WW News Service Digest #234
1) Wilkerson of Angola 3 Released
by [EMAIL PROTECTED]
2) What Sinking of Japanese Boat Reveals
by [EMAIL PROTECTED]
3) California Power Crisis
by [EMAIL PROTECTED]
-------------------------
Via Workers World News Service
Reprinted from the March 1, 2001
issue of Workers World newspaper
-------------------------
WILKERSON OF ANGOLA 3 RELEASED
By Greg Butterfield
After 29 years in solitary confinement, one of the Angola 3
political prisoners is free.
Fifty-eight-year-old Robert King Wilkerson walked out of
Louisiana's Angola State Penitentiary on Feb. 8. He was
welcomed with cheers and hugs from supporters and family
members.
Wilkerson pledged to dedicate his life to winning freedom
for his Angola 3 brothers, Albert Woodfox and Herman
Wallace. All three are African Americans.
"I may be free of Angola," he said, "but Angola will never
be free of me."
In 1971 Woodfox and Wallace founded a prison chapter of the
Black Panther Party. They were determined to build an
organized resistance to brutal conditions and racism in the
prison. Wilkerson joined their effort the next year.
The Angola Panthers campaigned for better working
conditions, solidarity between Black and white prisoners,
and an end to the sexual degradation of prisoners encouraged
by prison officials.
Mumia Abu-Jamal, the Black freedom fighter on Pennsylvania's
death row, gave a chilling description of the prison's
origins:
"If ever there was any question of the slave parentage of
the American prison system, one glance at the massive
penitentiary known as Angola in steamy Louisiana removes all
doubt," he wrote.
"Once a group of slave plantations, it earned its name from
the southwest African kingdom which was colonized by the
Portuguese in the 1600s.
"It was from this region of Africa that a majority of Black
slaves were taken in chains to people Louisiana's rice
plantations," Abu-Jamal explained, "and it is here, Angola,
where the state concentrated its penitentiary and its
attempt to stifle righteous Black resistance to racist
repression."
The resistance of the Black Panthers was more than Angola's
modern-day overseers could take. In 1972 Woodfox and Wallace
were convicted of murdering a prison guard. In 1973
Wilkerson was convicted of killing a fellow prisoner--even
though another prisoner confessed and was also convicted.
All three political activists were put in solitary
confinement. Through the decades they have always maintained
their innocence.
PRISONERS SAY THEY WERE COERCED
Last year the state's case against Wilkerson collapsed. The
two prisoners who testified against him retracted their
testimony and said prison officials had coerced them.
In December the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals issued a
ruling that seemed likely to overturn Wilkerson's
conviction.
In what Angola 3 supporters are calling a face-saving
measure, state prosecutors then offered Wilkerson a plea
bargain. He accepted and was released six hours later.
Abu-Jamal has called the Angola Panthers "political
prisoners of the highest caliber who deserve your support."
In the wake of Wilkerson's release, Angola 3 supporters are
calling for a stepped-up campaign to free Woodfox and
Wallace.
Two important lawsuits are pending in their cases.
The first is an appeal by Wallace, filed in Louisiana state
courts last September. The appeal presents evidence to show
how the state suppressed proof of his innocence and how
witnesses were bribed and coerced by prison officials.
The other, a civil-rights lawsuit filed by the American
Civil Liberties Union, charges that the Angola 3's longtime
solitary confinement is a violation of the constitutional
protection against cruel and unusual punishment.
For more information, readers can call the National
Coalition to Free the Angola 3 at (510) 655-8770 or visit
the Website www.prisonactivist.org/angola.
- END -
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From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Date: torstai 22. helmikuu 2001 10:58
Subject: [WW] What Sinking of Japanese Boat Reveals
-------------------------
Via Workers World News Service
Reprinted from the March 1, 2001
issue of Workers World newspaper
-------------------------
HAWAII: SINKING OF JAPANESE SHIP EXPOSES U.S.
MILITARY RECKLESSNESS
By Chris Fry
Honolulu
On Feb. 9, a U.S. Navy nuclear submarine sank a Japanese
fishing trawler in waters off the coast of Hawaii. Four high
school students, two teachers and three crew members are
missing and presumed drowned.
On Feb. 12, during a "mock invasion" by 4,000 U.S. Army
troops, two military heli copters apparently collided,
killing six soldiers.
The Navy has disclosed that the submarine, the USS
Greenville, performed an "emergency blow" in a busy shipping
lane just 10 miles from Pearl Harbor. In this maneuver the
boat flies up out of the water with tremendous speed.
The rear of the submarine collided with the fishing boat
Ehime Maru, sinking it within minutes. Survivors reported
being "sucked in" by the trawler as it sank in the ocean to
a depth of 1,800 feet.
The Navy later disclosed that 16 civilian and military
"observers" were on board the submarine when the accident
occurred. News commentators noted that the "emergency blow"
procedure is often used to impress dignitaries, business
executives and other wealthy guests. One of these guests was
reportedly actually at the submarine's controls when the
collision occurred.
Coast Guard spokespeople revealed that the collision
occurred two miles outside of the designated submarine
training area. So far, the Navy has not lodged charges
against the captain of the submarine; it has only convened a
board of inquiry.
After the Ehime Maru sank and the passengers and crew were
thrown in the water, the trawler's captain told reporters
that the submarine circled around and came within a few feet
of the survivors but did nothing to help them. The victims
had to wait more than 45 minutes for the Coast Guard to
rescue them.
PREPARING FOR NEW CONQUESTS
The two helicopters that crashed were part of a large
military exercise, called "Lightning Thrust Warrior." This
exercise involved 4,000 troops. The helicopters apparently
collided and crashed on the north side of Oahu. The accident
occurred at night in heavy rain.
To the military brass, peacetime is merely an interlude
between wars. Because of its strategic position in the
Pacific Rim, Hawaii is bristling with U.S. Navy, Army,
Marine and Air Force bases.
Live-fire exercises are conducted on the west, the "leeward"
side of Oahu. Missiles are fired from Kauai.
Military parachutists have landed in neighborhoods on the
east or "windward" side of Oahu.
Tourists on Hawaiian beaches report seeing commandos
jumping from helicopters into the ocean.
On land, in the air, on or under the ocean, Hawaii is a
staging area to plan and practice for new military
adventures. This is why the U.S. military participated in
the overthrow of the legal Hawaiian government a century
ago.
The two recent events expose that the U.S. military and its
big-business backers are always preparing for new conquests.
To protect and extend their vast wealth, whether in East
Asia, the Middle East, Latin America or Southern Europe,
they are perfectly willing to endanger civilians, as well as
service women and men.
-------------------------
Via Workers World News Service
Reprinted from the March 1, 2001
issue of Workers World newspaper
-------------------------
GLOBALIZATION COMES HOME: CALIFORNIA POWER CRISIS
By Fred Goldstein
Globalization, neoliberalism, the subordination of human
need to unrestrained capitalist markets--all these concepts
have come to be associated with the Structural Adjustment
Projects of the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank,
the World Trade Organization, and the giant multinational
corporations and banks operating in the Third World.
Typically these institutions force their way into oppressed
countries in Asia, Africa, Latin America or the Middle East.
By financial and economic means, aided and abetted by the
Pentagon and the CIA where necessary, they compel
governments to remove all restrictions on the predatory
operations of the transnational monopolies.
The result is a skyrocketing cost of living for the masses,
layoffs and unemployment accompanied by anarchic investment
and speculation ending up in bankruptcy. The big banks and
investors then move to protect their investment by making
the masses pay even further.
According to this profile, globalization has come to the
state of California. With globalization comes the necessity
for the anti-globalization movement to bring the struggle
against corporate greed home to the United States.
CALIFORNIA ON A SILVER PLATE
There is a difference between California and the oppressed
countries. In the oppressed countries, the exploiters have
had to force their way in. They may use economic
strangulation via the IMF and the WTO. They may have to
overthrow governments, manipulate elections or wage outright
war in order to impose their will.
But in California, the Republican and Democratic political
establishments have been their willing servants from
beginning.
Deregulation of the $23-billion California energy market
came about in 1996 at the behest of California's
industrialists, including Silicon Valley on the one hand and
the energy corporations on the other. Each camp in this
unholy bloc of capitalists had diametrically opposed
motives. The industrialists wanted to lower their utility
rates below the government-regulated level. The energy
companies wanted to get free of debt and have the ability to
raise their rates. But both were in search of higher
profits.
The giant energy companies used their strategic economic and
political power and vast resources to win the day. But their
victory and unbridled greed has led to a financial disaster--
which the banks and utilities, with the obedience of Gov.
Gray Davis and the California legislature, are trying to
unload almost completely on the backs of the people.
The financial crisis has been precipitated by Pacific Gas &
Electric and Southern California Edison declaring themselves
$12 billion in debt and using the threat of bankruptcy to
extract concessions.
SHIFTING BILLIONS TO FRIENDS
But during the deregulation period both PG&E and SCE have
moved billions to their parent companies, PG&E Corp. and
Edison International. According to a memo by the Utility
Reform Network, based on an audit of PG&E that the group
forwarded to the California Assembly and Senate, "from 1997
to 1999 PG&E provided PG&E Corp $4.0 billion in the form of
dividends paid and repurchases of stock. In the first nine
months of 2000 PG&E generated $1.8 billion in cash, of which
$632 million was transferred to PG&E Corp."
These transfers took place at the height of the power crisis-
-at a time when PG&E claimed it was going bankrupt.
According to the Los Angeles Times of Jan. 24, there is "an
estimated $10-billion windfall that Southern California
Edison and Pacific Gas & Electric each reaped in the early
stages of deregulation, from early 1998 through April 2000.
Since May, the two utilities have gone almost $12 billion in
the red buying high-priced electricity."
Much of the $20-billion total windfall accruing to the two
companies was based on extra high rates set as a condition
of deregulation to make consumers pay off the billions in
debts the utilities companies had incurred in cost overruns
when they built nuclear power plants.
The bankruptcy has partly to do with fraudulent bookkeeping.
According to the same Los Angeles Times story, SCE admitted
that part of its so-called "losses" were $2.5 billion
incurred when it was buying energy from itself! SCE is a
supplier as well as a distributor.
"A $22-BILLION SPENDING SPREE"
Most importantly, according to a Jan. 16 release by Public
Citizen, the parent companies of PG&E and SCE "embarked on a
spending spree, spending more than $22 billion on power
plants, stock buybacks and other purchases that far exceeded
their alleged $12 billion debt from California operations."
This loss, to the extent that it is real, is also the result
of market manipulation by the top energy companies that
seized upon California's deregulation procedures and the
increased demand for electricity to make vast profits.
The deregulation law of 1996 was actually written during the
summer of that year in SCE's offices by David Takashima,
lobbyist for SCE on loan to the staff of Steve Peace, then
chair of the Senate Energy Committee (LA Times, Dec. 9,
2000). Takashima now works for PG&E as director of
government affairs.
Under the provisions of this bill, energy was to be bought
and sold by a Power Exchange, which took computerized bids
from wholesale sellers and buyers on an hour-by-hour basis
for the next day's electricity needs--a veritable
commodities market in energy.
The deregulation bill also created the California
Independent System Operator (Cal-ISO) to deal with the
occasional situation in which there was not enough energy
being offered for sale to meet the demand by the
distributors. It was supposed to be a last-resort, backup
operation. Cal-ISO was supposed to get on the phone and
start buying energy on the spot market from whoever had it
available just to cover a minor shortfall.
This arrangement set the stage for a huge energy scam in the
amount of billions.
The energy corporations began to hold back electricity from
the Power Exchange, claiming shutdowns, maintenance
problems, and so on. The less they supplied to the Power
Exchange, the more the state would have to resort to Cal-ISO
and to last-minute desperation buying on the spot market.
HOLDING BACK ELECTRICITY TO FORCE UP PRICES
"The designers of Cal-ISO," wrote the LA Times of Dec. 9,
"figured that at most it would handle 5 percent of the
electricity consumed in California. But at times this year
the volume was 30 percent, according to Cal-ISO workers.
Finding the grid strained and with only hours to spare
before a blackout, they would desperately call places
ranging from British Columbia to Arizona seeking enough
electricity for 6 million homes."
Electricity cannot be stored. When it is needed it must be
supplied by the flow of electrons. If they do not flow, the
lights go out--and that is what the profit-hungry energy
giants were relying on to get their pound of flesh.
"For just five days last June," reported the New York Times
of Jan. 10, "more than $1.4 billion changed hands. On the
days when demand was high, some companies had enough
electricity to withhold to tip the market into an upward
price spiral, according to a state report."
Nor were the buyers trained in sophisticated trading
techniques. "We hired the very best system reliability
operators, the people who know how to keep the lights on,"
said Kellan Fluckiger of Cal-ISO, "In terms of matching wits
with some MBA who got a PhD in chaos theory, who's working
on the derivative of whatever, the answer is no way. We
can't do that."
Power Exchange scheduling director Jim McIntosh told the New
York Times of how he went to a Colorado resort five years
ago, invited by a group of out-of-state "MBA types" who were
trying to figure out "how deregulation would work."
They were "already figuring out how they were going to make
money in the California market," said McIntosh, who came
back and wrote a memo to his boss at PG&E about the session.
"These guys are going to eat our lunch," he said he recalled
writing. "And the rest of California's. And they have."
Of course, it is not the business school graduates but their
corporate masters who are trying to eat everyone's lunch.
The California utilities have already eaten a good part of
it. But in the recent period Texas-based giants like Enron,
Reliant and Dynergy, as well as other out-of-staters like
Duke Energy, AES, NRG, and Southern Co. together made $4.7
billion in profits from April to December of last year
(Public Citizen, Jan. 24).
Now the energy giants and the banks that finance their
operations have all descended on Sacramento like vultures to
protect their interests, just as they descended on
Indonesia, south Korea, Thailand, Russia and Brazil when
their schemes and speculations came to crisis and collapse.
WALL STREET BANKS ENTER THE PICTURE
On Jan. 26 the New York Times reported that the banks had
entered the picture. "Credit Suisse First Boston" wrote the
Times, "whose clients include independent power companies
that sell electricity in California, has been retained by
the speaker of the state Assembly to help draw up
legislation intended to make sure such companies are paid
the $12 billion they are owed by California utilities."
Credit Suisse's clients include Enron, Dynergy, Duke Energy
and the Calpine Corp., among others.
The Times also revealed that Goldman Sachs is a banker to
PG&E as well as to J. Aron Co., which sells gas to power
generators in central and northern California. This Wall
Street bank was in Sacramento meeting with state officials
and making conference calls to facilitate its becoming the
state's financial adviser in the crisis.
In addition, Robert Rubin, former Secretary of the Treasury
but now head of Citigroup, spent 25 hours in conversation
with Gov. Gray Davis. Citigroup owns Salomon Smith Barney,
which does banking for Edison International and PG&E Corp.
Sooner or later, finance capital, which V.I. Lenin explained
long ago is the dominant force in imperialist society, had
to emerge as the central player in a crisis of this
magnitude. Their presence is ominous for the masses.
CONSUMERS TO PAY FOR THE 'GOLD RUSH'
The Los Angeles Times reported Feb. 17 that consumers' power
rates are likely to rise at least 19 percent. But that was
just the beginning. "Rescue-related bonds that could total
more than $20 billion--an unprecedented sum for state
government--are under consideration in the Capitol to fund
everything from a state takeover of the utilities' power
grid to a partial payment of their massive debts. All would
be repaid straight out of the ratepayers' monthly energy
bills."
There is $10 billion in bonds to cover buying electricity
that the utilities can no longer purchase because they claim
bankruptcy. There is up to $10 billion to buy the
transmission lines from the bankrupt utilities. And there
are revenue bonds that the companies would be allowed to
float to clear up their debts. The masses would pay it all.
"To guarantee that those monthly bills are big enough to
cover the bonds, which is essential if Wall Street is to
bless the plan, rate increases could soon be necessary,"
wrote the Times.
State Treasurer Kellen Angistides "said Friday that he had
selected a huge team of 26 financial firms led by J.P.
Morgan Securities Inc. to formulate and help market the $10
billion in bonds," continued the L.A. Times. "The team
represents more than half of those who applied to get a
piece of the issue, the largest in American history. 'It's a
gold rush,' said one Wall Street analyst."
There is no IMF nor World Trade Organization in Sacramento,
but there is the same basic cast of characters and the same
scenario that played out in Jakarta, Seoul, Bangkok and
Moscow. Goldman Sachs, Credit Suisse Boston, Chase Bank,
Morgan Stanley, Citigroup, BankAmerica and giant
multinational energy companies like Enron, Dynergy, Reliant
and a host of others are carrying out the same plunder. They
have moved into California, squeezing the politicians and
the capitalist government. They are directing the rate rises
and orchestrating what is one of the biggest bailouts since
the savings and loan crisis of the 1980s.
The gathering of so many thieves and pirates from the summit
of finance capital is a grave danger signal--just as the
creditors' gatherings were a danger to the oppressed
countries during the Asian economic crisis. Disaster and
suffering always followed.
COULD 'BATTLE OF SACRAMENTO' BE NEXT?
It is most urgent that the forces who came together in
Seattle to oppose the WTO and its predatory corporate regime
open up a militant, Seattle-style fightback against the
plunder of the masses of workers and poor in California.
This time, however, the entire labor movement must mobilize,
together with the environmentalists and the anti-
globalization forces. And all must unite with the Black,
Latin and Asian communities for struggle.
Leaving this crisis in the hands of the capitalist
government of California, which will be putty in the hands
of the financiers, is futile and downright dangerous.
Lobbying, writing appeals and trying to figure out
compromises that are "fair to both sides" will be of no use
in the face of the financial power of imperialist bankers
who have never hesitated to plunge hundreds of millions of
people into poverty and desperation with their austerity
measures.
They are utterly ruthless. The only way to respond is with a
broad peoples' front that encompasses all the organizations
of the workers and oppressed and all progressive groups.
There must not be one cent for these energy pirates, who
have held the people of California hostage to blackouts and
brownouts and made billions off it. Their financial double-
talk is sheer deception. They made billions. They have
hundreds of billions. They should pay.
The rates should be rolled back immediately to what is
affordable for the people. If the bankers, the corporations
and the politicians cannot solve this problem to the
satisfaction of the people, then the people are quite
capable of assembling the necessary experts, technicians and
administrators to do the job under popular control.
The only way to push back this bail-out-the-rich, soak-the-
people attack the bankers and the energy monopolies have
placed on the table in Sacramento is to mobilize in the
streets. Seattle was a great beginning in the struggle
against imperialist globalization abroad. The time to open
up this struggle at home is now, in California.
