Support
anti-war,
anti-racist
news

:: Donate now ::

Email this article 

Printable page

Email the editor

LETTERS

If it's Brown and Root, flush it

Workers World, Dec. 16, published a letter responding to an earlier article about Brown and Root's role constructing Camp Bondsteel, a permanent U.S. military base in Kosovo.

I picked up a couple of your newspapers at the Mumia demo in Philly on Dec. 11. I couldn't help noticing the mention of my old employer, Brown and Root. I'm a union carpenter and before moving to the Northeast was a carpenter in the Houston area. My introduction to the trade was through Brown and Root. The workplace culture at B & R is militantly anti-union. Speaking favorably about unions is grounds for dismissal. (I participated in a wildcat walkout over a safety issue on a job in 1980 and soon left the employ of the company.)

Their company newsletter, the Brownbuilder (called the Brown-noser by employees), is mainly company rah-rah combined with anti-union propaganda. It's true that B & R benefited from their relationship with [then-U.S. President] Lyndon Johnson to hold 90 percent of the construction contracts in Vietnam during the war. In fact, during the 1970s, B & R was the second largest engineering and construction firm in the world. (Second only to Caspar Weinberger's Bechtel Group.)

Brown and Root's relationship with Johnson didn't start with the Vietnam War. Before the Second World War, B & R was a small local road paving contractor. With the outbreak of the war, Johnson secured numerous defense contracts for the company. Thus the growth of the company into a large building concern was assured. I can't confirm the rumor about Lady Bird Johnson being a part owner.

Brown and Root is the enemy of construction workers everywhere. As an old Gulf Coast Building Trades bumper sticker once said, "If it's Brown and Root--flush it."

John Kaye
Trenton, N.J.

Build an anti-imperialist movement

As someone who, alongside Fred Goldstein, proudly carried a Youth Against War & Fascism banner linking the U.S. war in Viet Nam to the internal war against Black America in the streets of Chicago in 1968, I'd like to add a postscript to his excellent article "From Chicago `68 to Seattle `99." [Workers World, Dec. 16]

Our frustration as anti-imperialists at the time was that we were not able to persuade the anti-war movement, dominated by "peace," "hippie" or "single-issue" groups, to view the U.S. war as an imperialist war. Yes, it was a "bad," "illegal," "racist," "unwinable," "anti-Communist" war, but, above all, it was an imperialist war. Our slogan, "Big firms get rich, GIs die," neatly tied the issues together.

As Seattle demonstrated, more and more progressive people in the U.S. are seeing past the U.S.'s self-righteous mask (held firmly in place by anti-Communism). Now, only ten years later, the U.S.'s naked, rapacious greed is being exposed and opposed within its own borders.

Wow! That's what we dreamt of in 1968! Even then those of us in YAWF knew that the most important battles against U.S. imperialism had to be fought within this country. Not just in places like Greece, Turkey, Indonesia, the former Yugoslavia, and south Korea, to mention recent sites of anti-U.S. demonstrations.

Now we must find many creative ways to keep the anti-imperialist momentum going in the labor movement, on the campuses, among all those oppressed by racism, sexism and homophobia. Only by building a consciously anti-imperialist movement in this country can we make the slogan "Workers and oppressed of the world unite in the 21st century" a reality.

Sue Davis
New York

Boys Don't Cry

Thank you for carrying a review of "Boys Don't Cry" by a trans person! [Deirdre (Al Dente) Sinnott, Workers World, Nov. 11] I've been very distrustful of all the reviews I've seen because they lack a real understanding of trans issues. As a young trans person, I'm terrified to see this movie, and having a review validate that feeling and that reality is very important to me. It is one step in helping me prepare to go see it.

Kimber
Portland, Ore.
via e-mail

Copyright © 1999 workers.org