TonyPalmeri.Com Update For August 21, 2004
1. RIP Donna Wright: Today (Saturday) at an Oshkosh Opera House Square
counter-demonstration against a "pro-family" group, I ran into peace
activist Tom Barlow. I was saddened to learn that Tom's wife Donna
Wright passed away on Friday. Those of you who have been participating in
the weekly peace vigils will remember Donna. She frequently came to the vigils
and held signs. She was a warm, caring, and very gentle person. I never knew
her that well but she always greeted me with a big, friendly smile. Tom is very
distraught, as you might imagine. Here is the Northwestern obituary:
http://www.wisinfo.com/northwestern/records/obits/stories/obit_17436084.shtml
According to the obit, "The family will receive friends at Konrad-Behlman Funeral Home-Eastside (402 Waugoo Ave.) on Sunday August 22, from 12:30-1:30 p.m., a funeral service will be held at the funeral home at 1:30 p.m. Sunday, with Rev. Martin Carr officiating. Burial will be in Lake View Memorial Park, Monday August 23 at 10 a.m."
2. Amato's Eloquent Call For Tuition Freeze: Outgoing UW Regent Nino Amato, the victim of a Jim The New Democrat Doyle political assassination after he blew the whistle on Board of Regents secrecy last year, delivered a remarkably eloquent farewell speech at the August 19 Regents meeting. In it he called for a tuition freeze: http://www.wisbusiness.com/1008/AmatoTuition.pdf
Supporting Amato's argument is the (sad) fact that Wisconsin ranks in the bottom half of the state in terms of percentage of residents with four year degrees:http://www.wisinfo.com/postcrescent/news/archive/local_16706781.shtml
3. Palmeri Seconds Amato's Call For Freeze: I actually called for a
five-year moratorium on UW tuition increases at a candidate's forum last May,
as pointed out in this press release http://www.tonypalmeri.com/tuitionfreeze.htm
4. Million Worker March Set For Oct. 17; AFL-CIO Plays Kerry Lapdog: A coalition of rank and file unionists and grassroots activists are sponsoring an October 17 "Million Worker March" in Washington. In a sickening (though not surprising) move, the national leadership of the AFL-CIO has refused to endorse the march, claiming that all their resources from now until November need to go toward electing John Kerry. Here's the story: http://newstandardnews.net/content/?action=show_item&itemid=849
Here's the Million Worker March website: http://www.millionworkermarch.org
On that site you can find the March organizers' response to the AFL-CIO, which says in part:
In effect, the leadership of the AFL-CIO has gone over the heads of significant sectors of the labor, antiwar, community and interfaith organizations in issuing a directive to boycott a labor mobilization in Washington, D.C. . . .
Our aims, with which the AFL-CIO leadership purports to agree, include universal single-payer health care from the cradle to the grave -- that ends the stranglehold of greedy insurance companies.
Will the defeat of George Bush result in this?
Our aims include an end to the corporate trade agreements that pit workers against each other everywhere in a mad race to the sweatshop bottom. Will the defeat of George Bush change this when the Democratic Party brought us NAFTA, MAI and Fast Track with Disney and J. C. Penny paying Haitian workers 21 cents per hour?
Will the defeat of George Bush end privatization and the destruction of unions in the public sector when the Democratic Party privatized and outsourced our jobs under the rubric of "downsizing government?"
What were downsized were our social services while corporate profits and the military sucked trillions of dollars taken from the sweat of our collective labor.
Will the defeat of George Bush bring a crash program to restore our decaying and devastated public schools, replacing them with state of the art public education in every community in America?
Will the defeat of George Bush result in the rebuilding of our inner cities with free modern, state of the art housing and an end to homelessness?
Will that presumptive defeat see the launching of a national training program in skills and capacities that enlist our people in rebuilding this country?
Will it end the criminalization of poverty or abolish the prison-industrial complex that has destroyed generations of Black and Latino youth?
Will the defeat of George Bush roll back the bipartisan union-busting and anti-labor legislation, such as Taft-Hartley, that has been on the books for 67 years?
Will a Bush defeat secure for us a modern, free mass transit system in every city and town?
John Kerry, outflanking Bush from the far right, has called for an intensification of the so-called "war on terror" by targeting people "before they act"-- giving explicit sanction to secret arrests, detention without trial and the labeling of opponents as "terrorists."
Will the removal of George Bush preserve the Bill of Rights, repeal the Patriot Act, Anti-Terrorism Act and all the repressive legislation that has set the stage for a Police State in America?
Will the defeat of George Bush recover the $4.4 trillion dollars that disappeared from the Pentagon and the Department of Defense as the military industrial complex loots and hijacks government in America?
John Kerry, the presumptive candidate of the Democratic Party, has demanded a dramatic increase in the number of U.S. soldiers in Iraq and the extension of U.S. military control in the Middle East and beyond.
Will the defeat of George Bush end the occupation in Iraq and the plans for greater imperial war?
Will his defeat bring the troops home now or is the plan after the election, as widely reported, for conscription of working class youth and an expansion of militarism in America?
On June 25, the United States Senate voted 98-0 to hand the Pentagon $416 billion. Days earlier, the Senate voted 93 to 4 to increase the troops in Iraq and shortly before this the Congress approved an initial military budget of $1 trillion for the next decade.
We take note of the fact that the Department of Defense Accounting Office acknowledged that $4.4 trillion have disappeared from the Pentagon¹s accounts and the books have been cooked for decades.
One trillion dollars represents $1,000 a minute since the birth of Jesus.
Will the defeat of George Bush recover these looted funds or stop the perpetual siphoning of trillions of dollars into the arms industry, leading inevitably to even more drastic cuts in all social services?
Today, 71% of U.S. corporations pay no taxes but John Kerry¹s principal economic adviser is Wall Street¹s Warren Buffett, who, along with George Schultz, performs the identical role for Arnold Schwarzenegger.
Do John McCain, who John Kerry sought as his running mate or Lee Iacocca of General Motors and Chrysler, who endorsed Kerry, represent the interests of labor and working people?
The official leadership of the AFL-CIO, faced with rapidly growing rank and file support for a great mobilization of working people in America, has ordered organized labor to cease and desist in its support for the Million Worker March.
The entire labor movement and organized labor has been put on notice to boycott the call for a Million Worker March on Washington on October 17, 2004.
Working people in America are under siege. The corporate and banking oligarchy that has power in this society is waging class war against us all.
In the face of attack after attack, the response of the leaders of the AFL-CIO has been silence and default
Their voices are stilled. They dare not cry out "enough is enough." They fail to take note that the two parties are financed by the same people and their address is Wall Street.
We must not fall silent when it comes to leading working people to fight back and vocal in denouncing those who do.
36 years ago Martin Luther King summoned our people to a great Poor Peoples March on Washington to address a system in crisis and to confront the hijacking of our government and our country by a banking and corporate oligarchy that has captured the two political parties in America.
Would the AFL-CIO dare send out a directive to all of labor to boycott and sabotage the marches and mobilizations of the great civil rights movement, led by Martin Luther King, Jr. Malcolm X and Cesar Chavez?
5. Taxpayers Fleeced Again: According to the Wisconsin Democracy Campaign,
"Top executives of the company the state is paying nearly $80 an hour to
maintain a road sign inventory after eliminating the job of a state employee
who did the work for a fraction of that amount have made over $140,000 in campaign
donations to Wisconsin politicians in the past decade but kicked their giving
into high gear three years ago . . . The top recipient of contributions from
HNTB is Governor Doyle, who received $46,275 from employees of the company through
the end of 2003." The full story is here: http://www.wisdc.org/pr081804.html
6. Rittenhouse in Post-Crescent: The first Green Party candidate ever to run for Wisconsin's 6th congressional district, Carol Ann Rittenhouse, was featured in a Post-Crescent story this week: http://www.wisinfo.com/postcrescent/news/archive/local_17403683.shtml Carol's website can be found here: http://www.rittenhouseforcongress.com/
7. The Forgotten Anniversary: http://www.prospect.org/weblog/archives/2004/08/index.html#003584
8. August 28 Poverty Awareness, Fundraiser: On August 28 from 4 p.m. - 9 p.m., a community gathering at South Park has been organized to raise money for Big Brothers/Big Sisters. The money will be used to support Carla Eichinger's drive to teach every child in Oshkosh to swim (she recently swam across Lake Winnebago for the cause). At the event will be music featuring a collection of musicians from the JAZZ ORGY, Something Phonic, Boxkar, The High and Lonesome Boys, The Airborne Burn Victims, and Hellar Mason. Addressing the cause and poverty, talks will be offered by Carla, Steven Dedow, and Tony Palmeri. We will also have a separate program for kids under 12, with games and story reading and art. This will be led by Bob Poeschl of Arts for Kids and Mandy Mabbott of Webster Stanley Elementary VISTA. FREE FOOD for ALL!!!
9. Rebel Alliance Presents "The Crucible": Arthur Miller's gripping play will be performed by the Rebels on September 17, 18, 23, 24, and 25 at 8:00PM at the Omro Wedding Chapel, 205 Adams in Omro, Wisconsin. More information can be found here http://www29.brinkster.com/rebeltheatre/cur.html If you are in the Fox Valley please support Rebel Alliance Theatre. They are one of the few local organizations that make a REAL difference in the lives of area youth.