Public i Contact

ON MARCH 19, 2009, the U.S. Senate Armed Services
Committee held a hearing on the increasing number of
suicides in the armed forces.
The high ranking officers attempted to provide a strategy
for preventing this crisis among the military services
following a January where US soldier suicides exceeded
combat deaths and 2008 which ended with the highest
number of suicides on record.
The testifying officers made a tepid attempt at addressing
the genuine root cause of these suicides.
One could easily surmise that eight plus years of war
and occupation in Afghanistan and Iraq, with multiple
troop deployments, ultimately set the groundwork for the
disturbing trends that followed.
The officers proposed strategies to mitigate the issue
perhaps until they can redeploy the individuals again or at
best, release them from the military whereby they are no
longer their concern, thus washing their hands of the situation.
Regardless of the military’s response to this crisis,
local communities are taking notice of the stresses and
anxiety of our veterans.
One such organization, Acupuncturists Without Borders
(AWB) is an example of what caring and compassionate
people can achieve when they take a proactive strategy
in helping communities during what they call “crisis
resulting from disaster or human conflict.”
AWB is providing a community veteran’s clinic for U.S.
military veterans, current members of the Armed Forces,
and their immediate support network.
AWB was formed in 2005 in the aftermath of hurricanes
Rita and Katrina with a vision to partner with local
organizations and “offer the services of volunteer acupuncturists
to provide treatment to interrupt this cycle of pain
and chaos and relieve suffering.”
The local clinic was formed with the help from AWB
acupuncturist Katie Davidson, in conjunction with Urbana-
Champaign Friends Meeting (Quakers), and input from me,
a member of Central IL Iraq Veterans Against the War.
With politics aside, AWB set out to host a free clinic
that aims to help relieve the stress many veterans experience
from past and current conflicts and the stress of transiting
from military to civilian life.
It is also open to family members who are taking care of
veterans.
The treatment consists of having 5 small needles placed
into both ears while sitting relaxed in a chair for approximately
20–40 minutes.
The clinic is held every second and fourth Tuesday of
each month from 6-7:30 pm at the Urbana-Champaign
Friends Meetinghouse at 1904 E. Main Street in Urbana.
Much research has shown the positive effects of acupuncture
treatment for stress and anxiety reduction. Articles
about such treatment have appeared in the New York Times,
Military Officers Association of America, and the National Center for Complimentary and
Alternative Medicine.
In a section of the Journal of Alternative
and Complementary Medicine, the
authors state that, “In the treatment of
anxiety neuroses, generalized anxiety,
preoperative anxiety, and post-traumatic
stress disorder, (PTSD) acupuncture
seems very promising.” There have been
very positive responses from veterans
and family members who have attended
the clinic.
I decided to try the treatment out and
found it to be a very relaxing experience.
As a combat veteran, I know how tough
it can be returning back to civilian life, and
those of us who are lucky enough to make
that seamless transition should never forget
that there are many who do not.
Many suffer from feelings of isolation,
despair, anxiety, depression, and worse yet
PTSD.
Though the clinic makes no claim at permanently
healing or fixing such symptoms,
they do provide a free and positive alternative
that has shown to reduce stress and anxiety.
It is our responsibility as veterans and
citizens to extend an open hand to other
veterans and their family members who
may be experiencing stress.
A great way to do this is in partnership
with people like Katie, Charlotte Green, Barbara
Kessel, Bobbi Trist, Ann Donovan, Merlin
Taber, Sandy Bales, and Gayle Mohr who
spent countless hours planning and donating
their time and resources to host this clinic.
They have displayed a great amount of
selfless generosity that should not go unnoticed.
For me, it comes as no surprise that
the military continues to remain reactive to
issues like those mentioned above, but that
means as community members we need to
counter it by being proactive in addressing
those same issues in innovative ways with
alternative methods for those veterans residing
in and returning to our communities.
For information about the clinic, email
Barbara at barkes@gmail.com or call Bobbi
at (217) 351-9298 and on weekends at
(217) 766-1335.
You can visit AWB at www.AcuWithout-
Borders.org.

IN MID-FEBRUARY, HOCK E AYE VI, Edgar Heap of Birds, a
Cheyenne-Arapaho artist, visited the University of Illinois
at Urbana-Champaign campus. Just days after his
“Beyond the Chief” exhibit debuted on Nevada Street,
Heap of Birds gave a talk about the social justice elements
of his work. Heap of Birds explained that his
exhibits are intended to make viewers confront America’s
controversial past and reflect on the treatment of Native
peoples, as well as to understand Native peoples’ resistance
to colonial imposition.
The “Beyond the Chief” exhibit is specifically intended
for viewers to reflect on the history of Illinois. The top
words on the signs, “Fighting Illini,” are printed backwards
to enhance this effect. Additionally, each of the
twelve signs represents an Indigenous group who once
belonged to the lands now known as “Illinois.” These
include Kaskaskia, Peoria, and Wea. The signs are
reminders of those whose lands we now walk upon, work
upon, and live upon. By reflecting back, we can try to
understand the complex histories of forced removal and
attempt to respect those who came before us.
Heap of Birds’ work is often politically-charged in
nature, and the “Beyond the Chief” exhibit is no exception.
The damage done to the exhibit, then, provokes much
wonder due to the political significance of the signs. One
of the signs in the exhibit showed considerable damage
when Robert Warrior, the Director of the Native American
House, John McKinn, the Assistant Director of the Native
American House, and I passed by the sign on the afternoon
of Monday, March 16. The sign that was damaged
was the “Peoria” sign, one of three signs installed directly
outside of the Native American House. It appeared as if
someone had used a shoulder or foot to crush the sign, as
it was bent in at the center, the ends pulled in toward each
other. Each sign is appraised at $10,000 each due to artist
fees, cost of materials, and cost of installation.
The monetary damage done to the sign is significant,
but is it more significant than it seems? Was the perpetrator
merely a drunk college student on their way home
from the bar, picking out random things to destroy? Or
was the damage to the sign a malicious attack on the
Native American House and
the “Beyond the Chief” exhibit?
As a Native student and an
employee of the Native
American House, who has
dealt with the overwhelming
racist attitude of many folks
on and off campus and who
has witnessed many verbal
attacks on the Native American
House, on Native students,
and on Native peoples and communities in general,
it is difficult to dismiss this incident as a harmless prank.
Because the “Peoria” sign was singled out, the intent of the
perpetrator further comes into question. A picture of the
“Peoria” sign is what was used by the Native American
House to widely publicize the “Beyond the Chief” exhibit
and the Heap of Birds visit and presentations at the University.
Not only was the “Peoria” sign the most recognizable
sign of the exhibit, but the Chiefs of the Peoria
Nation, Chief John Froman and Second Chief Jason Dollarhide,
had visited campus as part of the “Meet the Chief”
event less than one week prior to the damage done to the
exhibit. All of this makes one wonder if the damage done
to the exhibit is just as symbolic as the exhibit itself. Did
the perpetrator intend to attack the Native American
House? Is this a reaction against the activities created by
the Native American House, especially those surrounding
“chief illiniwek”?
I suppose we may never know the answers to those
questions. But, what still remains evident by this occurrence
and the commentary after this story was reported by
the Daily Illini is this community’s
dire need for education
about Native peoples,
communities, and nations by
Native peoples. This is what
the Native American House
and American Indian Studies
program try to achieve with
programs like “Meet the
Chief” and the Heap of Birds
exhibit “Beyond the Chief.”
It is just unfortunate that our efforts always seem to come
at an additional cost.

COUNTY RESIDENTS MAY WANT TO PAY close attention to the
outcome of the local election next month. A proposed
school sales tax increase to fund school-based projects for
Urbana schools will be on the April 7 Champaign County
ballot. Should the referendum pass, it would increase the
Champaign County sales tax, which currently stands at
7.5%, by one percent. Projections are that the tax would
bring in an additional 3 million dollars annually for
Urbana Schools.
Proposed projects include installing energy-efficient air
conditioning systems and lighting, with provision to consider
other sources of energy such as solar. Renovations for
Washington Elementary School and district libraries along
with new multipurpose rooms are also included in the
proposed funding.
TAXING DIFFERENTLY
When people think of school taxes, many think of them as
a euphemism for property taxes. While property tax, paid
by those who own real estate, makes up the basis of local
school funding, the proposed school tax would be based
on the local sales tax. The increase would affect everyone
living in Champaign County, including those not associated
with the Urbana-Champaign area. This factor might
hinder the Urbana School District’s efforts to pass the measure,
according to Urbana High School social studies
teacher, Michael Pollock. “It is more difficult to pass that
type of referendum,” he said. “You have the entire Champaign
County, including rural folks who generally feel that
the tax unfairly impacts them.”
Pollock added that the benefit of having a sales tax
rather than a property tax is that it brings in a lot more
money, which led Champaign and Urbana to lobby the
state for allowing the sales tax to be applied to schoolbased
referenda. “Cities like Champaign and Urbana got
the state legislature to pass a law allowing counties to
increase the sales tax, not
property tax, for schools.s”
That one percent tax
increase, to Pollock, makes
the financial possibilities
endless: “The tradeoff for
this, and a way to sell this
to the public, is that you agree to put it on a sales tax
which affects everybody but is also paid, to a significant
degree, by those from outside the county. For example,
people who come to Champaign-Urbana for ball games or
to see families…when they buy stuff here, they’re helping
to repair our schools.”
Urbana school board member Cope Cumpston, a supporter
of the tax increase, said that the passage of the referendum
could help the district immensely, “There is no
other revenue stream that supports schools in this way;
our funding has been decreasing steadily and school facilities
are deteriorating all across the country.” Cumpston
added that there are a number of factors that have led to
this situation. “Particularly in Champaign County, revenue
formerly available to the schools has been drastically cut
by tax caps… we desperately need the money.” She cited
other counties such as Williamson and Cass which are seeing
“dramatic educational benefits” from passing a similar
sales tax increase.
IS THE STATE TO BLAME?
Much of the money that makes public school possible
comes from the state. However, due to recent state-wide
budget problems, along with stringent oversight laws, many
districts have not been getting the adequate funding needed
to improve school programs. Pollock believes that, “The
problem with school funding in Illinois is that the state has
pledged in its own constitution that they will pick up 50
percent of the cost of public education… The balance of the
cost… is supposed to come out of local initiatives.” But “The
state of Illinois has not fulfilled their 50 percent pledge… so
there is a greater and increasing responsibility for paying for
schools through the local taxes.”
Cumpston cited flaws in the federally-mandated No
Child Left Behind Act (NCLB) as part of the reason for the
recent strife the district has
faced. “Our schools have
also taken big financial hits
in the last few years
because of the requirements
of NCLB, which are
not backed up by any funding.”
That view seems to be common in other districts as
well. Many educators have said that the NCLB act has
underfunded its own projected goals by punishing schools
that under-perform on tests. While the Act may have
helped close “the achievement gap,” many advocacy
groups, such as The Forum on Educational Accountability,
have noted that “since its passage, No Child Left Behind
has been chronically underfunded, shortchanging the educational
needs of our nation’s neediest children.”
MAKING IT A COMMUNITY ISSUE
Both Cumpston and Pollock agree that, while many citizens
outside the district would be paying the sales tax,
their contribution would help the community as a whole.
However, Pollock says that, “some people look at this not
as a community responsibility but as: what am I going to
get out of this?” He said that the school district needs to be
more progressive in getting the word out.
Citing a similar school referendum on last November’s
ballot that failed by 300 votes, he added, “I think it failed primarily
because the school district and the people who supported
it did not do a great job of selling it to the public.”
Both Pollock and Cumpston hope citizens will look to
the benefits of the tax increase. As Pollock concluded, “It’s
not just for the people who have kids in the schools. You
want quality education; you want kids who are growing
up with the ability to go out and contribute to this community.
You have to give them a good public education
and that costs money.”
For more information about the referendum, visit
http://www.champaigncountyclass.cc/faq.html

THERE ARE MANY REASONS to be disappointed
in Alex ‘ARod’ Rodriguez. While
many sportswriters and pundits at ESPN
have spilled gallons of ink and use hours
of airtime flagellating Rodriguez for his
alleged lies and steroid use, they have
missed a crucial and not yet condemned
act perpetrated by ARod—his deplorable and overt sexist
treatment of Sports Illustrated journalist Selena Roberts
who broke the story about Rodriguez’s steroid use.
In order to understand the ARod steroid scandal, one
must be aware of some history. In 2003, the owners, Commissioner
Bud Selig, and the Major League Baseball Players’
Association (MLBPA) agreed to conduct anonymous testing
of players to see how prevalent the use of performance
enhancing drugs was in baseball. The agreement stated that
if more than 5% of the players in the sample tested positive,
Major League Baseball would institute a testing policy with
punishments for positive tests. If fewer than 5% of the
players tested positive, there would be no testing policy.
Any players that tested positive in this survey were to suffer
no repercussions and their names were to remain anonymous.
This should have been the end of the story.
However, the MLBPA failed to destroy the list of 104
players who tested positive. Federal authorities discovered
this list during their raid of Bay Area Laboratory Co-Operative
(BALCO) to gather more evidence in a wide-ranging
illegal steroid distribution probe. Alex Rodriguez’s name
was on the list along with 103 other players.
Sports Illustrated journalist Selena Roberts broke the
story that ARod’s name was on the 2003 list and that he
tested positive for use of the steroid primobolan. Roberts
had four sources confirming this information before she
went to print. The news that Rodriguez was confirmed as a
user of illegal steroids was significant because ARod had
previously denied using any steroids or performance
enhancing drugs during an interview with Katie Couric on
“60 Minutes” in 2007. Public perception was quickly shifting
from believing that Rodriguez was ‘clean’ to suspecting
him of cheating.
ARod and his public relations staff quickly went into
damage control and they scheduled an interview with veteran
baseball reporter Peter Gammons on ESPN. During the
interview, Rodriguez addressed the allegations put forth by
Roberts. He stated: “What makes me upset is Sports Illustrated
pays this lady Roberts to stalk me. This lady has been
thrown out of my apartment in New York City. This lady
has, five days ago she was thrown out of the University of
Miami police for trespassing. And four days ago she tried to
break into my house while my girls are up there sleeping,
and got cited by the Miami Beach Police. I have the paper
here. And this lady’s coming out with all these allegations,
all these lies, because she’s writing an article for Sports Illustrated.
And she’s coming out with a book in May. And really
respectable journalists are following this lady off the cliff,
and following her lead. And that to me is unfortunate.”
Women have fought and continue to fight unfair,
unjustified stereotypes and prejudice about their abilities
in the workplace. In the past, it was believed that women’s
emotions prevented them from doing certain jobs and
yielding the benefit of things like higher education. ARod’s
statement used debunked ideas about concerns of whether
or not women have the emotional capacity to carry out
their job as a professional in order to deflect blame from
his own choices that were exposed.
Similarly, Rodriguez’s use of the word “stalker” was
highly inappropriate. Reporters, both male and female,
routinely try to get comments and be in the vicinity of
those whom they are covering. It is good journalism, not
stalking. The use of this term contains some very loaded
gender ramifications. The use of the word “stalker” conjures
up the idea of a mentally unstable woman pulled
straight out of a film like Fatal Attraction and the character
that Glen Close portrayed. This sexist imagery was again
used to denigrate Roberts’ journalistic credibility to
absolve Rodriguez of culpability in these allegations.
ARod also stated, “really respectable journalists are following
this lady of the cliff, and following her lead” to finish
his opinion about the veracity of Roberts’ claims. Rodriguez
used the gender dynamics of the situation to portray
Roberts—a journalist for Sports Illustrated and The New
York Times—as an overly emotional, unprofessional, mentally
unstable woman that seems obsessed with a young,
single man. But nowhere in this rant did Gammons or ESPN
interrupt him or question his statements. Gammons and
ESPN chose not to defend a fellow sports journalist.
While Rodriguez’s blatant sexism was deplorable, it was
later confirmed that certain facts in his rant did not conform
to reality. While Rodriguez alleged that Roberts had
attempted to break into his home, Miami Beach and Coral
Gables police have no record of Selena Roberts being
arrested, stopped or cited. Likewise, Peter Gammons, who
interviewed ARod during the infamous ESPN interview
stated: “My first question asked if Selena’s story were true,
he essentially admitted it was, and I believed she was
therefore vindicated.”
On February 16, 2009, CNN reported that Alex
Rodriguez had called Selena Roberts and apologized to her
for his sexist ESPN rant and that the allegations that she
was a stalker were unwarranted and not based in fact.
Roberts’ story has continually been shown to be true. More
recent media admissions by ARod state that he did use the
steroid primobolan for the period of time alleged by
Roberts’ in her article.
Rodriguez’s statements to the media have continued to
be less than truthful. His assertion that primobolan was
available ovzer the counter in the Dominican Republic
(where he admitted to using it from 2001 to 2003) was
found to be untrue. The New York Daily News is now
reporting that a personal trainer, Angel Presinal, has been
connected to ARod as late as the 2007 season. This trainer
has been repeatedly connected to the use and possession
of steroids and performance enhancing substances since
2001. Presinal’s reputation has earned him the infamy of
being banned from ever Major League Baseball clubhouse.
As Alex Rodriguez’s career and credibility falls apart
before our eyes, it is commendable that the public did not
fall for his appeals to blatant sexism to blunt allegations of his
own illegal behavior. While ARod did eventually apologize
for his sexist diatribe and to Selena Roberts, the use of sexism
as a means of scapegoating is not acceptable, especially for an
athlete with global recognition like Alex Rodriguez.

IN HIS JANUARY 22 CEREMONY to announce
the appointment of George Mitchell as the
special envoy to the Middle East, President
Obama spoke to the urgency of a lasting
ceasefire between Israel and Hamas and
made a commitment “to seek two states living
side by side in peace and security.” Both
goals are laudable but the language employed is disingenuous
and dishearteningly reminiscent of past declarations.
The speech offers a pledge to Israel, advice to the Palestinians,
and a justification of the American position for the
rest of the world: “Let me be clear: America is committed to
Israel’s security. And we will always support Israel’s right to
defend itself against legitimate threats… no democracy can
tolerate such danger to its people… neither should the Palestinian
people themselves, whose interests are only set back
by acts of terror.” The President, then, demands that Hamas
“recognize Israel’s right to exist, renounce violence, and
abide by past agreements, if it wants to be “a genuine party to
peace.” A fair demand only if it were asked of Israel as well.
Mr. Obama portrays Israel as a victim of aggression who,
by protecting its people against rocket throwing Hamas, is
championing the democratic values that they share with the
West. He then implies that Palestinians don’t appreciate the
benefits of democracy because they seem to have rallied
behind Hamas. In one sentence, he ignores two obvious
facts: Israeli democracy applies largely to its Jewish population,
treating the Palestinian citizens as second class; Palestinian
democratic aspirations and experiments have repeatedly
been crushed by deliberate Israeli and American
actions (these assertions will be discussed in future articles).
In reality, the threat to Israel’s security is the direct consequence
of Israel’s occupation of Palestine. Both al-Fatah and
Hamas have committed themselves to a two-state solution to
the conflict, in accordance with the national aspiration of the
Palestinian people and spelled out in the National Reconciliation
Document of 2006. In addition, Hamas has demanded
on several occasions that Israel end its military operations in
Gaza and the West Bank in return for a stable truce, but Israel
insists on receiving an unconditional recognition of its right
to exist and continues to expropriate land in the West Bank
and East Jerusalem, rendering a two-state solution unviable.
Palestinians continue to be subjected to humiliation,
poverty, unemployment, indefinite imprisonment without
trial, and violence. They are also helpless witnesses to the
rapid loss of their land to illegal and hostile Israeli colonies,
road blocks, Israeli-only roads, and recently the Wall of
Annexation. Whether President Obama admits it or not, an
unconditional commitment to what Israel considers to be
vital to its security can only perpetuate the injustices done to
the Palestinians. A disturbing example is the cutting off of
the fertile Jordan Valley from the rest of the West Bank,
allowing only the long-time residents who carry Israeliissued
papers to remain in the area and evacuating the others.
Israeli officials maintain that this area cannot be returned
to the Palestinians because this would expose Israel to
attacks from Arab countries as well as al-Qaeda-type groups.
THE WEST BANK
According to Israeli Peace Now, the population of the Israeli
colonies in the West Bank increased from 139,974 in 1996
to 261,879 in 2006, 270,000 in 2007, and 285,000 in
2008. The number of new structures in settlements and outposts
grew by 69 percent in 2008 over the 2007 figures. The
daily Haaretz reports that these increases far exceed the natural
Israeli population growth (%1.6) and are more than
double the growth rate in any region of Israel. The Israeli
government spends at least $560 million a year on subsidies,
infrastructure and education for the Jewish settlements
in the West Bank, in addition to the off-the-record military
cost of controlling the Palestinians. Why all the trouble if in
near future these Illegal Israeli settlements are to be evacuated?
Why protect the militant settlers who commit various
crimes against the Palestinians and their property, when it’s
known that they have pledged never to leave and call their
populating efforts “the most important Zionist endeavor of
our generation, the settlement of Judea and Samaria”? The
answer seems to be that Israel has no intention of returning
any of the settlements it has financed and built. The Israeli
information and human rights organization, B’Tselem,
maintains that, eventually, about 40% of the West Bank
would be permanently annexed to Israel. What would be
the fate of the Palestinians living in these areas? Perhaps they
will be moved to a cramped Palestinian state in the Middle
of the West Bank or sent to Jordan and Egypt to live among
their ‘fellow Arabs.’
EAST JERUSALEM
The colonization of East Jerusalem has been progressing
more blatantly. In 1980, against all international laws,
Israel’s parliament declared that “Jerusalem, complete and
united, is the capital of Israel.” Israel continues to reject
any compromise in this regard while Palestinians insist on
establishing their capital in East Jerusalem. A Washington
Post investigation reveals that the Israeli government and
private Jewish groups have been moving Jewish residents
into Palestinian neighborhoods in East Jerusalem. The Post
also refers to a report prepared by the Israeli State Attorney’s
Office and published in the newspaper Yedioth
Aharonoth, which concludes that almost every major ministry
has assisted in the construction, expansion and maintenance
of illegal settlement outposts. In addition, intimidation
and unavailability of legal documents are used to
expel Palestinians from their homes and work places. Even
as George Mitchell is holding talks with Israeli officials, the
Municipality of Jerusalem is in the process of evicting
1500 Palestinians from their homes, under the pretext that
their residences were built without Israeli permission.
What an irony to demand that the occupied people apply
for legal documents from their illegal occupiers.
THE WALL
The Annexation Wall, which Israel and the U.S. refer to as
a separation wall to presumably protect Israel, is another
obstacle to the creation of a viable Palestinian state. The
Wall unjustifiably cuts through the West Bank and robs
many Palestinians of their gardens, orchards, and the
source of their livelihood. Discussed widely in Israeli media
but ignored in the U.S. is the common understanding that
Israel is intent upon annexing this 12% strip of fertile land
under any final status agreement with the Palestinians.
AN HONEST BROKER
In order to have a real change in the U.S. policy, leading to the
establishment of a viable Palestinian State and the security of
Israel, we need to demand that the new administration
become an honest broker in the Palestinian-Israeli conflict and
end America’s unconditional support of the state of Israel. The
long-term interest of all the parties involved, including the
American people, depends on the U.S. playing thisvital role.
President Obama must dissociate himself from any plan
which offers the Palestinians a truncated state, consisting of
isolated cantons with little or no control over vital natural
resources. We should demand that the President’s mantra of
change apply to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict lest the conflict
outlives his presidency with yet more tragic consequences.

The older I get, the more it seems our world’s been a failure
How could a world filled with unhappy people
Ruled by the most soulless of us be anything but?
Our money is a joke, and now the joke’s on us
Our media is a joke, and there’s nothing funny or excusable about
Israel’s institutionalized genocide, ethnic cleansing in Palestine
Who does Israel think is watching? And who do they think they’re kidding?
Truthfully, they’re fooling no one, except for the people of the most powerful country in the world
A people who won’t hold their leaders accountable for their crimes and the crimes of those they support
Whose ignorance, complacence and egocentrism stands in the way of rising up
Against Capitalism
Against Imperialism
Against Zionism
In our history classes we’re told how they said, “Never again.”
But the greedy, the zealous, and the silent masses
Have been letting it happen again, and again since long before we were born
The victims have become the killers
Maybe that’s how the world began
But that’s not how the world should end

On February 26, 2009, Erma Bridgewater
was the recipient of the Distinguished
Community Services Award
given to her at a Black History Month
event held by the Muslim American
Society. Born in 1913, Erma graduated
from the University of Illinois with a degree in sociology
and was Director of the Douglas Community Center
for 24 years. She remains an active volunteer.
The night’s events also included talks by Carol
Ammons and keynote speaker Imam Johari Abelmalek,
and a performance by Ron Hanif Bridgewater
and his jazz band.

A regular user of The Urbana Free Library died last
week. We weren’t surprised when the first notice
appeared in the paper – we knew she had been ill
and we had not heard from her recently, whereas
once she had been one of our most persistent callers.
Though I had spoken with her so many times, I knew
very little of her story and was thus anxious to see
the full obituary.
That came the next day. Just one sentence had
been added: There will be no services.
Our relationship with this woman was not all sunshine.
She was often querulous and impatient; she
frequently asked for telephone numbers and had an
aggravating habit of quickly losing the slips of paper
that she wrote them down on. I know I’m not the
only staff member whose heart sometimes sank upon
hearing her voice. Still, we actually like to serve her:
We’re happy to be at a resource for those who seem to
lack them. We knew she was often alone and as the
calls started coming from a hospital room as often as
from her home, we knew her health was deteriorating.
A note of fear crept into her voice. She always
said thank you and sometimes called me “dear.”
The last time I heard her voice it was close to Christmas
and she called to arrange pick-up of a gift she had
for our Homebound Services Coordinator. It was, she
assured me, a wonderful gift, a gift worth a special trip.
We’re very protective of our patrons here; their
right to privacy is paramount. But this woman’s story
has already been lost. Let us at least give her a name:
Bettina Chapman, 1937–2009
Rest in Peace

“Children here find refuge in their hopes to die. The
fact that death is equated to life is horrifying me. How
are we going to deal with this generation in the future,
how can we talk about life?”
—Message from Nadera Shalhoub-Kevorkian,
working in the Palestinian Balata camp
during the Israeli raids, March 2002)
THIS QUOTE FROM AN EMAIL MESSAGE I received from Nadera,
an extraordinary woman I met in Istanbul several years ago,
who works with and for women in Israel and Palestine,
very much sums up the place we have reached in our present
world: millions of children around the world hope to
die, their lives offer them only despair, injustices are the
order of the day… The situation in the Middle East, which
has been left to fester since the creation of the State of Israel
in 1948 continues to degenerate. It led to the invasion of
Lebanon in 1982 by Israel and to the subsequent massacres
of Sabra and Shatila in the Palestinian camps that left
upwards of 2,000 Lebanese and Palestinian civilians dead,
women raped, children massacred. Another war against
Lebanon and the Hezballah by Israel took place in 2006
and seemed like a repetition of all the horrors that had
taken place previously. Women in war zones pay the highest
tribute to the violence that prevails. How can it go on
like this? How can we go on living in such a world?
As I watch the news from year to year, month to month,
the tanks and heavy artillery against the major cities of
Palestine, against the camps and the civilians, I am
reminded of so many war events that stuck in my memory:
1991, the first air raids of the US forces against Iraq, 1982,
summer in Beirut, my sister in West Beirut, spending most
of her nights in the shelter, Israel bombarding by air, land
and sea, civilian targets, an urban center, and innocent victims,
most nights filled with the sounds of shells crushing,
detonating, burning, with the Beirut sky going up in fires,
flames, explosions and lights, the massacres in the Sabra
and Shatila Palestinian camps, the bodies of women, children,
old people, young people, their throats slit, their
stomachs open, blood flowing in the earth, holocaust
repeated by the victims of the holocaust. And then Iraq,
Afghanistan, Lebanon again, and all the other places on
our poor earth, plagued by our Post-Modern world violence,
places it would be too long to enumerate. The problems
have reached proportions beyond words. Today, I feel
a sense of urgency and doom I had not felt then.
In Iraq and Afghanistan, the situation which has considerably
deteriorated over the last few months is in a state
of chaos and degradation beyond words and women’s condition
is one of utter desolation.
In a series of extraordinary reports, the latest published
in July, Human Rights Watch has documented atrocities
“committed by gunmen and warlords who were propelled
into power by the United States and its coalition partners
after the Taliban fell in 2001” and who have “essentially
hijacked the country”.
The report describes army and police troops controlled
by the warlords kidnapping villagers with impunity and
holding them for ransom in unofficial prisons; the widespread
rape of women, girls and boys; routine extortion, robbery
and arbitrary murder. Girls’ schools are burned down.
“Because the soldiers are targeting women and girls,”
the report says, “many are staying indoors, making it
impossible for them to attend school [or] go to work.”
“Two girls who went to school without their burqas
were killed and their dead bodies were put in front of their
houses,” she said. “Last month, 35 women jumped into a
river along with their children and died, just to save themselves
from commanders on a rampage of rape. That is
Afghanistan today; the Taliban and the warlords of the
Northern Alliance are two faces of the same coin.
Following the occupation of Iraq, no one sees or hears
voices or faces of Iraqi women, almost nobody in the
mainstream media talks about the raping of Iraqi women
following the occupation, and no one talks about violence
against women in Iraq after Saddam. Ironically, faces and
stories of women were revealed when needed in order to
serve the state apparatus. The structural discrimination,
double standard, and favoritism to Israel has kept separate
the continued violence against Palestinian women and
Palestinian people, camouflaging their historical and
philosophical underpinning.
The best example of the manipulation of ‘woman object’
through power is the case of Afghanistan. The Taliban
regime, extremely repressive towards women, was put into
place with the support of the USA in their struggle against
the USSR. Subsequently, the war of Afghanistan, committed
to fighting Al-Qaida’s “terrorism,” all of a sudden saw itself
invested with another objective, that of the liberation of the
Afghan woman oppressed by an obscurantist Islam. The
choice of this objective was above all meant to win “enlightened”
world opinion. No sooner had the victory been won
than the war objective was forgotten and a regime strongly
and classically patriarchal, just as repressive towards
women, was put into place without any qualms.
This betrayal is all the more scandalous because the
emancipation of women in Afghanistan has a long history.
Afghanistan is the space for a patriarchy with very strict,
rigorous norms; at the beginning of the twenties, under
the influence of a reformist king and a few intellectuals,
legislation was adopted which, in all of Islam, was the
most progressive in terms of women’s liberation. This
reform provoked a reactionary revolt in 1924 led by clerics,
then the uprising of 1928, followed by the king’s abdication.
There is, without a doubt, an ancient struggle for
the emancipation of women in Afghanistan, which was
picked up by the communist regime in the eighties; and
the USSR intervention in Afghanistan covered itself with
the same excuse. Reaction to this emancipation started
with the Mujahedines in 1992-96, and continued with the
Taliban, supported by Pakistan and Saudi Arabia, but also
by the USA. The politics of the Taliban has been violently
anti-feminist and anti-women, especially after they seized
power in 1996.
Other connections to be made when one talks about the
present world situation, globalization, women living in war
zones, terrorism, etc., are the women who die from ill-treatment
or murder by men every year in the US. It amounts to
more victims than there were on 9/11, even though this
continuous massacre is not considered war. Violence perpetrated
against women by men, an international phenomenon,
is not considered a violation of human world ethics,
even though it is a war which has gone on for centuries. The
reason given is that such violence has been lost in the sands
of times. Today we ought to consider the terror committed
against women on a world scale as a violation of international
law, a war against humanity. (MacKinnon)
Women become objects which power manipulates on
the political scene. This manipulation can take various
forms (social, legal, symbolic, etc.), and follow multiple
objectives. It can try to obtain political support from the
population itself being manipulated (here meaning
women), or the support from other sectors of public opinion
(men for example). In past decades, several authoritarian
regimes have adopted political positions favorable to
women in order to bring them over to their side, while
repressing ‘political’ opinion expressed mostly from the
male side of the population.
The cause of women tends to become today, and this is
very remarkable, one of the main ideological values of the
institutions of Empire. One can see it in the politics of the
United States, but also in other institutions that call themselves
international. Globalization as it is understood by
imperial economic organizations (the World Bank, the
International Monetary Fund, etc., but also the United
Nations) tends to, with the best intentions in the world,
manipulate women just as it manipulates the poor.
Women are made to think that no matter how weak or
poor, everyone can consume and acquire needed goods
with whatever means they have—in other words, with
whatever price they must pay for such transformation, i.e.
additional impoverishment. This is one of the worst
aspects of globalization in its frightening paradoxes (see
Jeanne Bisilliat, 2003). The ideology of globalization conceives
women as the most open to the myth of consumerism,
the central myth of the American way of life.
Under this ideology, women become phantasmatically
invested with the capacity to transform societies, to
become the defenders of Western values and civilization.
In contrast, Islam, (as formerly Communism) reputed to
be masculine in their attributes, are considered to be poles
of resistance to “modernity.”
The main target of the women’s political movement
today is the masculine management of the world, the
will and efforts to militarize to the extreme, and to promote
everything that is military. The militarization of
any approach to problems within civil society (that of
drugs for example), means that women’s voices are
reduced to silence.

OVER THE PAST MONTH, graduate students at
the University of Illinois have engaged in a
concerted struggle to halt proposed
changes to the campus tuition waiver policy.
Under the current system, graduate
employees working between 10 and 26
hours per week automatically receive a
tuition waiver. However, at a labor-management meeting in
January, the Graduate Employees’ Organization (GEO)—a
union representing 2,700 graduate workers across campus—
was made privy to a series of recommendations developed
by University administrators aimed at radically transforming
the manner in which tuition waivers are distributed.
Under the new recommendations, graduate students on
25% appointments (10hrs/week) would no longer be eligible
for a tuition waiver and the minimum tuition generating
appointment would be fixed at 33% (13hrs/week).
Deans of schools and colleges would also be empowered
to impose caps on the total number of assistantships that
departments could offer. In addition, private donors and
corporations that fund research positions would be
expected to cover the cost of graduate employee tuition in
addition to salaries. Finally, students in professional degree
and terminal Master’s programs would be barred from
attaining waiver-generating appointments altogether.
If implemented, these recommendations threatened devastating
consequences for the quality and accessibility of
education at the University of Illinois. Over six hundred
graduate employees currently hold assistantships of less
than 33% and would be severely impacted by any effort to
eliminate tuition waivers. Cash-strapped departments—
particularly in the Fine and Applied Arts—would be forced
to either continue offering 25% assistantships without a
tuition waiver or increase their basic tuition-generating
appointment to 33%, resulting in an overall decline in the
total number of positions offered. For graduate employees
who rely upon the availability of assistantships as their main
source of income, these changes would put their continued
presence at the University in serious jeopardy. To make matters
worse, decreasing the total number of assistantships
would result in larger class sizes and workloads for faculty
and graduate employees, undermining the overall excellence
of undergraduate instruction at the University.
In fields like Social Work and Library and Information Science,
graduate employees were particularly concerned about
the recommendation that students in terminal Masters and
professional degree programs be prohibited from attaining
tuition waivers altogether. Without access to waiver-generating
appointments, the cost of graduate study in these fields
would skyrocket, forcing students to pay out-of-pocket or
leave the program. Inevitably, in all of these cases, workingclass
students and people of color would be disproportionately
impacted with advanced degrees becoming the preserve of
the wealthy few—a clear contradiction of the University’s
supposed land-grant mission and diversity initiatives.
With these concerns in mind, graduate employees
across campus mobilized to challenge the recommendations
and demand a voice in the decision-making
process. Within a matter of days, over 1,000 people had
joined a Facebook group devoted to counteracting the
proposed changes. Through the site, graduate students
were able to share information about the recommendations
and their potential impact on specific departments.
Students began contacting Department Heads, Deans,
and administrators en-masse, demanding accountability
and greater transparency. Elected officials from the Graduate
and Professional Affairs Committee held administrators’
feet to the fire by raising the concerns of their peers
in various venues. Concerned faculty—many of whom
were learning about the recommendations for the first
time—also began expressing their fears about the unforeseen
consequences of implementing such proposals in
departments that are already underfunded and overextended.
These organizing efforts converged in a public forum
facilitated by the GEO on February 11th at the YMCA. Over a hundred members of the campus community
came together at the forum to discuss
their concerns and develop a plan of
action. Shortly after, the Provost’s Office
announced that they were retracting two of
their recommendations including the proposal
to set the minimum waiver-generating
appointment at 33% and the proposal
to render students in terminal Masters and
professional programs ineligible for tuition
waivers.
This decision is a tremendous success
for graduate students and their allies
across campus. However, the struggle is
far from over. On one level, we are aware
that three recommendations remain, each
with potentially damaging effects on the
quality and accessibility of education.
But, more importantly, the battle over
tuition waivers raises critical questions
about how decisions are made at the University
of Illinois. While administrators
agreed to retract two of the most unpopular
recommendations, they reserved the
right to develop policies behind closed
doors that could radically alter and harm
graduate student experience. What we
really need is the one thing that administrators
will resist giving to us—a seat at
the table in the development and implementation
stages of all future proposals of
this nature.

FOR THE PAST SEVERAL YEARS, I’ve run what
I’ve termed, tongue-in-cheek, a one-man
campaign against the ‘Unofficial St.
Patrick’s Day’ event. In reality, no campaign
can be a one-person affair; if it is,
you’re already losing. I’ve received financial
support from the University (who
have their own motives). More significantly, I’ve had the
moral support and intellectual guidance of my colleagues
across a range of social and political movements here in
the community and further afield which has reassured me
that my sense of pain and outrage is valid and reasonable.
I’ve, thus, come to understand how stereotyping disempowers
those objectified. Most importantly, I’ve come to
realize the ways in which this issue is similar to challenges
faced by other ethnic and cultural groups, as well as the
important ways in which it differs.
Most of the time, when we see criticism of ‘Unofficial,’
it is in terms of the danger binge-drinking represents to
those engaged in it, or annoyance at these uncouth, undisciplined
students, interfering with the regular operations
of the university and the community. While I too am concerned
about any physical endangerment, these aspects
have never been my primary concern. The notion of a
Fools’ Day, a chance to break free of the rules and strictures
of day-to-day life, is an old one, and can provide an
opportunity to up-end social norms, representing, on the
face of it, the social mobility and practical critique of
authority we might otherwise desire. University of Illinois
students, though, are not generally among the most disadvantaged
in our society. To what extent is this an example
of the already-privileged exerting that privilege to exempt
themselves from the rules that bind others? Is the city’s
timid response based on the fact that this event’s main promoter
is a prominent local businessman?”
Reflecting on ‘Unofficial’ as an example of cultural
stereotyping at the University, I have found myself doing so
in the shadow of that most blatant example of racism and
cultural appropriation, the “Chief.” As I write this, window
displays in campus-town stores juxtapose these two “traditions”
in a disturbing montage of arrogance and presumptuous
racism. At the same time, it is more than a truism to
note that there are important differences between the two
acts of appropriation. The expansionist history of the United
States involved the killing of many Native Americans, as
well as the destruction of much Native American culture,
whereas that same expansion provided many opportunities
for Irish immigrants. There are few individuals on campus
who identify as having Native ancestry, while many individuals
claim at least some Irish ancestry. The ‘Chief’ was
officially sanctioned as a symbol of this campus, while university
authorities have taken various steps to discourage
and suppress ‘Unofficial’ events.
These points speak to the special context of the ‘Chief’
and suggest why it became such an important issue on this
campus. None of the points, however, negate the problematic
nature of the Unofficial event, such as it is. I have
learnt, too, that it is important to avoid turning these
experiences into a competition, where a group ‘wins’ by
being more put upon—this benefits nobody, and prevents
us from learning from the common ways in which different
forms of stereotyping, appropriation, and prejudice
each act to erase the humanity of individuals and groups.
Further, as is so often the case, the so-called mitigating
factors of the ‘Unofficial’ event lose their sheen when
examined in any detail. I’ve had many people claim “I’m
Irish too” as a defense for some prejudicial remark. These
people are, almost invariably, many generations removed
from their immigrant ancestors. They don’t speak with an
Irish accent, and, rarely if ever, practice any Irish customs.
Their Irishness is a cloak to be put on or taken off as convenience
dictates, and is generally musty from lack of use,
lying forgotten in a dark closet of the mind until pulled
out with a rhetorical flourish.
I’m proud of my heritage, of Irish literary culture and
scientific accomplishments. I’m happy when someone’s
questions allow me to boast about our beautiful landscapes.
I’m glad that many people are able to feel pride in
a connection, however tenuous, to my country and my
people. But it would be more than charitable to describe a
one-dimensional identification of Irish culture with drinking
as tokenism.
We can quibble over the reasons for this stereotype.
Many will point to the role played by advertising campaigns,
most notably that of Guinness. Perhaps less wellknown
is the history of imagery of the Irish—how we have
so often been portrayed as sub-human, irrational, not in
control of our actions. While being seen as poets and
raconteurs is, on one level, a neat reclamation (a positive
twist on decidedly negative prejudices), on another level,
it traps us within the bounds of those same images.
In the case of ‘Unofficial,’ we have an event created and
promoted by bar owners, for commercial purposes, which
further reduces Irishness to a single concept: “Drink until
you’re Irish,” say the T-shirts; “Unofficially wasted.” Any
sense of reclamation undone, the implications—never
subtle enough to be connotations—are painful, upsetting.
And so, it’s helpful—nay, important, necessary—to
have the tools of critical reflection, and bonds of fellowship
with those who can engage us in dialogue. I’m grateful,
therefore, for my fellow activists who have assisted me
in my personal and intellectual growth, providing emotional
support and enabling me to engage productively
with this issue.

“I TRUST YOU, KIM, and there’s a lot that
goes with that.”
That was the response I received from
Karen*, the mother of the kids I take
with me on adventures.
These are the same kids who sleep over
at my house, who cook meals with me,
who dance joyfully to gospel and blues and 80s music,
who’ve met my girlfriend and with whom I have kept in
touch since they moved away a few years ago from the
neighborhood we shared.
I called Karen last week and told her that something
was bothering me. I was worried that I might I have
betrayed her trust in me by posting photos and videos of
the kids and me on our outings on my blog without directly
asking for her permission.
I called Karen the same day I received an email from
some friends of mine who asked me to remove some video
I had posted of them dancing on You Tube. I had sent
them the link, and although they loved the video, they did
not want it made public and asked me to remove it. I did
and apologized for not asking them in the first place. I
could have made the video private and only given them
access to it but for some reason I did not. And although
their names were not on the video and the video had only
been viewed 14 times, making it likely that no one but
them and me had actually viewed it, that wasn’t the point.
I had not asked. I want to be a friend they can trust. And
this was not a good way to keep their trust.
So after this experience, I decided not to assume anything.
I decided not to take any chances on betraying
Karen’s trust in me with her children. On numerous occasions
I have taken pictures of the kids on our excursions
and have made photo albums and given them to Karen. A
week ago, I had printed out one of my blog posts about an
adventure with the kids and me and gave it to her. Still, I
never actually asked if I could post the video and pictures
I took of the kids on-line.
I called Karen and told her of my concern and why it
was bothering me and offered to show her all of my blog
postings that included pictures and video of the children
and said that I would remove any and all of them if she did
not approve.
I told her that I asked my brothers’ permission before
posting video and photos of my nieces and nephew and
should have asked her permission. Karen listened patiently
as I explained all of this.
Her response was, “I trust you with my kids. And there’s
a lot that goes with that. My kids really care about you.”
I love these kids. I know that the love that’s in me
would move through me in an instant to remove them
from harm’s way even if it cost me my own life.
I had to choke back tears of joy. I recognized in her
words the profound love that is part of trust and I recognized
how both her children and I were the recipients of
her trust and love. Had this happened a few years ago, I
might have been too absorbed in my own relief to receive
what she was offering me. Not this day. I was a sponge
sponging up her deep love for her children and her trust
in them that led to her trust in me.
Other people’s children have been a significant part of
my life since I started babysitting in the 7th grade. I have
an intuitive wisdom about how to be with them that I
believe is a gift from God. I often prefer the company of
children and old souls. My grandparents were and are
three of the people I have loved most dearly.
Yet I can worry about the potential judgments of adults
against me because of racial differences, and even more so,
because of my sexual orientation and all of the stereotypes
that go along with it. Now that I have a girlfriend, it is hard
not to see the love and closeness we express for each other.
And it is deeper than that. I weep inside every time
Karen tells me that she trusts her children’s intuition about
people. It simultaneously taps in me an unhealed sadness
from my own childhood and a profound joy that these
children have their mother’s trust.
I have their mother’s trust, too, and what a profoundly
loving gift that is. Thank you.
*Karen is not her real name.

THERE WAS AN IMPORTANT VICTORY Thursday night, February
19, 2008, for those fighting for reform of the criminal justice
system in Champaign County. By a unanimous vote,
the Champaign County Board appointed the Citizens
Advisory Committee on Jury Selection.
The committee, made up of citizens, board members,
and local criminal justice officials, is intended to address
the racial disparities documented to exist in Champaign
County. For several years the Courtwatch study conducted
by the League of Women Voters has shown that while
African Americans make up 56% of defendants, they represent
7% of the jury pool.
The 16 members of the committee include: Pius
Weibel, Matt Gladney, Presiding Judge Thomas Difanis,
State’s Attorney Julia Rietz, head Public Defender Randall
Rosenbaum, Courts Administrator Roger Holland, Joan
Miller of the League of Women Voters, Aaron Ammons,
Patricia Avery, William Brown, Lorraine Cowart, Brian
Dolinar, Deloris Henry, Barbara Kessel, Jenny Putman, and
Patrick Thompson.
While speaking in support of the Advisory Committee,
County Board member Steve Beckett also defended
his proposal to cut two committees the Transportation
Committee and the Justice and Social Services Committee,
the very committee that oversees the jury Citizens
Advisory Committee on Jury Selection. This was a cost
cutting measure that had to be made in tough economic
times, he claimed.
Belden Fields expressed his shock over the proposed
cuts. He pointed out that the chairs of both the committees,
Matt Gladney and Lorraine Cowart, are minorities and
this would send the wrong message to African Americans.
I spoke to remind the County Board of the recent
deaths in the county jail. Without another check on the
criminal justice system, there is the prospect of a law suit
that could drain the county of money for legal defense or a
costly settlement. There is currently a law suit pending for
the death of Janet Hahn in 2007, claiming that she
received poor medical treatment at the Champaign County
jail for her diabetes and died as a result.
Beckett responded by saying that members of the public
were “inadvertently misrepresenting” his proposal. In
collaboration with the League of Women Voters, Beckett
also a Law Professor at the University of Illinois provided
students to help conduct the Courtwatch study. Now that
his own study has shown that gross inequalities exist in
the jury selection process, he has been forced to address
the issue.
Already, the right-wing News-Gazette has editorialized
against the Citizens Committee, commenting that the
“extreme views” of some of its members would keep them
from working in a “cooperative fashion” (2/26/09). In
attempt to further slander the committee, the newspaper
brought up that some of its members had been “charged or
currently face criminal charges in Champaign County.”
It is now up to the Citizens Committee to find out a way
to ensure that defendants will have a “jury of one’s peers.”

THAT THE EARNING POWER OF A WOMAN on the job is less
than a man’s is pretty general knowledge. Right now,
women earn about 78 cents for every dollar a man earns.
The Institute for Women’s Policy Research calculates that
this adds up to $210,000 less for women over a 35-year,
full-time work life. Obviously, this impacts what a woman
can give her children, to say nothing of retirement security.
The bill that President Obama signed on January 27,
the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Restoration Act, addresses a
particularly cruel 2007 decision by the Supreme Court
that said the deadline for filing a charge of discrimination
in pay is 180 days from the first paycheck. Ledbetter didn’t
even realize that the men around her at Goodyear were
making more than she was until she’d received 19 years
worth of such paychecks. Now, the deadline is 180 days
from each discriminatory paycheck; every new paycheck
is a new act of discrimination.
The comparison between men’s and women’s wages
matches women with full-time jobs to wages of men with
full-time jobs. Full-time work is getting more rare. What
replaces full time jobs is part-time jobs, mostly in retail,
service, and care work like child care and home care. A
hard-to-measure number of these jobs drop into the informal
economy. People get paid in cash, nothing is in writing,
no payroll taxes get taken out and there’s no workers’
comp, to say nothing of benefits.
You may have heard people say, “The best economic stimulus
is a union.” This is especially true for women. In simple
terms of dollars, women in unions make a median $809 per
week compared to non-union women who make $615.
But many people in unions will say that it’s not actually
the money that is most important—it’s that fuzzy thing
called ‘a voice.’ If you have a union, you have representation,
meaning that it’s someone’s job to take your side and
understand your experience of your job, and, if it comes to
that, defend you and if possible protect you. This means
protecting you against not just unfair practices at work but
also more general threats, like unsafe working conditions
including overwork or exhaustion and discrimination. For
women who may not have had practice successfully
defending themselves, the experience of representation
can come as a revelation. This experience is often sufficiently
profound to make an otherwise uninvolved union
member decide to become an activist.
In fact, this experience is often cited by women who tell
the story of how they got involved in their unions. They’ll tell
the story of how a problem at work developed, became complex,
became something they couldn’t resolve themselves
and eventually brought them into conflict with their employer.
That moment of confrontation is also a moment of clarity.
In my experience as a labor educator, many such problems
have to do with attendance—missing work to take a
child to the doctor, taking a phone call at work from a
family member, or sometimes the exhaustion that comes
from doing too much overtime. An example that comes to
mind right away is a woman who cleaned office buildings
at one site from 11PM to 4AM, then went home and slept
for 2 hours, got up and sent the kids to school and then
went and cleaned a different building—for the same
cleaning company!—from 9AM to 2PM. This insane schedule
allowed her to see her kids at breakfast and dinner,
but it was killing her. One day she fell asleep on the job
and her employer, in the process of disciplining her, discovered
that she was actually working two different jobs.
They accused her of lying and fired her. Luckily, she had a
union representative who not only got her job back but
got her work consolidated into one job plus back pay for
the overtime she had been doing. The money was nice,
she reported, but what really mattered was that someone
was on her side.
So why doesn’t everyone form unions? Despite a recent
study by the AFL-CIO that said that 78 percent of people
favor “legislation that would generally make it easier for
workers to bargain with their employers for better wages,
benefits, and working conditions,” only 7% of private sector
and 12% of public sector workers are in unions. One
reason is fear. Companies fire people who try to organize
unions. A good report on this put out by Human Rights
Watch is called Unfair Advantage. For many people, especially
these days, a bad job is better than no job.
Of course, the official policy of the United States, since
1935, has been that unions are a good thing. Here is the
actual language of the law, the National Labor Relations Act.
It is declared to be the policy of the United States to
“eliminate the causes of certain substantial obstructions to
the free flow of commerce and to mitigate and eliminate
these obstructions when they have occurred by encouraging
the practice and procedure of collective bargaining and
by protecting the exercise by workers of full freedom of
association, self-organization, and designation of representatives
of their own choosing, for the purpose of negotiating
the terms and conditions of their employment or other
mutual aid or protection.”
That law is still in effect—although you’d never know
it. Employers violate the spirit of this law, as well as its letter,
all the time. One of the problems is that although the
NLRA says that employers and unions have to negotiate
“in good faith,” nothing forces them to do so. There is no
effective process and no penalties worth mentioning.
But another proposed bill, the Employee Free Choice
Act, is in Congress right now. Passing it was part of
Obama’s platform, and our newly confirmed Head of the
Department of Labor, Hilda Solis, is in support of it. It
allows for majority sign-up, meaning that if a majority of
the workers sign cards saying that they want a union, they
get a union, period. Perhaps more important, it provides
for mediation followed by binding arbitration so that
workers, who in the past have sometimes gone years with
a union but no contract (remember the Heartland Human
Services workers in Effingham—mostly women), will get a
contract within 120 days. Perhaps most potently, it allows
for up to $20,000 in penalties per violation for things like
firing workers for union activity—plus triple back pay for
any worker so fired.
Stay tuned. If the Employee Free Choice Act passes,
we’re likely to be looking at a very different world of work,
especially for women.
Institute for Women’s Policy Research,
http://www.iwpr.org/Media/InTheNews.htm#Jan29
Other figures from www.cpgwi.org/gradereport.pdf and
www.afl-cio.org
Unfair Advantage is at http://www.hrw.org/legacy/
reports/2000/uslabor/

On January 29, 2009, the Iraqi government barred Blackwater
Worldwide, Inc. (BW) from providing security for
U.S. diplomats in Iraq because its alleged involvement in
the 2007 deaths of at least seventeen civilians in Nisour
Square in Baghdad. This, however, did little to impact
profitability of the BW “bottom line”, because BW began
diversifying its operations years earlier.
During the past twelve years, BW has morphed from a
trainer of “weekend warriors” and “shoot a round for Jesus”
fanatics into a one-stop shop, with twenty-nine subsidiaries
that provides know-how and equipment to thousands of
U.S. and foreign law enforcement agencies and supports
extensive U.S. military operations around the globe. BW, a
privately held U. S. company founded by Eric Prince, a
right wing political contributor to both Republican and
Democratic campaigns, has received billions of dollars in
U.S. government contracts. Even with its banning in Iraq,
BW continues expanding its worldwide operations.
Domestically, BW trains thousands of local law enforcement
personnel in the U. S., offering both classroom
instruction and “hands on” experience. In 2007, for example,
BW purchased the Backup Training Corporation, the
largest supplier of law enforcement training CD materials
in the U.S. With this CD collection, BW supplies thousands
of U.S. law enforcement agencies with an A-Z law
enforcement curriculum, including instruction on search
and seizure, drug enforcement and even Occupational
Safety and Health Administration certification.
In addition, BW directly trains law enforcement officers,
in sniper training and SWAT team tactics at one of
three domestic locations (San Diego, CA.; Mt. Carroll, IL;
and, Moyock, NC), as well as at mobile training centers.
They also provide armaments for law enforcement agencies,
around the country. Further, in their domestic business,
BW teaches classes certified by state governments for
private security forces at their domestic camps or ‘on-site,’
such as the delegates at the Republican and Democratic
National Conventions. During a domestic crisis, BW can
access a database of thousands of sworn law enforcement
officers who will work as independent contractors using
accrued vacation time (recall former director Tom
Dempsey’ s mission to Afghanistan, while still employed
by the Police Training Institute at the University of Illinois)
under a reciprocal agreement among state governments.
Internationally, BW is rapidly expanding its global
reach, by forging strategic partnerships and accelerating
diversification, like a high security Wal-Mart that offers a
365-degree wrap around service. BW and Raytheon, for
example, have unveiled a prototype six-passenger Joint
Light Tactical Vehicle at the U.S. Special Operations Industry
Conference in Tampa, Fla., on May 21, 2008, revealing
their teamed-up effort to build a survivable, mobile nextgeneration
Humvee.
BW, also owns and operates three aviation subsidiaries:
Presidential Airways, Inc., STI Aviation Inc., and Air Quest
Inc. The U.S. Department of Defense utilizes BW for logistics
support to US military operations in Pakistan and
Afghanistan. When “lower and slower” is needed, BW Airships,
established in January 2006, leases a remotely piloted
airship vehicle for potential use on the Mexican and
United States border and as a forward observation platform
in Afghanistan.
In addition, BW owns Greystone Ltd., a private security
service registered in Barbados, which employs thirdcountry
nationals for offshore security work. Greystone
provides security to locations experiencing turmoil
whether caused by armed conflict, epidemics, or natural
or man-made disasters, according to their website. Another
BW subsidiary, BW Maritime Security Service provides
training for maritime security. BW’s North Carolina facilities
include a man-made lake with stacked containers simulating
a ship for maritime assaults.
In addition, BW has established the Raven Development
Group to offer general contracting, construction management,
designing and building services. Finally, Eric Prince
continues to provide custom contracting at subsidiaries in
Indiana and North Carolina, Mississippi and Mexico,
through Prince Enterprises a company started by his father.
At the rate that they are expanding, perhaps a BW
“action figure” soon may be available at a store near you.
For a list of BW affiliates and subsidiaries, refer to the
Small Business Administration Report at
h t t p : / / r e f o r m . d e m o c r a t s . h o u s e . g o v / d o c u –
ments/20080728141224.pdf

On January 12, 2009, Paul Craig Roberts reported in
“Counterpunch” that if the unemployment rate were calculated
as it used to be prior to 1980, it would stand at
17.5% today, as opposed to the official figure, which is less
than half that amount. This gets close to the rate of the
1930s, which was around 25%.
In recent years, consumer spending has risen to almost
three quarters of the US GDP. In the 1930s, consumer debt
rose to 9.6% of household income, vs. 25.1% in 2006.
The main means of ending the Depression was federal
spending – on war production. But today, federal spending
is constrained by the national debt.
US national Debt as % of GDP
1930 $16.2 bn. 18%
1940 $43 bn. 52%
1946 120 bn. 120%
1950 257.4 bn. 94.1%
1980 930.2 bn. 33%
2008 (est.) 10,024.7 bn. 72.5% (est.)
(source: Wikipidia)
So, at the outset of the Depression, the national debt
was about one third of what we are facing today. This will
give the federal government a lot less room to maneuver.
Not only that, but with the massive bailout bills, this
national debt will balloon even more.
This present spending is essentially going down a rathole,
because the heart of the problem is that production
was kept afloat by increased debt of all sorts. The overwhelming
bulk of the federal bail-out money is going to
directly boost the bottom line of finance capital, vs. in the
1930s and ‘40s, when much of it went to federal projects
and later to war-time industrial production.
An all-out economic crisis will not necessarily take the
same form as that of the 1930s, though. Despite their destination
in finance capital, the massive federal bail-outs are
serving to slow down the
collapse of production. At
present, these bail-outs are
financed by selling federal
bonds. Investors, both foreign
and domestic, are willing
to buy these bonds at
extremely low interest rates
because they have nowhere
else to put their money. This
cannot continue indefinitely.
At some point, the
demand for US bonds and
Treasury Notes will diminish.
When this happens, the
Treasury will have to raise
the interest rate it pays. This
will further decrease the
credit available to private
companies. In addition, the
federal government will
have to repay this debt some
day. When that day arrives,
they will have to crank up the printing presses and print
dollars. The effect of this will be to cheapen the dollar; in
other words, inflation.
In this way, a new economic crisis would differ in form
from that of the 1930s, but the underlying contradictions
that caused the crisis would be the same: Private ownership
of the means of production (leading to a tendency
towards overproduction and a tendency for the rate of
profit to fall). For decades, these tendencies were masked
by the massive increase in both public and private debt, by
the expansion of capitalism into new arenas (the former
Soviet Union, China, etc.), and even the reduction of real
wages (which boosted profits and encouraged investment).
Added to these contradictions is the existence of
the nation states in the era of world production, distribution
and finance. Up until now, the global role of the US
dollar has lent a certain stability to the world economy. As
the dollar drops in value, as it inevitably must when they
start printing them up, then this will add to the crisis.
I think it is still too early to say that we are definitely
headed towards a crisis on the scale of the 1930s in the
next year or so. However, the facts make it appear increasingly
possible.