WW News Service Digest #327
1) There's no security like Social Security
by "Gary Wilson" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
2) Palestinians hold a day of remembrance
by "Gary Wilson" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
3) From Mumia: Free Jamil Al-Amin
by "WW" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
4) What kind of justice?
by "WW" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
5) Caspian Sea: Washington's strategic target in Central Asia
by "WW" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
-------------------------
Via Workers World News Service
Reprinted from the Oct. 4, 2001
issue of Workers World newspaper
-------------------------
TRIPLE WHAMMY HITS SENIORS, DISABLED:
THERE'S NO SECURITY LIKE SOCIAL SECURITY
By Deirdre Griswold
The devastating attacks on the World Trade Center and the
Pentagon have given President George W. Bush the excuse he
needed to latch onto Social Security funds.
As recently as August, when the government was facing an
imminent shortfall in operating funds and the press began
speculating on when it would dip into retirees' money, Bush
swore up and down that that would never happen--except in an
extreme emergency like a war or depression.
Then came Sept. 11. Within a day, Bush declared that the
United States was in a "war against terrorism." In the
crisis atmosphere in Washington, the Congress passed
resolutions giving Bush full war powers, including the funds
for military attacks on whomever Washington declares
responsible.
All this was supposed to make the people of the United
States more "secure." But the basis had been laid for taking
money out of Social Security reserves to pay for a huge and
open-ended war--and it has already begun.
Not long ago the U.S. government had a huge surplus. Right
wingers were openly strategizing on how to "privatize" the
trillions of dollars accumulated in Social Security. They
praised the magic of the stock markets and said how great it
would be if everyone's retirement money were invested there,
where it would grow like the fairy-tale beanstalk.
But they found it very difficult to convince the public that
Social Security should be "reformed," especially after the
market decline began wiping out 401(k) retirement plans. All
the mass organizations representing seniors and the disabled
were opposed to tampering with Social Security. Politically,
neither the Republicans nor the Democrats wanted to
antagonize such a large constituency.
Then, as the capitalist economy began to weaken, and as the
administration got Congress to pass a huge tax cut
benefiting the rich, the surplus began to vanish. By August,
it was nearly gone. In the financial pages, the talk was
that the administration was going to use some of this money
to pay its bills, but that politically it was risky.
After Sept. 11, like thieves in the night, the Republicans
and Democrats joined forces to pass a pro-war resolution
that has allowed the government to dip into the funds that
retirees and the disabled depend upon.
HMOS START DROPPING MEDICARE
The well-taken-care-of fat cats with nice pensions and many
corporate tips for their retirement had already begun
pushing up the retirement age. They were preparing the
public to accept an erosion in cost-of-living adjustments.
This is bad enough news for older workers--in fact, for
everyone who plans to get old some day.
But there is more.
On Sept. 21, a group of health maintenance organizations
with at least 475,000 elderly people enrolled announced that
as of next year they will no longer take Medicare. It is
likely that others will follow.
There are now 123 million people insured through managed-
care programs, according to the Gray Panthers. When the HMOs
were first organized and were feverishly looking for
customers, they courted seniors, urging them to sign over
their Medicare benefits in exchange for coverage.
It seemed like a good deal. If there were copayments, they
would be minimal.
But it hasn't worked out. Health-care costs keep rising as
what there was of a public-health system withers away.
Medicare payments don't keep up. Now the HMOs are dropping
people like old shoes.
The third knockout punch for seniors, including many
disabled, is that the cost of medications keeps going up.
This, of course, affects people of all ages, but it tends to
be those of advanced years who have conditions that make
them dependent on maintenance medications--which now can
cost hundreds of dollars every month just to prevent life-
threatening situations.
There is no longer any talk coming out of Washington about a
government effort to make prescription drugs affordable.
Wars have always given the ruling class the opportunity to
intensify its exploitation of the workers in the name of
patriotism and national security. This war drive is no
different. But especially at a time when every politician
speaks in the name of "national security," it is worse than
ironic that the most widespread form of state-administered
security for people in this country--Social Security--is
being undermined.
Before Sept. 11, there was a growing and feisty movement
against Bush's right-wing program. That program has now been
accelerated, and the need to resist it is greater than ever,
as the looting of Social Security shows.
-------------------------
Via Workers World News Service
Reprinted from the Oct. 4, 2001
issue of Workers World newspaper
-------------------------
PALESTINIANS HOLD A DAY OF REMEMBRANCE
By G. Dunkel
New York
On a barge moored to the Hudson River front in midtown
Manhattan, Al-Awda of New York/New Jersey--the Palestinian
Right of Return Coalition--held a "Day of Remembrance and
Learning" on Sept. 23.
The smoke from the fires still smoldering at the World Trade
Center drifted faintly by the barge. A young Palestinian
American woman spoke of the tragedy at the World Trade
Center.
She connected this tragedy with the U.S.-funded and U.S-
supplied massacre of 3,000 people by the Israelis, carried
out 19 years ago in September in the Sabra and Shatila
refugee camps.
Larry Holmes, co-director of the International Action Center
(IAC), pointed out that "the U.S. government, for all its
fancy proclamations, needs racism to prosecute this coming
war because racism allows them to dehumanize and demonize
Arabs and Muslims."
Susan Ross, a member of the Free Mumia Coalition, raised his
case and his support for the struggle of the Palestinian
people.
Amer Jubran, a member of Al-Awda who is facing trumped-up
charges in Brook line, Mass., for an anti-Zionist pro test,
brought up "the decades of unresolved conflict--political,
economic and social repression--which are a direct threat to
our lives and liberty. They have left 1.2 billion people in
fear for their lives and livelihood.
"The 53 years of U.S.-financed Israeli oppression are a good
example, but not the only one, of the tensions these
conflicts create." (See www.iacboston.org for details on
Jubran's story.)
Jubran went on to say "Even if the U.S. threatened to
devastate the whole world, these conflicts could not be
resolved without justice."
Samia Halaby, the coordinator of Al-Awda here, gave a brief
overview of Palestinian history and showed how the Anti-
Racism Conference in Durban marked the growing support
Palestine had throughout the world, a growing unity based on
working-class solidarity. She ended with the chant, "The
people, united, will stop the war."
IAC co-director Sara Flounders remind ed the audience that
we not only had to listen and learn, but decide what to do.
"The policies of this government put us and the whole world
in danger." She urged people to attend the major anti-war
march Sept. 29 in Washington, D.C., and all the other
protests coming up Oct. 7 and Oct. 12-13.
Among the other speakers were: Ashanti, a former Black
Panther; Mimi Rosenberg, a fired WBAI producer; and Eric
Tong, representing the Oct. 7 coalition.
-------------------------
Via Workers World News Service
Reprinted from the Oct. 4, 2001
issue of Workers World newspaper
-------------------------
FROM MUMIA ABU-JAMAL ON DEATH ROW:
FREE JAMIL AL-AMIN
By Mumia Abu-Jamal
The struggle for the freedom and liberty of Atlanta Muslim
leader Imam Jamil Abdullah Al-Amin must take place now,
before the cold fingers of the state can close around his neck.
Imam Jamil has already received what can only be called a
biased and prejudicial press, which has sought to depict him
as a dangerous, violent radical. In every substantive news
report there has been coverage of his brief membership in
the Black Panther Party, but there has been little reportage
of his other associations, and much less of his life as a
Muslim Imam, who worked as an anti-drug activist and for the
betterment of the entire community.
Imam Jamil's political life didn't begin with the Black
Panther Party. Indeed, accounts written by leading Panthers,
like Huey P. Newton or Elaine Brown, relate that Jamil,
Kwame Ture (the late Stokely Carmichael) and James Forman
were "drafted" into the BPP, a "drafting" that was sabotaged
by the FBI, and which lasted but a few months.
Imam Jamil spent most of his political life as a field
director and activist of the Student Non-Violent
Coordinating Committee (SNCC), before his later religious
conversion.
But if you are the media, which is more "juicy," a six-month-
long dalliance with the Black Panthers, or a six-year period
with SNCC? Which is more representative of his radical
youth? Which is the longest? Which is the most prejudicial?
Imam Jamil, in addition to being a spiritual leader, was a
businessman, who owned a local store. This is hardly the
profile projected by the national press.
After his arrest a year ago in connection with the shootings
of two Atlanta sheriff's deputies, initial police reports
strongly suggested the Imam is innocent of the charges. The
surviving deputy told police investigators that his
assailant was shot--Al-Amin, upon his apprehension, was not
wounded.
Another police witness reported that the suspect had grey
eyes--Al-Amin's eyes are a dark brown.
At the time of this writing, the jury is being selected in a
murder trial. This is especially troubling in light of the
recent World Trade Center plane-bombings, as it has
unleashed a national flurry of hatred against many in the
Islamic community. When fear and hatred enter the mind,
logic rarely lingers.
That said, Al-Amin's freedom lies in people who express
their support now, instead of later. Fairness does not lie
in reversing an unjust conviction; rather it lies in
preventing one in the first place.
Imam Jamil has lived a good and rich life in service to his
spiritual and ethnic community. He richly deserves the
fullest support in all efforts leading to his freedom, so
that he may return to the community.
Free Imam Jamil!
-------------------------
Via Workers World News Service
Reprinted from the Oct. 4, 2001
issue of Workers World newspaper
-------------------------
EDITORIAL: WHAT KIND OF JUSTICE?
At a New York press conference where many communities
announced support for the Sept. 29 anti-war demonstration in
Washington, a young woman from the Vieques movement made a
telling point. After it was known that the bombing of the
Oklahoma City Federal Building, which killed 168 people, had
been carried out by right-wing terrorists Timothy McVeigh
and Terry Nichols, there was no racial profiling in this
country of white, Christian men, she said. Veterans of the
Gulf War like McVeigh were not stopped in airports or hauled
off planes.
But that's exactly what's happening right now to people who
just "look" like they might be Arabs.
Racial profiling is not just a reaction by outraged
individuals to the Sept. 11 disaster. This is the policy of
the U.S. government--particularly the FBI.
It is part of the racist assault on civil liberties
orchestrated by Attorney Gen eral John Ashcroft, who was
revealed to have a pro-Confederacy, far-right pedigree a
mile long during his confirmation hearings. Nevertheless, in
the spirit of "unity" (sound familiar?) demanded by Bush
when it became clear that most of the people didn't consider
him the elected president, enough Democrats joined the Repu
blicans to make this repugnant appointment stick.
Ashcroft is right now trying to browbeat Congress into
quickly passing legislation that would place onerous
restrict ions on immigrants and give police agencies
enormous powers. And all this is being done in the name of
defending "liberty."
It is part of a broad campaign of intimidation meant to keep
people from even being able to think calmly about the
implications of what has happened. Everyone is supposed to
"rally round the flag" and support whatever Bush & Co.
decide to do. In Bush's own words, anyone with another view
is automatically judged on the side of terrorism.
But, then, it takes a big fear campaign to keep people from
asking questions after such an earth-shattering event.
Confidence in this government and economy has been mightily
shaken. When Bush squints into the camera and vows a
prolonged war on terrorism, aren't millions of people
thinking, "How can you stop something like this from
happening again? Won't the horrors of a military campaign
just create more people willing to be martyrs? Where do the
real answers lie?"
The Bush administration, while warning of a long war, also
claims it can produce a quick fix. It wants the world to
give it a blank check to dispense "justice" against those it
decides are the perpetrators. Yet it refuses to release the
evidence it claims to have. In other words, sentence and
execution first; evidence, trial and verdict later, if ever.
Politically aware people understand that this will only make
the situation a thousand times worse, and they have
countered with hand-made signs against vengeance and
aggression.
Slogans have appeared calling for global economic and social
justice. This shows awareness that this government and its
military are viewed by the people around the world as the
primary upholders of an unjust world order that has reduced
whole nations to the most desperate conditions of life.
There are no quick fixes, and the movement must resist the
pressure to endorse the future actions of a government that
has already shown its racist and predatory character. The
struggle must continue to build a people's move ment in this
country that can counter the militarist, imperialist vision
of Pax Americana and Fortress America with that of a truly
just world order, one that respects the sovereignty of every
nation and seeks economic cooperation with the world's
people rather than the exploitation of their labor and the
plunder of their resources.
-------------------------
Via Workers World News Service
Reprinted from the Oct. 4, 2001
issue of Workers World newspaper
-------------------------
CASPIAN SEA: WASHIGNTON'S STRATEGIC TARGET IN CENTRAL ASIA
By Cecil Williams
"America's new war!" That's what CNN calls President George
W. Bush's plans to bomb and invade Central Asia and the
Middle East.
There's not much new about it, though.
U.S. bombs and missiles have killed hundreds of thousands of
civilians in Iraq, Lebanon, Palestine, Sudan, Somalia and
Afghanistan in the past two decades alone. No doubt many
people in those countries have acquired a deep dislike for
the United States.
When investigators look into a murder, however, their first
question is not, "Who disliked the victim?" They want to
know who will benefit from the crime. The Sept. 11 deaths of
over 6,000 people, many Muslims among them, benefit no one
in the Islamic world. But for some rich and powerful people
in the United States, the tragedy will pay off quite
handsomely.
"Since Sept. 11 opposition to increased military spending
has evaporated," the New York Times reported Sept. 22. That
should make the Pentagon brass quite happy. Just a few
months ago they were publicly whining they hadn't gotten the
giant budget increase they were expecting after Bush's
selection as president.
Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld was complaining he
couldn't get funds to build a "21st-century military." Now
Congress has not only voted the Pentagon an emergency
increase. Democrats say they'll no longer object to Bush's
antiballistic missile pork barrel.
When generals, admirals and defense secretaries retire from
the military, they usually get jobs with giant defense firms
like General Electric and Lockheed Martin. These firms are
"among the benefactors of the Sept. 11 tragedy," the New
York Times wrote.
Then there's the trenchcoat gang at the National Security
Agency, the CIA, the FBI and Secret Service. Not to mention
the new Office of Homeland Security to be headed by Bush's
fellow executioner, Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Ridge. They have
been promised funding and powers they recently only dreamed
of.
The CIA actually created Osama bin Laden's organization back
in the 1980s to attack Soviet troops and the progressive
government in Afghanistan. As vice president, George Bush
Sr. oversaw the operation. In the Agency's employ, bin
Laden's troops murdered teachers, doctors and nurses,
disfigured women who took off the veil, and shot down
civilian airliners with U.S.-supplied Stinger missiles. The
Afghan people called bin Laden's forces the "brotherhood of
Satan."
The Afghanistan war was the biggest covert operation in the
CIA's history. It was paid for in part by the heroin trade.
Many who took part in the operation were recruited by
Egyptian, Pakistani and Saudi intelligence services and
didn't know they were working for the CIA.
In 1990 and 1991 the CIA used bin Laden's's group for
operations against Iraq. More recently this group carried
out anti-Russian operations in Chechnya and Daghestan and
participated in U.S.-backed operations against Yugoslavia.
No one has more to gain, however, than the corporate big
shots at Exxon, Mobil, Chevron and the other big oil
monopolies. For 10 years now they have been scheming to get
their hands on the vast oil and gas wealth of former Soviet
Central Asia, just north of Afghanistan.
How to achieve that goal has been a U.S. foreign policy
priority since the fall of the Soviet Union.
In a Feb. 12, 1998, report to the House Committee on
International Relations, Unocal Corp. Vice President for
International Relations John J. Maresca testified on the
importance of this region. He said: "The Caspian region
contains tremendous untapped hydrocarbon reserves. ...
"Proven natural gas reserves within Azerbaijan, Uzbekistan,
Turkmenistan and Kazakhstan equal more than 236 trillion
cubic feet. The region's oil reserves may reach more than 60
billion barrels of oil-enough to service Europe's oil needs
for 11 years. Some estimates are as high as 200 billion
barrels."
Oil, of course, is a commodity in which Bush and Vice
President Dick Cheney have a deep personal interest.
Now George W. has named his dad's old employees in
Afghanistan as the culprits in the Sept. 11 attack. And the
Pentagon has demanded the right to occupy the former Soviet
republics named above plus Kyrgizia. In other words, right
where the oil is.
According to the Sept. 25 New York Times, the Putin regime
in Moscow is offering the United States broad support in
this move.
The oil reserves are 10 percent of the world's known supply,
under or around the Caspian Sea. That's worth about $5
trillion at today's prices.
Maresca testified that since "the Asia/Pacific region has a
rapidly increasing demand for oil," it would be useful to
have an oil pipeline from the Caspian region to the Indian
Ocean--that is, through Afghanistan. An unrecognized Taliban
government in Afghanistan is an obstacle to this, he wrote.
In May 1998, Time magazine reported that the CIA had "set up
a secret task force to monitor the region's politics and
gauge its wealth. Covert CIA officers, some well-trained
petroleum engineers, had traveled through southern Russia
and the Caspian region to sniff out potential oil reserves.
When the policymakers heard the agency's report, [Secretary
of State Madeline] Albright concluded that 'working to mold
the area's future was one of the most exciting things we can
do.' "
That's just what Washington and Wall Street set out to do.
The Pentagon tried to entice the regions' governments into a
military alliance linked to NATO's "Partnership for Peace."
Oil companies hired Washington insiders like Zbigniew
Brzezinski, Lloyd Bentsen, John Sununu and a certain Dick
Cheney to lobby for them in the region.
As the 20th century ended, it seemed their efforts would be
crowned with success. The U.S. bombing of Yugoslavia seemed
to block the possibility of Caspian oil and gas reaching
Western Europe through Russian-owned pipelines.
Meanwhile President Bill Clinton's 1998 bombing of Iraq
pushed oil prices high enough to make construction of a U.S.-
owned pipeline seem possible. "U.S. is Gaining in Great Game
in Central Asia," a Time magazine headline crowed.
Then Boris Yeltsin resigned, and Vladimir Putin took office
in the Kremlin. The Putin administration offered German
banks stakes in Lukoil and Gazprom, Russia's main energy
companies. Russia began to actively reassert its influence
east of the Caspian, and Central Asian governments began to
stall or renege on their deals with U.S. oil companies.
Former FBI Director Louis Freeh and CIA Director George
Tenet made emergency trips to the region.
The potential alliance of German capital and Russian,
Caucasus and Central Asian energy resources raised the
prospect that Western Europe would no longer have to buy its
oil and gas from U.S. firms.
Adding to the U.S.-based corporations' problems, China began
negotiating to build oil and gas pipelines from Kazakhstan
and Turkmenistan. And Russia brokered a treaty with Iran to
divide up the Caspian Sea without U.S. participation.
Oil industry journals blasted the Clinton administration for
"appeasing Russia" and moaned about losing Central Asia.
Caucasuswatch.com bills itself as an intelligence service
for the oil industry. In January it wrote: "With the coming
of a Sino-Russian pact of mutual assistance and an Iranian
acceptance of the Russian proposal to carve up the Caspian
Sea, any chance the U.S. had of cementing alliances in the
region seemed doomed. The incoming American administration,
heavy in oil and related interests, will likely try to
reverse this trend. How effective they will be is open to
question."
A more recent entry on the Web site tied U.S. Big Oil's
prospects in the region to "the success of the Central Asian
counterstrike." That article was posted on April 24 of this
year.
