Wednesday is Human Rights Day

Wednesday is the 60th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (online at www.un.org/Overview/rights.html), ratified by the UN General Assembly in 1948. The US government acts like it is the armed guardian of human rights, for example, Tuesday afternoon the ambassador to Zimbabwe was threatening that country with invasion, yet Americans don't even have as many rights as people in other capitalist countries. The treatment of "enemy combatants" and domestic prisoners violates Article 5, on torture and degrading treatment.  Article 7 is violated when immigrants and others are not treated equally before the law.  I think Article 21 is violated by North Carolina's ballot access law, though the Article does not explicitly say people have the right to vote for the party of their choice, it does say everyone has the right to run for office.  Article 23 says everyone has the right to join a union, which NC denies to public workers by law.  The sham "War on Terror" certainly isn't conducive to an international order that respects human rights, violating Article 28.  This isn't even a complete list.  Unfortunately Articles 29 and 30 seem to say that people cannot rise up to get their rights, but then, this is a capitalist document, even if it is progressive in many respects.  One problem is that classes vary in their power and have irreconcilable interests, yet supposedly the few and powerful capitalists and the many and oppressed workers are equal, and the government is a neutral balance between them.   

 

Wednesday the workers at Smithfield Foods' hog processing plant in Tar Heel will exercise their right to vote on unionization, in a National Labor Relations Board-supervised election.  The United Food and Commerical Workers lost the last elections, and after the 1997 election management, its deputized security, and the local sheriff department attacked the workers (see www.allianceml.com/paper/2006/spring_march/smithfieldfiring2.htm).        

 

At least 6 people from the Durham Bill of Rights Defense Committee attended the County Commissioners meeting Monday for the renewal of the County's Bill of Rights Defense Resolution.  Victoria Peterson, who is not a member, spoke about the need to consider the rights of the hundreds of County prisoners and about 4000 on probation or parole and the need for vocational training.  Joan Walsh accepted the Resolution for the group and spoke on the need to protect the rights of everyone in Durham, regardless of immigration status, and noted that every American is a descendant of immigrants.  Next Monday evening the City Resolution will be renewed, on Bill of Rights Day.