From editors at agrnews.org Thu Aug 1 14:38:33 2002 From: editors at agrnews.org (Asheville Global Report) Date: Sun Feb 8 02:51:44 2004 Subject: [Dryerase] House hands trade powers to Bush; Senate next Message-ID: <5.1.0.14.0.20020801153654.00a33d30@buncombe.main.nc.us> By Sean Marquis July 30 (AGR)? At 3:30am on Saturday, July 27 the US House of Representatives voted to give president George W. Bush ?Fast Track? trade authority. The early morning 215-212 vote would hand over congress? constitutional role of regulating trade with other nations. In the past, presidents from Gerald Ford through George H. W. Bush were also given such added power, but that power lapsed in 1994 in Bill Clinton?s first term when the Republican controlled congress refused to give it to him. Under Fast Track, the president brings a completed agreement to congress which then can only vote ?yes? or ?no? on the entire package and not alter or add any provisions. Article 1, Section 8, paragraph 3 of the US Constitution states: ?Congress shall have the power to regulate Commerce with foreign nations ? If the Senate also approves the bill, congress will not have that power for the next five years, when the measure will come up for renewal. Bush has been pushing for Congress to give him their power since he took office and with the help of patriotic fervor in the wake of the Sept. 11 attacks, finally got the trade bill passed in the House. Last December, the House of Representatives passed Fast Track 215-214. In May, the Senate passed similar legislation with a vote of 66-30. The two versions of the bill were hashed into a compromise 300-plus page bill last week which was sent to the House floor at 2am Saturday morning. After an hour and a half of debate, the bill was passed. After the vote, Bush, who has renamed Fast Track as ?Trade Promotion Authority?, issued a statement: ?For nearly 10 Years, America has lacked Trade Promotion Authority and the ability to fully take advantage of trade opportunities. [TPA] will open markets, expand opportunity and create jobs for American workers and farmers. I urge the Senate to vote on this good bill before the Senate goes home for the August recess.? The Senate is expected to pick up the compromise measure before the August break and with just enough trade-friendly Democrats, it is expected to pass. According to a separate White House statement in support of TPA: ?Trade spurs growth in overseas markets for US goods and services, enhances opportunities for higher-paying American jobs, expands choices for American consumers, and promotes US security interests Trade spreads American values and reinforces the habits of liberty that sustain democracy.? According to a report by CNN, Bush headed Saturday to Andrews Air Force Base in Greenbelt, Maryland, to play golf with three congressmen who were instrumental in TPA?s passage. As Republican Reps. Dan Burton, Michael Oxley, and Tom Delay teed off with Bush, the president said he was ?celebrating the passage of Trade Promotion Authority.? ?Midsummer Night?s Massacre? While Bush was off playing golf and celebrating, there were many who were not happy about his victory or congress? roll over and remained unconvinced about the ?democracy sustaining? ability of free trade. Lori Wallach, Director of Public Citizen?s Global Trade Watch, said that the vote, ?will be remembered as the Midsummer Night?s Massacre, where growing popular concern about corporate-led globalization was shot down in favor of a backwards policy combining corporate managed trade and global deregulation of basic consumer, environmental and other public interest standards. ?Public opposition to NAFTA-style trade deals has grown so strong that now the only way to move this policy is to ram through at 3:00am [sic] in the dark of night 304 pages of legislation combining five different trade bills which was unavailable for public or congressional review until hours before the vote,? Wallach said. She also pointed to the ?hypocrisy in Washington? on account of ?GOP House leadership and President Bush ramming through a trade bill which has as its main agenda promoting massive global corporate deregulation just hours after crowing about passage of new regulations aimed at the corporate crime wave caused by the very sort of deregulation this bill promotes globally.? The Sierra Club said that fast track will allow the Bush administration to extend the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) across the western hemisphere. Provisions in NAFTA allow foreign corporations to sue signatory governments [US, Canada, and Mexico] such as in the case of the Methanex Corporation. Methanex, a Canadian company, is suing the US in a NAFTA tribunal claiming that a California ban on MTBE (a toxic gasoline additive) is ?expropriation? and that it is entitled to $970 million in ?compensation? as a foreign investor ? the $970 million is ?lost? revenue because the company cannot sell its toxic additive in the state. ?Now more than ever, Americans want Congress to hold corporations accountable, not give them more breaks,? said Carl Pope, Executive Director of the Sierra Club. ?The House?s capitulation to powerful business interests could jeopardize many of the environmental protections Americans take for granted.? A report by the Mexico Solidarity Network, an economic justice and human rights coalition, said the contents of the bill were ?terrible? and that the ?Gramm language is in.? According to the report: ?The sneaky Senator Phil Gramm snuck in language at the 11th hour into the House Fast Track bill last December the night before the vote. This language basically says that countries don?t even have to uphold their own labor and environmental laws, much less the ILO [International Labor Organization] standards. It sheds any pretense of having the ability to use trade sanctions if a country that is a signatory of a trade agreement is found to be violating international labor law [by using child labor, for example] or environmental agreements.? The report also pointed out the General System of Preferences (GSP), which gives preferences to goods from poor nations, was extended to 2006 but was also weakened. The change would weaken gender discrimination protections. ?They [Congress] stripped out a clause from GSP that would have required countries receiving these special trade benefits to not have policies which discriminate against women,? the report said. A week prior to the vote, Global Exchange, a fair trade advocacy group, issued a statement saying that, ?Fast-Tracked agreements like NAFTA and the WTO [World Trade Organization] brought us lost jobs, attacks on local environmental laws, the ?race to the bottom? in labor and environmental standards here and abroad and the destruction of more than 33,000 family farms.? ?When an agreement is ?Fast-Tracked,? the final product of these corporate-driven negotiations is steam rolled through Congress without any chance for debate or changes,? according to the statement. Global Exchange added that, ?Fast Track is a fundamentally undemocratic procedure by which the US Congress surrenders its ability to craft trade policy.? From editors at agrnews.org Thu Aug 1 14:40:55 2002 From: editors at agrnews.org (Asheville Global Report) Date: Sun Feb 8 02:51:45 2004 Subject: [Dryerase] Trial for one could decide fate of all =?iso-8859-1?Q?=91Carson?= =?iso-8859-1?Q?_City_Ten=92?= Message-ID: <5.1.0.14.0.20020801153923.00a33090@buncombe.main.nc.us> By Liz Allen July 31 (AGR)? Rock Boice Jr. is scheduled to go to trial for the murder of Sammy Resendiz, co-founder of the Eastside Tokers, Aug. 26 in Carson City, Nevada at 1:30pm. His trial will be a deciding factor in the fates of the other Native American youth, known collectively as the Carson City Ten, all charged with first-degree murder in the case. The youth were rounded up after Jessica Evans, also Native American, was battered by members of Resendiz?s gang. Evans immediately sought assistance from the police, who responded by threatening her with jail, then sending her home with friends. Police later claimed the jail was full so they declined to arrest Resendiz and stated Evans exhibited no signs of battering. Relations of Evans, hearing of the incident, went to the hotel where it took place. A fight broke out and police arrived on the scene within minutes, but most who were involved had cleared out. Terry Boice, of the Nevada American Indian Movement (AIM), and Rock Boice Jr.?s mother, commented that the defendants ?weren?t in the hotel room more than 30 seconds and within three minutes the police arrived.? Sammy Resendiz was taken by ambulance to Carson Tahoe Hospital to meet with CareFlight from Reno. One of the officers on the scene reported seeing Resendez walk out of the bathroom. Police also reported Resendiz needed to be restrained. These statements contradict the forensic expert?s assertion that the injuries causing Resendiz?s death would have made walking an impossibility. Forensic reports also indicated that Resendiz?s body showed signs of death by strangulation, with the hyoid bone, located underneath the chin, being broken and the muscle bruised. Originally there were fifteen defendants in the case, and after being thinned out to ten they faced the death penalty even though most were under eighteen, with the youngest being 14. The original court date of June 24, 2002 was continued on the grounds of inadequate representation and the court-appointed defense attorney, who after four years with the case had yet to even prepare a witness list, was dismissed. The new defense attorneys are Larry Leichter of San Francisco and Day Williams. James Cosner of Bay Area AIM, who is organizing people to attend the trail, believes the new counsel to be a ?tremendously huge improvement . It?s obvious that they [the court-appointed attorneys] had no intention of defending the youth.? Terry Boice explained that with the new lawyers they are now finding out new relevant information practically every day. They have discovered that the officer who sent Jessica Evans home was a victim of Resendiz prior to becoming a cop. The first officer on the scene at the hotel in 1998 was a witness for the victimized future police officer and had picked Resendez out of a line up. Also, according to Boice, Resendiz?s ex-wife?s parents were deputies and Resendiz had custody of her and his two children despite a record of multiple arrests for domestic and child abuse. Another factor to consider is the emergency room doctor, Richard Conte, who is currently accused in a high profile case of kidnapping his ex-wife and the murder of her current husband and his business partner. Rocky Boice Jr.?s trial is key, because the judge maintains that if Boice is found innocent then the case of the others will be proven and their charges dropped. The prosecution does not have any physical evidence linked to the victim or the defendants. They are being charged with first-degree murder because after two years of reviewing this case the State Supreme Court decided last May that when a death occurs in a burglary it could be considered first-degree murder. The burglary charge stems from the practice in Nevada wherein breaking into a ?house? without permission is automatically considered burglary. The District Attorny (DA) has filed a motion not to seek the death penalty. Terry Boice believes the situation to be a reflection of the rampant and hostile racism Native Americans incur in Carson City. ?It really hurts me that the reason the kids are in the trouble they are in is because they weren?t protected from the gang The sheriff just decided they weren?t worth it because they were born Native American.? She reports native youth are ?terribly harassed? and threatened at school, not only by other students, but also by non-student gang members who come on campus. The activists are asking for support in the form of monetary donations to their legal fund, having supporters attend the trial and demand that the facts be heard, as well as praying for indigenous families.. From wires at the-alarm.com Fri Aug 2 12:39:41 2002 From: wires at the-alarm.com (Alarm!Wires) Date: Sun Feb 8 02:51:45 2004 Subject: [Dryerase] Alarm!--War Notes Message-ID: War Notes a bi-monthly column following the developments of our new permanent war, the war on terrorism by Sasha k The Alarm! Newspaper Contributor Bombs and cover-ups: A preliminary UN investigation has uncovered more ugly details about the US bombing earlier this month of a wedding party in Afghanistan. A couple of days after the incident, the Pentagon announced that it would take some time to investigate and that they didn?t even know if anyone had indeed died. But according to the Times of London, the UN investigation found that US soldiers arrived on the scene within hours and that they filmed damaged buildings and the bodies of around fifty dead Afghanis. The soldiers went much further than that, however. Apparently they tied up the women of the village and cleaned up shrapnel, bullets and bloodstains. The UN investigation also found ?no corroboration? on the ground that the US plane had been fired upon. The Pentagon denied there was a cover-up and still claims it is too early to draw any conclusions. The UN was to make its full report public on Wednesday, but after the US denial, the UN gave the report to the US and Afghan governments and did not make it public. The cover-up is being covered up. Bombing peace: The US, of course, isn?t the only one with a ?collateral damage? problem. Israel bombed a tightly packed Gaza neighborhood last week, killing a Hamas leader and fifteen civilians and wounding around 150. The attack is sure to set off many revenge bombings of Israeli civilian and military targets. Even the US weakly condemned the attack, saying that ?this heavy-handed action does not contribute to peace.? But was that really the goal of dropping a one-ton bomb on a crowded residential neighborhood? Ariel Sharon, Bush?s ?man of peace,? seems to have had other aims for the attack, which he personally approved.On the days leading up to the July 23 bombing, there were several significant moves towards peace. First, Abdul Razek Yahyia, the Palestinians? interior minister, announced a new security plan to reduce violence. Shimon Peres, Israel?s foreign minister, was pleased with the plan. At the same time, the EU, Egypt, Jordan and Saudi Arabia were in the midst of brokering a peace plan that, as a first step, would have groups linked to Yasser Arafat?s Fatah movement--such as the al-Aqsa Brigades--end the use of suicide bombing within Israel. Finally, on July 22, Hamas? spiritual leader, Sheikh Ahmed Yassin, said that Hamas would stop killing Israeli civilians if Israel pulled out of the Palestinian cities it recently reoccupied, freed prisoners and stopped the assassination of Palestinian leaders. These moves towards peace were troubling to Sharon, whose continued hold on power is based on an Israeli fear of terrorism. Additionally, if peace began to break out, Sharon would have no excuse for reoccupying Palestinian controlled areas, or for the removal of Arafat. But the bombing quickly took care of Sharon?s mounting problems, and it looks as if peace is again safely a long way off. Suicide bombing and landmines: If terrorism is defined as the targeting of civilians, is the use of landmines an act of terrorism? Landmines are much more likely to kill civilians than military personel. This fact has been the driving force behind the Ottawa Convention, the five-year-old global treaty banning the use of landmines. Hamid Karzai, the president of Afghanistan, announced Sunday that Afghanistan would become the 126th country to sign the treaty. Afghanistan has been badly affected by landmines: according to the International Committee of the Red Cross, 200,000 Afghanis have been killed or wounded by mines in the last twenty-three years of war. But there are still a few prominent nations supporting the continued use of landmines; the US, China and Russia have not signed the treaty. It is also estimated that around 2,000 of the bombs the US dropped on Afghanistan in the recent war lie unexploded around the country, ready to randomly kill and wound. A chorus of doubt: As US talk of a war on Iraq reaches a high point, a chorus of statements against the war by leaders vital to any war coalition is weakening Bush?s opportunity for a prompt attack. Arab League chief Amr Musa warned that any attack on Iraq would threaten regional security. French President Jacques Chirac and German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder made a joint statement that they would not support an attack on Iraq without a UN mandate. The Kuwaiti government called on Iraq to let in inspectors and avoid the war. King Abdullah of Jordan, meeting with British Prime Minister Tony Blair, said that Britain should not go along with the US drive towards war. King Abdullah, who will meet with President Bush this week, said, ?in the light of the failure to move the Israeli-Palestinian process forward, military action against Iraq would really open a Pandora?s box.? The Egyptian and Saudi governments have also made statements against the war. Iraq?s neighbour, Turkey, a key NATO ally, stated its concerns over the war. But it also quietly asked the US to write off $4 billion of debt if the US does go to war. And even in Britain, America?s strongest supporter, a series of letters and op-eds in newspapers by retired, high-ranking military personnel have denounced the war plans. War and human rights: Last Friday, Mary Robinson, the UN human rights chief who is to lose her job due to US pressure, said the US ?war on terror? was encouraging countries to roll back human rights. She said that countries have been using the crackdowns in the US and Europe as an excuse to step up repression in their own countries. Robinson didn?t name any nation, but this week Egypt arrested sixteen members of the Muslim Brotherhood (which has renounced violence) along with a prominent human rights activist and sociology professor, Saadeddin Ibrahim. Ibrahim is being prosecuted bythe Egyptian government for monitoring Egyptian elections. In China, the government is increasing its repression of ethnic Uyghurs, a Turkish minority that lives in the western province of Xinjiang. The Chinese government--attempting to present itself as a US partner in the ?war on terrorism?--now legitimates the repression by claiming, without any evidence, that Uyghur separatists are supported by Osama bin Laden. All content Copyleft ? 2002 by The Alarm! Newspaper. Except where noted otherwise, this material may be copied and distributed freely in whole or in part by anyone except where used for commercial purposes or by government agencies. ----- The Alarm! Newspaper a local weekly newspaper for an engaged populace http://www.the-alarm.com/ info@the-alarm.com P.O. Box 1205, Santa Cruz, CA 95061 (831) 429-NEWS - office (831) 420-1498 - fax From wires at the-alarm.com Fri Aug 2 12:50:01 2002 From: wires at the-alarm.com (Alarm!Wires) Date: Sun Feb 8 02:51:45 2004 Subject: [Dryerase] Alarm!--Ojo en el INS Message-ID: <44ED9A6A-A640-11D6-9B46-003065F4865E@the-alarm.com> Ojo en el INS Un enfoque semanal en el INS y la pol?tica inmigratoria Ser o no ser (ilegal), esa es la cuesti?n. El Procurador General Ashcroft Anuncia Nuevas Reglas para Inmigrantes. Por Carlos Armenta Colaborador del Periodico ?La Alarma! El t?rmino ?ilegal? adquiere caracter?sticas diferentes cuando se aplica a seres humanos que a objetos o acciones. Cuando este t?rmino se utiliza para categorizar a personas, su sola existencia dentro de determinado espacio puede traer como consecuencia su arresto o deportaci?n, como se da en el caso de inmigrantes ilegales. Los c?lculos sobre residentes ilegales en los Estados Unidos arrojan cifras que van desde los 8 hasta los 11 millones de personas. Respecto a estas personas, el comisionado del Servicio de Inmigraci?n y Naturalizaci?n (INS, por sus siglas en ingl?s), James Ziglar, declar? el pasado 23 de Mayo?en conferencia de prensa en Tucson, Arizona?que no deben preocuparse de que el gobierno de los Estados Unidos implemente las leyes migratorias para tratar de deportarlos. Ziglar dijo que ?a nadie le gusta la idea de que la gente entre ilegalmente a este pa?s, pero no es pr?ctico ni razonable el pensar que se les puede detener y mandarlos de regreso a casa.? Tal declaraci?n obedece a dos razones principales: por un lado, y tal y como lo han declarado muchos funcionarios del gobierno, los E.U. necesitan un flujo constante de inmigrantes (as? lo ha sido desde el siglo XIX) para lograr su desarrollo como naci?n. Por otro lado, el INS carece de la capacidad log?stica y administrativa, tanto para poder atender a los millones de personas que buscan legalizar su situaci?n en este pa?s, como para deportar a todos aquellos que residan aqu? de manera ilegal. De hecho, se sabe que el INS se hace de la vista gorda cuando se trata de inmigrantes ilegales que laboran en el sector agr?cola, de servicios o en rastros, solo por citar algunos ejemplos, a?n sabiendo donde trabajan, debido al gran beneficio econ?mico que los inmigrantes ilegales aportan en materia de mano de obra barata. La categorizaci?n de ?ilegales? hace posible que estas personas sean v?ctimas de abusos por parte de sus patrones, al vivir siempre bajo la amenaza de deportaci?n, si no aceptan condiciones de trabajo muy por debajo de las que exigen las leyes laborales, las cuales solo protegen a los ?legales.? As? las cosas, causan gran curiosidad las declaraciones hechas por el procurador general John Ashcroft en un foro anticrimen celebrado el pasado 23 de julio en Alberta, Canad?, en el sentido de que existe un plan para ejecutar una ley migratoria que existe desde hace cincuenta a?os. La ley requiere que todo inmigrante que resida en los E.U. notifique al INS cualquier cambio de domicilio con un plazo de diez d?as. La regla en cuesti?n afecta a todos los residentes permanentes legales (diez millones aproximadamente, de acuerdo a cifras del propio INS), as? como a visitantes y estudiantes que permanezcan en los E.U. por m?s de treinta d?as. Ashcroft declar? que con la implementaci?n de dicha ley ?aumentaremos nuestra capacidad para localizar r?pidamente a cualquier extranjero en el caso de que se deban iniciar procedimientos de deportaci?n.? El anuncio de Ashcroft pone de manifiesto el plan para que el INS forme parte integral del nuevo Departamento de Seguridad Territorial (Department of Homeland Security), el cual fue dise?ado como consecuencia de los ataques terroristas del 11 de septiembre. En un comunicado oficial hecho el 6 de junio del a?o en curso, el comisionado del INS, James Ziglar, declara que el ?INS pondr? todo de su parte para hacer del nuevo Departamento de Seguridad Territorial un ?xito.? La llamada ?guerra contra el terrorismo? sigue entonces siendo utilizada como excusa para coartar las libertades y garant?as constitucionales de los que vivimos en los E.U. Con este tipo de medidas, se hace mucho m?s f?cil para el gobierno el poder detener a cualquier persona aunque se trate de alguien que siempre ha vivido dentro de la ley. Con la implementaci?n de la citada ley migratoria, el gobierno tendr? la capacidad de categorizar a cualquier inmigrante como ilegal por no haber reportado un cambio de domicilio, aunque dicho cambio haya ocurrido a?os atr?s. Es en este sentido de la retroactividad que la ley cobra la m?yor importancia. Muchos residentes permanentes legales sin antecedentes criminales, que pagan impuestos y operan dentro de la ley, sienten que la implementaci?n de dicha medida podr?a utilizarse como excusa para el trato abusivo hacia inmigrantes de ciertos or?genes nacionales. Se conoce, por ejemplo, el caso de Tahr Abdeljaber, residente permanente legal originario de Palestina y padre de dos ni?os que son ciudadanos americanos. Abdeljaber fue detenido recientemente por la polic?a en Atlanta por manejar a exceso de velocidad, y luego fue sometido a interrogatorio por parte del FBI por tener en su carro un mapa de Carolina del Norte, en el que varias localidades hab?an sido encerradas en un c?rculo con pluma. Aunque no se presentaron cargos en contra de Abdeljaber, el INS inici? su propia investigaci?n y descubri? que este no hab?a notificado un cambio de domicilio en 1999, por lo que ahora enfrenta el riesgo de ser deportado. Ashcroft no explic? de que manera el INS manejar? el nuevo sistema para reportar el cambio de domicilio, o si el Departamento de Justicia planea implementar dicha ley de manera retroactiva. Ashcroft tampoco explic? cual ser?a el procedimiento a seguir por parte de los inmigrantes para notificar cambios de domicilio. Sin embargo, en el caso de Abdeljaber la ley se aplic? de manera retroactiva y sin que existiera, adem?s, informaci?n oportuna y clara sobre como reportar el cambio. La grave omisi?n por parte de Ashcroft, contrastada con un caso como el de Abdeljaber, pone en evidencia la intenci?n del gobierno de dar al INS toda la discrecionalidad posible para decidir quien es sujeto de deportaci?n. El anuncio hecho por el procurador, como era de esperarse, provoc? reacciones de oposici?n por parte inmigrantes legales y activistas pro-inmigraci?n. Frank Sharry, director ejecutivo del Foro Nacional de Inmigraci?n, declar? al San Jose Mercury News que la medida ?no har? de los Estados Unidos un lugar m?s seguro, solo lograr? que los recien llegados se sientan en la mira de las autoridades.? Incluso muchos opositores a la immigracion parecen esc?pticos del anuncio de Ashcroft. Mark Krikovian, director del Centro de Estudios para la Inmigraci?n, cuya posici?n es a favor de un control m?s estricto de las fronteras, declar? al Mercury News que la implementaci?n de esta y otras leyes migratorias es algo que ?est? fuera del alcance de la capacidad del INS.? El INS trata de ofrecer la impresi?n de que trabaja para hacer del territorio de los E.U. un lugar m?s seguro para vivir. Con la excusa de la seguridad nacional, se han cometido injusticias como la implementaci?n del Chinese Exclusion Act, el encarcelamiento de inmigrantes legales y ciudadanos americanos de origen japon?s durante la segunda guerra mundial y la deportaci?n masiva de mexicanos, sin importar su ?legalidad? o ?ilegalidad? durante los a?os de la gran depresi?n. Sin embargo las leyes migratorias siempre han sido aplicadas inequitativamente. Por la mayor parte, el INS prefiere ignorar la presencia de inmigrantes ilegales en los E.U, si estos convienen a los intereses de los que los emplean. Ahora m?s que nunca, con la implementaci?n de leyes como la del cambio de domicilio?que han existido desde hace mucho tiempo, pero que el INS hab?a decidido no aplicar?esta agencia cuenta con la discrecionalidad para decidir de una manera arbitraria quien es ilegal, y, por lo tanto, quien puede ser vulnerable a muchos tipos de abuso por parte de las autoridades. All content Copyleft ? 2002 by The Alarm! Newspaper. Except where noted otherwise, this material may be copied and distributed freely in whole or in part by anyone except where used for commercial purposes or by government agencies. ----- The Alarm! Newspaper a local weekly newspaper for an engaged populace http://www.the-alarm.com/ info@the-alarm.com P.O. Box 1205, Santa Cruz, CA 95061 (831) 429-NEWS - office (831) 420-1498 - fax From wires at the-alarm.com Fri Aug 2 12:51:07 2002 From: wires at the-alarm.com (Alarm!Wires) Date: Sun Feb 8 02:51:45 2004 Subject: [Dryerase] Eye on the INS Message-ID: <6C47F78F-A640-11D6-9B46-003065F4865E@the-alarm.com> Eye on the INS, July 26 A weekly forum to discuss the INS and immigration policy Picnics and Bureaucrats By Michelle Stewart The Alarm! Newspaper Collective A few weeks ago, I was stunned to hear about the 150-year-anniversary celebration at San Quentin State Penitentiary. Just as I began to come to terms with my frustration over that event, I was shocked again by a story out of El Paso about the pending Paso al Norte Immigration Museum being created by the University of Texas El Paso (UTEP) and the Smithsonian. But how do the celebration of the anniversary of a death-row prison and the creation of a borderlands museum relate to each another? My frustration about both of these items is that they rely on such an overwhelming sense of denial. How does one decide to ?celebrate? a prison?s anniversary, go to events, eat cake, and go on tours of the ?public? areas? Especially considering that during these festivities there are people locked up inside, serving time, possibly sitting on death row. I realize that for some the bare bones of the matter is that criminals are criminals, and they must serve their time. Well, I am not the first to say it, but the actual fact of the matter is that the criminal justice system is inherently flawed. Statistics in the US read that one out of every three African American men under the age of thirty has served or is serving time in jail; this is a statistic that demands that we explore the fundamental flaws in the justice system and the socio-economic conditions that allow for such statistics?not celebrate the anniversary of a jail. When I began reading about the Paso al Norte Immigration Museum, I was initially excited. I thought a museum being built along the border in the coming years would be really dynamic. However, as I read through the supporting documentation, I became less than impressed and began to recall my outrage at the San Quentin event. At an event last year Diana Natalicio, the president of UTEP, told the story of how she came up with the idea for the museum after reading a solicitation letter for the Ellis Island Museum. ?I was suddenly struck by the fact that there was no place where immigration across the southern border was commemorated, as immigration from Europe is celebrated?and honored?at Ellis Island.? She was struck by the obvious and missed the complexity of the matter, a fact that shows quite prominently in the planning stages of this museum. The Paso al Norte Immigration Museum is being referred to as the Ellis Island of the Southwest. I don?t know why. As an immigrant processing center, Ellis Island is closed. Its deeds are referred to in the past tense. El Paso, on the other hand, is still a very active border. As for Natalicio?s comment about the celebration of the southern border (and its migrants), does she really believe there is a national celebration occurring? Perhaps the UTEP president needs to read the headlines more often to recognize the current rhetorical tone toward the southern immigrant. To compare today?s Southern border to yesterday?s Ellis Island is preposterous for numerous reasons. Last year after the president of UTEP spoke at an event to announce the project, the Smithsonian came forward with a rather ridiculous statement: ?... UTEP is currently coordinating a binational effort to develop the museum, but ultimately, the project is envisioned as an independent institution symbolizing the aspirations of all immigrants.? How in the world can the Smithsonian think that this one museum can summarize the aspirations of all immigrants?all of them? This is either a case of absolute ignorance when it comes to the actual experiences of many southern border crossers and other immigrants, or the Smithsonian truly believes that what the US offers (insert some nationalist?s pride item) creates a baseline experience for every single border crosser. I could go on, at length, about how ridiculous that statement was, however, with a little thought anyone can tear it apart. My chief concern is the way in which ignorance will influence this new project. Just as blind belief in the justice system allowed for people to celebrate the anniversary of a prison, I fear this museum will allow for people to position immigration issues as things of the past. All of the information available about the Paso al Norte Immigration Museum indicates it will be a museum dedicated to preserving local and family history. The museum is currently drafting a feasibility study while also beginning to solicit historical documents from locals. For all intents and purposes, it seems that the stories of immigrants will be told through a historical lens. What, then will be said about today?s immigration policy? Will there be two wings: one for the past, and another for the present? But most importantly, will there be a critique of the INS? Will there be a section called ?La Migra Today?? The walls could be filled with pictures of bodies lying in the desert, a small sign post could state ?Operation Gatekeeper: Death Toll 600 and rising...?. Another area could have dramatic, mounted pictures along with a photo essay to tell the story of families split apart. Maybe there could be an enclosed interactive space to highlight the feel of an INS raid; there could be another closed off area with an audio relay of deportation hearings. Could there also be a dark room at the end of a hall, that no one is allowed to enter or that people are chosen at random to be forced to enter?which would be the detainment camp? How do we build a historical, immigration museum in today?s immigration environment? I fear this museum will open in the coming years without unpacking contemporary immigration policy. The museum is also just a short-distance drive from Ciudad Juarez, the site of one of the largest serial killings in North America. The body count continues to rise, while both the border and its industries are implicated in the crime. But perhaps the deaths of nearly 300 women, and the disappearance of hundreds more, is not good for a museum?s image. Perhaps the installment would be disturbing?the road to a maquiladora lined with grave markers and women?s bodies. I think the idea of a borderlands museum is amazing. However, it would require guts and wisdom to critique the southern border and immigration policy. In the next five to ten years, the Paso al Norte Immigration Museum will open its doors. Hopefully, at that point the vision of these planners (today) will not influence the entire project. For I fear people will sit on the lawn of this museum and have a picnic, thinking how silly the INS used to be and how quaint the southern border crosser was in the 1890s. This would be no less disturbing than the people who packed cake into their mouths while ?touring? San Quentin just a few weekends ago. ---- Beginning next week this column will shared between two columnists: Carlos Arment and Michelle Stewart. Thematically the column will remain the same; however, the voice of the commentary will rotate weekly. Carlos will be wrting in Spanish, and I will continue writing in English. The intention of this column from the get-go was to provide a means to instigate dialogue on issues surrounding immigration and the INS. I am excited to have Carlos join me in this forum and hope you find our different perspectives and voices to be thought-provoking. Please remember your comments are welcomed at michelle@the-alarm.com. ---- All content Copyleft ? 2002 by The Alarm! Newspaper. Except where noted otherwise, this material may be copied and distributed freely in whole or in part by anyone except where used for commercial purposes or by government agencies. ----- The Alarm! Newspaper a local weekly newspaper for an engaged populace http://www.the-alarm.com/ info@the-alarm.com P.O. Box 1205, Santa Cruz, CA 95061 (831) 429-NEWS - office (831) 420-1498 - fax From wires at the-alarm.com Fri Aug 2 12:55:04 2002 From: wires at the-alarm.com (Alarm!Wires) Date: Sun Feb 8 02:51:45 2004 Subject: [Dryerase] Alarm!--"Pull the Plug on the Ponds" Message-ID: ?Pull the plug on the ponds? Protected frog pulls the plug on developer?s bank account By Michelle Stewart The Alarm! Newspaper Last week Albert Seeno Jr., president of West Coast Homebuilders Inc. (WCH) of Concord, plead guilty to two counts of violating the Endangered Species Act (ESA) as a result of his activities at the San Marco housing development site located near Pittsburg, CA. The 639 acres will host an estimated 3,200 estate-style houses. However, last year the development ran into a snag in the form of a threatened frog. WCH was aware that the site might be suitable habitat for the California red-legged frog which was listed on the ESA in 1996 with a classification of threatened. The ESA has three major categories: endangered, threatened, and sensitive. A classification of threatened means there is reasonable evidence to support the claim that the species will become endangered if there is not a conscious effort to protect its habitat and/or assist in its population?s recovery. As early as 1997, the company was aware of the possibility that the site may be habitat for the frog. On March 25, 1997, WCH and the California Department of Fish and Game (CDFG) signed an agreement stating that if frogs were located on the site, the company would halt activities and consult with the agency to ?ensure the species is protected.? In January of 2001, CDFG game warden Nicole Kozicki gave verbal warning to WCH stating that the two ponds at the construction site were potential frog habitat, and that the company would have to perform species surveys to get permission to do grading and other alterations. According to the US Attorneys? Office, in March 2001, the environmental consultant contracted by the company found evidence of red-legged frog activity in the two ponds created on the development site, and notified the company that, by law, it was required to begin consultations with CDFG. The day after being notified of the frog?s presence, Seeno was reported to have said, ?pull the plug on the ponds,? and instructed an employee to drain the two ponds that were frog habitat. In May 2001, Kosicki visited the site to monitor the activity?s effect on the frog. She was reportedly concerned when she came across the dry ponds, and, upon further investigation, found a dead frog in the vicinity of one of the ponds. She and another investigator interviewed Seeno, and he later admitted to burying the habitat in the interest of his land development. Last week Seeno?s plea placed his company liable for violating the Endangered Species Act by harming the frogs? habitat and the recovery of the species as a whole. As part of the plea, WCH agreed to pay a total of one million dollars to a diverse group of agencies and private organizations. The company was also placed on probation for three years and was required to write a letter of formal apology to be published in the Contra Costa Times. In his apology, Seeno takes responsibility for his crime. He wrote, ?My decision was wrong and caused the destruction of these valuable frogs and their habitat.? He closed his apology by stating, ?It is my hope that this substantial penalty along with my apology will send a strong message deterring others who may be tempted to engage in this same conduct. I apologize for destroying this valuable piece of our ecology.? However, one has to wonder if Mr. Seeno was a little more calculating in his crime. Consider that the housing development in question anticipates building 3,200 homes in the coming years, of which eight have reportedly sold for over $500,000- each?his fine was only one million dollars. Sidebar: The California red-legged frog Threatened Species ? The red-legged frog was listed as threatened under the Endangered Species Act in 1996. ? A listing of threatened means that the species is likely to become endangered in the foreseeable future. ? The US Fish and Wildlife Service is charged with protecting species that are listed under the Endangered Species Act Habitat and History ? The red-legged frog?s historic range was (coastal) Point Reyes in Marin county and (inland) Redding in Shasta county to Baja California in Mexico. ? Numerous factors including destruction of habitat through housing and agricultural development and culinary popularity lead to the rapid depletion of the species. ? Today, frogs are only present in approximately ten percent of their historic range and their population has been collectively reduced by over seventy percent. All content Copyleft ? 2002 by The Alarm! Newspaper. Except where noted otherwise, this material may be copied and distributed freely in whole or in part by anyone except where used for commercial purposes or by government agencies. ----- The Alarm! Newspaper a local weekly newspaper for an engaged populace http://www.the-alarm.com/ info@the-alarm.com P.O. Box 1205, Santa Cruz, CA 95061 (831) 429-NEWS - office (831) 420-1498 - fax From wires at the-alarm.com Fri Aug 2 12:59:26 2002 From: wires at the-alarm.com (Alarm!Wires) Date: Sun Feb 8 02:51:45 2004 Subject: [Dryerase] Alarm!--Youth column Message-ID: <95B0848E-A641-11D6-9B46-003065F4865E@the-alarm.com> Youth column--July 26 The Politics of Fat Discrimination By Anita O?Shea The Alarm! Newspaper Contributor Gurl is a gutteral and raw growl of who I am, to how I see myself. If I must be defined it will be on my own terms, WITH my own terms.?Janice Klux, Cutlass #4 Growing up as a fat gurl, I was made acutely aware of fat-phobia. Fear and hatred of fat is something that is deeply ingrained in all of us in the US. Ironically, in a country with rampant over-consumption there is a heavy pressure on everyone to be ?fit? and thin. However, being thin does not always equal being healthy. Where survival of the fittest is most often the survival of the richest, being a healthy human being is not a priority in the U.S. Fitting into this society involves abandoning self-respect while the media, the medical industry and the diet industry feed off of our insecurities. Evidence shows that dieting, diet pills, plastic surgery, and eating disorders are less healthy than just being fat. Eating disorders such as anorexia nervosa and bulimia are indications that we live in a society where our size takes precedent over our physical or mental stability and health. Diet pills (such as Fen/Phen) are known to have serious and potentially deadly side effects. Weight-loss surgery often doesn?t work. Whatever weight one may have lost is gained back and side effects?such as dangerous vitamin deficiencies?can last a lifetime. According to the ?International Journal of Obesity?, ninety-five percent of people who lose weight on diets gain back every pound within three years. This obviously contributes to serious self-esteem problems, as we are all expected to have the willpower to change our weight, even though the way we look and our weight is often determined at birth. GROWING UP FAT Growing up surrounded by negative images of fat people, needless to say I was a rather insecure adolescent. I?m pretty used to getting made fun of for being fat, for not shaving hair, for the way I dress and also for being an all-around queer/gender-deviant, for being politically active, for being a radical. Neither being queer nor being fat were things I could choose. I don?t even think that I have a real choice when it comes to being an activist. To me there is no option but to fight back; the discrimination of fat people, of queer people, of youth is directly tied to my own experience of oppression. Furthermore, the oppression of people of color, of the poor and working class, of disabled people and of my elders are all directly linked to fat phobia, to sexism, heterosexism and age-ism and is ultimately rooted in a for-profit system. FAT AND FEMINISM: The fact that I am a feminist and also a female-born person, has contributed the most to my experience of taunting and discrimination. As much crap as I got and still get for being a feminist?for being too loud, too expressive, for taking up too much space ?it is feminism that has directly led me to an understanding of all these issues and of the connections between them. The third wave of feminism, from the early 90?s on, especially deals with issues of body image. I was fortunate enough to get my hands on some literature (like Body Outlaw) that illuminated what eating disorders are and how they stem from a ridiculous standard we have as to what beauty should be. Eating disorders affect everyone, but beauty standards are tied to the broader exploitation of women and gurls. THE MEDIA, WOMEN, AND FEMINIST SOLIDARITY The media tells us what we should look like everyday. TV shows and advertisements portray women and men as skinny, rich and therefore happy people. Commercials for diet pills, food, drinks and exercise machines are fed to us constantly. These media images also put pressure on us all to conform to socially constructed gender roles. It is often the youth, and very young women who are targeted by the media. Gurls are becoming self-conscious about body image at younger and younger ages. By creating unattainable standards for what women?s bodies should look like, women and youth are kept constantly occupied with their body image and their own self-doubt. Women become obsessed with making themselves fit into different standards of beauty and seldom question where these standards come from. It keeps women from questioning a sexist society and also from organizing and finding their power and solidarity with other women. Unfortunately, being a feminist and speaking out against fat-phobia does not always guarantee being well received by other feminists. I?ve brought up size-ism as a serious issue in some of my classes at UCSC and it?s difficult for me when I feel like I?m not taken seriously or when the discussion of fat-hatred is not pursued. A fellow fat activist Natalie Boero said the discussion of fat-phobia is not just ?some bourgeois feminist distraction.? There are connections between fat phobia/size-ism and other forms of oppression like sexism, racism, heterosexism, gender-phobia, ableism and ageism. All the different forms of oppression come together in a variety of ways. To build an effective movement against fat-phobia, the leaders of the movement need to be the ones who understand the most about the intersections of oppression. Racism compounds fat discrimination on many levels. Women of color who are fat, or any size, will also face the added burden of racism when they are on the job, getting paid, looking for housing, seeing media images, being treated by health care providers, etc. The most militant leaders, the least likely to sell out, are those ?on the bottom?: women, especially women of color, lesbians, youth, and disabled women. As a fat white person, I feel the movement against fat-discrimination needs to form coalitions with those fighting other forms of oppression. Fighting against fat-phobia ALONE is not going to truly change our circumstances as fat people. We need to fight to change a system that produces and condones discrimination of all types. CAPITALISM AND FAT-PHOBIA: Under capitalism, we are made to feel that we constantly need to attain something more, to get more money, status, and power. Money determines our success. We need the best products to be happy and we need to continue buying to be content. If we can?t afford these products we are made to feel inferior. Capitalism is the source of fat-hatred and all the self-loathing and insecurities that manifest as eating disorders, yo-yo dieting, plastic surgery and taking diet pills. The media tells us to keep buying products we don?t need, which keeps the consumerist machine moving. As Nomy Lamm says in the book Body Outlaw (edited by Ophira Edut), ?The diet industry makes over $30 billion a year relying on your fear and hatred of fat. They don?t care about your health and happiness, they care about your money.? According to NAAFA, the National Association to Advance Fat Acceptance, the numbers now are more like $50 billion. FAT ACTIVISM As a fat, feminist, young, gender-queer, radical, dyke, freak, I have committed myself to being an activist, and to fighting all forms of oppression. The economy of capitalism functions by how well it can divide and conquer. It assures that people in communities and movements are fighting so much amongst themselves that they won?t work to retaliate against the lack of jobs, healthcare, childcare and welfare. That?s why it is essential that we all realize our common struggle and understand the diverse and flabulous differences we all have. ---- Anita O?Shea is a member of Radical Women, a UCSC student, queer youth organizer and a DJ on Free Radio Santa Cruz. You can contact her at: rwbayarea@yahoo.com. Or for other resources go to: www.fatso.com, www.naafa.com , or www.adiosbarbie.com. All content Copyleft ? 2002 by The Alarm! Newspaper. Except where noted otherwise, this material may be copied and distributed freely in whole or in part by anyone except where used for commercial purposes or by government agencies. ----- The Alarm! Newspaper a local weekly newspaper for an engaged populace http://www.the-alarm.com/ info@the-alarm.com P.O. Box 1205, Santa Cruz, CA 95061 (831) 429-NEWS - office (831) 420-1498 - fax From wires at the-alarm.com Fri Aug 2 13:02:40 2002 From: wires at the-alarm.com (Alarm!Wires) Date: Sun Feb 8 02:51:45 2004 Subject: [Dryerase] Alarm!--Struggle for public control over internet Message-ID: <0965791C-A642-11D6-9B46-003065F4865E@the-alarm.com> Struggle for public control over internet Director of ICANN draws attention to flaws in governance process that mirror criticisms of Santa Cruz local government by Fhar Miess The Alarm! Newspaper Collective In October of 2000, Cable News Network, known across the globe as CNN, issued a ?cease and desist? order to Maya Online, a Shanghai-based internet company that had registered the CNNEWS.COM domain name with a Chinese registrar named Eastern Communications. A series of legal proceedings followed, with contradictory rulings in China and?in April of this year?in the US. The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) became involved shortly afterward. ICANN was originally formed by the United States Department of Commerce as a California non-profit organization providing international oversight in the assignment of internet domain names and addresses. ICANN issued a demand to Eastern Communications that they transfer the domain name to CNN, despite the fact that the presiding US Federal judge clearly stated no intention of dictating the activities of a Chinese registrar. Maya Online further accused ICANN of ?secret? communications with the registrar. This sort of secrecy and unwarranted assumption of authority has earned ICANN a consistently bad reputation with members of the internet community. One of ICANN?s most vehement critics has been Karl Auerbach, a resident of Santa Cruz. In an open and public online election, Auerbach was elected as ICANN?s At-Large Director for the North American region in November 2000. He frequently denounced the organization, calling attention to its excessive secrecy, lack of public process, lack of accountability, insufficient oversight by the Board of Directors and poor business practices. As a Director with ICANN, Auerbach has made attempts on many occassions to reform the organization. These attempts have been largely thwarted by the professional staff of ICANN, who have withheld documents from Auerbach despite repeated verbal and written requests. Auerbach finally filed suit against ICANN in March of this year. On Monday, July 29, the California Superior Court ruled in Auerbach?s favor and compelled ICANN to provide Auerbach with the requested documents within a week. At the root of Auerbach?s tiff with ICANN is a struggle to prevent the creeping privatization of the internet. In a paper titled ?A Prescription to Promote the Progress of Science and Useful Arts? he charges that ICANN ?is a predominately non-elected body that is responsive primarily to those industry groups that stand to gain by ICANN?s decisions. ICANN is effectively accountable to no one.? Unfortunately, Auerbach will have little time to effect real change in ICANN. His term expires this November. Also, according to a declaration made by Auerbach to the California Supreme Court, ICANN?over the course of two board meetings??took a sequence of steps that eliminated the public seats on ICANN?s Board of Directors and dispensed with future public elections on any matter within ICANN.? Auerbach had more to say in a prepared statement, dated June 12 of this year, before the Subcommittee on Science, Technology and Space of the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation. ?My seat on ICANN?s Board of Directors, and the seat of every other publicly elected Director, will cease to exist on October 31 of this year,? he said. ?On that date real public representation within ICANN will end. After that date, ICANN will be effectively controlled by a small group of privileged ?stakeholders?.?That grant of favored status is mirrored by a nearly total exclusion of the public and of non-commercial and small businesses interests. These have been given only token voices.? Even these stakeholder arrangements are largely ?facades,? according to Auerbach. ?Most of ICANN?s decisions are made by its staff, often without consultation with the Board of Directors.? Auerbach?s criticisms of ICANN will likely resonate with some of his fellow Santa Cruzans. Throughout the process of considering amended ordinances in the Downtown Business District, the Santa Cruz City Council has faced similar charges of excluding public input and replacing full accountability to an ?at-large? public with a priviledged yet ill-defined group of ?stakeholders,? in combination with the largely unilateral initiatives of City Staff. And the similarities don?t end there. ?By denying people and organizations the ability to form fluid coalitions and relationships according to their self-perceived interests the ?stakeholder? concept has made compromise within ICANN exceedingly difficult and rare,? writes Auerbach. This sort of artificial categorization mirrors the City Council?s process, which at its most galvanizing point divided the public into those for and against the ordinance ammendments. Of course, it is dangerous to conflate ICANN, a California non-profit corporation that presumes to impose a global governance structure over the entire internet, with the City of Santa Cruz, a small municipal body attempting to legislate and enforce ?decorum? on its main drag. But, at the same time, we cannot let ourselves be duped when City legislators attempt to denigrate the significance of their exclusionary practices by drawing attention to the much more nefarious activities of their counterparts at the Federal level. Whether it is a relatively small municipality like Santa Cruz or a ?private government organization? (PGO) like ICANN or an umbrella of repressive agencies like the Homeland Security Office or a corporate malefactor like WorldCom, these movements toward secrecy and highly-stratified management and away from public process and accountability are not unrelated. All content Copyleft ? 2002 by The Alarm! Newspaper. Except where noted otherwise, this material may be copied and distributed freely in whole or in part by anyone except where used for commercial purposes or by government agencies. ----- The Alarm! Newspaper a local weekly newspaper for an engaged populace http://www.the-alarm.com/ info@the-alarm.com P.O. Box 1205, Santa Cruz, CA 95061 (831) 429-NEWS - office (831) 420-1498 - fax From mikeburke99 at yahoo.com Tue Aug 6 11:55:06 2002 From: mikeburke99 at yahoo.com (mike burke) Date: Sun Feb 8 02:51:45 2004 Subject: [Dryerase] Indypendent: Small Farmers Uproot Agribiz Message-ID: <20020806165506.23103.qmail@web20501.mail.yahoo.com> By A.K. Gupta (This article originally appeared in the August 2002 issue of the Indypendent in New York.) **** Photos Available on Request **** When the average American makes the journey from couch to fridge, she opens a door to the world: apples from New Zealand, coffee from Vietnam, cheese from Europe, chocolate from Africa, bananas from Ecuador, tomatoes from California. Despite this, we may still imagine our food as coming from some midwestern breadbasket, grown by hardworking farmers straight out of American Gothic. In reality, dinner was probably harvested by a peasant family, children included, being paid starvation wages and in the yoke of a plantation owner feeding products to some global enterprise. Even in this country, when the harvest isn’t the work of some giant combine, it’s probably being plucked, cut, raked or uprooted by migrants from Latin America and the Caribbean. But some farmers have a different vision. Nestled in the Taconic Hills in the upstate New York town of Harlemville, Hawthorne Valley Farm has been at the forefront of a trend to make farms a part of their local communities. Rachel Schneider, who helps to manage the vegetable gardens at the 400-acre farm, explains that since its founding in 1972, the mission of the non-profit Hawthorne Valley Association, which includes the farm, a 300-student school, and a visiting students’ program and camp, is to “integrate agriculture and the arts.” “Our main goal at the farm,” explains Schneider, “is to farm sustainably and as ecologically sound as possible.” Schneider sees most consumers as “out of touch with farming, because they get their produce from the supermarket. They need to get in touch with how much food costs and how it’s produced.” According to government statistics, farmers received 41 cents of every dollar consumers spent on food in 1950; today, they get barely half of that. To be economically sustainable, says Schneider, Hawthorne Valley “surrounds our farm with value-added and direct-marketed products” like processed vegetables (sauerkraut, pickles), dairy (milk, cheese, yogurt), a stand at the Union Square Greenmarket in Manhattan, community supported agriculture (CSA) and an extensive store. By filling the role of not just the farmer, says Schneider, but also “the processor, the distributor and the retailer,” Hawthorne Valley is able to avoid “being industrial or having a huge farm.” A walk around the farm bears that out. This is what a farm should look — and smell — like. The odors of wet hay, manure and motor oil mingle near the garage bearing fire-engine-red tractors. Sparrows careen about after a cooling summer downpour, ignoring a lone chicken scratching the moist earth by a moldy, dull-silver silo. Next to the 50-foot-tall silo, bright-eyed calves with clean, almost shiny, fur lounge under an open-air metal and wood shed, three to a pen. Piglets snuffle in the back half of the shed as a monstrous mama pig digs into the cooling mud. Hundreds of yards in the distance, the backs of roaming cows bob above the brush as they forage by the waterside. Turnip, another calf, seems oblivious to it all. She’s only interested in gnawing on a shirtsleeve. Turnip will one day join Hawthorne Valley’s herd of 60 dairy cows. Because it doesn’t use industrial methods, like penicillin injections or bovine growth hormones, Hawthorne Valley “produces half the amount of milk of a conventional dairy farmer,” says Schneider. “One cow produces on average 18 to 20,000 pounds of milk on a conventional dairy farm. Our average is 10 to 11,000.” But while “conventional milk sells for $10-$13 per ‘hundredweight,’” explains Schneider, “organic milk sells for $20-$22 per hundredweight.” Schneider says, “We’ve determined with our 250 acres we can support 60 cows. They produce milk, but more importantly, from a biological point of view, they produce manure that we compost for the crop lands, pasture land and vegetable gardens.” The use of manure on fields that grow hay for the cows, which produce more manure for the vegetable gardens, scraps from which feed the pigs, underlies the concept of “biodynamic farming.” Hawthorne Valley Farm is one of dozens of biodynamic farms scattered across the country. The role of manure and composting is critical to biodynamic farming, explains Aaron Hulme of the Biodynamic Farming and Gardening Association. In biodynamic farming, says Hulme, “all of the inputs are supposed to come from one’s farm. The farm is a self-contained unit.” “Biodynamic farming,” says Hulme, “came from a series of eight lectures given by Austrian Rudolf Steiner to a circle of farmers in 1924. They worried that the mechanization of the other aspects of human life would obliterate farming.” Peter Brady, the head farmer at Phillies Bridge Farm in the Hudson Valley town of New Paltz, says biodynamic farming “is an attempt to make the farm more inclusive, with less inputs, less fertilizer and more diversity.” Phillies Bridge, says Brady, practices organic farming and “plans to go biodynamic eventually,” in part by bringing in cows, goats and expanding its flock of 33 chickens. Like Hawthorne Valley, Phillies Bridge is a non-profit, has an educational aspect and runs a CSA. The Phillies Bridge CSA currently has 75 local members, at $500 for a full share. Hawthorne Valley has 220 shares and distributes its produce to members in the local area, Long Island and the Bronx. What’s especially impressive is the small amount of land used to feed so many people. Hawthorne Valley has 12 acres of vegetable gardens, while Phillies Bridge has five. Both make weekly deliveries to their members from June to November. Brady says Phillies Bridge “can grow more per acre than conventional, large-scale farmers, partly because we aren’t growing 3,000 acres.” Yet these two farms raise a nagging question: How viable are they as models? Both of them are non-profit, unusual among farms, which gives them tax advantages. Brady says for Phillies Bridge, “agriculture brings in 75 percent of the revenue and education 25 percent.” Brady admits, “We’re a non-profit. We’re competing with other CSAs. We get Americorp volunteers. Other farmers feel it may not be a level playing field.” Hawthorne Valley expects to generate $3 million in revenue this year, two-thirds of that from its bountiful store. But Schneider says it nets only at most $20,000 a year in profits — not even one percent. One couple in New Paltz, Ron and Kate Khosla, are trying to go the commercial route while maintaining high agricultural standards. Dominated by the Shawanagunk Mountains, the 77-acre Hugenot farm was purchased by the Khoslas almost four years ago. Ron says, “Farming is a lot of gambling. For instance, if you put out your crops by May 19, you’re 90 percent assured they won’t die from frost. This year, though, a lot of people lost crops” due to an unusual cold snap in late May. “We lost $20,000 worth of organic strawberries, and we’ll never make it up,” he notes. Because of the economic pressures, the Khoslas live in decidedly Spartan conditions. “We’ve been camping out for four years. The first year, we lived in the greenhouse. We don’t even have indoor plumbing.” Their hard work is paying off, slowly. They’re now in the process of building a house after turning a profit of $18,000 last year, explains Ron. But “we made less than $3 an hour.” The couple says their farming goes beyond organic, in large part because of federal guidelines that have watered down what organic means. Organic food is no longer the work of some idealistic back-to-the-landers, but a $6 billion a year business that is becoming dominated by agribusinesses. And they have an interest in making “organic” compatible with their industrial scale. While the U..S. Department of Agriculture backed off guidelines two years ago that would have allowed genetic engineering, sewage sludge and radioactive waste used in the production of “organic” food, it still allows controversial practices. It allows manure and waste from conventional factory farms to be used on organic farms; it essentially allows factory farm crowding for organic livestock; and it has imposed an inspection system that is often cost-prohibitive for the small, organic farmers. “Organic is not the same as it used to be,” says Ron. “The process is so time-consuming, so expensive, that the small farmers, the ones who’ve been doing it since the 1970s, can’t call themselves organic anymore.” What gets Ron particularly incensed is the waste issue. “You can use chicken carcasses, diseased parts, and waste” from conventional factory farms. As a result, “there are measurable levels of herbicides, steroids, hormones, antibiotics and pesticides in the soil” of farms that are ostensibly organic. In response, the Khoslas have started to use the term “Certified Naturally Grown (CNG)” and are trying to establish a new trend. “We just went public at the beginning of July. We already have 50 applicants from all over the country,” says Ron. “Organic is now being administered by people who don’t know anything about organic. With CNG, it’s farmers inspecting farmers,” he explains. All the farmers interviewed agree that some of the biggest problems facing non-industrial farming is consumer ignorance and apathy. Peter Brady says he gets kids at Phillies Bridge who “don’t know the difference between a horse and a cow.” Ron Khosla says, “As much as I want to complain about subsidies, the biggest problem is consumer apathy. All they want is cheap vegetables.” --------------------------------- Do You Yahoo!? Yahoo! Health - Feel better, live better -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://lists.cu.groogroo.com/mailman/archive/dryerase/attachments/20020806/630db37d/attachment.html From mikeburke99 at yahoo.com Tue Aug 6 12:00:17 2002 From: mikeburke99 at yahoo.com (mike burke) Date: Sun Feb 8 02:51:45 2004 Subject: [Dryerase] Indypendent: Int'l Briefs: Iraq, Indonesia, Nigeria, Berenson... Message-ID: <20020806170017.44133.qmail@web20511.mail.yahoo.com> International Briefs on 1. Iraq; 2. Global Warming; 3. US-Indonesia Relations; 4. Nigerian Protests; 5. Lori Berenson From mikeburke99 at yahoo.com Tue Aug 6 12:02:25 2002 From: mikeburke99 at yahoo.com (mike burke) Date: Sun Feb 8 02:51:45 2004 Subject: [Dryerase] Indypendent: Globalization Treatens Cambodian Fishing Message-ID: <20020806170225.8865.qmail@web20514.mail.yahoo.com> By Joshua Breitbart *** Photos Available on Request *** From mikeburke99 at yahoo.com Tue Aug 6 12:20:07 2002 From: mikeburke99 at yahoo.com (mike burke) Date: Sun Feb 8 02:51:45 2004 Subject: [Dryerase] Indypendent: Globalizing the Wild Blueberry Message-ID: <20020806172007.78158.qmail@web20506.mail.yahoo.com> By John Tarleton *** Photos available *** From mikeburke99 at yahoo.com Tue Aug 6 12:21:46 2002 From: mikeburke99 at yahoo.com (mike burke) Date: Sun Feb 8 02:51:46 2004 Subject: [Dryerase] Indypendent: Limited Food Options Starving Many Message-ID: <20020806172146.83350.qmail@web20502.mail.yahoo.com> By Emily Reinhardt *** Graphic available *** The offerings of many bodegas on 125th St. bear more resemblance to a frat boy’s dorm room than to a food provider. There are potato chips, pork rinds and an army’s supply of 40-oz. bottles of malt liquor. There are some bruised bananas and apples in crates, and a few loaves of whole wheat bread among mountains of Wonder Bread. The type of supermarkets and grocery stores in poor neighborhoods often limits residents’ access to nutritious food. For instance, lower-quality grocery stores like Met Foods with sad-looking produce abound in Astoria, Queens while greengrocers and stores like Gourmet Garage saturate upscale neighborhoods like SoHo. “[Lower-income food choice is] a huge issue of access,” says Bryant Terry of B-Healthy, a group promoting nutrition, youth leadership and youth activism. “Even if you change the people’s perceptions, it’s an issue of access. The food selection is horrible.” Malnutrition, a major problem plaguing low-income communities, is not synonymous with hunger. Hunger stems from a lack of food; malnutrition is caused by a lack of nutrients. Over 20 percent of Americans are clinically malnourished, whereas eight percent are hungry. In fact, many Americans are both malnourished and obese. “Food insecurity” — meaning a lack of regular access to healthy foods — is a large contributor to malnutrition in poor communities, affecting some 33 million Americans nationwide. Though not technically “hungry,” these people often consume diets that lack many essential vitamins and minerals. It is often the “food insecure” who dine on macaroni and cheese by necessity, rather than by choice. But even for the rest of Americans who have proper access to nutritious foodstuffs, malnutrition may be no stranger. According to an article on HealthWorld Online (www.healthy.net), by Dr. Patrick Quillin, “At least 20 percent of Americans are clinically malnourished, with 70 percent being sub-clinically malnourished (less obvious).” Though food insecurity exists in both urban and rural America, certain problems are inherent to the urban poor. According to the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), urbanites spend 30 percent more money on food than other communities, but consume fewer calories. Fresh produce is less accessible in cities due to transportation and distribution issues. Fast food consumption in the cities is also high. (One-third of America’s “eating out” is done at fast food establishments.) Urban, lower-income households also tend to buy less at the supermarket. They buy more from stores with fewer offerings, such as bodegas, even though supermarkets sometimes undercharge the smaller stores by as much as 10 percent. Supermarket prices are four percent higher in urban and rural areas than in the suburbs, but the suburbs contain the lowest amount of poor households. In a perverse twist, the richest people pay the least for their groceries. And because the poor have far less money, they also spend a far greater percentage of their disposable income on food than the rich or middle class. Back in 1970, when a cup of coffee was 25 cents, the average household spent less than 15 percent of its disposable income on food. By 2000, that number had dropped to 10.6 percent. But this statistic does not mean that food is a bargain for lower-class communities. The percentage of after-tax income households spend on food is 34.2 percent, for incomes between $5,000-$9,000. In contrast, a household making $70,000 spends 8.7 percent. According to the USDA’s Economic Research Service report “Expenditures for food require a large share of income when income is relatively low...the figure [average household spending on food] has sometimes been misused to prove that food is a bargain.” There is also a tendency to buy starchy and fatty foods that fill the stomach but starve the body. This offers little nutritional variety in daily and weekly meals. Kuo Huang, an agricultural economist for the USDA, writes that fluctuating food prices can also weaken the nutrition that poorer households receive. “If the price of beef goes up, while the price of chicken remains the same, consumers will likely buy less beef and more chicken.” This not only affects chicken and beef but the foods that would be bought in conjunction, like cheese for cheeseburgers. Food consumption based on price and not nutritional value can make for a much less-balanced diet. An additional barrier faced by many communities of color is the perception that “eating healthy is a white bourgeois thing,” Terry says. The food activist links this attitude to food production and in the perceived high cost of eating healthily. Though many immigrant families may cook up nutritious meals, Terry says many immigrant youth just want to be “Americanized.” McDonald’s and pizza symbolize America to these young people, who are often more enthusiastic about these foods then their own food heritage. Mexican-Americans now have the highest obesity rates of any ethnic group in America. Over half of all Americans meet worldwide standards for being overweight, while 23 percent of Americans are obese. The U.S. Surgeon General’s 2001 report on obesity claims, “overweight and obesity are particularly common among minority groups and those with a lower family income.” This is especially true for women. Lower-income women are 50 percent more likely to be obese then those with higher incomes. African-American woman suffer particularly, with 69 percent considered “obese.” “There needs to be a demand [for nutritious food in lower-income areas], a demand needs to be created,” says Terry. “Having fresh produce is meaningless if there’s no one around to buy it.” --------------------------------- Do You Yahoo!? Yahoo! Health - Feel better, live better -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://lists.cu.groogroo.com/mailman/archive/dryerase/attachments/20020806/ee9a71f6/attachment.html From fhar at the-alarm.com Fri Aug 2 12:44:24 2002 From: fhar at the-alarm.com (Fhar Miess) Date: Sun Feb 8 02:51:46 2004 Subject: [Dryerase] Alarm!--Ojo en el INS Message-ID: <7BF2467C-A63F-11D6-9B46-003065F4865E@the-alarm.com> Ojo en el INS Un enfoque semanal en el INS y la pol?tica inmigratoria Ser o no ser (ilegal), esa es la cuesti?n. El Procurador General Ashcroft Anuncia Nuevas Reglas para Inmigrantes. Por Carlos Armenta Colaborador del Periodico ?La Alarma! El t?rmino ?ilegal? adquiere caracter?sticas diferentes cuando se aplica a seres humanos que a objetos o acciones. Cuando este t?rmino se utiliza para categorizar a personas, su sola existencia dentro de determinado espacio puede traer como consecuencia su arresto o deportaci?n, como se da en el caso de inmigrantes ilegales. Los c?lculos sobre residentes ilegales en los Estados Unidos arrojan cifras que van desde los 8 hasta los 11 millones de personas. Respecto a estas personas, el comisionado del Servicio de Inmigraci?n y Naturalizaci?n (INS, por sus siglas en ingl?s), James Ziglar, declar? el pasado 23 de Mayo?en conferencia de prensa en Tucson, Arizona?que no deben preocuparse de que el gobierno de los Estados Unidos implemente las leyes migratorias para tratar de deportarlos. Ziglar dijo que ?a nadie le gusta la idea de que la gente entre ilegalmente a este pa?s, pero no es pr?ctico ni razonable el pensar que se les puede detener y mandarlos de regreso a casa.? Tal declaraci?n obedece a dos razones principales: por un lado, y tal y como lo han declarado muchos funcionarios del gobierno, los E.U. necesitan un flujo constante de inmigrantes (as? lo ha sido desde el siglo XIX) para lograr su desarrollo como naci?n. Por otro lado, el INS carece de la capacidad log?stica y administrativa, tanto para poder atender a los millones de personas que buscan legalizar su situaci?n en este pa?s, como para deportar a todos aquellos que residan aqu? de manera ilegal. De hecho, se sabe que el INS se hace de la vista gorda cuando se trata de inmigrantes ilegales que laboran en el sector agr?cola, de servicios o en rastros, solo por citar algunos ejemplos, a?n sabiendo donde trabajan, debido al gran beneficio econ?mico que los inmigrantes ilegales aportan en materia de mano de obra barata. La categorizaci?n de ?ilegales? hace posible que estas personas sean v?ctimas de abusos por parte de sus patrones, al vivir siempre bajo la amenaza de deportaci?n, si no aceptan condiciones de trabajo muy por debajo de las que exigen las leyes laborales, las cuales solo protegen a los ?legales.? As? las cosas, causan gran curiosidad las declaraciones hechas por el procurador general John Ashcroft en un foro anticrimen celebrado el pasado 23 de julio en Alberta, Canad?, en el sentido de que existe un plan para ejecutar una ley migratoria que existe desde hace cincuenta a?os. La ley requiere que todo inmigrante que resida en los E.U. notifique al INS cualquier cambio de domicilio con un plazo de diez d?as. La regla en cuesti?n afecta a todos los residentes permanentes legales (diez millones aproximadamente, de acuerdo a cifras del propio INS), as? como a visitantes y estudiantes que permanezcan en los E.U. por m?s de treinta d?as. Ashcroft declar? que con la implementaci?n de dicha ley ?aumentaremos nuestra capacidad para localizar r?pidamente a cualquier extranjero en el caso de que se deban iniciar procedimientos de deportaci?n.? El anuncio de Ashcroft pone de manifiesto el plan para que el INS forme parte integral del nuevo Departamento de Seguridad Territorial (Department of Homeland Security), el cual fue dise?ado como consecuencia de los ataques terroristas del 11 de septiembre. En un comunicado oficial hecho el 6 de junio del a?o en curso, el comisionado del INS, James Ziglar, declara que el ?INS pondr? todo de su parte para hacer del nuevo Departamento de Seguridad Territorial un ?xito.? La llamada ?guerra contra el terrorismo? sigue entonces siendo utilizada como excusa para coartar las libertades y garant?as constitucionales de los que vivimos en los E.U. Con este tipo de medidas, se hace mucho m?s f?cil para el gobierno el poder detener a cualquier persona aunque se trate de alguien que siempre ha vivido dentro de la ley. Con la implementaci?n de la citada ley migratoria, el gobierno tendr? la capacidad de categorizar a cualquier inmigrante como ilegal por no haber reportado un cambio de domicilio, aunque dicho cambio haya ocurrido a?os atr?s. Es en este sentido de la retroactividad que la ley cobra la m?yor importancia. Muchos residentes permanentes legales sin antecedentes criminales, que pagan impuestos y operan dentro de la ley, sienten que la implementaci?n de dicha medida podr?a utilizarse como excusa para el trato abusivo hacia inmigrantes de ciertos or?genes nacionales. Se conoce, por ejemplo, el caso de Tahr Abdeljaber, residente permanente legal originario de Palestina y padre de dos ni?os que son ciudadanos americanos. Abdeljaber fue detenido recientemente por la polic?a en Atlanta por manejar a exceso de velocidad, y luego fue sometido a interrogatorio por parte del FBI por tener en su carro un mapa de Carolina del Norte, en el que varias localidades hab?an sido encerradas en un c?rculo con pluma. Aunque no se presentaron cargos en contra de Abdeljaber, el INS inici? su propia investigaci?n y descubri? que este no hab?a notificado un cambio de domicilio en 1999, por lo que ahora enfrenta el riesgo de ser deportado. Ashcroft no explic? de que manera el INS manejar? el nuevo sistema para reportar el cambio de domicilio, o si el Departamento de Justicia planea implementar dicha ley de manera retroactiva. Ashcroft tampoco explic? cual ser?a el procedimiento a seguir por parte de los inmigrantes para notificar cambios de domicilio. Sin embargo, en el caso de Abdeljaber la ley se aplic? de manera retroactiva y sin que existiera, adem?s, informaci?n oportuna y clara sobre como reportar el cambio. La grave omisi?n por parte de Ashcroft, contrastada con un caso como el de Abdeljaber, pone en evidencia la intenci?n del gobierno de dar al INS toda la discrecionalidad posible para decidir quien es sujeto de deportaci?n. El anuncio hecho por el procurador, como era de esperarse, provoc? reacciones de oposici?n por parte inmigrantes legales y activistas pro-inmigraci?n. Frank Sharry, director ejecutivo del Foro Nacional de Inmigraci?n, declar? al San Jose Mercury News que la medida ?no har? de los Estados Unidos un lugar m?s seguro, solo lograr? que los recien llegados se sientan en la mira de las autoridades.? Incluso muchos opositores a la immigracion parecen esc?pticos del anuncio de Ashcroft. Mark Krikovian, director del Centro de Estudios para la Inmigraci?n, cuya posici?n es a favor de un control m?s estricto de las fronteras, declar? al Mercury News que la implementaci?n de esta y otras leyes migratorias es algo que ?est? fuera del alcance de la capacidad del INS.? El INS trata de ofrecer la impresi?n de que trabaja para hacer del territorio de los E.U. un lugar m?s seguro para vivir. Con la excusa de la seguridad nacional, se han cometido injusticias como la implementaci?n del Chinese Exclusion Act, el encarcelamiento de inmigrantes legales y ciudadanos americanos de origen japon?s durante la segunda guerra mundial y la deportaci?n masiva de mexicanos, sin importar su ?legalidad? o ?ilegalidad? durante los a?os de la gran depresi?n. Sin embargo las leyes migratorias siempre han sido aplicadas inequitativamente. Por la mayor parte, el INS prefiere ignorar la presencia de inmigrantes ilegales en los E.U, si estos convienen a los intereses de los que los emplean. Ahora m?s que nunca, con la implementaci?n de leyes como la del cambio de domicilio?que han existido desde hace mucho tiempo, pero que el INS hab?a decidido no aplicar?esta agencia cuenta con la discrecionalidad para decidir de una manera arbitraria quien es ilegal, y, por lo tanto, quien puede ser vulnerable a muchos tipos de abuso por parte de las autoridades. All content Copyleft ? 2002 by The Alarm! Newspaper. Except where noted otherwise, this material may be copied and distributed freely in whole or in part by anyone except where used for commercial purposes or by government agencies. ----- The Alarm! Newspaper a local weekly newspaper for an engaged populace http://www.the-alarm.com/ info@the-alarm.com P.O. Box 1205, Santa Cruz, CA 95061 (831) 429-NEWS - office (831) 420-1498 - fax From wires at the-alarm.com Thu Aug 8 22:00:23 2002 From: wires at the-alarm.com (Alarm!Wires) Date: Sun Feb 8 02:51:46 2004 Subject: [Dryerase] Alarm!--Ex-Braceros sue for withheld wages Message-ID: <25C70FB0-AB44-11D6-8EE0-003065F4865E@the-alarm.com> Ex-Braceros file lawsuit Suit demands repayment for wages withheld sixty years ago By Maryanne Schiffman The Alarm! Newspaper Contributor On Friday more than 100 elderly men gathered outside of Wells Fargo headquarters in San Francisco to demand repayment of wages withheld from them for more than sixty years. The men are plaintiffs in a federal class action lawsuit filed in March 2001 against Wells Fargo, the largest bank in rural California and a major player in California?s agricultural economy. The suit charges Wells Fargo with breach of contract, breach of trust/fiduciary duty and unjust enrichment. The plaintiffs in the suit came to the US during WWII, when the government initiated the bracero (?strong arm?) program, inviting Mexican workers to replace American workers who had gone off to war. Initially only the railroad industry participated, but the program was later extended to sectors such as the agricultural industry in California. Under the original agreement between the two governments, ten percent of braceros? wages would be put aside in a ?savings plan.? The contract stated that when the workers returned to Mexico, the Mexican government would either use the money to buy farm equipment for the braceros or return the money to them in a lump sum. However, the Mexican government neither bought equipment nor returned the money to the workers. Wells Fargo says it fulfilled its part of the agreement by transferring the money to Mexican banks, and that it was the responsibility of those banks to return the money to the braceros. Yet Wells Fargo refuses to open its books to prove its innocence. It is alleged that the money owed to the men amounts to between $500 million and $1 billion. After gathering at the Wells Fargo bank site on Friday, the ex-braceros next marched to San Francisco?s U.S. District Court Building where the first statements on the case were being heard. Attorneys for Wells Fargo attempted to have the case dismissed on the basis of technicalities, including the lapse of the legal statute of limitations. The judge considered the arguments provided, and has yet to return a decision. Several California politicians are intervening on the ex-bracero?s behalf. In February of this year, Marco Firebaugh (D., Los Angeles) introduced State Assembly Bill 2913, extending the statute of limitations for the special case of the ex-braceros. The bill, which provides that the ex-braceros? claims ?be applied retroactively and not be dismissed provided that the actions are introduced before December 31, 2003,? has passed the house and is now pending approval by the State Senate. Similar legislation has been also introduced at the federal level. Sam Farr (D.-Santa Cruz) is among the many politicians who support this legislation and look for justice for the braceros. The good news is that the legislation is expected to pass in the State Senate without difficulty, and the governor is expected to sign it. The bad news is that the court case only addresses the ?missing wages? that were deducted from the salaries of the 400,000 railroad workers who were here between 1942 and 1949. This leaves aside the rest of the more than 2.5 million braceros, including those working in agriculture, who also claim they had wages withheld and never saw a cent returned to them. It is estimated that in the span of time between 1949 and 1969, millions of dollars were withheld from these workers. Ignacio G?mez Rodr?guez is a Salinas resident and a member of the Salinas Valley Ex-Braceros, one of largest and most politically active ex-bracero groups in the US. ?There is more than just the money the lawsuit asks for in this issue? he says. ?First of all, there were many more braceros who lost money than just the ones who worked between 1942 and 1949. We want Wells Fargo to respond for the wages of all of those workers. But beyond that, it is also an issue of respect. We came here and helped this country with its needs. We would like to be treated decently and respectfully.? The lawsuit involves workers from both sides of the border and almost every state in the nation. Politicians ? including the president ? have been quick to line up on the bracero?s side. For Wells Fargo, a bank trying to win over Latino communities with new policies to attract Spanish-speaking customers and special money wire rates to Mexico, the negative publicity is becoming increasingly painful. The day after the San Francisco demonstration, Wells Fargo representatives contacted Alianza Braceroproa to ask for a meeting to discuss the situation. But Mr. G?mez Rodr?guez of the Salinas Braceros was skeptical. ?If Wells Fargo really did send the money to Mexico,? he said, ?then they should open their books and show us the records. If they really did, then they have nothing to fear. But if they didn?t, then they need to respond for that money.? For more info on legislation AB2913, visit the California State Legislature at www.assembly.ca.gov or call Rudy Montalvo at the offices of Henry Contreras (D.- Los Angles) at (323) 562-7880 or (916) 319-2050. For info on the Salinas Valley Braceros Organization, visit http://www.newcitizen.org/english/bracero_eng.htm. For info on the class action lawsuit, contact one of the following organizations working with ex-braceros in the area: The Citizenship Project in Salinas (831) 423-4345, Alianza Braceroproa in San Jose (408) 929-9551, and Proyecto Bracero de Stockton (209) 956-0367. All content Copyleft ? 2002 by The Alarm! Newspaper. Except where noted otherwise, this material may be copied and distributed freely in whole or in part by anyone except where used for commercial purposes or by government agencies. ----- The Alarm! Newspaper a local weekly newspaper for an engaged populace http://www.the-alarm.com/ info@the-alarm.com P.O. Box 1205, Santa Cruz, CA 95061 (831) 429-NEWS - office (831) 420-1498 - fax From wires at the-alarm.com Thu Aug 8 22:02:02 2002 From: wires at the-alarm.com (Alarm!Wires) Date: Sun Feb 8 02:51:46 2004 Subject: [Dryerase] Alarm!--Ex-Braceros interponen demanda contra banco Message-ID: <60D09ABE-AB44-11D6-8EE0-003065F4865E@the-alarm.com> Ex-Braceros interponen demanda contra banco. Piden se les devuelvan sueldos retenidos hace sesenta a?os Por Maryanne Schiffman Colaborador del Semanario ?La Alarma! El viernes 2 de agosto del 2002, m?s de 100 ex-braceros se reunieron en las puertas de las oficinas centrales del banco Wells Fargo en San Francisco, para demandar el reembolso de su salario, el cual hab?a sido retenido por mas de 60 a?os. Los ex-braceros antepusieron en marzo del 2001 una demanda federal de acci?n de clase contra el banco Wells Fargo, uno de los bancos m?s grandes en las ?reas rurales de California, y un contribuyente mayor a la econom?a de la agricultura en California. Los cargos en contra del banco Wells Fargo son por violaci?n al contrato, violaci?n de obligaciones de confianza/ fiduciario, e enriquecimiento il?cito. Los demandantes vinieron a los Estados Unidos durante la segunda guerra mundial, cuando el gobierno estadunidense inici? el programa bracero, invitando a los trabajadores mexicanos a reemplazar a los trabajadores americanos que se hab?an ido a la guerra. En un principio s?lamente participaba la industria del ferrocarril, pero el programa despu?s se extendi? a otros sectores, c?mo el de la industria de la agricultura en California. Bajo el acuerdo original entre los dos gobiernos, el diez por ciento del salario de los braceros fue puesto en un ? plan de ahorros.? El contrato estableci? que al regresar los trabajadores a M?xico, el gobierno mexicano usar?a el dinero para proporcionarles equipo para el campo o se los reembolsar?a en un solo pago. Sin embargo el gobierno mexicano no compr? el equipo y tampoco devolvi? el dinero a los trabajadores. El banco Wells Fargo dice haber cumplido con su parte en el acuerdo de transferir el dinero a los bancos de M?xico, y que la responsabilidad de regresar el dinero a los braceros reca?a en los bancos mexicanos. Hasta ahora, Wells Fargo se niega a abrir sus libros para comprobar su inocencia. Se estima se les debe a los ex-braceros un monto de entre 500 millones y un bill?n de d?lares. Despu?s de la reuni?n en el banco Wells Fargo el d?a viernes, los ex -braceros marcharon hacia el edificio de la corte del distrito de San Francisco en donde se escucharon las primeras declaraciones del caso. Los abogados del banco Wells Fargo intentaron que el caso fuera desechado, aduciendo que la demanda fu? levantada fuera del tiempo l?mite que establece el estatuto de limitaciones (statute of limitations). El juez consider? los argumentos proporcionados y a?n no anuncia una decisi?n. Sin embargo varios pol?ticos de California est?n intercediendo en favor de los braceros. En febrero de este a?o, Marco Firebaugh (D., Los Angeles) present? la iniciativa de ley AB2913 en la asamblea legislativa estatal de California la cual extender?a el estatuto de limitaciones para el caso especial de los ex--braceros. La iniciativa fu? aprobada en la asamblea legislativa y est? esperando aprobaci?n en el senado estatal. A nivel federal ya se han presentado iniciativas semejantes. Sam Farr, (D. Santa Cruz) es uno de los pol?ticos locales que apoyan esta legislaci?n y buscan justicia para los braceros. La buena noticia es que se espera que el senado estatal aprobar? la iniciativa, y que el Gobernador Davis la firmar? en ley. La mala es que el juicio nada mas abarca los ?fondos perdidos? que fueran deducidos de los salarios de 400,000 trabajadores de ferrocarriles entre los a?os de 1942 y 1949. Esto excluye al resto de los 2.5 millones de braceros, incluyendo a los trabajadores de la agricultura, a quienes tambi?n se les hicieron deducciones y nunca se les regres? esa parte de sus sueldos.. Se estima que el monto retenido a ?stos trabajadores entre los a?os de 1949 y 1969 asciende a los millones de d?lares. Ignacio G?mez Rodr?guez es residente de Salinas, y miembro de Los Ex-Braceros del Valle de Salinas, la organizaci?n de ex- braceros mas grande y pol?ticamente activa del pa?s. ?Hay m?s que dinero en esto, ? dice G?mez. ?Primero, hab?an muchos m?s braceros que perdieron su dinero, no solo los que trabajaran entre 1942 y 1949. Queremos que Wells Fargo responda por los salarios de todos los trabajadores. Pero m?s all? de eso, esto es asunto de respeto. Venimos aqu? y ayudamos a este pa?s con sus necesidades. Queremos que nos trate con decencia, respeto y justicia.? El juicio involucra a trabajadores en ambos lados de la frontera y en casi todos los estados de los Estados Unidos. Los pol?ticos ? hasta el presidente George Bush ? est?n tomando el lado de los braceros. Para Wells Fargo, un banco que quiere ganar el mercado latino en California con sus servicios para hablantes de espa?ol y precios bajos para enviar giros a M?xico, el juicio de los ex-braceros se puede convertir en una pesadilla. Un d?a despu?s de la manifestaci?n en San Francisco, representantes de Wells Fargo contactaron a la Alianza Braceroproa de San Jos?, organizaci?n que organiz? el evento, para pedir una reuni?n para ?discutir el problema.? Pero el Se?or Ignacio G?mez Rodr?guez de los ex-braceros de Salinas se mostr? esc?ptico. ?Si Wells Fargo de verdad mand? el dinero a los bancos de M?xico,? dice, ?entonces deber? abrir sus libros para mostrar sus archivos. Si es verdad, no tienen nada que temer. Pero si no, necesitar?n hacerse responsables por todo ese dinero.? Para mayor informaci?n sobre la legislaci?n AB2913, se puede ver la p?gina de Internet del gobierno de California a www.assembly.ca.gov o llamar a Rudy Montalvo en las oficinas del representante Henry Contreras (D., Los Angeles) (323) 562-7880 o (916) 319-2050. Para informaci?n sobre los Ex-Braceros del Valle de Salinas, se puede ver su p?gina de Internet en espa?ol a http://www.newcitizen.org/spanish/braceros_espanol.htm. Para m?s informaci?n sobre la demanda federal de acci?n de clase, comun?quese con una de las organizaciones en la ?rea que trabajan con los ex-braceros: El Proyecto de Ciudadan?a en Salinas: (831) 424-2713), La Alianza Braceroproa en San Jos?: (408) 929-9551, o El Proyecto Bracero de Stockton (209) 956-0367. All content Copyleft ? 2002 by The Alarm! Newspaper. Except where noted otherwise, this material may be copied and distributed freely in whole or in part by anyone except where used for commercial purposes or by government agencies. ----- The Alarm! Newspaper a local weekly newspaper for an engaged populace http://www.the-alarm.com/ info@the-alarm.com P.O. Box 1205, Santa Cruz, CA 95061 (831) 429-NEWS - office (831) 420-1498 - fax From wires at the-alarm.com Thu Aug 8 22:02:50 2002 From: wires at the-alarm.com (Alarm!Wires) Date: Sun Feb 8 02:51:46 2004 Subject: [Dryerase] =?ISO-8859-1?Q?Alarm!--La_cancelaci=F3n_del_proyecto_del_aeropu?= =?ISO-8859-1?Q?erto_en_Texcoco?= Message-ID: <7DE27B70-AB44-11D6-8EE0-003065F4865E@the-alarm.com> La cancelaci?n del proyecto del aeropuerto en Texcoco Solo un primer paso en la lucha por la justicia social en M?xico. Por Carlos Armenta Colaborador del Semanario ?La Alarma! La presidencia de la Rep?blica mexicana decidi? dar marcha atr?s en su proyecto de construir, en Texcoco, el nuevo aeropuerto de la ciudad de M?xico. La noche del primero de agosto, la presidencia inform? su decisi?n de iniciar los tr?mites para dejar sin efecto los decretos expropiatori?s, citando la negativa de las comunidades ejidales a vender sus tierras. Ante tal anuncio, los ejidatarios de San Salvador Atenco, una de las principales comunidades afectadas por el proyecto, celebraron durante toda la noche del mismo d?a primero. Aunque las celebraciones continuaban hasta la madrugada del d?a dos, muchos de los ejidatarios, inclu?dos sus principales l?deres, mostraron una actitud de escepticismo hasta que no se les entreguen documentos por escrito que confirmen el anuncio de las presidencia. Duranto la celebraci?n, se oyeron arengas como la de ?!Zapata vive, la lucha sigue!? la cual no es solo una frase, sino expresa la confirmaci?n de que la lucha por la tierra contin?a y sigue vigente. Al respecto, Ignacio del Valle, dirigente de las Uni?n de Pueblos en Defensa de la Tierra, puntualiz? que ?el ejemplo de Atenco ya prendi?, por eso no podemos quedarnos en este paso. Conseguimos, gracias al esfuerzo del pueblo, que pare la expropiaci?n, pero vienen otras luchas importantes. El problema de fondo es un orden social injusto que tiene muchas caras. Se llama neoliberalismo, Tratado de Libre Comercio, Plan Puebla Panam?, Acuerdo de Libre Comercio para las Am?ricas....? Los atenquenses miraron a su pasado y enconraron los s?mbolos que les permitieron emprender el largo camino de las resistencia contra el poder federal. Retomaron sus ra?ces prehisp?nicas a trav?z de la figura de Netzahualc?yotl, rey de Texcoco, y se apropiaron de la rebeld?a de sus abuelos que pelearon en el ej?rcito de Emiliano Zapata, despu?s de haber trabajado como peones en las haciendas porfiristas por doce centavos el jornal. ?stas principales luchas sociales que sirven como s?mbolos de lo que se considera la naci?n mexicana, quedan representadas en la lucha de los atenquenses. La Revoluci?n mexicana cobra vida con la resistencia de los ejidatarios de Atenco, pero no como herramienta de control por parte de las autoridades y unos pocos privilegiados, sino como estandarte de lucha por una justicia social que no ha fructificado en M?xico a pesar del sacrificio de muchos mexicanos, en su mayor?a ind?genas y pobres. Sin embargo, el presidente Fox aseguraba, antes de la cancelaci?n del proyecto, que las comunidades afectadas no ten?an arraigo hist?rico en la regi?n. Las actitudes de los que insist?an en que el proyecto Texcoco continuara sin importar la oposici?n de los campesinos revelan su mentalidad colonialista y porfirista. Por ejemplo, On?simo Cepepda, obsipo de Ecatepec, Estado de M?xico, declar? que ?a?n cuando haya muerto una persona, a?n cuando hayan muerto 500, se debi? haber constru?do el nuevo aeropuerto en Texcoco.? Cepeda sigue los mismos pasos de la iglesia cat?lica durante la colonia en M?xico, que justificaba cualquier matanza o trato inhumano hacia los ind?genas de aquellos tiempos con el pretexto de la evangelizaci?n, cuando en realidad buscaba beneficios econ?micos. Al respecto, Ignacio del Valle revel? que ?lo de la cancelaci?n del aeropuerto le duele [al obispo] porque ten?a las manos metidas en este negocio.? El se?or Cepeda quiere obviamente regresar quinientos a?os en el tiempo. Otra actitud que demuestra el deseo de regresar en el tiempo, aunque a este solo le interesa regresarse cien a?os, a la ?poca del porfiriato (anterior a la revoluci?n), es la del gobernador del Estado de M?xico, Arturo Montiel Rojas, quien declar? que la cancelaci?n del proyecto ?es lamentable.? Adem?s, advirti? que continuar?n las investigaciones por presuntos delitos cometidos por los ejidatarios durante las protestas. El se?or Montiel asegura que ?los inversionistas hab?an destinado aproximadamente el cuarenta por ciento de los 2 mil millones de d?lares que se necesitaban para echar a andar el proyecto,? aunque el gobierno federal hab?a revelado que ?no hab?a a?n ning?n inversionista haciendo los estudios o los proyectos de prefactibillidad para realizar la inversi?n.? Sin quererlo el gobierno pone en evidencia a los que, como Montiel y el obispo Cepeda, anteponen los intereses econ?micos a las necesidades humanas. Los ejidatarios rechazan tal actitud de avaricia. Francisco Morales, campesino de La Magdalena declar? a La Jornada que ?nuestro pueblo ha preferido un pu?o de tierra a un fajo de billetes. Los billetes se acaban y nuestras tierras las tendremos para siempre.? El gobierno debe de entender que ya no puede comprar el apoyo del pueblo con migajas. Tanto los ejidatarios como otros importantes personajes pol?ticos de M?xico expresaron su aprobaci?n hacia la cancelaci?n del proyecto, pero mostraron tambi?n una actitud cautelosa. Del Valle puntualiz? que ?si se retractaron en este caso fue porque no tuvieron otra salida. Se ven?a una convulsi?n social, ?a huevo! Pero si contin?a el divorcio de las autoridades con el pueblo, si insisten en aplicar la fuerza para lograr sus objetivos, esto se va a repetir. ?Habr? muchos Atencos!? Cuauht?moc C?rdenas, ex-candidato a la presidencia por el Partido de la Revoluci?n Democr?tica (de izqauierda), apoy? las declaraciones de del Valle, al apuntar que ?el decreto expropiatorio no ten?a ning?n sustento ?tico ni legal,? es decir, la cancelaci?n no obedece en un cien por ciento a las protestas sino a la inviabilidad social y pol?tica del proyecto. El presidente Fox dijo que el aeropuerto se construir?, aunque no sea en Texcoco. Sin embargo, faltar?a ver que opinan los propietarios de los terrenos a expropiar en otros lugares, y c?mo el gobierno enfrentar? una posible oposici?n. Como dijo del Valle, ??Habr? muchos Atencos!? La lecci?n del fallido proyecto aeroportuario es que el di?logo debe existir desde el principio y que en M?xico ya nada se puede construir si no es con el consenso, tomando en cuenta a todas las partes involucradas. All content Copyleft ? 2002 by The Alarm! Newspaper. Except where noted otherwise, this material may be copied and distributed freely in whole or in part by anyone except where used for commercial purposes or by government agencies. ----- The Alarm! Newspaper a local weekly newspaper for an engaged populace http://www.the-alarm.com/ info@the-alarm.com P.O. Box 1205, Santa Cruz, CA 95061 (831) 429-NEWS - office (831) 420-1498 - fax From wires at the-alarm.com Thu Aug 8 22:04:19 2002 From: wires at the-alarm.com (Alarm!Wires) Date: Sun Feb 8 02:51:47 2004 Subject: [Dryerase] Alarm!--Eye on the INS Message-ID: Eye on the INS A weekly forum to discuss the INS and immigration policy It?s the ?simple? things By Michelle Stewart The Alarm! Newspaper Collective It is usually the simple things that slip through the cracks, then get you. After a long week of work (or play), you forget to take back the library book; or after the weekend you don?t return the movie to the video store. For each of these ?little things? you are penalized?overdue fees. During a move, when you pick up your whole life and deposit it into labeled boxes, you often miss a few things. You might forget to grab something hanging inside a closet, or fail to take out the garbage (if you didn?t like the landlord). You might, also, forget to do the obvious: fill out a change of address card. Just like with the overdue movie or the library book there eventually comes evidence of the oversight. You will notice the library book sitting near the front door (waiting to be returned) or you will receive a call from the video store (demanding the return of their property). When you forget to file a change of address card, you find you have no mail to open. If you are an immigrant, forgetting to file a change of address form can have far more menacing consequences? and there are no warnings. There are no letters sent to you in the mail reminding you to do this task; there is no ?courtesy? phone call informing you of your mistake. Yet there is a penalty for the oversight?a stiff one at that. This is what I got to deal with this week. It is the newly required ?Change of Address? form to the INS office for all of us who are permanent residents. The INS admits this is an old, unenforced law, but it has decided to enforce the law once again. The 1952 legislation requires all legal residents to report a change of address within ten days of moving. Without warning, the INS began enforcing the law in mid-July. So what does this mean? What happens if you happen to move and forget to file this change of address form along with the half dozen other change of address forms? Well the penalty, predictably, is a fine or deportation. That?s right, for this simple thing that might slip your mind, in the chaos of moving your life from one place to another, the cost could be deportation. And those who are deported are not allowed back into the US for five to ten years. A pretty stiff penalty for a rather minor infraction. Yet this is the state of things. I am a permanent resident (formerly of Canada) and when I found out about the law, I cursed and grumbled as I went to the INS webpage and downloaded the form?I have definitely moved without informing them within the required time period. When I decided to cover this, I was originally going to posit that the 1952 law was archaic. Upon further consideration, it is actually decidedly timely. Consider that one of the achievements of Immigration and Nationality Act of June 27, 1952 (according to the INS) was it ?broadened the grounds for exclusion and deportation of aliens.? Then consider the historical moment we are living in today. As each press report links another political group or country to Al-Qaeda, and the government continues its ?War on Terrorism,? it is no surprise that we are turning back to laws of another paranoid era. As the anxiety of terrorism is relived everyday on each television across the US, it becomes very clear that the law of the land (with regards to immigration) is embracing a means to exclude and deport all aliens. The post-9/11 paranoia is far from over, and continues to grow as the campaign against ?terrorism? expands. The BBC reported this week that the number of people seeking citizenship in the US was up 100% last year. This trend was reported immediately after 9/11. Why the trend? The list is long and includes: 1000+ currently being detained, hundreds targeted for minor immigration infractions, the tracking of all tourists who enter the US, the widescale crackdown on student visitors... the list goes on and on. The choice, then, to naturalize is obvious for many. So, as thousands flock to courthouses for public swearing-in ceremonies, the schools will fill with people studying for the immigration exam. ?Who is the president of the United States?? will be answered in chime by many thousands, some of whom will admit they are filing in fear, others who will solemnly say they are patriotic and devoted to America. Those of us who have not lived here long enough to qualify for the citizenship test contemplate our strategies, and think about the pros and cons of declaring a pledge of allegiance to an adopted country. We pause, as we contemplate these questions, or as we fill out a change of address form (nervously), and remember that thousands of Japanese nationals and Japanese-American citizens were detained fifty years ago. Citizenship didn?t protect them back then; will it protect anyone in the future? At the end of the day, in this historical moment, it is the little things that seem to catch us. The Change of Address Form is found on the INS webpage. The form can be downloaded at http://www.ins.usdoj.gov/graphics/formsfee/forms/ar-11.htm. All content Copyleft ? 2002 by The Alarm! Newspaper. Except where noted otherwise, this material may be copied and distributed freely in whole or in part by anyone except where used for commercial purposes or by government agencies. ----- The Alarm! Newspaper a local weekly newspaper for an engaged populace http://www.the-alarm.com/ info@the-alarm.com P.O. Box 1205, Santa Cruz, CA 95061 (831) 429-NEWS - office (831) 420-1498 - fax From wires at the-alarm.com Thu Aug 8 22:05:21 2002 From: wires at the-alarm.com (Alarm!Wires) Date: Sun Feb 8 02:51:47 2004 Subject: [Dryerase] Alarm!--It's Capitalism, Baby--Love it or leave it! Message-ID: It?s Capitalism, Baby?Love it or Leave it! By Chris Kortright The Alarm! Newspaper Contributor ?The fundamentals of our economy are sound.??George W. Bush on July 30, 2002 Crisis after crisis has shaken the image of capitalism. Multinational corporations such as Enron, WorldCom, Tico, Right Aid, K-Mart and Xerox have declared bankruptcy or losses up to $38 billion. These failures are not limited to the US. European companies like the French media corporation Vivendi Universal (with a debt of 20 billion euros) and the German industrial conglomerate Babcock Borsig are having problems, too. Wall Street investors have lost up to $6,700 billion during the sharp fall in stock values. Attorney General John Ashcroft stated, ?When financial transactions are fraudulent and balance sheets are falsified, the invisible hand that guides our market is replaced by a greased palm.? Ashcroft is separating fraudulent practices, as if they are somehow outside of the general tenets of capitalism. By separating the ?invisible hand that guides our market? from the ?greased palm,? Ashcroft isolates the frauds and their perpetrators, verbally placing them in the margins of the capitalist system. He is attempting to keep Americans? faith in the system of capitalism. The company failures should invoke the question of whether these problems of deception and book-cooking are a temporary hiccup within the workings of capitalism or a symptom of disease in the system in general. Are these events a systemic issue or are they just chance occurrences? Can President Bush solve these problems with reforms or does the system itself need to be completely altered? Two months ago WorldCom declared bankruptcy after getting caught with their pants down regarding accounting discrepancies. WorldCom is the second-largest long distance telephone company in the US and the world?s largest provider of internet connections, operating in more then 100 countries. They left a debt sheet of $90 billion, topping Enron?s $70 billion bankruptcy, which just two months ago was the world?s largest corporate debt. Burdened with debt and pocketing smaller and smaller profits (which soon turned into losses) they reported $3.8 billion in expenses as long-term investments. Last year, this fraudulent move allowed WorldCom to fake profits of $1.38 billion on Wall Street and safeguard its share price. Setting an unusual precedent, on August 1 the FBI arrested Scott Sullivan, WorldCom?s former chief financial officer, and David Myers, its one-time controller. If convicted of all counts of fraud, conspiracy and false statements, Sullivan and Myers could each receive up to 65 years in prison. If they enter into plea agreements with prosecutors, they could lower their sentences. The interesting thing about the WorldCom bankruptcy and fraud case is that it fits securely into the basic logic of capitalism. Capitalism calculates with short-term profits and thereby ignores the social costs associated with the human and financial resources exploited for profit; this is basic cost analysis. Does WordCom?s short-term investment really contradict capitalist principles? If we look at the practice of capitalism and the logic that has established it as the dominant economic system globally, we will see that WorldCom?s actions do not contradict capitalism, but rather work within its structure. On July 30, George W. Bush gave a speech about the newly-signed corporate reform legislation. He said, ?A recession cost many American workers their jobs. And now corporate corruption has struck at investor confidence, offending the conscience of our nation.? Some people have said that the very recession that ?cost many American workers their jobs? was the motivating factor for corporations to ?cook their books.? By the year 2000, the market was saturated, setting the stage for our recent recession. This saturation is known as overproduction. In a saturated market, commodity and service prices eventually fall below production costs and profits vanish into thin air. Corporate profits globally have fallen for the past five consecutive quarters; this is the largest drop in three decades. But according to capitalist theory, recessions weed out the weaker corporations. They don?t threaten capitalist stability. According to economists who defend neo-liberal theory, recessions are not supposed to be all bad. Within capitalist theory recessions ?free up? resources like capital and skilled labor, which are then shifted and redeployed into more effective capacities elsewhere. Unfortunately for working people, the economic world is never equal and text-book neo-liberalism doesn?t exist in the real world. In the July 30 speech, Bush laid out a statement for working people. He said, ?This law says to workers: we will not tolerate reckless practices that artificially drive up stock prices and eventually destroy the companies and your jobs.? But is it possible for the US government to protect workers within the system of capitalism? Besides a few symbolic sackings for PR purposes, the bosses appear to be doing fine, even with this recession and present corporate shaming. By 2000, the average annual pay of CEOs at 362 of America?s largest corporations reached $12.4 million, a six-fold increase over a ten year period. The average CEO makes 475 times the salary of your average manufacturing or service sector worker. Bush claimed: ?America?s system of free enterprise, with all its risks and all its rewards is the strength of our country, and a model for the world. Yet free markets are not a jungle in which only the unscrupulous survive, or a financial free-for-all guided only by greed. The fundamentals of a free market?buying and selling, saving and investing? require clear rules and confidence in basic fairness.? Like Ashcroft, Bush is arguing that the executives of the above corporations and the recent events are exceptions to the rules of capitalism. By keeping them on the margins and cracking down on a few, Bush maintains the faith of the American people in the general principles of capitalism. He reinforces the idea that the system works, because they are able to ?punish wrongdoers.? These recent events, however, are not the work of marginalized or ?deviant? actors of capitalism. They are an integral part of capitalism. This is capitalism. We either accept its rules of practice and absolve the WorldCom executives of any ?evil doing??they must not be held or tried because they were playing by the rules of their game?or we need to reevaluate the system we are in. There is no way that productive capitalism, or happy capitalism, can be made distinct from capitalism based on unrestricted speculation. This is capitalism baby?love it or leave it! All content Copyleft ? 2002 by The Alarm! Newspaper. Except where noted otherwise, this material may be copied and distributed freely in whole or in part by anyone except where used for commercial purposes or by government agencies. ----- The Alarm! Newspaper a local weekly newspaper for an engaged populace http://www.the-alarm.com/ info@the-alarm.com P.O. Box 1205, Santa Cruz, CA 95061 (831) 429-NEWS - office (831) 420-1498 - fax From wires at the-alarm.com Thu Aug 8 22:06:00 2002 From: wires at the-alarm.com (Alarm!Wires) Date: Sun Feb 8 02:51:47 2004 Subject: [Dryerase] Alarm!--Can you believe it (news of the weird type things) Message-ID: Can You Believe It? From the Alarm! Newspaper Butt nothing, eBay it! When Mark Kennedy went into a jewelry store on July 31, 2002, he did more than window shop. After asking to see a ring, he allegedly grabbed a handful of jewels dropped them in his drawers and drove away. Later, when police apprehended Kennedy they were puzzled by the absence of the jewelry. Later on, while in custody, Kennedy became ill and was taken to an area hospital where the missing jewels were discovered. Kennedy had swallowed the gems and reported that he inserted a necklace up his rectum (to hide them from police). The hospital doctors disagreed and cited x-rays that clearly illustrate the necklace was also in his stomach (indicating he swallowed it). When the story hit the news in Boca Raton, Florida, a flood of phone calls went out to Harold?s Jewelers inquiring about the infamous necklace. Surprised by the public interest (but willing to cash in), the owner of the store has placed the necklace on eBay and expects to rake in $100,000. Once the butt of many jokes, these gems will yield more money now than they would have before the heist! Reports did not indicate the suspect went under the knife to produce the goods. The gems were apparently boiled and washed with jewelers cleanser before being put on the electronic auction block. Bobbit still doesn?t get it According to a story by the Associated Press, John Wayne Bobbit was released from jail in Las Vegas Tuesday, pending trial to face charges of domestic violence. Bobbit had been married two months when he was arrested on assault charges filed in May by his wife, Joanne Bobbit. John Wayne Bobbit first gained notoriety when his first wife, Lorena, cut off his penis. It was later surgically reattached. All content Copyleft ? 2002 by The Alarm! Newspaper. Except where noted otherwise, this material may be copied and distributed freely in whole or in part by anyone except where used for commercial purposes or by government agencies. ----- The Alarm! Newspaper a local weekly newspaper for an engaged populace http://www.the-alarm.com/ info@the-alarm.com P.O. Box 1205, Santa Cruz, CA 95061 (831) 429-NEWS - office (831) 420-1498 - fax From wires at the-alarm.com Thu Aug 8 22:06:30 2002 From: wires at the-alarm.com (Alarm!Wires) Date: Sun Feb 8 02:51:47 2004 Subject: [Dryerase] Alarm!--Fast Track passed by Bush Message-ID: <00A1F898-AB45-11D6-8EE0-003065F4865E@the-alarm.com> Bush Signs Fast Track Legislation From the Alarm! Newspaper On Tuesday, President Bush signed Fast Track trade legislation that granted him sweeping powers to negotiate international trade agreements. The House narrowly approved the legislation in a mid-night session a week earlier. The bill then easily passed the Senate. Fast Track?also called Trade Promotion Authority?allows trade agreements to be negotiated by the White House, then presented to Congress for a yea or nay vote, without amendments or alterations. This legislation allows the President to sign trade deals that can overturn local, state and national laws that protect workers, consumers, social services and the environment. The White House had lobbied hard for fast-track authority?last enjoyed by a president in 1994?in order to negotiate planned trade deals with Chile, Singapore and other countries, as well as to give it more freedom in the World Trade Organization?s Doha agenda talks. The authority will allow the White House to extend the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) across the Western Hemisphere. NAFTA already allows foreign corporations to sue the US government whenever they feel that US federal or state environmental laws affect their profits. There was significant opposition to the passage of the bill. ?The usual corporate special interests will repeat the tired chant about how Fast Track will be good for us, yet the trade pacts generated under the Fast Track model have resulted in a huge, economy-slowing, job-killing US trade deficit, wages that have not caught up to the 1970s, more unsafe and uninspected imported food and an array of environmental and other important public interest laws being attacked and weakened,? said Lori Wallach, director of Public Citizen?s Global Trade Watch. All content Copyleft ? 2002 by The Alarm! Newspaper. Except where noted otherwise, this material may be copied and distributed freely in whole or in part by anyone except where used for commercial purposes or by government agencies. ----- The Alarm! Newspaper a local weekly newspaper for an engaged populace http://www.the-alarm.com/ info@the-alarm.com P.O. Box 1205, Santa Cruz, CA 95061 (831) 429-NEWS - office (831) 420-1498 - fax From editors at agrnews.org Thu Aug 8 15:18:39 2002 From: editors at agrnews.org (Asheville Global Report) Date: Sun Feb 8 02:51:47 2004 Subject: [Dryerase] Allegations of racial profiling, brutality against APD Message-ID: <5.1.0.14.0.20020808161641.00a3ca60@buncombe.main.nc.us> Allegations of racial profiling, brutality against APD By Shawn Gaynor Asheville, North Carolina, Aug. 5 (AGR)? Two African-American Asheville residents, Khalid Saadiq and Ismael Hassan, both 31 years old, are voicing allegations of police brutality and racial profiling over an incident on the night of Sunday, July 21. The two say Hassan was beaten by two white Asheville police officers, and a videotape of the incident supports their claim. Saadiq is a former Asheville police officer and Hassan is a current youth corrections officer. These allegations come at a time of heightened national awareness of police brutality due to the recent events in Inglewood, California and Oklahoma City. According to Mr. Hassan the two friends were returning home from their place of worship, along with his 5-year-old son Elijah. Upon arriving at Hassan?s home on Blanton St., an Asheville Police Department (APD) cruiser pulled up in front of the house and turned on its lights. According to Saadiq, by this time the three were on the front lawn. Saadiq said the officers told them to get back in the car, approaching the two men on the lawn. Saadiq began asking for what reason they are been detained, and at this point officer Breneman grabbed him. ?I told him that I did this [police work] for seven years, that he didn?t know what he was doing. I told him to take his hands off of me, that I was not resisting [arrest], and that?s when he dropped his hands, turned me around and handcuffed me.? said Saadiq. Witnessing Saadiq?s arrest, Hassan, wearing his Swannanoa Youth Corrections Officer uniform, approached Breneman. ?I dropped my son off at the porch and told him to ring the doorbell. Then I walked back up in a calm manner and asked ?what?s up, what?s the deal,? and that?s when he [officer Maltby] pepper-sprayed me twice,? said Hassan. ?From there I turned around with my back to the officers and squatted down. Maltby ordered me to go prone, and I did. He started to bring my arm back to cuff me and he twisted it the wrong way. I say ?you?re breaking my arm? and he started to beat me.? Breneman, who had just finished loading up Khalid into the car returned and joined in, Hassan said. A neighbor from across the street, alerted by the police lights, grabbed his camera and began to videotape. The tape begins as Breneman is closing the door of the car with Saadiq in the cruiser. All appears calm. Then, without any discernible verbal orders on the part of the officer, or verbal resistance from Hassan, a physical confrontation can be heard breaking out in the yard. Several blows can be heard on the videotape. ?You stop hitting him! You stop hitting him,? pleads Hassan?s sobbing mother, rushing onto the lawn. As the camera comes across the street and gains a clear view of Hassan?s lawn, both Breneman and Maltby can be seen on top of Hassan, who is prone on his stomach. Maltby knees Hassan in the back, and strikes him. ?I?m not resisting arrest,? says Hassan, ?this is my lawn.? Then Hassan gives his hands to Maltby to be cuffed. The evidence of the beating can be seen on the back of Hassan?s youth corrections uniform shirt: knuckle marks in blood. ?They hit me repeatedly with quick punches to the head and back, Maltby kneed me in the back,? Hassan said. ?When they were hitting me Breneman cut his hand.? On the tape, Breneman can be seen coddling his injured hands as he gets up off the now cuffed Hassan. ?You don?t hit him any more. He?s in cuffs, don?t you hit him anymore,? says Hassan?s brother Isaac, who had also come out onto the lawn. Then for the first time Maltby calls in the incident as a traffic stop. Other officers arrive and officer Eberthart opens the back door to the cruiser after recognizing Saadiq, his former colleague, in the back seat. ??What are you doing in here,? he asks me. That?s exactly what I want to know,? recalled Saadiq. The officers huddle, and begin treating Hassan for pepper spray. Hassan is then taken from the site to the hospital, examined, and then taken to the county jail where he and Saadiq are booked. Why the two were initially stopped by police is still a matter of disagreement. On Hassan?s arrest record he is charged with being stopped for running a red light on Coxe Ave. ?I never ran a red light,? Hassan said. ?He claims that we ran a light on Coxe but we never came that route.? Both men assert they were stopped only because of the color of their skin. ?They could have simply avoided this by calling in our tag, or they just could have answered the question when we asked,? said Saadiq. ?We asked them ?why do you want us to get back in the car. We haven?t done anything wrong.? They could have said we want you to get back in the car because of whatever. It?s that simple ? if they had a reason. They didn?t have a reason, that?s why they didn?t say anything. In my estimation, they see two black faces in a halfway decent-looking car with rims and they figure we?re drug dealers or whatever and they?re gonna make a quick name for themselves by busting us. If they violate rules and go against procedure, and violate laws, it?s OK because we?re two ?niggers? and who?s gonna believe us over two white police officers, and that?s what took place.? ?Don?t get me wrong,? Saadiq continued, ?there are a lot of good officers out there. There are a lot of guys who are professional but then you have those who think you?re nothing, and ?I?ll do what the hell I want to do because I?m the police and I can?.? Saadiq said that because of a recent change in Asheville Police Department policy in regards to officer training, both officers Maltby and Beneman were relatively inexperienced. It was previously required that an officer have three years minimum service to train a rookie officer. That limit has been reduced to one year of service, leaving rookies to train rookies, Saadiq said. Asheville Police Chief Will Annarino said an internal investigation of the incident is being conducted. While the investigation is pending, Annarino said he would not answer any questions. Hassan has been charged with running a red light, improper right turn, disorderly conduct, assaulting a government official, and resisting arrest. Saadiq is facing a single charge of resisting a public officer, a misdemeanor. They are due to appear in court on Aug. 19. Both men say they have no previous criminal record. The two men have begun circulating a petition demanding their charges be dropped and the APD reformed. From editors at agrnews.org Thu Aug 8 15:19:56 2002 From: editors at agrnews.org (Asheville Global Report) Date: Sun Feb 8 02:51:47 2004 Subject: [Dryerase] Alarm raised over issue of mercury in vaccines Message-ID: <5.1.0.14.0.20020808161851.00a41560@buncombe.main.nc.us> Alarm raised over issue of mercury in vaccines By Elizabeth Allen Aug. 3 (AGR)? Recently, concern has been on the rise that mercury in childhood vaccines may cause autism. Mercury poisoning can display outward traits, a neuroanatomy, neurotransmitters and biochemistry similar to autism. A major source of mercury -- second only to uranium as the most toxic metal known to humans -- is Thimerosal, used in vaccines as a preservative. The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) determined that on an individual and cumulative vaccine basis the amount of mercury injected into young children exceeds government safety standards. Data collected from the US government and medical literature suggests Thimerosal has induced many cases of idiopathic autism, which represents an unrecognized mercurial syndrome. Observations are based on the existing similarities between mercury poisoning and autism and the known exposure to mercury through vaccines. The connection also reflects a causal relationship with, among many other factors, symptoms appearing shortly after vaccination, increases in Autistic Spectrum Disorder (ASD) cases corresponding to increases in vaccinations, and parental reports of children with autism as also having elevated levels of mercury. Autism is a neurodevelopmental disorder conceived primarily of a psychiatric condition with a threefold diagnostic criteria including social impairment, communication impairment, and preservative or stereotypic behaviors, or a need for sameness. Autism may have differential diagnoses including obsessive-compulsive disorder, depression, anxiety disorder and schizophrenia. Mercury vapor poisoning shares autism?s characteristics of neurosis, problems with inhibition of preservation, stereotyped behaviors and, as in the case of one twelve-year-old girl, eye contact. Symptoms of both conditions have a lot of inter-individual variation but disorders of physical movement are present in nearly all cases of ASD and mercury poisoning. Also common to both conditions are a general aversion to touch and heightened sensitivity or insensitivity to pain. Parents can request vaccines that do not contain Thimerosal, whose production was halted a little over a year ago but without recalling existing products. Government committees, under pressure from the AAP, ordered pharmaceutical companies to stop using Thimerosal by March of 2001, but as far back as 1982 the FDA said Thimerosal is ?not safe for ?over-the- counter? topical use because of the potential for cell damage.? Organic mercury readily crosses the blood/brain barrier and targets nerve cells and fibers. Primates are shown to accumulate the highest levels of mercury in the brain as opposed to other body organs. Further highlighting the link, autistic brains and those with mercury poisoning show virtually identical types of neurotransmitter irregularities. Epilepsy is another possible consequence of both conditions. One study estimates that 34?45% of autistic people develop epilepsy and another study found that half of the participating autistic children who experienced epileptiform activity during sleep, another trait that is shared with mercury poisoning. The amount of Thimerosal exposure found in babies more than doubled in the early 1990?s when government regulators added the Hepatitis B and HiB vaccines to the roster of mandatory immunization requirements for children entering school. Mercury expert Dr. Boyd Haley, who has testified before Congress and the Pentagon as a leading expert on Thimerosal and mercury poisoning explains, ?If you take a ten pound baby in, and it gets four shots in one day, which is common practice, that?s equivalent to giving a one hundred pound person forty shots that day.? There now are a greater number of individuals with autism than with Downs Syndrome, childhood cancer, and childhood diabetes combined. Studies show that in 1992 one in ten thousand children had developed autism, in 1998 one in five hundred, in 2000 one in two hundred and fifty and most recent studies are estimating one in one hundred fifty children have autism. Over a five-year period Florida and Maryland have had, respectively, a 571% and 513% increase in statewide autism rates. Autistic children require specialized care, which California?s Department of Developmental Services estimates will cost taxpayers two million dollars for every child who has autism until they turn twenty-one. The study does not include projections for the amount of money needed after the person turns twenty-one. The financial burden is likely to strain Social Services. Thimerosal is controversial because alternatives to it have been known for years. Eli Lilly is a pharmaceutical company that is currently being examined for its use of Thimerosal in vaccines. Despite evidence dating back as early as the 1960?s that the company was aware of Thimerosal?s toxicity, they continued to produce the metal until as late as 1999. That year they changed their packing insert to identify Thimerosal as ?toxic? and warned it may cause ?fetal changes, decreased offspring survival and lung tissue changes.? Children have a predisposition to Thimerosal?s adverse effects based on genetic and non-genetic factors. Marleen Gaynor, autism expert with many years of experience working with special education children, commented, ?Remember there are undoubtedly a combination of causes for autism, with mercury in inoculations possibly being a part of the puzzle. Also of concern is the MMR vaccine. Some argue that cases of autism increased drastically when the three components of this inoculation were combined into one vaccine. The MMR vaccine does not have mercury in it as a preservative.? Currently, Congressional Committees are scheduled to be hearing debate on the use of Thimerosal in vaccines. From editors at agrnews.org Thu Aug 8 15:20:55 2002 From: editors at agrnews.org (Asheville Global Report) Date: Sun Feb 8 02:51:47 2004 Subject: [Dryerase] Protesters block road to nuclear bomb plant Message-ID: <5.1.0.14.0.20020808162003.00a412f0@buncombe.main.nc.us> Protesters block road to nuclear bomb plant By Brendan Conley Aug. 7 (AGR)? Several hundred anti-nuclear protesters held a rally and demonstration at the Y-12 National Security Complex in Oak Ridge, TN on Sunday, Aug. 4. Fourteen people were arrested, including three western North Carolina residents. ?This is about changing the direction our country is taking and reclaiming life,? said Paloma Galindo of Oak Ridge Environmental Peace Alliance (OREPA), which organized the protest. ?Our future is on the line.? The demonstration is held each year to memorialize the US nuclear attacks on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Japan and to protest continuing nuclear bomb production at the Y-12 plant. Pat Liteky of Seattle, WA was arrested on federal trespassing charges when he crossed the boundary of the Y-12 base. The other thirteen were arrested on misdemeanor charges, most of them for blocking Scarboro Road, outside the base. David Miller of Asheville and Luke Webb and Dorothy Ross of Sylva were among those arrested. The Y-12 plant, the last full-scale nuclear bomb production facility in the US, is undergoing a multi-billion dollar renovation to prepare for the production of ?mini-nukes? now under consideration. ?We?re trying to call attention to the new nuclear posture the US is taking,? said Galindo. ?Right now the US has been taken over by the arms industries. Our foreign policy is being decided by people motivated by greed and profit.? OREPA organizes demonstrations at the Y-12 plant each April and August. The rally featured the music of Peggy Seeger and David Rovics, and speakers including Mary Olson of the Asheville office of Nuclear Information and Resource Service (NIRS). Also present were members of the Nipponzan Myohoji Buddhist Religious Order, who had taken part in a month-long pilgrimage march from Atlanta. From fhar at the-alarm.com Thu Aug 8 22:01:26 2002 From: fhar at the-alarm.com (Fhar Miess) Date: Sun Feb 8 02:51:47 2004 Subject: [Dryerase] Alarm!--Ex-Braceros interponen demanda contra banco Message-ID: <4BA94E65-AB44-11D6-8EE0-003065F4865E@the-alarm.com> Ex-Braceros interponen demanda contra banco. Piden se les devuelvan sueldos retenidos hace sesenta a?os Por Maryanne Schiffman Colaborador del Semanario ?La Alarma! El viernes 2 de agosto del 2002, m?s de 100 ex-braceros se reunieron en las puertas de las oficinas centrales del banco Wells Fargo en San Francisco, para demandar el reembolso de su salario, el cual hab?a sido retenido por mas de 60 a?os. Los ex-braceros antepusieron en marzo del 2001 una demanda federal de acci?n de clase contra el banco Wells Fargo, uno de los bancos m?s grandes en las ?reas rurales de California, y un contribuyente mayor a la econom?a de la agricultura en California. Los cargos en contra del banco Wells Fargo son por violaci?n al contrato, violaci?n de obligaciones de confianza/ fiduciario, e enriquecimiento il?cito. Los demandantes vinieron a los Estados Unidos durante la segunda guerra mundial, cuando el gobierno estadunidense inici? el programa bracero, invitando a los trabajadores mexicanos a reemplazar a los trabajadores americanos que se hab?an ido a la guerra. En un principio s?lamente participaba la industria del ferrocarril, pero el programa despu?s se extendi? a otros sectores, c?mo el de la industria de la agricultura en California. Bajo el acuerdo original entre los dos gobiernos, el diez por ciento del salario de los braceros fue puesto en un ? plan de ahorros.? El contrato estableci? que al regresar los trabajadores a M?xico, el gobierno mexicano usar?a el dinero para proporcionarles equipo para el campo o se los reembolsar?a en un solo pago. Sin embargo el gobierno mexicano no compr? el equipo y tampoco devolvi? el dinero a los trabajadores. El banco Wells Fargo dice haber cumplido con su parte en el acuerdo de transferir el dinero a los bancos de M?xico, y que la responsabilidad de regresar el dinero a los braceros reca?a en los bancos mexicanos. Hasta ahora, Wells Fargo se niega a abrir sus libros para comprobar su inocencia. Se estima se les debe a los ex-braceros un monto de entre 500 millones y un bill?n de d?lares. Despu?s de la reuni?n en el banco Wells Fargo el d?a viernes, los ex -braceros marcharon hacia el edificio de la corte del distrito de San Francisco en donde se escucharon las primeras declaraciones del caso. Los abogados del banco Wells Fargo intentaron que el caso fuera desechado, aduciendo que la demanda fu? levantada fuera del tiempo l?mite que establece el estatuto de limitaciones (statute of limitations). El juez consider? los argumentos proporcionados y a?n no anuncia una decisi?n. Sin embargo varios pol?ticos de California est?n intercediendo en favor de los braceros. En febrero de este a?o, Marco Firebaugh (D., Los Angeles) present? la iniciativa de ley AB2913 en la asamblea legislativa estatal de California la cual extender?a el estatuto de limitaciones para el caso especial de los ex--braceros. La iniciativa fu? aprobada en la asamblea legislativa y est? esperando aprobaci?n en el senado estatal. A nivel federal ya se han presentado iniciativas semejantes. Sam Farr, (D. Santa Cruz) es uno de los pol?ticos locales que apoyan esta legislaci?n y buscan justicia para los braceros. La buena noticia es que se espera que el senado estatal aprobar? la iniciativa, y que el Gobernador Davis la firmar? en ley. La mala es que el juicio nada mas abarca los ?fondos perdidos? que fueran deducidos de los salarios de 400,000 trabajadores de ferrocarriles entre los a?os de 1942 y 1949. Esto excluye al resto de los 2.5 millones de braceros, incluyendo a los trabajadores de la agricultura, a quienes tambi?n se les hicieron deducciones y nunca se les regres? esa parte de sus sueldos.. Se estima que el monto retenido a ?stos trabajadores entre los a?os de 1949 y 1969 asciende a los millones de d?lares. Ignacio G?mez Rodr?guez es residente de Salinas, y miembro de Los Ex-Braceros del Valle de Salinas, la organizaci?n de ex- braceros mas grande y pol?ticamente activa del pa?s. ?Hay m?s que dinero en esto, ? dice G?mez. ?Primero, hab?an muchos m?s braceros que perdieron su dinero, no solo los que trabajaran entre 1942 y 1949. Queremos que Wells Fargo responda por los salarios de todos los trabajadores. Pero m?s all? de eso, esto es asunto de respeto. Venimos aqu? y ayudamos a este pa?s con sus necesidades. Queremos que nos trate con decencia, respeto y justicia.? El juicio involucra a trabajadores en ambos lados de la frontera y en casi todos los estados de los Estados Unidos. Los pol?ticos ? hasta el presidente George Bush ? est?n tomando el lado de los braceros. Para Wells Fargo, un banco que quiere ganar el mercado latino en California con sus servicios para hablantes de espa?ol y precios bajos para enviar giros a M?xico, el juicio de los ex-braceros se puede convertir en una pesadilla. Un d?a despu?s de la manifestaci?n en San Francisco, representantes de Wells Fargo contactaron a la Alianza Braceroproa de San Jos?, organizaci?n que organiz? el evento, para pedir una reuni?n para ?discutir el problema.? Pero el Se?or Ignacio G?mez Rodr?guez de los ex-braceros de Salinas se mostr? esc?ptico. ?Si Wells Fargo de verdad mand? el dinero a los bancos de M?xico,? dice, ?entonces deber? abrir sus libros para mostrar sus archivos. Si es verdad, no tienen nada que temer. Pero si no, necesitar?n hacerse responsables por todo ese dinero.? Para mayor informaci?n sobre la legislaci?n AB2913, se puede ver la p?gina de Internet del gobierno de California a www.assembly.ca.gov o llamar a Rudy Montalvo en las oficinas del representante Henry Contreras (D., Los Angeles) (323) 562-7880 o (916) 319-2050. Para informaci?n sobre los Ex-Braceros del Valle de Salinas, se puede ver su p?gina de Internet en espa?ol a http://www.newcitizen.org/spanish/braceros_espanol.htm. Para m?s informaci?n sobre la demanda federal de acci?n de clase, comun?quese con una de las organizaciones en la ?rea que trabajan con los ex-braceros: El Proyecto de Ciudadan?a en Salinas: (831) 424-2713), La Alianza Braceroproa en San Jos?: (408) 929-9551, o El Proyecto Bracero de Stockton (209) 956-0367. All content Copyleft ? 2002 by The Alarm! Newspaper. Except where noted otherwise, this material may be copied and distributed freely in whole or in part by anyone except where used for commercial purposes or by government agencies. ----- The Alarm! Newspaper a local weekly newspaper for an engaged populace http://www.the-alarm.com/ info@the-alarm.com P.O. Box 1205, Santa Cruz, CA 95061 (831) 429-NEWS - office (831) 420-1498 - fax From fhar at the-alarm.com Thu Aug 8 22:03:38 2002 From: fhar at the-alarm.com (Fhar Miess) Date: Sun Feb 8 02:51:47 2004 Subject: [Dryerase] Alarm!--Cancellation of the airport project in Texcoco Message-ID: <9A6CD2B8-AB44-11D6-8EE0-003065F4865E@the-alarm.com> Cancellation of the airport project in Texcoco Just the first step in the struggle for social justice in Mexico. By Carlos Armenta?Translated By Armando Alcaraz The Alarm! Newspaper Contributor The Mexican presidency backtracked on its decision to build a new Mexico City International Airport in Texcoco. The night of August 1, the office of the presidency said it would initiate the legal procedures that would annul the expropriatory decrees, citing the farming communities? reluctance to sell their land. In the light of the announcement, the farmers of San Salvador Atenco, one of the principal communities affected by the project, celebrated throughout the night. Even though the celebrations continued until dawn of the next day, many of the farmers, including their main leaders, expressed skepticism since they did not have in their hands written documents that confirmed the presidential announcement. Chants such as, ?Zapata lives, the struggle goes on!? could be heard during the celebration, expressing that the fight for the land continues and is alive today in Mexico. Ignacio del Valle, organizer of ?Union of Towns in Defense of the Land,? said that ?the example of Atenco has caught on, that is why we can not just stay in this stage. We managed, thanks to the support of the people, to stop the expropriation, but other important struggles are coming. Del Valle added, ?the real problem is an unjust social order, which many face. It is called neo-liberalism, NAFTA, Plan Puebla Panam?, FTAA...? The Atencans looked at their past and found the symbols that allowed them to walk the long road of resistance against the federal powers. They reclaimed their pre-hispanic roots through the figure of Netzahualc?yotl, King of Texcoco, and appropriated the rebellion of their grandparents, who fought in the army of Emiliano Zapata in the Mexican Revolution after having worked as peons in the haciendas porfiristas for twelve cents a day. These major social struggles, symbols of what is considered to be the Mexican Nation, are represented in the struggle of the Atencans. The Mexican Revolution is brought back to life with the resistance of the farmers of Atenco. Instead of a tool of control of the authorities and the privileged few, it is a herald of a struggle for social justice that has not yet borne fruit in Mexico, regardless of the sacrifice of many Mexicans, the majority of them indigenous and poor. Despite the claims of the Atencans, president Fox insisted, before the cancellation of the project, that the affected communities did not have historical roots in the region. The attitude of those who insist the Texcoco project should continue despite the opposition of the farmers, reveals their colonialist and porfirist mentality. For example, On?simo Cepeda, Bishop of Ecatepec, State of Mexico, declared that ?even though one person died, even if 500 people had died, the new airport in Texcoco should have been built.? Cepeda follows in the footsteps of the Catholic Church, which during colonial times in Mexico justified any massacre or inhumane treatment of the indigenous population in the pretext evangelization, while in reality the aim was economic gain. Ignacio del Valle revealed that ?the cancellation of the project hurts [the bishop] because he had his fingers in this pie.? Obviously, Cepeda wants to turn back the clock 500 years. Another attitude that demonstrates the desire to go back in time?even though only a hundred years, to the days of the dictator Porfirio D?az (before the Mexican Revolution) ?is the one shown by Arturo Montiel Rojas, the Governor of the Mexican State. Rojas declared that the cancellation of the project was ?a pity.? Also, he warned that the investigation of the crimes the farmers might have committed during the protests will continue. Mr. Montiel assured that ?the investors had already given forty percent of the $2 billion that were needed to begin the project,? although the federal government had revealed that ?there were no investors conducting fact-finding studies or projects to evaluate the investment potential.? Without wanting to, the government shows that people like Montiel and Cepeda place economic interests before human needs. The farmers rejected such attitude of greed. Francisco Morales, a farmer from La Magdalena, said to La Jornada that ?our people has preferred a handful of earth to a wad of cash. Cash runs out, but our lands will last forever.? The government must understand that it cannot buy people off with just a few crumbs. The farmers and other important political actors of Mexico approved the project?s cancellation, but were also cautious. Del Valle said, ?if they went back on their decision it was because they had no other way out. A social convulsion was coming. You can bet on it!? Del Valle went on to say, ?but if the divorce between the authorities and the people continues, if they insist on using force to accomplish their goals, this is going to be repeated. There will be many Atencos!? Cuauhtemoc Cardenas, the former presidential candidate for the PRD (the left wing party), supported del Valle saying that ?the expropriatory decree did not have any ethical or legal basis.? In other words, the cancellation was not one hundred per cent due to the protests, but rather resulted from the general social and political inviability of the project. President Fox said the airport will be built, even if it is not in Texcoco. However, what remains to be seen is the opinion of the owners of the land that will be expropriated. As del Valle said, ?There will be many Atencos!? The lesson of the failed airport project is that there must be a dialogue from the beginning and that nothing in Mexico can be built without consensus, without taking into account all of the interested parties. All content Copyleft ? 2002 by The Alarm! Newspaper. Except where noted otherwise, this material may be copied and distributed freely in whole or in part by anyone except where used for commercial purposes or by government agencies. ----- The Alarm! Newspaper a local weekly newspaper for an engaged populace http://www.the-alarm.com/ info@the-alarm.com P.O. Box 1205, Santa Cruz, CA 95061 (831) 429-NEWS - office (831) 420-1498 - fax From newendland at yahoo.com Thu Aug 15 17:37:26 2002 From: newendland at yahoo.com (Commodor Stockton) Date: Sun Feb 8 02:51:47 2004 Subject: [Dryerase] article on Camilo Vivieros Message-ID: <20020815223726.21719.qmail@web21007.mail.yahoo.com> Respected Activist Threatened With Decades Behind Bars Philly Prosecutor Continues Crusade Against Free Speech Camilo Vivieros, born to immigrant parents, was raised in the closely-knit Portuguese community of Fall River, Massachusetts. He has been involved in work for social justice for virtually his whole life. His caring is evidenced in his work with many grassroots community organizations, and it is this which brought him to Philadelphia in August of 2000 to protest the Republican National Convention. Like many others, Camilo (pronounced: Camille) went to Philly to highlight economic injustices in this country and the increasing prioritization of profits over people’s needs. Many different groups were there to protest and thousands took to the streets of Philadelphia in an exercise of their right to free speech. Before the protest had even begun, this right was being taken from them. On July 31, Philadelphia police raided the warehouse where activists were preparing signs and puppets, destroying personal property and arresting 70. These illegal acts continued for the duration of the protests with police arresting anyone who looked like they intended to participate. In one case, they stopped a bus full of snakes and lizards that they claimed activists were planning to release during the protests. In reality, the bus was driven by a person whose business was to supply animals to area pet stores. Most incidences were not so humorous, however. Many protesters were beaten and wounded. In keeping with a too common police practice, most injured protesters were charged with assaulting the police while the opposite was true. One man had to have his ear stitched back onto his head. In jails, people were kept in severely overcrowded cells without basic necessities; medication was denied to diabetic and HIV positive prisoners; and many prisoners were further physically abused. Camilo was one of these hundreds arrested and treated brutally over those days of the Convention, but he had the misfortune of being charged with assaulting the top Philly cop: Police Commissioner Timony. Those who know Camilo believe that it is unlikely that he committed any such assault. In his teens, he was a care giver, volunteering on a suicide hot line and in group homes with developmentally disabled adults. During his college years and in his professional work, Camilo has continued to devote his time to help people in impoverished communities to attain basic survival needs, from food and housing to environmental health and protection from domestic violence. He now works for the Massachusetts Alliance of HUD Tenants helping low income tenants -- mostly elderly and disabled -- organize to improve their living conditions. Lori Ann Shemanski, a VISTA project coordinator had this to say about Camilo’s arrest: “the reaction of the tenants, of his coworkers, ... is one of incredulity as to how the police made such an error... for we all know Camilo’s gentle temperament, his consistent patience and his peacekeeping nature.” TWO YEARS LATER By now, two years since the Republican Convention protest, of the 400 plus arrested, 95% have had their cases either dismissed for lack of evidence or been acquitted. The blatant abuse of power by the Philadelphia police and courts in an effort to stifle political dissent has resulted in several civil rights lawsuits against the City. Settlements are already being made in favor of the protesters. Camilo, however, has just received a trial date of October 9 to face the prosecutor’s final attempt to make an example of someone after all the city’s misdeeds and wasted resources. Their threat is very real in the climate of fear since 9/11 as the government further shrinks civil liberty in favor of “security” and the City of Philadelphia holds 15 to 60 years prison time over an upstanding man’s head. The support group, Friends of Camilo, is continuing to work distributing literature, organizing events, raising money, and writing letters to editors to publicize this case. They are also hoping to talk with more people who were in Philly August 1, 2000, who saw what happened in the streets and could weigh in with their stories. Friends of Camilo is planning to exert political pressure on Philly officials as well through gathering petition signatures and letters of support from individuals and organizations. Friends of Camilo-Providence can be reached at: POBox 23169 Providence, RI 02903; stayingstrong@hotmail.com and Mimi @ 401-351-6960. A web site offers info and literature as well: www.friendsofcamilo.org. For a chronology of the original protest and the legal fallout, visit the legal collective's web site at www.r2kphilly.org. __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? HotJobs - Search Thousands of New Jobs http://www.hotjobs.com From wires at the-alarm.com Fri Aug 16 00:02:40 2002 From: wires at the-alarm.com (Alarm!Wires) Date: Sun Feb 8 02:51:47 2004 Subject: [Dryerase] The Alarm!--Colombia: know her before judging her Message-ID: <642FA6FE-B0D5-11D6-A24D-003065F4865E@the-alarm.com> Photos available upon request Colombia: know her before judging her By Mauricio and Carmen Translation by Maryanne S., Blaize W. and Armando A. The Alarm! Newspaper Contributors Contributor Maryanne Schiffman received the following from two friends of hers in Bogot?. We of the Alarm! decided to treat the piece as a long letter, to allow the voices of the writers to go forth unfettered. Bogot?, Colombia? Last Wednesday, as we watched the television coverage of the inauguration of the new Colombian president, ?lvaro Uribe V?lez, and listened to his acceptance speech, just that outside the presidential palace yet another of Colombia?s daily human dramas was taking place. It was only after the government transmission of the ceremonies had ended, and the private television channels had begun to broadcast, that the country began to learn that as the eloquent speeches were being given, the presidential palace itself was being attacked by missiles. For you Americans, it would be as if while George Bush was taking his oath of office, someone was shelling the White House. It seemed strange that we only began to find out what had happened after the end of the official ceremony. We wondered why the government had not allowed the private news broadcasters to break in. And it was even more strange for us that the ceremony was taking place inside the congressional auditorium: in the hundreds of years prior to this, all presidential inaugurations have been held in front of the palace, in the Plaza de Bol?var. The new president was supposed to arrive walking, not, as Uribe did, in an armored car surrounded by bodyguards. We eventually found out that only one of the missiles hit its target, in the process injuring two policemen, but no one more. However another missile went astray and exploded in a poor neighborhood nearby, killing more than twenty people, including three children. Colombia Today For four years we heard the campaign slogan of the last president, Andr?s Pastrana Arango, saying ?The change is now!??and yet we kept waiting for ?the change.? In those four years Colombia has continued in a state of dire crisis, with an official unemployment rate of sixteen percent, an escalating armed conflict throughout the country, the economy in recession and the exchange rate for the peso diving day by day. And now the new president, ?lvaro Uribe V?lez, has arrived with a new slogan: ?A firm hand and a big heart.? It seems that the governing institutions of Colombia are finally reaping the rewards of their actions. The current violence in Colombia has not been born of itself, but has sprung from seeds sown by many years of lies and the corruption, years of forgetting our less favored classes, years of exclusion of the cultures that inhabited our territory long before the Spanish arrived. These seeds were sown in the absence of opportunities for education of young people both in the countryside and in the cities, and in the systematic extermination of not only the voices but the people who have opposed this negligence in administration after succeeding administration. This same neglect, over fifty years ago, gave rise to the armed groups who at that time formed to vindicate the struggle of common people in Colombia for a just and dignified life. But now the tactics and the ideologies of these same groups have run off track and become confused, and whatever end they seek seems for them to justify the means they use? even, as is now almost always the case, when the pain they inflict is felt most by the ones they claim to defend. Violence begetting violence The attacks on civilian populations show how so many years of honest work can be destroyed from one day to the next. They leave behind orphans, widows and irreversible trauma in children who have been witness to the worst outrages. They create reactions in people who are propelled by feelings of impotence, rage and vengeance. They justify their actions by pointing to the almost total absence of a government they can turn to. From this rage and impotence the paramilitaries have emerged as a quasi-state force, generating their own violence that rages out of control and leaves aside any type of ideological or political motivation. This situation has created a bonanza for the arms dealers and drug traffickers, who indulge their self-centered interests at the cost of human lives. And the majority of those who die don?t understand or are not even aware of the ?causes? that they die for, or the reason for which they put themselves or are put on the front lines. In the middle of this overwhelming situation, drug trafficking is the only way for many people to make ends meet for their families. For others, like the guerrillas and paramilitaries, drugs are the financial source that keeps their fight alive. At the same time, foreigners have discovered Columbia?s wealth of natural resources and, because of them, the transnational octopuses have set their sights on the country. These corporations only follow their own macro-economic interests, and are not interested in the well-being of the people who live here, much less their history or who they are. This ignorance is why so much of the territory of indigenous people has been expropriated here in Colombia, expropriated and then exploited by others. This is also why in Colombia you can see sparkling industrial complexes next to desperately poor slums. All of this,?in addition to the media images of the victims left by the guerrillas, the paramilitaries, the sate and the drug traffickers?makes people see of Colombia only the social and economic conflicts, the contradictions, the self-serving interests and the hypocrisy. They see Colombians as a peoples without a culture, people not worth knowing. The Other Colombia This is a nation so big in territory and heart that despite the awful situation, there are marvelous lived moments, moments rich with the powerful spirit of what it is to be Colombian. This is the Colombia that you Americans should discover, because to speak of Colombia is to speak of a dance called mapal?, and of a long wooden flute called the gaita, and of the music of the cumbia. It is to speak of dances and musical rhythms that, with African and European influences mixed with our native rhythms, have come to be Colombian. To speak of this country is to share the warmth and spontaneous solidarity of its peoples, as it is to feel the ancestral wisdom of the more than sixty indigenous communities that live in Colombia. To speak of Colombia is to speak of a rich cultural diversity: it is precisely these different ways of life and ways of looking at the world that makes Colombians, beings produced by a fusion that has existed for more than 500 years Knowing the magnificence of Colombia is what makes it so painful for Colombians to be known only for armed violence and drug trafficking. Colombia is a place blessed with world class biodiversity, and privileged with such paradise-like places from the snow-capped Sierra Nevadas to the tropical Parque Tairona, to the deserts of La Guajira and the Coasts of the Pacific and the Caribbean, from the elegant walled city of Cartagena to the rivers of the Amazon. For us, the Chibchombianos as we often call ourselves (referring to the Chibcha Indians who were the first to inhabit our capital), we are humiliated every time someone says ?Oh Colombia?good coke!? or when one of us passes through an airport: ?Oh, you are Colombian? they say. ?Colombians to this side please? the line goes, ?Check their baggage.? No one has the right, nor the reason, to be so prejudicial and judgmental of people they have never gotten to know. The world should show more respect and appreciation for the little treasure that is Colombia and Latin America. (The way the rich countries use Latin America to satisfy their selfish interests, it seems like they know something about the little treasure.) What Colombians want is to receive a part of the benefits and to be part of the economic game, but with honesty as the basis of any given play. Now is the time that we ask you to see Colombia, a country so abused by the media, with different eyes. These eyes of course still see the problems, but they are capable of seeing the good things about Colombia too, that when taken all together, without a doubt amount to much more. Because we assure you, from the Caribbean to the Amazon, Colombia is una berraquera! For more info contact: Mauro o Carmen All content Copyleft ? 2002 by The Alarm! Newspaper. Except where noted otherwise, this material may be copied and distributed freely in whole or in part by anyone except where used for commercial purposes or by government agencies. ----- The Alarm! Newspaper a local weekly newspaper for an engaged populace http://www.the-alarm.com/ info@the-alarm.com P.O. Box 1205, Santa Cruz, CA 95061 (831) 429-NEWS - office (831) 420-1498 - fax From wires at the-alarm.com Fri Aug 16 00:03:42 2002 From: wires at the-alarm.com (Alarm!Wires) Date: Sun Feb 8 02:51:47 2004 Subject: [Dryerase] =?ISO-8859-1?Q?=A1La_Alarma!--Colombia:_Conocerla_para_Juzgarla?= Message-ID: <895701F2-B0D5-11D6-A24D-003065F4865E@the-alarm.com> Colombia: Conocerla para Juzgarla. Por Mauricio y Carmen Colaborador del Semanario ?La Alarma! La colaboradora Maryanne Schiffman recibi? la siguiente carta de dos amigos que residen en Bogot?. La redacci?n de ?La Alarma! decidi? publicar la carta como una manifestaci?n de las voces colombianas, dej?ndola tal cual fue escrita. Mientras mir?bamos por televisi?n la transmisi?n oficial de la posesi?n del nuevo presidente de los colombianos ?lvaro Uribe V?lez y escuch?bamos los discurso de posesi?n, a las afueras del palacio de Nari?o se estaba viviendo uno de los dramas humanos que a diario se viven en el pa?s. Solo cuando termin? la transmisi?n oficial y entraron las noticias de los canales privados a transmitir los ?ltimos acontecimientos, el pa?s empezaba a enterarse de que en esta ocasi?n estaban atacando con morteros el mismo palacio presidencial, es decir como si se estuviera atacando la Casa Blanca en Washington. Solo uno de los morteros dio en su blanco, causando heridas a unos oficiales de la polic?a, mientras que a unas cuadras en un barrio de indigentes llamado el ?Cartucho? uno de ellos estall? en una casa caus?ndole la muerte a m?s de 20 personas entre ellas 3 menores de edad. Nos extra?? mucho que solo se dio a conocer lo que estaba sucediendo cuando acab? la ceremonia oficial, dado que el primer ataque sucedi? a las 3:03 minutos cuando el nuevo presidente entraba al auditorio del congreso donde lo esperaban todos los invitados, cosa curiosa, esta era la primera vez que la posesi?n se realizaba en un recinto cerrado y no en la plaza de Bol?var donde los presidentes siempre han llegado caminando y no en una camioneta blindada y rodeada de escoltas como en esta ocasi?n llegara nuestro nuevo presidente por cuatro a?os. Despu?s de 4 a?os de esperar ?El Cambio es Ahora,? el eslogan con el cual lleg? a la presidencia Andr?s Pastrana Arango, dejando el pa?s inmerso en una de sus peores crisis, con una tasa de desempleo del 16%, un conflicto armado escalonado en todo el pa?s, la econom?a en reseci?n y el d?lar por las nubes e incontrolable. Llega ?lvaro Uribe V?lez, ?Mano Firme, Corazon Grande.? La institucionalidad colombiana est? recogiendo el fruto de sus acciones, es decir esta violencia no se ha formado sola sino han sido un sembrado de muchos a?os de mentiras, de corrupci?n, de olvido de las clases menos favorecidas, de exclusi?n de todas las culturas que habitan en este territorio desde mucho antes de la llegada de los espa?oles, de falta de oportunidades para la educaci?n de los j?venes tanto del campo como de las ciudades, de exterminio sistem?tico de las voces y de personas que se oponen a la negligencia de los gobiernos de turno. Todo ello ha sido propicio para que a finales de los a?os 40 empezaran a surgir grupos armados al margen de la ley que reivindicaban en sus comienzos las luchas populares por una vida justa y digna para todos, pero que ahora sus consignas e ideolog?as se han desviado y confundido y cualquier fin justifica los medios, causando los peores da?os a aquellos que dicen defender. Estas mismas acciones contra la poblaci?n civil, que ve como tantos a?os de trabajo honesto es destruido de la noche a la ma?ana dejando hu?rfanos, viudas, traumas irreversibles en ni?os que son testigos de las peores cosas; generando respuestas de la gente que en la mayor?a son impulsadas por sentimientos de impotencia, ira y venganza, que se justifican con la casi general ausencia del estado a qui?n deber?an recurrir. De ah? salen los grupos de autodefensas, como una fuerza para-estatal generando violencia sin control olvidando cualquier raz?n ideol?gica o pol?tica. La situaci?n hace propicio que los intereses mezquinos de los negociantes de armas, narcotraficantes, hagan su bonanza a costa de la muerte de personas, que la mayor?a de las veces no entienden y no son conscientes de las luchas que defienden y lideran, motivo por el cual ponen el pecho a las balas que vienen del frente de batalla. En medio de toda esta situaci?n agobiante, el narcotr?fico, es para muchos la opci?n para sacar adelante sus familias y para otros como la guerrilla y los paramilitares en una de las fuentes de financiaci?n. Tambi?n la mano for?nea se ha dado cuenta de la riqueza de los recursos naturales que existen en Colombia y por eso est?n puestos los ojos de esos pulpos transnacionales que solo obedecen a los intereses macro econ?micos y que muy poco les importa, el desarrollo de la gente de la regi?n y mucho menos su contexto hist?rico. Es as? como gran parte de los territorios ind?genas est?n expropiados y explotados por otros. Encontr?ndonos complejos industriales al lado de poblaciones sumidas en la pobreza. Todo esto, m?s las victimas que deja el enredo de intereses accionados de la guerrilla, paramilitares, gobierno, y el mismo narco, ayudados por la imagen que dan del pa?s los medios de comunicaci?n; hacen ver a Colombia solo desde el conflicto social y econ?mico con sus contradicciones, sus intereses y su hipocres?a; como un pueblo sin cultura y sin gente para mostrar. Y es que este es un pueblo tan grande en territorio y coraz?n, que muy a pesar de esa situaci?n hay vivencias maravillosas, cargadas del esp?ritu pujante del ser colombiano. Esta es la Colombia que hay que descubrir, porque hablar de Colombia es hablar del mapal?, la gaita y la cumbia, danzas y ritmos musicales que guardan consigo influencias africanas y europeas que mezcladas con las ra?ces culturales aut?ctonas de estas tierras, han creado nuevos ritmos y bailes, ahora ya Colombianos; hablar de este pa?s es compartir la calidez y la solidaridad espont?nea de su gente, como tambi?n sentir la sabidur?a ancestral de mas de sesenta(60) comunidades ind?genas repartidas en todo el territorio nacional; hablar de Colombia es hablar de diversidad cultural; son precisamente los diferentes estilos de vida y maneras de ver el mundo lo que hacen al ser Colombiano y Colombiana; seres producto de una fusi?n que data de mas de quinientos a?os de existencia. Es por esto que a muchos colombianos les duele que siendo un pa?s tan biodiverso, hablando de su fauna y flora; privilegiado con lugares paradis?acos como la Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta, la laguna de Tota, el parque Tairona, la serran?a de la Macarena, el desierto de la Guajira, las costas del pac?fico, la enigm?tica ciudad colonial de Cartagena de Indias y la amazon?a Colombiana entre otros sitios buenos para visitar y para percibir la riqueza cultural del pa?s; a los ?Chibchombianos,? como algunos se hacen llamar por puro cari?o , les duele que solo se les reconozca y conozca por la violencia armada y el narcotr?fico que tanta humillaci?n les causa cada vez que uno dice ?Colombia?buena coca!!!? o cuando cruza por alg?n aeropuerto del mundo y dicen ?Los Colombianos a este lado por favor...? y ?Ese es Colombiano requ?senle minuciosamente su equipaje!!!? No hay derecho que haya perjuicios y se le juzgue a esta gente antes de conocerla realmente; al mundo le hace falta valorar y respetar el tesorito que guarda Latinoam?rica, porque con lo que la utiliza occidente para beneficiar sus intereses avaros pareciera conocer algo del tesorito; ahora, lo que esta gente quiere es que se les participe de los beneficios y que la dejen hacer parte del juego econ?mico, pero con la honestidad como base de cualquier jugada. Ya es tiempo que a este pa?s tan maltratado por los medio de comunicaci?n se le vea con otros ojos, con los ojos que ven lo negativo, pero que tambi?n reconocen lo bueno que sin duda suma mucho mas. Desde la Guajira, norte del pa?s hasta el amazonas, sur Colombiano, Colombia, se?ores, es una berraquera!!! Comentarios a: Mauro o Carmen All content Copyleft ? 2002 by The Alarm! Newspaper. Except where noted otherwise, this material may be copied and distributed freely in whole or in part by anyone except where used for commercial purposes or by government agencies. ----- The Alarm! Newspaper a local weekly newspaper for an engaged populace http://www.the-alarm.com/ info@the-alarm.com P.O. Box 1205, Santa Cruz, CA 95061 (831) 429-NEWS - office (831) 420-1498 - fax From wires at the-alarm.com Fri Aug 16 00:04:35 2002 From: wires at the-alarm.com (Alarm!Wires) Date: Sun Feb 8 02:51:47 2004 Subject: [Dryerase] The Alarm!--Whaling in the Pacific, Part 1 Message-ID: Whaling in the Pacific PART I: Court Rules Indian Treaty Rights Take Precedent over Federal Law By Michelle Stewart The Alarm! Newspaper Collective On Thursday, August 8, history was made in Washington State. In a court ruling, US District Judge Franklin Burgess cleared the way for the Makah Indian tribe of Washington State to resume whaling. The ruling is a precedent-setting case regarding Indian treaty rights in the United States. The plaintiffs included special interest groups such as the Humane Society of the United States, the Fund for Animals, Australians for Animals, Cetacean Society International, the West Coast Anti-Whaling Society and the Peninsula Citizens for the Protection of Whales as well as eleven individuals from across the nation?one of whom resides in Monterey. The suit filed by the litigants against the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) charged that these agencies, through the Department of Commerce, violated the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) and the Marine Mammal Protection Act (MMPA) by allowing the Makah to hunt whales in the Pacific Northwest. Speaking from Seattle, John Arum, attorney for the Makah said, ?We were really pleased with this most recent decision. Especially the way the judge handled the issue of the Marine Mammal Protection Act, stating that the tribe?s treaty rights take precedent over the MMPA.? Excited about both the ruling and the precedent it sets, Arum continued, ?We had the rulings in our favor for fishing but this is the first verdict of its kind for whaling rights.? According to Arum, from a legal perspective, it was already understood that Indians with treaty rights could use their treaty to counter federal, state or local fisheries laws. However, this is the first such ruling on whaling, which has been a particularly controversial subject for politicians, conservationists and Indians. According to Brian Gorman of NMFS, ?they [litigants] based their standing on pleadings of proof of harm: psychological, physical and financial.? Expanding on the notion of harm, Gorman explained that some litigants believed injured whales from the hunt could present a physical threat to whale enthusiasts, while others pled that the thought of an injured or suffering whale would cause them psychological harm. For litigants who run whale-watching businesses, or make a living creating art illustrating whales, their claim was that the hunt would have adverse financial effects on them. The contention is that tourists and art buyers might not look to that local market if it is tainted by the issue of regional whaling. A major point in the case was the potential effect of hunting on the so-called ?resident population? of whales in the Strait of Juan de Fuca. Speaking from Maryland, Michael Markarian, Executive Vice-President of the Fund for Animals, described this group as, ?a behaviorally distinct, and possibly genetically distinct, population of whales who do not migrate.? According to Markarian the resident population in the area ranges from thirty to fifty whales. ?The government failed to analyze the potential harm to this whale population, a potential that was severely increased when the government expanded the whale hunt to be allowed during any time of year,? claimed Markarian. This expansion of the hunt Markarian refers to is what Brian Gorman of NMFS calls ?the unintended effect? of the lawsuit. Gorman continues, ?Well, the irony of the lawsuit is that, originally, the Makah only had the right to hunt migrating whales [during migration] in certain areas.? In the initial case, litigants won an appeal that demanded a new Environmental Assessment be drafted to assess the effects the hunt could have on the whale population. The case was the result of actions taken by NMFS and NOAA whereby the agencies created a whale management plan with the tribe before conducting an assessment of the action. According to John Arum, ?They won at the Ninth Circuit, but in the end if they hadn?t won that case forcing a new EA, then we wouldn?t have this victory that expands the scope of the hunt.? It was while the Federal agencies prepared the new EA ?that new evidence came to light which allowed us to broaden the area and timing of the hunt,? said Gorman of NMFS. According to Gorman, the new area for the hunt includes portions of the greater Puget Sound and the Strait of Juan de Fuca, and the hunt is now open year-round rather than just when the whales are migrating. Michael Markarian of the Fund for Animals comments on the scope of the hunt, ?the fall migration of whales will begin in late September, and if tribe members hunt whales before that time they will be all but guaranteed to kill resident whales.? Gorman responded to this discussion of harm to the resident whale population saying, ?the issue of resident populations has been settled by a few courts, and there isn?t any way to describe them [the whales in question] biologically as a resident population.? Gorman further clarified, ?we consider some of the population to be a ?feeding aggregation?. As I understand it, there is a small segment of the overall population that spends a larger portion of time in the Strait of Juan de Fuca and the greater Puget Sound, and we describe them as ?feeding aggregations,?? Gorman explained. ?When the migrating population migrates north to Alaska some of the males will never make it all the way?they stay in the Sound or Strait. When the greater population comes along they will rejoin the group in its migration south,? Gorman concluded. Although John Arum characterizes the ruling as a ?significant and maybe the final blow? to litigation attempts by those opposed to the hunt, Mike Markarian of the Fund for Animals contends, ?we completely expected this decision, and have just been waiting for our chance to appeal our case to the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals.? Citing the success his group had in 1999 when they won in the court of appeals, Markarian seems optimistic. ?We are anxious for the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals to hear our case on its merits.? However, Arum seems confident that the summary judgment released by Judge Burgess last week will stick. ?Their allegation of harm was bogus, and the merits of our case were stronger,? Arum said. Whatever the future might hold for this issue of the right to whale, Brian Gorman reiterates NFMS?s position quite simply, ?Look, they have treaty rights. It has always been our contention that the Makah had a treaty right to hunt and there was not a biological threat.? It has been a long five years for the Makah in their bid to whale. Despite international sanction and the backing of the US courts, the Makah continue to face a battle in Neah Bay for the right to whale. With hundreds of protestors disturbing the hunt, and only one whale taken since the permit was authorized, it continues to be an uphill battle? with a long legacy. This is the first of a three part series that explores the issues surrounding historical whaling in the Pacific Ocean and the rights of Indians to resume whaling. Next week, I will write a historical piece on the rise and fall of commercial whaling in the Pacific?specifically in the Pacific Northwest in the nineteenth and twentieth century. The following week, I will take a much closer look at the issues surrounding the history of Makah whaling and the continuing struggle to assert their rights under the 1855 Treaty of Neah Bay. All content Copyleft ? 2002 by The Alarm! Newspaper. Except where noted otherwise, this material may be copied and distributed freely in whole or in part by anyone except where used for commercial purposes or by government agencies. ----- The Alarm! Newspaper a local weekly newspaper for an engaged populace http://www.the-alarm.com/ info@the-alarm.com P.O. Box 1205, Santa Cruz, CA 95061 (831) 429-NEWS - office (831) 420-1498 - fax From wires at the-alarm.com Fri Aug 16 00:05:36 2002 From: wires at the-alarm.com (Alarm!Wires) Date: Sun Feb 8 02:51:48 2004 Subject: [Dryerase] The Alarm!--War Notes Message-ID: War Notes A bi-monthly column following the developments of our new permanent war, the war on terrorism By sasha k The Alarm! Newspaper Columnist Nigerian Oil Nigerian Information Minister Jerry Gana recently said that Nigeria has come under US pressure to drop out of OPEC and increase oil output. ?The United States is trying to put pressure on us. They are luring us to pull out of OPEC. But we know how our interests would be best served and so we are not going to leave OPEC,? Gana told the Associated Press. Nigeria is the fifth largest exporter of oil to the United States. With the growing likelihood of a US-instigated war in the Middle East, the US is trying to decrease its reliance on Middle East oil producers by importing more oil from other sources, like Nigeria. OPEC, which sets production quotas for member nations, stands in its way. Rilwanu Lukman, the Nigerian presidential advisor on oil, said that if the oil cartel collapsed, the price of oil could drop from the current twenty-five dollars a barrel to as low as ten dollars a barrel. Nigeria, along with Algeria, recently complained to OPEC that its quota was too low. Oil production in Nigeria has been a brutal affair for many of Nigeria?s citizens. Little of the $20 billion that Nigeria makes from oil each year ever reaches the inhabitants of the regions from which the oil comes. But people are fighting back. Oil facilities have been sabotaged and Western and Nigerian oil workers have been kidnapped in attempts to extort payment from the oil producers. In July, a group of women, tired of waiting for clean water, electricity and other needs, seized a series of ChevronTexaco facilities, paralyzing the producer?s Nigeria operations. One facility is still occupied. ?Everybody?s copying each other,? a ChevronTexaco spokesperson said in reaction to the widespread and effective protests. Because of the sabotage and violence, international oil companies such as ChevronTexaco, Exxon Mobil and Royal-Dutch Shell are trying to move their oil extraction facilities off shore. This week, the body of Ken Saro-Wiwa, who was executed by the Nigerian government in 1995, was found. Saro-Wiwa helped organize resistance to oil production and pollution in the land of the Ogoni, a minority group in Nigeria. The Ogoni protests caused Royal-Dutch Shell to withdraw from Ogoniland in 1993. They have yet to return. Oil, Oil and More Oil The April coup attempt in Venezuela was quite likely also part of a long-term US strategy to gain control over the world?s oil supply. Oil, of course, plays a key role in the US conflict with Iraq. Up until 1972, the US and British?the only two nations clamoring for war with Iraq?controlled seventy-five percent of Iraqi oil. But the Ba?ath Party (the political party of Saddam Hussein) nationalized Iraqi oil in 1972. This nationalization of the Iraqui oil supply has been a key factor in the formation of US policy on the region ever since, including the 1991 Gulf War and the continuing sanctions. If the US were to allow sanctions to be lifted without a regime change in Iraq, the French, Russians and Chinese?who have maintained good diplomatic relations with Saddam Hussein?s government?would be the beneficiaries of the oil development and trade agreements they have with Iraq. US and British oil companies would be left out in the cold. More criticism The pull the US has had over other countries because of the September 11 attacks is wearing off. Shortly after US Secretary of State Colin Powell visited Malaysia, Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad, considered a key ally in the US war on terrorism in Asia?the so-called second front?criticized the US led ?war on terrorism.? While Mahathir is very critical of terrorism and has detained scores of suspected Islamic militants without trial, he said that a war on terrorism cannot be fought like a conventional war. Mahathir said that instead the root causes of terrorism must be dealt with. Mahathir has always been a very sharp critic of US-led development and economic strategies. ?Globalization and free trade along with democracy are being touted as the saviors of the world and in particular the poor,? said Mahathir. ?But? he continued ?our experience up ?til now is that we are being destabilized and robbed.? Linking terrorism and globalization, Mahathir went on to say that countries in Asia, Africa and Latin America were ?terrified of being colonized once again through economic pressure....They are being terrorized in the same way that the terrorists are threatening the world.? But instead of helping poor countries, the rich spend billions of dollars on defense. The root causes of terrorism?poverty and disenfranchisement?are not addressed by this system. Indonesia Update After Malaysia, Powell went on to Indonesia and announced that the Bush administration was going to push Congress to lift restrictions on US military aid and ties with Indonesia. The restrictions were put in place in 1999, after the army committed human rights atrocities in East Timor, now an independent country. Congress is likely to follow the administration?s suggestion. The administration has also taken the extraordinary step of asking a federal judge to block a lawsuit against Exxon Mobil for alleged human rights abuses in Indonesia, claiming that such a lawsuit could undermine the ?war on terrorism.? The lawsuit was filed by the US-based International Labor Rights Fund for eleven villagers from Aceh, in northern Sumatra. It contends that Exxon Mobil knew of human rights abuses committed by Indonesian military guards it hired at its Aceh facility. All content Copyleft ? 2002 by The Alarm! Newspaper. Except where noted otherwise, this material may be copied and distributed freely in whole or in part by anyone except where used for commercial purposes or by government agencies. ----- The Alarm! Newspaper a local weekly newspaper for an engaged populace http://www.the-alarm.com/ info@the-alarm.com P.O. Box 1205, Santa Cruz, CA 95061 (831) 429-NEWS - office (831) 420-1498 - fax From wires at the-alarm.com Fri Aug 16 00:06:17 2002 From: wires at the-alarm.com (Alarm!Wires) Date: Sun Feb 8 02:51:48 2004 Subject: [Dryerase] The Alarm!--Local con man swindles Chatino Indians Message-ID: Local con man swindles Chatino Indians Organizations seek donations to help them recover By Maryanne Schiffman The Alarm! Newspaper Contributor On July 10, the Citizenship Project in Salinas had just opened its offices for the day when a group of nine short, dark-skinned men and women arrived, speaking in broken Spanish and looking apprehensive. ?We have been robbed? they told staff members, ?by a guy who said he would help us find work.? Thus began the struggle of a group of indigenous people from Mexico to recover the money stolen from them, and the police pursuit of a local con artist who preys on migrants from indigenous communities of Southern Mexico. The victims in this case, all young adults between the ages of seventeen and twenty-two, had arrived in the area in search of work in the fields and packing houses around Salinas. In total the group of eight men and one woman were scammed of almost $5,000, robbed of all of their personal belongings and left homeless. The investigation has led to the arrest of one suspect. The migrants come from a Chatino community in the Mexican state of Oaxaca. Chatinos are an indigenous group with a distinct ethnic and linguistic identity who have been arriving in the Salinas and Greenfield areas in increasing numbers to work in the produce industry. According to Juan Aguirre, business agent for the Teamsters Local 890 in Salinas and a former field worker himself, the migrants arrive via networks of family and friends, and cross the border illegally, often in trucks hired by produce industry subcontractors. ?They [immigration officers] know what?s going on at the border,? he said. ?It isn?t a coincidence which trucks get stopped and which don?t.? He added that because these indigenous migrants come from such small communities and often don?t even speak Spanish, they are extremely dependent on these networks, and sometimes even the contractor, for their survival. In this case, the victims had the bad luck to meet?through a mutual friend?a man who called himself ?Raymundo.? Tony Acosta, Program Director of the Citizenship Project, explained how this man was able to cheat these young people out of so much money. ?First he drove them to a housing construction project in North Salinas and showed them around the site, saying that it was his own business enterprise,? Acosta said. ?Next he told them that if they paid him to secure the ?necessary documents,? they could work for him there legally?and for as much as $14 an hour.? Convinced by this charade, the Chatinos paid ?Raymundo? $300 to $500 each for Social Security and Permanent Resident cards (?green cards?), turning over to him almost all of the money they had. Yet the swindle did not end there. ?Raymundo? told the young people that they could also rent rooms from him in his own house for $100 a month. He helped them to gather their belongings and to bring them to his home, where they would stay that night after paying him a total of $900 for the next month?s rent. Raymundo even went as far as to take some of the men to the YMCA where he gave them a ?fitness test? to assess their capacity for the job?a test for which he charged them another $100. ?The guy is a real actor? Acosta said, ?and he?s got a good imagination.? The Chatinos found out how well-developed Raymundo?s imagination really was. The morning after the Chatinos moved into the house, Raymundo informed them that the migra (The INS) was coming, and that they would have to leave or they would be discovered and deported. Later that evening, when they returned to the house to see if the coast was clear, they found that Raymundo had locked them out and refused to open the door. ?He wouldn?t even give us our belongings back? one of the men said. ?Not even our clothes.? The group was literally left with nothing but the clothes on their backs. Sadly, this story is just another incident in a long history of abuse and exploitation of migrant field workers on the Central Coast. According to Fritz Conle, labor organizer from the Teamsters 890 in Salinas, ?This is the latest wave of desperately poor workers being imported to satisfy California agribusiness? demands for sub-minimum wage labor. Throughout the last 150 years growers have brought in different ethnic groups to work in agriculture, and keep wages low. Chinese, Japanese, Mexicans and Philipinos have all been played against each other, and indigenous groups from Southern Mexico are only the newest group,? Conle added. ?Many speak no Spanish, and none speak English. Most know nothing about minimum wage laws and other rights we take for granted. All are eager to work very hard to earn enough to support their families. They are the perfect target for con artists and unscrupulous employers.? Conle continued, ?Many are undocumented, wary of the police and without driver?s licenses or bank accounts. For all of these reasons they are targets for all kinds of crimes: Friday night muggings, the sale of lemon cars and scams like this one.? Jonathon Fox, Chair of the Department of Latin American and Latino Studies at UC Santa Cruz, is a specialist in Mexican indigenous migration to the US. According to Professor Fox, ?Indigenous Mexican migrants have a long history in California, starting with Mixtecos and Zapotecos from Oaxaca, as well as Purepechas from the state of Michoacan.? He added that, ?Although their waves of immigration date back to the Bracero Program of the 1940s and 1950s, their numbers grew significantly in the 1980s and 1990s as the Mexican government turned to free trade instead of supporting family farming.? Fox noted that, more recently, ?Indigenous migrants from other ethnic groups in Oaxaca are coming, such as the Triquis and the Chatinos, as well as people from other states, including Mayans from the Yucatan and Chiapas.??Fox stressed that the situation of Chatino migrants is especially dire: ?Chatinos come from communities in the Southern Sierra of Oaxaca, an area with alarming levels of poverty and violence.? After hearing the migrants? story, the Citizenship Project contacted Dennine Guy, Deputy District Attorney at the Salinas District Attorney?s office, who sent over Detective Henry G?mez to take depositions from the victims. Upon further investigation, the Salinas Police Department discovered that the scam artist?s name was not Raymundo, but rather Jos? Raucho Mart?nez, a 36-year old Salinas resident with an outstanding $10,000 misdemeanor warrant for his arrest and a history of participation in unsavory activities in the Salinas area. Salinas police located Mart?nez and booked him on six counts of suspicion of grand theft, three counts of theft, and violation of probation in addition to the outstanding warrant. Detective G?mez says that after the word made its way around the community, five more men came forward to reveal that Mart?nez had played the same scam on them. Three of the victims were men from an indigenous community in Chiapas. Another five women who had been scammed by Mart?nez returned to the house with a local priest, who confronted Mart?nez and insisted that he return their money. Mart?nez did return a smaller amount of money, but refused to give the women back their clothes. These women and three of the men mentioned above have declined to press charges. Deputy Attorney Guy said that Mart?nez was to be arraigned and have his bail set on Wednesday, August 14. The charge will be criminal felony. While the good news is that one more scam artist is off the streets?at least temporarily?Deputy Attorney Guy says the incidents of fraud against immigrants are growing. In addition, the Chatino group has been left penniless, homeless and fleeced of their personal belongings. According to Acosta of the Citizenship Project, ?Right now all eight of these guys are staying together in one room that?s the size of my [small] office, without blankets, no beds to sleep in, with nothing.? Friday, August 9, local television affiliate Univisi?n KSMS Channel 67 Monterey-Salinas, aired a report on the story of the Chatinos and asked the community to contribute clothes, money, food or whatever they can to help the group out. So far $200 has been collected, along with some clothing. The Chatinos say that they would like to warn other migrants to be aware of people like ?Raymundo? who seek to take advantage of them because of their limited Spanish and English language skills and unfamiliarity with ?the system.? But they also urge those who have been exploited to come forward to help the police get these thieves off the streets. Says Acosta of the Citizenship Project, ?The point here is that everybody in this country has rights and no one should be treated like this.? Detective G?mez of the Salinas Police Department and Deputy District Attorney Guy are asking anyone who has dealt with Mart?nez to please come forward with information. Both officials want to assure the immigrant community that they should not fear speaking with their offices. According to Detective G?mez, ?Anyone who comes to me? he said, ?will not be questioned about their immigration status or asked to show an ID. That?s not what we?re doing here.? Deputy Attorney Guy assures the community that her office shares the police?s focus, and adds that the receptionists at her office are all bilingual. In Santa Cruz, Assistant District Attorney Don Gartner asks anyone who has been the victim of crime to please come forward to his office. ?The last thing we want is people not reporting crimes out of fear for their immigration status? he said. ?Documentation is not what we are concerned with.? Detective G?mez can be contacted at (831) 758-7226. The number for the District Attorney?s Office in Salinas is (831) 755-5070. Spanish speaking residents of Santa Cruz who have been victims of crime should contact Chief Inspector Henry Flores directly at (831) 454-2572. Spanish speaking Watsonville residents should contact Santa Cruz Assistant District Attorney Don Gartner at (831) 454-2400. All of these contacts assure immigrant residents that they will maintain confidentiality. If you would like to help the Chatinos with donations of sleeping bags, clothing (especially men?s clothing) or shoes (especially men?s size 8), household items (such as dishes and cushions to sleep on) or money, please contact Tony or Mar?a at the Citizenship Project, (831) 424-2713, or by email at citizenship@newcitizen.org. The Citizenship Project, the organization that has assisted the migrants in their effort to bring this situation to light, is a labor-led Mexican immigrant community-based organization dedicated to a radical vision of expanded citizenship, broadly defined. All content Copyleft ? 2002 by The Alarm! Newspaper. Except where noted otherwise, this material may be copied and distributed freely in whole or in part by anyone except where used for commercial purposes or by government agencies. ----- The Alarm! Newspaper a local weekly newspaper for an engaged populace http://www.the-alarm.com/ info@the-alarm.com P.O. Box 1205, Santa Cruz, CA 95061 (831) 429-NEWS - office (831) 420-1498 - fax From wires at the-alarm.com Fri Aug 16 00:08:11 2002 From: wires at the-alarm.com (Alarm!Wires) Date: Sun Feb 8 02:51:48 2004 Subject: [Dryerase] The Alarm!--School Board scraps Chavez name Message-ID: <291B0E4B-B0D6-11D6-A24D-003065F4865E@the-alarm.com> PV School Board scraps Chavez name Despite broad local dissent, District Board votes to name school Pajaro Valley High By Rachel Showstack The Alarm! Newspaper Contributor The name of Cesar E. Chavez, the legendary labor and civil rights leader who defended the rights of Watsonville farm workers in the 1980s, would not unify Watsonville students, according to the Pajaro Valley Unified School District Board of Trustees. After a five month campaign by students, community organizations and local educators to name the district?s new high school Cesar E. Chavez High, the Board voted (6-1) last Wednesday, August 14, to name the school Pajaro Valley High instead. ?Students can?t complain about the place they live,? said Trustee Dan Hankemeier, who voted for the name Pajaro Valley High School. ?Pajaro Valley is the most unifying name.? But according to Jos? S?nchez, campaign director of the Coalition for Cesar E. Chavez High School, naming the school after Chavez would be an inspiration for Watsonville students. ?[Chavez] represented, freedom and justice for all people,? S?nchez said. ?He will be a role model for students in Watsonville.? S?nchez argued that the name Pajaro Valley High School does not represent the community because it was not the choice that received overwhelming community support. ?The District Board?s decision was very undemocratic,? he said. ?They didn?t listen to the students.? While seven or eight people spoke at last Wednesday?s meeting in favor of the name Pajaro Valley, about fifty-seven spoke in favor of Cesar E. Chavez. Hankemeier argued that the students who attended the meetings did not represent the district?s students. ?The same students attended all the meetings about the new name,? he said. ?There were no new faces.? But according to S?nchez, about 500 students also signed a petition in support of the name Cesar E. Chavez, while student support of Pajaro Valley was minimal. In addition to student signatures, the coalition collected almost 3,500 signatures from other community members. According to S?nchez, it may still be possible to change the new school?s name to Cesar E. Chavez. But the only way to get the school district to make decisions that represent Watsonville?s students is to elect new board members, he said. While Watsonville is about seventy-five percent Latino, there is only one Latino trustee on the seven-member board. ?We are looking for people who support the community as a whole and are more representative of the community,? said S?nchez. ?When you have a board that is not representative of the people, it doesn?t make decisions that are beneficial to the community.? All content Copyleft ? 2002 by The Alarm! Newspaper. Except where noted otherwise, this material may be copied and distributed freely in whole or in part by anyone except where used for commercial purposes or by government agencies. ----- The Alarm! Newspaper a local weekly newspaper for an engaged populace http://www.the-alarm.com/ info@the-alarm.com P.O. Box 1205, Santa Cruz, CA 95061 (831) 429-NEWS - office (831) 420-1498 - fax From wires at the-alarm.com Fri Aug 16 00:07:13 2002 From: wires at the-alarm.com (Alarm!Wires) Date: Sun Feb 8 02:51:48 2004 Subject: [Dryerase] =?ISO-8859-1?Q?=A1La_Alarma!--Indigenas_Chatinos_estafados_por_?= =?ISO-8859-1?Q?un_profesional_en_Salinas?= Message-ID: <06E76745-B0D6-11D6-A24D-003065F4865E@the-alarm.com> Indigenas Chatinos estafados por un profesional en Salinas Organizaciones locales buscan donaciones para ayudarles a recuperase Por Maryanne Schiffman Traducido por alfonso tovar Colaborador del Semanario ?La Alarma! 10 de Julio el Proyecto de Ciudadan?a (Citizenship Project) en Salinas hab?a apenas abierto sus oficinas, cuando un grupo de nueve mujeres y hombres de corta estatura y piel morena llegaron hablando en un espa?ol entrecortado y con una apariencia afligida. ?Fuimos asaltados? le dijeron a los empleados presentes ?por una persona que nos dijo nos ayudar?a a encontrar trabajo.? As? empez? la batalla para un grupo de ind?genas mexicanos de la etnia chatina para recuperar el dinero que les fue robado, y la persecuci?n polic?aca de un estafador local que abusa de migrantes llegados de comunidades ind?genas del sur de M?xico. Las v?ctimas en este caso son todos adultos j?venes de entre 17 a 22 a?os de edad, que llegaron al ?rea en busca de trabajo en los campos de cultivo y empacadoras alrededor de Salinas. El grupo de 8 hombres y una mujer fue despojado de casi $5,000 d?lares, de todas sus pertenencias personales y quedaron a la intemperie. La investigaci?n ha conducido al arresto de un sospechoso. Los migrantes provienen de una comunidad chatina en el estado mexicano de Oaxaca. Los Chatinos son un grupo ind?gena con una identidad ?tnica y ling??stica distintiva que han ido llegando a Salinas y Greenfield en n?meros crecientes para trabajar en la industria de la verdura. De acuerdo con Juan Aguirre, Agente de Negocios para el sindicato de transportistas, Local 890, en Salinas y un ex-trabajador agr?cola, los migrantes llegan a trav?s de una red de familiares y amigos y cruzan la frontera ilegalmente, a menudo en camiones rentados por los subcontratistas de la industria de la verdura. ?Ellos [las autoridades migratorias] saben lo que est? ocurriendo en la frontera?, el dijo, ?no es una coincidencia que algunos camiones son detenidos y otros no.? A?ade que dado que los migrantes ind?genas provienen de peque?as comunidades donde con frecuencia ni siquiera se habla espa?ol, tienen una fuerte dependencia en estas redes, y en el mismo contratista, para su supervivencia. En este caso, las v?ctimas tuvieron la mala suerte de conocer ?a trav?s de un amigo mutuo ?a un hombre que se hace llamar ?Raymundo.? Tony Acosta, Director del Programa Proyecto de Ciudadan?a, explica c?mo este hombre fue capaz de enga?ar a estos j?venes y quitarles tanto dinero. ?Primero los condujo a un proyecto de construcci?n de viviendas en el norte de Salinas y les mostr? los alrededores del sitio, afirmando que era su propio negocio,? dijo Acosta. ?Posteriormente, les dijo que si le pagaban para asegurar los ?documentos necesarios? ellos iban a poder trabajar para ?l legalmente por hasta $14 d?lares la hora.? Convencidos con ?sta farsa bien montada, los hatinos le pagaron a ?Raymundo? de $300 a $500 cada uno para obtener n?meros de Seguridad Social y tarjetas de Residencia Permanente (?green cards?), entreg?ndole por esto casi todo el dinero que ten?an. Pero la estafa no termin? ah?. ?Raymundo? les dijo que tambi?n pod?a rentarles cuartos en su casa por $100 al mes. Les ayud? a recoger sus pertenencias y a llevarlas a casa de ?l, donde se quedar?an a partir de esa misma noche despu?s de pagarle un total de $900 para cubrir la renta de ese mes. Raymundo fue incluso m?s lejos llevando a algunos de los hombres al YMCA, donde les someter?a a una ?prueba de condici?n f?sica? para evaluar su capacidad para el trabajo?prueba por la que les cobro $100 d?lares m?s. ?El tipo es un buen actor,? dijo Acosta, ?y tiene buena imaginaci?n.? Los Chatinos saben que tan desarrollada est? la imaginaci?n de Raymundo. A la ma?ana siguiente en que los Chatinos se hab?an mudado a la casa, Raymundo les inform? que la migra (el INS) andaba por ah? y que ten?an que irse o ser?an descubiertos y deportados. Por la tarde de ese mismo d?a, cuando los Chatinos regresaron a la casa para ver si no hab?a moros en la costa, se encontraron con que Raymundo hab?a cerrado la casa con llave y no los dejaba entrar. ?Ni siquiera quer?a entregarnos nuestras cosas,? dijo uno de los hombres ?ni siquiera nuestras vestimentas.? El grupo fue dejado literalmente sin nada mas que la ropa que vest?an. Tristemente, esta historia es s?lo otro incidente sumado a la larga historia de abuso y explotaci?n que sufren los trabajadores agr?colas migrantes de la Costa Central. De acuerdo con Fritz Conle, un organizador del sindicato laboral IBT (Teamsters), local 890 en Salinas, ?esta es la ola m?s reciente de trabajadores migrantes, desesperados por la pobreza, que son importados para satisfacer las demanda de sub-salarios en los empleos de la Industria Agricultora de California. En los ?ltimos 150 a?os, los agricultores han tra?do a diferentes grupos ?tnicos para trabajar en la agricultura y mantener bajos los salaries. Chinos, Japoneses, Mexicanos y Filipinos han sido enfrentados uno contra el otro, y los ind?genas del sureste mexicano son solo el grupo mas reciente.? Seg?n Conle, ?muchos no hablan espa?ol y ninguno habla ingl?s. Casi nadie sabe acerca del salario m?nimo y otros derechos que nosotros tomamos por hecho. Todos est?n dispuestos a trabajar con ah?nco para ganar lo suficiente y mantener a sus familias. Son el blanco perfecto para estafadores y patrones sin escr?pulos? Conle prosigui?, ?muchos son indocumentados, recelosos de la polic?a y sin licencias de conducir o cuentas bancarias. Por todas estas razones, estos grupos son blanco de toda clase de cr?menes. Asaltos los viernes por la noche, venta de autos defectuosos y estafas como esta.? Jonathan Fox, rector del Departamento de Estudios Latinos y Latino-Americanos de la Universidad de California en Santa Cruz, es un especialista en migraci?n ind?gena a los Estados Unidos. De acuerdo con el profesor Fox, ?los ind?genas mexicanos tienen una larga historia de migraci?n a California, empezando con los Mixtecos y Zapotecos de Oaxaca, as? como tambi?n Pur?pechas del estado de Michoac?n.? A?adi? que ?aunque las olas de inmigraci?n datan del programa Bracero de los a?os 40?s y 50?s, la poblaci?n creci? significativamente en los 80?s y 90?s cuando el gobierno mexicano vir? al libre comercio en lugar de apoyar el cultivo de subsistencia.? Mas recientemente, anot?, ?migrantes ind?genas de otros grupos ?tnicos en Oaxaca est?n llegando, tales como los Triquis y los Chatinos, as? como gente de otros estados, incluyendo Mayas de Yucat?n y Chiapas.? Fox acentu? que la situaci?n de los migrantes Chatinos es especialmente desastrosa: ?Los Chatinos provienen de comunidades de la Sierra sur de Oaxaca, un ?rea con niveles alarmantes de pobreza y violencia.? Despu?s de escuchar la historia de los migrantes, el Proyecto de Ciudadan?a se comunic? con Dennine Guy, Abogada del Distrito Electoral de Salinas, quien envi? al detective Harry G?mez para tomar declaraciones de las v?ctimas. Siguiendo con la investigaci?n, el Departamento de la Polic?a de Salinas descubri? que el nombre del estafador no es Raymundo, sino Jos? Raucho Mart?nez, un residente de Salinas de 36 a?os sobre quien pesaba una orden de aresto por una oferta pr?via y contaba con un historial como participante en actividades il?citas en Salinas. La polic?a de Salinas localiz? a Mart?nez y lo detuvo bajo seis cargos de sospecha de robo con agravantes, tres cargos de robo, y violaci?n de fianza, adem?s de la orden de arresto que ya pesaba en su contra. El detective G?mez dice que despu?s de que la noticia se disemin? por la comunidad, 5 hombres m?s acudieron a denunciar que Mart?nez emple? la misma treta para estafarlos. Tres de las v?ctimas son hombres de una comunidad ind?gena de Chiapas. Otras cinco mujeres que fueron estafadas por Mart?nez contaron que fueron a la casa de ?l con un cura local, quien confront? a Mart?nez e insisti? en que les regresara su dinero. Mart?nez regres? una peque?a cantidad del dinero, pero se neg? a devolver la ropa de las mujeres. Estas mujeres y los 3 hombres mencionados anteriormente se han rehusado a levantar cargos. La Abogada de Distrito Guy declar? que Mart?nez va a ser ser? arraigado y se fijar? su fianza este mi?rcoles 14 de agosto. Aunque la buena noticia es que un estafador m?s est? fuera de las calles?al menos temporalmente?la Abogada de Distrito Guy declar? que los fraudes contra inmigrantes est?n increment?ndose. Por otro lado, el grupo de Chatinos se ha quedado sin dinero, sin casa, y desplumados de sus pertenencias. De acuerdo con Acosta, del Proyecto de Ciudadan?a, ?Por el momento estas ocho personas est?n qued?ndose todas juntas en un cuarto que es del tama?o de mi [peque?a] oficina, sin cobijas, sin camas, ni nada.? El pasado viernes 9 de agosto, el canal afiliado local de Univision, KSMS canal 67 Monterey-Salinas, lanz? al aire un reportaje sobre la historia de los Chatinos y pidi? a la comunidad contribuir con ropa, dinero, comida o lo que pueda, para ayudar al grupo. Hasta el momento se han recolectado $200, y algo de ropa. Los Chatinos dicen que les gustar?a advertir a otros migrantes a que est?n alerta de gente como ?Raymundo?, que buscan abusar de ellos dada su limitada habilidad con los idiomas espa?ol e ingl?s y la falta de familiaridad con el sistema. Pero tambi?n solicitan a todos aquellos que hayan sido enga?ados a que denuncien para que la polic?a detenga a estos ladrones. Acosta, del Proyecto de Ciudadan?a dice que ?el punto es que cualquiera en este pa?s tiene derechos y nadie deber?a de ser tratado de ?sta manera? El detective G?mez del Departamento de Polic?a de Salinas y la Abogada del Distrito Electoral, est?n solicitando informaci?n a cualquier persona que haya tenido tratos con Mart?nez. Ambos oficiales quieren asegurar a la comunidad inmigrante que no deben temer hablar a sus oficinas. De acuerdo con el detective G?mez ?cualquiera que se acerque a m? no ser? cuestionado acerca de su status migratorio, ni deber? presentar una identificaci?n (ID). Eso no es lo que estamos haciendo aqu?.? La Abogada de Distrito Guy le asegur? a la comunidad que su oficina comparte el punto de vista de la polic?a y agreg? que las recepcionistas en su oficina son biling?es. En Santa Cruz, el Abogado del Distrito Electoral Don Gartner solicita que cualquiera que haya sido v?ctima de un delito por favor acuda a su oficina. ?Lo ?ltimo que deseamos es que la gente no informe delitos por temor a su estatus migratorio. Nosotros no estamos interesados en su documentaci?n.? El detective G?mez puede ser localizado en el (831) 758-7226. El n?mero de la oficina de la Abogada de Distrito en Salinas es (831) 755-5070. Residentes de Santa Cruz que hablan espa?ol y que hayan sido v?ctimas de delitos pueden contactar al Inspector en Jefe Henry Flores directamente al (831) 454-2572. Residentes de Watsonville que hablan espa?ol comunicarse con Don Gartner, asistente del Abogado del Distrito de Santa Cruz (Assistant District Attorney in Santa Cruz) al (831) 454-2400. Todos estos contactos aseguran a los residentes inmigrantes que mantendr?n la confidencialidad de las personas. Si a usted le gustar?a ayudar a los Chatinos con donaciones de bolsas de dormir, ropa (especialmente ropa de hombre) o zapatos (especialmente talla 8 para hombres), enseres del hogar (como vajilla y colchones) o dinero, por favor comunicarse con Tony o Mar?a, del Proyecto de Ciudadan?a al (831) 424-2713, o por correo electr?nico a citizenship@newcitizen.org. El proyecto de Ciudadan?a, la organizaci?n que ha asistido a los migrantes en su esfuerzo por sacar a relucir esta situaci?n, es una organizaci?n comunitaria dirigida por inmigrantes, con una visi?n radical de ciudadan?a extendida. All content Copyleft ? 2002 by The Alarm! Newspaper. Except where noted otherwise, this material may be copied and distributed freely in whole or in part by anyone except where used for commercial purposes or by government agencies. ----- The Alarm! Newspaper a local weekly newspaper for an engaged populace http://www.the-alarm.com/ info@the-alarm.com P.O. Box 1205, Santa Cruz, CA 95061 (831) 429-NEWS - office (831) 420-1498 - fax From wires at the-alarm.com Fri Aug 16 00:09:09 2002 From: wires at the-alarm.com (Alarm!Wires) Date: Sun Feb 8 02:51:48 2004 Subject: [Dryerase] The Alarm!--Can You Believe It? Message-ID: <4BADE616-B0D6-11D6-A24D-003065F4865E@the-alarm.com> Can You Believe It? (Weekly digest of wierd news) Stunning Burglary Performed by Circus Troupe August 06, 2002 CHILE?The next time you?re attending the Circus in Concepci?n, Chile don?t forget to tip the performers. A circus troupe performing at traffic lights used their skills to make a little extra cash performing for pedestrians and motorists. As a women rolled her car window down to toss them change, the unexpected happened. A juggler tossed a spear, puncturing her tire. An acrobat somersaulted over the hood and snatched the woman?s gold necklace. Another smashed her passenger window and snatched her bag while a fire-eater threatened to blow flames in her face. Police captured one of the acrobats, but the stolen property was not recovered. Now That?s What I Call Road Rage July 29, 2002 - MINNESOTA?Gregory Peter Carr was annoyed by speeding vehicles and heavy traffic in front of his home, by County Roads 29 and 164 in Minnesota. So he took matters into his own hands. Armed with a twelve-gauge shotgun and approximately fourteen rounds of ammunition, Carr aimed at vehicles passing in front of his house and several were hit by his six shotgun blasts. There were no injuries, but the road rager immediately went into hiding. Police found Carr in a nearby soybean field and he remains in jail until his first court appearance. He told authorities that all he wanted was the drivers to simply slow down and take alternate routes. Toddler Hits the Road at 4 AM to Search for Parents August 07, 2002 SAN JOSE, California--?Little 3-year-old Lupita woke up in the middle of the night to a dark, quiet house. Instead of panicking when she couldn?t locate her parents, she put on her backpack, and wearing only pajamas, hit the road in search of her loved ones. Tow-truck driver Ken Pinkham was returning home at 4:00 am when he saw the toddler walking on the side of the road all by herself. As he passed her, Pinkham says Lupita shot him dirty looks. Trying not to frighten her, he quietly went back to his truck and called the police, keeping an eye on her all the while. When officers arrived at the scene, Lupita kicked one of them in the genitals, yelling in Spanish. They found her address in the girl?s backpack and took her home. That?s when the real story unfolded?Lupita?s mother was pregnant, and her parents had to suddenly leave for the hospital. But they didn?t leave the girl unsupervised. They told a roommate that they were leaving, but the roommate promptly went back to bed. SOURCE: shagmail.com All content Copyleft ? 2002 by The Alarm! Newspaper. Except where noted otherwise, this material may be copied and distributed freely in whole or in part by anyone except where used for commercial purposes or by government agencies. ----- The Alarm! Newspaper a local weekly newspaper for an engaged populace http://www.the-alarm.com/ info@the-alarm.com P.O. Box 1205, Santa Cruz, CA 95061 (831) 429-NEWS - office (831) 420-1498 - fax From wires at the-alarm.com Fri Aug 16 00:09:58 2002 From: wires at the-alarm.com (Alarm!Wires) Date: Sun Feb 8 02:51:48 2004 Subject: [Dryerase] The Alarm!--Community Day Message-ID: <68F3FB89-B0D6-11D6-A24D-003065F4865E@the-alarm.com> Community Day event to show a different face of Beach Flats Contrary to images of rampant crime and social dysfunction, community members pull together to paint a more positive picture of the neighborhood. By Fhar Miess The Alarm! Newspaper Collective If all goes according to plan, Beach Flats Park will be teeming with people from all over the city this Sunday afternoon. Resident organizations and individuals have been organizing a Beach Flats Community Day to be held in the park, located at the intersection of Raymond and Leibrandt. The event will feature food, games and entertainment for people of all ages. Save our Shores will be doing a puppet show and Ary Lima will be giving a demonstration of Capoeira, a Brazilian martial arts form. Live bands will be playing ska, reggae and rock en espa?ol. While art, entertainment and expression is the focus of the event, it will also give resident organizations such as Vecinos Unidos, Agricolas Unidos and the Beach Flats Neighborhood Accountability Board an opportunity to introduce themselves to their neighbors and network in the community. A community forum has been organized, featuring speakers from these organizations. Organizers welcome members of the public to take the mic to make announcements, initiate conversations and just generally express themselves. According to Molly Flaherty, who works with the Beach Flats Community Center and the Beach Flats Neighborhood Accountability Board, the main mission of Community Day is fun and entertainment. In the process, she hopes that it will also bring Beach Flats residents together and encourage dialogue about recent and upcoming changes and developments in the neighborhood. Among these are the new medical facility being planned for Salud Para La Gente and the redevelopment of the Dolphin and Lee Apartments. Flaherty said she hopes to give the former residents of those apartments an opportunity to maintain their connections with their neighbors through Community Day. When asked how Community Day is likely to be different from ?First Night Out? and various other community events recently organized by the Santa Cruz Police Department, Flaherty seemed initially baffled by the comparison. Those events, she notes, were meant to facilitate and build communication and trust between police and residents, but there isn?t such a strong political agenda behind Community Day. It is more about just having fun and providing an opportunity for residents to rejoice in the family and community ties that have developed over decades in the Beach Flats. Flaherty emphasized that this event ?is not about building community, it?s about celebrating what?s already here.? She drew attention to the many accomplishments of residents who have organized to improve their neighborhood with murals, the building of Beach Flats Park, the Beach Flats Community Garden and traffic-calming measures. Residents, she said, have engaged for decades in on-going struggles for their rights. Flaherty decried the treatment the neighborhood and its resident organizations have received in the press, particularly since Santa Cruz police officers shot and killed Jos? ?Browny? ?valos August 1. Contrary to prevailing notions, stoked by the media, ?the base of Beach Flats is not gangs or drugs,? she said, ?it?s family.? Payaso, who helped start the ball rolling with Community Day, hopes that people from outside of the Beach Flats will come to the event to see a different face of the neighborhood. ?Don?t judge a book by its cover,? he said. Behind the cover of public opinion lies a rich and colorful text, filled with stories of artists, musicians, tight-knit families, folks who watch after one another and community activists struggling against a political climate that isolates and marginalizes them. People from other parts of Santa Cruz are encouraged to come and hear some of those stories for themselves. Community Day will be held Sunday, August 18, from 3pm to 9pm in Beach Flats Park at Leibrandt & Raymond. Folks from around Santa Cruz, not just the Beach Flats, are encouraged to attend. For more information, call Pepe Reyes or Molly Flaherty at the Beach Flats Community Center: 420-6126. All content Copyleft ? 2002 by The Alarm! Newspaper. Except where noted otherwise, this material may be copied and distributed freely in whole or in part by anyone except where used for commercial purposes or by government agencies. ----- The Alarm! Newspaper a local weekly newspaper for an engaged populace http://www.the-alarm.com/ info@the-alarm.com P.O. Box 1205, Santa Cruz, CA 95061 (831) 429-NEWS - office (831) 420-1498 - fax From wires at the-alarm.com Fri Aug 16 00:11:55 2002 From: wires at the-alarm.com (Alarm!Wires) Date: Sun Feb 8 02:51:48 2004 Subject: [Dryerase] =?ISO-8859-1?Q?=A1La_Alarma!--Cinco_mitos_sobre_la_inmigraci=F3?= =?ISO-8859-1?Q?n?= Message-ID: Ojo en el INS Un enfoque semanal en el INS y la pol?tica inmigratoria La globalizaci?n ideol?gica en contra de la inmigraci?n. Cinco mitos sobre la inmigraci?n (parte 1 de 5) Por Carlos Armenta Colaborador del Semanario ?La Alarma! ?Cuantas veces hemos o?do a los opositores a la inmigraci?n citar las siguientes razones para defender su posici?n?: ? El pa?s est? amenazado por una invasi?n migratoria. ? La inmigraci?n entra en competencia con la mano de obra nacional y ejerce una presi?n a la baja sobre los salarios. ? Los inmigrantes se benefician indebidamente de la beneficiencia p?blica (welfare). ? La riqueza de nuestro pa?s provoca un ?efecto de llamada? en los pa?ses pobres. ? La inmigraci?n ?amenaza? con alterar la identidad de la naci?n. Parecer?a que dichos argumentos provienen de funcionarios del INS, o de aquellas personas en los E.U. que insisten en cubrir a la inmigraci?n de aspectos negativos. De hecho, estos cinco mitos fueron expuestos y analizados por el eurodiputado Sami Nair en un art?culo publicado en el diario espa?ol El Pa?s el 16 de mayo del presente a?o. El se?or Nair se refer?a a estos mitos como ?cinco ideas falsas sobre la inmigraci?n en Espa?a,? lo cual demuestra que el problema de la inmigraci?n y la citada ideolog?a antiinmigratoria no son fen?menos particulares de los E.U. Vamos, ni siquiera se trata de un problema regional, sino global. Donde quiera que exista una frontera entre un pa?s (o pa?ses) rico y uno pobre, existir?n problemas derivados del deseo de controlar o detener el libre tr?fico de personas atrav?s de fronteras nacionales. Es cierto que cada pa?s tiene el derecho de decidir quien puede o no entrar a su territorio nacional, pero tambi?n es cierto que, como se observa en el caso de los E.U., muchos pa?ses ejercen este derecho de manera por dem?s arbitraria, inconsistente e inhumana. Al parecer, el ?nico par?metro v?lido para abrir o cerrar las fronteras a la inmigraci?n es el beneficio econ?mico de unos cuantos. Veamos si los cinco mitos expuestos y analizados por el eurodiputado Nair, en el caso de Espa?a, sobreviven ante la exposici?n de cifras y hechos en los E.U. Mito n?mero uno: E.U. est? amenazado por una invasi?n migratoria. Los que proponen un control m?s severo de las fronteras utilizan a menudo este argumento para asustar a la poblaci?n en general, e inclusive a los que han entrado a este pa?s ilegalmente y han logrado legalizar su situaci?n migratoria. El ex-gobernador Pete Wilson, por ejemplo, mostraba en televisi?n, como parte de su campa?a de reelecci?n (1994), un video que pintaba a los inmigrantes como invasores indeseables que todo lo arruinan y ensucian. El se?or Wilson logr?, gracias a esta campa?a, obtener el apoyo electoral de la mayor?a de los votantes en California. Desde entonces, el presupuesto designado a la vigilancia de la frontera ha crecido de aproximadamente $850 millones en 1994 a aproximadamente $2.73 billones en 2002. Desde 1994, el INS ha llevado a cabo un gran despliegue de efectivos de la Patrulla Fronteriza y equipo militar en las zonas habitadas de la frontera con M?xico. Tambi?n se ha constru?do una barda met?lica (tambi?n en las zonas habitadas de la frontera) con piezas que anteriormente utilizaban las fuerzas armadas como pistas de aterrizaje port?tiles. A?n con este despliegue de recursos, el n?mero de indocumentados que residen en los E.U. ha aumentado de three millones en 1992 a diez millones en la actualidad (cifras aproximadas), lo cual indica que la estrategia del INS no ha logrado detener o reducir el flujo migratorio. No obstante, el n?mero de residentes indocumentados en los E.U. representa solo un three porciento (aproximadamente) de la poblaci?n total del pa?s, lo cu?l esta por debajo del promedio en los pa?ses de la Uni?n Europea (cuarto porciento). Dichas cifras demuestran que el nivel del flujo migratorio hacia los E.U., aun cuando este se encuentra fuera del control del INS, est? muy lejos de representar un ?peligro de invasi?n.? Lo que si ha provocado la estrategia del INS es un aumento en el n?mero de personas que mueren al tratar de cruzar la frontera por zonas des?rticas no habitadas que, por un lado, no son vigiladas por la Patrulla Fronteriza de manera tan estrecha como las zonas habitadas, pero que, por otro lado, representan una trampa mortal debido a condiciones clim?ticas extremas y la ausencia de agua. En lo que va del presente a?o, el n?mero de muertes ya ha rebasado los 100, solo en la secci?n de la frontera correspondiente a Arizona. Asimismo, dicha estrategia ha provocado que los ?coyotes? o ?polleros??personas que cobran por el servicio de transportar a los migrantes a destinos como Los Angeles o San Diego?se beneficien econ?micamente de la situaci?n. El costo de los servicios ofrecidos por los ?polleros? ha aumentado de $300 en 1995 a $2000 en la actualidad. Otro aspecto importante de la estrategia del INS para detener la ?invasi?n? de inmigrantes indocumentados es que, debido a que ahora es m?s dif?cil y arriesgado cruzar la frontera, los inmigrantes que logran cruzar permanecen m?s tiempo en los E.U. Muchos de ellos optan por permanecer en este pa?s de manera indefinida, e inclusive traen a sus familias a residir ilegalmente en los E.U. Existen evidencias hist?ricas de que, en ?pocas en las que se permit?a el paso a trabajadores temporales atrav?s de la frontera (como lo fu? durante la implementaci?n del programa ?bracero,? de 1942 a 1965), estos regresaban a sus lugares de origen al t?rmino de sus contratos. Dicha evidencia demuestra que los inmigrantes no vendr?an para quedarse si el paso atrav?s de la frontera no fuera tan dif?cil. As? las cosas, la ?amenaza de invasi?n? por parte de los inmigrantes indocumentados, as? como la estrategia del INS para detener dicha ?invasi?n? carecen de justificaci?n. Los atentados terroristas del 11 de septiembre han provocado una nueva justificaci?n para una vigilancia m?s estrecha de las fronteras. Sin embargo, las personas que cruzan la frontera ilegalmente en busca de trabajo no son terroristas ni invasores, son personas que buscan un sustento para ellos y sus familias, al mismo tiempo que proveen a la econom?a de E.U. de mano de obra barata. Dichas personas son empujadas a cruzar la frontera, a pesar de los riesgos, debido a la extrema pobreza tan generalizada en sus pa?ses de origen, la cual se deriva de las constantes crisis econ?micas, los efectos debastadores de la deuda externa y guerras civiles, entre otras razones. En los ?ltimos a?os, sus modos tradicionales de sustento en sus lugares de origen han desaparecido debido a la competencia de corporaciones multinacionales que trasladan sus operaciones a pa?ses pobres. Dicha inversi?n extranjera directa lleva a peque?os productores a la quiebra, oblig?ndolos a trabajar por sueldos m?seros, o a buscar maneras de sustento m?s all? de las fronteras de sus naciones de origen. Como ejemplo, se puede subrayar el caso de la regi?n del Baj?o en M?xico, en donde empresas multinacionales han obtenido un monopolio casi total sobre la producci?n agr?cola del area. Todo esto ocurre en un contexto de globalizaci?n que contempla el libre paso de bienes y capitales, pero no de personas, atrav?s de fronteras nacionales. La presente es la primera columna de una serie de cinco. Cada una de las columnas de la serie analizar? uno de los cinco mitos sobre la immigraci?n en la presente. All content Copyleft ? 2002 by The Alarm! Newspaper. Except where noted otherwise, this material may be copied and distributed freely in whole or in part by anyone except where used for commercial purposes or by government agencies. ----- The Alarm! Newspaper a local weekly newspaper for an engaged populace http://www.the-alarm.com/ info@the-alarm.com P.O. Box 1205, Santa Cruz, CA 95061 (831) 429-NEWS - office (831) 420-1498 - fax From dr_broccoli at hotmail.com Mon Aug 19 11:12:52 2002 From: dr_broccoli at hotmail.com (Shawn G) Date: Sun Feb 8 02:51:48 2004 Subject: [Dryerase] AGR--DC activists occupy abandoned school Message-ID: Asheville Global Report www.AGRnews.org After eviction DC activists occupy abandoned school By Shawn Gaynor Aug. 13 (AGR)-- Members of Olive Branch Community’s House, a DC based anti-poverty group, were evicted last Wednesday by US Marshals and DC Metro police officers, sparking protests, demands for poverty relief, and an occupation of the Lincoln School, which has stood abandon for twenty years. One house resident called the eviction “political repression” aimed at their fight against poverty. The eviction came after the city inspected the building for code and health violations. Olive Branch members, who routinely bear witness to evictions during there anti-poverty work, say the eviction of the Community’s House was very unusual. "They (the police) do not normally come in with guns loaded and cocked and ready. They don't normally have a canine on standby to sic upon us. Those are both very unusual aspects of this eviction, which goes hand in hand with the unusual aspects of the way that the house inspection went on. It goes along with the mayor's intervention in the process by having sent them, by having sent a representative to the first housing inspection,” said Bork, a long time resident. Household members reported the removal of several boxes of property from the house by police. While an eviction notice was served to the house, a warrant, which police Lieutenant Michael Smith of the Metro Police Department confirmed police did not have, is legally required to search and remove evidence. The Olive Branch had originally been given a 60-day notice to vacate the building, which was scheduled to end on Aug. 12, five days after the eviction took place. For decades Olive Branch had provided, among other services, shelter and food to DC’s homeless population. Activists from Olive Branch quickly responded to the eviction. In response they have formed a coalition with other local anti-poverty groups called Mayday DC, and on Friday took action by occupying the long abandoned Franklin School. “Over 300 homeless frequent the eight-block area surrounding Franklin School, which nevertheless remained chained until this morning,” read a statement from the new coalition. Up to 250 people watched as police cut their way into the barricaded building. Banners were hung from the building saying, “Evict the Mayor,” and "Give us housing or we'll take it ourselves!" "Poverty and gentrification are overwhelming the residents of Washington, DC," said Jamie Lougher, a Mayday DC organizer and former Olive Branch resident. "Over the past 10 years the number of children living in poverty in the district has increased 29%. Hundreds of families in Columbia Heights alone have been forced from their homes by housing inspectors for living in overcrowded substandard housing. Meanwhile, the city has done nothing to create and preserve affordable housing as thousands of units are lost to gentrifiers -- developers of luxury buildings.” Activists made several demands of the city, including a living wage and a commitment to creating affordable housing. Protesters also demanded that the city provide La Casa, DC’s only bilingual drug treatment shelter, with a permanent site. La Casa was recently a victim of city cutbacks on human services. After several hours, police were able to enter the barricaded building and arrest the four activists occupying the former school. The were charged with Illegal Entry, a misdemeanor. Their trial will start on October 3. Additional information for this story was provided by DC Indymedia _________________________________________________________________ Chat with friends online, try MSN Messenger: http://messenger.msn.com From dr_broccoli at hotmail.com Mon Aug 19 11:13:11 2002 From: dr_broccoli at hotmail.com (Shawn G) Date: Sun Feb 8 02:51:48 2004 Subject: [Dryerase] Argentines squat new cultural centers Message-ID: Asheville Global Report www.agrnews.org Argentines squat new cultural centers By Vero Perez and Buzzard Gilmore Buenos Aires, Argentina, Aug. 13 (AGR)-- In the past year and a half, the region of Argentina has seen the birth of at least four squatted social and cultural centers. Two are located in the capital district, one in the outskirts and one in Cordoba City. The squatted social and cultural centers are all places that were left abandoned and taken over by groups of people to serve as communal living space and to hold events and activities accessible to the surrounding community. Those who squat and maintain these spaces see them as partial answers to the social and cultural dilemmas in the cities of Argentina, as well as the most direct and concrete way to actualize the struggle against speculation and private property. The dominant culture in Buenos Aires is that of television, pop music, and (even though more than half the population live in poverty) consumerism. The entertainment industry is owned by the same people who operate the largest enterprises and the government, so the end product has a dual purpose: to earn money, and to manipulate the state of mind and political conscience of the people. The squats offer independent shows, theatre, poetry, music and parties (for which they rarely, if ever, charge entry fee) as well as an open forum for people from outside the squat to put on their own events. Many times the performers are members of the squat or the surrounding community. Artistic and musical programs have been cut from almost all public schools, and the subjects are rarely taught in such a way that people learn them well. Many people either finish or drop out of school lacking the basic skills of reading, writing and arithmetic. The social and cultural centers provide free classes including foreign languages, school help, juggling, drawing, welding, theater, and yoga to name a few. The squatters struggle for a society in which all resources, including knowledge, are freely exchanged. Many would like to create full-fledged free schools, but few people trained in teaching have shown enough interest to start such a project yet. Food scarcity is a fact of life in a country where the food prices have quadrupled in the last six months. In the same time period, more than 300,000 workers have been laid off, putting more and more people below the poverty line each month. The squatters live in community, not only to fulfill social needs, but also to lighten the burden of obtaining the necessities of life on the individual, and are almost always able to put food on the table. They are horizontally organized and make decisions in assembly by consensus. For the most part, these assemblies take place weekly and function to better the organization of the activities and community. Squatting movements date back centuries, but the trend to create free artistic, cultural, and social spaces has its roots in the anarcho-punk movement in Europe during the last 30 years. Nowadays there are thousands of squats in European cities being operated this way, with well-developed networks of information exchange and mutual aid. Notwithstanding the lack of affordable housing, the act of taking over abandoned spaces is a political act for the squatters. Their ideological background is mostly anarchistic; they see private property as one of the bases of inequality. A slogan frequently seen on the walls of the squats is: “If housing is a privilege, squatting is a right!”. The squatters, many having formed their ideology through immersion in or contact with the anarcho-punk culture, differ from traditional anarchists in that they want not only societal, political and economic revolution, but complete cultural change as well. They want not to not only topple all power-based relationships in the public and commercial sphere, but also abolish them on a personal level: between men and women, adults and children. Since they have no faith in reformist or systematic change, they plan their lifestyles and the activities they generate to confront the structures of inequality and oppression in society, and doing so make political and social resistance a daily part of their lives. For example, the free classes are directly in contrary to the hierarchical educational system. The communal lifestyle confronts a culture based on the family structure, which in their experience and opinion is oppressive. The ideology is basically the same in all of the squats, but the experience is lived out differently in each place. In the Social Center in Laferrere, the original idea was to create a community center with open, free space for nearby residents to put on activities. Due to the lack of interest in the adults of the surrounding community, the squatters had to create their own, and now, after a year and a half, there are free classes offered every day, now attended by people of various ages. The rest of the time the space is used by children from the neighborhood as an alternative to spending the days in the street, the most common way for kids to pass the time in that area, one of the poorest in Greater Buenos Aires. According to them, "The idea that motivates us the most is that of generating an anti-authoritarian conscience, fomenting free education and denying the oppressive values of the established society. There is no property law to respect; it's all about recuperating stolen and abandoned spaces, freeing them. Occupy to liberate souls and minds. Solidarity, respect, and mutual aid are indispensable, conscience and ideas are essential." The Trivenchi Brothers Circus was squatted about a year ago. The group entered the space with very concrete ideas about creating a training space for circus related skills, putting on events and holding free classes in the field. They have put together a real circus that puts on functions each week, and have daily classes. The Social and Cultural Center Tierra del Sur existed as a cultural center in a rented space for three years until the cost of the rent upped and forced them to look for an alternative way to create space for the classes, activities, parties, and performances they generate last December. "The proposal was to generate a space for free expression, calling together everyone to participate in the construction of a place where another way of life would be possible." They have a photoduplicator which most of the anti-authoritarian collectives in Bs. As. use to print material. One can see in the relatively smooth functioning of the community and the activities that the group has been maintaining such a project for years. Kasa Las Gatas, in Cordoba was squatted as much for the participants' need for a place to live as to create a social and cultural center. "Squatting is a conscious act of rebellion that destroys the chains that impede our road toward liberty and constructs a better world, takes what is ours and advances along this road, step by step, with no fear that dignity won't win out." Tierra del Sur and the Trivenchi Brothers Circus are under constant threat of eviction. The courts are currently hearing their cases, and if and when the judges decide, the police come to evict. Most of the people involved in the squats have been acquainted for years, through social events and political organizing. In the past few months they have begun to come together in a more formal manner. In September they will hold the first regional squatter convention of the southern cone, the idea being to exchange experiences and skills to strengthen their functioning and doing so infect others so they also open such spaces. What was a few years ago isolated deeds is beginning to constitute a true movement. The call is clear: “Dream, Live, Struggle. Occupy and Resist!” _________________________________________________________________ MSN Photos is the easiest way to share and print your photos: http://photos.msn.com/support/worldwide.aspx From dr_broccoli at hotmail.com Mon Aug 19 11:15:01 2002 From: dr_broccoli at hotmail.com (Shawn G) Date: Sun Feb 8 02:51:48 2004 Subject: [Dryerase] AUC wages “social cleansing” Message-ID: Asheville Global Report www.agrnews.org AUC wages “social cleansing” campaign vs. gays By Willy Rosencrans Bogota, Colombia, Aug. 8-- His real name is a secret. Carlos, 26, smiles uncomfortably and hedges when asked if he can be photographed. He can’t sleep at home; paramilitaries have his house under constant surveillance. His voice, when he discusses his work, drops to a whisper if others are nearby. "We fear for our lives," he says. "They’re coming to look for us." Carlos has violated an unwritten law in this city: a law forbidding homosexuality. The city of Barrancabermeja is home to some of Colombia’s most resolute and defiant activist groups. Its history is intimately connected with the birth of the Union Sindical Obrera (the oilworkers’ union, USO), a powerful and radical force on the national political scene, famous for standing up to pressures from both the federal government and multinational oil companies like Standard Oil. The Organizacion Femenina Popular (Popular Women’s Organization, OFP) has also been a powerful voice for justice in the region and has staged some of Colombia’s largest rallies for peace. But like many local activists, Carlos now lives under the constant threat of death from the AUC. The paramilitary group made its first inroads here on Dec. 24, 2000, under cover of the Colombian army’s "Operation Merry Christmas," which was to guarantee the people of the region a safe holiday. Over the last year and a half the AUC has increased its control over all but a few of the city’s neighborhoods and begun a program not only of violent repression against those who would stand in the way of big money and political power, but of "social cleansing" reminiscent of the Third Reich, Carlos’s group, Diversidad Humana (Human Diversity), is more desperate and lonely than most, and its struggle has gone almost completely unremarked. "In the neighborhood of La Paz," he whispers, "the paramilitaries surprised a 14-year-old boy having sex with another male. They stripped him naked and paraded him through the city wearing a sign that said ‘I’m a faggot.’ He left… In the neighborhood of Mira Flores lived a lesbian couple. Two paramilitaries came and forced them to have sex with them to show them what a real man is like. They had to leave the city, also… A friend of mine was found dead by the lake with his penis cut off. They left a note: ‘This is because he was a homosexual.’" The gay community is shunned, by and large, by Catholic and Protestant churches alike and by most non-governmental organizations. Recently the OFP has been letting Carlos sleep and work at one of its community centers. International accompaniment, which many social justice workers say is the only way they can do their work with any guarantee of safety, is available to him from Christian Peacemaker Teams (CPT) and a few other groups. But CPT learned last week that the AUC may kill one of its volunteers in response to the group’s denunciations of human rights abuses. If this happens, the effectiveness of international accompaniment could be compromised, and the gay community’s small list of defenses could grow even smaller. Homophobia is less problematic in big cities like Bogota, but there, too, visibility invites danger. On Mar. 1 of this year the house of Manuel Velandia Mora, an openly gay candidate in Parliamentary elections in Colombia, was damaged by a grenade. The house also served as a meeting place for Solidaridad Comunitaria, an organization serving the lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgendered community. In Barranca it’s much worse. The AUC is not above hiring boys to have sex with men they suspect of being gay. If the tactic is successful, the boys denounce the men to the paramilitaries, who kidnap or kill them. Tactics like these serve to create a climate of fear and mistrust, integral to the weakening of community on which the AUC’s success is contingent. “The paramilitaries are the hidden force of the army and the police,” says Carlos, echoing the words of countless citizens in this town and throughout Colombia. “They want a social cleansing campaign… They just want to exterminate us. They feel like public homosexuality dirties the name of Colombia. They want a ‘clean’ Colombia.” The international community, he says, needs to put more pressure on the government of Colombia to uphold the human rights of gays and lesbians. "We’re normal people," Carlos says. "We deserve respect… We have dreams, and we need to be able to realize those dreams." _________________________________________________________________ Join the world’s largest e-mail service with MSN Hotmail. http://www.hotmail.com From wires at the-alarm.com Thu Aug 22 21:21:06 2002 From: wires at the-alarm.com (Alarm!Wires) Date: Sun Feb 8 02:51:48 2004 Subject: [Dryerase] Alarm!--Can You Believe It? Message-ID: Can You Believe It? Carjacker Gets Impromptu Martial Arts Training LOS ANGELES?Tyrone Jermaine Hogan picked the wrong car to mess with when he attempted to carjack the Florida International University judo team. After having completed one carjacking that evening, Hogan drove six blocks to a service station where he encountered a member of the team and attempted to reach in the van and steal the keys. The men proceeded to wrestle him to the floor until the police got there. ?We had this guy like a pretzel on the ground,? said instructor Nestor Bustillo. Looks like Hogan needs to go back to carjacking school. SOURCE: bizarrenews.com ?That?s a wrap Mr. President? According to CNN and The New York Times, former President Bill Clinton plans to step back onto a television near you. Discussions with major network stations such as CBS have the rumor mill running. Word has it that the former Head of State could fetch the largest salary ever for a new-comer to the talk show scene. With an estimated salary of $30?50 million dollars, Mr. Clinton may easily trump Oprah or Ricki when it comes to silly things TV execs will do to keep us watching! I Said, ?Give Me the King!? Of all the wild and wondrous items to be found at the National Archives, apparently the most popular one requested is the 1970 photo of Elvis Prestley and Richard Nixon. Taken on December 21, 1970 the photo opportunity presented itself when the King showed up in his black cape and requested audience with the President to discuss the possibility of him becoming a ?federal agent at large.? The King apparently wanted to offer his services to the country because he saw the advantage he had as an entertainer. People don?t seem so interested in why Elvis went to the White House. Instead, they want to have a photo of the thirty-five-year-old King with the pre-Watergate President. The New Style Shot-gun Wedding Go on a vacation, fall in love, want to get married immediately. It is a real dilemma for some new, or not new, couples. But fear not, a solution is out there. Ask for a ?lay-over? in Stockholm and for a mere $200 you can get hitched right in the airport. Performed in the VIP lounge you can request a church or civil wedding and be off in just thirty minutes. Coordinators can assist the newlyweds with items such as catering and flowers for a nominal fee. For those on the go, a same-day departure can be coordinated and they can be off on their honeymoon faster than you can say, ?here?s the number of a good divorce attorney.? Shall We Bury Mom or Wear Her Apparently gone are the days of burying a relative or sending them to cremation. Instead bring on the days of taking those who have deceased and transforming them into jewelry. A Chicago-based company claims it can make ?blue diamonds? out of the remains of your loved one. Perfecting the process in July, the company says its technology uses simple heat and pressure to transform the remains (carbon) into gems (diamonds). The cost for a .25 carat is $4,000 and the items can be mounted to be worn as other jewelry. All content Copyleft ? 2002 by The Alarm! Newspaper. Except where noted otherwise, this material may be copied and distributed freely in whole or in part by anyone except where used for commercial purposes or by government agencies. ----- The Alarm! Newspaper a local weekly newspaper for an engaged populace http://www.the-alarm.com/ info@the-alarm.com P.O. Box 1205, Santa Cruz, CA 95061 (831) 429-NEWS - office (831) 420-1498 - fax From wires at the-alarm.com Thu Aug 22 21:19:24 2002 From: wires at the-alarm.com (Alarm!Wires) Date: Sun Feb 8 02:51:48 2004 Subject: [Dryerase] Alarm!--Eye on the INS Message-ID: Eye on the INS A weekly forum to discuss the INS and immigration policy Catch 22: The Detained By Michelle Stewart The Alarm! Newspaper Collective Oh, the games we play. It seems that it is becoming more common to find laws on the books that have no practical application, or that, if applied, lead to ridiculous results. If you are scratching your head in bewilderment, allow me to turn your attention to the INS. There, one can find both laws that seem impossible to employ and laws that seem ridiculous in intent. Today, for the sake of clarity, we will look at the INS?s policy on detainment. Detainment may be the poster child for poor policy and illogical consequence. So, what do we know about detainment?or perhaps the better question is: what do we know about those detained? Of course, I was miffed to see Judge Gladys Kessler back down and issue an indefinite stay on her ruling against the Department of Justice demanding the release of the names of all those detained in relation to the events of September 11, 2001. However, I was not surprised. By the very logic of the case, the government could compel her to see that if she released the names, it would violate what the feds considered to be their upper hand in the War on Terrorism. The government argued that if it released the names of the over 1,000 people held in detention (at some point) since 9/11, it would lose the chance to exploit the knowledge of these individuals as possible material witnesses. Kessler eventually agreed, and stayed her order?essentially sealing the fate of many people who have been held. Kessler?s decision not to press her ruling is a substantial setback for those in detention. Up until quite recently, a non-citizen could be convicted of a crime (in the US), serve their sentence, and then (due to INS law) be deported because their violation of US law makes them a deportable alien. However, there are numerous countries that will not take back a citizen if they have left their native soil or committed a serious crime while abroad. For those citizens, those who are deemed deportable by the INS and are unwanted by their home countries, the INS solution was indefinite detainment. That is until the case Zadvyadas v. Davis was heard. This ruling last summer essentially ended indefinite detention. In this case, two men were released from jail after serving time for manslaughter and other charges, only to find themselves in deportation hearings. After the hearing, it came to light both of their home countries (Cambodia and Lithuania) refused to accept them back. The decision written by Justice Stephen Breyer said that if a deportable individual could not be sent back to their country of origin in six months they would have to be released from detention. However, also included in the ruling was language that afforded exceptions when it came to matters of terrorism or other ?special circumstances.? In this post-9/11 environment, most of the people detained as material witnesses are implicated along with the ?terrorists,? which positions them in a catch-22: they qualify for indefinite detention (due to their associations or possible knowledge of events), and then face possible deportation either due to this ?terrorist? association or because of unrelated charges. The final blow is that some of those facing deportation are seeking asylum based on claims of persecution if they return to their country of origin. These people would usually be granted asylum, but don?t qualify because of their ?terrorist associations.? Many people who were detained after 9/11 and were released on bond are facing deportation because of minor immigration infractions. Some of these people came to the US to escape persecution in their country of origin?persecution based on political or religious beliefs. The US used to allow these people to stay here, often priding itself on its liberal politics and freedom of speech, religion and association. Now, it would appear that ?association? can be a guaranteed one-way ticket back to a home you don?t want to visit. The post-9/11 investigation is one of, if not the, largest investigations in US history. And it has thrown a lot of people into crisis because of the effect it has had on their legal status in this country. Consider that the word ?criminal? now has such nuanced parameters? including knowledge, possible knowledge and/or association?and that the current laws make it impossible to know who is in jail, who has been in jail, who has been deported and who will be targeted after their deportation, then it becomes clear that the policy of detainment is illogical and very telling of the continued post 9/11 paranoia. Caught in the crossfire are the hundreds of people who have only ?committed? a small immigration infraction (or met the wrong person), for which they are suffering a steep or possibly deadly consequence. What would I like to see happen? Well, many things. Perhaps in this one case, it would have been heartening to see Judge Kessler stick to her original ruling and demand that all names be released. From there, attempts could have been made to aid those in jail, those in detainment, those out on bail facing deportation and those already deported. Instead, the guessing game continues?who is missing and where are they being held? Judge Kessler had a prime opportunity to levy a judgment on the Department of Justice, and take a bold step away from the post-9/11 tactics. It has been a catastrophic year for the rights of immigrants and visitors to the US. Next week, the Alarm! will take a week off and prepare for the beginning of a new era demarcated by a new look and print cycle. The next issue will be our one year anniversary and, of course, it will be one year since the twin towers crumbled. In the next column, I will take a look back at the year to see all that was lost after 9/11. All content Copyleft ? 2002 by The Alarm! Newspaper. Except where noted otherwise, this material may be copied and distributed freely in whole or in part by anyone except where used for commercial purposes or by government agencies. ----- The Alarm! Newspaper a local weekly newspaper for an engaged populace http://www.the-alarm.com/ info@the-alarm.com P.O. Box 1205, Santa Cruz, CA 95061 (831) 429-NEWS - office (831) 420-1498 - fax From wires at the-alarm.com Thu Aug 22 21:17:14 2002 From: wires at the-alarm.com (Alarm!Wires) Date: Sun Feb 8 02:51:48 2004 Subject: [Dryerase] Alarm!--New logging in Santa Cruz mountains Message-ID: <70ABD208-B63E-11D6-BB03-003065F4865E@the-alarm.com> New logging to begin in Santa Cruz Mountains The Alarm! Newswire On August 12, the California Department of Forestry approved the 50-acre ?Ramsey 2? (technically named Browns Creek THP 1-02-064 SCR) Timber Harvest Plan (THP) in Ramsey Gulch just north of Corralitos, near Mt. Madonna County Park. Redwood Empire, a subsidiary of Pacific State Industries, is an industrial timber company first established in Mendocino County and is the company conducting the timber operation. Redwood Empire, after conducting operations in northern California, opened an office in San Jose and set their sights on the Santa Cruz Redwoods. Four years ago, the corporation logged Gamecock Canyon, which borders Ramsey Gulch. The Licensed Timber Operator for that THP was Hayward Logging. During the course of their work, that company received thirty-seven violations of the State Forest Practice Rules from the California Department of Forestry. Redwood Empire will now be extending its operations to Ramsey Gulch where they logged two years ago. The Santa Cruz Board of Supervisors, the Department of Fish and Game, as well as the Watsonville Water Board have opposed the new Timber Harvest Plan due to the fragile nature of the area. According to Dennis Davie of Santa Cruz Earth First!, the current THP, in combination with previous timber operations in Gamecock Canyon will likely result in the degradation of the streams they feed into: Browns Creek, Corralitos Creek and, eventually, the Pajaro River. Santa Cruz Earth First! has organized opposition to the logging by establishing ?treesits? in two trees within the THP?s area. The treesits are designed to thwart loggers? ability to cut down the trees in the immediate vicinity of the platforms which activists erect in the limbs of the trees. Santa Cruz County?s first treesit was organized during the logging of Ramsey Gulch two years ago. Santa Cruz Earth First! claims to have saved between two and three acres of of Coast Redwoods and Douglas Firs in the area. The first Ramsey Gulch logging operation was finally halted by successful lawsuits filed by neighbors. If you would like to help, Santa Cruz Earth First! is in need of donations, people to help support the treesit and ?a GOOD lawyer?. Send donations to Santa Cruz Earth First!, P.O. Box 344, Santa Cruz, CA 95061. The group can be contacted at 423-3202 or cruzef@crusio.com. All content Copyleft ? 2002 by The Alarm! Newspaper. Except where noted otherwise, this material may be copied and distributed freely in whole or in part by anyone except where used for commercial purposes or by government agencies. ----- The Alarm! Newspaper a local weekly newspaper for an engaged populace http://www.the-alarm.com/ info@the-alarm.com P.O. Box 1205, Santa Cruz, CA 95061 (831) 429-NEWS - office (831) 420-1498 - fax From wires at the-alarm.com Thu Aug 22 21:18:52 2002 From: wires at the-alarm.com (Alarm!Wires) Date: Sun Feb 8 02:51:49 2004 Subject: [Dryerase] Alarm!--Whaling in the Pacific, Part II Message-ID: Whaling in the Pacific PART II: The Brief Boom of Whaling 1850-1900 The Pacific Grey Whale By Michelle Stewart The Alarm! Newspaper Collective The following is the second in a three-part series that investigates issues surrounding Pacific gray whale hunting. The first installment (last week) discussed the recent victory for the Makah Indians that allowed them to continue their renewed whaling in Washington State. This second installment will take a historical look at the gray whale industry and the last installment (September 20, 2002) will look at the Makah?s history as a whaling nation and their renewed hunt beginning in 1998. The Dawn of Whaling It is impossible to say when whaling began?truly. Because for some the answer would be the Vikings of Norway, who employed a technique of herding pilot whales into fjords for slaughter. For others, the first whalers were the Makah, Nootka, Nuu-chah-nulth and other Indians of the Pacific Northwest who took to the straits, sounds and seas thousands of years ago in cedar dugout canoes to harvest whales as part of their marine diet and economy. The important question is not who started whaling but rather what brought whales to the brink of extinction. Without a doubt it was industrialized whaling. As early as the sixteenth century, the whale industry was present. In North America, the Basques set up one of the first whaling stations in Labrador in 1536. With an international demand for whale oil, whaling stations and vessels scoured the seas for the best whaling sites. Whereas the various Indian tribes of the Northwest, Alaska, Arctic and other regions used most or all of the whale (meat, blubber and bones) for tools, trade and food, the whaling industry demanded only blubber and wasted the rest of the animal, with the exception of the baleen, which was used for items such as corsets or umbrella ribs. By the nineteenth century, the interest in whale blubber for soap was diminishing, as many of the vessels?out to sea for months at a time? would return only with rancid oil that would make for smelly soap. Although Britain was one of the biggest markets, interest was waning in the smelly soap. However, just as the whales seemed to have a chance for reprieve, a new use for their oil was discovered?lighting street lamps. When rendered correctly, the blubber could be transformed into an inexpensive oil. The whale industry was reignited as Europe was lit up. With a demand for a product and many seas to find it in, whalers set out from such places as Australia, Japan, Europe and Americas. The insatiable appetite for whale products led to the depletion of many stocks, including the right, narwhal, pilot and sperm whales. In the North Pacific (the Pacific Ocean of North America), many species were affected. However, in just fifty years, the last half of the nineteeth Century, the Pacific gray whale was brought to the brink of extinction. Discovering the Breeding Grounds Many of the whalers who first came to Magdelena Bay, Baja were unimpressed with its high population of gray whales. The whalers entered the Bay as a means to escape the harsh, winter conditions of the North Pacific?their target species were the oil-rich sperm and humpbacks. The crews of the whaling vessels United States and the Hibernia were the first to take advantage of the gray whale breeding grounds of the Bay. Between 1845-46, vessels reportedly harvested only forty whales from the Bay. Since the grays were not generally a targeted species, their breeding grounds were left relatively unexploited in the coming years. A decade would pass before Captain Scammon would enter the lagoon and make a pivotal decision. Unlike other vessels and captains, he decided to take advantage of the density of the whales. Where other vessels would leave the Bay after winter storms to seek out the oil-rich species, Scammon decided to try his luck with a new approach. Instead of hunting the sperm and humpback whales which take a lot longer to find, but give high yields for their quality oil, Scammon turned to the gray whale. He decided to use the resources of the Bay and its lagoon system to fill his vessel each season with lesser quality goods, instead of taking years in hunt of a higher quality product. Although gray whale oil is not as clear when refined, there was plenty of it and the population density of the Bay made for easy pickings. In 1855-56, Scammon took his vessel, the Lenore, into the Bay for his first season of gray whaling. That first season, Scammon didn?t realize that the Bay, and more specifically its maze of lagoons, was in fact a calving area for migrating whales. In the coming seasons, he would use his skills as a wildlife observer to become well acquainted with the ecology of the lagoon system. He then capitalized on a unique approach to hunting whereby he hunted in the shallows of the lagoons where females and calves sought refuge. One of his prime whaling grounds was Laguna Ojo de Liebre (also known as Scammon?s Lagoon) The year after he discovered this lagoon?s potential, many vessels flocked to Magdelena Bay to try their luck at gray whaling; Scammon continued his investigation of the gray whales migration and discovered the San Ignacio Lagoon, and expanded his scope of exploitation. It has been estimated by contemporary historians that the total eastern Pacific gray whale population at this time was approximately 10,000?20,000. Factor into that rather small population the fact that the whalers of Magdelena Bay were targeting females and calves, and you might begin to see the biological consequence of this situation. However, in the ten years following Scammon?s discovery of the lagoon, the whalers were not so wise. Whaling vessels would descend upon the breeding lagoons as the winter migration began and would position themselves throughout the lagoon system as the returning calves and females made their way into the lagoon. Some vessels would stay outside the lagoon and target incoming whales (or those attempting to exit) while others would take to the shallow interior (Scammon?s technique) and target the whales inside the lagoon complex. It has been estimated in those boom years for the whale industry, the population went from a peak of over 20,000 to less than a thousand whales. The Technology of the Industry The technology that assisted the military on its battlefields was being modified to accelerate the whale industry. While other whale fisheries employed traditional techniques and equipment, the Pacific gray whale fisheries used cutting-edge gear and methods to increase its yield each year. Hand-flung harpoons were replaced with swivel guns which could send out harpoons that remained attached to the whale until it was towed in. A major advance was the introduction of the bomb-lance, a shoulder-mounted weapon that allowed for better accuracy. The bomb-lance killed the whale immediately with an exploding projectile. Both the lance and harpoon were employed in the Pacific gray whale fishery, with the lance eventually replacing the harpoon. The Shore Fishery In addition to changes in weapons, the nineteenth century whaling industry also initiated a commercial shore fishery. The cost of outfitting a whaling vessel was considerable, so for some it was better to set up a shore fishery that relied on sighting a whale, taking to sea to capture it, and then hauling it to land for processing. In lieu of maintaining the vessel and a crew that could number up to fifty men, the shore-based industry used fewer men (approximately fifteen) who could support themselves off the land and take whales when they were seen from the shore. This shore-based industry was comprised largely of Portuguese immigrants who employed techniques they learned at home and later employed in Alta California. In total, records indicate that fifteen of these shore-based stations existed along the coastline between Oregon and Baja. Found in Crescent City, Humboldt Bay, Half Moon Bay, Bolinas Bay, Pigeon Point, Santa Cruz, Monterey Bay, Point Lobos, San Simeon, San Luis Obispo, Point Conception, Goleta, San Pedro and San Diego, these stations added to the overall effect on the gray whales? population. It is believed that these whaling stations took a total of 4,000 whales between 1855 and 1900 (The Monterey Bay station was one of the most successful, reporting a total of 655 landed whales). Between 1845-1874, an estimated 8,000 whales were taken by vessel. By the end of 1874, industrial whaling ceased in the Baja lagoons because there were no more whales to hunt; the shore-based industry survived the end of the century because it took such a small number and focused on other species. In less than fifty years, the Pacific gray whale population was decimated? it was the end of the road for the whaling industry of the North Pacific. Sites were set on other seas, and other whales. By the 1920s early discussions began about the need for international management of all whale species. At the same time, the Makah Indians, the only Indians in the lower forty-eight states with a treaty right to whale, halted their whaling practices. It was the end of an era (on an international scale). In the coming decades, the International Whaling Commission would form (1940s) as a management group for the entire whaling industry. In the United States, political decisions would lead to a ?Save the Whales? mentality (1970s). The drafting and passage of the Marine Mammal Protection Act and the Endangered Species Act (1973) found the United States labeled an anti-whaling nation. One of the first species listed on the Endangered Species List was the Pacific gray whale. The biological recovery of the gray whale would rely on conservation measures taken in the US and abroad; however, its recovery towards the end of the twentieth century would place the gray whale in a position to be hunted once again. In just one hundred years, the gray whale went from a healthy population, to near destruction, to partial recovery and the possibility of renewed hunting. In the next and final installment of this series, I will look at the issues surrounding the Makah Indians and their treaty right to whale in Washington State. All content Copyleft ? 2002 by The Alarm! Newspaper. Except where noted otherwise, this material may be copied and distributed freely in whole or in part by anyone except where used for commercial purposes or by government agencies. ----- The Alarm! Newspaper a local weekly newspaper for an engaged populace http://www.the-alarm.com/ info@the-alarm.com P.O. Box 1205, Santa Cruz, CA 95061 (831) 429-NEWS - office (831) 420-1498 - fax From wires at the-alarm.com Thu Aug 22 21:15:58 2002 From: wires at the-alarm.com (Alarm!Wires) Date: Sun Feb 8 02:51:49 2004 Subject: [Dryerase] Alarm!--Wall Street looking like Lombard Street Message-ID: <435CFB97-B63E-11D6-BB03-003065F4865E@the-alarm.com> Wall Street is looking a lot like Lombard Street By Chris Kortright The Alarm! Newspaper Contributor Capitalist ideologues and neo-liberal theorists always talk about slumps in the economy. Slumps are a natural part of the ?science? that is claimed to stand behind the machinery of capitalism. These faithful followers of the capitalist system talk of the market as if it were a roller coaster; there are inevitable drops, but these drops lead to accumulation of capital for the stronger corporations. The leading priests of capitalism have been trying to keep our faith by telling us that apparent weaknesses are actually the inherent strengths of the system. On August 5, when the Dow closed at 8,044 after a disastrous free fall, Harvey Pitt, head of the US Securities and Exchange Commission, proclaimed his faith in the system?s inevitable resurrection. He said, ?I believe that our economy is strong, that we have many fundamentally sound companies, that we are undertaking significant and far-reaching reforms and that stock prices in the market will eventually reflect all the good things that are happening.? This statement was made just after the Dow Jones slid more then 700 points last July. Can these economic faith healers explain away the relatively consistent downward trend that stocks have been taking? While most people discuss the Dow?s free fall as an indicator of our present slump, the US Dow Jones Total Market Index (TMI) provides a more comprehensive marker for economic analysis. The Dow only measures the stock performance of leading US corporations. The TMI assesses the overall economic system. According to the Dow Jones website, the TMI index includes ninety-five percent of the investable market, tracking a total of 1,650 stocks. In the past year, the Dow only showed a downturn of seventeen percent whereas the TMI has fallen by twenty-four percent. The TMI shows a more accurate picture of the market than the Dow, and gives an image that looks less and less like a roller coaster with its inevitable upturn. Despite the falsely positive picture presented by the Dow, our economy and the global market has been in a two-year recession with no sign of recovery. In their attempts to save face, corporations have been posting business expenses as capital expenditures (items included in the profit balance). This deceptive practice has had a tremendous effect on the market. The most talked about cases?Enron and WorldCom?are not isolated events. Xerox, AOL Warner, and Qwest are all under investigation by the US Department of Justice for similar practices. But with all of these attacks on the faith of the market, the people hurt the most are not the stock holders or the CEOs (including those looking at jail time), it is the workers. Massive lay-offs follow the profit losses and bankruptcies. WorldCom?s global operation has already fired 17,000 workers and the numbers are rising. The lay-offs are not just an issue of US workers. In the past six months, the Swedish corporation Ericsson fired 25,000 workers, representing a quarter of their work force; British Telecom fired 13,000 workers; Alcate, a French telecom company, fired 10,000 workers; in Germany, 12,000 telecom and banking jobs were lost. Looking at these numbers is frightening, but the workers that are hit hardest during market down turns are not banking and telecom workers, it is the manufacturing sector. The manufacturing sector has borne the brunt of the market crisis. In Britain, 400,000 manufacturing jobs were lost in the past three years, representing ten percent of the work force. The same trends are accruing here in the US. Six months ago, the Ford Motor Company announced that they had a ?bloated? work force. Ford promptly took care of business, closing five plants and firing 35,000 workers. As you read this, the International Longshore and Warehouse Union (ILWU) is negotiating (or trying to negotiate) with the ports to limit automation that would severely cut longshore workers. US unemployment is projected to reach six and a half percent by fall. Things are getting worse. The analogy of a roller coaster to represent capitalism?s up and down turns no longer works. Wall Street and the global capitalist system is starting to look a lot more like Lombard Street to me. Lombard is a steep curvy street that tour guides in San Francisco refer to, jokingly, as the crookedest street in the world?except for Wall Street. On a roller coaster, we are strapped into our seats at the whim of the system. But really, capitalism is much more like a car without brakes on Lombard Street. If we stay in the car we will inevitably die. However, we do have the option to pull hard on the steering wheel and remove ourselves from this death-trap known as capitalism. All content Copyleft ? 2002 by The Alarm! Newspaper. Except where noted otherwise, this material may be copied and distributed freely in whole or in part by anyone except where used for commercial purposes or by government agencies. ----- The Alarm! Newspaper a local weekly newspaper for an engaged populace http://www.the-alarm.com/ info@the-alarm.com P.O. Box 1205, Santa Cruz, CA 95061 (831) 429-NEWS - office (831) 420-1498 - fax From wires at the-alarm.com Thu Aug 22 21:16:37 2002 From: wires at the-alarm.com (Alarm!Wires) Date: Sun Feb 8 02:51:49 2004 Subject: [Dryerase] Alarm!--Israeli Security Message-ID: <5AC57266-B63E-11D6-BB03-003065F4865E@the-alarm.com> Israeli security, racism, and the question of liberation by Chris Kortright The Alarm! Newspaper Contributor May the holy name visit retribution on the Arab?s heads, cause their seeds to be lost and annihilate them, cause them to be vanquished and cause them to be cast from the world. It is forbidden to be merciful to them. You must give them missiles, with relish. Annihilate them, the evil ones. ? Rabbi Ouvadia Ben Yoysef, leader of the lsraeli Shas Party Israeli Security and the War on Terror When we in the United States discuss Palestine/Israel, the discussion is framed around both sides being caught in a ?cycle of violence? that threatens Israel?s security. But in order to be a true ?cycle? the two sides of the conflict would have to have some equality. In the Palestine/Israel ?cycle,? only one side has a state, an army or even a country. The Palestinians have none of these. As Edward Said wrote in last week?s Al-Ahram the Palestinians are ?a stateless dispossessed population of people without rights or any present way of securing them.? Also, the ?cycle of violence? does not benefit both sides of the conflict. Violence is only legitimized when it is perpetrated by a state, and in this conflict Israel has a monopoly on legitimate violence. On July 22, Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon ordered his F-16s to drop a one-ton bomb on a residential area in Gaza City, killing seventeen Palestinians, including eleven children. After the bombing, Sharon was quoted as congratulating the pilot. He boasted it was Israel?s greatest success. How are we to process Sharon?s proud statement? What tools are we really given to process it when Israel is supported by our media and government? Here in the US, we have paid little attention to the occupation of the Palestinian territories. Instead we have been barraged by constant stories of Palestinian suicide bombers. These stories consistently ignore the government policies of Israel and Sharon, which have been carried out deliberately and methodically against the Palestinian people in the name of security. Suicide bombings are horrendous, but they take place in a too often forgotten historical context of years of abuse, powerlessness and despair. The Israeli policy perpetrated by Sharon and his government needs to put in the context of global international policies like the US?s War on Terrorism, which Israel now uses as a justification for doing what it is doing. Sharon?s acts have been incorporated into George Bush?s War on Terrorism, which gladly ignores Israel?s persecution of Palestinians. Here in the US, there is a only a small contingent of people willing to speak out against Israel. The atrocities against the Palestinian people are rationalized in the name of both US and Israeli security. Israel, with its nuclear arsenal, air force, army and endless supplies? gifts from the US taxpayers?has wreaked havoc on the Arab world in general and the Palestinian people specifically. The US?s willful ignorance and support holds the Palestinians responsible for the daily atrocities committed by Israel in the name of security and the pursuit of terrorism. Our silence and/or support works perfectly for Sharon. Bush shocked the international media when he called Sharon a ?man of peace.? Even Bill Clinton, who has been called a supporter of Palestinians and has claimed to be committed to the peace process, declared he would ?be ready to die in Israel?s defense.? Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld referred to the West Bank and Gaza as ?so-called occupied territory.? He went on to discuss the 1967 War, and justified Israeli occupation because Israel defeated countries ?who jumped in and lost a lot of real estate to Israel because Israel prevailed in the conflict.? The Occupation As the Palestinian people are in a constant state of war, intellectuals, scholars, and politicians in the US and Israel discuss strategic withdrawal, incorporation of settlements, whether to keep building the fence, etc. Yet, at the same time, almost 100 Palestinians have been killed in ?targeted? assassinations. Israeli soldiers have also rounded up thousands of ?suspects? in the name of a war on terrorism. Nobody in the US asks whether these people killed or imprisoned were in fact terrorists, or proved to be terrorists, or were about to become terrorists. Every Palestinian is a prisoner. Gaza is surrounded by an electrified wire fence on three sides. Gazans are unable to move, unable to work, unable to sell their vegetables or fruit, unable to go to school. Medical supplies are held up at the border, ambulances are fired upon or detained. Hundreds of houses are demolished, and hundreds of thousands of trees and acres of agricultural land destroyed. The West Bank is occupied by 1,000 Israeli tanks. Their purpose is to fire upon and terrorize Palestinians. Curfews are imposed for periods of up to two weeks. Schools and universities are either closed or impossible to get to. Two-thirds of the population lives below the poverty level of $2 a day. At this point most Palestinians are refugees from Israel?s destruction of their society in 1948. At the center of the occupation is the Israeli government and their foot soldiers ? the young Israeli conscripts who are allowed free rein with every known form of private torture and abjection at check-points. Palestinians need to face an onslaught of jeeps and soldiers while they wait their turn by the thousands at check points just in an attempt to live their lives. Soldiers regularly make dozens of youths kneel in the sun for hours. They force men to take off their clothes. There is a constant practice of insulting and humiliating parents in front of their children. All of this done for no other reason than personal whim reinforced by government policy. Palestinian Liberation There is no Palestinian army of occupation. There are no Palestinian tanks, no soldiers, no helicopter gun-ships, no artillery. There is no government to speak of. So when Sharon ordered his F-16s to drop a one-ton bomb on a residential area in Gaza City, it was understood by Sharon that Hamas, Jihad or the Al-Aqsa Brigades would send Israel the next martyr. The suicide bombings could not stop, or Sharon would not be able to justify his continued occupation of Palestinian territory. The attack on Gaza came on the heels of inter-Palestinian discussions on a cease-fire declaration in which they vowed ?to do everything in our power to end attacks on Israeli civilians, on innocent men, women and children... without seeking or demanding any prior gains.? The declaration was significant because it was the work of a grass-roots effort within Fatah and not a mythical deal struck by the Palestinian Authority under CIA manipulation. The declaration seemed to reflect a growing awareness within Palestinian ranks that so-called ?martyrdom operations? had, at the very least, proven to be an exercise in futility. Many Palestinians are fighting for genuine liberation and self-determination. They are looking for an independent, sovereign and democratic Palestinian state. This objective requires a long-term strategy of struggle, which would have to incorporate more tactical and short-term objectives aimed at strengthening Palestinian solidarity and international support. Hani Shukrallah wrote, ?The experiences of Oslo and beyond have revealed that separation is an Israeli, not a Palestinian objective; its only possible realization is Apartheid.? The question is not only one state, two states or some compromised form of federalism. The state question is not the real question. If Palestinians are to attain self-determination, they need to deliver a crushing blow to the racist and colonialist ideologies embedded in Jewish nationalism. This blow is impossible without an alliance between Palestinians on both sides of the Green Line and radical or anti-racist Israelis. There was a movement of class-conscious revolutionaries who existed before the formation of the Israeli state. They wanted to unite the working classes of both Arab and Jewish decent against the British occupying army. A similar type of cohesion needs to happen now. Palestinian liberation and Israeli security can only come at the same time, and they will not come from the likes of Sharon. There needs to be a cross-line class movement that will destroy the Israeli state and its racist ideology, while still leaving place for both groups now called Israelis and Palestinians. All content Copyleft ? 2002 by The Alarm! Newspaper. Except where noted otherwise, this material may be copied and distributed freely in whole or in part by anyone except where used for commercial purposes or by government agencies. ----- The Alarm! Newspaper a local weekly newspaper for an engaged populace http://www.the-alarm.com/ info@the-alarm.com P.O. 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