WW News Service Digest #209
1) Unelected Prez Picks Right-Ring Cabinet
by [EMAIL PROTECTED]
4) Activists Step Up Plans for Inaugural Protest
by [EMAIL PROTECTED]
-------------------------
Via Workers World News Service
Reprinted from the Jan. 11, 2001
issue of Workers World newspaper
-------------------------
UNELECTED PREZ PICKS RIGHT-WING CABINET/ A RECIPE
FOR MASS ANGER AS ECONOMY SAGS
By Deirdre Griswold
George W. Bush may well go down in history as the president
who unwittingly awoke the sleeping giant in the United
States, to the consternation of the lords of industry and
finance who so eagerly put him in the White House.
It is not that his personal style is so abrasive. It is not
that he lacks for coaches and spin masters to file off the
rough edges of all his pronouncements and invent recipes to
sugarcoat a program that is poisonous to the masses of
people. This second Bush administration comes well equipped
with seasoned players in the deceitful sport of capitalist
politics. Next to them, the World Wrestling Federation looks
like Sunday school.
It is his unabashed defense of capitalism at a time when the
economy is looking downright sick and a large section of the
population is being turned off by the racism, repression,
environmental destruction and gross inequality spawned by
the profit system.
It is also his resurrection of political figures on the far
right in order to "balance" his cabinet.
IS 'BIPARTISAN' HONEYMOON OVER BEFORE IT BEGAN?
At the time of Al Gore's concession speech, it seemed that
Bush would have to temper his moves, at least for a while,
in order to quell massive anger over the vote fraud in
Florida and other states. Sure enough, his very first
cabinet appointments were meant to show that his
administration was mindful of the mood in the Black
community, which had been so shamelessly abused by the
Florida authorities under the command of his brother, Gov.
Jeb Bush. And so he quickly brought out Gen. Colin Powell
and Condoleezza Rice, two conservative African Americans, as
his nominees for secretary of state and national security
adviser, respectively.
Of course, Powell would be the first military leader to fill
this civilian post since Gen. George C. Marshall was
appointed head of the foreign policy establishment by Harry
Truman. While giving his name to the $20-billion Marshall
Plan that rescued post-World War II western Europe from
collapse--and from the very real possibility of workers'
takeovers in several countries where the left had led the
anti-fascist resistance--Marshall also presided over the
launching of the Cold War against the Soviet Union and its
allies.
Powell won the confidence of the big moneymen, and
especially of the oil billionaires who are so tight with
Bush, when he directed the war against Iraq. The Pentagon's
high-tech onslaught succeeded in disabling this relatively
modern developing country while taking virtually no U.S.
casualties.
Condoleezza Rice is another oil-connected cold warrior who,
while becoming an expert on Soviet-U.S. relations, also
found time to serve on the board of the Chevron Corp.
While Bush was announcing these appointments, the Democratic
Party leaders went along in the spirit of "bipartisanship,"
which they had embraced so fervidly in those critical days
when the Supreme Court was handing Bush the presidency. They
certainly thought there would be some quid pro quo for
abandoning the struggle to recount the Florida ballots. The
media talked of Bush adding some Democrats to his cabinet.
But then his true colors started to come out. There was the
nomination of Donald Rumsfeld to be secretary of defense; of
New Jersey Gov. Christine Todd Whitman to head the
Environmental Protection Agency; of Wisconsin Gov. Tommy
Thompson as the wolf in charge of Health and Human Services;
and, most provocatively, of former Missouri Sen. John
Ashcroft to be attorney general. Ashcroft is so notoriously
racist and anti-woman that he had just lost the election to
a dead man.
Another appointee, Don Evans to secretary of commerce, is a
long-time Bush friend and CEO of Tom Brown, Inc., a Texas-
based oil and gas company.
RUMSFELD AND MILITARY MADNESS
Rumsfeld first held the post of secretary of defense 25
years ago in Gerald Ford's administration. One of his
prot=E9g=E9s was Richard Cheney, now Bush's vice president.
Rumsfeld was evidently picked by Bush to preside over the
Pentagon again because of his commitment to the next
generation of military madness: the National Missile Defense
system. NMD is just a new name for Ronald Reagan's Star Wars
program, known then as the Strategic Defense Initiative.
"In 1998, Rumsfeld made waves in Washington as head of the
Commission to Assess the Ballistic Missile Threat to the
United States," wrote the Houston Chronicle of Dec. 29. "The
nine-member, bipartisan panel concluded that the nation was
vulnerable to nuclear attack with 'little or no warning'
from emerging powers such as Iran, North Korea and,
eventually, Iraq."
The reason this made waves was because all the other
military planners and assessors had concluded there was no
ballistic missile threat. But Rumsfeld's commission proposed
a $60-billion budget to get started on putting into place an
"anti-missile" system that most people thought wasn't
necessary and wouldn't work anyway.
Furthermore, it would be in violation of the 1972 Anti-
Ballistic Missile Treaty with the Soviet Union, the
cornerstone of all efforts to limit and cut back on the
nuclear threat. George W. Bush openly admitted that the NMD
would be a unilateral abrogation of the ABM treaty when he
called for the anti-missile system during his election
campaign.
Since the Pentagon already has far and away the most
dangerous nuclear arsenal in the world, the NMD system, if
made operational, would threaten other countries with
annihilation by removing their ability to retaliate if
attacked. Robert Aldridge, a former designer of Trident
submarine missiles, calls NMD "an aggressive first-strike
capability which is neither defensive nor deterrent."
Rumsfeld is one of those military-industrial-banking
officials who moves easily back and forth between the worlds
of government and private business. In addition to his role
in the Department of Defense, he has been an investment
banker; the chief executive officer of General Instrument
Corp., which pioneered high-definition television; and the
chair of G.D. Searle & Co., making him the second former
drug industry executive in Bush's cabinet.
Republicans love to castigate "big government" and call for
"self-reliance" and "responsibility" when it comes to
slashing social programs. But Rumsfeld finds no
contradiction in also advocating throwing billions of
taxpayer dollars at Northrop Grumman to build more copies of
the B-2 bomber, which at $2.2 billion each is the most
expensive plane ever made. He also wants to pour hundreds of
millions into Lockheed Martin's coffers to build more F-22s,
the first stealth air-to-air fighter jet, which is to be
combat ready in 2005.
These expensive weapons projects did not start with Bush, of
course. They have been moving steadily ahead during the
Clinton administration, even though there is no military
challenge in the world to U.S. hegemony. The Pentagon
budget, which dropped in the early Clinton years as
superfluous bases were closed, has been creeping up again--
to $309 billion this year.
And Clinton is not really contesting the Bush-Rumsfeld
scheme that argues for the NMD because of a supposed threat
from "rogue states." Despite efforts in both north and south
Korea to lessen the tensions on that occupied peninsula,
Clinton has ruled out a historic visit to the Democratic
People's Republic of Korea before leaving office. The
Pentagon just refused to acknowledge U.S. war crimes at
Nogun-ri in south Korea in 1950 despite a mass of evidence
unearthed by the U.S. media and the south Korean movement
over the last year.
WHITMAN: FOX TO GUARD THE CHICKENS
Bush's choice of Gov. Christine Whitman to head the EPA has
the big oil companies and chemical polluters cheering. Here
is another case of the fox being appointed to guard the
chickens. As governor of New Jersey, she has served well the
petrochemical industry that runs the state and has
bankrolled her political career. She is roundly denounced by
most of the environmental organizations in the state.
Her one claim to fame on the environment is to support the
preservation of some state woodlands--especially in areas
where the fox-hunting gentry like herself live.
One important appointment that has received muted press
attention is Paul O'Neill as secretary of the Treasury.
O'Neill is a former CEO of both Alcoa and International
Paper. The Financial Times on Dec. 21 called him "a virtual
unknown on Wall Street" compared to his predecessors,
Lawrence Summers and Robert Rubin. So what makes this
industry guy the choice for treasury secretary?
The paper explained that O'Neill was lured from IP in 1987
by Alan Green span, who was then a director of Alcoa. "So as
Mr. O'Neill heads to Wash ington again, he leaves Wall
Street guessing what dollar policy he might pursue. He did
though offer up this clue on Thursday: 'I understand my
place in this, and that place is to let Alan Greenspan make
monetary policy.'"
Time magazine wrote on Dec. 31 that "Bush and Cheney had
only one constituent in mind when they chose O'Neill: Alan
Greenspan. And he was ecstatic."
O'Neill cultivates an image of being "interested in the
environment, labor relations and bringing down the budget
deficit." But he is also known as a "ruthless cost-cutter."
Over the last eight years, the expanding economy has
produced the greatest profits that the capitalist class has
ever known. Greenspan and Clinton vie in taking credit for
that. When the economy turns around, however, as capitalism
always does, then the blame game begins.
Bush will be taking office when the economy is already in
decline. Bill Clinton did the dirty work for him of killing
off welfare--something Republicans had been demanding for
years but that it took a Democrat to deliver. Now the lack
of that social safety net is already leading to more
homelessness and bread lines. There will be broad and deep
bitterness if unemployment rises along with bankruptcies and
layoffs--as it always has in the past.
Because of the peculiarly undemocratic nature of the
Electoral College, magnified by the deliberate exclusion of
millions of voters--most of them definitely not Republicans--
Bush takes office under a huge cloud. He is seen not just as
a politician from the more right-wing party, but as a robber
who stole thousands of votes and got a Supreme Court packed
with his party's nominees to ratify the theft.
It all seems a recipe for renewed struggle. Every sector
that has something to lose--the women's movement, the
oppressed communities of color, the unions, the lesbian-gay-
bi-trans community, the anti-war forces, the movement
against repression and the death penalty, all the
progressive forces--must look hard and long at how to build
unity against the reactionary pressures coming down from the
ruling class.
There is no salvation in the Democratic Party, as Gore's
predictable cave-in to Bush has shown already. But with a
new mood of militancy already having taken root in a
significant sector of the youth, and the emergence of the
most underpaid, oppressed sectors of the working class at
the head of today's union organizing drives, the prospects
of building an independent, anti-capitalist movement look
better than in a very long time.
*********
EXCERPTS FROM NEWSPAPER REPORTS ON JANUARY 20
PROTEST
ELECTION ANGER FUELS INAUGURAL PROTESTERS
WASHINGTON POST, DEC. 21
The raw wounds left by the presidential election finale have
created enough irritation to unleash one of the largest
inauguration protests in years, according to veteran
organizers and police officials.
"This will be by far the biggest counter-inauguration since
the 1973 Nixon counter-inauguration," predicted Brian
Becker, co-director of the International Action Center in
New York, who has demonstrated at numerous presidential
swearing-in events. "We organize protests not infrequently,
and we know when something has legs and when it doesn't have
legs. This one does."
PROTESTERS PLAN INAUGURATION TURNOUT
ASSOCIATED PRESS, DEC. 21
Demonstrators who shut down a global trade meeting in
Seattle last year and brawled with police at the Republican
National Convention plan to show up in force for President-
elect Bush's inauguration next month.
Organizers insist the protests, for a variety of causes,
will be orderly and peaceful and that any violence will be
the fault of police.
"George Bush will not go one block down Pennsylvania Avenue
without being confronted with signs and banners and other
creatively done messages of the movement that says 'No' to
the death penalty, 'No' to racism, 'No' to voter
disenfranchisement," Brian Becker, co-director of the
International Action Center, said at a news conference
Thursday.
ANGRY, PEACEFUL BUSH INAUGURATION PROTESTS PLANNED
REUTERS, DEC. 21
Protesters planning spirited demonstrations Jan. 20 at the
inauguration of President-elect Bush said Thursday that any
violence would be the fault of the police.
"If there is violence that day it will be because, as we've
witnessed in so many demonstrations in the past year, the
police decided to engage in violent behavior against
demonstrators," International Action Center Co-Director
Brian Becker told a news conference.
ACTIVISTS STEP UP PLANS FOR INAUGURAL PROTEST
By Elijah Crane
Activists ushered in the New Year by stepping up plans for
the Jan. 20 protest in Washington at George W. Bush's
inauguration.
With a new trial for death-row political prisoner Mumia Abu-
Jamal and an end to the racist death penalty topping the
list of demands, the International Action Center initiated a
call for the upcoming demonstration long before the Nov. 7
election.
Since the election crisis, the burning issue for many of
those planning to participate in the Jan. 20 demonstration
is anger over the election fraud. Poor and oppressed people
who will be most affected by the decisions and acts of
George W. Bush were also the most affected by
disenfranchisement in the electoral process. And that is why
people will be traveling by the busloads, vanloads and
carloads to Washington on Jan. 20 to raise their voices on
Inauguration Day.
The inauguration protest will also demand an immediate end
to Plan Colombia. Other issues to be raised include
defending the Palestinian people from U.S.-backed Israeli
attack and occupation, lifting the U.S-UN sanctions against
Iraq, demanding the U.S. Navy out of Vieques, Puerto Rico,
and more.
The West Coast IAC is also organizing a protest in San
Francisco on Jan. 20. The demands are the same, and
demonstrators are expected to come from all over the region
to participate.
MEDIA COVERAGE
On Dec. 21, Brian Becker, co-director of the International
Action Center and a lead organizer of the Jan. 20
mobilization, was interviewed by Bernard Shaw on CNN. The
Rev. Walter Fauntroy also appeared on the show to talk about
plans for demonstrating on Jan. 20.
"We're going to assemble at the scene of the crime, the
Supreme Court," the Rev. Fauntroy said of plans for a
"shadow inauguration."
Becker told Shaw, "... We will have thousands of people
coming to Washington on January 20th to demonstrate against
the death penalty, which George Bush is a fervent supporter
of, and George Bush, as you know, has on his watch executed
more people than any of the governors of the states
combined.
"We'll also be demanding a new trial for the famed broadcast
journalist Mumia Abu-Jamal and thirdly our demonstration
will focus on what we believe was the racist
disenfranchisement of mainly African- American and Haitian
voters in the state of Florida, which we considered to be a
conspiracy by the Republican Party to disenfranchise Black
people--a tradition in the South that has been revealed not
to have been from the ages past but lives on today."
Becker went on to say, "This demonstration is more than a
single event. A movement started last year in Seattle; it
was a movement for social justice. It was mainly young
people and it went to Washington, D.C. for protests against
the IMF and then to the conventions of the Republican and
the Democratic Party.
"Now, that movement is taking its next step. It's not only
protesting globalization, it's protesting the war against
poor and working people here and around the world. It's got
a special focus on racism, which is alive and well in the
United States. So we believe this will be, on January 20th,
not the beginning of the Bush period of racist reaction, but
the period of a new civil rights movement which this
demonstration on January 20th will signify."
When Shaw asked if protests would be peaceful Becker
responded, "Well, ... have the media ask the police, 'will
there be violence?' because it's the police who have the
guns and the clubs and the tear gas and who have acted
lawlessly in the past demon strations in the past year. For
our part, our demonstration will be legal and orderly and
disciplined and loud, but we insist that our First
Amendments rights be upheld."
PROTEST GROUPS HOLD NEWS CONFERENCE
Earlier in the day on Dec. 21, Becker joined with
representatives of the Justice Action Movement, Independent
Progressive Political Network, the National Organization for
Women and others for a news conference in Washington. The
event was aired on C-Span.
At that news conference, Becker said that the IAC was there
to send a message to Police Chief Charles Ramsey and all of
the other police officials in the city of Washington and the
federal government that "this demonstration will not be
marginalized. It will not be put off into some protest pit
far away. It will not be made invisible because of police
policy. We will not be intimidated by ... police spying and
surveillance."
Becker then explained that protesters have a constitutional
right to demonstrate and will not stand for another act of
preventive detention like the one that took place in
Washington during the April 2000 protests against the
International Monetary Fund.
He also said, "In spite of this level of intensified
repression by the police ... thousands will make it clear to
the whole world that Pennsylvania Avenue on January 20th is
not the private property of those who believe in the death
penalty, of those who support an electoral process dominated
by banks and corporations."
UPDATE ON ORGANIZING EFFORTS
A statement issued by the IAC on Dec. 30 asserts that "the
best, and only, answer for our new movement is to mobilize
larger and larger numbers from the population who reject
racism, voter disenfranchisement, capitalist globalization,
the U.S. war machine, sexism, homophobia and the wanton
disregard of the environment.
"The corporate elite has the money and police power behind
them. But our movement speaks for the tens of millions of
working people, of oppressed people--of the disenfranchised--
who have no stake in the current system."
The statement also notes that 40 organizing centers around
the U.S. are mobilizing for Jan. 20 in Washington.
Organizers have already distributed more than 50,000
leaflets for the Jan. 20 demonstration. Another 50,000 will
be passed out over the next few weeks.
Another key tool in organizing for Jan. 20 has been the
Internet. Through the IAC Web site and the Mumia2000.org
site, organizers are able to connect with centers in their
area, download leaflets for local distribution and find out
the latest news.
A "J20action" list serve at www.egroups. com currently
involves nearly 350 people from around the U.S. and Canada
who are planning to participate in the demonstration. Both
the East and West Coast centers are utilizing the list
serve.
On Jan. 9 at 6:30 p.m., the IAC will hold a regional
mobilizers' meeting at the UNITE! Local 169 hall located at
33 W. 14th St. For more information call (212) 633-6646.
_________________________________________________
KOMINFORM
P.O. Box 66
00841 Helsinki
Phone +358-40-7177941
Fax +358-9-7591081
http://www.kominf.pp.fi
General class struggle news:
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
subscribe mails to: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Geopolitical news:
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
subscribe: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
__________________________________________________
