the Voice of
The Communist League of Revolutionary Workers–Internationalist
“The emancipation of the working class will only be achieved by the working class itself.”
— Karl Marx
the Voice of
The Communist League of Revolutionary Workers–Internationalist
“The emancipation of the working class will only be achieved by the working class itself.”
— Karl Marx
Feb 19, 2001
On February 16, less than a month after he took office, President Bush gave the go-ahead for U.S. and British jets to bomb five targets, some of which were almost in the heart of Iraq’s capital, Baghdad.
Bush characterized the bombing as "a routine mission." Maybe to the U.S. military and politicians this massive and murderous bombing was routine. But it wasn’t routine to the Iraqi people, including two teenagers who U.S. and British bombs murdered. Nor was it routine for dozens of other Iraqis whom U.S. bombs wounded, most of them severely.
No, there is nothing "routine" about the U.S. war against Iraq. This war began more than a decade ago when the U.S. carried out some of the most massive bombing in all history against Iraq. Hundreds of thousands of Iraqis were killed. Much of the country was destroyed. In the years that followed, U.S. and British bombs continued to pound the country. Starting in 1998, the U.S. began to bomb Iraq several times a month and even several times per week.
The slaughter might have become so "routine," most of the time it is not even being reported on in the news in the U.S. But Iraqis continue to "routinely" die from the bombs, or from the hardships caused by a destroyed infrastructure. And the economic embargo that the U.S. imposed means that Iraq has had no chance to recover from this destruction, and the people continue to suffer from a lack of food and purified water, a lack of medicine and medical supplies. Day by day, month by month, the toll continues to mount–"routinely." Over one million people, perhaps as many as two million, have already died.
No, the U.S. is not protecting the world from weapons of mass destruction. It is itself pounding Iraq with weapons of mass destruction. And under the guise of stopping one man, Saddam Hussein, the U.S. is punishing an entire people and an entire region.
Said George W. Bush last week, "Our intention is to make sure that the world is as peaceful as possible."
No, the real problem for the Bush administration is that many countries, which once had supported or gone along with the U.S. war against Iraq, have for a long time wanted to end the trade embargo. The U.S. bombing of Iraq is clearly intended as a signal to these countries that the U.S. does not intend on agreeing to let them break the embargo, and that it is still the U.S. that is calling the shots.
As for the kind of peace that Bush speaks of, the heaps of bodies in Iraq are testimony to what Bush is referring to: complete submission to U.S. domination, economic and military. U.S. corporations and banks are among the largest in the world. In places like the Middle East, they literally suck the oil and other natural resources out and leave the region impoverished, the people living in misery. And backing them up is the U.S. government and military, which, as Iraq shows, is ready to carry out a war without end, a revenge without limits.
U.S. workers pay for all this with our tax dollars and our lives. Just ask all the thousands of U.S. soldiers who after returning from the Persian Gulf, after all the parades and yellow ribbons, confronted dead end jobs and a life of unknown diseases, deformed children, etc., while the U.S. government denies any responsibility or aid for the "Gulf War syndrome."
And for what? American freedom, as they say? No–this war was carried out for the freedom of the same U.S. corporations which are laying us off and cutting our wages and benefits, to continue to exploit the workers of the rest of the world.
With this spectacular bombing of Iraq, George W. Bush has signalled to the rest of the world that he is continuing the terrorist campaign carried out by his predecessors, one Republican and one Democrat, with the full support of both parties in Congress.
It is the duty of U.S. workers to say, "No More!"
Feb 19, 2001
George Bush got right down to business as the new president by proposing a 1.6 trillion dollar tax cut over the next ten years.
Bush, of course, claimed his tax cut would benefit everyone–the only problem is that some "everyones" get a lot more than others.
Forty-three% of the tax relief would go to the top one% of the families. Their taxes would be reduced by an average of $44,757 each. On the other hand, the bottom quarter of all families would get no tax cut, even though the poorest workers are contributing to the government’s surplus by having Social Security taxes taken out of their meager pay.
When Bush made his announcement, some "moderate" Democrats joined him in supporting his proposal. Other Democrats opposed it. But none of them went on TV to say that Bush’s plan was dead in the water, that the majority of voters rejected Bush’s gift to the top one%, as Al Gore repeatedly promised during the campaign. The Democrats, with 50 Senators, can block any bill from ever being voted on. Instead, they began saying they wanted to give tax relief too, but they would adjust the numbers, supposedly to bring more aid to working families. This started all the corporate lobbyists scurrying to push for still bigger cuts for their clients and the ultra rich.
We’ve been through this once before, under the Reagan Administration. Bush’s plan is a repeat of what was done then. Reagan’s tax cut was approved by the Democratic Party controlled House of Representative and Senate. Workers’ families received a small tax cut, while the richest families got gigantic tax cuts. The result was a very big drop in government revenue because of the whopping cuts for the rich, and so there was a gigantic increase in the budget deficit–paid for in part by enormous cuts in the social programs.
Under Clinton, the tax system moved in the same direction, that is, lower taxes for the wealthy. The actual tax rate for corporations fell from 24.5% to 21.3% of their profits in 1999. The capital gains tax that rich people pay on the stock market and real estate was lowered from 28% to 20%.
If Bush’s tax cuts go through with Democratic Party help–the only way they can go through–the very large tax cuts for the rich will mean less government money to aid the millions of laid off workers in the coming recession. This whole plan is a further gift to the rich at the expense of the workers and the poor, just another continuation of what’s been going on for several decades now.
But that does not mean it is inevitable. It simply means that the politicians of both parties think they have nothing to fear from the working class right now.
That can change whenever the workers begin once again to fight for their own interests.
Feb 19, 2001
As Clinton was leaving the White House on January 20, he gave pardons to 141 people. One of them was Marc Rich, a billionaire trader, who has been living in Switzerland since he fled the U.S. in 1983, facing charges of tax evasion and illegal trading.
Marc Rich certainly had a few things going for himself when it came to getting a pardon, besides his multi-millions. He had some pretty special lawyers. One was Jack Quinn, Clinton’s White House counsel. Another of his lawyers was Lewis Libby, now working as Dick Cheney’s chief of staff. And a third lawyer for Rich was Leonard Garment, who was Nixon’s White House counsel. In addition, Marc Rich has an ex-wife who has raised thousands and thousands of dollars for the Democratic National Party, given money to Hilary Rodham Clinton’s Senate campaign and to Willian J. Clinton’s library foundation.
No matter how much the politicians fuss about what Bill Clinton did under the influence of Marc Rich’s money, the pardon will not go away. Just as Gerald Ford’s pardon of Richard Nixon still stands; Bush Sr.‘s pardon of Casper Weinberger still stands, Jimmy Carter’s pardon of G. Gordon Liddy still stands. And when Bush Jr. gets ready to pardon, he will enjoy this little prerogative of office.
They all agree: presidents should be able to help their friends, especially the ones facing criminal charges.
Feb 19, 2001
In the year 2000, the U.S. Congress passed and Clinton signed the "Benefits Improvement and Protection Act," giving 11 billion dollars to HMO’s.
These billions were given under the pretext that the HMO’s would use them to increase benefits and reduce premiums for Medicare beneficiaries they enrolled.
But–surprise, surprise–only five health plans in the whole United States elected to use the money for Medicare beneficiaries.
Oh, this doesn’t mean that the others didn’t take the money–they all did; they just directed it to improve the balance sheets of their hospitals and to increase salaries to doctors.
According to Representative Pete Stark, Democrat from California, "We were flimflammed. We were induced to support this legislation after being told that the extra money would be used for extra benefits and lower co-payments."
If there’s any "flimflamming" going on around here, it’s by politicians who regularly claim to be serving the working people and the poor, while giving billions of dollars to the wealthy and the corporations.
Feb 19, 2001
The politicians call estate taxes "death taxes," scaring us since into thinking our heirs will have to pay this tax.
It’s not true. Right now children can inherit one million, three hundred and fifty thousand dollars tax free from their two parents. And spouses pay no taxes. By 2006 the current law says children will be able to inherit two million dollars from their parents without paying any tax on it. What workers’ children would ever have to pay this tax, unless their parents happened to win the lottery?
Today less than two% of all estates are subject to any estate tax at all. In fact, most of them already have innumerable ways to get out of paying their tax–the famous "loophole" affects estate taxes, like all others. And this tax takes sizeable amounts of money from a much smaller number of people in this country–2400 families, which make up the big bourgeoisie. These are families like the DuPonts, the Rockefellers, the Fords, and in the modern generation the descents of Sam Walton of WalMarts, the Dells of Dell Computer and the other new billionaires.
But not satisfied with stealing all the eggs from the hen house, these foxes want to take the eggs, the hens and the house, too.
Feb 19, 2001
Announcing huge layoffs and factory closings, DaimlerChrysler claims it is broke, losing 1.7 billion dollars in the last six months of 2000.
But, if you are a DaimlerChrysler stockholder, your dividends will be paid. The company happened to find a spare two billion dollars or so to pay the dividends.
What a relief–for the stockholders (who knew all along that this talk of billion dollar losses was nothing but a way to extort more concessions from the workers.)
Feb 19, 2001
William Daley is going onto the Board of Directors of Electronic Data Systems (EDS), the leading computer services company. He will replace none other than Dick Cheney, the new U.S. vice president. Cheney had gone from being Bush, Senior’s secretary of defense to the EDS Board of Directors and now to vice president. Daley, the brother of the Chicago mayor, went from being the head of the Amalgamated Bank of Chicago to secretary of commerce under Clinton and now to EDS.
In the political game of Musical Chairs, no one loses a seat; they just change their chairs.
Feb 19, 2001
In 1999, if you made less than $25,000, your tax returns were more likely to be audited by the IRS than if you made more than $100,000.
For the highest income bracket, that is, those making more than a million a year, the I.R.S. checked up on only one% of taxpayers in 1999–only half as many as were checked the year before.
But if you used a tax break called the "Earned Income Tax Credit," which is only available to single parents earning less than $25,000, your chances of being audited were excellent. The I.R.S. directed 44% of all audits against this one small group of taxpayers.
Even if it were true that all the people using the Earned Income Tax Credit were cheating–and it certainly is not true–all the government could collect from them would not make a tiny% of the amount that ONE multi-millionaire could keep from the taxman with both legal and illegal methods of avoiding taxes.
Don’t forget, the tax laws were written by that millionaires’ club known as Congress.
Feb 19, 2001
When the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe ceased to function in 1989, the capitalists and their supporters cheered. A whole area which had been deprived of the joys of the "free market" was now opened up–giving capitalism the opportunity to show how it could benefit 400 million people.
More than a decade has now passed–and we can see just what benefits exist.
Economic activity (as measured by the Gross Domestic Product, the GDP) has fallen by a third in this whole region of the Soviet Union and the former People’s Democracies of Eastern Europe. This is a greater loss than the drop in GDP experienced in the U.S. during the Great Depression.
The consequences are severe, as a report from the European Children’s Trust published this past October points out. "Since the break-up of the communist system, conditions have become much worse–in some cases catastrophically so. The economic collapse that followed the break-up combined huge rates of inflation with high levels of unemployment. The reductions in public expenditure which were made in the wake of this economic liberalization have combined with the economic collapse to impose a huge cost in terms of human suffering."
The effect on the people of the area are shown by statistics produced by the World Bank and the United Nations. Among adults, life expectancy has declined; tuberculosis has risen. One quarter of the population is unlikely to live to the age of 60. Tuberculosis, a disease which appears among the poor, has a rate of 67 cases per 1000 in this region, far higher than the rate of 48 per 1000 in Latin America. (The rate is 18 per 1000 in the rich countries.)
Children are even more at risk than adults. Infant mortality rates have risen to levels like those of the poor in Latin America. About 37 infants die for every 1000 births in Azerbaijan, as in Brazil. About 28 infants die for every 1000 births in Moldava, as in Mexico. And in the worst case, Rumania’s children who survive end up–180 out of every 10,000 children–in under-equipped, understaffed orphanages.
There were enormous problems for the population under the old Soviet system, which in effect was controlled by a bureaucracy which sat on the backs of the population. But it was a society born of a workers’ revolution in 1917. If the revolution was first pushed back and finally strangled by the weight of the greedy bureaucracy, it nonetheless provided a certain number of social safeguards for its people.
Today the people of the former Soviet Union and Eastern Europe suffer not only from the remains of the bureaucracy, but from ten years of the "free market." The oldest and youngest are left to drop dead–the first fruits of the capitalist way of life.
Feb 19, 2001
On February 14, a bus driven by a Palestinian plowed into a crowd of Israeli soldiers and commuters at a bus stop during the morning rush hour. Eight people were killed, of whom seven were Israeli soldiers. Seventeen more were injured.
The person who drove the bus, Khalil Abu Elba, is a 36-year-old father of five, who drove that bus for a living, shuttling Palestinian workers back and forth from the Gaza Strip, where they lived, to Israel, where they worked. In order to hold this job, Abu Elba long held an Israeli work permit that required a stringent security check.
This attack could very well mark a turning point in the Palestinian Intifada, or uprising, which broke out with renewed vigor only five months ago. Up until now, the Intifada had been carried out by young and even very young people. The fact that a Palestinian bus driver, who supports a large family, would choose to carry out this kind of attack could signal that the Intifada has spread to much broader sections of the population. We will see if still bigger parts of the Palestinian population, who supported the Intifada, have been moved to take up the active fight against Israeli oppression.
This may be why Shlomo Ben Ami, the outgoing Israeli internal security minister called Abu Elba’s attack "a bolt of lightening on a clear day." For the Israeli government and military may be faced with a much wider and broader uprising than the one which the Israeli state has not been able to keep in check, even by the vicious and brutal repression and the deaths of hundreds of Palestinians and the wounding of thousands more.
It is this inability to stop the Intifada which brought about a recent change in the Israeli government. On February 6, Ariel Sharon easily defeated the current prime minister, Ehud Barak of the Labor Party.
Less than two years ago, Barak himself had been elected in a similar landslide against Likud’s former leader, Benjamin Netanyahu. But Barak’s government was quickly weakened by its inability to control the latest upsurge of the Palestinian uprising which started about five months ago. So the Israeli political and military establishment now presents the election of a new prime minister as the possibility of a stronger approach to resolving the crisis. If anything, however, this election shows that the Israeli population doesn’t have any illusions in this change: the voter turnout was 62%, the lowest ever in Israeli elections.
Throughout his long career in the military and politics, Sharon, a former general, has made a reputation not only as a staunch hardliner but also as a murderous thug. In the 1950s, Sharon led secret raids on Arab villages in which civilians were killed and their houses were destroyed. In the 1970s, he played the same part again, this time targeting Palestinian refugee camps in the Gaza Strip. In the 1970s, as minister of transportation and infrastructure, he oversaw the expansion of Jewish settlements in areas occupied by Arabs. In 1982, as defense minister, he led Israel’s invasion of Lebanon, which resulted in the bombardment of cities and massacres of Palestinian refugees.
Sharon has become such a symbol of Israeli aggression that the latest wave of clashes between Palestinians and Israel was sparked off by his visit to the Aksa Mosque in Jerusalem, which Palestinians regarded as an open provocation.
So now this longtime "hawk" is brought in, supposedly because the policy of the "dove," as Barak was presented when he was elected in 1999, has failed.
The irony, however, is that Barak’s career has not been any different than that of Sharon. Nineteen years younger than Sharon but also a former general, Barak was involved in the same kind of raids on civilians as Sharon before him. As a member of special commando units, Barak personally participated in the assassination of Palestinian leaders. In 1982, he was second-in-command of the invasion of Lebanon.
In office, Barak the "dove" continued the same aggression that was carried out by all Israeli governments before, whether they were led by Labor, Likud or a coalition of both. He dragged his feet fulfilling the terms of the agreements signed with Palestinians. At the same time, he continued the expansion of settlements. He used the full force of the Israeli military, equipped with helicopter gunships, firebombs and live bullets, against Palestinian civilians, mostly teenagers, armed with stones and home-made Molotov cocktails. He made frequent use of his old specialty, the assassination, against Palestinian leaders–the latest one only last week against one of the top deputies of Yasser Arafat, the head of the Palestinian Authority.
So it’s obvious that the "change" at the head of the Israeli government amounts to nothing but a new face replacing an old one. Everything else remains the same, above all the policy of exclusion, aggression and repression against the Palestinian people which the Israeli state has carried out since its very inception about half a century ago, and which has thrown the whole population of the region, Palestinian and Jewish alike, into a permanent state of war.
The answer for the Israeli population lies not in the choice between two politicians upholding the same murderous policy; it can only come from the dismantling of Israel as a religious state and open it to all its people, Jewish and Palestinian.
Feb 19, 2001
(Translated from an article in the February 11, 2001 issue of Combat Ouvrier, (Workers Fight), a bi-monthly Trotskyist newspaper from the French West Indies.)
In the past week, soldiers of the Dominican Republic shot at a bus full of Haitian workers, killing two and wounding dozens. The same thing happened a few months before in the Dominican Republic–the soldiers don’t hesitate to murder workers coming to the Dominican Republic in hopes of a better life.
Each day, hundreds of workers try to flee Haiti–by sea, air or land. Most are intercepted and sent back. They say they are trying to flee the misery, the hunger, the unemployment, the insecurity. They are certainly fleeing a country where workers pay for the troubles caused by politicians fighting each other over the state treasury. They are fleeing a country of fierce exploitation where badly paid labor brings them nothing. Many who leave to try another way to live are peasants, who in Haiti can’t survive because the sharks rob them blind.
These Haitians come to the cities in hopes of finding work but they find nothing. They leave for the border with more false hopes. But outside the border of Haiti they discover the same exploitation, the same shameful situation wherever they go.
In the Dominican Republic, the sugar cane planation owners want field hands at exceptionally low wages. The authorities there shut their eyes, or they actually organize a kind of traffick in slaves at the border, so that the sugar cane owners will have labor at their mercy. When there is a need for less labor, the Dominican authorities promote a climate of racism and anti-foreign sentiment against the Haitians–which is what allows their soldiers to shoot at a bus full of workers!
The United States is also a place to which Haitian flee; the authorities there try to stop the constant arrival of Haitians on their shores. In order to get rid of these people, the U.S. government gives aid packages to the Haitian government–which aid never gets to the poor! So many young people feel they must risk their lives to try to save their families. So they try the hazardous route of becoming "boat people." They risk being killed or wounded by U.S. immigration authorities. They risk all kinds of mistreatment and humiliation, caught like animals in a trap, in order to escape.
Soldiers and their officers capable of murdering unarmed workers are certainly to blame. But what do we say about the bosses, the big exploiters who force the workers to flee? They may not shoot at workers themselves, but they leave workers shipwrecked, prey to murderers. They are the ones responsible for hundreds of deaths each year of workers fleeing the misery these bosses impose by their unceasing greed to enrich themselves and pillage the country.
Feb 19, 2001
On February 9, a U.S. nuclear submarine, the USS Greeneville, rammed and sank a Japanese fishing and training trawler near Hawaii, killing nine of the people on the Japanese vessel. The submarine had been executing an extremely rapid surfacing maneuver when it struck the Japanese fishing boat and caused the tragic loss of life.
Since the accident, the U.S. Navy has not even had the decency to try to explain what actually happened and why the U.S. submarine was unaware of a 190-foot ship above it. Nor has it bothered to explain why after destroying the fishing boat, the sub didn’t even try to carry out a rescue and save anyone’s life, despite the fact that the sub was fully equipped for such a rescue, even with several highly trained divers on board.
Instead, from the beginning, the U.S. Navy has either told lies, or, under the guise of carrying out a supposed investigation, not said anything.
But in the first week after the accident, certain facts began to leak out. First, it came out that several civilians were present on the submarine. Who were these people? At first, the Navy made up some story about how a couple of Hawaiian businessmen had been allowed on board to improve relations with the local community. A couple of days later, however, it finally was revealed that instead of a couple of businessmen, there were 15 civilians on board–and they were not local people, but wealthy donors to the Republican Party, many of whom were Texas oilmen.
Of course, simply riding on a submarine for a day would have been too boring for them. There are no windows on a sub, and there is nothing to see outside. So, the Navy was providing them with exciting emergency maneuvers, blowing out the ballast tanks, rocketing to the surface faster than a speeding bullet, etc. And it turns out that two of them were allowed to handle the controls of the submarine during the emergency maneuvers, while the rest of them crowded in the already cramped control room.
In other words, the Navy was kindly providing members of the ruling class with an experience that they could all brag about later: a virtual joy ride on a big, bad war ship usually equipped with nuclear weapons.
What kind of punishment is meted out to joy riding, hit-and-run drivers, who don’t even stop to help the people they have just run over? Of course, in the real world if it is an ordinary person, they could be charged with a felony, manslaughter or worse. But for the privileged layers of society, the crime is usually hushed up, while money and perks change hands.
The fact that so far the Navy has done its best to shield all those responsible for the deaths of nine people only goes to show that there is truly a gaping double standard for these supposed upholders and executers of the law.
Feb 19, 2001
This year, 21 states are considering laws that would designate so-called "safe havens"–places like hospitals, police and fire stations where people could abandon their new-born babies for adoption or foster care without fear of prosecution. Last year, 15 states adopted such legislation.
These laws are a response to the growing number of babies abandoned in dumpsters, alleys, empty buildings and other places, where they frequently die before being discovered.
A growing number of women poor, young women–are so desperate they see no other way but to abandon newborns. Continuing poverty, less and less access to legal, affordable and safe abortion services, and less and less education in the schools about sexuality and birth control have all contributed to this growing scandal–a scandal the root of which is the society that created such barbarous conditions.
So–it’s come to this: the wealthiest country in the world has no other answer than to set up stations for collecting "unwanted" babies.
"Safe havens" where people can discard babies like garbage; this truly gives a picture of how barbaric this capitalist society has become.
Feb 19, 2001
The profits are in for the big four oil companies for the last three months of 2000. BP Amoco had the biggest haul at 4.1 billion dollars, that is, $4,100,000,000! Then there was Exxon-Mobil with 5.2 billion dollars, followed by Chevron with 1.5 billion dollars and finally Texaco with 845 million dollars. Profits were double what they were a year ago.
This spectacular increase in profits is not surprising since the price of gas for our cars rose tremendously in many cities over the last year. The price of natural gas for heating which is produced by these monopolies also doubled in the last year.
Don’t let them tell us prices went up because supplies were scarce. Prices went up because these super-rich monopolies which control the markets wanted still higher profits.
Feb 19, 2001
On February 9, the government’s National Mediation Board "released" the mechanics union at Northwest Airlines to prepare for a strike. This "release" came only after the Aircraft Mechanics Fraternal Association, the union for the 10,000 mechanics, carried out public picketing, saying the board was taking the company’s side and holding the contract hostage.
The mechanics have been working four and a half years without a new contract. The old one they were stuck with contained big wage concessions. Meanwhile the company has been reaping big profits.
Nevertheless, even while "releasing" the union for a strike, the board declared a 30-day "cooling off period." It also urged President Bush to prevent any strike, saying a strike "threatens substantially to deprive a section of the country of essential transportation service," meaning the near monopoly of Northwest Airlines at the Minneapolis-St Paul, Detroit and Memphis airports. The Bush Administration issued a statement that it wasn’t going to allow a strike to occur.
All the members of the National Mediation Board were appointed by President Clinton. The three person board from the start had a majority of management members. Its chairman, Francis Duggan, was a vice president of the Association of American Railroads; member Magdalena Jacobsen was a labor relations manager for Continental Airlines.
In 1997, Clinton broke the American Airlines pilots strike after 7 minutes by appointing an "emergency board" to oversee the situation. Now Bush is announcing he will do the same thing Clinton did.
When in gets down to basics–like preventing strikes–the only difference between a Democrat and a Republican is whether they smile at you when plunging in the knife.
Feb 19, 2001
Another man in the Detroit area has been killed for the "crime" of shoplifting. Two guards at a Kroger store in Royal Oak Township wrestled Travis Anthony Shelton to the ground, accusing him of trying to get away with a piece of meat.
Shelton, who was only five-foot-six, and overweight, was tackled and pinned to the ground by two guards described as "large" in newspaper accounts. In fact, one of the guards weighed 377 pounds–this is the one who sat on Shelton’s chest, crushing him, bringing on a heart seizure.
A Royal Oak township firefighter who witnessed the murder issued a statement that Shelton was wheezing and repeatedly told the guards he couldn’t breathe.
The guards ignored him, keeping him pinned under their massive weight. When sheriff’s deputies arrived, they turned Shelton over, discovering that he was dead.
The cover-up has already begun. The Oakland County medical examiner, Ljubisa Dragovic, who specializes in testifying for cops accused of killing people in other counties, quickly rushed to issue a white-wash of this murder which happened in his county. His autopsy said that Shelton, who was 38, had asthma, an enlarged heart, diabetes and high-blood pressure.
This is Dragovic’s tried-and-true method: blame the victim, not the murderer. Using this same kind of reasoning, Dragovic should rule that no murder was committed in the case of an elderly person who was thrown to the sidewalk by a robber, severely beaten and then died of a heart attack.
Dragovic also declared that he discovered "possible" traces of opiates and cocaine in Shelton’s system. Notice the word, "possible." In other words, Dragovic can’t prove it–but it’s "possible."
It’s also "possible"–in fact, it’s sure that Dragovic always stands ready to justify murder committed by cops or security guards.
Dragovic is not the only one engaged in helping Kroger sweep this murder under the rug. The Oakland county sheriff didn’t even bother to interview most of the witnesses to the murder–some of whom have already spoken out to protest that the guards were particularly abusive with Shelton.
"Les Miserables," the musical that so many people went to see, was set in the 19th century. But, as this murder of a man who stole a piece of meat shows, the story of Jean Valjean is not at all out of date.
Feb 19, 2001
Outraged customers in Maryland, Virginia and Washington D.C. saw their gas and electric bills double this December and January. The area customers using natural gas whose bills went up are covered by Washington Gas Light, Baltimore Gas and Electric and Columbia Gas.
The local media, adding insult to injury, repeats over and over that the problem is a shortage of natural gas and a cold winter. Well gosh, it was cold in the winter, how amazing. This was a winter like most others, when the temperatures drop. It was colder only in comparison to last winter, which in this area was one of the mildest in history.
This is not an explanation for the shortage of natural gas. In fact, the utilities decided to cut back on drilling last year. In this way, they could guarantee there would not be enough gas when demand went back up this winter. Then the utilities could jack up the prices, blaming it on a shortage–which they had created.
If there were really a shortage, then why didn’t it affect customers in Virginia the same way? These are the neighbors in the counties next to the ones with "shortages." They aren’t paying $400 or $600 this month–or at least not yet.
In fact, the "shortage" actually has to do with which states’ legislators have already freed their utilities to demand any price they want in the name of "deregulation," and which state legislatures are still making the deals.
This is how the "free" market works, deregulating the dollars right out of our pockets.
Feb 19, 2001
In April 2000, the state of Michigan sold a 35-acre portion of the State Fairgrounds in Detroit for 6.4 million dollars. Its buyer, "developer" Joey Nederlander, resold the land, two months later, for 10.5 million dollars to a friend, Bernie Schrott, another "developer."
In January of this year, Schrott resold the land, this time to the Detroit Board of Education–for 17 million dollars.
No improvements had been put on the land. Nothing was cleared off of it. Absolutely nothing changed–except the amount of money the seller made.
Now we see why the governor and the mayor wanted to take over the Detroit School Board–to help out their friends, the speculators.