April 12, 2008

CHICAGO — Human suffering, more than Wall Street indicators, tells us the world’s richest nation is plunging into its most severe economic crisis since the Great Depression, while the Iraq war continues to drain the nation’s Treasury. As Congress heard the Bush administration’s top general and ambassador in Iraq argue for continuing to pour billions into an open-ended occupation there, news reports showed an all-time record of 28 million Americans now survive only because of food stamps.

Advocates for hundreds of detainees in George W. Bush’s “war on terror,” many held for years without criminal charges, are escalating their demands for fair trials or release of the prisoners and for closing Guantanamo and secret CIA prisons elsewhere.

Shawn Boone did not die instantly five years ago at the Hayes Lemmerz plant in Huntington, Ind. He was lying on the floor, his body smoldering, as the aluminum dust burned through his flesh and then his muscles. With every breath he took, more of his internal organs burned. Still conscious and blinded from the initial blast, he begged for help as they loaded him into the ambulance.

WASHINGTON (PAI) — The causes the late Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. fought for, including racial justice, economic equality and ending a misguided war “are very much with us today,” says a labor historian and author of a new book putting the civil rights leader’s last days into a longer and wider perspective.

Imagine a world where everyone who chooses to can go to college. Picture a world where workers on school campuses and in communities have a voice about their working conditions and where the fruits and vegetables that people eat are picked by workers who earn a living wage. Imagine a time when students and others can proudly wear university apparel, knowing the workers who made the clothing were paid fairly with basic rights including breaks, safe working conditions and an eight-hour workday. And finally, think about what it will be like when jobs not only support workers but also protect the environment.

The United Food and Commercial Workers has stepped up its fight against Bush administration use of “no-match” Social Security letters against workers whose on-the-job identification doesn’t match what’s in government files. The government uses the program to pressure companies to fire employees and to force workers to prove “legal” status or face deportation.

PHILADELPHIA — Unity was the watchword at last week’s Pennsylvania state AFL-CIO biennial convention, as the 721 delegates cheered calls for a united effort to put a Democrat in the White House and to defeat John McCain in November.

COMMENTARY

After waiting more than a week for official results of the March 29 presidential elections, Zimbabweans still do not know whether Robert Mugabe, the only leader most have ever known, will step aside or face his main challenger in a runoff.

PARIS — For all those opposing the destructive policies of President Nicolas Sarkozy and his extreme right government, the main result of the mid-March local elections in France is the growing voter confidence in the French Communist Party (PCF), which received 8.82 percent of the vote. This shows the party is still significant, at least for 1,150,000 citizens, as compared to the 770,000 votes cast for its presidential candidate, Marie-Georges Buffet, in 2007.

Sen. John McCain reminds us of the cowboy pilot in the 1964 Stanley Kubrick movie (“Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb”), who jumped on a nuclear warhead and rode it whooping and hollering as it plummeted to doom.