Rejection of California budget sets stage for even larger spending cuts

World Socialist Web Site, June 25, 2009

Rejection of California budget sets stage for even larger spending cuts

By Kevin Martinez and Joe Kishore
25 June 2009

The California legislature failed to get the two-thirds vote needed to pass a Democratic Party proposal to address the state’s $24 billion budget deficit. Democrats will now enter closed-door negotiations with Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger on a compromise that will include even more massive cuts in social services.

Discussions between the two parties have been ongoing for the last several weeks, much of it in secret and with no public input. Both sides have already agreed that draconian cuts in basic social programs are necessary.

To offset some cuts, however, Democrats had proposed a variety of mainly regressive tax increases, which require the support of a two-thirds majority in the legislature. This proposal failed as expected on Wednesday, largely along party lines. The Democrats control both houses of the state legislature, but do not have a two-thirds majority.

A proposal advanced by Schwarzenegger calls for $16 billion in budget cuts. These include eliminating the state welfare program; shutting down Healthy Families, the health insurance program for 930,000 children; closing 220 state parks; and ending Cal-Grants, which provides aid to poorer students to attend college. Schwarzenegger is also proposing a 5 percent pay cut for state workers, in addition to a 10 percent pay cut already announced.

Public education will be singled out for a large share of the budget cuts. About $5.3 billion would be taken from K-12 education and community colleges over next year, on top of the billions in cuts that have already been enacted.

The so-called “alternative” proposed by the Democrats was a slightly less severe program of $11 billion in budget cuts. The Democrats propose cutting $4.5 billion from K-12 education, $2.8 billion from higher education, and $2.6 billion from health and human services.

Democrats also proposed $2.2 billion in tax increases, including a 9.9 percent levy on oil extracted in California, a $1.50 per pack cigarette tax and a $15 registration fee for vehicles. In an accounting move designed to save $1 billion, Democrats have proposed pushing state workers’ paychecks back one day from June 30 to July 1, the start of the next fiscal year.

Senate President Pro Tem Darrell Steinberg, a Democrat from Sacramento, told the Pasadena Star News, “We present a budget where everybody feels some pain; every part of the safety net takes a cut.”

In fact, both Democrats and Republicans are determined to make the working class pay for the crisis. No matter what compromise is now reached, either through a combination of borrowing from local governments, accounting maneuvering, tax levies, or selling off state assets, a massive attack on the social infrastructure of California is underway.

The Democratic Party accepts the argument that the only way to fix California’s budget deficit is to strangle what remains of public education and the social safety net. Senator Gloria Romero, a Democrat, told The Los Angeles Times, “When someone tells us ‘No new cuts,’ I say, ‘Look, don’t tell me that.’…There is the sense that we must do what we must do to keep California solvent.”

Indeed, the proposed tax increases were largely for show. Even before the vote, Democrats acknowledged that they would not pass. Last week Schwarzenegger responded to a question about what kind of fight he expected over the tax increases by responding, “Well, what is being said and what is being done, as you know, are sometimes two different things.”

The Mercury News commented: “Schwarzenegger was suggesting that Democrats were posturing on their $2.1 billion in tax proposals, putting on what he calls Kabuki theater for their constituents before he expected them to relent to the reality that Republicans will never agree to taxes as part of the solutions lawmakers must find to close the $24.3 billion deficit.”

The budget crisis takes place against the backdrop of the economic collapse of California, the most populous state in the US and, if measured as an independent country, the eight largest economy in the world.

According to government officials, the state will be insolvent by July 28, which has prompted Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger to threaten to bring the government to a “grinding halt” and stop borrowing to cover the state’s expenses.

The state comptroller, John Chiang, has warned that without a new budget the state will begin issuing “IOUs” in place of cash to social service agencies, private contractors and state vendors. The state’s cash crunch, Chiang said, is unlike anything “seen since the Great Depression.”

Recent figures point to a continued deterioration of the state economy. Unemployment in California soared to 11.5 percent for May, the highest level since World War II. The April unemployment figure was 11.1 percent, compared to 6.8 percent in May 2008. A more complete measure of unemployment, including those forced to work only part time, shows that more than one in five Californians is unemployed or underemployed.

California, accounted for one out of every five jobs lost last month. Out of a population of 37 million people, 2.1 million Californians are officially unemployed, 885,000 more than last month.

The state has been hit particularly hard by the collapse of housing prices, which have wreaked havoc on the real estate market, construction, and other financial related industries. With several major ports on the Pacific Ocean, California is also heavily dependent on world trade, which is falling rapidly.

California saw a decline of 33.8 percent of personal income tax receipts in May. The decline in revenue will mean a new round of austerity measures to balance the state budget, since the state collects half of its revenue from personal income taxes.

The state is under intense pressure from Wall Street to impose concessions. Moody’s Investor Service has threatened California’s general obligation debt with a “multi-notch” downgrading if the state legislature failed to produce a balanced budget before going bankrupt. The state is currently at an A2 credit rating, which are just five notches above speculative status.

A downgrade will mean that the state will face sharply higher interest rates for borrowing, if it is able to gain credit at all.

The Obama administration has responded to the economic meltdown of California by repeatedly refusing federal assistance. Instead, the administration, speaking on behalf of the most powerful sections of the financial elite, is making California an example for other states to follow as they enact austerity budgets.

By abandoning the richest and most populous state to its own devices, the Obama administration has directly contributed to the crisis now unfolding. Trillions are handed out to private banks, but when it comes to the world’s eight largest economy on the verge of bankruptcy, no money is available.

As California collapses, executives at Goldman Sachs and other banks are anticipating record bonuses, returning to business as usual. No faction of the political establishment so much as suggests that those who are responsible for the economic crisis—the wealthy corporate and financial elite—should be made to pay for it.

On the contrary, the budget crisis in California is being used a template to enact cuts to social services all across the country. The ruling class is determined to seize on the economic crisis to restructure class relations in the United States.

Beyond Bad California Budgets

SF Gray Panthers Newsletter, July 2009

Beyond Bad California Budgets

A look at both State and City budgets shows the situation is very severe:  a $24 billion State shortfall and a $438 million San Francisco shortfall. You can also see there’s a severe crisis by looking at death-sentence cuts being seriously considered: no renal dialysis and breast or cervical cancer treatment for Medi-Cal recipients over age 65, or eliminating home care for 90% of IHSS patients.

A big part of the State problem is that liberal and Democratic legislators have the attitude that they must be responsible and pass a budget quickly, with any lethal cuts that business and Republicans demand, so that the state doesn’t go over the edge. But retirees, kids, badly sick or disabled people, or low-wage workers are already over the edge. Many are skipping meals, skipping meds and doctor visits, and late on rent and becoming homeless.  This is not the time for legislative responsibility!  It’s time to say “Never!” to a cuts-only budget.     A budget that does not meet our basic needs does not deserve to exist!  Are you ready, Sacramento?

California’s taxes on corporations and the rich are far less than levels set by Republicans thirty years ago, and are low by national standards.  The February 2009 budget alone contained some $2.5 billion/year in corporate tax loopholes, starting in 2011. Californians are ready for taxes. A David Binder poll last month showed 75% support for both alcohol and tobacco tax increases; 73% support for oil drilling fees; 63% support for both commercial property reassessments, and for a higher income tax on the highest brackets; and 59% support for limiting corporate tax credits.

Ultimately, many are saying we need to get rid of the requirement of a 2/3 vote of legislators to pass a budget.  After seeing the devastating cuts and the  “tyranny of the minority” in recent year’s budget battles, one might think this was a no-brainer.  However, according to Jodi Reid, of CARA, recent polling is NOT in favor of repealing this requirement, and it is precisely seniors, retirees, and other fixed-income people who want to keep it.  We will have our work cut out for us to persuade our cohorts to abandon politics of fear and isolation if we hope to ax the 2/3 requirement as a November, 2010 ballot measure.

Shawna Forde, Minuteman Leader, Arrested in Double Killing in Arizona

Huffington Post, June 19, 2009

Shawna Ford, Minuteman Leader, Arrested in Double Killing in Arizona

PHOENIX — Two of three people arrested in a southern Arizona home invasion that left a little girl and her father dead had connections to a Washington state anti-illegal immigration group that conducts border watch activities in Arizona.

Jason Eugene Bush, 34, Shawna Forde, 41, and Albert Robert Gaxiola, 42, have been charged with two counts each of first-degree murder and other charges, said Sheriff Clarence Dupnik of Pima County, Ariz.

The trio are alleged to have dressed as law enforcement officers and forced their way into a home about 10 miles north of the Mexican border in rural Arivaca on May 30, wounding a woman and fatally shooting her husband and their 9-year-old daughter. Their motive was financial, Dupnik said.

“The husband who was murdered has a history of being involved in narcotics and there was an anticipation that there would be a considerable amount of cash at this location as well as the possibility of drugs,” Dupnik said.

Forde is the leader of Minutemen American Defense, a small border watch group, and Bush goes by the nickname “Gunny” and is its operations director, according to the group’s Web site. She is from Everett, Wash., has recently been living in Arizona and was once associated with the better known and larger Minuteman Civil Defense Corps.

A statement attributed to officers of Forde’s group and posted on its Web site on Saturday extended condolences to the victims’ families and said the group doesn’t condone such acts and will cooperate with law enforcement.

“This is not what Minutemen do,” said member Chuck Stonex, who responded to an e-mail from The Associated Press sent through the Web site. “Minutemen observe, document and report. This is nothing more than a cold-hearted criminal act, and that is all we want to say.”

The assailants planned to leave no one alive, Dupnik said at a press conference in Tucson on Friday. He said Forde was the ringleader.  

“This was a planned home invasion where the plan was to kill all the people inside this trailer so there would be no witnesses,” Dupnik said. “To just kill a 9-year-old girl because she might be a potential witness to me is just one of the most despicable acts that I have heard of.”

Dupnik said Forde continued working through Friday to raise a large amount of money to make her anti-illegal immigrant operation more sophisticated.

Forde denied involvement as she was led from sheriff’s headquarters.

“No, I did not do it,” she said. “I had nothing to do with it.”

Gaxiola also denied involvement; Bush was arrested at a Kingman, Ariz., hospital where he was being treated for a leg wound he allegedly received when the woman who survived the attack managed to get a gun and fire back.

Killed were 9-year-old Brisenia Flores and her 29-year-old father, Raul Junior Flores. The name of the wounded woman who survived the attack hasn’t been released.

Forde is well known in the anti-illegal immigration community, said Brian Levin, director of the Center for the Study of Hate and Extremism at California State University-San Bernardino.

“She’s someone who even within the anti-immigration movement has been labeled as unstable,” Levin said. “She was basically forced out of another anti-immigrant group, the Minuteman Civil Defense Corps, and then founded her own organization.”

Stonex, of Alamagordo, N.M., said he met Forde while on an Arizona border watch operation last fall, and liked her despite her reputation in the Minutemen community.

“I know she’s always had sort of a checkered past but I take people for what I see and not what I hear,” the 57-year-old said.

She recruited him to start a new chapter in New Mexico, but was secretive about her group or its members. Stonex said he didn’t know how to recruit for a chapter and never did.

He said Forde called him on the day of the attack while he was visiting Arizona and asked him to bring bandages to an Arivaca home because Bush had been wounded. Stonex said it appeared Bush had a relatively minor gunshot wound, which he treated.

He said Forde and Bush told him Bush been wounded by a smuggler who shot at him while the group were patrolling the desert.

Stonex said he didn’t suspect that might not be the case until was contacted by a deputy on Saturday about their alleged involvement in the crime.

__

On the Net:

Minuteman American Defense: http://minutemenamericandefense.org

Civil Rights Groups Express Outrage; Defendants in Hate Crime Murder of Latino, Father of Two, Receive Six- and Seven-Month Sentences

Maldef News, June 17, 2009

Civil Rights Groups Express Outrage; Defendants in Hate Crime Murder of Latino, Father of Two, Receive Six- and Seven-Month Sentences

SHENANDOAH, PA – Today, the Schuylkill County Court sentenced Brandon Piekarsky and Derrick Donchak to six and seven months in county jail on simple assault and alcohol-related convictions, respectively. Both defendants were acquitted of third-degree murder and aggravated assault, respectively, last month after a jury trial relating to their role in the fatal beating of Luis Ramirez, a 25-year-old Mexican immigrant and father of two. Despite the evidence of a hate-driven attack that resulted in the death of a human being, the defendants were convicted of minor crimes and the corresponding convictions and sentences are wholly disproportionate to the crimes committed.

Piekarsky was convicted of simple assault and underage drinking and was sentenced to six months and seven days in custody. Donchak was sentenced to serve six months in custody for the crime of simple assault and one additional month for the alcohol-related charges. Both are eligible for parole for up to 23 months total after serving these minimum sentences.

“Donchak and Piekarsky were not brought to justice for brutally and fatally beating Luis Ramirez,” said Gladys Limón, MALDEF Staff Attorney. “Luis’ life is irreplaceable, and the value of what the defendants took from Luis and his family is incalculable. The meager sentences handed to the defendants today leaves justice gasping for further redress. The failure to hold these defendants responsible for their atrocious crimes denies justice not just to the Ramirez family, but also to the entire community by failing to deter similar crimes in the future.”

Luis Ramirez died on July 14, 2008, two days after being brutally beaten by his attackers who yelled racial epithets before and during the beating. His family submitted written victim impact statements to the court to be considered in determining the defendants’ sentences. The statements, which describe the physical, psychological and economic effects of the defendants’ crimes on the Ramirez family, were also orally presented at the hearing.

Following the hearing, national civil rights leaders from Anti-Defamation League and the Southern Poverty Law Center joined MALDEF in a national media call to call upon the Department of Justice to intervene and file federal hate crime charges against the defendants. MALDEF will also deliver over 50,000 petitions to Attorney General Eric Holder requesting that the Department of Justice bring federal hate crime charges against the assailants.

“The injustice faced by the family of Luis Ramirez is an outrage that goes beyond their small community. While FBI statistics show that hate crimes targeting Latinos have gone up 40 percent in the last five years, many more of these crimes go unreported because of fear of local authorities or further targeting,” said Cynthia Valenzuela, MALDEF Director of Litigation. “Congress needs to pass the Local Law Enforcement Hate Crimes Prevention Bill and get it to the President as quickly as possible. This legislation will help bring justice to cases like Luis’ and provide a deterrent to those who think of turning their hateful ideologies into violent acts.”

Given similar tragic crimes, including the recent shooting at the Holocaust museum in WashingtonD.C., the group called upon the U.S. Senate for a swift passage of the Local Law Enforcement Hate Crimes Prevention Act of 2009. The bill strengthens existing federal hate crime laws by authorizing the Department of Justice to assist local authorities in investigating and prosecuting certain bias-motivated crimes. The bill would also provide authority for the federal government to prosecute some violent bias-motivated crimes directed against individuals on the basis of their sexual orientation, gender, gender identity, or disability.

Richard Cohen, President and CEO of the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) said, “Since the year 2000, we’ve seen a 50 percent surge in the number of hate groups across the country, to a record 926 by our latest count. The increase has been fueled by the same factor responsible for the rise in the anti-Latino hate crimes — a backlash against the changing demographics of our country — a backlash fueled by politicians trolling for votes and pundits looking for ratings.”

For all media inquiries, please contact Estuardo Rodriguez or Laura Rodriguez.

NY Times Shows Dismantling of Sanctuary City in San Francisco

New York Times, June 13, 2009

San Francisco at Crossroads Over Immigration

By JESSE McKINLEY

SAN FRANCISCO — In the debate over illegal immigration, San Francisco has proudly played the role of liberal enclave, a so-called sanctuary city where local officials have refused to cooperate with enforcement of federal immigration law and undocumented residents have mostly lived without fear of consequence.

But over the last year, buffeted by several high-profile crimes by illegal immigrants and revelations of mismanagement of the city’s sanctuary policy, San Francisco has become less like its self-image and more like many other cities in the United States: deeply conflicted over how to cope with the fallout of illegal immigration.

At the center of the turnaround is a new law enforcement policy focused on under-age offenders who are in this country illegally. Under the policy, minors brought to juvenile hall on felony charges are questioned about their immigration status. And if they are suspected of being here illegally, they are reported to the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency for deportation, regardless of whether they are eventually convicted of a crime.

“We went from being one of the more progressive counties in the country to probably one of the least, and the most draconian,” said Abigail Trillin, the managing attorney with Legal Services for Children, a nonprofit legal group. “It’s been a total turnaround.”

Mayor Gavin Newsom, who ordered the new policy, disputes that characterization and ticks off a list of policies that remain immigrant friendly: the issuing of identification cards to residents regardless of legal status, the promotion of low-cost banking and the city’s longstanding opposition to immigration raids.

“I’m balancing safety and rights,” Mr. Newsom said. “And I’m taking the arrows.”

The policy was put in place last summer amid a series of embarrassing revelations about the city’s handling of illegal minors and even as reports arose of several serious crimes committed by illegal residents. The policy has led not only to dozens of juveniles in deportation proceedings, but also to criticism from the city’s public defender and members of its Board of Supervisors, which is threatening to relax it next month.

“I think the point of sanctuary is that you protect people and treat people the same unless they engage in some felony crime,” said David Campos, a county supervisor who came illegally to the United States from his native Guatemala when he was 14.

The new approach has pitted a growing coalition of immigrants rights groups against Mr. Newsom, who is running for governor in a state where immigrants, particularly Latinos, can be vital to being elected.

Mr. Newsom defends the policy as an effort to bring the city’s juvenile protocol in line with that for adult illegal immigrants, who have always been reported to federal authorities if they are accused of a felony.

But immigration advocates say the policy has too often swept up juveniles who are in this country illegally but who are innocent or held on minor charges, a list that includes young men like Roberto, 14, who has lived in the United States since he was 2.

Roberto, whose last name is being withheld at the request of his parents who are also in the country illegally, was handed over to immigration authorities last fall after he took a BB gun to school to show off to friends. He spent Christmas at a juvenile facility in Washington State and is now facing deportation to Mexico, where he was born.

The experience left Roberto shaken. “I was feeling really scared,” he said in an interview here.

Supporters of the new crackdown say that Roberto’s case is unrepresentative and that the majority of youths turned over to the immigration authorities have engaged in serious crimes, including those associated with the practice by Honduran drug gangs in San Francisco of using minors as dealers.

“A lot of them have histories; a lot of them are second, third chances,” Mr. Newsom said. “This is not as touchy feely as some people may want to make it.”

Mr. Newsom says he still supports the sanctuary ordinance, which grew out of worries in the 1980s about the deportation of Central Americans to war-torn regions. Made city law in 1989, the policy forbids city agencies to use resources to assist in the enforcement of federal immigration law or information gathering.

While proponents say such policies help the police by making immigrant communities — often suspicious of the authorities — more comfortable with reporting crimes, critics say San Francisco’s policy had been stretched to extremes, including the practice of occasionally flying some offenders back to their home countries rather than cooperating with immigration authorities.

Mr. Newsom says he discovered and stopped that practice in May 2008, and quickly ordered a review. Juvenile referrals began shortly thereafter and were formalized as policy in August.

In the interim, however, The San Francisco Chronicle reported that a group of teenage Honduran crack dealers who had been sent to a group home simply walked away from confinement.

A second event was more serious, when a father and two sons driving home from a picnic were killed in a case of mistaken identity in June 2008. The police later charged Edwin Ramos, an illegal immigrant from El Salvador and suspected gang member who had had run-ins with the San Francisco police as a juvenile but had not been turned over to the immigration authorities.

At the same time, San Francisco found itself under criminal investigation by the United States attorney for the Northern District of California, and city officials were eager to show that their city was not a lawless haven for illegal-immigrant criminals.

“If we start harboring criminals as a sanctuary city, this entire system is in peril,” Mr. Newsom said.

For their part, immigration advocates say they are not asking the city to shelter felonious youths from deportation. The problem, they say, is the point of contact: at arrest, rather than after any sort of legal adjudication.

“Even if you’re undocumented, you have the right to due process,” said Jeff Adachi, the city’s public defender.

The federal authorities, meanwhile, have been pleasantly surprised that the new policy has resulted in more than 100 referrals.

“We are now getting routine referrals,” said Virginia Kice, a spokeswoman for the immigration agency.

The most serious challenge to the policy is likely to come in July, when the Board of Supervisors is expected to take up a proposal that would apply the policy only to illegal juveniles found in court to have committed a felony. The measure’s sponsor, Mr. Campos, said he expected it to pass.

Such an ordinance would not help Roberto, who is still waiting to plead his case to an immigration judge. He said he had already learned a valuable lesson.

“I will never bring anything to school again,” he said.

Budget Justice Rally Rocks SF City Hall

Budget Justice Rally Rocks SF City Hall

“Mayor Newsom said ‘We have a near-perfect budget.’”
“Hell no! .. We have a budget with a lot of blood on the floor.”
” It’s your blood it’s our blood and all of our blood!”
Supervisor John Avalos

Hundreds marched from Hallidie Plaza to San Francisco City Hall yesterday afternoon to protest Mayor Gavin Newsom’s proposed city budget, which contains deep cuts to address a looming $438 million general fund deficit.

Organized by a coalition called Budget Justice, which includes Coleman Advocates, the Coalition on Homelessness, SEIU and others, the rally and march brought out a wide cross-section of people whose lives would be directly affected by cuts to the city’s health and human services programs. Homeless people, veterans, the elderly, AIDS patients, organizations that aid victims of violence and sexual abuse, people in need of mental-health therapy or programs for recovery from substance abuse, and single room occupancy residents were all represented. ( SF Bay Guardian Blog, June 11, 2009)

See Guardian editorial “Dismantling the Newsom Budget” below.
See video by  Bill Carpenter.
Thanks to Patricia Jackson for the photos.
See the leaflet for the event (pdf).

Dismantling the Newsom budget

The mayor’s cheery line may sound good when he’s out of town running for governor,
but it’s not going to play so well on the streets of San Francisco.

Guardian Editorial

EDITORIAL Mayor Gavin Newsom was upbeat when he delivered his budget proposal last week. It won’t be that bad, he told everyone — “At the end of the day, it’s a math problem.”

Well, actually, it’s not. At the end of the day, it’s job losses, major cuts to city services, and hidden taxes — most of them, despite the mayor’s rhetoric, falling on the backs of the poor.

You can’t cut $70 million from the Department of Public Health — which is already operating at bare-bones levels after years of previous cuts — without significant impacts on health care for San Franciscans. You can’t cut $19 million out of the Human Services Agency without badly hurting homeless and needy people. You can’t raise Muni fares to $2 without taking cash out of the pockets of working-class people. The mayor’s cheery line may sound good when he’s out of town running for governor, but it’s not going to play so well on the streets of San Francisco.

Just for the record, here are a few of the proposed cuts:

A 21-bed acute psychiatric unit would be shut and replaced with an 18-bed unit for milder cases. Where would the seriously mentally ill go?

The number of home-healthcare workers, the folks who take care of the very sick who need skilled clinical services in the home, would be cut by 30 percent. Those clients would either suffer, go to (expensive) hospitals, or die.

Ongoing outpatient mental health services would be limited to the most severe cases. People who are, for now, only moderately mentally ill would lose access to care (until, without care, they become severely mentally ill).

The emergency food-bag program for seniors will lose $50,000, so hungry senior citizens won’t get to eat.

Almost $3 million will be cut from community-based organizations that provide direct, frontline services to the homeless.

Almost half of the city’s recreation directors — people who provide direct services and mentoring to at-risk youth — will be laid off.

The Tenderloin Housing Clinic Eviction Defense Center, the only place that offers free legal defense for Ellis Act evictions, will lose funding, leaving hundreds of tenants at risk of losing their homes.

Drop-in centers will close. Programs for homeless youth will shut down. More homeless people with increasingly more serious mental illness will be wandering the streets with nowhere to go for help.

Mayor Newsom brags in his campaign ads about creating private-sector jobs — but the budget will mean layoffs not just for city employees but for perhaps 1,000 nonprofit workers. That dwarfs the job creation he’s claiming — and defies the Obama administration’s call for government and private business to try to preserve and create jobs.

This isn’t a math problem. It’s a political problem, and the supervisors need to make it very clear that the mayor’s budget isn’t going to fly.

The supervisors need to take the budget apart, piece by piece, and reset its priorities. Newsom increases funding for police investigators by $7 million, while cutting the Public Defender’s Office by $2 million. He’s preserving his own bloated political operation (a big press office, highly paid special assistants and programs like 311 that are part of his gubernatorial campaign) while eliminating big parts of the social safety net. He’s raising bus fares, but not taxes on downtown.

“The mayor has presented his vision,” Sup. John Avalos, who chairs the Budget Committee, explained. “Now our priorities have to be presented.”

This can’t be a modest, typical budget negotiation with the supervisors tweaking a few items here and there. This is a battle for San Francisco, for its future and its soul, and the supervisors need to start talking, today, about how they’re going to fight back. *

See the June 11, 2009 BeyondChron article “Supes Push for a More Equitable Budget,” describing the SF Supervisors Budget and Finance Committee’s passing an amendment cutting $82 million out of the Police, Fire and Sheriff Departments – so that the City can more adequately fund the Public Health Department and Human Services Agency, and more evenly “spread the pain” of the financial crisis among various agencies.

Cost containment has replaced concern for the uninsured in driving healthcare restructuring. What does this imply?

Cost containment has replaced concern for the uninsured in driving healthcare restructuring.
What does this imply?

Dr. Marcia Angell’s May 23, 2009 Boston Globe article, “Held Hostage by the Health System,” brings up a number of points not usually heard in arguments for single payer:

• Whether we like it or not, cost containment is becoming a more important driver than the uninsured in healthcare restructuring,

• measures that would improve health outcomes, like electronic records, case management, preventive care, and comparative effectiveness studies won’t save much money,

• What’s needed is not only abolishing health insurance companies, but eliminating profit in providing healthcare, such as doctors, hospitals, clinics etc.,

• When doctors are businesspeople and you pay them per patient, there’s an incentive to under-treat us,

• When  doctors are businesspeople and you pay them per procedure, there’s an incentive to over-treat us,

• The only way to remove these dangerous incentives is to have doctors on a salary, to have them as workers, not businesspeople.

Her comments also inspire other interesting questions:

If  it’s not OK to profit off healthcare, is it OK to profit off food, housing, education, water, and other necessities of life?

And suppose society were restructured to really promote health (including mental health) instead of treating sickness.

• Suppose  everyone had the right amount of healthy and safe food and water.

• Suppose  everyone had safe, healthy, and low-stress work places and living places.

• Suppose  everyone had enough time with family and friends to allow sustaining relationships.

• Suppose  everyone had wholesome and empowering education to promote an active, inquiring,  and engaged attitude toward life.

Would all this cost more, or cost less, than the billions spent on the sickness-care system we have now?

It would probably cost more, but we still have a right to it, even though getting it would mean turning the present power relationships of society upside down.

Israeli Journalist Amira Hass on the state of relations between Israel and Palestine

Both Israelis and Palestinians needed to exaggerate the Palestinian military threat to Israel for their own reasons. There is no way the Israeli figures about combatants among those killed are correct. And Hamas doesn’t want to break the myth that they could stand up against the Israeli army. …  About 58,800 housing units have been built with government approval in the West Bank over the [past] 40 years. An additional 46,500 have already obtained Defense Ministry approval within the existing master plans. Others say that it’s too late now to dismantle the settlements. So, actually, any solution which is based on the two states is obsolete.

Democracy Now, June 2, 2009

Israeli Journalist Amira Hass on the Start of the UN’s Probe into Possible Israeli War Crimes during Gaza War

The actions of the Israeli army during its twenty-two-day assault on the Gaza Strip earlier this year are back in the spotlight with the arrival of a United Nations delegation in Gaza this Monday. The fifteen-member team will be investigating possible war crimes and other violations of international law during Israel’s military assault. It’s headed by South African judge Richard Goldstone, who was the former chief prosecutor at the International Criminal Tribunals for the former Yugoslavia and Rwanda. Israel opposes the investigation and denied the delegation visas, forcing them to enter Gaza through the Egyptian-controlled Rafah crossing.

This is a conversation between Democracy Now host Amy Goodman and Amira Hass, author of Drinking the Sea at Gaza: Days and Nights in a Land under Siege and Reporting from Ramallah: An Israeli Journalist in an Occupied Land. Her latest book, out later this month from Haymarket Books, is a diary written by her mother, Hanna Levy-Hass, of surviving the notorious Nazi concentration camp, Bergen-Belsen. It’s called Diary of Bergen-Belsen, 1944-1945.

AMY GOODMAN: The actions of the Israeli army during the twenty-two-day assault on the Gaza Strip earlier this year are back in the spotlight with the arrival of the UN delegation in Gaza this Monday. The fifteen-member team will be investigating whether possible war crimes and other violations of international law during Israel’s military assault. It’s headed by South African judge Richard Goldstone, who was the former chief prosecutor at the International Criminal Tribunals for the former Yugoslavia and Rwanda. Israel opposes the investigation, denies the delegation visas, forcing them to enter Gaza through the Egyptian-controlled Rafah crossing.

Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak met with UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon in New York Monday and said the UN should investigate Hamas’s rockets and not alleged war crimes by Israel. He later told reporters Israel would not cooperate with the investigation, saying “From our experience, we well know that they will never be able to talk to the other side and to penetrate or to interrogate the series of terrorist operations along years, including thousands of rockets and missiles fell upon the heads of Israeli citizens, in order to get a unbiased conclusion. And knowing the procedures by which such operations are taken, I don’t think that Israel has to or will cooperate with this interrogation.

Human rights groups and Palestinian officials say over 1,400 Palestinians, including over 900 civilians, were killed in what Israel calls “Operation Cast Lead.” Israel disputes the figures, claiming less than 300 civilian deaths. The Israeli Defense Forces-led investigation concluded last month there was no evidence of serious misconduct by its troops.

I’m joined now by the renowned Israeli journalist Amira Hass, regular columnist for Israel’s Ha’aretz newspaper. She has spent more than a decade living in and reporting from Gaza and the West Bank, the only Israeli journalist to do this, and returned to Gaza this year a few days after the official end of Israel’s assault. She spent the next four months living in Gaza, documenting accounts of the war and its aftermath.  Welcome to Democracy Now!

AMIRA HASS: Hi.

AMY GOODMAN: It’s great to have you with us. The latest news of the UN delegation, headed by the jurist Richard Goldstone of South Africa, being denied visas, so they’re going through the Rafah border controlled by Egypt.

AMIRA HASS: This is not the first delegation and the first investigation committee that has been denied Israeli cooperation. There was one by the Arab League that came in February and also did not receive any cooperation on the Israeli part. And it’s very strange. If they didn’t have anything to hide, if the Israelis didn’t have anything to hide, they would have gladly cooperated and given information to those very esteemed jurists, who have been—who have done a lot of important work dealing with other investigations all over the world. John Dugard led the other delegation, the first delegation of the Arab League. John Dugard is South African, just as Richard Goldstone is. And Richard Goldstone is also a Jew. And it is quite telling, or it is even incriminating, the Israeli refusal to cooperate with them.

AMY GOODMAN: What do you think they’re hiding?

AMIRA HASS: The truth. The truth that it was not an attack against the military threat, because the military threat that Hamas poses is very minor. Israel, for years, has had the need to exaggerate the Palestinian military threat. It served not only Israeli needs, it very often served also internal Palestinian needs, to exaggerate their own threat to Israel, because that’s how they could maybe get more popularity in the Arab world, outside and inside the Palestinian community. So both—this exaggeration served both parties.

And, of course, Israel wants to hide—Israel built a presentation of the reality, not—it didn’t allow the reality to come out easily, the reality of indiscriminate attacks against civilians, mostly civilians. I was there for four months. I found it hard to find—I mean, the majority of people that I met, bereft families, people whose houses were destroyed, people whose houses were occupied by the army, people who were victims to missiles, attacks either by drones or helicopters, or bombs dropped, or being killed or wounded by bombs dropped by war jets. I found it hard to find Hamas—direct Hamas activists, let alone combatants or people who are known to be combatants. There is no way to hide this—there is no way that the Israeli figures about casualties is correct.

I mean, I asked the Israeli army to give me their list of—which they say about 700 casualties that they claim, or 1,000—I don’t remember now. They refused to give me their list. I wanted the list to check name by name and then to compare with the list that Palestinian human rights organizations compiled and to see where the differences are. And they said they could not give me the list, because this would disclose their sources. In one specific question about two women who were killed in short—by short range from a tank, I asked, “Are these two women included in your list of casualties?” I didn’t get an answer. So, the Israeli refusal to cooperate with information is very telling.

It’s true that also Hamas are not telling much. But by being there, of course, you learn a lot. They don’t tell much, because I think they don’t want to tell that—or they don’t want to break the myth that they could stand up against the Israeli army. They could not the Israeli army. And this is not shame. I mean, the discussion is whether one should—whether if you want to get to liberate the Palestinians from the Israeli occupation, whether the armed struggle or the—I call it the symbolic armed struggle, is indeed the way. This is the discussion. They have not—when you look at their abilities, when you look at their—the weapons that were smuggled in, those who sent them weapons did not send them sophisticated weapons at all. And there is no way they could stand up against the Israeli army. And this is something that the Israelis—both the Israelis and Hamas, I think, want to hide.

AMY GOODMAN: And Ehud Barak, the Israeli defense minister, meeting with Ban Ki-moon Monday, saying the UN should investigate Hamas’s rockets, not the alleged war crimes by Israel?

AMIRA HASS: I think that they have—I mean, everybody was talking about the rockets, and I think that the—let me ask you, you know the city of Sderot, right? You are familiar with this. Do you know Ben-e Have you ever mentioned in your program the village Bani Suhaila? How many people know about Beit Hanoun? How many people knew about Abasan? All these—how many people know—knew about Zeitoun? All these Palestinian neighborhoods and villages which were a victim of Israeli attacks. We only know about Sderot.

AMY GOODMAN: Well, it’s interesting. Journalists could get to Sderot.

AMIRA HASS: Exactly, yes, of course.

AMY GOODMAN: The Israeli military let them get to Sderot, but not to Gaza.

AMIRA HASS: Exactly, and not to Abasan in order to see and not to—yeah. So it’s a chutzpah. I mean, really, it’s even tiring to discuss it. So, everybody knows about the rockets, Hamas rockets, on the country. People had the impression that the whole thing—that history started with the rockets, that the history of Israeli-Palestinian conflict started with the rockets, which is, of course—which doesn’t mean, you know—there is a lot of criticism, internal criticism, within the Palestinian society about the rockets, the use of rockets. It’s obvious that rockets did not liberate Gaza, did not liberate Palestine, and they cause more harm to the Palestinians than they even cause to the Israelis.

I asked once two activists of Izz ad-Din al-Qassam, of the Hamas armed wing, I asked them, “Why do you do that?” I mean, it was back in 2003, 2004. And they told me, “We want to teach the Israelis a lesson. We want them to be afraid, just as we are, just as—not we, but just as our women and children are afraid.” This was very interesting. So it is a competition about who can instill more fear. I asked this time when I was in Gaza, I asked an activist in the Islamic jihad, I said, “So, who is more afraid? You or the Israelis?” And he admitted that in this competition over fear, also the Palestinians are the losers.

AMY GOODMAN: Amira Hass, there’s an article in the New York Times that says, “According to […] newly disclosed data, about 58,800 housing units have been built with government approval in the West Bank […] over the [past] 40 years. An additional 46,500 have already obtained Defense Ministry approval within the existing master plans, awaiting nothing more than a government decision to build.” We’re talking about a doubling almost—

AMIRA HASS: Yeah.

AMY GOODMAN: —of the settlements in the West Bank.

AMIRA HASS: Yeah.

AMY GOODMAN: This as Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu says there will be no new Jewish settlements in the occupied West Bank, and illegal outposts there will be dismantled.

AMIRA HASS: Look, all settlement is illegal. So when we use the term “illegal outposts,” it’s misleading. It’s unauthorized illegal settlements, while you have the authorized illegal settlements. This is the real distinction.

And the real problem is not these outposts. They are tiny. Most of them are tiny. And they just distract our attention from the real construction. Yeah, this has been Israeli success. And this is, by the way, one of the things I ask the Palestinians, and that’s a problem. Neither the Palestinian so-called armed struggle—I call it symbolic armed struggle—and suicide—and terrorist attacks, both guerrilla and—guerrilla attacks and terror attacks against civilians, both these and Palestinian negotiation strategy have not stopped the settlements. On the contrary, the settlements grew in parallel, in tandem with the Oslo process and with the process of negotiations.

So, actually, Israel—you know, I asked once a Peace Now activist, and it was in ’95 or so, I asked him, “Why did you drop the slogan that you had before ’91 or before ’93, the slogan of ‘no peace with the settlements’?” And he said, “If the Palestinians accept the settlements, actually, if Abu Mazen accepted some settlements, who are we to oppose him or to say differently?” It’s true that with the Oslo agreement, Palestinians gave the impression that they could live with the settlements. And then you had the Geneva—Geneva talks or whatever, not talks, but the convention of some groups, that accepted the existence of two major settlements: Ma’ale Adumim and Givat Ze’ev. So, indeed, the Palestinians gave an impression that they will tolerate these settlements. And we—no, some Palestinians, not all, of course. Others say that it’s too late now to dismantle the settlements. So, actually, it is—any solution which is based on the two states is obsolete.

AMY GOODMAN: Your evaluation, assessment of President Obama so far on the Israel-Palestine conflict, as he heads now to the Middle East, first to Saudi Arabia, then to Egypt?

AMIRA HASS: It’s—

AMY GOODMAN: And then to the Buchenwald concentration camp.

AMIRA HASS: Yeah. My evaluation, it’s—so far I see more hope invested in him than I see real inclinations to pressure Israel. I mean, all the statements that were said so far are encouraging, in the sense that he understands or his administration understands that there must be a way out of this deadlock. But there must be measures taken, such as freeze of sales of arms to Israel, freeze or stoppage of all support, financial support of Israel as long as it continues to build in the settlements. So these things are yet to be seen.

AMY GOODMAN: Amira Hass, I hope this is part one of our conversation this week, that when you come back to New York City, you’ll be with us later in the week, because I particularly also want to talk about your mother’s book that’s out posthumously, Diary of Bergen-Belsen, as President Obama visits a concentration camp, as well. This is Democracy Now!, democracynow.org. Our guest, Amira Hass, columnist for Ha’aretz newspaper, renowned Israeli journalist.

Mounting resistance of Amazon Indians in Peru against oil drilling, hydroelectric dams

New York Times, June 6, 2009

Note: On Tuesday, June 16th, Earl Gilman, of the San Francisco Gray Panthers will speak about his recent trip to Peru and Chile, including a visit with jailed political activist Lori Berenson, a background of some of the resistance groups in Peru, and the broader perspective of the Amazon Indian rebellions in the context of NAFTA.   More on the meeting.

Fatal Clashes Erupt in Peru at Roadblock

By SIMON ROMERO

LIMA, Peru — Clashes between indigenous protesters and security forces on a remote jungle highway in northern Peru left more than a dozen dead on Friday, including 11 police officers, heightening tension over intensifying protests by indigenous groups over plans to open vast tracts of rain forest to oil drilling, logging and hydroelectric dams.

Initial accounts of the clashes varied. Indigenous leaders here said the killings unfolded early on Friday after the police fired from helicopters on hundreds of protesters who had blocked the highway in the northern Bagua Province, with at least 22 civilians killed. The Chachapoyas Medical Association, in the region where the killings took place, put the number of dead Indians at 25.

Peru’s interior minister, Mercedes Cabanillas, said the police did not initiate the bloodshed but were “victims of the frenzy.” Prime Minister Yehude Simon said Friday night that 11 police officers and 3 Indians had been killed, and that 38 police officers and a civilian engineer were abducted by the protesters.

The protests are part of an increasingly well-orchestrated campaign by indigenous groups that have been inspired in part by similar movements in Bolivia and Ecuador.

Angered by the government’s failure to involve them in the plans, the indigenous groups in Peru have surprised the authorities with their sudden strength and organization and are now threatening to blunt President Alan García’s efforts to lure foreign investment to the region.

“The president thought we would be docile in accepting plans that could completely change the way we hunt for food and raise crops, and we are not,” said Juan Agustín, 41, a Shipibo Indian and a leader of the Peruvian Jungle Interethnic Development Association, an umbrella group here representing more than 300,000 people from dozens of indigenous groups.

The protests have disrupted oil production and pipelines, blocked commerce on roads and waterways, and halted flights at remote airports. While shortages of fuel and food have been reported in some jungle areas, the real concern is that the protests will succeed in cutting energy supplies to major coastal cities.

The killings in Friday’s clashes in Bagua, near an oil pipeline that was a target of the protesters, present a robust challenge to Mr. García, with indigenous leaders here describing them as “genocide.” Officials imposed a curfew in the region as they tried to prevent further violence.

Mr. García had already declared a 60-day state of emergency on May 9 in areas affected by the protests, which began in April. But the move seems only to have escalated tensions, with protests spreading from northern Peru to strategically important locations in the country’s south.

Last weekend about 200 Machiguenga Indians occupied valve stations on the pipeline that moves natural gas from the huge Camisea project in the southeast. Soldiers regained control of the sites, the energy ministry reported. But indigenous leaders said they would try again.

The protesters demand that Mr. García repeal decrees that have made it easier for companies to enter the Amazon Basin, and they have focused on thwarting larger projects.

For instance, leaders from the Asháninka indigenous group are trying to derail a plan by Eletrobrás, a company controlled by Brazil’s government, to spend more than $10 billion to build five hydroelectric plants in Peru.

“We want an immediate halt to every project that was conceived without consulting those of us who live in the forest,” said Daniel Marzano, 39, an Asháninka leader from Atalaya Province.

But it is the coordinated focus of the protests on energy installations that has most alarmed analysts and Peru’s business and political classes, who overwhelmingly live in coastal cities.

“The leaders have a strategic vision of hitting the country where it hurts,” said Alberto Bolívar, a security expert, who pointed out the potential for the protesters in some remote jungle areas to combine forces with a resurgent faction of the Shining Path, the Maoist group feeding off Peru’s cocaine trade.

On Friday, the guerrillas fired on a helicopter carrying troops in southern Peru, killing one soldier and wounding four others.

Aldo Mariátegui, editor of the daily newspaper Correo, speculated that the protests were being supported by the governments in Venezuela and Bolivia to oust Mr. García. It is a view held by some among Peru’s political and business elite.

Indigenous leaders interviewed here rejected the notion, however. Instead, they said conflict arose because the government had opened the rain forest to new investments without thoroughly consulting or involving the people who live there.

In the case of oil, for instance, at least 58 of the 64 areas secured by multinational companies for oil exploration overlay lands titled to indigenous peoples, according to a study last year by scientists from Duke University.

Explaining the government’s position last month, Mr. García said, “We have to understand when there are resources like oil, gas and timber, they don’t belong only to the people who had the fortune to be born there, because that would mean more than half of Peru’s territory belongs to a few thousand people.”

Such views resonate in a country of nearly 30 million people where almost three-quarters of them live in urban areas. But the protests, which show few signs of abating, offer a different vision of how Peru should develop.

Even before the clashes in Bagua, the government used the navy this week to break through blockades on the Napo River in the north to allow barges for Perenco, an oil company planning to invest $2 billion, to move deeper into the rain forest.

“Now we have a government resorting to using military force to spearhead development of the Amazon,” said Paul McAuley, an environmental activist in the Amazonian city of Iquitos with Christian Brothers, a Roman Catholic lay order. “This cannot be a strategy that is sustainable.”

Salas and Ma’s Pro-JROTC State bills failing

JROTC and Physical Education and the wars in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Pakistan

Salas and Ma’s Pro-JROTC  State Bill AB 351 is Going Down

by Marc Norton and Riva Enteen
June 4, 2009

Alert: On Tuesday, June 9, at 5:30 PM The SF School Board will hold a meeting where they vote on allowing students to take a phony “Independent Studies” option as a way of substituting JROTC for their Physical Education requirement.   This would not only sustain JROTC but seriously undermine efforts to promote fitness among youth, particularly working-class and minority youth. Location: 555 Franklin Street (betw. McAllister & Grove)

(Article continues.)  The last hope by supporters of Junior Reserve Officers’ Training Corps (JROTC) to get a state exemption from physical education (PE) classes this year went down the tubes Tuesday, June 2. That was the day the only PE exemption bill still standing — AB 351, authored by Mary Salas (D-San Diego) and Fiona Ma (D-San Francisco) – was pulled off the Assembly floor and returned to the Education Committee.

According to sources, the San Diego school board — the prime mover behind this bill — adamantly rejected any kind of state monitoring to insure that the required physical education curriculum would be provided for classes, including JROTC, which would exempt students from taking regular PE classes. In addition, again according to sources, the authors had promised Education Committee members that specific PE standards would be incorporated into the bill, but this promise was not kept.

The Education Committee has not scheduled any hearings on the bill, and no one expects any in the near future.

Earlier on Tuesday, the authors finally admitted that they couldn’t get the two-thirds majority required for an “urgency” bill, and amended the bill to remove the “urgency” clause. An “urgency” bill takes effect immediately upon final passage. Without this clause, the earliest AB 351 could go into effect would be January 1, 2010 – assuming that it ever gets back out of the Education Committee, gets passed by the Assembly and Senate, and signed by the Governor.

Now, even in the best-case scenario for JROTC supporters, all state physical education standards, including curriculum and credentialing requirements, will be in place when schools throughout the state start up again in the Fall. This presents a significant legal and political challenge to school districts still intent on exempting students in JROTC and other school programs from PE classes.

Two other state bills this year also could have led to exempting JROTC students from PE classes. AB 223, also authored by Fiona Ma, never made it out of the Appropriations Committee, and has now been abandoned by Ma. AB 554, authored by Warren Furutani (D-Long Beach), was amended to remove the original PE exemption, but in any event is also stuck in the Appropriations Committee.

Ironically, the attempt by JROTC supporters to get an exemption from state PE rules, and their failure to do so, has only served to shine a light on the partnership between certain school districts and the Pentagon. Many JROTC proponents claim that they only want to give students a “choice” to be part of the military program. But school districts that insist on allowing the military to use PE credit as bait for the program show, by their actions, that their real interest is in promoting JROTC. More than just giving youth a “choice,” they seek to funnel 14 and 15-year-old children, particular low-income youth and youth of color, into one of the military’s favorite and most successful recruiting programs.

This is particularly repugnant in this historical period, when the illegal war and occupation in Iraq is far from over, and the doomed-to-failure war in Afghanistan and Pakistan is ratcheting up. Just this week we have reached the sad milestone of 5,000 deaths of U.S. military service members in these two wars. Tens of thousands more U.S. soldiers have become living casualties of these wars, as have hundreds of thousands of Iraqis, Afghanis and Pakistanis. No one knows where these wars will end, or at what cost to the world’s yearning for peace and justice.

In this context, PE credit for JROTC is not merely a bad idea. It is complicity in slaughter. Save lives – let AB 351 die.