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February 22, 2002 | Issue 395
FRONT AND BACK PAGES
Ready to rain death on Iraq
This is the real "axis of evil"
George W. Bush has set his sights on Iraq. "This is not an argument about whether to get rid of Saddam Hussein," a senior Bush administration official told the Philadelphia Inquirer last week. "That debate is over. This is…how you do it."
The Enron scandal
Tip of the iceberg
Enron isn't the half of it. Revelations of more colossal financial scams in Corporate America swept into the news last week amid the bankruptcy of telecommunications company Global Crossing.
Organizing for justice in Palestine
With continued Israeli air strikes and invasions of territory controlled by the Palestinian Authority serving as the backdrop, some 400 students and Palestine solidarity activists attended the Students for Justice in Palestine conference at the University of California-Berkeley last weekend.
SPECIAL FEATURES
Mainstream media unites behind the war
Media lapdogs
Is there any alternative to the mainstream media's pro-war drumbeat? Socialist Worker asked leading voices of the alternative media: David Barsamian, director of Alternative Radio; Amy Goodman, host of "Democracy Now!"; Matthew Rothschild, editor of The Progressive; and Norman Solomon, who writes on media and politics in his syndicated column "Media Beat."
Brendan Sexton III on what really happened in Somalia
What's wrong with Black Hawk Down
Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and the Pentagon brass love Black Hawk Down, the Hollywood movie about a U.S. mission gone wrong during the 1993 occupation of Somalia. But as actor Brendan Sexton III, who appeared in the movie, explains, the real story of the U.S. government's "humanitarian" mission is very different.
Bush's new law will make the education crisis worse
Selling schools to the highest bidder
A couple of years ago, the Republican Party was officially in favor of abolishing the Department of Education. George W. Bush has better public relations advisers. In a new education bill signed into law last month, the Bush administration repackaged Republican attacks on public schools as "reform."
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WHAT WE THINK
Congress tinkers with the rules for buying influence
Reform without real change
Growing public disgust with the Enron scandal forced House Republican leaders and their White House masters to allow a vote on campaign finance reform last week. But even if the Shays-Meehan bill becomes law, the system of legalized bribery that drives Washington will go on.
Old friend of the U.S. government on trial for war crimes
Hypocrisy in The Hague
Slobodan Milosevic's trial at The Hague is entering its second week, and Washington is leading the outcry against this "enemy of democracy." But it wasn't always that way. For much of the 1990s, the U.S. government supported Milosevic.
Support the socialists in Zimbabwe
Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe's crackdown on political opposition took aim at socialists and union activists last week. On February 15, police armed with tear gas and clubs attacked a march of hundreds demanding "no to dictatorship, no to neoliberalism and poverty."
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NATIONAL NEWS
Crippling consequences of sanctions on Iraq
"The U.S. is killing people each day"
Socialist Worker talked to Ramzi Kysia, a member of the anti-sanctions group Voices in the Wilderness, about the devastating impact of U.S. sanctions on Iraq over the past 10 years.
The Democrats' warmonger in chief
Never one to miss out on an opportunity for a little warmongering, Democrat Al Gore jumped on the bash-Iraq bandwagon last week, telling the Council on Foreign Relations in New York that the time had come for a "final reckoning" with Iraq and its leader Saddam Hussein.
Pa. man proven innocent
Finally free after 15 years in prison
"A living hell." That's how Bruce Godschalk described the last 15 years of his life--years spent wrongfully imprisoned in Montgomery County, Pa.--when he finally walked free on February 14.
The Bush gang has big plans for Utah
George W. Bush was on hand to wave the flag at the opening ceremonies of the Winter Olympics in Utah. But in Washington, his administration was waving around new plans to allow oil drilling in national park land a couple hundred miles away from Salt Lake City.
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COLUMNS
WHICH SIDE ARE YOU ON?
Bush dynasty up to its eyeballs in Enron
If the congressional committees investigating Enron really want to get to the bottom of the scandal, they could begin by hauling in George W. Bush to testify. The entire Bush dynasty has been up to its eyeballs in Enron money and influence since Enron was formed.
THE MEANING OF MARXISM
Socialism is about workers' control
For many people, socialism is popularly defined as the degree of state intervention in the economy. The existence of a more or less expansive social safety net may indicate a strong history of class struggle, but concessions wrested from a capitalist state do not render that society socialist.
INSIDE THE SYSTEM
We want normal meat
Even Olympic athletes can't get a decent meal. Athletes from Belarus, the former USSR republic, have filed a formal complaint with U.S. Olympic organizers for not providing enough food and feeding them McDonald's hamburgers.
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ON THE PICKET LINE
Mechanics to vote on tentative agreement
New showdown at United
A tentative agreement between mechanics and United Airlines this week averted a strike but may only delay a confrontation.
UPS and Teamsters begin talks on new contract
United Parcel Service and the Teamsters opened negotiations last month in advance of an August 1 deadline. The last time the two squared off, UPS got battered in a 15-day national strike in 1997 that won the hearts and minds of two out of every three Americans.
Labor in brief
General Motors; Don't close Waltham Hospital!
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REPORTS FROM THE STRUGGLE
September 11 families
"Wars are poor chisels for carving out peaceful tomorrows,'" said David Potorti, quoting Martin Luther King Jr., at the February 14 press conference to launch Peaceful Tomorrows, an antiwar organization founded by family members of September 11 victims.
Defend civil liberties
More than 100 people rallied February 12 in front of the Immigration and Naturalization Service office in downtown Chicago to protest the detention of Arabs and Muslims, including Rabih Haddad.
Other reports
Stop police violence in Long Beach; Abolish the death penalty
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SW READERS SPEAK OUT
Israel demands obedience from Palestinians
Sowing seeds of violence
Recently, Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat has been demonized by American and Israeli politicians to no end. The source of this vitriolic abuse has everything to do with an underlying American-Israeli attitude that Palestinian natives should kneel to their colonial "superiors."
We can fight back against their pro-war tide
On February 13, the University of North Carolina at Greensboro's Student Government Association (SGA) debated a resolution concerning the events of September 11 and the "war on terrorism." Thankfully, the SGA resolution to support the war was not passed.
Their laws would silence us
The Justice Department dusted off the freedom-squelching ideas they've been developing for many years and had them introduced in the USA PATRIOT Act. This act is beginning to get some teeth as local governments across the country pass "antiterrorism" bills.
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REVIEWS
A monster called the death penalty
Monster's Ball is a monster of a movie. It has politics, power and passion--a rarity among films today. At its core, the movie is about racism and alienation so profound that it leads to state-sponsored killing--to the death penalty, suicide and homicide.
Dot.conning their way to the top
"We're going to put the fun back into funerals." This is a quote from a budding entrepreneur at Funerals.com, just one of many Internet companies lambasted by journalist John Cassidy in his book Dot.con.
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