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
Mar 31, 2003
A new generation of young men and women has been sent off to die–this time in Iraq.
But not everyone in this generation will be sent to Iraq, not everyone will have their lives put at risk, as well as their future well-being. Of the 28 service people killed in the first week of the war, only one came from a well-to-do family. The rest came from the working class. According to the Pentagon, this figure accurately reflects the make-up of the army.
The sons and daughters of the working class will be the ones to die in Iraq or be scarred by the battles they go through.
And for what?
Bush claimed he sent the troops off to war in order to get rid of weapons of mass destruction.
Instead, bombing by U.S. planes has already massively destroyed some civilian areas of Baghdad, including two of its marketplaces on days they were filled with civilians. By bombing the electrical substations that control the pumps in Basra’s water system, the U.S. shut off the water supply to large parts of the population there. The U.S. bombing has now taken out the phone systems for most of the people living in Baghdad, preventing them even from finding out if their relatives are OK.
This is not a war to get rid of "weapons of mass destruction." It is a war being carried out against the Iraqi people by American weapons of mass destruction.
The price paid by the Iraqi people–who have already lost as many as a million and a half civilians to the first Gulf War and its aftermath–will be horrible. The victims will be not only the civilians hit by the bombs. Many more civilians–including first of all children–will die from water-borne diseases like dysentery because the bombs have shut down the water supply. They will die from malnutrition, as their source of food is cut off by the blockade the U.S. threatens to put up around Baghdad. They will die from minor wounds because no antibiotics and surgical supplies will be available.
Yet Bush dares to say he sent the troops to "liberate" the Iraqi people.
But the Iraqi people, by their actions, do not seem to regard the Americans and the British as liberators. And why should they? Even the Shiites, who have more grievances against Saddam Hussein than most, seemed to have decided that the U.S. is a worse enemy than Saddam Hussein.
No, the U.S. and British troops were not sent to "liberate" Iraq–they were sent to liberate Iraq’s oil, and to pave the way for the profit that can be made from rebuilding the oil infrastructure. Vice-president Cheney’s old company, Halliburton, has already received, through a subsidiary, an unlimited, cost-plus, no-bid contract for work on Iraqi oil fields.
U.S. troops do not belong in Iraq. They should not be left there to bring more suffering to the Iraqi people–just so Cheney and his ilk can increase their wealth. They should not be left there to die in the service of oil profits.
Most young men and women who joined the army went in to get a trade, to get training–and because they couldn’t find a decent job here. They didn’t join up to kill civilians. Bring them home and give them a job here.
Mar 31, 2003
On March 25, British intelligence released a story through the British and American media claiming an uprising was going on in Basra against Saddam Hussein. Two days later, a British spokesman admitted the story was only part of a "disinformation" campaign.
What, you might ask, is "disinformation"? The government, which invented the word, explains that it is simply lies spread to disorient the enemy and deceive the public. But since Saddam Hussein knew there was no uprising going in Basra, he was not disoriented. The U.S. and British public were certainly deceived, however.
The "disinformation" about Basra didn’t stop there.
On March 26, U.S. Brigadier General Vincent Brooks speaking from what he calls his "podium of truth," said, "Basra’s water supply was cut off by the regime." Two days later, the U.S. admitted that coalition bombing had knocked out electric power which cut off the water. This left people without water, many of whom turned to the polluted river, putting 100,000 children at risk.
And then there was the famous account given to the press about the supposed surrender by 8,000 soldiers of the Iraqi 51st Mechanized Division. But on March 27, the 51st engaged the British in their biggest tank battle in 50 years.
The press is being used openly to whip up support for this war by spreading a pack of lies.
Mar 31, 2003
The Bush administration has announced a near-record high increase in the cost of Medicare Part B. Instead of the current deduction of $58.70 per month from each person’s Social Security, the new deduction would be $66.00 per month. It’s like a big new tax imposed on the elderly and 40 million disabled who depend on Medicare.
A week before this announcement, the Bush administration also announced plans to make it harder for Medicare patients whose claims are denied to appeal and be paid. Last year, patients won 51% of their 77,388 appeals. In the last five years, patients have won 53% of their appeals.
Judges who hear the appeals are currently required to abide by Social Security regulations. Under the government’s new proposals, judges would be required to follow the current policies of Medicare and its contractors–policies which even today, as appeal figures show, result in unjustified denial of claims over 50% of the time! The number of denials of payments is already a scandal.
Just imagine how many appeals will be denied if Medicare’s insurance company contractors are given a free hand.
Bush is using the war against Iraq as an excuse to demand sacrifices from working people. And he’s starting with those least able to defend themselves.
This is criminal!
Mar 31, 2003
One of the first Marines to die in this Iraq war grew up in Baltimore. His family was quoted in the media on the first Thursday and Friday after the war began. His father angrily claimed his son died for "oil and money." The grieving man said, "He was my only son." Asked by a reporter what he wanted to tell President Bush, the father said, "This was not your son or daughter. That chair he sat in at Thanksgiving will be empty forever."
One of the dead man’s sisters was even more direct in her anger against the government. "It’s all for nothing. That war could have been prevented. Now we’re out of a brother. Bush is not out of a brother. We are," she cried.
This is the cost the politicians never mention when they whip up a line to explain why we have to fight their wars.
Mar 31, 2003
The Bush administration is proposing to cut benefits for veterans by 463 million dollars in 2004, and a total of 25 billion dollars over the next 10 years. This proposal includes cuts in pension payments to war-disabled veterans, cuts in pensions to the poorest disabled veterans, and cuts in G.I. Bill benefits for soldiers returning from Afghanistan.
According to the Paralyzed Veterans of America and the American Legion, funding cuts for veterans’ health care will result in the denial of health care to millions of veterans, as well as the cut of an estimated 9,000 physicians from the VA–which will mean even bigger delays in medical services for those who still qualify.
Bush and his cronies tell us to support the troops–but that is just to get us to support their bloody wars. The reality is that he considers the troops as cannon fodder. This proposal proves it.
Mar 31, 2003
Over the last few weeks, there have been pro-war "Rally for America" demonstrations in several cities around the country, including Chicago, Fort Wayne, Duluth, Memphis, Charleston, and Sacramento. These demonstrations have been relatively small, a few hundred to a few thousand people–compared to the waves of enormous anti-war demonstrations that have swept the country in big cities and small over the last several months.
But the small size of the pro-war demonstrations didn’t prevent the mass media, especially television and radio, from giving them more coverage than all the anti-war demonstrations combined.
No surprise, given who set these demonstrations in motion and paid for them: Clear Channel Communications or one of its local affiliates or sponsors, one of the biggest media companies in the country. It owns over 1,200 radio stations with 20% of the entire radio audience, an estimated 100 million listeners. Clear Channel also owns 50 television stations.
The top management at Clear Channel–based in San Antonio, Texas–has a long history of close business and political ties to President Bush. Its vice chairman, Tom Hicks, was chairman of the University of Texas Investment Management Company, and Clear Channel’s chairman, Lowry Mays, was on its board when part of the university’s endowment was handed over to the Bush family for its own private enrichment.
Just as on the economic levels, so on the political level. Clear Channel, with its huge resources, has always provided a platform for rabid, right-wing, reactionary propaganda, all day, every day. It has an entire stable of talk show hosts, including such headliners as Rush Limbaugh and Dr. Laura Schlesinger.
Of course, one hand washes the other. Clear Channel regularly gets favorable political treatment, including legislation, subsidies and tax breaks, as well as favorable regulation by the FCC (Federal Communications Commission), the supposed public watchdog.
Just as the Bush administration is making hay for the big oil companies, military contractors and construction companies with its bloody, barbaric war in Iraq, so Clear Channel does a bit of Bush’s dirty work here at home, marketing the war, both in the air and on the streets–all for a big, fat profit.
Mar 31, 2003
The U.S. Senate pretended to stand up to President Bush over his tax cuts for the rich. The senators forgot to mention that when they passed the budget, they left in 350 million in tax cuts–almost all still going to the wealthy. And to pay for these cuts, as well as Bush’s other giveaways to the wealthy, the Senate is going along with almost all of the huge cuts in social spending that Bush is proposing.
The biggest of these cuts take aim at the families of the poor and the working poor and children. The Earned Income Tax Credit, which gives a small bit of tax relief for the working poor, will be cut by 14 billion dollars over nine years. The working poor will pay more income taxes, even as the wealthy have their federal taxes slashed. Medicaid, the program that provides a minimum of health care for the poor–including many workers–will be cut by an enormous 92 billion dollars over nine years. Food stamps will be cut by 13 billion dollars. The temporary welfare program called Temporary Assistance for Needy Families will be cut by 8 billion dollars. And SSI, Supplemental Social Security, which provides a minimum income for those permanently disabled, will be cut by 19 billion dollars.
Almost all of these programs will hit the most vulnerable sectors, especially children, the hardest. Some budget cuts are aimed specifically at programs for poor children. Child nutrition will be cut by six billion dollars. A program that provides health insurance for those poor children not covered by Medicaid will be cut by two billion dollars. And child care grants to states, which provide a few very poor working mothers with some child care aid, will be cut by one billion dollars.
This budget is truly a war budget, a war of the rich against the poor, carried out by the government.
Mar 31, 2003
In the first week of the war in Iraq, the administration spoke repeatedly of the importance of securing the port of Umm Qasr in southern Iraq.
At a State Department press briefing on March 25, the government spokesman said, "There is a massive humanitarian and reconstruction operation, including U.S. government and multilateral assistance for the Iraqi people, that’s ready to begin as soon as the port of Umm Qasr can be opened."
In fact, this port is an oil tanker port–the only direct outlet for Iraqi oil to the world’s markets. It seems that the "humanitarian aid" the U.S. is interested in is "humanitarian aid" for the big oil companies which today want to put their hands on Iraqi oil.
Mar 31, 2003
Within a few days of each other, Royal Dutch-Shell, a British-Dutch company, the American Chevron-Texaco, and the French company TotalFinaElf announced that they were closing their sites in the Niger River delta. This will have grave consequences in this country where "black gold" accounts for 96% of its export income.
The oil companies justify their decision by citing the climate of violence that exists throughout the region. For a period of time now, the Niger delta has been, in fact, the scene of violent conflicts between the oil companies’ armies, backed up by the Nigerian army, on one side, and the ethnic majority of the region, the Ijaws, on the other side. There have already been dozens of deaths on both sides.
The Ijaws are claiming financial compensation for the damage these companies have caused. Over the decades in which they have been there, the oil companies have not only pillaged the resources of the region, they have also gravely polluted the area, and in particular the delta swamps where fishing is the principal activity of the local populations. And the anger of the population has been heightened by the demands that the government forces make on their villages. The enormous dividends from the oil go overwhelmingly to the stockholders of the big oil companies, and to those who make up the regime and the army, rather than to the populations who remain trapped in misery and underdevelopment.
This is not the first time the people of the Nigerian delta have rebelled, only to face a ferocious repression. In 1995, the writer Ken Saro-Wiwa, of the Movement for the Survival of the Ogoni People, was tried and then hanged by the regime of General Abacha. Nonetheless, these rebellions have obliged the oil trusts to make some gestures toward the local population, by limiting the damage to the environment and by giving aid for development.
Mar 31, 2003
Almost as soon as the imperialist war against Iraq started, the U.S. and British leaders had to deal with all kinds of unexpected difficulties.
As soon as they crossed the Iraqi border, the invasion forces met resistance that the U.S. and British leaders didn’t seem to have anticipated. Their coalition troops may have reached 50 miles from Baghdad, but they controlled only a narrow strip of desert and the U.S. generals feared seeing this supply line cut by an Iraqi counter-offensive.
Outside (perhaps) of the port of Umm Qasr, which the Pentagon keeps announcing it has "definitely conquered," the coalition forces have not managed to seize any other important city. Not only haven’t the Iraqi troops surrendered, but they seem to have resisted practically everywhere. There are, for example, the 8,000 men of the 51st Iraqi armed regiment, which the British general staff on March 22 announced had surrendered, only to discover that this same regiment was holding the U.S. and British troops in check outside Basra!
As a result, the coalition forces have had to immobilize whole units of their forces in Umm Qasr, Basra, Nasiriya, Najaf and Karbala, laying siege to these cities, while trying to protect the rear of the invasion forces against a possible counter-offensive from Iraqi units. And that seriously weakened a military operation scattered over more than 300 miles.
These difficulties probably won’t prevent the victory of the U.S. and British forces, if only because of their enormous superiority in arms and their monopoly over the air. But they imply a much longer war and one more costly in human lives–including on the U.S. and British side.
Not only will it now be necessary for the troops of the coalition to reduce the resistance of the Iraqi army, but they will also need to crush all resistance in the cities, that is to say, to do the dirty work that Bush Senior left to Saddam Hussein after the first Gulf war.
Look at Basra. Despite U.S. and British expectations, the Shiite population, which has always been opposed to Saddam Hussein, has not rushed out to greet British troops. Even if there were to be an uprising against Saddam Hussein, the insurgents are not likely to welcome troops who have caused so much damage by bombing the population of this city of a million and a half inhabitants, after having deprived them of electricity and drinkable water!
A U.S.-British victory won under the conditions we see developing in Iraq today carries other serious consequences, especially once the victory is won. Even if Bush and Blair find some politicians from the Iraqi opposition ready to support such a bloodbath by presiding over the regime which will succeed Saddam Hussein, this regime won’t have a solid state apparatus with which to maintain order, and it will thus be totally dependent on western occupation troops to carry it out.
As the history of colonial Iraq shows, such an occupation is apt to provoke violent explosions, either by national or religious minorities who will see themselves once more deprived of all hope, or by part of the poor urban masses, victims of the permanent U.S. war which the country has suffered since 1991, as well as of Saddam Hussein.
Then there are repercussions that such a war and such explosions could have in neighboring Arab countries. Anger broke out in the streets of Cairo, Amman, Beirut and Damascus when the bombing started. Let the war in Iraq turn into a butchery or be followed by brutal repression by the U.S. army, and the poor population of these neighboring countries could turn against their own rulers, hated because they are more or less compromised by U.S. imperialism.
U.S. and British leaders are conscious of these dangers. It’s why Bush has repeated that the U.N. has to play a role in the "reconstruction" of Iraq–a way of demanding that the U.N. support the U.S. occupation of Iraq. It’s also why Blair, who today has bigger problems with British public opinion, wants to go back to the U.N. as quickly as possible, even before the end of the conflict. They both hope to hide the imperialist aggression they will continue to carry out behind a force of U.N. "peacekeepers"–as they have done before.
Chirac, the president of France, could very well rally to this maneuver, assuming the U.S. and Britain gave him guarantees of profits for French corporations. He has already declared that the discovery of chemical arms in Iraq would make him reexamine his position about the war. And what could be easier for the U.S. army, in control of an area, than to "discover" such arms.
Despite the reverses of the imperialist troops, the future isn’t getting brighter for the Iraqi population. It’s why it’s necessary to continue to denounce the butchery which is developing before our eyes.
Mar 31, 2003
After Iraqi TV showed four U.S. POWs, Bush demanded that Iraq treat U.S. prisoners of war "humanely, just like we’ll treat any Iraqi prisoners."
That’s quite a joke. Look at the record the U.S. rolled up with prisoners of war it took in Afghanistan.
Six hundred fifty Afghan prisoners were taken to Guantánamo, Cuba, brought in front of TV cameras blindfolded, put on their knees and shackled, without knowing where they were.
Thousands more were taken to Bagram U.S. Air Force base in Afghanistan. U.S. officials admit that prisoners there were being kept in a hangar which is lit 24 hours a day, making sleep impossible. The Afghan prisoners are routinely "softened up" by beatings given by U.S. Army Special Forces, thrown against walls and bound in painful positions with duct tape. They are forced to kneel or stand in uncomfortable positions in extreme heat or cold down to 10 degrees. The prisoners are left naked most of the time with their hands and feet often bound. Food and water are withheld, as is access to sunlight and medical attention. Some who have been shot were not given pain killers. An American pathologist ruled that the death of two prisoners at the hands of U.S. guards last December was homicide.
All this has been admitted by U.S. officials. Their only excuse is that they say the war in Afghanistan is not a war.
U.S. soldiers had better hope that Iraq does NOT follow the U.S. example.
Mar 31, 2003
Almost two years ago, Vice President Dick Cheney presented a report proposing a strategy to permit the U.S. to meet its oil needs. He forecast that between 2001 and 2002, U.S. dependence on imported oil would climb from 52 to 66%. And he estimated that by 2020 the U.S. would have to import 60% more oil than it does now. U.S. consumption would go from 10.6 to 16.7 million barrels a day.
Among the longer term objectives of this strategy was taking control of the great lines of oil supply which are the Caucuses and the Middle East, along with Colombia, Venezuela and Angola, hoping to contain its Russian and Chinese rivals. (China gets 60% of its supplies from the Middle East.)
Last year’s intervention in Afghanistan permitted the U.S. to reinforce its presence in Azerbaijan, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan and more recently in Georgia–all oil producers.
This year’s war on Iraq promises to open up Iraq’s vast oil reserves. Iraq’s reserves are today estimated at 112 billion barrels (almost 10% of world reserves). And due to all the wars Iraq has been involved in, many of these known reserves remain unexploited.
When Cheney presented his report, the U.S. hadn’t managed to establish itself in Iraq. Iraqi oil was mainly exploited by French companies (TotalFinaElf), Russian (Lukoil) or Chinese (Chinese Petroleum).
Forcibly taking control of Iraqi oil is a way to open up this part of the world’s oil. According to specialists, production costs of Iraqi oil should be among the lowest in the world.
The Bush administration–loaded as it is with oil men, starting with the whole Bush family, as well as Cheney–is already counting on new oil dollars coming in, now that the war has started.
Mar 31, 2003
According to the Bush administration, Iraqi soldiers and civilians have violated the "rules of war." They don’t fight fair!
What a cynical complaint coming from the government which is using the most powerful military forces in the world to bomb, invade and occupy the territory of a third or fourth class military power! What’s fair about that?
Iraq already suffered a million and a half civilian deaths–half of them children–coming from the first U.S. war against their country, and from the systematic U.S. destruction of drinking water supplies, combined with the U.S.-imposed economic embargo which starved Iraq of needed food and medicine. Is this what Bush calls "fair"?
For Bush, what is fair is whatever lets him and the little pro-war clique around him put their hands on more oil–and damn the human cost.
This is what the Iraqi people see. This is what could make them feel they have no choice but to fight back, using whatever means they find.
Bush has put U.S. troops into an impossible situation: to the Iraqi people they represent this monster power which is devastating their country.
The troops need to be brought out of there. NOW!
Mar 31, 2003
Just before Martin Luther King day in January, the Bush administration filed a brief with the Supreme Court opposing the admissions process at the University of Michigan, complaining that its system of "affirmative action" gives unfair preferences to black applicants over white applicants.
Bush must have forgotten how he got admitted to Yale: not because of his school record or admission tests–they were lousy to mediocre. And not because of his upstanding behavior–he was a party animal whose driving record was spotted with arrests for drunken driving.
But his daddy went to Yale and his family had money to rescue him from his "escapades" and to grease the hands of the university.
The guy who says he opposes preferences couldn’t have gotten anywhere without tons of "preferences."
Mar 31, 2003
Reactionary politicians point their fingers at "affirmative action" while yelling that "preferences" are unfair. They claim they stand for "equality of opportunity." What a joke–coming from people who defend the biggest inequity of all–money.
From beginning to end, money or the lack of it is what determines who goes to the universities.
Children of the wealthy go to the best elementary and high schools, have the best tutors. They travel and have access to and leisure time for all the interesting things the world has to offer. All this is why many do well on admissions tests. And this is by far the biggest inequality when it comes to getting into college. And it puts barriers in the way of children from the working class, black and white, who don’t come from such a background.
But that’s only the beginning of the inequities. Many universities, while giving the impression that they are setting "high standards," pack their schools full of kids of wealthy donors with bad grades.
At Harvard, Princeton, Notre Dame and other elite universities, children of graduates (alumni) are given "preference." They get accepted at a rate double or triple that of other applicants.
Duke University, ranked in the top ten in the country, admits it denies admission to about 600 high school valedictorians every year. Yet at Duke, 52% of last year’s freshman class had parents who, on top of paying $35,000 in tuition and room and board, were able to donate ADDITIONAL money to the university. These rich applicants were held to a lesser admissions standard than star athletes!
Affirmative action or scholarships for the working poor, white or black, don’t begin to make up for all these inequalities. The university represents and reinforces the society it lives in. And that society is divided into social classes and suffers from racism.
Mar 31, 2003
After getting the green light from a bankruptcy judge, Bethlehem Steel Corporation has ended all company-paid health insurance for its 95,000 retired workers. Bethlehem is about to sell itself to ISG (International Steel Group) which will make ISG the largest producer of steel from raw materials in the country. But before it does so, it’s dumping retiree costs in the bankruptcy court, so ISG won’t have to take them over.
While the company’s official books may make it appear that Bethlehem Steel is now bankrupt, over the years, Bethlehem’s owners have made many billions of dollars from the wealth Bethlehem workers created. In 1973, when Bethlehem’s production reached its height, workers produced about 24 million tons of raw steel and ships, over 16 million tons of it in the form of finished steel products–everything from pipe, to wire, to nails, to tin-plated steel, to steel with special coatings for automobiles and appliances, to rails, to structural steel for skyscrapers and bridges.
Titans of banking and industry, such as the Morgan interests and the Mellon family, enriched themselves by owning and controlling Bethlehem Steel–pocketing the profits made off the labor of Bethlehem workers, putting the money into other companies.
But now they want to tell the Bethlehem workers there’s not enough money to pay for their medical care in retirement.
That’s an outright lie. The Morgan and Mellon financial interests stole the money. Take it back from them.
Mar 31, 2003
On March 18, California Governor Gray Davis signed into law the first portion of his proposed cuts in the state’s social programs and services. Hardest hit is education, from kindergarten all the way to the universities, with 2.3 billion dollars in reductions. More cuts are to come, totaling 5.5 billion by the end of next year.
California’s 108 community colleges, which serve 2.9 million students, have already lost 141 million dollars in funding and face cuts amounting to over 500 million dollars by the end of 2004.
On top of this, the state has more than doubled student fees with the extra revenue raised to go to the state’s general fund, not to the colleges themselves.
California’s two four-year college systems, University of California and California State University, also face cuts and fee increases. But the cuts and fee increases in the two-year community college system are much more severe, and the impact will be felt overwhelmingly by the working class.
For most workers and high-school graduates from working-class families, community colleges offer the only opportunity of starting a post-secondary education. Even the programs and sessions that are being eliminated–mostly vocational, job-training programs and weekend and summer sessions–are the ones that serve people who work. The higher fees and lack of classes will now force tens of thousands of these students to abandon school, blocking their possibilities for any further education.
All this comes at a time when big companies are laying off tens of thousands of workers. These cuts are part of a massive attack on the working class, launched by the bosses and their politicians to protect and increase the profits of big corporations. And they are especially cynical and hypocritical, for it is the bosses and their politicians who tell workers to go on with school in order to avoid unemployment.
Mar 31, 2003
In one day, on July 23, l999, more than a tenth of the black population of Tulia, Texas were arrested by an undercover cop who claimed he had done a drug "sting." No whites were arrested.
The trials were swiftly carried out in this poor, rural Texas town. Twenty-two of the accused were sentenced to such prison terms as 60 years, 99 years, or 434 years.
The suspicious nature of the "sting" was revealed by those who managed to prove their innocence. One woman found bank records to prove that she had been in Oklahoma at the time the cop, Thomas Coleman, swore she had sold him drugs in Tulia. One man proved by time cards that he had been at work when Coleman said he was out selling drugs. One man pointed out that since he is short and bald, he could not be the tall black man with "bushy type hair" Coleman described in the arrest report.
The juries that quickly convicted the "stung" victims did not hear about this cop’s past. They did not hear that his "evidence-gathering" violated all legal norms. They did not hear that the year before, his own boss had to arrest him on a warrant from his previous deputy job, where he was accused of stealing county gasoline. Nor did they hear, until this month, a different county sheriff say in the five years Coleman worked as a deputy there, "you just couldn’t depend on what he told you." Such claims were also made in court by other Texas lawmen.
Here was a person known to go from one deputy job to another in rural Texas, known to be untruthful and untrustworthy, known to misuse his job for his own personal agenda–and he was not identified, he was not put on any sort of alert list, he was allowed to go on his lawbreaking way until he made the mistake of gaining national attention in this one outrageous bust.
Even then it has taken four years for the wheels of so-called justice to grind. And instead of being immediately freed, nine of the victims are still kept in jail, waiting for the wheels to grind some more!
If this is supposed to be a system of justice, why do the injustices just keep on coming?
Mar 31, 2003
The health commissioner of Baltimore City began fining the city school system $100 per day per school for maintaining water fountains tainted with levels of lead far above the EPA standards. So far, more than 40 schools were assessed the fines.
Lead has been known for decades to affect the normal development of the brain. Young children are very susceptible to lead poisoning. Yet most of the schools being fined in early March were elementary schools.
How long had the city school system known there were toxic levels of lead in the drinking water? More than TEN years! The system had ignored an engineering report delivered in 1992, just as it ignored the health commissioner’s warnings, which he began delivering last year.
On March 20, the director of school facilities, Pradeep Dixit, in office for only half of the time the problem was known, was fired. A scapegoat had been found. Yet Dixit was a small fry compared to all those really responsible.
Who has contributed to permanent damage to all the children who went through these schools over 10 years? Every single superintendent: Walter Amprey from 1991 to 1997; Robert Schiller from 1997 to 1998; Robert Booker from 1998 to 2000; Carmen Russo from 2000 to the present. And in that same period of time, Kurt Schmoke was mayor for 12 years, happily taking credit in his administration for reducing the lead paint poisoning of Baltimore children, as does the present administration under Mayor Martin O’Malley.
Where were these leaders who pretended concern for Baltimore’s children during all the years the school system continued to poison children with water fountains? Nowhere to be found.
Mar 31, 2003
The race for concessions continues at American and United airlines, the two biggest airline companies. The International Association of Machinists leadership proposed to the United baggage handlers and customer service workers a concessions agreement that is 95% of what the company wanted and will cost each worker $15,667 a year. The Transport Workers Union said it reached a concessions agreement with American for its baggage handlers, but hasn’t released the details.
Nonetheless, American continues to threaten that it will declare bankruptcy. American has seen how much United and USAir have been able to get out of their workers using the bankruptcy courts and it doesn’t want to be left behind. American has lined up some of the biggest most profitable banks in the country to lend it money in the event of bankruptcy. These banks are J.P. Morgan Chase, Citigroup and CIT Group.
These three banks are the identical banks that are loaning money to United during its bankruptcy! This raises a question: why are these big profitable banks so ready to loan money to United and American? They must know something about the real state of these companies that isn’t known publicly.
What’s certain is that all these financial groups have already made lots of money from the profits the airlines steal from their workers.
The game is not up just because an airline company declares bankruptcy. It’s only up if the workers accept the concessions. But there’s no reason for that. United and American workers maintain about half of all the flights in the country. When these workers decide to make a fight, the top airline companies and the giant banks financing them can quickly change their tune.