Current Issues

From the lead story of The People's Weekly World: A committee of the California State Senate has demanded that Kenneth Lay and other Enron officials be brought to California to stand trial for contempt for refusing to testify before a California Senate Committee investigating “manipulation of the energy market.”
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From the lead story of The People's Weekly World: Over 20,000 peaceful protestors converged on the Waldorf-Astoria hotel here last weekend to protest the World Economic Forum (WEF) meeting being held there. Outside students, environmentalists, trade unionists and people of faith gathered. Protestors came to oppose various policies and practices of global capitalism, but many many signs, chants and sentiments took aim at capitalism itself. Instead of the poverty, environmental degradation and war of corporate globalization, protestors declared that “another world is possible,” a world of justice, equality and peace.
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From the lead story of The People's Weekly World: Historically, presidents have used their State of the Union address as a stage from which to sketch their vision of the nation and its future. So it was with President George W. Bush on Jan. 29: endless involvement in an expanded war against “terrorism,” increased military spending, more tax cuts for the rich, further erosion of democracy and privatization of Social Security and Medicare.
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Capitol Hill braces for the Enron battle royale amidst the opening of Congressional hearings. Congress has 11 committees and subcommittees probing elements of Enron's failure. Tim Wheeler, Editor of the People's Weekly World newspaper gives us this interview on his coverage from Capitol Hill.
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Click the headline above to read text highlights.

From the lead story at The People's Weekly World: The IBEW brought two of the workers to testify before the Senate Commerce Subcommittee on Consumer Affairs Dec. 18. The collapse is creating a domino effect, as creditors burned by Enron tighten the screws on K-Mart. The retail giant is filing for bankruptcy, closing 2,100 stores which affects 252,000 employees. This is certain to deepen the recession that has left eight million workers unemployed. To read the full story, click here.

This is a CORRECTED, UPDATED, and EXPANDED verison of the one posted earlier.

Enron! Never before, not even during the depths of Teapot Dome and the Watergate, has the scandalous influence of corporate money hung so heavy over Washington.

From the lead story at The People's Weekly World: Enron...pumped an estimated $2 million into the Bush-Cheney campaign. Bush regularly flew from one campaign stop to another aboard Enron jets. Enron was so determined to put Bush in the White House that they sent their top lawyer, former Secretary of State James A. Baker III, to Florida to orchestrate the stealing of the 2000 presidential election.
To read the full story, click here.

Jim Jennings, president of Conscience International, has seen the costs of war up close. Jennings, currently preparing for his fourth trip to Afghanistan, said, “The public is being shielded from the extent of civilian casualties; if people saw the war close up, they would not be so enthusiastic about it.”

The U.S. Supreme Court’s unanimous Jan. 8 decision to reverse a lower court’s ruling, which had been in favor of an injured woman auto worker, was sharply criticized by defenders of civil rights for disabled people. They branded it another step to undermine the 1990 Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA).

The Communist Party of Argentina (CPA) hailed the victory of the mass uprising led by the United Left that has forced the resignation of four presidents in Argentina in the past two weeks. The CPA demanded an end to policies that opened the door for massive corporate looting of Latin America’s third-largest nation over the past decade.

Almost all of the panelists decried proposals from President Bush and Attorney General John Ashcroft to defend America by giving massive amounts of federal funds to corporations at the expense of working people. Many noted that while the pocketbooks of workers are being emptied their civil liberties are being suspended with draconian legislation.

The Labor Department’s December unemployment report provided the background as Congressional Democrats and the White House began staking out the ground for the legislative battles. Congress will reconvene Jan. 23 and President Bush will make his State of the Union address on Jan. 29.

The events of 9/11 have strengthened U.S. imperialism’s global drive. It has given them a new rationale in this post-Cold War period to launch a new offensive, new wars, which will mean the loss of not thousands, but tens of thousands or worse. The Bush Doctrine is not really about defending the world against terrorism. It is basically a doctrine of world conquest.

Playing the “Grinch who stole Christmas,” President Bush and his Republican helpers on Capitol Hill blocked a Senate bill that would provide an additional 13 weeks in jobless benefits and extend health care for millions of unemployed workers, many of them under a temporary federal Medicaid plan.

Organized by the Peace Response and coordinated with similar mobilizations in other cities, march to protest the war in Afghanistan attracted more than 200 people here Dec. 7. Many of the participants carried blankets draped over their shoulders, to represent the suffering of refugees in Afghanistan.

International Human Rights Day was observed here Dec. 10 with a spirited march and a rally demanding peace in Afghanistan and an end to attacks on civil liberties and racist scapegoating.

In the aftermath of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, there has been a lot of attention paid to the Portland, Ore. Police Bureau’s response to a request by federal authorities to question 23 men of Middle Eastern origin in our community.

If you think no one in America opposes the Afghan war, it’s not because you’ve been living in a cave. You’ve just been watching too much television news. The war’s opponents have been largely absent from TV news since the bombing began. For the most part, only viewer-friendly Phil Donahue and the occasional anti-war movie star have broken through.

Two ships, one loaded with frozen chicken parts worth $300,000 and the other with 26,400 tons of corn, arrived in Havana, Cuba Dec. 16, marking the first direct sales of U.S. products to Cuba in since 1963.

Helen Winter, a life-long member of the Communist Party, died Dec. 13. She is survived by a daughter, Michelle Artt, granddaughters Elizabeth Meggison and Ruth Foster, and several great-grandchildren and great-great-grandchildren. A memorial celebration of her life is planned for Jan. 21.