>after modifications last year to the U.S. embargo against
>Havana."
>
>Block told the media that Cuba represented a potential
>market worth $1 billion a year for food exporters.
>
>Some in the summits of power in the U.S. hope that lifting
>the blockade might free them to strengthen the internal
>opposition they are trying to create and bolster within
>Cuba.
>
>Time magazine reported on Jan. 17 that "at the State
>Department, in the business community and even in Congress,
>sentiment is growing to abandon the 40-year-old embargo that
>has failed to dislodge Castro."
>
>`HIT MEN' ARE EXPENDABLE
>
>Many columnists and political pundits exaggerate the power
>of the Cuban American right wing. For example, Patricia
>Fernandez-Kelly, a professor of Sociology at Princeton
>University, said "The Cuban American National Foundation
>dictates foreign policy to U.S. with respect to Cuba, and we
>have a totally dissimilar policy with every other social and
>communist country.
>
>"The reason," she said, "is because wealthy Cuban
>Americans dominate the field of politics in Miami." (Jersey
>Journal, Jan. 15)
>
>But the tail doesn't wag the dog. It is those at the
>pinnacle of wealth and power in the U.S. who determine
>imperialist foreign policy. And its contra forces are
>expendable.
>
>The Time article continued, "Some Cuba watchers even see
>the Eli=A0n case as a potential springboard for a broader
>diplomatic opening [with Cuba]. The Clinton Administration
>may feel it can afford to improve ties now that the exile
>community in Miami has squandered some of its clout on the
>Eli=A0n drama."
>
>The Cuban American right wing has alienated so many people
>in the country by using this six-year-old child as a
>political pawn that it has even split the Cuban American
>community.
>
>Emma Garcia, "security" director for Alpha 66--the
>paramilitary contra army created and armed by the CIA--was
>quoted in the Jan. 7 New York Times as saying that the
>right-wing effort to keep Eli=A0n in the U.S. "has unified
>the community in Miami in an incredible way."
>
>But that's sheer bluster. Even with the threats of
>violence that the Cuban American right wing wields like a
>club over the heads of progressives, individuals are
>speaking up.
>
>Cuban Americans spoke out at a Jan. 18 news conference
>in Washington, D.C., calling for the return of Eli=A0n. They
>included Jose Pertiera, an immigration lawyer, and Delvis
>Fernandez Levy, who heads the Cuban American Alliance--an
>umbrella group of 36 organizations.
>
>Levy told reporters that some Cuban Americans in south
>Florida have been "intimidated for trying to say that
>Eli=A0n must go home to heal his wounds, not be paraded
>around as a symbol for an anachronistic, angry mob in
>Miami."
>
>Cuban Americans also demanded Eli=A0n's repatriation at a
>Jan. 18 news conference in Chicago. Speakers included Rev.
>Armando Rodriguez, representing Cuban Pastors and Adalberto
>United Methodist Church; long-time Cuba support activist
>Gisela Lopez, from the Chicago Cuba Coalition; Lourdes
>Monteagudo; Rafael Ravelo, a psychologist and director of
>Erie House; and Dr. Felix Masud, a professor at DePaul
>University.
>
>Many of these Cubans said they were "speaking for the
>silent majority."
>
> - END -
>
>(Copyleft Workers World Service. Everyone is permitted to
>copy and distribute verbatim copies of this document, but
>changing it is not allowed. For more information contact
>Workers World, 55 W. 17 St., NY, NY 10011; via e-mail:
>[EMAIL PROTECTED] For subscription info send message
>to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Web: http://www.workers.org)
>
>
>From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
>Date: Wed, 19 Jan 2000 21:58:26 -0500
>Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII
>Content-transfer-encoding: 7BIT
>Subject: [WW] 50,000 Take Streets Against Racist Flag
>Message-ID: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
>
>-------------------------
>Via Workers World News Service
>Reprinted from the Jan. 27, 2000
>issue of Workers World newspaper
>-------------------------
>
>SOUTH CAROLINA: 50,000 TAKE STREETS AGAINST RACIST
>FLAG
>
>By Monica Moorehead
>
>In the largest civil rights demonstration ever held in
>South Carolina, close to 50,000 people, the vast majority of
>them African American, converged on the Capitol in
>Charleston on Jan. 17.
>
>These protesters, ranging in age from the very young to
>the very old, marched and rallied all day to demand that the
>racist, pro-slavery Confederate flag no longer fly as the
>official state emblem.
>
>The organizers of this massive protest had been expecting
>about 20,000 people. They decided that holding such a march
>was the best way to honor the legacy of slain civil rights
>leader Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
>
>A number of daily papers reported that about 10 percent of
>the crowd was white.
>
>The march took place on the third Monday in January, the
>official federal holiday signed into law in 1986 recognizing
>Dr. King's contributions to the struggle against racism and
>for human rights. This holiday came about through many years
>of mass struggles.
>
>But the march was in defiance of the political
>establishment in South Carolina, home of arch-bigot Sen.
>Strom Thurmond, because it is the only state not to have
>incorporated this official holiday. State employees in South
>Carolina are given the option of choosing to take off for
>Dr. King's birthday or one of three Confederate holidays.
>
>South Carolina has flown the Confederate flag ever since
>1962, as a slap in the face to the mass movement against Jim
>Crow segregation led by Dr. King.
>
>Although the majority of people who attended the march
>were from South Carolina, thousands more traveled from all
>over the deep South, coming from as far away as Alabama.
>
>During the march, a protester planted the red, black and
>green Black liberation flag atop the Confederate Soldiers
>Monument, another heroic gesture.
>
>ECONOMIC BOYCOTT
>
>This show of anti-racist strength will no doubt help
>strengthen the economic boycott against South Carolina
>called last July by the NAACP to last until the state
>legislature votes to change the flag. A tourism boycott
>officially began this year and so far over 90 organizations
>have refused to do business in South Carolina. That number
>will continue to rise.
>
>In fact, as protesters descended upon Charleston during
>the weekend, many opted to stay on church floors and bring
>their own food rather than spend money on hotels and
>restaurants. NAACP President Kweisi Mfume declared during
>the rally, "We will continue to march and continue to
>boycott until it flies no more."
>
>Regarding other states, Georgia and Mississippi have
>included the stars and bars of the Confederate flag within
>their respective flags. The Rev. Jesse Jackson of the
>Rainbow Coalition has called an economic boycott of Georgia
>beginning Jan. 30, the day of the National Football League's
>Superbowl, which is located in Atlanta this year.
>
>The issue of the Confederate flag has become a hot topic
>of the 2000 presidential campaign. Al Gore, who is courting
>the Black vote, has come out against the flag. The pro-death
>penalty Gov. George W. Bush has stated that the controversy
>should be solved within the framework of "states' rights"
>and that he will not take a position. Of course, this is a
>cover for his support for the flag. States' rights was the
>battle cry of the slave-owning Confederacy that attempted to
>secede from the rest of the U.S., resulting in the bloody
>Civil War.
>
>SIGNIFICANCE OF THE MARCH
>
>Much analysis should be given to this march. It was a
>tremendous outpouring that surprised even the staunchest
>anti-racist organizers and gave hope to every progressive.
>
>What is irrefutable, however, is that despite the many
>hard-won gains made by the blood and sweat of the civil
>rights movement, those political and economic concessions
>have been deeply eroded by the forces of racist reaction.
>The fact that a symbol so steeped in racism and so wretched
>as the Confederate flag can be flown in a state with a huge
>Black population is a reflection of this harsh reality.
>
>And what is that reality?
>
>One out of two Black children is born into poverty, a
>disproportionate number of them in the South. The prisons in
>the South, many of them modern-day plantations, are
>overflowing with young, poor African American men.
>
>Affirmative action in education and in job opportunities
>has been greatly weakened. The right to political
>representation written into the 1965 Civil Rights Act has
>been under attack by a reactionary Supreme Court. And this
>is just the tip of the iceberg.
>
>Does this demonstration in South Carolina indicate a
>rebirth of the civil rights movement? Only time will tell.
>But this great outpouring of the oppressed in South Carolina
>could prove to be the spark for that rebirth.
>
>What is already crystal clear is that combating white
>racism on all fronts is an integral part of the class
>struggle against the divide-and-conquer capitalist system.
>
>It would have been a big step forward for class solidarity
>if the AFL-CIO leadership, the National Organization for
>Women, lesbian/gay/bi and trans activists and other
>progressive formations had mobilized their constituencies to
>go to South Carolina to march side by side with the Black
>masses against racism. That day will inevitably come.
>
> - END -
>
>(Copyleft Workers World Service. Everyone is permitted to
>copy and distribute verbatim copies of this document, but
>changing it is not allowed. For more information contact
>Workers World, 55 W. 17 St., NY, NY 10011; via e-mail:
>[EMAIL PROTECTED] For subscription info send message
>to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Web: http://www.workers.org)
>
>
>From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
>Date: Wed, 19 Jan 2000 22:13:28 -0500
>Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII
>Content-transfer-encoding: 7BIT
>Subject: [WW] Rodham Clinton on Gay Marriage
>Message-ID: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
>
>-------------------------
>Via Workers World News Service
>Reprinted from the Jan. 27, 2000
>issue of Workers World newspaper
>-------------------------
>
>RODHAM CLINTON ON GAY MARRIAGE: WITH "FRIENDS" LIKE
>THESE
>
>By Leslie Feinberg
>
>When it's Election Day, Democratic candidates assume that
>lesbian and gay voters--given the choice between the donkey
>and the elephant--will pull the lever for them.
>
>Democrats like Al Gore and Bill Bradley, who would like to
>occupy the Oval Office, and Bill Clinton, its current
>occupant, have competed with the International House of
>Pancakes for waffles when the question of gays in the
>military is raised in this election year.
>
>And Hilary Rodham Clinton has proved that she, like the
>president, is no "friend to lesbians and gay men."
>
>Rodham Clinton--a virtual candidate for the U.S. Senate--
>sounded like Jesse Helms recently on the question of same-sex
>marriage. "Marriage has got historic, religious, and moral
>content that goes back to the beginning of time," she told
>reporters Jan. 10. Sounding like a verse from "As Time Goes
>By," Rodham Clinton said, "I think a marriage is, as a
>marriage has always been, between a man and a woman."
>
>Rodham Clinton appears to be a student of the Fred
>Flintstone School of Human Sociology. In fact, dramatic
>transformations in the economic organization of human
>societies have brought with them corresponding changes in
>concepts of religion, morality and marriage systems
>
>The nuclear family in which "father knows best," state
>outlawing of same-sex love, and the oppression of lesbian,
>gay, bisexual and trans people are relatively recent
>historic developments in the long course of social
>organization. They arose with the cleavage of what had been
>cooperative societies into societies of haves and have-nots.
>
>Today, the defense of the "sanctity" of heterosexual
>marriage by the church and the state are a defense of the
>capitalist system of paternity and inheritance that insures
>that wealth and private ownership will continue to flow from
>ruling-class heir to heir.
>
>Rodham Clinton dropped a bombshell when she said that she
>would have voted for the anti-gay federal "Defense of Marriage
>Act" had she been in Congress in 1996. President Bill "I feel
>your pain" Clinton found common cause with arch-reactionary
>Sen. Jesse Helms when he signed the law banning federal
>recognition of same-sex marriage into law in 1996.
>
>Democratic Party candidates count on their image as being
>more progressive on social issues than Republicans. But
>whether it's a hard cop or soft cop in office, they all
>administer the same class-riven system that results in
>exploitation for all workers and inequality and injustice for
>the disenfranchised and the downtrodden.
>
>But there's another choice for the lesbian, gay, bi and
>trans movement. One that can usher in genuine change. And that
>is to take to the streets in a militant, multi-national,
>politicians-be-damned mass movement that makes demands in its
>own interests and makes its own history.
>
> - END -
>
>(Copyleft Workers World Service. Everyone is permitted to
>copy and distribute verbatim copies of this document, but
>changing it is not allowed. For more information contact
>Workers World, 55 W. 17 St., NY, NY 10011; via e-mail:
>[EMAIL PROTECTED] For subscription info send message
>to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Web: http://www.workers.org)
>
>
>From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
>Date: Wed, 19 Jan 2000 22:14:42 -0500
>Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII
>Content-transfer-encoding: 7BIT
>Subject: [WW] Taking Stock of the Stock Market
>Message-ID: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
>
>-------------------------
>Via Workers World News Service
>Reprinted from the Jan. 27, 2000
>issue of Workers World newspaper
>-------------------------
>
>TALKIN' ABOUT A REVOLUTION: TAKING STOCK OF THE
>STOCK MARKET
>
>A lot of people in the United States are connected to the
>stock market in one way or another--mostly through their
>pension plans' investments in mutual funds or some other
>form of what are touted to be low-risk securities.
>Securities. Now that's a comforting euphemism fer ya.
>
>But this doesn't mean that most people play the stock
>market--even in this day of cybertrades. While a lot of
>yuppies, and maybe even a few workers, may be dashing to
>their newspapers or computers every morning to see what the
>market is doing, they're still a small minority. Most
>workers who want to gamble play the lottery, where at least
>they know their risks.
>
>When a crash comes, those who weren't actively involved in
>the market are likely to blame those who were. Everyone who
>gets hurt in a real stock-market blowout wants to know why,
>and to blame someone. And if it leads to a big downturn in
>the economy, like the Depression of the 1930s, everyone
>begins to question what happened.
>
>If you're progressive, you know it's the capitalist system
>that's to blame. It's been going through booms and busts
>since before Karl Marx wrote about it a century and a half
>ago. And if you want to name names, the responsibility
>belongs to the class of billionaire owners of corporations
>and banks (millionaires now are a dime a dozen) with the
>clout to try and control the system (which no one can really
>do). They're the real ruling class, and in the United States
>they are overwhelmingly white, male and usually of Northern
>European heritage.
>
>But the ultra-right wing won't admit this. They generally
>exploit the frustration and envy of those in the middle
>class who feel pushed aside at the feeding trough but
>haven't the courage or the class instincts to know what's
>really responsible. So they blame whoever is handy, whoever
>can be easily picked on, usually because of a history of
>oppression. We all know who the targets of the right are:
>people of color, lesbians and gays, communists and Jews.
>Anti-Semitism mushrooms up in a period of economic crisis
>because of the totally false belief that Jewish people are
>more involved in big capital than others. Hello out there--
>ever hear of Ford, Morgan, Rockefeller, Vanderbilt, Trump,
>Perot and Bill Gates?
>
>There's a crash of some kind coming. Not even the Wall
>Street bulls would dispute that. The only question is when
>and of what severity. The gap between companies' profits and
>the value of their stocks has never been greater. This means
>that no investor can make much money just holding onto
>stocks and waiting for dividends--a share of the profits. To
>wait for dividends means to earn--another euphem ism for
>what the idle rich do--a lower return on their investment
>than they'd get with a decent savings certificate.
>
>Those who get rich owe it all to speculation. And that
>can't last, any more than a Ponzi or pyramid scheme. It all
>depends on more money pouring into the market. When that is
>disrupted, the whole thing can collapse.
>
>In a prolonged period of market mania like this--the
>longest in modern history--it's hard to even think about
>what it will be like when the bubble bursts. Magnified by
>the obsessions of the capitalist media and advertising, life
>itself seems to have only one frenzied objective: making
>money. One thing is sure, however. When the lines on the
>charts start pointing down instead of up, this era of
>capitalist triumphalism will be over and long-deferred
>social issues, like how can we build a just world, will come
>to the fore.
>
> - END -
>
>(Copyleft Workers World Service. Everyone is permitted to
>copy and distribute verbatim copies of this document, but
>changing it is not allowed. For more information contact
>Workers World, 55 W. 17 St., NY, NY 10011; via e-mail:
>[EMAIL PROTECTED] For subscription info send message
>to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Web: http://www.workers.org)
>
>
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