Mar 19, 2005

WASHINGTON — Peace and religious groups converged on the Capitol March 14 to demand that Congress vote down President Bush’s war budget and restore funds to health care, education, housing and other human needs programs.

In Louisville, Ky., workers, active and retired, young and seniors, chanted and carried signs outside the Kentucky Center during President Bush’s election-style sales pitch for Social Security privatization, while three were removed from inside the auditorium. In Memphis, Tenn., four protesters were ejected from Bush’s appearance before a hand-picked crowd. In Montgomery, Ala., the labor federation rallied. And in Shreveport, La., residents protested both Bush’s privatization hustle and the occupation of Iraq.

As the Communist Party USA prepares for its 28th National Convention, to be held July 1-3 in Chicago, it is organizing “a wide-ranging discussion on where things are going” in our country and the world, the party’s executive vice chair, Jarvis Tyner, told the World.

The capital campaign to raise $400,000 for three worker-community educational and activist centers is approaching the $150,000 mark this week. A coordinated campaign of the New York-based Chelsea Fund for Education and the Workers Education Society in Chicago reported the progress made in a March letter to potential donors.

SELMA, Ala. — The Rev. C.T. Vivian of Atlanta stood in the midst of the surging crowd at the conclusion of the Bridge Crossing Jubilee here March 6. Well-wishers congratulated him on the big turnout for the reenactment of the Bloody Sunday march across the Edmund Pettus Bridge.

LOS ANGELES — City Councilman Antonio Villaraigosa and Mayor James Kenneth Hahn will once again go head-to-head in the race for mayor of the nation’s second largest city in a runoff election May 17.

Social Security is a social insurance program that acts as an anti-poverty safety net for families of disabled workers, children of a deceased parent, and senior citizens. Many children, teenagers and college students benefit from the program. If President Bush has his way — to privatize Social Security — these benefits won’t be around for you and generations to come.

HOUSTON — As the scandals mount against Rep. Tom DeLay (R-Texas), a key legislative ally of President Bush, many people are wondering when the congressman will be indicted. At this point, it appears the Teflon coating provided by big money, which shielded Ronald Reagan and others during that administration, is providing immunity from prosecution just as effectively for DeLay.

VENTURA, Calif.: Stop the ‘Kindergarten Cop’, WASHINGTON: U.S. torture in Afghanistan,
FARMINGTON, N.H.: Town protests Patriot Act, CHICAGO: Students organize American Girl protest

“In Motion: The African-American Migration Exper-ience” is a ground-breaking exhibition of the population movements that have created the African American people. The multimedia event, which opened at the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture in Harlem Feb. 2, places center stage the seminal role migration has played in shaping the African-American experience.