4A
EDITORIAL AND OPINION/ Hit Cisrlstte ^o«
Thursday, September 22, 2005
tClje Cljarlotte ^o£it
The Voice of the Black Community
1531 Camden Road Charlotte. N.C. 28203
Gerald O. Johnson ceo/publisher
Robert L Johnson CaPUBLISHER/GENERAL MANAGER
Herbert L White editor in chief
OUR VIEW
CttyCound
disirici and
at-laide
campaigns
We recommend Turner and
Eaves in Districts 3 and 4
Election season is well on
the way and normally we do
not do endorsements for pri
mary elections. However, this
primary season has some
very interesting races.
District 4 City Council
Malcolm Graham’s depar
ture from city politics to
become a state senator left
District 4 open for the taking.
Several very good candidates
are dueling for that seat. We
feel Maxine Eaves’ experi
ence as a bridesmaid of poli
tics but never a bride has
earned her a place at the
table.
She has been politically
active for years including for
midable roles with the
League of Women Voters. We
feel she will do well repre
senting this district, which is
wrestling with issues sur
rounding explosive growth
around University City as
well as how to best strength
en fragile inner city nei^ibor-
hoods like the Hidden Valley
community
District 4 is fortunate to
have several community-ori
ented candidates interested
in serving, as evidenced by
the nimiber of people who
expressed interest in being
appointed to the seat when
Mr. Graham resigned last
year. Among those running
for a place at the council
table, we heartily endorse
Mrs. Eaves, who has an inti
mate knowledge of the dis
trict as well as Charlotte gov
ernment.
District 3 City Council
Warren Ihmer has had his
moments of controversy on
LETTERS
MATTERS OF OPINION
President Bush is no LBJ in deeds
Burgess Turner
coimcil (such as the
Confederate flag over
Elmwood Cemetery, which
isn’t in his district), but as it
relates to District 3, he has
been effective helping to over
see a rapidly changing area
that covers south and west
Charlotte.
We have seen Mr. Thmer
exhibit growth in his first
term on the coimdl and as a
longtime district resident,
has exhibited a clear grasp of
issues affecting District 3 as
well as the city as a whole.
While Joel Ford is an articu
late and worthy candidate
with the potential to be an
outstanding city leader, we
feel District 3 can best be
served by Mr. T\imer, who
has proven to be a quick
study to the intricacies of city
government and has proven
to be an honest steward of his
district’s interests.
City Council at-large
Only four Republicans are
running in the at-laige cam
paign, leaving five Democrats
to compete for four seats. Our
recommendation is Anthony
Foxx, David Erdman, Susan
Burgess and Darrell
Bonapart. Mrs. Burgess is an
incumbent and Mr. Erdman
served on council briefly in
the late 1990s to fill an unex
pired term.
George E.
Curry
After stumbling miserably
out of the gate, George W.
Bush has finally caught up
with the American public and
now realizes that there is
widespread support for
rebuilding New Orleans.
He has finally struck the
right rhetorical chords, pledg
ing to “renew our promise as
a land of equality and decen
cy” He went on to say, “As we
clear away the debris of a
hurricane, let us also clear
away the legacy of inequali
ty”
With Bush, it is always bet-
t^ to ignore the language
and examine his record. He
has made some sweeping
endorsements of diversity
that would have made even
Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
proud. But he used Dr. King’s
birthday to announce his
opposition to a pair of
University of Michigan afSr-
mative action cases that went
before the Supreme CJouit.
Over Bush’s objection, the
conservative court upheld
Michigan’s law school admis
sions program while invali
dating a more numbers-ori-
ented undergraduate plan.
There ai^ already troubling
signs that the Bush adminis
tration plans to use this nat
ural disaster to recycle some
old Bush plans that were pre
viously rejected. All of the
water hadn’t been drained
fi:x)m Canal Street in New
Orleans before Bush pro
posed $5,000 “Worker
Recovery Accounts” to assist
victims of Hurricane Katrina
and the subsequent flooding.
Under the plan, those left
unemployed by Katrina can
use the one-time grant for job
training, day care, trans
portation, education or any
thing else that will help them
land a job.
The administration pro
posed a similar program two
years ago, but Congress
rejected the $3.6 billion plan.
If a person found a job within
13 weeks, und^ the plan he
or she could keep up to $ 1,000
left in the accoimt. Liberals
opposed the plan because
they thought it would be the
first step in replacing un^n-
ployment insurance.
Conservative, on the other
hand, objected because they
did not want to create anoth
er layer of bureaucracy
Even more disturbing is
Bush’s determination to use
public funds to subsidize pri
vate education.
The Department of
Education announced a pro
posal that would provide
nearly $500 million in federal
flmding to help students
enrolled in private schools in
the disaster area relocate to
private schools elsewhere.
This is a variation of Bush’s
voucher plan and would use
limited public funds to subsi
dize private education. The
flawed plan calls for each stu
dent receiving up to $7,500.
Some conservatives, fearing
growing deficits and an
uncomfortable federal role in
the relief efibrts, are calling
for across-lhe-board cuts in
ord^ to fund the recovery
and the wars in Iraq and
Afghanistan. Others are chal-
lei^ing Congress to remove
pork projects fix)i5i recently
enacted legislation.
Bush says he has no plans
to raise taxes or do away with
previously enacted tax cuts
that mostly benefit the
wealthy
Former President Bill
CHinton, in an interview on
the Ibday Show, said it would
be “crazy” to maintain those
tax cuts in view of the imex-
pected new expenses, dhnton
and former presid^t Geoige
H.W Bush are heading up
private relief effoils to help
the victims of Katrina.
Expenses associated with
recovering from Hurricane
Katrina, estimated to be $ 150
to $200 billion, should not be
used to distort the serious
deficit problems the nation
was facing before the disas
ter. The Congressional
Budget Office had projected
that the federal deficit would
exceed $300 billion a year for
the next decade, totaling
nearly $4.5 trillion by 2015.
And that was long before
Katrina came ashore.
An analysis by the Center
on Budget and PoHcy
Priorities shows that the
repeal of some of the previ
ously enacted tax cuts would
more than offset expenses
associated with Hurricane
Katrina.
“The tax cuts enacted in
2001 and 2003 cost more each
year than the total amount
likely to be spent on Katrina,”
the center said. “The cost of
tax cuts enacted in 2001 and
2003 is $225 bilhon this year
alone and will rlimb to hi^er
levels each year in the future,
as more of the tax cuts enact
ed in 2001 take full
effect...The cost of the tax
cuts in a single year exceeds
the total anticipated costs of
all expenses related to the
hurricane over the years to
come.”
Rather than making the
‘Tx>ld” decision that he
promised by repealing at
least one of the tax cuts,
George W. Bush will inflict
even more cuts in programs
designed to help the very peo
ple displaced by Hurricane
Katrina. Bush’s words may
sound like fellow Tfexan
Lyndon B. Johnson’s Great
Society Programs, but they
are not matched by similar
action.
GEORGE E. CURRY is editor-
in-chief of the National
Newspaper • Publishers
Association News Service He
appears on National Public Radio
as part of "News and Notes with
Ed Gordon.”
Anti-war movement is alive and well
Low-income have right
to counel before courts
In 1963, the U S. Supreme Court issued its landmark ruling
in Gideon vs Wainright, establishing a constitutional right to
counsel in criminal cases. The rig^t to counsel deserves to be
broadened to include civil cases involving fundamental rights
and basic human needs. In Gideon vs Wainri^t, tlie court
believed that counsel was required when an individual was
placed in danger of losing their own liberty
Yet there are other scenarios which are just as egregious and
must be addressed, such as a parent’s loss of custody and con
trol of their own children, loss of income, or d^iial to proper
health care The 107th (Congress found there is a need to encour
age the proviskai of hi^ quality legal assistance for p«^ns
who would otherwise be unable to afford legal counsd, and for
years federal resources available to the local Legal S^vices
Corporation have eroded.
Gene Nichol, Dean of the University of North Carolina Sdbool
of Law reported we have one lawyer for every 380 people gen
erally, and one Legal Serices lawyer for every 4,3(X) persons liv
ing in poverty Equal justice under the law doesn’t approximate
the way the system operates in jH*actice, and ordinary citizens
are priced out of the system.
Our basic fundamental ri^ts do not lie just in criminal
statutes, but within the basic limits to family, health, emj^oy-
ment, education, eind other ri^ts needed to live and prosper.
We’re not asking for handouts, but assurance that our govern^
ment will be there fcr citizens ne^ected and not protected under
the laws. The state of Ncarth Carolina has an opportunity of
becoming the first state in American history by amending the
state constitutiofi giving indigent peoj^e the right to equal
access to justice.
Howard J McClure Jr
Charlotte
At a moment when
President Bush’s public
approval ratings are lower
than Richard Nixon’s at the
time of his resignation in
1974 - and that was before he
was pilloried for mishandling
rescue efforts associated with
Hurricane Katrina - it is iron
ic to hear supporters of the
Bush administration dismiss
the anti-war movement.
As you know, these dis
missals all increased in
tempo as greater attention
was paid to the quest of
Cindy Sheehan, mother of a
U S. soldier killed in Iraq, to
meet with President Bush
himself Bush refused to meet
with her, continued his vaca
tion, ran off to Idaho to get
away fium protesters; and
then allowed his supporters
to specifically condemn
Sheehan and to challenge
other opponents of the Iraq
war as allegedly being
extremists or ^mething close
to traitors.
Allowed, you ask? Sure. All
President Bush had to do was
publicly and loudly condemn
such ihetoric as inflammato
ry and dmiagogic just as he
should have done afl^ Pat
Robertson’s outrageous call
for the assassination of
Venezuelan President Hugo
Chavez. Yet, in neither the
attacks on Sheehan; the
attacks on other opponents of
the Iraq war/occupation; nor
in ree^nse to Robertson did
the President of the United
And it’s more likely to gain
strength and influence as Iraq
takes a heavier toll on U.S.
Bill
Fletcher
States of America feel that it
was necessary to set the ri^t
moral [there is that word
again...] tone.
What makes this entire sit
uation nothing short of amaz
ing is that public disenchant
ment with the
war continues
to grow,
despite the
pro-Bush
attacks on the
anti-war
movan^t. It
has also been
made amaz-
ing how the
media wishes to dismiss pop
ular criticisms and growing
finstration about the war.
This is what raises the impor
tance of the anti-war demon
strations, scheduled for Sept.
24 in Washington, D C.
Convened by United For
Peace & Justice and the
A.N.S.WE.R Coalition, it is
projected that the march and
rally will tap into this grow
ing anguish and ango* over
the convoluted policies of this
administration that show no
end in si^t to a war and
occupation that the U.S.
media refuses to acknowl
edge as having been and con
tinuing to be, illegal.
I think that it is worth
emphasizing this point so
that we do not fall prey to the
ri^t-wing slander that claim
that these of us who oppose
the war and occupation are
not supporting the troops. It
is now firmly established that
the people of the USA were
lied to about the situation in
Iraq. There were no weapons
of mass destruction and the
intell^ence about Iraq was
manipulated in order to
manipulate us. There was no
threat fix)m Iraq and the only
terrorist presence in Iraq was
in a region controlled by the
Kurds, that is, by allies of the
USA.
Since there was no justifica
tion for this war, and as such
it was a dear violation of
international law, there can
therefore be no question of
“...staying the course...”
Think about it for a second.
Let’s just suppose that the
police broke into your house
and destroyed your property
based on a “tip” that you were
trafficking in narcotics. Let’s
further suppose that it turns
out that the tip was orches
trated by someone who sim
ply did not like you.
Can the police stay in your
house and take over your
affairs? Can they start
changing your bank accoimt,
put your children into differ
ent schools, or rebuilding
your house to conform to
their idea of how you should
live?
The answ^ is obvioxis: No!
Instead, you would be owed
compensation for the destruc
tion of your property and the
chaos into which your life had
been Ihrown. So, too, it is
with Iraq. There is no “...stay
ing the course...” because the
course was charted by people
whese intentions were not to
protect us fix)m terror, but
instead to remake the Middle
East in a manner that served
their interests rather than
the interests of the people of
the Middle East.
The anti-war movemait is
far fium dead. In fact, it
grows each day as one indi
vidual after another asks
himself/herself the same
question that Cindy Sheehan
has asked; why did anyone
have to die for a lie?
BILL FLETCHER is president
of Trans Africa Forum, a
Washington, D.C.-based non
profit educational and organizing
center formed to raise awareness
in the United States about issues
facing the nations and peoples of
Africa, the Caribbean and Latin
America. He also is co-chair of
the anti-war coalition. United for
Peace and Justice. He can be
reached at
bfietcher& transafricaforum org.