KOMINFORM apologies: because of server problems some mails have today doubled. was the result of corporate mergers. No record is kept of what happens to workers who lose their jobs. If they find a new job, is it in the service industries or perhaps one of the new high-tech industries? These jobs usually pay much less than manufacturing jobs, where workers often have unions to defend their rights. The dot.com jobs in the hot new Internet companies don't just pay less. They are not immune to the vagaries of the capitalist system, either. The Internet companies are being hit with a wave of consolidations, layoffs, mergers and acquisitions. Here's a recent sample: � Amazon.com, the top Internet retailer, announced Jan. 31 that for the first time since it started it will cut 2 percent of its work force, laying off 150 workers. � High-end clothing seller Boo.com, which opened with much fanfare in November 1999, announced it is cutting its work force by 10 percent. � Other Internet retailers announcing cutbacks were Beyond.com, Value America, Pets.com, and eToys, the third- most-visited e-commerce site on the Internet. Value America eliminated 50 percent of its work force. CRISIS OF OVERPRODUCTION The new Internet technologies have changed much about business. But they haven't changed the laws of capitalist economics. The e-businesses are showing signs of capitalist overproduction. There has been a fast outpouring of new e- commerce Web sites that have made a handful of capitalist entrepreneurs rich. That's because they were able to apply the new technology to lower costs. Sales spread rapidly. But soon, there was an excess of Web-based retailers making the same offers. Now the shakeout has begun. It's not that the goods and services being offered aren't needed. What has happened is that there is an overproduction of e-commerce sites on the Internet. When more goods or services are being produced than can be sold at the capitalists' desired rate of profit, a crisis of overproduction occurs. Every crisis of overproduction brings with it layoffs and the devastation associated with job loss. One of the ways socialist economies have shown they are superior to capitalist economies is that they are able to eliminate such crises and the devastating layoffs that plague capitalism. With all the hype about Web sales and the new Internet companies, the fact is only 2 percent to 3 percent of all retail sales are through Web stores. A capitalist crisis of overproduction has hit this industry. The e-layoffs have begun. - 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) Message-ID: <009a01b1fc00$128946a0$[EMAIL PROTECTED]> From: "WW" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Subject: [WW] Struggle halts Illinois executions Date: Fri, 5 Feb 1988 18:03:35 -0500 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit ------------------------- Via Workers World News Service Reprinted from the Feb. 10, 2000 issue of Workers World newspaper ------------------------- STRUGGLE HALTS ILLINOIS EXECUTIONS: MUMIA SUPPORTERS TO RAISE MORATORIUM DEMAND By Greg Butterfield As Mumia Abu-Jamal's appeal winds through a federal court in Pennsylvania, a development in distant Illinois could have a major impact on the struggle to save the political prisoner. On Jan. 31, Illinois Gov. Jim Ryan announced a moratorium on executions in that state. He said, "I cannot support a system which, in its administration, has proven so fraught with error." He appointed a commission to study the cases of 13 condemned women and men who were later proven innocent and freed. Ryan is no friend of the people. The Republican governor is a long-time supporter of capital punishment. As late as last year he refused appeals from anti-death-penalty groups to impose a moratorium on executions. Ryan is even the state campaign manager for presidential candidate George W. Bush. Bush, as governor of Texas, presides over the biggest death machine in the United States. But in the wake of those 13 prisoners' exonerations--some of them barely days or weeks from the death chamber--the ranks and militancy of anti-death-penalty forces swelled. A conference of the wrongfully condem ned at Chicago's Northwestern University last year helped expose the racist and class-biased application of the death pen alty. Investigations by Northwestern students and faculty helped to free nine of the 13. And a series of articles in the Chicago Tribune found that "at least 35 Black death-row inmates had been convicted or condemned by an all-white jury" while "about half of the state's capital cases had been reversed for a new trial or sentencing hearing." Pending legislation in 12 of the 38 death-penalty states calls for a moratorium on executions. Workers World Party 2000 presidential candidate Monica Moorehead told this reporter, "The developments in Illinois lay the basis for us to mount a struggle for a moratorium in Pennsylvania. This could be crucial to saving Mumia." Moorehead, an organizer of Millions for Mumia, said the new opening will be among the important matters discussed at the Feb. 19 Emergency National Conference to Save Mumia Abu- Jamal in New York. "This is good beginning, but it must go further to end the death penalty altogether," said Moorehead. "There should be town meetings held all over the country to carry out independent investigations on how the death penalty systematically targets poor people and people of color," she concluded. EMERGENCY CONFERENCE The New York conference Feb. 19 will be held in the Synod Hall of the Cathedral of St. John the Divine, 110th St. and Amsterdam Ave. A flyer for the conference can be downloaded from the new web site, www.Mumia2000.org. Registration begins at 8:30 a.m. An opening session from 10 a.m. to 11:30 a.m. will provide an orientation for the day. Box lunches will be available during the 11:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. lunch break. Organizers plan a "working conference." "The heart of the conference will be a series of workshops designed to strategize around key areas of work. Each of these sessions will come out, not only with a plan, but with a structure to implement that plan," explains the leaflet. Two workshop sessions are planned: the first from 12:30-3 p.m., the second from 3:30-6 p.m. Topics include: the legal community; youth; the religious community; communities of color; media outreach; Mumia 101; the battle in Philadelphia; international support; and artists and writers. Also lesbian/gay/bi/trans community outreach; labor; educators; special events and mass mobilizations; civil disobedience; the anti-death-penalty movement; racism and the death penalty; and police misconduct and falsified confessions. An evening session from 7:30-10 p.m. will be devoted to a "public session to remember" telling Abu-Jamal's story. Registration for the conference is $15, or $5 for students and people on fixed income. No one will be turned away for lack of funds. - 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) Message-ID: <00a001b1fc00$305b3f80$[EMAIL PROTECTED]> From: "WW" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Subject: [WW] Rally defends Mumia & Shaka Date: Fri, 5 Feb 1988 18:04:25 -0500 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit ------------------------- Via Workers World News Service Reprinted from the Feb. 10, 2000 issue of Workers World newspaper ------------------------- HOUSTON: A PROMISING ALLIANCE-- RALLY DEFENDS MUMIA ABU-JAMAL & SHAKA SANKOFA By Gloria Rubac Houston Progressive Houstonians gathered in a park Jan. 22 to demand that all the evidence be heard in the cases of Mumia Abu-Jamal in Pennsylvania and Shaka Sankofa in Texas. Both men are on death row. Both are in the final stages of their appeals. And the government wants to silence both of these African American revolutionaries despite evidence that points to their innocence. The rally on behalf of both prisoners was organized by the Nation of Islam Mosque #45, Houstonians United for Mumia, and the Texas Death Penalty Abolition Movement. The multinational crowd applauded thunderously when Minister Robert Muhammed declared, "We won't stop until we have freed both Mumia and Shaka!" There was music from a Leonard Peltier supporter, a talk from a young Chicana activist who had been a Texas prison guard until she quit in disgust, and revolutionary poetry by Brother Michael, Kati Ward and Tory Mercer. Support was voiced for the prisoners who had ended a 21- day hunger strike the day before. And a vote was taken on whether participants felt that Texas Gov. George Bush is a compassionate conservative or a serial killer for having executed 115 people since he was elected. The unanimous verdict was that he is indeed a serial killer. After the rally, activists marched to the mosque where a historic meeting took place. Based on a proposal by Minister Muham med, the organizations and activists present agreed that they would meet once a month, and hold an action once a month, about the many issues of criminal injustice in the state of Texas. This new alliance in Houston has reinvigorated all involved. It promises to be a militant and broad group that will tackle the cops and the courts and the prisons and stop the criminal activity of the criminal justice system. - 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) Message-ID: <00aa01b1fc00$58090620$[EMAIL PROTECTED]> From: "WW" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Subject: [WW] Is U.S. behind 'quiet coup' in Ukraine? Date: Fri, 5 Feb 1988 18:05:32 -0500 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit ------------------------- Via Workers World News Service Reprinted from the Feb. 10, 2000 issue of Workers World newspaper ------------------------- IS U.S. BEHIND "QUIET COUP" IN UKRAINE? By Bill Wayland Kiev, Ukraine U.S. officials and Ukrainian President Leonid Kuchma are collaborating in an effort to break up Ukraine's parliament, known as the Rada, and concentrate power in the president's hands, Ukrainian opposition leaders told International Action Center representatives last week. IAC members Larissa Kritskaya and Bill Doares were in Kiev to attend a hearing of the International Peoples Tribunal on NATO War Crimes in Yugoslavia (English translation). It appears that Washington's goal is to bring Ukraine into NATO and smash parliamentary resistance to the privatization of land and other measures demanded by the International Monetary Fund. This former Soviet republic now has two rival parliaments in the wake of Kuchma's attempt to illegally oust parliament Speaker Oleksandr Tkachenko and Deputy Speaker Adam Martynyuk. The two have accused Kuchma of falsifying the results of last November's presidential election. Their charges were borne out by European Union electoral observers. As of this writing, Tkachenko is refusing to leave his office. His phone and fax have been disconnected. State television is refusing to air his statements. His official security has been removed. He is being guarded by Communist, Socialist and Peasant Party deputies. Tkachenko is a member of the Peasant Party. Martynyuk is in the Communist Party. The right-wing pro-U.S. bloc is continuing to boycott Rada meetings in an attempt to give Kuchma an excuse to dissolve the body. On Feb. 1, thousands of pro-Tkachenko demonstrators gathered outside the Rada building to show their support for the sitting parliament. A reported 600 rightists gathered outside Ukraine House, where the pro-IMF, pro-NATO bloc was meeting. GORE AND KUCHMA--PARTNERS IN CRIME The regime's action came on the heels of a private meeting in Washington between Kuchma and U.S. Vice President Al Gore. Kuchma was first elected in 1996 with considerable support from the CIA-linked Soros Foundation. To engineer the removal of Tkachenko and Martynyuk, right- wing deputies and their allies held an extralegal gathering in a non-government building Jan. 21 at the same time an official Rada session was in progress. The unconstitutional gathering voted to oust Tkachenko and Martynyuk and replace them with Kuchma allies. It also voted to abolish the basic democratic right of parliamentary immunity and named a new head of the central bank. Tkachenko and Martynyuk were not invited to the session or told of the charges against them. The only record of the vote and attendance at the right-wing gathering is the claims of its organizers. Previous attempts to remove Tkachenko and Martynyuk by constitutional means had failed. "There has been considerable pressure to forcibly Westernize Ukraine," Speaker Tkachenko told the IAC delegates. "The presidential election was determined by force and now the president wants to use force against parliament. "He is trying to create an artificial majority in order to concentrate power in his hands. Our constitution has been violated at every step." Kuchma's ultimate aim is to abolish the existing single- chamber Rada, which has blocked many "reforms" demanded by U.S. bankers and Kuchma's wealthy allies. He wants to replace it with a smaller, two-chamber body with an upper chamber comprising regional governors appointed by himself. To achieve this, he has ordered a "popular referendum" that will presumably be as controlled as last year's presidential election. WALL STREET RULES With nearly 50 million people, Ukraine is the second- biggest former Soviet republic. It was one of the USSR's most productive agricultural and industrial regions. Today Ukraine, like other former Soviet republics, has been devastated by "economic restructuring" dictated by the International Monetary Fund. Since the fall of the USSR, Ukraine's industrial production has dropped 70 percent. Its population has fallen by 2 million in just the past two years. The old-age pension is worth $13 a month. Millions of workers are not being paid. While hunger stalks many regions, one-third of the state budget goes in interest payments to Western banks. The country's debt has risen 30 times since Kuchma took office in 1996. The Kuchma regime has tried to create a fascist-like atmosphere by exploiting divisions similar to those used to break up Yugoslavia. It has whipped up Ukrainian nationalism against the one-quarter of the population that is Russian. Soviet-era books have been burned in public squares and opposition activists attacked by fascist gangs. The regime's alleged nationalism does not stop Wall Street from dictating its economic policy. It has agreed to raise food and fuel prices, rents and gas and electric rates on a schedule dictated by the International Monetary Fund. "It is obvious that the United States has designed the Ukraine's political landscape," Oleg Grachev, Kiev regional secretary of the Communist Party of Ukraine (KPU), told Kritskaya and Doares. "You cannot speak about injustice and electoral falsification in this country without speaking of the domination of the International Monetary Fund." MARKED BALLOTS AND HAND GRENADES KPU General Secretary Petro Simonenko, who calls for Ukraine to withdraw from the IMF, was the runner-up in __________________________________ KOMINFORM P.O. Box 66 00841 Helsinki - Finland +358-40-7177941, fax +358-9-7591081 e-mail [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.kominf.pp.fi ___________________________________ [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subscribe/unsubscribe messages mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] ___________________________________
