Articles » peoplesworld

In wake of judge’s ruling, immigrant rights protests continue

Emile Schepers — Thu, 29 Jul 2010 16:51:00 -0400

Federal Judge Susan R. Bolton ordered the delay of the implementation of major parts of the controversial Arizona anti-immigrant law, SB 1070, the day before the law was scheduled to go into force -- July 29. Suits by the U.S. Department of Justice, the American Civil Liberties Union, the Mexican American Defense and Education Fund (MALDEF) and an individual Arizona policeman had called for the law to be struck down as unconstitutional.

The Obama administration suit had asserted that the Arizona law interfered with the federal authority to regulate all matters concerning immigration by requiring police officers to check the immigration status of anybody whom they stopped for any reason, if they had reason to suspect that the person might be in the country illegally.

Among other things, the administration argued in Judge Bolton's court that for Arizona, possibly followed by other states, to do this would overburden the resources of the federal agency that deals with undocumented immigration, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), and force it to adopt priorities for arrests and deportations determined by the states and not those mandated by the federal government.

The administration also argued that the Arizona law would interfere with U.S. diplomatic relations with Mexico and other countries, another federal prerogative.

Arizona had argued that the federal government already works with Arizona and other states to deport people identified by state and local police through the federal 287 g and Secure Communities Programs shows that the state is only trying to help the feds.

In her injunction, which is not a final ruling on the constitutionality of SB 1070, Judge Bolton went beyond what the administration had emphasized, and also highlighted the danger that the law would lead to harassment of legal residents and U.S. citizens whom police might "suspect" were undocumented.

So she enjoined Arizona from enforcing three parts of SB 1070 until a final ruling is made:

The requirement that police ask for immigration documentation from all people they come in contact with if they have a reason to suspect they may be undocumented.
The stipulation that immigrants in Arizona must carry papers proving their right to be in the country at all times.
The prohibition on undocumented immigrants soliciting employment on the street.

However, she allowed a part of the law to go into force which forbids cities in Arizona from acting as "sanctuaries," where local officials will not cooperate with immigration enforcement efforts.

The ruling was sharply criticized by Arizona Governor Brewer and other Republicans, as well as some conservative Democrats. Arizona will appeal the law.

It remains to be seen what impact the ruling will have on other states that have been contemplating similar laws.

Though the ruling was widely hailed as a victory by the immigrants' rights movement, protests and lobbying continue toward the goal of a comprehensive immigration reform that would allow an estimated 11 to 12 million undocumented immigrants in the country to gain legal status.

On Wednesday, July 28, several hundred children and adult supporters, singing, "Born in the USA, don't take my mama and papa away," marched in front of the White House to highlight the plight of U.S. citizen children whose non-citizen parents have been deported, or who are in danger of deportation. It is believed that there are about 4 million minor U.S. citizen children of undocumented immigrants in the country.

The marchers were demanding a moratorium on such deportations until a legislative solution is in place. Among the marchers was 10 year old Saul Arellano, son of Elvira Arellano who spend a year in sanctuary in a Chicago church to protest immigration policies.

Also present was 13-year-old Kyle Segura, whose sister was killed while serving in the U.S. military, and whose father now faces deportation.

The march, organized by La Familia Latina Unida, CASA de Maryland and other groups from a dozen states, was addressed by political leaders, including U.S. Representative Luis Gutierrez, D-Ill.

Gutierrez praised the DREAM Act, which allows for legalization of undocumented youth who attend college or serve in the military, and the AgJobs Act, which would facilitate legalization of some farm workers, but pointed out that many would not be covered by these acts and promised to go on fighting until a comprehensive reform is achieved.

Photo: A file photo of Elvira and Saul Arellano in sanctuary in Chicago.

Teachers, parents protest school layoffs

Pepe Lozano — Thu, 29 Jul 2010 16:31:00 -0400

CHICAGO - Nearly a hundred teachers, parents, students, labor leaders and community activists rallied at the Chicago Board of Education building here July 28 against recent massive teacher layoffs.

Last week Chicago Public Schools sent out 600 layoff notices to 400 teachers and 200 staff at elementary schools. Last month, 239 teachers who were not assigned to a specific school were also laid off.

In all, up to 1,500 Chicago teachers may lose their jobs before the school year begins.

The Chicago Teachers Union said the cuts are unacceptable and are demanding their members be hired back.

"Educators who work on the front lines are not willing to accept these measures," said CTU Vice President Jesse Sharkey. "We're going to speak out and defend public education and we don't buy the argument that our society is too poor to afford good schools. This is everybody's struggle now."

The cuts are part of the school district's effort to address a $370 million budget shortfall. High school classes are being increased from 28 to 33 students, and programs including world languages, bilingual education, gifted and after school programs are on the chopping block.

Gertrude Williams said she is one of the teachers who were recently laid off.

"We're concerned about our schools and teachers are bitter," she said. "Some have over 20 years on the job and now fired."

Williams said she has a message for Mayor Richard Daley and the Board of Education.

"You set these policies and we followed your rules. And this is how you reward us?"

Mary Maloney said she, too, recently got the pink slip and has been a teacher for 20 years.

"It's not really about the money, it's about power," said Maloney. "They're trying to pressure the CTU to avoid a four percent raise in our contract. It's about union busting and privatizing our schools."

Maloney notes most teachers are underpaid and overworked. "In the summer most of us have to get jobs just to make ends meet," she said.

Others said teachers are so discouraged they some want to leave the profession altogether.

Schools chief Ron Huberman has blamed the union for a portion of the cuts, saying $135 million could be saved if they agreed to relinquish promised four percent pay raises.

However, CTU officials claim teachers have already made concessions, including hits to their pensions.

Community groups, along with the union, continue to demand schools be reimbursed by tax dollars that have been diverted by TIFs (tax increment financing zones). TIFs are part of a controversial, so-called urban renewal program, wherein the property taxes that go to schools and parks are frozen and any increases over the next 23 years are funneled to private development.

Critics note in Chicago, most of the city, including wealthy downtown neighborhoods, is covered by TIFs, which are supposed to be a tool used only in "blighted" areas.

The CTU contends as much as half a billion a year that should have gone in part to schools was diverted by TIFs. Community leaders say the money often ends up in the hands of politically connected developers and other private for-profit projects.

Jorge Ramirez, leader with the Chicago Federation of Labor was at the rally to support the teachers.

"Cost savings is not a good approach to collective bargaining and what is needed is an open and constructive dialogue that's transparent to foster good participation on both sides," he said. "And the leadership of the CTU has offered good suggestions to help get the budget in line."

Susan Hurley, executive director of Chicago Jobs with Justice, said raising class sizes to 33 pupils is inexcusable.

"It's just babysitting at that point," she said. "Our schools need more teachers not fewer. Public education is a fundamental right and it's equally important to maintain unions there."

Educators and youth advocates say increasing class sizes and cutting programs is detrimental to low-income communities especially given the deadly violence that has plagued Chicago public school students in recent years. After school programs are commonly know as safe spaces for young people and alternatives to gang activity.

Carlos Fernandez, with the Chicago Alliance of Charter Teachers and Staff Local 4343, said during an economic crisis, teachers are crucial to community development.

"More layoffs only threaten the economic stability of already struggling communities and such policies are a bad investment," he said.

Photo: Outside Chicago's City Hall, teachers and allies walk a picketline protesting layoffs, bigger classes and program cuts, July 28. (John Bachtell/PW)

SEIU, Unite Here settle dispute

John Wojcik — Thu, 29 Jul 2010 16:15:00 -0400

The Service Employees International Union and Unite Here, two of the nation's most influential unions, this week announced a settlement that brings to an end a dispute that has troubled the labor movement for over a year.

SEIU represents workers in health care, public services and property services while Unite Here represents workers in the hotel, hospitality, restaurant and gaming industries.

Disagreement between the two unions came to a head in early 2009 when the part of Unite Here that represents workers in the "needle trades" and laundries formed Workers United, an entity that then joined SEIU.

The leadership of Workers United was part of the old garment workers union that had merged with the hotel workers to form Unite Here in 2005.

The merger, for a variety of reasons, encountered problems and in February 2009, Unite Here President Bruce Raynor, who was about to be removed from his post, walked out with a significant portion of the membership and finances, forming the Workers United Group, which affiliated with SEIU.

A major issue has been who would get ultimate control of the Amalgamated Bank, which with $5 billion in assets, is the only union-run bank in the United States. The bank was originally set-up by the garment workers union.

Under the agreement between the SEIU and Unite Here, SEIU's Workers United gets control of the bank. Unite Here gets control of the union's 28-story office building in New York, valued at $85 million.

Unite Here will also get control of $75 million in funds the two sides have been disputing, money that had been frozen by a federal judge.

Another important part of the agreement is that SEIU has agreed that for the next 24 years it will not compete with Unite Here in the unionization of hotel and gaming workers anywhere in the U.S., Canada or Puerto Rico.

This piece of the agreement is significant for Unite Here because the hospitality and gaming industries are rapid growth industries. This leaves room for a significant growth in Unite Here's membership.

SEIU, with more than 2 million members, is already one of the nation's fastest growing unions.

While Workers United appears to have gotten the better financial deal, the trades and laundry industries it represents are seen as much slower growth industries and more difficult to organize.

Unite Here President John Wilhelm said, "I credit SEIU President Mary Kay Henry for personally devoting her energy to making this agreement."

For SEIU's Henry, it's a matter of focusing on the bigger issues.

"We cannot be spending our time fighting one another over workers who are already represented when there are far too many people who want and need a voice on the job," said SEIU's Henry. "Our resources and our attention must be put towards solutions for the crisis workers face right now."

Henry added, "There are 26 million people out of work and far too many who are facing cutbacks, layoffs, and benefit reduction. This moment calls on all of us in the American labor movement to dedicate ourselves to being part of the solution."

Photo: SEIU President Mary Kay Henry, center, with others from SEIU. (seiu.org)

Marxism, truth, lies and politics

Phil Amadon — Thu, 29 Jul 2010 15:46:00 -0400

There are so many lies being churned out by the ultra-right corporate propaganda machine. It is difficult to separate fact from fiction. The Nazi propaganda minister, Joseph Goebbels, said the more often you lie and the bigger the lie, the easier it is to get people to believe.

With "climate-gate," the ultra-right seized on some email improprieties by several leading climatologists to further their ends (financed by big oil) to discredit the global warning models agreed to by the overwhelming majority of scientists concerned with the matter.

There is huge potential financial loss for some involved in the shift away from fossil fuels to a more green economy. And, of course, the nuclear power industry has tried to weasel in on the green label, to get their share of the money to be made on the shift.

So what is a worker to do, to wade through all this baloney?

An old Marxist organizer named Daniel DeLeon, active from the late 1800s up to just before World War I, gave an interesting stump speech when developing Marxist analytical skills among working people. He called it "the elephant and the blind men."

DeLeon's message to workers was that the truth of a situation or development can be understood by the fable of the five blind men and the elephant. The first blind man grabbed the elephant's trunk and said, "The elephant is like a snake," and he sat down. The second blind man grabbed the elephant's tail and said, "The elephant is like a whip," and he sat down. The third blind man grabbed the elephant's leg and said, "The elephant is like a great tree trunk," and he sat down. The fourth blind man grabbed the elephant's ear and said, "The elephant is like a large wing," and he sat down. The fifth blind man touched the elephant's side and said, "The elephant is like a great wall," and he sat down.

Each of the five blind men spoke the truth as they felt it. Getting ideas solely from individual experience sometimes can amount to this.

Theory is often times understood in American culture as just any old wild unproven idea. So, ultra-rightist demagogues can say, "The theory of global warning is just a theory or the theory of evolution is just a theory. It's not fact."

Marxism shows working people who study it that theory is in fact the careful summary of large amounts of experience and observation from different perspectives, summarized and consistently tested and retested and then reconfigured when new information is gathered. This outlook is reflected in all forms of genuine scientific search for truth. It is part of what is referred to "as the scientific method."

If one of the blind men in DeLeon's fable was a Marxist organizer, he would get everyone together, summarize the experience of all perspectives, and search out others who had contact with elephants, then gone to the library and studied the scientific literature about elephants, and without denying the truthful experience of each individual's contact with the elephants, summarized all the other experience and study together, to form an idea of the truth about elephants. Then he would be open to new information that would add to, modify, or update this body of thought. Only then could he say he had "a theory of elephants."

A common experience of many working people in our society is having been lied to by people in authority. I can still remember the ad in an old Life magazine from the 1930s that showed a medical doctor smoking a cigarette, and the ad said, "More doctors recommend Chesterfield cigarettes than any other brand. They promote relaxation."

My dad who was shot in the chest in combat in World War II-this wound destroyed one of his lungs-still smoked two and a half packs of cigarettes a day for years after World War II, shortening his life.

Images such as a doctors recommending cigarettes from the advertising industry, linking science and product development, has gone a long way towards discrediting the scientific method amongst working people. It's not surprising that a common working-class saying is "ideas are like (name your favorite body part); everyone's got one."

The theory of evolution was described in a lunchroom discussion, that I was a part of, as another "one of those goofy theories dreamed up by some egg-head whose never done an honest day's work in his entire life. The Bible's where the truth is at. End of story."

Global warming theory was described to me by another fellow worker "as another liberal idea that will make our country weak, and besides, they said on the radio that oil is being created all the time so all this crap about us running out of oil is just that."

The battle for scientific thought against reactionary ideas goes back hundreds of years. Galileo was put on trial for saying the earth revolved around the sun. A witch hunt is being organized by the ultra right against all scientific thought that doesn't fit their agenda.

Within the working class movement, we must struggle for the scientific method. Ultra-right ideas are fertilized and grow in the absence of the scientific approach to the truth.

I won a fellow worker over to openness to the theory of evolution by explaining to him the reason why his ill son kept having to change antibiotics was because antibiotic-resistant strains of bacteria were evolving constantly and the theory of evolution is the only way of understanding this, so that the doctors can search for the medicine that will help your child.

"Climate-gate" is an ideological diversion to distract people from the overwhelming evidence that global warming is here; it is real, affecting all of us and must be dealt with.

The Blue-Green Alliance is a developing coalition of labor and environmentalists around the country, begun by the United Steel Workers and the Sierra Club, dealing on a positive political level with global warming. Look the Blue-Green Alliance up, get involved, and defeat the ultra-right in the November elections, and keep doing your science homework. It's a matter of saving the planet.

Factory-scale medical pot production set

Marilyn Bechtel — Thu, 29 Jul 2010 13:23:00 -0400

OAKLAND, Calif. - With a City Council vote July 27, Oakland became the first U.S. city to authorize industrial-scale production of medical marijuana.

The plan, to take effect in January, calls for licensing four production facilities to grow, package and process medical marijuana, and includes labor, environmental and product safety standards.

The facilities are to be sited in industrial areas of the city. To qualify for a permit, applicants must meet guidelines for cutting electric power usage, greenhouse gas emissions and pesticide use. The facilities must pay the city $211,000 in annual permit fees, carry $2 million in liability insurance and be ready to pay up to 8 percent of their gross sales in taxes.

Supporters cite the problems of regulating and taxing existing growers, and safety issues when pot is grown indoors with improperly wired fans and lights.

Opponents worry that small growers will be driven out of business and that large-scale growing could hurt the environment, reduce quality and cut the number of strains that are grown.

Supporters also see industrial marijuana production as an important revenue source for the cash-strapped city.

Though pot is illegal under federal law, California is among more than a dozen states now allowing its use for medical purposes. California's Prop. 215, passed in 1996, lets patients and their designated primary caregivers to possess and cultivate marijuana for their personal medical use with a California-licensed physician's prescription.

The Obama administration has said it will not make enforcing the federal ban a priority when dispensaries operate within California law.

Alongside several medical marijuana dispensaries, the city also boasts the nation's first-ever "cannabis college," Oaksterdam University in downtown Oakland, which opened in 2007 "to provide students with the highest quality training for the cannabis industry." The school, which says its faculty includes "the most recognized names in the California cannabis legalization movement," says thousands of students have taken classes there, hoping to enter "the budding cannabis job field."

In May, Local 5 of the United Food and Commercial Workers union announced that nearly 100 workers at Oaksterdam University and its subsidiaries had voted overwhelmingly for union representation.

Calling the state's medical cannabis industry "a huge enterprise," Local 5 said it plans to continue organizing efforts throughout the rest of the industry, and said it hopes the employer neutrality that obtained during the initial campaign will continue.

Statewide, the UFCW is supporting Prop. 19, on the November ballot, to legalize possession of up to one ounce of cannabis for pot users ages 21 and older, and to allow local governments to regulate and tax it. The measure would ban providing marijuana to minors, and bar smoking in public, on school grounds and around minors. It would leave it to cities and counties to regulate retailers.

Prop. 19 doing well in the polls, 52 percent in favor, 36 percent opposed. At the same time, opinion is sharply divided among political leaders and activists. San Francisco District Attorney Kamala Harris, who supports medicinal pot, calls the ballot measure "flawed public policy." State Attorney General and Democratic gubernatorial candidate Jerry Brown expresses concerns about state-federal conflicts. U.S. Senators Dianne Feinstein and Barbara Boxer both oppose the measure.

The California Democratic Party and California Labor Federation are staying neutral.

On the other side of the ledger, the California Young Democrats are endorsing Prop. 19, as are the state NAACP and U.S. Representatives George Miller, Pete Stark and Barbara Lee - all Democrats. A number of retired law enforcement officials and judges also favor legalization.

Meanwhile, other California communities are also looking to pot as a revenue source. Berkeley has placed an initiative on the November ballot, to approve six large medical cannabis production facilities, which must meet basic environmental and organic standards. Sacramento voters will decide on a business tax on medical marijuana. And Richmond is considering allowing large-scale medical pot production.

Photo: A ribbon-cutting ceremony with Oaksterdam University founder Richard Lee, far left, and Oakland City Councilmember-at-large Rebecca Kaplan, far right. (Ryan Van Lenning/CC)

Jobs, labor and WPA's living legacy

Marilyn Bechtel — Thu, 29 Jul 2010 13:06:00 -0400

OAKLAND, Calif. - With official unemployment standing at 9.5 percent nationally and at 12.3 percent in California - and far higher in many hard-hit communities - interest is growing in the history and legacy of Depression-era New Deal programs like the Works Progress Administration.

At its biennial convention earlier this month, the California Labor Federation passed a resolution calling on the AFL-CIO and "all of organized labor" to fight for a WPA-type program "fully funded by the government," providing "socially-useful" work paying union wages and benefits. The resolution points out that the WPA and related government programs were "a response to a tremendous mass movement" throughout the U.S. It urges support for the Oct. 2 march for jobs in Washington, D.C. backed by the NAACP, AFL-CIO, the Service Employees International Union and a broad range of organizations and individuals.

The San Francisco Labor Council passed a similar resolution earlier this year, endorsing the April 2010 national commemoration of the WPA's 75th anniversary in Washington, D.C. and calling for "enactment of a similar bold sweeping jobs program today."

And at its national convention last September, the AFL-CIO passed a resolution urging "a Works Progress Administration-style jobs program to rebuild America's manufacturing sector and put 7 million Americans back to work immediately."

The country's largest employer during the Great Depression, the Works Progress Administration put more than 8.5 million people to work on projects ranging from public buildings to infrastructure to schools, hospitals and parks - to say nothing of murals, plays, music and literature - from 1935 to 1943.

The San Francisco Bay Area's month-long LaborFest has featured several programs celebrating different aspects of the work of the WPA and related New Deal government agencies including the Public Works Administration (PWA) and the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC). (Story continues below slideshow.)

Along with celebrations of the WPA's cultural legacy, tours led by participants in California's Living New Deal Project have highlighted public buildings and other facilities that continue in active use today, some seven decades after they were constructed.

Among many such public structures detailed on the project's website, livingnewdeal.berkeley.edu:

The Alameda County Superior Court building, in downtown Oakland, was built by the Public Works Administration. Today it houses the Registrar of Voters as well as the court and related government offices.
Several buildings on the Berkeley High School campus. The shop and science buildings were built by the WPA. The Little Theater was a PWA project. Bas reliefs were created under the Federal Art Project. Berkeley High School, with over 3,000 students, is the city's only high school, and is one of the largest high schools in northern California.
Berkeley's City Hall, the Martin Luther King Jr. Civic Center, was originally built for the Farm Credit Association. The six-story building is now Berkeley's city hall.
The Casting Pools and Anglers' Lodge in San Francisco's Golden Gate Park were built by the WPA. The complex has hosted several national casting tournaments over the years.
A number of facilities at the Port of Oakland, including wharfs, berthing spaces, railroad tracks and warehouses, were built with participation of the WPA, PWA and other federal agencies.
The Oakland-San Francisco Bay Bridge was a PWA project; the High Street and Park Street Bridges connecting Oakland with the city of Alameda were built with WPA and PWA participation.
San Francisco's Sunshine School, a PWA project, was originally a school for physically challenged children. It has been a continuation high school and now houses the Family Developmental center, part of the city's Family Services Agency.

With such a living heritage from projects that flourished seven decades ago, imagine the effect a new, massive WPA-type program could have throughout the 21st century!

Photo: The Martin Luther King Jr. Civic Center in Berkeley, Calif. (Marilyn Bechtel/PW)

Netroots Nation 2010: Continuing to fight for change

John Bachtell — Thu, 29 Jul 2010 12:54:00 -0400

Thousands of progressive bloggers and social media activists met at the annual Netroots Nation gathering in Las Vegas, Nevada July 22-25 and left determined not to allow the gains of 2008 to be lost in this year's elections.

Netroots Nation (NN), formerly known as the YearlyKos Convention, began 5 years ago as a way to gather those using the new communications technology to amplify their impact on public policy debate.

Today the gathering embraces trade union, civil rights and immigration rights, environmental leaders and policy makers and is a must stop for progressive elected officials and candidates, as well as Democratic Party leaders.

NN 2010 consisted of over 100 panels, caucuses and workshops ranging from the economic and environmental crises to the fight for net neutrality to the 2010 elections and how social media activists could effect change in each area.

President Barack Obama delivered a surprise greeting via video clip, which was enthusiastically welcomed. Obama said he shared the frustration with the slow pace of change felt by many participants. But he recounted all that had been accomplished despite fierce Republican obstruction.

"We're moving America forward and when we've come this far we can't afford to slide backward," Obama said, "Let's finish what we've started."

Van Jones of the Center for American Progress and formerly green jobs advisor in the White House delivered one of the keynotes. He warned participants of the danger of Republicans retaking power in November and what it would mean for the future of a progressive agenda.

"We have a ferocious backlash that will stop at nothing to bury everything you fought for and believe in," said Jones. "You didn't lay down for 8 years when people you didn't believe in were in office. Don't expect other people to lay down for you."

Jones urged participants to develop a new economic vision that would "put America back to work and pull America back together" while exposing the ugliness of the ultra right.

Jones said it is "baffling" that liberals are mad at Obama. "When you guys get mad at the president, I can't stand it," Jones said. "Barack Obama, President Obama, volunteered to be the captain of the Titanic after it hit the iceberg."

The conference also heard from House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., and Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev. Both addressed disappointment among that more progress hadn't been made and described the reality of the current political balance in Congress.

"The leverage has changed," Pelosi said, citing passage of health care and financial regulatory reform. "This doesn't happen in a Republican Congress. We must understand what is at risk when we go into these elections 100 days from tomorrow."

One of the major keynote sessions concerned "Building a Progressive Economic Vision" that included Deepak Bhargava Director of the Center for Community Change, Harvard law Professor and Chair of the TARP Congressional Oversight Panel, Elizabeth Warren and AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka.

Warren described the unraveling of regulations on Wall Street and how it coincided with the decline in incomes of American workers. Banks knew they could profit because families had to borrow to maintain their living standards.

Warren said the new finance reform legislation was the strongest in three generations and President Obama led all the way in establishing the new Consumer Finance Protection Bureau. Warren is under consideration to lead the new agency.

Trumka said the backbone of the strong post-World War II economy was manufacturing. Since the mid 1970s worker productivity has continued to rise but wages have stagnated. Meanwhile wealth has increased 400% among the top 10%, he said.

"It's been a conscious decision and strategy to put us on a path of low wage and high consumption growth," he said. Trumka called for rebuilding the manufacturing base by rebuilding the nation's infrastructure along green lines.

Trumka called for a financial transfer tax on Wall Street that would create $250-300 billion that could be spent on jobs creation.

"We figured out how to bail out banks and pay for wars. It's time for Wall Street to start to pay their fair share," he said. "We don't have a deficit crisis, we have a jobs crisis. 60% of the projected deficit comes from one thing - the George W. Bush tax cuts to the rich."

Sen. Al Franken, D-Minn., also gave a major greeting and recounted how the movement was built to oust the right wing from power. "Finally we got to the tough part (winning in 2008). We now have to fight twice as hard to keep what we won, let alone to build on it.

Franken, a former television comedian and talk show host on Air America, quoted Democratic Party strategist Paul Begala who said, 'this is a movement, not a monument. You can't sit around and admire it.'

Policing by skin color

John Rummel — Thu, 29 Jul 2010 11:50:00 -0400

A recent New York Times article gave the stark facts. Nearly 9 out of 10 people in New York City charged in marijuana arrests are Black or Latino. This is the case even though national surveys have shown that whites are the heaviest users of pot.

The top 10 precincts for marijuana arrests in the city averaged 2,150 arrests for every 100,000 residents. The population in those precincts is generally 90 percent or more nonwhite.

The 10 precincts with the lowest rates averaged 67 arrests per 100,000 residents. The population in most of those neighborhoods is 80 percent white.

The results are undoubtedly similar throughout the country.

An experience my daughter recently had shows how discriminatory drug enforcement takes place in other ways too.

She recently went to a Jack Johnson concert at Madison Square Garden in New York and, in her words, "there was a lot of maryjane in the air." (I'll admit I had to Google Johnson.) The police wouldn't have had to stop and frisk; the smoking was done in clear view. But no one was being arrested or told, "Take your smokes elsewhere."

If you can afford to pay big bucks for a concert ticket and sit in the air conditioned comfort of your Madison Square Garden seat, you don't have to worry about adding possession of drugs to your resume.

It appears you also don't have to worry about being ticketed for violating New York's no-smoking.

This free pass at concerts is pretty much a fact throughout the country - although what is acceptable can change with the venue. I think many concertgoers expect it to be part of the package when they pay for their ticket.

Are New York City and other cities afraid their tax haul will be lower if concertgoers begin to be arrested? Do concert promoters worry tickets will be harder to sell if there are crackdowns? A majority white audience of some 20,000 - as the NYC Jack Johnson concert was - has a large economic pull.

Whatever the reason, it is shamefully wrong and discriminatory to stigmatize people of color for a so-called crime when the only real crime is being poor and non-white. In effect you are arrested for "smoking while black or brown."

That arrest carries a high price that further stigmatizes its victims. It increases the burden one must bear in ways both big and small. It becomes even more difficult to find a job, further increases the cost of car insurance (because you'll pay even more with that arrest on your record) and much more.

I'm not advocating legalization or criminalization; I'm advocating an end to racism in our criminal justice system.

In New York City the stop-and-frisk practices police used in minority neighborhoods were cited as the reason for more arrests. In one such neighborhood an analysis by The New York Times found police conducted, on average, one stop and frisk a year for every one of the 14,000 people who lived there.

Ninety-nine percent of the residents were not arrested or charged with any wrongdoing. However when you stop and search people in mass, you are going to get arrests. You would get even more in wealthy neighborhoods.

This is policing by skin color. That's racism pure and simple.

Photo: PW

Obama draws line in the sand on Bush tax cuts for the rich

John Wojcik — Wed, 28 Jul 2010 17:52:00 -0400

President Obama vowed at a closed-door White House meeting with Congressional leaders yesterday, July 27, that Democrats will end the Bush tax cuts for the rich and continue the middle class tax cuts they enacted last year.

Rep. John Boehner of Ohio, the GOP House Minority Leader clashed with the president, saying the tax cuts for the rich should be extended.

Obama said that the Republicans enacted tax cuts for the wealthy ten years ago, knowing they would help fuel deficits that would be left for another administration.

"I wasn't there," Mr. Boehner claimed. "I didn't structure that deal."

The room reportedly fell silent as the Congressional leaders digested the statement by Boehner who was first elected in 1990. "How long have you been here?" a Democrat asked Boehner, as the room broke out into laughter.

The Republicans in the room claimed that failing to extend the tax cuts for the wealthy would kill jobs provided by their companies but the president said most small business owners would not be affected since they do not have high enough income to be taxed at the two highest rates.

White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs later told reporters that the president believes the tax cuts for the richest households - those individuals making more than $200,000 a year and couples with more than $250,000 - "are tax cuts that, based on our fiscal situation, simply can't be afforded."

New national polling shows large majorities against extension of the Bush tax cuts for the rich. In some polls even 40 percent of Republicans favor allowing the cuts to expire.

"That suggests that 40 percent of Republicans, who have been hearing the deficit hysteria since Barack Obama took office, are smarter than your average congressional Republican," wrote Joan McCarter of Daily Kos.

"Where was the growth that was supposed to happen after the Bush tax cuts?" asked Matt Yglesias of Thinkprogress.org yesterday. "The era during which Bush's tax policies prevailed was the first in which median household income declined...the worst peak-to-peak economic performance ever, followed immediately by the worst recession since World War II."

There is word on Capitol Hill, however, that not all Democrats can be counted on to back Obama's proposal for a permanent extension of the middle-class tax cut.

The Hill reported that an aide to House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer, D-Md., said Democrats were looking at "other options," including temporary extensions of the tax cut that would last more than a year.

Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus, D-Mont., has backed Obama's policy of extending the middle-class tax cuts permanently.

Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., recently said he was "open" to a temporary extension of those cuts "that could set the stage for broader tax reform."

Photo: Pres. Obama meets with bipartisan members of Congress: House Minority Leader John Boehner of Ohio, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi of California, and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid of Nevada, July 27, in Washington. (Pablo Martinez Monsivais/AP)

Judge’s ruling on SB 1070 hailed as first step

Pepe Lozano — Wed, 28 Jul 2010 17:41:00 -0400

A federal judge has blocked some of the most controversial elements of Arizona's immigration law, granting a preliminary injunction Wednesday, July 27, that prevents local police from questioning people about their immigration status.

The blocked provision required police to "make a reasonable attempt to determine the immigration status of a person stopped, detained or arrested" if the officer has a reasonable suspicion that the person is in the U.S. unlawfully.

U.S. District Judge Susan Bolton's ruling from Phoenix was in response to a motion by the federal government and came a day before the law SB 1070 goes into effect.

Bolton delayed parts of the law that required immigrants to carry their papers at all times, and made it illegal for undocumented workers to solicit employment in public places - a move aimed at day laborers. Bolton also blocked police from making warrantless arrests of suspected undocumented immigrants.

"Preserving the status quo through a preliminary injunction is less harmful than allowing state laws that are likely preempted by federal law to be enforced," said Bolton.

"There is a substantial likelihood that officers will wrongfully arrest legal resident aliens," she wrote. "By enforcing this statue, Arizona would impose a 'distinct, unusual and extraordinary' burden on legal resident aliens that only the federal government has the authority to impose."

She added, "Requiring Arizona law enforcement officials and agencies to determine the immigration status of every person who is arrested burdens lawfully-present aliens because their liberty will be restricted while their status is checked."

Linton Joaquin, general counsel with the National Immigration Law Center, in a statement said, "With today's ruling, Judge Bolton enjoined the most egregious provisions of SB 1070, a dangerous enactment that threatens the fundamental rights of countless Arizonans and visitors.

"Other states following in Arizona's misguided footsteps should consider themselves forewarned: Attempts to trample on the constitutional rights of communities of color in this country must not be permitted. We look forward to showing, through our lawsuit, that this pernicious law should be taken off Arizona's books permanently."

Less controversial parts of the law including those dealing with smuggling will still go into effect. Other provisions of the law are procedural and slight revisions to existing Arizona immigration statute.

The ruling is sure to set up a lengthy legal battle through the court system and is expected to end up before the Supreme Court in the next few years.

Republican Gov. Jan Brewer signed the measure into law in April and said the state will likely appeal Wednesday's ruling.

However critics say the law would lead to racial profiling, conflict with federal immigration laws and disrupt local police from dealing with more serious crimes. They note the measure would legalize open harassment of all Latinos, legal or not. People should not fear being stopped based solely on their looks or how they speak, critics said.

Since the bill was signed seven lawsuits have been filed against it challenging its constitutionality. The Justice Department also filed suit after President Obama and Attorney General Eric Holder condemned the law.

Federal authorities said the law before the ruling would create a patchwork of immigration laws nationwide that would complicate U.S. foreign relations. Federal lawyers said the law is disrupting U.S. relations with Mexico and other countries and would burden the agency that responds to immigration-status inquiries.

For years immigrant rights activists have said what's really needed is for Congress to work together and pass comprehensive immigration reform in order to address a broken system. If not, more of same is expected including draconian anti-immigrant laws like Arizona's and anti-worker policies nationwide, they add.

Other's note Wednesday's decision will continue to make immigration reform a hot-button issue as the midterm elections approaches.

Brewer is running for another term in November.

Her opponent Arizona Attorney General Terry Goddard, a Democrat, told the New York Times, "Rather than providing the leadership Arizona needs to solve the immigration problem, Jan Brewer signed a bill she could not defend in court which has led to boycotts, jeopardized our tourism industry and polarized our state."

Speaking to the Washington Post he added, "Jan Brewer played politics with immigration, and she lost. It's time to look beyond election year grandstanding and begin to repair the damage to Arizona's image and economy."

Meanwhile many argue despite the recent news immigrants in parts of Arizona are being swept up in droves. The Associated Press notes the Maricopa County Sheriff's Office -where Phoenix is located - has already forced the deportation of 26,146 immigrants since 2007, without the new law, totaling a quarter of all the deportations in the U.S.

Photo: A woman is led away after being arrested protesting against SB1070 Arizona immigration law in front of U.S. District Court, July 22, in Phoenix. (Ross D. Franklin/AP)

House to vote on crack-cocaine sentencing laws

Joe Sims — Wed, 28 Jul 2010 17:10:00 -0400

The House of Representatives may take action this week to drastically reduce inequality in sentencing between crack and powder cocaine users.

The Fair Sentencing Act of 2010 would eliminate mandatory minimums for crack possession, impose stiff penalties on big drug traffickers, and reduce the sentencing disparity between crack and powder cocaine.

Currently "a person with five grams of crack cocaine - the weight of two sugar packets - receives the same five-year mandatory minimum sentence as someone with 500 grams of cocaine, which is about a pound."

Harsh laws were passed in the 1980s at the height of the crack epidemic imposing stiffer penalties for the new and cheaper form of cocaine.

The Washington Post recently editorialized that the "The Fair Sentencing Act of 2010 brings fairness and sanity to this 20-year saga."

Most users of crack were Black and Latino. Mandatory minimums for crack possession led to extreme overcrowding in prisons and jails across the country. Class and racially-based patterns were apparent.

The old law "resulted in misdirection of federal enforcement resources to focusing on low-level dealers rather than the pursuit and prosecution of high-level traffickers.

According to the Sentencing Project, 55 percent of federal crack cocaine defendants are street-level dealers whereas only 1.8 percent are high-level suppliers." Civilrights.org notes that over 80 of those serving sentences for crack possession are African American.

Domestic and international drug suppliers will now be targeted. "The Fair Sentencing Act empowers a federal judge to fine a major drug trafficker $10 million on each count (if it is only his first offense), or $20 million on each count if he has any kind of drug conviction. These new fines - probably the harshest in the history of criminal law - both simplify getting the assets and ought to encourage the Justice Department to target drug lords who can pay such fines."

The new bill is the result of an agreement reached in the Senate where Republicans have long been an obstacle to sentencing reform. Senators Dick Durban, D-Ill., and Jeff Sessions, R-Ala., jointly co-sponsored Fair Sentencing Act, which passed by the Senate earlier in the year.

Benefits of the new legislation include reduced spending, to the tune of $ 42 million over the next five year and reduction in the transmission of HIV/AIDS. HIV prevention advocates have pointed out that "mass imprisonment is fueling the spread of HIV in this country. Obama's new National HIV/AIDS Strategy also notes the links between imprisonment and HIV."

Civil rights advocates note that some racial sentencing disparities persist in the new legislation but see it as an important step in the right direction.

Photo: (blmurch/CC)

Louisiana deals with new oil spill

John Wojcik — Wed, 28 Jul 2010 17:05:00 -0400

A new oil spill endangered the Louisiana marshes, July 27, a day after BP announced that Tony Hayward was leaving the company's CEO post, effective Oct. 1.

The spill was first reported Tuesday morning after a barge hit a wellhead in the Gulf of Mexico on the border of Louisiana's Plaquemines and Jefferson parishes, just 65 miles south of New Orleans.

Oil gushed from the well, 20 feet into the air, all day today. The well is sais to be also leaking natural gas. There were no official estimates of how much oil is leaking from the well.

A report on WWLTV in the afternoon said the oil was leaking into Bayou St. Denis, that it was not clear who owned the well and that a contractor who handles wild wells was on the way. Cleanup workers were booming up the area by mid-afternoon. Responders included the U.S. Coast Guard, Jefferson Parish police and fire officials and local boats.

Residents have been reporting an oil sheen in Mud Lake, north of Barataria Bay. This is an area that it was hoped could be protected from the BP oil rig disaster.

Mud Lake is part of a network of bayous and lakes north of Barataria Bay, an ecologically important coastal estuary where workers and volunteers had thus far been able to fight off wave after wave of oil spewing from the Deepwater Horizon well.

Officials expressed hope the new spill could be contained before tomorrow.

Evacuations are occurring in the bayou and civilian boats are being kept away.

Councilman Chris Roberts of Jefferson, La. said he had reports of oil in the marshes around his town and that skimmers were already at work trying to contain it. "There's a pretty good amount of oil flowing out there," Roberts said, though the precise amount is not known.

There were no reported injuries when the barge struck the wellhead.

One of the most serious problems connected with the new spill is that it has forced a halt to water traffic leading into Barataria Bay, the area through which oil-fighting equipment was moved inland to avoid last week's Tropical Storm Bonnie. The new spill could hamper efforts to redeploy that equipment to fight the old spill.

"We are now left vulnerable until we can reopen traffic and get resources back out there," Roberts said.

Photo: Oil spews from an abandoned wellhead in Barataria Bay on the coast of Louisiana, July 27. (Patrick Semansky/AP)

Americans with Disabilities Act hits 20 year mark

Marco Elizondo — Wed, 28 Jul 2010 16:54:00 -0400

Here's a brief summary of the Americans with Disabilities Act. It was passed July 26, 1990, and became effective on January 26, 1992. The law is made up of five titles that ban discrimination against disabled people within the United States.

To start off the celebration of the 20th anniversary of the Americans with Disabilities Act right, President Barack Obama signed an executive order establishing the federal government as a "model employer" of people with disabilities.

"We're going to boost recruitment, we're going to boost training, we're going to boost retention," Obama said from the White House. "We'll better train hiring managers. Each agency will have a senior official who's accountable for achieving the goals we've set. And I expect regular reports. "

The Department of Justice will issue two new rules protecting disability-based discrimination. This will prohibit disability-based discrimination by 7 million private businesses and more than 80,000 state and local government entities.

The department is also trying to make it easier for 9-1-1 call centers to accept text or video messages from disabled people. Movie theaters should also offer ways to offer movies with closed captioning. The use of more accessible office equipment and furniture, including accessible medical exam tables, chairs and scales and ATMs with audio could also be helpful.

"Our goal is to help level the playing field with disabilities to ensure that everyone has an opportunity," said Kareem Dale to the Washington Post. Dale is legally blind.

Eighteen months from now for the first very first time, recreational facilities such as amusement parks, gyms, swimming pools and arenas must be constructed so that it is compliant with the new 2010 standards. This will also apply to all new buildings that are built.

"Equal access. Equal opportunity. The freedom to make our lives what we will. These aren't principles that belong to any one group or any one political party. They are common principles. They are American principles," Obama said.

While the act has been "transformational" for tens of millions of people, more still needs to be done.

According to a press release from the Kessler Foundation and the National Organization on Disability many Americans with disabilities "are still struggling with many of the same lifestyle and economic issues they confronted in 1990 when the ADA became federal law."

Workplace discrimination still happens regularly and unemployment rates among those with disabilities are much higher than their non-disabled peers, experts say.

Photo: President Barack Obama greets guests attending a commemoration of the 20th anniversary of the Americans with Disabilities Act, the law designed to eliminate discrimination against people with disabilities and to make buildings more accessible by wheelchair, on the South Lawn of the White House, July 26, 2010, in Washington. (J. Scott Applewhite/AP)

White Sox fans say "Danks" you for the win

Marco Elizondo — Wed, 28 Jul 2010 16:36:00 -0400

The Chicago White Sox have had a couple of rough games due to poor pitching performances recently but that all changed Monday night, July 26, when they brought their game against the Seattle Mariners.

John Danks got off to a hot start giving up zero runs in the first two innings. However he wasn't so lucky in the third. Outfielder Michael Saunders hit a double. Catcher Rob Johnson bunted to advance Saunders to third. A single followed it from shortstop Jack Wilson, allowing Saunders to score.

The Chicago White Sox weren't nervous though and they rallied back. Shortstop, Alexei Ramirez hit a single than stole second base. Outfielder, Juan Pierre singled allowing Ramirez to score. Just like that the Sox came back and tied the game 1-1, but they weren't done yet. Third baseman Omar Vizquel also singled, allowing Pierre to score and the Sox took the lead 2-1.

"Whenever you score runs off (Mariners') Felix Hernandez, arguably the best pitcher in baseball, it's nice," Danks said to the Associated press after the game. "Watching him throw, he had Nintendo stuff out there. I can't imagine trying to hit some of the stuff he was throwing out there, but these guys do a good job and we have 100 percent confidence in these guys. We know they're capable of scoring runs."

Danks on the other hand wasn't too bad himself giving up only one run in eight innings pitched. He improved to 7-2 with a 2.83 ERA in his last nine outings. Danks is 3-0 with a 1.14 ERA in three starts against Seattle this season.

"He's got a huge heart," White Sox manager Ozzie Guillen said to AP. "This kid, just every time he's out there, he just fights every pitch."

The bottom of the sixth inning was all about the Sox. First baseman Paul Konerko hit a solo home run. Outfielder Carlos Quentin was walked. Designated hitter Mark Kotsay, hit what appeared to be a home run to deep right but was robbed by outfielder Ichiro Suzuki who showed us why he is a nine-time Golden Glove winner.

"That was pretty good," Mariners' pitcher Hernandez said to AP. "That was a good play. He saved me two runs right there. In this ballpark, any fly ball could be out."

That didn't discourage the Sox though. Sox catcher A.J. Pierzynski hit a double followed by another, giving the Sox insurance runs.

When you thought things couldn't get any better for the Sox or if you're a Mariners fan, any worse for Seattle. They did!

Quentin singled to shallow center. Andruw Jones came in as substitute runner for Quentin. Kotsay followed with a base hit. Brent Lillibridge came in for him as a pinch runner. Then Pierzynski hit a sacrifice fly allowing Jones to score. Then Ramirez at bat singled, scoring Lillibridge giving the Sox what would be their final lead at 6-1.

Relief pitcher Sergio Santos came in to close out the game and Chicago went on to advance a 6-1 record against the Mariners this season.

As a side note, some fans credited the win to a streak started by the People's World. The People's World held its fifth annual "Night out with the Sox" on July 26. "We've been doing this for five years and each time the Sox win!" said event organizer Pepe Lozano.

Photo: Chicago White Sox starter John Danks pitches against the Seattle Mariners during the first inning of baseball game, Tuesday, July 20, 2010, in Seattle. (Ted S. Warren/AP)

Bicyclist Contador crowned “King of Tour”

Vivian Weinstein — Wed, 28 Jul 2010 16:01:00 -0400

After 20 stages, 3 weeks and 2,200 miles, over cobblestones, up 6,000 foot mountains in the Alps and Pyrenees and speeding down at 100 kilometers an hour in relentless heat and baking sun; through rain, bad roads, crashes on oil slicks, injuries, illness and an ejection of one Mark Renshaw by the tough rules committee, 197 riders who began the world renown most physically challenging Tour de France cycling race were pared down to a very elite 170 men who reached Paris, July 25.

The last stage consisted of relatively flat roads ending with an insane sprint up the Champs- Elysees for the final chance to get the maximum points and win the sprinters' green jersey.

The green jersey continued to be a battle until this last sprint in Paris in which "Ale-Jet," Allessandro Petacchi collected the most points to capture the green jersey. However, in the nail biting last stage at breakneck speeds, the "Manx Missile," Mark Cavendish catapulted from nowhere to go over the finish line first, winning the stage and living up to his fame as the "fastest man in the world on a bike."

The Maillot Jaune (yellow jersey), the Golden Fleece of cycling, was won by Alberto Contador of Spain in what had been a daily duel with the "best young rider" from 2009, Andy Schleck of Luxemberg. He had no help from his brother Frank, who was injured in the earlier stages. Up the brutal Col du Tourmelat, Andy Schleck won the stage. These two top challengers for the yellow jersey equally challenged each other only eight seconds apart.

The next day in the time trial, Contador pulled ahead and won the tour by 39 seconds.

There have been few such closely matched opponents perhaps, since 1989 with the duel of American Greg LeMond and Laurent Fignon.

Before the last stages, Anthony Charteau had clinched the red polka dot jersey for "King of the Mountains" and there was no question that Andy Schleck was again wearing the Maillot Blanc or white jersey of the best young rider for the 3rd time as he took 2nd place in this year's tour.

It was fun to spend three weeks in awe of these amazing riders with nicknames like "The Little Prince" (Damiano Cunego); "The Can, Can Man Fabian" (Fabian Cancellara), also called "Spartacus," multiple winner of the time trial; and the "Silent Assassin," Denis Menchov, there when you least expect, who won 3rd place on the podium in Paris.

The most famous rider during this last decade, Lance Armstrong, a cancer survivor and only winner of seven tours de France came in 23rd in this year's tour. A large sign displayed by the French said "Hats Off to Lance!" He did not win as an individual this time but won as part of the 'best team,' "Radioshack" and stood proudly with his complete team of 9, all of whom had made it to Paris together. Only 8 of 22 teams made it to Paris intact.

To win at any point in the Tour de France, it is said you must have "fire in your belly!" I certainly agree!

Photo: Alberto Contador during the 2009 Tour de France. (hyku/cc)

Seattle City Council honors Will Parry

Tim Wheeler — Wed, 28 Jul 2010 15:43:00 -0400

SEATTLE-The Seattle City Council honored veteran trade union activist, Will Parry, July 19, for his "lifelong commitment, and work, to achieve social and economic justice for all the residents of Seattle."

With the entire City Council listening, President Richard Conlin read the proclamation hailing Parry for his "leadership, optimism, and humility" especially in founding the Puget Sound Alliance for Retired Americans (PSARA).

Conlin then stepped down from the council platform walked over and handed the document to Parry as a crowd of PSARA friends and co-workers applauded. Parry thanked the council, pointing out that his great grandfather, Byron Phelps, served as mayor of Seattle and his father, as president of the Seattle City Council.

Parry joked that his record in the low-hurdles set in 1937 at Queen Anne High School mentioned in the proclamation still stands because they later changed the way it is measured.

He voiced pride at PSARA's role in defending the vital needs of senior citizens in Washington State, adding, "I'm not through yet as long as I can string two words together, grammatically."

Parry was the first president of PSARA, and now is the editor of the PSARA's newsletter, Retiree Advocate.

Robby Stern, the current PSARA president said, "This public recognition of Will is richly deserved. Will has been an optimistic and determined advocate for progressive change for more than six decades. His leadership has sustained PSARA as a vibrant and cutting edge force in our community. We are pleased that the Seattle City Council is recognizing Will's continuous effort to make our community, our state, our country and our world a kinder and more just place."

Parry told the World he is as active as ever. He is a lifelong reader of the People's World, a member of the Communist Party of Washington State and an outspoken advocate of socialism. His current focus is the defense of Social Security.

When he spoke at the July 18 People's World picnic here in Seattle, he pointed out that Social Security is now celebrating its 75^th anniversary, "the greatest government program ever enacted."

He blasted "that damnable Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Accountability" appointed by President Obama and co-chaired by retired Wyoming Senator Alan Simpson, a rightwing Republican and Democrat Erskine Bowles. Both propose cuts in Social Security in the name of reducing "budget deficits," even though the Social Security trust fund is running a two trillion dollar surplus and adds nothing to the deficit.

The commission is the brain child of hedge-fund billionaire Pete Peterson, a fanatical advocate of Social Security privatization.

Parry pointed out the commission held 20 field hearings across the nation to drum up support for draconian budget cuts and attacks on Social Security in the name of deficit reduction.

"They stacked the deck but the instant polls they conducted right after the hearings showed no tide of support for Social Security privatization, cuts in cost-of-living adjustments that undermine benefits or extending the retirement age. That is very encouraging."

Photo: Will Parry, center front, receives a proclamation from the Seattle City Council for his work in the labor union movement and among retirees. (Alliance of Retired Americans)

American-made streetcars: Portland company rebuilds lost industry

Jacob Wheeler — Wed, 28 Jul 2010 15:25:00 -0400

(Apollo News Service) United Streetcar, a union company in Portland, Ore., and wholly owned subsidiary of Oregon Iron Works, has built the first American-made streetcar in over half a century. United Streetcar already has a deal in place to build thirteen of its streetcars for the cities of Portland and Tucson, Ariz.

The initial streetcar was unveiled in July 2009 in a ceremony attended by Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood, who called Portland the transportation, streetcar and livable community capital of the United States. "I believe this is the dawn of a new era for public transportation in the United States," said LaHood. "A new opportunity to claim ‘Made in America.' It's a chance to generate good-paying union jobs right here in the region."

United Streetcar, LLC was formed in 2005 after Chandra Brown, the company's president and a vice president at parent company Oregon Iron Works, made the startling discovery while talking to friends that modern streetcars were not manufactured in the United States - or at least not by American companies - and hadn't been for 58 years. Given the variety of complex products that Oregon Iron Works has manufactured since 1944, Brown was sure that the company could handle streetcars as well.

United Streetcar's ultimate goal is to provide modern streetcars to cities nationwide - Portland and Tucson are just the start. "Knowing the huge success of the Portland streetcar line, we were positive that streetcars were on the brink of exploding into a large and extremely viable market," said Brown, a 15-year veteran of Oregon Iron Works. "We thought that a separate website and company specific to streetcars would be the best way of reaching out around the country in this new marketplace."

Brown added that more than 65 U.S. cities are currently looking into implementing streetcars. Portland, though, is leading the way in public transportation.

United Steetcar's product is truly American-made. To meet "Buy America" requirements, at least 60 percent of the components had to be domestically produced by American companies. Brown says that United Streetcar's product is approximately 70-percent U.S.-made, with components coming from vendors in more than 20 states. The steel streetcar shell was fabricated in Portland; a company in Pennsylvania finished the trucks; a company just down the freeway from Portland provided the fiberglass; and the seats came from Michigan.

One part of the streetcar that is not American-made is the propulsion system, because currently there is no domestic manufacturer of streetcar propulsion systems. But this will soon change. In April, United Streetcar and the Tri-County Metropolitan Transportation District of Oregon received a $2.4 million Federal Transit Administration grant to work with Rockwell Automation to develop a domestically produced streetcar propulsion system. Once an American propulsion system is ready for order, the content of United Streetcars vehicles will be 90 percent U.S.-made.

"Instead of outsourcing jobs, we are ‘insourcing' jobs, bringing them back to the States," Brown said. "This is key to keeping Portland's manufacturing industry thriving, as well as promoting American-made products."

Photo: ApolloAlliance.org

War funding passes but unease grows

Susan Webb — Wed, 28 Jul 2010 12:55:00 -0400

The House of Representatives yesterday OK'd an additional $33 billion for the war in Afghanistan, sending the measure to President Obama for his signature. A record 102 Democrats, more than a third of the 255 Democrats in the House, voted against the bill, compared to 32 who opposed a similar war funding bill last year.

It reflected growing unease over the Afghanistan war, fueled this week by the WikiLeaks disclosure of 92,000 classified military files painting a grim picture of the situation there.

In addition, many Democrats said they were upset that the final bill dropped funding to prevent teacher, police and firefighter layoffs and address other domestic needs.

Among the Democrats voting against the bill was Wisconsin Rep. David Obey, who chairs the House Appropriations Committee. As Appropriations chair, he said, he was obligated to bring the spending bill to the floor for a vote. But, alluding to the WikiLeaks documents' portrayal of a floundering military venture, causing civilian casualties that alienate Afghanis, with top U.S. ally Pakistan also helping the Taliban, Obey said, "I cannot look at my constituents in the eye and say that this operation will hurt our enemies more than it will hurt us."

Obey, who is retiring from the House at the end of the year, told his colleagues he was voting his "conscience" to indicate "my profound skepticism that this action will accomplish much more than to serve as a recruiting incentive for those who most want to do us ill."

"We have appropriated over $1 trillion for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan to date. ... These wars have been paid for with borrowed money," Obey said. "But ... virtually everything we have attempted to do this year to address the economic crisis and emergencies on the domestic side of the ledger have fallen by the wayside."

On July 1 the House had approved a supplemental war funding bill that included a $10 billion Education Jobs Fund aimed at averting thousands of teacher layoffs around the country. It also provided funding for police, firefighter and other public safety jobs, Pell Grants for low-income college students, and other domestic needs. (See more information here.) Obey had been among the chief advocates for these measures.

But when the bill moved to the Senate, Republicans blocked action until the domestic spending was eliminated. Finally, House leaders, bowing to administration pressure, agreed to drop the domestic measures from the bill.

House Democrats say they will introduce separate bills to fund the teacher jobs and other needs. In an opinion piece in the San Jose Mercury News today, Rep. Mike Honda, D-Calif., who voted no on the war funding yesterday, called the failure to fund teacher jobs a "tragedy," and said Congress "can and should" come up with the funds "without cutting even $1 in existing programs."

Citing the crisis facing state education budgets around the country, putting an estimated 300,000 teacher jobs in jeopardy for this fall, Honda wrote, "If this does not qualify as an emergency, I do not know what will. How Senate Republicans can justify blocking $10 billion that would have saved 100,000 teaching jobs is beyond me."

During the House debate yesterday, Massachusetts Democrat Jim McGovern said the U.S. situation in Afghanistan depicted by the Wikleaks documents "is not a pretty picture."

"Things are really ugly over there," McGovern said. "I think the White House continues to underestimate the depth of antiwar sentiment here."

Earlier this month, McGovern had co-sponsored an amendment requiring the president to provide a withdrawal plan, including an end date, by April 4 next year. The amendment was defeated, but not overwhelmingly, and a substantial majority of House Democrats voted for the pullout timetable - 153, versus 98 who voted no, with 4 not voting. The yes votes included House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, who because of her position usually does not vote on bills, and other top Democrats.

"Our country is on her knees in terms of needs," Rep. Anna Eshoo, D-Calif., who voted for the withdrawal timetable, told Politico at the time. "This is money, this is cash, going for what?"

The final House vote on the war funding bill yesterday was 308-114, with 160 Republicans and 148 Democrats voting yes, and 102 Democrats and 12 Republicans voting no.

In addition to $33 billion for the Afghanistan war, the bill provides $6 billion for State Department aid programs in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iraq and Haiti, $5 billion for FEMA, and $13 billion in benefits for Vietnam veterans exposed to the defoliant Agent Orange.

Photo: Rep. David Obey, D-Wis., chair of the powerful House Appropriations Committee, said he was voting his conscience in opposing the war-funding bill. Above, Obey announces on May 5 that he intends to retire at the end of his term this year. (AP/J. Scott Applewhite)

Venezuela cuts ties with Colombia

W.T. Whitney Jr — Wed, 28 Jul 2010 11:46:00 -0400

Once again, tensions are rising between the right-wing, U.S.-allied government of Colombia and the left-wing government in neighboring Venezuela.

At a special meeting of the Organization of American States (OAS) on July 23, Colombian representative Luis Alfonso Hoyos echoed outgoing President Alvaro Uribe's earlier accusation that Venezuela was harboring rebel guerrillas belonging to the FARC (Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia) and the ELN (National Liberation Army). Hoyos called for international verification of Uribe's claims to be accomplished within 30 days. The U. S. State Department concurred.

Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez immediately ordered Colombian diplomats to leave Caracas, announced a military alert along Venezuela's 1,400 mile border with Colombia, and warned of possible U.S. military intervention. "Some time ago, Colombia lost its sovereignty. [It was] delivered," he said, "to Yankee imperialism."

Chavez threatened to cut off oil to the United States, should U. S. hostilities mount.

Hoyos presented photos and video and satellite images purported to represent guerrilla encampments. The material, according to the Colombian government, came from seized computers belonging to Raul Reyes, the FARC leader killed in Colombia's U. S. assisted raid on a guerrilla campsite in Ecuador in 2008. The diplomat accused the Venezuelan government of complicity with drug trafficking, money laundering, illegal arms deals and political repression.

Of note is that Reyes' computers are alleged also to have demonstrated additional FARC networks in Brazil and Panama. However, many are dubious of the reliability of the "magic computer" which has been used to claim FARC connections with a large proportion of the Latin American left.

The Venezuelan government and a bevy of international supporters attribute the burgeoning crisis to ongoing provocations mounted against an objectionable socialist government. Already, Colombian paramilitaries have intruded into Venezuela, Colombia has supported Venezuelan separatists, U.S. drones have flown over Venezuela, and assassination schemes against government leaders have been traced to Colombia.

Last year Colombia handed over seven bases to the U. S. military to enhance, according to official documents, U. S. capabilities of monitoring unfriendly states. In response, the Chavez government restricted Venezuelan commercial dealings with Colombia.

Latin American nations have undertaken to resolve the crisis on their own. Brazilian President Luis Inacio Lula da Silva, having expressed "surprise" at the Colombian action within days of Alvaro Uribe's departure as Colombian president, encouraged President Chavez to call for a meeting of UNASUR (Union of South American Nations) to deal with the dispute. Ecuadorian President Rafael Correa, the UNASUR president pro tem, obliged by calling for an "Extraordinary Summit" of UNASUR foreign ministers on July 30.

Crucially the United States looms large within the OAS, but is not one of UNASUR's 12 member states. According to Ecuador's Foreign minister Ricardo Patiño, the OAS lost credibility when General Secretary José Miguel Insulza staged the recent OAS meeting without consulting with individual national leaders beforehand.

Venezuelan Foreign Minister Nicholas Maduro has toured six capital cities to confer with counterparts. President Lula da Silva announced plans to confer with Venezuelan and Colombian leaders on August 6 and 7, respectively. UNASUR executive secretary Nestor Kirchner, formerly president of Argentina, has likewise announced meetings in both capitals.

Venezuelan Communist Party leader Oscar Figuera called for an international campaign to denounce the "lies and verbal aggressions the Colombian government, acting on behalf of U.S. imperialism, has undertaken against the Bolivarian revolution." Jaime Caicedo, secretary general of the Colombian Communist Party, believes the fracas with Venezuela serves the Uribe regime as a distraction from scandals, most recently the common grave site found recently in Macarena containing thousands of bodies which many believe to be the victims of government repression.

In public, President Chavez cited a letter from a U.S. friend warning of U.S. plans to kill him and remove his government. Chavez sees the projected introduction of 7000 marines into Costa Rica as part of a U.S. offensive against Venezuela. And following the OAS meeting, Chavez called upon Colombia guerrillas to give up on armed insurgency, which he views as "the main excuse of the empire to penetrate Colombia deeply and from there attack Venezuela, Ecuador, Nicaragua and Cuba." The insurgents are unlikely to assume state power, he suggested.

For Alfonso Velasquez of the Colombian CUT trade union confederation, President Uribe's version of national security is flawed: "Just last year, over 2,940 union and social leaders in Colombia were killed due to the inefficiency of the government in relation to security." And besides, according to rebelion.org writer Juan Alberto Sánchez Marín, Colombian borders are so porous that "guerrillas, paramilitaries, and common and not so common criminals" travel easily into Venezuela and four other countries.

Photo: According to BBC News, Colombians are forced to leave border towns or smuggle fuel and other items, shown here from Cucuta, Colombia, because of tensions caused by Colombia's decision to allow the United States to use seven of its military bases. (carlosfpardo/CC)

NAACP takes lead on Oct. 2 jobs march

Pepe Lozano — Tue, 27 Jul 2010 15:23:00 -0400

Mobilization is under way for a massive national march and rally Oct. 2 in Washington, where tens of thousands will demand jobs, immigration reform and full funding for public education and health care.

The demonstration is being organized by a wide coalition of civil and immigrant rights organizations, labor and faith-based groups and community leaders. Leading groups include the NAACP, the National Council of La Raza, the Service Employees International Union, the American Federation of Teachers, the AFL-CIO and the United States Student Association. Nearly 200 groups have endorsed the event.

The march is in part a response to the tea party movement's extreme racism, expressed by its radical members recently - especially its blatant attacks against the Obama administration.

NAACP President Ben Jealous is calling the march "One Nation" with the tag line "Working Together." It will be a mass gathering of civil and human rights organizations, but also grassroots citizens from every walk of life, religion and race, he said.

"If any of us are going to get our agendas through, if we're going to get the rights for workers down South to organize by passing the Employee Free Choice Act, if we're going to get jobs created, if we're going to get real resources for schools and teachers' jobs around the country, if we're going to get comprehensive immigration reform through, then we've got to all work together, all for one and one for all," he told the Charlotte Post.

Organizers note that since President Obama's 2008 election a series of victories have taken effect for working families, including the stimulus package and the Lily Ledbetter Act for fair pay for women. They point out that it was a broad coalition of groups that rallied together to support passage of the health care bill.

They say it shows that even during hard economic times, civil rights groups, student activists and union members can rally together and make up the winning formula to pressure Congress to pass major reforms that benefit working people.

But it has also became increasingly clear that racist attacks have escalated against the sweeping changes.

And joblessness continues with no letup, hurting all Americans and hitting communities of color especially hard. The jobless rate for African Americans is 15.4 percent and 12.4 percent for Latinos, compared with 8.6 percent for whites, they note.

"This is why we are calling for a great march on Washington," Jealous told the recent NAACP national convention. "The NAACP, along with allies and partners, will show America that the solid majority of this nation is ready and willing to fight back and ensure that all of the change that we voted for becomes a reality for all of our children. That ‘America the Beautiful' belongs to us. And that justice and freedom keeps moving forward."

Organizers say the Oct. 2 demonstration will focus on pressing for more government spending on job creation. They hope it will be a show of force to remind lawmakers and the White House that people demand economic recovery and real change.

"People are very excited," said Jealous. "The march is part of a broader civic engagement strategy to make sure we hold the people that they've elected accountable and making sure we get all the change that we voted for."

Jealous said the march will also be a rallying force aimed at encouraging voters to make their voice heard at the ballot box come November.

"We will be in Washington on October 2 and we will be at the ballot box on November 2," he said.

Photo: NAACP President Benjamin Jealous addresses a press conference during the NAACP convention this month. (NAACP)