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 7, 2005
Bush, Cheney and Treasury Secretary Snow hit the road on March 3 to sell their Social Security "reform." They say they plan to hold rallies in 60 cities in 60 days.
Said Bush, "I’m going to keep telling people we’ve got a problem until it sinks in."
So every day for the next 60 days, Bush will be on television, spouting a ton of lies about Social Security.
So far those lies about Social Security haven’t worked. Opinion polls show that more than half the people (51%) oppose privatizing Social Security. And when people are told that privatization will bring cuts in guaranteed benefits, that number jumps to 69% in opposition to Bush. People also oppose Bush’s plan to increase the retirement age by a two-to-one margin.
Bush’s scare tactics are not working either. More than four out of five people (83%) say they don’t believe there is a Social Security crisis. But if there is some kind of gap in funding, three-quarters of the people say that the wealthy ought to fund it, by making all income subject to taxation.
Bush may be trying to lie to get us to accept his attacks on Social Security, just like he lied about weapons of mass destruction to justify his bloody war for oil in Iraq. But it isn’t working. His elaborate road show to sell his attacks on Social Security is an admission of that.
But Bush isn’t through with Social Security. In fact, he is only getting started, and Social Security remains in great danger.
First of all, no one in Congress defends Social Security. Sure, the Democrats claim to be the upholders and protectors of Social Security.
But don’t believe it.
On the same day Bush began his Social Security road show, Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid sent Bush a letter signed by 42 Senate Democrats. The letter affirms that the Democrats in the Senate are ready "... to establish the kind of cooperative, bipartisan process we need" to close the retirement system’s supposed long-term funding gap.
No, the Democrats are lying just like Bush is. The Democrats also say that there is a Social Security crisis, even though there isn’t. They are getting ready to cut Social Security benefits, even though they say they are not.
Neither do the Democrats oppose the privatization of Social Security. Only six years ago, when Bill Clinton was president, he proposed to begin privatizing Social Security by attaching a system of individual accounts onto Social Security, just like 401(k) individual retirement accounts were added onto regular private pensions. Of course, we all know that after individual retirement accounts were introduced, they soon replaced most regular pensions. Expect the same thing to happen to Social Security if private accounts are introduced as "add-ons."
No, the Democrats are playing their usual double game of pretending to oppose Bush, while under the table they support his program.
Only one thing will stop these politicians’ attacks against Social Security: the outrage of a big part of the U.S. population. In the past, that outrage was considered to be the "third rail" of American politics–a politician who tried to touch it was dead politically. We can show that this third rail is very much alive.
Let them take their dirty hands off Social Security!
Mar 7, 2005
This year, the Los Angeles school district is required by the "No Child Left Behind" law to "take action" at nine schools that have missed their annual test score "targets" seven years in a row.
What kind of action will this be? Make class size smaller for the students who don’t do well? Provide extra tutorial programs to these students? Provide funding for more books and the improvement of the school facilities?
These are the kinds of "action" a district would take if it wanted to help the children that are falling behind–as the name of the law would suggest.
But no, these are not the measures "No Child Left Behind" proposes. Instead, the law proposes nothing but different types of punishment: replacing the teachers and administrators of these schools; placing the schools under the direct control of the state or closing the schools and reopening them as "charter schools."
And sure enough, the L.A. Board of Education says it is considering firing the entire staff of not only nine but 19 high schools whose test scores have not improved enough to reach the "targets." The teachers and administrators of these schools will then have to reapply for their jobs. Board members are also talking about dividing up the schools and having part of them run by a charter school. So the same people who say there is not enough money for schools are ready to privatize schools and dish out profits to charter school operators–when test scores actually show that charter schools, overall, do worse on these standardized tests than public schools.
Deny funding to schools, especially those in working-class neighborhoods, then make them compete in "standardized tests," punish the schools that finish last (as some must), and use this set-up as a way to provide profits to charter school operators: it’s quite a scheme–except that it has nothing to do with educating children.
Mar 7, 2005
On Wednesday, March 2, the U.S. Supreme Court heard arguments in two cases involving the display of the Ten Commandments on government property. One is Kentucky, the other is Texas.
Politicians arguing for the Ten Commandments say they belong in courtrooms and government buildings because they are the basis of law in the United States.
What a crock!
In the first place, commandments such as, "Thou shalt not kill" are clearly NOT the basis of law in a country that still uses the death penalty to kill people–even innocent people, as has been shown many times.
Beyond that, the idea of the Commandments as absolute moral precepts upon which the laws of the U.S. are based is a lie (breaking another "commandment," against bearing false witness). Laws are based on class interests–the interest of a ruling class in a society divided by classes, where some few people benefit from the work that many other people do.
The Ten Commandments–and all the other laws laid out in the books of Leviticus and Deuteronomy–were themselves the products of a patriarchal society where a few men owned most of the wealth and a great many men–and all women–owned nothing. It was a society that knew nothing of democracy or the rights of women.
The Ten Commandments were not simply suggestions for a "moral life," but actual laws. The punishments for breaking these laws were prescribed in the very same books in which the Commandments are found: a woman who committed adultery was punished by being stoned to death; so was any person who did work on a Sabbath day. (And here we can see that even then the law against killing was not an absolute!) A woman is treated as the property of a man in the Ten Commandments, when she is listed among the possessions one man may not covet or steal from another. Slaves are another "possession" a man may not covet.
The laws in this society are just as much based on the interests of a ruling class as were the laws in Biblical times.
Laws against stealing, for example, can only have meaning in a society where a few own much more than others, and where a great many scrape to get by. The ruling class of any society has always made its wealth by stealing from the people who did the work to create it; the laws of any class society have NEVER done anything to stop this kind of stealing. But the kind of "stealing" that the laws absolutely DO prohibit is when working people try to take some of that wealth back.
The laws of this country, and the police and courts, protect wealth first and foremost. They really could care less if workers get their houses robbed. But if a bank or corporation gets robbed, look out! Utilities can rob us in their bills every month; but as soon as we’re late with a payment, we can lose our power. All legally.
The posting of the Ten Commandments is an attempt to tie us to an outmoded society, with outmoded moral precepts.
Society will move forward to where justice and equality truly have meaning under the law–when workers take back that wealth, and strip the bosses of their legal "right" to rob us blind every day.
Mar 7, 2005
The governors of 13 states announced they were forming a coalition to rescue the nation’s high schools. Speaking to the media, the governors announced their commitment to have "more rigorous courses in English and math and tougher exams."
You bet that’s needed. Today three out of ten students do not graduate from high school. Almost half of those who graduate lack the knowledge and skills to go on to college or get a job in the modern work force.
But to do what the governors promise costs money. Yet these governors–and the ones before them–have been CUTTING school funding, reducing or eliminating all the things that improve education and help students do better. Smaller classroom sizes, hiring the most capable teachers in their fields and giving them time to prepare classes, grade papers and set up tutoring programs–these are the things that go out the window when school funding is cut.
At the same time, more and more money has gone into privatization of schools and charter schools–beginning to destroy the public school system.
The governors demonstrated once again that old politicians’ adage:"Talk is cheap!" That’s why they talk so much and do so little!
Mar 7, 2005
After a big protest in February, Detroit’s Department of Transportation announced that its proposed cuts to the city’s bus system will be delayed.
The city had previously announced that elimination of 24-hour bus service, and cuts to over 50 routes, along with 140 layoffs, would take effect on March 5.
But after 500-plus city workers and residents showed up to protest at a City Council meeting on February 22, the city quickly decided to delay the cuts.
They’re no longer saying when the cuts will take place; but they still say the cuts will happen.
It will take even bigger and louder protests by Detroit workers and residents to stop these cuts completely. But this latest small step back shows that the city can be forced to respond to its residents.
Mar 7, 2005
For the third year in a row, top Republicans and Democrats in the state are holding funding for public schools hostage–until slot machine gambling is legalized and taxed or the sales tax is increased.
A six-year plan to increase school funding was approved by the legislature and governor in 2002. But in 2003, the very first year of the plan, the state shortchanged the schools by 40 million dollars; then in 2004, by 80 million. The politicians are now threatening to withhold an additional 100 million dollars.
During this same period, over two-thirds of the largest and most profitable corporations in Maryland–like Wal-Mart, Comcast and Home Depot–paid no taxes at all.
Now, with budget deficits created by these giveaways looming, the politicians are holding funds for the schools hostage.
They might as well wear a ski-mask, because they sure act like strong-arm bandits–and not the one-armed kind!
Mar 7, 2005
The federal Food and Drug Administration started confiscating drugs ordered by Americans from Canada. One elderly man from Milwaukee, Charles Netzow, spoke out after the FDA grabbed his 90-day supply of the cholesterol drug Lipitor he ordered from a Canadian pharmacy. He said he saves $40 to $70 on a 90-day supply he gets from there. In December and January the FDA’s Chicago office nabbed 50 packages coming from the same pharmacy.
The FDA had the nerve to say that it is doing this over concerns about the safety of Canadian drugs!
Safety? That same week, the FDA admitted they pressured the regulators from Health Canada not to suspend the Attention Deficit drug Adderrall, which has been linked with sudden deaths and strokes, including in children.
That’s not to say that Canadian drugs are really safe, but if the U.S. lobbies the Canadians to not ban an unsafe drug, how dare they claim safety as a pretext for preventing people from getting cheaper prescription drugs. Not to mention, the U.S. approved the same unsafe drug!
Clearly, the only thing the Bush Administration is worried about protecting is the profits of the drug companies. The government controls drug prices in Canada, which keeps them as much as 70% lower than in the U.S. And the drug companies still make a big profit in Canada.
They take the people of this country for fools when they talk about the lack of safety of imported Canadian drugs. Better look closer to home!
Mar 7, 2005
In September, the U.S. Sixth Court of Appeals ruled that a tax break given by the State of Ohio to DaimlerChrysler for building a Jeep plant in Toledo was unconstitutional. In January, the State of Ohio asked for and received a stay of that ruling so that it can appeal the ruling to the U.S. Supreme Court. The governor of Ohio and one of its U.S. Senators are even pushing a federal bill to state that such tax breaks do not violate the constitution.
Every time state politicians around the country propose special tax breaks for the corporations, they say they are forced to offer exemptions to keep the corporations from taking their business to other states that will give them better tax "incentives."
If the states, cities, and counties want to levelthe playing field, preventing the corporations from playing them off against each other, they should be rushing to the Supreme Court to ask the Supreme Court to uphold the Circuit Court’s decision. Just think of all the money that could be made available for schools, health programs, and bus service if the corporations had to pay their share of taxes!
The fact that the states are not jumping to support the Circuit Court’s ruling shows what it’s really all about–they WANT to give money away to the corporations!
Mar 7, 2005
George Bush just requested an additional 82 billion dollars to be spent this year for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, added to the 200 billion dollars already allocated.
The money going to the wars could fund any one of the following:
Three million public housing units.
Head Start for 40 million children for one year.
Health care for all the uninsured in the U.S. for over four years.
12 years of global hunger relief.
Basic immunizations for every child in the world for 102 years.
Money to hire 5.5 million public school teachers for one year.
Worldwide AIDS programs for 30 years.
And so on.
Mar 7, 2005
The Bush administration’s threats against Iran sound surprisingly similar to those they made against Iraq in the build-up to that war.
Bush is charging that Iran is about to build nuclear weapons, even though there is not one shred of proof to back it up. Bush and his gang are also going through the same song and dance, assuring the public that there has not been any decision to go to war, that they are still trying to pursue "diplomatic" efforts, even though Bush administration officials are very openly threatening bombing and going to war against Iran.
A few news reports confirm how real these threats are. In a major expose in The New Yorker magazine a couple of months ago, Seymour Hersh reported that the U.S. military had already sent U.S. Special Forces units into Iran to provide intelligence in anticipation of a bombing campaign. And a former United Nations weapons inspector, Scott Ritter, has also warned that his sources inside the Pentagon tell him that Bush has already signed off on a bombing campaign against Iran. According to Ritter, the U.S. bombing campaign against Iran could start as early as mid-June.
Of course, it is impossible to predict what the U.S. will really do. But what is clear is that there is a threat of more U.S. wars in the Middle East, and that this threat is growing. It will be the people in the Middle East who will suffer through further destruction and death. But not only them. The working class in this country will also pay a greater and greater price for these wars in every way possible.
We have a duty to show that we oppose this government’s murderous policy in the Middle East, to show Bush that the people in this country will oppose him.
Mar 7, 2005
The war in Iraq has practically disappeared from the political radar screen since the January 30 election, creating the impression that U.S. troops might soon start to come home as soon as they’ve trained the Iraqi army. That election was a sham election, aimed at making people believe that Iraq was on the road to democracy, with the situation improving.
NOT true! The war is NOT winding down. What exists in Iraq today is not democracy but a burgeoning civil war, based on ethnic and religious divisions, which the U.S. has helped perpetuate. And the few parts of the Iraqi army which are effective fighting forces are the ones organized along either ethnic or religious lines–and used by the U.S. against civilian populations belonging to the other ethnic groups. Kurdish militias, for example, were sent into Falluja when the U.S. stormed in. And militias organized out of former Iraqi army units, commanded by Saddam Hussein’s Sunni officer corps, were sent by the U.S. into Shiite areas.
In the five weeks since the election, many hundreds of Iraqis have been killed, along with nearly a hundred U.S. troops. These are only the official figures, which seriously understate the situation for both Iraqis and U.S. troops.
We can safely say that the number of Iraqis killed is roughly five times what the official figures show. According to a survey done by Iraqi researchers working for the Johns Hopkins School of Public Health last September, at least 100,000 Iraqis had died from causes connected to the war during the first 18 months, nearly five times as many killed as official figures admit to.
As for the U.S. troops, the official figures probably are only half the actual number of soldiers killed. For example, a U.S. army medical journal found that one in ten wounded soldiers dies of their wounds away from the battlefield. But these deaths are not counted in official death figures. For their family and friends, they are dead of course, but NOT for the military and the Bush administration.
Gauging by the experience of Viet Nam, more returning vets will commit suicide than the number who actually die in the war itself. Gauging by the experience of the troops that came back from Afghanistan, a considerable number could end up killing their wives, husbands or other people close to them, in fits of repressed rage, battlefield flashbacks and other psychological stresses that result from combat. Gauging by the experience of every war, a sizeable number will end up without a job and, in many cases, homeless–out of all proportion to their numbers in the population. They will end up as drug addicts or alcoholics, again out of proportion to their numbers in the population. And gauging by the experience of this war itself, they will come back with serious mental health problems. A study made by the army shows that one in six soldiers today in Iraq already have symptoms of serious depression, anxiety or post-traumatic stress disorder. And these disorders usually hit more strongly afterwards. The head of the National Gulf War Resource Center was quoted in mid-December saying about this problem: "there is a train coming that’s packed with people who are going to need help for the next 35 years." That’s not 35 months, that’s 35 years–most of the rest of people’s adult lives.
Dahr Jamail, one of the few U.S. reporters still left in Iraq who gets around the country, described the following scene in Baghdad: "Driving out of the sewage filled, garbage strewn streets of Sadr City, we passed a wall with ‘Viet Nam Street’ spray painted on it. Just underneath was the sentence–obviously aimed at the American liberators–‘We will make your graves in this place."‘ No wonder the troops come back with anxiety!
Most U.S. soldiers and marines have seen children killed by U.S. fire–or killed children themselves. Is it any wonder that U.S. troops come back with post-traumatic stress? Battle destroys, and not only the ones who are killed.
As for the people of Iraq themselves, it is not an exaggeration to say that death might be preferable to the lives some are living today. Children are being kidnapped, spirited out of the country and sold into slavery, usually sexual slavery. Women too–when they aren’t just being raped on the street, in some areas as punishment for not wearing the burka when they go out. And despite all the publicity about Abu Ghraib, it hasn’t been shut down. Just the opposite. Even more Iraqis than before are being held incommunicado there and at other prisons around the country–almost nine thousand currently by official U.S. count. Their relatives still can wait six months or longer before they are allowed to speak to a prisoner held in one of these hellholes.
There are no working public services to speak of. Outside of Baghdad and a couple of other big towns, there is no clean water, including in hospitals. And in Baghdad, raw sewage runs in the streets.
One little tidbit of information from the election itself speaks volumes about the situation–people in Baghdad reported they had been told that if they didn’t vote, they would not get their food rations. People believed the threat, since their food ration cards were stamped when they voted and the people who distribute food were in the voting areas listing everyone they saw. The very sustenance of life was being held hostage to whether someone went to vote, so the U.S. authorities could claim a high turn-out in the election. If this happens with the election, it happens with everything–electricity, for example, which doesn’t exist much, was cut off for weeks at a time in Falluja, in an attempt to force the population to leave.
We could go on and on about the situation–but here’s just one more example: to get gasoline, in a country with the second highest oil reserves in the world, people wait literally two days in line, sleeping in their vehicles. That’s for the lucky people who still have a vehicle–and the money to buy gasoline, which is priced higher than it is here.
And yet we are supposed to believe that one election held in the middle of daily violence, with no independent supervision to even see how many people actually voted, much less how they voted, will erase all this.
Things are now getting back to normal, according to George W. Bush. When he was asked about the fact that almost three dozen Iraqis were killed on election day, he remarked, with that same old sneer on his face: " Some Iraqis were killed while exercising their rights as citizens."
In the past weeks, hundreds of Iraqis were killed exercising their rights as human beings to go on living–walking on the streets, coming out of a mosque, taking part in a funeral procession. The targets of these bombings, religious buildings or processions, both Shiite and Sunni, make it seem that the violence which racks Iraq is more and more taking the form of ethnic and religious civil war.
The election has not improved the situation. In fact, the way it was set up almost ensured parties would be organized by religion or ethnic groups. Independent political parties had not been allowed to exist for decades in Iraq. To push through an election so quickly could only have meant that political parties came into existence as small entities in very localized areas. And in a situation of full-blown warfare, in which people can’t travel inside their own city, much less inside their province or the country as a whole, no political party could expect to gain a hearing for its policies and to build a base. In such a situation, the coalitions of small parties were formed based essentially on religion or ethnic grouping. The biggest one was the United Iraqi Alliance, which won 48% of the vote in the election. It was composed essentially of Shiites, and more specifically of fundamentalist Shiites, that is, those who want to establish a religious government based on Islamic law, the Sharia. The second biggest coalition, which won 26% of the vote, was composed of two different Kurdish parties, organized not according to religion, but their ethnic background. The aim of these parties is to set up a separate country in control of an important part of Iraq’s oil. And the Sunnis, who have been under constant attack since the invasion, for the most part either boycotted the election or were prevented from voting.
Iraq after the election is marked by a desperately growing impoverishment. The standard of living in Iraq–once one of the more prosperous countries in the Middle East, with a high level of education and urbanization–is today among the very lowest in the world. And there is no real way for the population to express itself. Add to that militias organized according to religious and ethnic groupings and you have the recipe for a bloody civil war.
The way imperialism divided up the Middle East over centuries has laid the groundwork for religious and ethnic divisions–and what the U.S. is doing today is lighting the fuse for a violent civil war.
Some people looking at this situation will argue the U.S. can’t get out now–things will only get worse, there will be a real civil war, a blood bath. There well may be. But we need to keep in mind that every month the U.S. stays, every week, every day, its activities only make it more certain that such a bloodbath will take place–and make it worse.
To believe at this late stage that the U.S. could play any kind of helpful role for the people of Iraq is to be naive. Not even mentioning those vicious liars who know better but pretend the U.S. would help–people like the Democrats who criticize Bush, but vote for war.
There’s only one way that people in this country can help the people of Iraq and that is to demand U.S. troops be brought home now.
Mar 7, 2005
There will be demonstrations around the country on Saturday, March 19, the second anniversary of the day the U.S. began its second war on Iraq, and the days surrounding it.
Those demonstrations should be massive and loud.
It’s clear, despite Bush’s claims after the election, he does not have the support of the American people for this war. A Harris poll taken a few weeks ago reported that almost 60% of the people want the troops brought back within the next year. The pollsters didn’t dare ask how many wanted them brought back immediately. But polls aren’t loud, nor do they demand to be heard.
Large demonstrations can put the lie to Bush’s claims that the U.S. people agree with this war–in a much more powerful way than any poll can do. They can show just how many of us want an immediate end to this bloody war against the people of Iraq.
And they can also give reinforcement to all those soldiers who disagree with the war. They can help convince more young people not to volunteer to join the army, and more young people in it not to volunteer to reenlist.
Large demonstrations can show that we want to support the troops in Iraq in the only way that makes sense–by bringing them home now!
Mar 7, 2005
On January 27, Riggs Bank, the local Washington D.C. "bank of presidents," pled guilty to "failing to file a suspicious activity report" to banking commissioners. Riggs agreed to pay a 16 million dollar fine, which comes less than one year after Riggs paid a 25 million dollar fine over money laundering charges.
Joe Allbritton, the former chairman of Riggs and its largest stockholder, made the bank famous for "international business development activities," as a reporter for the Wall Street Journal put it.
And what were those "international business development activities"? Among these were ties between Riggs and Augusto Pinochet. Pinochet had come to power in 1973 after a coup which overthrew Chile’s president, Salvador Allende. While the CIA was responsible for Allende’s overthrow, Pinochet was the one in charge during years of torture, imprisonment and murder of thousands of Chileans–and apparently he made out like a bandit. He deposited perhaps 100 million dollars of Chilean money in Riggs Bank, some under fictitious account names changed by Riggs to cover Pinochet’s theft.
Riggs Bank also handled enormous sums for Prince Bandar bin Sultan, described as a Washington "diplomat" for rulers of Saudi Arabia. Bandar speaks openly of his CIA connections, and of supplying money on behalf of the U.S. government. He gave money to the Contras, for example, the Nicaraguan thugs who fought the Sandinista regime. The Sandinistas had booted out a U.S.-backed dictator there. Bandar bin Sultan also said he paid millions in the 1980s to the Afghanistan insurgents fighting the Soviet Union, one of whom was Osama bin Laden.
Riggs also had connections to the dictator who rules Equatorial Guinea. After Mobil discovered oil off its coast in the early 1990s, its ruler suddenly had 700 million dollars to bank with Riggs. The suitcases full of money appearing at Riggs didn’t do anything for the income level of anyone in Equatorial Guinea. The country remains one of the world’s poorest nations with a per person income of $400 per year and half its children under five reported as malnourished.
Allbritton specialized in finding money from sources covered in blood and graft, sources closely tied to the U.S. government or some of its biggest corporations.
So while Riggs got a slap on the wrist, it continues on as before. A short time ago, the Pittsburgh banking firm PNC found Riggs attractive enough to propose to buy it for more than 600 million dollars. PNC may back out of the deal, but Riggs admits there are other banks interested in buying it. Allbritton was forced to step down after the investigations began, but he and his family stand to gain one hundred million dollars when Riggs is sold.
Riggs is still a "good buy" for another bank and a real winner for the Allbritton family. It shows he did what was asked of him.
Mar 7, 2005
Gasoline prices have shot up again. In the past, gasoline companies have said they have to raise prices because demand is high and supply is low. Supply and demand. That’s what they say.
But as the Wall Street Journal reported, supply is high right now. Inventories of gasoline are above the five-year range for this time of year.
So why are gas prices going up when supply is also up? Because, as an analyst said, "We haven’t hit a high enough price to cause behavior to change."
Put in everyday language, that means, the companies will charge as much as they can for as long as they can.
Control over the oil companies is the only thing that is in short "supply."
Mar 7, 2005
This winter, monthly home heating bills jumped way up. Consumers were told that it couldn’t be helped, because the price of oil was jumping up, too.
But what does one have to do with the other?
It’s true that natural gas is often found in the same area as oil. It’s also true that the biggest gasoline companies are the biggest natural gas companies. But the story ends there. The systems are completely separate and independent. Natural gas comes from different wells, is piped by different pipes, shipped by different ships, processed in different ways and stored and distributed through different facilities.
But it is priced by the same companies, who learned from Enron that any lie told in fleecing the consumer is perfectly OK!
Mar 7, 2005
Tom Ridge, former head of the Homeland Security department, was just put on the Board of Directors of Home Depot.
It makes a certain amount of sense. After all, Tom Ridge was a one-man army for sales of duct tape and plastic sheeting!
Mar 7, 2005
What did the top four oil companies in the world do with their gigantic profits? They paid out most of the profits to their stockholders, to the tune of 71 billion dollars. They bought up their own shares, which is another way of increasing the profits of stockholders, for 40 billion dollars. And finally they did invest some in the exploration of new oil fields. But they increased investment by only 10% this year, while profits grew by as much as 85% depending on the company. Investments are lower today than they were in 1980 when they are adjusted for inflation.
Oil companies put the emphasis on immediate profit to the detriment of looking for new energy sources. In the same way, they gain more money–and it’s a lot easier–through financial manipulations like buying up stock and acquiring companies, than by producing oil.
This situation creates a relative scarcity. And it explains why, when there is even a small increase in demand, the price of oil goes up very rapidly. And the profits go up even faster!
Mar 7, 2005
Phill Kline, attorney general of the state of Kansas, has based his political career on attacking the rights of women who try to get an abortion.
After spending part of his eight years in the Kansas legislature writing laws against abortion, Kline used his appointment as state Attorney General to persecute women in a whole new way. A year ago, Kline demanded all the medical records of women who had had abortions at two Kansas clinics. It was a fishing expedition to violate every patient’s privacy in hopes of finding something sensational to prosecute. And it was carried out in great secrecy.
At the end of February, when Kline’s vendetta became public, he claimed he was looking for statutory rape crimes against children.
It’s a smoke screen–just like his second justification for carrying out a wholesale violation of private medical records–the claim that he was looking for "criminal" abortions. "Crimes"? The only one with criminal behavior here is the Kansas Attorney General.
Kline’s goal is to terrorize women in Kansas, as well as their doctors. If Kline’s subpoena of all abortion records is successful, any woman seeking an abortion for any reason will know that her personal medical records may one day be spread all over the front pages by some ambitious politician.
This is nothing but intimidation. Rape victims who have had an abortion will have their confidential medical histories violated. And every woman who has had an abortion, for whatever reason, will be legally raped in the same manner.
In one press conference, Kline said, "there are two things that child predators want, access to children and secrecy." Those are the exact methods he used himself! This predator on women demanded access to their personal medical records, and managed to keep his assault secret for a year, before it came to light.
The battle lines are clearly drawn: the Attorney General of Kansas vs. the rights of the women of Kansas.
Mar 7, 2005
Last month, the U.S. Supreme Court finally banned the execution of people for crimes they had committed before the age of 18, or as the Supreme Court called it, the "juvenile death penalty."
The U.S. is one of the few countries left in the world that employs wide- spread use of the death penalty. One symbol of that has been the "juvenile death penalty," that is, the execution of people who were 16 or 17 years of age when they were supposed to have committed their crime.
Until a few years ago, only eight governments in the world, including the U.S., had the juvenile death penalty, one of the most barbaric aspects of the death penalty. It is no accident that those seven countries also happened to be among the most brutal and bloody dictatorships in the world: Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, Iran, Yemen, Nigeria, the Congo and China. Public revulsion against this particular form of government-sanctioned murder was so great that, one after the other, even these dictatorships officially abandoned the practice.
As the Supreme Court noted in the majority’s opinion, "The stark reality is that the United States is the only country in the world that continues to give official sanction to the juvenile death penalty."
For U.S. officials, this isolation comes at a bad time. They are looking to get more help and cooperation from the lesser imperial powers, like England, France and Germany, to deal with the terrible wars the U.S. is pursuing in the Middle East and Central Asia. But it is more difficult for these governments to comply, not only because of the vast and deep opposition to the wars in those countries, but also because people in other countries are horrified by other brutal policies of the U.S. government, especially symbolized by the death penalty.
At the same time, the Supreme Court is responding to growing opposition to the death penalty here at home, especially given all the revelations about how many innocent people are sitting on death row, and how many innocent people have already been executed.
This latest ruling reversed the 1989 decision by the Supreme Court that had specifically sanctioned extending the death penalty to teenagers. After that decision, 19 juvenile offenders were executed in the United States. With the Supreme Court now reversing itself, 72 people in 12 states will be moved off death rows.
Of course, in arriving at its decision, the Supreme Court made clear that it was not acting out of any sense of revulsion or shame for having earlier sanctioned such a barbaric practice in a supposedly modern and advanced country. In fact, the court decision simply stated that it was following "evolving standards of decency."
"Standards of decency" ? The U.S. Government, which continues to put people to death in a myriad of ways–execution, torture, bombing, killing of civilians in war–has not a shred of decency!
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