Cockburn
/ St. Clair"s Scorching New History of a Decade of War
Now Available!
Today"s
Stories
July
3 / 4, 2004
Stan
Goff
ABC of Opportunism: "Progressive"
Latin American Leaders Support the Coup in Haiti
July
2, 2004
Jeffrey
St. Clair
Suicide Right on the Stage: the Demise
of the Green Party
Douglas
Valentine
Fahrenheit 911: Mocking the Moral Crisis of Capitalism
Gary
Leupp
"Just Because I Could": On Obscenities and Opportunities
Lee
Ballinger
Illegal People: Kerry Opposes Immigrant Rights
Robert
Fisk
Saddam in the Dock: Confused? Hardly
CounterPunch
Wire
"What Law Formed This Court?": a Transcript of Saddam"s
Arraignment
Christopher
Brauchli
Bush"s Drug Card Lottery: the Price Ain"t Right
Saul
Landau
Buzz Words and Venezuela
July 1, 2004
Katherine
van Wormer
Bush"s Damaged Mind: the Madness
in His Method
Joe
Bageant
Is Our President a Whackjob? Does It Matter?
William
James Martin
The Dogma of Richard Perle
Dave
Lindorff
Bush"s Evacuation Moment
Robert
Fisk
Bread and Circus Trials in Iraq
Alan
Maass
Green Party in Reverse
Website
of the Day
Michael Moore and Israel: Blind or a Coward?
June
30, 2004
Kurt Nimmo
Nicholson
Baker"s Checkpoint: a New Kind of Anger About Bush
Tariq
Ali
Getting Away with Murder in Iraq
Jennifer
Van Bergen
Bush and the Detainees
Douglas
Valentine
Apotheosis of the Psychopaths: Instead of Fahrenheit 9/11, Rescreen
The Quiet American
David
Price
Fahrenheit 9/11 Through the McCain-Feingold Looking Glass
Roger
Normand
America"s Criminal Occupation of Iraq
Stan
Cox
Sanitized for Your Protection: Ashcroft"s
War on Art
Henry
David Thoreau
On the Futility of Bush v. Kerry: All Voting is a Kind of Gaming
Ben
Tripp
Who Dast Call Him Liar: a Rebuttal to Nicholas Kristof
June
29, 2004
Patrick
Cockburn
The Cloak-and-Dagger Handover
Robert
Fisk
Alice in an Iraqi Wonderland
Troy
Selvaratnam
New York Times Boosts Pet Developer
Harry
Browne
Bush in Ireland
Ray
McGovern
The CIA According to Anonymous
Elaine
Cassel
Hamdi, Padilla & Rasul: Who Really
Won?
June
28, 2004
Patrick
Cockburn / Leyla Linton
Grisly Rituals in Iraq
Amira
Hass
Confronting Myths and Deadly Power
June
26 / 27, 2004
Alexander
Cockburn
Venezuela: the Gang"s All Here
Patrick
Cockburn
Iyad Allawi, the CIA"s New Stooge
in Iraq
Dennis
Hans
Once They Were Sweethearts: Cheney,
the NYTs and the Myth of an Iraq Link to 9/11
Ben
Tripp
Adventures in Fuel Efficiency
Dave
Lindorff
That State Department Terrorism
Report: What They Knew, But Didn"t Tell You
Chris
Floyd
Cold Irons Bound: the Russian Gambit
Ali
Tonak
Contamination at Berkeley: Profit Motives,
Academic Freedom and the Case of Ignacio Chapela
Keith
Rosenthal
The Withering of the Anti-War Movement
Bryan
Sacks
The Failure of the 9/11 Commission
Wayne
Madsen
Another Case of Blowback
Thomas
St. John
L. Frank Baum, Racist: Indian-Hating
in the Wizard of Oz
Niranjan
Ramakrishnan
American Swadeshi
June
25, 2004
Stephen
Gowans
US to North Korea: "Trust Us"
Saul
Landau
2006 Pentagon Budget as Sacrilege:
Bush Invests the National Treasure in Death and Destruction
Amir
Butler
Iraq: the Deadly Embrace
Jack
McCarthy
Another Times Plagiarism Scandal?
Did Maureen Dowd Lift from the World Weekly News?
Greg
Bates
Chomsky and Zinn Plan to Vote Nader
June 24, 2004
Gary Leupp
John
Lehman on the Iraq / al-Qaeda Links
Patrick Cockburn
A
Day in the Life of Col. Abu Mohammed: Defusing Bombs, Facing
Death Threats
Harry Browne
On
the Rebound: Bush Bounces Back...in Europe
Bill Kaufman
Another
Marxist for Kerry: Joel Kovel"s Sad Smear of Ralph Nader
Christopher
Brauchli
Bush,
Cheney and the 9/11 Commission: What Did They Know? What Did
They Tell?
Rick Gioimbetti
Andrea Yates: Victim of Psychiatric Violence?
John Chuckman
Call Center ID Hypocrisy
Diana Johnstone
Kerry
and Kosovo: the Lie of a "Good War"
June 23, 2004
Laura Carlsen
Bush
and Castro Face Off
Dave Zirin
Barry
Bonds vs. Boston: "A Flea Market of Racism"
Kurt Nimmo
From
Saddam, With Love
Patricia Wolff
Foundation Wars
Mahboob A. Khawaja
"They Had Me Arrested and Shackled My Son"
Patrick Cockburn
The
Pretense of an Independent Iraq
Website of the Day
The Road to Abu Ghraib
June 22, 2004
Dave Lindorff
The
Meaning of Putin"s Pronouncement: Mutually Assured Pre-emption
Ron Jacobs
Nuclear Plants in US Protectorate of Iraq?
Vanessa Jones
Coogee, Peter Garrett and Valium Earrings
Mickey Z
An Open Letter to the People of Iraq
John L. Hess
Clinton Exhales
Pedro Marset/Ex-Solidarity
Committee for Pacho Cortés
An Exchange on the Case of Pacho Cortés
Bruce Jackson
Saying
No to Prosecutors: Why Steve Kurtz"s Colleagues Refused
to Testify
Website of the Day
From Boot Camp to Boot Hill
June
21, 2004
Gary
Leupp
Putin"s Helpful Remarks
Lucson
Pierre-Charles
Haiti After the Press Went Home: Chaos
Upon Chaos
Cockburn
/ Khan
Saddam May Face Death Penalty
Uri
Avnery
Irreversible Mental Damage
June
19 / 20, 2004
Patrick
Cockburn
Inside the Green Zone: US is Paranoid
and Isolated
Bruce
Anderson
Frozen Gringos
Diane
Christian
Morality and Death: a Meditation
on Bush and Blake
Walter
A. Davis
Passion of the Christ in Abu Ghraib
Josh
Frank
How Democrats Helped Bush Rape Mother
Nature
Col.
Dan Smith
Respectable Genocide?: the Crisis
in Sudan
Brian
Cloughley
A Profound Disruption of the Senses
Christopher
Brauchli
Bush and the Timken Plant, a
Year Later
Prudence
Crowther
Mr. Ashcroft, Deport Me!
Poets"
Basement
Iqbal/Alam, Krieger and Albert
Kathy
Kelly
Dying to See Their Kids
June
18, 2004
Chris
Floyd
Blood Victory
Dave
Zirin
Danielle Green, Basketball Player
& Disabled Vet, Speaks Out Against War
Justin
E.H. Smith
The Christian Question in American
Politics
Gary
Leupp
The "Long-Established" Link?:
Iraq, al-Qaeda, and al-Zarqawi
June
17, 2004
Noel
Ignatiev
Zionism, Anti-Semitism and the People
of Palestine
Kurt
Nimmo
The Bush-Kerry Conundrum
Ed
Cardoni
The Persecution of Steve Kurtz
Ron
Jacobs
Power Relations: Rounding Up Everyone Who Knows More Than They
Do
Dave
Lindorff
Philly Daily News: "Four Wasted Years"
Greg
Moses
Geneva Ignored
Norm
Dixon
How Reagan Armed Saddam with Chemical
Weapons
June
18, 2004
Noel
Ignatiev
Zionism, Anti-Semitism and the People
of Palestine
Kurt
Nimmo
The Bush-Kerry Conundrum
Ed
Cardoni
The Persecution of Steve Kurtz
Ron
Jacobs
Power Relations: Rounding Up Everyone Who Knows More Than They
Do
Dave
Lindorff
Philly Daily News: "Four Wasted Years"
Greg
Moses
Geneva Ignored
Norm
Dixon
How Reagan Armed Saddam with Chemical
Weapons
June
16, 2004
Lenni
Brenner
A Question for Kerry Supporters
Davey
D
Hip Hop Reflections on Reagan
Daniel
Wolff
Why Did Michael Moore Withhold Video Evidence of US Prisoner
Abuse?
Bruce
Jackson
Harry Levin and the Penultimate Manuscript of Finnegans Wake
Patrick
Cockburn
Boom! Boom! Out Go the Lights: Bombings Target Oil and Power
Facilities
Gary
Handschumacher
Mourn Ben Linder, Not His Killer: Reagan"s Death Squads
JG
Turning Haiti into One Big Sweatshop
Mario
Benedetti
Obituary with Cheers
Vicente
Navarro
Meet the New Head of the IMF: Who
is Rodrigo Rato?
Website
of the Day
Iraqi Oil Revenue Watch
June
15, 2004
Harry
Browne
Ireland Adds a Brick to Fortress Europe
Neve
Gordon
The Palestinian Refugee Problem Revisited
David
Palmer
Richard Armitage, Abu Ghraib and CACI
John
Blair
Lovelock"s Misguided Call: Nukes Are No Solution to Global
Warming
Dave
Lindorff
God Wins in TKO
Bill
Quigley
Blood-Pouring Peace Activists: State Charges Dropped; Feds Step
In
Patrick
Cockburn
Carbombs and Street Dances: 13 More Killed in Baghdad Blast
John
Chuckman
John Kerry, Political Placebo
Hot Stories
Alexander Cockburn
Behold,
the Head of a Neo-Con!
Subcomandante
Marcos
The
Death Train of the WTO
Norman Finkelstein
Hitchens
as Model Apostate
Steve Niva
Israel"s
Assassination Policy: the Trigger for Suicide Bombings?
Dardagan,
Slobodo and Williams
CounterPunch Exclusive:
20,000 Wounded Iraqi Civilians
Steve
J.B.
Prison Bitch
Sheldon
Rampton and John Stauber
True Lies: the Use of Propaganda
in the Iraq War
Wendell
Berry
Small Destructions Add Up
CounterPunch
Wire
WMD: Who Said What When
Cindy
Corrie
A Mother"s Day Talk: the Daughter
I Can"t Hear From
Gore Vidal
The
Erosion of the American Dream
Francis Boyle
Impeach
Bush: A Draft Resolution
Click
Here for More Stories.
|
Weekend
Edition
July 3/4, 2004
It's
Illegal, But It's Our Right
Korean
Labor Won't Back Down
By
GREG MOSES
Twenty-five teachers from the Korean
Teachers and Education Worker's Union (KTU), who were just released
from jail Thursday evening, are planning to resume their protest
Saturday with an overnight vigil near the Ministry of Education
(MOE), says a KTU source, who was reached by telephone at the
union's headquarters in Seoul.
The teachers were arrested
Tuesday evening at 10 p.m. as they were gathered at the MOE to
press their demands for specified teaching hours and private
school reform, said Kim Yong-Kook. But they were released Thursday
evening, since Korean law only allowed the police to hold them
for 48 hours.
According to Korean law, teachers
have a right to establish a trade union and engage in collective
bargaining, Kim explained. But they do not have the right to
strike.
"A gathering in front
of the education ministry is kind of a strike," said Kim.
"So it is illegal." Kim described Saturday's plans
as a "national gathering" of teachers, anticipating
perhaps 1,000 to attend. They plan to sleep outdoors, near the
ministry.
"It's kind of illegal,"
said Kim with a chuckle, "but it is our right."
The union is asking that guidelines
for hours of teaching be placed into law. Currently, said Kim,
primary school teachers are in the classroom for 30 hours per
week, which does not give them enough time to prepare lessons
or assess student work. The union is asking that classroom hours
for elementary teachers be reduced to 16 per week.
In middle school and high school,
the union is asking that classroom hours be set at 18 per week.
Currently, middle school teachers work 22-25 hours in the classroom,
while high school teachers sometimes work as many as 20, said
Kim.
On the issue of private schools,
the union is concerned that private school administrators who
steal education funds have been allowed to resume their administrative
duties.
The KTU has been teaching anti-war
classes this week in commemoration of the funeral for Kim Sun-il,
a translator who was killed last week in Iraq.
Korean unions have taken a
defiant stand against further troop deployments. And Kim said
teachers have joined the anti-war protests in large numbers.
"When teachers go to anti-war
rallies as citizens, there is no problem with the law,"
said Kim. "But when we gather as teachers to make demands
on the ministry, then there is a problem."
According to Digital Chosun
reporter Ahn Seok-bae, the FTU, also known as Chunkyojo, had
dedicated this past week to teaching "anti-war" classes.
But the teachers have been put on notice for their anti-war curriculum.
By June 28, the first day of
proposed "anti-war" classes, the MOE had already reviewed
the teaching materials posted at the Chunkyojo website and pledged
to send out directives that would, in the words of journalist
Ahn Seok-bae, "make sure that the class is not used to instill
distorted points of view in students."
At the KTU website one finds
a link to an "antipabyeong" or antiwar site, featuring
a graduation portrait of Sun-il and a letter, apparently written
by a school child admonishing the Korean president: "All
Korean soldier must out of Iraq. Please, please this is your
mistake. Why do you send Korean soldiers to Iraq," says
the letter.
While the June 28 story reports
that the MOE had concluded that the "data on the homepage
of the Korean Teachers' Union is a collection of objective facts",
the situation changed overnight. An unsigned story in Electronic
Chosun on June 29 declares that the materials, "are not
proper for class-room use."
"Accordingly, the Education
Ministry sent the KTU an official document stating that teachers
should refrain from conducting anti-war classes, and if teachers
conduct anti-war classes in an ideological way, they will be
dealt with according to the law," says the June 29 story.
An un-named official at the
MOE explained that the materials had been referred to the Korea
Institute of Curriculum and Evaluation, "and the KICE concluded
that there are some problems with the materials."
"The KTU said that the
materials were collected from newspaper articles on Iraq including
the troop dispatch," said the MOE official, "but the
analysis showed that the content was mostly from anti-American
and anti-troop deployment viewpoints. It is also found that many
materials resort to emotion rather than logic, thus causing concern
that they may instill prejudiced ideologies in students."
"The KICE expressed its
opinions in saying that if the materials are to be reinforced,
it would be desirable to exclude Kim Sun-il's personal information
and criticisms against the government's policies," reports
Digital Chosun.
"The Ministry asked the
KTU in an official document to refrain from holding anti-war
classes and to revise the class materials, since the classes
can damage the neutrality of education and instill a distorted
point of view in students, who lack the ability to judge value,"
said the Chosun article.
But Chunkyojo replied: "The
purpose of anti-war classes is to teach the importance of peace
and life. For now, we do not plan to change the materials, but
we will consider adding some more materials."
Three KTU leaders were arrested
by authorities in April for "denouncing the National Assembly's
impeachment of President Roh Moo-hyun and supporting the Democratic
Labor Party (DLP)," according to the Korea Times.
"Under current laws, teachers
and public servants are banned from engaging in politics,"
explained reporter Soh Ji-young. "Thus they are not allowed
to publicly express their support for political parties."
A report by Hyo-Lim Son at
donga.com in late March, translates a defiant KTU statement into
English, only days after the Korean Constitutional Court ruled
that public employees should keep their politics quiet.
"KTU's political directive
is to turn workers into a political force through the DLP,"
Chunkyojo leader Won Young-man said in a statement posted on
the union's website. "The KTU has decided to respond proactively
to the elections at the recent delegation meeting in an effort
to turn workers into a political force."
"If teachers remain silent
about any change in the world just because they are regarded
as civil servants, this is undemocratic," Won said, commenting
on the recent anti-impeachment statement made by the union. "Any
discipline against teachers involved with the statement, which
represents a legitimate right and the minimum expression of opinion,
is only violence."
The KTU position on political
involvement was taken in solidarity with the umbrella Korea Confederation
of Trade Unions (KCTU), explained a Chunkyojo source. Likewise
today, the KTU anti-war activities are also in keeping with broader
KCTU policy.
"KCTU affirms that labour
rights, including freedom of association, are not only fundamental
components of democracy, but prerequisite for participation of
workers in the economic, social, and political affairs of national
life," says the group's website.
On June 23, KCTU posted a statement
demanding cancellation of plans to send Korean troops to Iraq.
"We demand that the Korean government not play puppet to
the foreign policies of the US and that it take a firm stance
again it, and that it protect the rights and the lives of its
citizens."
Within days, the Korean Association
of Airline Unions announced that they would follow the KCTU leadership
by refusing to transport troops or military equipment to Iraq.
A report by Kim Sung-mi at the Korea Herald says that, "80
percent of pilots at Korean Air and 90 percent at Asiana Airlines
Inc. are unionized under the KCTU."
"Because of the government's
drive for the troop dispatch, airline employees are faced with
increased danger of terrorism around the world" said Shin
Man-soo [quoting the Korea Herald report], who leads the pilots
union at Korean Air Co., the country's largest carrier. "We
could be the target of terrorist attacks."
While news reports about the
killing of Kim Sun-il portray his killers as "Iraqi militants,"
Ahn Mi-Young reports that Kim's mother understands the killing
in a broader political context. "The government killed my
son," wailed Shin Young-Ja, 63, mother of the dead South
Korean, as she viewed her son's coffin after it arrived in the
country from Iraq over the weekend.
Meanwhile, this week, says
Forbes.com, "Thousands of workers at KorAm Bank went on
strike for the second day Tuesday demanding job guarantees in
the wake of a takeover by U.S.-based Citigroup earlier this year."
The takeover was, according to Forbes, "the first takeover
of a local bank by a foreign commercial lender."
And auto workers at Hyundai,
Kia, and Dae-woo are striking for better pay and working conditions.
But Dae-woo workers are also protesting the government's decision
to allow the sale of the company to General Motors.
The anti-war militancy of Korean
unionists drew quick support from Iraqi labor organizers. "We
call all labour organisations and Unions worldwide and especially
in USA and UK to join this action of Korean trade unions to end
the occupation in Iraq and for immediate withdrawal of all troops
from Iraq and for a better future for Iraqi society and the working
people of Iraq," said Aso Jabbar, international spokesperson
for the Federation of Workers Councils and Unions in Iraq (WCUI)
and the Unemployed Union of Iraqis (UUI).
Finally, a hypothesis for further
consideration. The Korean KCTU and the Iraqi WCUI are not the
only labor coalitions in their respective countries that oppose
the occupation of Iraq, but a distant reader gets the impression
that these two groups are similarly committed to broader agendas
of social change and labor empowerment. Industrial unionism or
social unionism, if you will, rather than the kind of unionism
that accepts labor's confinement as "workers only."
The emergence of these voices presents a promise and hope that
times of crisis can present opportunities for democratic renewal.
For example in the USA, the
Texas State Employees Union is active in its political opposition
to an aggressive "privatization" agenda that includes
the establishment of "call centers" that would potentially
"outsource" phone calls placed to Texas human services
agencies and route them around the world.
As globalization of elite,
corporate power continues to consolidate materials and strategies
for war and profit, there are better and better reasons to keep
your channels tuned to the globalizing trends for labor rights
and peace.
Note: the above article
was compiled from three separate reports by the author.
Greg Moses writes for the Texas
Civil Rights Review. He can be reached at: gmosesx@prodigy.net
Weekend Edition
Features for June 12 / 13, 2004
Peter
Linebaugh
Remembering the Common Hood: Soweto
and Runnymede
Team
CounterPunch
CP"s Favorite Albums
Jeffrey
St. Clair
Troy, Now and Then
Gary
Leupp
Not Really a Puppet Government in Iraq?
Brian
Cloughley
US Military in Crisis
Antonio
Ponvert, III
Iraqi Prisoner Abuse: the Connecticut Connection
Ben
Tripp
The Polls Get Stupider
Joe
Bageant
Mash Note to the "Girl with the Leash"
Ron
Jacobs
The Return of the Hip Hop Insurgency
Forrest
Hylton
Object Lessons from the Case of Francisco Cortés
Christopher
Brauchli
Federal Bureau of Errors
Kurt
Nimmo
Going After Qaddafi, Again
Wayne
Madsen
Israel"s Slap at Reagan
Anthony
Loewenstein
Al Jazeera Awakens the Arab World
Michael
Donnelly
A Lightship in the Forest: Greenpeace Docks in the Siskiyous
Greg
Moses
Who Will Tell Us More About the Workers of Nasiriyah?
Susan
Davis
Harry Potter & the Prisoner of Azkaban
Joseph
Ramsey
Weather Report: a Review of The Weather Underground
Niranjan
Ramakrishnan
The 18th Brumaire in the 21st
Century
Wayne
Saunders
The Gipper, D-Day and the Stanley Cup
Poets"
Basement
Richey, Ford, La Morticella, Albert
Website
of the Weekend
Insurgent Music
Keep
CounterPunch Alive:
Make
a Tax-Deductible Donation Today Online!
home
/ subscribe
/ about us / books
/ archives / search
/ links /
|