Pablo Neruda: One poet, many lessons
OPINION “As the first bullets ripped into the guitars of Spain, when blood instead of music gushed out of them, my poetry stopped dead like a ghost in the streets of human anguish and a rush of roots and blood surged up through it. From then on, my road meets everyman’s road. And suddenly I see that from the south of solitude I have moved north, which is the people, the people whose sword, whose handkerchief my humble poetry wants to be, to dry the sweat of its vast sorrows and give it a weapon in its struggle.” — Pablo Neruda, “Memoirs”
Dont take away Social Security
OPINION After reading a column in her local paper, the Albuquerque Journal, calling Bush’s Social Security privatization plan “a step in the right direction,” PWW reader Rose Shaw didn’t just get mad – she wrote a response! It was published on the Journal’s op ed page Jan. 5. Her piece is reprinted below. We hope other readers will follow her lead.
D.C. hotel employees OK pact
WASHINGTON (PAI) — Using the presidential inauguration as leverage, workers at Washington, D.C.’s top hotels reached a new three-year contract with major downtown chain-owned hotels. Local 25 set its strike deadline after learning the hotels planned to overwork the employees through George W. Bush’s inauguration — and then lock them out. The strike threat forestalled that scheme.
NATIONAL CLIPS
NASHVILLE: Baptists call for Iraq war end, no-vote on Gonzalez / WASHINGTON: Victory for Guantanamo prisoners / COLUMBUS, Ga.: Freedom fighters sentenced / BALTIMORE: NAACP defies IRS Probe / MONTGOMERY, Ala.: State sues drug companies / WASHINGTON: Americans support legal status for immigrants
NATIONAL CLIPS
NEW ORLEANS: Marchers ‘mourn’ second term / SEATTLE: Students evict recruiters from campus / WASHINGTON: Push to bring troops home grows in House / ATLANTA: African Americans challenge Waffle House / HARRISBURG, Pa: Republicans cut unemployment benefits
Capitalism spreads HIV
OPINION It was New Year’s Eve and I was looking back over my favorite headlines of 2004 when I found what just might be the best one. It’s not that it’s a deeply moving Oprah-style human interest story, or laugh out loud knee-slappin’ funny. It is, actually, a very depressing report and forecast. But it is most telling.
Social Security snow job
OPINION Winter is here, and in keeping with the season the Republican White House is planning a carefully crafted campaign of obfuscation (i.e., a snow job!) in an effort to convince present and future retirees and the public in general that a “crisis” is looming with Social Security and changes need to be made.
Federal campaign laws undermine democracy
OPINION Over the past four years we have seen a broad progressive movement emerge on a grand scale. Although it did not stop Bush on Nov. 2, this relatively new movement was able to deliver at least a 49 percent vote against the ultra-right. Key components, including the AFL-CIO, NOW, the NAACP, and others, have already begun strategizing as to how to move forward.
