July 26, 2012 Vol. 54, No. 29 $1
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Workers and oppressed peoples of the world unite!
FRANCE
Peugeot
9
SYRIA
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AFRICAN UNION SUMMIT
11
11
Revés para los planes de guerra
Pastores por la Paz
12
By Caleb T. Maupin and Kathy Durkin
Hundreds of striking coal miners marched 285miles from Asturias on Spain’s north coast to the capi-tal city of Madrid, where thousands of other workers joined them as they entered the city. Hundreds of thousands of others came to show solidarity as theminers’ three-week trek ended with a massive demon-stration on July 11.Thousands of striking miners also came on buses to join the protests. They felt the support from so many of their fellow workers, who have suffered from gov-ernment-imposed austerity measures of higher taxes,layoffs, wage cuts and reduced crucial services and who face a new round of cutbacks.The chant of “Yes! Yes! They do represent us!” echoedthroughout the huge crowd, as the people embracedthe miners. Their banners read, “We are all miners.” Alejandro Casal, 28, an Airbus factory workermarching with fellow union members, said the min-ers’ protest “isn’t only their struggle. It’s a struggle forthe working class. … The people need to be here on the
street to say `Enough is enough.’ ” (Hufngton Post,
July 16)
This monumental protest came as rightist Prime
Minister Mariano Rajoy imposed new taxes andspending cuts, shaving $80 billion from the country’s budget. This was the condition the European rulingclass imposed for a bailout of Spain’s shaky banks. Itmeans more wage cuts for public sector workers, clos-ings of state-owned industries and more attacks onsocial programs.This comes on top of a 25 percent jobless rate in thecountry, with 50 percent of youth unemployed — dis-astrous rates for the eurozone’s fourth largest member. What sparked the miners to strike was the gov-ernment’s plan to cut coal-mining subsidies by two-thirds, which would undoubtedly result in mass layoffsin the mines. Seeing that the livelihoods, in fact, the very lives, of 30,000 miners were at stake, the miners’union declared a strike to oppose the subsidy cuts.Eight thousand miners went on strike on May 31.They have stood up to police batons, tear gas and ar-rests. The miners have militantly set up roadblocksand even stopped trains in their region of Asturias, which borders the Atlantic Ocean north of Madrid.
Bringing Asturias’ militant historyto Madrid
Asturias has a long radical history. In 1934, theregion was declared a socialist republic for a month while a mass workers’ uprising was taking place. It
was also a stronghold of anti-fascist ghting during
PHOTO:AN PHOBLACHT
Workers, supporting the striking miners, block a motorway in Asturias in June.
RALLY RESISTS AUSTERITY
Miners nd massive solidarity in Madrid
TRAYVON MARTIN
FBI bias
Mumia: ‘He’s all of us’
3
DRUG GIANT FINED
2
TEXAS
Behind hate crime
5
WELLS FARGOMUST PAY
But it’s not enough
6
MEXICAN ELECTION
7
Continued on page 9
Sign held in mass march during Mexican electionshows strength of ‘I am #132 campaign.’
PHOTO: ALAN ROTH
Page 2 July 26, 2012 workers.org
In the U.S
.Glaxo $3 billion ne .......................................2FBI report another slap against Trayvon Martin.............3Mumia: ’ Trayvon & the war against Us’ .....................3Boots Riley backs sit-in ....................................3Locked-out Con Ed workers ght back.....................4Unemployed march demands full benets.................4On the picket line .........................................4Forum on struggle led by people with disabilities . . . . . . . . . . 5Justice for Mollie Olgin & Mary Chapa......................5Charlotte Solidarity Center opens..........................6Home foreclosure crisis rages on...........................6Letters from behind the walls..............................8
Around the world
Miners nd massive solidarity in Madrid ...................1 The Obama administration’s ‘Greater East’..................6Mexico progressives charge fraud in defeat of AMLO.......7Autoworkers protest layos, plant closing in France........9U.S. prepares anti-Syria war psychology...................10African Union summit faces challenges ...................11
Editorials
Why shoot a shing boat? ................................10
Noticias En Español
Revés para los planes de guerra ..........................12Pastores por la Paz .......................................12
Workers World55 West 17 StreetNew York, N.Y. 10011
Phone: 212.627.2994E-mail: ww@workers.org Web: www.workers.org Vol. 54, No. 29 • July 26, 2012
Closing date: July 17, 2012Editor: Deirdre GriswoldTechnical Editor: Lal Roohk Managing Editors: John Catalinotto, LeiLani Dowell,Leslie Feinberg, Kris Hamel, Monica Moorehead,Gary Wilson West Coast Editor: John ParkerContributing Editors: Abayomi Azikiwe,Greg Buttereld, Jaimeson Champion, G. Dunkel,Fred Goldstein, Teresa Gutierrez, Larry Hales,Berta Joubert-Ceci, Cheryl LaBash,Milt Neidenberg, Bryan G. Pfeifer, Betsey Piette,Minnie Bruce Pratt, Gloria RubacTechnical Staff: Sue Davis, Shelley Ettinger,Bob McCubbin, Maggie VascassennoMundo Obrero: Carl Glenn, Teresa Gutierrez,Berta Joubert-Ceci, Donna Lazarus, Michael Martínez,
Carlos Vargas
Supporter Program: Sue Davis, coordinator
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Glaxo $3 billion ne –
Just the cost of doing business
By Betsey Piette
It is being touted as the largest nancial penalty of its
kind in the U.S. against a pharmaceutical corporation.
In July, GlaxoSmithKline agreed to plead guilty to threecriminal misdemeanor charges and pay $3 billion in nes
to settle claims of inappropriate marketing.
Glaxo admitted encouraging use of the antidepressantdrug Paxil for children, even though it was never ap
-
proved by the FDA for anyone under 18 years of age. The
company also withheld information from doctors and pa-
tients that Paxil appears to magnify distress and manipu
-lated clinical trials to minimize the number of suicideslinked to the pill.The company was also charged with paying doctors topromote Wellbutrin to treat obesity and sexual dysfunc-tion, when it had only been approved for depression.
Doctors were showered with gifts, consulting contracts,
speaking fees and sports tickets.
In addition, Glaxo withheld information about the
cardiovascular risks of Avandia, a diabetes drug shownto cause heart attacks. It promoted Advair, an inhaledlung drug, to patients with mild asthma, even though it
was not FDA approved for this use. The $3 billion ne will also cover a Justice Department investigation of Glaxo’s Medicaid pricing practices for nine of its drugs
from 1997 to 2004.
A $3 billion ne may seem huge — until one consid
-
ers that Glaxo had a net prot of $8.2 billion in 2011 on
revenues of $42.6 billion. In anticipation of the lawsuits,the company set aside $3.1 billion back in 2009 to coverlegal costs.
They had the money. During the years that Paxil and Wellbutrin were on the market, Glaxo made $27.5 billon
just on these and one other antidepressant, according toIMS Health.
Not one Glaxo executive has been prosecuted, despite
the fact that a number of deaths resulted from their prac-tices. In fact, it is rare for any health care executives to goto prison for their crimes.One exception was a case brought against medical de- vice producer Synthes Inc. in 2011, which resulted in jailterms for four executives. However, in June 2012 Johnson& Johnson purchased Synthes for $19.7 billion. In 2009,
around the same time that Pzer was settling a $2.3 bil
-lion penalty for illegal drug marketing, the company spent
$68 billion to acquire Wyeth Pharmaceuticals.
Apparently, penalties stemming from these illegalmarketing practices are just one of the costs of doing business.
Big payo on direct-to-consumer ads
The advertising and marketing of prescription drugs
on television and radio, made legal by the Food and Drug
Administration in 1997, has been a source of tremendous
prots for many of the major pharmaceuticals. The U.S.and New Zealand are the only two industrialized coun
-
tries that permit direct-to-consumer (DTC) advertising of
prescription drugs.Recent attempts to get Congress to restrict drug ads,or to give special warnings on new medications during
their rst two years on the market, got watered down toa provision that gave the FDA the right to review ads be
-fore they are aired. The oversight agency can make rec-ommendations for ad changes, but has no authority torequire ad agencies to redo commercials.Congress took this position despite a Congressional
Budget Ofce study released May 26, 2011, that found theaverage number of prescriptions for new drugs with DTC
advertising was nine times greater than prescriptions for
new drugs without DTC ads.
According to the Wall Street Journal, in 2006, phar-maceuticals were the tenth biggest advertiser. Television broadcasters and magazine publishers, as well as “Mad” Avenue, have come to rely on this ad income. A study by two York University researchers estimatedthat the U.S. pharmaceutical industry spends almosttwice as much on advertisement as they do on researchand development. Using data collected directly from theindustry and from doctors in 2004, the study concludedthat 24.4 cents of each sales dollar went to promotion,compared with 13.4 cents for research and development,
based on U.S. domestic sales of $235.4 billion. (PLoS
Medicine, January 2008)In 2007 alone, drug companies spent more than $5.375
billion on DTC drug advertising. Comparative sales for
the 25 biggest spenders that year found returns averaging
$13.29 per ad dollar. Pzer, which invested $98.36 mil
-
lion in ads for its popular anti-cholesterol drug Lipitor,
had sales of $5.88 billion or $59.78 per ad dollar spenton the drug.
The “ask-your-doctor” DTC ads are ubiquitous. Turn on your TV at any time and you can’t miss them. The DTC
ads push prescription drug use as the primary response tomedical conditions that can often be remedied with diet,exercise, stress reduction and other preventative mea-
sures that are far cheaper and benet overall health.
The ads project images of people having fun, engagedin activities, etc., once they take the given drug to curetheir ailment. The ads downplay information about po-tential side effects of the drugs. Required warnings, in-cluding dangers of complications such as heart attack,skin rashes, internal bleeding, osteoporosis, depressionand even death, are recited quickly and quietly. The focusis on the effectiveness of the advertisement, not on theeffectiveness of the drug.
People who see these ads often do ask their doctors toprescribe the drugs, just as the ads suggest. Doctors may
not like having their patients ask for these drugs, but they often concede and write the prescription. There is an in-centive. According to the Archives of Internal Medicine,
84 percent of U.S. doctors have a nancial relationship
with a drug or medical-device company. According to
ScienceDaily, in 2004, the pharmaceutical industry spent
$61,000 per physician to promote their drugs. (Janu-ary 2008)
Doctors are encouraged through nancial incentives
from the pharmaceutical companies to oversell the ben-
ets of a drug while downplaying well-established disad
-
vantages. Daniel Carlat, director of the Pew PrescriptionProject, described receiving $750 per session from a drug
company to educate other doctors about the alleged bene-
ts of an antidepressant. (Philadelphia Inquirer, June 26)
Without direct criminal charges being brought againstdrug company executives, there is little incentive to curbthese practices in an industry clearly based on market
prots, not patient needs.
To be continued.
workers.org July 26, 2012 Page 3
THE CLASSROOM& THE CELL:
Conversations onBlack Life in America
Mumia Abu-Jamal& Marc Lamont Hill This book delves into theproblems of Black life inAmerica and oers real,concrete solutions.Order at: www.freemumia.com/?p=684
MARXISM,
REPARATIONS
& the Black Freedom Struggle
An anthology of writings from Workers World newspaper. Edited by Monica Moorehead. Includes:
COVER GRAPHIC: SAHU BARRON
Racism, National Oppression& Self-Determination
Larry Holmes
Black Labor from Chattel Slaveryto Wage Slavery
Sam Marcy
Black Youth: Repression & Resistance
LeiLani Dowell
The Struggle for Socialism Is Key
Monica Moorehead
Domestic Workers United DemandPassage of a Bill of Rights
Imani HenryAvailable at Amazon.com & bookstores around the country www.workers.org/reparations
Black & Brown Unity: A Pillar of Struggle for HumanRights and Global Justice!
Saladin Muhammad
Alabama’s Black Belt: Legacy of Slavery,Sharecropping & Segregation
Consuela Lee
Harriet Tubman, Woman Warrior
Mumia Abu-Jamal
Are Conditions Ripe Again Today? Anniversaryof the 1965 Watts Rebellion
John Parker
Racism & Poverty in the Delta
Larry Hales
Haiti Needs Reparations, Not Sanctions
Pat Chin
FBI report:
Another slapagainst Trayvon Martin
By Monica Moorehead
The struggle for justice for Trayvon Martin, the mur-dered African-American youth, recently made headlinesagain. The 17-year-old Martin was unarmed when he
was stalked and fatally shot by George Zimmerman, a
self-proclaimed neighborhood watch person, in a gated
community in Sanford, Fla., on Feb. 26.Zimmerman used the “Stand Your Ground” law to jus
-
tify the killing by saying that Martin attacked him rst,
and therefore he had the right to self-defense. The San-
ford police accepted Zimmerman’s version of the events
when he was brought in for questioning and decided notto arrest him.This injustice sparked major outrage, initiated by social media throughout the U.S. and other parts of
the world. Led by Black youth — like in Miami where
Martin attended high school — national protests, largeand small, grew on a daily basis and forced the Semi-
nole County District Attorney’s ofce to arrest and jailZimmerman on second-degree murder charges on April20. Less than a week later, Zimmerman was released on
$15,000 bond.In early July, the same judge who set the original
$150,000 bail revoked the bond, claiming that Zimmer
-man and his spouse had lied about their income, failingto reveal large donations made by right-wingers through
Zimmerman’s website. Bail was then set at $1 million.Zimmerman was freed on $100,000 bond on July 6 after
spending one night in jail. No trial date has yet been set.
On July 13, the Federal Bureau of Investigation re
-leased photos of the hoodie worn by Martin the nighthe was shot, which depicted the gunshot wound. In its
report, the FBI claims Zimmerman was not motivated
by racism to kill Martin, but by fear of the hoodie he was wearing. The report was based on interviews with those
who knew Zimmerman.
‘Your hoodie made me do it!’
Investigator Chris Serinone told the FBI that he “be
-
lieved that Zimmerman’s actions were not based on
Martin’s skin color, rather based on his attire, the totalcircumstances of the encounter and the previous bur-glary suspects in the community.” (cnn.com, July 13)
The FBI is part of a larger federal investigation thatthe U.S. Department of Justice is carrying out at therequest of Martin’s parents, Sybrina Fulton and Tracy Martin. His parents and their lawyer, Benjamin Crump,adamantly maintain that Zimmerman racially proled
Martin. While hoodies are a popular form of dress for youthof various nationalities and social strata, there is a nega-
tive stigma connected to Black and Latino/a people who
wear them. In the minds of many in U.S. society, which isriddled with white supremacist attitudes, hoodies worn by youth of color are synonymous with gang member-ship.
In essence, the FBI report is an attempt to evoke pub
-
lic sympathy for Zimmerman, by saying he was justied
in shooting Martin because he felt threatened by the youth’s clothing. The report helps to lay the basis for
Zimmerman’s acquittal even before the trial begins.
The tragic shooting of Trayvon Martin is not an iso-lated incident. It is part and parcel of the broader issue
of racial proling of youth of color, who are branded as
being a threat to society. In reality, these youth are hor-ribly disenfranchised, especially if they lack jobs andeducation.This raises the question of who is the victim and whois the aggressor. Nine times out of 10, youth of color areseen as the aggressors, and therefore, it is more or lessaccepted to “get them before they get you” — whether by
police brutality, incarceration or vigilantism as in Zim
-merman’s case.The courts, the police and the laws under capitalismcannot be relied upon to bring justice for youth like Tray- von Martin, which would mean a guilty conviction for
Zimmerman. The progressive movement must not only continue to support the Black community’s demand for
justice for Martin, but take it a step further by joining in building and sustaining a movement to demand jobs, not jails and police terror for all working-class youth.
Political prisonerMumia Abu-Jamal on
’Trayvon & thewar against Us’
Taken from a June 17 audio columnat prisonradio.org.
For a brief moment in time, the name and fate of
Trayvon Martin broke through the daily media fog andtouched the lives of tens of thousands of people, moti- vating them, mobilizing them and moving them to takedirect action against the gross inaction of the state.
Youth across Florida walked out of high schools andtook to the streets. People in dozens of cities marched,
seemingly spontaneously, against the non-action of thestate. Why?
Because for many of these teenagers, they sensed theunsaid truth: It could’ve been them.
It could’ve been them.Those kids pushed the state to act, if only to pre- vent the movement from growing more and more andspreading like kudzu in the Southern sun.
And these protests against anti-Black violence take
place amidst the greatest institutional violence against
Blacks since the height of the civil rights movement. By
that, I mean the silent assault of mass incarceration,or what law professor, Michelle Alexander, terms “the
New Jim Crow” (Last year, she authored a book by that
title). And it matters not that Trayvon’s killer wasn’t a cop(as is usually the case). He was an informal auxiliary to
a system that polices Black life and holds their every act
under suspicion.The South, for centuries, was an armed white army, where every white male was empowered by law and
custom to control Black life, by any means necessary.Trayvon was judged guilty of walking while Black, asare many, many Black and Latino/a youth every day.
No matter what the result of the Trayvon Martin case(I happen to think acquittal is down the line), the New
Jim Crow pecks at Black, Brown and poor lives daily,
destroying any future they may’ve once dreamed of having.
But what we learn from Trayvon’s case is that protest
works, for without these protests, there would’ve beenno case.That lesson must translate to the vast social injusticeof the prison industrial complex.
When more Black men are in chains today than atthe dawn of the Civil War, when slavery was legal; or
when the South African system of apartheid was in fullswing, protests, mass protests, are a necessity.
Boots Riley backs sit-in
Supporters of the
Lakeview Elementary
School sit-in gatheredfor a “Celebration and
Convergence for Public
Education” on July 15.
Police had evicted sit-
in participants on July 3. The event was heldacross the street from
the school at Splash PadPark, where the Peo
-ples’ School has contin-ued to conduct classes.Speakers discussed how
to ght the attacks onpublic education. Po
-
litical activist/performers, including Boots Riley and
Jabari Shaw, headlined the event.
The Oakland Unied School District plans to moveadministrative ofces into the school during the week
WW PHOTO: MONICA MOOREHEAD
March 21, Union Square, New York City.
of July 16. Lakeview sit-in activists have requested thatthe Alameda Labor Council sanction a picket line at the
school to prevent the move.
— Report & photo by Terri Kay
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