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
Apr 18, 2005
Bush wants to privatize Social Security. The Democrats say they don’t like privatization, but they’ll go along with it if Bush agrees to make the private accounts "add-ons." And the rest of the Republicans are hiding under the table, because they’ve already taken a hit for Bush’s plan to change Social Security.
But change it they will–at least if the population doesn’t react strongly enough. And privatization will not be the worst of it. In fact, all this debate about privatization is a smoke screen to hide the real attack they are preparing on Social Security.
They want us to work longer before we retire–maybe as long as 70.
They intend for us to get lower benefits when we retire, and let the benefits fall further and further behind inflation, once we are retired
And they want us to pay more in Social Security taxes (FICA) when we work.
All because–so they say–Social Security is in trouble.
No, Social Security is NOT in trouble. It has a 1.7 trillion dollar surplus today, and that surplus, that extra money, is expected to increase to six trillion dollars by 2016. That’s TRILLION, not billion, not million, but SIX TRILLION DOLLARS more than what it needs to pay benefits.
Social Security is in good shape today, very good. That’s why Bush has to point to the far-off future, to 2042, pretending that that’s when Social Security won’t be able to pay all benefits.
If you had a house, and some scam artist off the street knocked on your door, offering to put a new roof on your house for some exorbitant price, telling you that your roof was going to start leaking in 37 years, you’d slam the door in his face.
Well, Bush is that scam artist, and we ought to slam the door in his face–along with all the other politicians, Democrat and Republican, who pretend Social Security is in trouble.
If it were true that Social Security is in trouble, what should they do? If, for example, 37 years from now, Social Security would need a little extra boost to keep on paying all the benefits to everyone, what should they propose?
Here’s a simple, easy answer. Tax everyone at the SAME rate on ALL their income. Right now, the wealthy pay Social Security taxes only on the first $90,000 a year. Make them pay Social Security taxes on ALL their income. That would plug any deficit Bush could imagine.
Anyone who tells us that Social Security is in trouble, but doesn’t immediately propose to tax the wealthy on EVERY bit of their income is running a scam on us.
The real scam is that they want us to think this country can’t afford to pay a decent pension to everyone. Well, it can.
Of course, Social Security needs to be brought up to date–but in the opposite way from what the politicians are proposing! We should retire earlier. We should get a really livable pension. They set 65 as retirement in the 1930s. Since then, the productivity of labor has grown immensely. The social surplus value available from our productivity has grown far beyond anything that could have been imagined in l939. They say there’s not enough money? There’s enough money to let us all retire at 50, and not on peanuts, either. Real Social Security should allow us to live at least as well in retirement as when we worked.
None of the wealth that exists would be here if somebody hadn’t worked, put in labor, to create it. Those who created it should have first claim on it. Workers have created more than enough wealth, far more than enough to provide everyone a decent retirement. But just like it’s always been: we can’t get our rights without a fight. Perhaps the fight is shaping up. Certainly there has been a huge passive resistance to Bush and his "60 cities" campaign.
It just needs to get louder. Much louder. And out into the streets, where they can hear us much better!
Workers 70 years ago, stuck in the hole of the Great Depression, still organized themselves so the bosses had to come across with some Social Security for the first time. If they could do it, then, of course, we can do it now.
Apr 18, 2005
On April 2 patrols were formed in Arizona to fight against illegal immigration from Mexico. There were over a thousand men organized into small groups, who said they would patrol a part of the border throughout April. They claim to be aiding the Border Patrol in stopping workers who try to cross secretly to find work in the U.S. These racist xenophobic bands are well armed, have night vision goggles, jeeps and even small planes, just to hunt down poor people who seek to flee misery.
This, of course, raises the question of where they’re getting all this military material and who’s footing the bill to buy it.
But we can bet that the next time a big contractor or agricultural corporation wants cheap labor, Bush will send the Border Patrol to open the border. But in the meantime he’s set these vicious dogs on defenseless people, just as he will use these same paramilitary bands against workers–native born and immigrants–who organize to improve their wages when the time comes.
Apr 18, 2005
In 2002, only 45% of the public school students in Los Angeles graduated on time, according to a survey done by researchers from several universities. This is an average; the number of graduating students is even lower for schools in poor and working-class neighborhoods. In several inner-city schools, for example, less than one-third of entering ninth graders graduated in four years, the survey found.
No one knows exactly how many students are dropping out because school and district officials don’t keep track of students who change schools. In fact, by calling failing students "transfers" rather than "dropouts," administrators try to make the graduation rates look better than they really are. To name an example, Jefferson High, where the survey found a graduation rate of 31%, had reported 45% instead.
Not surprisingly, the schools with the worst graduation rates are also the ones that suffer most from overcrowding. In the city’s working-class neighborhoods, where the population has grown rapidly, the district has not built new schools for decades.
Faced with a brewing anger in these neighborhoods, district administrators have lately been pushing the idea of dividing overcrowded schools into smaller units. Many schools have already begun doing this, under such names as "learning centers," "themed programs," "academies" or "houses."
Just as these made-up names suggest, this is nothing but a smokescreen. These "smaller schools" will all exist in the same old, overcrowded facilities, so "smaller schools" will not mean smaller classes or more supplies. To the contrary: as schools supposedly get "smaller," so does California’s education budget–which means even more students per teacher and even less supplies. And whatever money is allocated for dividing schools into smaller units, a big chunk of it will end up in the coffers of private companies that run these "learning communities" as "charter schools"–which in turn leaves even less money for the rest of the public schools.
The reality of public schools today shows that this capitalist society is not interested in educating the children of the working class. Whatever tricks or gimmicks the bosses’ spin artists may come up with, they cannot hide this cold fact.
Apr 18, 2005
In the last six months, at least 180 pharmacists have refused to fill prescriptions that were medically and legally correct. Most of these refusals were against women with prescriptions for birth control, or to deal with miscarriages or abortions.
Suddenly pharmacists, supported by a right-to-life group called Pharmacists for Life, are dispensing their so-called moral values rather than the prescriptions they were hired to fill. As reported by Boston Globe columnist Ellen Goodman, ten states allow health care professionals to refuse to provide contraceptives. Twelve states allow doctors to refuse sterilizations. In all but three states, doctors can refuse to perform abortions. In supposedly liberal Maryland, legislators just refused to make pharmacists provide the morning-after pill available without a prescription.
Nor are pharmacists and doctors alone in trying to impose their morals on one half of the human population. The hypocrites writing a contract for one of the strongest unions left in the U.S. agreed to pay for Viagra but NOT for birth control pills–don’t even mention abortions.
Every one of these attacks aims at stopping women from controlling their own lives and their own bodies. Every one of them aims at imposing a particular religious point of view, no matter who disagrees with it. Every similar attack that succeeds pushes women back toward a time two centuries ago, when women were considered chattel, and nothing else.
Let them get their filthy minds off our bodies!
Apr 18, 2005
Detroit city officials and the news media have been filled with reports about how over-bloated the Detroit city government is. They blame the 200 million dollar deficit on the size of city government. Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick and the city newspapers constantly report that Detroit has one city employee for every 53 residents, and a total of 42 separate city departments. Other cities of comparable size have far fewer. Indianapolis, they say, has one employee for every 192 residents, and only five departments.
Back in the 1990s, Indianapolis then-mayor Goldsmith proposed shrinking city government as a way to cut deficits. He proposed closing city departments, and hiring private companies to do the work that had been done directly by the city–often GIVING city equipment and facilities to those companies.
Years later, the city budget is no smaller–and it’s filled with scandal on top of it. The new mayor says that the city is 57 million dollars in debt, and needs to be cut further.
Privatization is NOT more efficient. It does NOT save governments money. It costs governments MORE money, for FEWER services. Contractors take over city resources, take their fees, take a big chunk right off the top for themselves, and then cut back all sorts of city services that used to be taken for granted–because contractors exist for profit, not to provide services to city residents.
So why is Detroit pointing to Indianapolis as the big example of how to do things? The only thing it shows is how corporations can grab public money and make huge profits!
The true purpose behind privatization proposals is not to cut deficits or to increase efficiency. It’s to hand taxpayer money over to private corporations, pure and simple.
Apr 18, 2005
Detroit Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick proposed his new budget for the city last week. The budget is filled with cutbacks that will mean certain hardship for city workers and residents.
Kilpatrick proposes to reduce bulk garbage pickup in the city, so that NONE would take place in the months of November, December, February and March. He must figure, if the garbage is frozen, it might make nice sled runs–so let it pile up!
He proposes to cut 754 city employees, including 61 firefighters and 31 paramedics, and ask remaining workers to take a 10% pay cut. He proposes to consolidate some city departments, and eliminate others.
And he tries to tell us that services will improve, not disappear!
Kilpatrick also proposes to cut all city support for the Detroit Zoo and Historical Museum. He already cut support for the Art Museum and closed the Aquarium. He’s effectively saying that the workers who live in the city have no right to culture.
On top of that, he proposes to raise taxes in the city of Detroit–a "fast food tax" of two%, which will be paid mainly by lower-income residents.
But at the same time that Kilpatrick said these moves are needed to stem a 300 million dollar budget shortfall, he also turned around and paid 23 million dollars for a piece of industrial property on the Detroit River. When he wants it, the money flows freely!
Big tax breaks have long been part of Detroit city business schemes, from its three casinos and the Tigers’ new baseball stadium, all the way back to GM’s Poletown plant in the early 1980s. The city has also paid to tear down big swatches of the downtown area in order to rebuild office buildings and condominiums in the neighborhood of the new ball park and opera house–giving tax breaks to the new occupants.
But for ordinary city residents, all they’ve seen have been higher taxes and bigger cuts in services. Detroit residents already pay some of the highest city taxes in the country. Now Kilpatrick proposes to charge residents even more, while giving them much less.
To be so blatant in taking away from workers to give to the rich–Kilpatrick must really think he’s untouchable!
He may discover he’s wrong.
Apr 18, 2005
On March 28, a house exploded in District Heights, a mostly black working class suburb on the Maryland side of Washington D.C. Fortunately, the family living there was not home when their house blew up.
People in the neighborhood had been smelling gas for over a year. In fact, since mid-February, the Washington Gas Company had received 260 calls from people who smelled gas in this District Heights neighborhood, compared to the 85 which is usual for a neighborhood of this size.
Moreover, it is a problem for several neighborhoods in the same area, not just District Heights but also Clinton, Surrattsville and Lanham, to name a few. Some people in Clinton, for example, have been smelling gas for three years! These people live in fear. They turn their heat off at night, and they have stopped having backyard barbecues. People in these neighborhoods have repeatedly called Washington Gas.
In fact, the service line to the house that blew up had been repaired the day before the explosion! So what exactly is going on?
These gas leaks are occurring in a 100-square mile area. The mechanical couplings that link service lines were installed there from the 1950s through the 1970s, which means they are 30 to 50 years old. The rubber seals are deteriorating not surprisingly. You do not have to be a rocket scientist to know that rubber dry rots and falls apart with age!
People should not have to live like this in fear. The stench of gas means they cannot even sell their homes, because no one wants to buy the houses.
"It’s an older community. It’s not affluent," said Yvonne Mack, who lives in Clinton. If gas were leaking out of couplings in a wealthy Washington neighborhood, you can bet Washington Gas would not wait for a million dollar home to explode.
Poor neighborhoods have the possibility to explode from gas leaks. It would be better if they exploded with people’s rage at an unacceptable situation.
Apr 18, 2005
Israeli Prime Minister Sharon came to visit President Bush. He walked away with the endorsement for his policy of promising to pull back from Gaza while continuing the colonization of the West Bank.
Bush stated that he hoped "not to see Israel take initiatives that go against its obligations under the Roadmap to Peace." To follow this, the Israeli government must "dismantle its illegal settlements" in the West Bank. But as many times as this demand has been formulated, there has never been a significant step taken to achieve it, above all not by the Israelis.
Of course, it all depends on what they mean by "illegal settlements"? From the viewpoint of the Palestinians, all the Israeli settlements in the West Bank and in Gaza are "illegal". But for the American and Israeli leaders, this refers just to a few trailer camps set up here and there on the top of the hills. So Sharon, while pretending to dismantle settlements in the time prescribed, also reaffirmed that the 240,000 Israeli settlers in the West Bank located in the "large settlements" will remain there no matter what agreements are reached between the Palestinian and Israeli leaders regarding the West Bank.
The Roadmap to Peace, the plan concocted in 2002 by the United States, Russia, the European Union and the United Nations anticipated the freezing of Israeli settlements and the creation of a Palestinian state along- side Israel. But the road that leads to the creation of a Palestinian state has since been lost in the sand of the settlements in the West Bank, and Israel has underlined its real decision by constructing that shameful wall that not only separates Israel from any future Palestinian state, but carves up the Palestinian state before it’s created.
While pretending to end the settlement of some 8000 settlers in Gaza, Sharon has made it clear he will continue the settlements in the West Bank. By the time negotiations continue, there will already be new settlements installed and additional parcels of Palestinian land annexed by Israel.
The construction of 3500 new lodgings in a new settlement in Maale Adunim has just been announced. This new construction not only completes a link from Jerusalem to the most important settlement in the West Bank (with some 28,000 inhabitants), but it will also cut the West Bank in half and worsen the situation of the Palestinians.
If Washington really wanted to advance towards a resolution of the Israel-Palestinian conflict, it would demand that the Israeli government pull back from more than just a few "illegal settlements." The American government has all the means to do this, starting from the fact that it could end financial aid to the Israeli government if it didn’t comply. This is something mentioned in the past, but action has never followed these words. In fact, just the opposite has been done, with Bush stating that "a return to the borders of 1949 is unrealistic." During his last presidential campaign, Bush promised he would never impose any action on Israel that could weaken its security. Each and every time that Sharon asks for something, he surrounds his demand with talk of "security." The "peace process" will just have to be put off. These two hypocrites couldn’t make a better team.
After the meeting between Bush and Sharon, the Palestinians protested to Washington saying that the refusal to return to the borders of 1949 means to allow the Israeli settlements to remain in the West Bank. In response, Bush and Sharon responded together that the Palestinian leaders should first worry about dismantling the armed Palestinian groups, even though that is something they can not do, and would be wrong to do. And of course, neither Bush nor Sharon spoke about the deadly abuses of the Israeli army, which on the weekend of April 9-10 killed three Palestinian youth in the West Bank.
From time to time, Bush may pretend to raise his voice, but the essential fact is that he allows Sharon to do as he pleases, to continue his policy of settlements to the detriment of the Palestinians.
Apr 18, 2005
An explosive situation has arisen in Niger, with strikes, demonstrations and rallies in several cities in early April. This poor desert region in West Africa has seen a sharp rise in the cost of living. Tens of thousands of demonstrators are challenging the dictatorship of President Mamadou Tandja and police repression. They are demanding the repeal of a new law imposing a 19% tax on such necessities as water and electricity, rice and millet, flour and cooking oil.
This new tax was voted in by the National Assembly in January, sparking an explosion in a country where the majority lives on less than a dollar a day. This provocative action pushed the anger of the poor parts of the population, taking place as it did after last year’s bad harvest which had already led to a 50% rise in the price of rice and millet. A recent invasion of locusts, added to a drought contributed to the deterioration throughout the countryside. The scarcity of fodder has not been this severe since the drought of 1984, and livestock may soon die. The rural population in the east of Niger faces famine; many have headed toward Niamey, the capital, seeking food.
Merchants are allowed to raise their prices with no objection from the government. Niger’s official minimum wage is about $59 per month, but many people earn less. Yet the price of millet, their basic food, now costs $42 for a 15-day supply. A sack of rice now costs 40% more than before. The prices of cooking oil, flour, coffee and tea are up sharply. A loaf of bread has gone from 29¢ to 35¢. Even government employees are affected; some saw a wage reduction already of 30%. On occasion, they have joined in the demonstrations. The great majority feel strangled by the government’s new tax, reduced to destitution. No wonder anger has exploded in the streets over the last few weeks.
For some time, the government has turned a blind eye to the demands of the "Coalition against the High Cost of Living in Niger," which brings together 30 organizations and unions. Its members have demanded the repeal of the tax.
On March 15, government forces violently attacked thousands of demonstrators in the capital, throwing in prison five of the leaders of the coalition. They were accused of a "plot against state safety."
But far from silencing the discontent, governmental repression had the reverse effect and increased it. The protest moved to other cities. Despite arrests and bans, the strikes and demonstrations reached several other cities on March 22, April 5 and April 9. Zinder, one of the larger cities, was declared a "dead city" by the government in attempting to ban all demonstrations; in Agadez there were violent clashes with the police.
The dictatorship has been surprised by this unexpected and widespread popular mobilization. It freed the jailed leaders of the coalition and mouthed conciliatory words to gain some time. The pressure from the demonstrators is what forced some concessions from the government. Its repression has failed to stop the determination of the population, which continues to demand the repeal of the hated tax.
Perhaps the days of Tandja’s dictatorship are numbered if such popular confrontations continue.
Apr 18, 2005
"Tireless pilgrim," "man of meetings," a spirit "open to the hopes and suffering of the world,"... commentators competed with one another to praise the late John Paul II, calling him a man for his epoch.
In reality, using modern media and transportation to address huge audiences, this pope delivered the reactionary social and political message of the Catholic Church for 26 years. A long list of reactionaries were made into saints or simply blessed or congratulated by the pope. If John Paul II was opposed to the dictatorship in Poland, he supported many others.
The representative of the pope in Chile during the dictatorship of Pinochet declared, "Even masterpieces can have stains. I invite you not to look at the stains on the picture, but to look at the whole, which is marvelous." John Paul II was still supporting Pinochet, when the dictator was arrested in England in 1998.
The Catholic Church not only advises men–and especially women–on how to live while maintaining reactionary prejudices. It also, where it is able, influences governments to prohibit women from controlling their own bodies. The church condemns contraception and considers abortion a "crime." This pope, presented to us as a champion of the "rights of man," showed nothing but scorn for the rights of women! John Paul II even called those countries which legalized abortion "tyrant states." He dared to compare the abortions carried out in the world each year to the victims of the genocide carried out by the Nazis!
Confronted with the AIDS epidemic which appeared in 1981, the emissaries of the Catholic Church, even in the African countries most affected, preached marital fidelity and abstinence. Abstinence, of course, is a "virtue" easy for the old men of the sacred college to practice. "Chastity is the only sure and virtuous manner of putting an end to this tragic plague," declared John Paul II to youth in Uganda in 1993. The Catholic Church continues to object to the use of condoms, even though the use of this ordinary item can save the lives of millions.
During the reign of John Paul II, the Catholic Church certainly made a speciality of apologizing for its past crimes. It has more than enough to choose from. During the Inquisition, adherents of other religions and "heretics" were tortured and burnt to death; the church now says there were "errors" and "excesses." The church finally recognized in 1992, that Galileo’s trial in 1616 was a "painful misunderstanding!" The church threatened to torture him to death for demonstrating that the earth rotated around the sun. There were messages of "repentance" and "purification" for the role of the Catholic Church in the slave trade and its dubious attitude with respect to Hitler’s extermination of Jews during World War II.
The pope who just died was as reactionary as previous popes. This so-called "democrat" wanted society to return to the Christianity of the Middle Ages. Commentators might as well have pointed out that another pope from 500 years ago just died.
Apr 18, 2005
On April 9th and 10th tens of thousands of people demonstrated in various Chinese cities in front of official Japanese buildings like the embassies and consulates, and also in front of Japanese banks, supermarkets and restaurants. In some of these demonstrations, objects were thrown and windows smashed, for example, at the home of the Japanese ambassador in Beijing. Sometimes the demonstrations took on an anti-foreigner character.
Some Chinese demonstrators protested against a Japanese history book. The text minimized the atrocities committed by the Japanese army in 1937 and during World War II, when it invaded and occupied China and Korea. A minister of Foreign Affairs said the textbook "totally absolves the Japanese militarists of their crimes and their responsibilities."
The Japanese invasion of China in 1937 was barbaric on a grand scale. The city of Nanjing was sacked and burned by the Japanese army as it ferociously massacred 150,000 to 300,000 civilians. Women were raped, men tortured before being shot, and children were buried alive; well water in the region was poisoned. In Korea, the Japanese army organized a vast traffic of prostitutes, forcing 200,000 Korean women to be what they called "comfort women" in military brothels. In Manchuria, which Japan occupied in 1936, a special "Unit 731" carried out experiments in bacteriological war, operating on several thousand healthy people, mostly Chinese. The Japanese army arranged epidemics against the Chinese.
For many years these atrocities were little known, since the U.S. conquerors of Japan decreed an amnesty covering those responsible for the atrocities, beginning with the Japanese emperor Hirohito. The U.S. government decided to leave him in his position. During the Cold War, U.S. imperialism needed support in Asia against China. Taiwan, a tiny island off the Chinese coast, gave its support in exchange for which the U.S. government proclaimed that Taiwan was the real China, not Mao’s China. The U.S. covered over the Japanese atrocities against China and Korea, protecting the majority of military leaders who carried them out. Although the general responsible for the massacres in Nanjing was condemned to death, the man in charge of Unit 731 got immunity, thanks to the U.S. government. Only in 1992 with the opening of the military archives did the Japanese government admit that the "comfort women" were prostitutes, since the reality could no longer be denied.
Almost 70 years after these deeds, the Japanese authorities continue their silence about the barbarism of its army. They call the army’s actions "details" of history. In a similar way, the barbarities committed by the U.S. army in the Korean war of the 1950s are never mentioned in the U.S.
But meanwhile, the Japanese authorities have the nerve to demand apologies and compensation from the Chinese authorities for eggs thrown against its buildings and windows broken by demonstrators!
Apr 18, 2005
The mayor of Baltimore, Martin O’Malley, has proudly proposed a tax CUT in the next city budget, about to go into effect. O’Malley and the city council arranged for two-cent reductions in the property tax rate in each of the next five years, for a grand total of ten cents per $100 of assessed value. As a result, a home assessed at $75,000 will have each year’s tax bill reduced by $15.
O’Malley plans to run for governor of the state in 2006. He clearly hopes voters will remember the $15 in the election. Yes, voters might well remember this political gesture after water and sewer rate increases, plus a new Baltimore telephone tax. Voters might think $15 a year is not much of a bribe from a politician who has already shown us how he takes money out of our pockets.
Apr 18, 2005
Top officials of the UAW and General Motors held their annual joint leadership meeting April 13-15. GM did its usual play-acting about its dire financial situation and how badly it needs to cut back on workers’ health care benefits.
This is laughable, coming from leaders of a company with around 23 billion dollars in financial reserves AND another 24 billion held by GMAC, its financial unit. Perhaps the 26.7 million dollars paid to GM’s top 5 executives in 2003, with their millions (not yet announced) for 2004, is partly a reward for their acting skills–their ability to keep a straight face while claiming poverty!
But the UAW International leaders’ response was not the horse-laugh the GM farce deserved. It was a sympathetic pat on the shoulder!
As Detroit newspapers reported, UAW Vice President Richard Shoemaker said that while the UAW would not re-open contract negotiations, nevertheless it understood GM’s problem and would "keep working to help GM." And then he proceeded to give examples of their "help." GM, under the current contract, was supposed to have already hired 6,800 new workers. The UAW has let GM slide, giving "a greater savings to GM than the cost of health care," according to one union official. In other words, the UAW International deliberately helped GM violate their contract and keep 6,800 workers unemployed!–and the rest working harder.
More help was given to GM on health care directly. Even though UAW members were told that this contract contained "no cost shifting" on health care, UAW President Ron Gettelfinger told reporters that "the UAW has already made several adjustments along the way."
None of the adjustments were favorable to workers. And none of the adjustments were brought before union members for a vote. Workers were simply informed by letters that certain medical plans could no longer be used, that certain doctors were no longer covered, that retirees could only get drugs from certain mail-order firms, that certain co-pays were boosted, and even, at Chrysler, that workers must suddenly pay deductibles in addition to their co-pays!
Yes, the UAW certainly has been making "adjustments along the way." Adjustments dictated by GM, Ford and Chrysler. Adjustments never taken to the workers for a vote. Adjustments based on contract obscurities and deeply buried from workers’ sight.
UAW International leaders are showing workers that contracts are worthless pieces of paper, changed at the whim of those at the top.
Workers need a lot more security than such pieces of paper offer. Nothing but workers’ own power, in their organized thousands and tens of thousands, will suffice.
Apr 18, 2005
Just after midnight on April 14, a Michigan state trooper shot and killed an unarmed homeless man, Eric Williams, on the street in downtown Detroit.
As usual, the state police claim that the 40-year-old Williams "lunged" at the officer, threatening him. But there’s a small fly in the ointment this time–Detroit city police were also there and say they have an in-car video. The Detroit police report states that Williams was walking slowly toward the state police car when the cop got out of the car, unholstered his gun and shot Williams down.
Now that the two different accounts are in the press, it remains to be seen how the two police agencies will decide to play this out in public. But what is absolutely clear is that cops are put on the street with a license to kill. Here’s a state trooper safely in his car, with other police cars around. He has no reason to get out, let alone shoot. There is nothing going on that two or three cops could not have restrained, if necessary, without weapons. Especially since Williams was nearly blind! And no one even pretended he was armed. But to the state trooper, what difference was this man’s life? The first response–not the last resort, but the first response –was shoot to kill. No different than if Williams had been a dog on the street.
Shoot first and cover up later. That’s the way citizens are "protected" by this society’s police.
Apr 18, 2005
George Bush has been busily denouncing the United Nations for not monitoring its oil-for-food program, run in Iraq before the U.S. invaded in 2003. Under the program, Iraq was allowed to sell some oil while economic sanctions against it were in effect. All the money was supposedly to go for food and other necessities for the Iraqi people.
And guess who was scamming the U.N.‘s program? Texan oilmen!
A grand jury has just indicted two Houston oilmen for paying kickbacks to Saddam Hussein’s regime, in exchange for access to Iraqi oil.
It’s no surprise that Texas oilmen were friendly with Hussein’s government, nor that they would take full "advantage" of a United Nations program. After all, corporations pay kickbacks all the time to brutal dictators in underdeveloped countries to get access to their raw materials and cheap labor, out of which, just as in this case, they make enormous profit.
As usual, the only surprise is that someone got caught. No doubt there were much bigger fish involved than the men charged and it wouldn’t be hard to know where to look for them!
Apr 18, 2005
On the second anniversary of the fall of Saddam Hussein, hundreds of thousands of Iraqis gathered in Baghdad to demand an end to the U.S. occupation. The British newspaper Guardian estimated the huge crowd at 300,000. All news reports agreed that this was the largest demonstration in Iraq since the beginning of the occupation.
The protest was called by Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr, and the overwhelming majority of the protesters were poor Shiites, among whom Sadr has a strong following. But the crowd included Sunnis also. A prominent Sunni cleric, Harith Dari, had joined the call to come out in protest of the U.S. occupation.
Both of these clerics, who denounced the January 30 elections, were probably trying to reinforce their bases and position themselves politically with a view toward the future. But the size of the crowd that came out shows their call to protest resonated with the sentiments of the population, especially the poor.
The rally was held at Firdos Square, where two years ago a statue of Saddam Hussein was toppled by U.S. troops and a few dozen Iraqis. The images of that event, which we now know was staged by the U.S. military, were broadcast over and over on TV, as a way to trumpet the U.S. military victory over Iraq.
This year also, demonstrators pulled down an effigy of Saddam Hussein in celebration of his fall. But the effigy of the hated tyrant was accompanied by those of two of his equally hated colleagues–George Bush and British Prime Minister Tony Blair!
The U.S. news media were not so enthusiastic about reporting this popular gesture against tyranny. Unlike recent large demonstrations in Ukraine and Lebanon, for example, this impressive outburst of popular sentiment in Iraq didn’t quite make the news hours of the big TV stations or the first pages of the big newspapers.
Apparently, what matters to the U.S. news media is not so much expressions of "people power" or "democracy," but who they are directed against. In this case, the U.S.!
Apr 18, 2005
Since Bush and Rumsfeld don’t have an exit strategy from the war in Iraq, an anti-war marcher in Baltimore kindly put one on a sign for them to see:
Iraq exit strategy:
1. Pack up.
2. Leave.
Apr 18, 2005
After two months of haggling, leaders of Iraq’s political parties have agreed on how to divide most of the government posts among themselves. As soon as these "new leaders" of Iraq announced that, they got a visit from their boss, U.S. Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld.
We may not know everything Rumsfeld discussed with his Iraqi buddies behind closed doors, but his statements to the press reveal at least one message he conveyed to them: Don’t mess with the army and police–that is, the new Iraqi army and police which are in the process of being set up by the U.S. Rumsfeld warned Iraq’s new leaders against carrying out a purge in the security forces–as they had said they intended to do.
One of Iraq’s new vice presidents, Ghazi Yawar, put it more bluntly. Yawar said he was concerned that Sunnis, who "gained wide experience in the security and intelligence services under Saddam," would be dismissed in the name of de-Baathification (Baath is the name of Saddam’s party).
In other words, when U.S. officials talk about the necessity of including Sunnis in the new government, they mean Saddam’s old thugs who now are ready to serve a new master, the U.S.!
But the same is true for the Shiite clerics and Kurdish warlords that are heading Iraq’s new political parties. These "leaders" represent only their own ambitions: to get their hands, and those of their friends, on the loot.
That loot is oil, of course, and that’s what these great "leaders" of the new "democracy" have been arguing over for two months. That’s why, for example, the Shiite clerics, who have a majority of the seats in the new parliament, had no problem with allowing a Kurdish warlord to take the presidency. What really matters are the two ministries that will control Iraq’s major source of wealth–the oil and finance ministries–and the two that will make sure this wealth is kept from the Iraqi people–the ministries of defense and the interior. And now that they have agreed on how to divide up those ministries, Iraq’s "fledgling democracy" is supposedly "entering a new phase," according to George Bush.
In the same speech in which he uttered these phrases, Bush also told troops at Fort Hood, Texas, on April 13 that their work in Iraq isn’t over yet. In Baghdad, Rumsfeld reiterated the same message: Don’t expect U.S. troops to leave any time soon.
No one should expect things to improve for the Iraqi people any time soon either. The war continues. Not a single day goes by without attacks against the U.S. military and their appendage, the Iraqi army and police. Almost on a daily basis, there are also bombings that target Sunni and Shiite crowds, raising the question of a civil war. Falluja, a city of 300,000 razed to the ground by the U.S. last fall, is still in ruins. Hundreds of thousands of Iraqis have been turned into refugees in their own country.
The majority of Iraqis have no jobs, nor any prospects of getting one. Disease and malnutrition plague the majority of the population, especially children. Crime is rampant and out of control. Robbery, rape, kidnapping and murder are part of daily life for most Iraqis.
The U.S. occupation has been a complete disaster for Iraqi people. The U.S. troops have been sent there to make sure that Iraq’s oil is controlled by U.S. imperialism and its local cronies. And that turns the U.S. troops into targets of the Iraqi people’s anger and hatred.
No, there is no "democracy" or "security" for Iraqi people, nor will there be so long as U.S. imperialism continues to dominate that country. The only way U.S. troops can help Iraqi people, and themselves, is by leaving Iraq, and NOW.