Nov. 12, 2005

Across the nation, elections signal trend against right-wing politics

The Republican pro-corporate agenda took a beating in many states Nov. 8 in what could be a sign of things to come in the 2006 midterm elections.

George W. Bush had rough sledding in Argentina last week. U.S. officials had planned for free trade to be up and running throughout the Western Hemisphere by the end of this year. But the 4th Summit of the Americas, held Nov. 4-5 in Mar del Plata, decided otherwise. Outside, a march and rally of tens of thousands at an alternative People’s Summit rejected Bush’s agenda and called instead for “Latin American dignity.”

NEW YORK — Sam Webb, national chair of the Communist Party USA, will speak at Winston Unity Hall here Nov. 20 on the subject of socialism — the specific U.S. path towards socialism and what it might look like in this country.

With George W. Bush increasingly isolated, the antiwar movement this week demanded that Congress act to bring the troops home or face ouster in next year’s congressional elections.

Shakespeare’s line, “When troubles come, they come not as single spies, but in battalions,” may well apply to the Bush administration. On top of Iraq and New Orleans and the debacle of Harriet Miers, comes what could be a huge international scandal affecting the United States and its relationship with allies in Eastern Europe and elsewhere.

HOUSTON — Texas played musical judges in former House Majority Leader Tom DeLay’s (R-Texas) criminal conspiracy case, as a DeLay-promoted judicial circus unfolded.

Shoddy levees may spur legal actionBillions needed; Senate to Gulf states: ‘Drop dead!’; Category 5 levees a must; Brown’s e-mail disaster; Plumbers wanted

Predicted as the largest ever grassroots-based film release, the documentary “Wal-Mart: The High Cost of Low Price” is set to open at 7,000 locations around the country Nov. 13-19. Wal-Mart executives, apparently terrified of the new negative publicity on top of an already burgeoning anti-Wal-Mart movement, have launched an attack campaign against the movie.

On Dec. 1, 1955, Rosa Louise Parks, like all Black people who traveled by public transportation in Montgomery, Ala., boarded the front door of the metropolitan bus and paid her fare to the driver. Then she had to immediately get back off the bus, walk to the back door of the bus, re-enter and take a seat in the section labeled “for colored only.” Three stops later the bus was filling up with white people.

NEW YORK — New York University’s graduate assistants’ union, GSOC/UAW 2110, began a strike Nov. 9 after NYU, using a 2004 National Labor Review Board ruling, failed to bargain with the union. The strike, which has national implications, has attracted widespread campus, community and labor support.