WW News Service Digest #277
1) Women in prison, children in crisis
by "WW" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
2) Legal attack targets abortion provider
by "WW" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
3) The millionaires' game
by "WW" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
4) Workers around the world: 5/31/01
by "WW" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
-------------------------
Via Workers World News Service
Reprinted from the May 31, 2001
issue of Workers World newspaper
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SAN FRANCISCO PROTEST:
WOMEN IN PRISON, CHILDREN IN CRISIS
By Brenda Sandburg
San Francisco
Prison rights advocates demonstrated in San Francisco on May
11 to demand alternatives to prison for women with dependent
children.
The "Mothers in Prison, Children in Crisis" protest, linked
to Mother's Day, is part of a national campaign. Joyce
Miller, an organizer and chair of the rally, said events
were held in 21 cities to educate the public about the need
for alternative programs.
According to JusticeWorks Community, a New York-based group
that sponsors the annual campaign, there are now 150,000
women incarcerated in U.S. prisons and jails--75 percent of
whom are mothers. Two-thirds of these women have children
under the age of 18. And most women are in jail as a result
of drug and alcohol addiction.
Dorsey Nunn, program director of Legal Services for
Prisoners with Children, exposed what the government's so-
called war on drugs has meant for African American people.
The incarceration of African American women has increased
800 percent since the beginning of the drug war, he said at
the rally.
Where is the money going to fight this war? he asked. "$109
million is going to supervise 54,000 people" in prison and
$9 million for services. When women get out of prison they
have one year to get their children back, he added. "How
many social workers are helping make sure you get help?"
San Francisco District Attorney Terence Hallinan applauded
the passage of Proposition 36. This initiative mandates that
people convicted of drug possession receive treatment rather
than incarceration.
Several women who have been in prison spoke about the
difficulty of being separated from their children and the
alternative housing programs that had helped them get their
lives back.
"I had to learn how to talk again, walk again, be around
people again," said Juanita Johnson, who lived at Cameo
House with her two children after being released from
prison.
- END -
From: "WW" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Date: keskiviikko 30. toukokuu 2001 03:35
Subject: [WW] Legal attack targets abortion provider
-------------------------
Via Workers World News Service
Reprinted from the May 31, 2001
issue of Workers World newspaper
-------------------------
LEGAL ATTACK TARGETS ABORTION PROVIDER
New York chapters of the National Organization for Women and
National Abortion and Reproductive Rights Action League
organized a New York City meeting here on May 21 to raise
sorely needed funds for the legal defense of Dr. James
Pendergraft. The African American obstetrician-gynecologist
operates five full-service women's health care facilities in
Florida.
Pendergraft was convicted in February of extortion charges.
At his sentencing on May 24 he faces up to 30 years in
prison and fines of $750,000.
Supporters believe that these charges were trumped up
against him because of his attempt to set up an abortion
clinic in Ocala, Marion County. They maintain that the
unprecedented federal case against Pendergraft is the latest
maneuver designed to drive a courageous abortion provider
out of practice.
The legal attack on Pendergraft takes place within the
context of a campaign of intimidation and violence against
abortion providers.
Seven doctors and clinic workers have been killed in the
last decade. Countless women's clinic health care workers
face daily threats of violent physical attack, their
relatives have been harassed and stalked, and their clinics
have been assaulted by fire and stink bombs.
Speakers at the May 21 event included Pendergraft and Emily
Lyons, a nurse who was severely injured in the 1998 bombing
of a Birmingham abortion clinic. Marcia Ann Gillespie,
editor-in-chief of Ms. magazine, and Lucinda Finley, a
Buffalo lawyer working on Pendergraft's appeal, also spoke.
--Sue Davis
- END -
From: "WW" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Date: keskiviikko 30. toukokuu 2001 03:36
Subject: [WW] The millionaires' game
-------------------------
Via Workers World News Service
Reprinted from the May 31, 2001
issue of Workers World newspaper
-------------------------
EDITORIAL: THE MILLIONAIRES' GAME
Do you want to be a millionaire? That's the game the
president and Congress are playing in Washington.
There was some bickering over the final details of the tax
plan presented by George W. Bush and passed by the Senate
May 23. In the end, the Republicans and Democrats had no
significant differences over the important parts of the
plan.
The Bush tax plan is a giant giveaway to the stinking rich.
According to a detailed report in the New York Times that
can be found on its Web site, almost all of the $1.35
billion tax cut goes to the top 1 percent in income. If your
yearly income is over $1.4 million, you'll get a big bonus
from the tax plan.
However, the Bush plan actually INCREASES the tax burden on
most of those making less than $60,000 a year.
The Democrats could stop this, if that is what they wanted
to do. The fact is, that's not what the Democrats in
Congress want. Though the Democratic Party gets lots of
support from the labor movement and progressives generally,
it is as much a party under the thumb of the wealthy as the
Republicans. And the wealthy want the tax cuts.
This game of "Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?" is already
stacked. The rich are grabbing for more. A working person
has a better chance of winning the ABC-TV game show than of
winning in Washington with the Republicans and Democrats.
Bush says that the tax cuts will save the economy from
recession, but that's what the rich always say. The same
kinds of tax cuts during the Reagan administration in the
1980s were supposed to save the economy, but instead they
contributed to sending the economy into a recession. Herbert
Hoover had his tax cuts, too, and they certainly didn't stop
the Great Depression. Many economists observe that tax cuts
are more likely to accelerate an economic recession than to
prevent one.
Congress's endorsement of the Bush tax plan is like an orgy
of the rich. They can't wait to get their hands on the
money.
When it comes time to name names for the economic disaster
that is looming, the leaders of the Democratic as well as
the Republican Party must be held accountable.
But behind them is the system of capitalism itself. Merely
being against the government is not enough. The politicians
are corrupt and venal because the government is totally an
instrument of the billionaire ruling class.
The majority of the people are not millionaires or
billionaires and never will be. They are workers and, on-
line trading notwithstanding, they live not from investments
but from selling a big portion of their lives for wages.
With the rule of the super-rich becoming more unbridled and
shameless, the situation cries out for an anti-capitalist
movement among the workers that is independent of the
political parties of big business and can militantly put
forth their own class demands.
- END -
From: "WW" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Date: keskiviikko 30. toukokuu 2001 03:36
Subject: [WW] Workers around the world: 5/31/01
-------------------------
Via Workers World News Service
Reprinted from the May 31, 2001
issue of Workers World newspaper
-------------------------
WORKERS AROUND THE WORLD
SPAIN: ANTI-GLOBALIZATION MOVEMENT WINS IN BARCELONA
The World Bank decided to cancel the annual "Bank Conference
on Development Economics" in the face of planned protests.
It marks the first time since the November-December 1999
demonstrations against the World Trade Organization in
Seattle that the world bankers have had to cancel a meeting
because of protests.
The meeting had been scheduled for June 25-27 in Barcelona.
The World Bank now plans to hold the event by Internet. This
opens up opportunities for what is called "hacktivism."
Officials announced the cancellation in a May 19 press
release.
"The intention of many of the groups who plan to converge on
Barcelona is not to join the debate or to contribute
constructively to the discussion, but to disrupt it,"
complained WB spokesperson Caroline Anstey.
The Coordinating Commission of the Campaign Against the
World Bank in Barcelona issued a statement calling the
cancellation "an unprecedented success for the movement
against capitalist globalization." Activists are still
planning to gather in Barcelona to celebrate their success.
Since Seattle, anti-capitalist activists have hounded the
imperialist bankers and their spokespeople around the world--
from Prague to Melbourne to Quebec.
European activists are gearing up for new protests at the
Group of Eight meeting in Genoa, Italy, in July.
Demonstrations are also planned for the joint IMF-World Bank
meeting in Washington, D.C., scheduled for Sept. 28.
ITALY: STRIKES GREET RIGHTIST GOVERNMENT
Less than a week after a right-wing coalition won
parliamentary elections in Italy, tens of thousands of metal
workers walked off the job on May 18 to demand higher wages.
"We want a contract," the union workers' banners read.
Ultra-nationalist billionaire Silvio Berlusconi had promised
to be the "workers' prime minister" during the election
campaign. His theme of a "contract with Italy" was eerily
reminiscent of the "Contract with America" used by the right
wing of the U.S. Republican Party in the mid-1990s.
"Now sign the contract," demanded the metal workers. The
union has been waging a contract campaign for higher wages
for months, and bosses appear to be holding firm.
The last time Berlusconi was prime minister, in 1994, mass
strikes and protests toppled his government within seven
months.
GREECE: GENERAL STRIKE AGAINST CUTBACKS
Greek workers staged the second general strike in a month on
May 17 against government plans to cut pensions and raise
the retirement age. Transportation in the capital city of
Athens was completely paralyzed. Schools and hospitals shut
down as well.
Tens of thousands of workers marched on the parliament
building during the day of protest.
COLOMBIA: STRIKES HIT IMF AUSTERITY PLAN
Hundreds of thousands of teachers and medical workers walked
off the job on May 15 to protest the Colombian government's
IMF-backed austerity plans. Union leaders charge that the
government's economic plans would slash spending on social
services.
Reuters estimated that 300,000 teachers--members of the
militant union FECODE--and 90,000 medical workers joined the
strike the first day. Unions warned that the strike would
continue indefinitely until the government backed down from
its budget-slashing.
"This is a patriotic strike to defend resources for health
and education," said FECODE leader Gloria Ines Ramirez. "We
are going to see if for the first time, [Colombian
President] Pastrana listens to the people instead of
answering to the IMF."
The Pastrana government's cuts in spending come amid
Colombia's most severe depression in 70 years--some
economists call it the worst depression ever. Unemployment
is running at over 20 percent, and more than half the
country's population lives below the poverty line.
POLITICAL PRISONERS FREED
While talks between the Colombian government and the
Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia-People's Army (FARC-
EP) have stalled over the government's refusal to move on
exchanging prisoners of war, the FARC-EP took matters into
their own hands on May 7. In a bold action, a FARC-EP unit
blew open the gates of a prison in Caloto, freeing 68 of
their comrades.
The massive operation brings the total number of political
prisoners and prisoners of war freed by the FARC-EP to well
over 120 this year alone.
The FARC-EP has been engaged in talks with the Colombian
government for over two years to address the social roots of
the over 40-year war there. The revolutionary group has
demanded that the government negotiate an exchange of
prisoners. The FARC-EP holds hundreds of government soldiers
and police officers who have been captured in raids and
attacks.
- END -
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