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Today's Stories August 31, 2007 Jeff Gibbs Why I Am Not Going to the Protest August 30, 2007 Gary Leupp Larry Craig on the Seat John Ross Dead Forest Defenders Anthony DiMaggio Arabic as a Terrorist Language: the Right-Wing Assault on the Gibran Academy Jordan Flaherty Racism and Criminal Justice in New Orleans Michael Donnelly The Sierra Club Greenwashes Al Gore (and Desecrates John Muir) Russell Mokhiber Whiskey is for Drinking, Water is for Fighting Dennis Brutus and Patrick Bond Global Financial Apartheid William S. Lind The Truth Tellers Martha Rosenberg They Call Him Dr. Cruel Jeff Leys / Brian Terrell Seasons of Discontent: a Presidential Occupation Project Website of the Day Bragg: "Old Clash Fan Fight Song" August 29, 2007 Patrick Cockburn Maliki and The Mass Shia Pilgrimage to Kerbala Winslow T. Wheeler The Costs of the Afghanistan War David Rosen The GOP's Outed All-Stars: The Forced Freeing of Gay Men from the Republican Closet Dave Zirin Confronting Katrina Paul Craig Roberts More Shame, More Sorrow Diane Farsetta Christie Todd Whitman's Nuclear Spinning Wheel Ben Davis Who Won't Stand Up for Kenneth Foster?: Charles Rangel, For One Alan Farago The Housing Crisis and the Environment Jenna Orkin Echoes of 9/11: Another Fire at Ground Zero Don Monkerud The Vanishing American Vacation Richard Nasser Surfing Gaza: More Uplifting News from NPR Website of the Day Don't Sleep on the Struggle   August 28, 2007 Uri Avnery The Language of Force Bill Quigley Katrina, Two Years Later Joshua Frank The Fight to Save the Rocky Mountains China Hand "I am Alden Pyle:" Bush's Vietnam Fantasy Firmin DeBrabander Drug Wars: From Afghanistan to Baltimore Charles Peña Nuclear Fear Factor Andy Worthington Good Riddance, Gonzales Ramzy Baroud Abbas and the Abyss Anthony Papa Roger Stone's New Patsy Ashley Smith Drawing the Line at Kennebunkport Website of the Day B is for Bomb August 27, 2007 Jorge Mariscal The General Reports Bill Christison Why the US and Israel Should Lose Middle East Wars Manuel Garcia, Jr. 911 Emergency! Calling Robert Fisk!: You are Now Entering a Black Hole Anthony DiMaggio Chronicle of a Coup Foretold?: Bush, al-Maliki and the Press Bruce A. Roth India and the New Nuclear Era John Walsh Abe Foxman's Genocide Denial Roadshow, Part 2 Dave Lindorff Gonzo's Gone Ron Jacobs Taking It to the Streets Binoy Kampmark Poshed Up: Why the Beckhams Should Go Back to Brighty Russell D. Hoffman My Favorite Scientist: John Gofman, Bane of the Nuclear Industry Website of the Day George W. Told the Nation   August 25 / 26, 2007 Alexander Cockburn Don't Carpool with Nouri al-Maliki James Petras The Great Financial Crisis Jeffrey Buchanan / Chris Kromm Where Did the Katrina Money Go? Marjorie Cohn Turning Iraq into Vietnam Rev. William E. Alberts Jesus, the Theological Prisoner of Christianity Robert Fantina Ari Fleischer, Freedom Watch and the Pro-War Lobbyists Brian Concannon Whitewashing the History of Abolition Ralph Nader What Do They Have to Hide? Laura Carlsen Extending NAFTA's Reach Fred Gardner Notes from Hempfest David Michael Green History, the Last Refuge of Scoundrels Stephen Soldz Why Mary Pipher Returned Her APA Award Mike Ferner Combatants for Peace: Former Enemies Find New Way Forward Paul Krassner Mort Sahl's Punchline Ben Tripp Resistance is Impossible--But Not Futile Missy Beattie President Druzilla Website of the Weekend Blue Print for Gulf Renewal   August 24, 2007 Paul Craig Roberts A Hegemonic Hubris Greg Moses A Cruel and Unusual Excuse William Schroder Bush, Vietnam and Iraq Alan Farago The Pain of Paper Millionaires Jackie Corr Uncle Ben Bernacke and the Nanny State Jeff Ballinger Naomi Klein and the Path Not Taken Bill Quigley Pere Jean-Juste Comes Home Dave Zirin Inching Toward Insanity Richard Rhames Deaver and the Making of Reagan Ryan Haygood How Newark Can Mend Website of the Day Lindorff's Iraq Rag   August 23, 2007 Kathy Kelly We Shouldn't be Causing This P. Sainath Meeting the Mahatma Ron Jacobs Bush, Vietnam and 14 More GIs Dead Christopher Brauchli Beyond Kafka: Mistakes, Soreheads and Eavesdropping D.K. Wilson When Sports Journalists Talk Race Joshua Frank The Weeds of Willapa Bay Dan Bacher Schwarzenegger's True Lies About Dams and Canals Brenda Norrell Bush's House of Snakes: Indians, Border Biometrics and Migrating Corporations John Wright The Ongoing Tragedy of Afghanistan David Vest Elvis and Racism, Round 2 Website of the Day Urgent Plea: the Black Agenda Report Needs Your Help!   August 22, 2007 Norman Finkelstein Remembering Raul Hilberg Marc Levy Sleepless in Iraq Lawrence R. Velvel When Courts Bow Down to Secrecy Ray McGovern Bush's Iran War Drums Beating Louder Norman Solomon How to Survive at the Pentagon on $2 Billion a Day John Walsh Abe Foxman's Genocide Denial Road Show Michael Dickinson Little Brother is Watching You William S. Lind Operation Kabuki?: the Credibility of David Petraeus Bill Hatch A Short Walk into the Valley of Death Kenneth E. Foster and John Joe Amador How We Will Protest Our Executions David Vest Predictable Parallels: CNN and PBS Website of the Day The Once and Future Steve Perry August 21, 2007 Saul Landau The FBI's New Power Alan Farago Sand Houses and Missing Beaches John Stauber Iraq: the Gift that Keeps on Bleeding Phillip Rizk Gaza and the Jordanian Option Debbie Nathan Giuliani's Garden District Binoy Kampmark The Art of Sinning Martha Rosenberg The Fastow Economy Sunsara Taylor Back to School During Wartime Website of the Day Coffee with the Troops   August 20, 2007 Paul Craig Roberts Padilla Jury Opens Pandora's Box Uri Avnery Stumbling Toward Another War Rannie Amiri Nasrallah's Surprise: a Warning from Beirut's No Bluff Zone John Ross The Fine Art of Bad Elections Harvey Wasserman The Senate's Radioactive Rip-Off Robert Billyard Canada's Disgrace: the Cases of Maher Arar and Omar Khadr Dave Lindorff Excuse Us, Nancy Pelosi James Rothenberg Why Your Vote Will Never Matter David "DC" Larson To Smear a King Website of the Day Bird Cinema August 18 / 19, 2007 Alexander Cockburn Exit Karl Rove, Everyone's Useful Demon Saul Landau The FBI in War and Peace Ralph Nader Greed and Folly on Wall Street Patrick Cockburn A Bloody Week in Iraq Robert Fantina Cannon Fodder: Beau Biden and other "Deployable Assets" Robert S. Eshelman Azar's Story: an Iraqi Refugee Living in Syria P. Sainath The Last Battle of Laxmi Panda Dave Lindorff Tossing Fuel on a Fire: US Military Aid to Israel Anthony DiMaggio Iraq, Iran & the Vanishing Context in American News Fred Gardner The Politics of Schizophrenia Ron Jacobs The Virtues of Resistance Tom Turnipseed War Profiteering and Corruption: From Lexington, S.C. to the White House Paul Krassner Assholes of the Week: Special Preachers, Priests and Clerics Edition! Ben Tripp I'm So Screwed Andrew Wimmer Living With Grief Nancy Oden Where Inmates Can Grow for Free N.D. Jayaprakash India Backtracks on Disarmament Rick Smith Reflections on Cuba: an Interview with Doug Morris Missy Beattie The Suicide Bomber Poets' Basement Engel, Ford, Orloski and McLellan Website of the Weekend Imperial Storm Troopers in Action August 17, 2007 Joanne Mariner Terrorizing Social Protest Paul Craig Roberts China is not the Problem Shepherd Bliss Returning to the Scene of the Crime: Chile, 30 Years Later Dave Lindorff Convicting Padilla: Bad News for All Americans John Muthyala The Water and the Road: Katrina, Poverty and the American Dream Patrick Cockburn Deepening Divsions in Iraq Sherwood Ross Military Interrogators are Posing as Lawyers at Gitmo Phil Doe The Old West Moves East: the Political Science of Colorado River Water David Michael Green Karl Rove and the Damage Done Website of the Day Gorilla Slaughter: a Personal Account August 16, 2007 Jonathan Cook The Second Lebanon War, a Year Later Christopher Brauchli Babes in Toxic Toyland Norman Solomon Backspin for War Lee Sustar / Orlando Sepuldeva Victory on the Picket Line: How Immigrant Workers Won Their Strike Against Cygnus George Bisharat Boycott Movement Targets Israel Binoy Kampmark Tasteless: Gordon Ramsey and the Death of Gastronomy Evelyn Pringle Protection Racket?: the FDA and Avandia Hugo Blanco The Epic Struggle of Indigenous Andean / Amazonian Website of the Day Burning Man: the Field Recordings   August 15, 2007 Paul Craig Roberts "No American President Can Stand Up to Israel" Michael Neumann In Memoriam: Raul Hilberg Jordan Flaherty The Struggle to Free the Jena Six Sonja Karkar Can You Hear the Cries from Gaza? Felice Pace NPR Watch: Will Linda Gradstein Go to Gaza? Joshua Frank On Censoring Pearl Jam Dave Lindorff Terrorist Nation? Carla Blank Elvis Presley: King or Apprentice? David Vest Guralnick, Elvis and Racism Harvey Wasserman Why the Neocons Won't Miss Karl Rove Peter Rost, M.D. FDA Approved Drug Makes You Hypersexual and a Compulsive Gambler Russell Mokhiber An Arab American's Pocket Political Dictionary Website of the Day Stoners Busted   August 14, 2007 Paul de Rooij Humanitarian Wars and Associated Delusions Winslow T. Wheeler Congress's Busted September: Disingenuous Gestures Amid Catastrophe David Rosen The Case of Genarlow Wilson: Racism, Justice and Age-of-Consent Laws in America Gary Leupp Bush Warns Puppets Not to Praise Iran Clifton Ross Latin America at the Crossroads Muhammad Idress Ahmad The Politics of Democracy Promotion Jacquelyn Godin A Circle of Poison: Pesticides in the Plantations Uri Avnery Oslo Revisited Ramzy Baroud A Palestinian Miracle at the UN? James McEnteer Philistines as Cultural Critics Website of the Day When Cheney Called Iraq a Quagmire   August 13, 2007 Jeremy Scahill The Mercenary Revolution F. William Engdahl The Hidden Agenda Behind Bush's Biofuel Plan Alexander Cockburn The Veldt Will Never Be the Same Kathy Kelly Iraq's Refugees: "et to Work" Chris Floyd No Light, Light Tunnel: the Bipartisan Guarantee of More War in Iraq Paul Craig Roberts Hegemony of the Cockroach William Blum First Pullout, Then Bloodbath? Kenneth Couesbouc The Language of Dominion Rannie Amiri Tancredo's Screedo: a Lethal Mix of Ignorance and Insanity Brenda Norrell Priests Expose Secret Cycle of US Torture Fran Shor All Fall Down Ron Jacobs Dr. Strangelove Meets Dubya's Double Buzz Twofer Website of the Day The Beauty of Defiance   August 11 / 12, 2007 Alexander Cockburn How the Democrats Blew It in Only 8 Months Stan Goff The Cover-Up of Pat Tillman's Death Ralph Nader GM Radio: Payola to Rightwing Talk Shows? Vijay Prashad Destination Darfur: a New Cold War for Oil Greg Moses SubPrime People: Behind the Banking Crisis Alan Farago The Cratering Mortgage Market, WCI Communities and Amb. Al Hoffman Patrick Cockburn The Cracks in Saddam's Dam Ben Tripp On Fleeing the Country Robert Fantina Romney's Dance: The Rightwing Flip-Flop John Ross The Guelaguetza Strategy in Oaxaca Seth Sandronsky Organizing Nurses Paul Krassner Assholes of the Week: From Mitt Romney to Bill Richardson Website of the Weekend Pearl Jam: Censored by ATT   August 10, 2007 Paul Craig Roberts China's Threat to the Dollar is Real Stan Goff How Pat Tillman Died Marjorie Cohn A Blank Check for Domestic Spying Saul Landau In the Age of Immigrant Panic Chris Floyd Goading Xerxes: the Coming Strike on Iran Daniel Ellsberg A Vision for Cindy Sheehan's Campaign Anthony Papa The Upside Down Flag: a Country in Distress Farzana Versey On the Heels of Sir Salman Sgt. Kevin Benderman Freedom or Totalitarianism? Nuri Nuri Memories of T99 Nelson Website of the Day Lessons in Obfuscation from Sen. Larry Craig: How to Talk About Looting the Public Domain   August 9, 2007 Stan Goff The Fog of Fame: Pat Tillman as Everyone's Political Football Paul Craig Roberts In the Hole to China Alan Farago The Terror of the Mortgage Pools William S. Lind The Surge's New Math: One Step Forward, Two Back Doug Giebel Letter from Montana: What the Bushvolk Have Done to America Harvey Wasserman Radioactive Bailout in Advance Jacob Hill The Tail End of Free Trade: NAFTA's Impact on the Manufacturing Sector Raul Zibechi The Dark Side of Agrofuels Dave Zirin The Making of Barry bin Laden Website of the Day "Babies Just Come with the Scenery"   August 8, 2007 Andy Worthington Backing Up Lt. Col. Abraham on Gitmo Abuse Jeff Halper The Catch in Israel's "Generous Offers" at Jericho Greg Moses No Light in August for Texas Refugees: Judge Orders Baby Sent to Palestine Nurit Peled-Elhanan The Murder of Abir Aramin, 9 Years Old Sukant Chandan British Prisons as Islamic Universities Robert Fisk A Lebanese Surprise George H. Strauss The Military Society D.K. Wilson Bonds, the Haters and 756: Why Bob Costas Can't be Trusted Bill Day Leonardo DiCaprio's Baggage: the Perils of Celebrity Environmentalism Tim Campbell Monkey See, Monkey Do Politics Website of the Day Periodic Table of Visualization Methods   August 7, 2007 Patrick Cockburn Why the Surge Has Failed Andy Worthington Why Do We Need the Democrats?: They Have Failed to Restrain Bush on Gitmo, Iraq and Domestic Spying Kathy Kelly The Little Girl of Hiroshima Stan Cox The Antiwar Majority: Look Quickly, You Might Miss It Sonja Karkar Israel's Settlement Project Sen. Russ Feingold A License to Wiretap--Anyone Alan Farago Dancing in the Light of Florida Norman Solomon Let Us Now Praise an Infamous Woman Binoy Kampmark Giving Good Face: What Jeremy Bentham and Facebook Have in Common Dave Lindorff The Gelding Congress John Stauber Coffee with the Troops at Yearly Kos Website of the Day George Carlin on Education       Subscribe Online

August 31, 2007 Win-Win for All? Think Again Auto Makers Push Health Care Trust Solution for Industry in Crisis By CHRIS KUTALIK A rising chorus of business gurus is singing the praises of a new solution to the U.S. auto industry's ongoing crisis: one big health care trust for all the Big 3's workers. According to the proposal's cheerleaders, by making giant one-time pay-ins the Big 3 auto makers can slice off an estimated $116 billion worth of retiree health obligations from their balance sheets in one swoop and restore profitability. What's more, union members will gain too because the money and future administration of retiree health care will be placed in the hands of a massive UAW-administered trust, called a Voluntary Employees Beneficiary Association (VEBA). A simple win-win for all, right? "Wrong," say a growing number of United Auto Workers members. UAW rank and filers, including members of the UAW rank-and-file group Soldiers of Solidarity, have launched a campaign to demand that all plans for such a solution be dropped in current contract negotiations. In one campaign leaflet these workers say that VEBA really stands for "Vandalize Employee Benefits Again" and that the plan will allow "the company to walk away from retiree health care commitments, and shift all the risk." But what exactly is a VEBA? On the surface, a VEBA is nothing more than a federally recognized non-profit 501(c) (9) corporation set up to insure that health care, pension, unemployment, or other benefits are routinely paid out to workers covered by the trust. According to the non-profit monitoring service Guidestar, there are at least 2,700 VEBAs already in existence for union and non-union employees in industries ranging from steel to utilities to telecommunications. Indeed, several of them already exist (mostly to dole out unemployment money) for Big-3 companies or major auto part suppliers like Visteon, Delphi, Dana, and Johnson Controls. VEBA RED FLAGS On closer examination, however, red flags pop up for union members in several critical areas. For one, many of the trusts start off under-funded. In fact, business analysts claim that this under-funding is one of the key advantages of a Big-3 VEBA solution. They point to the success of Goodyear Tires in dumping $1.3 billion of retiree health care obligations in favor of a $1 billion lump sum payment into a VEBA in the wake of the settlement of its grueling strike with the Steelworkers in late 2006. Business analyst Mark Oline told Financial Week that General Motors may be only willing or able to offer less than $35 billion of the estimated $50 billion that it owes retired workers. Ford was estimated to only be able to put $13 billion of $17 billion, while Chrysler, with mounting financial pressures from its recent buyout by Cerberus, remained unknown in what it is expected to offer. UAW members fear that under-funding could lead to a simple, grim arithmetic: each dollar shortchanged will presumably translate into a dollar that can't be spent on health care premiums, co-pays, deductibles, or quality of care. Under a VEBA, the remaining costs of maintaining health care benefits will have to be shifted back to the workers themselves. "VEBA shortchanges retirees on benefits they already earned because it is underfunded upfront," said Gregg Shotwell, a member of UAW Local 2151. "Exchanging dimes for dollars does not make sense. Whatever the company stands to save, retirees stand to lose. Eventually, it will put the union in charge of demanding retirees pay more out of pocket to make up for the short fall." Skyrocketing health care costs or an economic downturn may make an under-funded Big-3 VEBA into even more of a loser for workers. "God help us if we go into a depression or recession," former UAW President Douglas Fraser commented to The Washington Post, "and the value of the fund plummets and the UAW is sitting there with this huge liability." Moreover, that liability may be more than financial-it may also be political. By taking on the role of health care administrator, the union could be forced into a compromised position, having to potentially limit or cut benefits for the workers it represents. REAL DANGERS These pitfalls are not merely hypothetical. They have already occurred with disastrous results for workers inside the UAW. Following the signing of a concessionary two-tiered contract in January 2005, workers at Caterpillar found themselves with a bankrupt VEBA. According to the Caterpillar VEBA's 2005 tax filing, the fund paid out $1,350,131 while only having $1,345,186 left in contributions, leaving it owing $4,500. Retired Caterpillar workers expecting to draw from the fund suffered from the shortfall. They were left to deal with dramatic increases in co-pays, premiums, and deductibles despite previous agreements to protect them. "I knew I had paid for my lifetime health care coverage through the wage and benefit structure of all the previous contracts I worked under, but this agreement vetoed them all," retired Caterpillar worker and former UAW Local 751 President Larry Solomon wrote in Labor Notes at the time. "My wife and I will be paying $118/month premiums in 2005, and these will increase each year to a projected $332 by 2010." Fed-up with the inaction of UAW International leadership, members filed a federal class-action lawsuit against Caterpillar in May 2007. According to Shotwell, the case is still pending in the courts and in a final twist "now Caterpillar is suing the UAW because they should have prevented retirees from suing the company." A similar case occurred again at Detroit Diesel. Set up in 1993 to fund retiree benefits, the joint company-and-UAW-administered fund was exhausted by 2004. Saddled with sudden out-of-pocket health care costs, three Detroit Diesel members turned to the courts in desperation, filing a class action suit in January 2007 in defense of the 1,126 affected retirees and surviving family members. In certain cases, employers can even raid a VEBA's funds after it has been set up to fund capital expenditures. In 2000, General Motors shifted $1 billion from a VEBA that covered members of the UAW and other unions, according to William Hanline, a member of UAW Local 2195 in Decatur, Alabama. GM spent $500 million of the $1 billion on investments in Suzuki plants and another $500 million to boost the profits of its financing arm, GMAC. DROPPING VEBA With these dangers in mind, anti-VEBA UAW members are hoping that they can put up enough resistance to force VEBA plans to be dropped. They plan on distributing flyers and lobbying fellow members at Labor Day parades, union picnics, and other events throughout Michigan. They also plan on taking the fight beyond just a defensive one around stopping VEBA. Many members are advocating a more far-reaching solution to the auto industry's health care crisis: a national single-payer health care system for all workers. "The union is not a financial institution," said Shotwell. "The union's purpose is to advance social justice not manage the retreat from corporate accountability." [Tiffany Ten Eyck assisted with research for this article.] Chris Kutalik is an editor of Labor Notes in Detroit. He can be reached at: chris@labornotes.org Your Ad Here

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