:50:00 +0000

NEW YORK (AP) - The Boy Scouts of America has ended its blanket ban on gay adult leaders but will allow church-sponsored Scout units to maintain the exclusion for religious reasons.

The new policy, aimed at easing a controversy that has embroiled the Boy Scouts for years, takes effect immediately. It was approved Monday by the BSA's National Executive Board on a 45-12 vote during a closed-to-the-media teleconference.

"For far too long this issue has divided and distracted us," the BSA's president, former Defense Secretary Robert Gates, said. "Now it's time to unite behind our shared belief in the extraordinary power of Scouting to be a force for good."

Initial reactions to the decision from groups on both sides suggested the issue would remain divisive.

The Mormon church, which sponsors more Scout units that any other organization, said it was "deeply troubled" by the decision. Church officials suggested they would look into the possibility of forming their own organization to replace Boy Scouts.

"The admission of openly gay leaders is inconsistent with the doctrines of the Church and what have traditionally been the values of the Boy Scouts of America," said a statement from Mormon headquarters in Salt Lake City.

In contrast, the Human Rights Campaign, a national LGBT-rights organization, said the Boy Scouts should not allow church-sponsored units to continue excluding gays.

"Including an exemption for troops sponsored by religious organizations undermines and diminishes the historic nature of the decision. Discrimination should have no place in the Boy Scouts, period," said the HRC's president, Chad Griffin. "BSA officials should now demonstrate true leadership and begin the process of considering a full national policy of inclusion."

Gates foreshadowed Monday's action on May 21, when he told the Scouts' national meeting that the long-standing ban on participation by openly gay adults was no longer sustainable. He said the ban was likely to be the target of lawsuits that the Scouts likely would lose.

Two weeks ago, the new policy was approved unanimously by the BSA's 17-member National Executive Committee. It would allow local Scout units to select adult leaders without regard to sexual orientation _ a stance that several Scout councils have already adopted in defiance of the official national policy.

In 2013, after heated internal debate, the BSA decided to allow openly gay youth as scouts, but not gay adults as leaders. Several denominations that collectively sponsor close to half of all Scout units -- including the Roman Catholic church, the Mormon church and the Southern Baptist Convention -- have been apprehensive about ending the ban on gay adults.

The BSA's top leaders pledged to defend the right of any church-sponsored units to continue excluding gays as adult volunteers. But that assurance has not satisfied some conservative church leaders.

"In recent years I have seen a definite cooling on the part of Baptist churches toward the Scouts," said the Rev. Russell Moore, president of the Southern Baptist Convention's Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission. "This will probably bring that cooling to a freeze."

A more nuanced response came from the National Catholic Committee on Scouting, which expressed interest in maintaining its ties with the BSA, but also voiced concerns. Notably, it conveyed a reluctance to accept participation by anyone who engaged in sexual conduct outside of a heterosexual marriage.

Under the BSA's new policy, gay leaders who were previously removed from Scouting because of the ban would have the opportunity to reapply for volunteer positions. If otherwise qualified, a gay adult would be eligible to serve as a Scoutmaster or unit leader.

Gates, who became the BSA's president in May 2014, said at the time that he personally would have favored ending the ban on gay adults, but he opposed any further debate after the Scouts' policymaking body upheld the ban. In May, he said that recent events "have confronted us with urgent challenges I did not foresee and which we cannot ignore."

He cited an announcement by the BSA's New York City chapter in early April that it had hired Pascal Tessier, the nation's first openly gay Eagle Scout, as a summer camp leader. Gates also cited broader gay-rights developments and warned that rigidly maintaining the ban "will be the end of us as a national movement."

The BSA's right to exclude gays was upheld by the U.S. Supreme Court in 2000. But since then, the policy has prompted numerous major corporations to suspend charitable donations to the Scouts and strained relations with some municipalities.

More recently, the BSA faced a civil rights investigation in New York and lawsuits in other states over the ban.

Kenneth Upton, a lawyer for the LGBT-rights group Lambda Legal, questioned whether the BSA's new policy to let church-sponsored units continue to exclude gay adults would be sustainable.

"There will be a period of time where they'll have some legal protection," Upton said. "But that doesn't mean the lawsuits won't keep coming. ... They will become increasingly marginalized from the direction society is going."

Lambda Legal's National Legal Director, Jon W. Davidson, wrote: As a result of this reform, which is to take effect immediately:

Gay men, bisexuals and lesbians will be able to volunteer and participate in the BSA without having to hide their sexual orientation or their committed relationships;
The organization will cease discriminating in employment based on sexual orientation;
Lesbian, gay and bisexual parents will no longer be excluded from being formally involved in Cub Scout dens and Boy Scout troops along with their sons;
Those previously excluded will be able to reapply for membership; and
The BSA, as an entity, will drop its policy that conveyed to all boys, regardless of their sexual orientation, that being gay was inconsistent with the Scout oath and law's principles of being clean and morally straight and instead was an aspect of one's life that needed to be hidden in shame.

Like several other major youth organizations, the Boy Scouts have experienced a membership decline in recent decades. Current membership, according to the BSA, is about 2.4 million boys and about 1 million adults.

According to media reports, Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker's supports a discriminatory policy that bars gay, lesbian and bisexual adults from serving as BSA employees and troop leaders. Walker's comments defended a discriminatory ban as one that "protected" children.

HRC's Griffin called the remarks "offensive, outrageous, and absolutely unacceptable. His comments imply that we represent a threat to the safety and well-being of young people. For a sitting governor and presidential candidate to make such a disgraceful claim is unconscionable."

Former Texas Governor Rick Perry said on Meet the Press that the Boy Scouts of America would be "better off" without openly LGB employees and volunteers.

"Rick Perry's hurtful and offensive comments are yet another reminder of how much 'better off' our nation is with him out of public office, and especially the White House," said JoDee Winterhof, Senior Vice President of Policy and Political Affairs for the Human Rights Campaign. "The rest of the candidates need to make clear they don't agree with Rick Perry and Scott Walker's support of discriminatory policies."

Associated Press writer Brady McCombs in Salt Lake City contributed to this report.

Photo: In this Sunday, June 28, photo, Cub Scouts and Boy Scouts prepare to lead marchers while waving rainbow-colored flags at the 41st annual Pride Parade in Seattle, two days after the U.S. Supreme Court legalized gay marriage nationwide. On July 27, the Texas-based Boy Scouts of America ended its blanket ban on gay adult leaders but will allow church-sponsored Scout units to maintain the exclusion for religious reasons. | Elaine Thompson/AP

Today in history: Hooray for Medicare on its first 50 years!

Thu, 30 Jul 2015 12:41:00 +0000

On July 30 1965, under the leadership of President Lyndon B. Johnson, Congress created Medicare under Title XVIII of the Social Security Act to provide health insurance to people age 65 and older, regardless of income or medical history. Before Medicare's creation, approximately two-thirds of those over 65 had health insurance, with coverage often unavailable or unaffordable to the rest, because older adults paid more than three times as much for health insurance as younger people, and millions were excluded as "rick factors."

Before Medicare it was far from uncommon to see a family swept into destitution almost overnight owing to a serious illness or accident and the attendant high medical bills.

Because of Medicare, as well as the Voting Rights Act, Civil Rights Act, Head Start and his vision of the "Great Society," Johnson is regarded today by most historians as one of our great presidents, at least domestically, despite the disastrous Vietnam War which he pursued maniacally.

Medicare was signed into law in Independence, Mo. Former President Harry Truman was the first person to be issued a Medicare card, in symbolic recognition of his attempt to introduce a national health care program following World War II.

Medicare spurred the racial integration of thousands of waiting rooms, hospital floors, and physician practices by making payments to health care providers conditional on desegregation.

Medicare provides health insurance for almost 50 million Americans, about four-fifths age 65 and up, and one-fifth younger people with disabilities and catastrophic illnesses.

On average, Medicare covers about half (48 percent) of the health care charges for its enrollees, who must then cover the remaining approved charges either with supplemental insurance or with another form of out-of-pocket coverage.

Critics of Medicare often point out that the system is deficient in some important ways: It does not cover many issues associated with vision, nor dental work, nor extended mental care. These can also be debilitating and expensive problems with significant health ramifications.

Over the past half century, however, Medicare has expanded to include benefits for speech, physical, and chiropractic therapy, and hospice care. It also now permits the option of payments to health maintenance organizations. In 2003, under President George W. Bush, a Medicare program for covering almost all drugs was passed, and went into effect in 2006, although many analysts saw it as a giveaway to Big Pharma.

Who doesn't like Medicare?

Because Medicare is "social" insurance funded by wage deductions, like Social Security, it incurred the opposition of conservative Republicans in thrall to private enterprise. Most Republican voters on Medicare wouldn't dream of abandoning it for the kind of unregulated private medical insurance the Right promotes, but GOP legislators answerable to their biggest corporate funders do not have such voters in mind.

Republicans still won't give up their attempts to dismantle the program that brings quality health care and economic security to tens of millions of seniors. Presidential candidate Jeb Bush talks about wanting to "phase out" Medicare - and he's the "moderate!"

The right wing has a different plan for Medicare - basically to give seniors a voucher for health insurance, say good luck and wave goodbye! The GOP has also been relentless in trying to dismantle the Affordable Care Act (Obamcare), which has extended health care benefits to millions more Americans, although still under the aegis of private insurance.

Because of cost controls and the large number of people it serves, Medicare is cheaper to run than private medicine based solely on the profit motive. If politicians and voters are concerned about controlling the budget, as Robert Reich has pointed out, "Medicare isn't the problem. In fact, it's the solution."

The American health care scorecard is very clear: We have the most expensive health care system in the world, and show poorer results. By almost every measure of a nation's health - longevity, birth weight, infant mortality, incidence of disease, teenage pregnancy, etc. - the U.S. rates overall 37th among nations. Profit, corruption and "administrative costs" are shortening our lives. We are on a par with developing countries such as Cuba, which actually beats American numbers in infant mortality and other health criteria.

As America looks forward, the answer is not to "phase out" Medicare, but to expand it to all, in a system such as every other advanced industrial nation already enjoys. Medicare for All is needed to slow health care costs, reduce the federal budget, democratize access to the necessities of life, and improve American productivity.

Happy birthday, Medicare! Celebrations are occurring all over the country. See here.

Photo: Lyndon Johnson signing Medicare bill, with Harry Truman, July 30, 1965 | Wikipedia (CC)

Sandra Bland’s only offense was “driving while black”

Wed, 29 Jul 2015 13:18:00 +0000

On July 9, Sandra Bland drove to Prairie View, Texas from Chicago, eager for a job interview at Prairie View A&M, the historically black college that was her alma mater. The 28-year-old woman, described as smart and generous, had expressed solidarity with BlackLivesMatter and the growing movement against mass incarceration and racially biased policing. Then she took a big risk: she was driving while black. Four days later, she was found dead in a county jail cell.

She was pulled over on July 10 by a white police officer, officially for failing to signal a lane change. She asked why he had pulled her over. He told her to put out her cigarette. When she questioned why, he demanded she get out of the car, threatened her with a stun gun, reached in to pull her out of the car and handcuffed her, pushing her down to the ground when she resisted and complained. She was driven to the county jail in Hempstead, a jail run by Sheriff R. Glenn Smith. A decade ago, the New York Times reports, Smith was sued by the only full-time black officer on the force for dismissing him after he complained about his supervisor's racial slurs. He was suspended in 2007 for pushing a black man he said had spit on him. He was fired in 2008 after complaints about intrusive searches of African Americans in public. He was elected sheriff months later.

Pulled over for not signaling a lane change, Bland was charged with a felony for assaulting a police officer and hit with a $5,000 bond. She spent three days in jail, finally arranging the money needed for a bondsman. She was found dead in her cell. Her death was ruled a suicide, a finding that her family disputes. How could a young woman, excited by the prospect of a new job, finally arranging to get out of that cell, choose to hang herself?

Waller County, an hour out of Houston, has an infamous history of racism. The Times reports on a study by the Equal Justice Initiative that found blacks were lynched after Reconstruction more frequently than in almost any other county in the state.

No official is defending the trooper's behavior when he pulled Sandra Bland over. He has been placed on administrative leave with pay while an inquiry goes forth. The Hempstead mayor says he was "very, very upset" with what he saw on the videotape of the incident that was captured by a camera in the trooper's car.

U.S. Attorney General Loretta E. Lynch noted that Sandra Bland's death highlights the fears of African Americans when they come into contact with the police. "Many minority communities," she said, "for so long have felt that law enforcement was coming in to essentially enforce laws against them, not to protect them." Over 300,000 have signed a national petition calling on an independent Justice Department investigation of Sandra Bland's death.

The fears Lynch alluded to are well founded. Sandra Bland's is only the latest death. Across the country, more than two dozen others have died in police custody this year. As of July 26, police have killed, according to the Guardian, 657 people this year in the U.S. Nearly six of 10 (58 percent) were people of color. As William Boardman notes, U.S. police killed 59 people in the first 24 days of 2015, compared to the police of England and Wales, who killed 55 people in the last 24 years. Texas trails only California for the number of police killings.

We don't simply need new cameras on police; we need a fundamental change of culture. Police forces should look like the communities they patrol. Police officers should live in those communities. Training must not only instruct police in the use of firearms, but in the mores of the community. And police cannot not be put in the position of an occupying force in desperately impoverished neighborhoods with massive unemployment and little hope.

Sandra Bland changed lanes without signaling. But that wasn't her crime. Her crime was driving while black. The institutionalized prejudices and distorted practices that led to her death are unacceptable in a nation of equal justice under the law. Unacceptable and unaccepted.

This article was republished here with permission.

Photo: Brett Coomer/AP

Cincinnati community marches to demand justice for Samuel Dubose

Tue, 28 Jul 2015 17:49:00 +0000

CINCINNATI - On Sunday July 26, a crowd of over 300 community members marched from the University of Cincinnati campus to the site of the fatal shooting death of 43-year old Samuel Dubose to demand the release of police body camera footage of the incident. Undeterred by a thunderstorm, demonstrators actions included spontaneously halting the march to drop to their knees with their hands in the air and "die ins," whereby the crowd laid limp in the street.

Dubose died after being shot in the head by campus officer Ray Tensing during a July 19 traffic stop for failure to display a front license plate. Dubose was unarmed. The ordinary penalty for the traffic violation is a $130.00 fine.

In an interview with the People's World, Dubose's younger sister Kimberly "Keshan" Thomas described Dubose as a "community man," "revolutionary," and "documentary enthusiast" who taught his children about the work of Martin Luther King, Jr. and Malcolm X. Thomas said that Dubose was her best friend, mentor, and biggest fan, who had been encouraging Thomas to use her culinary training to realize her long-time goal of opening a vegan restaurant in the city. Thomas cooked Dubose his last meal before the two watched the documentary Slavery by Consent.

The event was largely organized by the family of Dubose and included remarks from his mother, father, sister, niece, and two of his minor children. Demonstrators chanted shout outs to cities such as Cleveland, Ferguson, and Baltimore, a sign of solidarity with the larger Black Lives Matter Movement which has taken hold in cities

At the site of Dubose's death, demonstrators laid white carnations at a memorial set up by neighborhood residents at the foot of a utility pole. After the family's remarks at the memorial site, the crowd proceeded to the headquarters of the University of Cincinnati's Department of Public Safety, where they chanted "Show us the tape!" a reference to the body camera being withheld by both campus police and county prosecutor Joe Deters.

Discrepancies between Tensing's 911 call reporting the shooting and his final incident report have aggregated community suspicion and amplified calls for release of the body camera footage.

Several media agencies have sued for release of the footage, arguing that it is a public record to which they are entitled under Ohio law. Deters has promised to release the footage upon the conclusion of his investigation. Deters hopes to conclude his investigation by Friday.

Photo: At the site of Dubose's death, demonstrators laid white carnations at a memorial set up by neighborhood residents at the foot of a utility pole. Kirsten Hendershot/PW

Religious voters back Pope's stands against racism, income inequality, for worker rights

Tue, 28 Jul 2015 13:13:00 +0000

WASHINGTON (PAI)-Strongly religious voters - even usually cynical political independents-strenuously back Pope Francis I's stands against racism, denouncing income inequality and for worker rights, among other issues, a new survey shows.

The survey, commissioned by the AFL-CIO and the Service Employees, comes as workers, the labor federation and their allies ready themselves for Francis' visit to the U.S. this fall, including stops in New York, Philadelphia and D.C.

AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka has already pledged to put "all the resources of the labor movement" to help and greet the Pope when he comes to the U.S.

"The poll revealed religiously affiliated voters support an agenda that fosters a family-friendly economy and support what the Pope has to say on related policies. Voters stated they will give 'a great deal of attention' to what Pope Francis has to say on the topics of workers' rights and income inequality," the federation said in a statement.

Since he ascended to the papacy, Francis has been outspoken about the rights of workers to be valued and respected - including their rights to join unions - and against income inequality and poverty. The former Cardinal from Buenos Aires, who is the first Pope from the Southern and Western Hemispheres, also denounces the excesses of unbridled capitalism.

The survey, by Lake Research Associates, shows likely 2016 U.S. presidential election voters strongly agree with him, pollster Celinda Lake said. And hefty shares of them say his views would have a major influence on how they cast their ballots next year.

"The Pope's message of forgiveness, inclusion and equality has a broad reach. Voters, especially economically, are very interested in what he has to say," Lake told reporters.

He's also quite popular: By a 67 percent-23 percent margin, respondents view Francis "favorably" or "very favorably." The average U.S. member of Congress draws 42 percent, and even Oprah (61 percent) trails Francis among Lake's respondents. Catholics (88 percent), Latinos (71 percent), Protestants (56 percent) and African-Americans (51 percent) favor him.

Other findings from the survey included:

On a 1-to-10 scale, with 10 being the strongest, all voters combined registered 8.3 in agreeing with him on the core value of doing unto others as you would have them do unto you. The subsamples of Catholics, Latinos and independents ranged from 8.1 to 8.5 on that.
All four sets of voters registered 7.4 out of 10 on agreeing with Francis on "embracing all people" including gays, lesbians and transgendered people.
Workers rights finished fourth in strength, tied with income inequality (6.2 and 6.1) just behind children's issues, poverty and racism, when voters rated the power of specific papal messages to themselves personally.
Two conservative religious messages - that religious leaders should stay out of politics and that they should not discuss housing and other social issues - flopped, Lake said.
Francis' repeated statements that people are more important than money were "very convincing" to 54 percent of all religious voters, 54 percent of the Catholics, 61 percent of the Latinos and 45 percent of the independents. And his specific message that "the economy is tough on families, so we need to fight to make work dignified work" drew 49 percent among all voters 52 percent among Catholics and 59 percent among Latinos.

79 percent of the religious voters said Francis is "very convincing" or "convincing" when he says "There is so much inequality and injustice that our economy is out of balance."
87 percent of all voters said they would pay attention to what Francis has to say, when he visits the U.S., about paid sick and family leave, and 32 percent of them "would give a lot of weight" to his words. Including that latter group, two-thirds would give his words some weight.
62 percent of all voters said they would pay attention to what Francis has to say about raising the minimum wage to $15 hourly, and 32 percent of them "would give a lot of weight" to his words on that, too. Another 22 percent would give his words some weight.
Even white Protestants - the bulwark of both the U.S. conservative movement and the Republican Party - like Francis. Lake told reporters that 58 percent of them view Francis favorably. That's slightly below the 67 percent figure for the religious voters she surveyed.

"We consider a (specific) message to be very successful when 40 percent of voters are very convinced and 60 percent are convinced," by the messenger's words, Lake said. By those measures, Pope Francis' messages are successful.

The religious independents' figures are also impressive, Lake noted. That's because her prior surveys have shown they're the most cynical of all voters, she explained.

Ironically, the day before Lake released her findings, the Gallup organization released its own poll about the Pope. It surveyed a representative sample of all adults, not those who are religiously committed and likely to vote next year. Gallup reported declines, compared to past polls, in support for Francis among both self-identified conservatives and liberals.

"This is a different population," in her poll, the first of its kind, Lake responded.

Lake's poll of 750 religious voters has a plus-or-minus 3.5 percent margin of error.

Photo: Pope Francis shakes hands with a mining worker's leader, as Bolivia's President Evo Morales, right, stands by, during the second World Meeting of Popular Movements in Santa Cruz, Bolivia, July 9. During his speech at the meeting, history's first Latin American pope apologized for the sins and offenses committed by the Catholic Church against indigenous peoples during the colonial-era conquest of the Americas. (AP Photo/Rodrigo Abd)

Today in history: U.S. Marines invade and occupy Haiti 100 years ago

Tue, 28 Jul 2015 11:43:00 +0000

The United States occupation of Haiti began on July 28, 1915, when 330 U.S. Marines landed at Port-au-Prince, Haiti, on the authority of President Woodrow Wilson to safeguard the interests of U.S. corporations.

Between 1911-15, the presidency of Haiti changed six times.Various peasant armies carried out this series of coups. The U.S. was particularly apprehensive about the roles (real and imagined) played by Germany, a rising imperial power which had intervened in the Western hemisphere, including Haiti, to exert its influence as a rival to American domination.

By 1915 Europe was already at war, and the U.S. feared that Germany might use Haiti and the Dominican Republic, sharing the island of Hispaniola, for espionage and expanding military interests in Latin America.

The small German community in Haiti of approximately 200 in 1910 wielded a disproportionately high amount of economic power. German nationals controlled about 80 percent of the country's international commerce, owned a railroad and operated utilities in Cap Haitien and Port-au-Prince, the main wharf and a tramway in the capital.

Some Germans married into the nation's most prominent mulatto families, thus bypassing the constitutional prohibition against foreign land ownership and posing an economic threat to American financial, political and military interests. To limit German influence, the State Department backed a consortium of American investors, assembled by the National City Bank of New York, in acquiring control of the Banque Nationale d'Haiti, the nation's only commercial bank and the government treasury.

In July 1915, the current dictator Jean Vilbrun Guillaume Sam, massacred 167 political prisoners, all from elite families, particularly from the better educated and wealthier mulatto population with German affiliations. In the aftermath, Sam in turn was lynched by a mob in Port-au-Prince, allegedly organized by American business interests in the country, such as the Haitian American Sugar Company. With the invasion by the Marines, the American government preserved their economic dominance over Haiti.

The story of Haiti is a case study in the injustice of the international finance and monetary system. The Haitian government had been receiving large loans from both American and French banks over the past few decades and was growing increasingly incapable of fulfilling their debt repayment. Within six weeks of the occupation, U.S. agents controlled Haitian customs houses, banks and the national treasury. In September 1915, the U.S. Senate ratified the Haitian-American Convention, a "treaty" granting American oversight of Haiti for a 10-year period. From that point on, 40 percent of the national income was used to pay off the banks, depriving the economy of resources for development.

Opposition to the occupation began immediately. The rebels, called "cacos" by the Marines and in part subsidized by the German government and the local German-Haitian elite, vehemently tried to resist American control. The Americans set about to disband the rebel armies. The best-known account of this campaign came from Marine Major Smedley Butler, awarded a Medal of Honor for his exploits, who went on to serve as commanding officer of the Haitian Gendarmerie. Butler later expressed his disapproval of the U.S. intervention, and of imperialism in general, in his book "War Is a Racket."

Racial attitudes towards the Haitian people by the American occupation forces were blatant. Segregationist housing and mass killings of Haitians by U.S. military aroused protest from the NAACP at home. Many Haitians continued to resent their loss of sovereignty. World War I ended the German influence in Haiti; now opponents of the occupation reached out to allies within the U.S. itself.

The NAACP sent the black American writer James Weldon Johnson to Haiti to discover the real situation in the country. Johnson's series of scathing articles in the Nation magazine helped rally domestic American opinion against the occupation.

Once the Depression hit, whatever economic development Haiti had achieved under the Americans largely dissipated. Haitian laborers traveled to work in the sugar industries of Cuba and the Dominican Republic.

For 19 years, U.S. "advisers" governed the country, enforced by the U.S. Marine Corps.The formal occupation ended in August 1934, under President Franklin D. Roosevelt, proponent of the Good Neighbor policy, although the U.S. retained influence on Haiti's external finances until 1947.

Adapted from Wikipedia and other sources.

Photo: "Occupation of Haiti" by A. R. Harrison, United States Marine Corps - Marine Corps Legacy Museum, Harrison, AR. Licensed under Public Domain via Wikimedia Commons.

Huckabee comparison of Iran deal to Holocaust reflects power of money

Mon, 27 Jul 2015 15:06:00 +0000

WASHINGTON - Not embarrassed at all, GOP presidential candidate Mike Huckabee is sticking with his characterization of the Iran nuclear agreement as "marching the Israelis to the door of the oven," a reference to the Holocaust. He refused to apologize despite condemnation of his remarks by President Obama who characterized them as "grossly irresponsible."

The former Arkansas governor made the attack this weekend in a denunciation of the role of President Obama in a nuke deal involving the U.S., other world powers and Iran.

His attack came after a hearing last week at which members of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee tried to outdo each other in pledging to torpedo the anti-nuclear-weapons deal with Iran, knowing full well there's no way to negotiate another one.

In fact, eight of the 10 Republican members of the committee signed a letter last March that can only be interpreted as urging the Iranians not to negotiate with the Obama administration at all.

Aside from the U.S and Iran, the agreement was signed by Germany, China, France, the United Kingdom and Russia. However, the senators were thinking less about world politics and more about the politics of elections. One member, Marco Rubio, R-Fla., went so far as to imply that if he were elected president next year, he would abrogate any deal with Iran then in existence.

To get elected, the senators on the committee, like so many other right-wing politicians, depend upon millions in campaign financing from the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), Israel's main lobbying arm, and from billionaires such as the oil-rich Koch brothers and the gambling casino tycoon Sheldon Adelson.

Adelson owns Israel's most read newspaper, and is the main financial supporter of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his Likud Party. AIPAC, Adelson, the Koch brothers, and their ilk are determined to keep Netanyahu in power. Under his rule, much of Israel's publicly owned resources have become privatized, putting billions of dollars into the coffers of a few American-owned corporations. Later this year, for example, the Israeli government intends to privatize the postal service.

Netanyahu's coalition is holding on to power only by a thread, with just a bare majority in the Knesset. The leftist Joint List coalition, which includes the Israeli Communist Party, is now the third largest political grouping in Israel. Why? Because the Israeli economy is in a shambles; the cost of living is soaring and wages are plummeting.

Now more than ever Netanyahu is using what he has always used to win elections: fear.

He has a problem, though: the new leaders of Iran seem willing to eliminate one of the fears faced by Israelis. If economic sanctions are lifted and money starts flowing into their country, the Iranians are willing to stop their progress toward becoming a nuclear power. Adelson and Netanyahu are acting as if they are convinced that if the majority of Israelis become less afraid, his coalition could lose. That's reason enough for them to go all out to kill any deal reached with the Iranians.

The Koch brothers have jumped onto the anti-deal bandwagon because they badly want to discredit the Obama administration in retaliation against the imposition of extra taxes on their enterprises.

Representatives of the billionaires and the Israel lobby have told legislators in the House and Senate that it is not enough to be against the deal with Iran; they must fight it tooth and nail if they want their campaign chests to stay filled.

No wonder that right-wingers on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee are eager for their billionaire benefactors to get the message loud and clear: they will fight to the finish to undermine the Iran agreement. They have sworn again and again their allegiance to the efforts of Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and Speaker of the House John Boehner to kill the deal.

No wonder that one Capitol Hill observer, reporter Max Fisher, called the Senate hearing on the Iran deal "a clown show." The right-wingers on the committee didn't seem concerned with the logic behind what they said, as long as it was crystal clear they were fighting against approval of the agreement.

For example, during the hearing, Sen. Ron Johnson, R-Wis., brought up "electromagnetic pulse" (EMP) weapons. U.S. Secretary of Energy Ernest Moniz, an MIT nuclear physicist, explained to Johnson that outside of science fiction fantasy stories, there are no such thing as EMP weapons. Moniz offered to send Johnson a study on the subject.

Meanwhile, right-wing House member Mike Pompeo, R-Kan., and Senator Tom Cotton, R-Ark., who are not on the Foreign Relations Committee, went to Vienna to discuss the Iranian deal with the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), which under the agreement will do most of the monitoring of Iran's nuclear program. The IAEA is an independent organization that reports to both the United Nations General Assembly and the Security Council. It has been monitoring Iran's nuclear program for years and has been warning the world about it.

IAEA officials, in a very open manner, gave Cotton and Pompeo details about how the monitoring process would be conducted under the deal. Then, as if operating in a reality-free universe, Cotton and Pompeo accused the Obama administration and the IAEA of striking "secret deals."

Cotton had been the author of the March letter to Iranian leaders that seemed to urge them to quit the talks.

Huckabee's is only the latest in continuing attempts to undermine the agreement. Right-wing House members and Senators are loudly complaining that the UN Security Council has already voted its approval of the deal, before the U.S. Congress has acted, as if the UN should wait for the likes of Huckabee, Pompeo and Cotton to complete their campaign of confusion.

Actually, the UN Security Council is waiting. Its resolution does not take effect until 30 days after the Congress is scheduled to vote on the deal September 17.

Last May, the Obama administration yielded to Republican pressure and agreed to a bill - the Iran Nuclear Agreement Review Act - under which Congress has the authority to approve or reject the agreement. That gives the conservatives time to organize powerful campaigns to undermine the deal. For example, AIPAC is flying in hundreds of people who will flood the House and Senate with a warning: kill the deal or face our wrath.

Because Republicans hold majorities in both houses of Congress, it's doubtful whether approval of the deal will pass anyway, but if a bill is passed rejecting the deal, Obama will veto it and it's doubtful that the Republicans can get enough votes to override.

However, if enough senators and representatives keep a blind eye on world realities and think only of their next elections, they could do great damage to the prospect of world peace. Even though five other countries and the European Union have approved the treaty with Iran, it could become moot if the Obama administration is blocked from lifting sanctions on Iran now being imposed by the U.S.

As Secretary of State John Kerry has pointed out, in 12 years of living with economic sanctions, Iran has gone from having 164 nuclear-processing centrifuges to having 19,000. Furthermore, Iran now has enough fissile material - that is, material capable of sustaining a nuclear fission chain reaction - to make 10 bombs. The leaders of Iran are not about to end their nuclear weapon program unless their country benefits from doing so, and that means the sanctions must be lifted.

At the same time, it's probable that Israel already has the bomb. Even if it doesn't, the U.S. and other nations are bound by treaties to come to her defense in case of war.

Without an agreement, the world could continue to be faced with Iran and Israel at each other's throats. Without an agreement, it could be just a matter of time before one attacks the other, and this could drag the whole world into a catastrophe.

Photo: President Obama speaks during a joint news conference with Ethiopian Prime Minister Hailemariam Desalegn at the National Palace in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, on July 27. Obama condemned Huckabee's remarks and characterized them as "grossly irresponsible." (Evan Vucci / Associated Press)

Today in history: Centennial of the Panama-California Exposition in San Diego

Mon, 27 Jul 2015 14:13:00 +0000

One hundred years ago, on July 27, 1915, former president Theodore Roosevelt visited the Panama-California Exposition in San Diego, and said, in front of the Spreckels Organ Pavilion, "It is so beautiful that I wish to make an earnest plea... I hope that not only will you keep these buildings running for another year but you will keep these buildings of rare, phenomenal taste and beauty permanently."

The Exposition featuring art, industry, and pavilions from several states and nations, remained open between Jan. 1, 1915, and Jan. 1, 1917. It celebrated the opening of the Panama Canal, an immense engineering feat, built at enormous material and human cost, which dramatically cut the distance and cost of international shipping. The expo was meant to tout San Diego as the first U.S. port of call for ships traveling north after passing westward through the canal. The fair was held inside the 1400 acres of San Diego's large urban Balboa Park.

At the time the exposition was planned, the city had fewer than 40,000 inhabitants, and just over 60,000 in all of San Diego County. By contrast, Los Angeles had over 300,000, and San Francisco over 400,000. For a city of San Diego's size, it was a bold stretch to attempt mounting an international expo, but the plan worked, and the port city grew exponentially in succeeding years.

San Diego's Chamber of Commerce and leading business figures recognized their strategic location and wanted to take advantage of it. In order to attract future settlers, the military, and investors, they decided on an exposition to help market and develop San Diego as an urban center with the resources to handle the new maritime traffic coming in from the canal while maintaining its small town charm.

Two big obstacles

Exposition planners confronted several obstacles, however. The ten-year-long Mexican Revolution (1910-1920) had San Diego's immediate neighbor to the south in turmoil. Anarchists and other radicals flowed back and forth between the two countries, and were tied to activists in the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW) in the U.S. San Diego could not afford to allow radicals to disrupt its labor force, flood the streets with inflammatory speakers of questionable "moral" character, and challenge the commercial viability of the Exposition.

Those years, beginning with the expo groundbreaking in 1911, were both repressive and exhilarating. A law directed against radicalism was passed, and resistance quickly arose. A chapter of the California Free Speech League, comprising 2,500 San Diegans of various political persuasions, opposed to the ordinance, retained attorney E. E. Kirk, a well known San Diego socialist, to represent the IWW. San Diego became famous in labor history for its free speech martyrs, and ultimate success in defending the First Amendment.

Another issue for the Exposition planners was its ideological orientation. The decades following the Cuban-Spanish-American War, which yielded the Philippines and Puerto Rico as U.S. colonies, represent the highpoint in American imperialism. Somehow the Exposition had to reflect the hegemony of advanced, progressive, white Northern European civilization as the natural, rightful successor to millennia of Native culture and also to the centuries-long rule of Spain, Mexico, and the Californios, the Hispanic upper class.

San Diego's boosters marketed their expo on a vacuous Spanish history inspired by Helen Hunt Jackson's popular novel "Ramona." In order to successfully market the expo to an Anglo demographic, the Spanish history and the earlier Native history had to be romanticized, whitewashing away all conflict, controversy, and racism into a nostalgic haze.

About 300 Indians from Apache, Navajo, Supai, Tewa, and Tiwa tribes resided in replicas of tepees, mounds or pueblos, built by the Santa Fe Railway, near the north gate. The Indians wove rugs and blankets, shaped pottery, pounded silver and copper into jewelry and ornaments, performed ceremonial dances, and offered prayers to their gods. The emphasis was on the quaint and picturesque, much like the Indian head pennies and buffalo nickels of the period.

Exhibitions showed modern manufacturing devices and scientific displays in operation, and the park had a real citrus orchard. Extensive gardens on the grounds showed that the southwest quartile of the United States could be made to flourish and bloom with modern ingenuity.

Bertram Goodhue designed the buildings, creating a new architectural style that combined Mediterranean, Italian and Spanish motifs. The result was a wildly ornate style, called "churrigueresque," that took Pueblo Revival and Mission Revival to new levels of exuberance.

The fair left a permanent mark in San Diego. The original buildings have remained in Balboa Park and are now major cultural centers and museums. The expo also led to the eventual establishment of the San Diego Zoo, which grew out of abandoned exotic animal exhibitions from the Central American Isthmus portion of the expo.

Today San Diego is the eighth-largest city in the U.S., and owes much of its growth to the Panama-California Exposition of a century ago.

Sources include: cs usm.org, sandiegohistory.org Wikipedia and others. Sohosandiego.org lists Photo: Guide Book of the Panama California Exposition. Licensed under Public Domain via Wikimedia Commons.

Would-be president Christie exposed by his New Jersey record

Mon, 27 Jul 2015 13:36:00 +0000

While Chris Christie campaigns for the presidency, the people of New Jersey continue to suffer the consequences of his disastrous policies. Christie likes to say that he "tells it like it is." culture. But, and no pun intended, to use another phrase from a well-known commercial, "Where's the Beef?" Let's look at Christie's record as governor of New Jersey.

Today, New Jersey's unemployment rate is 49highest in the country out of 50 states in spite of Christie's highly touted pro-business policies. The official poverty rate in New Jersey (itself widely considered an under-estimation of real poverty) has grown since he first took office in 2010.

Campaigning against taxes, Christie actually reduced the earned income tax credit, which helps low income people.

Christie also vetoed the modest increase in the state's minimum wage to $8.50 an hour before voters solidly endorsed it in a state referendum last year. He added insult to the injury suffered by low-income people when he called the wage increase "truly ridiculous."

Christie has, with the help of his packed State Supreme Court, refused to make 1.57 billion in pension payments to state employees, provoking a possible pension disaster. Initially, he had pledged to make this payment.

The state pension program is currently 80 billion in debt, the result of both Republican and Democratic administrations misuse of the funds to pay for programs and cover debts. Christie did not create this crisis but he made it far worse and has sought to make both present and past public employees pay for his and his predecessors' malfeasance. Once more to add insult to injury, Christie has declared that there are "two classes" In New Jersey, the hard working tax-payers and the selfish greedy public employees.

The states' handling of billions in federal funds for the 2012 Hurricane Sandy, which devastated New Jersey, has been a scandal. Many did not even hear from the state on their aid applications until 2014. The company initially given the state contract was forced to withdraw thanks to allegations of scandal. Today, thousands have still not returned to their homes, many still waiting for "state approved contractors" to complete work on their homes, some continuing to live in apartments and motels (at taxpayer expense) and having to make mortgage payments until their homes are habitable.

Senseless draconian rules radically different from those of the national FEMA and endless delays have led many home owners to abandon their applications for assistance rather than submit to such rules, such as having every room in their homes photographed. And the program is shrouded in secrecy. Inspections are being done by the Chicago Bridge and Iron Company, a transnational corporation similar in its activities to Halliburton with headquarters in the Netherlands.

No one knows where the money is going or even if it is going anywhere. When criticized for his emphasis on rebuilding shore board walk businesses as irrational, since the effects of global warming and rising sea levels means that new storms will likely destroy the rebuilt board walk businesses, Christie replied that he would not be deterred by "esoteric theories" and would continue to be a man of action rebuilding New Jersey.

Jeff Titel, New Jersey State Director of the Sierra Club, summed it up when he said, "The biggest damage Christie has done has been on climate change, sea level rise, and clean water. The irony is that he has gotten this great publicity on Sandy."

Faced with a Democratic state legislature which has thwarted many of his worst initiatives, Christie has functioned as "Governor (expletive deleted) NO" famous for his vetoes more than for his policies.

He vetoed legislation guarding against gender-based wage discrimination in state funded public contracts, with the support of those business interests which make extra profits by paying women less than men. He vetoed a ban on a weapon, the Barrett .50 caliber -- a monster shoulder fired, semi-automatic sniper rifle - the ban opposed by the NRA and various hunter interests.

He also vetoed early voting legislation, in line with his party's policy of restricting rather than extending the right to vote.

An opponent of reproductive rights (the right of women to choose whether or not to have an abortion) and also of marriage equality, his positions on these issues are not essentially different from his fellow right-wing Republicans as they are no different on most other issues.

In 2010, he stripped from the state budget 7.4 billion in funding for family planning and assistance policies directed by Planned Parenthood, which has come back to haunt him as he tries to gain support for his presidential bid.

From the beginning of his administration, he has refused to establish the state health care exchange under the Affordable Care Act, making it harder for citizens of New Jersey to utilize the law for their benefit.

What has Christie done? He handed corporations over $2 billion in business tax credits to corporations in his first three years in office and much more since He has refused to accept federal funds for major job producing construction projects, turning down billions in federal programs. He has pursued policies that have led New Jersey's credit rating be downgraded nine times (more than any governor in the history of the state) giving New Jersey the second lowest state credit rating in the country, even though it is a rich state.

As a result, New Jersey on all major economic indexes is not only worse off it was than when he became governor but significantly worse off in these years than New York and its neighboring states.

What does Christie say about all of this? He blames the Democratic legislature, "high business taxes," (as if his tax giveaways weren't enough). And of course there are the insults, calling the National Education Association the "National Extortion Association," insulting constituents who ask him probing questions at town meetings, denying all culpability in the mounting scandals that have beset his administration The only answer to Christie comes from an old Marx Brothers movie where Groucho, caught red-handed, says arrogantly "who are you going to believe, me or your own eyes."

If anything, Christie is getting worse as he prepares to take his Archie Bunker act nationally. He has advocated a "means test" or modern "poor law" for social security, claiming that its purpose was not to provide security for all senior citizens as a matter of right but to help the indigent poor. Perhaps he will advocate the same thing for Medicare, which his "moderate" Republican rival, Jeb Bush has talked about phasing out.

On the environment Christie, unlike some of his Republican opponents, says that he does "believe" in global warming.

As governor, though, he pulled New Jersey out of the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative, a regional cap and trade group with broad bipartisan support

In terms of both environment and economy, Christie at the beginning of his first term vetoed a $9 billion rail tunnel from New York to New Jersey, a major public works project that would have both produced thousands of jobs and many millions in new income for the people and the state, along with reducing the negative environmental and general infrastructure effects of automobile driving in Northern New Jersey. In his habit of adding insult to injury, Christie called the tunnel "a tunnel to Macy's basement."

In this regard, there is a far-reaching scandal the Christie administration has sought to contain since Sandy. First the storm did significant damage to the existing New York New Jersey rail tunnel structure. NJ Transit as the storm was developing shifted hundreds of millions of dollars in its rolling stock to unsafe storage in Hoboken.

The Christie administration at first denied any knowledge of this but email leaks have clearly confirmed that many departments of transportation administrators know of the policy as it was developing and did nothing to stop it, even though yard workers and other non-managers were aware of the danger.

The initial losses were reported at 120 million. Recently there have been reports that the losses were as high as 450 million. Christie's response has been to do nothing except demote one low level administrator as a scapegoat while denying any culpability for the higher ups. Of course, his Port Authority appointees support NJ Transits fare hikes to pay for its and his administration's failed policies.

Christie has also actively sought to undermine existing environmental protections, giving his appointed director of the Department of Environmental Protection the power to "waive" any rule protecting the environment if it conflicted with "private interest" meaning state contracts to various developers and businesses.

Christie's action here is in tune directly with the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), a corporate center writing model state and local laws for charter schools, the privatization of state services, the undermining of environmental protections, the removal of public employee unions, the restrictions of minimum wage and other labor protections. The leading supporters of the ALEC are the Koch brothers.

Contrary to his attempt to portray himself as a moderate, Christie's policies on most issues in New Jersey are very much in line with ALEC. Democratic assemblyman Bob Smith, a leader in the bipartisan movement to restore the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative which Christie vetoed, said it best when he said Christie's policy could be summed up "in a four letter word---K-O-C-H." While Scott Walker may be the Koch Brothers preferred candidate, they would be more than comfortable with Christie, who would have done in New Jersey what Walker has done in Wisconsin if he had a Republican legislature.

It would be nice to get Christie out of New Jersey but not at the expense of the American people. It would be much better to defeat him and his party in New Jersey and his party in the 2016 national elections. Here in New Jersey, it will take a period of healing and restoration for the people to recover from his disastrous policies and his arrogant dictatorial leadership style.

Photo: Demonstrators at a rally outside the New Jersey Statehouse to protest the pace of recovery aid for victims of Superstorm Sandy in Trenton, N.J. on May 14. As the third summer following the 2012 storm nears, the grassroots group is demanding officials help them get their homes back. They are unhappy with what they say is the slow pace of rebuilding aid that the state government has thus far distributed. (AP Photo/Wayne Parry)

60,000 call for justice for Tamir Rice

Mon, 27 Jul 2015 12:26:00 +0000

CLEVELAND - In an unprecedented action, the Tamir Rice Justice Committee and allied groups delivered petitions with nearly 60,000 signatures to the office of Cuyahoga County Prosecutor Timothy McGinty on July 23, demanding that he charge the Cleveland police officers responsible for the shooting death of the 12-year-old black child last November.

Before delivering the petitions, approximately 150 supporters marched several blocks from a park next to Cleveland City Hall with signs and banners demanding "Justice for Tamir" and chanting, "What do want - justice! When do we want it - now!"

"We're here eight months later and there's still no justice," LaTonya Goldsby, Tamir's cousin and the committee's coordinator, told a rally and press conference on the steps of the Cleveland Justice Center before entering the building with a delegation to deliver the box of petitions.

Standing with Eugene Rice, Tamir's grandfather, Goldsby said the family was suffering greatly because of her cousin's death and the fact that no action has been taken to prosecute the police involved.

The delegation to McGinty's office also included Mark Milko, a member of the Executive Committee of the North Shore AFL-CIO Federation of Labor and president of Workers United Local 10. Milko told the rally that organized labor is mobilizing in response to the repeated incidents of deadly force used by white police against unarmed African Americans, and is urging unions to get active in the Black Lives Matter movement.

"These are cases involving members of police unions and victims who are members of union families," Milko said, adding that national AFL-CIO leaders plan to hold meetings in Cleveland in the near future on the issue of racial and economic justice.

Community frustration over inaction in the Tamir Rice case increased last month when Cleveland Municipal Court Judge Ronald Adrine ruled that there was probable cause to charge the officers with murder, manslaughter and other crimes, but declined to issue arrest warrants and, instead, referred the matter to McGinty. McGinty already had the report of the incident issued by the county sheriff, after a prolonged investigation. McGinty said he would conduct his own additional investigation, which, he said, could take months, before turning the matter over to a grand jury.

Joe Frolik, a spokesman for McGinty, who received the petitions, said the prosecutor was aware the case is "important to many people in the community," and reiterated that the investigation is ongoing and the case would be presented to the grand jury.

Accompanying the petitions was a letter from the committee together with the names of

110 well known public officials, clergy, labor leaders, cultural figures, community activists and business people sponsoring the effort.

Angela Woodson, one of the sponsors as well as a co-convenor of the committee, read the letter at the rally. It called the shooting "a premeditated, summary execution" and said, "The principle must be firmly established that police who use deadly force when other options are available must defend their actions in court. Otherwise police will have ... a power characteristic of police states .... Our community deserves its day in court. Otherwise, there is no doubt that tragedies like this will continue to happen."

She called delivery of the petitions "historic," saying that no county prosecutor had ever been given a petition of this magnitude.

The shooting was recorded on a park surveillance video that has been broadcast worldwide by television news and online media. it shows that the 12-year-old Tamir had been walking in the park outside Cudell Recreation Center in his neighborhood waving what turned out to be a toy gun. He sat down alone in a picnic pavilion and suddenly a police squad car drove up a few feet away. Rookie officer Timothy Loehmann, who had previously lost his job in a suburban police department on grounds of emotional instability, jumped from the vehicle, gun in hand, and less than one second later shot the child in the stomach. Neither he nor his partner, Frank Garmback, the driver, offered Tamir first aid, but instead occupied themselves with tackling Tamir's 14-year-old sister, Tajai, who had rushed from the recreation center to reach her stricken brother. The officers handcuffed her face down in the snow and forced her into the squad car and then restrained Tamir's mother, Samaria. Eventually an EMS ambulance arrived and took Tamir to the county hospital where he died nine hours later.

New York Times columnist Charles Blow commented Jan. 11 that the video exposed "an unconscionable level of human depravity" by the police. Blow concluded: "In the demand for justice, timorousness must be the enemy, tirelessness must be the motto and righteousness must be the compass. The world must be made to acknowledge that Tamir Rice's life mattered."

Woodson said she hoped McGinty would respond to the committee's call for action within a month. "If he doesn't," she added, "we will take this to a higher level."

The petition drive continues and can be accessed at change.org.

Photo: Tamir Rice, via change.org

Sandra Bland's jailers spinning autopsy results

Fri, 24 Jul 2015 15:11:00 +0000

Waller County's law enforcement officials continue to give their spin to the jail suicide of Sandra Bland.

The Illinois native was arrested July 10 in Texas after a verbal confrontation between her and trooper Brian Encinia turned violent when he slammed her to the ground.

Preliminary results of her autopsy have been released. Marks around her neck were consistent with suicide by hanging, Waller County prosecutor Warren Diepraam said in a press briefing. Some lacerations or abrasions were found on her wrists, which Diepraam described as being consistent with a struggle while being handcuffed. There was also bruising to deep muscle tissue in Bland's back, consistent with the officer having his knee there, as seen in eyewitness footage of the incident.

Sandra Bland supposedly was high on marijuana, according to Waller County District Attorney Elton Mathis. Mathis reportedly said in a text message to an attorney representing the Bland family that the autopsy results and toxicology made it appear "she swallowed a large quantity of marijuana or smoked it in the jail."

The flaws in that statement are many: Bland would have been searched before being placed in jail, and she was being kept in solitary confinement. Furthermore, marijuana lingers in the body for weeks after consumption, but its effects last only a few hours.

Given the amount of time she had already spent in jail, from Friday to the Monday morning she died, it seems unlikely that she would have been high at the time of her death. Finally, marijuana, which is legal in a number of states, although not in Texas, produces a mellow state that rarely on its own incites violence by the user nor does it typically produce in one suicidal thoughts.

As for the reason why she was in jail in the first place, the stated reason continues to be murky.

As seen in the eyewitness video, Bland believed she couldn't be ordered out of her car during a routine traffic stop.

However, according to the U.S. Supreme Court in Pennsylvania vs. Mimms, even for a traffic violation, a police officer can order a driver to get out of their car-without that order violating the Fourth Amendment's ban on search and seizure. Even so, a reason must be given for giving such an order.

The trooper had a warning in his hand, not a citation, which means his stated reason for the stop could not be used as an excuse to order her out of the vehicle.

The trooper plainly didn't like Bland's forthright defense of her civil rights. He defined her behavior as being combative, which in Texas counts as resisting arrest, despite the lack of physical contact at that point. In Texas, you can be prosecuted for resisting arrest even if the actual arrest was illegal.

Jim Harrington, director of the Texas Civil Rights Project, told the Texas Standard that the trooper didn't have the right to tell her to put out the cigarette, and that telling her to get out of the car, combined with his brandishing of the taser, escalated the confrontation.

LaVaughn Mosley, who says Bland left him a voicemail after her arrest indicating she was "at a loss for words" but not hinting about suicide, said it is all a shame-especially her death.

"Here is a young black female who was on her way to being successful," Mosley said. "I don't know what happened in that jailhouse, but obviously something went terribly wrong."

Texas Rangers and the FBI are investigating. The county district attorney has said the matter will be turned over to a grand jury for consideration later in the summer.

Photo: Sandra Bland is Her Name. Light Brigading

Jews, the civil rights movement, Israel: hot topics in Open HIllel tour

Fri, 24 Jul 2015 14:37:00 +0000

It all started in Jackson, Mississippi, a year ago. Over 2,000 people gathered to commemorate the 50^th anniversary of Mississippi Freedom Summer, where mostly students, from all over the country, came to Mississippi, in 1964, to join Mississippians in the African-American-led civil rights movement: registering voters, conducting Freedom Schools, and much more.

Danger lurked. Three participants, James Chaney, Mickey Schwerner and Andy Goodman, were murdered by the Ku Klux Klan. (I was not part of Freedom Summer, but spent a long time in Georgia and Mississippi as part of the struggle for freedom).

Among the white volunteers was a very large percentage of Jews. So, at this 2014 event a panel was held about Jewish motivations for participating in the civil rights movement.

At the conclusion of the panel several very animated young college students came up and told us about Open Hillel, a group that had formed one year earlier. Seems that Hillels (Jewish campus organizations) won't allow any criticism of Israel anywhere under its university umbrellas. And here was I, thinking that campuses were the marketplace of free ideas and discussion.

The Open Hillel students asked if the three of us movement veteran panelists, Dorothy Zellner, Larry Rubin and I, would be willing to come to Harvard University in October 2014 and address a plenary session of an Open Hillel conference. Indeed we would, and did. Mark Levy, another vet, would later join us for part of the tour. [Editor's note: Larry Rubin is now a People's World contributing writer.]

At Harvard, with over 300 present, we were approached again: 20 campuses want us old vets to speak on their campuses - would we agree to do so? We accepted, and thus was born the Open Hillel Tour, organized totally - venues, room and board, travel and more - by these wonderful Open Hillel students.

We spoke to a total, I am told, of more than 600 students. We visited 13 campuses in seven states in New England, the Midwest and the South. Harvard University, University of Massachusetts-Amherst; Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT); Workmen's Circle (a civic organization); Muhlenberg College; Barnard College (to the Open Hillel organizing committee); University of Chicago; University of Michigan-Ann Arbor; University of Illinois in Evanston; Oberlin College; Guilford College; Appalachian State University; and Duke University.

Our tour was co-sponsored by only one Hillel, at Harvard University, and under stringent conditions. The Open Hillel students had to agree that only one of us civil rights movement veterans would be allowed to speak. We had to permit a person with a position different from ours to be on the panel. The request of the Open Hillel students that a Muslim be on the panel was rejected.

Hillels have a "standards of partnership" that will not permit anyone peacefully/nonviolently protesting Israel's brutal occupation via, for example, boycott, divestment and sanctions, to speak. Open Hillel is not a separate organization per se, but rather a movement to abolish these restrictive standards of partnership.

The parent national/international Hillel must have immediately realized that we vets were having a significant impact, so this was the first and last local Hillel allowed to co-sponsor our tour. Three university Jewish Studies departments courageously co-sponsored. One Hillel disbanded, and formed a new ad-hoc group in order to sponsor us.

The parent Hillel may have shot itself in the foot. In each of the campuses where they refused Open Hillel's request that we vets be permitted to speak, the Open Hillel students arranged alternative campus venues. We were covered by every college/university newspaper where we spoke, as well as by the Mondoweiss website, Huffington Post, the Philadelphia Inquirer, Ha'aretz (in Israel) and many more.

The wonderful students from Open Hillel have informed Larry, Dottie, Mark and me that many other campuses want us to visit - Princeton University, University of California, University of Washington (Tacoma), Reed College, and more - including return requests from some already-visited campuses. We shall see what happens, but are so respectful of these courageous students.

A Jewish wedding takes place under a huppah (canopy), which symbolizes the new Jewish home being created by the marriage. We need a huppah for Arabs, Jews and others in the Middle East, embracing our quest for love and peace that has been desecrated by the occupation of our Palestinian cousins.

I am so honored to have appeared on the Open Hillel tour. I am not personally responsible for Israel's mass murders of Palestinians in Gaza, done by Israel in the name of the Jewish people, and paid for in large part with U.S. dollars. But it is being done in my name, and so I must turn to the wisdom of Howard Zinn: "There is no flag large enough to cover the shame of killing innocent people".

This article originally appeared in the July-August issue of FORsooth, newspaper of the Louisville, Ky., chapter of the Fellowship of Reconciliation. It is published here with permission of the author. Contact Ira Grupper at irag@iglou.com.

Photo: Mt. Zion Church state history marker near Philadelphia, Miss. The Ku Klux Klan burned the original Mt. Zion Church to the ground. It was one of 20 black churches in Mississippi to be firebombed in the summer of 1964. This is the church where Michael Schwerner and James Chaney spoke and urged its all-black congregation to register to vote. Photograph taken in June 2012. Robert Ferguson Jr./Wikipedia

Ohioans protest as Kasich announces his campaign for presidency

Fri, 24 Jul 2015 13:22:00 +0000

COLUMBUS, Ohio - Ohioans fed up with John Kasich's pro-1 percent policies came out in droves yesterday to protest their governor as he announced his bid for the Republican nomination for president at the Ohio State University.

The most angry protesters in the crowd were teachers, many of whom came down to Columbus from Youngstown, where local control of schools was last week replaced by a "Chief Executive Officer" under new legislation just signed into law by Kasich last week. In Kasich's plan, the CEO would have complete control over the schools, replacing teachers and administrators, determining curriculum and setting compensation levels.

Many teachers and others had signs recalling S.B. 5, the bill that Kasich pushed through the legislature in 2011 that took away collective bargaining rights from public workers in Ohio. As a result of a massive campaign, the law was brought to a referendum in November 2011 and defeated. Many protesters wore anti-S.B.-5 t-shirts and carrying signs reminding the crowd of Kasich's attack on labor rights.

Another group of people who were there to express their outrage at Kasich were employees and relatives of patients from the Youngstown Developmental Center, a residential facility that the Kasich administration wants to close down. "Kasich has turned his back on Ohio's most vulnerable citizens, like my brother here, who's very medically needy," one woman told the Wooster Daily Record.

Kasich's policies against women's reproductive health were targeted by Ohio pro-choice activists who were out in force with signs reading "Where's my reproductive freedom?" and "John Kasich has no faith in women." Kasich has signed more anti-choice bills than any Ohio governor, and women's health care has suffered so much that Ohio's infant mortality rate is one of the worst in the nation.

Following Kasich's speech inside the Ohio Union, Ohio Democratic Party chair David Pepper took to the microphone outside and blasted Kasich's record on the economy, saying that Ohio is in its 32^nd month of trailing the nation in job recovery, and on education, where Kasich's policies have brought Ohio from fifth position among states in the nation to eighteenth "and falling rapidly." The crowd agreed enthusiastically with Pepper's assessment that with his record, Kasich doesn't deserve to think about higher office.

Photo: Anita Waters/PW

Brave activists who broke into FBI office in '71 remembered

Fri, 24 Jul 2015 12:33:00 +0000

Broadcast on the PBS documentary program on "Independent Lens" last May 18 was a film by Johanna Hamilton titled "1971."

It told the story of a brave band of peace activists in Pennsylvania who broke into the FBI office in Media, Pennsylvania, the night of Mar. 8, 1971.

The burglars "liberated" thousands of top secret FBI documents exposing the surveillance of tens of thousands of law-abiding people who were exercising their constitutionally protected right to protest the war in Vietnam, and many other injustices. Among the most dangerous projects exposed were documents that laid bare FBI Director, J. Edgar Hoover's COINTELPRO spy program, aimed initially at the Communist Party, USA but expanded to target senators, representatives, the Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. and millions of other advocates of peaceful, non-violent change.

I was the Washington correspondent of the Daily World (predecessor of the Peoples World) and received a packet in the mail of those stolen dossiers. I opened the manila envelope that day. It had no return address. I perused the documents with growing amazement. Naively, I telephoned the FBI to ask for a comment.

"Those documents are classified. You must return them immediately," the FBI spokesman said in an officious voice. "We're sending an agent over to your office to pick them up now."

In a panic, I called Carl Winter, Editor-in-Chief of the Daily World. "Carl," I said. "I have about 200 top secret FBI files here. I called the FBI for a comment and the agent told me they are sending someone over right now to pick them up. What should I do?"

"Get the hell out of there," Carl shouted over the phone line. "And don't forget to take the files with you."

I grabbed up the documents and hastened out of my office and up the stairwell of the National Press Club where I hid for an hour or so. As far as I know, the FBI never sent anybody.

Finally I crept back to my office and wrote my story.

I never knew the names of the heroes who sent me that envelope until the release of "The Burglary: The Discovery of J. Edgar Hoover's Secret FBI" by Betty Medsgar in 2014.

Like me, Medsgar, a reporter for the Washington Post, received a packet of the stolen documents in the mail back on that cold spring day in 1971. The FBI never caught the burglars despite Hoover's assigning 200 agents to search for them.

In recent years, Medsgar convinced several to break their silence. They include Keith Forsyth, John and Judy Raines, and Bob Williamson. (you can watch the video online here.)

Like Edward Snowden who "liberated" all those digitized National Security Agency files, exposing NSA spying on law abiding people, the Media, PA burglars should be honored for their courage in defending the right of dissent protected by our Bill of Rights.

Here is a photo-image of the front page of the Daily World with the article I wrote about the Media, PA. break-in. NYU's Tamiment Library.

Today in history: The Americans with Disabilities Act signed 25 years ago

Fri, 24 Jul 2015 12:02:00 +0000

This Sunday, July 26, marks the 25^th anniversary of the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990 (ADA).

Our country is a very different place a quarter of a century later: Every time you see wheelchair cutouts on sidewalk corners, or Braille signage, ramps up to building entrances, sign language interpretation at public events, or parking spaces for the handicapped, remember that it was dedicated activism that accomplished these measures so that the benefits of living in a modern society can be accessed by millions more people.

In 1986, the National Council on Disability recommended enactment of the ADA, drafting a bill which was introduced in the House and Senate in 1988. Senator Tom Harkin (D-Iowa) authored what became the final bill and was its chief sponsor in the Senate. Harkin delivered part of his introduction speech in sign language, saying it was so his deaf brother could understand. It was passed by the Senate (76-8) in 1989, and by the House of Representatives in May 1990 by unanimous voice vote. It was signed into law on July 26, 1990, by President George H. W. Bush, in a successful demonstration of bipartisanship that would be difficult to imagine today.

The ADA is a wide-ranging civil rights law that prohibits discrimination based on disability. It affords similar protections against discrimination to Americans with disabilities as the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which made discrimination based on race, religion, sex, national origin, and other characteristics illegal. In addition, unlike the Civil Rights Act, the ADA also requires covered employers to provide reasonable accommodations to employees with disabilities, and imposes accessibility requirements on public accommodations.

ADA disabilities include both mental and physical medical conditions. A condition does not need to be severe or permanent to be a disability. As disability activists frequently point out, we are all "temporarily abled." Tomorrow you may find yourself covered under ADA.

Sections of the ADA treat such areas as employment, public entities and public transportation, housing, accommodations, telecommunications, and an anti-retaliation or coercion provision.

Direct action

Shortly before the act was passed, disability rights activists with physical disabilities assembled without warning in front of the Capitol Building, shed their crutches, wheelchairs, powerchairs and other assistive devices, and proceeded to crawl and pull their bodies up all 100 of the Capitol's front steps. As they did so, many of them chanted "ADA now," and "Vote now." Some activists who remained at the bottom of the steps held signs and yelled words of encouragement to the "Capitol Crawlers." Jennifer Keelan, a second grader with cerebral palsy, was videotaped as she pulled herself up the steps, using mostly her hands and arms, saying, "I'll take all night if I have to." This direct action is reported to have "inconvenienced" several senators and to have pushed them to approve the act. The "Capitol Crawl" of 1990 is seen by many present-day disability activists in the United States as being the single action most responsible for propelling the ADA into law.

Broad swaths of the business community opposed ADA, citing enormous costs and "a disastrous impact on many small businesses struggling to survive."

On signing the measure, President Bush said:

"I know there may have been concerns that the ADA may be too vague or too costly, or may lead endlessly to litigation. But I want to reassure you right now that my administration and the United States Congress have carefully crafted this Act. We've all been determined to ensure that it gives flexibility, particularly in terms of the timetable of implementation; and we've been committed to containing the costs that may be incurred.... Let the shameful wall of exclusion finally come tumbling down."

Adapted from Wikipedia and other sources.

Photo: Drano Lake accessible fishing platform signage by USFWS Pacific. Licensed under CC BY 2.0 via Wikimedia Commons.

Walker offers rightwing policies tried and tested in his Wisconsin lab

Thu, 23 Jul 2015 14:50:00 +0000

MADISON -- Mid-July brought the worst week in the lives of Wisconsin residents. What really hurt was that the national media didn't seem to care, that it saw in Walker's entrance into the race as just another opportunity to sell ads -- particularly since the increasing numbers of eyeballs on Gov. Scott Walker are putting him second behind the top clown, Donald Trump.

Ignored is the fact that Wisconsin stands as the actual laboratory of failure for Republican ideology and pain for the people. Particularly infuriating for organized labor was how Walker was being cheered in right-wing stump speeches by separating "unions" from "workers." Unchallenged by reporters he says he "took on the unions and won" with no awareness of what that actually meant for U.S. families or for the economy itself.

Yet state progressives and even moderates pine for the rescue of common-sense analysis from the Fourth Estate. They still hold out hope for investigative journalism as a guarantor of democracy and social justice. Their hopes are being realized, however, only in drips and drabs.

Some East Coasters think that may be deliberate because many want the bland-sounding Walker to emerge as the ideal Republican nominee, confident that the Democratic candidate will be able to wipe the floor with him.

Harboring such hopes, however, is to play a dangerous game. Consider how July 12 launched a week of horribles in Wisconsin despite fury from some within Walker's own ranks. Despite his control of all branches of state government, several conservatives detested the contents of his two-year state budget.

Fear of the money behind him, though, caused them to s scramble to protect his presidential ambitions even if they wanted distance between themselves and his policies in the state. Some tried to dot the glaring warts with a bit of cosmetic paint. They hardly fixed the biggest disasters ($250 million out of the University of Wisconsin system budget, a second year drop in K-12 funding, expansion of taxpayer money for the unproven voucher school program, loss of environmental and fiscal checks and so forth) but took a victory lap anyway.

Few in the national media noticed that the budget barely squeaked through. Despite a 66-35 edge in the state Assembly, the GOP could only win by 11 voters and only by two in the Senate. Yet the media let Walker describe it as a big victory as he announced a run for the presidency the next day. They essentially ignored the fact that the rebellion at home had delayed Walker's entrance into the presidential sweepstakes by months and that it may have put him in legal jeopardy.

Walker isn't worried, however. The FEC is deadlocked and he knew local legal salvation was on hand. That same week (what timing!) Wisconsin's high court protected him from investigation of collusion between millions of dollars in private money and campaign coordination during the recall election.

Ignoring national court standards about playing fair when heavily funded in campaigns by the plaintiffs, the state justices ruled unconstitutional any attempts to use the state's grand jury process to investigate illegal collusion. The ignorance of U.S. law made even conservatives chuckle.

But not the national media. It was preoccupied by which rodeo buffoon to chase around the bullring. Trump won, with CNN, FOX and MSNBC barely pausing to discuss Walker's behavior.

In doing so, they let the bulk of Walker's message dominate the airwaves. Outside Wisconsin you barely heard about the obvious corruption nor how his support, once 49 percent, had sunk to 29 percent in the polls. Without the dark sides were claims of success -- a bare win in the runaway GOP year in 2010 and a win against a political unknown in 2014, where money and attack ads changed the race in the polls from neck and neck to 52 percent for Walker in the final days. To date the Wisconsin media hasn't much investigated why.

Mainly using video Walker now asks presidential voters to "Recall the Recall." If only they would, and examine the facts.

Yes, in the summer of 2012 with half the normal presidential turnout, he barely survived despite anger over his elimination of collective bargaining for public sector unions.

No mention in his video of his 10 to 1 money advantage or universal newspaper disapproval of the concept of recalls (which haven't won a statewide race anywhere in the U.S. since the 1920s). Instead the TV heads said Wisconsin "vetted Walker three times in four years"!

Largely ignored was how that Act 10 union attack has been exposed as a rank failure on all his aims except politically weakening unions, according to a noted professor, Don Kettl who led blue-ribbon panels for Republicans.

Another right-wing mantra that crumbles under inspection is how Walker has held taxes down (debatable outside his stump speech) -- not pointing out that the combination of education cuts, weakened environmental protections and expanding potholes are tied to handcuffing what local communities can spend their tax dollars on.

These are actual failures. But the national media is having fun with his clumsy behavior and gaffes, second in their news space to Trump. Walker's political planners are secretly delighted since Trump is attacking Jeb Bush more than their guy and expect Trump to puff himself up and explode with demagoguery leaving Walker to inherit his most ardent "make war and hate immigrants" froggies.

The national media doesn't detail actual damage as it pursues only the most provocative headlines about a White House wannabe. Progressive journalists in Wisconsin still hold out hope the investigative experts will wake up and report the realities. But so far they don't seem to give a fig about what Wisconsin is suffering.

Photo: Walker surrounded by his favorite people (the big business comfortables) with actual floor workers barred during this bill-signing. Walker website.