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March 22, 2002 | Issue 399

FRONT AND BACK PAGES

States slash budgets for our schools
We can fight these cuts
In Chicago, Boston, Detroit, and other cities and states across the U.S., budget cutters are getting a message from protesters: We're not going to take it.

Israeli soldiers killed this man in cold blood
End U.S. support for Israel's terror
The real barbarism of Israel's occupation of Palestine was captured last week by a photographer who took pictures of Israeli soldiers as they executed Mahmoud Salah in cold blood.

SPECIAL FEATURES

Immigrant detainees face a nightmare
The disappeared
"Why am I imprisoned? Why in solitary confinement? And why under maximum security measures?...What are they accusing me of? Nobody knows." That was the desperate message written by one of America's disappeared--the men and women rounded up in John Ashcroft's September 11 investigation.

Their free market causes this misery
Punishing the world's poor
George W. Bush will be in Mexico this week for a UN-sponsored conference on world poverty, where he and other leaders will talk about their commitment to ending the suffering of the one in six people in the world who live on less than $1 a day. But their rhetoric is a lie.

We Were Soldiers tries to turn the war into a U.S. victory
What really happened in Vietnam?
Apparently, a war movie counts as "realistic" if the blood and dismemberment look "real"--even if it fails to say anything honest about the war it's supposed to be depicting. This is certainly true of the new Vietnam War movie We Were Soldiers.

Dave Marsh on politics and music:
"It's essential that musicians respond"
Veteran music journalist Dave Marsh talks to Socialist Worker about music and the music industry in the face of George W. Bush's war drive.

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WHAT WE THINK

Behind the Bush administration's missions to the Middle East
When peace means war
Washington's "peace" mission to Israel isn't about achieving justice for Palestinians--it's to clear the way for a terrible new U.S. war on Iraq.

Andersen headed for the shredder?
Will the corporate con artist that covered up for the Enron gang go belly-up? Accounting giant Arthur Andersen teetered on the brink after it was indicted in federal court for destroying thousands of documents and e-mails related to its audit of Enron.

After Zimbabwe's stolen election
Robert Mugabe proclaimed himself the leader of Zimbabwe this week after "winning" an election by means of force and fraud. But the government officials crying foul in Washington and London have zero credibility in their claims to support democracy in Zimbabwe and Africa--or anywhere else.

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NATIONAL NEWS

Bush gang's new chapter to atomic horror story
Nuclear madmen in the White House
The Bush administration has gone from MAD to worse. The Pentagon's Nuclear Posture Review, finished earlier this year, is a blueprint for carrying out a nuclear first strike.

How could they convict Andrea Yates?
Cruel verdict in Texas
Maybe the jurors thought that they were making a just "compromise" when they condemned Andrea Yates to life in prison instead of death. But the guilty verdict against Yates in Houston last week was an appalling injustice.

Washington loves a dictator
What do you get for letting the U.S. military use your country as an air base? A free pass to torture your citizens. Just ask Uzbekistan's President Islam Karimov, who was welcomed to Washington, D.C., with open arms by Secretary of State Colin Powell.

Anti-abortion bigots' offensive in Virginia
Abortion rights are under attack again, this time in Virginia. On March 7, the Virginia Senate passed a law that would ban a late-term abortion misnamed "partial-birth abortion" by anti-choice fanatics.

Dropping "drug war" cover in Colombia
The Bush White House is planning to ask for the lifting of restrictions that require U.S. funding and military support for the Colombian government to be used solely for "counter-narcotics" operations.

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INTERNATIONAL NEWS

Huge protests in Barcelona tell EU leaders:
No to a bosses' Europe
With the familiar cry "Another world is possible," people from across Europe gathered in Barcelona last week to demand a world for people and not profit.

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COLUMNS

WHICH SIDE ARE YOU ON?
Looking for excuses for new war on Iraq
Osama bin Laden was yesterday's "evildoer," used to justify the war in Afghanistan. Now Bush has set his sights on an old demon, Saddam Hussein, to justify the forthcoming attack on Iraq.

THE MEANING OF MARXISM
They divide both to conquer each
The world is full of divisions, where groups of people are treated as second-class citizens because of some particular characteristic. These divisions appear to be "natural," nut a closer look reveals that such oppression is deliberately fostered to prevent the exploited from uniting.

ISSUES IN THE LABOR MOVEMENT
Why labor's political strategy is failing
The AFL-CIO Executive Council last month voted to devote more money to electing "labor-friendly" politicians. But one has to ask: What will union members get for their money?

INSIDE THE SYSTEM
The "Fightin' Whites"
When the high school in Eaton, Colo., refused to get rid of a Native American logo for its sports teams--called the "Fightin' Reds"--some American Indian students at the University of Northern Colorado, located in town, decided to fight back.

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ON THE PICKET LINE

Strikers digging in at Lockheed Martin
More than 250 strikers and supporters of International Association of Machinists Local 709 gathered for a spirited rally March 15 outside the Lockheed Martin plant in Marietta, Ga.

Taco Bell Truth Tour
"Taco Bell take a stand, Living wages we demand!" was the chant as 500 protesters marched on Taco Bell headquarters here March 11 to mark the end of the Taco Bell Truth Tour.

Labor in brief
Immigrant airport screeners; UMass Amherst resident assistants

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REPORTS FROM THE STRUGGLE

Stop the budget cuts
Hundreds of city and county employees, firefighters and local politicians from around Wisconsin rallied at the State Capitol on March 12 to protest Gov. Scott McCallum's proposed budget cuts.

News and Reports
Justice for Palestinians; Stop police brutality

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SW READERS SPEAK OUT

Telling the truth about the Palestinian struggle
Standing our ground
It's been so long since anyone's called me a "nigger" to my face. The other night, I was hanging out at my local bar with some comrades, and I felt a tap on my shoulder. "Take off that fuckin' scarf" I was told, in reference to my keffiyah, a traditional Palestinian scarf.

Bosses using September 11 to control lives
Our country is moving closer to a police state. ChoicePoint, a company that does background checks for corporations, reports that the number of checks it does in a month has increased from 3,000 to nearly 25,000 in February.

Campus cops show their racism
Two Black students at Brown University recently were assaulted by Brown cops. The students were followed for a while, until they were asked for their IDs. One of the students, recognizing that he was being racially profiled, refused to give his ID.

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