After Firestorm of Protests, Florida Forced To Charge Trayvon's Killer With Murder

By Monica Moorehead
Published Apr 11, 2012 10:29 PM

George Zimmerman, the killer of the 17-year-old African American Trayvon Martin, was formally charged on April 11 with second-degree murder. It took the state of Florida 45 days to make an arrest of the wanna-be-cop Zimmerman, who fatally shot the unarmed teenager on Feb. 26 because he looked “suspicious” while wearing a hoodie.

The charge was announced by Angela Corey, a special prosecutor who was assigned to the case on March 14 in order to decide whether or not to bring charges against Zimmerman. A conviction can carry anywhere from a 25-year sentence to life in prison without the possibility of parole.

The Statewide Prosecutor's office and the Sanford Police Department had initially refused to arrest and charge Zimmerman with Martin's murder. They gave as an excuse Florida’s “Stand Your Ground” law, which protects those who claim self-defense. Sanford, especially its police department, has a sordid history of blatant racism against the Black community.

While Corey at her press conference was singing the praises of her prosecutorial team, the governor and the police authorities, she didn't say what was most glaring: that there would have been no arrest or charges against Zimmerman had it not been for the massive explosion of all forms of protests from below — rallies, marches, sit-ins, teach-ins, walkouts and more, all demanding justice for Trayvon Martin.

Furthermore, all these forms of grassroots protests in big and small cities were inevitably leading toward a massive rebellion, starting in Florida and spreading throughout the country — if Zimmerman had not been charged with murder. The real possibility of such a rebellion led by Black and other oppressed youth weighed heavily on the racist, capitalist ruling class, who already have their hands full attempting to manage an unmanageable economic crisis.

Larry Hales, an organizer of Occupy 4 Jobs and the People's Power Tour, stated in an April 11 press release, "What made this case so egregious is that Zimmerman was never initially arrested for the heinous crime against this teenager. In many cases, racist police and vigilantes are at least put on trial, even though 90 percent of the time they are given a slap on the wrist, resulting in very little jail time, or they are not convicted and are set free. The arrest of Zimmerman is one step in a long process of bringing about justice for Trayvon Martin and his family."

Hales went on to say, "This case is more than about Trayvon Martin. He is the face of all Black and Brown young people who are racially profiled by police and vigilantes. This case is the tip of the iceberg of the war against Black and Brown youth, a war that includes growing incarceration, attacks on education, depression-level unemployment and more. We must continue to build a struggle for social justice so that victims like Trayvon Martin will not have died in vain."

In the days and months to come, the movement must be on alert in every step of the process to bring Zimmerman to justice by mobilizing in every neighborhood, every city and every state.

When Outrage Can Lead To Rebellion

By Larry Holmes
Published Apr 11, 2012 9:27 PM

Based on a presentation at a Workers World Party forum in New York
on April 6.

Why do some atrocities get a bigger mass response than others?

Hurricane Katrina got some reaction, but not what might be expected from such a devastating event. James Byrd was dragged to his death in Texas. Oscar Grant was killed in the BART transit system in the San Francisco Bay Area. Sean Bell was gunned down in his car in Queens, N.Y. These outrages drew mostly local reactions.

Compare these to the tremendous response that Trayvon Martin’s killing has aroused. Not only in Sanford, Fla., but in New York City, Atlanta, Detroit and Los Angeles where thousands came out in protest and in Baltimore where thousands took City Hall. Thousands mobilized wearing hoodies.

Young people see this murder as something they want to identify with. Even professional sports teams were doing it. Former Black Panther Bobby Rush, now in Congress, spoke wearing a hoodie and had to be dragged out of Congress by racists. What accounts for the strong reaction?

Maybe it was because there was no arrest. Even the ruling-class media have brought that up.

Maybe it’s because it was so familiar to millions of Black and Brown people, especially to young people. No person of color has grown up in this country and has not been profiled at one time or another. They feel lucky if it’s one of the less lethal. but still humiliating forms of profiling.

Someone asking, “Are you lost?” when you’re walking in the “wrong” neighborhood. Or “How can I help you?” repeatedly, as you’re just looking in a store.

But is there something deeper that’s provoking the reaction? It was a young African-American journalist, chief editor of Politic365 website, Krystal High, who is often invited on CNN and MSNBC panels, who said of Martin, “People say, hey, he is our Arab Spring,” meaning that the case — the outrage — is a “call to action” for the African-American community.

A lot is at issue now as we approach April 10. This will be a massive national day demanding justice. In New York there are two days of demonstrations in Union Square on Monday, April 9, and Tuesday, April 10. Martin’s family will be there Monday. We have lots of responsibility on Tuesday.

Will the grand jury be convened? If not, will the special prosecutor do something? If there is no arrest, what will be the mass reaction? Might it be a rebellion?

I think we have to be ready for that. It should be uppermost in our minds to be ready to explain, defend and help such a rebellion, should it occur.

In Tunisia a young worker, a street merchant, set himself on fire. That was the catalyst that evoked something deeper, that provoked millions to rise up and then the movement to spread throughout the region. That’s what the Arab Spring means to me.

It happened in Britain last August. A London cop killed a person of color, with roots in the West Indies. A rebellion started in London and spread. Outrage started it, but austerity drove the rebellion.

Unemployment is the big issue

What are the issues for working class youth like Trayvon Martin? They are 45-50 million strong. Many young workers, from their teens to their 30s, are unemployed.

There is a war against Black and Brown youth. What is that war? In many cities, more youth are in jail than holding a job. The drug laws, like the Rockefeller law in New York state, have created an assembly line sending people of color to jail.

They face austerity and are deprived of education. The problem is systematic. The big issue is devastating hyper, depression-level unemployment. Officially it’s maybe 30 percent, but it’s more like 40-70 percent really. Few jobs exist, and most that do are low-paying — jobs with no future.

Unemployment has been around a long time, but no one has been able to make it the big issue. Those benefiting from the capitalist system don’t want it to be an issue because unemployment can’t be solved under capitalism. Capitalism can’t solve it.

The rulers have written off this section of the working class. They are closing schools and eliminating housing. Capitalism can’t create a basis for exploiting large sections of the working class, so it has condemned them to social and political death.

What’s the question now? How does a section of our class, condemned to social death, fight back? Do they rise up and say “I demand”?

History of struggle

Black people in the United States have a history of hundreds of years of struggle. Ever since the first enslaved people were brought here, they fought back. The struggle against national oppression is constant, deep, but the rulers try to ignore the day-by-day resistance. It needs a rebellion to be noticed.

The Civil Rights movement had an impact because the ruling class was forced to try to buy time by making concessions. Some 45 years ago, it took the 1964 rebellions in Harlem, the 1965 rebellion in Watts in Los Angeles, the big ones in 1967 in Newark and Detroit, and in more than 100 cities in 1968 after Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. was murdered to shake up the capitalist ruling class to do something.

Even though underlying the rebellions were bad housing, unemployment and systemic racism, police violence was the catalyst. Repression opened it up, but other things were at the roots of the struggle.

In 2006, the immigrants had their spring. They rose up and held the biggest general strike in 100 years on May Day.

Black and Brown youth are facing not exactly the same conditions, but there are similarities in how extreme the crisis is. Though a generalized rebellion is not guaranteed, we should at least plan a contingency for a big struggle, so we are not taken by surprise.

A cry for revolutionary optimism

If it is an Arab spring — that is, a generalized rebellion of the oppressed — it would be great for the Occupy Wall Street movement. Those activists are in motion, and the Black struggle would push OWS in the direction of solidarity with the oppressed.

Don’t think it was a coincidence that Trayvon Martin’s family went to Union Square, where OWS had relocated, and why they’re going back there on April 9, where many forces are involved.

I differ with those who say OWS is going away. There’s a difference now from the conditions during the Vietnam War when many white activists were propelled into struggle. Then, when the war ended, most went back to their normal lives and back into the system.

Now that option is no longer promised, even for white youth. It doesn’t matter how savvy they are, the jobs aren’t there. A little while ago they thought they had a future; now they are shocked that it has vanished. The knowledge they have, their education, their savvy — they can only use them for resistance and rebellion.

We know the Arab Spring is filled with contradictions. The imperialists took advantage of the opening to overthrow the government of Libya and are now intervening against Syria. When we talk of the good part of the Arab Spring, of OWS, of the outraged activists in Spain, we mean how they connected Tahrir Square in Cairo to Plaza del Sol in Madrid and to Union Square and Zuccotti Park in New York.

The deepening of the capitalist crisis on a world scale has opened up the possibility of struggle on a world scale. Of course, as revolutionaries, we have to be optimistic. The global capitalist crisis has created conditions for all the forces in the working class to be pushed together in solidarity.

We need to understand that and imagine a synthesis of forces that can come together. Otherwise we base ourselves on experiences where this didn’t happen.

We look at the objective process moving the forces. With all the pitfalls of organizing, the ups and downs, the conditions won’t go away. We hope they will push forward solidarity and unity in ideology against imperialism.

There is too much at stake to be stuck in old habits. The crisis is pushing us together. This is not clear to all, but it has to be clear to us.

Even if it’s a false start, even if there is an outside chance it will develop into a sustained rebellion, we have to respond as revolutionaries to help it go as far as it can.

Holmes is First Secretary of Workers World Party’s National Secretariat.

Larry Holmes: "Trayvon Martin, An Arab Spring for Black Youth?"

Racism robs Black youth of their dreams

By Larry Hales
Published Mar 28, 2012 8:30 PM

Trayvon Martin, the 17-year-old Black youth killed by racist vigilante George Zimmerman, was robbed of any opportunities that the future may have held for him. His parents were robbed of their son, his younger stepbrother a guiding hand, his girlfriend, other family members and friends a person who brought them immense joy, laughter, heartache — all the gifts and frustrations that a loved one brings.

And that he was killed by a man who by his own admission chased him because he was Black and wearing a hoodie, yet still walks free because of some dubiously written law, makes the tragedy that much greater.

Many wonder how Zimmerman remains free when the facts of the case are so clear. Trayvon had no weapon and was significantly lighter than Zimmerman, outweighed by nearly 100 pounds.

Trayvon was the one being stalked and then chased in fear for his life. This was validated by the young woman on the other end of the telephone call with Trayvon as the young man fled.

It would seem that the specific provisions of the Florida “Stand Your Ground” law would contravene the decision of the Sanford Police Department to allow Zimmerman to walk free, citing his right to self-defense.

However, this is U.S. society, where the seeds of white supremacy were first planted, a country built on the most extreme forms of oppression and repression. Therefore a law may be written in general, but the atmosphere is poisoned by racism and national oppression. The Florida statute may state that the person using deadly force has to reasonably believe that his or her life is in danger, Zimmerman may have outweighed Trayvon, and Trayvon’s only weapons may have been a can of iced tea and a bag of Skittles, but apparently his Blackness was not only enough to draw suspicion but justified the use of deadly force.

The overwhelming evidence showing that a young Black man was executed by a vigilante and then again by a police force that is on record for covering up crimes, especially committed against people of color, begs the question — what is the value of a Black life?

Justice for Trayvon would mean that Zimmerman is arrested, tried and imprisoned; that the entire police department and the officers involved are fired and then tried for covering up the facts of this case; and that the SYG law, in a racist society like this one, is repealed. That would be merely the beginning.

Countless Trayvon Martins

What of Ramarley Graham, the young Black male shot in his bathroom in front of his grandmother and six-year-old brother in Bronx, N.Y., earlier this year?

What of Travis McNeal killed by Miami cops Feb. 11, 2011, when he and his cousin were stopped while driving, or of Decarlos Moore, Joel Lee Johnson and the four other unarmed Black men killed by Miami police last year?

What of 18-year-old Dane Scott Jr. shot in the back by police after a car chase in Del City, Okla., this year?

What about the many more unknown innocent Black men and women beaten, killed or humiliated by police all across the country, or the millions of Black women and men in jail, prison or on parole or probation? These are victims of the racist criminal justice system and of a society that cuts back on spending for schools and allows a greatly disproportionate number of people of color to be jobless, homeless and without hope of finding a well-paying job so they can care for themselves and their families.

The Black unemployment rate is still over 14 percent, and if that number alone isn’t enough to indicate how dire the situation is, a more accurate account reveals that only 56.6 percent of the Black population is employed. For Black youth the unemployment rate is over 40 percent, and the employment ratio is barely over 50 percent.

In his 1967 speech “Where Do We Go From Here,” Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. stated, “Of the good things in life, the Negro has approximately one half those of whites. Of the bad things of life, he has twice those of whites.”

That remains so, in housing especially, considering that a large number of people being foreclosed are people of color, with a high number Black. Adjustable rate mortgages were forced on them where the payments quadrupled after four or five years. According to the Center for Responsible Lending, 11 percent of Black homeowners lost their homes from 2007 to the present.

The Institute for Children, Poverty and Homelessness reports that Black families are seven times more likely to be homeless than whites and 38.8 percent of sheltered people in families are Black. A 2009 Regal Magazine article states that 49 percent of homeless people in total are Black.

Those who live in poverty or near poverty number are about 150 million. The official poverty threshold for a family of four is $24,343, and even a family with a household income of $49,000 struggles.

The average Black household income measured in 2011 was $32,000, a decline of 3.2 percent from the prior year.

Though the statistics appear stark enough, it is important to elucidate the reasons behind the conditions that Black people in the U.S. and all people of color really face.

What is the value of a Black life?

To repeat, what is the value of a Black life? All life is precious. But a system that places the profits of a few over the needs of the many turns the just mentioned mantra on its head. How can life be precious if the necessities of it are commodities to be sold for profit? How can life be precious if much of humanity is engaged in selling their labor to make wealth they will never see for a wage designed to ensure that the buyer of the labor gets their profit and becomes richer still?

It is people of color, Black, Latino/a, Indigenous, Arab and Asian who disproportionately live on the fringes, suffering from years of conquest, genocide, slavery, apartheid and racism — all symptoms of national oppression. Because of their conditions, they are the greatest impetus for change.

National oppression is a byproduct of the for-profit system, a weapon to keep working people and their families from seeing their commonness, to keep people fighting amongst one another over differences in culture, religion and other beliefs.

Trayvon Martin had his life to look forward to. He was just beginning to dream, to piece together what he wanted his adult self to be, but he was a victim of the racism that pervades U.S. society. He was no less than any other 17-year-old, and he may have gone on to do great things, become a leader or a scientist — one will never know.

But, what is sure, is that for any young person, especially an oppressed person, to be guaranteed to reach their full potential, the society that has created disproportionate suffering and hardship based on skin color must be thrown into the dustbin of history, and a new one must be born. Trayvon may have been the leader of such a struggle, but as it is, it will have to be waged in memory of him and all those young Black and other oppressed youth who were victimized until they were sent to an early grave.

NYT Covers Communist Party's Role in Sports Integration

From: New York Times

Bill Mardo, a sportswriter for the Communist Party newspaper The Daily Worker who fought major league baseball’s color barrier in the 1940s when the mainstream American news media was largely silent on the subject, died Friday in Manhattan. He was 88.

The cause was complications of Parkinson’s disease, his companion, Ruth Ost, said.

In the years before the Brooklyn Dodgers signed Jackie Robinson as the first black player in modern organized baseball, Mr. Mardo was a leading voice in a campaign by The Daily Worker against racism in the game, a battle it had begun in 1936 when Lester Rodney became its first sports editor.

Mr. Mardo, who joined The Daily Worker in 1942, oversaw its sports coverage, together with Nat Low, during World War II, when Mr. Rodney was in the Army. Mr. Mardo had a deferment, having lost vision in one eye from a childhood virus.

The Daily Worker asked fans to write to the New York City baseball teams urging them to sign Negro league players at a time when the major leagues had lost much of their talent to military service. A milestone in baseball history and the civil rights movement arrived in October 1945 when Robinson signed a contract with the Dodgers’ organization, having reached an agreement with Branch Rickey, the Dodger general manager, two months earlier.

Mr. Mardo covered Robinson’s first spring training, with the Dodgers’ Montreal Royals farm team in 1946, and wrote of the hostility toward him in parts of segregated Florida.

As Robinson was concluding a brilliant 1946 season, Mr. Mardo wrote that racism would be smashed by the arrival of black players, which, he said, “in one fell swoop does as much to arm and educate the American people against this monstrous lie as do all the pamphlets in the world.”

After Robinson’s debut with the Dodgers in 1947, Mr. Rodney and Mr. Mardo called on the owners of the other 15 teams in the majors to sign black players.

Rickey had not acknowledged being pressured by The Daily Worker. But in recounting the campaign to shatter baseball’s color bar, Arnold Rampersad wrote in “Jackie Robinson: A Biography” (1997) that “the most vigorous efforts came from the Communist press, including picketing, petitions and unrelenting pressure for about 10 years in The Daily Worker, notably from Lester Rodney and Bill Mardo.”

Mr. Mardo was born William Bloom in Manhattan on Oct. 24, 1923. His interest in left-wing politics arose when he read a copy of The Daily Worker as a teenager, and he became a member of the Communist Party. He changed his name to Mardo as a tribute to his sisters Marion and Doris when he began his career in journalism.

Apart from reporting on baseball, Mr. Mardo wrote a boxing column for The Daily Worker, “In This Corner.” He left the newspaper to work as a Washington reporter for the Soviet news agency Tass in the early 1950s. He later worked in direct-mail advertising.

His marriage in the 1950s ended in divorce, and he had no children.

In April 1997, Mr. Mardo and Mr. Rodney (who died in 2009) spoke at a symposium at Long Island University’s Brooklyn campus marking the 50th anniversary of Robinson’s debut with the Dodgers.

Mr. Mardo noted that Rickey had not signed blacks when he ran the St. Louis Cardinals for more than two decades and suggested it was not idealism but pressure from black sportswriters, trade unions and the Communist Party that persuaded him to sign Robinson.

“Where were you looking all those years, Mr. Rickey?” Mr. Mardo said. “Istanbul? The South Seas?”

But on April 10, 1947, when the Dodgers announced they were bringing up Robinson from Montreal, Mr. Mardo, sitting in the Ebbets Field press box, could only exult.

“There’s time tomorrow to remember that the good fight goes on,” he wrote for the next day’s Daily Worker. “But, for today, let’s just sit back and feel easy and warm. As that fellow in the press box said, ‘Robinson’s a Dodger’ — and it’s a great day, isn’t it?”

MLK protest hits post office closings

By Gerry Scoppettuolo
Boston
Published Jan 19, 2012 8:47 PM

Occupy4Boston sent an express mail message to Postmaster General Patrick Donahoe for Martin Luther King Day: “Hands off our post office and our community!” Hundreds of community and labor activists picketed and rallied in the very heart of Boston’s Black community on Jan. 14 at the Grove Hall Post Office in Roxbury. It is slated for shutdown by May.

Subfreezing temperatures did not deter people from coming out to defend their jobs and their post office, so sorely needed for services in the community. Charles Clemons of the radio station Touch 106.1, “the heart of the Black community,” chaired the rally. The station broadcast the event live.

Minister Don Muhammad of Nation of Islam Mosque 11 opened the rally by declaring, “If Dr. King were alive, he would be here with us today, to say again, ‘Let justice roll down like waters and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream.’”

Boston City Councillors Charles Yancy, Felix Arroyo, Tito Jackson, Ayanna Pressley and Frank Baker came to give their support. Yancy related his meeting with Dr. King in 1965 and pledged, “We cannot and will not stay silent while they are laying off people at the post office.”

Miya X, representing the Women’s Fightback Network, stressed, “The working class, the poor and our youth are fighting for survival. We need to occupy the MBTA! [Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority]. Our youth are suffering from a 50 percent unemployment rate and schools are being shut down in the Black community.”
2012 photos by Liz Green

The rally marked the emergence of a new community/labor coalition in Boston — Occupy4Jobs — which is organizing with broad and deep support. The post office struggle has enraged many communities in greater Boston and around the country, as that agency moves to privatize a public sector workforce that has provided good union jobs to hundreds of thousands of workers, many of them in oppressed communities. The Occupy4Jobs Network is organizing community/labor coalitions in Boston, Baltimore, Philadelphia, New York City and San Francisco at breakneck speed as worker anger mounts nationally.

Unions brought out their members to the rally in significant numbers. Paul Kilduff, president of the 2200 member-strong Metro Local 100 of the American Postal Workers Union, while defending dozens of post offices in his jurisdiction, was nevertheless mindful of the impact on Roxbury residents. Under the proposed closings, thousands of people will have to take two buses to the nearest post office in Dudley Square. Kilduff called out: “Services that are desperately needed are being cut back. We will fight back. Whose post office? Our post office!”

Myles Calvey, business agent of International Electrical Workers union Local 2222, rallied the demonstrators with the support of his union, which is currently in a national contract struggle with Verizon Communications Inc. Steve Tolman, president of the Massachusetts AFL-CIO, pledged the support of his 400,000 statewide members.

Other speakers and endorsers included Alan Brown, of Occupy4Jobs; Alberto Borero, a Puerto Rican activist; Stevan Kirschbaum, grievance committee chair of Boston School Bus Drivers, Steelworkers Local 8751; Ed Childs, chief shop steward of UNITE-HERE Local 26; Robert Fitzgerald, Service Employees Local 509; and Lynn Mesa, of Chelsea Uniting Against the War.

40-Mile Trek Scores People's Victory

Published Jan 19, 2012 9:00 PM

By Andre Powell
Baltimore-to-Washington, D.C.

Protesters scored a number of victories on the 40-mile March for Jobs & Justice to Washington, D.C. They began the Civil Rights march on Jan. 14 in Baltimore and were greeted by Occupy Washington, D.C., when they arrived on Jan. 16. Representatives of the group will remain for an Occupy Congress event on the National Mall, where protesters have vowed to set up a million tents.

The marchers’ trek began at Union Baptist Church of Baltimore, where more than 100 people staged a march to Reads drugstore, which was the site of historic Civil Rights sit-ins in 1955. The city administration and big developers have slated to tear the site down, but community activists, led by those who actually participated in the sit-ins, want the site preserved to honor the Civil Rights Movement.

When the group arrived in the downtown shopping area just blocks from Reads, police attempted to clear the street. When they grabbed Occupy 4 Jobs organizer Sharon Black, tearing the hood from her coat and pushing her to the sidewalk, they yelled, “We’re going to make an example out of you! You’ll be the first one on the sidewalk.”

Marchers were defiant, refusing to move to the sidewalk, and continued in the street to the drugstore. Hundreds of shoppers cheered as they watched the group continue.

When the march arrived at the former drugstore, 77-year-old Dr. Helena Hicks got out of the lead vehicle. Thirteen police cars had surrounded the marchers, filling the block of Lexington Street.

Standing in the middle of the street, Dr. Hicks took the microphone and challenged police to arrest her, exclaiming, “We have a right to protest in these streets.” She said there were fewer police at Reads when she participated in the 1955 sit-ins than today, and the police department and the city should be ashamed.

Dr. Hicks was a 20-year-old Morgan State University student when she, along with others, sat in at the drugstore to desegregate the chain that refused to serve African-American people at their lunch counter. Their protests were successful and helped usher in an era of struggle for the Civil Rights Movement in Baltimore.

The standoff between police and protesters continued for about 30 minutes. The group then continued with its plan to send off a smaller delegation to march to Washington, D.C. Fifty protesters began the walk under heavy surveillance by police, who had squad cars follow the group to Route 1.

Protesters prevail at Burger King

The marchers had scheduled a meet-and-greet event with activists in Howard County at a local Burger King, about 15 miles outside Baltimore. Originally the local manager was friendly and welcoming to the group. But before the march arrived, the regional manager told local organizers that the group would not be welcomed or served, and that they could not even be in the parking lot, which was “private property.”

Protesters began calling local and national news media. The group decided not to call off their rally and to go into the store as a group. The Rev. Cortly “C.D.” Witherspoon, president of the Baltimore Southern Christian Leadership Conference, was the first to walk in, picket sign in hand. He was followed by the 50 protesters, accompanied by a newspaper reporter.

Burger King relented. The regional manager who put out the “no protesters” message greeted the marchers with a smile and served the group burgers and fries. One participant remarked, “You can tell he never works here. He doesn’t know where things are behind the counter.”

On Jan. 16, the group finally arrived at Occupy Washington, D.C., tired but elated. The walkers ranged in age from 19 to 71.

The Rev. Witherspoon summed up the sentiments of marchers: “We have won far more than just the tangible victory of bringing the needed attention to the issue of jobs and justice, stopping the police from violating our rights, and forcing Burger King to serve us. We have given hope to the jobless, hope to the youth who are looking for bigger solutions, and solidarity to our participants.”

Cuts in Benefits Spur Fightback

By Joseph Piette
Philadelphia
Published Jan 19, 2012 9:54 PM

Pennsylvania has declared war on the poor. During the most serious economic crisis since the Great Depression, two recent state decisions have made it more difficult to qualify for programs that benefit the working poor and those without jobs.

On Jan. 10, the Department of Public Welfare announced that people under 60 with more than $2,000 in savings and other assets would no longer be eligible for the food stamp program — the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program. For people over 60, the assets limit would be $3,250.

Homes and retirement benefits would not be counted as assets. One vehicle would be exempt, but any additional vehicle worth more than $4,650 would be counted.

A senior center worker told Workers World that a DPW staff person said that they are “just getting started,” and that state officials “indicate they are looking at asset tests for many programs, not just food stamps.”

The asset test comes on top of a Pennsylvania Unemployment Compensation law change that became effective on Jan. 1. Now severance payments above $18,000 will offset unemployment benefits until the severance is used up.

Most states do not count such benefits against unemployment benefits, recognizing that the extra cash often allows victims of the weak economy to continue payments on their mortgages and other debts. The state’s plan to enforce this statute has not been announced.

In Delaware, the entire severance, even if paid in a lump sum, is divided into weekly payments equal to the laid-off worker’s salary. Only after those weekly payments have ended can unemployment benefits start.

Fightback begins

A fightback movement is starting to emerge. An overflow crowd met at the Greater Philadelphia Coalition Against Hunger offices on Jan. 13 to map out opposition to the asset test. Advocates for the poor and Philadelphia city officials have condemned it. Letters to the editor printed in major establishment newspapers and messages posted on Facebook evince opposition to this terrible rule. The Occupy Philly movement is taking up this issue.

The union representing county assistance workers has also criticized the state’s plan, which would require workers to review the assets of 1.8 million Pennsylvania residents who receive food stamps. “We already have a backlog of cases, and there’s purely not enough workers,” said Donna Scarboro, business agent for Services Employees union Local 668, to the Philadelphia Inquirer. The number of caseworkers statewide has been cut from 1,800 to 1,400 in the last three years. (Jan. 15)

Individual states administer SNAP programs and are permitted to apply asset tests as long as the minimum amount of assets is set no lower than $2,000. That limit has not been increased since 1980. If allowed to rise with inflation, that figure in 2012 would be $5,715.23. Four states have raised their minimum allowable assets to $5,000 or more.

There were 439,245 Philadelphians on food stamps as of December 2010, but only 71 percent of those eligible applied for food stamps. Across the U.S., 46.3 million people get SNAP benefits, which is one out of every seven residents.

The federal SNAP program sends $2.5 billion annually to Pennsylvania. This not only benefits needy children and seniors but is also a boon to the food industry. Every dollar of public funds spent on food stamps increases the gross domestic product by $1.73.

Because of the potential economic losses to businesses, even executives, such as Jeff Brown of Philadelphia ShopRite, have called the DPW decision “mean-spirited” and “bad business strategy.” Brown says that he will lose revenue as 40 percent of his sales depend on food stamps. (Philadelphia Inquirer, Jan. 10)

Overwhelmed emergency food agencies in the state oppose the new policy. Bill Clark, executive director of Philabundance, the largest hunger-relief agency in the region, told the Inquirer: “I’m very pessimistic about our ability to meet people’s needs … this will be a mind-boggling, self-inflicted wound. It makes no compassionate, political, or economic sense.” For many elderly especially, $3,250 in the bank serves as “the poor man’s medical insurance,” he said.

Carey Morgan, executive director of the Greater Philadelphia Coalition Against Hunger, said: “So it’s not only inhumane, but counterproductive to force people to drain their savings before they can get any help. Someone with less than $2,000 in the bank would easily be wiped out by one visit to the emergency room.” (Philadelphia City Paper, Jan 10)

The state recently won a federal award for running its program efficiently, with a fraud rate of one-tenth of 1 percent, but food stamps have become a hot political issue. Right-wing Republicans vying to be their party’s presidential candidate are appealing to their political adherents by whipping up racist attacks on oppressed communities as they call for cuts in food stamp programs — even though white workers and their families make up half of the benefits’ recipients.

As Joel Berg, the executive director of the New York Coalition against Hunter has stressed, today the food stamp program is “the only thing left” in the safety net. The food stamp program is a necessity for working-class families in Pennsylvania and throughout the country during this economic crisis.

It must be defended by all progressive people and should be expanded without restrictions and limitations to everyone who needs food assistance.

Martin Luther King Jr. Day Launches Another Year of Strugge

By Abayomi Azikiwe
Editor, Pan-African News Wire
Published Jan 11, 2012 9:49 PM

The Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. would have been 83 years old on Jan. 15. In honor of this iconic civil rights, anti-war and social justice activist, the federal government and other public agencies close every year on the Monday following his birthday. King was martyred in Memphis, Tenn., on April 4, 1968.

This year the King Day holiday will take on profound significance in light of the political and social developments that have occurred over the last year. Millions have taken to the streets around the world in the fight against poverty, increased attacks on working people and the oppressed, and imperialist wars.

Since January of last year, revolutionary movements have emerged from Tunisia and Egypt to Bahrain and Yemen. Rebellions and general strikes led to the resignation of long-time Western-backed puppet President Zine El Abidine Ben Ali in Tunisia and the forced removal of President Hosni Mubarak in Egypt.

In Morocco the monarchy was shaken by mass demonstrations that were largely unprecedented in recent times. Other states throughout the Middle East, Africa and Europe saw popular movements erupt in opposition to rising food prices, the imposition of austerity and the intervention of U.S. imperialism along with its NATO allies.

Workers in European capitalist countries, especially Greece, Spain and Portugal, suffered tremendously from the ongoing world economic crisis. In Britain Black and working-class youth rose up in rebellion in response to the blatant police killing of a Caribbean-British man, who was followed and shot to death in cold blood in London.

Inside the U. S., a people’s uprising in Wisconsin was a direct response to intensifying attacks on public sector workers and their right to collective bargaining. Workers and youth occupied the state capitol in Madison for weeks and drew the attention of people throughout the world.

Occupation participants in Wisconsin paid direct tribute to their class brothers and sisters in Egypt. The progressive forces in Egypt, during the same time period, expressed their solidarity with the people in Wisconsin.

This movement of workers and youth, aimed at defending the right to organize as well as the right to quality education and a decent wage, spread to other states around the Midwest and nationally. In Ohio, legislative actions that were just as draconian as those passed in Wisconsin prompted mass action by trade unions and their supporters.

In Lansing, Mich., the conservative-dominated legislature wasted no time, after securing a majority, to enact bills that drastically cut public spending. These cuts resulted in salary reductions, massive layoffs of public sector employees and the obliteration of city services.

The passage of Public Act 4 in Michigan superseded the former Public Act 72, which allowed for the imposition of emergency management of school systems and municipalities. Public Act 4, now popularly known as the “dictator law,” provides for the nullification of the authority of elected officials, the abrogation of labor and vending contracts, and the forced payment of debt service to the banks, irrespective of the desires of the electorates or the unions.

Public Act 4 has been implemented in several majority African-American cities such as Flint and Benton Harbor. In Detroit — the largest African-American-dominated city in the U.S. — Gov. Rick Snyder recently appointed a financial review panel. The appointment is an effort to justify forcing the city to accept a consent agreement that could ultimately lead to installation of an emergency manager.

Election years — from 1968 to 2012

The year that Dr. King was killed represented a watershed of mass struggle and urban rebellion. The previous year, 1967, saw more than 160 instances of civil unrest throughout the U.S. as well as the emergence of a mass youth movement in opposition to the war in Vietnam.

Although Dr. King was a proponent of nonviolent direct action, he did not condemn the rebellions that swept the country between 1964 and 1968. The civil rights leader viewed the unrest within the urban areas as a result of the failure of the U.S. system to provide adequate living conditions, decent jobs and incomes to the majority of African Americans.

In a “Face to Face” television interview conducted on July 28, 1967, just one day after President Lyndon Johnson announced the appointment of a National Advisory Commission on Civil Disorder, Dr. King said, “I am not calling for a guaranteed annual wage as a substitute for a guaranteed job. I think that ought to be the first thing, that we guarantee every person capable of working a job.” (“Testament of Hope, The Essential Writings and Speeches of Martin Luther King, Jr.,” 2001)

Dr. King pointed out that “this can be done in many, many ways. There are many things that we need to be done that could be done that’s not being done now. And this could provide jobs.”

In 1968, Dr. King and the Southern Christian Leadership Conference set out to wage a real “war on poverty” by taking thousands of poor people to Washington, D.C., to demand jobs and a guaranteed annual income. King had founded the SCLC in 1957 in the aftermath of the Montgomery Bus Boycott. In March 1968, he was invited to Memphis to support a sanitation workers strike that was representative of both the class struggle and the national question.

The year 1968 was an election year just like 2012. The failure of the Democratic Party between 1961 and 1968 to effectively resolve the problems of national oppression, discrimination, economic exploitation, poverty and war played a large part in its losing the elections in 1968.

Despite the fact that the Democratic and Republican parties have different constituencies, both organizations are controlled by the ruling class of bankers and industrialists. Today, even though the Democratic Party has commanded a majority in both houses of Congress between 2006 and 2010 and has controlled the White House since 2009, rates of poverty and exploitation are continuing to rise.

The 2010 election results were a reflection of the lack of motivation on the part of working-class people and the nationally oppressed to once again support Democratic candidates without any real improvement in the concrete conditions under which they live.

The year 2011 saw an acceleration of attacks against workers and the oppressed. The only real defense against these assaults has emanated from the unions, the youth and the oppressed communities themselves.

This is why there needs to be a concerted effort outside of the established ruling class parties to address the crises now facing the majority of people inside the U.S. The response of the Department of Homeland Security to the Occupy Wall Street movement across the country — with DHS operating through local municipal administrations, many of which are led by Democrats — demonstrates that both of the capitalist-controlled parties do not want to see a real grass-roots revolutionary struggle emerge that focuses on the role of the banks and the corporations as the fundamental cause of the economic crisis.

It was the political repression carried out under a Democratic administration in 1968 that created the conditions for the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. That same year, FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover declared the Black Panther Party as the leading threat to the national security of the U.S.

After 1967, during the height of the rebellions, the FBI’s Counter-Intelligence Program (COINTELPRO) sought to crush the Black Liberation movement and the anti-war struggle. Scores of activists were killed and imprisoned while the National Guard and conventional military forces were deployed into the cities to smash the rebellions.

Since 2010, the FBI and other DHS branches have targeted immigrants, the nationally oppressed, Muslims, anti-war and solidarity activists for deportation, raids, targeted assassinations and grand jury subpoenas. In the final days of 2011, President Obama signed into law the National Defense Authorization Act, which provides further ammunition for the ruling class to crack down on activists and organizations deemed to be threats to the status quo.

2012: Another year of momentous struggle

In all likelihood this year will also be one of protracted struggle and resistance. Signs of this are already developing, with Jan. 16 King Day actions under the banner of Occupy 4 Jobs – inspired by the Occupy Wall Street movement – in New York, Baltimore, Washington, D.C., Boston, Philadelphia and elsewhere.

Detroit is the focus of a growing mass struggle against the imposition of emergency management. On Jan. 2, more than 2,000 people rallied at Tabernacle Missionary Baptist Church to say “no” to the appointment of an emergency manager.

In a statement, the Moratorium NOW! Coalition to Stop Foreclosures, Evictions and Utility Shut-offs stressed, “The same banks that caused the economic crisis and destroyed the City of Detroit’s tax base, with their fraudulent and racist predatory loans resulting in approximately 150,000 foreclosures in the past five years, now get first lien on city tax dollars for debt service payments.”

Detroit’s 9th Annual MLK Day Rally & March will be held under the theme of “Escalating the Struggle for Jobs, Peace and Justice.” Featured speakers will include contributors to the groundbreaking first-person account “Hands on the Freedom Plow,” which examined the role of women in the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Com­mittee, the vanguard organization within the Civil Rights movement of the 1960s.

The emphasis at Detroit’s MLK Day rally will drive home the need for a cadre-developing organization, a working-class orientation, the important role of women and the oppressed, and the need to build a movement outside the ruling-class-dominated political parties.

The Crime of Privatized Prisons

Lamont Lilly
Published Jan 5, 2012 7:50 PM

Here in the U.S., our “land of the free,” there are approximately 130,000 inmates now housed in privately owned prisons. It‘s a foul stench within a justice system that leads the world in number of people incarcerated within a state, federal or private institution. The latest tally of 2 million equals 25 percent of the globe’s incarcerated population.

This massive waste of human life is commonly known as the prison-industrial complex, with an even more oppressive current now being led from the top down by the highly profitable prison privatization movement. Its roots can be traced back to Ronald Reagan’s “War on Drugs” and tougher sentencing platform in the 1980s.

Due to policymakers’ concerns about prison overcrowding, in 1984 the Corrections Corporation of America was contracted to oversee its first facility in Hamilton County, Tenn. The transition set a federal precedent for private control of correctional institutes.

Though depicted as cost-saving, efficient operations, independent studies suggest the contrary. A lack of regulation permits smaller staff and inadequate training, which in turn produces more violent and consistently unstable conditions for prisoners. Sustainable medical care has come into question, as private prisons like the George W. Hill Center, Walnut Grove Youth Facility and New Castle Correctional Institute have garnered a barrage of recent scrutiny over the deaths of dozens of inmates. Private prisons have also proven to be just as costly to construct as publicly run prisons.

The same companies grossing billions from the capture and incarceration of people in the U.S. — mostly poor, Black and Latino/a — are the same brokers who donate millions to state senators, school boards, mayors and police chiefs. It’s no secret that private firms such as The GEO Group authorize direct appeals to federal legislation like “three strikes” and mandatory minimum sentencing. Common sense says such merging complexities spell corruption.

Meanwhile, predatory investors like Wells Fargo, American Express and Merrill Lynch reap robust returns on private bond purchases — these greed-driven giants literally banking on the results of Black and Latino/a youth and their 4th grade test scores. (The Children’s Defense Fund details this association through its Cradle to Prison Pipeline Campaign.) Additional stakeholders include a slew of corporate sponsors: Nordstrom’s, Microsoft, IBM, Revlon, Target, Dell, Hewlett-Packard and even AT&T.

Fact is, people in the U.S. aren’t committing more crime; we’re doing more time because it pays. We’re talking Third-World sweatshops disguised as rehab programs, possibly in your home state! This human rights infringement isn’t punishing someone who does wrong; it’s profiting from the pain of that punishment, exploiting the limited freedoms of inhumane confinement, maximizing such restrictive conditions for capital gain — the same profits that merely perpetuate the incarceration of more people for longer periods of time.

While poverty in the U.S. continues to plague the general public, job positions are going for $1 an hour in the private prison sector. No wonder we can’t find jobs; our furniture and home appliances are being produced by rent-a-slaves. Such control sounds eerily similar to the Black Belt’s Convict Lease System of the late 1800s, a state-run practice throughout the South that forcibly extracted free labor from newly emancipated slaves deemed “criminal.”

If this is what big business means by “Made in America,” I don’t want no parts of it.

Lilly is a contributing editor at the Triangle Free Press and recently served as an organizer with Cynthia McKinney’s Report from Libya Tour. He is also a Human Rights Delegate with Witness for Peace.

Occupy Movement Exposes Ron Paul's Demagogy

By Caleb T. Maupin
Published Jan 4, 2012 8:37 PM

The “libertarian” movement has never been friendly to the 99%. Its members are not apologetic about wanting to abolish all social programs that aid the people, from Medicaid to food stamps. They want to shut down every government department that in any way limits the excesses of the 1%. These include the Departments of Labor, Education, Energy, Health and Human Services, among others.

Libertarians also want to abolish the minimum wage, affirmative action, workplace safety regulations, and all other protections of workers and oppressed people. Their belief is that the power of the capitalists should be totally unrestrained.

With Marxism on the ideological defensive after the collapse of the USSR, many people may be confused about where to turn as the capitalist system crumbles around them. Even those who are of the 99% and who sympathize with that movement might be deceived by the libertarians’ program.

This is even more likely with a libertarian candidate like Ron Paul, whose recent decision to emphasize isolationism in his public image has added to his appeal. He is the only Republican candidate who appears to hold an anti-war position. Paul publicly calls for ending U.S. aid to Israel, closing U.S. military bases around the world, and trimming the massive military budget. He also points out that Iran is no military threat to the United States, and should not be sanctioned.

These are all positions people who want peace and oppose U.S. imperialism support. Without these positions, no one with anti-racist or progressive convictions would even consider supporting Paul.

OWS protests Paul in Iowa

This makes it all the more important and gratifying that the Occupy Wall Street movement, or at least the section of it in Iowa, has taken such a strong position exposing Ron Paul’s real positions.

Activists from OWS were arrested outside Paul’s campaign office in Des Moines on Dec. 29, protesting his reactionary program, specifically his intention to close down the Environmental Protection Agency and allow capitalists to degrade the environment without even the limited restraint the EPA represents. Among those arrested was a 14-year-old woman.

To make sure there was no confusion that OWS had become pro-Democratic Party, others from the same group were arrested that same night at the Democratic Party office in Des Moines. There, they loudly opposed Obama’s refusal to stop home foreclosures and to close Guantanamo Bay. (The Blaze, Dec. 29)

These activists from OWS are clear that neither the Democrats nor the Republicans, nor ultra-right-wing demagogues like Ron Paul, speak in the people’s name.

Paul’s agenda: thoroughly racist, reactionary

Despite Ron Paul’s isolationist rhetoric, his program is loaded with horrifically right-wing and reactionary planks. It includes overturning the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which Paul has voted to do in Congress, and is not at all apologetic about. He claims it limits the “right” of business owners to discriminate.

Aggressively anti-immigrant, Paul has run television advertisements bragging about how much he intends to persecute undocumented workers and people from what he calls “terrorist” nations.

Paul’s newsletters from the 1990s have become a big scandal because they speak with such extreme hatred about people of color that even mainstream Republicans — especially those now running for president — have denounced them.

That Paul claims not to have personally written them is irrelevant. These newsletters circulated openly bearing Paul’s name. Clearly his movement is neither anti-racist nor for economic justice. Paul opposes the right to abortion, even though he poses as a libertarian and against government intervention.

He hides his racism behind an appeal for “state’s rights,” much as the pro-segregation racist politicians of the 1950s did. Paul claims he is a true believer in “small government” and cannot have government restrict the racists. Meanwhile, he is endorsed by numerous white supremacists, anti-Semitic forces and by the viciously reactionary John Birch Society.

The only way the 99% has ever been able to win concessions from the 1% has been through popular movements and struggles like OWS. It is in these moments, when the power of the ruling class of bankers and capitalists is threatened, that real change is won.

PressTV: "The 1% is Bracing For Class War"

The ongoing human rights violations in the US, as detailed in a report recently released by the Russian foreign ministry, have led to great friction between the different classes in America.

Click Here For Video


Press TV has conducted an interview with Caleb Maupin, an activist from International Action Center, to further discuss US human rights violations.

The video offers the opinions of two additional guests: Kevin Danaher co-founder of Global Exchange and Paul Wolf, a human rights and international lawyer.

The following is an approximate transcript of the interview.

Press TV: US human rights abuses cover a wide range of issues, and have escalated in its frequency: torture, harsh police tactics, bad prison conditions, and unfair judicial system: Why is the trend increasing in its frequency?

Maupin: I think the trend in repression in the United States is increasing due to the fact that people are standing up and demonstrating.

The fangs have always been there, the vicious ugliness of the rulers and their ruthless efforts to maintain their rule have always been there.

Just in 1982, the US dropped bombs in Philadelphia and destroyed an entire block against the MOVE organization.

But for a long time they haven't had to ratchet up their repression because people haven't been standing up to them.

But this Occupy Wall Street movement has opened up a new area of political space where people are taking to the streets in huge numbers.

And millions of people are learning the truth that activists like me have known for a long time, which is that, in New York City and anywhere else in this country, if you're a Zionist or a Ku Klux Klan, and you have a march then the police will escort you nicely and everything will be fine.

But if you stand up against Wall Street, and you stand up to these bankers and you have a message they don't want to hear, they'll come down on you with pepper spray and mace, and their orange nets, and they'll come and they'll brutalize you.

And that's the truth, this whole idea of the US as a democracy is a sham.

If you stand up to these ruling elites they'll come down just as viciously as they came down on striking workers back in the 1900s when unions were illegal, just like they came down on the Black Panther party in the black liberation struggle.

They rule this country, the Wall Street elite rules, and they will be vicious to defend their rule.

Press TV: Obviously you as a part of International Action center perhaps, and in line with Occupy protesters, when you hear about your freedom of expression, freedom of assembly, in terms of the constitutions, which is your right to exercise, and you have laws passed that where US citizens can be picked up from the streets, without any explanation of alleged terrorism charges, that's people standing up.

So is that the hope of the Occupy protesters, standing up to the system?

Maupin: That is absolutely the hope!

You know the Bill of Rights wasn't even originally in the constitution. It took a popular movement and demonstrations back in the time of the founding of the United States for the Bill of Rights to be even added in the constitution, it wasn't originally part of it. I was one in demands.

And you know, all this rhetoric of the US being the freest country in the world, there are more people in prison by numbers, alone, than there are in any country in the world.

I mean that's shocking, and this is a free country with so many people in prison.

And, in addition to that, I mean the level of police brutality we've seen, you know, right now they're bracing because they realize their system cannot solve the economic problems we're facing right now. And they're bracing because they know Occupy Wall Street is just the beginning.

They see the rumbling and they see that people are coming. And they're trying to brace everything and secure their system and lock down everything and prepare for the global class war that's coming, that's going to tear this system apart.

Press TV: Let me ask you two things; explain the definition of the global class warfare and how they are preparing for it?

Maupin: Well, as far as global class warfare, it's the fact that there is a whole generation of people all throughout who world that this system won't be able to provide employment for, whom all of the life that has been offered under this system is disappearing.

There are generations without jobs. And their only chose is to go out to the streets and to fight. And if they want to have a future they're going to have to fight for it.

So, they're bracing for that, and their bracing includes things like this National Defense Authorization Act, which basically gives the government the right to detain anybody. It also includes these massive expansions in the prison system, massive expansions in the Department of Homeland Security and other means of oppression.

Because they're bracing for the explosion that is coming! Occupy Wall Street is just the beginning!

If you look around the world right now, things are shaking. 2011 was just the beginning! Next year is going to be bigger, and the year after that is going to be bigger, and it's going to continue until this system falls apart.

Press TV: We have about forty-five seconds, and we want you to say whatever you like, regarding the topic we talked about.

Maupin: Well, I just want to say, the reason they're bracing right now, is because people are reviving the forgotten traditions of class struggle and fighting against the bankers.

People are learning the American history about heroes, not like George Washington, but like Huey Newton and William Z. Foster and the true revolutionary leaders in this country who have fought against the one percent.

And that's why they're bracing in fear, so we should be hopeful at this moment, we shouldn't cower!

Justice Dept. Calls Sheriff Arpaio Racist

By Paul Teitelbaum
Tucson, Ariz.
Published Dec 23, 2011 8:43 PM

On Dec. 15, the U.S. Department of Justice released a report confirming the criminal practices of Arizona Sheriff Joe Arpaio and his racist department. The report lists the findings of a Civil Rights investigation that began in June 2008 and concludes that the entire Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office violates not only Title VI of the 1964 Civil Rights Act but several constitutional amendments and laws.

Specifically, the Justice Department said that Arpaio engaged in a “pattern of misconduct” in policies and practices that targeted and mistreated Latinos/as. Its tens of thousands of pages of evidence show his department’s rampant racial profiling of Latinos/as with unlawful stops, detentions and arrests and its use of “excessive force” and abuse of Latino/a prisoners.

These findings are not news to anyone who lives in Arizona or is familiar with Arpaio. Since becoming Maricopa County Sheriff in 1992, the sheriff has brutalized detainees at his jails and carried out an ever-increasing terror campaign against immigrants and the Latino/a community. He has been instrumental in stoking the flames of racism and anti-immigrant hostility in Arizona and in supporting the notorious anti-immigrant law SB 1070.

Arpaio has received ample airtime on television and radio to promote his brutal policies and practices. He has been elevated to celebrity status by the capitalist media, even having a short-lived television show on the Fox network in 2008. The A&E cable channel filmed one of his raids for a so-called “reality” TV show. A SWAT team with armored vehicles and a tank carried out the raid.

The beatings and deaths in Arpaio’s jails continue. On Dec. 17, 44-year-old Ernest “Marty” Atencio was brought into the Fourth Avenue jail. He was then beaten and tasered so badly that he is now “brain dead” and on life support at a Phoenix hospital.

In 1995, Scott Norberg was killed by Arpaio’s thugs 15 hours after his arrest. They beat him so badly that his larynx cracked. Although Maricopa County settled a civil suit with Norberg’s family, no action was taken against the guards who ended Norberg’s life.

Norberg’s attorney discovered that important records pertaining to this incident had been destroyed and that Arpaio had actually promoted the guards involved.

In 1996, detainees in the Tent City jail rebelled against their conditions. Temperatures inside the tents climbed to 145 degrees in the summer. Detainees were routinely denied access to adequate food and water. This abusive treatment led to the first Justice Department case against Arpaio, which was quietly settlled in 1998 when federal officials said that he had made the necessary improvements at the jails.

After the immigrant uprising on May Day 2006, the Department of Homeland Security instituted the 287(g) program, which allows local cops and sheriffs’ departments to enforce federal immigration law. Arpaio signed on to 287(g) and declared war on the Latino/a and immigrant community.

In the first year of 287(g), Arpaio was responsible for 25 percent of all deportations resulting from its enforcement nationwide. His highly publicized neighborhood dragnets for undocumented workers and his blatant racial profiling of Latinos/as have been allowed to escalate under the governorships of both Janet Napolitano and Jan Brewer. With the passage of reactionary law SB 1070, Arpaio acted with impunity.

The Justice Department did not just decide out of the blue to investigate Arpaio’s conduct. It is the same Justice Department that serves subpoenas to anti-war and solidarity activists, that indicts Arab Americans in FBI-manufactured “terrorism plots,” and that participates in planning the crackdown on the Occupy movement.

Jason Aragon is a Tucson videographer, activist and member of Migra Patrol, an organization that documents abuses by Immigration and Customs Enforcement authorities and border patrols. He has been on the front lines of the struggle against Arpaio. Aragon has spent recent years researching Arpaio and filming for his documentary “Under Arpaio.”

When asked about why the Justice Department investigated Arpaio, Aragon told this writer, “The Justice Department did not decide to do this on its own. They acted in response to the groundswell of community actions and organizing against Arpaio. People risked their lives documenting Arpaio’s [immigration] sweeps and the conditions in his jails.” He explained that Barrio Defense Committees were formed throughout Maricopa County, and people were filming the immigration sweeps. He concluded, “The Justice Department was forced to act.”

This Civil Rights investigation, like its 1996 predecessor, contains no provisions for punishing Arpaio for his cruel and racist practices. Although Homeland Security has terminated the 287(g) program for Arpaio, the report itself contains only a set of recommendations for “reforms” that will correct the “deficiencies” highlighted in it.

Aragon stresses, “Arpaio is in violation of Civil Rights law. He is responsible for abuses and deaths in the jails. He should be indicted for everything that he has done. From the abuses in the jails to the political retaliation against his critics, all the way back to the implementation of Tent City. If the Department of Justice leaves Arpaio in power, it further proves that sheriffs and cops who violate people rights can act with impunity.”

Arpaio is a racist criminal. Even if he did not carry out the abuse and other mistreatment himself, he creates the climate for it and encourages it among his deputies and prison guards. He is responsible for much of the terror wrought upon Arizona’s Latino/a population. Arpaio helped to set the stage for the passage of the ultra-right law SB 1070 and draconian copycat laws like those enacted in Alabama and Georgia. All this has been made possible by the funding and power granted by the federal anti-immigrant 287(g) program.

Monica Moorehead: "An Important Contribution by Sam Marcy"

Excerpts taken from a talk given by Workers World Party Secretariat member, Monica Moorehead, at the WWP Oct. 8-9 National Conference in New York City.

For those of us who have been in Workers World Party for 25 years and more, Sam Marcy has left an indelible impact on our lives as communist organizers. What has kept many of us in the Party has been the revolutionary vision and optimism of Sam Marcy, as well as other founding members like Dorothy Ballan and Vince Copeland.

Sam was a Marxist theoretician on the highest level, with objective, revolutionary interpretations of the writings of Marx, Lenin, Engels and Trotsky. Sam not only viewed Marxism as a tool to explain a historical or existing development at home or abroad, but he was also so brilliant in anticipating economic and political events because his general analysis was always on target. Sam was big on anticipating world events and finding an appropriate way to respond to them.

Sam wrote “Perestroika” in anticipation of the collapse of the Soviet Union and the socialist camp 20 years ago. This collapse played itself out as a counterrevolution. And while many world struggles and movements were either decimated or put on the defensive by this development, because of Sam’s foresight, our Party was not caught off guard and therefore did not succumb to this devastating world assault on Marxism.

Sam also anticipated the capitalist restructuring of the economy and its social impact, outlined in his important book, “High Tech, Low Pay.” This book, produced in 1985-1986, helped to lay the foundation for Fred Goldstein’s book, “Low-Wage Capitalism,” before the big outbreak of this unprecedented global capitalist economic crisis

Impact of Occupy Wall Street

Occupy Wall Street is breaking the mood of pessimism and paralysis that the workers and the movement have been suffering from for a number of years. OWS has ignited a spark around the country in large and small cities, urban and rural areas.

Would Sam have been shocked by the OWS phenomenon? No. Sam understood that youth have historically lit a fire under many significant struggles coming out of periods of reaction — the Vietnam war, the civil rights movement, the Black Panthers, the Young Lords, budget cuts and austerity. The big difference between those periods and now is the devastating economic crisis.

The workers didn’t really show any signs of life in those previous epochs because their standards of living were relatively stable and high, but now, due to the global financial crisis, there has been a dramatic qualitative change. While the destruction of PATCO began a long period of defensive struggles for the trade union movement, Occupy Wall Street has the potential of helping the trade unions to go on the offensive, that is, to take on political struggles.

Sam would have been the first to say that youth’s idealism is just the first step forward. That it isn’t enough to hate the symbols of capitalism like Wall Street, but also necessary to understand why capitalism as a system can’t be reformed and must be eradicated root and branch. Class consciousness means understanding due to special oppressions, especially national oppression. We aren’t all equal. Sam would encourage these youth in motion to reach out in a genuine way to Black, Brown, Arab, Indigenous and Asian youth, who face daily racist economic and political repression. While some of the OWS activists were out on the streets with us trying to save Troy Davis’ life, the struggle has to be generalized to ending the racist death penalty for all, not just for Troy Davis.

Sam would be heartened to know that Occupy Wall Street has created openings for some of the most revolutionary class conscious forces among Black trade unionists, like TWU 100, or the Haitian movement to raising their demands in an effort to building anti-capitalist alliances. Sam viewed national liberation struggles, especially self-determination, central to the anti-capitalist, pro-socialist perspective.

Sam Marcy not only talked the talk, but he walked the walk. He believed in taking bold initiatives even when the movement and organizations weren’t ready for them or even when it may have been premature. But Sam believed that when it came to the struggle, sometimes you can’t play it safe. Because even if it turns out not to be successful, then how do you expect to learn from your mistakes. The time is now to do everything we can to support OWS, with all its imperfections! The time is now to put aside any political differences with other forces to build a socialist front of unity! The time is now to prepare to meet the challenges before us in new bold ways! The time is now to anticipate — like Sam Marcy — dare to struggle, dare to win! Build a Workers World! n

Steve Millies: "The War Against Black Workers"

Excerpts taken from a talk by Steve Millies, railway worker and Workers World writer, at the Oct. 8-9 Workers World Party National Conference.

The billionaire class has been on an offensive against workers and oppressed people for over 30 years. These parasites were finally able to overthrow the Soviet Union in 1991, a terrible defeat for every poor person on the planet.

This political reaction has included a fantastic drop in the number of strikes in the United States.

In 1974, there were 424 strikes involving at least a thousand workers. Thirty-five years later, in 2009, there were just five of these strikes in a country with over 300 million people.

We haven’t been defeated on the battlefield. The capitalist class — through its ownership of the means of production — used the scientific-technological revolution to take so many of our battlefields away.

Thousands of strongholds of our class in basic industry and transportation have been destroyed.

This deliberate deindustrialization has been aimed at Black workers. Big capital wanted to end their dependence on Black labor.

Forty years ago, a quarter of the workers in the steel mills and auto plants were African-American.

Comrade Sam Marcy wrote about this capitalist agenda 30 years ago in a remarkable article entitled, “Lynch law in Buffalo, From the Erie Canal to the St. Lawrence Seaway.”

It was written in 1980, after six Black men were lynched in Buffalo.

“The ruling class now looks at the Black population differently,” Marcy wrote, “than it did in the days of the Underground Railroad, when it saw in the anti-slavery struggle a source of cheap labor. It now dares look upon the Black workers in particular as a surplus population, along with white workers and unemployed. It looks upon them with disdain, as a drain on their government budget, as a drag on their system, and as a dangerous source of social convulsions.”

Yet Black workers continue to be the backbone of the labor movement. They’ve been joined by millions of Latina and Latino, Asian and immigrant workers who’ve revived May Day in the country where the holiday was born.

High tech is a cesspool of discrimination. In 1999, just 7 percent of the workers in Silicon Valley were Latina or Latino, while only 4 percent were Black.

GM and Ford haven’t forgotten how Black workers shook their plants in the 1960s and 1970s.

The highest organizational expression of the Black liberation struggle was the Black Panther Party and the League of Revolutionary Black Workers in Detroit.

Big capital’s answer has been to build virtually all the new auto plants away from large concentrations of Black workers ever since GM opened its Lordstown, Ohio, plant in 1968.

Thirty years ago racist Reagan broke the PATCO strike of air traffic controllers.

But the layoffs at Chrysler were worse. It was the conscious elimination of a predominately Black workforce that was the vanguard of the U.S. working class.

This was shown on July 24, 1973, when two Black workers — Larry Carter and Issac Shorter — turned off the power at the Jefferson Avenue assembly plant in Detroit. This was the first big sit-down strike in 36 years.

Chrysler got rid of 35,000 workers in Detroit alone. From 1979 to 1982, Chrysler’s entire workforce went from 70 percent African-American to 30 percent.

The capitalist class economically destroyed Detroit, just as it later let Black people drown and starve in New Orleans.

The wholesale destruction of heavy industry in the Midwest caused the median income of African Americans to drop by 36 percent between 1978 and 1982. A reverse migration began back to the South.

The firing of hundreds of thousands of Black workers in auto, steel and other unionized occupations has gone hand-in-hand with their wholesale incarceration.

The racist character of capitalist investment can be seen in Wisconsin. Between 1977 and 1992, 55,000 manufacturing jobs were destroyed in Milwaukee County. But the rest of the state, which with a few exceptions is overwhelmingly white, gained 66,000 of these factory jobs.

Today in Wisconsin, one out of 25 African Americans is in jail.

The answer to oppression is revolution. Cutting Social Security and Medicare will not be tolerated by the masses. The jobless will fight before they starve. We have to win people to see that a socialist revolution is the only solution.

Pickets Rattle Racist Cemetary Managers

By Dee Knight
Bronx, N.Y.
Published Nov 19, 2011 10:54 AM

“Bury Racism, Not Workers!” was a main chant as close to 200 unionists and community activists picketed Woodlawn Cemetery here on Nov. 12, making life uncomfortable for the plantation-like managers of the sprawling burial ground.

Strong delegations came from city administration workers in Communication Workers union Local 1180; Sotheby’s auction house workers in Teamsters union Local 814; city transit employees in Transit Workers Union Local 100; Service Employees union Local 32BJ/Schools Division; Freedom Party chapters from the Bronx, Manhattan and Queens; the Bail Out the People Movement; and the South Bronx Community Congress.
WW photos: Ellen Catalinotto

Called by the Labor-Community Forum of the South Bronx Community Congress, the protest attracted media coverage from numerous Bronx newspapers and Bronx 12 TV News, as well as ABC Channel 2. The message to Woodlawn management was simple: Keep up with your plantation-style practices and you will get no peace.

“This is an opening shot in a new campaign,” said Ramon Jimenez of the South Bronx Community Congress and the Bronx Freedom Party. “We’ll keep the pressure on until Woodlawn stops with its racist abuse of the workers.” Gavrielle Gemma of the Bail Out the People Movement said, “No matter how long it takes, we’ll win.”

Some speakers connected the current struggle to their personal experiences with Woodlawn Cemetery’s management. Allan Janczewski, whose father was a New York City firefighter killed in 1958 and whose mother is buried at Woodlawn Cemetery, told the spellbound listeners of his bitter memories of official cynicism and hypocrisy. He said his mother would be proud that he was protesting the racism of Woodlawn management. Cemetery worker Frank Russo, who has job-related cancer, told how Woodlawn management has punished him for standing with the union and against racism.

Other speakers included Nadya Stevens, assistant to the president of CWA Local 1180; Andrew Smith of Occupy Wall Street; Jose Alfaro of Occupy the Bronx; and a leader of the workers at Sotheby’s.

Operation Dixie marker reveals Black labor history

By James Wrenn
Rocky Mount, N.C.

A North Carolina Highway Historical Marker recognizing the 1946 tobacco leaf house workers union campaign was unveiled in Rocky Mount by the Phoenix Historical Society on Sept. 3. The United Electrical Workers union, Local 150 co-sponsored the event.

Entitled “Operation Dixie,” the marker stands on N. Franklin Street at the corner of McDonald Street, across from the Imperial Centre, and denotes the China American Tobacco Company plant on N. Pearl Street, Rocky Mount, N.C., where workers cast the first pro-union vote in the campaign on Sept. 5, 1946.

Most African-American workers cast their first vote ever in this union election, since racist Jim Crow laws denied voting rights to Black people in North Carolina. This leaf house union campaign in 1946 is considered a precursor to the civil rights movement.

More than 90 people gathered at the Imperial Centre to hear remarks from Duke University historian Robert Korstad (author of “Civil Rights Unionism”), UE Local 150 Vice President Larsene Taylor and N.C. AFL-CIO President James Andrews. Rocky Mount City Councilman Reuben Blackwell read a moving resolution from the City Council honoring the courage of the tobacco workers of 1946.

Retired Wilson tobacco union worker Dorothy Edwards gave tribute to the pioneers of 1946 who paved the way for workers’ rights and civil rights in eastern North Carolina. The highlight of the day was 94-year-old Cora Baines Tann, who was a worker at China American and joined the FTA-CIO union in that historic 1946 vote. She and James Andrews had the honor of unveiling the marker.

Leaf house workers, who were 100-percent African-American and 75-percent women, stemmed and processed tobacco in miserable working conditions with low pay and 12-hour shifts under often abusive white male supervisors in factories across eastern North Carolina. These workers were at the base of a very profitable tobacco and cigarette industry.

In the summer and fall of 1946, nearly 10,000 leaf house workers joined unions in a massive organizing campaign called “Operation Dixie” with the Food, Tobacco, Agricultural & Allied Workers of America, and also the Tobacco Workers International Union.

The first pro-union vote by Chinese-American workers was followed by 26 more pro-union votes in the next two months in the North Carolina towns of Oxford, Henderson, Rocky Mount, Greenville, Wilson, Smithfield, Goldsboro, Kinston and Lumberton, and South Boston, Va. Workers secured union contracts in over 30 tobacco plants that resulted in higher pay, eight-hour workdays, paid holidays, improved working conditions and grievance procedures to address abusive supervisors. Today, only two tobacco union locals remain.

The Phoenix Society will present a lunchtime “History a la carte” program on Operation Dixie at the North Carolina Museum of History on Wednesday, Feb. 8, 2012, at noon.

Jazz Artist, Teacher Honored

A public memorial and cultural tribute was held for Consuela Lee — an African-American jazz pianist, composer, arranger and teacher — at the historic Abyssinian Baptist Church in Harlem in New York City on Oct. 29. Lee passed away from a long illness associated with Alzheimer’s disease at the age of 83 on Dec. 26, 2009, in Atlanta.

Despite an unexpected snowstorm, world-renowned jazz artists, including members of Lee’s family and former music students, traveled from around the country and the world to Harlem to honor her through song, dance and remembrances for her unique and innovative contributions to jazz and humanity. For 25 years, Lee taught music theory and composition at historic Black colleges such as Alabama State University, and Norfolk State University and Hampton Institute (now University) in Virginia. Archival video footage of Lee’s performances and interviews was shown throughout the memorial.

Lee was the artistic director at Springtree/Snow Hill Institute for the Performing Arts in Snow Hill, Ala., for 23 years. At the Institute, Lee taught rural, impoverished, African-American children how to perform classical jazz standards composed by legends like Duke Ellington, as well as her original compositions for the children and the community. Snow Hill Institute was originally founded in 1893 by Lee’s grandfather, William James Edwards, as a private boarding school for former slaves.

Following Lee’s successful effort to reopen the Institute, the U.S. government in 1995 named Snow Hill Institute a historic national landmark.

The Consuela Lee Foundation for Music Education was formed in 2010 to help carry forth the legacy by preserving her music. Lee believed that quality music should be passed down throughout the generations especially to help build pride and self-esteem for Black children living within a hostile, racist society. To learn more about the Foundation and Lee’s contributions, go to www.consuelalee.com.

— Monica Moorehead

Larry Hales: Letter to the Occupy Wall Street Movement

Letter to the Occupy Wall Street Movement
Published Oct 19, 2011 10:37 PM

These are hard times. There doesn’t appear to be any respite coming soon. The political atmosphere has shifted in response to the greatest economic calamity since the Great Depression. This crisis, because of how the changes in technology, communication and production have made the world smaller, is global in its impact.

Corporations and financial institutions on Wall Street have become profitable again. Their profits were made possible by the more than $16 trillion in tax money doled out to them by Washington and because they have shed millions of jobs, ripped up workers’ contracts, forced concessions down the workers’ throats and because they make those left with a job work harder and produce more in less time.

There are cutbacks at every level of government — cuts to education, health care, housing, federal nutrition programs and other vital social services. Government workers are being laid off and their collective bargaining rights curtailed in places like Wisconsin — the birthplace of public sector unions — and in Ohio, Michigan and Indiana to name a few states.

These are hard times, confusing times, where, no matter which political party the heads of government at the local, state and federal level answer to, the common program is for cutbacks, cutbacks, cutbacks for the workers and the poor and tax breaks, subsidies and bailouts for the corporations and the rich.

But times change. The political atmosphere shifts in response to real events. It has once again. The Occupy Wall Street movement, like the uprising in Wisconsin earlier in the year but on a grander and broader scale, has awakened youth and students, labor — all sectors.

It has grown from seeds planted by the conditions of accelerating poverty, joblessness, disenfranchisement and frustration with a political system that favors the wealthy elite. Perhaps this movement’s greatest achievement to date is that it has opened up new, broad, vitally needed political space.

It rose suddenly and brazenly, goaded on by threats and intimidation. It shows no sign of waning. This movement has captured the imagination of people the world over who have been waiting, hoping that the roots lurking just under the soil will push upward.

But where does it go from here?

The United States was created from the destruction of the societies and the way of life of the original inhabitants of the North American continent. The wealth of the country stemmed from this destruction of the lives of Indigenous peoples, the enslavement of Africans, the seizure of half of Mexico, the colonization of the land of sovereign nations such as Puerto Rico, Hawaii and the Philippines, the corporate grab of the Western Hemisphere.

Indigenous people, the descendants of African slaves, the offspring of the people from the northern half of Mexico, the people of Puerto Rico continue to live in the United States and suffer the effects of centuries of genocide, slavery, land theft and racist policies that have been pervasive throughout U.S. history.

Drawn into the U.S. are people who left their homelands because of war — be it the war in Iraq that has raged for eight years; the war in Afghanistan that has persisted for ten; the wars more than one generation ago in Vietnam and Korea — or economic warfare imposed on their countries through the so-called North American Free Trade Act, structural adjustments or austerity — all emanating from Wall Street.

We, the overwhelming majority, comprise the working class. It is a multinational class that speaks many languages, has many different cultures, customs, beliefs and religions.

For the movement to grow, it has to accept the peculiar history of the development of the U.S. What we all want is an equal, just society with an equitable distribution of wealth, one where people are not exploited and where young people are not thrust into Wall Street’s wars for profit and plunder.

But that society does not yet exist.

A broad movement must be multinational, in solidarity with all people and their issues, against racist repression, sexism, homophobia, and in support of the struggles of people who suffer disproportionately under this oppressive system.

While in general the conditions heaped upon all of our class are bad, Black, Latinos/as, Indigenous people and other people of color suffer higher rates of unemployment, poverty, lack of access to health care, in addition to regular oppression and repression.

The attacks against immigrant workers, the raids and deportations, the attacks against Muslims and the attacks against Black people — be they in the form of police brutality, incarceration or police occupation of communities of color — must all be seen as attacks against a sector of the working class.

As Martin Luther King Jr. once said, “Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.”

Unity and solidarity are needed.

Any grouping that seeks to scapegoat immigrants, Muslims, people of color is no friend of the working class. It is instead doing the bidding of Wall Street by attacking the most dispossessed, most disenfranchised. Any opportunists who think that demagogy against Wall Street that serves a racist, sexist or homophobic perspective must be given no quarter. Our class is diverse and we must always be aware of its diversity.

This movement will grow and can be transformative. We will learn what works and what doesn’t. We will learn lessons from our mistakes and our victories, and we will march forward.

An Injury to One Is an Injury to All!

All Power to the People!

Larry Hales
Oct. 19

Hales is an organizer of the national student struggle against austerity; an Occupy Wall Street, anti-police brutality and anti-war activist and a member of Workers World Party.