People Before Profit blog

'Wrong, Wrong, Wrong' : Out Front With John Sweeny

Mon, 31 Oct 2005 03:09:00 +0000

10-30-05,9:00am

Everywhere you look, the president and his allies are doing an astonishing job of demonstrating just how wrong their priorities are. It’s up to us to turn this around.

Working family activists have forced President Bush to rescind his pay cut for the workers who will rebuild the Gulf Coast, effective Nov. 8. But amazingly, despite the failings exposed by Hurricane Katrina, the administration and its congressional allies are engaged in more of the same. They are using the tragedy of the Gulf Coast hurricanes as an excuse to slash federal spending on crucial programs that support working families, including our brothers and sisters in Gulf Coast states. Medicaid, food stamps, financial aid for college, home heating assistance—they’re coming after them. They want to cut $50 billion from these programs not to rebuild Louisiana and Mississippi—but to offset another $70 billion in tax cuts to the already-rich.

We’re mobilizing union members and other working family activists everywhere to derail this gross pandering to special interests and put working families, hurricane survivors, the poor, the sick and children first. Please take a minute now to call your members of Congress about this atrocity, too. The toll-free number to call about the budget cuts is 1-800-393-1082. Tell your representatives:

America needs a new direction—one that puts people first and invests in good jobs, health care for all, schools, hospitals and highways. DON’T cut $50 billion from vital public programs that families need, such as Medicaid and food stamps. STOP giving tax breaks to the rich instead of investing in working families.

The widespread scandals under investigation at the highest levels of our government—everything from dirty stock sales and money-laundering to leaking CIA secrets—threaten to reinforce deep-seated beliefs by many in the public that all politics and all politicians are corrupt, that no one is worth voting for, that no good efforts can succeed.

We have to disprove those beliefs by demonstrating that working people working together can turn America in a new direction—as we did in winning back prevailing wage protections for Gulf Coast workers. America deserves better—and each of us must work very hard right now to get it.

Ivory Coast : Government courting Liberia’s ex-combatants, human rights group says

Mon, 31 Oct 2005 02:53:00 +0000

10-30-05,8:41am

DAKAR, 28 Oct 2005 (IRIN) - The Ivorian government is recruiting soldiers, including children, in neighbouring Liberia to pad its ranks as fears of renewed fighting in Cote d’Ivoire(Ivory Coast) mount, Human Rights Watch said on Friday.

Ex-combatants from Liberia’s civil war – including a 13-year-old – told HRW this month they had been approached by Liberian and Ivorian recruiters “to join a fighting ‘mission’ on behalf of Cote d’Ivoire’s government,” the rights group said in a communique.

“The international community must do all it can to ensure that these children are demobilised and their recruiters are prosecuted,” Peter Takirambudde, head of HRW’s Africa operations, said.

The Ivorian government has denied the charge.

Cote d’Ivoire, once a bastion of stability in West Africa, has been split into a government-controlled south and a rebel-held north since a failed coup in 2002.

With presidential elections postponed and opposition and rebel leaders disgruntled at the UN’s backing an extension of President Laurent Gbagbo’s term, there are fears of a fresh wave of violence after October 30, the date on which Ivorians were scheduled to vote.

In this tense climate, HRW reports that recruiters from both sides of the border are offering money, food and clothing to Liberians willing to fight alongside government forces in Cote d’Ivoire.

Liberia just emerged from 14 years of civil war in 2003 and the hopes of a population starved for renewal rest on the outcome of next month’s presidential election run-off.

Among those HRW interviewed - a handful of Liberia’s more than 100,000 ex-combatants - most said they had signed up for education or training programmes since the war ended but, in a country where unemployment is estimated at 85 percent, options are limited.

“I don’t have money in Liberia and if I stay here I’d probably be forced to steal and do other bad things,” a 14-year-old Liberian told HRW.

“It’s better I go to Ivory Coast and when I’m back I can go to school. I know it will carry me somewhere.”

But Denis Glofiei Maho, who reigns over western Cote d’Ivoire’s four main pro-government militia groups - known collectively as the Resistance Forces of the Grand West - dismissed such talk.

'We have never used Liberian soldiers here, we are already strong,' Maho said from the veranda of his home.

The Ivorian government vehemently denied HRW’s allegations.

“As far as we’re concerned, the war is over and we’re in the diplomatic phase with all the factors in our favour,” presidential spokesperson Desire Tagro told IRIN. “Why would we recruit children in Liberia? It’s a claim that just doesn’t make any sense.”

However, the charges of cross-border recruitment are not new.

When Cote d’Ivoire’s fighting broke out three years ago, Ivorians in the border region say, both the government and rebels used ethnic ties with Liberian communities to expand their manpower rapidly and cheaply.

And HRW has reported two other periods of increased cross-border recruiting in the past twelve months – in October just before a major government offensive and in March before negotiations in South Africa.

According to the International Criminal Court, it is a war crime to enlist children under the age of 15.

China: 2,000 US military deaths in Iraq constitute milestone of tragedy

Mon, 31 Oct 2005 02:28:00 +0000

10-30-05,8:14am

In the two and a half years since the start of the Iraq conflict, the US military death toll hit 2,000 Tuesday, which is widely seen by the US media as a milestone of tragedy.

It is a tragedy to both the thousands of Americans who lost their loved ones in the bloody and persisting conflict, and the US government's policy.

However, both the Bush administration and US military tried to play down the implication of the tragic figure.

Addressing a luncheon with wives of 500 US servicemen, President George W. Bush said facing the brutal enemy who has no idea of war rules, 'no one should underestimate the difficulties ahead,' suggesting that more US casualties are inevitable.

In regard to the death toll, he admitted that 'we've lost some of our nation's finest men and women in the war on terror. A time of war is a time for sacrifice.'

However, Bush again insisted that presently a US withdrawal is not an option, because 'we got more work to do and it (withdrawal) involves great risk for Iraqis and for Americans and coalition forces.'

He was echoed by Steve Boylan, a spokesman for the US military in Baghdad, who told reporters not to make the 2,000 death toll significant.

'The 2,000 service members killed in Iraq supporting Operation Iraqi Freedom are not a milestone,' he said.

Boylan said everyone of the 2,000 dead is equally important in 'the war against terrorism and to ensure freedom for a people who have not known freedom in two generations.'

Nevertheless, the impact of the climbing death toll is obvious in the United States.

From Washington, New York, Houston, to Hawaii, US anti-war activists are preparing more than 300 gatherings Wednesday across America to commemorate the 2,000 dead soldiers and protest Bush's war policy.

Outside the White House, the famous 'anti-war mom' Cindy Sheehan, whose 24-year-old son died in Iraq last year, told reporters Tuesday that she and some supporters plan to 'die symbolically' each night over four days to mark the 2,000 death toll and ask for a US pullout from Iraq.

'Two thousand families have been destroyed for nothing,' Sheehan said. 'Enough is enough. The killing has to stop sometime.'

US media commentaries pointed out that as the death toll becomes larger and larger, more and more Americans will ask: 'What did they die for? Why should our troops stay in Iraq?'

Anticipating the question, Bush and his cabinet members have been repeating the rhetoric that the US military missions in Iraq aim to 'win the war on terror,' promoting democracy and freedom in Iraq and the Middle East and thus enhancing security in the United States.

However, by stressing the need to stay on the course, the Bush administrations is de facto at odds with public opinion in both America and Iraq, local analysts said.

For instance, a CBS survey early this month showed that 62 percent of Americans disapprove of the way Bush is handling Iraq, while 59 percent of those polled said American forces should leave Iraq as soon as possible.

According to The Independent, a British newspaper, a survey carried out in Iraq in August showed that 82 percent of Iraqis said they are 'strongly opposed' to the US-led coalition troops in their country, while less than 1 percent said the US troops are responsible for an improvement in security.

It seems ironic that such strong public opinion is disregarded while the US government said it is committed to 'freedom and democracy' in Iraq, analysts said.

In 2003, the US government accused the Saddam regime in Iraq of secretly developing weapons of mass destruction and conspiring with al-Qaeda, and used the accusations to justify the need for war.

However, after 2,000 US soldiers died and more than 15,000 were wounded in Iraq, the evidence of such allegations has never been found.

Colin Powell, the then US secretary of state, recently dismissed the existence of such evidence and said he regretted supporting the war.

Under such circumstances, it is not hard to understand why Bush made special emphasis on 'freedom and democracy' every time he talked about Iraq recently.

That is also the underlying reason why the United States was so anxious to see the outcome of the Oct. 15 constitutional referendum in Iraq and the progress of trial of Saddam Hussein, said local analysts.

However, the US public will not stop questioning what the point is in sacrificing 2,000 lives.

In a country where even US soldiers are worried about their own security, the idea of a free, democratic, peaceful and prosperous Iraq seems to go nowhere and so does the neo-conservative dream of a 'Grand Mideast Democracy.'

In the end, the implications of the 2,000 deaths will depend on the US people's perception of how well the war is going, said Deborah Avant, a professor of political science at George Washington University.

'The polls show that people don't think the war is going very well,' he said.

Given the continuous erosion of public support for the war in Iraq, even an eventual victory for the US military will not improve the public sentiment about the war, according to John Mueller, a war expert at Ohio State University.

'There is no way (for the Bush administration) to regain support. People will say it cost too much and it isn't worth the cost,' he said.

Cuba Accepts Exchange with US Experts on Damage Inflicted by Wilma

Mon, 31 Oct 2005 02:14:00 +0000

10-30-05,7:44am

Havana, October 27 (AIN).- Cuban President Fidel Castro said that Cuba will accept the visit by US experts in order to dialog on their assessment of the damage inflicted by hurricane Wilma.

During a TV appearance on Thursday, the Cuban President explained that the island's Foreign Ministry sent the US Interests Section in Havana a note explaining that Cuba had not requested international assistance.

However, we share the viewpoint that the United States as well as other countries of the region should help each other in disaster situations, said Fidel Castro.

Cuba does not oppose the visit by three US experts in order to learn of their criteria and discuss the issues related to the storm, said the Cuban president as he read a diplomatic note issued by the island's Foreign Ministry.

Earlier in the day, the US State Department had stated that Cuba had accepted US assistance following the recent passage of hurricane Wilma, which caused coastal flooding and inflicted damage mainly in western Cuba.

On October 25th, Washington proposed sending a three-expert team to Havana.

We have been informed that the Cuban government accepted our offer, said State Department spokesperson Sean McCormack.

Writing in the Age of Terror

Sun, 30 Oct 2005 03:05:00 +0000

10-29-05, 9:50 am

Remarks delivered at National Writers Union conference in Philadelphia, October, 29, 2005, opening forum with Ed Herman, Danny Schechter, and Linn Washington, on 'Writing in an Age of Terror.'

Obviously, if this really were an age of terror, an age in which we were all terrorized, there would be no writing. You can't write if you're terrorized. I mean, you can, but your writing will have all the clarity of a campaign speech by John Kerry, or all the relevance of the election-year literature produced by the AFL-CIO, which refused to acknowledge that there was a war in Iraq.

Every serious article about U.S. or global politics that pretends there is no war in Iraq is an example of writing in an age of terror. Every article that pretends the war is not a blatant violation of international law and a crime against humanity is an example of writing in an age of terror. But that sort of writing, during other wars, predates the commandment from Bush to feel terrorized.

What's new about writing in this age, I think, stems from the rule that you must be either with or against the anti-terror crusaders being led by George W. Bush. You must be with Bush or with the terrorists. What seems possibly new from this is an increased unwillingness on the part of those opposed to Bush's policies to openly say so, or to say so without all sorts of qualifications.

The progressive PR firm Fenton Communications in March 2003 published a book of tips for 'navigating media in wartime,' which began 'DON'T bash Bush. 2 out of 3 Americans approve of Bush's handling of the confrontation with Saddam Hussein. In times of war -- especially the early stages -- the public's instinct is to stand behind its leader. You won't win any allies by alienating yourself with harsh attacks.'

Now, of course, 2 out of 3 Americans disapprove of Bush's war, but Fenton hasn't really changed its tune. In fact, everybody's singing from the same hymnal. Another progressive organization called Demos released a set of '[Hurricane] Katrina Talking Points' some weeks back that included this:

'Keep the conversation in a 'reasonable mode.' Appeal to people across political ideology. This means avoiding sharp, rhetorical language about political parties, politicians, etc. Stay away from discussing particular people who are to be blamed. This is very important. When highly political, partisan or ideological images are triggered people revert to their own traditional identifications and positions and stop 'hearing' a more reasonable discussion about government and its purposes.'

There is absolutely nothing reasonable about self-censorship during a time of rising fascism. The right wing does not self-censor in this way, and it has not worked for Democrats over the course of my lifetime. It's not a new approach. But what strikes me as new is the degree to which ordinary activists are all modeling themselves as amateur PR strategists and all parroting the self-defeating centrist talking points put out by the people paid for that service.

You can go to strategy meetings of liberal activist groups of any size, from the largest coalitions to the tiniest small-town gathering, and the discussion will focus on properly framing the message so as to appeal to those who completely disagree with us. And that framing of the message will not be about persuading people to change their minds so much as it will be about censoring parts of our message so as not to offend them.

The corporate media should get a pile of blame for this. The way it shuts out voices and labels positions as unacceptable is not just manufacturing consent. It's manufacturing a million little manufacturers who go out and spread the gospel, who nominate unelectable candidates because the media said they were the electable ones, and who ultimately are speaking and writing from a place of fear and terror.

The question for us is not how we can write better in an age of terror, but how we can write ourselves and others into a realization that this is not an age of terror, that many many people are not scared, that a majority of us oppose Bush, oppose his war, and want to see him impeached over it, and that no matter how radical the message framers tell us that is, it is still majority opinion and we still must write about it without any fear, with complete honesty, without any modification for alleged broader appeal.

Emerson said 'To believe your own thought, to believe that what is true for you in your private heart is true for all men [and women], -- that is genius.'

Conversely, then, to believe that others cannot handle your thoughts must be idiocy.

That means that if you believe a war is wrong because little Arab children get their limbs ripped off, you should write that. You don't have to write that it's wrong because some veterans now oppose it. You can and should write that if that's what you believe, but I'm not convinced that we stop enough and ask ourselves what we believe.

--Read David Swanson's blog at .

NOW Urges O'Connor to Remain on Court

Sun, 30 Oct 2005 02:59:00 +0000

10-29-05, 9:46 am

In a statment released this week, National Organization for Women (NOW) President Kim Gandy called on Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O'Connor to remain at her post.

In light of President Bush's withdrawal of support for nominee Harriet Miers, an illustration of 'the stranglehold George W. Bush's base of religious and political extremists have on his administration,' said Gandy, the people need a proven judge who will 'uphold our core fundamental rights and constitutional protections.'

Gandy pointed out that the 'real reason Bush's right-wing base demanded her withdrawal was the lack of an iron-clad guarantee (which they had with John Roberts) that Miers would be a solid vote to overturn longstanding precedents like Roe v. Wade' and other key reproductive rights protections.

Despite their bluster about opposition to 'activist' judges, conservatives, Gandy argued, are out to impose theer 'own kind' of activist judge on the American people.

Bush's failure to nominate a proven judge with both leadership and moral and intellectual steadfastness to insist on upholding the Constitution over ideological concerns has created 'turmoil' and that confidence in the government in steadily declining.'

O'Connor is the one person who can restore confidence in the Court and its Constitutional duties by remaining at her post. O'Connor has proven that she isn't beholden to any extreme faction of any idelogical movement, stated Gandy.

'We strongly encourage Justice O'Connor to reconsider her stated intention to retire,' Gandy urged, 'and instead remain on the court. NOW is initiating a petition campaign to demonstrate widespread support for such an action.'

'Though this action would come at considerable personal cost to Justice O'Connor,' Gandy added, 'it would be an undeniable service and the people of the United States would be grateful.'

Read NOW's petition to Justice O'Connor here.

How Has it Come to This?

Sun, 30 Oct 2005 02:54:00 +0000

10-29-05, 9:50 am

On November 2nd, one year after an election that saw more 'irregularities' than any in recent history, I will be leading a march to the streets to drive out the Bush regime! For me, a 65 year old retiree, who has believed in the orderly transition of power and reasoned argument in the public forum, I can tell you that this is a radical departure from my pattern of support for and trust in our system.

When our vote is taken away or made meaningless, as has now happened, our reality in America is changed in a fundamental way. No longer can we, the citizen, hold those in government accountable for their actions. That is what has happened in America, I am now certain, after examining the many studies done following this election. We now must face the terrible fact that we are ruled by a regime that claims a mandate to do as they please, when in fact they represent an illegitimate and criminal tyranny over us.

And look what they have done with that unchallenged power: Established torture as a policy of interrogation; instituted concentration camps around the world where those simply accused are sent to languish with no defense or hope of exoneration; illegally invaded a country based on fabricated intelligence, killing many thousands of innocents and turning the entire world community against us; pillaged our treasury and transferred untold wealth to their cronies, supporters and our largest corporations; devastated our environment by removing all protections that guard the very life support system of our planet. The list is long.

We face huge crises in the near future as our oil runs out and global warming crashes down on us. Many feel we have only a decade during which we can face these great dangers squarely and still hope to save ourselves. This regime is wasting our much needed grace period by ignoring and exacerbating these threats.

The World Can't Wait! We cannot face the challenges of our times until this gang of unchecked zealots who are driving our country over a cliff to its doom are driven from power, and a new direction can be charted for our country and world.

If our votes no longer count, we are left with the one vote that does count, he vote we make with our feet. I implore you, join with me and the many millions in America who see this great threat to our common future, and come into the streets and the town squares on November 2nd across America, and, with one voice, say loudly to these illegitimate leaders in Washington: NO! HIS REGIME DOES NOT REPRESENT US! AND WE WILL DRIVE IT OUT! THE WORLD CAN'T WAIT!

Join in with plans for the launch of a movement to drive out the Bush Regime with events in over 100 locations nationwide at worldcantwait.org. Join thousands of people in signing onto the Call: The World Can't Wait! Drive Out the Bush Regime!

From

--Jim Oberg is a retired engineer who intended to spend his golden years with is friends on the golf course. He lives with his wife and two cats in Wilsonville, Oregon, and can be reached at.

Letter of Resignation

Sat, 29 Oct 2005 02:28:00 +0000

10-28-05,9:14am

To Whom It May Concern:

I hereby resign my position as a silent accomplice to your perpetration of and involvement in bullying, rape, and murder. I will no longer sit dumbly by while you, purporting to be my government, fabricate and manipulate evidence in order to engage in illegal wars of aggression. I refuse to any longer tacitly support your policies of torture, abuse, extraordinary rendition, and 'disappearing.' I resign from aiding and abetting your hypocritical regime that preaches democracy abroad while subverting it at home.

I've had enough. Enough of ignoring that intelligence was fixed around policy, rather than the other way around. Enough of your fifteen-year-old policy of regime change, justified by fabricated fears of weapons of mass destruction, weapons you knew were destroyed long ago. Enough of your deliberate smearing and denigration of individuals and international bodies who dared challenge the lies and disinformation tarted up as truth. Enough of your representatives who, not wanting to appear unpatriotic, and more concerned with job security than principles, authorized a dim-witted megalomaniac to use whatever means necessary to finish a job his daddy was unwilling to complete.

I've had enough of your self-congratulations for bringing 'free' elections to autocracies you helped create, while your own elections are stained with fraud, won through theft, and far from free. Enough of the hostility toward theocracies abroad as you cultivate one at home, replacing science with dogma, facts with faith, and some bastardized version of Christ for the Constitution. Enough of your feel-good lies about a government of, by, and for the people, while you openly and unabashedly change the tax and bankruptcy codes to the people's detriment, but to the corporations' benefit. Enough of your evisceration of social welfare programs while you fatten up the industries of weapons, war, and death. Enough of your mythical land of opportunity that's kept closed to most, particularly those born poor, black, or brown.

I've had enough of your demands that other nations abide by international law and treaties while unilaterally declaring that you are not bound by such constraints. Enough of your self-righteous condemnation of despotic regimes that violate human rights while you repeatedly refuse to submit reports of your own violations to the United Nations Human Rights Committee. Enough of claiming to condemn torture while you frantically develop 'legal' justifications to engage in torture yourself. (I suppose you expect to be complimented for even trying to make torture legally supportable. After all, in the past you didn't concern yourself with legal justifications. You just tortured.)

I've had enough of your back-door deals to exempt the CIA from Congressional prohibitions against torture. Enough of your threats to veto any bill that in any way limits your ability to systematically inflict pain on whomever you deem deserving. Enough of your scoffing at your obligations under international and domestic law in order to detain people in perpetuity, without either evidence or charge. Enough of a citizenry that is either too stupid, too morally adrift, too self-absorbed, or too apathetic to be angered, much less outraged, by your acts of illegal and abject cruelty.

Ya basta.

I'm done. Finished. I'm turning in my flag. You have so debased it for so long that it no longer stands for anything but your corruption, arrogance, and greed. It symbolizes nationalism, rather than patriotism. Oppression rather than freedom. Fear rather than hope. It is an emblem of your xenophobic militarism, and addiction to hegemony. It is the mark of your state sponsored terrorism by way of precision air strikes, economic sanctions, and CIA-supported juntas. It is the badge of your arrogant people who have not yet been disabused of the misplaced belief that because they are blessed by a particular geography, they are superior to and more deserving than any other member of humanity.

The flag has for too long been used as an excuse and justification for your short-sighted and morally bankrupt foreign policies. Foreign policies which fund, train, equip, and support despots and death squads, tyrants and torture. Foreign policies that are so lacking in foresight that they succeed only in creating future enemies and ensuring future violence. Foreign policies that are calculated to starve to death hundreds of thousands of children under the age of five; deaths which accomplished nothing, but which you nonetheless declared 'worth it.' (When are half a million dead children ever worth it? What are they worth? Who are you to say?)

The flag, like my hands, like your hands, is stained with blood. I will not ignore it any longer. I will not be a party to your crimes. I will no longer sit silently, a coward, while you kill, torture, and terrorize on my behalf. I will not carry this burden of shame any further. No more. I quit.

I quit, but I'm not leaving. I am staying to fight. I will fight you and everything you stand for. Your violence, corruption, and greed. Your arrogance, hypocrisy, and lies. I will fight until you are defeated or I am dead. I will fight.

I am not alone. There are others like me. Our numbers are growing.

We're coming for you.

Ken Sanders is a lawyer and writer in Tucson whose publishing credits include Op Ed News, Z Magazine, Common Dreams, Democratic Underground, Dissident Voice, and Political Affairs Magazine, among others. All of his articles may be found at politicsofdissent

Turning the Corner?: GOP on its Heels

Sat, 29 Oct 2005 02:00:00 +0000

10-28-05, 8:46 am

Throw a few indictments at the ruling party and watch how quickly things change. This week has seen important back-pedaling by the Republican Party and the Bush administration.

On Tuesday, Congress cut funding for new nuclear weapons, the so-called bunker-buster, from the federal budget. The decision was quietly announced when Republican Sen. Pete Domenici (R-NM) issued a press release indicating that he had agreed to the House of Representatives position that the $4 million request should not be included in the Energy and Water Appropriations Bill.

The Bush administration has argued that developing new nuclear weapons as part of its preemptive war doctrine was a key feature of its 'war on terrorism.' Since 2001, the administration has pressed for massive new spending on a new generation of nuclear weapons, despite the contradictory claim that it was working hard against nuclear weapons proliferation.

The decision to cut the funding was followed by a statement from Council for a Livable World, a non-partisan arms control group, describing it as 'a significant victory for those working for reducing and eventually eliminating nuclear weapons and ending any role for nuclear weapons as a national security tool except to deter a nuclear attack.'

On Wednesday, the administration also quietly announced that it was reversing its decision to suspend Davis-Bacon Act provisions that guaranteed prevailing wages for workers employed under federal contracts.

Bush had ordered the wage cut for hurricane Katrina affected areas under the pretense that lower wages would fuel economic recovery and reconstruction in the Gulf Coast states.

This highly suspect claim came under fire from labor and community groups who charged Bush with helping to fatten the bottom line of favored contractors like Halliburton while hurting working people in the region.

Labor and other groups that spoke out included Voices for Working Families, ACORN, AFSCME, SEIU and Katrina survivors. They vehemently rejected the right wing's attempt to exploit tragedies in the Gulf to promote an agenda that hurts ordinary Americans while lavishing more tax giveaways on millionaires.

According to the AFL-CIO, its members and supporters sent over 350,000 messages to Congress and the White House. Every Democratic and independent member of the House sponsored legislation demanding the President reverse his wage-cutting order. Thirty-seven House Republicans joined in support.

Declaring victory, AFL-CIO President John Sweeney also called for reversals of other of Bush's anti-worker policies. 'President Bush has done the right thing by reversing his decision to suspend prevailing wage,' Sweeney noted in a press statement yesterday. 'But it’s only the first step. He must now reinstate affirmative action requirements for contractors in the Gulf and end his attempts to slash programs for working families while adding new tax breaks for the rich.'

Anna Burger, chair of the Change to Win Coalition of labor unions added, 'This is the right thing to do for the families who are trying to rebuild their lives as well as their communities in the Gulf Coast.... Today’s act is an important step toward making that a reality, but our work is far from over for those families whose lives have been irrevocably changed.'

Rep. George Miller (D-CA), who introduced the resolution calling for a reversal of the President's wage-cutting order, said on Wednesday, 'Let me be clear—the president is backing down today only because he had no other choice.'

The Republican House leadership also backed away from some of the most onerous budget provisions, including tens of billions in cuts to Medicaid, student loans, housing assistance, and other social programs after it could not get enough votes to win passage of its budget cutting package.

A campaign led by the Campaign for America's Future brought 17 hurricane survivors and other protesters to Washington to meet with members of Congress. Thousands of letters, e-mails and faxes flooded congressional offices and many moderate Republicans fled the hard right agenda offered by the Republican leadership. At a town meeting with elected officials on Tuesday, Michelle Baker, a survivor from New Orleans, said, 'I lost my job and the benefits that come with it, and when I recently applied to get some help from the government in the form of Medicaid I was rejected. Turned down. Refused.'

'I can't believe,' Baker continued, 'that some people in Washington think that after a category five hurricane the solution is to unleash a category five assault on working families. We may not be stuck on roof tops any more – but at times we feel just as stranded and just as neglected by this administration as we did then.'

Other survivors of the disaster, including Dian Palmer and Vincent Wilson of New Orleans, spoke about closed hospitals, the desperate need for Medicaid funds and care, and the difficulty faced by the people of New Orleans to lift themselves up and rebuild because local contractors are losing work and business to huge out-of-town companies with ties to the Bush administration that continue to get no-bid contracts.

After meeting with many survivors of the hurricane disaster, House Minority Leader Rep. Nancy Pelos (D-CA) said, 'It is a cruel hoax on the victims of Katrina to use their plight to promote a budget that doesn't address their needs, that increases the deficit and gives tax cuts to the wealthiest people in our country. Republicans are asking the poorest children in America, who depend on Medicaid for health care, to pay for the care for the children of Katrina. It's simply not fair.'

Finally, on Thursday, Bush ended his fight for Supreme Court nominee Harriet Miers, in a move viewed as bowing to the dominant far-right religious fundamentalist section of the Republican Party. In an episode fraught with hypocrisy and contradictions, this latest defeat for the Bush administration signals his weakening leadership over an increasingly divided and ideologically dysfunctional Party.

Throughout the Bush presidency, Republicans charged Democrats with obstructionism for trying to block a handful of some of the most extreme judicial appointments. The President deserves to have his choices voted on in the Senate, Republican supporters snorted repeatedly. They accused the Democrats of being ideologically motivated in blocking some of Bush's nominees.

With the Miers nomination, however, Republicans backtracked on their 'principles' and hinted that they would block Miers' confirmation even before hearings began. They also insisted not that Miers demonstrate that she would uphold the Constitution, as Democrats had demanded of all of Bush's nominees, but that she prove her ultra right credentials by innappropriately assuring them that she would vote in favor of religious right-wing views on abortion, privacy, end of life decisions, other or divisive 'cultural' issues.

These important setbacks for the Bush-Republican agenda come in a larger context of growing popular opposition to the continued occupation of Iraq, strong bi-partisan public opposition to the administration's call for Social Security privatization, and a spate of criminal investigations aimed at the top Republican leadership in Congress and the White House.

Send us your thoughts at pa-letters@politicalaffairs.net.

Ed Roybal Presente (1916 – 2005)

Sat, 29 Oct 2005 01:41:00 +0000

10-28-05, 8:30 am

Ed Roybal, first 20th Century Mexican American elected to the Los Angeles City Council (1949-1963) and to the House of Representatives (1963-1992) was a progressive Latino politician long before there was something called a Chicano movement. His political contributions should be deeply studied by Latinos and progressives.

He was a New Deal Democrat with left of center politics all his life. He stood up against the loyalty oath of the McCarthy era, he was an early Congressional critic of the Vietnam War, and was a supporter of labor rights and put domestic need over militarism all his life.

He kept running for higher offices like Lt Governor and County Supervisor and was a founder of the Mexican American Political Associationas well as the National Association of Latino Elected and Appointed Officials. In his later years in Congress he held important committee appoinements defending important programs against Reaganism.

The Los Angeles Times article says he voted against the Landmark Amnesty law, that is a distortion, he voted aganist the vicious employer sanctions provisions of the bill that also included the amnesty. Without the fight of Roybal in Congress against sanctions along with latino, civil rights and progressive labor activists, the amnesty provisions would never have been written, much less passed {Today we need to extend the 'amnesty' and get rid of the employer and other sanctions.}

I remember the first mass Chicano demonstration I went to, it was in downtown LA in June of 1968 and was a protest of the conspiracy charge arrests of the LA 13, organizers and supporters of the student walkouts that year. I remember hesitating going fearing the police might attack, but hundreds and maybe thousands were there downtown including Roybal. A few weeks later I had the courage to help lead a protest to get UCLA cafeterias and vending machines to stop selling grapes during the farmworker called boycott. Having principled polticians around helps.

As an activist and also a writer for the Peoples World and Peoples Weekly World I had a chance to learn of and see Roybal in action at key points. At labor meetings I heard him speak how as a young child in New Mexico during a railroad strike he would join with the other 'manito/a' children in throwing rocks at passing trains.

At a meeting with the establishment 'LA 25' after the police attack on the Chicano Moratorim of Aug 29 1970 he told of how as a youth in Boyle Heights a siren would go off near sunset signalling a curfew for mexicanos. At this critical time he told the LA establishment something like 'police brutality was a top priority when I was first elected, and it is today as well'! Just before the moratorium he had joined in a mass downtown demonstration protesting the police killing of the undocumented Sanchez cousins.

In the back issues of the Peoples World of the early fifties are articles about Roybal standing up to the loyalty oath, standing up against the elimination of rent control, protesting the Bloody Christmas police brutality, protesting the prohibitions on public housing projects, and much more. In one story, I believe it was on the abolition of rent control, Roybal was the lone 'no' vote and his colleagues were mad. One of the council members came up with the canard that Roybal had threatened him with a knife'.

Yes like Rosa Parks, Ed Roybal was a pioneer who had to take heat. He was no radical, not a leftist but he came from the New Deal era, he was part of the CCC program that showed government could and should do much more for the working people. He benifitted and joined in united front programs and issues and developed.
I remember an article critical of Roybal in La Raza Magazine that accused him of being an 'arco iris' a rainbow politician who came out after the storm. Looking back on this I can see that article two ways, Roybal was a man of coalition who came out for well organized events and issues for progressive issues. As a left wing and communist activist there were many issues I worked on that Roybal did not speak out on, but I was always working in his district and never recall his 'machine' trying to silence or punish me.

It is important to remember that in the 9th Councilmanic District where Roybal made his breakthrough in 1949 the largest voting group was African American and that his coalition went beyond Mexican Americans, Jewish and labor activists as is usually recounted. When Roybal finally moved on to Congress he did not insist that a Mexican American replace him as the biggest group in the district was African American. Roybal did however put energy and clout behind the formation of the Mexican American Political Association that fought for Mexican American (Chicano and Latino) representation as an independent progressive political group.

Ed Roybal went to UCLA in the thirties, a later alumnus,former L.A. Controller Rick Tuttle, tells me Roybal lived in student Coop housing there with Tom Bradley (later L.A. Mayor) and George Brown (a leading peace advocate in Congress). In the mid sixties Brown (who then represented part of East L.A.) was among the first two to vote against the Vietnam War, the next vote Roybal and a few others joined in. Roybal also was key in winning Latino Votes for Bradleys successful mayoral campaign in 1973.

At one time I did organize a picket of Roybal. In a bill that added rights for immigrant workers he included provisions to use the Social Security card for I.D. purposes. A few of us in an immigration coaliton protested. He responded with a meeting with us including broader forces. He also invited pioneer African American Congressman Augustus Hawkins to join in. In effect Roybal explained that immigration was one of the more racist federal departments and to get even small positive action took compromise, and that often usually perfunctory request for cooperaton from him were ignored. Hawkins corroborated the discrimination. I still objected to the provision but recognized the context of his action.

Roybal was a very dignified person, 'buen educado' (well educated)' socially as we say in the community, always impeccably dressed and very civil, his style helped win people over and when he showed emotion his emphasis stood out. I could see in his approach his background as a new deal social worker winning over a community theretofore denied and outcast to use new public programs. When he got into a fight his style became more that of an organizer in the style of Alinskyite Fred Ross who helped Royal in developing the Community Services Organization. Cesar Chavez, who also had Fred Ross as a mentor, had that seemingly low key approach as well.

Roybal had a sense of irony. In one of the Congressional sessions in the early eighties when House Democratic Speaker Tip Oneill was pushing hard for the passage of employer sanctions Roybal led a heroic successful blocking action with the passion of an organizer, despite the important committee assignments Oneill had apportioned him. The next session Roybal put his name on a bill with moderate sanctions in it but did nothing to move it. It died early on and Roybal called press conference to point out that he had put out the bill at the request of 'leadership' (ie Tip O'Neill, to make the point that it was community opposition not his personality that gave force to the anti sanctions. His sober demeanor at the CSPAN covered press conference was belied by a faint grin as he announced the defeat of the measure.

In these days when we face the vicious far right politics of Bush and Schwartzneggar we need to keep in mind the correlation of the organization grassroots based coalition and the ability of progressive politicians to make principled stands. Ed Roybal career in politics is an important model of one style of such correlation. Latino and progressive activistsand politicians have much to learn from his contributions.

WFTU: Don't Attack Syria

Sat, 29 Oct 2005 01:39:00 +0000

10-28-05, 8:28 am

WFTU Calls Upon International Trade Union Movement To Further Strengthen Solidarity With Syria And Denounce The Fabrications And Threats Against The Syrian Arab Republic The World Federation of Trade Unions strongly condemns the recent heightened efforts to aggravate tensions, chaos and conflicts in the Arab region and the attempts to disregard the tragic events resulting from the occupation of Iraq, Palestine and other Arab lands as well as the plans to reinforce hegemony by the United States and expand Israeli penetration and their efforts to undermine solidarity with Syria and other Arab countries.

The WFTU Secretariat expresses its deep concern at the reported conclusions of the International Inquiry Mission concerning the assassination of Mr.Rafik Al Hariry, the former Prime Minister of Lebanon. Our Federation considers that the report presented by Mr.Milies, Chairman of the Commission. The WFTU considers the report imprecise, not based on facts and lacks professionalism which should bethe essential conditions for an Inquiry Commission dealing with criminal issues.

The WFTU Secretariat has sent a Statement and Message of Solidarity to its affiliated national trade union centers in Syria and Lebanon.

The WFTU has sent the following message to the UN Secretary General and Chairman of the UN Security Council:

The WFTU expresses its grave concern and protest against the attempts to mis-utilise the United Nations and the Security Council and specialized agencies to apply pressure on the Syrian Arab Republic and other Member States and impose sanctions and blockades, in order to serve the interests of some super powers and their accomplices.

We consider that the Report of the International Inquiry Commission headed by Mr.Milies is not based on facts or legal evidence and has become a political statement. We consider that the Report has reached conclusions without proper and wide investigations

The Report has been politicalised, we consider it unfair and has not helped to find the truth. It can only create further instability and conflict in the region and the world. The main task of the UN Security Council is to maintain peace and security and we hope that our grave concern will be brought to the attention of the UN Securit Council.

We therefore request you to urge the UN Security Council to take into account that the Syrian Arab Republic has fully cooperated with the Inquiry Commission and therefore, the UN bodies should take effective and impartial measures to find the truth.

The UN Security Council should avoid all attempts to impose sanctions under pressure from those who want to impose their hegemony.

Growing Desperate Health Care Crisis has a Solution

Sat, 29 Oct 2005 01:36:00 +0000

10-28-05, 8:23 am

America's health care system – or rather lack of a system – has created a state of emergency for the country. With 46 million people without coverage and up to 100 million without adequate coverage, this emergency costs lives, financial stability, and threatens to unravel our social fabric.

Unfortunately this is a crisis ignored by the big media and one which we can expect the Bush administration and Republicans to continue to ignore.

A recent study published by the Economic Policy Institute titled 'Prognosis Worsens for Workers’ Health Care' shows the extent of this disaster. Elise Gould, the report's author, writes that even as the population grew between 2000 and 2004, the rate of coverage provided by employer-paid health insurance declined from 63.6 percent to 59.8 percent of workers.

Over the same time frame, about 3.7 million fewer people had employer-provided health insurance, while Medicaid, including the State Children’s Health Insurance Program (SCHIP), increased by nearly eight million. This is a significant shift from private sector coverage to public sector coverage, especially in the case of children.

Gould's report also exposes the decline of employer coverage by state. From 1999 to 2004, Maryland, Maine, Missouri, North Carolina, and Wisconsin all experienced losses in coverage rates in excess of six percentage points. Not a single state experienced much of an increase in coverage.

Gould doesn't focus on the reasons for the loss of employer-based coverage, but does give the grim statistics showing the decline in health insurance coverage by age, sex, race, education, or family income. The numbers show that class and race play a large role in who is hurt by the loss of insurance. 49.9 percent of African Americans and 41.1 percent of Hispanics had employer-provided coverage, compared to 65.7 percent of whites. Only about 1 in 5 individuals in families in the lowest income group had employer provided health insurance, yet 4 in 5 individuals in families at the highest income groups had such coverage. Only 42.5 percent of workers with a high school education were covered, compared to 68.8 percent of those college-educated. Workers among the bottom 20 percent of hourly wage earners were the least likely to have employer coverage; 24.4 percent of workers in the bottom one-fifth of income earners were covered, compared to 77.5 percent in the highest wage quintile. Prime working-age, middle-income Americans experienced declines in employer-provided coverage from 80.6 percent in 2000 to 75.8 percent in 2004 – a drop of 4.8 percentage points. Although 2.5 million youth lost employer-provided health coverage between 2000 and 2004, many were caught by the public sector safety net as indicated by the enrollment of an additional 4.8 million more children in both Medicaid and the State Children’s Health Insurance Program (SCHIP) over that same time period.

As employer-provided insurance continues to decline, Bush-appointed tax policy advisers are discussing ways to reduce the tax incentives for employers to provide such coverage in order to pay for tax cuts targeted to the very rich.

Additionally, a number of states are cutting Medicaid coverage. The Republican Party, though it recently postponed legislation to gut Medicaid and other health care programs due to lack of support within its own party ranks, continues to push for legislation at the federal level that would substantially cut the very programs, Medicaid and SCHIP, that have kept millions of children from losing coverage altogether. There is no similar safety net for non-senior adults.

While this new report adequately examines today's severe health care crisis, pointing to continuing inequalities by race and class, and highlighting the Republicans' policy of cutting back the much needed programs that minimally cover the loss of private-sector coverage, the report doesn't address existing proposed solutions.

It is plainly evident that many private sector employers cannot afford to pay ballooning premiums sparked by out-of-control medical care inflation and skyrocketing drug prices. Many employers can afford it, but simply don’t want (e.g. Wal-Mart).

It is also clear that the Republican solution of gutting public programs and turning a blind eye to the problem simply isn't a desirable or viable solution. Republican ideology, almost across the board, puts profits before people’s needs. Public programs are more efficient and less expensive than private insurance. Compare a three percent administrative overhead under Medicare to a 30 percent overhead/profit margin cost imposed by private insurers. This means that private insurers automatically markup costs to the consumer by 30 percent, and for what?

One proposal that is catching some attention across the country is a bill introduced by Rep. John Conyers (D-MI) called the National Health Insurance Program (H.R. 676). This bill would expand Medicare to cover everybody for all types of medical needs: dental, vision, mental health, long-term, and so on. It would use the government's buying power to effectively control the cost of prescription drugs. Expert agree that it would save literally hundreds of billions of dollars across the economy each year for health care.

Most importantly everyone would have equal and complete access to the basic human right of health care.

--Contact Joel Wendland at jwendland@politicalaffairs.net.

A Politics of Politics: Routine and Insurgent Tactics

Sat, 29 Oct 2005 01:13:00 +0000

10-28-05, 8:00 am

'Gradualism in theory is perpetuity in practice' —William Lloyd Garrison

In spite of what is too commonly repeated, preached, and believed in the mainstream, routine politics is not enough for a relatively powerless, oppressed group, such as African Americans, to realize their collective will, particularly in terms of achieving parity in the political and economic spheres and, additionally, to deal with the critical problems of the so-called underclass. Routine politics—that is, voting and elections, petitions, lobbying, and interest group activity—is designed for stability. Routine politics can only accomplish minor, incremental change, at best. Never will it transform the fundamental structures of society; it never has. Pluralistic methods such as those of routine politics might affect certain facets of day to day life, but not the social, political, and economic position of African Americans in general and the African American underclass in particular. This is even more true for African American women who are a 'minority' within a minority and an 'underclass' within an underclass.

Small change might be able to be attained through routine politics and incrementalism, but large-scale change will not be accomplished through ordinary means; it requires extraordinary measures. Large-scale change can only be accomplished by the mobilization of people from the masses and the subsequent organization, social unrest, disruption, and demands that would be—and have been—produced. Mobilization of people, disruption of normal activities, and social unrest can also induce incremental change—as well if not better than routine politics—by the fear that it causes and the threat that it poses.

The radical flank effect suggests that insurgents make non-insurgents appear moderate and reasonable. Incremental change, in this way, may be granted by the power élite—who may fear losing anything but panic at the thought of losing everything—in order to co-opt members of the social movement. The defense mechanisms of the system include, among many other things, co-optation. With the fear of losing 'too much' from powerful, radical demands emanating from social unrest, the power élite is likely to 'give in' on a diluted version of some of these demands. By tricking some people and somewhat satisfying others, it is hoped by those in power with the most to lose, that the mass movement would be divided and weakened, and that the systemic crisis would be abated or, at least, postponed. Political repression is always a potential state resource, as we well know, but ideally, trickery is a more desirable tactic for the power élite than is brute force. It is much more efficient and less costly for the élite to exercise 'power without force', as Antonio Gramsci’s concept and analysis of hegemony make clear.

Far reaching change by routine politics and incremental methods may be a pie-in-the-sky, unattainable goal. Indeed, inequality under capitalism is neither a failure nor a perversity of the system, but is, rather, the purpose and its raison d’etre. Like the game of Monopoly, the real life game of capitalism guarantees a small group of winners and a much larger group of losers. Layered over the ancient oppressive systems of white supremacy (racism) and patriarchy (sexism), capitalism’s losers are necessarily going to be disproportionately people of color and women. This is almost universally true across time and space.

What is to be done? Whereas liberals sometimes seek to reform these types of inequality and conservatives generally oppose those reforms, socialists and other radical progressives go to the roots of problems and specifically target the system itself for inherently producing social, political, and economic inequality. While routine political change can address certain particular problems, these problems are, in actuality, symptoms of a larger disease, namely the structure and dynamics of the interrelated and reinforcing systems of capitalism, white supremacy, and patriarchy.
Routine politics has not—and cannot—achieve the policies that would be necessary to transform the deplorable situation of the underclass. The ownership and control of productive property is simply not on the mainstream agenda. With about 13% of the population of the richest country in the world, African-Americans barely own or control any major means of production or communication in the United States. And the underclass especially, almost by definition based on its economic level, is not able to generate (capitalist) demand. Demand in a capitalist system is not based on need (e.g., being hungry or homeless), but rather on the ability and willingness to pay the monetary price for a particular good or service. Since it is not profitable to produce or provide for the underclass, it must therefore be made unprofitable for the power élite not to do so. In a capitalist society, if the so-called ‘invisible hand’ of the so-called free market will not provide, nothing else in this selfish economic system will. It is therefore up to the people to politically produce a visible fist to counter and compel the invisible hand.

'Working within the system' is not the best means—if a good one at all—to obtain progressive social change. It is not even likely possible, especially considering that the bureaucratic nature of institutions is fertile ground for suppression, marginalization, co-optation, and infinite delay. The time, energy, and resources necessary, along with the intrinsic behavior modification that comes from working with and within bureaucratic institutions, can easily channel one into accepting and adopting the mainstream methods of routine politics.

Although some are hesitant, others are more open to embracing the need for a mass movement in order to create the social space and political opportunities requisite for fundamental, progressive change in society. A strong social movement, perhaps coupled with a crisis of the state, is probably necessary in a society based on ideals of stability, equilibrium, checks and balances, institutionalized means for achieving ends, bureaucracy, and representative 'democracy'. This is what James Madison and the other 'founding fathers' intended when they were framing the U.S. Constitution.

Madison wanted there to be enough freedom so that America would be a (nominal) democracy, but not so much that the ‘have nots’ could take over political control from the ‘haves’. Yet even the American Declaration of Independence corroborates the belief that routine politics may not be enough. It explicitly states 'that whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends [i.e., natural rights, especially 'Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness'], it is the right of the people to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government...' (emphasis added). In this regard, what was true and necessary in the late 18th century is no less true and necessary in the early 21st century.

There are high barriers to change inherent in the routine political processes of American society, as there are very narrow limits to what racial and ethnic minorities, women, poor people, and others who desire progressive change can accomplish through routine politics. The system is heavily biased towards tradition, wealth, status, and privilege. Ordinary people are relatively powerless, except when they disrupt the system or there exists some other structural crisis—whether it be financial, political, labor, environmental, military, or otherwise. These are the only times when the power élite pay any attention to the serious problems that chronically plague our society. The lesson is that progressive social change in America has never been achieved without massive and sustained social disruption—whether legal or illegal, violent or peaceful, organized or spontaneous, proactive or reactive—instigated or led by people on the Left.

Historically, the form of disruption is not nearly as important as the fact of disruption, just as the changing forms of racism in the U.S. have not been as critical as the unchanging fact of racism in our society.

Routine politics will not work for African Americans in the United States in resolving the problems of the underclass, just as it will not work for African (and other poor) countries within the capitalist world system in resolving the problems of their underclasses and the derivative grave ills of widespread poverty. Tragically, the growth of the underclass—both domestically and globally—belie the mistaken mainstream belief that 'things only get better'. More often in our ruthless system, 'thing fall apart'. Routine politics will lead to routine responses which, by and large, do not work towards the ends of social justice.

There is no natural evolution toward a bigger and better future, as the power élite, their corporate mass media mouthpieces, and too many others would have us believe. If anything, the capitalist system ensures a continuing polarization of income and especially wealth, as well as the destructive social and political consequences associated with economic polarization. This is historically true unless there is a countervailing force—not an evolutionary force, but a revolutionary one.

Unity, strength, and extraordinary measures are necessary for both African Americans—and African countries—to be able to realize their wills and ultimately deal with and overcome their oppressive burdens. If not in the fashion of Kwame Nkrumah’s pan-Africanism, African and other marginalized countries must at least unite in a way similar to oil producing countries (OPEC) or the European Community (EC) and then collectively resist and renegotiate vital issues, such as economic growth, social development, investment, debt, trade, militarization, pollution, and aid.

Ordinary measures produce ordinary results which leaves power and wealth in the hands of the power élite, those who contribute to and benefit most from this structure of hierarchical, polarized life. Only radical change through some form of mass movement—by people and countries, respectively—likely coupled with a systemic crisis, can give birth to the fundamental structural change necessary to deal with the problems of the social, political, and economic underclasses in the U.S. and, indeed, the world.

Yet, if routine politics is not enough, neither is insurgent politics enough; both forms of political struggle are desirable and necessary in the hope of being effective. 'Routine politics' within the system and 'insurgent politics' outside the system working simultaneously and dialectically—a 'scissors effect'—in an appropriate balance to fit the given social, political, economic, and cultural contexts is our best hope to transform and repair the ongoing tragedies of systemic racism, sexism, and poverty.

--Dan Brook, Ph.D., a freelance writer and instructor, can be contacted through CyberBrook’s ThinkLinks or directly via Brook@california.com.

Venezuela's National Workers' Union

Sat, 29 Oct 2005 01:09:00 +0000

10-28-05, 7:57 am

The revolutionary process which started in Venezuela following the election of President Hugo Chávez in 1998 has had a profound impact on the labor front. For 40 years the historically dominant Confederation of Venezuelan Workers (CTV) had an undemocratic structure and union bureaucrats collaborated with management to quash the struggles of rank-and-file workers. Democratic union activists were fired and even murdered while union bosses looked the other way. Now Venezuela has a new union federation. After the leadership of the CTV joined the business federation to support the 2002 military coup and then led a 63-day economic stoppage to force Chávez's resignation, pro-Chávez labor leaders founded the National Workers' Union (UNT) in April of 2003.

Last year the new federation was growing by leaps and bounds but the CTV still represented a lot of unions. That is no longer the case; although its first congress last month left structural issues unresolved, there was general agreement over principles and the plan of action, and the UNT is firmly established as Venezuela's principal labor federation. There are an estimated 1.2 million workers affiliated with the UNT, which is the same number the CTV counted in its ranks in 2001. The CTV now has 200,000 workers according to one source.

Two factions currently vying for office are led by Ramon Machuca, leader of the Steelworkers Union (SUDISS), and the slate headed by Orlando Chirino, a union leader from the oil industry, and Marcela Máspero, who comes from a pharmaceutical union. Máspero is the only woman on the 21-member coordinating committee. Also on the slate and the coordinating committee is Rubén Linares, vice president of a union of transportation workers.

History of the UNT

The emergence of the class-conscious UNT was made possible by the election of Chávez, who has reshaped the country's political institutions–a new constitution and 49 laws containing fundamental reforms–to benefit the interests of the poor. Workers seized the opportunity which presented itself and have both supported Chávez and taken advantage of freedom to organize they never had before, supported by a two-year-old prohibition against laying off low-wage workers.

The CTV was historically aligned with one of the two political parties that ruled Venezuela for 40 years, Democratic Action. Presidents of the CTV were party activists and corruption and cronyism were the order of the day.

Asked about the CTV's loyalties, Linares said,

'Initially, yes, it had class consciousness, but over time they became bureaucratic and it disappeared. As a matter of fact, there is a very important fact: you won't find a strike--go to the files of the ILO, where they were very well represented ... and there isn't one legal strike recorded in Venezuela during 40 years at the ILO. And we know that there were strikes. Here there were people injured, there were killings, there were confrontations with the police, with the national guard. The private sector guilds fought for their rights, for money, for pay; they fought for all those kinds of demands. But it wasn't recorded. Why? Because the CTV had to show the world that this was paradise.'

The AFL-CIO's American Institute for Free Labor Development, a cold war CIA front, had worked closely with the CTV in the early 1960s to purge it of communists at the same time that the Communist Party was decertified politically. This is why the CTV not only refused to support labor actions but even ordered out the police or gangs armed with iron construction rods to put down the strikes.

In 1997, after over a decade of neoliberalism had impoverished the country, the CTV made an agreement with the rightist government of Rafael Caldera whereby it accepted a 'reform' of the labor code. This deregulation resulted in a sharp reduction in the value of paid days the workers earned every year and received as a lump sum when they separated from a company or retired. It also allowed labor flexibility and subcontracting; permanent jobs were lost to fixed-term contracts. In exchange businesses promised to invest the money taken from the workers to maintain full payrolls, but that never happened. UNT leaders see the CTV's acceptance of these giveaways as an historic betrayal of the working class.

Chávez elected

In 1998 Hugo Chávez ran for president as an independent candidate. During the campaign he called on the people to form 'constitutional fronts' in every state, and they responded by organizing all kinds of groups under that banner. But the one that endured after the election was the Workers' Constitutional Front. By September 2001 the country had a new constitution and this group became the Bolivarian Workers' Force.

Two seminal events define modern Venezuelan history: the April 2002 military coup, which lasted 48 hours, and the December 2002-January 2003 economic sabotage, also known as the oil coup. Led by its president, Carlos Ortega, the CTV was a key protagonist of both actions, but rank-and-file workers were never consulted by the union leadership. In any event the rate of unionization in Venezuela has historically been very low: 14 percent of the formal sector comprising companies with five or more employees. So when the coup was reversed by uprisings in the military barracks but also the presence of masses of people in the streets around the presidential palace, workers were among those in the streets demanding the return of Chávez, though not as unions. In fact Linares says the only union that responded as such to restore Chávez to the presidency was his fledgling Passenger Transportation Workers Guild.

After the coup members of the Bolivarian Workers' Force saw the need to organize in opposition to the CTV leadership and they held a meeting of 1,500 delegates in September 2002. But they were divided on whether to try to take over the CTV or form a rival federation, so they agreed to meet again.

In that lapse the CTV, again allied with the ruling class, plunged the country into the devastating oil stoppage which cost hundreds of thousands of jobs and more than $10 billion in economic losses, as oil production was cut from 3.1 million barrels a day to 25,000 barrels. Of the state oil company's (PdVSA) 35,000 permanent employees, 18,000 walked off the job. Rank-and-file workers from other sectors joined non-striking PdVSA workers to fight sabotage and restore production. For example, saboteurs poured sand into the pipes and technicians locked out the computers by withholding passwords. Workers went to the houses of strikers but the latter refused to go to work, whereupon thousands of retired and foreign engineers and technicians were called in to replace them. There were other problems besides petroleum production; owners of trucking companies locked out drivers and paralyzed national transportation, and companies dumped food into the ocean. Saboteurs also cut domestic fuel distribution with the result that transportation workers had to wait long hours in line for a few liters of gasoline.
After the oil stoppage was defeated, everyone in the Bolivarian Workers' Force was convinced the time had come for a new federation, and on April 5, 2003, they formed the UNT.

This year’s May Day parades provided a graphic picture of the decline of the CTV. There were around half a million supporters at the UNT march while not even 1,000 marched with the CTV.

'Effectively in Venezuela there is a revolution in unionism going on'

In an interview in his Caracas apartment, Orlando Chirino explained where the UNT is now and the direction he would like it to take within the context of the Bolivarian revolution. He began by stressing that the UNT is grounded in solidarity–not just within Venezuela but internationally.

The UNT has declared its independence from employers, the government and political parties, which is the reason they refuse to ask for help from the government. Chirino says the workers have to get used to paying the union's expenses and in turn the union leaders have to justify the way the money was spent to the workers, promoting accountability and transparency. The UNT still doesn't have a headquarters even though he thinks the government would give them one if they asked.

Finally, the UNT is fighting for workers' control over the means of production through nationalization and co-management. There have been a few nationalizations–notably a valve factory and a paper plant–in the wake of the oil stoppage, which left over 6,000 companies closed. There are also two state-owned electric companies and an aluminum plant, and of course, the state oil company, PdVSA. Chirino wants to see more of the companies reopened and co-management is part of the restructuring; this seems to be beginning with the recent announcement of the formation of a state-owned steel and iron processing company and the expropriation of an idle corn processing plant. But there is sharp disagreement between labor leaders and state oil managers over the extent of co-management, with the former calling for more worker participation in choosing managers and making decisions at all levels, and the latter promoting European-style steering committees–something Chirino dismissively calls 'capitalism with a human face.'

He has good reason to think that the workers can run their companies:

'Four to five thousand managers who ran the petroleum industry told the country that if they didn’t come back, it wouldn’t get started again. There was worker control in that lapse. With the community and the patriotic armed forces we got the industry running, we reactivated it, a demonstration that we could. And now in our application we say, ‘if we did it there we can do it now in the companies that are shut down that may be reopened.'

Although the oil industry only provides one percent of the nation’s jobs, according to Chirino, how those jobs are given out is important. This summer the government started implementing the System of Democratization of Employment to put 'objectivity, transparency and equality of opportunity' into the contracting of temporary oil workers, which has always been plagued by patronage. Mobile teams are registering some of the 30,000 'unemployed' workers to work on the 856 projects scheduled before the end of the year. The practice of contracting is controversial; undoubtedly many 'unemployed' workers want permanent employment and they still lack union representation.

The AFL-CIO Solidarity Center and the CTV

AIFLD was forced to change its name because its anti-communist activities overseas had earned the AFL-CIO the nickname AFL-CIA. It became the American Center for International Labor Solidarity (ACILA), but it’s collaboration with the government doesn’t appear to have changed.

Since the 2002 coup, lawyer Eva Golinger has filed hundreds of FOIA requests and received evidence of the U.S. government's involvement in it. The Southern Command and the CIA had advance knowledge of the plot and the State Department was front and center, funding opposition groups to the tune of about $3.3 million during the six months preceding the coup. These funds were channeled through USAID and the National Endowment for Democracy. (Golinger, The Chávez Code, Havana: Editorial Jose Marti, 2005)

On the labor front, Golinger documented more than $776,000 in different grants that the Solidarity Center received from the NED specifically to support the CTV between February 2001 and March 2002. The ACILS got another CTV support grant for $116,000 in September 2002, five months after the coup and three months before the oil stoppage. In his history of AIFLD (www.laboreducator.org/darkpast.htm) labor activist Harry Kelber says the grants continued in the same amount every three months until at least March 2004. According to Golinger, the ACILS continues to receive grants in excess of $100,000 annually for its work with the CTV. (http://www.venezuelafoia.info/acils.html)

Experts on U.S. destabilization Philip Agee, William Robinson and Hernando Calvo Ospina concur that President Reagan founded the NED in 1983 to continue the work formerly done by the CIA, which had been exposed and discredited by hearings conducted by Senator Frank Church in 1973-1975. The NED has four core grantees: The ACILS, the Center for International Private Enterprise (U.S. Chamber of Commerce), the International Republican Institute (Republican Party) and the National Democratic Institute for International Affairs (Democratic Party). The NED claims it gives grants to these groups 'for programs that promote pluralism and free and fair elections (IRI and NDI), free markets and economic reforms (CIPE), and independent trade unions (ACILS).' Harry Kelber says the ACILS receives 75% of its funding from the departments of State and Labor, and Golinger says ACILS is the largest single grant recipient of USAID.

The Solidarity Center Stands by its Venezuela Program

Stanley Gacek, AFL-CIO Director for the Americas, defends the CTV's Carlos Ortega, now in prison, saying he refused to sign the coup decree. He also says that Ortega is not being prosecuted for participation in the coup but for the oil industry shutdown, which is true, although Ortega's actions facilitated the execution of the plot. The CTV called for a general strike starting April 9, which was supported by FEDECAMARAS, the national business federation headed by coup leader Pedro Carmona. Ortega was also a speaker at the enormous opposition rally on April 11, which leaders illegally diverted to march on the presidential palace. The subsequent murders of demonstrators from both camps by opposition sharpshooters provided the excuse for the military to move in.

Gacek also claims the coup was 'exclusively a military action' which 'took place unbeknownst to the civil society organizations planning entirely legal and legitimate opposition actions.' But 395 of these supposedly hoodwinked civil society leaders crowded into the presidential palace on April 12 to wildly cheer Carmona as he abrogated the constitution and dissolved the National Assembly, the Supreme Court, and the office of the Attorney General. They were especially happy when he revoked the hated 49 reform laws.

Regarding the oil coup at the end of 2002, the ACILS did not fund the shutdown, although Gacek defends it as a legal collective action. He also points to the fact that 20,000 (actually less than 19,000) of a total 35,000 employees were terminated to imply that the action affected the rank-and-file and was anti-labor, and the CTV has taken the issue to the UN International Labor Organization. But PdVSA relies heavily on contract workers–there will be 30,000 temporary positions this year on top of jobs held by employees. Without defending the practice of contracting, the fact is that permanent jobs are reserved for the elite–mostly managers, administrators and skilled technicians–and these are the people who walked off the job and crippled operations. The position of the government, which is supported by the rank-and-file, is that those fired abandoned their employment for 63 consecutive days, allowing PdVSA to apply section 102 of the Labor Code and terminate them. At any rate strikes in any part of the world may only be called over labor grievances, and Ortega's CTV was demanding the president's resignation. It was not a legal labor action but an illegal political action.

Finally Gacek says the ACILS' State Department funding doesn't dictate how its programs are run. If this is true, it suggests the ACILS has internalized the policy objectives of the U.S. government, at least with regards to Venezuela. One month before the coup, on March 5, there was a national gathering of the CTV, FEDECAMARAS and the Catholic Church, the purpose of which was to draft 'ten principles on which to guide a transitional government,' according to an embassy cable. The ACILS report about the meeting said, 'The joint action further established the CTV and FEDECAMARAS as the flagship organizations leading the growing opposition to the Chávez government.' The embassy cable had the same celebratory tone:

'The existence of this accord was announced last week and has since drawn much speculation about whether it was intended as the basis for a post-Chávez government. In his combative centerpiece address, CTV President Carlos Ortega dispelled any remaining doubts; this accord is a 'pact for us,' he emphasized, to guide us through the transition and to establish a 'government of democratic unity.''

Two of the points of unity cited by the embassy included: 'promoting cooperation between labor and capital ...' and 'promoting 'public austerity' to prevent the squandering of resources.' (The Chávez Code, p. 203) There is also evidence that AFL-CIO officials arranged a meeting in Washington between Ortega and Otto Reich in the State Department.

The international front

FEDECAMARAS and the CTV filed complaints with the ILO this year alleging violations of trade union rights by the Chávez government. According to UNT delegates, the individual speaking for FEDECAMARAS and the CTV at the session was Edward E. Potter, the U.S. delegate to the ILO and director of labor relations for Coca Cola. This is the same Coca Cola which has allowed union activists to be murdered in Colombia and which refuses to pay benefits to 840 Venezuelan workers laid off in 2002. The UNT responded in a June 16 statement that these complaints seek to 'cover up the fact that these two organizations have taken part in actions that have nothing to do with ILO Convention 87, such as the coup d'etat against the government elected by the sovereign Venezuelan people as well as the sabotage of the oil industry.' In June the complaint was withdrawn and the CTV was voted off the ILO Governing Body.

Summary

The AFL-CIO's attacks on the Chávez government through the misnamed Solidarity Center have made relations between Venezuelan and U.S. workers problematic. In a response to an article by Lee Sustar in the September issue of New Labor Forum, Gacek denounced what he called Chávez’s 'systematic and reprehensible violations of freedom of association and collective bargaining rights.'

When I read this statement to Ruben Linares he was incensed, and he directed his answer to Gacek:

'In Quebec when they were talking about the FTAA, our president said there that he had to consult with the people, as opposed to all of the presidents including yours; because I would like to know if you are able to take yours to Bush so he can ask the people if they agree with the Iraq war or not, and if the people agree at this time with the Central American free trade agreements he is signing. Ours is required by a constitutional text to ask the people if we are going to join the FTAA or not. For us there is no democracy in your country.'

Unencumbered by financing from the Foreign Ministry or ties to MI6, the British Trade Union Congress unanimously voted on September 14 to support Venezuela and the UNT. For that to happen in the states there would have to be a coordinated effort by U.S. labor unions to join in solidarity with their newly formed Venezuelan counterparts. The AFL-CIO could also use lessons in humility. The ACILS prides itself on setting up conferences for foreign labor organizers to teach them about U.S.-style unionism; a better idea might be to send North American labor leaders to Venezuela. They could drop in on co-management training sessions like those held in August for workers and managers at CVG Carbonorca, which included classes on endogenous development, worker co-management and control, ethics, democracy in the streets and building popular power.

--Diana Barahona is a writer living in Southern California. She can be reached at dlbarahona@cs.com.

Prosecutor secures indictment in CIA outing case, lawyers say

Sat, 29 Oct 2005 01:06:00 +0000

10-28-05, 7:55 am

The prosecutor investigating the outing of covert CIA operative Valerie Plame Wilson has secured at least one indictment in the case from a majority of the 23 grand jurors, lawyers and intelligence officials close to the case said Wednesday.

The final outcome of Special Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald's 22-month federal probe is expected to end Friday with indictments of White House officials. The situation remains fluid, however, and several new scenarios have developed over the past 48 hours that could delay an announcement, lawyers close to the probe said late Wednesday.

Rumors swirled Wednesday afternoon that Fitzgerald was going to seek an extension of the grand jury, which expires Friday. That scenario now seems highly unlikely, sources close to the case said.

However, intelligence officials and those familiar with the case have indicated that Fitzgerald could convene a new grand jury to investigate forged documents used by the Bush Administration that purported to show Iraq was seeking to buy uranium from Niger.

The Chicago-based prosecutor has obtained new information from officials targeted in the leak probe, who are now interested in entering into plea discussions, they added.

Fitzgerald intended to announce that he had secured indictments against I. Lewis 'Scooter' Libby, Vice President Dick Cheney's chief of staff, and Karl Rove, President Bush's deputy chief of staff, Wednesday afternoon as well as two people who work outside of the administration, those close to the case said.

But his office was contacted late Tuesday by attorneys representing figures outside the White House, lawyers said, who expressed interest in entering into plea talks with the prosecutor. Several have agreed to enter into last-minute plea negotiations with Fitzgerald in exchange for providing testimony that could result in criminal charges being brought against additional officials inside the White House, they added.

Rove was offered a deal when his lawyer met with Fitzgerald Tuesday, but did not accept, the sources said. Fitzgerald has sought indictments to charge Rove with perjury and obstruction of justice, they asserted.

An eleventh-hour deal could help Fitzgerald 'build a strong case against some very senior officials in the office of the vice president,' one attorney said.

'Mr. Fitzgerald is extremely thorough,' the lawyer remarked. 'He had advised Judge [Thomas F.] Hogan more than two weeks ago that there was a strong possibility that some defendants may be inclined to cooperate at the last minute.'

Fitzgerald's spokesman, Randall Samborn, told RAW STORY he could not comment on the latest news because it has not been made public.

'I'm sorry,' Samborn said. 'I cannot offer you any guidance on this.'

The sources would not identify the names or the number of people no considering providing Fitzgerald with testimony against other individuals targeted in the probe.

From

CIA Leak: Fitzgerald expanded scope of inquiry in 2004 to probe Niger forgeries

Sat, 29 Oct 2005 01:03:00 +0000

10-28-05, 7:50 am

The special prosecutor investigating the outing of a covert CIA agent expanded his probe last year to include intelligence information used by the Bush administration claiming that Iraq tried to purchase yellow-cake uranium from Niger.

According to a court filing posted on the website of Patrick Fitzgerald, the special prosecutor investigating who leaked the name of undercover CIA agent to reporters, was interested in questioning New York Times reporter Judith Miller about the CIA agent or whether she discussed Iraq's alleged efforts to purchase uranium from Niger.

'On August 12 and August 20, 2004, grand jury subpoenas were issued to reporter Judith Miller and her employer, the New York Times, seeking documents and testimony related to “conversations between Miller and a specified government official occurring between on or about July 6, 2003 and on or about July 13, 2003, concerning Valerie Plame Wilson (whether referred to by name or by description) or concerning Iraqi efforts to obtain uranium.” the filing made by Fitzgerald last year states.

While many public officials and the media have long believed that Fitzgerald was not only looking into the identity of administration officials that leaked Plame's name to reporters, this is the first time there is information there is confirmation the investigation had expanded to investigate the Niger forgeries.

Sources close to the case said Fitzgerald will empanel a new grand jury and pursue broader conspiracy charges against senior officials inside the Bush administration as well as other people who worked at the State Department, and the National Security Council. Fitzgerald is expected to make an official announcement of his intentions going forward Friday.

NATO sources told United Press International Monday that Fitzgerald's team of investigators has sought and obtained documentation on the forgeries from the Italian government.

According to the report , 'Fitzgerald's team has been given the full, and as yet unpublished report of the Italian parliamentary inquiry into the affair, which started when an Italian journalist obtained documents that appeared to show officials of the government of Niger helping to supply the Iraqi regime of Saddam Hussein with Yellowcake uranium.

This claim, which made its way into President Bush's State of the Union address in January, 2003, was based on falsified documents from Niger and was later withdrawn by the White House.

November 2005

Fri, 28 Oct 2005 02:17:00 +0000

The Destroyers

Fri, 28 Oct 2005 01:43:00 +0000

10-27-05, 10:00 am

In the middle of that summer, when there had been no rain for weeks, and the forest was tinder dry, and the winds were high, a sheepherder built a cooking fire on the slope of Bear Sign Mountain. He then lay down and slept, waiting for the blazing pitchy pine knots to burn down to hot coals. While he slept, the wind aided the fire in jumping its bounds and the flying sparks touched off the dead pine needles on the ground; exploding sheets of flame climbed into the tops of the living trees; the holocaust lashed out in every direction; the herder escaped but his flock was destroyed. And when I came to the fire, only a day after its beginning – to work, as befitted my scant sixteen years, as camp flunky – the blaze had already consumed twelve thousand acres of yellow pine and was completely out of control; every available north Arizona man who was fit had gone to the Bear Sign to fight.

The Forest Service fire camp was a collection of hastily erected tents, in a tiny semi-clearing surrounded by heavy concentrations of timber, as close to the fire as it could exist with some safety. Over the ridges to the north and west of it, twenty odd miles away, was a solid mass of black smoke with a fiery colored base; the acrid smell of burning wood puckered the nostrils of everyone in the district. I was put to work as soon as I arrived and checked in; there were seven of us there – before Junior came – four cooks, the coffeemaker, the camp boss and I. I knew none of them at all from before the fire; and, with the exception of the camp boss Engstrom, who I discovered later normally worked as woods foreman for a logging company, the others were all transients.

Nor did my duties allow me to become much acquainted with any of them, that first day and most of the second; as the youngest, I was made bull cook, and I worked steadily peeling vegetables and stirring pots, washing and wiping dishes and cups and pans and other utensils after the meals were finished. The first day was a hard day for me, I occasionally fell behind, and in the evening, when it was all over, Engstrom, a big man in bib-overalls, who spoke with more than a trace of a Swedish accent, came over to me and said, “Before long we’ll have a helper for you, boy – when we can find someone.”

But I worked as hard the next day, as I had the first, until, as I was beginning the supper dishwashing in the early twilight, a green government truck loaded with men arrived, one climbed off, and then the truck turned around and, carrying the remainder of the men, moved off toward the fire lines.

I stopped my work for a minute and looked closely at the small, denim-clad man who’d gotten off – actually not much older than I – for he was a Negro, and I had seen very, very few of them in my life. He walked slowly toward the tents, limping just a little, and then stopped and looked around. There was no one but me in sight; the coffeemaker, whose small fire and pots were just a few feet away from my dishwashing stand and who, from the little that I had seen of him, struck me as being kind of strange, had gone somewhere; the four cooks, who looked so commonplace and who had so few distinguishing characteristics that I could scarcely remember them or ever tell them apart, were playing poker in the kitchen tent; the camp boss was in the tent which served as his office, and the off-shift crew of firefighters was bedded down in the woods nearby.

“Can I do something for you?” I called.

He looked at me. “The camp boss. Where is he?”

I gestured toward Engstrom’s tent and then the big man himself came out and I began work again on my dishes. Occasionally I glanced up and saw him talking to the newcomer, and then the Swede walked over to me, by himself, and said, “I hope you got nothing against working with that kind of man,” and he pointed to the Negro.

“What kind is he?” I asked. “I don’t know what you mean, Mr. Engstrom.”

He stared at me for a long time. “A black man,” he finally said. “A Nigra. That’s what I mean.”

“A black man,” I repeated. “No. I’ve got nothing against him.”

“Then he’s your helper,” Engstrom said. He turned away and I heard him mutter, “Short of men. That’s why they hired him. And because he’s little and a crip, they give him to me. God knows I don’t want him here.” I still wasn’t certain what he meant, and I watched him, puzzled, as he walked back to the newcomer, pointed toward me, and then began to light the gasoline lanterns.

The young Negro came over and stood by me, and then picked up a dish towel. He looked at me, and I looked back at him, and then I put down the frying pan I was working on and reached out my hand and said, “Jack’s my name.”

He grinned, and we shook hands, and he said, “Junior’s mine. Just call me that.”

I had learned some time before how to roll a cigarette, and I took out my sack of Durham tobacco and the papers, and offered them to Junior. He rolled one quickly, and I made myself one, and we lit them. “You roll a good cigarette,” I told him. “A damn good one.”

“You make a good one, too,” he answered. “Not bad at all.”

“Is this your first fire?” I asked.

“Yeah,” he replied. “It is.”

Knowing that he wasn’t, but being curious, I asked, “You from around here?”

He shook his head. “No,” he said. “From a long ways off. I’m just a tramp wanderer.” He took the towel and began wiping the tin plates, and I started back on the frying pan. When, with the exception of the light of the lanterns, it was fully dark, the two of us had almost finished our task, and all that was left were the knives and forks and spoons. I lifted my head, and suddenly, in the pale light, I saw the coffeemaker, whom I had heard called Clyde, standing a few feet away, looking steadily at both of us. I returned his stare, and then I noticed Junior looking at him for a second before lowering his head and going on with his work.

The coffeemaker viewed us for a long, long time without speaking a word, his eyes glittering and shining with an emotion that I had never seen before, and a curious feeling of tightness began to course through my body. I watched him there in the lantern light, a tall, lean, hawknosed individual, with a face as heavily lined as dry, cracked adobe. There was something that was not right about him. In the two days that I had been in camp I had heard him several times, and for no apparent reason, muttering to himself as he sat by his coffee pots; sometimes he would curse and double up his fists; and the muscles in his face would twist and jump and jerk. And then, his face would grow hard and cold and stony and he would look quickly around the camp and I would pretend that I hadn’t been watching him. Now, as the silence between the three of us deepened, I knew that I was afraid of the coffeemaker Clyde.

My voice was tense as I asked him. “What do you want? What do you want, Clyde?”

The coffeemaker still was silent, and when he spoke at last, it was at Junior, not at myself, and he sounded icy and rasping.

“I’ll tell you what I want,” he said. “Get out of this camp. Right now.” Junior looked up at him and then back down again.

“What do you mean, Clyde?” I asked, tenser than ever. “Just what is wrong with you?”

The coffeemaker gave me a quick glance, and then he narrowed his eyes and fixed them on Junior, who was still looking down, fumbling with the spoons. “He knows what I mean,” said the lean man. “And he knows I mean it.” His voice rose as he said. “Get the hell out of here! Damn your soul!” And still Junior said nothing.

I started to ask, “Why?” and then I heard a noise over in the direction of the tents, and I turned partly around and saw the four cooks standing there, watching us. The coffeemaker and Junior both looked also, and then Clyde walked a few steps away, picked up a lantern that hung on the broken branch of a tree, and returned. He held it by Junior’s head and the Negro flinched slightly.

“See him!” said Clyde to the four, and the muscles in his face were frantic. “See him for what he is! His black hide!” And that was when I first really began to understand about the hate that springs from caves within the souls of men.

The four cooks neither moved nor spoke, and the coffeemaker talked again. “Do you want him here? Working with us? By us? Do you?”

Then one of the four shook his head, and each of the others said with loud and measured harshness, “No.”

Engstrom came out of his tent and stood there for a moment, his arms hanging down at his sides and his hands doubled into fists. He said, “I know how it is, and it isn’t my fault. But I want no trouble. None at all. Not in my camp!” He looked at everyone, and then the four cooks went back into their tent, and the coffeemaker walked to his smoldering fire and his pots and sat down, and Engstrom moved back into his office tent.

I looked at Junior, but he said nothing, and neither did I. We continued our work; and when we finished and were wiping our hands, I heard a low, wordless snarl from the direction of Clyde; I looked and saw him sitting by his coffee, lantern light illuminating his burning eyes, again staring at us.

In a voice so nearly a whisper that I strained my ears to hear, he said to Junior, “Remember, black man. There is nothing here for you. Not that you’ll want. Better leave.” His lips drew back in a curl and, very slowly, he said, “While you can.”

Hate crawled into my bones, then, and mixed with fear. I began to form words but my throat was stiff and dry and I choked; Junior said, quietly, “Let’s get some sleep.”

We turned our backs on Clyde and walked across the camp to the piles of blankets which lay on the ground; talking several apiece, we made our beds on soft needles under a pine tree away from the light of the lanterns, and climbed in.

Without talking, we rolled cigarettes and smoked and I gazed up at the stars, blurred from the light haze of the fire smoke drifting through the night sky. Next, I turned my head and looked for a long time at the tall, grim figure of the coffeemaker, sitting on the other side of the camp. I hated him, but then moisture sprang to the palms of my hands, and a trembling came to my legs, and suddenly I hated myself for my fear; then anger at it all arose within, and a struggle gripped every part of me.

I finally shifted my head again and saw Junior half-raised in his bed, looking over at the lean man who sat by the pots. I forced myself to tell him, “Don’t worry about Clyde. Or any of them. It’ll be O.K.”

Junior looked at me slowly and answered, “I’ve seen them before. People like him.”

Half to myself, I asked, “Why? Why should they?”

He heard me and replied, “It’s the way things are. Just the way they are.”

“Do you think you’ll decide to leave?” I asked, not knowing what I wished him to do, and feeling my whole struggle well up to an even higher pitch.

“I can’t run,” he said, still looking at me.

“What they say and think and do,” I said. “It must bother you.”

But he was silent.

I slept after a time, in a troubled manner, and once I awakened in the middle of the night, and the smell of the smoke of the great fire seemed much stronger, and I could feel the wind blowing on my face, coming from the direction of the burning timber. Some distance away, close to the kitchen tent, men were talking and someone said, “It’s blown up worse than ever, now. Really crowned out.” And another man said, “If it keeps up this way, this camp’ll be in trouble.”

Although I could sense that Junior was awake also, I said nothing to him, and made myself not think of him or the coffeemaker or any of it. I finally slept again and awakened only when I heard the gong sound for the camp crew, early in the morning. I arose, and so did Junior.

It was still before dawn, and the smoke was thicker, there in the lantern light, and stronger than ever, and away up on the ridges to the north and west of the camp, where it had never been visible before, we could see the fire sparkling and shining in the darkness. “Close,” I said, and Junior nodded. We each had a cigarette, and then we walked to the kitchen tent.

They were all inside, the coffeemaker, the cooks, and Engstrom, and they stared at us as we entered, and then Engstrom said sharply to the two of us, “Help out with making the breakfast.” We nodded and went to work. No one said anything, but from time to time I could see their eyes drilling into us, and especially at Junior; again, the struggle between my fear and anger began to rise up inside of me; I hammered it down, trying to forget everything concerning it.
When breakfast was prepared, all of us in the camp crew served ourselves at the stove, and hurriedly ate our steak and eggs and toast. By the time we had finished our meal and had set up the food lines just outside the tent, the day shift men were coming up from the sleeping area, down in the thick timber, close to camp. We fed them and gave each one a box lunch, and then they climbed into trucks and went out to the fire lines. We brought forth more food, and in a while the night shift, dirty and tired, and with smoke and sweat in their eyes, came back in the trucks; after they had eaten, they took blankets and bedded down in the woods. Junior and I began to wash the breakfast dishes.

We worked quickly and without saying a word or looking at anyone, and the camp was quiet. The four cooks began work on the noon meal in the kitchen tent, and Engstrom was in his office, and the coffeemaker was out gathering wood for his fire. Finally, I allowed myself to think just a little about the trouble, and I told myself, “It’ll be all right. Probably they were just bluffing,” and even though the wind and the smoke and the fire coming down from the ridges toward our camp troubled me, I began to feel increasingly calm and relieved.

Then the coffeemaker returned to his fire with an armload of kindling. He dumped it, poured himself a cup of coffee, and sat down, staring into the flames under the pots. Junior went on with his work; I watched Clyde guardedly for a few moments, and then I too continued with what I was doing. And then I heard him mutter to himself again; I looked up to see him toss his cup, still partly filled with coffee, on the ground. He rose and came over to us.

My whole body stiffened with a jerk; we kept on working. When he was very close to us, I looked up and stared back at him.

For a moment or two, he stared back at me. Then he gave a strange, rattling and vicious laugh. He turned slightly and faced Junior, who had not looked up, and, reaching into his pocket, took out a long, heavy clasp knife and pulled the blade out. Again, fear and anger closed in on me; my head began to ache.

“You,” he said. Junior looked at him.

“They tell me you folks always carry one of these,” said Clyde, holding the knife in the flat of his hand, and hefting it. Then he gripped the handle. “Why don’t you take yours out?” he asked.

I looked quickly at Junior, and I could see him shaking slightly, but he seemed to be paying no attention to anything now but his dish towel and a plate. I looked at the coffeemaker and saw him with his knife and the smile on his face; and then the two sides of me were suddenly struggling with everything that each could muster up; my head was filled with sharp, stabbing pains; there was sweat all over me; I yelled aloud at myself, “Damn you!” And then I told Clyde, choking, “And damn you too! If we have to we’ll use these eating knives!” And I picked one up. And then my headache was gone.

The coffeemaker was staring at me. “You know what you’re doing?” he asked. “You better stay the hell out of this, sonny.”

The knife in my hand was jerking back and forth like tree limbs driven by a powerful wind. “Damn you,” I said in a hoarse voice. “Damn you to hell! You leave us alone!”

He was smiling again. “Yellow, both of you,” he said, and then was strangely silent, and looked past us. I followed his gaze and saw Engstrom standing in the door of his tent, his glowering face dark with anger. The coffeemaker slipped his knife away and went back to his fire; I put down mine and, feeling more tired than I ever had, but still savoring my anger, returned to work. When I looked again, Engstrom had disappeared.

Junior turned to me. “Look,” he said. “You don’t have to do this.”

“I have to,” I told him. “It’s mixed up. It’s all mixed up. But I have to.”

I worked for a moment longer, thinking, and then I took my hands out of the big dishpan, wiped them on my sides, and said, “I’m going to talk to Engstrom.”

Junior’s voice was strained and low. “Don’t,” he said. “It won’t do any good.” But I walked away, turning my head for a second to look at the watching Clyde, before continuing on.

I went to the tent of the big man. He was sitting behind a makeshift food-carton desk, working on a sheaf of papers. We looked at each other, and he asked, “What do you want?”

“Mr. Engstrom,” I said to him and then stopped. He said nothing, and I began once more. “Mr. Engstrom. There’s going to be trouble. You saw what just happened. Clyde. The knife.”

The camp boss was silent for a long time, and he looked down at his papers, thumbed through them, and then looked back at me. “Look, boy,” he said quietly. “There’s a lot about this that you don’t understand. Don’t mix in it.”

“I think I understand it,” I told him. “Most of it, anyway.”

He looked at me for a long, long time. Finally, he said, “If there’s trouble, I’ll get rid of the Nigra. Much as we need men. There’ll be no trouble here.”

“But it isn’t Junior’s fault,” I told him. “It isn’t his. You know that.”

Engstrom was silent again. Then he said, “Go on, do your work.”

I went to the door of his tent and turned. “You?” I asked. “You hate him, too?”

“I don’t know,” he said and his voice was sharp. He lifted his papers and dropped them and stared at me. “Don’t stand around here!” he said.

I went back to the dishwashing stand, and Junior looked at me, and I shook my head. The coffeemaker, over by his pots, laughed. “I know what you just did,” he said. “Didn’t do any good, did it?” He laughed again. “Could have told you that.” His face hardened, and he jerked his head toward Junior. “You’re as bad as he is,” he continued. “Just as bad.”

“You’re a rotten – —” I started to tell him, and then Junior said quickly, “Don’t.” I stopped, shaking hard again.

“Not much longer,” said Clyde. “Not much longer at all. I think you’ll both be heading out of here, or ...” He clenched his fist and brought it sharply downward. I felt fear slash into me like the bitter wind of the winter; and then the anger came again in full force and as fiercely as a tornado, and the fear fled.

At high noon the wind was blowing much harder than at any time before, and the sun was hidden from us by the smoke; the fire was away down off the ridges and was now but half a dozen miles from the camp. The night shift men had come out of their blankets down in the timber to eat. Some had already finished, and Junior and I were just pouring the hot water, preparing to start on the dishes, when a green, government pickup drove into the camp and stopped.

A tall man dressed in ash-covered clothes and with grime over both his face and his Stetson hat climbed out of the truck. Engstrom walked over to him, and they talked for a few moments; then both looked up for a long, long time at the swirling, boiling cloud of reddish-black smoke. I heard someone say, “That’s the fire boss,” and then the tall man and Engstrom walked to the coffeemaker’s pots, and Clyde poured them each a cup of coffee. The two came over near Junior and me and stood, sipping coffee and smoking.

The tall man said, “I don’t know what’ll happen; and no one does anymore. It’s three times bigger than it was yesterday, and it’s out of control on every side.” He drained his cup. “But it’s worse on this end,” he went on. “I’m taking the night shift back with now. We’ve called for more help from all over the West. I don’t know if it’ll come in time.” He looked at Engstrom. “You say things are all on an even keel here?”

The camp boss began to nod, and then suddenly, without even really realizing what I was going to do, I said to the tall man, “No. It’s not on an even keel here.”

Both men looked at me, and Engstrom’s face was like the granite rocks of a mountain. The tall man asked me, “Now what was that?”

I spoke again, and my head was very light. “It’s not all right here.” I pointed to the coffeemaker, and the tall man turned and looked at him and then back to me. “He hates this man,” I said, and I pointed at Junior. “Hates him enough to threaten him with a knife.”

The fire boss looked at Engstrom. “What’s this?” he asked the big man.

Engstrom was still looking at me, and then he shook his head. “Nothing,” he said. “Nothing much.”

“I hope to God it isn’t,” the tall man said. He looked in the direction of the fire. “Our biggest problem is that,” he continued to Engstrom. “I want the camp to stay here as long as it can. Close by and handy. But get it ready to move. Keep close to your radio. Unless we can hold this thing, and damn soon at that, you’ll have to pull out. I’ll leave you one truck.”

He walked away and began gathering up the night shift. Engstrom glared at me and asked, “And just why did you have to do that?” Then he turned and left.

I could almost feel the stare of Clyde. I looked over at him. He was watching me, the muscles on his face were moving, and his eyes were widened and wild. For a moment, his lips formed silent words, and then he said aloud, “I won’t forget.”

I looked away from him and said quietly to Junior, “I’m sorry it didn’t help.”

“Thanks,” he murmured, still working, “Don’t try anymore. It won’t do any good.”

The tall fire boss began to call out his orders, and the night shift men finished their noon meal hurriedly; by the time they had loaded into the trucks with their tools and had all departed for the fire, the reddish-black smoke was so close that fine ash began to drift through the woods like snow upon our now almost deserted camp. Junior and I went to work silently on the dinner dishes, and the four cooks and the coffeemaker began to pile equipment onto the back of the one truck which had been left behind; Engstrom paced back and forth, occasionally directing the work, and holding a radio, with the long aerial pulled fully out, glued to his ear. At times I would look over at the other men, and I’d see the coffeemaker and the four cooks often pausing and staring at Junior and me, and whispering together, and I thought again and again, the anger high inside of me, “Something’s going to happen. Before this is all over. Something is going to.” And Junior too would glance up quickly at them, and somehow I knew with certainty that he was aware of the same thing.

We were nearly finished with the dishes, and the cooks and the coffeemaker were taking down the tents and folding and tying them up, when I heard Engstrom speaking on the radio. I looked at him and then saw him shove the aerial down into the instrument, then place the radio in the cab of the truck. He cleared his voice and said to all of us, “It’s official now. We’re going to get out of here. They can’t get help to this fire in time; what they have now can never hold it. We’ve got to leave damn fast.” To Junior and me, he called, “Don’t wash anything more! Throw the dirty ones with the clean ones and pile ‘em all into the truck!” He pointed to some gunny sacks on the ground, and I went over and picked them up, and Junior and I filled the sacks with the cooking utensils and loaded them.

The fire was very close now, and the falling ashes were thicker, and the wind moving toward us from the direction of the blazing timber came so steadily and strongly that all of us began to cough from the thickening smoke. The cooks and the coffeemaker and Engstrom were beginning to fold up the last remaining tent, and the camp boss told Junior and me, “Help here and hurry it up.” The two of us knelt on the ground by the spread-out tent on a side away from the others and began to fold it.

We had almost finished the folding and were preparing to tie it, when I saw Engstrom stand up and look through the haze, down toward the far side of the camp, at a small, forgotten bundle of blankets. I watched him start toward it and then hesitate briefly, and then he said, “I’ll be right back. Tie the tent and load it,” and he half-walked, half-ran away.

I stared at his back for a second, and then I looked at Junior and saw his head turned in the direction of the camp boss; then I saw him look toward the coffeemaker and the cooks, and I followed his gaze and saw them looking at both of us. Junior lowered his head quickly, but I continued to face them; the air and the smoke were hot and so was the emotion which lay within me. Suddenly, less than half a mile away, a burning pine tree exploded with a sharp, loud noise, and we all began to tie up the tent.

Within minutes, the seven of us working quickly with the folded tent and the ropes, had finished the tying and were just lifting the heavy, canvas bundle and maneuvering it up toward the top of the piled equipment in the rear of the truck. I remember that I had just looked through the smoke and had seen Engstrom, with the blankets in his arms, hurrying toward us, when suddenly, under the weight of his portion of the tent, Junior stumbled and fell, the tied bundle dropped off balance, and slipped from the grasp of the rest of us, and tumbled to the ground. I helped Junior up, and we both began to stoop down to pick the tent up again, and then I felt the silence, and perhaps Junior did too, for we both looked over at the same time at the coffeemaker and the four cooks, who were staring at us with pure hate in their faces.

The two of us stood fully up, and then suddenly the coffeemaker moved forward and with a smashing blow of his fist struck Junior and knocked him down, and as he lay there, Clyde lifted his boot to kick at him; I threw myself at the coffeemaker, and he fell back, cursing, and the four cooks pulled me from him. “Hold him tight,” Clyde said to the four. “I’ll get him in a minute.”

Engstrom came up and dropped the blankets, his face flushed and his voice harsh. “Stop this!” he said. “And damn you all for a bunch of fools!”

He began to say something further, but then the coffeemaker looked down at Junior, who was beginning to rise from the ground, and Clyde said, “Yellow! Fight why don’t you! Fight!” Then Engstrom ordered the coffeemaker to be quiet, and Clyde jerked out his knife, and as he opened the blade, his face trembling with rage, he told Engstrom, “You keep out of this!” and then he said to Junior, “Get out your knife! I’m going to cut you up!”

Junior stood there, and I saw him shaking and sweat poured from his face, and he said in an agonized voice, “I’ve got no knife; I’ve never had one.” And then a weird light came into the eyes of the coffeemaker, and the big camp boss must have noticed it also, for the Swede jumped toward Clyde; the coffeemaker held the knife out toward Engstrom, forcing him off, and then two of the cooks left me and leaped onto the camp boss, and he went down to the ground, fighting and swearing. I tried to escape from those two who held me, but they shoved me to the ground, and I felt a heavy boot crash against my temple.

For a moment my eyes closed, and then I opened them, and as I lay on the ground with the two cooks holding me, I saw Engstrom, his nose bleeding, trying desperately to wrench himself from the grip of the other two; I shifted my eyes and saw the coffeemaker, the knife in his hand, moving toward the shaking and sweating Junior, and then I tried again to free myself but they held me down. I coughed violently in the thick smoke, and then, only a few hundred yards past Clyde and Junior, I saw a flashing red through the trees and heard a loud crackling sound.

“Fire!” I thought. “The fire!”

The others saw and heard it also, every one of them, and I felt the grip of the two cooks on my arms and legs tense, and Engstrom on the ground began swearing louder and louder, and I saw those holding him down look first at the fire, and then, in a questioning manner, at the coffeemaker. I saw Junior take his wide, staring eyes away from Clyde’s knife and shift his head in the direction of the fire for a split second before returning his eyes to the long, steel blade. And then I saw the coffeemaker himself turn his face slightly toward the crackling noise and the jumping, flashing red; he smiled in a warped and twisted manner, and I thought, “He’s crazy! Crazy!”

The coffeemaker, still smiling, and with the knife held away out in front of him toward Junior, moved carefully and steadily around the Negro, who kept turning his own body to face the knife until his back was completely turned in the direction of the fire. Then the coffeemaker advanced toward Junior and in a strange, emotion-charged voice, he said, “Cold steel. You can’t get away. Cold steel, black man.” And Junior began limping away from the knife, toward the fire.

I yelled, “Not that way, Junior! Not that way!” and one of the cooks struck me in the face, but my call made no difference, for neither the advancing man, nor he who retreated, gave any sign that they had heard me. I watched, with my breath held and my eyes fixed and seeing nothing else, as Junior moved further and further backward; the slow, grim march was still continuing, when I heard Engstrom bellow.

“Sparks!” he yelled. “Sparks coming down! There’ll be spot fires!”

I looked up into the air and saw that the ash was still there, but that now there were also tiny, glowing red coals falling all over us; then I felt them on my skin, and next I saw tiny wisps of smoke on the ground and then flames began to spring up in the pine needles and the grass all around us. The cooks who held me and those who held the camp boss suddenly released us and stepped back; I lay there for a moment gathering strength, and Engstrom lay there too. And then I saw the coffeemaker and Junior pause and look at the falling sparks, and then they looked back at one another. Clyde rushed toward Junior, and the Negro turned and ran blindly toward the great fire, his lame leg jerking, and the coffeemaker followed him with his knife raised high – and all around us were growing spot fires.

I climbed to my feet and ran through the patches of fire, straight toward the two smoke-dimmed figures and the tremendous red monster ahead, yelling, “Junior! Junior!” Behind me I heard the truck engine start, and I heard it driving away, and I thought, “They’ve left! They’ve left!” and then I felt someone jerk me around, and I saw the camp boss Engstrom.

“Get the hell out of here!” he yelled above the roaring of the fire. “Run for it! Get out! I’ll try to get your friend!” He ran past me toward the thundering inferno, and I followed him, and then ahead I thought I heard screams; and suddenly Engstrom was running back, a solid wall of fire right behind him and even then in all of the smoke and hell I could see him shake his head, and I saw the anguish on his face and in his eyes, and then he grabbed me and shoved me, and with the searing red death behind us and dodging the spot fires to the sides and ahead, we fled.

--'The Destroyers' originally appeared in Mainstream, May 1960.

A Gathering Storm: Anti-imperialism Brews Tempest

Fri, 28 Oct 2005 01:41:00 +0000

10-27-05, 10:00 am

With every passing day it becomes increasingly evident that the criminal and illegal invasion of Iraq by US imperialism may very well be one of the major blunders committed by Washington in decades. Antiwar forces continue to grow, along with the militancy of their demonstrations, while the number of nations willing to commit troops to the Iraqi quagmire continues to diminish. This war, along with the continued challenge from China, Cuba and Venezuela, along with an Africa that refuses to bend, spells a deepening crisis for US imperialism. No better indication of the crisis faced by US imperialism in Iraq is the fact that the military is having increasing difficulty in recruiting new troops. Across the nation, the Army National Guard has seen a 24 percent decline in recruitment. Things have gotten so bad that the Guard has formed a partnership with Labor Ready, a provider of temporary jobs for unskilled workers in the hopes that this Tacoma-based company’s 700 branches across the country can help boost the dwindling number of recruits.

As US nationals balk, this has led to an increase in the recruitment of foreign mercenaries by the Pentagon. Fijians, Ukrainians, South Africans, Nepalese and Serbs are part of what is truly the “coalition of the billing” in Iraq. “Security” accounts for as much as 25 percent of reconstruction costs in Iraq. Recently Congresswoman Jan Schakowsky, an Illinois Democrat, complained about the proliferation of Colombians fighting for the US in Iraq. What is happening is that “Plan Colombia,” a so-called counterterrorism and narcotics interdiction program that since 2000 has cost US taxpayers $4 billion, is being used to train Colombian police and military – who then are hired by private concerns to provide “security” in Iraq. This has been a windfall for these US-based mercenary firms e.g. North Carolina-based Blackwater USA and Texas-based DynCorp.

Moreover, foreign nationals increasingly are fighting for US imperialism in Iraq with the hope of leveraging this combat for US citizenship. Since July 2002, 20,000 members of the US military of foreign origin have become US citizens. The armed forces now have at least 27,000 members who do not have US citizenship. In late July 2005 alone over one hundred troops from 43 different nations took the oath of US citizenship in a former palace of Saddam Hussein.

Yet whatever personal profit is accruing to foreign nationals or even mercenary firms is dwarfed by what is being garnered by Halliburton, the Texas-based transnational corporation once headed by Vice President Dick Cheney. Just recently Congressional Democrats released a report revealing previously undisclosed Pentagon audits showing that Halliburton obtained more than $1 billion in possible overcharges and $422 million in billing that lacked the kind of documentation that auditors needed to determine whether the charges were proper. All told, Halliburton has garnered about $10 billion for work in Iraq. This mischief was recently capped when the government official who exposed Halliburton’s rip-offs – Bunnatine H. Greenhouse, who happens to be African American – was demoted.

Meanwhile, back on the battlefield, things are not going very well in cities like Nasiriyah, Basra and Amarah, all south of Baghdad and all patrolled by foreign forces allied with the US. There is a new boldness shown by insurgent militias. The much debated Iraqi Constitution seems to lay the basis for creation of a theocracy that will be a disaster for women’s rights in particular.

The swirling controversy that the war in Iraq has become is creating tremendous ripples that are impacting the alliance that has been of paramount importance in the region – that between the US and Israel. The indictment of two former pro-Israeli lobbyists on charges that they shared information (on Iran) with foreign (read: Israeli) officials has raised eyebrows in Washington, DC. According to the August 12, 2005 edition of the Jewish weekly, the Forward, the “indictments are the culmination of a long running effort by some elements in the FBI and CIA to clip the influence of Israel and its allies in Washington.” For years AIPAC – the American Israeli Public Affairs Committee – has been a powerhouse nationally, helping to elect and defeat various members of Congress. Now this indictment is seen as a signal that a new day may be at hand. The Forward, citing the Israeli daily, Ha’aretz, wrote, The FBI’s motives are anti-Semitic. It is no coincidence that they made problems for [former US ambassador to Israel] Martin Indyk because of a computer he took out of the office and [former Clinton administration national security adviser] Sandy Berger about documents. They suspect all the Jews. Certainly US-Israel relations have hit a difficult patch lately, not least because of the attempt by the Jewish state to deepen ties with China. As it makes 21st century projections, Israel – like any clear-sighted analyst – can envision the rise of China and, thus, would like to improve relations with Beijing but this effort is complicating relations with Washington hawks who foresee a new “cold war” with China taking the role previously played by the former Soviet Union. Thus, Israel has sought to sell China the Harpy-model drone aircraft, a maneuver that caused the US to seek a virtual veto over Israeli arms sales, thereby converting this nation into something akin to the 51st state. Washington is also upset by the fact that Chinese investors are participating in a tender for Tel Aviv’s rail system and are seeking a controlling stake in Bank Leumi, the bank founded in 1902 by Theodore Herzl himself – the founder of modern Zionism – in order to fund development efforts in what was then Palestine.

Pressure from Washington was also a factor in Israel’s removal of settlements from Gaza, a development that caused severe rifts within the ruling Likud coalition, causing the defection of former Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who is poised to challenge – from the ultra-right – Prime Minister Ariel Sharon.

Still, the impact that China is wielding on US-Israeli relations is just one more bit of evidence that Beijing is playing an outsized role in the global economy and in shaping the international correlation of forces. A cover story in the July 30, 2005 edition of the British weekly, The Economist, was as blunt as it was stunning: “Beijing, not Washington,” it was reported, “increasingly takes the decisions that affect workers, companies, financial markets and economies everywhere.” Of course, this conservative journal has its own interests for pushing such a line, adding provocatively that “the entry of China’s vast army of cheap workers into the international system of production and trade has reduced the bargaining power of workers in developed economies.” Nothing was said about management blunders and/or avariciousness. Still, this weekly is on to something when it concludes that “global monetary policy is increasingly being set in Beijing as well as in Washington.” As a result of this trend, The Economist asserts that the fate of American house prices could thus be determined by unelected bureaucrats in Beijing rather than the unelected central bankers of the West….global inflation, interest rates, bond yield, house prices, wages, profits and commodity prices are now being increasingly driven by decisions in China.

Moreover, since the Bush White House has cut taxes for the wealthy but, as of yet, has not been able to cut programs commensurately, it has become heavily dependent upon capital flows from China to keep already spiraling deficits from becoming even more uncontrollable. Thus, if China “decides to buy fewer American [Treasury] bonds, pushing up yields, then America [sic] might really have something to complain about: the first global downturn made in China.”

Such a downturn is not altogether hypothetical. The world’s central bankers were net sellers of US assets in March 2005 for the first time since September 2002. There is a growing fear that the dollar is due for a precipitous fall, a development that could have severe inflationary consequences in the US itself. The August 10, 2005 edition of the Financial Times reported that “the US has been living in a fool’s paradise. Its debt to the rest of the world looks set to rise sharply over coming years,” [as the nation] “will find itself borrowing not just to fund current spending but simply to service previous debts – a position more commonly associated with a developing economy.”

Certainly, the White House decision to fund reconstruction of the Gulf Coast of the US without raising taxes on the wealthy, suggests once more that the U.S. will have to rattle its tin cup before the bankers of Beijing.

Already China’s voracious appetite for oil is being blamed for the rise in the price of a barrel of oil, now heading – seemingly inexorably – toward $100 per barrel and already over $3 per gallon at the pump. When a Chinese-based firm bid for California-based Unocal, hawks in Washington sharpened their talons (something similar occurred when Chinese-based firm, Lenovo, bought IBM’s laptop business). A bipartisan effort spearheaded by Senator Charles Schumer, a New York Democrat, and GOP Senator Lindsay Graham, is threatening Beijing with harsh punishments unless it further devalues its currency, which – it is thought – will serve to reduce the yawning trade surplus that China presently enjoys with the US. Of course, too much can be made of these tensions. Though the Chinese oil firm, Cnooc, was involved in a sharp conflict with Chevron over the purchase of Unocal, they are cooperating on a natural gas project in Australia. Cnooc and Chevron also have joint oil operations in the South China Sea and in China’s Gulf of Bohai.

Nevertheless, progressives globally would be naïve to think that cooperation is the sole element in US-China relations. If so, it would be difficult to explain the recent stern declaration from Zhu Chenghu, a major general in the People’s Liberation Army, who announced in July 2005 that China was prepared to use nuclear weapons against the US if it is attacked by Washington during a confrontation over Taiwan. This comment was hyped in the right-wing Washington Times, which has stressed that conflict between China and the US is virtually inevitable, a conclusion rejected by more sober analysts.

Still, it is difficult to ignore the fact that the Pentagon continues to prepare for major 21st century conflicts. In March 2005 Pentagon chief, Donald Rumsfeld, signed a new National Defense Strategy Paper that said that the use of space “enables us to project power anywhere in the world from secure bases of operation.” The Pentagon is developing a suborbital space capsule that could hit targets anywhere in the world within two hours of being launched from US bases. Chinese diplomat Hu Xiaodi declared in response that “it is no exaggeration to say that outer space” was becoming the “fourth battlefield after land, sea and air,” thanks to US imperialism. Similarly at the spring 2005 conference reviewing progress in nuclear nonproliferation, the Bush White House sought to block all progress toward disarmament – while simultaneously raising a ruckus about Iran’s attempt to develop civilian nuclear power.

In any case, the prevailing atmosphere has led to significant collateral consequences. When Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh visited Washington in July 2005, the Bush White House bent over backwards to improve relations with this Asian giant which, during the cold war, was one of Moscow’s closest allies and, therefore, not embraced by the US. Now US imperialism envisions using India against China, just as China was used so adroitly against the former USSR during the cold war. Then in August 2005 Russia and China engaged in extensive military maneuvers that were interpreted widely as sending a dramatic signal to the US. Beijing and Moscow also joined their Central Asian allies in demanding that the US immediately set a date for removal of its bases in Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan. Besides targeting China and Russia, these bases are also seen as pivotal in the ongoing US war in Afghanistan.

Yet saber-rattling aside, it is China’s economic heft that may prove decisive in its relationship with the US. For example, despite the US thirst for oil, Canadian oil company, EnCana is considering bringing in Chinese companies to construct and operate drilling rigs in the Colorado Rockies, where EnCana has major interests. When China is considered for extensive economic involvement in this state with a conservative GOP governor, it is evident that whipping up anti-Beijing hysteria will not be simple or easy.

Similarly, despite extensive US interests in the Arab world, Saudi Arabia has been busily inking natural gas contracts with China and, just recently, China has been involved in developing the huge Dragon Mart in Dubai, which is intended as a platform for the expansion of Chinese exports in the Gulf. It can house as many as 4,000 Chinese companies and snakes for nearly two miles through the desert. However, it is in Africa where China is establishing a significant beachhead. Zimbabwe, for example, is considered to be a pariah in Washington and London, yet during the July 2005 visit to Beijing of President Robert Mugabe, the red carpet was rolled out. Interestingly, during the cold war, China and Mugabe’s ZANU-PF party were allies, a development which was not frowned upon by Washington since the alternative in this Southern African nation was ZAPU, backed by Moscow. So boosted, Mugabe surged to power where he has been ensconced for over a quarter of a century. But since he moved to expropriate the land of farmers from the European – mostly British – minority, sanctions have been imposed on his regime by the US and UK. In response, Mugabe has developed a “Look East” policy which has involved tighter relations with Malaysia, Iran – and China. Thus, his air force trains on Chinese jets, Zimbabweans wear Chinese shoes, Chinese consumer goods are ubiquitous – even some of the expropriated land is now said to be managed by Chinese nationals.

Washington has objected to this relationship on the grounds of human rights but such an allegation exceeds even the usual US chutzpah when it comes to this topic. For in the name of antiterrorism, the US is training thousands of African troops in an extensive program that encompasses Chad, Mali, Mauritania, Niger, Senegal, Nigeria, Morocco and Tunisia, all of whom have questionable human rights records either on par or exceeding that of Zimbabwe. Though some US officials have charged that “genocide” is occurring in the Darfur region of Sudan, in April 2005 Khartoum’s intelligence chief was in Washington for extensive consultations – again, with “anti-terrorism” being the ostensible reason. Representative Donald Payne of the Congressional Black Caucus objected sharply – but to no avail. Given such contradictions, it is becoming increasingly difficult to take the crusade against Zimbabwe seriously and, at any rate, this crusade has been rejected by Harare’s neighbors, including regional giant, South Africa.

The fact is that exploitation of Africa has long been essential to the economic well-being of US and European elites and, it seems, that they are concerned that increased Chinese involvement within the continent might encroach upon their privileges. Thus, major pharmaceutical companies routinely engage in clinical trials using Africans as veritable “guinea pigs,” testing drugs’ reliability before they are marketed in Europe and North America. In 2001 thirty Nigerian families sued US corporation, Pfizer, over trials of Trovan, an antibiotic to combat meningitis. During the course of these trials, during an epidemic in 1996, 11 children out of 200 died and others suffered brain damage and paralysis. In Africa these companies routinely ignore ethical considerations and the health of patients.

Similarly after the December 2004 tsunami which battered northern Somalia, it was revealed that tons of medical, chemical and nuclear waste washed up on the shores of the nation’s coastline – hazardous materials that had been dumped illegally by European-based companies.

Despite the crocodile tears being shed about Africa at the G-8 Summit in the UK in July 2005, it is evident that the developed nations – particularly US imperialism – have little or no interest in Africa’s well-being but are frightened by the notion of this continent striking out on an independent path of development assisted by China. Thus, before the advent of Hugo Chávez, Venezuela rarely was a matter of concern in the capitals of the major imperialist powers, though poverty was rampant and corruption rife. But now that this oil-rich South American nation is embarking on an independent path of development, in alliance with Cuba, China and its South American neighbors, relations with Washington have deteriorated to the point where GOP leader, the Rev. Pat Robertson, called for the assassination of President Chávez.

Caracas has led the way in the development of a television news station that will challenge the hegemony of CNN and the BBC. Caracas has provided petroleum at reduced prices to Caribbean nations and has deepened relations with socialist Cuba in particular. Actually, Venezuela is not alone in seeking to benefit from ties with Havana. In March 2005 the governor of Louisiana, Kathleen Babineaux Blanco, arrived in Cuba with three dozen business-people and returned with a $15 million deal for state agricultural exports to Havana. The port of New Orleans has been a beneficiary of increased trade between the US and Cuba, a trade that has proceeded in the face of staunch opposition from Washington hawks.

Meanwhile, Latin American integration is proceeding apace as ALBA – or the Boliviarian Alternative for the America, – initiated by Caracas, accelerates. This has led to deepening ties between Havana and Caracas in particular, a development of true revolutionary consequence. Venezuela is also deepening ties with Brazil, Argentina, Uruguay and its other neighbors. Chávez’s attempt to extract more revenue from the major oil companies operating in his nation so as to spend more on literacy, health care and other social programs (for example, Venezuela has some of the most sophisticated and extensive programs in music education) is being emulated in Bolivia, home to the region’s second-largest natural gas reserves, behind Caracas. In La Paz legislators have sought to pass a law introducing a 32 percent tax on foreign energy companies on top of an existing 18 percent royalty while dramatically expanding state involvement in this sector. This “contagion” spreading from Caracas has alarmed Washington hawks.

On the other hand, there is an actual contagion of “offshoring” that is spreading from the US to the four corners of the planet. Further evidence of this disturbing trend was presented when the May 2, 2005 edition of the Los Angeles Times reported that San Diego-based Sea Code Incorporated proposed to house 600 foreign software engineers on a cruise ship moored three miles off the coast of California, thus undercutting US wage rates and circumventing local labor regulations. This latest twist in “outsourcing” and “off-shoring” is, according to the Times, “threatening to hasten the disappearance of decent paying jobs for American professionals.” These executives “dream of eventually running multiple ships off the US coast and even expanding to Europe and beyond – again illustrating that the 19th century slogan, “workers of the world, unite” continues to be relevant in the 21st century.

That this slogan has yet to die, despite the alleged “cold war triumph,” illustrates that reality itself is a harsh teacher and that the crisis of US imperialism continues to persist.

--Gerald Horne is a contributing editor of Political Affairs and can be reached through pa-letters@politicalaffairs.net.

Correction: A typographical error unfortunately changed the meaning of a sentence in this article. The author intended to write that Senators Chuck Schumer of New York and Lindsay Graham of South Carolina are pressuring China to 'revalue' its currency, not 'devalue'; indeed, as is well known, they would like a revaluation upwards so as – they suggest – to increase the price of Chinese imports on this side of the Pacific and (they think) reduce the spiralling trade deficit the US has with China. As this will be a key battlefront going forward, it is extremely important to have clarity on this pressing matter. We regret this error.

Chile's Privatized Pensions: No Model for US

Fri, 28 Oct 2005 01:39:00 +0000

10-27-05, 10:00 am

Since President George W. Bush launched his proposals to modify Social Security laws, Chile and its retirement system have been reference points in the debate. It is reported that Pinochet’s former cabinet minister, Jose Pinera, was one of the advisors of the Republican reform plan. Among other publications, The Washington Post, The New York Times, and The Economist have referred to the Chilean example as Social Security’s supposed successes or to warn about its shortcomings. Estella James, former Clinton administration advisor, in a Washington Post article, “How Chile Did It: Private Retirement Accounts and their Secret Requirements” (reported in El Mercurio February 16, 2005) declares that she is in favor of Chilean-style individual accounts and wants to see them in the US. However, she warns that Bush’s claims that privatization will give retirees more independence and reduce government debt are illusions. She invokes the Chilean experience to conclude that important public resources will be needed during the transition period from one system to another, and to subsidize beneficiaries who will be hurt by the change. New York Times columnist Larry Rother frankly titled his article “The Failure of Private Funds in Chile,” and pointed out that the minimum guaranteed benefit for privatized members of the system is no more than $140 per month (a third of the Chilean minimum wage) while government spending on pensions has grown to nearly 25 percent of the national budget, almost as much as spent on education and health together. He had to add that this was due to the growth of spending on “assistance” pensions that the government offers to the many older individuals who can no longer work and, who, without a work-related pension, lack means to survive. These subsidies are totally discretionary, temporary and depend on mayors and other public officials, exposing recipients to all sorts of political pressures.

Of course, in her Post article James does not mention the political circumstances that surrounded the pension counter-reform in Chile. It was in 1981,during the Pinochet dictatorship. Thousands were arrested, disappeared, shot, and tortured. Public freedoms were strangled, labor unions frozen out, political parties prohibited, and opponents had been forced into exile. Critics had been expelled from the universities: criticism and the media were totally censored. Without the possibility of public debate, strong pressure and disinformation from the business sector and the dictatorship, workers – who supposedly could opt for the old system – were forced to enroll in the new system, together with those who entered the workforce for the first time. Nonetheless, not everyone yielded, and some (even though a minority) rejected the change and stayed under the old law. Oddly enough, the dictatorship excluded military pensions from privatization.

Time has proven that those who resisted joining the new system were the winners, and are receiving pensions that are far above those offered by pension fund administration companies. While the average privatized pension averaged 274,087 Chilean Pesos per month ($472), pensions under the old system stayed at 439,504 Pesos per month ($757). Seen in another way, the employee who changed to the privatized system is receiving a pension that is barely 62 percent of that of his or her workmate who stayed with the public system. Some 21,000 public employees have already retired under the privatized system, and every day they curse the moment that they believed the dictatorship when it promised they would be better off. Meanwhile some 157,000 government employees who have reached or who are reaching retirement age are refusing to retire in order to avoid a catastrophic loss of income, which in turn has the unintended result of denying employment opportunities to new jobseekers. There has been a growing movement of agitation forming among those employees who have suffered or who will suffer from what they call “pension damage.” The government has recognized the problem and says that it is studying a solution.

A second problem that proves the serious shortcomings of privatization is the degree of coverage that it offers to the working population. Virtually the entire workforce of the country is enrolled. Nonetheless, out of a total of 6.15 million enrolled, only 2.7 million are regular contributors. According to the government-run Pension Normalization Institute, some 3.5 million members of the system contribute only 4.2 months per year. This means that an average worker needs to work and pay into the system for almost 50 years in order to meet the minimum 240 months of contributions to qualify for a pension. In this situation 56 percent, that is, an absolute majority of those enrolled in privatized pension plans, will never qualify to receive even a minimum pension. Jose Pinera and his Chicago boys knew that one of the pillars of the neoliberal system is built-in high unemployment, the spread of temporary and part-time work, and easy firings, but they underestimated its effects on the viability of the system. They did not take into account bankruptcies and closings of small businesses, or the impunity with which bosses violate labor laws, hiring workers without contracts or simply pocketing employees’ contributions without turning them over to the private pension plans at all. They underestimated the continuous economic fluctuations that are inherent to capitalism, as aggravated in its Friedman version.

From the above one may deduce that private pension plans only protect a small portion of their contributors, those who occupy management positions, executives, or specialists, those whose high incomes allow for large contributions. As a consequence, a midterm result will be a resurgence of extreme poverty in the country, and an aggravation of the divide between a minority and the majority, particularly among seniors and especially women, who will not have enough income to get along. The business world is fiercely opposed to financing these holes in the safety net, since they regard it as a historic victory that “reform” has exempted employers from making any contributions at all to pension funds. Of course, the law dictates that the public budget will have to cover the shortfall in order to offer the minimum pension to the vast number of working people whose privatized funds are not enough to cover it. But, for that majority of workers who do not manage to make 20 continuous years of contributions, no solution has yet been offered. This means that, one way or another, the need arises for a real universal social security, which proves the failure of the private investment funds.

The World Bank, in a report by its advisor, Indermint Gill, recognized the grave shortcomings of the privatization process in Latin America, affirming that it did not increase the general coverage of the system and that it has turned out to be extremely costly for low-income workers. It also admitted failure in another stated objective of the reforms: the financing of the system has not been assured, nor has government responsibility been reduced, nor much less have inequalities among pensioners been reduced. In the Chilean case, Pinochet’s followers achieved their goals by making workers finance their retirement from their own pockets, while creating a private, for-profit long-term capital market financed with other people’s money. In the latter case, the principal beneficiaries were the transnational corporations and Chilean financial groups.

Much has been made of the fact that the private pension fund administrators have been successful in administering workers’ money, offering them increased yields on the money they have deposited. But, as has already been pointed out, no matter how high these yields may have been, they have precious little to do with the final accumulation of the funds, which individually have much more to do with amounts saved individually, and this, in turn, with salary levels received. No doubt, the rapid growth of the Chilean economy (if we ignore the five years of recession since the Asian crisis) has been a determining factor in the yield rate of the funds. To this add high prices on raw materials and foodstuffs that we export, together with a significant increase in the productivity of the prolonged, intensive and poorly-paid Chilean workday, one of the longest in the world. Thus, the profit rates of the 200 most powerful companies are among the highest on the world market, while the ratio of salaries to value added is one of the lowest in the world.

The immense profitability of capital in Chile is also due to a reduced level of taxes on added value. This explains the rapid accumulation of private riches in the hands of a small number of corporations, and the consequent growth of stock capital and other stock market instruments. This explains the enthusiasm with which the Chilean model is greeted among financial circles. On the other hand, data processing technology permits the management of vast flows of money in numberless individual accounts, at minimum cost. Financial portfolio management methods are well known and all financial companies apply them in a similar way. Fund administration is not an exclusive virtue of private enterprise. A public or nonprofit entity can achieve the same results. It is also possible to establish a certain degree of public security against fraud, by means of strict regulations. The problem is not at the microeconomic level, but is rather in the evolution of the global economy, which is subject to constant fluctuations and financial or production crises. These can be catastrophic for voluntary savers, and even worse for those who are obliged to participate, as are members of private systems who cannot withdraw their funds.

In Chile after the Asian crisis of 1997 the economy cooled quickly, fell into recession, and the previously high yields generated by the funds were drastically reduced. Many employees, forced to retire at the same moment the market was falling, saw part of their savings, put away at the cost of long years of sacrifice, vanish overnight. In the same way, if privatization reform had been established in the US at the beginning of the Clinton administration, the fall of the stock market at the end of the decade would have been disastrous for working people, especially for those whose funds were invested in tech stocks which had speculative gains without any real basis, a bubble which eventually ended up bursting. In Chile, supposedly in order to overcome this problem, investments were diversified according to the degree of risk, leaving it up to the individual contributor to choose the type of fund he or she preferred. But neither the most astute working person nor the most sophisticated financial companies can avoid the risks of a financial investment that depends on an erratic, ever more insecure and unstable globalization.

The availability of a large investment fund generated by workers’ contributions is neither a discovery nor an exclusive attribute of private investment funds. In the old system, there were also surpluses. In some cases, they served to finance productive government projects, as was the case of the forest industries and other public infrastructure works. But, the majority of these accumulated funds were placed into mortgage loans benefiting the members of so-called “cajas de prevision” (mortgage savings plans), with which tens of thousands of working families were able to obtain houses of their own, as well as pensions. Private pension plans invest wage-earners’ funds in corporate stocks and bonds, in which the plan administrators themselves can exercise an executive role, which increases their economic and political power. And, for administering these accounts they charge contributors commissions that are much steeper than the ordinary commissions charged by other brokers to maintain investment accounts.

This privilege has caused banks and insurance companies to constantly press to enter the private pension account market, which is set up as a legal monopoly. Private pension account administrators have become fewer in number due to mergers and hostile takeovers. At present, two or three of them, transnational companies, control all of the funds. Due to its monopolistic and super-concentrated character, the “private industry” of privatized pension administration enjoys one of the highest profit rates in the country. One can easily understand financial capital’s interest in imposing this system on the USA.

--José Cademartori is a former minister of the economy under President Salvador Allende.