People Before Profit blog

No Exit Strategy? End the War

Wed, 30 Sep 2009 04:31:00 +0000

9-29-09, 11:09 am

 National Call-in Day: No Timeline! No Exit Strategy! Stop the Funding! Sept. 30   

Congress Should Vote 'No' on 2010 Military Budget!

To reach the Washington Switchboard: 202-224-3121 or 202-225-3121

Congress is steps away from passing a $625.8 billion 2010 Military Budget, including $128.2 billion to fund the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq through September 2010.

So far the White House has offered no timetable and no 'exit strategy' for Afghanistan. Instead General McChrystal and other military leaders are pressing for the addition of tens of thousands of new American troops and a commitment to remain in Afghanistan for years to come.

 All too evident is the original meaning of 'a quagmire'-when every step taken to escalate a war makes it more difficult to leave. At this critical moment, constituents need to send a powerful message to their members of Congress that this dangerous course must be stopped. Our government should adopt an exit strategy from Afghanistan based on all-party talks, regional diplomacy, unconditional humanitarian aid, economic assistance and timelines for the near-term withdrawal of American and NATO combat troops. Congress must stop writing 'blank-checks' for continued warfare!

United for Peace and Justice, CODEPINK, Peace Action, Progressive Democrats for America, Just Foreign Policy, AfterDowningStreet and Voters for Peace (list still in formation) believe that a public outcry is vitally important now, when the Generals are pressuring the President and the Congress to escalate a costly, humanly destructive and ultimately un-winnable war.

On September 30 join the National Call-in Day and tell your Senators and Congressional Representatives to vote against the 2010 Defense Appropriations bill. When making this call, tell them to stand firmly against escalation and to co-sponsor Congressman James McGovern's H.R. 2404 that would require President Obama to provide an 'exit plan' from Afghanistan. View list of cosponsors here.

Growing numbers of Senators and Congressional Representatives are expressing concerns over US military policy in Afghanistan. It is hypocritical to publicly raise so many questions, while funding the Pentagon for another year of war.

Call the Capitol Hill Switchboard: 202-224-3121. Forward this message widely. Click to sign Afghanistan-A Petition to Take Action Against the War Click to find or list October days of antiwar protest.

From Space, No One Can Watch You Die

Wed, 30 Sep 2009 04:19:00 +0000

9-29-09, 10:58 am

Original source:

Peace groups internationally are putting the pressure on President Obama this fall, as he ponders the request from Gen. McChrystal for a “surge” troop escalation in Afghanistan. Thankfully, leading Democrats and even former President Clinton are urging caution, though few are taking the wiser step of recommending a pullout. But there is an additional decision Obama must make, one which the Global Network Against Weapons and Nuclear Power in Space sees as a fundamental issue in the upcoming Keep Space for Peace Week.

As soon as CIA Director Leon Panetta was appointed in an acting role to his post, he asked Obama for a significant escalation in armed “drone” flights, utilizing Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs), over both Afghanistan and Pakistan. These robot planes are flown by ground-based pilots, either in-country or even in the United States, using space as the navigational medium. The UAVs can accurately send bombs to pinpoint locations, though this does not mean there is no “collateral damage” in terms of civilian human casualties.

The Global Network wants to remind people that standoff war using robotic technology is neither surgical, nor antiseptic, nor moral. It can be appealing to the White House and to the American public, because it is allows nearly infinite kill ratios – thousands of so-called adversaries can be killed with very little chance of U.S. casualties. With no American soldiers coming home in body bags, few U.S. citizens care about anything else.

Yet turning the Afghanistan-Pakistan war into a UAV turkey-shoot is little different from the assassination squads approved by former Vice President Dick Cheney. In fact, it is no accident that, on two successive days, the New York Times reported on Blackwater (now Xe) being assigned to Cheney’s death-squad team, and the same Blackwater group being used for outsourcing of armed UAV flights. One method of killing is being used to replace the other.

Not so long ago, UAV pilots used joysticks to control UAVs, emulating a video game. Now they use Google Earth on touch screens to point to a location they want a robot plane to bomb. Within a year, those Google Earth applications will be available for special iPhones and Blackberries made for U.S. troops. And all those means of delivering death use space. Many of the war-fighter tools that are employed from space also take advantage of the Pentagon’s new cyber-warrior tools, which have culminated in the establishment of a dedicated Cyber Command to control computer networks here and abroad.

Moral review of space policy is ruled out because the critic can never have access to the “secret information” needed for evaluation. Hiding the truth from the enemy means hiding it from the public. Real public discourse cannot happen, either, because the body politic cannot be trusted with all the facts.

The Global Network has had reason to see optimism in recent months: No true weapon in space has yet been fielded by any nation. Obama has canceled planned missile-defense ground-based components in Poland and the Czech Republic. The world’s leaders are pledging to work harder to banish nuclear weapons. And Obama has called for a review of the October 2006 National Space Policy that calls for virtual U.S. “ownership” of orbital space.

But like so many national-security realms where Obama has taken tentative half-steps, the struggle for peace in space is far from over. The U.S. military remains by far the largest user of orbital space. Its satellites for intelligence, communications, and navigation remain the key enabling components that allow the U.S. and its allies to conduct war. And Obama’s new sea-based missile-defense plans allow a more provocative stance in challenging the nations like Iran and North Korea that are trying to foil global management plans.

For Keep Space for Peace Week, we urge activists throughout the world to examine closely the claims for “sanitizing” warfare. We urge citizens to not be swayed into thinking that a war allowing more invisible means of killing others is somehow one that can be accepted better than bloody battles on the ground. Space is the ultimate commons, and no one has the right to dominate the planet through unilateral control.

--Wirbel and Sulzman represent Citizens for Peace in Space, Colorado Springs and are board members of the Global Network Against Weapons & Nuclear Power in Space.

New China: 60 Years of Development under Socialist Principles

Wed, 30 Sep 2009 03:33:00 +0000

9-29-08, 10:12 am

Since the foundation of the People’s Republic of China sixty years ago, on October 1st, 1949, the economy of this nation, under the direction Chinese Communist Party, has become a model of prosperity.

This Asian country has turned into a key driving force for the planet’s economic development. For example, from 1979 to 2007, it registered an annual economic growth of 9.8 percent, which is 6.8 percent higher than the world average; and its contribution to the global economy increased from 2.3 percent in 1978 to 14.5 percent in 2006, only behind the United States.

Thanks to its enormous development, China plays an important role in the main international markets and its influence increases by the day. For many experts, its economic success is almost a miracle in Asia and the world.

In this regard, during an exclusive interview with the Cuban News Agency, the Chinese Ambassador to Havana, Zhao Rongxian, said, “The Chinese people have chosen the path of Socialism because we believe that it is the most convenient and advisable one as it responds to the needs of the historical process of China. Only Socialism can save and promote its development. Our goal is to build a prosperous, civilized, democratic and harmonious country.”

And, indeed, the Chinese people have plenty of reasons to celebrate when we look back at the past six decades of this country, the most populated of the planet with more than 1.3 billion inhabitants, and the fourth regarding territorial extension.

During the past sixty years, what used to be a poor and backward nation has become a prosperous and powerful country, respected by the main western capitalist powers.

Ambassador Rongxian explained that after the foundation of the People’s Republic of China, during the 1949-1980 period, they went from a planned economy to a process of opening-up and reform that allowed them to establish a so-called market socialist economy.

“We believe that this system can revitalize and bring new dynamics to the economy and the social and economic development of the country,” he stressed.

After recalling the existence of active foreign forces against a prosperous and powerful China, the diplomat added that the strategic program designed in the early 1980s until the year 2050 aims at transforming the highly populated socialist State into a country of middle development.

In fact, all expectations have been far exceeded and the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) per capita quadrupled from 1980 to 2000. In this respect, Rongxian said that while the goal for 2020 is to reach $3,200 of income per capita, last year the figure was $3,000.

“We want a more comfortable society for our people and we are convinced that we are on the right track,” he added.

According to institutions of the Asian nation, China’s GDP in 2008 was 400 times higher than in 1952 and its economy was the fourth in the world (above Italy, France and the United Kingdom).

Meanwhile, the Chinese diplomat noted that the current world financial and economic crisis also affected the development of his country, which carried out a series of measures to make its economy more dynamic.

In this regard, he explained that the Chinese central government implemented a package of economic stimulation amounting to four trillion yuans ($584 billion) to promote domestic demand and to maintain a rapid and steady rise in the current context.

Rongxian stated that during the first half of the year, they reached an economic growth of 7.1 percent and they are convinced that they will finish 2009 with an annual growth of 8 percent.

Of course, we remain loyal to the principles of Marxism-Leninism, the socialist system and the leadership of the Communist Party with the people at the center of our attention.

From the Cuban News Agency

Pics: Hotel Workers Rising

Wed, 30 Sep 2009 03:19:00 +0000

9-29-09, 9:57 am

SAN FRANCISCO, CA - 24SEPTEMBER09 – Over a thousand San Francisco hotel workers and their community supporters demonstrated in Union Square, in the heart of the city's tourist district. The luxury hotel chains demand that workers pay for the health care benefits they currently have under their union contract. The contract expired in June, and the workers' union, UNITE HERE Local 2, is trying to negotiate a new agreement. Lupe Chavez, a housekeeper at the San Francisco Hilton, marches in front of the Hyatt Hotel. Lucy Wong marches in front of the St. Francis Hotel, where she works as a housekeeper. During their protests, hotel workers and their supporters sit in at the entrances of the St. Francis and the Hyatt Union Square. Later, inside the lobby of the Hyatt, those who sat in were then arrested in an act of civil disobedience, intended to dramatize their demand for a fair contract.

Time to Revisit 'Industrial Policy'

Tue, 29 Sep 2009 03:49:00 +0000

9-28-09, 10:28 am

Original source: Diary of a Heartland Radical

All different kinds of data suggest that the economic circumstance of American workers has been declining since the current recession began in 2007. More troublesome is data that suggests that most workers have experienced declining economic security for at least thirty years. Increasing unemployment and shrinking wages, despite modest employment and wage gains in the 1990s, has been persistent.

-For most workers, including the college educated, real wages today are lower than they were in the 1970s.

-Rates of unemployment have grown over the years, doubling between 1999 and 2009. Unemployment rates are a third higher for African Americans and Latinos.

-There has been a sea change in employment as manufacturing labor has dipped below 15 percent of the work force. The sectors with most employment growth include health care, fast food, hotel work, and transportation. Generally higher paying manufacturing work is being replaced by low wage service labor.

-During the last forty years most manufacturing jobs have been transferred to other countries where wages are low, the right to form unions is limited, and costs for health and retirement benefits are minimum.

-There has been a qualitative shift in investment to financial speculation and away from manufacturing.

-Meanwhile, worker productivity in the United States has increased.

Rick Wolff, University of Massachusetts economist, reported that worker productivity increased by over 6 percent in 2009 as unemployment increased. He wrote that “…these numbers show that employers got a huge increase in output from each employee, while what they paid to their employees imposed on them a decrease in the goods and services they could afford.”

In addition Wolff reports that in July, 2009, factory utilization has declined to 65 percent (compared to 79 percent from 1972 to 2009). In other words, thirty-five percent of our current manufacturing capacity is lying idle.

An examination of data on mergers and acquisitions, rates of profits, and aggregate profits would suggest that since the 1980s many of the largest corporations and financial institutions have been the beneficiaries of declining worker standards of living. It seems that the trajectory of the U.S. economy is towards a high profit/limited jobs and wages economy.

In recent days politicians, economists, and pundits are indicating that the recession may be coming to an end. Financial institutions have recovered, their CEO salaries are going up, and some have resumed their risky loan practices. Daily stock market reports indicate that stock prices rise on days when corporations announce large worker layoffs. At the same time we are told that unemployment might stay the same or even rise for the foreseeable future.

It appears that without significant change most jobs will become obsolete due to capital flight, increased financial speculation, declining investment in manufacturing and infrastructure, the indiscriminate application of new technologies, and declining purchasing power and consumer demand.

All this suggests that those who argue that the capitalist system creates a system of growing gaps between wealth and poverty and as a consequence induces the general immiseration of the population have historical experience on their side.

Leaving aside a discussion of the long-term consequences of capitalism, there is a need to act now to create and maintain high wage jobs. The call for “industrial policy,” which some policy analysts introduced in the 1970s, needs to be revisited. Industrial policy signifies a concerted government policy to revitalize old industries and create new ones.

One kind of industrial policy that would be appropriate for the twenty-first century is the green jobs agenda. This approach would combine our massive environmental and job needs. To use an historical analogy, to save the lives of millions of Americans, a New Deal green jobs agenda must become part of our future.

Today our discourse on the global economic crisis, at the G20 meeting, in the halls of Congress, and at presidential press conferences, is all about finance capital, not about jobs and wages. In reality there are now two economies; one, the economy of finance capital; the other, the peoples’ economy.

The former economy is all about resuscitating a high profit/limited jobs and wages economy. The project of a progressive majority is to raise to the level of debate how to resuscitate a peoples’ economy.

Disappearing Bees Mystery

Tue, 29 Sep 2009 03:43:00 +0000

9-28-09, 10:22 am

EarthTalk®  From the Editors of E/The Environmental Magazine Dear EarthTalk: Not long ago there were concerns about honey bees disappearing. Are the bees still disappearing, and if so do we know why and do we have a solution? -- David, Grand Rapids, MI

The topic of disappearing honey bees first cropped up in 2004 and by the spring of 2007 was all over the news. Thousands of commercial beekeepers across the U.S. and beyond were reporting in some cases that as many as two-thirds of their honey bees were flying away from their hives, never to return. What made the problem—dubbed “Colony Collapse Disorder” (CCD)—so unusual is that most traumas to bee colonies leaves bees dead in or around their hives, not mysteriously gone altogether.

Strangely enough, there was no concrete evidence pointing to disease or predation or of mites that tend to attack bee hives. Some beekeepers reported that moths, animals and other bees were steering clear of the newly empty nests, leading to speculation that chemical contamination due to widespread use of pesticides might be to blame. But no smoking gun emerged and the mystery remains today.

According to the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Agricultural Research Service (ARS), which last year convened a multi-agency steering committee to assess the problem and find solutions, several factors could be combining to cause CCD. “Pesticides may be having unexpected negative effects on honey bees,” reports ARS, adding that as yet unknown parasites, pathogens or viruses could also be wreaking havoc on bee colonies. Studies have also indicated that poor management of populations of commercial honey bees—including inadequate diet and long distance transportation—may play a role.

In one study, researchers from Columbia University isolated the presence of a virus—the so-called Israeli Acute Paralysis Virus—in upwards of 96 percent of the hives studied that were affected by CCD. Other studies point to widespread use of Imidacloprid, a common grub-control chemical used on lawns and farms and which has already been banned in France due to its alleged effect on bees. But finding a single cause of CCD seems unlikely, and ARS researchers point to the possibility of “a perfect storm of existing stresses” weakening colonies to the point of collapse: “Stress…compromises the immune system of bees…and may disrupt their social system, making colonies more susceptible to disease.”

Whatever the cause, CCD remains a real threat to agriculture. About a third of all American farm production is dependent upon the pollination efforts of commercially-raised honey bees. While diversifying the stock of insect pollinators beyond just one species of honey bee would certainly represent a step in the right direction, re-jiggering the nation’s agricultural system represents no small challenge.

Not surprisingly perhaps, organic beekeepers have not experienced CCD, leading to speculation that overall greener management practices could be the answer even if direct causes are not determined. Meanwhile, efforts to genetically modify bees that are resistant to predators and pathogens could also prove fruitful, although such high tech solutions are still untested and could open up other cans of worms.

CONTACTS: USDA Agricultural Research Service, www.ars.usda.gov; CCD Steering Committee Q&A, www.ars.usda.gov/is/br/ccd. SEND YOUR ENVIRONMENTAL QUESTIONS TO: EarthTalk®, P.O. Box 5098, Westport, CT 06881; earthtalk@emagazine.com. Read past columns at: www.emagazine.com/earthtalk/archives.php. EarthTalk® is now a book! Details and order information at: www.emagazine.com/earthtalkbook.

Outrageous Attacks on Brazilian Embassy in Honduras Bring UN Rebuke

Tue, 29 Sep 2009 03:27:00 +0000

9-28-09, 10:06 am

Attacks by Honduran military and police on the Brazilian embassy in the capital of Tegucigalpa, including the use of toxic gases and high decibel noise, are causing worldwide condemnation, including a denunciation by the United Nations Security Council.

On Monday September 21, President Manuel “Mel” Zelaya showed up at the Brazilian embassy after secretly re-entering the country, from which he had been expelled in a June 28 coup, and traveling through remote areas to reach the capital. The Brazilian government immediately authorized that Zelaya be allowed to stay at the embassy. Brazil, like most regional governments, has taken a very strong position against the coup and in favor of Zelaya's return. Brazilians, including President Luis Inacio “Lula” da Silva, have not forgotten the bloody history of armed coups and military dictatorships in their own country. Brazil's ambassador, in fact, is absent from the embassy, having been withdrawn as a protest against the coup.

Zelaya spoke to rapturous crowds of supporters at the beginning of the week, but police and soldiers cleared the crowds with water cannon, tear gas and live ammunition, and have been having running battles with protesters said to number in the tens of thousands almost every day since Zelaya's return. There have been scores of injured and at least four dead, as well as many arrests. Evidently the game-changing move by Zelaya in effectuating his surprise return has rattled the coup regime headed by former Congress President Roberto Micheletti, which is now lashing out like a cornered animal.

Zelaya says he is more than willing to have a dialog with all forces in Honduran society and politics, and in fact had a meeting at the embassy with pro-coup presidential candidates running in the November 29 elections. But so far there have been no tangible results; Micheletti still refuses to accept any formula, including one produced earlier by Costa Rican President Oscar Arias and supported by the Obama administration, that would return Zelaya to power for the rest of his term, which ends in January 2010.

Micheletti and his allies claim that Zelaya was legally deposed for trying to push a non-binding referendum calling for a vote in the November elections on having a Constituent Assembly in 2010 to rewrite the authoritarian 1982 Constitution. However, Zelaya supporters counter that the real reason for the coup was worry on the part of the handful of super-rich families who run this poor Central American country that Zelaya was moving left, supporting workers', women's and minority group demands, increasing the minimum wage and integrating Honduras into the left-leaning Bolivarian Alliance for the Peoples of America (ALBA).

Meanwhile, the Brazilian embassy is under siege. Zelaya and some 70 other people in the embassy (relatives and allies of Zelaya, press and embassy staff) say that the government has been interrupting their water, food and electricity supply, and also bombarding the embassy with high decibel ultrasound and poisonous gases. Dr. Mauricio Castellano, Zelaya's public health chief, obtained samples of the gases being used for analysis, and reports that they contain concentrations of ammonia (used in pepper gas) and hydrogen cyanide. People in the embassy report headaches, nausea, nosebleeds and blood in their urine, among other symptoms compatible with these poisons.

In addition, it appears that the coup military has deployed Long Range Acoustic Devices (LRADs) to bombard the embassy with high decibel noise. People trapped in the embassy say the noise is “deafening”. Such sound bombardments, which have been used by other military and police forces around the world, can cause permanent hearing damage and other health problems.

Earlier this week, coup police shouted though loudspeakers that they were going to take the embassy by assault; however, this has not happened. Zelaya also reported that he was informed of a plot to invade the embassy, kill him and then claim he had committed suicide.

In New York, both the General Assembly and the Security Council of the United Nations are in session, and the issue of Honduras is on the agenda of both.

In the General Assembly, heads of state from one Latin American country after another have denounced the coup and demanded that the coup regime step down and that Zelaya be restored to the position to which he was elected. Brazil called for a special closed door session of the Security Council to deal specifically with the attacks on their embassy in Tegucigalpa.

On Friday, the Security Council issued a condemnation of the attacks on the embassy, which constitute a violation of the Vienna Convention on Consular Relations, and thus of international law. The BBC reports that Brazilian Foreign Minister Celso Amorim said also “the Brazilian government is concerned that the same people who perpetrated the coup d'état might violate the inviolability of the embassy in order to forcefully arrest President Zelaya.”

The Security Council statement demands that all harassment cease and that the de-facto Honduran government make sure that water, electricity, food and communications services to the embassy not be interfered with. U.S. supporters of the Honduran resistance are calling for everybody in this country to contact the White House and State Department to urge the Obama administration to maintain a firm stance that Zelaya must be restored or the November 29 elections should not be considered valid, as they take place under conditions of repression. Also, we are urged to call our congresspersons to ask them to cosponsor a resolution in the House of Representatives, H. RES. 630, which calls for the U.S. government to support the return of Zelaya.

Atlanta: Judge Rescinds Grady Dialysis Restraining Order

Tue, 29 Sep 2009 03:25:00 +0000

9-28-09, 10:03 am

 Original source: The Atlanta Progressive News 

(APN) ATLANTA – A Fulton County Superior Court judge rescinded a temporary restraining order against the Grady Health System on Friday, September 25, 2009, that had kept the dialysis clinic at Grady Memorial Hospital open. 'The court is unpersuaded at this time that there is a likelihood that plaintiffs will succeed on the merits of their claims,' Judge Ural Glanville wrote in an 11-page ruling. 'Despite plaintiffs' argument concerning due process, as it relates to the receipt of medical treatment, the court is unpersuaded at this time that the plaintiffs have a constitutional right to the sought-after relief.' As previously reported by Atlanta Progressive News, the Grady Memorial Hospital Corporation (GMHC), the private, non-profit board that handles the day-to-day operations of the system, had planned to close the Grady Health System Outpatient Dialysis Clinic on September 20 because it loses money every year. Judge Glanville’s September 16 temporary restraining order kept the clinic open and required Grady to stop inducing patients to seek treatment elsewhere and to notify all patients in writing of their right to continue using Grady's dialysis services. With the restraining order lifted, Grady plans to close the clinic October 3, 2009, Matt Gove, Senior Vice President for Strategic Marketing and Planning, told APN. Attorneys representing anonymous patients who use the clinic, as well as those representing Grady, appeared before Glanville Wednesday to argue either for and against upholding the restraining order. Bernard Taylor of Alston & Bird argued plaintiffs have not presented sufficient evidence to support their case and asked for a dismissal. 'Is there a constitutional right to care for this class of patients in Georgia? The answer to that question is no,' Taylor argued. Lindsay Jones, an Atlanta attorney who previously advocated for public housing residents, argued the patients have a constitutional right to medical care. 'The government has a legitimate interest in how it finances the hospital and how it maintains the hospital,' he said. 'Due process compels us to look at that interest.' Jones acknowledged the financial strain the clinic places on the system but argued 'we cannot put a price tag on life.' 'Indeed, no value can be placed on human life,' Glanville wrote Friday. 'Nevertheless, when contemplating the use of injunctive authority, the court is required to balance relative equities, even in cases involving issues of life and death.' 'If the court were to require defendant to maintain, on an interlocutory basis, the services forming the basis of the above-captioned complaint, it would likely result in an adverse effect on the services offered to other individuals and the public at-large,' Glanville added. After about 90 minutes of arguments, Glanville asked the parties on Wednesday to begin negotiations that might result in a mutually agreeable solution. Glanville’s ruling reveals that Grady will voluntarily provide up to three months of continued outpatient dialysis care for up to 51 patients through Fresenius Medical Care. The GMHC voted September 14 to enter into a two-year contract with Fresenius to provide outpatient dialysis services for many of the clinic's 96 patients. There are 25 Fresenius clinics within 25 miles of Grady. 'We should be right now contacting patients as quickly as possible and letting them know the situation and helping them select a Fresenius clinic that of course has available appointments,' Gove told APN. Dorothy Leone-Glasser, a leader with Grady Advocates for Responsible Care who works closely with the dialysis patients and participated in those negotiations, told APN plaintiffs did not sign off on Grady’s voluntary proposal. 'We could not in all good conscience sign that because that is not taking care of the patients,' she said. About half of the clinic patients are undocumented, uninsured immigrants; patient advocates have argued these patients would have a hard time obtaining private insurance or some government plan like Medicaid. Other patients impacted by the closure include US citizens who may not have lived in Georgia long enough to qualify for Medicaid. 'We wanted six months to anyone that relocates because it takes that long for anyone who goes to receive residency,' Leone-Glasser said. 'I don’t know of one licensed doctor who would say three months of dialysis service is sufficient.' 'I don’t know how to respond to that,' Gove said. 'Ninety days should be long enough to help and work with patients to find that long-term solution. By that logic, there’s never a date that’s long enough.' Grady also agreed to provide assistance and information about other dialysis service providers outside the system to the 51 patients and assist them in relocating to their country of origin or 'to other states of their choice.' In consulting with the patients over the last two months, Grady urged them to move to a state that provides emergency Medicaid services for undocumented immigrants, return to their country of origin, or try to receive dialysis care through an emergency room. Grady provided a list of 11 states to patients that they said provide emergency Medicaid assistance. The Atlanta Journal-Constitution newspaper last week contacted at least three of these - New Jersey, North Carolina, and Virginia - and found out that they, like Georgia, have residency requirements for Medicaid. Grady officials could not explain the discrepancy and said the list came from an outside consultant, whom they would not name to the AJC. 'Every state’s going to have slight variations in their requirements,' Gove told APN. 'What is certain based on our calls and analysis and discussions is every one of the states we’ve discussed with the patients provides more expanded emergency Medicaid services for illegal immigrants than Georgia does.' 'We’ve set up a hotline that patients can call, ask us questions, get more information,' he added. 'If during the process there is an issue, they can call us and we will resolve those issues. We’ll do what we can to find it.' Officials have also said they were helping patients who choose to leave the state or country with apartment rental, moving, airline, and passport assistance. Leone-Glasser said that, during negotiations, Grady said it would no longer offer this kind of assistance. 'That’s not true,' Gove said. 'We’re going to provide the best assistance we can to patients who choose to move.' Grady has also agreed to voluntarily 'provide any of the 51 patients seeking to return to Mexico, or certain other Latin American countries, with assistance through MexCare, which will provide 90 days of outpatient dialysis treatment along with assistance in placing such individuals on the health care plans within their country of origin.' 'I think it’s really disgraceful that they’ve been allowed to treat patients this way,' Leone-Glasser said. 'They’re only going to live three more months and now they have nothing to lose.' 'I can’t speculate what happens after 90 days,' Gove said. 'Our hope is that patients will be working with us to find a long-term solution. Our hope in 90 days is that everyone has a plan.' Leone-Glasser characterized Glanville’s decision as 'very disheartening.' 'That was a very harsh ruling on the judge’s part and I really don’t know why,' she said. 'I think it’s because everybody wants this case over and done with.' Leone-Glasser said the 34 dialysis patients who were present in court on Wednesday and who are part of Grady Advocates for Responsible Care voted Friday to appeal the decision. 'We’re letting our attorney decide [the next step],' she said. 'We’re not going to stop the fight.' Check out Atlanta Progressive Blog, our sister site, at www.atlantaprogressiveblog.com, to read more about the legal arguments made by both sides Wednesday.

--Jonathan Springston is a Senior Staff Writer for Atlanta Progressive News and is reachable at jonathan@atlantaprogressivenews.com.

Bail Out Workers Not CEOs

Tue, 29 Sep 2009 03:19:00 +0000

9-28-09, 9:58 am

Compensation over the long run reflects the market value of labor as a commodity. The market value oscillates around the cost of production and sustainability – of the worker. There are many factors that influence the oscillation. To this writer it seems important to consider that advancing technical, artistic, athletic, scientific and leadership skills requires advancing social wealth and growing social investments in human potential. This principle holds true for both capitalist and socialist societies and reflects an important objective feature of the socialization processes that any advanced and highly integrated technological/economic foundation must strongly favor.

Wherever the products or services of creative labor that cannot be alienated from a human body brain are in demand, or cannot be effectively or permanently appropriated via employer copyright or patent – the subject matter of much of what are now called 'human capital' and 'intellectual property' – these labor markets are not exchanges of labor-power as in classic manufacturing scenarios. They are exchanges for the full market value of a service or product.

In the case of a CEO, the owners (via their boards of directors) negotiate a contract that aims to align compensation with their interests. Sustained, maximized profitability is the dominant interest. However, in practice, in order to win the 'best' CEO, the contracts have been compelled to reward short-term profit maximization, usually in the form of stock options and bonuses.

The awards of stock options in particular have encouraged high risk behavior that push up the stock price in the short term (quarterly) but often undermine the long term interests of the corporation. Further, a struggling company in the market for a CEO has difficulty enticing the 'best' candidates without handsome 'golden parachutes.' The reason for this difficulty is simple: why would a successful CEO leave a successful company for a struggling one? Answer: very high bonuses, and an escape clause (parachute) in the event of failure.

The result of the bargaining process is a CEO whose interests are in fact NOT aligned with the long term interests of the company. In economics this is called the 'principle agent' problem, and it has made a substantial contribution to the still ongoing financial crisis. It also has damaged many other non-financial enterprises – like auto. The short-term incentive dilemma is passed down to other top executives, whose interests are also aligned with short-term results.

Three proposals for reform of executive compensation are being considered – both in the US and globally. The first is to mandate that bonuses be paid on longer term performance. The second is to set caps on executive compensation via regulation, and the third is higher tax rates. The last won't have much effect on improper risk decisions – but will help society protect everyone else from the crises that high-risk behavior favors. All will certainly generate across the board resistance from the financial lobbies.

The problem with caps is that they may not be effective unless applied universally, and globally. We might quickly find most of the financial industry operating from the Cayman Islands, instead of Wall Street. High tax rates have been the favored solution in most European countries, and it has certainly made it possible to afford much greater social protection against economic crisis than in the US. But even with high tax rates, the UK, for example, had a substantial financial meltdown, and is now very highly leveraged.

Obama's position emphasizes the longer-term bonus solution. The opposition of Wall Street to this is mostly born of greed. There is a broad consensus among a large and influential group of very skilled people opposed to accepting significant rollbacks in their lifestyles. They argue there is an objective downside to long range as well. Just like weather prediction is notoriously inaccurate beyond a week, economic prediction and planning in the real world is also hardly scientific beyond the quarter. They argue the result of long term bonus restructuring may lead to an excessively low-risk economy, an unresponsiveness, or sluggishness in responding quickly to economic opportunity, undermining investments in much needed innovation.

It is easy to discredit this argument by pointing to the absurdity of Bush economics, but it would not be completely true. The dilemma of what to emphasize in top-level leadership, enterprise, cultural and scientific incentives is profound for both socialist and capitalist economies, by the way. It may seem like a planned economy is less vulnerable, but the vicissitudes of nature, and society at large, tend to undermine the best laid plans, adaptability to changing conditons, and much better forecasting tools, will return big value.

Nonetheless, since we have all had quite enough 'financial innovation' – and its unregulated consequences – in the recent past. I would recommend forgetting the caps in the US, and going for the long-term bonus restructuring – at least in the financial services and banking sector. Higher taxes on the rich, of course, are needed regardless. No matter what rules we put in place, eventually someone will find a way around them. But we could do with some stability for a while.

Benefits and Dangers of North-South Tourism

Tue, 29 Sep 2009 03:10:00 +0000

9-28-09, 9:46 am

Original source: CubaNews

As a source of foreign currency, international tourism is thirty times bigger than it was 60 years ago, with more than 700 million tourists hopping from one country to another every year.

 Several rich and highly industrialized nations are among the destinations most favored by foreign visitors. Some of them also happen to be top senders of tourists not only to other no less developed countries but also, and increasingly, to poor countries where they can enjoy a better climate, a cleaner environment and greater cultural diversity.

 International tourism should be used by the richest countries as a vehicle to repay the poorest ones for the plundering of resources they suffered for centuries as a result of colonialism, neocolonialism, unequal exchange and other forms of sacking and exploitation leading to the dramatic disparity facing humanity today.

 However, capitalism has its own set of rules, imposed by big business even to the practice of North-South tourism. Given that the conditions to be met by international tourism are more and more sophisticated, the poor nations find it harder and harder to fulfill them by themselves.

Placing the building and management of your hotels and the rest of the tourism infrastructure in the hands of foreign investors is no longer enough to be as competitive as the industry demands nowadays.

 For instance, the cruise ships and all-inclusive resorts give the target markets very little chance to make a profit, as the foreign visitors have already paid to the tour operators back home all their travel expenses, including meals, drinks, local transport and leisure activities. In the case of the former, the tourists sleep, eat and enjoy various amenities on board. “All they do when they put into port is damage the environment and get rid of the waste generated during the trip,” grumble those who are critical of this major part of the tourism industry in poor countries.

 On the other hand, travelers who choose all-inclusive results pay for almost everything in advance: accommodation, meals, soft and alcoholic drinks, sports, entertainment, even the tips. Critics in the recipient countries argue this form of tourism barely helps the local economy and damages the environment to boot. Indeed, most of these resorts are in relatively distant locations far from any major urban center, which prevents tourists from shopping around or enjoying local attractions, mainly because they have paid beforehand for everything their lodgings have to offer. These resorts are owned and/or managed by big corporations that leave the local small or medium-sized enterprises hardly any room to breathe.

 At first they offered three daily meals and the clientele would pay for the drinks, but the common practice in the Caribbean made it more comprehensive as a function of developing tourism and making it more social.

 In the late 1970s Canada saw the birth of a new mass tourism industry generally aimed at skilled workers who were not as well-paid as the traditional tourists from rich countries – which suited the all-inclusive system down to the ground – that provided charter flights, more economical hotel operations and affordable prices that made demand hit the roof.

 These all-inclusive resorts promise a vacation without surprises, as the tourists who buy a value pack know that at checkout time they won’t be handed a bill in excess of their calculations.  By the mid-1990s the all-inclusive resorts had become popular throughout the Caribbean and thus forced the big beach hotel chains to jump on the bandwagon.

 Nonetheless, the mass tourist operations run by the top corporations in recipient countries have also brought with them serious social damages that the clientele’s few collateral and almost accidental expenses can hardly compensate for. There’s over-exploitation of the local workforce, whose employment insecurity virtually turns them into the foreign company’s slave labor. Consequently, poor areas spring up rapidly around the tourist parks where there are no hospitals or health care centers and corruption and tax evasion, among other scourges, are rampant.

 Cuba, on the contrary, has managed to make the most of this economy of scale and stay clear of the social effects that countries like, for example, the Dominican Republic and Mexico have suffered, thanks to the high level of social organization on the Island, the scope of its socialist project, and the fact that the state and its public bodies have full control over foreign investment issues.  Our tourist industry workers are protected and their rights and social benefits guaranteed – a utopian goal everywhere else across the region – and our mass tourism revenues are reinvested in the development and welfare of the Cuban population.

--A CubaNews translation. Edited by Walter Lippmann.

Benefits and Dangers of North-South Tourism

Tue, 29 Sep 2009 03:01:00 +0000

9-28-09, 9:35 am

As a source of foreign currency, international tourism is thirty times bigger than it was 60 years ago, with more than 700 million tourists hopping from one country to another every year.

Several rich and highly industrialized nations are among the destinations most favored by foreign visitors. Some of them also happen to be top senders of tourists not only to other no less developed countries but also, and increasingly, to poor countries where they can enjoy a better climate, a cleaner environment and greater cultural diversity.

International tourism should be used by the richest countries as a vehicle to repay the poorest ones for the plundering of resources they suffered for centuries as a result of colonialism, neocolonialism, unequal exchange and other forms of sacking and exploitation leading to the dramatic disparity facing humanity today.

However, capitalism has its own set of rules, imposed by big business even to the practice of North-South tourism. Given that the conditions to be met by international tourism are more and more sophisticated, the poor nations find it harder and harder to fulfill them by themselves.

Placing the building and management of your hotels and the rest of the tourism infrastructure in the hands of foreign investors is no longer enough to be as competitive as the industry demands nowadays.

 For instance, the cruise ships and all-inclusive resorts give the target markets very little chance to make a profit, as the foreign visitors have already paid to the tour operators back home all their travel expenses, including meals, drinks, local transport and leisure activities. In the case of the former, the tourists sleep, eat and enjoy various amenities on board. “All they do when they put into port is damage the environment and get rid of the waste generated during the trip,” grumble those who are critical of this major part of the tourism industry in poor countries.

On the other hand, travelers who choose all-inclusive results pay for almost everything in advance: accommodation, meals, soft and alcoholic drinks, sports, entertainment, even the tips. Critics in the recipient countries argue this form of tourism barely helps the local economy and damages the environment to boot. Indeed, most of these resorts are in relatively distant locations far from any major urban center, which prevents tourists from shopping around or enjoying local attractions, mainly because they have paid beforehand for everything their lodgings have to offer. These resorts are owned and/or managed by big corporations that leave the local small or medium-sized enterprises hardly any room to breathe.

At first they offered three daily meals and the clientele would pay for the drinks, but the common practice in the Caribbean made it more comprehensive as a function of developing tourism and making it more social.

In the late 1970s Canada saw the birth of a new mass tourism industry generally aimed at skilled workers who were not as well-paid as the traditional tourists from rich countries –which suited the all-inclusive system down to the ground – that provided charter flights, more economical hotel operations and affordable prices that made demand hit the roof.

These all-inclusive resorts promise a vacation without surprises, as the tourists who buy a value pack know that at checkout time they won’t be handed a bill in excess of their calculations.

By the mid-1990s the all-inclusive resorts had become popular throughout the Caribbean and thus forced the big beach hotel chains to jump on the bandwagon.

Nonetheless, the mass tourist operations run by the top corporations in recipient countries have also brought with them serious social damages that the clientele’s few collateral and almost accidental expenses can hardly compensate for. There’s over-exploitation of the local workforce, whose employment insecurity virtually turns them into the foreign company’s slave labor. Consequently, poor areas spring up rapidly around the tourist parks where there are no hospitals or health care centers and corruption and tax evasion, among other scourges, are rampant.

Cuba, on the contrary, has managed to make the most of this economy of scale and stay clear of the social effects that countries like, for example, the Dominican Republic and Mexico have suffered, thanks to the high level of social organization on the Island, the scope of its socialist project, and the fact that the state and its public bodies have full control over foreign investment issues.

Our tourist industry workers are protected and their rights and social benefits guaranteed –a utopian goal everywhere else across the region– and our mass tourism revenues are reinvested in the development and welfare of the Cuban population.

--A CubaNews translation. Edited by Walter Lippmann.

Swine Flu Season Begins

Sat, 26 Sep 2009 02:15:00 +0000

9-25-09, 9:53 am

Flu season is here. And it has brought its nasty cousin swine flu (H1N1) with it. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, swine flu began to spread in the US last spring, picked up some steam over the summer and now as the usual flu season begins is expected to spread quickly.

'It didn't go away this summer,' said Dr. Anne Schuchat, director of the CDC's National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases on a conference call with reporters Sept. 24. 'We expected that the fall would bring an increase in flu illness , and that is exactly what we're seeing.'

The good news is that the government's voluntary vaccination program for the swine flu is on schedule. According to Department of Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius 6-7 million doses of the swine flu vaccine will be available in the first week of October, with 40 million doses ready by the middle of the month. Another 10-20 million doses will be ready each week after that.

Congress has appropriated the money to pay for the voluntary vaccination program, so each doses should be distributed without cost to Americans who want one, Sebelius told reporters.

In addition, the CDC coordinated distribution of the vaccine with state and local governments. No one inside the beltway has mandated where and how the vaccine will be distributed, Sebelius stated. People seeking doses of swine flu vaccine should check with state and local health officials.

Dr. Schuchat also explained some of the basic symptoms and treatments for the swine flu. First, some people who catch H1N1 show minor flu-like symptoms very briefly and get better quickly. Other people, especially children or adults with underlying health issues such as pregnancy or chronic illnesses, seem to experience more difficult symptoms.

In the latter cases, people should seek medical attention, especially if they experience difficulty with breathing. Children might turn blue or grey or have difficulty being awakened. In some cases, people infected with the swine flu seem to get better, but then turn for the worse as additional infections like pneumonia set in.

People who have these symptoms should seek medical attention right away, Dr. Schuchat said.

She also warned against taking antiviral medications as a preventive measure against the swine flu or the seasonal flu. They should only be used to treat symptoms. Taking doses of antivirals won't prevent the flu, but may in fact lower resistance to infection.

Sebelius added that people ten and over will need only a single dose of the vaccine, as clinical trials seem to indicate that it is a perfect match for the swine flu this season. Children six months to 10 years should receive two doses, as they should with the seasonal flu. Scientific studies indicate that children under 10 do not build up enough resistance to the flu with a single dose.

More information can be found at Flu.gov.

The ACORN I Know

Sat, 26 Sep 2009 02:07:00 +0000

9-25-09, 9:50 am

Original source:

If someone told you that a bunch of low-income people, most of them African American or Latino, most of them women, most of them elderly, had been victimized by a predatory mortgage lender that stripped them of much of their equity or of their entire homes, you might not be surprised. But if I told you that these women and men had gotten together and, after three years of work, brought the nation's largest high-cost lender to its knees, forced it to sell out to a foreign company, and won back a half a billion dollars of what had been taken from them—one of the largest consumer settlements ever—you'd probably ask me what country this had happened in. Surely it couldn't have been in the United States of the Second Gilded Age, the land of unbridled corporate power and radical government activism on behalf of the rich and the greedy.

Yet, it was. These victims identified a problem and named it 'predatory lending' in the late 1990s. Their campaign to reform Household International (also known as Household Finance and as Beneficial) played out from 2001 to 2003, concluding with a settlement that includes a ban on badmouthing the company. That's why more people haven't heard about this. The families who fought back and defeated Household are barred from bragging about it or teaching the lessons they learned, because that would require recounting the damage that Household did to homes and neighborhoods. These families are members of ACORN, the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now.

I was ACORN's communications coordinator during much of the Household campaign, but left before it ended. No one has asked me not to tell this story.

In low-income minority neighborhoods in the United States, what little wealth there is, is in home equity. Home equity makes up 74.9 percent of the net wealth for Hispanics in the bottom two income quintiles (0-40 percent) and 78.7 percent of the net wealth for African Americans in the second income quintile (20-40 percent). There have been gains in minority home ownership over the past few decades, in part as a result of the work by community groups like ACORN and National People's Action to force banks to make loans in these communities, but the home ownership is fragile and not protected by additional savings. Lenders in the past decade have focused on stripping away equity and community groups have been forced to focus on keeping out loans that are worse than no loans at all.

Most high-cost loans are refinance loans. Too often they are marketed aggressively and deceptively, including through live- checks in the mail that result in very high-cost loans that the lender will be only too happy to refinance into a new mortgage. Often these loans are made with excessive, sometimes variable, interest rates, outrageously high fees, and fees financed into the loans so that the borrower pays interest on them and often is not told about them. They are made with bogus products built in, on which the borrower also pays interest. Hidden balloon payments force repeated refinancings for additional fees each time. Mandatory arbitration clauses attempt to prevent borrowers from taking lenders to court. The practice of loaning more than the value of a home traps borrowers in loans they cannot refinance with a responsible lender. Consolidation of additional debts further decreases equity, placing the home at greater risk. Quiet omission of taxes and insurance from a mortgage that previously included those charges results in a crisis when yearly bills arrive.

Predatory lenders turn the usual logic of lending upside down. They make their money by intentionally making loans that the borrowers will be unable to repay. They charge fees for each refinancing until finally seizing the house. Fannie Mae has estimated that as many as half of all borrowers in subprime (high-cost) loans could have qualified for a lower cost mortgage.

High-cost loans are not just made to people with poor credit. They're often made to people who have poor banking services in their neighborhoods.

ACORN members don't take abuse of their neighborhoods lying down, and Household was a leading cause of the rows of vacant houses appearing in ACORN neighborhoods in the 1990s. ACORN launched a campaign to reform Household that included numerous strategies. One, an ACORN stand-by, was direct action. Repeatedly, ACORN members in numerous cities around the country simultaneously protested in Household offices to demand reform. At the same time, ACORN was working to pass anti-predatory lending legislation in local and state governments and Congress. ACORN members made sure that in each case the victims testifying were victims of Household and that Household's abuses were highlighted. When ACORN released major reports on predatory lending, the examples included were always from Household.

ACORN also worked with the Coalition for Responsible Wealth to advance a shareholder resolution that would have tied Household's executives' compensation to ending its predatory lending. In 2001 Household held its shareholders meeting in an out-of-the-way suburb of Tampa, Florida. A crowd of ACORN members was there with shark suits and shark balloons to protest.

The resolution won 5 percent. Over the next year, ACORN pressured state pension funds and other shareholders. Household held its 2002 meeting an hour and a half from the nearest airport in rural Kentucky. Members made the trip by car from all over the country. The protest may have been the biggest thing the town of London, Kentucky had seen in years. The resolution won 30 percent.

As a result, various local and state governments threatened to divest from Household. ACORN also put pressure on stores like Best Buy that used Household credit cards. At the same time, ACORN Housing Corporation was assisting many Household victims in either refinancing out of their Household loans or at least canceling some of the rip-off services built into their loans, such as credit insurance. ACORN was also getting the word out to stay away from Household.

ACORN wrote up numerous accounts of Household predatory loans and took them to the attorney generals in state after state urging investigations. ACORN similarly pressured federal regulators to act. ACORN assisted borrowers in filing a number of class-action suits against Household targeting those of its practices that were clearly illegal even under existing law. They let Wall Street analysts know what Household stood to lose from these lawsuits, as well as from various reforms that Household periodically announced in its attempt to hold off the pressure.

But ACORN members never let up. They protested again and again at Household offices and held press conferences in front of homes about to be lost to Household. They protested the secondary market that was putting up capital for these predatory loans and they held a major protest at the trade group that lobbied in Washington for Household and its fellow sharks. Then, in the summer of 2002, in the wealthy suburbs north of Chicago, victims of Household from around the country poured out of busses by the thousands onto the lawns of the board members and the CEO of Household. They knocked on doors and spoke to those who had hurt them from a distance. When the police made them leave, ACORN members plastered 'Wanted' posters all over the neighborhood telling the board members' neighbors what crimes the Household executives were guilty of.

Through all of this, we worked the media. I kept a database of victims' stories and contact information and put them in touch with reporters whenever the reporters were willing to tell not just the victimization story but also the story of fighting back. We generated several hundred print articles and several hundred TV and radio stories about Household's predatory lending practices. We worked the small neighborhood papers, flyers in churches, posters on walls. We provoked lengthy articles in the New York Times, Washington Post, Wall Street Journal, Los Angeles Times , and Forbes Magazine . We kept up an endless barrage in the trade press: the American Banker, National Mortgage News, etc.

A handful of ACORN staff people with great expertise and unrelenting effort organized thousands of members to drive this campaign until Household agreed to pay victims $489 million through the 50 states attorneys general, and later agreed to pay millions more through ACORN, as well as to reform its practices.

This campaign was an example of what can be done if enough different angles are pursued at once and the company ripping you off is put on the defensive and constantly hit with the unexpected. This campaign increased the size and power of ACORN to effect future progressive change. This is good news for low-income neighborhoods, but bad news for Wells Fargo, the predatory lender next on ACORN's list.

--David Swanson was communications coordinator for ACORN from 2000 to 2003, and is the author of the new book 'Daybreak: Undoing the Imperial Presidency and Forming a More Perfect Union' by Seven Stories Press. You can order it and find out when tour will be in your town: http://davidswanson.org/book.

'We Made them Millions, and they Complain About Insurance'

Sat, 26 Sep 2009 02:03:00 +0000

9-25-09, 9:42 am

Original source:

SAN FRANCISCO, CA (9/18/09) – I was born in Santa Tecla, near San Salvador. My father was a big rig driver and my mother was a stay at home mom. We had a big family – four brothers and two sisters. When I was old enough, I worked in the Armando Araujo coffee and soap factory. We Salvadoreños are hard working people.

From the time I was twelve my aunts took me with them whenever they had a demonstration. They were teachers, and taught me that we have to fight for what we need, because that's the only way to achieve anything. Even before the war, it was dangerous to be involved with a union. After the war started, many died protesting.

I was nineteen years old when I came to the U.S. to care for an elderly woman. My family was very poor and when the opportunity came I didn't hesitate. The woman eventually returned to El Salvador, but I stayed on with her family. I thought I was going to earn money and help my family, but they didn't pay me for an entire year. They told me I had to repay the transportation fee and all the money they'd spent on me.

A friend of my grandmother told me I was being treated as a slave. She said she'd rescue me, so I found my passport where they'd hidden it, grabbed my bag and left. But my rescuer took me to another home, to care of another elderly woman. They hardly paid me anything – just $100 a month. When I said I wanted to go to school, they told me immigration officers would get me.

Finally I met my husband - a carpenter who'd come to put in new windows. He rescued me and we got married. That was 1974, and we've been married ever since. When I married him I no longer felt like a slave.

I already had a Social Security number – it wasn't so hard to get a number back then - and in 1986 I got my green card through the amnesty. I brought my brothers here too, but I told them that they would never suffer like I did.

In those years we could live in San Francisco because the rent was only $150 for a one-bedroom apartment. Now living in San Francisco is almost impossible, and we moved to the East Bay.

After my first daughter was three I told my husband I wanted to go back to work. I found good daycare and applied at the Hilton. They hired me right away as a housekeeper, the same job I've been doing for 29 years.

Since I've been here for so long I work on only one floor. It's a very big hotel, with three buildings. At the beginning of the day I fill my cart with new linens, towels, pens and everything I'll need. We carry everything from toilet paper to a vacuum cleaner, and the cart easily weighs 100 pounds. When I get to a room I first organize the hangers in the closet, and make sure it has one pillow and blanket. Then I empty the garbage cans and make the beds. I continue on to the bathroom, clean the tub and toilet, and restock the toilet paper, towels and Kleenex. I clean the mirror, sink and counter - they have to be spotless. It's hard work to clean the mirrors and shower doors because you have to stretch so much to do it.

Making the beds is backbreaking because they're a lot larger now and you have to lift up the mattress. You have to put three sheets on – the fitted sheet, flat sheet and down comforter. Work wasn't as hard when I first started there because the beds were small with one pillow per bed. Now beds are bigger and some have four pillows. Sometimes guests even ask for four more.

They switched accessories from plastic to silver, which weigh a lot more. We have to lift the ice bucket with both hands to clean it with Windex, soap or sometimes hot water. The garbage cans are also silver. They warn us that they don't want any fingerprints on them, and managers follow us into the rooms to check. It takes an extra half an hour everyday just to clean the silver accessories.

We have to finish all 14 assigned rooms by the end of the day. Some of us don't go on breaks or take shorter lunch breaks in order to finish. Recently I had a room with a big family, but in a room with only one bed. I wasted an extra forty minutes because the room was so messy. At the end of the day I was exhausted. When I got home I just wanted to sleep.

Llike it or not, there is pressure to have the room spotless. I've seen other workers weep because the job is so hard. It's never good enough and managers want more. I've heard them tell housekeepers that they came to the U.S. to work, so they should work harder. They call them crybabies. I tell them it's not right to make women cry – it just makes it harder to do the work. Because I've been there for so long and I'm very outspoken, they don't follow me around, but I feel pressured too.

In the long run you end up with permanent problems working this way. I now have to wear a brace on my arm. When I don't have it on my arms hurt tremendously. I had to go on disability because my tendons hurt so much. When I returned to work I couldn't taken a morning or afternoon break because my legs hurt too much for me to walk down to the break room. I simply stayed up on the floor.

My hands tingle and ache, and my fingers go numb. Sometimes my arms start to hurt during the night and I can't sleep. The pain starts about 3am and I can't stand it. The doctor said I have carpal tunnel syndrome, and gave me two braces, one for each hand. My hands now feel better, but I still use them during the day. I take a motrin pill before leaving for work in the morning and another one in the afternoon and before going to bed. I don't want to be dependent on them, but it's hard. My doctor told me many housekeepers have the same problem. It's very difficult to work in pain. It's something I cannot get used to.

I have to continue working because I need the insurance. If I don't work, I'm not accumulating hours, and my insurance stops. I had to return to work because I had no insurance left. My husband, daughter and myself depend on it. My daughter's nineteen, and she needs medical checkups and to go to the dentist. My husband has high blood pressure and clogged arteries so he needs expensive medication daily.

My back and knees hurt from moving the heavy cart every day. I don't want to get even more injured than I already am because I'll be replaced. There are many workers still working with disabilities right now. It's like a circus in there when we're changing into uniforms. We all smell like Bengay and have braces all over. We all have medical conditions. They say it's the handicap room, because we're all injured.

With the union at least we feel we have someone who will back us up. I was suspended a few years ago. The manager was upset because I had criticized her during a meeting. The other workers were in an uproar. My union representative told the general manager they were going to protest in the lobby. They called me that afternoon to say I could return to work the next morning. We all fight for each other.

Medical insurance is the most important issue for us this year. They're talking of increasing the hours needed to qualify for health benefits. That is what we're trying to avoid. I just have a few years left until I can retire. I'm lost my health at the hotel, and all they think about is money. We made them millions of dollars, and they complain about paying insurance.

Lupe Chavez' union, UNITE HERE Local 2, is currently in negotiations with San Francisco's Class A hotels, and workers and their supporters are again out in the streets. The old contract has expired, and health care benefits are one of the central issues.

--David Bacon is the author Illegal People – How Globalization Creates Migration and Criminalizes Immigrants (Beacon Press, 2008) and the recipient: C.L.R. James Award, best book of 2007-2008.

Racism and Reaction Must be Confronted

Sat, 26 Sep 2009 01:57:00 +0000

From Black Commemntator

David Brooks ought to go running even more often; maybe take a different route sometimes. A couple of weeks ago the New York Times columnist was doing his usual Lincoln Memorial to the Capitol and back trek when he encountered a bunch of 'tea party' people demonstrating and 'carrying 'Don't Tread on Me' flags, 'End the Fed' placards and signs condemning big government, Barack Obama, socialist healthcare and various elite institutions.' Nearby were people at a celebration of African American culture and Brooks says he noticed 'the mostly white tea party protesters were mingling in with the mostly black family reunion celebrants. The tea party people were buying lunch from the family reunion food stands. They had joined the audience of a rap concert.' From this harmonious vision Brooks concluded that as far as the tea baggers are concerned 'race is largely besides the point.' Now get this. There are 'some people' in the country, he writes, 'who see every conflict through the prism of race.' Who? Racists? No, it's 'many people from Jimmy Carter on down' who have suggested that 'the hostility to President Obama is driven by racism.'

The reason I say Brooks should jog more often is that in other parts of town he might discover that in the neighborhoods of the District of Columbia most people would prefer not to see political issues through the prism of race at all; they prefer racism would just go away. But it doesn't. It keeps popping up. Compare the placards Brooks saw that day on the Washington mall with what others saw. 'At a rally in Washington a few days ago after the President announced his healthcare plans to Congress, protestors bore placards featuring slogans including 'the zoo has an African lion while the White House has a lyin' African and, 'Somewhere in Kenya, a village is missing its teleprompter',' reported the Financial Times last Friday. That's just sampling of the demeaning racial slurs that have been directed toward the white House over recent weeks.

'I have no patience with those who want to pretend that racism is not an out-and-out big deal in the United States, as it always has been,' wrote Brooks' fellow Times columnist Bob Herbert last Saturday. 'We may have made progress, and we may have a black president, but the scourge is still with us. And if you needed Jimmy Carter to remind you of that, then you've been wandering around with your eyes closed.'

Or running.

'These are bits and pieces of an increasingly unrestrained manifestation of racism directed toward Mr. Obama that is being fed by hate-mongers on talk radio and is widely tolerated, if not encouraged, by Republican Party leaders,' wrote Herbert. 'It's disgusting, and it's dangerous. But it's the same old filthy racism that has been there all along and that has been exploited by the G.O.P. since the 1960s.'

And here we come to the crux of the matter.

Rightwing populism is dangerous but the greatest potential peril lies not in the presence of some loony or deluded, irrational people parading through the streets. It arises from the certainty that there will always be someone lurking about in a trench coat to fan the flames for their own cynical purposes. It was true in Central Europe 70 years ago when fascism arose and it's true there today, what with agitation against immigrants and ethnic minorities. It's been true in our country for just as long.

Of course, the tea party uprising isn't just about race. It certainly isn't just about healthcare. You watch, as each and every item on the Obama Administration comes to the fore they will be out there waving their personally vindictive signs and the vituperative tenor of their attacks will increase. No sooner than the President had announced his decision to can his predecessor's mad 'star wars' missile project than he was being accused of everything short of treason. The assaults on Obama will continue to be tinged with racism and they will continue to draw out numbers of people aghast that the country elected an African American president. But it will be in context. This venom is being supported and stoked by powerful forces whose objective is nothing less than bringing down the Obama presidency. While the know-nothings are being wild in the streets, the Republican spinmaster Karl Rove is calmly assuring readers of the Wall Street Journal that this is all to the good and if all goes well for them, they could be back on top by the time of the 2010 Congressional elections.

'Mr. Obama is forgetting that the political landscape can change when the pool of people who vote changes,' Rove wrote in the Journal a few days after the President' healthcare address to Congress. 'In 2008, five million more people voted than in 2004. Mr. Obama drew two million more African Americans to the polls. He also shifted support among younger voters (ages 18-24) from 54 percent, Democratic, 45 percent Republican in 2004 to 66 percent Democratic, 32 percent Republican.' Rove went on to suggest opponents of the President can siphon off some of the youth vote by convincing younger voters that under the health care plan now before the Senate they would be fined for not having health insurance. 'Fining them only antagonizes them,' he wrote.

Rove went on to make it clear rightwing strategists are aiming their message at older voters, 'The political risk for Democrats is clearest among seniors,' he wrote. 'This matters because seniors make up a disproportionate share of the off-year vote,' he went on 'CNN exit polls showed that they were roughly 16 percent of eligible voters in 2008, but 29 percent of the turnout in 2006. The generic ballot among seniors in 1994 was 45% Republican and 43 percent Democrat.

But it's not just any elderly voter they are going after.

'As The Hotline's Amy Walter wisely pointed out, 1994 became the `angry white male' election because those who were displeased with the direction of the country were 'more engaged than those who just two years earlier were voting for Bill Clinton and singing 'don't stop thinking about tomorrow',' wrote political commentator Charlie Cook a couple of weeks ago. 'But 'angry' is only a third of `angry white male,' and anger is only part of the story today.' If recent polling number 'are even halfway accurate, they should frighten Democrats.' Cook went on. 'Their surveys show voters 65 and over, who gave Democrats a 50 percent to 39 percent edge on the generic ballot in November 2006, giving Republicans a 51 percent to 43 percent edge now. If that reversal holds, Democrats could be ruing the 'year of the angry white senior' at the polling place, not just the town hall.'

Who said the 'southern strategy' was dead?

'Last weekend's grassroots rally against ObamaCare in Washington was a sign that voters are getting active to oppose the president's agenda,' declared Rove. 'If it keeps up, middle-class anxiety about the national debt could make 2010 a tough year for any Democrat up for re-election.'

This isn't just about Obama and it isn't just about the Republican Party's cynical electoral calculations. As one internet observer put it, 'the Teabaggers are only pawns in the rich man's game.' There are powerful people in this country (many of whom couldn't care less what the color the President is) who are determined to turn history back. To them the emerging progressive political forces that were to a large extent responsible for Obama's election is an anathema. The moves of the current administration - as hesitant, timid and often contradictory as they may seem to many of us - suggest a direction in which they don't want to go. On a whole host of issues, from climate change to green jobs to policy toward Latin America and beyond, they are out to return us to the policies of the Bush Presidency - or worse. To this end they are willing to exploit every social issue they can latch onto, from gay rights to taxes. And, of course, they are more than anxious to trade on the current economic crisis and the government's seeming largess to Wall Street CEOs and reluctance to get really serious about the economic precariousness of working people.

Those who have termed this rightwing upsurge 'populism,' are correct. 'This is right-wing populism in the classic American style, as inchoate and paranoid as that hawked by Father Coughlin during the Great Depression and George Wallace in the late 1960s,' wrote the Times' Frank Rich Sunday. Even Brooks is willing to use the label.

However, Brooks, who often comes across as the learned conservative cultural anthropologist always trying to position himself in the political 'center,' wants us to see the Obama Administration and its supporters as elitists and the tea baggers as 'plain people' arrayed against 'the cosmopolitan elites.' 'Given all of this, it was guaranteed that he would spark a populist backlash, regardless of his skin color,' he writes. 'And it was guaranteed that this backlash would be ill mannered, conspiratorial and over the top – since these movements always are, whether they were led by Huey Long, Father Coughlin or anybody else.' What he does not accept, apparently, is that racism has always been a central factor in populism. (It has historically also been the Achilles heel of populism on the left.) Couglin was an anti-Semite and he preached anti- Semitism. Wallace was a racist and he promoted racism. Both served the interest of others with wider agendas. Both constituted serious threats to democratic advance.

Where to from here? Stepping up efforts to secure progressive aims, like meaningful healthcare reform and an end to the war in Afghanistan is crucial to combating the right and buttressing the movement that was critical in the last Presidential election. It seems to me there must also be resolve to form a unified front against racism and reaction. Ignoring, obscuring or downplaying the threat will serve no good purpose. This is serious business.

--BlackCommentator.com Editorial Board member Carl Bloice is a writer in San Francisco, a member of the National Coordinating Committee of the Committees of Correspondence for Democracy and Socialism and formerly worked for a healthcare union.

The Senate Finance Committee Takes Up Health Reform

Fri, 25 Sep 2009 03:55:00 +0000

9-24-09, 11:33 am

Original source:Coalition on Human Needs

At last, the Senate Finance Committee (SFC) has put forth its health proposal and began marking up and debating the proposal on September 22. It is the last of the five committees in the House and Senate with jurisdiction over health care reform to consider legislative language. For months now Chairman Max Baucus (D-MT) had been in negotiations with five other SFC Senators - Jeff Bingaman (D-NM), Kent Conrad (D-ND), Michael Enzi (R-WY), Chuck Grassley (R-IA), and Olympia Snowe (R-ME) – hoping to devise a bipartisan proposal. However, with time running short on the Congressional calendar and no clear indication that the Gang of Six would be able to reach consensus, Senator Baucus decided to move ahead and introduce his own bill. Thus far, Senators Grassley and Enzi have said they would not support it. Senator Snowe could be the only Republican on the Finance Committee to vote for the legislation. She and a handful of centrist Senators issued a statement on September 17 expressing cautious support for the bill.

The bill Senator Baucus released on September 16 would cost $774 billion and reduce the deficit by $49 billion over a decade, according to the Congressional Budget Office (CBO). The bill is financed almost entirely by cost savings – primarily in Medicare - and revenue increases within the health sector. The revenue raisers include annual fees on insurance companies, pharmaceutical manufacturers, makers of medical devices and clinical laboratories starting in 2010; and a new non-deductible 35 percent excise tax on the value of insurance plans that exceed $8,000 a year for individuals and $21,000 for families, starting in 2013. Although this tax on high-priced plans would be levied on insurers, critics argue that insurance companies are likely to pass on these costs to consumers. Like the House’s H.R. 3200 and the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions (HELP) Committee’s plan, the Baucus proposal would establish health insurance exchanges where uninsured individuals will be able to shop for health plans. But unlike these other proposals, which would create a new government-run insurance plan to compete with private insurers, the Baucus plan instead opts for establishing consumer-owned nonprofit health cooperatives, an insurance model that the CBO has said is unlikely to establish a significant market presence in many areas of the country. Insurance market reforms to eliminate discriminatory practices and guarantee coverage for everyone are also features in the Baucus plan. New restrictions imposed on insurance companies would only allow premium rating variation to be based on age (limited to a 5 to 1 ratio), tobacco use (limited to 1.5 to 1 ratio), family composition, and geography.

In the Baucus proposal, four different plans with varying benefit levels plus a separate “young invincible plan” would be offered in the exchanges. Subsidies would be offered on a sliding scale basis to limit premium costs to 3 percent of income for individuals and families with incomes at 100 percent of the federal poverty level (FPL) to 13 percent of income for those between 300-400 percent of FPL. Workers with employer-based coverage will not be eligible for the subsidies unless the employee share of premiums in these plans exceeds 13 percent of income. Only U.S. citizens and lawfully present immigrants will be able to purchase coverage in the exchanges and qualify for subsidies.

Medicaid would be expanded to cover all individuals with incomes up to 133 percent of FPL. Adults with incomes between 100-133 percent of FPL will be able to choose between receiving coverage through Medicaid or with a subsidy through the exchange. In 2013, when the Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP) is set to expire, CHIP eligibility would be expanded to 250 percent of FPL and all children enrolled in the program would be moved into the exchange. States would be required to provide Early and Periodic Screening, Diagnosis, and Treatment (EPSDT) as wrap-around benefits for the children who would have been eligible for CHIP, services which would not be available in plans in the exchange. CHIP’s more generous limits on the total paid by families for their children’s health care would also be maintained.

There are also requirements for individuals to have health plans. In the proposal, U.S. citizens and legal residents would be required to have qualifying health coverage, otherwise they could face an annual tax penalty of $750 ($1,500 for families) for those with incomes between 100-300 percent of FPL or $950 ($3,800 for families) if their incomes are above 300 percent of FPL. Hardship exemptions would be given to certain individuals who are unable to afford coverage or who encounter other constraints. There is also a narrow and problematic employer mandate in the proposal, known as the ‘free rider’ provision. This provision would only require employers with more than 50 employees to pay a fee if they have low- and moderate-income employees who receive federal subsidies. The fee would be levied on both employers who do not offer coverage, as well as employers who do offer coverage but who have workers receiving subsidies because the employer plans exceed a certain percentage of their income. Employers would have to pay a larger fee for workers who receive subsidies for family coverage. This provision is highly problematic because it would create incentives for employers to avoid hiring or to lay off low- and moderate-income workers, especially those with children. Because racial/ethnic minorities and single mothers are much more likely to have low family incomes than non-minorities and two-parent families, the provision would have unintended discriminatory effects on hiring and firing.

While Baucus’ plan offers a number of significant provisions to improve our health system, various serious criticisms have been waged against the proposal. Issues of concern to the advocacy community, in addition to the free-rider provision, include making sure that children are not worse off when it comes to access and benefits as they transition from CHIP into the exchange; removing the existing five-year waiting period in Medicaid for lawfully-residing, low-income immigrants; eliminating onerous and costly documentation verification systems that often restrict access to benefits and services among U.S. citizens and lawfully residing immigrants; and ensuring that children and other eligible family members living in mixed-status households do not see their subsidies reduced or eliminated because of the immigration status of other members in their household. Although undocumented immigrants currently receive no federal coverage in any of the health proposals, there are strong economic, public health, and moral arguments that can be made for allowing them at least to purchase unsubsidized coverage in the new exchanges.

Another significant issue of concern has to do with affordability. Under the Baucus plan the required premium contribution from low- and moderate-income individuals and families is likely to be above what most of them can afford. Making matters worse, a Center on Budget and Policy Priorities analysis finds that the premiums in the Baucus plan would be three times more costly than under the House bill and nearly five times larger than under the Senate HELP bill. So for example, under the Baucus plan a family of three at 133 percent of FPL with a gross income of $24,312 would have to pay $1,132 or 4.7 percent of its income annually in premiums.

Some members of the Senate Finance Committee have been critical of the Baucus plan for not making the plan more affordable to low- and moderate-income individuals. Because of the push-back he received, Baucus released a modified proposal on Tuesday prior to Committee mark-up that reduced the tax penalties for not having coverage, increased the threshold at which high-priced plans would be taxed, and altered the definition for what would make an employer plan unaffordable so that more moderate-income workers would be eligible to purchase coverage through the exchange and receive subsidies. Despite these changes, some Senators are prepared to offer amendments to make the package more affordable to low- and moderate-income families.

Baucus has asked that the cost of all amendments be fully paid for by savings or new revenues. That requirement is prompting some Senators to make use of progressive changes to the tax code in amendments calling for improvements in the bill.

Timing

With over 500 amendments filed, the Finance Committee mark-up is expected to last through the end of the week. The amendments have been grouped into three categories. The Committee will first take up amendments dealing with the delivery system, then move on to amendments related to coverage and finally address amendments dealing with the financing of the bill. Senate Leadership hopes to have a bill on the Senate floor before Columbus Day.

US Should not Hamper Global Climate Action

Fri, 25 Sep 2009 03:37:00 +0000

9-24-09, 11:15 am

Original source: Global Times (China)

Thomas Friedman has a problem. As he describes in his bestseller Hot, Flat, and Crowded, while many activists advocate a low-carbon lifestyle in his Maryland neighborhood, he had to give up his attempt to install a couple of solar panels on his house because doing so is illegal under a local ordinance.

Astonished at China's high efficiency in carrying out the 'green collar revolution,' Friedman said, 'I sometimes wish that America could be 'China for a day' .'

Friedman's problem is the problem of the US, and of the world at large.

With the upcoming Copenhagen climate change conference less than three months away, global leaders, gathering at the United Nations Climate Change Summit in New York City this week, have a crucial opportunity to bridge their divide before hammering out a successor pact on climate change to the Kyoto Protocol at Copenhagen.

While Chinese President Hu Jintao is going to deliver a 'sincere and committed' message to the world at the UN by detailing China's environmental policies to fight global warming, the US government seems deadlocked with the American Clean Energy and Security Act, the proposed 'cap-and-trade' system to put a price on carbon emissions.

If US President Barack Obama fails to push strongly for the Senate to pass the domestic bill before December, how credible will the commitment be even if he signs a pact at Copenhagen?

It is certainly a welcome move for the Obama administration to change the shortsighted stance of the Bush administration on climate change, but to tackle the old problem, greater efforts should be made by the new administration.

China's firm pledge and prompt actions to responsibly take a low-carbon path for development has left the US in an embarrassing situation of shouldering the world's blame.

China has reiterated its long-held stance to share 'common but differentiated' responsibilities and its willingness to cooperate with other nations in fighting climate change, and will continue to do so at the Copenhagen conference.

Ironically, the other largest greenhouse gas emitter in the world has lagged behind, with neither practical domestic measures to address the real issue, nor substantial aid to help developing nations fight climate change.

The political mood of some US legislators is like this: An environmentally-friendly system sounds good, but is more costly. Why not letting developing nations take the leap into it and pay the price first?

But the longer we wait, the more costly the system will be. Our planet is so ecologically fragile that global climate action must be taken promptly.

In this critical time, with the world economy struggling to step out of its slump, climate change is not only a crisis that may bring disaster, but also an opportunity that may bring a 'green revolution' and propel the economy in a sustainable direction. Obama has realized that, and now enforcement is the key.

Friedman stated that in a world that is increasingly hot, flat and crowded, an overhaul of the groundwork must be done.

No nation can afford to hold up the global agenda of fighting climate change, which could bring catastrophic damage to all human beings. The US is certainly no exception.

Justice This Time Around: Will Goldstone's Report Deliver?

Fri, 25 Sep 2009 03:30:00 +0000

9-24-09, 11:09 am

'We may be witnessing the beginning of the end of the era of impunity,' Nadia Hijab, a senior fellow at the Washington-based Institute for Palestine Studies, was quoted by IPS in response to the findings of a 574-page report by a four-member United Nations Fact finding mission. The mission, led by internationally-renowned former South African supreme court justice and chief prosecutor in the international tribunals for Rwanda and Yugoslavia, investigated alleged war crimes committed by Israeli troops in Gaza in a 23-day bloody, unprecedented onslaught against a largely defenseless population.

But Hijab was not the only one who expressed optimism. Others did, encouraged perhaps, by the report’s use of terminology unfamiliar in a conflict where empirical experience has shown that Israeli actions, no matter how outrageously violent, will have no meaningful legal repercussions whatsoever.

Goldstone’s report, released on September 15, made some important recommendations, following a most thorough investigation that was carefully compiled by the mission – which was organized by the UN Human Rights Council last April.

One is that the UN Security Council should set up a team of experts to monitor Israel’s investigations of the war crimes committed in Gaza. If Israel fails to do so, then the situation should be referred to the Prosecutor in the International Criminal Court (ICC).

This raises many questions, lead amongst them is: did Israel commit war crimes in Gaza, and, second, is Israel capable of conducting an honest investigation into those crimes, considering the state’s bloody legacy and lack of any serious legal accountability.

Goldstone answers both questions.

“The mission concluded that actions amounting to war crimes, and possibly in some respects crimes against humanity, were committed by the Israel Defense Force,” Goldstone told reporters on September 16. He also said that the Israeli government has carried out no credible investigation.

Despite his recommendations that UN experts follow the progress of the internal investigation by Israel, and the Palestinians (since they too were accused of violating international law by lobbing home-made rockets into Israel, without taking into account the possible harm to civilians) it’s puzzling why Goldstone would think that any genuine investigation is possible in the first place.

Goldstone knows, as many of us already do, that the events in Gaza, which resulted in the deaths of 1,387 (other estimates put the number at 1,417, mostly civilians, including over 300 children), the wounding of thousands more, the targeting of an already dilapidating infrastructure (hospitals, police stations, factories, schools, and even chicken farms) of a deprived and besieged society was very much a political decision made at the highest levels by the likes of Olmert, Livni, Barak and other serial criminals who have tormented Palestinians for too long.

Palestinians were also chastised for rockets fired from besieged Gaza. Of course, Goldstone was not expected to justify or applaud the homemade rockets, or even underline their lack of effectiveness, as four Israelis were killed by rocket fire, during the period of the war. Out of the nine Israeli soldiers killed in the fighting, four were killed in friendly fire.

While both Hamas and the PA fully cooperated with Goldstone and his colleagues, Israel fully rejected the mission, refusing entry into Israel or Gaza, forcing the use of alternative routes into the besieged strip, through Egypt.

Israeli officials claim that the report was pre-written, rendering it biased from the start. They used the same predictable pattern of smears, redundant diatribes and predictable language.

Israel’s Foreign Ministry spokesman said the report created unjust “equivalence of a democratic state with a terror organization,” in reference to Hamas.

Following the good old democracy reference, racism kicks in. “We have nothing to be ashamed of, and don’t need lessons in morality from a committee established by Syria, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Malaysia and Somalia,” Levy said. Apparently dark-skinned people of the South are both incapable of being democratic or moral. Only Israel and her allies are capable of those qualities.

“The Goldstone report has set a new standard for equating the behavior of democratic nations and terrorists,” wrote Richard Sideman, President of the New York-based American Jewish Committee in a letter published in the New York Times on September 18.

The same disingenuous sentiment utilized by Levy and Sideman (how curious that both seemed to be using the same script) echoed by many Israeli officials and their lobbyists abroad, who went into crisis management mode following the release of the report.

But why should they care?

Could it be because Goldstone called on the 192-member General Assembly to establish an escrow fund so that Israel can compensate Palestinians in Gaza? Israel would never spend its hard-earned US tax payers money on such frivolous matters.

Could it be because the Human Rights Council is convening on September 29 in Geneva to discuss the report, and could call for its transfer to the Security Council, and even the ICC?

Could it be because the report’s findings might empower an already growing boycott movement world-wide?

Could it be because it’s much harder to doubt the credibility of Goldstone, to smear him as anti-Semite or a self-hating Jew?

Could it be because all these factors are escalating Israeli fears that the “era of impunity” is indeed over?

“Perhaps next time we set out to wage another vain and miserable war, we will take into account not only the number of fatalities we are likely to sustain, but also the heavy political damage such wars cause,” wrote Israeli columnist Gideon Levy.

One would have to wait for the next miserable war, the next massacre to find out whether Israel has learned its lesson. Until then, thousands of starved, desperate yet resilient Palestinians in Gaza continue to live in their makeshift tents, atop the rubble, which was once called home, awaiting food, cement and international justice.

--Ramzy Baroud (www.ramzybaroud.net) is an author of several books and editor of PalestineChronicle.com. His work has been published in many newspapers, journals and anthologies around the world. His latest book is, 'The Second Palestinian Intifada: A Chronicle of a People's Struggle' (Pluto Press, London), and his forthcoming book is, “My Father Was a Freedom Fighter: Gaza’s Untold Story” (Pluto Press, London), which is now available for pre-orders at Amazon.

9/15: Capitalism’s Attack on World’s Peoples

Fri, 25 Sep 2009 03:02:00 +0000

9-24-09, 10:40 am

Original source: People's Democracy It has been a year since the legendary financial giant Lehman Brothers collapsed on September 15, 2008. This global giant had weathered the railroad bankruptcies that rocked the USA in the 19th century and also the Great Depression of the 1930s. On this occasion, it became the first victim as well as the trigger that shot down financial markets globally, causing probably the worst recession in capitalism's history. The World Bank has explicitly stated that 2009 would be the first year on record since the World War II to register an absolute fall in world output. It has revised its earlier estimate of a minus 1.7 to a minus 3 percent fall in global GDP. During these twelve months except, for China (7.5 percent) and India (5.5 percent), all other major economies have seen a decline in their GDP. Despite having injected over 2.3 trillion dollars into the US financial system, its GDP fell by a minus 2.6 percent. Similarly, all the G8 countries have registered negative growth rates, Germany minus 6.2, France minus 3.0, Italy minus 5.1, Japan minus 6.0, UK minus 4.2, Canada minus 2.3, Russia minus 6.5. Among the emerging economies, Brazil registered a minus 1.3 percent, Mexico minus 7.3 and ASEAN countries minus 0.3 percent. According to the World Bank, nearly 100 million people will be trapped in absolute poverty in 2009 and 2.8 million more babies may die by 2015. The ILO has declared that more than 50 million are going to join the existing ranks of the unemployed this year. The real estimate is bound to be higher as the ILO relies on the data supplied by respective governments, many of whom are not counting the vast number of migrant labour losing their jobs and returning home. In USA alone the official unemployment rate has climbed close to 10 percent while unofficial estimates record 16 percent. In absolute numbers the unemployed have crossed the seven million mark in the USA. Such is the gloom that according to a Washington Post-ABC news poll released on September 15 2009, President Obama's approval rating on the handling of the economy dropped from 62 percent in February to 45 percent now. It is becoming increasingly clear that all the bailout packages have mainly helped the financial corporates to beautify their balance sheets and not stimulate the real economy for generating jobs for the people. As we have repeatedly stated in these columns earlier, these bailout packages always put profits before people rather than putting people before profits. This is evidenced by the fact that Goldman Sachs and JP Morgan Chase, the two financial giants that collapsed on the Wall Street have now emerged from the ruins, feasting on the monies they have received through such bailout packages. On the back of billions of dollars of taxpayers’ money, JP Morgan Chase has announced a record $2.7 billion profit in the second quarter of 2009. On the occasion of this anniversary of 9/15, many books have been published seeking to unravel the manner in which this crisis unfolded. One of these makes an analysis of the cyclical capitalist business cycle in the entire history of capitalism. It shows that in the aftermath of an average crisis asset prices fall sharply, real housing prices fall on an average by 36 percent over six years, equity prices by 56 percent over three and a half years. Unemployment tends to rise by seven percentage points during the down phase of the cycle, which on average lasts four years. Government debt increases by 86 percent. GDP falls by over 9 percent on the average, and typically takes ten years to return to what it was before the crisis. This is the history of an ‘average’ crisis. What we are witnessing is much worse than an average crisis. Under these circumstances, it would be naive to exude confidence of a visible turn-around in the global economy. Such optimism being exuded by the prime minister and the Planning Commission could well be a case of gross overestimation of the Indian economy. During this year India's growth plummeted from over 8 percent to 5.5 percent. During the first quarter of 2009 industrial growth was 0.3 percent compared to 6 percent in the last quarter of 2008. India's exports fell from a 10.4 percent growth in September 2008 to minus 33.2 percent in the first quarter of 2009. Over 30 lakh (3 million) jobs are estimated to be lost in the organized sector alone by the end of 2009. Nearly 12 lakh jobs have already been lost in the export oriented sectors. In the unorganized sector the job loss is bound to be much higher. In addition are those lakhs of people returning from abroad having lost their jobs there particularly in the Gulf. Like elsewhere in the world, in India too the stimulus packages announced by the government have helped the corporates to emerge from the crisis but have not helped to stimulate the real economy into generating a larger number of jobs. We have in the past analyzed that the relative resilience shown by the Indian economy in the wake of the global recession has been due to two specific factors: the prevention of greater financial liberalization by the Left under the UPA-I government and the injection of huge liquidity into the economy due to the sixth pay commission and the fifteenth general elections. The latter is a one off expenditure which cannot sustain expanding domestic demand in the future to maintain higher levels of production. This can happen only if a quantum leap is made in the levels of public investment which would lead both to the building of the much needed economic and social infrastructure in the country as well as generate new employment. Instead, as we have seen, the budget papers for this year inform us that as much as Rs 4.18 lakh crore ($87 billion) were foregone as tax collection last year as a result of various tax concessions. While continuing these concessions the government has now abolished surcharge on corporate tax and increased the exemption limit for income tax giving an additional bonanza of Rs 10,000 crore ($2 billion). Thus Rs 4.28 lakh crore ($89 billion) are the amount that is being foregone by the government's own admission. This is being done under the presumption that with greater availability of capital, the corporate world would expand its activities and thus stimulate the economy. There is a fundamental flaw in this reasoning. No amount of availability of capital can stimulate the economy unless there are people who have the purchasing power to consume what is produced. Instead, if this amount of money was put into direct public investment for building our infrastructure, the consequent job creation would have vastly increased the purchasing power of the people and thereby stimulated the economy. However, like everywhere else, as is the internal logic of capitalism, the governments have stepped in to shore up the corporates through various bailout and stimulus packages rather than bailing out the people through increased public investment. This is clearly reflected in the performance of the top Indian firms (BSE 200) during this year since the collapse of Lehman Brothers. In the last quarter of 2008 the income of these firms rose by 12.8 percent while their net profits declined by minus 17.6 percent. In the first quarter of 2009, while their income grew by a minuscule 0.2 percent, their net profits jumped by 28.6 percent. In the second quarter of 2008, their income declined by minus 7 percent, yet the net profits rose by 20.7 percent. Clearly, while the economic activity is contracting, leading to unemployment and misery for the people, they continue to reap super profits thanks to ‘bailout packages. Such is the logic of capitalism that puts profits before the people. It is thus imperative that popular struggles must be strengthened to force our government to adopt policies that put people before profits by vastly expanding public investments.

Public Option Needed to Rein in Insurance Premiums

Fri, 25 Sep 2009 02:30:00 +0000

9-24-09, 10:08 am

While wage growth, impacted by inflation, has eroded steadily over the past decade, the cost of a typical health insurance plan has grown as much as 150 percent, a new report put out by the Obama administration revealed this week. In 2008, for example, prices of consumer goods fell by .7 percent, while insurance premiums dug deep into take home pay by growing 5.5 percent.

Health insurance consumers can expect a similar pattern in 2009.

Putting the issue in stark terms, the report stated, 'Consumers ultimately bear the brunt of costs as increases in hospital, physician, drug, and health plan spending are all passed down the value chain to American families, employers and the government who pay the bills.'

The report also examined the impact of out-of-control insurance premiums on working families in each state. In the past decade for example, Alaskan working families saw the cost of a typical family premium grow more than four times faster than their wages.

Working families in South Carolina, Iowa, Wyoming, Oregon, Montana, Maine and Arizona, for example, also saw insurance premiums grow 2.6 to three times faster than wages, the White House report revealed.

Despite big profits margins, Maine's Anthem Blue Cross Blue Shield, Washington's Regence Blue Shield, and Blue Cross Blue Shield of Rhode Island each demanded double digit rises in the price of family premiums in 2008 in each of those states.

A separate report prepared by the Department of Health and Human Services earlier this summer explained why insurance premiums seem to grow unchecked. According to data compiled in that study showed that numerous states have one or two or just three big insurance companies dominating the market in each state, holding virtual monopolies, setting conditions of coverage and establishing price increases.

The White House report argued that reform measures currently under debate in Congress would regulate the insurance industry and prevent such exorbitant rises in the cost of premiums.

By eliminating discriminatory practices such as canceling coverage due to 'preexisting conditions' or because a consumer is deemed too costly to cover, new consumer protections could reign in the cost of health care and insurance. Reform proposals also include limits on out-of-pocket expenses, protections for retirees on Medicare, prohibition on lifetime caps on coverage and the creation of new coverage for preventive care.

In addition, the administration has argued, the construction of a public insurance program as one of the possible choices for consumers would expand coverage to millions of uninsured people and bring market pressures to bear on private insurance companies to provide benchmarks for coverage and best practices that would bring price inflation under control.

Yale University Professor Jacob Hacker, in a recent report advocating the public insurance option along with insurance regulation, wrote that the public program is essential to make reform work. The public option must 'provide a backup option offering health and financial security to individuals without employer coverage, a cost and quality benchmark, and a cost-control backstop that drives payment and delivery system reform.'

Alternatives to this, Hacker told reporters on a recent conference call, such as the proposed non-profit cooperatives in the Senate Finance Committee's current health bill, simply aren't large or universal enough and therefore would be ineffective competitors with private insurance companies to force them to change their ways.