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OTHER WINTER 2008 ARTICLES

Cynthia McKinney: I just received a three-page letter from a woman veteran in Tennessee. She

did three tours of duty in Vietnam. None of the candidates are addressing the real issues that she and her family are facing: health care, job offshoring, declining public education, stagnation of wages.

The politicians and a media are more interested in hype and hot-button issues. (The "war on terror" or the "war on drugs".) They are not seriously discussing policy or solutions.

Angela Davis said all the candidates are talking about "differences" that will not make a difference and "changes" that will not bring about any change.

Question: You are now serving on the newly formed National Organizing Committee for a Reconstruction Party. Why is this important to you?

McKinney: Two years ago, the world got to see the Black community in New Orleans and the Gulf Coast decimated by government neglect and ethnic-cleansing. The Reconstruction Movement was born in the aftermath of Katrina and Rita. But the conditions of poverty, racism, and neglect have existed since America's first Reconstruction Period after the Civil War. Yet the US is touted as the most "prosperous" and "democratic" country in the world.

A 2003 Harvard University study found that US Black infant and maternal mortality rates are 2 and 3.5 times higher than for whites. 83,750 Black people died in 2005 from premature deaths simply because they were Black.

United for a Fair Economy tells us that it would take 1,664 years to close the home-ownership gap. Racial disparities are worse than at the time of the murder of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. To close the racial wealth divide, it would take the equivalent of a "G.I. Bill for Everyone." It would have to include comprehensive federal investment in low-income families and communities.

The Reconstruction Movement is needed to bring attention to the state of Black America. But once people acknowledge this deplorable situation, an agenda and strategy for real change are needed.

Question: What programmatic planks will you raise in this election year?

McKinney: We need planks to address the needs of all working people in this country, including all communities of color.

The International Tribunal on Katrina held last August highlighted four central demands that need to be addressed immediately. The issue of land is at the center of the struggle. The wealthy and powerful want to eliminate Black control over, and access to, the land. We have watched Black land loss accelerate in the South. We have seen systematic expropriation of Black-owned land as a result of government policy.

While I was a Congresswoman, I won the amendment that led the U.S. Department of Agriculture to admit that it had long discriminated against Black farmers. I recently learned that this "taking" of Black land even includes my own family. But in addition to these southern land takings, we have gentrification. It takes Black land and Black neighborhoods in desirable urban and suburban areas. Gentrification is changing Black political power, too.

I support reparations. Reparations is an accepted aspect of jurisprudence in this country. The Black community has yet to be repaired for the damage it has suffered. Reparations means addressing the racial disparities that exist in our country and are getting wider.

Unfortunately, too many police officers take communities of color as a rampaging ground. The police murders of unarmed Blacks and Latino men is unacceptable. The police have become an occupying force rather than protecting the community. We must also rethink prisons. The U.S. justice system is criminal for its injustice. That won't change as long as prisons are a source of wealth for stockholders. They bear no repercussions for their "investments." We cannot accept the continued astronomical incarceration rates for our children and their continued criminalization -- like in the Jena 6 and the Palmdale 4 cases.

And there is the fundamental democratic right of Black people to vote and have their votes counted. In 2000, an estimated 1 million Black people voted their dreams, their hopes, and their aspirations -- and those votes were not even counted. Who fought for them?

In 2004, it was the Black vote again that was targeted for nullification in an election drive-by shooting. It is clear that the Black vote will again be pivotal in the 2008 election.

Election protection must be one of our central demands. Two presidential elections were stolen. And no one was held accountable. Many fear that the will of the voters will be thwarted yet again with election fraud or outright theft. U.S. electronic voting machines are a clear-and-present danger to our Republic.

Question: How about the broader programmatic points of unity of the Reconstruction Party?

McKinney: There is a need for a real jobs program. A massive public works program would rebuild our crumbling infrastructure, with union jobs at a living wage. The funding exists--by slashing the war budget and making the rich pay their fair share of taxes.

An extra component would come from Green jobs. We need to manufacture technologies that diminish our carbon footprint. This makes good economic and global-warming sense. We need a new economic and foreign policy that promotes alternative energy technologies for heating and cooling -- like solar and wind power.

We have to put a stop to these "free trade" agreements, and quickly.

After 14 years of NAFTA we are losing jobs -- especially jobs with living wages and benefits -- to all these "free trade" agreements, be it NAFTA, CAFTA, the Caribbean FTA, the U.S.-Peru FTA.

The American workers are not benefiting. Nor are working people in the rest of the world benefiting. Only the transnational corporations benefit. They are reaping super-profits.

This new "globalization" has become a race to the bottom. And now the American workers have joined in this race.

Question: On the subject of immigration, what proposals are you putting forward?

McKinney: The corporations, mainstream politicians and their media have found scapegoats for their failed policies. They blame "illegal immigrants" for the loss of jobs. This is a bold-faced lie. What is illegal is the way that U.S. economic policies treat workers here and throughout the world.

To discuss so-called "illegal immigration" we must address the reasons millions of people are forced to leave their homes. Our economic "free trade" and military interventionist policies destabilize countries. They create the massive movements of people escaping their plight in the hope of supporting their families. We must change our policies to promote cooperation

-- not oppression and exploitation.

We must put a halt to policies at home that criminalize the victims. These are all union-busting and wage-depressing tactics--make the victim appear to be the perpetrator.

An amnesty program would be an equitable solution-- while the economic conditions forcing people to immigrate are addressed.

Question: What are some of the other questions that need to be tackled?

McKinney: This "war without end." We need the immediate withdrawal of all U.S. troops from Iraq and from the Middle East. This includes all military advisers. and closing all military bases.

We must reject this "war on terror," which is only aimed at promoting a failed foreign policy. It's past time to repeal the Patriot Acts, the Secret Evidence Act, and the Military Tribunals Act.

AND we need to bring all of our troops home from Europe, Asia and Africa. We don't need our young women and men in harm's way. Our presence in those countries only stokes wars and conflicts.

We need a Department of Peace instead of a Department of State. This Department would put forward projects for peace all over the world. We could deploy our Army Corps of Engineers to rebuild infrastructures and communities here and abroad. We could deploy our diplomats to help resolve conflicts through peaceful means.

We need to redefine what is meant by national security-- so that national security exists when our people feel safe in their communities. National security is when people are free from hunger and poverty, when they are literate, when there is health care for all, when they are making a living wage, when they are free from drugs and incarceration.

Health care is another major issue. Often patients cannot receive the treatment they require because it is blocked by the profit motive of the insurance companies. You have to take the insurance companies out of the health-care equation. We need a universal, single-payer health-care system.

And we need to focus on education, but not with "reforms" like No Child Left Behind that are aimed at dismantling public education. We need to instill pride and a desire to learn. We need free higher education. India provides free higher education. Now our jobs are being shipped there.

And we need child care for working families. Parents should have the opportunity to have their children taken care of, either through a family subsidy or through public child-care centers in schools. This could also free parents up to go back to school.

Then we need to address some difficult questions that face our youth in particular.

Drugs are more and more prevalent. The CIA has admitted it was involved in drug-dealing. But no one at the highest level of government has been punished. The wealthy bring in the drugs. Afghanistan today is the leading heroin producer in the world--protected by the Bush administration. Congressman Henry Gonzalez's investigations show that the banking system would crumble if all the money laundered through drugs were taken out of the banks.

U.S. prosecution of "the drug war" is pitiful. The victims are thrown into prisons, while the wealthy users and drug dealers thrive. The rich who own stock in the prison-industrial complex, or the corporations that hire prison labor, are reaping hefty sums while everyone families are ripped apart by imprisonment.

We need money for detoxification, rehabilitation, education -- not incarceration.

Question: You are seeking the Green Party's presidential nomination? What is the relationship between the Greens and the Reconstruction Party?

McKinney: I believe we need a coalition -- a peace and justice coalition, a Power to the People coalition -- that can put another voice at the table of American political discussion. We now only have two voices -- mostly the same voice. With the Green Party we can get 5% of the vote so we can get three voices.

Question: How do you answer those who say you might be a spoiler on behalf of the Republicans?

McKinney: More than 40% of the potential voters don't vote because they don't hear a message that motivates them to go out and vote. I want to give them a reason to vote. The real spoilers are the ones who stole the vote in 2000 and 2004 -- or who didn't fight to defend the vote.

Visit www.allthingscynthiamckinney.com. To Donate to McKinney’s campaign, go to www.runcynthiarun.org. Or send to Power to the People Committee, P.O. Box 311759, Atlanta, GA 31153. 

Alan Benjamin
International Liaison Committee in the U.S.
(415) 641-8616; ILC section of www.owcinfo.org

“They have underfunded by billions the No Child Left Behind act, the most ironically named piece of legislation since the 1942 Japanese Family Leave Act” Al Franken