Oct. 29, 2005

Months ago it was apparent that the Bush administration was losing its initiative and momentum. Bush didn’t walk with the same old swagger and his much-vaunted political capital had lost much of its value.
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CHICAGO — “It’s cold now and it’s only going to get colder. We need to take action now to get through the cold winter ahead,” Illinois Lt. Gov. Pat Quinn told reporters here as he announced a campaign to pass an “Illinois Affordable Energy Plan” to keep the heat on this winter for more than 300,000 natural gas customers in need.
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When author and activist Jesús Colón wrote his book “A Puerto Rican in New York,” he told a story about one of his nightmares. He dreamed he read a notice in bold type boxed in the middle of the first page of the Jan. 31, 1957, issue of the Daily Worker, the PWW’s famous predecessor: “The drop in circulation and the lack of real interest and personal sacrifice required from all workers and sympathizers of our paper has forced us to discontinue the publication of the Daily Worker.”

A national campaign to raise funds to help ready three regional centers for working-class education and struggle reached and over fulfilled its goal this week. The Chicago-based Workers Education Society joined the New York-based Chelsea Fund earlier this year in launching a “capital campaign” to raise $400,000 to renovate and modernize facilities in New York, Chicago and Los Angeles. The facilities will serve as hubs for educational activities and to advance the struggle for social progress.

NEW YORK — Eighteen grandmothers tried to enlist in the Army here Oct. 17, and were arrested for disorderly conduct after staging a sit-in.

Massive public pressure forced the Republican leadership in the House of Representatives to abruptly delay action last week on major slashes in human services programs. The slashes, contained in a budget amendment, would have increased mandatory cuts from $35 billion to $50 billion in health care, Medicaid, energy assistance, food stamps, student loans and child care, while maintaining $70 billion in tax cuts for the rich.

UNITED NATIONS — The release of a “partial report” pointing to possible Syrian involvement in the Feb. 14 assassination of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri has set off a political firestorm. Syria and many others criticized the report for numerous shortcomings and said it is motivated by Washington’s desire to expand the Iraq war into Syria.

SAN FRANCISCO — School workers and teachers here and across the bay in Oakland are ramping up their struggle in long and difficult contract talks.

CHARLESTON, W.Va.: Homecoming queen wore cleats; DALLAS: Miers cashed in on highway land deal; MIDDLETOWN, Pa.: Stop federal budget cuts, protesters demand; HAMILTON, Ohio: GOP legislator slimes undocumented workers; BIRMINGHAM, Ala.: Conyers calls for universal health care

NEW YORK — Benjamin Davis, the Communist city councilor from Harlem who was removed from the council and imprisoned during the McCarthy period, was finally honored nearly 60 years later at an overflow meeting in Harlem’s Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, Oct. 16. It was the kickoff of a campaign to rehabilitate his name.