By CAROLE SELIGMAN The United States has the highest population of any country on earth-over 3600-living on death row. In addition to being the only industrialized country to carry out executions, since re-instating capital punishment in 1977, the United States is executing more prisoners each year, including over 30 mentally retarded people. The United States … Continue reading Election 2000: A Stink of Death
Month: July 2000
Youth in Action
U.S. youth go to Cuba By PAUL M. Youth for Socialist Action (YSA) is sponsoring its first ever trip to Cuba this month. Twenty YSA members from Los Angeles, the San Francisco Bay Area, Minneapolis, and Ashland, Wisc., will be participating. YSAers have been planning the two-week visit, scheduled for July 17-31, for over a … Continue reading Youth in Action
Teamsters Notebook
UPS Boss rats out Hoffa "UPS ... is enjoying a love-fest with Hoffa." So concludes a reporter after interviewing Thomas Weidermeyer, boss of UPS's air division, for Traffic WORLD (May 1), a mouthpiece for the trucking industry. That's no scoop. But the reporter provides evidence right from the horse's mouth that the days of confrontation … Continue reading Teamsters Notebook
LABOR BRIEFING
by CHARLES WALKER 20,000 in L.A. rally for immigrant workers At long last, the AFL-CIO has done an about-face concerning immigrants' rights. At its February executive meeting it adopted a resolution supporting amnesty for undocumented workers. It now says that it opposes sanctions against employers who hire undocumented workers, and it's calling for new … Continue reading LABOR BRIEFING
Globalization… What it is and how to Fight it
By NAT WEINSTEIN "Globalization" is a word describing the process by which the entire world has been woven into a single marketplace, rigidly ruled by the economic laws of the profit system. Most of those who oppose the WTO, the IMF, and NAFTA know that these and other alphabetized institutions in charge of capitalist globalization … Continue reading Globalization… What it is and how to Fight it
A Visit with Mumia Abu-Jamal on Pennsylvania’s Death Row
By JEFF MACKLER WAYNESBURG, Pa.-The misnamed Progress Drive, a quarter-mile-long road an hour's drive east from Pittsburgh, dead ends at State Correctional Institute (SCI) Greene, the super-modern prison where innocent death-row inmate Mumia Abu-Jamal resides. Caged 23 hours daily in a tiny cell for the past 19 years at Greene and elsewhere, Mumia appeared to … Continue reading A Visit with Mumia Abu-Jamal on Pennsylvania’s Death Row
HMOs and the Threat to Your Health
By MARK HARRIS "Making a Killing: HMOs and the Threat to Your Health," by Jamie Court and Francis Smith, 224 pages. Common Courage Press, 1999. Is market-driven capitalism good for your health care? That may depend on your vantage point. If your name is Leonard Abramson and you're the former CEO of U.S. Healthcare, yes. … Continue reading HMOs and the Threat to Your Health
Hotel Strike Solid in Minneapolis
BY ADAM RITSCHER As we go to press: It is reported that on June 29 the strikers voted to approve a new contract negotiated by the union. MINNEAPOLIS-In what has proved to be the largest hotel workers' strike the Twin Cities has seen in 20 years, the strike of Hotel Employees & Restaurant Employees Local … Continue reading Hotel Strike Solid in Minneapolis
The World War II Pope and Nazi Genocide
By PAUL SIEGEL John Cornwell, "Hitler's Pope: The Secret History of Pius XII." Viking, 1999. 430 pp. $29.95. John Cornwell's "Hitler's Pope" rises out of a controversy that has been going on for more than 35 years concerning the reasons for Pius XII's failure to condemn Nazi genocide during World War II. The Pope's defenders … Continue reading The World War II Pope and Nazi Genocide
New Russian Labor Code Allows Employers to Gut Workers’ Rights
BY ALEKSANDR YELAGIN MOSCOW-The fight against the Russian government's draft labor code is assuming crucial importance today for revolutionary Marxists. This is not a conflict in an individual factory or industry [as many labor struggles have been in recent years in the former Soviet Union]. It involves defense of the general class interests of the … Continue reading New Russian Labor Code Allows Employers to Gut Workers’ Rights
Tensions Increase Between Kosovars and KFOR
By GERRY FOLEY The intervention of the United States and its allies in the Kosovo conflict has solved none of the problems that provided the pretext for it. First of all, the interventionist powers still refuse to accept the demand of the overwhelming majority of the Kosovar people for independence. The imperialist occupiers thereby leave … Continue reading Tensions Increase Between Kosovars and KFOR
A Letter from Leonard Peltier
Below is Leonard Peltier's June 26 statement for the 25 year memorial of the shootout at Oglala, South Dakota. He was convicted for the alleged murder of two FBI agents during that event. On June 12, Peltier was denied parole for the fourth time. A petition for executive clemency is currently before President Clinton. Call … Continue reading A Letter from Leonard Peltier
Commentary by Mumia Abu-Jamal: Killing for a Job
On the evening of June 22, 2000, at approximately 8:49 p.m., the life of Shaka Sankofa (né Gary Graham) was snuffed out by the state of Texas. With a sweaty-lipped smirk and a nod, Texas Governor George W. Bush cleared the way for the state's killing of a young Black man. The legalized lynching of … Continue reading Commentary by Mumia Abu-Jamal: Killing for a Job
Fightback: How do they Die?
by Sylvia Weinstein Gary Graham (Shaka Sankofa) was put to death at 6:49 p.m. on July 22 by lethal injection. What is lethal injection? Here is a description from Zolo Angona Azania, who is on death row at Indiana State Prison: "The extinguishment of a human life by lethal injection is dressed up as a … Continue reading Fightback: How do they Die?
Elian Returns to a Victorious Cuba
By JEFF MACKLER In a letter read to a July 1 rally of 300,000 in the Cuban eastern seaside town of Manzanillo, Fidel Castro defiantly warned the next U.S. president not to try to defeat Cuba's socialist revolution. The occasion was a celebration of the triumphant return of Elian Gonzalez and his family to Cuba … Continue reading Elian Returns to a Victorious Cuba
Death by Technicality’ The Execution of Shaka Sankofa
By JEFF BLACKBURN On June 22, Texas governor and Republican presidential candidate George W. Bush made good on his promise to execute Shaka Sankofa, better known by his former name, Gary Graham. "They know I'm innocent, but they won't acknowledge it," said Graham, who had been beaten and handcuffed to a gurney. His last words … Continue reading Death by Technicality’ The Execution of Shaka Sankofa