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October 31, 2001
Steve
Perry
The
Silent Genocide
October 30, 2001
Rep. Ron Paul
War on Terror
Bad as War on Drugs
Jeffrey
St. Clair
Flying
Blind:
The Predator's Problem
Ali Abunimah
Dear Colin
Powell
St. Clair/Cockburn
Atomic
Trains Grounded
Maud Hurd
We Need a Real
Stimulus Package
Dr. Susan
Block
We're
All Afghans Now
Tariq Ali
Busted in Munich
Francis
Beer
Toward
the Terrorist
Anti-World
October 29, 2001
Alexander Cockburn
The Left
and the Just War
John Pilger
Hidden
Agenda
of the War on Terror
David Krieger
Nukes on
the Loose
Jack McCarthy
Neo-Nazis
and 9/11
Marina Kalashnikova
The Brzezinski
Interview
Richard
Manning
Terrorism:
a definitive history
October 27, 2001
Edward
Said
A
Vision to Lift the Spririt
October 26, 2001
CounterPunch
Wire
Genocide
Scholar Gagged
Over Comments on the
Bombing of Afghanistan
Rahul
Mahajan
Poisoning
the Well
Sen. Russ Feingold
Why I Opposed
the
Anti-Terrorism Bill
Noam Chomsky
The
New War on Terror
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Deadly Legacy
How the Bin
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Press
by Alexander
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The New Intifada:
Resisting Israel's Apartheid
Edited by Roane Carey
Responses to 9/11:
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Zinn, and Alice Walker
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October 31,
2001
Terrorize the Poor,
Subsidize the Rich
By Tom Turnipseed
Haziza, a 12 year old girl
from Kabul, Afghanistan, helped find her mother and baby brother
dead in the rubble of their home on the first night of the U.S.
bombing in early October.
In the N.Y. Times on October
30, from Peshawar, Pakistan, Barry Bearak reports that Haziza
said she recalls two still bodies, "their faces crushed
and covered with blood." Beneath a numbingly depressing
sub-head of "Bombs, death, flight, and now a new life in
squalor," Bearak relates how Haziza now lives with her father
and older brother in "the wretchedness of ...one of Peshawar's
many squatter camps that teem with Afghan refugees" who
have fled the bombing of their homeland. "Haziza sleeps
on the dank concrete of their single room,...Around them is poverty's
familiar cavalcade--naked children wallowing in the mud, grown
men despairing in idleness, chickens foraging in garbage heaps,
sewage odors spoiling each breeze."
Hugh Pope of the Wall Street
Journal reports on October 30 from the Makaki refugee camp in
Afghanistan about the refugees who have little sympathy for the
Taliban. However, a refugee named Abdulaziz, who arrived yesterday
with six families of relatives after 20 days on the move, said,
"We don't believe in America, the people are the target.
For every two Taliban they kill, they kill 20 of us. The Taliban
have plenty to eat,...but the people go hungry."
Back in America, poor people
are also going hungry. USA Today's cover story for its October
30 edition carries headings proclaiming "Tough times for
laid-off, low-income workers," "After attacks, the
jobless rate climbs, and assistance is harder to come by for
the working poor" and "Unemployment claims at 10-year
high." The story reports that unemployment was up from
5.5 million in September 2000 to 7 million in September 2001.
With more than 350,000 jobs
lost since September 11, economists are predicting that as many
as 1.5 million more jobs might be lost in the next three quarters.
This will sorely test the efficacy of the 1996 "welfare
reform" as some welfare recipients are becoming ineligible
as businesses are laying off folks.
Some states have even reduced
the 5-year lifetime cap on how long folks can receive welfare.
Social service support agencies like food banks have been strained
due to donations to special emergency relief funds for September
11.
Professionals have been losing
their jobs and unskilled workers are at a disadvantage in vying
for jobs with them. Unfortunately, unemployment benefits are
woefully inadequate with most of them being below the poverty
level. Fewer than 40% of jobless Americans received unemployment
benefits last year.
The Wall Street Journal reports
that according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, big corporations
laid off 117,000 workers last month after September 11. While
poor and working class people are being laid off by big corporations
and neglected by government, the U.S. House of Representatives
gave huge tax breaks to big business at the expense of fired
workers in the economic "stimulus" bill they passed
last week.
The $100 billion bill is mainly
a big corporate tax boondoggle that would speed up depreciation
schedules for businesses and repeal the corporate alternative
minimum tax that has required corporations with heavy deductions
and tax breaks to pay at least some federal income tax.
The corporate alternative minimum
tax repeal would give the corporations $24.4 billion next year
with Ford Motor Co. getting $2.4 billion, IBM-$1.4 billion, General
Motors-$832 million, General Electric-$671 million, Chevron-$314
million, Enron-$254 million, K-Mart--$102 million, U.S. Steel-$39
million, and Kroger-$9 million.
Commenting on the 216-214,
mostly party-line vote, House Minority Leader Dick Gephardt said,
"This bill is a giant tax giveaway to the largest corporations"
and that "The workers who have lost their jobs get crumbs
from this bill." Others said the Republicans were rewarding
their largest donors.
This piece of trickle-down
federal government largesse for the rich now goes to the U.S.
Senate where, hopefully, the bill will be amended to cut back
on the big breaks for the corporations and concentrate more on
increasing unemployment benefits and subsidizing health care
coverage for unemployed workers. South Carolina Congressman
Lindsey Graham voted for the corporate giveaway and he will be
endorsed on Thursday by retiring Strom Thurmond to take Thurmond's
seat in the Senate.
South Carolina is a bottom
tier state in per capita income and is facing rising unemployment,
declining tax revenues, and budget cuts that will affect such
vital services as health care for the poor and public education.
Graham has already raised more than $2,000,000.00 for his campaign
for the U.S. Senate with much of it coming from the big corporate
interests who will benefit the most from the stimulus package.
I wonder what would happen
if some poor, laid-off workers from South Carolina or raggedly
refugees from Afghanistan showed up to dine at the $1,000.00-per-head
luncheon of the Republican Senatorial Committee where Graham
will receive the blessing of Strom Thurmond to take his fabled
seat in that august body? CP
Tom Turnipseed is an attorney, writer, and civil
rights activist in Columbia, South Carolina. http://www.turnipseed.net
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