In a recent post on the St. Louis Post-Dispatch's "The Platform", intern Alex Mayer refers to the recent Daily Show interview with Lara Logan, where Logan describes how difficult it is to get coverage of Iraq and Afghanistan into the mainstream media lately.  He notes that Logan's claims are supported by a recent article in the New York Times that shows that coverage of the war in Iraq has dropped precipitously in recent months.

For immediate release: June 3, 2008

Contacts: Don Fitz, 314-727-8554; Lionel Nixon, 454-9005

Press conference with father of first Missouri woman to die in Iraq

Did the Army Cover Up Murder of a Black Private?

June 3, 2008 – St. Louis, Missouri. 

LaVena Johnson, of Florissant, may be only 1 of over a dozen women to die under extremely suspicious circumstances while in Iraq and Afghanistan.  The increase in violence against women in the military is so sharp that Dr. John Johnson, father of LaVena Johnson, is working with US Representatives Ike Skelton and Lacy Clay to have a Congressional hearing to request a reopening of the Army’s investigation of the death of LaVena Johnson.  

Dr. Johnson recently went to Washington DC as a part of effort to get the case reopened.  He will report on that trip at a press conference at

11:00 am, Tuesday, June 3, 2008

Legacy Books and Café, 5249 Delmar (near Union)

Historic ILWU Dock Workers’ Action Points the Way

May Day Strike Against the War Shuts Down All U.S. West Coast Ports

On May 1, every port on the West Coast of the United States was shut down to demand an end to the U.S. war and occupation of Iraq and Afghanistan. The historic May Day walkout by the International Longshore and Warehouse Union (ILWU) is the first time ever that an American union has struck against a U.S. war. The union ranks defied the rulings of an arbitrator, who twice ordered them to go to work. They overcame the capitulations of the ILWU leadership, which didn’t want the work stoppage in the first place, tried to water it down and cowered before the threats of legal action while waving the flag. The employers’ Pacific Maritime Association (PMA) declared the May 1 port shutdown an “illegal strike.” But after all the huffing and puffing from the bosses’ mouthpieces, the dock workers pointed the way to defeating the imperialist war by mobilizing working-class power. In the end, it was more than a work stoppage. The dock workers’ May Day strike against the war was a first step, a show of what it will take to bring down the warmongers in Washington. Their “symbolic” action was felt all the way to Iraq, where dock workers in two ports stopped work in solidarity with the ILWU. But it was only a beginning. What is needed is not only industrial action but a political offensive against the Democrats and Republicans, the partner parties of American imperialism, to build a class-struggle workers party. May Day Strike Against the War Shuts Down All U.S. West Coast Ports (3 May 2008)